Chronologically Speaking, Part Two: "The Tower of the Elephant"

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.

"The Tower of the Elephant" was the third Conan story published, appearing in the March 1933 issue of Weird Tales, which followed two months after "The Scarlet Citadel's" publication in January. According to biographers like Willard Oliver, it was not the third story written. By the time Howard banged out "The Tower of the Elephant," sitting at his computer late at night and reading his words aloud as he typed them, he had already written "The Phoenix on the Sword," "The Frost-Giant's Daughter," "The God in the Bowl," and his "The Hyborian Age" essay. Unfortunately, two of those would be rejected by Farnsworth Wright at Weird Tales and the essay wasn't intended for publication. 

Though Howard sent WT "The Tower of the Elephant" before "The Scarlet Citadel," it would ultimately be published third, netting Howard $95 and the votes from the readership as the best story of the issue. If you put a gun to my head and told me to pick a favorite Conan story, it would probably be this one.

Whereas the first two published stories are at the end of Conan's life during his kingship, "Tower" zooms way back to the start, when Conan is a penniless thief who's new to civilization. Most of the chronological clues happen at the very beginning of the story.

• Conan is described as a tall, "strongly made" youth in a cheap tunic: "He saw a tall, strongly made youth standing beside him. This person was as much out of place in that den as a gray wolf among mangy rats of the gutters. His cheap tunic could not conceal the hard, rangy lines of his powerful frame, the broad heavy shoulders, the massive chest, lean waist and heavy arms. His skin was brown from outland suns, his eyes blue and smoldering; a shock of tousled black hair crowned his broad forehead." He's clearly lived his whole life outside of civilization, like a wild predator compared to city bottom-feeders.
• His equipment is sub-par: "From his girdle hung a sword in a worn leather scabbard." Seeing as Conan is just a "youth," this scabbard is likely not of worn leather because Conan has used it so much, but because it's either a hand-me-down or something scavenged. He evidently hasn't had the time, money, or ability to replace it.
• Conan can speak the local Zamorian language, but he does so with the accent of a foreigner: "'You spoke of the Elephant Tower,' said the stranger, speaking Zamorian with an alien accent. 'I've heard much of this tower; what is its secret?'" He must have been in Zamora for enough time to pick up the language. Future Conan stories will imply that Conan has an innate gift for language.
• Conan is too much of an outsider to understand the social trappings of the tavern in the Maul, and becomes embarrassed about it: "The Cimmerian glared about, embarrassed at the roar of mocking laughter that greeted this remark. He saw no particular humor in it, and was too new to civilization to understand its discourtesies. Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing. He was bewildered and chagrined, and doubtless would have slunk away, abashed, but the Kothian chose to goad him further." Not only does this contain one of the most famous lines in the Conan canon (the head-splitting part) but it shows that Conan is really young and really green. He simply doesn't understand why he's being laughed at.
• The Black Lotus powder is mentioned for the first time: "'They died without a sound!' muttered the Cimmerian. 'Taurus, what was that powder?' 'It was made from the black lotus, whose blossoms wave in the lost jungles of Khitai, where only the yellow-skulled priests of Yun dwell. Those blossoms strike dead any who smell of them.'" For chronologizers like myself, the Black Lotus is a bit of a conundrum, as we'll get to in later entries. While he comes across it here, it's not entirely clear if he recognizes it in "Xuthal of the Dusk," where it is a central plot point. Perhaps it's because the lotus he encounters in "Xuthal" is a different, cultivated strain.
• Yag-Kosha hints at Conan's Atlantean ancestry: "I know your people from of old, whom I knew by another name in the long, long ago when another world lifted its jeweled spires to the stars." This is likely referring to the city of Valusia, where Kull was king in the pre-Cataclysmic Thurian Age. In Jim Zub's Conan the Barbarian run, an older Conan travels back to Valusia where he meets Yag-Kosha again.

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The updated chronology is as follows:

1. The Tower of the Elephant
2. The Phoenix on the Sword
​3. The Scarlet Citadel