EnCrypted Episode 1: 'Gabriel-Ernest' by Saki
Gabriel-Ernest is a delicious little tale by Hector Hugh Munro, the author more commonly known as Saki. Written in 1909, actually not too long before Saki's demise, like much of his ouevre the story is an acute satire of Edwardian society as much as a work of horror fiction, although it has been regularly anthologised as the latter ever since it was first published.
The story concerns an amateur naturalist (or rather a slightly pompous hobbyist), Van Cheele, who encounters a strange and shockingly naked teenage boy when on a woodland stroll. The beastly nature of the boy, once revealed, is unlikely to shock the modern listener; I'm not sure that was Saki's intention anyway. Instead, the blackly comic joy of 'Gabriel-Ernest' is that the horrific events are played as farce and, while the story's denouement is suitably grim, Saki is also subtly savage in the skewering of his characters' pretensions.
For more on Saki, try this article by Christopher Hitchens.
Your wildlife correspondent,
Jasper
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About the episode:
"Gabriel-Ernest" is a 1909 short story by British writer H. H. Munro, better known as Saki. The story was included in The Westminster Gazette and appears in the collection Reginald in Russia published by Methuen & Co. in 1910.
Theme music:
The Black Waltz by Scott Buckley | www.scottbuckley.com.au
Music promoted by https://www.chosic.com
Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Incidental music:
Unseen Horrors Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
Music romoted by https://www.chosic.com/
Other music sourced at: https://www.chosic.com/
Sound effect attributions:
https://freesound.org/people/craftcrest/sounds/349035/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/)
https://freesound.org/people/juskiddink/sounds/77096/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/)
Other sound effects sourced at: https://freesound.org/
Additional info:
The recording was created using Bandlab and shared via Anchor.
Thumbnail image contains elements by Yatheesh Gowda (Pixabay).
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