An Extract from The Hollow Behind the Hearthstone, a novel by Mark Devlin, forthcoming from The Hollow Press, 2021 Taril stood, setting his wine-cup carefully down, and went to the corner where he had leaned his staff. Istorius called Arnauld back, and directed him in moving piles of books and Continue Reading
Emily’s Malawi Journal – Summer 2005
MALAWI JOURNAL PART ONE It wasn’t really part of the picture in my head of what it would be like to come to Africa: grey skies, frequent rain, sometimes torrential, sometimes just a soft, intermittent drizzle. Shivering beside a one-bar electric heater, wearing two jumpers. Sometimes I have to pinch Continue Reading
The Natural Animism of Children
[originally published on Anima Monday, a collective blog about re-enchanting your world (https://animamonday.wordpress.com/) on May 4 2020, by Mark Devlin] The last few years have brought great changes in my life. Nearly six years ago now, my wife and I had our first child, a boy, and three years later, Continue Reading
The Summerhouse
It stirred in me as soon as we rounded the final bend in the narrow road from Cahirciveen, as the sea and sky swung into view, vast and deep dark blue in the gathering evening. An old feeling like a tingling half-heard tune far off played through me, and I Continue Reading
DREAMS FROM THE END OF THE WORLD : REFLECTIONS ON FASCISM AND OCCULTISM, CULTURAL APPROPRIATION, AND THIS MESS WE’RE IN
It was mid 2019. We were all talking about the End of the World. Like many other people I spoke to, I had been having crazy dreams as well. I had been on a Writer’s Retreat a few months earlier, and while there, overlooking a stormy bay on the West Continue Reading
Josephine and the Witch
[image: Nymphe de l’eau, Wilhelm Kotarbinsky, 1901] Once upon a time, there was an ugly, smelly old witch who lived alone in a murky pond. She got up when she wanted, and went to bed when she felt like it; she had frogs and toads and bats and rats and Continue Reading
Where go the boats?
“WHERE GO THE BOATS?” NOSTALGIA AND ADVENTURE IN THE WORK OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON – MARK DEVLIN, UNIVERSITE DE PARIS – NOUVELLE ATHENES INTRODUCTION: Robert Louis Stevenson is perhaps still best known as the author of several timeless classics of children’s literature, among which we could name Treasure Island, Kidnapped, Continue Reading
A LEAF FROM THE LEABHAR DRAÍOCHT – JOURNEY TO LÍOS LÍR
25 of August 2012 The Summer seemed to wane and falter in Ireland, lush land of mists, of sun through showers, luxuriante, foisonnante vegetation. Soft rain and gentle light. Listening to sea-chanties on the radio as the Tall Ships came in, we arrived, by Glenbeigh and Kells, and Little Continue Reading
A Rose by Any Other Name Would Just Not Smell the Same – Stray Musings on Romeo & Juliet
Emily Collins, in her Splendid Isolation in the Lost Domaine, has done us the honour of sharing her course materials on Romeo & Juliet. These are fragmentary and incomplete, as are all things. She mentions this, in particular: “Remember, Shakespeare did not say: “A Rose by any other name would Continue Reading
