"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
