I've been casually re-reading Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian stories - the originals from the 1930s, rather than the 1960s Lancer/Ace pastiches or the later efforts by other authors* - and I'm currently finishing off The Hour of the Dragon, Howard's only full novel-length tale of the grim Cimmerian warrior's adventures. Howard has a deft hand as an author: he's no Tolkien, but his style is well suited to his chosen material. However, even the best writers occasionally slip up, and Howard is no exception.
In The Hour of the Dragon, Conan has managed to achieve the throne of Aquilonia, one of the newer nations in Howard's Hyborian Age. However, his enemies have summoned up Xaltotun, a centuries-dead wizard, to aid them in conquering Aquilonia, and they succeed in defeating Conan and his army through black sorcery. Conan is taken prisoner but manages to escape, and then seeks to find the Heart of Ahriman, a magical jewel which can be used to send Xaltotun back to the grave and allow Conan to regain his throne.
Howard writes the following descriptions of Conan's armour, specifically his helmet, as his quest continues:
Conan rode a great black stallion, the gift of Trocero. He no longer wore the armor of Aquilonia. His harness proclaimed him a veteran of the Free Companies, who were of all races. His head piece was a plain morion, dented and battered.
He heard a rush of feet, a bellow of oxlike agony. He was stunned but not wholly senseless, and realized that Beloso had caught up the iron box and crashed it down on his head as he stooped. Only his basinet had saved his skull.
Conan reeled out of the chamber, sword in hand, blood streaming down his face from under his burganet.
Whereas I appreciate Howard's desire to avoid repeating himself in his description of Conan's headgear, in this case he's actually gotten things completely mixed up in the process. The history of arms is a catalogue of description: the Roman lorica is distinct in its characteristics as opposed to Viking lamellar armour, and the evolution from 15th century full Gothic plate to 16th century Maximillian armour is quite clear.**
In this case, Conan begins his trip wearing a morion, a high-combed brimmed helmet from the 16th century, generally associated with Spanish conquistadors.
However, Howard then refers to Conan's helm as a basinet, which is a medieval open-faced helmet with a conical peak, generally worn with a chain mail aventail or scarf, and often equipped with a visor.
Conan then staggers out of the chamber in a burganet, a full-headed, high-peaked Renaissance helmet with a brim, and neck and cheek guards.
Admittedly, it's not like Howard could sit down at his keyboard and Google variations in armour, but it's still a surprising run of contradictory nomenclature - and a slightly ironic one, considering that generally illustrators have decided to equip Conan with some kind of non-functional fantasy helm with little horns on it.
- Sid
* Even some of the versions of the Conan stories that claim to be "original" suffer from minor changes in the hands of well-meaning editors. I suppose I could track down the individual stories through The Pulp Project, which has scans of early pulp magazines such as Weird Tales that published many of Howard's stories, but it feels like a lot of work.
** This is all drawn from my OTHER hobby, military history. As with my science fiction/fantasy/gaming/comics/movies fandom, I haven't focused on a specific area, but have a general historical interest in the field.
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