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Chronologically Speaking, Part Eighteen: "The God in the Bowl"

5/18/2026

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Chronologically Speaking is a series focused solely on placing the Conan of Cimmeria stories in timeline order. It's an analysis of only the text of Robert E. Howard's original Conan tales. I'm examining the stories one at a time, in publication order, to show explicit chronological notes to order the stories.
If you've been following this series, you know that we're now past the end of stories which Robert E. Howard saw published in his lifetime. Like the Nestor synopsis, better known under the title "The Hall of the Dead," given to it by L. Sprague de Camp, was not released in its original REH form for decades. Likewise, "The God in the Bowl" was out for decades, with heavy de Camp edits, for over two decades before the original was published.

​The de Camp version made the page in the magazine Space Science Fiction (a fitting place to publish it, since it is definitely a science fiction story set in space) in September 1952, though it had been written as just the third Conan story, all the way back in 1932. The version that appeared in Space Science Fiction was heavily edited by L. Sprague de Camp, and the original Howard version wouldn't see print until 1975 in the Donald Grant "The Tower of the Elephant" publication. As a reminder, I'm not only using the Howard version for this column.
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This story is quite a bit shorter than most of Howard's Conan stories, but is really interesting, chronologically speaking. There's quite a bit of debate about the earliest Conan stories ("The Frost-Giant's Daughter" and this one in particular are rather controversial) and which order the thief stories occur in.

The traditional wisdom is that the thief stories take place in an east-to-west direction: that is, we go from Zamora to Corinthia to Nemedia ("The Tower of the Elephant," "The Hall of the Dead," "Rogues in the House," then "The God in the Bowl"). That's the way I thought it should go, and it's the way I followed when I did my first chronology. But I think a close reading of the stories supports the idea that it should go from west-to-east, starting with Numalia in Nemedia before going to the unnamed Corinthian city-state, and finishing in Zamora the Accursed, AKA the City of Thieves. I also think that the pendulum is shifting in this direction, as it appears to be the chronology that Heroic Signatures and Titan Comics are following as well.
Here are our chronological hints:
  • ​We are told right away that Conan is a youth: "Arus saw a tall powerfully built youth, naked but for a loincloth, and sandals strapped high about his ankles. His skin was burned brown as by the suns of the wastelands, and Arus glanced nervously at the broad shoulders, massive chest and heavy arms. A single look at the moody, broad-browed features told the watchman that the man was no Nemedian. From under a mop of unruly black hair smoldered a pair of dangerous blue eyes. A long sword hung in a leather scabbard at his girdle."
  • Conan's characterization throughout paints him as someone who is very new to civilization. He's a bit of a rube at times: "The stranger started. 'Why did you do that?' he asked. 'It will fetch the watchman.' 'I am the watchman, knave,' answered Arus." Conan later says, "It was dark when I saw the watchman outside the Temple. When I saw him here I thought he was a thief too. It was not until he jerked the watch-bell rope and lifted his bow that I knew he was the watchman."
    • The thing that is a little tough to square is that Conan speaks Nemedian "with a barbaric accent." So Conan has been here long enough to learn some Nemedian, but not long enough to figure out how guard shifts work. This is probably just what Howard needed to do in order to make sure characters understood one another, but is admittedly a little bit of a blind spot.
  • Conan's a pretty sub-par thief so far: "'I came to steal,' sullenly answered the other. 'To steal what?' rapped the Inquisitor. 'Food,' the reply came after an instant's hesitation." His natural Cimmerian climbing skills are serving him, but he is definitely a novice. He hadn't even planned an alibi!
  • This might be one of Conan's first encounters with sorcery and seems struck a little dumb by the titular god in the titular bowl: "Conan stared in wonder at the cold classic beauty of that countenance, whose like he had never seen among the sons of men. Neither weakness nor mercy nor cruelty nor kindness, nor any other human emotion was in those features. They might have been the marble mask of a god, carved by a master hand, except for the unmistakable life in them—life cold and strange, such as the Cimmerian had never known and could not understand." That last bit strikes me as the most important: he's encountering forces that he has never known and could not understand.
  • The story ends with Conan fleeing Numalia: "Then the full horror of it all rushed over the Cimmerian, and he fled, nor did he slacken his headlong flight until the spires of Numalia faded into the dawn behind him."

I think the traditional wisdom stated up top makes a little more sense if you're also including the L. Sprague de Camp material in your chronology- "Legions of the Dead" and "The Thing in the Crypt" send Conan more eastward across Hyperborea, but the fact that Conan seems so naïve (I love the line in which Arus indignantly tells him "I am the watchman, knave!" That shit is hilarious) and poor at thieving puts this story more to the front. If you'll notice, this moves "Rogues in the House" up several placement as well.

Additionally, I think there's a not-insignificant desire to put "The Tower of the Elephant" as the first thief story (if not the first Conan story altogether) because it's such a good one and works as a fantastic introduction to the character and the world, but if we're applying a formalist approach to the chronology, we have to ignore that. 

I have to place it as the first of the thief stories.

That brings our chronology to this:
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1. The God in the Bowl
2. Rogues in the House
3. The Tower of the Elephant
4. The Nestor synopsis ("The Hall of the Dead")
5. Queen of the Black Coast
6. Xuthal of the Dusk
7. Iron Shadows in the Moon
8. The Devil in Iron
9. The People of the Black Circle
10. A Witch Shall Be Born
11. The Man-Eaters of Zamboula
12. Black Colossus
13. The Pool of the Black One
14. The Servants of Bit-Yakin
15. Red Nails
16. Beyond the Black River
17. The Phoenix on the Sword
18. The Scarlet Citadel
19. The Hour of the Dragon

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The Many Possible Sequels to "A WITCH SHALL BE BORN"

5/11/2026

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Is there a Conan story that Robert E. Howard wrote with more possible sequels than his 1934 yarn "A Witch Shall Be Born?" I've gone on record several times to note that the story is far from my favorite: its momentum halts a little too hard when the epistolary section from Astreas the Nemedian kicks in. But there's something that's very compelling about the story. Conan is at his most un-killable. The supporting cast of Salome, Taramis, and Olgerd Vladislav are some of the best in the canon. And, notably, its vengeful ending is one for the ages.

​But the story ends with Conan simply riding away.
"Conan lifted his reins and rode toward the river that shone like silver in the morning sun. Behind him the white-clad riders struck into a trot; the gaze of each, as he passed a certain spot, turned impersonally and with the desert man's lack of compassion, toward the cross and the gaunt figure that hung there, black against the sunrise. Their horses' hoofs beat out a knell in the dust. Lower and lower swept the wings of the hungry vultures."
Where does he go? I've argued that he spends time as chief of the Zuagirs before ending his desert raider tenure in "Shadows in Zamboula." But I'm far from the only person who's tried to explore what happens next. The space left open by the narrative's ending has been compelling for a great number of Conan pastiche writers, from 1955 until today. With a brand-new possible sequel to the story, I thought it was time to examine the many possible sequels.

The Flame Knife by Robert E. Howard & L. Sprague de Camp (1955)

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The earliest sequel to "A Witch Shall Be Born" did not begin its life that way. The Flame Knife is one of the four Howard stories that de Camp edited to insert Conan, and all of those are pretty good, probably because there's still so much Howard in them. De Camp makes the wise choice of bringing back "A Witch Shall Be Born's" Olgerd Vladislav as the enemy for this, even though it's otherwise unconnected to "Witch." Apparently, Olgerd is still pretty bitter about getting deposed in his original story.

There are some good fantasy elements and there's a very tense standoff in a lost mountain city (great setting!), so I actually really like this one even though I know de Camp's work isn't everyone's cup of tea.

The Flame Knife was then adapted into Savage Sword #31 in 1978.

"Black Tears" by L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter (1968)

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The next sequel came from the earliest Conan pastiche writers: the duo of L. Sprague de Camp yet again, along with Lin Carter. "Black Tears" first appeared in Conan the Wanderer in 1968 and is set about a year after its predacessor. Gary Romeo over at his blog brings up that this one might be better served to have its byline listed with Carter's name first rather than the traditional de Camp / Carter; it looks like this was primarily a Carter yarn with just a few edits and suggestions provided by Sprague.

"Black Tears" is a breezy, if rather forgettable sequel to "Witch" that has some solid prose in it but ultimately is ripped off from a Thongor story a little too hard, and sees Conan dispatch his final enemy a little bit too easily. It almost reminds me of a version of "The Frost-Giant's Daughter," but set in the desert rather than the snows. 

"Black Tears" was adapted into comic form in Savage Sword #35.

"The Sleeper Beneath the Sands" in Marvel's Savage Sword #6 (1975)

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After "A Witch Shall Be Born" was adapted by Roy Thomas and John Buscema in Savage Sword #5, the next two issues would each feature possible sequels to it. The first is "The Sleeper Beneath the Sands," written by Roy Thomas and drawn by Sonny Trinidad, who isn't a big name in the Conan world but did contribute to a few issues here and there.

"Sleeper" tends to repeat some of the ideas from its predecessor, with Conan getting strung up out in the desert once again, and it brings back Olgerd Vladislav who Conan doesn't kill, but decides not to save. I feel like this one would've done a little bit better if it was the backup story behind a more complete feature, but it never really develops its own identity.

"Citadel at the Center of Time" in Marvel's Savage Sword #7 (1975)

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We have arrived. This story, which is actually the earliest issue of Savage Sword I own, absolutely fucking rules. Conan has moved the Zuagirs west toward Akbitana following "Witch." Pulling on some of Robert E. Howard's common themes of rapid human evolution and devolution, Conan gets a tour through time in the basement of the Citadel at the Center of Time. He sees dinosaurs, cultures from his future (our past), and Buscema's pencils embellished by Alcala's inks do the whole thing beautifully.

​This is one of my favorite Zuagir raider-set Savage Sword stories.

"Mirror of the Manticore" in Marvel's Savage Sword #58 (1980)

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This short backup story which appeared after the end of Roy Thomas's three-issue adaptation of Conan and the Sorcerer is 100% focused on Olgerd Vladislav and how he might have survived the events of "The Sleeper Beneath the Sands." It's short and simple, but I'll never say no to more of ol' Olgerd.

​Through some magic trickery, he's able to heal his deathly wounds sustained in Savage Sword #6 and regain power with the Zuagirs. I do think it's a little odd to present a short epilogue to a story... fifty-two issues after that first story appeared.

"Dwellers of the Oasis" in Titan's Savage Sword #14 (2026)

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While Jim Zub is the lead writer of the current Conan the Barbarian title from Titan, he's done only a few pieces for Savage Sword, though he's done a variety of things from full features to prose to wordless backup stories. Issue #14 featured maybe my favorite of his SSOC projects so far: "Dwellers of the Oasis." With Conan still reeling from his crucifixion, he's in the desert with his hands wrapped tight. After falling into a lost underground (undersand?) city, he encounters some very nice people with no ulterior motives whatsover.

