What do you think?
Rate this book
Sylvan Dread: Tales of Pastoral Darkness
Those who dwell unseen within the hedge, the grotesques emergent in the weave of tangled roots, the writhing form amid the shadows of the Willow boughs—all are keepers of a rustic and terrible wisdom predating the emergence of mankind. Lurching between disembodiment and wholly manifest flesh, the baleful forces of wasteland and rural barren have long been etched upon the human soul.
From the preeminent author of At Fear’s Altar and The Benighted Path comes Sylvan Dread, Richard Gavin's long awaited fifth collection of preternatural tales. Bound within are thirteen nightmares exploring the Sinister Pastoral, the dominion prevailing at the intersection of mortal reckoning and the primoridum of daemonic Nature.
As a meditation on the forces of predation and parasitism, monstrous fecundity and decay, and those hidden folk who occupy the spaces between the branches, Sylvan Dread evokes the primeval wood — the place where all dreams and nightmares begin. In this isolate copse we witness the excavation of abominations long earthbound, the twilight of the rational, and the forgotten violence of the Dionysian Rite.
From the preeminent author of At Fear’s Altar and The Benighted Path comes Sylvan Dread, Richard Gavin's long awaited fifth collection of preternatural tales. Bound within are thirteen nightmares exploring the Sinister Pastoral, the dominion prevailing at the intersection of mortal reckoning and the primoridum of daemonic Nature.
As a meditation on the forces of predation and parasitism, monstrous fecundity and decay, and those hidden folk who occupy the spaces between the branches, Sylvan Dread evokes the primeval wood — the place where all dreams and nightmares begin. In this isolate copse we witness the excavation of abominations long earthbound, the twilight of the rational, and the forgotten violence of the Dionysian Rite.
192 pages, Paperback
First published May 23, 2016
6 people are currently reading
443 people want to read
About the author
Richard Gavin
85 books177 followersA resident of Ontario, Canada, Richard Gavin is the author of many acclaimed works of horror and the occult, including Charnel Wine, Omens, and Primeval Wood. His non-fiction appears frequently in the pages of Rue Morgue magazine and other journals. Richard’s latest collection, The Darkly Splendid Realm, will be released by Dark Regions Press in autumn 2009.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
December 29, 2021
This year I read six books by Richard Gavin -- one monograph on occultism, one anthology he co-edited, and four short story collections. I can't say I adored all of the fiction I read, but at the same time I've come to realize that Gavin is perhaps the currently working weird writer whose worldview I am most fascinated by and sympathetic towards. Gavin, like Machen or Blackwood (tired, but in this case appropriate comparisons) is an author who seems to view the supernatural as the ultimate truth of all existence, the roiling force that lurks not only in thick shadows or mist-haunted hills, but in sunny lots and quiet homes. He is interested in awareness and awakening, in the gentle steps or tremendous earthquakes that fracture the veil of life's suffocating grayness and reveal a reality that contains wonders and horrors inseparably intertwined. The wonders are the real key here, and Sylvan Dread's best stories -- works like Wormwood Votaries or the crowning Mare's Nest -- find an even balance between the two by shedding any straightforward digestible threats or cosmic horror cliché, and in effect become something both haunting and genuinely moving. Unfortunately, not every story is as elegant, and often it feels like the horrors are a bit tacked-on, especially in pieces where horrific encounters with monsters eclipse the narratives' richer, stranger images and scenarios.
That said, I eagerly await any new writing, and hope to soon read everything else he has to offer.
That said, I eagerly await any new writing, and hope to soon read everything else he has to offer.
Want to read
July 13, 2016Table of Contents:
007 - "Thistle Latch"
019 - "Primeval Wood"
051 - "A Cavern of Redbrick"
063 - "Tending the Mists"
077 - "Fume"
089 - "Goatsbride"
095 - "Weaned on Blood"
107 - "Tinder Row"
121 - "Wormwood Votaries"
133 - "The Old Pageant"
141 - "The Stiles of Palemarsh"
157 - "Mare's Nest"
187 - Acknowledgements
Of the book's twelve stories, eleven are being collected for the first time and three have never before been published.
