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Celestial Bodies in The Cthulhu Mythos

This document summarizes celestial bodies mentioned in the Cthulhu Mythos and their connections to the stories. It discusses both real and fictional planets, stars, and constellations, including Venus, Jupiter, Yuggoth (Pluto), Fomalhaut, Aldebaran, Algol, Betelgeuse, Polaris, Arcturus, and Sirius. Many of these celestial objects are associated with deities or events from the Cthulhu mythology. The document also provides the origins and meanings of the names for these astronomical features.

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100% found this document useful (2 votes)
511 views3 pages

Celestial Bodies in The Cthulhu Mythos

This document summarizes celestial bodies mentioned in the Cthulhu Mythos and their connections to the stories. It discusses both real and fictional planets, stars, and constellations, including Venus, Jupiter, Yuggoth (Pluto), Fomalhaut, Aldebaran, Algol, Betelgeuse, Polaris, Arcturus, and Sirius. Many of these celestial objects are associated with deities or events from the Cthulhu mythology. The document also provides the origins and meanings of the names for these astronomical features.

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xdarby
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Celestial Bodies in the Cthulhu Mythos

by John Beal
According to L. Sprague De Camp, Lovecraft was a keen astronomer, whose first in
terest was created through the classical myths associated with the constellation
s. The stories of H. P. Lovecraft-and other writers of the Cthulhu mythos often
mention the roles of stars in connection with deities, events or rituals. -A cer
tain number of these places are fictional, for example the planet Sharnoth, home
of Nyarlathotep beyond this universe, in what might be termed Universe B. Other
s are real stars and planets, so I thought it interesting to investigate any myt
hology connected with them, and the meaning of their names.
THE PLANETS: Rather than list each individual planet and their associated myths,
here is a synopsis of a few which seem particularly of interest. In the Lovecra
ft and Sterling story In the Walls of Eryx the setting is a Venus covered by lus
h jungle, through which the narrator searches for a crystal worshipped by the Ve
nutian Man-Lizards, possibly a reference to the Serpent People and Shining Trape
zohedron of The Haunter of the Dark and other stories. Venus is also mentioned a
long with Jupiter in The Shadow out of Time in which Lovecraft writes "There was
a mind from Venus, which would live incalculable epochs to come, and one from a
n outer moon of Jupiter six million years in the past." Many of Clark Ashton Smi
ths stories are set upon planets, The Door to Saturn for example and also The Vau
lts of Yoh-Vombis which is set upon Mars. Most of Smiths works however concern Pl
anets in other star systems, for example The Planet of the Dead, the planet ment
ioned in Marooned in Andromeda, and The Flower-Women of Voltap. The final planet
I shall mention, appears to be pivotal to the astronomical ideas in Lovecrafts C
thulhu Mythos. Yuggoth synonymous with Pluto, is the abode of fungal creatures w
ho leave crab-like footprints and make inter-planetary journeys... on clumsy, pow
erful wings which have a way of resisting the ether". Kenneth Grant uses Yuggoth
as a symbol of the boundary between dimensions, an idea expressed in the poem B
eyond by Lin Carter:
"I have seen Yith, and Yuggoth on the Rim,
And black Carcosa in the Hyades."
It is interesting that Carter mentions Carcosa (the invention of Ambrose Bierce
in his story An inhabitant of Carcosa) as lying in the seven sister stars of the
Hyades, as this area of the sky is returned to again and again in the Cthulhu m
ythos.
FOMALHAUT (Alpha Pisces Australis): This name, like many others derives straight
from Arabic. Its origins are Fum al Hiiit, meaning Mouth of the Fish. It is not s
o surprising therefore that this star is located at the mouth of the drinking fi
sh, Pisces Australis. Interestingly it is the only named star in this constellat
ion and is the most southerly first-magnitude star visible from Great Britain. T
he fact that it is of first magnitude relates to the Cthulhu mythos deity Cthugg
a with which it is connected. Cthugga is described as resembling an "enormous bu
rning mass continually varying in shape." Cthugga is also served by beings calle
d Flame Vampires which again suggests an intensely hot abode.
ALDEBARAN (Alpha Tauri): Aldebaran is generally known as The Eye of the Bull, Taur
us, due to its distinct orange colouration. Originally the name was given to the
entire Hyades cluster, which it is in fact not a member of, but is some distanc
e in front of. Its name again comes from Arabic, Al Dabaran, meaning The Follower.
This was due to the Greeks belief that the star followed the Pleiades. This sta
r is linked to the Cthulhu mythos in an extremely interesting way. The original
link was through the stories of Robert William Chambers in The King in Yellow, w
here it is the bright twin star, home of Hastur.
It is regarded by August Derleth as the Star where some of the Cthulhu deities e

