Tolkien and the Norse

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The god Thor talks to the dwarf Alviss to prevent him from marrying his daughter Thrudr; at dawn Alviss turns to stone, just as Tolkien's stone Trolls do in The Hobbit. Drawing by W. G. Collingwood, 1908 All-wise answers Thor.jpg
The god Thor talks to the dwarf Alviss to prevent him from marrying his daughter Þrúðr; at dawn Alviss turns to stone, just as Tolkien's stone Trolls do in The Hobbit . Drawing by W. G. Collingwood, 1908

Tolkien derived the characters, stories, places, and languages of Middle-earth from many sources. Among these are Norse mythology, seen in his Dwarves, Wargs, Trolls, Beorn and the barrow-wight, places such as Mirkwood, characters including the Wizards Gandalf and Saruman and the Dark Lords Morgoth and Sauron derived from the Norse god Odin, magical artefacts like the One Ring and Aragorn's sword Andúril, and the quality that Tolkien called "Northern courage". The powerful Valar, too, somewhat resemble the pantheon of Norse gods, the Æsir.

Contents

Places

Middle-earth

In ancient Germanic mythology, the world of Men is known by several names. The Old English middangeard is cognate with the Old Norse Miðgarðr of Norse mythology, transliterated to modern English as Midgard . The original meaning of the second element, from proto-Germanic gardaz, was "enclosure", cognate with English terms for enclosed spaces "yard", "garden", and "garth". Middangeard was assimilated by folk etymology to "middle earth". [T 1] [4] It was at the centre of nine worlds in Norse mythology. [5]

Tolkien adopted the word "Middle-earth" to mean the central continent in his imagined world, Arda; it first appears in the prologue to The Lord of the Rings : "Hobbits had, in fact, lived quietly in Middle-earth for many long years before other folk even became aware of them". [T 2]

The "straight road" linking Valinor with Middle-Earth after the Second Age mirrors Asgard's bridge, Bifröst linking Midgard and Asgard. [6] The Balrog and the collapse of the Bridge of Khazad-dûm in Moria parallel the fire jötunn Surtr and the foretold destruction of Bifröst. [7]

Mirkwood

The name Mirkwood derives from the forest Myrkviðr of Norse mythology. 19th-century writers interested in philology, including the folklorist Jacob Grimm and the artist and fantasy writer William Morris, speculated romantically about the wild, primitive Northern forest, the Myrkviðr inn ókunni ("the pathless Mirkwood") and the secret roads across it, in the hope of reconstructing supposed ancient cultures. [8] [9] Grimm proposed that the name Myrkviðr derived from Old Norse mark (boundary) and mǫrk (forest), both, he supposed, from an older word for wood, perhaps at the dangerous and disputed boundary of the kingdoms of the Huns and the Goths. [8] [10]

Tolkien described Mirkwood as a vast temperate broadleaf and mixed forest in the Middle-earth region of Rhovanion (Wilderland), east of the great river Anduin. In The Hobbit , the wizard Gandalf calls it "the greatest forest of the Northern world." [T 3] Before it was darkened by evil, it had been called Greenwood the Great. [T 4]

Mountains

The medievalist Marjorie Burns writes that while Tolkien does not precisely follow the Norse model, "his mountains tend to encase the dead and include settings where treasure is found and battles occur." [11]

Marjorie Burns's analysis of the Norseness of Middle-earth mountains [11]
MountainBurialTreasureFighting
Lonely Mountain Thorin Smaug's dragon's hoard Battle of the Five Armies
Moria
(under the Dwimorberg)		 Balin Mithril Fellowship vs Orcs, Trolls, and the Balrog
Mount Doom Gollum The One Ring Frodo and Sam vs Gollum
Barrow-downs A prince of Arnor Barrow-wight's hoardFrodo vs disembodied arm;
Tom Bombadil vs Barrow-wight

Races

Tolkien invented parts of Middle-earth to resolve the linguistic puzzle he had accidentally created by using different European languages for those of peoples in his legendarium. Linguistic Map of Middle-Earth.svg
Tolkien invented parts of Middle-earth to resolve the linguistic puzzle he had accidentally created by using different European languages for those of peoples in his legendarium.

