# Count Magnus — Short Fiction character guide

> Count Magnus in Short Fiction by M. R. James.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** this Magnus de la Gardie, Count Magnus de la Gardie, the first Count Magnus, Magnus

**First appearance:** 0005-count-magnus

## Snapshot

A long-dead Swedish nobleman whose sealed tomb and forbidden travel diary tempt a curious English visitor into unearthing far more than local folklore.

## Who they are

Count Magnus de la Gardie belongs to the dusty aristocracy of a small Swedish town, remembered chiefly through a black-letter biography and the locked mausoleum where his remains rest under a lid no one dares lift. The book's early pages hint at a life of sinister wanderings — a 'Liber nigræ peregrinationis' kept in his own hand — and at a countryside belief, older than memory, that something about him was never quite right. His tomb and his reputation form the quiet dare that draws the traveller onward, making him the still centre around which the story's dread slowly coils.

## In the story

### [Count Magnus](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_35_se/chapters/count-magnus)

The long-dead 17th-century nobleman, builder of Råbäck, known for cruelty and rumored to have undertaken the Black Pilgrimage; his sarcophagus is in the church mausoleum.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_35_se/characters/count_magnus
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_35_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_35_se/characters