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The Very Old Folk
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"The Very Old Folk" is a short story by American horror fiction writer H.P. Lovecraft.It is reportedly a recording of a dream,where the main protagonist is a roman militairy official in Hispania.The countryside is, every year,ravaged by the terrible hill people,who kidnap city citizens and perform curel rituals at their Sabaths.The narrator wants to lead a militairy action to crush all the sabath- practicipants,as a feeling of aproachable evil is upon the countryside,because of a riot between the citizens and the hill people,who came to trade,yet some of theese are killed and later,no people dissapear before the sabath.The incursion is lead by a local-born son ofroman parents.As they aproach the seat of the Sabath,something terrible aproaches and in an instant, horrible things come to pass:
"He had killed himself when the horses screamed... He, who had been born and lived all his life in that region, and knew what men whispered about the hills. All the torches now began to dim, and the cries of frightened legionaries mingled with the unceasing screams of the tethered horses. The air grew perceptibly colder, more suddenly so than is usual at November's brink, and seemed stirred by terrible undulations which I could not help connecting with the beating of huge wings."
The story ends with the narrator waking up,yet he offers one final word of mystery:
"Of the fate of that cohort no record exists, but the town at least was saved - for encyclopædias tell of the survival of Pompelo to this day, under the modern Spanish name of Pompelona..." .