The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian

by R. E Howard

  These elements alone are far from conclusive, but are sufficient to show that Howard may have been using Bulfinch’s recountings of widespread legends as a handy reference for his own Hyborian world. Nowhere is this more evident than in the first Conan tale, The Phoenix on the Sword.

  Around May of 1929, Howard wrote two drafts of a Kull story entitled By This Axe I Rule! The story was submitted to – and rejected by – Argosy and Adventure. Nearly three years later, in March 1932, Howard salvaged this story from the unpublished files and rewrote it as The Phoenix on the Sword. It is impossible to ascertain exactly what was modified between the last draft of the Kull story and the first draft of the Conan one, since the final draft of By This Axe I Rule! has not come to us (the published text is that of the first – and only extant – draft). At any rate the physical description of Kull was carried over to Conan, with the notable exception of the color of his eyes: grey for the Atlantean, blue for the Cimmerian. The Conan version of the story also dropped the love interest of the Kull tale and replaced it with a supernatural element; understandably so since the Conan story was aimed at a fantasy market while the Kull version had been intended for general fiction magazines. In the three years that had elapsed since the writing of the Kull story, Howard had begun corresponding with Howard Phillips Lovecraft. Many of Howard’s weird stories from the year 1931 were attempts at writing stories in Lovecraft’s style. By the end of the year, however, Howard had successfully assimilated the influence, and he was now able to include Lovecraftian elements in his stories without aping his Providence colleague. The Lovecraftian monster of this story is a perfect example, as is the fact that the published version’s discreet reference to the “Nameless Old Ones” replaced the first draft’s “Cthulhu, Tsathogua, Yog-Sothoth, and the Nameless Old Ones.”

  In the Kull story, the names of the conspirators were Ascalante, Gromel, Volmana, Kaanub and Ridondo. In the Conan version, all names were retained except Kaanub and Ridondo. The replacement of Kaanub by Dion is easily explained, since the former was mentioned in the Kull stories Howard had sold to Weird Tales. However, this was not the case with Ridondo. So why change the name to Rinaldo? Rinaldo, in fact, appears in Bulfinch: “Rinaldo was one of the four sons of Aymon, who married Aya, the sister of Charlemagne. Thus Rinaldo was nephew to Charlemagne and cousin of Orlando” (p. 660). Not only are there lengthy passages about Rinaldo in Bulfinch, but the fact that he was not always in favor at the court of his king furnishes enough explanation for Howard’s change from Ridondo to Rinaldo: the two Rinaldos share ambivalent feelings toward their respective kings.

  It seems likely that all the names introduced between the Kull and the Conan version, with the notable exceptions of Prospero and Publius (undoubtedly derived from Shakespeare) came from Bulfinch:

  “Hyborea/Hyboria” and “Aquilonia” (The word “Hyborian” was not introduced by Howard until the last draft of his essay The Hyborian Age ; the original word was “Hyborean”): “When so many less active agencies were personified, it is not to be supposed that the winds failed to be so. They were Boreas or Aquilo, the north wind.” Since “Hy” is Irish for “country of,” and given Howard’s interest in things Celtic, Hyboria would thus be “the country of Borea” or “the country of the north wind.”

  “King Numa” : “It was said that Numa, the second king of Rome....”

  “Epemiteus/Epemitreus” (in the first draft of Phoenix, this character was named Epemiteus): “Prometheus was one of the Titans, a gigantic race, who inhabited the earth before the creation of man. To him and his brother Epimetheus was committed the office of making man, and providing him and all other animals with the faculties necessary for their preservation.”

  “Hyperborea”: “The northern portion of the earth was supposed to be inhabited by a happy race named the Hyperboreans, dwelling in everlasting bliss and spring beyond the lofty mountains whose caverns were supposed to send forth the piercing blasts of the north wind, which chilled the people of Hellas (Greece). Their country was inaccessible by land or sea. They lived exempt from disease or old age, from toils and warfare.”

  “Hyrkania”: “...no less a personage than the Prince of Hyrcania….”

  “Brythunia and the Picts”: “...a history of Britain, brought over from the opposite shore of France, which, under the name of Brittany, was chiefly peopled by natives of Britain, who from time to time emigrated thither, driven from their own country by the inroads of the Picts and Scots.” (Of course, Howard was well aware of the Picts before reading Bulfinch.)

