copy of those inconceivably old Pnakotic Manuscripts made by waking men in

forgotten boreal kingdoms and borne into the land of dreams when the hairy

cannibal Gnophkehs overcame many-templed Olathoe and slew all the heroes

of the land of Lomar. Those manuscripts he said, told much of the gods,

and besides, in Ulthar there were men who had seen the signs of the gods,

and even one old priest who had scaled a great mountain to behold them

dancing by moonlight. He had failed, though his companion had succeeded

and perished namelessly.

So Randolph Carter thanked the Zoogs, who fluttered amicably and gave him

another gourd of moon-tree wine to take with him, and set out through the

phosphorescent wood for the other side, where the rushing Skai flows down

from the slopes of Lerion, and Hatheg and Nir and Ulthar dot the plain.

Behind him, furtive and unseen, crept several of the curious Zoogs; for

they wished to learn what might befall him, and bear back the legend to

their people. The vast oaks grew thicker as he pushed on beyond the

village, and he looked sharply for a certain spot where they would thin

somewhat, standing quite dead or dying among the unnaturally dense fungi

and the rotting mould and mushy logs of their fallen brothers. There he

would turn sharply aside, for at that spot a mighty slab of stone rests on

the forest floor; and those who have dared approach it say that it bears

an iron ring three feet wide. Remembering the archaic circle of great

mossy rocks, and what it was possibly set up for, the Zoogs do not pause