From Beowulf to Dovakiin: Epic-Heroic Traditions in the Elder

Home , Beowulf (hero), Comitatus, Hilda Ellis Davidson, Housecarl, Mead hall

FROM BEOWULF TO DOVAKIIN: EPIC-HEROIC TRADITIONS IN THE ELDER

SCROLLS V: SKYRIM AND ITS NORSE AND ANGLO-SAXON ORIGINS

MARC R. MUSCHLER

Thesis Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts (English)

Acadia University Fall Graduation (2014)

This thesis by Marc Ryan Muschler was defended successfully in an oral examination on September 19, 2014.

The examining committee for this thesis was:

______Dr. Jeff Banks, Chair

______Dr. Cory Rushton, External Reader

______Dr. Herb Wyile on behalf of Dr. Jon Saklofske, Internal Reader

______Dr. Kevin Whetter, Thesis Supervisor

______Dr. Jon Eustace, Head of Department

I, Marc Ryan Muschler, grant permission to the University Librarian at Acadia University to reproduce, loan, or distribute copies of my thesis in microform, paper or electronic formats on a non-profits basis. I, however, retain the copyright in my thesis.

______Author

______Supervisor

______

Date

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Table of Contents

List of Figures……………………………………………………………………………. v

Abstract…………………………………………………………………………...... vi

Acknowledgements…………………………………………………………………...... vii

Introduction……………………………………………………………………………..... 1

Chapter One……………………………………………………………………………… 9

Chapter Two…………………………………………………………………………….. 35

Chapter Three…………………………………………………………………………… 62

Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………… 86

Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………. 88

List of Figures

Figure I: Dragonsreach…………………………………………………………………. 16

Figure II: Urnes Stave Church………………………………………………………….. 21

Figure III: Interior of Dragonsreach……………………………………………………. 23

Figure IV: Cross-sections of Viking-age buildings…………………………………….. 24

Figure V: Sovngarde Hall of Valour……………………………………………………. 47

Figure VI: Interior of Sovngarde, Mead Kegs………………………………………….. 49

Figure VII: Interior of Sovngarde, Roasting Meat……………………………………… 50

Abstract

This thesis provides an examination of the Norse and Anglo-Saxon literary and historical cultural connections that heavily influence gameplay in The Elder Scrolls V:

Skyrim. These influences ultimately encourage player participation in epic-heroic traditions reminiscent of those found in Northern European heroic poetry and demonstrate how game developers can utilize literary and historical sources to create an entertaining and engaging game space. The thesis is divided into three chapters which each interpret a different aspect of Skyrim gameplay in the context of their literary and historical antecedents. The first chapter looks at the connection between Anglo-Saxon mead halls and those found in Skyrim, particularly the socio-political role it plays both in literature and gameplay. The second chapter discusses the concept of the afterlife in

Norse and Nordic culture, illustrating the similarities between the two religions and how their ideals ultimately impact player behavior throughout major quest lines. The third chapter focuses on dragons within Skyrim and their connection to the northern heroic image, ultimately demonstrating the important role they play both in Anglo-Saxon and

Norse literature as well as Skyrim.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank all of my friends and family for their unwavering support in my academic pursuits over the last several years. My gratitude goes out in particular to the Acadia English Society, who have kept my pretentiousness thoroughly in check during my time as an honours and master’s student and who have encouraged me to immerse myself in all things literary and explore all of my academic passions.

I would also like to thank my supervisor, Dr. Kevin Whetter for supporting me throughout both my honour’s and master’s degrees. His passion for mediaeval literature is one of the primary reasons why my interest in the field has developed over the last several years, and I am entirely grateful to have had such a wonderful tutor and friend.

I am indebted to a number of other faculty members of both the English and

History departments who have been of immense help in nearly every facet of my academic career at Acadia. A particularly warm thanks goes out to the Department

Secretary, Christine Kendrick, who has moved mountains to help myself and many other students.

Lastly, a very heartfelt thank you goes out to my friend, Matthew Kohlenberg, to whom this thesis is dedicated. Whether you’re in Sovngarde, Valhalla, or elsewhere, you’re certainly missed here.

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Introduction

In the last several decades, video games have taken on a significant role in mass media storytelling and culture. While traditional narrative media are still very relevant and popular globally, video games afford the developer and the player the ability to create, visualize, and, most importantly, directly interact with narrative universes. For example, while J. R. R. Tolkien’s literary narratives remain popular and influential, his imagined worlds have been significantly extended and revitalized through online role-playing games. Video games such as The Lord of the Rings Online afford players the ability to interact directly with and change the outcome of events in Middle-earth. This type of interaction, in which the reader or player engages with a wholly developed, consistent fantasy narrative, is precisely what Tolkien argues in his essay “On Fairy-Stories” to be the essence of fairy-story and what most modern readers recognize as heroic and fantasy literature. Tolkien was not discussing video game narratives, but the experience of faërie which he advocated for traditional fairy literature is even more possible in such an interactive environment.

One of the important elements that Tolkien valued in stories and storytelling is the sense of literary depth, what in “On Fairy-Stories” he refers to as the “Pot of Soup” or

“Cauldron of Story” from which new authors or storytellers take their traditional stock

(Tolkien 27). As a fantasy narrative, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim clearly illustrates the ways in which a new storyteller or game designer might use the motifs from the Cauldron of Story. Skyrim further illustrates that video games can be artifacts worthy of academic exploration and analysis due to the Anglo-Saxon and Norse historical and literary tropes that are an important part of its gameplay. Initially released in November 2011, Skyrim is one of the most significant roleplaying games of the last decade. While the bare bones of this thesis emerged out of a desire to highlight the knowing echoes of mediaeval

Germanic culture in Skyrim, one of the most significant revelations came in the form of an essay produced by prominent mediaevalist and Tolkien scholar T. A. Shippey. At the core of Shippey’s recent essay “The Undeveloped Image: Anglo-Saxon in Popular

Consciousness from Turner to Tolkien” is the argument that the literary and historical culture of Anglo-Saxon England is nearly non-existent and therefore irrelevant to modern narrative media. Shippey is a noted scholar, and since the article’s original release in

2000 the Cambridge University Press has reprinted it online in 2009, furthering its impact on contemporary academic impressions of Anglo-Saxon studies and the relevance of

Anglo-Saxon ideology within a popular culture context.

I contend that this impression of the limited relevance of Anglo-Saxon historical and literary culture is incorrect. Video games such as The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim show the relevance and persistence of Anglo-Saxon and Norse literary and historical culture in popular media, which results in a more developed image of video games as a powerful story-telling medium.

Shippey’s article raises a question about the topic of relevancy: namely, how does one determine what is or is not relevant? He argues that Anglo-Saxon history and

2 literature is no longer relevant within academia and the humanities in general. However, what Shippey fails to recognize is the relationship between academic relevance and popular culture, from which everyone (regardless of profession) derives significant amounts of meaning. That is why the exploration of the Anglo-Saxon and Norse ideas in

Skyrim is relevant to academic inquiry: the prominent use of these themes and tropes is indicative of a greater interest in the “relevancy” of material within popular culture. This is demonstrated by the emergence of similar concepts in television shows such as Vikings or Game of Thrones, as well as their popular use within the gaming industry as a whole.

Further, the developers’ of Skyrim demonstrate an attention to detail and significant use of primary source material that circumvents a tradition of ignorant inheritance, resulting in a product which resembles current narrative and gaming trends, but which actually features a careful renewal of the mediaeval roots of many of our all- too-familiar narrative tropes. These efforts to create a game space so heavily inundated by Anglo-Saxon and Norse historical and literary culture ultimately directs the player’s behavior towards epic heroic ideals, perpetuating a specific image of heroism reminiscent of Beowulf or Sigurd.

In order to demonstrate this learned and source-specific approach to game and character creation, this thesis will provide an in-depth analysis of the parallels that exist between specific aspects of the Skyrim game space and the mediaeval primary sources that the developers used in the creation of Skyrim. In doing so, it will also demonstrate how these Norse and Anglo-Saxon elements, be they literary, architectural, or historical, ultimately influence the actions and behavior of the player in order to fulfill a specific heroic archetype.

From a theoretical perspective, this thesis will make use of source study as a means of highlighting the various aspects of Anglo-Saxon and Norse literary and historical culture that are found throughout the Skyrim game space. What I see as the developers’ pervasive use of Anglo-Saxon and Norse primary sources suggests that it is fruitful to examine Skyrim within the context of a source study because source study allows for the in-depth analysis of the intricate details for which Skyrim is so well known. The concept relates directly to T. S. Eliot’s essay entitled “Tradition and the Individual Talent,” in which Eliot argues that it is critical to understand a poet (or, in this case, a game developer or author) within the context of the people and sources that have a direct influence on their own work (49-53). In the case of Skyrim, many of these sources are

Anglo-Saxon and Norse texts that are utilized in the development of a fantasy narrative.

This approach will serve the dual purpose of demonstrating that Shippey is mistaken in his contentions regarding the relevance of Anglo-Saxon culture within popular media and illustrate the developers’ deliberate use of primary source material in the creation of Skyrim in order to create an environment that is historically interesting and influences player behavior.

Mediaevalists commonly make use of source study within their own research. The benefits of source study are discussed by critics such as R. M. Lumiansky and Ralph

Norris, who both argue that the detailed analysis of a text for source-based inquiry is an essential aspect of academic study which allows the reader to gain insight into the origins and meaning of a particular body of work. For instance, Lumiansky discusses source study in reference to Malory’s Le Morte Darthur, arguing that

Once a student can believe – as a result of factual comparison – that Malory used

the alliterative Morte Arthure as a source for his “Tale of King Arthur and the

Emperor Lucius,” he can then examine Malory’s handling of this source with an

eye for patterns which Malory intended (Lumiansky 5).

It is important to understand the link that exists between, say, Malory’s aforementioned tale and the alliterative Morte Arthure because it has a great impact on our perception of both texts within the greater context of Arthuriana in general. Most importantly, understanding the relevant pieces of the sources allows one to trace what is similar and different in the new text, and thus trace the new author’s artistry and themes. He also suggests that the “first essential in source study is . . . the comparison of one piece of writing with an earlier piece; from such comparison the scholar concerned may maintain that the author of the later piece used the earlier piece as source” (Lumiansky 5). Having established the “new fact” of such a source, the source scholar then considers the similarities and differences between the two texts, thereby increasing our understanding of the meaning, “theme and structure” of the borrowed material in its new narrative or, for my purposes, even new medium (Lumiansky 6). Like Lumiansky, I believe that

“when a scholar establishes this kind of probable source relationship . . . [she or] he has added a new fact in the field of literary history” (Lumiansky 5). There exist deliberate connections between Anglo-Saxon and Norse primary source material and aspects of

Skyrim integral to the overarching plot and gameplay as a whole. This is quite relevant in regards to a statement made by Norris, who argues that, “source study has also been of essential practical use in the case of Malory’s work in helping establish even the text that ought to be read” (Norris 5).

The argument that source study is a necessary aspect of determining the critical importance of texts is heavily related to discussion of game studies within a mediaeval context because, within my experience, the critical field of game studies does not receive the amount of recognition and attention it deserves. The continued relevance of articles such as Shippey’s stand in testament to this fact: there is the potential for a significant amount of exchange between the fields of mediaeval and game studies that goes undocumented or unacknowledged, and hopefully a source study such as the one which I propose helps to highlight why it is important to pursue such lines of inquiry and analysis.

The thesis proper consists of three chapters, each one highlighting a different element of Skyrim that sufficiently parallels Anglo-Saxon and Norse literary and historical cultures. Chapter One is primarily concerned with the mead hall structure and how it operates in-game as both a centre of socio-political power and as a statement of honour and glory, two concepts central to Anglo-Saxon and Norse heroism. Building off of discussions by Stephen Pollington and other critics, I attempt to bridge the similarities that exist between the mead hall of Beowulf and those we understand through archaeological and material culture evidence. This culminates in a discussion of how these ideas are consolidated within Skyrim in the form of mead halls such as

Dragonsreach, ultimately demonstrating how developers make use of specific Anglo-

Saxon and Norse material in order to create significant centres of gameplay that emulate historical and literary tropes which are central to character development. To further

6 reinforce this point, I delve into the player-NPC1 and NPC-NPC dynamics that exist within the game space and comment on historically accurate understandings of the lord- retainer relationship, an ideological concept central to Anglo-Saxon and Norse society which plays an important role in character development for many Anglo-Saxon heroes.

This is done within the theoretical context of J. R. R. Tolkien’s conceptualization of a successful fantasy narrative in his essay “On Fairy-Stories” in order to explore the logic behind the developers’ choice to make deliberate use of Norse and Anglo-Saxon source material.

Chapter Two delves into the mythology of Skyrim and the parallels that exist between the Norse and Nordic pantheons, including the similarities that are found between both major and minor mythological figures and undead villains. There is a particular focus on the Norse god Odin and his Nordic counterpart, Shor, in which I highlight the multiple ways the developers have attempted to emulate the famous Norse god’s traits and actions through their own mythology. This chapter also discusses the similarities that exist between Norse and Nordic conceptualizations of the afterlife in

Valhalla and Sovngarde and how the player engages with the fabled hall of heroes firsthand. The afterlife plays a crucial role in the main quest line of Skyrim and has a significant influence on character progression and development; therefore, it is crucial to understand the connections that exist between the Norse and Nordic locations and how the player engages with both environments in a similar way. In the context of the afterlife, this chapter also touches on the draugr villain that is prominent within Skyrim and how it operates as a representation of the developers’ interest in utilizing primary

1 Please note that “NPC” refers to non-playable character, a figure programmed within the game that is not controlled by a player. 7 source material in order to encourage the player to participate in an inherently Northern

European epic-heroic tradition.

Chapter Three of the thesis looks at the relationship that exists between two central aspects of gameplay in Skyrim: dragons and the conceptualization of Anglo-Saxon and Norse heroism in the game. One of, if not the most prominent aspects of gameplay is the storyline that centres around the player’s role as “Dragonborn,” a mortal with the soul of a dragon who can use that power for selfish or selfless reasons. This chapter accordingly investigates the importance of dragons within Norse and Anglo-Saxon literary culture and why they are perceived in such a prominent but destructive light. This culminates in an investigation of the similarities between Germanic conceptualizations of dragons and those within Skyrim and the important relationship that exists between dragon and player within the game space.

Overall, this thesis will demonstrate how game developers effectively utilize specific historical and literary sources in order to create a fascinating and engaging landscape which impacts player behavior. Additionally, it will disprove Shippey’s argument that Anglo-Saxon literary and historical culture is irrelevant within a contemporary context, most notably through the developer’s deliberate use of primary source material from Anglo-Saxon England.

Chapter I: The Construction of Fantasy, Nordic Architecture, and their Anglo-

Saxon and Norse Literary and Historical Antecedents

On December 12, 2013, The Examiner dubbed The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim the best game of the generation, with multiple reviewers citing its massive scale and attention to detail as a few of the many reasons why “Skyrim is the deepest game of this generation”

(Ruygrok, “Examiner.com crowns ‘The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim’ as Game of the

Generation”). As a body of work, Skyrim2 represents the capabilities of the video game industry to produce games that are exciting and entertaining, but it also utilizes significant historical and literary sources in order to influence player behavior and engagement. Many other critics have similarly noted Skyrim’s level of fun and entertainment: IGN, one of the most significant online communities related to the discussion and evaluation of video games, ranks Skyrim 9.5 / 10 ‘Amazing’ (IGN) and as the seventh best RPG (role-playing game) of all time on IGN’s “Top 100 RPGS of All

Time” list (IGN). Game reviewer Charles Onyett suggests that Skyrim is “one of the most fully-realized, easily enjoyable, and utterly engrossing role-playing games ever made”

(Onyett, “Say Goodbye to Real Life”).

