tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3270024178512866290.post6631714022071998384..comments2023-10-27T07:29:26.285+00:00Comments on Polyolbion: Under the influenceMatt Merritthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12371656447328595720noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3270024178512866290.post-31679594564956476232007-04-11T07:27:00.000+00:002007-04-11T07:27:00.000+00:00Yes, you do!Glad to have things cleared up by some...Yes, you do!<BR/>Glad to have things cleared up by someone who knows - I admit I've never actually finished The Silmarillion.<BR/>But it doesn't alter the fact that Tolkien didn't draw anything directly from Wagner - instead he would have been familiar with all the source material as it appears in the Eddas, and so on.Matt Merritthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12371656447328595720noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3270024178512866290.post-14695039874923871872007-04-10T22:01:00.000+00:002007-04-10T22:01:00.000+00:00True... a lot of the Silmarillion does take its le...True... a lot of the Silmarillion does take its lead from Kalevala, but there is definitely something Teutonic about the whole Hurin cycle... especially the Narn-i-Hin Hurin, or Tale of the children of Hurin, which bears some striking similarities with the Sigfried cycle and the Nibelunglied.... Turin's betrayal by fate, killing his best friend mistakenly, fathering a child on his own sister without realising it.... even down to the killing of Glaurung/Fafnir the Dragon... other parts are less easy to reconcile.... the parallel story of his cousin Tuor, for example... though I'm no expert...From what I remember, where JRR took the Kalevala as his start for the rest of Quenta Silmarillion, he used the Finnish epic as the older, more "Elvish" part of the story, the part where myth turns to legend (although, in Tolkien's world, even this is within living memory of some of the characters in LOTR...) and "blurred in" the "newer" Teutonic story to show the more "modern" Mannish part of the story, where legend starts to become history... but I agree that this makes the story of Hurin and Huor, those ill fated brothers, and their offspring Turin, Tuor and Niniel, Teutonic rather than wagnerian.... mind you, thinking further... it is during this period of the silmarillion that things start getting even darker for men and elves... the very moment when men stop being subservient to the elves and attempt to do great deeds against a foe far beyond them.... to their ultimate destruction... could there be a hint there that Tolkien preferred the purer Finnish myth, and blamed the coarser Teutons for submerging them?? That he held the Nibelunglied noble, but not mythic?? Who knows... maybe I just have too much time on my hands....Kirk Wisebeardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12868390745287136323noreply@blogger.com