“I don’t think you were wise to do that,” he said reflectively. “I’ve heard it said that the Wood Gods are rather horrible to those who molest them.”
“Horrible perhaps to those that believe in them, but you see I don’t,” retorted Sylvia.
— Saki (The Music on the Hill)
“We were kings of old!” they chanted,
“Rulers of a world enchanted;
“Every nation of creation
“Owned our lordship over men.
“Diadems of power crowned us,
“Then rose Solomon to confound us,
“In the form of beasts he bound us,
“So our rule was broken then.”— Robert E. Howard (Song of the Bats)
It was the indignant grins of the liches that made him aware. Jovial secret jests as the cretins observed the pitter of dripping water from the funeral home’s roof onto his dead wife’s waxen face. In that callous moment with this crowd of sycophants, Roger almost turned maniacal. Grumbling in a rage, he saw the owner—Trampus Hock, run to wipe the water from her cheek. –Jeffrey LeBlanc (Hell’s Forge)
“The sun was dying, and its blood spattered the sky as it crept into its sepulcher behind the hills. The keening wind sent the dry, fallen leaves scurrying toward the west, as though hastening them to the funeral of the sun.
“Nuts!” said Henderson to himself, and stopped thinking.”–Robert Bloch (The Cloak)
Long were the mansion’s mysteries, horrendous were its horrors, and vague were the details of the missing and presumed dead across the mansion grounds. For the past, and the forgetful dead had now hidden much of the sinister, and fogged the memory of the evil that had scorched the manor with a more devious name—Hell’s Forge. Jeffrey LeBlanc (Hell’s Forge)
“And a strange spirit stalks
When the red surr has set.
And the soul of the watcher is filled
With faint pictures he fain would forget”.
—H. P. Lovecraft (The House)
And some return by the failing light
And some in the waking dream
For she hears the heels of the dripping ghosts
That ride the rough roofbeam–Rudyard Kipling
Then his voice rose until it filled the cavern. “But the curse was nothing. Words can do no harm, can do nothing, to a man. I live. A hundred generations have I seen come and go, and yet another hundred. What is time? The sun rises and sets, and another day has passed into oblivion. Men watch the sun and set their lives by it. They league themselves on every hand with time. They count the minutes that race them into eternity. Man outlived the centuries ere he began to reckon time. Time is man-made. Eternity is the work of the gods. In this cavern there is no such thing as time. There are no stars, no sun. Without is time; within is eternity. We count not time. Nothing marks the speeding of the hours. The youths go forth. They see the sun, the stars. They reckon time. And they pass. –Robert E. Howard (The Lost Race)
“For life is a little matter,
And death is nought to the young;
And I dare not sell my honour
Under the eye of my son.
Take him, O king, and bind him,
And cast him far in the deep;
And it’s I will tell the secret
That I have sworn to keep.”–Robert Louis Stevenson (Heather Ale)
