Music by Kevin MacLeod.

Readings by Joe Scalora.

Outro music by Boney Washington.

Justine Jones joins us on this episode. Justine will be illustrating a Clark Ashton Smith zine for Mike Bukowski’s Seventh Church Ministries. Look for that around October. Find Justine’s art on her Tumblr: http://hauntedforests.tumblr.com, her Illustration site: http://justinejonesillustration.tumblr.com/, and on her Instagram: @tean_witch. Buy her awesome Dark Souls t-shirt, too!

Music by Kevin MacLeod.

Readings by B B Wolfe.

Our reading this week is Raychel A. Wagner.
Music by Kevin MacLeod.
Outro by Tyler Crook.

Our reader this week is Alex Mills.

Next time, we’ll take a voyage to “The Isle of the Torturers.”

[edit: audio levels readjusted and uploaded.]

Music: Kevin MacLeod
Outro: Boney Washington

This week’s reader is Jordan Smith.

Music: Kevin MacLeod
Outro: Boney Washington

This week’s reader is Jordan Smith. The episode of This American Life mentioned is this one’s section vocal fry.

Our next show will be “The Flower Women.” From there, we’ll move on to Zothique!

Music: Kevin MacLeod
Outro: Boney Washington

We’ll be doing Maal Dweb and Zothique after this.

Our reader this week is Jordan Smith.

Music: Kevin MacLeod
Outro: Boney Washington

There are reasons that involve all three members of this podcast, Ruth has been working hard to wrangle a career in place. Phil and his wife had a baby this summer, but, the reality is that the majority of the blame rests on my shoulders. You see, editing a podcast takes time and effort. Making a quality product, something interesting and entertaining, is difficult, and lately I just haven’t been up to the task. The will is there, I want to keep recording and posting episodes of Double Shadow. I love this show, and I think you guys, the listeners, are awesome and insightful. I also very much believe that Clark Ashton Smith deserves this exposure, and I’m heartened thinking about the dedicated converts we’ve helped bring into the CAS fold–which is an amazing feeling.

This past winter the slow-down was due to simple fatigue. I quite honestly was tired of spending my free time working. I, like pretty much all of you out there, have a day job. Working all day in an office and then coming home to sit at a computer to edit took its toll. I got burned out, despite how much I enjoyed the end product.

This summer, however, is a different story. We recorded two new episodes, Dweller in the Gulf and Vulthoom, and I was back in the saddle, scheduling new readers (by the way, I think Alex did an amazing job with Dweller), and editing like mad. Then some freelance work started to roll in. I’ve recently been contracted to write a boutique baby journal that will be marketed and sold to “geek” parents–trust me, it’s relevant to your interests. The writing schedule on this book is pretty breakneck, and I’m just about over the hump and ready to deliver the final manuscript.

I’ve also been contracted to do some actual paid podcasting by the amazing editors over at Slice Magazine. Starting in October you can look forward to some literary fiction goodness with In the Telling.

I haven’t forgotten about you, Double Shadow! We haven’t “podfaded”! Vulthoom is half edited, and we’re going to schedule some recordings soon. Besides, we’re almost finished! Our mission when we set out was to cover all of Smith’s main settings, ending with Zothique, and Zothique’s dying sun looms bleak on the horizon.

It would be a shame to never visit that mad world with you guys.

Where were we? Well…a lot of places. Phil was making a movie and Ruth was hunting for a job. But now Ruth has a job, Phil’s got a lot done on the movie, and Tim’s taken on the task of editing again. Funny enough, this episode was recorded a while back, but Tim ran into some editing difficulties.

Our reader this week is Alex Mills (Vimeo link).

In a few weeks, we’ll be back with “Vulthoom.” Then we’ll be done with Mars and starting the Maal Dweb episodes.

Check out this awesome comic of The Vaults of Yoh-Vombis hosted on Eldritch Dark! A listener also sent in this artwork of his, posted on Eldritch Dark.

Join us next time for “The Dweller in the Gulf.”

Our reader this week is Jordan Smith. Many thanks to him for filling in on short notice.

