Nug and Yeb
Very little is known about Nug and Yeb beyond some brief mentions in Lovecraft's letters and briefer mentions in his stories. In a letter from September 1936 HPL describes Nug and Yeb as being twins, each one being spherical or oval in shape with a diameter of approximately 10 feet. Other than that, HPL described Nug and Yeb as being “a bit destructive sometimes” and having the ability to dissolve matter. Lovecraft coined the throw-away term "The Black Litany of Nug and Yeb" in one of his letter closings.
Blasphemies and Heresies
- Nug and Yeb were in some way linked to the Egyptian deities Nut (goddess of the air/night sky/space) and her brother/husband Geb (god of the earth/underworld). (Fan speculation?)
- Azathoth is the asexual grandfather of Yog-Sothoth and Shub-Niggurath, who together spawned Nug and Yeb; Nug asexually spawned Cthulhu (an ancestor of H.P. Lovecraft), and Yeb asexually spawned Tsathoggua (an ancestor of Clark Ashton Smith)... (H.P. Lovecraft's whimsical family tree)
- "Nug is a god among ghouls, while Yeb is the leader of Abhoth's alien cult." (The cult is known as "the Unclean Ones"?) (Encyclopedia Cthuliana?)
- Nug and Yeb are described as dragons of black and red, respectively, and are identified as preparing the way for their "Father" (Yog-Sothoth?). (Joseph H. Pulver, "The Black Litany of Nug and Yeb")
Quotes
- "The ceremonies of Nug and Yeb sickened him especially—so much, indeed, that he refrained from describing them in his manuscript." - H.P. Lovecraft & Zealia Bishop, The Mound
- "I talked in Yemen with an old man who had come back alive from the Crimson Desert—he had seen Irem, the City of Pillars, and had worshipped at the underground shrines of Nug and Yeb—Iä! Shub-Niggurath!" - H.P. Lovecraft & Adolphe de Castro, The Last Test
