All crones are witches, but not all witches are crones, the worst time to die is during the invention of the gramophone, spiders are the best, Ryan's punching above his scotch weightclass. These assertions and more, in this Jamesian episode of WatW! Welcome to Whiskey and the Weird, a podcast exploring the British Library Tales of the Weird series! This season, we're pollinating plots from our seventh book in the collection, ‘Evil Roots: Killer Tales of the Botanical Gothic,’ edited by Daisy Butcher (yes, really!). In this episode, our featured story is: The Ash Tree by M. R. James
Bar Talk (our recommendations):
Jessica is watching Humane (2024; dir Caitlin Cronenberg; drinking Resurgent Botanical Whiskey.
Damien is reading Monstrilio by Gerardo Sámano Córdova; drinking the non-alc High Rhode by Kin Euphorics.
Ryan is reading the many gory works from Matthew M. Bartlett; drinking the Caol Ila 12 Year Old scotch whisky.
If you liked this week’s story, check out The Mercies by Kiran Millwood Hargrave.
Up next: The Woman of the Woods by Abraham Merritt
Special thank you to Dr Blake Brandes for our Whiskey and the Weird music!
Like, rate, and follow! Check us out @whiskeyandtheweird on Instagram, Threads & Facebook, and at whiskeyandtheweird.com
Damien: [00:00:00] Hey weirdos. It's Damien here. Just wanted to let you know that as many of our faithful listeners are aware, one of our hosts. Ryan and his family live in Southwest Florida and due to this recent effects of hurricane Helene. He's suffered some damage to both of his houses. One of the big guy upstairs, he's a priest. And the other where he keeps his whiskey, which might actually be both, but no judgment here. Anyway, the point is that whiskey in the weirdest going to be on hiatus for at least a couple of weeks until he can get his life back together.
And we were wishing him well, but that doesn't stop us from presenting you this next episode, which is the Ash tree by Mr. James. So enjoy this. And then we hope to get back to you as soon as possible to wrap up evil roots. So as always keep your friends. Out of the flooding and here creeps in the pudding love to all talk to you soon.
Jessica: we're a pro spider podcast.
Ryan: Yeah, I have a spider two out of three of us. [00:01:00] I'm No, I'm very pro spider. I have a horrible story about a Misappropriation of a broom and spiders, but yeah, I don't want to Appropriation of a broom. Oh, yeah,
Damien: keep that one to yourself.
Ryan: Welcome back everybody! I'm Ryan Whitley.
Jessica: I'm Jessica Berg.
Damien: I'm Damien Smith.
Ryan: And together we're Whiskey and the Weird. Here we are in our seventh season, and it's amazing how much we've grown. From our roots in season one where we covered from the depths to the fruits we discovered all the way in season six when we read The Night Wire, Whiskey and the Weird is proud to once again till the soil of the British Library's
Damien: Tales of the [00:02:00] Weird series.
Ryan: Each episode we cover one volume in this acclaimed series and each episode, We dig into one story. They always contain a full spoiler summary by two of the best story summarizers in the business. That's Damien Smith and Jessica Berg, for those of you at home counting. So make sure you read the story first and listen second.
Unless you don't care about that sort of thing, in which case, close the podcast now. We're not interested.
Damien: No, we are interested!
Ryan: This season we're gleaning from evil roots, killer tales of the botanical gothic, edited by the inestimable Daisy Butcher. Inestimable? And now, the sun lies low in the west, and the soft light of the [00:03:00] golden hour has begun.
Join us, if you please, in the garden. And let us see what has germinated from the minds of the best writers of yesteryear. Jess is our master story planner. So tell us, Jess. What story are we reaping tonight?
Jessica: Nope. No, thank you. Actually, we're,
Damien: where did you get the mushrooms? We're in your omelet because you are Lua dupe.
Woo.
I love this. Ryan . With
Jessica: that
Damien: I love s we are covering, but especially this one,
Jessica: A story that definitely needs this level of excitement. the ash tree by Mr. James.
Ryan: That is fantastic. I love MR. James. But before we talk about him, we have to talk about a number of other things, including what we're drinking, what else we might be doing, and what we're reading.
And I'm gonna start with Jess. Jess what's in your glass tonight?
Jessica: [00:04:00] I bought another botanical whiskey. This one is by Resurgent. It's also not good, but in a different way than last week. Last week I bought one that was like honeysuckle infused. So it was just like real sweet. It
Ryan: sounded like a very much freshman in college.
Yes. It was a, yeah, it's the long island iced tea of whiskeys.
Jessica: And this one tastes less fake, but it's flavored with What are the botanicals
Damien: in it?
Jessica: Sarsaparilla, licorice,
Damien: and
Jessica: sherrybark, but I don't really like,
Licorice. It's more licorice y than anything else, and I don't really like
Ryan: licorice.
Jessica: But it tastes like it also tastes like those are the things that are put in it, not like chemicals that kind of taste like those things. So it's not good, but it is good. I'll never turn down a Sambuca,
Ryan: but it
Damien: could be worse.
Ryan: Thumbs up.
Jessica: And then right. It was on sale.
Damien: Nice.
Jessica: I just watched [00:05:00] a very interesting movie called Humane that came out this year and the director was Caitlin Cronenberg, another Cronen child.
Oh,
Damien: wow. They keep making movies, huh?
Jessica: But this one was definitely more of a Dark family drama than like a Body horror, so that was a change. And it is set in a future where We are dealing with like overpopulation and lack of resources And so there are government programs To incentivize euthanizing yourself.
Ryan: Oh wow. That's very much Robert Chambers.
Jessica: It's around a dinner party where some family members learn that their other family members are signing themselves up to be euthanized. And antics ensue and then it gets very dramatic and a little murdery. And it's,
Ryan: does the yellow king make an appearance at all?
I don't know if antics is the right [00:06:00] word for this.
Jessica: No, it's pretty antics y.
Damien: Really? Yeah. This is Jessica's recommendation, right?
Jessica: It's funnier than you would think. Yeah, I was going into it thinking it was going to be all dark murder, but it's pretty funny. It has a, like a fairly fun cast. The script is a little you could tell they could have spent more time on it or more money on something.
So it's definitely got some first movie vibes, but for a first movie it's fun and if it's on, it's definitely worth watching. It's called Humane. Ryan, what are you drinking?
Ryan: I'm drinking a whiskey tonight, Jessica and Damien. That is not a starter whiskey. No, this is just for pros. This is for pros.
This is an Isla whiskey. It's called the Kull Isla and it's a I'm going to say that if you were to wake up in the morning after camping and see the remains of your campfire from the evening past and lick [00:07:00] it, you would get a sense of what I'm drinking tonight. So just a wee bit of smoke, huh? It's got a little bit of smoke.
It's got a little bit of peach. Just that touch of peach. Just a hint, really. A smidge. Just a kiss. A smudge. A kiss, if you will. A smudge of peach. This is one of the heaviest, smoky, peaty whiskeys out there, and I am indulging tonight and I love it. The Kul Isla, it's 12 years old, it's pretty expensive, at least where I purchased it, and it's if you like that smoke, if you like that peat, and you just you just keep wanting more, this is the, maybe the last stop on the peat train.
