REHupa

noun

1. a usually two-masted ship with lugsails; a small open boat propelled by oars or sails and used chiefly in shallow waters

[origin: ca. 1578; Middle French chaloupe]

HOWARD’S USAGE:

Toil, cares, annoyances all fade away;
I care not who may run for President.
I drowse and swig my rum the live-long day,
And watch the shallops skimming o’er the bay.

[from “Toper”; This is the complete poem as it appears in The Collected Poetry of Robert E. Howard, p. 628 and Robert E. Howard Selected Poems, p.145]

(photo: Forest bowman of the hills in Central India: the wiry archer, with his body’s weight “laid” to his well-stretched arc, is one of the Bhil tribe, a semi-savage people found mainly in Rajputana, the Central India Agency, and Bombay. They are a remnant of a Caucasian race, and owing to years of oppression took to the hills, where they became expert foresters. The archer’s cummerbund serves both as a sword-belt and quiver. )

noun

1. a member of an indigenous people of central India; a hill people of west central India having a bow-and-arrow culture

[origin: Hindi Bhīl, fr. Skt Bhilla]

HOWARD’S USAGE:

Men I have slain with naked steel,
Mahratta, Afghan, Jat and Bhil,
And German too, though they were white,
I’ve smote and slain in many a fight.
The Turk and Arab too, I’ve slain
Upon Arabia’s level plain.

And still the British sahibs say,
“Come, draw thy sword, Lal Singh, and slay!
“The foes press in on every hand
“And only thou canst save the land.”

Why should I sail beyond the sea
To slay the men of Arabee?
To do this but at the command
Of people of a foreign land?

[from “The Sword of Lal Singh”; to read the complete poem, see The Collected Poetry of Robert E. Howard, p. 68 and A Rhyme of Salem Town, p. 165]

Robert E. Howard Days is happening June 7th & 8th and we certainly hope to see you there! A month is still plenty of time to make plans and besides, Texas is a really big state, so there’s room for everybody. Check out the REH DAYS tab at the top of this page for complete, updated information. If you’re planning on coming to the Celebration Banquet, please pre-register by June 1st. It’s only $15.00 per person and that will provide you with four meals! You can pay by check or Pay Pal at: ProjPride@yahoo.com

Speaking of the Banquet, the REH Silent Auction that takes place there on Friday night is always looking for donations to be auctioned! You can help support Project Pride and the Robert E. Howard Museum by donating your REH and related items. Books, magazines, fanzines, artwork, posters, movies, photos, t-shirts – anything related to Ol’ Two-Gun Bob Howard would help support the continuing of the Legacy of REH.

You can send both your auction items and your pre-registration directly to: PROJECT PRIDE, POB 534, Cross Plains, TX 76443.

Indy thanks you very much!

Any questions or comments: 2cavaliers@sbcglobal.net.

adjective

1. belonging or relating to the legendary earliest Celts of Ireland; mythical Spanish king, Milesius (Miledh) whose followers are supposed to have conquered Ireland about 1300 b.c. and are regarded as the ancestors of most of the Irish.

[origin: Latin milesius Milesian (from Gk milesios, fr. Miletus Miletus) + E -an]

HOWARD’S USAGE:

Told in the Old Irish Manner:
I was a swordsman in the Pharaoh’s days.
A wanderer from Milesian lands I came,
They sang of me, my sword was like a flame.
When I strode forth, all women ran to gaze.
There came a warrior from the Eastern ways,
A giant who had come to test my fame.
All people gathered, lord and serf and dame,
And we went into action all ablaze.

Of that tremendous battle who may tell?
His first slash split in half my iron shield;
I smote his helmet then; the city reeled,
The pyramids in shattered ruins fell!
The sphinx exploded in a blaze of red,
Fell on the Pharaoh’s skull and killed him dead!

[from “A Legend”; this is the complete poem as it appears in The Collected Poetry of Robert E. Howard, p. 65]

Hope you’ve been making your plans to get on down to Cross Plains, Texas June 7-8 for The Best Two Days in Howard Fandom!

Almost all of the info you need to know about Howard Days can be found by clicking the little REH DAYS 2013 tab at the top of this page. I’ve got things updated: the “TO BE ANNOUNCED” panel on Saturday is now the REH and Texas panel. Hopefully we’ll have Texans Mark Finn, Paul Herman and Damon Sasser sitting in on this one, joined by former Texan Rusty Burke. At least, that’s the plan.

Like I said, hope your plan is to join us. Gonna be another good one!

Any questions? 2cavaliers@sbcglobal.net will get you some answers!

Indy over & out.

(Betty Davis as Mildred Rogers in Of Human Bondage)

noun

1. an untidy, slovenly woman; prostitute

[origin: ca 1639; probably from German schlottern to hang loosely, slouch; akin to Dutch slodderen to hang loosely]

HOWARD’S USAGE:

You’d sell your blood for Paris mud
And wine-stained tavern benches,
And roofs a-leak and brothel reek,
And slattern, bold-eyed wenches.
…
They little knew, who roared at you,
With red and mocking eyes,
The gallows stair you mounted there
Was steps to Paradise.

