Bowmen and Other Legends of the War
()
About this ebook
Arthur Machen
Arthur Machen (1863-1947) was a Welsh mystic and author. Born Arthur Llewellyn Jones, he was raised in Monmouthshire in a prominent family of clergymen. He developed an early interest in alchemy and other occult matters, and obtained a classical education at Hereford Cathedral School. He moved to London, where he failed to gain admittance to medical school and soon focused on his literary interests. Working as a tutor, he wrote in the evening and published his first poem, “Eleusinia,” in 1881. A novel, The Anatomy of Tobacco (1884), soon followed, launching his career as a professional writer. Machen made a name for himself as a frequent contributor to London literary magazines and achieved his first major success with the 1894 novella The Great God Pan. Following his wife’s death from cancer in 1899, he briefly joined the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and began conducting research on Celtic Christianity, the legend of the Holy Grail, and the stories of King Arthur. In 1922, after a decade of working as a journalist for the Evening News, he published The Secret Glory—a story of the Grail—to popular and critical acclaim. This marked the highpoint of his career as a pioneering author of fantasy, horror, and supernatural fiction whose work has been admired and praised by William Butler Yeats, Arthur Conan Doyle, and Stephen King.
Read more from Arthur Machen
Five Gothic Masterpieces: The Mysteries of Udolpho, The Great God Pan, Frankenstein, Carmilla, and Dracula Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Weiser Book of Horror and the Occult: Hidden Magic, Occult Truths, and the Stories That Started It All Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Arthur Machen MEGAPACK ®: 25 Classic Works Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe 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 Ghost and Horror Stories Ever Written: volume 1 (30 short stories) Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Gothic Classics: 60+ Books in One Volume Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Novel of the Black Seal Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Novel of the White Powder Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/550 Halloween Stories you have to read before you die (Golden Deer Classics) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTRICK OR TREAT Boxed Set: 200+ Eerie Tales from the Greatest Storytellers: Horror Classics, Mysterious Cases, Gothic Novels, Monster Tales & Supernatural Stories: Sweeney Todd, The Murders in the Rue Morgue, Frankenstein, The Vampire, Dracula, Sleepy Hollow, From Beyond… Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Hill of Dreams: Autobiographical Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Book of Shadows Vol 2 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFamous Modern Ghost Stories Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Arthur Machen Collection Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings50 Horror masterpieces you have to read before you die [newly updated] (Golden Deer Classics) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Hill of Dreams (Barnes & Noble Digital Library) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Arthur Machen: The Complete Works Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Novel of the Black Seal (Cryptofiction Classics - Weird Tales of Strange Creatures) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMemoirs of Casanova — Volume 13: Holland and Germany Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to Bowmen and Other Legends of the War
Related ebooks
Spirits of Battle: featuring The Bowmen Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Angel of Mons Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Angels of Mons The Bowmen and Other Legends of the War Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Angels of Mons: The Soldiers' Rest, The Monstrance, The Dazzling Light, The Bowmen And Other Noble Ghosts Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Bowmen & Other Stories: “Old stories often turn out to be true.” Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Amber Witch Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMr. Munchausen Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPierre and His People: Tales of the Far North. Complete Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsClassic Gothic Horror Anthology Volume I: Frankenstein, Dracula, and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEssential Novelists - Wilhelm Meinhold: a successful literary hoax Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMargery (Historical Novel) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFrankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTaboo: A Legend Retold from the Dirghic of Sævius Nicanor, with / Prolegomena, Notes, and a Preliminary Memoir Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Riddle of the Sands Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Frankenstein (Deluxe Edition) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMichel and Angele [A Ladder of Swords] — Volume 1 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsShe And Allan: "Passion is like the lightning, it is beautiful, and it links the earth to heaven, but alas it blinds!" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMargery: (Gred) A Tale of Old Nuremberg Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Digit of the Moon / A Hindoo Love Story Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMary Schweidler, the amber witch Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMary Schweidler, the amber witch The most interesting trial for witchcraft ever known, printed from an imperfect manuscript by her father, Abraham Schweidler, the pastor of Coserow in the island of Usedom / edited by W. Meinhold ; translated from the German by Lady Duff Gordon. Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBooks and Persons (Barnes & Noble Digital Library) Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Taboo (Barnes & Noble Digital Library): A Legend Retold from the Dirghic Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDaily Life During The Indian Mutiny: Personal Experiences Of 1857 [Illustrated Edition] Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Bowmen - And Other Short Stories by Arthur Machen (Fantasy and Horror Classics) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTwelve Tales Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMargery (Gred): A Tale Of Old Nuremberg — Complete Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTwelve Tales with a Headpiece, a Tailpiece, and an Intermezzo: Being Select Stories Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Bloody Habit: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
