Pictish Scout

In addition, Howard didn't see "pure" Picts/Mediterraneans as the same as "Romans".

 

Agreed. Yet let me add that according to the Hyborian Age essay, "Etruscans base of the Roman race, were descendants of a people of mixed Stygian, Hyrkanian and Pictish strains, and originally lived in the ancient kingdom of Koth".

 

I don't see a very direct (or pure) line of Picts into the "Roman race", but sure there is some Pictish blood in Latium. And I wonder if this "racial connection" grew stronger with the Roman conquest of Western Europe...

 

Europe is not a big place (smaller still if you think about the size of the Hyborian Age nations) and post-Hyborian age Picts inhabited almost the same space as the Romans centuries later. Some connection has to be expected. 

The point of view of Countess Albiona:

 

Like most orthodox followers of Mitra, she had an intuitive horror of the followers and cult of Asura, instilled in her infancy and childhood by wild tales of human sacrifice and anthropomorphic gods shambling through shadowy temples.

 

 

The Point of view of Albiona:

"Beware, your Majesty!" whispered Albiona. "These folk eat human flesh!"

 

 

The Point of view of Trocero:

"But this is madness!" protested Trocero. "The maunderings of a heretical priest, the mumblings of a mad witch-woman."

 

 

The point of view of Xaltotun:

"Witch, priest and wolf," muttered Xaltotun grimly, and laughed. "Fools, to pit your charlatan's mummery against my arts! With a wave of my hand I brush you from my path!"

 

 

But now, by Set, I shall loose them to the uttermost! Watch, dog of Asura, false priest of an outworn god, and see a sight that shall blast your reason for evermore!"

How the cult survived in the Hyborian lands?

He had never before visited the temple of Asura, had not certainly known that there was such a temple in Tarantia. The priests of the religion had a habit of hiding their temples in a remarkable fashion.

 

Persecution caused the followers of Asura to hide their temples with cunning art, and to veil their rituals in obscurity; and this secrecy, in turn, evoked more monstrous suspicions and tales of evil.

 

 

Some quotes about the people’s opinion on the cult of Asura:

Conan had been told dark tales of hidden temples where intense smoke drifted up incessantly from black altars where kidnaped humans were sacrificed before a great coiled serpent, whose fearsome head swayed for ever in the haunted shadows.

 

Men say our cult is a survival of the ancient Stygian serpent-worship. That is a lie.

– Hadrathus says.

The cult seems to possess some wealth…

The chamber was a large one, with marble walls partly covered with black velvet hangings and thick rich carpets on the mosaic floor, laved in the soft golden glow of bronze lamps.

 

Some quotes about the nature of the cult, its origins and how they knew a lot about wizards:

Your disguise would have deceived any but a follower of Asura, whose cult it is to seek below the aspect of illusion.

 

Our ancestors came from Vendhya, beyond the Sea of Vilayet and the blue Himelian mountains. We are sons of the East, not the South, and we have knowledge of all the wizards of the East, who are greater than the wizards of the West.

–

 

Some quotes about the cult’s relationship with “Mitraism” and with King Conan

 

"You were our friend when you sat upon your throne," answered Hadrathus. "You protected us when the priests of Mitra sought to scourge us out of the land."

 

The worship of Mitra was overwhelmingly predominant in the Hyborian nations, but the cult of Asura persisted, in spite of official ban and popular antagonism.

I’d like to share some notes I took about the Asurites.

 

Although apparently peaceful they were not pacifists. They used violence to help Conan and it appears that they owned slaves.

Steel glinted in the gloom, and men cried out, struck mortally from behind. In an instant the alley was littered with writhing forms. A dark, cloaked shape sprang toward Conan, who heaved up his sword, catching a gleam of steel in the right hand. But the other was extended to him empty and a voice hissed urgently: "This way, your Majesty! Quickly!"

 

They only knew that when a follower of Asura died, the corpse went southward down the great river, in a black boat rowed by a giant slave, and neither boat nor corpse nor slave was ever seen again; unless, indeed, certain dark tales were true, and it was always the same slave who rowed the boats southward.

– I think there are some Egyptian, Greek Mythology (the ferryman Charon) elements here. Or is it something from India I am not aware of…

 

The cultists in this story seem to be ethnically Aquilonians, with Hyborian names and local accents. They were loyal to Conan, personally, at least. Conan helped them in the past with his “religion policies”. I am not sure they were loyal to other kings though.

 

As if sensing his doubt, the leader touched his arm lightly and said: "Fear not, King Conan; we are your loyal subjects." The voice was not familiar, but the accent was Aquilonian of the central provinces.

 

If your monarch was sufficiently convinced of the innocence of our religion to protect us from the persecution of the ignorant, then certainly one of his subjects need have no apprehensions.

 

Here in the temple of Asura you are still king.

– Hadrathus says.