Lovecraft: The Dreams in the Witch House

by H. P. Lovecraft

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“Old legends are hazy and ambiguous, and in historic times all attempts at crossing forbidden gaps seem complicated by strange and terrible alliances with beings and messengers from outside. There was the immemorial figure of the deputy or messenger of hidden and terrible powers—the “Black Man” of the witch-cult, and the “Nyarlathotep” of the Necronomicon. There was, too, the baffling problem of the lesser messengers or intermediaries—the quasi-animals and queer hybrids which legend depicts as witches’ familiars. As Gilman and Elwood retired, too sleepy to argue further, they heard Joe Mazurewicz reel into the house half-drunk, and shuddered at the desperate wildness of his whining prayers.”

There seems to be a lot of dislike for this story from amongst Lovecraft aficionados. Many state that this is amongst the poorest of his later stories. Even he was reluctant to have it published after August Derelith poo-pooed it. Lovecraft later wrote, "What the public considers 'weirdness' in drama is rather pitiful or absurd... They are all the same - flat, hackneyed, synthetic, essentially atmosphere-less jumbles of conventional shrieks and mutterings, and superficial mechanical situations." Yet it eventually was sold to Weird Tales who published it in 1933.

It is easy to understand the yawns directed at this tale as it is a step back towards the supernatural, rather than science fiction- which is where he found his best work. Despite his attempts to wrap it up in scientific jargon in discussing a hole through the “Einsteinian space/time continuum”, it is a story of a witch who uses magic to commune with things from beyond.

Essentially the story is of a young student at Miskatonic University rents a room at the “Witch House” in Arkham where a notorious witch that disappeared once dwelled. The room has odd angles and seems to conform to some unearthly geometry. As the title implies, he begins having strange dreams about the witch, her familiar, a human faced rat named Brown Jenkins, and other worldly places wherein dwell the Elder Things (as last seen from At the Mountains of Madness). He begins pulling things out of his dreams made from weird alloys and elements not catalogued in the periodic table of elements. The dreams become more and more vivid and evil, until disaster springs upon on the young protagonist.

 My opinion is that it's a solid story which builds on the Mythos by definitely connecting the Elder Things with Azathoth and its avatar the crawling Chaos, Nylarthotep. It was enjoyable to see how he connected old traditions of devil worship, meeting with the Devil at a crossroads (here the aforementioned Nylarthotep) and signing their name in a forbidden book (here the book of Azathoth). And how one enters into such pacts and places through the veils of sleep. All of these make for a fun story. Perhaps its only drawback is the predictable ending. But this is a Lovecraft tale. Anyone who has read his work should know what happens to his protagonists.

This story has been adapted twice into films, but I could only find trailers for them. To make up for this, I’ve uploaded an audio version of them as well. Enjoy and Caveat Emptor.

For more readings, try books by Rex Hurst. 

Curse of the Crimson Altar (1968) trailer

Dreams of the Witch House trailer

Dreams of the Witch House audiobook