“The Valley Was Still” is a classic tale by Manly Wade Wellman from Weird Tales. It was filmed as “Still Valley” for Twilight Zone, shown on November 24, 1961. Now readers of Horror stories know nothing good ever happens on a mountain. I mean, think of those Martense ghouls running around Tempest Mountain in Lovecraft’s “The Lurking Fear” or the shoggoths in his “At the Mountains of Madness”. But valleys are different. That’s where people find a warm cabin and respite from the terrors of the night. Right?
The editors of Weird Tales, Farnsworth Wright (1924-1940) and Dorothy McIlwraith (1940-1954), may have a difference of opinion on that. Because valleys can be dark too. Or still. Or filled with hidden-away things long since thought to be dead. Here are a baker’s dozen of valleys you might not be in such a rush to visit.
The 1920s
“The Valley of the Teeheemen” by Arthur Thatcher (Weird Tales, December 1924 January 1925) is a serial with an adventure flair. A quartet of acquaintances goes for a flight to a Navy ship but get slammed by a tornado and end up in a remote valley. There they see the “Teeheeman” of the title, a dinosaur. It is one of two T-Rex that haunt the remote valley, probably somewhere in South America. The locals worship the visitors as gods when they shoot the dinosaur to death with their rifles. The visitors get caught up in a struggle for kingship. The high priest is the only one who knows of a passage through the mountains to the outside world. The usual Burroughs-type stuff follows.
This tale reminded me of “The Whacker” from England. I doubt Austin Gill had read Thatcher. More likely they were both influenced by the master, Arthur Conan Doyle and The Lost World (1912). “The Valley of the Teeheemen” was followed by “The Last of the Teeheemen” in March April 1925. Weird Tales used many types of lost worlds. Though it is thought of as a Horror magazine, it did include plenty of Science Fiction in the Edgar Rice Burroughs mold from writers like Ray Cummings and Otis Adelbert Kline. Thatcher wrote two other serials of this type in 1925 and 1929.
“The Vale of the Corbies” (Weird Tales, November 1925) by Arthur J. Burks is an experiment in Lovecraftian horror. The story has a man plagued by a dream vision of a fantastical valley:
I believe that from childhood I dreamed at intervals, widely spaced intervals, of a little secluded valley which had no location except in the recesses of my subconscious mind. It has always been a sunless valley, with a dark cloud hiding the sun. Miasmatic mists have hung like airy shrouds in the still air above the valley’s floor. There has been no breeze in this valley, nor anything that lived or moved. The air has been good, freighted with a musty kind of perfume that has ever tantalized my sensitive nostrils; but it has always been air with a strange sort of chill to it that has ever caused me to waken shivering from my dream….
Once inside the valley he is attacked by the sounds of thrashing wings. Every time he dreams one more attacker is added. Eventually he touches the creatures and learns they are corbies or ravens. He fights them, realizing they hate him with great intensity. After decades of putting up with the dreams, he forces himself to stay awake and not engage the terrible birds. The story ends with the narrator’s brother relating that his brother has died, seemingly pecked to death.
This is not a typical Burks’ tale, using mood and hidden forces instead of his usual, to be honest, Pulpy ideas. I really think he was trying to write a story in the style of Lovecraft before the Cthulhu Mythos arrived. It is more reminiscent of “The Hound” and other early tales.
“The Valley of the Spiders” by H. G. Wells (Weird Tales, December 1925) This story originally Pearson’s Magazine, March 1903 but received an illustration and not the usual “reprint” image of later stories. The tale follows two escapees and their callous pursuers as they run through a valley taken over by giant spiders. The lovers win through and the baddies get eaten by The Hobbit sized spiders. Weird Tales was home to many spidery monsters.
“In the Valley” by Bertrande Harry Snell (Weird Tales, December 1929) features “The Valley of Gibbering Men”. I have to wonder if Snell was inspired by H. P. Lovecraft too.
