Folklore and Me Part III

Folklore and Me Part III

Welcome everyone, got a couple of special announcements before I continue with the stories behind the stories!

Harvey Duckman Presents... 

So my publisher, 6e Publishing, is launching a new anthology in April, the aforementioned Harvey Duckman Presents... And included in its number is a completely new Brennan and Riz story!

The story is called 'A Walk Through the Pleasure Gardens' and has the pair investigating strange trees seen in a Thornaby park...

As usual I'll share the story behind the story once the anthology is in readers hands.

Check out the preorder below!

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Harvey-Duckman-Presents-Collection-Steampunk-ebook/dp/B07PHTV7WJ

Creator Chaos

Out of the orderly Writing Community of twitter comes chaos, Creator Chaos that is! 

Me and some well known writers from the famous #WritersCommunity on twitter have banded together to create a new podcast! The questions are taken (with permission) from the #characterchaos hashtag game.

Find us on the link below and give us a listen! 

https://www.soundcloud.com/creator-chaos0/entering-chaos

Now all that is out of the way, let's get down to business!

Once Upon a Halloween at Preston Park:

Preston Park is located on a land that has been lived on continuously since the early medieval times. The land has changed hands countless times since then, starting in 1673 when George Witham bought it after the land was taken back following the defeat of the Royalists in the English Civil War, whom the land’s original owner, Lawrence Sayer pledged his allegiance to. The old manor house became known as Witham Hall, and thus began a series of changeovers. In 1820 though, it was bought by David Burton Fowler and in 1825, it was he who built the building that we know today as Preston Park Museum. The old manor house became a barn and was eventually demolished in 1974. The last private owner of the park was it’s most famous, Robert Ropner, who at the time he purchased the land was the High Sheriff of Durham. He purchased the park in 1882 and his family resided here till 1937. Stockon on Tees council bought it in 1947, and it officially became a museum in 1954. The park itself covers one hundred acres and has a number of alterations through out the years, and at one point, the world’s first passenger railway ran through the park, parallel to the main road. Through all this though, there has been a surprising lack of folklore associated with the land, and there is only a few sightings of ghosts within the museum. The most common of these is the lady in black that has been seen in the main hall, and within the basement. This is the source of the lady in black that taunts Brennan and Riz in the story. However, the ghost of Samuel, is based on a sighting that has been reported in the upper level of the museum. I uncovered this sighting early on when I was writing the story, and as I read it, I knew I had to incorporate it within the story somehow. The decision about the true identity of the lady in black was an early idea that I was able to expand on here.

The Deal at the Crossroads:

From learning that there was a haunted crossroads in Middlesbrough, I knew I wanted to include a story set there. I wasn’t able to pinpoint the exact crossroads I’d read about, despite the hints (on the outskirts of town, every one knows it yet won’t talk about it). Going for the next best option, I found another one that was just as suitable, one that happened to be near an old church for good measure. The church used to be a Methodist Church till it was sold off, to become a nightclub, and then sold again to become flats. The storyline itself was based on the idea of people going to a crossroads to do deals with the underworld. This is probably seen in best in the hit US show Supernatural. I took this and then added in some of the old folklore regarding crossroads, that of being a place to bury victims of suicide. The idea that the soul would get to choose where it ended up is a funny one, as what soul would purposely choose to go to the hell? Though it should be pointed out that it wasn’t just suicide victims that were buried here but suspected vampires as well, which are stories for another time.

The Barguest Lurking in the Town:

This originally started off as a completely different story. It was changed as I realised that I wanted to tell a tale regarding these black dogs on their own first. I also didn’t just want a story about these omen’s of death to just be about how they were completely antagonistic, hence the way the story develops. Whitby is a place that I have many story ideas around, so Brennan and Riz shall find themselves exploring that ancient town soon enough. The idea of supernatural beings being unable to cross running water appears here, during Jordan’s recollection of his night out. This is a very curious idea that you could find in many folktales. The black dogs go under different names across the country, with Black Shuck being one of the first recorded (and probably being the first to be immortalised through a rock song thanks to British rock band The Darkness), the Barguest though is Yorkshire through and through, and while there was tales of it hunting through the narrow streets of York, it is Whitby who has more tales linking it to the region. There is a different variation on spelling the name, being Barghest, in the story I went with the more familiar to me, Barguest. The origin of the name isn’t fully decided on, with several explanations offered. These range from Burh-Ghest (Town Ghost) to Barg-Geist (Mountain Demon when translated from German). One of the first recorded mentions of the Barguest is in William Hone’s book, Everyday Book (published in 1830). It takes the form of a ballad and tells the tale of a young man who goes out, unafraid, to vanquish the Barguest. The story does not end well for him, seemingly leaving the moral of not biting off more then you can chew. I diverge heavily from the folklore here by having the Barguest be the spirit of a dog that was turned into the monster by it’s owner. This allowed the hound to have a reason to haunt Jordan (the desecration of it’s masters grave). In the next story, you’ll see the Barguest again, but this time connected to a different piece of folklore, one that has ties to the Norse Mythology.

The Wild Hunt on the Road:

This one started off as a completely different story, it’s based off a ghost sighting that’s seen on the road from Guisbrough to Whitby, and there’s conflicting reports of her origins. One of the front runners is that she was a governess for a wealthy family but lived elsewhere, and so walked down that stretch of road every night to go home. Her spirit haunts the road as she was killed. Thus she turns up as the hitchhiker host stereotype. The original story was based on an alternative take on the origin, which was that she was obsessed with the supernatural, and wanted to go to Whitby, because of it’s connotations with Vampire’s, thanks to Bram Stoker’s work Dracula, which has the titular count wash up on Whitby beach. The idea would have had a race against time as Brennan and Riz tried to get to Whitby Abbey before she could. Then before it came to time to write the story, I heard the legend of the Barguest and they were often seen at along side the Wild Hunt. The Wild Hunt stories detail times when people have found themselves in the midst of a spectral hunt, with horses been ridden by riders who seem out of touch. The hounds they use, are of course, no other then the Barguests, giving them the same job as hounds in the hunts that we still do today. Now the person who leads the hunt is most interesting part of this. One of them say it is an old English king who now presides over the hunt, and his name is Helea King. An old ruler from a time before the Saxons came to these isle. It was said that he was invited to a wedding by a Dwarven King, so the King and his entourage went and stayed three days but by the time the walked out of the cave entrance and back into the forest. On the way to the castle, he spotted a farmer, but couldn’t understand what the farmer was saying. It transpired that while they thought only three days had passed, in the world of men, three centuries had passed. In shock, one of the king’s men jumped form his saddle, but on touching the floor, was nothing more then dust. Thus the king was forever more, doomed to lead the wild hunt. The man got a new identity though as time drove on, as stories started linking him to Wolden , who in turn was just a different name for Odin, leader of the Norse gods. Once I knew these details I knew how I wanted the story to go. I created a new monster here as well, the Ashen, how effective they will be remains to be seen.

Before I leave for another week, a quick reminder:

You can check out my newest work over at Royal Road, with new chapters weekly (I'll talk about this at some point as well)

https://www.royalroad.com/profile/113939/fictions

I'm also on goodreads if anyone wishes to connect on there

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/18934209.Peter_James_Martin

And of course, I'm on twitter, my home away from home:

@Brennan_and_Riz

Till then my friends, keep crafting and telling stories, it's the most human thing to do. 

Folklore and Me Part II

Wednesday already? Well as promised here's the second part of the Folklore behind the stories that I started last week. Next Wednesday I'll finish this series off with a look at the stories behind the last five short stories out there at the moment.

Like the sound of these stories? Well you can find them on Amazon here:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?k=Brennan+and+Riz

I'm also listed on Goodreads here:

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/18934209.Peter_James_Martin

Interested in seeing a different kind of work from me? Check out a Sci Fi Mecha story here on Royal Road, new chapters weekly!

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/23703/vector-unit-regen-orphans-war

Have a fantastic week everyone!

Regarding Folklore II:

The wealth and depth of stories around the Teesside area always continues to astound me. From tales of love and murder to trapped evil entities breaking free, there is always something lurking around every corner.

The Violinist in the Basement:

The idea for this story started from one line in a leaflet about Stockton on Tees that was created to celebrate the launch of the re-designed high street. It simply stated that the famed violinist Niccolo Paganini played the Georgian Theatre in the early 1800s. His nick name is what aroused my interest, as he had been dubbed, ‘The Devil’s Violinist’. Despite the way it sounds, his nickname was given because of his antics away from his performances. Further thought on the idea saw it morphed from dealing with the spirit of Niccolo Paganini, to another spirit wanting to achieve the same fame. So I was able to take one line and turn it into a story about envy and delusion, while also being the first of the stories to delve into the past of the main characters.

The Madness on Roseberry Toppin:

From the moment I started writing about the adventures of Brennan and Riz, I knew that I had to write about Roseberry Toppin. The hill is the most recognisable in the area and there is many stories that surround it. Given the direction I want with in the story, a lot of these were not used in the story but do help get your imagination going. To start with, it’s Viking name is Othensberg, which roughly translated as hill of Odin. There’s been many archaeological finds  on the hill, dating back to the Bronze age. There is also tales of a spring that used to exist there which was said to have healing properties. The most important tale though, is what Alfred Vincent Kidder suggested, which was that there was a pyramid, buried under the hill, that was alleged to be over three thousand years old. With some tweaking, this was the tale I used for the basis of the plot. There was notable changes, the first being that the structure is not a pyramid, and the second being the age, three thousand years is much too young for my structure. There’s still more to do with Roseberry Toppin.

The Demon in the Crown:

The Crown nightclub (which sadly closed in 2015) was a regular haunt of mine, but during all the times I was in there, I had no idea of the stories that the staff had reported. The little girl ghost, Maria, is based on real sightings that were reported at length. The ‘bad man’ however, is different from my depiction. Instead it was said that he was the occupant of that sealed room on the second floor, and that he was the cause of much dread and fear. Yes, the sealed room was supposedly real, matching my descriptions, and it was indeed said to look like the door had been broken from the inside out. I changed the ‘bad man’ though for this tale, as I thought it was more interesting to have him actually be acting in the greater good, and start spinning my version of the spiritualist churches. These will have more importance down the line. There was once a spiritualist church in Middlesbrough though, hence why I felt I could make a connection here. Valarie returned for a brief cameo but she will fully return in time.

Folklore and Me Part I

Folklore and Me Part I

As promised, this is the first essay that was set to be included in the Brennan and Riz short story collection ("The Strange Tales of Brennan and Riz" https://www.amazon.co.uk/Strange-Tales-Brennan-Riz/dp/1729119190/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1552261025&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&keywords=Brennan+and+Riz&dpPl=1&dpID=41eVm795vcL&ref=plSrch), it was cut for space issues but this is the perfect place for it!

Please enjoy! Also don't hesitate to leave a comment below.

Regarding Folklore:

For me, as an author, I find folklore tales (and by extension, myths and legends) endlessly fascinating. For most, the events behind them are lost to history but the resulting stories are rich in characters, giving the unseen spirits their own personalities. They fully lend themselves to the idea that our world lives right next to their vibrant world. I believe our species started learning about our world and our place in it through telling stories. They started as an attempt to explain events like the rising and setting of the sun to what the stars were. Then they became tools of culture, for stories told over roaring fires in cold dark nights. Science eventually took over the role for explaining the natural world but storytelling remains with us, and we’re constantly rediscovering lost tales and simultaneously creating new ones. They may no longer be relevant for explanations but they are eternally useful for explaining human nature.
To this end, I hope we never stop telling stories of all kinds, after all the future generations will need folklore for the current era. We all have stories inside us, we just need courage to let them out.

Girl in the Water:

The seed for this story came from an article I read in a Thornaby related magazine, focusing on the River Tees. The original tales are simply of a spirit that lured people into the water and then drowned them. In fact these tales are quite common around rivers, with several sharing the sprit, so called Jenny Green Teeth. Of course the Water Ghouls, as I called them, represent these spirits more or less, though as far as I’m aware, they don’t have control over water like the Water Ghoul in the story. As the folklore of spirits like Jenny Green Teeth is very thin on the ground and common in a sense, you only have to compare it to the likes of the Kappa legends of Japan. The Kappa is a creature, said to be quite strange looking, being a green humanoid but with webbed hands and feet and having the beak of a bird, and like the erstwhile Green Teeth, lures people to the water where they can be drowned.
The rest of the story formed after several drafts with the spirit, changing from being solely antagonistic to something else. The spirit of the girl took shape at the same time, as did the real nature of Brennan’s employer, and thus, the story’s plot came together, though it still had to be streamlined, as the original version clocked in at 4500 words. The final edits were tough and I had to lose some backstory segments, offering an extended look at what the girl’s story really was, but upon reflection, the story is better without them, as they did drag the pace down too much, and with limited words, I didn’t want to waste anything. It was with the help of Author Tracey Iston, who gave support editing, that the story Being entered in the 2017 Crossing the Tees short story competion helped focus this story, and it was in the subsequent anthology that Girl in the Water, first saw print.

Goblins in the Tunnel:

Two tales came together for this story. The first is the very real tunnels that run under the high street area of Stockton. They were recently in the news again when some renovation work at a place of business near the Stockton Central Library uncovered a hidden street underground that is linked with these century old tunnels. The street was said to have been constructed some odd two hundred years ago, with notches in the walls for candles, larders. There was even room for live stock to be stored before going off to market. This street was intended to be referenced within the story, but it didn’t pan out as the story was being plotted. As for the tunnels themselves, there was said to be access points at many well known Stockton locations, such as the North Eastern pub, which is referenced within the story, the Thomas Sheraton pub and the Georgian Theatre. Although unsubstantiated, there was even rumoured tunnels going under the Tees, being used for smuggling purposes. The other folklore was to do with Stockton Castle, which from documentation from the periods when the castle stood, reveal it to be not much more then a heavily fortified manor house. The stories around it said that Red Caps dwelled in it during the time when it was abandoned, and even some of the time during it’s last occupation. It was destroyed on the orders of Oliver Cromwell, not because of an enemy holding it, but instead because it was past the point of repair, having falling derelict after a short occupation by Scottish forces during the Civil War. It is worth noting though that before the Scots took it, it was a Royalist stronghold. Red Caps appear more frequently in folklore, and I’ve hewn quite close to their appearance. These goblins take their name from the hat they wore on their heads, that was said to be dyed in the blood of their slain enemies. Like hinted at the story, they used to protect treasure hordes. It made sense to tie these two pieces of folklore together for this story.
Writing this story was fun but not without it’s problems. Originally, the cast of characters was bigger, with an added six people being down in the tunnels with Brennan, Riz and Valerie. Four of these were teenagers, in the tunnels on a dare while the other two were a business man and his advisor who were looking to make money on the tunnels. I got very far in the first draft with all these elements, but on successive read through, I realised something wasn’t clicking. The way the dialogue was flowing, having many characters in that situation was holding back the things everyone loved about the Girl in the Water, the interaction between Brennan and Riz. At fist, I got rid of the older gentlemen and kept the teenagers but they went eventually as well. These changes helped the story, and a few other rewrites were also made to certain scenes, making them more flavour full.
This will not be the last time Brennan and co, will see the tunnels, as there is still more to tell, after all, the Red Caps were defending something...

Ghosts on the Moor:

While the Brownie is definitely a creature of folklore, having counterparts in the folklore of other parts of the UK and even some in Europe, the buildings the ghosts inhabit in this story is very real. The buildings were once the hamlet of Pit Top, snug in Barnaby Moor, which itself was on top the Eston Hills. The houses have long since been demolished, leaving only a covered up well hole to mark where it was. They were built to house the workers and their families of a nearby pit, however, the pit was closed down and with no local jobs, the families moved out, to go and find work anew. There was tales though that the houses became deserted for a less mundane reason, that one bad winter, they were cut off by snow. With resources short, everyone perished, but this is obviously not the case as there is a very good documentary from the early 00s which talks about the area, and touches on the sad tale of this little community, in a segment called ‘Lost Village of Pit Top’. The Documentary was called A Century in Stone and even interviews people who used to live there, but moved out once the pit was no more. Eston hills themselves were in the news a few years back as there was a grass roots campaign set up by locals to save the hills from developers. This meant that the hills are actually owned by the community through the Friends of Eston Hills group, who through means of crowd sourcing, were able to get the money together to buy the land before any developers could.
To touch back on Brownies however, these work dogs of the past are indeed goblins who were friendly enough to humans to actually do house work for them, as long as you didn’t give them a gift or other payment to them. This would often act as a way to get rid of them if it was intended or not. Drog is modelled on fairly atypical Brownies in actual folklore, as is his parting message, as seen in the story of the Cauld Lad of Hylton Castle in Sunderland and in the story of Elsdon Moat Hobthrush of Northumberland. If you wanted an example of Brownies in live action media, then simply look at Dobbie the house elf in J.K. Rowlings Harry Potter series. Another aspect of Brownies that I hope to touch upon in future is that it’s said if you anger one enough, it was turn into a different type of goblin altogether, that of a malevolent Boggart, a very nasty, spiteful creature indeed.
The story was more straight forward to write, but also quite hard to try and pace. It does offer some nice moments for Brennan and Riz though, and shows that Riz has practical uses as well, even if he doesn’t like it.

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Join me next week when I continue with the folklore behind the stories, till then everyone has a story to share, no better time then now to start sharing it :)

Hello World

Hello World

When I was training to be a computer programmer, one of the very first things I learned was to print a simple greeting to the screen, no matter the language used. So here it is as I start something new.

I aim to put content on this blog that goes alongside my published Brennan and Riz stories, mainly a few essays I did on the subject of Folklore and a bit of detail behind the stories that are out there. These were cut from the paperback but I think this is their proper home anyway.

Not that Brennan and Riz will hog all the limelight... But you'll just have to wait and see what comes up!