20 replies to this topic

[deuce]

If you've read much REH beyond the Conan yarns, you've probably read a tale featuring Conrad or Kirowan or both. Howard wrote more yarns starring one (or both) of these guys than he did Bran Mak Morn or Cormac Mac Art. Their tales include: Children of the Night, Dig Me No Grave, Dermod's Bane, The Haunter of the Ring and The Dwellers Under the Tombs. The stories they appear in provide an important link between REH's other yarns and the tales of H.P. Lovecraft (something totally ignored by Ben Szumskij). Does anyone else have any history/chronology of the Conrad/Kirowan tales, or insights they'd like to share?

[timeless]

I think Roy Thomas adapted a few of those as Conan stories for the comic book or Savage Sword in the seventies and early eighties.

[deuce]

I think Roy Thomas adapted a few of those as Conan stories for the comic book or Savage Sword in the seventies and early eighties.

Hey Timeless! He adapted Dermod's Bane straight up in a Cross Plains Comics issue.

[timeless]

I've never seen one of those Cross Plains Comics. I understand they were very well done. Who did the art?

Another very good Howard story, El Borak originally, that adapted nicely into a Savage Sword of Conan story was 'Sons of the White Wolf.' Finally, a Conan story with no weird elements, no sorcery, only a crab creature in an oasis pool. The rest of it was pure ruthless warfare.

[godzilladude]

If you've read much REH beyond the Conan yarns, you've probably read a tale featuring Conrad or Kirowan or both. Howard wrote more yarns starring one (or both) of these guys than he did Bran Mak Morn or Cormac Mac Art. Their tales include: Children of the Night, Dig Me No Grave, Dermod's Bane, The Haunter of the Ring and The Dwellers Under the Tombs. The stories they appear in provide an important link between REH's other yarns and the tales of H.P. Lovecraft (something totally ignored by Ben Szumskij). Does anyone else have any history/chronology of the Conrad/Kirowan tales, or insights they'd like to share?

The educated, rational and calm person seeing horror was a basic concept he used several times, to write the HPL style straight horror stories. There was also "The Thing on the Roof", "The Cairn on the Headland", "The Black Stone", I'm sure there are several others. To me, the most entertaining version of this story was "The Hoofed Thing", in which the cosmic horror in the quiet small town is discovered, the story-teller goes to rescue the girl, and does, then sees the old family sword, and decides to go kill da Beastie even though he's terrified. Slice and dice, baby. Why REH wasn't HPL, and thank goodness for that. I think he understood why folks liked these stories, and they were sorta close to things he wrote, and he could write them adequately, but he just wrote heroic works better. And he certainly wrote a lot more in the heroic vein.

[deuce]

Hey Paul! Without a doubt, most of REH's yarns are a bit different, protagonist-wise, than his tales featuring Lovecraft-style "heroes". HPL wrote his stories with a definite purpose. His "observers" allow the reader to become the "observer". That's why King's stuff falls flat so often, IMO. King's characters are fleshed out so fully that the "horror" is happening to them, not you-the reader. REH pulled off the "observer"-style narrative perhaps best in The Black Stone. This yarn is still ranked highly by fans of the "Mythos".
It's always been my contention that Howard's and HPL's stories take place in the same bleak, demon-haunted world, it's just that their protagonists react differently. None of REH's heroes is/are saving the world forever. They're just sticking their finger in the dike, holding the black flood of lost eons back for the moment. The thing is, "ultimate" victory or not, Howard's heroes are goin' to go down fighting. Influence appears to flow (somewhat) from REH to HPL in Lovecraft's later tales. The Lovecraft protagonists actually become proactive (at least occasionally)! You can see REH's influence on HPL in Dreams in the Witch-House (where the hero strangles the witch) and The Mound, where Zamacona fights his way back to the surface. REH combined the two types in the classic, Pigeons From Hell. Griswell is the Lovecraftian "observer". Buckner is the Howardian "a$$-kicker". My two lunas.

