Solomon Kane - The 1600's, Puritans, and King James Demonology - pontos fathom podcast ep 16

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Solomon Kane - The 1600's, Puritans, and King James Demonology 
- pontos fathom podcast ep 16

Welcome to our sixteenth episode of the pontos fathom podcast EP16- Solomon Kane - The 1600's, Puritans, and King James Demonology. This week we explore Robert E. Howards fictional Puritan hero Solomon Kane as an analog for worldbuilding in a transitioning Elizabethan Age. Are these simple tales of adventure or do they inimate something about this age 400 years ago? Topics include Puritans, Witchcraft, Evil, King James Demonology, religious tolerance and intolerance, and pirates. Peer into the age of the 1600s from the author of Conan for us to explore and ponder. Thanks for watching and let me know your thoughts in the comments below!


welcome back everyone to pontos fallon press this is our weekly podcast uh episode number 16. today we're going to talk about solomon kane uh king james demonology you know the elizabethan age and sort of how the puritans fit in with howard's world building let's you know we'll talk about the puritans we'll talk about elizabethan sense of magic and then how that transitioned into king james with king james bible and demonology and how that all of those kind of factors uh fit in with robert e howard's you know creation of this character right so i think that this great character is a really fun way to get us to the 1600s all right because there's a lot here i mean it's very thin but i think that there's something right under the surface that's very very deep and very profound so i think we kind of go into it so first of all for those of you who don't know solomon kane is basically a puritan adventurer swordsman it's definitely a weird tales uh character so the idea is he is against witchcraft and evil he's from the elizabethan king james times late 1500s early 1600s but what's fantastic is kind of like a conan also who travels the world you have uh solomon kane solomon elkain going out through pirate voyages through africa and encountering ancient evils and witchcraft befriending people along the way fighting the good fight against evil and it's a it's an odd mix of you know this puritan kind of values who's strong enough to stand against evil and in a way that it's a parallel with conan right because you know how conan we've talked about it in our conan podcast about conan theosophy conan is very anti-magic right conan is not interested at all in sorcerers and somehow he he also seems to have this resistance to that magic right and so so maybe we'll go a little bit into maybe just a flavoring text here of solomon kane um i just going to read this one quick chap and one quick part solomon kane slept and in his dreams were vague chaotic haunted with suggestion of pre-human evil and which at last merged into a vision vivid as a scene in waking life solomon dreamed he woke with a start drawing a pistol for so long had his life been that of the wolf that reaching for a weapon that was his natural reaction upon waking suddenly and his dream was that a strange shadowy thing had pierced upon the great branch close by and gazed at him with greedy luminous yellow eyes that seared into his brain the dream thing was tall and lean and strangely misshapen and you have a picture here in the in the margins of this winged death you know the narrow yellow eyes and kane dreamed he waited spellbound while uncertainty came to his eyes and then the creature walked out on the limb as a man would walk and raised great shattery wings sprang into space and vanished and then cain awoke upright the mists of sleep fading and then he looked up and the gothic-like branch of the tree was empty safe for himself the dream had been after all so vivid yet fraught with inhuman foulness he lingered in the night wind again he slept under the shadowed wheel of the stars circling again and again as a vulture circles a dying wolf okay so here's solomon can you consent kind of see him springing into action here right so solomon kane adventurer but we have robert e howard and sort of like where does this sort of fit in so maybe we'll start out with let's go back to queen elizabeth right so elizabethan age uh obviously lots of interesting things in queen elizabeth's age we have the uh and stories that probably howard would know about right so howard was a history buff uh to some degree right so he would he would know the whole pilgrim story right so the whole foundation whole foundation of america is on puritans traveling across the ocean to america which is definitely a product of elizabeth but let's we'll get into the puritan thing in a bit one thing i'll call out here is it says before elizabeth been on the throne for 10 years the hotter sort of protestants who invade most loudly against the failings of the church had already been christian the puritans so the puritans were against the failings of the church right so solomon kane is of this tradition in howard's mind he's so pure that he's even more pure than the religion right the epithet puritans had been dreamt up either by papists or atheists or men extremely vicious men such as these felt the term implied there was a bunch of isolated extremists where it was their contention that was widely recognized that the church was in in need of further reform and so that sort of zealot zealousness of solomon cain gives us the flavor of this adventurer right he is a he is