Continued

The Curse of the Golden Skull

Again, this story is a departure from the Sword-n-Sorcery story. All violence, except for a single solitary bite of a snake (and what was probably some bad language) is off stage. This tale, because of its jump to contemporary times makes a desireable epilogue to the Kull series. It also leads the reader to hope that Kull regained his mental state and continued to rule Valusia wisely and with reasonably more intellegence than he had shown before.

Rotath of Lemuria curses nearly everything, including his own bones as he adds new lists of gods to ones already discussed. He names Hotath and Helgor, Ra and Ka and Valka (Ka, according to the Egyptians, is the bird of creation), Vramma and Jaggtanoga and Kamma (Kana is the Hindu god of sex and love) and Kulthas (the Lemurian form of Cthulhu?), the Black Gods (the Old Ones?), the Ape Lords (see my intoduction to this essay), and Shumma-Gorath (whom I believe was a Mythos character). That should be a pantheon or two -- aye what?

Even though Kull is referred to as a "barbarian chief" that could be the way one of the elder race looks with distaste upon the Seven Empires. Of great interest to the researcher is the proportioning of Rotath. Like other characters in this series, he is one of the Elder Race, in fact the description of his skeleton matches the antagonist of "The Altar and the Scorpion." The 20th Century scientist's revulsion of Rotath's skeleton plays nicely against the admiration Bran Mak Morn showed towards Kull on the Atlantian's trip through time.

All is all, the Kull series is an invigorating and enjoyable read, playing Howard's philosophy of "The Natural Man" against some really fine writing. Kull, we hope, lived on to enjoy many fine adventures.

The Shorter Untitled Fragment (a.k.a. "Wizard and Warrior")

This is the briefest of Howard's three Kull fragments, but at the same time it may well be considered one of the most important, if for no other reason than that it offers a strong case for a "philosophy of the individual":

"... about each of the three [men] was that indefinable element which sets the superior man apart and shatters the delusion that all men were born equal."

The three men gathered around a gaming board at the beginning of this story are all "born leaders". They are agressive individuals who are leaders of men. They have attained positions of prestige and power. These are positions that each of the men deserve, including Brule, this story's protagonist.

In this story alone Brule is no longer a supporting player. The brusque formal Pict takes the main stage as much is revealed about himself and the people that reared him.

Most Picts are brown- or black-eyed; but Brules's eyes are blue, hinting that his origins are not totally Pictish. And though he's been in Valusia for years at the time of this story, he is still a savage: "Years in Valusia ... had given him a veneer of culture, education and reserve. But beneath that veneer burned the black blind savage of old."

The warrior elite of Brule's race are distinguished by three horizontal scars on their chest, these are scars that Brule earns as a young man in events related in this story. By this time he's become a commander of these warrior-elites, the Spear-Slayers.

By This Axe I Rule!

This story is the most powerful of the law-oriented stories in this series. The reader finds Kull a virtual slave to the laws, unable to govern as he sees fit; Kull is made to sit by and watch the eons-old laws command the king and the kingdom. The laws have always existed, the king is told, and they always will. Kull becomes, however, the literal shatterer of laws.

In the present story, Kull is confronted by a couple who wish to marry, but because of a technicality of the law, are unable to do so. After exploring all avenues with the would-be groom, Seno Val Dor, Kull is informed that the law concerning such things is unchangable; but when Val Dor is responsible for saving Kull's life, Kull shatters the tablet with the law upon it, declaring himself to be state and law.

This is the ultimate statement of the individual. Freedom of choice is of paramount importance. The longer a society or civilization exists, the more customs and traditions it garners, until the individual is not allowed to be unique -- but rather is forced to fit the mold by playing the roles society demands of each one of us. Kull, as a barbarian, was able to see this in Valusia; and, as an outsider, he was able to shatter the laws without fear of divine reprisal.

Kull's throne is not secure for all of this. The outlaw, Ardyon, had honey-combed the empire with sedition, and not even the outlaw's death will allow Kull a comfortable seat upon the throne for some time.