[godzilladude]

Hey Paul! Without a doubt, most of REH's yarns are a bit different, protagonist-wise, than his tales featuring Lovecraft-style "heroes". HPL wrote his stories with a definite purpose. His "observers" allow the reader to become the "observer". That's why King's stuff falls flat so often, IMO. King's characters are fleshed out so fully that the "horror" is happening to them, not you-the reader. REH pulled off the "observer"-style narrative perhaps best in The Black Stone. This yarn is still ranked highly by fans of the "Mythos".
It's always been my contention that Howard's and HPL's stories take place in the same bleak, demon-haunted world, it's just that their protagonists react differently. None of REH's heroes is/are saving the world forever. They're just sticking their finger in the dike, holding the black flood of lost eons back for the moment. The thing is, "ultimate" victory or not, Howard's heroes are goin' to go down fighting. Influence appears to flow (somewhat) from REH to HPL in Lovecraft's later tales. His protagonists actually become proactive! You can see REH's influence on HPL in Dreams in the Witch-House (where the hero strangles the witch) and The Mound, where Zamacona fights his way back to the surface. REH combined the two types in the classic, Pigeons From Hell. Griswell is the Lovecraftian "observer". Buckner is the Howardian "a$$-kicker". My two lunas.

Now THAT is interesting, had never considered it. Thanks!

[deuce]

Now THAT is interesting, had never considered it. Thanks!

Hey Paul, what's up with Dagon Manor? Any tasty background details revealed therein?
Oh yeah. I just re-read HPL's The Horror in the Museum. It's another post-1930 tale. Lovecraft respectably depicts a knock-down, drag-out bare-handed fight betwixt the protagonist, Jones, and the villain of the piece. More REH influence? I think so.

[godzilladude]

Hey Paul, what's up with Dagon Manor? Any tasty background details revealed therein?
Oh yeah. I just re-read HPL's The Horror in the Museum. It's another post-1930 tale. Lovecraft respectably depicts a knock-down, drag-out bare-handed fight betwixt the protagonist, Jones, and the villain of the piece. More REH influence? I think so.

Rare piece. One of the few I don't have an etext of. (Send your donations to the "Gee, Paul really ought to have a copy of EVERYTHING Fund", small, non-consecutively numbered bills only, please). It was a single page of typescript, some story REH started, gave up on, and likely recycled the back of the paper for something else that eventually got tossed. CJ Henderson wrote a story off of it, for a now hard-to-find little chapbook, that version was reprinted somewhere else obscure, and then just the fragment got published in The New Howard Reader #3.

Now I'll have to go pull that one out and review it again, because I have NO recall of the story at all. See what we see.

Edited by godzilladude, 31 May 2007 - 03:08 PM.

[deuce]

Hey Paul, what's up with Dagon Manor? Any tasty background details revealed therein?
Oh yeah. I just re-read HPL's The Horror in the Museum. It's another post-1930 tale. Lovecraft respectably depicts a knock-down, drag-out bare-handed fight betwixt the protagonist, Jones, and the villain of the piece. More REH influence? I think so.

Rare piece. One of the few I don't have an etext of. (Send your donations to the "Gee, Paul really ought to have a copy of EVERYTHING Fund", small, non-consecutively numbered bills only, please). It was a single page of typescript, some story REH started, gave up on, and likely recycled the back of the paper for something else that eventually got tossed. CJ Henderson wrote a story off of it, for a now hard-to-find little chapbook, that version was reprinted somewhere else obscure, and then just the fragment got published in The New Howard Reader #3.

Now I'll have to go pull that one out and review it again, because I have NO recall of the story at all. See what we see.

Hey Paul! So, what did you find out? There's a "Dagon Moor" in Worms of the Earth. Plenty of other "Dagon ___" spots in Great Britain, according to Howard. Just wonderin'.

