Arthur Machen's Out of the Earth: A Detailed Summary and Literary Analysis
- Michael Kellermeyer
- May 1
- 8 min read
Updated: May 7
Written just after the apex of his astonishingly popular “The Bowmen” – at a time when it was now being passionately cited as a true story – “Out of the Earth” is a sinister transition away from the former story’s cheerful optimism. In August 1914, the British Army had its first encounter with the Germans at Mons – a battle that ended in an orderly retreat after a valiant effort at holding back the German military machine. The following month, Machen published “The Bowmen” – a reporterly (albeit utterly fictitious) account of St. George and the ghosts of English longbowmen protecting the British forces with a dazzling volley of supernatural arrows.
His story became so popular that he was accused – very publicly – of being part of a conspiracy to cover up the truth, and was dismayed at how fervently his well-meaning fable was cited as a genuine, supernatural occurrence (transforming, thus, into the oft-printed legend of the “Angels of Mons”). The following is the seventh and final story in Machen’s “little people” cycle – and its unsettling tone and lack of resolution serve as a suitable farewell to the series. Here we see such vague glimpses of the troublesome troglodytes and have so much reason to doubt their reality that when we finally encounter a credible first-hand account, the story’s shift is far more ghostly than monstrous.
It is certainly more of a parable than a horror story (though it does not fail to chill in its description of the deformed subterraneans rollicking in gore – gore which disappears when investigated). It presents a dark rebuke of the wartime fervor that Machen seemed to regret participating in. No less patriotic, he nonetheless became disgusted with war and killing, and “Out of the Earth” serves as a suitable middle ground behind the glorious optimism of “The Bowmen” and the utterly weary cynicism of 1916’s “The Terror.”
SUMMARY
Set amidst the raging chaos of World War I, the narrative begins with a reflection on the author's own experiences with the public's tendency to believe in supernatural occurrences, such as the "Angels of Mons" legend, which Machen had inadvertently fueled with his earlier story "The Bowmen". This self-aware opening sets the tone for a tale that blurs the lines between reality and myth.
In the opening paragraphs, Arthur Machen reflects with frustration on the public’s credulous reaction to his earlier story, "The Bowmen," which was intended as a fictional piece but became the source of the persistent myth of the "Angels of Mons." He laments how a clear literary invention was taken as truth by the masses and even by journalists, who continued to report it as fact despite his repeated denials.
Machen’s tone is wearied and ironic, noting how attempts to clarify the fictional nature of the tale were either ignored or met with indignation, as if the public preferred to cling to myth over truth. This skepticism toward collective belief and media distortion sets the mood of anxiety and disbelief that colors the rest of the narrative.
Against this backdrop, Machen introduces a new and far more disturbing rumor—one that emerges not from newspapers, but from hushed whispers and personal accounts in rural Wales. He recounts being contacted by a woman who relays a story of strange children seen near a Welsh village, children whose behavior and appearance seem unnerving and unnatural.
These reports come not from the grand stage of war propaganda, but from the secluded, mist-shrouded hills of the countryside, where folklore and dread still cling tightly to the land. The contrast between the imagined, mass-believed miracle of "The Bowmen" and the eerily consistent, yet disbelieved, sightings of the sinister children introduces the central tension of the story: how the unnatural seeps into the real, and how the real often rejects the truly uncanny.
The rumors specifically consist of a series of mysterious reports from Welsh seaside towns, where gangs of unruly children are allegedly exhibiting strange and violent behavior. While the nature of this behavior is cloaked in polite language, they are said to exhibit extremely foul, sexually-charged language, and women are said to feel unsafe around them. There are further tales of “juvenile depravity” and even savage murders:
“At last, quite incredible things began to be whispered: visitors’ children had not only been beaten, they had been tortured; a little boy had been found impaled on a stake in a lonely field near Manavon; another child had been lured to destruction over the cliffs at Castell Coch.”
While the papers fail to find evidence of these more outlandish tales, accounts of encounters with these hellish youngsters persist and accumulate. These rumors, initially dismissed as baseless gossip, gain traction as more accounts surface, describing incidents of children engaging in inexplicable and disturbing actions. The towns, once peaceful and idyllic, become centers of fear and suspicion.
Machen, intrigued by these reports, decides to visit the area. During his stay in Manavon, he observes the local children and notices their unsettling behavior, which contrasts sharply with the town's previously tranquil atmosphere. Despite his unease, he continues his observations, seeking a rational explanation for the strange occurrences.
A pivotal moment occurs when the narrator converses with his friend Morgan, who recounts a disturbing experience at Castell Coch. Morgan describes witnessing a group of grotesque, otherworldly children engaged in ritualistic activities. These children, with their unnatural appearance and behavior, seem to embody a malevolent force that has emerged from the earth itself. Morgan – a typical Machenean empath – is of a dreamy, artistic temperament: “like a child who has grown up and yet has not grown up like other children of men.”
He reports having been shocked during a pleasant, countryside stroll by “a sudden burst of horrible raucous cries—and the cries of children, too, but children of the lowest type… They were to the ear what slime is to the touch...” The cause of the outburst proves to be
“a swarm of noisome children, horrible little stunted creatures with old men’s faces, with bloated faces, with little sunken eyes, with leering eyes. It was worse than uncovering a brood of snakes or a nest of worms.”
