What do you think?
Rate this book
Ancient Sorceries
"There are, it would appear, certain wholly unremarkable persons, with none of the characteristics that invite adventure, who yet once or twice in the course of their smooth lives undergo an experience so strange that the world catches its breath—and looks the other way! And it was cases of this kind, perhaps, more than any other, that fell into the wide-spread net of John Silence, the psychic doctor, and, appealing to his deep humanity, to his patience, and to his great qualities of spiritual sympathy, led often to the revelation of problems of the strangest complexity, and of the profoundest possible human interest. Matters that seemed almost too curious and fantastic for belief he loved to trace to their hidden sources. To unravel a tangle in the very soul of things—and to release a suffering human soul in the process—was with him a veritable passion. And the knots he untied were, indeed, after passing strange." - from "Ancient Sorceries" by Algernon Blackwood.
101 pages, Paperback
Published May 23, 2023
10 people are currently reading
223 people want to read
About the author
Algernon Blackwood
1,344 books1,175 followersAlgernon Henry Blackwood (1869–1951) was an English broadcasting narrator, journalist, novelist and short story writer, and among the most prolific ghost story writers in the history of the genre. The literary critic S. T. Joshi stated, "His work is more consistently meritorious than any weird writer's except Dunsany's" and that his short story collection Incredible Adventures (1914) "may be the premier weird collection of this or any other century".
Blackwood was born in Shooter's Hill (today part of south-east London, but then part of northwest Kent) and educated at Wellington College. His father was a Post Office administrator who, according to Peter Penzoldt, "though not devoid of genuine good-heartedness, had appallingly narrow religious ideas." Blackwood had a varied career, farming in Canada, operating a hotel, as a newspaper reporter in New York City, and, throughout his adult life, an occasional essayist for various periodicals. In his late thirties, he moved back to England and started to write stories of the supernatural. He was very successful, writing at least ten original collections of short stories and eventually appearing on both radio and television to tell them. He also wrote fourteen novels, several children's books, and a number of plays, most of which were produced but not published. He was an avid lover of nature and the outdoors, and many of his stories reflect this.
H.P. Lovecraft wrote of Blackwood: "He is the one absolute and unquestioned master of weird atmosphere." His powerful story "The Willows," which effectively describes another dimension impinging upon our own, was reckoned by Lovecraft to be not only "foremost of all" Blackwood's tales but the best "weird tale" of all time.
Among his thirty-odd books, Blackwood wrote a series of stories and short novels published as John Silence, Physician Extraordinary (1908), which featured a "psychic detective" who combined the skills of a Sherlock Holmes and a psychic medium. Blackwood also wrote light fantasy and juvenile books.
Blackwood was born in Shooter's Hill (today part of south-east London, but then part of northwest Kent) and educated at Wellington College. His father was a Post Office administrator who, according to Peter Penzoldt, "though not devoid of genuine good-heartedness, had appallingly narrow religious ideas." Blackwood had a varied career, farming in Canada, operating a hotel, as a newspaper reporter in New York City, and, throughout his adult life, an occasional essayist for various periodicals. In his late thirties, he moved back to England and started to write stories of the supernatural. He was very successful, writing at least ten original collections of short stories and eventually appearing on both radio and television to tell them. He also wrote fourteen novels, several children's books, and a number of plays, most of which were produced but not published. He was an avid lover of nature and the outdoors, and many of his stories reflect this.
H.P. Lovecraft wrote of Blackwood: "He is the one absolute and unquestioned master of weird atmosphere." His powerful story "The Willows," which effectively describes another dimension impinging upon our own, was reckoned by Lovecraft to be not only "foremost of all" Blackwood's tales but the best "weird tale" of all time.
Among his thirty-odd books, Blackwood wrote a series of stories and short novels published as John Silence, Physician Extraordinary (1908), which featured a "psychic detective" who combined the skills of a Sherlock Holmes and a psychic medium. Blackwood also wrote light fantasy and juvenile books.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 39 reviews
September 9, 2018
Algernon Blackwood wrote this in 1908 and already it appears to predict the subconscious that Freud was working on in Vienna. Like so many stories of the weird during its golden age, this is centred on a character (John Silence) who acts as investigator of the paranormal.
Silence's role is mimimal here. He just listens (much as a psychotherapist might) and the tale is certainly an interesting one of reincarnation, timidity in an early middle aged man becoming aroused by a feline teenager, witchcraft and sorcery.
Where Blackwood scores is in atmosphere. His stories can be very leisurely, perhaps too leisurely for twenty first century readers, but the wait is worth it as the narrative reaches a dramatic climax which the rule about spoilers stops us from revealing.
There is one fault. He repeats a cat motif in the first half with such insistence that you start to wonder if he thinks that his readers are not very bright. But this is a minor irritant and his characterisation and development plot are to a high standard as we might expect.
As so often in period weird literature, the sublimated sexual content is what we have to watch out for and a nice ambiguity is left over whether the mild-mannered introvert who is the subject of attention is neurotic or participative in dark and ancient magick or both.
john Silence is an interesting introduction in this context. He remains a cypher in this story but his function neatly straddles the trope of the psychic investigator and the psychologist or psychotherapist so that the ambiguity is built nicely into the narrative framework.
