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The Folklore of Black Hare Valley

~ ChanAtkins ~ Leave a comment

I’ve created a universe rich in folklore!

Image by Artur Pawlak from Pixabay

When I first had the idea for Black Hare Valley (take a look at last week’s post to get the gist of the inspiration behind it…) I had no idea it would grow into a series, or a universe. I also had no idea how much folklore would come to shape it. My initial idea was an ‘IT’ style horror story about missing kids, ancient evil and a pretty little town that looks perfect but is anything but.

As I wrote the first book, and soon realised I had enough storylines for a second, and so on… I began to realise I was writing folk horror, a genre I’ve been obsessed with for a while. For anyone not sure about the term ‘folk horror’ it applies to a genre of literature film and TV with an emphasis on folklore and the culture of the outsider.

Folk horror is sub-genre of horror that explores mythology, urban legends, paranormal and supernatural beings usually in an urban or rural setting. It draws aspects from cultural traditions, rural life, small town life, connections to ancient evil and explorations of morality. I would argue that folk horror is a really important sub-genre as it explores tales of old and reframes them for modern readers and viewers, often tackling the big questions such as life, death, after-life, mortality, what it is to be human, community and sacrifice etc. It is also a more subtle and unsettling style of horror where threats are less obvious than in ghost or vampire stories, for example.

Common elements include: Paranoia, morality, superstition, tradition, religion dark aspects of nature, isolation. a foreboding atmosphere, outsiders, generational secrets, trauma, curses, nature, isolated communities, rural towns, old-fashioned ways, and dark forces.

The Black Hare Valley series ticks every box there is for folk horror!

As I wrote the books I found myself becoming increasingly immersed in British folklore and several aspects of it really came to dominate the series. I’m going to talk about them now.

May Day: May Day in Black Hare Valley is extremely important, some might say it is sacred. Schools and businesses close for the day. The May Queen, (usually a young girl decked out in white) sits upon a carriage pulled by a mule along the streets of the town. The townsfolk gather at the sides of the road to watch and wave and cheer. Just before she comes along, the hares are released. This is an old time tradition, with the hares racing away symbolising fertility and new life. Everyone follows the May Queen to the park where she is crowned upon her thrones with a garland of wildflowers. A community celebration follows, with children dancing around the Maypole, and plenty of food and drink to enjoy. Traditionally, people used to leave ‘May baskets’ on neighbours doorsteps, sometimes containing food or small gifts, often just posies of wildflowers. In Black Hare Valley May Day represents the shift into Spring and celebrates new life, resurrection and fertility.

Hares: Hares are integral to May Day in Black Hare Valley but they are also a hugely significant symbol of the town and what it represents. Through the ages and across cultures, hares have been associated with witchcraft and magic, as well as with madness, the moon, and bad luck. Equally, they have been associated with good luck, new life and fertility. It was once believed that witches could shape shift into hares to escape persecution. There are old folks tales about what it means to see a hare running through town (a house will catch fire) and people used to believe it was good luck to see hares jumping from the flames of a cornfield.

Fairy rings: Fairy rings are perfect circles of mushrooms/fungi that appear naturally by themselves. There are perfectly good scientific and biological reasons this happens, but go back far enough in time and people used to believe the rings were portals to the fairy realm. It was seen as a great crime to break or damage a fairy ring and doing so would invoke the wrath of the fae folk. They may put a curse on you or they may steal you into their own world. I’ve used fairy rings in the series, and they mostly pop up in book two: 1966.

The Green Man: The Green Man is a universal symbol of nature, fertility, and new life. There are countless folk tales and versions of him across the world and within different cultures. His gnarled old face is often carved into trees or posts, and can often be seen on churches and other old buildings. He symbolises nature, rebirth and the human connection to the natural world. He also symbolises the past…

I hope you’ve enjoyed a little journey through some of the folklore that shaped my next book!

Here is the preorder link if you are tempted to give Book One: 1996 a try!

https://books2read.com/u/4EO5DE

The Inspiration Behind Black Hare Valley Book One: 1996

~ ChanAtkins ~ 2 Comments

My homage to Stephen King, echoes of ‘IT’ and bringing back maps and illustrations!

the paperback! Image is mine

It was about seven years ago when the idea for Black Hare Valley first presented itself to me, but back then, I only knew a few things about it. At the time, my eldest son was 12, and had recently dived into ‘IT’ by Stephen King. I was a similar age myself when I first discovered King. Having recently re-read the book (because it is one of my all time favourites), it became a topic of conversation between my son and I.

I told him I wanted to write a big chunk of a book set in a strange small town that seems quaint and peaceful on the surface but is anything but underneath… I wanted a group of misfit teenagers, a missing kid, and an undercurrent of fear and paranoia. That was about all I knew.

I think it was my son who suggested creating the town first and so one evening lying side by side on the lounge floor, we started creating a map on a long sheet of roll-out drawing paper. I’ve still got that map but it’s a bit scruffy these days. Years later I asked my son to recreate an A4 version and that is the neater one that appears at the front of the book.

We didn’t really have a plan. We added whatever felt natural: shops, schools, churches, petrol stations, hills, rivers, streams and woods… It was a lot of fun. Around that time I visited one of the iron age hill-forts we are lucky enough to have in our area and I was feeling very inspired by that too. I decided it should be a valley town, with one main road going through it and the town built up around that. On each side of the town would be sweeping hills and man-made hill-forts, or the remnants of. There would also be creepy woods, mysterious and ancient graves and ruins where the kids could hang out.

