“James, have a question about REH, did the man hunt? His descriptions in Almuric seem to have a hunters sense to it, as if he felt the change that comes over one when spending time away from the civilized world, having hunted from childhood to adult, I have felt the change in myself. The primal man is still there, instinct or blood memory. Did the man hunt, what say you.”
Ishmael.
Ishmael, that is a good question and I absolutely do not know. If he did not, he seems to have known people who had. Hopefully one of our Robert E. Howard readers will know the answer to this question. Two interesting aspects of Howard’s fiction which relate to this are:
1. He used more totemic metaphors for characters than any other author, by far, seeming most intrigued by big cats, canines and serpents.
2. In a handful of stories, including The Scarlet Citadel, Howard depicts animals of monstrous type having a deep fear of certain humans.
Whatever the facts of his physical experience, Robert E. Howard seems to have understood, on a gut level, much that he could not have experienced—so it would not surprise me to find out that he only hunted in his mind.
A Well of Heroes
Howard didn't hunt. Of course, he was born just as the frontier was ending and talked to old-timers. He was also a huge fan of Haggard, London and Edgar Rice Burroughs all of whom wrote about hunting often. If you want to read great hunting stories, Haggard is the man. A writer I wish I'd found in childhood.