Here in the States, the day after Thanksgiving has come to be known as Black Friday. I’m not sure why it’s called Black Friday. The term in the US was originally used to describe the days two different stock market crashes occurred in the 1800s. In more modern times, it started out as the official kickoff to the Christmas shopping season and has since mutated into something that is taking over the whole season. It’s when women get up before God (or never go to bed) and drag their husbands to mob scenes where they save $128 by spending $583. Or something like that.
The whole thing is enough to make one want to run up the Jolly Roger and start lopping off heads.
So here at Adventures Fantastic, we’re going to provide an antidote to all that insanity by observing Black Friday our way. Robert E. Howard wrote a number of stories involving the concept of “black”. We’re going to look at some of them. The following list is by no means complete; it’s just the ones I’ve read in the last few days. Feel free to add others in the comments. Also, a number of other authors could be included in this post. I’ll save them for next year, but feel free to add suggestions in the comments.
“Beyond the Black River”, originally published in Weird Tales, May 1935 and June 1935. This story is regarded by many to be the best of the Conan stories. There’s a series that’s going to run at Black Gate next year in which a variety of authors will argue that a particular story is the best Conan. Mine was this one. The story concerns Conan trying to protect a fort from Picts raiding from the other side of the titular Black River. The Aquilonians are trying to expand their borders, but they aren’t willing to fully commit to the endeavor. The famous quote about barbarism being the natural state of mankind comes from this story.
“Black Canaan”, originally published in Weird Tales, June 1936. Of all the stories on this list, “Black Canaan” will probably be the one what will give modern readers the most problems. It’s set in the Louisiana swamps. The story hinges on an uprising of the former slaves who live in the swamp, led by a conjure man who has moved into the area. The racial attitudes are definitely not compatible with modern sensibilities. This one is nonstop action, but be advised that some of the racial terms used might be offensive. You have been warned.
“Black Colossus”, originally published in Weird Tales, June 1933. One of the first Conan stories, this one is a straight adventure story. A thief disturbs a sorcerer sleeping in an abandoned city in the desert. The sorcerer sets his sights on a young princess who turns to Conan to save her and her kingdom from the sorcerer and his marauding horde.
“The Black Stone”, originally published the November 1931 issue of Weird Tales. One of Howard’s Mythos tales, the unnamed narrator of this story investigates a strange black stone in the Hungarian mountains. Disregarding the advice of the locals, he spends the night of midsummer by the stone and witnesses a strange and terrible rite taking place involving human sacrifice and a loathsome creature.
“The One Black Stain”, A Solomon Kane poem first published in the Spring 1962 issue of The Howard Collector.
“The Pool of the Black One”, originally published in Weird Tales, October 1933. Conan joins a group of Freebooters whose captain is obsessed with finding treasure on a nearly forgotten island to the west of Hyboria. He should have stuck to plundering ships. Many consider this story to be a minor Conan tale, but I’ve always thought what the monsters did to the people who came the island was pretty creative.
“Queen of the Black Coast” originally published in Weird Tales, May 1934. And speaking of Conan as a pirate, “Queen of the Black Coast is the story in which Conan meets the love of his life, Belit. This is one of the better known Conan stories, and understandably so. It contains the famous passage about Conan’s philosophy of life and the afterlife. The flying ape is a compelling monster, and I especially like how Howard introduced him: silhouetted on a tower against the rising sun and then flying off. It’s one of my favorite Conan stories.
“The People of the Black Circle” originally serialized in Weird Tales September, October, and November 1934. This is one of the best of the Conan stories and a personal favorite, probably the one I like the best. Conan goes to negotiate the release of some of his men. He’s leading a tribe in the mountains north of Vendya. Unbeknownst to him, the princess, Yasmina, has come to ask his help. The wizards of the Black Circle killed her brother, and she wants Conan’s help in getting her revenge Instead she ends up being kidnapped by Conan to use as a bargaining chip in his negotiations. There are other people who want to use the situation to their political advantage, and Conan finds out that nothing is going to be as easy as he thinks it will.
These are some, but not all, of the stories Howard wrote using the theme of “black”. Feel free to add your own suggestions in the comments below, whether they are Howard stories or by someone else.
Appropriate reading for a Black Friday. I wasn’t joking above when I said that I had read all of these stories over the last two days. It’s been good to dive back into Howard after the last few months. I had done a series of posts on some of the Conan stories a few years ago and was going to include links to those posts. I was surprised that the only one of the stories mentioned here that had been included in that series was “The People of the Black Circle”. It looks like I’ve got some posts to write.
If this post proves to be popular, I may try it again next year with a focus on a different author.
Great choices Keith, most all of these are among my favorites of Howard.
Thank you. Great minds think alike.
Beyond the Black River may be my favorite Howard story but not my favorite Conan story. Like several of his later Conan stories, Beyond the Black River doesn’t quite seem to fit in his world. It would almost fit better as a tale set in the American frontier. But, to me, that is a feature, not a bug.
I really liked the pseudo-Afghanistan setting of The People of the Black Circle.
The language and approach of Black Canaan really work for the story, as was often the case for Howard’s horror stories. It doesn’t always. I’m working on a post comparing his Solomon Kane story The Moon of Skulls (one of my least favorite Howard tales) to H. Rider Haggard’s She (far superior in my mind).
