Well, it’s Friday 13th, what else could be the subject of Five For Fridays, apart from Five Scary Stories? I have always had a fondness for ghost-stories and weird tales, and since it would be difficult to select the five scariest, I’ll just do random ones that I like.
One Christmas, when I was 12 or 13, and spending Christmas in bed with some ailment or another, one of my siblings gave me a copy of Enthralling Mystery Stories, which had several really good ones included, four of which are below. The fifth is a narrative poem from one of the first books I ever bought myself, Hist Whist. So we’re not exactly in visceral horror territory, but they were certainly all scary enough when I first set eyes on them, and 'Lost Hearts' in particular is the sort of tale that is best read in broad daylight, even by grown-ups.
(Speaking of M.R. James, if you sign up to my newsletter you get a free e-book of my short story ‘Veni, vidi, vicit’, written in homage to the master and exclusive to subscribers…)
M.R. James (1862–1936) 'Lost Hearts'
It is always a bit of a toss-up for me between 'Lost Hearts' and 'Oh Whistle and I’ll Come To You, My Lad' as the scariest of James’ stories. 'Lost Hearts' has the added attraction of being the first M.R. James story I ever read.
An orphan boy, Stephen, is unexpectedly taken into the home of his adult cousin in Lincolnshire, and has a series of strange experiences that are too realistic to be dreams. His cousin, it seems, has previously been hospitable to two other children, who may or may not have resembled the figures Stephen sees in the garden. It is not an unfamiliar narrative for James, featuring as it does the over-focused academic who in searching for knowledge is becoming reckless. The source of the threat, on the other hand, is not James’ more usual formless and repellent monsters, but rather recognizable figures that, deformed and ‘othered’ by their experience, are ultimately sympathetic.
Hugh Walpole (1884–1941) 'Tarnhelm'
If any story could give James a run for his money as a quintessential ghost story, it is arguably 'Tarnhelm'. There is the lonely, isolated child, sent to spend school holidays with various reluctant relatives, eventually landing up in the "naked, unsympathetic hills" of the North of England. There is his odd and nefarious uncle Robert, Robert’s kind but timid brother Constance; there are bad dreams, an imposing, ugly house, a strangely powerful skullcap, and a faint, mysterious smell of caraway. It is an intensely and effectively atmospheric tale with a touching homosocial element.
W.W. Jacobs (1863–1943) 'The Monkey’s Paw'
A couple and their beloved son come into possession of a dried monkey’s paw that is said to give three wishes. Disaster awaits those who do not remember that the givers of wishes of this sort are notoriously mischievous in their interpretations of anything but the most carefully worded of demands. Like many of M.R. James’ stories, part of the effect of Jacobs’ story lies in the catastrophic disruption of a very recognisably comfortable, even modest, life, and in the sense of advancing horror warning them that, in coming to regret their light-hearted wish, they have brought something worse in a "fusillade of knocks" to the door of their home.
Charles Dickens (1812–1870) 'The Signalman'
I am not particularly a fan of Dickens, but this is a genuinely chilling tale, economically told.
The narrator meets the signalman at a railway station, who is tormented by ghostly appearances that not only seem very convincing, but have always predicted a disaster. He has recently seen the apparition again, and is fraught with fear as to what is in store. The story is a curious mix of the claustrophobic and expansive; much of the narration takes place in the very small stationhouse, but there is movement in space along the long stretch of the tunnel in which previous tragedies have taken place, and in time as the signalman reflects on his youth, his squandered academic opportunities, and waits to see what future event the haunting figure is predicting.
Stevie Smith (1902–1971) 'Little Boy Lost'
Stevie Smith’s account of the child who followed the beckoning witch is quite low-key in some ways (“Did I love father, mother, home? / Not very much; but now they’re gone / I think of them with kindly toleration”) but pitiless. The straying from the path seemed like so inconsequential an act to have brought such doom upon the narrator; there is a strong sense of this being the voice from the last throes.
The illustrations in my copy of Hist Whist (1975) fascinated me; they’re really very creepy (they are by Kathy Wyatt), and I copied them many times to try to learn their weird secrets.
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