Large Fierce Mammal

“You know, I often say that the world’s a crazy place – “crazy” in a good sense, and in the sense that, for example, when you walk in the forest or over the fields, or elsewhere, you never know what you’re going to come across.” ~ Laurie Lacey

One morning in the early autumn of my 17th year, I set forth to walk one of my favourite forest trails that led through one of my favourite forests. In those days most of my sorties were to places that were within walking distance of where I lived with my parents in the “old town” section of Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, but this was never a hardship because walking ten minutes in a straight line in any direction from anywhere in Lunenburg would put you either on the shore or in the woods somewhere.

My trail on this day was the one that led more or less parallel to the shore of Lunenburg’s Back Harbour through a dim world of gnarled softwoods, moss, and ferns, occasionally crossed by small rivulets in deep scored stream beds that ran when water levels were sufficiently high, as they were that autumn, coming as it did at the end of an unusually wet summer. Throughout these woods were century old signs of cultivation long since devoured by Nature – lines of piled stones that once marked the edges of pastures and tilled fields, abandoned orchards, and the foundations of buildings that though painstakingly assembled through force of muscle, had long since been stripped of their crowning glory as need slipped into forgetfulness. (more…)

A glimpse inside the LFM armory. (Mrs. LFM photo) Click the image for a sharper view.

Is this a dagger which I see before me,
The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee.
I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.
Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible
To feeling as to sight? or art thou but
A dagger of the mind, a false creation,
Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?
I see thee yet, in form as palpable
As this which now I draw.
Thou marshall’st me the way that I was going;
And such an instrument I was to use.
Mine eyes are made the fools o’ the other senses,
Or else worth all the rest; I see thee still,
And on thy blade and dudgeon gouts of blood ….

~ MacBeth, Act 2, Scene 1 ~

Let the boy try along this bayonet-blade
How cold steel is, and keen with hunger of blood;
Blue with all malice, like a madman’s flash;
And thinly drawn with famishing for flesh.

~ Arms and the Boy, Wilfred Owen (first verse) ~

The blade strikes more primal fear into the hearts of men than the bullet. Possibly this is because few people have ever been shot, but sooner or later everyone will cut themselves to a greater or lesser degree. Thus there is a clearer understanding of just how bad things can get when the blade is delivered to flesh in the heat of an adrenalin rush, but who really cares? It works.

Click to enlarge.

Since the inception of reliable repeating firearms as the primary weapons of the soldier, its gleaming, bloodthirsty companion, the bayonet, has remained a constant. A crowd faced by resolute soldiers who pause to fix bayonets is far more likely to disperse – and quickly – than one faced with conventional riot batons and shields. In recent military history, the British Army has won the day with bayonet charges in the Falkland Islands (1982) and Iraq (2004). In each case, a smaller force pinned down by enemy fire, outnumbered and at risk of being overrun, fixed bayonets and charged. What might be considered a bravely suicidal last ditch tactic instead resulted in a victory of amazing proportions with casualties massively skewed against the superior force. A line of determined, fiercely screaming men intent on slicing you to ribbons is just as demoralizing now as it has always been – even more so in this ‘modern” age of computer game mayhem, action movies, fantasy fiction, and over confidence in the almighty gun. (more…)

Source http://www.frenblog.com/illusion/jesus-vs-satan-illusion/

A recurring theme in the horror genre is supernatural subterfuge that results in one person believing that another has become a monster, with predictably homicidal results. While such events are a matter of record, explained as arising from insanity, the human mind has yet to reveal all its dark secrets.

Behold the “flashed face distortion effect“, accidentally discovered by Dr Jason Tangen, Sean Murphy and Matthew Thompson from the University of Queensland’s School of Psychology. What follows is a video consisting of pairs of photos of the faces of women who are far from ugly, but focus your eyes on the cross at the center of the screen and watch what happens to your interpretation of the images as they flash through the sequence. Observing each face individually will confirm that none of them have been grotesquely altered, and only your own interpretation of the differences between them has been magnified by something that is going on as your mind interprets what has entered your eyes. Once again, don’t believe everything you see.

Writer Richard Matheson, father of my favourite devil doll. (Source http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Richard_Matheson.jpg)

Evil and otherwise supernaturally animated dolls or puppets are a recurring theme in the horror genre bringing us, among others, the Puppetmaster series that began with the movie of that name in 1989, and the better known Chucky franchise that kicked off with Child’s Play in 1988. If you spend any time in the world, sooner or later you’ll encounter a creepy doll, whether in life, art, or both.

Cute ain't he?

Growing up depraved, one of my favourite TV shows was Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone. In 1975, an episode aired that was titled Trilogy of Terror, consisting of three short segments, each based on stories by Bram Stoker Lifetime Achievement award winner Richard Matheson who also wrote the classic Nightmare at 20,000 Feet episode starring the then lesser known William Shatner.

Part three of Trilogy of Terror, titled Amelia, was based on Matheson’s short story Prey that first appeared in the April 1969 edition of Playboy magazine, and is still, to my mind, the best devil doll story ever committed to film. The tale devolves around the title character who buys a “Zuni Fetish Doll” for her boyfriend – an anthropology aficionado – as a birthday gift, and the fiendish tom foolery that ensues. (more…)

Dagger Woods is a small rural community located amid softwood forest and marshland slightly less than 10 kilometers east of the university town of Antigonish, Nova Scotia. Anyone driving Highway 104 to or from the eastern part of the province will be familiar with the turnoff.