For myself, as both an avid gamer and an academic, the positive reception of

Skyrim in popular culture is interesting because of the Anglo-Saxon historical and literary

2 Please note that the italicized use of Skyrim refers to the game itself, while any instances of use otherwise refers to the geographical region. 9 paradigms which exist throughout the narrative space. The developer’s use of Anglo-

Saxon source material in the development of Skyrim stands in testament to the inaccuracy of statements made in scholar T. A. Shippey’s paper, “The Undeveloped Image: Anglo-

Saxon in Popular Consciousness from Turner to Tolkien.” Shippey suggests that Anglo-

Saxon literature and history are essentially non-existent within the contemporary popular consciousness:

Within academia, especially American academia, ‘marginal’ may well be a fair

description. Outside academia one might feel that ‘non-existent’ or perhaps

‘invisible’ would be more truthful: Anglo-Saxon history and Anglo-Saxon

England, in so far as there is any popular awareness of them at all, are in

suggestive ways regularly taken as being not ‘marginal’ so much as ‘off the page.’

(Shippey 215-6)

If Shippey is correct in his assessment of the non-existence of Anglo-Saxon literature and history within popular culture, how and why can Anglo-Saxon tropes be used so effectively within Skyrim to develop an engaging fantasy narrative? The main answer is appeal. The appeal of such a timeline and frame of reference is understandable from the perspective of both the developer and the player: Anglo-Saxon and Norse value systems appeal to the combat-oriented aspects of typical RPG gameplay (as will be seen later in the thesis) and provide a cultural backdrop that is relatable through its iconography yet far enough removed from our own sensibilities to operate successfully as a fantasy culture and narrative.

On the topic of fantasy narrative construction, J. R. R. Tolkien’s essay “On Fairy-

Stories” offers a number of convincing arguments that relate to aspects of the Skyrim

10 development team’s use of primary source material. Tolkien argues that an essential aspect of fantasy is that it contains not only fictional components, including magic and races, elves and dwarves, but that these concepts exist in association with humanity, within an environment both relatable and comprehendible, thereby allowing the reader or player to engage more readily with the narrative. Tolkien calls this human element

“recovery” (57), a narrative experience or effect whereby fairy stories allow the reader or player to gain an external perspective from which to review his or her place within the world. This idea is most effective if the world is removed from our own, yet still retains a number of relatable planes that place the reader or player in a familiar (yet foreign) position. Therefore, Skyrim’s developers’ use of specific historical, literary, and socio- political sources from the Anglo-Saxon and Norse periods is highly significant in the establishment of an overarching narrative that resembles our own world and therefore makes some of the developers’ creations, such as the race of the Nords – the game’s focal group, who are imagined as being of Northern Europe descent - a relatable element of the game. These relatable elements cement certain cultural tropes and ideals within the overarching game narrative and impact the player’s experience substantially, as will be seen as the thesis progresses.

An analysis of the sources the developers make use of in the creation of Skyrim reveals that mediaeval material culture and socio-political concerns are among some of the most dominant tropes within the game space. A source study of Skyrim helps to bring to light these literary and material sources and the effect they have in contributing to the game’s sense of narrative and historicity. I am employing source study both in its common sense of a quest for narrative sources, but also in a broader sense of discerning

11 historical or material sources. It is these latter materials with which I am particularly concerned in this chapter, though the nature of the evidence requires some literary analysis as well.

Before delving into this subject in relation to Skyrim, the term “material culture” must be fully fleshed out within the context of a literary and historical lens. Nadine Pence

Frantz defines material culture as “the physical, material objects that cultures create and use in the course of common life” (Frantz 791). Similarly, Maren Hyer and Gale Owen-

Crocker define the term as “the aspect of human life that centres on the creation and use of objects – the things that make up the everyday as well as the symbolic items used by the people in a given society” (Hyer & Owen-Crocker 2). In essence, material culture refers to a culture’s landscape, buildings, and physical objects, and the study of such materials enables scholars to discern information about social conventions and rituals, improving our understanding of a particular culture as a whole. In the context of Anglo-

Saxon and Norse studies, material culture has a very significant place within scholarship because a large portion of our understanding of the system of the lord-retainer relationship (for example), comes from our understanding of the mead hall, one of the most iconic buildings in Northern European literature and history.

The mead hall is more than merely a pre-Norman timber structure in Anglo-Saxon and

Norse history. It represents the significant epic-heroic conventions that were fundamental to the structure of Northern European society; it also functions as a location central both to the settlement and governance of early English kingdoms. Texts such as Beowulf, which have “the best documented hall from contemporary literature” in the form of

Hrothgar’s building Heorot (Pollington 101), are essential to our understanding of the

12 mead hall as a centre of socio-political power within a community. F. M. Stenton argues that, “there is no doubt that this literature represented real life” (Stenton 302); therefore

Anglo-Saxon literary sources are essential to our understanding of the mead hall from a literary, historical, and cultural perspective. The developers of Skyrim make significant use of the mead hall both as a cultural object and as a socio-political venue. In fact, all nine of Skyrim’s holds (i.e. the governing cities for specific regions) make use of mead halls both in the historical Anglo-Saxon and Norse sense and as symbols of epic-heroic convention and power as seen in texts such as Beowulf3. These halls operate as points of reference for the player and reinforce the Northern European epic-heroic conventions which dominate the game through the relationship that exists between questing and the mead hall environment. The mead hall has an implicit effect on the player’s engagement with quests and NPCs throughout the game, operating as a focal point for activity in the various holds of Skyrim. This effect relates to Tolkien’s idea that material objects help evoke the player’s sense of identity within an engaging fantasy narrative, in which the player is more apt to engage with different aspects of the narrative based on the setting and environment. Because of this historical and literary precedence, Skyrim’s mead halls are recognized as important structures within the game space and thus have a fundamental impact on player behavior because they direct the player’s movements and opportunities for adventure.

Mead halls function as physical indications of the wealth and reputation of their lord. In his aptly named book-length study The Mead Hall, Stephen Pollington claims

3 The word “hold” derives from the Old English word heall and heald. According to the Bosworth-Toller Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, heall is defined as a “a hall, residence” and heald means “hold, guardsmanship, protection, rule.” This is yet another example of the developers’ attention to detail and the explicit use of Anglo-Saxon and Norse sources. 13 that “the window of the hall is a window into early English society” (Pollington 17). The difficulty with studying Anglo-Saxon and Norse culture is that comparatively little in the way of architecture or literature survives from these periods. Therefore the existing material is of the utmost importance to our understanding of these cultures as a whole.

The scop’s4 description of Hrothgar’s Hall in Beowulf is, as previously mentioned, one of the most iconic and useful descriptions available:

So his mind turned to

hall-building: he handed down orders

for men to work on a great mead-hall

meant to be a wonder of the world forever;

it would be his throne-room and there he would dispense

his God-given goods to young and old –

but not the common land or people’s lives.

Far and wide through the world, I have heard,

orders for work to adorn that wallstead

were sent to many people. And soon it stood there

finished and ready, in full view,

that hall of halls. Heorot was the name

he had settled on it, whose utterance was law.

Nor did he renege, but doled out rings

and torques at the table. The hall towered,

its gables wide and high and awaiting

4 Defined by the Bosworth-Toller Anglo-Saxon dictionary as “a poet.” “Scop.” The Bosworth-Toller Anglo-Saxon Dictionary. Web. 21 Sept. 2014. 14

a barbarous burning. That doom abided,

but in time it would come: the killer instinct

unleashed among in-laws, the blood-lust rampant.

(Beowulf 64-85)

This passage demonstrates the multi-layered significance of the mead hall as a geographic location and a symbol of power. The building functions as a centre of government for Anglo-Saxon and Norse kings. At the same time, the grandeur and prestige of the building denotes the power of the ruler; therefore King Hrothgar’s concern with making Heorot the greatest mead hall ever constructed is as much an assertion of power as it is a statement of heroism and ability. This is seen most notably through the poet’s description of the hall as both “a great mead-hall” and a “throne room,” out of which Hrothgar dispenses gifts to his retainers, enforces laws within his kingdom and oversees the daily activity of the community immediately surrounding Heorot. Overall, the passage demonstrates a marked interest in power and reputation: two traits significant in nearly every facet of Anglo-Saxon and Norse society.

The mead halls in Skyrim parallel those of Beowulf in size, architecture and socio- political implications. One of the most significant mead halls in Skyrim is found in

Whiterun hold and is known as Dragonsreach.

Figure I: Dragonsreach, a mead hall in Skyrim

As Figure I clearly indicates, when designing Dragonsreach the developers obviously had in mind notions of power and reputation similar to those that consume Hrothgar in his construction of Heorot as well as other monumental forms of archtiecture. The Elder

Scrolls Wiki5 entry on Dragonsreach demonstrates a marked concern not only with the history of the Nords of Skyrim, but of distinct themes of tradition and honour which permeate both the world of Skyrim and Anglo-Saxon literature:

It was constructed in the ornate wooden style of the great Nord longhouses of

ancient days. Visually and politically, it is very much the focal point of the entire

city itself and perhaps even Skyrim as a whole. As is true of the keeps in other

cities, Dragonsreach serves many important functions. As the seat of government

in Whiterun, Jarl Balgruuf the Greater resides here as its ruler. Dragonsreach is

5 The Elder Scrolls Wiki is a fan-made encyclopedia of knowledge for all matters related to The Elder Scrolls universe. With over twenty-six thousand pages separate entries on various topics it is the best source of information for any of The Elder Scrolls games outside of the immediate game space. 16

situated in the “Cloud District” of Whiterun and, as the name suggests, it is

elevated from the rest of the city. According to the Jarl’s steward, Proventus

Avenicci, the building gained its name after a battle with a dragon that left the

victorious party as “rulers of the clouds.” (Elder Scrolls Wiki, “Dragonsreach”)

Dragonsreach has a long and significant history that explains why the structure is so large. The extensive addition (the discernibly larger structure at the back of the building) was constructed in an attempt to trap a dragon during a conflict with the Dragon race outside of the player’s timeline and serves as a backdrop that adds historicity and power to this particular location. The significance of dragons within Skyrim will be discussed later in the thesis, but for now it is necessary to know that to capture a dragon within

Dragonsreach is a powerful feat that honoured Whiterun as a hold and King Olaf One-

Eye (who responsible for capturing the dragon) and his lineage for many years to come.

Indeed, Jarl Balgruuf the Greater (a major character in Skyrim’s main quest line) is a direct descendant of King Olaf, which demonstrates the significance of lineal ties and blood rights to the throne. These lineal affiliations parallel those of both Anglo-Saxon and Norse positions of power, in which an individual was thought to be a great leader or hero if his or her heredity reinforced his or her own reputation. This cultural convention can be seen prominently in Beowulf with Hrothgar’s warm greeting of Beowulf into his

Hall. Crucially, his respect for the warrior is partly based on Beowulf’s heritage and his father’s prominence, which Hrothgar describes during their first encounter:

I used to know him when he was a young boy.

His father before him was called Ecgtheow.

Hrethel the Geat gave Ecgtheow

his daughter in marriage. This man is their son,

here to follow up an old friendship.

(Beowulf 372-6)

One of the most interesting scenes in Beowulf occurs when Wulfgar assesses

Beowulf’s character. Not only does this give us insight into the role of retainers within a mead hall, but it also demonstrates to those in attendance at Hrothgar’s court that

Beowulf is worthy of an audience with the lord, thereby speaking to Beowulf’s heroic character as a protagonist. When players initiate the main quest line of Skyrim, named

“Dragonborn Rising,” they must similarly make their way to Dragonsreach in order to deliver news of an impending dragon attack to the Jarl. Upon entering the mead hall, the

Jarl’s housecarl Irileth will approach the player and likewise assess the protagonist. This is important because this assessment or challenge parallels that which transpires in

Beowulf, therefore mimicking the adjudicating process which ultimately increases the protagonist’s value as a heroic character. This process entrenches the player within the social-political dynamics of the mead hall, initiating him or her into the Nordic customs that they will follow with many other NPCs throughout the game.

Skyrim’s developers include a number of intricacies within the dynamic of the mead hall to frame it as a focal point of the game as a whole. The player initiates gameplay by travelling to the mead hall of a distinctive region where he or she encounters a number of quest givers who play major roles in the overarching fantasy narrative. By initiating the first quests through the necessity of travelling to

Dragonsreach, the developers make it very clear that the player can travel to any hold and encounter similar quests if he or she seeks out the mead hall of those regions. Much like

18 the mead halls of Anglo-Saxon and Norse literature, a protagonist can enter a Hall and almost always expect some sort of quest or conflict which needs resolution. The Hall thus provides a location for adventure6, a point of initiation for the hero that dictates player movement throughout the game space. The inclusion of such points of reference in the game is important for player engagement and development because they offer the opportunity to seek out stories in which the player can actively participate. Will

Hindmarch believes this is a crucial aspect of player development, arguing that “stories that develop over the course of gameplay are personally exciting and meaningful in a way that movies and novels aren’t, but they achieve this level of personal meaning at the expense of secondhand meaning.” (Hindmarch 52) In this way, the mead hall is a protagonist-centric construct which allows players to delve into the excitement of gameplay throughout the course of the game. At the same time, the mead hall is an echo of mediaeval culture that provides the player with an understanding of mediaeval history and culture with a host of intertextual references and themes.

Another crucial aspect of the game developers’ construction of fantasy narrative is the relatability of certain aspects of our world within the game space. Tolkien’s sentiments regarding the nature of Faërie were discussed previously and his argument can be applied to Skyrim fruitfully. Tolkien’s construction of Middle-earth with its thinly disguised references to mediaeval history is a great example of one way that storytellers add an element of realism and identification to their narrative. By placing Middle-earth within the greater trajectory of English myth and history, Tolkien bridges the gap between the cultural history of the two regions which allows for the exchange of ideas

6 The hero’s call to adventure is a standard component of heroic literature and of its modern critics. See especially Campbell, Bowra, and de Vries for a significant examination of this subject. 19 between these two planes. Where epic-heroic convention is essential to the everyday life of heroes in The Lord of the Rings, it is equally significant in the lives of the readers who can understand such ideals within the context of their own world. Norse architecture dominates the game space, but mead halls are one of the most important indicators of the

Anglo-Saxon elements of architecture within the game because they are some of the most accurately rendered aspects of real-world relatability in Skyrim. Rosedahl goes into great detail about Norse architecture and some of its most iconic elements:

The exterior of houses was determined by the materials and method of

construction, but the houses of the nobility were distinguished by size, elegant

form and good craftsmanship. They probably also had splendid carvings and

painted decoration in brilliant colours on parts of the exterior like the remains of

early wooden churches, sometimes re-used, such as Urnes Church in western

Norway, Hemse in Gotland, and Hørning Church in north-east Jutland. Secular

buildings were no doubt just as grand (Rosedahl 43).

Although, as just argued, Dragonsreach has thematic and ideological associations with

Anglo-Saxon literature and culture, Rosedahl’s description makes clear that the architectural layout pictured in Figure I is equally typical of historical Norse buildings, thus clearly connecting common Norse material practices with those found throughout

Skyrim.

