The Miniwashitu: Missouri River Monster

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Featured Horror Mystery and Lore

Cryptozoology is a pseudo-scientific field of study, which undertakes the theories of creatures that are widely unknown to science. The myriad of creatures present within this field owes their origins to the folklore of indigenous American peoples. This includes popular cryptid lore, including Bigfoot, the Chupacabra, and Jersey Devil. Unsurprisingly the state of North Dakota also has an incredibly interesting, albeit bizarre and obscure monster of its own, known as the Miniwashitu!

Known for its harsh winters, North Dakota’s first frost can arrive as early as September, with below-freezing temperatures that stretch all the way into May. An ice sheet regularly forms atop the Missouri River during this part of the year and can extend as far as six feet below the surface. This ice sheet regularly blocks the passage through the waterway near Bismarck for at least three months each year. So, it’s no surprise that life on the plains is no picnic during the coldest months of the year, but even springtime brings its own unique dangers. (White)

Culturally Significant Water Monsters

Within the field of cryptozoology, the implication of water monsters is that they are serpents or other seafaring creatures. The Loch Ness monster, Tizheruk, Chessie, Champy, Ogopogo, and Memphre are all just a few examples of water monsters within cryptozoology. Outside of these more modern legends exists mythical creatures such as Jörmungandr, the Hydra, the Kraken, and the Leviathan. The Miniwashitu is an outlier, however, as it does not fit neatly into the same category as these other well-known cryptids.

The Mandan People

The Mandan people are believed to have settled along the banks of the Missouri River and its tributaries (White). This would have put them just south of what would become Bismarck and the Knife River, between 1100 and 1300. The Mandan people along with other Indigenous communities crafted a flourishing trade hub that stretched the region. It was a system that white fur traders took advantage of centuries later when they arrived. The river provided an easy route for trading goods. It also created an ease of access to goods that were vital for the Mandan people who were traditionally agricultural.

Seasonal Dangers & Stories Told

The trials and tribulations that the Mandan people had to withstand through the winters would have been abundant. Once the ice upon the waterways cracked, it was clear that the weather was warming. This brought much relief to the people of the region (White). That is not to say that seasonal dangers had passed. In fact, a thawing river and the breaking ice shelf upon the river would have still been quite dangerous. It’s likely that these dangers associated with the coming of spring would have been severe enough to warrant the creation of a dangerous monster who might cause the phenomenon.

Much like any other indigenous culture found across the globe, there was a reliance upon oral storytelling traditions. This tradition was the primary means of communicating cultural heritage. Oral storytelling is a less reliable method of communication across generations, but it leaves room for adaptability to change the story.

Being near a river would have been dangerous for all of the children of the tribe and in lieu of simply telling them to “stay away,” an iconic story would drive the point home (White).

Stranger Danger & the Effects of Colonialism

Tragically, by the time Gilmore had recorded the tale within his anthology of folklore, the river had taken on new dangers—ones that were no longer based in mythology (White). The introduction of white colonizers in 1782 ushered in the first wave of diseases such as smallpox and other dangers. By the time the second wave hit in 1837, the delicate nature of their human ecosystem had all but been decimated (White)

Melvin R. Gilmore & His Contributions

Cultural references to the Miniwashitu in North Dakota predate any European settlements in North America. Unfortunately, the first appearance of the Miniwashituo in modern media formats wasn’t recorded until 1921. The story was first introduced in the ethological anthropology of cultural stories as recorded by Melvin Randolph Gilmore in Prairie Smoke. Gilmore was a cultural anthropologist and the former curator for the North Dakota Historical Society (“Monsters”).