The splash page that artist Ivan Gil does to introduce both Conan and us to this underground civilization is fantastic and the environment is sufficiently creepy thanks to the work of both Jim and Ivan. One of Jim's writing hallmarks is his embedding of subtle themes into his raucous adventures, and this one seems to be dealing with the concept of moving forward and healing in spite of intense pain, adding some layers to an already-fantastic comic book. I hope we see more from the team-up of Jim Zub and Ivan Gil soon.
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Chronologically Speaking, Part Seventeen: The Nestor Synopsis ("The Hall of the Dead")

5/4/2026

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Chronologically Speaking is a series focused solely on placing the Conan of Cimmeria stories in timeline order. It's an analysis of only the text of Robert E. Howard's original Conan tales. I'm examining the stories one at a time, in publication order, to show explicit chronological notes to order the stories.
With "Red Nails," which I covered last time in this column, I reached the end of the Conan of Cimmeria stories that were published in Weird Tales during Robert E. Howard's lifetime. For a time, most of the rest of Howard's Conan stories were hidden away in a trunk. Years went by without a new story to be published, except for some items like the "Hyborian Age" essay in 1938. Sixteen years passed before a new narrative would come out.

I've been re-reading the Conan stories in publication order for this series, and now that I'm to the posthumous publications, I've got to make a decision: do I read them in the order that any version of them came out in, or by order of when we saw the original, unadulterated text penned by Howard? So many of these stories were heavily edited by L. Sprague de Camp or others and then sometimes had decades between the edited version becoming public and Howard's original story debuting later. Picking one or the other doesn't really matter for this exercise, but since I'm focusing so heavily on Howard's original intent, I'll be picking the order in which the Howard original was published. 
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Literary agent Glenn Lord acquired the Howard trunk full of thousands of unpublished pages and L. Sprague de Camp had the original synopsis for this story by 1966. L. Sprague de Camp's version, entitled "The Hall of the Dead" was published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction as early as 1967 and then was reprinted in the Lancer paperback Conan that same year.

The following decade, Howard's original synopsis, referred to by Conan scholars as "The Nestor synopsis" since Howard's version is untitled, was printed in the fanzine Fantasy Crossroads #1 by the Graceland College Club. Due to its unfinished nature, it has largely been overshadowed by the L. Sprague de Camp edit.

My copy of The Complete Chronicles of Conan came with the original Howard version as one of the last stories inside, but it puts de Camps's "Hall of the Dead" title at the top. Let's take a look at any chronological clues in this short piece:
  • Conan is acting as a thief in Zamora. A section of the city is referred to as "The Maul," which likely refers to the same Maul from "The Tower of the Elephant." Since the city is unnamed, it is possible that it's not Zamora the City of Thieves and that there are multiple Zamorian cities that have a slum section called "The Maul," the same way many cities have a generically-named "Red Light District" or "Chinatown" or "downtown." I think it's most likely that this city is the same as the one in "The Tower of the Elephant."
    • de Camp moves this to Shadizar the Wicked, but there's no reason to believe Howard had this in mind at all.
    • Additionally, one common hypothesis about Zamora is that the City of Thieves has no name (it's not officially "Zamora, Zamora" like "New York, New York" in this hypothesis), and this city matching many other aspects of the one in "The Tower of the Elephant" lends some credence to that idea. 
  • Conan is apparently a more skilled thief than we've seen before, as he has stolen from noblemen and merchants in the nearby Zamorian city, enraging the upper class.
  • Conan opts to allow Nestor to take all the coins and gold in the treasure room while only taking a jade serpent and set of green gems for himself. This strikes me as rather naïve, or perhaps informed by what Conan had seen of the Heart of the Elephant in Yara's tower. 
  • Conan escapes the unnamed city with a young woman, but not with Nestor, so I find it unlikely that the Gunderman mentioned in the beginning of "Rogues in the House" is necessarily the same one as Nestor. That Gunderman was specifically stated to be a deserter, but Nestor is not acting in the service of the military in Gunderland. He's a mercenary, not a conscripted solider. It doesn't really change the placement of "Rogues in the House" or anything right now, but I have a feeling I'll be moving it soon...
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With the above (which isn't much!) it seems like the only real placement we have that makes sense is that this story immediately follows "The Tower of the Elephant," with an implied time of several months elapsing between them so that Conan can become a much more skilled thief. 

Next time, we'll be looking at yet another thief story in "The God in the Bowl."

Here's the updated chronology:

1. The Tower of the Elephant
2. The Nestor synopsis
3. Rogues in the House
4. Queen of the Black Coast
5. Xuthal of the Dusk
6. Iron Shadows in the Moon
7. The Devil in Iron
8. The People of the Black Circle
9. A Witch Shall Be Born
10. The Man-Eaters of Zamboula
11. Black Colossus
12. The Pool of the Black One
13. The Servants of Bit-Yakin
14. Red Nails
15. Beyond the Black River
16. The Phoenix on the Sword
17. The Scarlet Citadel
18. The Hour of the Dragon

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Chronologically Speaking, Part Sixteen: "Red Nails"

4/27/2026

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Chronologically Speaking is a series focused solely on placing the Conan of Cimmeria stories in timeline order. It's an analysis of only the text of Robert E. Howard's original Conan tales. I'm examining the stories one at a time, in publication order, to show explicit chronological notes to order the stories.
"Red Nails" was the first Conan of Cimmeria story to be published after Robert E. Howard's untimely death in June of 1936. The July, August/September, and October issues of Weird Tales serialized "Red Nails" in three parts, with tributes to Howard in The Eyrie sections of the last two, in both poetry and prose form. It was the cover story for the July issue, featuring a Margaret Brundage cover that, as always, looks great.
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One reader wrote, before hearing of Howard's death:
"Glad to hear that Robert E. Howard is coming to the fore with another Conan story. I was afraid the rascally old barbarian was going to sink down in slothful ease upon the Aquilonian throne and not furnish R.E.H. with any more weird adventure material, but I guess you can't keep that wild Cimmerian blood quiet; so more power to him."
I'm sure that reader was very sad to hear of the passing of Howard, but luckily, this isn't the final Conan story we have to cover, as many had an arduous posthumous journey to publication.

Similar to The Hour of the Dragon, there are many lines in "Red Nails" in which Conan just outright states the different things that he's done in his life, which makes it pretty easy to place, but so many clues make this a bit of a longer one! ​

Starting in Chapter 2 of the story, the chronological clues really start flowing. Here's what we've got:
  • Conan states that he has spent extensive time in sea ports, meaning that he has had at least one pirate period before this story's events: "As for being penniless—what rover isn't, most of the time? I've squandered enough gold in the sea-ports of the world to fill a galleon."
  • He states that he has recently been with the Free Companions in the western ocean near Zingara and Shem: "The Zingarans sank my last ship off the Shemite shore—that's why I joined Zarallo's Free Companions."
    • As laid out mostly in "Queen of the Black Coast," the coastline of the western Hyborian Age world seems to run (from north to south): the Pictish Wilderness, Argos, Zingara, Shem, Stygia, Kush, and then the other Black Kingdoms with names we don't know.
  • Conan and Valeria are in either the southern reaches of of Stygia or the northern reaches of Kush, with Conan stating these two lines:
    • "I've been this far south, but not this far east. Many days' traveling to the west will bring us to the open savannas, where the black tribes graze their cattle. I have friends among them." 
    • "Who'd have thought to find a city here? I don't believe the Stygians ever penetrated this far."
    • This suggests that Conan thinks it's more likely they're in the nation of Kush rather than in Stygia. However, the story seems to imply that the ancient architecture of the city of Xuchotl was mostly likely built by the ancestors of the Stygians. 
    • Additionally, Conan is very familiar with survivalism in this region as evidenced by his line to Valeria: "'If we ate that we wouldn't need the bite of a dragon,' he grunted. 'That's what the black people of Kush call the Apples of Derketa. Derketa is the Queen of the Dead. Drink a little of the juice, or spill it on your flesh, and you'd be dead before you could tumble to the foot of this crag.'" So Conan is clearly culturally familiar with the people and flora of this region. This and the preceding line about having friends among the black tribes suggests that this story takes place after "Queen of the Black Coast" and possibly other southern-set stories like "Pool of the Black One."
  • Conan outright states that he was a kozak before he was a pirate: "I was a kozak before I was a pirate." This is where we run into some debate about the order of this story and others. Some Conan readers interpret this line to mean that Conan was a kozak immediately preceding this piratical period. I don't think this is necessarily the case though, as Conan merely says this to furnish the idea to Valeria that he has some experience riding horses, unlike most pirates. The whole speech goes: "Your posterior must have been sore, too, after that long ride. You pirates aren't used to horseback... I was a kozak before I was a pirate... They live in the saddle. I snatch naps like a panther watching beside the trial for a deer to come by." This obviously places "Red Nails" at least after the kozak stories in his mid-career.
  • In that same scene, he says that he was once a Zuagir raider: "Skin your teeth in that pear. It's food and drink to a desert man. I was a chief of the Zuagirs once—desert men who live by plundering the caravans." So the story clearly follows the desert caravan days of stories like "The Man-Eaters of Zamboula."
    • Another line likely signals Conan's Zuagir days, but not by name: He states, "“I've looted enough from the Khitan caravans to know what I'm talking about, that's jade!" This could also be reference to his Turanian mercenary period.
  • To finish that conversation, Conan states that he's never been a king: "'I've never been king of an Hyborian kingdom,' he grinned, taking an enormous mouthful of cactus. 'But I've dreamed of being even that. I may be too, some day. Why shouldn't I?'" So obviously, we're set prior to the king stories at the end of his life.
  • Conan appears to have been to the nation of Punt, which means this story probably takes place after "The Servants of Bit-Yakin:" "'Green fire-stones,' growled Conan. 'That's what the people of Punt call them. They're supposed to be the petrified eyes of those prehistoric snakes the ancients called Golden Serpents. They glow like a cat's eyes in the dark. At night this hall would be lighted by them, but it would be a hellishly weird illumination.'"
  • Conan also clearly references the events of "The People of the Black Circle" and his time in Vendhya: "I was a war-chief of the Afghulis who live in the Himelian mountains above the borders of Vendhya. These people favor the Kosalans. But why should Kosalans be building a city this far to the west?"
  • Conan and Valeria finish the story headed west toward the coast: "'It's a long way to the coast,' she said presently, withdrawing her lips from his. 'What matter?' he laughed. 'There's nothing we can't conquer. We'll have our feet on a ship's deck before the Stygians open their ports for the trading season. And then we'll show the world what plundering means!'"
It seems most likely that Conan and Valeria do make it to the coast and parting sometime thereafter. Eventually, Conan works his way up north toward Aquilonia where he takes a job as a scout.

