SUBTERRANEA MISCELLANIA
Welcome to Subterranea Miscellania, A Sampling of quotations and references from sources mythical, legendary, poetic, fictional, occult, religious, and even from the proverbial fringe.
The rumors, myths, legends, and theories of subterranean intelligences, beings, and civilizations have had a profound effect on many writers, artists, philosophers, scientists, prophets, and others, over the centuries.
Clark Ashton Smith, one of the greatest fantasy masters to ever set pen to paper, shared this account in a letter to H.P. Lovecraft (source: THE BOOK OF HYPERBOREA, Necronomicon Press, 1996:
"Here...is a recent portrait-sketch of our Lord Tsathoggua, which I made for you the other day. My indian wood-cutter saw it...and said instantly: 'That's one of the Old Boys.' He then proceeded to narrate a tribal legend about a young squaw who was carried away by some prehuman entity into a cavern. Nearly a year later, the squaw emerged to the light, bringing with her an infant that was half human, and half something else."
Tsathoggua is one of Smith's fictional entities or demons, which he managed to fit loosely into Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos. Tsathoggua was described as humanoid yet toadlike, with a very reptilian or amphibian aspect. The Native American's reaction to the sketch is interesting, and must have been of particular interest to Smith, who had written in his stories that Tsathoggua
not only came form Saturn in the distant past, but hid from the light of the sun, deep within a cavern-realm under the Earth. A strange synchronicity, there, which shows how deeply ingrained or implanted these concepts are in our collective unconscious. The reptilian or amphibian humanoid is a common figure in subterranean lore, from the well-haunting "frog princes" of European folktales, to the underground-base dwelling "reptilian humanoid" or "reptoid" reports which permeate ufology today.
This was more than mere fancy on Smith's part, as his imaginary entity Tsathoggua, from the planet Saturn, was designed as an immigrant deity which had taken up residence within the Earth's depths. As he related in yet another letter to HPL (June 16, 1934):
"Pnom's account of Ts. can be reconciled with the legendry told to Zamarcona in "The Mound". The myth, through aeons, was varied in the usual mythopoeic fashion by the cavern-dwellers, who came at last to believe that merely the images of Tsathoggua, and not the god himself, had emerged in former cycles from the inner gulf. Ts., travelling fourthdimensionally from Saturn, first entered the Earth through the lightless abyss of N'kai; and, not unnaturally, the Yothians regarded N'kai as his place of origin."
Lovecraft found Smith's inner worlds irresistible, and worked them into his own Cthulhu Mythos with some degree of eagerness:
"As for me--Tsathoggua made such an impression on my fancy that I am using him in the "revision" (i.e. "ghostwriting") job I am now doing--telling of some things connected with his worship before be appeared on the earth's surface. As you know my tale concerns a nether world of unbelievable antiquity below the mound-&-pueblo region of the American southwest, and the visit thereto in 1541-45 by one of Coronado's men--Panfilio de Zamacona y Nu–ez. It is a place litten by a blue radiance due to magnetic force & radio-activity, & is peopled by the primal proto-humans brought down from the stars by Great Cthulhu--a forgotten, decadent race who cut themselves off from the upper world when Atlantis & Lemuria sank. But there was a race of beings in the earth Infinitely older than they--the saurian quadrupeds of the red-litten caverns of Yoth which yawn underneath the blue-litten caverns of K'n-yan. When the first men came to K'n-yan they found the archaeological reliques of Yoth, & speculated curiously upon them. At the point where I introduce our friend Tsathoggua, the Spanish explorer has entered K'n-yan, has encountered a party of friendly natives led by one Gee'-Hthaa-Ynn, & is being escorted to the great city of Tsath-mounted on a monstrous horned & half-human quadruped."
--H.P. Lovecraft, in a letter to Clark Ashton Smith (Dec. 19, 1929) in which he describes the plot of his story, "The Mound."
The purple prose works of Clark Ashton Smith and H.P. Lovecraft seem quite fitting to set the mood for this page. Here there are many quotes pertaining to the underworld, the inner earth, the "world below," all gathered together just for the fun of it. A common current of interwoven themes runs through the whole, however, among them the general hostility the underworld harbors for surface-dwellers, along with the interest in abduction of human beings and animals, and genetic manipulation, theft, and exchange. Likewise, the theme of hidden power, knowledge, technology, treasures and wealth are also represented. All of these things are predominant in subterranean folklore and legends around the world. Here the reader will find many quotes from a variety of sources--and if, while perusing these, any others spring to mind, please send them along to this writer at mottimorph@earthlink.net.
Please note that all quotes of recent vintage are the copyrighted property of their respective creators or copyright holders, and should not be reproduced without proper source and credit. In the interest of "fair usage" as defined under copyright law, quotations have been kept to a minimum length which will still convey context and meaning.
As one peruses this hodge-podge list, please also keep this in mind: the Necronomicon is FICTIONAL. It is a literary device, used to lend a sense a reality to a cycle of stories begun by H.P. Lovecraft, and continued by C.A. Smith and many others.
Enjoy this glance down below, through myriad eyes.
--Wm. Michael Mott,
January, 2003
