Program in Nordic Studies

J.R.R. Tolkien’s Nordic sources

Anonymous — Wed, 13 Sep 2023 18:37:46 +0000

J.R.R. Tolkien’s Nordic sources Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 09/13/2023 - 12:37

Bradley Worrell

As a philologist, the author of The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings trilogy drew extensively from Nordic language and mythology when creating the world of Middle Earth, notes CU Boulder expert who teaches a popular course on the topic

In J.R.R. Tolkien’s books The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy, a magical ring gave the wearer the power of invisibility. Some have speculated the ring was a symbol for something in the real world, like the atom bomb, but Tolkien disputed that idea. (photo courtesy of Pixabay)

As the school year at the University of Colorado Boulder begins, one group of students is learning the origins of orcs, elves, goblins, dwarves, wizards and other fantastical creatures inhabiting Middle Earth, as conceived by English author J.R.R. Tolkien, who died 50 years ago this month.

The class, Tolkien’s Nordic Sources and The Lord of the Rings, is a deep dive into all things Middle Earth, with a particular focus on Tolkien’s use of mythology, folklore and epic tales borrowed from Nordic sources, specifically those of Northern Europe during the Middle Ages.

While Tolkien today is remembered and lauded for his works of fiction, that’s not how he primarily viewed himself, says Avedan Raggio, teaching assistant professor for the Nordic Program at CU Boulder, who teaches the class on Tolkien and his Nordic sources.

Avedan Raggio, teaching assistant professor for the Nordic Program at CU Boulder, has taught a class on Tolkien’s Nordic sources since 2015.

“Fans of Middle Earth are very familiar with Tolkien as a fiction author, but he would have first referred to himself as a scholar and a philologist,” she says. As such, he was deeply invested in the study of language, history and literature, with an expertise in Old English and Old Viking texts.

However, while he was steeped in the knowledge of those Nordic languages and mythology, Raggio stresses that Tolkien didn’t copy sagas or epics, but instead drew upon themes, adopting them to fit his own narratives.

“For example, Tolkien didn’t necessarily read Beowulf and say, ‘I like this story; I’m going to re-write it.’ There are very few direct, one-to-one comparisons you can make,” she says. “Instead, it seems more that Tolkien drew upon his decades of experience and immersion in the literature and took themes from the literature. It was less like copy and paste but more borrowed and then adapted.”

Some examples from Tolkien’s works more closely resemble Norse mythology than others, Raggio says, pointing to the similarities between the epic Old English poem Beowulf and Tolkien’s The Hobbit. Both share a story of a thief stealing a cup from a dragon’s treasure hoard and the dragon retaliating by burning down a nearby village.

“That is one of the most direct and clear one-to-one borrowings,” she says, adding it is a fairly rare, direct, corresponding story.

Who is that guy with the long beard, staff and pointy hat?

In other cases, readers of Tolkien’s books may make connections with Nordic myths that don’t actually stand up under scrutiny, such as the idea that the wizard Gandalf the Gray from The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy is a representation of the Norse god Odin.

“This is something that I actually have a rant about,” Raggio says with a knowing laugh, having worked to dispel the idea to many a student in the seven years she has been teaching the class. “Rather than rant here, what I’ll say is that the more you learn about Gandalf and Odin, the less similar they seem.

“On the surface, when Odin is described in Norse literature, he’s an old guy with a beard and a staff and a pointy hat and a cloak, and he gives advice. Gandalf, in the opening to The Hobbit, is an old man with a big beard, a staff, a cloak and a pointy hat, and he gives advice.”

Some readers of Tolkien’s work see similarities between Tolkien character Gandalf the Gray and Odin, a revered god in Norse mythology. Although Tolkien borrowed from Norse and Old English mythology for his novels, the connection between Gandalf and Odin is tenuous, according to Avedan Raggio, teaching assistant professor for the Nordic Program at CU Boulder. (Photo courtesy of Pixabay)

However, the two characters vary greatly when it comes to their actions and intentions, according to Raggio.

