The Hyborian Age Read online

Hyborians, or Hybori;their god was Bori--some great chief, whom legend made even more ancientas the king who led them into the north, in the days of the greatCataclysm, which the tribes remember only in distorted folklore.

  They have spread over the north, and are pushing southward in leisurelytreks. So far they have not come in contact with any other races; theirwars have been with one another. Fifteen hundred years in the northcountry have made them a tall, tawny-haired, grey-eyed race, vigorousand warlike, and already exhibiting a well-defined artistry and poetismof nature. They still live mostly by the hunt, but the southern tribeshave been raising cattle for some centuries. There is one exception intheir so far complete isolation from other races: a wanderer into thefar north returned with the news that the supposedly deserted ice wasteswere inhabited by an extensive tribe of ape-like men, descended, heswore, from the beasts driven out of the more habitable land by theancestors of the Hyborians. He urged that a large war-party be sentbeyond the arctic circle to exterminate these beasts, whom he swore wereevolving into true men. He was jeered at; a small band of adventurousyoung warriors followed him into the north, but none returned.

  But tribes of the Hyborians were drifting south, and as the populationincreased this movement became extensive. The following age was an epochof wandering and conquest. Across the history of the world tribes anddrifts of tribes move and shift in an everchanging panorama.

  Look at the world five hundred years later. Tribes of tawny-hairedHyborians have moved southward and westward, conquering and destroyingmany of the small unclassified clans. Absorbing the blood of conqueredraces, already the descendants of the older drifts have begun to showmodified racial traits, and these mixed races are attacked fiercely bynew, purer-blooded drifts, and swept before them, as a broom sweepsdebris impartially, to become even more mixed and mingled in the tangleddebris of races and tag-ends of races.

  As yet the conquerors have not come in contact with the older races. Tothe southeast the descendants of the Zhemri, given impetus by new bloodresulting from admixture with some unclassified tribe, are beginning toseek to revive some faint shadow of their ancient culture. To the westthe apish Atlanteans are beginning the long climb upward. They havecompleted the cycle of existence; they have long forgotten their formerexistence as men; unaware of any other former state, they are startingthe climb unhelped and unhindered by human memories. To the south ofthem the Picts remain savages, apparently defying the laws of Nature byneither progressing nor retrogressing. Far to the south dreams theancient mysterious kingdom of Stygia. On its eastern borders wanderclans of nomadic savages, already known as the Sons of Shem.

  Next to the Picts, in the broad valley of Zingg, protected by greatmountains, a nameless band of primitives, tentatively classified as akinto the Shemites, has evolved an advanced agricultural system andexistence.

  Another factor has added to the impetus of Hyborian drift. A tribe ofthat race has discovered the use of stone in building, and the firstHyborian kingdom has come into being--the rude and barbaric kingdom ofHyperborea, which had its beginning in a crude fortress of bouldersheaped to repel tribal attack. The people of this tribe soon abandonedtheir horse-hide tents for stone houses, crudely but mightily built, andthus protected, they grew strong. There are few more dramatic events inhistory than the rise of the rude, fierce kingdom of Hyperborea, whosepeople turned abruptly from their nomadic life to rear dwellings ofnaked stone, surrounded by cyclopean walls--a race scarcely emerged fromthe polished stone age, who had by a freak of chance, learned the firstrude principles of architecture.

  The rise of this kingdom drove forth many other tribes, for, defeated inthe war, or refusing to become tributary to their castle-dwellingkinsmen, many clans set forth on long treks that took them halfwayaround the world. And already the more northern tribes are beginning tobe harried by gigantic blond savages, not much more advanced thanape-men.

  The tale of the next thousand years is the tale of the rise of theHyborians, whose warlike tribes dominate the western world. Rudekingdoms are taking shape. The tawny-haired invaders have encounteredthe Picts, driving them into the barren lands of the west. To thenorthwest, the descendants of the Atlanteans, climbing unaided fromapedom into primitive savagery, have not yet met the conquerors. Far tothe east the Lemurians are evolving a strange semi-civilization of theirown. To the south the Hyborians have founded the kingdom of Koth, on theborders of those pastoral countries known as the Lands of Shem, and thesavages of those lands, partly through contact with the Hyborians,partly through contact with the Stygians who have ravaged them forcenturies, are emerging from barbarism. The blond savages of the farnorth have grown in power and numbers so that the northern Hyboriantribes move southward, driving their kindred clans before them. Theancient kingdom of Hyperborea is overthrown by one of these northerntribes, which, however, retains the old name. Southeast of Hyperborea akingdom of the Zhemri has come into being, under the name of Zamora. Tothe southwest, a tribe of Picts have invaded the fertile valley ofZingg, conquered the agricultural people there, and settled among them.This mixed race was in turn conquered later by a roving tribe of Hybori,and from these mingled elements came the kingdom of Zingara.

