I think this merits its own thread. This is the book that gave rise to REHs version of the Picts -- The Romance of Early British Life (1909) by G. F. Scott Elliot. It was identified thanks to the tireless research of Rusty Burke. In a 1932 letter to HPL, Howard wrote: Then when I was about twelve I spent a short time in New Orleans and found in a Canal Street library, a book detailing the pageant of British history, from prehistoric times up to — I believe — the Norman conquest. It was written for school-boys and told in an interesting and romantic style, probably with many historical inaccuracies. But there I first learned of the small dark people which first settled Britain, and they were referred to as Picts. I had always felt a strange interest in the term and the people, and now I felt a driving absorption regarding them. The writer painted the aborigines in no more admirable light than had other historians whose works I had read. His Picts were made to be sly, furtive, unwarlike, and altogether inferior to the races which followed — which was doubtless true. And yet I felt a strong sympathy for this people, and then and there adopted them as a medium of connection with ancient times. I made them a strong, warlike race of barbarians, gave them an honorable history of past glories, and created for them a great king — one Bran Mak Morn.
Posted on: Thu, 29 May 2014 23:06:22 +0000
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