Harvest Home

A gripping Gothic tale of possession, madness and murder, Hilda Vaughan's Harvest Home (1936), is set in Abercoran on the south-west coast of Wales in the time of George III. Daniel Hafod rides home from England one fine morning to become Master of Great House after the death of his uncle. But his obsessive pride and his dark desire for the pretty dairy-maid Eiluned lead to his downfall, as he and his sailor cousin, Dan, compete for her love. A lyrical evocation of Welsh rural life, Harvest Home is also a tautly-written psychological study of a man driven mad by desire which draws on the history of wreckers then active on the Welsh sea-coast, the legend of Blodeuwedd from the Mabinogi, and superstitions associated with Nos Calangaeaf (All Hallows Eve) when spirit voices call out the names of those soon to die.