Pictured previously was Dragonsreach, easily one of the most iconic mead halls in the Skyrim game space. Pictured below is Urnes Stave Church of Norway, built around

1130 at the height of Viking power in Norway and during the early stages of Christian expansion into the region:

Figure II: Urnes Stave Church

There are obvious and immediate parallels between the architecture of Urnes Stave

Church and Dragonsreach. Both buildings feature rising, prominent rooftops which peak at severe angles with multiple levels. The thatched roofs are similar, and the wood used in construction appears to be of similar tone as well. One of the most striking similarities between the two buildings is the peaking roofs, which seem to be leveled in the same fashion. Helen Clarke and Björn Ambrosiani’s comprehensive study of Viking Age towns and building types makes an in-depth analysis of a number of Norse buildings that are paramount to our understanding of Viking architectural techniques. Through looking at the remains of building sites including Hedeby, Sigtuna, Lund, Dublin, and numerous others, Clarke and Ambrosiani conclude that a thatch-style roof was typical for Norse and

Anglo-Saxon buildings of numerous sizes7 (Clarke 142-8).8 Therefore, the sloping roofs such as those seen in both Dragonsreach and the Urnes Stave Church are typical of

Viking building practices These ideas are reinforced in descriptions about the Urnes

Stave Church as seen in its UNESCO World Heritage Site description, which states that

“the roof frames were lines with boards and the roof itself covered with shingles in accordance with construction techniques which were widespread in Scandinavian countries” (UNESCO, “Urnes Stave Church”). Richard Hall explores this topic in-depth in his book The World of the Vikings, where he comments on the typical longhouse design of Viking buildings:

The long walls of longhouses were often slightly curved, so that the widest part of

the building was at its centre. Longhouses varied considerably in length but were

normally about 5m (16ft) wide, and had their roofs supported internally by rows

of paired posts that divided the building lengthwise into three, creating the effect

of a nave and aisles. (Hall 40)

Although Dragonsreach does not conform to the average size of a longhouse due to the

Nord aesthetic and cultural emphasis on epic scale, there are a number of distinct similarities between its inherent structure and that of a typical Viking longhouse. For

7 In the effort to avoid generalizations, please see Clarke and Ambrosiani, Towns in the Viking Age 142-8 and Hall, The World of the Vikings 40-3, each of whom highlights some of the other building practices of the Vikings. Although thatched roofing was quite common, geographical orientation and resource availability resulted in the use of thatch, turf, and shingles depending on regional custom. The commonalities that exist within Norse and Anglo-Saxon environments for roofing practices relate more to the sloping, thatched aesthetic style, not necessarily the materials themselves. 8 Please note that the use of “Viking” refers to Norse peoples and practices pertaining to a specific period of time between the seventh- and eleventh-centuries. The two are sometimes used interchangeably because the literature in question throughout this thesis originates during this period of time and thus the people typically known as “Vikings” are the same Northern Europeans associated with Norse history, literature, and myth. 22 instance, Figure III demonstrates the partitioning of Dragonsreach into three discernible sections, thus conforming to typical Norse architectural patterns and style.

The interior of the buildings also share similar architectural patterns, with wood carvings that denote similarities in pattern origins. Clarke and Ambrosiani argue that one of the key structural elements in identifying a typical Norse structure is the interior appearance of the support frames, which, “by the beginning of the Viking age … were being replaced by structures where the weight of the roof was carried by sturdy posts in the walls” (Clarke and Ambrosiani 142).

Figure III: Interior of Dragonsreach.

Figure IV: Cross-sections of Viking age buildings from Clarke and Ambrosiani’s text Towns in the Viking Age

A comparison of Figures III and IV demonstrates that the developers of Skyrim make considerable use of Norse architectural principles such as those outlined by Clarke and

Ambrosiani. Such use of specific material culture antecedents adds to the significant similarities that exist between the mead halls of Skyrim and those of Anglo-Saxon and

Norse history and literature. At the same time, within the game, the support structures themselves hearken back to a past age in which epic proportion and scale were fundamental components of the Nord culture and everyday lifestyle. This in itself is a reflection on themes of loss which not only dominate the cultural landscape of Skyrim, but of Anglo-Saxon and Norse literature as well.

One could compare the term for both peoples, “Nord” and “Norse,” and use the phonetic similarities to denote further resemblances in cultural heritage; but due to the visual nature of video games and the astonishing accuracy of the buildings rendered in

Skyrim, names alone do not have nearly the same effect as halls. Dragonsreach, although quite a bit larger in scale, mirrors a number of the iconic elements of Norse architecture, therefore operating as a point of reference and a visually engaging stimulus for many players, especially those who possess some understanding of traditional Norse architecture. Even those players who do not possess such an understanding will nonetheless recognize the importance of the building due to its epic scale and proportion.

This recognition comes as a direct result of the developers’ use of specific sources, thereby offering the sort of thematic consequence which R. M. Lumiansky attributes to source study (6). The immensity of Dragonsreach as a building and an heroic signifier also parallels the epic-heroic tradition out of which Beowulf operates, symbolizing the greatness of the hold of Whiterun, and consequently its rulers, through its sheer size and

25 magnitude. It is not an exaggeration to say that you can see Dragonsreach from nearly any point in the hold surrounding the town of Whiterun, which illustrates the epic-heroic scales akin to the literary sources that were used to develop the game. Pollington’s description of Meduseld, the mead hall featured prominently in J. R. R. Tolkien’s The

Lord of the Rings, identifies reasons for such size:

Meduseld – the ‘house of Eorl’ – was a ‘thatched barn’ in the same way and to the

same extent that Anglo-Saxon halls were large, wooden buildings with a wide

range of practical functions. These halls served as the focal points of the

communities they served – all commercial business was witnessed there, all

justice was enacted there, all judgments were spoken there, all contracts were

made and dissolved there, all praiseworthy deeds began and ended there. The hall

and its community were identified, one with the other. (Pollington 17)

Scholars acknowledge that Tolkien’s Rohirrim, including their king and his Hall, are modeled on the Anglo-Saxons (see, e.g., Shippey, Road 106), but even without this recognition I would argue that what Pollington says of Meduseld is equally applicable to

Anglo-Saxon and Norse halls, as well as to those in Skyrim. While Tolkien’s work is likely a source of information for some aspect of Skyrim’s development, the previous discussion of the architectural accuracy and socio-political significance of Dragonsreach stretches beyond that which Tolkien describes and moves into the realm of Beowulf and critical source material pertaining to mead hall construction. Source study teaches us that the larger the building, the larger the hold and therefore the more important the ruling class or lord of that specific region. A mead hall as large as Dragonsreach would accommodate a significant populace and all of the civil and governmental responsibilities

26 that the position of Jarl entails. In this way, the mead hall operates as a point of reference for players and non-playable characters alike, and such references contribute to the player’s experience as part of a greater narrative of which he or she is only a single part.

One of the most prominent themes of heroic literature is loss. Loss and the lord- retainer relationship also feature quite heavily in Nord culture, particularly in relation to player behavior within and surrounding the mead hall environment. K. S. Whetter discusses this topic in his article “Genre as Context in the Alliterative Morte Arthure,” demonstrating how loss plays an integral role within mediaeval heroic literature:

A defining feature of epic-heroic literature is precisely this focus on heroism and

its costs, the connections between life and death, glory and suffering. … The

hero’s search for fame is paramount, but heroism and fame often secure hardship,

death or tragedy. What I wish to emphasize is that the suffering or death attendant

upon heroism need not be automatically critical, the result or indication of a moral

failing in the hero or of ideological unrest in heroic literature. Rather, death is the

paradox of heroism, both in this genre and this text. (Whetter 58)

Loss is especially prominent in Anglo-Saxon heroic and elegiac literature: loss of one’s home, loss of one’s culture, but most importantly, loss of one’s warrior band or comitatus. The Wanderer is one of the most important examples of elegiac poetry in the

Anglo-Saxon canon, focusing on the grieving of an individual male who no longer has a home. The following excerpt is indicative of those overarching themes:

Awakeneth after this friendless man,

seeth before him fallow waves,

seabirds bathing, broading out feathers,

snow and hail swirl, hoar-frost falling.

Then all the heavier his heart’s wounds,

sore for his loved lord. Sorrow freshens.

Remembered kinsmen press through his mind;

he singeth out gladly, scanneth eagerly

men from the same hearth. They swim away.

Sailors’ ghosts bring not many

known songs there. Care grown fresh

in him who shall send forth too often

over locked waves his weary spirit.

(The Wanderer, 46-58)

This idea of “The Wanderer,” or a man without kin or country, relates to ideas of kinship and the lord-vassal relationship which dominate socio-political relations of the Anglo-

Saxon period. Eric John discusses both of these ideas, suggesting first that “throughout the Anglo-Saxon period, a man’s position in life depended largely on the nature of his kin and of his relations with them. Kinship relations were the chief source of protection, but also the chief source of obligation” (John 168). Kinship itself is an essential aspect of both Anglo-Saxon and Norse cultures, but the lord-retainer relationship is just as important, if not more important than that of kinship. Thus:

The kinship network was reinforced by the institutions of lordship and vassalage.

… This society was held together by the bonds of lordship, or perhaps better by

the bonds and privileges of lordship. The great magnates were the vassals of their

lord the king; they would, in turn, have a number of ordinary warriors subordinate

to them. It is probable that the bonds were symbolized by the ceremonies of

homage and fealty (John 168).

Pollington makes a similar point when he suggests that, “Enright [sic] contrasts the leader’s title of ‘bread-keeper’ hlafweard, our word ‘lord’, with the name of the dependents hlafætan ‘bread-eaters’. Service in return for the basics of life must have been a commonplace form of social contract in Anglo-Saxon England” (Pollington 185). Such

“social contract[s]” dominate Norse and Anglo-Saxon socio-political ideology, nowhere more so than in the mutual obligations of the warrior band. Not only is the importance of the comitatus in Anglo-Saxon culture present in The Wanderer, but it is equally as prominent in The Battle of Maldon as well. In Maldon, one of Byrhtnoth’s loyal retainers is indeed a hostage of his house, having Norse origins yet fighting for Byrhnoth to the death regardless of any familial ties he might have with those who fight against his lord:

Thus the hostage himself willingly helped;

he was a Northumbrian of a brave family,

Ecglaf’s child; he was named Aescferth.

He hesitated not at the play of battle,

but shot forward many arrows;

here striking a shield, there cutting down a warrior,

all the while with his weapon he would wield.

(The Battle of Maldon 265-71)

As this passage demonstrates, Byrhnoth’s hostage felt as much fealty to his lord as any other member of the Lord’s retinue and thus fought with his life in order to defend his lord in his time of need.9

Significantly, such politically charged language exists within Skyrim as well, particularly in reference to the player’s role and behaviours in the social and class rankings that can be seen most prominently in the mead hall. As the centre of governance for the various regions of Skyrim, the mead halls of the holds are political institutions in and of themselves. The Jarls (the word for Earl in Scandinavian languages) of these regions operate as distinct entities that actively engage in the lord-retainer relationship through their own personal retinue and the guards that are employed within their regions of influence as well. Jarl Balgruuf the Greater and his relationship with Irileth is the perfect example of such a convention: in exchange for her fealty, Balgruuf pledges his own allegiance to her and provides her with food, shelter, and the bounties of their exploits. Hence one of the other common Anglo-Saxon poetic terms for lord, “ring- giver.” Pollington goes into a great amount of detail regarding this topic in his study of the mead hall, providing a thorough explanation of the different roles one would find within a mead hall and how their relationship with the lord of the house would operate

(181-98). As members of this elite group, the Skyrim Jarls retain a great amount of power but they themselves pledge fealty to the High King of Skyrim, thus perpetuating the lord- retainer relationship on another level of allegiance. Similar to Anglo-Saxon tradition, “the position of Jarl is hereditary, passing from parent to their first-born child.” (“Jarl,” The

Elder Scrolls Wiki).

9 See John M. Hill’s The Anglo-Saxon Warrior Ethic for more information on this topic. 30

The lord-retainer relationship is of the upmost importance within Anglo-Saxon and

Norse society and has an equally significant impact on the player in Skyrim. Texts such as

The Fight at Finnsburh and The Battle of Maldon are indicative of this importance. For instance, The Battle of Maldon focuses primarily on the unwise actions of Byrhtnoth, whose hubris got the best of him and caused him to lead his men to their deaths during a battle with Vikings. Upon his death, some of his men retreated, but many others stayed and fought on in honour of their lord, even though their actions meant certain death:

Our hearts must grow resolute, our courage more valiant,

our spirits must be greater, though our strength grows less.

Here lies our Lord all hewn down,

goodly he lies in the dust. A kinsman mourns

that who now from this battle-play thinks to turn away.

I am advanced in years. I do not desire to be taken away,

but I by my liege Lord,

by that favourite of men I intent to lie.

(The Battle of Maldon 312-19)

The power of the lord-retainer relationship operates as a cornerstone principle of

Northern European epic-heroic poetry, and therefore has great significance in relation to

Skyrim because the player operates within this hierarchy throughout many of his or her interactions in the mead halls of Skyrim10. The cumulative evidence is such as to show that the developers clearly evoke such parallels deliberately in order to enhance the

10 See Joel Bazelman, By Weapons Made Worthy: Lords, Retainers, and their Relationship in Beowulf (p. 112), Stenton 302, and, Dorothy Whitelock, “The Beginnings of English Society (29-47) for more information pertaining to the important role of the lord-retainer relationship in Anglo-Saxon and Norse culture. 31 player’s personalized role within the game space as an aspiring member of the Jarl’s retinue.

For instance, although we can only speculate as to the reasons behind the protagonist of The Wanderer’s loneliness,11 players of Skyrim have to come to terms with a similar system of honour and trust during their endeavors throughout the nine holds.

Ultimately, trust plays an essential role throughout every major quest line in the game.

Whether players finds themselves fighting for the Jarl of Morthal or the Companions, trust is gained through the successful completion of quests and the benefits are similar to those described in the mediaeval lord-retainer relationship. As an adventurer, the player is removed from a situation that would allow them to develop closer relationships with non- playable characters. As in The Wanderer and other mediaeval source texts, the player is ultimately an outsider who must prove his or her worth through the successful completion of various deeds in order to be accepted by a certain society or organization. Most groups, including the Brotherhood and the Thieves Guild, require some sort of initiation before the player even gets to start the main quest line and gain access to their resources and other members within the game.

One of the most astonishing emulations of the historical lord-retainer relationship can be seen through the player’s interactions with the various Jarls and his or her ability to gain status as a thane of the different holds throughout Skyrim. Although the title of

“thane” lacks the same loyalty required by the lord of Anglo-Saxon England, gaining the title benefits the player greatly within the various holds as he or she becomes better liked

11 For more information regarding the wanderings of the Wanderer, please see Ferrell 201-4, O’Keefe, “Heroic Values and Christian Ethics,” and Anderson 158-60. All of these critics discuss The Wanderer in depth, focusing specifically on the elegiac tone of the poem in relation the comitatus relationship the protagonist laments through his “wandering”. Also pertinent to this discussion is Bjork’s “Sundor et Rune.” 32 by the non-playable characters within those regions and accordingly gains access to shop discounts, the ability to purchase their own homes and land, and their very own housecarl. The position of thane (spelled þeɪn in Old English) is defined by the Oxford

English Dictionary as “a man who held land granted by the king or by a military nobleman, ranking between an ordinary freeman and a hereditary noble” (OED “Thane”).

This is equally true in Skyrim as in Anglo-Saxon England. To achieve such status within the game, the player must finish significant quest lines for the Jarl of the region and gain the trust of a determined number of villagers through the completion of specific quests throughout the holds. By doing so, the player is able to gain the trust of the people of the holds as well as that of the Jarl, thereby allowing him or her to reap the rewards of the thane position and gain a place of value within Skyrim society.

