Une histoire de la flamme viridienne

Une histoire de la flamme viridienne

French, by Perotine Cauchés, 1644
Written by Kingsport matriarch Perotine Cauchés, this book details the history of the Covenant from its Byzantine roots to the founding of the Fishermen’s Chapel in Kingsport.

Sanity Loss: None
Cthulhu Mythos: 0/+1%
Mythos Rating: +1%
Study: 2 weeks

Description
Written in Cauchés’ ornate script, the original Histoire occupies eighty-three pages. The binding is leather. Many of the pages bear grotesque illuminations created by Cauchés herself, spry menageries of mythical creatures that occasionally bear the faces of her contemporaries. The Covenant does not permit Une histoire de la flamme viridienne to be set to type, but has commissioned several private copies. In 1777, Rowena Tuttle produced a somewhat mangled English translation entitled “History of the Good Fishermen.” Despite its many errors, this is the version read by most Second Degree initiates. The original book is in the possession of Abner Ezekiel Hoag.

Contents
Articulate and surprisingly droll, Cauchés Histoire is not always accurate, and some of the cult’s Cathar doctrine gets garbled along the way from medieval France to the New World. While the Covenant is correctly traced back to the Pauvres chevaliers de la flamme viridienne, Cauchés falsely describes them as Templars, and mistakenly places twelfth-century Constantinople under the Ottomans. She also seems confused whether Rex Mundi is Kutulu, Dagon, Azazel, Lucifer, Judas Iscariot, or even one of God’s two wives, Collam and Hoolibam! To be fair, Gnostic beliefs were historically inconsistent, and Cauchés herself calls attention to the contradictions, occasionally inserting a Guernésiais idiom best translated as “They were strange times and stranger people.” The Histoire is most reliable when it focuses on the sixteenth century, and portrays the Bons pêcheurs de la flamme viridienne as the dominant sect of Channel Island witches. Having said this, Cauchés frequently replaces pêcheurs with pécheurs; although this is likely a deliberate irony. Written in 1644, Une histoire de la flamme viridienne predates the Covenant’s discovery of the Ponape Scripture, and only refers to the Necronomicon as “Le livre de Quaripel sur l’ancienne religion.”

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Author: A. Buell Ruch
Last Modified: 29 September 2021
Email: quail (at) shipwrecklibrary (dot) com
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