[godzilladude]

Its so short, by the time I tell you what its about, it'd be quicker just to show it:

When I lie dying I will remember my first view of Dagon Manor, the accursed. A cold grey sky arched above it where it loomed in the lonely desolation of the fens. Behind its sullen dark bulk the somber crimson of the sunset throbbed upon the foothills. On all sides the moors sloped away, dim and drear, the long sere grass rippling under a chill wind. And as far as we could see, there was no other sign of human habitation ? only that somber unlighted house rearing stark against the cold solitude.
Conrad shivered involuntarily.
?What a desolate waste! Why should the man choose such an unholy spot for his habitation??
I shrugged my shoulders.
?You should know Tavarel of old, Conrad. He was always a morose, taciturn soul, something of the recluse, something of the misanthrope, something of the mystic. This dreary and lonely setting is just such as would appeal to him, since his heritage from his uncle has made him financially able to carry out his wildest whims. Look!?
A light had sprung up in the silent house.
?Let?s go in.?
The heavy, old-fashioned knocker resounded spectrally throughout the house. The heavy oaken door opened, and a familiar figure was framed in the dim light from within the great cavernous hall. The fellow was Ketric, Tavarel's single servant, a gaunt, silent cadaverous man whose past not even Tavarel knew. I never liked the fellow. There was something about his bare, high skull, his cold light eyes and thin hooked nose which was unpleasantly reminiscent of a vulture or some foul bird of prey. And I knew Conrad shared this feeling.

That's it, just one page of original typescript out of the kitty. Could be going anywhere. And Tavarel was a name REH used often enough for various characters, usually NOT heroes.

[deuce]

Thanks a lot, Paul! Like you said, not much, but still, very cool. Another "Ketric(k)" was the one with "Wormish" blood in The Children of the Night.

[Libaax]

I liked how different, more classic horror athmosphere Conrad,Kirowan stories are. He changes horror writing style. At first it put me off felt like he was trying to be HPL too much.

[Fernando]

I'm now translating The Dwellers Under the Tombs, and I wonder... what's the relationship between the Dagoth Hills, in England, and the hill of Dagoth, in Zamora (TSC)? Is there any article or essay in The Cimmerian, or elsewhere, about it?

[deuce]

I'm now translating The Dwellers Under the Tombs, and I wonder... what's the relationship between the Dagoth Hills, in England, and the hill of Dagoth, in Zamora (TSC)? Is there any article or essay in The Cimmerian, or elsewhere, about it?

Hey Fernando! There's so little information on either that it's very hard to say. The two locations are separated by thousands of miles AND years. It's possibly just a case of homophones. BTW, it would appear that TDUtT takes place on the New England coast.

[Konorg]

Hey Paul! Without a doubt, most of REH's yarns are a bit different, protagonist-wise, than his tales featuring Lovecraft-style "heroes". HPL wrote his stories with a definite purpose. His "observers" allow the reader to become the "observer". That's why King's stuff falls flat so often, IMO. King's characters are fleshed out so fully that the "horror" is happening to them, not you-the reader. REH pulled off the "observer"-style narrative perhaps best in The Black Stone. This yarn is still ranked highly by fans of the "Mythos".
It's always been my contention that Howard's and HPL's stories take place in the same bleak, demon-haunted world, it's just that their protagonists react differently. None of REH's heroes is/are saving the world forever. They're just sticking their finger in the dike, holding the black flood of lost eons back for the moment. The thing is, "ultimate" victory or not, Howard's heroes are goin' to go down fighting. Influence appears to flow (somewhat) from REH to HPL in Lovecraft's later tales. The Lovecraft protagonists actually become proactive (at least occasionally)! You can see REH's influence on HPL in Dreams in the Witch-House (where the hero strangles the witch) and The Mound, where Zamacona fights his way back to the surface. REH combined the two types in the classic, Pigeons From Hell. Griswell is the Lovecraftian "observer". Buckner is the Howardian "a$$-kicker". My two lunas.

I agree Mr.Lovecraft and Mr.Howards horror stories do take place in the same world.,and I like ur viewpoint of the characters and their diffrences from My Lovecrafts'.


well that explains exactly why I stopped reading Kings works.

