The Festival

H. P. Lovecrafts short story The Festival was created in October 1923 and first appeared in the January 1925 issue of Weird Tales.The story takes place around Christmas: It was the Yuletide which many refer to as Christmas even though they know in their hearts that it is actually older than Memphis Babylon and all of humankind combined. Kingsport Massachusetts is described as a ancient sea town where my people had dwelt and kept festival in the elder time when festival was forbidden; where they had also commanded their sons to keep festival once every century so that the memory of primal secrets might not be forgotten. The unnamed narrator is travelling there for the first time.