Tolkien's sources: Icelandic Sagas and Beowulf

Danny Yee writes with the perfect background reading (once you've finished the Tolkein books, of course) before checking out the new LoTR movie: "For something completely different, reviews of The Complete Sagas of Icelanders and Seamus Heaney's Beowulf. Essential background reading for serious Tolkien fanatics! You might also want to check out my other medieval literature reviews." The Complete Sagas of Icelanders author Viar Hreinsson pages 2200+ (5 volumes) publisher Leifur Eiriksson rating 9 reviewer Danny Yee ISBN 9979-9293-0-8 summary stories of Viking Age feuds, battles, legal conflicts, love affairs ...

Beginning in the 9th century, settlers from Norway created in Iceland a society of fiercely independent farmers, fishermen, and traders; in the 13th and 14th centuries their descendants wrote a whole series of stories about them. These family sagas tell of feuds, duels and battles, legal conflicts, love affairs, travels and raids to Norway and the British Isles and further afield, and the attempted settlement of Vinland. The Complete Sagas of Icelanders is the first complete coordinated translation of these into English, containing all forty family sagas and fifty shorter tales.

The focus of the sagas is always on individuals and their relationships. They offer us strong men and outlaws, legal experts and tricksters, poets and warriors serving Norwegian kings, respected leaders and arbitrators -- and powerful matriarchs, faithful wives, and trouble-stirring women. The saga writers never venture directly into the minds of their protagonists, but they produce vivid, distinctive portraits of individuals caught up in memorable events: Egil, imprisoned in York by King Eirik Bloodaxe, with one night to compose a poem to save his life; the final ridge-top stand of the outlawed Gisli; Askel working for peace, to the point of trying to arrange in advance the settlement for his own death; Kormak's life-long obsession with Steingerd; Gunnar turning back from going into exile, moved by the beauty of the landscape; the imperious Gudrun, revealing at the end of her life which of her men she had loved the most; the burning of Njal and his family and the protracted legal and armed struggle to revenge them; and many others.

The sagas draw on local family stories, older myths and legends, and the broader body of medieval literature, along with a good deal of invention and original creation. While some are awkwardly structured, others rework their sources in sophisticated ways and some are literary masterpieces. In some, unity is provided by a biographical focus, sometimes ending with a peaceful death at the end of a long life, sometimes building with tragic inevitability to a climactic killing and the resulting resolution. Others are almost political studies, tracing the shifting balance of power between leading figures in a particular region. And while this genre of sagas is defined by a realistic treatment of early Iceland, many are (or incorporate) comic stories, fantastic tales, and romances.

In their attention to the actions of individuals within social networks, and the working through of their consequences, the Icelandic sagas are important precursors of the modern novel. They directly influenced many writers, among them Walter Scott and J.R.R. Tolkien. The sagas are also a valuable source of information about medieval Iceland, a subject of interest to more than medievalists. One of its notable features is that it had a sophisticated legal system but no executive government, which makes it a magnet for political theorists -- if you search the web for information on medieval Iceland, you'll find a running fight between the libertarians and anarchists over who can best claim it as an exemplum.

Some aspects of the sagas do take a little getting used to. They are episodic, sometimes covering events over several generations and jumping across decades to continue the story of a feud or the history of a region, and they alternate between periods of tension and relaxation. Characters are often introduced with a paragraph or two of genealogical information unrelated to the main story; and the sheer density of names, often shared by several characters, can be confusing. Though they never replace human actions and decisions as explanations of events, elements of foretelling and prophecy are nearly ubiquitous in the sagas. And obviously much of the cultural context is foreign to the modern reader. One soon becomes accustomed to these things, however, and overall the sagas are among the most accessible of medieval genres.

Unless your library has a copy or will obtain one for you, The Complete Sagas of Icelanders is probably not practical for a newcomer to the sagas; cheap paperback editions of any of the better known ones should be easy to come by. But if you become seriously interested in the sagas - and I should warn you that they are addictive -- then it's hard to go past The Complete Sagas.

