Deeper Cut: The Dutch Mythos

I got hooked on Lovecraft when I was just starting to read English, which I taught myself so I could buy and read horror and SF, which was practically unavailable in my own language (Flemish, which is another version of Dutch typical for Belgium, at last for the Flemish-speaking part, since French is our national second language). […] During January-April 1963 I wrote a novelette, titled “De Poort in het duister” (A Way into Darkness”), which was “published” in 6 copies in a carbon-typed fanzine I was “publishing with a friend.” […] I mentioned “A Way into Darkness” several times to correspondents, and it was noted down in one of the Reader’s Guides to the Cthulhu Mythos.
—Eddy C. Bertin, “Darkness: Your Name Is A Story” 63

I was very ill at the start of 1963, and for three weeks I suffered from a high fever and horrible nightmares. I had just discovered the work of H. P. Lovecraft, and in those nightmares I was constantly involved in a very surrealistic battle between immense inhuman forces, who took the form of geometrical patterns, which were fighting a war in a world outside of our space and time. It was around this time that I wrote “De poort in het duister” aka “The Way into Darkness” […] (Boekestein 2014, 7)

It is difficult to say when Lovecraft first came to the Low Countries. Belgian writer Jean Ray appeared in Weird Tales in the 1930s, under the pseudonym John Flanders. Kalju Kirde talks about running across copies of Weird Tales in Estonia during the late 1930s or early 1940s, possibly copies of the British edition of Weird Tales which appeared in the 1940s (Kirde 121). It is not unfeasible that some American pulps or copies of the British Not at Night series containing Lovecraft’s stories appeared in Belgium or the Netherlands at this time. But for the most part Lovecraft appears to have been a stranger to the Dutch and Flemish readers, at least in their native language.

After the death of H. P. Lovecraft in 1937, Arkham House was founded to publish his work and oversee his literary legacy, and began publishing his work in hardcover editions in 1939. Arkham House exercised de facto control of the Lovecraft copyrights, including foreign translations and a proprietary interest in who published Cthulhu Mythos fiction in the United States. During World War II, translations of Lovecraft’s work to non-English markets were largely unfeasible, but after the war the small publisher began to find some success.

French translation collections of Lovecraft’s work began to appear in the 1950s, beginning with La Couleur tombée du ciel (1954, Editions Donoël), and German in the 1960s with 12 grusel Stories (1965, Wilhelm Heyne Verlag), but it would be years before a Lovecraft collection was translated for the Dutch language market. During the 1950s, science fiction and fantasy fandom in Belgium and the Netherlands was largely disorganized, but groups began to coalesce and fan-publications proliferated in the 1960s. (Boekestein 2000; Dautzenberg 174)

Enterprising fans like Eddy C. Bertin would learn English and import British and American editions, and his story “De Poort in het duister” (“The Gate into Darkness,” also published as “A Way into Darkness”) is the first known Cthulhu Mythos story in Dutch, published in the fanzine Nachtmerrie (vol. 4, no. 4, May 1963)…“published” in an edition of only six copies. As Bertin recalls:

I knew Lovecraft from two stories, “The Rats in the Walls” and “the Thing on the Doorstep” (published in two now very rare Dutch horror anthologies), neither of which I really liked. […] There were however very few books of horror available in Dutch, but the English and American paperbacks found in the supermarkets and bookshops contained a much larger variety of it. So I started teaching myself to read english, with a dictionary at hand. […] one of those books I tackled was Best Supernatural Stories of H. P. Lovecraft in a cheap hardcover from Tower Books. I found his language and style very hard reading (for a beginner) but his ideas and images hooked me for life. I started hunting for his other books, discovering the “collaborations” with August Derleth, Arkham House, and later the works of others who had expanded and changed his Mythos, such as J. Ramsey Campbell, Brian Lumley, and so on. (Bertin, “My European Mythos”3)

The first Dutch translation of Lovecraft I’ve found is “Het Ding op de Drempel” (“The Thing in the Doorstep”) in Voor en na Middernacht: Zijnde Vijfendertig Spook en Griezelverhalen Alsmede Andere Fantastische Vertellingen (1949, Elsevier, trans. A. Verhoef; a different edition was also released in 1954); “Ratten” (“The Rats in the Walls”) was published in Griezelverhalen (1959, Het Spectrum, trans. W. Wielek-Berg), and it may be other single stories were translated and published in anthologies or magazines from 1940 to the 1960s, when the first Dutch language collection of Lovecraft would appear.

Macabere Verhalen (1967, Uitgeverij Contact), translated by Jean A. Schalekamp, and began a small boom in Dutch translations of the American horrorist’s work. This was quickly followed by Het gefluister in de duisternis: Greizelverhalen (1968, A. W. Bruna & Zoon, trans. R. Germeraad), and Heksensabbat: Griezelverhalen (1969, A. W. Bruna, trans. C. A. G. van der Broek). The Dutch translation “Heksensabbat” (“The Dreams in the Witch House”) in the latter volume may have inspired Julien C. Raasveld to write “The House of Keziah Mason,” which first appeared (in English) in his ’zine Parallax #0 (March 1971), and was itself later translated as La Mansion de Keziah Mason (Las Mejoras Historias de Fantasmas, 1973); this is the second known Cthulhu Mythos work by a Flemish author.

