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Episode 491 - Luella Miller (Patreon)

Published:
2020-03-12 23:01:47
Edited:
2024-12-12 19:02:14
Imported:
2026-06
Tags:

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Content

Luella Miller needs your help! Tune in as we discuss her classic story by Mary Wilkins Freeman!

Special thanks to our reader, Sondra Mayer!

Next up: Shambleau by C.L. Moore

Comments

H P Lovecraft's Cat

Every Catholic “White Smoke, Pope; Black Smoke, Nope”

Scott Morrison

Favorite, then listen as per the honored tradition.

Mandy Reznor (She/It)

Y'know, Luella makes me think of the Leanann Sidhe. They're an Irish fairy--they take the form of beautiful women, and go about pretending to be human to take on spouses to care for them, sort like how changelings live off the care of human parents. Their partners sometimes seem inspired while under the Fae's influence, and are excellent at whatever art or craft they favor--but they also meet an early death. Something about Luella's childlike-yet-manipulative nature seems so very much like a Shee to me, too.

Shana Carter

Catnip and valerian are used in folk medicine as a soothing tea and a sleep aid, respectively, so Luella was basically roofied to keep her out of the way while Lydia tried to help Aunt Abby.

Lord_Sphenoid

woo hoo! glad you were able to get around to this one

Sweatin' to the Great Oldies

Yeah, I was in a cover-band, too. Weak Fiddlesticks. Ran into trouble with Week Fiddlesticks. We both got cease and desist letters from Wee Kfiddlesticks. Damn blood-sucking lawyers. We can definitely look at this story in light of more modern takes on relationships. I'm sure you've heard people talk about friends or family members who acted as emotional vampires, just draining the spirit and vitality out of you through due to their personality disorders. Emotional vampires have also been known as energy vampires or psychic vampires (psychic parasites) and have been known to populate old self-help books (Psychic Self-Defense, 1930) as movies, comic books, and Tumblr blogs.

Eldritch Scerry

Holy crap! It’s the historical antecedent to Colin Robinson from What We Do in the Shadows!

Allison Albright

Ok first of all, are you trying to tell me that Andrew Lloyd Webber is NOT a Lovecraftian horror from beyond space and time? Because I just don't find that to be a credible claim. I think we've all known people like Luella in both large ways and small. She reminded me both of some really horrific people I've known who were just malignant forces in the lives of others, and of much more normal people who are similar in smaller ways. Working in libraries, we often had older volunteers who were retired and were volunteering at the library because they wanted to socialize and get out of the house and do something useful. Three or four of them did not know how to make coffee. They never learned because their wives always made the coffee at home and the secretaries always made the coffee at the office. And somehow they were just ok with that. It never occurred to them that they could or should learn how to make their own coffee. That always absolutely blew my mind.

Stacy Schumacher

The psychic vampire description is a good one. The image I had for Luella was more of a parasite like a lamprey (calling back to the Ocean Leech). I can't imagine they're very smart, or even malicious about feeding on their hosts. They just move through the water till they find suitable prey, feed on them till they weaken and die, then move on to the next one. Definitely the vibe I got from the story's description of her, at least until the end where she ended up ghostifying her prey to serve her in the afterlife. That hinted at a bit more malevolence. Well done finding these stories about less traditional Draculas. I'm enjoying the different takes and their social commentary.

Scott Morrison (edited)

Comment edits

2026-09-10 01:00 Building on Stacy's comment, here's a question: who do you consider the 'real' villain of this story, if it isn't Luella? For me, it's the townsfolk in general. They look on while this whole drama goes on, but they don't turn on Luella until (by my count) SEVEN people die of the same mysterious wasting-away.
2020-03-13 23:11

Eric - Speaker in Digressions

I know a Louella Hill who's a cheesemaker, but she's actually competent at doing things, so it's probably not this vampire, or I guess ghost of a vampire, using her maiden name to throw people off the trail.

Sebastian Tonewo

I'm really glad congressman foghorn leghorn is doing what we elected him for, cracking down on all these fake Lovecraft podcasts. Finally, an honest politician.