007 - "Thistle Latch"
019 - "Primeval Wood"
051 - "A Cavern of Redbrick"
063 - "Tending the Mists"
077 - "Fume"
089 - "Goatsbride"
095 - "Weaned on Blood"
107 - "Tinder Row"
121 - "Wormwood Votaries"
133 - "The Old Pageant"
141 - "The Stiles of Palemarsh"
157 - "Mare's Nest"
187 - Acknowledgements
Of the book's twelve stories, eleven are being collected for the first time and three have never before been published.
August 24, 2016
This is an absolutely stunning collection of short stories.
Most of the stories detailed a personal horror afflicting the characters whilst also insinuating an expansive universe of unknown terrors in the shadows of our own.
I went on to this book straight after reading Richard Gavin's 'The Benighted Path' and I can see the influence of the beliefs, views and hidden knowledge on his fiction. This made these stories seem closer to reality and thus darker in their implications.
I was blown away by how good his collection 'At Fear's Altar' was and again Richard has managed to produce a collection of incredible stories that will stay with you well after the last page has been turned.
Most of the stories detailed a personal horror afflicting the characters whilst also insinuating an expansive universe of unknown terrors in the shadows of our own.
I went on to this book straight after reading Richard Gavin's 'The Benighted Path' and I can see the influence of the beliefs, views and hidden knowledge on his fiction. This made these stories seem closer to reality and thus darker in their implications.
I was blown away by how good his collection 'At Fear's Altar' was and again Richard has managed to produce a collection of incredible stories that will stay with you well after the last page has been turned.
December 10, 2018
This collection expertly weaves together both the horror and the awe of nature-particularly the nature of forests and the woods. Gavin's prose is perfect for the description of the mingled and often contradictory emotions that those of us who both love and fear the stark nature of the woods feel.
4 Stars is the overall average for the collection, which I think contains some 3 and 5 star entries. But in particular I must single out the final tale, Mare's Nest, as a true masterpiece of the short fiction genre.
4 Stars is the overall average for the collection, which I think contains some 3 and 5 star entries. But in particular I must single out the final tale, Mare's Nest, as a true masterpiece of the short fiction genre.
November 26, 2016
If Richard Gavin were a brewer then his brewery would be called RGB. Most people would assume that this stood for Really Good Brew! Some would, not unreasonably, guess Red Green Blue - the primary colors! But no, RGB stands for Richard Gavin Books! You should buy them. You should drink them. Try the Mare's Nest - you'll never go back to your lousy IPAs ever again.
RGB - The Primal Brew!
Cheers!
RGB - The Primal Brew!
Cheers!
August 30, 2016
A collection of occult stories for the hoi polloi. No sense of awe or whatsoever. The majority of the stories read more like a diluted info dump than anything else. No Machen here. Not even Ron Weighell.
July 26, 2016
Table of Contents:
007 - "Thistle Latch"
019 - "Primeval Wood"
051 - "A Cavern of Redbrick"
063 - "Tending the Mists"
077 - "Fume"
089 - "Goatsbride"
095 - "Weaned on Blood"
107 - "Tinder Row"
121 - "Wormwood Votaries"
133 - "The Old Pageant"
141 - "The Stiles of Palemarsh"
157 - "Mare's Nest"
187 - Acknowledgements
This is a collection of short to medium length fiction, most of which were published previously, others original to this volume. Though these stores have a horrific element, I think it would be more appropriate to call them weird tales. These are supernatural/occult stories in a pastoral setting.
I found that I preferred the medium length stories to the short stories. That may be a matter of taste. Or perhaps it may be the case that horror fiction lends itself best to the medium length form. In the medium length form, plot and characters can be developed to a greater extent than in the short form. Also, the medium length form does not suffer from a notorious weakness of some horror novels: padding.
I'll comment on the stories that made the best impression on me. "Weaned on Blood" is one of the finest Gothic stories I've read. An abbot, newly-arrived at a Christian rural monastery, observes and later learns why his fellow monks pour their blood into a bowl and leave it in the forest. The abbot's attempt to end this practice leads to an unusual result.