Dwarves

Tolkien's Dwarves are inspired by the dwarves of Norse myths, who have an affinity with mining, metalworking, and crafting. [13] [14] [15] [16] Tolkien took the names of 12 of the 13 dwarves – excluding Balin – that he used in The Hobbit (along with the wizard Gandalf's name) from the Old Norse Völuspá in the Elder Edda . [17] [18] When he came to The Lord of the Rings, where he had a proper language for the Dwarves, he was obliged to pretend, in the essay Of Dwarves and Men, that the Old Norse names were translations from the Dwarves' language Khuzdul, just as the English spoken by the Dwarves to Men and Hobbits was a translation from the Common Speech, Westron. [12] [T 5] [T 6]

Elves

Tolkien's Elves are derived partly from Celtic mythology and partly from Norse. The division between the Calaquendi (Elves of Light) and Moriquendi (Elves of Darkness) echoes the Norse division of Dökkálfar and Ljósálfar, "light elves and dark elves". [19] The light elves of Norse mythology are associated with the gods, much as the Calaquendi are associated with the Valar. [20] [21]

Trolls

In Norse mythology, trolls are a kind of giant, along with rísar, jötnar , and þursar; the names are variously applied to large monstrous beings, sometimes as synonyms. [22] [23] The idea that such monsters must be below ground before dawn dates back to the Elder Edda , where in the Alvíssmál, the god Thor keeps the dwarf Alviss (not a troll) talking until dawn, and sees him turn to stone. [1] [2] [3]

The Hobbit's audience in 1937 were familiar with trolls from fairy tale collections such as those of Grimm, and Asbjørnsen and Moe's Norwegian Folktales ; Tolkien's use of monsters of different kinds – orcs, trolls, and a balrog in Moria – made that journey "a descent into hell". [3] Trolls thus moved from being grim Norse ogres to more sympathetic modern humanoids. [24] Tolkien's trolls are based on the ogre type, but in two forms: ancient trolls, "creatures of dull and lumpish nature" in Tolkien's words, [T 7] unable to speak; and the malicious giants bred by Sauron, with strength, courage, and a measure of intelligence sufficient to make them dangerous adversaries. [24] The scholar of English Edward Risden writes that Tolkien's later trolls appear far more dangerous than those of The Hobbit, losing, too, "the [moral] capacity to relent"; he comments that in Norse mythology, trolls are "normally female and strongly associated with magic", while in the Norse sagas the trolls were physically strong and superhuman in battle. [25]

Wargs

The jotunn Hyrrokin riding a wolf, on an image stone from the Hunnestad Monument, constructed in 985-1035 AD Rune stone dr 284 of the hunnestad monument in lund sweden 2008 (cropped).JPG
The jötunn Hyrrokin riding a wolf, on an image stone from the Hunnestad Monument, constructed in 985–1035  AD

The Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey states that Tolkien's spelling "warg" is a cross of Old Norse vargr and Old English wearh . He notes that the words embody a shift in meaning from "wolf" to "outlaw": vargr carries both meanings, while wearh means "outcast" or "outlaw", but has lost the sense of "wolf". [28] In Old Norse, vargr is derived from the Proto-Germanic root reconstructed as *wargaz , ultimately derived from the Proto-Indo-European root reconstructed as *werg̑ʰ- "destroy". Vargr (compare modern Swedish varg "wolf") arose as a non-taboo name for úlfr , the normal Old Norse term for "wolf". [29] He writes that

Tolkien's word 'Warg' clearly splits the difference between Old Norse and Old English pronunciations, and his concept of them – wolves, but not just wolves, intelligent and malevolent wolves – combines the two ancient opinions. [30]

In Norse mythology, wargs are in particular the mythological wolves Fenrir, Sköll and Hati. Sköll and Hati are wolves, one going after the Sun, the other after the Moon. [31] Wolves served as mounts for more or less dangerous humanoid creatures. For instance, Gunnr's horse was a kenning for "wolf" on the Rök runestone. [32] In the Lay of Hyndla , the eponymous seeress rides a wolf. [33] To Baldr's funeral, the jötunn Hyrrokkin arrived on a wolf. [26]

Characters

Beorn

Bodvar Bjarki fights in bear form in his last battle. Lithograph by Louis Moe, 1898 Rolfs sidste kamp - Louis Moe (17009) - cropped.png
Bödvar Bjarki fights in bear form in his last battle. Lithograph by Louis Moe, 1898

