Music You can listen to as you read about weird booksMany fictional works of arcane literature appear in H.P. Lovecraft's cycle of interconnected works often known as the Cthulhu Mythos. The main literary purpose of these works is to explain how characters within the tales come by esoteric knowledge that is unknown to the general populace. However, in some cases the works themselves serve as an important plot device.
Here is a list of Books pratcing "Yog Sothothery":
Book of Eibon
The Book of Eibon (pronounced "Eye Bon"), or Liber Ivonis or Livre d'Eibon, appears in a number of Lovecraft's stories, such as "The Haunter of the Dark" (Liber Ivonis), "The Dreams in the Witch House" (Book of Eibon),"The Horror in the Museum" (Book of Eibon) and "The Shadow Out of Time" (Book of Eibon).
The book was written by Eibon, a wizard in the land of Hyperborea. It was an immense text of arcane knowledge that contained, among other things, a detailed account of Eibon's exploits, including his journeys to the Vale of Pnath and the planet Shaggai, his veneration rituals of Zhothaqquah (Eibon's patron deity), and his magical formulae—such as for the slaying of certain otherworldly horrors. Unfortunately, only incomplete fragments of the original are thought to exist, though there are translations in English, French, and Latin—Liber Ivonis is the title of the Latin translation. It also chronicles Eibon's life and includes his magical formula.
If Magic is used correctly, a portal can be created that allows people to physically enter the world inside the book. Any beings that have been collected by the book are sent into this world.
Not surprisingly — as it was created by a legendary sorcerer — the Book of Eibon has displayed various mysterious properties, that allow access to numerous powerful abilities. These powers can be manipulated by another individual other than Eibon himself but to do so requires them to be able to locate specific pages, regarding the individual technique desired.
■ Restraints: By placing a particular page above an opponent, magical shackles extend downwards, that are able to restrain and contain even a strong opponent's hands.
■Teleportation: Through the use of a single torn out page from within the book, a person is able to transport themselves instantly to the location of the remaining part of the book. When activated the person is sucked into the page, before it combusts, leaving no remains. After this they are ejected from the rest of the book, and so arrive at their destination.
■ Absorption: The book has the ability to trap objects and living beings inside its confines. It appears that this process can hold the captured items for an indefinite amount of time, with little to no means of escape. Only the wielder can allow anything inside the book transverse through to the real world.
■ Summoning: By keeping the book open at a particular section, it is capable of summoning worm-like monsters from the confines of this book. These creatures are strong enough to easily overpower a very strong man and pierce his body with their teeth. They are also able to fire a large explosive beam from their mouths, so powerful as to kill a monster in his most powerful form with a single blow.
■ Noah:The Index was responsible for creating the Noahs a group of Artificial beings to serve it and if a Noah dies a new Noah will be created.They are created thorugh embodiments called Idols.
By the way Eibon looks like this:
Book of IodThe Book of Iod first appeared in his short story "Bells of Horror". The original Book of Iod, of which only one copy exists, is written in the "Ancient Tongue", possibly a combination of Greek and Coptic. Although its origin is unknown, the book may have been written by the mysterious author "Khut-Nah," which sounds remarkably like Kuttner. The Book of Iod contains details about Iod, the Shining Hunter, Vorvados, and Zuchequon. The Huntington Library of San Marino, California is said to hold an expurgated translation, possibly in Latin, by Johann Negus.
Celaeno FragmentsThe Celaeno Fragments In his novel The Trail of Cthulhu, "Celaeno" refers to a distant planet that contains a huge library of alien literature. Professor Laban Shrewsbury and his companions traveled to Celaeno several times to escape Cthulhu's minions. Shrewsbury later wrote the Celaeno Fragments, a transcript of what he remembered of his translations of the books in the Great Library of Celaeno. He submitted the transcript, which consisted of about fifty pages, to the Miskatonic University library in 1915.
Cthäat AquadingenThe Cthäat Aquadingen, possibly meaning Things of the Water, was used for his short story "The Cyprus Shell" (1968). This text, by an unknown author, deals with Cthulhu and other sea-horrors, such as Inpesca. It also contains many so-called Sathlattae, rituals and spells related to Ubbo-Sathla. It is first mentioned as appearing in northern Germany around 400 AD. A Latin version was apparently written between the 11th and 12th century, as was an English translation that appeared sometime in the 14th century.
