SHUGORAN (NYARLATHOTEP)
"The model next to it wears a green silk ceremonial robe from Negri Sembilan, most rugged of the Malayan provinces. Note central motif of native man blowing ceremonial horn, and the graceful curve of his instrument; the figure is believed to be a representation of "Death's Herald", possibly warning villagers of approaching calamity. Gift of an anonymous donor, the robe is probably Tcho-tcho in origin and dates from the early 19th century."
"INT: This Malay youth has sketched a picture of a demon he calls Shoo Goron. (To Boy) I wonder if you can tell me something about the instrument he's blowing out of. It looks like the Jewish Shofar, or ram's horn. (Again to Boy) That's all right. No need to be frightened.
BOY: No horn. Is no horn. (Weeps) Is him.
...Despite the richness and variety of their folklore, however, they have nothing akin to the Malay shugoran, a kind of bogey-man used to frighten naughty children. The traveller hears many conflicting descriptions of it, some bordering on the obscene. (Oran, of course, is Malay for 'man', while shug, which here connotes 'sniffing' or 'questing', means literally, 'elephant's trunk'.) I well recall the hide which hung over the bar at the Traders' Club in Singapore, and which, according to tradition, represented the infant of this fabulous creature; its wings were black. Shortly after the War a regimental surgeon was passing through on his way back to Gibraltar and , after dude examination, pronounced it the dried-out skin of a rather large catfish. He was never asked back."
"My sister only reinforced the mood when, sending me a rather salacious story she'd found in the Enquirer-about the 'thing like a vacuum cleaner' that snaked through a Swedish sailero's porthole and 'made his face all purple'.
"Shortly before midnigh Mrs. Florence Cavenaugh, a housewife living at 7 Alyssum Terrace, Cutter's Grove, was about to close the curtains in her front room when she saw, peering through the window at her, what she described as 'a large man wearing a gas mask or scuba outfit."
"Local police favor the 'scuba' theory, since near the window they've discovered footprints that may have been made by a heavy man in swim fins."
T.E.D. Klein, Black Man With a Horn
"The model next to it wears a green silk ceremonial robe from Negri Sembilan, most rugged of the Malayan provinces. Note central motif of native man blowing ceremonial horn, and the graceful curve of his instrument; the figure is believed to be a representation of "Death's Herald", possibly warning villagers of approaching calamity. Gift of an anonymous donor, the robe is probably Tcho-tcho in origin and dates from the early 19th century."
"INT: This Malay youth has sketched a picture of a demon he calls Shoo Goron. (To Boy) I wonder if you can tell me something about the instrument he's blowing out of. It looks like the Jewish Shofar, or ram's horn. (Again to Boy) That's all right. No need to be frightened.
BOY: No horn. Is no horn. (Weeps) Is him.
...Despite the richness and variety of their folklore, however, they have nothing akin to the Malay shugoran, a kind of bogey-man used to frighten naughty children. The traveller hears many conflicting descriptions of it, some bordering on the obscene. (Oran, of course, is Malay for 'man', while shug, which here connotes 'sniffing' or 'questing', means literally, 'elephant's trunk'.) I well recall the hide which hung over the bar at the Traders' Club in Singapore, and which, according to tradition, represented the infant of this fabulous creature; its wings were black. Shortly after the War a regimental surgeon was passing through on his way back to Gibraltar and , after dude examination, pronounced it the dried-out skin of a rather large catfish. He was never asked back."
"My sister only reinforced the mood when, sending me a rather salacious story she'd found in the Enquirer-about the 'thing like a vacuum cleaner' that snaked through a Swedish sailero's porthole and 'made his face all purple'.
"Shortly before midnigh Mrs. Florence Cavenaugh, a housewife living at 7 Alyssum Terrace, Cutter's Grove, was about to close the curtains in her front room when she saw, peering through the window at her, what she described as 'a large man wearing a gas mask or scuba outfit."
"Local police favor the 'scuba' theory, since near the window they've discovered footprints that may have been made by a heavy man in swim fins."
T.E.D. Klein, Black Man With a Horn
I love this story and I love your design... but I never took shugoran to be Nyarlathotep just a Lovecraftian beastie. What gave you the idea it was something more? Just curious...
ReplyDeleteInteresting design with the three lobed eye. Black Man with a Horn is one of the best post-Lovecraft mythos stories. I would say it makes sense that the Shugaron is connected with Nyarlathotep, although that isn't explicitly stated in the story, which is set in a world in which Lovecraft's stories are fictional, but not entirely fictional.
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