Translator [to Spanish], Compiler and Responsible for the Fragments’ Order: ^
Emilio Serra
[Translated from the Spanish original by Luis G. Abbadie
[TRANSLATOR’S NOTE: The following article is one of
the finest examples of early research and exegesis of the Elder Myth-Cycles in
Spanish language. Originally published in the now-legendary magazine Nueva
Dimensión 118, Dec. 1979, and recently reprinted in issue 20 of Delirio magazine (nov. 2017). It is my belief
that its insights will be greatly appreciated by readers of this blog, and I
hope, if Walter C. DeBill, Jr. Learns of it, he will be aware of how his work,
“When Yidhra Walks”, has been of great influence among Lovecraftian fans and
writers in Spain and Mexico.
The various fragments were rendered in Spanish, of
course, but I am adhering DeBill’s English versions except where Serra’s Spanish
version deviates from them, for reasons that will be explained in notes].
A hundred April winds disperse her fragrance,
A thousand wet Octobers scour her footprints,
The ruthless years assail the ancient memory of her
presence, yet
Where Yidhra walks the hills do not forget.
-Jean-Paul LeChat.
Prefatory
note: This brief article
intends merely to present a general overview of the much-discussed cult of
Yidhra, based upon the scarce known reliable fragments relative to it, along
with a summary bibliography. In order to obtain further details, it’s
recommended to consult the original sources, unfortunately extremely difficult
to find in our country. I want to take advantaje of this opportunity to express
my gratitude to doctors Lapham and Armitage, from Miskatonic University, for
having made available for me the priceless texts kept in said University’s
Library, as well as for their aid and counsel. I also wish to acknowledge my
debt to the exhaustive research of Walter C. DeBill Jr., on which I have
fundamentally based my work.
The article consists of a brief initial summation of the foremost documented studies and of the conclusions reached by Harrison (mysteriously vanished three years ago in Milando, Texas, in the course of a field research), then continuing with an annotated translation of the classic texts relative to the cult and a short bibliography.
 |
| Nueva Dimensión 118, Dec. 1979 issue; magazine from Spain where the present article was originally published. |
Summary of Harrison’s conclusions: Yidhra would actually be one of the avatars of the universally widespread myth of a goddess of the land or of the subterranean world, relating to the archaic conceptions of prosperity, fertility and death. However, there is no direct relationship (nor any likeliness that it will be ever found; Compiler’s Note) with other such cults, cited by specialized works.
(Compiler’s Note: For further development, cf. infra, commentaries to the fragments, authored by Harrison himself).
Fragment of the Prjevalski Manuscript, discovered at Kashgar and attributed to the legendary mad Lama of Prithom-Yang (Braithwaite’s translation?).
[the “mad Lama”, Idak Yung, whose name roughly means “Voice of the Hungry Spirits", then a refugee from Tibet, was a contemporary of Abdul Alhazred, and was briefly encountered by him along the “silk road” of Persia (as mentioned in Otis / Owen's Biography of Abdallah al-Hazraj, as well as in the Necronomicon expanded edition I have prepared for Mandrágora Ediciones. Serra, as well as DeBill Jr. and Harrison, appear to be unaware that a version of the following text is reproduced by Alhazred in his Kitab Al-Azif, as shown in Otis & Owen’s Russian translation from a Greek manuscript; see addenda to the bibliography –Translator’s Note]
Yidhra, the
Lonely One, sucking the life of all things;
Lonely One,
needing the life of the Earth.
Yidhra, the
Goddess, ruling Her avatar races;
Goddess, of
vulturine Y'hath of the sky,
5 Goddess, of
Xothra who sleeps in the Earth
and wakes
to devour,
Goddess, of
men in strange places who worship her.
Yidhra, the Hierophant, teaching Her followers mysteries;
Hierophant, teaching strange tongues of the elder world.
10
Yidhra, the Bountiful, making
the hills and the meadows green;
Bountiful, showing the way to the desert springs,
Bountiful, guarding the flocks and the harvest.
