“I came to Marblehead in the twilight, & gazed long upon its hoary magick. I threaded the tortuous, precipitous streets, some of which an horse can scarce climb, & in which two waggons cannot pass. I talked with old men & revell’d in old scenes, & climb’d pantingly over the crusted cliffs of snow to the windswept height where cold winds blew over desolate roofs & evil birds hovered over a bleak, deserted, frozen tarn.” — H.P. Lovecraft, letter to Kleiner, 11th January 1923.

tarn, from the Middle English, a small and usually circular lake located high in bleak moorland hills or mountainous terrain.