Casting the Runes is a short story by English writer M.R. James. First published in 1911 as the fourth entry in More Ghost Stories of an Antiquary, James’ second collection pf supernatural tales, it is considered a classic of horror fiction and has been adapted for film, TV and radio.
Plot:
Mr. Edward Dunning is a researcher for the British Museum. At the beginning of the story he has recently reviewed The Truth of Alchemy by a Mr. Karswell, an alchemist and occultist who lives in an isolated house in Warwickshire. Afterwards he begins seeing the name John Harrington displayed wherever he goes. He learns that Harrington also reviewed Karswell’s work and died in a freak accident not long after.
Harrington’s brother helps Dunning to discover that Karswell cursed both men by slipping them a piece of paper with some runes on it. They deduce that Karswell’s curse, once given, leaves the recipient with only three months left to life. They track down Karswell and manage to return the curse to him.
Three months later, Karswell is killed by a stone that fell from a scaffolding around St. Wulfram’s Church in Abbeville…
Buy: Amazon.com | Amazon.co.uk
Adaptations:
The 1957 film Night of the Demon (directed by Jacques Tourneur) is an adaption of this story. In this version, the central character is called Dr John Holden (played by Dana Andrews). Holden is an American psychologist who plans to expose occultist Julian Karswell (Niall MacGinnis) as a charlatan, only to discover Karswell’s powers are real and that he has put a curse on Holden.
In 2013, it was reported that Joe Dante (Gremlins; The Howling) was working on another movie adaptation, to star Simon Pegg (Shaun of the Dead), however this came to naught.
The story has been adapted twice for television in the UK. The first was in 1968 as an episode of the anthology series Mystery and Imagination (Season 3, episode 1, 1968) with John Fraser as Dunning and Robert Eddison as Karswell. No complete copies of the 1968 version are known to exist.
In 1979, the story was adapted again as an episode of ITV Playhouse (Season 11, episode 9). In this, the central protagonist is a woman, Prudence Dunning (played by Jan Francis), the producer of an investigative television programme which is critical of an occultist named Karswell (played by Iain Cuthbertson), and soon finds that Karswell has a curse put upon her. It was released on DVD by Acorn Media.
Casting The Runes has also been adapted several times for radio. The first was in 1947 by CBS for their radio series Escape. CBS produced a second version in 1974 for their CBS Radio Mystery Theater show. In 1981, BBC Radio 4 produced a loose adaptation titled ‘The Hex’.
Full text of Casting the Runes
HORRORPEDIA is truly independent and we rely solely on the minor income generated by affiliate links and internet ads to stay online. Please support us by not blocking ads on our site. Thank you.
Quick links to contents:
A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z
