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Hastur

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Hastur (The Unspeakable One, Him Who Is Not to be Named, Assatur, Xastur, or Kaiwan) is a fictional entity of the Cthulhu Mythos. Hastur first appeared in Ambrose Bierce's short story "Haïta the Shepherd" (1893) as a benign god of shepherds. Robert W. Chambers later used Hastur in his own stories to represent both a person and a place associated with the names of several stars, including Aldebaran.[1]

References to Hastur also appear throughout Marion Zimmer Bradley's work, most notably the Darkover series (e.g., The Heritage of Hastur, 1975), although without explicit Cthulhu mythos connection. In her work, Hastur is a noble house, descended from an officer of a "Lost Ship." In the Darkover series, the House of Hastur is the power behind the throne. The House symbol is a silver pine tree on a dark green background. In addition, Paul Edwin Zimmer (Marion's brother) included Hastur figures in his Dark Border series (e.g., The Lost Prince, "King Chondos' Ride, A Gathering of Heroes, and Ingulf the Mad), also without explicit Cthulhu mythos connection.

In Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman's book Good Omens Hastur has a brief mention as one of the fallen angels (and baron of hell) in the introduction.

Hastur in the mythos

In Bierce's "Haita the Shepherd", which appeared in the collection Can Such Things Be?, Hastur is more benevolent than he would later appear in August Derleth's mythos stories. Another story in the same collection ("An Inhabitant of Carcosa") referred to the place 'Carcosa' and a person 'Hali', names which later authors were to associate with Hastur.

In Chambers' The King in Yellow (1895), a fin-de-siècle collection of horror stories, Hastur is the name of a potentially supernatural character (in "The Demoiselle D'Ys"), a place (in "The Repairer of Reputations"), and mentioned without explanation in "The Yellow Sign". The latter two stories also mentioned Carcosa, Hali, Aldebaran, and the Hyades, along with a 'Yellow Sign' and a play called 'The King in Yellow'.

H. P. Lovecraft read Chambers' book in early 1927[2] and was so enchanted by it that he added elements of it to his own creations.[3] There are two places in Lovecraft's own writings that mentions Hastur (italics added for emphasis):

"I found myself faced by names and terms that I had heard elsewhere in the most hideous of connections — Yuggoth, Great Cthulhu, Tsathoggua, Yog-Sothoth, R'lyeh, Nyarlathotep, Azathoth, Hastur, Yian, Leng, the Lake of Hali, Bethmoora, the Yellow Sign, L’mur-Kathulos, Bran, and the Magnum Innominandum — and was drawn back through nameless aeons and inconceivable dimensions to worlds of elder, outer entity at which the crazed author of the Necronomicon had only guessed in the vaguest way.... There is a whole secret cult of evil men (a man of your mystical erudition will understand me when I link them with Hastur and the Yellow Sign) devoted to the purpose of tracking them down and injuring them on behalf of the monstrous powers from other dimensions."
—H. P. Lovecraft, "The Whisperer in Darkness"

It is unclear from this quote if Lovecraft's Hastur is a person, a place, an object (such as the Yellow Sign), or a deity.

  • In "Supernatural Horror In Literature" (Written 1926-27, revised 1933, published in The Recluse in 1927), when telling about "The Yellow Sign" by Chambers, H. P. Lovecraft wrote:

"... after stumbling queerly upon the hellish and forbidden book of horrors the two learn, among other hideous things which no sane mortal should know, that this talisman is indeed the nameless Yellow Sign handed down from the accursed cult of Hastur -- from primordial Carcosa, whereof the volume treats..."

  • In Chambers' "The Yellow Sign" the only mentioning of Hastur is:

"...We spoke of Hastur and of Cassilda..."

So, judging from these two quotes, it is quite possible that H. P. Lovecraft not only recognized Hastur as one of mythos gods, but even made him so recalling Chambers' book.

Derleth also developed Hastur into a Great Old One,[4] spawn of Yog-Sothoth, the half-brother of Cthulhu, and possibly the Magnum Innominandum. In this incarnation, Hastur has several avatars:

  • The Feaster from Afar, a black, shriveled, flying monstrosity with tentacles tipped with razor-sharp talons that can pierce a victim's skull and siphon out the brain[5]
  • The King in Yellow.
  • The High Priest Not to Be Described, an entity that wears a yellow silken mask[6]

Hastur's form is amorphous, but he is said to appear as a vast, vaguely octopoid being, similar to his half-niece Cthylla.

Hastur in 2000AD

In the short story Leviathan, which featured in the British Science Fiction comic 2000 AD, Hastur is a demonic force which takes control of a enormous cruise liner named the Leviathan. The story was written by Ian Edginton with art by D’Israeli.

"In 1928 the largest cruise liner the world has ever seen is launched. With a crew and passenger complement totaling nearly 30,000 people the Leviathan is bound for New York. However, it never reaches the Big Apple and simply… disappears! Twenty years later – with the Leviathan stranded on an unearthly sea – Detective Sergeant Lament begins to investigate the mystery at the liner’s heart. What he discovers will change his world forever — but it might just bring the Leviathan home…"

As the story unfolds, Hastur is found to be a captive at the heart of the ship's structure, with his captor, William Ashbless, using his powers to construct and sail an impossibly large ship (over 1 mile in length). However, Hastur evades his captors and brings the ship to a unearthly sea of no end, and as the years move on the ships passengers quickly become frustrated and violent. Hastur also has servants, known as Stokers, who kill their victims by flaying them with their long tongues. The cruise liner finally arrives in New York after the actions of Detective Sergeant Lament, who makes an alliance with Hastur in order to both free the ship and grant his vengeance against his captors.

See also

References

  • Harms, Daniel (1998). "Hastur". The Encyclopedia Cthulhiana (2nd ed. ed.). Oakland, CA: Chaosium. pp. 136–7. ISBN 1-56882-119-0. {{cite book}}: |edition= has extra text (help)
  • Pearsall, Anthony B. (2005). The Lovecraft Lexicon (1st ed. ed.). Tempe, AZ: New Falcon. ISBN 1-56184-129-3. {{cite book}}: |edition= has extra text (help)
  • Price, Robert M. (ed.) (1997). The Hastur Cycle (2nd ed. ed.). Oakland, CA: Chaosium. ISBN 1-56882-094-1. {{cite book}}: |edition= has extra text (help); |first= has generic name (help)

Footnotes

  1. ^ Harms, The Encyclopedia Cthulhiana, p. 136.
  2. ^ Joshi & Schultz, "Chambers, Robert William", An H. P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia, p. 38
  3. ^ Pearsall, "Yellow Sign", The Lovecraft Lexicon, p. 436.
  4. ^ Derleth once entertained the notion of calling Lovecraft's mythos the Mythology of Hastur—an idea that Lovecraft summarily rejected when he heard it. (Robert M. Price, "The Mythology of Hastur", The Hastur Cycle, p. i.)
  5. ^ Joseph Payne Brennan (1976), "The Feaster from Afar", The Hastur Cycle (2nd ed.), pp. 272–82.
  6. ^ In Lovecraft's The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath (1926), this character may be identified with Nyarlathotep.
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