“The advice Odin gives is usually bad advice,” she says. “The advice Odin gives to human heroes is designed to make them achieve glory—and then die. That’s because Odin is preoccupied with evading his fate at the apocalypse, at Ragnarök, where it’s prophesied that he is going to die. And Odin doesn’t want to die, so he thinks if he gets the best human warriors and heroes to die in their prime, ‘They will come to Valhalla, and then they can fight on my side in Ragnarök, so maybe I won’t die.’

“In short, Odin’s a bit of a jerk.”

In contrast to Odin, the legend that Tolkien created for Gandalf was one in which the wizard was a “Maiar,” a sort of lesser angel, whose mission was to assist the people of Middle Earth, according to Raggio. And while Gandalf—like Odin—engaged in trickery on occasion, no one was hurt by Gandalf’s dishonesty and his actions were done with the intent of saving lives, she says, “whereas Odin doesn’t care about collateral damage.”

“So, I think the explanation for the Gandalf-Odin similarities is not that Odin inspired Gandalf, but instead that Odin and Gandalf share the same archetype—an old, wise wizard, bearded dude who dispenses information,” she adds. “That archetype is everywhere.”

Raggio says other creatures inhabiting Middle Earth were Tolkien’s own creation—most notably Hobbits, the fictional race of diminutive halflings with leathery soles and furry feet tops, big appetites and great courage.

Notably, Tolkien had a particular people in mind when he gave literary life to the Hobbits.

“You could make an argument that there are some similar figures (in Nordic tradition), but the Hobbits are a native invention of Tolkien,” she says. “He saw the Hobbits as the personification of rustic English culture. … He said of himself, ‘I am a Hobbit in all but size.’”

Meanwhile, the Hobbits’ home, The Shire, represented the best aspects of pastoral England from his own childhood memories, she adds.

Some limitations on comparisons with Middle Earth

In comparing Tolkien’s created world of Middle Earth with Nordic myths, there also is a natural inclination to compare his works of fiction with things in the real world, Raggio acknowledges. For example, some Tolkien readers have come to view The Lord of the Rings story as an allegory for the clash of Axis and Allied forces in World War II, or as the battle between good and evil in the Bible, thus reflecting Tolkien’s Catholic faith.

For his part, Tolkien famously disliked allegory, which he believed reduced a work to being derivative, according to Raggio.

“When he saw people saying a work was allegorical, he also saw them reducing it,” she says. “Tolkien wanted his work … to be appreciated as art, as something in and of itself. And many times, in his experience, if someone says, ‘This is an allegory about Jesus,’ or ‘The ring is clearly an atomic bomb’—once someone declares that, they think no more about it. I think Tolkien had too many bad experiences about people reducing his work to mere allegory.”

Still, that’s not to say Tolkien did not draw from a variety of sources from around him, including his faith, to create a rich and complex world, she adds.

Tolkien also was not a fan of source criticism, which is a way of evaluating the way an author or work interacts with their source material.

“That’s because his experience with source criticism was people doing it badly—ripping apart something to find out where it was from and ignoring that it had value as a piece of art,” Raggio says.

In her class on Tolkien, students start by learning about source criticism, but she says they practice doing it in a way that isn’t destructive. Once students have learned relevant parts of Old Norse literature and Old English literature, they can learn to establish connections between those sources and The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings books, which they read as part of the course.

As one might imagine, Raggio says her Tolkien class is popular with die-hard fans of the English writer’s famous fantasy novels. At the same time, she says the class draws from a much broader student demographic, including student athletes, business majors and students pursuing the sciences, to name a few.

This year, Raggio’s Tolkien course is being taught via Zoom, and in the first semester more than 80 students were enrolled. In past years, the class was offered in two in-person courses per semester that were open to 30 students each, and there was always a lengthy waiting list, according to Raggio.

“I have taught this class as an 8 a.m. course, and I remember many students saying, ‘Only Tolkien could get me out of bed at this time,” she says with a laugh.

Raggio says that whether students who take her class are ardent fans of Tolkien’s works or more casual readers, her goals for them are the same.

“I want them to leave the class liking Tolkien as much, if not more, than they did coming into it,” she says. “We’ve all had experiences where we liked a piece of media, and then by analyzing it and over-analyzing it, we can’t like it any more. There is a right way to do this. So, my goal is that, by thinking about source information, they leave this class with more inspiration, liking Tolkien even better and having more to appreciate.”