  “Stygia”: as such, several times.

  “Thoth-amon”: “The Egyptians acknowledged as the highest deity Amun, afterwards called Zeus, or Jupiter Ammon.” (The name “Thoth” doesn’t appear in Bulfinch.)

  “Boethian/Bossonian Marches” (“Boethian Marches” was used in the first draft): “fleet and army assembled in the port of Aulis in Boeotia.”

  “Zamora”: as “Zumara.”

  The second Conan story completed by Howard, The Frost-Giant’s Daughter, borrowed more than names from Bulfinch. The idea for the plot probably emerged while Howard was writing The Phoenix on the Sword, which would account for the remarks about Conan’s days with the Vanir and the AEsir found in that story:

  “Asgard and Vanaheim,” Prospero scanned the map. “By Mitra, I had almost believed those lands to be fabulous.”

  Conan grinned fiercely and involuntarily touched the various scars on his clean shaven face. “By Mitra, had you spent your youth on the northern borders of Cimmeria, you had realized they are anything but fabulous! Asgard lies to the north, and Vanaheim to the northwest, of Cimmeria, and there is continual war along the borders. These people are tall and fair and blue-eyed, and of like blood and language, save that the Aesir have yellow hair and the Vanir, red hair. They are great ale drinkers and fighters; they fight all day and drink ale and roar their wild songs all night. Their chief god is the frost-giant Ymir, and they own no over-king, but each tribe has its war-chief.” (Draft a, p. 9)

  The following names are found in both Howard’s story and Bulfinch: Asgard, Vanaheim, Ymir, Horsa, Heimdal, Bragi, and even the Frost-giants. While Howard had already written many stories featuring northern characters, the inspiration here was much more than the names: the basic plot of The Frost-Giant’s Daughter can be found in its entirety in Bulfinch. For Howard’s Atali, the frost-giant’s daughter, owes more to Atalanta than just her name. As Bulfinch tells us:

  The innocent cause of so much sorrow was a maiden whose face you might truly say was boyish for a girl, yet too girlish for a boy. Her fortune had been told, and it was to this effect: “Atalanta, do not marry; marriage will be your ruin.” Terrified by this oracle, she fled the society of men, and devoted herself to the sports of the chase. To all suitors (for she had many) she imposed a condition which was generally effectual in relieving her of their persecutions – “I will be the prize of him who shall conquer me in the race; but death must be the penalty of all who try and fail.” In spite of this hard condition some would try. (Bulfinch, pp. 141-142)

  Howard combined this basic outline with yet another reworked Bulfinch legend, that of Daphne and Apollo, but he reversed the roles. Whereas Apollo was a god and Daphne a mortal, Howard made Atali a goddess and Conan a mortal. In the original, Cupid had struck Apollo with an arrow to excite love for Daphne, but struck her with an arrow to cause her to find love repellent. Howard kept the idea of the love-maddened Apollo (rather a lust-maddened Conan) pursuing the girl until she invokes the aid of her divine father:

  Apollo loved her, and longed to obtain her […] He followed her; she fled, swifter than the wind, and delayed not a moment at his entreaties. […] The nymph continued her flight, and left his plea half uttered. And even as she fled she charmed him. The wind blew her garments, and her unbound hair streamed loose behind her. The god grew impatient to find his wooings thrown away, and, sped by Cupid, gained upon her in the race. It was like a hound pursuing a hare, with open ja
ws ready to seize, while the feebler animal darts forward, slipping from the very grasp. So flew the god and the virgin – he on the wings of love, and she on those of fear. The pursuer is the more rapid, however, and gains upon her, and his panting breath blows upon her hair. Her strength begins to fail, and, ready to sink, she calls upon her father, the river god: “Help me, Peneus! open the earth to enclose me, or change my form, which has brought me into this danger…” (Bulfinch, pp. 20-22; compare with Howard’s: “Oh, my father, save me!”)

  It seems Howard was telling Clark Ashton Smith the truth when he wrote that, “Episode crowded on episode so fast that I could scarcely keep up with them. For weeks I did nothing but write of the adventures of Conan.” After Howard sent The Phoenix on the Sword and The Frost-Giant’s Daughter to Farnsworth Wright in early March 1932, he didn’t even wait for them to be accepted or rejected before he wrote another story, The God in the Bowl.

