Slaughter in the Nibelungenlied
The flow of blood as a marker of religious belief
Warning: As its title suggests, this article contains some descriptions of graphic violence.
There are many things about the Christian Scriptures that make modern Westerners squeamish, but perhaps none so much as the violence. The Bible is admittedly a book soaked in blood. The ancient Israelites were commanded to sacrifice animals to Yahweh to receive atonement for their sins, even as they were commanded to inflict the ultimate punishment against Yahweh’s enemies. As the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews wrote, “According to the Law, one may almost say, all things are cleansed with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.” (Hebrews 9:22) Christians even claim to eat Christ’s body and drink his blood.
All of this led the late atheist writer Christopher Hitchens to complain, “The Bible may, indeed does, contain a warrant for trafficking in humans, for ethnic cleansing, for slavery, for bride-price, and for indiscriminate massacre, but we are not bound by any of it because it was put together by crude, uncultured human mammals.”[1] We could certainly quibble with elements in Hitchens’ statement, but his conclusion—that there is something morally wrong with slaughter—is a common one in our society. Why should that be?
After all, most ancient societies were bloody, and for all our notions of human progress, the twentieth century took the prize for the greatest (or worst) mass slaughter thanks to names that have become practically synonymous with evil in the West: Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin, Mao Zedong, Pol Pot, and others. Ironically, it is that very blood-soaked book, the Bible, that has done more than anything to create the Western notion of a human right to life. For as violent as the world of the ancient Israelites was, there were certain distinctives that separated it from its neighbors.
From the command, “You shall not murder,” (Exodus 20:13) to God’s statement to Noah that, “Whoever sheds man’s blood, / By man his blood shall be shed, / For in the image of God He made man,” (Genesis 9:6) it is clear in the Hebrew Scriptures that humans must not be slaughtered arbitrarily. The very blood of a human being is sacred and cries out to God when spilled with malicious intent. (Genesis 4:10) More than anything, it is the prohibition against human sacrifice that reveals the unique nature of ancient Judaism.
It is also what separates the Bible from the traditions of the Vikings. The most sacred ceremony in ancient Scandinavia was the blót, in which sacrifices were carried out to appease the gods.[2] Many animals were slaughtered, with horses being particularly common. A vast quantity of blood was collected in bowls, into which the priest would dip a twig and then sprinkle the blood on the altar, the ground, and the people. This sounds almost like what Moses did with the ancient Israelites, but there is a key difference: the Vikings also sacrificed humans.
Throughout ancient northern Europe, people were much more comfortable with human slaughter than their southern, Christian neighbors. The Eurasian groups who moved further west into Europe during the Migration Period (events which inspired the Nibelungenlied) were reported to make drinking vessels out of the skulls of their defeated enemies, a practice that Christians, with their high respect for the human body, shunned. These non-Christian tribes were also known to dispose of their dead through burning, while Christians typically insisted on burial. And while murder was not an accepted practice in northern European societies, they often treated outsiders different from their own kind. There was nothing like the Christian notion of just war theory to keep Viking bands from plundering, raping, and killing their way across Europe. They slaughtered without moral compunction and considered it a glorious thing.
There were even dark rumors that the Scandinavians inflicted an especially gruesome punishment on wrongdoers. The victim would be lain on his stomach, and the ribs severed from his spine. The lungs would then be pulled through the openings and splayed in opposite directions to give the appearance of wings. It was said that they called it the blood eagle. Whether this ritual execution was ever performed, the stories about it reveal how most Christians regarded the peoples of the north: unusually savage and bent upon bloodshed, without compassion or morality.
The pages of the Nibelungenlied are likewise covered in blood, and while the tale takes place further to the south, in lands which were generally Christian, the influence of an earlier time is clearly seen in the extent of the slaughter—killing, we might almost say, for killing’s sake.
Slaughter in the Nibelungenlied
The Nibelungenlied is essentially divided into two halves. The first part describes Sivrit’s (Siegfried) coming to Burgundy, wooing of Kriemhilt (Kriemhild), and death at the hands of his former allies. The second part describes Kriemhilt’s marriage to King Etzel (Attila the Hun) and the journey of the Burgundians to the Hungarian Court, where nearly all the characters are killed in a mass slaughter. The second half is therefore where most of the violence occurs, but even the first half contains enough gore to please the ancient spectators at the Colosseum.
