Dark Harvest: Six of the Best with Rab Fulton

Rab Fulton needs very little introduction to regulars here at my spot. Recently I edited his novella, Transformation, which is a twisted kinda half-fairytale, half-romance yarn with some horror elements thrown in for good measure. I can't really come up with a pinpointed description save to say, if you love tales involving Ireland, then this one will definitely be memorable. Having been to that merry green land myself, I was was immediately transported into a serious dose of nostalgia while reading.

Anyhoo, Rab is one of the contributing authors in Dark Harvest, a collection of short stories recently released via Dark Continents Publishing. A very big welcome to him today to chat a little more about his art. 

Tell us about your story. Where did you pick up the story seeds?

This story was written during an awful bout of depression following 9/11. Like most people I was horrified by the events of 9/11 but that horror was deepened and darkened by the propaganda on all sides - whether anti-Islam or anti-American. I guess I was fortunate in that I was in a position to talk to both young Americans and Muslim refugees in the immediate aftermath. Far from either group fitting into trite and dangerous stereotypes I was surprised by the shared grief and common sense of the men and women I talked to. There was much disagreement but it was reasoned and rational. Those conversations didn't just give me another insight to the aftermath of 9/11 but they managed to lift me enough so that I could set down a response to the ugly propaganda that was polluting the planet. However I had to be very careful not to fall into propaganda myself. I am an atheist but I did not want this to perceived as an anti-religion or anti-god work. The result is one of my darkest pieces of writing but hopefully it will still strike people as beautiful.

What creeps you out?

Mirrors in dark rooms. I keep thinking I'll see the faces of dead
friends in them...

Oh aye, mirrors get me too. When I was staying in a hotel in Killarney in Ireland I was so creeped out by the mirrors in the room I had to cover them with my spare blankets. Why do you love dark/unsettling fiction?

Dark fiction can push boundaries and twist expectations in powerful and shocking ways. It makes the reader doubt the reality they exist in, makes them aware that there are other things beyond our ken - some of which are incredibly malevolent and will destroy you if they can.

Coming from Scotland and Ireland, I was very much brought up with an awareness of the dark side to stories. Irish and Scottish fairies are seldom pleasant beings - and the ways of dealing with them can also be pretty savage. Its something I've long played with, most notably in my books Transformation and Galway Bay Folk Tales. Favourite dark tales would include The Mountains of Madness by HP Lovecraft and from Robert Louis Stevenson The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde or The Beach of Falesa.

What are you working on now?

Oh I'm up to my eyes just now. I'm trying to find the time to finish the draft version of my blog novel Marcus Marcus and the Hurting Heart. The final five chapters are sketched out but finding time to write them is difficult. The draft has to be finished by the end of this month as I'm doing a reading from the book in February at the Muscailt Arts Festival, which originally commissioned the story. But I'm also having to prepare for a theatrical tour in Ireland and a storytelling tour in the UK. Oh yeah add in raising two young boys and you can imagine I'm a little bit frazzled at the moment

What’s the most unexpected thing people discover about you? 

I'm shorter than I look!


Tell us a little more about what you’re reading at present?

At the moment I am reading The Ballad of Reading Gaol by Oscar Wilde. It is one of the darkest and most unsettling pieces ever written in the English language. It is a fictionalised account of the years Oscar Wilde spent in gaol after he was convicted of being a homosexual. The core of the story is the hanging of a murderer and the impact waiting for the killing has on the other prisoners, including Oscar Wilde. Some of the images are just so eloquent yet utterly terrifying, like the Lord of Death with his icy breath and the dance of the evil sprites the night before the hanging of the murderer. It is prison writing as important as any of the work by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn that exposed the horror of Stalin's prison state. Oscar Wilde's poem equally exposes the savagery at the heart of the British Imperial system but sadly it is a work that is little read.

Perhaps there are just too many truths in it...

Oh and i'm also reading Winnie the Pooh. There are some lovely understated moments in those stories like when on a rainy day Pooh manages to float to Christopher Robin on an empty honey pot. He tells Christopher that the pot is either a boat or an accident depending on whether he is on top of it or underneath it. My boys find that hilarious!

Links
Rab's website, Marcus Marcus blog, Transformation, Galway Folk Tales.

