The Dark Crusade

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This story truly has it all, action, humor, romance, mystery, horror, and myth. I think the first time I read this story all the moving parts went over my head and on re-examination I decided this is one bad-ass yarn.

The heart of this tale to me is greed. It’s the pursuit of gold and land and the destruction that results in that. Though the main subject driving the action is Kenlaw’s greed, the secondary focus of mythology in this story gives us the framework of this location being an ancient place with inhabitants changing over as new groups looking for either land or gold moved in. The moon-eyed people, being moved out by the Cherokee, then the Conquistadors in their search for gold, which paved the way for European settlement. The history and the books that come up in Kenlaw and Brandon’s conversation is one of the best selections in any Wagner story as far as contextual background, and regional history. Additionally most are now in the public domain. Check these out in particular.

Myths of the Cherokee (1902) by James Mooney text

Just looking through the ToC you can see the huge inspiration this was in addition to the story of the slant-eyed giant. I would be very surprised if Wagner didn’t have this on his shelf. (Any of you experts know?)

Curious Creatures in Zoology (1890) by John Ashton text

Just a beautiful early cryptozoology text with outstanding pictures for the entries. I felt like I was looking through my Monster Manual when I found this one. The Pygmies entry is on pg. 26.

Grandfather’s Tales of North Carolina History (1901) by Richard Benbury Creecy text

This book has a special place in my heart. One of my own personal loves is a connection to place and history. Creecy did an amazing service recording his time and the stories of his area. Of interest to this story is his section on Ethnology. It mentions a sinkhole in the area pg. 129. A possible mine found by the Spaniards, used for mining mica. This mine had 14 inch tunnels thus being a piece of proof for little men.

 Romance of Natural History: Or, Wild Scenes and Wild Hunters (1852) by Charles Wilkens Webber text

So, I made a mistake. At the last minute before publishing this episode I realized I made a factual error and had to remove a section from the podcast. In that section I note that Brandon (or maybe Wagner?) misquotes a text from the book Romance of Natural History by Weller. No such book exists. I believed the quote was from a book with the same title from the same time period by a Mr. Gosse. F. N. and I speculate whether this was a Wagner mistake or a Brandon mistake. I was double checking my research and actually found the book Brandon/Wagner meant, it is the above book by a Webber.  Still a mistake but now it appears to be more of a miss spelling then a miss attribution.  On pg. 207-210 there is the account of finding the tiny coffins which confirms for me this is the book that was meant when Brandon says Weller. That passage is worth reading alone for it’s weird elements.

A couple weeks ago at Necronomicon 2017 I got my dirty mits on the Manly Wade Wellman inspired art book by Michael Bukowski and Seventh Church Ministries. It features an awesome rendition of the mentioned Shonokin. Check out Mike and his work here.

If you want to check out how Wagner described Kenlaw’s look check out Charles Laughton in the Island of Lost Souls. trailer

The Descent, a movie F.N. and I mentioned in the episode owes a lot to the tradition of Machen, Howard, and especially Wagner. It’s probably in my top 25 favorite horror flicks and I suggest checking it out. trailer

If you want to see the map I drew of the cave system Brandon and Kenlaw explored I posted it on Instagram. Map Here

We’ll be back in two weeks with part 2 of .220 Swift

-Jordan Douglas Smith

Disclaimer: This episode is the first time I ever tried moonshine so I apologize for any extreme reactions. I grew to enjoy that jar of liquid…as the night went on.

The Dark Crusade is made with Jetpack Podcast. Full show notes and every episode at https://thedarkcrusade.wordpress.com/

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Welcome to the third episode of The Dark Crusade where we finish up our coverage of ‘In the Pines’.  I’m so glad to have discovered the writing of Oliver Onions through this story. The parallels between ‘The Beckoning Fair One’ and ‘In the Pines’ are strong but Wagner has really inserted his own life and culture into the work. I’m linking to the collection Widdershins here so you can judge for yourself. The scene where the protagonist hears the sound of a women combing her hair was chilling.

