283 replies to this topic

[Konorg]

Wrong Mr.Howard equated the Cimmerians with the Celts due the to fact that Mr.Howard was of Celtic ancestory(he was of Irish decent)

Cimmerians aren't Celts...The Picts are Celts, also known as Picts in our world. I dont know what Cimmerians would be though... But with black hair and blue or grey eyes, I would say they were corresponding to Germanic tribes.

Edited by Konorg, 13 April 2012 - 12:56 AM.

[Kortoso]

I see Cimmeria as heavily wooded as well. Dunno whether the slopes are covered with conifers (pines and ancient redwood) or with huge old oak trees.

[Ironhand]

That's sure looks like my idea of Cimmeria.

[deuce]

I work in the hill country of Texas every so often and I could scarcely see what they were talking about. There are no proper hills anywhere and certainly no mountains only a few bluffs and valleys kinda like a wrinkled blanket. I was glad of it though driving across Texas is monotonous to say the very least. I think Howard definitely had loftier hills or mountains in mind when he wrote about Cimmeria than Texas. Of course the second camp is right.

Right on, GC. Robert E. Howard did visit ("northern") mist-cloaked, forested hills/mountains inhabited by the descendants of the "Cimmerians"/Gaels. That would be when he spent a summer in Exeter, Missouri. He wrote about it. In fact, it was the one time he spent north of the Mason-Dixon line.

The Ozark Mountains. Inhabited by the descendants of the Scots and Irish (and Welsh).

The hills of Fredericksburg, TX are low, ugly and bald (the Germans there almost lynched REH, BTW).

[deuce]

in the jewels of Gwahlur at the beginning it calls conan some one from the race of hillman who is at home climbing the crags .

So, do gently rolling hills have any crags worth mentioning?

You're working from a reductio ad absurdum argument. I'll be the first to admit that Conan grew up amongst "crags". A proto-Black Irish "Sherpa"? Hell no.

What I love is that the Nordheimr keep getting placed in a "Scandinavia Redux" environment when REH indicates quite the opposite (we need a "Nordheim" thread, obviously). Apparently, Scotland and Ireland CANNOT be "Cimmeria", but Scandinavia can CERTAINLY be "Nordheim", despite the numerous and obvious discrepancies.

The geography of Cimmeria was NOT like that of "Doggerland" or "Fredericksburg, TX". By all means, quote REH to prove me wrong.

[Lunatic]

...So when a man climbed up A rugged peak and gazed, his shaded eye. Saw but the endless vista - hill on hill, Slope beyond slope, each hooded like its brothers. (Cimmeria-poem).

It was so long ago and far away, I have forgot the very name men called me. The axe and flint-tipped spear are like a dream, (same..)

I kind of always thought it was Scotland sort of...The Poem also indicates that it is very far away (from civilization) perhaps even a stone age culture. Who is it that does the "remembering" in the poem? Conan?

[Ironhand]

The poem might not be very closely related to Conan. It talks about a flint-tipped spear, but Conan's father was a blacksmith.

[deuce]

...So when a man climbed up A rugged peak and gazed, his shaded eye. Saw but the endless vista - hill on hill, Slope beyond slope, each hooded like its brothers. (Cimmeria-poem).

It was so long ago and far away, I have forgot the very name men called me. The axe and flint-tipped spear are like a dream, (same..)

I kind of always thought it was Scotland sort of...The Poem also indicates that it is very far away (from civilization) perhaps even a stone age culture. Who is it that does the "remembering" in the poem? Conan?

People keep trying to equate "Cimmeria" directly with Conan, but I just don't see it. Howard wrote that poem (apparently) before he ever created Conan. As IH pointed out, the technology doesn't seem to square up. The Cimmerian narrator may have been from a thousand years before Conan. Perhaps much more.

Hope that helps.

[Lunatic]

Ah!...Ok that explains it. Thankyou.

[Lunatic]

...So when a man climbed up A rugged peak and gazed, his shaded eye. Saw but the endless vista - hill on hill, Slope beyond slope, each hooded like its brothers. (Cimmeria-poem).

It was so long ago and far away, I have forgot the very name men called me. The axe and flint-tipped spear are like a dream, (same..)

I kind of always thought it was Scotland sort of...The Poem also indicates that it is very far away (from civilization) perhaps even a stone age culture. Who is it that does the "remembering" in the poem? Conan?

