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Part II – Plot

Page history last edited by Kaðlín Quickhand 14 years, 3 months ago

 

 

Twilight & Dragon-Fire:

The Children of Húrin  and the Völsungasaga

 

 

By K.C. Resch

 

 

Jump To:

 

Project Outline

Part I - Introduction

Part III - Character

Part IV - Mood

Part V - Conclusion & Sources

 

 

 

 

Beginning & Early Years

 

The first similarity between The Children of Húrin and the Völsungasaga is one of framing; while both tales can stand alone as complete stories, neither is a solitary work, but instead connects itself within the first pages to a rich mythical-historical background. The Völsungasaga begins with a reference to the god Odin, who not only serves as a genealogical root but is also a recurring figure within the plot; by starting with Odin, the author immediately links the entire saga to the mythology known to us in the Eddas, the stories of Loki and Thor, Odin’s runes and his quest for wisdom, and Ragnarok. Tolkien mimics this authenticity-through-antiquity by setting his story, from the beginning, in a secondary reality in which he stresses specific history: he mentions that Túrin “was born in that year when Beren came to Doriath and found Luthien Tinúviel, Thingol’s daughter.” (Húrin, 34) Right away, we realize that Túrin’s is just one story within many. Tolkien imitates the Norse emphasis on genealogy; heroes are characterized by the deeds of their ancestors, sons are forever associated with their fathers' lives, and just as twelve chapters pass before the birth of Sigurd – twelve chapters establishing the brutality, bravery, and battle-prowess of his family – so Tolkien recounts the adventures of Túrin’s father and uncle in their boyhood, and reveals Húrin’s noble nature and Morwen’s proud strength, so that we can guess what sort of man Túrin will be before he even enters the narrative.

"The Ravager" by John Dollman 

Both Túrin and Sigurd are born into militant families, and both are born into times of strife and war. Sigurd’s father Sigmund is slaughtered in a battle against Vikings while Sigurd is still in the womb (Volsung, ch. 11), and Túrin is born into a world at war, in the years between the Bregollach and the Nirnaeth, the two greatest battles of the First Age. In both cases, it is because of war that the two heroes are raised as foster-children, brought up by men who are not their fathers. Sigurd, fatherless at birth, is raised in part by King Alf of Denmark and in part by Regin the smith -- a pseudo-father-figure similar to Sador, the manservant who belongs to Túrin’s parents. While Túrin knows his father as a young child, the Nirnaeth happens when he is very young, and Túrin is sent away from home to be raised by Thingol and Melian, Elves who live in Doriath. Both boys, while their mothers are present in their youth, are abandoned by their original parental figures: Sigurd is primarily influenced by Regin, specifically referred to as Sigurd’s foster-father (Volsung, ch. 13), while the king and queen appear negligently indulgent towards him, and it is Morwen, Túrin’s mother, who forces him to leave her.

 

Yet in the midst of turbulent upbringings, both heroes manage to distinguish themselves in battle at an early age, another result of the backdrop of continual war. Even before he faces Fafnir the dragon, Sigurd avenges his father against Lyngvi and Hjorvard (Volsung, ch. 17), and Túrin, likewise driven by a desire for vengeance, goes to fight Morgoth’s Orcs on the north-marches when he is only seventeen years old. “Thus while scarcely out of his boyhood his strength and courage were proved; and remembering the wrongs of his kin he was ever forward in deeds of daring.” (Húrin, 85)

 

 

Motifs

 

Tolkien borrows many of his motifs from the Völsungasaga and Norse mythology in general. Wolves feature prominently in the both the Eddas and the Völsungasaga, from the Fenriswolf who will be Odin’s bane to the she-wolf who eats Sigmund’s brothers. Sigmund and Sinfjotli are intimately associated with wolves because they spend a significant amount of time as werewolves under enchanted skins during their time in the wild. “Wide they wandered / wolvish-coated, / men they murdered, / men they plundered." (Legend, 84) In a direct parallel, Túrin’s men, the outlaws of the wilderness who maraud and plunder as wildly as Sigmund and Sinfjotli, are known as the Gaurwaith, the wolf-men.

 

Rackham's Painting: Sigurd with his sword GramA more central hero-motif is the helm and the re-forged sword. Sigurd wins a Dragon-helm from Fafnir when he slays him, a “helm of terror” (Volsung, ch. 18), and Túrin inherits the Helm of Hador, and heirloom of his father’s house; this Dragon-helm becomes a symbol of such power that the place in which Túrin dons it is known as “The Land of Bow and Helm,” and the minions of Morgoth fear it. Sigurd’s sword Gram belonged to his father, and it broke when the old king was slain in battle; Túrin eventually wields Gurthang, the Black Sword which was re-forged for him in Nargothrond and then finally breaks when he uses it to commit suicide.

