Shub-Niggurath is a
deity
A deity or god is a supernatural being considered to be sacred and worthy of worship due to having authority over some aspect of the universe and/or life. The ''Oxford Dictionary of English'' defines ''deity'' as a God (male deity), god or god ...
created by
H. P. Lovecraft
Howard Phillips Lovecraft (, ; August 20, 1890 – March 15, 1937) was an American writer of Weird fiction, weird, Science fiction, science, fantasy, and horror fiction. He is best known for his creation of the Cthulhu Mythos.
Born in Provi ...
. She is often associated with the phrase "The Black
Goat
The goat or domestic goat (''Capra hircus'') is a species of Caprinae, goat-antelope that is mostly kept as livestock. It was domesticated from the wild goat (''C. aegagrus'') of Southwest Asia and Eastern Europe. The goat is a member of the ...
of the Woods with a Thousand Young". The only other name by which Lovecraft referred to her was "Lord of the Wood" in his story ''
The Whisperer in Darkness
''The Whisperer in Darkness'' is a 26,000-word novella by American writer H. P. Lovecraft. Written February–September 1930, it was first published in ''Weird Tales'', August 1931. Similar to '' The Colour Out of Space'' (1927), it is a blen ...
''.
Shub-Niggurath is first mentioned in Lovecraft's revision story "
The Last Test" (
1928
Events January
* January – British bacteriologist Frederick Griffith reports the results of Griffith's experiment, indirectly demonstrating that DNA is the genetic material.
* January 1 – Eastern Bloc emigration and defection: Boris B ...
); she is not described by Lovecraft, but is frequently mentioned or called upon in incantations. Most of her development as a literary figure was carried out by other Mythos authors, including
August Derleth
August William Derleth (February 24, 1909 – July 4, 1971) was an American writer and anthologist. He was the first book publisher of the writings of H. P. Lovecraft. He made contributions to the Cthulhu Mythos and the Lovecraftian horror, cosmi ...
,
Robert Bloch
Robert Albert Bloch (; April 5, 1917September 23, 1994) was an American fiction writer, primarily of crime fiction, crime, psychological horror fiction, horror and Fantasy Fiction, fantasy, much of which has been dramatized for radio, cinema and ...
, and
Ramsey Campbell
Ramsey Campbell (born 4 January 1946) is an English horror fiction writer, editor and critic who has been writing for well over fifty years. He is the author of over 30 novels and hundreds of short stories, many of them winners of literary awa ...
.
Lovecraft explicitly defined Shub-Niggurath as a
mother goddess
A mother goddess is a major goddess characterized as a mother or progenitor, either as an embodiment of motherhood and fertility or fulfilling the cosmological role of a creator- and/or destroyer-figure, typically associated the Earth, sky, ...
in ''
The Mound
The Mound is an artificial slope and road in central Edinburgh, Scotland, which connects Edinburgh's New and Old Towns. It was formed by dumping around 1,501,000 cartloads of earth excavated from the foundations of the New Town into Nor Loc ...
'', where he calls her "Shub-Niggurath, the All-Mother".
[H. P. Lovecraft writing as Zealia Bishop, "The Mound", ''The Horror in the Museum'', pp. 144–145.] He describes her as a kind of
Astarte
Astarte (; , ) is the Greek language, Hellenized form of the Religions of the ancient Near East, Ancient Near Eastern goddess ʿAṯtart. ʿAṯtart was the Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic equivalent of the East Semitic language ...
in the same story.
In ''Out of the Aeons'', she is one of the deities siding with humanity against "hostile gods".
[H. P. Lovecraft writing as Hazel Heald, "Out of the Aeons", ''The Horror in the Museum'', pp. 273–274; Price, p. xiii.]
August Derleth classified Shub-Niggurath as a
Great Old One
Cthulhu Mythos deities are a group of fictional deities created by American author H. P. Lovecraft (1890–1937), and later expanded by others in the fictional universe known as the Cthulhu mythos.
These entities are usually depicted as immens ...
, but the ''
Call of Cthulhu'' role-playing game classifies her as an
Outer God
Cthulhu Mythos deities are a group of fictional deities created by American author H. P. Lovecraft (1890–1937), and later expanded by others in the shared universe, fictional universe known as the Cthulhu mythos.
These entities are usually de ...