General Fiction For You
The Alchemist: A Graphic Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Outsider: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5It Ends with Us: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Priory of the Orange Tree Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Anonymous Sex Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5The Unhoneymooners Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Life of Pi: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Covenant of Water (Oprah's Book Club) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Nettle & Bone Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5You: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Princess Bride: S. Morgenstern's Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5My Sister's Keeper: A Novel 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 Fellowship Of The Ring: Being the First Part of The Lord of the Rings Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Beyond Good and Evil Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Ocean at the End of the Lane: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Dark Tower I: The Gunslinger Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Meditations: Complete and Unabridged Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Foster Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Shantaram: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The City of Dreaming Books Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Cabin at the End of the World: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Persuasion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Beartown: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Silmarillion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Canterbury Tales Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Iliad of Homer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dante's Divine Comedy: Inferno Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Man Called Ove: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Bowmen and Other Legends of the War
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
Bowmen and Other Legends of the War - Arthur Machen
Introduction
I have been asked to write an introduction to the story of The Bowmen, on its publication in book form together with three other tales of similar fashion. And I hesitate. This affair of The Bowmen has been such an odd one from first to last, so many queer complications have entered into it, there have been so many and so divers currents and cross-currents of rumour and speculation concerning it, that I honestly do not know where to begin. I propose, then, to solve the difficulty by apologising for beginning at all.
For, usually and fitly, the presence of an introduction is held to imply that there is something of consequence and importance to be introduced. If, for example, a man has made an anthology of great poetry, he may well write an introduction justifying his principle of selection, pointing out here and there, as the spirit moves him, high beauties and supreme excellencies, discoursing of the magnates and lords and princes of literature, whom he is merely serving as groom of the chamber. Introductions, that is, belong to the masterpieces and classics of the world, to the great and ancient and accepted things; and I am here introducing a short, small story of my own which appeared in The Evening News about ten months ago.
I appreciate the absurdity, nay, the enormity of the position in all its grossness. And my excuse for these pages must be this: that though the story itself is nothing, it has yet had such odd and unforeseen consequences and adventures that the tale of them may possess some interest. And then, again, there are certain psychological morals to be drawn from the whole matter of the tale and its sequel of rumours and discussions that are not, I think, devoid of consequence; and so to begin at the beginning.
This was in last August, to be more precise, on the last Sunday of last August. There were terrible things to be read on that hot Sunday morning between meat and mass. It was in The Weekly Dispatch that I saw the awful account of the retreat from Mons. I no longer recollect the details; but I have not forgotten the impression that was then on my mind, I seemed to see a furnace of torment and death and agony and terror seven times heated, and in the midst of the burning was the British Army. In the midst of the flame, consumed by it and yet aureoled in it, scattered like ashes and yet triumphant, martyred and for ever glorious. So I saw our men with a shining about them, so I took these thoughts with me to church, and, I am sorry to say, was making up a story in my head while the deacon was singing the Gospel.
This was not the tale of The Bowmen. It was the first sketch, as it were, of The Soldiers’ Rest. I only wish I had been able to write it as I conceived it. The tale as it stands is, I think, a far better piece of craft than The Bowmen, but the tale that came to me as the blue incense floated above the Gospel Book on the desk between the tapers: that indeed was a noble story – like all the stories that never get written. I conceived the