the man who who's even against his church right and in the same kind of breath we have this other side of things where it is elizabethan age is kind of an age of magic right so you have yes there's puritans looking at the fallen church but look at john uh john d right so if you go into cleanup queen of elizabeth's age and again this is the late 1500s you can say the occult philosopher john d as a result of repeated please from d in 1852 elizabeth had prevailed upon the archbishop of canterbury to confirm d in the possession of two rectories which were bestowed upon him by edward the sixth d was so absorbed in his work on the reformation of the calendar right so that he failed to deal this so here is john d very well positioned and who is john d oh he was someone who was quite versed in occult like happenings right so you have john dee's book of five mysteries for example where d is trying to speak with angels and a lot of john d's work carries on into things like the golden dawn and things like that so elizabeth and age you know you also have the whole shakespearean angle of elizabethan age so solomon kane references a few a few things that are shakespearean even where he says um all is foul and foul fouls fair right something like this which is i think is from macbeth right so all his foul foul is fair and you see that there's this mcbethian tone to supernatural uh you know so back to the uh the puritans again we have this idea of of the good versus evil right so solomon kane even his name represents it he's cain which is the left hand and he's solomon which is the right hand the wisdom and the sin he's like the sort of the man who's torn between the two worlds and that's a quite a manichaean view so here we have sir thomas alfred spalding's elizabethan demonology and here he says the second principle is that of the manichaeists the division of spirits into hostile camps good spirits and evil spirits this is much more common belief than the orthodox is willing to allow there is hardly any religious system that does not recognize a first source of evil as well as the first source of good but the spirit of evil occupies a position of varying importance in some systems he maintains himself as co-equal of the spirit of good and others he sinks to a lower stage remaining very powerful to do harm but nevertheless under the control in the matters of importance of the more beneficent being in each of these cases the first principle is found operating ever argumenting the ranks monodiabolism being as impossible as monotheism and hence the importance of fully establishing the prop proposition so now this is an odd word we never see this word we know monotheism but we don't know the word monodiabolism which is something that people were sort of still wrapped up in the super superstitions of let's say in elizabethan times the last and most important of these principles is the tendency of all theological systems to absorb into themselves the deities extraneous to themselves not as gods or even as evil spirits the actual existence of the foreign deity is not for a moment disputed the presumption in favor of innumerable spiritual agencies being too too strong to allow so the idea of here is that the elaboration of the belief in demons is in that the uh even though when we are pious in the religion there seems to be in the elizabethan times at least the quiet adoption where there's still belief in the spirits even though they're all christianized there's still a bit of the santeria going on right there's still a bit of this demon worship or angel worship for example right so you have this kind of this is where you see it throughout shakespeare's writing there's always a call to spirits there's ghosts there's uh you know the witches there's another number of these shakespearean things that we can see evidencing that right so so with with uh solomon kane as a puritanical fighter freedom fighter let's also think of howard you know what you know why a puritan well one thing that i remember just growing up in new england is that we always grew up with the stories of pilgrims founding new england right so we kind of grow up with this story so you know in um if you take a look at this uh picture the it says the mayflower and the colonists and the mayflower arrives at plymouth in 1620 again moving from the age of elizabeth to the age of king james where king james has his commissions his bible and writes his demonology again it's sort of a shift in thinking you see the plymouth rock with 1620 the colonies of that you know the depiction in the movie the witch i don't know if you guys seen in this movie the witch but there's a puritan and he um his family they get they get um uh exiled from their colony and they have to go build a house in the woods and then there's a witch preying on them in in the movie but you can see that this you can see the vibe of the puritan so you got to kind of imagine that's the solomon solomon kane character the other side of solomon kane too though is in elizabeth's um you know in the elizabethan kind of character of sir walter raleigh right so if you see sir walter raleigh again as another uh influence of this sir walter raleigh uh the basically the pirate sir walter raleigh right but the pride pa the pi pirate who is part of elizabeth's court and inner circle right so he is sent off uh the following year another english fleet positioned itself near the azores and hope of catching the spaniards on their transatlantic route sir walter rowley