Germanic Lore and
Contemporary Fantasy
• The rediscovery of Germanic lore, especially Icelandic
sagas, in the 19th century inspired Victorian writers of
medieval romances – what we would now term Fantasy
Literature.
• Fantasy literature developed during late Romanticism,
influenced by Norse sagas, medieval romances, gothic
novels, fairy tales, and historical novels (Walter Scott).
• Escapist or nostalgic fiction in the dark days of heavy
industrialization in England.
Germanic Lore and
Contemporary Fantasy
• An early writers of Fantasy literature is the Rev. George
MacDonald (1824-1905). Close friend of Lewis Carroll.
• He wrote The Princess and the Goblin (1872) and
Phantastes: A Fairie Romance for Men and Women
(1858), and Lilith: A Romance (1895).
• “I write, not for children, but for the child-like, whether
they be of five, or fifty, or seventy-five.”
• MacDonald’s works are set in a fantasy fairy land,
following earlier British traditions. Extremely influential
on C. S. Lewis (Narnia), who called him his “mentor.”
Germanic Lore and
Contemporary Fantasy
• The “inventor” of fantasy literature located in an
original fictional world (and not in classical antiquity or
in English fairyland) was William Morris (1834-1896).
• Morris had a wealthy family and a happy, spoiled
childhood – he had his own pony and a tiny suit of
armor for quests in the local woods!
• Discovered interest in art and design while at Oxford,
joined D. Rossetti and Pre-Raphaelites.
Germanic Lore and
Contemporary Fantasy
• The Pre-Raphaelites were
fascinated by the art of
the middle ages, designed
works in the medieval
style before the Italian
Renaissance.
• Rossetti’s “The Blessed Damozel”
– an illustration of the poem of the
same title. The model is Morris’s
wife, Jane Morris, nee Burden.
Germanic Lore and
Contemporary Fantasy
• Morris found his calling in
graphic design; he founded a
company (later called Morris &
co.) which sold his wallpaper,
tapestries, illustration designs,
stained glass, etc. Many of his
patterns are still popular today.
• “Flora,” by Burne-Jones,
tapestry design by Morris.
Germanic Lore and
Contemporary Fantasy
Morris as a young man. Jane Morris in
his painting “La Belle Iseult” (1858,
also called “Guinevere,” ironic
illustration of an adulterous love).
Germanic Lore and
Contemporary Fantasy
• Morris was multi-talented – he wrote poetry and prose
stories along with his graphic works.
• In 1868, he met Eirikr Magnusson, an Icelander living
in England, and the two began collaborating on
translations of Icelandic sagas.
• Not the first translations of Old Norse, but the first
literary translations of high quality, they helped to
popularize the sagas for the English-speaking audience.
• In the following years, Morris made several voyages to
Iceland with Eirikr.
Germanic Lore and
Contemporary Fantasy
• Saga of Gunnlaug Worm-Tongue. (poet saga)
• The Story of Grettir the Strong. (outlaw saga)
• Morris later translated the Saga of the Volsungs
(1870).
• In 1870, Morris began his political career as a socialist
politician, became a founding member of the Socialist
League, began to read Karl Marx.
• Engaged in many social and political causes, even early
environmental and cultural causes, such as founding
the “Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings.”
Germanic Lore and
Contemporary Fantasy
• Morris’s interest in socialism provided the inspiration
for his turn to utopian, idealized worlds toward the end
of his life.
• Essays on socialist and aesthetic topics, as well as
works of socialist non-fiction and utopian fiction.
• Fantasy Literature emerged as a utopian corrective to
the social injustice and squalor of Victorian England.
• 1887 “Bloody Sunday” demonstrations in London,
great political disappointment, but also the year he
began work on his first fantasy novel based loosely on
Icelandic models: The House of the Wolfings (1888).
Germanic Lore and
Contemporary Fantasy
• 1894, The Wood beyond the
World, perhaps the finest of his
prose fantasies.
• 1896, The Well at the World’s
End.
• 1896, Morris dies. Two later
works published posthumously:
• The Water of the Wondrous Isles
and The Sundering Flood.
Germanic Lore and
Contemporary Fantasy
• Morris created fantasy worlds
permeated with his own beliefs
about political economics.
• He was especially drawn to
Germanic models because he
understood their tribal culture to
be individualistic, democratic
and pre-capitalistic.
• Medieval and chivalric elements
also appear.
Germanic Lore and
Contemporary Fantasy
• Edward Plunkett, Baron of Dunsany (Ireland) wrote a
large number of fantasy stories and novels, following in
the tradition of William Morris.