In spite of his supreme statement of the individual, Kull is not a raging bull. In this story is exhibited his kindness towards women, something also seen in "Exile of Atlantis" and "The Mirrors of Tuzan Thune" (even though it is revealed here that Kull has never been a lover). He also allows Kaanuub and others boasting descent from the old dynasty to live, something that most kings in Kull's position would not have done. Nor has he yet closed the doors to the City of Wonders' Temple of the Serpent; another sign of an extremely tolerable temperment.

That same temperment allows him to believe that "a great poet is greater than any king." Kull also is seen to have always dreamed of capturing a throne, not just to have had the single dream discussed in "Exile of Atlantis." Yet it is stated that Kull and Brule have spent most of their lives in Valusia; that inordinate amount of time spent in Valusia had not allowed Kull to comprehend its statecraft. Here, like in many stories in this series, it is seen that the matter of how to govern Valusia is a mystery to the Atlantian. A mystery that even the victory described in this story may not help him to solve.

Swords of the Purple Kingdom

This is the last of the marriage-themed Kull stories. And as such it surprisingly offers no solution to laws that infringe on the rights of the individual, except perhaps that it is not always necessary to break laws to achieve one's aims.

A young foreign nobleman is the object of the affections of the daughter of one of Kull's friends. But since the young man is a foreigner, the girl needs permission from either the king or her father to marry the man. Neither is forthcoming. However, the young man saves the lives of both his beloved and Kull, thus earning the gratitude of the father as well as his permission for them to marry.

Though built slightly on circumstance this is a well-plotted story, with enough intrigue and characterization to carry the story its length. The nephew of Tu, Kull's chief councelor, is in debt and agrees to hand Kull over to Verulian spies; but at the young man's death, a man both Kull and Brule liked, Tu is blamed for being so cheap with the man and driving him to such extremes.

The events of this story take place on a hot summer evening some time after the events in "By This Axe I Rule!" The Picts now heavily back Kull, and well that is, for Verulia is plotting against him. Kull feels that when he was a commander the Valusians were able to overlook his foreign birth, but now with him as king in place of the cruel Borna, they find the fact that Kull was not born in Valusia to be intolerable. But Kull is "Wise in the ways of men and women" and manages to keep his crown though the throne rock beneath him. It is shown in this story that mere braun is not all that is necessary to achieve one's goals, much less save one's own life. If not for Dalgar, Brule, or a band of Picts, Kull would have been killed; but Kull has been able to instill loyalty in those about him.

In Valusian society women have much freedom, though not by twentieth century standards. They have much more rights than their contemporaries in the eastern empires.

By this time Brule has forsaken the curved sword of the Picts for the straight one of the Valusian army.

The King and the Oak

This is the only poem in the Kull cycle, and, depending upon the reader's interpretation, it paints a pretty sorry picture of Kull. Even though Howard leaves it to the reader's interpretation, the plot runs that Kull is riding through the forest to the sea at night, and, in the light of the moon, he imagines that the trees of the forest attack him. So Kull ends up fighting the trees (haha) all night until dawn when he realizes that trees don't uproot themselves to fight upstart kings. As a matter of fact, their message to Kull is similar to that he receives from the buildings of the City of Wonder in "The Shadow Kingdom." Generally that message is one of the inpermanance of mankind as opposed to rocks or trees.

The final impression the reader has is that indeed Kull did imagine the whole thing. Note "Kull thought" from line eight and "As from a nightmare dream" from line 23.

Once again, or still, the reader experiences Howard as a wordsmith as "shadows slew the sun." This command of the language, this unpurple prose, this instant imagry is the real secret to Howard's success, not just his questionable use of violence.

Kings of the Night

It is during the events between "Swords of the Purple Kingdom" and the present story that Kull probably met Gonar, the Pictish wizard. Confronting such worshippers and their magic-practicing priests as he would have, Kull needed aid from from a supernatural source. And likely Ka-Nu would have summoned Gonar from the Pictish Isles, for it probably also benefited the Picts somewhat to rid themselves of certain cults that threatened (to one extreme or another) their relationship with the Seven Empires. Kull has spent enough time with Gonar and built enough of a comradery with him that when the wizard tells Kull that the king is about to have a very strange dream, Kull questions him to no great extent but does as he says.

