I have told many tales of my past self. I have told you of Niord, Worm’s Bane, and the monstrous thing he slew eons ago, a strife which echoes down the cavernous halls of history. I recounted the journey of Hialmar and the Æsir, the vengeance of Hunwulf upon the demonic warden of a fearful garden, the struggles of Ghor Kin-slayer. But this tale is not one of my visions of steel-thewed warriors from untold depths of history, ironically told from my death-bed, trapped in a crippled frame. Once, I was a boy, wild and free, my knees and elbows scarred with the mark of the bramble-strewn countryside and the slippery rocks of the bourne, my face ruddy with the exertion of youthful exuberence, my body aching yet tireless in my exploration of the great world before me.

I shall tell you of that boy… Aye, and the Thing in the Snow.

I was a child of the North. Ice and snow and frost are as potent to me as the lush meadows of Italy are to the Sons of Mars, or the rolling steppes to the Wolf-People of Temujin. I was raised in the ancient mythologies of my homeland. My grandfather told me stories of the Old Gods, and the wars they waged against the Giants. He told me of Ymir, the Frost-Giant, that grim and terrible god who was father of the Gods, the Giants, and mankind. He warned me of the treacherous Wendigo, the horror that dwells in the coldest of cold and darkest of dark, and the Ice Demon faced by Quanga in ancient Mu Thulan. He told me of the ancient, mighty magics which men once possessed in the Old Days, before the power of science and man’s skeptical nature whittled man-sorcery to impotence–leaving them powerless against the terrors of the Outer Dark.

Yet even with the most noble of intentions, old sorcery was ever unclean, and those who would wield it forever damned. In the ancient days when giants walked the earth, my people were constantly on guard, for giants viewed men as inferior, and would deem themselves the Lords of the Earth, taking human women and possessions as if it were their right. Though my forefathers were valiant fighters, the sheer might and brutality of the titans was overwhelming. One great chieftain swore that there was no weapon he would not use against the Giants, be it the Birds of the Sky, the Worms of the Earth–or the Things in the Snow.

The ritual was involved, and required much bravery on the part of the summoner. One must wait until the first snow of the coming winter, where the ground is rendered pure with fallen snow from the sky–Eitr, the substance from which all life springs. The summoner must then fashion a shape from the snow: man-like, but of mighty proportions–shoulders broad as a bear’s, a chest deep as a wild bull’s, a head thick as a cairn-stone–a form greater than the tallest, strongest man who ever lived. Once the form is carved, talismans of inconceivable power are added to strengthen the illusion of a living being. For the nose, a Satsuma of Derketa, whose juice is instant death to the touch, and imbues the Thing with the keen senses of Death Itself. (A Helvetian Carrot is an adequate alternative.) For the eyes, black coals of the charred ruin of Yggdrasil, the World Tree, taken from the hearth of Gullinbursti himself, from his dark lair in Ginnungagap. For his armor, the fabled Hat of the Nibelungen, and the Megingjörð, the Power-Scarf. On the stroke of midnight, then, the Thing in the Snow would appear.

That, at least, was the legend. Even as a boy, I beheld such stories for what they were: fables meant to impart wisdom, not chronicles of past truth. Still, like that ancient chief, I too had a foe against whom there is no weapon I would not employ.

One morning, I awoke to find the world a stark opposite to the dim night before. The world was bright, blinding in its brilliance, with yesterday’s snowflakes smothering the rolling hills surrounding my home. Grandfather’s tales swarmed back into my mind like Ulysses’ Greeks issuing from the belly of Troy’s Folly. Despite my precocious mind dismissing the possibility, something within me compelled me to consider: what if it was true? What if the Old Ways could offer me the vengeance I so desired?

As luck would have it, I found the ingredients necessary in the kitchen cupboard–a coincidence that seemed ludicrous by its convenience. Nonetheless, my fevered mind did not question it, as I set to work constructing a Snow Colossus in the front garden. All day I heaped pile upon pile of virgin snow upon the amorphous mound, taking only short breaks for respite and nourishment. The Sisyphusian task of affixing the great head upon the now eight foot behemoth was facilitated by the use of a rickety ladder and some careful cantilevering. Soon, the cyclopean Snow-Man was beginning to assume the likeness of a human, and I had the uncanny feeling that some force was guiding my hands as they brushed white powder from the massive bulk. Careful application of the sacred objects took place in the evening: as there was a surplus of coal eyes, I re-purposed them to act as buttons. When I was finished, I stepped back to appraise my handiwork.