One of the first occasions of slaughter occurs in the recollected tale of Sivrit’s winning of the Nibelung treasure.
“Next Sivrit in his anger slew them with his hands, and he forced into submission seven hundred men of the land of the Nibelungs, with the good sword which was called Balmunc. Because of the mighty fear that great numbers of young warriors had of that sword and its bold bearer, they made the land and its castles subject to him. Moreover, he slew both the powerful kings…Then Sivrit, that fearsome fighter, became lord over the hoard. Those who had dared to fight there all lay slain.”[3]
Already, we see some elements that are not typical of courtly tales. Not only does Sivrit gain the treasure by killing numerous people, but he does so in anger. There is no sense of any moral qualms on the part of the hero as he hacks his opponents to bits. Repeatedly, we see variations of the word slay, a relative of the term slaughter. Sivrit kills not to save the lives of innocent people, but to win loot.
As Sivrit’s backstory is further related, we learn of his killing of a dragon. “I know yet more about him: that hero’s hands slew a dragon. He bathed in the blood—his skin turned horny. Therefore no sword can cut him, as has often been shown.”[4] Bathing in blood is not an activity in which medieval Christians participated, and yet here it is in the great medieval epic of the German people. The blood of another being grants Sivrit superhuman powers. Ancient societies tended to have such views about the blood of animals, which is likely part of the reason that consuming blood was prohibited in the Hebrew Scriptures. Sivrit’s comfort with blood is decidedly odd.
Equally disturbing as Sivrit’s blood lust is the violent misogyny that features strongly in the Nibelungenlied. On Gunther and Prunhilt’s wedding night, when Prunhilt is not receptive toward Gunther’s advances, he attempts to force himself upon her. “Then Gunther grew hostile towards her. He struggled for her love and tore her clothes apart.” [5] Luckily for Prunhilt, she is able to overcome him with her immense strength and tie him up with her girdle. Humiliated, Gunther convinces Sivrit to put on his invisibility cloak and act in Gunther’s place the following night, neutralizing Prunhilt’s strength so that she can be bedded. Sivrit does as requested, tricking Prunhilt into thinking he is Gunther, and things go a bit different this time around.
“Then she reached down to her side to the braid, intent on tying him up. His hand then prevented it with such strength that her limbs and all her body creaked. It was that which ended the battle—then she became Gunther’s wife. She said: ‘Noble king, you must let me live! I will make full amends for all that I have done to you. Never again shall I defy your noble love. I have found out for certain that you can be a lady’s master.’ Sivrit stood back as if he wanted to take off his clothes, leaving the maiden lying there. He took a golden ring off her finger, without the noble queen ever noticing it. He also took her girdle, a fine braid. I don’t know if he did that out of his high spirits. He gave it to his wife; that was to cost him dear in time to come.”[6]
The text does not spell out exactly what happens, perhaps because the Christian author was squeamish about it. In fact, Sivrit takes Prunhilt’s virginity, as symbolized by his theft of her ring and girdle. With one phrase—“her limbs and all her body creaked”—we see the violent reality of what is happening. He is forcing himself upon Prunhilt, taking things from her against her will and handing them to his own wife as trophies of his conquest.
Kriemhilt eventually reveals to Prunhilt that it was Sivrit who slept with her that night, setting off the tragic series of events that fill the rest of the book. Gunther and Hagen decide that Sivrit must die and, upon learning his secret weak point, have him slain in the forest. Kriemhilt then sets her mind upon revenge. Step one in her plan is marrying King Etzel, with whom she has a child. Step two is convincing the Burgundians to visit the Hungarian Court. Step three: slaughter them all.
The revenge plot unfolds over many chapters (or “adventures” as they are typically titled), and with every step that the Burgundians take toward Hungary, the reader’s blood pressure rises as the blood letting draws near. Even after the Burgundians arrive, there are multiple chapters worth of niceties to be got through and a series of false starts in which we think the slaughter will begin, but then something inevitably delays it. Then comes the moment when the red line is well and truly crossed. Hagen confronts King Etzel, Queen Kriemhilt, and their son Ortliep, and the result is the worst kind of spectacular. “Then Hagen, that worthy hero, dealt the child Ortliep such a blow that the blood shot back along the sword up to his hand, and the boy’s head flew into the queen’s lap. Grim and massive slaughter began then among those knights.”[7]
At one point, many of the Burgundians are trapped inside the great hall, which is filled with the corpses of many slaughtered warriors. In her rage, Kriemhilt orders it to be burned to the ground. This paves the way for a complete abandonment of societal norms.
