BONUS: The New Mother | A Classic (Unsettling) Victorian Tale For Children
SEASON 5 : BONUS 1
OCOTOBER 7, 2026
A little something extra to kickstart your October! This is a retelling in my own words of The New Mother from 1882, which is credited as the primary inspiration for the film Coraline. Protect your eyes.
More from this episode:
Read the original text: https://www.landoffiction.com/the-new-mother/
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INTRO
Hello everyone, welcome to A Good Night for a Murder, a Victorian true crime podcast.
My name is Kim, I am here with a surprise bonus episode for you!
Right out of the gate, released the same day as the season 5 opener
So if you haven’t listened to that already, please look for it in your feed because two episodes in one day from A Good Night For a Murder is a special occasion
The reason I wanted to put together this bonus episode for you is because I know I’ve been away for bit and I missed you
Plus this is my absolute favorite time of year and there is just so much creepy, haunted Victorian content I want to share with you
What I have tonight is something I usually reserve for around Christmas time, which to retell, in my own words, an original Victorian ghost story
Christmas was the prime season for ghost stories for Victorians, but there are certainly plenty of unsettling stories to go around
Tonight’s story was actually a children’s story, and if it starts to sound familiar to you, that’s because it is credited as the primary inspiration for Neil Gaiman’s Coraline.
This is a retelling of The New Mother written by Lucy Clifford in 1882.
Quick reminder that there is a free 7 week trial available right now for you to binge the entire back catalog of bonus content on Patreon
After which it is only $2 a month to keep your access
Also A Good Night For a Murder has merch now, and it’s on sale!
Visit agoodnightforamurder.com to see what we’ve got
CONTENT WARNING
A Good Night for a Murder is a true crime podcast that does cover stories including death, violence, sexual assault, and other adult themes.
Please take care while listening.
EPISODE
In a lonely cottage on the edge of the forest, there lived a mother, and her 3 children.
One little baby, and two little girls who she called Blue-Eyes and Turkey
Blue-Eyes was the older of the two and her crystal clear blue eyes reminded her mother of her husband’s eyes, so she took to calling the little girl Blue-Eyes
The younger of the two, when she was a toddler, had taken to watching a wild turkey day after day in the woods outside their cottage
But one day the turkey wandered off and she never saw it again
She cried so hard over not seeing the turkey anymore, the mother took to calling her Turkey.
Their father was away at sea, and even though they were alone, in a tiny cottage where the tall fir trees cast sharp shadows over their thatched roof, the cottage was cozy and they were happy
The walls inside the cottage were a bright cheerful white, and their mother hung her baking dishes all along it
There was a clock that ticked happily even though it didn’t always tell the right time
There was a cupboard on the wall where their mother would store treats for them, and the baby’s highchair in one corner.
It was a mile and a half walk to the village, and the mother often sent Blue-Eyes and Turkey there together to see if there was any mail from their father at sea.
The girls were very proud when their mother finally let them walk on their own
When they got back, their mother always had tea waiting for them and the baby would coo and clap, excited to see them.
One afternoon in late autumn, their mother said to them, “Girls, it’s very chilly out today, but if you hurry you can go in to the village and see if there’s any mail from your father. Go the shortest way, and come straight back. And if you see any strangers, don’t talk to them.”
The children promised to go to the village and back as quickly as possible and not talk to any strangers
So their mother kissed them goodbye and told them what good girls they were, and they went on their merry way.
When they got to the village, it was more crowded than usual
There had been a fair the day before, and even though the fair was over, there were still crowds hanging about.
Even though they didn’t have any money, the girls were sad they hadn’t come yesterday
There were all sorts of characters in the village that day, including an old man leaning against a house, with two dogs on either side of him.
The dogs had fancy collars on and the girls reasoned they must have put on a show the day before
The man and dogs both were slumped against the wall without an ounce of energy left in them it seemed.
The grocer and the post office were one in the same in their village, so the girls had to wait a long time before they were attended to
When it was finally their turn they were gruffly told there was no letter for them today, and were quickly dismissed.
Dejected, they started slowly back the way they came, past the old man and the dogs, and along the path out of the village back towards the forest
A little ways out of the village now, they spotted a strange dark figure resting against a pile of rocks by the side of the road
At first they thought it was a poor, old woman, but as they drew closer, they came to see it was a strange wild-looking girl, who seemed very unhappy
Even though their mother had warned them not to talk to strangers, this was only a girl, maybe about 15 or so, and she clearly seemed upset.
