In some
sense, a tale about a monster can be seen as an exaggeration or reversal of the typical fishing or
hunting story—not so much about ‘the one that got away’ as the one we got away from.
One can see this in Robert E. Howard’s ambitious The Valley of the Worm (1934).
The story superficially looks like a prequel to Howard’s Worms of the Earth (1932). It describes prehistoric events that occur
millennia before the heyday of the Roman Empire, which is the setting for the
latter story. (See Other
Crucifixions). Both involve an
enormous marauding annelid creature. However,
The Valley of the Worm is thematically
closer to several other stories by Howard, and consolidates a number of ideas
he developed in these works.
These
include The Dream Snake (1928), The Children of the Night (1931), and People of the Dark (1932), among
others. All of them assume that
reincarnation is a reality, and that under the right environmental
conditions—namely generations spent either underground or in a jungle
wilderness—humans will regress to a more bestial and reptilian form. Which regression is not only biological, but
also spiritual.
For
Robert E. Howard, the original and ultimate evil was serpentine in form and
nature. While Freudians will certainly
notice the prevalence of caves and snake imagery in Howard’s work, the origin
of this preoccupation is probably the traditional Biblical understanding of the
serpent as evil, (or at least, powerful).
For William Hope Hodgson, ultimate evil took a porcine shape, as in The Hog (1947). H.P. Lovecraft modelled some of his monsters
and extraterrestrials on marine life forms.
For Howard, it was the snake, or its more primordial image, the worm.
James
Allison, the narrator of The Valley of
the Worm, is an older man who is dying of a prolonged illness. Yet he is unafraid of what follows death. He has been blessed—perhaps also cursed—with
the ability to recall his past lives, and anticipate his future ones. Throughout history he has been reincarnated
as various barbarian heroes: “My name
has Hialmar, Tyr, Bragi, Bran, Horsa, Eric and John…” As a result of his various incarnations,
Allison has repeatedly experienced violent, gruesome death while defending clan
and tribe. Howard articulates this
understanding of human nature and fate:
“Each
man on earth, each woman, is part and all of a similar caravan of shapes and
beings. But they cannot remember—their minds
cannot bridge the brief, awful gulfs of blackness which lie between those
unstable shapes, and which the spirit, soul or ego, in spanning, shakes off its
fleshy masks. I remember.”
As he
contemplates his immanent death, James Allison’s memories coalesce on his
adventures as an incarnation of Niord, a warrior-hero of a tribe of northern
Aryans, a race of blond, blue eyed barbarians.
(Howard’s racial theories are at best quaint, if not appalling by our
standards, but would have been considered mainstream by many of his
contemporaries.)
In
Howard’s earlier stories, racial memories of a previous existence are present,
but unconscious in his characters. In The Dream Snake, a man tells of
recurring nightmares in which he is menaced by an enormous serpent—during a
previous life lived somewhere in Africa.
John O’Donnel channels a bloodthirsty Aryan warrior after being struck
on the head by a prehistoric mallet in The
Children of the Night. Finally, in People of the Dark, John O’Brien falls
and hits his head in a cave—and wakes up as Conan. (This is one of the first stories in which
Howard’s famous character appears.)
These stories show the development of Howard’s interesting mythos of the
“snake people”, his views of subterranean ecology and evolution, and his
application of the notion of past lives.
The
first half of The Valley of the Worm is
both historical and conceptual. The
author describes the slow and arduous migration of Niord and his people from
their frozen northern homeland to the southern jungles of a prehistoric
continent. There is a frenzied battle
with another humanoid race, the shorter, stockier, black haired Picts, whom
they encounter in the south.
Niord
befriends a Pict warrior whose life he spares.
The two go off together to hunt a saber tooth tiger, (which is actually
more like a bear, according to the author), and later an enormous python. Niord’s relationship with Grom, who is
clearly of another race, and possibly a stand-in for someone of African
descent, parallels that of two other Howard characters: Solomon Kane and N’Longa. This is an
interesting and recurring feature in Howard’s fiction.
From
Grom Niord learns of the dreaded Valley of the Worm, in which a Pict outpost as
well as an Aryan colony were destroyed by a terrible monster. The creature is connected with an ancient
ruined temple. The rest of the story
describes a final hunting expedition in which Niord encounters the most
horrific creature he has ever battled.
Howard masterfully connects these events to the present, as James
Allison vividly remembers them on his deathbed.
But The Valley of the Worm is more than a
hunting or fishing tale transmogrified into a monster story. Howard mixes in a good deal of myth, religion,
paleontology and early twentieth century racial theory to create a uniquely
savage and endlessly reiterating world—from which the only deliverance is
heroic violence and loyal friendship.
This story is strongly recommended reading to those interested in a
deeper appreciation for the interconnections among Howard’s fictional works.
********************
In a somewhat
lighter vein, I offered last fall a series of posts on the depiction of snakes
in early twentieth century weird fiction.
Interested readers may want to look at:
1. All
About Snakes (Howard’s The Dream
Snake)
2. A
Snake Keeps the Secret (Dunsany’s The
Secret of the Gods)
3.
Snakes on the Silver Screen (various)
4.
And Finally, a Pestilent Extraterrestrial Snak... (Clark’s The Beast of Averoigne)
Snakes
on a Plain (In Oklahoma) (The Curse
of Yig, H.P. Lovecraft with Zealia Bishop)
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