Books Reading the Weird Two Stables Both Alike in Dignity: Edgar Allan Poe’s “Metzengerstein” Maybe one *should* look a gift horse in the mouth… By Ruthanna Emrys, Anne M. Pillsworth | Published on October 8, 2025 Comment 0 Share New Share Welcome back to Reading the Weird, in which we get girl cooties all over weird fiction, cosmic horror, and Lovecraftiana—from its historical roots through its most recent branches. This week, we cover Edgar Allan Poe’s “Metzengerstein,” first published in January 1832 in the Saturday Courier. Spoilers ahead! The narrator gives no date to his tale, for “horror and fatality have been stalking abroad in all ages.” At this unspecified time, however, Hungarians held a “settled although hidden belief in the doctrines of the Metempsychosis,” that is, in the immortality of the soul, which after death transmigrates into another body, human or animal. The narrator doesn’t assert that this belief is either true or false, but opines that incredulity comes from the inability to be alone (“vient de ne pouvoir etre seuls.”) He further opines that the Hungarian superstition approaches absurdity in an essential difference from Eastern beliefs in reincarnation: The Hungarians suppose that a soul lived only once in a tangible body, after which, whether in the form of a horse, a dog, or even a man, it has but little tangible (material) resemblance to these animals. The noble houses of Berlifitzing and Metzengerstein have been foes for centuries. The supposed origin of their enmity is an ancient prophecy: “A lofty name shall have a fearful fall when, as the rider over his horse, the mortality of Metzengerstein shall triumph over the immortality of Berlifitzing.” The houses are political rivals and uneasy neighbors, for the Berlifitzings can look from their battlements into Castle Metzengerstein and seethe over its superior magnificence, themselves being of a less ancient and wealthy line. Wilhelm, Count Berlifitzing, is an old and infirm man, remarkable for his hatred of the Metzengersteins and his passion for horses and hunting. Frederick, Baron Metzengerstein, lost his father, and soon after his mother at age fifteen. Nevertheless, he immediately succeeded to the title and its numerous estates. After his inheritance, Frederick surpasses all expectations in the “shameful debaucheries—flagrant treacheries—unheard-of atrocities” he commits. Nor can his subjects count on either their own submission or his conscience to keep them safe from “the remorseless fangs of a petty Caligula.” Four nights after the old Baron’s death, the Berlifitzing stables catch fire, a conflagration the neighborhood adds to Frederick’s other enormities. Meanwhile, the young Baron sits in an apartment hung with tapestries depicting the exploits of his ancestors: powerful clerics, fierce warriors, and beautiful ladies. While he listens to the uproar outside, his eyes fix on a tapestry depicting a Saracen ancestor of Berlifitzing slaughtered by a Metzengerstein knight. In the foreground, a huge fiery-colored horse stares at its fallen rider. Frederick smiles at the unconscious direction of his gaze, but is simultaneously anxious. He forces his gaze away, but his attention returns to the tapestry-horse. The image has swung its head toward Frederick, its eyes gleaming red, its teeth bared. Frederick totters terrified toward the door; as he flings it open, ruddy firelight throws his shadow onto the tapestry so that it aligns with the figure of the triumphant Metzengerstein. Seeking relief in the open, Frederick meets three equerries at the castle gate. They’re struggling to restrain the wild plunges of a gigantic, fiery-colored horse, the “very counterpart” of the tapestry-steed. The men caught the beast flying “smoking and foaming with rage” from the burning Berlifitzing stables. Yet the Count’s servants denied he owned any such horse, even though the initials W. V. B. were branded on its forehead. Frederick decides to keep the horse, for “perhaps a rider like Frederick of Metzengerstein may tame even the devil from the stables of Berlifitzing.” He’s taken aback to hear from a page that a portion of tapestry from an upper apartment has disappeared. Another servant announced that Berlifitzing has died in the stable fire trying to rescue his hunting stud. Frederick seems “slowly and deliberately impressed with the truth of some exciting idea.” Thereafter Frederick begins to “disappoint every expectation” of the neighboring aristocracy by keeping to his own domain and refusing all invitations. Eventually his haughtiness insults his noble peers. Invitations cease. Berlifitzing’s widow is heard to hope that “the Baron might be at home when he did not wish to be at home, since he disdained the company of his equals; and ride when he did not wish to ride, since he preferred the society of a horse.” Indeed, if Frederick has any companion, it’s the fiery-colored steed. The more demon-like its ferocity, the greater becomes his fervor to master it. Noon and night, fair weather or foul, in health or sickness, he seems “rivetted to the saddle of that colossal horse.” Such is Frederick’s “unearthly and portentous” mania that he keeps this horse in a separate stable and cares for its needs himself, no one else