COUNT MAGNUS
Another Christmas, another MR James tale, and another very solid adaptation by Mark Gatiss.
First published in 1904, James’s short story recounts the fate of a Mr Wroxall, whose researches among the papers in a Swedish manor house unearth a very dark sheep in the family: Magnus de la Gardie, renowned locally for his cruelty, and for rumours that he brought something back from a Satanic “Black Pilgrimage”. Wroxall’s fascination with his mausoleum does not end well…