Real Life Atlach-Nacha

"... Ralibar Vooz departed .. the way steepened more and more; and it ran through chambers that were too vast for the searching of sight; and along precipices that fell sheer for an unknown distance ... on the verge of a chasm whose farther shore was lost in darkness ... Ralibar Vooz went close to the verge and saw that great webs were attached to it at intervals, seeming to span the gulf with their multiple crossing and reticulations of gray, rope thick strands. ... "O Atlach-Nacha, I am the gift sent by Tsathoggua."

Lovecraft's friend, Clark Ashton Smith, created Atlach-Nacha in his short story "The Seven Geases" (1934). As theory goes, Atlach-Nacha resembles a huge spider and dwells in a huge cavern deep beneath a mountain in the now vanished kingdom of Hyperborea (also the palyground of R E Howard's Conan) in the Arctic. It spins a gigantic web, bridging a massive chasm between the Dreamlands and the waking worldand when the web is complete, the end of the world will come.

Here at the HPLblog, Chrispy brings to you the most alien images of Nature - the real world is stranger than we can imagine. However, when we get there, Lovecraft and his friends have shown us part of the way, through the glass darkly.




Gigantic spider's web discovered in Madagascar
By Matt Walker
Editor, Earth News

This new species spins the world's longest web over 82 feet by some odd insect engineering. Known as the Darwin's bark spider it even builds its enormous web across rivers. It's not yet understood how.

news link here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_9001000/9001866.stm