A WITCH SHALL BE BORN

According to the Conan Wiki, "A Witch Shall Be Born" was banged out by Robert E. Howard in just a couple of days. That's not necessarily a bad thing; I loved the one-draft "Rogues in the House." But while writing "A Witch Shall Be Born," Howard's novel, The Hour of the Dragon, wasn't headed for Weird Tales and "The People of the Black Circle" was already scheduled for the August issue. So editor Farnsworth Wright didn't have any new Conan adventures on his desk, and he wanted something to put into the publishing pipeline. When Howard sent "Witch" off to Wright, he said it was Howard's best Conan story yet and it made the cover of the December Weird Tales. Gotta disagree with you there, Mr. Wright. 

Like, "A Witch Shall Be Born" is fine, but definitely not a top-ranking Conan story.

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This story follows "The Road of the Eagles," at least according to de Camp's introduction in Conan the Freebooter, and I think it makes sense. Conan is in his kozaki period as a sort of outlaw raider, and this is the third story of that section, following "Iron Shadows in the Moon" and "The Road of the Eagles."

He's traveled a long way, moving east, and has once again gained everyone's respect through his fighting ability. I feel like we've reached quite the pattern here that whenever Conan joins up with a new group of people, he quickly becomes their leader because he's the most shrewd, cool-headed, physically-capable of all of them. He takes command of the zuagir raiders from Olgerd Vladislav in this story, and will spend about a year amongst the zuagirs if "A Probable Outline of Conan's Career" is accurate. Olgerd is a decent villain, and while Howard didn't do too much with the guy, it seems that many other authors liked working with the character, because he's the source of several stories in Savage Sword that try to explain what happened to him after this tale. They all contradict each other immensely.

​We open in Khauran.

The opening dialogue between Queen Taramis and her evil twin sister Salome is fun and actually has room to breathe. It takes up a lot more ink than most dialogue scenes Howard wrote. I'm an identical twin and I like this one, not just because one of our favorite college professors dubbed me the evil twin and calls me that to this day, but because it's quite the saga for a Howard dialogue scene. Following this opening is one of the most iconic scenes in all of the Conan canon, the tree of death, which has Conan crucified on a wooden X in the desert.

Yes, as everyone agrees, this scene absolutely rips and there's a reason why it's so well-known and why it made it into the movie.

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The rest of the story never really comes together, though. Salome is being evil, Conan usurps Olgerd Vladislav, they take the city and rescue Taramis. I'm far from the first person to point out how awkward and somewhat jarring it is to have the story interrupted by a Nemedian scholar to just sort of tell us about the decline of Khauran under Salome's rule, even if it is Howard trying something new.

Conan crucifying Constantius at the end is a decent end to the story, as Conan rejects the role of royal counselor from Taramis and returns to the desert.

"A Witch Shall Be Born" might actually be more interesting in what it says about Howard than the adventures contained within. According to Patrice Louinet's "Hyborian Genesis" essay, "Witch" is something of a victory lap for REH:

"Conan, in A Witch Shall Be Born, is becoming a superhuman character. Howard was growing extremely confident with his creation as testifies the structure of the tale. We are here miles away from pulp formula: Conan—the protagonist—gives life to the entire story by being present in only two chapters. It is tempting to draw a parallel between Conan and what Howard thought he was achieving with the Conan series: The Texan knew he had a winner and that he could get away with almost everything, even not having the lead character in the story except in the central chapters.
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​Conan dominates the whole story and this is made plain in the crucifixion scene. How can anybody kill a character—literarily or literally—who can survive such a scene as that one? For to write a crucifixion scene will automatically invite a Christic comparison. Conan probably became “immortal” with this scene and one wonders to what extent Howard wished it to be so. The story—average as it is—exudes Howard’s confidence in his creation. It was accepted with relish by Farnsworth Wright, published on the heels of four consecutive issues of Weird Tales starring the Cimmerian, and once again won the cover. Howard had every reason to be confident."

When I DM'd a Conan D&D campaign with some of my friends, "A Witch Shall Be Born" made a much better chapter in a campaign than it does a prose story. 

Conan is now with the zuagirs, raiding in nearby lands. The de Camp / Carter story "Black Tears" is up next, which I read a long time ago in Savage Sword #35, but I can't remember if I liked it one way or another. 

★★★☆☆​