Tolkien and Old Norse Mythology Flashcards
Reading J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, anybody familiar with Norse Mythology (especially Snorri’s Edda and the Völuspa Saga) will quickly identify obvious borrowings.
Name 6 examples?
- Many names (e.g. all the dwarves in The Hobbit) are from The Völuspa.
- Beorn in The Hobbit is a shape-shifting, bear-skinned berserk.
- The story of the ring-obsessed Gollum echoes the story of Fafnir Turing into a dragon.
- Gandalf - originally the name of a dwarf that translates as “elf with a staff” - is modelled on Odin (hat, cloak, staff, the constant wandering, the sacrifice), though Gandalf is no doubt a far more positive figure; he is in a way what Idin should have been.
- The name of the main location, Middle-Earth, derived from Old Norse Midgard.
How does Tolkien his spatial politics from Old Norse mythology?
Looking at the map Tolkien provides, it becomes evident that in the same way as Old Norse mythology appears to present a world make up of different domains for different beings (Vanahein, Alfheim, Asgard, Midgard, Jotunheim), Tolkien’s Middle Earth is a difficult-to-traverase world of geographically, linguistically and racially isolated enclaves.
To travel though Tolkien’s Middle Earth is to meet different races in different places, and each with their own language. And a lot of action takes place on the boundaries (gates, bridges, rivers, fords, mountain chains etc.)
On a very general level what does Tolkien’s Middle Earth resemble vs. the hidden elvish realm of Rivendell and Lorien?
Middle Earth reproduces the experience of the harsher, impassable nature of Northern Europe.
By contrast, Rivendell and Lorien appear to be more influenced by Celtic mythology.
What is mythopoesis and glossopoeia?
Mythopoesis is creating a mythology.
Glossopoeia is creating a language.
Why had Tolkien’s work been classified as a modern mythopoetic or mythopoeia (myth-making)?
Because Tolkien did not simply write a couple of Storie located in “Middle Earth”, but he created an entire mystical world in which these stories take place.
Several point characterise Tolkien’s mythopoetic and its Norse echoes. Name 4?
- That mythopoeia is always already glossopoeia (the making of a language).
- Using mythopoeia to address the desire for myths (links to Snorri & Jacob Grimm).
- The experience of reality and humans as sub-creators of secondary worlds.
- Lord of the Rings = Ragnarok, where a qualitatively different world arises.
Tolkien was an accomplish linguist with a deep appreciation of languages. How did this effect his mythopoesis?
Unlike most other fantasy author who invent a rolled and the quickly came up with a fake language, Tolkien was prone to work the other way round.
He would sometimes invent a language and then proceed to discover the unique world which that language belongs.
What does it mean that mythopoeia is always already glossopoeia (the making of a language)?
That worlds and words are co-original and co-foundational.
If languages are fundamentally involved in the creation of our worlds, and if languages soak up the world in which they are spoke, then upon closer scrutiny languages will weaved the world they have shaped and are shaped by.
Use Balrog as an exempel to demonstrate how mythopoeia is always already glossopoeia (the making of a language)?
“Balrog”
Noldorin: batch ‘cruel’ + rehang ‘demon’
Old English: bealu (evil) + Reagan (to arouse)
Old Norse: bál (fire) + reykr (smoke)
Swedish: bål (bonfire) + rök (smoke)
The evil god Baal + róg (Polish for horn)
Tolkien states that “I was from early days greed by the poverty of my own beloved country; it had no stories of its own”
What is this quote demonstrating?
A desire for myths, especially in modern times that lack, or have lost, collective myths. Mythpoesis addresses this desire.
What is the symmetrical relationship between Snorri and Tolkien?
While Snorri is trying to preserve or salvage a Norse mythology that is in the process of disappearing, Tolkien wants to (re)create an English mythology as it could (or should) have been.
After establishing the symmetrical relationship between Snorri and Tolkien, what is the parallel with Jakob Grimm?
Grimm just like Snorri and Tolkien was also driven by the desire for myths. Jakob Grimm wanted to recreate a German mythology but because there had never been a German Snorri, there was a regrettable lack of authentic Germain material. And Grimm deeded to appropriate a lot of Norse mythology.
What does the reality of the experience mean?
That the reality of the content, in regards to how true it is is not the single determining criterion for evaluating a myth. The reality of the experience also counts.
For example, for the deeply devout Catholic Tolikem, Christianity is a myth that happens to be true.
Why did Tolkien believe humans were sub-creators of secondary worlds?
Tolkien was a deeply devout Catholic and the Christian mythology states that humans were made in the image of God. If God is a creator, then humans would be following in the same steps by being sub-creators of secondary worlds.
How can The Lord of The Rings be read as an attenuated Ragnarok?
Because The Lord of The Rings depicts an end of the world, but in slow motion. Ragnarok in Norse mythology is not only the catastrophic end of the world, but also the emergence of a new one. Similar, in The Lord of The Rings a new world arises that is qualitatively different from that which ended in fire and death.
There’s no cyclical pattern; instead, something completely new begins - though at a great cost!