Eric - Speaker in Digressions

I am informed by my girlfriend Rebecca that Judge John Hodgman once asked listeners to research the origin of the Dracula "blah! blah! blah!" The results were compiled in a Halloween 2011 post on the Maximum Fun website (if you google "dracula," "blah blah," and "maximum fun" you'll find it; I find that Patreon nukes links). The theories were indeed that it comes from Lugosi's saying "blood," but not so much from the 30s films. Instead, Hodgman's fan researchers pointed to the 1952 musical comedy "My Son the Vampire" (a.k.a. "Vampire Over London") with Lugosi, and the title song (added to the film's re-release a decade later) by Alan Sherman, which both feature "blood" pronounced "blaaaaaaahd!" Other possible sources and/or links in the chain include comedian Gabriel Dell on the Steve Allen show (horror host Svenghoolie's pet theory) and a Lenny Bruce routine featuring a Yiddish Dracula (endorsed in David Skal's 'Monster Show" history of horror). So it looks like pop-culture has added "blah," in a way similar to the figure of Dr. Frankenstein's minion Igor, through comedy and satire.

Devin Morse

"...not Andrew Lloyd Webbah!!" = my sides

Steven Vincent

Hey gang regarding where the whole -Dracula saying “bla, bla, bla!”- thing comes from, here’s an example of and old Pink Panther cartoon that does just that. I’m sure this is not its origin but it’s a lot of slapstick Dracula fun 😁👍 https://youtu.be/_sLrATVJDqc

Jason Thompson

What a wonderful story! Thanks for introducing me to it. I used to read a ton of horror anthologies at the library when I was young, but I suspect this is the kind of story that would have flown over my head when I was 10 or 12. I just didn’t have enough social intelligence to appreciate these kinds of stories about horrible relationship patterns, the ones that left an impression were the more obvious stories about killer worms or turning to fungus or whatever.

Robert Daniel Pickard

Transactional Analysis is a therapeutic methodology that uses a variation of the drama triangle. The book The Games People Play by Eric Berne gives several hypothetical scenarios that illustrate how the dynamics among Parent, Child and Adult ego states (the elements of the triangle in TA) can be exploited to manipulate. The YouTuber TheraminTrees has done a short introductory series on TA. I found TA to be an effective method for sorting out what was happening in an abusive relationship from my emotional reaction to the relationship.

Father of Beagles

This episode reminded me of a tv show called What We Do in the Shadows. One episode you meet a legit emotional vampire, who just drained people by making them feel sorry for her. She has lines like “I think my dog has autism.” It’s played for laughs but people like this kind of exist. They play the victim or feel the world is against them and rely others to survive or just con you.

Stewart

I quite liked this story. After the opening, the hints of the supernatural are muted until the end, as Luella's increasingly sinister reputation is built up until her dramatic ascent - but it's curious that after that she seems to linger in the way she does, possibly killing the woman who rented her house and later Lydia as well. That to me suggests she's more deliberately predatory than she's letting on; though then again, maybe it's a Colour Out of Space situation where that's just naturally how she feeds. Unrelated, I do hope we get more of the distinguished Senator's floor speech in future episodes.

Nadia Astorga

Here I was thinking what an odd story until I realised I read it two years ago! From ”The Wind of the Rose Bush” collection. I’m so happy CL Moore is next, the queen of pulp.

Rafe Ball

Luella certainly seems oblivious to the harm she is doing - or at least she sees it as the natural order of things that others should be taking care of her every whim. Is she, perhaps like Ducayne, a representation of a parasitic upper class sucking the life out of the lower class to maintain themselves? Mind you, she also sucks the life out of the 'respectable' doctor. Perhaps she is a parodic, extreme version of the 'ideal' of the higher social class woman of the period - disenfranchised, passive, there to be a pretty wife and support her husband's social position? She's so empty of agency and personality that she in turn drains others of theirs until they drop dead. I pulled my old copy of "Our Vampires, Ourselves" by Nina Auerbach off the shelf, and she notes that "The vital fluid in Luella Miller is not blood, but work" which has a very Marxist ring to it.

Michaelcthulhu

Thanks for the shout out at the end! 5 million years ago when I went to make an account on youtube my surname was taken, so I went with Michaelcthulhu. It turned out to be lucky though, cause everyone worth a damn online can spell cthulhu, but no one can spell my actual last name.