Ludvig Prinn

Alchemist and sorcerer, best known as the author of De Vermis Mysteriis (also known as Mysteries of the Worm). He was born in the Flemish region of what is now Belgium.

Prinn was burned at the stake by the Inquisition at the height of the witch trials. This would probably place his death in the 1600's. However, Prinn claimed to be the sole survivor of the Ninth Crusade (1271), which would have made him something like four centuries old. Though his claim of such extreme age was disbelieved by contemporaries, the old chronicles of the Ninth Crusade listed a Ludvig Prinn who was a gentleman retainer of Montserrat. [RB Shambler (online text)]

In De Vermis Mysteriis, the chapter known as Saracenic Rituals dealt with Prinn's mysterious sojourn in Egypt and the Orient in Crusader days. Prinn wrote of what he had learned from Alexandrian seers, necromancers, and adepts; of his journeyings into the deserts and his secret tomb-lootings in hidden valleys of the Nile. [RB Fane, Sebek]

Prinn knew of the fable of Nyarlathotep [RB Faceless]. He wrote of the Black Pharoah, Nephren-Ka, and of his secret tomb beneath Alexandria. In the tomb, one of the prophetic paintings of future times shows Prinn conversing with Nephren-Ka's followers. [RB Fane]

Prinn may have had a doctorate, on the basis of a reference to him as Dr. Ludvig Prinn [AWD Whippoorwills].

In his later years, Prinn returned to the Flemish lowland country of his birth. He lived in the ruins of a pre-Roman tomb in the forest near Brussels. He was said to be accompanied by familiars and other conjured beings, who were spoken of fearfully as "invisible companions" and "star-sent servants." Local peasants shunned the forest by night because of strange noises that resounded to the moon, and feared that sacrifices were being performed at ancient pagan altars in the darker glens.

However, when the soldiers of the Inquisition came for Prinn, they found the tomb empty of familiars and bare of any sorcerous instruments or apparatus, though some of the nearby pagan altars had fresh bloodstains. Prinn was subjected to particularly atrocious tortures, but gave no information to his questioners, who eventually tired of the process and cast him into a dungeon.

It was while he was in prison, awaiting trial, that Prinn wrote the work for which he is remembered, De Vermis Mysteriis. It is not known how the pages were smuggled out of jail, but the volume was first published a year after his death. [RB Shambler (online text)]

Will Benson held that Prinn was not a charlatan [HK Hunt (online text)]. Charles stated that Prinn was a considerable sorcerer in his day [RB Philtre (online text)]. Henricus Vanning had faith in Prinn's veracity [RB Sebek].

See: De Vermis Mysteriis.

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