The Nightmares on Elm Street by Martin H. Greenberg

Long-winded (even in its edited form here), with some good action (a battle with a she-wolf), this features a nice bit of Catawba folklore (presuming its not Simms own fakelore invention). But ancient demon magic is afoot in the forest. A nice little find from 1840 is 'The Arm-Chair Of Tustenuggee' (South Carolina) by William Gilmore Simms - told as a piece of Catawba Native American folklore, two Indian braves are out hunting when one mysteriously disappears and the other, returning to camp, is sentenced to death for his presumed murder (and then reprieved into a fate worse than death). 'Cry Havoc' (West Virginia) is also not exactly horror, more dark fantasy, as an Irish immigrant's son - between the wars - receives a gift of a huge set of lead soldiers and begins reenacting, peremptorily, the second world war to the delight, and then horror, of his father.

A sorrowful story, not really horror and more sci-fi. Ted White's 'Only Yesterday' (Virginia) is set in the early part of the 20th Century and has an anxious and suspiciously-acting young man deliberately meet a woman at a rural train station in order to ingratiate himself into her home, eventually divulging an awful glimpse of the future to her. Something about a Native American woman who passes as white and moves up in her career, but she also has shamanistic powers. I hadn't liked it when I read it in the past, but thought I'd give it another shot. The weakest story here is 'The Night Of The Piasa' (Texas) by J.C. Rud when I process it for my work, but I've got no review at the moment. I'll eventually get around to reading 'Ooze' (Alabama) by Anthony M. If it sounds like your kind of thing, Inter-Library Loan awaits! SECOND TIER: A fairly good concept for an anthology theme (for an expanded riff on the same concept, see A Treasury of American Horror Stories where you get all 50 states!), as above - there were no outstanding pieces here, but a few were nice re-reads or discoveries. Not everything works, and there's no absolutely outstanding piece, so you takes your chances.

FIRST TIER: An anthology themed around horror stories set in Southern states, like most anthologies, this is a mixed bag but generally on the worthwhile side.

The Nightmares on Elm Street by Martin H. Greenberg