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De Vermis Mysteriis
''De Vermis Mysteriis'', or ''Mysteries of the Worm'', is a fictional grimoire created by Robert Bloch and incorporated by H. P. Lovecraft into the lore of the Cthulhu Mythos. Creation Ludvig Prinn's ''Mysteries of the Worm'' first appeared in Bloch's short story "The Secret in the Tomb" (''Weird Tales'' May 1935). Lovecraft coined the Latin title, ''De Vermis Mysteriis.'' This analogue to Lovecraft's ''Necronomicon'' also features strongly in Bloch's story "The Shambler from the Stars" (1935), in which a character reads a passage from the book and accidentally summons an extradimensional horror. Bloch, then a teenager, corresponded with Lovecraft about the story prior to its publication, in part to get permission to kill off a character based on the older writer. While giving his enthusiastic blessing, Lovecraft also provided Bloch with a bit of Latin to use as an invocation from the book: "Tibi, magnum Innominandum, signa stellarum nigrarum et bufoniformis Sadoquae sigillum ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Grimoire
A grimoire ( ) (also known as a "book of spells" or a "spellbook") is a textbook of magic, typically including instructions on how to create magical objects like talismans and amulets, how to perform magical spells, charms and divination, and how to summon or invoke supernatural entities such as angels, spirits, deities, and demons.Davies (2009:1) In many cases, the books themselves are believed to be imbued with magical powers, although in many cultures, other sacred texts that are not grimoires (such as the Bible) have been believed to have supernatural properties intrinsically. The only contents found in a grimoire would be information on spells, rituals, the preparation of magical tools, and lists of ingredients and their magical correspondences. In this manner, while all ''books on magic'' could be thought of as grimoires, not all ''magical books'' should be thought of as grimoires. While the term ''grimoire'' is originally European—and many Europeans throughout hist ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Byatis
"The Shambler from the Stars" is a horror short story by American writer Robert Bloch, first published in the September 1935 issue of'' Weird Tales''. It was later included as part of his first published book, ''The Opener of the Way'' (1945), and his 1994 collection '' The Early Fears''. A Cthulhu Mythos tale, it introduced the forbidden tome ''De Vermis Mysteriis'' (Mysteries of the Worm). Later on in 1935, Lovecraft wrote the short story "The Haunter of the Dark" as a sequel and dedicated it to Bloch. Eventually, in 1950, Bloch wrote his own sequel " The Shadow from the Steeple". Plot summary The story focuses on a nameless narrator who, in addition to being a college student, hopes to make a living as a pulp writer of weird fiction. His earliest efforts at the craft are woefully inadequate and rejected by magazine editors. As a result, he begins to yearn after the forbidden knowledge known only to those who are true practitioners of the occult, and begins sending letters ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Miskatonic University
Miskatonic University is a fictional university located in Arkham, a fictional town in Essex County, Massachusetts. It is named after the Miskatonic River (also fictional). After first appearing in H. P. Lovecraft's 1922 story "Herbert West–Reanimator", the school appeared in numerous Cthulhu Mythos stories by Lovecraft and other writers. The story "The Dunwich Horror" implies that Miskatonic University is a highly prestigious university, on par with Harvard University, and that Harvard and Miskatonic are the two most popular schools for the children of the Massachusetts "Old Gentry". The university also appears in role-playing games and board games based on the mythos. Origin Lovecraft concocted the word ''Miskatonic'' from a mixture of root words from the Algonquian languages. Place-names based on the Algonquian languages are common throughout New England. Anthony Pearsall believes that Lovecraft based the name on the Housatonic River which extends from the Long Island Sound ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Shadow Out Of Time
