Hyborian Age
The Hyborian Age is a fictional period of Earth's history within the artificial mythology created by Robert E. Howard, serving as the setting for the sword and sorcery tales of Conan the Barbarian.
The word "Hyborian" is derived from the legendary northern land of the ancient Greeks, Hyperborea, and is rendered as such in the earliest draft of Howard's essay "The Hyborian Age." Howard described the Hyborian Age taking place sometime after the sinking of Atlantis and before the beginning of recorded ancient history. Most later editors and adaptors such as L. Sprague de Camp and Roy Thomas placed the Hyborian Age around 10,000 BC. More recently, Dale Rippke proposed that the Hyborian Age should be placed further in the past, around 32,500 BC, prior to the beginning of the Last Glacial Maximum. Rippke's date, however, has since been disputed by Jeffrey Shanks, who argues for the more traditional placement at the end of the Last Glacial Maximum.
Howard had an intense love for history and historical dramas; however, at the same time, he recognized the difficulties and the time-consuming research needed in maintaining historical accuracy. By conceiving a timeless setting – a vanished age – and by carefully choosing names that resembled our history, Howard avoided the problem of historical anachronisms and the need for lengthy exposition.
Fictional history
Cataclysmic ancestors
Howard explained the origins and history of the Hyborian civilization in his essay "The Hyborian Age". The essay begins with the end of the Thurian Age and the destruction of its civilizations, Lemuria and Atlantis, by a geological.After this cataclysm, the surviving humans were reduced to a primitive state and a technological level hardly above the Neanderthal. Several such tribes migrated to the northern areas of what was left of the Thurian continent to escape destruction. They discovered the region to be safe, but covered with snow and already inhabited by a race of vicious white-furred apes. A vicious territorial war ensued until the humans drove the apes further North, past the Arctic Circle. Believing the apes were destined to perish, the humans turned to taming their harsh new home.
Hyborian ancestors
One thousand five hundred years later, the descendants of this initial group were called "Hyborians". They were named after their highest ranking god deity, Bori. The essay mentions that Bori had actually been a great tribal chief of their past who had undergone deification. Their oral tradition remembered him as their leader during their initial migration to the north, though the antiquity of this man had been exaggerated.By this point, the various related but independent Hyborian tribes had spread throughout the northern regions of their area of the world. Some of them were already migrating south at a "leisurely" pace in search of new areas in which to settle. The Hyborians had yet to encounter other cultural groups, but engaged in wars against each other. Howard describes them as a powerful and warlike race with the average individual being tall, tawny-haired, and gray-eyed. Culturally, they were accomplished artists and poets. Most of the tribes still relied on hunting for their nourishment. Their southern offshoots, however, had been practicing animal husbandry on cattle for centuries.
The only exception to their long isolation from other cultural groups came due to the actions of a lone adventurer, unnamed in the essay. He had traveled past the Arctic Circle and returned with news that their old adversaries, the apes, were never annihilated. They had instead evolved into apemen and, according to his description, were by then numerous. He believed they were quickly evolving to human status and would pose a threat to the Hyborians in the future. He attempted to recruit a significant military force to campaign against them, but most Hyborians were not convinced by his tales; only a small group of foolhardy youths followed his campaign. None of them returned.
Beginnings of the Hyborian Age
With the population of the Hyborian tribes continuing to increase, the need for new lands also increased. The Hyborians expanded outside their familiar territories, beginning a new age of wanderings and conquests. For 500 years, the Hyborians spread towards the south and the west of their nameless continent.They encountered other tribal groups for the first time in millennia. They conquered many smaller clans of various origins. The survivors of the defeated clans merged with their conquerors, passing on their racial traits to new generations of Hyborians. The mixed-blooded Hyborian tribes were in turn forced to defend their new territories from pure-blooded Hyborian tribes which followed the same paths of migration. Often, the new invaders would wipe away the defenders before absorbing them, resulting in a tangled web of Hyborian tribes and nations with varying ancestral elements within their bloodlines.
