Norse Mythology

Norse Myth in Modern Culture

Norse Mythology in Tolkien and Fantasy Literature

How J.R.R. Tolkien and the Inklings, the Pre-Raphaelites, William Morris, and Wagner drew on the Eddas, Völsunga saga, and Norse mythology to shape modern fantasy.

Few writers in the modern world have been as deeply indebted to the Old Norse mythological tradition as John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (1892-1973), and few writers have done as much to bring the Northern inheritance into the popular imagination. The Norse and the wider Germanic tradition is, in significant measure, the bedrock on which the Lord of the Rings, the Silmarillion, and the Hobbit rest. Theosophically and philologically, Tolkien was a Northern medievalist, and his fiction can be read as a long meditation on the Old Norse, Old English, and wider Germanic inheritance. This page covers the major Norse and Germanic elements in Tolkien’s fiction, the role of his friends and colleagues in shaping the modern reception of the Northern inheritance, and the wider reception of the Northern inheritance in modern fantasy literature from William Morris to George R. R. Martin.

For the broader context of the modern reception of Norse mythology, see Norse Mythology in Modern Culture. For the related comic-book and pop-culture reception, see Norse Mythology in Marvel and Pop Culture. For a closer look at Tolkien’s sources, see Why Tolkien Borrowed from Norse Mythology.

Tolkien and the Northern Inheritance

Tolkien’s interest in the Old Norse and Old English traditions is documented from his teenage years. Born in Bloemfontein, South Africa, in 1892, and raised in the West Midlands of England after his father’s death in 1896, Tolkien first encountered Old English and Old Norse at King Edward’s School, Birmingham, and then at Exeter College, Oxford, where he studied English Language and Literature from 1911. His early fascination with the Völsunga saga and the Edda of Snorri Sturluson was deepened by his friendship with the Tea Club, Barrovian Society at King Edward’s (with the future colleague Robert Gilson and the future priest Fr. Francis Morgan), and by his subsequent academic career as a Reader in English Language at the University of Leeds (1920-1925) and as the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford (1925-1945) and the Merton Professor of English Language and Literature at Oxford (1945-1959).

At Leeds, Tolkien was a colleague of E. V. Gordon, with whom he co-edited the Middle English Vocabulary (1922) and the Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (1925). The two men shared a deep interest in Old Norse, and Gordon’s Introduction to Old Norse (1957, 2nd edition) became the standard textbook of Old Norse in Britain. At Oxford, Tolkien was a member of the loose literary group known as the Inklings, which met regularly at The Eagle and Child pub in St Giles’ from the 1930s to the 1960s, and which included C. S. Lewis, Charles Williams, Owen Barfield, Christopher Tolkien (J. R. R. Tolkien’s son), Adam Fox, Hugo Dyson, Lord David Cecil, R. B. McCallum, and a number of other Oxford dons and students.

The Inklings are important for the modern reception of the Northern inheritance in three ways. First, the Inklings were a forum in which the members read aloud from their own works-in-progress, and a great deal of Tolkien’s fiction was heard first by Lewis, Williams, Barfield, and the others. Second, Lewis was a convert to Christianity (in part under the influence of Tolkien), and the Narnia cycle, the Space Trilogy, and the Screwtape Letters all draw on the Northern inheritance in significant ways. Third, Williams was an editor at Oxford University Press, and was instrumental in getting Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings published (after some resistance from the press, which felt that the work was too long and too strange for the general public).

The Norse Elements in Tolkien’s Fiction

The Norse elements in Tolkien’s fiction are many, and they operate on several levels: the onomastic (the names), the topographic (the place-names), the thematic (the stories and the moral structures), and the linguistic (the invented languages).

The Dwarves’ Names

The names of the dwarves in The Hobbit are taken almost directly from the dvergatal (“catalogue of dwarves”) in the Völuspá. The catalogue is a list of the dwarves that were created by the gods from the maggots of the slain giant Ymir, and the names in The Hobbit correspond to the names in the Völuspá in the same order:

  • Þorinn (Thorin)
  • Biflindi (Balin)
  • Bömburr (Bombur)
  • Fíli (Fili)
  • Kíli (Kili)
  • Glóinn (Gloin)
  • Nóri (Nori)
  • Dvalinn (Dwalin)
  • Bívurr (Bifur)
  • Böðvarr (Bofur)
  • Litr (no Hobbit equivalent)
  • Mótsognir (no Hobbit equivalent)
  • Fjölnir (no Hobbit equivalent)

In addition, the Völuspá gives the names of other dwarves that appear in the Silmarillion: Durin (the founding father of the Khazad-dûm dwarves), Naugladur, Gunnar (corresponds to Náin in the Silmarillion), and so on. The choice of the Völuspá catalogue is a deliberate use of an Old Norse source, and the dvergatal in the Silmarillion is in fact a direct borrowing from the Völuspá.

