The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - FREEMIUM： Chronicles #21 ｜ Ghost Stories with Proper Horror Show

00:00:00.000 Hello and welcome back to Chronicles, where today we're going to be talking all about

00:00:18.300 ghost stories of an antiquary by M.R. James. And joining me today is special guest Chloe

00:00:25.500 from the Splendid Channel Proper Horror Show. Thank you, Chloe.

00:00:28.800 Thank you very much, Luke.

00:00:30.000 Thanks for having me on. It's a pleasure.

00:00:31.340 No, not at all. Because this was your idea. This was entirely your idea. And I'm grateful

00:00:37.520 to you. Extraordinarily grateful that you chose it because it wasn't on my radar. It

00:00:43.940 was not something... Because unlike you, I'm a wimpy coward who's not a huge fan of horror.

00:00:50.000 Or certainly, I've never really just thrown myself into the genre. Yeah, so to do this

00:00:56.620 and read these stories about the supernatural and written with such style and character

00:01:04.140 as well. No, it was a real, real treat for me.

00:01:06.140 Well, I'm delighted. The thing is, you've been covering serious literature. And I just realised

00:01:12.660 spooky season was coming up. And I thought, can I crowbar some fripperies in?

00:01:16.660 Absolutely.

00:01:17.220 Some vaguely seasonal connections and make it happen. But I'm really glad you liked them.

00:01:21.800 Yeah. Well, what I ended up doing was, because they're short stories, they're all about 15

00:01:27.680 to 20 pages each. And I think there's about seven or eight in here. What I ended up doing

00:01:33.060 was reading one a night. And that would always, it seemed to put me in the mind where every

00:01:40.860 time I'd go to bed, I'd have varying degrees of terrifying nightmares based on how much the

00:01:47.580 story had affected me. And so I'm almost able to rank the stories by how bad my dreams were

00:01:54.520 the night after I read them.

00:01:56.000 Oh, nice.

00:01:56.580 It was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed them. I enjoyed them a lot. So where did you first

00:02:03.620 come into contact with these stories?

00:02:07.140 First exposure would be the 1970s BBC adaptations. I caught them somewhat after the fact, but I

00:02:15.420 got a bit of a taste for them. They are these wonderful TV productions done in that BBC style

00:02:21.020 of the 70s. And as much as they aim to actually give you a good fright, I'd say the key word

00:02:28.020 I'd associate with them is charming. They hit you with charm first before that sort of ominous

00:02:35.400 style of James gets in there. And I love those. And that prompted me to go back into the source

00:02:41.180 material, look around. And, uh, it was an absolute delight because these stories were, uh, for those

00:02:48.780 who don't know, uh, this book was first published in 1904. Right. And, uh, M.R. James was very much

00:02:55.340 a man of the Victorian era, first and foremost, you know, he was born in, um, uh, the, uh, 1860s,

00:03:02.780 I believe. And, uh, it seems to have been, we were talking about this on, on the way to the office

00:03:07.660 that, um, a remarkable man, because actually this was really just something of a side project

00:03:12.940 for him. He was first and foremost, one of the great medievalist scholars of his age, um, an

00:03:19.260 absolute authority on, uh, medieval manuscripts and responsible for, um, uh, a few excavations and

00:03:26.860 discoveries as his own, as, as well as being provost of Cambridge, Eton, and as a vice chancellor,

00:03:33.260 I believe by the end. Yes, indeed. So he bounces between those two institutions and he's overseeing

00:03:40.220 these amazing times in history, you know, Freud's writing, which I don't think he was all that keen

00:03:45.340 on, but we'll gloss over it. Uh, he's, uh, sort of writing when this genre is maturing and getting a

00:03:53.180 touch of modernism to it, which sort of threads into his work. Some things that strike me as quite

00:03:58.540 modern are in there. And, uh, he's, he's sort of writing against the, uh, inclusion of, sorry,

00:04:06.780 the granting of degrees to women. He's arguing with John Maynard Keynes. What, what's not to like,

00:04:11.500 you know, it won me over already. It was our guy. Yeah. Very much so. Uh, you do get this, um,

00:04:17.500 common pattern as well, don't you throughout his, um, these stories is that wouldn't it all have been

00:04:23.500 simpler if you just decided not to meddle in things that you don't understand? Yes, absolutely.

00:04:28.860 It seems to be the common theme. There's wonderful subtext to that, isn't there? Yes. Yes. He's,

00:04:34.460 he's absolutely fascinating. And, um, it sort of struck me quite similar to Lovecraft in a little,

00:04:43.500 now Lovecraft's writing a little bit, they, a little bit after that overlapping, but Lovecraft is

00:04:49.420 following, um, is following, um, James here. And also that theme of delving deeply, which is, um,

00:04:57.900 delving deeply, finding something a bit disturbing is, uh, often the subtext of that. Yes. Especially

00:05:04.300 for, um, the, the archetypal character that, um, uh, James seems to use, not always in this collection,

00:05:11.260 but generally, which is, um, a very, very educated, rational, rational man, um, who basically comes into

00:05:19.100 some supernatural encounter that he can't explain. And because it contradicts his rationalism so

00:05:27.100 severely, um, you know, it makes it all the more terrifying. Yes. He, he likes to do that. I think

00:05:34.700 certainly writing what, what he knows. So, uh, a couple of the stories, uh, are directly just,

00:05:41.900 it's his life. It's someone in a university, um, explaining their studying of ancient manuscripts

00:05:48.380 and visits to, uh, uh, to find such. And that's very much drawn from his own life. So, uh, uh,

00:05:56.060 Canon Albrecht's scrapbook is clearly drawn from notes that he may need whilst doing an actual visit

00:06:04.060 to the place that he's talking about. Right. Because he was well traveled as well,

00:06:08.220 wasn't he? Yes. So one of the things that I discovered media wise, you mentioned the, uh,

00:06:12.780 the BBC, um, versions as well. One of the things that, um, I found, which I found so charming was,

00:06:20.140 um, in the early 2000s with, um, some productions with Sir Christopher Lee, obviously famous man of horror.

00:06:29.260 Um, and they present it all in the style that M.R. James himself would have first told these stories.

00:06:37.660 So it's Sir Christopher Lee sitting as M.R. would have done at Cambridge. And, um, what I understand

00:06:43.020 to have happened was in 1893, um, M.R. James was writing his first ghost stories and he wrote, um, uh,

00:06:52.940 yeah, Canon Albrecht's scrapbook and Lost Hearts, which are the first two stories of, um,

00:06:58.700 of this collection. And then from there, it became a tradition that he would tell some new stories

00:07:06.460 every Christmas Eve, uh, to all the other gentlemen, obviously, um, students and dons and, um, a wonderful

00:07:13.900 little, little tradition, of course. And it'd all be told by candlelight, very atmospheric,

00:07:19.580 certainly something to, uh, to bring back, I think, into many a household as well.

00:07:24.940 Absolutely. It's, it's a cozy, uh, sort of the, the depiction I got in, um, I had a couple of

00:07:31.260 volumes of it. So I have the, uh, complete collection here with a lot of explanatory notes,

00:07:36.780 which I needed more than I'm happy admitting. Um, he is writing in the 1890s. Um, and I have, uh,

00:07:45.100 this version, which is, uh, just lovely, lovely version from, um, uh, Old Sovereign Publishing,

00:07:52.060 which is just a little treat to myself for this. But they, the depiction of him reading them is him,

00:08:00.460 uh, attending usually like the nine lessons of carols or just the King's Carol service

00:08:08.380 with members of various societies. So chit chat society, maybe in Cambridge, then retiring to his

00:08:13.900 chamber afterwards, drawing people in, giving them a brandy or hot spiced beer, as he calls,

00:08:20.700 sitting them by the fireplace and then disappearing to go get his notes and then coming back and then

00:08:25.580 reading forth and, sorry, holding forth from them. And I think, oh God, must have been quite an

00:08:30.300 experience. Absolutely. So before we really start delving into the stories, one thing I'd,

00:08:35.340 I'd love to ask is just, do you believe in ghosts? Right. Is, um, if, if I'm a,

00:08:42.620 because actually this is, this is something that I find quite a lot, actually, that even though we live

00:08:47.580 in, um, an age where like rationalism and materials seem to be, seem to be sovereign,

00:08:54.220 we actually, you meet a lot of people, right? That it, there seems to be this enduring

00:08:59.420 fascination with ghosts, with the supernatural. And I, I find it remarkable that even people that I

00:09:05.740 know who, um, uh, uh, like a lot, like the protagonists of the story, right? Very anti-superstition,

00:09:13.500 right? They'll say, but there was that one time, right? And this is what I, I think, um,

00:09:18.700 um, M.R. James does so well is that through his, um, style of realism, he manages to basically get

00:09:27.340 you to entertain the idea that such a thing could be possible. It's, it's really wonderful

00:09:33.100 the way that he does it. Oh, I, I love how you frame that. And I'd, I'd love to pick up on that,

00:09:37.660 but, uh, no one actually asked me that question before. Um, I think I'm very much a product of

00:09:43.740 maternity, right? It's hard to believe in something as direct as that. And, and yet, and yet do I, uh,

00:09:55.660 I, I had, I had a holiday once in Scotland and I chose a wonderful remote spot, you know, um,

00:10:03.660 in the woods with a cabin, the idea was you'd see red squirrels and you'd see deer in the morning.

00:10:09.100 And that was lovely. But the downside was it was so old that, uh, you had to go to an outhouse,

00:10:13.980 an outhouse far down the path. And, uh, you go down there in the dark of night and my goodness,

00:10:22.460 did I regret those Friday the 13th viewings because I was seeing specters and you can tell yourself

00:10:28.940 very rationally. There is no one up here, but, um, yeah, you tell yourself rationally, but your brain

00:10:36.380 is, is doing lots of other stuff as well. And I think that, and that exact pattern is, um,

00:10:43.180 something that's, um, that he really seems to understand why people believe or why they feel

00:10:50.220 they have these experiences. You know, there's, there's so much in the subconscious, um, that just

00:10:56.620 trapped away. And it's just, it seems to always just be waiting for the rate, the right, um,

00:11:03.340 convergence of factors to basically unlock that subconscious and subconsciousness and reveal some

00:11:11.420 sort of like transcend, uh, transcendental horror, just waiting on the other side in places where

00:11:18.620 the regions of the mind wouldn't normally be able to, to unlock.

00:11:22.060 Yeah. I, I think, uh, it's, we can, we can poo poo it, but it's very interesting to

00:11:27.980 note why it's so powerful to us and explore it as you say.

00:11:30.700 Yeah. Uh, I mean, I, I, as a, as a kid, you know, not so much now, but as a kid, I always,

00:11:35.980 you ever have that thing on those, someone where as a kid, you, you're in bed and you've got your leg

00:11:42.300 out the end of the bed and you feel the need to like pull your leg in because otherwise some, some

00:11:46.700 wraith is going to come in the night and like grab your leg and take you out the bed, you know,

00:11:50.940 all those little, little things as you, you grow up. And yeah, I, I had that definitely.

00:11:55.820 And, um, there's probably been one or two times where you thought you saw something.

00:11:59.980 Um, but, um, no, I, I, I do remain an arch step skeptic, but that doesn't stop me from,

00:12:07.980 from enjoying these and really appreciating what he, he tried to do. And I, I think another thing

00:12:13.900 as well is that even though, um, for those who, um, entirely unfamiliar, despite the fact that it's

00:12:19.260 called ghost stories of an antiquary, uh, not every monster slash, um, supernatural horror within

00:12:26.780 the stories is actually a ghost. No, no, that he has a really, uh, uh, nice, um, diversity of like,

00:12:33.820 you know, uh, creature and, uh, their origins. And, you know, it's, it's wonderful to see, um,

00:12:39.740 cause he was also, um, deeply fascinated by history, wasn't he, James? And so you see that the folklore

00:12:46.460 from all these different, um, European countries and, uh, village superstitions come in.

00:12:53.340 Yes. It's, it's stuff he was looking up and researching and he was able to thread it into

00:12:58.140 the story in a slightly different light. And, you know, it comes at interesting, a very,

00:13:03.020 a very interesting time where, um, he sort of really warning against a sort of materialism

00:13:09.180 and discarding of super, uh, superstition. Um, the most obvious case is, uh, a warning to the curious,

00:13:16.860 which is not in this collection that we're talking about today, uh, and has a lovely adaptation,

00:13:21.740 but a whistle and I'll come to you, my lad, is in that territory as well.

00:13:27.260 Sort of the ultra skeptical person who nevertheless

00:13:31.580 dabbles in something they shouldn't have. And although there's a lot going on with that story.

00:13:36.540 Uh, but you talked about a sort of way that, um, James lulls you into a sense of security and gets

00:13:41.500 you on board with the tale. I thought that was maybe a really useful jumping off point for these stories.

00:13:46.620 Oh yes. Yeah, definitely. Um, well, it just seems to be the fact that, um, um, other than,

00:13:53.180 uh, one or two stories where it might take place, um, at a, a manor in Sweden or a hotel in Denmark,

00:14:01.420 um, most of the stories, uh, I like the way that he stages them in locations that many ordinary people

00:14:10.940 could actually go themselves. Right. Because it makes them more, I've got a quote here from him

00:14:16.380 where he just says, um, part of the idea behind the stories is just that you read them and you think,

00:14:22.460 if I'm not very careful, something of this kind could happen to me. And so you set them at a little

00:14:28.940 English seaside town because, you know, especially in the Victorian era, you know, there was no Ryanair.

00:14:34.860 People weren't going abroad, of course, if they went on holiday, uh, they'd go to the seaside and,

00:14:40.780 um, an English seaside town. And so it's, uh, very accessible and it's great how he brings these

00:14:45.900 locations into it to create, yeah, this place that should be safe, that you just explore every day

00:14:52.460 and gives them this sinister twist. Yeah. I, I'm very minded of, um, Lovecraft and Stoker

00:14:59.500 and, uh, Chambers to an extent would, you do a similar thing of

00:15:07.980 to make, to make it more likely you could believe it. The place has to be familiar,

00:15:12.220 but not exactly familiar. It's got to be a little distance. Stoker will

00:15:16.700 put, put his events on the edge of the world, you know, where you think, well,

00:15:20.860 I don't know exactly how it is out there. Maybe it does work like that over there.

00:15:24.940 I'm going outside of my normal bounds here. So there's a bit of a risk and, um, uh,

00:15:31.580 James does this temporarily as well. I think he has, um, if you can forgive a, a, a slight quotation

00:15:37.420 I've got from... No, no, I encourage them. No, I can't see it here, so I'll, I'll quote it from memory

00:15:42.220 as best I can. Sure. Uh, so in a distance to the slight, uh, physical distance from, uh, where you would

00:15:49.100 normally be. So moving you from your college to that seaside town, to that slightly remote area.