The first organized Hyborian kingdom to emerge was Hyperborea. The tribe that established it entered their Neolithic age by learning to erect buildings in stone, largely for fortification. These nomads lived in tents made out of the hides of horses, but soon abandoned them in favor of their crude but durable stone houses. They permanently settled in fortified settlements and developed cyclopean masonry to further fortify their defensive walls.
The Hyperboreans were by then the most advanced of the Hyborian tribes and set out to expand their kingdom by attacking their backwards neighbors. Tribes who defended their territories lost them and were forced to migrate elsewhere. Others fled the path of Hyperborean expansion before ever engaging them in war. Meanwhile, the apemen of the Arctic Circle emerged as a new race of light-haired and tall humans. They started their own migration to the south, displacing the northernmost of the Hyborian tribes.
Rulers of the West
For the next thousand years, the warlike Hyborian nations advanced to become the rulers of the western areas of the nameless continent. They encountered the Picts and forced them to limit themselves to the western wastelands, which would come to be known as the "Pictish Wilderness". Following the example of their Hyperborean cousins, other Hyborians started to settle down and create their own kingdoms.The southernmost of the early kingdoms was Koth, which was established north of the lands of Shem and soon started extending its cultural influence over the southern shepherds. Just south of the Pictish Wilderness was the fertile valley known as "Zing". The wandering Hyborian tribe which conquered them found other people already settled there. They included a nameless farming nation related to the people of the Shem and a warlike Pictish tribe who had previously conquered them. They established the kingdom of Zingara and absorbed the defeated elements into their tribe. Hyborians, Picts, and the unnamed kin of the Shemites would merge into a nation calling themselves Zingarans.
On the other hand, at the north of the continent, the fair-haired invaders from the Arctic Circle had grown in numbers and power. They continued their expansion south while in turn displacing defeated Hyborians to the south. Even Hyperborea was conquered by one of these barbarian tribes. But the conquerors here decided to maintain the kingdom with its old name, merged with the defeated Hyperboreans and adopted elements of Hyborian culture. The continuing wars and migrations would keep the state of the other areas of the continent for another five hundred years.
The world
The Hyborian Age was devised by author Robert E. Howard as the post-Atlantean setting of his Conan the Cimmerian stories, designed to fit in with Howard's previous and lesser known tales of Kull, which were set in the Thurian Age at the time of Atlantis. The name "Hyborian" is a contraction of the Greek concept of the land of "Hyperborea", literally "Beyond the North Wind". This was a mythical place far to the north that was not cold and where things did not age.Howard's Hyborian epoch, described in his essay The Hyborian Age, is a mythical time before any civilization known to anthropologists. Its setting is prehistoric Europe and North Africa.
On a map Howard drew conceptualizing the Hyborian Age, his vision of the Mediterranean Sea is dry. The Nile, which he renamed the River Styx, takes a westward turn at right angles just beyond the Nile Delta, plowing through the mountains so as to be able to reach the Straits of Gibraltar. Although his Black Sea is also dry, his Caspian Sea, which he renames the Vilayet Sea, extends northward to reach the Arctic Ocean, so as to provide a barrier to encapsulate the settings of his stories. Not only are his Baltic Sea and English Channel dry, but most of the North Sea and a vast region to the west, easily including Ireland, are, too. Meanwhile, the west coast of Africa on his map lies beneath the sea.
Nations and landmarks
In his fantasy setting of the Hyborian Age, Howard created imaginary kingdoms to which he gave names inspired by or adapted from a variety of mythological and historical sources. Khitai is his version of China, lying far to the east, Corinthia is his name for a Hellenistic civilization, a name derived from the city of Corinth and reminiscent of the imperial fief of Carinthia in the Middle Ages. Howard imagines the Hyborian Picts occupying a large area in the northwest. The probable intended analogues are listed below; notice that the analogues are sometimes very generalized, and are portrayed by non-historical stereotypes. Most of these correspondences are drawn from "Hyborian Names", an appendix featured in Conan the Swordsman by L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter.Deities
Crom
Crom is a deity in Robert E. Howard's fantasy tales of the Hyborian Age. He is ackowledged as the chief god by the lead character Conan, and his proto-Celtic Cimmerian people.The name Crom is probably derived from the ancient Celtic deity Crom Cruach or Crom Dubh.