''The Shadow Out of Time'' is a novella by American horror fiction writer H. P. Lovecraft. Written between November 1934 and February 1935, it was first published in the June 1936 issue of ''Astounding Stories''. The story describes time and space travel by mind transfer. The premise is that a person in a given place and time can switch bodies with someone who is elsewhere or elsewhen. Other writers have re-used this concept in later works, such as drinking tea from Red Forest leaves in the television series ''12 Monkeys'' and long-range communication stones in the ''Stargate SG-1'' television series. As with other Lovecraftian works, this story features otherworldy alien beings that are not simply variations on humans or other familiar terrestrial animals. Plot ''The Shadow Out of Time'' indirectly tells of the Great Race of Yith, an extraterrestrial species with the ability to travel through space and time. The Yithians accomplish this by switching bodies with hosts from t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Attica (village), New York
Attica is a village in Wyoming and Genesee counties, New York, United States. The population was 2,547 at the 2010 census. The village is on the northern border of Wyoming County. The village lies mostly within the town of Attica, but the northern part of the village is within the adjacent town of Alexander in Genesee County. History In 1802, Zerah Phelps became the first European-American landowner in the Attica area, which had for centuries been part of territory of the Seneca Nation, one of the Five Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy. As allies of the British, they were mostly forced out of New York after the American Revolution, when the Crown ceded control of its territory to the new United States. He built and owned a gristmill, and was also the first business owner in Attica. By 1810 the settlement had grown into a town., Malaria and plague drove the settlers to higher ground. During the War of 1812, many people fled to this area from Buffalo, which was vulnerable ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Providence, Rhode Island
Providence is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Rhode Island. One of the oldest cities in New England, it was founded in 1636 by Roger Williams, a Reformed Baptist theologian and religious exile from the Massachusetts Bay Colony. He named the area in honor of "God's merciful Providence" which he believed was responsible for revealing such a haven for him and his followers. The city developed as a busy port as it is situated at the mouth of the Providence River in Providence County, at the head of Narragansett Bay. Providence was one of the first cities in the country to industrialize and became noted for its textile manufacturing and subsequent machine tool, jewelry, and silverware industries. Today, the city of Providence is home to eight hospitals and List of colleges and universities in Rhode Island#Institutions, eight institutions of higher learning which have shifted the city's economy into service industries, though it still retains some manufacturin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Haunter Of The Dark
"The Haunter of the Dark" is a horror short story by American author H. P. Lovecraft, written between 5–9 November 1935 and published in the December 1936 edition of ''Weird Tales'' (Vol. 28, No. 5, p. 538–53). It was the last written of the author's known works, and is part of the Cthulhu Mythos. The epigraph to the story is the second stanza of Lovecraft's 1917 poem "Nemesis". The story is a sequel to "The Shambler from the Stars" by Robert Bloch. Bloch wrote a third story in the sequence, " The Shadow from the Steeple", in 1950. Plot In Providence, Robert Blake, a young writer with an interest in the occult, becomes fascinated by a large disused church on Federal Hill which he can see from his lodgings on the city's east side. His research reveals that the church has a sinister history involving a cult called the Church of Starry Wisdom and is dreaded by the local migrant inhabitants as being haunted by a primordial evil. Blake enters the church and ascends the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shaggy Dog Story
In its original sense, a shaggy dog story or yarn is an extremely long-winded anecdote characterized by extensive narration of typically irrelevant incidents and terminated by an anticlimax. Shaggy dog stories play upon the audience's preconceptions of joke-telling. The audience listens to the story with certain expectations, which are either simply not met or met in some entirely unexpected manner. A lengthy shaggy dog story derives its humour from the fact that the joke-teller held the attention of the listeners for a long time (such jokes can take five minutes or more to tell) for no reason at all, as the long-awaited resolution is essentially meaningless, with the joke as a whole playing upon humans' search for meaning. The nature of their delivery is reflected in the English idiom '' spin a yarn'', by way of analogy with the production of yarn. Archetypal story The eponymous shaggy dog story serves as the archetype of the genre. The story builds up a repeated emphasizi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cthulhu Mythos Biographies
