The Willows

Algernon Blackwood – 1907

Though not as famous today as Poe or Lovecraft, Algernon Blackwood and his eerie tales of the supernatural have been a huge influence on many horror story-tellers, from Lovecraft to Stephen King to Guillermo del Toro.  His novella The Willows is particularly admired as a masterpiece of the genre.  It tells the story of two friends travelling down the immense Danube River in a canoe.  As they get further and further from civilization and arrive in a section of the river that borders Austria and Hungary, one of them (the narrator) begins to sense a vague malevolence, seemingly embodied by the perpetually swaying willow trees that line the river banks.  Flooding and intense winds drive the boat ashore, where the pair decide to camp for a day or two until the river calms.  That night, strange noises, indistinct apparitions and an oppressive humming sound completely envelop the men’s tent, driving the narrator to a barely containable hysteria.  At first, he believes he is alone in his feelings of foreboding, too afraid to give voice to them, but the next day his companion reveals that he has been acutely aware of the same menace and has even formed a theory about its source.  Deep as they are in an untamed frontier, he believes they are at the doorstep of another dimension, filled with ancient beings that may have once dominated the world as pagan gods.  Furthermore, he is certain, they demand a sacrifice in order to be satiated, which will presumably be one or both of them if they cannot escape undetected.  What makes the story so effective is not only Blackwood’s infusion of hidden horrors just beyond the trees, below the water and in the very atmosphere, but the fact that he keeps everything ambiguous.  Something horrifying is certainly going on, but whether it’s in spite of or because of the susceptibility of the human mind to fear and superstition remains up for debate.