We had a lot of fun creating it and then that was it. I didn’t have anything else for the story yet but over the next three years, the characters started to grow in my head. Then in 2023 we had a five day power cut thanks to a storm, and even once the power came back on, we had two weeks without an internet connection.

It was on the first day of the power cut, sitting in the lounge with only the flames of the fire and some hastily strung up fairy lights to see by, that I suddenly knew how I would start the story of Black Hare Valley. A scene popped into my head. The group of teenagers were now fully formed and all had character bios in a notebook. I was working on loads of other books at the time, as I often am, and I wasn’t really meant to write it at all, but the power cut meant I couldn’t use my laptop, so I had no choice.

I picked up a notebook and started writing in longhand. That first scene was so real to me and had already played out in my head like a movie or an episode of a TV show. Jesse Archer, one of my main characters, lurking in an alley way waiting for his friends, who had agreed to help him set fire to the school. He would be interrupted and then arrested by Sergeant Aaron Mayfield and this scene would reveal a dark and mysterious relationship between the two of them.

Once I started writing I could not stop, and over the next three weeks the entire novel poured out of my pen and into several A4 notebooks. I wrote it every day, constantly. I’d be sitting in the car before work and writing. I’d be in the kitchen cooking dinner, and writing. And suddenly, it was done.

It then had to sit and be ignored while I went back to finishing off other projects.

Some time in 2024 I started typing it up and as I typed, I changed, deleted, and added to the book. I then knew there had to be another book, and before long I had a series on the go, which was not something I initially wanted! But the universe I had created just kept on growing and I could not have stopped it if I tried.

By this point I was fully in love with my main characters and heroes: Jesse, Willow, Jaime, Ralph and Paddy. And as I wrote each next book, more answers revealed themselves to me until one day I knew how it all ended, how it all tied up and who or what would ‘win’ in the end.

This book is a true labour of love, a homage to Stephen King’s ‘IT’ and a story about friendship, love, revenge and youth. It’s also a story steeped in folklore, from fairy rings and realms, to May Day traditions, shape-shifters, the green man, the hare, and much, more more.

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading about the inspiration behind it and don’t forget that at the moment the ebook is 99p to preorder from this link: https://books2read.com/u/4EO5DE

I will be back next Friday and the paperback link should be live by then!

See you next time!

The Children I Work With Have Published Another Book!

~ ChanAtkins ~ 2 Comments

Something Happened In Lakeside View was written collaboratively by over 80 children!


https://books2read.com/u/mVEyw2

Something Happened In Lakeside View is the result of over 80 children working together collaboratively to vote on a project, create a town, vote on a common theme and then all write their own stories or poems set there…

We started the project last summer term and all the pieces had been submitted by January. It is now available in ebook and paperback across multiple platforms.

Here is the blurb:

Welcome to Lakeside View, a pretty little town much like any other. Or is it?

Scratch under the surface and you will find a place full of secrets and shadows.

A place full of darkness, magic, ancient curses and hidden horrors. Who would live in a town like this? Many people have come and gone and some have left behind their testimonies.

What happened in Lakeside View? Read on to find out.

This is an anthology of stories and poems written by the young people who attend creative writing clubs with Chasing Driftwood Writing Group.

Don’t forget to leave a review on your platform of choice if you do read it. And please be aware this is a creepy horror-based book that might not be suitable for those under 10 or sensitive readers.

Many thanks!

A Week of Obsessive Editing

~ ChanAtkins ~ 3 Comments

I just want it done!

cover for the anthology my students have written! Links coming soon! Image is mine

I blogged last week about the endless editing facing me after writing so many books and having them at various stages of drafts. This always seems to happen to me! I write and write and write, start new books when I have not yet published other books, and then at some point I inevitably end up with a lot of editing jobs… A seemingly endless list of books and projects to edit.

The thing is, I might just be as obsessive about editing as I am about writing. It has utterly consumed me this week and I’ve managed to tick off two of the biggest jobs I had.

Something Happened In Lakeside View is an anthology of connected short stories penned by the children I work with and this week I finished the final edits. I am now in the process of setting it up for publication and hopefully this time next week I will have buy links ready for anyone interested!

Here is the blurb by the way:

Welcome to Lakeside View, a pretty little town much like any other. Or is it?

Scratch under the surface and you will find a place full of secrets and shadows.

A place full of darkness, magic, ancient curses and hidden horrors. Who would live in a town like this? Many people have come and gone and some have left behind their testimonies.

What happened in Lakeside View? Read on to find out.

This is an anthology of stories and poems written by the young people who attend creative writing clubs with me at Chasing Driftwood Writing Group.

It felt like a huge weight had lifted when I declared that editing job done! In fact, the whole project has been very time consuming to put together so I should, in theory, have some more time on my hands for a bit.

The second big editing job was going through my editor’s edits on Black Hare Valley Book 1: 1996. I also got this done this week! I am now doing a final proofread/check through on my Kindle to mop up any lingering typos. Again, it feels like a weight has been lifted with that big job done.

These two books are priority for getting ready to publish or setting up to publish, so that will now take precedence over any other editing jobs I have. However, I am still slowly going through the second draft, or read-through draft, of The Dark Finds You Part 3. I still have a lot of misgivings about this one… But reading through and making little changes is helping me figure out the problems it might have!

So, on it goes… But at least the big ones are done for now!

When it comes to endless editing that just cannot be put off, I tend to just get my head down and crack on with it. I’ve had my Kindle with me at all times this week, so I have been editing in the car while I wait to go into work, and I have been editing in the evening, and then editing again before bed when normally I would be reading or watching TV. There’s simply no other way to get it done other than just get on with it!