Talk:Picts in fantasy

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In the second paragraph of the Robert E. Howard subsection, this article states that (according to Howard's mythology) an ancient mongoloid race occupied the British Isles prior to the arrival of the Picts; this is accurate. It then states, however, that this mongoloid people was driven underground and later evolved into the Worms of the Earth. I believe this is Incorrect; Atla, half-breed kin of the Worms of the Earth is ascribed many reptillian qualities, notably her eyes, not to mention the "strangely flattened head, pendulous writhing lips that bared curved pointed fangs" and mottled skin of the one member of the Worms of the Earth that Bran actually saw at the end that story. Furthermore, Bran Is a descendant of Brule, Who was a companion of King Kull, who despised the Snakemen and embarked on a campaign to eradicate them. This is what drove the snake people underground, not the mongoloids. This would be clear, I think, if one were to read The Shadow Kingdom and The Worms of the Earth consecutively.

--Reedkeenan (talk) 06:31, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately, it's far more complex than that. See "Bran Mak Morn: The Last King"; that collection includes all the Bran Mak Morn stories, even unpublished ones, and early drafts. It also has notes on the development of the stories.

To summarize, originally the Picts were the people who degenerated into the "Children of the Night/Worms of the Earth", the subterranean monsters. After correspondence with H. P. Lovecraft he changed that idea and made the subterranean beings descendants of a pre-Pictish people (as the article states; this is the form that entered the published Bran Mak Morn stories).

The serpent men of The Shadow Kingdom seem to be unrelated. There's little or nothing in Howard to suggest that any serpent men at all survived Kull's campaign; the ending of Worms of the Earth seems to say that those creatures' 'serpentine' features are products of millennia of underground life. Vultur (talk) 13:30, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

The article states "the Picts who Conan battled during the Hyborian Age are definitely more primitive and savage than those Kull knew eight millennia earlier". Eight millennia? Kull is c. 100,000 BC (see "Kings of the Night"); Conan's period is never explicitly stated, but it seems (from things like The Hyborian Age) to be a few thousand years before the rise of the first Indo-Europeans. Conan's period is often suggested to be 15,000 BC or thereabouts, but from Howard's work it seems to be even later.Vultur (talk) 13:32, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

I changed it from "eight millennia earlier" to "many millennia earlier", since nobody's contradicted this in 3+ months.

In fact, going directly from The Hyborian Age Conan's time is probably more like 10,000 BC, though there seems to be a bizarre "glacial age" lasting only a few centuries (with no counterpart in the real world, unless it's something like the Younger Dryas) thrown in. Vultur (talk) 22:16, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

Picts in the work of Jacqueline Carey

Quote of Jacqueline Carey on her FB site: "My Alba is largely built around the Picts, about whom very little is known, and the Maghuin Dhonn, who were entirely my creation. The mythos and culture I created were inspired by Pictish art; line drawings that are one of the only elements to survive." (about research for Kushiel's Legacy and th Naamah trilogy)

Could be added if fitting. --93.135.182.130 (talk) 21:43, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

Merge with other article?

Maybe this article could be merged with the "Picts in literature and popular culture" entry? 194.125.62.4 (talk) 10:54, 6 May 2023 (UTC)