Yidhra, the Lover, craving the seed of Her followers;
Lover, who must have the seed of all life,
15
Lover, who must have the seed
of change or die,
Lover, whose consorts are changed,
infused with the seed of the past and changed
to forms not of past nor of present.
Yidhra, the Mother, bringing forth spawn of the past;
20
Mother, of all things that
were,
Mother, of children of past and of present,
Mother, whose children remember all things
of their fathers long dead.
Yidhra, the Life-Giver, bringing long life to Your followers;
25
You are Giver of Life and
Eternity
to Your children, Your followers, Your disciples.
Yidhra, the Eternal Restless One, needing the sons of new fathers;
Restless One, sending Her followers forth
to seek new blood for Her endless change,
30
Restless One, craving new
lovers outside the blood of Her worshipers
lest She and Her spawn and her followers
shrivel and wither in the Death that Lives.
Yidhra, the Dream-Witch, disturbing the soul of those who gaze upon Thee;
Dream-Witch,
hiding Your face in illusion,
35
Dream-Witch, cloaking Your
shape in strange beauty.
Yidhra, the Wondrous Veil, wreathing the faithless in shadow;
Wondrous Veil, devouring that which is errant and hostile,
Wondrous Veil, which cloaks men forever…
 |
| Otis / Owen's Russian translation of Al-Azif, which contains a version of the present Yidhra poem. |
Notes to the Prjevalski Manuscript
The original manuscript consists of two semi-texts: one in hieratic Naacal and another one in ancient Birmanian. None of them is comprehensible on its own.
v.1/ Sucking:
it refers (in the original text) to assimilating absorption, with certain
connotations of pleasure. [Serra uses the Spanish word “Chupadora” which
translates as “Sucker”, obviously referring to the action of sucking, not as
the pejorative label this would be in modern slang, where DeBill’s edited text
uses “craving” - Translator’s Note]
v.4/ Y’hath:
Aerial incarnation of Yidhra, elemental spirit of the air, usually represented
with a vulture in an attitude of gliding or with an eagle attacking a sparrow.
[this brings to mind Endehuanna’s poem about Inanna, which says, “the gods are
sparrows, I am a hawk” –Translator’s Note]
v.5/ Xothra:
Earthbound incarnation of Yidhra, it is a blind, dark being, a sort of worm
with many legs, prehensile mandibles (palps) and a steely sting. Its thickness like
the height of a man standing (seven feet or so).
vv.3-6/ Curiously, the avatars of fire and water are
lacking, elements hostile to Yidhra. She cannot cross water courses and fire
destroys her.
v.7/ Cf. infra, commentary to the third fragment.
c.8/ Hierophant:
high priest in the Dionysian Mysteries and other cults of oriental roots:
Mithra, Isis. The render of the veils of unknowledge, and presents the initiate
with the true reality.
v.8/ mysteries
of Yidhra: allusion to the carnal coupling with an incarnation of the
goddess: it might conclude with the initiate’s assimilation unto the cult, his
physical transformation, or a complete rejection. Cf. supra, Prefatory Note.
v.9/ strange
tongues: Naacal, Aklo, R’lyehian, which demand a spiritual shift in the
student and/or initiate and a transformation which must be guided by an adept.
v.11/ desert
springs: much-discussed phrase of obscure interpretation. We do not know
what it refers to. [the Spanish version chooses to interpret “springs” as
“spring seasons” instead of as bodies of water, but Serra does not explain his
reasoning. –Translator’s Note]
vv.10-12/ Assimilation of Yidhra to the Mother
Goddess, Mother Earth. Relation to fertility rites, saturnalia, sabbatic
orgies?
v.13/ craving
the seed: related to v.1: Sucker of Life. [while DeBill uses “needing the
seed”, Serra substitutes for “ansía”, or “craving”, which emphasizes the
relation to v.1 –Translator’s Note]
v.14/ id. of all
life: cf. infra, fragment three (octopuses, bears, men, etc…).
v.15/ Compare with infra, fragment two.
v.16/ Cf. supra, note to v.8: physical modifications.
