noun

1. Related by blood; akin

[origin: ca. 12th century; Middle English, from Old English sibb, from sibb kinship; akin to Old High German sippa kinship, family, Latin sodalis comrade, Greek ?thos custom, character, Latin suus one's own]

HOWARD’S USAGE:

Mananan Mac Lir
The son of the sea
Is sib unto me
At the break of the year.

In the white autumn tides
The ghost drums call
When the midnights fall,
And a ghost ship rides
Where the green waves crawl.

[from “Feach Air Muir Lionadhi Gealach Buidhe Mar Or”; to read the complete poem, see The Collected Poetry of Robert E. Howard, p. 284 and Echoes From an Iron Harp, p. 36]

(Left to right: a leather ‘day’ sporran, two ‘semi-dress’ sporrans, one of sealskin, the other of horsehide, and a military hair sporran of the old 72nd Highlanders.)

noun

1. a pouch usually of skin with the hair or fur on that is worn in front of the kilt with Scots’ Highland dress

[origin: 1752; Scottish Gaelic sporan purse]

HOWARD’S USAGE:

Let Saxons sing of Saxon kings,
Red faced swine with a greasy beard—
Through my songs the Gaelic broadsword sings,
The pibrock skirls and the sporran swings,
For mine is the blood of the Irish kings
That Saxon monarchs feared.

The heather bends to a marching tread,
The echoes shake to a marching tune—
For the Gael has supped on bitter bread,
And follows the ghosts of the mighty dead,
And the blue blades gleam and the pikes burn red
In the rising of the moon.

[from “Black Harps in the Hills”; for the complete poem see The Collected Poetry of Robert E. Howard, p. 58 and Night Images, p. 52.]

noun

1. a sheet in which a corpse is wrapped; a shroud

[origin: 15th century]

HOWARD’S USAGE:

Ask not of the glories of dawns that have gone before;
The sunrise dreams are gone from our empty eyes—
The lines are down—the crimson sabres gore—
Ours the songs of defeat as starlight dies.

Ask not that bugle-voiced we once could sing
The riding song, the chant song and the boast—
The years are a sluggard moth a wasp can sting,
And we were born to fall before the Host.

For we are they that are born to songs of defeat—
The cup of gall and wormwood was our first drink—
Like ants we waver on Eternity’s brink
And cry on God in vain for a winding sheet.

[from “A Song of Defeat”; for the complete poem see The Collected Poetry of Robert E. Howard, p. 388 and Echoes From an Iron Harp, p. 76.]

The boats of HMS Penelope attacking a slave depot

noun

1. an enclosure or barracks formerly used for the temporary confinement of slaves or convicts; often used in the plural

[Origin: 1848; Spanish barracon, augmentative of barraca hut, from Catalan]

HOWARD’S USAGE:

As tribute, not as largess
I give the spoil of kings,
The chariots of Sargon
Brought you no finer things.

The hawk-winged Khitan horsemen
That haunt the red-veined cliffs,
The riders of Carchemish,
Could tender no such gifts.

Nor even he could offer,
Whose mandate reared the Sphinx
Though to the Nubian veldtlands
The sea his kingdom links.

His horses flail the grass lands
Beneath the Shushan moon;
His soldiers hale nude captives
To trek and barracoon.

[from “The Road to Babel”; for the complete poem see The Collected Poetry of Robert E. Howard, p. 305 and Shadows of Dreams, p. 67.]

noun

1. person, guy, especially one who is seen as odd.

[origin: 1906; slang, origin unknown]

HOWARD’S USAGE:

The champion sneered, the crowds they jeered,
And to the crowd said he,
“In all this land is there a man
Will go three rounds with me?”
Up then I leaped, “You bum,” quoth I,
The champion loudly jeered,
And like a crowd, full long and loud,
The audience they cheered.

And then into the ring we came
And he rushed swift at me.
His nose I slammed, his jaw I whammed
And mixed it merrily.
A swing I landed on his jaw,
The crowd did yell and stamp,
The referee did count him out
And I was aye the champ.

Ah, amateur, this gink hath been
A champ before your day,
And therefore lend me fifteen cents
And I will go my way.

