Völuspá
Völuspá ("Prophecy of the Seeress") is the first poem of the Poetic Edda, a collection of Old Norse poems. J.R.R. Tolkien was influenced greatly by the saga, and Christopher Tolkien even suggests that "those Dwarf-names in The Hobbit provided the whole starting-point for the Mannish languages in Middle-earth"[1][2]
In particular almost all of the names of the dwarves of Middle-earth, as well as Gandalf's, are taken from a section of the Völuspá called the Dvergatal (the "Catalogue of Dwarves").[3][note 1] The Dvergatal is contained in stanzas 10–16:
Original | Bellows translation |
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Notes
- ↑ The Dvergatal is now considered a later interpolation, and is often omitted from newer editions of Völuspá.
References
- ↑ J.R.R. Tolkien, Christopher Tolkien (ed.), The Peoples of Middle-earth, "II. The Appendix on Languages", Commentary to §58
- ↑ Charles B. Noad, "Review: The Peoples of Middle-earth (The History of Middle-earth XII)" at Tolkiensociety.org. See section "Dwarvish and Mannish Related". Retrieved 30 August 2010.
- ↑ J.R.R. Tolkien; Humphrey Carpenter, Christopher Tolkien (eds.), The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, Letter 25, (dated February 1938)