H P Lovecraft, page 5
collection The Feaster from the Stars in 1928. Later, Blake took up painting as
well, mainly depicting scenes of alien landscapes.
In search of greater thrills for use in his fiction, Blake searched for
forbidden books, discovering a copy of De Vermis Mysteriis. He made a
journey to Providence so that a friend might translate the archaic Latin in
which the book was written. During this visit, his friend's house burned
to the ground with its tenant trapped inside. Blake left Providence hastily
following this incident.
During the winter of 1935, Blake took up residence in an apartment on
College Street in Providence. It was here that Blake completed many of his most
famous stories. That spring and summer, however, Blake became increasingly
obsessed with a deserted church on French Hill. He disclosed to friends that a
series of strange events connected with this structure had befallen him; many
consider these assertions to be pat of a tremendous hoax engineered at least
partially by Blake himself. On August 8, 1935, Blake was found dead from
electrical shock in his rooms following a thunderstorm. His writing is still
quite popular, and the short story collections The Stairs in the Crypt and his
Collected Works have been reprinted after his death.
[Blake first appeared in Bloch's "Shambler", but was not named until
Lovecraft's "Haunter". Lovecraft chose the name "Blake" due to its similarities
to "Bloch", so that he could return the favor Bloch had done by killing a Love-
craft-based character in "Shambler." According to Lovecraft, the title story of the
collection Feaster from the Stars (invented later) was not written until 1935.]
See Dexter, Ambrose. ("The Shadow from the Steeple", Bloch; "The Sham-
bler from the Stars", Bloch (O); "The Franklyn Paragraphs", Campbell; "The
Freshman", Farmer; "The Haunter of the Dark", Lovecraft.)
BLASTED HEATH. Five-acre area to the west of Arkham covered with nothing
but grey dust. No plants will grow on the Heath. At its center are the remains
of a house and well. The Blasted Heath is believed to have been submerged
beneath the new Arkham reservoir.
("The Colour out of Space", Lovecraft (O).)
T E CTHULHU MYTHOS ENCYCLOPEDIA
2 5
BLAYNE, HORVATH TO T H E B O O K OF DZYAN
BLAYNE, HORVATH (c. 1925-1948). Student of mythology and religion.
Blayne was born Horvath Waite, but cousins in Boston adopted him when his
home town of Innsmouth was destroyed and his family killed. He later became
a student of Asian culture, centering his studies upon Indo-China and the isles
of the Pacific. After the end of the Second World War, Blayne spent his time
almost exclusively in the South Pacific, where he became known for his work
with the ruins on Ponape.
In 1947, Blayne was sighted in Singapore with the noted scholar Laban
Shrewsbury, and he is believed to have taken part in a secret government ac-
tion somewhere in the Pacific. His fate is unknown, though a testament found
among his papers hints at some disturbing possibilities.
("The Black Island", Derleth (O).)
BLOATED WOMAN. See Nyarlathotep (Bloated Woman).
BLOODY TONGUE. See Cult of the Bloody Tongue.
B'MOTH (also BEHEMOTH or PHEMAUT). Oceanic deity worshiped in
many parts of the world. B'moth desires to return all of humanity to the savage
state that it once held, and can control weather and animals to accomplish this
purpose. This creature maybe another name for Cthulhu, or maybe associated
with the Great Old One in some way.
See Magic and the Black Arts. ("The Scourge of B'Moth", Russell (O).)
BOKRUG. God who took the shape of a water-lizard and who was worshiped
by the Thuum'ha of lb. He is especially infamous for his vengeance upon those
who offend him. His revenge may take hundreds of years to overtake his foes,
but when it comes, it is swift and devastating. The entire city of Sarnath blas-
phemed against this deity for many centuries, but Bokrug's wrath eventually
destroyed the metropolis. Bokrug is worshiped today in the city of Ilarnek in
the Dreamlands, and possibly in the lost pre-human city of Lh-Yib.