His career as a museum curator for a number of institutions spanned from 1916 to 1923 (“Monsters”). His passionate pursuit of unheard stories led him to regularly collaborate with the tribal nations in his area to record their cultural folklore (Rodenberg). Along with contributions to scientific periodicals on the culture and livelihood of the people indigenous to the Missouri River valley, he was also an authority on the Plains Indians (“Monsters”). As a result of his many contributions, Gilmore was an adopted member of the Pawnee tribe. (“Monsters”)

The Myth of the Miniwashitu

People rarely see the Miniwashitu, so there is very little information about it to this day. What does exist, exists primarily as a regurgitation of Gilmore’s original record from Prairie Smoke. Gilmore detailed the story of a beast that was known to exist “in the long ago”. Within the waters of the Missouri River, what Gilmore described was a dreadful sight to behold (Gilmore 26).

Gilmore’s informant was a second-hand witness to the last known sighting. The man witnessed the creature swimming against the current in the middle of the Missouri River. The creature crashed heavily into the ice sheet that sat upon the water. It broke it apart with its enormous body and lethal backbone. The man reported it made a “terrific roaring sound”. It was his description of the creature and what happened shortly after that caused such alarm (Gilmore 26). The informant explained that as soon as the man, “beheld the awful sight,” he lost his vision. His eyes darkened immediately. It was only by luck and a general sense of direction that the man was able to reach his home. However, soon after arriving home, he lost all sense of self and passed away (Gilmore 26).

What we know about the Miniwashitu

To witness the monster at night, one would see a brilliant fiery red streak lighting up the icy waterway. Truly a sight to behold! If one were to see the monster by day they would meet their end. They would lose their vision and hearing. They would soon become restless and begin to writhe in pain. Not until they were thoroughly insane would death kindly relieve them.

Some believe that the Miniwashitu, or water monster, still lives in the Missouri River (Gilmore 26). For those that still hold this belief, they claim that it is responsible for breaking the ice that has formed on the river come springtime (Gilmore 26).

The Appearance of the Creature

The man’s story also took into account the physical description of the monster he witnessed, so we have included it here for reference. According to his report of the creature, it’s the appearance that was most frightful to behold. The Miniwashitu was described as having an extraordinarily strange form, covered from head to toe with hair that resembled a buffalo. The hair was red in color and the creature boasted only a single, cyclopean eye. Above its eye was a single distinctive horn. The bipedal creature stands at over seven feet tall, with humanoid hands and the cloven hooves of an elk. The backbone was described as protruding out, but irregularly notched and jagged like the teeth of an old saw. (Rodenberg)

The True Nature of the Miniwashitu

As one of the creature’s nicknames would imply the Miniwashitu, or Missouri Water Monster, spends much of its time submerged in the Missouri River. This seems to be quite lucky, considering its very appearance is so horrific that it would shatter the mind of anyone who witnessed it. The story has also evolved over the centuries since it was told to assert that direct eye contact would “freeze you in perpetual fear” as you suffered to death from insanity. However, it is also said that even if you were not to directly witness it, but were to simply hear its tremendous bellow, it would still render you unable to hear again.

Of course, none of this takes into account that the creature is actually quite docile despite its grotesque nature. It’s no more a predator than the mundane proven counterpart, the buffalo. The Miniwashitu is a noted pescatarian, subsisting upon fish, plants, and grass. Aside from the supernatural side effects of being in its presence, it is quite similar to a buffalo in being protective of its territory. All of this having been said, we’re delighted to know that this creature does not seek out humans to attack—not that it would need to considering its supernatural ability to harm without confrontation. (Rodenberg)

Fear the Miniwashitu

Regardless of the fear that accompanies the beast’s presence, there is massive respect for the creature that heralds the return of spring. The role it plays in breaking up the ice shelf on the river is a tremendous relief, especially after a difficult winter. The return of open waterways means an increase in the ease of travel, as well as a more available resource of fish. (Rodenberg)

Is it likely that a legitimate creature has managed to go undocumented by zoologists and wildlife biologists for so many centuries? No, it’s not likely, but that doesn’t mean that it’s not possible. The world is still full of undocumented creatures. This water monster has such a bombastic presence, however, that it is unlikely to go undiscovered for this long.

