SOURCE: St. Clair, Gloriana. “Volsunga Saga and ‘Narn’: Some Analogies.” Proceedings of the J.R.R. Tolkien Centenary Conference 1992, edited by Patricia Reynolds and Glen GoodKnight, pp. 68-71. Altadena, Cal.: The Mythopoeic Press, 1995.

In the following essay, originally delivered as a lecture in 1992, St. Clair presents a comparative analysis of the plot and characters of Tolkien's story ”Narn” and the Volsunga Saga.

In a letter to Milton Waldman, a potential publisher of a combined Silmarillion and The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien says, “There is the Children of Húrin, the tragic tale of Túrin Turambar and his sister Níniel—of which Túrin is the hero: a figure that might be said (by people who like that sort of thing, though it is not very useful) to be derived from elements in Sigurd the Volsung, Oedipus and the Finnish Kullervo [Kalevala]” (Tolkien, 1981, p. 150). This paper...