 In his story Lovecraft very nearly accurately describes the mix of demographics of Red Hook circa 1925, but - since his protagonist is Irish - he changed a reference to the then-Irish population of Red Hook to "Spanish".At that time there was no Spanish population in Red Hook, although there was one later.Much of the occult chanting in the story was lifted from the articles on "Magic" and "Demonology" in the 9th edition of the "Encyclopædia Britannica", written by anthropologist E. B. Tylor.