She wore a dingy brown shawl, shabby, unlaced brown boots, and tattered gray stockings.
Her hair was wild and uncombed, but very shiny.
As were her large eyes that were so dark, they were almost black.
She had some sort of bundle under the shawl.
When she noticed the girls approaching, she shifted the bundle behind her back
She did not look at them directly though until they were within only a yard of her, upon which she furiously swiped at her eyes as if she’d been crying and looked up.
“Are you crying?” the girls asked.
She responded promptly, but curiously, her delivery did not match her affect, as she sounded rather upbeat and cheerful
“Oh dear, no! Quite the contrary. Are you?”
The girls found this bizarre, and frankly, a bit rude, and almost walked away though the older girl seemed so strange they followed up by asking, “Are you lost?”
“Certainly not.” she said, “Why, you have just found me. Besides,” she added, “I live in the village.”
Now this was truly peculiar as the village was not a big place, and the girls were fairly confident they knew everyone who lived there.
The situation was getting stranger by the minute, so Turkey, who had never been one to mince words, asked her, “What’s that behind your back?”
“A peardrum,” she replied brightly.
The warmth in her voice still did not reach her face or eyes, which seemed on the verge of spilling over with tears, but now their curiosity was even more piqued.
“What’s a peardrum?” they asked.
“I am surprised at your not knowing,” the girl answered. “Most people in good society have one.”
Blue Eyes and Turkey, again, found this response rather rude given they’d found the girl literally in the gutter dressed in rags.
But then she pulled out the peardrum to show them.
It was vaguely shaped like a small guitar with only 3 strings and a small crank handle on one side
On the other side, it had a small square box with a lid attached to it
“It really is a most beautiful thing, is a peardrum,” the girl said, looking at it affectionately.
The girls asked how she got it, and she replied she bought it.
When they asked if it was very expensive, she said, certainly, but she could afford it, because she was very rich.
And this was the breaking point for Blue Eyes and Turkey
As delicately as they could, because they were truly good girls at heart, they replied that this surprised them, because she didn’t look very rich.
In fact, she looked quite shabby.
“Indeed?” the strange girl asked with a note of pleasant surprise in her voice.
“A little shabbiness is very respectable,” she added. “I must really tell them this.”
Then, she opened the little lid on the box of the peardrum, and softly spoke in to it:
“They say I look rather shabby; it is quite lucky, isn’t it?”
Utterly bewildered, the girls asked, “Who are you talking to? There’s no one there!”
The strange girl with the sad shining eyes replied, “Oh! But I’m speaking to them both!”
“Both!?” Blue Eyes and Turkey cried.
“Yes,” she replied, “I have here a little man dressed as a peasant, and wearing a wide slouch hat with a large feather, and a little woman to match, dressed in a red petticoat, and a white handkerchief pinned across her bosom. I put them on the lid of the box, and when I play they dance most beautifully. The little man takes off his hat and waves it in the air, and the little woman holds up her petticoat a little bit on one side with one hand, and with the other sends forward a kiss.”
Now, this was something Blue Eyes and Turkey had to see!
They started begging the girl to let them peek inside the peardrum
But the strange girl held it closer to her and slowly said, “Well, I’m not sure that I can… Tell me… are you good children?”
“Oh yes!” the sisters exclaimed.
“Ah,” said the strange girl. “It’ll be impossible then,” and closed the lid of the box resolutely.
“But… we are good,” they implored.
“Yes,” said the strange girl, “I only show them to naughty children.”
Blue Eyes and Turkey could not believe what they were hearing.
The strange girl stood to leave which prompted another round of begging, but the strange girl said she simply could not, and started to walk away.
Panicked, the girls cried out, “Okay, okay! We’ll be naughty then!”
The strange girl turned back,
“Oh I’m afraid the two of you could never… It takes a great deal of skill to be truly naughty… BUT maybe I’ll see you in the village tomorrow! Goodbye!”
And turned on her heel and walked off.