Music: Kevin MacLeod

We also have the forums for various kinds of discussion.

**

The “Seedlings of Mars” is funny, but not really, once you reach the end – it has all the makings of a comedy: an anal retentive elder statesman scientist, who, despite being a scientist is SO hidebound and close-minded that anything which doesn’t fit into his already decided upon universe of scientific rules and regulations is seen as a blasphemy. His mirror, a more liberal-minded scientist, is decidedly open to the possibility that different worlds = different rules=not a threat.

Perhaps he’s a little TOO open-minded, because the gigantic, pompous plant that abducts him, his colleague, three pressmen, the mayor of Berkley, and the police chief of the same to Mars, well, is giving off red flags (flowers?) right and left. Problem is, they’re so busy looking at the outrages and wonders of their captor to notice a few “hmmmmmmmmms”.

First, it appears to have shaded out/destroyed any and all competition (including creatures suspiciously resembling US) be it plant or animal.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

It has rendered the entire planet barren in order to sustain it’s near immortal self. Earth is nearby. Earth is pretty… juicy.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

It’s been watching us, taking notes, and wellllll, getting ready to cut a deal, a deal that’s almost too good to be true: transmit stuff from seawater that we don’t need to Mars, and we get all sorts of shiny toys in return.

Red flag, anybody?

It’s all suspicously like saying to a Native American tribe, “In return for this handful of nifty cheap glass beads, you guys move over here to this nice reservation and stay put. In return we’ll get all those nasty, shiny yellow rocks and that  sticky black gunk that oozes out of the ground…”

Soon, the Native Americans are stuck (or dead) on a barren patch of land nobody wants and the other party involved owns everything worth owning. Can we all say “Hmmmmmmmm…”?

It’s suspicious that the more conservative, paranoid members of the party escape with little or no chagrin on the part of the plant that devoured Mars. They are allowed to preach the word of the upcoming invasion if they aren’t ready to fight back – fanning the flames of ignorance and fear, setting the stage for the more “enlightened one’s” return.

Again, hmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

The enlightened ones arrive – chaos ensues, governments collapse, defenses are divided – and lo and behold the benefactor from Mars rescues the enlightened few and sends them to Venus as the scions of a new, enlightened society. In order to build this new paradise, the ecosystem of Venus is purged of (wait for it, wait for it!) UNDESIRABLE ORGANISMS with the help of the near Godlike Kudzu of Mars.

Meanwhile, the remains of the human race left behind to wallow in their ignorance and fear wake up one day to find a big-ass seed in their midst; a big ass seed which rapidly sprouts and takes over, killing everything in it’s path…

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm… INDEED!

All the while, the paradise that is the dark side of Venus flourishes in its rationalism, all inconvenient life forms eliminated… it’s all skittles and beer for the ones who chose the path and the pretty toys of the Kudzu from Mars… I wonder how long it will be before the new Venusians wake up one day to find a big ass seed in THEIR midst, having prepared the ground for it without even realizing what they did.

Anybody beside me figure that the winners in this story aren’t the rationalist enlightened individuals who went along with the Vine That Ate Mars but a great big manipulative Vine That Ate Mars and it’s seeds – SUCKERS!!!

Tell the truth, this story should be read aloud with the voice of Peabody the dog from the “Rocky and Bullwinkle Show” – the joke is on humanity, regardless of the side it took.

This is an actual issue of the Salt Lake Tribune from 1912. Make of it what you will:

Join us next time for “The Vaults of Yoh Vombis.”

Our reader this week is Jordan Smith.

Music: Kevin MacLeod

Our reader is Olivia Davis.

New outro by forum member “Boney Washington.”

Paintings by Goya.

Join us next time for The Devotee of Evil.

Our reader this week is Jordan Smith.

Music: Kevin MacLeod

Music:
Kevin McLeod

Next time, we’ll be cover “Beyond the Singing Flame.”

Thanks to our reader, Joe Scalora.