Relations to the myth of Circe.
v.17/ infused with the seed: vid. Note to verse 13.
Cf. the Carly Simon song “After the Storm”.
vv.18-21/ Allusions to the past and the timelessness
of Yidhra’s physical entity, as well as her worshippers’ Mystical Body.
vv.22-23/ The genetic pool of the (mortal) father
remains, literally copied, in his (immortal) children with Yidhra. They are,
after a fashion, genetic doppelgangers (clones).
vv.24-26/ Greatly discussed version of an extremely
obscure fragment of the manuscript. The words child, disciple, worshipper and
follower are variants of the same root morpheme with different prefixes and/or
suffixes. Lacking any explanatory context of the cult adepts’ social structure,
we cannot know the differences between each other of these types of denotation.
[on top of this, these verses display the most marked deviation from DeBill’s
English rendering, which reads as follows: “Yidhra, the Life-Giver, bringing
long life to her followers; / Life-Giver, giving the centuries endlessly / to
her children and lovers and worshipers”. It stands to reason that Emilio Serra
chose to alter this and other portions due to having had access to the original
sources at Miskatonic University, and perhaps under Drs. Lapham and Armitage’s
advise. –Translator’s Note]
v.27/ Eternal
Restless One: employed in the sense of sleepless. Poetic figure alluding to
the goddess’ condition of perpetual awareness, which becomes extensive to her
adepts. [DeBill omits “Eternal”. The translation varies a bit, but the nuance
is similar enough both in the phrase and the commentary: “Eterna sin Sueño”. –Translator’s Note]
v.29/ endless
change: cf. infra, commentary to fragment two.
v.32/ Death that Lives: we are in complete ignorance
of what this phrase refers to. We might lucubrate that this is the return to
the originary protoplasmatic matrix in Yidhra’s body, or even a fusion with the
archetypal father of all life, Mlandoth.[DeBill renders this as “living death”.
While the significance is far from clear, this may be connected to Yidhra’s
role as queen of the Underworld in Alhazredic daemonology, in a role sometimes
analogous to that of the Babylonian Ereshkigal. The similarity, of course, does
not indicate an exact cognate; it is well known that Yidhra is goddess of both
life and death, and her (possibly cyclical) rulership in the realm of the dead,
according to the Necronomicon, does
not limit her to a “death goddess”. –Translator’s Note]
vv.33-35/ Dream-Witch:
untranslatable phrase formed by the roots of the word witch (sorceress,
enchantress) and dream (in the onirical sense; enchantment, phantasmagoria). It
might be: she who dominates the enchantment which deceives the senses. Cf.
infra, fragment three. [Serra chooses to render this as “Bruja-Sueño”,
conjoining the concepts of both witch and dream, instead of interpreting it in
the sense of a “witch of dreams”. On a different note, the second half of verse
33 varies somewhat in DeBill’s edition: “clouding the minds of Her followers”
–Translator’s Note]
v.36/Wondrous
Veil: phrase coined by Braithwaite (?) in order to describe two words
related to “curtain of mist” and “reflecting mirror”. [The word used in DeBill
is “Shrouder”, which fits the version found in Otis & Owen’s Russian Necronomicon; “Wondrous Veil” may be
Serra’s own effort to find a more adequate rendering. At any rate, this
supports my hypothesis that DeBill Jr. may have actually used some other
available source (perhaps Alhazred, or Feery’s notes on his book?) from those
used by Serra –Translator’s Note]
v.36/ wreathing
the faithless in shadow: deceiving the faithless driving them away from the
cult centers? (any interpretation is lacking sufficient basis)
v.37/ Allusion to the direct, undifferentiated
assimilation of beings hostile to the cult, which leads to their death. Their
genetic pool remains unincorporated to Yidhra. [still, DeBill’s version refers
to “the errant and hostile ones”, while Serra opts for a more impersonal
sentence –Translator’s Note]
v.38/ Incomplete fragment wherein the manuscript ends.