“Then Hagen of Tronege said: ‘You noble, worthy knights, if any of you suffers pangs of thirst, let him drink the blood here. In such heat it is even better than wine. There is nothing else for it now.’ At that one of the warriors walked over to a corpse. He knelt by his wound; he unstrapped his helmet. He began drinking the flowing blood. Little though he was accustomed to it, he thought it excellent. ‘Now God reward you, Sir Hagen,’ said that weary man, ‘that I’ve drunk so well by your counsel. Seldom have I been poured out better wine.’”[8]
The drinking of human blood is something in which even the pre-Christian peoples of northern Europe are not known to have engaged, yet here it is in the Nibelungenlied. It is a clear attempt to shock the reader. The violence is not simply a feature of the story: it seems to be the main point, the reason people wanted to hear the story. For Greek tragedians and William Shakespeare gave us stories where nearly everyone dies, but what sets northern European tragedy apart is the delight it takes in breaking every norm of polite human behavior.
When all the Burgundians except for Gunther and Hagen are dead, Kriemhilt finally has the chance to take revenge on her two chief enemies.
“She gave the order that her brother [Gunther] be put to death. They struck off his head. Taking hold of it by his hair, she took it before the hero of Tronege. [Hagen] He was greatly grieved then…She said: ‘You have given me an ill reward, but I will at least keep Sivrit’s sword. My dearly beloved wore it when I last saw him, when my heart’s grief befell me by your doing.’ She drew it from the scabbard—Hagen could not prevent it. Then, intending on robbing the warrior of his life, she raised it in her hands. She struck off his head.”[9]
That a woman should engage in such violence would have been especially troubling to the medieval Christians who were the original audience for this work. Both the pre-Christian and medieval Christian societies in northern Europe tended to be highly misogynistic, but the pre-Christians did have some concept of women fighting in battle. The Christians had only a few cases of women in the Bible enacting justice upon God’s enemies, but here Kriemhilt slaughters a man who the text has labeled a hero.
An old man named Hildebrant, who is ostensibly on Kriemhilt’s side, witnesses the act and is terribly offended by her womanly presumption. In an instant, he turns against her. “Hildebrant leapt angrily at Kriemhilt. He dealt the queen a blow with a swing of his heavy sword. Hildebrant caused her woe indeed. How could it help her that she screamed out so grievously? Then all doomed to die there had fallen. The noble queen was hewn to pieces.”[10]
Thus, the Nibelungenlied ends with a slaughter of epic proportions, in which nearly all the characters are washed away in a tidal wave of blood. In this, the tale echoes its predecessors, the Volsunga Saga and Poetic Edda, to which we must turn next.
The Volsunga Saga and Poetic Edda
The parallel Scandinavian tales are equally awash with blood: dismemberment, decapitation, and even cannibalism. The authors delight in describing the slaughter.
In the Volsunga Saga, Sigurd (Sivrit) is the grandson of a Volsung hero called Sigmund, and we learn much of the family history. When Sigmund is a boy, he is attacked by a she-wolf who is actually a shapeshifting enemy. The wolf attempts to kill young Sigmund as she had already slain his brothers, but just before biting his face, she smells the taste of honey in the boy’s mouth and sticks her tongue inside it. “He did not lose his composure and bit into the wolf’s tongue. She jerked and pulled back hard, thrusting her feet against the trunk so that it split apart. But Sigmund held on so tightly that the wolf’s tongue was torn out by the roots, and that was her death.”[11] This story demonstrates the strength and even ruthlessness that is prized in the Volsung family.
Sigmund is later secretly bedded by his sister Signy as part of her plot to birth a superwarrior who can avenge the Volsung clan. So intent is Signy on this goal, she is willing to weed out any boy who fails the test of Volsung manhood. She sends her son to aid Sigmund as his companion, and when the boy proves unequal to the task, the result is harsh in the extreme.
