Dracula (a memory)

Well, the solstice is done and dusted, so days are slowly getting shorter, hopefully the heatwave should be over soon and this is thus time to... get ready for Halloween. I'm not kidding: I start preparing round this time of year. Yes, because this. But it is nothing new to me, I've always started getting on a spooky mind and preparing for Halloween months before. More than 35 years ago, if I'm not mistaken, in the summer of 1990, I first read Dracula by Bram Stoker. Before I watched any adaptation of the famous novel. I had been wanting to read classics of horror for a while and found a copy of Dracula in the local library. I blogged about it in details in a post from 2018. The memory came back to my mind recently. The novel was a revelation to me and it truly started my love of horror. I was interest in the macabre and scary stories before, but as a child my mother wouldn't let me read such things. As a teenager, she couldn't stop me.

Dracula climbing up a wall

 For today's countdown to Halloween post, a bit more about Count Dracula. Again. Be warned: I am obsessed about the novel (if you haven't noticed) and every Halloween I blog about it. This year, expect to see even more, because I read a lot of Bram Stoker and I want to share my discoveries. Anyway, I saw this in Vienna, from this ferris wheel. Which of course reminds me of a scene in the novel, when the count climbs down the walls of his castle. Climbs down head first and at night, but I suspect the display was inspired by the novel anyway. Fitting, as Stoker had initially wanted to have what would become Dracula set in Austria. Anyway, it looks very cool and scary.

York vu de haut

 Photo prise à York, du haut de la Clifford's Tower. On peut voir York Minster au loin. Je n'ai pas assez partagé des photos de notre dernier voyage à York, l'une de mes grandes villes préférées dans celles que j'ai visitées. J'ai tendance à souffrir parfois d'un léger vertige, surtout lorsque je suis en hauteur à l'extérieur, sur un balcon ou une plateforme quelconque. Paradoxalement, j'aime vraiment voir une ville de haut. Et le médiéviste de formation que je suis aime bien entendu visiter les constructions médiévales, alors j'étais servi.

The Haunted Castle

 For today's countdown to Halloween post, I wanted to share a game I bought for Wolfie during one of his schools' fayres last summer. It caught both our eyes. My son seems to have a spooky mind. We spent a rainy afternoon playing it. It's called The Haunted Castle, but it is truly a vampire castle: its owner is a vampire, aptly named Lord Darkwood. The name of the place is Dreadmoor Castle. The story is heavily influenced by Dracula, especially the first part: you even use the help of a journal left there by Abraham Van Helsing, who visited Dreadmoor shortly after the events of the novel. I don't want to give too much away, but it's a great way to introduce your kid to horror stories and classic vampire tropes. It's both clever and atmospheric.

NOT Dracula's Castle

I know we are a long way from Halloween, but what the heck. I'm also a fan of Dracula, my all-time favourite horror novel. I saw this meme recently on my Facebook feed. I think I recognised Bran Castle. My answer: yes I would but no, this is not Dracula's Castle. Read Elizabeth Miller's work to understand why, but grosso modo, Bram Stoker knew diddly squat about Bran Castle, or indeed any Romanian castle. He invented one for his vampire and that was that. Okay, rant over. Or are you guys otherwise?

Wooden Fortress

There is a petting zoo our family often goes to, I blogged a few times about it. It has the nicest play areas. AMong them, a wooden fortress that Wolfie (and me) love very much. When it is not on a bank holiday, the place is often virtually deserted, so we can play there without stepping on anyone's toes. There are other play areas Wolfie prefers (or where he spends more time), but the fortress is by far my favourite, because of its size and all its dramatic potential. It can be a castle (medieval or not), an army outpost, a HQ for a small group of fighters, etc. They could have used another colour than white for the flag, but otherwise it is pretty much perfect.

