Trusted by 500+ fans to find the fun in the funereal, the absurd in the macabre, and delight in the darkness. Join fiction author Morgan Delaney three times a week for genre-bending stories of cozy horror, dark fantasy and a brain with mind of its own...
Shot By A Witch!
 it’s been all bloody go here at the HQ of the Official Hawkinge-By-Hythe Historical Society. First, I had those man sniffles, then a sudden change in weather gave me a migraine. And then I got lumbago. Look, I hate making a fuss, but I’m putting my foot down – carefully, because of the lumbago – whoever has the Morgan voodoo doll, could you stop now, please? The internet tells me “lumbago” is an “outdated term for lower back pain”, and I agree. We should all be using the more evocative German term instead: Hexenschuss. Literally “witch shot.” (In the sense of shot by a witch, not shot with a witch. Though if you found a witch hard and knobbly enough, the effect would be the same, I suppose.) Witch shot gives you a better idea of how sudden, nasty and inexplicable it is. I just bent down to recharge my ereader, and suddenly all movement was agony. Yep, you can definitely see how superstitious peasants would assume evil magic was at play. There you are, sweeping out your hovel with a broom – or bending down to recharge your ereader – and bang, you’re a has-been. Not that I believe in witches, of course. Just fairies. Horrible things they are, mad keen on dancing. Dancing? Me? With this back? No, I’m well out of it. Unlike graverobbers, Aicke and Bowen. When the Fairy Queen invites them to dine and dance, they can dance… Or they can be dinner. Find out what else is on the menu now. A Grave & Dreadful Business is no longer an Amazon exclusive! Click here to see if your favourite bookshop already has it! Chat soon, Morgan Read more – and get two free ebooks – here: morgandelaney.info/newsletter.  |
Dark, Strange and Fantastic Fiction
Trusted by 500+ fans to find the fun in the funereal, the absurd in the macabre, and delight in the darkness. Join fiction author Morgan Delaney three times a week for genre-bending stories of cozy horror, dark fantasy and a brain with mind of its own...
I’m reading sci-fi at the moment, though I probably shouldn’t. I’m Irish, and we’re not used to it. When I was growing up, we had six television channels. Four English ones, and two Irish wans. In twenty years, the only sci-fi was Red Dwarf and Doctor Who. Both on the English channels, of course. After all, we Irish only recently started believing in the present. Back in the eighties, we didn’t have roads; we had strips of potholes. Condoms were prescription-only, and six of the island’s...
My mother didn’t have it easy. She didn’t even have a sense of smell. And while the rest of 1980s Ireland had miraculous moving statues, we made do with mysterious margarine. Back in those days, butter was bad and margarine was good, so young Morgan et al. all ate margarine. Sometimes my breakfast toast tasted fine with it. Some mornings the margarine was weird. A brand new tub. Just opened the previous night. I had put it on my evening toast. My mother had put it on her evening potatoes. No...
Families are great. But a lot. If you’ve had about enough of yours, tell them this is a very important email you have to read. I’ll back you up. And it is important, as I present some crazy New Year traditions, that will make your party go with a bang! Killer List of 10 Bread-Based New Year Traditions. 1. At a party, wait until the countdown to the new year starts before throwing a bread roll over your shoulder. You might hit the person you one day marry in the face with it. 2. Villages used...