Shub-Niggurath is a female deity associated with the phrase “The Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young”. Shub-Niggurath is first mentioned in Lovecraft’s revision story “The Last Test” (1928). In “The Mound”, Lovecraft explicitly defined Shub-Niggurath as a mother goddess, where he calls her “Shub-Niggurath, the All-Mother”. He describes her as a kind of Astarte in the same story. In “Out of the Aeons”, she is one of the deities siding with humanity against “hostile gods”. In “The Whisperer in Darkness” (1930), a recording of a ceremony involving human and nonhuman worshipers includes the following exchange: “Ever Their praises, and abundance to the Black Goat of the Woods. Iä! Shub-Niggurath! Iä! Shub-Niggurath! The Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young!”
Appearance List “The Last Test” by H. P. Lovecraft and Adolphe de Castro in Weird Tales (Nov 1928), “The Dunwich Horror” in Weird Tales (Apr 1929), “The Whisperer in Darkness” in Weird Tales (Aug 1931), “The Dreams in the Witch House” in Weird Tales (Jul 1933), “Out of the Aeons” by H. P. Lovecraft and Hazel Head in Weird Tales (Apr 1935), “The Mound” in Weird Tales (abridged novella, Nov 1940)
Description Shub-Niggurath is a female deity associated with the phrase “The Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young”. Shub-Niggurath is first mentioned in Lovecraft’s revision story “The Last Test” (1928). In “The Mound”, Lovecraft explicitly defined Shub-Niggurath as a mother goddess, where he calls her “Shub-Niggurath, the All-Mother”. He describes her as a kind of Astarte in the same story. In “Out of the Aeons”, she is one of the deities siding with humanity against “hostile gods”. In “The Whisperer in Darkness” (1930), a recording of a ceremony involving human and nonhuman worshipers includes the following exchange: “Ever Their praises, and abundance to the Black Goat of the Woods. Iä! Shub-Niggurath! Iä! Shub-Niggurath! The Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young!”
