by G. W. Thomas
in Issue 152, September 2024
SNAKES ARE PULP
Let’s be fair right from the start and admit: Pulp fiction, all Pulp fiction hates snakes. The old Detective story in the style of Sax Rohmer had evil and invisible enemies strike with poisonous animals. An asp in your bed and the underworld fiend laughs from the shadows. The Western was no better with cowpokes shooting rattlers all the time. If you wanted to insult someone you called him a sidewinder. Giant and dangerous snakes appear on the cover of Weird Tales at least nine times. Even the Sci-Fi magazines of old had their share. Fantastic Adventures featured them on several prominent covers. So, there, we said it. Snakes are Pulp.
INFLUENCES
Sword & Sorcery also began in the Pulps. Because of this, and its Horror magazine origins, we get plenty of Gothic baggage. Snakes are one of these. If you go back in time to some of the stories that inspired the Gothics you get to the old myths with their giant world-spannng snakes like Jormungand and the Nagas and the good old Quetzalcōātl. In literature, Gothic writer M. G. Lewis wrote of a monstrous snake in “The Anaconda” (1813) which kills with its poison breath. Lord Dunsany, a Fantasy writer who influenced Robert E. Howard had a giant snake called a ‘lythra ‘ in “Idle Days on the Yann” (1912). Of Pulp writers, Edgar Rice Burroughs was an influence. Tarzan, more than once, faced off against Histah the Python, especially in Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle (1927) where he rescues a gorilla from a scaly captor. Even if Robert E. Howard hadn’t disliked snakes (being a Texan who knew rattlesnakes and being of Irish descendant, a St. Patrick fan), heroic fantasy was there anyway.
ROBERT E. HOWARD
That first Kull story “The Shadow Kingdom” (Weird Tales, August 1929) was also the first true Sword & Sorcery yarn. It had snakes in the form of Serpent Men. These scaly villains could appear to be human but were pure reptile. Howard would use more regular-shaped snakes in “The Scarlet Citadel” (Weird Tales, January 1933 ), where Conan meets the giant snake Satha while imprisoned. (This was the giant snake that made it into the 1982 film.) Satha appeared again in “In The Valley of the Worm” (Weird Tales, February 1934 ).“Black Collosus” (Weird Tales, June 1933 ), which has a giant constrictor as a guardian for Thugra Khotan. In “Beyond the Black River” (Weird Tales, May-June 1935 ) the Pictish shaman, Zogar Sag commands a sabertooth and a giant snake. “Shadows in Zamboula” (Weird Tales, November 1935 ), featured a racy cover with a woman surrounded by cobras. (So racy the Canadian authorities hid her away under a sticker!) In “The God in the Bowl” (Space Science Fiction, September 1952 ) an ancient god is released from a metal sphere and takes serpent shape.The Stygian snake god, Set, does not like our bronzed Cimmerian and we can see why.
Dragons are quite scarse in Howard’s worlds. He has a T. Rex like dinosaur in “Red Nails” (Weird Tales, July 1936 ) that is called a dragon but isn’t. (I think he was riffing off of Edgar Rice Burroughs.) Giant snakes we get, winged drakes, no. And REH even had a novel called The Hour of the Dragon (Weird Tales, December 1935 -April 1936 ), but no fire-breathers need apply. Writers of Sword & Sorcery who followed seem to take their call from Howard. The dragon is largely seen as a creature of Epic Fantasy in the J. R. R. Tokien mode, not S&S.
HENRY KUTTNER
The Elak of Atlantis series by Henry Kuttner was one of the first Pulp imitators, offering a winged serpent in “Thunder in the Dawn” (Weird Tales, May 1938 ). This poisonous asp could be thrown at others as a magical weapon. The dragon in “Dragon Moon” (Weird Tales, January 1941 ) refers to the kingship and the Dragon Throne. Despite the Harold Delay cover, no dragons show up. In Kuttner’s Prince Raynor series there is mention of “snake-like cockadrils” in “Cursed Be the City” (Strange Stories, April 1939 ) and has a giant serpent guardian called ‘Snake’ in “The Citadel of Darkness”(Strange Stories, August 1939 ).
LIN CARTER
So who used the hated snake after Howard, Kuttner and the Pulps?. Ironically, one of them is Lin Carter who called his version of the Serpent Men the Dragon Kings in Wizard of Lemuria (1965). They aren’t dragons either but big snaky dudes. Carter also gave us the furred serpent in “The Lair of the Ice Worm” (Conan the Cimmerian, 1969). Fritz Leiber had his own version with the Furred Snow Serpent of Lankhmar in “The Snow Women” (Fantastic, April 1970). Carter came back and did it again in the Thongor story “Demon of the Snows” (Year’s Best Fantasy 6, 1980).
COMIC BOOKS
In the comics, the first adventure of Crom the Barbarian (Out of This World #1, July 1950), which was also the very first true Sword & Sorcery comic, features a giant snake. Crom must bypass the giant snake to rescue the queen who has been taken. Gardner F. Fox, who later penned the Kothar and Kyrik series of S&S novels, wrote all the Crom tales. He created the snake god, Isthinissis for Kyrik, Warlock Warrior (1975). Later comics, like Conan the Barbarian and Savage Sword of Conan featured giant snakes on a regular basis. Many of these were adaptations of Howard, but Roy Thomas used his own ceations in tales like “The Sword and the Serpent” (Conan the Barbarian #89, August 1978).
A BAD RAP?
Why do snakes get such a bad rap? Any snake owner can tell you it is unfair. They make interesting pets. I suspect it is the cool skin, the unblinking eyes and the constricting or poison thing that turns most of us off. There is a deep-seated dislike for snakes in the human animal. It isn’t hard for a good fantasy writer to exploit this innate rejection. (Spiders have a similar deal and often show up in heroic fantasy, Sword & Sorcery as well as Epic Fantasy.) Let’s be honest. If you have an evil shape-shifting villain, he isn’t going to turn into a panda bear, is he? It will be biblical proportions of magic, and it will be snakes.
©September 2024, G. W. Thomas
G. W. Thomas has appeared in over 400 different books, magazines, ezines and podcasts including Writer’s Digest, Pseudopod, The First Line, Cthulhu Now!, and previously in Swords & Sorcery Magazine. His blog Dark Worlds Quarterly is at www.gwthomas.org.
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