A Little House in the Woods

Book Description Clive, a shy young taxman and keen cyclist, sets off on holiday to Germany. He follows the Rhine on his bicycle, branches off into a hilly, forested area and caught by darkness and mist decides to camp in the forest. He gets lost and stumbles across an old, decayed house. A very old and forbidding woman and a lot of dwarfs inhabit it and all seem hostile. Clive camps nearby and presses on in the morning, still unsure of his direction. He discovers that the dwarfs breed quantities of large and powerful goats, and that they ride these as well as sucking their blood for sustenance. He finds that he is being followed by the dwarfs on their goats, and flees from them. He shelters in a cave, led to it by an inscription carved into a tree, and there discovers an old diary hidden in a buried writing case. He takes the diary and runs. Eventually he shakes off the dwarfs and finds the road. There he meets Walther Hartmann, a middle-aged architect on a walking tour. Clive relates his adventures and shows Walther the diary. This turns out to be from the 17th century, the work of a young girl living in a nearby village that has since disappeared. It covers the period 1630 to 1632,and contains a strange and harrowing tale of warfare and plague. It mentions dwarfs on goats, and also treasure. Walther thinks that it might be a hoax, but offers to translate the diary for Clive if he will take him back to the cave. They go there, later camp, and Walther relates the complex story of the diary, the story of Anna-Louise Lenau. They decide to search for further traces of the lost village, to authenticate the diary. As they delve deeper into the traumatic events related by it, and start to close in on the places and objects it mentions, the present day dwarfs begin to intervene.