Interestingly Freud's work only started to be published in English in and after 1909 (and then only for the medical profession) so we can discount any influence but we can remind ourselves that there is often something close to a 'zeitgeist' in such matters.
May 31, 2022
هي القضية الثانية من قضايا د. جون سايلنس الماورائية، جوها غريب وطريف، مختلفة قليلا عما اعتدته من ألجرنون بلاكوود وعما ظهر عليه في أول السلسلة فقد كان د. جون سايلنس هنا مستمعا لا فاعلا ولا مبادرا بتقديم الحلول، ربما فقط بعض تفسيرات تتضمن كلاما عن الوعي واللاوعي الشخصي والجمعي والوعي المتوارث ربما حتى قبل أن تصاغ النظريات في هذا الخصوص وهذه المصطلحات بسنوات وسنوات
ويبدو أن الرواية كانت ملهمة لآخرين ليبنوا على فكرتها حبكات لروايات رعب أخرى
وقيل أن كتابات بلاكوود كانت ملهمة لـ لافكرافت
كتب ألجرنون بلاكوود ٦ قضايا لبطله د. جون سايلنس تُرجمت منها ٣ فقط لذا فقد تبقى لي قضية واحدة مترجمة وربما أقرأ ما تبقى بالإنجليزية 😅
ويبدو أن الرواية كانت ملهمة لآخرين ليبنوا على فكرتها حبكات لروايات رعب أخرى
وقيل أن كتابات بلاكوود كانت ملهمة لـ لافكرافت
كتب ألجرنون بلاكوود ٦ قضايا لبطله د. جون سايلنس تُرجمت منها ٣ فقط لذا فقد تبقى لي قضية واحدة مترجمة وربما أقرأ ما تبقى بالإنجليزية 😅
October 10, 2024
And the devil woke in his heart with a thousand vile suggestions and made him afraid.
My seasonal sojourn continues. I enjoyed the lyrical bend of this tale where a holiday goes awry, and an everyman winds up amidst a coven. I don't believe that's a spoiler given the title. I found the peculiar motif, the spirit animal so to speak, to be intriguing. The moral is to be ready for the warning, so Duolingo everyone!
My seasonal sojourn continues. I enjoyed the lyrical bend of this tale where a holiday goes awry, and an everyman winds up amidst a coven. I don't believe that's a spoiler given the title. I found the peculiar motif, the spirit animal so to speak, to be intriguing. The moral is to be ready for the warning, so Duolingo everyone!
September 26, 2017
Algernon Blackwood è stato poco tradotto in Italia. Di lui avevo letto qualche racconto sparso in varie antologie di genere.
Non avevo idea della vita avventurosa che aveva vissuto tra Inghilterra e Stati Uniti.
Probabilmente anch'essa meriterebbe un romanzo a parte.
Questo romanzo breve (o racconto lungo) ci presenta John Silence, il detective dell'occulto.
In quest'occasione non investiga direttamente, ma attraverso il racconto di un'avventura vissuta anni prima da Arthur Vezin.
E qui entra il gioco l'atmosfera crepuscolare che Blackwood riesce a costruire con il suo linguaggio un po' obsoleto ed arcaicheggiante, attirandoci in un sortilegio autunnale.
Le atmosfere ammalianti secondo me sono state d'ispirazione (non dichiarata!) per il film cult di Turner, Cat people.
Il freddo Silence riesce a risolvere il mistero, fornendo una spiegazione non interamente razionale, riuscendo a non sciupare l'atmosfera onirica del racconto.
Non avevo idea della vita avventurosa che aveva vissuto tra Inghilterra e Stati Uniti.
Probabilmente anch'essa meriterebbe un romanzo a parte.
Questo romanzo breve (o racconto lungo) ci presenta John Silence, il detective dell'occulto.
In quest'occasione non investiga direttamente, ma attraverso il racconto di un'avventura vissuta anni prima da Arthur Vezin.
E qui entra il gioco l'atmosfera crepuscolare che Blackwood riesce a costruire con il suo linguaggio un po' obsoleto ed arcaicheggiante, attirandoci in un sortilegio autunnale.
Le atmosfere ammalianti secondo me sono state d'ispirazione (non dichiarata!) per il film cult di Turner, Cat people.
Il freddo Silence riesce a risolvere il mistero, fornendo una spiegazione non interamente razionale, riuscendo a non sciupare l'atmosfera onirica del racconto.
April 4, 2019
This is Algernon Blackwood’s version of an Innsmouth type tale. Instead of fish people in New England and the sea, we’ve got rural France, the woods (obvious for Blackwood), cat people, witches, reincarnation (again, obviously), dream states, Satanism, queens, and princesses all in play. It’s a classic. While not as well written as Lovecraft’s Innsmouth, it has a great deal more going on. It’s more richly layered and textured. It’s a story that ought to be more revered by aficionados of Weird Fiction than it currently is.
May 7, 2021
De lo mejor que he leído en mi vida.
