Thoughts on ‘Oh, Whistle and I’ll Come to you, My Lad’ by MR James

If you find something old and buried, perhaps leave it alone…

Certainly, don’t blow into it!

While Whistle isn’t among my favourite stories of all time (I feel it drags in places and some of the suspense is ruined by the style of writing at times), there are certain scenes that still make me shiver when reading them – a perfect Halloween read!

It’s a somewhat strange tale that mixes whimsy with creeping terror, which is one of the things that makes it so effective and keeps it on the best horror stories ever written lists.

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Spoilers from here on out – there’s always time to read the tale if you want the full experience.

The story

At its core, Whistle is a You Can’t Scare Me story, with Parkins, our main character, denying all paranormal things and thinking lowly of those who believe in ghosts. This is what is challenged during the course of the story.

…any appearance of concession to the view that such things might exist is equivalent to a renunciation of all that I hold most sacred.

And so, with us set up knowing he won’t be budged on believing in the supernatural, we, as readers, kinda want something to happen to him. We want him to be challenged. We read on, thinking, Oh, you’re gonna get it now, bub!

The creepy images that make this story pop

This story doesn’t go for the jugular. It’s a slow creepy spell that sets in. When Parkins picks up the whistle and heads back to the Globe Inn, he notices someone making great efforts to catch up with him, but made little, if any, progress. He goes on to notice that the figure is looking as if it is running but the distance between them remains the same.

This is a creepy image. What’s wrong with this person, this thing? It’s something that’s very off. It’s the first inclination that something bad is happening in this story, but it’s not in your face. It’s something that Parkins quickly dismisses.

Then, he gets to the hotel, goes to his room, blows the whistle. A fierce wind opens his windows, blasts the room.

On it went, moaning and rushing past the house, at times rising to a cry so desolate that, as Parkins disinterestedly said, it might have made fanciful people feel quite uncomfortable.

He can’t sleep after this. He lies, counting the beats of his heart, convinced that it was going to stop work every moment.

A near neighbour (in the darkness it was not easy to tell his direction) was tossing and rustling in his bed, too.

This image is nicely done as the extra, unused bed in Parkins’ room looks like someone slept there and didn’t have a nice night by the looks of it. These are all things that Parkins denies the next day, trying to go about his normal business.

There was something about its motion which made Parkins very unwilling to see it at close quarters.

There’s something so unsettling in how the bad thing is portrayed. It’s not a rushing, evil demon thing. It’s something that struggles to move. It’s almost something we feel sorry for as it clambers over the groynes on the beach. It seems to have a task that it can’t quite accomplish. It stumbles about as if blind, desperate. For, at the end of the story when the thing reaches Parkins, it doesn’t kill him, merely gives him a scare as it appears to flee out the window never to be seen again.

Part of the pull of the images used is that they use everyday things to creep us out. A thing made of clothes that has a face of crumpled linen. I have to say, when the thing suddenly sits up in the bed, it still gives me a start to this day, no matter how many times I read it. It has to be one of the most embedded images of horror in my brain, which is why this one has stayed with me all this time.

The inscriptions

What irks me about this tale is how much the carvings on the whistle seem to matter to the story. When he uncovers the whistle in his room and cleans it up, there are two things carved onto it, and only one is revealed in the story.

QUIS EST ISTE QUI VENIT is revealed to mean Who is this who is coming? It is Parkins himself who translates this, but he’s puzzled over the other one which reads FLA FUR BIS FLE. The meaning of this one is never revealed in the story. Only after some digging did I find out that it (allegedly) can mean, Thief, you will blow, you will weep.

Only after going down a Google rabbit hole did I find this, and it opens up the tale somewhat. I’d argue that this is something a reader shouldn’t have to do.

So, with this new knowledge, is the whistle something that belonged to the Templars who maybe cast some spell to make sure it was an artefact that was never stolen? Maybe they summoned this demon thing to protect it?

He’s a changed man, our Parkins

And so, in the aftermath, we see that Parkins is a changed man. His views on certain points are less clear cut than they used to be. Now, he is scared whenever he sees clothes hanging on a line.

In its nature, it’s a very simple story, well told through its details. Man doesn’t think ghosts exist. Man moves to hotel. Man finds something curious. Man inadvertently summons clothes demon. Man is spooked by clothes demon. Man now believes in the supernatural.

All in all, I enjoy this tale. I think there’s a lot to be said of effective imagery and descriptions to hold a readers attention. If it weren’t for these things, I may not have stuck around for the 8,000 word long story (which is longer than typical short stories (broadly speaking)). Did I find much to mull over theme wise? Not really, but not all tales have a deep-meaning theme running through them. Some are here to simply be enjoyed at the story level.

What did you think? Did you take anything away from this in terms of themes you’d like to share? Did you enjoy it?