The Dunwich Horror
by H. P. LOVECRAFT
"Gorgons, and Hydras, and Chimeras—dire stories of Celæno and theHarpies—may reproduce themselves in the brain of superstition—butthey were there before. They are transcripts, types—the archetypesare in us, and eternal. How else should the recital of that which weknow in a waking sense to be false come to affect us at all? Is itthat we naturally conceive terror from such objects, considered intheir capacity of being able to inflict upon us bodily injury? Oh,least of all! These terrors are of older standing. They date beyondbody—or without the body, they would have been the same.... That thekind of fear here treated is purely spiritual—that it is strong inproportion as it is objectless on earth, that it predominates in theperiod of our sinless infancy—are difficulties the solution of whichmight afford some probable insight into our ante-mundane condition,and a peep at least into the shadowland of pre-existence."—CharlesLamb: Witches and Other Night-Fears.
1
When a traveler in north central Massachusetts takes the wrong forkat the junction of the Aylesbury pike just beyond Dean's Corners hecomes upon a lonely and curious country. The ground gets higher, andthe brier-bordered stone walls press closer and closer against the rutsof the dusty, curving road. The trees of the frequent forest beltsseem too large, and the wild weeds, brambles, and grasses attain aluxuriance not often found in settled regions. At the same time theplanted fields appear singularly few and barren; while the sparselyscattered houses wear a surprizing uniform aspect of age, squalor, anddilapidation. Without knowing why, one hesitates to ask directionsfrom the gnarled, solitary figures spied now and then on crumblingdoorsteps or in the sloping, rock-strewn meadows. Those figures areso silent and furtive that one feels somehow confronted by forbiddenthings, with which it would be better to have nothing to do. When arise in the road brings the mountains in view above the deep woods,the feeling of strange uneasiness is increased. The summits are toorounded and symmetrical to give a sense of comfort and naturalness, andsometimes the sky silhouettes with especial clearness the queer circlesof tall stone pillars with which most of them are crowned.
Gorges and ravines of problematical depth intersect the way, and thecrude wooden bridges always seem of dubious safety. When the roaddips again there are stretches of marshland that one instinctivelydislikes, and indeed almost fears at evening when unseen whippoorwillschatter and the fireflies come out in abnormal profusion to dance tothe raucous, creepily insistent rhythms of stridently piping bullfrogs.The thin, shining line of the Miskatonic's upper reaches has an oddlyserpentlike suggestion as it winds close to the feet of the domed hillsamong which it rises.
As the hills draw nearer, one heeds their wooded sides more than theirstone-crowned tops. Those sides loom up so darkly and precipitouslythat one wishes they would keep their distance, but there is no road bywhich to escape them. Across a covered bridge one sees a small villagehuddled between the stream and the vertical slope of Round Mountain,and wonders at the cluster of rotting gambrel roofs bespeaking anearlier architectural period than that of the neighboring region. Itis not reassuring to see, on a closer glance, that most of the housesare deserted and falling to ruin, and that the broken-steepled churchnow harbo