Music:
Kevin McLeod

The artist Ruth mentioned was Joe Broers, whose work can be found on his deviantART gallery at this point. The Hyperborean book Tim is currently reading is Deepest, Darkest Eden, put out by Miskatonic River Press. This episode’s different introduction was composed by Mr. Tyler Crook, artist extraordinaire who will maybe someday read the stories before we talk about them.

Our upcoming story order will be:

Philip Hastane/Singing Flame

• “City of the Singing Flame”
• “Beyond the Singing Flame”
• “Hunters from Beyond”
• “The Devotee of Evil”
• “Music of Death” is a fragment that we’ll likely cover with Devotee

Mars

• “Seedlings of Mars”
• “The Vaults of Yoh-Vombis”
• “Dweller in the Gulf” (in the Martian Depths)
• “Vulthoom”

Xicarth

• “The Maze of Maal Dweb” (“The Maze of the Enchanter”)
• “The Flower-Women”

In this week’s episode, we close Hyperborea with a story from the, err, “master thief” Satampra Zeiros. That’s right, it’s time for the infamous “Theft of the Thirty-Nine Girdles.”

Join us next time as we reflect on the NecronomiCon conference we all went to at the end of August and go over what stories we’ll be covering next.

The Gaspard Du Nord sketch and Sabine.

Phil’s film Europa Report.

We swear to Tsathoggua that Rumology is a REAL thing.

Join us next time for the final story in Hyperborea “The Theft of the Thirty-Nine Girdles.”

Reader: The Divine Joe Scalora
Music: Kevin MacLeod

For your listening pleasure now, however, we present Tim!

Relevant links for this episode:

• Fantasy Fan publication
• Forrest J Ackerman
• Yog-Blogsoth
• The NecronomiCon in Providence!

In the meantime, we present Phil with CAS’s poem “The Doom of America.”

THE DOOM OF AMERICA

Thou hast striven after strange gods, O America: in the
Temples of latter time, thou hast lifted up Baal and Mammon and Moloch
Thou hearkenest wholly unto these, thine ears seek after the flattery of subtle and false oracles:
They are filled therewith, they are grossly satisfied: neither shalt thou hear the lord if His thunders bespeak thee, nor heed His prophets except with mockery.
O bride that was given unto God of former time! O sharer in the covenant of the Most High:
Thou does adultery with bestial deities:
Yea, thou deniest it not, in the marts thou confirmest the report of thy shame with mirth.
O breaker of faith, thou fearest not, thou art graceless: thou hast forgotten the promise of the jealousy of the Lord, and the prophecy of his vengeance:
O fornicatrix! Thou art entirely naked; thou art bare even of shame.

Thou hast built innumberable furnaces for altars to the greed of the gods: thou hast drawn forth the demons of the elements and enforced them to labour with groaning and shrieking in the service of Mammon.
But the smell of the altars is not pleasant to the true God, neither do the stars approve it:
It is a stench to the nostrils of Alcyone; the cry of the sacrifice is a howl of abomination in the ears of Altair.
The stars have cursed thee with red conjunctions, with a most fatal configuration:
They are leagued with God in a conspiracy against thee.
Thou canst not hear the menace of His mirth, who fashioneth the levins of reckoning:
Neither dost though observe how the planets of midnight shake with an evil and unheard laughter:
In her cold and hollow heart, the pale moon hath a most black and secret mirth.
The years and days of thine end have been assigned to the work thereof, and God hath already named their attendant angels:
Time and the sun have been notified as to thy doom; thou alone knowest it not.

O foolish, O indiscreet, thou hast taken to thee many alien peoples, the stranger is become thy possessor:
They shall be invoked against thee soon, they shall be given over to the stakes of thy confusion, even to the redoubling thereof:
The curse of Babel shall be upon thee.
Shall the Beasts of the Abyss that thou hast taken for deities, countervail the flaming might of the seraphim, and the sunlike wrath of the Most Righteous?
Mammon shall be aghast in the light of thine end, Moloch shall reel amain before the thunder of thine undoing.
Art thou stronger than Rome, art thou greater than Babylon, that, sinning as these sinned, thou shalt abide where they abode not, nor be stricken as these were stricken?
Nay, thou art less than these were, the term of they fornication shall be briefer than theirs:
Doom shall come upon thee ere thou art made ready, and the chariots thereof shall be swifter than comets.

