Shub-Niggurath

Literary invention
Scritta 1927 · «Weird Tales», novembre 1928

Shub-Niggurath — a fertility entity, almost always invoked by formula and almost never described.

First appearance

The Last Test, a revision undertaken for Adolphe de Castro. «The Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young».

What is told

A fertility entity, almost always invoked by formula and almost never described. It is the clearest case of narrative power obtained by subtraction: it exists only as an invocation.

In the corpus

It appears for the first time in revision work done for another author, not in a story under Lovecraft's own name. A good part of the corpus originates in this way, in the bread-and-butter work of ghostwriting.

Publication data

The Last Test, «Weird Tales», November 1928.

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