Formerly published as ‘His Heavy-Footed Race,’ revised and expanded

Published in Weird Tales, November 1932, reading from pages 83-129 of Bran Mak Morn, The Last King, 2005, Del Ray

Robert E. Howard’s creative connection with the Picts—which were his version of an ancient Scottish Tribe that the Romans feared, and possibly lost a legion to—was deeper than any other connection he had with his literary creations. Not Kane, Kull, Conan, or any of the other heroes, nor any of his imaginary worlds, ranked, in his soul, with the Picts. They were a constant in Kull and Conan, the focus of his Bran MaK Morn yarns and also appeared in his Viking sagas featuring the Gaelic reaver Cormac Mac Art. In Howard’s imagination, the Picts were the constant minor thread that linked nearly half of his fiction.

The Picts were not always, or even most of the time, the good guys. In the Conan tales the Picts were hated savages. The Picts are a “swarthy” white race [alpine Europeans it seems, perhaps Neanderthal holdovers] who were the first nation of men to rise from utter savagery, and, in Howard’s overarching mythos, would be the last race to fall when the world died. The Picts are a brutal, doomed people, and are probably best imagined by the modern reader as post-apocalyptic mohawked and tattooed bikers, as in the Road Warrior

The novella is set in the late Roman period, during the decline, but with Rome still strong behind its border walls and feared for its ferocious legions. In the north and west of Britain, among the Welsh wetlands, the pastures of Galloway, and in the lonely precincts left over from earlier ages of intermittent greatness, decay and upheaval, broods Bran Mak Morn, the last of the pure blood line of his dying race, which is threatened by the Romans, the Norse and their own decline, in equal measure. In Bran MaK Morn we have a Lovecraftian aristocratic sentiment entwined with the dark side of folklore, and personified by Robert E. Howard’s most brutal, most savage, most barbaric and most headstrong character.

Bran Mak Morn is no less an individual than Howard’s other creations. He does, however, have more compelling characteristics:

1. While a hyper-aggressive alpha male, Bran is not an amazing physical specimen like Kull or Conan, but more of an average-sized brute such as Xavier Gordon from Howard’s desert adventures.

2. Bran is the strongest of all Howard’s characters in terms of mental ferocity and grim determination, which are features of all Howard’s protagonists, but is stressed so much in Bran, that he waxes monstrous in the reader’s eye. In this respect, even Solomon Kane—dogged vengeance personified—is second to Bran Mak Morn.

3. While all of Howard’s characters are proud of their racial and ethnic heritage, and are strongly identified with their bloodline in mystical [irrational] terms, going as far as blood dreams rising in their minds, Bran is one of only three that could be called fanatics. Although his fanaticism is equal to Bran’s, Solomon Kane is a pure loner who avoids political alignment when possible. Howard did write an unfinished draft, about a raging fanatic of a Gaelic chieftain, even more bitter than the King of the Picts, but he was an honorable nihilist, not a patriot. Bran, on the other hand, is a savage partisan of the type one could imagine leading a political insurgency. Bran is an honorable fanatic who cuts deals, a volatile personality. Furthermore, Bran was based squarely on two brothers, one a king of the Picts, both slain in battle against the Vikings. Combining these doomed, shadowy figures, who died for their beleaguered tribe in the Dark Ages, into one conflicted last king of a doomed bloodline.

4. Most of Howard’s protagonists—with the notable exception of Kirby Buckner in Black Canaan—are alienated, but vary in their relationship to human events. Kane is an accursed avenger and unwitting catalyst for change, the hand of God one might say. Conan and Kull are honorable interlopers, heroic opportunists such as Beowulf. But Bran is more of the Achilles character, a very minor league king, with less clout than the local lackey magistrates of greater powers, struggling to preserve his people from oblivion. Bran Mak Morn is a cultural survivalist.

Bran Mak Morn, was Howard’s most heartfelt hero, his least successful commercially, and his best, the star of his masterpiece, his very best work of fiction, an unequalled fantasy horror short novel that has somehow been passed over by most of his readership. The fact that Bran Mak Morn has been passed over by a generation of young men seeking to resurrect their cultural roots in the face of a soulless empire, should be rectified. This reviewer hopes that someone finds their voice in this story and makes an audio-recording for You Tube or another free, accessible audio platform.

