Tolkien and Norse Mythology

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by davem

Golfimbul comes from Mount Gram. (Gram is also the name of Helm Hammerhand's father & of the sword which Sigurd uses to slay Fafnir).

Ah, I thought it to be something like that. Gram was also some mythic king, wasn't it? (I mean, in here, not in M-E) Maybe the name of Helm's father is derived more likely from it than from the sword's name.

Originally Posted by davem

On 'Golfimbul'. Gol is the name of one of the Valkyries & means 'screaming'. Fimbul means 'great', so the name may be translated 'great screaming'.... Other Valkyrie names seem to link to the Nazgul too - Skogul (“Raging”), Hlok (“Shrieking”)

Interesting. This is however, the only case when an orc (eee... goblin) is named in this way. Or do the names "Azog" or "Bolg" have any referrences to them? (speaking just of "the Hobbit" names, in LotR, it seems to be a really different cup of tea)
And the second part speaks for what I said earlier, that the Nazgul seem indeed to have hints of Valkyries in them. Maybe it was not intentional from Tolkien, but it seems like that.

Originally Posted by Aiwendil

In the Lost Tales, Melkor works together with the Valar to make the Lamps - his part is to fashion the pillars on which the Lamps will stand. But he secretly fashions them out of ice, which then melts, destroying the Lamps. This earlier story strikes me as exactly the sort of mischief that Loki would engage in.

Not just "sort of", this is obviously Loki's "guest appearance" here. If anywhere, here the inspiration with Loki's character is obvious. Possibly this version was later rejected also because the final portrait of Melkor is less "Lokish" and resembles more the mentioned Satan.

[Rune Son of Bjarne]

Saxo Grammaticus writes about King Gram in "Gesta Danorum", he was joint king with his father King Skjold, which is one of the most known of the legendary kings.

I don't think Gram has been of any inspiration to Tolkien, though. . .he was a mighty warrior, he fell in battle with the Norweigains who were assisted by the saxon. . . .(but I doubt he ever existed)

[Lalwendë]

Feeling very sleepy as ever this afternoon I had a poke round in me files and had a read of the Voluspa.

So, I've spotted some more interesting bits and pieces following on from the discussions about Turin and Ragnarok.

Mim:

I know where Othin's | eye is hidden,
Deep in the wide-famed | well of Mimir;
Mead from the pledge | of Othin each mom
Does Mimir drink: | would you know yet more?

This whole business of Odin giving up an eye in return for knowledge of his fate is most interesting in comparison to the symbolism of Sauron's 'eye', especially if you set it against the idea that aspects of Odin come to the surface in both Gandalf and Sauron (Gandalf of course being the name of a dwarf in Voluspa).

Eru is also known as the Allfather, uncannily similar to a title here:

On it there pours | from Valfather's pledge
A mighty stream: | would you know yet more?

Course we also have the Gods being referred to as the Holy Ones, much as the Ainur are referred to in The Sil. The Sun is male and the Moon female.

The following excerpt about the early days of creation is rather nice too. Ymir the giant and the Gods live in what seems to be a Void of some kind, at least it is similar to the 'place' (if you can assign it a temporal, spatial kind of definition) in which Eru and his Ainur dwelt. Plus we also have Mithgarth, or Middle-earth, one of the nine worlds, the world of Men; I can imagine a young Tolkien being stirred by first reading of Middengeard and then rifling through texts to see if he could find other references, much as we rifle through texts to find things which appear in his work.

Of old was the age | when Ymir lived;
Sea nor cool waves | nor sand there were;
Earth had not been, | nor heaven above,
But a yawning gap, | and grass nowhere.

Then Bur's sons lifted | the level land,
Mithgarth the mighty | there they made;
The sun from the south | warmed the stones of earth,
And green was the ground | with growing leeks.

Now on a side note, completely un-Tolkien related - I find it interesting that Mistletoe is singled out not to harm Baldr and thus must ahve been significant to the ancient Norse, and the ancient British also revered the plant!