So, if it exists, is the Miniwashitu a beast to be trifled with? Probably not, but if you’re wondering if this creature is dangerous, you’ll be pleasantly surprised to know it’s likely not going to be munching on your sullied corpse. It may, however, render you blind, deaf, and so insane that the only relief you’ll find will be in death.

For another interesting read about river monsters, check out the Curse of the River Serpent!

Works Cited

Gilmore, Melvin R. Prairie Smoke: A Collection of Lore of the Prairies. Bismarck, Columbia University Press, 1929.

“Monsters on the Plains.” High Plains Reader, Fargo ND, hpr1.com/index.php/feature/culture/monsters-on-the-plains/. Accessed 20 May 2023.

Rodenberg, Brendan. “What Is the Missouri River Miniwashitu?” KX NEWS, 13 Mar. 2023, www.kxnet.com/news/local-news/what-is-the-miniwashitu-north-dakotas-little-known-river-monster/.

White, April. “In North Dakota, the Hideous Miniwashitu Ushers in Spring.” Atlas Obscura, 5 May 2023, www.atlasobscura.com/articles/miniwashitu-missouri-river-north-dakota.

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The Monster of Chesapeake Bay, Maryland

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Featured Horror Mystery and Lore

Chessie the Chesapeake Bay Monster

The original story began from the tale of two fishermen—Edward W. And Francis Klarrman—heading across the bay one day in 1943, looking to haul in their daily catch. The two men caught sight of a 12-foot-long serpentine creature, not too far from their vessel. They saw this creature turn to look at them several times. It turned its horselike head almost completely around, before disappearing under the waves.

The entire experience was astonishing and the Chesapeake Bay Monster has become a unique fixture of local history. Their description of Chessie was rivaled only by the more widely-known Loch Ness Monster. Plenty of witnesses have described Chessie as long, black, and snakelike, but the reports have varied drastically. Whether Chessie is 12-foot serpent, or a 30-foot serpent this cryptid has been reported as far back as 1846. Captain Lawson originally reported this strange creature when he saw it at the tip of the bay. It isn’t difficult to imagine that it is still considered a tall tale even to the present.

The Legend of Chessie

While it’s true that the legend hasn’t been substantiated with scientific fact, those who claim to have seen her range from retired CIA officers, fishermen, soldiers, and regular civilians. Those who argue her existence point out that the plausibility of her existence is much larger than her cousin across the pond—the Loch Ness Monster. This is due to the fact that the Chesapeake Bay has much more direct access to the open ocean than Loch Ness; as one of Britain’s largest and deepest freshwater lakes, it is connected to the sea, but there are nearly 7.5 miles of the River Ness between the lake and the oceanfront.

Scientific advancements have given us the capability to explore the ocean floor, but that hasn’t revealed every secret. Chessie has somehow kept its legend alive through its cunning, elusive, shy, and daring spirit. The existence of Chessie remains plausible, despite evading any type of classification.

People are most likely to catch a sighting of the Chesapeake Bay Monster between May and September. This is likely due to the warmer weather which causes people to flock to the beach. Do the larger crowds draw the curious creature closer to shore? Or are the increased number of watchful eyes the cause of the nearly 30 reports per year?

Sightings of the Family-Friendly Fiend

In 1982 a guest of Robert and Karen Frew captured the first known footage of the sea monster. The Frews were having a cookout at their seaside home on Love Point, when they noticed something strange. The guest noticed this creature undulating through the water near the shore. When they couldn’t identify what they were seeing they grabbed their camera.

Unfortunately, video evidence from 1982 was sub-par and with the camera zoomed all the way in all that was captured was a blurry dark gray mass snaking through the water. After being sent to the Smithsonian for verification, the professionals analyzed it, but all they could say with certainty was that the dark blurry mass was, in fact, a living creature. While they couldn’t confirm that it was Chessie, it fueled the fire of a legend that had previously been a laughable local tale. This of course brought on a lot of skeptics and caused the Frews to be the target of criticism and controversy—with many accusing them of participating in a hoax for clout. Thankfully for the legend of Chessie, the candid nature of the Frews report brought out witnesses who had remained silent due to their unwillingness to become social pariahs.