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As all things Nordic become chic, scholar steps in

Anonymous — Tue, 21 Feb 2023 20:30:44 +0000

As all things Nordic become chic, scholar steps in Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 02/21/2023 - 13:30

Clay Bonnyman Evans

Through scholarship and a popular podcast, CU Boulder professor Mathias Nordvig brings the Viking Age to the 21^st century

We come from the land of the ice and snow
From the midnight sun where the hot springs flow.
The hammer of the gods
Will drive our ships to new lands.
To fight the horde
Sing and cry
Valhalla I am coming.

- “The Immigrant Song” by Led Zeppelin

When Robert Plant sang the opening lyrics to Led Zeppelin’s raucous, enduring, 1970 anthem “The Immigrant Song,” he was looking all the way back to 8^th century CE, when three Viking longships are believed to have first landed in the British Isles.

A half century later, the Norse appear to have invaded once more, as Viking culture and all things Nordic continue to soar in popular culture. Old Norse gods such as Thor, Loki and Odin, command the screen at multiplexes, even as hordes of Europeans and North Americans have lustily embraced their Nordic roots through music, style and even religion.

Mathias Nordvig is an educator, artist, and more. Nordvig has a PhD in Norse mythology and teaches Nordic and Arctic cultures at the University of Colorado Boulder.

“It’s funny, to be honest, as someone who was interested in all this stuff back when I was in my pre-teens,” says Mathias Nordvig, a native of Denmark who grew up in Greenland and is now teaching assistant professor and head of Nordic Studies in the Department of Germanic and Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of Colorado Boulder and co-founder of the popular podcast, Nordic Mythology Podcast.

“We saw something similar with the Celts and Irish and Scottish culture, which became a theme in Hollywood.”

Nordvig, author of Ásatrú for Beginners: A Modern Heathen's Guide to the Ancient Northern Way and Norse Mythology for Kids: Tales of Gods, Creatures, and Quests, is gratified by the embrace of ancient Nordic culture by modern Americans and non-Nordic Europeans.

“I think one reason Nordic stuff is so popular is that it’s relatively accessible, but still the distant past. … It’s an anchor point, something people can relate to, from the old land,” he says. “There is just enough mystique around it that you can add your own flavor.”

When Nordvig was growing up, he stood out for his keen interest in ancient Nordic culture even among his fellow Danes.

“I was like the weird Viking guy,” he says. “Now, all the sudden this has become mainstream.”

Nordvig knew exactly what he wanted to study when he went off to Aarhus University, and eventually earned a BA, MA and PhD in Scandinavian Studies. His PhD thesis, later published as Volcanoes in Old Norse Mythology: Myth and Environment in Early Iceland, explores how Viking Age Scandinavian immigrants used Old Norse tales and myths to understand the active volcanoes of Iceland, a geologic anomaly unknown on the continent.

“They used traditional stories to create a framework for understanding of what was happening” in the restless, fiery belly of the Earth, he says. “That’s why the Icelandic landscape is still ‘populated’ today with so many trolls and elves. It’s entirely different from Norway, Denmark and Sweden; it’s a landscape that lives.”

As a scholar, Nordvig has also explored Nordic witchcraft and magic. The publication of the notorious Malleus Malificarum, or Hammer of the Witches, in 15^th-century Germany prescribed death for “sorcery” and “witchcraft,” setting off centuries of violence against persons accused of being witches and warlocks, including in Christianized Scandinavia.

“The ideas … trickled down to become a schematic for people to get rid of their neighbors,” he says. “It was also used as a kind of low-key ethnic cleansing.”

Magic was part of Nordic culture well before the arrival of Christianity, Nordvig says, as evidenced by archaeological discoveries of “weird magical items” such as a pouch containing a mouse skeleton, owl vomit and herbs. Women he calls “female ritual specialists” were given high honor in pre-Christian Nordic culture, but denigrated as “witches” following the adoption of Christian ideas.

In 2019, Nordvig co-founded the Nordic Mythology Podcast with Daniel Farrand, owner of Horns of Odin, a company that sells Viking- and Nordic-themed goods and gear, after “stumbling on each other on the internet.”

