Count Magnus

"Count Magnus" is a short horror story by M. R. James. H. P. Lovecraft cites it in Supernatural Horror in Literature as one of James' best stories, calling it "a veritable Golconda of suspense and suggestion." (Golconda is an Indian fort famous for its wealth of diamonds.)"Golconda at Wikipedia".
The story of "Count Magnus" was incorporated into the Cthulhu Mythos by Brian Lumley, who refers to it in "The House of the Temple".
==Synopsis==
Set around 1863, the story describes the contents of a manuscript written by an English travel writer named Wraxall, who had been researching a book in the Vestergothland region of Sweden. In a town called (but not actually named) Raback, he learns of a family referred to as De la Gardie, and in particular of a sinister ancestor named Count Magnus, a tyrannical landlord with an interest in alchemy; poachers on his land years after his death have met horrible fates, one found with the flesh of his face "sucked away off the bones". 
Magnus is said to have gone on a "Black Pilgrimage" to Chorazin (a village in Palestine associated with the Anti-Christ), and to have "brought something or someone back with him." In a note labelled "Liber nigrae peregrinationis"--"The book of the black pilgrimage"--Magnus wrote, "If any man desires to obtain a long life, if he would obtain a faithful messenger and see the blood of his enemies, it is necessary that he should first go into the city of Chorazin, and there salute the prince...." The last words appear to be "of the air".
Wraxall is fascinated by Magnus' mausoleum, which he visits repeatedly. The lid of the count's sarcophagus, which is sealed with three locks, bears a scene of a man being hunted by a hooded dwarf with the "tentacle of a devil-fish," as a cloaked man looks on with interest. Wraxall remarks out loud three times that he wishes he could see Magnus, and each time one of the locks drops off. After the third time, he hears the lid of the sarcophagus creaking open, and flees in terror; Wraxall writers, "I only know that there was something more than I have written that alarmed me, but whether it was sound or sight I am not able to remember."
Returning to England, he is obsessed with two fellow passengers on a canal boat: One "a man in a long black cloak and broad hat, and another a ‘short figure in dark cloak and hood’". He is convinced that he is being followed after landing at Harwich, and races to the village of Belchamp St Paul in Essex, where he sees his pursuers again. 
So ends Wraxall's manuscript. The story notes that Wraxall was found dead, in an undisclosed state that caused seven jurors at the inquest to faint; his death was ruled a "visitation of God". The narrator closes by noting that he found the account in a cottage he was having torn down.
==External Links==
*"Count Magnus" at Wikipedia
*"Who Was Count Magnus? Notes Toward an Identification" at Ghosts and Scholars
*"Not the Immortal Count You’re Thinking Of: M.R. James’s 'Count Magnus'” at The Lovecraft Reread
==References==
Category:M. R. James works
Category:Lovecraft's Inspirations (works)
Category:Mythos-Adjacent Works