 

Another common theme is the association of dwarves with treasure, trickery, and hoarding. In Regin’s account of Otr’s ransom (a key passage in the development of Sigurd's battle with Fafnir), the dwarf Andvari is robbed of his gold by Loki, and yet tries to hold back one ring. Although the dwarves as a race are still known by their treasures in Tolkien’s work, Mím the dwarf is bereft of wealth; yet still, he hoards -- first he hoards his sack of roots, then his hidden home, and then, to Túrin’s downfall, he hoards secrets.

 

 

Romance vs. Epic

 

                The Völsungasaga begins as an epic. It is the story of heroic deeds, the story of a son of heroes who faces a supernatural enemy and triumphs, and its focus is on action. Then, not long after Sigurd kills the dragon Fafnir, the supernatural element of the story begins to diminish as the adventurous, epic nature of the saga descends into romance. Its new focus is on love triangles, rivalries, betrayals, and tragedy. Throughout The Children of Húrin, there is a similar tension between tragic family drama and epic deeds. Both stories deal with thwarted love (Finduilas’ rejection of Gwindor, or Nellas’ unrequited love for Túrin) as much as with battles and vengeance; the difference, however, between The Children of Húrin and the Völsungasaga is that Sigurd’s story divides into two different parts of starkly different color, but Túrin’s story is one of constant shifting, mingling shades of tragedy, romance, and epic with one another.

 

In one sense, Túrin is a greater hero than Sigurd, because his military deeds extend throughout his whole life while Sigurd’s feats are cut short after he rides through the fire to Brynhild. From his encounter with Brynhild onward, Sigurd is portrayed as a lover – in his physical description, in his almost emasculating bondage to female characters, and in his romantic, albeit bitter, conversation with Brynhild on her deathbed. In contrast, Túrin’s romantic side is undeveloped; he is the object of much love but he is never a lover, which perhaps gives him room to be a “purer” hero.

 

Yet on the other hand, while The Children of Húrin does not revolve around a central romance, it is a poignant, detailed account of a family’s disintegration, a far more authentic emotional journey driven by fully realized characters. The conflict that wraps around the entire story is that of Húrin’s defiance to Morgoth’s face, but the way this plays out in the lives of Húrin’s family is not a struggle against a single external enemy but a decaying from within: they may defeat their foes over and over again, but ultimately, that has nothing to do with what they do to themselves. Tolkien uses the twist of incest to depict this corruption, this dying from within; Túrin marries his sister and she conceives, an image of an inner force of evil no heroic measures can resist.

 

In his essay "The Monsters and the Critics", Tolkien wrote of Beowulf that he “is not, then, the hero of an heroic lay, precisely. He has no enmeshed loyalties, nor hapless love. He is a man, and that for him and many is sufficient tragedy.” (Beowulf, 68) Sigurd, then, a man surrounded by both enmeshed loyalties and hapless love, is a hero; Túrin is just a man, and as such, he is a tragic, desperate character more heart-rending and engaging than Sigurd can ever be.

 

 

Middle-Earth & Scandinavia

 

                In the development of Middle-Earth of the First Age, particularly in his treatment of the race of Men, Tolkien borrowed heavily from Scandinavian culture in the days of the Vikings. The Old Norse -- warriors who went "viking" -- were a violent and tribal people with little centralized power; the culture of Sigurd’s world is one of constant war between petty kings and marriage alliances between these tribal kingdoms. In Middle-Earth, the race of Men are divided into houses, notably the House of Hador and the House of Bëor in the Túrin tale, but they are also grouped together by the lands in which they dwell (the Men of Brethil, the Men of Dór-Lomin) and it is the race of Elves that have kings and cities, permanence and power. The Elves, although caught up in a time of war, have an established culture of peace that precedes Morgoth’s brutality; Men, on the other hand, came into the world after Morgoth had risen to power and thus, similar to the Vikings, their culture is one of constant warring, strife, and brutality.

 

                Further minor Norse elements appear within this general culture. The concept of wergild, for example, is represented in Túrin’s response to the accidental slaying of Mím the dwarf’s son. “’I will pay you a danwedh of heavy gold for your son, in token of sorrow, even if it gladdens your heart no more,’” says Túrin to the bereaved dwarf. (Húrin, 132) And Mím, like Hreidmar, is satisfied with this payment.

 

                Scenes of flyting, the ritual of insulting an opponent, aggravating him into a fury before battle, speckle the Eddas and sagas of the Old Norse. The dark, cruel humor of men about to kill each other is a trademark of Norse literature. The Völsungasaga lacks extended scenes of flyting, but a prototype of the story in verse form found in the Elder Edda contains moments of flyting at its best (featuring Sinfjotli the berserker). Saeros' provocation is similar to the idea of flyting: Saeros, out of hatred for Túrin, heaps racial insults on him, mocks his appearance, and speaks contemptuously of the women of Túrin’s people, angering Túrin into drawing his sword against him. This flyting, although the dialogue is one-sided, leads – like most flyting – to the mocker’s humiliation and death.