The 1930s
“The Valley of the Worm” by Robert E. Howard (Weird Tales, February 1934) is a classic Sword & Sorcery tale by the creator of Conan. This tale stars Niord, in an ancient racial memory of the Texan, James Allison. The cripple lies in bed dreaming of past lives. Niord’s story begins when his tribe of Aryans migrates into the land of the Picts. This territory is plagued by an ancient evil. To destroy the giant worm and its weird summoner, Niord first has to trap and kill Satha, the giant snake. Using Satha’s poison, he makes arrows to fire into the terrible worm. Niord dies in the attempt but inspires the later tale of St. George and the Dragon. There was a wonderful comic version done by Gil Kane in 1973 and another by John Jakes and Richard Corben in 1976.
“Valley of Bones” by David H. Keller (Weird Tales, January 1938) is a supernatural revenge story. A white American psychiatrist is in Africa when he runs into a Zulu he knew at Oxford. The Zulu is happy to see the man because he was the only student who had treated him with kindness. To return the favor, the black man tells how every person in his tribe except him had been murdered by a white hunter for their gold. He invites the American to come to a secret valley where this tragedy happened. The hunter has returned looking for more wealth to steal, the axes and spears of the warriors. The two watch in secret as white figures (skeletons) kill the man. The next morning they find him with axes in his head, spears in his body and buried under a cairn of bones. What surprised me about this tale is that Keller doesn’t fall into of habits of using racist portrayals of the blacks as he usually does.
“The Valley Was Still” by Manly Wade Wellman (Weird Tales, August 1939) has two Confederate scouts discovering the sleepy town of Channow. The place is so quiet and still there are no birds singing, not even the wind blowing. Paradine goes to investigate and finds the Yankees sleeping in the street. This is the work of an old witch-man named Teague. Before Teague dies, he gives his book of spells to the soldier to use against the invaders. Paradine is tempted to use the dark magic but he can’t quite bring himself to mouth Satan’s name or give up God. He burns the book instead. Manly’s original Pulp story has a more resonating feel than the Twilight Zone version, which fails to capture the brooding fear of the original. Vaughn Taylor does a great job as Teague though.
The 1940s
“The Horror in the Glen” (Weird Tales, March 1940) by Clyde Irvine is one of those unusual gems to be found in Weird Tales. The author never wrote another for the magazine. In fact, all of his other credits are for Jungle Stories. Told in the first person, the author presents a tale based much Celtic folklore like the story of Thomas the Rhymer. There is a fairy tale feel in the ending but one that is gory and gruesome enough for any ghost story.
The story begins with the Douglas clan being slaughtered by the McGreggans. One young man, Malcolm, survives the attack by fleeing into the forest. He lives for years like an animal, never taking revenge for his slain kin. Finally the fairies intervene, forcing him to spend seven years in the enchanted realm, never speaking. He is tempted with all manner of sins but resists so he may return to the human realm with new supernatural powers. Before this he sees his mother, father and others in Hell being roasted like pigs on a spit.
Malcolm Dhu Glas finds a beautiful coach waiting for him, along with great wealth. (Shades of Cinderella!) He goes to clan MacGreggan, posing as a stupid English nobleman. The MacGreggans plot to murder him and take his money. Some get hasty and rob his servants. Gregor MacGreggan, leader of the clan, tells them to return the money but says in Gaelic they will get it back later after they kill the Englishman. Douglas, of course, understands both languages and knows their plan.
Things come to a head when the MacGreggans have a big feast (one in which all their family members wear a dirk). Like the famous “Red Wedding” of Game of Thrones, this is a killing bottle not a celebration. Malcolm calls up the fairy queen Boadellen and her army. The invisible soldiers set all the MacGreggans in the hall alight except for Gregor. A crowd of sword-bearing MacGreggans try to break their way into the hall. Malcolm reveals who he is, and calls his slain kin to take up their claymores. The spirits of the Douglasses slay all the MacGreggans.
Malcolm travels back in time. He sees his old village as it once was. He also sees the crowd of MacGreggans sneaking over the pass to kill everyone. Using his new supernatural powers, he causes an avalanche to bury his family’s enemies, making it so the opening massacre never happened.
