The Legend behind the Black Knight

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This week's Friday Flash, A Black Night In The Churchyard, seems to have captured a lot of people's imaginations. After the good reception that my post on Bunhill Fields cemetery got, I thought I would dabble in local history again and explain a little about the setting that inspired my flash.

In the heart of Newcastle upon Tyne stands St Nicholas' Cathedral (see left), the Church of England church for the Diocese of Newcastle. A church has stood on this site since 1091, although the original parish church burned down in 1216. It was rebuilt in 1359, and it became a cathedral in 1882. The lantern spire dates to 1448. In my humble opinion, it is one of the most beautiful ecclesiastical buildings in the entire country. Certainly, York Minster, Durham Cathedral or Canterbury Cathedral are impressive, but St Nicholas' smaller scale makes it seem almost cosy. I am not religious in the slightest but I still find the place quite welcoming (though that may be due to the friendly volunteers who'll take you around during the day to point out notable features).

Inside the Cathedral is a tomb. This isn't particularly remarkable due to the English insistence on burying their dead under the foundations of their holy buildings (although the great Christopher Wren wanted an end to the practice due to the subsidence problems caused by a combination of rotting flesh, noxious gases and early building materials). This particular tomb is believed to house an anonymous knight. Local lore has it that his lord gave him instructions to protect the Church, which he continues to do even in death.

Clanking armour and the sound of metal-clad feet on gravel have been heard, while people have also reported seeing a cloak disappearing around the corner, or through a wall. Alone in the Dark Entertainment run ghost walks and tours in the area, so I asked David Marshall, one of their guides, about the story of the boy who broke the window.

"A small group of chavs were sitting drinking some cheap liquor within the grounds when one of the lads started arguing with his female partner for the night. In a fit of drunken rage, he threw a bottle at the window, destroying centuries of history within seconds. Without a thought for what he'd done, the lad and his group continued arguing and shouting, eventually leaving the site and heading back to their homes.

"For days afterwards, the lad was plagued by dreams, waking up in a cold sweat with fading visions of swords being hung above his head and a dark figure chasing him through his sleep. The dreams grew worse and  in the coming weeks other things started happening. The TV would turn itself on and off, objects would be moved when no one was in the room, keys would disappear only to reappear weeks later in full view. On and on these events went, gradually getting worse and worse, to the point of things being thrown by an unseen source.

"The dreams continued, the sword, the dark shape from a darker place.. a warning.. Admit his sin or perish. The lad was taken to psychiatrists, where they could only suggest sleeping tablets. A team was called in to investigate the strange happenings at home, the poltergeist, the daemon, the angry spirit.
Nothing helped. The lad could take it no longer and travelled into the city, walked into the police station and begged to be locked up. ... He was taken to trial, all the while the torments continued, until the moment at which the gavel struck and the sentence passed. In that one instance, the torment ended. ... The boy slept safe and secure, penance paid, in his cell."

Given that it is unlikely a drunken hooligan would be aware of the Black Knight, it is therefore easy to discount the possibility of him "imagining" these events as a symptom of his paranoia. I've always liked this particular story, although it has since been left out of the ghost walk at the Cathedral's request. I wanted to celebrate the work of the Knight, and that provided the impetus to write the flash.

I admit that I did change a few details, since the Cathedral is far from being forgotten or dilapidated, although it is true that building work in the area has eaten into the churchyard and changed the level of the ground. The yard was also the site of grave robbing, and other ghosts have been seen in the area. I also took a little artistic license since the Knight of legend terrorises ne'er-do-wells rather than consuming their souls.

I do hope that the Knight one day manages to find peace, but sadly I think the descent of humanity into new levels of selfishness and degradation will mean he is needed more than ever.

* * *

If you're in Newcastle upon Tyne, then I highly recommend a visit to St Nicholas' Cathedral. I also recommend checking out the many tours and walks that Alone in the Dark Entertainment run. If you're interested in the dark tales of my home town, then Vanessa Histon's Nightmare on Grey Street and Ghosts of Grainger Town are both excellent places to start!

