Hounds of Tindalos

Hounds of Tindalos
Hounds of Tindalos
	Artist impression of a hound of Tindalos
First appearance	"The Hounds of Tindalos"
Created by	Frank Belknap Long
In-universe information
Species	Pseudocanis tindalosi
Type	Extraterrestrial life form

The Hounds of Tindalos are fictional creatures created by Frank Belknap Long and later incorporated into the Cthulhu Mythos when it was codified by August Derleth.^[1] They first appeared in Long's short story "The Hounds of Tindalos", first published in the March 1929 issue of Weird Tales.^[2] Lovecraft mentions the creatures in his short story "The Whisperer in Darkness" (1931).

Description

In Frank Belknap Long's original story, which deals with the main character experimenting in time travel with the help of psychedelic drugs and esoteric artifacts, the Hounds are said to inhabit the angles of time, while other beings (such as humankind and all common life) descend from curves.

Though the Hounds are sometimes pictured as canine, probably because of the evocative name, their appearance is unknown, since neither Long nor Lovecraft describe them, arguing they are too foul to ever be described.^[3] Long's story states that their name "veils their foulness". It is said that they have long, hollow tongues or proboscises to drain victims' body-fluids, and that they excrete a strange blue pus or ichor. They can materialize through any corner if it is fairly sharp—120° or less. When a Hound is about to manifest, it materializes first as smoke pouring from the corner, and finally the head emerges followed by the body. It is said that once a human becomes known to one of these creatures, a Hound of Tindalos will pursue the victim through anything to reach its quarry. A person risks attracting their attention by traveling through time.

References

^ Joshi, S.T.; Schultz, David E. (2004). An H.P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia. Hippocampus Press. p. 151. ISBN 978-0974878911.
^ Emrys, Ruthanna (21 July 2015). "Avoiding Angles is Harder Than It Sounds: "The Hounds of Tindalos"". Tor. Retrieved 27 February 2018.
^ Ramos, Octavio (21 October 2014). "Lovecraftian Beasties: The Hounds of Tindalos". AXS. Archived from the original on 16 June 2018. Retrieved 27 February 2018.

Sources

Long, Frank Belknap. "The Hounds of Tindalos" (1929). In Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos (1st ed.), Random House, 1998. ISBN 0-345-42204-X.

[Joshi-1] Joshi, S.T.; Schultz, David E. (2004). An H.P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia. Hippocampus Press. p. 151. ISBN 978-0974878911.

[2] Emrys, Ruthanna (21 July 2015). "Avoiding Angles is Harder Than It Sounds: "The Hounds of Tindalos"". Tor. Retrieved 27 February 2018.

[3] Ramos, Octavio (21 October 2014). "Lovecraftian Beasties: The Hounds of Tindalos". AXS. Archived from the original on 16 June 2018. Retrieved 27 February 2018.

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v t e Cthulhu Mythos
Writers	H. P. Lovecraft Robert Bloch Clark Ashton Smith Robert E. Howard Frank Belknap Long August Derleth Fritz Leiber Stephen King
Deities	Azathoth Cthulhu Hastur Nyarlathotep Shub-Niggurath Tsathoggua
Species	Deep Ones Elder Things Hounds of Tindalos Mi-Go Serpent Men Shoggoth
Related	Aklo Dream Cycle Alan Moore's The Courtyard Neonomicon Providence
Lists	Anthologies Books Characters Works influenced by the Cthulhu Mythos

v t e H. P. Lovecraft
Bibliography
Short stories	"The Beast in the Cave" "The Alchemist" "The Tomb" "Dagon" "A Reminiscence of Dr. Samuel Johnson" "Polaris" "Beyond the Wall of Sleep" "Memory" "Old Bugs" "The Transition of Juan Romero" "The White Ship" "The Street" "The Doom That Came to Sarnath" "The Statement of Randolph Carter" "The Terrible Old Man" "The Tree" "The Cats of Ulthar" "The Temple" "Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family" "Celephaïs" "From Beyond" "Nyarlathotep" "The Picture in the House" "Ex Oblivione" "Sweet Ermengarde" "The Nameless City" "The Quest of Iranon" "The Moon-Bog" "The Outsider" "The Other Gods" "The Music of Erich Zann" "Herbert West–Reanimator" "Hypnos" "What the Moon Brings" "Azathoth" "The Hound" "The Lurking Fear" "The Rats in the Walls" "The Unnamable" "The Festival" "The Shunned House" "The Horror at Red Hook" "He" "In the Vault" "Cool Air" "The Call of Cthulhu" "Pickman's Model" "The Silver Key" "The Strange High House in the Mist" "The Colour Out of Space" "The Descendant" "History of the Necronomicon" "The Very Old Folk" "Ibid" "The Dunwich Horror" "The Dreams in the Witch House" "The Thing on the Doorstep" "The Evil Clergyman" "The Book" "The Haunter of the Dark"
Novellas	The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath The Whisperer in Darkness At the Mountains of Madness The Shadow over Innsmouth The Shadow Out of Time
Novels	The Case of Charles Dexter Ward
Collaborations	"The Green Meadow" "Poetry and the Gods" "The Crawling Chaos" "The Horror at Martin's Beach" "Under the Pyramids" "The Curse of Yig" The Mound "Medusa's Coil" "The Horror in the Museum" "Through the Gates of the Silver Key" "Out of the Aeons" "The Tree on the Hill" "Till A' the Seas" "In the Walls of Eryx"
Poetry	Fungi from Yuggoth
Essays	The Cancer of Superstition "Supernatural Horror in Literature" To Quebec and the Stars Autobiography: Some Notes on a Nonentity
Locations	Arkham Lovecraft Country R'lyeh
Characters	Abdul Alhazred Herbert West Randolph Carter Harley Warren
Deities	Azathoth Cthulhu Nyarlathotep Shub-Niggurath Hastur Dagon
Books about	H. P. Lovecraft: A Life H. P. Lovecraft: Against the World, Against Life An H. P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia Lovecraft: A Biography Lovecraft: A Look Behind the Cthulhu Mythos
Themes/Concepts	Cosmicism Cthulhu Mythos Lovecraftian horror Necronomicon
Lovecraft Circle	August Derleth Clark Ashton Smith Robert Bloch Robert E. Howard Frank Belknap Long
Legacy	Lovecraft studies Works influenced by the Cthulhu Mythos H. P. Lovecraft (band) H. P. Lovecraft Historical Society Adaptations Lovecraft (crater) Cthulhu Macula
Related	Aklo Dream Cycle Lovecraft: Fear of the Unknown (documentary) Sonia Greene (wife) The Thing in the Moonlight
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