. The ''
CthulhuTech
''CthulhuTech'' is a science-fiction and horror roleplaying game created by Wildfire LLC and published by Sandstorm that combines elements of the Cthulhu Mythos with anime-style mecha, horror, magic and futuristic action. The setting is Earth ...
'' role-playing game, in turn, returns to Derleth's classification of Shub-Niggurath as a Great Old One. Shub Niggurath also had children with Hastur in present as she is the mate of Hastur, and in the past she had offsprings with Yog-sothoth too.
Development
Shub-Niggurath's appearances in Lovecraft's main body of fiction do not provide much detail about his conception of the entity. Her first mention under Lovecraft's byline was in "
The Dunwich Horror" (1928), where a quote from the ''
Necronomicon
The ''Necronomicon'', also referred to as the ''Book of the Dead'', or under a purported original Arabic title of ', is a fictional grimoire (textbook of magic) appearing in stories by the horror writer H. P. Lovecraft and his followers. ...
'' discussing the Old Ones breaks into an exclamation of "Iä! Shub-Niggurath!" The story provides no further information about this peculiar expression.
The next Lovecraft story to mention Shub-Niggurath is scarcely more informative. In ''
The Whisperer in Darkness
''The Whisperer in Darkness'' is a 26,000-word novella by American writer H. P. Lovecraft. Written February–September 1930, it was first published in ''Weird Tales'', August 1931. Similar to '' The Colour Out of Space'' (1927), it is a blen ...
'' (1930), a recording of a ceremony involving human and nonhuman worshippers includes the following exchange:
Similarly unexplained exclamations occur in "
The Dreams in the Witch House
"The Dreams in the Witch House" is a horror short story by American writer H. P. Lovecraft and part of the Cthulhu Mythos cycle. It was written in January/February 1932 and first published in the July 1933 issue of ''Weird Tales''.
Plot
Walter ...
" (1932) and "
The Thing on the Doorstep
"The Thing on the Doorstep" is a horror short story by American writer H. P. Lovecraft, part of the Cthulhu Mythos universe. It was written in August 1933 and first published in the January 1937 issue of '' Weird Tales''.
Inspiration
The idea ...
" (1933).
Revision tales
Lovecraft only provided specific information about Shub-Niggurath in his "revision tales", stories published under the names of clients for whom he ghost-wrote. As Price points out, "For these clients he constructed a parallel myth-cycle to his own, a separate group of Great Old Ones", including
Yig YIG or Yig may refer to:
Organizations
* Your Independent Grocer, a Canadian Grocery store
* ''YMCA Youth in Government'', alternative name for YMCA Youth and Government Science and technology
* Yttrium iron garnet, a synthetic garnet
** YIG sphe ...
,
Ghatanothoa,
Rhan-Tegoth, "the evil twins
Nug and Yeb"—and Shub-Niggurath.
While some of these revision stories just repeat the familiar exclamations, others provide new elements of lore. In "The Last Test" (1927), the first mention of Shub-Niggurath seems to connect her to Nug and Yeb: "I talked in
Yemen
Yemen, officially the Republic of Yemen, is a country in West Asia. Located in South Arabia, southern Arabia, it borders Saudi Arabia to Saudi Arabia–Yemen border, the north, Oman to Oman–Yemen border, the northeast, the south-eastern part ...
with an old man who had come back from the Crimson Desert—he had seen
Irem
is a Japanese video game developer and Video game publisher, publisher and manufacturer of pachinkos. The company has its headquarters in Chiyoda, Tokyo, Chiyoda, Tokyo.
The full name of the company that uses the brand is Irem Software Enginee ...
, the City of Pillars, and had worshipped at the underground shrines of Nug and Yeb—Iä! Shub-Niggurath!"
The revision story ''
The Mound
The Mound is an artificial slope and road in central Edinburgh, Scotland, which connects Edinburgh's New and Old Towns. It was formed by dumping around 1,501,000 cartloads of earth excavated from the foundations of the New Town into Nor Loc ...
'', which describes the discovery of an underground realm called
K'n-yan
''The Mound'' is a horror/science fiction novella by American author H. P. Lovecraft, written by him as a ghostwriter from December 1929 to January 1930 after he was hired by Zealia Bishop to create a story about a Native American mound whic ...
by a Spanish
conquistador
Conquistadors (, ) or conquistadores (; ; ) were Spanish Empire, Spanish and Portuguese Empire, Portuguese colonizers who explored, traded with and colonized parts of the Americas, Africa, Oceania and Asia during the Age of Discovery. Sailing ...
