SOURCE: "Visible and Invisible" by E. F. Benson (Hutchinson’s Magazine, November 1922) .

DESCRIPTION: "...The Thing had entered and now was swiftly sliding across the floor towards him, like some gigantic caterpillar. A stale phosphorescent light came from it, for though the dusk had grown to blackness outside, I could see it quite distinctly in the awful light of its own presence. From it too there came an odour of corruption and decay, as from slime that has long lain below water. It seemed to have no head, but on the front of it was an orifice of puckered skin which opened and shut and slavered at the edges. It was hairless, and slug-like in shape and in texture. As it advanced its fore-part reared itself from the ground, like a snake about to strike, and it fastened on him ..." ("Visible and Invisible" by E. F. Benson)

NOTES: The Thing of Polearn is a monster sent by God to punish the wicked. It is described as "Negotium perambulans in tenebris" from the ninety-first Psalm, which roughly translates as "the pestilence that walketh in darkness". The slug-like monster comes in darkness and can be held at bay with light. Its body is only semi-material, and weapons are useless against it. It only attacks those it is sent to kill.

HISTORY: The Thing of Polearn, like the guardian monster in M. R. James' "The Treasure of Abbott Thomas" is one of the squidgies that inspired H. P. Lovecraft.

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