Hither Came Howard

Being hurtled headfirst into Sword & Sorcery by the famous Barbarian

“I remember…” — these two opening words of Robert E. Howard’s¹ poem, “Cimmeria” were the first words penned by him that I ever read knowing about him. The poem was printed in the Del Rey anthology of stories featuring Howard’s famous barbarian character Conan, The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian, appearing right before “The Phoenix on the Sword.” These two simple words as the opening for a saga carry tremendous weight for tales wrought out of such a vibrant, short life as Howard’s. Perhaps the only other simple opening words in any piece of American literature I’ve read that bear as much meaning as the beginning of “Cimmeria” would be “Call me Ishmael” from Moby Dick. I remember my freshman class in high school on that mammoth novel and how we spent nearly the entire first class simply discussing those three words. Regrettably, I don’t remember as much of the discussion as I would like to, but part of what I got out of it was that the introduction promised a great story about this man Ishmael. Similarly, “I remember…” promises a great story from this unnamed narrator, who recalls hazy, shadowed scenes from an age undreamed of. This narrator is the chronicler who alone can tell us of the sagas Howard wrote—for he is Howard.²

As stated above, my first conscious foray into Howard’s works was with his Conan stories—though they were far from the first stories that he ever wrote. To this day, I’m honestly unsure of what led me to finally get around to reading Howard; I was vaguely aware of H.P. Lovecraft being friends with “the guy who created Conan” but outside of “The Black Stone” I hadn’t thought to dive into anything else he had written until my sophomore year of college. Much like how I received my first Lovecraft anthology as a Christmas gift, I received my first Howard anthology for Christmas as well. The prose alone was unlike anything I had ever read. It captured the same conviction that a bard reciting a myth would have had, yet was aflame with passion rather than being as “wooden” as modern audiences regard translations of ancient stories; reading “The Phoenix on the Sword” transported me to the dimly-lit halls of Conan’s Aquilonian palace, and even into his own moody mind filled with slumbering rage that exploded in a frenzy during the climactic fight scenes against the coup and Thoth-Amon’s daemon mummy. Although the collection’s accompanying illustrations by Mark Schultz gave faithful visualization into Howard’s world, I felt as though the original words were enough to show me Hyboria—its vistas, its horrors, and its people. The opening words of “Cimmeria” really spoke true, for it seemed that Howard had not only invented Conan and his world, but remembered it out of murky, half-lit dreams.

The following semester at college, I had enrolled in two creative writing classes—one for short stories and one for short film scripts. My pleasure reading at the time was very limited due to class and club obligations, but early in the mornings I did manage to carve out time to read some Conan stories. The yarns most certainly had an influence on the projects I worked on for my classes; I wrote two sword & sorcery stories vaguely inspired by Howard and a screenplay for a short film involving prehistoric tribes in Ireland, filled with plenty of barbaric fight scenes. At the time, I didn’t try to ape Howard’s writing style or formulae, but could at least confidently say that the themes and attitudes of the genre which Howard laid the groundwork for really led me to want to carve out a niche in Sword & Sorcery fantasy.

One of the things that struck me when I came to the end of The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian was the worldbuilding miscellanea contained at the back of the collection. It held Howard’s notes for the different cultures of the Hyborian Age and a copy of his essay—likely for his own personal reference—but it wasn’t anywhere near the “Worldbuilding Bibles” many young fantasy authors today might create to keep track of the inner workings of their secondary worlds. While there is a place for these types of references, and indeed could be taken as valid works of art by themselves, the more “fragmented” type of worldbuilding Howard engaged with spoke to me as a writer. I have attempted to create Worldbuilding Bibles for my own stories but felt more eager to dive into writing the plot out rather than stewing on how the world works. Howard’s work showed me that I didn’t need to have everything planned out to write my stories.

The next Howardian hero I engaged with was the dour, swashbuckling Puritan Solomon Kane. I also read his stories in one of the Del Rey collections, The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane. Although the character and settings were entirely different from Conan, they still had the same fire and conviction as the saga of the Cimmerian but with a more definite gothic, gloomier atmosphere. Kane’s stories, while having supernatural elements, work just as well as historical swashbuckling adventures of the early colonial period. Often media set during this time leans towards social dramas or examinations of the larger-scale wars going on at the time, but the yarns of Howard’s Puritan show the adventure and challenges individuals who dared to explore unmapped reaches could face. He even managed to reference his older works and the imagined past of his world in one of my favorite Solomon Kane stories, “The Moon of Skulls.” The whole “dungeon-crawling” aspect of the tale combined with Kane's struggle against the vampire queen Nakari really felt like the kind of story that inspired the whole play style of Dungeons & Dragons. It also simply makes for a great example of how Sword & Sorcery tales can be “epic” without having to tred into world-ending threats that have become so rampant in genre fiction.

The 2009 adaptation of Solomon Kane is often regarded as one of the better adaptations of Howard's work even if it doesn't base its plot on any of the original stories. When I watched it myself, I was cautiously optimistic when starting it but what really sold me on it being faithful to Howard’s work was Solomon Kane's single line near the beginning, “I am the only devil here!” which felt like something directly from the mouth of Howard himself.

