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The Song of the Nibelungs
The Song of the Nibelungs, a thirteenth century Germanic epic, was a rich source of inspiration for J.R.R. Tolkien. Scholars have noted the influence of its pre-Christian heroic motifs - drawn from historic events and people of the 5th and 6th centuries - on his writing of The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit.
Tolkien was five years old when this beautifully illustrated translation by Margaret Armour was published in England under the title The Fall of the Nibelungs. Undoubtedly a copy would have made its way into his hands during his boyhood. Armour uses an archaic form of English to preserve the high-flown style of the original poem. Here and there throughout The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien, too, employs this solemn, dignified and majestic form, which is reminiscent of the language of the King James Bible.
A glossary of antiquated terms is provided at the back of this book. Armour was married to W.B. MacDougall, whose illustrations illuminate the text with their delicate beauty. In his turn, MacDougall was a friend of famous art nouveau illustrator Aubrey Beardsley, and his own drawings echo Beardsley's style. This classic saga, drenched in blood and tragedy, heroism and honour, beauty and nobility, gives us a glimpse into the literature that helped inform Tolkien's imagination, ultimately flowering in his most popular work - The Lord of the Rings.
Tolkien was five years old when this beautifully illustrated translation by Margaret Armour was published in England under the title The Fall of the Nibelungs. Undoubtedly a copy would have made its way into his hands during his boyhood. Armour uses an archaic form of English to preserve the high-flown style of the original poem. Here and there throughout The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien, too, employs this solemn, dignified and majestic form, which is reminiscent of the language of the King James Bible.
A glossary of antiquated terms is provided at the back of this book. Armour was married to W.B. MacDougall, whose illustrations illuminate the text with their delicate beauty. In his turn, MacDougall was a friend of famous art nouveau illustrator Aubrey Beardsley, and his own drawings echo Beardsley's style. This classic saga, drenched in blood and tragedy, heroism and honour, beauty and nobility, gives us a glimpse into the literature that helped inform Tolkien's imagination, ultimately flowering in his most popular work - The Lord of the Rings.
330 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1897
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About the author
Margaret Armour
63 books4 followersMargaret Armour was a Scottish poet, novelist and translator. She was the eldest daughter of Alexander Henderson Harry Armour (1825 - 1879) and Christina Stewart (1828 - c.1890s). She was educated in Edinburgh, Munich and Paris. She married
William Brown MacDougall
(1868 - 1936) in a civil ceremony in Glasgow on 11 May 1895, and a church ceremony followed at Morningside Parish Church in Edinburgh on 8 October 1895.
Armour's first book was The Home and Early Haunts of Robert Louis Stevenson (1895), which she followed with some books of poetry, Songs of Love and Death (1896), Thames Sonnets and Semblances (1897), and The Shadow of Love and Other Poems (1898). A novel, Agnes of Edinburgh, appeared in 1910, and she translated the poetry of Heinrich Heine for the final three volumes of the twelve volume set of The Works of Heine, published between 1892 and 1905. Her translation from the Middle High German of the Nibelungenlied into what she called “plain prose” first appeared as The Fall of the Nibelungs (1897). It was later included in the Everyman’s Library, with subsequent editions retitled as The Nibelungenlied. Similarly, her translation of Gudrun, which was published in 1928, also appeared in the Everyman’s Library. Along a similar vein of interest, in 1910 she translated Richard Wagner’s The Ring of the Nibelung.
Margaret’s husband, an etcher, engraver and illustrator, was frequently involved with her books, signing his work as W. Brown MacDougall or W.B. MacDougall. He was educated at the Glasgow Academy and in Paris, and in the mid-1890s he contributed to The Yellow Book, The Evergreen, and The Savoy. His work is mostly symbolic, and frequently somber. It sometimes has echoes of Aubrey Beardsley. MacDougall provided a frontispiece illustration of Robert Louis Stevenson for his wife’s first book, and illustrated her poetry volumes and the translations from medieval German.
MacDougall also illustrated Margaret Armour’s one anthology, The Eerie Book (London: J. Shiells and Co., 1898), which contains works by Edgar Allan Poe, Hans Christian Andersen, George W.M. Reynolds, Catherine Crowe, and extracts from works by Mary Shelley, Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué and Thomas de Quincey.
Around the turn of the century, Armour and MacDougall settled in Essex, first in Chingford, and soon afterwards in Debden Green, where MacDougall died on 20 April 1938. Armour returned to Edinburgh, where she died in 1943. They had no children.