Here's the chronology thus far:

1. The Tower of the Elephant
2. Rogues in the House
3. Queen of the Black Coast
4. Xuthal of the Dusk
5. Iron Shadows in the Moon
6. The Devil in Iron
7. The People of the Black Circle
8. A Witch Shall Be Born
9. The Man-Eaters of Zamboula
10. Black Colossus
11. The Pool of the Black One
12. The Servants of Bit-Yakin
13. Red Nails
14. Beyond the Black River
15. The Phoenix on the Sword
16. The Scarlet Citadel
17. The Hour of the Dragon

Included below are some items from the "Red Nails" issues addressing Howard's death.
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The first page of "The Eyrie" in the August/September issue, breaking the news of Robert E. Howard's death to Weird Tales readers
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The poem by R.H. Barlow following the conclusion of "Red Nails" in the October 1936 issue of Weird Tales
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Chronologically Speaking, Part Fifteen: "The Hour of the Dragon"

4/20/2026

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Chronologically Speaking is a series focused solely on placing the Conan of Cimmeria stories in timeline order. It's an analysis of only the text of Robert E. Howard's original Conan tales. I'm examining the stories one at a time, in publication order, to show explicit chronological notes to order the stories.
As Robert E. Howard's career progressed, diversifying his writing into other markets to make more money became a larger and larger concern. As​ Weird Tales would not be published in the UK until 1942, putting a book together and selling it in England was part of Howard's plan to break into a new, untapped market. He submitted a short story collection in 1933 which was rejected, and then had several false starts on original novels before crafting The Hour of the Dragon​ in 1934.  According to Willard Oliver, he began the novel on St. Patrick's Day and wrote furiously for two months.

Howard essentially cannibalized many of his best Conan of Cimmeria stories (a practice that wasn't unique to him), especially "The Scarlet Citadel," to create his only novel-length Conan adventure, but as I've said before, it reads more like a victory lap than an annoying retread.
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"Despite having two stories to draw upon, Howard still spent long days writing and rewriting the novel, for in the end, according to [author Patrice] Louinet, 'Howard wrote five versions of his story, with several parts of these rewritten two or three times.' Although Howard liked to lay claim to the Conan stories coming so easily to him, that was a tall tale unto itself, for Howard worked incredibly hard on his stories, this novel especially." 
​
-Willard Oliver, "Robert E. Howard: The Life and Times of a Texas Author," pg. 370
The UK publisher of the book went bankrupt before it could publish the story, so it was serialized in Weird Tales across five issues from December 1935 to April 1936, a mere three months before Howard died.

It would later be published in book form in 1950, acquiring the secondary title Conan the Conqueror, which it would be attached to on and off for the next seventy-five years.
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Usually, I use this column to explore all the chronological markers in a story to place it in timeline order, but seeing as this story is much longer than all others and I don't want to bore you to death, I think it would be more expedient to do one thing: place it within relation to the other King Conan stories. The Hour of the Dragon obviously takes place during his kingship, so does it take place before, in-between, or after "The Phoenix on the Sword" and "The Scarlet Citadel?" Surprisingly, this is a tough question!
Let's take a look:
  • Quotes like this abound in the book and place it in Conan's very-late career: "'A devilish dream it was, too. I trod again all the long, weary roads I traveled on my way to the kingship" ... The king was an enigma to the general, as to most of his civilized subjects. Pallantides knew that Conan had walked many strange roads in his wild, eventful life, and had been many things before a twist of Fate set him on the throne of Aquilonia. 'I saw again in the battlefield whereon I was born," said Conan, resting his chin moodily on a massive fist. "I saw myself in a panther-skin loin-clout, throwing my spear at the mountain beasts. I was a mercenary swordsman again, a hetman of the kozaki who dwell along the Zaporoska River, a corsair looting the coasts of Kush, a pirate of the Barachan Isles, a chief of the Himelian hillmen. All these things I've been, and of all these things I dreamed; all the shapes that have been I passed like an endless procession, and their feet beat out a dirge in the sounding dust.'"
  • One section seems to refer back to "The Phoenix on the Sword" and Conan's experience with Thoth-Amon in that story: "Conan's scalp prickled. In Stygia, that ancient and evil kingdom that lay far to the south, he had seen such black dust before. It was the pollen of the black lotus, which creates death-like sleep and monstrous dreams; and he knew that only the grisly wizards of the Black Ring, which is the nadir of evil, voluntarily seek the scarlet nightmares of the black lotus, to revive their necromantic powers. The Black Ring was a fable and a lie to most folk of the western world, but Conan knew of its ghastly reality, and its grim votaries who practise their abominable sorceries amid the black vaults of Stygia and the nighted domes of accursed Sabatea." 
    • The tricky thing is that Thoth-Amon is never referred to as being of the Black Ring in that story. It does frequently refer to him as "Thoth-Amon of the Ring," but that more likely refers to the Serpent Ring of Set (like a physical jewelry ring, not a "ring" of sorcerers) from that story.
    • Another quote seems to suggest the same thing: "'Crom!' he muttered. 'The black hand of Set!' He had seen that mark of old, the death-mark of the black priests of Set, the grim cult that ruled in dark Stygia."
  • Conan seems to have been king of Aquilonia for at least a few years. Zenobia tells him: "And I have loved you, King Conan, ever since I saw you riding at the head of your knights along the streets of Belverus when you visited King Nimed, years ago."
    • Additionally, we get this line suggesting a few years on the throne: "Conan's volcanic temper, never long at best, burst into explosion. Not in years, even before he was king, had a man spoken to him thus and lived."
    • Likewise, "Valerius is now the rightful heir of the throne. He had been driven into exile by his royal kinsman, Namedides, and has been away from his native realm for years."
    • If we look back to "The Scarlet Citadel" for a comparison, when Pelias is awakened by Conan, he asks what has happened to King Numedides (the spelling has changed) and realizes that he's been trapped for ten years. So "Scarlet Citadel" definitely happens within the first ten years of Conan's kingship.
  • It is possible that Howard intended the cities of Tamar and Tarantia to be different cities. Some people have suggested over the years that it's not that he changed the name of the capital from Tamar to Tarantia like he sometimes changed names like "Numedides" to "Namedides" but that Conan actually had the capital of Aquilonia moved to a new city. If that was the case, it would push The Hour of the Dragon to a more certain last place. I think it's more likely that he just changed the name of the capital city.
  • Finally, there is the question of Zenobia, who Conan vows to make queen of Aquilonia in the final line of the story: "She was a slave in Nemedia, but I will make her queen of Aquilonia!" It is possible that Zenobia never made it back to Aquilonia or died between stories, so it's not a sure chronological marker that she's never mentioned in any other King Conan story. However, seeing as she was a literal king's ransom and Conan appears to win The Hour of the Dragon's conflict so decisively, I think it's most likely that she got to Aquilonia safe and sound where she did indeed become Conan's wife.
Ultimately, there isn't a dead giveaway about this story's temporal relationship to the other two King Conan stories. Instead, we're going to have to go off vibes. Within "The Phoenix on the Sword," Conan's kingship seems relatively new. Having not adjusted to their new king, the people of Aquilonia are missing the old king and his power is tenuous. Within "The Scarlet Citadel," Conan's powers seem much more settled within the Hyborian kingdoms. He seems much more well-adjusted to the position and he is challenged only by invading armies, and we get quotes like this: "Today no Aquilonian noble dares maltreat the humblest of my subjects, and the taxes of the people are lighter than anywhere else in the world."

Seeing as Conan seems to wield the full power of his kingdom and even seems to be the equivalent of a Hyborian Age superpower, I'm going to have to settle on the idea that The Hour of the Dragon is the last story. It seems most likely to me that Conan does bring Zenobia back and continues his powerful reign with her at his side. It's an all-around happy ending.

Here's our updated chronology.

1. The Tower of the Elephant
2. Rogues in the House
3. Queen of the Black Coast
4. Xuthal of the Dusk
5. Iron Shadows in the Moon
6. The Devil in Iron
7. The People of the Black Circle
8. A Witch Shall Be Born
9. The Man-Eaters of Zamboula
10. Black Colossus
11. The Pool of the Black One
12. The Servants of Bit-Yakin
13. Beyond the Black River
14. The Phoenix on the Sword
15. The Scarlet Citadel
16. The Hour of the Dragon

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Chronologically Speaking, Part Fourteen: "The Man-Eaters of Zamboula"

4/10/2026

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Chronologically Speaking is a series focused solely on placing the Conan of Cimmeria stories in timeline order. It's an analysis of only the text of Robert E. Howard's original Conan tales. I'm examining the stories one at a time, in publication order, to show explicit chronological notes to order the stories.
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"The Man-Eaters of Zamboula," published under the revised title "Shadows in Zamboula" in the November 1935 issue of Weird Tales, was the third-to-last Conan story that would see publication during Robert E. Howard's lifetime. In-between "Beyond the Black River" and "The Man-Eaters of Zamboula," he'd penned "The Black Stranger," but the public wouldn't see that story for some time, and not until L. Sprague de Camp had heavily edited it and re-titled it "The Treasure of Tranicos."

By mid-1935, Howard was noticeably tiring of Conan the Cimmerian. He said so in letters and to friends, and he in particular grew resentful of the fact that WT editor Farnsworth Wright owed him about $860 (multiple thousands of dollars in today's cash) because the magazine had had financial troubles. He was ready to move on. But letter-writers in "The Eyrie" liked the story, and it did grace the cover of the November issue.
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There are not a ton of chronological clues in this story, but there are enough that you can place in pretty firmly on one side of "A Witch Shall Be Born:"
  • Conan has recently been with the Zuagir raiders, which were introduced to us in "A Witch Shall Be Born," and he's been with them for some time: "You have dwelt for many moons in the tents of the Zuagirs, and you are our brother! Go not to the house of Aram Baksh!"
  • Conan has been with the Zuagirs long enough to absorb some of their culture and folk tales: "All the tales he had heard in the Zuagir tents of devils and goblins came back to bead his flesh with clammy sweat. Now the monster slid noiselessly into the room, with a crouching posture and a shambling gait; and a familiar scent assailed the Cimmerian's nostrils, but did not reassure him, since Zuagir legendry represented demons as smelling like that."
  • Conan has been in Zamboula for a week: "He had ridden into Zamboula from the desert a week before."
  • This appears to be the only appearance of the golden lotus, apparent revitalizing cousin of the black lotus: "He drew a phial from among his robes. 'This contains the juice of the golden lotus. If your lover drank it he would be sane again.'"
  • Conan rides out of Zamboula westward, appearing to leave the Zuagirs behind: "The noise followed Conan as he rode westward beneath the paling stars."
Because Conan is in the deserts between Shem and Turan and is familiar with the Zuagirs, this story seems to need to take place either right before "A Witch Shall Be Born," or right after it. Since Conan begins the story with the group but seems to be leaving them behind without word at the end, it makes more sense to me to place it afterword.

