from A VERY SCARY SOLSTICE by the HP Lovecraft Historical Society
http://cthulhulives.org/
LYRICS:
Awake ye scary Great Olde Ones, let everything dismay.
Remember great Cthulhu shall rise up from R'lyeh
To kill us all with tentacles if we should go his way.
Oh tidings of madness and woe,
Madness and woe,
Oh tidings of madness and woe.
In Yuggoth and in Aldebraan the Great Olde Ones were spawned.
Imprisoned by the Elder Gods to wait for long aeons.
Enticing humans to release them, chanting dreadful songs.
Oh tidings of madness and woe,
Madness and woe,
Oh tidings of madness and woe.
An Arab said "That is not dead which can eternal lie,
And in strange aeons you will find that even death may die."
The Great Olde Ones will rule once more and all will be destroyed!
Oh tidings of madness and woe,
Madness and woe,
Oh tidings of madness and woe.
“What do we know … of the world and the universe about us? Our means of receiving impressions are absurdly few, and our notions of surrounding objects infinitely narrow. We see things only as we are constructed to see them, and can gain no idea of their absolute nature.”
H.P.Lovecraft, From Beyond (1934, The Fantasy Fan)
"The Dunwich Horror" is a short story by H. P. Lovecraft. Written in 1928, it was first published in the April 1929 issue of Weird Tales (pp. 481–508). It takes place in Dunwich, a fictional town in Massachusetts. It is considered one of the core stories of the Cthulhu Mythos. "The Dunwich Horror" is one of the few tales Lovecraft wrote wherein the heroes successfully defeat the antagonistic entity or monster of the story.
In the isolated, desolate and decrepit village of Dunwich, Wilbur Whateley is the hideous son of Lavinia Whateley, a deformed and unstable albino mother, and an unknown father (alluded to in passing by mad Old Whateley, as "Yog-Sothoth"), and strange events surround his birth and precocious development. Wilbur matures at an abnormal rate, reaching manhood within a decade. Locals shun him and his family, and animals fear and despise him (due to a smell he gives off). All the while, his sorcerer grandfather indoctrinates him into certain dark rituals and the study of witchcraft. Various locals grow suspicious after Old Whateley buys more and more cattle, yet the number of his herd never increases, and the cattle in his field become mysteriously afflicted with severe open wounds.
Wilbur wants to acquire an unabridged Latin version of the Necronomicon so that he may open the way for the return of the mysterious "Old Ones", whose forerunner is the Outer God Yog-Sothoth. Thus, Wilbur and his grandfather have sequestered an unseen presence at their farmhouse; this being is connected somehow to Yog-Sothoth. Year by year, this unseen entity grows to monstrous proportions, requiring the two men to make frequent modifications to their residence. People begin to notice a trend of cattle mysteriously disappearing. Wilbur's grandfather dies. His mother disappears soon afterward. The colossal entity eventually occupies the whole interior of the farmhouse. Wilbur ventures to Miskatonic University in Arkham to procure a copy of the Necronomicon – Miskatonic's library is one of only a handful in the world to stock an original. The Necronomicon has spells that Wilbur can use to summon the Old Ones, but his family's copy is damaged and lacks the page he needs to open the "door". When the librarian, Dr. Henry Armitage, refuses to release the university's copy to him (and has, by sending warnings to other libraries, thwarted Wilbur's efforts to consult their copies), Wilbur breaks into the library at night to steal it. A guard dog, maddened by Wilbur's alien body odor, attacks Wilbur with unusual ferocity, killing him. When Dr. Armitage and two other professors arrive on the scene they see Wilbur Whateley's partly non-human corpse, before it melts completely to leave no evidence.
With Wilbur Whateley dead, no one attends to the mysterious presence growing in the Whateley farmhouse. Early one morning, the Whateley farmhouse explodes and the thing, an invisible monster, rampages across Dunwich, cutting a path through fields, trees, and ravines, leaving huge "prints" the size of tree trunks. The monster eventually makes forays into inhabited areas. The invisible creature terrorizes the town for several days, killing two families and several policemen, until Dr. Armitage, Professor Warren Rice, and Dr. Francis Morgan arrive with the knowledge and weapons needed to kill it. The use of a magic powder renders it visible just long enough to send one of the crew into shock. The barn-sized monster screams for help - in English - just before the spell destroys it, leaving a huge burned area. In the end, its nature is revealed: it is Wilbur's twin brother, though it "looked more like the father than Wilbur did."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dunwich_Horror
“At night, when the objective world has slunk back into its cavern and left dreamers to their own, there come inspirations and capabilities impossible at any less magical and quiet hour. No one knows whether or not he is a writer unless he has tried writing at night.”
H.P. Lovecraft
The Shadow over Innsmouth is a novella by H. P. Lovecraft in the horror fiction genre. The themes of the story are degeneration, tainted ancestry, forbidden mysteries, and a reality which human understanding finds both incomprehensible and intolerable.
The narrator is a student on a sightseeing tour of New England who learns of Innsmouth, a coastal town that, following an epidemic and rioting in the last century, fell into such decline that it is no longer shown on maps. Although he is cautioned that Innsmouth is avoided because of "race prejudice" against the townspeople, and that visitors sometimes disappear or go insane, he decides to stop there. He finds the inhabitants have a repulsive appearance and the whole town reeks of corruption and fish, most houses are boarded up and apparently derelict.
Interested in folklore, the narrator locates an elderly local drunk known for his tales. He hears that seafaring inhabitants of Innsmouth generations before had voyaged to the South Seas, finding a cult that practiced human sacrifice to placate immortal undersea creatures. The creatures made a pact with the sailors, who brought them back to Innsmouth to dwell on an offshore reef and be worshipped; in exchange the undersea creatures provided gold. The townsfolk revolted against making human sacrifices, but were defeated by the creatures following a nocturnal invasion. Surviving residents agreed to join the cult and keep its secrets. They were forced to intermarry with the creatures; the resulting children appeared human, but became undersea creatures in later life.
Staying overnight despite warnings, the young man flees from the hotel during an attempt on his life. He is pursued by inhuman-looking shapes, and he sees reinforcements swarming him. Confronted with the reality that they are a hybrid race, half-human and half an unknown marine creature, the narrator blacks out. Upon revival, he escapes and calls in the authorities. They secretly destroy the town and torpedo the reef. Learning later that his own ancestry goes back to people in Innsmouth, the young man believes he is fated to become one of the undersea creatures.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shadow_over_Innsmouth
