SOURCE: "The Hyena" by Robert E. Howard (Weird Tales, March 1928)
                "The Queen of the Black Coast" (Weird Tales, May 1934)

DESCRIPTION: "...And now from the shadows dark shapes came silently, swiftly, running low--twenty great spotted hyenas. Their slavering fangs flashed in the moonlight, their eyes blazed as no true beast's eyes ever blazed...Conan knew these creatures were not beasts; it was not merely in their unnatural size that he sensed a blasphemous difference. They exuded an aura tangible as the black mist rising from a corpse-littered swamp." ("The Queen of the Black Coast" by Robert E. Howard)

NOTES: The were-hyenas are one of the three elder races still existing on Earth, along with the harpies. Howard uses them in several stories in different series and in stand alone tales. In "Queen of the Black Coast" the were-hyenas are created by the sorcery of the winged ape. They are slaves to its magic.

HISTORY: The were-hyenas of "Queen of the Black Coast" are familiar to H. Rider Haggard's ghost wolves in Nada the Lily.

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