venturing to approach it. Not even the three men who captured it can remember touching the animal. Its physical prowess is uncanny, as is its peculiar intelligence and human-seeming expressiveness of gaze, from which even Frederick sometimes shrinks. An “insignificant and misshapen little page” asserts that the Baron never mounts the horse without a shudder,” but always rides home with a “triumphant malignity” distorting his features. One tempestuous night, Frederick rides the horse into the forest, no uncommon occurrence. In his absence, however, the Castle Metzengerstein is engulfed by “a dense and livid mass of ungovernable fire.” Servants and neighbors can only watch the conflagration and await their lord’s return. At last the fiery-colored horse pounds into sight carrying a convulsively struggling Baron, no more able to master it than the servants can master the fire. His attire is disordered, his lips bitten through with terror; a single shriek tears from him before the horse leaps the castle moat and bears him into the whirlwind of flames! Immediately the storm ceases, but white flame still enshrouds the castle, shooting its glare high into the sky and illuminating the smoke that “settled heavily over the battlements in the distinct colossal figure of—a horse.” What’s Cyclopean: It’s hard to pick a single sample of this week’s neon violet prose. There are shameful debaucheries and flagrant treacheries. There are singularly unmeaning phrases spoken by the unusually energetic. It’s all, to quote Poe, very “silly.” The Degenerate Dutch: No one listens to the “misshapen little page, whose deformities were in everybody’s way” when he suggests that the Baron fears his new horse. Weirdbuilding: If you’re in a Poe story, you should just assume that the architecture is going to collapse. Standing in a doorway will not protect you. Ruthanna’s Commentary Poe is a master of melodramatic language and vocabulary. He’s not always a master of plot, and the former doesn’t always sufficiently mask (masque?) the latter. Anne’s summary is of reasonable length, but if it’s too much, one could sum up: “Hungarians have some weird ideas about reincarnation. Once, a guy’s mortal enemy died and went into his tapestry horse, and eventually killed him in poetically appropriate fashion.” Romeo and Juliet it’s not. I dunno, maybe I’m just not in the right mood for gothic heebie-jeebies this week? Or maybe there’s a reason I haven’t previously heard of this one. I honestly think it’s the lack of commitment to the bit. Narrator keeps pointing out how “silly” various plot points are—and yet, they’re not any sillier than color-coded rooms at an end-of-the-world party. Was Poe on deadline? Why not cut the portentous hags and incidental prophecies of doom, if they didn’t satisfy him? Simply cutting his own self-criticism would’ve at least toned down the big flashing arrows. [Anne reveals the background details below—it being his first story does make me somewhat more forgiving. He learned his lessons later.] It hardly requires prophecy for two families, both alike in dignity, to develop a generation-spanning blood feud. I have, admittedly, managed to avoid it with all my neighbors, even the Chicago suburbanites who kept trying to mow my lawn to their specifications. But throw in a little high-density vocabulary and a better castle, and I’m sure I could’ve managed it. Here, that vocabulary is dressed up with some Latin and French. The Latin’s a good one; quoth Martin Luther: “I was a plague alive. Dying, I will be your death.” Nice. The Berlifitzings are not exactly principled leaders of new idealist movements, but the last Metzengerstein seems to have some similarities to the Borgias whose excesses pricked Luther. Poe goes on about Herod and Caligula instead. It’s a rare leader who can ensure that their name is a byword for cruel excess a thousand years later, but a handful manage it. Probably not Berlifitzing, though; he doesn’t get enough time. The one similarity with R&J is that a poorly-raised 15-year-old is not in a position to make good decisions. It’s perfectly possible that, without the intervention of Tapestry Horse, he would’ve gone on to a full career of decadence and cruelty, but it’s also possible that he would’ve grown up, at least a little. Perhaps take after “the beautiful Lady Mary”? Admittedly, we don’t know that she wasn’t cruel and decadent, only that narrator pines for her beauty. And for her beautiful death. STOP ROMANTICIZING TUBERCULOSIS, EDGAR! (Autocorrect got to my note on this part, so I quote: “What the duck is wrong with you?”) Of all these unsympathetic characters, I have the most sympathy for old Berlifitzing. If you’re obsessed with horses, wouldn’t the best death be not tuberculosis but brief reincarnation as the wildest and most dangerous of the animals you love? Sure, there’s bloody vengeance to wreak—everyone’s got responsibilities—but in the meantime you get the strength and speed and grace of all your favorite mounts. Eventually, of course, you’ll have to disappear in a puff of ominous horse-shaped smoke, but you can’t have everything. Anne’s Commentary I first read “Metzengerstein” not in a horror anthology but in a collection of horse stories. I found it in the children’s