"The Lost Race" by Robert E. Howard (1926) Originally appeared in Weird Tales, January 1927. Plot: Cororuc, a Briton, is travelling from Cornwall back to his home in the north when he sees a panther attacking a wolf. He steps in and saves the wolf. Continuing he encounters bandits that he has been warned about. Jumping out of a tree he kills two of them and flees. The third rouses the others who begin searching for him. He loses them in a set of low hills where he is knocked out and captured. When he wakes he finds himself bound and taken into a series of caves by a small-statured people he doesn't recognize. He is taken to the king of these people, the Picts, who recounts there history. The Picts were driven out by the Gaels and went underground to become the source of all the faery legends. Cororuc is to be burned alive for punishment of his race but a Pict intervenes, the wolf he saved was really this man disguised. Cororuc is freed, given weapons and food and sent on his way. Monsters: None. History: This story is little more than an excuse for Howard to rattle on about the history of the Picts (a subject he loved). What is interesting about "The Lost Race" is that it is the first tale to outline the history that appeared in Weird Tales. Many more would follow.
"The Lost Race" was adapted by Roy Thomas and drawn by Gene Day and Danny Bulanadi in Savage Sword of Conan #68-69 (September-October 1981).
|
1
0