Prydonian Society Files
Event # 5345 “The Crowcombe Imp”.
Location: TA4 4AD
Transcript begins:
Brooding at the foot of the steep south-western slopes of
Somerset’s ancient Quantock Hills is the village of Crowcombe. Its mellow stones and venerable lanes have
dreamed away the centuries in a splendid isolation, and her secrets would have
remained just that– secret, but for a chance visit of John Stephen Pentecost,
an associate member of the Society, in the early 1960s. (Archivist’s note: See files on Pentecost, J S, “The Ever-living Man”-
Restricted Section, Prydonian Society Library, (PSL) Forge 3 facility).
The first written mention of Crowcombe was in 854, in a
document of King Ethelwulf who was father of Alfred the Great, where it was
spelt 'Cerawicombe'. Fifty years later some land at 'Crawncombe' was granted to
Alfred's son, King Edward the Elder, and appears to have remained in the
possession of the Saxon kings It passed to the Earl Godwin and then on to his
death to his widow Gytha. Gytha granted the estate to Winchester to atone for
her husband’s sins.
These sins, much documented and long since forgotten, were,
however, not to be bought off so easily.
The Ancient Church of the Holy Ghost had been built on the remains of an
earlier, Saxon foundation, which in turn had been placed on the site of a grove
or shrine sacred to a far older faith. A faith indeed, that some whispered
antedated mankind itself. (Archivist’s
note: Ref 616/33: Cthulhu Mythos, PSL
Resrticted Section, Miskatonic University facility)
Carved into the armrest of the pew or stall dedicated to the
Carew family, successors to the Saxon landowners of Cerawicombe, was a curious
face or mask. Often described as an example of the traditional “Green Man” of
English mythology, the carving had a subtly disturbing aspect, and had been the
subject of discussion and controversy for at least two centuries. The visits of
such persons as Aleister Crowley and Emil Keller in the 1930s had done little
to endear the carving to the staid religionists of Crowcombe. The later brief
examination of the carving by the Rev R Magister in the 1970s resulted in the
sudden resignation of the incumbent minister, his churchwardens and the final
removal of the whole stall itself.
(Archivist’s note: See Files on the Devil’s End Incident, PSL Restricted
Section, MOD facility)
The Society’s direct involvement in Crowcombe began in
August 1966, when the Castellan of the time, (Name withheld), authorised a
Class 2 Excision Action following the receipt of certain information from John
Stephen Pentecost in July of that year. It was in fact, Pentecost himself who
performed the excision, which action resulted in the loss of his life. The
Society naturally took on the responsibility of bringing up Pentecost’s as then
unborn son (Archivist’s note: See files
on Pentecost, J S, “The Ever-living Man”- Restricted Section, Prydonian Society
Library, (PSL) Forge 3 facility). Pentecost, a slight, grey haired figure,
with curiously mismatched eyes, had been holidaying in the West Country
following a troubling experience involving the Police investigations into the
Inferno Club in Soho (Pentecost Papers
vol 4, PSL Open Section, Forge 3 facility). Instructed by his doctor to
rest, he had decided to tour the ancient Mesolithic sites of his beloved
Cornwall before returning via Dorset and Somerset to his work in London. He had
booked himself into the Carew Arms in Crowcombe, famed for its fine food and
finer ales, and looked forward to a peaceful stopover in which to collate his
notes and photographs.
On the evening of his arrival, Pentecost decided to take a
stroll around the village before dinner, and his tour naturally took in the
church and its small churchyard. Despite the month, the weather had been
disappointing, and the looming hills with their dense, writhing woodlands cast
an unseasonable darkness over the village, making it seem far later than it
actually was. Having read about the church, its history and encumbrances,
Pentecost was curious to view the ancient carving, but despite spending some
half hour within the hallowed building, he was unable to actually find it.
Deciding to complete his stroll and try to complete his researches in daylight,
he set off out of the church and down the lane towards the main road, thinking
to walk completely around the village before returning to the inn. He had been
walking for only two or three minutes, when a sudden movement caught his eye.
Something small, bent and twisted appeared to scurry across the road just behind
him and disappear into the hedgerow. A feeling of unaccountable unease came
over him, for something in the way the thing had moved struck Pentecost as
distorted and unnatural. Examining the hedge where the thing had seemed to
vanish, he could however find nothing– no track or disturbance in the grass and
leaves to suggest anything larger than a bird had been there at all. Another
may have dismissed the incident as nothing more than a fox and a trick of the
light, but Pentecost had had cause in the past to trust his instincts, and his
instincts were telling him to take care and be on his guard. Accordingly, he
loosened the head of the sword-stick he habitually carried and turned to take
the shorter route back to his inn.
It was then he heard rather than saw the creature. A curious
low whistling, almost on the edge of perception and maddeningly familiar, like
a tune from childhood, came from somewhere to his right, while the unmistakable
sound of bracken being brushed aside came towards him. What particularly
disturbed Pentecost was the fact that the noises indicated a being
substantially larger than the twisted dwarf or imp he had seen only a few
minutes earlier. Drawing his sword stick
fully out of his cane, he also made several small motions with his left hand,
and murmured a few words taught to him by his father’s great friend, the Duc de
Richelieu. The weird whistling seemed to falter and stutter, but then returned
more loudly and with an even more insistent and even hungry quality. At this
point Pentecost discovered to his horror that he could no longer move his legs.
He appeared to be held motionless against his conscious efforts to hurry back
to the safety of the inn and his room. Calling upon all the Society’s training,
and his own experience and knowledge, Pentecost made a decision that was to
have long term consequences, and was the indirect cause of his later death
during the Excision. He used the blade of his sword stick to open a deep cut
across his left hand and used his own blood to prime a small device he had
“borrowed” unofficially from the Prydonian Society’s experimental armoury
division in (Location withheld ). Activating this device, Pentecost did that thing
which should never be done except in the direst emergency, when the very soul
is in peril of destruction. In a sharp clear voice he pronounced the last two
lines of the dread Sussamma Ritual.
It was almost noon the following day when Pentecost emerged
from his room at The Carew Arms and made his way to the dining room. His slight
figure seemed leaner than ever, and his grey hair looked oddly thinner, but he
ate ravenously and responded to the flirts of his waitress with his usual wry
wit. On finishing his lunch he requested the use of the telephone and spent a
substantial amount of both time and shillings on the conversation that
followed. After this call, he seemed unusually curt and distant and his
mismatched eyes were shadowed in a frown of both concentration and concern. He
called for and paid his bill, announcing that he needed to cut short his stay
and return to London on urgent business, but that he would return in the not
too distant future. It was the shocking events of this return visit that
resulted in the cleansing of Crowcombe, the death of John Stephen Pentecost and
the orphaning of his unborn son, Marcus Stephen Pentecost, a boy who would
share both his father’s curiously mismatched eyes and his usefulness to the
Prydonian Society.