When I came to write my senior capstone project in college, I chose to research works in the Celtic Revival (sometimes called Celtic Twilight) from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. For one of the texts, I chose the Del Rey anthology Bran Mak Morn: The Last King to examine how an American author such as Howard handled the themes of a largely Irish movement through the lens of a fictionalized version of the Picts of ancient Scotland. Interestingly, Howard explicitly chooses not to make his Picts Celtic when in reality they were likely part of various Brythonic language-speaking³ tribes who we would consider, in modern terminology, to be “Celtic.” Despite Howard divorcing his Picts from their genuine Celtic origins, he still manages to weave the sublime themes of the Celtic Revival movement into Bran's struggle to maintain the memory and identity of his race.

I tend to use the term Celtic Twilight more so than Revival because I like imagining the idea of twilight representing dusk and dawn. In Celtic Twilight works, there is a dichotomy of romanticizing a golden era (i.e. “dawn”) and the gloomy, uncertain future (i.e. “dusk”). Usually, there might be a subliminal figure who stands at the threshold of this twilight dichotomy. In the stories of Bran Mak Morn, Bran is that figure. Howard even uses the imagery of dusk and dawn in the very first Bran story written (but not published) in 1926, “Men of the Shadows”, with a supernatural duel between the minds of Bran and his wizard-advisor:

Wizard and chief [Bran] faced each other. The lurid flame-flares lit their faces. Their eyes met, clashed. Yes, the combat between the eyes and the souls behind them was as clearly evident as though they had been battling with swords. The wizard’s eyes widened, the chief’s narrowed. Terrific forces seemed to emanate from each; unseen powers in combat swirled about them. And I was vaguely aware that it was but another phase of the eon-old warfare. The battle between Old and New. Behind the wizard lurked thousands of years of dark secrets, sinister mysteries, frightful nebulous shapes, monsters half hidden in the fogs of antiquity. Behind the chief, the clear strong light of the coming Day, the first kindling of civilization, the clean strength of a new man with a new and mighty mission. The wizard was the Stone Age typified; the chief, the coming civilization. The destiny of the Pictish race, perhaps, hinged on that struggle. (Howard, 19)

Themes of longing and hope for the return of a nation’s imagined golden age are prominent in Celtic Revival art (and indeed most nationalist romantic movements from the 18th-20th centuries). Placed in the medium of a Sword & Sorcery setting, these themes build Bran up as a tragic, romantic hero akin to traditional figures in folklore and mythology who were reworked in revivalist movements to serve as figureheads of national identity. He is an echo of Fingal and Ossian,⁴ a man with a primordial heritage and desperate hope for the future of his vanishing people. Although he stands as a champion who hopes to lead his tribe into a new dawn, he is beset by the oncoming dusk—the twilight of the Picts.

The Bran-saga became one of my favorite Howardian tale cycles for its pseudo-Celtic connections and the blend of fantasy, horror, and mythology masterfully exemplified in “The Worms of the Earth”, considered one of Howard’s best stories overall. If Lovecraft is best known for “haunting” the seas with Cthulhu, I would say Howard haunted the depths of the Earth with his “Worms”, degenerate, subterranean monsters that may have once been human. They are a twisted perversion of the faeries or “little people” occupying the hills of Britain; they exhibit the mysterious, dangerous traits of the primeval “dusk”, or even total “night”, and indeed cause Bran to spiral towards the dusk of his people through their wicked pact with him.

After I first visited Robert E. Howard Days in 2021,⁵ I picked up a copy of Kull: Exile of Atlantis at the museum gift shop in Cross Plains. On my plane ride home, I read the “Exile of Atlantis” story that established the origins of Howard’s prehistoric barbarian overlord as the first story in the collection. This and “The Shadow Kingdom” opened my eyes to a form of Sword & Sorcery, still well within the realm of Howard, that appeared to be on a scale even more mythic and fantastical than the Conan stories. While the Cimmerian's saga has its own fair share of fantasy and mythic scope, Howard managed to present a world of great empires, terrible magic, and gloomy philosophy. While Hyboria is Howard’s own invention based off Earth’s cultures and pre-Industrial time periods, the lost continents and empires that make up the scope of Kull’s world have been meditated on and “explored” for centuries, yet he combines them in a prehistoric age with only the most tenuous connections to our own world. It truly feels like a setting surrounded by a pool of shadow, and its stories pulled out of murky, black sleep.

