Shub-Niggurath

This article is about the Cthulhu Mythos deity. Shub-Niggurath is also the name of a French Band, Shub-Niggurath (band).

Shub-Niggurath, also known as The Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young, is one of the fictional deities of H. P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos; she is never actually described in any of Lovecraft's stories, but is frequently mentioned or called upon in incantations. Shub-Niggurath is a perverse fertility deity, said to be an enormous cloudy mass which extrudes black tentacles, slime-dripping mouths and short writhing goat legs. She is worshipped extensively by druidic and barbaric cults.

"One squat, black temple of Tsathoggua was encountered, but it had been turned into a shrine of Shub-Niggurath, the All-Mother and wife of the Not-to-Be-Named-One. This deity was a kind of sophisticated Astarte, and her worship struck the pious Catholic as supremely obnoxious." --H.P. Lovecraft, The Mound

"Iä! Shub-Niggurath! The Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young!" --H.P. Lovecraft, The Whisperer in Darkness,, The Dreams in the Witch House, The Man of Stone

Both Stephen King and Terry Pratchett have referenced Shub-Niggurath in their works. Terry Pratchett generally refers to mock Lovecraftian gods as the things from the Dungeon Dimensions. For example, Moving Pictures (1993) has "Tshup Aklathep, Infernal Star Toad with A Million Young."

Shub-Niggurath also makes an appearance as the final adversary of the FPS computer game Quake.