Cultes des GoulesCultes des Goules, or Cult of Ghouls. It is a book of dark magic written by Francois-Honore Balfour (Comte d'Erlette) in 1702. It was published in France and later denounced by the church. Only a handful of copies are in existence. One of the known copies was kept for 91 years in an arcane library of the Church of Starry Wisdom in Providence, Rhode Island. After Robert Blake’s mysterious death in 1935, Doctor Dexter removed the grimoire and added it to his library.
De Vermis MysteriisDe Vermis Mysteriis, or Mysteries of the Worm, is a fictional grimoire used in the short story "The Shambler from the Stars" (1935), in which a character reads a passage from the book and accidentally summons an extradimensional horror.
Dhol ChantsThe Dhol Chants was first mentioned in the short story "The Horror In The Museum" (1932). They are alluded to in passing as a semi-mythical collection of chants attributed to the almost-human people of Leng. The chants themselves are never described, nor do they appear in any other of Lovecraft's works.
Eltdown ShardsRichard F. Searight invented The Eltdown Shards in a head-note (which purported to be a quotation from this text) to his story "The Sealed Casket" (Weird Tales, March 1935). ". He cited the book in The Shadow out of Time and The Challenge from Beyond.
The Eltdown Shards are mentioned in numerous mythos stories. They are mysterious pottery fragments found in 1882 and named after the place where they were discovered, Eltdown in southern England. The shards date to the Triassic period and are covered with strange symbols thought to be untranslatable. Nonetheless, several authors have penned their own interpretations of the markings, including Gordon Whitney and his The Eltdown Shards: A Partial Translation. Many of these works, as well as a number of non-academic versions, have circulated among secretive cults.
Whitney's translation is remarkably similar to the Pnakotic Manuscripts, a text produced by the Great Race of Yith. The translation describes Yith, the planet from which the Great Race came, and the Great Race's fateful encounter with the Yekubians. A magical formula from the nineteenth shard is for the summoning of the "Warder of Knowledge"; unfortunately, the dismissal portion of the ritual is garbled, so the summoning of this being could prove calamitous. Despite its connections to the Great Race, the Eltdown Shards were most likely inscribed by the Elder Things, who probably buried the ceramics in England when it was part of the great supercontinent Pangaea.
G'harne FragmentsThe G'harne Fragments are described as a set of miraculously preserved shards of obsidian or some other black stone that record the history of the pre-human African city of G'harne. The lost city is located somewhere in the southern Sahara Desert and is currently a frequent haunt of the chthonians.
The two primary translators of the fragments are Sir Amery Wendy-Smith and Gordon Walmsley. Both of these scholars are deceased.
The King in Yellow
The King in Yellow is a widely-censored play. Its author is unknown and is believed to have been eaten after publishing it in 1889. The play is named after a mysterious supernatural figure featured in it, who is connected to a peculiar alien symbol, usually wrought in gold, called the Yellow Sign. Though the first act is said to be "innocent", all who read the play's second act either go mad or suffer another terrible fate. Its setting and events include mysterious places and entities such as Carcosa, Hastur, and the Lake of Hali, names that Chambers borrowed from the writings of Ambrose Bierce.
Necronomicon
The Necronomicon is arguably the most famous (or infamous) of Lovecraft's grimoires. It appears in a number of Lovecraft's stories.
How Lovecraft conceived the name Necronomicon is not clear — Lovecraft said that the title came to him in a dream.
In 1927, Lovecraft wrote a brief pseudo-history of the Necronomicon that was published in 1938, after his death, as "History of the Necronomicon". According to this account, the book was originally called Al Azif, an Arabic word that Lovecraft defined as "that nocturnal sound (made by insects) supposed to be the howling of demons"
In the History, Alhazred is said to have been a "half-crazed Arab" who worshipped the Lovecraftian entities Yog-Sothoth and Cthulhu. He is described as being from Sanaa in Yemen, and as visiting the ruins of Babylon, the "subterranean secrets" of Memphis and the Empty Quarter of Arabia (where he discovered the "nameless city" below Irem). In his last years, he lived in Damascus, where he wrote Al Azif before his sudden and mysterious death in 738.