• Wealthy and eccentric like Morris, Lord Dunsany’s
works were often set in a particular fantasy land; with
The Gods of Pegāna (1905), he created his own original
Pantheon.
• Lord Dunsany was very popular, influential on Tolkien.
• His “biblical” style is often imitated : "The Hoard of the
Gibbelins" from The Book of Wonder (1912).
Germanic Lore and
Contemporary Fantasy
• Morris and Dunsany were extremely
influential on the following generation of
fantasy writers, especially J. R. R.
Tolkien (1892-1973).
• When Tolkien won the Skeat Prize for
English at Oxford (1914), he spent the
prize money on … books by Morris! He
bought the fantasy The House of the
Wolfings, as well as an epic about the
Greek hero Jason and Morris’s
translation of the Volsunga saga!
Germanic Lore and
Contemporary Fantasy
• Unlike the wealthy Morris, Tolkien was orphaned as a
child, and grew up “on the genteel side of poverty,” as
one biographer put it.
• He spent time both in the West Midlands countryside
(the idyllic shire?) and in the industrial slums of
Birmingham (Mordor?).
• Tolkien showed an aptitude for languages at an early
age, learned Greek and Latin in school, later studied
Gothic, Welsh, and Finnish (difficult languages).
• Early experiments in creating his own languages.
Germanic Lore and
Contemporary Fantasy
• 1911 enrolls at Oxford College, majored in Classics,
which did not suit him. Changed to English
(specializing in Anglo-Saxon). Early degree in 1915.
• Enlisted in the Army in 1915, quick marriage to Edith
Bratt (Lúthien), then off to France and immediate
action in the Somme offensive.
• Spent free time working on stories later collected in
Book of Lost Tales (some incorporated later in
Silmarillion). Trench warfare experiences very
disturbing. Sickness brought him back to England.
Germanic Lore and
Contemporary Fantasy
• After the war, Tolkien worked as a lexicographer on the
OED (similar to the Grimms’ work on their dictionary).
• 1920 he was unexpectedly hired as a Reader at Leeds
College (a very advanced position for one so young).
• First scholarly publications and translations.
• With E. V. Gordon he founded a “Viking Club” for
undergraduates, devoted mainly to translating Icelandic
sagas and drinking beer. They also translated English
drinking songs into Old English and Old Norse!
Germanic Lore and
Contemporary Fantasy
• 1925 a professorship at Oxford became available, and
Tolkien returned there, where he spent the remainder of
his professional career. Much teaching, relatively little
scholarly publishing (other expectations back then).
• One very important monograph on Beowulf.
• Founding member of the “Inklings,” a loose group of
literary-minded friends at Oxford, including C. S.
Lewis, one of Tolkien’s closest friends, and author of
the Narnia tales.
• More work on fictional languages and stories for his
children, but nothing written for publication.
Germanic Lore and
Contemporary Fantasy
• Once, while grading student exams, he found a blank
page and wrote, apparently without knowing why, “In a
hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.”
• He was not sure what a hobbit was, or what sort of a
hole it would inhabit, but – as a professor by nature –
he set out methodically to discover what he had meant
in that cryptic sentence. The story gradually emerged as
a bedtime tale for his children: The Hobbit.
• A manuscript fragment found its way to a publisher in
1936, who asked for a complete copy.
Germanic Lore and
Contemporary Fantasy
• Tolkien’s typescript was then handed over to the
publisher’s 10 year old son, Rayner Unwin, who wrote
a very favorable report for his father.
• The Hobbit was published in 1937 and was an instant
success. The children’s novel is still recommended
reading for grade-schoolers in many countries.
• Unwin senior asked for similar stories, but Tolkien’s
other materials were both incomplete and intended for
adult audiences, so the publication took some time…
Germanic Lore and
Contemporary Fantasy
• Nearly 20 years later, the precocious critic Rayner
Unwin helped oversee the publication of the three
volumes of Lord of the Rings in 1954/55.
• Originally 6 books, the work was refashioned as a
trilogy.
• The publishers liked the quality of the work, but
expected a rather hefty loss on their investment.
• The initial reaction was surprisingly good, and Tolkien
made enough money in the first few years that he felt
he should have taken early retirement.
Germanic Lore and
Contemporary Fantasy
• Lord of the Rings owes an obvious debt to Tolkien’s
studies of Old English and Old Norse literature.
• Some of the obvious borrowings: Germanic names
(Wormtongue, Shadowfax), symbolic imagery (a
cursed ring, a broken and mended sword), different
types of beings (elves, wizards, dwarfs, “troll-like”
creatures), runes (created by Tolkien himself, like all
of the languages in the work).
• Other sources of inspiration as well.
