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Study 169 - The Mainz Psalter (Patreon)

Published:
2026-06-12 14:52:25
Edited:
2026-06-13 14:46:06
Imported:
2026-06
Tags:

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Content

Belgian ale? Belgian waffles? How about some Belgian Lovecraft? Join us as we discuss Jean Ray's tale of cosmic horror on the high seas: The Mainz Psalter!

Special thanks to our excellent reader, artist Jack Hughes!

Deeper Cut: Jean Ray and Weird Tales from the always-fantastic Deep Cuts in a Lovecraftian Vein!

Don't forget to FOLLOW our roleplaying game pre-launch page!

Outro Music: Going Down (instrumental)

Comments

Karl Haikara

Really happy to see you guys cover Jean Ray, he's an amazing author with some really eerie stories across all his collections

Rick Hound

Now I want an npc character in a homebrew setting called Reverend Leman which dwells amongst the denizens of the yodeling steam tunnels

Kip Barnes

Wow, this was a really fun story. Makes me very nostalgic. Squid Man! Squid Man!!! Have you guys played or heard of the PS5 game Saros? It’s super lovecraftian and heavily leans on Chambers and Bierce King in Yellow themes. I really enjoyed it. There are a few giant octopus tentacle scenes in this game much like the boat scene in this story.

HRPrice

Wait wait wait, so- Is the drunk guy who ran out of the bar just the only guy in the story who could correctly identify a mannequin on sight?

Voidcalled

Now that we have a successful Spider Noir series, I want to see a write up for Spider Pirates! Thank you for exposing me to Jean Ray! This story felt like an Isekai D&D campaign but the players weren't told they were actually playing Spelljammer. The Schoolmaster was a DM-PC Illithid with a really high deception skill and a disguise kit. None of the players were into this so they just got offed one-by-one by the angry dungeon master. Incredible story and coverage!

Jason Thompson

Can’t believe you left Reverend LEMAN on the table! I guess the joke writes itself!

Newk

My God, Reverand Leman? This story even has Andrew in it?! Turns out the most Lovecraftian story ever written wasn't even written by Lovecraft. Amazing. Also excellent choice for the outro song. Captain Captain Captain were going down! PBM 4 lyfe

Exanimus

Story read by J'Accuse!

Robert Smith

Great episode, great story - perfect for the show. Almost... too perfect? The nautical horror music used so well in your "The Temple" and "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" coverage. The ship's captain acting just like the Captain in PBM's masterpiece "Going Down", which you then played as the outro. Reverend Leman. The Lovecraft staples being hit one by one by one - STRANGE BOOKS! WAX MASK! TENTACLE BEAST! Halfway through, it came to me... "this is 'The Ghosts of the Future' all over again! But they won't fool me twice..." But... I looked it up, mid-episode, and unless you guys have REALLY upped your April Fools' in June game, it's real and I can only thank you for introducing me to Jean Ray. Splendid stuff... enough to make me forget how I winced every time you mispronounced "Mainz"...

Aragonewrong

Amber eyed octopus guy must have been Kthanid! HIS city is still going strong, everybody having a great time. Cthulhu sux! Great story!

witchhousemedia

Thanks Robert! We've actually since corrected our egregious mispronunciation in the podcast episode (so if you downloaded the first version - it's a rare misprint!).

witchhousemedia

Haha - I thought of cutting in that guy shouting SQUID MAN! OCTOPUS MAN!! I know I've got the audio in the archives but ran out of time. We're on the same page, Kip! I'll pull it for comments!

Jack Hughes

Sudden unresolved trauma from secondary school French lessons emerges!

Anne Ominous

Thank you for this story and the breakdown. Truly a unique mashup of all our faves. Will read Jean Ray again! Almost changed my handle to "Turkish Star Wars". Sincerely Redneck Voltron

Jb Lee

I read this in preparation for the podcast and couldn't BELIEVE there was an author of cosmic horror of this magnitude who I was totally unfamiliar with. This isn't Cthulhu-level stuff, it's WILLOWS-level -- as you say -- and there is nothing above that. And Cordwainer Smith -- Dr. Paul Linebarger -- has long been a favorite.

