Click to copy, then share by pasting into your messages, comments, social media posts and websites.
Click to copy, then add into your webpages so users can view and engage with this video from your site.
Report Content
We also accept reports via email. Please see the Guidelines Enforcement Process for instructions on how to make a request via email.
Thank you for submitting your report
We will investigate and take the appropriate action.
"The Willows" by Algernon Blackwood
0:00:00 Chapter 1
0:40:01 Chapter 2
0:47:46 Chapter 3
0:57:58 Chapter 4
1:56:22 Chapter 5
----
This story was published in 1907, so we're talking pre-WW1 Austro-Hungarian Empire here. I would be quite shocked if this area of swampland described in this story still exists, or at least exists as described herein. Do we have anybody in the audience with recent personal experience of the Danube between Bratislava and Budapest? To be sure, the descriptions here in this chapter are absolutely amazing! I'd love to know if there is any stretch of the river still anything remotely like this?
As this is the Austro-Hungarian Empire period, the names are mostly in German, where today they are no longer known by their German names, so:
Preßburg: the German name for Bratislava
Pozsóny: the Hungarian name for Bratislava
Komorn is the German name for what is today the Hungarian city of Komárom. This helps us to better pin down their location, being north of Komárom, but south of Bratislava.
Gran is the German name for what is today the Hungarian city of Esztergom. Gran is 50km east of Komorn.
When you look on google maps between Bratislava and Komárom the Danube does look to get all weird and complex, which comports with what is suggested in this story. Although it also looks a lot more developed than it would have been 120 years ago.
12 kph = 7.5 mph
100 kilometers = 62 miles
50 miles = 80 kilometers
Undine: a water nymph
paling: a pale (i.e. picket) for a fence
----
The pictures used are:
Ch 1: the Danube River near Bratislava - Slovakia, by ferobanjo, used here under the Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/3.0/).
Ch 2: an illustration by Lawrence Sterne Stevens. The text with the image suggests chapter 1, but the imagery is clearly chapter 2.
Ch 3: an illustration by Lawrence Sterne Stevens for the story.
Ch 4: "Landscape with Willows and Sun Shining Through the Clouds" (1884) by Vincent van Gogh.
Ch 5: "Lower Danube wetlands, shot from a moving train on the way to the Romanian seaside" by Gabriel (https://www.flickr.com/photos/8628950@N06/5885324176) used here under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/). Sure, it's Romania, not Hungary, but I wanted a shot of the Danube looking more pleasant rather than creepy, and this is what I found.
To follow along: https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/11438/pg11438-images.html
Category | Arts & Literature |
Sensitivity | Normal - Content that is suitable for ages 16 and over |
Playing Next
Related Videos
"The Secret Glory", Book I, by Arthur Machen
1 day, 9 hours ago
"The Wendigo" by Algernon Blackwood
1 week ago
"The Horror From the Hills" by Frank Belknap Long
2 weeks, 5 days ago
"The Gods of Pegāna: The River" by Lord Dunsany
1 month, 1 week ago
"The Gods of Pegāna: Of Ood" by Lord Dunsany
1 month, 1 week ago
Warning - This video exceeds your sensitivity preference!
To dismiss this warning and continue to watch the video please click on the button below.
Note - Autoplay has been disabled for this video.