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ICE WORM

Real Name: Unknown

Identity/Class: Animal, monster?, mammal? (Hyborian Era)

Occupation: Survive

Group Membership: None

Affiliations: None

Enemies: Conan the Cimmerian, Ilga

Known Relatives: None

Aliases: Remora the Snow Devil (in Cimmerian legends); Yakhmar (in Hyperborean)

Base of Operations: Eiglophian Mountains between Vanaheim, Aesgaard and Hyperborea

First Appearance: "The Lair of the Ice Worm" in "Conan of Cimmeria", Lancer (1969);
    (Marvel) Savage Sword of Conan#34 (1978)

Powers/Abilities: The Ice Worm had the shape of a giant eel, with a long white fur instead of scales. Its head was as high as a man. It had long teeth, and eyes glowing green in the dark. It could survive in the extreme cold and usually lived in deep caverns on ever-iced mountains. The Ice Worm ate meat. It could attract its preys using a trilling song, the waves of which narcotized their will. The hypnotizing effect was also probably produced by its green luminous orbs. Its touch was freezing, and it was capable to rendering bones and steel very fragile. Probably its own body emitted bitter cold.

History: (Savage Sword of Conan#34 (fb)) - A legend was told around the Cimmerian campfires. It spoke of Remora, an Ice Worm capable of freezing men with its touch. It passed a long time from the last time anyone saw Remora; at the time of Conan it was believed it was gone in extinction. Men named a glacier "Snow Devil" for the fear of the unnamed terror.

    Many men walked for the coldest mountains of Cimmeria and Hyperborea, looking for the Snow Devil, but none of them went back home.

 (Savage Sword of Conan#34) - One night, the Ice Worm went out a crevasse. It ploughed the snow on the Eiglophian Mountains and found a dead horse. The worm ate the horse, consuming all its meat, leaving only bones. Before dawn, the Worm approached a cavern where two human were. The human male was sleeping. The Ice Worm's eye attracted the human female, Ilga, chanting its hypnotizing melody and subjugating her will. She was obliged to exit from the cavern. The Ice Worm froze her and ate her meat, leaving only her skeleton.

main imageThe day after, the human male, Conan of Cimmeria, followed the sinuous path left by the Worm in the snow. The Ice Worm was satiated and was resting in a cavern. When it saw the human warrior, it started to emit its paralyzing melody but the warrior immediately reacted. Conan, had taken embers of ardent coal with him, in an Aesgardian helm, and his axe too, warmed in the coal. The warrior whirled the helm on his head, causing the coal to produce  smoke. The Ice Worm's song had reached unbearable levels but then Conan hurled the ardent axe in the Ice Worm's enormous mouth. And immediately after, also the helm and the coal in its throat. Conan ran away, and the Worm's agony shattered the mountain that crumbled over it.

Comments: Created by L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter.
    Adapted by Roy Thomas (writer), Carmine Infantino (penciler) and Alfredo Alcala (inker).

    It is unclear if Remora is another Ice Worm, older and deceased, or if it is the same Ice Worm, they seemed slightly different.
On the cover, the Ice Worm is painted as breathing fire. In the issue nothing let think that the Worm could do this, I suppose it is an error, and that the Worm emitted only extreme cold, not warm or fire. In the original novel by Carter and De Camp, the Ice Worm is described: "Its boneless form was covered with the silken nap of thick white fur. Its mouth was merely a jawless, circular opening, now puckered and closed. Above the mouth, the two luminous orbs gleamed out of a smooth, rounded, featureless eel-like head.".

Profile by Spidermay.

CLARIFICATIONS:
The Ice Worm has no known connections to

Ilga has no known connections to

The Snow Men have no known connections to

Ilga

    Ilga was a young Hyperborean female, Virunian.

    Ilga's uncle brought Ilga from Hyperborea to the Border Kingdoms to find a husband for her at Sigtona, an Hyperborean Fort. They rode through the pass of the Snow Devil, near Sigtona. There the hairy Man-Eaters ambushed her. Ilga's uncle managed to hold the Snow Men till Ilga fled.
    But Ilga's horse fell and the Man-Eaters reached her. Conan arrived just before they could violate and then eat her. Conan saved Ilga then invited her to rest in a cavern but she was afraid of Yakhmar, the Snow Devil. Conan knocked her out and transported her inside.
    That night Ilga didn't resist Conan and they made sweet love. But afterwards she couldn't sleep. Before dawn, she was captured by the Ice Worm's narcotic melody and glowing eyes. She went out of the cavern and was eaten by the Ice Worm.

    Conan avenged her.

--Savage Sword of Conan#34

 

 

 

Snow Men

The Snow Men had probably no nationality and lived in very cold places. They were humanoid with the body covered of fur and very long hair and beard. They wore no clothes. They used very simple weapons, such as spears of wood, clubs of wood or bone, hammers and axes of wood and stone. They probably ate everything they can, including human beings.

    The hairy Man-Eaters were not unknown to the other Hyborian people, Nemedian philosophers spoke of them.

    The hairy cannibals ambushed Ilga and her uncle near the Snow Devil Glacier, at west of Sigtona, an Hyperborean Fort. They were hold back from Ilga's uncle just long enough for Ilga to avoid them and flee. The Man-Eaters killed the man (and possibly ate him and his horse), then followed Ilga and were grabbing her when Conan of Cimmeria surprised them. They fought, but their weapons could do little damage to Conan's chain mail. One of the Snow Men, however, stabbed Conan's horse with his spear. Conan slew seven of them, and the others fled in panic.

--Savage Sword of Conan#34

Images: (without ads)
Savage Sword of Conan#34, p20, pan2 (Ice Worm, full body)
Savage Sword of Conan#34, cover (Ice Worm, head shot)
Savage Sword of Conan#34, p17 (Remora the Snow Devil)
Savage Sword of Conan#34, p13, pan6 (Ilga and Worm's eyes)
Savage Sword of Conan#34, cover (Ilga)
Savage Sword of Conan#34, p6, pan2 (Hairy Man-Eaters)

First Posted: 06/09/2006
Last updated: 05/10/2011

Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.

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