O scorner of poets and prophets, of them that are soothsayers: O mocker of the trumpets of Truth: I know that thou wilt not heed me: thou wilt pause a little. Thou wilt pass on with derision and forget:
For thine ears are withholden. The rumor of the preparation of doom may not reach so far: and seals are upon thine eyes like eyelids.
Perhaps thou wilt remember me, in the days like tempestuous night, when thine ears shall be thronged with the thousand noises of the labour of death, and around thee shall gather and multiply the rumours of manifold division:
When many confusions are increased upon thee.
But now thou sayest, Ha, ha, am I not armoured with cities, is not my metropolis a shield of adament embossed with iron? Am I not fortified? Have I not swift messengers that I have taken captive in the kingdom of the wind?
Am I not ringed about with demons of the deep, with strangers from the vast that I have enslaved and compelled to my service?
Yes! But the strength of iron and stone availeth and saveth not when the heart is corrupted!
Neither shall the weapons of genii protect against the rot and rust of the spirit.

O thou unseemly one, whose actions are not meet: who hast suffered they merchants to wax as kings: who admittest the multitude to thy councils: In the end they shall betray thee to the desert and the dust. In that day they captains and divers peoples shall divide thee from within: the strnog shall be at strife with the strong: Also, the heathen of his multitude shall sunder thee from round about: he whose heart is entire within him, who is not forsworn as thou:
Who hath not departed from his god as thou from thine.
O twice-confounded: in the end they shall render thee to the Abyss, to the blind and earless One who recieveth but rendereth not in turn:
Abaddon shall take charge of thee.

In the far time to come, ere the end of the black cycle, thy memory shall be but as the writing on a stone that hath crumbled, that the wind hath lifted grain by grain and diffused afar:
The wise and the patient shall hardly regather the characters of that writing, nor put together the import thereof.
Only some wind, that hath blown always within they loneliest and most ancient waste, shall have remembrance of thee then.
Even thy magic shall be forgotten: the desert peoples latterly they remnant, will hardly have the same names for thy devils in that day made free and ranging as aforetime.
Also, they high and haughty cities shall in those years be such that they who builded them would scarcely say if this were their handiwork.

Neither shall they endure as the stone of old times, as the pillars of Rome and Tyre that builded mightily, of Egypt whose toil shall be a testimony to the stars of the last and endless night.

Music: Sonorant – Soul Extinct

We’ve found that editing four voices together as compared to three (as compared to two on other Weird podcasts) takes significantly longer. But while we can’t promise a perfectly predictable schedule, we will keep these coming.

Phil was interviewed on Europa Report, which you can watch from Amazon or other video on demand services.

Next time, we’ll be doing “The Coming of the White Worm.”

Music:
Kevin McLeod – Bent and Broken
Bridge Underwater – Monster Delight
Kevin McLeod – Spider’s Web
Kevin McLeod – Spider’s Eye
Gregoire Lourme – La bataille finale

The walkthrough maps Jason mentions are worth checking out for any D&D player. Given the nature of this story, perhaps he’d like to do one for the episode.

A note on transcriptions, they’re proceeding apace, thanks to help from several listeners, particularly @GenusUnknown.

Next week, we’ll have the second half of the story for you!

Music Credits:
Koke Nunez Gomez — Conquerors
Koke Nunez Gomez — Fons Vitae
Koke Nunez Gomez — Hades Rebellion

This week’s mostly announcements and excerpts from some of CAS’s letters! The delay is caused because, excitingly, we were nominated for the Parsec awards for speculative fiction podcasting! The three of us had to listen to most of the old episodes to discover what clip or clips we wanted to submit. In the end, we sent in a long clip from the first half of “The Door the Saturn,” along with an ending teaser clip. It’ll be put up on the podcast site a bit later.

