Heill Llama!

> > Most things can be done in English, as Tolkien saw ;)

> Have you read his alliterative epic The Lay of the Children of

Húrin, dealing with events that are told in a more sagalike way in
the Silmarillion?

No.

> The dusty dunes of Dor-na-Fauglith
> hissed and spouted. Huge rose the spires
> of smoking vapour swathed and reeking,
> thick billowing clouds from thirst unquenched,
> and dawn was kindled dimly lurid
> when a day and a night had dragged away.

> That's a bit of the storm after Túrin inadvertantly kills Beleg.

It was published in The Lays of Beleriand. And speaking of the
master, I wonder how we can get our hands on item 82 on this list of
unpublished manuscripts:

> §82. Völsungakvida in nyja "The New Lay of the Volsungs."
>
> http://www.geocities.com/athens/parthenon/9902/unpub.html

Now, this one must be ON ;)

> I read an article by Tom Shippey a while back that mentioned

Tolkien's compositions in Old Norse, only there they were called
Sigurðarkviða hin nýja and Guðrúnarkviða hin nýja.

He may have had many ON compositions, or parts of compositions.

> "All his life, Tolkien enjoyed filling gaps in what survives. There

is, for instance, a well-known gap in the Codex Regius manuscript of
the Poetic Edda, where some eight pages of the Sigurðr cycle are
missing. But Tolkien wrote two poems to fill this gap, in Old Norse,
in the appropriate meter, which are called, we believe, Sigurðarkviða
hin nýja and Guðrúnarkviða hin nýja. Unfortunately these remain
unprinted." Tolkien and Iceland, the Philology of Envy
[http://www2.hi.is/Apps/WebObjects/HI.woa/wa/dp?
detail=1004508&name=nordals_en_greinar_og_erindi].

> Could Völsungakviða in nýja be a collective title for these, or are

they three distinct poems?

Based on the titles, they sound like different poems. Völsungakviða
in forna occurs as a title in CR, refering to a section of verses
quoted around Helgi. Tolkien's Sigurðarkviða in nýja, just looking
at the title, would likely be the one covering the lost pages. This
is confirmed by the matching content in Völsunga Saga. One can get a
good idea of how unpopular Völsunga Saga and Eddic poetry were by
the number of extant skinbooks (VS:1, rotted and already partly
illegible a hundred years ago; Eddic:2, one with missing pages, some
incomplete texts with mistakes, messy commentary, but good copy,
another containing some of the same material, but nothing else. Now,
compare this to the situation for Njáls Saga, for instance. Clearly,
some things were more popular than others, then as now. Fragments of
Hávamál occur throughout old stories, lawbooks, etc., but they are
never identified as HM, even when equivalent material occurs in CR
under HM. No other quotes from, or references to, Eddic material
occur anywhere, except in Snorri. Was it that unpopular, or was it
just taboo? Anyway, a lot more than the missing pages is a project
for reconstruction in CR. But I favour an approach to the Völsung-
material that involves: 1)clean and correct language for the extant
verses and 2)integration of the poetry into Völsunga Saga. In this
scenario, the cylce would be sectional, partly in prose, partly in
poetry, preserving most of the saga as well, though in sections. The
language of the Saga would the same as for the poetry, the younger
elements turned back (constant Norwegianisms, indefinite article,
etc.), the interpolations (like the knight-description, etc.) thrown
out, and the cycle carried to the end of Ragnars Saga. Historicity
(such as *aírmanareiks being centuries older than *gunþiharis, etc.
etc.) have no significance, as the point is to have it as the Norse
understood it. The point could hardly have been historicity, as this
was the heroic material they lived on - their real heroic story, as
everything from poetry to stave-church carvings testifies to. Done
correctly, in numbered sections and with a good reference-system, it
would do wonders, I think, and this without composing new material.
Of course, any outside fragments that can be found should be inte-
grated, but I am not aware of any.

> And I wonder what else is lurking in no. 86, besides the Old

English ones and the single poem in Gothic were published in The
Road to Middle Earth:

> "§86. Songs of the Philologists, Tolkien's own fanzine published in

the days of youthful folly includes several poems in dead languages
by him and his friends. ... Otherwise this is known from privately
circulated photocopies."

Interesting. Clearly, many folk would like to see a more fully re-
contructed Gothic, and we have the other Germanic languages and the
progress in Germanic linguistics to help us. The major issue, as I
see it, is what to translate into Gothic. As far as Norse material
is concerned, most of the heroic material only works technically (in
some cases), but not culturally, as the Norse freely moved heros in
time and place (as others do as well). Aírmanareiks and Gudarûna
could never have met, etc.. So the Norse stories, while classic and
important to them culturally, would be very unhistorical in Gothic,
even if their ancient roots often lie in Gutþiuda. Religion was more
conservative than heroic material, in substance if not in form, thus
the best option would seem to be Hávamál/etc. As Germanic would have
had collections of teachings of the god, and the Goths of Wôdans (or
however many other names they had for him), this would make sense.
There would be no historical contradiction and the material matches
culturally. They would have thought of it as their own, I think,
even if the redaction was foreign to them. Thus, while I am not in a
situation to say what materials from other languages could, should
or can go into Gothic without historical problems, I can affirm for
the ON material. Some other pieces, or in some cases parts of them,
will work without historical problems, others create them widely.
Völundarkviða is another one that would work, but Hávamál would be
the least controversial option, I think, which is why I most of my
drafts for Go. verses are therefrom. Sections of Völsunga Saga also
would work in Go., in word as in spirit, but only as long as they
read as short stories without reference to time, and without letting
non-historically contemporary persons meet. Gothic heroic material
from the time of Wulfila would likely have been focused on heros
from their own past, and other Germanic heroes they sung about, all
of which would be older then the 4th century, etc.. Still, Wôdans
was there, his teachings and the gutans he created. Gáuts was their
father, as Jordanes says. I wonder what Tolkien would have thought
of my obsession with historicity on such points....

-Kunjarêþs