Firstly, the translations are good. My academic friends assure me they are mostly of high quality, accurate enough to be usable for scholarly purposes. More importantly for the lay reader, they are lively and readable, avoiding inappropriate archaism or colloquialism. The sagas are each preceded by a brief note on when they were written and their manuscript sources, but otherwise they are clean, mostly unburdened by unnecessary commentary or annotation. The only regular exceptions to this are marginal glosses for the "kennings", highly figurative stock phrases in the poetry embedded in some of the sagas, and some explanatory notes where texts are partial or put together from different sources.

For readers who do want some background information, The Complete Sagas has a really good general introduction, a glossary of terms which are likely to be unfamiliar, some maps, and an index of characters. A minor complaint here is that the maps could show more detail and that they are all at the end of volume five, instead of in the appropriate volumes - and the index of characters is useful enough that it could almost have been repeated in each volume.

Perhaps most importantly, this is the only uniform, coordinated translation of the family sagas available. Collecting alternative translations of them all would be a lot of work, if it is even possible, and the result would not offer as coherent a presentation of the genre. Places, characters, and events often feature in several sagas, and motifs, stock phrases, and thematic elements often recur; a uniform translation scheme makes these connections easier to follow. On the other hand, the sagas do vary in style, mood, and structure, and this too is easier to appreciate when not obscured by variations in translation approach.

Finally, The Complete Sagas of Icelanders is beautifully produced. The leatherbound volumes find an elegant balance between attractiveness and austerity, and are of a size, shape and heft that makes reading them a pleasure (unlike some "great books" editions which are obviously designed to look impressive on shelves rather than to be read).

One minor caveat is that the title The Complete Sagas of Icelanders, while technically accurate, may mislead some: all the sagas about early Iceland (the "family sagas") are indeed included, but not any of the "fantasy" sagas such as the Saga of the Volsungs (based on older legends) or "romances" (based on continental models) from the same period. We will just have to hope that Leifur Eiriksson Publishing takes on the translation of those as a future project. A paperback edition would obviously make The Complete Sagas much more accessible; barring that, it would be nice if the volumes were available separately, so people could collect the set over a period of time.

Purchase The Complete Sagas of Icelanders at FatBrain or Leifur Eiriksson Publishing.

Beowulf author Seamus Heaney, translator pages 106 publisher Faber & Faber rating 9 ISBN 0-571-20376-0 summary An effective verse translation of the Anglo-Saxon epic.

For those unfamiliar with Beowulf, it is a late first millennium Anglo-Saxon epic about the hero Beowulf's fights with three monsters: Grendel, Grendel's mother, and, fifty years later at the end of his life, a dragon. Since its rediscovery in the early nineteenth century, it has become a recognised classic, translated scores if not hundreds of times. Not being able to read Old English, all I can say here is that Heaney's translation gave me a better understanding of why people rave about the poem than any of the others I have read.

Perhaps the most notable aspect of Heaney's Beowulf is that it can be read almost as if it were prose - and then mined more deeply for the poetry. Heaney writes in his introduction:

"I came to the task of translating Beowulf with a prejudice in favour of forthright delivery. I remembered the voice of the poem as being attractively direct, even though the diction was ornate and the narrative method at times oblique."

So he captures something of the Anglo-Saxon alliterative verse form, but not at the expense of "the sound of sense;" he doesn't inflict awkward archaisms on the reader and is never difficult to read. Here is a brief sample, from the wait after Beowulf dives to attack Grendel's mother.

"Immediately the counsellors keeping a lookout
with Hrothgar, watching the lake water,
saw a heave-up and surge of waves
and blood in the backwash. They bowed grey heads,
spoke in their sage, experienced way
about the good warrior, how they never again
expected to see that prince returning
in triumph to their king. It was clear to many
that the wolf of the deep had destroyed him forever."

An immense body of critical work on Beowulf exists. In his introduction Heaney very briefly touches on this, offering a few hints to understanding and interpreting the work. He also discusses some translation issues, feeling obliged to justify his use of one or two obscure Irish words.

Scholars may cavil at Heaney's liberties ("an interpretation and not a translation") and there are certainly better translations for scholarly purposes. Translation is always a balance between competing concerns, however, and a verse translation that attempts to convey something of the power of the original as a poem must inevitably deviate from the literal. Tolkien's seminal essay "The Monsters and the Critics" urged scholars to approach Beowulf not just as a philological curiosity or a source document for Anglo-Saxon language and history but as a poem and a story -- and Heaney offers lay readers a chance to appreciate something of that too.

