The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún: Pre- and Reviews

[davem]

Originally Posted by The Might

I don't know if I'll read it only because it is by Tolkien... I'll look up the reviews first and read other opinions and then decide if it's worth buying.

Its not another Children of Hurin, certainly. It belongs with Tolkien's translations of Gawain, Pearl & Orfeo. That said, its the tale of Sigurd & Fafnir the Dragon, & as Tolkien wrote:

"Best of all [was] the nameless North of Sigurd of the Völsungs, and the prince of all dragons. Such lands were pre-eminently desirable. I never imagined that the dragon was of the same order as the horse. And that was not solely because I saw horses daily, but never even the footprint of a worm. The dragon had the trade-mark Of Faerie written plain upon him. In whatever world he had his being it was an Other-world. Fantasy, the making or glimpsing of Other-worlds, was the heart of the desire of Faërie. I desired dragons with a profound desire. Of course, I in my timid body did not wish to have them in the neighborhood, intruding into my relatively safe world, in which it was, for instance, possible to read stories in peace of mind, free from fear. But the world that contained even the imagination of Fáfnir was richer and more beautiful, at whatever cost of peril."On Fairy Stories