‘Carry on my wayward sonne’ (and moon): Common cosmological quirks in the Norse ‘Fimbul-Winter’ and Tolkien’s early legendarium
— Kristine Larsen, Professor, Geological Sciences, Central Connecticut State University
Paper given 9 July 2021 at Medieval climates, cosmologies, & ecosystems in the works of J.R.R. Tolkien I
There exist fascinating shared complications in the Norse mythology of Ragnarök and the eschatology of J.R.R. Tolkien’s secondary world (especially its earliest iterations in The Book of Lost Tales). These include the assigned gender identities of the celestial bodies, their sometimes seemingly erratic motions (and resulting implications for climate), their imperfections (reflecting our current flawed world), and their prophesied future roles (the rekindling of the ‘magic sun’ at the promised renewal of the world). It will be shown that Tolkien’s treatment of The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún forms a bridge between these primary world and secondary world cosmologies.
[This was an abbreviated version of the paper by the same title later published in Journal of Tolkien Research — ed.]
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