Last year, as part of a short story unit that focused on conflict in narrative, I used "The Tower of the Elephant" with my 7th graders. This year, I'm doing the same thing. I'm also doing the unit in September as opposed to January. I have an awesome new bunch of 7th grade students this year, so I'm really looking forward to seeing how they may like the story. I've got about two groups per class reading this one. 

I noted a few things that students needed last year, like some vocab help and a few pointers with the conflict, so I've built those into the narrative this time. 

I've built an internal glossary into the story this time, defining words that I think my 7th graders will trip over. Each of those words appears in a different font and color so as to distinguish themselves from Howard's text. 

I've also added a few internal notes to help students process some of the conflict elements. I wrote last year about how students were confused about Conan shedding his tunic following the fight in the tavern, but understood after some discussion. This time, I'm anticipating that discussion.

Additionally, I've embedded an audiobook so that students can read along with a narrator. 

​I may have to report back about how it goes!

Robert E. Howard wrote "The Vale of Lost Women" around February of 1933, the twelfth Conan story he'd written in fairly quick succession, and sent it to Weird Tales. Though there are no records remaining of the rejection, it appears to have been rejected by Farnsworth Wright, and rightfully so. But that rejection was a blow to Howard that caused him to move on from his Cimmerian barbarian for nearly a year, as he turned his prospects to other characters and genres and wouldn't return to writing the character until the end of 1933.

"Vale" was apparently inspired by some autobiographical elements- stories he'd seen occurring to women in his life- but was completely overrun by Howard's virile racial discomfort and disgust. It becomes slightly stronger when the narrative moves to its second half in the titular valley for lost women, but it's ultimately a pretty unsuccessful story.

​It's also a little hard to place. Let's see what chronological markers we have.

These chronological markers aren't extremely strong, and they don't tie the story to one, single time in Conan's life. Much hay has been made over the decades about the fact that the Conan we see here seems more stern and short with Livia than many other depictions of the character. Some have considered this to be due to Conan grieving Bêlit following "Queen of the Black Coast." Some have assumed this is an older, more jaded Conan. I think the first possibility seems the more likely of the two. This story could take place when Conan returns to some of the more southern reaches of the map later in his wanderings, like in stories like "Red Nails" and "The Servants of Bit-Yakin," but I think it's more likely that it is set with the other stories after "Black Coast" when Conan appears to hang around the south. 

It seems most likely to me that Conan sets The Tigress aflame at the end of "Queen of the Black Coast," then continues through the jungles of Kush on foot. Conan then becomes a mercenary in the jungles of the south for a time, seen in the Shumballa fragment ("The Snout in the Dark") and "The Vale of Lost Women," before heading back toward the more northern civilizations at Livia's behest. Then, he reaches the edges of Stygia in "Xuthal of the Dusk" and joins up with slightly more-northern armies in the Gazal fragment ("Drums of Tombalku").

Not to get too dark too quick, but I am absolutely terrified of death. It's my number one most paralyzing fear. It's been that way ever since I read Faulkner's As I Lay Dying in one of my college English classes. That book fucked me up for weeks as I walked around in a funk. To this day, if I think about death for too long, I get this horrible knot in the pit of my stomach and it feels like walls are closing in. 

It's not necessarily the process of dying itself, but the prospect of oblivion on the other side, of nothing but nothingness. For that reason, I'm always kind of interested in the different ways that an afterlife is portrayed in media. I remember being intrigued at Yu Yu Hakusho's remarkably boring, bureaucratic afterlife populated by office-dwelling ogres. The Black Mirror episode "San Junipero" is a little more melancholy, with something about the eternal time-stuck computerization of a consciousness registering as sad to me. The Good Place's confined, mundane atmosphere makes my brain itch even more; it seems so isolated and limited. This is all to say that Molly Tanzer's version of Tartarus, the underworld of "Jirel Meets Death," was very intriguing. I guess I'm looking for some kind of reassurance when I seek out new visions of the afterlife, and according to this tale, "all find what they seek in the land of the dead."

"Jirel Meets Death," Molly Tanzer's second full Jirel of Joiry pastiche published in 2025, sends Jirel, as you may have guessed, into the afterlife. Its title is a little riff on the third Jirel story, "Jirel Meets Magic," published in Weird Tales in July of '35.

After a classic Jirel opening in which there are poor decisions, double-crosses, and some bloodshed, Jirel finds herself just a little bit dead. Her body is occupied in her absence.

This was surprising to read, especially since Jirel of Joiry is unambiguously Catholic, which the story reminds you of in the opening as Jirel has recently returned from a christening. 

Death itself here is portrayed as a character, not as a process or anything that Jirel would recognize from her limited perspective. I won't spoil anything, but it's not what or how I thought it would be either.

