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| - "Nine Drowned Churches" focuses on a thinly disguised Al Stewart, the Scottish-born singer-songwriter, who, in the guise of "Alistair", travels to Dunwich, England after researching the incidents related to "The Dunwich Horror", and discovering ties between the Massachusetts town and its English namesake. He learns of the legend that three magical crowns that were buried along the coast of East Anglia to keep away invaders. One of these crowns, buried at Dunwich, may also have been the crown St. Felix placed upon the head of Sigebert of East Anglia. He also learns that much of the town has slipped into the sea throughout the centuries, including all nine of the town's Christian churches. Alistair becomes convinced that the churches didn't fall because of erosion and storms, but that Cthulh
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| abstract
| - "Nine Drowned Churches" focuses on a thinly disguised Al Stewart, the Scottish-born singer-songwriter, who, in the guise of "Alistair", travels to Dunwich, England after researching the incidents related to "The Dunwich Horror", and discovering ties between the Massachusetts town and its English namesake. He learns of the legend that three magical crowns that were buried along the coast of East Anglia to keep away invaders. One of these crowns, buried at Dunwich, may also have been the crown St. Felix placed upon the head of Sigebert of East Anglia. He also learns that much of the town has slipped into the sea throughout the centuries, including all nine of the town's Christian churches. Alistair becomes convinced that the churches didn't fall because of erosion and storms, but that Cthulhu himself was responsible for dragging them down. Alistair travels to Dunwich. He takes a tour of a local museum, and notices several artifacts with octopus tentacles as a common motif. The curator informs Alistair that these tentacles are believed to be connected to St. Felix who "came from the sea". Alistair also meets people from the English Dunwich who share surnames with the Massachusetts town, including Whateleys. After lunch in a local restaurant, Alistair hires a fisherman to take him out into the sea so he can see the sunken buildings for himself. At 3 pm, just as the boat is passing over a cathedral, the cathedral bell rings underwater. The fisherman promptly falls into a deep sleep. Alistair stays awake, and, after failing to wake up his guide, turns his attention back to the underwater cathedral. He sees an impossibly, unimaginably gigantic octopus residing in a church building. The two stare at each other for a time before the octopus retreats back out of sight. Before it vanishes, Alistair thinks that he sees a crown on the octopus's head. His fisherman wakes up and takes him back to shore without realizing anything has happened. The story ends with Alistair realizing he cannot tell anyone about what he's seen. He occasionally tries to reference things in his songs, but no one picks up on them. Here the narrative structure also shifts rather abruptly. The story is told in a present tense limited third person narrative. However, in the last lines of the story, after the revelation that Alistair can't tell his story to anyone, the narrative voice shifts from third person to first person, with the narrator opining as to who knows enough aside from Alistair to tell the story. The narrator concludes by saying that "when seen from the water, things of the air seem even stranger than they truly are, which is saying a great deal indeed. Past that, I say no more."
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