About

OK you lot - all that rubbish below is old news. As of February 29th, 2008 - yeah it’s leap day day - I am relaunching this bloody site. I won’t be publishing every day, but you will get something new about Halloween every week. Unless I just don’t feel like it then you can sod off, eh. Really, though, there will be no more affiliate ads except the ones on the links page. However, if I review a book or movie I may put a link to it for you to buy it. I don’t expect you to, and I’ve made a whopping zero on it so far, but what the hell. Maybe one of you slackers will thumb me a few bucks for some witty opinion I bothered to publish for you. I doubt it though you bunch of cheap fallacious twits. Nor will there be any paid posts with a fake opinions from me for money. This blog will only be my little self indulgence to write about something I enjoy - Halloween. I’ll tell you stuff I like and stuff I don’t. Some of it may piss you off. Tough titties for you I suppose. You’ll get honest writing out of me from here on out - unless I feel like lying about one of my friend’s products/services so I can trick you into buying it. (yeah - like Haunted Attraction and Hauntworld don’t do that) Oh, and none of that effing Google advertisements crap around here. I hate the terroristic - search tracking - information suppressing bastards. OK - so I have a Google email address. Well, I’m using their space without buying a damn thing from their ads so bugger off on that too. Oh yeah, BTW - the home haunt WILL be back this year so come see us.

Beastly Wishes

Patrick Nottingham 2/27/2008

Now fek off and go build a Halloween prop or something.

Ra·ven

noun
1. any of several large, corvine birds having lustrous, black plumage and a loud, harsh call, esp. Corvus corax, of the New and Old Worlds.
2. the divine culture hero and trickster of the North Pacific Coast Indians.
3. (initial capital letter) Astronomy. the constellation Corvus.
–adjective
4. lustrous black: raven locks of hair.

Bar·row

–noun
1. Archaeology. tumulus (def. 1).
2. Chiefly British. a hill (sometimes used in combination): Trentishoe Barrow in North Devon; Whitbarrow in North Lancashire.

J.R.R.Tolkein talked about the barrow-wights which were wraith-like creatures that inhabited the barrows - or burial mounds. Wight is an Old English word for “human being” or “person” but it is also similar to the German Wicht, which of course means small mythical creature. Tolkein borrowed from this and Norse mythology to create the barrow-wights, and I intend to borrow from him. Since I happen to be the chief denizen of the Raven’s Barrow I guess that also makes me the Barrow-Wight of the Raven’s Barrow. Hopefully the Tolkein folks won’t be suing me any time soon for this appropriated appellation.

In mundane reality I’m Patrick Nottingham, known to more than a few in the Halloween Haunt industry as the former owner of the Premier Home Haunt in Altoona, PA - Nottingham Manor. I say former because Nottingham Manor has seen it’s last days as a Free Home Haunt. It may rise from the ashes again, but not in the near future and certainly not as a free haunted house. A pity, I know, but all things must change and this one ran its course. Too much work, too many hassels (namely the State of Pennsylvania wanted to inspect me), and that was all she wrote. I look forward to spending this Halloween visiting many of you out there - seeing your shows and taking part in the general revelry.

Upon closing in 2006, I had decided to give up all things haunted and Halloween with a bitter taste in my mouth, like bile and dry heaves, about the whole thing. I started watching chick flicks and Grey’s Anatomy. Gasp. It satisfied me for a while, but in the end I have had to come back to Halloween and Horror like a moth flittering a dance of death in the flames a candle. So here I am, and I wonder from time to time what that charring smell is. My soul perhaps.

This blog will be my little indulgence into the Haunted Realms of Halloween and Horror. I plan to review products, books, movies, and more. I’ll give honest opinions, report the buzz that I’m privy to. Occasionally I’ll scrape out some true tale of insanity I come across. This place will be an amalgam of my dark thoughts. A true barrow full of wispy earth spirits, evil fae, and hidden caches of treasure and weaponry, and sometimes a place where things with chitinous bodies skitter away from the luminous. Here thy banshee wail, and glowing embers will smolder inside a pumpkin - maybe even an Old World turnip, making it singe and crackle in the crisp, moldering autumn air hoping to guide old Jack through Purgatory. Mostly it will be whatever the heck I want it to be because I pay for the bandwidth, but if you happen to have a strange penchant for the flip-side of summer and light, then please - by all means - come and sit with the silky black birds upon this hallowed space, listen to the music of their caws, and read awhile.

Oh yeah - click on the ads too cause this stuff ain’t cheap, and you’ll be enjoying this all for free.

Beast Wishes and Horrid Hauntings,
Patrick Nottingham A.K.A. Barrow-Wight Extraordinaire