BYAKHEE (1925)

SOURCES: "The Festival" by H. P. Lovecraft(Weird Tales, January 1925)

DESCRIPTION: “Out of the unimaginable blackness beyond the gangrenous glare of that cold flame, out of the tartarean leagues through which that oily river rolled uncanny, unheard, and unsuspected, there flopped rhythmically a horde of tame, trained, hybrid winged things that no sound eye could ever wholly grasp, or sound brain ever wholly remember. They were not altogether crows, nor moles, nor buzzards, nor ants, nor vampire bats, nor decomposed human beings; but something I cannot and must not recall. They flopped limply along, half with their webbed feet and half with their membranous wings; and as they reached the throng of celebrants the cowled figures seized and mounted them, and rode off one by one along the reaches of that unlighted river, into pits and galleries of panic where poison springs feed frightful and undiscoverable cataracts. ” ("The Festival" by H. P. Lovecraft)

NOTES: Byakhee are weird flying creatures able to fly the insterstellar distances between Earth and Celaeno. They have been associated with Hastur the Unspeakable. Those who ride them must first drink a weird drink that tastes like mead. The drinker enters a dream-like state then summons the byalkhee.

HISTORY: "The Festival" was written in 1923. August Derleth expanded on (and named) the Byakhee in "The Trail of Cthulhu" (aka "The House on Curwen Street") (Weird Tales, March 1944).