They were shouting “every foulness, every filthy abomination of speech; blasphemies that struck like blows at the sky, that sank down into the pure, shining depths, defiling them.” While Morgan refuses to describe what horrifying acts he witnessed them perform – other than to murmur “read about Belgium … and think that they couldn’t have been more than five or six years old” – he claims that he “saw blood running in streams, as they shrieked with laughter, but I could not find the mark of it on the grass afterwards.”
Disgusted, he risks his safety by shouting at them, but at the sound of his voice, they seem to be absorbed into an opening in the earth itself.
The landlord of the establishment where Morgan stays provides a cryptic response when questioned about the events. He speaks of an eternal battle between good and evil and "the People" who take delight in it, hinting at a deep-rooted, possibly supernatural, presence in the land. This conversation suggests that the disturbances are not mere coincidences but are linked to ancient forces awakening in the region.
As he ponders these things, Machen is reminded of an incident involving his own son:
“this strange tale of his brought back an odd circumstance or two that I recollected: a matter of our little boy straying away more than once, and getting lost among the sand dunes and coming back screaming, evidently frightened horribly, and babbling about ‘funny children.’ We took no notice; did not trouble, I think, to look whether there were any children wandering about the dunes or not. We were accustomed to his small imaginations.”
He writes of these strange, still-unexplained apparitions, to a friend of his, Dr. Duthoit (an English priest and mystic first introduced in another gloomy, wartime tale, "Dr. Duthoit's Vision"), who writes back a brief but disturbing analysis:
“They were only visible, only audible to children and the child-like. Hence the explanation of what puzzled you at first; the rumours, how did they arise? They arose from nursery gossip, from scraps and odds and ends of half-articulate children’s talk of horrors that they didn’t understand, of words that shamed their nurses and their mothers. These little people of the earth rise up and rejoice in these times of ours. For they are glad, as the Welshman said, when they know that men follow their ways.”
Ultimately, the story culminates in a revelation that the strange behavior of the children is connected to the resurgence of ancient, malevolent entities beneath the earth. These beings, long dormant, have been stirred by the turmoil of the war, finding a conduit through the innocence and vulnerability of children. The narrative suggests that the horrors of the war have disturbed the natural order, allowing these entities to manifest.
ANALYSIS
Though hardly a masterpiece, “Out of the Earth” shares much with “The Great God Pan” and “The White People,” in spite of its brevity and limited scope. All three stories ponder themes of corruption, the violation of children, the manifestation of evil, the malignant infectiousness of sin, and the hidden, almost invisible condition of omnipresent wickedness. Evil, Machen claims, is ubiquitous. Adults are desensitized to it – deadened in their spirits by a lifetime of steady exposure and a de-sensitivity that increases with every year. Only less worldly souls – like the children and the man with an intellectual disability – can detect the potency of sin. They see and identify it immediately, while adults are confused and ignorant.
It serves as a fitting precursor to “The Terror” – wherein all of Nature becomes infected by the warring spirit of mankind, turning against humanity in a rebellion similar to Hitchcock’s The Birds – in the manner with which it treats hatred: like a rapidly-spreading contagion that grows stronger and more manifest with time. Just as the corrupt subterraneans – pure malice and evil – become easier to see the longer the war goes on, so Machen suggests that humanity becomes deadened to reason, love, and generosity the longer the war blasts on. Initially a jingoistic nationalist – eagerly re-reporting the ludicrous propaganda of the “Rape of Belgium” (including the crucifixion of a three year old, the bayonetting of an eight year old, and the murder of a priest) – Machen soured rapidly on the war, and his fiction depicts an increasingly disenchanted intellect. While his earliest stories talked of military victories and divine judgment, he later turned to showing a dead soldier’s solemn welcome into Valhalla after a suicide mission, before penning the wildly pessimistic “Terror.”
“Out of the Earth” is the middle point between these two extremes, showing a country where the different regions are slandering one another, where children are being infected by the contagion of hate, and where the loathsome subterraneans of folklore find the land welcoming and fertile – fertile for the seeds of evil to be sown and spread.
II.
Ultimately, Machen's tale serves as a metaphor for the pervasive and corrupting influence of war. The awakening of ancient evils parallels the moral and spiritual decay wrought by the conflict. The children's transformation into agents of these forces symbolizes the loss of innocence and the triumph of darkness in a world ravaged by violence. The story's ambiguous ending leaves readers with a sense of unresolved dread. While the immediate threat appears to subside, the underlying forces remain, suggesting that the battle between the natural and supernatural is ongoing. This open-ended conclusion invites reflection on the enduring impact of evil and the fragility of human civilization.
Machen's writing is characterized by its atmospheric tension and subtle horror. He masterfully evokes a sense of unease through detailed descriptions of the Welsh landscape and the eerie behavior of the children. The blending of the mundane with the supernatural creates a haunting narrative that lingers in the reader's mind. "Out of the Earth" stands as a poignant commentary on the horrors of war and the latent forces that lie beneath the surface of reality. Through its exploration of folklore and the supernatural, the story delves into themes of corruption, innocence, and the eternal struggle between light and darkness.