Some intriguing word correspondences:
Brimir - Boromir?
Nastrond - Nargothrond?

Then there is Fenris/fenrir who bites off Tyr's hand, rather like Carcaroth bites off Beren's hand.

With all of this to be found and yet more, how disappointing it is that Tolkien did not write of his own Ragnarok?

[Rune Son of Bjarne]

I am a bit confused. . .What do you mean by?

I find it interesting that Mistletoe is singled out not to harm Baldr and thus must ahve been significant to the ancient Norse, and the ancient British also revered the plant!

Balder's mother Frigg makes every plant swear not to harm Balder(Baldr) and the only one that does not do so is the Mistletoe. Later Loke(Loki) tricks Balder's blind brother Høder to shoot an arrow of mistletoe after Balder and it kills him.

The way I read what you write is that the Mistletoe was the one that did not harm Balder, but I belive that is just due to my lesser english skills.

anyways what you wrote about the Mistletoe having a certain significanse got me thinking and I did a quic search in my books. It seems to have been a special plant, but I don't know why. It is also mentioned in Völuspá and again it is connected to death and in several nordic legends you will find swords named Misteltoe. . .

Course we also have the Gods being referred to as the Holy Ones, much as the Ainur are referred to in The Sil.

Just out of couriousity, where did you spot this?


Is there any unfinished writtings about the war of wrath? I always find that a bit disapointing when I read the Sil and I got to think about it when you mentioned what a pity it was that Tolkien did not make his own Ragnarok.

If I may ask one un-Tolkien question. . .Does anyone know what happened to Vile and Ve, the brothers of Odin? This is something that has pussled me ever since I was a small child and I have never found the answer. They seem to simply disapear after having created the world.

[Aiwendil]

With all of this to be found and yet more, how disappointing it is that Tolkien did not write of his own Ragnarok?

But he did - just not very extensively.

A connection with Norse mythology that I've been giving some thought to lately (as I'm currently reading the Poetic Edda) is the Turin-Sigurd parallel. Tolkien said that the 'Narn' was his version of the tale of Kullervo (from the Kalevala) - but I think that the narrative has as many, or perhaps more, similarities to the story of Sigurd and Fafnir.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Now on a side note, completely un-Tolkien related - I find it interesting that Mistletoe is singled out not to harm Baldr and thus must ahve been significant to the ancient Norse, and the ancient British also revered the plant!

So significant across Europe that Robert Graves effectively wrote a whole book about it- check out The White Goddess. Most of it's actually a load of cobblers, but it's a fascinating read. And of course Frazer concluded that his Golden Bough at Nemi was mistletoe.

It's not hard to see why this odd little plant was accorded mystical significance, suspended between heaven and earth, being, in effect, neither fish nor flesh, neither wet nor dry- and its berries certainly call to mind semen, obviously freighted with meaning.

[tom bombariffic]

And once again, bombariffic chooses to reveal himself unlooked for and unexpected, probably not for long.

I think that Tolkien's Norse inheritence is mostly philological (language-based). As well as the dwarf names from Voluspa mentioned above, Frodo is clearly drawn from Old Norse Fróði, "the wise / the virile", drawn from Saxo Grammaticus, a common name for mythological Kings of Denmark.

Perhaps more interesting is "Saruman", a compound from the old english "Searu" and "Monn". The interesting thing about this name is that it reflects his character: "Searu" means both "skill" but also "deceit". ("monn" is "man".)

Similarly, "Smeagol" in Old English means "thoughtful" - perhaps suggesting the side of the character that can still control his mind.


There are so many parallels to Old Norse and Old English myths, and I don't have time to go on. However, one that people may like to check out is the Old Norse short story Þiðranda þáttr. Þiðrandi is attacked by nine mysterious black riders (in this context, representing the failing heathen religion). These riders are driven away by nine white riders from the south, (symbolic of Christianity). Aside from the obvious parallels to the ringwraiths and The White Rider, the idea of a changing world order is particularly poignant in both works.

Keep up the good work.

Hey dol! Merry dol! I'm off.

bombariffic
xx