In "Wormwood Votaries" one of the characters has an out-of-body experience, an encounters strange supernatural beings. "...the other-Langdon had entered the basement and witnessed a trio of figures standing in the center of the room. Each of the three was frozen in a unique but equally aberrant pose. One was twisted as a withered root, another stretched their left arm heavenward, the last was bent in a scythe-like curve. Masks rendered them anonymous. These masks were nothing more than pouches of crushed velvet with no openings to afford the wearer vision or breath. Each pouch was a different color (earthen for the hunching one, bone-white for the one with the scythe-like body, midnight blue flecked with stellar glints for the one who reached skyward) and each was secured by a drawstring knotted around the neck..."
"Mare' Nest" in a novella and original to the volume. I was moved by it, and I thought about the story the next day. A married woman who is terminally ill has dreams of entering another realm with a mare. Her artist husband constructs an effigy of a black mare. She enters inside this mare in her dying moments: "A Mare. It is a Mare. It is The Mare. Black as the hours over which She presides, vivid and vast as the dreams that bear Her name. The woman is riding the Night-Mare. The woman is the Night-Mare's living host.." I have a hunch that this story is informed by the views in Richard Gavin's occult non fiction work _The Benighted Path_, which I haven't read.
This is, I think, Richard Gavin's fifth story collection. I've read all except his first one. I predict that a time will come when Richard Gavin will be considered a peer of other masters of the weird tale, such as Algernon Blackwood, Arthur Machen, Thomas Ligotti, and others.
007 - "Thistle Latch"
019 - "Primeval Wood"
051 - "A Cavern of Redbrick"
063 - "Tending the Mists"
077 - "Fume"
089 - "Goatsbride"
095 - "Weaned on Blood"
107 - "Tinder Row"
121 - "Wormwood Votaries"
133 - "The Old Pageant"
141 - "The Stiles of Palemarsh"
157 - "Mare's Nest"
187 - Acknowledgements
This is a collection of short to medium length fiction, most of which were published previously, others original to this volume. Though these stores have a horrific element, I think it would be more appropriate to call them weird tales. These are supernatural/occult stories in a pastoral setting.
I found that I preferred the medium length stories to the short stories. That may be a matter of taste. Or perhaps it may be the case that horror fiction lends itself best to the medium length form. In the medium length form, plot and characters can be developed to a greater extent than in the short form. Also, the medium length form does not suffer from a notorious weakness of some horror novels: padding.
I'll comment on the stories that made the best impression on me. "Weaned on Blood" is one of the finest Gothic stories I've read. An abbot, newly-arrived at a Christian rural monastery, observes and later learns why his fellow monks pour their blood into a bowl and leave it in the forest. The abbot's attempt to end this practice leads to an unusual result.
In "Wormwood Votaries" one of the characters has an out-of-body experience, an encounters strange supernatural beings. "...the other-Langdon had entered the basement and witnessed a trio of figures standing in the center of the room. Each of the three was frozen in a unique but equally aberrant pose. One was twisted as a withered root, another stretched their left arm heavenward, the last was bent in a scythe-like curve. Masks rendered them anonymous. These masks were nothing more than pouches of crushed velvet with no openings to afford the wearer vision or breath. Each pouch was a different color (earthen for the hunching one, bone-white for the one with the scythe-like body, midnight blue flecked with stellar glints for the one who reached skyward) and each was secured by a drawstring knotted around the neck..."
"Mare' Nest" in a novella and original to the volume. I was moved by it, and I thought about the story the next day. A married woman who is terminally ill has dreams of entering another realm with a mare. Her artist husband constructs an effigy of a black mare. She enters inside this mare in her dying moments: "A Mare. It is a Mare. It is The Mare. Black as the hours over which She presides, vivid and vast as the dreams that bear Her name. The woman is riding the Night-Mare. The woman is the Night-Mare's living host.." I have a hunch that this story is informed by the views in Richard Gavin's occult non fiction work _The Benighted Path_, which I haven't read.