, reports that a temple of
Tsathoggua there "had been turned into a shrine of Shub-Niggurath, the All-Mother and wife of the Not-to-Be-Named-One. This deity was a kind of sophisticated
Astarte
Astarte (; , ) is the Greek language, Hellenized form of the Religions of the ancient Near East, Ancient Near Eastern goddess ʿAṯtart. ʿAṯtart was the Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic equivalent of the East Semitic language ...
, and her worship struck the pious Catholic as supremely obnoxious."
The reference to "Astarte", the consort of Baal in
Semitic mythology, ties Shub-Niggurath to the related fertility goddess
Cybele
Cybele ( ; Phrygian: ''Matar Kubileya, Kubeleya'' "Kubeleya Mother", perhaps "Mountain Mother"; Lydian: ''Kuvava''; ''Kybélē'', ''Kybēbē'', ''Kybelis'') is an Anatolian mother goddess; she may have a possible forerunner in the earliest ...
, the Magna Mater mentioned in Lovecraft's "
The Rats in the Walls
"The Rats in the Walls" is a short story by American author H. P. Lovecraft. Written in August–September 1923, it was first published in ''Weird Tales'', March 1924.
Plot
In 1923, an American named Delapore, the last descendant of the De la P ...
", and implies that the "great mother worshipped by the hereditary cult of Exham Priory" in that story "had to be none other than Shub-Niggurath".
The Not-to-Be-Named-One, not being named, is difficult to identify; a similar phrase, translated into Latin as the ''Magnum Innominandum'', appears in a list in ''The Whisperer in Darkness'' and was included in a scrap of incantation that Lovecraft wrote for
Robert Bloch
Robert Albert Bloch (; April 5, 1917September 23, 1994) was an American fiction writer, primarily of crime fiction, crime, psychological horror fiction, horror and Fantasy Fiction, fantasy, much of which has been dramatized for radio, cinema and ...
's "The Shambler from the Stars".
August Derleth
August William Derleth (February 24, 1909 – July 4, 1971) was an American writer and anthologist. He was the first book publisher of the writings of H. P. Lovecraft. He made contributions to the Cthulhu Mythos and the Lovecraftian horror, cosmi ...
identifies this mysterious entity with
Hastur
Hastur (known by the epithets The Unspeakable One, The King in Yellow, Him Who Is Not to be Named, Assatur, Xastur, H'aaztre, Fenric, or Kaiwan) is an entity of the Cthulhu Mythos.
Hastur first appeared in Ambrose Bierce's short story "Haïta t ...
(though Hastur appears in the same ''Whisperer in Darkness'' list with the ''Magnum Innominandum''), while Robert M. Price equates him with
Yog-Sothoth
Cthulhu Mythos deities are a group of fictional deities created by American author H. P. Lovecraft (1890–1937), and later expanded by others in the fictional universe known as the Cthulhu mythos.
These entities are usually depicted as immens ...
—though he also suggests that Shub-Niggurath's mate is implicitly the snake god Yig.
Finally, in "
Out of the Aeons
"Out of the Aeons" is a short story by American writers H. P. Lovecraft and Hazel Heald, a writer from Somerville, Massachusetts. First published in the April 1935 issue of ''Weird Tales'' magazine, it was one of five stories Lovecraft revised fo ...
", a revision tale set in part on the lost continent of
Mu, Lovecraft describes the character T'yog as the "High Priest of Shub-Niggurath and guardian of the copper temple of the Goat with a Thousand Young". In the story, T'yog surprisingly maintains that "the gods friendly to man could be arrayed against the hostile gods, and ... that Shub-Niggurath, Nug, and Yeb, as well as Yig the Serpent-god, were ready to take sides with man" against the more malevolent Ghatanothoa. Shub-Niggurath is called "the Mother Goddess", and reference is made to "her sons", presumably Nug and Yeb.
