Welcome to another guest attraction! In this edition, we feature the experience created by one E. E. Speight, titled The Blackthorn Gallows. This feature is different from many in that there is far more emphasis on the ambience on the scenes over which the narration plays. The feature is slow, meticulous, methodical. From the sorrow of the mother driven mad by the death of her children, to the terror of the killer as he is led to his death, every moment is painted in painstaking detail.

This is a feature in which you will be fully immersed.

Before we begin, I would like to make a few editorial mentions, which are similar to those in The Devil Bed. If you have read the prologue to that entry, then you are aware already of the interesting challenges addressed in the text; as this story was originally published in the same collection, the challenges here are the same, with a single exception, which I will list below. If you have not read The Devil Bed or its prologue, allow me to enumerate the challenges faced in preparing this feature for publishing here, Backstage:

First, small errors in the original prose have been corrected—namely, inverted “u” and “n” letters and the occasional swap of “h” with “b”. “nnhappy” becomes “unhappy” and so forth. There were enough of these errors that correcting them improved the story’s readability immensely.

Second, a few sections required that I hand copy the prose, as the text on the original document was not being selected for convenient copy and paste. I did my best to present the story word for word, and believe I have come close to the mark.

There yet remain aberrations in spellings, which I have kept from the original content, as there was no reason to address these—such is the way of old stories, you get the old and interesting spellings with them. And with regard to the singular difference mentioned above: the language is of an older style English, perhaps taken from dialects in the north and west of England proper. There is a mention of Wales in the tale; as I am no linguist and am unlearned in the idiosyncrasies of the dialects of the regions, I will make no claim as to the origin of this prose. Suffice it to say that nothing was changed from the original where words deviate from their modern spelling and meaning.

And now, without further ado …