Conan (Fictitious character) -- Fiction; Fantasy fiction, American
Another factor has added to the impetus of Hyborian drift. A tribe of
that race has discovered the use of stone in building, and the first
Hyborian kingdom has come into being--the rude and barbaric kingdom of
Hyperborea, which had its beginning in a crude fortress of boulders
heaped to repel tribal attack. The people of this tribe soon abandoned
their horse-hide tents for stone houses, crudely but mightily built, and
thus protected, they grew strong. There are few more dramatic events in
history than the rise of the rude, fierce kingdom of Hyperborea, whose
people turned abruptly from their nomadic life to rear dwellings of
naked stone, surrounded by cyclopean walls--a race scarcely emerged from
the polished stone age, who had by a freak of chance, learned the first
rude principles of architecture.
The rise of this kingdom drove forth many other tribes, for, defeated in
the war, or refusing to become tributary to their castle-dwelling
kinsmen, many clans set forth on long treks that took them halfway
around the world. And already the more northern tribes are beginning to
be harried by gigantic blond savages, not much more advanced than
ape-men.
The tale of the next thousand years is the tale of the rise of the
Hyborians, whose warlike tribes dominate the western world. Rude
kingdoms are taking shape. The tawny-haired invaders have encountered
the Picts, driving them into the barren lands of the west. To the
northwest, the descendants of the Atlanteans, climbing unaided from
apedom into primitive savagery, have not yet met the conquerors. Far to
the east the Lemurians are evolving a strange semi-civilization of their
own. To the south the Hyborians have founded the kingdom of Koth, on the
borders of those pastoral countries known as the Lands of Shem, and the
savages of those lands, partly through contact with the Hyborians,
partly through contact with the Stygians who have ravaged them for
centuries, are emerging from barbarism. The blond savages of the far
north have grown in power and numbers so that the northern Hyborian
tribes move southward, driving their kindred clans before them. The
ancient kingdom of Hyperborea is overthrown by one of these northern
tribes, which, however, retains the old name. Southeast of Hyperborea a
kingdom of the Zhemri has come into being, under the name of Zamora. To
the southwest, a tribe of Picts have invaded the fertile valley of
Zingg, conquered the agricultural people there, and settled among them.
This mixed race was in turn conquered later by a roving tribe of Hybori,
and from these mingled elements came the kingdom of Zingara.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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