A more in-depth description of Chessie came from an encounter in 1985 when a recreational fisherman and his friend hooked a fish out on the bay. When this fisherman turned to see what he had caught he was met with a shockingly huge serpentine creature as it erupted from the water, a snapped fishing line hanging from its mouth. It rose approximately twelve feet out of the water, exposing its diamond-shaped flippers and ellipsoid body before submerging into the depths of the bay. This pair of fishermen described this creature as having green-yellow reptilian skin, with barnacles covering its back. Are we to believe that previous accounts only ever witnessed the creature’s long neck and not the entire body?

A 2014 sighting of Chessie described it as a long, black, serpent winding through the water of Magothy River. These witness accounts are conflicting, but it’s unclear whether or not these reports are of different creatures. This particular witness was parked aside the Magothy River at high tide, around 1:40 AM when he saw Chessie. The witness didn’t specify the lighting situation surrounding the sighting. Initially, he believed that what he saw was two creatures traveling together. A lack of photo evidence caused his sighting to remain unverified.

Sea Serpents like Chessie

Reports of sea serpents like Chessie (or even Nessie for that matter) aren’t uncommon—after all, our planet is 71% water and less than 10% of that has been thoroughly mapped out and explored. The existence of these kinds of creatures cannot be completely ruled out, which is how these kinds of legends still have so much steam after one hundred fifty years.

The spirit of Chessie maintains its playful innocence, instead of a malicious nightmare fuel cryptid. In the years since the first reported sighting Chessie has become a mascot for the people in the Bay. As a result, its likeness has been turned into plushies, stickers, and apparel to promote tourism.

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The Morbid Feminist Voice Behind the First Sci-Fi and Dystopian Apocalyptic Horror Novels

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Featured Horror Books Horror Mystery and Lore Women in Horror
Mary Shelley
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

Why on earth would a delicate woman of your stature write about such awful, disturbing, and blasphemous things?

As the daughter of the brilliant feminist Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin as the reformist writer and philosopher William Godwin, Shelley is famously noted for her 1831 introduction to a reprint of Frankenstein. Her explanation that, “it is not singular that, as the daughter of two persons of distinguished literary celebrity, I should very early in life have thought of writing…” shows exactly how significant they were to her self-image.

The Liberating Feminine Voice of Horror

It is genuinely not surprising that the daughter of the renowned mother of the modern feminist movement was a feminist herself. Mary Shelley’s life reflected by the inspiration she took from her mother’s radically forward-thinking when it came to equality on the basis of sex. Her mother’s best-known work, A Vindication of the Rights of Women, lived on through Shelley’s own lifestyle and unstoppable life-force, but how did that translate into her own voice as an author? There is a lot of dialog between scholars as far as interpretations of her motivations behind the wonderfully disturbing work she created in her lifetime. Some suggest that Frankenstein is a horror story of maternity as much as it is about the perils of intellectual hubris.

From the time that Mary ran away with Percy Shelley all through the time she spent writing Frankenstein, Mary was going through maternal horror of her own—she was ceaselessly pregnant, confined, nursing, and then watching her first three children die at young ages. It doesn’t help matters that Shelley’s life was haunted by the fact that her mother died only ten days after Mary was born. Truth be told though, it was unsanitary practices by the attending physician, Dr. Poignand, and not through any fault of Shelley’s. It was Puerperal Fever, caused by doctors moving directly from autopsies to births without any means of sanitation, that took Shelley’s mother from her.

