Nyarlathotep--ye Crawling Chaos

[j. d. worthington]

Tinsel -- where on earth do you get even a vague hint that Nyarlathotep is connected in any way to "The Picture in the House"? There is certainly no mention of, nor hint at, any such connection in the text, nor can I think of anything remotely resembling such a connection to that tale from any other Lovecraft work.

Please give me what you see as the textual basis for such....

As for your question, Wilum... Here are the references I can think of to Nyarlathotep as "soul" or "soul and messenger". as well as "faceless god":

And through this revolting graveyard of the universe the muffled, maddening beating of drums, and thin, monotonous whine of blasphemous flutes from inconceivable, unlighted chambers beyond Time; the detestable pounding and piping whereunto dance slowly, awkwardly, and absurdly the gigantic, tenebrous ultimate gods—the blind, voiceless, mindless gargoyles whose soul is Nyarlathotep.

-- "Nyarlathotep" (prose poem)

It was the eldritch scurrying of those fiend-born rats, always questing for new horrors, and determined to lead me on even unto those grinning caverns of earth’s centre where Nyarlathotep, the mad faceless god, howls blindly to the piping of two amorphous idiot flute-players.

-- "The Rats in the Walls"

There were, in such voyages, incalculable local dangers; as well as that shocking final peril which gibbers unmentionably outside the ordered universe, where no dreams reach; that last amorphous blight of nethermost confusion which blasphemes and bubbles at the centre of all infinity—the boundless daemon-sultan Azathoth, whose name no lips dare speak aloud, and who gnaws hungrily in inconceivable, unlighted chambers beyond time amidst the muffled, maddening beating of vile drums and the thin, monotonous whine of accursed flutes; to which detestable pounding and piping dance slowly, awkwardly, and absurdly the gigantic ultimate gods, the blind, voiceless, tenebrous, mindless Other Gods whose soul and messenger is the crawling chaos Nyarlathotep.

-- The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath

And before the day was done Carter saw that the steersman could have no other goal than the Basalt Pillars of the West, beyond which simple folk say splendid Cathuria lies, but which wise dreamers well know are the gates of a monstrous cataract wherein the oceans of earth’s dreamland drop wholly to abysmal nothingness and shoot through the empty spaces toward other worlds and other stars and the awful voids outside the ordered universe where the daemon-sultan Azathoth gnaws hungrily in chaos amid pounding and piping and the hellish dancing of the Other Gods, blind, voiceless, tenebrous, and mindless, with their soul and messenger Nyarlathotep.

-- The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath

[quote]What his fate would be, he did not know; but he felt that he was held for the coming of that frightful soul and messenger of infinity’s Other Gods, the crawling chaos Nyarlathotep.[quote]

-- The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath

Like Atal in distant Ulthar, he strongly advised against any attempt to see them; declaring that they are testy and capricious, and subject to strange protection from the mindless Other Gods from Outside, whose soul and messenger is the crawling chaos Nyarlathotep.

-- The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath

He felt that his visit had been expected, and wondered how close a watch had all along been kept upon him by the crawling chaos Nyarlathotep. It is Nyarlathotep, horror of infinite shapes and dread soul and messenger of the Other Gods, that the fungous moon-beasts serve; and Carter thought of the black galley that had vanished when the tide of battle turned against the toad-like abnormalities on the jagged rock in the sea.

-- The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath

So, no, in such a context, he did not mention the Great Old Ones as a group

[w h pugmire, esq.]

Thank you thank you, J. D.! The Other Gods -- ye other gods -- this had me ripping open S. T.'s An Index to the Fiction and Poetry of H. P. Lovecraft, where I found:

Other Gods: DQ [Dream-Quest, in At the Mountains of Madness and Other Novels, Arkham House revised edition, 1985] 308, 312, 315, 318-19, 321, 338, 353, 355-56, 370, 389, 391, 396-97, 399-400, 403-4/[Not capitalised in OG] 292, 295, 299, 301-2, 305, 321, 335, 337, 351, 369, 371, 376, 378-79, 382-83.