This brings our updated chronology to this:

​1. The Tower of the Elephant
2. Rogues in the House
3. Queen of the Black Coast
4. Xuthal of the Dusk
5. Iron Shadows in the Moon
6. The Devil in Iron
7. The People of the Black Circle
8. A Witch Shall Be Born
9. The Man-Eaters of Zamboula
10. Black Colossus
11. The Pool of the Black One
12. The Servants of Bit-Yakin
13. Beyond the Black River
14. The Phoenix on the Sword
15. The Scarlet Citadel

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Two Writers, Two Rogues: The Adaptation of ROGUES IN THE HOUSE

4/1/2026

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Part I

It’s January, 1933 in Cross Plains, Texas. Though most of the town is asleep, Robert E. Howard is banging away at his typewriter, working on a new story. January of ‘33 has been abnormally warm and dry for a Texas winter, so perhaps he still has the window open to his neighbors’ chagrin, as he sits in his bedroom which faces the sleeping porch, nearly shouting the words as he writes them. 

Howard, Bob to his friends, is working on “Rogues in the House.” It’s a new Conan of Cimmeria story that he’s hoping to sell to editor Farnsworth Wright at the magazine Weird Tales. “Rogues in the House” will sell, becoming the seventh Conan story to hit the pages of “The Unique Magazine” in January of the following year. It will net him a tidy $100.
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But while “Rogues” is the seventh story accepted, it’s the twelfth one Bob’s written, and to make matters worse, Weird Tales doesn’t pay him on story acceptance, but rather upon publication. The depression is bearing down on his family, and he needs money, which has mostly eluded him, like literary fame. Literary success is a persimmon that remains out of his reach, Bob says later.
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Additionally, Conan, who’s his bestselling character to date, seems to have become a bit of a chore for the writer. The three stories he’s written prior to “Rogues:” "Iron Shadows in the Moon," "Xuthal of the Dusk" and "The Pool of the Black One," have fallen into a rather predictable pattern. They’re not his best work.

Bob pens one more Conan story, “The Vale of Lost Women,” and there’s no evidence he ever even submitted it to Weird Tales. He won’t write another Conan story for around nine months.

Part II

“Rogues in the House” is an eternally underrated Conan of Cimmeria story, not only for breaking out of the slump that comprises the stories written around it, but because of how unique it is in the canon.

Conan, imprisoned at the start of the narrative, is broken out by a young noble so that Conan can do the dirty work of killing Nabonidus, the Red Priest, who is the center of power in the unnamed city. When Nabonidus’s human / ape experiment / pet Thak runs amok in his manor, it forces Conan, his young employer, and the Red Priest to spend some quality time while figuring out how to defeat Thak. 

According to Howard, “Rogues in the House” arrived in his mind essentially fully-formed and the only editing he had to do on it was to erase and re-write one single word before he stuffed it in the mailbox for his agent. I’m not sure how much I believe that, but it makes for a great anecdote.

One reason why I appreciate “Rogues” so much is for its comedy beats throughout. While Howard always maintained that Conan was a man of both gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, the scales always seemed to tip a little more toward the melancholy side. Except for in “Rogues.” 

Conan dryly domes a guard with a beef bone while robbing him of his knife and keys before leisurely strolling out of prison. That’s a great image!

Before proceeding to Nabonidus to make good on his contract kill, Conan returns to the slum area of town, The Maze, the take out some frustrations on an ex-lover of his. This unnamed woman got Conan imprisoned and his partner killed, so when Conan bursts back into her room, eyes blazing with fury, it hits all the harder when Howard pulls the rug out from under us and we watch Conan drop her into a cesspool instead of killing her. This scene has apparently upset people over the years, but I find it honestly hilarious. Like a Bugs Bunny cartoon, his lover is swearing, covered in shit, while Conan lets out a full-throated laugh. Nobody’s actually hurt, and Conan’s reaped his revenge. L. Sprague de Camp makes the odd suggestion that this scene may have been inspired by Robert E. Howard getting bullied by others in school, specifically an act we called getting a “swirly” when I was a kid.

Even the last action of the story has always struck me as ironically funny. The Red Priest, for all his scheming and scientific accomplishments, is done in by taking a fucking chair to the skull. No trickery needed, just a throw too quick to dodge.

The other thing I love so much about this story is its character work. As much as I love Howard’s writing, his characters are sometimes pretty flat. The wizards are scheming and evil. The young ladies are supple and need help. You know the score. But “Rogues” takes the time to draw memorable, fun characters unlike most of Conan’s supporting cast. It’s so seldom that Conan spends extended amounts of time with people, especially those who are at odds with his own goals. Murilo is young, foppish, and a bit of a wimp, but he’s ultimately likable, while Nabonidus is smarmy, arrogant, and occasionally charming. Thak, while certainly not fully human, has enough soul that you almost want to root for him the same way you would Frankenstein’s Creature. I’ve always loved in particular the way Nabonidus talks about Thak to Conan and Murilo, kind of proud of Thak’s abilities while at the same time, being threatened with his life by them.

Both Nabonidus and Murilo play into Howard’s politics about the evils of civilization so well. The pair stands in for civilization’s part: Murilo is part of existing power structures and Nabonidus is the shadow government that holds the real cards. Murilo realizes this an an outburst: “You exploit a whole kingdom for your personal greed; and, under the guise of disinterested statesmanship, you swindle the king, beggar the rich, oppress the poor, and sacrifice the whole future of the nation for your ruthless ambition… You are a greater thief than I am. This Cimmerian is the most honest man of the three of us, because he steals and murders openly.”

Conan stands on the opposite side of the conflict. Uncomplicated, at least to himself, and occasionally like a simpleton in comparison to the Red Priest’s plans and inventions, he’s the only one of the three with any sort of grit to match his drive.
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There’s a lot to love here in this story. It’s brief and not a word is wasted. It’s philosophically interesting and unique in its author’s body of work. It’s got a phenomenal fight scene at the end. It’s probably not quite as good as the REH favorites: “Tower of the Elephant,” “Red Nails,” “People of the Black Circle,” but that’s not exactly slouchy company. It deserves its mention toward the top of the list.

Part III

It’s Spring, 1971 in New York City. The Marvel office at 635 Madison Avenue is abuzz like usual, and in the middle of it is Roy Thomas. It’s a time of flux for Marvel Comics: many of the old guard who helped the comic company rise to prominence have left in the last several years. Some of Marvel’s superhero characters are now 40 years old, but the average age of writers in the bullpen is 23 years old. Roy himself is only 30, but already has risen through the ranks to be Stan Lee’s right-hand man.
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Roy has a thing for old characters- like, 1930s and 40s Golden Age of Comics characters. The Invaders, All-Star Squadron, the Justice Society of America, that sort of thing. And there’s this one character from 1930s pulp magazines that he’s revived: Conan the Barbarian. Stan Lee’s not sure about it because he’s not a superhero, nobody’s in a colorful costume, and honestly, he’s not even really sure what “sword & sorcery” is. But they’ve got the rights for $200 an issue, and they’ve got this super cheap but talented new British artist on the book, a 21 year-old kid named Barry Smith.

So far, this book has been really up-and-down. Roy’s had to switch the order of issues a couple of times, like pushing issue three back to issue five, while scrambling to fill the gaps for three and four. Since Roy only has the Conan character and not the rights to all the Conan stories, he’s doing what he can to play in the small sandbox he has. He bases issue #2 sort of off one paragraph in Howard’s “The Hyborian Age” essay. He adapts some non-Conan stories like “Twilight of the Grey Gods” and “The Garden of Fear,” but he’s also making stuff up out of whole cloth. He got to adapt one of the best whiz-bang Conan stories, “The Tower of the Elephant,” a few issues ago in number 4.

Unfortunately, none of that stuff has really been selling. Marvel even canceled the book a few months ago, but thought better of it and it was back on the next day. But sales have gradually been ticking up, starting with issue #7. Roy sometimes jokes that he’s just an embellisher for Howard’s stories on this title, and for the next two issues, Conan the Barbarian #10 and 11, embellish he will.

Part IV

The writers in the bullpen weren’t the only things changing at Marvel. The comic company was about to change their interior page counts from 36 pages to 52 pages in response to DC doing the same thing. But that came with a price increase, too. They made the jump from 15 cents to 25 cents a comic. Editorial was also messing with the covers a bit- giving a uniform design to them for the Bronze Age, with a band at the top reading “MARVEL COMICS GROUP” and they’re putting all the cover art into an isolated box.

The page count and price thing would last only two issues- enough for Roy to adapt “Rogues in the House,” but no longer. They’d return to 36 pages with Conan issue #12, and the price would come down, but only to 20 cents. But for a short time, with those extra pages, the story was allowed breathing room for character beats and story that it otherwise wouldn’t have been afforded.

“Rogues in the House” opens in medias res, using a super economical word count to set up the bones of the story. But for Roy, this is free real estate. He has the job of connecting the fairly independent narrative to his comic continuity, and he always did so very creatively. There are three paragraphs that open the story as prologue and they’re ripe for Roy’s taking:
  1. We learn that there’s a Gunderman mercenary and a Cimmerian thief causing trouble.
  2. There’s a priest of the god Anu who’s both a fence and a spy. His temple is on the edge of the slum neighborhood called The Maze.
  3. A woman has betrayed them both, landing the Cimmerian in jail and the Gunderman at the end of a rope.

This is where it becomes really fun if you know the original story prior to reading its comic adaptation. Roy begins setting this stuff up in previous issues.
  1. That Gunderman mercenary gets set up in issue #8, which is a loose adaptation of the Howard synopsis finished by L. Sprague de Camp called “The Hall of the Dead.” That story features a Gunderman and seems to take place chronologically close to “Rogues in the House,” so people have long guessed that the Gundermen mentioned in both are the same person. Roy goes all in on that idea, renaming the Gunderman to Burgun rather than Nestor, for no reason in particular.
  2. That priest of Anu who is both a fence and a spy becomes the focus for issue 10.
  3. And the woman that has betrayed both of our characters, now Conan and Burgun, would be Conan’s recent traveling companion, Jenna.

The cover for issue #10 promises “ALL NEW STORIES,” and that’s mostly true. Issue 10 fills in our backstory about how Conan would end up in prison for the real start of “Rogues.” It’s all rendered beautifully in Barry’s pencils topped with inks by Sal Buscema. No colorist is listed, so I’m assuming it’s Barry, but the blues and golds of the city at night give it this mythical quality that looks great. By this point, Barry’s art has begun its trajectory to its uniquely ornate style that he will eventually settle on, but you can still see plenty of Jack Kirby influence in these issues.

After a thief job, Conan and Burgun are hunted by the guards, with only Conan able to get away. He watches Burgun get hanged, drenched in pale blues and rain, before going back to the corrupt priest of Anu for revenge. Roy adds the fantastical element of this giant bull avatar of Anu which almost destroys the whole temple. 