The tragedy of her mother’s death so early on in her life influenced Shelley greatly and losing three of her own children just compounded upon her morbidity. She used this mindset to her advantage though and translated her message of what it felt like to be born without a right to history—for, “what is woman but man without a history…” as Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar stated in The Madwoman in the Attic. We can see Mary Shelley in Frankenstein’s monster, as a creature born without a history, or at least without an unalterable or supported history. Both Shelley and Frankenstein’s creation shared the feeling of being born without a soul, “as a thing, an other, a creature of the second sex,”—for being a woman in the time that Mary Shelley lived was to be a second-class human being.

A Symbol for Early Equality

Shelley can be considered a symbol for both feminism and equality of sexual orientation; a less discussed topic than anything else of her life, there is evidence that shows that Mary sought the company of women after her husband’s death. This is an important topic to mention, as it is signifies the very secretive intimate history of homosexuality and how big of a part it actually played during the Romantic era.

Life From the Bed of a Grave

Writer Sandra Gilbert insists, that Mary Shelley’s, “only real mother was a tombstone,” but she didn’t mean it figuratively—when Mary was a child, her father brought her to the churchyard where her mother was buried and she would continue to visit on her own after that. This became especially true when her father married their next-door-neighbor Mary Jane Clairmont, a woman who could never replace her own mother and who made Shelley’s home life unbearable. In her earliest years, Shelley used, “reading … [as] an act of resurrection,” due to feeling excluded from her father’s household after his marriage. In a sense, it is said that she “read,” or knew her family then determined her sense of self through her mother and father’s literary works. She would endlessly study her mother’s works during her younger years while sitting at her mother’s graveside.

The burden of this type of childhood was also expressed through Mary’s first work when she included a scene wherein Victor Frankenstein visits the cemetery where his father, brother, and bride were buried before leaving Geneva to search for the monstrosity that he had created. “As night approached, I found myself at the entrance of the cemetery … I entered it and approached the tomb which marked their graves … The spirits of the departed seemed to flit around, and to cast a shadow, which was felt but seen not, around the head of the mourner,” where Victor ultimately calls for revenge against his creation, “O Night, and by the spirits that preside over thee, I swear to pursue the daemon … And I call on you, spirits of the dead; and on the wandering ministers of vengeance, to aid and conduct me in my work.” Godwin passed on his idealization of books being a sort of host for the dead, that to read a book by a departed author would be to know them entirely. Then again, Godwin was also fiercely interested in communicating with the dead, another trait that he passed to his daughter through that fateful visit to her mother’s grave.

[The dead] still have their place, where we may visit them, and where, if we dwell in a composed and a quiet spirit, we shall not fail to be conscious of their presence.

William Godwin, Literary Tourism, And the Work of Necromanticism

Necromantic Preoccupations of Her Father

Like father, like daughter; Shelley picked up her father’s proclivity for intrigue in the dead. Godwin often tried to connect his readers to the dead by encouraging the placement of illustrious graves. In his eyes, such a grave would honor them in their place of rest and give both the deceased and their mourners a way to stay on speaking terms, of sorts. He even expressed his desire to do so himself in quite an illustrated manner, when he said, “[he] would have [the dead] … around [his] path, and around [his] bed, and not allow [himself] to hold a more frequent intercourse with the living, than with the good departed.” He meant this of course as a means of conveying his desire to communicate with the dear ones he had lost in his lifetime and not in a sexual context.

The Morbidity of Her Truest Love

Mary may have strayed from that viewpoint in a way, after she was introduced to an impassioned devotee of her father’s, Percy Shelley. The two spent much of their time together at the grave of Mary’s mother, where her father likely believed they were conversing about their reformist ideals. The truth lay a bit beyond that, however, as it was by her mother’s grave that she lost her virginity and pledged herself at sixteen to a twenty-year-old Percy. While it may seem creepy, to Mary the cemetery was more than just a resting place for the dead, she saw it as a place where all of life converged for her.

Learning all of this about Shelley definitely brings us some clarity on how she possessed the wit and imagination to create two new genres within literature—that of Science-Fiction horror, along with the brilliance of the first Apocalyptic Dystopian styles.

