“Casting the Runes” (1911)

This story by M.R. James is tagged in The Weird, the massive and essential anthology edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer, as James’s most famous. Indeed, one scene involving a slip of paper with runic symbols printed on it, a sudden wind, and a fire in a fireplace rang a few bells for me. Later I realized the story is the basis of the movie by director Jacques Tourneur, Night of the Demon (later edited and rereleased as Curse of the Demon), the source of my déjà vu. In a general way I have to admit I have some problems with the way James tells stories, drawing on semifictional documentary sources and slowly, slowly circling his points. Some themes work like time-release medicines. They hit you later. You’re generally required to do a lot of unpacking yourself, and later rereads are not a bad idea. In “Casting the Runes” we see the text of letters along with secondhand and even thirdhand details by way of conversation. It can be maddeningly indirect yet that is large part of the unease his tales can cause you. Most characters tend to deny the validity of the weird and ghostly stuff but at the same time are unnaturally interested in it. There’s a lot of busy business here—people urgently going from here to there to investigate. But it’s not hard to see what’s going on. A man with supernatural skills is hunting people for reasons of petty vengeance. The rules are complicated and a little mechanical, veering close to the unbelievable. The slip of paper, for example: you have to get someone to accept it freely as handed to them. These rules here are spelled out more clearly in the movie. If the paper is then consumed in flame it seals the curse. If, however, the person with the slip of paper can pass it to someone else, preferably the one who gave it to them in the first place, then that person is off the hook. Busy, busy—and perhaps too rational. But M.R. James establishes a reasonably good air of mystery and dread. The details here can be fleeting but they stick, living inside you in a way that insidiously provokes anxiety. A very strange advertisement in a bus, for example, has made me look at bus cards in whole new ways ever since.

The Weird, ed. Ann & Jeff VanderMeer
M.R. James, Complete Ghost Stories
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