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I feel like this story could be readily adapted into an episode of the Twilight Zone... Auckland is today the largest city in New Zealand, and was quite an important city even a hundred years ago. Wellington of course is the capital of New Zealand, even was so at the time this story is set (it became so in 1865, and presumably this story is set in the late 19th or early 20th century, it isn't stated and isn't obvious). Callao is a city in Peru, and today part of the Lima MSA. If it sounds vaguely familiar, it was the port of origin for the Kon-Tiki expedition in 1947 by Thor Heyerdahl. benison: a blessing littoral: as a noun, a region lying along a shore irremeable: offering no possibility of return araucaria: a genus of evergreen coniferous trees once widespread during the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods. There are 20 extant species in New Caledonia, Norfolk Island, eastern Australia, New Guinea, Argentina, South Brazil, Chile and Paraguay. Sometimes known as the monkey puzzle tree. armillary: if you do an image search you will recognize it instantly, but... an old astronomical instrument composed of rings showing the positions of important circles of the celestial sphere. There are apparently two accepted pronunciations for this word, including the one I used. If you expect it differently, just know I'm using the other accepted one. Tyrian shades would be shades of purple (Tyre, an ancient city in the Levant, was famous in antiquity for its purple dyes) heteroclitic: in this context, irregular; unusual; abnormal pells: as a noun, rolls of parchment (specifically, one formerly used in the English Exchequer to record receipts and expenditures) parapegm: engraved tablet, usually of brass To follow along: http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/short-stories/226/the-uncharted-isle Right at minute 16, some heavy rain started up. The forecast was for rain in 3 or 4 hours from when I was recording, so it came unexpectedly early. But it turned out to be a brief shower, ceasing to be audible after just a minute or two. Hopefully it's not too distracting to the listener. (It's possible it may have rained a few hours later as well, as predicted, but by then I would have been long asleep.)

Islas de los Ladrones is an old name for what is now the Mariana Islands The Marquesas Islands are part of present day French Polynesia Isn't it curious how the island is described as unexplored, yet there are natives on the island. Typical attitude of European explorers in very remote parts of the world... centurial: relating to 100 years oblation: a thing presented or offered to God or a god irresoluble: having or admitting of no solution or explanation. The definition of this word should be pretty obvious, I include the entry here only to comment on how shockingly difficult this word is to pronounce. Seriously, try it. Let me know how many times you have to try before you get it right! luctations: struggles or endeavors revenant: one that returns after death or a long absence salubriousness: health-giving; healthy taciturn: reserved or uncommunicative in speech; saying little voluble: talking fluently, readily, or incessantly plenilune: full moon inenarrable: incapable of being narrated; indescribable selenic: of, relating to, or like the moon whist: a classic English trick-taking card game which was widely played in the 18th and 19th centuries pedro: an American trick-taking card game (of the All Fours family) based on Auction Pitch (the American version of the English trick-taking game of Blind All Fours which, in turn, is derived from classic All Fours (US: Seven Up)) exiguous: very small in size or amount fulgor: dazzling brightness; splendor Surprisingly (to me) there don't seem to be many ancient temples to the moon. There are a handful of very famous ones I wouldn't use because everybody recognizes them, but seemingly no obscure ones. There were a couple of temples to the sun that didn't have roofs and aren't particularly famous, and I was tempted to use one of those, but few of them were usable from a copyright perspective, and a lot of them had people in the picture which ruins it. So in the end, I had to find some picture that wasn't an ancient jungle temple dedicated to a moon goddess, and just went with a moon goddess type picture. One that wasn't of some angelic and good type of moon goddess, which almost all of them are, but one that could be seen as darker or at least ambiguous. Unfortunately, I can't find a proper attribution for it. To follow along: http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/short-stories/158/an-offering-to-the-moon

Rather curiously, there doesn't seem to be any agreement on the pronunciation of Lemuria. Watch a dozen different videos about it, get a dozen different pronunciations. I get it that it's an old term from before recording technology existed, so the intended pronunciation by the guy who created it may not be known, but can we not at *some* point come to a common consensus about it? Oy. ---- Rememberest thou? Enormous gongs of stone Were stricken, and the storming trumpeteers Acclaimed my deed to answering tides of spears, And spoke the names of monsters overthrown— Griffins whose angry gold, and fervid store Of sapphires wrenched from mountain-plungèd mines— Carnelians, opals, agates, almandines, I brought to thee some scarlet eve of yore. In the wide fane that shrined thee Venus-wise, The fallen clamors died... I heard the tune Of tiny bells of pearl and melanite, Hung at thy knees, and arms of dreamt delight; And placed my wealth before thy fabled eyes, Pallid and pure as jaspers from the moon. ---- The picture used is of a lemur! Lemuria is literally named after lemurs, which existed on Madagascar and in India (but not in Africa or the Middle East), and Philip Sclater concluded (in 1864) there must have been a land mass between the two where lemurs originated, but which has since sunk beneath the Indian Ocean. This was, obviously, before we figured out about plate tectonics and continental drift. To follow along: http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/poetry/292/in-lemuria I've been waiting forever for an opportunity to use that effect on the title and author. There are still a couple other effects in my editing software that I'm waiting for the right image for them to work with, but good to finally get this one out there.

