REHupa

It is amazing how things get embedded, specifically in regards to Robert E. Howard’s creations. Some months back, I was going through the Conan stories making notes on the Hyperboreans for an article for my zine, Forgotten Ages.  Something that I really hate is how L. Sprague de Camp & Lin Carter (Lin Sprague de Carter) turned Hyperborea into Stygia North. Robert E. Howard intimated in the Conan stories that the Hyperboreans were a dangerous people. In a letter to P. Schuyler Miller, he mentions Conan’s hatred for the Hyperboreans. No where is there any hint the Hyperboreans are a nation of sorcerors.  De Camp & Carter created the White Hand witchmen out of thin air. If you read Lin Carter’s Thongor stories, Thongor is forever fighting Red Druids, Lavender Druids, Fuscia Druids etc. The counterfiet Conan stories (or Conantics as Donald Wandrei coined) set in Hyperborea read very much like the Further Adventures of Thongor vs. the Black Druids. Somewhere along the line, I read a mention of Corinthian spearmen or pikemen. At first I thought it was in the story “Black Colossus” but a search showed a mention of the Corinthian mercenaries but no spearmen. I checked Lee Falconer’s A Gazeteer of the Hyborian Age (Starmont Press, 1977) and there was no mention of spearmen. The fictional Corinthian spearmen may have their origin in Lin Carter’s Royal Armies of the Hyborean Age (sic). I don’t have that booklet and hence can’t confirm. I can’t find my copy of Conan the Swordsman by de Camp & Carter to go through those stories, not that I really want to. Returning to de Camp & Carter is about as fun as having a root canal surgery.

The take home point is this contamination has lived on and seeped into other things. A Google search will have sites that mention Corinthian spearmen and Hyperborean wizards in Conan based games. The Dark Horse funny book resurrected the Hyperborean wizards under Kurt Busiek. This is not Robert E. Howard. Anyone with ambitions or plans to create a game or a comic book need to go back to the Robert E. Howard stories only and make notes. Forget about Lin Sprague de Carter and their stories and ideas. Those two had hubris, the arrogance of power to willfully ignore things laid down in Howard’s fiction. It is amazing when you are taking notes, the details that can be gleaned about the Hyborian Age, and it is based on Robert E. Howard.