Dermod's Bane

"" is a short story by Robert E. Howard that first appeared in the Fall 1967 issue of Magazine of Horror, more than three decades after Howard's death. The story's narrator is named Kirowan; whether he is the same character as the John Kirowan who appears in several Howard stories is open to interpretation.
The Kirowan in this story has gone to Galway in Ireland in hopes of finding some sort of solace for the death of his beloved twin sister, Moira Kirowan. He rehears a story that he knew as a child, about Dermod O’Connor, known as the Wolf, an Irish chieftain around the time of the Norman invasion. He was "a red-handed reaver" who "preyed alike on Norman and Celt." He was mortally wounded by Sir Michael Kirowan and hanged from the tree ever after known as Dermod's Bane. He is remembered as a "giant of a man" with a "great black beard and ghastly eyes and boar tushes.” 
The latter-day Kirowan has a ghostly encounter with him--in wolf form, in his own monstrous human form, and in the guise of Moira, who almost leads him off a cliff to his death. His life is saved by the hand of Moira's true ghost--which comforts him with the knowledge that he and his sister will someday be together again.
==Behind the Mythos==
A character named Kirowan confronts Mythos horrors in Robert E. Howard's stories "The Children of the Night" (1931), "The Haunter of the Ring" (1934), and "Dig Me No Grave" (1937). If the similarly named protagonist of "Dermod's Bane" is considered to be the same character, that story provides him with a backstory and a family background. 
While the horror elements in "Dermod's Bane" are not connected to the Mythos, the story's theme of ancestral enmity is one that appears in several of Howard's Mythos tales.
Category:Robert E. Howard works
Category:Lovecraft Circle Works