Hastur the Unspeakable as he appears in August Derleth's short story "The Gable Window". Illustration by Robert M. Price published in Crypt of Cthulhu #6 "August Derleth Issue", St. John's Eve 1982.
Hastur (The Unspeakable One, The King in Yellow, Him Who Is Not to be Named, Assatur, Xastur, H'aaztre, or Kaiwan) is an entity of the Cthulhu Mythos.[1][2][3][4][5]
Hastur first appeared in Ambrose Bierce's short story "Haïta the Shepherd" (1891) as a benign god of shepherds. Subsequently Robert W. Chambers used the name in his late 1800s stories to represent both a person and a place associated with several stars, including Aldebaran.[6]H. P. Lovecraft was inspired by Chambers's stories and briefly mentioned Hastur in The Whisperer in Darkness (1930). Later writers have also adapted Hastur in a variety of tales.
In Bierce's "Haïta the Shepherd", which appeared in the collection Can Such Things Be?,[failed verification] 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 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 mention 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[7] and was so enchanted by it that he added elements of it to his own creations.[8] There are two places in Lovecraft's own writings in which Hastur is mentioned:
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.
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. This ambiguity is recurrent in Lovecraft's descriptions of mythic entities.
Later in the same story, it is described that the Mi-Go have been attacked by followers of Hastur, and Hastur is an enemy of the Outer Ones whom the Mi-Go serve:
Actually, they have never knowingly harmed men, but have often been cruelly wronged and spied upon by our species. 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 monstrous powers from other dimensions. It is against these aggressors—not against normal humanity—that the drastic precautions of the Outer Ones are directed.
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..."
Judging from these two quotes, it is quite possible that H. P. Lovecraft not only recognized Hastur as one of the mythos gods, but even made him so recalling Chambers' book.
Derleth also developed Hastur into a Great Old One,[9] 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.[10]
Anders Fager's "Collected Swedish Cults" features a Stockholm-based coterie known as "The Carcosa Foundation" that worships Hastur.[11]
Hastur is amorphous, but he is said to appear as a vast, vaguely octopoid being, similar to his half-niece Cthylla.[citation needed] In the mythos, Hastur is presented as having "a strange effect on artists and playwrights".[12]
Other appearances
Hastur has appeared in other media. In the light novel and anime series Haiyore! Nyaruko-san, which is based on the Cthulhu mythos, one of the main characters, Hastua, is a Japanized version of and direct reference to Hastur.[13][14][15][16][17]
Hastur is also believed to be the King in Yellow in the video game Vampire Survivors. The player also receives the Yellow Sign from them directly.
The short story "Gramma" by Stephen King features a demonic entity named Hastur, who also appeared in the 18th episode of the 1985 "Twilight Zone" adaptation and the 2014 film adaptation, Mercy.
Though not named directly, The King in Yellow is mentioned and connected to Carcosa in the first season of the HBO series True Detective.
In the Doctor WhoVirgin New Adventures novel All-Consuming Fire, Hastur the Unspeakable is either one of the names/titles belonging to or the original name of the Great Old One, Fenric.
Hastur appears in the Persona games, as both an enemy and summonable ally.
Hastur is featured on the cover of The King In Yellow in SIGNALIS.
In the sixth novel in Charles StrossLaundry Files, The Annihilation Score (2017), the protagonist is Dr. Dominique "Mo" O'Brien is compelled by her violin to summon The King in Yellow, with poems referencing Hastur and Carcosa.
Hastur (stylized as Hastar) is the first and most beloved offspring of the Goddess of Prosperity, in the 2019 film Tumbbad, who robbed her of her gold and was stopped while attempting to steal her grain.
Hastur the Unspeakable, god of shepherds, appears in Jonathan Maberry's Kagen the Damned series as the god of Hakkia and his chief priest the Witch-King, Gethon Heklan, the King in Yellow. The first novel of the series was published in 2022.
Hastur appears in Cole Frederick's puppetry short film titled "The King in Yellow"[18] released in 2023.
The Cthulhu Mythos is a mythopoeia and a shared fictional universe, originating in the works of American horror writer H. P. Lovecraft. The term was coined by August Derleth, a contemporary correspondent and protégé of Lovecraft, to identify the settings, tropes, and lore that were employed by Lovecraft and his literary successors. The name "Cthulhu" derives from the central creature in Lovecraft's seminal short story "The Call of Cthulhu", first published in the pulp magazine Weird Tales in 1928.
Cthulhu is a cosmic entity created by writer H. P. Lovecraft. It was introduced in his short story "The Call of Cthulhu", published by the American pulp magazine Weird Tales in 1928. Considered a Great Old One within the pantheon of Lovecraftian cosmic entities, this creature has since been featured in numerous popular culture references. Lovecraft depicts it as a gigantic entity worshipped by cultists, in the shape of a green octopus, dragon, and a caricature of human form. The Lovecraft-inspired universe, the Cthulhu Mythos, where it exists with its fellow entities, is named after it.