We’re also excited to announce that we’ve started a project to transcribe all the episodes. This will open the podcast up to people with hearing loss or other reasons for not being able to listen to podcasts, should they be interested. We’ve got a handful of the first episodes transcribed and more on the way. We’re also looking for volunteers to transcribe even one episode—let us know if you’re interested.

We’ve got “The Seven Geases” coming up with special guest Jason Thompson.

From the Eldritch Dark.

Our reader this week is @CrowGirl42.

Join us next time as we discuss “The Seven Geases” with Jason Thompson.

Music credits:
Int.Elect – Last Day on Earth
Int.Elect – Call Me Back
Int.Elect – On an Edge
Int.Elect – When Day Becomes Night
Int.Elect – Epiphany

In exciting news, we’ve been nominated for a Parsec award. Thank you, listeners!

Next time, we’ll be tackling “The White Sybil” with guest reader @CrowGirl42.

Music for this episode: David G. Bonacho – Vertices en el Tiempo; Mister M – Darkness; Stefano Giardiniere – Lost at Nowhere

Because we were behind, the Pseudopod episode we mentioned is already out. They’ve recorded Clark Ashton Smith’s “The Ninth Skeleton.”

We’ve also recorded the next two episodes, so we’re hoping not to end up with a gap like that again. Our next episode will be “Ubbo-Sathla.”

Music for this episode was: Flanicx – Meat N Bones, Flanicx – Funesto, Flanicx – Xperiment N, AlienAqtor – Tense Parte 01.

Mike has done hundreds of creatures by this point and put out three hard-to-snag volumes, which he periodically reprints. There are plenty of Smith characters on the site as well as your more classic Lovecraftian ones. Plus, he’s tackled things one doesn’t often see illustrated in Lovecraft. You may want to consider viewing them from home, however, as there’s a great deal of nudity.

The tale concludes with the abandonment of Commoriom after it has been overrun by a single, growing monster-human hybrid. Perhaps this tale could be called “if Wilbur Whately hadn’t had that little dog problem.”

Next time, we’ll be doing The Ice-Demon.

Music by Erdenstern.

Mike has done hundreds of creatures by this point and put out three hard-to-snag volumes, which he periodically reprints. There are plenty of Smith characters on the site as well as your more classic Lovecraftian ones. Plus, he’s tackled things one doesn’t often see illustrated in Lovecraft. You may want to consider viewing them from home, however, as there’s a great deal of nudity.

The story takes us back to Commoriom before it was abandoned and tells of the horrifying circumstances that led its residents to flee and re-establish the city a day’s journey away…although none of us are sure we would’ve stopped after just one day.

Next week, we’ll be back with part 2 of the story!

Music by Erdenstern.

Thanks to everyone who participated in the Tsathoggua drawing! Excluding people who said they weren’t interested in the book and duplicate submissions (i.e. if you submitted 2, you got 1), we did a random drawing from among the submissions and many congrats to forum member Boneworm for his win.

I’ve put together a gallery of all the others below. I think this marks a significant contribution to the number of drawings of Tsathoggua online.

UPDATE: We’ve had a wonderful illustration contributed by Robert A Neri Jr, of both Avoosl and the monster.

There is still one more week to get in The Testament of Athammaus,” with a special guest!

Music by Erdenstern.

As a reminder, we’re giving away a copy of The Weird and you can win it. Just draw Tsathoggua, as you see him, and send it to us. You can use our contact page, Twitter, Facebook, or our forums to submit your entry. We’ll be posting them, but we’ll choose randomly, so make a valiant effort! To help those of you with less artistic talent feel better, here are ours:

Ruth’s Tsathoggua

Phil’s Tsathoggua

Tim’s Tsathoggua

The contest ends March 20th!

Join us next time for “The Weird of Avoosl Wuthoqquan”

Music by Erdenstern.

This week, we’re doing the first half of Smith’s “A Door to Saturn.” Our reader is @JoeScalora, a longtime listener and the first non-guest reader we’ve had for the podcast.