[deuce]

I'm pretty sure that I've located the first "Conrad and Kirowan" yarn (a fragment):

http://howardworks.com/storyj.htm#jade

This isn't listed with the other "C&K" yarns. I need to get hold of Bill Thom.

[Keith J Taylor]

Now this is a subject I feel unqualified to talk about. I'm only somewhat familiar with Conrad and Kirowan. However, I have the impression that the "Kirowan" who functions as an occult detective is John Kirowan, a different man from the Michael Kirowan who narrates "Dermod's Bane". They might well be related -- cousins, or uncle and nephew, since in "The Haunter of the Ring" it's said that John Kirowan is "the black sheep younger son of a titled Irish family", and Michael Kirowan belongs to just such a family himself. But the occult detective does not seem to have had a twin sister who died, or to be haunted by grief. It's been theorised that the woman ruined by the occultist Vrolock in "The Haunter of the Ring" was Moira Kirowan, but John Kirowan's memories of that woman seem to be romantic, not brotherly. As for his friend Conrad -- well, there's also a Conrad in the "lost race" story "The Voice of El-lil", but they don't seem to be men of similar character. That John Conrad is an entomologist, no man of action or occult detective, and he serves as a foil to the narrator, stalwart explorer Bill Kirby.

In "The Children of the Night" one of the six men gathered in "Conrad's bizarrely furnished study" is a Professor Kirowan, and John Kirowan is not described as a professor in the other stories that I remember. One of the other men, though, is named Taverel, and there may be a connection with the sixteenth-century Taferal family of Devon with which Solomon Kane had ties of friendship. (He rescues Marylin Taferal from the depths of Africa in "The Moon of Skulls").

[deuce]

Now this is a subject I feel unqualified to talk about. I'm only somewhat familiar with Conrad and Kirowan. However, I have the impression that the "Kirowan" who functions as an occult detective is John Kirowan, a different man from the Michael Kirowan who narrates "Dermod's Bane".

They might well be related -- cousins, or uncle and nephew, since in "The Haunter of the Ring" it's said that John Kirowan is "the black sheep younger son of a titled Irish family", and Michael Kirowan belongs to just such a family himself. But the occult detective does not seem to have had a twin sister who died, or to be haunted by grief. It's been theorised that the woman ruined by the occultist Vrolock in "The Haunter of the Ring" was Moira Kirowan, but John Kirowan's memories of that woman seem to be romantic, not brotherly. As for his friend Conrad -- well, there's also a Conrad in the "lost race" story "The Voice of El-lil", but they don't seem to be men of similar character. That John Conrad is an entomologist, no man of action or occult detective, and he serves as a foil to the narrator, stalwart explorer Bill Kirby.

In "The Children of the Night" one of the six men gathered in "Conrad's bizarrely furnished study" is a Professor Kirowan, and John Kirowan is not described as a professor in the other stories that I remember. One of the other men, though, is named Taverel, and there may be a connection with the sixteenth-century Taferal family of Devon with which Solomon Kane had ties of friendship. (He rescues Marylin Taferal from the depths of Africa in "The Moon of Skulls").

You're quite right, Keith. In fact, I meant to comment on this but never got around to it. The "Dermod" Kirowan is deinitely not the same as the other "Kirowan(s)". In addition, there seem to be two Conrads (though very closely related). This thread would be a great venue to sort out such intricacies.

However, I'm convinced that "The Jade God" fragment is the first real "team-up" of C&K. It would seem to predate Dig Me No Grave.

[Keith J Taylor]

Hmm.  Can't say about "The Jade God" because I've never set eyes on that one, but if it's a Conrad and Kirowan fragment it'd be interesting.  "The Haunter of the Ring" was fascinating because it showed Thoth-Amon's serpent ring appearing in modern times and suggested it had been around ever since the cataclysm that destroyed Conan's world.  I wonder if Solomon Kane ever found a wizard in possession of the thing in the depths of Africa?