Use of Tropes: Nemesis of Fire

Published in 1908 in the volume John Silence, Physician Extraordinary, this is a story by Algernon Blackwood and I came across it in David Annwn Jones’ excellent volume Vampires on the Silent Screen. When discussing an episode of the 1916 serial The Mysteries of Myra entitled the Fire Elemental (now sadly lost), Jones describes an episode in which a fire demon is summoned with the promise of a blood sacrifice. The episode description includes possession (of a spirit, interestingly) and trapping within ultraviolet rays. To tie a demonic (or spirit) source into vampirism and the depiction of it in early cinema is not so strange when we consider that Count Orlock is of demonic heritage.

Jones makes the connection not only between Hereward Carrington, who advised on The Mysteries of Myra, and Blackwood but directly to this story and suggests it was drawn on for the vampiric episode of the serial. One can certainly see that, with the story resonating to the descriptions we have of the Myra episode. They are not the same story, it must be stated, but one could see how this inspired. Narrated by Mr Hubbard, almost a Watson to the psychic detective Dr John Silence, the tale sees the pair visiting Col. Wragge who has reported strange goings on, though the materialistic soldier remains rather stoic on interview. The air in Wragge’s house feels oppressively hot and Silence soon deduces that there is a fire elemental at play.

The trop here comes down to the use of blood. Silence intends to manage the elemental through the use of blood: “The emanations of blood—which, as Levi says, is the first incarnation of the universal fluid—furnish the materials out of which the creatures of discarnate life, spirits if you prefer, can fashion themselves a temporary appearance.” This is why I have looked at the story as a use of tropes – whilst the elemental is drawn to blood, it uses it to draw corporeal shape rather than to consume. It is, however, the intertextual connection with Myra that also interests me and adds to the story's genre interest. The elemental itself was summoned due to a curse/protective spell cast on a Mummy, which Wragge’s deceased brother had taken from its tomb. As well as creating a vessel out of blood the elemental is able to possess Wragge, at one point.