In order for Conan to exact revenge on the priest, the team was going to have to get creative. Howard explicitly says that he cut the priest’s head off, but that was never going to fly under the restrictive Comics Code Authority. Instead, we see five panels in which Conan approaches, each background growing darker until the last is a blood red, and Conan strikes out of the panel. We then see the priest’s head conveniently relieved of his body in the last panel. In the end, it doesn’t feel at all like a workaround. Unfortunately, that wasn’t quite good enough for the comics code and three caption boxes were hastily added to the final panels to ensure readers that Conan would be punished for killing a priest, no matter how evil.

Issue #11 follows the prose narrative to “Rogues in the House” pretty faithfully, with the added bonus that we actually get to see the moment when Conan is captured thanks to Jenna selling him out.

We meet Murilo in the prison making me sad once again that we don’t have a colorist to thank- the shadows and the reds, purples, and blues are gorgeous. Murilo has big, 70s Barry Manilow hair, perfect for his character. A raging Conan drops Jenna into the cesspool and makes his way to the estate of Nabonidus, who seethes evil, but isn’t quite as charming as Howard’s version. 

In one of the only times I can remember, the regular Conan book is split into parts like they would usually do with Savage Sword. Barry’s Thak is much more simian than, for example, Frank Frazetta’s, and the Thak fight here is basically Conan v. gorilla. And instead of tossing a stool at Nabonidus, Conan impales him with a knife throw to end this version of the story.

Spread across two king-sized issues, “Rogues in the House” is one of the most meticulously-adapted Conan stories in the Bronze Age comic. As Bob Byrne points out in Hither Came Conan, about 79 pages are dedicated to adapting the short story, which means it has about 30 more pages than even some of the more epic adaptations done in Savage Sword. Issue #11 was also the longest Conan the Barbarian issue until the super-sized issue #100 which concluded "Queen of the Black Coast."

Letter-writers to "The Hyborian Page" in issue #14 praised the adaptation and Marvel noted that Conan gets as much overwhelmingly favorable mail as any mag which Marvel had ever published, but noted that it would be a while before they directly adapted any other Conan stories. He even said years later that he thinks it’s nobody’s favorite.

“Rogues in the House” is a classic though- one of my favorite Conan stories. And its comic adaptation, also a banger. The story is small in scope despite the oversized nature of the comic version, but every aspect of it works for a memorable product. For Robert E. Howard, it was the last story published of his first Conan period, for Roy Thomas, it showed what he could do, but he was just getting started.
Hey folks, this is a bit of an experiment for me. Usually, my YouTube videos start as blog posts and then get adapted for video, but this one began as a video and I decided to share the script here as well. I hope you enjoyed. It's been really fun to do this for two years now and I appreciate all the support and comments people have left!
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Chronologically Speaking, Part Thirteen: "Beyond the Black River"

3/19/2026

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Chronologically Speaking is a series focused solely on placing the Conan of Cimmeria stories in timeline order. It's an analysis of only the text of Robert E. Howard's original Conan tales. I'm examining the stories one at a time, in publication order, to show explicit chronological notes to order the stories.
After the April 1935 issue of Weird Tales went to print with no Howard stories included (though it did have an Otis Kline and a Clark Ashton Smith), Robert E. Howard's most popular character came back in the May and June issues with one of his best stories ever. "Beyond the Black River" was serialized over those two early-summer editions.

Willard Oliver says in his biography Robert E. Howard: The Life and Times of a Texas Author that Howard told Novalyne Price around this time that he tries to bang out an adventure story or a western every now and then, but "mostly" goes along with Conan. "Beyond the Black River" is firmly Howard's most western Conan story; much has already been written about that.
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The chronological clues in this story firmly place it toward the end of Conan's wanderings and even foreshadow his king stories pretty hard, which would pick up very soon after this one:
  • ​Conan tells Balthus of the siege of Venarium in the very beginning of the story. The way they talk about it makes it sound like it happened at least ten or fifteen years ago: "'My uncle was at Venarium when the Cimmerians swarmed over the walls. He was one of the few who escaped that slaughter. I've heard him tell the tale, many a time. The barbarians swept out of the hills in a ravening horde, without warning, and stormed Venarium with such fury none could stand before them. Men, women and children were butchered. Venarium was reduced to a mass of charred ruins, as it is to this day. The Aquilonians were driven back across the marches, and have never since tried to colonize the Cimmerian country. But you speak of Venarium familiarly. Perhaps you were there?' 'I was,' grunted the other. 'I was one of the horde that swarmed over the hills. I hadn't yet seen fifteen snows, but already my name was repeated about the council fires.'"
  • Conan states that he has been to the mountains beyond the Vilayet Sea and implies that he has been south to Kush, indicating wide travels in his past and also putting this firmly after his Turanian mercenary days and Black Coast pirate days: "'I saw it carved in the rock of a cave no human had visited for a million years,' muttered Conan, 'in the uninhabited mountains beyond the Sea of Vilayet, half a world away from this spot. Later I saw a black witch-finder of Kush scratch it in the sand of a nameless river."
But really, all you need are the two following quotes which Conan says toward the end of the narrative:
  • Conan has already been a Barachan pirate, which we already know takes place later on in the timeline: "And the coast is dangerous to ships. I've sailed along it when I was with the pirates of the Barachan Isles, which lie southwest of Zingara."
  • Conan describes in detail his extensive travels and experiences: "'I've roamed far; farther than any other man of my race ever wandered. I've seen all the great cities of the Hyborians, the Shemites, the Stygians and the Hyrkanians. I've roamed in the unknown countries south of the black kingdoms of Kush, and east of the Sea of Vilayet. I've been a mercenary captain, a corsair, a kozak, a penniless vagabond, a general—hell, I've been everything except a king, and I may be that, before I die.'"
    • So "Beyond the Black River" is clearly after his pirate periods in "Queen of the Black Coast" and "The Pool of the Black One." I'm noticing we haven't seen much of the Red Brotherhood yet.
    • It's after his mercenary captain periods in "Xuthal of the Dusk" and "A Witch Shall Be Born."
    • It's after his kozak experiences in "Iron Shadows in the Moon," "The Devil in Iron," and "The People of the Black Circle."
    • It's after his penniless vagabond days as a thief in "The Tower of the Elephant" and "Rogues in the House."
    • It's after his general experiences in "Black Colossus" and "The Servants of Bit-Yakin."
    • And of course, his kingship is coming soon.
Even without those incredibly explicit chronological markers, the character of Conan in this story is cool, controlled, and mature, much more like King Conan than thief Conan.

Here's our updated chronology as we reach the final stories that would be published within Robert E. Howard's lifetime:

​1. The Tower of the Elephant
2. Rogues in the House
3. Queen of the Black Coast
4. Xuthal of the Dusk
5. Iron Shadows in the Moon
6. The Devil in Iron
7. The People of the Black Circle
8. A Witch Shall Be Born
9. Black Colossus
10. The Pool of the Black One
11. The Servants of Bit-Yakin
12. Beyond the Black River
13. The Phoenix on the Sword
14. The Scarlet Citadel

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Chronologically Speaking, Part Twelve: "The Servants of Bit-Yakin"

3/4/2026

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Chronologically Speaking is a series focused solely on placing the Conan of Cimmeria stories in timeline order. It's an analysis of only the text of Robert E. Howard's original Conan tales. I'm examining the stories one at a time, in publication order, to show explicit chronological notes to order the stories.
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"The Servants of Bit-Yakin," also known as "Jewels of Gwahlur," was the thirteenth Conan of Cimmeria story to be published. First seeing print in the March 1935 issue of Weird Tales, there had been a three-month gap between "A Witch Shall Be Born" and this one. In preceding months, Howard had a Conan story, or at least part of one, published in August, September, October, November, and December of 1934. He'd recently been experimenting with new characters and different genres, like El Borak and Kirby O'Donnell, so it seems like he was probably a little burnt out on the Cimmerian again. He might have come back to the Hyborian Age for "The Servants of Bit-Yakin" since it was easily his best-selling series and characters like El Borak and O'Donnell hadn't been as reliable.

Because Robert E. Howard's original title for this story was "The Servants of Bit-Yakin," that's the one I'm going to use to refer to it throughout this post, but it's much better-known under it's published title of "Jewels of Gwahlur." Both titles present interesting opportunities to put your own spin on the pronunciation and I've heard many variations in how to say both "Bit-Yakin" ("Bit-YAY-kin?" "Bit-Yah-keen?") and "Gwahlur" (Rhymes with "squalor?" Rhymes with "allure?")
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Sword & sorcery author Fritz Leiber wasn't a huge fan of this one, rating it as one of the three worst Conan stories. I would rate it a little higher; the adventure is a good time. I would agree that the prose suffers, though. Weirdly enough, there's one point where Conan balks at the character Muriela by saying "Goddess! Ha!" or "Goddess! Bah!" It comes across as repetitive in a useless way, like he didn't know what else to have Conan say or he didn't realized he'd had Conan say almost the same thing three times in a row. It's kind of grating, not poetic.

While the writing probably isn't Two-Gun Bob's best, it's a pretty fun story that's easy to place in the timeline. It has lots of chronological markers!
  • Conan is described as having already been to the Black Coast and the Baracha Isles, placing this story firmly after both of those pirate periods: "Conan the Cimmerian, late of the Baracha Isles, of the Black Coast, and of many other climes where life ran wild, had come to the kingdom of Keshan following the lure of a fabled treasure that outshone the hoard of the Turanian kings." 
    • That means this story is definitely after "Queen of the Black Coast" and "Pool of the Black One."
  • In fact, Conan's fame as Amra the Lion has preceded him into these southern kingdoms in which the story takes place: "Conan's fame had preceded him, even into distant Keshan; his exploits as a chief of the black corsairs, those wolves of the southern coasts, had made his name known, admired and feared throughout the black kingdoms."
  • Not only is Conan famed as a pirate, but he also clearly has military leadership experience and is known for that as well: "His reckless ferocity impressed the lords of Keshan, already aware of his reputation as a leader of men, and the prospects seemed favorable." This places the story likely after "Black Colossus" as well.
  • It is said that Conan knows Thutmekri "of old," but he's not a character we've seen before. I wonder how the two met seeing as they do not like each other.
  • Conan is clearly on par with master thieves. In many instances, he is silent and completely unseen when he wants to be: "Conan became stealth personified. A velvet-footed shadow, he melted into the thickets." This places the story well after his thieving days when he usually gets caught.
  • Conan has obviously been to Asgalun, Shem at least once: "The art was unmistakably Pelishti; he had seen frescoes of identical characteristics on the walls of Asgalun." It seems Howard has changed the name since he referred to it as "Askalon" in "Queen of the Black Coast."
  • But really, it's characterization that clearly places this story late along Conan's life into his thirties at least. This Conan of "Bit-Yakin" is shrewd, intelligent, well-spoken, discerning, and extremely good with languages: "Many a sheltered scholar would have been astonished at the Cimmerian's linguistic abilities, for he had experienced many adventures where knowledge of a strange language had meant the difference between life and death." This Conan is far more like the King Conan we see in "The Phoenix on the Sword" than any part in the timeline before it.
It's the characterization that really dominates where this story belongs. Even without saying Conan has already lived through his Barachan pirate days, this is a much older, wiser, worldly Conan.