People keep trying to equate "Cimmeria" directly with Conan, but I just don't see it. Howard wrote that poem (apparently) before he ever created Conan. As IH pointed out, the technology doesn't seem to square up. The Cimmerian narrator may have been from a thousand years before Conan. Perhaps much more.

Hope that helps.

However I found this on wikipedia. (Cimmeria-Poem) and that "Phoenix on the Sword" was published in december 1932. Not that I care that much, but there it is...(I am such a nerd...)

According to Howard, the poem was "Written in Mission, Texas, February 1932; suggested by the memory of the hill-country above Fredricksburg seen in a mist of winter rain".

[deuce]

...So when a man climbed up A rugged peak and gazed, his shaded eye. Saw but the endless vista - hill on hill, Slope beyond slope, each hooded like its brothers. (Cimmeria-poem).

It was so long ago and far away, I have forgot the very name men called me. The axe and flint-tipped spear are like a dream, (same..)

I kind of always thought it was Scotland sort of...The Poem also indicates that it is very far away (from civilization) perhaps even a stone age culture. Who is it that does the "remembering" in the poem? Conan?

People keep trying to equate "Cimmeria" directly with Conan, but I just don't see it. Howard wrote that poem (apparently) before he ever created Conan. As IH pointed out, the technology doesn't seem to square up. The Cimmerian narrator may have been from a thousand years before Conan. Perhaps much more.

Hope that helps.

However I found this on wikipedia. (Cimmeria-Poem) and that "Phoenix on the Sword" was published in december 1932. Not that I care that much, but there it is...(I am such a nerd...)

According to Howard, the poem was "Written in Mission, Texas, February 1932; suggested by the memory of the hill-country above Fredricksburg seen in a mist of winter rain".

Right. February, 1932 is when he wrote the poem. March, 1932 is when he wrote "TPotS". The poem came before the creation of Conan the Cimmerian. Also, the narrator (REH apparently) states in the poem he doesn't even remember what his name was in that previous incarnation.

[Lunatic]

The poem might not be very closely related to Conan. It talks about a flint-tipped spear, but Conan's father was a blacksmith.

It is a bit mysterious. Perhaps it is Conans´ inherited memories if he ever had such, often in the yarns he gets historical flashbacks of sorts...Another exlanation could be that steelmaking is new in northern Cimmeria brought there by Conan´s grandfather. Or that steel is imported or very very rare. Then cimmerians would use both stone and metal. But now I am deviating from the forum thread. Sorry.

[Lunatic]

...So when a man climbed up A rugged peak and gazed, his shaded eye. Saw but the endless vista - hill on hill, Slope beyond slope, each hooded like its brothers. (Cimmeria-poem).

It was so long ago and far away, I have forgot the very name men called me. The axe and flint-tipped spear are like a dream, (same..)

I kind of always thought it was Scotland sort of...The Poem also indicates that it is very far away (from civilization) perhaps even a stone age culture. Who is it that does the "remembering" in the poem? Conan?

People keep trying to equate "Cimmeria" directly with Conan, but I just don't see it. Howard wrote that poem (apparently) before he ever created Conan. As IH pointed out, the technology doesn't seem to square up. The Cimmerian narrator may have been from a thousand years before Conan. Perhaps much more.

Hope that helps.

However I found this on wikipedia. (Cimmeria-Poem) and that "Phoenix on the Sword" was published in december 1932. Not that I care that much, but there it is...(I am such a nerd...)

According to Howard, the poem was "Written in Mission, Texas, February 1932; suggested by the memory of the hill-country above Fredricksburg seen in a mist of winter rain".

Right. February, 1932 is when he wrote the poem. March, 1932 is when he wrote "TPotS". The poem came before the creation of Conan the Cimmerian. Also, the narrator (REH apparently) states in the poem he doesn't even remember what his name was in that previous incarnation.

Ok, but one month doesn´t seem that much to me? I agree that it sounds like an incarnation is remembered since he forgot what people called him. But not really that he forgot his own name. So if one really want´s to it could be Conan?

[deuce]

The poem might not be very closely related to Conan. It talks about a flint-tipped spear, but Conan's father was a blacksmith.

