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Study 128 - Bind Your Hair (Patreon)

Published:
2025-04-17 18:37:19
Edited:
2025-05-15 22:02:51
Imported:
2025-04
Tags:

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Content

Settle down or go wild in the country? Join us as we explore the implications of Robert Aickman's maybe-werewolf-maybe-folk-horror masterpiece, Bind Your Hair.

Special thanks to our reader and chief roboticist, Greig Johnson!

Next up: a classic episode and AFTER HOURS

Comments

Aaron Mason

I definitely got some Machen vibes from this story.  Like "The White People", but with a less willing or less adept target for the witch cult.  One can see how the story might have been a direct parallel had it been the narrator's journal, and had she been a little more willing to accept the new "freedom" than she was. I certainly wouldn't say the story is as good as Machen's, but it was kind of nice to be returned to that motif. 

ESTY

I couldn’t help thinking that the shape-shifting, discarding furs, and being tricked into marriage seems to evoke legends of Selkies.

Steve

Carstairs is quite a posh name in the UK, and Northampton is famed for shoe manufacturing. The fact he's moved out of the city suggests he's new money. And of course Northampton is a magical place, if you read Alan Moore.

Steve

Clumsy Dracula was going to met Lying Vincent Price at a drug store to get some root beer floats but LVP never turned up. And then Clumsy Dracula knocked his drink off the table and the glass shattered everywhere. When the server went to tidy up the glass he cut his finger and CD tried to bite him but he missed, hit the table instead. It was one of those with the metal rim and his teeth got jammed into it. He couldn't live this down and had to leave town.

Derek Scott

This was my second time reading “Bind Your Hair” and doing so made me think of the scene outside the diner in Mulholland Dr. I remember seeing it for the first time and being legitimately terrified. Years later I watched it again and was under the impression it wouldn’t impact me as much the second time around. I was only about 25% correct. I knew it was coming and it still got me bad. This story had the same effect. I thought I’d gloss over the whole scene in the maze but I think having read some other Aickman in the meantime I was actually unnerved and scared all over again by how open ended and interpretive the scene is. And that’s maybe the real genius of Aickman: He knows no one scares or horrifies or terrifies us like we do for ourselves. What did Jeremy Dyson say in the episodes for “The School Friend”? Insidious was the word, IIRC. And that about sums up the wonder of Aickman. It gets in your head and burrows its way to the place where your own imagination fuels a sort of horror engine.

REO Jackwagon

As with the best of the weird, it can be many things, and the more you look, the more you find, and nothing is concrete but the experience. Really super.

Camshaft

This story is 50% young Goodman Brown, and 50% what really goes on behind closed doors in women’s bathrooms. I think Angela Carter and Aikman would’ve been besties.

Camshaft

In all seriousness, I feel as though this story is sort of a men’s attempt to take on the heroines journey. In the same way that Hawthorne did it with Young Goodman Brown. But this time, we’ve adjusted to make it more dreamlike, interpreting, fairytale imagery, in order to emphasize the fact that in that time. At least, true actualization and sense of self, not necessarily spiritual, but holistic, we’re not possible in the same way for women.So she has to fantasize about it.

It's a Ghost.

I didn't pick up on all the possible meanings of the different names and words when I read this story a couple months ago, so I didn't pick up that the "rite" in "No Rite of Way" might have an alternate meaning. It now makes me wonder if Clarinda binding her hair and saying, "Let there be wet," was a rite that allowed her passage beyond the sign. But then, the sign also says "Persons Proceed Beyond This Point By Favour Only," and Mrs. Pagani did invite Clarinda to visit her at her house in the churchyard. Also, I've just started reading a collection of short stories by Kafka, and the introduction talks about how Kafka's stories can never be pinned down to one meaning, and I think that probably could be said about this story too (and a lot of Aickman in general).

Richard Horsman

I wish I could see a film of this with Elizabeth Taylor. Either young Liz as Clarinda, or older Liz as Mrs. Pagani.

Allison Albright

I agree that this is a story about choosing a life, and that it's told through feelings and images, like a dream. It seemed like a choice between settling down and getting married, becoming part of a family, and staying on one's own to follow a more solitary path. Do we choose to gather around the fire and listen to Mr. Carstairs read? Or do we choose the charnel house in the graveyard like Mrs. Pagani? Or is there some way we can have our cake and eat it too? I think Clarinda ultimately chooses to take the Pagani path. Solid choice.

Rafe Ball

This story could have gone very differently - if that bat had crashed through the window, Clarinda might have become BATMAN!

Jerome Arnold

We have two Study 127s! Oh my! A punch to the gut for number 128.

Rob_Hellfire_Graves (Cult organ donor, wrestler, poet & Satanic Reverend)

I can't believe you ran over time on this episode guys, she said "Don't be late"!!! Sometimes I read this story as a choice between marriage or freedom but other times I've wondered if it's about join a clan and excepting their transition as your own, the boring ones and the wild bizarre alien to you ones as well. Having read every bit of Aickman I can get my hands on I began to see (or imagine I was seeing) a bit of a pattern with his female characters. The choice between pick the social norms of settling down or embracing the free of the single life repeats a lot. Often the heroines are seemingly closed lesbian as with 'Old School Friend' or his only full novel 'The Late Breakfasters'. Given I'm a straight cis man I'm probably talking out my arse but I've wondered if Aickman felt trapped by his gender and if he'd lived a few generations later would he be trans? On another note, whenever I read this, the orgy always make me think of the movie 'Society'.