Tales of a malevolent being haunting the woods began to spread shortly after the area was first settled in the late 1700’s. Locally referred to as the Hidey-Hinder, and also known as the Dagger Woods Howler, legend connects the thing to a crime of passion in which a husband killed his wife with a pearl handled dagger before fleeing into the depths of Dagger Woods, never to be seen or heard from again. Some believe the Howler is him, doomed to relive his dark deed in perpetuity. Still others believe his evil woke something in those woods that took him, and now either cannot or will not rest. (more…)

Laurie Lacey, Medicine Man

In the world of Man we have seen grocery stores expand their services to incorporate pharmacies while pharmacies have opened extensively stocked grocery departments so that, store name notwithstanding, the distinction between the two is becoming blurred. Most so called “department stores” have gone that way too in the inexorable quest to be all things to all people. Society has been infused with the idea that nothing is safe to eat unless it comes from a store shelf bearing a government stamp of approval, and any ailment can be addressed by the magic of officially sanctioned medical science, whose mysteries we are not meant to understand. Governments openly espouse legislation prohibiting the growing of food outside of approved farming operations on the grounds that people doing so on their own constitute a threat to their own health, and anyone else who might come into contact with their produce. All of this in the face of one inexorable fact – that whether harvested from tilled field or forest, deep ocean or aquaculture, powered by sun or wind, only Nature is all things to all people, and She marches to her own rhythm. (more…)

"Night Eyes" by Kay Singleton. Source: http://www.alpinearts.com/Ltds-NE-Ecl.html

I first heard The Griesly Wife recited to me late one night over a camp fire by a lake shore deep in the woods of darkest Nova Scotia. The person who recited it had learned the poetic tale without knowing its author, and believed the story was set somewhere in a remote part of northern Quebec. I have long since learned that the poem was written by Australian poet John Streeter Manifold (21 April 1915 – 19 April 1985), and in the original version, the role of wolves in what follows was, as originally penned,  predictably filled by dingoes. (more…)

A word from your host ...

“I could a tale unfold whose lightest word would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood,make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres; thy knotted and combined locks to part,and each particular hair to stand on end,as quills upon the fretful porpentine!” ~ Hamlet; Act 1, Scene 5

As our regular readers know, the month of October has a special significance to Mrs. LFM and me, and Hallowe’en marks the anniversary of our marriage. Last October we launched what will be an annual event here at LFM – 31 days of Dark Sentiments – one each for every day in this most meaningful of months. In keeping with our mission statement from last year, and in addition to regular programming, each day of this month we will be posting articles and items, music and movie reviews, film clips and book recommendations, memories and artifacts, all connecting straight back to the dark side. Some will make you laugh, some will trouble your dreams, and some will prevent sleep as we delve into the unknown, the misunderstood, and the better left alone.

For your reading pleasure, in addition to the eagerly awaited usual contributions by my very own Mistress of the Dark Mrs. LFM, this year will also feature guest articles by some of our esteemed dark friends. Articles in this series will always bear a title defining it as Dark Sentiments 2011 – Day …, so that it can be easily separated from the mainstream, not that anything here can ever be accused of being mainstream.

Let the revelry begin.

A sample of today's view deep inside the LFM Blackberry patch.

Mrs. LFM and I live in the midst of plenty, all of it provided by Nature and requiring only the investment of time, effort, and gratitude to enjoy. An example of what I’m talking about is the succulent Blackberry that grows in abundance at our place.

I decided this past spring to pursue a couple of rustic/bushcraft skills involving making full use of the Blackberry plant – using the fruit to make wine, and the stalks to make cordage; i. e, thread, twine, or rope.

The stalks are best harvested in the spring, and a portion of our multiple Blackberry patches has been earmarked for cutting in spring 2012 when the sap content of the stalks renders the fibres more receptive to processing. In the mean time, that leaves us with the fruity goodness of the berries that we’ve been harvesting every couple of days for the past several weeks in a scratch and stab fest that never fails to remind me of my favourite line from Lady Gaga’s “Poker Face” – “… and baby when it’s love if it’s not rough it isn’t fun”.

The berries are being frozen in date labelled bags pending the end of the season when wine making will begin. As you can see from the photo that I took today, there are still a lot of berries left to ripen, and unless a killing frost does for the immature berries we’re not done yet. As the wine project progresses I’ll be documenting it here. I am not inexperienced in the making of wine, but this is our first attempt at making wine from fresh fruit. While Mrs. LFM and I have been researching Blackberry wine recipes, we invite our readers to submit suggestions if any of you have a tried and tested favourite you’d like to suggest. Anyone who suggests a recipe we decide to adopt, and that yields a drinkable libation – will receive a bottle with our compliments. Two if it’s especially good.

(AP Photo/Jim Urquhart)

In my 2 June 2010 article titled Contemplations on a Really Bad Idea, I talked about the abysmally stupid practice of “trail running” and its singular ability to enhance a practitioner’s likelihood of being assaulted by wildlife. If you haven’t read it, please do before going further.

This morning, thanks to my friend Jim Keating, I found a headline posted yesterday on the Missoulian website that read Running, yelling may have triggered fatal mauling. While it didn’t involve “trail running” as discussed in my article cited above, it reports the fatal mauling by a Grizzly sow of 57 year old Brian Matayoshi who was hiking with his wife Marylyn in Yellowstone National Park when they encountered the bear and her cubs. (more…)