Ifrits/Djinn etc in the works of Lovecraft.

[Phyrebrat]

Hi all,

Just a quickie if you please: in the Cthulhu Mythos/HPL Universe are there any explicit references to the above?

I’ve written an urban horror short that was informed by my love of HPL but I’m now wondering if it falls outside of ha purview because I’ve used the word ‘Ifrit’.

So much of his material is totally original I wanted to check before subbing to mythos publishers.

As far as I’m aware there are only the usual references to his own pantheon of deities and so forth. However I wonder if Alharazed maybe mentioned them.

Many thanks

pH

 

[dask]

Haven't read that much Lovecraft but the word doesn't look familiar.

 

[Phyrebrat]

Bump.

 

[Extollager]

His texts are available online and should be machine-searchable.

Offhand my guess is that there are a few incidental references in some non-Mythos "dreamland"-type stories, but not in any of the major Mythos stories, and perhaps not in any of them. I think Lovecraft associated the Arabian Nights with his childhood reading. He might feel that allusions to ifrits and djinni wouldn't belong in stories in which he was making his bid for a place with the likes of Blackwood and Machen.

 

[Phyrebrat]

Thank you so much for the info. I’ve read a lot of Lovecraft but don’t specifically remember that kind of reference so might have been conflating what you say about Arabian Nights.

pH

 

[Ningauble]

HPL mentions "afrite" in a figurative sense in "Herbert West--Reanimator", and a genie in "Memory", and again "genie" in a figurative sense in "Under the Pyramids".