had lost had invested in the venture but the queen has also provided nine ships so by this time however king philip had taken steps to protect his bullion imports and off the feral the english were surprised by his fleet of spanish warships with the exception of sir richard grenville's revenge which was captured after an epic fight the english ships all managed to escape so here you have sir richard grenville who's an actual serger actual pirate who's with sir walter raleigh uh going off after spanish treasure for queen elizabeth right so um so we'll come back to grenville there so you have that sir walter raleigh feel of the pirating adventurer going off to the new world returning back to queen elizabeth with his spoils you've got these ideas of the puritans also going across we see here in the history the pilgrim fathers who founded new england were similar to maybe uh solomon kane the puritans were quite uh unpopular in england at the time and this is why they left for america so you're thinking from howard's writing you have solomon kane a solo puritan going out in the world many earnestly desire to return the purity and the simplicity which characterized the primitive church this is of the puritans they regarded many of the established customs of the english church as monuments of idolatry look we have john d john d is in queen elizabeth's court with his inaugural magic right probably knew of the pikatrix right that astrological book from the 1200s right probably a book in his library and and perhaps even of necromancy you know he talks to about edward kelly and john d are talking to spirits right so this would have seemed quite blasphemous and this is where that fervor of the new england witch hunts comes out of so we'll just continue they recognize many of the established customs of the english church as monuments of idolatry and they could not in conscious unite in her worship but the church being supported from civil authority would permit no dissent from her forms attendance upon her service was required by law and unauthorized assemblies for religious worship were prohibited under the penalty of imprisonment exile and death so england declared the puritans to conform or harry them out of the land or worse so the puritans were given an ultimatum you can't worship separately from how our church works you have to conform to the protestantism of the day the monarchical anglicanism probably and then so hunted persecuted in prison they could discern in the future no promise for better days and many yielded to conviction that for such a world would serve god according to the dictates of their consciousness england was ceasing forever to be a habitable place said j.g pelfrey in the history of new england some at last determined to seek refuge in holland difficulties losses and imprisonment were encountered their purposes were thwarted and they were betrayed and so hence they left their houses their goods their livelihood and then some of them went off to to america right so the first constrained the separate from the english church the puritans joined themselves with a solemn covenant as the lord's free people to walk together in all his ways made known to them and they left for new england right so we have puritans leaving for new england we have solomon kane a puritan in the world um all right so so we start moving now from that elizabethan age into this uh age of king james right and in king james you know we also have solomon kane uh let's have a passage here uh solomon cain's fervor let's call it as a michelin challenger of evil so james comes out with not only commissioning the bible right not only does king james commission the bible but he also commissions a demonology to be made and maybe we'll quickly read from this demonology it says king's james is uh the fearful abounding in this time of the country the decessible slaves of the devil the witches or enchanters has moved me beloved reader to dispatch in this post the following treatise of mine to serve for a show of my learning and ingenuity both that such assaults of satan are most certainly practice and that their instruments merits must severely be punished so the idea is the first speaking of magic in general and necromancy and special the second of sorcery and witchcraft and the third contained a discourse of all those kind of spirits and specters that appear and trouble people together with the conclusion of the whole work so it's almost like an answer to the super superstitions of the elizabethan age the demonology comes up and here we have this concept also of um maybe solomon kane as a micheline knight right he's some kind of uh warrior in service of saint michael in a way and you know in rudolph steiner the archangel michael he talks about that it is the job of michael to slay the devils and you know and this is where you know saint michael is the sort of in the catholic point of view he's a saint of police he's the same of people who are fighting against evil right so so we have some of that some of that uh similar similar mystery let's say where he is tasked with this michael's task his mission and ours steiner says in the archangel michael is his job is to redeem the devil but if we twist it into a manichaean view like the solomon and the kane version right where good and evil are fighting and this is a similar scene with this theme we see you know something like a constantine we see this in constantine and fiction we see it throughout characters who have to do the dirty