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You're built to win it. Welcome to Snewscast, the podcast designed to help you fall asleep. Find us at Snewscast.com and if you enjoy our show, please share us with a friend. This episode is brought to you by Half Dreaming. Tonight, as part of our sixth annual Spooky Sleep Story series, we'll re-broadcast the opening to Carmilla, an 1872 Gothic novella by Irish author Sheridan Lefnu, which first aired in October of 2022. Tune in every Wednesday this month for sleep stories of the darker variety, like classic horror literature and ghost stories. If you prefer to avoid the mildly macaw, we hope you'll enjoy one of our many other stories available wherever you listen to podcasts. Originally published in 1872, Carmilla predates Brahm Stoker's Dracula by over 25 years and is considered one of the earliest works of vampire fiction. Sheridan-Luff news novella is a gothic tale set in a remote Austrian estate where a young woman named Laura encounters the enigmatic and alluring Carmilla. What begins as an unexpected friendship quickly descends into something far more sinister, as Laura becomes entangled in Carmilla's dark, seductive influence. What makes Carmilla particularly fascinating is its portrayal of a female vampire with overtly sensual undertones, challenging Victorian norms. The novella is rich with gothic atmosphere, utilizing isolated settings, eerie dreams, and uncanny occurrences to build suspense. For fans of Gothic literature and early vampire lore, Carmilla remains a foundational piece, paving the way for the vampire genre that's got cozy today, and a heart of desire, fear and the dangers lurking behind a beautiful, relaxed body into the softness of your bed. Now, take a few deep breaths. Prologue Upon a paper attached to the narrative which follows, Dr. Haceles has written a rather rather elaborate note which he accompanies with a reference to his essay on the strange subject which he illuminates. This mysterious subject he treats in that essay with his usual learning and acumen and with remarkable directness and condensation. It will form but one volume of the series of that extraordinary man's collected papers. As I publish the case in this volume simply to interest the laity, I shall forst all the intelligent lady who relates it in nothing. And after due consideration I have determined, therefore, to abstain from presenting any specifics of the learned doctors' reasoning, or extract from his statement on a subject which he describes as involving, not improbably, some of the profoundest arcana of our dual existence and its intermediates. I was anxious on discovering this paper to reopen the correspondence commenced by Dr. Haseleus so many years before, with a person so clever and careful as his informant seems to have been. Much to my regret, however, I found that she had died in the interval. She, probably, could have added little to the narrative which she communicates in the following pages, with, so far as I can pronounce such conscientious particularity. 1. An Early Fright

In Styria, we, though by no means magnificent people, inhabit a castle or Schloss. A small income, And that part of the world goes a great way.

8 or 900 a year does wonders. Scantily enough ours would have answered among wealthy people at home. My father is English, and I bear an English name, although I never saw England. But here, in this lonely and primitive place, where everything is so marvelously cheap, I really don't see how ever so much more money would at all material add to our comforts, or even luxuries. My father was in the Austrian service and retired upon a pension and his patrimony and purchased this feudal residence and the smallest date on which it stands at a bargain. Nothing can be more picturesque or solitary. It stands on a slight eminence in the forest. The road, very old and narrow, passes in front of its drop-rich, never raised in my time, and its moat, stocked with perch, and sailed over by many swans, and floating on its surface white fleets of water lilies. Overall this, the Schloss shows its many windowed front, its towers, and its gothic chapel. The forest opens in an irregular and very picturesque glee before its gate, and at the right a steep gothic bridge carries the road over a stream that winds in deep shadow through the wood. I have said that this is a very lonely place, judge whether I say truth. Looking from the hall door towards the road, the forest in which our castle stands extends 15 miles to the right and 12 to the left. The nearest inhabited village is about seven of your English miles to the left. The nearest inhabited Schloss of any historic associations is that of old general spiel's dwarf nearly 20 miles away to the right. I have said the nearest inhabited village because there is only three miles westward that is to say in the direction of General Speel's Dorf's Shloss, a ruined village with its quaint little church, now ruthless, in the aisle of which are the moldering tombs of the proud family of Karnstein, now extinct, who once owned the equally desolate Chateau which, in the thick of the forest, overlooks the silent ruins of the town. Respecting the cause of the desertion of this striking and melancholy spot, there is a legend which I shall relate to you another time. I must tell you now how very small is the party who constitute the inhabitants of our castle. I don't include servants or those dependents who occupy rooms in the buildings

attached to the Schloss. Listen and wonder. My father, who is the kindest man on earth, growing old and I, at the date of my story, only 19.

