Pre-Mythos Cosmic Horror, Part 2: Machen's "The Great God Pan"

Sorry for the several-month hiatus. Hopefully I will be able to post more regularly in the future.

Another pre-Lovecraftian story that fits very well into Lovecraftian themes - and in fact was definitely an influence on Lovecraft's mythos - is "The Great God Pan" by Arthur Machen.

Briefly, the story begins with an experiment intended to allow the subject (the mad scientist involved's foster daughter) to perceive aspects of reality normally invisible to human senses. The experiment is only partially successful - the alteration works, but whatever the girl sees drives her totally insane. Over a decade later, a farm family agrees to raise a mysterious girl named Helen, as her guardian claims that country life would improve her condition (and provides a very generous stipend). Soon, however, other children begin to experience strange events while Helen is around, claiming to see frightful "men in the wood". One boy is so frightened that the mental damage appears permanent, and his father is highly suspicious: but of course nothing can be proved. Another girl is traumatized when Helen vanishes in front of her, in broad daylight. As Helen grows, the events become worse. She marries, and her husband is eventually driven to madness, discarding all his wealth (and becoming a beggar) in the effor to escape her. Eventually it becomes so severe that a single evening's conversation drives upstanding, content men to suicide... [highlight for ending spoilers] She is eventually cornered and forced to commit suicide. Her strange death throes show her inhuman nature more clearly than ever. It is finally revealed by the doctor responsible for the original experiment that Helen is Mary's daughter, conceived by an unknown being at the time of Mary's being driven insane by the vision given her by the experiment.

"The Great God Pan" is somewhat reminiscent of Lovecraft's "The Dunwich Horror", and I imagine it was one of Lovecraft's inspirations for that story. Quite creepy even today despite its early date, "The Great God Pan" is clearly one of the formative cosmic horror stories.

It is interesting that no use is made in this story of the unpronounceable, alien-sounding names often found in Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, and their later imitators. The horrors are referred to by traditional names: 'Pan', 'satyrs', 'demons' - though it is quite clear that the beings in the story are more alien than those that the names normally suggest. It is strongly implied, though, that these beings were the original inspiration for the stories of Pan and the satyrs: "The ancients knew what it meant", the mad doctor says before beginning his experiment.

However, Lovecraft did often associate traditional legends with his invented creatures, and he did not always make use of invented names: "Dagon" never provides any 'true' name for the briefly-glimpsed aquatic horror, and "Pickman's Model" strongly connects the moldy scavengers with tales of changelings, witches, and corpse-eating ghouls.