Our 2023 ghost story for Christmas continues with part 2 of Nikolai Gogol’s “The Viy”.

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.

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. You can download part 1 here.

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 3 – 20th December
• Part 4 – 23rd December

So grab a fortifying drink, kiss the nearest Cossack, and get ready to be reunited with old friends!

“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

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