The Pool of the Black One
Encyclopedia
Short story
A short story is a work of fiction that is usually written in prose, often in narrative format. This format tends to be more pointed than longer works of fiction, such as novellas and novels. Short story definitions based on length differ somewhat, even among professional writers, in part because...
starring the sword and sorcery
Sword and sorcery
Sword and sorcery is a sub-genre of fantasy and historical fantasy, generally characterized by sword-wielding heroes engaged in exciting and violent conflicts. An element of romance is often present, as is an element of magic and the supernatural...
hero Conan the Cimmerian
Conan the Barbarian
Conan the Barbarian is a fictional sword and sorcery hero that originated in pulp fiction magazines and has since been adapted to books, comics, several films , television programs, video games, roleplaying games and other media...
, written by American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
author Robert E. Howard
Robert E. Howard
Robert Ervin Howard was an American author who wrote pulp fiction in a diverse range of genres. Best known for his character Conan the Barbarian, he is regarded as the father of the sword and sorcery subgenre....
. It is set in the pseudo-historical Hyborian Age
Hyborian Age
The Hyborian Age is a fictional period within the artificial mythology created by Robert E. Howard, in which the sword and sorcery tales of Conan the Barbarian are set....
and concerns Conan becoming the captain of a pirate vessel and encountering a remote island with a mysterious pool that has powers of transmutation.
First published in Weird Tales
Weird Tales
Weird Tales is an American fantasy and horror fiction pulp magazine first published in March 1923. It ceased its original run in September 1954, after 279 issues, but has since been revived. The magazine was set up in Chicago by J. C. Henneberger, an ex-journalist with a taste for the macabre....
in 1933, the story was republished in the collections The Sword of Conan
The Sword of Conan
The Sword of Conan is a collection of four fantasy short stories written by Robert E. Howard featuring his seminal sword and sorcery hero Conan the Barbarian, first published in hardcover by Gnome Press in 1952. The stories originally appeared in the 1930s in the fantasy magazine Weird Tales...
(Gnome Press
Gnome Press
Gnome Press was an American small-press publishing company primarily known for publishing many science fiction classics.The company was founded in 1948 by Martin Greenberg and David A. Kyle. Many of Gnome's titles were reprinted in England by Boardman Books...
, 1952) and Conan the Adventurer
Conan the Adventurer (collection)
Conan the Adventurer is a 1966 collection of four fantasy short stories written by Robert E. Howard and L. Sprague de Camp, featuring Howard's seminal sword and sorcery hero Conan the Barbarian. Most of the stories originally appeared in the fantasy magazine Weird Tales in the 1930s...
(Lancer Books
Lancer Books
Lancer Books was a series of paperback books published from 1961 through 1973 by Irwin Stein and Walter Zacharius. While it published stories of a number of genres, it was noted most for its science fiction and fantasy, particularly its series of Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian tales, the...
, 1966). It has more recently been published in the collections The Conan Chronicles Volume 1: The People of the Black Circle (2000) and Conan of Cimmeria: Volume One (1932-1933)
Conan of Cimmeria: Volume One (1932-1933)
The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian is the first of a three volume set collecting the Conan stories by author Robert E. Howard. It was originally published in 2003, first the United Kingdom by Wandering Star under the title Conan of Cimmeria: Volume One , and shortly thereafter in the United States...
(Del Rey, 2003).
Plot summary
"The Pool of the Black One," which appeared in Weird TalesWeird Tales
Weird Tales is an American fantasy and horror fiction pulp magazine first published in March 1923. It ceased its original run in September 1954, after 279 issues, but has since been revived. The magazine was set up in Chicago by J. C. Henneberger, an ex-journalist with a taste for the macabre....
magazine the month after "The Slithering Shadow," is a piratical adventure story and occurs in the Western Sea of the Hyborian Age
Hyborian Age
The Hyborian Age is a fictional period within the artificial mythology created by Robert E. Howard, in which the sword and sorcery tales of Conan the Barbarian are set....
. The story begins with Conan the Cimmerian, adrift at sea near the Barachan Isles, clambering aboard a pirate ship christened The Wastrel. After a terse conversation with the captain and a brawl with a Zingaran bully, Conan is begrudgingly accepted as a lowly member of the crew and is allowed to remain onboard.
The ship then sails to a mysterious island where the captain hopes to find a legendary treasure and, perhaps, much more. All hands go ashore, including the tyrannical captain and his mistress Sancha. While on the island, Conan confronts the captain alone in the jungle and slays him in a grim duel. However, the mysterious kidnapping of Sancha and the disappearance of several crew members compels Conan to plunge deeper into the jungle.
The island is revealed to be inhabited by strange tall black creatures that captured the crew, and dunk some of them in the eponymous pool, which transforms them into shrunken figures. Conan rescues the remaining captives, including Sancha. After a bloody fight, Conan somehow triggers a self-destruct device in the pool, and barely escapes with the others in time.
Upon returning to their anchored ship, Conan reasserts his authority as captain and claims Sancha as his prize. The story concludes with the Cimmerian dreaming of raiding seaports and of the future plunder he will acquire.
Adaptation
The story was adapted by Roy ThomasRoy Thomas
Roy William Thomas, Jr. is an American comic book writer and editor, and Stan Lee's first successor as editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics. He is possibly best known for introducing the pulp magazine hero Conan the Barbarian to American comics, with a series that added to the storyline of Robert E...
, John Buscema
John Buscema
John Buscema, born Giovanni Natale Buscema , was an American comic-book artist and one of the mainstays of Marvel Comics during its 1960s and 1970s ascendancy into an industry leader and its subsequent expansion to a major pop culture conglomerate...
and Sonny Trinidad in Savage Sword of Conan #22 & 23
External links
- Conan wiki • The Pool of the Black One • Synopsis, characters, locations, and publishing history
- Conan the Barbarian at AmratheLion.com
- Conan.com: The official website