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'''Shub-Niggurath''' (''The Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young'') is a fictional deity in the [[Cthulhu mythos]] of [[H. P. Lovecraft]]. The being first appeared in Lovecraft's revision story "The Last Test" ([[1928 in literature|1928]]); however, in Lovecraft's fiction, she is never actually described, but is frequently mentioned or called upon in incantations. Shub-Niggurath also appears in the works of other mythos authors, including [[August Derleth]], [[Lin Carter]], and [[Brian Lumley]].	 
			
==Shub-Niggurath in the mythos==	 
Shub-Niggurath is an [[Outer God]] in the pantheon. She is a perverse [[Mother Goddess|fertility deity]] said to appear as an enormous cloudy mass which extrudes black tentacles, slime-dripping mouths, and short, writhing goat legs. Small creatures are spat forth, which are either reconsumed into the [[miasma theory of disease|miasmatic]] form or escape to some monstrous life elsewhere.	 
===Cult===	 
<blockquote>	 
One squat, black temple of [[Tsathoggua]] was encountered, but it had been turned into a shrine of Shub-Niggurath, the All-Mother and wife of the Not-to-Be-Named-One. This deity was a kind of sophisticated [[Astarte]], and her worship struck the pious [[Roman Catholic Church|Catholic]] as supremely obnoxious.	 
<br>&mdash;H.P. Lovecraft and Zealia Bishop, "The Mound"	 
</blockquote>	 
Of all the mythos deities, Shub-Niggurath is probably the most extensively worshiped. Her worshipers include the [[Hyperborean_cycle|Hyperboreans]], the [[Mu_(Cthulhu_mythos)|Muvians]], and the people of [[The_Doom_That_Came_to_Sarnath|Sarnath]], as well as any number of [[Druid|druidic]] and [[Barbarian|barbaric]] cults. She is also worshiped by the non-human species of the mythos, such as the "Fungi from [[Yuggoth]]" (the [[Mi-Go]]) and the [[Cthulhu mythos celestial bodies#Yaddith|Nug-Soth of Yaddith]]. <ref>Harms, "Shub-Niggurath", ''The Encyclopedia Cthulhiana'', pp. 275.</ref><!--NOTE: FOOTNOTE COVERS ENTIRE SECTION-->	 
With the proper [[occult]] paraphernalia, Shub-Niggurath can be summoned to any woodlands at the time of the [[new moon]]. However, the place from whence she comes is not known. One possibility is that she dwells at the court of [[Azathoth]] at the center of the universe. She may also live beneath the planet Yaddith, where she is served by the [[Dhole (Cthulhu mythos)|Dholes]]. It is also possible that she lives in another [[dimension]] altogether. <ref>Harms, ''The Encyclopedia Cthulhiana'', pp. 275.</ref><!--NOTE: FOOTNOTE COVERS ENTIRE SECTION-->	 
===Progenies===	 
<blockquote>	 
''Iä! Iä! Shub-Niggurath! The Black Goat [of the Woods] with a Thousand Young!''	 
<br>&mdash;H.P. Lovecraft, "The Dreams in the Witch House"	 
<br>&mdash;H.P. Lovecraft, "The Whisperer in Darkness"	 
<br>&mdash;H.P. Lovecraft and Hazel Heald, "The Man of Stone"	 
</blockquote>	 
Shub-Niggurath is believed to have mated with [[Hastur]] to produce the beings [[Ithaqua]], [[Zhar (Great Old One)|Zhar and Lloigor]], and an unnamed triplet of the latter. Hastur may also be the father of her "Thousand Young" or "Dark Young", though there is a good chance that they were spawned by fission. She may possibly have mated with [[Yog-Sothoth]] to produce [[Great_Old_One_compendium#Nug_and_Yeb|Nug and Yeb]] (though their father is more likely Hastur), and even [[Great_Old_One_compendium#Yig|Yig]] to produce [[Byatis]] (which is debatable since some believe her to be Yig's mother, though he may be the offspring of [[Mappo no Ryûjin]]).	 
==Dark Young of Shub-Niggurath==	 
<blockquote>	Something black in the road, something that wasn't a tree. Something big and black and ropy, just squatting there, waiting, with ropy arms squirming and reaching. . . It came crawling up the hillside. . . and it was the black thing of my dreams &ndash; that black, ropy, slime jelly tree-thing out of the woods. It crawled up and it flowed up on its hoofs and mouths and snaky arms.	 
<br>&mdash;[[Robert Bloch]], "Notebook Found in a Deserted House"	 
</blockquote>	 
The '''Dark Young of Shub-Niggurath''' are horrifying, pitch-black monstrosities, seemingly made of ropy tentacles. They stand as tall as a tree (perhaps between twelve and twenty feet tall) on a pair of stumpy, hooved legs. A mass of tentacles protudes from their trunks where a head would normally be, and puckered maws, dripping green goo, cover their flanks. The monsters roughly resemble trees in silhouette &mdash; the trunks being the short legs and the tops of the trees represented by the ropy, branching bodies. The whole mass of these things smells like an open grave. They usually dwell in woodlands wherever Shub-Niggurath's cult is active.	 
The Dark Young are usually called upon to preside over cult ceremonies. One means for summoning them is found in the ''[[Cthulhu_mythos_arcane_literature#Book_of_Eibon|Book of Eibon]]'' and requires a blood offering. The ritual may only be performed in the deep of the woodlands at the darkest of the moon, and the victim must be sacrificed over a stone altar.	 
Dark young act as proxies for Shub-Niggurath in the accepting of sacrifices and the worship of cultists, in the devouring of non-cultists, and in the spreading of their mother's faith across the world.	 