In the context of roleplaying digital game narrative, protagonists generally do take on an adventurer or wanderer role in order to achieve as much as possible in the various locations across the game space. A source study enables us to realize the extent to which the developers of Skyrim have ultimately created a protagonist role that is influenced by notions of kinship, heroism, and the lord-vassal relationship that are such important aspects of Anglo-Saxon and Norse culture. The evidence points towards this being a deliberate action on the part of the creators, particularly through the ability to attain the rank of thane within the socio-political structures of the various holds in Skyrim. It also demonstrates the relevance and persistence of epic-heroic ideologies within a modern context, and how the themes and cultural beliefs of the Anglo-Saxon people are relevant within particular game narratives.

Much like during the Anglo-Saxon and Norse period, within The Elder Scrolls V:

Skyrim, the mead hall functions as a centre of government, commerce, and activity. Texts such as Beowulf demonstrate the important socio-political role that the mead hall plays in the daily activities of the Anglo-Saxon world, and the work of scholars such as Stenton,

Pollington, and Rosedahl reinforces this role through historical evidence. In reference to the mead halls of Skyrim, we have discussed the socio-political, literary, and architectural similarities between the structure within the game space and its historical and literary counterparts, as well as some of the functions of the mead hall both in the game space and reality. Comparisons of Dragonsreach to buildings such as the Urnes Stave Church in

Norway demonstrate the developers’ keen interest in and seemingly deliberate use of

Norse architectural patterns in the creation of mead halls within the game. A discussion of the socio-political aspects of the game and the important role of the lord-retainer relationship in relation to the protagonist reinforces the thematic and cultural parallels between the Nords and the Anglo-Saxons and Norse. Ultimately, these specific cultural and thematic parallels operate as points of reference and orientation within the game in ways that Tolkien suggests are crucial to the development of a great Faërie narrative (“On

Fairy-Stories”). These historical precedents influence the player’s heroic role, culminating in an engaging fantasy narrative that makes use of significant Anglo-Saxon and Norse primary sources in order to perpetuate a particular standard of Germanic epic- heroic convention. The next two chapters will explore the religious and epic-heroic ideological constructs of Skyrim further in order to determine some of the other ways the developers make use of Norse and Anglo-Saxon source material to influence the heroic model of the player.

Chapter II: Gods of War, Halls of Honour, and Paths of the Dead in Nordic and

Norse Myth and Literature

In his authoritative text on Viking history and culture, Gwyn Jones asserts that “nothing was more characteristic of the northern lands than the Old Norse religion” (Jones 315).

To some extent this remains true even today. From a twenty-first century perspective, it is easy to see that one of the most pervasive aspects of Norse culture is their religious values and mythological pantheon. Comic and film franchises such as The Avengers, and, more specifically, Thor, demonstrate how Norse mythological beings such as Thor and

Loki retain popularity within Western popular culture. Additionally, television programs like the History Channel’s Vikings reinforce these sentiments through their own use of the tropes which dominate Norse literary and cultural myth. Over the course of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, narrative depictions of Norse myth and legend in new media have popularized Norse mythology in mainstream modern culture, an interest notably reflected in Skyrim. However, what differentiates Skyrim from other representations of Norse myth in popular culture is the developers’ attention to detail and their extensive use of both literary and historical sources that ultimately result in highly accurate reflections of Norse mythological structures and conventions within the game.

This demonstrates that these game developers are reaching beyond the commonly used

35 video game tropes and incorporating elements of mediaeval history and literature into gameplay in order to create an in-depth, engaging environment that influences player behavior through the perpetuation of epic-heroic convention within the game. While the number of primary sources utilized in the conception of the game is unknown,12 source study reveals major signs of their use, or at least the use of definitive scholarly studies of such sources. Although biography is not always the most accurate method of literary criticism, the fact that one of the lead developers (Kurt Kuhlman) holds a doctoral degree in history from Duke University13 provides additional, albeit circumstantial, evidence of the developers’ ability and willingness to consult such sources.

Undeniably, several subtle indications of such source use exist throughout the game. A prominent example is the mention of Sleipnir, Odin’s eight-legged horse, within the lineage papers of the quest “Promises to Keep” (The Elder Scrolls Wiki, “Lineage

Papers”). In this quest, Sleipnir is referred to as the “great grandsire” of the horse Frost, who has a reputation within the game space for his exceptional stamina and speed. In fact, within the context of programming calculations which determine the various attributes of playable and non-playable characters alike, Frost has a stamina count of one- hundred and forty-eight, much higher than the typical count of one-hundred and six for other horses in the game. This subtle allusion to the mythological ancestry of Frost is one minor way in which the Skyrim development team makes use of Norse sources, as

12 Despite several attempts, I was unable to get in contact with either the Bethesda customer service team or the developers themselves regarding this question. Therefore, the vast majority of my thesis relies largely on the evidence present in-game that source study strongly suggests is connected to primary sources and representations of such Anglo-Saxon and Norse literary and cultural tropes within Skyrim. 13 For more details on Kuhlman’s work at Bethesda and previous experience in academics, please see: “Inside the Vault: Kurt Kuhlman.” Bethesda Blog. Bethesda Studios, 5 Dec. 2007. Web. 21 Sept. 2014. 36

Sleipnir is not a figure within the most dominant popular culture references to the Norse mythos. Additionally, the inclusion of Sleipnir echoes an important section of the Saga of the Volsungs where Odin helps the great hero Sigurd choose a steed descended from

Sleipnir (Volsung Saga 56). There are, moreover, other, more dominating aspects of

Skyrim which parallel some of the most important aspects of Norse mythology, notably the Nordic equivalent of Valhalla.

In order fully to understand the importance of Valhalla and Sovngarde, it is necessary to contextualize this reference within the greater Norse and Nordic pantheons as part of a significantly larger mythological picture. According to Else Rosedahl, there are two significant primary sources from which we derive the majority of our knowledge of Norse mythology:

The most important sources are old poems about the gods from the anthology

known as The Elder Edda, written down in the thirteenth century, and Snorri

Sturluson’s book [the Younger or Prose Edda] about the art of poetry from about

1220. This contains a detailed Norse mythology, which is as reliable as it could

be, given that it was written some 200 years after the introduction of Christianity.

(Roesdahl 148)

Henry Bellows suggests that “the poems are great tragic literature, with vivid descriptions of the emotional states of the protagonists, Gods and heroes alike.” (Bellows, “The Poetic

Edda”) The Elder Edda is of particular importance as one of the only written sources which outlines the Norse pantheon within the greater context of creation, discussing important ideas such as the tree of the universe known as Yggdrasil and the various relations between the gods that establishes the pantheon within a literary tradition. There

37 are numerous modern sources that attempt to consolidate this information into succinct, concise summaries, but by far Gwyn Jones and Hilda Ellis achieve this with the greatest clarity in their respective works, A History of the Vikings and The Road to Hel. Like

Rosedahl, Jones similarly notes that these two Edda sources are of paramount importance to scholarly efforts in understanding Norse myth:

Norse conceptions of how the world began and how it must end are preserved in

two famous works, the verse Völuspá, the Sybil’s Prophecy, probably composed

early in the eleventh century [and contained in the Elder Edda], and the prose

Edda, written by Snorri Sturluson about the year 1220. (Jones 316)

In the context of Skyrim and the lore of Tamriel, the descriptions provided of

Norse mythological beings such as Odin are very important because similar game deities are modeled on these Viking examples. Rosedahl’s description of Odin is similar to that of Hall, emphasizing the god’s significant role in the mortal realms of battle, poetry, and intellect. This is seen both in his position as chief deity and the physical description that relates to his ability to fight, and in his ability to impose his all-seeing presence upon the mortal world through the use of his two ravens. The descriptions of Odin and his various characteristics are very important in the context of Skyrim, where gods with similar attributes and responsibilities play a significant role within the Nordic pantheon.

Sleipnir’s minor role within Skyrim has already been noted: the horse was created to appeal to and thus further engage players towards epic-heroic play styles who have an interest in Norse mythologies and the pantheon of gods and would understand such a reference. However, within the greater context of The Elder Scrolls universe there exists a pantheon of gods that operates within similar paradigms as those of our own

38 mythologies. One of these gods in particular, named Shor, shares a number of common traits with Odin. The Elder Scrolls Wiki, one of the most significant sources of information pertaining to any of The Elder Scrolls games, provides a description of the god Shor as, “chief among gods within the Nord pantheon who exists as ‘King of the

Gods’ before his doom” (“Shor”). This description places him both within the Nordic pantheon and as “King of the Gods”’ of other pantheons as well, in which he is referred to as Lorkhan instead of his Nordic identity. The appearance of a multicultural god within the Nordic pantheon is indicative of an extensive amount of research on the part of the developers into how mythological deities operate within the respective pantheons of a region such as the Germanic territories of Northern Europe. Hilda Ellis Davidson argues that multiple titles are indicative of an incredibly powerful god, one accepted by many of the cultures that worship the deity in question:

A god may be referred to by a title rather than a name, and a powerful deity is

likely to have many titles, which may be used in inscriptions as well as literary

sources, and are sometimes mistaken for names of separate deities. (Ellis

Davidson 60)

Odin, typically associated with the Norse pantheon, went by many other names in other

European pantheons. For instance, F. M. Stenton argues that “several lines of evidence suggest that the principal gods of heathen England worship were the common Germanic deities Tiw or Tig, Thunor, and Woden” (Stenton 98). Woden is a commonly used name for Odin within Anglo-Saxon England. Although each culture has slightly different beliefs based around this specific deity, the deity itself remains constant throughout each culture. In the instance of Skyrim’s Nordic pantheon, Shor similarly goes by several

39 names and titles as well. “Lorkhan” is the most famous name for Shor outside of Skyrim, operating within the Imperial pantheon as one of the most significant Aedra of the world14; however, he is also known in Cyrodilic culture as “Shezarr,” “The Missing God, reflecting on the fact that he alone of the Aedra has truly died and vanished” (“Lorkhan”).

Shor’s multiple identities parallel those of Odin and help add to the depth and complexity of the religious narratives which exist within The Elder Scrolls universe. These mythical identities also reinforce the developers’ own attention to historical detail as their religious pantheons develop along similar geographical and cultural exchanges as those of

Northern Europe. These similarities relate heavily to Tolkien’s discussion of the importance of relatable or human elements within a successful fantasy narrative that allow the player to engage in a gameplay environment that they can understand in relative terms. By establishing a mythological pantheon that has inherited various aspects of its conceptualization from our own cultural roots, the development team provides an element of cultural historicity that allows the player to approach the game from a relatable, albeit new perspective. Not all players will recognize such source use, but for those that do, it adds to the narrative depth and historicity of the game and promotes a learned reading of the game as a cultural text. Even those players who do not recognize the underlying source material still benefit from the thematic use made of this material by the

14 Aedra is old Almeric for ‘our ancestors’. Please see The Elder Scrolls Wiki entries on “Aedra,” “Lorkhan,” and “Shor” for further details. Shor not only operates as a major deity of many of Tamriel’s principal cultures, but his name is reflective of the extensive etymological and philological histories that develop within The Elder Scrolls universe and further demonstrate the developers’ attention to historiographical detail within the overarching narrative of the game series. As one of the Aedra, a religious term associated with the original spirits of the universe, Shor exists within both cultures prospering throughout Tamriel and those lost in previous ages. This identity is reinforced through the use of the term “Aedra,” which comes from an old Aldmeric language, one of the original groups within Tamriel that has since past into memory within their own histories. 40 developers, which thus encourages them to participate in an ongoing behavioral dialogue with Norse and Anglo-Saxon literary and historical sources.

A particularly interesting fact about the worshipping of Shor is that his followers accept him as a dead God, one who died fighting for the mortal Nords against “foreign

Gods (i.e. of the Meri pantheon) who conspired against him and brought about his defeat, dooming him to the underworld” (“Shor”). Not only does the idea of mortality and religion relate to our historical understanding of the Norse pantheon, but it also reinforces

Shor’s role within the land of the dead, drawing further parallels between him and his

Norse counterpart, Odin. Davidson provides a summary of Odin’s roles within the Norse pantheon, highlighting his importance in reference to death and the dead:

Odin appears in the northern myths in three main aspects, as ruler of the land of

the dead, god of battle, and god of inspiration, magic and wisdom; his long list of

names emphasizes these varied characteristics and powers. In the myths as we

have them, he is Allfather, leader of the gods, some of whom are called his sons,

the eldest being Thor, according to Gylfaginning. (Davidson 76)

Although a leader of the Norse gods whose range of responsibilities extends past the afterlife, Odin’s most significant role is as the harbinger of the dead: this role he performs by gathering warriors who died fighting to his fabled mead hall named Valhalla, where they await the end of the world, Ragnärok. These interrelated notions of Ragnärok,

Valhalla, and the select heroic dead play an important role in Norse mythology and culture by shaping the warrior ethic that dominates Scandinavia during the Viking period in general, and literary heroes like Sigurd and Beowulf, who are representative of such values, in particular. Significantly, similar ideas about death and battle are fundamental

41 aspects of Nordic culture, both from a socio-political and mythological perspective, effecting the narrative progression of gameplay as well as the Nordic mythology.

For instance, Davidson outlines the effect that ideals regarding death and virtue have on Norse socio-political structures, most notably the upper class or “warrior class:”

From western Scandinavia we find a similar motif in early poems, two of which,

Eiriksmál and Hákonarmál, were composed in the tenth century by court poets in

honour of two Norwegian kings, Eirik Bloodaxe and Hakon the Good. In these

the dead king is described as entering the hall of Odin after his last battle, to join

the heroes feasting with the god; when he arrives at Valhalla, he is welcomed by

Valkyries, one of whom greets each newcomer with a horn of ale, and is then

taken in to meet Odin. (Davidson 37)

Davidson demonstrates the appeal Valhalla holds for the warrior classes that are explicitly the targets of such notions of an afterlife. Both Roesdahl and Jones argue that archaeological evidence such as that found in burial mounds throughout Anglo-Saxon

England and Norse Scandinavia demonstrate a distinctly upper-class worship of Odin

(Rosedahl 31-51, Jones 316-23). Many of the most grandiose burials and those mounds investigated that produce warrior-grade armour and weapons have discernible tokens of

Odin, indicating his worship among those classes (Jones 323). Similarly, Shor is typically associated with the upper classes of Skyrim, namely through one particular song that is played by bards in most mead halls and inns throughout the province. The song, entitled

“Shor’s Tongue,” dates back to the era of Wulfharth, whose “thu’um15” is so powerful

15 “Thu’um” refers to “an ancient form of magic prominently used in Skyrim during the late Merethic and early First Era, but have gradually become obscure. Shouts use 42 that it successfully vanquishes his most powerful foes and results in his election to the position of High King of Skyrim. His first edict as ruler is to reinstate the validity of the

Nordic pantheon of gods, thus reinforcing the significant association between mythology and upper class rule in Skyrim (“Shor”) which echoes a similar association in the Anglo-

Saxon and Norse culture.

