Bran Mak Morn

Bran Mak Morn
Created by Robert E. Howard
Information
Gender Male
Occupation King

Bran Mak Morn is a hero of five pulp fiction short stories by Robert E. Howard. In the stories, most of which were first published in Weird Tales, Bran is the last king of Howard's romanticized version of the tribal race of Picts.

Howard's history of the Picts

At 13, Howard, being of Scottish descent, began his studies of Scottish history and became fascinated with what he calls "the small dark Mediterranean aborigines of Britain."[1] As these Picts were portrayed as inferior to later tribes, Howard imagined them as a link between modern and ancient times.

His Picts originated on a group of islands near what was once Valusia, the kingdom of the Atlantean Kull. When Atlantis, Lemuria, and Valusia sank into the sea, the Picts survived and were flung into a period of cultural decline. They forgot the art of metalworking and returned to the technique of flintknapping.

They migrated to the North until they reached Caledon, the northern lands of the later British Isles. They drove the extant tribes northward until the Aryans, Celts, and Germans invaded.[2]

The Picts were pushed to the North, where they mingled with the tribes they had defeated earlier. Forgetting most of their technological skills, they became brutish and skilled in warcraft.[3]

Although Bran Mak Morn has dark eyes, he does not resemble the Caledonian Picts as Howard depicts them. He refers to himself as a Mediterranean, possibly meaning that he associates himself with the more ancient Picts.[4]

Picts in fantasy

Many writers have been drawn to the idea of the Picts and created fictional stories and mythology about them in the absence of much real data. This romanticised view tends to portray them as occasionally noble savages, much as the view of Europeans on Native Americans in the 18th century.

They are a special favorite race of Robert E. Howard and are mentioned frequently in his tales, having a continuity from the tales of King Kull of Atlantis, where they are his allies, to the Hyborian Age of Conan the Barbarian where they are the mortal enemies of the Cimmerians, who are actually descended from the old Atlanteans though they do not remember their ancestry or old alliance. Howard also wrote tales about the last King of the Picts Bran Mak Morn set in real historical time and they figure commonly as enemies of Cormac mac Art. In fact, the character of Brule, the Spear Slayer, in the Kull stories, is a member of the Pre-Cataclysmic Age Picts.

Howard's Picts are said to have originated in the westernmost reaches of North America , and gradually migrated into the Mediterranean area. At one time they spread to large areas of the world, but gradually vanished except for several splinter groups. Although some of these groups lived in remote jungles and southern continents, the most prominent body of Picts settled in the British isles, where they displaced a supposedly mongoloid race that had been the initial residents of the isles (though their origins were elsewhere).

An interesting point is that, in the Hyborian age, when they populate the western edge of Europe and share a border with Aquilonia, which tries to push them further west to colonize new provinces, the Picts show clear native American influence, in their appearance, dress, armament, manner of conducting wars, and even the place names of the new Aquilonian provinces. It is hard to tell whether this is a case of inconsistency on the part of Howard, or a throwback to their earliest origins and savagery, as Hyborian Picts are definitely more primitive and savage than those Kull knew.

This previous race sought refuge underground, and over long millennia they evolved into stunted and hideous creatures, who were the initial subjects of tales concerning elves and dwarves. The Picts were in turn displaced by the invading Celts, and they fled northward and interbred with a tribe of 'red haired barbarians,' resulting in a genetic shift toward diminished height. Following subsequent Roman, Breton, and Saxon invasions, the Picts too sought refuge underground, just like the natives they had displaced before.

Howard's descriptions of the later Picts portray them as very small in height, squat and muscular, adept at silent movement, and most of all brutish and uncivilised. They painted themselves with woad, much like the historical Picts, and lived in very large caverns, some natural and some artificially expanded. They had a custom of burning enemy prisoners alive, a ceremony usually presided over by their 'wizards' or priests, whom Howard portrayed as having a twisted philosophy and mindset produced by many years of hatred, in direct opposition to the Pictish warrior-king Bran Mak Morn, who attempted to restore the Picts to their honourable place in the world and drive out the Roman invaders.