  Five hundred years later the kingdoms of the world are clearly defined.The kingdoms of the Hyborians--Aquilonia, Nemedia, Brythunia,Hyperborea, Koth, Ophir, Argos, Corinthia, and one known as the BorderKingdom--dominate the western world. Zamora lies to the east, andZingara to the southwest of these kingdoms--people alike in darkness ofcomplexion and exotic habits, but otherwise unrelated. Far to the southsleeps Stygia, untouched by foreign invasion, but the peoples of Shemhave exchanged the Stygian yoke for the less galling one of Koth. Thedusky masters have been driven south of the great river Styx, Nilus, orNile, which, flowing north from the shadowy hinterlands, turns almost atright angles and flows almost due west through the pastoral meadowlandsof Shem, to empty into the great sea. North of Aquilonia, thewestern-most Hyborian kingdom, are the Cimmerians, ferocious savages,untamed by the invaders, but advancing rapidly because of contact withthem; they are the descendants of the Atlanteans, now progressing moresteadily than their old enemies the Picts, who dwell in the wildernesswest of Aquilonia.

  Another five centuries and the Hybori peoples are the possessors of acivilization so virile that contact with it virtually snatched out ofthe wallow of savagery such tribes as it touched. The most powerfulkingdom is Aquilonia, but others vie with it in strength and mixed race;the nearest to the ancient root-stock are the Gundermen of Gunderland, anorthern province of Aquilonia. But this mixing has not weakened therace. They are supreme in the western world, though the barbarians ofthe wastelands are growing in strength.

  In the north, golden-haired, blue-eyed barbarians, descendants of theblond arctic savages, have driven the remaining Hyborian tribes out ofthe snow countries, except the ancient kingdom of Hyperborea, whichresists their onslaught. Their country is called Nordheim, and they aredivided into the red-haired Vanir of Vanaheim, and the yellow-hairedAEsir of Asgard.

  Now the Lemurians enter history again as Hyrkanians. Through thecenturies they have pushed steadily westward, and now a tribe skirts thesouthern end of the great inland sea--Vilayet--and establishes thekingdom of Turan on the southwestern shore. Between the inland sea andthe eastern borders of the native kingdoms lie vast expanses of steppesand in the extreme north and extreme south, deserts. The non-Hyrkaniandwellers of these territories are scattered and pastoral, unclassifiedin the north, Shemitish in the south, aboriginal, with a thin strain ofHyborian blood from wandering conquerors. Toward the latter part of theperiod other Hyrkanian clans push westward, around the northernextremity of the inland sea, and clash with the eastern outposts of theHyperboreans.

  Glance briefly at the peoples of that age. The dominant of Hyborians areno longer uniformly tawny-haired and grey-eyed. They have mixed withother races. There is a strong Shemitish, even a Stygian strain amongthe peoples of Koth, and to a lesser extent, of Argos, while in the caseof the latter, admixt
ure with the Zingarans has been more extensive thanwith the Shemites. The eastern Brythunians have intermarried with thedark-skinned Zamorians, and the people of southern Aquilonia have mixedwith the brown Zingarans until black hair and brown eyes are thedominant type in Poitain, the southern-most province. The ancientkingdom of Hyperborea is more aloof than the others, yet there is alienblood in plenty in its veins, from the capture of foreignwomen--Hyrkanians, AEsir and Zamorians. Only in the province ofGunderland, where the people keep no slaves, is the pure Hyborian stockfound unblemished. But the barbarians have kept their bloodstream pure;the Cimmerians are tall and powerful, with dark hair and blue or greyeyes. The people of Nordheim are of similar build, but with white skins,blue eyes and golden or red hair. The Picts are of the same type asthey always were--short, very dark, with black eyes and hair. TheHyrkanians are dark and generally tall and slender, though a squatslant-eyed type is more and more common among them, resulting frommixture with a