| Hastur | |
|---|---|
 | |
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Other Names |
Hastur, King in Yellow |
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First Appearance |
Haïta the Shepherd (1891) |
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Original Publisher |
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Created by |
Ambrose Bierce |
Origin[]
Hastur also known as the King in Yellow is an entity of the Cthulhu Mythos.
Hastur first appeared in Ambrose Bierce's short story "Haïta the Shepherd" (1891) as a benign god of shepherds. Subsequently Robert W. Chambers used the name in his late 1800s stories to represent both a person and a place associated with several stars, including Aldebaran. H. P. Lovecraft was inspired by Chambers's stories and briefly mentioned Hastur in The Whisperer in Darkness (1930).
In Chambers' The King in Yellow (1895), a collection of horror stories, Hastur is the name of a potentially supernatural character (in "The Demoiselle D'Ys"), a place (in "The Repairer of Reputations"), and mentioned without explanation in "The Yellow Sign". The latter two stories also mention Carcosa, Hali, Aldebaran, and the Hyades, along with a "Yellow Sign" and a play called The King in Yellow.
H. P. Lovecraft read The King in Yellow in early 1927 and included passing references to various things and places from the book—such as the Lake of Hali and the Yellow Sign—in "The Whisperer in Darkness", one of his main Cthulhu Mythos stories. Lovecraft borrowed Chambers' method of only vaguely referring to supernatural events, entities, and places, thereby allowing his readers to imagine the horror for themselves. The play The King in Yellow effectively became another piece of occult literature in the Cthulhu Mythos alongside the Necronomicon and others.
Public Domain Literary Appearances[]
- Haïta the Shepherd (1891)
- The King in Yellow (1895)
- The Whisperer in Darkness (1930)
Notes[]
- The first season of True Detective, a 2014 American anthology crime drama television series created by Nic Pizzolatto, references a figure called "the Yellow King". Allusions to The King in Yellow can be observed in the show's dark philosophy, its recurring use of "Carcosa" and "The Yellow King" as motifs throughout the series, and its symbolic use of yellow as a thematic signature that signifies insanity and decadence.