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[[File:Cthulhu3.jpg|thumb|A sketch of [[Cthulhu]] drawn by Lovecraft, May 11, 1934]]
The '''Cthulhu Mythos''' is a [[mythopoeia]] and a [[shared fictional universe]], originating in the works of Anglo-American [[Horror fiction|horror writer]] [[H. P. Lovecraft]]. The term was coined by [[August Derleth]], a contemporary correspondent and [[protégé]] of Lovecraft, to identify the settings, tropes, and lore that were employed by Lovecraft and his literary successors. The name "[[Cthulhu]]" derives from the central creature in Lovecraft's seminal short story "[[The Call of Cthulhu]]", first published in the [[pulp magazine]] ''[[Weird Tales]]'' in 1928.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Lovecraft |first=H.P. |title=Tales |date=2005 |publisher=Library of America |isbn=1931082723 |edition=2nd |location=New York |oclc=56068806 |author-link=H. P. Lovecraft}}</ref>▼
▲The '''Cthulhu Mythos''' is a [[mythopoeia]] and a [[shared fictional universe]], originating in the works of American [[Horror fiction|horror writer]] [[H. P. Lovecraft]]. The term was coined by [[August Derleth]], a contemporary correspondent and [[protégé]] of Lovecraft, to identify the settings, tropes, and lore that were employed by Lovecraft and his literary successors. The name "[[Cthulhu]]" derives from the central creature in Lovecraft's seminal short story "[[The Call of Cthulhu]]", first published in the [[pulp magazine]] ''[[Weird Tales]]'' in 1928.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Lovecraft |first=H.P. |title=Tales |date=2005 |publisher=Library of America |isbn=1931082723 |edition=2nd |location=New York |oclc=56068806 |author-link=H. P. Lovecraft}}</ref>
[[Richard L. Tierney]], a writer who also wrote Mythos tales, later applied the term "Derleth Mythos" to distinguish Lovecraft's works from Derleth's later stories, which modify key tenets of the Mythos.<ref>{{Cite magazine |last=Price |first=Robert M. |author-link=Robert M. Price |date=November 1, 1982 |title=Cthulhu Elsewhere in Lovecraft |magazine=Crypt of Cthulhu |language=en-US |issue=9 |pages=13–15 |issn=1077-8179}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Schweitzer |first=Darrell |title=Discovering H. P. Lovecraft |date=2001 |publisher=Wildside Press |isbn=978-1587154713 |edition=revised |location=Holicong, PA |page=52 |author-link=Darrell Schweitzer}}</ref> Authors of [[Lovecraftian horror]] in particular frequently use elements of the Cthulhu Mythos.<ref name="Harms">{{Cite book |last=Harms |first=Daniel |url=https://archive.org/details/encyclopediacthu00dani |title=The Encyclopedia Cthulhiana |date=1998 |publisher=Chaosium, Inc. |isbn=978-1568821191 |edition=2nd |location=Oakland, CA |url-access=registration}}</ref>{{rp|viii–ix}}
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==History==
[[File:H. P. Lovecraft in DeLand Florida, June 1934.png|thumb|upright|H. P. Lovecraft, the creator of the Cthulhu Mythos|alt=A June 1934 photograph of H. P. Lovecraft, facing left]]
In his essay "H. P. Lovecraft and the Cthulhu Mythos", [[Robert M. Price]] described two stages in the development of the Cthulhu Mythos. Price called the first stage the "Cthulhu Mythos proper". This stage was formulated during Lovecraft's lifetime and was subject to his guidance. The second stage was guided by August Derleth who, in addition to publishing Lovecraft's stories after his death, attempted to categorize and expand the Mythos.<ref name="Bloch">{{Cite book |last1=Lovecraft |first1=H.P. |title=The Best of H. P. Lovecraft: Bloodcurdling Tales of Horror and the Macabre |last2=Bloch |first2=Robert |date=1987 |publisher=Ballantine Publishing Group |isbn=0345350804 |edition=1st |location=New York |author-link2=Robert Bloch}}</ref>{{rp|8}}<ref name="Price">{{Cite book |last=Price |first=Robert M. |author-link=Robert M. Price |title=H. P. Lovecraft and the Cthulhu Mythos |date=1990 |publisher=Starmont House |isbn=1557421528 |location=Mercer Island, WA}}</ref>{{rp|5}}