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The Mystery of Pandora’s Box

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Horror Mystery and Lore
Opened Up a Pandora's Box

What is Pandora’s Box?

Well, it’s something of an origin story–much like the origin story of Christianity, with Adam and Eve and the Tree of Knowledge. It is said in Christianity that all of the evil that arose in the world of humans only came about after Eve ate the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge. In the older, ancient Grecian mythologies, there was Pandora’s Box which was an attempt to explain the beginning of how the world came to be as it is today. This attempt at an explanation comes from the naturally curious nature of all people who want to know why things happen the way they do and before any scientific explanation, these myths and legends were their way of coping with what they could never hope to understand.

Pandora’s Box, Adam and Eve, as well as countless myths from cultures spanning the world from the beginning of the historical record, attempt to explain why things are the way they are. There is just something so incredibly fascinating about the curiosity of one girl dooming the entire human race to the evils and terrors of the current world. That is to say that early man decided that someone was to blame for the human experience of disease, hate, and war–and that it was inherently woman’s burden to bear for the igniting the ire of the gods, for her blatant disobedience.

The Story of Pandora’s Box

Epimetheus Opening Pandora's Box
Artwork by Giulio Bonasone

The story of Pandora and the box with which she doomed the rest of humanity, comes from Ancient Greek mythology, needless to say, there have been multiple adaptations of the original story. The story focuses mostly upon Pandora, whose name means “all-giving,” and according to the story, she was the first woman on Earth. Before the humans were put on Earth, there were only the immortals, in the form of the Gods and the Titans.

Two of these Titans, Prometheus and his brother Epimetheus had fought on the Gods’ side in the war between the Titans and the Gods. Most renditions of the story say that this was due to the prophetic powers of Prometheus, which gave him the ability to foresee the downfall of the Titans. In some of the variations, these two brothers were the cousins of Zeus, who was the King of the Greek Gods.

When Zeus invested himself in creating inhabitants of the mortal realms he called upon the other immortals for their assistance. Prometheus and Hephaestus were requested to create man out of clay and water, where Epimetheus was enlisted to create the animals and gift them their individual abilities of courage, swiftness, stealth, and more. Unfortunately, Epimetheus gifted out all of the abilities before the creation of man and there were no abilities left to give to them.

In response to this lack of gifts to bestow upon his creation, Prometheus decided to give man the ability to stand upright like the immortals and much to the chagrin of Zeus, Prometheus also gave man the gift of fire. This angered Zeus greatly, as he had purposefully denied man the gift of fire, and in order to give man fire, Prometheus had to steal it from Zeus. Some believe that Prometheus stole it from Zeus through means of one of his lightning bolts, others believe it was fire from the forge of Hephaestus.

As a punishment, Zeus chained Prometheus to a giant rock far off in the Caucasus Mountains where no one would be able to find him.
Zeus tortured Prometheus daily, by sending an eagle to feast upon his liver, which would grow back in time for the next day–that is until Heracles found Prometheus, killed the eagle and freed Prometheus from his imprisonment.

Prometheus wasn’t the only one to suffer Zeus’ wrath though, instead, he aimed to punish both brothers for the missteps of Prometheus. Hephaestus was asked by Zeus to create Pandora, the first woman, out of clay and water, and modeled her after the goddess Aphrodite.
intending her to be a punishment for Epimetheus and mankind, so each god and goddess gave Pandora gift–beauty, wisdom, charm, music, curiosity, persuasion, kindness, generosity, peace, and health, some of which could be used for good and some which could be used for evil.

Zeus sent Pandora to Earth to be Epimetheus’ wife and despite Prometheus’ warning of Zeus’ two-faced nature, to not accept any gifts from the gods, Epimetheus had fallen in love with Pandora from the moment he laid eyes upon her and wanted to marry her immediately. As a wedding present, Zeus gave Pandora a box and attached to the box was a note stating that it was never to be opened, but included a key regardless.

