Circles of Stone: Weird Tales of Pagan Sites and Ancien… (2024)

One of the best entries in the series. Despite every story revolving around standing stones and the like each of them was varied and revealed some new interpretation regarding the mysteries surrounding these stones.

Not a bad story among them, they're all good.

This collection has a very strong theme and is based on a popular theme in British literature - which is why it is a shame some of the stories are just not that interesting. I do, however, commend the effort to deliver variety.

Favourite stories: "The Temple" by E.F. Benson, "The First Sheaf" by H.R. Wakefield, "The Tarn of Sacrifice" by Algernon Blackwood, "Lisheen" by Frederick Cowles, "The Dark Land" by Mary Williams (which reminds me of a real story that happened in Wales about 15 years after the story was originally published), "The Stone that Liked Company" by A.L. Rowse, "The Suppell Stone" by Elsa Wallace

Review to come via British Fantasy Society website.

Brilliantly chilling, all excellent selections! I'll certainly be buying more from this series.

Some of them were quite good, like the tarn of sacrifice and minuke but others left a lot to be desired. Not great but not terrible either.

Edited by Katy Soar and collected from their archives by the British Library, Circles of Stone: Weird Tales of Pagan Sites and Ancient Rites is a stellar anthology of short stories by both famous names in supernatural fiction, forgotten voices, and relative unknowns. Themed around Britain’s pre-Roman stone monoliths (Stonehenge is name-checked a few times but I don’t think ever used as a story’s centrepiece), most are ghost stories based on folklore about our lives before Christianisation and how even modern folks may feel it in their blood, a savage call drawing them back through time…

Not all of the stories are horror. The first, by diplomat Sarban, is an excerpt from a novella (Ringstones) and gently follows a latter-day picnic among rocks between which faeries once roamed. Later on, Arthur Machen’s brief “The Ceremony” feels more like a prose poem, in its stylised account of a young girl compelled to perform an ancient rite.

I won’t review each of the fifteen stories here, but my favourite is “Lisheen” by Frederick Cowles, the strange and troubling tragedy of a minister in the early 17th century who “lost his immortal soul for the sake of a witch child”. Cowles’ masterstroke is to frame the story as an anomaly of the historical record, unearthed by a latter-day historian, which forces us to glimpse events imperfectly and fill in the blanks with our imaginations.

The best story in literary terms - by which I mean with the strongest development of character and theme - is “The Tarn of Sacrifice” by Algernon Blackwood. It follows a WWI veteran as he goes hiking in the mountains and comes to a primitive house occupied by a man and his adult daughter, rich city people who for mysterious reasons have come to live the peasant life in complete isolation. Although “Lisheen” remains my personal favourite for its drama and creepiness, “Tarn” is an extremely close second. It even has a fairly original ending for a “savage pagans” tale, using the non-Christian faiths as more than a boogeyman.

A lot of these stories are like that in some sense, though. They respect and are knowledgeable about nature religions of old even while using them as horror props. EF Benson’s “The Temple” was surprisingly brilliant. I tend to have mixed feelings about Benson’s ghost stories. He’s an erudite and stylish writer whose prose is always fine, but he sometimes writes his supernatural fiction with a certain flippancy that dulls the scariness. “The Temple”, however, is a top-tier tale that makes the flesh creep, about a couple of scholars staying in a rural house situated near a site of pagan sacrifice.

The only dud in the collection for me was “The Man Who Could Talk to the Birds” by JH Pearce, which is written entirely in a thick Cornish dialect that I found painful to read and impossible to enjoy. It’s blessedly short, though, and does tell an intriguing folktale.

I’ll mention just a couple more. “The Shadow on the Moor” by Stuart Strauss is a fun romp notable in part for the lack of information about Strauss, who wrote a few stories in his day but vanished into the ether thereafter. Lastly for this review, I wanted to cite Lisa Tuttle as the most modern (and still living!) author here, and one of a few fine women writers in this collection. Her “Where the Stones Grow” is a skin-crawling tale about a young American’s memory of when his father was killed while on holiday in England, and how the cause might have clung to the son.

The Short Story is, of course, a genre in itself, and it's one I blow hot and cold on. On the one hand, I like the fact that I can read an entire story in a short time, and it doesn't require the same mental, and emotional commitment as the long form. On the other, I find them a bit clunky, and often quite unsatisfying.

