The Frost Giant's Daughter

[Jason Aiken]

I know fiction is a matter of taste that differs from person to person, but I've always loved "The Frost Giant's Daughter."

Sure, it's not very long, but Howard made the most out of the limited word count. His prose is as energetic and descriptive as ever, and he worked in both a beautiful woman and a fight scene.

I remember hearing on the old forum that this could even be thought of as a Dreamlands story.

[KiramidHead]

I think it's great as well, especially the way it works in themes found in world mythologies. Only instead of a god chasing the woman, it's Conan.

[zarono]

I think Wright really dropped the ball when he passed on The Frost Giant's Daughter, to me it's one of the finest Conan stories. I wonder if thought it was too short?

[johnnypt]

I wonder if that played into it too, though the subject matter may have played into it as well.

There's a bunch of them he passed on that I don't get. God in the Bowl or Vale of Lost Women, I can understand passing on. Delcardes' Cat I can't. It may not be the best written, but compared to a lot of the stuff that was being printed, it certainly had a place.

Now The Black Stranger, if it had a stronger supernatural presence throughout, he may have taken it. As it was written and as good of a story it is, I understand why he'd think it wouldn't fit in Weird Tales.

[Deleted]

I have to agree with the above comments - Wright probably thought it was too short a tale. The funny thing is The Frost Giant's Daughter has inspired some of the finest depictions of Conan; from the Frazetta painting to the Barry Smith and Cary Nord comic book adaptations.

[Deleted]

For some reason I wasn't so impressed by this one. Not even sure why. It seemed to me a little too simplistic in comparison to a lot of other Conan stories that involve scheming, politics, greed, witchery and other more or less reasoned activities. Somehow I just can't relate to chasing some chick in mad rush of lust at the time of peril. Must be a man-thing.

I like the way it gets close to the edge of...things...tho. The replacement of mythology gods by Conan, as mentioned before. And the sort of feeling like ou are on the verge of something in the story. But like I said, hard to explain. That's what it is, overall.

[ironhand]

Feb 2, 2016 12:10:31 GMT -5 Jason Aiken said:

I know fiction is a matter of taste that differs from person to person, but I've always loved "The Frost Giant's Daughter."

Sure, it's not very long, but Howard made the most out of the limited word count. His prose is as energetic and descriptive as ever, and he worked in both a beautiful woman and a fight scene.

I remember hearing on the old forum that this could even be thought of as a Dreamlands story.

Obviously, Atali is laughing at Farnsworth Wright and his short-sightedness.

[zarono]

May 5, 2016 12:21:19 GMT -5 @venaala said:

For some reason I wasn't so impressed by this one. Not even sure why. It seemed to me a little too simplistic in comparison to a lot of other Conan stories that involve scheming, politics, greed, witchery and other more or less reasoned activities. Somehow I just can't relate to chasing some chick in mad rush of lust at the time of peril. Must be a man-thing.

I like the way it gets close to the edge of...things...tho. The replacement of mythology gods by Conan, as mentioned before. And the sort of feeling like ou are on the verge of something in the story. But like I said, hard to explain. That's what it is, overall.

Conan had no choice but to go into a mad rush of lust, it's my opinion is that Atali has some sort of uncontrollable magical aura that drives men to sexual madness, any human male who is in her presence desires her (maybe it works on women too, somebody needs to fanfic that subject) and it gets stronger until the victim chases her back into the alternate reality where her brothers wait to cut them down as a sacrifice to Ymir (the supernatural action in TFGD doesn't take place in normal reality, Niord's men found no dead giants, no tracks in the snow except for Conan's.)
Gorm was hurt too badly to chase Atali so obviously the victim has to enter Ymir's realm using his own physical strength, otherwise Atali would have simply dragged Gorm off to his doom. I assume this is a way of testing the victim to see if his physical strength and will are worthy of a sacrifice to Ymir. Apparently it's all part of a normal ritual for Ymir's children but they bit off more than they could chew with Conan .
 

 
 

 

[johnnypt]

Just been poking around this morning and was reading about The Dunwich Horror (springing off of the Cthulu thread elsewhere today) and saw how Farnsworth snapped it up and paid Lovecraft the most money he'd gotten paid for anything he gotten printed in WT up to then. Considering the subject matter of that story, I don't think FGD came anywhere near as depraved, so I think its brevity was among the key components in its rejection. Plus as an early Conan, it wasn't that fully developed (neither was GitB for that matter). As we see with the Phoenix letter, Wright wanted a thoroughly developed story. It wasn't until his third Conan false start (the Nestor/Hall of the Dead synopsis) before he was able to get going with Tower of the Elephant.