I don't know.
Jessica: Does it get PD er than this?
Ryan: I can't imagine that it does. Everybody get off. As for what I've been enjoying, I'm going to totally fanboy out on you guys tonight. I apologize in advance. But I've just gotten back from Necronomicon, which was a hoot and a half. Really enjoyed it. And a
Damien: half.
One and a half hoots.
Ryan: One and a half hoots. Maybe one and three quarters. I don't know. I don't want to get crazy.
Damien: Not two hoots though. We're not gonna double hooter.
Ryan: [00:08:00] So what?
One of the one of the fellas that I spend a lot of time with Hang out with was Matthew M Bartlett Who's a great writer and I want to tell you about his works because I feel like he's a little bit underappreciated He writes a lot about the town of Leeds, Massachusetts, which Damien tells me is it is a real town?
It's a real but Not the version that Bartlett writes about at least in which is inhabited by a witch cult. And his writing is very immediate, very visceral a little icky and gross, but also Magical, I don't quite he's hard to describe. So let me just share by way of example the most recent story that I read which was called Carnomancer, so we all know that in centuries past people used to divine the future or claim They could divine the future by reading the on trails of slaughtered animals Bartlett [00:09:00] extrapolates on this theme in Carnomancer and puts one of these divining characters in the role of your local butcher which is pretty funny and also very delightful.
So that's a great story that's found in his, This collection called the Stay Awake Men, but if you really want to dive into Bartlett's writing, the place I'm going to suggest that you start is in his very first book called Gateways to Abomination. Now this is a very strange book. It is written as a mosaic novel.
So each chapter is maybe a page and a half long. You keep getting glimpses of the goings on of this town from every possible angle. Some of the stories are a little bit shorter, some are a little bit longer. But. I mean, there really isn't one that's longer than three or four pages. And by the time you get to the end, you have a sense that you've seen the whole picture of what's going on, and it is weird, and it is funny, and it is gross, and it is wonderful.
There are some of the stories in there that make you go, [00:10:00] I
Damien: just missed it the first time I want to thank you.
Ryan: I'm happy. I'm happy to repeat for you, Damien. Other stories that make you chuckle a little bit. And some of the stories are in the form of like the anchor reading the daily news from this town.
It's really a lot of fun. And it's very much like a welcome to Night Vale feel if you've read or if you've listened to that podcast, but he goes on from there. I think a second book, Creeping Waves continues that theme, but then he's got a whole bunch of other short stories. I guess really what I'd like to say is I had a blast hanging out with Matthew Bartlett and I think that you will too in his writing.
So check out Gateways to Abomination by Matthew M. Bartlett. So Jamie, how about you?
Damien: I am, I think this is going to be a first for the pod. I may be wrong but I decided to try a non elk spirit. Tonight. And so I picked up a bottle listening. Yeah. . Yeah. I picked up a bottle from Kin [00:11:00] Euphoric called High Road.
I think it's their signature. I don't know, elixir, how hipster can I get like tonic perhaps? Yeah. Something like that. The bottle
Jessica: or the canned. Mixed
Damien: cocktails. It's a bottle. It's not a mixed cocktail. So it's it's labeled as a cocktail Yeah, it's labeled as a euphoric I think the reason it's called a euphoric is because it has some botanicals.
It has no tropics. It has adaptogens it's got things like L theamine and whatever that is in a lot of like non alcoholic beverages that gives somewhat of A bit of a lucid alleged high. I'm not really feeling anything from it. The taste is nice. It's got gentian root in it, which allegedly like decreases blood pressure and, makes you feel a little more relaxed, increases blood flow hibiscus licorice root bitter orange.
It's a pretty color. And I mixed it with some ginger beer and a squeeze of lime. And it's okay. I'm not fooling myself. I'm not fooling anybody else around me. But [00:12:00] I think it's cool if you just want, a different thing. I'm going to have a bourbon right after this. I, if you'd like a breakfast drink, yeah.
Right. I can appreciate what it's like, what it's going for. And I think it's, I think it's interesting. So it's really leaning into the non elk movement. And so I just, it's having a moment right now, right? It is. It is like almost everywhere.
Ryan: Yeah.
Damien: Everywhere you go, there's, I've gotten into yeah, there are, but also just some other stuff that's like off the shelf, like hop water is really good.
And then I picked up recently I think it's called recess. Then those are canned non alcoholic cocktails and I picked up their Palomas and it was very tasty. So I picked up a bottle
Ryan: of Coca Cola, which is a non alcoholic
Damien: cocktail. Honestly, though, Coca Cola, the complex recipe of Coca Cola, it's got cocaine in it, but that aside, but it's got things like mint and caramel and everything.
And the way it all comes together, it's got a very unique flavor. And so I don't know. I just thought I'd give it a try and it wasn't bad. I'm not gonna, I'm not like a high road mega fan, but [00:13:00] I thought it was a pretty solid diversion. So there you go. I had a non alcoholic cocktail tonight and it was okay.
Now I will never die. But people do die in a book that I read recently by Gerardo Samano Gordova which is called Monstrilio. It was a very unique tale. About a couple who lose their young child and the wife in a moment of absolute despair remembers a little bit of some folklore in her Mexican heritage and cuts off a chunk of her child's.
Lung and keeps it in a jar while the lung ends up evolving into a small creature, a bat, a bat boy member of the old weekly world news. Yeah. Which then continues to grow and actually. The story takes place over the Monstrolio's lifetime. And it's just a [00:14:00] really interesting tale. It's got four distinct acts.
It gave a lot of our share of night, which I'm a big fan of Marietta and Enriquez. And it had that epic flow to it because it did, the four parts to this book really covered the life, lifetime of of monster.
Yeah. It was good. It was heartfelt. It was touching. It was heartbreaking. And I do believe that this was a debut novel by this author. So I was very excited that it came out strong and it was a really like nice read. Not the lightest material, but like a refreshing, just a refreshing story. Very unique. So it sounds like you should read it while it's raining. Maybe like with a nice cup of tea, maybe a kin euphoric in your glass.
I don't know. There you go. So that's a Monstrilio by Gerardo Samuel Cordova.
Ryan: Thank you D for that recommendation. Of course. Tonight we've got MR James and M. R. James is another author [00:15:00] I had to double check on because I just couldn't believe that we hadn't covered one of his stories yet.
Jessica: I did the same thing.
Really? Sure enough we haven't. That's
Ryan: a surprise. It's really surprising. He looms really large over the genre of horror fiction with a literary reputation rivaling H. P. Lovecraft. He's often mentioned in the same breath as not only H. P. L. but also Arthur Macken, Algernon Blackwood, Edgar Allen Poe and other heavy hitters of the genre.