Armour's first book was The Home and Early Haunts of Robert Louis Stevenson (1895), which she followed with some books of poetry, Songs of Love and Death (1896), Thames Sonnets and Semblances (1897), and The Shadow of Love and Other Poems (1898). A novel, Agnes of Edinburgh, appeared in 1910, and she translated the poetry of Heinrich Heine for the final three volumes of the twelve volume set of The Works of Heine, published between 1892 and 1905. Her translation from the Middle High German of the Nibelungenlied into what she called “plain prose” first appeared as The Fall of the Nibelungs (1897). It was later included in the Everyman’s Library, with subsequent editions retitled as The Nibelungenlied. Similarly, her translation of Gudrun, which was published in 1928, also appeared in the Everyman’s Library. Along a similar vein of interest, in 1910 she translated Richard Wagner’s The Ring of the Nibelung.
Margaret’s husband, an etcher, engraver and illustrator, was frequently involved with her books, signing his work as W. Brown MacDougall or W.B. MacDougall. He was educated at the Glasgow Academy and in Paris, and in the mid-1890s he contributed to The Yellow Book, The Evergreen, and The Savoy. His work is mostly symbolic, and frequently somber. It sometimes has echoes of Aubrey Beardsley. MacDougall provided a frontispiece illustration of Robert Louis Stevenson for his wife’s first book, and illustrated her poetry volumes and the translations from medieval German.
MacDougall also illustrated Margaret Armour’s one anthology, The Eerie Book (London: J. Shiells and Co., 1898), which contains works by Edgar Allan Poe, Hans Christian Andersen, George W.M. Reynolds, Catherine Crowe, and extracts from works by Mary Shelley, Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué and Thomas de Quincey.
Around the turn of the century, Armour and MacDougall settled in Essex, first in Chingford, and soon afterwards in Debden Green, where MacDougall died on 20 April 1938. Armour returned to Edinburgh, where she died in 1943. They had no children.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
June 26, 2020
This started out interesting with all the schemes and nuanced dialogue, but the last quarter was a big slaughter-fest that was boring and depressing. The message about the destructive results of revenge even on one isolated person is a valuable one, but the book overall was not very pleasant to read. I most appreciated the antiquated verbage.
May 16, 2020
This is the first book in the Professor's Bookshelf series. This series is focused on republishing the books that Tolkien read in the actual editions of that time. This book, the first of the series, is the re-creation of the 1897 illustrated edition of The Song of the Nibelungs.
The text is an English prose version of the 13th Century Middle High German epic poem Nibelungenlied. Wagner used this as one of his sources when he created his epic opera, Der Ring des Nibelungen. He took many liberties with the story, so don't expect to see Valkyries, gods, or magic rings. The only fantastical element here is the appearance of mermaids.
Regarding the plot itself, this story could have easily been adapted into an episode of Game of Thrones. It is pretty brutal, but also engaging. There are no clear cut "good guys" in this story. The author clearly had in mind who the heroes were, but I couldn't align with that thinking. The story is told as an epic, so do not expect many surprises. The future is 'telegraphed' quite plainly. For example, here the good knight, Rudeger, gives a sword to his guest, Gernot:
"He gave to Gernot a goodly weapon enow, that he wielded well afterward in strife. The Margrave's wife grudged him not the gift, yet Rudeger, or long, was slain therby." (p.205)
In other words, Rudeger gave Gernot a sword that he will use to kill Rudeger later.
You see in the quote above that some of the Middle English words are used in this tale. This was to lend a measure of authenticity to the fact that the source material was in Middle German. Fortunately, there is a glossary in the back of the book to help with many of this extinct words.
One word that is not in the book (but should have been) is Margrave. A Margrave is a military commander of a kingdom's border lands. It comes from the German markgraf where mark means 'march (region)' and graf means 'a Count.' Tolkien fans can't help but notice the similarities with Rohan of the Lord of the Rings. The name of that region was called the Riddermark, where mark means the same as 'march' - a border region to a kingdom.
This brings me to say I did not see many plot points, characters, or locations that directly correlate to anything in Tolkien's legendarium. When one of his contemporaries drew a connection between The One Ring and the ring of the Nibelungs, he wrote,"Both rings were round, and there the resemblance ceases." (Letter 229, 23 Feb 1961) So while I am sure this work fed Tolkien's imagination as he made his own secondary creation of Middle Earth, do not expect to find any particular correlations.