Bran Mak Morn's mindset was very unusual for his time and location, because he favored an alliance of the "native" British populations, including the Picts, Bretons, and Celts, against the Romans, in a setting when each of these tribes fostered an intense hatred and mistrust for all the others. Robert E. Howard also mentions that some warriors among the Picts could assume the forms of wolves, in the manner of werewolves, on their own free will. These Picts were a "race" with whom Howard felt the most affinity, and for this reason they were one of his favorite subjects, despite being almost wholly fictitious and deviating from historical fact.

The name

The name is derived from the name of Brennus, the Gaul who sacked Rome, and comes from a Britonnic word meaning "raven". Howard says the Mak Morn was inspired by the Irish hero Goll mac Morna. He added a k to give the name a non-Gaelic appearance.[5]

Cthulhu Mythos

The Bran Mak Morn stories are connected to the Cthulhu Mythos and take place in the same fictional universe. Twice in Worms of the Earth mention is made of the black gods of R'lyeh, resting place of Cthulhu, creation of H. P. Lovecraft, a friend and correspondent of Howard. In the earliest extant copy of Worms of the Earth mention of Cthulhu himself is made by name although this was later changed to Nameless Gods in the final edition. Also mentioned in the same story is Dagon, a water monster mentioned in some stories by Lovecraft and named after a real-world Philistine god. Lovecraft himself references Bran Mak Morn in his short story "The Whisperer in Darkness".

Homage

Bran Mac Mufin, a character in Dave Sim's graphic novel Cerebus, is an homage and parody of Bran Mak Morn. His name is a play on words, referring to the pastry bran muffin and the McDonald's breakfast sandwich the McMuffin.

Stories

Most of Howard's Bran Mak Morn stories were first published in Weird Tales. A few stories didn't appear in print until after Howard's death.

Note: The order of publication does not correspond with the order in which the stories were written.

Poems

Fragments

Book editions

Collections

Howard's stories, poems, and fragments featuring Bran Mak Morn have been published several times as a collection in book form. Not every publication has been a complete collection.

Pastiches

Other writers have published novels featuring Howard's Bran Mak Morn.

Adaptations

Comics

Bran Mak Morn has appeared in several issues of Marvel Comics' Savage Sword of Conan. In 1974 "Men of Shadows" was adapted by writer Roy Thomas and appeared in SSoC #102-104, and 106.

Dark Horse Comics is currently publishing Robert E. Howard's Savage Sword which features stories such as "Worms of the Earth" to "Men of Shadows" to "Kings of the Night." Some are brand new adaptions exclusive to the title, while others are reprints from previous publications.

Music

American band Breathing the Void released a song "Bran Mak Morn Blues" in 2010 based on the story "Worms of the Earth"[6]

The Film

Peter Berg will direct the movie Bran Mak Morn for Universal Pictures. Chris Romano is writing the script. The movie was slated for 2012 release but till now no new information has been available about the film.

Copyright and Trademark

The name Bran Mak Morn and the names of Robert E. Howard's other principal characters are trademarked by Paradox Entertainment of Stockholm, Sweden, through its US subsidiary Paradox Entertainment Inc. Paradox also holds copyrights on the stories written by other authors under license from Robert E Howard Properties Inc. Since Robert E. Howard published his Bran Mak Morn stories at a time when the date of publication was the marker, the owners had to use the copyright symbol, and they had to renew after a certain time to maintain copyright, the exact status of all of Howard's Bran Mak Morn works are in question.[7]

The Australian site of Project Gutenberg has many Robert E. Howard stories, including several Bran Mak Morn stories.[8] This indicates that, in their opinion, the stories are free from copyright and may be used by anyone, at least under Australian law.

Subsequent stories written by other authors are subject to the copyright laws of the relevant time.

References

  1. ↑ "Foreword" in Bran Mak Morn, Robert E. Howard, Dell Publishing Company, 1969, p. 8-9.
  2. ↑ "Kings of the Night" in Bran Mak Morn, p. 65-6.
  3. ↑ "Men of the Shadows" in Bran Mak Morn, p. 51.
  4. ↑ "Men of the Shadows" in Bran Mak Morn, p. 39.
  5. ↑ "Foreword" in Bran Mak Morn, p. 9.
  6. ↑ Breathingthevoid.com
  7. ↑ Copyright Term and the Public Domain in the United States at Cornell University
  8. ↑ A - M, Project Gutenberg Australia free ebooks ebook etext etexts

See also

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Thursday, March 17, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.