And thus concludes the Atlantis cycle. However, this is not the end of Poseidonis, for there are other lost locales of legend frequently tied in with Atlantis, like Lemuria and Mu and some others, which we will cover coming up next! ---- Above its domes the gulfs accumulate. Far up, the sea-gales blare their bitter screed: But here the buried waters take no heed— Deaf, and with welded lips pressed down by weight Of the upper ocean. Dim, interminate, In cities over-webbed with somber weed, Where galleons crumble and the krakens breed, The slow tide coils through sunken court and gate. From out the ocean's phosphor-starry dome, A ghostly light is dubitably shed On altars of a goddess garlanded With blossoms of some weird and hueless vine; And, wingéd, fleet, through skies beneath the foam, Like silent birds the sea-things dart and shine. ---- The picture used is an AI art generated image of Atlantis, using nightcafe. To follow along: http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/poetry/34/atlantis

Yarrr! Some pirate-speak, but from a time before the Hollywood movies imprinted a set of tropes and stereotypes in the public mind about what pirate-speak should be. "Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging" - this is Proverbs 20:1, specifically the King James Version. The more modern translation seems to be "Wine is a mocker, strong drink is a brawler" Barnaby Dwale appears to be a made up person? Certainly google doesn't know anything about him, so if he's real, he must be extremely obscure. But most likely just made up. dubloons: a two-escudo gold coin, weighing 6.766 grams of 22-karat gold. Originally worth 4 Spanish dollars or 32 reales. The value of that much gold of that quality as of the date of this recording (Jun 13, 2023) would be 57.7577 USD per gram, so 6.766 grams * $57.7577 = $390.79. That's €362.27. Just the raw gold value alone is not bad for a coin! The West Indies is a collective term for all the islands of the Caribbean (the Antilles), plus the Lucayan Archipelago (i.e. the Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands) Caribbees: an old name for the Lesser Antilles, which are all the smaller Caribbean islands from Anguilla and the Virgin Islands in the north to Grenada and Trinidad & Tobago in the south chancre: a primary sore or ulcer at the site of entry of a pathogen, especially : the initial lesion of syphilis coistrel: rogue, scoundrel, knave bedlamite: lunatic Falernus and Cecuba: actual real places which actually really produced wine, dating back to classical Greece, being located in or near Latium. Rechabite: a member of a family group in ancient Israel that lived in tents rather than in houses and abstained from drinking wine. Or more generally, anyone who does not drink wine. There seems to be some disagreement between reliable sources on the pronunciation of the 'ch'. reprobation: disapproval, blame, or censure midge: a small two-winged fly that is often seen in swarms near water or marshy areas where it breeds. Also a slang term for a small or short person. 'sblood: we saw this used a lot in "Paul Clifford" and I never bothered to look it up since it's obviously just an interjection of some sort, but I decided to give it a look up now to see what exactly it is referring to. Shortened from God's blood. Primarily in the Middle Ages and up to the early modern era and to a rare extent today, people would curse on God/Christ's body parts rather than breaking the second commandment (not to use the Lord's name in vain oaths). In this case, the exclamation refers to Christ's blood shed during the crucifixion and the Eucharist under the form of wine. slumgullion: no, not the stew, but the muddy slurry left behind after washing gold through a sluice. Slum is an old word for slime, and gullion meaning mud or cesspit pannikin: small metal drinking cup ribaldry: amusingly coarse or irreverent talk or behavior calenture: feverish delirium supposedly caused by the heat in the tropics causey: causeway, a raised way across wet ground or water The picture used is an illustration from "Buccaneers and Pirates of Our Coasts" by Frank R. Stockton, from either 1897, 1898, or 1926, I'm not sure exactly, but regardless, well out of copyright no matter which it ends up being. To follow along: http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/short-stories/234/a-vintage-from-atlantis

