The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún: Difference between revisions

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'''The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún''' is a book by [[J.R.R. Tolkien]], edited by [[Christopher Tolkien]].
'''The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún''' is a book by [[J.R.R. Tolkien]], edited by [[Christopher Tolkien]].
== See also ==
*[[Category:Characters in The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún|Characters in The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún]]


==From the publisher==
==From the publisher==

Revision as of 20:13, 31 March 2010

The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún
File:Legend.jpg
AuthorJ.R.R. Tolkien, Christopher Tolkien (ed.)
PublisherHarperCollins
ReleasedMay 5th, 2009
FormatHardcover, Softcover, Audiobook
Pages384

The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún is a book by J.R.R. Tolkien, edited by Christopher Tolkien.

See also

From the publisher

The world first publication of a previously unknown work by J.R.R. Tolkien, which tells the epic story of the Norse hero, Sigurd, the dragon-slayer, the revenge of his wife, Gudrun, and the Fall of the Nibelungs. Many years ago, J.R.R. Tolkien composed his own version, now published for the first time, of the great legend of Northern antiquity, in two closely related poems to which he gave the titles The New Lay of the Volsungs and The New Lay of Gudrun. In the Lay of the Volsungs is told the ancestry of the great hero Sigurd, the slayer of Fafnir most celebrated of dragons, whose treasure he took for his own; of his awakening of the Valkyrie Brynhild who slept surrounded by a wall of fire; and of his coming to the court of the great princes who were named the Niflungs (or Nibelungs), with whom he entered into blood-brotherhood. In that court there sprang great love but also great hate, brought about by the power of the enchantress, mother of the Niflungs, skilled in the arts of magic, of shape-changing and potions of forgetfulness. In scenes of dramatic intensity, of confusion of identity, thwarted passion, jealousy and bitter strife, the tragedy of Sigurd and Brynhild, and Gudrun his sister, mounts to its end in the murder of Sigurd at the hands of his blood-brothers, the suicide of Brynhild, and the despair of Gudrun. In the Lay of Gudrun her fate after the death of Sigurd is told, her marriage against her will to the mighty Atli, ruler of the Huns (the Attila of history), his murder of her brothers, and her hideous revenge. Deriving his version primarily from his close study of the ancient poetry of Norway and Iceland known as the Poetic Edda (and from the later prose work the Volsunga Saga), Tolkien employed a verse-form whose lines embody in English the exacting alliterative rhythms and the concentrated energy of the poems of the Edda.