As previously mentioned, a key aspect of Odin’s power as a god is his association with death. Davidson elaborates on this aspect of his character, discussing the implications of such a power:

The myths representing Odin as the god of death are linked with his power to rule

the battlefield and to award victory to whichever side he chooses. In his desire to

bring great champions to Valhalla, he either comes to summon them himself or

sends the Valkyries, his female attendants, to escort them to the Otherworld when

their time on earth is over. (Davidson 76)

Odin is able to control victory on the battlefield through his ability to determine which warriors will be taken from the world of the living to Valhalla. Such powers are well known by specialists, as demonstrated by Ellis and many other scholars who corroborate such accounts. For instance, Ellis’ analysis of Sturluson’s Prose Edda results in the following understanding of Valhalla’s purpose and physical form:

Here the word is used more than once to describe warriors who dwell with Othin,

who, we are told, chooses certain of those killed in battle on earth to dwell with him

in Valhöll, his bright dwelling in Gladsheimr. The life they lead there is one of joy

and feasting with no mention of eternal conflict. However the hall is full of shield

the vocalization of specific words of power to create powerful magical effects.” (“Dragon Shouts, The Elder Scrolls Wiki) 43

and mailcoats, it is haunted by wolf and eagle, the creatures of battle, and is large

enough to hold mighty hosts. There are over six hundred doors to the hall, and

through each doorway will pour hundreds to fight the wolf. (Ellis 66)

In multiple publications, Ellis Davidson illustrates both the epic qualities of Valhalla and the bountiful rewards that exist for someone who chooses a life of violence above all else.

The prominence of such an ideology within Norse culture may provide one explanation for the increase in violence during the Viking period from the early eighth to the eleventh centuries, but, more importantly for the topic of this thesis, Valhalla provides an example of one of the most significant direct parallels between the Norse and Nordic mythologies that exists within Skyrim.

The main quest line in the entirety of Skyrim’s vast and lengthy gameplay culminates with the player’s final battle against Alduin, the main antagonist of the narrative, outside of Sovngarde, Skyrim’s version of Valhalla. The prominent (albeit fictitious) writer Beridette Jastal describes Sovngarde thusly in his in-game text,

Sovngarde, a Reexamination:

It is time for Nords to learn the truth. Eternal life can be theirs, without the need

to spend an entire mortal life in vain pursuit of something completely

unattainable. In the end, all valiant Nords can enter Sovngarde. Dismemberment,

decapitation or evisceration seems a small price to pay for the chance to spend an

eternity in Shor’s wondrous hall. (Jastal 7)

Based on this description alone, the parallels between Valhalla and Sovngarde are strikingly clear. The heroes of both the Nordic and Norse religions gain eternal life within the walls of these fabled mead halls, halls that are also referred to as the halls of a

44 specific deity. These notable Norse undertones reinforce the warrior culture which dominates Skyrim’s socio-cultural landscape and ultimately plays a significant role in the development of not only the protagonist of the game’s character, but the characters whom the player interacts with as well. Ultimately this means that contemporary players are encouraged to adopt the ideas and ideals of Germanic warrior culture via Skyrim and its

Norse and Anglo-Saxon borrowings. They are asked to participate in a dialogue with epic-heroic conventions of the past through a quest line that encourages engagement with the ideological constructs of mediaeval Northern Europe, particularly through their interaction with Sovngarde.

As previously posited, Sovngarde and Valhalla resemble the mead halls of

Northern Europe, but on a grander scale. Descriptions of Valhalla suggest that the mead hall has over 600 doors to adjacent chambers and unlimited amounts of mead and meat for consumption by the chosen warriors. Exceeding the size and grandeur of even the most fabled of human constructed mead halls (as specified in Chapter I and seen in texts such as Beowulf), Valhalla is the ideal of both Norse and Anglo-Saxon architectural achievement and legend. Securing a seat in Valhalla is something that was desired by many Northern European cultures during the mediaeval period and relates to the concept of northern courage.

J. R. R. Tolkien outlines his theory of northern courage in his famous essay,

“Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics.” In this piece, Tolkien suggests that there is a distinct northern sensibility of courage which is promoted as the epitome of heroism and which supersedes all other concerns, including death (Tolkien 117). What Tolkien calls northern courage is the hero’s willingness to face death or defeat without despair.

Beowulf provides a good example of the expression of this sensibility, particularly at the end of the poem where the protagonist sacrifices himself in a fight against a dragon to win further fame and protect his people, even though he enters the battle knowing it would be his last due to his age. Tolkien, as well as the mediaevalist community at large, favours The Battle of Maldon as one of, if not the most prominent examples of northern courage in Anglo-Saxon history and literature, citing the following lines as the epitome of this ideal: “our hearts must grow resolute, our courage more valiant, our spirits must be greater, though our strength grows less” (The Battle of Maldon, 312-13). This ideology speaks to a form of heroism which is encouraged in many different genres of video games (especially roleplaying games), but is of particular importance to Skyrim, in which so many allusions are made to Norse mythology and ideals. Many stories of the heroes of

Skyrim, particularly in the texts and songs that are scattered throughout the cultural landscape of the game, recount similar feats as those performed by the warriors in the

Battle of Maldon and Beowulf himself. For instance, Kolb and the Dragon is a “choose your own adventure”-style text that follows the exploits of a hero named Kolb as he attempts, much like Beowulf, to slay a dragon. As we shall see in Chapter III this is one of the most significant reasons why Norse mythological paradigms play such a vital role in the major quest lines of the game, and why Sovngarde itself holds the same amount of power in the minds of the Nords as its counterpart Valhalla did for the Vikings in mediaeval history.

The material culture of the game plays a vital role in demonstrating the importance given to Sovngarde as a mythical location within Skyrim. It has a major influence on player behavior within the game as the player attempts to appeal to the

46 warrior culture ethos that will allow them to gain admittance to this location. Not only does the fabled hall feature heavily within the major quest line, it has a prominent place within the entire Nordic culture, which is represented by its sheer physical appearance.

Figure V: Sovngarde Hall of Valour

In Figure V, one can see distinct similarities between the Mead Hall of Dragonsreach, discussed previously, and that of the mythical Sovngarde. For example, the architectural patterns are alike, although Sovngarde has a more dominating presence due to its massive size. The building’s scale and structure reinforce a monumental, ancient quality typical of

Norse and Anglo-Saxon mythical structures. For instance, R. M. Liuzza describes a famous Anglo-Saxon poem called “The Ruin,” dated to the eighth century, as a

“monologue spoken by an unidentified character whose situation is unclear but who

47 seems to be cut off from human society and the comforts of home and friendship”

(Liuzza 1). This text is itself fragmentary but seems to describe a destroyed stonework building somewhere in southwestern England, referring to it as, “wondrous is this foundation – the fates have broken and shattered this city; the work of giants crumbles”

(The Ruin 1-2). While the decomposing state of the building is not relevant to Sovngarde, what is quite relevant are the allusions to the supposed “giants” who once held the technology to complete such a structure.

The Anglo-Saxons built in wood, not stone, and the ruinous building of the poem is generally taken to be Roman. The historical fall of the Roman Empire in the fifth century brought with it a significant decline in architectural abilities that resulted in the construction of buildings throughout Northern Europe that did not initially exhibit the same construction materials or scope as their earlier Roman counterparts. Because of this, buildings such as the one described in The Ruin gain a mythological quality within

Anglo-Saxon and Norse cultures, resulting in multiple references to such works being the constructs of giants. Skyrim exists within a similar historical and cultural framework where the landscape is filled with larger-than-life ruins from ancient cultures thought to be much more advanced than those which currently occupy the territory. For instance, the

Dwemer culture is renowned throughout Tamriel for its feats in engineering, including robotic constructs who still function as guardians of Dwemer ruins even several millennia after the race’s downfall. The Elder Scrolls lore indicates that the Dwemer all died off many millennia ago, and thus all that is left of that great society are the ruins the player can traverse in Skyrim. Sovngarde itself is thus a reflection of specific Northern European literary and archaeological conventions through its epic stylization and its construction

48 out of sheer stone as opposed to the wood commonly seen in mead halls throughout the

Skyrim province. Epic both in proportional scale and in generic history, Sovngarde’s appearance directly parallels an architectural style typically associated with Norse structures, as demonstrated by its striking similarity to other mead halls in the game such as Dragonsreach as outlined in Chapter I.

Upon entering the hall itself, the player encounters yet another set of allusions to

Nordic mythology which again adopt and adapt elements of Valhalla described in Norse texts.

Figure VI: Interior of Sovngarde Hall of Valour, Mead Kegs

Figure VII: Interior of Sovngrade Hall of Valour, Roasting Meat

Stephen Pollington, a critic who features heavily in the previous discussion of mead halls due to his authoritative text, The Mead Hall: Feasting Tradition in Anglo-Saxon England, says the following about Odin’s Valhalla:

Old Norse mythology is replete with references to halls and feasts and alcohol. As

chief god, Ódin’s main hall in myth is Válhöll (Valhalla) in which the fallen

heroes – the Einherjar, the gedriht of the god – feast and drink to their hearts’

content; he has another dwelling called Válaskjálf. Válhöll is in a part of heaven

called Gladsheimr (land of happiness). Cooked meat is provided by a boar call

Sœhrimnir in a pot called Eldhrimnir by a cook called Audhrimnir. There is no

lack of anything desirable in the warriors’ afterlife. (Pollington 30)

Pollington’s description of the respites that Valhalla offers illustrates the similarities that exist between the Norse and Nordic halls of dead warriors. The interior of Sovngarde is

50 reminiscent of the grandeur of the epic-heroic world that is found in many Anglo-Saxon and Norse poems such as The Ruin, but it is implicitly linked to Valhalla through the items it offers the warriors who live there. Pollington, Roesdahl, Ellis, and Davidson all allude to the gratuitous amount of drinking that occurs within Valhalla, and Figure VI depicts a place where excessive drinking is encouraged; therefore, regular drunkenness is an aspect of the lifestyle at Sovngarde, too. The figure pictures one of the two mead areas that dominate Sovngarde, thus placing the availability of mead to its warriors on the same level as that of Valhalla. Feasting is yet another major theme discussed by most of the cited critics; they all suggest that the warriors admitted to Valhalla feast heavily while they are not fighting, with Pollington specifically citing boar as the food of choice for the afterlife. As Figure VII partly demonstrates, boar is indeed the featured source of meat for the feasting that occurs in Sovngarde. This is confirmed by written sources. The type of meat roasting in Sovngarde is discussed briefly in the in-game text A Dream of

Sovngarde by Skardan Free-Winter, who writes that “suckling pigs turned on an iron spit over a roaring fire” (Skardan 3). Although suckling pigs are indeed different from boar, they are all members of the same genus (Sus) and thus closely related. This fact in conjunction with the many boar-tusk goblets, candle holders and various other adornments interspersed throughout the hall suggests that there exists a close relation between suckling pig and boar in The Elder Scrolls universe. It also illustrates the close relation between Norse and Nord myth, for the victuals of Norse Valhalla are emulated in

Sovngarde in the most minute detail.

The third and possibly most noteworthy parallel between Sovngarde and Valhalla is seen in the warriors themselves. As the protagonist of the game, the player does not

51 actually die in order to get to Sovngarde, but there exist a number of other connections between the two locations which demonstrate the significantly Norse roots of Valhalla’s digital counterpart. The Poetic Edda, and in particular the poem “Grímnismál,” discusses

Valhalla to a great extent, with stanzas eight through ten and twenty-two through twenty- six discussing the nature of the location and how the warriors are handpicked by Odin and his Valkyries to live within its halls after their deaths. The leading scholars of the

Norse afterlife all mention these same elements, suggesting that heroes such as Beowulf and Sigurd possess sufficient prowess and renown to be found feasting, drinking, and roaming the halls of Valhalla in their afterlife. Sovngarde is discussed along similar lines throughout the game, inferring that every great hero who has ever lived will go to the hall when he or she dies as well. This concept is proven correct when the protagonist encounters a number of heroes, namely Gormlaith Golden-Hilt, Hakon One-Eye, and

Felldir the Old, who colour the pages of the history books found throughout Skyrim and play an integral role in the completion of the major quest line. In addition to their importance as heroes, their names also offer subtle references to Odin’s appearance in

Anglo-Saxon and Norse literature, particularly in the case of Hakon One-Eye and Felldir the Old, as Odin is regularly said to walk the lands of mortals as an old man missing one eye. Hall reasserts these ideas in his assessment of the importance of Valhalla, corroborating accounts offered by other critics in their description of Valhalla’s purpose as a gathering place:

Renewal of a sort was also available to individual Viking warriors who died after

showing great valour in battle. They would be chosen by the Valkyries, female

assistants of the powerful god Odin, and join the feasting in Odin’s great hall,

Valhalla. For others, death took them to an underworld called Hel. (Hall 167)

The concept of renewal is of paramount importance within video game culture as a whole because of the convention of allotting the player numerous lives and filling the game with items that allow for the healing and buffing of a player’s character. In particular, it is of great significance in Skyrim because a number of important plotlines revolve around the idea of an afterlife and immortality. The player is faced with many different types of renewal in the form of vampirism, lycanthropy, necromancy, and a variety of other life- altering states during his or her travels throughout the open world, yet it is only through great valour in battle, specifically against dragons, that players are able to achieve a form of eternal afterlife and comfort. Other forms of afterlife, most notably the Soul Cairn (a

Nordic mythological location that resembles the Norse Hel which Hall refers to and is the subject of Ellis’ book The Road to Hel) are detested and feared by the greater populace of

Skyrim and Tamriel as a whole. Only Shor’s Sovngarde is looked upon with any degree of desire, setting the tone for the warrior-oriented Nordic culture and paralleling the similarly combat-oriented Norse culture as well. The developers’ promote Sovngarde as the epitome of afterlife, thereby encouraging the player to direct his or her behavior along a path that allows one to emulate and exceed the deeds of those heroes that already reside in the hall.

The appearance, alongside non-playable characters, of heroes in Sovngarde who are directly related to the main quest line seems rather fortuitous and somewhat unnecessary. This is due to the daunting task of killing the major antagonist of the game,

Alduin. However, it is the developers’ strong attention to detail pertaining to the other

53 heroes of the hall that demonstrates the considerable research into Norse and other

Northern European mythologies that enhances a player’s experiences within Sovngarde and promote certain behaviors within the player. There are several other named heroes that exist in the hall, the most important being Ysgramor, the most fabled and legendary hero within Skyrim’s history and culture. The Elder Scrolls Wiki characterizes Ysgramor in quite a positive light:

An Atmoran warrior, and the leader of the Five Hundred Companions. He is one

of the most legendary heroes of Men, and played a major role during the time

known as the Return in the late Merethic Era. Ysgramor is the first human

historian, as he developed a runic transcription of Nordic speech, which was

based on Elvish principles. (“Ysgramor (lore)”)

Ysgramor predates the race of Man, as he is one of the founding ancestors of the species.

He is responsible for the colonization of Skyrim and, although he does not play a key role within the major quest lines of the game, he is a very important character in the heroic backdrop that helps emphasize the Norse and Anglo-Saxon literary and cultural tropes that dominate the player’s experience in the game. The Imperial Geographic Society, a group of historians within the Tamriel universe noted for their series of texts, A Pocket

Guide to the Empire, describe Ysgramor thusly: “Out of this time also rose one of the most legendary of all Tamrielic figures, Ysgramor, from whom all Nordic kings to this day are descended” (2-3). Ysgramor is the first hero to greet the player upon his or her entrance to Sovngarde, which is the equivalent of a figure such as Beowulf greeting a new hero upon his or her entrance to Valhalla. Ysgramor epitomizes all of the heroic conventions of the Norse and Anglo-Saxons; he is a dominating presence within the

54 game lore and exemplifies the type of hero that the player would aspire to be within the game. Ysgramor’s presence in Sovngarde is indicative of the developers’ conscious decision to promote certain patterns of behavior in the player that would allow them to attain the same type of renown as this fabled hero.

One of the most prominent aspects of the game that Ysgramor is involved in is a group called the Companions, a mercenary company that swears fealty to the single best warrior within the group and goes on adventures throughout Skyrim in the hopes of finding renown. They represent the Anglo-Saxon comitatus retainer-retainee relationship, thus playing a main role in enhancing the Norse and Anglo-Saxon elements of the game through further promoting the development of relationships with non-playable characters which emulate such a standard of interaction.16

In these and other ways, source study enables students and players (if they wish) to see the many explicit parallels between the Norse and Anglo-Saxon mythological pantheon and heroic ideology and their counterparts in Skyrim. These similarities play a key role in developing a specific heroic model for the player that incorporates the prevailing themes and tropes of Anglo-Saxon and Norse literature into the game space.

The player, even when ignorant of the sources themselves, is still confronted by the themes and history created by those sources. The player is encouraged to adopt specific epic-heroic conventions in order to attain the renown and status necessary to be held in the same regard as Ysgramor and other heroes of Sovngarde. The modeling of gods such as Shor on their Norse pantheon equivalents provides the sense of human relatability that

16 For more information regarding the comitatus in an Anglo-Saxon or Norse context, please see F. M. Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England, 3rd ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971), and James Campbell, The Anglo-Saxons (London: Penguin Press, 1991). 55

Tolkien suggests is so crucial to the construction of fantasy narrative. Sovngarde, the

Nordic representation of Valhalla, similarly promotes physical and metaphorical cultural tropes such as the northern courage ideology that cements the Nord race within the warrior culture of the Norse and Anglo-Saxons. The physical structure of Sovngarde further promotes resemblances between Nordic and Norse culture because of its architectural similarities to the mead halls discussed in the previous chapter, which are such an important component of both cultures. Similarly important to both cultures is the concept of the afterlife, and the developers also make use of a villain archetype that serves to encourage the player’s engagement with epic-heroic northern tradition in this context.

One of the most commonly recurring video game archetypes is the “zombie villain” character, one that is now ubiquitous in mainstream popular culture and seen in countless movies and novels. The extensive use of the zombie archetype within popular culture makes it quite easy to overlook the significance of the draugr within Skyrim as anything but a non-playable character fulfilling a specific marketing need. After all, the draugr are one of the most prominent villain archetypes present within the game and are found in many combat instances. However, when one delves into the history of the draugr within the literature and histories of the Norse, Anglo-Saxon and Nordic peoples, one can see a complex model of villain that recurs throughout some of the major tenth- and eleventh-century Norse texts. Equally as important, the developers’ use of the draugr villain archetype encourages players to engage in elements of the Northern European epic-heroic tradition through their multiple encounters with this antagonist.

From a historical perspective, the draugr exist as a mythological entity within

Norse religious and literary texts, exemplifying one of the most terrifying and haunting facets of Norse religious beliefs. In essence, draugr are humans who come back to life after burial to defend their burial mound or cairn and terrorize those living nearby. Their prominent role within Norse sagas is a complicated one. Hilda Ellis Davidson elaborates on this point in The Lost Beliefs of Northern Europe, where she states:

The attitude to the dead in northern religion is by no means easy to define. Many

of the tales that have found their way into the Icelandic sagas express a primitive

attitude towards the dead, who are viewed as hostile to the living, grudging them

life and desirous to deprive them of it (Davidson 122).

The historical and literary sources detailing Norse conceptualizations of the afterlife offer conflicting accounts of possible afterlives and confusion surrounding the source material from which this information is derived. Thus, the task of defining the draugr as a group is a difficult one. For instance, there are several Norse texts, most importantly Snorri

Sturluson’s thirteenth-century Prose Edda, which attempt to outline and define the nature of the afterlife for the Norse peoples. Sturluson’s account focuses primarily on the concept of Valhalla, arguing that “all those men who have fallen in battle from the beginning of the world are now come to Odin in Valhall[:] … a very mighty multitude is there, but many more shall be, notwithstanding which it will seem all too small”

(Sturluson 50). This somewhat cryptic passage is one of several found throughout the text pertaining to Valhalla. Sturluson also mentions Hel in several instances as well (see

Sturluson 16), but does not go into extensive detail about the notion of the undead or the possibility of any afterlife outside of these two otherworldly realms.

In contrast to this, there are several accounts of the draugr that exist within Norse sagas, most notably Grettir’s Saga and Njal’s Saga. The sagas explicitly state that it is possible to come back to life after death in the form of a draugr. For instance, Njal’s

Saga records the following tale about the death and burial of Gunnar Hámundarson, the tenth-century Icelandic chieftain:

They threw up a grave mound over Gunnar and let him sit upright in it. It

happened at Hilídarendi that a shepherd and a housemaid were driving cattle past

Gunnar’s cairn. Gunnar seemed to be very merry and was reciting verses in his

cairn (163).

In this passage the reader can see the implicit link between life and the afterlife; because of Gunnar’s rather peculiar burial position he cannot move towards the afterlife and is instead living in an “undead” state, as demonstrated by his singing and reciting of verses around his cairn. According to the writer of Njal’s Saga, then, a possible alternative to either Valhalla or Hel is life on Earth after death and burial. In other instances of this saga, Gunnar is seen looking at the moon, when it is full, and disturbing passersby with his singing (163). While this is an important source of information about the draugr and the afterlife, it is also rather vague. There is no information about how Gunnar came to become a draugr and whether it is related to a breach in burial practices (i. e. he was buried whilst sitting upright) or because of a specific action or event that occurred during his life. Gunnar is one of the most admired heroes within the Icelandic saga tradition, therefore given the context of his literary reputation, how does one understand the relationship between life and death in Norse mythology? According to his reputation,

Gunnar is the perfect candidate for Valhalla, yet he does not manage to achieve this

58 afterlife for unknown reasons. Equally, the relationship between life and death is central to the Skyrim game space, as evidenced by the inclusion of locations such as Sovngarde, the Soul Cairn, and draugr tombs, which demonstrate that there are multiple paths one can take in the afterlife. These various models of the afterlife have an implicit effect on player behavior because it encourages the exploration of these different planes of existence, which appeals to the exploratory and “wandering” aspects of epic-heroic convention.

The best-known source of information about the draugr in Norse literature is

Grettir’s Saga, which illustrates their reputation as villains and creatures of immense power and strength. The saga tells the tale of the folk hero Grettir, whose various heroic exploits throughout Iceland give him a reputation near in stature to iconic individuals such as Beowulf and Sigurd. One of the most astonishing of these adventures is seen in his interactions with the draugr Glam, who rose from the dead to terrorize the people living near his grave. In this text, Glam’s movement from life to undead status is explained as a violation of burial customs: he was not properly buried at a church but instead in a cairn at the site of his death with no official burial rites (72). Due to this breach in custom, Glam haunts the farmstead where he once worked and terrorizes the inhabitants until he is eventually slain by Grettir:

A little later the people found that Glam was not lying quiet. Terrible things

happened; many men fell unconscious at the sight of him, and others lost their

sanity. Soon after Christmas, people began to see him walking about the

farmhouse and were terrified by him; many of them fled away. Then Glam began

to sit astride the roof at night and beat it so furiously with his heels that the house

came near to breaking. Soon he was walking about day and night, and men hardly

found the courage to go up the valley, even on urgent business. All this was a

great calamity for the people in the district (72).

This passage demonstrates that the actions of Glam are consistent with those of the draugr found throughout the game space. Draugr are seen as creatures of terror: their main purpose within The Elder Scrolls universe is to antagonize the player and the local populations who attempt to interfere with or invade their burial spaces. This role is seen countless times in the player’s interactions with draugr and draugr-infested locations throughout Skyrim gameplay. For instance, one of the player’s first quests in the main quest line, entitled “Bleak Falls Barrow,” requires the player to enter a tomb inhabited by draugr who defend a map of dragon burial sites. During this quest, the player encounters draugr walking around inside and outside of the tomb, terrorizing locals day and night.

The draugr are feared by the NPCs, who actively discuss stories about farmers that have been run out of their homes by draugr seeking to reclaim the area surrounding their burial sites. These stories are consistent with those discussed in Grettir’s Saga and provide evidence as to the developers’ deliberate use of primary sources in order to create a villain modeled after the Norse “zombie” archetype as opposed to those that exist in contemporary gaming culture.

Ultimately, the draugr’s prominence within the Skyrim game space is indicative of their importance as a test against which the player can prove one’s heroic value and experience. They are utilized within this context by the developers because they are a popular archetype within gaming culture and, more importantly, are found within Norse and Anglo-Saxon sources as villains that allow the player to adhere to epic-heroic

60 conventions in securing their destruction. Heroes such as Beowulf and Sigurd are most commonly known for their killing of monsters. Similarly, Grettir of Grettir’s Saga receives renown for his destruction of Glam the draugr. While there are multiple instances in which these heroes must kill mortal men, their reputation is built on deeds of a supernatural nature because it stands in testament to their ability to defeat an enemy that is considered terrifying by the populace at large. Similarly, the player in Skyrim receives the greatest renown or reward for the destruction of supernatural entities. Although bandits and other mortal enemies exist, instances pitting the player against otherworldly creatures result in greater reward and more repute. By creating quest lines and hiding the most valuable rewards in the tombs of draugr and other supernatural entities, the developers of Skyrim encourage the player to participate in the tradition of monster killing that is a prominent aspect of the epic-heroic tradition. The use of draugr in this context demonstrates an attempt to go past typical game conventions and tropes in order to create a developed villain with mythological and historical precedence.

The next chapter will delve further into these attempts and their importance, most significantly through the Germanic heroic traditions that exist within the game and how the primary antagonists of the main quest line, dragons, are central to this tradition.

Chapter III: “Where there be Dragons, there be Dragon-Slayers”: the Importance

of Dragons in Anglo-Saxon and Norse Conceptualizations of Heroism

The concept of northern heroism plays a pivotal role in the player’s experience throughout The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. It has been established that the developers’ encourage the player to pursue a specific epic-heroic tradition through the player’s interactions with various aspects of the game space. One of the most important ways that the developers do this is through the hero’s relationship with dragons, the major race of antagonists in the game who are inseparable from the player’s experience due to the player’s status as “Dragonborn.” However, such an assertion raises questions regarding the epic-heroic tradition and how it functions within the game space. How can one illustrate that the heroic role of the player within Skyrim is one of the northern tradition as opposed to the traditional role of a hero within the context of video games in general?

There is a significant connection between these two heroic paradigms, but ultimately they are represented in vitally different ways because the paradigms of expression between source text and video game differ significantly.

The relationship between the northern literary tradition and Skyrim makes it necessary to establish a brief working definition of heroism that extends through the literature and into the game space of Skyrim. Source study and narrative tradition must

62 supply the evidence for connections between game and literary-historical tradition.

Academics such as C. M. Bowra, Joseph Campbell, and Dean A. Miller stand out as having a significant impact on our understanding of the hero, but Bowra is especially significant within the context of this thesis. Bowra argues that one of the central principles of heroism emerges in the following circumstances:

A great man must pass through an ordeal to prove his worth and this is almost

necessarily some kind of violent action, which not only demands courage,

endurance, and enterprise, but, since it involves the risk of life, makes him show

to what lengths he is prepared to go in pursuit of honour (Bowra 48).

This statement defines the epic-heroic archetype in a good portion of the heroic literature available for study: the elements of trial, action, courage, and risk are, in many ways, the essence of heroic narrative. However, it must be stated that while some Icelandic sagas focus on female protagonists, heroic poetry from Northern Europe is concerned primarily with the deeds of men, as seen in Beowulf, Saga of the Volsungs, Njal’s Saga and numerous other texts. Therefore, Bowra’s statement regarding gender is not supposed to be exclusionary, but merely reflects the primary gender of concern in northern heroic poetry.

Those familiar with the general arc of many video games, in particular role playing and shooter games, will notice the connection that exists between this working definition of the basic epic-heroic narrative and that of game storylines. Many video games revolve around protagonists who must overcome great odds in order to prove their worth and establish themselves as great figures within their respective universes. As with literary epic-heroic narratives, this generally involves some form of violent action and requires

63 great amounts of courage and moral, physical, or intellectual strength to accomplish said goals. While I am in no way asserting this is the general definition of all video games, many popular series including Mass Effect, Halo, and The Elder Scrolls Series make use of a similar template in their construction of fantasy narrative. There is a thus a direct link between the typical construct of heroism in epic poetry and that of many popular video games. This link demonstrates the implicit effect that this particular notion of heroism has had on our culture. In the case of Skyrim, this heroic ideal extends past the typical patterns of heroism found in video games and back into the northern literary tradition through the player’s implicit relationship with Norse and Anglo-Saxon heroic poetry.

This connection is further illuminated by Bowra’s study of heroism in Western heroic poetry, particularly in his description of the quality of hero that sustains a particular plot:

Since [heroic narratives] are concerned with a superior class of fighting men, they

like to describe unusual feats of strength and skill, blows of which no ordinary

man would be capable but which are to be expected from heroes. The realities of

war are thus subjected to a selective process in which the thrills are heightened

and the taste for martial details amply satisfied (Bowra 56).

Distinct parallels can be drawn between the strength and courage of heroes who exist both in heroic poetry and in game spaces. Texts such as the Saga of the Volsungs suggest that the hero is a direct descendent of the gods, which thus explains his greater-than- average abilities. This is stated in the first few lines of the saga, which “tells of a man who was named Sigi, and called of men the son of Odin” (Byock 1). Sigi is an ancestor of

Sigurd, the primary hero of the saga and therefore a descendent of Odin by bloodline. In a similar way, game plots can justify the protagonist’s aptitude for magic, fighting, etc. in a

64 variety of fashions. The post-apocalyptic science fiction Fallout series, for instance, justifies the player’s unique abilities and advantageous position in a desolated world through the use of the vault system, a project established by the United States government which ultimately allowed for several members of the human race to survive the destruction of civilization and continue to progress over the period of a century

(“Fallout”, Bethesda). Players in Skyrim are placed in a similarly opportune position as the Dragonborn, a unique privilege bestowed on a deserving individual at birth who can communicate with and harness the power of the dragon’s thu’um. This topic will be discussed in-depth later in this chapter, but the parallel remains clear: there is a distinct emphasis on both a specific type of narrative and specific type of hero within Skyrim that has precedents in mediaeval heroic poetry. It is my contention that the developers of

Skyrim carefully renew Norse and Anglo-Saxon ideals of heroism in the context of current gaming trends by incorporating specifically epic-heroic source texts into game play.

While Bowra’s working definition of heroic poetry is integral to our understanding of heroism within game spaces and their literary counterparts, he neglects to discuss a significant aspect of northern heroic poetry which plays a paramount role in

The Elder Scrolls series. J. R. R. Tolkien famously identified this “theory of [Northern] courage” in his 1936 lecture “Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics.” According to

Tolkien, the concept of northern courage is a central aspect of Northern European heroic literature. Speaking of the interaction of the authorial imagination and historical context

Tolkien states that:

One of the most potent elements in that fusion is the northern courage: the theory

of courage, which is the great contribution of early northern literature. This is not

a military judgment. I am not asserting that, if the Trojans could have employed a

northern king and his companions, they would have driven Agamemnon and

Achilles into the sea, more decisively than the Greek hexameter routs the

alliterative line – though it is not improbable. I refer rather to the central position

the creed of unyielding will holds in the North. (Tolkien 117)

Tolkien goes on to describe the inevitable mythological war between good and evil, gods and monsters, and how, in northern heroic literature, the gods seek assistance from mortals: “And in their war men are their chosen allies, able when heroic to share in this

‘absolute resistance, perfect because without hope’” (Tolkien 117). Essentially, what

Tolkien is praising within his lecture is the dominant theme of northern heroic literature in which the hero carries on fighting regardless of the cost, be it his life or the life of his comrades. The hero assumes that he fights on the side of righteousness and therefore anything but victory is shameful, even if such action results in his death and even if such actions do not conform to modern notions of justice or morality. As mentioned previously, one of the greatest literary examples of this mentality in action is The Battle of Maldon, which focuses on the ofermōde of an Anglo-Saxon commander named

Byrhtnoth whose own pride results in the loss of a key battle during the Viking raids into ninth-century England. In this story Byrhtnoth and his men attempt to defend a bottleneck point from a Viking invasion and, although Byrhtnoth dies during the battle, his comitatus continues to fight after his death against insurmountable odds because to do otherwise would be to shame their commander and themselves. Many mediaeval critics,

66 such as Michael J. Alexander, view The Battle of Maldon as an expression of the purest form of Northern European heroic poetry and point to it as the best example of northern courage in the greater Anglo-Saxon canon.