consanguinity: relationship by descent from a common ancestor diluvial: relating to a flood or floods, especially the Biblical flood. telluric: of the earth as a planet eventide: evening lustrum: a period of 5 years manumission: the act of freeing enslaved people by their enslavers lambence: this doesn't seem to be a real word, but obviously is derived from lambent, which means of light or fire, glowing, gleaming or flickering with a soft radiance evanish: to vanish or disappear ermine: a type of stoat which has a white winter coat. When white, the fur historically was used for the trim of garments. In heraldry, ermine is a fur represented as black spots on a white ground, as a heraldic tincture. So what we get from this is that their beards were turning white. calyx: the sepals of a flower, typically forming a whorl that encloses the petals and forms a protective layer around a flower in bud orchidaceous: relating to or denoting plants of the orchid family The picture used was generated via nightcafe. This is the first time I've gotten a usable image from AI generated art. Huzzah! To follow along: http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/short-stories/237/a-voyage-to-sfanomo%C3%AB It's an interesting imagining of another planet before our exploration of the solar system took away all the wonder, but I do feel like this story is on the weak side. But others may find more enjoyment in it than I did. It certainly is fanciful. And there is some nice world-building elements to it on the Atlantis front. Some rather nice catches though for imagining space travel well so long before it could be a reality, perceiving the need for artificial gravity, and heat. This despite relying on the ether theory of space. But then also some big misses - no thought of a spacesuit or other protective gear, for example. I'm unclear on the notion of solidified air. Compressed air, yes, but turning earth's atmospheric air into a solid? That's be a neat trick! More likely, you take each of the constituent gases and store them independently, probably as liquids rather an solids (liquid nitrogen, for example, is already insanely cold, and you rarely see it as a solid), and mix them together in the needed proportions as required. I do like that they came up with a sphere for a ship design. Their reason for it is not very convincing, but a sphere with thrusters in every direction, and potentially weapons in every direction, would be vastly more flexible that a ship with one thruster in one direction, and most weapons oriented in that same direction. There's no reason to build a space ship like you would an atmospheric aeroplane, you don't have the same constraints in space as you do in an atmosphere. A sphere shaped space ship does make a lot of sense for a lot of reason! Of course, it does beg the question why they had to leave the planet when there were other continents right here on earth that weren't being destroyed (which they observed and identified as they were traveling away from earth), that they could more easily have sailed or flown to and presumably been just fine. And then why just two guys going together? You aren't going to found a new civilization with just two elderly brothers for your starting stock :-P Not that it mattered in the end, but clearly they didn't care about preserving the Atlantean stock, they just wanted to satisfy their own curiosity about another planet. Bleh.

Pharpetron? Is that his name? Pharpetron? What the hell kind of a name is Pharpetron? Lieutenant Scheisskopf had the facts at his finger tips. "It's Pharpetron's name, sir," he explained. *eyeroll* seine: a fishing net which hangs vertically in the water with floats at the top and weights at the bottom edge, the ends being drawn together to encircle the fish byssus: a fine textile fiber and fabric of flax empery: empire dun: a dull grayish-brown color trove: treasure volute: a deep-water marine mollusk with a thick spiral shell ambergris: a solid, waxy, flammable substance of a dull grey or blackish colour produced in the digestive system of sperm whales. It can be used in cooking, in making perfume, incense, for scenting cigarettes, and all kind of purposes. wrack: in this context, any of a number of coarse brown seaweeds which grow on the shoreline, frequently each kind forming a distinct band in relation to high- and low-water marks. mordant: a substance that combines with a dye or stain and thereby fixes it in a material recondite: little known; abstruse infrangible: unbreakable; inviolable adumbration: a shadow or faint image of something purulence: condition of containing or forming pus. Yum! deliquescent: we have here two choices of definition, neither one of which is an exacting fit, so clearly the author was using the word here more poetically than literally, in which case you chose which definition you think better fits what is going on here: 1) tending to melt or dissolve, especially tending to undergo gradual dissolution and liquefaction by the attraction and absorption of moisture from the air, or 2) having repeated division into branches Recall the context: and the face and fingers seemed to drip in the moon- light with a deliquescent corruption. fain: in this context here, probably the best fit is 'gladly' To follow along: http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/short-stories/53/the-double-shadow Not a bad little tale of creeping horror, eh? So now we are left with the question of what is the conjured entity, and to what use it was put by the serpent-men?

similor: an alloy of copper and zinc, resembling brass but of a golden color pard: short for leopard architraves: a main beam resting across the tops of columns, specifically the lower third entablature hecatomb: a great public sacrifice, originally (in ancient Greece) of a hundred oxen The picture used is the mushroom cloud of Gadget during the Trinity tests, July 16, 1945. To follow along: http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/poetry/604/tolometh Have to wonder if the hell-black wizardries referenced includes Malygris? We know Malygris had tomes detailing long-lost gods, so it seems probable he knew of Tolometh, and perhaps called upon him to aid him in his magical endeavors.