00:15:56.540 He also wants to give you a minor temporal distance, but vague. He says a little vague

00:16:02.460 distance helps. He contrasts himself with a detective story where you want to be as up to

00:16:07.580 date as possible and see how the technology could be deployed. Whereas he wants a little vague distance.

00:16:13.820 So he says some 30 years previously or just before the war. So you're vaguely there, but you can't pin

00:16:21.580 it down. I think it's sort of almost warding you off trying to be a detective, giving you enough, uh,

00:16:28.460 points of, um, verisimilitude by quoting things that are actually there to sort of get buy-in from you.

00:16:36.060 Yeah. It's very clever like that. It is. Well, so, um, should we talk a little bit about the first

00:16:42.140 story? Um, so we've got, um, the first story, which was, um, uh, Canon Albrecht's scrapbook. Right.

00:16:49.340 And this takes place again, so reasonably isolated, uh, little town in, uh, the south of France,

00:16:56.700 I believe it was. And you have this, uh, the main character of Deniston, um, great name. And he is, uh,

00:17:05.340 an Englishman. He's as, uh, many of the characters as say, share in mind, he's a rationalist. He's an

00:17:11.180 educated man and he's going about looking for old, old books. Yes. Old, old and rare religious texts.

00:17:20.460 Yes. So this is borderline James himself, you know, the, uh, the, uh, Cambridge academic heading,

00:17:26.860 heading on a research mission for a medieval, um, uh, medieval religious apocrypha. So it is his life.

00:17:34.460 Um, and, um, I, I like, again, so much of the charm in these stories and charm is exactly the right

00:17:42.220 word. I think is that it's a little details, right? He, he has such little details. Like,

00:17:49.420 I think, uh, in more than one story, but in this one in particular, he points out the fact that, uh,

00:17:54.140 he's so enthusiastic about collecting these books that he's gone ahead and two of his friends are going

00:18:01.260 to join him the next day. And so just that, just that, it's not a necessary bit of information,

00:18:07.660 but it just gives you this idea of, okay, well, what life changing experience is going to happen

00:18:13.580 to this poor man, um, before his friends arrive the next day. And it sets him in isolation, but with this

00:18:21.980 feeling that companionship friendship is just on the horizon to come save him.

00:18:27.900 Yes. He's, he's isolated himself. So you can detect a period of brief vulnerability where he

00:18:34.380 doesn't have his support, but also it's got that, uh, forgive me for saying verisimilitude again.

00:18:40.300 Hmm. And this is a really good, I feel I'm being a bit crude and modern by saying technique because

00:18:48.700 when he, he, he's quite scornful of attempts to, um, apply that formality to his writing.

00:18:55.980 Um, but I'll use technique. He brings in these just very nice casual details, making everything

00:19:03.980 sound so conversational and it really helps, uh, the picture of remembering that when people were

00:19:13.020 hearing these, they were hearing them arated. They were just being told by a fireplace. So it

00:19:18.940 should have that conversational style. It really suits how it was originally told and just sort of

00:19:25.020 helps, uh, lower the defense mechanisms. You know, you're not thinking, oh, I don't believe all this

00:19:30.940 supernatural guff. You're just hearing about a chap going on an expedition and he's keeping it

00:19:35.900 extremely casual. Um, just like any friend would describe their work to you. Yes. And, um, he,

00:19:42.940 he ends up meeting one of the locals and the local, um, takes him back to his house and, uh, he has a

00:19:52.140 daughter there as well. And it's a fantastic thing. One of the other things just to say as well is that

00:19:58.460 because these are short stories, obviously it makes it all the more impressive how quickly,

00:20:06.300 um, James is able to assemble these incredible atmospheres, right? Like all of a sudden, like

00:20:13.660 this world becomes so real within a matter of two pages, you know, just within a few paragraphs,

00:20:20.220 he's set everything you need to know. And he does this consistently through every one of the stories.

00:20:26.140 It's, it's, um, um, for my part, someone who likes to write lengthily, you know, it's,

00:20:31.740 it's remarkable. It's aspirational to see someone be able to, to do that. So, so quickly.

00:20:37.420 Oh, absolutely. And I think partially because he, he set himself that limit of,

00:20:41.900 I've got to be able to tell this story to a group of people who, uh, don't want...

00:20:45.980 Before the brandy gets a little too deep. Yeah.

00:20:49.020 Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's remarkable restraint and helps storytelling. As you're saying, he's

00:20:54.540 recounting what he's seeing in the church. He's making notes there, uh, drawn from a real life

00:20:59.580 place he visited. And then he'll give you something like, I heard a, a laughing up in the belfry and

00:21:05.580 you're sort of, okay, hang on. And then he just moves on from it. And these little details are

00:21:13.180 planted to slightly unsettle you. And by the time he gets to, uh, the house, um, there's this moment

00:21:20.220 where the, the Frenchman is, you can tell he's wavering on whether or not to actually let Deniston

00:21:27.740 in. Yes. Right. There's this whole uncertainty and it obviously creates this, um, this beautiful

00:21:33.420 moment where you know that this man knows far more than Deniston knows. Uh, but Deniston is so,

00:21:39.180 uh, tunnel visioned about the fact that he's here on the mission and he's come to collect some old

00:21:46.300 books. Um, and so he goes in there and he finds this, uh, scrapbook from Canon Albrecht. And I,

00:21:55.660 this is probably also, um, a relevant moment just to mention as well, that there are a few illustrations,

00:22:00.300 um, um, in with this work. And he had them drawn by, uh, a friend of his, was it, uh, James McBride.

00:22:09.580 McBride. Yes. James McBride. And he actually, and, um, James actually passed away, uh, very sadly,

00:22:16.460 um, quite a young age, about 30. And therefore rather than, and the publishers had said to him,

00:22:23.580 well, we could get someone else who says, no, I just want James's work and, you know,

00:22:29.020 stand out to a testament to it. And this is one of the stories that James McBride was able to

00:22:34.380 draw a sketch for. And it is sinister. It is very, very good. It's also the description that goes with

00:22:41.740 it. When I, when I read this, it was, it was wonderful. I do apologize, by the way, ladies and

00:22:47.580 gentlemen, I'm a little under the weather today, as you might tell. Um, but he says,

00:22:52.380 I entirely despair of conveying by any words the impression which this figure makes upon anyone

00:22:59.100 who looks at it. I recollect one showing the photograph of the drawing to a lecturer on

00:23:04.300 morphology. A person of, I was going to say, abnormally sane and unimaginative habits of mind.

00:23:11.900 He absolutely refused to be alone for the rest of that evening. And he told me afterwards that, um,

00:23:17.820 for many nights, he had not dared to put out his light before going to sleep. However,

00:23:23.900 the main traits of the figure, uh, I can at least indicate. So he sees this, uh, this ghoul,

00:23:29.500 this demonic figure, um, towards the end of the scrapbook. And he says,

00:23:33.420 At first you saw only a mass of coarse, matted black hair. Presently it was seen that this covered a

00:23:41.100 body of fearful thinness, almost a skeleton, but with the muscles standing out like wires.

00:23:47.980 The hands were of a dusky paler, covered like the body with long, coarse hairs and hideously taloned.

00:23:55.740 The eyes, touched in with a burning yellow, had intensely black pupils and were fixed upon the

00:24:02.700 throned king with a look of beast-like hate. I mean, it's just wonderful writing, really wonderful writing.

00:24:11.420 And he, um, and it's all with reference to the fact that, um, you have King Solomon, um, of the

00:24:21.580 Old Testament and he has a scepter and he's pointing at these demons. And I believe Solomon seems to be a

00:24:28.700 figure, um, with aspects of the occult about him, because you have the, the Testament of Solomon,

00:24:36.300 Solomon, where he has this magic ring and he's basically able to, um, harness the power of these

00:24:42.620 demons to help him build a temple. And then you have the grimoire, don't you, of, uh, the key of

00:24:47.260 Solomon. Yes. Um, so yeah. You read of Solomon extensively in, uh, Kings and Chronicles, sort of

00:24:53.820 both cover him and he's gifted with this amazing wisdom and super relevant for James here in our sort

00:25:01.660 of don't get too curious or in fact, a warning to the curious, we might call it. Um, Solomon uses his

00:25:08.380 wisdom, uh, to create great prosperity for his kingdom and then gets a whole load of wives.

00:25:16.540 And with the wives come the trouble. They worship foreign gods and he doesn't make them, um, renounce

00:25:22.620 their religions and worship, um, worship the Jewish God, but, um, instead builds temples to their gods as

00:25:29.260 well. And there, and sort of gets a little foot in the occult that way. Right. And that's a bit of his

00:25:34.940 downfall. And so, um, the other thing as well is that it is speculative, of course, and that's what

00:25:41.900 so much of what makes these stories, uh, fantastic is that because James never outright explains things

00:25:50.620 to you, but gives you enough information for you to piece them together for yourself. It's wonderful

00:25:56.620 because it makes your mind put it together yourself in a way that you would deem to be plausible so

00:26:03.580 that you as an individual reader can find a way to make it work for you and believe and immerse

00:26:11.820 yourself in the story he's telling. Yes. He, he's made it real enough that when he adds these little

00:26:17.980 uncertainties and these little details, you will complete the picture as you see it. Of course,

00:26:22.700 he's also, uh, granting great license to illustrators to have fun and be creative. And some of the

00:26:29.180 illustrations that accompany these are absolutely wonderful. They're a treat. Um, he's, he's right.

00:26:35.500 He's also writing in time where you have to exercise a certain amount of restraint. Um, and with, uh,

00:26:41.340 within that he manages to, uh, stay within the bounds of good taste and still send a chill up your spine.

00:26:48.380 So it's very well done indeed. Yes. And so presumably this demon in the picture is, of course,

00:26:55.740 one of those, um, demons from the legends that you're, uh, you're talking about. Um, and so therefore

00:27:03.100 it brings together this, um, this wonderful feeling that actually know all these things

00:27:09.900 from ancient times that you now treat as superstition, right? Just because we've gone

00:27:16.460 through these centuries and we've undergone the scientific revolution and of course, and things

00:27:21.980 are becoming more materialist doesn't mean all those ancient truths have just disappeared from

00:27:26.780 the world, right? They're as real back then as they are today. You're just out of time and you can't

00:27:32.860 understand what that lost knowledge, right? That they had. Absolutely. And if you step off that

00:27:39.180 little path, it is not too hard to find it. Yes. You know, areas where it's still very much real

00:27:45.580 and very much a threat is there. And this is what Deniston does. Um, so he takes this, um,

00:27:55.100 he takes this tome and, um, is wonderful as well because he's haggling with, uh, with the Frenchman

00:28:01.420 for this, but he's saying, well, you've got to let me buy it. And it's really, really funny because,

00:28:06.540 um, it's got many other things in it as well besides this, uh, this image, um, that are of great,

00:28:12.860 great, you know, um, antiquary and, um, obviously of academic interest. Um, and Deniston's saying,

00:28:21.420 oh, no, no, no, it's worth much more than this. Let me give you more for it. And you can tell the

00:28:25.820 Frenchman's like, no, I, I just, you just take it. I don't want this book in the house actually.

00:28:30.780 Yeah. Um, take it. I feel bad about it. 250 francs is fine. And then, uh, yeah,

00:28:37.340 his daughter even gives the chap a crucifix. Yes. And the interesting, the chap is almost, um,

00:28:45.100 sort of, well, it's not my sort of thing, but okay, I'll take it. It's only the polite thing to do.

00:28:51.100 And does he really believe that? Or is he starting to get disquieted and think,

00:28:55.500 well, actually, I know I, I'd, I'd like this. Yeah. Well, turns out to have been the right decision.

00:29:03.340 Um, so he goes back to his, um, his hotel for the evening and, um, he opens the scrapbook because

00:29:10.940 obviously he's just itching to, um, to go through it all. And, oh, it's fantastic. The atmosphere is,

00:29:18.540 is so well made and he puts a crucifix, um, either in the drawer on, on the bedside table.

00:29:25.820 So it's not on his person. And then as he starts going through the scrapbook,

00:29:31.260 he sees a hand like the one in the picture from the demon at the, at his side. And then he obviously

00:29:39.420 turns and it's just there. Yeah. And, uh, my God, it was terrifying. Like it is really,

00:29:46.220 in fact, I think of all of them, I think this was actually the scariest, um, from,

00:29:52.620 from my point of view. I mean, obviously some of them are different, but.

00:29:55.980 No, I, I can see a strong case for that one. I mean, I, I personally put my money on the

00:30:01.580 mezzotint, which we'll get to, but, uh, yes, the, it, it's sort of the big scene,

00:30:08.460 the crescendo as James refers to them. Um, it comes to you very quickly, but all the steps have been laid

00:30:15.340 on the way. So it's really masterful that when he sort of, um, pulls the trigger on it as,

00:30:21.100 as it were, you're hit very suddenly. I actually, I have that quote here about what you were saying

00:30:26.780 about the, uh, the crescendo. So, um, I might just read it now where he just says,

00:30:31.580 the two ingredients most valuable in the concocting of a ghost story are to me,

00:30:36.460 the atmosphere and the nicely managed crescendo. Let us then be introduced to the actors in a

00:30:42.140 placid way. Let us see them going about their ordinary business, undisturbed by forebodings,

00:30:48.860 pleased with their surroundings, and into this calm environment, let the ominous thing put out its

00:30:55.100 head, unobtrusively at first, and then more insistently until it holds the stage." And, um,

00:31:03.180 that's exactly what he does. And fortunately for Denniston, he actually survives this encounter and,

00:31:10.940 um, manages to, uh, meet his friends the next morning. Yeah. Um, but not every protagonist in

00:31:18.380 these stories is so lucky, right? Sometimes they survive, uh, sometimes they don't.

00:31:23.740 Yes, there's a fair few occasions you get, uh, I think, uh, is it, oh, forgive me here, my brain is

00:31:31.580 failing me. Count Magnus is the one I'm thinking of, where you just, you're just told, uh, I've come

00:31:38.060 into the, uh, I've come across these papers from the protagonist of the story, and I'll explain how

00:31:43.020 I got them later. But even just reading that, you think, well, that's not going to end well.

00:31:47.740 Uh, but it's great because it keeps you guessing. You're not, you don't start reading the story

00:31:54.460 and thinking, oh, he's going to make it out because they all make it out. Yes.

00:31:58.540 You know, it manages to keep things, uh, mixed up in a, in a way that all adds to the suspense or

00:32:05.100 the tale. He never undermines his own story by making the formula ironclad. No, no. And I,

00:32:11.740 I am a fan of H.P. Lovecraft, but, uh, James, I've got to say does manage to dodge that sort of

00:32:17.420 trick that became a trope of Lovecraft, the, um, the person writing in the journal, basically,

00:32:23.980 and he has stabbed me yet again. Oh, why are you writing this? Why are you sat journaling now

00:32:31.420 and not trying to escape? Yes. Which, uh, sometimes, uh, Lovecraft sort of stretches the bounds of, uh,

00:32:37.420 credulity in trying to set up his world. Uh, James avoids that, uh, rather well, I've got to say.