The Bruna editions also contained the essay “De ‘verboden’ boeken van H. P. Lovecraft” by Aart C. Prins, one of the earliest Dutch critical works examining Lovecraft’s themes. Prins also edited Het Monster in de Lift an andere griezelverhalen (1967, Bruna) which contained the Hazel Heald/Lovecraft collaboration “The Horror in the Museum”, and De Bewoner van het Meer (1968, A. W. Bruna & Zoon), which contained translations of non-Lovecraft Mythos stories by Clark Ashton Smith, Ramsey Campbell, Robert E. Howard, August Derleth, and Robert Bloch. Also in 1968 was published Wie Kan-ik Zeggen Dat er is? (Bruna, trans. J. J. van Olffen), which included several of Derleth’s “posthumous collaborations” with H. P. Lovecraft.

The 1970s saw more of Lovecraft’s work published in Dutch. A. W. Bruna & Zoon began the Bruna Fantasy en Horror series with De droomwereld van Kadath (1972, trans. Pé Hawinkels), and further volumes included De bergen van de waanzin (1973, trans. Heleen ten Holt), and De zaak Charles Dexter Ward (1974, trans. J. F. Niessen-Hossele); their last Lovecraft volume was Het huis in de nevel (1976, trans. Pon Ruiter). The number of different translators who had worked on bringing Lovecraft into the Dutch language at this point likely added to an uneven quality to the fiction—yet it did capture the public imagination, and avid fans became a part of the worldwide network of Mythos fiction writers.

Miscellaneous Lovecraft stories were also translated in various anthologies. One editor used the pseudonym “E. L. de Marigny” (from a character in Lovecraft’s “Through the Gates of the Silver Key” and “Out of the Aeons”) in publishing Fata Morgana (Maulenhoff, 1980) and Griezel-omnibus: Het verschrikkelijke geheim (1982, Elsevier), both of which contained Lovecraft translations. Other anthologies featuring Lovecraft translations include: Vampier! (1972, De Arbeiderspers), 50 beroemde griezelverhalen (1974, Elsevier), Kleine Griezelomnibus 1 (1976, A. W. Bruna & Sons), Land van de Griezel (1976, D.A.P.Reinaert Uitgaven), Van Edgar Allan Poe tot Roald Dahl, De 50 Beste Griezelverhalen (1980, Borsbeek & Loeb), Van Jules Verne tot Isaac Asimov: De 50 Beste Science Fiction-Verhalen (1981, Publioboek/Bart), De Beste Griezelverhalen (1982, K-Tel), De Beste Science-Fiction Verhalen  (1982, K-Tel), Duistere Machent (1982, Loeb), and In de Geest van Tolkien (2003, Uitgeverij M). Some stories have been translated more than once, which combined with reprints has led to a little confusion at times.

The Dutch fantasy fan scene was also developing at this time; a notable publication was Drab, “eerste nederlandse tijdschrift voor Horror & Fantasy” (“first Dutch magazine for Horror & Fantasy”). Beginning in 1973 and running irregularly through 1980, it published sixteen issues in four volumes. Roeland de Vust provided three original translations for the magazine: the short story “Yule Ritus” (“The Festival”) Drab 1, No. 3 (1975), the R. H. Barlow collaboration “En de zee was niet meer” (“Till A’ the Seas”) Drab 3, No.2 (1976), and the poem “Waar eens Poe wandelde” (“In a Sequester’d Providence Churchyard Where Once Poe Walk’d”) Drab 4, No. 3 (1978); which issue also included Temme Tams’ translation “Van wat daarbuiten is” (“From Beyond”). In addition to this, de Vust provided a review of L. Sprague de Camp’s biography of Lovecraft in Drab 3, No. 2. Regarding the translations, Roeland de Vust wrote:

For me, translating was a challenge, trying to maintain in Dutch the “ancient” literary style of H.P.L.

A sentiment many of Lovecraft’s translators no doubt agree with.

Sometime in the ‘60s or ‘70s Eddy C. Bertin conceived a project for a booklet of five horror stories, to be published in Dutch, two of them involving the Mythos. One would have been “He Who Feeds on Thoughts,” which would be an adaptation of his science fiction story “De Gedachteneter” (“The Thought Eater,” published in De Achtjaarlijkse God, 1971, Bruna), and the second “The Sound of Silver Rain.” However, the project failed to attract subscribers and was scrapped (Bertin 2008a, 4).

Bertin and Julien C. Raasveld’s contributions to the Mythos were both duly recorded by Robert Weinberg and Edward P. Berglund in the Reader’s Guide to the Cthulhu Mythos (1973). It was through these fan-connections that the next phase of Dutch Mythos work was published—in English! With the death of August Derleth in 1971, the Cthulhu Mythos became free of his more restrictive attempts to control the publication of new Mythos material. Berglund noticed while compiling the Reader’s Guide that there were enough stories by professional authors for an anthology, and at Donald Wollheim’s suggestion solicited Bertin for stories with the idea of proposing the anthology to Arkham House. (Berglund x; Bertin 2008a, 4) Bertin sent him “Hingoo” (“All-Eye”) by Bob van Laerhoven “which I just changed slightly to fit better in the Mythos” Bertin 63) and Bertin’s rewrote “Darkness, My Name Is,” Arkham House turned the anthology down, but Berglund later published it as Disciples of Cthulhu (1976, DAW).