In subsequent years, Lovecraft wrote, the Azif "gained considerable, though surreptitious circulation amongst the philosophers of the age." In 950, it was translated into Greek and given the title Necronomicon by Theodorus Philetas, a fictional scholar from Constantinople. This version "impelled certain experimenters to terrible attempts" before being "suppressed and burnt" in 1050 by Patriarch Michael (an historical figure who died in 1059).
After this attempted suppression, the work was "only heard of furtively" until it was translated from Greek into Latin by Olaus Wormius. (Lovecraft gives the date of this edition as 1228, though the real-life Danish scholar Olaus Wormius lived from 1588 to 1624.) Both the Latin and Greek text, the History relates, were banned by Pope Gregory IX in 1232, though Latin editions were apparently published in 15th century Germany and 17th century Spain. A Greek edition was printed in Italy in the first half of the 16th century.
The Elizabethan magician John Dee (1527-c. 1609) allegedly translated the book — presumably into English — but Lovecraft wrote that this version was never printed and only fragments survive.
According to Lovecraft, the Arabic version of Al Azif had already disappeared by the time the Greek version was banned in 1050, though he cites "a vague account of a secret copy appearing in San Francisco during the current [20th] century" that "later perished in fire". The Greek version, he writes, has not been reported "since the burning of a certain Salem man's library in 1692" (an apparent reference to the Salem witch trials). (In the story "The Diary of Alonzo Typer", the character Alonzo Typer finds a Greek copy.)
On the Sending Out of the SoulOn the Sending Out of the Soul appears in the short story "Hydra" (1939). It is an eight page pamphlet on astral projection. The pamphlet appeared in Salem, Massachusetts in 1783 and circulated among occult groups.
Parchments of PnomThe Parchments of Pnom is a manuscript written by Hyperborea's leading genealogist and soothsayer. It is written in the "Elder Script" of that land and contains a detailed account of the lineage of the Hyperborean gods, most notably Tsathoggua.
Pnakotic ManuscriptsThe Pnakotic Manuscripts is named after the place where it was kept, the city of Pnakotus, a primordial metropolis built by the Great Race of Yith. The Great Race is credited with authoring the Manuscripts, though other scribes would add to it over the ages.
The Pnakotic Manuscripts predate the origin of man. The original manuscripts were in scroll form and were passed down through the ages, eventually falling into the hands of secretive cults. The Great Race of Yith is believed to have produced the first five chapters of the Manuscripts, which, among other things, contain a detailed chronicle of the race's history. However, others attribute them to the Elder Things, because of certain similarities to the Eltdown Shards.
The Pnakotic Manuscripts were kept in the Great Race's library city of Pnakotus (hence the name). They cover a variety of subjects, including descriptions of Chaugnar Faugn and Yibb-Tstll, the location of Xiurhn, Rhan-Tegoth's rituals, and others.
Poakotic FragmentsAlso known as Puahotic Fragments mentioned in H. P. Lovecraft's ghost writing "The Horror in the Museum".
Ponape ScriptureThe Ponape Scripture first appeared in short story "Out of the Ages" (1975). The Scripture is a manuscript found in the Caroline Islands by Captain Abner Exekiel Hoag sometime around 1734. The book showed signs of great age—its pages were made of palm leaves and its binding was of an ancient, now-extinct cycadean wood. It was written in Naacal (the language of Mu) and appears to have been authored by Imash-Mo, high priest of Ghatanothoa, and his successors. The book contains details of Mu and of Zanthu, high priest of Ythogtha. With the help of his servant Yogash, Hoag managed to write a translation of the manuscript. But when he tried to have it published, his efforts were thwarted by religious leaders who strongly objected to the book's references to Dagon. Nonetheless, copies of the Scripture have circulated among secretive cults (such as the Esoteric Order of Dagon) and other occult groups. After Hoag's death, his granddaughter, Beverly Hoag Adams, published an expurgated version of the book.
Las Reglas de RuinaLas Reglas de Ruina (literally "the Laws of Ruin") is a tome written by Philip of Navarre in 1520, a Spanish friar of 16th Century. The book has been translated in English by Professors Theodore Hayward Gates and Pascal Chevillion in 1714 and describes the Great Old One Kassogtha, bride of Cthulhu. The book also foretells of the coming of a messiah of destruction, who would be born in the western land of the red savage across the great ocean in Columbus' New World, a man that shall set the Great Old One free from her stellar prison.