===First stage===
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The view that there was no rigid structure is expounded upon by [[S. T. Joshi]], who said
{{blockquote|Lovecraft's imaginary [[cosmogony]] was never a static system but rather a sort of aesthetic construct that remained ever adaptable to its creator's developing personality and altering
Price said Lovecraft's writings could at least be divided into categories and identified three distinct themes: the "Dunsanian" (written in a similar style as [[Lord Dunsany]]), "[[Arkham]]" (occurring in Lovecraft's fictionalized [[New England]] setting), and "Cthulhu" (the cosmic tales) cycles.<ref name="Price" />{{rp|9}} Writer Will Murray noted that while Lovecraft often used his fictional pantheon in the stories he ghostwrote for other authors, he reserved Arkham and its environs exclusively for those tales he wrote under his own name.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Van Hise |first=James |title=The Fantastic Worlds of H. P. Lovecraft |date=1999 |publisher=James Van Hise |edition=1st |location=Yucca Valley, CA |oclc=60496802 |asin=B000E9KQXS |pages=105–107}}</ref>
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Price denotes the second stage's commencement with August Derleth, with the principal difference between Lovecraft and Derleth being Derleth's use of hope and development of the idea that the Cthulhu Mythos essentially represented a struggle between good and evil.<ref name="Bloch" />{{rp|9}} Derleth is credited with creating the "Elder Gods". He stated:
{{bquote|As Lovecraft conceived the deities or forces of his mythos, there were, initially, the Elder
Price said the basis for Derleth's system is found in Lovecraft: "Was Derleth's use of the rubric 'Elder Gods' so alien to Lovecraft's in ''At the Mountains of Madness''? Perhaps not. In fact, this very story, along with some hints from "The Shadow over Innsmouth", provides the key to the origin of the 'Derleth Mythos'. For in ''At the Mountains of Madness'' is shown the history of a conflict between interstellar races, first among them the Elder Ones and the Cthulhu-spawn."<ref>{{Cite magazine |last=Price |first=Robert M. |date=June 23, 1982 |title=The Lovecraft-Derleth Connection |url=http://crypt-of-cthulhu.com/lovecraftderleth.htm |url-status=dead |magazine=Crypt of Cthulhu |issue=6 |pages=3–8 |issn=1077-8179 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130217054944/http://www.crypt-of-cthulhu.com/lovecraftderleth.htm |archive-date=February 17, 2013}}</ref>
Derleth said Lovecraft wished for other authors to actively write about the Mythos as opposed to it being a discrete plot device within Lovecraft's own stories.<ref name="Connors" />{{rp|46–47}} Derleth expanded the boundaries of the Mythos by including any passing reference to another author's story elements by Lovecraft as part of the genre. Just as Lovecraft made passing reference to Clark Ashton Smith's ''[[Cthulhu Mythos arcane literature#Book of Eibon|Book of Eibon]]'', Derleth in turn added Smith's [[Outer God#Ubbo-Sathla|Ubbo-Sathla]] to the Mythos.<ref name="Price" />{{rp|9–10}}
Derleth also attempted to connect the deities of the Mythos to the [[Classical element|four elements]] (air, earth, fire, and water), creating new beings representative of certain elements in order to legitimize his system of classification. He created "Cthugha" as a sort of fire elemental when a fan, Francis Towner Laney, complained that he had neglected to include the element in his schema. Laney, the editor of ''[[The Acolyte (fanzine)|The Acolyte]]'', had categorized the Mythos in an essay that first appeared in the Winter 1942 issue of the magazine.