With tears in their eyes, the girls had no choice but to continue on their way home, heartbroken with disappointment that they had not led naughty enough lives to be able to see the little man and woman in the peardrum
Truth be told, Blue Eyes and Turkey had never been naughty a day in their whole lives
They were always kind, sweet, and generous children
But that day, they ached so desperately to be able to see the little man and woman in the peardrum, that on the rest of their walk home, they discussed if they thought they could be naughty enough, just for that one night, as so they may encounter the strange girl again and she might show them the little dancing man and woman.
The idea of being disobedient of their dear, sweet mother upset them so much, that they cried the whole way home, and were still crying when their reached their cottage
Their mother rushed out to them thinking they were hurt, but when she saw they were fine, she begged them to tell her what was wrong.
But the girls wouldn’t speak, they only cried.
She tried to serve them their tea and bread but they cried the whole way through.
Finally, their mother took Turkey on her knee and pleaded with her to tell her what was wrong
Finally, between sobs, Turkey said to her mother, “Oh mother, I want so badly to be naughty!”
This shocked their mother who replied, “Naughty! No… it’s impossible for you girls to be naughty, you both love me too much to make me so unhappy.”
“We could love you, and be naughty at the same time,” the girls said. “If we did that, then what would you do?”
“Well,” their mother spoke carefully as tears filled her eyes.
“In that case, I should have to go away and leave you, and to send home a new mother, with glass eyes and a wooden tail.”
This horrified the girls and they proclaimed that she was right, they could never be naughty to her.
But that night, they both cried themselves to sleep thinking about how they would never see the tiny man and woman dance on the peardrum.
The next day, the girls could not rest until they knew if the strange girl from the village would be waiting by the side of the road like she was the day before.
So they set out for the village, and lo and behold, the strange girl was in the exact same spot, as if she had not even moved at all.
With the same look of despair in her shining black eyes that she had yesterday, she cheerfully remarked, “Good day, the weather is charming today.”
This time though, Blue Eyes and Turkey hardly took notice of the chilling way her words did not match her demeanor, and hastily asked after the little man and woman in the peardrum.
“Yes; thank you for inquiring after them,” the girl answered; “they are both here and quite well. The little man is learning how to rattle the money in his pocket, and the little woman has heard a secret— she tells it while she dances.”
As before, they begged to see the little man and woman
And as before, the strange girl said she couldn’t possibly, because they were not naughty.
“If we’re naughty,” Blue Eyes said, “Our mother will leave us and send back a new mother with glass eyes and a wooden tail!”
“Indeed,” said the strange girl, dismissively. “They all say that, but a new mother with glass eyes and a wooden tail would be too expensive to make.”
The practicality of the strange girl’s statement struck Blue Eyes and Turkey, and they were ashamed of how silly they’d been in believing their mother’s empty threat.
They begged again to see the little man and woman and hear her secret, but the strange girl said she simply could not, because they were not naughty - and then left them there at the side of the road.
On the way home that day, the sisters resolved to be naughty just for that night.
And indeed they were.
They broke their cups at tea, and threw their bread and butter on the floor.
When their mother asked them to help clean it up, they danced on it.
They misbehaved all night long until their mother finally sent them to bed early, which only made them clap and laugh, as they knew they had finally succeeded in being naughty children.
The next morning, before their mother was even awake, they left the house and ran over the fields to the spot where they knew the strange girl would be
And, she was there
They told her all of what they had done the night before and asked if they could now, please, see the little man and woman.
But the strange girl remained unimpressed.
“But, we were sent to bed!” they implored.
“If you were truly naughty, you wouldn’t have gone,” she said. “The two of you can’t help it though, you’re too good. You could have thrown water on the fire, broken the clock, pulled down all of the baking dishes and thrown them on the floor. But you didn’t even think of all of those things. I told you, being truly naughty is a skill.”
At first the girls were shocked by this, but then resolved to be even naughtier that night.
They went home, and did all of the things she said.
This time, their mother didn’t scold them
She simply broke down in tears and told them, “Unless you are good tomorrow, my poor Blue-Eyes and Turkey, I shall indeed have to go away and come back no more, and the new mother I told you of will come to you.”
They did not believe her, but it hurt their hearts to see her so sad
They agreed that after the strange girl showed them the little man and woman tomorrow, they would never be naughty to their mother again.
That night, they couldn’t sleep
The girls felt sick with how they’d treated their mother, so even earlier than the day before, they snuck out of the house and ran over the fields to find the strange girl.
They did not expect to find her by the road, but hoped maybe to find her in the village;
To their surprise though, she was there.
As they approached, they could see she had the lid of the peardrum open!
Though she quickly shut it once she saw them.
Blue Eyes and Turkey told her all of what they had done the night before and explained their mother would go away that very night if they were naughty once more.
But, the strange girl replied in the same way she had before
They had not the skill to be naughty enough - they hadn’t broken the mirror, or hung the baby upside down
Then she told them she wouldn’t see them again tomorrow, but she may pass by their cottage later tonight - she may even be playing the peardrum
That was all the girls needed to hear
The rushed home, and again, rained chaos upon their little cottage
Their poor mother was at her wits end, and by the time she would usually be preparing dinner, she could take no more
With tears in her eyes, she packed her bag, dressed the baby up warm and kissed Blue Eyes and Turkey goodbye.
“Goodbye my loves,” she told them, “Your new mother will be here soon.”
And she left
The girls watched her as she carried her bag and the baby across the field towards the sunset.
The tried to call after her, promising they would be good again that very same night
But she did not turn back, and soon they could no longer see her.
Slowly the sun dipped below the hills, casting long, sharp shadows from the fir trees over their tiny cottage.
As the cottage grew dark, Blue Eyes and Turkey looked around in despair.
Where there was once a cozy fireplace their mother always kept warm for them, there was nothing but damp soot
The baby’s highchair lay on it’s side with no baby to sit in it
Their charming clock that lay smashed on the floor feebly struck the hour, echoing through the shell of their fractured home.
Blue Eyes and Turkey sat in silence as the clock wound down completely
Then, they heard a new sound…
It sounded unpleasant, like someone trying to create a melody by clanging tin cups together
There was also a shrill whistling sound accompanying it
If these two sounds were meant to go together, they were both badly playing two different songs
Then a new sound emerged from the racket, which was the sound of the strange girl singing
Blue Eyes and Turkey rushed to the window, and saw the strange girl walking through the woods by the light of the moon, and behind her was the old man from the village with the dancing dogs following on their hind legs.
The unsettling music was coming from the peardrum and a small flute the man was playing
They called out to her that they had been so naughty that their mother had left!
Could they at least now please see the little man and woman inside the peardrum!?
“I’m afraid you can’t!” said the strange girl, “They’ve gone away, see?”
As she passed she tipped the peardrum towards them and they could indeed see that the small box was empty.
“I’m leaving now as well, I’m going back to my own land, far, far away.”
“Will our own mother come back!?” the sisters asked her.
“Oh no,” she replied pleasantly. “She’s already gone to sea to be with your father, and they’ll go sailing together to countries far, far away.”
The racket from the peardrum continued and the strange girl resumed her odd singing
Moonlight flashed on her too-dark eyes and the sisters’ blood turned to ice in their veins
The old man with the dogs slowly processed past their cottage playing that horrible, shrill music, under the sharp shadows of the fir trees, until they were both nearly swallowed by the darkness of the dense forest.
“Your new mother is coming!” the strange girl called back. “She is already on her way; but she only walks slowly, for her tail is rather long, and her spectacles are left behind; but she is coming, she is coming — coming — coming.”
Her words faded and their forms were swallowed by the blackness completely then.
“Is what she said true?” little Turkey asked. “Is mother never coming back? What if the new mother comes?”
Blue Eyes did not want to believe that their mother was really gone for good, but a profound distress gripped her heart, turning her insides to lead.
“She will be back,” said Blue Eyes. “And when she comes back, she’ll want a warm fire and cup of tea. Come, let’s clean up.”
“What if the new mother comes!?” Turkey wailed.
“Then we’ll bolt the doors and windows and not answer,” her sister replied.
So that’s exactly what they did
They bolted the doors and windows, then set about tidying up the small cottage
They picked up the broken cups, rehung the baking dishes, set the baby’s highchair right, rewound the broken clock, and worked for a long while to light a fire in the damp hearth.
After some time, with the cottage glowing cozy and warm again, the girls began to feel certain that their mother would be back for them at any moment - certainly by morning.
The girls drank tea and nibbled stale bread, as it was the only food left, and strained their ears listening for the sound of their beautiful mother’s tender footsteps on the path.