We’re doing a giveaway of The Weird, a fantastic compendium of Weird tales. It’s huge and we’ve all enjoyed it, although none of us has finished it. This copy was given to us by a publisher to give away.

What we’re asking you to do to enter to win is just to draw Tsathoggua, as you see him, and send it to us. You can use our contact page, Twitter, Facebook, or our forums to submit your entry. We’ll be posting them, but we’ll choose randomly, so make a valiant effort! To help those of you with less artistic talent feel better, here are ours:

Ruth’s Tsathoggua

Phil’s Tsathoggua

Tim’s Tsathoggua

The contest ends March 20th!

Music by Erdenstern. Next week, we’ll continue with the second half of “A Door to Saturn.”

This week, we’ll be doing our first Hyperborean episode, “The Tale of Satampra Zeiros.” To see the rest of the Hyperborean stories, check out the list on our about page.

We have our first guest in this episode, Jason Thompson, a.k.a Mockman or @khyungbird. Jason is the author of Manga: The Complete Guide and the author and artist of various comics, including King of RPGs (with Victor Hao), H.P. Lovecraft’s The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath, and The Stiff. He is currently working on a comic with Shaenon Garrity. One of the reasons we asked Jason to be a guest on this episode, in particular, is because he’s done a great comic of today’s story. You can buy the comic in his store and I (Ruth) really recommend it.

Jason mentioned learning about Hyperborea in the Inventorum Natura by Una Woodruff. Tim was able to find the Clark Ashton Smith illustrations for The Lurking Fear, thanks for W.H. Pugmire’s blog.

This is the family tree we mentioned, which Lovecraft created to bind his world to Smith’s:

The next two episodes will cover the amazingly trippy adventures in “The Door to Saturn.”

Music by Erdenstern.

• “Atlantis“
• “Bond“
• “The Muse of Atlantis”“
• “Tolometh“

Next time, we start Hyperborea with “The Tale of Satampra Zeiros” and a special guest!

Music by Erdenstern.

The story was originally rejected from Weird Tales because it (or that draft) too-closely resembled a prose poem, but it was accepted and published in April 1934.

Tim found this awesome track called “The Death of Malygris” by Aperion Project.

Next time, we’ll have readings of several Poseidonian poems by Smith.

Thanks to Erdenstern for the music and to Robert A Neri Jr for the Malygris art.

This week, we have a more modern pirate story in which a merry band encounter “A Vintage from Atlantis.”

This story originally appeared in the September 1933 issue of good ole Weird Tales, alongside stories by authors including: Robert E. Howard, Hugh B. Cave, and (we kid you not) Hung Long Tom.

Ager Falernus and Cecuba were known for Roman wines. Valdepeñas is a Spanish town with excellent soil for wine. We’ve learned in a note from a letter that this ending is a third rewrite, as requested by Farnsworth Wright.

In our next episode, we’ll wrap up the Poseidonis stories with “The Death of Malygris.”

Music by: Erdenstern

This story was first accepted by Strange Tales, which then folded before publishing. Smith published it himself in 1933 in a volume titled The Double Shadow with “The Maze of the Enchanter,” “The Voyage of King Euvoran,” “A Night in Malnéant,” “The Devotee of Evil,” and “The Willow Landscape.”

Definitions from the first paragraph, as collected by Phil:

• orichalchum – a type of Roman brass made of 80% copper and 20% zinc.
• triremes – a ship with three rows of oars on each side.
• seine – a fishing net.
• byssus – a type of filament secreted from mollusks, sometimes used to make fabrics.
• Lephara is a port city on Poseidonis mentioned in Sfanamoë.

(Ruth: Yes, I sent Phil his copy of The Double Shadow.)

For Phil, a history of Duncan Idaho. And, speaking of that, 42:00-44:00 contains some specific Dune spoilers re: Duncan Idaho.

Join us next time for “A Vintage from Atlantis.”

Music by: Erdenstern

This week, we escape the sinking continent of Poseidonis on A Voyage to Sfanomoë.”

