The Saga of Grettir the Strong. One of the better-known Icelandic Sagas, “Grettir” tells the tale of a rough and rowdy outlaw who is cursed to be unlucky after killing a revenant in battle. Scholar Amy Amendt-Raduege has drawn comparison between Grettir and Boromir.
The Kalevala. The national epic of Finland, written in a hypnotic poetic meter and suffused with high deeds and natural beauty, was a direct inspiration for Tolkien’s The Children of Hurin. Read the superlative Eino Friberg translation published by Penguin Classics.
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. This fourteenth-century poem held a lifelong fascination for Tolkien, who wrote what is still probably the best translation. It’s the story of a knight who beheads a Green Man and must journey across England to receive the same blow in return.
Le Morte d’Arthur, by Thomas Malory. One of my ten favorite books and a cultural totem for all fantasy writers of Tolkien’s generation. Much weirder than you would expect, with its cunning witches, murderous mothers, and forests filled with all manner of illusions.
The Saga of Gunnlaug Worm-Tongue. There is much to enjoy in this story of warrior-poets Gunnlaug and Raven who recite verses before beating each other to death. Tolkien wove some of his own attempts at Norse poetry into the text of The Lord of the Rings.
The Mabinogion. There are quests to find magic hogs, mysterious talons that reach down the chimneys of homes to abduct folk, and many other wonderful things in this Welsh epic that Tom Shippey argues was an influence on the Tale of Beren and Luthien.
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