376. The Willows

The Willows written by Algernon Blackwood [1907]

Two friends are midway on a canoe trip down the Danube River. Throughout the story Blackwood personifies the surrounding environment—river, sun, wind—and imbues them with a powerful and ultimately threatening character. Most ominous are the masses of dense, desultory, menacing willows, which "moved of their own will as though alive, and they touched, by some incalculable method, my own keen sense of the horrible."

TRIGGER WARNINGS AVAILABLE AT BOTTOM OF SHOW NOTES. MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS.

Click here to ask me anything anonymously

LinkTree for all of my social media, YouTube, Patreon etc.

Leave me a voice mail! ‪(323) 546-8764‬

Ad Free version available on Patreon

You can send your stories to: [email protected]
 

Music by Epidemic Sound and Co.AG

Additional sound effects from Freesound.org:

• S: HORROR winter forest valkenburg 230119 132558.wav by klankbeeld | License: Attribution 4.0
• S: horror dream noise 231214 by klankbeeld | License: Attribution 4.0
• S: horror mud flats Oosterschelde calm 939 AM 240818_0899 by klankbeeld | License: Attribution 4.0
• S: Horror mudflats Westerschelde NL 733AM 210303_0264.wav by klankbeeld | License: Attribution 4.0
• S: horror cave ambiance org 150407_05 by klankbeeld | License: Attribution 4.0
• S: Horror dream 2 Ballooney 1 +10 +3 compressor galm driest by klankbeeld | License: Attribution 4.0
• S: horror ambience 15.wav by klankbeeld | License: Attribution 4.0
• S: Sci-Fi_Horror_Ambience_02_Wet by Joao_Janz | License: Creative Commons 0
• S: Sci-Fi_Horror_Ambience_04_Wet by Joao_Janz | License: Creative Commons 0
• S: Sci-Fi_Horror_Ambience_03_Wet.wav by Joao_Janz | License: Creative Commons 0
• S: horror nightmare ambience 5 150521_04 141007_00 by klankbeeld | License: Attribution 4.0
• S: Edge of the forest at night with birds, crickets, toad singing, coyote at a distance, road hum and far oil pump recorded in a tallgrass prairie in Oklahoma by felix.blume | License: Creative Commons 0
• S: Floods in the mountains and insect chirping by lastraindrop | License: Creative Commons 0
• S: Dragging Kayak by brunoboselli | License: Attribution 4.0
• S: mixed forest June 1pm Vught NL 160603_0902.flac by klankbeeld | License: Attribution 4.0
• S: River Teign from south end of Hunter's Tor, Teign Gorge by Philip_Goddard | License: Attribution NonCommercial 4.0
• S: strong wind river-side 121226_03.flac by klankbeeld | License: Attribution 4.0
• S: St. Marys River 1030pm Rural Nature & Low Huming Freighter Tries Sneaking By Under Cover Of Dark. 5-28-23.wav by Ambient-X | License: Attribution 4.0
• S: Paddling a Kayak.wav by Danjocross | License: Creative Commons 0
• S: Sound of the river.wav by dibko | License: Attribution 4.0