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According do REH only SOME of the Cimmerian clans became actually Celts (The Hyborian Age part 2 or Conan RPG page 247). These were only the pure-blooded clans, so calling Conan "celtic" is just a misunderstanding, as he wasn't pure-blooded.

Celts are cimmerian, but Cimmerians aren't celtic.
 
Zeus said:
According do REH only SOME of the Cimmerian clans became actually Celts (The Hyborian Age part 2 or Conan RPG page 247). These were only the pure-blooded clans, so calling Conan "celtic" is just a misunderstanding, as he wasn't pure-blooded.

Celts are cimmerian, but Cimmerians aren't celtic.

I wouldn't hold your breath and that being canon.
 
Alarick said:
what do you mean cimmerians were molded after scots
no they wernt theywere molded after germans

Yup, those famous blond haired Cimmerian Warriors with their big bushy beards...
 
Mayhem said:
Alarick said:
what do you mean cimmerians were molded after scots
no they wernt theywere molded after germans

Yup, those famous blond haired Cimmerian Warriors with their big bushy beards...

Precisely. The 'pure-blooded Hyborians', i.e. the Gundermen, were the closest thing to Saxons. Tawny hair and grey eyes, excellent pikemen/infantry, it all fits ;)
 
Mongoose Old Bear said:
I wouldn't hold your breath and that being canon.

These were just my 2 cents. Anyway, I think that calling Cimmerians celtic is like calling Asia "Japan".
 
Cimmerians are not literally Celts, but they are the Hyborian Age equivalent. Conan of Cimmeria is preceded by an expressly Gaelic Conan the Reaver in "People of the Dark", is physically and temperamentally similar to Conn in "The Grey God Passes", etc. Read Patrice Louinet's "Hyborian Genesis".
According do REH only SOME of the Cimmerian clans became actually Celts (The Hyborian Age part 2 or Conan RPG page 247). These were only the pure-blooded clans, so calling Conan "celtic" is just a misunderstanding, as he wasn't pure-blooded.
Yes he was: 'Conan was of mixed blood, although a pure-bred Cimmerian' (the P. Schuyler Miller letter).
The 'pure-blooded Hyborians', i.e. the Gundermen, were the closest thing to Saxons. Tawny hair and grey eyes, excellent pikemen/infantry, it all fits
Though some Nordheimr also have Saxon names.
 
Conan was of mixed blood, although a pure-bred Cimmerian

I'm willing to accept my mistake if you only tell me the diffrence between pure-blood and pure-bred. I mean - only pure-blooded clans end up as Celts, Conan is of mixed blood, but pure-bred. Does this mean, that being of mixed blood doesn't prevent you from being pure-blooded? Honestly, I'm not trying to be rude or offensive, I just want to know, why do you consider Conan celtic-like.
 
Here's more of the quote:
The country claimed by and roved over by his clan lay in the northwest of Cimmerian, but Conan was of mixed blood, although a pure-bred Cimmerian. His grandfather was a member of a southern tribe who had fled from his own people because of a blood-feud and after long wanderings, eventually taken refuge with the people of the north.
That is, Conan's lineage is completely Cimmerian (and Atlantean before that), but his blood is mixed in that it's of two Cimmerian tribes. It's the Cimmerians who don't interbreed with Nordheimr, Hyborians etc. who become the Celts.

Conan is seen to be Celtic-like in the Conan stories themselves, the Conan stories compared to Howard's many other stories featuring moody black-haired Gaelic barbarians (Conan the Reaver, Conn, Cormac Mac Art, Turlogh O'Brien, Cormac FitzGeoffrey, Black Vulmea, etc.), "The Hyborian Age", "Hyborian Names and Countries" (in which the sample Cimmerian names are historical Irish ones), Howard's letters, etc.
 
I don't know where (canon or non-canon), but I read that Conan had a non-Cimmerian ancestor. Someone from the south AFAIR. This... ummm, guy was travelling a lot and I think it was mentioned that he told Conan about the Hyborian cities and kingdoms.

I bet my ass I just wrote something stupid :D
 
The guy from the south who travelled a lot was his (Cimmerian) grandfather, mentioned in that quote, no?

(Fred Blosser had an article in The Howard Reader proposing that Conan's mother was an Æsir, but presumably he didn't have access to the letter at that point.)
 
What I meant was that Cimmerians are IMHO more than simply Celts. Celts are one of the ingredients of the Cimmerian pie :)
 
Zeus said:
What I meant was that Cimmerians are IMHO more than simply Celts. Celts are one of the ingredients of the Cimmerian pie :)
I would consider it the other way: Cimmerians are one of the ingredients of the Celts.
During history, Celts moved a lot before settling. Cimmerians didn't move at all unless they were forced (by the cataclysms or the coming of the Ice Age).
Even if they were life ennemy with the Picts and destroyed the Aquilonian outpost of Venarium, the Cimmerians never invaded any country. They mixed with other people when they had to migrate because of the advance of the northern glaciers.
 
I think your right he did have a non-cimmerian grandfather (mothers side iirc).

I have a niggling suspision he was from Koth, Stygia or Shem. Actually the more i think about it the more i tend to lean towards Shem...

Hmm.. needs investigating.

Although having read the arguements any one born in Cimmeria would likely become a pure bred cimmerian - The land clearly made the man in Conans case, his blood line merely helped (anyone raised in Cimmerian culture would end up with a fairly Cimmerian attitude)
 
AD said:
I think your right he did have a non-cimmerian grandfather (mothers side iirc).

I have a niggling suspision he was from Koth, Stygia or Shem. Actually the more i think about it the more i tend to lean towards Shem...

Hmm.. needs investigating.

Although having read the arguements any one born in Cimmeria would likely become a pure bred cimmerian - The land clearly made the man in Conans case, his blood line merely helped (anyone raised in Cimmerian culture would end up with a fairly Cimmerian attitude)

Conan of Venarium by Harry Turtledove pretty much covers conan's background, and many Cimmerians do indeed have beards.
 
Actually in many stories he wears a loin cloth, and depending on the culture it takes different forms. From underwear like to skirts, Native Americans in the US region wore loin clothes in a much different manor than those in South America, and a kilt is essentially a loin cloth because you were nothing underneath it except in cold weather in which you wore wool breaches underneath the kilt. And since the Cimmerians are based off of the Kelts, you could then assume without making an ass of one-self that Conan's Loin clothes were Kilts.

JMHO. :D
 
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