Other references
Other evidence of Lovecraft's conception of Shub-Niggurath can be found in his letters. For example, in a letter to Willis Conover, Lovecraft described her as an "evil cloud-like entity". "Yog-Sothoth's wife is the hellish cloud-like entity Shub-Niggurath, in whose honor nameless cults hold the rite of the Goat with a Thousand Young. By her he has two monstrous offspring—the evil twins Nug and Yeb. He has also begotten hellish hybrids upon the females of various organic species throughout the universes of space-time."
The Black Goat
Although Shub-Niggurath is often associated with the epithet "The Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young", it is possible that this Black
Goat
The goat or domestic goat (''Capra hircus'') is a species of Caprinae, goat-antelope that is mostly kept as livestock. It was domesticated from the wild goat (''C. aegagrus'') of Southwest Asia and Eastern Europe. The goat is a member of the ...
is a separate entity. Rodolfo Ferraresi, in his essay "The Question of Shub-Niggurath", says that Lovecraft himself separated the two in his writings, such as in "Out of the Aeons" (
1935
Events
January
* January 7 – Italian premier Benito Mussolini and French Foreign Minister Pierre Laval conclude an agreement, in which each power agrees not to oppose the other's colonial claims.
* January 12 – Amelia Earhart ...
) in which a distinction is made between Shub-Niggurath and the Black Goat—the goat is the figurehead through which Shub-Niggurath is worshipped. In apparent contrast to Shub-Niggurath, the Black Goat is sometimes depicted as a male, most notably in the rite performed in ''
The Whisperer in Darkness
''The Whisperer in Darkness'' is a 26,000-word novella by American writer H. P. Lovecraft. Written February–September 1930, it was first published in ''Weird Tales'', August 1931. Similar to '' The Colour Out of Space'' (1927), it is a blen ...
'' (1931) in which the Black Goat is called the "Lord of the Woods". However, Lovecraft clearly associates Shub-Niggurath with The Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young in two of his stories—"The Dreams in the Witch House" and "The Thing on the Doorstep".
It is possible that The Black Goat is actually Ny-Rakath, Shub-Niggurath's brother. The Black Goat may also be the personification of
Pan, since Lovecraft was influenced by
Arthur Machen
Arthur Machen ( or ; 3 March 1863 – 15 December 1947) was the pen-name of Arthur Llewellyn Jones, a Welsh people, Welsh author and mysticism, mystic of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He is best known for his influential supernatural ...
's ''
The Great God Pan
''The Great God Pan'' is an 1894 horror and fantasy novella by Welsh writer Arthur Machen. Machen was inspired to write ''The Great God Pan'' by his experiences at the ruins of a pagan temple in Wales. What would become the first chapter of ...
'' (
1890
Events
January
* January 1 – The Kingdom of Italy establishes Eritrea as its colony in the Horn of Africa.
* January 2 – Alice Sanger becomes the first female staffer in the White House.
* January 11 – 1890 British Ultimatum: The Uni ...
), a story that inspired Lovecraft's "
The Dunwich Horror" (
1929
This year marked the end of a period known in American history as the Roaring Twenties after the Wall Street Crash of 1929 ushered in a worldwide Great Depression. In the Americas, an agreement was brokered to end the Cristero War, a Catholic ...
). In this incarnation, the Black Goat may represent
Satan
Satan, also known as the Devil, is a devilish entity in Abrahamic religions who seduces humans into sin (or falsehood). In Judaism, Satan is seen as an agent subservient to God, typically regarded as a metaphor for the '' yetzer hara'', or ' ...
in the form of the
satyr
In Greek mythology, a satyr (, ), also known as a silenus or ''silenos'' ( ), and sileni (plural), is a male List of nature deities, nature spirit with ears and a tail resembling those of a horse, as well as a permanent, exaggerated erection. ...
, a half-man, half-goat. In folklore, the satyr symbolized a man with excessive sexual appetites. The Black Goat may otherwise be a male, earthly form of Shub-Niggurath—an incarnation she assumes to copulate with her worshipers.
Robert M. Price's interpretation
Robert M. Price points to a passage from "
Idle Days on the Yann", by
Lord Dunsany
Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, 18th Baron Dunsany (; 24 July 1878 – 25 October 1957), commonly known as Lord Dunsany, was an Anglo-Irish writer and dramatist. He published more than 90 books during his lifetime, and his output consist ...