Some evidence suggests that Bokrug may not actually be a god, but is in
fact one of a race of humanoid beings who have set themselves up as gods of
the Thuum'ha, as the people of lb are known. Others disagree, and say that
"Bokrug" is only a mask for a more dangerous entity.
See lb; Ilarnek; Sarnath. ("The Book of Dismissals", Carter; "The Doom
that Came to Sarnath", Lovecraft (O); Beneath the Moors, Lumley.)
BOLTON. Factory town north of Arkham. The first settlers built their town on
the banks of the James River in 1650, but Bolton was not incorporated until
1714. Today, Bolton is a major site for industry; its mills primarily employ im-
migrants, and the town has acquired an unsavory reputation due to the frequent
quarrels which occur between the different ethnicities. The brilliant young
2 6
T E CTHULHU MYTHOS ENCYCLOPEDIA
B LAY NE, MORVATH TO AHE B O O K OF UZYAN
doctor Herbert West practiced in this town for a short while, and Thomas de
la Poer lived here before his ill-fated departure for England.
[It is uncertain whether Lovecraft knew that Bolton was a real town before
he included it in his stories.]
See Miskatonic River. ("Herbert West—Reanimator", Lovecraft (O); "The
Rats in the Walls", Lovecraft; "Freak Show", Ross and Woods.)
THE BOOK OF AZATHOTH. Volume carried by some forms of Nyarlathotep.
Anyone who enters the service of the Outer Gods must sign the Book with their
blood. It may possibly be the book spoken of by the victims of the witchcraft
trials; if so, it would explain only a few of these volumes were ever found. The
Book of Azathoth also contains material in parody of Scripture, praising the
Outer Gods and denigrating Christianity.
Another "Book of Azathoth", a spiral notebook containing a long rambling
discourse about the nature of the universe, was found in a hotel room in
Midium's Grove, New York. Since the other volume is in Nyarlathotep's pos-
session, any comparison between the two is impossible.
See Azathoth; Nyarlathotep (Black Man). ( Devil's Children, Conyers,
Godley, and Witteveen; "The Higher Mythos", Hen:sler; "The Dreams in the
Witch-House", Lovecraft (O).)
THE BOOK OF DAGON. Set of inscribed conical stones. The Book was a gift
from the Deep Ones to Captain Obed Marsh after he had founded the Esoteric
Order of Dagon. Through help from his inhuman visitors, Marsh was able to
translate the R'lyehian glyphs into English. The book was never published, and
only a few handwritten copies exist. After the raid on Innsmouth, the cones
were taken into government custody, where they were destroyed in 1955 in a
freak accident.
This book, which serves as the scripture for the cult of the Deep Ones,
provides the history of that species and describes their religious ceremonies.
(Delta Green, Detwiller, Glancy, and Tynes; Escape from Innsmouth, Ross
(O).)
THE BOOK OF DZYAN (also the STANZAS OF DZYAN). Book of ancient
wisdom which exists on a higher spiritual plane, where psychically sensitive
travelers can find it. According to tradition, the Lords of Venus brought the
first six chapters of this book, as well as the Senzar language, to humans. The
grateful humans preserved the Book in the lost city of Shamballah. The book
was later translated into Chinese and distributed widely, though only a few
copies survive today.
Traders discovered the oldest known written copy in a Chinese cave in 595,
from which it made its way to the Wharby Museum in England. This copy was
written in Chinese, Sanskrit, and characters resembling those in the G'harne and
T E CTHULHU MYTHOS ENCYCLOPEDIA
2 7
I H E B O O K O F J t l l B O N
Sussex Fragments, and proved instrumental in Gordon Walmsley's deciphering
of both books. Chinese and Sanskrit copies once rested in many monasteries of
the East, though most of these have been destroyed or lost. Others have turned
up in the van der Heyl mansion near Chorazin, New York, and the Starry Wis-
dom Church in Providence. In 1901, Wallace Deely supposedly translated the
book from the Tsath-Yo language into English.
The contents of this book remain a mystery. One section relates to the Seal
of Solomon, a variant Elder Sign, and incantations that ward off evil might
be found within.
