Eltdown Shards

Debatable and disturbing clay fragments, dug up from pre-Carboniferous strata in southern England, thirty years before the events of The Challenge From Beyond (written 1935) [HPL Challenge (online text)].

The first examiners of the shards were Dr. Dalton and Dr. Woodford; this was 44 years before the events of The Warder of Knowledge. Following their discovery, the shards were hastily sent to a museum at a small midwestern school called Beloin University. [RFS Warder]

In 1912, a Sussex clergyman named Arthur Brook Winters-Hall published a purported translation, based on comparisons with "pre-human hieroglyphs" handed down in certain mystical circles. [HPL Challenge (online text)].

Dr. Gordon Whitney started a translation of the cryptic and half-decipherable Eltdown Shards, but abandoned the project in fright. He returned to the project years later and completed a translation of the nineteenth shard. Whitney's translation was based on comparison with later Amharic and Arabic root words. [RFS Warder]

Appearance

There are 23 shards total. The shards are slabs of iron-hard grey clay, varying in shape and ranging in size from the fifth shard, about 4 by 8 inches, to the fourteenth, a triangular piece about 20 inches across. Most are broken and are missing pieces. The shards are carved with fine, symmetrical characters, except for a one inch margin around the edge. [RFS Warder]

Contents

The Shards record that, in distant Elder Times, the wizard Om Oris attempted to defeat the demon Zubnian [RFS Mists]. The shards also record that Om Oris attempted to defeat a demon called Avaloth, who was plaguing the earth with a growth of living ice and snow [RFS Casket ]. In both these cases, it is not known whether Om Oris was able to destroy the demons, and some believe that he did not have sufficient means to actually destroy them. Yet Zubnian was seen no more, and the ice fields of Avaloth vanished.

The fifth shard discusses the revolting habits of the fiendish Avaloth at some length [RFS Warder].

The nineteenth shard discusses an enity called the Warder of Knowledge, and ends with a spell for summoning It. However, the shard is broken and is missing the complementary spell for dismissing the Warder. [RFS Warder]

According to Winters-Hall's translation, the Shards tell of giant worm-like aliens, the Spawn of Yekub, and of certain cubes that they used to transfer their minds between universes [HPL Challenge (online text)].

The Shards also speak of the planet Yith, the origin of the Great Race [HPL Time (online text)].

Modern Copies and Readers

Alonzo Typer read from the text of the Eltdown Shards in the library of the deserted van der Heyl house, and regretted having come there [HPL Diary (online text)].

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