It is a bit mysterious. Perhaps it is Conans´ inherited memories if he ever had such, often in the yarns he gets historical flashbacks of sorts...Another exlanation could be that steelmaking is new in northern Cimmeria brought there by Conan´s grandfather. Or that steel is imported or very very rare. Then cimmerians would use both stone and metal. But now I am deviating from the forum thread. Sorry.

I wouldn't say it's completely off-topic. We're talking about Cimmeria, after all. Here's the poem (including the last stanza that is often left off):

I remember
The dark woods, masking slopes of somber hills;
The grey clouds' leaden everlasting arch;
The dusky streams that flowed without a sound.
And the lone winds that whispered down the passes.

Vista on vista marching, hills on hills,
Slope beyond slope, each dark with sullen trees,
Our gaunt land lay. So when a man climbed up
A rugged peak and gazed, his shaded eye
Saw but the endless vista-hill on hill,
Slope beyond slope, each hooded like its brothers.

It was a gloomy land that seemed to hold
All the winds and clouds and dreams that shun the sun,
With bare boughs rattling in the lonesome winds,
And the dark woodlands brooding over all,
Not even lightened by the rare dim sun
Which made squat shadows out of men; they called it
Cimmeria, land of Darkness and deep Night.

It was so long ago and far away
I have forgot the very name men called me.
The axe and flint-tipped spear are like a dream,
And hunts and wars are shadows. I recall
Only the stillness of that sombre land;
The clouds that piled forever on the hills,
The dimness of the everlasting woods.
Cimmeria, land of Darkness and the Night.

Oh, soul of mine, born out of shadowed hills,
To clouds and winds and ghosts that shun the sun,
How many deaths shall serve to break at last
This heritage which wraps me in the grey
Apparel of ghosts? I search my heart and find
Cimmeria, land of Darkness and the Night.

Again and again, the narrator implies that all of these "memories" are of a land long gone. Of Cimmeria, he says "men called it", not "it is called by men". The narrator would seem to be a modern man recalling past lives as a Cimmerian, quite possibly Howard himself. These two lines would seem to imply it:


Oh, soul of mine, born out of shadowed hills,
To clouds and winds and ghosts that shun the sun,

Howard was born in Dark Valley, TX. He referred to that place and it seemed to haunt him. A lot of this was covered by Louinet in The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian. The whole tone of the poem is so bleak that it seems hard to square with the Conan's slightly more cheery outlook. Do we have any evidence (outside of the pastiches) that Conan ever composed poetry? In what period of his life would he have composed "Cimmeria"? If, by "historical flashbacks", you're referring to the scene in QotBC, that was induced by black lotus. We never see any hint that Conan can remember his own past incarnations.

Bottom line: I don't think "Cimmeria" is about Conan at all.

There's no real indication from REH's Conan tales that the Cimmerians were at anything like a Stone Age level of technology. Demetrio (TGitB) states that Cimmerians were born with swords in their hands. Try flint-knapping a "stone sword" and see where that gets you. Even better, try using one on a Gunderman armed and armoured in steel. The Hyborians had ferrous technology at least three thousand years before Conan. The Cimmerians had stood off all the Hyborians (including Acheron) for at least that long.

Quite likely, the Cimmerians of Conan's time corresponded pretty closely to the Gaels portrayed in Howard yarns like The People of the Dark, Spears of Clontarf or the Fitzgeoffrey series. That is, iron/steel weapons, shields and virtually no iron armour. There would be fortified homesteads/fortresses, but not much in the way of villages and towns. Vertical transhumance (augmented by hunting and gathering) would be the principal lifeway.

Hope that helps.

[Taranaich]

I'm with Deuce in that I don't think the narrator of "Cimmeria" was intended to be Conan: it's more likely a reincarnation tale in the vein of James Allison and the like. That said, I find something vaguely attractive about the idea that the narrator could be Conan's ghost, wandering cheerlessly through eternity, only vaguely recalling "the name men called me," where "hunts and wars are as shadows." But that's all besides the point: if Howard did intend to link Cimmeria with the Hyborian Age, let alone Conan, it would be retroactively.

[deuce]

I'm with Deuce in that I don't think the narrator of "Cimmeria" was intended to be Conan: it's more likely a reincarnation tale in the vein of James Allison and the like. That said, I find something vaguely attractive about the idea that the narrator could be Conan's ghost, wandering cheerlessly through eternity, only vaguely recalling "the name men called me," where "hunts and wars are as shadows."