All this being said, this book was definitely a page turner and I am very glad to have read it. I will certainly read more of this series!
The text is an English prose version of the 13th Century Middle High German epic poem Nibelungenlied. Wagner used this as one of his sources when he created his epic opera, Der Ring des Nibelungen. He took many liberties with the story, so don't expect to see Valkyries, gods, or magic rings. The only fantastical element here is the appearance of mermaids.
Regarding the plot itself, this story could have easily been adapted into an episode of Game of Thrones. It is pretty brutal, but also engaging. There are no clear cut "good guys" in this story. The author clearly had in mind who the heroes were, but I couldn't align with that thinking. The story is told as an epic, so do not expect many surprises. The future is 'telegraphed' quite plainly. For example, here the good knight, Rudeger, gives a sword to his guest, Gernot:
"He gave to Gernot a goodly weapon enow, that he wielded well afterward in strife. The Margrave's wife grudged him not the gift, yet Rudeger, or long, was slain therby." (p.205)
In other words, Rudeger gave Gernot a sword that he will use to kill Rudeger later.
You see in the quote above that some of the Middle English words are used in this tale. This was to lend a measure of authenticity to the fact that the source material was in Middle German. Fortunately, there is a glossary in the back of the book to help with many of this extinct words.
One word that is not in the book (but should have been) is Margrave. A Margrave is a military commander of a kingdom's border lands. It comes from the German markgraf where mark means 'march (region)' and graf means 'a Count.' Tolkien fans can't help but notice the similarities with Rohan of the Lord of the Rings. The name of that region was called the Riddermark, where mark means the same as 'march' - a border region to a kingdom.
This brings me to say I did not see many plot points, characters, or locations that directly correlate to anything in Tolkien's legendarium. When one of his contemporaries drew a connection between The One Ring and the ring of the Nibelungs, he wrote,"Both rings were round, and there the resemblance ceases." (Letter 229, 23 Feb 1961) So while I am sure this work fed Tolkien's imagination as he made his own secondary creation of Middle Earth, do not expect to find any particular correlations.
All this being said, this book was definitely a page turner and I am very glad to have read it. I will certainly read more of this series!
August 27, 2023
I've written before that I find European mythology really interesting, in that tales told through time in a verbal tradition manages to mix Christian moral ideals with pagan themes, often attempting to create a synthesis between the two.
This is certainly also present in The Nibelungenlied, but this is much more interesting in how it contrasts with it's sister myth told in Nordic mythology, rather than as a contrast to pious Christian doctrin.
The Song of the Nibelungs is essentially a royal court drama, setting its scene in the various princedoms and factions in Central and Northern Europe in the beginning of the second millennia. In that way, the Germanic rendition of the epic poem about Siegfried and Kriemhild is not the fantastical adventure of the Nordic myth, but, rather, it's a tale of tale of the hero's place in the larger political landscape of the early Holy Roman Empire. As such, The Song of the Nibelungs could almost be considered a prototype of the concrete body politics that would come to define political thought in the West some 500 years after this poem was put to paper.
This is certainly also present in The Nibelungenlied, but this is much more interesting in how it contrasts with it's sister myth told in Nordic mythology, rather than as a contrast to pious Christian doctrin.
The Song of the Nibelungs is essentially a royal court drama, setting its scene in the various princedoms and factions in Central and Northern Europe in the beginning of the second millennia. In that way, the Germanic rendition of the epic poem about Siegfried and Kriemhild is not the fantastical adventure of the Nordic myth, but, rather, it's a tale of tale of the hero's place in the larger political landscape of the early Holy Roman Empire. As such, The Song of the Nibelungs could almost be considered a prototype of the concrete body politics that would come to define political thought in the West some 500 years after this poem was put to paper.
October 7, 2018
My almost-seven-year-old loved this book. I did too. History is so interesting!!!
February 11, 2017
Aventuras, traiciones, venganzas, sangre, ¿quién dijo que los cantares de gesta son aburridos?
July 8, 2016
...Whew, that took a while! Well, it didn't really for the time I was actually reading it... I may have... run down some rabbit trails in the middle {and believe me, Great Expectations is no small rabbit trail!} But in the end, I enjoyed it, for what it was: an ancient german epic translated into old-english in the 19th century that inspired Tolkien!
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews