I love learning new words. I love really unusual words, ones that are useful but little known, that roll off the tongue and kind of sound like what they mean. When I came across the word ‘eldritch’ I liked it so much I used it in the title of my novel.
Eldritch
Adjective
- unearthly, alien, supernatural, weird, spooky, eerie
- 1790 — Robert Burns, Tam o’ Shanter
- So Maggie runs, the witches follow,
Wi’ mony an eldritch skriech and hollo.
- 1850 — Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, ch VII
- Pearl, in utter scorn of her mother’s attempt to quiet her, gave an eldritch scream, and then became silent.
etymology: Middle English from earlier elrich, equivalent to Old English el- (“foreign, strange, uncanny”) (see else ) + rīċe “realm, kingdom” (see rich ); hence “of a strange country, pertaining to the Otherworld”; compare Old English ellende “in a foreign land, exiled” (compare German Elend “penury, distress” and Dutch ellende “misery”), Runic Norse alja-markir “foreigner”.
(courtesy of Wikipedia/Wiktionary)
I’ve decided that it might be fun to give you a ‘Weekly Eldritch’ on this blog – just something to creep out your Thursdays a little bit. Today it’s graveyard photos and a spooky link.
The photos I took several years ago in Woodlawn Cemetery, New York (the Bronx to be exact). Both photos are of the same statue. I love the way the original form still shines through no matter how eroded by time, the elements… and air pollution too, no doubt.
Here’s the link – a great list of 10 of the Creepiest Ghosts in Literature from flavorwire.com. I’ve read only four of these (it occurs to me that I probably haven’t actually read A Christmas Carol, but I feel like I know it by heart), and there are a couple titles I’ve never even heard of.
What do you think of the list? Are there any additions you’d make?
And please share whatever eldritch oddities you may come across!
Right. Now I’m off to order The Haunting of Hill House from my local library…
