The Hanging Stones

The very best of Manly Wade Wellman was in his Silver John stories. They are all well worth reading. It's a combination of horror, folklore, fantasy and ethics, with John the Balladeer leading the way. It's sometimes funny, sometimes scary, sometimes thought provoking and always entertaining and worth reading.

Millionaire industrialist Noel Kottler has plans to recreate Stonehenge, as it was several thousand years ago, on the top of Teatray Mountain and turn it into an amusement park. He also plans to hire Silver John, half-troubadour, half-expert on local folklore, to sing for the tourists. John doesn't care much for city folk like Kottler or for the whole theme park idea. The local wolf spirits are also not happy with the invasion of their mountain. John is a real threat to them, so his wife Evadare is kidnapped, and her release depends on him leaving Teatray Mountain. Once he is gone, scaring away the rest of the construction workers from the new Stonehenge will be easy. John is assisted by Esdras Hogue and Judge Keith Pursuivant, two others who know their way around the worlds of spirits and folklore. He goes off alone to find Evadare, and gets help from a very unexpected source. Appalachian wizardry is not exactly a well-traveled area in the fantasy world. Wellman does an excellent job of storytelling. It's interesting, plausible, and well done with just enough of an undercurrent of weird. Two strong thumbs up.