Marjorie Burns in The J. R. R. Tolkien Encyclopedia describes Beorn as a berserker, a Norse warrior fighting in a trance-like fury. Beorn is a massively strong shape-shifter, half-man, half-bear, in The Hobbit derives from a combination of Norse sagas. [2] In Hrólfs saga kraka , Bödvar Bjarki adopts the shape of a great bear when he goes to fight. [2] In the Völsunga saga , Sigmund dresses in the skin of a wolf and gains wolfish powers. [2] In Egil Skallagrimsson's saga, Kveldulf ("Evening-Wolf") both changes into a wolf and has half-man, half-beast children, like Beorn. Burns states that Tolkien's half-trolls and half-orcs "were no doubt influenced by the same Norse conception." [2]

Barrow-wight

Treasures in the Norse sagas are often guarded by undead, "restless, vampire-like draugar", as in Grettis saga , recalling the barrow-wight in The Lord of the Rings. [16] Burns comments that the vague rumours of a "blood-drinking 'ghost'" in places where the monster Gollum had been is similarly draugar-like. The guarded barrows, if successfully opened, yield fine weapons. In the Grettis saga, Grettir gets the best short sword he has ever seen; the ancient blade that Merry Brandybuck gets from the wight's barrow similarly enables him to defeat the Lord of the Nazgûl. [2]

Túrin Turambar

Tolkien noted that the tale of his ill-fated hero Túrin Turambar (in his legendarium, now published in The Silmarillion and other works including The Children of Húrin ) paralleled the Völsunga saga; an early draft was actually called Túrins Saga. [2] Scholars have likened Túrin to both Sigurd and Sigmund; Túrin and Sigurd both become famous by killing a dragon, while both Túrin and Sigmund have incestuous relationships. [T 8] [34] [35]

Characters from Norse gods

Wizards, Dark Lords, and Odin

The Norse god Odin sits atop his steed Sleipnir, with his ravens Huginn and Muninn, and wolves Geri and Freki. 1895 illustration by Lorenz Frolich Odin, Sleipnir, Geri, Freki, Huginn and Muninn by Frolich.jpg
The Norse god Odin sits atop his steed Sleipnir, with his ravens Huginn and Muninn, and wolves Geri and Freki. 1895 illustration by Lorenz Frølich

Burns writes that Tolkien uses the fact that wolves were among the Norse god Odin's war beasts "in a particularly innovative way". [36] Odin kept two wolves, Freki and Geri, their names both meaning "Greedy"; and in the final battle that destroys the world, Ragnarök , Odin is killed and eaten by the gigantic wolf Fenrir. Thus, Burns points out, wolves were both associates of Odin, and his mortal enemy. She argues that Tolkien made use of both relationships in The Lord of the Rings . In her view, the dark lord Sauron and the evil Wizard Saruman embody "attributes of a negative Odin". [36] Saruman has wargs in his army, while Sauron uses "the likeness of a ravening wolf" [T 9] for the enormous battering ram named Grond which destroys the main gate of Minas Tirith. On the other side, the benevolent Wizard Gandalf leads the fight against the wargs in The Hobbit , using his ability to create fire, and understands their language. In The Fellowship of the Ring , Gandalf again uses magic and fire to drive off a great wolf, "The Hound of Sauron", [T 10] and his wolf-pack; Burns writes that the wolves' attempt "to devour Gandalf hints at Odin's fate". [36] The dark lord Morgoth, too, is in Burns's view Odinesque, taking on the god's negative characteristics: "his ruthlessness, his destructiveness, his malevolence, his all-pervading deceit". [37]

In Middle-earth, Gandalf is a Wizard; the Norse name Gandálfr however was for a Dwarf. The name is composed of the words gandr ("magic staff") and álfr ("elf"), implying a powerful figure. [38] In early drafts of The Hobbit, Tolkien used the name for the character that became Thorin Oakenshield, the head of the group of Dwarves. [39]

The Valar and the Æsir

Tolkien's Valar, a pantheon of immortals, somewhat resemble the Æsir, the gods of Asgard. [6] Manwë, the head of the Valar, has some similarities to Odin, the "Allfather". [40] Thor, physically the strongest of the gods, can be seen both in Oromë, who fights the monsters of Melkor, and in Tulkas, the strongest of the Valar. [40]

