Christian symbolism in Robert E. Howard’s first “Conan the Barbarian” tale

https://anchor.fm/voyagepodcast/episodes/The-Voyage-Blog-cast-Christian-symbolism-in-Robert-E–Howards-first-Conan-the-Barbarian-tale-e2b52m5

Like J.R.R. Tolkien, Robert E. Howard was among a handful of twentieth century writers whose work redefined fantasy. In particular, Howard is often credited as the father of the “sword and sorcery” sub-genre. Indeed, his Conan tales remain the standard by which all subsequent sword and sorcery stories are judged. After creating Conan, Howard attained some measure of success before his tragic suicide at age thirty.

Howard’s first published Conan story was “The Phoenix on the Sword,” which appeared in the magazine Weird Tales in December 1932. A blend of brutal action and supernatural horror that would become Howard’s trademark, “The Phoenix on the Sword” is notable for its use of evocative imagery with surprising connections to Judeo-Christian symbolism.

The Phoenix on the Sword

Like all Conan tales, “The Phoenix on the Sword” takes place in the legendary past of our own world after the fall of the mythical island empire of Atlantis, a time that Howard called the “Hyborian Age.” In the mighty city of Aquilonia, Conan the Cimmerian reigns as king after deposing his tyrannical predecessor. But all is not well in the land. Unrest and dissatisfaction are growing against Conan, despised by many as a barbarian outlander. This disorder is fomented by a cabal including several prominent citizens, while the outlaw Ascalante pulls the strings in the shadows.

Ascalante has a foreign slave, a sorcerer named Thoth-amon from the desert land of Stygia. Thoth-amon is a follower of the evil serpent god Set and has his own agenda of revenge apart from Ascalante’s schemes for mere political power. Upon recovering the Serpent Ring of Set, the sorcerer uses its dark magic to summon a demon to slay Ascalante and all with him.

While Howard clearly named the demon Set after the ancient Egyptian god of chaos and disorder, the evil being was also undoubtably inspired by the Serpent of the biblical Book of Genesis, long identified with Satan, a fallen angel and king of demons. The Serpent is the enemy of mankind who introduced sin and evil into the world by convincing the first humans to disobey God’s command and eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil (cf. Genesis 3)

As Ascalante, unaware of Thoth-amon’s treachery, sets his coup plans in motion, King Conan sleeps and finds himself in a dream making his way down a dark underground passage. As Conan descends a stone stairway, he notices that “the steps were carven each with the abhorrent figure of the Old Serpent, Set, so that each step he planted his heel on the head of the Snake, as it was intended from old times.” (The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian, p. 17) The hero stepping on the head of the snake is an unmistakable reference to the Genesis account, in which God condemns the serpent, saying “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” (Genesis 3:15) Christian Scripture commentators have always held that this passage refers to the victory of Jesus Christ, true God and true Man, over Satan and the powers of evil.

Conan enters a crypt and is met by the shade of an ancient sage named Epemetrius. The ghostly figure warns Conan of the threat to his life and the dark sorcery of Thoth-amon. The sage also proclaims his purpose to Conan: “Ages ago Set coiled about the world like a python about its prey. All my life, which was as the lives of three common men, I fought him. I drove him into the shadows of the mysterious south, but in dark Stygia men still worship him who to us is the arch-demon. As I fought Set, I fight his worshippers and his votaries and his acolytes.” (The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian, p. 18) Epemetrius then traces a glowing symbol upon Conan’s sword, after which the barbarian king awakes to find himself still gripping his weapon. “On the broad blade was carven a symbol – the outline of a phoenix. And he remembered that on the tomb in the crypt he had seen what he had thought to be a similar figure, carven of stone. Now he wondered if it had been but a stone figure, and his skin crawled at the strangeness of it all.” (ibid. p. 19)

In real world mythology, the Phoenix was a bird that dies in flames but is reborn from its own ashes. But as Voyage Comics founder Philip Kosloski has written previously on this blog, the Phoenix was an important image for early Christians, a symbol of their belief in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

Conan awakes from his prophetic dream just in time to fight off Ascalante and his coconspirators, who have snuck into the royal palace to murder him. But in the middle of the brawl the demon sent by Thoth-amon appears and wreaks the Stygian slave’s lethal vengeance upon Ascalante. The vile monstrosity then pounces at Conan and nearly kills him too, but in a final desperate effort the Cimmerian stabs the demon with a shard of his broken sword, the same sword that Epemetrius had marked with the sigil of the phoenix. The creature writhes in agony and disintegrates into the floor.

It seems to me that in “The Phoenix on the Sword” Robert E. Howard deliberately drew on and referenced Christian imagery and symbolism. That the sign of the phoenix, a symbol of Christian resurrection, is the mark of a power deadly to the demonic minions of the Serpent seems to me more than just creative coincidence.