Saturday, January 28, 2012

Nitokris

Nitokris: Nitokris is a legendary figure who may actually have been the last pharaoh of the Sixth Dynasty. She appears as queen of the ghouls, leader of an army of abominable composite mummies, and consort of undead King Kephren in "Imprisoned with the Pharaohs," a short story H.P. Lovecraft ghost-wrote for Harry Houdini. Nitokris, "who once invited all her enemies to a feast in a temple below the Nile, and drowned them by opening the water-gates," is presented by Lovecraft as a sinister but beautiful woman, the right side of whose face has been "eaten away by rats or other ghouls."

Nitokris is the subject the "The Queen's Enemies," a play by Lord Dunsany, pointing once again to the heavy influence of that author on Lovecraft.

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