{"id":4090,"date":"2017-05-31T14:49:15","date_gmt":"2017-05-31T14:49:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/greydogtales.com\/blog\/?p=4090"},"modified":"2019-03-07T17:53:05","modified_gmt":"2019-03-07T17:53:05","slug":"h-p-lovecraft-albion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/greydogtales.com\/blog\/h-p-lovecraft-albion\/","title":{"rendered":"Lovecraft’s Albion, and other Lunacies"},"content":{"rendered":"

In which a violent Turk slaughters some giants, and steals their land, at which point H P Lovecraft decides he likes the English, but doesn’t know what he’s talking about\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

So, there was this guy called H P Lovecraft<\/span><\/strong>. He came from New England and at one time declared I am Providence<\/em>. <\/em>And he wrote some rather interesting creepy stories which didn’t get that much attention at the time. Despite this, they were unusual enough to capture certain imaginations, and now we have a whole world of Lovecraftian wonders. Seems all right so far…<\/p>\n

\"lovecraft\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Unfortunately, Lovecraft had views about stuff, and he wrote those views down. An impoverished xenophobe, he got unpleasant at times, and expressed Horrid Ideas about people who weren’t from nice, decent white stock (though he even thought certain white folk were trash). He was a racist, though it can sometimes be hard to unpack that from his general xenophobia and collection of hang-ups. Or even self-hatred. We feel a bit sorry for him, in some ways. Anyhow, he said things, then we said things, and no one was entirely happy. Though he still wrote some good stories.<\/p>\n

We could live with HPL himself \u2013 he happened, he’s gone now \u2013 except for the regular unearthing of his sentiments by people who have even less of a clue that HPL did about the real world. Or about Britain, England, and all that jazz. As Britlanders ourselves, we would like to employ a solid Yorkshire boot to some of the concepts involved in Lovecraft’s Anglophily. Then maybe at least some people will stop droning on about Anglo-Saxons and their values in the nonsensical way that Lovecraft did, or using it for racist propaganda.<\/p>\n

It Gets Verse<\/h1>\n

One of the silly things about racism is the way in which people base their views on idiotic concepts of purity, genetic cleanliness, mythical peoples and all that lunacy. And dear old England is often the focus of these ill-conceived ventures. The dreaded Anglo-Saxon supremacy idea. Lovecraft himself was an Anglophile of the poetic, we’ll have no real knowledge here, sort, and he has plenty of descendants, sadly.<\/p>\n

Let’s have a look at the old gent’s verse for an anchor-point. For example, ‘An American to Mother England’<\/em>, from 1916:<\/p>\n

“Whilst nameless multitudes upon our shore<\/em>
\n From the dim corners of creation pour,<\/em>
\n Whilst mongrel slaves crawl hither to partake<\/em>
\n Of Saxon liberty they could not make,<\/em>
\n From such an alien crew in grief I turn,<\/em>
\n And for the mother\u2019s voice of Britain burn…”<\/em><\/p>\n

Poesy, 1916<\/em><\/p>\n

This is the sort of utter cod (content-wise) that makes you wonder how you’re supposed to enjoy Call of Cthulhu<\/em>. We can add in ‘Lines On General Robert Edward Lee’<\/em> (1917), which also goes over the top:<\/p>\n

“Attend! ye sons of Albion’s ancient race,<\/em>
\n Whate’er your country, and whate’er your place;<\/em>
\n LEE’S valiant deeds, though dear to Southern song,<\/em>
\n To all our Saxon strain as well belong,<\/em>
\n Courage like his the parent Island won,<\/em>
\n And led an Empire past the setting sun;<\/em>
\n To realms unknown our laws and language bore,<\/em>
\n Rais’d England’s banner on the desert shore;”<\/em><\/p>\n

The Coyote, January 1917<\/em><\/p>\n

Considering how well-read Lovecraft was, he clearly didn’t have much of a grounding in early English or Saxon history. Saxon liberty? He doesn’t seem to have had much of a clue about where it all came from \u2013 and didn’t want to, we suspect.<\/p>\n

The truth is that Britain is a cobbled-together entity, formed by a series of violent, often pagan, invaders and immigrants. Every tribe and group tried to knee every other tribe and group in the groin. Its name alone is a minefield. The Romans borrowed Greek words for it, drawing on ‘Prettanike’<\/em> (Britannic), used by Pytheas in the 4th Century BCE; imaginative early writers decided that it came from the line of Aeneas. And anyway, ‘Britons’ meant the Welsh, not the rest of the various tribes and populations.<\/p>\n

\"two<\/a>
two giants of Albion are not thrilled when mediterranean invaders turn up<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The best-known fun account of the origin of Britain is probably that given by the 12th-century chronicler Geoffrey of Monmouth<\/strong> in his Historia Regum Britanniae. And Geoffrey was either Welsh (not Saxon) or Breton\/Norman (not Saxon).<\/p>\n

“Brutus! there lies beyond the Gallic bounds<\/em>
\n An island which the western sea surrounds,<\/em>
\n By giants once possessed, now few remain<\/em>
\n To bar thy entrance, or obstruct thy reign.<\/em>
\n To reach that happy shore thy sails employ<\/em>
\n There fate decrees to raise a second Troy<\/em>
\n And found an empire in thy royal line,<\/em>
\n Which time shall ne’er destroy, nor bounds confine.”<\/em><\/p>\n

Geoffrey of Monmouth, On the Deeds of the Britons (1136)<\/em><\/p>\n

Brutain Vetoed as New Name<\/h1>\n

Brutus<\/strong>, or Brute of Troy, was a legendary descendant of the Trojan hero Aeneas, as mentioned above. It’s a story which first appears in the Historia Britonum<\/em>, an anonymous 9th-century historical compilation to which commentary was added by Nennius<\/strong> (who made most things up anyway).<\/p>\n

Lovecraft’s word ‘Albion’ comes from the Greek, possibly “island of the Albiones”, from the 6th<\/sup> century BCE. This refers to the main chunk, not Ierne<\/em>, or Ireland. So it’s anyone’s guess as to what ‘Albion’s ancient race’ might be, and why Lovecraft might cry out in admiration. We can offer you some contenders:<\/p>\n