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Post by keith on Nov 5, 2017 3:04:58 GMT -5
Many thanks, Deuce! I liked working out a timeline for Roger O'Farrel and his unofficially adopted daughter, Helen Tavrel. I couldn't ever write a story about the golden-haired Helen because "The Isle of Pirates' Doom" in which she appears, was not published anywhere in REH's lifetime, or for long after, and therefore isn't public domain. Roger O'Farrel just might be a different matter. He doesn't appear in the story. Helen just talks about him ... and talks about him ... and talks about him, until her shipwrecked companion, Steve Harmer, is sick of the rascal's name. If he doesn't actually appear in the story, does that confer freedom from copyright and other legal worries if I ever wrote a yarn about him?
I had the same thought about some other pirates who do not appear, but are only mentioned, in "Black Vulmea's Vengeance." The English swine Wentyard demands of Vulmea the whereabouts of a Dutch pirate, van Raven. Vulmea answers, "Van Raven? He's a bird of passage. Who knows where he sails?" The info emerges that van Raven took treasure from a Spanish plate fleet, and Vulmea sees readily enough that this is the cause of Wentyard's interest. He names a few other pirates. "Why not Tranicos, or Villiers, or McVeigh, or a dozen others more destructive to English trade than van Raven?"
Villiers actually does appear as a character in "Swords of the Red Brotherhood", and we learn more about him then, as he do about another pirate, Harston of Bristol. "Tranicos" had his name used by de Camp when he rewrote "The Black Stranger" as "The Treasure of Tranicos", but that has nothing to do with the "Tranicos" of Vulmea's time, whom I assume was Greek. McVeigh was probably a Scottish sea-thief, and it would be interesting to record a few of his villainies too, but somehow the possibilities of the Dutchman as a character have more allure. In the "Roger O'Farrel" posts he appears as a sometime adversary of O'Farrel's, and very nearly an equal, big, burly, cheerful and thunderous, with a yellow beard and the temperament of a drunken Zeus.
Yes, I absolutely do like Vulmea, and I wish REH had written a yarn or two about O'Farrel and van Raven, besides.
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fernando
Thief
I'm purist and proud! I hate insistent people! And I only give opinions when I'm ASKED!!
Posts: 141
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Post by fernando on Nov 6, 2017 14:00:25 GMT -5
Actually the name "Tranicos" appears in REH's Conan yarn The Black Stranger, before Howard rewriting it into Swords of the Red Brotherhood.
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Post by keith on Nov 8, 2017 6:23:49 GMT -5
Actually the name "Tranicos" appears in REH's Conan yarn The Black Stranger, before Howard rewriting it into Swords of the Red Brotherhood. Yes, the name Tranicos had a bit of a complicated publication history -- "The Black Stranger" featuring Conan, recycled later as "Swords of the Red Brotherhood" with Black Terence Vulmea (which just in passing, had Vulmea crossing the whole North American continent in, I estimate, the 1670s). I get confused with the sequence and order. But in "Swords of the Red Brotherhood", the pirate who left a treasure on that remote coast was not Tranicos, but a privateer called Giovanni da Verrazano. The Vulmea stories only have the name Tranicos arising as that of one pirate among others, while Vulmea is bound and trading insults with Wentyard. I haven't done any detailed speculation about the career of the Tranicos of our istory, the pirate Vulmea knew, but I've sort of assumed his name was Gregor Tranicos and he first saw daylight by the Bay of Piraeus, Athens, in 1635. Greece was ruled by the Ottoman Turks at the time, and I'll bet Tranicos had quite a story behind him when he arrived in the Caribbean.
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Post by deuce on Jan 31, 2018 13:07:47 GMT -5
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Post by keith on Feb 2, 2018 6:28:08 GMT -5
Thanks, Deuce! I'll be doing a few other reviews for DMR Books, but I started with Vulmea because I like the character a lot and wish REH had written a bit more about him. And one day I really want to write a story or two about the Dutch pirate, van Raven, who only gets a passing reference in "Black Vulmea's Vengeance" but sounds interesting.