Purchase the U.S. edition of the Heaney's Beowulf from FatBrain

Comments

Christianity...

[FortKnox]

I know this won't be a popular post to most slashdotters, but Tolkien was a devout christian (he converted CS Lewis to christianity), and several theologists suggest that his stories parallel many christian stories/tales. They even suggest that Gandalf was an "Angel" more than a "wizard" (which almost sounds like an excuse, so they can read the books and watch the movie, but I digress).

I don't have any links right now, nor do I necessarily believe that this is the case, but I thought it might add to the discussion.

Please no religion flames here, its just a point

Re:Christianity...

[Ugmo]

Tolkien was a Catholic, raised by a priest.
C.S. Lewis was a Protestant Christian who thought it unusual that a Catholic could be so well educated (Catholics were not allowed to attend Universities in England until relatively recent times, late last century/early this century).

I do not think Tolkien converted Lewis. Lewis was evanglical (see Narnia, the Screwtape Letters other christian writings) Tolkien was not evangelical. There are themes of good and evil in his writings but no allegory for Christ like Aslan in Narnia.

For those who have read the Simirilion, another source for Tolkien was the prophetic writings of William Blake who used the names "Valar" and "Orc" though orc is an old word for monster, there are others.

Re:Christianity...

[vidarh]

Several of the other characters as well have names from norse mythology. If you read the Seeress prophecy (Voluspa), you'll find a whole load of names that are used in Lord of the rings. Some of the names from these sections of Voluspa, for instance, should be familiar (yes, I know there's tons of names in them that Tolkien didn't use too :):

10. Then Módsognir became the greatest of all the dwarfs, and Durin the other; they made many manlike figures dwarfs of earth, as Durin said.

11. Nýi, Nidi, Nordri, Sudri, Austri, Vestri, Althjóf, Dvalin, Bívor, Bávor, Bömbur, Nóri, Án and Ánar, Ái, Mjödvitnir.

12. Veig and Gandálf, Vindálf and Thorin, Thrór and Thráin, Thekk, Lit and Vit, Nár and Nárád, I have now correctly, Regin and Rádsvid, reported the dwarfs.

Re:Christianity...

[glenmark]

Tolkein intentionally kept his real-world religious beliefs out of his Middle-earth works, preferring instead for his heroes to display an intrinsic moral and ethical nature, although his world had its own creation myth (as described in The Silmarillion). Within that mythical construct, Gandalf and the other Istari (the Wise) could indeed be characterized as angels incarnate.

Here is the Middle-earth mythos in a nutshell. There is a central deity named Illuvitar in the language of the elves. From Illuvitar's thought's sprung the Valor, a host of beings who one might consider as demigods or archangels. Through a magical song, Illuvitar and the Valor created the world, and Illuvitar breathed life into the living things there. Illuvitar created Elves and Men, but left them sleeping while he sent the Valor to prepare the world for their awakening. One of the Valor, Melkor (the first Enemy) was jealous of Illuvitar's ability to create life, and sought to undo the work of his fellow Valor.

Where does Gandalf fit into all of this? Ranking just below the Valor, there existed another rank of divine beings known as the Maier (roughly equivalent to the angels of Christian mythology) who served the Valor. Some of these were corrupted by Melkor. Among these corrupted Maier were beings who would come to be known as Balrogs (such as the fire-deamon fought by Gandalf in the Mines of Moria).

Melkor's main lieutenant was a fallen Maier known as Sauron, who became the primary Enemy after the eventual defeat of Melkor. Eventually, to counter Sauron's rising influence in Middle-earth, the Valor dispatched a number of Maier there, made incarnate. The Maier-made-flesh were known as the Istari (the Wise), and included among their ranks Gandalf the Grey (Mithrandir), Saruman the White, Radagast the Brown, and the two Blue Wizards, who are only mentioned in passing.

I'm only hitting the high points here. For the full story, it is well worth reading The Silmarillion, or at least perusing the Encyclopedia of Arda.

Re:Christianity...

