The savage sword of Conan the Barbarian

by Guest Thu May 17, 2012 7:28 pm

John D. Clark in his introduction to the original Conan stories, written by Robert E. Howard, and published by Gnome press:

And above all Howard was a story-teller. The story came first, last, and in between. Something is always happening, and the flow of action never hesitates from beginning to end, as one incident flows smoothly and inevitably into the next with never a pause for the reader to take breath. Don't look for hidden philosophical meanings or intellectual puzzles in the yarns--they aren't there. Howard was a story-teller. The tales are the sword-and-cloaker carried to the ultimate limit and a little beyond, with enough extra sex to keep the results off the more tedious library shelves.

So here is the book. If you have read of Conan before, you know what to expect. If you haven't, and are addicted to fantastic adventure, you can repair the omission and sit down and read of the gods and demons and of the warriors and their women and of their adventures in a world that never was but should have been. If the history propounded doesn't agree with what you know of history--if the ethnology is remarkable and the geology more so--don't let it worry you. Howard was writing of another Earth than this one--one painted in brighter colors and on a grander scale.

If, on the other hand, you insist on realism in your reading--if you must have novels about introverts suffering in a brutal world--if your meat is something "close to the soil" or concerned with psychopathology or the state of the world, then, my friend, this book is not for you. You'd better find yourself a hole and read Crime and Punishment. But i won't be there with you--I have an engagement in the Hyborian Age, and will be busy all evening.

by Guest Thu May 17, 2012 8:05 pm

The most widely acclaimed scene in the Conan stories of Howard does not, peculiarly enough, occur in a story regarded among the best Howard ever wrote. 'A witch shall be born' is overall not bad but its not Howard at his very best. But there is this one scene in this story that really stands out.

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"A Witch Shall Be Born" is one of the original stories by Robert E. Howard about Conan the Cimmerian....The novella as a whole is considered an average example of the series but one scene stands out. Conan's crucifixion early in the story in the second chapter ("The Tree of Death") is considered the best and most memorable scene in the entire series.

Queen Taramis of Khauran awakens one day to find an identical twin sister, Salome, staring her in the face. As a child, Salome was deemed a witch due to a crescent birthmark on her chest. This birthmark was believed to be a sign of evil, so she was left in the desert to die. However, a magician from Khitai (China) found her, brought her up and instructed her in the arts of sorcery.

Salome has conspired with the Shemitish mercenary Constantius to take over the city state. Queen Taramis is taken to the palace dungeon, with the implication of torture and rape. Salome assumes Taramis' identity as queen of Khauran and appoints Constantius as her royal consort. The army is disbanded and replaced by Constantius' Shemitish mercenaries, an event which turns violent when the captain of the queen's guard, Conan the Cimmerian, refuses to obey the order.
Conan is crucified for his defiance. Olgerd Vladislav, the "Kozak" leader of a band of Zaugir desert raiders, rides by with a scouting party and finds Conan on the cross. Vladislav does not entirely help Conan. He has the base of the cross cut, leaving it to fate and Conan's hardiness that he is not crushed by the heavy wood. Vladislav then refuses to give Conan any water, claiming the Cimmerian must wait until after a ten-mile trek to the outlaw camp to prove his worthiness to his band.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Witch_Shall_be_Born

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After Conan is cruficied and left to die, vultures start hovering over him. One of the vultures swoops down below on the half dead man, scratches Conan's chest, and aims to tear open Conan's neck with its beak. Before the vulture's beak reaches Conan's neck, though, something remarkable happens. Conan opens his jaw wide and leaning forward closes it around the vulture's neck. He then bites hard, and keeps biting, until there is a snap indicating the vulture's neck has been broken. All throughout the incident the vulture kept tearing at Conan's chest with its claws.

The other vultures, seeing one of their own dead, stay away from Conan and he manages to survive thus until he is spotted by some travelers. Even then his rescuers cut down the wooden post on which he has been crucified so that Conan falls on his back. They remove the nails from one of his hands whereupon he takes the pliers from them and removes the nails from his other hand and his feet himself.

This was a fantastic scene, not just well conceptualized by Howard, but also extremely well written.

The savage sword of Conan the Barbarian

The savage sword of Conan the Barbarian

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