'Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad'

This article is about the short story. For the poem by Robert Burns, see Oh, whistle and I'll come to you, my lad.

"'Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad'"
1904 illustration by James McBryde
Author	M.R. James
Country	England
Language	English
Genre(s)	Horror short story

"'Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad'" is the sixth story in the first collection of ghost stories published by M. R. James, Ghost Stories of an Antiquary.

Synopsis

Parkins, the protagonist, a skeptical Cambridge professor, is holidaying in the town of "Burnstow" (a fictionalized version of Felixstowe, Suffolk), on the southeast coast of England. While investigating a Templar ruin for a colleague, he finds a whistle with two Latin inscriptions. On one side it says "Quis est iste, qui venit?" which Parkins translates as "Who is it that comes", On the other side it says "Fur, flabis, flebis." This second inscription is never translated but means "thief, blow, weep". Unable to translate the second sentence, Parkins blows the whistle. Back at his hotel the following night, he dreams of a man fleeing towards him in a state of extreme fear and exhaustion before collapsing right in front of him. In the distance, the pursuer appears, moving in a strange fashion and with incredible speed. The next day he encounters a boy who was terrified by a white figure which had appeared at the window of Parkins' hotel room. Upon returning to his room, he notices that the room's second, unused bed is in disorder. Later, while alone in his hotel room, he sees someone get up from the adjacent and empty bed. The figure, made up of the bedclothes, attacks Parkins, but he is saved by one of the other guests.^[1]

Adaptations

The BBC has filmed the story twice as Whistle and I'll Come to You, firstly in 1968 in a version directed by Jonathan Miller and starring Michael Hordern, and again in 2010 starring John Hurt and Sophie Thompson.

References

↑ James, M.R. (1993). Collected ghost stories (Repr. ed.). Ware, Hertfordshire: Wordsworth. p. 65-81. ISBN 1853260533.

External links

Oh Whistle and I'll Come to You My Lad public domain audiobook at LibriVox
Full text of 'Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad'
A Podcast to the Curious: Episode 7a - 'Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad'

Works by M. R. James

Short stories	"Canon Alberic's Scrap-Book" "Lost Hearts" "The Mezzotint" "The Ash-tree" " Number 13" "Count Magnus" "'Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad'" "The Treasure of Abbot Thomas" "A School Story" " The Rose Garden" "The Tractate Middoth" "Casting the Runes" "The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral" "Martin's Close" "Mr Humphreys and His Inheritance" "A View from a Hill" "A Warning to the Curious"

Collections	Ghost Stories of an Antiquary More Ghost Stories A Thin Ghost and Others A Warning to the Curious and Other Ghost Stories The Collected Ghost Stories of M. R. James

Adaptations	Night of the Demon A Ghost Story for Christmas

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