Casting the Runes and Other Ghost Stories, by M.R. James

[Steve]

M.R. James had a great, and simple, formula for writing ghost stories. Establish the mundane and everyday detail (which is heightened by the Victorian academic settings), and then introduce, briefly, the supernatural, which cracks the surface of everything normal that has been so carefully established. And what is suggested by the supernatural intrusion is usually horrifying. Lovecraftian spheres (or worse) are opened up to the reader. The human mind must retreat before the suggestion of the “other.” Most of these stories work well for me. My favorite is “Count Magnus,” which to my mind best illustrates the above.

Books, stories, legends, ruins, etc., are the usual devices used by James in his antiquarian world of British gentlemen poking around in things best left alone. Count Magnus is a Dracula type, but set in Sweden. The scholar in this story, Mr. Wraxall, is trying to get to the heart of the legends surrounding the Count. One legend involves the Count going on a Black Pilgrimage – and bringing something back with him. Wraxall finds a manuscript by the Count that confirms the Pilgrimage. The destination of the Black Pilgrimage, as it turns out, was Chorazin, where the Count, in order to “obtain a long life,” and see the “blood of his enemies,” must first salute the “prince.” Then there’s the wonderful Jamesian small detail regarding a partial “erasure” in the manuscript, but where Wraxall is nevertheless able to discern the word “aëris.” In other words, salute the Prince of the Air. Chorazin was one of the cities (along with Capernaum and Bethsaida) cursed by Jesus (Matthew 11:20-24) for their unbelief. This connection (and James was a biblical scholar and clergyman) is both strategic and understated – and it also had the hair lifting up on the back of my neck. Wraxall, clueless as it gets, has to ask a deacon about Chorazin. Bad things go on to happen, probably more so than usual in a James story, and the Count did indeed bring something back. One nice thing about these stories, is that they can be read over and over, and still be chilling.

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