Before reading the Kull stories, I had branched out into Michael Moorcock’s Corum books, which take place in an ancient, dying world that is unmapped and unexplored by its own vanishing inhabitants—the elf-like Vadhagh. Howard’s Antediluvian Earth and Moorcock’s hazy world of his Corum stories present settings that exist beyond time that can be recalled and open readers’ imaginations to vistas of civilization and nature that are in struggle against each other. Moorcock’s works might define this as the cosmic struggle of Law and Chaos, with his heroes struggling to find a balance between the forces. Similarly, Kull seems to struggle with the idea of having barbaric origins yet rising to the pinnacle of civilization. He meditates upon this in “The Shadow Kingdom” (1929), the first story published to feature him:

Chains of friendship, tribe, and tradition he had broken to satisfy his ambition. And, by Valka, god of the sea and the land, he had realized that ambition! He was king of Valusia — a fading, degenerate Valusia, a Valusia living mostly in dreams of a bygone glory, but still a mighty land and the greatest of the Seven Empires. Valusia — Land of Dreams, the tribesmen named it, and sometimes it seemed to Kull that he moved in a dream. Strange to him were the intrigues of court and palace, army and people. All was like a masquerade, where men and women hid their real thoughts with a smooth mask. Yet the seizing of the throne had been easy — a bold snatching of opportunity, the swift whirl of swords, the slaying of a tyrant of whom men had wearied unto death, short, crafty plotting with ambitious statesmen out of favor at court — and Kull, wandering adventurer, Atlantean exile, had swept up to the dizzy heights of his dreams: he was lord of Valusia, king of kings. Yet now it seemed that the seizing was far easier than the keeping. The sight of the Pict had brought back youthful associations to his mind, the free, wild savagery of his boyhood. And now a strange feeling of dim unrest, of unreality, stole over him as of late it had been doing. Who was he, a straightforward man of the seas and the mountain, to rule a race strangely and terribly wise with the mysticisms of antiquity? (Howard, 19)

Kull finds himself in a gilded cage, or gilded labyrinth, conflicted and confused by the byzantine customs of the civilization that now swears fealty to him—a “savage.” The theme of unrest and vying for greater purpose amidst a backdrop of mythic empires and unrecalled lands makes for an incredibly sublime struggle to understand human nature and desires to be part of something greater than his own life. These meditations on dreams is something I’ve seldom seen in more recent Sword & Sorcery fiction, the most notable being the manga Berserk which also grapples with the themes of upbringing, rising to the top of civilization, and mastering one’s own destiny.

Above: Me at Howard Days 2023 touching the very table Howard wrote his stories on. The table was recently recovered and will be displayed in the Robert E. Howard Museum in Cross Plains, TX.

My journey with Robert E. Howard’s stories and life continues with his El Borak tales and other fans I have met by way of connecting at Howard Days and online. His work and life have moved me and many others in ways that few other authors—both of fantasy and authors as a whole—have succeeded in doing. At this point, I feel like I have gone beyond being a general reader of his work and find myself moving towards scholarly aspects of appreciating the man who wrought the legends of Sword & Sorcery from his tiny room in Texas boom town. Howard’s imagination was unbelievably full and vivid, yet does not seem to get the attention it deserves, much like how the old traditions of the Celts—a people Howard claimed proud ancestry from—is also slowly sinking into the shadows. I am happy to be part of a comparatively small group of unbelievably passionate people that fights for Howard’s memory like a barbaric tribe unto its own with an immortal chieftain and storyteller of legend leading the charge. However anyone chooses to engage with Howard, the most important thing is that him and his stories are remembered.

---

Thanks for reading this week’s post! Be sure to leave a like and comment below! Have you read any stories by Robert E. Howard or novels featuring his characters written by later authors? If so, share your experiences in the comments!

Also, refer a friend to Senchas Claideb using the button below and receive access to special rewards, including a personalized Gaelic phrase and a free, original short story!

Follow Ethan and Senchas Claideb on other platforms using the links below!

Facebook
Instagram
Twitter (X)

---

Are you an emerging or established author of Sword & Sorcery fantasy? At the end of this month, Senchas Claideb will be doing a “sound-off” of contemporary Sword & Sorcery authors to share their works, inspirations, and upcoming projects. If you would like to participate, click this link to fill out a brief survey!

Anyone who writes or publishes Sword & Sorcery is welcome to participate! Let’s ring in the New Year by giving a barbaric yawp of those spinning yarns in the scene!

1. Robert E. Howard (1906-36) was an American author best known for his stories about the popular fantasy barbarian Conan. Howard lived in Texas for his entire life, weaving tales of fantasy, sports, the Wild West, and many other genres. Howard took his own life in June of 1936 but his work is studied and honored today.

2. Fans of the 1982 Conan the Barbarian will most definitely recognize this homage to the opening lines of the film:

3. The Brythonic language group falls under the Celtic language family and is known also known as P-Celtic. Welsh, Cornish, and Breton are the current modern Celtic languages that stem from Brythonic.

4. The characters Fingal and Ossian are variants of the Gaelic Fenian heroes Fionn mac Cumhaill and his son Oisin in Scottish poet James Macpherson’s Ossianic poetry (1761-3). This body of work can be considered partially as the roots of the Celtic Revival movement as it attempts to forge a national identity for Scotland out of folktales Macpherson took inspiration from—but mostly embellished.

5. I mentioned what Robert E. Howard Days is in my 2023 retrospective post (linked below), but in short it is a celebration of the life and works of Robert E. Howard. It takes place at his home in Cross Plains, TX usually in June close to the anniversary of his passing (June 10th).