• Modernization of material: environmental and pacifist
themes, idyllic rural life, industrialization, etc.
Germanic Lore and
Contemporary Fantasy
• In the early 1960’s, Ace Books launched a pirated
paperback edition in the USA (copyright loophole); the
issue was eventually resolved in Tolkien’s favor, which
encouraged the publishers to issue authorized
paperback editions.
• Sales of Lord of the Rings soared in the mid 1960’s,
granting the work cult status and making its author
rather wealthy.
• The “Bible of the 60’s Counter Culture,” which
somewhat embarrassed the elderly Oxford professor.
Germanic Lore and
Contemporary Fantasy
• Tolkien continued to publish a number of other stories
related to his fictional Middle-Earth.
• Retirement in 1969 and death in 1973 – the family
tombstone bears the names Beren and Lúthien, the
fictional personas of the couple.
• Christopher Tolkien published The Silmarillion in
1977, a book of Middle-Earth mythology that forms the
historical background for the events in LotR.
• Christopher then published History of Middle-Earth
(12 volumes) from 1983 – 1997.
Germanic Lore and
Contemporary Fantasy
• Tolkien’s work inspired a great number of reproductions,
imitations, and satires.
• Animated versions by Rankin-Bass of Hobbit (1978) and
Return of the King (1980). Warner Brothers also 1978.
• Directors shied away from filming the novel until
computer generated imagery enabled a realistic depiction
of the action. Peter Jackson’s LotR (2001-03).
• Trailer: http://www.lordoftherings.net/
• Popular music songs based on LotR, Led Zeppelin, Rush,
and others. Leonard Nimoy’s “Bilbo Baggins” is a classic
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGF5ROpjRAU&list=RDAGF5ROpjRAU).
Germanic Lore and
Contemporary Fantasy
• Satires also appeared rather
quickly, including Harvard
Lampoon’s Bored of the
Rings.
• LotR was also influential in
other markets as well,
inspiring the fantasy board
game Dungeons and
Dragons, as well as popular
computer and video games.
Germanic Lore and
Contemporary Fantasy
• Imitations: The genre of Fantasy was decisively
influenced by the success of Tolkien’s works. Among
the authors inspired by Norse mythology and lore are:
• Stephen R. Donaldson
• George R. R. Martin
• Greg van Eekhout
• Neil Gaimon
• Jim Butcher
• Markus Heitz
• Kevin Hearne, and many others.
Germanic Lore and
Contemporary Fantasy
• One author of popular fantasy
literature who was not influenced
by Tolkien was Robert E. Howard,
of central Texas (1906-1936).
• Admired works of Lord Dunsany.
• Father was a country physician,
traveled about Texas, eventually
settling in Cross Plains in 1919.
• Robert E. Howard Museum now in
the old family home.
Germanic Lore and
Contemporary Fantasy
• While in High School in Cross Plains, Howard began
writing short adventure stories. His first sale, in 1924,
was for the Pulp Fiction serial Weird Tales, a short tale
about Cro-Magnons and Neanderthals entitled “Spear
and Fang.” He made $18 for the story as an 18 year
old.
• After school, Howard worked odd jobs around Cross
Plains and submitted more stories to the pulp fiction
presses, but had little success, so in 1926 he enrolled in
Howard Payne College in Brownwood to study
business.
Germanic Lore and
Contemporary Fantasy
• Howard wrote a number of pieces for the college
newspaper in Brownwood and submitted many to the
editors at Weird Tales.
• His successes increased after 1928, when Howard
found the formula for his action-adventure characters:
• Solomon Kane, the Puritan swordsman righting
wrongs…
• Kull, the Atlantean savage who seized a throne…
• Bran Mak Morn, the Pictish chieftain fighting the
Romans
Germanic Lore and
Contemporary Fantasy
• The Great Depression limited the publication of pulp
fiction adventure tales – Howard tried detective stories,
but found he was not suited for the genre.
• Howard was more successful with Westerns and
humorous tall tales told through personas of Steve
Costigan the sailor and Breckinridge Elkins the cowboy.
• In 1932, his most famous character appeared in the pages
of Weird Tales, Conan the Cimmerian, the Barbarian
warrior from the North in the Hyborian Age (actually a
rewrite of a rejected Kull story, “By this axe I rule!”).
Germanic Lore and
Contemporary Fantasy
• Howard published 17 Conan
stories over the next four years.
• Conan: The Hour of the Dragon
would have been his first fulllength book, but the publication
was delayed until after Howard’s
death.
• Howard’s mother became
seriously ill in 1935 and Howard
was worried about her recovery.