Lots of weird names with no obvious pronunciations. Gadeiron, Maranapion, Tartessos, Fustules, even Susran has quite a few options. Well, with no pronunciation hints from the author, I just had to pick something and try my best to be consistent. Ugh. Outside of the names, there are a couple of the more obscure words I can tell my pronunciation is off slightly, but not enough that I would be bothered to go back and fix it, like 'invultuation'. Meh. The hazards of an author trying to be as sophisticated as possible in their vocabulary :-P lading: cargo gravid: full of meaning or a specified quality bruited: in this context: rumored. Although I'm not sure I used the right pronunciation... It's such a weird and archaic word. catalepsy: a medical condition characterized by a trance or seizure with a loss of sensation and consciousness accompanied by rigidity of the body gnomon: an object that by the position or length of its shadow serves as an indicator especially of the hour of the day, such as the pin of a sundial, or a column or shaft erected perpendicular to the horizon effulgence: brilliance caryatid: a stone carving of a draped female figure, used as a pillar to support the entablature of a Greek or Greek-style building. balsam: an aromatic resinous substance, such as balm, exuded by various trees and shrubs and used as a base for certain fragrances and medical and cosmetic preparations marmorean: of, relating to, or suggestive of marble or a marble statue especially in coldness or aloofness samite: a rich silk fabric interwoven with gold and silver threads, used for dressmaking and decoration in the Middle Ages chryselephantine: overlaid with gold and ivory brazen: in this context, made of brass irrefragable: impossible to break or alter. I found multiple recordings of this word with different pronunciations, all reliable sources. One of them matched what I used here. If you expect something different, well, I don't know what to tell you other than there appear to be multiple valid pronunciations. balas ruby: a ruby spinel of a pale rose-red or orange invultuation: the use of or the act of making images of people, animals, etc, for witchcraft senescence: the condition or process of deterioration with age lustrum: a period of five years appanage: it is difficult to understand what definition Smith intends with this word in this context. I guess "adjunct"? It's an extremely obscure word here in the 21st century, certainly in the USA, and typically has to do with land grants in a monarchy, or some such. Bizarre choice of word. maranatha: an intensified curse or malediction aureate: donating, made of, or having the color of gold To follow along: http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/short-stories/39/the-death-of-malygris

Susran: I can come up with a lot of possible pronunciations of this, but sadly, we have no hint from the author what he had in mind. perdurable: enduring; imperishable prelate: a bishop or other high ecclesiastical dignitary fulvous: reddish or brownish yellow; tawny crotali: A Turkish musical instrument, like the ancient cimbalom meet, as in "is it meet": suitable. It appears to have had this usage until some time in the first half of the 20th century. I've certainly never heard it used this way until now. Weird. coign: a projecting corner or angle of a wall or building thurible: a censer. What's a censer? An incense burner. In the European sense, which is presumable here, typically made of metal, often gold or silver, typically used in religious ceremonies. An image search will make it instantly obvious if you still don't recognize what this is. Lethe: In Greek mythology, one of the rivers of Hades, known as the River of Forgetfulness, as those who drank from it experienced complete memory loss. innominable: incapable of being named exigent: pressing; demanding evanescent: soon passing out of sight, memory, or existence; quickly fading or disappearing immedicable: unable to be healed or treated To follow along: http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/short-stories/112/the-last-incantation

For such a short piece, there's a ton of really obscure vocabulary packed into it! orichalch: a yellow metallic substance considered precious by the ancient Greeks; a brass rich in zinc sendal: a fine, rich silk material, chiefly used to make ceremonial robes and banners glaucous: of a dull grayish-green or blue color halcyon: characterized by happiness, great success, and prosperity; often used to describe an idyllic time in the past that is remembered as better than today amaranthine: undying, or possibly of a pinkish or rosy red color. Or maybe both? sanguine: as a color, blood-red Cathay: among Europeans, a historical name for China. In particular, the northern part of China. damascened: in this context, inlaid with gold or silver decoration vermillion: a brilliant red pigment made from cinnabar samite: a rich silk fabric interwoven with gold and silver threads, used for dressmaking and decoration in the Middle Ages philtre: a drink supposed to arouse love and desire for a particular person in the drinker; a love potion The picture used is "Lost City of Atlantis" by George Grie, used here under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en). To follow along: http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/prose-poetry-plays/32/the-muse-of-atlantis

