Speaker 1: A centeral as a protection of My Heart Radio. This
Speaker 1: is a companion piece to our Halloween special canon Albrick's Scrapbook,
Speaker 1: also available today. If you haven't listened to that episode already,
Speaker 1: you may want to start there, as we'll be delving
Speaker 1: deeper into the classic M. R. James ghost story that
Speaker 1: is the subject of that adaptation. While James is best
Speaker 1: remembered today as a short form horror author, in his
Speaker 1: time he was a well respected medievalist scholar responsible for
Speaker 1: cataloging all kinds of esoteric artifacts, and this connection is
Speaker 1: apparent in his fiction, which winds detailed descriptions of locations, buildings, art,
Speaker 1: and ephemera in details of the other worldly. While some
Speaker 1: are imagined, others are very real. The effect is undeniable,
Speaker 1: the level of detail in his writing in parts, and
Speaker 1: almost documentary quality to the work. The question then becomes,
Speaker 1: how does one sort out the fact from the fiction.
Speaker 1: It's actually been quite difficult for a long time for
Speaker 1: people to separate these things. But it's almost close to
Speaker 1: meta fiction in the sense that the real and the
Speaker 1: fictional are so closely entwined in some of the stories
Speaker 1: that you can't really pick them apart. Author Helen Grant,
Speaker 1: herself a writer of ghost stories, has turned a lifelong
Speaker 1: fascination of the author's work into an interesting project. Whenever
Speaker 1: she is able, Helen travels to the real places cited
Speaker 1: in James's stories to see for herself and share with
Speaker 1: others what elements in his fiction a drawn from the life.
Speaker 1: In two thousand four, Helen took a trip to a
Speaker 1: historic French town near the Pyrenees called St. Bertrand de Commange,
Speaker 1: the real life setting of Kennan Albert's scrap book. She
Speaker 1: joined me from her home in Perthshire to talk about
Speaker 1: that trip, the work of m R James, where this
Speaker 1: fascination began, and much more. Do you do about of
Speaker 1: interviews about m R James UM? I haven't done many
Speaker 1: interviews about him, and not recently anyway, but I've I've
Speaker 1: been at a couple of conferences and spoken about him UM,
Speaker 1: at one of which somebody came up to me and
Speaker 1: told me, in the manner of somebody delivering a great compliment,
Speaker 1: that they didn't know that people who were non academics
Speaker 1: could write that well, so thank you. I think I'm
Speaker 1: essentially a writer, a novelist, but I also write short
Speaker 1: stories as well short ghost stories. But I guess the
Speaker 1: reason why you're in trusted in me today is because
Speaker 1: I'm a passionate fan of the English ghost story writer
Speaker 1: M R. James. I've been a fan of his since
Speaker 1: I was a kid, when my dad used to retell
Speaker 1: the stories to us on long car journeys to kind
Speaker 1: of keep us amused. So they've always been with me.
Speaker 1: And some years ago, kind of a propos of this interest,
Speaker 1: I found myself living quite close to Steinfeld Abbey in
Speaker 1: Germany and realized that that was the real life setting
Speaker 1: of one of m. R James's stories, The Treasure of
Speaker 1: Abbott Thomas. So I went to visit it and wrote
Speaker 1: an article for the small press magazine Ghosts and Scholars
Speaker 1: about whether it was like the story is. And after
Speaker 1: that I kind of got the bit between my teeth
Speaker 1: and started to visit his other site. So I visited St.
Speaker 1: Bertrand de Commage, the Borg and also Marcelia Lahia as
Speaker 1: well as Steinfeld. Will you tell me which stories those
Speaker 1: those are pertained to? Right? So obviously Commage relates to
Speaker 1: cannon All Brick Scrapbook, which we're talking about today. V
Speaker 1: Ball relates to a story called Number thirteen, um Steinfeld Abbey,
Speaker 1: The Treasure of Abbott Thomas, and Marsili Lahia stories I
Speaker 1: have tried to write, which is kind of a fragmentary
Speaker 1: sort of thing that he wrote. That's got bits of
Speaker 1: things he started on and didn't quite finish. I don't
Speaker 1: I know the other ones. I don't know that one. Well,
Speaker 1: it's not one of his better known ones. Stories I
Speaker 1: have tried to read to write. Yes, wow, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: have to check that sounds so cool. Yeah, do check
Speaker 1: it out because I think, you know, there's an opportunity
Speaker 1: there for somebody to finish some of those or to
Speaker 1: actually write something. There were things that he kind of
Speaker 1: started on and had a good idea and didn't really
Speaker 1: go anywhere in the end. Oh, it's so interesting. And
Speaker 1: you said your dad would retell them to you in
Speaker 1: the cars that we taught me. Yes, yes, I mean
Speaker 1: my father, who's now in his eighties, has some of
Speaker 1: those stories almost off the batim. I would say, um,
Speaker 1: and he would, and he would tell them to it.
Speaker 1: So in a particular favorite was Wailing Well, which I
Speaker 1: don't know if you've read that one. Yeah, it was
Speaker 1: written by Mr James to amuse Um a party of
Speaker 1: boy Scouts, and it's set in the same sort of
Speaker 1: camping area that they were camping in, and it's about
Speaker 1: how there's a well there which is haunted by some
Speaker 1: sort of quite unpleasant vampiric type of ghosts, and the
Speaker 1: boys are told, you know, you may camp here, but
Speaker 1: obviously you mustn't get water from this well. So of course,
Speaker 1: what does one of them do but go to get
Speaker 1: water from the well and Pandora's box. Yeah, exactly. But
Speaker 1: there's there's a lot of humor in this story which
Speaker 1: I didn't at all understand when I was a child,
Speaker 1: So I found this very very curious because there's some
Speaker 1: bits it's talking about the scout trip and about, for example,
Speaker 1: they had a life saving competition where they used to
Speaker 1: tie up one of the smaller boys and throw him
Speaker 1: into the cuckoo weir and the other boys had to
Speaker 1: rescue him. And this particular naughty boy, the one that
Speaker 1: goes and gets water later on, used to always pretend
Speaker 1: that he had cramp or something and while he was
Speaker 1: rolling around on the ground, people will be drowning. And
Speaker 1: it says in the story that you know it was
Speaker 1: becoming troublesome for the school because the parents were no
Speaker 1: longer satisfied with the form letter that they used to
Speaker 1: send out saying unfortunately your child is dead. And when
Speaker 1: I was a child, I didn't understand this at all.
Speaker 1: I thought, you know, how can they be so cavalier?
Speaker 1: Now it made sense, but but then it really didn't.
Speaker 1: How much do you know about m R James's back story?
Speaker 1: Goodness me, what a question. More than most people do,
Speaker 1: but a lot less than the experts, I guess, is
Speaker 1: the answer to that. That's okay, so I know a
Speaker 1: little bit. I know that he was medievalist scalt right,
Speaker 1: Yes he was, Yes, King's College, Cambridge or something like Yes,
Speaker 1: and and also Eaton College as well. Yeah, and I
Speaker 1: think I mean in his time he was probably better
Speaker 1: known as a medievalist than than he was as a
Speaker 1: short story writer. But now everybody remembers his his short stories.
Speaker 1: It was kind of a Christmas thing as well, that
Speaker 1: there was always a ghost story, and that he would
Speaker 1: read them aloud, so everybody would come around whose rooms
Speaker 1: or whatever and in the college and listen to them. Um,
Speaker 1: that's a very Victorian tradition that the ghost story at Christmas. Absolutely.
Speaker 1: I mean I think I have heard it said that
Speaker 1: a ghost story at Christmas is more traditional than a
Speaker 1: ghost story at Halloween. In fact, I mean that was
Speaker 1: the time of year that that people associated with ghost stories.
Speaker 1: Do Christmas ghost stories in your life, yes, But then
Speaker 1: I mean I do ghost stories all year round, So
Speaker 1: you know, I always feel slightly miffed when it gets
Speaker 1: to Halloween and everybody's all about you know, the vampires
Speaker 1: and more says and stuff, and I felt, well, you know,
Speaker 1: I was into it before it was Cools life. The
Speaker 1: thing that really gets me about m R James style
Speaker 1: is that there's so much specificity about the places that
Speaker 1: he's talking about about the documents that he's describing, uh,
Speaker 1: and and and the and the figures in in documents,
Speaker 1: you know, like architectural drawings or like the mesa tant
Speaker 1: for instance, he's describing you know, this very specific measure
Speaker 1: tant in this specific catalogue from this you know, this
Speaker 1: specific vendor that has like this kind of work and um,
Speaker 1: and his characters are always so such brilliant. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: scholars of all this stuff, and they just rattled through
Speaker 1: all this verbiage that you know, if if you're not
Speaker 1: you know, at Cambridge studying that kind of stuff, or
Speaker 1: you know from that are you might have no idea
Speaker 1: or not a Catholic. I'm not a Catholic, and so
Speaker 1: I kind of get it from the context clues, but
Speaker 1: a lot of it flies by just I don't have
Speaker 1: the same depth of understandings as he does rating it,
Speaker 1: but it has this profound effect of I don't know,
Speaker 1: making it almost feel like a like a documentary. There's
Speaker 1: there's so much like reality intertwined with with the fiction
Speaker 1: that it's like what parts did he make up? It is?
Speaker 1: I think it's it's actually been quite difficult for a
Speaker 1: long time for people to separate these things because in
Speaker 1: his stories there are some real life locations that are
Speaker 1: very accurately described, and there are some real life locations
Speaker 1: that have you know, terrific errors in them. I mean,
Speaker 1: for example, and the Treasure of Abbott Thomas, he never
Speaker 1: actually went to Stanfeld Abbey, although I have been myself,
Speaker 1: um and so he for example, had got the stained
Speaker 1: glass windows as being in the abbey church, but they weren't.
Speaker 1: They were in the cloisters. So the ones that he
Speaker 1: saw later on, when they've been put into um Ashridge House.
Speaker 1: They didn't actually come from the church, they came from
Speaker 1: the cloister, so so that was an error. Some other things.
Speaker 1: I mean that the church at command is pretty accurately described.
Speaker 1: The crocodile I don't think has ever hung over the font.
Speaker 1: It's actually on the wall. We have to go there.
Speaker 1: We have jump right to the crocodile. So when did
Speaker 1: you go to Commande Um? I went in that, I think.
Speaker 1: Let me see, I've written it down here somewhere. I
Speaker 1: think it was May two thousand and four. Was it
Speaker 1: expressly to to check out the scene of Kennan Elbrick
Speaker 1: and rigorously vet all of the information in his story. Yes,
Speaker 1: it was, I've been. I mean I I flew down
Speaker 1: to Um I think to Montpellier from Germany, where we
Speaker 1: were living at the time, specifically to look at St.
Speaker 1: Bernt Un the Commands, and I met my father who
Speaker 1: was who was down there, I think he was staying
Speaker 1: in Carcasson or somewhere, and we drove to Commands. We
Speaker 1: stayed there and night, we did the cathedral, exhaust most
Speaker 1: of Lee, and then I flew back again. I went
Speaker 1: down specifically to look at that's very much like you
Speaker 1: were the Dennis Dune of the story. You realize, like,
Speaker 1: that's what you did, the same thing that he did.
Speaker 1: I'm totally going to get myself in the same sort
Speaker 1: of trouble one of these days to because I have
Speaker 1: kind of a track record of doing this, um, sort
Speaker 1: of just flying off to look at these places or
Speaker 1: traveling off to see them. But yeah, that was when
Speaker 1: I went was in two thousand and four. Did you
Speaker 1: have kind of a hit list of the things that
Speaker 1: you knew you needed to to see to try and
Speaker 1: to try and find from the story? Um? Yeah, I guess.
Speaker 1: I mean I really had no idea until I got
Speaker 1: there whether it was going to be exactly the same
Speaker 1: as the story. Um, so there was a lot of
Speaker 1: stuff in the church that I wanted to see. But
Speaker 1: the other question was, there's there's certain other places in
Speaker 1: the story, the Sacristan's house which Denniston goes to. Would
Speaker 1: it be possible to identify that? And I spent quite
Speaker 1: a long time sort of on that particular quest looking
Speaker 1: for that. So so yes, I did have sort of
Speaker 1: a hit list of things that I wanted to see.
Speaker 1: Did Um I think that James himself did go to
Speaker 1: command straight. Yes he did. Yes, Yeah, he went in
Speaker 1: March eighteen two, and so he read a story like
Speaker 1: for four years later or something like that. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: story was published three years later in March eighteen But
Speaker 1: yes he went there. And as it happens, whilst I
Speaker 1: was in commandage investigating the place, I bought a book
Speaker 1: which i've I've got here. It's it's in French. It's
Speaker 1: a very esoteric book. It's by somebody called Louis de
Speaker 1: Fiance Dagos, who was a baron of somewhere or other.
Speaker 1: And it's called v a Miracula de Saint BERTRANDU notice
Speaker 1: history Villa Eliza Victor Commage, which means the life and
Speaker 1: Miracles of St. Bertrand with a historical notice on the
Speaker 1: town and the bishops bishops have come. And this was
Speaker 1: written in eighteen fifty four, so that it was somewhat
Speaker 1: before Mr James. It was closer to his visit than
Speaker 1: my visit was, if you see what I mean. So
Speaker 1: I also used that in the sense of kind of
Speaker 1: understanding what the place had been been like in a
Speaker 1: more kind of a separate description from Mr James. Is
Speaker 1: that book sounds like the kind of thing that m R.
Speaker 1: James would mention in a story. Yes, it probably, hope, yes, um.
Speaker 1: And it had some fabulous stuff in it. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's an awful lot of stuff which now I think
Speaker 1: would seem seem a bit dull, but there was there
Speaker 1: was some splendid renditions of of the tombs in the cathedral.
Speaker 1: There was there was one bit that I'll see if
Speaker 1: I can find it for you, that there's there's a
Speaker 1: tomb out in in uh in the quadrangle outside, and
Speaker 1: there's a Latin inscription in it which he translates as
Speaker 1: there it lies in its tomb, that rose of the world,
Speaker 1: now fouled and withered. It no longer gives out its
Speaker 1: sweet smell, but that which emits from the dust of
Speaker 1: the tombst Yes, indeed its splendidly morbid. I think, can
Speaker 1: you describe for me the cathedral itself? I mean, is
Speaker 1: maybe just maybe just the town even, I mean, like
Speaker 1: the way he describes the town is very palpable in
Speaker 1: the story, like as it everything bears the aspect of
Speaker 1: decaying age something like that. Yeah, And I think it's
Speaker 1: it's still did to a certain extent. At the time
Speaker 1: when I went to see it. I mean it's a
Speaker 1: peculiar sort of place because I think though originally I
Speaker 1: believe it had about a thousand inhabitants, it had I
Speaker 1: think about two hundred at the time that he visited,
Speaker 1: and I don't think that's that's much different now. And
Speaker 1: you have basically this sort of very old town clustered
Speaker 1: around a little hill and at the very top of
Speaker 1: the hill, and it's a small hill, you know, it's
Speaker 1: not a big, sprawling hill. It's a small kind of
Speaker 1: round hill and on the very top of it is
Speaker 1: the cathedral, so you can see it from miles and
Speaker 1: miles around. And the old part of the town is
Speaker 1: also mostly very old building, sort of stone built building,
Speaker 1: some of them dating back to the fifteen hundreds or whatever,
Speaker 1: so really old. And so you kind of walk up
Speaker 1: through winding streets and it's when you get to the
Speaker 1: top of the hill that there is the cathedral, and
Speaker 1: I think parts of it are Romanesque, so yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean pretty old, and then sort of later bits grafted on.
Speaker 1: So there's a little square in front of it, which
Speaker 1: is very very sleepy. I mean, I wouldn't say that
Speaker 1: it was decayed so much when when I visited, it's
Speaker 1: just very very quiet. There was a nice little hotel
Speaker 1: there with kind of some chairs and umbrellas outside, but
Speaker 1: very sleepy. Um. And then a kind of a square
Speaker 1: in front of the church. You go up to the
Speaker 1: church and there's there's a big door with a stone
Speaker 1: kind of stone archway outside it, and a nice carving
Speaker 1: that you can see on the way in showing and
Speaker 1: eyes are being with the money bag being swallowed up
Speaker 1: by some kind of horrible monster or something, so you know,
Speaker 1: and a nice reminder as you go into church, I
Speaker 1: guess to to behave yourself. And then once you get
Speaker 1: inside the church, it's quite an extraordinary place because although
Speaker 1: a lot of churches of that age had their rude
Speaker 1: screens removed, so that's kind of a piece of internal
Speaker 1: architecture that originally separated um, kind of the general public
Speaker 1: and the sort of in inverted commas, more important people
Speaker 1: who were taking part in the ceremonies. Um. That that's
Speaker 1: been removed in a lot of churches now so you
Speaker 1: don't often see them, but there there still is one,
Speaker 1: and in fact there's an entire kind of wooden church
Speaker 1: inside the stone one. So you've got this um, this
Speaker 1: kind of wooden chancel that was built I think by
Speaker 1: Bishop gen de molion Um. And if you go inside that,
Speaker 1: it's kind of completely enclosed area made out of polished
Speaker 1: woods with a kind of mad number of carvings everywhere,
Speaker 1: and there's all sorts of things. There's Adam and Eve,
Speaker 1: there's there's demons, there's um, there's skulls. There's somebody having
Speaker 1: his bottom smacked with a bunch of birch twigs. I
Speaker 1: don't know what that one was about, um, and just
Speaker 1: all sorts of stuff like that as well. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's an absolute profusion. You could just look at it
Speaker 1: for ages. UM. Outside that there's also a massive great
Speaker 1: church organ up against one wall, and that I believe
Speaker 1: at the time that Mr James visited was in a
Speaker 1: very dilapidated state, but in the nineties seventies it was
Speaker 1: restored m and they now have an organ festival there
Speaker 1: every year so you can go and listen to fantastic
Speaker 1: church music inside there. Did you get to hear it? Um?
Speaker 1: You know, I don't think anybody was playing it when
Speaker 1: we went. I've thought about that, um, as I said,
Speaker 1: and it was it was seventeen years ago that I visited,
Speaker 1: so so I have to think a little bit about
Speaker 1: about some of the things I saw. But one of
Speaker 1: the things that I noticed when I was in there
Speaker 1: was the accoup sticks inside, and I think that if
Speaker 1: there had been music playing, I would remember it because
Speaker 1: of that. There's a bit in the story where where
Speaker 1: Denniston is kind of thinking about the environment he's in
Speaker 1: and kind of slightly uneasy about it, and he says
Speaker 1: that from time to time he can hear sort of
Speaker 1: footsteps and voices and stuff like that. And one of
Speaker 1: the things I noticed was that when you're in that church,
Speaker 1: you can't hear anything from outside at all, nothing because
Speaker 1: they're very, very sick stone walls. But inside, um, there's
Speaker 1: such great acoustics that, you know, a footfall sounds like
Speaker 1: a gunshot. So whatever he was hearing in the story
Speaker 1: was coming from inside the church. So if he thought
Speaker 1: he heard kind of rustling and footsteps and stuff, you know,
Speaker 1: it wasn't. It wasn't from outside. It was something inside
Speaker 1: with him. He says, something like hushed voices and muffled
Speaker 1: footfalls and all the strange sounds that plagued an old
Speaker 1: building exactly, So that would all have been inside with him.
Speaker 1: He does call the Oregon Dilopida the two there's a yeah,
Speaker 1: I think he does. Yeah, it's the wooden Church is
Speaker 1: like inside of the stone Church. Yes, yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: I'm not an expert on on on church history, though
Speaker 1: I'm interested in it, but I think that it would
Speaker 1: have been kind of the officials of the church who
Speaker 1: were inside, and the choir as well, because there's choir
Speaker 1: stalls and stuff like that. Um. And at the point
Speaker 1: where other churches were having to take this sort of
Speaker 1: stuff out because it wasn't considered inclusive, what they did
Speaker 1: instead was to put in another altar outside that so that, um,
Speaker 1: you know, so that it wasn't necessary to destroy anything
Speaker 1: for people to take part in in the whole service. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So so, so that is why it's remained intact. I'm
Speaker 1: trying to think if there's any other features that particularly
Speaker 1: stuck out. There's the there's a tomb of Hugh de Castillon,
Speaker 1: which is probably the only really fine tomb inside the church,
Speaker 1: and that's kind of a gothic thing, kind of white marble,
Speaker 1: with him sort of lying there in state with a
Speaker 1: sort of canopy thing over his head and under his feet.
Speaker 1: There's a dragon. I think it's eating a little dog
Speaker 1: or something. Which is it? Mean? Um, and that, if anything,
Speaker 1: might have inspired canon all bricks tomb in the story,
Speaker 1: because you know that that doesn't in fact exist. Well, uh,
Speaker 1: what is that? Two? You can see the figure? Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: it's one of these ones that has a kind of
Speaker 1: a figure line on top, so it almost looks like
Speaker 1: there's a kind of um, sort of a table or
Speaker 1: a box or something other with carvings all around the side,
Speaker 1: and then on the top there's a figure lining there
Speaker 1: with I think with folded hands and kind of a
Speaker 1: Gothic canopy over the top and these animals under his feet. Wow. There, No,
Speaker 1: that's not the you know, I grew up in non
Speaker 1: denominational American churches. We don't have those sorts of things
Speaker 1: that really used process. Um. Yeah, that's and and and
Speaker 1: one of the things you wrote about in your article
Speaker 1: is that there's this there's this blending of like, um,
Speaker 1: Christian and Catholic iconography and then uh, like pagan carvings
Speaker 1: and figures and things mixed in, right, Yeah, and that
Speaker 1: that is a very strange thing. And you know, it's
Speaker 1: still I find that difficult to get my head around. Um.
Speaker 1: Apparently Bishop jen considered himself a humanist. Um. And and
Speaker 1: that's genderman who's feature who Actually he's a real person
Speaker 1: that features in the story. He doesn't feature in the story.
Speaker 1: The person that features in the story is a fictional
Speaker 1: member of the family called Ulberick. But they I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: but they mentioned him as a descendant of Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: but he doesn't. I mean that that's as far as
Speaker 1: he features. But but yes, yeah, he was. He was
Speaker 1: a real person. But there are various sort of characters
Speaker 1: in there, including rather weirdly, Julius Caesar. I mean, nobody
Speaker 1: really knows why that is. Because humanists sometimes considered that
Speaker 1: Pagans could be considered, in a way kind of Christian
Speaker 1: if they had the right sort of point of view
Speaker 1: where you could interpret sort of what they said as being,
Speaker 1: you know, a search for Christian truth or whatever, then okay,
Speaker 1: you know, we're going to count these good people as Christians.
Speaker 1: But you know, Julius Caesar, that was stretching it a bit,
Speaker 1: So nobody really knows why that was. But yeah, there's
Speaker 1: there's there's a lot of these images inside the church.
Speaker 1: I think there's actually the labors of Heracles as well,
Speaker 1: So you know, it's hard to know how those fit in. Okay,
Speaker 1: what about the crocodile. I know you you're already bright
Speaker 1: and up. It's hard. It's hard to ms the crack
Speaker 1: and it just it just is a blip in the story,
Speaker 1: like he doesn't explain the crocodile at all. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: crocodile is one of um, I believe nine crocodiles which
Speaker 1: are preserved in churches in France. Um. And you know,
Speaker 1: according to the local legends saying Bertrand is supposed to
Speaker 1: have seen off a crocodile which lived in a nearby
Speaker 1: river and which was picking off all the young women
Speaker 1: of the town when they went down there to are
Speaker 1: supposed to do the washing whenever else they were doing. Um.
Speaker 1: And he went down to confront the crocodile, armed only
Speaker 1: with his crosier and kind of hit it on the
Speaker 1: snout or whatever, after which it became as quiet as
Speaker 1: a lamb. And I think they're supposed to have followed
Speaker 1: him back to the church and died or something like
Speaker 1: some such thing. Um. Anyway, this this is the local legend,
Speaker 1: and there is in fact a fairly modern painting in
Speaker 1: the church that shows this as well. But in actual fact,
Speaker 1: it's more probable that the crocodile was originally brought back
Speaker 1: from the Holy Land as a kind of souvenir, and
Speaker 1: that's why there was a number of churches in France
Speaker 1: that have them because of that. And it's a stuffed
Speaker 1: crocodile that's hanging, it says, hanging over the fine I
Speaker 1: think in the but you say it's not there, it's not. No,
Speaker 1: it's actually kind of attached to the wall. Um, and
Speaker 1: it wasn't particularly close to the font. But of course
Speaker 1: I don't know me as because it's possible they could
Speaker 1: have relocated the font since um since Samul James visited.
Speaker 1: But having looked at the book by our friend Baron
Speaker 1: Louis Um, the crocodile has always been there since in
Speaker 1: that position, since before m R James visited, So I
Speaker 1: don't think that it's been moved since then. I think
Speaker 1: it's always been where it was. We're talking about stuff
Speaker 1: cracked that I'm like picturing like kind of like that
Speaker 1: quite as large as life like thing that you would
Speaker 1: win like a you know, at the midway at a carnival,
Speaker 1: Like it's kind of cute that's just what's in my head,
Speaker 1: like a stuffed crocodile. What is it? Is it bigger?
Speaker 1: Is it scarier? It is quite big, and I mean
Speaker 1: it does look like a real crocodile. It's not cute looking,
Speaker 1: and it's not that small really. Um. I mean I
Speaker 1: remember last year, rather bizarrely, I was staying in an
Speaker 1: airbnb in Nuremberg at all places, and they had they
Speaker 1: had a small one in there, but I mean that
Speaker 1: was sort of you know, this long, it was about
Speaker 1: two or three ft long. But the one in command
Speaker 1: is a really big crocodile um and yeah, and quite
Speaker 1: scaly looking. So there is always the question of whether
Speaker 1: there was a painting like the one which Mr James
Speaker 1: describes in the story showing um st Bertran liberating a
Speaker 1: man whom the devil had long sought to strangle, and
Speaker 1: that that doesn't seem to actually exist. I spent a
Speaker 1: long time in the church trying to decide whether any
Speaker 1: of the paintings there could have inspired it. And there
Speaker 1: was a large one behind where the altar now is,
Speaker 1: which was very sort of large, dark looking painting, but
Speaker 1: that didn't have that particular subject. Did I think have
Speaker 1: Saint Bertra. But but he isn't sort of rescuing somebody
Speaker 1: from a demon or anything like that. So I think
Speaker 1: that's invention. Um it's such an embargative phrase because it's like,
Speaker 1: what do you picture for that the guy whom the
Speaker 1: devil long sought to strangle? Yeah, something very Gothic. I
Speaker 1: really imagine something, something quite nasty. But also I think
Speaker 1: the fact that the painting is is very kind of
Speaker 1: dark and obscure is good because that's the sort of
Speaker 1: thing which if you saw it clearly, would probably just
Speaker 1: be ludicrous, but if you see it hinted at, it's
Speaker 1: quite unpleasant. But I mean, whilst I was looking to
Speaker 1: see whether there was really was a painting like that,
Speaker 1: I also looked at the there's a kind of a
Speaker 1: big reliequery to St. Bertrand which is right behind the altar,
Speaker 1: and that has a lot of paintings on it. But
Speaker 1: I didn't think that was such a good candidate. I mean,
Speaker 1: it does have some of his miracles on there, though
Speaker 1: not that particular one, but there's dozens of them, so
Speaker 1: it wasn't one big pitch. So but I mean I
Speaker 1: looked at it, so I suppose you your project is
Speaker 1: kind of finding the line like where the fiction been starts.
Speaker 1: What's so amazing about him, though, I suppose, is that
Speaker 1: it's almost close to meta fiction in the sense that
Speaker 1: the real and the fictional are so closely entwined in
Speaker 1: some of the stories that you can't really pick them apart.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm going to veer off Cannon Aubrick scrapbook
Speaker 1: for a second here and returned to the Treasure of
Speaker 1: Abbot Thomas. But at the beginning of that story there's
Speaker 1: this massive, great long quotation in Latin which is supposed
Speaker 1: to come from particular particular book, the certain Norbertinum I
Speaker 1: think it is or something other from Steinfeld Abbey's library,
Speaker 1: and the library has long been lost. But very very
Speaker 1: early in the twentieth century, when this story was first
Speaker 1: translated into German and somebody in Germany read read the
Speaker 1: story for the first time, they thought that he really
Speaker 1: had read a book from Steinfeld Abbey with with this
Speaker 1: in it. It was so convincing and so um. You
Speaker 1: know that the language was so right and the title
Speaker 1: was right. I mean St. Norbert, who the book was
Speaker 1: named after, is the local saint. So it was so
Speaker 1: convincing that they wrote to him and amongst other things,
Speaker 1: asked where he'd seen this book, you know. And the
Speaker 1: weird thing as well, is that's the story that has
Speaker 1: all these other sort of errors in the sense that
Speaker 1: steinfeld Abbey isn't the way that he imagined it. So
Speaker 1: there's all these sort of things kind of mixed in together,
Speaker 1: and sometimes it's really really difficult to tease apart which things,
Speaker 1: which things are true, which things are imagined. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think that that that's the wonderful thing about them really is,
Speaker 1: is they are so very convincing, even the bits which
Speaker 1: which are touchingly true. I can imagine this scenario where
Speaker 1: MRJ is like the end of the day, he's done
Speaker 1: his whatever, his college work, and he's sitting there at
Speaker 1: his desk and he's smoking his half a pipe and whatever,
Speaker 1: and his musing about, you know, what fiction projects, you know,
Speaker 1: what he wants to dream up, And so many of
Speaker 1: them seemed like the starting places, like what about my
Speaker 1: there's this really cool like document or a picture or
Speaker 1: a book or like piece of a famway that like
Speaker 1: I wish I could see, And I don't think I'll
Speaker 1: ever get too, because I don't think it exists anymore,
Speaker 1: but like what if it did? Yeah, I agree, and
Speaker 1: I mean, I think the other thing I like about
Speaker 1: them is that there's often a very good internal logic
Speaker 1: and into the stories. And that's partly because he does
Speaker 1: use things like that. He uses things that, though um,
Speaker 1: they may be prosaic, they're things like paintings and documents
Speaker 1: and archives and stuff. You know, they're real bits of evidence.
Speaker 1: Whereas if you have a story which is much more
Speaker 1: about people's feelings, you know, like I went into a
Speaker 1: creepy place and you know I felt uneasy, but I
Speaker 1: couldn't really say why. Um, that can also be unsettling,
Speaker 1: but it's unsettling a different sort of way. And I personally,
Speaker 1: as a reader, I find his use of internal logic
Speaker 1: is very satisfying. I believe his stories. They can sometimes
Speaker 1: be quiet, but but I do believe, and they convinced
Speaker 1: me quite as good, quite as good, quite as spooky.
Speaker 1: It is quite gives people anxiety in films and in audio,
Speaker 1: you don't you don't say anything for long enough, people
Speaker 1: started to freak out. I think I think it's interesting.
Speaker 1: Out of all his stories, the one that gives me
Speaker 1: the whim whams most is one which I don't know
Speaker 1: if you've read this one is called a neighbor's Landmark many.
Speaker 1: I was really proud of myself that I knew like
Speaker 1: three or four that you listed off the top and
Speaker 1: now you're it's fine. But the funny thing about that
Speaker 1: particular story is that it's full of people sort of
Speaker 1: saying and then this person told me this, and then
Speaker 1: they'll say, well again, and that person went off and
Speaker 1: found this out from this other person, And it's like
Speaker 1: a sort of some kind of Russian doll. You know,
Speaker 1: you're always going through the different layers, and I think
Speaker 1: that the whole story is actually being related to somebody
Speaker 1: by somebody else, And then they're relating that that they
Speaker 1: had stayed with somebody and their host had told them
Speaker 1: something and then gone off to check with somebody else,
Speaker 1: and that person who they'd gone to check with the
Speaker 1: related something that had happened to his mother. So you know,
Speaker 1: it's getting further and further and further away from actually
Speaker 1: being confronted by the ghost. And yet somehow, when the
Speaker 1: ghost appears, it's right in front of you. I don't
Speaker 1: know how where about James does that, but it's magical.
Speaker 1: You think how can that be all this here saying
Speaker 1: it's still that frightening. I've often wondered about that that
Speaker 1: that does seem to be you know that that seems
Speaker 1: like an extreme example of it. But this, this this
Speaker 1: Victorian ghost kind of conceder, you know, structural idea of
Speaker 1: like a lot of times there's a first person narrator
Speaker 1: that's telling you a story that was told to them,
Speaker 1: and within that story, there's like a story that's a
Speaker 1: piece of the story that's told to the person that's
Speaker 1: telling the story that told to the narrator, and that
Speaker 1: can go and what you're saying sounds amazing that he
Speaker 1: just like recognize that just like to get I've often
Speaker 1: wondered why that has been implemented so much, especially in
Speaker 1: like British Victorian ghost stories, and like why it's so
Speaker 1: effective or if it is so effective, I wonder whether
Speaker 1: it doesn't share something a bit with the urban legend,
Speaker 1: because you know, the urban legends that we still tell
Speaker 1: now are always like that, they always happened to somebody
Speaker 1: else who's who's closely associated with us, but not quite
Speaker 1: close enough that you can actually finger the person that
Speaker 1: it was. So it's always you know, I had a
Speaker 1: friend who said her boyfriend's cousin had this happened? You know,
Speaker 1: it's never actually somebody said, well it was me, you
Speaker 1: know I was there this happened, you know, as there
Speaker 1: maybe sort of an element of that. I mean, another
Speaker 1: one that I can think of is personal Langdon story
Speaker 1: Firmly Abbey, which if you haven't read that, you can
Speaker 1: you can read it online. But that is really incredibly frightening.
Speaker 1: And that is that is related by somebody who's saying
Speaker 1: I think he asks if he can share somebody's cabin
Speaker 1: when they're the sea voyage, and the other blokespit like,
Speaker 1: well you know, I haven't got your own, um, and
Speaker 1: he says, well, you know, I can't sleep on my
Speaker 1: own anymore, and this is why. And then he explains
Speaker 1: and um, yeah, so I think it can work really well,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's it generates all this that sort of
Speaker 1: layered storytelling generates all these nice moments in Canada albrick
Speaker 1: because um, all of the characters really are fiercely pragmatic, like, um,
Speaker 1: you know, like it'll you drop you drop out of
Speaker 1: Denniston story for a second. You're talking to m M.
Speaker 1: R James is kind of talking. It's like I showed
Speaker 1: this picture like to a friend of mine once and
Speaker 1: like they're like super sane, Like they're super unimaginative. But
Speaker 1: like he couldn't even he wouldn't let be alone. He wouldn't,
Speaker 1: you know. So um And and also the way that
Speaker 1: you can sort of detach from the beat by beat
Speaker 1: the timeline of the plot for a second and be
Speaker 1: like we're gonna have to describe this part of the photo.
Speaker 1: And man, it's also he's got like the longest descriptions
Speaker 1: of paintings, uh, you know, just the longest descriptions of
Speaker 1: single documents, the mesitants and other great example of it
Speaker 1: that I feel like few authors could really pull off.
Speaker 1: But like he obviously like has the cred the ability
Speaker 1: to do it and also make it like really compelling
Speaker 1: as it's happening, yeah in Canada. But those are the
Speaker 1: parts that I reread over and over. It's like because
Speaker 1: there's so much in them, and the first time you
Speaker 1: read you don't even realize like how much how many
Speaker 1: clues and mysteries there are in every little piece of description.
Speaker 1: I think this is the thing, And often it's the
Speaker 1: little tiny bits that kind of stick with you. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think with For example, another of his stories, Casting
Speaker 1: the Rooms, there's a bit where the evil Mr Carswell
Speaker 1: is showing a magic lantern show to some children with
Speaker 1: the aim of really ultimately and frightening them off trespassing
Speaker 1: on his country estate. And he shows them all these
Speaker 1: horrible pictures and and they're getting nasty as they go along.
Speaker 1: And then there's one which the children clearly recognize as
Speaker 1: a small boy walking through Mr Carswell's estate, and he's
Speaker 1: pursued and it says and somehow made away with by
Speaker 1: a horrible hopping creature in white. And this thing is
Speaker 1: never more clearly seen than that. But I think, and
Speaker 1: why is it so unpleasant? And I can't even quite
Speaker 1: put my finger on it. The fact that it's hopping,
Speaker 1: I mean, that ought to be ludicrous, but it isn't.
Speaker 1: There's something so unnatural about that, you know, because if
Speaker 1: if it were really kind of I don't know, a
Speaker 1: monster or something, wouldn't it be running on all fours
Speaker 1: or something like that. But it's not. There's this horrible
Speaker 1: sort of lopsided, sort of flopping kind of image of
Speaker 1: it which is really unpleasant. I mean, you have this
Speaker 1: like you have a stack of books behind you, and
Speaker 1: there's like one the one decoration. You don't have a
Speaker 1: stuff cracking up. You have as like a ceramic bunny,
Speaker 1: I think, And so I was thinking, big horrible scary
Speaker 1: easter bunny. Yeah, that we're very hopping. It's the uncanny, right,
Speaker 1: you know. It's it's like just you just can't quite
Speaker 1: put your finger on it. It's also it's very very understated.
Speaker 1: I mean, when the ghost finally appears in a neighbor's landmark,
Speaker 1: it said that is describing how how this this old
Speaker 1: guy's mother always used to have to come back through
Speaker 1: the woods in the evening with the milk that she
Speaker 1: got from a nearby farm, and that she would never
Speaker 1: send any of the children in case they got a fright,
Speaker 1: because she knew perfectly well what it was in the woods.
Speaker 1: And and the narrator said, well, you know, did she
Speaker 1: never see anything? And and the other one says, well,
Speaker 1: she said, only but the once when she came back
Speaker 1: through the wood on the darkest evening it had ever been,
Speaker 1: and she and when she heard the rustling in the bushes,
Speaker 1: she felt compelled to look behind her, and she saw
Speaker 1: something coming on very all in tatters, coming on very
Speaker 1: I think was it with the two arms held out
Speaker 1: in front of it, coming on very fast? And with
Speaker 1: that she ran for the style and told her Flynn
Speaker 1: her gown to Flint isn't getting over it. We're slightly
Speaker 1: misquoted that, I think, But um, but the idea of
Speaker 1: just this thing coming on very fast. It's not running,
Speaker 1: it's almost kind of gliding, and with the two arms
Speaker 1: held out in front of it, I think it's reaching
Speaker 1: for her, But it doesn't say that. If it said,
Speaker 1: you know, it was it was running at her at
Speaker 1: high speed with its arms out, that wouldn't be scary.
Speaker 1: But the idea that it's coming on very fast, that
Speaker 1: really gives me the creeps. The language is expert, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's really good. I love it when there's really long
Speaker 1: Latin passages. That sounded super I should cut that cup.
Speaker 1: That's not a break super stup. But it just I
Speaker 1: don't know Latin, but I just especially hearing it Red
Speaker 1: hearing his audiobooks and things. I just love it when
Speaker 1: there's all this long Latin and then it's like, this
Speaker 1: is what the Latin said, and then you just be
Speaker 1: lying to me every time. But I just I completely
Speaker 1: drink the kool and I just buy it. I'm hearing
Speaker 1: some ancient things that I'm not supposed to know about.
Speaker 1: I've got this like esoteric information. It's it's super cool.
Speaker 1: It's like you're in on this joke or you're like
Speaker 1: in on this like elite club of like oh, those
Speaker 1: are the things that people talk about in like the
Speaker 1: back rooms. It's like bridge. You know. It's funny though,
Speaker 1: because I mean, I'm one of the few probably for dinosaurs,
Speaker 1: that did actually do Greek and Latin at University that
Speaker 1: Oxford many years ago. Um, so yeah, I can vouch
Speaker 1: for the fact that that that the Latin is what
Speaker 1: he says it is. I mean, I I like it
Speaker 1: when he uses these documents because it adds authenticity to
Speaker 1: the story for me. And um, I mean, if I
Speaker 1: can draw a comparison, another person that does this is
Speaker 1: is Henry Rider Haggard. His his novel She, which was
Speaker 1: made into a Hollywood film very successfully. Um, that begins
Speaker 1: with a whole load of documents like this, which is
Speaker 1: supposedly sort of documenting events over time. And I think
Speaker 1: there's one of them in Greek and one of them
Speaker 1: in Latin and something else in I don't know, world,
Speaker 1: Old English or Anglo Saxon or something. And you know,
Speaker 1: I think this is a huge thing for anybody to
Speaker 1: wade through, and modern audiences probably wouldn't stand for it,
Speaker 1: but I personally like it because I think that it
Speaker 1: says to me that I'm on this journey too. If
Speaker 1: I can only decide for these things, and I'll understand
Speaker 1: the secret, and I love that. I think it's great
Speaker 1: to me. I mean haunting, hauntings and extended into possessions
Speaker 1: and other kinds of sort of supernatural phenomenon. I think
Speaker 1: I think of them as very specific to place, specific
Speaker 1: to objects like this was the house that you know,
Speaker 1: I lived in five years ago and I died here,
Speaker 1: and this place is imbued with with with you know,
Speaker 1: a sense of me whatever, a trace of of of me,
Speaker 1: even though I'm gone. I mean literally, that's true, and
Speaker 1: then you take it into whatever you're in the direction
Speaker 1: you want. But that's like specific to this place, or
Speaker 1: it's specific to that church, or it's specific to that
Speaker 1: you know, that photograph or that painting or that um
Speaker 1: And that's really where it gets me. And that's what,
Speaker 1: you know why I think the level of specificity and
Speaker 1: the sort of dexteriority with which he describes objects in places,
Speaker 1: and the texture and the powerability of them can be
Speaker 1: you know, it can feed so much into that horror.
Speaker 1: So I totally agree. And I mean, having having having
Speaker 1: visited some of his story locations, I think that's very true.
Speaker 1: I mean they're all very very evocative places. I mean,
Speaker 1: even v Borg. And when I went to v bl
Speaker 1: to to see the supposed um site of the story
Speaker 1: number thirteen, I think it was a big shop there now,
Speaker 1: and they were very surprised when I went in. There
Speaker 1: was some very nice young MANU. I don't really speak
Speaker 1: any Danish at all, so I had to sort of
Speaker 1: start off by saying, I'm terribly sorry, I don't speak Danish.
Speaker 1: Said that no, no, no, I said it in English,
Speaker 1: really really pitiful, and I had to just apologize and
Speaker 1: said like, I'm really sorry, but I can I ask
Speaker 1: you about this. And they were super friendly and super nice.
Speaker 1: But I mean, it was a fashion shop now, But
Speaker 1: in spite of that, the town itself was well chosen.
Speaker 1: You could tell that that, you know, notwithstanding how it
Speaker 1: is now, you could still feel the ancientness of it
Speaker 1: and the history um, you know it was a super place.
Speaker 1: Did come on just give you the creeps at all?
Speaker 1: It's that really super creepy in this story. I wouldn't
Speaker 1: say the town itself. It's I think like sleepy is
Speaker 1: the word. I think. I don't know that he uses
Speaker 1: the word sleep but I think I got that from
Speaker 1: your article. But I feel like that's the feeling I
Speaker 1: get from the James story. I didn't find it super creepy.
Speaker 1: It was very atmospheric. Because we walked around it after
Speaker 1: dark and because it was so quiet there was there
Speaker 1: was there was bats flitting through the streets and this
Speaker 1: sort of thing. You could you could see them overhead
Speaker 1: and you could because the night air was very clear,
Speaker 1: you could hear cow belts from a long distance. And yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, it's very very atmospheric. And I remember looking
Speaker 1: out of the hotel window, I think we stayed at Lopidom,
Speaker 1: which is one of the two hotels there, and looking
Speaker 1: out of the back window and you could see kind
Speaker 1: of the moon above the cathedral and it was very
Speaker 1: very atmospheric. But I can't say that I felt afraid
Speaker 1: in any way. I mean, I didn't go into the
Speaker 1: church and think, well, this strikes me is essentially a
Speaker 1: nasty place. I mean, I've been into churches which have
Speaker 1: given me the creeps big time. When we were in
Speaker 1: France some years not France, Spain some years ago, we
Speaker 1: went into one I think it was a cathedral at Gerona,
Speaker 1: and that um, you know, I couldn't get out of
Speaker 1: there fast enough really that that was really creepy. I
Speaker 1: mean they had things like a giant glass coffin with
Speaker 1: a wax effigy of a dead person inside, and they
Speaker 1: had this enormous I think it was an altar piece
Speaker 1: or something or other that went right up into sort
Speaker 1: of the darkness of the ceiling with all these sort
Speaker 1: of tumbled figures carved out of dark wood, and everything
Speaker 1: was just really creepy and gothic. And I didn't feel
Speaker 1: comfortable in there. But I didn't feel like that in
Speaker 1: in St. Bert under Commanity. It's actually, you know, the
Speaker 1: church there is quite nice. I feel like there's definitely
Speaker 1: like a listener base that will be like, Yo, where's
Speaker 1: that church in Spain? I really want to go. Who
Speaker 1: is sat bertrand what is he? What is his steal um? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I mean I think he's he was a local guy.
Speaker 1: I think his main sort of local miracle was the
Speaker 1: crocodile one. He was bertrandle Jordan, who became St. Bertrand.
Speaker 1: And I think that the church dates to his lifetime,
Speaker 1: the first part of the church, so it's the twelfth century. Um.
Speaker 1: But I don't know what his other miracles were, to
Speaker 1: be honest, I probably ought to know. In the church,
Speaker 1: there's a whole series of kind of pictures on the
Speaker 1: altar which show on his relique cory rather behind the altar,
Speaker 1: which which showed the various kind of events of his
Speaker 1: life and stuff like that. Um so so yes, in
Speaker 1: that sense, he's very very present. Like locally he's kind
Speaker 1: of the guy in command, but like at this sort
Speaker 1: of Catholic church at large, he's not really like a
Speaker 1: figure that people talk about. Um No, I guess not.
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess there's there's a lot kind of
Speaker 1: bigger saints, but I mean locally he's very very big.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's still quite a lot of people called
Speaker 1: either Bertrand or if they're female, Bertond there even now, right,
Speaker 1: you met a Bertrand somewhere I think while you were there, right, yeah, now,
Speaker 1: this this is this is altogether a bit strange, and
Speaker 1: this is one of these things which is entirely based
Speaker 1: on hearsay, but it is the best information that I had.
Speaker 1: So whilst I was whilst I was touring the cathedral,
Speaker 1: I spoke to the then cathedral guides, whose name were
Speaker 1: Jacques Marrere and Gerard Cluz and they had both retired
Speaker 1: by two thousand and nine. I have a feeling that
Speaker 1: one or both of them may have died by now,
Speaker 1: and I tried to check that up before before this podcast,
Speaker 1: but I wasn't able to find any information about about
Speaker 1: that at all. Um Anyway, I chatted with them entirely
Speaker 1: in French because neither of them spoke English or any
Speaker 1: rate wasn't going to admit to being after speak English,
Speaker 1: so there's sometimes a difference. Anyway, I chatted with them
Speaker 1: and I told them why I was there, and somewhat
Speaker 1: to my surprise, they had actually heard of m R
Speaker 1: James and they didn't know about the story because you know,
Speaker 1: sometimes you go to locations and people don't know about
Speaker 1: him because he's a very English writer, so you know,
Speaker 1: they may not have anywhere they had heard of him.
Speaker 1: And I said to them that amongst other things. I
Speaker 1: was trying to find out where this this house was
Speaker 1: that the sacristan is supposed to be living in in
Speaker 1: the story. And they identified it as the former episcopal
Speaker 1: palace that was occupied by a family called Rixen's, which
Speaker 1: is a very very local name there. And they said
Speaker 1: that a painter called Bertrand Rixons so again that that
Speaker 1: name Bertrand had painted, had painted this picture that's inside
Speaker 1: the church that shows St. Bertrand and the crocodile um,
Speaker 1: and that he had met him L. James when he
Speaker 1: was there and had almost certainly taken him back to
Speaker 1: his to give him I don't know whatever the equivalent
Speaker 1: of a cup of teas you know, glass of kognac
Speaker 1: or something. Um. And so that was probably the place
Speaker 1: in the story. Um. But this this is really not
Speaker 1: verifiable at all. I mean I've tried. I mean since
Speaker 1: then things have moved on a bit. I mean, this
Speaker 1: was what sort of thirteen years ago or whatever, So no,
Speaker 1: seventeen years ago actually two thousand and four um. And
Speaker 1: so I've tried googling it and tried to find out
Speaker 1: more about it, but I just haven't been able to.
Speaker 1: There was another painter of the surname Rixon's, who was
Speaker 1: far more celebrated, who was also involved in the church
Speaker 1: in the area. But I don't think that was him. Um.
Speaker 1: He doesn't have the same first name. I think his
Speaker 1: name was Jean Um and his work, which I've also seen,
Speaker 1: was far more sophisticated. So I'm pretty sure he didn't
Speaker 1: do the thing in the church. UM. But this other
Speaker 1: guy there's there seems to be no trace of him,
Speaker 1: and the only work that he did was local commissions.
Speaker 1: So I only had the guide's words for it that
Speaker 1: this is even true. Um. But on the other hand,
Speaker 1: there is no better information. I mean that was seventeen
Speaker 1: years ago. Um. The guys have both retired now. UM.
Speaker 1: I read a report in UM in one of the
Speaker 1: French newspapers about this when when the second one retired,
Speaker 1: and um it said rather snarkily that that the place
Speaker 1: was now being manned by una kit to feminize a
Speaker 1: team that's now been completely feminized because there was there's
Speaker 1: three women now running the tourist, the tour guide's office
Speaker 1: or whatever. So yes, shock horror, women doing the drab
Speaker 1: um anyway, so have hunted or a pressed manner, not
Speaker 1: at all. I've seen pictures of them. There's three of them, um,
Speaker 1: and the two younger ones looked quite cheerful, and there
Speaker 1: was one sort of slightly more disgruntled looking older lady.
Speaker 1: But no, none of them looked looked at all haunted.
Speaker 1: But but you know they're a lot younger. So um yeah,
Speaker 1: so so, so that link with these earlier guides, I
Speaker 1: guess is gone. I mean, they knew so much that
Speaker 1: wasn't in any of guide books, and I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean that struck me as very much kind of
Speaker 1: what some of the trips I've done have almost been
Speaker 1: about is getting the best truth that you can. I mean,
Speaker 1: if it is never possible to get any more information
Speaker 1: and that and then that is my my best sort
Speaker 1: of guess on on where the Sacristan's house was, But
Speaker 1: it is based on here say, there's no way to
Speaker 1: to verify it at all. I did, in fact, knowing
Speaker 1: that I was going to be on this podcast, I
Speaker 1: did try emailing the cathedral and asking them if the
Speaker 1: painting is still there and whether they could confirm the
Speaker 1: name of the person that painted it, because I thought
Speaker 1: maybe there's a signature on it, you know, that would
Speaker 1: help a little bit but I haven't had a reply,
Speaker 1: so so if I can put it all together, I'm
Speaker 1: like totally willing to just buy it. I know you
Speaker 1: have to do, you have to have other evidence, and
Speaker 1: God bless you for it. Um m R. James himself
Speaker 1: goes to Commands in like eight or eight and he's
Speaker 1: in there and he's looking around and he's maybe dreaming
Speaker 1: about this story, maybe he don't thought of it yet,
Speaker 1: and he sees this painting that's really new then, right,
Speaker 1: this of this of Saint Bridgeman and the crocodile. Maybe
Speaker 1: he doesn't even see the painting, maybe just gets chatting
Speaker 1: to the painter. I mean, I'm not sure when the
Speaker 1: painting dates too. It's a he's a contemporary of James, right,
Speaker 1: and he's a contemporary, so he's there. I mean, maybe
Speaker 1: he's hanging around the square in front of the hotel
Speaker 1: to command looking for some tourist to pestor who knows.
Speaker 1: They're both in there and they're just soaking an inspiration
Speaker 1: because they both did work, you know, from this place. Anyways,
Speaker 1: they get hanging out, he says, come back, and James like,
Speaker 1: you got some teas, like I've got knyak. They go
Speaker 1: back to this, you know, a house that's maybe around
Speaker 1: the corner. You you you went to the house where
Speaker 1: you think, Yes, yeah, I did and photograph the outside
Speaker 1: of it, but I couldn't go in. I asked about it.
Speaker 1: And after Bertrand Rickson's died, allegedly the house passed past
Speaker 1: to a nephew of his and who since died because
Speaker 1: this was a long time ago, but his wife was
Speaker 1: still living in the house and they said, no, you
Speaker 1: can't bother her because she's very, very old. So that
Speaker 1: was a yeah, she's just really old. And then what
Speaker 1: were your your criteria or I mean the criteria friend James,
Speaker 1: of like, what this Sacriston's house needs to look like? Well,
Speaker 1: it needs to be a stone built house, though you
Speaker 1: know most of the ones in the older part of St.
Speaker 1: Bertrand Dab. But it also needed to be within walking
Speaker 1: distance of the other places in the story. I mean, clearly,
Speaker 1: it couldn't be right outside the town walls or anything,
Speaker 1: because if it was, it would be too far. Right.
Speaker 1: He literally walks out the door when the daughter has
Speaker 1: given him the cross and everything, and please let us
Speaker 1: walk you home to the hotel, and he's like, I
Speaker 1: can see it's yeah, he waves them from the steps. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and they just stand outside on their doorstep just watching him.
Speaker 1: So clearly it's it's close by. But the other thing
Speaker 1: is that I think there was supposed to be a
Speaker 1: coat of arms over the door, so that kind of
Speaker 1: narrowed it down a bit. And this episcopal palace did
Speaker 1: have one, but there was one or two other buildings
Speaker 1: in the town that did as well, so I had
Speaker 1: to kind of eliminate them or think why it would
Speaker 1: be this particular one. So yeah, but that's as far
Speaker 1: as it goes. Okay, no, but I'm going to suppose
Speaker 1: it like I'm just gonna suppose all the way through it.
Speaker 1: So m R James meets Bertrand however in the town
Speaker 1: or in the church, they have a hanging out there
Speaker 1: kicking it, and they go back to bertrand Rixon's house.
Speaker 1: The stone bill larger and that's it's a little larger
Speaker 1: than the other buildings. Rights that is that one of
Speaker 1: the qualifications. Yeah, it's fairly large. And he's in there
Speaker 1: having this conversation with this guy, and that's where that's
Speaker 1: where the the dream of this of this of this sacristana,
Speaker 1: his his daughter's house is going on? This is this
Speaker 1: is the location that he uses and imagines those characters into.
Speaker 1: You don't have to say that's true. You're not willing
Speaker 1: to go all the way out, And then it sure
Speaker 1: seems like pretty compelling. It's It's difficult, isn't it, Because
Speaker 1: I think, on the one hand, when I was writing
Speaker 1: the article, I have to stick to stuff that has
Speaker 1: evidence in it. But then there's how I feel about
Speaker 1: it myself, and in my own eyes, I think this
Speaker 1: is the candidate. You know, nowhere else was convincing me
Speaker 1: as being the sacristan's house. And I do think that
Speaker 1: it must have been based on a real place. I mean,
Speaker 1: with so many sort of likely places around the town,
Speaker 1: what would be that the or the need of Mr
Speaker 1: James to invent a place. I feel that it was
Speaker 1: a real one most of the time. If he visited somewhere,
Speaker 1: I think that he did, you know, base it on
Speaker 1: at least base it on something real. So yeah, it
Speaker 1: does seem to be his track record based on everything
Speaker 1: we've talked about. The hotel that he stays and is
Speaker 1: that an accident building? Um the Chapeau Rouge in story
Speaker 1: um so far as I could discover is a fiction.
Speaker 1: But that's only in the sense that he called it that.
Speaker 1: I mean, if he'd stayed, for example, at the Oppidum
Speaker 1: where we stayed and just called it the Chapeau Rouge.
Speaker 1: I mean, if I were writing something, that's probably what
Speaker 1: I would do, because you never know whether somebody's going
Speaker 1: to get annoyed if you write. You know, if your
Speaker 1: self written this horrific story and it's all written around
Speaker 1: your hotel. He doesn't really describe the hotel except for
Speaker 1: the the what does he call an innkeeper, Bruce? Yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 1: because it's it's obviously a female proprietor, because we never
Speaker 1: actually see see the male and there's various points at
Speaker 1: which I've sort of wondered the thing that appears to Denniston,
Speaker 1: there's a question mark could that be a female creature?
Speaker 1: Because when he hears something laughing, um, he says that
Speaker 1: he wishes that the landlad you would have a more
Speaker 1: cheerful laugh, which sort of suggests that it's quite a
Speaker 1: feminine sounding laugh, even if it's kind of grim. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of question marks that I never thought
Speaker 1: about that connection, because when he so later in this story,
Speaker 1: when he's at home and he's like looking over the
Speaker 1: scrap book, and he's knocking his pipe, refilling his pipe
Speaker 1: and just hanging out, and he's like, God, I wish
Speaker 1: that landlady would laugh in a more cheery way. And
Speaker 1: then earlier, when he's in the church, he he has
Speaker 1: the impression that he hears laughing high up in the
Speaker 1: rafters or wherever somewhere. I feel like I always interpreted
Speaker 1: that as female laughter, but I can't remember if he
Speaker 1: actually said at that point in the story, this sacristan
Speaker 1: says something like he he is laughing in the church
Speaker 1: or whatever, But I still felt that it was it
Speaker 1: was a little bit doubtful what the gender of the
Speaker 1: creature is. I mean, I wrote another article about about
Speaker 1: this particular story it went in which I went into
Speaker 1: this in great, great length trying to identify who or
Speaker 1: what the demon is. But I mean, there's another point
Speaker 1: in the story at which, um, I think Denniston says
Speaker 1: that the old man seems very nervous, to the extent
Speaker 1: that he thinks that it seems something worse than than
Speaker 1: a termagant wife, and that again as this sort of
Speaker 1: kind of feminine sort of attributes being applied to to
Speaker 1: whatever it is that he's frightened off. And that sort
Speaker 1: of said to me, is this, you know, is this
Speaker 1: a female creature? We don't really know. I mean later
Speaker 1: on when when the sacristan talks about the creature, he says,
Speaker 1: you know, he was laughing in the church, and he says,
Speaker 1: I think was it deur foige las vous millfige lais santi.
Speaker 1: So I've seen him twice, but I've felt him a
Speaker 1: thousand times. But all the French words for demon are
Speaker 1: all masculine, so it may well be that he only
Speaker 1: describes it as masculine there because of that, so question mark.
Speaker 1: M R. James's ghost stories generally, which which I absolutely love,
Speaker 1: are often quite soaked in a very masculine environment. And
Speaker 1: you know, I'm just not going to, I don't know,
Speaker 1: sort of argue with that at t I'm going to
Speaker 1: enjoy them for what they are. Yeah, you know, I'm
Speaker 1: certainly not as well read on M. R. James as you,
Speaker 1: but I have read and listened to a lot of
Speaker 1: his stories. I can't think of a tremendous amount of
Speaker 1: female characters. No, I mean there's some. I mean, I
Speaker 1: think in the Residents in in Whitminster, there's as I think,
Speaker 1: there's Mary Um and obviously there's sort of people in
Speaker 1: kind of walk on parts, I suppose, But but yeah,
Speaker 1: a lot of them are told from the point of
Speaker 1: view of men. But like, for instance, I like Algernon
Speaker 1: Blackwood a lot. He has some short and he's very
Speaker 1: different style of horror. But I find that he really
Speaker 1: doesn't write female character as well. When he does, they're
Speaker 1: often really kind of despicable or dumb, or or or
Speaker 1: even just sort of nonconsequent, you know, inconsequential, And I
Speaker 1: don't get that impression from Memory James. But I suppose
Speaker 1: they are kind of like a lot of like male studios,
Speaker 1: they're kind of like him. Yeah, I think that's true.
Speaker 1: I mean I think, um, I don't think any of
Speaker 1: the characters that he has, generally speaking, are offensively described.
Speaker 1: I mean, inasmuch as he was writing in the period
Speaker 1: that he was writing in, So you know, I suppose
Speaker 1: if you were going to get into arguing about the
Speaker 1: fact that you know that the women have the mole
Speaker 1: gender stereotypical roles or something, but I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: considering when it is, I don't think that he writes
Speaker 1: he writes offensively about any of them. But I think
Speaker 1: there's a certain there is a certain kind of distance
Speaker 1: or sort of handling with kid gloves that comes from
Speaker 1: somebody that maybe wasn't very confident around them. West drapped
Speaker 1: a bomb and stuff. It wasn't wasn't very comfortable around No,
Speaker 1: no confident, not not comfortable. I think maybe ne very
Speaker 1: confident around around women. Why do you think that? Well,
Speaker 1: I mean there's huge, huge chooge debates about his orientation, which, yeah,
Speaker 1: which I wouldn't really sort of enter in on because
Speaker 1: I'm not an expert enough on kind of the mynu
Speaker 1: show of his life. It's just my impression really from
Speaker 1: the way that he writes about the women in the
Speaker 1: stories that you know they're not they're not centered in it.
Speaker 1: It feels like very much a man's world. It's so interesting,
Speaker 1: you're just gonna just like say that, just move on.
Speaker 1: I was thinking, because I understand I take your point that, yeah,
Speaker 1: that that you don't want to wait all the winter
Speaker 1: as well, you know, maybe being an American and just
Speaker 1: not being in this scene. I like have only the
Speaker 1: faintest idea about how much conversation there is going on
Speaker 1: about m R. James, Like, I just sort of realized
Speaker 1: that the well that he's been adapted about a million
Speaker 1: times up for like the BBC TV radio all kinds
Speaker 1: of things that a ghost story for Christmas, the like
Speaker 1: annual BBC special those are like almost always M. R.
Speaker 1: James stories. It seems like, no, no, that's true. I
Speaker 1: mean he's he's incredibly popular here and incredibly well known here. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Have you ever heard a recording of him speaking? I
Speaker 1: tried to find one, and I haven't had any luck. Um,
Speaker 1: I don't think I have no, No, I'm not sure
Speaker 1: that there is one, and probably now you know, what
Speaker 1: will happen is fifteen million people writing and tell us
Speaker 1: that there is in fact one somewhere. But I've never
Speaker 1: heard one. I hope fifteen million people, because fifteen million
Speaker 1: right in, I wonder how many are listening. Um, yeah,
Speaker 1: please if you do. You know, I feel like he
Speaker 1: was old enough he lived. I don't know what when
Speaker 1: he died, but it was in the nineteen thirties. It
Speaker 1: was the thirties of lead. Yeah, so even if he
Speaker 1: was on something like radio, there's a probably big chance
Speaker 1: that it wasn't saved or record it anyway. But it
Speaker 1: never has No one ever walked up to him with
Speaker 1: a wax cylinder recordings. I guess not. I guess not. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they should have. They really should have. Who Yeah, who knows?
Speaker 1: Maybe in a family archive or something. That's something I
Speaker 1: would love to hear. Um this question has I have
Speaker 1: no way to sort of segue into this, I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna ask it he makes that he takes this moment
Speaker 1: in this story to be like the vergier or Sacristan.
Speaker 1: I'd prefer the later appellation, inaccurate as it. Maybe do
Speaker 1: you have a sense of what the those words are?
Speaker 1: Both were foreign to May before this story. Um M,
Speaker 1: now you've put me on the spot. Is that I
Speaker 1: can't tell you what the exact the exact subtle distinction
Speaker 1: between the mets, but I mean to me, um, a
Speaker 1: verge just sounds a bit more sort of prosaic, whereas
Speaker 1: the sacristan sounds a bit more it sounds a bit
Speaker 1: more archaic and a little bit more mysterious. But I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm sure that they probably are slightly different definitions for them.
Speaker 1: If you look them up in in a church dictionary
Speaker 1: or something, it's probably Yeah, it's probably super complicated to
Speaker 1: look at it, sound like a Merriam Webster, like the
Speaker 1: virguer does it to the left and the sacriston doesn't
Speaker 1: the right. If I type in verge or versus sagriston,
Speaker 1: do I get an article about it? We'll do a
Speaker 1: whole side pope. Now that's sure. There we go. We'll
Speaker 1: see if this makes sense as now is the difference
Speaker 1: between sacristan and verger is that sagriston is a sexton. Well,
Speaker 1: verger is one who carries the verge or emblem of office, right, okay,
Speaker 1: But the sexton I thought was usually somebody who's a
Speaker 1: grave digger. Yeah, okay. The sexton is the officer of
Speaker 1: a church congregational synagogue, charge with the maintenance of its
Speaker 1: buildings and all the surrounding graveyard. Okay, so I think
Speaker 1: sometimes they might be involved in digging grapes as well.
Speaker 1: If it's a smaller church that is kind of more mysterious.
Speaker 1: I think I think you hit the nail on the head.
Speaker 1: We need to talk about the scrap book a little bit.
Speaker 1: We haven't even talked about the scrap book. And it's
Speaker 1: the name of the story. Um hey, it's like it's
Speaker 1: just a pitch for a story like it's not the
Speaker 1: sexiest pitch, like, oh, it's wanted scrap book, but the
Speaker 1: scrap book is incredible, and it really it's that thing
Speaker 1: that I kind of was describing earlier that I I
Speaker 1: personally feel like it's this starting place for m R James,
Speaker 1: so many m R James story where it's like all
Speaker 1: these incredible rare thought to be lost, you know, like
Speaker 1: your wishless, your dream, the thing you lie in that
Speaker 1: he would lie in bed maybe and dream about these
Speaker 1: documents and of incredible origin, all bound together, he says.
Speaker 1: He even says that like Kennean Alburry probably like just
Speaker 1: sort of plundered it off from the church library at
Speaker 1: some point, because there's no library in tow anymore. He
Speaker 1: just like, you know, at some point went installed all
Speaker 1: the best bits and hoarded them all in a scrap book.
Speaker 1: They realized that wasn't a question. I just said, I
Speaker 1: just was telling you about this. No, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: I mean it's it's it's an interesting and quite attractive
Speaker 1: thought really. Because one of the things that that happened
Speaker 1: in Commanderes during the French Revolution, there was a bomb
Speaker 1: fire made of all of the episcopal papers so that's
Speaker 1: one of the reasons why sort of some elements of
Speaker 1: church history there are not that well known um And
Speaker 1: so the idea that somebody might have removed all the
Speaker 1: best bits and put them in a volume that had
Speaker 1: been hidden away somewhere is you know, it is a
Speaker 1: really marvelous idea, and I think there's probably a bit
Speaker 1: of wish fulfillment in that, you know, the idea that
Speaker 1: something would have survived. When we've slipping in the story
Speaker 1: of flipping through the book and he's describing all of
Speaker 1: these documents. You are ten illuminated manuscripts from Genesis, and
Speaker 1: do all of those things ring about? Do you kind
Speaker 1: of have meaning? You know what all those things mean
Speaker 1: that he's saying, yes, I do. But the thing that
Speaker 1: really drives me nuts is the bit where he where
Speaker 1: they take the book out or sort of it's it's
Speaker 1: wrapped up, and he's looking at it and he and
Speaker 1: he's thinking, you know, what can it possibly be? You know,
Speaker 1: can it be this? Can it be that? It's probably nothing,
Speaker 1: it's probably some you know, some stupid missile of plant
Speaker 1: in printing or whatever. And I think, yeah, igine, if
Speaker 1: I could go to commands and find something like that. Now,
Speaker 1: you know, because this is the thing, you know, a
Speaker 1: hundred and twenty years later or whatever that you know,
Speaker 1: there's there's so much less to discover. Everything has already
Speaker 1: been taken. So so yeah, that's so it's a really
Speaker 1: terrible moment. What does that mean the missile has planted?
Speaker 1: What does that part mean? Um? Well, you've got sort
Speaker 1: of different types of kind of church books. You've got
Speaker 1: books of prayer, You've got um, you've got some that
Speaker 1: have kind of the bits that you would sing and
Speaker 1: kind of the bits that you would sing back to
Speaker 1: oh thank you, um, that you would sing back to
Speaker 1: people during services and stuff like that. So I think
Speaker 1: you know, lots of different types of books. Sorry, somebody
Speaker 1: just brought me a cup of tea, which it's lovely.
Speaker 1: I wish that I had an assistant or whoever that
Speaker 1: bringing a loved one that was just bringing me beverages.
Speaker 1: But yes, it's very good. Actually I don't always get
Speaker 1: this service. But the the first one I I can't
Speaker 1: even say it about to you. The first the thing
Speaker 1: that you just said, the plant is what is it
Speaker 1: of Plantain's printing? Planting is the printer? And I think
Speaker 1: that he was talking about a book that would have
Speaker 1: been printed in the Middle Ages, and that's just that's
Speaker 1: just super common. Yeah, yeah, you know these are lying
Speaker 1: around all over the place, you know, I hope it's
Speaker 1: not that. And then when they've got it, when it's
Speaker 1: when the sacristan is like getting it out of the
Speaker 1: chest and bringing it to him, it's like, oh, yes,
Speaker 1: the shape of an anti finner. Now yea, what is
Speaker 1: an antifinner? I don't know. I think that's one of
Speaker 1: the ones that has um, that has songs in it.
Speaker 1: But let me have a let me have a look,
Speaker 1: let me look like I didn't Yeah, I didn't know
Speaker 1: what I was going to ask you all the specific
Speaker 1: church germanility. Now it's funny actually because I kind of
Speaker 1: refreshed my mind on a lot of things. So here
Speaker 1: we go. Oh that's not too bad. And Antifonary is
Speaker 1: one of the liturgical books intended for use in choro um.
Speaker 1: It's principally the antiphons used in various parts of the
Speaker 1: Roman liturgy. So I've better look up what an antiphon is.
Speaker 1: I think that basically is just the bits where you
Speaker 1: sing back to each other. Yeah, a short sentence sung
Speaker 1: or recited before or after some organticle. So it's got
Speaker 1: a specific shape and he knows that it's by the
Speaker 1: shape ape of the of the scrap book that that's
Speaker 1: not it. Yeah, and then what do you remember all
Speaker 1: the some of the things that he finds and as
Speaker 1: he's flipping through, Yeah, I mean from from what I remember,
Speaker 1: just sort of different bits of illuminated manuscript and whatever.
Speaker 1: I can't call to mind exactly what they are. Whenever
Speaker 1: I read that, I'm always sort of waiting for him
Speaker 1: to get to the end, and I shore will turn
Speaker 1: on to the end. Yeah, m and see see the
Speaker 1: illustration at the back. It's really a hilarious scene to
Speaker 1: talk about comedy again and and maybe even more so
Speaker 1: on like a reread, because like you imagine the atmosphere
Speaker 1: in the room, like the daughter and the sagar Ston
Speaker 1: are just like on edge, like they're trying to get
Speaker 1: someone to take this demon. Yeah, they're going buy it
Speaker 1: by it, but trying not to seem too eager, and
Speaker 1: he's just going oh slowly right, Like you could really
Speaker 1: play it for laughs, you know, if you were to
Speaker 1: adapt it into a TV show, like a sick arm whatever.
Speaker 1: He's just turning it so slowly. It's just like a
Speaker 1: good copy over there. Whatever, let's have a look and
Speaker 1: see what he actually what he's actually looking at there?
Speaker 1: Do you have do you maintain paper copies of M. R.
Speaker 1: James stories? I've got this one here, which is it's
Speaker 1: the second or third one I've had, and it's almost
Speaker 1: falling to pieces because it's been loved so much. Yes,
Speaker 1: he said that. There's a hundred and fifty leaves of
Speaker 1: paper in the book, and on almost every one of
Speaker 1: them was fastened a leaf from an illuminated manuscript. There
Speaker 1: were ten leaves from a copy of Genesis, which could
Speaker 1: not be later than a D. Seven hundred, and he
Speaker 1: goes and there was twenty leaves of ankle writing in Latin,
Speaker 1: which must belong to some very early unknown Petristic treaties.
Speaker 1: There's a couple of adjectives in there that I don't
Speaker 1: know what they mean. Him, Yeah, I don't know what
Speaker 1: unky writing is. I think that must be a style
Speaker 1: of writing. I could look that up in a minute
Speaker 1: if you like, But must belong to some very early
Speaker 1: unknown Petristic treatise. So it's it will have been some
Speaker 1: sort of philosopher philosophical discussion on some aspect of theology
Speaker 1: from the early Church, which you know, for you and
Speaker 1: me is probably kind of yawns. Philbert F. M. R.
Speaker 1: James would have been really exciting. Turn on, turn on
Speaker 1: to the end? Is there is there basically, and he
Speaker 1: just it's illuminated. It's illuminated manuscript Yeah, most of it
Speaker 1: is illuminated manuscripts. And so he gets on and he
Speaker 1: gets to the end, and first of all, he's got
Speaker 1: this this kind of plan that shows the church and
Speaker 1: the cloisters, and it's got sort of various kind of
Speaker 1: symbols inked into it, and that kind of you know,
Speaker 1: should start make him, making him to sort of smell
Speaker 1: a rat and thinking of something peculiar is going on.
Speaker 1: And then he turns over the page and then there's
Speaker 1: this horrible picture. The horrible picture is interesting too because
Speaker 1: there's obviously there's symbolism within it that I don't think
Speaker 1: that necessarily I have all the reference points. I certainly
Speaker 1: have different reference points than Mr James did that. So like,
Speaker 1: I know it's it's King Solomon. I know who King
Speaker 1: Solomon is. And there's five soldiers, one of them is dead.
Speaker 1: And then there's the figure on the right that needs
Speaker 1: to be described at a moment, and obviously James describes
Speaker 1: it really twice in the story and like the same
Speaker 1: detail all the way up to like intelligence not of
Speaker 1: more than a beast, but not of a man, and
Speaker 1: hair on the fingers and long curled talent nails, and
Speaker 1: the first thing you see is the massive black hair.
Speaker 1: And he really does it twice. He somehow pulls off
Speaker 1: doing basically the same description twice and you don't even
Speaker 1: remember the second time. You know, it's all that stuff again. No, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I love that first description though, because apart
Speaker 1: from I think actually also you have you have that
Speaker 1: sense with Denniston that you're looking at the picture and
Speaker 1: you're gradually kind of the nastiness of it is sinking in,
Speaker 1: because when you first look at it, you see all
Speaker 1: this hair, and it's not until you've been looking at
Speaker 1: it for a little while that you see what it's covering,
Speaker 1: which is really quite nasty. You know, that slowly sort
Speaker 1: of sinks in. Do you think that there's I mean,
Speaker 1: there's got to be a particular reason for for that
Speaker 1: setting amidst King Solomon with soldiers and the throne and
Speaker 1: all the sort of specifics of the scene that he's
Speaker 1: that he that he paints there. Yeah. I mean, basically,
Speaker 1: I think what this comes down to is that there's
Speaker 1: a whole kind of tradition of of of legends and
Speaker 1: stories about King Solomon and demons and um. One of
Speaker 1: the one of these is a thing called the Testament
Speaker 1: of Solomon, which M. L. James was definitely acquainted it,
Speaker 1: that describes some of these interchanges and um. Supposedly King
Speaker 1: Solomon built the first temple on the Mountain Jerusalem with
Speaker 1: the help of demons, and he's supposed to I mean,
Speaker 1: there's all sorts of legends about this, and I'm not
Speaker 1: a complete expert on it, but I think he's supposed
Speaker 1: to have controlled them by means of some kind of
Speaker 1: ring or whatever. And there's also some kind of stories
Speaker 1: as well that later in his life, having kind of
Speaker 1: lived up until then a folly, very virtuous life, he
Speaker 1: had um I think, sacrifice to another god or something other,
Speaker 1: or converted to a different religion in order to marry
Speaker 1: somebody else, and at that point fell into the hands
Speaker 1: of demons. So there's a whole load of kind of
Speaker 1: weird and slightly apocryphal stories about him and demons, and
Speaker 1: that's probably why he's been chosen here for this. You know,
Speaker 1: it's not just any old picture of a demon. There's
Speaker 1: King Solomon is there with it. Oh that's that someone
Speaker 1: is to do an HBO series or something. But I
Speaker 1: mean that's sounds like a crazy yeah, I mean apocryphals. Sure, surely, yeah,
Speaker 1: you'd revel some feathers with that one. That's not just
Speaker 1: using the word termagant wife. No, no, no, Um, well,
Speaker 1: I mean, as I said, I did write another article
Speaker 1: about this, which is kind of too long to go
Speaker 1: into here, but it was called The Nature of the Beast.
Speaker 1: I was looking specifically at whether we could say that
Speaker 1: this was a specific demon. You know, is this just
Speaker 1: any old demon or can we identify who it is?
Speaker 1: So I looked at loads and loads and loads of stuff. Um,
Speaker 1: And you know, it's very very speculative because you know,
Speaker 1: we can't really know what was in Mr James's mind,
Speaker 1: and I suppose it's possible that he could have put
Speaker 1: completely random things in though kind of based on his
Speaker 1: other stories, I think it's unlikely that it was really random. Um,
Speaker 1: But I mean the Testament of Solomon. I discussed at
Speaker 1: some length, and also sort of various other legends about
Speaker 1: Solomon and the demons as well. Yeah, that's a whole
Speaker 1: kind of worms really, even the even the idea that
Speaker 1: Cannon Albreak is this fictional character, but he's a descendant
Speaker 1: of this real person who in this real town. Like
Speaker 1: it's like, I suppose that's that's really sort of the
Speaker 1: aim of your project, right, like to sort of find
Speaker 1: that place where it's like he starts feathering in the
Speaker 1: stuff that's just from his own imagination. I feel like
Speaker 1: maybe I hit this point too many times, Alady, but
Speaker 1: like from my vantage point, it's just like someone that's
Speaker 1: like from a very different place, in a very different ara,
Speaker 1: with a very different background, but like also just really
Speaker 1: loves ephemera and and uh and and ghost stories and
Speaker 1: I think those things are really often very interconnected. It's
Speaker 1: so compelling and like I don't even I do care
Speaker 1: what's real, Like that's why I'm talking to you, but
Speaker 1: like I also just it's I've swept away by it.
Speaker 1: It's it's such a it's such a a force, especially
Speaker 1: hearing out loud because I don't read Latin. Hearing out loud, Uh,
Speaker 1: someone read through all the Latin and the fringe and
Speaker 1: and pull it all together. It's got like a very
Speaker 1: tight quality, like I think if it's sort of like
Speaker 1: a like documentary and there's a documentary element in it,
Speaker 1: because like you learn about this, this town and this
Speaker 1: and this old church that are real, actual real places. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I I find this fascinating as well, and
Speaker 1: it and it interests me also because I mean, obviously
Speaker 1: I'm a writer myself, and I often use real places
Speaker 1: and real events, though not usually real people, but you know,
Speaker 1: real places, real settings, real legends and stuff like that
Speaker 1: to base things on. And I don't put things in
Speaker 1: the too random, and it's kind of inimical, too inimical
Speaker 1: to my nature to do that. I like something to
Speaker 1: have meanings. I'm a great fan of Victorian literature for this,
Speaker 1: you know, specific reason. I like everything to be there
Speaker 1: for a for a purpose. And I feel as though
Speaker 1: he feels to me as though very much the same
Speaker 1: sort of writer. I don't think that he put things
Speaker 1: in because they were random, which is one of the
Speaker 1: reasons why I'm interested in teasing these things out. At
Speaker 1: what point did he start inventing? I mean, with some
Speaker 1: things like the Treasure of Abbott Thomas. We can know
Speaker 1: there are there are some books here quoted that didn't exist.
Speaker 1: But even then you know he's he's written a very
Speaker 1: very convincing kind of pasticheous part of this imaginable, you know,
Speaker 1: imaginary book, and so you think, well, it could have existed,
Speaker 1: and it's convincing, so it feels real. I find that
Speaker 1: really fascinating. It's a great trick. And he did it
Speaker 1: over and over and over. I mean he did a
Speaker 1: lot of homework. Yes, he clearly he did. If you
Speaker 1: like this this sort of writing, though, I mean other
Speaker 1: authors that I would definitely recommender, obviously as Sheridan the Fano,
Speaker 1: who slightly predates m R James and who Mr James
Speaker 1: immensely admired. My favorite one is schalkin the Painter, which
Speaker 1: is a really marvelous story. I think that that's that's
Speaker 1: brilliantly scary. Um. And there's the old that went with
Speaker 1: the Fairies. Um, there's Madame Krall's Ghost. I like that
Speaker 1: a lot. That's about a little girl who who gets
Speaker 1: taken on to be an assistant at a house where
Speaker 1: there's this very rich and slightly um, slightly um. Well,
Speaker 1: it's difficult to tell whether she actually has dementia or
Speaker 1: whether she's just tormented by her own thoughts. But this
Speaker 1: very strange old lady who, because she's so rich, is
Speaker 1: constantly indulged because it is extremely frightening. She has his
Speaker 1: massively great long fingernails, and where's all this huge amount
Speaker 1: of makeup in spite of the fact that she's about
Speaker 1: a hundred and five. There's others of his that are
Speaker 1: sort of better known, like The Familiar, but The Shark
Speaker 1: and the Painter is my favorite one. First of all
Speaker 1: Langdon certainly Abby. If you google firmly Abbey, it's th
Speaker 1: hu r n l e Y And as far as
Speaker 1: I know, that's the only story he wrote, but it
Speaker 1: scares the purchases out of me. Very nasty story. The
Speaker 1: other person that I think is it is Tom Rolt,
Speaker 1: who wrote a series of ghost stories under the name
Speaker 1: LTC Rolt. So it's R. O. L. T Um and
Speaker 1: I think the his book was called Sleep No More
Speaker 1: and he's slightly later than M. R. James, though not
Speaker 1: much later. But there's some great stories in that which
Speaker 1: are sort of quite James in but they have got
Speaker 1: more of an industrial atmosphere. There's one set in factories
Speaker 1: and canals, and there's a railway one, and those are
Speaker 1: great because there's an awful lot of people out there
Speaker 1: doing James and pastiche and you think, well, that does
Speaker 1: eventually get a bit old, but he's he's done something.
Speaker 1: It is often James in in flavor, but completely different settings,
Speaker 1: which is super. That's really good. You said you had
Speaker 1: pictures of your trip. I'm not going to, but what
Speaker 1: I can do is send you a whole bunch of them,
Speaker 1: and any of them that you want to use, you
Speaker 1: can use one of them. Bizarrely, but my dad had
Speaker 1: just taken a candid shot of me talking to one
Speaker 1: of these old guides and that you know it, and
Speaker 1: he looks really grumpy and kind of disgruntled and miserable.
Speaker 1: He's waving his arms around and stuff. But you know,
Speaker 1: I remember him has been quite a genial guy. But yeah,
Speaker 1: there we are in conversation seventeen years ago. They're so similar.
Speaker 1: And then I'm gonna let you go. There's so similar
Speaker 1: to the situation that Dennis does in talking with the
Speaker 1: I mean you you you realize that the great parallel
Speaker 1: there now and now you're talking about this like as
Speaker 1: if it's a long time ago. Like next, it's going
Speaker 1: to be me going to follow in Helen Grant's footsteps
Speaker 1: of looking into the naves. Yeah, yeah, you said, do
Speaker 1: they think you know, like sort of twenty or thirty
Speaker 1: years down the line, Yeah, this will be you with
Speaker 1: your grandkids or whatever. Say, oh, yes, I remember talking
Speaker 1: to that, Helen Groant. Somebody might be doing this with
Speaker 1: your story someday. You know. Well, I hope so right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean what more could I want to hope for?
Speaker 1: I mean, something to hope for, isn't it. It's like
Speaker 1: that's like being a pretty, you know, m pleasant ghost
Speaker 1: like Mr James is a pretty enjoyable ghost in your
Speaker 1: life hanging around. Absolutely. Ah. Helen Grant's newest novel is
Speaker 1: Too Near the Death, which is a ghost story set
Speaker 1: here in Perth Year and in fact uses a lot
Speaker 1: of the same thing Mr James does in that it's
Speaker 1: a mix of real stuff and kind of invented stuff.
Speaker 1: And there's probably more real stuff than there is invented.
Speaker 1: You know. Most of the locations are real available now
Speaker 1: where books are sold. Yeah, I mean in the UK
Speaker 1: you can get them from Waterstones and black oils in
Speaker 1: places like that in the States, I'm not sure. Um yeah,
Speaker 1: obviously the roaded Amazon, and I would imagine that possibly
Speaker 1: the book Depository or somebody would have them. I mean,
Speaker 1: in fact, I saw it was listed on Walmart the
Speaker 1: other day, but I thought, it can't really be even
Speaker 1: on their website. But you know, there will be somebody.
Speaker 1: There will be somebody other than the dreaded Amazon. Find
Speaker 1: pictures from her trip and the article that inspired this conversation.
Speaker 1: He was laughing in the church. A visit to St.
Speaker 1: Bertrand de Commange. On our website, Ephemeral Dutch Show, You're
Speaker 1: more podcasts from iHeart Radio by visiting the iHeart Radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows