The Viy – part 1

We are delighted to offer you another ghost story for Christmas. Good friend of the Good Friends, Mike Perceval-Maxwell (host of Mr Spike’s Bedtime Stories), has once again organised a suitably eerie performance on our Discord server. He is joined by guest readers Dom Allen, John Casey, Scott Dorward, Sarah Dovey, Rina Haenze and Sue Savage. This time, it’s the turn of Nikolai Gogol’s “The Viy”. While this tale of witchcraft, the unquiet dead, and the king of the gnomes may not seem like a classic Christmas ghost story, it has more than enough chills and evil spirits to fit the bill. It’s also very funny in places. We have broken the story up into four parts. Our plan is to release them all as bonus episodes in the run-up to Christmas. If you would like to listen to the remaining parts live, you can hear them on our Discord server. We will be reading at 22:30 GMT on the following evenings: * Part 2 – 16th December * Part 3 – 20th December * Part 4 – 23rd December So grab a nice, greasy sausage, say your prayers, and prepare for the ride of a lifetime! “Shchedryk” (Carol of the Bells), performed by the choir “Solomiya”, is used here under a Creative Commons Attribution Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International Licence. If you would like to read along at home, you can find “The Viy” on The Literature Network. There is also a fantastic film adaptation of “The Viy” available on YouTube. You can also read Scott’s review of the film, from his 2013 October Horror Movie Challenge, on this very server. And if all this has put you in the mood for Christmas ghost stories, please check out our previous readings: * “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens * “The Canterville Ghost” by Oscar Wilde