Friday Flash - A Black Night in the Churchyard

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A small rock scuttled across the medieval stones. A fox looked up from his foraging near the gate. His amber eyes saw the Black Knight sitting on a low tomb. The knight kicked his feet against the faded inscription, and fiddled with his gauntlets. He cast his gaze around the lurching gravestones. He no longer saw the names; he knew each and every one of them. He knew their dates of birth, and their dates of death. He occasionally invented stories for them to keep himself amused.

Drunken chatter drifted across the still air. He looked up, but watched in dismay as the four shrill girls continued past the gate. The churchyard used to be a popular thoroughfare between two busy streets. An office block now blocked the way at the northern end, its car park butted up against the graveyard wall. The neglected church sat as if invisible while the city grew up around it, a medieval island in a sea of modernity.

The knight knew what it was to be forgotten. He hauled himself off the tomb to roam the small churchyard. Years of local building development altered the yard, changing its boundaries and disturbing graves. He hoped a developer might find his grave by accident. Caught in limbo, he was confined to the churchyard until he knew where his body was buried.

The Black Knight had guarded the churchyard for eight centuries. In earlier times, grave robbers, murderers, rapists, gangsters, and thieves all tried to ply their trade in his yard. The oath he swore to punish the evildoer held as much sway in death as it did in life. He consumed their souls and left their bodies as shambling walking corpses. His reputation even prevented crime as tales of clanking armour and dark shadows carried far and wide across the region.

Times changed. No one believed in ghosts or justice any more. He patrolled his abandoned corner of the city centre, forgotten and lonely. Not to mention hungry. What was it, forty, or fifty, years since his last meal? The sun rose and set, and still he wandered among the graves. The wind whistled through the dilapidated church, while weeds grew rampant. In his earlier years, he tried knocking on the coffins. He got no answer. Their occupants had already sailed across the Styx, but Charon would not take him. Without his body, he had no payment for the ferry.

Glass smashed near the gate. The knight looked up. A fat youth threw a second bottle over the wall. Green glass shattered against a moss-covered gravestone. The knight's sacred duty to protect swelled in his chest as the youth pushed open the gate. The hinges squealed in protest. The youth staggered along the overgrown path. He lurched behind Mrs Martha Eddowes’ gravestone to relieve himself. The knight drew his sword.

The youth zipped up his trousers. He turned around to face the church. Only one window remained intact. The stained glass told the story of the Annunciation. The Black Knight guarded it with a possessive zealotry. Besides the church, that single window was the only thing on this ground older than him. Twelfth century glass, and still perfect.

The youth picked up a large stone. He tested the weight in his hand. The Black Knight growled. He didn’t like where this was going, but he could do nothing until the youth did something wrong.

The stone flew through the air, and crashed into the ancient window. The glass imploded inwards, raining down on the pitted stone floor inside. The Black Knight howled. The youth whirled around, startled by the sudden noise. He saw a black shadow, and heard metal sing as it split the air.

The youth’s body staggered backwards. The Black Knight stood tall and furious in the churchyard. He held his sword in one hand, the youth’s soul in the other. It writhed in his grasp, a roiling mass of deceit, violence and malice. The Black Knight took one last look at the gaping wound in the wall of the church. As the youth’s body stumbled toward the gate, the Knight sat down to devour the soul. Such a satisfying meal, but at such a price.

* * *

The image for this story is actually the abandoned chapel at the centre of Abney Park Cemetery in Stoke Newington, London, although the flash was inspired by the legend of the Black Knight, who is reputed to haunt the small churchyard attached to St Nicolas' Cathedral in Newcastle upon Tyne. The St Nicolas churchyard is not overgrown and the Cathedral is one of the most beautiful ecclesiastical buildings in the country, but it suited the flash better that the church be neglected, so I've taken a bit of artistic license. I'm also not sure why the Knight is stuck in the churchyard, but this made the most sense to me. It is true that someone threw a brick through the oldest window in the Cathedral, though what happened to the hooligan is anybody's guess...