[from “The Champ”; this complete version of the poem appears in The Collected Poetry of Robert E. Howard, p. 658]

noun

1. a fertile area in southern United States and especially Florida that is usually higher than its surroundings and that is characterized by hardwood vegetation and deep humus-rich soil.

[Origin: 1555; alteration of hammock; earlier hammok, hommoke, hummock; akin to Middle Low German hummel, small height]

HOWARD’S USAGE:

Gulls that lair in the blue,
Cranes where the ripples quiver,
The great tides thunder through
But the mist is chained to the river.

My heart tugs to be gone
And the far winds break the billows,
But I watch each dreary dawn
From the hummocks in the willows.

Oh, the winds and the deep sea rain,
And the endless surges sweeping;
My heart is hollow with pain
And my eyes are blind with weeping.

[from “Castaway”; for the complete poem see The Collected Poetry of Robert E. Howard, p. 370 and Shadows of Dreams, p. 24]

noun

1. a seat across a boat on which a rower might sit.

[origin: ca 1736; alteration of obsolete thought, thoft, from Middle English thoft, from Old English thofte; akin to Old High German dafta rower’s seat]

HOWARD’S USAGE:

“As I were mazed I lay and gazed through emerald depths untold.
The eastern sky was rosy red, the sun was rising gold.
The lazy waves they swung the bow with a gentle sway and lift.
I laid the oars across the thwarts and the boat I let it drift.

“I watched and saw strange shadows stray for fathoms down below;
Like shimmery, gossamer things of dreams I watched them come and go.
And then sometimes, like fairy chimes or a golden Chinese gong,
Strange music echoed across the sea like tones of a wordless song.

[from “Buccaneer Treasure”; for the complete poem see The Collected Poetry of Robert E. Howard, p. 204]

noun

1. A former Portuguese or Brazilian gold coin used from 1690 until 1722 and was also current in England in the early 18th century.

[origin: alteration of Portuguese moeda d’ouro; moeda; from Latin moneta, coin. de, of; from Latin de + ouro, gold; from Latin aurum]

HOWARD’S USAGE

“Boots of Cordovan leather, chests of ash,
Damascus steel, rare silks and silver plate;
Rough-carven gems to match the starlight’s flash,
And gold moidores cresting a piece-of-eight!
Tuns of brown ale and barrels of black rum,
And many a pipe of sharp Canary wine;
Toledo blades that shimmer, gleam and hum,
And bales of spice and idols of odd design!

[from “Drake Sings of Yesterday”; for the complete poem see The Collected Poetry of Robert E. Howard, p. 466]

noun

1. an itinerant seasonal labourer; a rascal or layabout

[Origin: Irish Gaelic spailpin itinerant labourer]

HOWARD’S USAGE:

There’s an isle far away on the breast of the sea,
A gem that is set in the stars of the bay,
And it lives in the hearts of the wanderers who stray,
(And begob it’s too good for such spalpeens as ye!)

Oh the sorrow on them that have sailed from its swards!
On the thoughts that they think and the sighs that they sigh!
Is it liquor alone that is dimming their eye?
(With the graft that they get from misvotin’ the wards.)

[from Untitled (“There’s an isle far away on the breast of the sea“); for the complete poem see The Collected Poetry of Robert E. Howard, p. 624]

adverb

1. By desire or preference

[Origin: before 12th century; Middle English fagen, fayn, from Old English faegen; akin to Old English gefeon to rejoice, Old High German gifehan, Old Norse feginn happy]

HOWARD’S USAGE:

They thronged about in a grisly rout, they caught at his silver rein;
“Avaunt, foul host! Tell Bahram’s ghost Falume has come to Spain!”
Then flame-arrayed rose Bahram’s shade: “What would ye have, Falume?”
“Ho, Bahram who on Earth I slew where Tagus’ waters boom,
Now though I shore your life of yore amid the burning West,
I ride to Hell to bid ye tell where I might ride to rest.
My beard is white and dim my sight and I would fain be gone.
Speak without guile: where lies the isle of mystic Avalon?”

 [from “The Ride of Falume”; for the complete poem see The Collected Poetry of Robert E. Howard, p. 11 and Always Comes Evening, p. 25]