The Saga of Hrolf Kraki

From Tolkien Gateway
The Saga of Hrolf Kraki
The Saga of Hrolf Kraki (2012).jpg
Foreword byPriscilla Tolkien (2nd ed.)
EditorStella M. Mills
PublisherBasil Blackwell (1st ed.) (UK)
Nodens Books (2nd ed.) (US)
Released1933 (1st ed.) (UK)
26 July 2012 (2nd ed.) (US)
FormatHardcover (1st ed.); Paperback/Hardcover (2nd ed.)
Pages100 (2nd ed.)
ISBN978-0615671253

The Saga of Hrolf Kraki is an edition of the Old Norse Hrólfs saga kraka, first published in 1933. It was translated by Stella M. Mills, a pupil of J.R.R. Tolkien, and the book was dedicated to E.V. Gordon, Tolkien, and C.T. Onions.

In 2012, the book was reprinted by Douglas A. Anderson's publishing firm Nodens Books, with a new Foreword by Priscilla Tolkien.

From the publisher[edit | edit source]

Stella Marie Mills (1903-1989) was born and raised in Leeds. She studied at Leeds University under J.R.R. Tolkien and his close friend and colleague E.V. Gordon, receiving her B.A. with Honours in English in 1924. Tolkien helped her to secure employment at the Oxford English Dictionary under C.T. Onions, and later she taught at the St. Joseph's Catholic Primary School in Oxford, and at the Catholic Teacher Training College, Maria Assumpta, in Kensington. Her only publication was her translation from the Old Norse, completed at Leeds under Gordon's supervision, of The Saga of Hrolf Kraki, originally published in 1933 and dedicated to Gordon, Tolkien and Onions. Tolkien’s familiarity with The Saga of Hrolf Kraki can be seen in certain aspects of The Hobbit, particularly in the character Beorn the shape-changer, whose literary antecedents from this saga include Bothvar Bjarki (the "little bear") and his father Bjorn, who metamophose into bears. Stella Mills became a life-long friend of the Tolkien family, and that friendship is memorialized in this reprint of The Saga of Hrolf Kraki in a reminiscence by Priscilla Tolkien.
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Copyright dispute[edit | edit source]

The copyright to the saga of Hrolf Kraki forms part of the estate of the late Rosalie Shannon, cousin of Stella Mills. The reprinting by Douglas Anderson infringes U.S. Copyright and UK copyright and German and French copyright. I have already contacted Douglas Anderson asking him to stop selling the book and I would ask that you take references to it down from your website.
The introduction by Priscilla Tolkien is inaccurate and offensive to the family of the late Stella Mills and we are taking legal advice on this matter.
—Ellen Darrar-Shannon, in an e-mail to Tolkien Gateway

See also[edit | edit source]

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