This could be understood as a prose poem rather than a story fragment. The picture used is "statues of Memnon". This file comes from Wellcome Images (https://wellcomecollection.org/, a website operated by Wellcome Trust, a global charitable foundation based in the United Kingdom. Refer to Wellcome blog post (https://web.archive.org/web/20150815054440/http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/News/Media-office/Press-releases/2014/WTP055466.htm). Used here under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en). To follow along: http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/prose-poetry-plays/28/the-memnons-of-the-night

Phaniol: names like this really make the native English speaker sympathize with the ESL student. There is absolutely no way to know how to pronounce this just based on the spelling alone, and there are quite a lot of options. And the author left us no hints as to what pronunciation he had in mind. Ugh. I'm glad this is so short, so I don't have to say the name too many times before we're done with it and never have to encounter it again. asphodel: In the real world this is a type of lily, but there is also a mythological plant of this name, being an immortal flower said to grow in the Elysian fields. I thought about putting some ocean wave ambiance into this one. But it's so out of character for my recordings to do so, so I ended up deciding against it. Perhaps I can upload a second version with it just to see which one people prefer. The picture used is "The Birth of Venus" by Sandro Botticelli To follow along: http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/prose-poetry-plays/37/the-passing-of-aphrodite

Talk about an under-developed piece. Feels like it could be used as a writing prompt for an ambitious budding author. I can't find any indication of when this was written, but almost all of Smith's poems appears to have been written in the 1920s (or earlier!), mostly 1922 at that, so there's a fair chance this one was also written in that period. "The Hobbit" by Tolkien wasn't published until 1937. So this "The Desolation of..." language would not have been inspired by Tolkien. To follow along: http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/prose-poetry-plays/11/the-desolation-of-soom

vernal: spring fumitory: a herbaceous annual flowering plant in the poppy family profulgent: sending out rays of light; bright, shining. Annoyingly, I can't find a satisfactory pronunciation guide for this word, and the pronunciation recordings on youtube don't quite agree. So another word that nobody seems to know how to pronounce. There are two rather obvious possibilities, and probably other less obvious ones. I went with the one that rhymes with effulgent. Which happens to mean the same exact thing! lave: wash gravid: pregnant basanite: an igneous, volcanic rock with aphanitic to porphyritic texture, it forms from magma low in silica and enriched in alkali metal oxides that solidifies rapidly close to the Earth's surface. verdigris: the bright bluish-green patina formed on copper or brass by oxidation gibbous: convex or bulging The picture used is "The Grey Desert- KKH" by Raki_Man, and used here under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en). This desert is in Akto county, Kizilsu Kyrgyz Autonomous Prefecture, Xinjiang, China. It may not be ashen, but it is a grey-sand desert, so probably as close as can be had on our planet. To follow along: http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/short-stories/2/the-abominations-of-yondo This makes me want to read more stories set in Yondo! Unfortunately, I don't think there are any more. Definitely fertile grounds for the budding author of the weird and supernatural! Or if nothing else, it'd be a creepy and dangerous setting for an RPG.

This isn't a full story, it's just a fragment. Yes, it really ends mid-sentence like that. Just as it was starting to get interesting. Dagnabit! Apparently there are many places in the US southwest that are named "Gold Canyon", including multiple places in California. I guess that's not really surprising given the Gold Rush of 1849. There are also Gold Canyons in Nevada and Arizona, and probably other places that we aren't interested in. A reference to the Rosicrucians! If you've been following along my channel of late, we recently completed "Zanoni" which is all about the Rosicrucians. At some point everything starts to reference everything else, and because we've read through so many things by now, we start to get some of the references! Although we don't know the full intention of the author with this story, it should be noted that if this is meant to be part of the Hyperborea cycle (just assumed, but not an unreasonable assumption given the reference to Haon-Dor we had in "The Seven Geases"), and Hyperborea is said (in "Ubbo-Sathla") to have been part of Greenland, then why is this story set in California? How does Haon-Dor's house end up way over thousands of miles west of Greenland? *boggle* Well, we'll just never know. The picture used is of the Gold Canyon Trail by Jim A. The Gold Canyon pictured is one close to Los Angeles, so probably not the one in the story which is presumably close to San Francisco, of which there is such a one in the real world. But I'm guessing it mostly all looks about the same regardless, so good enough. I gave an AI art generator another try, but still couldn't get anything satisfactory. For all the great things I keep seeing about it, and how artists all feel so threatened by it, I don't get it. It isn't working for me! To follow along: http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/short-stories/92/the-house-of-haon-dor-%28fragment%29