Eight years have passed since then. I and my father constituted the family at the Schloss. My mother, a styrian lady, died in my infancy, but I had a good natured governess, who had been with me from, I might almost say, my infancy. I could not remember the time when her fat, benign in face was not a familiar picture in my memory. This was Madame Parodon, a native of Bern, whose care and good nature now in part supplied to me the loss of my mother, whom I do not even remember, so early I lost her. She made a third at our little dinner party. There was a fourth. Madame Wazelle, Dela Fontaine, a lady such as you term, I believe, a finishing governess. She spoke French and German, Madame Paradon French and broken English, to which my father and I added English, which, partly to prevent its becoming a lost language among us, and partly from patriotic motives, we spoke every day. The consequence was a babble, at which strangers used to laugh, and which I shall make no attempt to reproduce in this narrative. And there were two or three young lady friends besides, pretty nearly of my own age, who were occasional visitors, for longer or shorter terms, and these visits I sometimes returned. These were our regular social resources but of course there were chance visits from neighbors of only five or six leagues distance. My life was notstanding, rather a solitary one, I can assure you. My governesses had just so much control over me as you might conjecture such sage persons would have in the case of a rather spoiled girl,'s only parent allowed her pretty nearly her own way in everything. The first occurrence in my existence, which produced a terrible impression upon my mind, which, in fact, never has been a face, was one of the very earliest incidents of my life which I can recollect. Some people will think it's so trifling that it should not be recorded here. You will see, however, buy and buy why I mention it. the nursery as it was called, though I had it all to myself, was a large room in the upper story of the castle with a steep oak roof. I can't have been more than six years old when one night I awoke, and, looking round the room from my bed, failed to see the nursery made. Neither was my nurse there, and I thought myself alone. I was not frightened, for I was one of those happy children who were studiously kept in ignorance of ghost stories, of fairy tales, and of all such lore as makes us cover up our heads when the door cracks suddenly. Or the flicker of an expiring candle makes the shadow of a bedpost dance upon the wall nearer to our faces. I was vexed and insulted at finding myself as I conceived, neglected, and I began to whimper. Preparatory to a hearty bout of roaring, when to my surprise I saw a solemn but very pretty face looking at me from the side of the bed. It was that of a young lady who was kneeling with her hands under the coverlet. I looked at her with a kind of pleased wonder and ceased whimpering. She caressed me with her hands and lay down beside me on the bed and drew me towards her smiling. I felt immediately, delightfully soothed, and fell asleep again. I was awakened by a sensation as if two needles ran into my breast very deep at the same moment, and I cried loudly. The lady started back with her eyes fixed on me and then slipped down upon the floor, and as I thought, hid herself under the bed. I was now for the first time frightened and I yelled with all my might and mane. Nurse, nursery maid, housekeeper, all came running in, and hearing my story, they made light of it, soothing me all they could meanwhile. But, child as I was, I could perceive that their faces were pale with an unwanted look of anxiety. And I saw them look under the bat, and about the room, and peep under tables, and pluck open cupboards, and the housekeeper whispered to the nurse, lay your hand along that hollow in the bed. Someone did lie there, so sure as you did not, the place is still warm. I remember the nursery made petting me, and all three examining my chest, where I told them I felt the puncture, and pronouncing that there was no visible sign that any such thing had happened to me.

The housekeeper and the two other servants who were in charge of the nursery remained sitting up all night, and from that time a servant always sat up in the nursery until I was about 14. I was very nervous for a long time after this.

A doctor was called in. He was pallid and elderly. How well I remember his long face, slightly pitted with smallpox and his chestnut wig. For a good while, every second day, he came and gave me medicine, which of course I hated. The morning after I saw this apparition, I was in a state of terror and could not bear to be left alone, daylight though it was for a moment. I remember my father coming up and standing at the bedside and talking cheerfully and asking the nurse a number of questions and laughing very heartily at one of the answers and padding padding me on the shoulder, and kissing me, and telling me not to be frightened, that it was nothing but a dream, and could not hurt me. But I was not comforted, for I knew the visit of the strange woman was not a dream, and I was awfully frightened. I was a little consoled by the nursery maids assuring me that it was she who had come and looked at me, and lain down beside me at the bed, and that I must have been half-dreaming not to have known her face. But this, though supported by the nurse, did not quite satisfy me. I remembered, in the course of that day, a venerable old man in a black casick, coming into the room with the nurse and housekeeper, and talking a little to them, and very kindly to me, his face was very sweet and gentle, and he told me they were going to pray, and joined my hands together, and desired me to say softly while they were praying. Lord, hear all good prayers for us for Jesus' sake. I think these were the very words for I often repeated them to myself and my nurse used for years to make me say them in my prayers. I remembered so well the thoughtful sweet face of that white haired old man in his black casick as he stood in that rude lofty brown room with the clumsy furniture of a fashion 300 years old about him, and the scanty light entering its shadowy atmosphere through the small lattice. He kneeled and the three women with him, and he prayed aloud with an earnest, quavering voice for what appeared to me a long time. I forget all my life preceding that event, and for some time after it is also obscure, but the scenes I have just described stand out vivid as the isolated picture of the phantasmagoria surrounded by darkness. 2. A Guest I am now going to tell you something so strange that it will require all your faith in my veracity to believe my story. It is not only true nevertheless, but truth of which I have been an eyewitness. It was a sweet summer evening, and my father asked me, as he sometimes did, to take a little ramble with him, along that beautiful forest vista, which I have mentioned as lying in front of the Schloss. General Speel's dwarf cannot come to see us so soon as I had hoped, said my father, as we pursued our walk. He was to have paid us a visit of some weeks, and we had expected his arrival next day. He was to have brought with him a young lady, his niece and ward.