Voyage is the second of Smith’s Poseidonis stories and the first we’ve had so far in the podcast with scientists instead of magicians or necromancers. It was published in the August 1931 issue of Weird Tales, just over a year after “The Last Incantation.” Lovecraft’s “The Whisperer in Darkness” was published in the same volume.

Join us next time, as we release our self-titled(????) episode, “The Double Shadow!”

Music by: Erdenstern

Welcome to Poseidonis! The About page has been updated with our new list of stories. Today we start off with “The Last Incantation.”

Unicorn head by Robert A Neri Jr. or Ranger Games

We’ve jumped back in time to June of 1930, when this story was published in Weird Tales and to an era after the glory of Atlantis, but before Averoigne. The series is bookended with stories about Malygris, possibly the greatest sorcerer/necromancer we’ve run across so far.

Next time, join us on “A Voyage to Sfanomoët;.”

Music by: Erdenstern

The essay Phil referenced is “Into the Woods: The Human Geography of Averoigne” by Stefan Dziemianowicz, in The Freedom of Fantastic Things: Selected Criticism on Clark Ashton Smith ed. by Scott Connors. Tim quoted from “Eblis in Bakelite” by James Blish, “James Blish versus Ashton Smith; to Wit, the Young Turk Syndrome” by Donald Sidney-Fryer, and “Who Discovered Clark Ashton Smith?” by Scott Connors, all published in the Lost Worlds journal.

So–what did we have in Averoigne?

• 1 cathedral
• 1 convent
• 2 monasteries
• 14 Necromancers
• 1 demon
• 1 alien
• 1 evil statue
• 11 mentions of werewolves
• 1 actual werewolf
• 2 sorceresses, unaligned
• 1 witch, batrachian
• 2 vampires, lazy
• 1 staff of household vampire servants
• 2 lamias, unconfirmed
• 1 art-loving archbishop
• 7 gargoyles
• 1 corpse giant
• 2 epidemics of murder
• 16 dead monks

Next week, we’ll be doing our first Poseidonis story: “The Last Incantation.”

Music thanks to: Kevin MacLeod.

The poet referenced in the story was Pierre de Ronsard (1524-1585), who was a member of the group of French poets known as La Pléiade.

The phrase we were looking for from the Podcast to the Curious was the “Jamesian whallop,” an especially good phrase when said in a British accent.

In next week’s episode, we’ll wrap up Averoigne with a discussion of the setting and a look at three synopses/outlines CAS wrote for potential Averoigne stories. The synopses we’ll be covering are “Queen of the Sabbat,” “The Werewolf of Averoigne,” “The Sorceress of Averoigne | The Tower of Istarelle.”

Thanks again to Kevin MacLeod for the music.

Eldritch Dark by Clark Ashton Smith on Vimeo.

This is the first in a series of short poems, both by Smith and others, which we’ve recorded and will be releasing periodically over the next year.

Illustration from Weird Tales most likely by Clark Ashton Smith.

The Wikipedia entry for Cromlech has an illustration of a basic one, as well as more complex outlines.

A few links here for those interested in illustrations of monsters carrying women and the “carry phenomenon.”

Next time, we’ll be doing the last of the Averoigne stories, “The Satyr.” You may also want to read read its variant conclusion, which we’ll be discussing on the show.

Thanks again to Kevin MacLeod for the music.

IMDB page for The Theatre Bizarre in which the “Mother of Toads” adaptation Phil mentioned appears (and picture of Richard Stanley). A trailer for the horror compilation in which the “Mother of Toads” film appears The Theatre of the Bizarre. A clip in which the wife buys the Elder Sign earring.

The Dark Horse Book of Witchcraft, in which an illustrated (but not graphic novel/comic) version of “Mother of Toads” appears.

Next time, we will be reading “The Enchantress of Sylaire.”

Thanks again to Kevin MacLeod for the music.

This week is a somewhat shorter episode on Smith’s “Disinterment of Venus.” After a number of revisions, this story first appeared in the July 1934 issue of Weird Tales alongside “Through the Gates of the Silver Key” by HPL and E. Hoffman Price and other stories.