[The Book of Dzyan originally appeared in the works of the Theosophist
Helena Blavatsky. In her book The Secret Doctrine, Blavatsky quotes it at some
length, supposedly having viewed the original during a trip to Tibet. According
to her account, the Book of Dzyan is the first of fifteen esoteric commentaries on
the thirty-five books of Kiu-te, a likely transliteration of a term used to describe
the Tibetan Buddhist corpus. According to Blavatsky, the Book of Dzyan was
written on palm leaves in the Atlantean language of Senzar. Lovecraft did not
encounter Blavatsky's work until the end of his life, and his main source for
his descriptions of the book were the accounts of his friend E. Hoffman Price
derived from later Theosophical sources.
[Blavatsky stated "Dzyan" (pronounced "Djan") is derived from "Dhyan",
the Sanskrit term for mystical meditation.]
See Feery, Joachim; Study of the Book of Dzyan, A. (The Secret Doctrine, Bla-
vatsky (O); The Fate, Detwiller with Ivey; The Dark Destroyer, Glasby; Keepers
Compendium, Herber; "The Haunter of the Dark", Lovecraft; Selected Letters
IV, Lovecraft; "The Diary of Alonzo Typer", Lovecraft and Lumley; The Book
of Dzyan, Maroney, ed.; Ex Libris Miskatonici, Stanley.)
THE BOOK OF EIBON. Tome penned by the Hyperborean wizard Eibon.
Legend has it that it was found amid the ruins of his blasted tower, but Cyron
of Varaad's afterword to the book tells of how Eibon left him the manuscript,
which Cyron then arranged into sequential order. The Book was then passed
from teacher to pupil for many years, with occasional notes being added by
subsequent readers. After the destruction of Hyperborea during the Ice Ages,
copies of the Book made their way to Zobna and Lomar, and later Atlantis
and Hyboria, by way of a secretive cult that revered Eibon and may have been
related to that which preserved the Pnakotic Manuscripts. The priesthood of
Mithra in Brythunia, a country of the Hyborian Age, might have preserved a
copy, but if so it has been lost.
There seem to have been two paths by which the Book of Eibon made its
way into the modern world. The first route was through Egypt, as traders from
Atlantis brought their goods and knowledge to that land. The volume was
translated into hieroglyphics, and the so-called "Kishite recension" made by the
former high priest of Sarnath may have derived from one of these. It then made
2 8
THE CTHULHU MYTHOS ENCYCLOPEDIA
T H E BOOK OF E I B O N
its way through the Mediterranean area, where the Syro-Phoenician scholar
Imilcar Narba made a Punic translation around 1600 B.C. Byzantine Greek (or
Graeco-Bactrian) copies were later made, and around 960, Theodorus Philetas
correlated several of the surviving texts into a medieval Greek volume. A Greek
copy may still exist, but the oldest confirmed copy is the ninth-century Latin
translation of C. Philippus Faber, which was likely the source of the Latin text
printed in Rome in 1662. The Latin copies of the Book of Eibon at Miskatonic
and Harvard stem from this particular tradition.
The second path was through a mysterious culture known as the Ave-
rones. These people fled to the east from the sinking Atlantis, bearing the
Liber Ivonis on tablets with them. The Averones settled in a land that was to
become Averoigne, and these tablets formed an important part of their rituals
even centuries later. One book in the original Hyperborean tongue may have
been kept here, at least until the fourteenth century. The Averonian version
eventually made its way to Ireland, where Latin and Irish translations may
still be found. One Latin version might have been found in the library of the
notorious Aleister Crowley.
In the 13th century, Gaspard du Nord of Averoigne made a French transla-
tion of the Book, most likely from a Greek manuscript (though the possibility
of influence from his region's traditions should not be ruled out). This Gaspard
was a sorcerer of some note, who saved his home city of Vyones from the designs
of the evil magician Nathaire, who might have owned the copy that Gaspard
later translated. In their gratitude, the authorities allowed him to continue in
his occult studies, which presumably gave him the freedom to translate the Book
of Eibon free from all popular censure. Many sorcerers and witches of the area
used this particular edition to great effect, even centuries after its completion.
