Forests of the Night

by Tanith Lee

"The forests of the mind are benighted, dark and dazzling places. Things wander there that shine, and burn, and bite."

This superb collection of twenty short stories is drawn from the wide range of a writer hailed as "the Scheherazade of our time." Tanith Lee's powerful and disturbing fictions explore the forests of the imagination and the creatures that dwell there: the wolves and vampires: tigers and unicorns: dwarves, demons and enchanters.

Set in locations as exotic and diverse as India, the Greek islands, Paris, London, the future and the Flat Earth, these stories present us with a rich feast which, even as it delights and entertains us will cunningly reveal the old, dark bones of humankind.

The stories for the collection have been selected by the author, and illustrate the remarkable scope, versatility and artistry of her work. Forests of the Night includes award-winning tales like "The Gorgon" and "Elle est trois la Mort," eight new, unpublished stories, and the highly-acclaimed "Crying in the Rain," inspired by the Tchernobyl disaster.

Each story is prefaced with a short introduction by the author which offers fascinating and tantalising glimpses into a writer's world.

This contains: Bloodmantle; The Gorgon; The Tree, a Winter's Tale; I Was Guillotined Here; Crying in the Rain; Elle Est Trois (La Mort); Nicholas; The Hunting of Death -- the Unicorn; A Madonna of the Machine; White as Sin, Now; Down Below; Rachel; Black as a Rose; The Tenebris Malgraph; sweet Grapes; La Reine Blanche; By Crystal Light Beneath One Star; Bite Me Not or Fleur De Fur; The Rakshasa; Red as Blood

Genres: Fantasy, Short Stories, Fiction, Horror, Speculative Fiction, Anthologies

299 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1989

About the author

Tanith Lee was a British writer of science fiction, horror, and fantasy. She was the author of 77 novels, 14 collections, and almost 300 short stories. She also wrote four radio plays broadcast by the BBC and two scripts for the UK, science fiction, cult television series "Blake's 7."
Before becoming a full time writer, Lee worked as a file clerk, an assistant librarian, a shop assistant, and a waitress.

Her first short story, "Eustace," was published in 1968, and her first novel (for children) The Dragon Hoard was published in 1971.

Her career took off in 1975 with the acceptance by Daw Books USA of her adult fantasy epic The Birthgrave for publication as a mass-market paperback, and Lee has since maintained a prolific output in popular genre writing.

Lee twice won the World Fantasy Award: once in 1983 for best short fiction for “The Gorgon” and again in 1984 for best short fiction for “Elle Est Trois (La Mort).” She has been a Guest of Honour at numerous science fiction and fantasy conventions including the Boskone XVIII in Boston, USA in 1981, the 1984 World Fantasy Convention in Ottawa, Canada, and Orbital 2008 the British National Science Fiction convention (Eastercon) held in London, England in March 2008. In 2009 she was awarded the prestigious title of Grand Master of Horror.

Lee was the daughter of two ballroom dancers, Bernard and Hylda Lee. Despite a persistent rumour, she was not the daughter of the actor Bernard Lee who played "M" in the James Bond series of films of the 1960s.

Tanith Lee married author and artist John Kaiine in 1992.

Reviews

[Meredith is a hot mess · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my all time favorite anthologies by Tanith Lee ♥

At last he drew her away, back up into the night, where the stars hung, brooding on their longevity. She saw the stars, and the world below. They meant nothing to her. This fresh miracle, the miracle of betrayal and horror, she had also accepted, or so it seemed.
‘Now you believe,’ he said to her, ‘I will tell you how you may evade your destiny. Would you like to hear?’

3.75 stars for The Hunting of Death: The Unicorn




I saw the Unicorn Tapestries in New York, a golden island in a dark time, and brought the sight away as kindling fires. The work came strongly, with its own assurance, but puzzled me, the transcriber. Its integral substance grew clear later, on re-reading. -TL

This story is integral to this collection and I think a must read for TL fans. I have such mixed feelings, as I felt the beginning was v. slow. Two: Of Death made reading this worth it though. This was inspired by The Unicorn Tapestries. TL had this talent for not just becoming inspired by art, but channeling the essence of it in her stories.

Q:


And to lead the procession there must be a maiden, who would charm by the magic force of her virginity, not in order to betray, but in order that they might do homage. And if it should come to her, laying its long head, horned as if with polished salt, in her lap, then the offerings could be made to it. Or if not, still the beauty of the tradition had been honoured, and the spirit of the unicorn with it.

