The latest LibriVox Ghost and Horror Collection brings new public-domain readings of “The Outsider” by Lovecraft, and “The Loved Dead” by Eddy and Lovecraft.

Also in audio, some R.E. Howard readers may be interested in the venerable scholar Tom Shippey on a late September podcast interview. Shippey gives a vivid overview of his new book Beowulf and the North before the Vikings (slipped out with no fanfare in August 2022).

Turns out that the Dark Ages really were dark, at least circa 536-539 A.D. That was when the sun was all but blotted out due to multiple and massive volcanic eruptions. The temperature went down too, and stayed down to 543 A.D. It took some regions a hundred years or more to even start to recover.

The podcast link above has an .MP3 download, and the excellent 40 minute interview starts at 3:10 minutes. Such a pity that the presenter was a stickler for his timing and cut it short, as Shippey was on top form and was evidently willing to talk for perhaps another 30 minutes or so.

He gets one thing wrong, in passing. Jefferson proposed… “Hengist and Horsa, the Saxon chiefs from whom we claim the honour of being descended, and whose political principles and form of government we have assumed” — but it appears they never actually made it to the final Great Seal of America. Incidentally, Lovecraft felt much the same as Jefferson, and tongue-in-cheek declared himself… “a son of Odin and brother to Hengist and Horsa”.