Chapter 2
It was in the township of Dunwich, in a large and partly
inhabited farmhouse set against a hillside four miles from the
village and a mile and a half from any other dwelling, that Wilbur
Whateley was born at 5 a.m. on Sunday, the second of February,
1913. This date was recalled because it was Candlemas, which people
in Dunwich curiously observe under another name; and because the
noises in the hills had sounded, and all the dogs of the
countryside had barked persistently, throughout the night before.
Less worthy of notice was the fact that the mother was one of the
decadent Whateleys, a somewhat deformed, unattractive albino woman
of thirty-five, living with an aged and half-insane father about
whom the most frightful tales of wizardry had been whispered in his
youth