"The Servants of Bit-Yakin" is without a doubt a lesser Conan story for me, but it's still a pretty fun one. I love the opening during which Conan is doing a death-defying climb. The whole setting is one I want to delve much deeper into. His interplay with Muriela is endearing. The scene where he finds Zargheba's decapitated head staring at him is a certified chiller. And there's just enough magic and politicking to add a few more layers to it. Its prose isn't always top-notch and leans more heavily on Howard's racism than some other stories, but it's far from one that should be discounted.

This updates our chronology to the following:

1. The Tower of the Elephant
2. Rogues in the House
3. Queen of the Black Coast
4. Xuthal of the Dusk
5. Iron Shadows in the Moon
6. The Devil in Iron
7. The People of the Black Circle
8. A Witch Shall Be Born
9. Black Colossus
10. The Pool of the Black One
11. The Servants of Bit-Yakin
12. The Phoenix on the Sword
13. The Scarlet Citadel

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Chronologically Speaking, Part Eleven: "A Witch Shall Be Born"

1/19/2026

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Chronologically Speaking is a series focused solely on placing the Conan of Cimmeria stories in timeline order. It's an analysis of only the text of Robert E. Howard's original Conan tales. I'm examining the stories one at a time, in publication order, to show explicit chronological notes to order the stories.
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"A Witch Shall Be Born" is the twelfth Conan story published in Weird Tales, making the page in the December 1934 issue. Release only one month after the conclusion of "The People of the Black Circle," this story is rather unique in REH's canon. Narratively, it has one of the most unique structures, being interrupted by an epistle from a Nemedian scholar about halfway through. This fills in some of the story from a 30,000-foot view and, in my opinion, annihilates the pacing. Additionally, it's one of the stories in which Conan is mostly a secondary character. "Witch" is instead the story of Taramis and Salome: identical twin sisters. It also features one of the most depicted Conan scenes of all time- his crucifixion- that even made it into the 1982 movie.

This story is a bit of a disappointment to read after the soaring highs of "People of the Black Circle," but, as I've found often writing this column, doesn't mean that it's any less interesting to mine it for chronological markers.
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  • The story takes place over the course of about seven months: "Seven months have passed since then, during which time it seems as though the devil himself had been loosed in this unfortunate realm. Taramis seems to have gone quite mad."
  • Conan has evidently become captain of the guard in Khauran: "But when the palace guard was ordered to disarm likewise and disband, the captain of the guard, Conan, interrupted." 
    • This hints at a slightly later placement in the timeline. Conan does command various military and paramilitary units over the course of his life, but many of them appear in the second half of his life.
  • Conan recognizes Olgerd Vladislav as a hetman of the kozaki along the Zaporoskan River, which is east of Khauran and south of the Vilayet Sea, near where Conan spent time in "The Devil in Iron" and "Iron Shadows in the Moon." This implies that "A Witch Shall Be Born" takes place after those eastern-set stories: "'If I could come down from this beam I'd make a dying dog out of you, you Zaporoskan thief!' he rasped through blackened lips. 'Mitra, the knave knows me!' exclaimed the other. 'How, knave, do you know me?' 'There's only one of your breed in these parts,' muttered Conan. 'You are Olgerd Vladislav, the outlaw chief.' 'Aye! and once a hetman of the kozaki of the Zaporoskan River, as you have guessed.'"
  • This is the story that introduces us to the Zuagir raiders: "The mercenaries of Constantius are men from the Shemitish cities of the west, Pelishtim, Anakim, Akkharim, and are ardently hated by the Zuagirs and other wandering tribes."
    • On a side note, how do you pronounce the word "Zuagir?" I've kind of settled on "zwah-GEAR," but I'm never quite sure.
  • Like several other stories, Conan is wearing a broad gold belt buckle: "He was clad in black mesh-mail, and the only glitter about him was the broad gold buckle of the belt which supported his sword in its worn leather scabbard." He also wears lots of black in this story.
  • Conan displays some of the tactician mindset that we see in later stories, further pushing this story later in his life. The Conan of "A Witch Shall Be Born" is more similar to the Conan of "Black Colossus" or "The Phoenix on the Sword" than that of "Queen of the Black Coast" or "Rogues in the House." Notably, he has more control over his men than he did in "The People of the Black Circle." They even follow Conan when he deposes Vladislav.
  • Conan ends the story as chief of the Zuagirs and decides to stay with them to harry the Turanian borders: "No, lass, that's over with. I'm chief of the Zuagirs now, and must lead them to plunder the Turanians, as I promised. This lad, Valerius, will make you a better captain than I. I wasn't made to dwell among marble walls, anyway."
Because of everything listed above, I'm inclined to believe that this story takes place in the second half of Conan's life, after his other eastern adventures in "Iron Shadows in the Moon," "The Devil in Iron," and "The People of the Black Circle." He's worked his way a little bit back westward by the end of this one.

I recognize that this is much, much later than some of the other popular chronologies, especially the Miller / Clark one. 

This leaves our updated chronology here:

1. The Tower of the Elephant
2. Rogues in the House
3. Queen of the Black Coast
4. Xuthal of the Dusk
5. Iron Shadows in the Moon
6. The Devil in Iron
7. The People of the Black Circle
8. A Witch Shall Be Born
9. Black Colossus
10. The Pool of the Black One
11. The Phoenix on the Sword
12. The Scarlet Citadel

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Chronologically Speaking, Part Ten: "The People of the Black Circle"

12/22/2025

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Chronologically Speaking is a series focused solely on placing the Conan of Cimmeria stories in timeline order. It's an analysis of only the text of Robert E. Howard's original Conan tales. I'm examining the stories one at a time, in publication order, to show explicit chronological notes to order the stories.
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Robert E. Howard had his eyes set on the novel form when he published "The People of the Black Circle." Around the time he began working on an attempt at Almuric and The Hour of the Dragon, he wrote what would become the longest Conan story to date, at about 31,000 words which earned him $250 (about six grand in today's dollars). "The People of the Black Circle" was written in January and February 1934 and since Weird Tales editor Farnsworth Wright liked it so much, it was published quickly, appearing in the serial in the September, October, and November '34 issues of WT.

"Black Circle" is one of Howard's absolute best, and is rather unique in how it places itself in chronology. There are few references to other stories outside of when Conan literally tells other characters about his life.
  • Conan's characterization when he meets with Chunder Shan in the beginning is very cool, controlled, and confident. He seems very practiced. It hews much closer to the Conan we see in "The Pool of the Black One" than earlier stories.
  • Conan has become a leader- a hetmen of the Afghuli hillmen. However, he's not so engrained that they won't turn on him. "They don't love you—or any other outlander—but you saved my life once, and I will not forget." He's clearly become very skilled in his leadership qualities (and his obvious strength doesn't hurt either).
  • Conan drops a reference to his days in Zamora: "I've seen the priests of Zamora perform their abominable rituals in their forbidden temples, and their victims had a stare like that man. The priests looked into their eyes and muttered incantations, and then the people became the walking dead men, with glassy eyes, doing as they were ordered." It was already clear that this was long after his thieving days.
  • Conan has likely been to Yezud, in Zamora, and come across the spider cult there: "It was like a big black jade bead, such as the temple girls of Yezud wear when they dance before the black stone spider which is their god. Yar Afzal held it in his hand, and he didn't pick up anything else. Yet when he fell dead, a spider, like the god at Yezud, only smaller, ran out of his fingers."
    • The spider cult of Zath is never explored in the Howard stories, but is shown in the novel Conan and the Spider God and referenced in Spawn of the Serpent God.
  • Interestingly, this story is the only time Conan is given the moniker "Conan of Ghor:" "How that one man escaped, I do not know, nor did he; but I knew from his maunderings that Conan of Ghor had been in Khurum with his royal captive." He's referred to by this name twice in the narrative.
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Toward the end of the story, the real chronological markers begin to show up as Conan begins mentioning previous life periods.
  • "Black Circle" must come after his days with the Free Companions shown or referenced in "Iron Shadows in the Moon" and "The Devil in Iron:" "There is a chief of the Khurakzai who will keep you safely while I bicker with the Afghulis. If they will have none of me, by Crom! I will ride northward with you to the steppes of the kozaki. I was a hetman among the Free Companions before I rode southward. I'll make you a queen on the Zaporoska River!"
    • That line about being a hetman among the Free Companions before he rode southward is the most telling aspect of this speech. This seems to place the three most eastern stories together in the timeline. Conan likely heads east to the Vilayet Sea where he experiences the events of "Iron Shadows in the Moon," then "The Devil in Iron," and afterward rides south to Vendhya where he ingratiates himself to the Afghulis in this story.
  • At the very end of the story, Conan lists to Yasmina Devi many of the things he has done in his life: "Listen: I was born in the Cimmerian hills where the people are all barbarians. I have been a mercenary soldier, a corsair, a kozak, and a hundred other things. What king has roamed the countries, fought the battles, loved the women, and won the plunder that I have?" There's a lot going on in this paragraph!
    • We've seen Conan be a mercenary soldier in "Xuthal of the Dusk" and "Black Colossus."
    • We've seen him be a corsair in "Queen of the Black Coast" and we'll see him be one again in "The Pool of the Black One."
    • We've seen his kozak days in "The Devil in Iron" and "Iron Shadows in the Moon," likely immediately preceding this narrative.
    • Conan's "hundred other things" is fun to speculate about. I suppose it would need to encompass his thief days and his early wanderings with the Aesir too. But we haven't actually gotten to that story yet. It leaves the door open for a lot of options.
    • Conan has "roamed the countries" of at least Cimmeria, Zamora, Nemedia, Argos, Kush, Stygia, Turan, Hyrkania, Shem, Afghulistan, and Vendhya.
    • He's "fought the battles" which are too numerous to count.
    • He's "loved the women:" Bêlit, for sure. Is he including Natala? Thalis? Probably Olivia.
    • Funnily enough, most of the plunder Conan wins must be off the page. Most of the time, the treasure he's jonesing for in each story either ends up out of reach. He very frequently ends stories empty-handed, fleeing with just his life.
    • Conan makes an off-hand comment about how kings haven't lived the life he has, so it must be prior to his kingship.
Based on the other aspects of this chronology, grouping the eastern stories together, I think it makes the most sense to place "The People of the Black Circle" before Conan journeys back westward to become a captain of spearmen in "Black Colossus." This solves the "mad dash" issue and is internally consistent with Conan's "riding southward" line.

I find it interesting that "Black Colossus" is so much further back now than many other chronologies place it. I'm not against it, I just didn't really expect it.