[elmegil]

There were some previous Slashdot articles (which I'm too lazy to go look up) about Roger Zelazny and a few of his novels based on hinduism, theories of egyptian theology, etc. They are more hard sf explanations of the myths (kind of like Stargate in a way), but they're great novels, and they do have a little bit to say about the traditions he mines. One of them is _Creatures of Light and Darkness_, another is _Lord of Light_. I suspect a search in slashdot for either of those would bring up the previous discussions.

Re:Christianity...

[Anonymous Coward]

If I remember correctly the list of dwarfs differs in different editions and manuscripts, with more or less depending which version of the Voluspa you read. I think that the different codecies have different orderings and so on too (I know Snorri, who uses large parts of this lay in his Edda goes against the Codex Regius a few times). I certianly remember the names Andvari and Gloin, which you don't have here.

Re:Christianity...

[Anonymous Coward]

The full list, from the Bellows translation (edited by Ari Oðinnsen) at The Midhnott Sol Regintroth:

9.
Then sought the gods their assembly-seats,
The holy ones, and council held,
To find who should raise the race of dwarfs
Out of Brimir's blood and the legs of Blain.

10.
There was Motsognir the mightiest made
Of all the dwarfs, and Durin next;
Many a likeness of men they made,
The dwarfs in the earth, as Durin said.

11.
Nyi and Nithi, Northri and Suthri,
Austri and Vestri, Althjof, Dvalin,
Nar and Nain, Niping, Dain,
Bifur, Bofur, Bombur, Nori,
An and Onar, Ai, Mjothvitnir,

12.
Vigg and Gandalf, Vindalf, Thrain,
Thekk and Thorin, Thror, Vit and Lit,
Nyr and Nyrath, -
Regin and Rathvith- now have I told the list aright.

13.
Fili, Kili, Fundin, Nali,
Heptifili, Hannar, Sviur,
Frar, Hornbori, Fræg and Loni,
Aurvang, Jari, Eikinskjaldi.

14.
The race of the dwarfs in Dvalin's throng
Down to Lofar the list must I tell;
The rocks they left, and through the wet lands
They sought a home in the feilds of sand.

15.
There were Draupnir and Dolgthrasir,
Hor, Haugspori, Hlevang, Gloin,
Dori, Ori, Duf, Andvari,
Skirfir, Virfir, Skafith, Ai.

16.
Alf and Yngvi, Eikinskjaldi;
Fjalar and Frosti, Fith and Ginnar;
So for all time shall the tale be known,
The list of all the forbears of Lofar.

Re:Christianity...

[Earlybird]

I don't remember the exact reference -- though I think it's mentioned in the introduction to the first book of The History of the Lord of the Rings -- but Tolkien later regretted stealing names from Voluspå (note correct spelling; the title means "wolf's prophecy") for The Hobbit, saying that with hindsight, choosing the names was admittedly pretty silly and unoriginal of him. In writing its sequel, The Lord of the Rings, he was forced to keep those names.

Re:Christianity...

[Hieronymus Howard]

You could also arguably equate the Valar and the Maiar to the norse Vanir and Aesir. OK, so they're not quite the same but there are some similarities.

HH

Re:Christianity...

[ptrourke]

1. Devout Catholics identify themselves as devout Christians.

2. C.S. Lewis is best known outside of the Narnia and Perelandra books as a Christian apologist, and his religious identity in writing those books was as an Anglican. Anglicans sometimes identify themselves as "High Anglican" or "Anglo-Catholic," meaning Anglicans whose doctrinal beliefs were closer to those of Catholics than were those of other Anglicans; C.S. Lewis did not identify himself as such (while e.g. T.S. Eliot did, explicitly describing his conversion from Unitarianism to Anglo-Catholicism as becoming "Christian").

Thus the doctrinal differences between Tolkien and Lewis were rather minor: similar to those between an American Catholic and an American Episcopalian.

3. That Tolkien was a Christian, and that his Christianity consciously informed his writing, is undeniable. But he was also an Anglo-Saxonist and Medievalist, and some of his Christian imagery is probably unconscious, in reflection of the medieval influences on his work. Also, that professional interest exposed him to a lot of non-Christian imagery. In other words, many of the influences identified in this thread are probably validly identified. But allegorical interpretations, on the other hand, were explicitly denounced by Tolkien, and one should speak not of Tolkien deliberately identifying e.g. Gandalf as an angel, but using a different name (which would be a kind of allegory, though a transparent one), but rather as Tolkien using the concept of angels (a concept in he which might well have believed) to help him create Gandalf.