August 14, 2019
"Up and down that narrow hall they danced, the women on each side of him, to the wildest measure he had ever imagined, yet which he dimly, dreadfully remembered, till the lamp on the wall flickered and went out, and they were left in total darkness. And the devil woke in his heart with a thousand vile suggestions and made him afraid."
Pagan horror that can be read also as an existential one. Dr. John Silence does not participate much (he is for the better part of story indeed silent) but he provides an ending and it's a nice one. Very different from Hodgson's Carnacki or Machen's Mr. Dyson.
Pagan horror that can be read also as an existential one. Dr. John Silence does not participate much (he is for the better part of story indeed silent) but he provides an ending and it's a nice one. Very different from Hodgson's Carnacki or Machen's Mr. Dyson.
March 14, 2019
Not one of his strongest stories, but this was the inspiration behind Lewton's CAT PEOPLE, one of the finest classic Hollywood horror films ever made.
October 29, 2025
ثالث لقاء لي مع ألجيرنون بلاكوود بعد الوينديجو و اجتياح عقلي
وثاني لقاء مع جون سايلنس.
وبدأت أعرف أن أسلوب بلاكوود مميز لدرجة الغرابة، يعتمد على رسم تفاصيل القصة لدرجة ممكن توصل لملل البعض ودا حسيته في الجزء الأول، الغريب هنا أنني تقريبا اتعودت على أسلوبه في وضع القارئ في حالة تأهب، بيسيبه لخياله وياخده لعالم من الرعب القوطي، غالبا الفكرة نفسها مش مرعبة جدا ولكن الأجواء نفسها مرعبة بيلعب على العامل النفسي للبطل ويبدأ يفرض احساس الحيرة والشك والتخبط عليه وعلى القارئ.
في أسحار قديمة كان سايلنس مستمع فقط لحدث في حياة شخص آخر كل ما قدمه بعض التفسيرات والتعليقات على صحة الرواية.
في النهاية هل حسيت بملل؟
أحيانا وكنت بنام كمان، وعلى الرغم من قصر القصة إلا إنها أخدت وقت أطول من الطبيعي.
هل هحاول تاني في أعمال بلاكوود؟
غالبا آه إن شاء الله لأن كل مرة بستسيغ أسلوبه أكتر وقد يكون بداية لأعمال ناس تانية بنفس الأسلوب والسرد، أنا مبرفضش كاتب من أول عمل في معظم الأحيان بحاول معاه مرة واتنين وتلاتة لغاية ما أقرر أنه خلاص أولى أشوف غيره، وليفل استمتاعي بدأ يزيد مع بلاكوود.
استمتعوا...
دمتم قراء…❤❤❤
November 1, 2022
Algernon Blackwood's "Ancient Sorceries" is a short story about a man with a terrifying experience that has him spellbound to a strange town that seemed to have cat people as residents.
Story in short- The loud noises of the train's commuters has a gentleman decide to stop and stay in a nearby town.
➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 153
There are, it would appear, certain wholly unremarkable persons, with none of the characteristics that invite adventure, who yet once or twice in the course of their smooth lives undergo an experience so strange that the world catches its breath — and looks the other way! And it was cases of this kind, perhaps, more than any other, that fell
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 155
into the wide-spread net of John Silence, the psychic doctor, and, appealing to his deep humanity, to his patience, and to his great qualities of spiritual sympathy, led often to the revelation of problems of the strangest complexity, and of the profoundest possible human interest. Matters that seemed almost too curious and fantastic for belief he loved to trace to their hidden sources. To unravel a tangle in the very soul of things — and to release a suffering human soul in the
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 159
process — was with him a veritable passion. And the knots he untied were, indeed, after passing strange.
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 165
“Such a thing happened to that man!” it cries — “a commonplace person like that! It is too absurd! There must be something wrong!” Yet there could be no question that something did actually happen to little Arthur Vezin, something of the curious nature he described to
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 167
Dr. Silence.
❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌spoiler alert
Arthur Vezan tells his story of horror to Dr. Silence. On returning from his holiday in France, he decides to stop at a small town in France, but before disembarking he is warned about the town and cats. He was not able to hear the whole message which seemed ominous, yet he continued on. He starts to find the townspeople strange and watching him, the inn keeper's young daughter is drawn together 45 years old Vezan. He is caught up in the passion and she seems familiar and her ways don't seem so foreign. She tells him that she summoned him bringing him back, especially since he loves her. The night of the dance, it becomes clear that Satan has a part in this and Arthur was able to break through because of a fall. He wakes up returning home not remembering how. It seems still kind of a dream or was it it?
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 184
He was on the way home when it happened, crossing northern France from some mountain trip or other where he buried himself solitary-wise every summer. He had nothing but an unregistered bag in the rack, and the train was
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 185
jammed to suffocation, most of the passengers being unredeemed holiday English. He disliked them, not because they were his fellow-countrymen, but because they were noisy and obtrusive, obliterating with their big limbs and tweed clothing all the quieter tints of the day that brought him satisfaction and enabled him to melt into insignificance and forget that he was anybody.