==Gof'nn hupadgh Shub-Niggurath==	 
The '''gof'nn hupadgh Shub-Niggurath''' is the name given to the favored, once-human worshipers of Shub-Niggurath. When the deity deems a worshiper to be most worthy, a special ceremony is held in which the Black Goat of the Woods swallows the initiate and then regurgitates the cultist as a transformed [[satyr]]-like being. A changed worshiper is also endowed with immortal life. <ref>Campbell, "The Moon-Lens", ''Cold Print''.</ref>	 
==The Black Goat==	 
Although Shub-Niggurath is often associated with the epithet ''The Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young'', it is possible that the ''Black Goat'' is a separate entity. Rodolfo Ferraresi, in his essay "The Question of Shub-Niggurath", says that Lovecraft himself separated the two in his writings, such as in "Out of the Aeons" ([[1935 in literature|1935]]) in which a distinction is made between Shub-Niggurath and the Black Goat&nbsp;&mdash;&nbsp;the goat is the figurehead through which Shub-Niggurath is worshipped. The most persuasive distinction, however, is the depiction of the Black Goat as a male, most notably in the rite performed in "[[The Whisperer in Darkness]]" ([[1931 in literature|1931]]) in which the Black Goat is called the "Lord of the Woods".	 
The Black Goat may be the personification of [[Pan (mythology)|Pan]], since Lovecraft was influenced by [[Arthur Machen]]'s ''[[The Great God Pan]]'' ([[1890 in literature|1890]]), a story that probably inspired Lovecraft's "[[The Dunwich Horror]]" ([[1929 in literature|1929]]). In this incarnation, the Black Goat may represent [[Satan]] in the form of the [[satyr]], a half-man, half-goat. In folklore, the satyr symbolized a man with excessive sexual apetites. The Black Goat may otherwise be a male, earthly form of Shub-Niggurath&nbsp;&mdash;&nbsp;an incarnation she assumes to copulate with her worshipers. <ref>Ferraresi, "The Question of Shub-Niggurath", ''Crypt of Cthulhu #35'', pp. 17&ndash;8, 22.</ref><!--NOTE: FOOTNOTE COVERS ENTIRE SECTION-->	 
==Appearances in other fiction==	 
Both [[Stephen King]] and [[Terry Pratchett]] have referenced Shub-Niggurath in their works. Terry Pratchett parodies Lovecraftian gods, referring to them as the things from the "[[Dungeon Dimensions]]". For example, in Pratchett's ''[[Moving Pictures (novel)|Moving Pictures]]'', the being "Tshup Aklathep, Infernal Star Toad with A Million Young" kills its victims by showing them pictures of its children until their brains implode.	 
Some of the ''[[Doctor Who]]'' [[Doctor Who spin-offs#original fiction|spin-off novels]] have identified the Nestene Consciousness (the being which animates the [[Auton]]s) as one of the offspring of Shub-Niggurath. The connection was first drawn in ''Millennial Rites'' by [[Craig Hinton]], and has been followed up in other appearances of the Consciousness in the novels.	 
==Other appearances==	 
* A Dark Young of Shub-Niggurath is the [[boss (video game)|final adversary]] of the [[first-person shooter]] [[computer game]] ''[[Quake]]''.	 
* Shub-Niggurath makes an appearance as the main villain in the online PC game ''Arcane 2: The Stone Circle''.	 
* In ''[[Bruno the Bandit]]'', one of the denizens of the demon world is "Shub-Megawrath", a goat-like blob creature with a thousand children (1001, if you count the croatoan clone of Bruno she created). The character is meant to be another of the Lovecraft references that occasionally pepper the strip.	 
* Shub-Niggurath is the name of a French band.	 
* Shub-Niggurath is the name of an old Mexican black/death metal band (albums: ''Horror Creatures'' Demo, 1990; ''Unknown Adorer'' EP, 1991; ''Blasphemies Of Nether World'' EP, 1992; ''The Black Goatlike Arise'' Demo, 1993; ''Evilness And Darkness Prevails'' Full-length, 1994; ''The Kinglike Celebration (Final Aeon on Earth)'' Full-length, 1997).	 
* Shub-Niggurath is mentioned by the band [[Morbid Angel]] in their song "Angel of Disease".	 
===Footnotes===	 
<references/>	 
==External links==	 
	{{Wikisourcepar|The Whisperer in Darkness}}	 
* [http://www.dagonbytes.com/thelibrary/lovecraft/dreamswitchhouse.htm "The Dreams in the Witch House" by H.P. Lovecraft]	 
* [http://terror.snm-hgkz.ch/lovecraft/html/stone.htm "The Man of Stone" by H.P. Lovecraft and Hazel Heald]	 
* [http://www.sockpuppet.org/~tyme/lovecraft/works/rev/mound.htm "The Mound" by H.P. Lovecraft and Zealia Bishop]	 
* [http://www.dagonbytes.com/thelibrary/lovecraft/thewhispererindarkness.htm "The Whisperer in Darkness" by H.P. Lovecraft]	 
==Further reading==	 
* Gaiman, Neil. "Shoggoth's Old Peculiar" (1998 - first published in "The Mammoth Book of Comic Fantasy" Mike Ashley (ed.), Robinson Publishing.) republished DreamHaven Books, ill. Koponen, Jouni 2004. ISBN 1-892058-07-3.	 
:&mdash;"On the seafront were three bed-and-breakfasts next to each other: Sea View, Mon Repose and Shub Niggurath, each with a neon VACANCIES sign turned off in the window of the front parlour, each with a CLOSED FOR THE SEASON notice thumbtacked to the front door", pp. 04.	 
[[Category:Outer Gods]]