It may perhaps mean that Yidhra is indestructible by any means. [oddly enough,
the version reproduced by Otis & Owen in the Russian Necronomicon ends similarly. The coincidence is too great, and
suggests that several copies of the manuscript must have, for whatever reason,
cut off at the same point. Perhaps the full version of the text was revealed
only to adepts, and this was an expurgated reading handed out to neophytes?
Serra’s description of the fragment being composed by two incomplete,
intersecting texts makes this even more dubious. Could there originally have
been a third text? –Translator’s
Note]
 |
| Compiled by E.P. Berglund, the first Cthulhu Mythos anthology entirely composed of new materials (1976). It included "When Yidhra Walks", account of the recent incidents at Milando, Texas. |
Commentary to the entirety of the text: Composed of alternate fragments in second and third person [again, Emilio Serra is not completely straightforward; DeBill’s entire rendering is all in third person; although this might be due to a faulty copyriter’s attempt to unify the text –Translator’s Note], in the style of Naacal versification, for instance, in the Pnakotic Manuscripts and in the Sussex Fragments (although the latter are an Aklo version of a Naacal original) [a set of tablets supposedly dating from the Pleistocene kept at the Wharby Museum in Yorkshire, not to be confused with the Sussex Maniscript, which refers to the book titled Cultus Maleficarum -Translator's Note]. The various attributes of the goddess (ten, plus an atypical one: Sucker of Life) adjust to the following scheme, as far as the number of verses goes: 2, 5, 2, 3, 6, 5, 3, 6, 3, 3 (?), a series which displays a certain regularity according to R’lyehian mathematics (vid. Lin Carter’s study on the Xothic Cycle legends and the appendix on mathematics by Churchyard and Benson).
Three
Fragments
The three texts that follow, two of them commented by Harrison and which are part of the notes he left behind upon his disappearance (notes found by Peter Kovacs at Milando, in Yolanda Prentiss’ possession; see bibliography), are the only ones which, directly referencing Yidhra (and in one instance, in passing, to Mlandoth), are acknowledged by experts as “non-apocryphal”, All three were transalated by Harrison directly from the original version, and disagrees at some points with the (now classical) versions listed in the bibliography.
Fragment of count Von Könnenberg’s Uralte Schrecken, XIXth Century treatise
on ancient religious cults; translated by Harrison, 1976.
Certainaly Ngyr-Khorath, the mad and monstrous thing which haunted this region of space before the solar system was formed and haunts it still, is but a local eddy of the vastness that is Mlandoth. And is not fabled Ymnar, the dark stalker and seducer of all Earthly intelligence, merely the arm of Ngyr-Khorath, an organ created in the image of Earthly Life and consciousness to corrupt that Life and lead it to its own destruction?
And does not even great Yidhra, who was born of and with the life of Earth and who through the aeons intertwines endlessly with all Earthly life-forms, teach reverence for Mlandoth?
(There is no commentary).
Excerpt from U Pao’s Black Sutra, Harrison’s translation
(1976).
Before death was born, She was born; and for untold eons there was life without death, life without birth, life unchanging. But at last death came; birth came; life became mortal and mutable, and thereafter fathers died, sons were born, and never was the son exactly as the father; and the slime became the worm and the worm the serpent, the serpent became the yeti of the mountain forests and the yeti became man. Of all living things only She escaped death, escaped birth. But She could not escape change, for all living things must change as the trees of the north must shed their leaves to live in winter and put them on to live in spring. And therefore She learned to devour the mortal and mutable creatures, and from their seed to change Her-self , and to be as all mortal things as She willed, and to live forever without birth, without death. [A comparison with Harrison’s notes with Kovacs’ quotes in his 1976 account, as edited by DeBill Jr., will show a couple of minor variants, such as the italics and the rendering of “Her-self” –Translator’s Note]
Translator’s [that is, Harrison, the original English translator’s] comment: U Pao was early Burmese sage – incredibly preceding evolutionary principles – is it possible that a protean macroorganism could have developed and survived from before the advent of individual reproduction and death? How could it have survived in competition with organisms capable of evolution? Disturbing references to changes in Y.”
[Again, Harrison’s notes show minor changes over the best-known version; I chose to follow Serra’s lead over Kovacs/DeBill’s version in the DAW books 1976 edition since his version appears to enhance the text, and he had direct access to Harrison’s notes, unfiltered by possible changes by a well-meaning copyriter –Translator’s Note]
Fragment of the Chronicles of Thran, Harrison’s
translation (1976).
Yidhra devoured the octopus and learned to put forth a tentacle; she devoured the bear and learned to cloth herself in fur against the creeping ice of the north; indeed can Yidhra take any shape known to living things. Yet no shape can she take which is truly mute, for she partakes of all creatures, mad as well as fair. To her followers she appears in many gentle and comely forms, but this is because they see not her true form, but only such as she wills them to see. For as her adepts can send their thoughts and visions to one another over great distances, so can Yidhra send her thoughts to men and cause them to see only what she wills. Indeed it is by sending her thoughts that Yidhra remains in one soul, for in body she is many, hidden in the jungles of the south, the icy wastes of the north, and the deserts beyond the Southern sea. Thus it is that though her temples are many, she may enter them all at once, and conjoin carnally with her followers, yet maintain, in her consciousness is a vast and deep unity.
[The text varies increasingly from Kovacs/DeBill’s rendering, which causes one to wonder whether DeBill may have used other standard sources for the fragments’ transcription when editing Kovacs’ account –perhaps because he clearly had little time to do so, given that the account was published in E.P. Berglund’s The Disciples of Cthulhu, still dated 1976, and even the sherriff’s attestation of the incident was filed only in october of the same year (see bibliography); this is why I wonder whether Harrison’s actual variant translations are actually as presented by Serra. It should be noticed that Serra credits the source as the Chronicles of Thran, which differs from the document’s actual name as correctly used by De Bill, Chronicles of Thrang –the correct R’lyehian name for the Elder Things from Alhazredic daemonology, to whom the core section of book are mythically attributed. Tracking down the information in the bibliography, I’ve found that the translation titled Chronicles of Thran (not Thrang) and issued by Miskatonic Univerity Press in 1926 (consulted by Serra according to the bibliography), is generally acknowledged as an accurate translation.
Here is the variant text as presented by DeBill: “Yidhra take any shape known to living things. Yet no shape can she take which is truly fair, for she partakes of all foul creatures as well as fair. To her followers she appears in many fair and comely forms, but this is because they see not her true form, but only such visions as she wills them to see. For as the adepts can send their thoughts and visions to one another over great distances so can Yidhra send her thoughts to men and cause them to see only what she wills. Indeed it is by sending her thoughts that Yidhra remains in one soul, for in body she is many, hidden in the jungles of the south, the icy wastes of the north, and the deserts beyond the western sea. Thus it is that though her temples are many, she waits by all, combining bodily with her diverse followers, yet her consciousness is a vast unity.”
It bears mention that this may be the aspect of the Yidhra myth that took up the fancies of fourteen-year-old psychosis victim Marjorie Barrett, whose alleged "possession" and subsequent, tragic, media fiasco were recorded by Paul Tremblay (see addenda to the bibliography). Tremblay, however, avoided mentioning the concrete sources (very likely Kovacs' DeBill Jr. edited account) for the Yidhra lore, which stands out since he does casually list the sources for other materials in the same breath, which has given researchers some curiosity].