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 190
So that he felt uncomfortable in the train, and wished the journey were over and he was back again living with his unmarried sister in Surbiton. And when the train stopped for ten panting minutes at the little station in northern France, and he got out to stretch his legs on the
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 192
platform, and saw to his dismay a further batch of the British Isles debouching from another train, it suddenly seemed impossible to him to continue the journey. Even his flabby soul revolted, and the idea of staying a night in the little town and going on next day by a slower, emptier train, flashed into his mind.
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 197
Finding the corridor and steps impassable, he tapped at the window (for he had a corner seat) and begged the Frenchman who sat opposite to hand his luggage out to him, explaining in his wretched French that he intended to break the journey there. And this elderly Frenchman, he declared, gave him a look, half of warning, half of reproach, that to his dying day he could never forget; handed the bag through the window of the moving
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 200
train; and at the same time poured into his ears a long sentence, spoken rapidly and low, of which he was able to comprehend only the last few words: “à cause du sommeil et à cause des chats.”
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 217
“And the rest of the sentence — all the first part I couldn’t understand, I mean — was a warning not to do something — not to stop in the town, or at some particular place in the town, perhaps. That was the impression it made on me.” Then, of course, the train rushed off, and left Vezin standing on the platform alone and rather forlorn.
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 222
From the station itself it looked uninteresting and modern, but the fact was that the mediaeval position lay out of sight just beyond the crest. And once he reached the top and entered the old streets, he stepped clean out of modern life into a bygone century. The noise and bustle of the crowded train seemed days away.
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 224
The spirit of this silent hill-town, remote from tourists and motor-cars, dreaming its own quiet life under the autumn sun, rose up and cast its spell upon him. Long before he recognized this spell he acted under it. He walked softly, almost on tiptoe, down the winding narrow streets where the gables all but met over his head, and he entered the doorway of the solitary inn with a deprecating and modest demeanor that was in itself an apology for intruding upon the place and disturbing its dream.
Story in short- The loud noises of the train's commuters has a gentleman decide to stop and stay in a nearby town.
➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 153
There are, it would appear, certain wholly unremarkable persons, with none of the characteristics that invite adventure, who yet once or twice in the course of their smooth lives undergo an experience so strange that the world catches its breath — and looks the other way! And it was cases of this kind, perhaps, more than any other, that fell
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 155
into the wide-spread net of John Silence, the psychic doctor, and, appealing to his deep humanity, to his patience, and to his great qualities of spiritual sympathy, led often to the revelation of problems of the strangest complexity, and of the profoundest possible human interest. Matters that seemed almost too curious and fantastic for belief he loved to trace to their hidden sources. To unravel a tangle in the very soul of things — and to release a suffering human soul in the
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 159
process — was with him a veritable passion. And the knots he untied were, indeed, after passing strange.
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 165
“Such a thing happened to that man!” it cries — “a commonplace person like that! It is too absurd! There must be something wrong!” Yet there could be no question that something did actually happen to little Arthur Vezin, something of the curious nature he described to
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 167
Dr. Silence.
❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌spoiler alert
Arthur Vezan tells his story of horror to Dr. Silence. On returning from his holiday in France, he decides to stop at a small town in France, but before disembarking he is warned about the town and cats. He was not able to hear the whole message which seemed ominous, yet he continued on. He starts to find the townspeople strange and watching him, the inn keeper's young daughter is drawn together 45 years old Vezan. He is caught up in the passion and she seems familiar and her ways don't seem so foreign. She tells him that she summoned him bringing him back, especially since he loves her. The night of the dance, it becomes clear that Satan has a part in this and Arthur was able to break through because of a fall. He wakes up returning home not remembering how. It seems still kind of a dream or was it it?
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 184
He was on the way home when it happened, crossing northern France from some mountain trip or other where he buried himself solitary-wise every summer. He had nothing but an unregistered bag in the rack, and the train was
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 185
jammed to suffocation, most of the passengers being unredeemed holiday English. He disliked them, not because they were his fellow-countrymen, but because they were noisy and obtrusive, obliterating with their big limbs and tweed clothing all the quieter tints of the day that brought him satisfaction and enabled him to melt into insignificance and forget that he was anybody.
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 190
So that he felt uncomfortable in the train, and wished the journey were over and he was back again living with his unmarried sister in Surbiton. And when the train stopped for ten panting minutes at the little station in northern France, and he got out to stretch his legs on the
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 192
platform, and saw to his dismay a further batch of the British Isles debouching from another train, it suddenly seemed impossible to him to continue the journey. Even his flabby soul revolted, and the idea of staying a night in the little town and going on next day by a slower, emptier train, flashed into his mind.
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 197
Finding the corridor and steps impassable, he tapped at the window (for he had a corner seat) and begged the Frenchman who sat opposite to hand his luggage out to him, explaining in his wretched French that he intended to break the journey there. And this elderly Frenchman, he declared, gave him a look, half of warning, half of reproach, that to his dying day he could never forget; handed the bag through the window of the moving
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 200
train; and at the same time poured into his ears a long sentence, spoken rapidly and low, of which he was able to comprehend only the last few words: “à cause du sommeil et à cause des chats.”
