THE LEGEND OF SIGURD AND GUDRUN

Many years ago, J.R.R. Tolkien composed his own version, now published forthe first time, of the great legend of Northern antiquity, in two closelyrelated poems to which he gave the titles The New Lay of the Völsungs andThe New Lay of Gudrún. In the Lay of the Völsungs is told the ancestry ofthe great hero Sigurd, the slayer of Fáfnir most celebrated of dragons,whose treasure he took for his own; of his awakening of the ValkyrieBrynhild who slept surrounded by a wall of fire; and of his coming to thecourt of the great princes who were named the Niflungs (or Nibelungs),with whom he entered into blood-brotherhood. In that court there spranggreat love but also great hate, brought about by the power of theenchantress, mother of the Niflungs, skilled in the arts of magic, ofshape-changing and potions of forgetfulness. In scenes of dramaticintensity, of confusion of identity, thwarted passion, jealousy and bitterstrife, the tragedy of Sigurd and Brynhild, and Gudrún his sister, mountsto its end in the murder of Sigurd at the hands of his blood-brothers, thesuicide of Brynhild, and the despair of Gudrún. In the Lay of Gudrún herfate after the death of Sigurd is told, her marriage against her will tothe mighty Atli, ruler of the Huns (the Attila of history), his murder ofher brothers, and her hideous revenge. Deriving his version primarily fromhis close study of the ancient poetry of Norway and Iceland known as thePoetic Edda (and from the later prose work the Völsunga Saga), Tolkienemployed a verse-form whose lines embody in English the exactingalliterative rhythms and the concentrated energy of the poems of the Edda.This ancient poetry remained a deep force in Tolkien′s life′swork. Here, at last, is presented the source of the wellspring that wouldlead to The Hobbit and The Children of Húrin. It is the first fullflourishing of a rich narrative style and powerful, dramatic storytellingthat was destined to become famous throughout the world.