The Dell Bran Mak Morn Series: The Dark Man by Robert E. Howard

by Gary Romeo

“The Dark Man” was first published in the December 1931 issue of Weird Tales. It was reprinted in Weird Tales for the September 1954 issue. The story made its first hardcover appearance in The Dark Man and Others, Arkham House, 1963 and its first paperback appearance in Bran Mak Morn, Dell, 1969.

“The Dark Man” is the last story in the Dell paperback. The story begins with an excerpt from G. K. Chesterton’s “The Ballad of the White Horse.” That poem influenced Robert E. Howard’s poem, “The Ballad of King Geraint” which also features Picts, and which will be discussed in the future.

This story introduces us to Turlogh Dubh, known as Black Turlogh of the Clan na O’Brien. (When I read this story as a teen, I loved that name so much I submitted a letter to my high school newspaper and signed it using Turlogh’s name. It was printed but I didn’t save the issue. This was at Cass Technical High School, Detroit, MI, around 1973.)

Turlogh is described as a “super-fighter.” REH gives Turlogh a quick backstory having another character mention that Turlogh is an outlaw and preys “off the O’Reillys and the Oestman alike.” The reader learns Turlogh is honorable when he doesn’t kill the fishermen who is refusing to lend Turlogh a boat. Turlogh could have easily taken the boat by force but instead offers the fisherman a torc that King Brian Boru gave him before the battle of Clontarf.

Torc with Celtic design

The fisherman refuses the priceless item and allows Turlogh the use of his boat. Turlogh sails to rescue a princess from her Norse captors. Turlogh is consumed with hate and fury. “There was a tinge of madness in his eyes.”

Turlogh lands at a small island for fresh water. Upon landing he sees a mass of dead bodies. Fifteen Danes and seven short dark-skinned (but not misshapen) warriors that are unknown to him. He realizes that, although outnumbered, these warriors fought like tigers killing their larger foes. He finds a stone statue that is curiously light in weight. He decides to take the statue with him and sail on to Helni (the island where Thorfel the Fair holds the princess) but first Turlogh gives a soliloquy that encapsulates REH’s philosophy:

“You were a king, once, Dark Man. Mayhap you were a God and reigned over all the world. Your people passed – as mine are passing. Surely you were a king of the Flint People, the race whom my Celtic ancestors destroyed. Well – we have had our day and we, too, are passing. These Danes who lie at your feet – they are the conquerors now. They must have their day – but they too will pass. But you shall go with me, Dark Man, king, God, or devil though you be. Aye, for it is in my mind that you will bring me luck, and luck is what I shall need when I sight Helni, Dark Man.”

Summarizing the rest of the story would only provide spoilers. Needless to say, the statue does bring luck and actively plays a role in the battle between Turlogh along with his Pictish allies in their confrontation with Thorfel and his Vikings.

Turlogh does learn from a Pictish Chieftain, named Brogar, that the statue is of Bran Mak Morn, the greatest king of the Picts. Upon Bran’s death his spirit entered the carved likeness. According to Brogar, civil war broke out (maybe between the pure bloodline and the misshapen?) after Bran’s death, and “When the Scot Kenneth MacAlpine broke the kingdom of Galloway, the last remnant of the Pictish empire faded like snow on the mountain.”

Kenneth Mac Alpin, considered the founder of Scotland, then known as Alba, was a Pict himself (basically just Celts who liked to carve stones and paint themselves blue). As mentioned in previous articles, REH got the name and idea of Picts from G. F. Scott Elliot’s The Romance of Early British Life. Therefore, REH’s concept of Picts clashes with modern thinking. But that doesn’t make the stories any less entertaining. “The Dark Man” is, to my mind, one of REH’s best stories.

The Picts in this story are not the misshapen Picts of “Men of the Shadows” and “Worms of the Earth” they are like the Picts in “The Lost Race” and “The Night of the Wolf.” There does seem a slight philosophical change in REH’s thinking. Previously Picts had great hate for the Celts for conquering them AND driving them to interbreed with giant red-haired cave dwellers. Now REH has the Picts just trying to survive (although still capable of great violence; one dashes out the brains of a Viking child.). They are no longer a mixed breed dying race, just a people who have been conquered, as is the natural course of history as stated in Turlogh’s previous speech. Turlogh, instead of the Picts, is the one filled with hate for his enemies. The downbeat ending that suggests hate, violence, and bloodshed is all that can be expected of mankind is a brutal unforgiving outlook to have. Although this is one of REH’s best written stories it is more of a downer than most. Goth kids would probably like the philosophy herein, although REH’s emphasis on muscled alpha male warriors would probably turn them off.

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There are changes in paragraph breaks along with several textual differences between the Dell paperback version of this story and the Ballantine (Del Rey) pure-text version:

Dell: fierce land

Del Rey: fierce western land

Dell: pagan power, forever

Del Rey: pagan power forever

Dell: Oestmen

Del Rey: Oastmen

Dell: northern reaver

Del Rey: northern rover

Dell: cast him out

Del Rey: booted him out

Dell:

Del Rey:

Dell: the sail

Del Rey: his sail

Dell: lame

Del Rey: lamed

Dell: Delcassian (typo, spelled correctly elsewhere)

Del Rey: Dalcassian

Dell: God

Del Rey: god

Dell:

Del Rey:

Other changes are that the AUTHOR note is not present in the Dell paperback. It was used in the Weird Tales version and the Del Rey version.

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Marvel Comics adapted the story but turned it into a Conan tale (shades of de Camp!) in Savage Tales #4. Story by Roy Thomas and art by Gil Kane, Neal Adams and “diverse hands.”