Robert E. Howard, Christianity, and the Saga of Bran Mak Morn

Joseph A. McCullough V

Robert Ervin Howard was born in 1906 in Texas, at a time when the American southwest was overwhelmingly Christian. His father "saw himself as a Christian soldier committed to the obliteration of evil,"(1) and in later years would often travel to attend religious revival meetings.(2) Robert attended Sunday school for much of his youth.(3) However, later in life, Robert expressed a detachment to Christianity, and referred to himself as an agnostic because he didn't really know what he believed.(4) It was around this time of his life that Robert E. Howard began to commit to paper the stories of one of his greatest fantasy creations, Bran Mak Morn, the last king of the Picts.

In a letter to H. P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard wrote:

"There is one hobby of mine which puzzles me to this day. That is my interest in the people, which for the sake of brevity, I have always designated the Picts. I am aware that my use of the term might be questioned . . . But to me 'Pict' must always refer to the small dark Mediterranean aborigines of Britain. This is not strange, since when I first read about these aborigines, they were referred to as Picts. But what is strange is my unflagging interest in them."(5)

If Robert E. Howard couldn't understand his fascination with the Picts, modern Howard scholars, such as Rusty Burke, have noted that Howard must have felt some kind of connection with the people(6). It should not be considered surprising then that Howard would want to create a savior for "his" people. This savior would be Bran Mak Morn, a Pict of a pure bloodline, untainted since before recorded history. The saga of Bran is told in a series of four short stories, beginning in ancient Britain under the rule of the Romans, sometime between 100 and 300 A.D. Three of these stories were published in the magazine Weird Tales in the 1920s and early 30s, though not in narrative order. The fourth remained unseen until many years after Howard's suicide.

The first tale in the cycle, "Men of the Shadows", is the story that went unpublished until long after Howard's death. Like the others, it had been submitted to Weird Tales, but editor Farnsworth Wright rejected it, saying, "It is too little of a 'story.'"(7) Most modern literary critics would probably agree with this assessment, but regardless of the success of "Men of the Shadows" as an independent tale, it provides crucially important evidence in the theory of Bran Mak Morn as a messiah. Perhaps, the fact that this story remained absent from the cycle for so long is a major reason that the whole theory has been overlooked.

"Men of the Shadows" tells the story of a Roman warrior, the last survivor of an expedition into the north of Britain (now Scotland), who is captured by the Picts. He is dragged underground and presented to Bran Mak Morn. Immediately, several parallels are drawn between Bran and Jesus. First, Bran is descended in a direct line from Brule the Spearslayer, one of the greatest warriors in Pict history. Jesus Christ is descended directly from one of the Hebrew's greatest warriors, King David. Also, because of his pure bloodline, unique now among the Picts, Bran is seen as the perfect representation of Pictdom, in the same way that Jesus would come to be seen as the perfect example of humanity in the New Testament.

Another important fact, presented in the first meeting with Bran, is that he is a chief, and not a king, which is an extremely important distinction(8). A chief is a leader of a group of people, while a king is the leader of a nation, a whole identifiably unique group of people. Just as Jesus would come to be known as King of the Jews, Bran will eventually be called the King of the Picts, but it hasn't happened yet.

Upon meeting the captured Roman warrior, Bran decides to let him go. Thus the first act we ever see Bran make is one of compassion and mercy, the traits for which Jesus was best known. And just like it often was for Jesus, Bran's decision to be merciful is not a popular one. The priest of the Pict tribe accuses Bran of turning against the old ways and challenges him to a duel of wills. A duel Howard describes as "The battle between Old and New."(9) Howard's use of capitalization calls to mind the distinction between the Old and New testaments of the Bible. Bran wins the duel and thus claims authority to act against the ancient traditions of Picts, and in many ways, begins the New Testament of the Picts.