Shub-Niggurath is a deity created by H. P. Lovecraft. She is often associated with the phrase "The Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young". The only other name by which Lovecraft referred to her was "Lord of the Wood" in his story The Whisperer in Darkness.
Nyarlathotep is a fictional character created by H. P. Lovecraft. The character is a malign deity in the Cthulhu Mythos, a shared universe. First appearing in Lovecraft's 1920 prose poem "Nyarlathotep", he was later mentioned in other works by Lovecraft and by other writers. Later, writers describe him as one of the Outer Gods, an alien pantheon.
Arkham is a fictional city situated in Massachusetts. An integral part of the Lovecraft Country setting created by H. P. Lovecraft, Arkham is featured in many of his stories and those of other Cthulhu Mythos writers.
Mi-Go are a fictional race of extraterrestrials created by H. P. Lovecraft and used by others in the Cthulhu Mythos setting. The aliens are fungus-based lifeforms which are extremely varied due to their prodigious surgical, biological, chemical, and mechanical skill. The variants witnessed by the protagonist of "The Whisperer in Darkness" resemble winged human-sized crabs.
The King in Yellow is a book of short stories by American writer Robert W. Chambers, first published by F. Tennyson Neely in 1895. The British first edition was published by Chatto & Windus in 1895.
Azathoth is a deity in the Cthulhu Mythos and Dream Cycle stories of writer H. P. Lovecraft and other authors. He is the ruler of the Lovecraftian Gods and may be seen as a symbol for primordial chaos, being among the most powerful entities in the Cthulhu Mythos.
Carcosa is a fictional city in Ambrose Bierce's short story "An Inhabitant of Carcosa" (1886). The ancient and mysterious city is barely described and is viewed only in hindsight by a character who once lived there.
Unaussprechliche Kulte is a fictional book of arcane literature in the Cthulhu Mythos. The book first appeared in Robert E. Howard's 1931 short stories "The Children of the Night" and "The Black Stone" as Nameless Cults. Like the Necronomicon, it was later mentioned in several stories by H. P. Lovecraft.
Zhar is a fictional deity in the Cthulhu Mythos. The being first appeared in the short story "The Lair of the Star-Spawn" (1932) by August Derleth and Mark Schorer. Zhar and its companion Lloigor are together known as the Twin Obscenities.
The Whisperer in Darkness is a 26,000-word novella by American writer H. P. Lovecraft. Written February–September 1930, it was first published in Weird Tales, August 1931. Similar to The Colour Out of Space (1927), it is a blend of horror and science fiction. Although it makes numerous references to the Cthulhu Mythos, the story is not a central part of the mythos, but reflects a shift in Lovecraft's writing at this time towards science fiction. The story also introduces the Mi-Go, an extraterrestrial race of fungoid creatures.
A Cthulhu Mythos anthology is a type of short story collection that contains stories written in, or related to, the Cthulhu Mythos genre of horror fiction launched by H. P. Lovecraft. Such anthologies have helped to define and popularize the genre.
The Spawn of Cthulhu is an anthology of fantasy short stories, edited by American writer Lin Carter. It was first published in paperback by Ballantine Books in October 1971 as the thirty-sixth volume of its Ballantine Adult Fantasy series. It was the fifth anthology assembled by Carter for the series.
"I, Cthulhu" is a short humorous story by fantasy author Neil Gaiman featuring H. P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu, who is dictating an autobiography to a human slave named Whateley. The story reveals much about Cthulhu's 'birth' and early life.
American author H. P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) created a number of fictional deities throughout the course of his literary career. These entities are usually depicted as immensely powerful and utterly indifferent to humans, who can barely begin to comprehend them; however, some entities are worshipped by humans. These deities include the "Great Old Ones" and extraterrestrials, such as the "Elder Things", with sporadic references to other miscellaneous deities. The "Elder Gods" are a later creation of other prolific writers who expanded on Lovecraft's concepts, such as August Derleth, who was credited with formalizing the Cthulhu Mythos. Most of these deities were Lovecraft's original creations, but he also adapted words or concepts from earlier writers such as Ambrose Bierce, and later writers in turn used Lovecraft's concepts and expanded his fictional universe.
This is a list of fictional creatures from the Cthulhu mythos of American writer H. P. Lovecraft and his collaborators.
↑ Joshi & Schultz, "Chambers, Robert William", An H. P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia, p. 38
↑ Pearsall, "Yellow Sign", The Lovecraft Lexicon, p. 436.
↑ 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.)
↑ Joseph Payne Brennan (1976), "The Feaster from Afar", The Hastur Cycle (2nd ed.), pp. 272–82.
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