“We decided to make a podcast to give people proper information about the Viking Age and Nordic mythology, and regularly send the message that this is something anybody can be a part of,” Nordvig says.

Since then, they have recorded more than 150 episodes, everything from interviewing scholars to reports from the Midgardsblot heavy-metal and Viking-culture festival in Norway. More than 1 million downloads later, the podcast is a gathering place for Nordic enthusiasts.

“It’s become one of the centers of community around Viking-related stuff. We get a lot of artists, scholars and an audience, and we connect everybody with each other,” he says.

Nordvig has practiced Ásatrú, “a modern spirituality based in the traditions, folklore, and mythology of Northern Europe and particularly Scandinavia,” for most of his life. His book on the practice explores the history, traditions, gods and goddesses, ancient texts, rituals, and the use of runes as a guide to contemporary practice.

One goal of all Nordvig’s work is to dispel persistent rumors of association between Nordic culture and right-wing, fascist and white-supremacist political movements, a lingering effect of the misappropriation of Nordic ideas and symbols in the modern era, Nordvig says.

“One important thing to keep in mind is that the whole Nazi and fascist movement in Europe was much more based in Christianity than anything else,” he says. “There were also these constructions, this ‘Nordic race’ nonsense. … They were just a bunch of people living in a corner of the world.”

And he eschews the stereotypical “masculinist view” that portrays the Vikings as the most “brutal, violent figure in European history. In fact, they were no more masculine or brutal or violent at the time than anyone else.”

Nordvig also tries to dispel stereotypes from the other end of the political spectrum: the Vikings were uniquely connected to nature or that modern Scandinavian states are a socialist paradise.

But, he says, Nordic myth and culture are anything but disconnected from the rest of the world.

There are strong similarities across cultures, continents and human beings, and there is a way to cultivate a relationship to your personal heritage that can be a healthy and helpful way of being.”

“If you look at the details of Nordic mythology, you’ll realize it’s actually not that different from some mythical systems in West Africa and the vodun religion,” he says. “There are strong similarities across cultures, continents and human beings, and there is a way to cultivate a relationship to your personal heritage that can be a healthy and helpful way of being.”

Nordvig recently decided to step down from co-hosting the Nordic Mythology Podcast to devote more time to his family and other projects, although he will still be a regular guest. And on Feb. 12, he launched The Sacred Flame Podcast.

“It’s about using Nordic myth in our lives today, how we can make use of these stories to rethink the way we live in modern society,” he says.

Nordvig encourages CU Boulder students to check out the Nordic Program.

“We explore great examples of what it looks like when an isolated corner of the world is tied in globally, both in the Viking Age and the modern era,” he says.

Through scholarship and a popular podcast, CU Boulder professor Mathias Nordvig brings the Viking Age to the 21st century

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The Wanderer's Hávámal

Anonymous — Fri, 03 Apr 2020 19:54:56 +0000

The Wanderer's Hávámal Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 04/03/2020 - 13:54

About the book: The Wanderer's Hávamál features Jackson Crawford’s complete, carefully revised English translation of the Old Norse poem Hávamál, newly annotated for this volume, together with facing original Old Norse text sourced directly from the Codex Regius manuscript.

Rounding out the volume are Crawford’s classic Cowboy Hávamál and translations of other related texts central to understanding the character, wisdom, and mysteries of Óðinn (Odin). Portable and reader-friendly, it makes an ideal companion for both lovers of Old Norse mythology and those new to the wisdom of this central Eddic poem wherever they may find themselves.

