“The Druidic Doom” (Weird Tales, April 1936)

Bloch, Robert. “The Druidic Doom” Weird Tales, April, 1936, pp. 472-485. https://archive.org/details/WeirdTalesV27N04193604/page/n89/mode/2up
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The story opens with a “proud and wilful [sic] man” named Sir Charles Hovoco moving to the estate at Nedwick; he paid for it with wealth that he “trampled” into after growing up poor in the city. He disliked anything wasteful, and so he set his sights on clearing his land for farming and profit. To do so, he would need to remove a hilltop grove of ancient trees that surround an altar. Of course he is warned by his neighbors, notably a skeptical bartender, and the local priest who provides him with an exhaustive history of the altar in question but also the history of settlement in the area starting with long before the Romans arrived. The clergyman ended his history with an earnest warning to stay away from the altar. Sir Charles was not deterred. When none of the local workers agree to help, he enlists help from the city. It takes them half a day to excavate the giant stone altar, and when they do they discover that beneath it is a hole unfathomably deep. The stench of death emanating from it was intense. Although he had a strong instinct to restore the altar to its place, he resisted.

His unease persisted, and he went into town for the evening to avoid spending the night at his empty manor. While there, he learned the fate of his workmen. After a night of drinking, they had let slip their purpose and the work they had done. The locals were outraged. One of them bet the workmen that they could not at that moment, in the middle of the night, ascend the hill to the altar. The workmen took the bet, and, although there was ample evidence that they made it to the hilltop, the workers seemed to have vanished. Sir Charles blamed the locals for sending drunk men up to a treacherous spot where they most assuredly fell. He made threats of legal action but, the story informs us, “was never seen in the village again.” The rest of the story is told from the point of view of the clergyman. He followed a distressed and haggard Sir Charles that night up into the hills. By the time they got near the summit altar, Sir Charles was running on all fours as if compelled to the altar by the drums that reverberated all around them. At the opening of the pit, Sir Charles screamed, and in the moonlight, the clergyman saw clutching hands drag him by the ankles into the pit. Years have passed, and the locals have replaced the altar stone and have resumed their quiet devotion to the site, which includes, it seems, the occasional human sacrifice.

Wow, Bloch had a lot to say about the history of Nedwick Hall.  The history that Reverend Dobson relates occupies something like 25% of the story. It reminded me a little bit of how Lovecraft, when he wanted to get truly old, needed to set his stories in the UK. “Rats in the Walls” (1924), for example, contains references to druids not unlike those found in Bloch’s story. “Rats” also reminds me of “The Secret in the Tomb” which depicts the inevitable decay of an uninterrupted line of male inheritance.  Much of the action in “Druidic” is told second hand, which means there are few scenes where the action is at the forefront. That makes this story curiously distant, which might be the effect Bloch was aiming for. After all, the subject of the story involves rumor and closely guarded secrets. That we get no answer at all for the fate of the three men or any inkling about the nature of the pit only increases the mystery of it. Bloch was learning well. Lovecraft’s notion of the weird and has presented an encounter with forces beyond human understanding. This story has been translated into at least six languages and been anthologized many times, and so it has reached an appreciative audience. I have to note that this is Bloch’s first story published after the death of his friend and fellow Milwaukee Fictioneer, Stanley G. Weinbaum. One wonders what wonders Weinbaum, author of “A Martian Odyssey” and other great stories, might have created had he not been stricken with lung cancer in his early thirties.