  The God in the Bowl took three drafts before Howard was satisfied with it. This time Howard probably borrowed his names from Plutarch’s Lives, some of which had already been jotted down in a list of names and countries Howard had prepared while writing The Phoenix on the Sword (see Appendix, p. 417). Compare the names from Plutarch with their equivalent in Howard’s story: Oenarus (Enarus), Demetrius (Demetrio – Howard used Demetrius in error in three instances in the first draft of the story), Postumius (Postumo), Dion (Dionus), Areus (Arus), Deucalion (Deucalion in the page of notes, Kallian [Publico] in the story) and Petinus (as [Aztrias] Petanius). The story takes place in Numalia (Numantia appears in Plutarch), and the Palian Way undoubtedly corresponds to the Appian Way. As had been the case with Phoenix, it seems the “influence” was limited to the borrowing of those names.

  Howard was writing these stories in very quick succession and his page of names and countries had become obsolete. Howard, probably sensing that this new series had potential, began writing what would become The Hyborian Age. The essay required four successive versions before he was satisfied with the result. Starting out as a brief two-page outline, it soon developed into an 8,000 word essay, enriched with each successive version.

  Over the years, the idea that Howard had written The Hyborian Age first and the stories later has become widespread, no doubt because of Howard’s own ambiguous phrasing on the subject: “When I began writing the Conan stories a few years ago, I prepared this ‘history’ of his age and the peoples of that age, in order to lend him and his sagas a greater aspect of realness.”

  While there is no denying that Howard had some ideas as to what his Hyborian world was to become, there was no attempt at systematization until after the first three stories were written. The country of Zingara and the Sea of Vilayet (as the “inland sea”) were introduced with the first draft, Ophir and Gunderland in the second, and Corinthia, Argos, Ophir and Turan in the third. Two very similar maps were then prepared (see pp. 421-423) as well as the short Notes on Various Peoples of the Hyborian Age (see pp. 375-378).

  Of the many countries first described in these essays and maps, several would never actually be used or mentioned in the rest of the series. The term “Border Kingdom,” for instance, only appears in these documents, and others were simply discarded: “South of Stygia are the vast black kingdoms of the Amazons, the Kushites, the Atlaians, and the hybrid empire of Zimbabwe.” Only the Kushites would make it to the series. In 1936, Howard would explain his position in a letter to P. Schuyler-Miller:

  “I’ve never attempted to map the southern and eastern kingdoms, though I have a fairly clear outline of their geography in my mind. However, in writing about them I feel a certain amount of license, since the inhabitants of the western Hyborian nations were about as ignorant concerning the peoples and countries of the south and east as the people of medieval Europe were ignorant of Africa and Asia. In writing about the western Hyborian nations I feel confined within the limits of known and inflexible boundaries and territories, but in fictionizing the rest of the world, I feel able to give my imagination freer play. That is, having adopted a certain conception of geography and ethnology, I feel compelled to abide by it, in the interests of consistency. My conception of the east and south is not so definite or so arbitrary.”

  Howard remained quite faithful to his conception of the Hyborian world as defined in his essay. As he wrote more and more Conan stories, countries or regions were added to it. This did not prevent him, however, from recycling names first used in a discarded story. For example, the name “Punt” was first used in an unfinished story for a city, but was used in later stories as the name of a country.

  Just as he had completed these documents, Howard wrote an outline for a new Conan story (see p. 399), in which the Cimmerian was to operate as a thief in the Maul of a Zamorian city. Howard decided not to flesh out this tale, possibly due to news received from Farnsworth Wright. In a letter dated March 10, 1932, Wright wrote:

  “Dear Mr. Howard: I am returning ‘The Frost Giant’s Daughter’ in a separate envelope, as I do not much care for it. But ‘The Phoenix of [sic] the Sword’ has points of real excellence. I hope you will see your way clear to touch it up and resubmit it. It is the first two chapters that do not click. The story opens rather uninterestingly, it seems to me, and the reader has difficulty in orienting himself. The first chapter ends well, and the second chapter begins superbly; but after King Conan’s personality is well established, the chapter sags from too much writing. I think the very last page of the whole story might be re-written with advantage; because it seems a little weak after the stupendous events that precede it.”

