The Double Shadow: A Clark Ashton Smith Podcast

A transcription of this episode is now available.

This week is a somewhat shorter episode on Smith’s “Disinterment of Venus.” After a number of revisions, this story first appeared in the July 1934 issue of Weird Tales alongside “Through the Gates of the Silver Key” by HPL and E. Hoffman Price and other stories.

The goddess Smith had originally intended to conflate with this Venus was
Kotys (or “Cotys”, “Cotto”, “Cottyto”, “Cottytus” depending on the spelling). According to Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase & Fable, her priests were called “Baptes”

[their] midnight orgies were so obscene that they disgusted even the even the goddess herself. (p.73)

Our next episode will be “Mother of Toads.” This one will carry a warning for sexual violence.

Music by: Kevin MacLeod, Illustration by Mike Mucci.

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In this week’s episode, we’ll be covering The Beast of Averoigne in the version which was published in Weird Tales, May 1933. We’ll also be talking about the differences between this version and the one originally submitted to Weird Tales, which you may enjoy reading as well.

Beast of Averoigne illustration created by Mike Mucci.

The French Wikipedia entry on Chaudronnier (translated by Ruth) describes one was:

Chaudronnier is a trade originally describing pot-makers, which by extension came to describe anyone who makes hollow containers of metal or plastic of all kinds.

And as a reminder, we now have forums where you can talk about the episodes, Smithiana, weird gaming, and weird fiction in general!

Music by: Kevin MacLeod

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A transcription of this episode is available.

 “The End of the Story” was first published in Weird Tales in May of 1930.

(picture from Dark in the Dark)

If you’re looking for more lamia, “Lamia” by John Keats.

The novel Phil mentioned was The Stress of Her Regard by Tim Powers. This is a novel that concerns lamia and vampires and amounts to in-depth re-working of the lamia/vampire myth using Keats and historical accounts and all kinds of stuff. The title was taken from a CAS poem. (Ruth’s note–looks fascinating!)

Listener @GenusUnknown also pointed out to us when reading for this week that the “the almost vanished and evilly famous ruins of Château Faussesflammes” are mentioned in H.P. Lovecraft’s collaboration with Hazel Heald, “Out of the Aeons.”

Join us in 2 weeks (May 16th) for “A Rendezvous in Averoigne.”

Music by: Kevin MacLeod

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