Shub-Niggurath
Encyclopedia
- For the French zeuhlZeuhlZeuhl means celestial in Kobaïan, the constructed language created by Christian Vander. Originally solely applied to the music of Vander's band, Magma, the term zeuhl was eventually used to describe the similar music produced by French bands, beginning in the mid-1970s...
band named after it, see Shub Niggurath (band).
Shub-Niggurath, often associated with the phrase “The Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young”, is a deity
Deity
A deity is a recognized preternatural or supernatural immortal being, who may be thought of as holy, divine, or sacred, held in high regard, and respected by believers....
in the Cthulhu Mythos
Cthulhu Mythos
The Cthulhu Mythos is a shared fictional universe, based on the work of American horror writer H. P. Lovecraft.The term was first coined by August Derleth, a contemporary correspondent of Lovecraft, who used the name of the creature Cthulhu - a central figure in Lovecraft literature and the focus...
of H. P. Lovecraft
H. P. Lovecraft
Howard Phillips Lovecraft --often credited as H.P. Lovecraft — was an American author of horror, fantasy and science fiction, especially the subgenre known as weird fiction....
. The creature is sometimes referred to as “The Black Ram of The Forest with a Thousand Ewes,” lending a male gender to the entity that is often thought of as female.
Shub-Niggurath is first mentioned in Lovecraft's revision story "The Last Test" (1928
1928 in literature
The year 1928 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*Ford Madox Ford publishes Last Post. It is the final book of a four-volume work titled Parade's End published between 1924 and 1928....
); she is never actually described in Lovecraft's fiction, but is frequently mentioned or called upon in incantations. Most of her development as a literary figure was carried out by other Mythos authors, including August Derleth
August Derleth
August William Derleth was an American writer and anthologist. Though best remembered as the first publisher of the writings of H. P...
, Robert Bloch
Robert Bloch
Robert Albert Bloch was a prolific American writer, primarily of crime, horror and science fiction. He is best known as the writer of Psycho, the basis for the film of the same name by Alfred Hitchcock...
and Ramsey Campbell
Ramsey Campbell
John Ramsey Campbell is an English horror fiction author.Since he first came to prominence in the mid-1960s, critics have cited Campbell as one of the leading writers in his field: T. E. D. Klein has written that "Campbell reigns supreme in the field today", while S. T...
.
August Derleth classified Shub-Niggurath as a Great Old One, but the Call of Cthulhu
Call of Cthulhu
Call of Cthulhu may refer to:* "The Call of Cthulhu", the original short story by H. P. Lovecraft* Call of Cthulhu , published by Chaosium* Call of Cthulhu Collectible Card Game, published by Fantasy Flight Games...
role-playing game classifies her as an Outer God. The CthulhuTech
CthulhuTech
CthulhuTech is a science-fiction and horror roleplaying game created by Wildfire LLC and published by Sandstorm that combines elements of the Cthulhu Mythos with anime-style mecha, horror, magic and futuristic action...
role-playing game, in turn, has returned to Derleth's classification of Shub-Niggurath as a Great Old One.
Development
Shub-Niggurath's appearances in Lovecraft's main body of fiction do not provide much detail about his conception of the entity. Her first mention under Lovecraft's byline was in The Dunwich HorrorThe Dunwich Horror
"The Dunwich Horror" is a short story by H. P. Lovecraft. Written in 1928, it was first published in the April 1929 issue of Weird Tales . It takes place in Dunwich, a fictional town in Massachusetts...
(1928), where a quote from the Necronomicon
Necronomicon
The Necronomicon is a fictional grimoire appearing in the stories by horror writer H. P. Lovecraft and his followers. It was first mentioned in Lovecraft's 1924 short story "The Hound", written in 1922, though its purported author, the "Mad Arab" Abdul Alhazred, had been quoted a year earlier in...
discussing the Old Ones breaks into an exclamation of "Iä! Shub-Niggurath!" The story provides no further information about this peculiar expression.
The next Lovecraft story to mention Shub-Niggurath is scarcely more informative. In "The Whisperer in Darkness
The Whisperer in Darkness
"The Whisperer in Darkness" is a short story by H. P. Lovecraft. Written February–September 1930, it was first published in Weird Tales, August 1931. Similar to "The Colour Out of Space" , it is a blend of horror and science fiction...
" (1930), a recording of a ceremony involving human and nonhuman worshippers includes the following exchange:
- Ever Their praises, and abundance to the Black Goat of the Woods. Iä! Shub-Niggurath!