“When brother and sister next met, Sigmund said that he thought himself no closer to having a companion, even though the boy was there with him. Signy answered: ‘Then take the boy and kill him. He need not live any longer.’ And so he did. The winter passed, and the next winter Signy sent her younger son to meet with Sigmund. This story, however, does not need to be recounted at length, for things happened in much the same way, with Sigmund killing the boy at Signy’s bidding.”[12]
As if this were not enough, Signy also applies her own test to the boys until she finds one who meets the exacting standard of manhood.
“Before sending her first sons to Sigmund, she had tested them by stitching the cuffs of their kirtles to their hands, passing the needle through both flesh and skin. They withstood the ordeal poorly and cried out in pain. She also did this to Sinfjotli; he did not flinch. Then she ripped the kirtle from him, so that the skin followed the sleeves. She said that it must certainly be painful for him. He replied: ‘Such pain would seem trifling to Volsung.’”[13]
No surprise: Sinfjotli is the one who will be a hero. That a mother should treat her sons in such a violent manner is utterly shocking and shows a notable lack of respect for human life and dignity. The strong are favored while the weak are slain. While the mythical language makes it seem less sinister, such logic is no different than that favored by the worst autocrats of the twentieth century, many of whom also rejected the teachings of Christianity.
Once Sigurd enters the tale, the blood really starts flowing. In one battle, “He hewed both men and horses and went through the ranks, so that both his arms were bloody to the shoulder.”[14] The same language is used again when Sigurd slays the dragon Fafnir. “And when the serpent crawled over the pit, Sigurd plunged the sword up under the left shoulder, so that it sank to the hilt. Then Sigurd leapt up out of the ditch, and drew the sword out of the serpent. His arms were all bloody to the shoulder.”[15]
One of the most striking elements of the Scandinavia Sagas is the description of Sigurd roasting and then eating the dragon’s heart. The Poetic Edda describes it thus.
“Sigurd took Fafnir’s heart and roasted it on a spit. And when he thought that it was done, and the juice was dripping out of the heart, he prodded it with his finger to see if it was done. He burnt himself and stuck his finger in his mouth. And when Fafnir’s heart-blood came on his tongue, he understood the speech of birds.”[16]
The birds warn Sigurd that Regin, a character standing nearby who happens to be the dragon’s brother (Yes, it’s complicated. Let’s just say there is a lot of magical shape-shifting happening.), intends to murder Sigurd. You can likely guess how the hero responded. “Sigurd cut off Regin’s head and then he ate Fafnir’s heart and drank the blood of both Regin and Fafnir.”[17]
Much later in the story, Gunnar (Gunther) and Hogni (Hagen) persuade a man named Guttorm to kill Sigurd, who by this point is married to Gudrun (Kriemhilt). They prepare a strange and magical stew to fill the assassin with violent intent.
“They took a snake and the flesh of a wolf and cooked them and gave this to him to eat, as the skald says: ‘Some took wood-fish / Some sliced a wolf’s carrion, / Some gave to Guttorm / The Wolf’s flesh / Mixed with ale.’ They used these and many other kinds of witchcraft. And with this nourishment and Grimhild’s persuasions and everything else, Guttorm became so violent and fierce that he promised to do the deed.”[18]
Guttorm enters the chamber where Sigurd and Gudrun are sleeping peacefully and seizes the opportunity to slay the great hero unawares. “Guttorm drew his sword and struck at Sigurd so that the blade stuck in the bed beneath him.”[19] Though the sword has pierced his heart, a fatal and treacherous blow, Sigurd has the strength to strike back at Guttorm.
“The battle-eager man sought revenge in the bedchamber
and then he hurled at the undaunted one,
at Guthorm, the powerful sword Gram;
the wonderfully bright iron flew from the king’s hand.
His enemy parted into two pieces;
arms and head dispatched in one direction
and the leg-half landed backwards.
Sleeping was Gudrun in bed,
quite carefree, next to Sigurd;
but she awoke far from joy
when she found herself swimming in her lover’s blood.”[20]
Thus, the reader is left once again, as with the Nibelungenlied, pondering the flow of blood. These are not sacrificial deaths meant to protect the innocent or lives taken in a battle over some point of moral principle. Treachery, bloodlust, revenge—these are the typical motivating factors in the slaughter of the northern European sagas.
