Lovecraft Makes A Slip

Okay, I’m listening to a story that H.P. Lovecraft ghostwrote (an appropriate thing for a horror writer) that is called The Mound.

One of the things I like about Lovecraft is the way he uses language. He had a real way with words and a phenomenal number of words in his active vocabulary.

But in this story, he makes a slip.

At one point, the narrator writes:

That evening the Comptons summed up for me all the legends current among the villagers.

Where might this "village" be? The Swiss alps? The island of Borneo? The sleepy hillsides of New England? They certainly have villages in all of those places, but they don’t where Lovecraft’s story is set:

Western Oklahoma.

Nobody in that part of the country talks about towns, however small, as "villages," nor describes their occupants as "villagers." In the dialect common in those parts, the proper, polite term is "town," and the proper way to speak of the inhabitants is "townsfolk." (Less polite terms are also available if you don’t set much stock by the town and its inhabitants.)

I suppose an exception would be made for "Indian villages" in the area, but then the inhabitants wouldn’t be called "villagers" but simply "Indians" (at least in 1928, when the story is set). But that’s not the kind of "village" he’s talking about.

In fairness to Lovecraft, his narrator is from the East and so is apt to describe things as an easterner would, but if he was really having a conversation with a local family about what legends were common among the townsfolk then they would likely have used the word "townsfolk" (or "townspeople" or something of this nature) and it should have ended up in the narrator’s narrative.

In any event, the detail rang false for me.

It’s very hard to imitate the idiom of another region and not get spotted by natives of the area (myself, in this case). I would never be able to fake Lovecraft’s New England setting and idiom.

So, if I ever write horror stories set in the present day, I guess they’ll have to be set in the South or Southwest.

UPDATE: I finished The Mound, and toward the end of the story it is revealed that the narrator is a Virginian. So: Unless they have "villages" in Virginia (and so far as I know, they don’t), what we have here is a flat-out mistake on Lovecraft’s part, letting his native New England idiom intrude onto a story about the South. He ain’t from around these parts, I reckon.

Author: Jimmy Akin

Jimmy was born in Texas, grew up nominally Protestant, but at age 20 experienced a profound conversion to Christ. Planning on becoming a Protestant seminary professor, he started an intensive study of the Bible. But the more he immersed himself in Scripture the more he found to support the Catholic faith, and in 1992 he entered the Catholic Church. His conversion story, "A Triumph and a Tragedy," is published in Surprised by Truth. Besides being an author, Jimmy is the Senior Apologist at Catholic Answers, a contributing editor to Catholic Answers Magazine, and a weekly guest on "Catholic Answers Live."

13 thoughts on “Lovecraft Makes A Slip”

  1. A “town legend” does not sound as authentic to me as a “village legend”.
    You can have a town’s newspaper report. But perhaps when you get to the size of town there stops being a community that can talk to each other, tell stories.
    So perhaps Lovecraft was trying to convey that it was Compton’s neighbour’s stories that were being discussed. He was not saying there was an urban myth on the topic.

  2. Towns and villages have different meanings in different parts of the country. I grew up in the Village of Arkport (NY) which was in the Town of Hornellsville, Steuben County. Each had there own government. The school district spanned parts multiple towns and was autonomous. Here in MD, they have no concept of towns as a legal entity. There are very few incorporated village. Most things are run by the county.

  3. Maybe it was a subtle dig at the local “townsfolk”? Calling them villagers makes them sound to me like ignorant peasant-types with pitchforks and torches. Anyway, you never hear of a “town idiot”.

  4. There is no such thing as a village in Oklahoma. There is a city, however, within the Oklahoma City limits called, “The Village.” It has it’s own city hall, fire and police stations. But that’s it. In Western Oklahoma, there are no villages, period, as Jimmy stated. There are counties, cities withing those counties, and towns, which are very,very, small cities. If someone said “villagers” around here, we’d be thinking, Transylvanians or some remote area in England or that great 70’s group, “The Village People!”

  5. What? The Village is in Oklahoma City? *That’s* a location I would never have suspected!
    I wonder if Number Six (or is it Number One?) still lives there. Have to drop by and see him next time I’m there. Ask him why he resigned.