Unplugged

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I can often be a somewhat contrary young miss. One minute I'm posting an entry bemoaning the reliance on technology, and the next I'm posting an entry on how my Netbook has boosted my productivity. Having said that, I'm not necessarily changing my mind as I'm fully capable of believing both of those things simultaneously. I believe that both traditional methods and technological advances have their uses, and their place, when it comes to writing. I stand by my statement that I love my Netbook for allowing me to work pretty much anywhere, and for allowing me to increase my output by utilising previously wasted time on tube journeys or at lunchtime. However, I also acknowledge that when I'm at home, I have a horrid tendency to get distracted by Facebook, Twitter, or my ever-expanding blog list. I end up spending hours reading the fiction of others, which is immensely enjoyable, but I really should be working on my own.

As well as writing a weekly Friday flash and revising my first novel, I have two other major projects on the go. One is the Tales from Vertigo City e-book that I've talked about previously, while the other is a collection of my fantasy/horror related flash fictions. This collection will feature expanded versions of nine stories submitted to the #FridayFlash collector, a flash inspired by a Writer's Digest prompt, another random flash written after a night out in London, and two completely exclusive flashes that you won't find anywhere else. If you really want to read them, you'll have to get the e-book!

I've already written one of these exclusive flashes. I had the idea late on Friday, inspired by an anecdote I found in a book on London history. Yet by Sunday evening, I still hadn't written anything. The idea kept going around and around in my head, and I wanted to write it down, it's just I kept getting distracted by the Internet. I would start to plan the first line and oh! Would you look at that? I'd find another Friday Flash I wanted to read. I'm not one of these people who can have my laptop on and NOT have Tweetdeck running (unless, obviously, I have no wi-fi connection) so I did the only thing I could.

I unplugged.

Yes, that's right. I switched off my laptop, I put a CD of classical movie scores in the stereo, I picked up my A4 notebook, and I started writing. By hand. With a bright blue Pilot fineliner. Thirty three minutes later, I had my flash. It underwent some revisions during the transition from handwritten page to Word document, but by and large, it was done. I felt incredibly productive, and pleased that such a simple, and obvious, solution had worked. Making the switch from typing my work to writing it longhand also helped to break the miniature block I felt, a block that stood between the idea in my head, and the process of writing it down. Writing longhand took my brain by surprise, and it vaulted over the block with ease. Hurrah!

So if you're having a similar problem breaking through writer's block, or actually getting the work done, here are my three top tips.

1. Disconnect from the Internet. It'll still be there when you're finished. If you can't stand being disconnected, switch off your computer altogether. Hey, you can be creative AND environmentally friendly.
2. Make changes to your longhand methods. If you normally write in black biro, try purple fineliner, or pencil. The novelty will appeal to your creative side, and the divergence from habit will trick your brain out of its rut. (For more on how to use this technique when editing your work, check out this post on Writer's Block NZ)
3. Don't worry too much about what you're writing while you're happily scrawling away. You'll get to edit it later when you type it up. For now, your job is simply to get what's in your head onto the page. If it helps, doodle in the margins. You can't do THAT in Word.

Say, what are you doing still reading this? Don't you have some writing to do?

Spoken Sunday - Picasso

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This is Picasso, a short I wrote in 2009 for a story prompt on the EditRed website. It was subsequently published on Postcard Shorts, but I'm still very fond of it, so I thought it would make a nice Audioboo for today's Spoken Sunday! I hope you like it.

Picasso

Silence held the gallery in its tender grasp. Silver ribbons of moonlight snaked across the parquet floor. Reaching up the walls, they fingered the heavy wooden frames that held some of the world's most beautiful paintings.

Miles away, the clock struck midnight. Its heavy chime floated on the still night air. Life stirred in the gallery as goddesses, royalty and anonymous angels hauled themselves out of their frames. Renaissance minstrels struck up a tune, while Pre-Raphaelite heroines started to dance. Laughter soon filled the gallery as its famous inhabitants joined the ball.

The frivolous atmosphere broke as a solitary figure limped into the main hall. Two eyes stared forlornly from the right hand side of its face, and a cruel mouth twisted into a snarl beside its ear. A simple slash served as a nose, and it tried to disguise its backward-facing hands held at right angles.