Tolkien’s definition of “northern courage” is vital to the working definition of heroism in Skyrim because it plays a major role in the player’s interactions within that environment. The Skyrim developers’ source-fed use of Norse and Anglo-Saxon literary and historical culture brings these ideas to the fore, particularly in relation to the player’s interactions with both Thanes and the Companions groups throughout the game. As mentioned earlier in the thesis, cultural hierarchy plays a key role in the player’s interactions with various non-playable characters throughout the Skyrim game space. This cultural hierarchy relates heavily to both the mediaeval comitatus relationship and the idea of heroic partners, each of which in turn reflects the important bond which exists between heroes and their counterparts. Joseph Campbell argues that the ever-present threat of death is essentially a reflection of the lord-retainer relationship that binds an

Anglo-Saxon comitatus together and was viewed as the ultimate expression of fealty by those in a lord-retainer relationship (Campbell 35). Therefore, it is quite significant that a player’s housecarl will always fight for his or her thane regardless of the consequences, be it death or serious injury.

The character “Lydia,” who is generally the first housecarl to which a player gains access, epitomizes the housecarl NPC. She is fiercely loyal and follows the player into any dangerous situation that he or she may encounter, which is in stark contrast to some of the other mercenaries for hire throughout the game. For instance, one mercenary available for hire, named Kharjo, consistently abandon a fight if it gets too rough or the

67 threat of death looms over the player. This is particularly true in instances when combat is initiated with a dragon, a creature feared by most characters throughout the game.

Indeed, many of the non-Nordic companions available for hire are equally likely to flee during a rough combat scenario, which offers great insight into the developers’ perception of “northern courage” in regards to the races that exist within the video game.

The developers apply the concept to Nordic characters in particular to direct the player towards a certain standard of heroic activity which the focal group of the game epitomizes.

Additionally, the thane-housecarl dynamic which exists within the game takes on an important role in demonstrating one of the essential aspects of mediaeval heroic culture tradition: a strong relationship with another (albeit lesser) heroic figure- companion. Bowra argues the following about heroic partnerships:

A hero cannot live entirely for himself, and needs a companion to whom he can

unburden his heart and whom he can make the partner of his ambitions. That is

why heroic poetry has its great pairs of gifted friends, like Achilles and Patroclus,

Roland and Oliver, Gilgamesh and Enkidu, the Uzbek Alpamys and Karadzhan,

the Armenian brothers Sansar and Bagdasar. When the hero forms a friendship

with a man who is only less heroic than himself, he forms a partnership of a

special kind. The participants share both dangers and glory, and the honour of one

is the honour of the other. Such friendships are based on mutual respect, and each

partner expects and receives the utmost from the other. (Bowra 65)

Bowra’s explanation of a slightly unequal heroic partnership contextualizes the role of the housecarl both within Anglo-Saxon and Norse literature as well as the Skyrim game

68 space itself. His description also demonstrates that this heroic tradition precedes mediaeval sources and, in the context of Skyrim, reconfirms the developers’ beliefs in the importance of utilizing specific cultural traditions in their narrative. For the player, such partnerships are a necessary and sometimes essential aspect of gameplay. For instance, the Skyrim expansion pack Dawnguard necessitates player interaction with a vampire by the name of Serana, who is a necessary companion in order to complete certain quests.

The thane-housecarl relationship is a major example of how the developers of Skyrim have incorporated in-depth and cohesive literary and historical theories of heroism into gameplay. While the heroic tradition is broad and multi-culturally distributed throughout

Western literature, Skyrim’s terminology and inherently Norse setting (as discussed in previous chapters) establishes a direct link between Norse and Nordic value systems.

This link has an immediate effect on the player’s experience throughout the game because a player is guided towards a certain standard of interaction with NPCs and their surroundings that is commonly associated with northern European heroic culture.

One might object that there exists a general cultural precedent that equally explains a number of the choices the developers make regarding their representation of heroism within the game. However, as this thesis reveals, there exists within Skyrim significant evidence for the Anglo-Saxon and Norse roots of the heroic traditions which permeates the culture of heroism throughout gameplay in order to impact player behavior and push the player towards a mediaeval epic-heroic tradition. One such example of this encouragement comes in the form of the previously mentioned group called the

Companions, who are described by Elder Scrolls wiki as “a group of warriors who take on public and private contracts for the people of Skyrim, and who purportedly carry on

69 the tradition of the Five Hundred Companions of Ysgramor” (“Skyrim:Companions”).

Although many players and reviewers believe that the Companions simply fill the role of the Fighter’s Guild which exists in other Elder Scrolls games, there are significant differences between the two groups which firmly cement the Companions within an inherently northern tradition of heroism. First and foremost, the Companions are defined by their relation to Ysgramor, an ancient Atmoran king who established the first Nordic settlements in Skyrim and is known as “the harbinger of us all” (“Skyrim:Ysgramor”).

Ysgramor remains one of the greatest heroes within Skyrim’s history, and his exploits are legendary not only among the Companions but among the Nordic race as a whole.

Indeed, he is so important as to reside in Sovngarde, the Nordic equivalent of Valhalla where only the most acclaimed warriors of Nordic origins reside after their death (see

Chapter I for details). This symbiotic link between group and king automatically establishes the Companions as representatives of an inherently Norse and Anglo-Saxon system of beliefs, but further examination of the structure of the Companions reveals that this source association is much more in-depth. For instance, the Companions are located at a Mead Hall in Whiterun named Jorrvaskr, “an ancient and honoured mead hall that has served as the headquarters of The Companions for untold generations” (“Jorrvaskr”).

It is by far the oldest building within the region and is built from one of the longboats used during the return journey of the Five Hundred Companions of Ysgramor, the fabled journey that operates as an origin story for Nords that live within the region of Skyrim.

This journey parallels that of the great King Scyld in Beowulf, who is said to have arrived in a boat from points unknown and became a great warrior-king who founded the Spear-

Danes and who, after his death, was sent out to sea in a burial ship (Beowulf 1-25).

Additionally, the Companions still hold Ysgramor as their true and only leader, and therefore they fight constantly to honour both his memory and that of their fallen comrades. One of the first phrases the player hears upon entering Jorrvaskr is “I am a warrior and will die as I lived – in glorious battle!” (Skyrim:Jorrvaskr). This line is evocative of the heroic Norse and Anglo-Saxon ideology, a parallel made clear by Gwyn

Jones’ interpretation of Viking perceptions of warfare:

Many of the Viking Age finds are weapons, and fighting and the ideals of

warriors – courage, strength, delight in weapons, the splendor of battle, loyalty to

one’s fighting comrades, faithfulness to one’s lord unto death – are constant

themes in poetry in honour of princes and almost on many rune stones. … But

these ideals were not unique to the Vikings. They were fundamental to the age,

and were also expressed in Anglo-Saxon heroic poetry, such as the poem about

the battle of Maldon, where Brihtnoth and all his men were killed (Jones 145-6).

According to Jones, both the Anglo-Saxons and Vikings rejoiced in and cherished opportunities for proving themselves within battle; although this desire for fame and battle is not necessarily true of the vast majority of both the mediaeval or Skyrim population, certainly the upper echelons of Northern European society were heavily concerned with notions of honour and justice during this period. The themes of courage, strength, loyalty, and camaraderie are all essential aspects of defining the Anglo-Saxon and Norse literature which has heavily influenced the game, particularly in reference to texts like Beowulf, The Battle of Maldon, and The Saga of the Volsungs. All of these works demonstrate a candid interest in the connection between honour and heroism, as seen during such iconic events as Beowulf’s slaying of Grendel and Grendel’s mother as

71 well Byrhtnoth’s men facing down insurmountable odds in order to maintain honour. By extension, the Companions are equally concerned with such notions of honour, as inferred by such descriptions as, “[The Companions] are renowned as impartial arbiters on matters of honour” (“Skyrim:Companions”).

Given the links between honour and heroism that run throughout heroic literature, it is easy to see how both the thane-housecarl relationship and the Companions demonstrate the Anglo-Saxon and Norse origins of the system of heroism that dominates the Skyrim gamescape. While Bowra’s general statement about the principles of heroism helps to indicate the developers’ direct knowledge of the Western heroic literary tradition, the concern with loyalty and honour through determined combat equally demonstrates an awareness of Tolkien’s conceptualization of the northern courage theory of heroism that defines both the heroic poetry of Northern Europe and the role of the player in Skyrim.

We have established that the heroic ethos of Skyrim is heavily modeled upon heroic paradigms that exist within the Western literary tradition, in particular those commonly found in the epic-heroic literature of Northern Europe. However, we have yet to explore how the player epitomizes the ideals of epic-heroic convention through his or her own possible actions within the game. While the evidence presented (such as the player’s relationship to a house-carl and the representation of the Companions within the game space) is convincing, there is one significant mediaeval trope that firmly and clearly establishes the relationship between the player and heroes such as Beowulf and Sigurd: dragons and the mythological precedent for the emergence of a unique warrior.

According to W. P. Ker in his influential text, The Dark Ages:

The northern gods have an exultant extravagance in their warfare which makes

them more like Titans than Olympians; only they are on the right side, though it is

not the side that wins. The winning side is Chaos and Unreason but the gods, who

are defeated, think that defeat is not refutation. (Ker 57)

Essentially, Ker suggests that northern gods such as Odin and Thor are equally at the mercy of chaos and disorder as humanity; the major difference between the two is that gods have the ability to fight and influence the odds on a scale which humans could never attain, even though they are ultimately defeated by dragons. As Sturluson’s Heimskringla as well as several other Norse sources point out, humanity has a distinct role within this battle against chaos through our ability to become great warriors worthy of Valhalla and to fight in Ragnärok, the war which ends the Norse world and its gods. Similarly, the gods of The Elder Scrolls universe, primarily those who relate heavily to the Nordic pantheon, live and die at the will of a greater power over which they have no control– they simply possess a greater ability to react to the challenges of the universe than do the

Nordic mortals. This is most significantly represented through the absence of Shor, who was banished from his position of power in Sovngarde during a coup amongst the gods.

The Nords revere him as the “King of the Gods” and continue to worship him regardless of his absense. According to the Skyrim Wiki, “Foreign gods (i.e. of the Meri pantheon) conspired against him and brought about his defeat, dooming him to the underworld”

(“Shor”). This demonstrates that the Nordic pantheon is equally as fallible as their Norse counterparts and can fail in the same way as lesser beings such as humans, although on a much grander scale.

The question that remains is how does the fall of Shor relate to the rise of the protagonist as the hero of the game? Just as Sigurd is both descended from Odin, Chief of the Gods and wields a sword which was bequeathed to his ancestor Sigmund by the same deity (see Saga of the Volsungs, “Chapter III”), the player in Skyrim receives a similar gift in the form of his or her abilities as the Dragonborn. The Dragonborn (also known as the Dovahkiin in the language of dragons) is the most significant title bestowed upon the player in the game because it signifies the player’s unique abilities that make him or her more powerful than the other warriors in the game space. According to the lore pertaining to this topic, “Skyrim legend tells of a hero known as the Dragonborn, a warrior with the body of a mortal and soul of a dragon, whose destiny is to destroy the evil dragon

Alduin” (“Dragonborn: Skyrim”). Over the course of the history of Tamriel several individuals have been acknowledged as Dragonborn, all of whom are legendary for their various heroic exploits. Dragonborn are unique because they can learn the language of the “ancient and powerful tongue” (“Dragonborn(Lore)”) of the dragons which can be a powerful aid in any combat scenario, but most importantly those involving dragons themselves. In establishing the player as the Dragonborn, the developers are strengthening his or her place within the Nordic heroic tradition inside the game. This

Nordic tradition in turn encourages the player to engage actively in a heroic role that operates within the epic-heroic tradition outside of the game. According to the “Prophecy of the Dragonborn,” a message predicted by a group devoted to aiding those capable of dragon slaying, one day the “Last Dragonborn” will be born at the end of time to fight against the dragon Alduin, also known as the World-Eater:

When misrule takes its place at the eight corners of the world

When the Brass Tower walks and Time is reshaped

When the thrice-blessed fail and the Red Tower trembles

When the Dragonborn Ruler loses his throne, and the White Tower falls

When the Snow Tower lies sundered, kingless, bleeding

The World-Eater wakes, and the Wheel turns upon the Last Dragonborn

(“Alduin’s Wall, Skyrim”).

In the context of Anglo-Saxon and Norse literary and cultural links which I see as informing the game on so many levels, there are several distinct and important parallels here. Nowhere perhaps is this more true than in the representation of heroism and dragons that is central to the northern-based heroic ethos the developers are trying to recreate.

One of the most significant of these connections is that of the dragon in Norse myth who gnaws at the roots of the tree of the universe: in this way, Alduin’s title of

“world-eater” parallels a central tenet and image of Norse myth, thus indicating that

Norse mythology is utilized as a direct source of information in the creation of Skyrim’s major antagonist. In the context of northern courage and northern mythological imagination, a key point to note is that the “Last Dragonborn” prophecy is not that the protagonist will win, merely that she or he will arise to take part in battle, whether to win or lose. For those players with knowledge of Norse myth, the inevitable defeat of gods and heroes alike adds a level of suspense and engagement to this scenario in the game.

Therefore, an informed player’s character is not in search of a long life, but honour and fame, much like those heroes of the northern epic tradition. For those players who know nothing of Norse myth, the prominence and threat of dragons is still important simply

75 because the hero is capable of defeating such a formidable foe. By modeling ideals of hero and villain on pre-existing narratives and cultures the developers are able to make their own mythical environment more detailed and possibly more believable. Therefore, the sources ultimately affect both the informed and uninformed player.

