The raw ingredients out of which fashioned The Lord of the Rings are equal parts Norse-Anglo-Saxon-Germanic myth, chivalric romance, and Christian apocalyptics (evil personified and mighty, but also powerful guardian spirits, and over all a God who arranges things so that the highest prizes fall to those who suffer). The mix is extraordinarily powerful. But if you want the Norse-Anglo-Saxon-Germanic myth itself, akratos--unmixed, undiluted--you have to go elsewhere: to a place like (1994), Rhinegold (New York: Bantam: 0553095455: 1994).
The dwarf scuttled away between the rocks, slithering into them until Loki could no longer see where dwarf ended and stone began. Only the red sparks of his eyes glowed out of the darkness as his voice hissed:
My curse on the ring I made, on all who wear it! Gold fired in blood, ruby blood-red, be you bathed in your holders' blood again and again, the death of athelings and the sorrow of women. Death to every man who takes you, make each woman who keeps you the bringer of death to her kind. Be strife of kinsmen, be breaker of bonds, let no gift and no oath hold where the river's fire burns, let no love bear lasting fruit, but cut all kin of your keepers down. My curse on the hoard I kept, held by the ring! Let no craft work its might to weal, let no need turn round nithing's might, but smith-craft's torch and need-fire's glow burn but to funeral pyres. Brother's bane and drighten's doom: thus Andward names the hoard! Norns, lay this orlog from the Rhine's depths. Write this wyrd--so shall it be!
"Then what hope is there for us?" asked Alfarik quietly.
"To die like Walsungs," Wynberht answered, then started to chant softly:
If our wyrd is crueler, let our courage be keener
harder be hearts and higher be souls
unweakened by fear though with horror fraught
then shall Wals's sons all worthy be named.
"Now I shall sing a song for you which is seldom heard on the Rhine these days... of the Rhine's gold: how it was drawn forth... how the children of Hraithamar fought over it till at last it was won by Sigifrith the son of Sigimund and Herwodis:
Wodan and Hoenir wandered with Loki
to Middle-Garth as men by the Rhine.
There an otter eating saw they
a goodly fish the flood beside...
No hero, say men, higher has lived
Than Sigifrith Fadhmir's Bane slaying the wyrm
to get for himself the gold's red-bright fire,
glittering by the banks of the Rhine.
Wyrd love no fosterling more long than a moment,
and no man may breathe for more than his days,
Nor trust long in Wodan Walhall's high drighten,
for raven and wolf wait for his thanes aye.
Now lies the weregild all lost by the Rhine,
and no man may say nor see where it's hid.
For only two living owned Fadhmir's secret,
now that secret's kept in cairn with the dead.
Stephan Grundy is not to everybody's taste--I'm not even sure that he is to my taste: I have never picked up Rhinegold again since I read it for the first (and only) time perhaps six years ago. But the memory of reading it still haunts me, and it is not an experience that I wish I had foregone.
Posted by DeLong at December 18, 2003 10:41 AM | TrackBack
What happened to The Canterbury Tales? I was hoping for some economic history type light on the Hundred Years War, Knight and Squire, etc.
I guess this is Stephan Grundy's modern version of old Germanic and Anglo-Saxon verse. What Chaucer called that old ruff-ram-ruff stuff (or maybe he used the term "stuffe", I forget. But he did specifically say "rum-ram-ruff", I remember that).
Norse and Germanic myth chills my spine, and not in a good way. I'll stick with the Icelandic Sagas, Finnish and Estonian tales of whoever their hero is. And if I want some rum-raff-ruff stuff, will go back to Beowolf and Sir Gawain the the Green Knight, and maybe Battle of Maldon for a more realistic version of the battles and wars.
But the excerpt was interesting.
Posted by: jml on December 18, 2003 05:15 PMHow about the original Nibelungenlied itself? The character of Hagen of Troneck -- villain of the first part, gloomy hero of the second -- is a psychological revelation of the sort not often found in contemporary medieval works. When the poem hits its stride, Hagen's murder of Siegfried and the inevitable consequences plays out like the best of Greek tragedy.
Of course, it doesn't have the sheer rigor of construction that Wagner brought to his Ring Cycle, but you don't have to go to Bayreuth to experience it, either.
Posted by: WatchfulBabbler on December 19, 2003 07:39 AMHow about the original Nibelungenlied itself? The character of Hagen of Troneck -- villain of the first part, gloomy hero of the second -- is a psychological revelation of the sort not often found in contemporary medieval works. When the poem hits its stride, Hagen's murder of Siegfried and the inevitable consequences plays out like the best of Greek tragedy.
Of course, it doesn't have the sheer rigor of construction that Wagner brought to his Ring Cycle, but you don't have to go to Bayreuth to experience it, either.
Posted by: WatchfulBabbler on December 19, 2003 07:44 AMChecked out my book of collected Icelandic Sagas last night, and all that mythic ring, magic, frost queen stuff is in there. But I skipped it for the historical stories. I guess Nordic-Germanic myth isn't my cup of tea. But aren't these crazed, manic-depressive Germanic myth-thugs, er, I mean gods, and the Greco-Roman, and Indian pantheons and all related? Funny that I like the last two so much, but not the Germanic/Nordic bunch.
Posted by: jml on December 19, 2003 10:33 AM