Conan de Cimmeria, 2

Know, O prince, that between the years of the sinking of Atlantis and the glittering cities beneath the oceans, and those of the appearance of the sons of Aryas, there was a forgotten age when the world was covered with shining kingdoms like blue cloaks beneath the stars. Nemedia, Ophir, Brithunia, Hyperborea, Zamora, with its dark-haired girls and its towers riddled with arachnid mysteries, Zingara and its knights, Koth, bordering on the pastoral lands of Shem, Styx, with its tombs guarded by shadows, and Hyrkania , whose riders dressed in steel, silk and gold. But the proudest kingdom in the world was Aquilonia, which reigned supreme over the sleepy west. And there came Conan, the Cimmerian, black-haired, dark-eyed, sword in hand, a thief, a plunderer, a murderer, of gigantic melancholies and gigantic sorrows, to trample under his sandals the jeweled thrones of Earth.