Jamie Allinson

Thank you for doing this story guys! And thank you for addressing my previous question about the lycanthropic element. I think you’re right, it’s just too Aickmanoid to be one thing rather than lots of impressions of things. So it’s not about werewolves but it’s not NOT about werewolves. I do still have the sense that Clarinda is being asked to marry and settle down in East Proctor though…

Alex Beal

I don't know why, but an offhand comment towards the end really stuck in my head. "If this robot ends up being so good that it strangles me..." Is that Chad's metric for a good robot? Every time he watches one of those Boston Dynamics robots is his response "Yeah well if it's so good then why am I not being strangled right now?"

Alan Ricks

I would really go for some Greig Johnson full readings of Aickman stories. He is THE voice of Aickman in my mind. Some thoughts on this one. I’m undecided if anyone was bad or evil or what in this. Not the family or the Pagans. Perhaps just unknowable or ancient goals on the part of the “cult”. I guess the dwarf/animal creature that scratched her is questionable but he was also probably following some rule about outsiders and was trying to drive her away. This feels like Aickman’s most explicitly british folk horror in the Severin “All the Haunts be Ours” Penda’s Fen (1974) way. I also always imagined Mrs Pagani as looking like and having the mannerisms of Moll MacTíre from the wonderful wolfwere movie Wolfwalkers (2020) with the wild hair and her inherent strength. The first time I read it I took all the towns folk as being the passive pigs and that the cult members that could channel their inner bestial natures where either shepherds (leaders) or perhaps if the story continued darker - their predators. But now I question if The Carstairs were willing participants or even aware. But the sheer number of bodies at that cult meeting have to come from somewhere.

Matt Shank

What a fantastic story. I'm a big fan of folk horror and this one scratched all the right spots. I love that the meaning is left ambiguous. Here's my take: Clarinda doesn't feel like she belongs in "traditional" society. She stands out as "other" and is dissatisfied with the trappings and expectations of modern life. She sees herself as quite rebellious and independent, a true free thinker. Still, she's getting older and the allure of security is strong. She agrees to marry Dudley because he's a good man with a good job, but she almost immediately begins to second guess accepting his advances, not because anything is wrong with him, but because it's not what she truly wants. The journey into the country allows her to experience the call of the wild, and she can envision herself there, a wild woman, free. Her trepidation about marrying Dudley grows. Mrs Pagani meets Clarinda and can sense that she might be "one of them." She offers Clarinda a way out of "civilized" society and into whatever old pagan community she is a part of. She essentially sponsors Clarinda, making sure she's safe in the wilds and inviting her to join in the ritual. Come the night of the ritual, Clarinda now begins to second guess her desire to leave the safety of modernity. The things outside the village are truly untamed and far from safe. Clarinda is not ready to fully commit to abandoning her old life when the little girl asks her to change, and so she is allowed to observe from afar. Clarinda had always thoguht herself wild and free, but now she sees she has simply been play acting at it her whole life. The incomprehensible ritual in the wood is beyond anything she could have possibility imagined. It scares her. She returns to the Carstairs, shaken. The next day, Mrs. Pagani knows what happened the night before. Her, "Don't be late," at the end of the story is a wry jab at Clarinda, who is returning to normal life with her boring but safe fiance. I believe the door is still open, should Clarinda decide to turly abandon civilized life. The little girl, her guide, asks and hopes she will come back. Ultimately it is left to the reader to decide if she returns and joins the ritual. I think she did, one day.

Andrew M. Reichart

As soon as Grieg mentioned her hair in the intro, all I could think of was “Medusa’s Coil.” 😂 When y’all went on to say you weren’t sure what tf the story was about, this impression was only reinforced.

Our old pal Brendan Gardiner

Regarding Clarinda waking up and hiding her ankle injury, Chris asked “So this is real? These things happened?” Chad’s reply “Yes, I think they did, in the story” leaves me a little concerned that Chris may not realize that most if not all the stories you guys cover are fiction.