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 217
“And the rest of the sentence — all the first part I couldn’t understand, I mean — was a warning not to do something — not to stop in the town, or at some particular place in the town, perhaps. That was the impression it made on me.” Then, of course, the train rushed off, and left Vezin standing on the platform alone and rather forlorn.
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 222
From the station itself it looked uninteresting and modern, but the fact was that the mediaeval position lay out of sight just beyond the crest. And once he reached the top and entered the old streets, he stepped clean out of modern life into a bygone century. The noise and bustle of the crowded train seemed days away.
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 224
The spirit of this silent hill-town, remote from tourists and motor-cars, dreaming its own quiet life under the autumn sun, rose up and cast its spell upon him. Long before he recognized this spell he acted under it. He walked softly, almost on tiptoe, down the winding narrow streets where the gables all but met over his head, and he entered the doorway of the solitary inn with a deprecating and modest demeanor that was in itself an apology for intruding upon the place and disturbing its dream.
August 21, 2019
This early example of 'Psychic Detection' by John Silence was breathtaking in its descriptions, narrative, and the haunting themes of lost love. Really-really liked it, despite the stuffy Doctor and his stuffier morality trying to rob the story of its loving beauty.
Recommended.
Recommended.
April 23, 2013
I really enjoy Algernon Blackwood's stories. Ancient Sorceries is no different. Sometimes I wonder if the sort of atmospheric horror written during this time period is less appreciated by a certain breed of modern horror fan because it is so elusive. You won't find blood and guts, but there is a certain creepiness and dread throughout the story. Much like when I read "The Damned," I came out of the story thinking it was excellent. I've seen reviews that say they can't see what people liked about the book. I feel the exact same way about their apparent boredom. How could you not like this book? A strange Gothic town, people who seem involved in a secret conspiracy, and a protagonist slowly changing in ways he can't understand. This is good stuff.
Blackwood was an extremely popular writer in his own time. Lovecraft was a big fan of his. Blackwood is a spectacularly good writer, and his prose can be a lot of fun. If you enjoy Victorian era Gothic horror,check out his stuff. All of his books are short, quick reads, and I have never regretted reading any of them.
Blackwood was an extremely popular writer in his own time. Lovecraft was a big fan of his. Blackwood is a spectacularly good writer, and his prose can be a lot of fun. If you enjoy Victorian era Gothic horror,check out his stuff. All of his books are short, quick reads, and I have never regretted reading any of them.
June 10, 2014
This short story takes up more conventional themes, such as witches, Satanic rituals, and seduction, rather than the impressive originality of such stories as "The Willows" and "The Wendigo." Nevertheless, it is still a quality read. Blackwood knows how to tell a tale, and this story proves it. He can hold our interest until the eventual climax even when not much is actually happening in the story except what is in the narrator's head. I think it is longer than it needs to be, and like I already mentioned it is more predictable than his other stories. Satanic orgies may have, however, been more original back when he wrote this, but it has become a cliche in horror today, as is shown by even the recent exorcism film "The Conjuring"(2013).
All in all, still a good story worthy of any Blackwood fan's recognition.
All in all, still a good story worthy of any Blackwood fan's recognition.
May 27, 2023
A story about a man named Vesin who tells John Silence, Physician Extraordinary, a physical detective about a terrifying experience he had in a small cathedral town in France where the native inhabitants seem to have a secret inner life. Their secret lies in that all the townspeople belong to an ancient witch cult whereby rubbing themselves with a magical salve are able to turn themselves into cats and fly about in order to attend their witches sabbath attended by Satan. Vesin is almost turned into one of these cat people, but narrowly escapes leaving John Silence to interpret Vesin's harrowing experience.
December 11, 2020
Belo conto de horror e fantasia. Quem gosta de Lovecraft, ocultismo e gatos provavelmente vai gostar de "Antigas Bruxarias". A história é bem imersiva e lembra muito alguns contos do autor norte-americano como "Uma sombra sobre Innsmouth", mas aborda alguns temas em alta na Londres da época, como reencarnação, ocultismo e psicanálise.
August 11, 2023
Even though ‘deprecating’ is used inappropriately many times, I’m still giving this one five stars, and that says a lot. Obviously, the inspiration for the 1942 film “Cat People”. Note: the wiki entry for the film uses the ‘deprecate’ obscenity as well.
July 17, 2022
Pretty good mood for Blackwood, with that sense of an amorphous change in the self that is terrifyingly hard to track, but a little too predictable and tame.
October 11, 2022
Like The Shadow over Innsmouth, but cats! 🙀
December 28, 2022
Well written but boring..
September 3, 2025
#Binge Reviewing my previous Reads #Horror Short Stories #Anthologies #American Horror Masters
When I read Algernon Blackwood’s Ancient Sorceries, I remember feeling like I had stumbled into a story that was less about sharp shocks and more about the slow, narcotic pull of atmosphere. Blackwood, unlike Maupassant with his surgical brevity or Quiroga with his clinical dread, luxuriates in mood.