At last he said, ‘Did you never see bones, before?’
‘Yes — the bones of a bird — once.’
‘These are the bones of other things,’ he said.
They dipped again, and the grass-heads met their feet. She stood a few inches above the carpet of the glade, and she recalled irresistibly the tapestry of the unicorn, where the ground was strewn by blossoms. Here, bones lay thick as snow.

She did not question him. Presently he said, ‘In reparation for the ancient hunting, for capture and for death. A sacrifice. The maiden is perfect and her life is also without blemish. No disease. No sorrow. They have told you, you will wait, and the unicorn will come to lay its head in your lap. That is true enough.’
He continued to speak to her, and after a moment Sephaina screamed.


At last he drew her away, back up into the night, where the stars hung, brooding on their longevity. She saw the stars, and the world below. They meant nothing to her. This fresh miracle, the miracle of betrayal and horror, she had also accepted, or so it seemed.
‘Now you believe,’ he said to her, ‘I will tell you how you may evade your destiny. Would you like to hear?’



~

At midnight she woke, perhaps from sleep, and she was no longer in the tower.

A moon, the condemned white widow-queen of heaven, blazed in the west, and lit the way beyond the walls of the garden, on to the straight road that led to the city.



‘This is only a dream.’ And bitterly, wistfully, she laughed again. ‘All things are possible to a dreamer. If this is the raven’s gift, let me be glad of it.

4/5 stars for La Reine Blanche - This has turned into one of my favorite fairytale retellings by TL. Gorgeous, whimsical, painful, and touching.

I wrote this story after a — for me, then — longish block of several months, when so-called real life had drastically intervened in the writing process . It seemed to me I was working very tentatively, and that language could be as heavy to shift as slabs of stones. I think, and hope, this is not apparent. As usual, the story itself knew exactly what it wanted, and drew itself out of me, finally, with a wonderful sense of renewal and blessing -TL


Q:

At midnight she woke, perhaps from sleep, and she was no longer in the tower.


A moon, the condemned white widow-queen of heaven, blazed in the west, and lit the way beyond the walls of the garden, on to the straight road that led to the city.


‘This is only a dream.’ And bitterly, wistfully, she laughed again. ‘All things are possible to a dreamer. If this is the raven’s gift, let me be glad of it.


As she entered, she found the young king of whom the raven had told her. He was dark as she was pale, his own hair black as the branch of a tree against the snow. He was handsome, too. And she felt a pang of love, and another of dismay, though not surprise.


‘I would,’ he said, ‘have waited all my life for you. And since you may not be real, I may have to wait, still. Having seen you, I can hardly do otherwise. Unless you consent to stay.’

‘I think I may be permitted to stay until sunrise. It seems to me I am in league with darkness. Until dawn, then.’

~

‘Despite all sins and stupidities,’ said the raven. ‘I love you yet and yet have waited for you, gentle, fair Blanche. And you, whether you wished it or no, waited for me in your bone tower, and at the last as at the first, you were kind.’

Then the white queen left her chair. She left her body and bones and old pale blood, for she was white now inside and out. She flew up into the window embrasure. From the prison towers only the souls of dreamers or the wings of birds could get out. Up like arrows flew two ravens, one black as pitch, one white as snow, and away together over the trees, the wall, the road, the world, into the sky of spring.


~

4/5 stars for Rachel - Very strange, but beautiful.

Rachel began in my consciousness when I was eighteen. It took me therefore twenty-two years to resolve my approach. What I was approaching I did not, as has happened elsewhere, know, until I recognised the story’s destination, on the final page . The oriental source is very unlike that of the preceding work. The core of the story, too — not fantasy magic, but the mystical-spiritual muscle much of humanity senses within itself, and interprets in so many and various ways -TL

Q:

And I have hours now when it suggests itself to me that God, even He, passing in His enormous power and silence, mislays the places of our being, and because of it, does not remember us, for we are small and fleeting, and the wind that blows for ever, how can it know the chaff, the little seeds and grains, we are so slight and so soon over.


If I dream again tonight, her hair against the candlebranch, the white moon faces that tilt together, together, the angry words, the shadow of the Shadow — let me not mind them, or my wasted life. I have formed Rachel, as if I had made her from the substance of the starry twilight. She presages not my finish, but rather those lands that my soul has travelled, those high mountains I have scaled, and never knew I did. Through her I see what is in me, and only death can liberate this plaintive, perfect thing. Forgive me then, O Lord, that I await him without dismay. Forgive me that I have seen, after all, where the stars burn through the fabric of Immensity.



