"The Peabody Heritage" is a short story by August Derleth, one of his "posthumous collaborations" with H. P. Lovecraft. It was first published in Arkham House's The Survivor and Others in 1957.
It tells the story of the great-grandson of Asaph Peabody, who returns to claim his ancestral estate northeast of Wilbraham, Massachusetts--only to unwittingly enable Asaph to resume the career of evil interrupted by his death 23 years earlier.
The story contains no overt references to the Cthulhu Mythos, though Asaph's witchcraft is associated with a Black Man who resembles the form taken by Nyarlathotep in "The Dreams in the Witch-House", and as in that story, magic allows one to travel through "a strange and extra-dimensional angle". The story drops names from Christian demonology, like Belial, Beelzebub, and Sathanus.
Characters[]
- The Narrator: A Boston lawyer and a Peabody, though his first name is never given. On his parents' sudden death, he retires from the law and resolves to live in the ancestral Peabody mansion in Wilbraham.
- Asaph Peabody: The narrator's great-grandfather, a warlock who is required to commit "the murder of a child, or some other homicidal act of sorcery," at regular intervals. He dies in 1907, and returns to life (after his upside-down bones are righted) in 1930.
- Balor: Asaph's familiar, a lesser devil who takes the forms of an enormous cat or a handsome imp.
- Jedidiah Peabody: Asaph's ancestor, who builds the Peabody estate in 1787 after relocating from Salem. He is a warlock, and inducts Asaph into the Peabody heritage the same way that Asaph inducts the narrator.
- Ahab Hopkins: A Wilbraham lawyer who looks after the Peabody estate.
- George Taylor: A neighbor of the Peabody estate whose two-year-old daughter goes missing.
- Jon Cieciorka: The foreman of a crew of Polish workers who find children's bones in a hidden room.
- The Black Man: A supernatural figure who attends Asaph's Black Mass; "a man of such vivid blackness as to be literally darker than night, but with flaming eyes which seemed to be of living fire."
Timeline[]
- 1692: A Peabody is accused at Salem, Massachusetts.
- 1787: Jedediah Peabody comes from Salem to build the Peabody mansion in Wilbraham, Massachusetts.
- 1907: Death of Asaph Peabody.
- May 7, 1915: An uncle of the narrator goes down on the Lusitania.
- 1919: Death of Asaph's son, the narrator's grandfather.
- 1929: Death of the narrator's parents in an auto accident.
- February 24, 1930: The narrator moves into the Peabody mansion.
- March 1930: The narrator enters the Peabody tomb and disturbs Asaph's bones.
- April 1930: A two-year-old neighbour child disappears from her bed.
Asaph's Library[]
The named books found in the Peabody estate are all real works by historical authors--most if not all of whom wrote from an anti-witchcraft perspective:
- Malleus Maleficarum[1]
- Daemonialitas of Sinistrari[2]
- Vitae Sophistrarum of Eunapius[3]
- Anania’s De Natura Daemonum[4]
- Stampa’s Fuga Satanae[5]
- Bouget’s Discours des Sorciers[6]
- An untitled work by Olaus Magnus,[7] bound in a smooth black leather--which turns out to be human skin
References[]
- ↑ Wikipedia, "Malleus Maleficarum".
- ↑ Project Gutenberg, "Demoniality; or, Incubi and Succubi by Ludovico Maria Sinistrari".
- ↑ Tertullian Project, "Eunapius, Lives of the Philosophers and Sophists".
- ↑ Wikipedia, "Giovanni Lorenzo d'Anania".
- ↑ Google Books, "Fuga Satanae. Exorcismus".
- ↑ Occult World, "Bouget, Henri".
- ↑ Wikipedia, "Olaus Magnus".