THE BLACK PHARAOH (NYARLATHOTEP)
“Then down the wide lane betwixt the two columns a lone figure strode; a tall, slim figure with the young face of an antique Pharaoh, gay with prismatic robes and crowned with a golden pshent that glowed with inherent light.”
“Hei! Aa-shanta ’nygh! You are off! Send back earth’s gods to their haunts on unknown Kadath, and pray to all space that you may never meet me in my thousand other forms. Farewell, Randolph Carter, and beware; for I am Nyarlathotep, the Crawling Chaos!”
H.P. Lovecraft, The Dream-Quest Of Unknown Kadath
“And it was then that Nyarlathotep came out of Egypt. Who he was, none could tell, but he was of the old native blood and looked like a Pharaoh. The fellahin knelt when they saw him, yet could not say why. He said he had risen up out of the blackness of twenty-seven centuries, and that he had heard messages from places not on this planet. Into the lands of civilisation came Nyarlathotep, swarthy, slender, and sinister, always buying strange instruments of glass and metal and combining them into instruments yet stranger.”
H.P. Lovecraft, Nyarlathotep
“But the worst and by far the most hideous feature was the lack of a face upon the ghastly thing. It was a faceless god; Nyarlathotep, Mighty Messenger, Stalker among the Stars, and Lord of the Desert.”
“When the Day arrived at last, Nyarlathotep would come out of the desert, and then woe unto Egypt! For the pyramids would shatter into dust, and temple crumble to ruin. Sunken cities of the sea would rise, and there would be famine and pestilence throughout the land. The stars would change in a most peculiar way, so that the Great Ones could come pulsing form the outer gulf.”
“Behind him strode the Faceless God, urging him onward with a staff of serpents.”
Robert Bloch, The Faceless God
THE BLACK MAN (NYARLATHOTEP)
“Now he was praying because the Witches’ Sabbath was drawing near. May-Eve was Walpurgis-Night, when hell’s blackest evil roamed the earth and all the slaves of Satan gathered for nameless rites and deeds.”
“He must meet the Black Man, and go with them all to the throne of Azathoth at the centre of ultimate Chaos. That was what she said. He must sign in his own blood the book of Azathoth and take a new secret name now that his independent delvings had gone so far. “
“The evilly grinning beldame still clutched him, and beyond the table stood a figure he had never seen before—a tall, lean man of dead black colouration but without the slightest sign of negroid features; wholly devoid of either hair or beard, and wearing as his only garment a shapeless robe of some heavy black fabric. His feet were indistinguishable because of the table and bench, but he must have been shod, since there was a clicking whenever he changed position.”
“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.”
“Presently he realised what he was listening for—the hellish chant of the celebrants in the distant black valley. How did he know so much about what they expected? How did he know the time when Nahab and her acolyte were due to bear the brimming bowl which would follow the black cock and the black goat?”
H.P. Lovecraft, Dreams In the Witch-House
“Such in its essence, was the fable of Nyarlathotep. It was older than secret Egypt, more hoary than sea-doomed Atlantis, more ancient than time-forgotten Mu. But it has never been forgotten. In the medieval times this story and its prophecy were carried across Europe by returning crusaders. Thus the Mighty Messenger became the Black Man of the witch-covens; emissary of Asmodeus and dark gods.”
Robert Bloch, The Faceless God
“But these early Christians did not always conceive a devil in human form. For example, in the Life Of St. Anthony, attributed to Athanasius, devils appear in many guises in addition to a blac boy and a huge man. They come as ‘a beast like to man having legs and feet like those of an ass,’ and as leopards, bears horses, wolves and scorpions.”
Rossell Hope Robbins, The Encyclopedia Of Witchcraft and Demonology
“When these members of the devil have met together, they generally light a foul and horrid fire. The devil is president of the assembly and sits on a throne, in some terrible shape, as of a goat or a dog; and they approach him to adore him, but not always in the same manner. “
Fracesco Maria Guazzo, Compendium Malificarum