He’s less interested in jump-scares and more fascinated by the unsettling sense that the ordinary world is never quite as solid as we think. Ancient Sorceries is quintessential Blackwood: a tale where place itself becomes the seducer, where the line between traveller and prey is blurred by whispers and shadows.
The story follows Arthur Vezin, a quiet, unremarkable man who decides on impulse to stop in a provincial French town during his travels. At first, the place feels quaint, even welcoming. But slowly, with that trademark Blackwoodian patience, it reveals a different face—its people too watchful, their smiles too knowing, the streets themselves too full of unspoken promise. What Vezin stumbles into is not just a town, but a coven: a place saturated with ancient, lingering witchcraft, where history refuses to die and strangers are never entirely free to leave.
Compared to Crawford’s The Upper Berth, which delivers its horror with the jolting immediacy of a ghost at your bedside, Blackwood’s tale is about drift. It’s like being lulled into a dream, only to realise too late that the dream has teeth. The horror here is not explosive but entrancing—what critics often call “weird fiction” rather than “gothic shock”. Where du Maurier’s The Doll unnerves through obsession, Blackwood unnerves through place: the uncanny sense that geography itself can be complicit in your undoing.
Reading it in context with other horror masters, I kept thinking of how Blackwood anticipates later writers like H.P. Lovecraft. Both are fascinated by hidden worlds beneath the surface of our own, but their approaches differ. Lovecraft’s alien cosmicism insists on vast, incomprehensible terror; Blackwood, by contrast, suggests the cosmos is already here, humming beneath small towns, forests, and rivers. In Ancient Sorceries, he doesn’t need tentacled gods; a town of witches is enough to show that human civilisation itself is porous, temporary, and fragile.
What makes the story particularly effective is its seductiveness. Vezin doesn’t recoil immediately; he is drawn in, flattered by the attention of the townsfolk, intoxicated by the idea that this sleepy provincial corner might recognise him as special. This complicity of the protagonist—the way he both resists and desires his own entrapment—sets Blackwood apart from writers like Bowen or Quiroga, whose characters are largely victims. In Blackwood, there is always the suspicion that we want the uncanny to claim us, that we secretly long for release into a deeper, stranger truth.
Stylistically, Blackwood is lush, sometimes to the point of being indulgent. His sentences sprawl like the crooked streets of the town he describes, winding back on themselves, refusing to hurry. For some readers, this can feel like a detour; for me, it’s precisely the point. The meandering is the method—the story wants you to lose your bearings, to feel time slacken, to let the dream seep in. Where Maupassant offers surgical precision, Blackwood offers intoxication. Both are effective, but in different registers of horror.
By the time the story reaches its conclusion, the sense of inevitability is clear: Vezin, ordinary as he is, was always marked for this encounter. Blackwood doesn’t end with a twist so much as with the soft closure of a trap—one you realise too late has been tightening around you from the very first page. The horror lies not in sudden violence, but in the recognition that the everyday world is permeable and that once you cross certain thresholds—an unfamiliar inn, a strange town, a welcoming smile—you may never truly return unchanged.
Looking back on Ancient Sorceries, I see it as Blackwood’s perfect encapsulation of what “weird horror” can be: less about monsters and more about mood, less about fear of death than about the seductive lure of otherness. It’s not a story that leaves you gasping; it leaves you wandering, uncertain, half-enchanted, half-afraid, as if the world around you might shift at any moment into something older, darker, and far less human.
When I read Algernon Blackwood’s Ancient Sorceries, I remember feeling like I had stumbled into a story that was less about sharp shocks and more about the slow, narcotic pull of atmosphere. Blackwood, unlike Maupassant with his surgical brevity or Quiroga with his clinical dread, luxuriates in mood.
He’s less interested in jump-scares and more fascinated by the unsettling sense that the ordinary world is never quite as solid as we think. Ancient Sorceries is quintessential Blackwood: a tale where place itself becomes the seducer, where the line between traveller and prey is blurred by whispers and shadows.
The story follows Arthur Vezin, a quiet, unremarkable man who decides on impulse to stop in a provincial French town during his travels. At first, the place feels quaint, even welcoming. But slowly, with that trademark Blackwoodian patience, it reveals a different face—its people too watchful, their smiles too knowing, the streets themselves too full of unspoken promise. What Vezin stumbles into is not just a town, but a coven: a place saturated with ancient, lingering witchcraft, where history refuses to die and strangers are never entirely free to leave.
Compared to Crawford’s The Upper Berth, which delivers its horror with the jolting immediacy of a ghost at your bedside, Blackwood’s tale is about drift. It’s like being lulled into a dream, only to realise too late that the dream has teeth. The horror here is not explosive but entrancing—what critics often call “weird fiction” rather than “gothic shock”. Where du Maurier’s The Doll unnerves through obsession, Blackwood unnerves through place: the uncanny sense that geography itself can be complicit in your undoing.
Reading it in context with other horror masters, I kept thinking of how Blackwood anticipates later writers like H.P. Lovecraft. Both are fascinated by hidden worlds beneath the surface of our own, but their approaches differ. Lovecraft’s alien cosmicism insists on vast, incomprehensible terror; Blackwood, by contrast, suggests the cosmos is already here, humming beneath small towns, forests, and rivers. In Ancient Sorceries, he doesn’t need tentacled gods; a town of witches is enough to show that human civilisation itself is porous, temporary, and fragile.