 

                There is no question that Old Norse culture and literature is vulgar; a glance at the Eddas (see Loki's Quarrel) reveals that it lacks the high tone of Greek mythology, the clean chivalry of Arthurian legend, and the sensitivities of modern story-telling. It is bloody and gross, full of drinking and crude humor, and even the gods indulge in this low behavior. Romance is matter-of-fact. When Signy visits her brother in disguise, her seduction of him takes place in three sentences: “She entered his shelter and they sat down to eat. He frequently glanced at her and found her a fine and handsome woman. And when they had eaten their fill he told her that he wanted them to share one bed that night.” (Volsung, ch. 7) Tolkien acknowledges this aura of crudeness in The Children of Húrin in his description of the outlaws, such as Forweg and Andróg’s attempt to molest a young woman, and in his description of the hall of Brodda the Easterling, a plundering, greedy, temperamental drunkard. Yet Tolkien also distances Middle-Earth from this element of Old Norse culture and interjects a faint element of Christianity in place of vulgarity

 Arwen in "The Return of the King" film

                He does so mainly through the influence of the Elves. They represent refinement, wisdom, artistry, and gentleness, and the difference Tolkien points out by contrasting the Easterlings with the House of Hador is that Húrin’s people have had contact with Elves. All the great Men of Middle-Earth have contact with Elves in their formative years, including Beren, Aragron, Húrin, and Túrin, who was raised by Elves in Doriath; the Easterlings are an example of Men left to their own devices. Marjorie Burns, in her book Perilous Realms: Celtic and Norse in Tolkien’s Middle-Earth, draws a connection between the Elves and the Celtic tradition, and from there links them to femininity and to Christianity; indeed, the effect that Elves have on Men is one of “Christianizing” them. The Children of Húrin stands out among other tales of the First Age as one dominated by Men, but the domestication of the Elves is still present, primarily through Beleg. Beleg comes after Túrin and enters the company of the outcasts, criminals, and vagabonds – Men much like the Easterlings, lawless, leaderless, and corrupt – and he gives them lembas, the life-giving bread of the Elves that is much like the bread of Communion, he tends their wounded, and he softens Túrin’s proud, hard heart. With Beleg, Túrin leads his band of outlaws in battle against Morgoth’s forces, turning them from selfish, ignoble behavior, robbing their own kind, to fight evil and protect their own kind.

 

                Many arguments have been made for the prominence of women in Scandinavian literature and its implications for the role of women in Old Norse society. While calling the Vikings the first feminists may be exaggeration, it is undisputable that the female figure in the Norse world played a more active role than in parallel historical cultures. In the Völsungasaga, Brynhild the Valkyrie, the warrior-woman whom Sigurd first finds clad in armor, is the driving force of the second section of the story, and Gudrun is the dominant character of the final chapters. In fact, the conniving and magical Grimhild, the fierce jealousy between Brynhild and Gudrun, and the ruthlessness of Signy as a mother make the women of the Völsungasaga both stronger and more compelling than their male counterparts.Painting of a Viking Woman

 

                Tolkien is notorious for including few or no women in his tales – there is no mention of a female character anywhere in The Hobbit, and of the five women given any space in The Lord of the Rings (including Ioreth, the bustling healer), only one – Eowyn – plays a part in the main events. But in The Children of Húrin, female characters abound. Finduilas, Morwen, and Niënor play lead roles, but there are others, including Nellas, Melian, and Aerin, the abused wife of Brodda the Easterling. They do not have the same dramatic power as the women in the Völsungasaga – there is no Eowyn, no Valkyrie, no idealized Viking-woman here – and yet their presence is keen and their effects on the male figures of the story are apparent. Melian seems wiser than Thingol on every occasion, Nellas’ testimony redeems Túrin, and Túrin’s complex relationship with every woman he encounters, hinging on his childhood losses of both mother and beloved, infant sister, is a key element in his psychological makeup.

 

Comments (4)

Laurel said

at 11:13 am on Dec 17, 2009

This sentence: "while the king and queen appear negligently indulgent towards him" 2nd paragraph of "Beginning and Early Years"--it's unclear who "him" is referring to. It is Turin at that point?

Laurel said

at 11:10 am on Dec 17, 2009

I just put some space around the photos--nothing major.

Kaðlín Quickhand said

at 10:43 pm on Dec 14, 2009

Thanks! ;)

Andrew said

at 8:05 pm on Dec 12, 2009

The last sentence of the third paragraph in the "Romance vs. Epic" section seems to be missing a word.

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