H.P. Podcraft.com. After leaving Vienna and long before you come to Budapest, the Danube

enters a region of singular loneliness and desolation, where its waters spread

away on all sides regardless of a main channel,

and the country becomes a swamp from miles upon miles,

covered by a vast sea of low willow bushes.

That was the opening few sentences of the willows by Algernon Blackwood. And you are listening to the H.P. Lovecraft literary podcast.

Here at H.P. podcraft.

I am Chad Fife.

And I'm Chris Lackey and Chad.

Please explain to me why we're reading an Algernon Blackwood story?

Well, Algernon Blackwood was a favorite writer of H.P. Lovecraft's and Wood was actually lovecrafts

actually lovecrafts and this story the willows was actually lovecraft's favorite

weird tale of all time.

So I've heard.

And we've got a lot of information about how he felt on the willows

in both his essay, supernatural horror and literature,

as well as some personal letters that he wrote.

I think that when we do our kind of post-game discussion,

that might be the best time to bring our old pal Lovecraft in to talk about that stuff

Before we delve into the story what do we know about this guy Elginant Blackwood? He was born in London

slash Kent in 1869 and I said London slash Kent because it was

Kent at the time but now it's London.

...