Overview[]
The sentence "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn" can be translated by "In his house at R'lyeh dead Cthulhu waits dreaming".[1] Variations of the sentence have been used at times.
History[]
In a possible future of Conan, the sentence "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Ctulhu R'lyeh wgah-ngal fhtaga!" was chanted by the men of sea when they called for their god Dagon.[2]
Notes[]
- This sentence in "R'lyehian" (sometimes called "Cthuvian", though no name was used to designate that language in-universe so far), was created by H. P. Lovecraft in his short story "The Call of Cthulhu", first published in Weird Tales (June, 1928).
- So far, the full sentence, exact and correctly spelled, "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn" has never been mentioned in Marvel Comics in its original spelling.
- "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Ctulhu R'lyeh wgah-ngal fhtaga!", an alternative spelling of the sentence, was chanted in Savage Sword of Conan #176 (August, 1990).
- "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Totaro Samebito wgah'nagl fhtagn", was mentioned in "The Chosen" in Fear Itself: The Home Front #5 (October, 2011), translated as "In their dread house the warriors of the King of Darkness wait dreaming." Given the second name doesn't describe the localization of the city like in the original sentence, "Totaro Samebito" can be translated as "The Warriors of the King of Darkness", but "Samebito" is also translated as "Shark Men" in Fear Itself: The Home Front #6 (November, 2011). This was seemingly a reference to Lafcadio Hearn's short story "The Gratitude of the Samebito", which featured Tōtarō and his encounter with the shark-like Samebito.[3] Given the translations of the chant and of its original version, "Totaro" might be a name of the Dark King.
- "Ph'nglui mglw'naft Chthon K'lay wgah'nagl fhtagn" was first chanted in Carnage (Vol. 2) #15 (December, 2016), revamping of the famous sentence "ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn", replacing "Cthulhu" and "R'lyeh" with "Chthon" and "K'lay".