work right so solomon kane is kind of like the guy who has to do the dirty work so let's read this in the floor became level uh kane smiled crookedly amused and relieved bats of course the cave was swarming with them still was a shaky experience as he went on and the wings whispered through the vast emptiness of the great cavern cain's puritan mind found space to daly with a bizarre thought he had wandered into hell by some strange means and were these in truth bats or were they lost souls winged throughout everlasting night then thought solomon came i will soon confront satan himself and even though this his nostrils were assailed by the horrific scent fetid in repellent the scent grew as he went softly on and king swore softly though he was not a profane man he sensed the smell betoken some hidden threat however he felt perfect confidence in his ability to cope with any fiend or demon armored as he was with his unshakeable faith of creed and the knowledge of righteousness and cause so here he is in pure puritanical cavalier manner uh he comes across a beast and it says this satan thought cain as his eyes swayed above him and the next this is satan thought cain right so it's just some creature but he kind of his mind goes right to satan right so it's very interesting so we've read this and let's kind of talk about some other aspects he had the dream of solomon kane i think i had this quote here so yeah so king james so king james coming afterwards commissions this uh the king james bible and we even see uh in solomon cain's stories uh solomon cain's given the staff i think we have a picture of it the staff of solomon the rod of solomon right and there's so many rods in the bible like like moses or there's a number of rods throughout the bible so interestingly enough is with the king james bible especially in this uh and this is uh especially in the moon of skulls you can see that um solomon cain is actually quoting the bible here so if you see a and in truth it shall come to path that he who fleeth from the noise of fear shall fall into the pit and he shall come up out of the midst of the pit and shall take be taken in the snare for the windows upon high or open and the foundations do shake so that is directly from the book of isaiah and i think i've got this 24 maybe 24 15 the glory of israel fear and the pit and the snare are upon the oh happening of the earth and it shall come to pass and it shall come to pass that he who fleeth from the noise of fear shall fall us into the pit and he shall come up out of the midst of the pit and taken to the snares as the earth does shake for thou hast made a city of heap for thou hast made a city of heap a little further down defend the city of ruin a place of strangers to be no city it shall never be built shall never be built so here we are now this is the king james side of things so we've gone to the from the elizabethan side to the king james side and stray stay yourselves and wonder stay yourselves and wonder it says in the king james uh here says in solomon kane ye cry out and cry and then it says stay yourselves and wonder cry yeah and cry they are drunken but not with wine they stagger but not with strong drink so you can see he's a man reading i mean this is this is howard reading from the bible through solomon cain kind of giving us that experience right and and maybe lastly in this that's kind of an interesting point we talked about sir richard grenville so solomon kane also serves with grenville so here he is he's the man of angel he's a man of michael right he's the warrior against evil his rod is the rod of israel perhaps you can see here we have in the book of numbers so in africa solomon kane is is gifted that the the rod of solomon and so the maybe the idea is that the rod passes from solomon to africa and and here we have a quick note on the rod of solomon where it says uh the scepter i shall see him but not now i shall behold him but not nigh there shall come a star out of jacob and a scepter shall rise out of israel and shall smite the corners of moab and destroy all the children of seth right so here he is with his his rod he has uh he's the combatter of evil and similarly this wraps in with uh the demonology of king james you know we have here james saying i touch not particular thing of the devil's power i rely upon type leaving appearance and differences to be comprehended therein as for example speaking the power of magicians in the first book and sixth i say they can be suddenly be brought into them all kind of dainty dishes by the familiar spirit such as a thief delights to steal a spirit he can and quickly secretly transports the same and now the same reason witchcraft is a special and fifth chapter i say proved by diverse arguments that witches can by the power of their master cure or cause disease so witches can cure disease and now the same reason the devil himself is a disease and for the devil's intentions there's ever to perish either in the soul of the body so here you have a sort of howard selecting across from all of these different components finally a note again note from the demonology the devil's contract with the magicians the division from time that once plainly began to contract with him the effect of their contract consists in two things in forms and effects for although the contract be mutual i speak to thee of that part wherein the devil obliges himself to them by forms i mean in which forms fashion he shall call unto them when they call upon him and by effect