The music stopped as the congregation turned to face the newcomer. Millais’ Ophelia stepped forward, dripping water onto the chequered tiles.

"Dear me, who painted you?!" she exclaimed, barely able to contain her revulsion. The reply was plaintive and dejected.

"Picasso".

Friday Flash - Something In The Attic

Tweet This flash has been taken down as it is out for submission - wish me luck!

Fabulous Flash Award

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Jon Strother, founding father of FridayFlash said recently:

“I have decided to start the Fabulous Flash Award to spotlight some folks I feel deserve recognition for their, well… fabulous flash fiction.” 

Well I was given the award by the very lovely and super awesome Sam of Future;Nostalgic, a fellow Northerner and wonderful writer. I love reading his work, and I can't thank him enough for the recognition, but now it's my turn to hand the award on! A lot of my favourite writers have already received it, and there is so much wonderful work out there that it's difficult to choose, but I shall endeavour to do my best..

Fabulous Flash Award Rules:

• acknowledge receiving the award in a blog post
• link back to the person who awarded it
• select four other fabulous flashers to receive the award to keep spreading the joy
• write one or two short lines explaining why you’ve chosen each recipient
• optionally (I know not everyone is on Twitter) tweet, “I just gave the Fabulous Flash Award to (name). They’re worth reading.” Include a shortened URL back to your post in the tweet.

Pamila Payne

I genuinely look forward to Fridays for reading Pamila's newest piece. I love the way she paints such a vivid picture with her words, and having heard her read her work on AudioBoo, she also has the most wonderful voice for podcasting! I can't wait to get my hands on a copy of her Bella Vista Motel book.

Adam Byatt

I met Adam through Write Anything's Fiction Friday, and I love reading his work. He has such a delightful imagination, and such a wicked way with words, not to mention a nifty way with characterisation. Having gotten to know him on Twitter, he's also a genuinely lovely chap.

Carrie Clevenger

Few people write horror, or action, as well as Carrie. This girl is also incredibly talented at writing cars, which so many people are terrible at! Her work is both creepy and accomplished, and I'm also proud to be taking part in the Chinese Whisperings project alongside her.

Tony Noland

Tony's work is a real treat to read, whether he's writing superheroes or sci-fi, and his work is always so intelligent and well-constructed. He's also a very nice chap, and I'm more than a little in awe of his work!

Spoken Sunday - Dreams

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It is Saturday night in the city. It is warm, and my window is open, letting in a cool breeze. I know this is through no kindness towards me; Mother has left the window open so that I may hear the world outside. This is to punish me for my wickedness. I am unsure as to the nature of my most recent transgression but she assures me it was heinous indeed. I am to sit here and listen to the sounds of young people like myself enjoying the evening delights of the city. There is a restaurant on the other side of the plaza. I hear glasses chinking, cutlery against plates, laughter. The words are indistinct but I hear stories being told. People guffaw as their companions reach their punchlines. I fill in the blanks, and smile. These people must lead such interesting, rich lives, out there in the city. Out there...

I stand on my bed and peer through the window high in the wall. I can see little, but my imagination paints me a picture. Groups of friends will be huddled around tables, sharing stories while waiters bustle between them. They will be carrying platters of steaming food, the dishes a riot of colour and smells as people sample cuisines both exotic and local. The air will be thick with bonhomie and warmth.

I turn away from the window, back to my bare little room. Mother took my books to punish me for forgetting to say grace. She took my telescope when I forgot to bless her after she sneezed. She still allows me paper and pencils to write or draw, but she takes what I produce. She tells me my talents are not my talents, they are gifts from God, so my art must return to Him. I do not understand this, but I do not tell her so in case she takes the paper away too.

I lie down on my bed, and think about the gift I have been given by the Universe. It gave me sleep, and the chance to dream. My eyes close, and I melt into the arms of Morpheus, and he takes me to a world without prisons, where I can run free. My dreams know no punishments, or rules. God has no jurisdiction in my dreams.