Talk:The Phoenix on the Sword

Merging "By This Axe, I Rule" into this article.

"By This Axe, I Rule" is a stub article, and I this the story similarities allow that story to be covered in this article. Duggy 1138 (talk) 01:22, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I would be in favor of that if I could remember whether the framing plot in the Kull story was included in the Conan story. As you may know, in the opening scene, Conan (Kull) is lamenting that he is a prisoner caught in his own trap, because the laws in place do not allow him to govern as he wants. A nobleman enters who wants to marry a slave girl, but Conan (Kull) is advised that this is impossible under the law and the nobleman is sent away with regrets. Then there is the attack by the conspirators. After they are all killed, the nobleman shows up again and Conan (Kull) smashes the tablets of the law with his axe ("By This Axe I Rule!") and gives him permission to marry whoever he wants. I have the Kull story in an old paperback but I do not recall that the Conan story contains this framing device. If it does -- and in my opinion the claim of absolute power is the point of the story -- then I would approve the merger. 72.182.33.219 (talk) 22:20, 1 December 2014 (UTC) Eric

It doesn't. All the places you say Conan (Kull) actually are relevant only to Kull and appear only in the Kull story. The Kull story is, as you say, a relatively straightforward power-themed story, and lacks the supernatural element. The Conan story is framed by scenes in which Conan works on a map to correct his subjects' lack of knowledge of the northern lands from which he comes, meditates on his backstory, worries about the bard stirring up the populace against him, and dreams of an ancient Aquilonian sage who gives him a supernatural defense against something to come. We also have the scene of Thoth-Amon in slavery to one of the conspirators recovering the magical ring he can use to free himself and get revenge. The demon he summons comes in the wake of Conan's slaughter of the conspirators and almost does him in, but is dispatched by Conan's now broken sword that bears the supernatural defense. Which then becomes proof of the supernatural events for Conan's late-arriving and skeptical loyalists. The Conan story is less a meditation on power than a fantasy horror story. The main common element between the stories is the conspiracy and the king's defeat of it. BPK (talk) 15:28, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

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Comparison with The Lord of the Rings

It is noteworthy that Howard anticipated the plot element of an evil wizard seeking to regain a magic ring which is the source of his power, which would a decade later form the center of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. Is this really "noteworthy" (and if so, what reliable source notes it)? Magic rings were not invented by Howard, any more than they were by Tolkien. And Thoth Amon/Sauron, and the Serpent Ring of Set / the Ruling Ring are really very different in nature and story, that I don't think they really have anything significant in common. Iapetus (talk) 13:23, 2 August 2016 (UTC)

It is, for the reasons you state, definitely not noteworthy. If the elements were original to Howard and then used by Tolkien in a substantially similar way (indicating he was influenced by them), that would be noteworthy; bit they weren't, and he didn't. It's like saying "It is noteworthy that Howard painted his picket fence white, which a decade later would be the color that Tolkien chose to paint his own picket fence." Um, yeah, but so what? The sentence should be deleted. BPK (talk) 23:42, 2 August 2016 (UTC)

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Epimetheus seems an ambigous character.

