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WAGNER and the VOLSUNGS None of Wagner’S Works Is More Closely Linked with Old Norse, and More Especially Old Icelandic, Culture

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WAGNER and the VOLSUNGS None of Wagner’S Works Is More Closely Linked with Old Norse, and More Especially Old Icelandic, Culture WAGNER AND THE VOLSUNGS None of Wagner’s works is more closely linked with Old Norse, and more especially Old Icelandic, culture. It would be carrying coals to Newcastle if I tried to go further into the significance of the incom- parable eddic poems. I will just mention that on my first visit to Iceland I was allowed to gaze on the actual manuscript, even to leaf through it . It is worth noting that Richard Wagner possessed in his library the same Icelandic–German dictionary that is still used today. His copy bears clear signs of use. This also bears witness to his search for the meaning and essence of the genuinely mythical, its very foundation. Wolfgang Wagner Introduction to the program of the production of the Ring in Reykjavik, 1994 Selma Gu›mundsdóttir, president of Richard-Wagner-Félagi› á Íslandi, pre- senting Wolfgang Wagner with a facsimile edition of the Codex Regius of the Poetic Edda on his eightieth birthday in Bayreuth, August 1999. Árni Björnsson Wagner and the Volsungs Icelandic Sources of Der Ring des Nibelungen Viking Society for Northern Research University College London 2003 © Árni Björnsson ISBN 978 0 903521 55 0 The cover illustration is of the eruption of Krafla, January 1981 (Photograph: Ómar Ragnarsson), and Wagner in 1871 (after an oil painting by Franz von Lenbach; cf. p. 51). Cover design by Augl‡singastofa Skaparans, Reykjavík. Printed by Short Run Press Limited, Exeter CONTENTS PREFACE ............................................................................................ 6 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................... 7 BRIEF BIOGRAPHY OF RICHARD WAGNER ............................ 17 CHRONOLOGY ............................................................................... 64 DEVELOPMENT OF GERMAN NATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS ..68 ICELANDIC STUDIES IN GERMANY .......................................... 81 THE MAKING OF THE RING ......................................................... 97 FROM DRAFT TO RING-CYCLE .................................................. 118 COMPARISON WITH SOURCES ................................................. 128 DAS RHEINGOLD .............................................................................. 130 DIE WALKÜRE.................................................................................... 155 SIEGFRIED .......................................................................................... 185 GÖTTERDÄMMERUNG .................................................................... 223 SUMMARY ..................................................................................... 275 EPILOGUE...................................................................................... 281 BOOKS REFERRED TO ................................................................ 282 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS ........................................................... 286 INDEX OF NAMES........................................................................ 291 PREFACE This volume contains a translation, made partly by Anna Yates and partly by Anthony Faulkes, of a revised version of my Icelandic book Wagner og Völsungar: Niflungahringurinn og íslenskar fornbók- menntir, published in Reykjavík in 2000 by Mál og menning, who have kindly made available the digital reproductions for the illustra- tions. The quotations in the original German from Wagner’s librettos and those from medieval sources, and many of the English transla- tions of them, have been added by Anthony Faulkes, who has also edited the entire book and is responsible for the layout. David Ashurst has read a proof and I am greatly obliged to him for his many correc- tions and suggestions for improvement of both style and content. I am grateful to the Richard Wagner Society of Iceland for first sug- gesting the idea of the work and commissioning it, to Dr Árni Tómas Ragnarsson for his help with the overall research project, particularly in the selection and preparation of the illustrations, and to Jóhann J. Ólafsson for various kinds of encouragement, advice and help. I would also like to thank Die Richard-Wagner-Stiftung in Bayreuth for assist- ance in locating books and documents, the Icelandic Ministry of Education and Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst for finan- cial support for the research involved, and Jónas Kristjánsson, formerly head of Stofnun Árna Magnússonar á Íslandi, who first proposed that the Viking Society should undertake the publication of this English edition. Á. B. May 2003 Note: Though all the Icelandic quotations have been translated into English, it