00:32:43.900 And, and that's another important point that you mentioned as well. The fact that, um, invariably,

00:32:50.060 the, the first-hand narration, you know, the, the narrator's voice is very clear and very present

00:32:58.780 at all times through the storytelling. You're, you're constantly reminded that, um, this story

00:33:04.780 I'm telling you is not a complete story. It's not a third-person omniscient narration. It's, no,

00:33:11.740 I have managed to come into this information either through a witness, through someone who survived,

00:33:17.180 or through, as you say, scraps of paper from some poor chap who didn't make it. And so it always,

00:33:23.260 you're only dealing with whatever information the actual narrator knows. Absolutely. Uh, forgive me,

00:33:29.180 I'm rudely flicking through because you just reminded me I, I have found it.

00:33:35.500 Just in terms of the voice of the narrator, I love this when he came to it. It's from

00:33:39.660 A Whistle and I'll Come to You My Lad. Um, part of that authorial voice, part of remembering that these

00:33:47.660 were told as tales by a fireside, but they're also very funny. I suppose you'll be getting away pretty

00:33:53.900 soon now. Full term is over, professor, said a person not in the story to the professor of

00:33:59.260 ontography, soon after they sat down next to each other at the feast. It's a little person not in

00:34:05.500 the story. It feels almost parodic. And there's, um, a reference later to someone who doesn't get

00:34:11.980 a name because he, oh, oh yes. Um, it was, as you might suppose, a person of antiquarian pursuits

00:34:18.220 who said this, but since he merely appears in this prologue, there is no need to give his entitlements.

00:34:24.780 I loved that when I read it. He's not that relevant, but you know, he's got a few lines and

00:34:30.060 yeah. You, you relax because he's just setting the scene, but there's almost, uh, sort of a winking

00:34:36.540 acknowledgement of the form he's telling his story in, which I really liked. Yeah, very characterful.

00:34:43.180 So let's talk about the second story, talk about Lost Hearts. Now I got very excited,

00:34:49.500 immediately excited when I started reading this story, uh, because it was set in Lincolnshire,

00:34:54.620 uh, my county. Um, so, um, it's nice to have some representation in there. Um, but,

00:35:01.260 so this one was very different, um, of course. And one of the few stories from, uh, this collection

00:35:07.820 where the protagonist is not, um, uh, like some rational educated professor, uh, or antiquarian,

00:35:16.060 it's a small boy, uh, this young lad called Steven. And, um, it's a nice little twist because

00:35:22.620 actually the, the, the educated man, the professor is the antagonist of the story. Um, little does

00:35:30.380 Steven realize it at the time. Yeah. It's, it's nice. Like this and the ash tree definitely

00:35:37.260 stretch the bounds of the format and show a bit of variety. Uh, they were very popular

00:35:42.380 in the adaptations because they, they gave, uh, producers license to, uh, splash a bit of claret

00:35:48.140 around, um, the ash tree especially lent itself to sort of eighties, um, uh, horror style. Sure.

00:35:56.700 But, uh, nevertheless, we, we've still got this theme of, uh, a warning about being too inquisitive,

00:36:04.220 looking where you shouldn't look, uh, delving into, uh, forbidden knowledge, um, that consistent

00:36:11.740 frame, but, uh, also still set with lots of charm, lots of nice outside area. Oh, it's, it's lovely.

00:36:20.940 Yeah. It ends up at, uh, Asweby Hall in, uh, Lincolnshire. And so you've got this, this young

00:36:27.260 lad, Steven, who, um, has just been orphaned and he's going to stay with his, his old elder cousin,

00:36:33.660 uh, Mr. Abney. And what I like so much about the way that this story is introduced is that, um,

00:36:42.380 it would have been very, very easy to have, um, had Steven turn up at this hall and immediately

00:36:51.100 there'd have been some sort of tension or you realize he's not going to be happy. If, if it was

00:36:55.340 like a Dickensian novel, right? Like all of a twist, you immediately throw Oliver into hardship. You

00:37:02.860 immediately throw him into, uh, the suffering. And obviously he gets that, that happy ending. Um,

00:37:09.020 whereas this does the opposite because obviously, as you say, it's about creating a sense of peace at

00:37:14.060 the beginning. And so actually Mr. Abney is very, very cordial. He's very, very welcoming,

00:37:19.500 but even that, that welcoming nature is kind of unsettling. Um, because you're like, well,

00:37:26.860 this is all too nice. This has worked out too well for the young lad is sure his parents have died,

00:37:33.100 but now he's at this grand hall in Lincolnshire and he's got servants waiting on him and

00:37:38.060 his, his, uh, cousin seems very, very good man. He's a professor of classics. Um, so yeah,

00:37:45.660 all the clues are there. Yeah. It's, it's well woven. Um, again,

00:37:53.500 not, not overly spelled out basically to lull you in and then some lovely imagery in this one. I like

00:38:00.220 those long fingernails. I gather that that occurs a lot more in his stories, but I've got a lot of

00:38:06.060 his stories I've not read yet, but, uh, it seems to be a bit of imagery that he's really fixated on

00:38:12.140 that these long scratching nails, uh, that can be very vivid. Yeah, definitely. He, um,

00:38:20.060 so Steven, um, spends quite a bit of time there. Um, and again, in sharp contrast to the first story,

00:38:27.260 which, um, just takes place in space for basically 24 hours. This one takes place over quite a long

00:38:32.940 period of time. And, um, as Steven settles in there, he hears that, um, he's not the first child

00:38:40.460 to have been at this hall before. There was once a young girl and, um, she disappeared one day and then

00:38:48.380 later there was a young boy and he also disappeared. Yeah. And I believe, I can't remember which way

00:38:55.500 around it was, but one of them was some sort of, um, young gypsy. And I think the other was like an

00:39:02.460 Eastern European immigrant, something like that. And so these are, um, children that are, you know,

00:39:11.900 from the outside of society, obviously, and therefore no meaningful questions were really

00:39:18.700 raised when they disappeared. Um, which is interesting. And so therefore, but Steven's not

00:39:25.580 like that. Steven is flesh and blood of, um, of the cousin. So surely nothing bad is going to happen

00:39:33.580 to him. Right. I wonder if you, you read that and you think, oh, you are an orphan. And, uh, I was,

00:39:40.060 I was curious if James was thinking of some real life incidents in there, because there are quite a

00:39:45.420 few cases where, um, basically vulnerable children, uh, were just shipped out on schemes to send work,

00:39:53.260 say, to farms. And there was not really much attention paid to where they went. And I wonder if James

00:40:00.300 had maybe heard some stories like that, that sort of inspired him. But, um, I, the things I'm thinking

00:40:08.540 of are sort of more, more American than anything else. So I wasn't sure. I'm not sure that I've got the

00:40:14.220 greatest justification for my suspicions, but I did wonder what inspired him in this, because it is

00:40:20.540 fairly outside of his, um, his usual way of telling the story and his usual focus. And there's, um, a very,

00:40:27.740 very spooky moment as well where young Steven, um, has this dream that he's walking down the hall.

00:40:37.020 Um, and then he looks through, um, I can't remember if it was a keyhole or whether or not

00:40:41.340 the, but there was, um, some sort of gap in the door, some breaking in the door and he peers through

00:40:47.180 and, um, he sees this bathtub. Yes. Right. And there's obviously some sort of

00:40:52.220 skeletal corpse in, in the bathtub. And obviously it's such horror, uh, that Steven wakes up

00:41:04.540 and he's not in his bed. He is looking through, um, through that door or that door is in front of him.

00:41:11.820 Yeah. I mean, that's really, really eerie. It's great. The, uh, yeah, the sort of sleepwalking

00:41:19.980 thing, classic, classic Victorian storytelling device. Um, that scene is done wonderfully in

00:41:25.580 the TV adaptation. They, um, they stretched it to, um, I don't know, I felt they had license to,

00:41:32.940 to basically do some nasty effects. So in the BBC version, there's a quite impressive, um,

00:41:40.380 chest cavity in the poor boy. So they, they really enjoyed the chance to make that vivid and horrific.

00:41:45.900 Yes. Oh dear.

00:41:47.980 Yeah. And, uh, James is writing Lost Hearts before Freud's The Uncanny. That, that comes out in 1919.

00:41:57.260 But the ideas are bouncing around for Freud to sort of describe this kind of scene where you

00:42:04.060 play with the, the real and the familiar and say that question of, did I see it? Did I dream it?

00:42:11.100 Well, it was a dream, but here I am right here. So how can I be sure?

00:42:15.500 Um, lots of these aspects of the uncanny of something relatively normal, just recurring

00:42:21.820 and recurring until it starts to become weird. And you think, why is this happening? So yeah,

00:42:27.660 that thing of, well, was it just a dream? I can say it's just a dream and write it off, but

00:42:32.940 it's different enough that you're left outing, uh, Steven is left outing. It's excellent technique.

00:42:42.220 It is. And then you approach this moment where, um, he's having a conversation with, um, with

00:42:48.460 Abney and Abney says to him, I've got some work to do tonight, but, um, uh, join me in my study

00:42:56.780 at, um, 11 o'clock. Um, you know, I'll be downstairs and, um, and Steven's very excited

00:43:05.100 about this. I mean, what young boy doesn't like to stay up late? Right. And, you know,

00:43:08.940 it's a bit of adventure. It's something a bit, uh, a bit different. And, but then before all of that,

00:43:15.740 um, again, it's so well put together where Steven's at his window and he's not sleeping,

00:43:22.140 you know, he's just going to read and kill time, uh, before he goes down there and he sees through

00:43:28.780 his window these two phantoms on the horizon. Yeah. Um, and then they come closer and closer

00:43:37.820 and then they run past his window around the grounds of the house. Um, and again, while

00:43:47.420 it's dark out there, there's no, uh, you can only see that the, the village is far over,

00:43:54.620 right? So who's coming out this late at night, it makes you ask all these questions. And then,

00:43:59.820 of course, he goes downstairs, um, opens the study at 11 and Abney is dead in his chair.

00:44:07.660 And the window's open. Yep. It's, um, it's better told in the story than the adaptation,

00:44:15.340 I would say, uh, because it comes off in the, uh, TV adaptation, he's rescued. Whereas this

00:44:23.500 just makes you wonder, oh, if he had gone there early, what would he have seen? You know, it's,

00:44:30.860 I think it, it's much more eerie because you don't see. And this theme of, uh, the windows open,

00:44:37.660 and I've heard something I didn't quite glimpse it, but I saw something moving around.

00:44:41.420 Mm. Uh, we see that recur again and again, I think because it's powerful, you know, uh,

00:44:46.620 the person following Parkinson's, Parkinson, forgive me. Oh, yes. Um, oh, is it Parkinson's?

00:44:52.860 Yes. There we go. Parkinson's in a whistle and I'll come to you, my lad, or, uh, the,

00:44:57.020 the things that aren't squirrels or hares in the ash tree. Right. And you don't see them. These little,

00:45:05.500 yeah, James loves to give you that image of their glimpse, they're on the outside. Um,

00:45:11.020 and there's, you know, a window open, some kind of vulnerability.

00:45:13.900 Mm. And so there seems to be this idea that what Abney was doing was dealing in some

00:45:23.420 ancient occult practices. Yes. Uh, astrological, uh, astrological sort of heresies and telling him.

00:45:31.580 Yeah. So it's something related to Mithras, if I'm remembering, the cult of Mithras.

00:45:36.460 I do not recall. I apologize, but it was very linked to that, um, to astronomy. Like,

00:45:41.180 that's why the time has to be absolutely now. Uh, the stars have literally aligned.

00:45:46.220 Oh, yes. Cause you mentioned as well, doesn't he, that it's, uh, the equinox. Yes. And yeah,

00:45:51.980 it's, uh, it's really eerie. It's got these, these dark pagan undertones to it, you know,

00:45:58.140 not dissimilar to, um, the Wicker Man. No, no, it's, um, I mean, it's fascinating to me because

00:46:04.860 I really like an odd little sub-genre of specifically English horror called folk horror.

00:46:12.140 And there's always an aspect consistently in them of a character, your protagonist is usually

00:46:19.660 someone, uh, modern from the city, educated, and they go somewhere out into the sticks and

00:46:27.020 they see the old ways being practiced. And like this encounter with the, the old, the forbidden,

00:46:33.020 the forgotten, the pagan as sort of, there's a horror of, oh gosh, people are still doing this.

00:46:40.380 And sort of subtextually, there's this fear of say an educated civilized class of

00:46:48.780 how fragile is my worldview, my lifestyle, my belief system. Is this going to crumble

00:46:54.140 and go back to this barbarism because we haven't civilized them out here? They're still going strong.

00:47:01.660 So it's this sort of educated, modern insecurity that thrives in folk horror. And I think James has

00:47:08.620 got this really early form of it, which is quite nice. But yeah, it, it definitely feeds things like

00:47:14.140 The Wicker Man, um, Blood on Satan's Claw, um, Hammerzone the Witch from 66, I think, but I'm

00:47:23.980 possibly veering off into esoterica. No, no, no. Apologies.

00:47:27.420 Uh, we, we love a bit of esotericism, uh, over here. Um, uh, but what's, um, what's more as well,

00:47:34.940 this, this murder of Abney turns out to be a blessing because it saved Stephen's life. And, uh,

00:47:43.420 you know this because, um, Abney was writing at the time when, um, he was murdered. Um, he was

00:47:50.780 writing about the fact that, um, he'd basically, um, well, he hadn't intended it to be read, but it

00:47:56.860 works as a confession, um, for, for what he was doing and, um, the fact that he did murder those two

00:48:03.660 previous children and, um, took their hearts, um, hence the title of course, and, uh, had intending

00:48:12.220 to fully do the same to Stephen that very night when Stephen was to come down to his study.

00:48:18.460 And, um, he believed that in absorbing the power of the ancient power of these hearts, he would gain

00:48:24.940 immortality. Um, yes. Um, a good twist, I think, on the, the rationalist character.

00:48:33.820 You know, you, you see a man there who by any, well, he lectures classics at Cambridge, you know,

00:48:38.700 he's a very sensible chap, uh, but actually, yeah, there's these dark undertones and this practice

00:48:44.860 of the forbidden and the occult, uh, behind it all.

00:48:48.620 Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, not the only character to try it, uh, sort of echoes of Count Magnus,

00:48:54.140 although Magnus is, uh, a few centuries dead, but he's also looking for that immortality.

00:48:59.820 Yes.

00:49:00.380 Via, uh, very diabolical means.

