Unaussprechlichen Kulten

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For other uses, see Unaussprechlichen Kulten (disambiguation).

Unaussprechlichen Kulten (also known as Nameless Cults or the Black Book) is a fictional work of arcane literature in the Cthulhu Mythos. The book first appeared in Robert E. Howard's short stories "The Children of the Night" (1931) and "The Black Stone" (1931) as Nameless Cults. Like the Necronomicon, it was later mentioned in several stories by H. P. Lovecraft.

Contents

[edit] Unaussprechlichen Kulten in the mythos

The following is a fictional account of the origin of Unaussprechlichen Kulten and its significance in the mythos.

[edit] Origin and history

Unaussprechlichen Kulten is believed to have been written by Friedrich von Junzt. The first edition of the text appeared in 1839 in Düsseldorf. The English edition was issued by Bridewall in London in 1845, but contained numerous misprints and was badly translated. A heavily expurgated edition was later issued in New York by Golden Goblin Press in 1909. Original editions in German have a heavy leather cover and iron hasps. Few copies of the earliest edition still exist because most were burnt by their owners when word of von Junzt's gruesome demise became common knowledge. An edition is known to be kept in a locked vault at the Miskatonic University library.

[edit] Connections to the mythos

The text contains information on cults that worship pre-human deities such as Ghatanothoa and includes hieroglyphs relating to the latter. There is also information on more recent cults including that of Bran, The Dark Man. It is from this work that the tale of the doomed heretic T'yog is most commonly sourced. The principal obscurity of the book is von Juntz's use of the word keys—"a phrase used many times by him, in various relations"—in connection with certain items and locations, such as the Black Stone and the Temple of the Toad (possibly associated with Tsathoggua) in Honduras.

[edit] Linguistic analysis of the title

Unaussprechlichen Kulten supposedly means nameless cults in German, but in fact translates to unspeakable/unutterable/unpronounceable cults; the latter is particularly apt, given Lovecraft's tendency to give his fictional creatures names like 'Cthulhu' and 'Tsathoggua'. The full title should technically be Von Unaussprechlichen Kulten ("Of Unspeakable Cults")—without the preposition, the German dative case doesn't make much sense, since Unspeakable Cults translates to Unaussprechliche Kulte (in the nominative). With some contortion, it could be understood as being dedicated (in a positive sense) to (specific) unspeakable cults (Unaussprechlichen Kulten (gewidmet)). When Lovecraft tried to find a German name for Nameless Cults, August Derleth finally came up with Unaussprechlichen Kulten[1], although the German is not a direct translation. (For the curious, a German translation of Nameless Cults would be Namenlose Kulte.) Knowing the loving tendencies of H. P. Lovecraft for the "Unnamable", we possibly could understand the Unnamable Cults.

[edit] Other appearances

[edit] Non-mythos fiction

In F. Paul Wilson’s The Keep, Captain Klaus Woermann reads an excerpt from the Unaussprechlichen Kulten and finds it a disturbing experience. However, the text does not appear to be the same absolute forerunner of doom as the Necronomicon.

In Caitlin R. Kiernan's novella In the Garden of Poisonous Flowers (2002), the character Candida casually reads aloud from Unaussprechlichen Kulten.

[edit] Music

"Von Unaussprechlichen Kulten" is the title of a song by death metal band Nile from their 2005 album Annihilation of the Wicked. In the liner notes of the album, band member Karl Sanders relates that after using a fictional quote from Unaussprechlichen Kulten in his side project solo album Saurian Meditation[2], he was contacted by a literary history student. The student claimed to have found a catalog reference to a missing volume of a work, published in Hamburg in 1837, whose author bore the name "Frederick von Juntz".

Unaussprechlichen Kulten is also the name of a death metal band from Chile; the lyrics of many of their songs reference the Cthulhu Mythos.

"Unspeakable Cults" is also the title of an album by the Greek metal band "Deviser", published in 1997.

[edit] References

  • Harms, Daniel. "Unaussprechlichen Kulten" in The Encyclopedia Cthulhiana (2nd ed.), pp. 309–11. Oakland, CA: Chaosium, 1998. ISBN 1-56882-119-0.
  • Price, Robert M. (ed.) The Book of Eibon (1st ed.), Chaosium, Inc., 2002. ISBN 1-56882-129-8.

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Price, "Introduction: The Ebony Book", The Book of Eibon, p. xvii.
  2. ^ The following quote comes from the Saurian Meditation album:

    I hath dreamed the dreams of the pre-human Serpent-Folk,
    and communed with long-dead reptiles:
    and eagerly watched through the Ages
    the unending sorrows and suffering of humankind.
    I await the day when the hand of doom shall rise,
    and cast aside the remnants of a jaded, decayed, war-exhausted mankind:
    and Those who Crawl and Slither shall again inherit the Earth.

    Careful readers will recognise the final passages of H. P. Lovecraft's short story "Dagon".