Gothic Literature: An Overview - Percy Bysshe Shelley (Story Date C. 1814)
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY (STORY DATE C. 1814)
SOURCE: Shelley, Percy Bysshe. "The Assassins." In Gothic Tales of Terror, Volume One: Classic Horror Stories from Great Britain, edited by Peter Haining. 1972. Reprint, pp. 308-26. Baltimore, Md.: Penguin Books, Inc., 1973.
The following excerpt is from a story written around 1814 but not published until after Shelley's death.
Where all is thus calm, the slightest circumstance is recorded and remembered. Before the sixth century had expired one incident occurred, remarkable and strange. A young man, named Albedir, wandering in the woods, was startled by the screaming of a bird of prey, and, looking up, saw blood fall, drop by drop, from among the inter-twined boughs of a cedar. Having climbed the tree, he beheld a terrible and dismaying spectacle. A naked human body was impaled on the broken branch. It was maimed and mangled horribly; every limb bent and bruised...
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