It is 10 October. There are 21 days until Halloween

I’ve mentioned before how seeing Day of the Triffids on TV one Saturday afternoon when I was a kid changed the way I felt about being in the woods. Every tree and every plant my size or taller became a potential meat-eating Triffid. Any clicking or tapping I heard weren’t squirrels or woodpeckers. No! They were Triffids signaling to each other that there was a yummy meal in sneakers and a Han Solo t-shirt coming their way.

Thank god I didn’t read Algernon Blackwood’s novella “The Willows” as a kid, too. I never would have left the house let alone gone back into the woods.

Blackwood’s tale of eco-horror is, like so many tales of terror from the early 20th century, a slow burn. Over four chapters, Blackwood slowly builds and layers the horrors to a frightening climax as the two men trapped on that sandy island on the River Danube realize what may be in the woods. Blackwood, however, never fully divulges the identity of the entities that are stalking the men. What are they doing? What do they want? What are they even? Blackwood reveals nothing that would help explain away the horror in the willows.

The deeply mysterious nature of things outside human understanding – are they gods or monsters, and is there a difference between the two? – is one of the reasons H.P. Lovecraft considered “The Willows” his favorite story of cosmic horror:

"Here art and restraint in narrative reach their very highest development, and an impression of lasting poignancy is produced without a single strained passage or a single false note.”

Blackwood’s tale seems ripe for a motion picture production. The ambiguity and slow-burn creeping dread seem perfect for a movie in the vein of The VVitch or The Lighthouse.

You can find the story in its entirety here. Surprisingly, as well as disappointingly, there doesn’t seem to be an old-time radio program that took on the tale, but, as always, the good folks at HorrorBabble have recorded an excellent audio version.