So, these entities are mention'd only in "Dream-Quest." It shames me to confess I don't know if they are named as ye Old Ones. S. T. lists ye mentions of ye Old Ones thus:

Ole Ones: DH 170/174-75; Mo 117f./326f.; MM 62f./58f.; SOI 331, 333, 367/335-36, 368; HM 235/124; SOT 400/399; HD 106/112 [It is not certain that all mentions refer to the same entities] [I think these pages refer to both the older Arkham editions and S. T.'s revised editions]

So, "Other Gods" is used only in "Dream-Quest" -- yet then in that same work we find the only references in Lovecraft to "Great Ones." Oy...it's a long list. A smaller list concerns the title:

Great Old Ones: CC 139-41, 147-48/143-46, 152-53; MM 25, 59/23, 55 [Cf. Elder Things. It is not certain that the same entities are referred to in CC and MM]

Hell, this makes me wish that I had Lovecraft's fiction on CD so that I could do electric searches!

I am slowly, when I have time and energy, rereading "The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath," although I have trouble deciding if I want to read it in ye Penguin or Arkham edition -- I like the hardcover feel of the Arkham House so I'll probably continue with that.

Hey! Wait a minute! I have my recently purchas'd edition of The Shuttered Room & Other Pieces, with Lin Carter's essay, "H. P. Lovecraft: The Gods"!!! Surely an expert like Carter wou'd know if the Old Ones and the Other Gods are the same, he was an expert on ye Mythos after all .

Oh, crimey He lists Nyarlathotep as an "earth elemental"...... Hmm, he's flipping useless, although his section on "Nodens and the Elder Gods" reminds me of -- ye Elder Gods. Ye Elder Gods???

Back to Joshi: &, Lin honey, there are no Elder "Gods" mention'd in Lovecraft S. T. lists Elder Ones and Elder Things (which, S. T. notes: "Presumably = Great Old Ones")....

Yuggoth, whut is that buzzing in me brain? Whut is that tugging of me eye as I study attentively all of this nameless text? Why do the shadows move so suggestively around me? Why am I not working on completing my new story???

[w h pugmire, esq.]

This is so amazingly weird it feels like eldritch enchantment. Earlier today I did a review on Amazon of Gary Myers' Arkham House book, The House of the Worm. He's been on my mind of late, and meeting him at last year's Lovecraft Film Festival was fantastic, he's so cool. There were only two reviews of the book at Amazon, and neither of them were okay, so I wrote me review, which has yet to be posted (I hope it will appear to-morrow). So, tonight, I brought the book up to reread some of it, and I began with Gary's Introduction. Now, in relation to my last post here about Other Gods, Elder Ones, &c &c ------ well, here's Gary's Introduction to the Arkham House book, which I have just read in bed five minutes ago in a state of nameless wonder.

"Chapter One of this book is not a major contribution to the Cthulhu Mythos of H. P. Lovecraft, as expounded by his friend and publisher, the late August Derleth, but it does present an interesting heresy.

"According to Derleth, the central precept of the Cthulhu Mythos is that the evil Great Old Ones once made war on the benign Elder Gods, and were banished by Them to outer darkness, where they abide the hour of their resurgence. The body of Mythos lore recounts the modern manifestations of the Ancient Ones trying to return. The theme of resurgence is an important one in Lovecraft, and the Great Old Ones are his invention, though other writers have added to the pantheon; but the Elder Gods, with the exception of Nodens, are entirely the creation of August Derleth.

"Only Lovecraft is scripture. Elder ONES, at least, are mentioned with Nodens in 'The Strange High House in the Mist'; but the Elder Ones are younger than infinity's Other Gods, who came to dance on Hatheg-Kla 'before the gods or even the Elder Ones were born.' And Kuranes, in 'The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath,' identifies the Elder Ones with the Great Ones of Kadath, who carved their own anthropomorphic likeness on Ngranek. It was the Great Ones who banished the Gugs 'to caverns below' because of their sacrifices to Nyarlathotep and the Other Gods. But the Other Gods are the ultimate gods even in the opinion of the priests of Nasht and Kaman-Thah, as Lovecraft states plainly. Probably the Great Ones had more than one reason for desiring to escape from Kadath, and Nyarlathotep for keeping them there. Protection by the Other Gods is refined cruelty.

"The Great Old Ones of this book are the Other Gods and their affiliates, but the Elder Gods are only a somewhat optimistic appraisal of the Great Ones of Kadath. Man has frankly biased opinions about the ordering of his universe and the obligations of his gods toward himself; the gods, being mindless, have no opinions, or else they have found that obligations can be evaded successfully merely by swallowing whoever would call them to their attention. The cotters of Vornai are orthodox Derlethians, but the Worm is notoriously a skeptic."

To come upon this short after writing the just previous post is truly a wonderful and strange experience. It is a sign, but of what I am nor certain......

[Tinsel]

Originally Posted by j. d. worthington

Tinsel -- where on earth do you get even a vague hint that Nyarlathotep is connected in any way to "The Picture in the House"? There is certainly no mention of, nor hint at, any such connection in the text, nor can I think of anything remotely resembling such a connection to that tale from any other Lovecraft work.

Please give me what you see as the textual basis for such....

If proof only consisted of direct references than this would not be fiction. This does not need to be defended because I am relying on inference. It is not worth describing here. I still need to read many of these stories but I am working out my philosophy because I need to organize these stories so that I can appreciate them more. I'll have to do the same thing with Robert Howard's fiction. Who knows which will be more complicated. I don't mind it this way, for I am kind.

[J-WO]

Originally Posted by j. d. worthington

Wilum... saying this may completely doom me to dismissal by any true Lovecraftian, but... there are actually several things I rather like about Cthulhu's Heirs. Granted, it's a very uneven anthology, and some of the pieces in there have me shaking my head... but others I find oddly compelling and intriguing. It will be interesting to hear your take on some of this. (And I've yet to come across anyone who has a favorable opinion of "Watch the Whiskers Sprout"... except me....)

I've got a fondness for that anthology. In fact, I didn't even know it had a bad rep. It was the first thing I read after Lovecraft, so I was just happy to have mythos tales set in the present, I expect.

Whiskers was deeply confused, but the image of Azathoth inside a... er, what was it... a food cart... has stuck with me. That tale was Victorian, wasn't it?

There was some tale with Dolphins and Deep ones, too (The love that dare not echo-sonar its name...)

But (to return to thread) Mr Skin was the stand out piece. Had a great 70's blaxploitation feel to it. But with Nyalathotep.

[Ningauble]

Originally Posted by Tinsel

I'm forced to attribute the lightning strike to Nyarlanthotep. If he is presented in another story related to voodoo, than there is some support. I have to also believe that he was involved in the story "He", at least until this is disproved.

?????????????????????????????????? On what passage do you base that conclusion, since there is no mention of Nyarlathotep in the text? And don't give me that "inference" crap. The contents of other stories have no bearing on this.

There is plenty of Christianity in the form of Puritanism in his writing, however his own created pantheon has to be behind the motivation of any cult members or any strange folk who are evil.

No. The "pantheon" wasn't conceived of until later, hence it does not "have to be behind the motivation" of any character. It is a huge mistake to try to shoehorn everything HPL ever wrote into the Cthulhu Mythos.

There is also the similar dialect of the two characters in "He" and "The Picture in the House".

Well, duh! That's because they both hail from the 18th century!

Anyway, it simply puts the question to rest as to the source of the evil. This may give Nyarlanthotep a ranking among the extraterrestrials (mentioned in "The Call of Cthulhu"), if he was one of the Old Ones, he did not join them under the water, and that needs to be explained within the text by inference or else directly, or else in some other source such as Lovecraft's letters, unless of course the only one that can explain that is the priest Cthulhu.

Since HPL never set up any formalised system or exact background for his Mythos -- largely because he didn't want to feel bound by it -- details vary from story to story. Nyarlathotep has nothing to do with "The Call of Cthulhu".

[Ningauble]

Originally Posted by Tinsel

If proof only consisted of direct references than this would not be fiction. This does not need to be defended because I am relying on inference. It is not worth describing here.

Well, don't expect anyone to take you seriously, then.

[j. d. worthington]

"Whiskers" struck me for an interesting set of reasons (and this ties in with the subject of the thread, given the sometime confusion between Azathoth and Nyarlathotep as the emblem of chaos): Upon first reading, yes, it seems very confused... until one hits those last bits, then things (for me, at least) began to form a pattern. What we are dealing with here, as in some of Moorcock's work (such as the Jerry Cornelius stories) is time and reality in a state of flux, disrupted by chaos, yet having a peculiar pattern of its own via certain referents.

At any rate, the center of the whole thing was indeed that seller of fish-parts or, rather, his cart... a sort of strange portal from which all the chaos emerged and into which it would eventually (along with everything else) be absorbed again.

It's a very strange story, but I think it has some interesting takes on the theme of chaos in Lovecraft.

Wilum: As always, you are more than welcome. Yes, I think, in a very real sense, the "Great Ones" or the gods of earth are Lovecraft's reference to the gods we've invented as the anthropomorphic pantheons so many find so comforting, whilst the "other gods" are, as he states, the ultimate, blind, voiceless, tenebrous gods... the actual forces of the universe, and (again, to me) a sort of precursor to his idea of such entities as Yog-Sothoth, the later versions of Azathoth (who remains rather vague, really) and Nyarlathotep, etc. So I do see the two as related, but more in the manner of a nascent idea which began to be clarified a bit later in his own mind, though still developing... and never hidebound; something he never felt entirely constrained to as far as systematization goes, but which he could vary depending on the needs of a particular tale. Hence we have the "demythologization" of these entities of the Necronomicon as the very physical beings of At the Mountains of Madness who (recall) the humans dub the Old Ones....

[w h pugmire, esq.]

Great Yuggoth, I am now looking forward to my copy of Cthulhu's Heirs. The book has a bad reputation generally as the weakest of the Chaosium fiction books. Part of my dismissal comes from one of the writers having submitted a godawful story to me for Tales of Lovecraftian Horror and stating point-blank in his cover letter, "I want to be the next Lovecraft." The book has but three reviews over at Amazon, none of which are very praiseworthy. I look forward to writing my own wee review there.

[j. d. worthington]

While I would agree that it is one of the weaker entries in the Chaosium line, nonetheless I find several things in there of interest. (There are also some stinkers in there, and some which land between the two.) I don't want to discourage you, Wilum, but I would advise a cautious optimism. You may find you hate the book, or you may find you love it. I don't know; I'm only giving my own impression. But as to that particular story... have patience with it. It does have a point (in my opinion), but such may not be apparent until the final few lines.

And, as a moderator, I'm going to step in here to prevent this thread from going completely off-track. Let's keep the discussion to information about Nyarlathotep and his relation to Lovecraft's ideas, themes, and other entities which may prove useful for what Wilum is working on. Other discussions on the subject, such as those which Tinsel has brought in, really belong in a separate thread of their own.

[w h pugmire, esq.]

Originally Posted by j. d. worthington

And, as a moderator, I'm going to step in here to prevent this thread from going completely off-track. Let's keep the discussion to information about Nyarlathotep and his relation to Lovecraft's ideas, themes, and other entities which may prove useful for what Wilum is working on. Other discussions on the subject, such as those which Tinsel has brought in, really belong in a separate thread of their own.

Ah, chaos reigns! Yes, let us get back to Nyarlathotep, even though all of this deep thinking re: ye Old Ones, Other Gods, Elder Thangs and Nyarlathotep's relation to them fascinates me! Perhaps a separate thread on this matter would be advisable, nu? Of course, you have all raised so many questions, and I fear that I shall bombard S. T. Joshi with questions on all of this when I have dinner with him tomorrow! Too bad the event cannot be filmed! (However, I will be discussing Nyarlathotep with S. T. live on YouTube next week on my MrWilum channel -- and I am certain his comments will lend themselves to acute discourse on this thread! Ia!)

What I am doing at ye moment is a careful rereading of "The Dream-Quest of Unkown Kadath" so as to understand it as a source of information regarding Nyarlathotep. I am reading it in two Arkham House editions, the first edition of ye Corrected Texts and then in its very first publication in book form in Beyond the Wall of Sleep (Arkham House 1943). I am making notes in one of my Commonplace Books of interesting phrases and ideas. Then, after a few pages, I go to S. T.'s annotations in the Penguin edition of The Dreams in the Witch House and other Weird Stories. I rarely read Lovecraft this way, as intense study, and it is a wonderful experience! I have never enjoy'd "Dream Quest" more than I am at this moment -- I find it sensational. As a source of information concerning Nyarlathotep it may prove very useful. So many things have already captivated me, such as

"In the tunnels of that twisted wood, whose low prodigious oaks twine groping boughs and shine dim with phosphorescence of strange fungi, dwell the furtive and secretive zoogs; who know many obscure secrets of the dream-world and a few of the waking world, since the wood at two places touches the land of men..."