These early works of Dutch Mythos fiction were fairly typical of the time; Bertin’s “Darkness, My Name Is,” Raasveld’s “House of Keziah Mason,” and van Laerhoven’s “All-Eye” are pastiches of various degrees of creativity and skill, and went little beyond what Lovecraft and Derleth had written. “Darkness, My Name Is” however saw Bertin take a step beyond and begin to craft his own original Mythos, introducing his own tome (Von denen Verdammten by Edith Brendall—an occasional pseudonym for Bertin), his own Mythos entity Cyäegha, and an isolated geographic setting akin to Lovecraft’s Miskatonic Valley and Campbell’s Severn Valley. As Bertin put it:

It was never really my intention to develop a series of stories and novelettes dealing with Lovecraftian creatures, but set in Europe—it just happened along the way. Just as Lovecraft himself wrote his Mythos stories loosely, without really trying to put them into a rationalised fictional universe, then so did I. […] (Bertin 2008a, 3)

Bertin quoted from Von denen Verdammten as poems, in German, English, and Dutch. Some of these were published in collections of weird verse for younger readers: “De Weg in het Duister” (“The Way into Darkness”), “De Brandende Kat” (“The Burning Cat”), and “Dunwich Droomt, Dunwich Gilt” (“Dunwich Dreams, Dunwich Screams”) in Griezelverzen 1 (1998, Het Griezelgenootschap). Griezelverzen 2 (1999, Het Griezelgenootschap) included “De trap bij Maanlicht” (“The Stairway by Moonlight”) (Bertin 2008a, 5).

Disciples was successful enough to get French (Las adorateurs de Cthulhu, 1978) and German (Cthulhu’s Kinder, 1980) translations. Fandom was not exclusive by language, so in Belgium, for example, you had publications such as H. P. Lovecraft Inedit: Fantastique et Mythologies Modernes (1978) by Jacques van Herp, published in French, closely following the French translations of Lovecraft and his letters, but adds:

Quant à la quatrième génération elle s’annonce avec Brennan, Walter C. de Bill Jr, Bob Van Laerhoven, Eddy C. Bertin, et compte désormais des européens continentaux. […] On peut espérer plus de la voie ouverte par Eddy C. Bertin. Une nouvelle région maléfique apparait, un lieu maudit en Allemagne. Et l’on se dit que l’Europe offre un vaste champ d’implantation avec ses vieilles cités gothiques, et ces villes mortes. Bertin nous apprend que Ludvig Prinn vécut à Gand et à Bruges avant de monter sur le bûcher à Bruxelles. Il presente Liyuhh, une trduction allemande des Textes de Brendal, se nom Von denen Verdammten, eine Verhandlung über die unheimlichen Kulten des Alten. Et l’on retrouve le climat et la mesure de Lovecraft.

As for the fourth generation, it is announced with Brennan, Walter C. de Bill Jr, Bob Van Laerhoven, Eddy C. Bertin, and now has continental Europeans. […] One can hope for more from the path opened up by Eddy C. Bertin. A new evil region appears, a cursed place in Germany. And we say that Europe offers a vast field of settlement with its old Gothic cities, and these dead cities. Bertin tells us that Ludvig Prinn lived in Ghent and Bruges before going to the stake in Brussels. He presents Liyuhh, a German translation of the Brendal Texts, called Von denen Verdammten, eine Verhandlung über dieunheimlichen Kulten des Alten. And we find the climate and the measure of Lovecraft.

Bertin then translated the English story into Dutch, where it was published by Robert Zielshot in the semi-prozine Essef No. 4 (Feb 1978); he later re-wrote the Dutch version into a two-part novel and sold it to the Belgian gentleman’s magazine Hoho where it appeared in issues 313 and 315 (Feb & Mar 1978) as “De Vallei der Nachtmerries” (“The Valley of Nightmares”) and “De Berg van de Demon” (“The Mountain of the Demon”), adding sex and gore, changing the setting the Mexico, and publishing it under the pseudonym Juan Fernandez Sonando. Bertin would end up re-writing the novel once again and titling it Cyäegha, My Name Is Darkness in 1983, but this longer version was apparently never published (Bertin 1985, 64; Bertin 2008, 5).

The continued publication of Lovecraft and other Mythos fiction (Robert E. Howard was also notable for having many stories translated into Dutch in the 1970s) was having an effect: other Dutch writers began to write their own stories, including Mark J. Ruyffelaert, who published “Het boek Tegrath” (2e Land van de Griezel, ed. Albert van Hageland, D.A.P. Reinaert, 1978) and “Il Vit!” (Tussen Tijd en Schaduw, ed. Danny De Laet, Walter Soethoudt, 1978), where they appeared alongside non-Mythos works by Bertin, Raasveld, and others. Ruyffelaert’s “boek Tegrath” (inspired probably by Jean Ray’s “Le Grande Nocturne” (1942)) and would become part of his own personal Mythos, reappearing in stories such as the “Brieven aan Randolph Carter” (“Letters to Randolph Carter”) series; Marcel Orie would use it as well.

While still writing Lovecraftian pastiche, Ruyffelaert’s fiction draws more influence from some of the later writers, notably by the development of Bubastis (a Dreamlands city, not the ghoulish goddess as conceived by Robert Bloch in “The Brood of Bubastis”) in a series of tales: “Nocturne” in Vierde Ragnarok (1998), “De Droomwereld van Mahal” (“The Dreamworld of Mahal,” 2005), “Paradise Regained” (2008), “Sedlec, Bubastis” (2009), “De beul van Molsheim” (“The Executioner of Molsheim,” 2010), “De ondergang van Bubastis” (“The Demise of Bubastis,” 2014), “Een feestmaal voor kraaien” (“A Feast for Crows,” 2016), and “De vierde ruiter – de Dood” (“The Fourth Horseman – Death,” 2018). Ruyffelaert describes his relation with Lovecraft:

Reading Lovecraft was for a long time a great spiritual comfort to me: my belief in reaching the true haven of inner peace I owe to him. As a 14 year “old” I was confronted with the horror behind the horror and it provided me with an additional career. Lovecraft understood how to make enjoyable art out of his own fears, and then opened up his dream-world to many talented visitors. […] My intention: a salute to that fantasy giant who taught me how to dream. (Ruyffelaert)

In the early 1980s, many of the previous translations and some new ones were collected into an omnibus edition and a new collection: Griezelverhalen (Loeb, 1982) and Het gefluister in de duisternis: Griezelverhalen (Loeb, 1984), the former included the essay “Het fenomeen Lovecraft” by editor Erik Lankester, and the latter a translation of Robert Bloch’s essay “Heritage of Horror”—unfortunately, most of Lovecraft’s letters and biographies and critical studies have yet to see translation into Dutch, leaving the audience with relatively less insight into the man and his work in that language, although Michel Houellebecq’s flawed but popular monograph on Lovecraft was included in De koude revolutie: confrontaties en bespiegelingen, translated by Martin de Haan and published by Uitgeverij De Arbeiderspers in 2012.

