In 1914 Arthur Machen published “The Bowmen”, a patriotic supernatural tale intended to boost the morale of British soldiers fighting in the trenches and those at home who had heard reports of the horrors of warfare. However, much to his consternation, Machen’s story was taken as fact by a public who desperately wanted to believe and spawned the legend of The Angels of Mons. His 1915 short story “Out of the Earth” deals with the aftermath of “The Bowmen” controversy, exploring the ways that myths and stories can take on a life of their own by examining some peculiar happenings along part of the Welsh coast.

This original recording is an audio presentation by Jasper L'Estrange for EnCrypted Horror. “The Bowmen” by Arthur Machen (1914) and “Out of the Earth” by Arthur Machen (1915).

You can hear me discuss this story by becoming a channel member and listening to a forthcoming episode of The EnCrypted Postmortem.

CREATOR’S NOTE: These recordings contain sound effects and music because that’s what I personally like to listen to, and what I enjoy making. As you will see from the comments, a lot of the listeners also like it. There are many narrators who don’t do this and they will be delighted to meet you. I try to do different voices just because I think it helps differentiate between characters when you’re listening. Apologies if I don’t nail every accent. You knew what I was going for, and at least I gave you a laugh. Apologies if I accidentally used a WW2 gun for my WW1 sound effects. Apologies if I said some of the Welsh things wrong. It’s hard, you know. The stories I read on this channel come from another time, many decades ago. If some of the ideas, beliefs, sentiments, and language upsets you, try and forgive them…as you will expect to be forgiven by the people judging you ten years from now.

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About the story:

"The Bowmen” by Arthur Machen. First published in the London Evening News, September 29, 1914. Later collected in “The Angels of Mons: The Bowmen and Other Legends of War” by Arthur Machen (pub. Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent & Co, 1915). “Out of the Earth” by Arthur Machen. First published in T.P.’s Weekly, November 27, 1915.

Music credits:

'A Dragon's Lullaby' by Scott Buckley - released under CC-BY 4.0. www.scottbuckley.com.au

'Balefire' by Scott Buckley - released under CC-BY 4.0. www.scottbuckley.com.au

‘Angelic Interlude’ by Tim Kulig (timkulig.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0

creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0997280/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1

Sound effects: All sound effects sourced at Freesound*.

*Used with the following licence: https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/

"The Last Post": https://freesound.org/people/Benboncan/sounds/61811/ used with the following permission: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

The recording was created using Audacity and BandLab. Podcast hosted by Spotify.

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