Sword and sorcery fans should enjoy this second episode of our second season, Gods of the North (also known as The Frost Giant’s Daughter and other similar titles). It’s a tale of savage warriors and mystical beings by Robert E. Howard, a true pioneer of the genre, in whose fertile imagination the iconic character of Conan the Cimmerian was famously forged.
Interestingly, Conan was the main protagonist when the story was originally written, but Howard decided to replace him with the character of Amra of Akbitana after it was rejected for publication by the editor of Weird Tales. Few people familiar with Conan would be fooled by the change, however, and he was reinserted in a later version of the piece by L. Sprague de Camp. Since then, the Amra version of the story has been largely forgotten, so in the spirit of our podcast, it this one that we have chosen to present. It was originally published in The Fantasy Fan in March 1934 and was heavily inspired by Viking culture and two stories from Greek mythology.
Now it’s high time we began, by Crom, so take up your favourite sword or axe and prepare to journey to the frozen wastes of Nordheim.