The girls waited, and waited, and after some time, they did hear a sound…
But it was not footsteps
Rather, it was the sound of something heavy being dragged over the pine needles outside
The dragging sound came closer, and closer, and all the hope the sisters had allowed themselves to feel drained out of their hearts through the bottom of their feet and through the floorboards.
Then all at once there came a terrible, sharp knock at the door
Their own mother would not have knocked at the door to her own house
This was not their mother…
The knocking came again, harder this time
“Don’t answer!” Blue Eyes implored her sister.
But the knocking only came again, louder and harder than before.
“Go away!” the girls called out. “Go away; we won’t let you in ; we will never be naughty anymore; go away!”
But their pleas were only answered by more knocking so menacing that they were afraid the door may cave in.
Blue Eyes rushed to the door the pressed her back against it
“Look out the window,” she whispered to her sister, “Is it the new mother?” she asked, voice trembling.
Turkey crept to the window and slowly raised her eyes above the sill
She could just see a black satin bonnet with a frill round the edge, and a long bony arm carrying a black leather bag. From beneath the bonnet there flashed a strange bright light, and Turkey’s heart sank and her cheeks turned pale, for she knew it was the flashing of two glass eyes.
“It is! It is!” she whispered, her voice shaking with fear.
Then again came another terrible knock at the front door
“Help me!” Blue Eyes said.
And her sister scrambled down from the window and pressed her back as well against the front door.
The girls braced for another knock, but all was quiet.
The looked at each other, inquisitively
Perhaps the new mother had gone away
But then they heard a cheerful voice say to itself, “I must break open the door with my tail.”
For one terrible moment all was still, but in it the children could almost hear her lift up her tail, and then, with a fearful blow, the little painted door was cracked and splintered.
The door exploded inward as the girls shrieked and ran for their lives out the back of the cabin and in to the dark, cold forest
They stayed there all night
And the next night, and the next - in the thick, overgrown, depths where they shivered constantly for the sunlight barely broke through the dense canopy.
The children are still there, to this day - weeks, months, and years and year and years later
The new mother is still in their cottage - with the doors and windows shut up tight
Sometimes after darkness falls, the girls will creep up to the cottage that was once their safe and happy home with their mother and the baby, and watch and listen
And every time, they’ll hear the new mother’s wooden tail being dragged back and forth across the floorboards
And if they look too long, there will come a blinding flash of light that they know is the new mother and her two glass eyes.
That is the story, The New Mother, by Lucy Clifford first published in her collection of children's stories, The Anyhow Stories, Moral and Otherwise in 1882.
As I was reading the original tale I realized that I, too, have told my son, another mother was going to come live with him
There was a time when he was like maybe 3 or 4, where, as children do, he would have meltdowns over the most mundane things
Like I’m so sorry we have to get a nice warm bath now and get in your pajamas to get in your cozy bed after a super fun day where we went to the library, the park, built a fort, had ice cream
I’m guess I’m just a bad mom
Maybe we should call the mommy police, and they’ll take me to mommy jail, and new a mommy will come take care of you…
I said that!
And of course, I was never truly angry in those moments, just a little bit frustrated because I was tired too
And for us it really helped redirect my son, he seemed to think the mommy police was pretty funny and he’d start giggling and eventually he’d get in the bath or whatever
But the dread that entered my heart as I was reading that story with the realization that this is a thing a lot of parents actually say…
And in this story, it came true!
Clifford’s story is meant for children and it seems the moral could be any number of things:
Don’t talk to strangers
Listen to your parents
Don’t believe things that seem too good to be true
All of which I think are also key takeaways in Neil Gaiman’s film Coraline
If you’re familiar with the book series Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, it was also rewritten for that series titled The Drum, appearing in book 2, MORE Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark
I am curious to know what you thought of the story The New Mother though,
And have you ever threatened your kids with sending one
What do you think the moral is?
Do you see the similarities to Coraline?
Are you familiar with the Scary Stories retelling?
If you want the read the original text, it’s a quick read, and I’ve linked it in the show description as well as the episode blog on my website at agoodnightforamurder.com, along with a few illustrations from Lucy Clifford’s book
Be sure follow me on Instagram, TikTok, or YouTube @agoodnightforamurder
Please rate and review, and share with friends
Thank you for listening,
And I will talk to you again soon