Most stories that appeared in Weird Tales received accompanying artwork, usually on the title page. Clark Ashton Smith's "The End of the Story" is no different, featuring this illustration, which depicts the confrontation between Hilaire, abbot of Périgon, and the lamia, Nycea. I can't quite make out the signature of the artist at the bottom right, so I'm unable to identify him with certainty. I think the initials are "HR," which, if so, suggests the artist is Hugh Rankin, who illustrated several of H.P. Lovecraft's during the same time period.
It looks a dandelion gone to seed.
ReplyDeleteMaybe the artist had never seen a holy water sprinkler?
That's my guess, too.
DeleteSlightly off topic, but I had a thought concerning the big three last night. Lovecraft was from New England, Howard from Texas, and Smith from California. And all three of them represent an archetype of those locations.
ReplyDeleteNew England can be cold, alienating, not welcoming to strangers or "others", while Texas is the land of the big, adventures or characters, a place to strike it rich. California, on the other hand, was the land of dreams, of cults (see Hammett's Dain Curse, Bohemian Grove, and so on) a place very natural yet so foreign that movies and magic came from it.
Looking at them from this angle, one can see how they came into their feelings and writings as the very land they came from and that helped define their spirits arose from them.
You're definitely onto something.
Deletefor the aspergillum, as a non-catholic, I have never even heard of one, but, while I may not be well read, I am well stocked.
ReplyDelete1933 book of knowledge- no entry
1910 Standard Book of Facts-no entry
1955 revised Oxford Universal Dictionary-no entry, but several related ones. no pictures
I would suggest it is quite likely the artist had no idea what one was. is it a spoon? that was vaguely mentioned in one of the dictionaries...
aha! you owe Mister Smith an apology. My 1910 Funk and Wagnalls, horrible beated up, has both Aspergillum and Aspergillus. -UM is a singleton of the fungus, -US is the Holy Water Sprinkler.
Deletefor those who care (all one of you), the mushroom is indeed named after the sprinkler, as it looks like one.
Interesting! I knew of the mushroom, which is has the –us ending rather than the –um ending for the holy water sprinkler, but perhaps that's just a contemporary usage?
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