He's known primarily as the grandfather of the English ghost story. So who was he? Montague Rhodes James. First of all, that's a fantastic name. Pretty rad. Like all the best weird fiction writers was the son of an Anglican clergyman. He was born on August the 1st, 1862 to Herbert James and Mary Emily, who was the daughter of a naval officer.
He was born in [00:16:00] Dover, Kent, England, and educated in West London at the Temple Grove School, which I'm given to understand was quite the noted boys prep school. After Temple, he went to Eaton College and then to King's College, Cambridge. He spent a good portion of his career there, in fact, serving first as a don, which is like a tutor in a particular subject, and then as provost, which is a more advanced position.
Did
Damien: you say a don?
Ryan: A don. D O N. D O N, like a don. That's your, like you're, like you could have a don of English or a don of mathematics. That's your tutor.
Damien: Or Don Corleone.
Ryan: Yeah, or Don Corleone. Exactly like that. Make him an offer he can't refuse. Academia serves as a setting for many of M. R. James stories.
As a scholar, he was a medievalist and an antiquarian, like a real life Indiana Jones, actually. He participated in all manner of excavations around [00:17:00] England. He was also a noted translator, having a great facility for languages. And for his scholarship, he was awarded the Order of Merit in 1930, which I'm given to understand is quite a deal.
Despite his significant contributions as a scholar, it is for his ghost stories that he is most remembered today. Though he only wrote about 40 of them, It was enough to earn him the distinction as a master of the English ghost story. His style was unique, and today bears its own name. The Jamesian style, or the Jamesian mode.
A lot of his tales were not written first for publication actually, but as a form of entertainment for his buddies. Who would sit around the fire, smoking, Drinking brandy and reading their ghost stories to each other. They called it the Chit Chat Club. [00:18:00] And friends, Oh, to have been a fly on the wall of those lauded evenings!
Damien: Hands, Ryan. What
Ryan: would I give my friends? If my friends, I tell you, I would give a lot.
Jessica: If I was there, it'd have a better name. The club. I
Ryan: don't care what they called it. The Kvitson Club.
Not only is M. R. James there reading his stories, but also all three of the Benson brothers, that's E. F. A. C. and R. H.
Benson. L. M. N. R. P. I don't know what their actual names are. Who does? I really do, but I'm not going to admit that. Maurice Baring, Desmond McCarthy, W. H. Wilkins, and others read their stories out loud to each other and received criticism and comment. James's cardinal rule of storytelling in his own words was to quote, put the reader into the position of saying to himself, if I'm not very careful.
Something of this kind may happen to me. He [00:19:00] was also, laugh it up, laugh if you will. But you read James and it's terrifying. It worked for him. So he was also very insistent that all of his ghosts be malevolent, which I think is in this day and age, actually a refreshing take, I think in contemporary horror, Ghost fiction.
We get a lot of friendly ghosts. We get a lot of Caspers and misunderstood. Yeah, there's, yeah, there's no Caspers in em. R James' ghost stories. It's really hard actually to overstate his importance and influence. Almost every major horror writer between his time and ours cites him as having been a major influencer and have had a major impact on their writing.
In T. E. D. Kline's 1983 list of the 13 most terrifying ghost stories, this is a lauded list in the genre, friends published in the Twilight Zone magazine, he names James story, Casting the Runes, as the number one [00:20:00] scariest ghost story ever written. I can confirm it's pretty freaky. Have at it.
Modern writers from Ruth Rendell to Stephen King sing his praises. It is true that not only did James invent the genre of the antiquarian ghost story, but he really redefined what a ghost story should be. And perhaps, He haunts us still. James died on June the 12th, 1936. He was at peace and in comfort and in the care of his sister.
The story of his death, y'all, is actually really sweet. His friends, upon learning that he was ill and possibly dying, purchased for him a brand new piece of technology, which was the radiogramophone. And his sister writes that he was so enthralled with it that she could see the peace and contentment on his face As he lay dying and listening to this gift that was given to him by his buddies So a really sweet end for mr.
James Our story [00:21:00] tonight was first published in james's first collection ghost stories of an antiquary in the year of our lord 1904 and You Jess I believe you have our summary of the ash tree tonight.
Jessica: Yes. Yes. Can we just
Damien: all right before we get to Can we just talk about how weird it would be if he got a radiogram of phone before they like made?
Discs or whatever for the radiogram of phone So he had the device but couldn't listen to anything on it That would be very that have been the worst time to die like oh, we got you this gift. Unfortunately
Just stick around
Jessica: I feel like that's the funny equivalent of getting VR goggles now like you're in hospice and your buddies bring you VR goggles. It might
Ryan: be yeah That's a fair. That's a fair analysis. Yeah,
Damien: I mean, there's a good repository of your games and experiences So maybe not the exact thing, but if you got a kerflugel right now
Jessica: coming soon the kerflugel
Damien: Look for it on damien enterprises.
I
Jessica: don't know [00:22:00] what that is Because it's so new. It's so new. You're behind the trends. Okay, the ash tree.
Ryan: Jess is really excited, I can tell. She
Jessica: Okay, our narrator starts out by talking about how he's always loved the smaller country homes of eastern England, and he would love to tell us a story about what happened in one of those houses, specifically at Castringtonham Hall. Once upon a time, et cetera, et cetera.
British
Ryan: pronunciation notwithstanding.
Jessica: It was a white square block house that was old and charming with a big ash tree growing next to it. We travel back to 1690, a fun year.
Ryan: If you're a Puritan.
Jessica: We're all doing witch trials.
Ryan: Oh yeah.
Jessica: And these ladies probably weren't witches, [00:23:00] and maybe they confessed to these things only because they were tortured. I'm not sure. But will we ever really know the truth? Who cares? They're women! Our very cool narrator asks. They
Damien: floated in water.
Jessica: Anyway, this lovely haul contributed to the witch hunting genre when the then proprietor, Sir Matthew Fell, accused a fairly reputable woman of being a witch. Her name is Mrs. Mother Soul, which is a good name. Great name.
Damien: It's not Montague Rhodes, but
Jessica: It's, yeah, but good naming. Okay, so what made her a witch?
Our man Matt claimed that over two nights during a full moon, she climbed his ash tree in her underwear and cut some branches. Each time, Matthew tried to run out and catch her, but by the time he got outside, she was gone, and there was just a hair running away from the house. On [00:24:00] the third night.
That's
Damien: a rabbit, by the way, not like a single human hair. One. Oh, really? Thank you, Damien. One human
Jessica: hair.
Damien: One human hair.
Jessica: On the third night of full moon witchery, he ran all the way to her house, where he woke her up. And he had no explanation of how this could happen if she was just in his tree, but it doesn't matter because him maybe seeing her was just enough to wake her up.
To get a death sentence.
Ryan: There you go.
Jessica: She was hanged at the gallows along with some other ladies. She was Unlike the other ladies noticeably mad about it and said There will be guests at the hall Our man matthew is feeling a little guilty. He didn't want her to die But she was probably in his tree and maybe also a rabbit So what choice did he really have other than to tell everyone about it?