Mark Simmons

Love this story, delighted you're covering it! Mr. Hughes really rocked it with the schoolteacher's final rant. The Johann Fust connection is fascinating too - his use of colored ink and miraculous ability to conjure up books at superhuman speed led to him being jailed for witchcraft, and it's said that this was the inspiration for the legend of Doctor Faust. A diabolical bible-publisher indeed!

Stacy Schumacher

What a great story. And I found the ranting of the antagonist to be a delightful addition perfectly read for the episode. The musical choices calling back to hppodcraft episodes were a great touch.

Jim Cannon

Was thinking this guy was more the Belgian William Hope Hodgeson but then the tentacles showed up and I had to concede the point.

Jim Cannon

This was a great weird story. Stuff happened, but even though none of it made sense, it was clear *something* utterly bizarre was going on. For whatever reason, I found myself contrasting with Aikman, where most of the time you're not sure if anything happened at all but you're still supposed to feel unsettled. I will take Ray's version of weird over Aikman's every time. I like monsters that much.

Fraser Burnett

Perfect episode for a perfect story. Thanks, chaps.

Cole Caron

Is the renaming of the boat supposed to be foreshadowing? My understanding of superstitious sailor lore is that renaming a ship for any reason guarantees disaster.

Robby Haentze, a consumer of silliness

I can see why he is known as the "Dutch Lovecraft/Poe." Yoy two mentioned the parallels to the Temple and Call of Cthulhu, but when he wrote about the ship going into another dimension, it reminded me a lot of Poe's "Ms. Found in a Bottle." Also when the wreckers where thrown into the sea by an invisible force reminded me of "the History of the Necronomicon" when Alhazred was yeeted to death by an invisible monster. Also, again, when the ghosts where steering the ship, reminded me of the Flying Dutchman myth

Devin Morse

This story is great and I'm so happy you started covering Jean Ray. The Shadowy Street (his other story in The Weird) is one of the creepiest things I've ever read. Pure nightmare material. He wrote another one called The Great Nocturnal which I remember featuring some kind of Lynchian inter-dimensional cafe.

It's a Ghost.

Loved this story! Also, it seemed like most, if not all, of the characters on the boat were killed or attacked when they became curious about their situation. So it seems to me that if they'd all just gone along with everything without questioning anything, maybe they wouldn't have all died . . . the way they did 🙂

It's a Ghost.

Also, I *am* very curious where they were headed, but I also don't trust the schoolmaster at all.

It's a Ghost.

Also, now that I think of it, the schoolmaster seems so weak and incompetent! Like, he didn't prepare the crew of the boat at all to survive and achieve whatever he was looking for!!!

Karl Haikara

Another author I don't think you've covered yet is Gustav Meyrink most famous for writing The Golem but there are 2 volumes of amazing short stories I highly recommend giving a look thru

Steve

Big fan of Jean Ray especially Malpertuis. If you ever get the time, watch the movie, or better still read the book. I've mostly read him in French including Le monstre de Borough and La nuit de Camberwell, The Borough Monster and Camberwell Night, two stories set in south London near where I live (Chris took us for breakfast in Camberwell). Sadly these two are nowhere near as good as the one you've just read.

FSK

To my knowledge I'm the only Fleming/Belgian commenting, and here I was, ready to give exclusive cultural clarifications when it turns out it takes place in the UK! Having never heard of this author before I naturally looked him up, and while doing my research I found this weird occurrence that Jean Ray claimed had happened to him when he was seventeen: one rainy evening, returning home from university, Jean walked into a street barely forty meters long, where his attention was drawn by an English-looking shop window displaying a rich selection of large and small cakes that made his mouth water. He waited for a while, called out to the owners, but no one showed up. So he went in, took a paper bag, and filled it with a few pastries before he left, intending to come back to settle his debt the next morning. That evening, the pastries were shared and enjoyed by Jean and others. About two weeks later, Jean went to visit the little shop again, but this time, there was not a single pastry shop to be seen in the entire street. He asked the neighbours, the butcher, and the nearby dairy shop. "Never heard of it," everyone said, and, "There has never been a pastry shop in this little street." Some time later, he spoke with a good friend of his about what had happened. Unlike Jean, this friend, a Dominican friar, did not find it funny at all. "Boy," he whispered, "you might have been lucky to get out of there... Or who knows, maybe you had the misfortune not to have stayed." (By the way, does Kenneth Hite know there's an NPC in Elden Ring named after him? Been wondering about that since I played it years ago.)