Saint Patrick and the Serpent – a retelling of an ancient tale by Rab Swannock Fulton

In anticipation of St Patrick's Day and a celebration of all that is Irish, I've given storyteller Rab Swannock Fulton today's post.

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Galway Bay Folk Tales is
illustrated by Marina Wild.
For more see:
http://www.marinawild.com/

Below is an extract from Galway Bay Folk Tales, the new book by Rab Swannock Fulton. The book retells the dark and strange myths, folklore and urban legends of Galway and the west of Ireland. One of the main characters in the book is Saint Patrick who with his nephew Lugnad travels from the North to the West of Ireland fighting against Druids, Pagans and  Immortals such as Cromm Crúaich.

Lugnad was the son of Patrick’s sister Limanin. On the mission around Ireland the old man would often come near to being overwhelmed with anger or despair; at other times pride and temptation would threaten him. It was Lugnad, with his steady youthful optimism who would guide Patrick back to calm reflection. So it was that Lugnad became known as Patrick’s navigator.

From the moment he arrived in Ireland Patrick pursued his mission relentlessly. With the arrival of the morning sun, Patrick and his black cowled followers fell on the drowsy pilgrims at shrine of Cromm Crúaich. Wielding wooden clubs and crucifixes they smashed the bodies of idols and idolaters.

Hearing the screams of men, women and children Cromm Crúaich hurried to do battle. He transformed into a monstrous snake with poison dripping from its teeth. The beast rushed towards an old man who was shouting out instructions and encouragement to the invaders. The old man turned around and laughed at the serpent. ‘Don’t bother me fairy!’ Enraged the Immortal snapped open its jaws and swallowed Patrick, but the evangelist ripped his way through the beast’s gut.


Wounded, the Immortal slithered away. Patrick returned to the battle filled with a blinding rage, only to have Lugnad put a hand on his shoulder. ‘Enough.’ Patrick raised his hands and the violence stopped. The pagans who survived were converted en mass and helped their Christian brethren strip the gold and silver from the pagan statues. As prayers of thanks were offered up to God and Christ, Patrick vowed his work was not yet done. ‘Cromm Crúaich’s shrine is broken. But I will not rest until Cruachan Aigli is conquered.’

In the granite bones of Ireland’s hills, atoms shifted imperceptibly as the news of the destruction of Cromm Crúaich’s shrine was transmitted across the Island. With one act Patrick altered utterly the realities of this world and worlds beyond. Kings and queens shivered with horror as they contemplated new and sudden opportunities for their own advancement or destruction. Even in the realm of infinite possibilities the paths of unborn ideas were realigned by notions of belief and unbelief.

Cromm Crúaich was broken, but Patrick was not yet satisfied.

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Galway Bay Folk Tales is published by The History Press. For details see Galway Bay Folk Tales on Amazon

Rab’s other work includes a retelling of the Irish Pooka legend in Transformation an e-book available from Dark Continents Publishing.

His work will also be included in the upcoming collection of short stories Dark Harvest.

For more see About Rab

Transformation by Rab Swannock Fulton #release

I was supposed to meet Rab Swannock Fulton last year while I was visiting Ireland. But we passed each other like ships in the night, and I wasn't in Galway long enough to make a new plan. He did, however, get a limited-run printed copy of his novel, Transformation, into my hands. When I read the novella, I was totally blown away by his lyrical style. What at first seemed like a sweet love story went so horribly wrong, in the nicest, wrongest possible ways. I just knew I wanted to sink my red pen into this story--and now, a year later, this has come to pass. I am, however, going to let Rab speak for himself, and he's graciously stopped by my blog for a little Q&A. Welcome, Rab!

You're a professional storyteller based in Ireland. Tell us how that came about, and also what the average day in the life of a storyteller is. 

Well I’ve aye been surrounded by stories, from the moment I was born I was surrounded by people either telling tales or reading tales.  This has been going on in my family for generations in one for or tother. At the moment I’m telling stories and my sister is writing plays, whilst one nephew is acting. So we’re all into words in some form. As for why I turned professional. Well I’d been through a terrible few years of grieving when a friend of mine Clare Murphy – a wonderful Irish storyteller – asked me to come tell some stories with her. This was in 2006. And things just developed from there.