Several copies of this edition still survive, including those at the van der Heyl
mansion and another at the Starry Wisdom Church of Providence.
During the reign of James I, an unknown scholar, presumably a translator
of the King James Bible, translated the Book of Eibon into English. A dedicated
searcher may still find a few of these copies. To the best of our knowledge, the
Book has never been printed. A more recent French translation by the noted
author Clark Ashton Smith vanished after his death. One Randall Flagg, a
member of the Church of Starry Wisdom, created an unpublished set of Notes
from the Book of Eibon.
It should also be noted that a copy was passed down among the van Kauran
family of New York, though it is uncertain which edition they held.
A great deal of Eibon's book is devoted to tales of his own youth, his magical
experiments, and his journeys to Shaggai and the Vale of Pnath. The book contains
information on the rites of Tsathoggua, the artist Rhydagand, and tales of the great
Rlim Shaikorth. Incantations for calling the emanation from Yoth and the Green
Decay are held within, along with formulas for a chemical that petrifies living flesh
and a powder that will destroy certain star-spawned monstrosities.
T E CTHULHU MYTHOS ENCYCLOPEDIA
2 9
T H E B O O K O F H I D D E N T H I N G S T O B O O K O F T H O T H
Though the Book of Eibon covers a vast amount of knowledge, only a
fraction of the original work survives. For instance, certain rituals intended
to call down dholes to serve the summoner have survived have been lost, and
an encoded one-page appendix regarding the Antarctic Old Ones is found in
only a few volumes.
[A reconstruction of this work has been compiled by Robert M. Price and
recently published.]
See Averoigne; Bugg-Shoggog; dark young; dholes; du Nord, Gaspard; Eye
of Tsathoggua; Ghorl Nigral; Green Decay; Grey Rite of Azathoth; Hyperborea;
Iagsat; Liber Ivonis; Livre d'lvon; N'tse-Kaambl; Papyrus of the Dark Wisdom;
Parchments of Pnom; Rhydagand of the Brush; Rlim Shaikorth; Selections de
Live d'lvon; Testament of Carnamagos; Zon Mezzamalech. ("The Horror from
the Bridge", Campbell; "The Book of Eibon", Carter; History and Chronology
of the Book of Eibon, Carter; "In the Vale of Pnath", Carter; The Life of Eibon
according to Cyron ofVaraad, Carter; "Papyrus of the Dark Wisdom", Carter;
"Shaggai", Carter; "The Adventure of the Six Silver Spiders", Derleth; "Cults
Exposed!: The Starry Wisdom Church", Harms; "By the Bay, Part I", Herber;
Keeper's Compendium, Herber; "Pickman's Student", Herber; Dreams and
Fancies, Lovecraft; Selected Letters V, Lovecraft; "The Man of Stone", Lovecraft
and Heald; "The Thing at the Threshold", McConnell and Sutton; "To Call
Forth Tsathoggua to Smith Thy Enemy", Pulver; "The Beast of Averoigne",
Smith; "The Colossus of Ylourgne", Smith; "The Coming of the White Worm",
Smith; "The Holiness of Azedarac", Smith (0);"Ubbo-Sathla", Smith; ExLibris
Miskatonici, Stanley.)
THE BOOK OF HIDDEN THINGS. Volume mentioned in a manuscript dis-
covered by Alonzo Typer. Nothing else is known of this book, though it may
have to do with the lost city of Yian-ho.
("The Diary of Alonzo Typer", Lovecraft and Lumley (O).)
BOOK OF IOD. Book of unknown origin, though some attribute it to a mysteri-
ous author named "Khut-Nah". Only one copy in the original "Ancient Tongue"
(which may be a mixture of Greek and Coptic) exists. It has been suggested
that the Druids used some of the rites therein. Johann Negus later published
an expurgated Latin (or possibly English) translation, a copy of which is kept
at the Huntingdon Library in San Marino, California.