Here's the updated chronology:

1. The Tower of the Elephant
2. Rogues in the House
3. Queen of the Black Coast
4. Xuthal of the Dusk
5. Iron Shadows in the Moon
6. The Devil in Iron
7. The People of the Black Circle
8. Black Colossus
9. The Pool of the Black One
10.  The Phoenix on the Sword
11. The Scarlet Citadel

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Chronologically Speaking, Part Nine: "The Devil in Iron"

12/8/2025

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Chronologically Speaking is a series focused solely on placing the Conan of Cimmeria stories in timeline order. It's an analysis of only the text of Robert E. Howard's original Conan tales. I'm examining the stories one at a time, in publication order, to show explicit chronological notes to order the stories.
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When Robert E. Howard sat down to write "The Devil in Iron," the tenth Conan story to reach publication, it was after a period of nine months during which he didn't write anything for his sword-and-sorcery series character. He had been experiencing bouts of burnout, taking a few months between Conan stories and trying out different genres. He did the same thing right before "Queen of the Black Coast." Perhaps this long gap is why this story is so devoid of other connections to the Hyborian world.

"The Devil in Iron" was published in the August 1934 issue of Weird Tales and followed a very similar plot to the previous story Howard had written, "Iron Shadows in the Moon." Both feature islands in the Vilayet Sea, pirates, iron golem enemies, and fairly forgettable one-off companions. "Devil in Iron" was voted the best story of the issue despite how it re-tread earlier subjects and earned Howard $115.
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There is very little mooring this to one single place in Conan's life.
  • Conan is a new chief to the kozaks: "'That is because of the new chief who has risen among them,' answered Ghaznavi. 'You know whom I mean.' 'Aye!' replied Jehungir feelingly. 'It is that devil Conan; he is even wilder than the kozaks, yet he is crafty as a mountain lion.'
    • As a side note, I wondered in my Chronologically Speaking entry about "Iron Shadows in the Moon," why Conan bristles at the term "kozak." Seeing as this story tells us it means "wastrel," I get the sense that it's sort of a slur.
    • Conan evidently met the kozaks with nothing but the clothes on his back and quickly rose through the ranks: "This was Conan, who had wandered into the armed camps of the kozaks with no other possession than his wits and his sword, and who had carved his way to leadership among them."
  • Conan refers to the black lotus of Xuthal, which places this story after "Xuthal of the Dusk:" "Her sleep was too deep to be natural. He decided that she must be an addict of some drug, perhaps like the black lotus of Xuthal." This line has vexed many previous chronologizers, because the general consensus seems to be that Conan should be a little older in "Xuthal," but since I've placed it early, this isn't a problem for me right now.
  • Has Conan seen a copy of the Book of Skelos? This story seems to imply that he has: "Conan had seen rude images of them, in miniature, among the idol huts of the Yuetshi, and there was a description of them in the Book of Skelos, which drew on prehistoric sources." But where would he have seen a Book of Skelos? The copies seem to be exclusively in the hands of powerful wizards, who Conan is famously not a fan of. Or is this a strangely-worded sentence that just means that there are pictures in the Book of Skelos of the snake creatures he's looking at?
  • Conan evidently understands Nemedian: "There was no door in that wall, but he leaned close and heard distinctly. And an icy chill crawled slowly along his spine. The tongue was Nemedian, but the voice was not human." This makes sense based on the placement of "Rogues in the House" well before this.
Here's the really tricky question about placing this story: Are the Free Companions / kozaks essentially the same group as the pirates of the Red Brotherhood? Consider this line about the kozaks.
Ceaselessly they raided the Turanian frontier, retiring in the steppes when defeated; with the pirates of Vilayet, men of much the same breed, they harried the coast, preying off the merchant ships which plied between the Hyrkanian ports.
If the barriers between the kozaks and the pirates are permeable, which this line seems to imply they are, then when we see Conan "carving" out leadership in the group, perhaps this is the same event we see at the end of "Iron Shadows in the Moon," when Conan meets the Red Brotherhood and immediately starts rising in the ranks. In the previous stories in which Conan is a mercenary, he's apparently just of the rank-and-file members, not in leadership, so those stories would go before this.

Some fellow Conan chronology nerds like Dale Rippke have hypothesized that Conan is younger in "Iron Shadows" because of how he approaches the Red Brotherhood (they would argue he does so naively), but that's not an impression I agree with.

Other timelines place this story chronologically right before "The People of the Black Circle," in which Conan is the hetman of the Afghuli hillpeople. That's possible, but I'm inclined right now to place it right after "Iron Shadows in the Moon." That way, he isn't traipsing back all over the world and spends some time on the Vilayet before going anywhere else. I'm not opposed to changing its placement if that makes more sense in the future, but right now, I think it works best immediately after its twin "iron" story.

Our full chronology is now:

1. The Tower of the Elephant
2. Rogues in the House
3. Queen of the Black Coast
4. Xuthal of the Dusk
5. Iron Shadows in the Moon
6. The Devil in Iron
7. Black Colossus
8. The Pool of the Black One
9.  The Phoenix on the Sword
10. The Scarlet Citadel

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Chronologically Speaking, Part Eight: "Queen of the Black Coast"

12/1/2025

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Chronologically Speaking is a series focused solely on chronologizing the Conan of Cimmeria stories. It's an analysis of only the text of Robert E. Howard's original Conan tales. I'm examining the stories one at a time, in publication order, to show explicit chronological notes to order the stories.
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Appearing in Weird Tales in May 1934, "Queen of the Black Coast" is the ninth Conan of Cimmeria story published and appeared just one month after "Iron Shadows in the Moon." In the last four stories published, three of them are pirate stories, and this is the third time in nine that Howard's made use of the black lotus powder as a plot device. However, these are more quirks of publishing rather than a throughline in Howard's writing. "Queen of the Black Coast" had been written and set to Farnsworth Wright at Weird Tales by August 1932, but wouldn't be published for almost another two years. Howard was paid $115 for it.

There are lots of interesting chronological markers in this story!
  • Conan begins the story having been a mercenary, but one out of work for a time: "I came into Argos seeking employment, but with no wars forward, there was nothing to which I might turn my hand." He begins the story in Argos, probably in the port city of Messantia.
  • Conan's clothing suggests that his mercenary work has taken him to several different places: "He saw a tall powerfully built figure in a black scale-mail hauberk, burnished greaves and a blue-steel helmet from which jutted bull's horns highly polished. From the mailed shoulders fell the scarlet cloak, blowing in the sea-wind. A broad shagreen belt with a golden buckle held the scabbard of the broadsword he bore. Under the horned helmet a square-cut black mane contrasted with smoldering blue eyes."
    • The scarlet cloak mentioned here is somewhat of a point of contention for Conan scholars since he wears a scarlet cloak four times: in "Black Colossus," "The Snout in the Dark," "Queen of the Black Coast," and the Yaralet fragment. Is it the same cloak? I'm inclined to say no.
  • Conan is explicitly said to be "young in years," but seems to be well-traveled. Conan's clothing matches some of the places he's probably been so far: "Young in years, he was hardened in warfare and wandering, and his sojourns in many lands were evident in his apparel. His horned helmet was such as was worn by the golden-haired Aesir of Nordheim; his hauberk and greaves were of the finest workmanship of Koth; the fine ring-mail which sheathed his arms and legs was of Nemedia; the blade at his girdle was a great Aquilonian broadsword; and his gorgeous scarlet cloak could have been spun nowhere but in Ophir."
    • His horned helmet from Nordheim may have been acquired around the events of "The Frost-Giant's Daughter," if we allow ourselves to look quite a bit ahead in the publication order.
    • His hauberk and greaves are from Koth, which Conan visits in several stories, possibly placing this one after "Xuthal of the Dusk."
    • His ring-mail is from Nemedia, which he visits in "Rogues in the House."
    • His blade is Aquilonian, which he hasn't been to yet in publication order, but is right near Argos on the Hyborian Age map.
    • The cloak is from Ophir, which Conan has not explicitly visited yet.
  • Conan says that he has spent "considerable time" among civilized people: "By Crom, though I've spent considerable time among you civilized peoples, your ways are still beyond my comprehension." How much is considerable time? I'm not sure... a few years?
  • Conan says that he learned archery from the Hyrkanians, placing his Turanian mercenary period (Turanians are ethnically Hyrkanians) prior to "Queen of the Black Coast:" "It's not my idea of a manly weapon, but I learned archery among the Hyrkanians, and it will go hard if I can't feather a man or so on yonder deck."
  • Conan has familiarity with many gods, specifically Bel, which he clearly states he learned of during his thieving days in Zamora. "Some gods are strong to harm, others, to aid; at least so say their priests. Mitra of the Hyborians must be a strong god, because his people have builded their cities over the world. But even the Hyborians fear Set. And Bel, god of thieves, is a good god. When I was a thief in Zamora I learned of him."
  • Conan seems to know Nemedia and Nordheim intimately, which is further evidence that "Rogues in the House" and "The Frost-Giant's Daughter" should take place before this story: "I have known many gods. He who denies them is as blind as he who trusts them too deeply. I seek not beyond death. It may be the blackness averred by the Nemedian skeptics, or Crom's realm of ice and cloud, or the snowy plains and vaulted halls of the Nordheimer's Valhalla."
  • Conan recognizes the black lotus, but only as Taurus of Nemedia used it in "The Tower of the Elephant." This places "Xuthal of the Dusk" likely later: "He recoiled, recognizing the black lotus, whose juice was death, and whose scent brought dream-haunted slumber."
  • This final chronological note is not about "Queen of the Black Coast's" relation to other stories, but to itself. How much time passes between chapters one and two? Chapter two includes this passage: "Conan agreed. He generally agreed to her plans. Hers was the mind that directed their raids, his the arm that carried out her ideas. It mattered little to him where they sailed or whom they fought, so long as they sailed and fought. He found the life good." This implies that Conan and Bêlit have settled into a relationship and a rapport. She is the mastermind, he is the muscle. Since this states that they have apparently conducted multiple raids, sailed multiple places, and fought multiple people, how much time has Conan been first mate aboard the Tigress? A few weeks? A few months? If Conan has settled into pirate life, I'd guess their sojourn lasts a few months.
So what do we know for sure?
  • This story must take place after his thieving days. The places it firmly after "Rogues" and "Tower."
  • This story takes place after he is a mercenary for Turan, where he learned archery.
What events are probable, but not 100% clear?
  • Conan has been to Nordheim and Nemedia.
  • Conan doesn't seem to have ever been a pirate before.
  • Conan probably hasn't come across the "Xuthal" version of the black lotus.
What is possible?
  • Conan has been to Aquilonia, to get his sword.
  • Conan has been to Koth, to get his armor.
  • Conan has been to Ophir, to get his cloak.
Here's the thing: I don't think we should give that much weight to his clothing. Argos is a city that is usually portrayed as a hub of commerce. The mercenary bands which Conan has been with are universally described as extremely diverse, motley crews. I find it far more likely that he's simply bought these clothes or picked items off dead bodies on the battlefield. In later stories, he's frequently clad in just a loincloth, which means that he's probably rapidly gaining and losing articles of clothing anyway. 