My average day, at the moment, is spent juggling between editing riskybizzness.blogspot.ie and trying to get the Folk Tales book written. I’m lucky in that I start my week days walking my son to his school. It’s a walk that can last anywhere from 25 minutes to an hour, depending on what distractions we come across – flowers, squashed foxes, ufo landing sites, that kinda thing. All the time of course there are stories running through the back of my head as I prepare for my weekly show in The Cottage Bar. The shows take place every Thursday night and I’m usually wiped out on Friday – its been a gey busy summer, shows packed to capacity. And then there’s always other shows going on. This weekend I was entertaining a private group of travel writers and journalists from Quebec, so its all go.

Transformation starts out as a love story, but things go horribly wrong. Can you tell us a little more about the background of the tale?

Rab doing what he does best! Telling stories.

Well you know how it is as a writer, yir aye processing things. Whatever yi see goes in to your brain and begins turning into stuff. But what I wanted to capture with this tale was a sense of wonder, the wonder of soul, sex, terror. All that.

Goats. These wonderful creatures are entrenched in Ireland's history. When I toured Ireland last year I saw a bunch of statues of goats here and there. Tell me more.

 Goats go way back into Irish culture and identity and I use a little of that history in Transformation. They are definetly part of pre-Christian forms of engagement with life and the world. Funnily enough my Chinese star sign is the goat. And when I worked up in a farm in Leitrim there was a heap of goats there. The most delightful weird inquisitive creatures, with an old crabbit granny goat in charge of them all.  So I guess I’ve aye had an affinity wae goats. I have another goat story, well a goat skin story, that I perform called Toby’s Wish, a lovely grotesque funny tale

What are some of your favourite stories that you tell to audiences? 

It depends on the audience. But what I particularly love is listening to the stories that people bring into the audience. I have learnt so much about Galway just from older audience members telling me their family tales. And of course some of those tales touch on the stranger parts of Galway. I have met people, for example who have seen Hy Brazil.

Where can folks track you down for your sessions? 

I’m lucky that locally and internationally word of mouth has served me very well. But the best way to keep up on my Celtic Tales show is keep an aye on the Celtic Tales page in my Marcus Marcus blog

Links:
Marcus Marcus & the Hurting Heart  http://marcusmarcusthehurtingheart.blogspot.com

RiskyBizness http://riskybizzness.blogspot.ie/

Twitter http://twitter.com/haveringrab

Facebook  https://www.facebook.com/rab.fulton

Review: Transformation by Rab Swannock Fulton

Title: Transformation

Author: Rab Swannock Fulton

Publisher: Dubray Books – dubraygal@dubraybooks.ie

Like many young people who have left school, Donnacha takes on a menial job in order to pay bills. Elbow deep in suds at a Galway pub, he soon makes friends and begins to establish himself independently. He finds love yet at the same time comes into contact with a goat-like being that is source of intense terror.

What starts out as a love story turns into a supernatural mystery with underpinnings of horror, but it’s also more than that. Superficially, Transformation is a fairy tale but, like most fairy tales, once you peel back the layers there’s a lot more substance. In many ways, Donnacha’s goat represents the darker aspects of man’s nature—bestial, carnal and savage—that exists in counterpoint to the dreamy, sensitive lover. This is also a tale about the dangers of monomania and obsession, and how one can eventually poison oneself.

For the sake of not spoiling the story, I won’t go into further detail with regard what transpires suffice to say that love is central. What struck me the most about Fulton’s writing, however, was the sheer magical gift this man has for language. I was immediately drawn into Donnacha’s world, sharing in his triumphs and his tragedies. It felt as though I were walking next to him through the ancient streets of Galway to the point where I could even hear the beating of swans’ wings and the rush of the River Corrib.

Fulton brings the magic of the Emerald Isle to life with his lyrical prose yet always reminds one that for all the light and beauty, there are darker aspects too. He evokes the primal nature of existence in his tales beneath a veneer of the commonplace, and that is why this is an important book to read.

Yes, the print edition is a bit rough around the edges with regard to edits and layout, but these flaws are minor and are far outweighed by the pure magic of the story. Rab Swannock Fulton is a gifted storyteller of the highest order, and Transformation will not leave you unchanged.

Follow Fulton on Twitter @haveringrab