00:49:02.620 Mm. Yes. Which we'll, um, certainly get to, but I believe the, um, the next story is,

00:49:08.620 of course, the Mesutent. And this is, is this your favorite?

00:49:11.980 It is. It is.

00:49:12.860 Okay. Wonderful. Why is this one your favorite?

00:49:15.020 I felt it was incredibly cinematic, but it was also, um, there's a lot of metatextual

00:49:23.740 stuff in there about how you try and quantify and evidence these supernatural happenings.

00:49:29.980 Mm.

00:49:30.460 You know, this is someone writing about their supernatural encounter in a way of trying to,

00:49:35.500 yeah, trying to create evidence for it. It's like, how do you, how do you try and prove this happens?

00:49:39.980 Right. Yeah.

00:49:40.860 Um, which is sort of, yeah, people in the story are doing that.

00:49:44.860 And in the midst of a collection say, usually it's evidenced by just someone sent you letters

00:49:51.260 and that's all you've got to go on. Um, so I found that quite interesting,

00:49:55.020 but to lay the story out for people, um, and antiquary at Cambridge. Um, and this is, uh,

00:50:03.660 who makes direct reference to Deniston from Canon Albrecht.

00:50:06.940 Oh yes. It's this story, isn't it? Yeah.

00:50:08.860 Yeah. I love this. I, this is, I don't know how novel it was, but for me, I was very surprised

00:50:14.460 to see this sort of reference to a previous character, uh, alongside numerous references

00:50:19.740 to contemporary literature. I thought.

00:50:21.820 Small bit of world building.

00:50:23.180 Yeah, exactly.

00:50:23.660 So all of this is happening within our world. And these are all stories from real people that we've

00:50:28.940 heard about. Yeah.

00:50:30.220 And you know, one or two of them might have known each other and many will be from centuries prior,

00:50:34.940 but it's all real. It's all.

00:50:36.620 Yeah. These are people who've, who've read, um, the latest Thomas Hardy novel that's just

00:50:41.500 come out or Tess of the Durbervilles is the one they reference, which I love.

00:50:45.420 Oh yes. Yes.

00:50:46.540 There's also a lovely bit of, uh, sly university humor, kind of, uh, Oxbridge humor there,

00:50:52.140 where I think many universities do it, but if they've got a rival university,

00:50:56.300 they will sort of obliquely mention it, but, uh, claim they forget the name.

00:51:01.500 Like I was, uh, studying it. Oh, some other institution.

00:51:06.300 Um, and that, yes, James even writes a very specific, uh, reference to a Cambridge group,

00:51:19.260 and I'm going to mangle the name, but it's, uh, SBR, the society for either psychical research

00:51:25.660 or phantasmagorical research, but I think it's psychical. And forgive me for not remembering,

00:51:30.780 but, um, he has a parody of that society who he says he wants to keep his findings away from.

00:51:37.580 So, uh, there was a real group in Cambridge, but he didn't think much of them.

00:51:41.740 So, um, they're taking his stories far too seriously.

00:51:45.340 Yeah. So I, um, I actually, um, being, uh, totally a man trapped in the modern world,

00:51:51.820 I actually had to Google what a mezzotint was. I wasn't originally sure.

00:51:55.980 Oh, I didn't have a clue either. Don't be ashamed in the least.

00:51:58.780 Um, so it's essentially, it's a, it's a drawing, isn't it? That's, um, put on a specific type of paper.

00:52:06.620 Yeah. It's, um, it's an engraving with metals, I believe. Yes. Um, and maybe,

00:52:13.020 maybe we can have some imagery up so people can see one. Editors, let me offload that to you,

00:52:17.580 I'm afraid. Um, but it would be helpful to view it. Uh, so our antiquary is looking for

00:52:25.260 interesting pieces and is sent, uh, a little catalog of things that might be of interest,

00:52:31.020 including an obscure reference to a mezzotint that might be of interest to him in particular.

00:52:36.620 And he's thinking, oh, well, take this up. And I also like this little insight into his world,

00:52:43.260 pre-internet. Yes. You just sent a little catalog with a vague description and like,

00:52:49.180 we can send a servant with them to you. And then if you want them, then we'll bill you. I like these

00:52:54.700 little details of the old world and how it was done. Yes. It's again, charming. It is, it is.

00:53:00.300 I'm rationing how many times I say charming and cozy in this conversation. Well, they're, they're,

00:53:05.260 they're very applicable words. Um, so you end up with, um, that, that's another part at the very

00:53:10.700 beginning actually where it says about, um, yes, perhaps two guineas and two shillings. I think

00:53:16.620 that's a bit much, like it's not anything spectacular. In fact, there's, there's nothing there.

00:53:22.700 This is just a mezzotint of, um, the side of a house and, uh, the, the green, you know,

00:53:29.100 the outside of it, but I'm sure that the moonlight's quite well done, I suppose, but there's nothing

00:53:36.700 really of note to it. Certainly nothing to justify two guineas for it. Yeah. It's, it's a nice little

00:53:44.060 conceit. Um, think of it like the inverse of Canon Albrecht's scrapbook where this thing is sold too

00:53:50.140 cheap and it becomes suspicious and the mezzotint is very unremarkable. So why has it got this

00:53:56.540 remarkable price on it? Um, has it, has my regular dealer sort of stiffed me on this one?

00:54:01.580 Yes. And then someone just notices a little detail and I love this conceit, this sort of,

00:54:08.300 um, for any fans of, uh, what's a good example of it? Uh, the weeping angels in Doctor Who,

00:54:15.260 that thing of the threat is entirely still when you look at it, but if you look away, it moves.

00:54:20.780 So you become paranoid about looking away. Well, this had been done many times with paintings changing.

00:54:27.340 Um, and the mezzotint here uses that device. Someone notices a little detail, a little figure

00:54:34.620 perhaps in the distance. And then each time they return to this drawing, it's changed. The figure

00:54:41.420 is moving closer and closer to the house. So instantly your brain is thinking, I know where

00:54:46.140 this is going. I mean, he's going to get into the house. What's going to happen then? So it's a

00:54:51.340 wonderful hook. Yeah, it is. You want to see how it plays out and our man sort of thoroughly rejects

00:54:59.020 the, um, thoroughly rejects the paranormal. Uh, if you're doing your M.R. James drinking game, that's

00:55:04.620 your cue. Um, so he has people write down their statement of witness. And as I sort of hinted at,

00:55:13.180 this is the kind of thing you think would just maybe turn up in a later M.R. James story. My

00:55:17.740 goodness. I give him across these statements of witness about this obscure mezzotint.

00:55:22.060 But we're, we're seeing the first hand account of it. Yeah. Um. Yeah. It's very good as well,

00:55:27.260 because it's the third story. And so by this point, they're all, you see this creature

00:55:34.620 getting into a house and you're like, oh no, here we go again. You know, the last one just ended with a

00:55:40.940 murder through an open window. And so it's wonderful. Um, you know, you can tell some

00:55:47.420 thought has also gone into the ordering of the stories, um, within the, uh, the collection as well.

00:55:55.260 So, um, it goes on to say the, um, the last time they looked at the mezzotint, the window was open.

00:56:02.300 Yes. And now they've, they've come back and looked at it again. And it says the window that had been

00:56:08.540 open was shut. And the figure was once more on the lawn, but not this time crawling cautiously on

00:56:17.340 hands and knees. Now it was erect and stepping swiftly with the long strides towards the front of

00:56:24.940 the picture. The moon was behind it and the black drapery hung down over its face so that only hints

00:56:32.940 of that could be seen. And what was sensible made the spectators profoundly thankful that they could

00:56:39.980 see no more than the white dome-like forehead and the few straggling hairs. The head was bent down and

00:56:48.140 the arms were tightly clasped over an object, which could be dimly seen and identified as a child,

00:56:56.700 whether dead or living, it was not possible to say. Yeah. Okay. You know, so that's...

00:57:04.700 It's pretty grim. You, you had just had these little snapshots of it and you're wondering,

00:57:11.020 like the world was terrifying Zoetrope. You were just waiting, oh my gosh, what is going to happen? And

00:57:16.780 then for him to come out with a child, we've got to remember, like this isn't... I found it interesting

00:57:21.340 that they say, impossible to know if it was dead or reliable. It's like, this is an engraving,

00:57:26.460 it's nominally static. Yeah. So there's sort of two layers to it. There's like, literally,

00:57:33.340 we don't know whether it was, but literally we can't see because it's just an engraving. But yeah,

00:57:39.260 I love that. Now, how did you find the conceit of this story, the setup and the sort of vehicle for

00:57:45.420 the scares? One thing that I really liked about this story was, I don't think that subplot is

00:57:53.820 quite the right word, but the fact that they're trying to piece together where this house actually

00:58:00.140 is. Oh yes. Right. They're trying to, because they've got, it says a ingly or something at the

00:58:05.260 end and then just sex. And they've, they've obviously, they're missing words. So is, is it

00:58:10.620 Essex or is it Sussex? And you know, my God, there must be quite a few houses,

00:58:17.020 manor houses that have ingly towards the end. So we're trying to figure out where this house is as

00:58:23.820 well. Uh, obviously it's not their own, uh, but they mean to find it. And then I think they piece

00:58:31.100 it together towards the end that it's a house in Sussex and that there was, um, some old story again,

00:58:39.340 this folk story from the ancient, from, uh, I can't remember when it was even the, the century or so

00:58:46.540 before where there was, uh, this man called, uh, was it Gordy? It sounds about right. Yeah.

00:58:54.540 And there was a poacher and, uh, he was murdered. And so the, the mezzotint has this kind of, um,

00:59:02.380 something again, which is a common theme that some sort of like a race of vengeance, you know,

00:59:08.220 that the, that these, uh, spirits, um, these demons, uh, these ghosts are, uh, uh, like fueled,

00:59:15.660 that the, the, the reason that they exist is because of their souls are restless and their

00:59:21.660 souls can't be laid to peace because some injustice was done. There's something of their character has

00:59:28.220 in capturing them so accurately, something of their very spirit is in there. And it's,

00:59:34.540 I think it's particularly relevant in this story because it's a tale of a poacher who was previously

00:59:41.900 of a great family and who lost that status. And basically he's, it's like his part in history

00:59:48.940 has been wiped off. And so he seeks to re-inscribe himself into history to make his mark again. Um,

00:59:57.580 there's a bit of a, I don't know how well this would communicate. So, uh, I, I'm often

01:00:03.980 wary of older stories if they work with a modern reader, but, um, I wondered how you found,

01:00:09.660 uh, if you were being cruel, you would say they, they basically find a professor of exposition

01:00:16.300 to basically, uh, tell you everything that really went on there. And I, I wondered how you felt about

01:00:21.580 that, if that was maybe revealing a bit too much for the story or if it worked for you?

01:00:26.860 Um, I think that, um, with the Mezzotint, it, it needs the ex, a bit of an explanation,

01:00:36.380 right? It, it, because, um, though the, uh, the concept of it is absolutely wonderful,

01:00:42.940 um, you know, the idea that every time they keep moving back to this, and again, as you say,

01:00:49.020 it, it doesn't move when they're looking at it. It only ever moves. There's one part of the story,

01:00:53.660 isn't there, where, um, uh, the main character and, uh, two of his companions take turns for about

01:01:00.460 two hours just sitting, looking at this, this Mezzotint, waiting for it to move. And then,

01:01:06.220 lo and behold, it doesn't move. And, um, I think one of them even says, I get the feeling it'll only

01:01:11.500 move at night as well. Um, and so I, I do think that, um, it actually treads a nice balance because,

01:01:20.860 yes, you need the backstory of Gaudi in order to understand something about this and what's happening

01:01:28.140 in the, um, in the image. But at the same time, you don't really know who made the Mezzotint. You

01:01:36.380 don't know how it does what it does. Yes. And so it still leaves that, that perfect air of mystery,

01:01:42.780 uh, and, um, even more so because actually on this one occasion, um, the main characters in the

01:01:50.540 contemporary time, you know, are perfectly safe, actually. They're, they're perfectly safe. They all

01:01:56.140 survive and, uh, the thing was never coming for them. But it does obviously leave them in a position

01:02:01.740 where this experience is never going to leave them, right? They are going to remember this

01:02:08.140 for the rest of their days. It's going to be disquieting them and, yeah, you just think they're

01:02:13.660 going about the rest of their lives and they think, uh, they know they've seen something profoundly

01:02:19.340 uncanny and weird, uh, in the weird fiction sense of the word. Yes. It's, um, any, anything, um,

01:02:27.980 more you'd just like to say about the Mezzotint before we move on to the next one?

01:02:33.100 There's a, a book of edited essays on psychoanalytics and horror, um, called Freud's

01:02:39.100 Worst Nightmare by Steven Schneider, which has an essay by a chap called Crane, I think, uh, called,

01:02:46.140 uh, Twas a Dark and Stormy Night and it's about the intersection of irony and horror.

01:02:51.500 Mm. And I really thought of that when I was reading this, uh, sort of way that,

01:02:58.860 in a way that normally you would think, uh, typically you would think the use of irony would

01:03:03.660 sort of break your investment in a story and tell you, like, not to take it seriously and sort of thereby

01:03:10.540 ruin the effect of horror. Normally that's what you think would happen. Horror genre seems to do

01:03:16.060 very well with irony. It seems to work as a way of letting you blow steam, um, and, um, I guess,

01:03:25.740 lowering the bar to investment in that you sort of go in thinking there are these touches of humour

01:03:30.860 that let you, uh, relax your sceptical guard so you just enjoy the story.

01:03:35.660 Yes. And with your guard down, it can deliver the scares. And I thought there were several

01:03:41.740 moments, like, I'd say this is probably the funniest story for me. Yes.

01:03:46.140 There's some competition, but I think this is the funniest, the more direct humorous references,

01:03:50.140 uh, to Oxford or that imagery you picked up of the chaps just staring at the painting for a few

01:03:57.180 hours I found quite obliquely funny. If you did a filmed version of that, I think you could draw a lot of

01:04:03.900 humor out of that scene of them just sort of hurriedly shutting it and draw in frustration.

01:04:10.140 Um, so I think this, this story, um, would serve as a good, um, focal point for exploring that

01:04:17.580 intersection between irony and horror. I can't really recommend the book for most people. It's very,

01:04:23.980 very dry academia, but it had some interesting points in it.

01:04:27.340 The, um, yes, the mezzotint was definitely worth it. It's two guineas in the end.

01:04:32.540 Yes.

01:04:32.700 Uh, definitely. All right. The ash tree. Now, this was actually my favorite.