The 1980s saw a few more efforts from Dutch Mythos authors. First among these was Eddy C. Bertin, who produced two notable Lovecraftian publications. Eyurid: A Lovecraftian Portfolio with Tais Teng (pseudonym of Thijs van Ebbenhorst Tengbergen) was originally published in issues 21-25 of Bertin’s magazine SF-Gids (1976-1978), SF-Gids also published numerous book reviews of Lovecraft and related works published in English and in translation; issues 119 and 120 were devoted to various versions of the Necronomicon. Bertin, following in the footsteps of August Derleth, couldn’t help referencing his own additions to Mythos-lorekeeping in his story “The Piercing of Priscilla Petersen”:

Research in the archives and in Fandata by Jan Meeuwesen and Jos Lexmond, a bibliography of fantastic literature published in Dutch, showed that in the Netherlands alone at least fifteen short story collections by Lovecraft had been issued by various different publishers. Contact, Bruna, Loeb, Bakker, Meulenhoff. Not bad for a writer who’d never even had a single collection published under his name during his own lifetime. Further investigation yielded a rather sloppily produced fanzine, SF-Gods, which was published in Gentbrugge in 1989, nos. 199 and 120 when taken together formed a double issue on the famous Necronomicon. (Bertin 2013, 23)

Eyurid was later published as a standalone loose-leaf portfolio in 1980 by Dunwich House—Bertin’s own small press. (Bertin 2008c, 3) The other was Dunwich Dreams, which ran for eight issues from 1982 to 1984 in the Esoteric Order of Dagon amateur press association, and featured Lovecraftian illustrations by Bertin, editorials, the Mythos story “Concerto for a Satin Vampire” (vol. 1, no. 1), the essays “A Chronological Bibliography of the Fiction of H. P. Lovecraft Translated in Dutch Language, and Published in the Netherlands (Holland) and Belgium from 1949 up to March 1983” (vol. 1, no. 3) and “Addenda to HPL Bibliography in Dutch Language” (vol. 1, no. 4). Bertin also placed Mythos stories in the American ‘zine Crypt of Cthulhu, with “The Waiting Dark” in vol. 4, no. 4 (Candlemas 1984), and “The Gibbering Walls” in vol. 8, no. 6 (St. John’s Eve 1989), which were rewritten versions of stories originally written and published in Dutch in the 1970s (Bertin 2008a, 8-9).

This was a very typical practice of Bertin, who remarked:

I don’t translate into English, I just rewrite it and then compare it with the original to see if I missed anything. Most of the stories in Dutch are not Mythos, the Mythos ones are all the rewritten versions and thus are completely different from the originals. “Darkness, My Name Is”, and “Waiting in the Dark”, were rewritten in Dutch from the English originals, and so are the same. (Bertin 2008b, 18-19)

Bertin’s fiction during this period still tended toward pastiche, expanding on Lovecraft’s creations, but he was also expanding on his own corner of the Mythos—“The Gibbering Walls” tying into his previous stories “A Way into Darkness” and “Darkness, My Name Is,” while remaining a standalone tale. Many of the stories involve similar themes, dealing with internal struggles that become externalized in monstrous fashion. In an interview, Bertin wrote:

A recurring theme is the fact that monsters are not born but created by society, just as the monster of Frankenstein turns into a killer because society doesn’t accept him. […] transformation of man into something else is the main theme of all my shorter Mythos fiction. (Bertin 2008b, 18)

Bertin also dabbled in verse, including the poem “Meeting a strange guy, called Lovecraft, close to the cemetery of Providence” which was published in the Dutch magazine Rakis #1 (Oct 1989). Bertin was also an organizer of the “Dunwich Experience,” a multimedia installation that toured Flanders in the early 1980s (Van de Wiele).

A notable problem that Bertin had as a Belgian writer in getting published was dealing with issues of language and dialect:

Publishers and compilers of anthologies often complained about the many dialect words that Bertin used in his texts. Julien Raasveld once told me that the editors of De schaduw van de raaf [The Shadow of the Raven, Bertin’s 1983 collection] went through the text first and erroneously deleted all of the occurrences of the words ‘gans’ and ‘doorheen’ and only then did they actually begin reading it. Why this act of stubbornness? Because it wasn’t literary enough. Apparently the man who expressed himself at conventions in a broad Ghent accent was no different in this respect to the writer in the attic. (Moragie 4)

Many horror writers face discrimination for using colloquial language to better address their audience, so at least Bertin was in good company, but it is a particularly Dutch problem to deal with issues of linguistic determination because of small dialectal differences between the Netherlands and Belgium.

