GOTHIC GOULASH...

“They told of dripping stone walls in uninhabited castles 

and of ivy-clad monastery ruins by moonlight, 

of locked inner rooms and secret dungeons, 

dank charnel houses and overgrown graveyards, 

of footsteps creaking upon staircases 

and fingers tapping at casements, 

of howlings and shriekings, groanings and scuttlings 

and the clanking of chains, 

of hooded monks and headless horseman, 

swirling mists and sudden winds, 

insubstantial specters and sheeted creatures, 

vampires and bloodhounds, bats and rats and spiders, 

of men found at dawn and 

women turned white-haired and raving lunatic, 

and of vanished corpses and curses upon heirs.” 

 ~

 Susan Hill