Short Story Review: "Fairy Gossamer" by Harry Harrison Kroll
William Thompson is looking for a specimen of the genus Arimnes , the most brilliantly colored of the spiders in temperate zones, for his work at Vanderbilt University. Here, in the cavernous limestone area of Kentucky, he’s sure he’ll find one. There’s a legend of one Israel Hicks, who went off his rocker some years ago and began breeding spiders as a means to protect himself from evil.
Thompson finds a cave entrance that won’t admit him but he sees spider gossamer dancing about in the breeze coming inside it. This, he’ll lay odds, is where he’ll find his Arimnes. There has to be another entrance, though none of openings immediately around seem to be intake openings. This leads him to wonder if perhaps the old homestead of crazy Israel Hicks might have something to do with it…
This short little tale is almost somewhere between a fairy tale and a horror story. While some of the wording was a little stilted, it was fun to read.
Title: “Fairy Gossamer” first published Weird Tales December 1924
Author: Harry Harrison Kroll (1888-1967)
Source: ISFDB
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©2015 Denise Longrie
Comments
MegL wrote on May 3, 2015, 8:24 AM
That sounds like an interesting story! But possibly not for arachnophobes?
msiduri wrote on May 3, 2015, 8:44 AM
No! At one point, he's in the dark and has hundreds of spiders crawling all over him, biting him. If you've got a great fear of spiders, I don't think you could read this one.