Therefore, we should focus on Conan's characterization and other clues. He's after his thieving days, during his mercenary days, but probably before "Xuthal of the Dusk." Additionally, if we look back to "Iron Shadows in the Moon," Conan smiles enigmatically about pirates and makes a crack at the end by calling Olivia "the Queen of the Blue Sea," which might be a reference to his time with Bêlit. So this story is probably set before "Iron Shadows" as well.

All of the above would place "Queen of the Black Coast" early, but not first. Here is the updated timeline:

1. The Tower of the Elephant
2. Rogues in the House
3. Queen of the Black Coast
4. Xuthal of the Dusk
5. Iron Shadows in the Moon
6. Black Colossus
7. The Pool of the Black One
8.  The Phoenix on the Sword
9. The Scarlet Citadel

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Chronologically Speaking, Part Seven: "Iron Shadows in the Moon"

11/22/2025

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Chronologically Speaking is a series focused solely on chronologizing the Conan of Cimmeria stories. It's an analysis of only the text of Robert E. Howard's original Conan tales. I'm examining the stories one at a time, in publication order, to show explicit chronological notes to order the stories.
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"Iron Shadows in the Moon" was published as "Shadows in the Moonlight" in Weird Tales' April 1934 issue. Published three months after "Rogues in the House" and just one month prior to "Queen of the Black Coast," I'm realizing the Robert E. Howard was in a bit of a pirate phase. "Pool of the Black One," "Iron Shadows," and "Black Coast" are all samplings of Conan's different pirate periods (Barachan, Red Brotherhood, and Black Coast, presented ironically in reverse-chronological order), and I've never realized they were all published pretty close to one another.

This is far from my favorite Conan story, but it's pretty brief and has some interesting chronological clues in it which are more fun to deal with than the times he straight-up says he's been somewhere or done something.

​It's actually really fun to try to place!
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  • Conan has recently been with the kozaks, or kozaki, the loose mercenary group. "'I am Conan, of Cimmeria," he grunted. 'I was with the kozaki, as the Hyrkanian dogs called us.'"
    • This is the first time the kozaks have been mentioned in the eight stories we've read for this project. 
    • Conan is pretty much done in his travels with the kozaki because every time he mentions them, he does so in past tense. For example, "I was one of those dissolute rogues, the Free Companions, who burned and looted along the borders. There were five thousand of us, from a score of races and tribes." It sounds like all the rest of them were killed in battle.
    • Conan refers to the group as the "Free Companions," not as the kozaki. He seems to bristle at the term kozaki.
    • As a Free Companion / kozak, Conan was employed by a "rebel prince of Koth." Although this story is obviously set before his kingship, it's worth noting that it's also obviously set before "The Scarlet Citadel," since Koth is his enemy in that story. His time with the Free Companions took him to Koth, Zamora, and Turan. "We had been serving as mercenaries for a rebel prince in eastern Koth, most of us, and when he made peace with his cursed sovereign, we were out of employment; so we took to plundering the outlying dominions of Koth, Zamora and Turan impartially."
  • Conan is once again clad extremely simply. His clothing can sometimes be used as a marker for time if he's acquired weapons or cultural garb in his travels, but it's not really helpful here. He's wearing just a loincloth and also looks like shit as he's been hiding in a swamp. "He was powerfully built, naked but for a girdled loin-cloth, which was stained with blood and crusted with dried mire. His black mane was matted with mud and clotted blood; there were streaks of dried blood on his chest and limbs, dried blood on the long straight sword he gripped in his right hand. From under the tangle of his locks, bloodshot eyes glared like coals of blue fire."
  • Interestingly, Conan says that he hasn't really interacted with the people of Turan, which kind of contradicts his previous statement about plundering the empire: "I haven't done with them ("the people of Turan") yet. Be at ease, girl."
  • Howard sort of previews "Queen of the Black Coast" in an interesting throwaway line. Olivia expresses fear about pirates, and Conan grins "enigmatically:" "'Storms are rare on Vilayet at this time of year. If we make the steppes, we shall not starve. I was reared in a naked land. It was those cursed marshes, with their stench and stinging flies, that nigh unmanned me. I am at home in the high lands. As for pirates—' He grinned enigmatically, and bent to the oars." 
    • If we look ahead a little bit, this places "Iron Shadows in the Moon" firmly after "Queen of the Black Coast" and before "The Pool of the Black One." Conan is clearly older, more intelligent, more mature, and more controlled in "Pool," and has clearly had experience with pirates prior to this one, so "Black Coast" has to come first.
  • Conan ends the story setting sail with the Red Brotherhood, having become their captain through trial by combat. While doing this, he makes a sly reference to the next story, telling Olivia, "I'll make you Queen of the Blue Sea! Cast off there, dogs! We'll scorch King Yildiz's pantaloons yet, by Crom!"
Revisiting this story has helped me appreciate it a little more in terms of how it calls forward (though, chronologically, back) to "Queen of the Black Coast" in a few interesting ways. 

Since he starts the story as the seeming last surviving Free Companion and ends the story with the pirates, this is functionally a bridge between his kozaki period and his Red Brotherhood pirate period.

Here's one thing that I think is key to this story's chronological placement: Conan seems to be describing similar events in both a passage from "Xuthal of the Dusk" and "Iron Shadows:"
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If Conan is describing the same rebel prince of Koth and same mercenary bands, which I think he probably is, the Free Companions went south through Shem to outlands of Stygia, then through Kush. From there, they became independent of Almuric's command and apparently went back up through Koth, Zamora, and then to Turan where "Iron Shadows in the Moon" picks up. You'll have to tell me in the comments if you think this makes sense. The thing is, if I do actually look at other chronologies, pretty much everyone else has "Iron Shadows" come before "Xuthal," sometimes waaay before it, so I feel like I may be missing something.

I'm kind of starting to doubt myself with this story... did I miss any other connections?

​Without this connection to "Xuthal of the Dusk," "Iron Shadows" could land pretty much anywhere between "Rogues in the House" and "The Pool of the Black One."

This brings our chronology to its current state:

1. The Tower of the Elephant
2. Rogues in the House
3. Xuthal of the Dusk
4. Iron Shadows in the Moon
5. Black Colossus
6. The Pool of the Black One
7. The Phoenix on the Sword
8. The Scarlet Citadel

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Chronologically Speaking, Part Six: "Rogues in the House"

10/27/2025

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Chronologically Speaking is a series focused solely on chronologizing the Conan of Cimmeria stories. It's an analysis of only the text of Robert E. Howard's original Conan tales. I'm examining the stories one at a time, in publication order, to show explicit chronological notes to order the stories.
"Rogues in the House" was first published in the January 1934 issue of Weird Tales, about three months after readers had been treated to their previous Conan story, "The Pool of the Black One." The story appeared seventh in the mag and didn't make the cover, suggesting perhaps a lack of confidence in this entry in the Conan saga. If that's what they felt, it was certainly misguided, as "Rogues" is a through-and-through banger.
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  • Conan is thieving, suggesting an early placement alongside "The Tower of the Elephant:" "...because the district on which he bordered was the Maze, a tangle of muddy, winding alleys and sordid dens, frequented by the bolder thieves in the kingdom. Daring above all were a Gunderman deserter from the mercenaries and a barbaric Cimmerian." Many people have in the intervening years questioned whether this is the same Gunderman referred to in the Nestor synopsis that would be turned into "The Hall of the Dead" by L. Sprague de Camp.
  • Conan seems to have improved in his stealth and thieving skills: "But the Cimmerian fled, and learning in devious ways of the priest's treachery, he entered the temple of Anu by night and cut off the priest's head. There followed a great turmoil in the city, but the search for the killer proved fruitless until a woman betrayed him to the authorities."
  • Conan is described as having zero respect for authority that is "instilled" in a person by civilization, which could be suggestive of its earlier placement in the timeline, or could just describe Conan's innate barbarism: "He had none of the fear or reverence for authority that civilization instills in men. King or beggar, it was all one to him."
  • Conan's clothing is simple and threadbare: "He discarded his ragged tunic and moved off through the night naked but for a loincloth." Though Conan also wore a loincloth in "Xuthal of the Dusk," there he had acquired a set of weapons and a large gold-buckled belt. Conan's clothing is more similar to his starter kit in "The Tower of the Elephant."
  • There's a suggestion of Conan being an ignorant, possibly foolish barbarian when Nabonidus reveals his complex mirror system. Conan growls at Thak, threatening him in Cimmerian, like an animal: "Murilo felt his blood freeze again as he looked at the horror which seemed to be staring directly into his eyes. Involuntarily he recoiled from the mirror, while Conan thrust his head truculently forward, till his jaws almost touched the surface, growling some threat or defiance in his own barbaric tongue” and "'Surely he sees us,' muttered Conan. 'Why does he not charge us? He could break this window with ease.'" It makes Conan look like a simpleton.
    • Other lines suggest Conan being a provincial idiot too: "Murilo realized that the priest must be centuries ahead of his generation, to perfect such an invention; but Conan put it down to witchcraft and troubled his head no more about it."
  • Lotus powder is mentioned, this time the gray lotus from the "Swamps of the Dead, beyond the land of Khitai" (that sounds cool as shit; can we get a Conan story set there?), but Conan makes no mention of having come across lotus powder before and does not betray that he knows anything about the lotus, suggesting a placement prior to "Xuthal."
  • Conan's kill of Nabonidus echoes how he killed the spider in "The Tower of the Elephant," but with more confidence and grace. Muscle memory? "Too quickly for the sight to follow, Conan caught up a stool and hurled it."
  • Conan is ready to leave the kingdom for another at the end of the story, suggesting that the next chronological story will take place in a different land. "'I'm tired of this city anyway,' grinned the Cimmerian. 'You mentioned a horse waiting at the Rats' Den. I'm curious to see how fast that horse can carry me into another kingdom. There's many a highway I want to travel before I walk the road Nabonidus walked this night.'"
All of the above leads me to conclude that within our chronology so far, "Rogues" should be only the second in the timeline. I think the elements that put it after "The Tower of the Elephant" are a little weak, though. It's mostly my interpretation of how Conan's thieving and combat skills are described. There's nothing that's a smoking gun, so it could go first.

Here is the updated chronology.

1. The Tower of the Elephant
2. Rogues in the House
3. Xuthal of the Dusk
4. Black Colossus
5. The Pool of the Black One
6. The Phoenix on the Sword
7. The Scarlet Citadel

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    Hey, I'm Dan. This is my project reading through the career of everyone's favorite sword-and-sorcery character, Conan the Cimmerian, in chronological order.

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