“The Valley of the Undead” by Helen Weinbaum (Weird Tales, September 1940) is the tale of Martin Lane who falls in love with the beautiful Kathleen. She lives in a swamp with Old Kathleen, her grandmother. Martin wants to marry the younger Kathleen but a curse lies over her. Long ago, a town called Tiraney had grown wealthy and self important and stopped leaving offerings for the Little People. A terrible vengeance was done to the people of Tiraney. Old Kathleen survived the terror that destroyed the entire town but passed the curse onto her kin.
Martin presses Kathleen to marry him. She wants to but she won’t allow him to see her at night. Finally, after much pushing and permission from the old lady, Kathleen reveals her eyes. At night, they are not her own but those of a demon. Martin does not care but when the pair return to Tiraney in the valley they see the ghostly folk of the cursed town. Among them is the man who had been promised Old Kathleen’s hand in marriage. He wants the young Kathleen in her place. Martin fights for her and the couple win free of the curse, at least for now…
Helen Weinbaum was sister to the famous SF writer, Stanley G. Weinbaum. I’ve read some of the pieces she finished for him but didn’t really think of her as a writer in her own right. Well this story changes that. Weinbaum does a great job of balancing Celtic myths of the Little People with ghosts and other terrors, much as Clyde Irvine did. It has been done in Weird Tales before, notably by H. P. Lovecraft in “The Moon-Bog” (June 1926) and Edmond Hamilton in “The Shining Land” (May 1945) and its sequel “Lost Elysium” (November 1945) but I think Weinbaum is more successful.
“The Valley of the Assassins” by Edmond Hamilton (Weird Tales, November 1943) has Mark Stanton, an American engineer, in Iran trying to clear a rock slide from the train track. The workers become alarmed when they see a black peacock tethered nearby. It is a warning from the Assassins who dwell in a secret valley. Stanton is surprised to find the Assassin cult of Hasan Sabeh still in existence. When his engineer, Bill Bradley, goes off alone he comes back a crazed assassin who tries to kill his friends. The workers desert in the night. Stanton sends the wounded McLaughlin back to Tehran while he deals with the Assassins, which he thinks may actually be Nazis using superstition to slow down the rail repairs. (You have to remember this was a wartime story, so propaganda elements were desirable.)
Stanton and his loyal Fiskar go into the mountains in search of Alamut, the Assassins’ secret castle. They get jumped by Assassins and taken to the secret hideout. The captives are delivered to their leader, the immortal Hasan Sebah. Stanton learns that the Nazis are not behind the avalanche but the surviving cult members. With Russia cut off, the Germans will destroy them and the Empire of the Assassins can rise again. The old man also wants to trade bodies with Stanton. This is how he has lived for nine hundred years.
Using a special device with many crystals, Stanton has his soul switched. Hasan Sebah gathers all his followers and gets them to recognize the new body. Then the leader begins to feel pain in his chest. Stanton tells him that he suffers from heart problems and soon will die. Hasan switches their bodies back but forgets to tell his slaves. Stanton now has control of the empire and wins the day.
Much of this story would have fit nicely into a regular adventure Pulp such as Thrilling Adventure. Only the body swapping idea makes it a Weird Tales type tale. The concept was not new in 1943. (I laughed and thought of that Gilligan’s Island episode where the Professor and Mrs. Howell trade bodies….) Not one of Hamilton’s best efforts.
“The Valley of the Gods” by Edmond Hamilton (Weird Tales, May 1946) stars Garth Abbott, an archaeologist, who, along with his assistant, Jose Yanez, break into a Mayan mound while the locals party. Abbott seeks Xilbalba, the Valley of the Gods of Mayan myth. Inside the mound he finds a map to the secret valley as well as a bronze sword. Part of the map shows the god Kukulcan, the Feathered Serpent fighting the evil bat-god, Zotzilha. When the scientist grabs the sword he is filled with the spirit of Kukulcan. He sees the bat-god taunting him. The ancient rivalry still goes on.