~

5 stars for The Gorgon and it can be read for free HERE @ Nightmare-Magazine.com.

Medusa, struck by the extraordinary arrow of her misfortune, condemned to her relentless, uncanny, horrible isolation, her tragedy most deeply rooted in the fact that she was not a myth, not a fabulous and glamorous monster . . .




And this, merely a record of marble, water, a plastic shell strapped across a woman’s face, this is the last thing, it seems, which I shall commit to paper. Why? Perhaps only because she was to me such a lesson in the futility of things, the waiting fist of chance, the random despair we name the World.

TL's note:

Suddenly the Greek islands arrived in my brain, and with them this story, which later won the World Fantasy Award. Though I was delighted with the award, I know perfectly well this is not a 'fantasy story.' It is about the harshness of the here and now, clad only in a white dress and some green leaves.

Q:

Sunlight filled in the waves and touched Daphaeu’s retreating face with gold. Barely altered in thousands of years, either rock or sea or sun. And yet one knew that against all the claims of romantic fiction, this place did not look now as once it had. Some element in the air or in time itself changes things. A young man of the Bronze Age, falling asleep at sunset in his own era, waking at sunrise in mine, looking about him, would not have known where he was. I would swear to that.

...

The mask was made for me in Athens. I am quite fond of it. The man who designed it had worked a great many years in the theatre and could have made me a face of enormous beauty or character, but this seemed pointless, even wasteful.”

...

There is a curious thing which can happen with human beings. It is the ability to perform for days or weeks like balanced and cheerful automata, when some substrata, something upon which our codes or our hopes had firmly rested, has given way. Men who lose their wives or their God are quite capable of behaving in this manner for an indefinite season. After which the collapse is brilliant and total. Something of this sort had happened to me. Yet to fathom what I had lost, what she had deprived me of, is hard to say. I found its symptoms, but not the sickness which it was.

Medusa (I must call her that, she has no other name I know), struck by the extraordinary arrow of her misfortune, condemned to her relentless, uncanny, horrible isolation, her tragedy most deeply rooted in the fact that she was not a myth, not a fabulous and glamorous monster . . . For it came to me one night in a bar in Corinth, to consider if the first Medusa might have been also such a victim, felled by some awesome fit, not petrifying but petrified, so appalling to the eyes and, more significantly, to the brooding aesthetic spirit that lives in man that she too was shunned and hated and slain by a murderer who would observe her only in a polished surface.

...

And this, merely a record of marble, water, a plastic shell strapped across a woman’s face, this is the last thing, it seems, which I shall commit to paper. Why? Perhaps only because she was to me such a lesson in the futility of things, the waiting fist of chance, the random despair we name the World.

And yet, now and then, I hear that voice of hers, I hear the way she spoke to me. I know now what I heard in her voice, which had neither pain nor shame in it, nor pleading, nor whining, nor even a hint of the tragedy—the Greek tragedy—of her life. And what I heard was not dignity either, or acceptance, or nobleness. It was contempt. She despised me. She despised all of us who live without her odds, who struggle with our small struggles, incomparable to hers. “Your Greek is very good,” she said to me with the patronage of one who is multilingual. And in that same disdain she says over and over to me: “That you live is very good.” Compared to her life, her existence, her multilingual endurance, what are my life or my ambitions worth? Or anything.

It did not occur immediately, but still it occurred. In its way, the myth is perfectly accurate. I see it in myself, scent it, taste it, like the onset of inescapable disease. What they say about the gorgon is true. She has turned me to stone.




4/5 stars for Bloodmantle

The forests of the mind are benighted, dark and dazzling places. Things wander there that shine, and burn, and bite.

Much of my writing, long and short, begins with nothing more - or less - than a feeling. The nearest I can come to describing this is to relate it to those curious unremembered memories, triggered maybe by a scent, or a certain seasonal light. Bloodmantle started in just that way, a sensation. Then quickly followed the notion of Roman Lupercal as a werewolf-finding feast. Wolves are creatures that live most definitely in my mind forests. I meet them with the primitive and often irrational wolf-fear, but also in fascinated love. The girl in the red cloak of course most of us know. Innocence can be cruel. -TL

Q:

February, the wolf month, is also the colour of wolves. And through the pale browns and greys and whites of it, something so very red can be seen from a long way off.
In that fashion then, he saw her, coming down among the slopes from the damp and leafless woods. She passed the old altar with its wrapper of ivy, the stripes of hide hanging over it from the trees above. She crossed the stream by the old stones carefully, so as not to get her little shoes wet. But the rain, which had earlier drenched the woods, beaded her long dark hair, and the fine palla she wore. The palla was so dense and a rich red, sight seemed to sink into it, it drowned and made a vision drunk, as only natural colours were suppose to do. It was altogether of a hue that had no place in the wood, making everything else dim and unreal.




