The House of the Wolfings: A Book that Inspired J. R. R. Tolkien

by William Morris

Book Overview

The first of William Morris's great fantastic romances is a translation of the old Norse saga, The House of the Wolfings. Of this tale, The Encyclodedia of Fantasy wrote: "The first step toward the... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1587420252
• ISBN13: 9781587420252
• Release Date: November 2003
• Publisher: Inkling Books
• Length: 164 Pages
• Weight: 0.77 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 6.1" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Marvelous - esp. for English language lovers

"Whiles in the early winter eve we pass amid the gathering night some homestead that we had to leave years past; and see its candles bright shine in the room beside the door where we were merry years agone but now must never enter more, as still the dark road drives us on. E'en so the world of men may turn at even of some hurried day and see the ancient glimmer burn across the waste that hath no way; then with that faint light in its eyes a while I bid it linger near and nurse in wavering memories the bitter-sweet of days that were."The above paragraph is from a marvelous book called The House of Wulfings by William Morris. It tells the story of a Teutonic tribe in their struggle with Roman legions. It is told empathetically from the point of view of the "barbarians." This book is a love affair with the heathen spirituality of the distant ancestors of the Germanic peoples.The really interesting thing to me is the language. Morris does with language the same as Anthony Burgess did in A Clockwork Orange. He invents a language that was never spoken. It appears to be the language of Shakespeare but in fact he invents an English as it might have been spoken had the Anglo-Saxons won in 1066. He extrapolates a Middle English that evolved from its Anglo-Saxon roots without the influence of French.I cannot recommend this book highly enough. Unfortunately it is very difficult to get.