Magical artefacts

Sigurd holding the sword Gram on the Ramsund carving, c. 1030 Sigurdsristningen - KMB - 16000300013664.jpg
Sigurd holding the sword Gram on the Ramsund carving, c. 1030

Tolkien was influenced by Germanic heroic legend, especially its Norse and Old English forms. During his education at King Edward's School in Birmingham, he read and translated from the Old Norse in his free time. One of his first Norse purchases was the Völsunga saga . While a student, Tolkien read the only available English translation [41] [42] of the Völsunga saga, the 1870 rendering by William Morris of the Victorian Arts and Crafts movement and Icelandic scholar Eiríkur Magnússon. [43]

The Old Norse Völsunga saga and the Old High German Nibelungenlied were written at around the same time, using the same ancient sources. [44] [45] Both of them provided some of the basis for Richard Wagner's opera series, Der Ring des Nibelungen , featuring in particular a magical but cursed golden ring and a broken sword reforged. In the Völsunga saga, these items are respectively Andvaranaut and Gram, and they correspond broadly to the One Ring and the sword Narsil (reforged as Andúril). [46] The naming of weapons in Middle-earth, too, is a direct reflection of Norse mythology. [2] The Völsunga saga also gives various names found in Tolkien. Tolkien's The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún discusses the saga in relation to the myth of Sigurd and Gudrún. [47]

"Northern courage"

Tolkien called the quality he saw in the Norse gods at Ragnarok "Northern courage" , and used it in The Lord of the Rings. Battle of the Doomed Gods by Friedrich Wilhelm Heine, 1882 Kampf der untergehenden Gotter by F. W. Heine.jpg
Tolkien called the quality he saw in the Norse gods at Ragnarök "Northern courage" , and used it in The Lord of the Rings. Battle of the Doomed Gods by Friedrich Wilhelm Heine, 1882

For Tolkien, the quality that he called "Northern courage" was exemplified by the way the gods of Norse mythology knew they would die in the last battle, Ragnarök , but they went to fight anyway. [T 11] [16] He was influenced, too, by the Old English poems Beowulf and The Battle of Maldon , which both praise heroic courage. He hoped to construct a mythology for England, as little had survived from its pre-Christian mythology. Arguing that there had been a "fundamentally similar heroic temper" [T 11] in England and Scandinavia, he fused elements from other northern European regions, both Norse and Celtic, with what he could find from England itself. Northern courage features in Tolkien's world of Middle-earth as a central virtue, closely connected to luck and fate. [T 11] [50] The protagonists of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings are advised by the Wizard, Gandalf, to keep up their spirits, as fate is always uncertain. [50]

See also

Related Research Articles

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In J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth, the Eagles or Great Eagles, are immense birds that are sapient and can speak. The Great Eagles resemble actual eagles, but are much larger. Thorondor is said to have been the greatest of all birds, with a wingspan of 30 fathoms. Elsewhere, the Eagles have varied in nature and size both within Tolkien's writings and in later adaptations.

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Mirkwood is a name used for a great dark fictional forest in novels by Sir Walter Scott and William Morris in the 19th century, and by J. R. R. Tolkien in the 20th century. The critic Tom Shippey explains that the name evoked the excitement of the wildness of Europe's ancient North.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tolkien's moral dilemma</span> Ethical issue with Orcs in Middle-earth fiction

J. R. R. Tolkien, a devout Roman Catholic, created what he came to feel was a dilemma for himself with his supposedly evil Middle-earth peoples like Orcs, when he made them able to speak, so they were sentient and sapient, and portrayed them talking about right and wrong. This meant, he believed, that they were open to morality, like Men. In Tolkien's Christian framework, that in turn meant they must have souls, so killing them would be wrong without very good reason. Orcs serve as the principal forces of the enemy in The Lord of the Rings, where they are slaughtered in large numbers in the battles of Helm's Deep and the Pelennor Fields in particular.