It is worth noting that the Christian element in LOTR isn't as remarkable as that in the Perelandra books.

Re:Christianity...

[Anonymous Coward]

Nazg is the black speech word for "ring", and gûl is generally translated as "wraith" to make sense in the term Nazgûl, "ring-wraith"... although A Tolkien Compass" translates gûl as: "any one of the major invisible servants of Sauron dominated entirely by his will"

Ash nazg durbatulûk, ash nazg gimbatul, ash nazg thrakatulûk agh burzum-ishi krimpatul.

Re:Christianity...

[Anonymous Coward]

Voluspå doesn't mean the prophecy of the wolf. It's the prophecy of the Volve, where a Volve were a kind of witch.

audun

Strange

[gowen]

I don't know how anyone can review the Heaney Beowulf without mentioning his Irishness (whose vernacular is used to capture the flavour of the original). For a less superficial review, try this one or this one

Online texts

[davidhan]

The online Medieval & Classical Library (http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/OMACL/) has Njal's Saga and some of the other Icelandic Sagas.

Arthurian works

[MikeCamel]

Other good background is Malory's "Arthur" (Le Morte D'Arthur?), which is pretty much readable by a modern audience, and is a good romp through most of the Arthurian myths that you know and love - lots of magic, knights, and the rest. Much of the original Arthurian legends can be traced to "Layamon's Brut", which was an early pseudo-history of Britain, and it not easy to read if you're not into Middle English, though there are some good translations of parts of it. Of course, once your Middle English and Anglo-Saxon are up to speed, you'll be able to read Elvish with no problems (it's what Tolkein based the language on).

A "Tolkien Review" appeared on british ITV

[con]

Last night on ITV ( UTV where I watch it ), appeared a program on Tolkien and those things which affected him. Some interesting things for those of that ilk :

• his mother converted to become a catholic in adolesence/early adulthood;
  
• she died when he was in his early teens;
  
• as an orphan he was brought up by a poor but devote catholic monk in a poor english city ( Birmingham ? );
  
• he was a very big fan of the pre-Norman folklore ( this includes Beowolf, Icelandic and Finish tales );
  
• it was CS Lewis and Tolkien's publisher who convinced him to write a followup to "The Hobbit";
  
  

Sorry I do not know what the name of the program was.

Re:Recycling of Story Lines

[CaseStudy]

What is worrying is that now business is trying, through the ever tightening web of copyrights, to take ownership of what deem to be demonstrated to be universal human myths.

Typical uninformed Slashdot copyright-bashing. Here's why it's wrong:

Businesses don't create copyright law. Sure, they lobby for influence, but law is created by legislators and interpreted by the courts. At least in the U.S., the Constitution provides important checks on what monopolies can be granted through copyright.

The Constitution provides Congress the power to create copyrights for limited times only. Though life of the author plus 70 years is a long time, universal human myths are quite a bit older. (No, Star Wars is not a universal human myth, it just draws on them.)

Copyright protects only expression, not ideas. The story of a demigod undertaking a quest is unprotectable. The character of Hercules as found in Greek myth is in the public doman. Artwork from the Disney animation is protected by copyright--but Disney can't sue Renaissance Pictures for "Hercules: the Legendary Journeys" (or vice versa), because they don't use each other's protected ideas.

Quenya is heavily influenced by Finnish

[Anonymous Coward]

Tolkien discovered Finnish and with the help of a Finnish grammar he began to translate the Kalevala (he had already read the English translation) but he never learned Finnish enough to work on more than part of the original. He said 'It was like discovering a wine-cellar filled with bottles of amazing wine of a kind and flavor never tasted before. It quite intoxicated me.' This must have influenced his undertaking to create a private language heavily influenced by the Finnish language. This was the language that would eventually emerge in his stories as 'Quenya' or High-Elven.

Gutenberg

[danjerdanjel]

Gutenberg has txt's of, beowulf and the icelandic sagas iirc..