Germanic Lore and
Contemporary Fantasy
• On 11 June 1936, a nurse told Howard that his mother
would probably never recover from a coma.
• Howard walked calmly to his car, drove home, parked
the car behind his house, and fired a bullet into his brain.
• He died, age 30, a few hours later.
• His mother died the next day and the two were buried in
a double funeral.
• Cross Plains has a Robert E. Howard Museum, and the
town celebrates an annual Barbarian Festival on the
second Saturday of each June.
Germanic Lore and
Contemporary Fantasy
• Howard was one of the founders
of the “Sword and Sorcery”
genre of pulp fiction.
• Conan is one of the few works
that appeared in magazines,
comic books, novels and motion
pictures.
• Marvel Comics purchased the
license from the Howard estate
in 1970 and began a long run of
very successful comic books.
Germanic Lore and
Contemporary Fantasy
• The comic books revise the
original magazine tales by
Howard, but many were
creative works written in a
similar style, by a number of
different authors.
• Unlike the aristocratic Morris
and the professorial Tolkien,
Howard’s efforts in fantasy
were less literary and largely
self-taught.
Germanic Lore and
Contemporary Fantasy
•
•
•
•
Conan the Barbarian (1982).
First major film for bodybuilder Arnold
Schwarzenegger.
Plot Synopsis: A barbarian trained in
the arts of war joins with thieves in a
quest to solve the riddle of steel and
find the sorcerer responsible for the
genocide of his people in this faithful
adaptation of Robert E. Howard's
sword and sorcery adventures. This
film briefly sparked a wave of fantasy
films including the sequel, Conan the
Destroyer, in the early 80s.
Trailer:
http://videodetective.com/home.asp
?PublishedID=362
Germanic Lore and
Contemporary Fantasy
• Conan the Barbarian
(2011)
The tale of Conan the Cimmerian and his
adventures across the continent of
Hyboria on a quest to avenge the murder
of his father and the slaughter of his
village.
Director: Marcus Nispel
Stars: Jason Momoa, Ron Perlman, and
Rose McGowan
http://www.conanthebarbarianin3d.com/
Germanic Lore and
Contemporary Fantasy
Robert E. Howard,
“The Frost Giant’s
Daughter” in
The Coming of Conan
the Cimmerian
(reprint 2002).
Germanic Lore and
Contemporary Fantasy
Greg van Eekhout’s Norse
Code (2009), tells about a new
Valkyrie, recruited in
contemporary California, who
looks for Odin’s descendents in
the U.S. to help supply Valhalla
with soldiers for Ragnarok...
which is coming soon.
Germanic Lore and
Contemporary Fantasy
Neil Gaiman’s American Gods
(2001), tells of a coming war
between traditional gods, led by
Odin and Loki, and the newer
gods of technology and
consumerism. Set largely in the
upper Midwest, it follows the
attempts of Shadow (Balder) to
unravel Odin’s secrets.
It is a contemporary masterpiece.
Germanic Lore and
Contemporary Fantasy
• Kevin Hearne’s Iron Druid
Chronicles narrate the presentday adventures of a (long-lived)
Celtic Druid in Arizona.
• Hearne combines figures from
Celtic mythology with other
pantheons in this Urban Fantasy
series.
• In Hammered (2011), Atticus
O’Sullivan invades Asgard to
take on Thor himself.
Germanic Lore and
Contemporary Fantasy
Kim Wilkins’s Giants of the
Frost (2004), tells the story
of Victoria Scott who takes a
job on an isolated Norwegian
island only to find herself the
focus of haunting visits from
the Norse past. In the world of
Asgard, Vidar Odinsson has
exiled himself in order to await
the reincarnation of the woman
he loved.
Germanic Lore and
Contemporary Fantasy
Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files
series also presents plot lines
taken from Norse mythology –
and much from Irish myth and
legend. Harry Dresden is a
professional wizard fighting
supernatural evil in present-day
Chicago. Side Jobs (2010)
contains a short story about a
valkyrie’s hunt for Grendel.
Germanic Lore and
Contemporary Fantasy
• Markus Heitz, a
German author,
has written books
about Orcs and
Dwarves, most
recent release in
2010.
Germanic Lore and
Contemporary Fantasy
• Stan Nicholls has
written books
about Orcs, most
recent release in
2011.
• Every creature
mentioned by
Tolkien gets their
own treatment!
Germanic Lore and
Contemporary Fantasy
• George R.R. Martin’s
epic fantasy novels, A
Song of Ice and Fire
(1996-present), depict
the personal and
political conflicts of a
fictional realm falling
into civil war. Now also
an HBO miniseries:
•
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8zYeN9z8XY&feature=related