The rest of the story consists of the old priest telling the history of the Picts, much like the Old Testament story of the Jews, but on a grander scale. The most important piece of information to come out of this is one, often overlooked, line in which Bran is referred to as the "up-lifter."(10) Again, it is unfortunate that this story stayed hidden away for so long, as this one word alone makes a strong argument for Bran as a messiah. One might even go so far as to say that in certain contexts "uplifter" and "messiah" are synonymous. We also learn that the Picts are a dying race. Pushed on all sides by younger tribes of men, they have been driven from their homes all over the globe, until the few remnants now live in the northern parts of the isle of Britain. Thus Picts are a race threatened with extinction.

"Men of the Shadows" has no solid ending and trails off with the telling of the story of the Picts, which goes a long way to explain why it was originally rejected. Still, this story is crucial to the saga as a whole, and to the argument for Bran as a messiah figure.

It might be worth noting at this point that only in the last twenty years have all four of the Bran stories been collected together(11), despite being reprinted numerous times individually. It is perhaps this reason that has kept anyone from putting forward this argument before. The second story of the cycle, "Kings of the Night," has often been reprinted and examined on its own, because it is the only story that brings together two of Robert E. Howard's great fantasy heroes, Bran Mak Morn and King Kull. This uniqueness, a favorite subject of fans and critics alike, has likely distracted from its importance, both as a follow up to "Men of the Shadows" and as the next link in the larger story of Bran Mak Morn.

The story is set an unspecified time after "Men of the Shadows," and a lot has happened in between. Bran is now presented as the King of the Picts and leads a great army that will battle an army of Rome in Britain. Bran is the leader of all of his people, and as the story makes clear, he is the only chance against the invaders. But this is more than just a battle for territory. The Romans come to exterminate the Picts, to finish a job that the rest of humanity has been working on for thousands of years. Thus, Bran, as the only chance for victory, becomes the only chance for the salvation of his people. Not salvation in the spiritual sense such as Jesus brought to man, but salvation in the very material sense of continued existence.

Even though Bran has obviously grown in influence and status, and has truly taken on the mantel of a messiah, he has also begun to slip. "Kings of the Night," opens with the Pict priest, Gonar, sacrificing a Roman soldier on a crude stone altar. It is shocking to see this as the first moment of the new story, when Bran's battle of wills in the last story was in order to stop just such a sacrifice. Now, Bran expresses his contempt for the whole procedure, but does not try to stop it. Somewhere in the time between stories he has lost a bit of his compassion and mercy. So, even as he rises as the messiah of the Picts, he is already losing some of what makes him human. And, as all of the stories make clear, as goes Bran so go the Picts. This strange combination of growth and slipping can only be seen when taken it in context with the proceeding story.

Much of the narrative thrust of "Kings of the Night" revolves around a group of Norseman who allied themselves with the Picts. When their King dies, they begin to think about switching sides. Bran knows that these allies will be crucial in the coming battle and thus in the saving of his people. When he confronts the Norseman, they say, "give us a king, neither Pict, Gael, nor Briton, and we will die for you."(12) It is, of course, an impossible request. But the greatest outward sign of a messiah is the invoking of miracles, and it is here, to save his people, that Bran invokes his. Bran is the descendant of Brule the Spearslayer, the faithful companion of King Kull, one of the greatest warriors of history. With help from the priest Gonar, Bran is able to summon King Kull through time to fight for him. It is a feat on par with the raising of Lazarus.

When King Kull is presented to the Norsemen, they agree to fight for the Picts. Due to the tactics employed in the following battle, it is clear to see that the Picts could not win without the aid of the Vikings. As the battle is joined and fought to its climax, Bran deems it necessary to sacrifice his Norse allies to win the battle. Only Kull survives of this group. The army of Rome is broken, and the Picts are victorious. For one moment, Bran has become a true messiah figure. He has worked a great miracle and saved his people from extinction. But, to do so, he has once again had to abandon a piece of his humanity. He didn't allow himself to feel compassion or mercy toward his own allies. It's a grim note, Bran's separation of his Picts from the rest of humanity. It is a note that will sound his downfall in the next tale in the Saga.