I've decided one of those "two places" is Sesqua Valley, and it is because of this that Nyarlathotep has such easy access to the valley and is oft "felt" within its woodland and its shadowland of dream & mist. Too, I have often, in my tales, made reference to a furtive race of wee black creatures who dwell within ye darkness of Sesquan woodland -- & these may in fact be related to ye Zoogs. Endless possibilities! As usual, Lovecraft proves an effective & eternal muse!

[J-WO]

Originally Posted by w h pugmire, esq.

Too, I have often, in my tales, made reference to a furtive race of wee black creatures who dwell within ye darkness of Sesquan woodland -- & these may in fact be related to ye Zoogs. Endless possibilities! As usual, Lovecraft proves an effective & eternal muse!

Could these wee black creatures be a warped reflection of the Zoogs? Nyarlathotep is, naturally, powerful enough to enter or make itself 'felt' in Sesqua valley, while the Zoogs only leave freakish, self-motivated imprints in the shape of the WBC's.

Just a thought...

[w h pugmire, esq.]

Originally Posted by J-WO

Could these wee black creatures be a warped reflection of the Zoogs? Nyarlathotep is, naturally, powerful enough to enter or make itself 'felt' in Sesqua valley, while the Zoogs only leave freakish, self-motivated imprints in the shape of the WBC's.

Just a thought...

This is a fascinating idea, but I don't want to apply it to my shadowy things because I actually don't ever want to explain what they are -- it would spoil their mystique. But this is an excellent germ of a story idea! It could apply to so many Lovecraftian things. I actually think my wee things owe more to Machen than to Lovecraft. The story is now at 5,000 words and I am soon to bring on Nyarlathotep as a character, whut has me a bit nervous, it has to be exactly right and atmospheric to ye core. I hope to spend most of the day writing, or trying to write, or thinking about writing as I continue to study "The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath." Then I have dinner with S. T. Joshi, and if I feel dinner is ye place to grill him about ye nature of ye Crawling Chaos, I shall do so....

[J-WO]

Good luck. I can't imagine how I'd begin to write Nyarlathotep. Still, if you pick anyone living to chat about it over dinner it would have to be ST Joshi.

[nigourath]

These speculations ,about the nature of one of the most intriguing entities,could lead to even more greater obscurity -i also think ,that could be a great thing!!I had an almost identical query, as pugmire ,about the meaning of the phrase 'idiot chaos' ,and whom it refers upon...Although the "crawling chaos" is nothing, but the terrible entity reffered to as nyarlathotep(a name of eartly origin for an earthly manifestation...),my best guess was ,that it had to be "Azathoth"-also referred as a mindless ,blind entity by HPL...As it is evident in the poem "Fungi from Yuggoth" the "idiot chaos" ,that scatters earth"s last remains,is a cosmical power,that could represent Azathoth, but not the cosmically weaker Nyarlathotep.Despite being an entity capable of taking many different shapes and forms- of the undescribable proportion-he always seemed to me to have a lesser cosmical intent.

The "crawling chaos" doesnt profess a being of extrodinary cosmical power to me like, for examble Azathoth appears to be ,but more like the qualitative properties of the chaotic state.A chaos that "crawls its way through" is what Nyarlathotep represents, meaning the totally dynamic nature of the chaotic situation,a state of matter which in the field of plain physics today. is considered to be "rich in energy",a phenomen called "entropy".
Entropy is pretty much the main parameter of ataxia in a given "system" and as much as it increases the closer we get to a spontaneous change of that system,but lets return to the post:I think, what Lovecraft wanted to symbolize here ,was the dynamic property of the chaotic state and its tendency to "various changes",and remember nyarlathotep is a master shape-sifter ,an entity of many guises ,many of them impossible to even imagine.So my guess on this is ,that the "crawling chaos" is a very successfull characterization given by Lovecraft ,describing the chaos as a "form of energy" always ready to materialize ,which is not far from the scientific truth.If Azathoth is the being ,that is the nucleus of the chaos,an entity of unimaginible power ,but with no clear will,Nyarlathotep is nothing else than its "personified property", a terrrible being ,that "crawls its way" through constant change , a messenger of the universal cosmical truth,that any form of order is above all defined and controlled by chaos- and at the same time in a balance with it,yet even this balance prone to change every time and to every direction.....

And as the "crawling chaos" ,this is the very entity, that can take any possible physical form possible, that can create any possible instrument or use the most exotic energies imaginable or not.....