The Importance of Cthulhu
[August Derleth's Cthulhu Mythos]

August Derleth created the term Cthulhu Mythos to refer to both Lovecraft's myth-pattern (as Derleth misinterpreted and extended it) and to all the stories by various authors that made use of this myth pattern. Derleth himself understood that Cthulhu was not the central character of this Mythos, because Lovecraft clearly gave Azathoth and Yog-Sothoth a much higher position. But Derleth said he adopted the name "because it was in The Call of Cthulhu that the myth-pattern first became apparent." [August Derleth, "H. P. Lovecraft, Outsider," reprinted in Essential Solitude: The Letters of H. P. Lovecraft and August Derleth: 1932-1937, New York: Hippocampus Press, 2013, p. 779]

In Derleth's stories, the term "Cthulhu Mythos" or "Cthulhu myth-pattern" is used by the character of Laban Shrewsbury and his associates:

I was indeed familiar with the Cthulhu Mythos, with its remarkable lore in essence so familiar to the Christian Mythos of the expulsion of Sathanus and his followers and their ever-ceaseless attempts to reconquer heaven. [Island]

Indeed, it was borne in upon me presently that, however open and above-board Professor Shrewsbury was, there was much left to be desired in his palimpsest of information regarding the Cthulhu Mythos and such adjunctive data as he chose to speak about. [Keeper]

You will find it increasingly significant that we repeatedly encounter these so-called ‘legends’ of evil spirits and monsters, particularly since they are curiously corroborative of the central theses of the Cthulhu myth-pattern, wherever we go and whatever directions we reach. [Keeper]

. . . yet I found myself believing readily not only in the existence of the Black Island, but also in the vast mythology so sketchily outlined for me, in all that pantheon of Elder Gods and Ancient Ones [Great Old Ones (3)] of which that oddly persuasive and yet curiously repellent old man in the black glasses [Laban Shrewsbury] had spoken. [Island]

It is never explained why Shrewsbury and his assistants use the terms Cthulhu Mythos or the Cthulhu myth-pattern for a cycle that does not really center around Cthulhu. However, it appears that Cthulhu is the most widely worshipped of the Great Old Ones (3), and that he presents the most imminent peril to humanity. According to Asaph Gilman:

Of these, the most dreaded is called Cthulhu. I have come upon evidence of belief in Cthulhu in all corners of the globe . . . I became convinced that worship of Hastur and Shub-Niggurath and Yog-Sothoth was less wide-spread than that of Cthulhu, and I set out to discover as many pockets of such worship as possible. [Gorge]

Laban Shrewsbury seems to have also believed that Cthulhu is the most immediately dangerous of the Great Old Ones (3):

There were certain hints in the less obscure passages of the Necronomicon as well as in the shuddersome R’lyeh Text which seemed to indicate that the awaited time for the resurgence of Cthulhu was growing near . . . [Curwen]

It seems clear to me now . . . that Dr. Shrewsbury had set himself up on the trail of great Cthulhu, intent upon closing all avenues to the Outside. [Curwen]

Seneca Lapham also listed Cthulhu first among the Great Old Ones (3), though it is not clear in what sense Cthulhu is "first." Clearly Cthulhu is not the leader, for later in the same paragraph, Lapham clarifies that it is Yog-Sothoth and Azathoth who have "dominion":

Now, these Great Old Ones, as I have said, have been given various names. There were certain inferior ones, who are in numerical superiority. These are not quite as free as the remaining few, and many of them are subject to many of the same laws which govern mankind. The first among them is Cthulhu, who lies supposedly ‘dead but dreaming’ in the unknown sunken city of R’lyeh, which some writers have thought to be in Atlantis, some in Mu, and some few in the sea not far off the coast of Massachusetts. Second among them is Hastur, sometimes called Him Who Is Not To Be Named and Hastur the Unspeakable, who supposedly resides in Hali in the Hyades. Third is Shub-Niggurath, a horrible travesty on a god or goddess of fertility. Next comes one who is described as the ‘Messenger of the Gods’—Nyarlathotep—and particularly of the most powerful extension of the Great Old Ones, the noxious Yog-Sothoth, who shares the dominion of Azathoth, the blind and idiot chaos at the center of infinity. I see by the expression of your eyes that you are beginning to recognize some of these names. [Lurker]

Lapham seems to mean that Yog-Sothoth and Azathoth are the primary powers among the Great Old Ones (3), which also include a lower tier of beings: "certain inferior ones, who . . . are not quite as free . . ." Lapham may mean that Cthulhu is the most important of this second tier of beings, which also includes Hastur, Shub-Niggurath, and Nyarlathotep. Lapham himself does not use the terms "Cthulhu Mythos" or "Cthulhu myth-pattern," referring only to "a mythology of belief in primal inhabitation of earth by another race of beings." [Lurker]

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