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Randalls Round by Elanor Scott7/6/2023 ![]() "Jove, what a lark it would be to get into that barrow!" he went on, drawing at his pipe. "That's amusing," thought Heyling, as he laid down the book and felt for a match. ![]() This theory is borne out by the fact that at one time the curious Randalls Round was danced about the mound, the 'victim' being led into the fringe of the thicket that surrounds it." (A footnote added, "Whether this is still the case I cannot be certain.") "Permission to open the tumulus has always been most firmly refused." The bank is oval in shape, and is almost certainly formed by a long barrow of the Paleolithic age. These mounds are not uncommon in the Cotswolds, though few seem to be regarded with quite as much awe as Randalls Bank, which the country people avoid scrupulously. Near Randalls is one of those 'banks' or mounds, surrounded by a thicket, which the villagers refuse to approach. The origin of this dance," he read, "is almost certainly sacrificial. (In passing, we are informed the date is October 31.) Then Heyling is off to a weekend's rest a Cotswolds inn called The Flaming Hand. It begins in the Jamesian manner with Heyling dismissing his friend Mortlake's interest in the actual material basis of folk customs. The short story "Randalls Round" has the dreamlike quality of biting and arbitrary distance. Locations and landscapes are related with confident brevity. ![]() The collection Randalls Round overflows with "fields and furrows" tropes associated today with the folk horror mode of writing in the horror field. ![]()
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