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"The Mannikin" is a short story by Robert Bloch that appeared in the April 1937 issue of Weird Tales.
Synopsis[]
Simon Maglore is an intelligent young man described as "tall and thin, with massive stooping shoulders, and a crooked back. He was...afflicted with a peculiar tumorous growth beneath his left shoulder blade." He was otherwise "a very pleasant-looking fellow. Black-haired, gray-eyed, fair of skin, he seemed a fine specimen of intelligent manhood."
Maglore has an "earnest belief in the occult and esoteric"; his family has an "interest in sorcery" going back to Italy at the time of the Medici; they came to America to evade the Inquisition. Maglore's deformity also runs in the family; his grandfather was a "crookback", and his grandfather's grandfather as well.
Maglore seems to have a split personality, being perfectly pleasant at times, and at other times showing a "leering face" and a "smile of sly, lurking evil." At those times Maglore was known to bother strangers with peculiar questions about occult lore.
When Maglore is found dead, his secret is revealed: The lump on his back was actually a conjoined twin, a malformed person with a "little, wrinkled face, like a monkey's", and "tiny, reddish eyes". This mannikin vied for control of his brother's body--and when Maglore tried to reveal his twin's existence in a letter, he killed his brother as well as himself by biting Maglore in the neck.
Behind the Mythos[]
Maglore's library includes Ludvig Prinn's "infamous" Mysteries of the Worm, as well as Mycroft's Commentaries on Witchcraft; a Greek translation of the "almost priceless" Cabala of Saboth, c. 1686; and Ranft's De Masticatione Mortuorum in Tumulis, from 1734. While the first three books are fictional, and Bloch's inventions, the last is a real book, written by Lutheran pastor Michael Ranft, whose title translates as On the Chewing of the Dead in their Tombs. His accounts of post-mortem feeding by corpses contributed to the modern legend of vampires.[1]
When under the control of his twin, Maglore asks a number of Mythos-related questions, querying people about Nyarlathotep and the "Black Messenger"--who seem to be a different entities, though elsewhere (e.g., "The Faceless God") Bloch uses the latter is a title of the former. He also asks about Shub-Niggurath, "beast-men", "the thirteenth covenant", the "Feast of Ulder", the "Doel chants", and "the ritual of Father Yig".
The story is set in Bridgetown, on Lake Kane, places whose location is not further specified. The Algonquin-sounding name of the Indians whose legends Maglore inquires into--the Pasquantog--suggests a New England setting.
Publication History[]
After its initial Weird Tales appearance, "The Mannikin" was frequently reprinted. It appeared in Sleep No More: Twenty Masterpieces of Horror for the Connoisseur, a 1944 anthology edited by August Derleth, as well as The Seventh Fontana Book of Great Horror Stories (1972) and The Sixth Mayflower Book of Black Magic Stories (1977). It's often included in collections of Bloch's short stories, including The Opener of the Way (Arkham House , 1945); Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper (Belmont, 1962); The House of the Hatchet and Other Tales of Horror (Tandem, 1965); Mysteries of the Worm (Zebra, 1981; Chaosium, 1993); and The Early Fears (Fedogan & Bremer, 1994).
References[]
- ↑ Wikipedia, "Michael Ranft".