Little People

The Little People are a fictional humanoid species featured most extensively in the works of Arthur Machen and Robert E. Howard. A race of subterranean creatures, they are believed to be the inspiration for the folkloric Fair Folk, or "Fairies".
In Howard's stories, they are also known as the Children of the Night and the Worms of the Earth. Whilst stated to have originally been a tribe of humans, since their banishment underground millennia ago the Worms have devolved into a semi-reptilian race of creatures who fear the light. Their skin appears to be scaly, they have glittering yellow eyes, and they move with the sinuous grace of a serpent.
H. P. Lovecraft referenced this species in The Whisperer in Darkness, a story believed to have been inspired by Machen's "The Novel of the Black Seal". As a result, the Little People share some traits in common with the Mi-Go.
Lovecraft also identifies Ghoth the Burrower, a descendant of K'baa the Serpent, as "one of the Little People".
In the role-playing game Call of Cthulhu, this species is known as the Degenerate Serpent Folk, portrayed as the result of interbreeding between Serpent People and humans. (: Ye Booke of Monstres II)
==Description==
Despite their reptilian features, the Little People were originally human, being the descendants of a tribe known in prehistoric Britain as the "Children of the Night", who were driven underground by the Picts. For the next thousand years, they "retrogressed" (or evolved) into a new species, adapted to life in a subterranean environment. (: "The Children of the Night", "People of the Dark", "Worms of the Earth")
Ethnologist Prof. William Gregg believes them to be the Fair Folk of myth, called "fair" not because they were in any way beautiful or benevolent, but because humans feared them and wanted to appease them. (: "The Novel of the Black Seal")
The Little People are small humanoids, less than 4 feet tall, with yellow skin and almond-shaped eyes that can see in complete darkness (: "The Shining Pyramid", : "People of the Dark"). Their mouths are equipped with fangs (: "People of the Dark", "Worms of the Earth"). Their skin is scaly and snake-like, although they still have hair, and their hands are clawed (: "People of the Dark"). Being adapted to a fossorial existence, they can burrow prodigiously fast like moles, and their excavations are said to stretch for uncounted miles beneath the surface of mainland Britain (: "Worms of the Earth").
The Little People speak in hissing, sibilant voices that bear no resemblance to any sound produced by human beings. They hate the sun, and avoid even the light of the moon or the stars. (: "The Novel of the Black Seal", : "People of the Dark", "Worms of the Earth")
Members of this species are known to inhabit Dagon's Cave (: "People of the Dark") or Dagon's Barrow (: "Worms of the Earth"). It's not known whether the place has any connection with Dagon.
Tools made by the Little People, such as axes and mallets, are extremely difficult for humans to handle: attempting to do so typically causes one to lose balance and miss. (: "The Novel of the Black Seal", : "The Children of the Night")
Like the Serpent People (: "The Shadow Kingdom"), the Little People can use magic: an ability that Prof. Gregg accounts for "on the hypothesis that a race which had fallen out of the grand march of evolution might have retained, as a survival, certain powers which would be to us wholly miraculous" (: "The Novel of the Black Seal").
They worship a black stone (: "People of the Dark", "Worms of the Earth") known as Ixaxar, a.k.a. the Sixtystone, the latter name referring to its sixty hieroglyphs (: "The Novel of the Black Seal").
In ancient times, witches would meet with strange creatures during Witches' Sabbath that had access to a mysterious white powder that would allow humans to change into amorphous shapeshifters (: "The Novel of the White Powder"). Prof. Gregg's research into the legends of the Little People led him to discover things that he dared not repeat, including, in his own words: "the phrases which tell me how man can be reduced to the slime from which he came, and be forced to put on the flesh of the reptile and the snake" (: "The Novel of the Black Seal").
The Little People are also known for their tendency to abduct young human women (: "People of the Dark", "The Little People") and to mate with them. The children of such unions may look completely human (: "The Children of the Night"), although at least one, named Jervase Cradock, underwent a mysterious transformation and grew tentacles covered in snail-like mucus (: "The Novel of the Black Seal").
One member of this species named Ghoth the Burrower has been identified as a descendant of K'baa the Serpent, themself the child of Yogash the Ghoul, grandchild of Shaurash-ho and great-grandchild of Cthulhu. Ghoth mated with a woman named Viburnia, who was herself a distant descendant of Nyarlathotep, and fathered Llunwy of Wales, an ancestor of Owen Gwynedd and "H.P.L.". The union of Ghoth and Viburnia has been infamously described as "an hellish and nameless tragedy". (: Selected Letters of H. P. Lovecraft)
In Vermont, people of Celtic descent connect the local legends about the Mi-Go with "the malign fairies and "little people" of the bogs and raths" (: The Whisperer in Darkness). Like the Little People, the Mi-Go also display traits such as inhuman voices, an aversion to sunlight and moonlight, and occasional tendency to abduct humans, albeit for very different purposes. Perhaps most notably, the Mi-Go also possess a black stone covered in hieroglyphs, similar to Ixaxar.
The Necronomicon claims that when the Great Old Ones return, the Spawn of Shub-Niggurath will "take dominion over all wood nymphs, satyrs, leprechauns, and the Little People". (: "The House on Curwen Street", "The Keeper of the Key")
Some accounts claim that the Little People are descended from the offspring of Serpent People and humans. As a species, they deviated far from their roots and, although low in intelligence, had a vicious temperament and made for dangerous opponents. Occasionally, one of the folk would be born who was a throwback to the majestic parent race of Serpent People: these individuals were worshiped by the others as a reminder of what their species once was. (: Ye Booke of Monstres II)
==History==
After a great war with the ancestors of the Pictish tribes, the beings who would become the Worms of the Earth were exiled below ground, where they slowly devolved into the creatures they are today. Over the years, the surface people forgot about them, all but a few of the purest descendants of the old tribes, although the places which gave access to their underground tunnels were shunned by men.
During the Roman occupation of Britain, a Pictish king named Bran Mak Morn swore vengeance against a Roman governor who had brutally executed one of his people. Knowing that he could not achieve this goal alone, he bargained with a half-Worm hag for the location of an entry to the Worms' realm. Stealing the Black Stone, an artefact which held great importance to the Worms, Bran then agreed to return it to them if they would bring him the governor alive. This the Worms did, but when presented to Bran, the man was gibbering and insane, having been driven mad by what he had seen during his trip through the tunnels of the Worms. (: "Worms of the Earth")
With the coming of the 20th century, the effects of inbreeding amongst the Little People became so severe that it drove them to extinction. (: "People of the Dark")
==Behind the Mythos==
In Dwellers in the Mirage, by A. Merritt, the name "Little People" is used for the Rrrllya, a 3 ft. tall humanoid species with golden skin, yellow eyes and long silky hair, which inhabit a hidden warm valley in Alaska. Unlike the Little People of the Mythos, the Rrrllya are friendly creatures, and their language resembles a bird's chirping rather than a snake's hissing.
In "The Black Kiss", by Robert Bloch and Henry Kuttner, the character Dr. Makoto Yamada mentions Machen by name and comments on the author's notion that the Fair Folk aren't actually "fair" in any way, but that "man, afraid of these strange beings, has attributed to them beautiful or pleasantly grotesque forms which in reality they do not possess", thus referring to Machen's depiction of the Little People. Dr. Yamada believes the same notion applies to folkloric mermaids, which he likens to the sea-dwellers.
Category:Species Originating From Mythos-Adjacent Works
Category:Sapient Species
Category:Earth-Native Species
Category:Extinct Species