Pandora's Box
Artwork by Carlo Perugini

Due to one of her many gifts from the gods and goddesses, Pandora ached to see what kind of treasures were hidden inside–eventually, her overwhelming curiosity got the better of her; when Epimetheus was out of sight, she grabbed the key and unlocked the box. Upon its opening, a plague of buzzing moths escaped from within; Pandora had thusly released horrible things. This plague of moths bestowed mankind with greed, envy, hatred, pain, disease, hunger, poverty, war, and death. All of the miseries of life had been released upon the world before Pandora was able to slam the lid of the box closed. Her guilt overtook her, and she curled up crying for what she had done, when Epimetheus came to see what was wrong she told him what she had done.

A small voice emerged from within the box, but neither of them could understand what was being said–knowing that she had already done as much damage as she could, Pandora again opened the box to show Epimetheus the box was now empty. Except, there was one moth left which flew out upon her opening the box a second time. This last moth was the embodiment of hope, and it was the only thing that allowed humans to stay positive enough to survive the wickedness that Pandora had unleashed upon the world.

The term “Pandora’s Box” now epitomizes anything that is virtually unknown, but is best left alone, for the fear of what might come from being too curious.

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The Necronomicon and Other Ancient Tomes

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Featured Horror Books Horror Mystery and Lore

What is the Necronomicon

While it’s true that the Necronomicon is a fictional book, there has been so much lore built up around about it that it has taken on a life of its own. H.P. Lovecraft imagined an ancient tome that accounted for the primordial cultures and lore of the universe he imagined along with them. This universe of course exists concurrently with the world that we are aware of, as if these locations and creatures that might cause someone to have an existential crisis just for knowing about them, exist just beyond our understanding. If this book really existed the way Lovecraft imagined it—and not just as a recreation of Lovecraft’s original idea—would be traceable and we probably would have seen the world end several times over by now.

Abdul Alzahred’s book was originally titled as “Al Azif,” in reference to the noise made by insects at night—although some scholars (both real and fictional) say that it may also correlate to the sound of demons howling—since it’s not a real tome, it sadly cannot be verified from an original source. Perhaps it’s due to the notoriety of this fictional book that has caused it to come to a point where it has almost become a real entity—or perhaps it was simply an inevitability that multiple people would eventually produce books titled Necronomicon in a way to cash in upon the gullibility of those who didn’t get such an elaborate inside joke. To those seeking the true Necronomicon, Lovecraft was truthful—he admitted that he invented the idea of this book as a prop for his incredibly involved tales of cosmic horror—but it remains such a dynamic symbol in the genre that many people are simply unwilling to accept that it was no more than a fictional creation.

Even though Lovecraft wanted to eventually write the Necronomicon himself, it seems that he considered it too great of a challenge—then at one point he also thought of writing an abridged version of the book, if only to put on display the bits that wouldn’t drive the readers mad. Shortly after he first mentioned the Necronomicon, it began to appear in the stories of his peers, other authors that wished to explore the idea of Lovecraft’s cosmos—this led to his fictional book to become more widespread and seem more authentic.

Who Was Abdul Alhazred?

Alhazred was a world traveler—born in Sanaa, Yemen, he was said to have thrived during the period of the Ommiade caliphs—lived in Damascus during the 8th century—and explored most of the Middle East and Europe. As a traveler, he visited the ruins of Babylon and the subterranean secrets of Memphis, then spent ten years alone in the great southern desert of Arabia

He was a remarkably intelligent person and an adept at learning and translating languages, it would be fair to say he was a scholar—if not an avid drug user. Alhazred would meditate while inhaling fumes from incense that included exotic ingredients—such as opium—and wait for knowledge to “fill him,” essentially alluding to the fact that his source of information for his historical tome is said to have been the cosmos itself. It’s possible that his moniker of the “mad Arab,” came from this unorthodox method of researching the universe. Lovecraft wrote of the Roba el Khaliyeh, or “Empty Space,” of the ancients as well as the Dahna, or “Crimson” desert of the modern Arabs—it was said to hold the protective evil spirits and monsters of death.

