Tolkien and the Norse



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.

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". It was at the centre of nine worlds in Norse mythology.

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".

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

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. 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.

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." Before it was darkened by evil, it had been called Greenwood the Great.

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."

Dwarves
Tolkien's Dwarves are inspired by the dwarves of Norse myths, who have an affinity with mining, metalworking, and crafting. 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. 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.

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". The light elves of Norse mythology are associated with the gods, much as the Calaquendi are associated with the Valar.

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. 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.

The Hobbit 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". Trolls thus moved from being grim Norse ogres to more sympathetic modern humanoids. 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, unable to speak; and the malicious giants bred by Sauron, with strength, courage, and a measure of intelligence sufficient to make them dangerous adversaries. 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.

Wargs


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". 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". 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."

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. 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. In the Lay of Hyndla, the eponymous seeress rides a wolf. To Baldr's funeral, the jötunn Hyrrokkin arrived on a wolf.

Beorn


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. In Hrólfs saga kraka, Bödvar Bjarki adopts the shape of a great bear when he goes to fight. In the Völsunga saga, Sigmund dresses in the skin of a wolf and gains wolfish powers. 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."

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. 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.

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. 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.

Wizards, Dark Lords, and Odin


Burns writes that Tolkien uses the fact that wolves were among the Norse god Odin's war beasts "in a particularly innovative way". 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". Saruman has wargs in his army, while Sauron uses "the likeness of a ravening wolf" 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", and his wolf-pack; Burns writes that the wolves' attempt "to devour Gandalf hints at Odin's fate". 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".

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. In early drafts of The Hobbit, Tolkien used the name for the character that became Thorin Oakenshield, the head of the group of Dwarves.

The Valar and the Æsir
Tolkien's Valar, a pantheon of immortals, somewhat resemble the Æsir, the gods of Asgard. Manwë, the head of the Valar, has some similarities to Odin, the "Allfather". 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.

Magical artefacts


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 of the Völsunga saga, the 1870 rendering by William Morris of the Victorian Arts and Crafts movement and Icelandic scholar Eiríkur Magnússon.

The Old Norse Völsunga saga and the Old High German Nibelungenlied were written at around the same time, using the same ancient sources. 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). The naming of weapons in Middle-earth, too, is a direct reflection of Norse mythology. 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.

"Northern courage"


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. 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" 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. 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.