Madame was L Reinfeld. Am I had never seen, but whom I had heard described as a very charming girl, and in whose society I had promised myself many happy days. I was more disappointed than a young lady living in a town or a bustling neighborhood can possibly imagine. This visit and the new acquaintance it promised had furnished my daydream for many weeks. And how soon does he come? I asked.

Not till autumn.

Not. weeks. And how soon does he come?" I asked. Not till autumn. Not two, two months, there I say. He answered. And I am very glad now, dear, that you never knew Madam was El-Rinefelt. And why, I asked, both mortified and curious, because the poor young lady is dead. He replied, I quite forgot I had not told you, but you were not in the room when I received the General's letter this evening. I was very much shocked. General Speel's dwarf had mentioned in his first letter, six or seven weeks before, that she was not so well as he would wish her, but there was nothing to suggest the remotest suspicion of danger. Here's the General's letter. He said, handing it to me. I am afraid he is in a great affliction. The letter appears to me to have been ridden very nearly in destruction.

We sat down on a rude bench under a group of magnificent lime trees. The sun was setting with all its melancholy splendor behind the Sylvan horizon and the stream that flows beside our home, and passes under the steep old bridge I have mentioned, wound through many a group of noble trees almost at our feet, reflecting in its current the fading crimson of the sky.

General Speel's Dorf's letter was so extraordinary, so vehement, and in some places, so self-contradictory, that I read it twice over. The second time allowed to my father and was still unable to account for it except by supposing that grief had unsettled his mind. It said, I have lost my darling daughter for as such I loved her. During the last days of dear birth as illness, I was not able to write to you. Before then I had no idea of her danger. I have lost her and now learn all too late. She died in the peace of innocence, and in the glorious hope of a blessed futurity. The fiend who betrayed our infatuated hospitality has done it all. I thought I was receiving into my house, innocence, guayety, a charming companion for my lost birtha. Heavens, what a fool I have been. I thank God my child died without a suspicion of the cause of her sufferings. She has gone without so much as conjecturing the nature of her illness, and the accursed passion of the agent of all this misery. I devote my remaining days to tracking and extinguishing a monster. I am told I may hope to accomplish my righteous and merciful purpose. present, there is scarcely a gleam of light to guide me. I curse my conceited incredulity, my despicable effectation of superiority, my blindness, my obstinacy, all too late. I cannot write or talk collectively now. I am distracted. So soon as I shall have a little recovered, I mean to devote myself for a time to inquiry, which may possibly lead me as far as Vienna. time in the autumn, two months hence, or earlier if I live, I will see you. That is, if you permit me, I will then tell you all that I scare stair put upon paper now. Farewell. Pray for me, dear friend. In these terms ended this strange letter. Though I had never seen Bertha Rine felt, my eyes filled with tears at the sudden intelligence. I was startled, as well as profoundly disappointed. The sun had now sat, and it was twilight by the time I had returned the general sletter to my father. It was a soft, clear evening, and we loitered, speculating upon the possible meanings of the incoherent sentences which I had just been reading. We had nearly a mile to walk before reaching the road that passes the Schloss in front, and by that time the moon was shining brilliantly. At the drawbridge we met Madame Paradon and Madame Wazelle de la Fontaine, who had come out without their bonnets to enjoy the exquisite moonlight. We heard their voices gabbling in animated dialogue as we approached. We joined them at the drawbridge and turned about to admire with them the beautiful scene. The glade through which we had just walked lay before us. At our left, the narrow road wound away under clumps of lordly trees and was lost to sight amid the thickening forest. the right, the same road crosses the steep and picturesque bridge, near which stands a ruined tower which once guarded that pass. And beyond the bridge, an abrupt eminence rises, covered with trees, and showing in the shadows some grey ivy clustered rocks. Over the sword and low grounds a thin film of mist was stealing like smoke, Marking the distances with a transparent veil.

And... like smoke, marking the distances with a transparent veil. And here and there we could see the river faintly flashing in the moonlight. No softer, sweeter scene could be imagined. The news I had just heard made it melancholy, but nothing could disturb its character of profound serenity. the enchanted glory and vagueness of the prospect. My father, who enjoyed the picture-esque and I stood looking in silence over the expanse beneath us.

The two good governesses standing a little way behind us, Discourse upon the scene, and we're eloquent upon the moon. Yn yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n y