Carcosa

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The Dreamland of Carcosa (AKA "Lost Carcosa", "Dim Carcosa") first appeared in Ambrose Bierce, "An Inhabitant of Carcosa (fiction)", adapted by Robert W. Chambers for The King in Yellow (fiction), given a shout-out by H.P. Lovecraft and subsequently adopted into the Cthulhu Mythos by August Derleth, Lin Carter, Sandy Petersen and Chaosium, and others.

Dreamland of Carcosa

Carcosa is the name of the Dreamland, where Hastur and/or the King in Yellow hold sway. What is known of Carcosan Geography on waking Earth is derived from The King in Yellow (tome), a play where it is feverishly described in poetic terms that are surreal, shifting, vague, and couched in poetic metaphor and allegory: depending on the situation, proper names might have double- or triple-meanings referring obscurely to cities, nations, planets, dimensions, people, gods, works of literature, or states of consciousness; there seems little agreement between any two critics on exactly what the play's subtext might be alluding to, as no one who has read the tome can be said to be fully sane. For those who have visited the Dreamland, even the skies of Carcosa are alien: the tatters and shreds of The King in Yellow's cloak can be seen looming in the sky above, behind the moons and black stars that serve as Dim Carcosa's suns, and perspective, time, and space are all completely subjective and shifting in Carcosa, depending on the situation, and on the beholder's mood or sanity: in Carcosa, up is down, forward is backward, gigantic is tiny, here is there, and the future and past are indistinguishable.

Celestial Carcosa

As the Twin Suns sink into the lakes of Hali and Demhe, and the shadows lengthen like men's thoughts in the afternoon, strange is the night in Carcosa where Black Stars rise and hang in the heavens, and Strange Moons dripping with the spray of the setting suns circle through the skies in front of the Towers of Carcosa, while behind Black Stars the flapping, scalloped Tatters of the King, Yhtill hides forever, and Aldebaran, the Mystery of the Hyades, Alar, and Hastur glide silently through the yellow cloud-rifts.

Lake of Hali

Twin suns sink into the unsounded lake of Hali, thin and blank, without a ripple or wind to stir it, and chill, wet winds blow across the lake and cloud-waves roll and break upon the shorelines as the strange moons above drip with the spray.... By some later accounts, the Great Old One Hastur sleeps in the depths of Hali; some of the descriptions of Hali suggest that it might not precisely be a lake, but instead a feature of the Carcosan night sky....

Lake of Demhe

Hali and the lakes which connected Hastur, Aldebaran and the mystery of the Hyades.... There seems to be a theme of reflection involved here: twin suns, twin lakes of Hali and Demhe, and by some accounts the rival twin cities of Carcosa and Alar which stand behind their respective lakes. Perhaps the two cities were built in symmetry and opposition to each other, or perhaps this suggests a mirror-image of Carcosa beside the Lake of Hali: Alar and Demhe are the inverted reflection of Carcosa in its lake, a sort of haunted mirror-world of opposites, even a Dreamworld reflection of its waking equivalent, with the boundary between the two worlds being crossed through the reflection where the lakes of Hali above and Demhe below meet? If so, the corruption of the King in Yellow seems to have already conquered one side of this reflection, and is already at work on the other side, too, which will soon fall to the King's malignant influence as well.

Strange Moons

Strange moons, damp with the spray of the lakes below, circle the skies, passing before the Towers of Carcosa. These moons have no names, and as described they are an impossibility of perspective and size, and the description of these moons circling in front of the Towers of Carcosa, or drip with the spray of the suns sinking into the lakes below, suggest that perhaps these moons defy Earthly physics, perspective, astronomy, etc. Or, perhaps Hastur and Hali are not lakes in the usual sense, but rather features of the night sky of Carcosa - perhaps large, dark voids of space or cosmic dust which conceal the suns?

Twin Suns

Carcosa's nameless(?) twin suns sink into the lakes, casting lengthening shadows upon the land. It's possible that Carcosa's twin suns are Aldebaran and Hastur (as a celestial body), and the impossible description of them sinking into the twin lakes of Hali and Demhi suggest perhaps that Hastur and Hali are not lakes in the usual sense, but rather features of the night sky of Carcosa - perhaps large, dark voids of space or cosmic dust which conceal the suns?

Yhtill

Yhtill, possibly a city or a world, hides forever within the scalloped Tatters of the King which hang and flap behind the Black Stars. As a world or a star, it is perhaps hidden behind the "Tatters of the King", a vast, yellow, nebula....

Black Stars

The unnamed Black Stars of the Carcosan sky are joined by Aldebaran, Hastur, and the Mystery of the Hyades. Hastur as a celestial body may be one of these "Black Stars" (or cold, dark stars?), and by some later accounts, Hastur originates from the Lake of Hali on a planet orbiting such a star.

Aldebaran

The Hyades and Aldebaran are part of the constellation of Taurus, near the Pleiades; Aldebaran has come to play a role in Summoning and Gate spells relating to Hastur and the Dreamland of Carcosa.

Hyades

The Hyades and Aldebaran are part of the constellation of Taurus, near the Pleiades. It's unclear what the Mystery of the Hyades refers to.

Hastur

Hastur is sometimes described as if it were a star or planet in the Carcosan night sky. See also Hastur, for its treatment as a Great Old One.