menated from. In this respect it is of interest to quote from The Whisperer in D


arkness; "To Nyarlathotep, mighty messenger must all things be told. And he shal
l put on the semblance of men, the waxen mask and the robe that hides and come d
own from the world of seven suns to mock...", Robert Graves in his book The Gree
k Myths states that both the Pleiades and the Hyades were the seven daughters of
the Titan Atlas, making them equivalent in mythological terms. The statement fr
om The Whisperer in Darkness clearly shows an alignment with the seven sister su
ns of either cluster, thus connecting Nyarlathotep to Aldebarans area of influenc
e. Perhaps one can go further and express the possibility that Hastur, the King
in Yellow, is one of Nyarlathoteps "thousand other forms", since in the story; Th
e Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath Nyarlathotep is described as wearing a "yellow m
ask". As well as this in the story The Crawling Chaos by Lovecraft and Elizabeth
Berkeley, the destruction of the Earth is portrayed as seen by a Being on "Ceth
arion of the seven suns, thus connecting the area again to Nyarlathotep as the c
rawling chaos, the Nemesis of the Earth.
Another observation is that Aldebaran was once in the constellation of Mithras;
which consisted of the constellations Taurus and Perseus. This connects to the s
tar Algol, another star mentioned briefly in Beyond the Walls of Sleep by Lovecr
aft.
ALGOL (Beta Persei): This was the very first eclipsing binary star to be discove
red:Montanan, an Italian astronomer in the 1600s was the first European to note a
nd produce explanation for the stars periodic wink. Its Arabic name Al Ghtil mea
ns The Demon or more precisely The Ghoul, and in English it also has the nickname The
Demon Star. Originally Algol was one of the stars making up the shield of Mithra
s, but later came to represent the malevolent winking eye of Medusa in the const
ellation Perseus. Due to it being the first eclipsing binary to be discovered th
e class of such stars is termed Algol-type variables.
BETELGEUSE (Alpha Orion is): Although this star is labelled the Alpha star it is
in fact dimmer than Beta Orion is, or RIGEL. The star is a red supergiant whose
name derives from Yad al Jauzah meaning Hand of the Giant, or Hand of the Sacred O
ne. Apparently the name should be spelled Yedelgeuse, but due to poor translation
of the Arabic into Latin it was wrongly read as Bad, Arabic for armpit, instead
of the word Yad which means hand. This star lies some 650 light years away from
us and it is a period variable star, altering its luminance by brightening and
fading in an annual cycle. In the Cthulhu mythos it is regarded as the star from
which the Elder Gods ruled.
POLARIS (Alpha Ursae Minoris): Obviously the name implies it to be the pole star
, and it is in fact within l~ of the celestial north pole. However in Greek its
name is Cynosura, and means dogs tail, thus implying that the whole constellation a
t one time referred to a dog instead of a bear. An even earlier Greek name was P
hoenice, possibly connecting it to the name Phoenissa, (whose masculine form is
Phoenix). The name Phoenissa means the red, or bloody one. Robert Graves states it
as connecting with Demeter and Astarte; Phoenissas name implying the moon goddes
ss role of Death-in-Life. Interestingly Phoenix is stated as renaming the land of
Canaan as Phoenicia, thus producing another possible link.
The Pole star will be at its closest to celestial north in the year 2100 and the
n will be gradually succeeded by the star Vega. This procession seems to be impl
ied in Lovecrafts story Polaris, in the poem:
"Slumber, watcher, till the spheres,
Six and twenty thousand years
Have revolvd, and I return
To the spot where now I burn.
Other stars anon shall rise
To the axis of the skies;

Stars that soothe and stars that bless


With a sweet forgetfulness;
Only when my round is oer
Shall the past disturb thy door."
The use of the term the axis of the skies in the poem is most interesting due to i
ts connecting with the Arabic name for the star: Al Kutb al Shamaliyy, meaning th
e axle of the north.
ARCTURUS (Alpha Bootes): This stars name in Greek means the bear-watcher or bear-ke
eper, and in Arabic is Al Simak al Rimah or the lofty lance-bearer. It was at one t
ime the name of the entire constellation of Bootes, the herdsman. The constellatio
ns name also means the bear-hunter, and the word Bootes itself derives from Boetes
the Greek for clamorous, and the Latin name seems to comply with this as vociferat
or or clamator; the shout of a huntsman with his dogs (Canes Venatici). This star i
s mentioned briefly in a passage of Lovecrafts story Beyond the Wall of Sleep sug
gesting that the dreaming consciousness of Joe Slater, (the hero) had "drifted t
o the worlds that reel about the red Arcturus".
SIRIUS (Alpha Canis Major): Kenneth Grant associates Sirius with the Lovecraftia
n and Babylonian deity Dagon, an idea which Robert Temple also propounds in his
book The Sirius Mystery. Temple quotes from a Babylonian historian named Berossu
s, who writes of a group of Alien Amphibians whose leader was Oannes, later to b
ecome the fish-god Dagon of the Philistines. Berossus also speaks of another amp
hibious alien called Odacon, which Temple believes to be a corrupted form of Dag
on. Temples book concerns amongst other things, an African tribe called the Dogon
, who are aware of SIRIUS B an invisible-to-the-eye star, which they believe has
a planet circling it from which the Amphibian Aliens came.
In Greek the stars name was Seirios aster, the scorching star; whilst the Latin wa
s Kanikuly, due in both cases to its appearance in the caniculares dies or dog day
s of the hot summer months. In Arabic it had the name Al Shira al Abur al Yamaniy
yah meaning the shining one in the passage of Yemen, signifying its position to th
e right of a Muslim as he faces Mecca. This star is in fact the brightest in the
night sky and similar to ALGOL is also binary, with the white dwarf star SIRIUS
B orbiting at a full revolution every fifty years. In Greek mythology it is als
o called Orthus which was the two-headed watch-dog belonging to Atlas, parented
by Typhon and Echidne. Also in myth the Dog-star Sirius was regarded as Cerberus
pertaining to the tripartite year. In Egyptian myth the dog-star was associated
with Anubis, who according to Robert Graves can be identified with Hecate as th
e tn-headed bitch, eating corpse flesh and howling at the moon. Elsewhere Graves
also identifies it with the Egyptian god Thoth and thus also to the Greek Herme
s, both messengers of the gods, the role which Nyarlathotep serves in the Cthulh
u mythos.

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