Death's entourage is a funny bunch, referring to themselves as each other's colleagues rather than being angels or devils that Jirel might rather have expected. It's remarkably like a PTA meeting; there's a little petty bureaucracy in Tartarus, contrasted against some truly horrifying god-monsters that also dwell there. I asked Molly about her version of the afterlife and she compared its genesis to something like the ancient Greek idea of the underworld: not a Hell or a Heaven, but an Island of Misfit Toys at the end of the chute with all kinds of cast-offs populating it.

It's interesting to compare it to the dreamworld of the first two Jirel stories, which are a terrifying underworld in Jirel's basement, or the Dark Land of Pav, all these strange pocket universes seemingly co-existing. Tartarus is just one of many magical places within this universe, and Molly and I agree that it's a good thing for sword & sorcery fiction that we don't have to wind ourselves in knots to figure out the exact logic behind that.

Jirel's characterization in this story is once again spot-on to Moore's original Jirel, with the lady of Joiry making bad decisions about men and loathing her time spent amongst highfalutin people. After having read Molly's novels Creatures of Will & Temper and Creatures of Want & Ruin since "Jirel Meets Death," this makes Jirel's distain for fops and high society even more entertaining.

As our redheaded and yellow-eyed swordmaiden embarks on a quest through Tartarus, it's an oddly comforting sword & sorcery adventure with a lot of heart.

All find what they seek in the land of the dead. Now I seek both "Jirel and the Forest of Night" in New Edge Sword & Sorcery soon, and the upcoming novella Blue Fire. I simply can't say enough good things about what is going on with Jirel these days. I'm so thankful to Oliver Brackenbury for publishing this stuff, Molly's work is fantastic, Saša Đurđević's art is sick as hell. Even outside of New Edge, there's cool stuff coming, as Clade Mirya posts Jirel art on Bluesky all the time, and there's even a new collection of C.L. Moore's originals out soon. 

Let's hope Jirel stays with us away from Tartarus for a time.

"Wolves Beyond the Border" is not a particularly good Howard story, even when attempting to ignore its unfinished nature, but it is a particularly interesting story in what it represents for Robert E. Howard when he was writing it. 

As Patrice Louinet illustrates in his "Hyborian Genesis" essay, "Wolves Beyond the Border" appears to us as an abandoned psuedo-sequel to "Beyond the Black River," but actually represents a large stepping stone toward Howard's Hyborian Age western. Like a pumped-up version of "A Witch Shall Be Born," in which Conan is mostly a secondary character, this story pushes him all the way to the periphery. He's responsible for the political and civil war mire in which the story is set, but really none of the action itself.

REH was perhaps growing a little tired of the Cimmerian, saying to Novalyne Price toward the end of 1934 that he'd prefer to write stories of America now. This combination of growing distant from Conan and desiring to set his stories in America yielded "Wolves Beyond the Border," an unmistakably western story in which Conan is only mentioned, far away from the narrative's action, fighting against King Namedides for control of Aquilonia. Concepts introduced in this story like the people of Westermarck and Fort Tuscelan in Conajohara, would be carried over into "Beyond the Black River" where they would become classic Conan elements of one of the greatest REH creations.

Though it was written in 1934, the story wasn't published in its unadulterated Howard draft form until 2001. By then, the de Camp version had been floating around in Conan the Usurper for over 30 years.

Because of a few straightforward lines in this story, it's pretty easy to place "Wolves Beyond the Border" in the timeline:

• Our point-of-view character, Gault, who appears to be a young man, lays out the events of "Beyond the Black River" as having happened when he was ten: "I was born in the province of Conajohara. But when I was ten years of age, the Picts broke over Black River and stormed Fort Tuscelan and slew all within save one man, and drove all the settlers of the province east of Thunder River." It's never explicitly stated how old Gault is, but he's taken seriously by seasoned scouts and is a capable frontiersman, so he may be as young as perhaps 17, or as old as 25.
• Conan is leading forces against King Namedides of Aquilonia: "But at last events in Aquilonia did touch upon us in the wilderness. Word came of civil war, and a fighting man risen to wrest the throne from the ancient dynasty." This is clearly Conan's campaign which we know will be successful, seeing as we've already read "The Phoenix on the Sword."
• Between the events of Conan's scouting career in "Beyond the Black River" and his civil war, Conan was evidently a mercenary general in the army of Aquilonia: "And I wondered why, if Schohira were for Conan, they did not fly the banner he had chosen - the golden lion on a black field, the standard the regiment he commanded as a mercenary general of Aquilonia."

It's very clear that "Wolves" takes place after "Black River" and immediately preceding Conan's kingship.

I generally try not to guess at specific spans of time between stories, but I think it's fairly easy here. "Beyond the Black River" probably occurred about ten years ago. "The Phoenix on the Sword," assuming Conan takes the throne without an extended war, will probably occur in the next five to ten, seeing as the populace will have had time to grow nostalgic for their old leader, but quickly enough that Conan seems annoyed by this turn of events.

 will note that this is an even smoother transition than the chronology proposed by L. Sprague de Camp, where Conan ends up back at sea for a little while after "Black River" in his "Treasure of Tranicos" version of events.