For a long time, Beyond the Black River was not among my favorite Howard stories because it was a frontier story. Then I had to make the case for it being the best Conan story. (The stories were randomly assigned to the writers.) I’ve changed my mind, although it’s still not my favorite, it’s one of the top five.
If you look at when the Conan stories were published, there was a break somewhere in the middle. I’m traveling and don’t have access to all my stuff, so I can’t say where that occurred. I do think the later stories are a little different than the earlier ones in some cases.
I agree, the setting of The People of the Black Circle is part of what makes it work.
I agree that the language in Black Canaan fits the time and setting. I look forward to your post on Solomon Kane and Haggard.
Reading the Del Rey collected volumes, to me there is a big difference between the second and third volumes. The first volume has some great, short, early establishing stories and several of the weakest stories in the second half. The second volume has the strongest Conan stories overall. The third volume has some of the best stories but also those that fit least with the Conan world, including Beyond the Black River and the pirate story. The conventional wisdom seems to be that Howard stopped writing Conan stories because Weird Tales stopped paying him, but he was probably a little burnt out on writing them as well.
Given everything that Howard was dealing with in his personal life when those final Conan stories were written, I’m not surprised that they were a little different.
I’ve always loved BtBR.
As far as BtBR and “The Black Stranger” not “fitting into the Conan world”, plenty of people have misconceptions of what REH was doing. The Hyborian Age isn’t predominantly “Greco-Roman” or “Ancient” as far as its analogs go. It’s medieval.
REH loathed the Roman Empire and was utterly apathetic about Classical Greece. He said so numerous times in his letters and fiction. He also stated that the medieval period was his favorite, other than the era of the American Frontier. His list of favorite historical figures (in a letter to Lovecraft, who was a HUGE fan of Classical times) was almost all medieval, with one or two personages of PRE-Classical vintage. Hell, REH even DREAMED of medieval times about as much as anything (he counted the Elizabethan era as “Middle Ages”, BTW).
“Long narrative dreams are fairly common with me, and sometimes my dream personality is in no way connected with my actual personality. I have been a 16th Century Englishman, a prehistoric man, a blue-coated United States cavalryman campaigning against the Sioux in the years following the Civil War, a yellow-haired Italian of the Renaissance, a Norman nobleman of the 11th Century, a weird-eyed flowing-bearded Gothic fighting-man, a bare-footed Irish kern of the 17th Century, an Indian, a Serb in baggy trousers fighting Turks with a curved saber, a prize-fighter, and I’ve wandered all up and down the 19th Century as a trapper, a westward-bound emigrant, a bar-tender, a hunter, an Indian fighter, a trail-driver, cowboy — once I was John Wesley Hardin!”
— Robert E. Howard to H. P. Lovecraft
11 February, 1936
His OTHER favorite period (as he told HPL), other than the Middle Ages and the Frontier, was the Pre-Classical Ancient Middle East. You can see this in the Hyborian Age with Stygia, western Shem (eastern Shem is medieval Bedouins) and the kingdom of Kush (somewhat). Except for that little corner in the southwest, REH was using (roughly) medieval models from Pictland to Khitai.
As I noted, REH considered the Elizabethan period to be “Middle Ages” (his term). He never used the term “Renaissance”. Ever. To him, there seems to have been just the Classical Period, the Middle Ages and Modern Times (which may have started as late as 1700, in his mind). No “Renaissance” in there anywhere.
Something most people forget is that the historical Cossacks–the model for the kozaki– were almost entirely a Renaissance/Modern phenomenon, not even what is usually called “medieval”, let alone “Greco-Roman”. REH was well aware of this from reading the Cossack tales of Harold Lamb. “Pool of the Black One” is just as “anachronistic” as “The Black Stranger” except for the presence of a rocket in TBS.
As far as “Roman Empire” and “Roman names”… REH flat-out stated that Aquilonia was NOT decadent when it fell to the Picts and Hyrkanians–just arrogant. REH was NEVER afraid to call Rome decadent. Howard used plenty of NON-Greco-Roman names for his Aquilonians. Besides that, people were given (or took) “Latin” names all the time during the medieval period (as REH defined it). He also had the example of Shakespeare (Howard was a big fan), who gave Latinate names to medieval/Renaissance characters ALL THE TIME. The name “Olivia” was created by Shakespeare, BTW.
Speaking of Shakespeare, THE HOUR OF THE DRAGON shows signs of cribbing from HENRY V, “captive chariot” and all. Speaking of chariots and the argument that chariots “prove” that the Hyborian Age was “Greco-Roman or Bronze Age”… Medieval chariots were used for transportation by nobles just as Kallian Publio does in “The God in the Bowl”. Those chariots evolved into the carriage. The guard in the story is armed with a crossbow–a very rare weapon in “Greco-Roman” times–and the proto-museum itself is a medieval concept like the Villa Farnese
If someone is looking for a Hyborian Age equivalent to the Roman Empire, look to Acheron.
Excellent points, Deuce. Thanks for taking the time to write all of that. Personally, I tend to think of the Hyborian Age more of a pre- Classical Middle East as much as anything. I think that’s because some of the first stories I read were in those settings. When I think of the Hyborian Age as a whole, I see it as a hodge-podge of civilized countries surrounded by nations less advanced and barbarians. That fits Howard’s approach, I think, of using history as a springboard without having to worry about accuracy.