A guest post on spraguedecampfan usefully outlines and surveys Robert E. Howard’s Turlogh Dubh in ‘part one’ . This little-known Howard hero is…

an Irish outlaw whose adventures are laid in the half century preceding the battle of Hastings [in 1066 A.D.].

The three primary stories, “Dark Man,” “Bal-Sagoth,” and “Shadow of the Hun” are so closely connected that they could easily be read as respective chapters in a novel.

Though it seems no-one has yet ‘written the novel’ around Howard’s originals.

There is a slight overlap with Lovecraft, in the form of the somewhat Lovecraftian “Cairn on the Headland”…

Howard also rewrote the [Turlogh] story [“The Spears of Clontarf”] a third time, as a modern horror tale, titled “The Cairn on the Headland.” [The hero] Turlogh is neither present nor mentioned in the story, but many details of the Battle of Clontarf are revisited.

Be warned that the last third of the long blog article has plot-spoilers. There’s also Part 2 which sifts and weighs up what the ideal Turlogh book collection would contain.

Incidentally, spraguedecampfan is looking for guest-bloggers who can provide articles of similar quality.

Update: now with Part 3.