About Dracula's Castle

For today's countdown to Halloween post, yet another trip down nostalgia lane. My longtime readers may remember that I sometimes blog about the Dracula Game, a make-belief game my brothers, my friends and I played when we were young.As we hadn't read the original novel, we used  J.H. Brennan's gamebook Dracula's Castle as inspiration. Now as I wanted to blog about it again, I discused with my brother PJ about the reasons why this make belief game worked so well that we still talk about it to this day. One of the reasons resides in the antagonist himself: Count Dracula is not only a vampire, but a centuries old nobleman and ruthless warrior, who dabbles into sorcery and whose ultimate ambition is world domination. This is a worthy adversary for a group of vampire hunters, suitable for the ensemble cast that we made with our friends. The other reside in the setting itself: a Carpathian castle and its surroundings, especially as described in the gamebook, had plenty of atmosphere and was also very suitable for a classic "dungeon crawl", with lots of monsters to fight, and not only vampires. Ghouls, zombies, all sorts of undead, demonic entities, wolves under Dracula's control. There is one last element that made the game memorable: it allowed our characters to have all sorts of cool weaponry and equipment. We had of course stakes, crucifix, garlic, holy water, as well as conventional weapons: guns, knifes and the likes. Anyway, as we never finished the game, I hope this blog will encourage some of your children who have a spooky mind to make their own "Dracula Game". No Halloween could be complete without a bit of Dracula in it.

To see Tintagel

As some of my readers may know, I am a medievalist by trade, which means I have a PhD in medieval literature. I am also a specialist of Arthurian literature. And I have a confession to make here (I have done it already, but it is always mebarrassing to say): while I have been living for about 20 years in the UK, I have never visited Cornwall or Tintagel Castle, where King Arthur was conceived (in morally questionable circumstances) and born. It gets even worse as English Heritage keeps taunting me on social media with adverts featuring the picture you see on the left. I was hoping to visit it this year as soon as we have some holidays, now I think it is going to have to wait until 2022, but it is on my to go list.

Un château de cartons

Wolfie a récemment développé une obsession: il veut que l'on construise un château des boîtes de carton. L'ennui, c'est qu'il a une idée précise de ce qu'il faut faire basé sur une émission pour enfants qu'il a vue, mais l'adaptation est difficile et ses instructions sont dures à exécuter. Alors jusqu'ici, ça ne ressemble pas du tout à un château. Mais comme sa grand-mère l'a dit, c'est le processus qui importe, pas le résultat. Tant qu'il s'amuse. Mais si jamais lui et moi réussissons à construire quelque chose s'approchant d'un château, je montrerai bien entendu le résultat sur Vraie Fiction.

"Notre" fort de neige

C'est peut-être le printemps ici, mais au Québec, c'est toujours l'hiver. Il a neigé et on annonce encore quelques bordées le reste de la semaine. Mon père m'a envoyé cette photo, nous disant qu'il s'était amusé à construire un fort, la neige tombée étant bien collante. Je crois qu'il a hâte de pouvoir en construire un avec ses petits-fils.

The Welsh Flag and me

Today is the first of March and it is also the Feast of Saint David, also the patron saint of Wales. It is therefore Wales' National Day. I took this picture while visiting Cardiff Castle. That was back in 2017. I have a bit of history with Wales and the Welsh people, which dates back to my first year at uni and I have detailed in this post. That same year, I asked one of my Welsh friends to buy a Welsh flag for me next time she went home, because I thought it looked really cool with the dragon on it (you don't see it so well on this pic) and its call back to the Arthurian legend. Back then, it was not something I would have done over the internet. Anyway, she bought it and the flag is still in my parents' place somewhere. I wonder if dad takes it out to fly it. I guess the neighbours would think it weird, but among all the flags of the world, I think the Welsh one might be the coolest. And today, I wish I could fly it here, even though I am not Welsh.

Belsay Castle in the snow

This is a picture of Belsay Castle near Belsay Hall which I found on the Facebook page of English Heritage. And I took it for the blog. It has been snowing everywhere in England, even here, but only in the little hours in the morning. The snow did not last. So bottom line is: I have been missing all the snow this year and worse, it struck me that I have never been enjoying an authentic medieval castle in the snow. A shame, realy. I hope I can do it one day, although when it snows in this country it is often safer to stay at home and not travel anywhere. All the same, it must be quite a sight.

A castle for Christmas

Well, I don't mean living or buying a castle, or receiving one as a present, but I thought it would be cool one day to celebrate Christmas in a medieval castle. I found this picture at the Facebook page of English Heritage. It is Kenilworth Castle. I find the image very seasonal, as far as English winter and English Christmas go. The only thing missing is the snow. But nothing can be perfect. Otherwise, the red fruits give this image a very Christmassee look.