This is the last of the Hyperborean cycle. In just 11 short stories, Smith paints an incredible world of surprising depth and lore. I certainly enjoyed these stories! There are four more short stories/prose poems coming up here that were tacked on to the book I'm reading that the editor called The Rim World cycle. Despite not being Hyperborea, they do give something of a similar vibe. adit: a horizontal passage leading into a mine for the purpose of access or drainage soporific: tending to induce drowsiness or sleep medicament: a substance used for medical treatment lubricious: there are two definitions here and neither one seems particularly apt, so I present them both and let you decide which one makes sense to you: 1) offensively displaying or intended to arouse sexual desire, or 2) smooth and slippery with oil or a similar substance abdominous: having a large belly lupanars: brothels lascivious: lustful, wanton approbation: approval perspicacious: having a ready insight into and understanding of things mazzard: in this context, a person's head or face The picture used is "Vestal Virgins" by Jean Raoux, 1727, now displayed at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Lille, France. To follow along: http://eldritchdark.com/writings/short-stories/215/the-theft-of-the-thirty-nine-girdles

This story was the first of the Hyperborean cycle to be written, and as such, some of the details don't line up quite right with details from other stories. We can explain this by noting that after several centuries, things tend to get fuzzy and details are often lost and fantastical tales made up to replace the lost details. It's a normal and common thing to happen. The few examples I can find of "Zeiros" being pronounced are not how I would think to pronounce it. I prefer the German manner of pronouncing the "ei", where everybody else seems to go with what in German would be an "ie". I've said it a lot on other stories, but if you are author wanting to use names where the pronunciation is not completely and blindingly obvious (like Bob or Jane), put something in the book to indicate what pronunciation you have in mind. A footnote, and appendix, anything at all. Ugh. And the name Tirouv? I can't even... C'mon, authors! Do better with pronunciation guides for your names!! Anyways, given that English is extremely inconsistent about the pronunciation of ei (and ie), unlike German which is very consistent with these, and that no hint is given by the author as to what it should be, you are going to get the German style ei pronunciation from me :-P It's not just ESL students who pull their hair out over English spelling, even us native speakers struggle with it! mordant: as an adjective to describe an acid, it must mean burning or pungent. Rather curiously, there is a Warhammer 40K unit called the Mordant Acid-Dogs, who are tunnel fighters. chary: cautious or suspicious bole: the trunk of a tree purpureal : of a purple color quinquangular: having five angles or corners; pentagonal ebullition: the action of bubbling or boiling hassock: a firm clump of grass or matted vegetation in marshy or boggy ground To follow along: http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/short-stories/208/the-tale-of-satampra-zeiros Well that was a very dark and horrifying ending D:

A fathom is 6 feet (1.8288 meters). Well, 6 feet for the US, in the UK it's more complicated and could vary from 5 to 7 feet. The word is typically used in measuring the depth of water. effulgent: shining brightly; radiant panoply: in this context, a complete set of arms and armor. More generally, a complete or impressive collection of things. gelid: icy; extremely cold glaucous: of a dull greyish-green or blue color serried: standing close together The use of the word 'pendant' in this story is curious. Obviously we're not referring to jewelry. It is perhaps best to just go directly to the word's etymology from the Middle English: denoting an architectural decoration projecting downwards, or the Old French pendre, meaning 'hanging'. We understand this meaning when the word is first used in this story as an adjective: pendant icicles. Afterwards, the word is used in a way where the 'icicles' is left implied, we just supposed to remember it. buskin: A calf-high or knee-high boot of cloth or leather bouleversement: an inversion, especially a violent one parhelia: plural of parhelion, a bright spot in the sky appearing on either side of the sun, formed by refraction of sunlight through ice crystals high in the atmosphere atavistic: relating to or characterized by reversion to something ancient or ancestral legerdemain: skillful use of one's hands when performing conjuring tricks; or more generally: deception or trickery purlieu: the area near or surrounding a place thew: muscles and tendons perceived as generating physical strength propitiate: win or retain the favor of a god or spirit by doing something that pleases them This story might make for a pretty good movie. Of course, you can't trust Hollywood with it, they will add in some female love interest that makes no sense whatever, so it would have to be done by some indie group. But if a faithful adaptation were made, and there's still quite a bit of room for artistic license even while remaining highly faithful to the source, it could be pretty intense. To follow along: http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/short-stories/96/the-ice-demon So the stories are arranged in in-world chronological order. We saw in "The White Sybil" that this glaciation was prophesied long before it ever happened. Then we saw in "The Coming of the White Worm" that Rlim-Shaikorth brought forth with him glaciation everywhere he went. But we are told in this story that the glaciers here are from Polarion. This leads us to many questions: was the glaciation of the White Worm related in any way to the glaciers of Polarion? If not, did the White Worm's glaciers melt before these Polarion glaciers advanced? Or did the White Worm's glaciers make it possible for the Polarion glaciers to begin advancing southward? Did the White Worm's glaciers merge with the Polarion glaciers? Are the people in-world confusing the glaciers of the White Worm for the glaciers from Polarion? Are the White Worm's glaciers in fact the prophesied glaciers from Polarion? I need to know!! Unfortunately, I suspect these questions were never answered by Smith, so we'll never know :(

