In 1982, Gary Gygax of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons fame gave us the character class “The Barbarian” in The Dragon #63 (July 1982). One of the features of this class, besides big burly muscles, was a hatred of magic, both of items and users. Dump Stat’s “Deep Dive” on the Barbarian says the first version was “a combination of Tarzan and a Viking”. But the true history of this cliche– if it wasn’t a cliche at first it certainly was by 1982, otherwise the D&D players would have been happy with the simple “Fighter” class– is more involved.
I think we must start first by differentiating between the original “barbarians” of Greek origin and the literary fellow of the 1930s. The word barbarian comes from Greeks thinking that Celts sounded like “bar-bar” when they talked. Ancient Greeks were pretty xenophobic, having laws that punished or excluded outsiders. The Romans added to this snobbiness as they conquered Europe. The Celts, Germans and Goths were seen as inferior people to the might of Rome.
Robert E. Howard sides with the Celts. When he created his version of pseudo-history known as “The Hyborian Age”, he took ancient history and stepped back just a little in time to a proto-stage. His Celts are the Cimmerians. The Stygians are future Egyptians. His Hyrankians are Russians, etc. REH wrote about several other characters that were Celts such as Turlough O’Brien and Cormac mac Art.
So where does the magic hating come in? Certainly the Celts (and Picts should be included here too) had their own form of magic. Druids rule their world, using plants such as mistletoe for spells. (Anybody who has read Asterix the Gaul knows the comedic version of this.) The human sacrifice gets a pass. Being a more backward type, Conan, Kull or Bran Mak Morn is often compared to a civilized man and found to be a more noble, purer, simpler person. Howard’s view of civilization was not kind. City folk were duplicitous, cowardly, weak, effeminate, cruel, kinky and just plain bad to know. (Like a bunch of Lord Byrons.) Howard preferred the powerful alpha male to the conniving beta. (The lion or tiger to the wolves.)
Logically, Conan would have come from his hayseed Cimmeria loaded up with charms, misbeliefs and ritual magic. But he doesn’t. He worships Crom, a hands-off kinda god perfect for fatalists and atheists. You can call on Crom but He is just going to sit on his hill and laugh at your weakness. A “cleric” class character who worships Crom is an oxymoron.
We finally get to the magic hating part when we look at Conan’s career. He goes up against several wizards (and their monsters) throughout the tales (especially later in the pastiches when he goes toe-to-toe with Thoth Amon). The old chestnut is barbarian-vs-wizard with wizard losing at the end. Dave Sim did the perfect send-up of this plot in the first issue of Cerebus the Aardvark. Howard establishes an antagonistic relationship between these two types that later writers expand on.
Wikipedia lists Gardner F. Fox’s Kothar as another source for this cliche. “…There was no fear in him as he jogged along, he was afraid of no living man—or woman, for that matter— though he did admit to a kind of queasiness when magic, witches and warlocks were involved.” (“The Sword of the Sorcerer”) Fox reiterates this over and over throughout the stories. This particular story must have had some influence on Gygax because it also gave AD&D the lich monster.
Fritz Leiber, in my opinion the true successor to Howard, gives us Newhon and its city of Lankhmar, where wizards rule. Fafhrd the barbarian type of the pair of heroes escapes ice magic back in his home of the barbarian sticks to become the puppet of one of these wizards. His best buddy, the Grey Mouser, starts off as a wizard’s apprentice but somehow becomes one of the two best swordsmen in the world. In Leiber’s world, magic is ever-present unlike Hyboria where it shows up occasionally.
Fritz admitted his inspiration was not entirely Howard but James Branch Cabell and more importantly E. R. Eddison’s The Worm Ourboros. Leiber has a more sardonic feel, more joyful than grim REH. This sense of humor includes magic along with everything else. This is not to say he made fun of it, as did deCamp & Pratt in their Harold Shea stories or much later, Piers Anthony started a cottage industry writing his Xanth novels. Leiber has a sense of fun but not outright silliness.
The natural opposition of swordsman or swordswoman against schemers and manipulators, using magic and other dark secrets, is a natural product of a action-oriented plot. The hero needs a villain. Parodists like Dave Sim and Larry Niven is his Warlock story, “Not Long Before the End” (Fantasy & Science Fiction, April 1969), have taken this struggle to high school with a Jock versus Nerd feel. Are the magic users evil or simply more intelligent? Harlan Ellison goes even further to suggest the muscular hero is an emotionally stunted vessel for a bunch of losers (S&S fans) in “Delusion For a Dragonslayer” (Knight, September 1966).
I have to admit I never liked Gygax’s Barbarian character class. It rounded the edges too much for me. It systematized certain elements that I felt were more individual. Would Conan’s buddies from the North all be the same? Certainly they shared a culture, but their personalities would have shone through. They can’t all be grim, magic-hating supermen (or women).
Also hating magic smacks of wilful ignorance. If magic is the fantasy world version of learning and Science, then to choose to hate it, is choosing to be stupid. There is too much of this going on in the world today for me to ever sign on for the fantasy version. In this regard, I think a character like Elric or one of Jack Vance’s manse-dwelling wizards from The Dying Earth are more up my alley, aware of magic, its dangers and benefits. In the end, I side with the nerds.