The Old Playmobil Castle

Last weekend, Wolfie decided that he wanted to build his old Playmobil castle. I say old, because for a toy, it is indeed quite old: my son received it two years from his maternal uncle, who had first given it to his own daughter. Since our niece is now a young adult he gave us a few buckets of her old toys. Among them, the famous castle. Wolfie had often played with it before, but it was the very first time when he had decided to properly build it, following the plan. I think there are still a few pieces missing, the action figures are mostly gone, that said we managed to do a fairly good job with it, as you can see on the picture. It was not easy, as I am not very technical and not much of an architect (Wolfie is far better, he's a natural builder and he understood the plan very well). It took us the weekend and I was quite proud of the result and of my son even more, even though there were still a few pieces to put on. Unfortunately, the very next day Wolfie walked into my office telling me that he had decided to bring the castle down so he could make room for... another train track. I felt quite sad.

The Tapestried Chamber

 For today's countdown to Halloween reading suggestion, a classic ghost story from Sir Walter Scott: The Tapestried Chamber. I have plugged it before, but that was ten years ago, so I think I can do it again now. It may look tame compared to modern horror stories, but I love its simplicity and its sobriety. A simple ghostly apparition in a (somewhat) familiar setting. Well, if you can consider an old castle a familiar setting, but it was familiar enough for the protagonists there. Anyway, tell me what you thought of it.

The Tomb of Dracula (a memory)

I pride myself of being one of the few people who first discovered Dracula pretty much by reading the original novel, which is still my favourite horror novel. For the story of experience please read this post from 2018. The following autumn, so in 1990, I was eager to read as much horror as I could, especially things related to vampires, so a friend lend me his ownibus volume of The Tomb of Dracula. the first story was Death Rides this Train. While I enjoyed the atmosphere of this particularly story enough, if for no better that it was set in a train, I was never impressed by the whole series. Even as a teenage boy, I was smug enough to say that it was a cheap rip off a great novel and that it was a superhero team comics in disguise. I could not honestly say that I disliked it, I mean there were some nice moments and some nicely spooky images, but I always thought this Dracula lacked bite. Still, I read the omnibus volume in two or three evenings, and it was nice enough a read in the weeks leading to Halloween. I would get my hand on a few comics of ToD just for fun. Maybe I would enjoy them more now.

Vieille Provence

Je regardais dans les vieilles photos que mon père m'a envoyé et je suis tombé sur celle-ci. Je ne sais pas c'est où exactement, à part que c'est en Provence. Vous y voyez des ruines (médiévales?), un trébuchet et le vent qui souffle et que vous ne voyez pas, c'est le mistral. J'ai déjà mis les pieds dans le Midi, justement aux alentours de Pâques, dans le Roussillon-Languedoc, et ça me fait penser à cette photo. On marche vraiment dans le passé.

Construire un château en famille

Cette photo a été prise à Berry Pomeroy Castle, dans le Devon. Je la partage ici parce qu'elle sert mon propos. Aujourd'hui, mon fils a décidé qu'il voulait construire le château que son oncle maternel. Mon beau-frèrenous a laissé depuis la naissance de notre fils pas mal tout les vieux jouets finis ou pas de sa fille, qui est dans la vingtaine maintenant. Et de temps en temps, notre petit loup se décide à jouer avec. Donc aujourd'hui, notre fils a tenu à ranger sa chambre, pour faire de la place au gigantesque château que l'on a dû tenter de monter, tant bien que mal, avec un succèes inégal. Ça ressemble assez à cette photo, mais c'est quand même une belle manière de passer le temps.

Défi château de neige

Mon père m'a récemment informé de l'existence d'un concours, le Défi château de neige. Pas que je puisse y participer: le concours s'adresse aux résidents du Québec. et pas que j'aurais été bon: les châteaux que j'ai fait étant enfant se résumaient à une palissade toute simple que j'avais pelletée de peine et de misère. Mais si vous voulez et si vous pouvez y participer, vous avez les informationsdans le lien que je vous ai donné ci-dessus.

La fresque de Berry Pomeroy Castle

Cette photo a été prise à Berry Pomeroy Castle, dans le Devon. Je ne me rappelle pas des détails, mais c'est une fresque qui date de la fin du moyen âge/début de la Renaissance. J'aurais dû la partager à l'Épiphanie, parce que c'est une scène représentant l'Adoration des Mages. Mais comme je ne veux pas attendre un an avant de la mettre ici, je la partage ce soir.