The Wendigo
()
About this ebook
Algernon Blackwood
Algernon Blackwood (1869-1951) was an English journalist, novelist, and short story writer. Born in Shooter’s Hill, he developed an interest in Hinduism and Buddhism at a young age. After a youth spent travelling and taking odd jobs—Canadian dairy farmer, bartender, model, violin teacher—Blackwood returned to England and embarked on a career as a professional writer. Known for his connection to the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, Blackwood gained a reputation as a master of occult storytelling, publishing such popular horror stories as “The Willows” and “The Wendigo.” He also wrote several novels, including Jimbo: A Fantasy (1909) and The Centaur (1911). Throughout his life, Blackwood was a passionate outdoorsman, spending much of his time skiing and mountain climbing. Recognized as a pioneering writer of ghost stories, Blackwood influenced such figures as J. R. R. Tolkien, H. P. Lovecraft, and Henry Miller.
Read more from Algernon Blackwood
The Willows Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Greatest Ghost and Horror Stories Ever Written: volume 1 (30 short stories) Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Christmas Library: 250+ Essential Christmas Novels, Poems, Carols, Short Stories...by 100+ Authors Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Greatest Ghost and Horror Stories Ever Written: volume 4 (30 short stories) Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Famous Modern Ghost Stories Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Greatest Christmas Stories: 120+ Authors, 250+ Magical Christmas Stories Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings50 Classic Christmas Stories Vol. 4 (Golden Deer Classics) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Best British Short Stories of 1922 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsIncredible Adventures Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Willows Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Wendigo (Unabridged): Horror Classic - A dark and thrilling story, which introduced the legend to horror fiction Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBest Ghost Stories of Algernon Blackwood Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ghost, Supernatural & Mystic Tales Vol 3 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Victim of Higher Space Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Famous Modern Ghost Stories Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to The Wendigo
Related ebooks
The Wendigo Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Wendigo: Classic Horror Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Best Stories of Algernon Blackwood Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTHE WENDIGO (A Chilling Horror Classic): A dark and thrilling story which introduced the legend to horror fiction Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBritish Mystery Multipack – Volume 16: The Wendigo, Private Memoirs of a Sinner, The Monkey's Paw Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsShort Stories Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Wendigo (Unabridged): Horror Classic - A dark and thrilling story, which introduced the legend to horror fiction Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsIsacq Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBeyond Neverland (sequel to Forever Neverland) Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Claim on Klondyke A Romance of the Arctic El Dorado Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBeyond the Vanishing Point Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Judgment Books: A Story Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLivia: Or, Buried Alive Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Dark Hunters Omnibus Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Carnac's Folly, Complete Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Trespasser, Volume 3 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Outspan: Tales of South Africa Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Enduring Shore: A History of Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard, and Nantucket Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Pagan: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Carnac's Folly, Volume 1. Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Thief in the Palace: A Wielders Novel, #4 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsYarrow Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Flower of the North: A Modern Romance Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsScattered Remains Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBy Airship to Ophir Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWerewolves of Brooklyn Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Dan Barry's Daughter Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Judgment Books Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRoad Food Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsIn the Whirl of the Rising Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Fantasy For You
The Lord Of The Rings: One Volume Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Princess Bride: S. Morgenstern's Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Priory of the Orange Tree Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Fellowship Of The Ring: Being the First Part of The Lord of the Rings Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fairy Tale Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tress of the Emerald Sea: Secret Projects, #1 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This Is How You Lose the Time War Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Warrior of the Light: A Manual Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Empire of the Vampire Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Nettle & Bone Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sarah J. Maas: Series Reading Order - with Summaries & Checklist Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Silmarillion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lovecraft Country: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Dark Tower I: The Gunslinger Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Slewfoot: A Tale of Bewitchery Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Ocean at the End of the Lane: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Piranesi Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sabriel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Assassin and the Pirate Lord: A Throne of Glass Novella Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Eyes of the Dragon Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Phantom Tollbooth Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Immortal Longings Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Wizard's First Rule Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Picture of Dorian Gray (The Original 1890 Uncensored Edition + The Expanded and Revised 1891 Edition) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Assassin and the Empire: A Throne of Glass Novella Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Assassin and the Desert: A Throne of Glass Novella Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Black Sun Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The City of Dreaming Books Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for The Wendigo
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
The Wendigo - Algernon Blackwood
THE WENDIGO
..................