Apparently I couldn't decide on what sound that 'o' in Eibon should take, so it changes throughout the story. Oops. Smith's writings would make for good SAT prep, in so far as vocabulary goes! HA! malison: curse 400 feet = 122 meters calamite: an extinct type of swamp plant related to horsetails perspicacious: having a ready insight into and understanding of things desuetude: state of disuse telluric: of the earth veracious, not voracious! meaning speaking or representing the truth debouch, not debauch! meaning to emerge from a narrow or confined space into a wide, open area friability: the tendency of a solid substance to break into smaller pieces under duress or contact, especially by rubbing Hziulquoigmnzhah: you will note my pronunciation of this word is hardly consistent. But look at it! I really have no idea how to pronounce in the first place, much less any clue how to pronounce it consistently. And from the sound of it, Eibon probably would have struggled as well. So I'm not worried about it. orotund: of speech: full, round, and imposing sententious: given to moralizing in a pompous or affected manner horrent: of a person's hair, this would be standing on end, and it's possible that is the meaning he is looking for here. Otherwise it means expressing horror, which is also certainly possible. refection: refreshment by food or drink; a light meal objurgation: harsh rebuke termagant: a harsh-tempered or overbearing woman hieratic: highly stylized or formal cephalic: of, in, or relating to the head apterous: (of an insect) having no wings Stylitean: The Stylites were early Christian ascetics who lived on top of high pillars, preaching, fasting, and praying. Dolomite is a type of mineral, and The Dolomites is a mountain range in northern Italy, so the fact that these Djhibbis "roost" on "dolomites" does sound like Stylitean is hearkening to the Christian Stylites. flibbertigibbet: a frivolous, flighty, or excessively talkative person cacodemoniacal: evil thallophytes: algae To follow along: http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/short-stories/50/the-door-to-saturn I love how these old stories are so imaginative about life on other planets in our solar system! While I suppose authors today could be creative about life on planets in other solar systems, they would be confronted with the challenge of justifying human exploration of star systems many light years away, while a planet in our own solar system is much more reachable, but that alas, modern science has put to rest the matter of complex life on other planets in our system.

For Ubbo-Sathla is the source and the end. Before the coming of Zhothaqquah or Yok-Zothoth or Kthulhut from the stars, Ubbo-Sathla dwelt in the steaming fens of the newmade Earth: a mass without head or members, spawning the grey, formless efts of the prime and the grisly prototypes of terrene life ... And all earthly life, it is told, shall go back at last through the great circle of time to Ubbo-Sathla. -The Book of Eibon ---- recherché: rare, exotic, or obscure vermiculated: could mean either marked with sinuous or wavy lines, or worm-eaten. Or, carved or molded with shallow wavy grooves resembling the tracks of worms! In this case, probably that last one. Liassic: of, relating to, or being a subdivision of the European Jurassic eft: the juvenile stage of a newt The picture used is by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Image Lab, depicting a young Earth being bombarded by asteroids. To follow along: http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/short-stories/224/ubbo-sathla This story feels a bit Lovecraftian to me. One can imagine that these two are not the only two to have been in possession of the stone, probably some one else thousands of years into Paul's future found it and used it and had the same experience. And then someone thousands of years forward from there. And on and on and on.

