Mitchell, Gladys - The Dancing Druids (1948)

Review by Nick Fuller

4/5

Who knew what ghastly sights and sounds the stones had been witnesses of in long past times and under the ancient sky? Why, anyway, were they called the Druids and, again, why should they dance? Laura saw them enveloped, like witches, in cloaks of mist. She saw them writhe out of the ground, and, with slow contortions, shuffle towards their victims, avid for blood. ... The stones, she thought, after all, were alive. They lived some strange, remote life of their own, up there on the barren hill. They were kept alive by human blood ... by the innocent blood of murdered men!

Of Gladys Mitchell's Croftsian thrillers (The Worsted Viper, Faintley Speaking, Skeleton Island), this one is without any doubt the best. From the masterly terrifying beginning, the book takes on a Brothers Grimm quality, an effect heightened by the chapter quotations. The stone circles, sense of prehistoric Britain, midnight vigils, vanished men, dead trees and smuggling all combine to produce a memorable and exciting tale (with a nice bit of silliness provided by the chauffeur George's surname).

Note that the scene at the beginning — the young man coming across some seemingly inexplicable event, here a wrapped-up, motionless and bleeding invalid — is a plot device first encountered in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, but later used again and again by [R. Austin Freeman].