Round the Herne

 My reading of H P Lovecraft's 1922 short story "Celephais" which warns the reader about the seductive danger of fantasy and daydreaming, luring people away from engaging in the world around them. Unusually for Lovecraft, there are no real squeamish horrors eating people's brains or turning their souls into earrings - however, the creeping madness is ever present.

  My recording of H P Lovecraft's (1920) short story " Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family", a tale which suggests that it is sometimes better not to delve too deeply into one's genealogy. This story is from the same collection that I have previously recorded other Lovecraft tales from.

 It is harvest time in Britain, so thought I would record a story connected to agriculture. This is part of the myth cycle of Demeter and how she forms an association with the kingdom of Eleusis and the birth of the Eleusinian Mysteries. Disguised as a mortal woman, Doso, she looks after the baby Demophon and his older brother Triptolemus, There are close parallels between this story and one told of Aset (Isis) when she too is wandering the land in search of a lost loved one and ends up taking care of a royal baby. One story may have inspired the other, or both may reflect a universal truth.