Many claims that Alhazred was simply mad, that there was no truth to his stories, but those that believe say that he visited the fabulous Irem—the City of Pillars—as well as having ventured into the nameless city that sat atop ancient ruins which housed a secret race older than all of mankind. Those who pretend to have explored out into this desert, tell tales that are strange and unbelievable, but in his last years Alhazred dwelling in Damascus, where the Necronomicon was initially created was the location of his final disappearance in 738 A.D. Concerning his disappearance—or his perceived death—there have been many conflicting and terrifying stories have been told. Being considered indifferent to the religious experiences of the people of his world, he instead worshipped entities he called Yog-Sothoth and Cthulhu. Ebn Khallikan, a twelfth-century biographer tells that Alhazred was seized by an invisible monster in broad day-light and it

The real story behind the mad Arab is that H.P. Lovecraft invented the name Abdul Alhazred while imagining himself on adventures of Andrew Lang’s Arabian Nights when he was five years old. So as far as we know the most famous and diabolical mystical book of spells was created from the mind of a five-year-old boy that was born and raised in New England. Interestingly enough, later on in Lovecraft’s career, he was able to give the book some type of footing in the realm of plausible mythology, by referencing the Necronomicon in the same paragraph or sentence as other authentic books on the occult, such as The Book of Dyzan as well as Poligraphia.

History and Media Culture of the Necronomicon

The Necronomicon is a popular source of original stories—there is just so much information there to work with, both in a comedic and a horrific sense. We see on television that the book pops up most frequently within cartoons, where there doesn’t have to be an involved main story that it is referenced in. Some of the cartoons that are known to have referenced are shows such as, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Metalocalypse, The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy, The Real Ghostbusters, and The Simpsons. It makes sense that whenever a show requires a creepy book in the plot-line, the Necronomicon is the most obvious choice and it would probably thrill Lovecraft to no end to know how popular his creation had become. To know about more of the media culture that surrounds Lovecraft’s infamous tome, check out our article about the Seven Times the Necronomicon Appeared in Cinema.

When it comes to the lore that suggests the Necronomicon is anything but fiction, it probably stems from the fact that Lovecraft put so much detail into it—as if he was creating a character sketch—that it became convincingly real. Lovecraft wrote letters about this book to a fellow author and peer Clark Ashton Smith; in one such letter, he claimed that Theodorus Philetas translated the Al Azif from its original Arabic text into Greek in 950 A.D. where the name of the book was also translated into the Necronomicon. He also wrote that most of the copies of the original book were burned after several nasty incidents, where people—intent upon harnessing the power of the Old Ones—experimented with the text.

Olaus Wormius, a priest in 1228, translated the original Arabic text into Latin, soon after Pope Gregory IX banned both the Latin and Greek translations, then the church officials seized and burned as many copies that they could find. There is additional lore that claims that Dr. John Dee, an Englishman and magician, in 1586 discovered a singular long lost copy of Wormius’ Latin translation of the Necronomicon. It’s said that Dee and his assistant, Edward Kelly, attempted to translate the work into English, but no fully finished text was ever published again.

The Real and Fallacious Ancient Occult Tomes

With Lovecraft’s writing, he intentionally referenced many different tomes—to give more authenticity to his own fake ancient creation by showing that it was by no means the only such thing in existence. Instead, he threw in both legitimate books, as well as fictional ones in order to build a mythology that might make people question what was real and what was not.

Old Book on Display
Photography by Hatice Yardim

Fake Ancient Mystical Books

  • Cultes des Goules
  • De Vermis Mysteriis
  • The Book of Eibon
  • The Pnakotic Manuscripts
  • Unaussprechlichen Kulten

Authentic Ancient Mystical Books

  • Ars Magna et Utlima
  • Poligraphia
  • The Book of Dyzan
  • The Daemonolatreia
  • Wonders of the Invisible World
  • The Book of Thoth
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