Ouketi is the transliteration of the Greek word meaning “no longer” or “no more.” It suggests the end of the old ways and the beginning of something new. It means a change. When prior events have been painful, the change can be positive. However, a haunting lament echoes and goodbyes become painful when an enjoyable experience ends.

On June 11th, the death knell will sound for The Cimmerian Blog. Another blow to REH fandom that comes almost eighteen months after The Cimmerian published its last print issue.

While the word ouketi may apply to the future of The Cimmerian Blog, its past is rich with memories that will survive.  As his many fans well know, Robert E. Howard’s prose and poetry were filled with passion and depth. Many of the articles and essays that appeared on the TC Blog also reflected those qualities. They contributed to our knowledge of Bob Howard and explored questions about his life, his loves and who he was. They examined his words and looked at how and why he chose the ones he did. Some of the TC essays were thought provoking. Some of them were just plain provoking; so much so that at times I wished I could crawl through the electronic circuits and “strangle” the writer.

Since its inception in 2006, I have read just about everything written here. I was an enthusiastic fan of Steve Tompkins and looked for his name each time I checked the website. Sometimes I had to struggle through the labyrinth of his writing style but the nuggets of beauty that I discovered were always worth it. He wrote passionately, with much insight and an unbelievable depth of knowledge. His imagination soared and best of all, it often took mine along.

And he was only one of four good writers who produced quality essays. I read insightful and fun articles by the other regular bloggers, Leo Grin, Rob Roehm, and Mark Finn that covered a gamut of often fascinating material. The list of guest bloggers read like a Who’s Who of Howard Fandom. They were the names I saw on books and articles and biographies. And I was content to read as much by and about Robert E. Howard as I could.

Then on April 17, 2007, after I sent him a review of the A&E documentary Warrior Empires: The Mughuls, Leo posted this:

Guest Blogger and Howard fan Barbara Barrett informs us about a familiar Howardian vibe in a recent TV program.

I remember the thrill and the feeling of unreality the first time I saw my name on The Cimmerian Blog site. I was a newbie to Howard fandom in the broadest sense of the word – a fan for barely more than a year. But it was the start of a dream. I recognized quality and I wanted to be a part of it. I wanted to write a blog for The Cimmerian. That was in 2007 and it took over two years for me to realize that dream. Even then, my contribution has been very slight. The Word of the Week was started in the beginning of August 2009 when I revived Leo’s discontinued feature. Right after I received Leo’s okay, I enthusiastically began to write. I know, I know, all I had to do was dig out a word, let everyone know its part of speech, its origin, find a good poem to quote and add a picture. We’re not talking rocket science here. But, I had a dream and my foot was now in the door! Even, my name and picture appeared on the list of TC’s Bloggers. But, it was the classic story of the reporter doing the society page and all the while wanting to do something larger and gutsier. And, I only had to wait another few months for that to happen. Deuce Richardson asked me to write an article for the October 18th celebration of the Charge of the Light Brigade. It was a big opportunity to do what I enjoy most: write. I did an incredible amount of research – probably enough to write my own book but it was a complex subject and I wanted to do it justice. It all came together when I found Terry Brighton’s Hell Riders. It allowed me to tell the story of this famous Charge from the point of view of the men – those who actually rode the length of that field under heavy enemy fire and survived the twenty minutes that landed their brave deed in the history books. The article appeared in three different postings on that day! I had written and posted my first article. I was a blogger on The Cimmerian. Another first in my writing life.

I still cherish an email I received from Steve Tompkins in March 2009, shortly before his death. He had read my REHupa article “Hester Ervin Howard and Tuberculosis” and was asking if I wanted to be a guest blogger on TC. By this time, I’d written an article for The Cimmerian print journal, published a book, and now someone whose writing I respected and enjoyed was asking me to be a guest blogger. Yes, dreams do come true. And so many of mine were tied directly to The Cimmerian and its online blog.

I’m just one fan, and I’m sure that many of you reading this can contribute similar stories about the influence of The Cimmerian Blog in your own lives. It was a class act and, however small my own contributions, I was happy to be part of it.

All the TC bloggers are moving on now. The website will be maintained so that the archives will survive intact. When the tents are folded and all have gone, only the ghosts of what has been written through the years will remain. Ultimately, even blogs and magazines are subject to the same cosmic forces that oversee the rise and fall of civilizations. Still, many of those fallen civilizations have not been forgotten. Robert E. Howard’s poem, “The Path of the Strange Wanderers” says it so eloquently:

They have broken the lamps and burst the camps
And they follow the roads that the wild wind tramps;
And the starlight falls on Babel’s halls
And the trumpeter mounts the broken walls
And the moon comes up through the mists and damps.

“They are here today,” the wild winds say,
“But who can trace the track of tomorrow?
“And who can shackle a roving heart
“That leans to the winds that waver and start,
“Or chain a soul like the ocean spray,
“Whiter than glory and brine as sorrow?”

“They are here today,” the fierce winds say,
“But the east is white and the sea is grey,
“And the trumpet’s blast is an empty blast
“For the winds flee and they follow fast.
“And the hall may fall and the city wall,
“And the brazen trumpet forever call,
“But the bladed rovers, where are they?”

Tower and hall and marble wall
Altar and honor and glory fall;
Grass grows in the city street—
Where are the rovers’ restless feet?
Other cities waver and rise
And grow and loom before their eyes;
Topaz towers in dreaming skies.
And cities are dust upon the plain
But the wanderers come not back again.

While the wanderers in Howard’s poem will not come back, many of the TC bloggers will show up on other websites. But before TC becomes a changeless archive page dedicated to research, and while the memories are still fresh, I would like to express my thanks and appreciation to the “wanderers,” past and present, who contributed to the TC Blog. Thanks Leo Grin, Rob Roehm, Mark Finn, and Steve Tompkins, the original bloggers, who started it all. Thanks also to Deuce for keeping the TC website alive. I thank Steve Trout as well as the current bloggers: Jim Cornelius, Al Harron, Miguel Martins, William Maynard, Brian Murphy, Jeffrey Shanks and Keith Taylor. It’s been a privilege to work with you. Thanks also to all the guest bloggers who made this website such a wonderful experience for so many of us Howard fans. Your articles enriched our knowledge of Robert E. Howard and many other authors and poets.

The Cimmerian Blog will soon be ouketi – no more – and what is to come is not yet written. Robert E. Howard’s poem, “Astarte’s Idol Stands Alone,” speaks of the old gods, “the dreams of men today” and what really lies beyond “no more.”

Astarte’s idol stands alone
With eyes that hold the ravished years;
Baal-Pteor’s shrine is shattered stone
Where through the night the jackal leers.

No more Bab-Ilu’s women sit
Beneath Mylitta’s mistletoe;
No more grim Molloch’s eyes are lit
By torches flaming row on row.

* * * * *
Across the stars their doom was writ:
“The dark before the dawn must go.”

Yet Baal, unseen, sits still enshrined
Along the world’s broad thoroughway;
Bubastes’ tendrils still are twined
About the dreams of men today.

For man still wears, from birth to dust,
The seal of Chiron’s neighing foal
And fires of Molloch’s darksome lust
Still light the windows of the soul.

And lighting the “windows of the soul” is what it’s all about.
Thanks TC,
Barbara