Epimetreus the wise seems somewhat ambigous. On the one hand his sitting sleeping in a cave resembles what is said about Epimenides a historical religious reformer in ancient greece, worshipper of Apollo(Hyperborea). On the other hand Epimetheus is the name of a brother and negative paralell to Prometheus in greek mythology, It was Epimetheus who did open the box of Pandora! Epimetreus must be the shaman who did use The heart of Ahriman against Xaltotun. Ahriman is the lord of darkness in persian religion. Equally persian Mithra was, as many sun-related gods(like Apollo), a rather harsh and relentless god, with one exception: vis a vis Ahriman he was something of an appeaser and compromiser! This in contrast to Ahura(vedic indian Asura)Mazda, sometimes seen as the father of Mithra. What is said about Epimetreus lair does not sound very pleasant. Yet less so the crypt where the heart of Ahriman is kept. Also one must wonder how the hyborian barbarians were able to steal the heart and then to use it so efficiently - or even know about it! Did Acheron become too strong and powerful and to proud and willfull for the taste of the rulers of its presumably motherland from where the Heart came to Acheron? But why sacrifice or risk anything if you can have someone else to do the job for you?Note that the sack of Rome, the inspiration for the fall of Acheron, was at least part due to Byzans(with hellenistic Egypt)turning the germanic barbarians westwards.Also note that the name of Stygias king, who casts down and elevates priests and mages at his own pleasure, Ctesphon, is persian! Who but Ctesphon could and would arrange that Thoths ring suddenly pops up in the hand of Dion? Tsotha - lanthi in the Scarlet citadel seems to be an agent of Stygia. The bard Rinaldo had dealings with him. Without his ring Thoth himself would be pathetic if he wasn´t so unsympathetic. No doubt his reputation is much greater than himself! Could the Heart of Ahriman, "The red heart of the night" be the Moonstone spoken of in the Kull story The golden skull? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.130.31.203 (talk) 11:06, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

The character is called Epemitreus, not Epimetheus. And I agree that he is an ambiguous character. Though he meets Conan and gives him a task, Epimetheus is secretive about his own background. Wikisource has the original text of the story. I will quote the dialogue of the two characters, removing intervening descriptions, just to make clear that we don't know who or what Epemitreus actually is.:

• Epemetreus: "Oh man, do you know me?"
• Conan: "Not I, by Crom!"
• Epemetreus: "Man,I am Epemitreus."
• Conan: "But Epemitreus the Sage has been dead for fifteen hundred years!"
• Epemetreus: "Harken! As a pebble cast into a dark lake sends ripples to the further shores, happenings in the Unseen World have broken like waves on my slumber. I have marked you well, Conan of Cimmeria, and the stamp of mighty happenings and great deeds is upon you. But dooms are loose in the land, against which your sword can not aid you."
• Conan: "You speak in riddles. Let me see my foe and I'll cleave his skull to the teeth."
• Epemetreus: "Loose your barbarian fury against your foes of flesh and blood. It is not against men I must shield you. There are dark worlds barely guessed by man, wherein formless monsters stalk—fiends which may be drawn from the Outer Voids to take material shape and rend and devour at the bidding of evil magicians. There is a serpent in your house, oh king—an adder in your kingdom, come up from Stygia, with the dark wisdom of the shadows in his murky soul. As a sleeping man dreams of the serpent which crawls near him, I have felt the foul presence of Set's neophyte. He is drunk with terrible power, and the blows he strikes at his enemy may well bring down the kingdom. I have called you to me, to give you a weapon against him and his hell-hound pack."
• Conan: "But why? Men say you sleep in the black heart of Golamira, whence you send forth your ghost on unseen wings to aid Aquilonia in times of need, but I—I am an outlander and a barbarian."
• Epemetreus: "Peace! Your destiny is one with Aquilonia. Gigantic happenings are forming in the web and the womb of Fate, and a blood-mad sorcerer shall not stand in the path of imperial destiny. Ages ago Set coiled about the world like a python about its prey. All my life, which was as the lives of three common men, I fought him. I drove him into the shadows of the mysterious south, but in dark Stygia men still worship him who to us is the arch-demon. As I fought Set, I fight his worshippers and his votaries and his acolytes. Hold out your sword."

The supposedly dead Epemetreus still intervenes in the world, and it is implied that Conan is only a pawn to ensure some kind of "imperial destiny". Dimadick (talk) 17:17, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

Conan is a very un-typical cimmerian.

Many seems not to have gotten what is why the very point with the description of Cimmeria and the cimmerians in this story! Conan is there described as a merry, outgoing and yes- to -life person, in marked contrast to the cimmerians generally. King Conan also tells Prospero that he has always prefered the roisterous and merry ways of the aesir, also in religion. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.130.31.203 (talk) 12:19, 1 April 2019 (UTC)