This is, I think, Richard Gavin's fifth story collection. I've read all except his first one. I predict that a time will come when Richard Gavin will be considered a peer of other masters of the weird tale, such as Algernon Blackwood, Arthur Machen, Thomas Ligotti, and others.
May 31, 2020
After reading At Fear's Altar, I was thoroughly impressed by Gavin's work and could not wait to see what he would write next. When the news came that he was releasing a new collection of Nature-themed horror, I set my expectations very high as that was exactly what I wanted to see from him. Too high, perhaps, as nothing here topped "The Eldritch Faith" from that previous collection. This is more like a 3.5.
However you have some great pieces here where Gavin's talents are in full bloom. "Weaned on Blood" is one of these favorites that live up to the promise of the collection's vision: the forests outside of a Trappist monastery hold blasphemous secrets. "Fume" is a bit like "The Colour Out of Space" meets "The Great God Pan", and it somehow works very well. Shorter stories like "Goatsbride" and "The Old Pageant" are all the more evocative for being brief and succinct.
Many stories are not as pastoral as I would have liked, Gavin seemingly more comfortable with describing decaying houses and towns than Nature itself. I can overlook that when it comes to the emotionally powerful "Mare's Nest", by far the most decadent and disturbing story here. A terminally ill poet convinces her partner to fulfill her last wishes.
Unfortunately this collection holds a couple too many entries that feel like missed opportunities to be considered consistent. In these lesser pieces Gavin's writing often becomes about as subtle as a slab of granite, and/or baffling choices are made to undermine what could have otherwise been a great story. I'm left conflicted, as the better stories are exactly the style of folk horror fiction I seek, while the rest leave me feeling that he could have just done better.
However you have some great pieces here where Gavin's talents are in full bloom. "Weaned on Blood" is one of these favorites that live up to the promise of the collection's vision: the forests outside of a Trappist monastery hold blasphemous secrets. "Fume" is a bit like "The Colour Out of Space" meets "The Great God Pan", and it somehow works very well. Shorter stories like "Goatsbride" and "The Old Pageant" are all the more evocative for being brief and succinct.
Many stories are not as pastoral as I would have liked, Gavin seemingly more comfortable with describing decaying houses and towns than Nature itself. I can overlook that when it comes to the emotionally powerful "Mare's Nest", by far the most decadent and disturbing story here. A terminally ill poet convinces her partner to fulfill her last wishes.
Unfortunately this collection holds a couple too many entries that feel like missed opportunities to be considered consistent. In these lesser pieces Gavin's writing often becomes about as subtle as a slab of granite, and/or baffling choices are made to undermine what could have otherwise been a great story. I'm left conflicted, as the better stories are exactly the style of folk horror fiction I seek, while the rest leave me feeling that he could have just done better.
November 5, 2016
Another great collection from Richard Gavin. true to its titles, each story brings about a sense of "sylvan dread" and "pastoral darkness". One of the things that has become apparent to me about Gavin's story telling is even in the realms of Horror and Weird Fiction, he can get quite dark! Some of these stories, when I finished I stopped and needed a minute to take it in, even some rather good authors have lost the ability to do that to me. This is one collection that I enjoyed each piece in, feeling that none were inferior stories or just thrown in to fill out space. A few weeks ago an old friend and I were discussing music that has a sort of "Pan Energy" or "feeling" to it, returning that conversation with my friend I am going to point him in the direction of this book because I feel that it involves those deep woods and primordial themes we discussed, but in the form of Horror Fiction.
August 8, 2016
Table of Contents:
007 - "Thistle Latch"
019 - "Primeval Wood"
051 - "A Cavern of Redbrick"
063 - "Tending the Mists"
077 - "Fume"
089 - "Goatsbride"
095 - "Weaned on Blood"
107 - "Tinder Row"
121 - "Wormwood Votaries"
133 - "The Old Pageant"
141 - "The Stiles of Palemarsh
Richard Gavin has crafted a world of black imagination and foul marvels al his own, while inspired by writers like Lovecraft and Chambers.
"Goatsbride" is one of the most disturbing shorts I've read in some time. What he is doing is working up towards his own "weird classic" aesthetic and succeeds far better than many of those celebrated today. I knew I wanted to read these as soon as they came out, and it was worth the effort it took to obtain it.
