SOURCE: "The Snout" (1909, Lukundoo and Other Stories 1927) by Edward Lucas White

DESCRIPTION: "...Then I saw the snout! Saw the wolf-jaws vised on his throat! Saw the blood welling round the dazzling white fangs, and recognized the reality of the sinister head I had seen over and over in his pictures...The awful thing about it to me was the two blue bosses on each side of the muzzle, like enamel, shiny and hard looking; and the hideous welt of red, like fresh sealing-wax, down between them and along the snout...The thing that had killed him was the size of a four to six year old child, but more stockily built, looked entirely human up to the neck, and was dressed in a coat of bright dark blue, a vest of crimson velvet, and white duck trousers. As I looked the muzzle wriggled for the last time, the jaws fell apart and the carcass rolled sideways." ("The Snout" by Edward Lucas White)

NOTES: Living in a virtual prison of a mansion is Hengist Eversleigh, heir to a fortune but never seen by anyone but a select group of man attendants. When three thieves break into the house they kill the servants and explore the weird riches of art and wealth that are Hengist's playground. The house contains hundreds of paintings, each bearing a human figure with an animal's head. When the thieves finally break into Hengist's gem vault they also meet the master of the house, a dwarfish forty year old with the snout and jaws of a hyena. Hengist rips out the throat of one thief but is killed during the fight. The two remaining thieves leave with only two sacks of plunder as the house burns to the ground.

HISTORY: The dog-headed creature in White's tale may have inspired Lovecraft's dog-headed ghouls along with White's own ghouls. HPL wrote: "... Mr. White imparts a very peculiar quality to his tales -- an oblique sort of glamour which has its own distinctive type of convincingness." Too true.

Lovecraftian Ghoul