What makes the story particularly effective is its seductiveness. Vezin doesn’t recoil immediately; he is drawn in, flattered by the attention of the townsfolk, intoxicated by the idea that this sleepy provincial corner might recognise him as special. This complicity of the protagonist—the way he both resists and desires his own entrapment—sets Blackwood apart from writers like Bowen or Quiroga, whose characters are largely victims. In Blackwood, there is always the suspicion that we want the uncanny to claim us, that we secretly long for release into a deeper, stranger truth.
Stylistically, Blackwood is lush, sometimes to the point of being indulgent. His sentences sprawl like the crooked streets of the town he describes, winding back on themselves, refusing to hurry. For some readers, this can feel like a detour; for me, it’s precisely the point. The meandering is the method—the story wants you to lose your bearings, to feel time slacken, to let the dream seep in. Where Maupassant offers surgical precision, Blackwood offers intoxication. Both are effective, but in different registers of horror.
By the time the story reaches its conclusion, the sense of inevitability is clear: Vezin, ordinary as he is, was always marked for this encounter. Blackwood doesn’t end with a twist so much as with the soft closure of a trap—one you realise too late has been tightening around you from the very first page. The horror lies not in sudden violence, but in the recognition that the everyday world is permeable and that once you cross certain thresholds—an unfamiliar inn, a strange town, a welcoming smile—you may never truly return unchanged.
Looking back on Ancient Sorceries, I see it as Blackwood’s perfect encapsulation of what “weird horror” can be: less about monsters and more about mood, less about fear of death than about the seductive lure of otherness. It’s not a story that leaves you gasping; it leaves you wandering, uncertain, half-enchanted, half-afraid, as if the world around you might shift at any moment into something older, darker, and far less human.
September 17, 2024
I became a fan of Algernon Blackwood some 40 years ago because of his fluid writing and ability to weave an atmosphere of suspense and terror. This novella is a Lovecraftian tale set in rural France where a French traveler stops in a remote French hill town and soon finds himself unable to leave. His soul being drawn to the place sets the tone of this creepy tale. Blackwood's description employs a feral feline touch through words and echoes of sounds. There is definitively something evil here from the townspeople to their feline sense and peculiar habits.
The tale is recounted by Blackwood's literary character, Dr. John Silence, a British paranormal doctor. He relays the tale of Arthur Vezin, a timid mature French man. This tale is a spiraling journey into terror in a secluded and remote town with a dark aura. The seemingly quaint town is not what it appears to be. What is apparent is that the people are not like Vezin. Their catlike behavior is the beginning of madness and hypnotic hold the town develops over Vezin. He notices a n ability to speak with words among the people. It is both nightmarish and very troubling. Blackwood's descriptions make one feel that Veizn is gong mad and enslaved. Vezin's obsession with a town girl of 17, Ilsa seems to be why he decides to stay after five days but there is more as he is seduced by the spirit of the town. He feels connected to the town and exhilarated but something speaks to his inner being. Although he is told that he belongs here, Vezin doubts it and his insanity. He is pacified during a dance with Ilsa but breaks away when he feels he is losing touch with reality. He is obsessed with the young maiden who works as a maid in the hotel where he is staying but has an inner fear. Its source is the matron innkeeper (Ilsa's mother) who is the queenlike ruler of the town whom Vezin fears. As his fears are realized, we sense his fate is clear. One night he learns of the Call to the Dance, a community social gathering (a witches' sabbath) where the true identity of the townspeople is revealed. Vezin's realization that the town is a coven of witches. Theses people are shape-shifters. Ilsa begs him to rejoin them and transform back to what he was and is, a member of this community of sorcerers and witches. He must choose to stay to worship the dark one (Satan) or move against them and flee.
The story is wrapped up by the narrator, Dr. John Silence who is familiar with the tale which was relayed to him by Vezin. The reader is left with a relieved Vezin who has broken the hold on his person. Silence does question Vezin about his knowledge of witchcraft, reincarnation, and wounds on his neck that ties up the tale. The character of Dr. John Silence (and his assistant - a secretary) is akin to Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson in that he is a brilliant man and she, a skilled investigator. Silence uncovers that Vezin has a generational and ancestral connection to the French town. Further, Silence delves into the practice of witchcraft, shape-shifting, and Vezin's emotional state. Honestly, this is a superior tale of horror that is extremely written tale by a grandmaster of storytelling. I recommend this gothic romance novella to all who like the genre of psycho-fantasy Lovecraftian-type tales. Read it and get lost in it's hypnotic hold.