In Tolkien's legendarium, ancestry provides a guide to character. The apparently genteel Hobbits of the Baggins family turn out to be worthy protagonists of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Bilbo Baggins is seen from his family tree to be both a Baggins and an adventurous Took. Similarly, Frodo Baggins has some relatively outlandish Brandybuck blood. Among the Elves of Middle-earth, as described in The Silmarillion, the highest are the peaceful Vanyar, whose ancestors conformed most closely to the divine will, migrating to Aman and seeing the light of the Two Trees of Valinor; the lowest are the mutable Teleri; and in between are the conflicted Noldor. Scholars have analysed the impact of ancestry on Elves such as the creative but headstrong Fëanor, who makes the Silmarils. Among Men, Aragorn, hero of The Lord of the Rings, is shown by his descent from Kings, Elves, and an immortal Maia to be of royal blood, destined to be the true King who will restore his people. Scholars have commented that in this way, Tolkien was presenting a view of character from Norse mythology, and an Anglo-Saxon view of kingship, though others have called his implied views racist.

J. R. R. Tolkien repeatedly dealt with the theme of death and immortality in Middle-earth. He stated that the "real theme" of The Lord of the Rings was "Death and Immortality". In Middle-earth, Men are mortal, while Elves are immortal. One of his stories, The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen, explores the willing choice of death through the love of an immortal Elf for a mortal Man. He several times revisited the Old Norse theme of the mountain tomb, containing treasure along with the dead and visited by fighting. He brought multiple leading evil characters in The Lord of the Rings to a fiery end, including Gollum, the Nazgûl, the Dark Lord Sauron, and the evil Wizard Saruman, while in The Hobbit, the dragon Smaug is killed. Their destruction contrasts with the heroic deaths of two leaders of the free peoples, Théoden of Rohan and Boromir of Gondor, reflecting the early Medieval ideal of Northern courage. Despite these pagan themes, the work contains hints of Christianity, such as of the resurrection of Christ, as when the Lord of the Nazgûl, thinking himself victorious, calls himself Death, only to be answered by the crowing of a cockerel. There are, too, hints that the Elvish land of Lothlórien represents an Earthly Paradise. Scholars have commented that Tolkien clearly moved during his career from being oriented towards pagan themes to a more Christian theology.

References

Primary

  1. ↑ Carpenter 2023 , #165 to the Houghton Mifflin Co., 30 June 1955
  2. ↑ Tolkien 1954a, "Prologue"
  3. ↑ Tolkien 1937, ch. 7 "Queer Lodgings"
  4. ↑ Tolkien 1977, "Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age"
  5. 1 2 Carpenter 2023 , #144, to Naomi Mitchison , 25 April 1954
  6. ↑ Tolkien 1996 , part 2, ch. 10 "Of Dwarves and Men"
  7. ↑ Tolkien 1955, Appendix F, I, "Of Other Races", "Trolls"
  8. ↑ Carpenter 2023 , #131 to Milton Waldman, late 1951
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  10. ↑ Tolkien 1954a, book 2, ch. 4, "A Journey in the Dark"
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  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Burns 2013, pp. 473–479.
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  31. ↑ Simek 2007, p. 292.
  32. ↑ Larrington 1999, p. 121.
  33. ↑ Acker, Acker & Larrington 2002, p. 265.
  34. ↑ Flieger, Verlyn (2000). "J. R. R. Tolkien and the Matter of Britain". Mythlore . 23 (1 (87)): 47–58. JSTOR   26814251.
  35. ↑ St. Clair 1996b.
  36. 1 2 3 Burns 2005, p. 103.
  37. ↑ Burns 2000, pp. 219–246.
  38. ↑ Shippey 2005, p. 110.
  39. ↑ Rateliff 2007, Mr Baggins Part I, p. 15.
  40. 1 2 Chance 2004 , p. 169
  41. ↑ Byock 1990 , p. 31
  42. ↑ Carpenter 1977 , p. 77
  43. ↑ Morris & Magnússon 1870, p. xi.
  44. ↑ Evans 2000, pp. 24, 25.
  45. ↑ Simek 2005 , pp. 163–165
  46. ↑ Simek 2005 , pp. 165, 173
  47. ↑ Birkett 2020, p. 247.
  48. ↑ Parker 1957, pp. 598–609.
  49. ↑ Burns 2005, pp. 58–59.
  50. 1 2 Shippey 2007, p. 27.

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