Special Orne Library Legends and Locations

Legends of the Library

Any college library accumulates myths and legends over time, and the Orne Library is no exception. Over the course of their studies at M.U., students are liable to hear any of the following interesting stories, some of which are true!

• Despite the headstone bearing his name in the Old Wooded Graveyard, legend has it that university founder Jeremiah Orne’s mortal remains are buried somewhere beneath the basement.
• Rumor has it that students who need to get into the library after hours can enter though a secret tunnel that leads into the basement.
• The sad tale of Thaddeus Finch is an oft-repeated one. A senior in the class of 1904, he went mad while working on his senior thesis and hanged himself in the library. Finch’s major varies with who tells the tale, as does the name of the capricious professor whose tyrannical demands drove the student to his tragic end.
• The Orne Library is definitely haunted. Phantom footfalls and the creaks of a spectral pushcart have been heard by more than one late-night researcher, and some say that a pale specter wanders the stacks after midnight, shelving books for all eternity. Sometimes books left securely shelved in the Rare Books room are found spread out on the tables come morning, left open as if in mid research. The identity of the ghost varies from tale to tale: Jeremiah Orne, Ward Phillips (elder or younger), and Thaddeus Finch are commonly named as being the “Ghost of St. Henry’s”.
• Rumor says that Willard Wheatley was not killed by the library watchdog. The would-be thief made it all the way to the Rare Books room, but then was turned to dust by what he read in the old copy of the Hali’s Booke of the Wisdom of the Stars. The fact that the police were never seen to cart out a body is a tantalizing bit of evidence.

The Haunted Corner

A lonely table on the second floor near the Chemistry stacks is always pointed out as the site of poor Thaddeus Finch’s suicide. It may only be a coincidence, but this is also the coldest place in the library. Rumor has it that anyone who studies at this table overlong is plagued by Finch’s shade, who is still obsessed with finishing his thesis.

The Hidden Vault

A secret storage space is located in the first floor classroom at the northeast corner of the library. Originally part of the foundations of the previous library building which collapsed in 1875, the space consists of a stout brick-lined vault, four feet square. Access to this vault is gained by moving a sliding wall panel that looks completely normal. Within the vault is a heavy iron safe standing on four claw-footed legs. Few know about the vault, and only Wantage knew the combination to the safe.

The Heating Plant

A tight noisy space, filled with boilers, coal bins, and a web of pipes. Joe the shelver lives down here, on a mattress near one of the tunnel entrances.

The Tunnel Entrances

The basement of the Orne Library holds two entrances to the campus tunnels. Students and faculty alike use the tunnels to gain surreptitious entry to the library. One entrance lies in the heating plant—a nondescript door in the southeast corner leads to a short flight of steps down into the tunnels. The other entrance, better known to students, lies under the southernmost stairs on the east wall, near the old books and periodicals stacks.
In the winter of 1928 a door was installed to block passage through the passage under the stairs and the Restricted Vault doors both boast new padlocks and hinges on their library sides.

The Restricted Collection Vault

Originally a dingy storeroom left undamaged when the previous library building collapsed, Professor Wantage hastily moved the nucleus of the Restricted Collection to this room following the events in Athol in September 1928. Over that fall and winter, Wantage started an ambitious building program to expand the space, turning it into a secure vault. Work on the Restricted Vault was completed in April of 1929. It consists of a carpeted and comfortably furnished reading room, reached through a double-locked iron door. At the far end, a second door (also locked) leads into a narrow space lined with locked metal cabinets. The books of the collection are stored within the cabinets, many within their own locked iron boxes. All of the locks are the best that money can buy.

The Restricted Collection

Formed by Dr. Henry Wantage back in September of 1928, the Restricted Collection is a subset of the Special Collections of the Orne Library and contains many of the university’s oldest and rarest books. Wantage restricted public access to the collection to protect the books from inadvertent harm, safeguarding these literary treasures for posterity. At least that was his official explanation. Secretly, Wantage comprehended the true nature of the lore in the Restricted Collection and the uses to which it was put in Athol. The books are restricted not out of concern for their integrity, but for the preservation of humanity.
By January of 1930 all card catalog entries and other listings of the restricted books had been removed. No catalog of the Restricted Collection exists. Anyone seeking to read or peruse a volume in the Restricted Collection must ask for the book by name, and the names and addresses of all inquiring parties are recorded in a log. Only Dr. Jonathan Worthman himself can give approval to read any portion of any book in the Restricted Collection, and a member of the library staff must be present at all times when such a book is read. All notes taken by researchers and copies made of specific passages are also subject to Worthman's perusal.