Translator’s [Harrison’s] comment: One of the later additions to the Chronicles, probably from pre-Sumerian Ngarathoe just after the last ice age. Fragmented organism, linked by telepathic links, would explain the ability to manifest herself at cult centers throughout the world –von Könnenberg and Crowley mentioned centers in Laos, New Mexico, Chad, West Texas. Telepathically induced visions could explain appearances in animal and human form. Need for evolutionary adaptation satisfied by absorbing genetic material (nucleic acids?) from organisms that reproduce – could also develop intellectual possibilities…”
Bibliography:
[I am respecting Serra's unorthodox source listing -Translator's Note]
Revelations Chthoniques, Thanang Phram. Singapur, 1925 (ed. Braithwaite)
Sutra
Negro [Black Sutra], U Pao. Madrid, 1884 (no
publication details).
Chronicles
of Thran. Anonymous (various
compilers). Arkham, 1926 (Miskatonic University Press)
Prjevalski
Manuscript (fragment),
trans. By Braithwaite (attributed). The translation is found at the Miskatonic
University Library, the original being kept at the British Museum.
Notes on The
Mlandoth Myth-Cycle, Walter C. DeBill Jr. Privately issued, 1979.
“Where Yidhra Walks” (narration by Peter Kovacs about the occurrences at Milando, in which reference is made to Harrison’s notes), edited by W.C. DeBill Jr. (in The Disciples of Cthulhu, NY, 1976, DAW Books, and in novelized version). [This anthology is currently available in a second, revised edition]
Harrison Notes on Yidhra
Cult in west Texas (compiled by Peter Kovacs). Miskatonic University Press,
1979.
Elégies
pour Yidhra, Jean-Paul
LeChat. New Orleans, 1960. (French in the original text).
The
Quest of Mlandoth,
Jean-Paul LeChat (issued by W.C. DeBill Jr., in a private and very limited edition).
(J.P. LeChat: Born in New Orleans, 1931 – missing in Chad, 1957. Poet who
endeavored to research the cult of Yidhra. This epic-mythical-poetic-book is
attributed to him due to its having been found among his personal effects,
after his disappearance).
Attestation by the Edmondsville sheriff concerning the
Milando incidents. County archives, oct. 1976. (Includes the declarations of
Peter Kovacs and Yolanda Prentiss), (Compiler’s Note: The Milando incidents caused,
according to Y. Prentiss, the deaths of five persons although, according to P.
Kovacs’ tale, the victims were six, among which miss Prentiss herself should be
included. Due to this circumstance, Mr. Kovacs’ tale is usually considered a
work of imagination, not too reliable).
El
mito del Eterno Retorno [The Myth of the Eternal Return], Mircea
Eliade, Alianza Editorial, Madrid.
“Algunas reflexiones sobre el comportamiento de las
máquinas inteligentes” [Some Reflections Concerning the Behavior of Intelligent
Machines], JGG. Published in the Journal
of HP Lovecraft Society magazine, may 1978 (edited by Fritz Lieber). In
spanish in the original.
“Some Notes on The
Xothic Myth-Cycle”, Lin Carter. TAC (The
Arkham Collector), 1973.
Exhaustive Encyclopedy on The Elder Cosmic Myth-Cycles, compiled by Lin Carter (30 vols.)
Appendix: “The R’lyehian Mathematics” (by Churchyard and Benson). Miskatonic
University Press, 1979 (some vols. Presently in press).
Pnakotic
Manuscripts (original
kept at the Sandbourne Institute, Santiago, Calif.), trans. by the Oxford
University.
Uralte
Schrecken, von
Könnenberg. Düsseldorf, 1812.
[Addenda to the Bibliography:
Завет Мёртвых (Некрономикон), by Elias Otis and Anna
Nancy Owen, 2009.
Necronomicón
I: Los Nombres de los Perdidos, y Necronomicón II: La Liturgia
del Caos, trans. Luis G. Abbadie, Mandrágora Ediciones. Vol. III currently in preparation.
Una
cabeza llena de fantasmas (A Head Full of Ghosts, 2015),
Paul Tremblay, Nocturna Ediciones.
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