i understand that what special sorts of services he binds himself to be subject unto them the quality of these forms in effect and lesser and greater accord to the skill and art of the magician by such a proper name which he shows upon them either in likeness of a dog a cat an ape or such like other beasts or else to answer by a voice only the effects are to answer to such demands that concerns the disease or the his own particular menagerie so he talks about like shape-shifting or miracles the difference between god miracles and the devil's miracles right so um lastly we just kind of maybe just end in a in a thought about the last name of solomon so solomon came we know the solomon part the wise king and we know the kane part which is the uh slayer of abel so we have evil and good this manikin conundrum right and we sort of see this shift historically from the elizabethan times to the king james times you know commissioning and english english-speaking bible uh writing out uh one of the texts persecuting witchcraft although there could be seen though there were many persecutions that happened throughout christian history i mean look at the cathar right they were also a kind of puritan and um they were seen as uh heretical and there was a crusade against them when in fact they were just puritans of a sort right so there's these puritan people of god who now get confused with the demonic right and maybe this is something that oddly brings us back to the 1600s in a different way because you can see in the court of queen elizabeth john d didn't see himself as a dem dem demonic person he saw himself as learning the ancient speech right he was trying to get the enakian language and we also have in solomon kane there's a reference in one of the stories he's in africa and they have this tribe has knowledge of ancient atlantis right so you have solomon kane goes into africa and he meets the africans there who give him the staff of solomon as he aids them but also they impart to him this power so actually he is bestowed by the descendants by the african descendants from atlantis right uh some atlantean magic that kind of hands down so so this sort of is two different story story arcs though even though the simplistic story of of solomon kane and howard's sword and sorcery kind of writing you see that there's a richness to it that takes us right back to that age of confusion of the 1600s right sort of this transition between elizabethan times and more modern christian times uh the limits of religious tolerance tolerance right the puritans were not tolerated and the witches were not tolerated right so you see that this about origin religious intolerance is going on and then right in the middle of all this we've got solomon kane's potential middle name we have solomon and we have kane and i saw somewhere someone had interpreted the l potentially to mean lazarus all right i've got this odd little book here and it actually has this cross and lazarus if we are to accept the possibility at least it's solomon lazarus kane right and there we have a resurrection story in in a necromancy story in the middle of the solomon cain legend so solomon cain not only is a puritan and a pirate but he's also someone who has come back from the dead right and let's just talk about lazarus for a couple seconds here so there's a story of lazarus according to the gospel of luke there was a rich man once who was clothed in purple and lawn and feasted sumptuously every day and there was a beggar called lazarus who was at the gate covered with sores um this is where he dies this is a different lazarus this is the three persons of lazarus the beggar lazarus lazarus resurrected by um lazarus resurrected and lazarus lazarus the beggar and the lazarus who landed in maximin in the sailing vessel so lazarus was a friend of jesus brought back to life but then we have this lazarus legend uh from france it says lazarus with his two sisters mary magdalene and martha is supposed to have been put on board a ship without a rudder or sail in the holy land the voyage of the boat refugees ended in saint marie de la mer near marseille there lazarus started to christianize the province gradually the cult of the saint and one of the poor beggar lazarus the medieval media of the latter his leper and the parable of the wicked man became mixed he thus grew to the patron saint of lepers leprosy at the time frequent occurrences so you have lazarus not only as coming back from the dead lazarus as the leper but also lazarus who set off almost like moses set off into the sea and you can see here there's various uh pictures so is solomon kane also not only just a solomon and a cane reference but is he also a lazarus figure uh there is some talk of solomon kane's brushes with you know the the necromancy the necromantic side of life and this would place him between the two worlds as not only between good and evil but between living and dead so there's sort of a cross there and that what do you guys think just uh some ideas of lazarus kane and and the richness that even robert e howard's kind of cursory backstory uh reveals when you start looking into some of this stuff so uh hope you guys enjoyed this we'll be doing some more podcasts each week please leave some comments below i would like to do some more about solomon kane i think he's very interesting and in the 1600s are very interesting time period so uh thanks for watching and talk to you soon take care

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