To my juvenile eyes, the ice statue before me may as well have been one of the Giants of myth. I surprised myself with the verisimilitude of its features despite the simplicity of my tools: the magnificent sweep of its glacier-like chest, the brawny shoulders towering like snow-capped mountains, its fingers thick as a frozen waterfall’s icicles. Even the coal eyes seemed to glimmer in the early starlight, with a disarming similarity to lights dancing on the black surface of obsidian. Suddenly wearied by the day’s work, the mad futility of the situation sank in, and I retired to bed.

I dreamt monstrous dreams that night. Silhouettes of gargantuan forms smote and rushed, punctuated by flourishes of red spray and the brief illumination of jagged blue lines. Chants in an unknown tongue thundered in my brain until I thought my very skull would shatter. The visions started dark, growing brighter and brighter, with an eldritch light that burned with its cold, until the searing white haze encompassed my entire field of vision. Despite my terror, I could not jolt myself awake, even as that slight change in the white space started to become clearer, no longer a vague cloud of shadow, but a form. A terrible, white form, with the shoulders of a bear and the chest of a bull, and those coal-black eyes, like those of a shark.

It was then I awoke… though little did I know that waking would not free me from the nightmare that was about to begin. For looming outside the window was the face of the Snowman!

I was too shocked to move, initially. For what seemed an eternity the tableau was set: the astonished child huddled in his blanket, staring wide-eyed at the frost-skinned colossus meeting his gaze. The satsuma nose was flared, air rushing through the icy caverns of its lungs. The slit of a mouth was curved in a perverse mockery of a child’s smile. And the eyes… Suddenly, impossibly, the vast bulk began to move! The legs and arms shifted stiffly, as if manipulated by a being unused to such locomotion. Yet the awful thing moved, implacable, stalking to the house.

Even faced with this image of nightmare and lunacy, I was incapable of moving. The Snow-Thing was soon at the window. I must have lapsed into unconsciousness at some point, for all I remember after that was standing outside in the night, my slipper-shod feet burning with the cold, with a chilling sensation in my left hand. I looked to my left, and if I could have screamed at all that night, it would have been then, for the Thing in the Snow was clutching my small hand with its enormous fingers! Another tableau, another eternity: I was Man, bold, brash, arrogant, considering myself master of the world–yet all Man’s works and endeavors were ever at the mercy of the cold, be it the frigid chill of winter, the suffocating chill of the ocean, or the Boreal grip of Death Itself. I could feel no less impotent were I in the shadow of Rlim Shaikorth himself. Faced with the mad immensity of my position, I felt smaller than I’d ever felt in my life–the world itself felt more insignificant than anything I could conceive. I, humanity, the very universe, was nothing to the Cold which ends all heat, all energy, all life. All life as we know it.

Yet as I spiraled ever further into madness, movement broke my spell of introspective dread. The Snow-Man broke into a run, hurtling with terrific speed across the garden, the terrific crunch of his massive pillar-like legs pounding in my head. My short legs stumbled and slipped, until my feet barely made contact with the ground. Soon, my feet didn’t touch the ground at all, and I noticed that the crash of the Thing’s feet ceased abruptly. I looked down, and was astonished to see that the Snow-Thing was no longer treading ground, but the air itself! I, the skeptical boy who treated the Old Ways as mere metaphor and fairytale, was walking in the air.