Another Dutch writer who began pursuing the same general path at this point was Jan Bee Landman, who published “The Flood” in Alpha Adventures (Jan 1985) and “The Canals of Delft” in Etchings & Odysseys #7 (1985). The latter story is one of the first by a Dutch writer to use a Dutch setting (Raasveld’s “The House of Keziah Mason” was set in Antwerp), and the description of that old city is as loving as any that Lovecraft bestowed on New England:

By the close of the 20th century it still retained much of its old glory, despite the sacrilegious presence of motorcars, electric lights and parking meters. To the casual tourist it was just another attractive landmark, but to a more sensitive soul it breathed a different atmosphere. In the dark water of the canals, that lay as still and inscrutable as it had in remote ages, he could still see the cruel grave of 16th century heretics and the home of the great little sailing ships that roamed the oceans pugnaciously ins search of exotic goods and slaves. A small light behind some attic window in the depth of night would recall the times when Dutch alchemists worked their silent evils in secret. No number of swarming cars on the market square, between the dizzying tower of the big church and the stolid medieval town hall, could silence the echoes of howling witches that had once smouldered there at the stake. (Landman 71)

Jan J. B. Kuipers also wrote around this time, their story “Het teken van de Geit” (“The Sign of the Goat”) appeared in Brieven aan Satan: de beste griezelverhalen (1990, Meisner, Stichting Fantastische Vertellingen). Kuipers did not write extensively in the Mythos, though some of his stories take influence from or refer to Lovecraft or the King in Yellow, including “Rondom Hygelac” (“About Hygelac,” 2014), “Offa’s bruid” (“Offa’s Bride,” 2016), “Een man van zijn woord” (“A Man of his Word,” 2018), and “De Jutterstoren” (“The Beachcomber’s Tower,” 2019). Much of Kuiper’s Mythos fiction focuses on historical settings; one recurring aspect is Saint Muirgen, a mermaid (descended from Father Dagon and Mother Hydra) which the early church adopted as a saint.

One of the major hindrances for prospective Dutch Mythos writers appears to have been the lack of a Dutch-language market for new Mythos fiction—as opposed to Mythos fiction in translation, which continued sporadically in anthologies. Peripheral works were also translated into Dutch and filtered slowly into the pop culture of Belgium and the Netherlands. For example, the popular Flemish graphic novel series De Rode Ridder, published book 124 Necronomicon in 1987. The book and amulet in that comic derive from the Simon Necronomicon (first published in English in 1977 by Schlangekraft), although it is otherwise a sword & sorcery tale. Roleplaying games also provided an introduction to the Mythos for many, with the Call of Cthulhu Roleplaying Game from Chaosium being a gateway to Lovecraft’s fiction:

My love for H. P. Lovecraft started with a board game. For evenings on end, my friends and I attempted to save the world from slumbering Evil, while trying to maintain our sanity. Nine times out of ten, we succeeded, by clever planning and by careful division of our resources. This was all well and good, until I actually started reading the stories and I realised that ‘winning’ was in fact the exception. (den Heijer 41)

The influence of roleplaying games can be seen in stories like Johan Klein Haneveld’s “Spelavond” (“Game Night”) in Lovecraft in de polder, which explicitly references Call of Cthulhu.

In 1988, Dagon Press published Het Onnoembare: Fantastische Griezelliteratuur In De Traditie Van Weird Tales, Arkham House En De Cthulhu Mythologie: Inleiding, Catalogus En Bibliografie by Dennis Schouten, a comprehensive overview of the Mythos, Arkham House, and Weird Tales for a Dutch audience.

By the 1980s, individual collections by Dutch and Belgian authors were being published that contained their original Mythos fiction. Notably, Eddy C. Bertin’s collections De Griezeligste Verhalen van Eddy Bertin (1984, Loeb) and Krijsende Muren (1998, Babel), and Mark J. Ruyffelaert’s Nocturne (2007, Verschijinsel) collected some of their Mythos works for the first time and made them available to a wider audience. However, there is a discontinuity in the late 1980s: as Bertin put it “the bottom fell out of the market,” and there was very little Dutch science fiction, fantasy, or horror fiction being published (Boekestein 2014, 4).

Because of this, Bertin transitioned to writing and selling horror fiction for a younger audience in the 1990s, focusing on the horror-obssessed Anton and the teenage witch Valentina. Both series began to incorporate elements of his Mythos fiction. The Von denen Verdammten appears in Overal Vuur (1996, Elzenga), Dorstige Schaduwen (1997, Elzenga), Duivelse Dromen (1999, Elzenga), Kille Dromen (2001, Elzenga), and Valentina’s Schaduwboek (2004, Leopold). The Valentina books were translated and published in both German and Swedish (Bertin 2008a, 6-8).

The Dutch magazine/anthology Waen Sinne premiered in 2002, with stories by Martijn Adelmund (as by Maarten Krohn), Jaap Boekestein, Dirk Bontes, Eddy C. Bertin, and Remco van Straten. Jaap Boekestein was also one of the editors, and his story was “Connectie Den Haag” (“The Hague Connection”), which makes reference to the Necronomicon and Von Denen Verdammten and adds Boekestein’s own contributions: the Liber Buccesteynus and Die Unaussprechliche Kosmologieën, which would be used by later authors. About the story, Boekestein later confessed:

At the time that we decided to do a Mythos Waen Sinne, I’d never actually written a Mythos story. I wasn’t even that well versed on the Mythos itself. […] All I basically knew was that Cthulhu was still sleeping, and that every self respecting Mythos author who’d ever lived had, at one time or another, had a go at inventing his own forbidden book or Mythos entity. I didn’t really feel comfortable about trying to invent a new Old One, but creating some evil tome was definitely doable. (Boekestein 2013b, 18)

Waen Sinne lasted two more issues; the second was devoted to Sword & Sorcery, and included Jan Mara’s “Verzengende Angst” (“Flaming Terror”), which references the Mythos. The third was devoted to classical monsters and contained no Mythos content.