Revelations of GlaakiThe Revelations of Glaaki first appeared in Ramsey Campbell's short story "The Inhabitant of the Lake" (1964). It was written by the undead cult worshipping the Great Old One Glaaki. Whenever Glaaki slept, the members of his cult had periods of free will, and, since they were part of Glaaki and shared his memories, they wrote down what they remembered of their master's thoughts. The cult's handwritten manuscripts later came to be known as the Revelations of Glaaki. The text originally contained nine volumes, but it may have had more at different times in the past.
Seven Cryptical Books of HsanThe Seven Cryptical Books of Hsan is a collection of writings mentioned by Lovecraft in "The Other Gods" (1921) and "The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath" (1926). In both stories, the books are mentioned in conjunction with the Pnakotic Manuscripts. They are kept in the temple of the Elder Ones in the city of Ulthar; no other existing copies are mentioned in Lovecraft's works. Barzai the Wise studied the books before his journey to see the gods dancing on Mount Hatheg-Kla, while Randolph Carter consulted them during his quest to reach Kadath.
Tarsioid PsalmsThe Tarsioid Psalms are a collection of writings dating back the early Cenozoic Era, probably attributed to a primate-folk which lived in North America during Paleocene/Eocene times. They describe the evil destructive entity named Ngyr-Korath and its spawn, the Great Old One 'Ymnar.
Testament of CarnamagosThe Testament of Carnamagos was created by Clark Ashton Smith and first appeared in his short story "Xeethra" (1934). The text is featured more prominently in Smith's "The Treader of the Dust" (1935).
The book gives a description of the Great Old One Quachil Uttaus, among others. Only two copies are known of, though one was destroyed during the Spanish Inquisition. The only remaining copy is bound in shagreen and fastened with hasps of human bone.
Unaussprechlichen KultenUnaussprechlichen Kulten was written by the fictional Friedrich von Junzt. This German title which can translate to either Unspeakable Cults or Unpronouncable Cults (both meaning of the word are in common usage).
Zanthu TabletsThe Zanthu Tablets first appeared in "The Dweller in the Tomb" (1971). The centerpiece of the story is the discovery of the tablets, which are an important part of Carter's Xothic legend cycle.
The tablets themselves are twelve engraved pieces of black jade inscribed by Zanthu, a wizard and high priest of Ythogtha. They are written in a hieratic form of Naacal, the language of the sunken continent of Mu. The tablets reveal a partial history of Mu, describing Zanthu's struggle against the rising cult of Ghatanothoa and his own religion's lamented decline. He also describes his failed attempt to release the god Ythogtha from its prison. Upon witnessing three black, beaked, slimy heads, "vaster than any mountain", rising from a gorge, he flees in terror when he realizes that they are merely the god's fingertips. According to Zanthu, he and some of his people escaped the destruction of Mu, which was sunk by the wrath of the Elder Gods.
In 1913, guided by the Ponape Script, Harold Hadley Copeland led an expedition into Indochina to locate the plateau of Tsang and to find the tomb of Zanthu. After the other members of the expedition died or deserted him, Copeland pressed on, eventually reaching his goal. Opening the tomb, he was horrified to discover that the mummified face of Zanthu resembled his own. Later wandering into a Mongolian outpost, a starving and raving Copeland was the only survivor of the expedition.
Copeland published a brochure entitled The Zanthu Tablets: A Conjectural Translation in 1916. He made the rough translation using a key borrowed from the estate of Colonel Churchward, the last qualified translator of ancient Naacal, and heavily edited it out of a concern for "public sanity". The controversial brochure was later denounced by the academic community and was suppressed by the authorities. Copeland's later manuscripts were never published. Ten years after the publication of the brochure, Copeland died in an asylum.
Carter's story "The Thing in the Pit" in his Lost Worlds purports to be a translation from the Zanthu Tablets
Zhou TextsAn ancient manuscript found in Asia, written circa in 1100 BC during Zhou dynasty. It contains the rituals to summon the Great Old One Kassogtha.
Wed Aug 15, 2012 10:04 am