01:04:39.020 I, I really, really liked the ash tree. I liked the generational aspect to it. I like the fact that

01:04:48.140 this is a curse that, um, lingers over, uh, several generations of the family. Um, I, I felt like it was

01:04:56.300 very, very well paced. Um, I thought the characters, it was really nice as well, uh, that because this is,

01:05:02.540 um, a more period story, um, set in the late 1600s, early 1700s, um, uh, all about, uh, basically the

01:05:11.100 witch trials and witches, um, it has, um, it's, has a very unique presence amongst the collection.

01:05:18.620 And even though the main character of, uh, Sir Matthew and then Sir Richard, um, are obviously

01:05:25.340 educated men being, uh, being lords, um, they're not rationalists. Uh, they're not rationalists

01:05:32.780 because they're from before that time period. And so, yeah, it's a, I thought it was a very unique

01:05:38.460 story. And, um, yeah, there's something terrifying about a tree being, uh, the cause of all of this.

01:05:48.940 Yeah. Yeah. I, oh, I'm interested that this is your favorite. It's, it's definitely a strong one.

01:05:55.580 Um, very, very cinematic again. Uh, and as I mentioned that when the BBC got a chance to do this

01:06:02.140 one, you, you know, they're excited because there's an obvious wonderful visual effect that they get to

01:06:08.140 do. Um, but in the written version itself, yes, there's a lot to it. There's a different focus.

01:06:14.060 So you say the witch trials are in there. I also liked that it opened with that characteristic

01:06:21.180 relaxed style where James is just note sort of noticing something that he's seen as travel where

01:06:27.180 you feel he's almost complaining about architecture, um, being a bit snooty about people using the

01:06:34.060 Italian style, which is rightfully so. Last thing you expect in a ghost story. It's like,

01:06:40.780 what? No chains and clanking and phantasmagorical chills. No, let me tell you why Italian architecture

01:06:47.500 is poncy and we need to return. He has these strong moments, doesn't he? Where he'll just let

01:06:54.940 he'll, the narrator will have an opinion about something. Yes. And you can tell it's just James

01:07:00.700 using it as an excuse to have a bit of a dig, uh, whether as you say, it's about Italian architecture

01:07:06.380 or, uh, certain questions of faith, uh, like Christian theology. Um, cause I believe he was

01:07:12.860 a Protestant, but obviously he was deeply fascinated by the old Catholicism, that, that old, um, theology

01:07:20.940 that, that England buried beneath the Reformation. Yes. He's got several characters who you're meant

01:07:28.700 to be slightly questionable about who go on brief anti-Catholic, I wouldn't say a full tirade, but

01:07:35.100 they, they have a few digs at Catholicism. And I just got the feeling that maybe James was a little

01:07:42.060 warmer to it than, than those characters would suggest. Yes, I think so. Well, as, um, certainly

01:07:49.340 is, um, demonstrated in, um, uh, a whistle and I'll come to you, my lad, you know, with the, the

01:07:55.180 Templar flute, it's like, well, that's obviously something from Catholic England, not, uh, pre-Reformation.

01:08:03.100 And so, yeah, we'll, we'll address all of that to come. So the, the witches, uh, you have this, um,

01:08:10.380 this woman, um, in the witch trial, uh, local, local village and her name was, what was it? Mrs.

01:08:17.340 Motherstow? Motherlow? Yeah. Yeah. Mothersoul. Yeah, that was it. Mothersoul. Apologies, names do not stick

01:08:23.900 in my head. I blank too. Um, and basically she has, um, mounting evidence against her that she's a witch.

01:08:34.300 How unfortunate. Um, but what, uh, the narrator as well makes clear is the fact that this, uh, woman is not,

01:08:43.980 uh, she's not a peasant. She's very well off. She's actually, um, was very respected

01:08:49.980 about the village. She, she was someone with influence. In fact, many of the people, uh,

01:08:54.940 from high up tried to intercede on their behalf to save her. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's not the usual

01:09:00.620 story we get about witch burnings. It's a notable contrast and the sense of sort of begrudging duty,

01:09:08.620 uh, by, uh, is it Sir Richard, one of the Sir Richards or Sir Matthews? Sir Matthew Fell is the

01:09:14.700 one. Sir Matthew Fell is the first one. Yes. Brings, uh, the damning evidence against her.

01:09:19.020 Mm. Yeah. That he, he followed her, um, went to her house one night and he's seen her walking

01:09:27.020 about very late at night. It is curious, isn't it? Because it's, it's these sites that may have

01:09:33.420 been purely dreaming. Mm. He sees something skitter, uh, correct me if my memory is wrong.

01:09:39.580 He's one of the big evidences. He sees something that skitters away from the tree and may have been

01:09:45.100 a hare. Yes. And then he goes directly to her house and knocks on the door and she takes quite

01:09:52.700 a while to answer. And you'd think, well, maybe she was asleep, my dude. It was 3 AM. Yeah. You're a

01:10:00.140 strange, you know, she doesn't expect to receive it. Or was she trying to get a cover story? Mm-hmm.

01:10:05.740 You do have that doubt hanging over it for the whole story. And well, until the very end, really.

01:10:11.980 Yes. Well, you know, until Sir Matthew was totally vindicated

01:10:18.060 about his doubts. Um, I like that part as well, where it talks about, um, uh, Matthew going to a door

01:10:27.020 and knocking on it late at night and then they're eventually answering. And then it says something

01:10:31.820 to the effect of, uh, but Matthew, Sir Matthew found that he didn't actually have sufficient reason

01:10:37.660 to be like, he'd not even thought of an excuse for, wait, why am I saying that I'm here? Yeah. So he just,

01:10:43.180 she just presumably opens the door and he's like, yeah, okay. He just goes away. Um, again, yeah,

01:10:49.980 a little bit of humor in it. Um, so then, uh, she is buried, uh, after her execution, um, for witchcraft.

01:10:59.420 And you have this ash tree on his lands and it is really near to the, the west wing of the house.

01:11:09.260 And, uh, there's a bedroom in there by the west wing. Um, and eventually Matthew perishes in his bed.

01:11:18.860 Um, some years later, you know, decades go by. Um, but one of the other things as well that I really

01:11:25.740 thought was a fantastic touch to the story is that it's not just the effect that this curse,

01:11:33.260 um, which had clearly been given because it mentions the fact that she didn't, this woman didn't resist,

01:11:39.900 but she, she was just giving these daggers of intent, right? There was almost this, this isn't over,

01:11:47.500 look to her as she was dying. What's that phrase she, she says just a couple of times? It's simple

01:11:53.980 enough, like, you'll be visited. Yeah, you'll be visited. It's a, oh. Yeah. Again, chills up the spine.

01:12:02.140 Yeah. Yeah. Really sinister. And so Matthew is, Matthew dies, dies in his bed. And then the story

01:12:12.300 continues right through the generations, but sorry, that was it. One of the things I was going to say

01:12:16.860 was I love the fact that it's not just that this curse has an effect on the person, right? It's not

01:12:24.300 just that it affects Matthew for, uh, having a killed. It, it seems to affect the very land itself.

01:12:34.460 Yes. Right. The land itself is cursed. The animals begin to act strangely on it. They're irritable,

01:12:43.820 you know, that it's a place where people don't want to go. Uh, the locals in the village start to,

01:12:50.700 through their folklore and murmuring start to believe and say that it's all related to this,

01:12:57.580 this witch trial. Yeah. That's, um, uh, that's a very strong motif throughout a lot of the later

01:13:03.980 stories. Uh, it really draws on it. The idea of the landscape carrying the psychological burden.

01:13:10.220 Um, and, uh, I wouldn't be able to do it justice, but I've, I've had some good conversations about

01:13:18.860 sort of, uh, M.R. James and hauntology and that feeling of walking through, uh, this landscape that

01:13:24.940 bears this, um, huge sort of psychological gravity, uh, where you feel like the emptiness, uh, really, uh,

01:13:35.100 disturbs you and makes you feel uneasy. You're aware of this fragility of, uh, sort of lost industry,

01:13:42.140 lost civilizations, and an almost hollowed out place that is vulnerable. A warning to the curious

01:13:48.620 is a really, um, makes really powerful use of that, but that it's here in the ash tree too.

01:13:54.940 As you say, it spreads out. The livestock isn't flourishing. It feels like a biblical curse, doesn't it?

01:14:00.780 And I just love the, the feeling of, um, this powerful idea of the house with the bedroom in

01:14:08.060 it that no one goes near, that everyone just agrees to avoid, like this cold spot in the manor.

01:14:13.900 Since Sir Matthew died in that bed and, uh, describes, didn't it, as well, that he was,

01:14:20.060 he was, like, black. There was some, like, some really weird thing had just happened to him in the

01:14:27.820 night and it didn't even look like murder. It just looks like he's, uh, like say he's, he's blackened

01:14:34.780 and he's turned to, uh, to a corpse. Yeah. I mean, we get a wonderful description of that later. I,

01:14:41.020 I mean, I can give that a read. Oh, sure. The, the details are just, the window is open. No one knows.

01:14:47.180 And so no one goes there. And it's like the architecture becomes almost like a, a representation

01:14:54.140 of that, uh, psychic scar that doesn't heal across the generations. That wound is there. You don't

01:15:00.060 go near the room. We're just dodging that. Um, now forgive me if I'm confusing this a little bit.

01:15:08.060 I could be talking about, uh, the other Sir Matthew, but, uh, it was this wonderful description

01:15:15.420 where M.R. James lets himself go a little bit into that macabre. Um, he's sparing with it,

01:15:23.100 mostly its atmosphere, but he gives you enough of the hint to unsettle you here. So this is a

01:15:29.340 description of a Sir Matthew, I apologize for not remembering which, being discovered dead.

01:15:36.380 There was not any the least trace of entrance having been forced to the chamber,

01:15:40.460 but the casement stood open, as my poor friend would have always had it in the season.

01:15:45.660 He had his evening drink of small ale in the silver vessel of about a pint measure,

01:15:50.780 and tonight he had not drunk it out. This drink was examined by the physician from Bury, Mr. Hodgkins,

01:15:56.700 who could not, however, as he afterwards declared upon his oath, before the coroner's quest,

01:16:01.340 discovered that any matter of a venomous kind was present in it. For, as was natural in the great

01:16:07.100 swelling and blackness of the corpse, there was talk made among the neighbours of poison.

01:16:12.380 The body was very much disordered as it laid in the bed, being twisted after so extreme a sort,

01:16:19.420 as gave to probable conjecture that my worthy friend and patron had expired in great pain and agony.

01:16:28.700 And what is as yet unexplained, and to myself the argument of some horrid and artful design,

01:16:34.540 in the perpetrators of this barbarous murder, was this, that the women which were entrusted with

01:16:40.620 the laying out of the corpse and washing it, being both sad persons and very well respected in their

01:16:46.540 mournful profession, came to me in a great pain and distress, both of mind and body, saying what

01:16:53.180 was indeed confirmed upon the first few, that they had no sooner touched the breast of the corpse with

01:16:58.140 their naked hands than they were sensible of a more than ordinary violent, smart and aching in their

01:17:03.500 palms, which with their whole forearms in no long time swelled so immoderately, the pain still

01:17:09.100 continuing that, as afterward proved, during many weeks they were forced to lay by the

01:17:13.820 exercise of their calling, and yet no mark seen on the skin."

01:17:23.100 It's vivid, you can, and the illustration in this has the poor chap, clearly he'd been writhing in agony

01:17:30.780 before expiring, and it's...

01:17:33.740 But that makes it even more as well, so he was writhing in agony,

01:17:38.860 and yet no one heard what he was suffering through until they found his body the next day.

01:17:43.420 Yeah, yeah, you wonder, did he actually get a sound out? Was something else blocking the noise?

01:17:51.900 And yeah, I love the image, just the idea of what's the explanation for these washerwomen

01:17:59.100 touching him and then basically withdrawing and feeling this horrible effect.

01:18:03.740 It just, it makes you think of a curse, really.

01:18:06.940 Well, I mean, it's the ultimate, you know, checkmate rationalists.

01:18:12.060 Explain that one then. How did these women end up having, you know, what you've just described there?

01:18:18.220 And so the generations go on, and this is such a wonderful part of it, that eventually you'll meet Sir Richard,

01:18:28.220 the grandson of Sir Matthew, still has a ram, still owns the hall,

01:18:33.980 has numerous renovations done to the house of varying tastes to our narrator's happiness.

01:18:44.540 And, but one of the things as well is that within this, Sir Richard decides that he is going to move his bedroom to the west side.

01:18:54.300 So no one has been in that room until, since Sir Matthew's death, some 40 years before.

01:19:01.740 But now Sir Richard, for no other reason than, well, the sun comes up and, you know, it wakes me up early.

01:19:10.620 I want it on the other side of the house. Perfectly trivial reason.

01:19:15.020 And, but the thing is as well, that it does a really good job by choosing its dates, because by making it 40 years,

01:19:25.100 yes, Sir Richard has obviously come along and taken over and is ignorant of what befell his grandfather and Mrs. Mothersoul.

01:19:37.820 But it's actually in living memory of some of the townsfolk.

01:19:42.860 They remember that day. They remember that moment. They remember that execution.

01:19:47.980 And they've lived in this area and felt the curse on this land for decades now.

01:19:55.660 And so there's rumour and gossip throughout the village of all these things.

01:20:00.060 Yeah. There's sort of a Chesterton's fence here, in that you've got servants in the house

01:20:05.420 who are risking, it depends of, not sure of his disposition, but you could see they're risking their

01:20:14.060 employment by saying to their master, you know, no, you stay out of the room. Come on.

01:20:20.620 Like, no, we avoid this room and we've avoided this for 40 years. Let it be. Trust us on this one.

01:20:27.020 Yes. Don't go rational.

01:20:28.540 But he decides that he will. Yes.

01:20:33.820 And they have the air. That's the other thing as well. They open the door. It's obviously not

01:20:39.020 been opened for 40 years. You've got this horrible smell. You know, the room's not been aired in 40

01:20:46.220 years since one died in it. And so again, just through the sense of smell, there's this foreboding of

01:20:52.540 death and doom about it. And you end up in this position where there are actually a few other

01:21:00.460 people who come to the house. And one of them is also, I believe, the grandson of the reverend.

01:21:07.980 Yes. Who had buried the witch.

01:21:09.500 It's really charming, isn't it? I really like that, that sense of honouring the continuity that

01:21:15.740 the grandsons want to carry on the friendship of the grandfathers. I thought that was really touching.

01:21:22.300 Yeah. I thought that was a really nice aspect to it as well. You're just maintaining those old,

01:21:27.660 old family bonds with one another. And Richard readily agrees to it. He seems, he is very aristocratic,

01:21:36.700 but he's also very gentlemanly. But he is obviously a man who cares greatly for the material look of his

01:21:48.540 house, far more than he cares about any superstitions about witchcraft or magic, much to his detriment,

01:21:57.900 because he ends up dead, just like his grandfather before him. And then the story is taken over by

01:22:06.460 the guests who were at his premises at the time, who'd been visiting numerous ladies and a lord

01:22:17.420 and the reverend, of course. And there's the tree, the ash tree. And now they understand that, well,

01:22:26.940 the window was kept open and this curse is coming from the tree itself. He seemed to have this a lot

01:22:34.700 with his work that there is always some sort of device by which something is channeled through,

01:22:43.740 right? That a curse is channeled through, whether it's a mezzotent or a flute or an ash tree or

01:22:49.660 or another person, right? But there's always just something to...