The third tale of Bran Mak Morn, "Worms of the Earth," is considered one of Robert E. Howard's finest(13) and has been reprinted in a number of fantasy anthologies as an example of Howard's work. Thus like the story before it, "Worms of the Earth," has often been presented and read in isolation from the rest of the Bran tales.

The story opens with the image mentioned at the beginning of this essay, a man being nailed to a cross. The man is a Pict and his executioners are Romans. It should be noted here that during the time that Robert E. Howard lived and learned about Christianity, it was the Romans who were seen as the murderers of Christ(14). But, taken as a continuation of the previous tales of Bran, there is a strange shift away from the messianic idea at this point. For it is not Bran who is being crucified; he is not sacrificing himself. Instead, Bran, in disguise, stands and watches the procedure from a few feet away.

In the story, Bran watches his subject nailed to the cross and then returns to the villa where he is staying in disguise as the Pict ambassador. Alone with his servant, Bran goes into a fit of rage where he curses himself, curses Rome, and curses Titus Sulla, the leader of the Romans in Britain and the man who presided over the crucifixion.

Bran declares that there is no weapon he wouldn't use against Rome or against Titus Sulla; he would even use "the worms of the earth." There are two important facts that come from this decision. The first is that for the first time in the saga, Bran allows his own emotional wants to take precedence over the welfare of the Picts.(16) Also, though it is not clear at this point in the story what exactly the worms are, Bran's decision to use something so horrific and blasphemously evil shows a further loosening of his own humanity.

To that end, Bran sets of into the wilds of Wales, looking for the worms. During his search he passes many inhabitants of Wales and expresses contempt for their impure blood, for their mixing of races. Eventually, he locates a woman named Atla, the witch woman. He recognizes in this woman a serpentine quality and knows she is an unholy crossbreed between man and the worms. Bran, still clouded by his thirst for revenge, threatens the woman to make her reveal how he can contact the worms. Atla just laughs at him. When Bran says she can name her price for helping him, she demands one night of love. Bran consents.

It is perhaps at this point that Bran has truly failed, damning himself and his people. Atla's serpentine features recall one of the forms of Satan, a connection that grows even more noticeable when the worms themselves are viewed later. The price she asks is the closest material equivalent to selling one's soul, but it is an even greater price asked of Bran Mak Morn. When he gives in to Atla's demands, he ends the pureness of his bloodline. He allows the pureness of the Pict to mix with that of monsters from under the earth. The contempt Bran showed for the Welsh people he could now easily feel of himself. In many ways, the hope for the future of the Pict nation ends at this point.

In the desert Satan tempted Jesus but was unable to break the messiah's resolve. Bran is also tempted by a Satanic equivalent, but his rage and his thirst for revenge overpower his own sense of self-sacrifice for his people. The next morning, Bran is still thinking of his revenge, and it won't be until later that he is hit by the full enormity of his actions.

Atla tells Bran how to get the worms under his control; he must steal their black stone. To do so, Bran is forced to journey deep underground, down dark and ominous passageways. It is almost as if Bran is walking himself into hell. He finds the black stone, steals it, and returns above ground to hide it. The story never reveals why the black stone is important to the worms of the earth, but it will provide an interesting parallel in the final story of the saga.

After stealing the stone, Atla arranges a meeting with the worms. At the meeting, the reader doesn't get a clear view of the worms, just hints of a kind of serpentine quality. It is revealed that the worms were once men, or something close to men, but they were hunted and driven underground, by, of all people, the Picts. Still clouded by revenge, Bran is unable to see the connection between what happened to the worms and what is happening to his own people. Instead, he bargains the black stone for the life of Titus Sulla, who is now hiding out in a fortified stone tower. The worms agree.

After the meeting, the tone of the story starts to change. Bran goes to recover the stone from where he hid it at the bottom of the lake. In doing so, he has a near encounter with a prehistoric creature that lives in the water. It starts Bran thinking about the ages past and the monsters who ruled before man. As he is returning, his ride takes him near the tower of Titus Sulla. He is shocked to find the tower has collapsed. He rides up to the ruins and finds a crushed, but still living Roman soldier. The soldiers tells him of the noises underground, and how Titus Sulla was sucked down a hole in the floor before the tower collapsed. Bran gives the man water and makes him comfortable in the few minutes he has left. At that moment, Bran's humanity and compassion return to him, and he treats the Roman, the enemy who has driven him to blasphemous deeds, as he would a kinsman(17). It is at that moment Bran realizes the enormity of his mistake. The worms are the enemies of all men, and he has loosed them(18).

Bran rides to his meeting with a heavy heart. He arrives to find Titus Sulla a gibbering wreck, his mind completely shattered by the worms. Bran kills Titus Sulla with a sword stroke, but it is a blow delivered in mercy, not in hatred(19). Only after that sword stroke does Bran see everything clearly. The worms, now visible as horrid serpentine devils, are evil incarnate, men who have cast off all humanity, just as Bran has done for a brief spell. They were men driven to the edge, just like the Picts. And Bran, the Picts' supposed savior, has actually created a material link between the two groups when he mixed his blood with that of Atla. At the end of this dark tale Bran has completely damned himself and his people, and he knows it.

Despite the powerful ending of "Worms of the Earth," there is one further story in the Bran Mark Morn cycle. "The Dark Man" is set some 800 years after the rest of the Bran stories and focuses on an Irish outcast named Turlough Dubh. Turlough is chasing after a group of Vikings who have kidnapped a woman from his clan. During the chase, Turlough lands on a barren island that has been the scene of a recent battle between Vikings and a group of small dark men that Turlough doesn't recognize. Readers familiar with the works of Robert E. Howard would immediately know them as Picts. The battle apparently ended in mutual annihilation, because the prize of the battle is still standing there, a statue of a king, carved in black stone. Only later will this be revealed to be a statue of Bran Mak Morn. Turlough takes the statue with him, finding the stone extremely light, and continues in search of the Vikings who have kidnapped his clansman. He finds the Viking's island and, leaving the boat and the statue, sneaks up to their longhouse. While he is sneaking, a pair of Vikings discover his boat and take the statue. Turlough sees the Vikings and is stunned by how difficult a time the two large men have carrying the statue. At one point, the statue is dropped on the foot of one. He strikes the stone in anger with a sword, the sword shatters, and a shard slices the face of the other Viking. Although it is not explicitly said, it is clear that Bran is fighting against the Vikings, who are named in previous stories as traditional enemies of the Picts. The statue is taken inside.

Turlough sneaks inside and sees his Viking enemy forcing a captured priest to marry him and the kidnapped girl. Turlough, unable to control his rage, attacks. During the desperate battle Turlough is saved when a sure deathblow is deflected by the statue of Bran, and saved again when the Picts arrive to slaughter the surprised Vikings. Only one of the Viking group, who happens to be a Saxon, is spared, and that at the behest of the priest.

The leader of the Picts thanks Turlough for his help in recovering the statue of their "god" Bran Mak Morn. It is the final stamp of the story of a messiah that it ends in deification. Bran is now a god, though his people are just a few scattered remnants that live in the islands around Britain. He is a god that has failed his people, and they have been driven even closer to extinction, or worse. It is interesting that Howard has Bran's statue carved out of black stone, drawing a parallel between the statue and the black stone that was so important to the worms of the earth, and continuing the idea that Bran has lead his people down the same path of damnation.

"The Dark Man," the last story of Bran Mak Morn, ends with Turlough sailing off to further adventures and the Picts, with the statue of Bran, sailing back to whatever holes they now call home. Two men are left on the island, the Saxon and the Priest. It is a poignant combination. Saxons, of course, still form the main genetic stock of the people who live in Britain. The priest is a representative of Christianity, the main religion of Britain and the religion whose messiah Bran came close to, but ultimately failed, emulating.

