hrolf kraki, con't

[con't from previous post]

Until now, I mainly knew the saga through Jesse Byock's translation fr. Penguin books [1998], which is nicely readable as well as having a useful introduction and helpful notes. I'd also read Poul Anderson's novelization, done long ago for Ballantine's famous Adult Fantasy Series [1973], but don't recommend it: a truly unpleasant piece of work. THE BROKEN SWORD [1971] has a well-deserved reputation for being bleak and depressing, but Poul A.'s HROLF KRAKI'S SAGA revealed a truly nasty side of P.A. I hadn't expected to find there.

The Tolkien connection with this particular translation is that Stella Mills, the translator, was one of Tolkien's students at Leeds who became a lifetime family friend;* the book is dedicated

To

E. V. G.

J. R. R. T.

and

C. T. O.

--i.e., E. V. Gordon, who contributed a short Introduction; J. R. R. Tolkien (her old professor, who later helped her get a job at the O.E.D.), and C. T. Onions, one of the 'Four Wise Clerks of Oxenford' immortalized in FARMER GILES OF HAM, the fourth and final editor of the original OED who finally brought that massive project to completion.

Mills' book being extremely rare (I've been hunting for a copy for years, unsuccessfully till now), it's a real boon to have it available at last.

And it's an extra added bonus for this Nodens Books edition that Priscilla Tolkien has contributed a new Foreword about Mills and her friendship with the Tolkiens; a short piece that would have gone wonderfully in THE TOLKIEN FAMILY ALBUM and adds a lot to what little we know about the Stella Mills/JRRT connection. (It's particularly timely to me, since I'm just starting to sketch out an article on JRRT and his lifelong support for women's higher education).

So, if you're interested in sagas, in Tolkien's medieval sources, or in works by those closely associated with JRRT, I highly recommend picking this up.

Here's a link to a description of the book on the Nodens Books website; it can be ordered at amazon et al.

http://www.nodensbooks.com/2012/07/new-release-stella-m-millss-translation.html

--JDR

*she is one of the people to whom Tolkien gave one of his original author's copies of THE HOBBIT when it was first published (cf. Appendix V in THE HISTORY OF 'THE HOBBIT')

The New Arrival: Stella Mills' HROLF KRAKI

So, the deadline's now past, the piece done and sent off (to await the inevitable 'needs this, needs that' wh. always follows the completion of a project).

Which means it's time to straighten up the office (books pulled off shelves tend to stack up in the final stages), answer some e-mail, deal with various little tasks that have been put on hold, nail down some details for the upcoming trip, and get going on the next few projects, one (small) one due this week and four (larger) ones all due in the two-week period from the last week of September through the first week of October (announcements on those soon).

Speaking of books piling up, it's been more than a week now since the latest release from Doug Anderson's new publishing imprint, NODEN BOOKS, arrived, making it high time I got around to it. THE SAGA OF HROLF KRAKI is one of the more interesting surviving sagas for any Tolkienist, since it was almost certainly the source for the figure of Beorn/Medwed in THE HOBBIT. It also is of particular interest to Old England and Old Norse scholars because its story overlaps with the first half of BEOWULF, but with the events told from an entirely different point of view. In BEOWULF, wise old King Hrothgar reigns in Heorot, a kind of Danish King Arthur, honored throughout the land, though there are some foreshadowing of trouble to come from his nephew, who it's hinted might usurp the kingship from Hrothgar's young sons. In HROLF KRAKI, the point of view is reverse: here it's the member of the younger generation ("Hrothulf" in BEOWULF, Hrolf in the saga*) who's the hero, with the main emphasis being divided between his spectacularly dysfunctional family (incest and murdering each other being family traditions) and his champions, of whom Bothvar (the Beorn-figure) is the chief.

[continued]

*or, as we wd say it today, Ralph. 'Kraki' is a nickname meaning 'beanpole', the king being tall and thin.