Jaap Boekestein’s next two Mythos stories appeared under the pseudonym Claudia van Arkel, “Schepper van dood en leven” (“Creator of Death and Life”) in Pure Fantasy 8 (June 2007), and quickly followed that up with “Drie laatste nachten” (“Three Last Nights,” published in English as “The Devil-God of Captain Underwood”) in Zwarte zielen 2 (Verschijnsel, October 2007). His next story was under his own name, and in another of his zines, Wonderwaan: “Shhh shhh Cth… Shhh shhh Cth…” (Wonderwaan 6, June 2008). “Warme Rode Zee” (“Warm Red Sea”),  Wonderwaan 23 (September 2012) and an English story, “Under the Keeper of the Key” which appeared in the erotic anthology Lovecraft After Dark (James Ward Kirk Publishing, 2015), both deal with a combination of the Mythos and BDSM. This reflects his approach to the material:

What kind of people, I wondered, wouldn’t have much of a problem with the Mythos Universe? People who were different from the norm, was my conclusion. People who perceived reality differently. “Transformation is the key. Transformation of both the body and the mind.” If you live in a non-mundane world, you don’t feel mundane fears. The monsters might even welcome you in as one of their own. (Boekestein 2013a, 47)

Boekestein collaborated with Tais Teng on the English-language “Dancing for Azathoth” in The Worlds of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Vol. 2, (CreateSpace 2017), then back to Dutch for “Het dorp der Engelen” (“The Village of Angels”) in Wonderwaan 41 (Spring 2017). His Mythos story, “Van de Ouden” (“From the Ancients”) appeared in Lovecraft in de polder (2018); it was translated into English and published as “The Allure of the Old Ones” in Cyäegha 21 (Winter 2019). Hallmarks of Boekestein’s Mythos fiction are the use of the Netherlands and especially the Hague as a setting.

Computercode Cthulhu (2005, ebook 2018) by Paul Harland is an original Dutch-language Mythos novel with illustrations by Tais Teng. “Stoor niet Cthulhu’s slaap!” (“Do not disturb Cthulhu’s sleep!”) became an appropriate tagline for Harland’s novel, as the 2000s inaugurated the most active period of Dutch-language original Mythos fiction—likely buoyed in part by the greater ease and lower cost of desktop publishing and print-on-demand works, but also a reflection of a burgeoning market for weird fiction and Dutch and Flemish writers eager to write and publish their own Mythos fiction.

Frank Roger’s Mythos story “Duisternis, duisternis, verzwelg mij” (“Darkness, Darkness, devour me”) appeared in his collection De Trein naar Nergens en Andere Verhalen (2005, Free Musketeers). This is a story of a writer’s search for isolation, sudden inspiration and slow degradation, calling back to Lovecraft’s Gothic roots. 

Later that year, Eddy C. Bertin’s “Dunwich Dreams, Dunwich Screams” appeared in Tales Out of Dunwich (Hippocampus Press), a successor volume to editor Robert M. Price’s anthology The Dunwich Cycle (1995, Chaosium), and concerns his latest addition to the Mythos library: Von denen Verdammten, a relatively recent (1907) German text which deals with unspeakable cults—a counterpart to such tomes as Ludwig Prinn’s Vermis Mysteriis or von Junzt’s Unausprechlichen Kulten (created by Robert Bloch and Robert E. Howard, respectively). The story would bring Dagon and the Deep Ones to Dunwich, England, which was the probable inspiration for Lovecraft’s Dunwich, Massachusetts. Bertin would write of the story:

This story is based on my own visit to Dunwich, and my research there. It continues my “European” cycle of Mythos stories, began with “Darkness, My Name Is” and others. I always wanted to write a story about the real dunwich, England, incorporating its weird history into the Mythos. […] Well, I did it now, as my tribute to HPL. (Price 302; cf. Bertin 2008a, 10)

Bertin’s next contribution was “De piercing van Priscilla Petersen” in Horrorarium (2006, Suspense Publishing). As with many Bertin stories, this was not originally a Mythos tale, but became so during its many rewrites. While not strictly a Mythos tale, Bertin also considers “Rose Nere” (“Black Roses”) in Phantoms of Venice (2001, Shadow Publishing) to belong to his conception of the Mythos (Bertin 2008a, 10-11).

The Dutch fantasy magazine Wonderwaan premiered in 2007, the publication of the NCSF (Nederlands Contactcentrum voor Science Fiction/Dutch Science Fiction Society). As the editors Jaap Boekestein and Marcel Orie put it:

We both grew up reading about the Lovecraft Circle and “pulps” like Weird Tales and Wonder Stories, always wishing that there were still magazines like these out there, to which we could pitch our own attempts at writing weird fiction. In a way Wonderwaan is a homage to these pulps. Wonderwaan (an invented word which combines the Dutch words for “wonder” and “delusion” aims to collect the best fantastic stories from Holland and Belgium. We select well-known themes and clichés from the pulp era, and challenge our authors to put new and strange spins on them. (Boekestein & Orie 3)

 Since then, a number of issues of Wonderwaan have been dedicated to Mythos fiction, including issues 6 (June 2008, “Cthulhu Fhtagn!”), 8 (December 2008, “Iä Yog-Sothoth!”), 23 (September 2012, “Iä Shub-Niggurath!), 24 (December 2012, “Azathoth!”), 36 (December 2015, dedicated to Ruyffelaert’s Brievan aan Randolph Carter series), and 41 (Spring 2017, “Dromen vanuit R’lyeh”). In addition, individual stories are scattered among regular issues. The contributors included a number of familiar names such as Eddy C. Bertin, Mark J. Ruyffelaert, Jaap Boekestein, Jan J. B. Kuipers, Tais Teng (“Lovecraft, My Love”), and Mike Jansen, one of the editors of Lovecraft in de polder, who contributed to Wonderwaan with “Opdracht in Amlwch” (“Assigned to Amlwch”).