Contents of the Collection

The Restricted Collection consists of forty-six works (of which two are currently missing). They fall into two general categories, occult works and mythos tomes. An untrained observer finds little distinction between the two. The occult works, with their long lists of celestial and infernal spirits, magical theory, and lengthy incantations differ from the mythos tomes in the origins of their substance, not in how they are presented. On the list below, mythos tomes are asterisked (*).
*The Black Book of the Skull
*The Black Tome of Alsophocus
*The Celaeno Fragments
Clavis Alchemae
*Cultes des Goules
*Cultes des Goules, fragment, Spanish
Corpus Hermeticorum
*Daemonolatreia
*De Vermis Mysteriis
*Liber Ivonis, Latin
*Liber Ivonis, fragment, Latin
*Ye Booke of Eibon, English
*Of Evill Sorceries Done in New England by Daemons in No Humane Shape
*The G’Harne Fragments
Le Gran Albert
*Hali’s Booke of the Wisdom of the Stars, English
Der Hexenhammer
*An Investigation into the Myth Patterns of Latter-Day Primitives with Especial Reference to the R’lyeh Text
The Key of Solomon
Liber Investigationis
Magnalia Christi Americana
Malleus Maleficarum—MISSING
Memorable Providences Relating to Witchcraft and Possessions
*Unaussprechlichen Kulten
*Nameless Cults
*Necrolatry
De Occulta Philosophia
*The Pnakotic Manuscripts
*Pnakotic Manuscript fragments, Greek
*The Ponape Scripture
*The Shrewsbury Scroll
Thesaurus Chemicus
*Thaumaturgical Prodigies in the New England Canaan —MISSING
*True Magick
*The Wheatley Dairy
*The Wheatley Manuscript
*The Wheatley Workbook
Wonders of the Invisible World
*The Zanthu Tablets
The Zohar

Mythos Writings in General Collections

Despite Worthman's best efforts, many books and documents that touch upon the mythos have so far escaped his scrutiny, scattered as they are through the Orne’s holdings.

Shelved under Poetry, American, Contemporary:

Azathoth and Others
People of the Monolith

Shelved under Archaeology, Old World:

The Eltdown Shards

Shelved under Archaeology, Polynesian:

Polynesian Mythology, with a Note on the Cthulhu Legend Cycle

Shelved with Scientific Periodicals:

The Windrop Monograph (The G’Harne Fragments)
The Case Records of Nathaniel Wingate Peaslee

Shelved in the Rare Books Room:

Krypticon

Shelved under Mythology, Folklore:

Legends of New England
The Revelations of Glaaki (volumes I, II, IV, VI)
Revelations of Hali
The R’lyeh Text

Shelved under Religion, New England:

The Pequoiag Sermon

Shelved under Occult, New England:

The Krannorian Annals: Fact or Fallacy?

Shelved with Old University Records, College of Natural Sciences:

The Forester Farm Report
Ground Survey Results, Athol Village

Shelved with Old University Records:

The Phillips Papers, 1706
The Younger Phillips Papers, 1811

Stored in the Miscellaneous Documents Room:

The Billington Papers, 1924

Stored in the Book Repair Room:

The Tuttle Papers, 1928

Occult Tomes in General Collections

Most of the following books are shelved in the Occult section of the library. Again, the distinction between the spirits, devils, and rituals so often mentioned in them and the entities and magic of the mythos may be unclear to the uninitiated.

Shelved in the Occult section:

Ancient Egyptian Legends
Bible Myths and Their Parallels in Other Religions
The Book of the Law
A Book of the Sacred Magic of Abra-Melin the Sage
An Egyptian Book of the Dead
The Emerald Tablet
Isis Unveiled
The Magus
More Wonders of the Invisible World
The Oracles of Nostradamus

Shelved in the Archaeology section:

Archaic England