Of Evill Sorceries done in New England, of Daemons in No Humane Shape

[HPL Sorceries (online text)]: A fragmentary manuscript left by H. P. Lovecraft which gives a brief account of some mysterious occurrences in Massachusetts. The manuscript tells that, in the mid-1600s, Richard Billington called down a being called Ossadagowah at a stone ring near New Plymouth. After Ossadagowah ran amok killing local people, Billington disappeared. A band of Wampanaug indians lead by the wise man Misquamacus then imprisoned Ossadagowah in a hole under a stone marked with the Elder Sign. A mound of dirt was piled on top with a tall stone with warnings written on it. Misquamacus and others affirmed that Billington must have been eaten by Ossadagowah. However, the manuscript then questions whether Billington is really gone, or whether he might still be making appearances in various forms.

The manuscript begins with the title "Of Evill Sorceries done in New England, of Daemons in No Humane Shape." However, the final page of the account gives a different title, "Thaumaturgicall Prodigies in the New-English Canaan, by the Rev. Ward Phillips, Pastor of the Second Church in Arkham, in the Massachusetts-Bay. Boston, 1697." This page describes the birth of a monster child to Goodwife Doten in 1683. It appears that this final page is a continuation of "Of Evill Sorceries," which overall forms a subsection of the larger work, Thaumaturgical Prodigies.

In Derleth Stories

When August Derleth adapted this fragment for use in his novel The Lurker at the Threshold [AWD Lurker], he broke the text into two pieces. He labeled the first two pages as Of Evill Sorceries done in New England, of Daemons in No Humane Shape. However, he treated the final page as an extract from a separate work, Thaumaturgical Prodigies in the New-English Canaan. This is a conceivable interpretation since the title Thaumaturgical Prodigies appears only on the final page of Lovecraft's manuscript.

When Derleth used the fragment, he also made significant textual changes to make it better fit the plot of his novel; notably,

Moving the setting from New Plymouth to New Dunnich (Dunwich).
Partially obscuring the description of Ossadagowah's imprisonment under a mound, because Derleth decided to have him imprisoned under a tower mentioned in another Lovecraft fragment.
Implying that Richard Billington might have survived someplace away from Earth: "Ye Wonder-Worker Misquamacus told that he mistrusted not but that Billington had been taken; he wou’d not say that he had been eat up by It, as others among ye Savages believ’d, but he affirm’d that Billington was no longer on this Earth, whereat God be prais’d."
Elaborating on the description of Ossadagowah by increasing the minimum size and adding eyes and tentacles: "it was sometimes small and solid, like a great Toad ye Bigness of many Ground-Hogs, but sometimes big and cloudy, with no Shape, though with a Face which had Serpents grown from it" [emphasis added].
Redating the portion about Goodwife Doten from the late 1600s to the late 1700s. To make this possible, Derleth also deleted the original 1697 publication date for Thaumaturgical Prodigies and instead referred only to a reprint edition dating from 1801.
Specifying that Goodwife Doten's monster baby resembled "one Richard Bellingham or Bollinhan" (that is, Richard Billington).

In [AWD Lurker], Ambrose Dewart discovers a handwritten copy of Of Evill Sorceries done in New England, of Daemons in No Humane Shape, and the 1801 reprint edition of Thaumaturgical Prodigies in the New-English Canaan, while staying at Billington House in the 1920s. Later, Dewart's guest Stephen Bates makes handwritten copies of these texts and takes them to Dr. Seneca Lapham.

Return to Cthulhu Universalis Contents Page

Return to CthulhuFiles.com Home Page

Send comments to jfm.baharna@gmail.com.