
KILLER SQUID (1896)
Illustration for Wells' story
SOURCES:
"The
Sea-Raiders" by H. G. Wells (The Weekly Sun Literary Supplement,
December 6, 1896)
"The
Finding of the Graiken" by William Hope Hodgson (The Red Magazine,
February 15, 1913)
DESCRIPTION:"Then Hill, who was a burly, powerful man, made a strenuous effort, and rose almost to a standing position. He lifted his arm, indeed, clean out of the water. Hanging to it was a complicated tangle of brown ropes; and the eyes of one of the brutes that had hold of him, glaring straight and resolute, showed momentarily above the surface. The boat heeled more and more, and the green-brown water came pouring in a cascade over the side. Then Hill slipped and fell with his ribs across the side, and his arm and the mass of tentacles about it splashed back into the water. He rolled over; his boot kicked Mr Fison's knee as that gentleman rushed forward to seize him, and in another moment fresh tentacles had whipped about his waist and neck, and after a brief, convulsive struggle, in which the boat was nearly capsized, Hill was lugged overboard. The boat righted with a violent jerk that all but sent Mr Fison over the other side, and hid the struggle in the water from his eyes." ("The Sea-Raiders" by H. G. Wells)
NOTES: Haploteuthis ferox is the species of squid that attacks the bathers at Sidmouth, England.
HISTORY: These two stories are of course important keys to the whole "squidgy" school of Lovecraftian monsters along with the Devilfish.