For eighty thousand years Pth’thya-l’yi had lived in Y’ha-nthlei

Lovecraft and Llanelli, South Wales.

My thoughts on this that were published in DEATHREALM #22 (1994) as part of my regular column ‘Tentacles Across The Atlantic’ —

“….you may be interested in knowing Llanelli’s correct pronunciation is not unlike H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu. In fact, I am not the only one to have made the case for some intangible synchronous connection between the two. On a visit to Llanelli recently, whilst taking my father on a nostalgic trip back to his roots, I could easily imagine the surly inhabitants possessing brothership with HPL’s Deep Ones–and the deserted part of Llanelli docks being their lurkhole….

Imagine my shudder of delight when I soon after noted these words on the last page of SHADOW OVER INNSMOUTH by HPL:

‘For eighty thousand years Pth’thya-l’yi had lived in Y’ha-nthlei.‘

Life is full of such coincidences. And I think immanent synchronicity and dark serendipity affect lovers of the dark side more than most. Just as an example, whilst on that short visit to Llanelli, Dad scoured the local telephone directory in what he thought was a hopeless task to track down one of his old friends with whom he had gone diving at Llanelli docks as a boy: someone he had not seen or heard of for over forty years–and lo, that very friend was living directly opposite the guest house where Dad and I were staying, miles from the friend’s previously known abode! This chap turned out to be a Chief Mason in Llanelli with more resemblance to one of HPL’s Deep Ones than was polite to notice. All true!

The strange forces of serendipity and coincidence ever seem to be at work, especially when writing stories in the horror mode. Either that or there is some wondrous mantra (or muse?) steering our minds towards those priceless moments of creativity and gestalt.”

The last paragraph, a sort of gestalt real-time reviewing prophecy?

My previous HPL references: https://dflewisreviews.wordpress.com/tag/hp-lovecraft/