Confronting the re-publishing spectre in order to produce a Halloween shiver (my “old school” dilemma)

Hello, readers!  For the last year now, gradually as time has come on, I’ve had it in mind to re-publish for you a post I wrote last October 9 (2012), a post which lives on famously for me because it has been so popular with you.  Not only has it been the most popular post of the fall season, but it has been the most popular post of all on my site ever since it was published, even during spring lambing season and the summer heat which followed!  So, thinking along the lines of newspapers which occasionally re-publish extremely popular articles with only a new headline or blurb to explain why, I thought I’d share it with you again this Halloween season, preparatory to a few other tales I also plan to feature, which are new to my site, though not to literary history.

Not being a computer whiz, I contacted WordPress.com support pages and forums, only to find, however, that it was not possible simply to re-publish the page with a single comment or perhaps a new title, and easily chill your blood.  No, and it is also frowned upon to quote oneself (that attitude has a rather more understandable bias, since no one likes a windbag).  After I corresponded several times with the folks at the forum, however, I did run across the suggestion–closest to what I wanted to do–to write a “new” post, and provide a link with the former post.  This is what I am going to try to do now, providing again for you (I hope) a post on one of my favorite A. S. Byatt tales of all time, certainly, and demonstrably your favorite post of mine, though to be perfectly honest, the major part of the credit is hers, and not mine.  So here goes:  A. S. Byatt’s tale “The Thing in the Forest,” and my own more modest comments on the same.  I hope you see what I mean about what real fear is!