Another great find in this story was rediscovering Hannes Bok (after Johannes Bach) aka Wayne Francis Woodard. You can check out his work and a little blurb about him here. Before living in New York he was in Los Angeles and had become friends with various people on the scene there. One of those folks was Ray Bradbury who introduced him to Farnsworth Wright. It was Boks first sale to Farnsworth and Weird Tales that triggered his move East. Sadly much like Wagner, Bok probably died before his time. A friend said of Bok he:

“…had integrity and as a result of his refusal to prostitute his work to the demands and criticisms of the unfeeling. He remained hungry, poor, kind, and genuine.”

In the episode F.N. couldn’t think of the name of a group who covered ‘In the Pines’ and it was Bill Monroe and the Bluegrass Boys. I listened to another great version recently here by The Kossoy Sisters. This version sounds much creepier and leans heavier into the murder ballad than some of the others in a subtle way.

See you in two weeks when we bring you the first installment of ‘.220 Swift’.

-Jordan Douglas Smith

Reader: Malcolm Mills

The Dark Crusade is made with Jetpack Podcast. Full show notes and every episode at https://thedarkcrusade.wordpress.com/

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Welcome to the second episode of The Dark Crusade. This week we’re featuring ‘In the Pines’ which we split into two episodes. I have to say this is probably one of my favorite Wagner tales.

To the left is the the cover for the first appearance of this story in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, August 1973.

Last episode we were up north and talked about the weird country of New York State, this week I’m glad to be down in Tennessee and getting into more of the regional specifics Wagner brought to his work.

We mentioned the classic novel ‘Trail of the Lonesome Pine’ by John Fox Jr. which you can read free here through project Gutenberg.

In addition to this book Gerry also mentioned finding old copies of Argosy, Black Mask, Doc Savage, and Weird Tales magazines in the junk under the house. Wagner once again is making his shout outs.

If you are interested in finding out more about the song ‘In the Pines/Black Girl/Where did you Sleep’ check out this NY Times article here. This article is where most of my information came from.

Lastly I’ll leave you with a link to the version I know best here.

And a recipe for Swiss Steak here. You’ll have to read the story to know why.

-Jordan Douglas Smith

Readings: Malcolm Mills

The Dark Crusade is made with Jetpack Podcast. Full show notes and every episode at https://thedarkcrusade.wordpress.com/

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Here it is our first episode! We lay out what we hope to accomplish, our plans for the first season, as well as a discussion of Wagner’s BFA winning short story ‘Sticks’. A special thank you to our reader Malcolm Mills and to the artist Andrea Sparacio for the beautiful portrait of Wagner.

Check here every episode as I’ll be inserting some additional information that didn’t make it to the show and I’ll provide links to some of the research I did for the story.

When reading the recent novel The Fisherman by John Langan I couldn’t help but think of the Quabbin Reservoir and the towns (and possibly cultist structures!) that were buried by the flooding. I found this interesting documentary Under Quabbin by WGBY. It features some great sections of scuba explorations of what has remained…

Under Quabbin

Here are some links to Mystery Hill New Hampshire so you can get a glimpse of what Wagner may have been picturing for the underground caverns.

Mystery Hill, NH- here

Sacrificial Table- here

If you are as intrigued by Shadrach Ireland as I was I suggest checking out the Burned-Over District in New York State. It was an exciting time in American religion and many interesting cults and ideas formed in this one area of the country. Seance anyone?

Burned-Over District

Lastly if you are looking for more of the Cthulhu Mythos connections in this story I recommend Episode 65 of The Good Friends of Jackson Elias here. It is great coverage of the story with a mythos centric view.

I hope you enjoyed our episode and that you’ll join us in one week for Episode 2 where we’ll cover Part 1 of Wagner’s story: In the Pines.

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The Dark Crusade is made with Jetpack Podcast. Full show notes and every episode at https://thedarkcrusade.wordpress.com/