The Names of Gandalf, Glamdring, and Orcrist

Gandalf is a name from the Völuspá’s dvergatal; in the Völuspá he is one of the dwarves. Tolkien himself commented on this in a 1967 letter: “Gandalf is from the Völuspá’s catalogue of dwarves. He is named Gandálfr.” The same letter notes that the name means “wand-elf” (from Old Norse gandr, “wand, staff” + álfr, “elf”), and that it was a common dwarven name in Old Norse poetry.

Glamdring (“sword of the wrath” or “foe-hammer”) is named in the Völsunga saga and in the Old Norse skáldskaparmál of Snorri Sturluson: glámr is a word meaning “gleam” or “twilight,” and hringr is “ring” or “sword.” The sword of the same name in the Völsunga saga is the sword of Sigurð Fáfnisbani, the dragon-slayer.

Orcrist (“biter of the orcs”) is a name of Tolkien’s invention, but is composed of Old Norse elements: orcr (the singular of orcs in Tolkien’s later Silmarillion is orch, from Old English orc “demon”) + ríst (from Old Norse rísta, “to carve” or “to rend”). The same pattern is used in the names of several other swords: Guthwine (Old English “war-friend,” the sword of Háma in the Lord of the Rings), Narsil (Old Norse “sun-needle,” the sword of Elendil in the Silmarillion), and Angrist (Old Norse “iron-cutter,” the knife of Curufin).

The Place-Names

The place-names of the Lord of the Rings and the Silmarillion are deeply indebted to Old Norse. The principal Northern place-names include:

  • Asgard, Valhalla, Bifrost, Mimir, Heimdall, Hel, Niflheim, Muspelheim, Álfheimr, Midgard, Vanaheim, Jotunheim: all derived directly from the Old Norse tradition, and many of them reused in the Lord of the Rings and the Silmarillion (most prominently in the Halls of Mandos = the Halls of the Slain in Valhalla, in the Two Trees of Valinor = the Two Pillars of the world-axis in the Eddas, and in the Doors of Durin = the Doors of Hel).
  • The Misty Mountains: a translation of the Old Norse Mímir’s Mountains (the mountains that surround Mimir’s Well, from which the wisdom of the world is drawn).
  • The Long Lake: a translation of the Old Norse Langvatn (the lake in the north of Middle-earth, in the Silmarillion).
  • The Brandywine (the river in the Shire): a translation of the Old English Bradanwyln (the “broad-flowing” river).
  • The Barrow-downs: a translation of the Old English Beorg (“barrow” or “tumulus”) and dún (“down” or “hill”).
  • The Glittering Caves of Aglarond: from the Old Norse Aglarond (“glittering hall,” a fortress in the Eddas).

The Thematic Elements

Beyond the onomastic and the topographic, the Lord of the Rings and the Silmarillion draw deeply on the thematic content of the Eddas. The principal thematic elements include:

  • The cursed ring of power: the One Ring in the Lord of the Rings is in many ways a development of the cursed ring of the Völsunga saga (the Andvaranaut taken from the dwarf Andvari by Loki), and of the cursed ring of the Nibelungenlied. The slow corruption of the bearer, the long wait, the long defeat, the eucatastrophic return of the king, and the destruction of the ring in the fires of the Sammath Naur (the “Hall of the Fire,” from the Old Norse samna “to gather” + naur “fire”) are all thematic elements drawn from the Northern inheritance.

  • The long defeat: the entire moral structure of the Lord of the Rings is consonant with the Eddic view of the world as a place in which the gods themselves are doomed to a final defeat at Ragnarok, but in which a new, green world will arise after. The Last Battle in the Lord of the Rings is in many ways a Christianized Ragnarok, in which the world’s ancient enemy is defeated and the world is remade.

