Customer Reviews

The House of the Wolfings

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Unfortunately, the description provided for this pioneering fantasy novel opens with the statement that "The House of the Wolfings" is one of the Icelandic sagas translated by William Morris and Eirkr Magnusson. (Note: this is the same William Morris responsible for poetry, tapestries, stained glass, furniture, fine printing of books, wallpaper designs, and preservationist and socialist agitation.) Whoever wrote the description seems to have been thinking of "Three Northern Love-Stories," "The Story of Sigurd the Volsung," and the great "Saga Library."

Would that it were so! A genuine Icelandic saga about the lives of the Goths in Roman times would be a real gem, no matter how little connection it had with antiquity. However, the closest we come to such a work is the variously named "Saga of Hervor" or "Saga of King Heidrek the Wise," one of the "legendary sagas" in which the sword named Tyrfing and a handful of allusions in poems reveal the original setting of parts of the story among the Goths (including the group known as "Tervingi") and Huns, on the European mainland. And some historical Gothic leaders wander into stories, mainly borrowed from German sources, most obviously Thidrek in the "Volsunga Saga" and "Thidrek's Saga" -- the Dietrich von Bern of the "Nibelungenlied" and other Middle High German stories. But these last seem to be literary borrowings; interesting, but as Goths not all that different from the Britons from Arthurian legend and the Russians from the Kiev Cycle who also appear (albeit less prominently) in the eclectic Thidrek collection.

"The House of the Wolfings" is Morris' own attempt to recreate the life of the Gothic tribes, in a style influenced by the sagas, but not imitating them. Originally published in 1888, it was followed the next year by the similar "Roots of the Mountains". Both give a romantic view of the Germanic tribes, filled with images of folk-solidarity and kin-loyalty. Morris' reconstruction, leaving aside the fantasy elements, is an interesting mixture of primitivism, early Marxist sociology, and a real (if not very sophisticated) study of early Germanic languages.

Even as Morris was writing, a similar mixture, but with the linguistic basis replaced by pseudo-biology, was being popularized by, among others, Wagner and his followers. It is important to keep the distinction between them clear. In Morris' fiction, the Goths are simple, honest, and hardworking homebodies, and the Romans are intruding imperialists. No glorification of conquest for conquest's sake here. Whether this is a realistic portrait is, of course, another matter.

It is Morris' imaginative effort at recreating a lost age which makes "The House of the Wolfings" a landmark in the development of fantasy literature, alongside the more purely imaginary realms and times of Morris' other prose romances. Those who enjoy his medievalizing prose and sometimes leisurely story-telling will find this book worth their time, and some readers regard it as a lost treasure. Those who enjoy fantasy, or Victorian literature, should definitely give it a try.

Those who may be doubtful about Morris' archaizing prose -- nothing nearly as elaborate as E.R. Eddison's, but neither typically Victorian nor modern -- may want to check for on-line versions of this, and some of his other romances, before deciding to buy. (I find reading on-line texts extremely wearing; so I am not suggesting relying on them.)

Those interested in the actual *history* of the Goths may want to look at a recent responsible popular account in Heather's "The Goths" in the "Peoples of Europe" series, and then at the nearly contemporary translation of Herwig Wolfram's massively documented and argumentative "History of the Goths" -- I have reviewed both. A full account, in English, of the Goths appearing in medieval literature (Theodoric / Dietrich / Thidrek, his vassal Hildebrand, and others) would be welcome; but "House of the Wolfings" belongs to Victorian England, not medieval Iceland.

(Reposted from my "anonymous" review of September 1, 2003.)