Slaughter in Tolkien’s Legendarium
The fictional world created by J.R.R. Tolkien is as full of evils as our own. People wrong each other and seek vengeance. Villains slay with wild abandon, and even the heroes ride into battle eager to shed the blood of their foes. But it is not simply the body count that sets the tone for a literary work: it is also the way that violent deeds are interpreted. Here we will find the greatest difference between Tolkien and the pre-Christian authors who inspired him.
Tolkien’s saga begins with a perfect world in which slaughter is unknown. In a clear echo of the biblical tale of the Fall of Man, the lust for blood in Tolkien’s legendarium is introduced by spiritual beings who desire to usurp the powers of God and, after their fall from grace, seek to pervert the beings created in God’s image. Early on, we see a character of great brilliance, the Elf Fëanor, who though an enemy of Melkor (the Satan-like villain who tempts people to evil), is also quick to anger and hell bent upon revenge. When Melkor steals the Silmarils, a set of beautiful gems crafted by Fëanor, the Elf convinces his kin to swear an oath of blood that they will not rest until they have defeated Melkor and taken back the Silmarils. This sets in motion the main plot of The Silmarillion.
Whereas in the Nibelungenlied and the Nordic sagas, revenge is presented as morally ambiguous, Tolkien leaves the reader in no doubt that what Fëanor is doing is wrong. Almost as soon as they begin their pursuit of Melkor, Fëanor and his kin resort to stealing ships from the Teleri, another group of Elves. When the ship’s owners attempt to defend their property, it ends in bloodshed. “Then swords were drawn, and a bitter fight was fought upon the ships…Thus at last the Teleri were overcome, and a great part of their mariners that dwelt in Alqualondë were wickedly slain.”[21] This first shedding of blood between Elves feels very much like the biblical story of Cain and Abel, and as Cain received a judgment from on high, so do Fëanor and his allies.
“Ye have spilled the blood of your kindred unrighteously and have stained the land of Aman. For blood ye shall render blood, and beyond Aman ye shall dwell in Death’s shadow. For though Eru [God] appointed to you to die not in Eä, and no sickness may assail you, yet slain ye may be, and slain ye shall be: by weapon and by torment and by grief…”[22]
We see this prophecy fulfilled through the rest of the book, and perhaps nowhere more so than in the Nirnaeth Arnodediad, a great battle of Elves, Men, and Dwarves against the hosts of Melkor (now renamed Morgoth). It begins with the brutal execution of a prisoner.
“And they hewed off Gelmir’s hands and feet, and his head last, within sight of the Elves, and left him. By ill chance, at that place in the outworks stood Gwindor of Nargothrond, the brother of Gelmir. Now his wrath was kindled to madness, and he leapt forth on horseback, and many riders with him; and they pursued the heralds and slew them, and drove on deep into the main host.”[23]
Here we see an extreme act of slaughter creating a desperate desire for revenge. Gwindor is driven mad with wrath and assaults the enemy lines, not truly to defend the cause of good, but to make his enemies feel the force of his anger and pay back evil for evil. Tolkien reveals the folly of Gwindor’s bloodlust in what happens next: though they meet with some initial success, the heroes are soon beaten back, and the battle turns into a mass slaughter, as seen in incidents like the death of the great Elven king Finrod. “Then Gothmog hewed him with his black axe, and a white flame sprang up from the helm of Fingon as it was cloven. Thus fell the High King of the Noldor; and they beat him into the dust with their maces, and his banner, blue and silver, they trod into the mire of his blood.”[24]
The Men are not immune from the slaughter. We read that, “Huor fell pierced with a venomed arrow in his eye, and all the valiant Men of Hador were slain about him in a heap; and the Orcs hewed their heads and piled them as a mound of gold in the sunset.” But here we see people motivated by something other than simple revenge. The story focuses on a man named Húrin, who as he sees the forces of darkness closing in around him, refuses to give in to despair. Even as his death seems certain, he kills the orcs who assault him, declaring with each stroke his hope for a better future.
“Then he cast aside his shield, and wielded an axe two-handed; and it is sung that the axe smoked in the black blood of the troll-guard of Gothmog until it withered, and each time that he slew Húrin cried: ‘Aurë entuluva! Day shall come again!’ Seventy times he uttered that cry; but they took him at last alive, by the command of Morgoth, for the Orcs grappled him with their hands, which clung to him still though he hewed off their arms; and ever their numbers were renewed, until at last he fell buried beneath them.”[25]
Here amid the tremendous bloodletting, we see something that never appears in the Nibelungenlied or the other northern European sagas: a belief in something stronger than ill fate. For though the evil will of Morgoth has dealt them a slaughter of epic proportions, characters like Húrin place their hope in a higher providence and the belief that God’s good intent for the world will ultimately prevail.
