Short summary: The young Reverend Murdoch Soulis arrives in the Scottish village of Balweary and hires Janet M’Clour as his housekeeper—a woman of ill repute, long suspected of witchcraft. After a confrontation with the townswomen, Janet publicly renounces the devil, but from that moment on, her body becomes twisted and her behavior turns strange. Ignoring warnings, the reverend continues living with her in the remote manse. Later, during a suffocating summer, Soulis sees a demonic-looking black man lurking first in the old graveyard, then near his home. That night, he finds Janet dead, hanging by a thread—but her corpse rises and pursues him. Calling on the power of God, the reverend commands the figure to vanish, and it bursts into flames. Ever since, the villagers believe a demon had possessed Janet’s body and that the reverend was forever marked by the terrifying experience.
Full summary of Thrawn Janet by Robert Louis Stevenson:
First published in The Cornhill Magazine in October 1881, Thrawn Janet is a chilling gothic tale set in the fictional Scottish village of Balweary, where the supernatural and the religious become disturbingly intertwined. Narrated as a memory from the past, recalled by the village elders, the story focuses on the extraordinary events that marked the early days of the young Reverend Murdoch Soulis’s ministry.
Upon arriving in Balweary, Soulis is a scholarly but inexperienced minister. He soon hires Janet M’Clour, a woman with a notorious reputation and long suspected of witchcraft, to work as his housekeeper. Her arrival at the manse causes scandal: outraged, the village women attempt to subject her to a kind of folk trial, dragging her to the river to test whether she is a witch. The reverend intervenes, defends her publicly, and demands she renounce the devil in God’s name. Janet complies, but at that very moment she undergoes a horrific transformation: her body twists unnaturally, her neck turns sideways, her face freezes into a grimace, and she loses the ability to speak clearly. From then on, she is unable to utter the name of God, and the townspeople begin to see her as a soulless being.
Despite everything, the reverend keeps her as his only companion in the remote and gloomy manse, which soon becomes shunned by all. Janet lives in silence, moving oddly, always with her head crooked, and speaks to no one. Over time, some villagers come to believe the real Janet died that day, and that the being now living with Soulis is not human.
Eventually, during an oppressively hot summer, the eerie atmosphere in the village intensifies. On one of his walks, Soulis witnesses a disturbing scene in the old graveyard: a black man with a hellish appearance is sitting atop a grave. The reverend follows the figure back to the manse, but finds no trace of him—only Janet, greeting him as if nothing has happened. He begins to suspect a supernatural link between her and the demonic man.
That night, unable to sleep, Soulis hears strange noises in Janet’s room. Entering, he finds her dead, hanging from a nail by a single thread of yarn, her body stiff and her grimace unchanged. Terrified, he locks the door and stumbles downstairs. Soon after, he hears footsteps above—someone, or something, has opened the locked door and is descending the stairs. Holding a candle, Soulis flees outside to the pathway, where the figure of Janet follows him to the threshold. The reverend confronts her, invokes the power of God, and commands her to return to hell. In response, her body bursts into flames and turns to ash amidst a supernatural storm.
The next morning, several witnesses claim to have seen the mysterious black man fleeing across the region. It is believed he had inhabited Janet’s body ever since her supposed renunciation of the devil, and that he was finally expelled. Though the village never again suffered supernatural disturbances, Reverend Soulis never recovered: he spent the rest of his life alone, somber, and permanently marked by the horrors of that night—becoming a cautionary figure in the town’s collective memory.
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