Living close together and fighting as one nation, naturally lessened the mutual contempt and hate and the Picts and aborigines began to intermarry.
For some reason or other the Picts as Silurian that fled to Wales did not unite with the cave-men’s descendents and the early types of Picts remained unchanged, except as, later they were altered by intermarriage with the Celts, fleeing before other invaders. And to this day in mountains of western Wales are still to be found traces of the ancient Pictish type.
The first Celts to invade Britain were Gaels with brown hair, grey eyes and tall rather spare forms. They came from Gaul, especially Brittany, where the people today have much Celtic blood in them.
The next invaders were also Celts but differed from the Gaelic Celts in many ways.
They were tall, like the Gaels but with larger, heavier bodies. As a rule they had blue eyes and red or yellow hair. The came mainly from what is now Belgium and the Netherlands and were called Brythons from which the names Britain and Briton were derived. Possibly they had some Teutonic blood in them. They overcame the Gaels as the Gaels overcame the Picts and the Gaels retreated into Wales and Scotland.
LETTER TO TEVIS CLYDE SMITH, 5 OCTOBER 1923
I’m writing a book which doubtless would make you tired and would sound like a lot of fool stuff to most folks, but as I am writing it for my own amusement, the opinion of other people about it don’t interest me, as I know of.
The book takes in lots of territory and a lot of characters. Some of the characters are Ammon the Amalekite, who was a famous swordsman, Swift-Foot, the tree-man, Tostig the Mighty, a viking and something of a villian, Hakon, a Norseman and crafty as a fox, Bran Mak Morn, who was the greatest chief the Picts ever had, and many others too numerous to mention.
DECEMBER 1924
The Lost Race is returned to Howard by Weird Tales editor Farnsworth Wright,
for revisions.
From Post Oaks and Sand Roughs, 1928
This is a thinly disguised autobiographical novel, based on Howard’s life over the previous four years. ‘Steve’ is Steve Costigan, Howard’s alter-ego; ‘The Forgotten Race’ is The Lost Race; ‘Bizarre Stories’ is Weird Tales.
As for ‘The Forgotten Race,’ he [the editor of ‘Bizarre Stories’] had found several faults with it, in that it left too much to the imagination and left some important facts unexplained. Steve perceived that even the readers of other magazines were not supposed to have any intellect or imagination of their own. However, the editor professed himself ready to take the story if the changes and additions which he suggested were made....Yet he [Steve] somehow felt a sinking of the heart when he contemplated rewriting ‘The Forgotten Race.’ Once a story was completed, he was through with it, eager to start something else, and he wished to look on it again only in print. He doubted his ability to make the tale come up to standard, even with the editor’s remarks to guide him, and, dreading a second refusal, delayed several days before he made the changes. He sent off two more stories with it when he returned it. These two came back, but Bizarre Stories accepted the revised story, offering $30.00, payable on publication.
7 JANUARY 1925
The Lost Race is accepted by Weird Tales.
LETTER TO TEVIS CLYDE SMITH, 14 JANUARY 1926
In this letter Howard sketched out the two waves of Celtic migration into Britain. Referring to the first wave, the Gaels, he says: From Ireland they spread to Britain, chasing the Picts into Scotland and Wales. And: Some of the Lowland Scotch, and Welsh and most of the Cornish are Brythonic, though the Cornish are mixed a lot with Pict and Gael.
LETTER FROM FARNSWORTH WRIGHT TO ROBERT E. HOWARD, 16 MARCH 1926
Dear Mr. Howard:
I thoroughly enjoyed MEN OF THE SHADOWS, but I fear I can not use it in WEIRD TALES. It is too little of a “story,” despite the vigorous action in the opening pages. It is rather a chronicle of a tribe, a picture of the evolution of a race; and thereby it lacks the suspense and thrill that a story of individual conflict and hopes and fears and drama would have.
I do not know of any magazine that would take a story like this, unless possibly FRONTIER. But if you send it to FRONTIER, I suggest that you first clarify the conflict between Bran Mak Morn and the wizard, on page 11, for the reader is left in the dark as to what happened, as to what Bran Mak Morn did to cause the wizard to give up.
JANUARY 1927
The Lost Race is published in Weird Tales.
CIRCA 1928
Howard writes The Little People.
LETTER TO HAROLD PREECE, 20 OCTOBER 1928
About Atlantis – I believe something of the sort existed, though I do not especially hold any theory about a high type of civilization existing there – in fact, I doubt that. But some continent was submerged away back, or some large body of land, for practically all peoples have legends about a flood. And the Cro-Magnons appeared suddenly in Europe, developed to a high state of primitive culture; there is no trace to show that they came up the ladder of utter barbarism in Europe. Suddenly their remains are found supplanting the Neanderthal Man, to whom they have no ties of kinship whatever. Where did they originate? Nowhere in the known world, evidently. They must have originated and developed through the different basic stages of evolution in some land which is not now known to us.
The occultists say that we are the fifth – I believe – great sub-race. Two unknown and unnamed races came, then the Lemurians, then the Atlanteans, then we. They say the Atlanteans were highly developed. I doubt it. I think they were simply the ancestors of the Cro-Magnon man, who by some chance, escaped the fate which overtook the rest of the tribes.
All my views on the matter I included in a long letter to the editor to whom I sold a tale entitled The Shadow Kingdom, which expect will be published as a foreword to that story – if ever. This tale I wove about a mythical antediluvian empire, a contemporary of Atlantis.
1928–1929
Howard writes most of his stories of Kull, king of the antediluvian land of Valusia (of which The Shadow Kingdom was the first) during this period. Most of the stories feature Kull’s Pictish friend Brule, and other Pictish characters.
1929
Howard writes a long narrative poem, The Ballad of King Geraint, featuring among its many characters Dulborn, a Pict.
CIRCA MARCH 1930
The Dark Man is accepted for Strange Stories (planned companion magazine to Weird Tales).
Kings of the Night accepted for Weird Tales (submitted to Strange Stories but Wright accepted for Weird Tales).
LETTER TO HAROLD PREECE, 4 JANUARY 1930
The Welsh who broke the armies of William Rufus were powerfully built men, deep-chested and strong, but short in height. Admixture with the Silurian natives, doubtless of Iberian blood, or a strong Roman strain may have been responsible for this loss of height, as well as the change in complexion.