Nature of Crom
Crom is the chief god of the Cimmerian pantheon, and he lives on a great mountain, from where he sends forth doom or death. It's useless to call upon Crom, because he is a gloomy and savage god who despises the weak. However, Crom gives a man courage, free-will, and the strength to kill their enemies at birth. Crom doesn't care if individuals live or die, and he despises weakness, therefore the name of Crom is typically only invoked during an oath or curse. He is the only member of the Cimmerian pantheon named with any regularity.The Stygian followers of Set worship their deity with human sacrifice and actively venerate serpents, while Ishtar's worshippers follow the pleasures of the flesh. In Vendhya, the followers of Asura seek truth beyond the illusions of the physical world, and the Hyborian devotees of Mitra are almost Christian in their merging of asceticism with a commitment to compassion and justice. By contrast, Conan remarks in conversation that it is best to avoid doing anything that would draw Crom's attention, as the god brings down only trouble and doom. As a result, he is not so much worshipped in Howard's works as invoked in curses and expletives, or when trying to gather one's courage.
Crom is never depicted as directly intervening or otherwise explicitly causing any event to occur in the original Conan stories by Robert E. Howard. There is little consistent evidence in his works that Crom actually exists; the existence of demons and highly advanced aliens is confirmed, while the story "The Phoenix on the Sword" implies that Set is one of H. P. Lovecraft's Great Old Ones. Howard's story "Black Colossus" features a princess vocally directed by Mitra to transform Conan into her champion, yet Crom makes no such appearances.
Using Crom's name as an expletive immediately identifies Conan as being a Cimmerian. Crom is specifically and uniquely considered a Cimmerian god, with other civilizations paying him little attention.
In other works
In Conan stories by authors other than Howard, there is some evidence that Crom definitely exists. For example, in The Return of Conan, Crom intervenes directly to save Conan from death and eternal damnation - evidently, because in that story Conan takes a quest around the world, braving countless dangers and doing all that a human could possibly do by human means, and it would have been unfair for him to succumb to magic which he was not equipped to counter.Conan also mentions the Celtic deity, Manannán mac Lir, in Conan the Valorous by John Maddox Roberts. In this story, Crom is worshipped in, and reportedly lives in, a great cave in the east face of the mountain called Ben Morgh in Cimmeria where he is seated on a throne overlooking the Cimmerian burial grounds known as the Field of the Dead.
In other media
Crom is briefly mentioned in Conan the Barbarian, a 1982 film directed by John Milius, co-written by Oliver Stone, and loosely based on Robert E. Howard's works. The film's Crom is similar to the god described in Howard's works, although elements of Norse mythology, in particular the mythos of Odin, are introduced. During a theological discussion, Conan says that when he dies, he will go in front of Crom, who will ask of him the Riddle of Steel, and if he does not know the answer, Crom will cast him away from Valhalla and laugh at him.Conan is shown having a strained, distant relationship with Crom. The only time he sincerely prays in the film is when he faces the men who killed his people, his family, and his lover, Valeria. His prayer is as follows:
"Crom, I have never prayed to you before. I have no tongue for it. No one, not even you will remember if we were good men or bad, why we fought, or why we died. No, all that matters is that two stood against many, that's what's important. Valor pleases you, Crom, so grant me one request, grant me revenge! And if you do not listen, then to hell with you!"
In the 1984 sequel Conan the Destroyer, Conan, having avenged Valeria's death, appears to have reconciled with his god. At one point, Conan is seen praying to Crom for the return of Valeria; he tells one character that "She sits by the side of my god." He also uses "Crom" as an expletive or expression of surprise at numerous points in the film.
