My First Descent: ‘The Festival,’ Christmas, and the True Face of the Cthulhu Mythos

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Lifelong Love for Lovecraft

I was a young man of fourteen when I was assigned ‘The Festival’ by H.P. Lovecraft to read by my English teacher. It immediately captivated me, the mood thick like a New England Clam Chowder–and equally delicious to sink my teeth into. I did not know it at the time, but the world presented in that short piece of fiction would end up becoming a lifelong companion, a constant source of inspiration, and my absolute entry point into the cosmos of horror.

What struck me most wasn’t just the spooky atmosphere, but the tone. Lovecraft’s prose was archaic and measured, hinting at secrets too vast and ancient for the modern mind to comprehend. That feeling—the slow, creeping dread of a universe that simply doesn’t care—is why I kept coming back.

‘The Festival’ Unique in Delivery

As I cracked open the first page, I knew I was about to be treated to a different style of horror from what I was used to. Having read Poe or King, one more gothic, the other heavily influenced on both of the former, the New England stylization more akin to Hawthorne immediately drew me in, while the methodical cadence of his words were like a magical spell over my young mind. Like Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown” we are introduced to the corruption of a New England town, but there is something otherworldly in Lovecraft’s delivery. With each footstep each carefully chosen word has the reader moving through the town, on a mission to find the ancestors of the narrator and share with the reader how this ancient custom of ‘Yuletide’ is celebrated in Kingsport.

The Dark Mirror of Yuletide

In ‘The Festival’ the narrator takes us on a Yuletide journey, returning to his ancestral home. Lovecraft slowly starts the unveiling of a dark and sinister underpinning, only briefly hinted at throughout his stroll through the decaying streets of Kingsport. Lovecraft masterfully takes the familiar, the Christmas season, deconstructs it back to its pagan roots and ties it into what would end up being one of the earliest pieces in his greatest contribution to literature: the Cthulhu Mythos.

A Descent into Yuletide Horror

The narrator immediately tells us that he is “far from home,” trudging through the newly fallen snow in the streets of his ancestral home of Kingsport, where his kinsman wish for him to hold Festival with them. For what, indeed, is the Yuletide? Do we not all tend to leave our warm homes, packing up our things and heading to a predetermined gathering place where we see our own kinsmen, and celebrate our own version of Festival?

But we know from the first sentences that this gathering is not going to be one of cheer and joy. This Festival, this Yuletide, is different. His very dreams have guided him to Kingsport, which is described as an ancient and decaying town, one in which his kinsman had been hanged for Witchcraft back in 1692. Once a century they are to keep Festival, in an ancient and forbidden way.

He self describes as a loner, and though a loner, was told he should be known, which gives him at least some strength to make it to the seventh house on Green Lane. When he lays his hand on the knocker, he admits to being afraid, and is surprised when the knock is answered: he had not seen or heard a soul on his descent into the town.

His kinspeople seem friendly, but there is something eerie about the old man and the woman at the spinning wheel in the corner. The juxtoposition of seemingly unthreatening souls with the hint that the Festival had more sinister roots, hangs heavy in the air.

A Haunting Yuletide Festival

Of course, as the narrator soon finds out, this festival is not going to be one filled with eggnog and chocolate chip cookies. Indeed, our narrator is shown to the fireplace–which oddly has nothing burning at it–by the Old Man and sees that there are ancient texts there so old they have grown moldy! A mocking of Christmas, where in bygone times one might sit around the Hearth and read from the Bible. No, one was a forbidden text, and gives us our first opening into the Cthulhu Mythos: The Necronomicon, written by the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred.

The narrator finds himself mesmerized in reading from it, terrified by the impossibility of its contents, and its hinting at things that would cause anyone to go insane from beholding it. This text speaks of many things, revealed in other works of Lovecraft (such as The Dunwich Horror), about the Old Ones, and how to summon them from where they rest.

Soon, the old man returns, in what is described as a loose and antique costume. Almost like a Santa Claus figure, but his gift to his kinsman is dark indeed. As clock struck Eleven, the old man glides to a chest in the corner and pulls out two hooded cloaks, which he and the old woman stops spinning to wrap herself in. The old man takes The Necronomicon from the narrators hands and moves to the outer door.

Out in the snowy streets, the narrator notices that the lights are all out in the windows of the town. And suddenly, the roads have throngs of cloaked peoples on some exodus, which he and his kinsmen are guiding him to. A procession towards a mass, but not one celebrating the birth of a king.

The Finality of Fear: The Ancestral Horror

The cloaked congregation marches through the silent, snowbound streets until they reach their temple—or dare I say, a corrupted church? The terrified narrator is reluctant to enter, and his sense of utter isolation is heightened by the fact that the snow shows no sign of anyone walking through it, not even himself. Once inside, he finds an aperture where a staircase plunges impossibly down into the earth.

The descent is a dizzying assault on his reality: colors shift, footfalls make no sound, and the space feels non-Euclidean. He eventually reaches a cavernous area marked by the chilling sound of a flute, playing the Yule-Rite. Here, the core of the ceremony unfolds: a flaming, but strangely cold column rises, and unholy winged things—the monstrous servitors of the Mythos—flitter into the area.

As the Old Man holds up the Necronomicon, the celebrants mount these things and fly off. But the final, mind-shattering horror is reserved for the narrator alone. The Old Man uses his stylus and wax to show him a horrifying truth on a parchment: a ritualistic inscription proving that the narrator is the destined leader, his identity confirmed by his ancestor’s watch. Realizing he is not a witness but a horrific participant, the narrator makes a desperate break for freedom, plunging headlong into the nearby water.

He awakes as if it is but a dream—a fleeting moment of sanity. He compels himself to obtain a copy of The Necronomicon and reads the same passage he read by the fireless hearth, confirming the reality of the terrifying rites and the inescapable madness of his lineage.

The Lasting Impact of ‘The Festival’ on the Cthulhu Mythos

‘The Festival’ is a short but powerful story, one in which Lovecraft masters his control over Cosmic Horror, his greatest legacy as a writer. The vast insignificance of human life in the greater universe, like ants. The Necronomicon pervades many of his works, and is the corner stone (if not the gateway) into the other side. The warning is clear: you can run from the Mythos, but you cannot escape your bloodline, or the inevitability of Azathoth awakening from his slumber.

I hope that this essay has brought some new excitement to the Christmas season for you! What was your introduction to Lovecraft? What hooked you? Leave a comment below!