An emissary of the Pictish king stands beside Titus Sulla, military governor of Eboracum, seething with barely concealed rage as a Pict is crucified for a crime that the emissary claims should be left to his own king to punish. Howard’s sketch of the Roman imperial character is telling, and amounts to an indictment of waxing civilization [where Howard usually saves his criticism for waning civilizations]:

“Realization of power colored his every move. Whetted pride was necessary to Roman satisfaction, and Titus Sulla was justly proud… ‘Well’ said Sulla, ‘you may inform Bran Mak Morn yourself. Rome, my friend, makes no account of her actions to barbarian kings. When savages come among us, let them act with discretion or suffer the consequences.”

After the crucifixion scene—which is quite brutal—the reader discovers that the Pictish emissary is in fact the King of Pictdom. Feeling he owed his man vengeance—whom, looking into his eyes, knew he was being murdered before his king—Bran Mak Morn sets out on a quest for revenge, a mystic quest.

Understanding tribalism as a nuanced order, rather than our modern conception of tribalism as an order of hierarchal place-holders, Howard places Gonar, the Pictish shaman, as Bran’s advisor, who the enraged king consults concerning supernatural alternatives to fighting a losing war against Rome:

“‘Long ago,’ answered Bran somberly, ‘you told me that nothing in the universe was separated from the stream of life—a saying the truth of which I have often seen evident. No race, no form of life but is close-kin somehow, by some manner, to the rest of Life and the world. Somewhere there is a thin link connecting those I seek to the world I know. Somewhere there is a door. And somewhere among the black fens of the west I will find it.’”

Gonar is outraged and horrified that his counsel against evoking the elder powers of darkness is ignored. But Bran is the most stubborn of a stubborn race, and continues on his unholy quest.

A few dark deeds later, Bran is in the swamp-side den of a sorceress, in what may by Howard’s best scene, which seems to have inspired the witch scene in the movie Conan the Barbarian:

“‘What do you seek in the fens, my lord?’ she asked, turning toward him with a supple twist of her whole body.

“‘I seek a door,’ he answered, chin resting on fist. ‘I have a song to sing to the worms of the earth!’

“She started upright, a jar falling from her hands to shatter on the hearth…”

[Bran continues]

“‘Aye, you know well! My race is very old—they reigned in Britain before the nations of the Celts and the Hellenes were born out of the womb of peoples. But my people were not first in Britain. By the mottles on your skin, by the slanting of your eyes, by the taint in your veins, I speak with full knowledge and meaning.’

“‘Man, are you mad?’ she asked, ‘that in your madness you come seeking that from which strong men fled screaming in old times?’”

[A discussion of dreams and ancient things ensues.]

The hideous hag—not ugly from age alone—then turns the tables:

“‘I will tell you, Black Bran, king of Caledon! Oh, I knew you when you came into my hut with your black hair and your cold eyes! I will lead you to the doors of Hell if you wish—and the price shall be the kisses of a king!’”

Kane would refuse intercourse with any woman, let alone a sorceress. Conan would scoff and beat the answer out of her, then suffer betrayal at her bitter hands. But Bran, he is shrewd enough to want her in his debt, and he considers the rest of her plea:

“‘I am half-human, at least! Have I not known sorrow and yearning and crying wistfulness, and the drear ache of loneliness? Give to me, king—give me your fierce kisses and your hurtful barbarian’s embrace. Then in the long drear years to come I shall not utterly eat out my heart in vain envy of the white-bosomed women of men; for I shall have a memory few of them can boast—the kisses of a king! One night of love, oh king, and I will guide you to the gates of Hell!’”

Worms of the Earth is tribal horror for men, which makes it the most heartfelt kind. Bran Mak Morn is, by my estimation, the most masculine man in fiction, the more so because he is not a super soldier, but the cunning alpha male of a hunted race. If you only read one Robert E. Howard story, read his masterpiece, Worms of the Earth.

And please, someone record a reading of this masterpiece of the storytelling art.