Crom is also mentioned in Conan the Adventurer animated series, though there he is referred to as a "guardian spirit." In the animated series, Crom is also mostly portrayed as he is in Howard's stories, a distant deity that Conan invokes in exclamations but not in formal worship. Not irreligious, though, Conan is shown to make solemn vows in the name of his god.
In the 1997 live action television series Conan the Adventurer starring Ralph Moeller, Crom is shown as being real and active in mortal affairs having directed Conan to the location of an Atlantian sword wielded by him for the run of the series.
In the 2011 film, Conan The Barbarian, Crom is mentioned but only in passing and in expletives.
Crom is also referenced in passing in Earnest Cline's 2011 Sci-Fi novel "Ready Player One". The main character says "Thanks be to Crom" at the beginning of chapter 0027.
In Marvel Comics' What If? #39 "What If... Thor Battled Conan?" Thor travels to the Hyborian past and, suffering from amnesia, climbs the mountain of Crom to seek answers from the god. Later, at his death, Thor passes Mjolnir to Conan. At the end, Conan then climbs up the mountain of Crom as well. His fate is left untold.
Mitra
Mitra is a deity from the fictional Hyborian Age created by Robert E. Howard in his Conan series of stories. Mitra is a personification of good popular amongst people of the era.He is probably loosely based on the Vedic and Zoroastrian figure by the same name, and in the Hyborian universe, his worship generally represents Christianity. In the essay "The Hyborian Age", Howard notes that followers of Mitra are urged to forgive their enemies. Mitra's religion is missionary; its adherents sometimes lose their lives trying to spread their faith to hostile peoples.
The god's worship is strong and dominant, effectively the state religion, in the Hyborian countries corresponding to modern Western Europe. In other parts of the world, corresponding to Asia and Africa, Mitra is, at best, one god among many, while in Stygia, worship of Mitra is altogether banned.
Mitra is the chief god of most of the civilized Hyborian kingdoms, including Aquilonia, Ophir, Nemedia, Brythunia, Corinthia, and Zingara. His worshippers are monolatristic, since at least one tale depicts priests of Mitra recognizing the existence of another deity. He is depicted as a "gentle" god. In Khoraja, which is on the border between the Hyborian kingdoms and the Semite ones, the worship of Mitra was largely forgotten in favor of the Semite gods – but in hours of great need, Khorajans still call on Mitra and are answered.
While Mitra and his followers are in general presented favorably in the Conan stories, in Howard's The Hour of the Dragon they show prejudice and persecution those of Asura. Conan, being a "barrbarian", does not share this "civilized" prejudice and protects the Asura followers, who prove benefit in his hour of need.
The Mitran cult never practice sacrifice and values aesthetic simplicity. Thus, his shrines are usually unadorned and feature little or no iconography except for a single idol. The idol itself has the appearance of an idealized, bearded male figure and is the primary direction of Mitran worship. However, being omnipresent and incorporeal, Mitra is not considered to reside in the icon, nor share its appearance. He is also symbolically represented by a phoenix in Howard's writing, by an Ankh in the Age of Conan MMORPG, and by a bronze colossus in the survival video game Conan Exiles.
Mitra appears directly in Howard's "Black Colossus", where he speaks to Princess Yasmela of Khoraja and helps her in an hour of desperate need. Mitra's involvement has a significant effect on Conan's career. Due to the god's involvement, Conan – who hitherto had never commanded more than a "company of cut-throats" – gets the chance to become a general and emerge victorious from a major battle involving tens of thousands of soldiers and affecting the future of the whole world. Though Conan's career would know many more ups and downs, this was an important step towards him eventually becoming a king – for which he could thank Mitra. From Mitra's point of view, the god evidently considered Conan as the fighter best fitted to fight and defeat a sworn enemy of the Hyborian kingdoms, who had an ancient grudge against Hyborians and who intended to lead his armies to conquer and devastate the Hyborian kingdoms, the center of Mitra worship.
Mitra is also mentioned by the pirate Valeria in Howard's story "Red Nails".