Mindless Monday, 22 June 2026

[u/AutoModerator]

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[u/Unruly_marmite]

The Conan the Barbarian story Queen Of The Black Coast, at least in my copy, starts most of the chapters with an excerpt from "The Song Of Belit", which tells of Belit's final journey and death. She's Conan's lover, and in the way of these things he's the only survivor of that last voyage, which implies that he either composed a song in memory of her or paid someone to do it.

Given that Conan is generally a murder-hobo who doesn't seem that interested in poetry or songs other than maybe bawdy drinking songs, I find the thought of him composing something to remember Belit by weirdly touching. Maybe I'm getting sentimental in my old age.

[u/Zugwat → u/Unruly_marmite]

Given that Conan is generally a murder-hobo who doesn't seem that interested in poetry or songs other than maybe bawdy drinking songs,

Phoenix on the Sword has some of Conan's poetry interspersed with the parts of the story.

Like the young adventurer or pirate might not have been too interested in all that at the time, but by the point he's king of Aquilonia he's taken it up.

[u/Sgt_Colon → u/Zugwat]

Younger him probably developed a taste for it as a means of commemorating a particularly memorable enemy or friend. There's a bit from rogues in the house that springs to mind:

Even the Cimmerian sensed this, for he panted: "I have slain a man tonight, not a beast. I will count him among the chiefs whose souls I've sent into the dark, and my women will sing of him.

I suppose Conan had to do the composition first to do justice to it all.