The goddess Smith had originally intended to conflate with this Venus was
Kotys (or “Cotys”, “Cotto”, “Cottyto”, “Cottytus” depending on the spelling). According to Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase & Fable, her priests were called “Baptes”

[their] midnight orgies were so obscene that they disgusted even the even the goddess herself. (p.73)

Our next episode will be “Mother of Toads.” This one will carry a warning for sexual violence.

Music by: Kevin MacLeod, Illustration by Mike Mucci.

You can hear H.P. Lovecraft & Clark Ashton Smith discussing the history of Averoigne as used in this story in our two interludes: Lovecraft’s letter to CAS and Smith’s letter to HPL.

If you missed the allusions in the text, Iog-Sotôt is Yog-Sothoth of HPL fame and Sodagui is Tsathoggua of CAS’s pantheon/pandemonium. Both are undoubtedly CAS’s attempts to mimic the evolution of pronunciations through the centuries. Lilit is Lilith, first wife of Adam who is thought to be perhaps a demon or a monster.

Our next episode will be “The Disinterment of Venus.”

Special thanks to the Hay Library for being so friendly on our visit and to Mike Mucci for the Azédarac drawing!

Music by: Kevin MacLeod

Beast of Averoigne illustration created by Mike Mucci.

The French Wikipedia entry on Chaudronnier (translated by Ruth) describes one was:

Chaudronnier is a trade originally describing pot-makers, which by extension came to describe anyone who makes hollow containers of metal or plastic of all kinds.

And as a reminder, we now have forums where you can talk about the episodes, Smithiana, weird gaming, and weird fiction in general!

Music by: Kevin MacLeod

This week’s episode is on “The Mandrakes.” At the beginning of the episode, we noted a change in our line-up and an error we’d made regarding story order. The proper story order is reflected on our About page, although we kept Colossus where it had been and noted where it should have been.

The movie Phil referenced about a woman whose feelings flow into her cooking was Like Water for Chocolate (1992). The Japanese horror film was Cure (1997).

Information about Gilles de Rais can be found here. De Rais was also hanged, but the article does not mention whether or not his corpse was then burned.

The Winners of our Giveaway

Many congrats to the winners of our giveaway, whose “lost or unwritten Averoigne story” ideas were read on the podcast today:

From Jason:

In the decaying ruins of an unnamed abbey, a young woman finds a manuscript purporting to be a true and accurate account of the habits and deeds of the wild loup-garou. She returns to her village and becomes obsessed with proving the validity of the document (and the veracity of the existence of the feral beasts) to the disbelieving townsfolk, going so far as to maul an old woman in a manner consistent with the manuscript to provide “evidence.” She is caught and cast out of the village, wandering in madness through the primeval forest until, joyously vindicated at last, she meets her death on the claws and teeth of a loup-garou.

Guido:

In modern day Averoigne two friends embark on a road trip to sight see the horror haunted historical sights of the Averoignian countryside. Their adventure turns perilous when they realize that their journey is closely tailed by a stalking, flesh-hungry werebeast and they have to keep moving to survive.

Janey:

A highwayman is hiding out in the woods of Averoigne at night when he comes upon a young woman; she tells him a disturbing story about a village whose inhabitants were picked off one by one by a loup-garou. At the end of the story the girl reveals that she herself was the loup-garou, and devours him.

Pete:

The body of a sorcerer washes up on the shore of the Isoile River; whispers of his death begin surfacing around Averoigne and of the binding spell that died with him. Now free from the sorceries that imprisoned their shapeshifting abilities, an ancient family attempt to reclaim their wolfen birthright.

Thanks to all the listeners who submitted and promoted the contest!

Next time, we’ll be doing the published version of “The Beast of Averoigne.” For extra credit, though, read the original version of the story to understand the style he first intended and get a little more background than we’re given in the final version.

Music by: Kevin MacLeod and T.H. Larsen/Gracehoper (with permission) Egypt-style soundscape and Southern Gothic.