- Iä! Shub-Niggurath! The Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young!
Similarly unexplained exclamations occur in "The Dreams in the Witch House
The Dreams in the Witch House
"The Dreams in the Witch House" is a short story by H. P. Lovecraft, part of the Cthulhu Mythos genre of horror fiction. Written in January/February 1932, it was first published in the July 1933 issue of Weird Tales.-Inspiration:...
" (1932) and "The Thing on the Doorstep
The Thing on the Doorstep
"The Thing on the Doorstep" is a short story written by H. P. Lovecraft, part of the so-called Cthulhu Mythos universe of horror fiction. It was written in August 1933, and first published in the January 1937 issue of Weird Tales.-Inspiration:...
" (1933).
Revision tales
Lovecraft only provided specific information about Shub-Niggurath in his “revision tales”, stories published under the names of clients for whom he ghost-wrote. As Price points out, “For these clients he constructed a parallel myth-cycle to his own, a separate group of Great Old Ones,” including YigYig
Yig is a deity in H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos. He appears as a serpent man, serpent with bat-like wings, or as a giant snake....
, Ghatanothoa
Ghatanothoa
Ghatanothoa is a fictional deity in the Cthulhu Mythos. The being first appeared in the short story "Out Of The Aeons" by H. P. Lovecraft and Hazel Heald. It is a large, amorphous, exceptionally hideous being comparable to Medusa.-Summary:...
, Rhan-Tegoth, "the evil twins Nug and Yeb"—and Shub-Niggurath.
While some of these revision stories just repeat the familiar exclamations, others provide new elements of lore. In "The Last Test" (1927), the first mention of Shub-Niggurath seems to connect her to Nug and Yeb: "I talked in Yemen
Yemen
The Republic of Yemen , commonly known as Yemen , is a country located in the Middle East, occupying the southwestern to southern end of the Arabian Peninsula. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to the north, the Red Sea to the west, and Oman to the east....
with an old man who had come back from the Crimson Desert—he had seen Irem
Iram of the Pillars
Iram of the Pillars , also called Aram, Iram, Irum, Irem, Erum, Wabar, Ubar, or the City of a Thousand Pillars, is a lost city on the Arabian Peninsula.-Introduction:Ubar, a name of a region or a name of a people, was mentioned in ancient records, and was spoken of in folk...
, the City of Pillars, and had worshipped at the underground shrines of Nug and Yeb—Iä! Shub-Niggurath!"
The revision story "The Mound", which describes the discovery of an underground realm called K'n-yan
K'n-yan
K'n-yan is a fictional, subterranean land in the Cthulhu Mythos. The underground realm was first described in detail in H. P. Lovecraft's revision of Zealia Bishop's "The Mound" , in which it is discovered by the 16th century Spanish Conquistador Zamacona...
by a Spanish conquistador
Conquistador
Conquistadors were Spanish soldiers, explorers, and adventurers who brought much of the Americas under the control of Spain in the 15th to 16th centuries, following Europe's discovery of the New World by Christopher Columbus in 1492...
, reports that a temple of Tsathoggua
Tsathoggua
Tsathoggua is a fictional supernatural entity in the Cthulhu Mythos shared fictional universe. He is the creation of Clark Ashton Smith and is part of his Hyperborean cycle....
there "had been turned into a shrine of Shub-Niggurath, the All-Mother and wife of the Not-to-Be-Named-One. This deity was a kind of sophisticated Astarte
Astarte
Astarte is the Greek name of a goddess known throughout the Eastern Mediterranean from the Bronze Age to Classical times...
, and her worship struck the pious Catholic as supremely obnoxious."
The reference to "Astarte", the consort of Baal in Semitic
Semitic
In linguistics and ethnology, Semitic was first used to refer to a language family of largely Middle Eastern origin, now called the Semitic languages...
mythology, ties Shub-Niggurath to the related fertility goddess Cybele
Cybele
Cybele , was a Phrygian form of the Earth Mother or Great Mother. As with Greek Gaia , her Minoan equivalent Rhea and some aspects of Demeter, Cybele embodies the fertile Earth...
, the Magna Mater mentioned in Lovecraft's "The Rats in the Walls
The Rats in the Walls
"The Rats in the Walls" is a short story by American author H. P. Lovecraft. Written in August–September 1923, it was first published in Weird Tales, March 1924.-Plot summary:...
", and implies that the "great mother worshipped by the hereditary cult of Exham Priory" in that story "had to be none other than Shub-Niggurath."
The Not-to-Be-Named-One, not being named, is difficult to identify; a similar phrase, translated into Latin as the Magnum Innominandum, appears in a list in "The Whisperer in Darkness" and was included in a scrap of incantation that Lovecraft wrote for Robert Bloch
Robert Bloch
Robert Albert Bloch was a prolific American writer, primarily of crime, horror and science fiction. He is best known as the writer of Psycho, the basis for the film of the same name by Alfred Hitchcock...
's "The Shambler from the Stars". August Derleth
August Derleth
August William Derleth was an American writer and anthologist. Though best remembered as the first publisher of the writings of H. P...
identifies this mysterious entity with Hastur
Hastur
Hastur is a fictional entity of the Cthulhu Mythos. Hastur first appeared in Ambrose Bierce's short story "Haïta the Shepherd" as a benign god of shepherds. Robert W...
(though Hastur appears in the same "Whisperer in Darkness" list with the Magnum Innominandum), while Robert M. Price equates him with Yog-Sothoth
Yog-Sothoth
Yog-Sothoth is a cosmic entity of the fictional Cthulhu Mythos and the Dream Cycle of H. P. Lovecraft. Yog-Sothoth's name was first mentioned in his novella The Case of Charles Dexter Ward...
--though he also suggests that Shub-Niggurath's mate is implicitly the snake god Yig.
Finally, in "Out of the Aeons", a revision tale set in part on the lost continent of Mu
Mu (lost continent)
Mu is the name of a hypothetical continent that allegedly existed in one of Earth's oceans, but disappeared at the dawn of human history.The concept and the name were proposed by 19th century traveler and writer Augustus Le Plongeon, who claimed that several ancient civilizations, such as those of...
, Lovecraft describes the character T'yog as the "High Priest of Shub-Niggurath and guardian of the copper temple of the Goat with a Thousand Young". In the story, T'yog surprisingly maintains that "the gods friendly to man could be arrayed against the hostile gods, and...that Shub-Niggurath, Nug, and Yeb, as well as Yig the Serpent-god, were ready to take sides with man" against the more malevolent Ghanatothoa. Shub-Niggurath is called "the Mother Goddess", and reference is made to "her sons", presumably Nug and Yeb.
Other references
Other evidence of Lovecraft's conception of Shub-Niggurath can be found in his letters. For example, in a letter to Willis Conover, Lovecraft described her as an "evil cloud-like entity".The Black Goat
Although Shub-Niggurath is often associated with the epithet "The Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young", it is possible that this Black Goat is a separate entity. Rodolfo Ferraresi, in his essay "The Question of Shub-Niggurath", says that Lovecraft himself separated the two in his writings, such as in "Out of the Aeons" (19351935 in literature
The year 1935 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:* June 15 - W. H. Auden enters a marriage of convenience with Erika Mann.* July 30 - Allen Lane founds Penguin Books to publish the first mass market paperbacks in Britain....
) in which a distinction is made between Shub-Niggurath and the Black Goat — the goat is the figurehead through which Shub-Niggurath is worshipped. In apparent contrast to Shub-Niggurath, the Black Goat is sometimes depicted as a male, most notably in the rite performed in "The Whisperer in Darkness
The Whisperer in Darkness
"The Whisperer in Darkness" is a short story by H. P. Lovecraft. Written February–September 1930, it was first published in Weird Tales, August 1931. Similar to "The Colour Out of Space" , it is a blend of horror and science fiction...
" (1931) in which the Black Goat is called the "Lord of the Woods".
The Black Goat may be the personification of Pan
Pan (mythology)
Pan , in Greek religion and mythology, is the god of the wild, shepherds and flocks, nature, of mountain wilds, hunting and rustic music, as well as the companion of the nymphs. His name originates within the Greek language, from the word paein , meaning "to pasture." He has the hindquarters, legs,...
, since Lovecraft was influenced by Arthur Machen
Arthur Machen
Arthur Machen was a Welsh author and mystic of the 1890s and early 20th century. He is best known for his influential supernatural, fantasy, and horror fiction. His novella The Great God Pan has garnered a reputation as a classic of horror...
's The Great God Pan
The Great God Pan
"The Great God Pan" is a novella written by Arthur Machen. A version of the story was published in the magazine The Whirlwind in 1890, and Machen revised and extended it for its book publication in 1894...
(1890
1890 in literature
The year 1890 in literature involved some significant new books.-Events:* Bram Stoker begins work on Dracula.*Arthur Morrison joins the staff of the Evening Globe newspaper.-New books:*Rolf Boldrewood - The Squatter's Dream...
), a story that inspired Lovecraft's "The Dunwich Horror
The Dunwich Horror
"The Dunwich Horror" is a short story by H. P. Lovecraft. Written in 1928, it was first published in the April 1929 issue of Weird Tales . It takes place in Dunwich, a fictional town in Massachusetts...
" (1929
1929 in literature
The year 1929 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*Candide by Voltaire is declared obscene by the United States Customs and seized in 1930....
). In this incarnation, the Black Goat may represent Satan
Satan
Satan , "the opposer", is the title of various entities, both human and divine, who challenge the faith of humans in the Hebrew Bible...
in the form of the satyr
Satyr
In Greek mythology, satyrs are a troop of male companions of Pan and Dionysus — "satyresses" were a late invention of poets — that roamed the woods and mountains. In myths they are often associated with pipe-playing....
, a half-man, half-goat. In folklore, the satyr symbolized a man with excessive sexual appetites. The Black Goat may otherwise be a male, earthly form of Shub-Niggurath — an incarnation she assumes to copulate with her worshipers.
Robert M. Price's interpretation
Robert M. PriceRobert M. Price
Robert McNair Price is an American theologian and writer. He teaches philosophy and religion at the Johnnie Colemon Theological Seminary, is professor of biblical criticism at the Center for Inquiry Institute, and the author of a number of books on theology and the historicity of Jesus, including...
points to a passage from "Idle Days on the Yann", by Lord Dunsany, one of Lovecraft's favorite writers, as the source for the name Shub-Niggurath:
- And I too felt that I would pray. Yet I liked not to pray to a jealous God there where the frail affectionate gods whom the heathen love were being humbly invoked; so I bethought me, instead, of Sheol Nugganoth, whom the men of the jungle have long since deserted, who is now unworshipped and alone; and to him I prayed.
Notes Price: "The name already carried a whiff of sulfur: Sheol
Sheol
Sheol |Hebrew]] Šʾôl) is the "grave", "pit", or "abyss" in Hebrew. She'ol is the earliest conception of the afterlife in the Jewish scriptures. It is a place of darkness to which all dead go, regardless of the moral choices made in life, and where they are "removed from the light of God"...
was the name for the Netherworld mentioned in the Bible
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
and the Gilgamesh Epic."
As for Shub-Niggurath's association with the symbol of the goat, Price writes,
- we may believe that here Lovecraft was inspired by the traditional ChristianChristianityChristianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
depiction of the Baphomet GoatBaphometBaphomet is an imagined pagan deity , revived in the 19th century as a figure of occultism and Satanism. It appeared as a term for a pagan idol in trial transcripts of the Inquisition of the Knights Templar in the early 14th century...
, an image of SatanSatanSatan , "the opposer", is the title of various entities, both human and divine, who challenge the faith of humans in the Hebrew Bible...
harking back to the pre-Christian woodland deity PanPan (mythology)Pan , in Greek religion and mythology, is the god of the wild, shepherds and flocks, nature, of mountain wilds, hunting and rustic music, as well as the companion of the nymphs. His name originates within the Greek language, from the word paein , meaning "to pasture." He has the hindquarters, legs,...
, he of the goatish horns and shanks. The Satanic goat is a device of much spectral fiction, as when in Dennis Wheatley's The Devil Rides Out the Archfiend's epiphany takes goat-headed form.
Other writers
Ramsey Campbell
In Ramsey Campbell's story "The Moon Lens", the English town of Goatswood is inhabited by once-human worshippers of Shub-Niggurath. When the deity deems a worshiper to be most worthy, a special ceremony is held in which the Black Goat of the Woods swallows the initiate and then regurgitates the cultist as a transformed satyrSatyr
In Greek mythology, satyrs are a troop of male companions of Pan and Dionysus — "satyresses" were a late invention of poets — that roamed the woods and mountains. In myths they are often associated with pipe-playing....
-like being. A changed worshiper is also endowed with immortal life.
Stephen King
In the short story "Crouch EndCrouch End (short story)
Crouch End is a horror story by Stephen King, originally published in New Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos , and republished in a slightly different version in King's Nightmares and Dreamscapes collection . It contains distinct references to the horror fiction of H. P. Lovecraft...
", the plot consists of a woman who loses her husband to and then is chased by minions of something and then the thing itself. It is known as "the Goat with a Thousand Young," a reference to Shub-Niggurath.
Paul Morris
The Scarifyers - The Devil of Denge Marsh, by Paul Morris, is a light hearted radio play (on CD as a Cosmic Hobo publication, 2007) that has its heroes – Lionheart played by Nicholas CourtneyNicholas Courtney
William Nicholas Stone Courtney was an English television actor, most famous for playing Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who.-Early life:...
, and Dunning, played by Terry Molloy
Terry Molloy
Terry Molloy is an English actor known predominantly for his work on radio and television.Molloy has been a member of the cast of BBC Radio 4's The Archers playing Mike Tucker since 1973 and has won awards for his work as an actor on radio.On television, Molloy is perhaps best known for his role...
- engaged in foiling the return of this watery timeless horror and thwarting the intentions of its mysterious (and sometimes bizarre) human acolytes.
Gary Myers
Gary MyersGary Myers (writer)
Gary Myers is an American writer of fantasy and horror. He is a resident of Fullerton, California. His first book, The House of the Worm, was a collection of Cthulhu Mythos stories in the fantasy manner of H. P. Lovecraft and Lord Dunsany; it was published by Arkham House in 1975 and is now out...
's story, "What Rough Beast," casts Shub-Niggurath as the mother of all the gods, and her children as the chapters of her ongoing revelation.
Jim Butcher
In Turn Coat, the eleventh book in The Dresden FilesThe Dresden Files
The Dresden Files is a series of contemporary fantasy/mystery novels written by Jim Butcher.He provides a first person narrative of each story from the point of view of the main character, private investigator and wizard Harry Dresden, as he recounts investigations into supernatural disturbances in...
by Jim Butcher
Jim Butcher
Jim Butcher is a New York Times Best Selling author most known for his contemporary fantasy book series The Dresden Files. He also wrote the Codex Alera series. Butcher grew up as the only son of his parents, and has two older sisters. He currently lives in Independence with his wife, Shannon K...
, the narrator
Harry Dresden
Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden is a fictional detective and wizard. He was created by Jim Butcher and is the protagonist of the contemporary fantasy series The Dresden Files. The series blends magic and hardboiled detective fiction...
mentions that there are in his universe "terrors that the Black-Goat-with-a-Thousand-Young wouldn't dare use for its kids' bedtime stories."
Edward M. Erdelac
In The Outlaw Gods, a novella from the The Mensch With No Name, second book in the Merkabah Rider weird western series, Shub-Niggurath dwells beneath the ruins of Red House a K'n-yanK'n-yan
K'n-yan is a fictional, subterranean land in the Cthulhu Mythos. The underground realm was first described in detail in H. P. Lovecraft's revision of Zealia Bishop's "The Mound" , in which it is discovered by the 16th century Spanish Conquistador Zamacona...
citadel in the mountains of Arizona, surrounded by dark trees which tear apart trespassers.
Joseph Nanni
The Dark Young or Thousand Young appear in the short film Black Goat by writer/director Joseph Nanni. The Dark Young first appear as root/tentacles assessing their prey. Later in the film a young trapper surrounds one of the Young with fire only to find himself surrounded when the creature calls its siblings.See also
- Cthulhu Mythos in popular cultureCthulhu Mythos in popular cultureThis article provides a list of cultural references to the work of author H. P. Lovecraft. These references are collectively known as the Cthulhu Mythos. For works that are stylistically influenced by Lovecraft, see Lovecraftian horror.- Film :...
- Pan, a similar DeityDeityA deity is a recognized preternatural or supernatural immortal being, who may be thought of as holy, divine, or sacred, held in high regard, and respected by believers....
in Greek MythologyGreek mythologyGreek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the ancient Greeks, concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices. They were a part of religion in ancient Greece... - KokopelliKokopelliKokopelli is a fertility deity, usually depicted as a humpbacked flute player , who has been venerated by some Native American cultures in the Southwestern United States. Like most fertility deities, Kokopelli presides over both childbirth and agriculture...
, a type of spiritSpiritThe English word spirit has many differing meanings and connotations, most of them relating to a non-corporeal substance contrasted with the material body.The spirit of a living thing usually refers to or explains its consciousness.The notions of a person's "spirit" and "soul" often also overlap,...
known to the Native AmericansIndigenous peoples of the AmericasThe indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...
with various similarities to Shub-Niggurath