This anthology includes:

Bloodmantle: 4/5 for this Little Red Riding Hood retelling.

The Gorgon: 5 stars. Also in The Gorgon and Other Beastly Tales

The Tree: A Winter's Tale

I Was Guillotined Here //

Crying in the Rain //

Elle est trois (La Mort) //

Nicholas //

The Hunting of Death: The Unicorn: 4/5 stars. Integral short story to this collection. Also in: The Gorgon and Other Beastly Tales

A Madonna of the Machine //

Red as Blood -I'm saving this. I'll probably read it when I get to Red as Blood, or Tales from the Sisters Grimmer

The Rakshasha // Try again later.

Bite Me Not or Fleur de Fur //

By Crystal Light Beneath One Star //

La Reine Blanche: 4/5 stars. A beautifully written fairytale by Tanith Lee. The writing decadent & story touching.

Sweet Grapes //

The Tenebris Malgraph //

Black as a Rose: 3 stars. Not my favorite, but the dark twist at the end stunned me a bit. Tales of Flat Earth short story from Night's Sorceries.

Rachel: 4 stars. Beautifully written, but very very strange. Dreamy incestual reincarnation?

Down Below: An autobiographical short from TL <3

White as Sin, Now //

[Karl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read July 1989.

1 - "Bloodmantle" from IASFM Nov ’85
12 - "The Gorgon" from Shadows #5, ed. Charles L. Grant, Doubleday, 1982
29 - "The Tree: A Winter’s Tale" from Night Visions 1, ed. Alan Ryan, Arlington Heights, IL: Dark Harvest, 1984
49 - "I Was Guillotined Here"
52 _ "Crying in the Rain" from Other Edens, ed. Christopher Evans & Robert Holdstock, London: Unwin, 1987
66 - "Elle Est Trois (La Mort)" from Whispers IV, ed. Stuart David Schiff, Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1983
84 - "Nicholas"
87 - "The Hunting of Death: The Unicorn" from Night Visions 1, ed. Alan Ryan, Arlington Heights, IL: Dark Harvest, 1984
120 - "A Madonna of the Machine" from Other Edens II, ed. Christopher Evans & Robert Holdstock, London: Unwin, 1988
137 - "Red as Blood" from F&SF Jul ’79
146 - "The Rakshasa"
155 - "Bite-Me-Not or, Fleur de Fur [“Bite-Me-Not or, Fleur de Feu”]" from IASFM Oct ’84
177 - "By Crystal Light Beneath One Star" from Tales from the Forbidden Planet, ed. Roz Kaveney, Titan, 1987
191 - "La Reine Blanche" from IASFM Jul ’83
199 - "Sweet Grapes"
207 - "The Tenebris Malgraph"
234 - "Black as a Rose" [Flat Earth series] from Night’s Sorceries, DAW, 1987
253 - "Rachel"
272 - "Down Below"
275 - "White as Sin, Now"

[Suvi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oh boy, this woman has a somewhat crazy imagination. It's like anything can emerge from her brain. There were a few weaker stories (mostly short snippets and sci-fi), but the stronger ones were rich in language and absolutely beautiful story-wise. If you like fairy tales, I think the last one (White as Sin, Now) is especially going to be to your liking, since it combines a couple of them in quite a clever way.

Overall the topics were just what I'm interested in: vampires, werewolves, mythology etc. but with such twists I have never read before. Weird and sometimes confusing stories with a little bit of fairy tale magic on top. Unfortunately I couldn't give this a full five stars, because the weaker stories were really boring and quite pointless. One of them had mostly just some philosophical babbling that felt detached from the story itself.