The Lonely Sand Person

This is definitely what you might call a "vibes story" -- not everything means or represents something specific, and they don't necesarily all mesh together. Rather, it's a theme and variations, repeating a small set of concepts with different imagery. So I'm just going to briefly riff on what I saw in it in no particular order. It's funny, but I get "manic pixie girlfriend" vibes from the first half of this story. Clarinda is about to trade freedom for stability, and then this strange woman appears who breaks all the rules and offers to show Clarinda a different way to live. I certainly think the labyrinth (not maze) is supposed to be a microcosm of human experience -- those who walk the labyrinth have set aside their animal furs, but ultimately have the same origin as those who don't. The parts where the labyrinth has "spilled out" from its circular border reminded me of the Anarchist A, where the letter protruding beyond the circle symbolizes ignoring social norms and rules, and yet it's all still part of the same labyrinth, and those who remain in the exclaves are still encompassed by the labyrinth as a whole. The only thing outside the labyrinth is hoofprints; you can choose whether to embrance civilization and society, but you can't shed it entirely without losing what it means to be human. Shoes are definitely meant to symbolize the same thing -- they are the trappings of civilization which Mrs. Pagani stands in contrast to, but even Mrs. Pagani wears big, heavy boots in the final scene. You can change everything except your shoes, because everyone -- whether they live within society or beyond it -- still wears them. To be human is to wear shoes, at least on Sunday morning -- that is, to separate oneself from nature at least some of the time. Finally, I thought the "don't be late" comment was saying "You've made your choice" -- Clarinda ultimately was frightened away by the life Mrs. Pagani represents and she went with the stability and safety of a life of not missing trains (as it were.) I think Young Manimal was supposed to symbolize the danger of existing outside of society altogether; that's "nature red in tooth and claw" which goes hand in hand with the freedom the little girl represents.

Stewart

Weirdly, everyone takes Clarinda for granted. The Carstairs family behave quite selfishly towards her, just assuming that she wants to do what they want to do, much like Dudley assumes she wants to move to the country with him. At the same time though, the weird pagan sex(?) cult seems to take her almost equally for granted, just assuming she knows what's going on. I think it cycles back to what seems to be Aickman's ultimate fear: people being bad hosts.

Josephine, Who Lurks

"Let there be wet" as a riff on "Let there be light" reminded me strongly of Tehom, the term translated as "the deep" in Genesis 1:2, where it's used as a feminine proper name for "the waters" that exist before any creating happens. Over the millennia there have been several readings of Tehom - as Tiamat, the goddess Chaos, the Gnostic Sophia, the Tao and so on - always as something before, below or beyond the patriarchal figure of a father who orders the universe into existence. I think Clarinda's anxiety about her true self being erased and her surface being left behind echoes this, as well as her desire not to change - at least in the sense of losing her potential by becoming something definite. As another mythic resonance, the "classical" labyrinth design seems to have originated from ancient animal sacrifices done for entrail readings, and the caerdroia or "fortress of turns" resembles earlier symbols of sheep intestines. This produces a mixed symbol: despite this animality, the labyrinth is still something that humans have ripped out of an animal and turned into a series of images, an artificial thing whose name designates it as a human construction. I think it's notable that the paganism culminates in the center of one, and that for all the wild imagery, what little Clarinda witnesses of this other magic is as entangled with bindings, schedules and paralyses as her time with the Carstairs family. In fact, the wilder, freer Other mostly serves to make Clarinda deal literally with what she otherwise faces symbolically, as two sides of the same coin.

Dan Doody

I really appreciate Chad sharing is uncertainty about which volume of Aickman from which to read the story. I, too, had the same dilemma. The first time I read the story was in the Dark Entries collection but wanted to re-read it before listening to the episode. And I, too, debated between my copy of Dark Entries or The Unsettled Dust (which I haven't read in its entirety). To make matters more complicated, I have a copy of the folk horror anthology Damnable Tales, so could also have read the story in there. Like,Chad, I finally decided to re-read the story out of The Unsettled Dust. Thanks for doing Aickman this month—I love his writing but quite often his stories make me go "hmmm", so it's great to hear you two discuss them out and note observations that I may have missed.

Pete Williams

I like these Aickman stories a lot but that's not important right now. I just discovered the Meco AKA the Disco Star Wars guy released a song called "Dracula, Love me" which contains one of the greatest lines in popular music: "He's a thirsty stud and he's out for blood in Transylvania". Sorry for derailing the conversation but it felt important even if it's a month too late.

Gideon Falcon

"Carstairs?" My immediate thought was, did he just make that up on the spot when he was in a garage, and those were the two closest objects? Next he'll be introducing his cousins, the Garbagecanbrooms.

Drix

"I didn't want that anthology to feel left out!" Me too, Chad. Me too.

Avlin Starfall

I think Chad might only be here for the zip line

Professor Murder

When I was young, I got a monster theme joke book at a school book fair. My favorite joke of all time was as follows: Son: Mommy. What’s a werewolf? Mom: Shut up kid and comb your face.

Anne Ominous

Strange story indeed or as they say where I come from 'thats pagan as ****!!' I think young sister Elizabeth took a turn in the maze if I'm reading the interaction correctly between her and Mrs Pagani at the party. Miss Behavin!!

Bret Kramer

I must finally confess that I haven’t caught Aikmania. The Hostel was unnerving certainly but all the other stories just are so stuffed full of implicit horror without actual revealed horror I lost interest. Hell, this is the first time in a while I had a backlog of episodes I realized I was putting off. I don’t want to yuck others yum, but in case there’s some other thick-headed soul immune to the gossamer charms of Bob A, I wanted to say you are not alone.

Ratchbox

Man, I wish we could live in a world where Robert Aickman created Manimal!

Casey

Great episode!