"Sigurd and Gudrun" Reading on the SWG Discord has started

[hhimring]

 We've started the read-along on the sigurd-and-gudrun channel of the SWG Discord as announced a couple of days ago.

 

This week (6-12 April) we will be reading: Introduction, "Beginning", and "Andvari's Gold" (unnumbered section and I, with the relevant part of Commentary on the Lay of the Volsungs).

There are no set discussion times. Feel free to comment at any time and please be patient, if the response takes a bit.

 

A brief overview and questions to inspire discussions below. These are also pinned inside the channel. 

 

A short overview of this week’s reading matter:

 

Introductory Matter:

 

The introductory matter is quite complex, partly due to Christopher Tolkien’s decision to try to let Tolkien himself speak as much as possible.

We have first, the Foreword, explaining Christopher’s approach to the collection.

This has, among other things, the quotation about the “nameless North” being “best” and “eminently desirable”. Also, suggestions about the date (early 1930s, maybe after dropping the Lay of Leithian), and extracts from the later exchange with Auden, quite some time after Tolkien had written the poems.

In the Introduction itself, a long-ish edited excerpt of Tolkien’s lecture notes on the Elder Edda, from the same period or earlier: not explicitly related to the poems, but showing Tolkien’s relation to his source material and his take on the culture that produced the original poems he adapted. 

Then extracts from his discussion of Old English metre: similar but different to the metre of the Edda poems. 

And finally, a series of short introductory or summary notes to the poems by Tolkien.

Then we get to the longer of the two poems, accompanied by quite a chunky commentary, which has substantial comments by Christopher Tolkien and shorter extracts from notes by Tolkien himself.

 

 

Völsungskviða en nýja: 'The New Lay of the Völsungs'

It is structured by Tolkien in nine parts (originally titled in Old Norse), preceded by an unnumbered beginning section.

"Beginning" (Uphaf) 

20 stanzas (of 8 lines when laid out in short-line form). This unnumbered section is based on “The Seeress’s Prophecy”, which has been re-worked into an introduction for the main action of the poem. It covers both the beginning of the world and the predicted end of the gods. We learn that the god’s hopes (especially Odin’s) are pinned on a hero to come.

"Andvari's Gold" (I) 

15 stanzas. The origin story of the hoard and the ring and the curse. 

We see Tolkien imitating the narrative style of the source poems, at the same time as he is trying to harmonize conflicting accounts.

 

Suggestions for discussion

 

Did you like / dislike anything? Were you puzzled by anything? Any difficulties?

 

Did anything strike you in connection with the rest of the Legendarium, Silmarillion or other? Connections or resemblances?

 

Do you like Tolkien's poetry? What do you think about his experiment with the eddaic stanza, in particular? Do you have any thoughts on narrative poetry or alliterative style?

 

What are your thoughts on Scandinavian myths, retellings of these myths, use of the myths in literary works? How do you think Tolkien compares?

 

Have you read retellings of the Edda in other versions or the original poems (whether in translation or in Old Norse)? How does Tolkien compare?

 

What do you think of the imitation of the eddaic narrative style in the beginning sections?

 

How does the commentary work for you? Do you prefer to ignore it or are you consulting it all the time or anything in between?

 

Any feelings about Loki or Odin or any of the other characters so far?