He talked about it with his vicar and the vicar was like, you know what? Yeah, you are right. A [00:25:00] few weeks later, Matthew has the vicar over for supper, but Matt is a bummer and just spends the whole night making notes about his will and estates.
Ryan: This is so true.
Jessica: The vicar leaves and Matthew walks him out.
They both see a creature that looks like it has more than four legs. So they think, That's probably not a squirrel.
The next day, Matthew doesn't come down for breakfast, because he is dead. He doesn't look murdered, but he is all black. They do some oldie timey CSI. Matthew had a drink that evening, but he didn't really drink it, and someone checked somehow and it wasn't poison. The window was open, but it's always open in whatever month we're in.
The body sure looked like it died in agony, and when some of the women tried to wash it, their hands were painful and swollen for weeks. Breaking out the magnifying glass, they found a few tiny little punctures, [00:26:00] so maybe he was poisoned by Catholics, I guess? Who just have poison rings? The vicar then tries to get some guidance by just randomly pointing at things in the Bible, and he writes down the phrases, cut it down, it shall never be inhabited, and her young ones also suck up the blood.
This is
Ryan: a terrible form of Bible study. Which is,
Jessica: but it's a very cool Bible verse.
Ryan: No, it's awful.
Jessica: He's writing all of this stuff down so we have a record of how weird it is. And with the mystery not really solved at all, they bury our friend Matthew and the vicar gives a sermon about how he was murdered by a popish plot.
Damien: Indeed.
Jessica: I assume that we are missing a lot of context that other people would have known at this time, but we will move past it for now.
Ryan: Or indeed now, but not yet.
Jessica: [00:27:00] Okay, let's move on to Ryan's
Damien: cracking his knuckles waiting for the summary to be done. He is just ready to tear in.
Jessica: All right, now we are on to Matthew the second who inherits the estate.
Matthew is not that important, except that he opted not to sleep in the bedroom that his dad died horrifically in. And also, His livestock die a little more frequently than the neighbors. Cool. Eventually, Matthew 2 dies and his son takes over. This one is a Richard. And now we're in 1735 and they're building something new onto the side of the church.
And that means they have to dig up some graves, including the one with Mrs. Mothersoul the witch.
Ryan: What?
Jessica: The village is all excited to see this famous witch exhumed. But when they open her intact coffin, it's empty.
Damien: What?
Jessica: This is the time when, if a body went missing, it was stolen [00:28:00] to be dissected by doctors.
We did
Ryan: this in season three. We know. Yeah. So just re
Jessica: listen to all of season three, come back to this point. So nobody's that weirded out, and Richard orders the coffin to be burned. Richard, meanwhile, is also working on improving the non church parts of the house. He went to Italy and was inspired, so he imported a bunch of ugly architectural stuff to make it look like a weird palace instead of an English country home.
One night, Richard wakes up in the bed because something is rattling the windows and it's annoying and he decides then that he wants to sleep in the big bedroom where his grandpa died. The staff all tries to talk him out of it, but he doesn't care. He orders his stuff to be moved. Then a vicar shows up.
This vicar is the grandson of the other vicar, who is the friend of Richard's grandpa, and he's dropping by because he found some paperwork. It's the notes the that vicar made when Matthew number one died, [00:29:00]
Ryan: Viking, keeping it in the family, .
Jessica: Richard notes that the vicar wrote, cut it down and just immediately interprets that he should cut down the ash tree.
But also he has guests so he wanders around the estate with them first. One of these random visitors is a bishop who points to the tree by the bedroom and says that an Irish peasant would never sleep there because it's bad luck. But then he also says maybe those peasants are right because Richard You look like garbage, and you're breathing heavy.
Ryan: Wandering bishops, lord.
Jessica: Richie says, Ugh, don't worry about it, I'm cutting the tree down tomorrow. The way that it's scratching the window is bothering me anyway. Our friend the bishop says I don't think so. The tree doesn't reach the house. It's not touching the window. And then they just compromise that okay maybe it's rats.
That night, Richard is sleeping with the window open despite all of the rat talk. We're somehow seeing him [00:30:00] And he's shaking his head and a bunch of round, kitten sized fuzzy things are moving around his head and then they flee out the open window. He is also found dead and black in the morning. The guests and servants are trying to figure it out.
Is it another Pope murder? Poison air? Everyone's got great guesses. The bishop looks at the ash tree and sees a cat sitting on a branch and the cat sees something in the tree. Inside a hole in the tree. But as the cat Like a hollow,
Ryan: right?
Jessica: Yeah, imagine a limb fell off and now there's a hole in there,
So the cat is peering into the tree, but as it is doing that it falls into the hole And screams, people faint. They send a gardener up to look in the hole, but it looks fine. So they put a lantern in the hole, and oh man, the gardener can now see what's in there. Gets scared, drops the lantern into the tree, and obviously the tree starts on [00:31:00] fire.
All of the men get ready, because something is coming out of the on fire tree. And what is it? Obviously a giant hairy spider. The first one is the size of a human head. It burns up and dies, more giant spiders flee, and the men try to kill them all. As the fire dies down, the men go to look at the tree, where they find the body of a woman who was dead for 50 years.
Damien: 50 years? Who is it? The end! Mrs.
Ryan: Mothersoul! Thank you Jess for that scintillating summary. Witches, but here's the interesting question when it comes to witches. I think which is and It's not an unobvious question, so I'm going to go with the easy Low hanging fruit here our witches ever really The true antagonist.
[00:32:00] Is Mrs. Mother Sol the problem here?
Damien: Yeah.
Ryan: You think?
Damien: Yeah.
Ryan: She's an actual witch. Awww, I don't know about that. What are you talking about?
Jessica: She probably isn't. But within the story, if she can make,
Damien: She's an actual witch
Jessica: spiders or whatever. Okay.
Damien: Look, all the things considered, I think it was a nice twist that her coffin was still sealed, but empty.
So that's some real witchy
Ryan: business right there. So I'm not going to dispute the idea that she's an actual witch, but what I might dispute is the idea that witches are inherently bad
Damien: In media.
Ryan: Sure. Unless you're Glenda. I think James is doing something here, Glenda, yes, of course I think James is doing something here that's a little bit clever, right?
We have to remember he's a medievalist, he's an antiquarian he is a Christian, but he is also a student of history and he's fascinated [00:33:00] by this stuff. He's deeply steeped in this stuff and one of the things that I think James understands is that. Quote unquote, witches were misunderstood. Okay. Okay.
But here's the thing is that
Damien: I think when we talk about modern or not even contemporary, when we talk about in this time, the concept of a witch, it's more of a crone, right? Yeah. Crone is a very particular kind of witch. A crone is an evil child consuming, driven by black magic witch, and not just a follower of Wicca.
Or a practitioner of Wicca it's like a crone. And in this case, and the Salem witch hunt was going after crones. It was going after. Inherently dark entities traipsing around as women. And so I think in that case, Traipsing around as women. Traipsing around as dames. And I think in that [00:34:00] case, all crones inherently, by definition, are evil.