The tale is recounted by Blackwood's literary character, Dr. John Silence, a British paranormal doctor. He relays the tale of Arthur Vezin, a timid mature French man. This tale is a spiraling journey into terror in a secluded and remote town with a dark aura. The seemingly quaint town is not what it appears to be. What is apparent is that the people are not like Vezin. Their catlike behavior is the beginning of madness and hypnotic hold the town develops over Vezin. He notices a n ability to speak with words among the people. It is both nightmarish and very troubling. Blackwood's descriptions make one feel that Veizn is gong mad and enslaved. Vezin's obsession with a town girl of 17, Ilsa seems to be why he decides to stay after five days but there is more as he is seduced by the spirit of the town. He feels connected to the town and exhilarated but something speaks to his inner being. Although he is told that he belongs here, Vezin doubts it and his insanity. He is pacified during a dance with Ilsa but breaks away when he feels he is losing touch with reality. He is obsessed with the young maiden who works as a maid in the hotel where he is staying but has an inner fear. Its source is the matron innkeeper (Ilsa's mother) who is the queenlike ruler of the town whom Vezin fears. As his fears are realized, we sense his fate is clear. One night he learns of the Call to the Dance, a community social gathering (a witches' sabbath) where the true identity of the townspeople is revealed. Vezin's realization that the town is a coven of witches. Theses people are shape-shifters. Ilsa begs him to rejoin them and transform back to what he was and is, a member of this community of sorcerers and witches. He must choose to stay to worship the dark one (Satan) or move against them and flee.
The story is wrapped up by the narrator, Dr. John Silence who is familiar with the tale which was relayed to him by Vezin. The reader is left with a relieved Vezin who has broken the hold on his person. Silence does question Vezin about his knowledge of witchcraft, reincarnation, and wounds on his neck that ties up the tale. The character of Dr. John Silence (and his assistant - a secretary) is akin to Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson in that he is a brilliant man and she, a skilled investigator. Silence uncovers that Vezin has a generational and ancestral connection to the French town. Further, Silence delves into the practice of witchcraft, shape-shifting, and Vezin's emotional state. Honestly, this is a superior tale of horror that is extremely written tale by a grandmaster of storytelling. I recommend this gothic romance novella to all who like the genre of psycho-fantasy Lovecraftian-type tales. Read it and get lost in it's hypnotic hold.
August 9, 2025
I don't remember where I heard about Blackwood or this story, I think I read about it in The Occult Life of John Pendragon so I had to check it out.
Written in 1908, this story of the occult would have been a taboo read back then. Blackwood wrote a series of stories of Dr Silence. This being one of them.
In this book, told in the present and the past, recounts the story of Vezin who disembarks his train to London in a small French town. Deciding to stay, he finds himself surrounded by unusual towns people who move with feline grace and a young girl who makes him feel like he's never felt before. Are they shape shifters? Are they witches worshipping Satan? Is Vezin a reincarnated member of their town?
I think modern horror is great, but the classics can send chills down your spine with simple innuendo.
Written in 1908, this story of the occult would have been a taboo read back then. Blackwood wrote a series of stories of Dr Silence. This being one of them.
In this book, told in the present and the past, recounts the story of Vezin who disembarks his train to London in a small French town. Deciding to stay, he finds himself surrounded by unusual towns people who move with feline grace and a young girl who makes him feel like he's never felt before. Are they shape shifters? Are they witches worshipping Satan? Is Vezin a reincarnated member of their town?
I think modern horror is great, but the classics can send chills down your spine with simple innuendo.
July 26, 2025
عدد الصفحات : ١٠٣ صفحة
نوع الكتاب : غموض - خيال
لهجة سرد الكتاب : الفصحى
نبذة عن الكتاب : تدور أحداث الرواية عن مغامرة آرثر فيزين التي يحكيها للمحقق جون سايلنس ويطلب مساعدته في حل غموضها حيث انه قضى في بلدة التل اسبوع من الرعبة ولكن الغريب هو عند خروجه من البلدة اكتشف انه مر يومين فقط وليست اسبوع كما ظن
الرواية فكرتها حلوة لكن ماقدرت اندمج معاها وكنت حاسة بملل مدري ليش بس هيا بشكل عام حلوة
نوع الكتاب : غموض - خيال
لهجة سرد الكتاب : الفصحى
نبذة عن الكتاب : تدور أحداث الرواية عن مغامرة آرثر فيزين التي يحكيها للمحقق جون سايلنس ويطلب مساعدته في حل غموضها حيث انه قضى في بلدة التل اسبوع من الرعبة ولكن الغريب هو عند خروجه من البلدة اكتشف انه مر يومين فقط وليست اسبوع كما ظن
الرواية فكرتها حلوة لكن ماقدرت اندمج معاها وكنت حاسة بملل مدري ليش بس هيا بشكل عام حلوة
October 23, 2024
This is a well written story but it's not scary at all. Maybe back then when it was written it was considered horror, but reading it in 2024 simply does not have such an effect. If anything I wanted to visit the town in this story and experience the magic within it.
September 28, 2018
So so slow! I was zoning in and out as I listened to the audio recording on BBC Radio 4. But credits are due to the narrator, who as he read ended each word with a slight purring.
October 10, 2018
Old-school horror. Slow, tense, with a growing sense of dread.
June 1, 2019
Good stuff, especially toward the end. Reading the other John Silence the Psychic Doctor ones next.
April 13, 2020
Superbly atmospheric.
November 7, 2020
That's a solid YIFF from me.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 39 reviews