may be helpful to state that in names, when given in their Icelandic form, the symbols fi (fl), ‹ (›) and ƒ are pronounced respectively like the letters th in English thin and then, and like German ö. INTRODUCTION I became especially attracted to the unusually rich pages of Mone’s investi- gations of these heroic legends, even though stricter scholars have criticized them as overly audacious. This drew me irresistibly to the nordic sources of these myths, and to the extent that it was possible without fluent knowledge of the Scandinavian languages, I now tried to get to know the Eddas, as well as the prose fragments comprising the basis for large parts of these legends. Viewed in the light of Mone’s comments, the Wälsunga saga exerted a decisive influence on the manner in which I began to form this material to my own purposes. The consciousness of the close primeval kinship of these old myths, which had been shaping within me for some time, thus gradually gained the power to create the dramatic forms which governed my subsequent works. My Life 1983, 343. Although the splendid type of Siegfried had long attracted me, it first enthralled my every thought when I had come to see it in its purest human shape, set free from every later wrappage. Now for the first time, also, did I recognise the possibility of making him the hero of a drama; a possibility that had not occurred to me while I only knew him from the medieval Nibelungenlied. A Communication to my Friends, 1851. The sources mentioned here, the Poetic and Prose Eddas and Vƒlsunga saga, all belong to Old Icelandic literature. It has long been known to scholars that Wagner made extensive use of the poems in the Poetic Edda along with Icelandic Heroic Sagas, and indeed he said so himself on various occasions (see p. 99 below). The name of his work as a whole — The Ring of the Nibelung — has, however, carried the unconscious implication that most of its material is derived from the well-known medieval German poem, Das Nibelungenlied. There is therefore a need to emphasise that Wagner’s main sources were originally written in Iceland in the thirteenth century, and preserved in Icelandic manuscripts until they were printed in mostly Swedish and Danish editions of the seventeenth century and later. Wagner’s own claim has now been confirmed by new and precise textual comparison. The conclusion is that about 80 per cent of the derived motifs are drawn exclusively from Icelandic literature, and only about 5 per cent exclusively from German literature, while about 15 per cent are common to Icelandic and German literature. Derived 8WAGNER AND THE VOLSUNGS motifs in Das Rheingold, Die Walküre and Siegfried are almost entirely drawn from Old Icelandic literature. Many motifs from Das Nibelungen- lied are found in the latter part of Götterdämmerung, but most of these also occur in fii›reks saga (an Old Norse prose saga based on medieval German sources that are now lost). But neither Das Nibelungenlied nor fii›reks saga has in it pagan gods, valkyries or norns, or any mention of the Twilight of the Gods. About Iceland Geologically, Iceland is one of the youngest countries on earth, created by undersea volcanic eruptions about 15 million years ago. These forces of nature are still at work, and the island is constantly evolving. Ice- land still is the only volcanic country in northern Europe, and volcanic activity there is frequent. It is worth recalling that the motif of magical flames around the sleeping valkyrie on her mountain top is very reminiscent of volcanic activity, while the Sleeping Beauty motif clearly belongs in a European forest. After the end of the Ice Age, the climate of Iceland was rather mild for several thousand years, and flora and fauna flourished undisturbed. When Scandinavian seafarers reached Iceland in the second half of the ninth century, having succeeded in building ships good enough to sail the north Atlantic, this virtually untouched island must have seemed a promising place to settle, with thriving vegetation, low-growing woods and plenty of fish and birds for food. But four centuries after the settlement of Iceland a cold period began, which continued with little abatement until around 1900. The average annual temperature dropped by 1–2˚ C. Such cooling of the climate would not have been crucial in more southerly regions, but in these northern latitudes it had drastic implications for vegetation and livestock, and hence for all human life on the island. The People of Iceland The Icelandic nation is also one of the youngest in the world (the North American and Australian immigrant populations are, of course, younger). Iceland lies about 800 km from Shetland, and about 1,500 km from the coast of Norway. In the late ninth century attempts to settle Iceland began in earnest. The settlers were largely from Scandi- navia, mainly south-west Norway, but there were also considerable INTRODUCTION 9 numbers from the northern isles of
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