section of our city library, among the Marguerite Henry and Walter Farley novels, so it must have been deemed safe fare for horse-crazy little girls. Evidently, no librarian noticed it included the first story in John Steinbeck’s serial novella, The Red Pony. “The Gift” ends when young Jody’s beloved pony has wandered off, dying of strangles. Jody finds him still twitching and set upon by buzzards, one of which is dripping pony eye fluid from its beak. Jody beats the buzzard to a very gory death. After that, “Metzengerstein” seemed all sweetness and light, if tough going for a kid with all that untranslated French and Latin. At least the horse won in the end. I wasn’t sure what “shameless debaucheries,” “flagrant treacheries” and “unheard-of atrocities” consisted of, nor did the name “Caligula” ring a bell. No matter. I gathered this Frederick guy deserved his fiery fate. The way people impose its creator’s name on Frankenstein’s monster, I imposed the name Metzengerstein on the horse. It was the title, after all, and the horse was the hero. Count Berlifitzing reincarnated would have stomped me flat for such an insult. Am I the only one who finds “Berlifitzing” harder to pronounce and spell than “Metzengerstein”? Evidently Poe made up both names for this, his first published story. He had entered it in an 1831 contest sponsored by the Philadelphia Saturday Courier. He lost the prize to Delia Bacon’s “Love’s Martyr,” which, let’s face it, was less a jawbreaker of a title. However, the Saturday Courier liked Poe’s entry so well that it published it on January 14, 1832, a week after Bacon’s winner. When Poe republished “Metzengerstein” in the Southern Literary Messenger, he added the subtitle “A Tale in Imitation of the German.” This has led some critics to believe that Poe wrote the story as a satire of the German Gothic style. Others, with whom I side, argue that “Metzengerstein’s” fatalistic dread and dark atmosphere disqualify it as a work intended to ridicule its inspiration. An article by Elizabeth Peek, Poe’s Gothic Soul in “Metzengerstein,” provides an excellent overview of Poe’s “Germanism.” She writes: “Although he was never known to set foot on German soil, Edgar Allan Poe managed to craft a lofty presence there… Themes of romanticism, gothicism, and Germanism are certain in Poe’s work. “Metzengerstein,” in particular, can be diagnosed with every symptom of gothic fiction: it is based in the Middle Ages, reveling in the terrifying side of the human soul, all while featuring classical gothic elements of royalty, specters, and revenge… Germans not only relish Poe’s creations, but they also honor his tragic background. Poe’s writing is seen as more authentic and more valuable, as it is not the only thing about him that emits a stench of terror and the fantastic—Poe’s life did as well.” As usual, scholars ponder autobiographical echoes in “Metzengerstein.” Might the 22-year-old Poe have fashioned the 15-year-old Frederick after himself: an orphan with unruly tendencies exaggerated for lurid effect? Might Berlifitzing be a stand-in for Poe’s foster-father, John Allan, with whom Poe had a rocky relationship? I don’t know. It could have been cathartic for Poe to kill off an adversarial patriarch-figure. It could also have been perverse ecstasy to imagine himself into a character fated to self-destruct so spectacularly. The metempsychosis angle of the story deserves more space than I have left. Its roots are surely much deeper than Orphism, Pythagoras, Plato, and the reincarnation models of the Hindus and Buddhists. Worldwide, prehistoric cultures have imagined that one life isn’t nearly enough for an immortal soul to sort out its problems and potentials. Also, that it might be cool to return as an animal, especially if you could pick your next form. That would’ve been an easy choice for Berlifitzing, the horse fanatic, and he even got to refashion his equine incarnation into a perfect weapon for vengeance. Poe suggests the Hungarian model of metempsychosis differed from that of the “Eastern authorities” in the notion that a soul could inhabit only one tangible or material form; its vessels thereafter would have little tangible resemblance to the animal form selected. Note that the men who capture the fiery horse never actually touch it, nor does anyone try after Frederick becomes its sole caretaker. The horse may be spectral, donning a powerful illusion of reality only for its intended target. I’m trying to figure out which animal I’d transmigrate into. I could choose shorter-lived species so I could hop into many different forms over a given time period, or I could choose a long-lived species, so I don’t have to keep choosing. An Aldabra tortoise could live over two hundred years; a Greenland shark, over five hundred. Or I could go for a deep-sea glass sponge and hang around over 10,000 years. Wi-fi reception can get really spotty in the chilly depths, though, a serious consideration. A colossal horse with supernatural abilities is looking better and better. Next week, we hope for illicit assignations in Chapters 9-11 of Lucy Snyder’s Sister, Maiden, Monster.[end-mark] The post Two Stables Both Alike in Dignity: Edgar Allan Poe’s “Metzengerstein” appeared first on Reactor.