Kalevala

[Longhair]

Good reading for those seeking the myths behind the Middle Earth is Kalevala which is the saga and tales of the Finnish people. Tolkien was greatly impressed and influenced by the Kalevala, specially Silmarillion has many similarities to Kalevala. Tolkien also studied the Finnish language and used it to create the Elf language.

Re:Kalevala

[PinkStainlessTail]

Good reading for those seeking the myths behind the Middle Earth is Kalevala [amazon.co.uk] which is the saga and tales of the Finnish people

Good point but one thing to remember is that Kalevala is more along the lines of "Bullfinch's Mythology": a modern (19th century) telling of Finnish folktales. The collector's name was Lonnrott if memory serves. So you're not dealing with a primary source the way one is with Beowulf or the some of the Icelandic sagas.

Arthurianist spazzes!

[Morrig]

Chretien's not fairy tales!! It's Arthurian lit! It's a legitimate literary tradition! RRARRG!
Sorry, Arthurian lit.'s kinda important to my existence; in fact it's a major aspect of my job- take a look at http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/cphome.stm
Unfortunately our server seems to be having major issues right now, but it's a GREAT resource if you want to learn more about this literary genre.

And to keep this on-topic: hmmm, interesting point about the ring of invisibility in, i think, the Yvain story. Tolkien would almost *certainly* have known it; he was a medievalist, and it's rather difficult to be a medievalist and escape those darn French authors, even if your main focus is Anglo-Saxon.

Re:Er, not true

[Morrig]

"Actually the original Arthurian myths, including Merlin et al. are from Welsh and other early Celtic cultures."

Hmm, I don't think this is actually provable at the moment. There are some overlaps between Arthurian stuff and the Mabinogion, as well as other Welsh poetry, but much of the Arthurian material was newly-written, especially the stories concerning the French knights, and the Grail.
And for online *Arthurian* texts, take a look at the Camelot Project at:
http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/cphome.stm
We've got all sorts of Arthurian stuff up that you can't find copies of. A lot of it's 19th century crud, but it's at least interesting, and gives you an idea of what modern Arthuriana is coming out of. And yes, this is the second time i've posted the URL. I'm a very bad person.

Another Book:Masks of Odin

[drfrog]

Masks of Odin
by E Titchenell
is a great book on the why where when of the ancient norse mythos.
A really great in depth look at the grand stories of the norse peoples

Before the posts get too out of hand

[btellier]

let us not forget that Tolkien hated allegory in all its forms. He has repeated stated that while inspiration comes in many forms, he never meant LoTR to parallel the bible, nuclear arms race, or any of the dozens of theories that people with degrees love to speculate on.

Why Heaney ?

[freddled]

Why look at Heaney's Beowulf ? He's an Irish poet. Tolkein was one of the finest philologists of the 20th century and an expert in old English. His translation of Beowulf was and still is definitive. Read Tolkein's version instead.

T-O-L-K-I-E-N

[cyberkreiger]

That's *Tolkien*, folks.

Not "Tolkein". Not E-I.
I-E. Got that?

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien.

I can't believe the number of so-called "fans" that can't even spell his name.

In J.R.R. Tolkiens Own Words

[Anonymous Coward]

From this link:

From Letter #142:
The Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision. That is why I have not put in, or have cut out, practically all references to anything like `religion', to cults or practices, in the imaginary world. For the religious element is absorbed into the story and the symbolism.

From Letter #269:
With regard to The Lord of the Rings, I cannot claim to be a sufficient theologian to say whether my notion of orcs is heretical or not. I don't fell under any obligation to make my story fit with formalized Christian theology, though I actually intended it to be consonant with Christian thought and belief, which is asserted elsewhere.

From Letter #320:
...I think it is true that I owe much of (the character of Galadriel) to Christian and Catholic teaching and imagination about Mary....

Welsh Sources in Translation

[llywrch]

> I have never found a good verse translation of the original Welsh tales (Mabinogion et al). that also inspired the Tolkien mythos,
> so if anyone has a suggetion

Could it be because the Mabinogion & related stories *weren't* written in verse but prose?

Helpful information follows:

I have two translations of the Mabinogion in my library: one by Gwyn Jones and Thomas Jones in the Everyman's Library series, & a more recent translation by Patrick K. Ford. Of the two, Ford's is done in contemporary American English, & I remember finding it slightly more readable. Both contain a translation of the related tale ``Culhwlch and Olwen", which contains the earlier Welsh description of Arthur before the late Medieval poets recast him as the ideal monarch.