Herein the most complete physical description of Kull throughout the entire saga is given. He is notably quite different from anyone else appearing in the story, partially because of 100,000 years of evolution: "He was [...] massive and lithe -- tigerish. But his features were not as theirs, and his square-cut, lionlike mane of hair was black [...] Under heavy brows glittered eyes gray as steel and cold as ice. His bronzed face, strong and inscrutable, was clean-shaven, and the broad forehead betokened a high intellegence just as his firm jaw and thin lips showed will-power and courage. But more than all, the bearing of him, the unconscious lionlike stateliness, marked him as a natural king, a ruler of men."

Kull's attire is also described. His sandals are of a curious make. He wears a broad belt with a great gold buckle. His gold headband (a golden circlet) is "strangely worked," and since it stops a blow in the story, probably it is Valusian steel with gold plating. His armor is a pliant coat of strongly-meshed mail which hangs to his knees. His straight sword is so finely made that its durability and strength startles the onlookers to his battle with the Viking: "Cormac [...] wondered at this sword that could thus slice through scale-mail. And the blow that gashed the shield should have shattered the blade. Yet not a notch showed in the Valusian steel!"

Kull talks of his own time briefly, still believing that Bran Mak Morn and the others are dream figures, mentioning Brule, Tu, Kelkor and Kananu. It is revealed that Valusia was greater than Rome, though if "greater" meant size, wealth, majesty, or something else is not revealed.

Brule and Bran and the Pictish people are discussed. Brule was a bit taller and a bit broader of shoulder than Bran, otherwise there is little difference between the two. Bran and most of his chiefs have not inter-married with another race as their tribesmen have. Thus he is lithely built and of medium height, while his subjects are "strange and abhorrent to look upon." They are stocky and mishapen with faces of bestial ferocity, having sloping brows and matted hair. They also have "knotted limbs." Bran's line, the Mak Morn, or Morni, traces their ancestry back to Brule (who was not even married at this point in Kull's life), who referred to his tribe as the Borni -- not much of a change in names for 100,000 years of savagery. Bran's tribe was the Wolf-Clan people.

The gem that Bran wears in his crown is said to have been a gift from Kull to Brule "after a strange battle in a grim land." It is older than "this world," it was old when Atlantis and Lemuria sank. It is also somewhat magical, being described as "a magnet that draws down the eons."

As for the present Gonar, the Pictish shaman, he too is an interesting and complex man. He puts on a hoodoo show to convince the other Picts of certain victory, yet is a sane and reserved man when not requested to wear his mask of pretense. He seriously believes in his arts though, and claims to commune with his ancestor of Kull's time via dreams.

Gonar reveals much prehistory in this and the other Bran Mak Morn stories, some of it not coinciding with facts presented in "The Hyborian Age"; yet which would be accurate -- facts forgotten and distorted in 100,000 years of savagery, or items written down by the Nemedian Chroniclers, who were probably prejudiced against the Picts anyway? He does agree with the essay when he mentions "The Picts [...] dwelt in the isles which now form the mountain peaks of a strange land upon the Western Ocean..." [Of course "The Hyborian Age" was written after all these stories, and in it Howard completely reinvents his pre-history for the Conan tales.]

While trying to convince Kull to fight for the Picts, he presents a pragmatic view of the present, "now is all," might-haves, could-haves, and used-to-bes are meaningless. Yet he also questions reality in a way that Kull has heard before and will probably hear again, to his own detriment, "...But is not all a dream? How reckon you but that your former life is but a dream from which you have just awakened." Though this statement is necessary to make Kull accept the upcoming battle with the Romans seriously, it doesn't do his mind much good. Both he and Bran convince Kull that the fate of Pictdom rests on this battle.

All this adds up to having a great effect on Kull, and if one considers the consequences of a few very interesting events: Kull is told by his friend, Gonar, that he is going to have a very unusual dream (the king sleeps armored yet); in that dream he is begged to take part in a battle with an empire he has never heard of and to treat that battle as if it were real. He then awakes to still have all the wounds he recieved in his dream battle, his armor hacked to shreds. That would have an unsettling effect on anyone, but more especially upon Kull. Even the Gonar of Bran's time knew that saying "and all time and space seemed like a dream of Ghosts to him, and he wondered thereat all the rest of his life."