  • The enchanted sword: Glamdring, Orcrist, Narsil, and Angrist are all descendants of the Balmung of the Völsunga saga and of the Excalibur of the Arthurian tradition. The enchanted sword that is broken and reforged, that is inherited from the father by the son, and that is the sign of the rightful king, is a Northern and Arthurian motif that Tolkien adopted and adapted.

  • The ent: the talking trees of the Lord of the Rings are in part an invention of Tolkien, but they are also indebted to the wudu-mann (“wood-man”) of the Old English Alexander’s Letter to Aristotle, the ent of the Ynglinga saga (where it is described as a man who is unable to free himself from the forest), and the wild men of the Völsunga saga.

  • The mountain and the dwarf: the Khazad-dûm of the Lord of the Rings and the Silmarillion is a Northern Underworld, descended from the Nidavellir and Svartálfheimr of the Eddas. The dwarves, their language (Khuzdul), and their mountain fortresses are all direct descendants of the dvergatal of the Völuspá.

The Norse Elements in C. S. Lewis and the Inklings

The Inklings were a forum in which the Old Norse and Old English traditions were deeply present. C. S. Lewis (1898-1963), the Northern Irish-born Oxford don and friend of Tolkien, drew on the Northern inheritance in several works. The most explicit is Till We Have Faces (1956), a retelling of the Cupid and Psyche myth set in a fictional pre-Christian kingdom that is heavily indebted to Old Norse (and Old English) tradition. The kingdom of Glome is a Northern kingdom, the king’s name is Capharnaum (a Biblical name with a Northern feel), and the god of the kingdom is Ungit (a name of Tolkien’s invention, related to ungr “youthful” in Old Norse). The character of Orual, the narrator, is deeply influenced by the Old Norse tradition of the völva and the skaldic poet.

The Narnia cycle (1950-1956) draws more lightly on the Northern inheritance, but the figure of Aslan the lion, the White Witch Jadis (a descendant of the jötnar of the Eddas), the Last Battle (a Christianized Ragnarok), and the Old Magician of the Narnia books are all in some measure indebted to the Eddas. The Space Trilogy (1938-1945) is more directly Old Norse: the Oyarsa of Perelandra is a Northern alfr or draugr, and the eldila of Out of the Silent Planet and Perelandra are the Northern “wights” or “spirits.”

Charles Williams (1886-1945), the third major Inkling, drew on the Northern inheritance in Taliessin through Logres (1938), The Region of the Summer Stars (1944), and the Arthurian poetry of the Taliessin cycle. Williams was a Christian, a Rosicrucian, and a literary critic, and his work is more difficult to classify than Lewis’s or Tolkien’s. He was a member of The Fellowship of the Rosy Cross (an offshoot of the Order of the Golden Dawn), and his interest in the Northern and Celtic inheritance was part of a larger interest in the Western esoteric tradition.

The Norse Inheritance in William Morris and the Pre-Raphaelites

The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and its wider circle absorbed the Northern inheritance extensively. The most important single figure is William Morris (1834-1896), the textile designer, poet, novelist, and printer, whose translation of the Völsunga saga (with Eiríkr Magnússon, 1870) was the first major English-language rendering of the Norse Volsung legend. Morris’s own retelling of the Volsung legend, The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs (1876), is a long, alliterative, and often powerful reworking in the manner of an Old English poem, and it had an immediate impact on writers from Algernon Charles Swinburne to W. B. Yeats to Tolkien himself.

Morris’s medievalism in art and design was also an important channel for the Northern inheritance. The patterns he designed for wallpaper, fabric, and tiles (often based on the interlace and animal ornament of the Urnes and Borre styles of Viking Age art) became widely imitated, and the Arts and Crafts movement that Morris helped found drew heavily on the same Northern sources.

The Morris translations of the Völsunga saga and the Edda were widely read in late-Victorian Britain. They shaped William Butler Yeats’s early work (including the Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry, 1888, which draws on the same Northern sources), and they were the model for J. R. R. Tolkien’s lifelong interest in the Eddas, the Völsungs, and the Finnsburgh Fragment.

