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TOWER SPIDER (1933)


SOURCE: "The Tower of the Elephant" by Robert E. Howard (Weird Tales, March 1933)

DESCRIPTION: "A flying shadow that swept across the gleaming floor was
his only warning, and his instinctive sidelong leap all that saved his life. He had a flashing glimpse of a hairy black horror that swung past him with a clashing of frothing fangs, and something splashed on his bare shoulder that burned like drops of liquid hellfire. Springing back, sword high, he saw the horror strike the floor, wheel and scuttle toward him with appalling speed--a gigantic black spider, such
as men see only in nightmare dreams. It was as large as a pig, and its eight thick hairy legs drove its ogreish body over the floor at headlong pace; its four evilly gleaming eyes shone with a horrible intelligence, and its fangs dripped venom
that Conan knew, from the burning of his shoulder where only a few drops had splashed as the thing struck and missed, was laden with swift death. This was the killer that had dropped from its perch in the middle of the ceiling on a strand of its web, on the neck of the Nemedian.
" ("The Tower of the Elephant" by Robert E. Howard)

NOTES: The guardian of Yara's treasure room, the giant spider waits in its web above the room. One bite of its venom is enough to kill a strong man. Conan kills it by crushing it with a chest full of jewels.

HISTORY: It is interesting to think that this spider creature may have had an influence on Tolkien's Middle-Earth spiders. Howard may have also inspired Edgar Rice Burroughs' Targo. "The Tower of the Elephant" was adapted by Marvel Comics twice: Conan the Barbarian #4 (April 1971) by Barry Windsor Smith and in The Savage Sword of Conan #24 (June 1977) by John Buscema and Alfred Alcala. It has since been adapted by Dark Horse Comics as well.

Barry Windsor Smith's version from the 1970s.