Speaking of Arthur, there are translations of Aneiryn's ``Gododdin", the earliest Welsh poem which mentions Arthur in the middle of describing an unsuccessful North Country battle against the Saissons, aka Anglo-Saxons. K.H. Jackson's translation is useful for the extensive notes.

And if you want to get truly serious about Welsh traditions, hunt down a copy of Rachel Bromwich, _Trioedd Ynys Prydein: The Welsh Triads_ (2nd, ed., University of Wales, 1978), ISBN 0-7083-0690-X. Bromwich's edition is a treasure trove of information, aswell as including an index of most of the personages of Welsh legendry.

Geoff

Re:Philology

[Anonymous Coward]

The "Finnish scholar" was Elias Lönnrot, who in addition of collecting finnish folklore, was a linguist, medical doctor and doctor of philology in University of Helsinki, compiled Kalevala from part of the folklore he collected at eastern Finland (Karelia).

As interesting comparison to Tolkien, Lönnrot filled considerable holes in the folklore with his own (extrapolated? just invented?) text to form a unified work, the Kalevala. He also had considerable role in forming the standard Finnish language. Before this, literary works tended to be dialect-dependent. He also invented probably more native words for generic and scientific terms that are still in use than anyone after or before him.

Chinese "Fantasy"

[Anonymous Coward]

I second (third? fourth?) the nomination for Journey to the West, though I haven't gotten to read that one yet, and I'd also like to put in a hearty recommendation for the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, sometimes just titled Three Kingdoms, but don't confuse it with The History of the Three Kingdoms. It's not exactly fantasy. More like historical fiction, but I guess it falls in parallel with the Icelandic Sagas. It's about the fall of the Han dynasty, with a focus on the extended military campaigns of the three major competing successor dynasties. It's got warfare, political intrigue, loyalty, betrayal, strategy, virtue, and a damn good story to boot. A 400 page abridgement was released this past year, and other editions may be available at used book stores, but I don't believe any are in print. (I could be wrong)

Or if your not into strategy/intrigue stuff, and would rather go for a story of wandering badasses, check out Outlaws of the Marsh, sometimes titled Heroes of the Marsh or Water Margin Outlaws.

They're both incredible. Both very long (roughly 1500 pages apiece) but worth every page.

Tolkien's Open Source "Subcreation"

[jonathanpost]

BEYOND THE FIELDS WE KNOW: Tolkien's magical world unconnected to ours

Beyond Tolkein's literary sources, it is important to understand the "open source" nature of the collaborative environment he had with "The Inklings" (including C.S. Lewis and Charles Williams). Also, it is crucial to know his literary software development methodology, which he called "subcreation." I believe that many deep software projects are examples of "subcreation" --including all Role Playing Games, much literary hypertext, and the sense in which any coder is a god-like subcreator of an complete, consistent, imaginary yet interactive world.

"Beyond the Fields We Know" is a haunting phrase by Lord Dunsany.

This is (as Baird Searles, Beth Meacham, and Michael Franklin point out ["A Reader's Guide to Fantasy", New York: Avon, 1982] a fine description of tales in which all the action happens in a magical world unconnected to our own by space or time. "The Lord of the Rings", by J. R. R. Tolkein, is a superb example. Tolkein said that the author of such fiction is engaged in "subcreation" of the other world, with an inner consistency and conviction:

"To experience directly a Secondary World, the potion is too strong, and you give to it Primary Belief, however marvellous the events. You are deluded -- whether that is the intention of the elves (always or at any time) is another question. They at any rate are not deluded. This is for them a form of Art, and distinct from Wizardry or Magic, properly so called" [J. R. R. Tolkien, "On Fairy Stories", in "Tree and Leaf", 1964].

David Hartwell [Age of Wonders, New York: Walker, 1984, p.14] summarizes this genre as "Tolkienesque fantasy, in the manner of Lord of the Rings -- carefully constructed worlds as the setting for a heroic quest."

Here we mean tales of a world sufficient unto itself, with its own history, geography, cultures, races, and nonhuman beings. There is a greater or lesser degree of magic, sometimes central to the action, sometimes part of
the taken-for-granted background, but always as something distinguishing this world from our technological one.