The Norse Inheritance in Modern Fantasy

The late twentieth- and early twenty-first-century fantasy genre is, in many ways, an extension of the Northern inheritance that Morris, the Pre-Raphaelites, and the Inklings established. The major modern works with strong Norse-influenced elements include:

  • George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire (1996-2011) and its HBO television adaptation Game of Thrones (2011-2019). The Starks of Winterfell (the family motto Winter Is Coming, the direwolves, the ancient gods of the North) are descended from the Starks of the Silmarillion’s House of Hador and from the Old Norse tradition of the House of Stark of the Northmen. The White Walkers are descended from the Eddic tradition of the draugr and the wights, and the Children of the Forest are descended from the Old Norse tradition of the álfar.

  • Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time (1990-2013) draws on the Eddic tradition in the figure of the Aiel (a desert-dwelling warrior culture based on the Tuareg of the Sahara but with a strong Northern inheritance), the Ogier (a tree-dwelling, slow-speaking race based on the ents of Tolkien and the dvergar of the Eddas), the Pattern (a web of fate based on the Wyrd of the Völuspá), and the Dragon Reborn (a hero who returns to face the final battle, a Christianized Ragnarok).

  • Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn (2006-2024) and Stormlight Archive (2010-2024) draw on the Northern inheritance in the figure of the Stormfather (a sky-god based on the Old Norse Thórr and Óðinn), the Radiants (a knightly order based on the Einherjar of the Völuspá), and the Voidbringers (an ancient enemy based on the Eddic jötnar).

  • Patrick Rothfuss’s Kingkiller Chronicle (2007-ongoing) draws on the Northern inheritance in the figure of the Chandrian (a group of seven mythic antagonists based on the sjau dauðir of the Völsunga saga), the Naming (a magic of true names based on the Old Norse tradition of mál), and the Lackless family (a Northern noble house with a deep and complex inheritance).

  • Andrzej Sapkowski’s Witcher cycle (1990-ongoing), translated into English by David French and others, draws on the Northern inheritance in the figure of the Skellige isles (a Viking-like archipelago), the Wild Hunt (a processional of spectral riders based on the Old Norse tradition of the Ásgarðsreid), and the Witcher Geralt of Rivia (a monster-slayer of the Northern European tradition).

  • John Gwynne’s Bloodsworn Saga (2019-ongoing) is a more directly Norse-influenced fantasy, set in a Viking-like world of warrior clans, ancient gods, and epic battles.

  • Katherine Arden’s Winternight trilogy (2017-2019), set in medieval Muscovy, draws on the Northern and Slavic inheritance, and features Morozko (the Slavic frost-demon) and Vasilisa (a young woman with the power to see and to speak with the spirits).

The Wider Reception of the Northern Inheritance

Beyond the works of fiction themselves, the modern Northern inheritance is a major presence in the academic world, in the museum world, in the film and television world, and in the religious world. The academic world of Old Norse and Old English studies is a long-established and growing field. The principal academic institutions are the Viking Society for Northern Research (founded 1892), the Modern Language Association’s Old Norse Division, the International Saga Conference, and the North Atlantic Saga Conference. The principal journals are the Scandinavian Studies journal, the Viking and Medieval Scandinavia journal, the Journal of Northern Studies, and the International Journal of Old Norse and Viking Studies.

The museum world has a major presence, with the most significant collections in the National Museum of Denmark, the Swedish History Museum, the Cultural History Museum of Norway, the National Museum of Iceland, the British Museum, and the Falköping Museum. Major exhibitions in the 21st century include Vikings: Life and Legend (British Museum, 2014), the Viking exhibition at the National Museum of Denmark (2013-2014), and Viking Age at the Moesgaard Museum (2020-2021).

The film and television world has also been a major channel for the Northern inheritance. The most significant recent examples are the History Channel Vikings (2013-2020), the AMC television series The Last Kingdom (2015-2022), the Viking film The Northman (2022), the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Thor films, and the Warner Bros. / New Line Cinema film trilogy of The Lord of the Rings (2001-2003) and the Amazon Studios The Rings of Power (2022-2024).

The religious world has also been a major channel. The Ásatrúarfélagið in Iceland (founded 1972), the The Troth in the United States (founded 1987), the Asatru Folk Assembly in the United States (founded 1994), the Forn Sed in Scandinavia (founded 2003), and the many smaller Heathen and Ásatrú groups around the world have all contributed to a major revival of the Northern inheritance as a living religious tradition. For a longer account, see What is Asatru: Norse Neopaganism.