The magazine also introduced several new writers to the Dutch Mythos, most notably Marcel Orie with “Ansichtkaarten uit Carcosa” (“Postcards from Carcosa”) in Wonderwaan 6 (June 2008), followed by “Een handleiding voor later, voor na de apocalypse” (“A Manual for Later, for After the Apocalypse”) in Wonderwaan 24 (December 2012), “Keizer der waanzin” (“The Emperor of Madness”) in Wonderwaan 33 (March 2015), “Dode mannen dromen niet” (“Dead Men Don’t Dream”) in Wonderwaan 37 (Spring 2016), and “Het feestmaal onder de catacomben” (“The Feast Under the Catacombs”) in Wonderwaan 48 (Winter 2018). Marcel Orie’s “De poppen van dr. Edelweiss” (“The Dolls of Dr. Edelweiss”) also appeared in 2015 in both Ganymedes 15 and Cyäegha 14. Orie’s work is characterized by a conscious effort to expand the Mythos, tying into the work of Lovecraft, Ruyffelaert, Thomas Ligotti, and others. Their major invention was the Wurmwater, a kind of limbo or hell populated by the ghosts of pirates and criminals—including the Marshes of Innsmouth.

Other writers whose Mythos and Lovecraftian fiction appeared in Wonderwaan include Cornelis Alderlieste with “Fantoompijn” (“Phantom Pain”), Frank Daman with “Trô d’diâle” (a nonsense title, possibly means “The Devil’s Pit”), Auke Pols with “De ademer van de wateren” (“The Breather of Waters”) and “Overleef jij het maan-beest?” (“Can You Survive the Moon-beast?”), Jos Lexmond with “Weg…wachter” (“Gone…watchman,” translated as “The Watcher of the Way,” reprinted from Spaciale Aanbieding‘s 153-157, June 2009-April 2010), Nieske den Heijer with “Het doek” (“The Canvas”), Chantal Noordeloos with “De hongerende diepten” (“The Starving Depths”), Martijn Adelmund with “Schipperskind” (“Skipper’s Child”), Richard Meijer with “Vakantie Bali” (“Bali Holiday”), Jack Schlimazlnik with “Van oude goden, de dingen die niet voorbij gaan” (“Of Old Gods, The Things That Don’t Pass Away,” a play on the Dutch classic “Van oude menschen, de dingen die voorbijgaan” by Louis Couperus (1906)), and Tom Thys with “De Lijkenkrabber” (“The Corpse Scraper”).

The importance of Wonderwaan in the development of Dutch Mythos fiction has been to both recognize the fanbase for Mythos fiction among readers and to provide a market for new writers. Much as Weird Tales provided a receptive forum for writers and fans of weird fiction, Wonderwaan has served as a locus for the development of the Dutch Mythos, the special issues helping to emphasize the different voices and takes on the Mythos setting.

Outside of Wonderwaan, a few other stories found a home too. Tais Teng’s “De Tempel van Cthulhu” appeared in the ebook Met Gebroken Oog en Botte Klauw (2011, Verschijnsel), and the humorous short-short “Growing up in the Cthulhu Home for Deserving Orphans” was posted to DeviantArt in 2019. Eddy C. Bertin’s “My Fingers are Eating Me” appeared in The Whispering Horror (2013, Shadow Publishing). The latter story has a typically Bertinian convoluted history of rewriting and publishing (Bertin 2008a, 9-10).

Another important ‘zine has been Graeme Phillips’ Cyäegha. From the very first issue in 2008, which includes an Eddy C. Bertin interview and article “My European Mythos,” the zine has worked to bring the Dutch-language Mythos to a wider English-speaking audience, often featuring the first English translations of Dutch Mythos fiction and insights and commentary from the most prolific and important Dutch and Flemish authors of Mythos fiction. This is especially the case in the nine “Dutch/Flemish Special Issues,” which have brought the majority of Dutch Mythos work into English translation. In 2015, Phillips also began publishing the ‘zine Forbidden Knowledge, which includes translations of the introduction to Wonderwaan’s Mythos special issues.

Lovecraft in de Polder (2018, EdgeZero), edited by Laura Scheepers & Mike Jansen, is the first book-anthology of Dutch-language Mythos fiction. The list of authors includes both newcomers and old familiar names: Boukje Balder, Jaap Boekestein, Anaïd Haen, Johan Klein Haneveld, Abram Hertroys, Mike Jansen, Peter Kaptein, Jan J.B. Kuipers, Roderick Leeuwenhart, Django Mathijsen, Mark J. Ruyffelaert, Jack Schlimazlnik, Tais Teng, Dack van de Bij, and Adriaan van Garde. In discussing the impetus for the anthology, editor Mike Jansen noted of Dutch Mythos fiction:

My own experience, from compiling four Ragnarok anthologies for Babel Publications, judging four years of the Millennium Prize and three years of the EdgeZero competition, is that perhaps one story in fifty submitted falls within this category. So from almost 4000 stories (King Kong Award, Millennium Prize, Paul harland Prize, Harland Awards, Fantastels and Trek Sagae) written by nearly 1500 Dutch and Belgian writers, since the King Kong Award first began in 1977, we are talking about maybe eight stories Compared to the English-language production this is a mere drop in the ocean.

