Halloween Books for Horse Lovers: Top Ten Spook-tacular Ghost and Monster Horse Stories: From the sweetly spooky to the truly terrifying, these ten ghost and monster horse stories are sure to add some mane-raising fun to your horsey Halloween!
- 10. Pony Veggi-pires: (Kids) The newest addition to literature's stable of spooky horses, pony veggi-pires are the invention of author Babette Cole. These bat-winged pony vampire-vegetarians haunt her children's novel Fetlocks Hall #3: Curse of the Pony Vampires.
- 9. Water Horses: (Kids, Teens, Adults) Many Celtic cultures tell tales of water horses, but whether the creatures are called kelpies, glashtin, or capall uisge, they are all creatures who emerge from a lake or the sea in the shape of beautiful but monstrous horses - and if you so much as touch them, they will carry you down and down under the water, a ride from which you will never return. For a classic water horse Halloween folktale, download and read Andrew Lang's The Goblin Pony at Project Gutenburg. For a fabulous new take on the myth for tweens and teens, check out Maggie Stiefvater's The Scorpio Races - and to find truly devilish mounts, dive into the poetry of Scotland's Robert Burns.
- 8. The Headless Horseman: (Kids, Teens, Adults) In his 1820 short story, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Washington Irving describes a ghostly cloaked rider mounted on a black horse who chases unwary travelers - and throws his head at them! You can download and read The Legend of Sleepy Hollow at Project Gutenburg, check out an illustrated version like Washington Irving's Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Other Stories from the Illustrated Junior Library, or watch the 1949 Disney family classic, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. And if you're a ghost-chaser to the bone, you can visit the real Sleepy Hollow, New York and meet today's Headless Horseman!
- 7. Metzengerstein's Fiery Mount: (Teens, Adults) Did you know that Edgar Allen Poe's first published short story was about a horse? The horse, huge and flame-colored appears "flying, all smoking and foaming with rage" at the door of the fiendish, 15-year-old Frederick, Baron Metzengerstein after the stables of Frederick's enemy mysteriously burn down. Will the youth tame the horse, or is the horse on an unnatural - and unstoppable - quest for revenge? Read Metzengerstein in print or at Project Gutenberg to find out!
- 6. Duncan's Horses: (Adults) In William Shakepeare's play, The Tragedy of MacBeth, after MacBeth murders the reigning King Duncan, Duncan's horses break out of their stalls and devour each other. Learn more about the play in the Great Books for Horse Lovers post, "The Scottish Horses: The Tragedy of MacBeth, by William Shakespeare and at the Folger Shakespeare Library, download it and read it for free at Project Gutenberg, or check out the FSL's thoroughly and bewitchingly annotated print edition.
Want to read all ten picks? Check out the full post, Halloween Books for Horse Lovers: Top Ten Spook-tacular Ghost and Monster Horse Stories, at Vanessa Wright's blog, http://www.GreatBooksforHorseLovers.com!