Robert E. Howard never talked much about religion, especially his own, but within the saga of Bran Mak Morn the reader can see a struggle with the Christian ideals that Howard grew up with. In the end, Bran fails to live up to them and so is damned. Howard scholar Patrice Louinet has proposed a theory that each of Howard's main fantasy characters represents a stage in Howard's emotional growth(20). This is a theory in tune with what H.P. Lovecraft once said about Howard's stories, "that he himself is in everyone of them."(21) Thus it is not out of line to suggest that Bran Mak Morn's struggle with the ideals common to Christianity were similar to Howard's own struggles with the faith. In 1936, at the height of his writing success, Robert E. Howard shot himself in the head.(22) It is perhaps the most pointed rebuttal he could make to the ideas of Christianity.

End Notes

1. L. Sprague de Camp, Catherine Cook de Camp, Jane Whittington Griffon, Dark Valley Destiny: The Life of Robert E. Howard (U.S.A.: Bluejay Books, 1983) 36.

2. Ibid. 48.

3. Ibid. 156.

4. Ibid. 181.

5. Rusty Burke, Intro, Bran Mak Morn: The Last King (London: Wandering Star, 2001) vi.

6. Ibid. vi.

7. Farnsworth Wright, Bran Mak Morn: The Last King (London: Wandering Star, 2001) Appendix A3.

8. Patrice Louinet, "Conan, Kull and Bran Mak Morn: The Kings of the Night," The Fantastic Worlds of Robert E. Howard, Ed. James Van Hise (Yucca Valley, CA: James Van Hise, 1997) 31.

9. Robert E. Howard, Bran Mak Morn: The Last King (London, Wandering Star, 2001) 19.

10. Ibid, 29.

11. Robert E. Howard, Worms of the Earth (New York: Kensington, 1977)

12. Robert E. Howard, Bran Mak Morn: The Last King (London, Wandering Star, 2001) 42.

13.Marc A. Cerasini and Charles Hoffman, Robert E. Howard: Starmount Readers Guide #35 (Mercer, WA: Starmount House, 1987) 22.

14. Ibid. 20

15. Marc A. Cerasini and Charles Hoffman, Robert E. Howard: Starmount Readers Guide #35 (Mercer, WA: Starmount House, 1987) 22.

16. Patrice Louinet, "Conan, Kull and Bran Mak Morn: The Kings of the Night," The Fantastic Worlds of Robert E. Howard, Ed. James Van Hise (Yucca Valley, CA: James Van Hise, 1997) 33.

17. Marc A. Cerasini and Charles Hoffman, Robert E. Howard: Starmount Readers Guide #35 (Mercer, WA: Starmount House, 1987) 24.

18. Ibid. 24.

19. Marc A. Cerasini and Charles Hoffman, Robert E. Howard: Starmount Readers Guide #35 (Mercer, WA: Starmount House, 1987) 24.

20. Rusty Burke, A Short Biography of Robert E. Howard (New York: Cross Plains Comics, 1999) 5.

21. Ibid, 5.

22. Ibid, 15.

Works Cited

Burke, Rusty. A Short Biography of Robert E. Howard. New York; Cross Plains Comics, 1999

Cerasini, Marc A. and Hoffman, Charles. Robert E. Howard: Starmount Readers Guide #35. Mercer, WA: Starmount House, Inc., 1987

de Camp, L. Sprague; de Camp, Catherine Cook; Griffon, Jane Whittignton. Dark Valley Destiny: The Life of Robert E. Howard. U.S.A.: Bluejay Books Inc., 1983

Howard, Robert E. Worms of the Earth. New York: Kensington, 1977.

Howard, Robert E. Bran Mak Morn: The Last King. London: Wandering Star, 2001.

Van Hise, James. The Fantastic Worlds of Robert E. Howard. Yucca Valley, CA: James Van Hise, 1997.