Pope Gregory IX was also real and was in fact Pope during the time, (1227-1241) that Lovecraft says the Necronomicon was published in Latin.īut it doesn’t stop there! Next came the English translation by John Dee. That’s 356 years after Lovecraft says he translated the book to Latin. Unfortunately Wormius lived from 1588 to 1655. Believe it or not there really was some poor guy named Olaus Wormius who was was a Danish physician and antiquary. Again Lovecraft used real people to add credibility to his creation. So much so in fact that Pope Gregory IX had the book banned in 1232. Once translated however it became much more popular in occult circles. Prior to this the Necronomicon was known to very few scholars. In 1228 Olaus Wormius made the first Latin translation. It was a logical title that was in fact Greek.

It sounds foreboding enough right? Lovecraft wrote that the title, as translated in the Greek language, meant “an image of the law of the dead”: nekros – νεκρός (“dead”), nomos – νόμος (“law”), eikon – εικών (“image”) So it wasn’t just some crazy name he (Lovecraft) came up with. Theodorus Philetas of Constantinople is said to have translated the original manuscript from Arabic to Greek, thus giving it the name Necronomicon. But from here things start to get interesting. So far this sounds just like something out of a Lovecraft story. According to Lovecraft, Alhazred died mysteriously when he was set upon by an invisible monster who devoured him publicly in broad daylight. The original Arabic title of this manuscript was Al Azif which was a reference to the nocturnal sound of insects which were believed to be the howling of demons by Arabic people.

The original manuscript was said to be wrote by Abdul Alhazred a poet who died in Damascus around the year 738 A.D.

To answer those questions lets look at the history of the Necronomicon according to H.P. To really understand the Necronomicon we have to ask ourselves a few questions, what do we know about it and if it doesn’t “really” exist why is there so much hype over a book that was never real? Lovecraft wrote about in 18 of his short stories and novellas? Well unfortunately the answer to that question is no… Or maybe that is a good thing.

Is there a book in publication that is called The Necronomicon? The answer to that question is without a doubt yes! Is it the same book that H.P. One of the first questions many people ask about the Necronomicon is, “is it real?” That’s a tricky question to start out with because the answer is both yes and at the same time no. Sorry you couldn’t make it but better to be safe then sorry. For those of you who couldn’t make it, I am writing this EXTREMELY long post so that you can bore yourself to tears by reading all about the Necronomicon. First of all I just wanted to thank everyone who risked the weather to make it to the meeting last night.

Necronomicon cthulhu mythos