However, in general, the production of genre stories has dramatically increased over the past two decades, and a quick count of all of the stories submitted to these competitions shows that more than half of them were written in the last ten years. This means that there have been so many new Lovecraftian stories added in such a relatively short period of time that an anthology of these stories written by the top Dutch writers has become an increasingly enticing prospect. (Jansen 2)

Reception was mixed, however; Tom Thys in reviewing the book noted the speed in which the anthology was assembled:

Unfortunately, this has resulted in a somewhat lopsided collection as some of the stories fail to rise above mere pale imitations of the various rituals and creatures of the Lovecraftian pantheon. I really have to be strict here: the authors should have been given more time and the editors should have taken more time to select and streamline this collection. (Thys 4)

Also in 2018, Eddy C. Bertin died. The Dutch science fiction and horror community mourned the loss of one of their earliest and most prominent voices. Yet he left behind a legacy that continues to grow, as more writers use Cyäegha and Von Denen Verdammten. As he put it:

From the very beginning I’ve always tried to create my own version of the mythos, and in my own modest way, I think I’ve succeeded. (Boekestein 2014, 7)

Those who recall that South Africa featured as the setting of “Winged Death,” ghostwritten by H. P. Lovecraft for Hazel Heald and published in Weird Tales (March 1934) may wonder if any Lovecraftian fiction has been published in Afrikaans. As in the Netherlands, South Africa has a rather small market for science fiction, which was dominated by English-language imports from the United States and the United Kingdom (Byrne 522). Letters from South Africa were published in Weird Tales in the 1930s and 40s, and addresses published in WT show members of the Weird Tales Club in South Africa during Dorothy McIlwraith’s editorship. Unfortunately, I have been unable to verify any information on an Afrikaans translation of Lovecraft, or any Mythos works published in Afrikaans.

Works Cited

Berglund, Edward P., ed. (1996). The Disciples of Cthulhu Second Revised Edition. Oakland, CA: Chaosium.

Bertin, Eddy C. (1985). “Darkness: Your Name Is A Story: On The Writing Of ‘Darkness, My Name Is’” in Etchings & Odysseys #6, 63-64. Madison, WI: The Strange Company.

__________ (2008a). “My European Mythos” in Cyäegha #1 (Spring 2008). UK: Graeme Phillips.

__________ (2008b). “Interview: A Conversation with Eddy C. Bertin” (trans. Graeme Phillips) in Cyäegha #1 (Spring 2008). UK: Graeme Phillips.

__________ (2008c). “The Creation of ‘Eyurid’” in Cyäegha #2 (Winter 2008). UK: Graeme Phillips.

__________ (2013). “The Piercing of Priscilla Petersen” in Cyäegha #8 (Spring 2013). UK: Graeme Phillips.

Boekestein, Japp (2000). “Dutch and Flemish fandom, fifties and sixties”

__________ (2013a). “Afterword” (trans. Graeme Phillips) in Cyäegha #8 (Spring 2013). UK: Graeme Phillips.

__________ (2013b). “Afterword” (trans. Graeme Phillips) in Cyäegha #10 (Winter 2013). UK: Graeme Phillips.

__________ (2014). “Dissecting Eddy C. Bertin in Nine Questions” in Ghosts of a Different Dream. UK: Graeme Phillips.

Boekestein, Japp and Marcel Orie (2012). “Weird Dreams from Wonderwaan” in Cyäegha #6 (Spring 2012). UK: Graeme Phillips.

Byrne, Deirdre C. (2004). “Science Fiction in South Africa” in PMLA, Vol. 119, No. 3, Special Topic: Science Fiction and Literary Studies: The Next Millennium (May, 2004).

Dautzenberg, J. A. (1981). “A Survey of Dutch and Flemish Science Fiction (Panorama des SF néerlandaises)” in Science Fiction Studies, Vol. 8, No. 2 (Jul., 1981).

den Heijer, Nieske (2013). “Afterword” (trans. Graeme Phillips) in Cyäegha #9 (Summer 2013). UK: Graeme Phillips.

Jansen, Mike (2018). “Introduction: Foreward to Lovecraft in de Polder” (trans. Graeme Phillips) in Cyäegha #21 (Summer 2019). UK: Graeme Phillips.

Kirde, Kalju (1989). “Recognition of Lovecraft in Germany” in Books at Brown XXXVIII-XXXIX. Providence, RI: The Friends of the Library of Brown University.

Landman, Jan Bee (1985). “The Canals of Delft” in Etchings & Oddyseys #7, 71-81. Madison, WI: The Strange Company.

Moragie, Max (2019). “The Ghent Night-Writer: ECB” (trans. Graeme Phillips) in Cyäegha #22 (Autumn 2019). UK: Graeme Phillips.

Price, Robert M. (ed.) (2005). Tales Out of Dunwich. New York: Hippocampus Press.

Ruyffelaert, Mark (2013). “Afterword” (trans. Graeme Phillips) in Cyäegha #8 (Spring 2013). UK: Graeme Phillips.

Thys, Tom (2019). “Lovecraft in de polder” in Cyäegha #21 (Summer 2019). UK: Graeme Phillips. First published at hebban.nl

Van de Wiele, Patrick (2018). “Vaarwel Eddy, Mijn Vriend”.

van Herp, Jacques (1978). H. P. Lovecraft Inedit: Fantastique et Mythologies Modernes. Special edition of “Ides… et autres.” Belgium.

Note: With thanks and appreciation for the help of Roel Konijnendijk, Roeland de Vust, Graeme Phillips, and Ben Joosten. Any mistakes in the above are my fault, not theirs.

---

Bobby Derie is the author of Weird Talers: Essays on Robert E. Howard and Others and Sex and the Cthulhu Mythos.

Deep Cuts in a Lovecraftian Vein uses Amazon Associate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.