01:22:55.820 Yes, there's got to be an item.

01:22:58.700 ...for the curse to live in.

01:22:59.900 Yeah. Yeah. And then they end up obviously confronting this tree. And I bookmarked this,

01:23:07.820 because I thought it was a tremendous moment again. So one of them is going up the tree and

01:23:12.540 the tree is, has a hollow in it. So he's trying to look, take a lantern and look down in, inside the tree.

01:23:20.060 And it says, um, up went the gardener again with the lantern and let it down the hole cautiously.

01:23:29.340 They saw the yellow light upon his face as he bent over and saw his face struck with an incredulous

01:23:36.700 terror and loathing before he cried out in a dreadful voice and fell back from the ladder,

01:23:43.100 where, happily, he was caught by two of the men, letting the lantern fall inside the tree.

01:23:49.740 He was in a dead faint, and it was some time before any word could be got from him.

01:23:55.740 But then they had something else to look at. The lantern must have broke at the bottom,

01:24:00.780 and the light in it caught upon dry leaves and rubbish that lay there for a few minutes.

01:24:06.700 A dense smoke began to come up, and then flame, and to be short, the tree was in a blaze.

01:24:13.580 The bystanders made a ring at some yards distant, and Sir William and the bishop sent men to get

01:24:19.740 what weapons and tools they could, for clearly, whatever might be using the tree as its lair

01:24:26.140 would be forced out by the fire. And so, accidentally, drops a lantern, and it sets the entire

01:24:34.140 thing of fire, and you just hear this torturous noise, this screaming from inside the tree.

01:24:41.500 Oh, it's really eerie. Again, it's so wonderfully done. And certainly for the characters in it,

01:24:51.100 it leaves this really lingering feeling where, well, the curse has now been fulfilled,

01:24:59.580 in a way, because it killed off the last member of that family.

01:25:04.300 Right? That family that killed the witch has now been ended.

01:25:10.060 There's no mention of Richard having a son, from what I remember. And so, yes, the tree,

01:25:16.060 the curse is lifted. But it did its job, and it got its revenge.

01:25:20.540 I did indeed. I'd say it's probably the most physical, most incarnate threat that M.R. James

01:25:27.820 uses in this collection. And the image of the guests hacking these burning little weird creatures

01:25:35.100 that come out, those spider-like creatures that are coming out of the tree, is quite fantastic.

01:25:41.580 Again, just the right amount of detail given. There is one aspect to it that stuck out to me,

01:25:52.620 in that they have to go to some detail to sort of give folklore details that I think have passed out

01:26:02.220 of memory. So the explanatory notes I've got in this collection talk about being buried on the north

01:26:10.300 side of the church, being a bit of a bad sign, as not a place of honour, or the reference to the

01:26:17.980 ash tree itself, like not sleeping with an ash tree near to your house, is an old custom that one of the

01:26:24.940 guests remembers. Right. Okay. Oh, that's very interesting. Yeah. And it just goes to show the

01:26:30.140 meticulousness of James's writing. Oh, totally. It's very helpful to have it mentioned and

01:26:37.500 and highlighted. And it sort of, when I read these old stories, it impresses on me the sort of things

01:26:44.060 that have passed out of cultural knowledge. And it always makes me wonder, like, what are we missing

01:26:49.740 from stories? Just because something that would be there as a kind of potent symbol, we now have to

01:26:57.020 consciously go and look and interrogate. And if we've had to, I think, go and do the research to

01:27:03.020 find out what the thing meant, I don't think it hits us on as emotional a level.

01:27:09.340 Yeah, I agree. I agree. Let's talk about number 13, then. Yes.

01:27:15.820 Because that's next in the canon. Now, trivial little side note. I remember, as a young child,

01:27:27.340 being told that the number 13 is an unlucky number. Right. I remember this being a thing. This was

01:27:34.220 actually to the point where, remarkably, and it goes to show how well this superstition about 13 has held

01:27:42.220 up. That when I was born in Scunthorpe, but we moved out to a village, one of the neighbouring villages,

01:27:53.100 when I was about 14. And we were the first family to move into this house that had been built in the

01:28:02.540 village. And this house was number 15. However, by rights, as the row of houses gone, it should have been 13.

01:28:13.980 Oh, so they skipped it. And they skipped it. Right. And that was... So that's in my own life. Right. And they...

01:28:20.700 So it became 15. So they skipped 13 on my street. And that's here in the 21st century. And I remember,

01:28:31.180 as a child, being told, oh, 13 is a bad luck. It's an unlucky number. And so I, being an arch contrarian,

01:28:40.140 decided I was going to make it my lucky number. And so I made 13 my lucky number. And then I since

01:28:48.060 fell out of the practice of having a lucky number at all, not believing in those. But nonetheless,

01:28:54.300 that was a thing in my life for a certain point. And so it was really great to have a story where that

01:29:03.020 was the theme, just the number 13 being the source of, excuse me, of the bad luck itself.

01:29:10.140 Yeah, it's that it's a wonderful segue, actually, unintentionally very handy that,

01:29:16.700 you know, we can segue from that discussion about older superstitions to one that's very much living.

01:29:22.380 And people will know you, I think you do still get 13 drop today. Not everywhere. People probably

01:29:31.100 know about the equivalent in Japan of you don't have a fourth floor. Because of the number four

01:29:37.180 sounding like the word death used to great effect in the Silent Hill games.

01:29:43.740 On a far more trivial level, back in 1980, the producers of Friday the 13th were able to raise

01:29:50.700 their money entirely from just making a poster that said, Friday the 13th, terrifying movie.

01:29:57.660 And people were like, yeah, that sounds legit. Yeah. And you just think, what kind of cultural

01:30:02.540 connotation might that have? That 13 that you can just put that on a poster and people say,

01:30:08.380 yeah, that sounds like a scary movie. Have some money. When they did that, by the way,

01:30:12.780 they had no idea what the film would be about. They literally just had a poster and a title.

01:30:16.780 Wow. That's remarkable. I haven't actually seen the film myself, but if it gets your recommendation,

01:30:23.100 I'll probably give it a go at some point. I won't drive us too far down my particular obsession,

01:30:30.460 but you can skip Friday the 13th itself. It's well known, but I wouldn't say a particularly

01:30:36.380 high quality. All right. That's all right. I trust your judgment. So Friday the 13th is

01:30:42.460 number 13. This is set in Denmark. Right. So we're back on the continent in the town of Vyberg.

01:30:53.740 Yes. And our antiquarian, he's gone there to look for, again, religious antiquaries. And

01:31:07.820 he's checked into room number 14, right, on this floor of this hotel, first floor. And I love the way

01:31:19.980 that this one works, that he walks past the room number 13 only shows itself at night. Yes. And

01:31:29.340 therefore, when he opens his window, our man in number 14, he opens his window and you can see

01:31:37.980 against the hotel wall, there is just another wall, like a blank wall. And so you can see the shadows

01:31:44.940 of the people in the other rooms. You can see the guy in number 12 and on the other side of him.

01:31:51.260 And then there's this one in number 13. And the thing is that when he goes the next morning,

01:31:57.340 there is no number 13. Oh, that's just terrific. That's great. Again, like the mezzotint,

01:32:04.380 fantastic device for giving you striking imagery and delivering the scares and building the picture

01:32:11.980 that he sort of originally thinks when he's seeing this, oh, he's confused or was he drunk or he can't

01:32:21.420 find a thing. Oh, the servants must have moved it. And you're piecing together that when number 13

01:32:27.580 manifests, it's literally taking up the space and crushing the other rooms. And the mechanism for

01:32:34.860 that, who knows? But it's just, I'll say uncanny when you think about it. Suddenly you're, I had four

01:32:43.340 windows, but now I've got two because number 13 has taken up two of them. I swore I booked this room

01:32:49.500 because I thought it had a good space to it. And now I'm crammed in. What's going on? This is, yeah,

01:32:56.460 really eerie. And it turns out the entire thing is born out of some, because it goes to the church,

01:33:04.620 doesn't he? He finds some documents pertaining to a Nicholas Fracken, I think it is, who's just

01:33:12.540 regarded as a foreigner, probably Dutch or German, something like that, who seemed to have been a

01:33:20.620 man of bad character in the 1500s, who practised alchemy. Yeah, slightly scandalously connected to

01:33:29.260 the bishop in some way. And yes, given his own location, a house somewhere that we know not where,

01:33:37.820 and you start to think, okay. Slowly piecing it together, you can assume it's the inn he's staying

01:33:43.900 at. Yes, the inn has been built on top of where this Fracken chap used to do his experiments,

01:33:50.460 and he used to stay. And so is the neighbour in number 13, is that Fracken? Is it his ghost? Is it

01:34:01.020 some creature that he invented? You have no idea whatsoever. No.

01:34:06.140 You only see this silhouette across the wall in the night, when you're half awake, and a slightly

01:34:14.220 red light, and hearing the, oh he, James does this so much, where you just hear something that you

01:34:22.300 can't be sure about, but something in an adjacent room, or something in the floor above, and that's

01:34:28.220 I think really unsettling stuff. Yeah. Far worse than, you know, goblin with a machete.

01:34:35.580 Yes. Just something unsettling enough, and unclear enough to set you on edge, and leave you craving the

01:34:43.660 resolution of knowing what it was, and he will not give you that. No. In fact, that noise that he hears in the

01:34:51.180 uh, the next room from number 13. That draws his neighbour in as well, doesn't it? Because he starts

01:34:56.780 knocking on, um, our man's door. I can't remember the name of the protagonist of, oh, Mr. Anderson,

01:35:03.340 that was it. There we go. Yeah. Knocks on Mr. Anderson's door, and he says, would you mind keeping

01:35:09.180 that down, you know? But it's not him. And so now all of a sudden you've got Anderson, and his neighbour,

01:35:16.540 and the actual hotel manager. Yes. Who are all, all three of them together, uh, deciding not to split

01:35:24.380 up. Yep. Uh, and to, and that they will go and confront the problem head on. Yep. They're, they're

01:35:31.100 almost horror literate before it's a thing. No, we're not going to split up. Stupid idea. Yeah. And so they,

01:35:36.620 um, they go to number 13 and they test it and it's locked. And so they decide, well, we're going to

01:35:45.260 break it down. Yeah. And, um, this was a fantastic moment where they, um, go to hit the door. Yeah.

01:35:54.700 And you just hear the sound of their instrument just hitting solid wall. Yes. And that the, at the sound

01:36:01.980 of it. And it obviously sends such a, just from the force of impact sends a vibration, uh, down the

01:36:08.060 chap's hand. And so it's, ah, and they look away and all of them look to his hand, you know, to just,

01:36:13.660 as he reacts to hitting this and they look back and the doll's just not there. Yeah.

01:36:18.140 The doll's just gone and he'd hit a solid wall. It's a fantastic moment because it, it's like this

01:36:25.500 applied rationality, kind of like in the mezzotint. It's like men of science of reason encountering

01:36:32.300 something weird and they're testing it. And in this case, yeah, well, they're, if the door is there,

01:36:38.700 we can hack it down. And they're met with that question of actually know what you've, your one

01:36:45.820 set of your senses shows you a door. Another set of senses is telling you it's just a wall. Now, what are

01:36:53.980 you going to believe? Yeah. Um, there's a bit before it as well that I thought you would probably

01:36:59.260 appreciate of another one of those odd little comic interludes of the big burly chaps brought

01:37:06.940 in to break down the door, aren't going to do it. And he, he basically shames them like,

01:37:11.340 oh, well, I suppose I could go and get some Germans, you know, some real men.

01:37:15.260 Yes, he does. Doesn't he? Yeah. And I, oh, we'll, we'll come back with the stuff then,

01:37:20.860 won't we? So yeah. Don't want any more German immigration. Nice, nice bit of chauvinism in

01:37:27.580 there. I loved it. I loved it. And it's yeah. Yeah. Wonderful. Um, and so, yeah, I, I, I thought

01:37:34.060 number 13 was, uh, fantastic and really, uh, one of the more ghostly of the stories, but of course,

01:37:42.220 that is, um, uh, not the most ghostly, which, uh, we'll get to, I think before we do that,

01:37:48.380 let's just talk about Count Magnus. Um, shall we? Oh, could I, could I pivot one tiny point onto

01:37:55.900 number 13? Please. Just that I thought it was quite an advanced story in its concept. Uh, so we've,

01:38:04.300 we've had our ghosts, we've had demons or things that are probably demonic. We've had straight up ghosts.

01:38:11.100 Uh, we've had, um, a kind of phantasmagorical weird creature inhabiting a tree. Hmm. I think this idea

01:38:20.380 of a room that may or may not be there is quite a nice abstract concept, um, quite advanced to,

01:38:28.380 to see turn up in horror. Um, and it just really impressed me for the kind of thinking MR James is

01:38:36.940 doing the idea of a non Euclidean liminal space, uh, an idea that would be explored in greater depth

01:38:45.100 in House of Leaves, uh, which went fully postmodern with it. Um, and it's a very interesting read of

01:38:51.260 its own. Oh, sure. Give it a go. Yeah. It's, it's quite, um, maddening. I won't, I'll try not to take us off

01:38:58.700 topic here so we can talk afterwards about it. I don't think it would quite fit into Chronicles,

01:39:03.260 but I think you might find it fascinating. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Just a nice idea

01:39:07.820 about this idea of a room that may or may not be there struck me as a really, really interesting

01:39:12.940 creation. Hmm. And what's more as well, the fact that because they, these men are products of their

01:39:20.860 own time and the age of enlightenment and, um, rationality, whatever Fracken did back in the

01:39:29.820 1500s to create this, whether, you know, this alchemy, this occult practice to basically create

01:39:38.620 this shifting hidden space, they're not able to recreate that. That's lost magic. It's lost

01:39:46.060 forbidden wisdom. Uh, they've no way of understanding this achievement. Yeah. Um,

01:39:55.340 which will frustrate them as well. So Count Magnus, keeping up with our Scandinavian theme,

01:40:01.740 is set in, uh, Sweden. Um, and Count Magnus, uh, we, we mentioned it earlier, didn't we? Because

01:40:08.460 he seems to have been, um, someone who, again, was a practicer of the occult

01:40:14.300 and some forbidden arts. Um, yes. Dark, black pilgrimage. Yes. Uh, that seems to be an invention

01:40:23.580 entirely of M.R. James, but, uh, has, um, was apparently taken up enough that other writers

01:40:30.780 would start referring to it as if it were real. Like he seemed to have created that legend,

01:40:35.340 which I think is quite impressive. Um, yes, we're drawing it. We're getting again,

01:40:40.780 an aristocrat seeking immortality via very diabolical means, uh, and hidden knowledge

01:40:49.740 being locked away in a room that you're not meant to go in. Like these elements are recurring in the

01:40:55.100 stories because they're sort of the mainstays of ghost stories. They've got to reoccur, but

01:41:02.060 the way they're melded is very interesting. It's, um, it's a wonderful aspect to it as well. Just

01:41:07.900 actually, there's a lot in that name of just black pilgrimage, because obviously a pilgrimage is,

01:41:13.420 uh, deeply Christian, deeply spiritual, supposed to be about going on a great journey towards,

01:41:19.260 um, uh, peace, the rest of your soul, uh, service to God, you know, putting yourself beneath, uh,

01:41:26.780 the presence of another doing something selfless in order to, um, uh, to obviously practice your faith.