Algernon Blackwood
DODO COLLECTIONS
Thank you for reading. In the event that you appreciate this book, please consider sharing the good word(s) by leaving a review, or connect with the author.
This book is a work of fiction; its contents are wholly imagined.
All rights reserved. Aside from brief quotations for media coverage and reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced or distributed in any form without the author’s permission. Thank you for supporting authors and a diverse, creative culture by purchasing this book and complying with copyright laws.
Copyright © 2015 by Algernon Blackwood
Interior design by Pronoun
Distribution by Pronoun
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER I
..................
A CONSIDERABLE NUMBER OF HUNTING parties were out that year without finding so much as a fresh trail; for the moose were uncommonly shy, and the various Nimrods returned to the bosoms of their respective families with the best excuses the facts of their imaginations could suggest. Dr. Cathcart, among others, came back without a trophy; but he brought instead the memory of an experience which he declares was worth all the bull moose that had ever been shot. But then Cathcart, of Aberdeen, was interested in other things besides moose—amongst them the vagaries of the human mind. This particular story, however, found no mention in his book on Collective Hallucination for the simple reason (so he confided once to a fellow colleague) that he himself played too intimate a part in it to form a competent judgment of the affair as a whole....
Besides himself and his guide, Hank Davis, there was young Simpson, his nephew, a divinity student destined for the Wee Kirk
(then on his first visit to Canadian backwoods), and the latter’s guide, Défago. Joseph Défago was a French Canuck,
who had strayed from his native Province of Quebec years before, and had got caught in Rat Portage when the Canadian Pacific Railway was a-building; a man who, in addition to his unparalleled knowledge of wood-craft and bush-lore, could also sing the old voyageur songs and tell a capital hunting yarn into the bargain. He was deeply susceptible, moreover, to that singular spell which the wilderness lays upon certain lonely natures, and he loved the wild solitudes with a kind of romantic passion that amounted almost to an obsession. The life of the backwoods fascinated him—whence, doubtless, his surpassing efficiency in dealing with their mysteries.
On this particular expedition he was Hank’s choice. Hank knew him and swore by him. He also swore at him, jest as a pal might,
and since he had a vocabulary of picturesque, if utterly meaningless, oaths, the conversation between the two stalwart and hardy woodsmen was often of a rather lively description. This river of expletives, however, Hank agreed to dam a little out of respect for his old hunting boss,
Dr. Cathcart, whom of course he addressed after the fashion of the country as Doc,
and also because he understood that young Simpson was already a bit of a parson.
He had, however, one objection to Défago, and one only—which was, that the French Canadian sometimes exhibited what Hank described as the output of a cursed and dismal mind,
meaning apparently that he sometimes was true to type, Latin type, and suffered fits of a kind of silent moroseness when nothing could induce him to utter speech. Défago, that is to say, was imaginative and melancholy. And, as a rule, it was too long a spell of civilization
that induced the attacks, for a few days of the wilderness invariably cured them.
This, then, was the party of four that found themselves in camp the last week in October of that shy moose year
‘way up in the wilderness north of Rat Portage—a forsaken and desolate country. There was also Punk, an Indian, who had accompanied Dr. Cathcart and Hank on their hunting trips in previous years, and who acted as cook. His duty was merely to stay in camp, catch fish, and prepare venison steaks and coffee at a few minutes’ notice. He dressed in the worn-out clothes bequeathed to him by former patrons, and, except for his coarse black hair and dark skin, he looked in these city garments no more like a real redskin than a stage Negro looks like a real African. For all that, however, Punk had in him still the instincts of his dying race; his taciturn silence and his endurance survived; also his superstition.
The party round the blazing fire that night were despondent, for a week had passed without a single sign of recent moose discovering itself. Défago had sung his song and plunged into a story, but Hank, in bad humor, reminded him so often that he kep’ mussing-up the fac’s so, that it was ‘most all nothin’ but a petered-out lie,
that the Frenchman had finally subsided into a sulky silence which nothing seemed likely to break. Dr. Cathcart and his nephew were fairly done after an exhausting day. Punk was washing up the dishes, grunting to himself under the lean-to of branches, where he later also slept. No one troubled to stir the slowly dying fire. Overhead the stars were brilliant in a sky quite wintry, and there was so little wind that ice was already forming stealthily along the shores of the still lake behind them. The silence