Zebulon Whateley

Zebulon Whateley is a fictional character in the Cthulhu Mythos. He is first mentioned by H. P. Lovecraft in "The Dunwich Horror" as a Dunwich resident who is a distant relative of Wilbur Whateley. He later appears in "The Shuttered Room", written by August Derleth, where he is the great-uncle of the story's protagonist.
==In Lovecraft's Works==
In "The Dunwich Horror", written in 1928, Lovecraft describes "Old Zebulon Whateley" as coming from "a branch [of the Whateley family] that hovered about half way between soundness and decadence". When the Dunwich Horror is on its rampage, Zebulon "made darkly wild suggestions about rites that ought to be practiced on the hill-tops" to dispel or placate the entity. Lovecraft notes: "He came of a line where tradition ran strong, and his memories of chantings in the great stone circles were not altogether connected with Wilbur and his grandfather."
Later, when the party from Miskatonic observes the destruction wrought by the horror on Sentinel Hill and the "thick and foetid deposit of...tarry stickiness" it left behind, it's said that only Zebulon "could have done justice to the situation or suggested a plausible explanation."
After the Horror is dispatched, Zebulon "wanderingly remembered ancient things." It's Zebulon who recalls: “Fifteen year’ gone...I heerd Ol’ Whateley say as haow some day we’d hear a child o’ Lavinny’s a-callin’ its father’s name on the top o’ Sentinel Hill. . . .”
==In Derleth's Works==
In "The Shuttered Room", Derleth's 1959 "posthumous collaboration" with Lovecraft, also set in Dunwich, Zebulon is called "Grandfather Luther Whateley’s brother—the only living Whateley of his generation." and described as "an old, white-bearded man". He appears to deliver a warning about his family to protagonist Abner Whateley:The Whateleys has a curse on ’em. Thar’s been them naow gone to graoun’ has had to dew with the devil, and thar’s some what whistled turrible things aout o’ the air, and thar’s some what had to dew with things that wasn’t all human nor all fish but lived in the water and swum aout—way aout—to sea, and thar’s some what growed in on themselves and got all mazed and queer....He offers to help Abner in dealing with the evil left behind by his brother Luther--"ef I can."
Category:Characters Originating From Lovecraft Circle Works