01:41:34.300 And so the idea of it being a black pilgrimage, right? It's perverse, it's inverted. You're going

01:41:41.660 on this for, for yourself. You're going on this so you can obtain something forbidden, something

01:41:48.860 unknown, something that is supposed to be beyond the remit of natural law. And this seems to be what

01:41:56.780 Count Magnus is doing. Yeah, he is, uh, just like the black mass is the inversion of a typical mass used

01:42:02.620 for infernal worship. Magnus is, you know, a great man, but he is the inversion of what an aristocrat

01:42:10.780 should be. He is not caring for his, uh, charges. He, uh, he even seems to, when he wants to get his hand

01:42:19.420 on some land or there are some houses and the way he burns them down in winter with the families inside,

01:42:24.700 you know, he's, yes, he's, he's the inversion of what you want from a good aristocrat, uh,

01:42:30.300 absolute embodiment of evil and goes on this black pilgrimage. I suppose, again, in an inversion,

01:42:36.860 instead of that vision of the ash tree of the value of, uh, perpetuating your lineage and passing

01:42:44.220 things down through the generations, he is like the worst kind of boomer just after immortality,

01:42:50.620 keeping his land and property forever. They didn't have, uh, cruises at the time. If they did,

01:42:55.580 he'd have been on them, presumably. Sorry, terrible joke. Um, but yeah, he represents an inversion of

01:43:01.900 morality and, um, James is once again drawing on his real life expeditions, uh, as he did with the

01:43:11.900 trip to Vueborg. Oh, really? He went there, so he's, he's just sort of building that story for

01:43:17.100 number 13 off his notes. Real places he went to, uh, similarly for Count Magnus. And, uh, the fact that

01:43:25.740 it's a, um, a sarcophagus as well. It's like, well, if he'd have died naturally and being a good Christian,

01:43:34.460 surely he'd be in a, in a cemetery under the ground. But, well, you need a sarcophagus so you can

01:43:40.700 keep getting out of it, of course, you know, it's, the, the, the world becomes a bit more accessible

01:43:47.740 when you're dead in the sarcophagus and when you have six feet of soil above you. It's, it's that

01:43:53.820 nice realization that you have of, oh, that's why he, it's gone like that. Yeah, um, another, if we're

01:44:01.340 doing our drinking game here, this is another person who comes undone because they keep seeking, uh,

01:44:06.940 forbidden knowledge. In this case, our protagonist, uh, realize he's looking around and he realizes

01:44:14.780 he can, he knows where the key to the locked, um, mausoleum is. Sorry, I forgot the word,

01:44:21.820 the locked mausoleum. And he's already thinking very openly, oh, I could get in there. Oh, brilliant.

01:44:27.660 Don't do it. Forbidden knowledge. I'm going to seek it already. And just like Magnus,

01:44:33.020 who already sought it. Um, yeah, I think that that's one of the ones where we get a framing

01:44:39.020 device around the papers, isn't it? Where we, we already have the foreknowledge that

01:44:44.060 this protagonist perhaps doesn't make it. Yes, that's right. And indeed he doesn't. And, um,

01:44:50.780 um, there's this entire, uh, it's about a page and a half just dedicated to the final page now

01:44:58.140 where, um, he gets back to England and there's just this sense of being watched, being followed some,

01:45:06.300 something sinister about. And he, he stays at this hotel, uh, for the night and, uh, never leaves it

01:45:14.300 because he's killed by what a very unleashed, what dark spirit he unleashed from, uh, yeah,

01:45:23.100 the sarcophagus from the tomb when he unlocked, uh, cause one of the other locks, there was three

01:45:28.300 locks on it. Yeah. And he undid, uh, one of the locks. Yeah. I felt he was, there was an interesting

01:45:35.500 bit of, um, unreliable narrator in there. I had to reread it a few times. And I, my take on it was that

01:45:42.620 he was just straight up lying to us when he's like, oh goodness, I can't, how did this lock come

01:45:49.020 undone? Who knows? Like, were you already planning to break in yourself? Yes. I think you probably

01:45:56.460 broke that lock. I think you did it. Yes. That's a good point. Yeah. I'm not as certain. Again,

01:46:03.260 it's kept quite vague. Um, but I think your explanation's definitely the most plausible as

01:46:10.380 well. Definitely the most plausible. He, um, and yeah, it, it sort of, it, it centers it,

01:46:17.900 doesn't it, around the fact that as you say, uh, our narrator can only deal with the information

01:46:22.380 that he has. And so if he finds the document saying, well, I only broke one then, but that

01:46:27.660 doesn't fully explain why he's not here to tell the story himself. Yeah. So no one else would want

01:46:33.740 him to see it. You know, they're hurrying him out and basically not wanting him to be around the tomb too

01:46:39.260 much. Uh, so yeah, I, that was the impression I got. Um, and we have a nice little call back,

01:46:46.700 a vague hint to the previous story. And just one of the last things he's doing is returning by canal

01:46:52.380 and, uh, just keeping a note of who's a guest on there. And there are these two extra people,

01:46:58.540 uh, unaccounted for one of whom, uh, looks like number 13. So it looks like guest number 13, but

01:47:06.060 getting to throw in 13 again for added spooks. Um, yes. And we work out it's,

01:47:12.300 it's Magnus and the odd little familiar that he's managed to bring back with him.

01:47:17.500 Yeah. Terrifying. Really terrifying. I think, um, uh, one of the darkest stories,

01:47:24.780 definitely one of the darkest stories in there. Um, but let's talk about, um, probably one of the,

01:47:31.100 probably most famous story actually from this collection then, uh, which is, um,

01:47:36.220 I always say, Oh, whistle and I'll come to you, my lad. Yes. Uh, which I believe, um, is a

01:47:43.340 reference to a Robert Burns, uh, poem, which is, uh, of a very different tone, uh, much more,

01:47:51.820 uh, much more merry. Designed to be a slightly flirty ballad. Yes. And so this is obviously, uh,

01:47:57.980 to come back to what you're saying about the irony, right. It's an ironic title, uh,

01:48:02.540 because what's coming to this lad is, um, yeah, a little more supernatural and sinister.

01:48:08.700 So he's on the, uh, Suffolk, uh, is it Suffolk? Yeah. Suffolk coastline at, uh, Burnstow. And,

01:48:17.740 um, there's a, there's a hotel there. And, uh, again, he's going to see some friends in a few days and,

01:48:23.900 um, have a few games of golf whilst he's there with, uh, with a, with a colonel.

01:48:30.140 And he finds this, this flute, this, uh, this whistle. Yeah. Digs it up. Yeah. Digs it up when

01:48:38.940 he's looking for what he thinks is an old, uh, Knights Templar. Uh, I can't remember the,

01:48:48.060 the phrase he used for it, but let's just say a building. I can't remember a specific term,

01:48:52.780 but he's, he's digging around there. There's, it's already got a whiff of the heretical to it.

01:48:58.380 And, uh, just un, ill-advisedly, he, he digs out the little flute, um,

01:49:05.020 with inscriptions on it from there. And it's a wonderful, um, idea, I think,

01:49:09.260 to incorporate the Templars into it as well. Um, because obviously, uh, obviously, uh,

01:49:15.580 from a historical point of view, uh, I feel like the downfall of the Templars

01:49:20.620 and a lot of the, uh, charges of corruption that were made against them were, uh, concocted

01:49:28.620 by the king because he owed them an enormous amount of money and, uh, was becoming envious of

01:49:34.060 the fact that they were a rival castle. They were becoming very, very powerful. However,

01:49:38.300 the point is that at the time they were accused of all sorts of abominations and bad practices and,

01:49:46.620 uh, sin. And so the idea that these, uh, Templars who, you know, are long gone from England and,

01:49:55.500 you know, even their Catholic faith now has been, um, you know, obviously built over by the Church of

01:50:00.620 England, but he finds this flute and he, well, what else can you do with a flute but give it a

01:50:08.620 little whistle? And so he does. You've got to, you know, it invites it. Um, it's, again, it's this

01:50:14.860 great sub, sort of, subtextual theme of visiting a town where the sea is reclaiming the land. Uh,

01:50:22.540 I think that in sort of, you have a huge amount of land, uh, separating it in the sea and now there's

01:50:27.980 but some 60 yards. Um, it's getting at this idea of the intemporality of things, the, the great doom

01:50:36.780 coming for institutions, uh, possibly even all the modernity that is, uh, basically, uh,

01:50:44.380 uh, what our protagonist Parkins has built his life on. You know, he's rejected the old ways

01:50:50.780 and he's, he's a rational man and rather he's quite Reddit really, isn't he?

01:50:55.660 Yeah. This is, um, one of the stories as well, where they actually have a conversation

01:51:01.980 about belief in the supernatural, right? That doesn't always happen. Yes, they are, uh, rational,

01:51:09.340 but it's nice to actually hear your protagonist reject it before coming to face with it. Um,

01:51:17.100 yeah, certainly something that is brought in, in, in this particular one. And as you say, the, um,

01:51:23.260 there's something I could say, it's remarkable how he creates this atmosphere of suspense and, um,

01:51:32.380 uh, anticipation from the sea. Yeah. It's like, it, it's telling

01:51:39.260 you about this sort of inevitability, you know, the great things will fall. The Templars were a

01:51:44.780 massive organization. Now they are, you know, basically you're, you're having to dig their

01:51:49.100 buildings up, but nevertheless, something remains, something you may not understand remains. Um,

01:51:58.620 you know, maybe like the room in the west side of the house that you should avoid and not sleep in.

01:52:03.740 Just trust us. Don't do it. Um, these things we don't understand, but they remain, they have power.

01:52:13.340 It's yeah. It sort of makes you wonder what else, what else will fall. I mean, I may be not explaining

01:52:21.340 this very well, but it comes up over and over again, when you have protagonists going around

01:52:27.980 the countryside, um, and just basically seeing how things have kind of decayed and you get the sense

01:52:36.140 of the older glory is gone. And that's sort of applying, you know, when that's in the adaptations,

01:52:42.860 it's applying to MR James own time. You know, we're looking back on it and a lot of those old ways,

01:52:48.620 they've just gone now. Yeah. And we have our own sort of version of the, the whistle we're digging up.

01:52:55.500 Hmm. Maybe I'm drawing too much from. No, I, no, I, I think it's a, I think it's a great point.

01:53:01.980 And also, uh, what's more, this is one of the stories where again, we're blessed with

01:53:07.580 an actual sketch from, from James, uh, goodness me. McBride. McBride. Your cover actually has one

01:53:13.980 of the engravings on it from this very story. Yes, it does. I have the ghost from, from this particular

01:53:19.740 tale. Again, we'll get the editors to put a clearer picture for you up. But, um, obviously I

01:53:25.340 have to take, uh, apart here from the reading, uh, to just set the scene a little bit for the reader.

01:53:32.700 The, he's in a room that has two beds, but he's the only actual resident inside this bedroom.

01:53:40.860 And he's blown on this whistle. And even the colonel, right? The, the colonel has been out and he's had

01:53:47.180 a game of golf with this colonel. And the colonel you can tell is actually quite superstitious, right?

01:53:52.780 So you know where I am if you need anything. Um, he shows him this whistle. Um, so the colonel is

01:54:00.140 anticipating something going terribly wrong tonight. And then you have, uh, our protagonist wake up.

01:54:07.980 It says, I can, I can figure to myself something of the professor's bewilderment and horror,

01:54:15.260 for I have in a dream 30 years back seen the same thing happen. But the reader will hardly perhaps

01:54:21.500 imagine how dreadful it was to him to see a figure suddenly sit up in what had been known as an empty

01:54:29.340 bed. He was out of his own bed in one bound and made a dash towards a window where lay his only weapon,

01:54:36.540 the stick with which he had propped his screen. This was, as it turned out, the worst thing he could

01:54:42.540 have done. Because the personage in the empty bed, with a sudden smooth motion, slipped from the bed

01:54:49.740 and took up a position with outspread arms between the two beds and in front of the door. Parkins watched

01:54:57.580 it in a horrid perplexity. Somehow the idea of getting past it and escaping through the door

01:55:04.300 was intolerable to him. He could not have borne, he didn't know why, to touch it. And as for it's

01:55:12.620 touching him, he would sooner dash himself through the window than have that happen.

01:55:17.740 Hmm. I mean, it's kind of interesting. On like, on one level, we are literally talking about a spirit

01:55:26.540 in a bed sheet, like the stereotypical ghost costume. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Very, like your

01:55:32.540 platonic ghost. Yeah. But it's powerful. It's very powerful. And that image, yes, of just suddenly the

01:55:39.500 empty bed arises. That, that is terrifying. It is. And what's more as well, it's because it still

01:55:47.020 works with this unknown. It's like, he doesn't want to touch it. Well, if you touch it, all you're going

01:55:53.740 to feel is a bed sheet. Yeah. Right. What you feel every time you make your bed and get up in the

01:55:59.100 morning. But beneath that bed sheet is this spirit of ill will. You know, and it's certainly not

01:56:07.900 benevolent. He makes a point in another quote that obviously there's nothing wrong with a friendly

01:56:14.780 ghost, but they're for fairy tales. Yeah. And always it needs to have evil intent behind it

01:56:22.140 in his stories. And so you have this, yeah, this, this ghost, true, genuine, and he has no way of

01:56:31.420 getting out of this room. And so it's exactly as you see there, it's like towering over him

01:56:36.940 at this point. And he's at the point where he's like, well, I guess I'm just going to die.

01:56:40.860 Yeah. Jump out the window and be gone. And James keeps the power by not over explaining,

01:56:47.500 not over playing his hand. And it's interrupted so that you wonder what would have happened?

01:56:54.140 What would, because it's so much in the protagonist's head, spelling it out to you.

01:56:59.740 I don't know what it would have done. And so much of it is the kind of a projection

01:57:06.060 of the protagonist. And yeah, it's very powerful.

01:57:10.860 Leaves him wrestling with all those unknowns. Unfortunately for him, the Colonel barges into

01:57:15.980 his room and saves him. But as soon as he obviously goes in there, just disappears.

01:57:21.180 You know, so again, the Colonel didn't really see anything. He just heard the screams and

01:57:27.020 obviously came to help. And so you're left at Parkins is just left with this.

01:57:31.660 We're sort of stuck in a sort of really ambiguous place here of, are we with that unreliable narrator,

01:57:42.300 this sort of arch rationalist? And has he just been denying for reasons only hinted at?

01:57:49.340 This is one of the stories that tends to draw the most focus for the sort of analytical potential.

01:57:54.940 And I wonder it draws maybe too much because of maybe a slightly modern focus on the biographical

01:58:06.620 implications that people are saying. This hints a bit more at M.R. James' personal life. Therefore,

01:58:13.100 that's one we dig into. Some of the interest might be slightly prurient, I think. But nevertheless,

01:58:18.940 it is a powerful story to look at in that lens. And I think that's quite justified to do.

01:58:25.420 Could you tell me a little bit about that?

01:58:27.260 Sure, sure. I think we have to be wary about putting a modern interpretation on things and

01:58:34.220 say, like, slapping an identity label on James. I'm not going to do that. I don't know anywhere

01:58:39.580 near enough. And I haven't read, say, I haven't read any comprehensive biography of his, so I'm not

01:58:45.340 going to risk it. But he was a man who never married, who stayed within institutions,

01:58:54.220 you know, focusing on sort of much more platonic relationships. And so the one with McBride,

01:59:02.540 who did the two of the engravings or illustrations for the collection was incredibly dear to him. He

01:59:08.780 wrote some very moving testimonials to McBride, went out of his way to have a work of McBride's

01:59:16.860 published by Cambridge University Press, even though they wouldn't typically do this for what was

01:59:22.220 really just a children's book. Right. But it was a real tribute that James wanted to do.

01:59:26.940 And they also took on McBride's young daughter, Jane, didn't he, as his ward?

01:59:31.180 I didn't know that. After she died. Sorry, after he died, he took on his young daughter.

01:59:37.260 I know he sort of tried to see that McBride's widow was looked after. So really just being a great

01:59:46.300 friend after life. Yeah. Now, saying all that, people recently, and in this collection,

01:59:53.980 the person writing this and doing the explanations has done a very good job. You detect a certain

02:00:01.580 ideological leaning from them that they do a fairly good job of not making too explicit, but you get

02:00:08.780 they have a bit of a progressive mindset. Okay. What can you do? They're in academia.

02:00:15.020 The implication is because he never married. He may have been closeted in some way.

02:00:20.060 It's not really something I want to delve into, but you can read in this a certain rich subtext of

02:00:27.500 the fear of the man who's sort of on his own at night. He's got another bed beside him available.

02:00:35.900 A lot of his terror is in seeing that actually someone's been in the other bed.

02:00:40.700 And this is not necessarily a fear of, say, any homosexual temptation. It could literally just be

02:00:46.460 a fear of a sort of any kind of intimacy. Parkinson's... Parkinson's... I'm going to

02:00:54.220 mess that up over and over again. Is it alright?

02:00:55.980 Parkinson's does his best to kind of keep people away. And I think that's as valid a

02:01:02.940 reading as any other. That he's wanting to keep people distant to the point that his colleagues

02:01:08.620 clearly tease him about it. Professor Rogers basically makes him say,

02:01:14.380 no, I don't want you to come with me.

02:01:16.060 Yes. Oh, yes, he does at the beginning, doesn't he?

02:01:18.380 Yeah.

02:01:18.540 And then when Rogers turns up at the end, it's like,

02:01:21.500 maybe it's not so bad you're here, actually, after all.

02:01:23.900 Indeed, indeed. But yeah, there's a certain psychosexual subtext you could get from that.

02:01:29.740 The fear of, have I slept in the other bed? Has someone been in the other bed?

02:01:35.020 Like, contact with the bed sheets. You could read that.

02:01:40.140 It's an interesting theory, but it's certainly not required in order to obviously really enjoy the

02:01:48.140 story nonetheless. Yes, this book tries to make quite a bit out of it. I was not sold. No.

02:01:55.580 Possible, but I'm not sold. And I think we have enough to say it's enough for this to be someone

02:02:01.260 who is just terrified of intimacy of any kind and shooing people away. Right. But there's a bit of a

02:02:08.780 telling line that, of all the phrasing, the Colonel does say, was it before the sort of big final

02:02:19.180 nightmare sequence, there is the Colonel saying, you know where I'll be if you want me tonight,

02:02:24.940 which I thought, yeah, that's sort of grist for the mill for academic publishers.

02:02:32.780 Yeah, yeah.

02:02:33.420 They can't resist a line like that.

02:02:34.700 They'll love that, won't they?

02:02:35.980 There was one other thing on Oh Whistle and I'll come to mind.

02:02:39.100 Oh, no, please. Yes, I'm getting ahead then.

02:02:40.940 Apologies.

02:02:41.500 No, no, please.

02:02:42.460 I had to do the psychosexual stuff because I think people would,

02:02:46.940 people talk about it on the internet. I thought I had to raise it.

02:02:49.260 Cut them off at the pass.

02:02:50.140 Exactly, exactly. The other thing was just my own personal delight at MR James sort of

02:02:55.580 making jokes about golf.

02:02:57.580 Oh, indeed. So...

02:02:58.860 Yeah, terrible pastime.

02:03:00.460 Yes. Just as he's in there, if you haven't read it, there's reference to

02:03:05.180 this lovely shorthand of these people went for golf.

02:03:10.780 You can imagine what they talked about and I won't bore the reader.

02:03:14.460 And just a few references like, I'm sure you can imagine what they said.

02:03:17.900 It's quite funny.

02:03:18.700 And another thing to raise is just this has had two adaptations, quite a free adaptation with John Hurt.

02:03:29.420 Recently, I want to say about 2011.

02:03:31.020 Right.

02:03:31.500 And that is very interesting to look at in terms of a kind of, I guess, an aspect I raised previously about a sort of sense of downfall.

02:03:42.940 It's back in a seaside town.

02:03:44.220 And I don't know if you've been recently to one of them, but there's I have a real sense of,

02:03:49.820 you know, the heyday is gone and you think, oh, I would have loved this when this was at its peak.

02:03:55.500 Yes.

02:03:56.380 And it's just sort of you sense the Britain of a past that was lovely is there.

02:04:01.740 And it's slightly unsure of itself now.

02:04:05.580 Oh, yeah.

02:04:06.140 There's so many seaside towns in Britain these days that, you know, have fallen so far from the Victorian Edwardian heyday,

02:04:13.900 because, of course, now people choose to go abroad for the summer because they have that choice.

02:04:18.940 And so obviously these places where you could basically count on the entire population of England going, you know,

02:04:27.580 when they had a bit of money for a summer holiday, it's now not getting that money.

02:04:32.220 And, yeah, you've got places all along my coast, you know, in Lincolnshire, Cleethorpes, Mablethorpe, you know, Skegness,

02:04:40.380 just getting run down, you know.

02:04:42.140 And so, yeah, the idea of this having this haunted seaside town with this ghost is, yeah, really a great place to set the story.

02:04:53.580 Yeah, it's very powerful, very powerful. So I'd highly recommend that, maybe 2011, apologies, adaptation with John Hurt.

02:05:01.660 Yeah, I'll watch it. I mean, I love John Hurt. How can you not?

02:05:04.220 Yeah.

02:05:04.540 All right. Final story. I've got The Treasure of St. Thomas.

02:05:09.260 And what I like about this one is that, actually, he messes with the order of the story a little bit here.

02:05:21.260 So, actually, rather than the character going through this journey and discovering this ghost,

02:05:28.780 the story actually starts just after that.

02:05:31.980 And you get the friend who comes to Mr. Somerton, who is, and his assistant, William Brown.

02:05:40.700 And they've already had the supernatural experience. And actually, it's just him recounting what he saw to his friend.

02:05:48.940 And so you get this whole thing where he's trying to come to terms with what he's just seen.

02:05:54.060 So this creates a nice little difference, because normally, if they survive, you never really get their thoughts after.

02:06:01.100 Mm-hmm.

02:06:01.900 Whereas with this one, it's him just saying, well, I was, you know, we walked down into, we went down into this well.

02:06:08.060 And basically, the whole idea is that you had this Abbot Thomas, who had left some sort of treasure hidden.

02:06:17.100 And again, this, oh, he's so smug with himself. Oh, I can, I can crack this code. I can, you know, figure out this Latin and that we can, you know, I'll use one of my, I'll use German or Latin, but I'll figure it out.

02:06:31.500 And he essentially goes down into this well. And it's great, because it's obviously in the dark, and he's reaching his hand inside.

02:06:42.420 And he says, and I felt this leather. And you're like, well, is it a bag? Or is it a limb? Or is it, like, is it some old decrepit limb? You've no idea.

02:06:53.040 But, and he counts it, so he's just holding it. And then you have this image of, like, something getting thrown onto him and hugging him.

02:07:00.540 In the dark. And him obviously panicking, crapping himself, all the rest of it. And his friend, William, running further up the stairs.

02:07:12.540 And so you've got these two testimonies of two different people. And they each saw different things. And they each, but again, it's full of all those rich themes of trespassing.

02:07:24.120 And there was obviously some sort of supernatural guardian there to ward away people who were trying to claim this treasure.

02:07:34.280 Yeah. Again, a warning against the material interest. I confessed to you before we started this, I did not manage to read The Treasure of Abbott Thomas.

02:07:45.360 Yes, yes.

02:07:46.080 So I apologize for that. So how did that sit for you in the collection? How do you sort of rate it or compare it to the others?

02:07:55.660 It was good. It wasn't one of my favorites. That's one thing to say. There's not a bad story in here. Right. They're all enjoyable.

02:08:02.960 It's just that I think some really stay with you. Really stay with you. This one was good. So I won't linger on it other than to say that it deals with many of the things that we've obviously talked about at length by at this point.

02:08:20.360 And so, yeah, you'll undoubtedly enjoy reading it. It's great suspense as they go down the well.

02:08:27.980 It's and it has this. You really just breathe at the end of it because it's the final story.

02:08:36.920 And so, yeah, it was really, really good. Now that we've discussed all of the stories.

02:08:42.500 Absolutely. But, you know, I will go with you and I'll trust you for your opinion on The Treasure of Abbott Thomas.

02:08:56.780 I don't think there is a bad story in here. None of them were snore fests. None of them felt repetitive.

02:09:04.180 If you analyze them, you can say, OK, there's a definite pattern here. Yes.

02:09:09.680 But even within that, you feel James is aware of that and he's adjusting it and keeping it fresh.

02:09:17.480 So Treasure of Abbott Thomas has clearly adjusted the formula.

02:09:22.320 Let's explore that from a different temporal stance or with Count Magnus.

02:09:28.140 Let me present you the information in a new format.

02:09:31.200 Someone has discovered the papers. And so there's lots of variety in there.

02:09:37.460 Definitely. And I think it's a testament to his skill as a writer as well that, as you say,

02:09:48.180 they wouldn't they're written in a way that they wouldn't have to be ghost stories,

02:09:52.200 that they could just be charming little stories about these very, like say, very archetypical English professor characters.

02:10:01.200 Going about in these lost places looking for secret knowledge.

02:10:07.020 But the fact that he incorporates so many different types of demonic evil, you know, from across various European cultures and different eras of civilization.

02:10:21.620 Yeah, it creates a collection of stories that kind of celebrate tradition, right?

02:10:29.300 It's a celebration of our traditions, of our folklore themselves.

02:10:34.540 And it's really, really remarkable that as well, you can see that reactionary theme within the story where it's warning you against the Faustian spirit of just going too far,

02:10:48.480 of looking for things that should be beyond your reach.

02:10:51.760 And yeah, I'm thoroughly thrilled that you recommended the book.

02:10:57.700 You are very welcome. You phrased it wonderfully.

02:11:02.020 This is a this is a chap who has great interest in the past and great reverence and fear of it.

02:11:09.080 He firmly believes in Chesterton's fence.

02:11:11.800 He loves the country. He doesn't want it torn down.

02:11:14.580 He wants things to stay in their place.

02:11:17.620 And he did everything he could in his career to be a bit of a bulwark against modernism and secularism.

02:11:24.740 He was sceptical of the future and he was, yes, reverent of the past.

02:11:31.020 A sensible fellow.

02:11:32.620 Absolutely.

02:11:33.400 A sensible fellow.

02:11:34.620 Well, Chloe, thank you ever so much for joining me.

02:11:37.620 It's been wonderful to have this conversation with you.

02:11:39.800 We'll have to talk about another horror themed piece of literature sometime in the future.

02:11:46.080 Do you have any other comments about James or about that you want to relay?

02:11:52.260 Well, just to say if people want the the classic version of Ghost Stories of an Antiquary,

02:11:58.760 we've got the eight tales and you can pick that easily.

02:12:02.000 And if you really get taste for them, he published multiple other times.

02:12:05.500 So there's about 30 stories that you could find.

02:12:08.260 I'd recommend, you know, you can you might want some explanatory notes to really get the full depth out of them.

02:12:16.640 And if people enjoy M.R. James, there is an interesting modernization that people might want to explore as well as the adaptations.

02:12:25.740 There is a modern project that was very inspired by him and just calls itself Ghost Stories that was written by Andy Nyman and Jeremy Dyson.

02:12:39.540 And very horror literate people, very much fans of the classic horror.

02:12:44.700 And they tried to do a modern spin of it, but not in a way that would deserve the natural dread when you hear that.

02:12:51.920 Yes.

02:12:52.360 The word modern spin.

02:12:53.800 It's a very appreciative take on Ghost Stories set in a modern context.

02:12:57.820 And I think it's a nice companion to these stories if people want to sort of add that onto their reading as well.

02:13:07.320 Oh, excellent.

02:13:08.000 Well, more than anything, of course, do go and subscribe to Proper Horror Show.

02:13:12.420 Go subscribe to the YouTube channel because it's wonderful.

02:13:15.860 And, you know, other people from the show, Harry and Josh, they've visited a few times, haven't they?

02:13:21.200 Done some work with you.

02:13:22.460 And, yeah, so it's great content.

02:13:24.480 Do go and follow it.

02:13:26.500 Yeah, thank you for coming in.

02:13:29.540 Go and read some Ghost Stories.

02:13:31.540 And we'll see you for the next episode of Chronicles.

02:13:34.860 Farewell.

02:13:35.340 You

The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - November 08, 2025

FREEMIUM： Chronicles #21 ｜ Ghost Stories with Proper Horror Show

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