And yes, they will be the antagonist.
Ryan: All right answer this then, Damien. In the BBC production of this story, They cast a baby as mother's soul. They cast a baby? It's not a, yeah, it's not a crone.
Damien: It's like a 30 year old, okay, so she doesn't have a, like a warty nose or whatever or something like that.
It's still like a crone is, it's still, it fits the archetype of this evil, child consuming, vengeful, cursing entity.
Ryan: Jess, where do you land on this?
Jessica: I think witch hunts were a convenient way to get rid of women who were causing problems, even if those problems were like, I want your land, or Yes. Whatever.
And
Ryan: Yes. But that doesn't answer the question.
Jessica: No. But it's also so that includes crones, but it also includes any young women, right? Include kids. You can accuse any woman you want. So I [00:35:00] don't necessarily think there's this firm architecture of we're only getting rid of or accusing old crones and they're all evil.
There's also just this woman is A little too slutty. She's a witch, right? I
Ryan: think there's a lot of that going on, but
Damien: that's slutty facade or that young facade or whatever is still, it's seen as like an illusion, right? It's seen as a glamour that's being done by this inherently old woman.
They justify that rationalize it away. What I'm saying is that the heart of the entity that they we all know That the witch hunts in any way, shape, or form, or a form of paternal control. So we get that it was obviously a militaristic move of misogyny, but let's talk about what the question was, which was, are witches inherently The antagonist to pretty much every story.
And in this case, the witch that they're typifying is that Crone and yes, by nature, Crones are always going to be. Have you
Ryan: burned a woman as a witch, Damien? No, never. You don't have to answer [00:36:00] that. I've thrown
Damien: some in burlap bags off into water to see if they floated or sank. But. So
Ryan: I really M. R.
James, that's probably evident which means that I did a little bit of more research into the story than I normally would do. And one of the things that intrigued me was, the story is called The Ash Tree. The Ash Tree is an important Symbol in the story. I wanted to know what ash trees meant symbolically, both in history and literature and religion, if that applied they are almost universally associated with good, benevolent.
Or white magic. Interesting. There's nothing evil about ash tree magic out there. And so one of the things that I think James is doing in this story is suggesting, I'm trying to figure out how to phrase this, right? So James is a Christian, he's a medievalist, he's an antiquarian, like he understands the importance and the place of the Christian [00:37:00] religion and the Christian church in England.
He doesn't want to discount that. He doesn't want to. Sweep that under the rug. But at the same time, I think he's suggesting here that there are certain pagan rituals or certain historical rituals that the Christian church can. Turn a blind eye to and that Matthew fell is the real antagonist of the story by Sure by denying that by not turning a blind eye to this pagan ritual Which has to do with an ash tree, which is good magic.
And so I think that you know as the son of an Anglican clergyman As a deeply knowledged, can I use that as a verb? Knowledged? A deeply knowledged fellow. I think James is saying that the puritanical sect of Christianity at this point often goes a step too [00:38:00] far.
Damien: I mean, in this story, I think it was a subtle nod.
Because on the surface, obviously you're like, okay, giant venomous, now flaming spiders that are, killing offenders or, which is cool, which hunters, which is very cool, but still like fundamentally. You can point an angry finger at the witch's spirit and say, yes, you're an antagonist are both Matthew and the other dude antagonist as well.
Yeah. I don't think there's, I don't really think there's a mother
Ryan: soul is the antagonist of the story, but Matthew fell brings it on. If he had just left well enough alone, then she wouldn't have done any of this.
Damien: I think they all are. This is, they all exhibit some moral ambiguity and the fact that there's a, a hearty dose of vicaring and bishoping that's involved as well.
I think it's. It's a biting take on global religion, right? Yeah. But that is interesting. When you mentioned I won't take global religion. I'll I'm going to specify Puritan religion, Puritanical religion. That's fair. It is interesting that you bring up the ashtray being a symbol of light because I do believe if my playing of God of War is correct, [00:39:00] that the world tree Yggdrasil or whatever it was, I do believe that was an ash tree.
So it is interesting. And if you look a picture,
Ryan: if you look up a picture of an ash tree, it is not a scary looking tree. Like I expected it to be. I wanted to look it up. No, it's very broad
Damien: and reaching and stretching.
Ryan: Is this like a willow? Is this like a really creepy tree? It's no, it's a pretty normal looking tree.
Baseball bats are made out of ash. Yeah, that's true. Are you afraid of willows? I'm definitely afraid of yeah. A
Damien: hundred percent. So ash like on ash Wednesday, it was that I know that's ashes, but it weren't ash trees burned originally for that. That's
Ryan: not a connection. Okay. I tried. Fair enough for you dog.
Let's move on because we've spent a lot of time on this first question. Which is great. We're describing. No, it's great. It's really good. What do you think's going on with the spiders? This is a weird thing.
Jessica: They are weird. It was weird that it's described as not quite a squirrel.
Like they see it and they're just like, Oh, that's probably [00:40:00] not a squirrel. You say kittens. Kitten size. And then later it's kittens. They're fluffy kitten sized things. Terrifying. And so it's hard to think that's like a gross monster. Like obviously, okay, killed these guys or whatever.
Ryan: But something that's not the right size and not quite what you think it should be.
Jessica: Right. But like a little fluffy ball. That's cute. I was sad when they burned up. Unless it has eight
Damien: legs. Those were full sized ones, right? The ones that came out of the tree cause they were larger.
Jessica: One, one for sure was human head size. So I'm not going to assume that's a mama bear or papa bear.
And then we got some,
Damien: I mean, how big are kittens? If you put a kitten against my head, You could fit
Jessica: three kittens in your head.
Damien: Okay. That's fair. Let's try. Let's give it a go. I don't know if there's, I mean, did you do research on this? Is there a symbology behind? No, I know. I spiders and ashtrays, or I
Ryan: sure looked around, but there's
Damien: nothing conclusive about it.
Interestingly, when you think of, Halloween symbology and when you think of things like creepy [00:41:00] old, crones, then spiders are there as being just innately creepy. Yeah, that was the sum of what
Ryan: I found. Like a lot of people are afraid of spiders. So James is using that, but Yeah I don't know what's going on with the spiders.
I mean, I had a thought that perhaps are these her children, but I didn't know where to go with that. I, right. Like
Jessica: it's gross that it's a spider, but then the spiders fuzzy and cute.
Ryan: But then it's on fire.
Jessica: But then it's on fire and also it kills someone. Yeah,
Ryan: and if these are like the continuation of her line, then it didn't continue.
So I'm not sure that went very far.
Jessica: Burned or smushed. Did
Damien: it
Ryan: kill
Damien: the cat? That's the question. Oh,
Jessica: yeah, because if it
Damien: killed the cat then I think jessica has now checked out of being supportive of this Right. Yeah,
Jessica: I don't think the cat survived it So
Ryan: speaking of surviving What do you think james might be saying by having like really in the end of the story?
