Amulet of Leng

Amulet of Leng

Origin: H.P. Lovecraft, "The Hound"

Description

In the coffin lay an amulet of curious and exotic design, which had apparently been worn around the sleeper’s neck. It was the oddly conventionalised figure of a crouching winged hound, or sphinx with a semi-canine face, and was exquisitely carved in antique Oriental fashion from a small piece of green jade. The expression on its features was repellent in the extreme, savouring at once of death, bestiality, and malevolence. Around the base was an inscription in characters which neither St. John nor I could identify; and on the bottom, like a maker’s seal, was graven a grotesque and formidable skull.
— H.P. Lovecraft, "The Hound"

A jade amulet hinted at in the Necronomicon, bearing the soul-symbol of the corpse-eating cult of inaccessible Leng, in central Asia. At least two people who possessed this object were torn to pieces by a gigantic, supernatural houndlike creature, and a third committed suicide to escape the same fate.

Heresies and Controversies

The reference to a "corpse-eating cult" in "The Hound" suggests that the amulet of Leng may in some way relate to Ghouls. The supernatural hound that seeks out and kills those who possess the amulet seems highly reminiscent of the Hounds of Tindalos. Whether these apparent connections are meaningful or random is known only to the Great Old Ones...

Associated Mythos Elements

• tome: Necronomicon
• race: Man of Leng
• location: Plataeu of Leng

Appearances

• fiction: "The Hound" by H.P. Lovecraft.