Parry is on a mission of mercy for his Buddy Scott, to look up some totally boring historical info at the British Museum. Since he has to wait for his books and Harry Potter hasn't been invented yet, he decides to kill some time browsing their copy of The Necronomicon.
Well after freaking himself out a bit, he gets the books he came there for and starts making his notes. But he begins to notice some stuff in the local legends that recalls some of the things he'd been reading earlier. Specifically a centuries-old account of a haunted area of the woods near Brichester, where weird drumming and cries and roars are heard, and one local yokel apparently fell under the spell of a one-eyed puple people eater. Allegedly a Sir Gilbert Morley, who was prone to "dark practices" came and took purple people eater away.
Along the way to Scott's place, he discovers a lot of the yokels still believe in something called "The Toad of Berkley", an evil thingie which was kept at bay by star-shaped symbols - not The Cross. How very odd!
Well back at Scott's he talks about how he'd like to check out Morley's castle, which is supposed to be in the vicinity. Scott encourages him not to do so, saying that these old legends are not to be so easily dismissed and there is something up there. Parry rudely ridicules him and the next day he's off to the castle, to which Scott has begrudgingly given him directions.
Most of its crumbled but he does find his way into the dungeons, where he finds a cube covered in black crud, which he wipes off to discover a bunch of symbols like the ones he found in The Necronomicon.
But oops! By picking up that cube he broke the enchantment keeping the thing Morley trapped in the dungeons - Byatis - the serpent-bearded (so named cuz he's got a face full of tentacles), who starts poking out his tentacles trying to grab Parry, who wisely gets his ass out of there, realizing that Morley had stuck Byatis under the castle wherein he/it had grown so huge he couldn't get out!
Pretty slight stuff from Campbell, an amalgam of Lovecraft pastiche, "The Shunned House" and a bit of M.R. James thrown in for good measure. The James touch is the best part of it and what just slightly elevates this one above the completely banal. Campbell was an amateur who would become a professional and Derleth saw that. Nonetheless this is probably the least of the stories in this early Campbell collection.
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