Both matthew fell is dead and the ash tree Mother soul slash all her [00:42:00] progeny are dead like everybody that's important to the story is dead what might james be doing with that?
Jessica: It was interesting to think about those questions when so much of the story was also intertwined with the history of the house and the history of the land, how it had been, Had a moat around it and then a house.
And then he came in and changed the house. And I'm a, I mean, we don't have an heir. I don't think there's no heir mentioned to Richard too. We had a couple of Matthews, but I don't think any more Richards. So now what are we doing with her?
Ryan: Our
Jessica: house, we got no guys.
Damien: Yeah, no, it was, vengeance are complete so I can, me and my spider brethren can now burn up.
I feel like maybe faded as faded, would it be a faded ending?
Ryan: Yeah. I like what you said first though, Damien about vengeance is complete, but vengeance also burns the user. Yeah, true. So Matthew fell like wreaked his vengeance on mother soul and true. Like he, he got her, but he also got God, [00:43:00]
Damien: right?
He did get God.
Ryan: Yeah. So if you have full circle, if you prefer not to be God, Leave witches alone,
Jessica: just the lady's just in the tree and also maybe a rabbit. I don't know
Ryan: Let her be Wick over here. I have a lot of I have a lot of night meetings and I come home sometimes quite late for some Night meetings I do.
I know it's terrible But when I come home, sometimes there's this huge like blue heron standing in my driveway
Damien: Yeah, it's Mother Soul.
Ryan: And I often think, are you a witch? I'm gonna go real slow because you might be a witch. Anyway, I want to talk about the writing a little bit. I have several questions about that.
On page 138 near the top of the page, I don't know if you noticed this, but James changes the point of view somewhat suddenly and dramatically. If you look at the page, top of page 138, We're cruising along in the story, and then all of a sudden, James writes, and now we are in the [00:44:00] bedroom with the light out and the squire in bed.
So he's writing as if these are almost like stage directions. Yeah, I wrote that in my recap. What did you make of that? Was that effective for you? Did that No,
Jessica: it was
Ryan: weird. Did that, it was weird. What you think it was trying to do or was it weird?
Damien: Yeah, I feel like it, it was chaptering in a short story, which is hard.
So that was what I saw that as a device. 'cause it was real. It was also the only time it happened.
Ryan: It was the only time it happened, and that's what didn't work for me at all. Right. It's the only time It was really startling.
Jessica: that it happened, and it's the only time where we don't have a narrator. That's right.
We don't have, we don't have the servant saw this, or we know this because it was written down, or someone else was there. It's just all of a sudden, somehow we're seeing him in his room being attacked by kitten spiders.
Ryan: This is not the first time It's the only time. No, absolutely. Absolutely.
This is not the first time I've read The Ash Tree, but I do remember the first time I read it, I got to that same part and what it made me do was go [00:45:00] and look up how early in M. R. James's writing career was this story. And sure enough, it's like the third or fourth story he published. I was like, yep.
This is him figuring out writing.
Jessica: story that like, works as a tale that you tell out loud to your friends, you're sitting in a room, right?
Because you heard this from some guy. Oh, I can tell you the story of this weird history of the house and the people who lived in it, because part of it's written down and the servants saw all of it, but nobody saw the. That section, right? So we're just imagining, but we're not imagining because it's just very specific of what we saw.
And we're just
Damien: It was like a Twilight Zone narration. It was like a voiceover. It was strange. It was really odd, yeah.
Ryan: What is much more customary for M. R. James and much better, at least in my opinion, is the opening paragraph that was mentioned in our summary. I want to read this because I think this is brilliant.
I want to find out what you think about it. Here's the [00:46:00] opening paragraph of the story. Everyone who has traveled over eastern England knows the smaller country houses with which it is studded. The rather dank little buildings, usually in the Italian style, surrounded with parks of some 80 to 100 acres.
For me, they have always had a very strong attraction, with the gray paling of split oak, the noble trees, the mirrors with their reed beds, and the line of distant woods. Then, I like the pillared portico, perhaps stuck on to a red brick Queen Anne house, which has been faced with stucco to bring it into line with the Grecian taste at the end of the 18th century.
The hall inside going up to the roof, which hall ought always to be provided with a gallery and a small organ. I like the library too, [00:47:00] where you may find anything from a Psalter of the 13th century to a Shakespeare quarto. I like the pictures, of course, and perhaps most of all, I like fancying what life in such a house was when it was first built, and in the piping times of landlord's prosperity, and not least now, when, if money is not so plentiful, Taste is more varied and life quite as interesting.
I wish to have one of these houses and enough money to keep it together and entertain my friends in it modestly. I love that opening line because I think. This is Mr. James. That is most honest. This is Ryan R. Whitley at his most honest. I feel this. I love this. I want this for myself.
Damien: So is it just a stream of consciousness, like observational authorial style to where he's [00:48:00] going and like jumping into weird things like that?
Commenting on the wood on the, housing architecture and being like, I want one of these, I want one of these, you hear him like actually thinking these thoughts,
Ryan: right? I love that. I feel that's very Jamesy. And it's very like it's of the past, like even for James which in our current.
Our modern timeline he's a hundred, 120 years ago. Sure. But even him writing that, he's writing about houses that are a hundred years old or more.
Jessica: And criticizing the new money choices, right? A hundred percent. Oh, yes. Setting up like, oh, remember those old houses that were so cool.
Now they're real ugly. The insides are still okay, and I would live there, but he makes that point again when Richard moves into the house, because Richard went to Italy, and he's bringing back all these ugly Italian columns and marble. Yeah,
Ryan: he's importing all this stuff. Yeah, he's uglying up the house.
Jessica: It was better [00:49:00] before.
Ryan: So as a contemporary reader then and I understand that I'm somewhat of an anomaly here But as a contemporary reader, do you guys like this kind of an introduction to a story or does this turn you off?
Damien: No, I like it. It's fine I mean it didn't grab me, but I think it's also not a device like devices grab me I'm a sucker for some stupid intro then all of a sudden, you know You need 30 more pages to get context because it brings you into a moment so I mean But it's effective.
It's effective for a slow burn. It's effective for just as a storytelling device. It shows that, it shows that the author, regardless of it's, whether it's Jamesian or not, but it shows that the author like embraces the character and actually wants to give more depth than just a representation of a concept.
And so I can appreciate that for what it is.
Jessica: I liked the intro more than the rest of the story. I thought it was fun and it was setting up a I don't know exactly, and I had read this before, so I knew [00:50:00] the gist of what I was getting into. So I was like reading it slightly more critically.
Ryan: Let me ask this then. In reading short stories like this, do you prefer introductions that are about the setting or about the character?
Jessica: Oh, I who knows? Yeah. No pressure. Depending on the story. Right? If. Okay. Okay.
Damien: Fair enough. Yeah. You just need to keep the levels. I'm with Jess.
