"Whenever I think that the time for horror and terror has passed; and that I should write no more—I reflect back on those stories we were told about the Dier, and I tremble."
- Daniel Westforth Whittier (from the Preface to The Faring, 2008)
Autumn has always been a time, for me, of intensified poetic experience and the remembering-telling-creating of strange and mysterious tales. Hauntings, stories of the macabre and the grotesque, ghosts and vampires and – more recently – zombies, seem to come to life for me especially in the Autumn of the year, when the growing season is passing, the leaves are turning, and we are heading into the darkening days that lead us inevitably onward—to the trailhead of Winter. Over the years I’ve brought forth a number of tales about hauntings, ghosts and monsters—one can hardly help it when the weather is right and the mood is misted, sullen and shadow-shrouded! As I said here in blogs back in 2013 reflecting on the work of H. P. Lovecraft and Stephen King (links in the footnotes), I have always been enamored of horror; especially in its gothic, mysterious and 'weird tale' manifestations.
A series of haunted tales I had been grappling with during the 1980's eventually came together in narrative orbit around a strangely fated family called “the Dier.” The Dier (pronounced just like “deer” only spelt differently, as one of my characters oft points out) originally lived on Deer Hill in the 1880's, where the Whittiers now live. Their story was finally brought forth in Ham-Farir: The Faring of Matthew Thorin Dier (2008); a 'big' story in which I was able to range over three human generations and encompass the experiences of three main groups of characters, each of which was engaged in its own way with the fate of the Dier.
There are a lot of characters in this story, and a whole fictional world – called Ross County, PA – in which they live. The characters are writers, teachers and students, gamers (RPG and board game enthusiasts), and landscapers, with a family historian – Geoffrey C Whittier – at the hub of the storytelling that goes on in the novel. The characters are Naturalists, Witches and Celtic Christians. Though they have these different approaches to life and differing assumptions about Earth & Spirit and the human condition, they are all interacting with one another; open to each other's experiences—together seeking the larger picture of what happened to them in their effort to find out what happened to the Dier. Bringing all of these people together and having them cooperate to tell a big story about what they had gone through is part of what made the novel interesting for me to write.
The movement of the narrative is constituted by a chronological reconstruction of events related to the Dier, told by those who have undergone an ordeal. It is not – except in the middle volume – about events in the present time of the narrative. It is not an action/gorefest. It is a set of reflective stories in which the tellers attempt to render-out the meaning of strange and reality challenging events that they have witnessed, heard-of and ultimately undergone. The events they are relating happened a year earlier than the conversations at Whispering Eaves; Daniel Westforth's house on Deer Hill.
Ham-Farir deals with the consequences of extraordinary and extreme experiences; something that I don't often find horror, terror or weird tales doing; which tend to end right after the climax of the action—leaving the survivors to deal with what they have experienced, as if there is no more story to be told about them. "Whew, its over," such stories seem to say. But real people have to deal with the consequences of frightening, traumatic, destructive and life-changing events. In Ham-Farir, the characters are attempting to begin processing their experiences of loss and strangeness by telling their stories to a horror novelist.
They choose Daniel Westforth to share their tales with because he is a horror novelist. They think perhaps he will be able to understand – if not ultimately believe – what they tell him. They have also agreed that sharing what has happened – and happened to them – in a house like the one in which Daniel and Rosalind live, may function as a kind of 'half-way' station on the way to possible self-understanding and healing. Whispering Eaves stands between what they have gone through and the ordinary reality in which they have found themselves having to live since the events came to a climax and close.
Ordinary World (Normal Reality) -- Whispering Eaves -- Extraordinary World (The Dier)
Daniel and Rosalind’s house – Whispering Eaves – is unusual to say the least! Their aesthetic is Gothic. Its basement is set-up as a ‘dungeon’ and the house has at least one between-walls passageway as well as an attic that is full of horror memorabilia. Every Fall, Daniel and Rosalind host a Horrorfest at Westfarm. Thus, the characters are in a liminal space as they share their tales; not quite ordinary, but also not extra-ordinary. It, perhaps, feels ‘safe’ to them.
The novel – published in 3 volumes – records these storytelling sessions at Whispering Eaves as they happened in June and July of 2004. This is the ‘present tense’ of the novel. In Volume I[i] Daniel and Rosalind's guests relate what had happened to draw each of the three groups of friends into the sphere of influence of the family known as “the Dier." Volume II[ii] relates what happened at Mary Igraine Whittier's house in Milvale in July 1989 and is subtitled "The Strange Haunting of Mary Igraine Whittier." This volume ends with an account of events seemingly connected to the Dier that took place on or around Deer Hill in the 1990’s. In Volume III,[iii] survivors of their experiences – in a town called Smithton, near Milvale – relate what happened to them leading up to the final revelation of who the Dier were and what ultimately happened to them.
The whole novel occurs because of what happens “in consequence of haunted lives,” as Daniel Westforth Whittier put it in his own ‘documentary novel’ – The Faring, 2008 – written for his extended family on Deer Hill. As I love telling stories about the Dier and the Whittiers and as we are in the eaves of the Autumnwood; I am inspired once again to return to the novel and re-live it.
I used to tell the tales of the Dier to friends, and tonight – as in 2014 when it was first posted in an earlier version – this blog is substituting for my sitting around a fire, at a stone circle, at an old well, or in some old ruined rustic house—telling my tales to friends.
Thank you for listening.
If you are curious enough to want to hear the stories of the Dier yourself, follow these links below—
[i] http://www.amazon.com/Ham-Farir-Faring-Matthew-Thorin-Dier/dp/1434328473/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1411311846&sr=8-1&keywords=Ham-Farir%3A+The+Faring+of+Matthew+Thorin+Dier
Authorhouse (publisher; better priced):
https://www.authorhouse.com/en/bookstore/bookdetails/265918-Ham-Farir-The-Faring-of-Matthew-Thorin-Dier
[ii] http://www.amazon.com/Ham-Farir-Faring-Matthew-Thorin-Dier/dp/1434341097/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1411311846&sr=8-2&keywords=Ham-Farir%3A+The+Faring+of+Matthew+Thorin+Dier
Authorhouse (publisher; better priced):
https://www.authorhouse.com/en/bookstore/bookdetails/266536-Ham-Farir-The-Faring-of-Matthew-Thorin-Dier
[iii] http://www.amazon.com/Ham-Farir-Faring-Matthew-Thorin-Dier/dp/1434341089/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1411311846&sr=8-3&keywords=Ham-Farir%3A+The+Faring+of+Matthew+Thorin+Dier
Authorhouse (publisher; better priced):
https://www.authorhouse.com/en/bookstore/bookdetails/266537-Ham-Farir-The-Faring-of-Matthew-Thorin-Dier
My Blogs on Lovecraft:
https://montaguewhitsel.blogspot.com/2013/10/lovecraft-paganism-and-horror-i.html; https://montaguewhitsel.blogspot.com/2013/10/lovecraft-paganism-and-horror-ii.html https://montaguewhitsel.blogspot.com/2013/08/lovecraft-and-cosmic-dread-2-august-2013.html
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