Sadly, the Men in Tolkien’s saga do not always behave so admirably. Indeed, there is a later tale in which they engage in decidedly unChristian behavior, breaking a rule that is central to the Christian understanding of human dignity. Under the influence of the evil lord Sauron, the Men of a kingdom called Númenor, terrified of dying, make sacrifices to Melkor in the hope that it will allow them to live forever, trusting in Melkor’s sovereignty over God’s. Worst of all is what they choose to sacrifice.
“Thereafter the fire and smoke went up without ceasing; for the power of Sauron daily increased, and in that temple, with spilling of blood and torment and great wickedness, men made sacrifice to Melkor that he should release them from Death. And most often from among the Faithful they chose their victims…”[26]
The Faithful are those Men who have remained true to God. The evil Men of Númenor are engaging in human sacrifice, the sin of sins in the Hebrew Scriptures. Here Tolkien wants us to be shocked: to see this action as pagan rather than Christian. We see also that Sauron influences the people of Númenor toward senseless slaughter.
“And men took weapons in those days and slew one another for little cause; for they were become quick to anger, and Sauron, or those whom he had bound to himself, went about the land setting man against man, so that the people murmured against the King and the lords, or against any that had aught that they had not; and the men of power took cruel revenge.”[27]
Contrast this with one of the greatest battles in The Lord of the Rings. As the city of Minas-Tirith is under assault by Sauron’s forces, who seek to extend Sauron’s rule of darkness over all Middle-earth, King Théoden of Rohan arrives with his army of riders. Without question, Théoden seeks to slaughter the orcs and evil creatures before him, and at first glance, his terminology may not seem all that different from the bloodthirsty character of pre-Christian sagas.
“Arise, arise, Riders of Théoden!
Fell deeds awake: fire and slaughter!
spear shall be shaken, shield be splintered,
a sword-day, a red day, ere the sun rises!
Ride now, ride now! Ride to Gondor!”[28]
As the riders of Rohan collide with Sauron’s army from the dark land of Mordor, we read that, “the hosts of Mordor wailed, and terror took them, and they fled, and died, and the hoofs of wrath rode over them. And then all the host of Rohan burst into song, and they sang as they slew...”[29] But the wrath in this case is not created by a personal vendetta: Théoden and his people slay in defense of the innocent. They slay to defend their lands against an aggressive invader. They slay to proclaim the power of light over darkness. That is the difference.
Indeed, we see that the heroes of The Lord of the Rings are even willing to offer pardon to enemies who lay down their swords. After the host of Sauron is finally defeated later in the book and Aragorn is made king over Gondor, he offers clemency to groups of Men who were deceived by Sauron. “And the King pardoned the Easterlings that had given themselves up, and sent them away free, and he made peace with the peoples of Harad; and the slaves of Mordor he released and gave to them all the lands about Lake Núrnen to be their own.”[30] Never do we read of such a thing happening in the Nibelungenlied.
We see Tolkien’s emphasis on mercy in one of the most critical plotlines of The Lord of the Rings: the finding of the One Ring and the quest to destroy it. Bilbo Baggins first recovers the Ring by accident in the dark tunnels beneath the Misty Mountains. It had previously belonged to a foul creature named Gollum, who when he realizes Bilbo has stolen his “Precious,” seeks to gain it back by violence. Bilbo discovers just in time that the Ring makes its wearer invisible and is therefore able to follow Gollum through the network of tunnels in the direction of the exit. Then comes a moment of decision as Gollum stands in the way of Bilbo’s escape.
“He [Bilbo] was desperate. He must get away, out of this horrible darkness, while he had any strength left. He must fight. He must stab the foul thing, put its eyes out, kill it. It meant to kill him. No, not a fair fight. He was invisible now. Gollum had no sword, Gollum had not actually threatened to kill him, or tried to yet. And he was miserable, alone, lost. A sudden understanding, a pity mixed with horror, welled up in Bilbo’s heart: a glimpse of endless unmarked days without light or hope of betterment, hard stone, cold fish, sneaking and whispering. All these thoughts passed in a flash of a second. He trembled. And then quite suddenly in another flash, as if lifted by a new strength and resolve, he leaped.”[31]
Bilbo chooses to risk jumping over Gollum rather than killing him, a decision that proves fateful later in the story, for after Bilbo has grown old and passed on the Ring to his nephew, Frodo Baggins, Gollum is captured by Sauron and reveals the name Baggins to the enemy. When the wizard Gandalf informs Frodo of this fact, the poor hobbit is terrified.