Like I, I saw a reverse bell curve of enjoyment for this story and I'm sure we'll talk about it. It started. I was like, Oh, okay, cool. And then I just a bit nodded off in the middle and then, Oh, in the end, like some big action happens. I mean, desiccation as much as the next guy, but there was just too little of that too late.
Ryan: What else about the writing? Interested you if indeed anything
Jessica: I can see how again if you're telling the story out loud the switching between okay here. We're narrating. I'm telling you about this family But now I'm going to read you these notes and they're in a different tone because the vicar wrote them down, 50 years ago. I think that's a [00:51:00] good device, I mean, for the reading also, of just like breaking up the narration and now it's something slightly different.
Ryan: And when you know that these stories were meant to be read out loud, that, that's helpful, I think. Yeah,
Jessica: Okay, we're changing the voice in a way that's, Not as weird as that one paragraph. We keep talking about where the narration changes, but we don't know why yeah
Ryan: There was a paragraph on page 127.
I'm not gonna read the whole thing to you Cuz I just read you a very long paragraph, but it's the description of Matthew fell Attending the hanging of mrs. Mother soul in which her poisonous rage is described It's a very well written paragraph what I like most about James stories is his ability to transport me to a time and a place that is not my own.
The best, yeah, like Poisonous Rage, but it's spelled funny, right? And it's
Jessica: in quotes, so who are, oh, I must be quoting a newspaper.
Ryan: Exactly. The best of [00:52:00] our weird fiction writers of yesteryear do this. H. P. Lovecraft does this, Arthur Mackin does this, Algernon Blackwood does this, Hope Hodgson does this this is a hallmark of their kind of writing.
The ability to take you to that time and place and slap you down in the middle of the public square. And you are an observer of this execution. You are an observer of this burning. Yeah. And you're culpable in some ways as a viewer, as a reader.
Damien: Also just making those moments like, so normalized, I think is what makes it super effective.
It's not glamorized or glorified. It's just this is what's happened. It's a run of the mill day. And so the fact that you bring folks into this entirely new timeframe, chronology, a new geography, and just make things normal while still being descriptive and placing you there. I think it's super effective.
Ryan: Super effective. I agree. Does it plant though? This is an interesting question for this story. The ash tree, does it plant? Jess?
Jessica: I don't know. The plant is there.
Ryan: There is a plant, yes. [00:53:00]
Jessica: The plant is there and it's relevant to the plot, but it's not But it's still
Ryan: weak. It's weak. It's not
Jessica: doing. I, you know me.
I like a plant that does. This one is just thematically important.
Ryan: Yeah.
Jessica: It's like a Christmas tree, right? If the, there's a Christmas tree If it's missing, you're going to notice, but yeah. Yeah. It's there and it's important. So you know of the time and place and, But it's not, I mean, I guess it's hiding a bunch of creepy spiders.
Damien: right.
Jessica: Mer, Merry
Damien: Christmas. ,
Jessica: like all Christmas trees. It's hiding a bunch of spiders. .
Damien: Probably true. Y'all are being too gentle. This is a two and that's, that is being generous. This is a two of 10 leaves.
Ryan: No I'm with Damien on this. I. I just don't know that, I don't know that this story plants.
I think the story is in the collection because A, a plant is contained in the narrative and B, it is authored by M. R. James. Yes. Got it.
Jessica: Yeah, I don't think it's, I know that like I've read it before so it obviously must be Vaguely widely published. [00:54:00] Yeah, but it's not my favorite James story. I've ever read, and
Damien: it's in this collection because it is a tale of a woman's vengeance,
Jessica: right?
It's very similar. That could be
Damien: very true.
Jessica: Wisteria. I mean, I think The endings are almost exactly the same, right? Someone comes down and says, Oh, there's a woman and she's been in there for a hundred years. End of story, right? This is the same thing.
Ryan: 50 years. All right. So the aside taking the story on its own.
Does the scare hold up?
Jessica: I don't think so. I think if the Spiders had been scarier or the tree had been scarier. There's a lot of elements that like Are building up that something is weird But it's just like a leafy ash tree that maybe has a squirrel that has too many legs in it
Ryan: So I want to disagree with that And I [00:55:00] know that Damien is going to be the tiebreaker here, but I want to disagree with that and say that the combo of the creepy witch, whether she's actually evil or not, along with a touch of arachnophobia, which is a pretty universal fear, I think, makes this a
Damien: creepy story.
Everything was too allegorical to be scary. I'm going to say that the witch wasn't scary. Not the vengeance of the witch. I do like the idea, not necessarily of spiders. I'm not afraid of spiders, but I do like the idea of either. I picture it as like a desiccated corp. I picture the black skin as being like, wrinkled and, but it could easily be swollen and shiny black, which would also be gross, that edemic, but also, spongy.
Yeah. And and like liver mortisey, where it's like red, shiny or something. Yeah. Like that part, I guess is a little scary that the idea of death by venom. Yeah. Are you not scared
Ryan: of
Damien: spiders? No, I'm just not afraid of spiders. Yeah, I'm not really either. Spiders crawling across
Ryan: [00:56:00] your face while you sleep doesn't bother you.
No, it
Damien: doesn't bother me whatsoever. Good on them. Spiders laying eggs in your cheek. They're eating the ants in my mouth that I otherwise would have swallowed. Or
Jessica: I've got houseplants, so sometimes we get gnats.
Damien: You don't want gnats.
Jessica: No, but, so if I have a spider, I don't have gnats. That's absolutely right.
So I'd rather have
Ryan: a spider. If there's spiders outside of my home, I leave them alone. There are webs all over, outside of my house right now, it being the season. And I leave them 100 percent alone. But if that spider is crawling across my floor inside my house, it is going outside.
Damien: Nothing is more rewarding than me going down to my basement and looking in the basement window corners and seeing a nice, juicy, healthy, fat, juicy
Ryan: spider and a
Damien: bunch of like carcasses of flies and moths and stuff below it. I'm just like, thank you.
You're doing work and we're a pro spider
Ryan: podcast. Yeah, I have a spider two out of three of us. I'm No, I'm very pro spider. I have a horrible story about a Misappropriation of a broom and [00:57:00] spiders, but yeah, I don't want to Appropriation of a broom. Oh, yeah,
Damien: keep that one to yourself.
My mother when she was younger got bit by a brown recluse And it necrotized a good chunk of her
Ryan: necrotized. Yeah.
Damien: That's that their venom is a necrotizing toxin. It killed the flesh around. So it didn't just like it killed the flesh and it took years and years for it to come back. So that's, but it was a son of a gun.
It's pretty scary, and it was rare in Florida. You didn't see a lot of Brown recluses.
Ryan: You brought it up, Damien scary. Does the scare hold up
Damien: in this story? I, if you found it scary, you'll. If you found it scary, then yeah. I mean, is that a dumb thing to say? I guess it was probably scarier when it was written than it is now.
But if you still appreciate what made it scary, then sure. It held up for me. It didn't because I didn't, I don't find the subject matter to be that terrifying. And I thought it was still too rich in allegory for it to be truly like scary.