If it's Conan wandering the lands of the dead for eternity, then these lines don't make a lot of sense:


How many deaths shall serve to break at last
This heritage which wraps me in the grey
Apparel of ghosts?

I can understand the Conan-centrism that surrounds all of these arguments to shoehorn Conan into "Cimmeria", but he just doesn't fit, IMO.

What we have is an utterly depressed Conan of Cimmeria who is ALSO a versifier/poet (which makes his attitude toward Rinaldo a little less understandable, IMO). This "Conan of the 'Cimmeria' Poem" also feels trapped by the memories of his previous incarnations and wonders when he can be released, finally, from the endless wheel of incarnation that blackens his soul. Does this sound like the Conan of Howard's yarns? Not from where I sit. However, it does sound a bit like Conan's creator, Robert E. Howard.

I've got tons of stuff to quote to back it up, but I'd hope the similarities would be self-evident.

But that's all besides the point: if Howard did intend to link Cimmeria with the Hyborian Age, let alone Conan, it would be retroactively.

Well, I think "Cimmeria" can be looked upon as one of the points where REH's vision of the Hyborian Age began to coalesce. In fact, I think it can be seen as a very cool artifact of when Howard was in a bleak mood, brooding upon his "black Milesian" heritage and then synthesizing that into what became the "Cimmeria" of the Hyborian Age.

Looking at it that way, we see a more intimate connection between REH and the HA. In addition, we get a glimpse of a Cimmeria long before Conan's time, which broadens our overall understanding/knowledge, rather than compressing it all into a frame that distorts Conan and the Cimmerians of Conan's own era.

Howard had every opportunity to tell Tevis Clyde Smith or Lovecraft that "Cimmeria" was actually about Conan. He did not do so.

My two lunas.

[Ironhand]

Bottom line: I don't think "Cimmeria" is about Conan at all.

I agree. I am much more comfortable with the idea that the author of the poem is not Conan.

Another difference, I think, between the Cimmeria of the poem and Conan's Cimmeria, is that the Cimmeria of the poem may be a much less violent place, a place where the population is so sparse that the stranger you meet on your way may be a welcome relief from loneliness, a new voice in the silence, rather than someone who wants to steal your goats or rape your women.

[deuce]

Bottom line: I don't think "Cimmeria" is about Conan at all.

I agree. I am much more comfortable with the idea that the author of the poem is not Conan.

Another difference, I think, between the Cimmeria of the poem and Conan's Cimmeria, is that the Cimmeria of the poem may be a much less violent place, a place where the population is so sparse that the stranger you meet on your way may be a welcome relief from loneliness, a new voice in the silence, rather than someone who wants to steal your goats or rape your women.

Then what about these lines?

The axe and flint-tipped spear are like a dream,
And hunts and wars are shadows.

All I'm trying to say is that the "Cimmeria" Howard is showing us is more primitive (not more peaceful) than what he describes in the Conan tales. If there was ever a time where the Atlantean/Cimmerian/Gaelic "race" was not warlike, I don't know where REH wrote about it. In fact, he stated that they were "the most warlike race that ever trod a battlefield."

[Ironhand]

Yuh got me.

[Lunatic]

I think you got me too Deuce, thankyou for helping.

Although I think it would be possible for a culture to have acess to "higher tech" than they themselves produce. Aquired then by trade or raiding. The native americans for instance in the 1800,s often had better or equal firearms than the US Cavalry and made specialized tools and weapons from purchased metalware without actually mining the ore. The vikings are another example of people who knew how to make swords, their favourite weapon, but still preferred to buy german swords because they were better.

But when you qoute "Cimmerians are born with swords in their hands" that should indicate that they have the knowhow. That is quite a powerful statement by the way. If one say that "mongols were born in the saddle" and so on, it says a lot about a culture.

For some reason I come to think of the "Conan the adventurer", the cartoon series. Here the Cimmerians make blades of meteoric steel. Neolithic people actually could make blades of such material. But is there a reference here to the REH´s Conan yarns or did they just take that out of the blue, so to say?

I kind of like the idea because that would create some weird rock formations in cimmeria to climb.

Edited by Lunatic, 07 November 2012 - 08:26 PM.