  6. Sorry, but the Village is and will always be referred to the prisonners (serie with patrick Mac Gohan).

  7. I searched google for “Oaklahoma villages”. The first result is reference.allrefer.com/gazetteer/ us-categories/oklahoma-village.html
    which lists 332 villages in Oaklahoma. Beginning with a few:
    • Achille, Oklahoma (Bryan County)
    • Adair, Oklahoma (Mayes County)
    • Addington, Oklahoma (Jefferson County)
    The site also has 26 villages in Virginia:
    • Atlantic, Virginia (Accomack County)
    • Austinville, Virginia (Wythe County)
    • Bacons Castle, Virginia (Surry County)
    • Bayard, Virginia
    • Bloxom, Virginia (Accomack County)
    • Boones Mill, Virginia (Franklin County)
    • Bowling Green, Virginia (Caroline County)
    • Boyce, Virginia (Clarke County)
    • Branchville, Virginia (Southampton County)
    • Burkeville, Virginia (Nottoway County)
    • Capron, Virginia (Southampton County)
    • Cheriton, Virginia (Northampton County)
    • Clay, Virginia
    • Davy, Virginia
    • Deep Creek, Virginia
    • Denbigh, Virginia (Warwick County)
    • Elk Garden, Virginia
    • Farmington, Virginia
    • Franklin, Virginia
    • Fries, Virginia (Grayson County)
    • Gilbert, Virginia
    • Hallwood, Virginia (Accomack County)
    • Hamilton, Virginia (Loudoun County)
    • Iron Gate, Virginia (Alleghany County)
    • Keystone, Virginia
    • Midway Village, Virginia
    • Mount Crawford, Virginia (Rockingham County)
    • Sussex, Virginia (Sussex County)
    • Tasley, Virginia (Accomack County)
    So, at least today, there are problems with the conclusion: “Unless they have “villages” in Virginia (and so far as I know, they don’t), what we have here is a flat-out mistake on Lovecraft’s part”. I would expect there were more villages in 1928.

  8. The issue is not whether there is a government or other database somewhere that, presumably based on population, lists certain communities as villages, nor is it whether there may be state or federal laws or regulations that classify certain communities in those states as villages.
    The point is that the inhabitants of these regions (certainly in Oklahoma, and I suspect, in Virginia) do not colloquially use the word “village” to describe such communities.
    Hope that helps clarify. 🙂

  9. Like people calling Hobbits “halflings” in LOTR. Hobbits wouldn’t use that word, but…is it a mistake to call them that? Lots did. Maybe it would be a mistake only in the Shire to call a hobbit a halfling.
    Or like Georgian calling my Pepsi “coke” in my Midwestern home. Is he *wrong*?
    Sometimes those little “mistakes” characters make really can add depth to them. They tell you something about them. His calling them “villagers” could outline the fact that he is not one of them, and doesn’t really know them. That can bee a cool effect, but when it jars you so badly that you are pulled from the story to examine it, as you were, it may not be worth it. A fine line I guess.
    But obviously, in this case, you are referring to the fact that you think Lovecraft did not use the townsfolk’s term, nor did he use the narrator’s term: he used his own term which is alien to all parties in the story. If the narrator was not a “village” guy, that would be a mistake, I agree.

  10. I’m just giving you the scoop as I know it. Google may call small towns in Oklahoma ‘villages’ but my in-laws and all of my husband’s family live in the ‘village’ of Mountain View, we live a few miles from the ‘village’ of Cashion where my great grandfather staked out land and settled it during the land run of 1889. No one under the age of 99 say or used to say ‘village’ around here. I have not read the book but have heard about it and was told the same thing about Lovecraft using foreign terminology and it ringing hollow in Oklahoma ears.
    Now, who is number one or number six, and from what did he resign? That comment went way over my head.

  11. The comment concerns the cult TV program, the Prisoner starring Patrick McGoohan. McGoohan played a secret agent who resigned from his office, but did not tell his employers why. Afterwards, he was abducted and taken to “the Village.” The entire village was populated by other errant spies from both sides of the Iron Curtain. Everyone there had a number which indicated their rank in the village. Our hero was #6. His nemesis was #2 who lead the village, and who ended being several different characters and actors over the course of the series.
    The series had many mysteries including who was running the village and whether one secret organization actually ran the spy services on both sides of the Iron Curtain. The bad guys (and the audience) were primarily interested in why McGoohan (#6) left. McGoohan in turn was always trying to figure out who was #1.
    The series is not to everyone’s taste as it is very “high concept” and surreal. The people who like it though seem to be fanatic about it. You should be able to find it at a video store at some point if you want to rent it.

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