About the author: Jackson Crawford, Ph.D., is Instructor of Nordic Studies and Coordinator of the Nordic Program, University of Colorado Boulder. A pioneer in the use of digital technology as a platform for educational outreach, he shares his expertise on Old Norse mythology and language at https://jacksonwcrawford.com

Praise:

"Hávamál, ‘Words of the High One’—purportedly delivering the wisdom of Odin in his own voice—is one of the most important mythological poems of the Poetic Edda and simply the most important witness to early Norse cultural ethics. Jackson Crawford has now given us a clean text and a new facing-page translation in contemporary idiom. A highly trained linguist, Crawford has already published with Hackett a complete translation of the whole of the famous ancient anthology, the Poetic Edda, and acquired many fans for his YouTube videos teaching Old Norse. Crawford is a poet in his own right with a recognizably Western voice. A scholarly commentary on the whole poem is an accomplishment made palatable for the general reader by Crawford’s informal style. All in all, a fresh start on the mysteries of this classic."
—Joseph Harris, Francis Lee Higginson Professor of English Literature and Professor of Folklore, Emeritus, Harvard University

"Jackson Crawford offers his readers an excellent entry into the world of Hávamál, where the high-god Óðinn from the Old Norse Pantheon mediates some age-old wisdom to his audience. Crawford provides a clear translation that points directly into the original text itself, while his extensive commentary emphasizes its nuances and ambiguity, strips away popular notions of paganism, and draws attention instead to the poem’s universal down-to-earth attitude. The humorous and entertaining cowboy-version that Crawford offers at the end serves as a tribute to the wisdom of his own grandfather, a fitting epilogue that updates this ancient poem which the Christian people of Iceland assembled from oral tradition into a book in the thirteenth century."
—Gísli Sigurðsson, Research Professor and Head of the Folklore Department, Árni Magnússon Institute, University of Iceland

Find the book

The Wanderer's Hávámal

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With private boost, CU launches Finnish courses

Anonymous — Wed, 17 Feb 2016 07:00:00 +0000

With private boost, CU launches Finnish courses Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 02/17/2016 - 00:00

Clint Talbott

The Program in Nordic Studies has begun offering Finnish-language courses at the University of Colorado Boulder.

It’s noteworthy because it’s such a rare language, and the university is offering the courses for full credit, which means the courses can satisfy a foreign-language requirement, says Benjamin Teitelbaum, instructor and head of Nordic studies.

The courses are being supported by a Finnish company, Vaisala, which manufactures environmental-measurement instruments and which has offices in Louisville, Colo. Teitelbaum said the partnership promotes Nordic and Finnish culture in Colorado.

“Finnish interests in the Denver-Boulder area are growing, and CU is a part of that,” he says.

Tanner Coon, a third-year computer-science major at CU-Boulder, is among the students taking Finnish this year. After graduation, he’d like to work at Google programming Android applications or join a video-gaming company.

Benjamin Teitelbaum

But Coon is also interested Finland. His grandmother was born there. His parents met while going on missions for their church in Finland. “I just have a lot of ties to Finland, despite never being there myself, so I was excited when I got the opportunity to learn the language.”

Coon is among a relatively small group of students in the inaugural year of Finnish courses. About 10 are enrolled, Teitelbaum said.

“For a language like Finnish, we’re actually quite happy about that,” Teitelbaum says. “If experience is a guide, interest and enrollment will grow.”

The program introduced Swedish in 2013, and the first Swedish classes were about the same size. Since then, Swedish has become a fully rostered course and is taught in three levels per semester.

Teitelbaum identified several reasons underlying student interest in the program. “The Nordic region is often named in the media as being one of the most prosperous, the most secure. It’s also a laboratory for cultural change,” and it has been a destination for migration, Teitelbaum says.

Finland has gotten special recognition in this respect. In 2010, Newsweek named Finland “the best country in the world” as measured by education, health, quality of life, economic competitiveness and political environment.

Apart from being drawn to the study of Finnish for those reasons, some students are interested in contemporary Finnish culture. “We have a couple students who want to study Finnish because their favorite band is from Finland, and they sing in Finnish,” Teitelbaum says.

Additionally, some linguistic students are interested because Finnish is a Uralic language, without roots in Latin or Indo-European languages. “It’s so far removed from all the languages around it in Europe that it really makes it a gold mine for academics who are interested in the study of language.”

To learn more about the CU-Boulder Nordic Studies, click here.

Clint Talbott is director of communications and external relations for the College of Arts and Sciences and editor of the College of Arts and Sciences Magazine.

The Program in Nordic Studies has begun offering Finnish‐language courses at the University of Colorado Boulder. It’s noteworthy because it’s such a rare language, and the courses are offered for full credit, which means the courses can satisfy a foreign‐language requirement.

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