A must for weird fiction fans.
007 - "Thistle Latch"
019 - "Primeval Wood"
051 - "A Cavern of Redbrick"
063 - "Tending the Mists"
077 - "Fume"
089 - "Goatsbride"
095 - "Weaned on Blood"
107 - "Tinder Row"
121 - "Wormwood Votaries"
133 - "The Old Pageant"
141 - "The Stiles of Palemarsh
Richard Gavin has crafted a world of black imagination and foul marvels al his own, while inspired by writers like Lovecraft and Chambers.
"Goatsbride" is one of the most disturbing shorts I've read in some time. What he is doing is working up towards his own "weird classic" aesthetic and succeeds far better than many of those celebrated today. I knew I wanted to read these as soon as they came out, and it was worth the effort it took to obtain it.
A must for weird fiction fans.
April 17, 2018
If you are a fan of Blackwood or M R James, you will love these tales.
January 25, 2021
This is a substantive and raw masterpiece, I feel, transcending the previous works in this book but enhancing them retrocausally, too, and then apotheosising the work of another sylvan dread’s John Cowper Powys (such as his ‘The Glastonbury Romance‘ and ‘The Inmates‘). And that is a huge compliment from me. The ultimate ‘found art’. A ‘ready-made’ both ready and yet to be made. Crazy with the intelligence of sublime instinct.
Intense but relaxed in its syncopation of synchronicities. The fleshing of dream.
Of willow leaves and stout wood configured. Self and other.
The detailed review of this book posted elsewhere under my name is too long or impractical to post here.
Above is one of its observations at the time of the review.
Intense but relaxed in its syncopation of synchronicities. The fleshing of dream.
Of willow leaves and stout wood configured. Self and other.
The detailed review of this book posted elsewhere under my name is too long or impractical to post here.
Above is one of its observations at the time of the review.
April 8, 2017
This anthology killed it. Richard Gavin writes with a style all his own. Tales of Pastoral Darkness...I don't even know how to clarify what that means. But I will say that it was an awesome read. Every tale in this collection is weird, dark, uniquely pristine, and written with the language and a voice that seemed to have crawled out of the woodwork of a long forgotten forest. I'm hooked. From here on out I'll be reading everything Richard Gavin whittles onto paper.
August 8, 2019
Favorites:
Primeval Wood
A Cavern of Redbrick
Weaned on Blood
The Old Pageant
Primeval Wood
A Cavern of Redbrick
Weaned on Blood
The Old Pageant
June 1, 2018
I wasn't enamoured with the first few stories in this collection but the more I read, the more they began to grow on me. The stories within place the unnatural firmly in the wild and ancients wilderness. The result is an incredibly earthy, pagan, and emotional collection of atmospheric dread and weirdness. The horror is slow-burning and quiet but no less potent for that. A wonderful collection for fans of horror and the weird.
March 5, 2017
I'm not a fan of the short stories, usually characters and story line seems not developed enough and leaves me unsatisfied.
Obvously it's not the book, it's me.
Anyway, "Mare's Nest" was the best in the book.
Obvously it's not the book, it's me.
Anyway, "Mare's Nest" was the best in the book.
October 12, 2020
These tales, as alluring as they are repulsive, seem able to ferry consciousness from the nuts and bolts world of day to day existence into an utterly animal realm immanent and secret to nature and yet familiar all the same. Gavin is a gifted story teller giving words flesh and flesh words.
January 20, 2018
excellent cosmic horror. very succintly titled, it's exactly what you get.
June 15, 2018
"It's fuckin' pagan idolatry! Look around you!"
February 22, 2019
Dissapointing. Not as good as At Fear’s Altar, the first collection I read from Richard Gavin, which I loved.
March 22, 2021
Another great collection of strange and obscure horrors akin to Thomas Ligotti.
November 5, 2021
Vivid writing, really captures that eerie feeling well. Will be good to revisit/bump after sinking in a bit more!
November 20, 2025
Beautifully written strange tales. All great, but “Wormwood Votaries” was particularly good.
Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews