Blog-o-ween 2023: “Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad” by M.R. James

If yesterday’s Blog-o-ween 2023 stories from Harlan Ellison were a terrifying trip into new literary domains, a paranormal pushing of the eerie envelope, so to speak, then today’s author and story should feel like a return to an older, more genteel tradition. They should make you feel like you are wrapping yourself in an old, warm blanket...or, at the very least, an old, cold shroud...

This year’s Blog-o-ween has featured quite a few tales from British authors that take place not on the 31st of October but on the 25th of December. In England, the winter ghost tale has a long and storied (pun intended!) tradition. What is Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol but a ghost story, albeit one with a sticky, sappy center.

Today’s story is one such tale, although it doesn’t take place at Christmas. Instead, it is a story that was meant to be read aloud on Christmas Eve solely as entertainment. Its author wrote and performed many ghostly stories for friends during Yuletide. So, stoke the fire, pour yourself a snifter of brandy, and settle into an old comfortable chair while M.R. James reads to us the story “Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad”...

Parkins is a professor at Cambridge University, who takes an end-of-the-school-year golfing trip to the seaside town of Burnstow. Before leaving, a colleague asks him to investigate a site of archeological interest: the ruins of a Templar preceptory. Parkins agrees and soon finds himself ensconced in a room with twin beds at the Globe Inn.

After playing a round of golf, Parkins heads on over to the Templar ruins. While there, he spies a hole in the wall and discovers an ancient bronze whistle. He pockets his find and returns to the inn. On his way home along the beach, he notices off in the distance the indistinct shape of a person. Said person seems to be trying to catch up with the professor, but doesn’t seem to be making any headway in its efforts.

Uh-oh.

Back at the Globe Inn and alone in his room, Parkins cleans the whistle. From his window, he sees a form in the distance standing on the shore looking at the inn.

Double uh-oh.

Closely investigating his find, Parkins notes two inscriptions on the whistle. The first is a series of letters that he cannot make heads or tails of. The second, however, is in Latin (and being a professor at Cambridge, he can translate it, natch) and reads: “QUIS EST ISTE QUI UENIT” or “Who is this who is coming?” With the compacted soil freed from the whistle, Parkins does what any of us would do. He blows the whistle. Cue the wind, and cue the solitary figure in the distance.

Triple uh-oh!

Who or what is it that Parkins has called by blowing the whistle. Who or what is it that a young boy sees in Parkins’s window when the man is not there? Who or what has been sleeping in the other bed in his room, mussing the covers and sheets, twisting and contorting them?

The premier writer of the spooky tale told during Christmas, Montague Rhodes James, a provost of King’s College, Cambridge, and Eton College, entertained his students and friends every Christmas Eve with one of his tales. These stories were eventually collected in several books: Ghost Stories of an Antiquary (1904), More Ghost Stories of an Antiquary (1911), A Thin Ghost and Others (1919), and A Warning to the Curious and Other Ghost Stories (1925). Though he was a serious academic and medievalist scholar, James is best remembered as the man who modernized the ghost story in the early 20th century.

It may seem funny to use that word – modern – when discussing James’s stories, because from our perspective, they seem quaint and cozy. Indeed, they are exactly what we mean when we say we long to hear an “old-fashioned” ghost story.

James jettisoned much of what had bogged down the genre since the Gothic period. His stories didn’t happen in a castle in the past; his stories took place in the ruins of that castle in the present. His protagonists are usually professors and/or antiquarians who find a clue to lost knowledge in an old book or manuscript or stained-glass window. This provenance gives the proceedings a sense of verisimilitude that makes the horror more tangible.

Quaint and cozy these stories may be, the reader of James’s tales considers them safe at their own peril. The horrors that stalk those pages are some of the most chilling in the history of literature. James keeps the ghosts in his stories just out of the reader’s view. They are seen out the corners of the eyes.

“Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to you, My Lad” is one of M.R. James’s best told and best-known tales. As with James’s other tales, the “ghost” (or whatever it is) is never truly seen. It is a shape on the horizon or seen fleetingly at a hotel room window. During the finale, James may be riffing ironically on the stereotypical image of the ghost. Whether it is intended as humor or horror, the end of the story will send shivers up the most jaded horror fan’s spine.

As is the case with much of what M.R. James wrote, there are several ways for us to enjoy his tale. Wanna read the full story? Then head on over to your local library and pick up Ghost Stories of an Antiquary. Don’t wanna leave the house? Fine! You can probably check out the e-book from your library’s website. Just want to read this story? How’s about following this link to the Project Gutenberg site where you can read it? What’s that? You want someone else to read the story to you and your grandma ain’t available? Okay...how about this splendid audio version recorded by the good people over at HorrorBabble? Or how about this radio adaptation from the BBC that also includes a few other spooky stories like W.W. Jacobs’s “The Monkey’s Paw” and Marie Belloc Lowndes’s “An Unrecorded Instance”?

There, that should cover every—

What’s that? You also want a movie version of the story? Jeepers! Well, okay...check with your local library and see if you can find the British Film Institute’s DVD that includes two — that’s right, TWO — versions of this story. The first is the classic 1968 adaptation starring Sir Michael Hordern (who also stars in the radio adaptation above). The second is of a much more recent vintage. It’s from 2010 and stars John Hurt.

There. Happy? Whew! I think I’ve got all your storytelling bases covered. So, no matter how you enjoy it, I think you’ll have a frighteningly good time with old Professor Parkins. Just remember that it’s not just you alone in your room at the Globe Inn at night. You’ve got a friend with you in the other bed. A friend who wouldn’t mind if you wished them...pleasant dreams? Hmmmm? Heh-heh-heh!