Elder God (Cthulhu Mythos)

An Elder God is a deity in the Cthulhu Mythos of H. P. Lovecraft.

Summary

In post-Lovecraft stories, the Elder Gods oppose the Outer Gods and the Great Old Ones. Some consider them to be non-Lovecraftian because they employ a good versus evil dichotomy which is contrary to the cosmic indifference of Lovecraft's fiction. However, these deities are no more concerned for human notions of "good" and "evil" than the beings they oppose and consider humans to be less than fleas, although they can be sympathetic to humanity on occasion and their interests usually coincide with humanity's own.

A notable attempt to harmonize the good versus evil dichotomy with cosmic indifference was made by Gary Myers in his collection of Dreamlands fantasies, The House of the Worm (1975). According to Myers, the Elder Gods are identical to the mild gods of earth who figure in Lovecraft's "The Other Gods" (1921) and The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath (1927). These gods found the Great Old Ones already asleep, and were so terrified at the sight of them that they wove powerful spells over them to try to prevent their waking. But the passage of time has weakened both the spells and the gods who wove them, and it is doubtful that either will have much power to put off the hour of the Great Old Ones' return.

The main "Elder God" used by Lovecraft is Nodens, who acts as deus ex machina for the protagonists in both The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath and "The Strange High House in the Mist" (1931). In this regard, he functions like Lovecraft's Nyarlathotep, although Nodens is obviously less malicious. It is also speculated that Bast, the Egyptian goddess of cats, qualifies as an Elder God due to Lovecraft's feline obsession and because of hints given in Lovecraft's "The Cats of Ulthar" (1920). The story "Imprisoned with the Pharaohs" suggests that the gods of Egypt are Elder Gods, and several are named. Lovecraft does not distinguish between the "Elder Gods", "Outer Gods" and other entities in the way that subsequent writers have.

List

This list is organized as follows:

• Name. This is the commonly accepted name of the Elder God. A disputed entry is marked by an asterisk (*) to indicate that it may instead be an Outer God.
• Description. This entry briefly summarizes the Elder God.
• References. These are the sources in which the Elder God makes a significant appearance or otherwise receives important mention. A simple two-letter code is used—the key to the codes is found here. If a code appears in bold, this means that the reference introduces the Elder God.

Bast

Bast (Goddess of Cats or Pasht) appears as a female human with a cat's head. Template:CthuRefBox

Bastet is the name commonly used by scholars today to refer to a feline goddess of Ancient Egyptian religion who was worshipped at least since the Second Dynasty. Her name is also spelled Bast, Baast, Ubasti and Baset.[1]

The town of Bastet's cult (see below) was known in Greek as Boubastis (Βούβαστις). The Hebrew rendering of the name for this town is Pî-beset ("House of Bastet"), spelled without Vortonsilbe.[2]

What the name of the goddess means remains uncertain.[2] One recent suggestion by Stephen Quirke (Ancient Egyptian Religion) explains it as meaning "She of the ointment jar". This ties in with the observation that her name was written with the hieroglyph "ointment jar" (bȝs) and that she was associated with protective ointments, among other things.[2] Originally she was viewed as the protector goddess of Lower Egypt. As protector, she was seen as defender of the pharaoh, and consequently of the later chief male deity, Ra, who was also a solar deity, gaining her the titles Lady of Flame and Eye of Ra.

Her role in the pantheon became diminished as Sekhmet, a similar lioness war deity, became more dominant in the unified culture of Lower and Upper Egypt.[citation needed]

In the first millennium BC, when domesticated cats were popularly kept as pets, Bastet began to be represented as a woman with the head of a cat and ultimately emerged as the Egyptian cat-goddess par excellence.[3] In the Middle Kingdom, the domestic cat appeared as Bastet’s sacred animal and after the New Kingdom she was depicted as a woman with the head of a cat or a lioness, carrying a sacred rattle and a box or basket.[4] Bast is often Mentioned in the Necronomicon. In the temple at Per-Bast some cats were found to have been mummified and buried, many next to their owners. More than 300,000 mummified cats were discovered when Bast's temple at Per-Bast was excavated. The main source of information about the Bast cult comes from Herodotus who visited Bubastis around 450 BC during the heyday of the cult. He equated Bastet with the Greek Goddess Artemis. He wrote extensively about the cult. Turner and Bateson suggest that the status of the cat was roughly equivalent to that of the cow in modern India. The death of a cat might leave a family in great mourning and those who could would have them embalmed or buried in cat cemeteries - pointing to the great prevalence of the cult of Bastet. Extensive burials of cat remains were found not only at Bubastis, but also at Beni Hasan and Saqqara. In 1888, a farmer uncovered a plot of many hundreds of thousands of cats in Beni Hasan.[9]

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Kthanid

See Brian Lumley deities.

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Nodens

Nodens (Lord of the Great Abyss) appears as a human male riding a huge seashell pulled by legendary beasts. Template:CthuRefBox

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Ulthar

Ulthar (or Uldar) is a deity sent to Earth to hold vigil over the Great Old Ones.Template:CthuRefBox

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Vorvadoss

Vorvadoss* (The Flaming One, Lord of the Universal Spaces, The Troubler of the Sands, Who Waiteth in the Outer Dark) appears as a cloaked, hooded being, enveloped in green flames, with fiery eyes. He may otherwise appear as a misty, silvery being not unlike Tawil-at-U'mr with an inhuman face. His powers where many including levitation, telekinesis, and even the ability to change form to whatever he pleased, truly a master of the dark arts and a force to be reckoned with. Template:CthuRefBox

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Yad-Thaddag

See Brian Lumley deities.

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From Imprisoned with the Pharaohs

The short story Imprisoned with the Pharaohs does make use of the actual words "elder gods", and its use in that story implies that the various gods of Egypt are among these elder gods. However, only a few are mentioned by name throughout the story: Amen, Anubis, Horus, Isis, Osiris, Re and Re-Harakhte. Template:CthuRefBox

Other Gods

Lesser Known Gods are mentioned rarely in the Mythos stories but never really appear. They include Adaedu, Alithlai-Tyy, DveahtehsEyroix, Othkkartho (Noden's First-born son), Ovytonv, Urthuvn, Xislanyx, Xuthyos-Sihb'Bz, Zehirete (The pure and holy womb of light), Neptune, And N'tse-Kaambl. Most of the aforementioned deities have been introduced in Joseph S. Pulver's "Nightmare's Disciple".

See also Great Old Ones

Other appearances

• The Elder Gods are mentioned frequently in Fritz Leiber's novella Adept's Gambit, starring Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser.

• In The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: The Black Dossier, the Elder Gods are said to be the remnants of the Elohim.

• Elder Gods are mentioned in The Devil's Playhouse, specifically Yog-Soggoth (who bears some resemblance to Cthulu), and his grandson, Junior (who looks like a giant worm).

• An Elder god, Grimilkin (stuck within the form of a cheshire cat), makes an appearance in the fourth and fifth books of the Imaginarium Geographica series, a book by James A. Owen

• Elder Gods appear in the series The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel by Michael Scott.

References

Books

• Pulver, Joseph S. (1999). Nightmare's Disciple. Chaosium. ISBN 1568821182.