The Hydra
"There are innumerable tales of multi-headed monsters, all springing from the actual entity of whose real existence a few have known through the ages. This creature did not originate on earth, but in the gulfs Outside. It was
a vampiric entity, living not on the blood of its victims but on their heads — their brains… Through the eons this being has ravened in the abyss beyond our dimension, sending out its call to claim victims where it could.
For this entity, by absorbing the heads and brains of intelligent creatures both of this world and of other planets, emerges with its powers and vitality greatly augmented."
~ Kenneth Scott about the Hydra.
The Hydra is an antagonist in the Cthulhu Mythos (a literary universe of shared fiction started by the late H.P. Lovecraft), serving as the secondary antagonist of Henry Kuttner's short story "Hydra". It is one of the Outer Gods which resides in an alternate dimension and is the subject of the ritual described in the pamphlet On the Sending Out of the Soul, which allows people to perform astral projection, but at the cost of invoking the dread Hydra, who possess the person performing the ritual and forces them to do its bidding.
Overview
Description
The Hydra is described as a vampiric entity of a kind, although it feeds "not on the blood of its victims but on their heads — their brains...", increasing its power by devouring their brains, causing their faces to appear within the Hydra. It appears an enormous sea of black ooze with a multitude of heads sprouting from it, some human, some alien, a new one appearing once another victim's head is devoured by the Hydra. The heads appear to be "sobbing and grimacing, as if in great agony". They are kept alive by the Hydra and will eventually die if separated from it. A few of the heads are able to communicate with people on Earth psychically.
Following
The Hydra is worshipped by a human cult responsible for the creation of the On the Sending Out of the Soul astral projection pamphlet. Not much is known about the cult beyond the fact that they originated in 1783 and use the pamphlet to trick people into performing sacrifices for the Hydra. The Hydra was also worshipped in ancient Rome alongside the Magna Mater.
Ritual
In Henry Kuttner's short story Hydra, the Hydra's first and only appearance, the being is seen when Robert Ludwig and Paul Edmond use On the Sending Out of the Soul to astral project to their friend Kenneth Scott's house. The Hydra possesses their astral forms, as it has done thousands of times before, and uses them to murder and behead Scott, causing Scott to become part of the Hydra. Scott is able to communicate with Ludwig, begging to be freed from his eternal torment and returned to Earth. Ludwig manages to travel to the astral plane via a magic crystal and free Scott from the clutches of the Hydra, but is killed by Azathoth soon after. Scott attempts to return to Earth after this with Edmond's help, but Edmond refuses to help him as he is afraid of Azathoth. The story ends with Scott returning to Earth in an inhuman form and, in his final moments, killing Edmond.
Trivia
Some have speculated that the Hydra and Azathoth are one and the same being, as they appear to exist on the same plane.