(Chapter IX of the Book of Eibon) Rendered from the Old French manuscript of Gaspard du Nord. ---- The book I'm reading kept using the word 'steam' where it clearly should be 'stream'. The rest of the text seems to be edited just fine, only that one word is consistently wrong. How weird. The picture used is "Rlim Shaikorth" by spaghet2forghet, used here under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/). Many depictions of the white worm exist, but most are not under the Creative Commons license or something comparable, so this is the one you get. It's not bad. There was one I liked better, but couldn't use it. To follow along: http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/short-stories/29/the-coming-of-the-white-worm-%28abridged%29 Apparently the book I am reading from uses a shortened form of the story, which I did not realize until I got to the editing. The full version of the story can be found here: http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/short-stories/28/the-coming-of-the-white-worm Evagh has some servants, there's a prophecy, etc., so some nice details not found in the version I recorded, but obviously still fundamentally the same story. It appears the abridged version was the one originally published in 1941, the full version being deemed too long. It wasn't until 1989 that the unabridged version was published. So by using the abridged version here, you are getting the experience the initial readers of the story would have had.

calamus: a type of reed used as a writing pen lustrum: a period of five years headsman: while it becomes obvious later in the story, in the introduction it may not be obvious that this means executioner. Specifically execution by beheading. Tscho Vulpanomi - we've heard this name several times now in the Hyperborea series, and I really don't know how to pronounce that first word. That 'ts' phoneme exists in the Wade-Giles romanization of Chinese, but it is NEVER followed by a 'c' or 'ch' in Chinese. Indeed, in the currently accepted Hanyu Pinyin of mainland China today, the Wade-Giles 'ts' was changed to a 'c'. So we can't use the Chinese pronunciation here, it isn't phonetically possible. I just don't know. ferine: feral; wild and menacing anthropophagy: human cannibalism factitious: artificially created or developed Archean gneiss: The Archean age is 2.5 to 4 billion years ago. Gneiss is a type of metamorphic rock formed by high temperature and high pressure metamorphic processes acting on igneous or sedimentary rocks. Archean gneiss is typically found in the exposed regions of continental shields. nacarat: a shade of pale red-orange. I have no idea how to pronounce this word, and seemingly neither does anybody else. Every pronunciation I could find to listen to was different. *boggle* hodden: coarse woolen cloth (historically typical of Scotland) liana: a long-stemmed, woody vine that is rooted in the soil at ground level and uses trees as means of vertical support, to climb up to the canopy in search of direct sunlight ort: a scrap of food from a meal midden: refuse heap flagitious: criminal; villainous ebullition: the action of bubbling or boiling; a sudden outburst of emotion or violence matutinal: of or occurring in the morning piacular: requiring atonement The picture used is the cover page spread for the story as it appeared in Weird Tales, October 1932. Illustration by T. Wyatt Nelson. To follow along: http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/short-stories/210/the-testament-of-athammaus Although I would note that the text above has quite a few deviations from the book I am reading from. Nothing that changes the story in any fundamental word, just minor word choices, like "unaccustomed" in my text is "unparallelable" in the text above. But there's quite a few such variations like that. Such variance has not occurred in any of the other Hyperborean stories recorded to date. *shrug*

Sybil: any of several prophetesses usually accepted as 10 in number and credited to widely separate parts of the ancient world (such as Babylonia, Egypt, Greece, and Italy) ignescent: bursting into flame; emitting sparks of fire when struck with steel chaffer: could mean to haggle, but here more likely used as a synonym for chatter. Not sure why the alliteration was so important right here, but that appears to be all the author was going for. eider is a real word, it's a type of seaduck, but it's not obvious to me that the author meant here in that way. He probably thought he was making up a word, as the mountain folk would be quite unlikely to be trading in ocean fowl. damaskeening is also a real word, but having to with decorative patterns on a watch, or more generally to inlay with gold or silver. machicolations: an opening between the supporting corbels of a projecting parapet. What's that, eh? It's a castle thing. There was a fun (friendly) controversy over the pronunciation of this word between lindeybeige, Shadiversity, scholagladitoria, metatron, and maybe a few others outside the main core of the so-called "community of the sword". If you have an hour to kill, it might be entertaining to look it up :) I went with Shad's pronunciations. Shad has at least one video completely dedicated to what these things were and how they were used, so if you really want all the gory details, check out his channel. Or if you just like castles in general, check out his channel. Scholagladitoria for swords and sword fighting. Metatron for things to do with ancient Rome and Japan, and with linguistics. Lindeybeige for all manner of history, sword, and tank stuff. There are other channels in the community besides, you will discover them soon enough as you explore these channels. welkin: the celestial abode of the gods To follow along: http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/short-stories/245/the-white-sybil