Dragons are a vitally important feature of early mediaeval literature, particularly in the context of heroic poetry. Although the keystone of northern courage is not fighting dragons per se, but rather the willingness to fight a perhaps insurmountable foe without succumbing to despair, dragons are regarded as the penultimate villain and slaying one means attaining a level of honour and success near to that of the gods. Much that has been written on the subject is in relation to J. R. R. Tolkien and his representation of dragons in his various fantasy texts. While Tolkien is certainly partially responsible for the reemergence of dragons within the popular consciousness, the appearance of dragons in Middle-earth stems from the author’s deep-rooted love of the subject and the intensity of such a ferocious opponent in Norse and Anglo-Saxon literature. Thus even Tolkien- derived dragons, however unconscious their developers’ debt might be, owe something to the mediaeval origins of the worm. Tolkien explicitly acknowledges the preeminence of dragons in heroic lore in his influential essay “Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics:”

As for the dragon: as far as we know anything about these old poets, we know

this: the prince of the heroes of the North [Sigurd], supremely memorable – nas

nafn mun uppi medan veröldin stendr – was a dragon-slayer. And his most

renowned deed, from which in Norse he derived his title Fáfnisbani, was the

slaying of the prince of legendary worms. Although there is plainly considerable

difference between the later Norse and the ancient English form of the story

alluded to in Beowulf, already there it has these two primary features: the dragon,

and the slaying of him as the chief deed of the greatest of heroes. (Tolkien 113)

As the above passage demonstrates, Tolkien believes that the truest and most powerful of heroes are defined by their actions against dragons and their ability to slay a dragon in protection of their honour and their people. The phrase “there are in any case many heroes but very few good dragons” (Tolkien 114) speaks volumes to the important role dragons play as determiners of the value and power of heroes in Norse and Anglo-Saxon literature. While many heroes can be found in the Norse and Anglo-Saxon canon, very few of them ever encounter a dragon, yet those that do are some of the most famous heroes of the northern European epic-heroic tradition. Indeed, throughout the relatively expansive Northern European heroic literature canon, there are only a few dragons ever slain by heroes, the most notable being Fáfnir in Saga of the Volsungs and the unnamed dragon at the end of Beowulf. Out of these two only Sigurd is successful in his slaying of the dragon (See Chapter XVIII, “Of the Slaying of the Worm Fafnir”), whilst Beowulf dies in combat with the worm but is able to wear it down enough so that he and his companion Wiglaf can slay it once and for all. (Beowulf 2700-45)

Tolkien’s sentiment about the importance of dragons is echoed by many other mediaevalists specializing on the subject: Paula Nielson states that “dragons are a central part of Norse mythology, as are those who battle them” (Nielson, “Dragons in Norse

Mythology”). Ármann Jakobsson delves into the topic more specifically in relation to

Icelandic literature in his paper, “Enter the Dragon, Legendary Saga Courage and the

Birth of the Hero,” in which he argues:

The dragon provides the Sigurd legend with its core. Thus understanding the

legend means understanding the meaning dragons held for the contemporary

audience of the saga. (Jakobsson 34)

As these scholars demonstrate, dragons are revered not only by the original Anglo-Saxon and Norse cultures, but by mediaevalists who see dragon slaying as a test for only the most initiated of heroes.

The importance of dragons both in popular and academic thought gives new significance to the role of the player in Skyrim. As a hero with the soul of a dragon, the player operates as a hybrid that epitomizes the qualities most admired and revered in both beings. For instance, dragons in Skyrim are feared for their shout, also known as thu’um, which bears the weight of power and destructive force whenever used. The dragonborn can utilize this power against dragons and other foes, thus combining the attractive qualities of the northern hero with one of the most powerful aspects of dragons in Skyrim.

The developers of Skyrim utilize epic-heroic convention in conjunction with fantasy narrative in order to place the player in a position of immense power and guide him or her towards a certain heroic ideal. This ideal is similar to that of Sigurd or Beowulf, whose main goal is to test their own prowess and attain glory through feats of extreme strength or wisdom.

That being said, Jonathan Evans argues that dragons are more common than many mediaevalists would lead us to believe. By his account it is not necessarily the rarity of the dragons in The Saga of the Volsungs and Beowulf which lends acclaim to the dragon- slayers, but the unique ferocity of those dragons in the context of heroic deeds:

Dragons are far from rare in the Germanic world; and while not all of them in Old

Norse literature measure up to the particular standards Tolkien and others have set

for them – few dragons seem as “dire” as Sigurd’s and Beowulf’s – in the

aggregate they amount to a large body of material. (Evans 220)

Interestingly, as Jakobsson’s article develops his findings echo those of Evans as well.

Jakobsson is essentially able to establish a hierarchy of dragons based on his philological study of the root words use to describe dragons in Old Norse. In doing so, he determines that within the greater Germanic heroic literary canon only Sigurd (primarily), Ragnarr, and Beowulf stand out as slayers of great dragons (Jakobsson 37-8). This philological study was conducted in conjunction with a study of the sources from which Norse and

Anglo-Saxon heroes derive their acclaim, most notably with Sigurd, who “makes appearances all over the Germanic world, in the Nibelungenlied, in Beowulf, in images carved on Swedish runestones and in several Old Norse texts” (Jakobsson 38). From all of this information we can make several conclusions about the perception of dragons within Norse and Anglo-Saxon myth. Importantly, the fiercest dragons are some of the most well known monsters within early mediaeval literature. Their power shapes the current-day perceptions of Anglo-Saxon and Norse heroes. It goes a long way in determining who is the best of the best.

With all of this information in mind, how do we consolidate our understanding of the import of dragons in Anglo-Saxon and Norse literary culture with that of the dragons in Skyrim? How do the parallels that exist between the two narratives impact the reader/player’s understanding of heroism and heroic action? On the most basic level, the reverence of dragons and dragon-slayers in a mediaeval context is mirrored within video

79 game culture. Just as mediaeval heroic tradition praises Sigurd and Beowulf for the ferocity of their greatest foes, so Skyrim’s developers accordingly try to recreate a similar respect within the game for the player who is able to slay and absorb the souls of dragons through his or her own actions. Initially this is achieved during gameplay itself when the player finds out that he or she is Dragonborn. This quest, entitled “Dragon Rising,” is when the player first successfully slays a dragon and is the first moment when the player realizes that he or she has a unique ability. This special identity is established when the

Whiterun guards who help kill the dragon see the true power that the Dragonborn has over the creature. The people of Skyrim are in awe of the power of the player, much like

Hrothgar and the Danes are in awe of Beowulf when he is able to slay Grendel. This power is reinforced by the dialogue of the house-carl Irileth, who is in awe of the power that she just witnessed. The completion of this quest leads to obtaining the title of Thane of Whiterun and solidifies the player’s role within the game as Dragonborn. The fact that the player obtains the title solely because of his or her title as Dragonborn is an important indicator of both the power of the player’s character and the power of dragons within the game.

Another key indicator of the power of dragons comes in the form of armour that can be crafted from their scales and bones. “Dragon Armour” is some of the strongest armour in the game and cannot be purchased, only crafted from the remains of dragons that the Dragonborn has killed. The armour is highly sought after by players but requires them to train for hours as a smith in order to create the armour in-game. If wearing a full set, people around Skyrim will recognize the strength and power of the armour in conversations with the player. For instance, guards will say the following to the player:

“Is your armor made of … dragon bones [or scales]? By the gods, what I wouldn’t do for a set of that” (“Skyrim: Guard Dialogue”). Although a relatively minor encounter, this sort of detail helps to add to the overall atmosphere of dragon fear and dragon-slayer reverence within the Skyrim universe. Equally importantly, this dragon-reverence parallels that of Anglo-Saxon and Norse epic-heroic literature and ultimately serves to reinforce the idea of northern courage and honour that permeate the game space.

A recurring discussion within the mediaeval academic community is the representation of morality through dragons. In some ways, dragons are manifestations of human vices. These vices are ultimately denounced or rejected by Anglo-Saxon and

Norse society and therefore, by extension, the dragons can teach lessons about morality to the reader. For instance, one of the recurring dragon tropes that exist within the

Western literary tradition, as well as in the representation of dragons in the popular consciousness, is the dragon’s gold hoard. As seen in such books as J. R. R. Tolkien’s

The Hobbit, dragons are obsessed with hoarding gold, jewels, and precious goods in order to satiate their lust for consumption. This trope, too, has its origins within mediaeval texts such as Beowulf that similarly represent a dragon’s lair as a gold hoard and treasure trove:

until one began

to dominate the dark, a dragon on the prowl

where he guarded a hoard; there was a hidden passage,

unknown to men, but someone had managed

to enter by it and interfere

with the treasure trove. He had handled and removed

a gem-studded goblet; it gained him nothing,

though the thief’s wiles he had outwitted

the sleeping dragon. That drove him into rage,

as soon the people of that country would discover.

(Beowulf 2211-2220)

This passage from Beowulf not only demonstrates where Tolkien got the source material for a particular scene in The Hobbit, it also illustrates the insatiable greed and gold-lust of a dragon. Similarly, the dragon Fafnir guards a great treasure in the Saga of the Volsungs.

In both texts, the dragons succumb to insatiable gold lust, and whilst neither Sigurd or

Beowulf suffer from the same fate they do not prosper for long after killing the respective treasure’s guardians. Greed is considered a terrible vice by the Norse and Anglo-Saxon people, particularly in reference to the role of a king as ring-giver.

Jakobsson discusses this notion briefly in reference to the concept of youth, arguing that

An uncanny relationship is established between the hero and the dragon, who in a

sense become the hero’s double: the evil ancestor the hero has to fight, and who is

a part of him, indeed the key to his being, and yet also the main threat to his

existence. Every father figure is also a symbol of the past and of death (Jakobsson

49).

In this paper Jakobsson attempts to establish a father-son relationship between the dragon and the dragon-slayer that echoes concerns over youth and death and the fear of getting older. While in some ways dragons operate somewhat as doppelgängers to their slayers, the argument regarding the father symbol is not entirely convincing. Jakobsson approaches the topic from a psychoanalytical perspective, utilizing Freudian theory in

82 order to explain the father-son relationship between the dragon and dragon-slayer. This argument in and of itself is not entirely convincing, although does merit some exploration. Dragons ultimately operate as representations of the values (i.e. the greed exemplified above) of the society whence they come, just as their identity as a formidable opponent parallels the might of the Anglo-Saxon and Norse ruling classes. Gwyn Jones notes that a major source of power for Viking kings was their ability to grant land and wealth to those they ruled in order to establish a lasting bond between retainer and retainee (Jones 68-72). James Campbell notes a similar relationship in Anglo-Saxon

England, stating the following:

To secure followers and power treasure is essential. Kingship and treasure-giving

go hand in hand. Kings are ‘treasure guardians’, ‘gold-friends’, ‘ring-givers’. A

good king gives. Hrothgar was ‘the best of earthly kings… the best of those who

bestowed gold’. A bad king ‘begins to hoard his treasures, never parts with gold

rings’. Treasure rewards service, creates the expectation of loyalty, and is the

outward sign of honour. (Campbell 54)

In a Norse and Anglo-Saxon context, treasure-giving is an integral aspect of the power dynamic which exists within the upper classes of those societies, and thus those who do not give gifts of gold or other luxury items are considered bad rulers. The Wanderer and the Seafarer both lament their lost comitatus but also the loss of a king who gives gifts

(ex. The Wanderer 23-28, The Seafarer 13-16). Scyld, Hrothgar and Beowulf are repeatedly hailed as good kings partly for their largesse (ex. Beowulf 20-1, 66-85, 2630-

50); Hrothgar tells Beowulf (and the audience) the story of Heremod as a warning that greedy kings are bad kings who come to bad ends (ex. Beowulf xiv. 64-88). Dragons are

83 ultimately hoarders of wealth, one of the worst sins for the powerful during the Anglo-

Saxon and Norse period; therefore it is easy to see the parallels which exist between the obligations of rulers and the downfall of dragons. In the context of Skyrim, similar parallels can be drawn between the Dragonborn and the dragons he or she fights in the context of sheer physical and intellectual power. Dragons hoard their power for themselves and are self-interested creatures; they do nothing to help those around them and only exist to terrorize Nords. Although the hoarding of material treasure is an aspect of gameplay, the developers encourage the player to assist the Skyrim community at large through the completion of various quests and by protecting those who cannot defend themselves. Whether the player is interest in looting, stealing, or various other potential activities, the major storylines of the game insist that the Dragonborn is almost always doing the right thing. In this way, dragons mirror the flaws of vanity and self-interest which the Dragonborn is encouraged to denounce.

Source-study thus reveals the inherent link between perceptions of heroism and the role of dragons within the Skyrim game space and northern myth and heroic literature.

Bowra defines heroism in the Western literary tradition as a test to prove one’s worth through overcoming obstacles and maintaining one’s honour and integrity during this process (Tolkien 117-8). Tolkien points out that a unique feature of the northern courage theory of heroism is the acceptance of inevitable defeat and that honour exists in fighting on in spite of the likely consequences out of loyalty to one’s lord or retainer and to your brothers in arms (as is the case in The Battle of Maldon) or for fame and renown (as seen in Beowulf and Saga of the Volsungs). The developers of Skyrim make a deliberate effort to simulate this martial loyalty through aspects of gameplay like the thane-house-carl

84 relationship and the Companions, figures who epitomize these ideals through their devotion to honourable warfare and achieving acclaim for their lord, Ysgramor. These heroic ideals combine with the mythological origins of the greatest of heroes in an attempt to create legendary icons that transcend the level of aptitude in battle and life expected from common people. These iconic heroes are offered as exempla to the player, who is encouraged to pursue an inherently epic-heroic path that reflects many aspects of the Northern European heroic tradition. Those who achieve such a degree of heroism in

Anglo-Saxon and Norse literature are rare, but there is a general association between the best of heroes and the ability to slay a dragon that distinguishes them within the canon.

Like Sigurd Volsung, the player in Skyrim has specific abilities that distinguish him or her from the other heroes of Skyrim, a fact illustrated through the gamer-hero’s ability to kill dragons. By reinforcing parallels with the Anglo-Saxon and Norse heroic tradition, the developers of Skyrim are able encourage the player to take on the unique identity of

Dragonborn as a representation of the best values of a society that has fallen into disarray in order to create a brighter future.

Conclusion

Overall, the developers’ use of Norse and Anglo-Saxon primary sources in the creation of

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim encourages players to participate in the Northern European epic-heroic tradition through their engagement with the various settings, quests, themes, and even major storylines found throughout the game space. The developers’ attention to detail in the development of the mead halls and the socio-political conventions associated with them serves the purpose of creating areas the player will encounter very early on gameplay, which engage the player in a specifically Anglo-Saxon and Norse environment that encourages them to participate in a dialogue with quest-givers and other major characters who are similarly indicative of such mediaeval roots. This underlying matrix of mediaeval ideas and themes demonstrates that the developers are concerned with the literary and historical elements of game development and understand the tropes of fantasy narrative construction, including those outlined by J. R. R. Tolkien in “On Fairy-Stories.”

Equally, the emulation of the lord-retainer relationship through non-playable characters such as Jarl Balgruuf the Greater and Irileth provides an example of NPC interaction that advocates for a player/NPC dynamic similar to that of the Anglo-Saxon comitatus. The parallels between Norse and Anglo-Saxon cultural tropes and their Nordic counterparts continue into the mythological realm, where the developers utilize the Norse pantheon in order to establish a Nordic order similarly concerned with the Northern European epic-

86 heroic tradition. This is seen through the similarities between major structures such as

Valhalla/Sovngarde, which ultimately promotes a specific heroic ideology that the player must emulate in order to gain admission into this revered location. This chapter then discusses the godly and delves into the other realms of the afterlife that the player encounters during their adventures through Skyrim. This includes and in-depth analysis of the draugr, a villain archetype that demonstrates both the development team’s significant use of Norse sources in the creation of the game and their desire to appeal to the epic- heroic traditions which revere those with the ability to slay monsters. This analysis in turn segues into an important discussion of dragons and the relationship that exists between dragon and hero in Skyrim and Norse and Anglo-Saxon myth. The dragons exist as the ultimate test of heroic ability that both contradict and parallel the player’s own status as the Dragonborn. In slaying dragons, the player proves his or her merit as a hero within the Germanic heroic tradition that reinforces the inherent links that exist between

Anglo-Saxon and Norse literature and history and their Nordic counterparts in Skyrim.

In summation, I hope this thesis has achieved its objective of illustrating how the

Skyrim development team encourages unproblematic interaction with the epic-heroic conventions of Northern Europe. In doing so, I hope further to have demonstrated the incorrect assumptions made by T. A. Shippey, who suggests that Anglo-Saxon and Norse literary and historical tropes are irrelevant within a contemporary context. The popularity of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and the developers’ intricately detailed approach to emulating Northern European epic-heroic convention stands in testament to how Anglo-

Saxon and Norse tropes can be utilized with a great deal of success in a digital environment.

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