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Post by charleshelm on Jan 9, 2020 20:20:48 GMT -5
I picked this up the other day on eBay, hope this is the right place. From the Hells Beneath the Hells is a record with readings of various Robert E. Howard writings, and takes it's name from a line in one of the selections, The Song of a Mad Minstrel. This was a limited run and comes with a text booklet. The text is read by Ugo Toppo. Selections include The Song of a Mad Minstrel, The Curse of the Golden Skull, Altars and Jesters, and The Mirrors of Tuzun Thune.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 10, 2020 3:23:31 GMT -5
Excellent find Charleshelm.
...and signed by Jeff Jones, great stuff.
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Post by robp on Jan 10, 2020 5:12:07 GMT -5
Wow! Never seen that before, thanks for posting.
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Post by charleshelm on Jan 10, 2020 6:57:31 GMT -5
Yes, the signature was a nice bonus. My pleasure. Sometimes I have to remember to post things here after I put them on my Instagram.
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Post by keith on Jan 14, 2020 21:09:13 GMT -5
Excellent stuff. "The Song of a Mad Minstrel" is a great dark poem of Howard's. It's often been supposed that the "mad minstrel" of the title was Rinaldo from "The Phoenix on the Sword", and in spirit as well as content, it very well could be, with just one little clashing discrepancy. The fourth stanza says, "In lost grey fields of rice, I have learned from Mongol dead." In the Hyborian Age, when Rinaldo lived and died, there were no Mongols, just their remote ancestors the Hyrkanians. Personally I like think that the macabre singer was Rinaldo anyway.
If he hadn't been, though, the "mad minstrel" could have been REH's other crazy poet, Justin Geoffrey, who lived in the early twentieth century. I don't think he ever went near Mongolia, or further east than Stregoicavar in Hungary, but at least he lived in the same world as Mongols, and his line about "lost grey fields of rice" could have been poetic licence. He might also have been inspired by the "Black Book" of von Junzt, which Justin was just the sort of fellow to have read. Von Junzt did make a final journey to Mongolia, and was apparently followed home by some nocturnal monster with malformed hands that strangled him in the classic locked room. That could have inspired Justin before he died in a madhouse. As the narrator of CAS's "The Hunters From Beyond" says, "An artist has the right to choose his own subject-matter, even if he takes it from the nether pits of Limbo and Erebus."
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Post by Deleted on Jan 15, 2020 2:37:42 GMT -5
Excellent stuff. "The Song of a Mad Minstrel" is a great dark poem of Howard's. It's often been supposed that the "mad minstrel" of the title was Rinaldo from "The Phoenix on the Sword", and in spirit as well as content, it very well could be, with just one little clashing discrepancy. The fourth stanza says, "In lost grey fields of rice, I have learned from Mongol dead." In the Hyborian Age, when Rinaldo lived and died, there were no Mongols, just their remote ancestors the Hyrkanians. Personally I like think that the macabre singer was Rinaldo anyway. If he hadn't been, though, the "mad minstrel" could have been REH's other crazy poet, Justin Geoffrey, who lived in the early twentieth century. I don't think he ever went near Mongolia, or further east than Stregoicavar in Hungary, but at least he lived in the same world as Mongols, and his line about "lost grey fields of rice" could have been poetic licence. He might also have been inspired by the "Black Book" of von Junzt, which Justin was just the sort of fellow to have read. Von Junzt did make a final journey to Mongolia, and was apparently followed home by some nocturnal monster with malformed hands that strangled him in the classic locked room. That could have inspired Justin before he died in a madhouse. As the narrator of CAS's "The Hunters From Beyond" says, "An artist has the right to choose his own subject-matter, even if he takes it from the nether pits of Limbo and Erebus." Here's a link to a nice reading of "The Song of a Mad Minstrel" from the internet Archive: archive.org/details/RobertE.Howard_ArancaytarTheSongoftheMadMinstrel
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Post by linefacedscrivener on Jan 26, 2020 14:36:24 GMT -5
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