The following characters appear in H. P. Lovecraft's story cycle — the Cthulhu Mythos. Overview: *''Name''. The name of the character appears first. *''Birth/Death''. The date of the character's birth and death (if known) appears in parentheses below the character's name. Ambivalent dates are denoted by a question mark. (Note: ''ca.'' is the abbreviation for "circa".) *''Description''. A brief description of the character follows next. __NOTOC__ A Alhazred, Abdul (655?–738) The infamous "mad Arab" credited as the author of ''Al-Azif'' (the ''Necronomicon''). He is first mentioned in Lovecraft's "The Nameless City". See Abdul Alhazred. Akeley, George Goodenough The son of Henry Wentworth Akeley. See " The Whisperer in Darkness". Akeley, Henry Wentworth (c.1871-??) Vermont folklorist and correspondent of Albert Wilmarth who becomes involved with the Fungi from Yuggoth. See " The Whisperer in Darkness". Allen, Zadok (c. 1831–1926?) One of the few ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sebek
Sobek (also called Sebek or Sobki, cop, Ⲥⲟⲩⲕ, Souk) was an ancient Egyptian deity with a complex and elastic history and nature. He is associated with the Nile crocodile or the West African crocodile and is represented either in its form or as a human with a crocodile head. Sobek was also associated with pharaonic power, fertility, and military prowess, but served additionally as a protective deity with apotropaic qualities, invoked especially for protection against the dangers presented by the Nile. Sobek has been famed for having been revered by the first female Pharaoh by the Nebty name Sat-Sekhem-Nebet-Tawy Sobekneferu, present both in the female Pharaoh's nomen, Sobek'Neferu (sbk-nfrw - Beauty of Sobek), and her praenomen Ka'Sobek'Re (The Ka of Sobek-Ra). History Sobek enjoyed a longstanding presence in the ancient Egyptian pantheon, from the Old Kingdom of Egypt (c. 2686–2181 BCE) through the Roman period (). He is first known from several different Pyramid T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bubastis
Bubastis ( Bohairic Coptic: ''Poubasti''; Greek: ''Boubastis'' or ''Boubastos''), also known in Arabic as Tell-Basta or in Egyptian as Per-Bast, was an ancient Egyptian city. Bubastis is often identified with the biblical ''Pi-Beseth'' ( he, פי-בסת ''py-bst'', Ezekiel 30:17). It was the capital of its own nome, located along the River Nile in the Delta region of Lower Egypt, and notable as a center of worship for the feline goddess Bastet, and therefore the principal depository in Egypt of mummies of cats. Its ruins are located in the suburbs of the modern city of Zagazig. Etymology The name of Bubastis in Egyptian is ''Pr-Bȝst.t'', conventionally pronounced ''Per-Bast'' but its Earlier Egyptian pronunciation can be reconstructed as /ˈpaɾu-buˈʀistit/. It is a compound of Egyptian egy, pr, label=none “house" and the name of the goddess Bastet; thus the phrase means "House of Bast". In later forms of Egyptian, sound shifts had altered the pronunciation. I ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nyarlathotep
Nyarlathotep is a fictional character created by H. P. Lovecraft. The character is a malign deity in the Cthulhu Mythos, a shared universe. First appearing in Lovecraft's 1920 prose poem "Nyarlathotep", he was later mentioned in other works by Lovecraft and by other writers. Later writers describe him as one of the Outer Gods, an alien pantheon. Appearances In the works of H. P. Lovecraft In his first appearance in "Nyarlathotep" (1920), he is described as a "tall, swarthy man" who resembles an ancient Egyptian pharaoh. In this story he wanders the Earth, seemingly gathering legions of followers, the narrator of the story among them, through his demonstrations of strange and seemingly magical instruments. These followers lose awareness of the world around them, and through the narrator's increasingly unreliable accounts, the reader gets an impression of the world's collapse. Fritz Leiber proposes three interpretations of the character based on this appearance: the universe's mo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
