Over the last few years, I’ve shared Lovecraft’s fondness for writing cheesy Christmas poetry. But apparently, that didn’t keep him from getting all morose and writing a darker ’80s metal poem about the holiday.

Originally published in Weird Tales December 1926 under the title Yule Horror you can also find this piece titled Festival in recent collections. I have no idea why. Conceivably it could be inspired/a companion to Lovecraft’s short story, The Festival (commonly considered to be his first work in the Cthulhu Mythos); both pieces draw from similar themes and visuals. That’d be the simplest explanation, right?

But what if that’s not it at all! Maybe there is a whole “War on Yule” conspiracy, and we didn’t even realize? What if cosmic horror figureheads and weird fiction publishers are in on the plot? What if they’re rewarded handsomely for squelching references to “Yule” by the powers of Big Christmas. I mean, who can really say? *Audible gasping.* Thusly, #YuleGate began.

Oh yeah, the poem. Let’s get back to it. If things are just a bit too cheery for you this holiday season, if verse written for Frank Belknap Long’s cat just isn’t cutting it right now, then settle in and enjoy…

❅ Yule Horror ❅

There is snow on the ground,
And the valleys are cold,
And a midnight profound
Blackly squats o’er the wold;
But a light on the hilltops half-seen hints of feastings unhallow’d and old.

There is death in the clouds,
There is fear in the night,
For the dead in their shrouds
Hail the sun’s turning flight,
And chant wild in the woods as they dance round a Yule-altar fungous and white.

To no gale of earth’s kind
Sways the forest of oak,
Where the sick boughs entwin’d
By mad mistletoes choke,
For these pow’rs are the pow’rs of the dark, from the graves of the lost Druid-folk.

And mayst thou to such deeds
Be an abbot and priest,
Singing cannibal greeds
At each devil-wrought feast,
And to all the incredulous world shewing dimly the sign of the beast.