When we read such fiction, we feel ourselves drawn into the other world, and taking it as real, so that when we close the book, it is hard to wrench ourselves away from that world and reluctantly return to home. To capture the dream, we read the book again, or perhaps look for others that will produce the same magical emotion. Beowulf and the Icelandic Sagas certainly qualify.

For a list of 90+ such books, see my web page (from which this posting is drawn):

http://magicdragon.com/
then click on "Science Fiction", then
"Genres", then "Beyond the Fields We Know."

Beowulf on Project Gutenberg

[_Chainsaw]

For those of you who can read Old English, don't forget that Beowulf has been available on Project Gutenberg for some time now.

Plain Text

or zipped at

ZIP

Help out Project Gutenberg!!
Distributed Proofreaders

I'm a karma whore.

[Anonymous Coward]

But I'll set a few things straight, that might not have been yet. (You see, I have to go to class shortly and have no time to check every message.)

Tolkien was a Christian, yes. He insisted that he wasn't trying to influence his writings with any religion or current events, however (Sauron is NOT Hitler. Nor is Morgoth, for that matter.). Verily, but he did note that Galadriel's character was highly inspired by the virgin Mary. You make the call.

On Gandalf being 'more an angel'. He *was* more like an angel than a 'wizard'. Tolkien hated the word wizard, but found nothing else more similar to what Gandalf was. Gandalf was in fact Maia. Maia were, in fact, similar to angels as we tend to think of them. However, he ran around as an old fart, consuming the British with fireballs from his eyes and bolts of lightning from his arse.

Err. Anyway, the word wizard wasn't arguably the most similar word for what Gandalf was - however, I think Tolkien was consciously trying to keep the LotR from being thought of as a religious work. Calling Gandalf an angel outright would have religious nuts going mad (Especially at that time, but it's not like we don't have people living in the Southern US trying to burn Tolkien's works nowadays..). It also lended itself to the theme of the story more.. Gandalf the Wizard escorting a bunch of hobbits seems more, well, uncertain, than Gandalf the Angel.

Also, I don't believe Tolkien ever settled the argument as to whether or not Balrogs had wings. In the Fellowship, it denotes a darkness *like* wings surrounding the Balrog. Tolkien was a man who chose his words, thus, we of the, "Balrogs do *not* have wings." camp insist that, well, Balrogs don't have wings. (Insert various references about Balrogs *walking* when it'd make more sense for them to fly here.)

On topicness: Yes. Read these books. Mythology and such is gooooood.

Ack, my bad.

[Anonymous Coward]

Gandalf wasn't Maia.

Sue me, I've been up for over fourty hours.

Bastards. Just go read the Silmarillion, and you'll figure things out.

Or be totally confused.

In which case, you can read it aloud with friends and take a shot everytime the following happens.

1. A sentence starts out with, "Of the".
2. The word verily is used.
3. Each time you come across a sentence you have to reread three times.

Re:And Old Tom Bombadil???

[glenmark]

The Silmarillion explicitly indicates that the Istari are Maier.

As for Tom Bombadil, that character remains an enigma, and J.R.R.T. intentionally left it that way. Every myth needs at least some mystery. The character is based upon an old rag doll (dressed in yellow and green) which belonged to J.R.R.T.'s son. He made up stories and poems about the doll, predating the LOTR. Some of this material was recycled for LOTR early on in the righting, when the story was still viewed as a light-hearted sequel to The Hobbit rather than a monumental and somewhat darker toned epic.

It is unlikely that Tom is one of the Maier, for the Ring has no power over him, yet the known Maier are susceptable to its influence (even Gandalf felt the temptation of the Ring). Tom cannot be one of the Valor, for he stated that he was in Arda before the coming of the Great Enemy, yet we know from The Silmarillion that Melkor was the first of the Valor to enter Arda. Perhaps he is Illuvatar himself, in the same spirit as God's appearance as a crazy old hermit in Douglas Adams' writing. Or perhaps he is some sort of nature spirit. My personal theory is that he is a one-of-a-kind creation meant to provide an example of perfect and blissful love, as manifested by Tom's love for the Daughter of the River....