Research source

There, looking over the rails at the top of the stairway, was an object so horrible that I shudder when I think…

Date of account: Published 1920
Source: The Banshee
Reference: The Banshee · selected passage 105
Rights: public_domain
Language: English
Record updated: 2026-08-24

Record summary

There, looking over the rails at the top of the stairway, was an object so horrible that I shudder when I think of it even now

Published source text

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Source passage

Source text · mention only

There, looking over the rails at the top of the stairway, was an object so horrible that I shudder when I think of it even now. In a greenish halo of light the most terrible head imagination could paint--only this was no imagination, I knew it was a real object--was looking at me with apparently fiendish fire in its light and leering eyes. The head was neither man nor woman's; it was ages old; it might have been buried and dug up again, it was so skull-like and shrunken; its pallor was horrible, grey and mildewy; its hair was long. Its mouth leered, and its light and cruel eyes seemed determined to hurt me to the utmost, with the terror it inspired. I remember how my childish heart rebelled against its cowardice in trying to hurt and frighten so small a child. Gazing back at it in petrified horror, I slowly returned to the room I had come from.

Historical context

Contextual commentary · mention only

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Modern context

Contextual commentary · mention only

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