Elder Sign
A symbol whose form and significance is unclear. In some references, the Elder Sign is apparently a hand gesture invoked for protection. Thus, when Randolph Carter asked about the Great Ones, the farmer and his wife would only make the Elder Sign and tell him the way to Nir and Ulthar [HPL Kadath (online text)]. And when Surama was frightened by Dr. Alfred Clarendon's curses, he made an elder sign that no book of history records [Test (online text)].
The sign is not always effective: Alhazred reports that, beyond the Gateway guarded by 'UMR AT-TAWIL, there lies "the Evil that defieth the Elder Sign" [Gates (online text)].
The Elder Sign seems also to be an element of cult ritual; in the time of Roman Britain, strange folk descended from a lost Western continent met together and made the Elder Sign in the dark [Descendant (online text)]. Then again, the narrator of The Messenger regards it as a device for invoking malevolent beings; he refers to "the Elder Sign, bequeathed from long ago, That sets the fumbling forms of darkness free" [HPL Messenger (online text)].
HPL drew this image of
the Elder Sign at the conclusion of a letter to Clark Ashton Smith dated
November 7, 1930 [H.P. Lovecraft, Selected Letters III,
ed. August Derleth and Donald Wandrei. Sauk City, WI: Arkham House, 1971]. If you wanted to convey this symbol through a hand gesture, a
possible way might be to hold up one hand vertically, edge on, and hold the
other hand behind it with fingers open so that the thumb and forefinger
appear on one side and the other three fingers on the other side.
Alternatively, you could perhaps make a gesture similar to a genuflection,
drawing first a vertical line and then two or more horizontal lines in the
air. (Scan of the Elder Sign is from Donovan Loucks at http://hplovecraft.com)
Cthulhu was sealed within the barnacled tower at R'lyeh by the Elder Sign, which his minions are powerless to touch [AWD Lurker].
Misquamacus used a stone carved with the Elder Sign to seal the prison of Ossadagowah [HPL Sorceries (online text), AWD Lurker]. Alijah Billington removed and later restored this stone. Ambrose Dewart observed an engraving on the stone, shaped like a star, with a broken lozenge at the center that seemed to be a caricature of an eye, and other lines suggestive of flames or of a pillar of flame. This is probably the same as the "Sign uv perteckshun" referred to by Mrs. Bishop. Richard Billington was subject to the power of the Elder Sign. Seneca Lapham referred to this sign as the mark the Great Old Ones (3) fear and hate, for it is the mark of the Elder Gods whose strength is absolute. Lapham and Winfield Phillips used the stone marked with the Elder Sign to reseal the opening [AWD Lurker].
The people of Dunwich placed the Elder Sign on the central pier of Crary Road bridge [AWD Middle].
In some usages, the Elder Sign might be a reference to star-stones, or to a symbol that is carved on some star-stones. See: star-stones.
Compare with: Elder Seal; Sign, the.
Return to Cthulhu Universalis Contents Page
Return to CthulhuFiles.com Home Page
Send comments to jfm.baharna@gmail.com.
© Copyright 1996-2024 by Joseph Morales