Part 68 (2/2)
In the Kull story, the names of the conspirators were Ascalante, Gromel, Volmana, Kaanub and Ridondo. In the Conan version, all names were retained except Kaanub and Ridondo. The replacement of Kaanub by Dion is easily explained, since the former was mentioned in the Kull stories Howard had sold to Weird Tales. However, this was not the case with Ridondo. So why change the name to Rinaldo? Rinaldo, in fact, appears in Bulfinch: ”Rinaldo was one of the four sons of Aymon, who married Aya, the sister of Charlemagne. Thus Rinaldo was nephew to Charlemagne and cousin of Orlando” (p. 660). Not only are there lengthy pa.s.sages about Rinaldo in Bulfinch, but the fact that he was not always in favor at the court of his king furnishes enough explanation for Howard's change from Ridondo to Rinaldo: the two Rinaldos share ambivalent feelings toward their respective kings.
It seems likely that all the names introduced between the Kull and the Conan version, with the notable exceptions of Prospero and Publius (undoubtedly derived from Shakespeare) came from Bulfinch:
”Hyborea/Hyboria” and ”Aquilonia” (The word ”Hyborian” was not introduced by Howard until the last draft of his essay The Hyborian Age ; the original word was ”Hyborean”): ”When
396.so many less active agencies were personified, it is not to be supposed that the winds failed to be so. They were Boreas or Aquilo, the north wind.” Since ”Hy” is Irish for ”country of,” and given Howard's interest in things Celtic, Hyboria would thus be ”the country of Borea” or ”the country of the north wind.”
”King Numa” : ”It was said that Numa, the second king of Rome....”
”Epemiteus/Epemitreus” (in the first draft of Phoenix, this character was named Epemiteus): ”Prometheus was one of the t.i.tans, a gigantic race, who inhabited the earth before the creation of man. To him and his brother Epimetheus was committed the office of making man, and providing him and all other animals with the faculties necessary for their preservation.”
”Hyperborea”: ”The northern portion of the earth was supposed to be inhabited by a happy race named the Hyperboreans, dwelling in everlasting bliss and spring beyond the lofty mountains whose caverns were supposed to send forth the piercing blasts of the north wind, which chilled the people of h.e.l.las (Greece). Their country was inaccessible by land or sea. They lived exempt from disease or old age, from toils and warfare.”
”Hyrkania”: ”...no less a personage than the Prince of Hyrcania....”
”Brythunia and the Picts”: ”...a history of Britain, brought over from the opposite sh.o.r.e of France, which, under the name of Brittany, was chiefly peopled by natives of Britain, who from time to time emigrated thither, driven from their own country by the inroads of the Picts and Scots.” (Of course, Howard was well aware of the Picts before reading Bulfinch.)
”Stygia”: as such, several times.
”Thoth-amon”: ”The Egyptians acknowledged as the highest deity Amun, afterwards called Zeus, or Jupiter Ammon.” (The name ”Thoth” doesn't appear in Bulfinch.)
”Boethian/Bossonian Marches” (”Boethian Marches” was used in the first draft): ”fleet and army a.s.sembled in the port of Aulis in Boeotia.”
”Zamora”: as ”Zumara.”
The second Conan story completed by Howard, The Frost-Giant's Daughter, borrowed more than names from Bulfinch. The idea for the plot probably emerged while Howard was writing The Phoenix on the Sword, which would account for the remarks about Conan's days with the Vanir and the aesir found in that story:
397.”Asgard and Vanaheim,” Prospero scanned the map. ”By Mitra, I had almost believed those lands to be fabulous.”
Conan grinned fiercely and involuntarily touched the various scars on his clean shaven face.