, one of Lovecraft's favorite writers, as the source for the name Shub-Niggurath:
Notes Price: "The name already carried a whiff of sulfur:
Sheol
Sheol ( ; ''Šəʾōl'', Tiberian: ''Šŏʾōl'') in the Hebrew Bible is the underworld place of stillness and darkness which is death.
Within the Hebrew Bible, there are few—often brief and nondescript—mentions of Sheol, seemingly descri ...
was the name for the Netherworld mentioned in the
Bible
The Bible is a collection of religious texts that are central to Christianity and Judaism, and esteemed in other Abrahamic religions such as Islam. The Bible is an anthology (a compilation of texts of a variety of forms) originally writt ...
and the
Gilgamesh Epic."
[Robert M. Price, ''Shub-Niggurath Cycle'', p. xii.]
As for Shub-Niggurath's association with the symbol of the goat, Price writes,
See also
*
Cthulhu Mythos in popular culture
*
Pan and
Echidna
Echidnas (), sometimes known as spiny anteaters, are quill-covered monotremes (egg-laying mammals) belonging to the Family (biology), family Tachyglossidae , living in Australia and New Guinea. The four Extant taxon, extant species of echidnas ...
, similar
deities
A deity or god is a supernatural being considered to be sacred and worthy of worship due to having authority over some aspect of the universe and/or life. The ''Oxford Dictionary of English'' defines ''deity'' as a God (male deity), god or god ...
in
Ancient Greece
Ancient Greece () was a northeastern Mediterranean civilization, existing from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th–9th centuries BC to the end of classical antiquity (), that comprised a loose collection of culturally and linguistically r ...
.
*
Akerbeltz
*
Shuma-Gorath
Shuma-Gorath () is a character (arts), character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by Steve Englehart and Frank Brunner, the character first appeared in ''Marvel Premiere'' #10 (September 1973). Shuma-Gorath bel ...
, a cosmic antagonist mentioned in
Conan the Barbarian
Conan the Barbarian (also known as Conan the Cimmerian) is a fictional sword and sorcery hero created by American author Robert E. Howard (1906–1936) and who debuted in 1932 and went on to appear in a series of fantasy stories published in ''We ...
and
Marvel Comics
Marvel Comics is a New York City–based comic book publishing, publisher, a property of the Walt Disney Company since December 31, 2009, and a subsidiary of Disney Publishing Worldwide since March 2023. Marvel was founded in 1939 by Martin G ...
stories
* ''
Night in the Woods'', an
adventure game
An adventure game is a video game genre in which the player assumes the role of a protagonist in an interactive story, driven by exploration and/or puzzle-solving. The genre's focus on story allows it to draw heavily from other narrative-based m ...
where a "Black Goat" is said to torment the main character
* ''
Quake'', a
first-person shooter
A first-person shooter (FPS) is a video game genre, video game centered on gun fighting and other weapon-based combat seen from a First person (video games), first-person perspective, with the player experiencing the action directly through t ...
where Shub-Niggurath serves as the main antagonist
* Shub-Niggurath is present in the video game
South Park: The Fractured But Whole
* She is one of the antagonists in
Alone in the Dark (2024)
Notes
References
*
*
uggests Byatis is the son of Yig** "Dark Young of Shub-Niggurath", pp. 75, ibid.
** "gof'nn hupadgh Shub-Niggurath", pp. 124, ibid.
** "Shub-Niggurath", pp. 275–7, ibid.
* , Mount Olive, NC: Cryptic Publications.
* Definitive version.
* Definitive version.
*
** and Adolphe de Castro (1928). "The Last Test", ibid.
** and
Hazel Heald
Hazel Heald (April 6, 1896February 4, 1961) was a Pulp magazine, pulp fiction writer who lived in Somerville, Massachusetts. She is known for collaborating with American horror fiction writer H. P. Lovecraft.
Biography
Heald was born the daughter ...
(1932). "The Man of Stone", ibid.
*
*
External links
"The Dreams in the Witch House" by H. P. Lovecraft*
{{H. P. Lovecraft
Cthulhu Mythos deities
Female characters in literature
Fictional amorphous creatures
Fictional extraterrestrial characters
Fictional goddesses
Fictional monsters
Literary characters introduced in 1928
Mother goddesses
Astarte
Cybele
Baphomet
H. P. Lovecraft characters
de:Shub-Niggurath