Ryan: For me, it [00:58:00] held up the combo, the creepy witch and the, Yeah, I think spiders are creepy.
I like spiders. I leave them alone. But yeah, they're creepy The scary this story was a little creepy for me. Jess. How about you?
Jessica: No, it was fine. The spiders were cute. I was sad when they got burned up. Spiders.
Damien: I know it's sad to think of the little fuzzy, spider kittens, venom kittens, let's call them because they were getting sized and three of them could fit in my brain.
Ryan: All right. That's going to take us to our whiskey ratings for this story. The ash tree by Mr. James. Whiskey ratings are how we rate our stories here on whiskey and the weird all the way from zero fingers of whiskey to the coveted fist of whiskey or five fingers. Jess, what are you giving the ashtray?
Jessica: I had trouble with this one.
I wrote down a two and a half. I think I just, the story has elements that I think I should like, right? Like I love wronged woman. I love, like longing for the
Ryan: past
Jessica: [00:59:00] and your family lineage and bad
Damien: people,
Jessica: All of that. But I just it wasn't quite interesting enough that I care enough to think about it, which is if it's a good story, like I'll, have a notebook full of things to think about.
And this one is just Oh, the spiders were kittens. It's just okay obviously I didn't take a lot more than that from this one, so we're going with a two and a half,
Ryan: two and a half.
Damien: Damien? I gave it a three. A lot of the same reasons I just mentioned, I thought, and a three because of the writing, the story was anything that was terribly novel it may have been at its time, but I've just seen too many things like it and.
I appreciate and respect MR James. I just, it was interesting that you mentioned that you did some research that this was early on in his writing career and it, to me, it shows, I think he grew up from here, but a decent story, just nothing I'll remember or recommend.
Ryan: Right. I'm also coming in with a three.
Oh, interesting. Yeah. Which may surprise you, but this is my least favorite MR James story. Of, [01:00:00] and I don't know that I've read all 40, but it's pretty good. Pretty close to that. And this is the one, like when I saw it, I was like, dang it. That's of course that's the one they pissed for this collection.
But dadgummit for our first MR James story, I would rather have a warning to the curious or stalls of Barchester Cathedral or any number of other stories. Do those plant? They don't plant at all. Okay. Then what did you expect, bro? They wouldn't fit for this collection, but. We got to plant them.
If this is your introduction to M. R. James, please continue. I'm sorry. Like it gets a lot better. Keep
Damien: going. You're halfway through hell rather. Keep going.
Ryan: It gets so, so much better elsewhere. I will never look at a beach at night the same way again after having read a whistle and I'll come to you, my lad.
Like it's that level of affect for me. That said the 17th century setting, not, My favorite. This is James forcing [01:01:00] his antiquarian lifestyle upon us. And it doesn't do it for me. It is very well written as Damien mentioned and it's still a James story. So it's got a leg up on some of the others that we've read.
For
Jessica: sure. Yeah.
Ryan: Three fingers of whiskey for me. Yeah. In the middle. But please, if this is the only James story you've read, please go on to read others because they're so much better than this. That's gonna take us to our If This, Then That. And Jess, I believe you've got that for us this evening.
Jessica: I do, and it is a weird one. It is the novel The Mercies by Kieran Millwood Hargrave. And it is a novel that I initially picked up because we did a trip this summer to super northern, super remote Norway. Super Norway. And then after we came back, I just happened upon this novel that is set in one of these super remote villages.
And it is set in the 1600s, and it is based around the sort of true stories of, [01:02:00] in the 1600s, this village of like a couple hundred people, maybe. All the men are fishermen. They're all out fishing. There's a freak storm and all the men die. So just all of the men in this village die. Sounds great for
Ryan: two thirds of that story.
Jessica: And and that's like the first page. So from there, we are now in this village of women. And a pastor. He's one of the only men left. And
Ryan: you need one. I mean, at that point, yeah, he's
Jessica: not the worst guy, but he's not the best guy. But as these women are living alone, it's also the time when people.
Witch hunting is picking up. And so it's a really interesting story that kind of covers from the women's perspective, how they're learning how to fish and live by themselves, and they have freedoms that they've never had before. One of the women wears pants. And Heaven
Ryan: for fend.
Jessica: Yeah. And, but it's also just because they have to feed themselves.
Someone has to slaughter a reindeer or whatever. And you [01:03:00] do that
Ryan: in pants. And you, I mean Stands to reason. I
Jessica: wouldn't do it in a skirt. And so it's how then, men are coming into this town under the guise of religion and, viewing this women's work as witchcraft and start accusing women of being witches.
But it's, partially against also the native population there. So there, it's just, it's really interesting. It's really well researched and the story is told from the point of view of these women who are living in this village.
Without men and are, basically now going to be hunted for it.
Ryan: I really want to read this. It reminds me, your description reminds me of that Netflix series called Godless, which was about a western town where all the men died in a mining accident and the women had to run the town.
Jessica: I imagine that there is some overlap, yes.
Ryan: Yeah, no, and I like that series, so I really am interested in this story.
Thank you for bringing it to our attention. Yeah it's
Jessica: good, and not one that it's, It's not weird.
Ryan: It's
Jessica: not horror, it's not anything that we [01:04:00] normally cover But it's just a really solid read if you're looking for a good novel.
Ryan: That sounds very good that's gonna do it for this overly long episode about nr.
James is the ash tree Thank you so much for sticking with us tonight if you really enjoyed this episode, we would Appreciate it. If you would share that enjoyment with us and with others by rating and reviewing this podcast, wherever you find your podcast, be that on iTunes, Spotify, Amazon, or elsewhere.
We always want to thank Dr. Blake Brandes for providing the music for Whiskey and the Weird and Damien, if they would like to tell us what's up their ashtray, where can they do that?
Jessica: Have you just been waiting on that all night? You have it written down. He really has. I knew that was in the pocket. It actually just came to me.
No, it just came to me. It's written in your notes.
Damien: It's just really burns my ashtray, no we are on the socials. You can find us at WhiskeyWeirdPod on TwitterX, at WhiskeyWeirdPod on TwitterX. We're also on Facebook, Instagram, and threads at [01:05:00] Whiskey and the Weird, at Whiskey and the Weird on those meta properties.
We spill our whiskeys with an E and we hope you do too. If not, I'm going to throw a cat down your ashtray hole. That sounds awful. No, deal doesn't sound
Ryan: great. Maybe you
Damien: should just
Ryan: spill your whiskeys with an E and you won't have to deal with it. Spell your whiskeys correctly. Jess. What are we reading next?
Jessica: We're gonna go with some more women and some more trees with the woman of the woods by
Ryan: Looking forward to that in the meantime and I guess always I'm Ryan Whitley.
Jessica: I'm Jessica Burke
Ryan: And together reluctantly we're whiskey Thanks Somebody send us home.
Damien: As always, keep your friends through the ages and your creeps in the pages. Buh bye everybody. [01:06:00]