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V

“The Valley of the Worm”Robert E.
Howard(1934)
Although Robert E. HOWARDoccasionally wrote
stories set within the Cthulhu Mythos created by
his fellow writer H. P. LOVECRAFT, he was more at
ease with stories of heroes and bold deeds than
with quiet, atmospheric horror. This particular story
incorporates the best of both worlds, a combination
of sword and sorcery adventure and brooding an-
cient horrors. The narrator is a contemporary man
who insists that he is able to remember incidents
from the lives of his former incarnations, all the
way back through prehistoric times. One of those
incarnations was as Niord, a hero so great that later
legends, including those of Beowulf, Siegfried, and
Perseus, were actually based on real events in the
life of the earlier hero.
Niord was an Aryan, a precursor of the
Vikings, and part of a tribe that migrated across
the primitive world in search of a new homeland.
After battling the Picts, they settle nearby and
fashion a friendship with their former adversaries,
who warn them against entering a particular valley,
which they believe to be cursed. Their tribe has
grown quite large, however, and a small group
wishes to break off and found their own line, a
schism that takes place amiably although Niord, or
rather his future counterpart James Allison, knows
that such fragmentation eventually leads to con-
flict. No such conflict will take place this time be-
cause the splinter group chooses to settle in the
forbidden valley. When Niord ventures there to
visit them a short time later, he finds the village

destroyed and all the inhabitants dead, torn apart

as though by some savage animal.

The entity responsible is an enormous serpent,

identified by one of the Picts as the god of an even

more ancient people. Accompanied by a kind of

humanoid familiar, the serpent lives hidden in the

soil of the valley and emerges to kill those who

trespass there. Determined to avenge his friends,

Niord waits and confronts the beast, eventually

slaying it, although he loses his own life in the pro-

cess. The serpent is not a conventional earthly ani-

mal but a primordial alien force similar to those of

Lovecraft’s mythos and may have been intended as

another aspect of them. As is the case with many

of Howard’s stories, his depiction of ancient war-

riors and their physical prowess is not entirely

credible, but his ability to create genuinely heroic

figures has rarely been equaled.

“The Valley Was Still”Manly Wade Wellman

(1939)

This fantastic Civil War story, which is sometimes

reprinted under the title “The Still Valley,” is typi-

cal of the best work of Manly Wade WELLMAN,

who drew upon his knowledge of American his-

tory and folklore extensively in his fiction, partic-

ularly the Silver John series. The protagonist is

Joseph Paradine, a Confederate soldier who has

been assigned the task of locating a unit of the

Union army known to be in the area and sus-

pected to be hiding in the town of Channon in a

small valley. Surveillance from a distance proves