dimandre
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A very ancient evil
There is no God, and Nyarlathotep is its prophet.
Silence in the library!
Grigory Efimovich, we miss you so much...
We miss you too.
Robert Howard, "The Children of the Earth"
I don't know if many people are aware that the two Howards – Lovecraft and the author of the long-suffering Conan – corresponded and referenced each other in some of their stories.
But here, the reference is not so much to Lovecraft as to his predecessor and idol, Arthur Machen (specifically, "The Black Seal").
The story (in Howard's "The Children of the Earth") is about a Pictish chieftain who seeks revenge on the Romans and turns to a people that the Picts themselves once drove from their lands, and then from the surface of the earth altogether.
It's a normal story, in general; in Russian folklore, this is called "the white-eyed people went underground."
But with Howard, this is not a metaphor for the genocide of indigenous peoples – they really went underground and became something completely different, something that even the Romans cannot withstand...
It's a good story, overall.
There is no God, and Nyarlathotep is its prophet.
Silence in the library!
Grigory Efimovich, we miss you so much...
We miss you too.
Robert Howard, "The Children of the Earth"
I don't know if many people are aware that the two Howards – Lovecraft and the author of the long-suffering Conan – corresponded and referenced each other in some of their stories.
But here, the reference is not so much to Lovecraft as to his predecessor and idol, Arthur Machen (specifically, "The Black Seal").
The story (in Howard's "The Children of the Earth") is about a Pictish chieftain who seeks revenge on the Romans and turns to a people that the Picts themselves once drove from their lands, and then from the surface of the earth altogether.
It's a normal story, in general; in Russian folklore, this is called "the white-eyed people went underground."
But with Howard, this is not a metaphor for the genocide of indigenous peoples – they really went underground and became something completely different, something that even the Romans cannot withstand...
It's a good story, overall.