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

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.

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.

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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