City of Carcosa

The City of Carcosa stands behind the shore of the Lake of Hali, its vast towers which stand behind the moon, with awful words echoing through the dim streets of Carcosa,

City of Alar

Alar is sometimes described as a city, a world, or star; as a city, it may be identical with the Immemorial City, and stand opposite of the City of Carcosa on the shore of the Lake of Demhe. As a star, it joins Aldebaran and the Hyades among the Black Stars in the Carcosan night sky.

City of Yhtill

As a city, Yhtill is "forever" hidden by the Tatters of the King... it's unclear if this means that the formerly ordinary city has been conquered forever by the King in Yellow and is now inaccessible to ordinary folk, or if it is some city of cosmic horror which awaits its revelation at the time when the Son of Hastur ascends the throne of Carcosa.


Heresies and Controversies

  • Carcosa as Dreamland: The surreal, "fever-dream" quality of Carcosa's descriptions suggest that it runs on "Dream Logic" - thus making it a fine candidate for a Dreamland, albeit a particularly weird and surreal one: a bizarre literary device run amok in the subconscious of those who had the misfortune of falling to the temptation of reading it. (YSDC)
  • Worlds in Reflection: One possible way to interpret the surreal descriptions of twin lakes, twin suns, and apparently twin, rival cities of Carcosa and Alar is that Alar and its phantom lake Demhe are reflections of the City of Carcosa in its lake of Hali, with one side - Carcosa beside Hali beneath the star of Hastur - being a Dreamland of its Dayland counterpart - Alar beside Demhe beneath its star of Aldebaran. The King in Yellow might thus be thought of as working its malignant influence upon Dreaming Carcosa through the Daylands counterpart, which has already fallen to the King's influence. Thus, the connection between star of Aldebaran and Hastur, its malignant, corrupting, Dreamlands influence. Is the corruption of the King in Yellow being introduced to Earth via the fever-dream of Carcosa, or is this influence being introduced in waking reality, but manifesting in Earth's reflection in its Dreamlands? The difference, perhaps, doesn't matter: one is as real as the other, and both Dream and Day are intimately connected, so that the King in Yellow's influence on one, must surely corrupt both in the end. (YSDC)
  • Carcosa: City? Country? Planet? Dimension? Place? Time? Person? State of mind? The surreal quality of Carcosa is such that any of the above are possible, perhaps all at the same time, depending on the story being told: a cosmic, interplanetary war between the worlds of Carcosa and Alar, or a local fantasy conflict between two neighboring kingdoms, or the struggle between a "real" city and its corrupt subconscious reflection, or the ghosts of a dead city's present haunted by memories of its tragic past: each of these is as good as the other for telling a story, and one interpretation might be more true to one investigator, and others just as true for his fellows. Perhaps the Truth of Carcosa is the ultimate, unsolvable Mystery of the Hyades....


Quotes

  • "Hastur" was originally an invention of Ambrose Bierce in "Haita the Shepherd", where Hastur seems to be a benign god of shepherds. Other Ambrose Bierce stories, "An Inhabitant of Carcosa" and "The Death of Halpin Frayser", referred to "Carcosa" as a place and "Hali" as a person (a sage, prophet, or wise man), again in ways that didn't seem very sinister.
    • "Next to the favor of Hastur, who never disclosed himself, Haïta most valued the friendly interest of his neighbors, the shy immortals of the wood and stream... 'It is kind of thee, O Hastur,” so he prayed, “to give me mountains so near to my dwelling and my fold that I and my sheep can escape the angry torrents; but the rest of the world thou must thyself deliver in some way that I know not of, or I will no longer worship thee.'" - Ambrose Bierce, "Haïta the Shepherd"
    • "Clearly I was at a considerable distance from the city where I dwelt - the ancient and famous city of Carcosa." - Ambrose Bierce, "An Inhabitant of Carcosa"
    • "Pondering these words of Hali (whom God rest) and questioning their full meaning...." - Ambrose Bierce, "The Death of Halpin Frayser"
  • Robert W. Chambers borrowed these names from Bierce, as quoted above, in "The King in Yellow (fiction)"; most of the details above are quoted from Chambers, except where noted in the "Heresies and Controversies" section as YSDC fan content.
  • H.P. Lovecraft seems to have adopted Hastur, Carcosa, and Hali from Chambers, using fragments of Chambers' mythos blended seamlessly and in the vaguest of ways with inventions of Lovecraft and his friends:
    • "I found myself faced by names and terms that I had heard elsewhere in the most hideous of connections—Yuggoth, Great Cthulhu, Tsathoggua, Yog-Sothoth, R'lyeh, Nyarlathotep, Azathoth, Hastur, Yian, Leng, the Lake of Hali, Bethmoora, the Yellow Sign, L'mur-Kathulos, Bran and the Magnum Innominandum — and was drawn back through nameless aeons and inconceivable dimensions to worlds of elder, outer entity at which the crazed author of the Necronomicon had only guessed in the vaguest way.... There is a whole secret cult of evil men (a man of your mystical erudition will understand me when I link them with Hastur and the Yellow Sign) devoted to the purpose of tracking them down and injuring them on behalf of the monstrous powers from other dimensions." - HPL, "The Whisperer in Darkness"
  • August Derleth further developed the Lovecraft's shout-outs to Chambers into notable and influential part Derleth's own "Cthulhu Mythos", with Lin Carter apparently building on Derleth's mythos, and Chaosium working largely with their input.


Associated Mythos Elements


References

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