Sellic Spell

[bunn]

Tolkien Gateway says that the short story Sellic Spell is "re-creating the (lost) folk-tale underlying the Norse Hrólfs saga kraka" which was translated by one of Tolkien's students and over that translation, there seems to be some copyright dispute.

But my copy of Beowulf, A Translation and Commentary together with Sellic Spell says Sellic Spell is a retelling of Beowulf, and indeed, that's how I took it when I read it, because it seemed to be directly derived from the Beowulf story.

I get that both stories are operating in a similar sort of space, and I haven't read Hrólfs saga kraka in translation (or original!) but the Wikipedia entry for Hrólfs saga kraka doesn't sound very Beowulfy, whereas Sellic Spell does. And Christopher Tolkien says 'Beowulf' and Tolkien's note about it also says 'Beowulf'.

On the other hand, 'no, this really isn't a retelling of a source I've never read, you've got it wrong, I am the correct one!' is an order of correction of Tolkien Gateway that I don't normally undertake, as a very non-studious fanwriter who is simply in the process of stealing ideas from Sellic Spell to mung it up with The Hobbit.

Does anyone know any more about this? Why would TG think it was Hrólfs saga kraka ?

Comments

[anna_wing]

David Bratman is a very serious Tolkien scholar and is on DW as calimac, and I'm sure he'd have a view. Though he also for whatever reason hates fanfiction with a great and enduring hate.

I'd be curious too. When I read "Sellic Spell", I thought it was just a version of Beowulf too.

[sally_maria]

Quotes from the first edition of the History of the Hobbit, I don't know if anything changed in later editions:

"The original story is lost, but elements of it can be glimpsed from works it influenced, including both Beowulf and Hrolf Kraki's Saga. Underlying both the epic poem and the saga according to some theories is a folk-tale about a feral child raised by bears, the Bear's-Son Story. Tolkien himself was greatly interested in these speculations, and actually re-created the lost folktale in an unpublished short story, "Sellic Spell"*."

*Footnote, which says Tolkien sold Sellic Spell for publication to Gwyn Jones, a friend who had translated Hrolf Kraki's Saga, but the magazine ceased publication before it was printed, and the manuscript is in the Bodleian.

He doesn't say where he got that it was a re-writing of the the lost story from, though it does sound like a Tolkienian thing to do.

[sally_maria]

Sorry, too many comments...

So I'm not sure why they're asserting it's just underlying the Hrolf Kraki's saga, rather than both it and Beowulf, which seems to be the natural assumption.