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Post by deuce on Feb 7, 2018 11:59:26 GMT -5
Thanks, Deuce! I'll be doing a few other reviews for DMR Books, but I started with Vulmea because I like the character a lot and wish REH had written a bit more about him. And one day I really want to write a story or two about the Dutch pirate, van Raven, who only gets a passing reference in "Black Vulmea's Vengeance" but sounds interesting. I thought you did a great job with both segments of your look at Vulmea. I'd definitely like to see you tackle von Raven. Also looking forward to further reviews from you at the DMR blog! Part Two: dmrbooks.com/test-blog/2018/1/30/black-vulmea-robert-e-howards-roughneck-pirate-part-two
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Post by keith on Dec 14, 2018 8:33:19 GMT -5
I'd love to tackle van Raven myself. Probably a Jacob van Raven story with a supernatural element would sell best, these days, and since REH described him through Vulmea's lips as "a bird of passage. Who knows where he sails?" it'd be interesting, as well as a change from the usual Caribbean or Madagascar scene, to have him operating in the Dutch East Indies, and running foul of the Dutch East India Company, local Oriental pirate potentates at the same time … and for lagniappe a crazy rajah, demons, hot women, and a sorcerer.
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Post by deuce on Dec 25, 2018 2:08:03 GMT -5
I'd love to tackle van Raven myself. Probably a Jacob van Raven story with a supernatural element would sell best, these days, and since REH described him through Vulmea's lips as "a bird of passage. Who knows where he sails?" it'd be interesting, as well as a change from the usual Caribbean or Madagascar scene, to have him operating in the Dutch East Indies, and running foul of the Dutch East India Company, local Oriental pirate potentates at the same time … and for lagniappe a crazy rajah, demons, hot women, and a sorcerer. Sounds good! Maybe some Dyaks as well (I've always had a fondness for them ever since I read ERB's The Monster Men)? The East Indies are very likely the location of the Swamps of the Dead in the Hyborian Age and probably were dominated by the Naacals/proto-Stygians during the Thurian Age. Lots to work with there.
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Post by deuce on Dec 25, 2018 4:05:42 GMT -5
Cool pirate painting by Thomas Blackshear. I haven't quite figured out which Howardian freebooter it depicts...
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fernando
Thief
I'm purist and proud! I hate insistent people! And I only give opinions when I'm ASKED!!
Posts: 141
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Post by fernando on Feb 11, 2019 15:24:14 GMT -5
Maybe a silly question, but... could the pirate Eve of the Sash of Crimson (from REH's poem At the Inn of the Gory Dagger...) be a reincarnation of Belit?
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Post by Von K on Apr 22, 2019 13:45:05 GMT -5
Thanks, Deuce! I'll be doing a few other reviews for DMR Books, but I started with Vulmea because I like the character a lot and wish REH had written a bit more about him. And one day I really want to write a story or two about the Dutch pirate, van Raven, who only gets a passing reference in "Black Vulmea's Vengeance" but sounds interesting. I thought you did a great job with both segments of your look at Vulmea. I'd definitely like to see you tackle von Raven. Also looking forward to further reviews from you at the DMR blog! Part Two: dmrbooks.com/test-blog/2018/1/30/black-vulmea-robert-e-howards-roughneck-pirate-part-twoThanks for the heads up Deuce. Good to see some of Keith's classic REHTGR essays back online again.
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jan
Wanderer
Posts: 15
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Post by jan on May 3, 2021 10:02:02 GMT -5
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Post by savageworld on Feb 11, 2022 12:34:32 GMT -5
I am also looking for part three. Trying to recreate the story on my website.
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Post by johnnypt on Feb 11, 2022 13:14:17 GMT -5
Weird, it's completely missing, but 4 & 5 are there.
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Post by savageworld on Feb 12, 2022 0:37:04 GMT -5
Weird, it's completely missing, but 4 & 5 are there. Yes and I have searched hard. I actually have found it in French and considered a Google translate but that always turns out great so... ;-P
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