It's been noted before that Aragorn's response to Boromir's skepticism, glossing his time as a Ranger, would have made for quite the classic adventure story. (We'll remember that this was rumored to be Amazon's TV show for a bit.) It might even have fit rather neatly in the sword and sorcery category--though he would still have been far less mercenary/self-motivated than the genre demands of its protagonists generally.
Still, something of his speech reminded me of that genre, and I recalled this morning the fictional epigraph that leads into Howard's first published Conan story, The Phoenix on the Sword:
"KNOW, oh prince, that between the years when the oceans drank Atlantis and the gleaming cities, and the years of the rise of the Sons of Aryas, there was an Age undreamed of, when shining kingdoms lay spread across the world like blue mantles beneath the stars—Nemedia, Ophir, Brythunia, Hyperborea, Zamora with its dark-haired women and towers of spider-haunted mystery, Zingara with its chivalry, Koth that bordered on the pastoral lands of Shem, Stygia with its shadow-guarded tombs, Hyrkania whose riders wore steel and silk and gold. But the proudest kingdom of the world was Aquilonia, reigning supreme in the dreaming west. Hither came Conan, the Cimmerian, black-haired, sullen-eyed, sword in hand, a thief, a reaver, a slayer, with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, to tread the jeweled thrones of the Earth under his sandalled feet."—The Nemedian Chronicles
There isn't really a question here (hence the choice of forum), and of course it's easier to spot the differences than the similarities--Aragorn, certainly, was never a thief or a reaver. But I always think it's interesting to look around the fantasy genre, both forward and back, when reading Tolkien.
Still, something of his speech reminded me of that genre, and I recalled this morning the fictional epigraph that leads into Howard's first published Conan story, The Phoenix on the Sword:
"KNOW, oh prince, that between the years when the oceans drank Atlantis and the gleaming cities, and the years of the rise of the Sons of Aryas, there was an Age undreamed of, when shining kingdoms lay spread across the world like blue mantles beneath the stars—Nemedia, Ophir, Brythunia, Hyperborea, Zamora with its dark-haired women and towers of spider-haunted mystery, Zingara with its chivalry, Koth that bordered on the pastoral lands of Shem, Stygia with its shadow-guarded tombs, Hyrkania whose riders wore steel and silk and gold. But the proudest kingdom of the world was Aquilonia, reigning supreme in the dreaming west. Hither came Conan, the Cimmerian, black-haired, sullen-eyed, sword in hand, a thief, a reaver, a slayer, with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, to tread the jeweled thrones of the Earth under his sandalled feet."—The Nemedian Chronicles
There isn't really a question here (hence the choice of forum), and of course it's easier to spot the differences than the similarities--Aragorn, certainly, was never a thief or a reaver. But I always think it's interesting to look around the fantasy genre, both forward and back, when reading Tolkien.
Last edited:
