Click HERE to listen to a reading of H.P. Lovecraft's 1925 winter-solstice-themed short story, "The Festival" (originally published in the January 1925 issue of WEIRD TALES).
"Efficiunt daemones, ut quae non sunt, sic tamen quasi sint,
conspicienda hominibus exhibeant."—Lactantius.
conspicienda hominibus exhibeant."—Lactantius.
I WAS far from home, and the spell of the eastern sea was upon me. In
the twilight I heard it pounding on the rocks, and I knew it lay just
over the hill where the twisting willows writhed against the clearing
sky and the first stars of evening. And because my fathers had called
me to the old town beyond, I pushed on through the shallow, new-fallen
snow along the road that soared lonely up to where Aldebaran twinkled
among the trees; on toward the very ancient town I had never seen but
often dreamed of.
It was the Yuletide, which men call Christmas, though they know in
their hearts it is older than Bethlehem and Babylon, older than
Memphis and mankind. It was the Yuletide, and I had come at last to
the ancient sea town where my people had dwelt and kept festival in
the elder time when festival was forbidden; where also they had
commanded their sons to keep festival once every century, that the
memory of primal secrets might not be forgotten. Mine were an old
people, old even when this land was settled three hundred years
before. And they were strange, because they had come as dark, furtive
folk from opiate southern gardens of orchids, and spoken another
tongue before they learnt the tongue of the blue-eyed fishers. And now
they were scattered, and shared only the rituals of mysteries that
none living could understand. I was the only one who came back that
night to the old fishing town as legend bade, for only the poor and
the lonely remember....
the twilight I heard it pounding on the rocks, and I knew it lay just
over the hill where the twisting willows writhed against the clearing
sky and the first stars of evening. And because my fathers had called
me to the old town beyond, I pushed on through the shallow, new-fallen
snow along the road that soared lonely up to where Aldebaran twinkled
among the trees; on toward the very ancient town I had never seen but
often dreamed of.
It was the Yuletide, which men call Christmas, though they know in
their hearts it is older than Bethlehem and Babylon, older than
Memphis and mankind. It was the Yuletide, and I had come at last to
the ancient sea town where my people had dwelt and kept festival in
the elder time when festival was forbidden; where also they had
commanded their sons to keep festival once every century, that the
memory of primal secrets might not be forgotten. Mine were an old
people, old even when this land was settled three hundred years
before. And they were strange, because they had come as dark, furtive
folk from opiate southern gardens of orchids, and spoken another
tongue before they learnt the tongue of the blue-eyed fishers. And now
they were scattered, and shared only the rituals of mysteries that
none living could understand. I was the only one who came back that
night to the old fishing town as legend bade, for only the poor and
the lonely remember....
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