Favourites: The Gorgon, Elle est trois (La Mort), Nicholas, Red as Blood and Bite Me Not or Fleur de Fur

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

Blood-Mantle • (1985) ⭐⭐⭐⭐
The Gorgon • (1982) ⭐⭐⭐⭐
The Tree: A Winter's Tale • (1984) ⭐⭐⭐
I Was Guillotined Here • (1989) ⭐⭐
Crying in the Rain • (1987) ⭐⭐⭐
Elle Est Trois, (La Mort) • (1983) ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Nicholas • (1989) ⭐⭐⭐
The Hunting of Death: The Unicorn • (1984) ⭐⭐⭐⭐
A Madonna of the Machine • (1988) ⭐⭐⭐
Red As Blood • (1979) ⭐⭐⭐⭐
The Rakshasa • (1989) ⭐⭐⭐
Bite Me Not or Fleur de Fur • (1984) ⭐⭐⭐⭐
By Crystal Light Beneath One Star • (1987) ⭐⭐
La Reine Blanche • (1983) ⭐⭐⭐
Sweet Grapes • (1989) ⭐⭐⭐
The Tenebris Malgraph • (1989) ⭐⭐
Black as a Rose • (1987) ⭐⭐⭐
Rachel • (1989) ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Down Below • (1989) ⭐⭐⭐
White As Sin, Now • (1989) ⭐⭐⭐⭐

[Nighteye]

Good stories inside, some never published before and snippets about her inspirations or thoughts about each work. It started of with a lot of very strong and good stories to sack a bit in the middle with, for me more unintresting ones. It picked up again in the end, around half of the stories in total I marked as really good. Well worth my time and some of them are stil stuck in my mind.

[Simon · Rating 4 out of 5]

I haven't read anything by Tanith Lee for years and thought it about time I see what else this author has to offer. This collection appears to contain a few stories previously collected in other volumes but also a selection of previously unpublished stories.

This is a fine selection of tales that shows the author's versatility and includes themes of fantsy, horror and science fiction. I detect traces of influences from the likes of Angela Carter, Ambrose Bierce, Algernon Blackwood and J.G. Ballard. However, she definitely has her own unmistakable voice and writes with an elegant prose.

My favourite stories include: "The Gorgon", "The Tree: A Winter's Tale", "Red as Blood", "By Crystal Light Beneath One Star" and "Black as a Rose". There are many other very good stories but there were a few that didn't work very well for me lowering the overall rating of this book to four stars. That is probably down to personal taste more than anything else and I wouldn't let that put you off.

[Alyne Winter · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am currently reading this superb collection of short stories by my favorite, Tanith Lee for the second time. She is the Goddess of short fiction as far as I am concerned. And just like extras you get on DVD, Lee prefaces each story with how she was inspired to write it, giving us emerging writers a valuable peek into the mind of a master.

The first paragraph of the first story, Bloodmantle,encapsulates the evocative power of Tanith Lee's writing:

"February, the wolf month, is also the color of wolves. And through the pale browns and whites of it, something so very red can be seen from a long way off."

The next story, The Gorgon won the World Fantasy Award. J'adore the Fin de Siecle Elle est trois (La Morte).
Her twist on Snow White, Red as Blood, was my initiation into the magical Lee-world and, combined with Angela Carter's The Bloody Chamber, made me want to write fiction. The Hunting of Death: The Unicorn is also rich with poetry. All these stories are wonderful.

This book is rare and out of print. I was willing to pay handsomely for it---that should tell you how much I love Lee's stories---for what my opinion is worth. If you have a chance to read it, don't miss out.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tanith Lee at her most literary; gorgeousness abounds and strangeness. Eight new tales were included in this 1989 collection, including White As Sin, Now, that weaves together many Faery Tales. Arguably, you could say she was at the height of her powers here, in this collection. Bloodmantle, The Gorgon, Crying in the Rain, Elle est trois (La Mort), Red as Blood and Black as a Rose, I could go on and list everything, because everything is a marvel. An essential collection.

[Nina]

Struggling with the writing style. Does English really need so many commas?
I found myself skipping more and more stories after the first few pages.

[Kristen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nothing like a list telling me a book is hard to find in the States to make me want to go find it. ;) Especially when it's an author that I like. Thank you, AbeBooks.

[Philip Chaston · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tanith Lee's baroque style is sorely missed now. No more echoes of Grimm in our deracinated age.

[Bernard Mcdonnell · Rating 3 out of 5]

A mystery for sure. Combine a twisted family, a neurotic family, Cherokee lore and local history and you have the making of a journey through the Great Smokey Mountains that keeps you turning pages while asking a lot of questions. Just as I though I had it figured out, another revelation clouds the picture. Hall ties the novel together in a sad by satisfying manner that will bring me back for more.

[Sarah Koz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fabulous collection.