The Doom that Came to Sarnath

"The Doom that Came to Sarnath" is an early short story by H.P. Lovecraft. It is written in a mythic style and is associated with his Dream Cycle.

Related Topics:
H.P. Lovecraft - Dream Cycle

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According to the tale, many thousands of years ago, a race of shepherd people colonized the banks of the river Ai in a land called Mnar, forming the cities of Thraa, Ilarnek, and Kadatheron (not to be confused with Kadath), which rose to great intellectual and prowess. Craving more land, a group of these hardy people migrated to the shores of a lonely and vast lake at the heart of Mnar, founding the metropolis of Sarnath.

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But the settlers were not alone. At the other side of the lake was the ancient, grey-stone city of Ib, inhabited by a queer race of creatures known in the works of author Lin Carter as the Thuum'ha. Lovecraft described them as:

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"...in hue as green as the lake and the mists that rise above it; had bulging eyes, pouting, flabby lips, and curious ears, and were without voice."

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These beings worshipped a strange god known as Bokrug, the Great Water Lizard, although it was more their physical form that caused the people of Sarnath to despise them.

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The hatred of the people of Ib by those of Sarnath eventually drove them to madness and , horribly slaughtering the helpless beings and stealing their idol as a trophy. The next night, the idol vanished under peculiar circumstances, and Taran-Ish, the high-priest of Sarnath, dead. Before dying, he had scrawled a single word on the altar: "doom".

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Ten centuries later Sarnath was at the height of its power and decadence. Nobles from distant cities were invited to the feast in honour of Ib's destruction. That night, however, the reverie was disrupted by strange lights over the lake and heavy mists, and that the tidal marker, the granite pillar Akurion, was mostly submerged. Not too much later, many of the cities inhabitants fled, maddened by fear. Some reported seeing the long-dead men of Ib peering from the windows of the towers, while others refused to say exactly what they had seen.

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Those that returned saw nothing of those unlucky enough to be left behind, only rubble, many water lizards, and, most disturbingly, the Thuum'ha's idol. Ever since, Bokrug has been the chief god of Ilarnek.

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Lovecraft's tale would seem to some a moralty tale, although knowing Lovecraft's low opinion of dualist ethics, it is more a tale of fate, awe, and enigma than the former.

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