But marble skies and canopies
Of golden cloth and silk,
And emerald trees and sapphire seas
Are not for Villon’s ilk!

You’d sell your soul to Satan’s coal
For Paris den and dive,
To live and roar and rob and whore
As when you were alive.

[from “To an Earth-bound Soul”; to read the complete poem, see The Collected Poetry of Robert E. Howard, p. 512]

noun

1. the space between two triglyphs of a Doric frieze often adorned with carved work

[origin: 1563; Greek metope, from meta-+ ope opening; akin to Greek opseye, face]

HOWARD’S USAGE:

I stood in a chamber which must have corresponded to the usual gynaeconitis, save that I saw no spindle nor any implement of female household employment. The hangings and couches were of the finest make and fabric, and the rugs on the marble floor were ankle deep. And hereby was a strangeness, for the columns and the ceilings were symbolic of another, younger, and simpler age, and were of Spartan comeliness and Spartan straight-forwardness. The pillars were Doric with the simple capital instead of the usual scrolled ram’s-head, Ionian type, and on the entablature, the metopes between the jutting triglyphs were etched with a workmanship which hinted of no other than Ictinus. How strange to see this Peloponnesian culture in Athens of the myrtle crown! Were it not for the furnishings of the room and the glory of the Acropolis shimmering yonder in the distance, I would wonder if it were not in truth, the house of some taciturn soldier of Lacadæmon.

[from “Skulls and Orchids”; to read the complete proem, see The Collected Poetry of Robert E. Howard, p. 674 and Robert E. Howard Selected Poems, p. 487]

I’ve got the REH Days info tab at the top of this page up to date with this June’s schedule. Indy Sez click and peek!

The 2:00 panel on Saturday is still “To Be Announced”. We might make that a “catch-all” panel that includes information from the REH Foundation plus news of the World Science Fiction Convention to be held in San Antonio, Texas. The bell has tolled there for lots of Robert E. Howard activity – panels, displays and other cool stuff – which is only fitting for a Texas convention. Mark Finn has been wrangled into, uh…I mean graciously accepted the role of lead dog in hopes of lassoing the Howard Heads Gang into doing right by Ol’ Two-Gun.

So, it’s looking like two trips to the Lone Star state for this ol’ cowboy this year. First up is Howard Days June 7-8 – there’s still plenty of time and plenty of room for you to come on down! Check the REH DAYS tab, saddle that bay mare, strap on the Bowie and those pistolas and head for the Best Two Days in Howard Fandom!

noun

1. flood; a large number or amount; a sudden or strong outburst;

[origin: 15th century; Middle English]

HOWARD’S USAGE:

Ages ago in the dawn of Time, I looked on a man with hate;
He fled my wrath but I followed his path, as grim as the hand of Fate.
Crafty he was, as a jungle snake but he could not ’scape from me;
I followed his trail through the fog-dim vale and down by the restless sea.
To the desert brown I trailed him down, from the mountain’s craggy height
And I speared him dead when the dawn was red and left him for the kite.

Down through the years strange phantom fears haunted my restless soul,
Strange whisperings like the far off sweep of the sea upon a shoal.
For the dim ghost came when the sun had set and shadows dusked the lea;
I heard the tread of the vengeful dead and his eyes would gaze on me.
And grim they blazed when the stars were hazed by the fogs of the silent night,
And dim they gazed when the dawning raised, in the silver lifting light.

About my sleep he would glide and creep, weaving a magic fell;
When I would dream he would stalk and seem like a spectre straight from Hell.
And down the years he has haunted me, mocking my reddened hand,
With spectral fears he has taunted me, in every life and land.
Untold eons have passed away—for the feet of Time are fleet—
And I met the man that I slew that day, in a crowded city street.
A shifting glimpse of a pallid face, with eyes that looked me through—
And I felt the spate of my primal hate leap up in my veins anew.

[from “Shadows From Yesterday”; to read the complete poem, see The Collected Poetry of Robert E. Howard, p. 406 and Robert E. Howard Selected Poems, p. 175]

(1960s Olympic light-heavyweight medal winners Cassius Clay, centre right, Zbigniew Pietrzykowski, far right, Giulio Saraudi of Italy and Anthony Madigan of Australia, who both took bronze. Photograph: Central Press/Getty Image)

verb

1. to glide or skip lightly or quickly

[origin: 1845; probably frequentative of English dialect (Scots and northern) skite to move quickly, probably from Old Norse skyt, stem of skjota to shoot]

HOWARD’S USAGE:

When you were a set-up and I was a ham
In James J. Corbett’s day
And toe to toe and blow to blow
We mixed it in a fray
Or skittered with many a roundhouse right
’Mid the ropes of a third-rate ring
My soul was rife with the joy of strife
As I matched you swing for swing.

And happy we swung and happy we slugged
And happy I knocked you out
And shoulders flat you hit the mat
With the force of that swinging clout.
And champions came and champions went
And battled with might and main
Till we grew in might and signed for the fight
And climbed in the ring again.

[from “When You Were a Set-Up and I Was a Ham”; to read the complete poem, see The Collected Poetry of Robert E. Howard, p. 666 and Robert E. Howard Selected Poems, p. 286]