Review: Schalken the Painter

Schalken the Painter by J. Sheridan Le Fanu
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Another superbly chilling tale from Fanu, who I am quickly becoming a big fan of. I found that several volumes of his short stories are available from Project Gutenberg, so am aiming to read one every night before bed (possibly ill advised due to the potential occurence of strange dreams or even nightmares) but they aren't quite the sort of tales that drive you utterly hair ripping insane - more of a hair standing on end style of thing.

This tale concerns a young painter who is hopelessly in love with his master's niece, who is his ward. A ghastly visitation from a mysterious and shrouded strange who also seems to be incredibly rich (he carries around gold ingots of immense value) begins the downfall of the poor young lady and Schalken's dreams of marital bliss are snatched away from beneath his eyes.

The mysterious stranger is tall, dark, but not conventionally handsome - having a blue and blackened face which is quite literally rotting, and a horrible malodorous presence. It is later discovered that he was a reanimated corpse, Schalken being led to his vault by none other than the ghost of the gorgeous and delightful young female who he had hoped to ensnare. He then paints a picture of this occurrence, which is that which is described in the opening paragraphs.

Delightfully creepy and unsettling stuff.

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under the rose, she dabbles, it is thought, in the black art

The primitive neighbours remark that no rowan-tree grows near, nor holly, nor bracken, and no horseshoe is nailed on the door.

Not far from the birches and hazels that straggle about the rude wall of the little enclosure, on the contrary, they say, you may discover the broom and the rag-wort, in which witches mysteriously delight. But this is perhaps a scandal.

Mall Carke was for many a year the sage femme of this wild domain. She has renounced practice, however, for some years; and now, under the rose, she dabbles, it is thought, in the black art, in which she has always been secretly skilled, tells fortunes, practises charms, and in popular esteem is little better than a witch.

Mother Carke has been away to the town of Willarden, to sell knit stockings, and is returning to her rude dwelling by Dardale Moss. To her right, as far away as the eye can reach, the moor stretches. The narrow track she has followed here tops a gentle upland, and at her left a sort of jungle of dwarf-oak and brushwood approaches its edge. The sun is sinking blood-red in the west. His disk has touched the broad black level of the moor, and his parting beams glare athwart the gaunt figure of the old beldame, as she strides homeward stick in hand, and bring into relief the folds of her mantle, which gleam like the draperies of a bronze image in the light of a fire. For a few moments this light floods the air--tree, gorse, rock, and bracken glare; and then it is out, and gray twilight over everything.

from Laura Silver Bell by J. Sheridan Le Fanu

"Round the cabin stood half a dozen mountain ashes, as the rowans, inimical to witches, are there called. On the worn planks of the door were nailed two horse-shoes, and over the lintel and spreading along the thatch, grew, luxuriant, patches of that ancient cure for many maladies, and prophylactic against the machinations of the evil one, the house-leek. Descending into the doorway, in the chiaroscuro of the interior, when your eye grew sufficiently accustomed to that dim light, you might discover, hanging at the head of the widow’s wooden-roofed bed, her beads and a phial of holy water"

from The Child that Went with the Fairies, by J. Sheridan Le Fanu