”By Mitra, had you spent your youth on the northern borders of Cimmeria, you had realized they are anything but fabulous! Asgard lies to the north, and Vanaheim to the northwest, of Cimmeria, and there is continual war along the borders. These people are tall and fair and blue- eyed, and of like blood and language, save that the Aesir have yellow hair and the Vanir, red hair. They are great ale drinkers and fighters; they fight all day and drink ale and roar their wild songs all night. Their chief G.o.d is the frost-giant Ymir, and they own no over-king, but each tribe has its war-chief.” (Draft a, p. 9)
The following names are found in both Howard's story and Bulfinch: Asgard, Vanaheim, Ymir, Horsa, Heimdal, Bragi, and even the Frost-giants. While Howard had already written many stories featuring northern characters, the inspiration here was much more than the names: the basic plot of The Frost-Giant's Daughter can be found in its entirety in Bulfinch. For Howard's Atali, the frost-giant's daughter, owes more to Atalanta than just her name. As Bulfinch tells us:
The innocent cause of so much sorrow was a maiden whose face you might truly say was boyish for a girl, yet too girlish for a boy. Her fortune had been told, and it was to this effect: ”Atalanta, do not marry; marriage will be your ruin.” Terrified by this oracle, she fled the society of men, and devoted herself to the sports of the chase. To all suitors (for she had many) she imposed a condition which was generally effectual in relieving her of their persecutions ”I will be the prize of him who shall conquer me in the race; but death must be the penalty of all who try and fail.” In spite of this hard condition some would try. (Bulfinch, pp. 141-142)
Howard combined this basic outline with yet another reworked Bulfinch legend, that of Daphne and Apollo, but he reversed the roles. Whereas Apollo was a G.o.d and Daphne a mortal, Howard made Atali a G.o.ddess and Conan a mortal. In the original, Cupid had struck Apollo with an arrow to excite love for Daphne, but struck her with an arrow to cause her to find love repellent. Howard kept the idea of the love-maddened Apollo (rather a l.u.s.t-maddened Conan) pursuing the girl until she invokes the aid of her divine father:
Apollo loved her, and longed to obtain her [...] He followed her; she fled, swifter than the wind, and delayed not a moment at his entreaties. [...] The nymph continued her flight, and left his plea half uttered. And even as she fled she charmed him. The wind blew her garments, and her unbound hair streamed loose behind her. The G.o.d grew impatient to find his wooings
398.thrown away, and, sped by Cupid, gained upon her in the race. It was like a hound pursuing a hare, with open jaws ready to seize, while the feebler animal darts forward, slipping from the very grasp. So flew the G.o.d and the virgin he on the wings of love, and she on those of fear.
The pursuer is the more rapid, however, and gains upon her, and his panting breath blows upon her hair. Her strength begins to fail, and, ready to sink, she calls upon her father, the river G.o.d: ”Help me, Peneus! open the earth to enclose me, or change my form, which has brought me into this danger...” (Bulfinch, pp. 20-22; compare with Howard's: ”Oh, my father, save me!”) It seems Howard was telling Clark Ashton Smith the truth when he wrote that, ”Episode crowded on episode so fast that I could scarcely keep up with them. For weeks I did nothing but write of the adventures of Conan.” After Howard sent The Phoenix on the Sword and The Frost-Giant's Daughter to Farnsworth Wright in early March 1932, he didn't even wait for them to be accepted or rejected before he wrote another story, The G.o.d in the Bowl.
The G.o.d in the Bowl took three drafts before Howard was satisfied with it. This time Howard probably borrowed his names from Plutarch's Lives, some of which had already been jotted down in a list of names and countries Howard had prepared while writing The Phoenix on the Sword (see Appendix, p. 417). Compare the names from Plutarch with their equivalent in Howard's story: Oenarus (Enarus), Demetrius (Demetrio Howard used Demetrius in error in three instances in the first draft of the story), Postumius (Postumo), Dion (Dionus), Areus (Arus), Deucalion (Deucalion in the page of notes, Kallian [Publico] in the story) and Petinus (as [Aztrias] Petanius). The story takes place in Numalia (Numantia appears in Plutarch), and the Palian Way undoubtedly corresponds to the Appian Way. As had been the case with Phoenix, it seems the ”influence” was limited to the borrowing of those names.
Howard was writing these stories in very quick succession and his page of names and countries had become obsolete. Howard, probably sensing that this new series had potential, began writing what would become The Hyborian Age. The essay required four successive versions before he was satisfied with the result. Starting out as a brief two-page outline, it soon developed into an 8,000 word essay, enriched with each successive version.
Over the years, the idea that Howard had written The Hyborian Age first and the stories later has become widespread, no doubt because of Howard's own ambiguous phrasing on the subject: ”When I began writing the Conan stories a few years ago, I prepared this 'history' of his age and the peoples of that age, in order to lend him and his sagas a greater aspect of realness.”
While there is no denying that Howard had some ideas as to what his Hyborian world was to become, there was no attempt at systematization until after the first three stories were written.
The country of Zingara and the Sea of Vilayet (as the ”inland sea”) were introduced with the first draft, Ophir and Gunderland in the second, and Corinthia, Argos, Ophir and Turan in the
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