Kurgan (short story)

In 1928, an ethnologist arrives in Binger, Oklahoma , to explore the mysterious mound, which is followed by the ghosts of an Indian man during the day and a headless woman at night. Local legends speak of "Living Underground." Those who visited the mound disappeared or returned mutilated. The young man Khiten returned in disarray and muttered: "... half-half-half-men ... That white dead person ... Oh God, what they did to him! ..". Captain Lawton came back crippled and kept saying: "... Blue sun! .. blue light ... People, half of the mist ... The living dead ...".

The ethnologist is skeptical, but visits the mound, taking the protective disk that the leader gave him as a talisman. The ghost turns out to be real, and his appearance is very strange. The talisman points him to the cylinder, inside which lay a scroll. The text in Spanish, covering most of the story, on behalf of Panfilo de Zama-kony-i-Núñez, a nobleman from Luarca in Asturias , who lived 400 years ago. Zamakona participated in the conquistador expedition and found under the mound the entrance to the underworld of Hinaine or Keinan (from the English K'n-yan ), inhabited by strange beings and the K'nan civilization. They invited him to the capital Tsatt, where there were high-rise buildings made of gold, and the sacred dark Cthulhu Metal went as money.

The temples of Yig, Cthulhu, Nag, and Jeb, and the Nameless Deities met along the road at regular intervals, surrounded by small groves according to the tradition of Keinan. These temples, unlike those that remained in the desert beyond the hills, continued to be used; numerous cavalcades of local idolaters drove out of the gate and drove in. The worship of Nag and Jeb was the most disgusting. One of the black squat towers, erected in honor of Tsathoggua, was turned into the sanctuary of Shub-Niggurath - the Mother of All Alive and the Spouse of Nameless Idols. In the terrestrial religions, the goddess Astarte was closest to her. Impressive and pictures of the underground nature: sheer wall covered with greenery, glittering sea of ​​blue lightning above your head, where the couple caused the effect of smoke, rain and northern lights.

K'nans possessed telepathy and attained immortality, could reanimate the dead by the power of thought, possessed the technology of biological modification of the races and other forms of life conquered by them, knew how to dematerialize creatures. They lived in the technocracy, but eventually regressed, not finding the use of progress, and returned to a wilder order. Now they were prone to sadism, vicious ritual orgies, and unspeakable horrors, such as random modifications of prisoners. To satisfy their time-dull feelings, bored residents, desperate for new incentives to excite themselves by mocking those who came from the upper world. Comprehending their soul, Zamakona felt how his hostility towards them increased.

People also lived here, but could not leave the underworld, for fear of invading gold-hungry invaders. Zamakona tries to escape with slave Tyla-ab, but they betray a slave and they are captured. Tila-ab was sentenced to unspeakable torture in the amphitheater, and later she should become that headless ghost on Kurgan. Zamanok was left alive to gain more knowledge, but threatened him with a terrible punishment. He makes a new escape, as a result of which he managed to leave the cylinder with the scroll. His story ends suddenly.

The narrator is shocked by the message and assures himself that this is all deception. He again goes to the mound and discovers a manhole and a ladder leading deep underground, where he finds equipment from other researchers and dematerialized entities. Faced with a ghost, his appearance makes the narrator run back to the surface with a scream. This creature was completely disfigured and reanimated by Zamakona’s corpse with a message carved on its chest, written in broken Spanish by someone from the subterranean race. The inscription reads:

"Secuestrado a la voluntad de Xinaian en el cuerpo decapitado de Tlayub" - "By the command of Keinan seized by the decapitated body of Tila-ab."

• K'nans

The K'nans are dark-skinned warriors like the Indians, immortals and telepaths that could revive the dead. Their faces are small, but numerous differences in features, which do not allow them to be identified with any of the Indian tribes on earth. The K'nans communicated with Mai, I, the Toltecs and the Aztecs , until the night when Atlantis and Lemuria disappeared into the depths of the ocean. They had settlements at the North Pole until the last Ice Age, which cut off their path. The K'nans were not the first developed civilization of the underworld, and in fact they built their society on top of another kingdom, which, in turn, was also built on the remains of a deeper “Other Dark World”. In the ancient temple of Yotta, it was said that once the K'nans were a kind of quasi-mammal quadrupeds, which their ancestors had brought out. The ancestors of the "Kingdom without Light" worshiped Tsathoggua , which the K'nans also began to worship, but ceased after the discovery of the disgusting mystery of the Dark Kingdom, which had destroyed the inhabitants of Enkai. They found creatures similar to Shogot , after which the passage was immured there, and the cult was abolished. Cults of deities: Cthulhu , Yig , Shub-Niggurath , Nag and Jeb , Nameless deity, and up to one time Tsathoggua .

• Semi-slaves

Semi-slaves are the class who served as food and servants. The slaves are overseen by the farm owner; his hypnotic suggestion in the morning determines the behavior of plowmen and shepherds, and as intelligent machines they are simply indispensable in their work. Those who graze in the meadows represent the lowest class - nothing is required of them and they are not used anywhere as food.

• Reanimated corpses Waim Bai

The reanimated corpses of Wim-bai are the lower class of slaves to whom the gift of immortality is unavailable, unlike the representatives of the dominant caste Tsatta, therefore over time the wim-bai increase in number. By force of thought, the dead were ordered to move, they are distinguished by dog ​​loyalty and obedience, but they are less susceptible to telepathic commands than living slaves. The dead often had wounds and injuries, because they used to be used as gladiators for the amusement of free citizens.

• Yotta residents

The inhabitants of Yotta are a class of highly developed reptiles, horned and four- legged creatures from the red lands, where the ancestors of K'nan lived in antiquity.

• Enkai residents

Residents of Enkai - a class who lived in the bag deep abyss, which killed something uncharted. Researchers at Keinan discovered other living creatures in the Enkai precipice, which littered the surface of stone tunnels in abundance and worshiped Tsathoggua . They themselves did not resemble the toothed Tsathoggua - their appearance was even more disgusting: amorphous lumps of mucus, arbitrarily taking any form. The K'nans who managed to get out of there alive immured the entrances connecting Yott with an abyss of horror.

• Residents of Lohmar

The inhabitants of Lohmar - a class living at the North Pole. The new cult survived the glacial epoch and the invasion of wild hordes of hairy Gnopkh Kehov , which destroyed the very Lohmar civilization.

• Gnopkh Kekhi

Gnopkh-Kehi - powerful mythical creatures of the Greenland ice, moving, according to legend, then on two, then on four, then on six legs.

• Gaa-yottny

Gaa-yottny - unicorns with a powerful body, covered with long snow-white fur, with a rudimentary process of a horn in the center of the forehead, which in flattened noses and puffy lips guessed an admixture of human blood.

• Animals and Beasts

Animals and animals - variously adapted: invisible and flapping wings; small pale shadow that hides in a cleft, the view of which will make you shudder; similar to herds of horses that, like a dark mass, move steadily among forests; flocks of birds hovering overhead; flocks of huge fish of an unusual type; small creatures, with a screech, flapping their wings ...

Zilia Bishop hired Lovecraft to create a story about an Indian mound that pursues a headless ghost. Lovecraft turned the story into a story about a mound that hides the gates to an underground civilization, the kingdom of K'nan.

Lovecraft did not like the idea of ​​Zelia Bishop that the mound is a typical story about ghosts. The whole scheme proposed to her was too brief. He turned it into a story out of 29,560 words about a mound hiding the gates to the underworld.

The story was published after the death of Lovecraft , we can say that it was "written by a ghost"

This story is one of the three, where non-human culture is very richly described, the other two are “ The ridges of madness ” and “ Beyond the times ”.

The mound in history is located in Binger, in Caddo County , which is a real city 60 miles (100 km) southwest of Oklahoma City . The author places a mound about a third of a mile west of Binger, but there are no mounds in this area, which apparently makes this geographical detail the only fictional part of its location.

There are several mounds in the area, but they are not as described in the story. One of them is called Ghost Mound, and, according to local legend, it is haunted by ghosts, only it is located closer to Hydro than to Binger. His appearance is different from the way Lovecraft described, and it is a natural formation. Most likely, this mound was inspired by Zelia Bishop and so this idea was presented to Lovecraft . Perhaps the second nearby mound, known as the dead woman's mound, was also a source of inspiration. Unlike the first, no ghost story is associated with it, although the mound got its name when the buried body of a dead woman was found there.

The novel "Kurgan" was written in collaboration with Zelia Bishop in connection with two others: " The Curse of Yiga " and "Curl of Medusa".

In the story "The Reincarnation of Juan Romero " an Indian in fear of running from something terrible from a secret passage under the mountain.

In the novel “ The Ridges of Madness ”, an expedition found an ancient city at the North Pole, where the Shotgoths destroyed the civilization of the Elders . The K'nans say that their ancestors were created by those who came from the stars, probably they are descended from the Elders . In the Antarctic, on the ruins of an ancient city, researchers discovered a newer city built by a less developed race.

In the story "Holiday" the hero is shown a secret passage under the mountain, which leads to a meeting place with representatives of the ancient race.

In the story “Outcast”, the hero talks about tunnels that lead to underground worlds.

In The Somnambulic Search for the Unknown Kadat , many of the similar races and ancient gods are mentioned. It says that the mysterious Kadat is localized at the north pole.

Phantom Empire - the movie of the same name in 1935.

1. HP Lovecraft and Zealia Bishop. " The Mound ". Retrieved 2010-10-07.
2. An HP Lovecraft Encyclopedia , STJoshi & DESchultz, Hippocampus Press, NY, 2001 p.174