\u201cCthulhu Caroling\u201d<\/a> beginning at 7 p.m. this Saturday, Dec. 9, around the general area of Cambridge\u2019s Harvard Square. Check the event page for the exact meeting location as well as for the song lyrics (formatted for your smart phone or in PDF form so they can be easily printed out). At last check, 13 people claimed to be going and 438 registered that they were interested.<\/p>\nIf for some reason you happen to be unfamiliar with Cthulhu, Underhill explains, \u201cImagine the scariest thing you can think of. This is the thing that thing worships. \u2026 Lovecraft describes him as enormous, green and with tentacles sticking out of his face. There are also wings and claws. It\u2019s not really clear what he is because everyone who sees him goes insane.\u201d<\/p>\n
If you\u2019ve not previously gone Cthulhu Caroling, one question you may have is how does one say the name Cthulhu, let alone sing it? \u201cEverybody pronounces it differently,\u201d Underhill says. Personally, he goes with Kah-thu-lu. \u201cIt\u2019s supposed to be an unpronounceable name.\u201d<\/p>\n
Favorite Cthulhu carols include \u201cMigo We Have Heard on High\u201d and \u201cIt’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Fish Men.\u201d Or how about: \u201cI saw Mommy kissing Yog-sothoth in the ring of stones on Central Hill.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe really get interesting reactions,\u201d Underhill says. \u201cThe first year that we did it, my favorite reaction: We were in front of a store. Inside the story they sell pornography, that\u2019s the primary thing they sell. Some father heard what we were singing and dragged his children into the nearest store \u2026 and then dragged them right out.\u201d<\/p>\n
The last time they Cthulhu Caroled, they mutated the classic \u201cAway in a Manger\u201d into \u201cA Day in a Coffin.\u201d Sample lyrics: \u201cAway in a coffin at sunrise you sleep. \/ The vampire lord Dracula under his keep.\u201d He says a woman smiled to the music, but as she listened more her smile faded and she departed. Only to return a bit later with the rest of her family. \u201cThey stayed with us and sang with us a few more songs.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI love to sing, but I\u2019m not a Christian,\u201d Underhill says. \u201cSo I get a little uncomfortable singing Christian songs. Over the past thousand years, most of the music that\u2019s been written in Western culture has been written by Christians and a lot of it mentions Jesus or God.\u201d<\/p>\n
Singing the parodies is meant as fun. Underhill adds, \u201cThis is in large part connected to my wiccan practice as a third degree high priest in the Black Forest Clan. \u2026 It\u2019s not connected to the medieval sword fighting.\u201d When he\u2019s not Cthulhu Caroling, among his endeavors is teaching sword fighting. But that\u2019s another story.<\/p>\n
Pictured at top: “Spawn of the Stars” illustration by Sofyan Sharif<\/a> with Santa hat added by Greg Cook. (Via Wikipedia\/ Creative Commons license)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"About a decade ago, Stuart Thomas Underhill (not his real name), had horror author H.P. Lovecraft on his mind when he was inspired to rewrite the lyrics to the Christmas carol \u201cHark! The Herald Angels Sing.\u201d The song transformed into \u201cHark! The Elder God Awakens,\u201d in honor of Cthulhu, the alien monster whose origin is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4320,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[101],"tags":[42,138,137],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4316"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4316"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4316\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4333,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4316\/revisions\/4333"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4320"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4316"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4316"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}