I went through this collection in a couple of days, which is a measure of my enjoyment. That said, I found no real stand-out tales, and in fact there was at least one that would have done better to be left in obscurity. Nonetheless, they were largely enjoyable reads.

However, full disclosure: whether it's age, or some other factor, I have struggled for some years to find books (and films or TV) that give me the kind of chilling thrill one looks for in ghost stories, so it is highly likely that I am the problem! If you are more susceptible then this is probably a good collection of spine tinglers.

What I found most enthralling about this book is how it reflects the change in attitudes towards Paganism, Druidism, and the societies and cultures that gave us standing stones and stone circles. Even as recently as forty years ago, the entrenched Christian view 0f them as inherently evil is the foundation of every story within these covers. So much so that the publishers have printed a disclaimer in the front of the book.

It's all very 'Wicker Man'...

But don't let that put you off. If nothing else, it's nice to be reminded how far we have come.

3.5 stars!

Standing stones and stone circles have always been an interesting subject for me. They elude to and invoke a primal, mystical horror that is ripe for storytelling. There is a nice mixture of stories here that have these ancient stones play numerous roles: markers of esoteric ritual, sites of Druidic sacrifice, gateways to blasphemous cities, and even sentient beings with malevolent intent. My favorite tales were those that leaned away from the typical shock horror of human sacrifice as I found that they have a repetitive taste to them. For me, the strongest stories in this collection had these formidable stones not necessarily as the focus of the horror but rather the dark portent of even darker forces, lurking and waiting. Overall, this was more of a mixed bag. However, I still enjoyed my time. The subject of these stones still fascinates me and these tales offer up a nice glimpses in to the imagination that these monoliths have held over us.

Honorable Mention: The Suppell Stone by Elsa Wallace

"Perhaps these ancient stones hold down something far more ancient, something far stranger than the men who placed them understood. Some queer feet have danced here, I feel."

This collection of stories is based around an underlying theme... The ancient and enigmatic monoliths and standing stones that litter our countryside. Most of the stories are brilliant, some even amazing, but it's not a full home run. There are a few that just dont seem to grab the attention the same.

I really liked "The Tarn of Sacrifice" by Algernon Blackwood. It's a brilliantly dark love story set in the Lake District showing that love can last eternity. A special mention also goes to the story "Lisheen" which is about the pararomance between a priest and a "witch child", it's very dark and troubling.

Overall well worth the read. I'd give it 3.5 out of 5.

A treasure trove of intrigue and mysticism”
By far my favourite of the series by the British Library. This collection of 15 short stories and excerpts haunts from the first page to the last. Filled with stories I had yet to discover I found it an enjoyable collection of short stories for those looking for a little spine tingling. There are certainly moments where author opinions towards mysticism and Druidism tend to appear relatively dated, but considering the subject matter and origin of the stories this should be taken with a pinch of salt!

I always enjoy reading British Library of the Weird books and Circles of Stones was no different. A collection of 15 short stories by various authors and edited by Katy Soar. Mystery and intrigue surrounding stone circles that seem to have lives of their own. An excellent book and that kept me hooked from first to last.

A very enjoyable collection of stories. There are no real duds here and the editor should be praised for that as well as her excellent introduction which is a good potted history of stone/pagan literature as well as a useful guide to the tropes that lie ahead. Top points to Algernon Blackwood, Stuart Strauss and Lisa Tuttle.

It is a bit of a commonplace to say that collections like this are uneven. But this is no exception. It loses a bit of punch about halfway as the stories are a bit repetitive in motifs, but otherwise, it is a good introduction to the literary influence that euhemerism and pagan survival theories had on British weird literature during the late 19th century and pretty much the entire 20th century.

A collection of supernatural short stories, all centered around standing stones. There are one or two ho-hum stories here, but most of quite good and a few are generally creepy. Great collection overall.

Really enjoyed all the stories in this book. I will definitely get more of the books that are being released in this series (tales of the weird) by the British Library.

Interesting, superstitious and quite scary

Rocks are spooky who knew

A good mix of chilling stories, some haunting, some a little thrilling and a couple downright creepy. Read with the lights off and enjoy the quiet dread.

format wasn’t the most conducive with how i like to read but that is my own fault. the stories were overall lovely and spooky!

A very strong collection of tales dealing with standing stones, stone circles and other ancient monuments.

What I really enjoy about these collections is often I haven't read many of the stories before, which is always very welcome.