The two men go in search of the valley in an airplane. Abbott had been a pilot in the war, and knows a thing or two about searching from the air. A strange atmospheric darkness causes the men to crash into a mountain and then land in a strange rift vallley. They have found Xilbalba! Landing, they are taken captive by the inhabitants, men of an ancient look. They are taken to the city of Xilbalba and to King Ummax.
Abbott’s comments on Kukulcan don’t receive the welcome he expected. Zotzilha rules in the valley, ever since the King’s sword was taken away to the outside world. But the sword is back! Abbott takes it out of his backpack. He is arrested and Jose killed. Princess Shuima thinks, since he has the sword and yellow hair, Abbott is Kukulcan returned.
The princess and others free Abbott, take him to the abandoned Temple of Kukulcan. Taking up the sword again, the archaeologist is filled with the spirit of the Feathered Serpent. A revolt is already under way and Abbott leads the people of Xilbalba to freedom. King Ummax gets away, taking Shuima to the Temple of Zotzilha to be sacrificed. Abbott follows, fights the king and destroys his mace, stopping the power of the Bat-God.The outside man stays in the valley to be Shuima’s husband and king.
This was Hamilton’s fourth title with Valley in it. He also wrote “The Valley of Invisible Men” for Ray A. Palmer’s Amazing Stories (March 1939) and The Valley of Creation for Startling Stories (July 1948) with Leigh Brackett. This last one is an A. Merritt pastiche (as is “The Valley of the Gods”). Merritt was fond of hiding strange things in valleys and other places like in “The People of the Pit” (All-Story Weekly, January 5, 1918). Henry Kuttner would write a very similar novel called “The Valley of the Flame” (Startling Stories, March 1946).
“Night Train to Lost Valley” by August Derleth (Weird Tales, January 1948) has Wilson the leather goods salesman making a late-in-the-season trip to Lost Valley. Everyone he meets on the train seems confused by his appearance. When he arrives in the quiet secluded town he finds a festival is being prepared. In his room he discovers a cloak and pointed hat like the others in the street are wearing. He dons them then boards the train with everyone for a remote location near the mountain. There he sees a terrible witch rite take place including the killing of a baby.The death will guarantee continued prosperity for the town.
The next morning the town pretends to be normal. Wilson makes his final orders and leaves, hearing that the Beales’ baby has died in the night from illness. Later at a party, Wilson hears a scientist named Kinnan speak about Lost Valley. He marvels at the inbreeding taking place there. He wonders how they have managed to stave off genetic defects this long….
Derleth’s horror writing is often considered dull or uninspired but certain stories like this one, and “The Shuttered House”, tell another story. He could at times produce quite good stuff, usually when he wasn’t trying to pimp more Cthulhu Mythos. Speaking of which….
The 1950s
“The House in the Valley” by August Derleth (Weird Tales, July 1953) is another late Cthulhu Mythos tale meant to keep the public eye on Lovecraft and Arkham House’s selections of titles. Jefferson Bates is a writer wanting peace and seclusion. He rents the house in the valley, the old Bishop place. The locals avoid the house because of the strange actions of Seth Bishop long ago. Bates discovers a bunch of old books in the basement, including Seth’s notes from The Necronomicon and other eldritch tomes. The writer begins having dreams of Cthulhu. The locals are afraid because sheep begin disappearing. Bates is afraid himself because he has proof he may have done the killing while asleep. Seth Bishop had summoned the Deep Ones and now they returned as Bishop’s ghost possesses the writer. The entire thing is very familiar to those who have read even a smattering of Lovecraft or other Cthulhu Mythos material. I understand why Derleth wrote such stories, and why Weird Tales on its last legs would have happily published it, but a yawn fest for myself.
Conclusion
See what I mean? Valleys are terrible places, filled with witches, fairies, ancient gods and Deep Ones. Much better to go somewhere else for that summer trip. Perhaps you’d feel better going to an island for a holiday? Or on a lovely sea voyage? Weird Tales has got you covered!
