Fair enough, I can’t demonstrate that the Hitler vs. Lovecraft quotes were from any of his stories. I’ll look for that quote when I get a chance.
I’ll bet the racism in Conan you are referring to was in his description of the Picts, savages living not too far from Aquilonia (close enough to have border skirmishes. There was a historical people called the Picts, they were from Scotland and Ireland and were not black, but they were definitely Iron Age savages. Conan’s Picts lived in the jungle and were black or at least very dark, and were described as fierce, awful, nasty, icky people who totally lacked redeeming values. I’ll bet that’s where you got your racism. The black people of Schendi were described as civilized, and also fierce, proud fighters. They were roughly equivalent to other nations not composed mostly of black people. So Howard made a clear distinction between two groups of black people here. I’m not sure the Picts were meant to be a statement about black people generally, but were a convenient set of generic bad guys Conan could fight.
I don’t recall that’n… I do recall his rather sympathetic observation of the poor fallen Southron, and Tolkien’s apology for him, noting that he was just following the commands of his chieftains, who were beguiled by Sauron. Yes, Tolkien called attention to their red tongues in black faces, but, well, hey, Flip Wilson made jokes about that on old Laugh In. (“It was a dark night, and I didn’t smile.”) Troll like? Um…
“Easterlings with axes, and Variags of Khand, Southrons in scarlet, and out of Far Harad black men like half-trolls with white eyes and red tongues.”
It refers to a group of people coming out of Far Harad who fought at the Battle of Pelennor Fields. I think the phrasing may have been inspired by references to “blue men” as trolls in the sagas, which I mentioned in the OP. As I said, “troll” in the mytholigical sense was a common medieval Scandinavian insult.
Okay, I was able to “unparse” the link to determine that you’re directing us to the section titled “Loire and the Seine”. JFTR, though, on my cell phone, I still just get shunted to the main article, where i’m offered the opportunity to open the individual sections.
That said, interesting fellow, that Hastein. Had a hard time holding territory, though, didn’t he?
I corrected the link— look at “Spain and the Mediterranean”. I had a mix-up and accidentally looked at the section after “Spain and the Mediterranean.” That’s got the information I brought up.
You need to take a look at those Picts again – Howard identified with them, and thought they were the interesting guys. His hero Bran Mak Morn is a Pict, as is one of Kull’s friends (Howard’s Picts go back to the time of Atlantis, which Kull was king of).
He writes somewhere about looking at a map of the Roman Empire, and seeing a section maked “Picts” up in the British Isles and wondering what they must be like, and what it would be like to fight against the Romans.
Read his story Worms of thec Earth sometime – the Romans are clearly the Bad Guys, and Bram Mak Morn, King of the Picts, is the hero:
While we’re on the topic of anti-Black racism in fantasy, take a look at this:
From a Wikipedia article about the Danish viking Hastein’s raid
The fantasy story mentioned in the OP has a pseudo-medieval (with elements of Victorian) Scandinavian setting and a young Black protagonist who was born into slavery.
The “blamenn” were often associated with the supernatural:
Quote from this paper by the same author as * Snorri and the Jews * (Richard Cole):
Bjarki is a blámaðr who was born in Isaholmi (Iceland) and has magical powers, like the Norse blámaðr figures. Often the blámaðr is also associated with berserkers who are also the Other with scary powers; they can shapeshift and are likely to turn on their friends in the heat of battle and berserkergang is unpredictable so there’s this attitude that “they’re good fighters but you can’t trust them.” The saga hero sometimes has a relative or friend who’s a berserker or becomes an outlaw, making him an outsider. The Black man is never the hero of the sagas. Often he doesn’t even have a name or a personality; he’s just there to be scary and evil. Basically I’m trying to play around with these old racist images and stereotypes; some of which would be unrecognisable to 21st century people who don’t have a keen interest in the Middle Ages. (How many people, even in Norway, Sweden and Finland actually believe the Sami all practice magic in the 21st century?) Also I’m a non-White person myself and I like medieval European fantasy, so I feel like I want to create more non-White characters to make it less like “blindingly copying JRRT” and increase representation of non-White characters in fantasy (subject for another thread?).
Plus this setting is part of a whole “dungeonpunk Earth” setting I’m thinking up so I will eventually write about settings other than Northern Europe.
To return to the subject of the Picts:
I’ve never read Howard, but did he have a specific reason for calling them “the Picts?”
As I said – he read about the Picts in the British Isles, the ones who weren’t subdued by the Brits, and was fascinated by them. In large part, I think, because so little was known about them. But he apparently liked the way they didn’t knuckle under to the Romans. I strongly suspect his Cimmerians (including Conan) overran the Aquilonian fort at Venarium (his first recorded exploit) was inspired by raids by the Picts and Scots against the Romans at places like Hadrian’s Wall. But the Scots are a well-known modern people. the Picts were more mysterious.
My old Dell copy of Bran Mac Morn doesn’t have all the details, but the more recent Bran Mac Morn: The Last King has everything Howard wrote about that character* and several essays on Howard and the Picts as well:
But not everything he wrote about the Picts, who show up in both his King Kull and his Conan stories, as well. The Picts do, indeed, harry the civilized world in the Conan stories, but that doesn’t make them some sort of Inferior Race. after all, Conan’s Cimmerians* do, as well.
**It’s been suggested that, although the name “CImmerian” historically applies to Eastern European groups, Howard might have been seeing it as a classical corruption of Cymry, the Welsh, and this making his Hyborian Age Cimmerians another proto-British Isle. type, like the Picts.
What are your thoughts on the rest of my post? BTW, at least one of those stereotypes (the Sami one) lasted until the late 20th century. The Snow Queen has two Sami characters who are witches.
Is it necessarily racist to use old stereotypes as a basis for characterisation as JRRT and Howard did? (Not comparing myself to JRRT here). “Blamenn” is a very old term in Iceland and I’m not talking about the sort of things modern-day racists believe but beliefs that died out long before scientific racism existed.
Hmm. I haven’t got time to give this the thought and attention I should right now. If I can, I’ll answer later tonight. Undoubtedly someone will chime in before then.
Also interesting (perhaps) is that, in tone, the Conan stories regarding the Picts – Beyond the Black River and Wolves Beyond the Border – were his efforts at doing (and out-doing) Fennimore Cooper. He was playing American Indians and Frontiersmen, with all of Cooper’s twig-snapping panache. The Picts were his stand-ins for a different type of “noble savages” entirely.
In some stories, that probably is what he means. But he uses the term degenerate in other places simply to describe back-woods types who are uneducated and uncivilized.
Of course, if it is referring the half-breed descendents of fish months, I think that’s only racist against fish monsters.
But I do see the cited poem someone provided, so it sounds like HPL was definitely racist during at least some parts of his life.
I read on another forum that apparently HPL and REH were close – and that REH thought HPL was OTT in his racism.
Also just as a matter of fact, some of those medieval Icelandic stereotypes are really unusual and weird; Black people (blamenn) sometimes have yellow eyes like cats and eyebrows that cover their faces. Really. At least one of the other Black characters (apart from the protagonist, whose eyes are dark brown) has the yellow eyes, but no one has the face-covering eyebrows.
Does anyone know (of) a modern-day (so from 18th-19th century onwards) racist who hates Black people and genuinely believes Black people have yellow eyes? Or face-covering eyebrows? (Of course there probably ARE racists who believe anything that fits in with their racist views, and some medieval stereotypes still survive in the 21st century.)