Of that incredible flight, I can only remember fleeting images. Hills and mountains speeding past my vision as if the world was some vast zoetrope. Houses, halls, churches, cathedrals, and other constructs that seemed vast and gigantic to me only yesterday appeared as matchstick models. The silhouette of a huge form clutching a smaller one raced across the clouds below me. Briefly, we were joined by a host of Snow-Things, clad in accouterments similar but not identical to the being beside me: each of them as monstrous and robust as my captor, exchanging looks in grim, enigmatic silence. We soon came to lands unfamiliar to me, yet somehow, familiar: great icy peaks piercing the heavens, glaciers bursting through rock and mountain at their own unknowable pace, and the black outline of a Leviathan lurking in the iceberg-strewn polar sea. Far from the stark monochrome of my homeland, this landscape was awash with color: the Aurora Borealis my grandfather spoke of, bathing the snow in a riot of blues, reds, golds, greens and purples.

We alighted on the edge of a forest. The trees, great firs and pines reaching to the firmament, stood stolid and menacing, bearing silent witness to all trespassers. I was loathe to set foot in that shadowed wood, but the Snow-Man pulled me forward effortlessly. As we passed the threshold, I felt a distinct change in the air. I was not prepared for the next sight, yet it felt as natural to my pagan soul as breathing. Dozens of the Snow-Creatures were gathered in a clearing. Their backs were to us: they appeared to be in some sort of formation, reminiscent of an army. My captor moved forward, and his kin moved aside to let us through to the front. There, I found the explanation for the mystery, and the reason for everything.

Ymir, the Frost-Giant! Shoulders broad as a cliff face, a beard like a cascading waterfall, great red cheeks like twin suns at dusk. Yet how could it be that the Things in the Snow payed homage to him, the lord of those they were created to combat? It was all so clear: the Frost-Giants and the Snow-Things, all were the Sons of Ymir, and both tools to dominate life–especially the upstart Man. For Ymir is the personification of Cold, and what could be a greater and more fitting servant than a soulless creature hewn from the ice itself? Faced with the final revelation, all semblance of sanity drained from me like water through a sluice. My inferiority, my helplessness, my smallness, all shed. No longer was I a precocious boy far from home: I was the personification of vengeance. No more, Ymir. In a lightning-quick movement the slow-witted Snow-Thing could not predict, I ripped the Satsuma of Derketa from my kidnapper’s face, the corrosive juice burning my skin until my eyes watered, and hurled it full at the contorted features of the Frost-Giant.

A flash of light, a roar of fury, a sensation of searing heat–or cold. I awoke. I was back home, in my room, with a comforting warmth surrounding my body. The chill of the world outside may as well have been a world away. Yet there was something I needed to know.

I ran outside, my slippers padding the carpet. I threw the door wide open, to find the dry snow replaced by pools of water and damp sleet. In the center of the garden was a sad, lonely pile of snow, topped by a hat & scarf, dotted with dull lumps of coal, a soggy, squashed satsuma had rolled a few inches away.

Nothing remained of the Thing in the Snow, or the incredible journey the night before. Nothing, save a strange, subtle, burning sensation in the soles of my feet, which persisted all the boy’s life, till the day of his death.

We’re walking in the air,
We’re floating in the moonlit sky,
The people far below are sleeping as we fly.

I’m speeding through the night,
I’m riding in the midnight blue,
I’m finding I can fly so high above with you.

Far across the world,
The villages go by like dreams,
The rivers run with blood, the horror and the screams.

Children gaze open mouthed,
Taken by surprise!
Nobody down below believes their eyes!

We’re gliding through the air,
We’re swimming in the frozen sky,
We’re drifting over icy mountains, floating by.

Suddenly, swooping low,
On an ocean deep,
Rousing up a mighty monster from his sleep!

And walking in the air,
We’re dancing in the midnight sky,
And everyone who sees us screams as they die.

We’re walking in the air,
The world will be our funeral pyre,
And Oh, the Wendigo, my burning feet of fire!

(With thanks to Robert E. Howard, Clark Ashton Smith, Algernon Blackwood, and of course Raymond Briggs. This jolly little jaunt was inspired by Steve Tompkins’ annual tradition of putting a Howardian Swords-and-Sorcery spin on beloved childhood classics, and this homage is a tribute to him. I wish all Cimmerian readers and Howard fans a marvelous Mitramas, a super Set Sacrificial Festival, a solemn, cheerless Cromhain, and of course, a merry Christmas.)