Impressed by the glossary, Derleth asked Laney to rewrite it for publication in the Arkham House collection ''Beyond the Wall of Sleep'' (1943).<ref>{{Cite magazine |last=Price |first=Robert M. |date=June 23, 1985 |title=Editorial Shards |magazine=Crypt of Cthulhu |issue=32 |page=2 |issn=1077-8179}}</ref> Laney's essay ("The Cthulhu Mythos") was later republished in ''Crypt of Cthulhu #32'' (1985). In applying the elemental theory to beings that function on a cosmic scale (e.g., [[Yog-Sothoth]]) some authors created a fifth element that they termed ''aethyr''.{{Citation needed|date=December 2016}}
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! Water
|- style="vertical-align: top;"
| style="padding:0em 0.75em;" | [[Hastur]]<br />[[Ithaqua]]*<br />[[Nyarlathotep]]<br />[[Zhar (Great Old One)|Zhar and Lloigor]]*
| style="padding:0em 0.75em;" | Cyäegha<br />[[List of Great Old Ones#Nyogtha|Nyogtha]]<br />[[Shub-Niggurath]]<br />[[Tsathoggua]]
| style="padding:0em 0.75em;" | [[List of Great Old Ones#Aphoom-Zhah|Aphoom-Zhah]]<br />[[Cthugha]]*<br />Yig
| style="padding:0em 0.75em;" | [[Cthulhu]]<br />[[Deep One#Father Dagon and Mother Hydra|Dagon]]<br />[[Ghatanothoa]]<br />[[Deep One#Father Dagon and Mother Hydra|Mother Hydra]]<br />[[Xothic legend cycle#Zoth-Ommog|Zoth-Ommog]]
|-
| colspan="4" style="font-size: 90%;" | * Deity created by Derleth
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== Fictional cults ==
A number of fictional [[Cult (religious practice)|cults]] dedicated to "malevolent supernatural entities" appear in the Cthulhu Mythos, the loosely connected series of horror stories written by Lovecraft and other writers inspired by his creations.<ref>{{cite
== Significance ==
The Cthulhu Mythos of H. P. Lovecraft is considered to have been highly influential for the [[speculative fiction]] genre. It has been called "the official [[fictional religion]] of fantasy, science fiction, and horror, a grab bag for writers in need of unthinkably vast, and unthinkably indifferent, eldritch entities".<ref name=":9">{{Cite journal |last=Bialecki |first=Jon |date=2019-01-01 |title=America's Dark Theologian: The Religious Imagination of Stephen King. |url=https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?p=AONE&sw=w&issn=21509298&v=2.1&it=r&id=GALE%7CA673438134&sid=googleScholar&linkaccess=abs |journal=Religion and Society |language=English |volume=10 |pages=176–179}}</ref>
== Biology ==
''[[Sollasina cthulhu]]'', an extinct [[Ophiocistioidea|ophiocistioid]] [[echinoderm]], is named after the Cthulhu Mythos.<ref>{{cite journal | journal =Proceedings of the Royal Society B | volume=286 | issue=1900 | pages=20182792 | year=2019|first1=Imran A. |last1= Rahman |first2=Jeffrey R. |last2=Thompson |first3=Derek E. G. |last3=Briggs |first4= David J. |last4=Siveter |first5= Derek J. |last5=Siveter |first6=Mark D. |last6=Sutton |title=A new ophiocistioid with soft-tissue preservation from the Silurian Herefordshire Lagerstätte, and the evolution of the holothurian body plan |doi=10.1098/rspb.2018.2792 | pmid=30966985 | pmc=6501687 }}</ref>
==See also==
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{{Hugo Award Best Series}}
{{Narrative}}
{{Fantasy fiction
[[Category:Cthulhu Mythos| ]]
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