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Fantasy Fan, v. 1, issue 5, January 1934
Page 74
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74 THE FANTASY FAN January, 1934 SUPERNATURAL HORROR IN LITERATURE Part Four by H. P. Lovecraft (copyright 1927, by W. Paul Cook) II The Dawn of the Horror Tale As may naturally be expected of a form so closely connected with primal emotion, the horror tale is as old as human thought and speech themselves. Cosmit terror appears as an ingredient of the earliest folklore of all races, and is crystalized in the most archaic ballads, chronicles, and sacred writings. It was, indeed, a prominent feature of the elaborate ceremonial magic with its rituals for the evocation of demons and spectres which flourished from prehistoric times, and which reached its highest development in Egypt and the Semetic nations. Fragments like the Book of Enoch and the Claviculae of Solomon well illustrate the power of the weird over the ancient Eastern mind, and upon such things were based enduring systems and traditions whose echoes extend obscurely even to the present time. Touches of this transcendental fear are seen in classic literature and there is evidence of its still greater emphasis in a balled literature which paralleled the classic stream, but vanished for lack of a written medium. The Middle Ages, steeped in fanciful darkness, gave it an enormous impulse toward expression; and East and West alike were busy preserving and amplifying the dark heritage, both of random folklore and of academically formulated magic and cabalism, which had descended to them. Witch, werewolf, vampire, and ghoul brooded ominously on the lips of bard and grandam, and needed but little encouragement to take the final step across the boundary that divides the chanted tale or song from the formal literary composition. In the Orient, the weird tale tended to assume a gorgeous colouring and sprightliness which almost transmuted it into sheer phantasy. In the West, where the mystical Teuton had come down from his black Boreal forests and the Celt remembered strange sacrifices in Druidic groves, it assumed a terrible intensity and convincing seriousness of atmosphere which doubled the force of its half-told, half-hinted horrors. Much of the power of Western horror-lore was undoubtedly due to the hidden but often suspected presence of a hideous cult of nocturnal worshipers whose strange customs--descended from pre-Aryan and pre-agricultural times when a squat race of Mongoloids roved over Europe with their flocks and herds--were rooted in the most revolting fertility rites of immemorial antiquity. This secret religion, stealthily handed down amongst peasants for thousands of y ears despite the outward reign of the Druidic, Graeco-Roman, and Christian faiths in the regions involved, was marked by wind "Witches' Sabbaths" in lonely woods and atop distant hills on Waipurgis Night and Hallowe'en, the traditional breeding-seasons of the goats and sheep and cattle; and became the source of vast riches of sorcery legend, besides provoking extensive witchcraft prosicutions of which the Salem affair forms the chief American example. Akin to it in essence, and perhaps connected with it in fact, was the frightful secret system of inverted theology or Satan-worship which produced much horror as the famous "Black Mass"; whilst op- (continued on page 80)
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74 THE FANTASY FAN January, 1934 SUPERNATURAL HORROR IN LITERATURE Part Four by H. P. Lovecraft (copyright 1927, by W. Paul Cook) II The Dawn of the Horror Tale As may naturally be expected of a form so closely connected with primal emotion, the horror tale is as old as human thought and speech themselves. Cosmit terror appears as an ingredient of the earliest folklore of all races, and is crystalized in the most archaic ballads, chronicles, and sacred writings. It was, indeed, a prominent feature of the elaborate ceremonial magic with its rituals for the evocation of demons and spectres which flourished from prehistoric times, and which reached its highest development in Egypt and the Semetic nations. Fragments like the Book of Enoch and the Claviculae of Solomon well illustrate the power of the weird over the ancient Eastern mind, and upon such things were based enduring systems and traditions whose echoes extend obscurely even to the present time. Touches of this transcendental fear are seen in classic literature and there is evidence of its still greater emphasis in a balled literature which paralleled the classic stream, but vanished for lack of a written medium. The Middle Ages, steeped in fanciful darkness, gave it an enormous impulse toward expression; and East and West alike were busy preserving and amplifying the dark heritage, both of random folklore and of academically formulated magic and cabalism, which had descended to them. Witch, werewolf, vampire, and ghoul brooded ominously on the lips of bard and grandam, and needed but little encouragement to take the final step across the boundary that divides the chanted tale or song from the formal literary composition. In the Orient, the weird tale tended to assume a gorgeous colouring and sprightliness which almost transmuted it into sheer phantasy. In the West, where the mystical Teuton had come down from his black Boreal forests and the Celt remembered strange sacrifices in Druidic groves, it assumed a terrible intensity and convincing seriousness of atmosphere which doubled the force of its half-told, half-hinted horrors. Much of the power of Western horror-lore was undoubtedly due to the hidden but often suspected presence of a hideous cult of nocturnal worshipers whose strange customs--descended from pre-Aryan and pre-agricultural times when a squat race of Mongoloids roved over Europe with their flocks and herds--were rooted in the most revolting fertility rites of immemorial antiquity. This secret religion, stealthily handed down amongst peasants for thousands of y ears despite the outward reign of the Druidic, Graeco-Roman, and Christian faiths in the regions involved, was marked by wind "Witches' Sabbaths" in lonely woods and atop distant hills on Waipurgis Night and Hallowe'en, the traditional breeding-seasons of the goats and sheep and cattle; and became the source of vast riches of sorcery legend, besides provoking extensive witchcraft prosicutions of which the Salem affair forms the chief American example. Akin to it in essence, and perhaps connected with it in fact, was the frightful secret system of inverted theology or Satan-worship which produced much horror as the famous "Black Mass"; whilst op- (continued on page 80)
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