  Given the work Howard was putting into building his new series, the news must have dealt him a temporary blow, the more so since The God in the Bowl, undoubtedly sent a few days after the first two stories, would be rejected too.

  The God in the Bowl was relegated to the archives. Howard thought highly enough of The Frost Giant’s Daughter, however, to give the story to a fanzine a few months later – with Conan’s name replaced by Amra – under the title The Frost-King’s Daughter. (In the meantime, The Frost-King’s Daughter may have been unsuccessfully submitted to another magazine.) By the time The Frost-King’s Daughter was published, in 1934, readers familiar with the Conan stories wouldn’t fail to note that the name Amra was mentioned in The Scarlet Citadel (published in Weird Tales for January 1933) as an alias for Conan.

  Howard then reworked The Phoenix on the Sword according to Wright’s suggestions, eliminating the lengthy descriptive passages of the Hyborian world and recycling his country-names into the newly-created “Nemedian Chronicles.” A few days later Howard sent off the new version, and by April 1932 he could report to Lovecraft:

  “I’ve been working on a new character, providing him with a new epoch – the Hyborian Age, which men have forgotten, but which remains in classical names, and distorted myths. Wright rejected most of the series, but I did sell him one – ‘The Phoenix on the Sword’ which deals with the adventures of King Conan the Cimmerian, in the kingdom of Aquilonia.”

  By “most of the series,” Howard meant The Frost-Giant’s Daughter and The God in the Bowl.

  After having completed and sent the revised version of The Phoenix on the Sword, Howard immediately proceeded to write a new Conan story, one that would be the first to really integrate his new conception of the Hyborian world, and thus to introduce it to the reader. The idea for The Tower of the Elephant was likely born as Howard was revising The Phoenix on the Sword (whose final draft mentions “Zamora with its dark-haired women and towers of spider-haunted mystery”). The new tale was also born on the ashes of the never fleshed-out synopsis mentioned above, in which (as in Tower ) Conan is a thief in the Maul of a Zamorian city. The early phase of the creation of Conan was over. Howard now had a firm grasp not only of his character, but also of the universe he was operating in.

  The Tower of the Elephant is one of the best Conan stories, in which Howard masterfully inserted as many elements of the Hyborian world as was possi
ble. He opened his story in a tavern of ill-repute and peopled it with as many representatives of the Hyborian nationalities – excepting, of course, another Cimmerian – as he could:

  “Native rogues were the dominant element – dark-skinned, dark-eyed Zamorians, with daggers at their girdles and guile in their hearts. But there were wolves of half a dozen outland nations there as well. There was a giant Hyperborean renegade, taciturn, dangerous, with a broadsword strapped to his great gaunt frame – for men wore steel openly in the Maul. There was a Shemitish counterfeiter, with his hook nose and curled blue-black beard. There was a bold-eyed Brythunian wench, sitting on the knee of a tawny-haired Gunderman – a wandering mercenary soldier, a deserter from some defeated army. And the fat gross rogue whose bawdy jests were causing all the shouts of mirth was a professional kidnapper come up from distant Koth to teach woman-stealing to Zamorians who were born with more knowledge of the art than he could ever attain.”

  In a later portion of the tale, Howard had Yag-kosha explain to Conan – and the reader – the most important phases of the creation of the Hyborian world:

  “We saw men grow from the ape and build the shining cities of Valusia, Kamelia, Commoria, and their sisters. We saw them reel before the thrusts of the heathen Atlanteans and Picts and Lemurians. We saw the oceans rise and engulf Atlantis and Lemuria, and the isles of the Picts, and the shining cities of civilization. We saw the survivors of Pictdom and Atlantis build their stone age empires, and go down to ruin, locked in bloody wars. We saw the Picts sink into abysmal savagery, the Atlanteans into apedom again. We saw new savages drift southward in conquering waves from the arctic circle to build a new civilization, with new kingdoms called Nemedia, and Koth, and Aquilonia and their sisters. We saw your people rise under a new name from the jungles of the apes that had been Atlanteans. We saw the descendants of the Lemurians who had survived the cataclysm, rise again through savagery and ride westward, as Hyrkanians. And we saw this race of devils, survivors of the ancient civilization that was before Atlantis sank, come once more into culture and power – this accursed kingdom of Zamora.”