Tag Archives: eldritch

Weekly Eldritch 3: rusty screws and a meat watch

This is going back for me; I used to watch all the Brothers Quay films I could find when I was attending film school. Just the kind of technically sophisticated, totally inscrutable short films that film students adore!

Because nothing is creepier than old broken-down toys…

For more information on the Brothers Quay, including a list of films, click here.

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Weekly Eldritch 2: Poe and a Dead Fish

Has a week gone by already? Welcome to Thursday and your weekly creeply. I was just scanning through my vast reserves of old photographs (I take a LOT of photos) looking for something eerie and – yipes! This one made me jump a bit. A dead fella we came across on the beach last summer. A dogfish I think I heard someone say? Whatever, he’s a creepy one for sure, with that doleful eye and all.

Last week’s link/list of ghost stories reminded me of this little thriller I found on youtube a while back. Sit back and enjoy…

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Weekly Eldritch

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

  1. 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…

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