FRODO: “O Gandalf, best of friends, what am I to do? For now I am really afraid. What am I to do? What a pity that Bilbo did not stab that vile creature, when he had a chance!”
GANDALF: “Pity? It was Pity that stayed his hand. Pity, and Mercy: not to strike without need. And he has been well rewarded, Frodo. Be sure that he took so little hurt from the evil, and escaped in the end, because he began his ownership of the Ring so. With Pity.”[32]
Pity. Mercy. These character traits are revered in Tolkien’s legendarium, but not in the northern European sagas that inspired it. In The Two Towers, Frodo and Sam are moving through a treacherous region near the land of Mordor, hoping to destroy the Ring in the fires of Mount Doom. There they capture Gollum, who has been trailing them for some time, ever lured by the power of the Ring. Part of Frodo still wants to kill Gollum, but he decides that the creature must not be harmed. “For now that I see him, I do pity him.”[33]
It is this act of pity that ultimately allows the Ring to be destroyed and Sauron to be defeated, for when he finally makes it to Mount Doom, Frodo is overcome by the temptation to claim the Ring for himself. It is only when Gollum tackles him, bites off his finger with the Ring still on it, and proceeds to fall accidentally into the abyss of lava below that the Ring is finally destroyed. Thus, we see the power of God working through pity and mercy to deliver an outcome that creaturely power could not have accomplished.
Therefore, the greatest difference between the Nibelungenlied, the Scandinavian sagas, and Tolkien’s legendarium is not how many people are slaughtered, but how that slaughter is presented.
If you’d like to read more Tolkien analysis with an Ent-sized portion of humor thrown in, please check out Jokien with Tolkien. It might just become precious to you. For more of Amy’s writing, visit Sub-Creations and see the works of her hands. Yes, that’s also a Tolkien reference.
[1] Hitchens, Christopher. God is not Great (New York: Twelve Books, 2007), 102.
[2] https://en.natmus.dk/historical-knowledge/denmark/prehistoric-period-until-1050-ad/the-viking-age/religion-magic-death-and-rituals/the-viking-blot-sacrifices/
[3] Anonymous. The Nibelungenlied (The Lay of the Nibelungs), trans. Cyril Edwards, Oxford World’s Classics edition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 13.
[4] Nibelungenlied, 14.
[5] Nibelungenlied, 61.
[6] Nibelungenlied, 65.
[7] Nibelungenlied, 178.
[8] Nibelungenlied, 191.
[9] Nibelungenlied, 213.
[10] Nibelungenlied, 214.
[11] Anonymous. The Saga of the Volsungs, trans. Jesse L. Byock, Penguin Classics edition (New York: Penguin, 1999), 41-2.
[12] Saga of the Volsungs, 42.
[13] Saga of the Volsungs, 43.
[14] Saga of the Volsungs, 62.
[15] Saga of the Volsungs, 63.
[16] Anonymous. The Poetic Edda, trans. Carolyne Larrington (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 159.
[17] Poetic Edda, 160.
[18] Saga of the Volsungs, 89-90.
[19] Saga of the Volsungs, 90.
[20] Poetic Edda, 180.
[21] Tolkien, J.R.R. The Silmarillion (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1999), 87.
[22] The Silmarillion, 88.
[23] The Silmarillion, 191.
[24] The Silmarillion, 194.
[25] The Silmarillion, 195.
[26] The Silmarillion, 273.
[27] The Silmarillion, 274.
[28] Tolkien, J.R.R. The Lord of the Rings, Single volume movie tie-in edition (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1994), 820.
[29] The Lord of the Rings, 820.
[30] The Lord of the Rings, 947.
[31] Tolkien, J.R.R. The Hobbit (New York: Ballantine, 1966), 92-3.
[32] The Lord of the Rings, 58.
[33] The Lord of the Rings, 601.