No people in history were as obsessed with the power of the ring as the Vikings. The ring was wealth, honour, fame and destiny to these warrior people. Under its sign they charted unknown seas, waged barbarous wars, sacrificed man and beast, pledged their faith, made great gifts of it, and finally died for it. Their gods were ring lords of the heavens, and their kings were ring lords of the earth.
The longship’s figurehead was a ring: clenched in a dragon’s teeth or carved itself with the scales of the worm. It broached the grey horizons of the North Sea and Dublin Bay, pointed the way to Spain, Italy, Tangier and Byzantium across the blue Mediterranean, and swept through the icy seas of the North Atlantic and the fog-banks of America. The ring-prowed ships heralded fire, death and destruction.
No earthly king or earl who was not a ‘ring-giver’ held power long. For by these gifts of wealth and honour, the warrior expected his reward for his faith- fulness. From looted gold, the king’s smith would fashion heavy engraved finger rings, massive arm rings and great neck rings of woven gold. These were all symbols of nobility, wealth and fame. Thus, often a kingdom’s power might rightly be judged by the ‘ring-hoard’ of the king.
In the ring quest myths of the Vikings, that ferocious warrior culture of Norsemen, we see one of the primary sources of inspiration for Tolkien’s fantasy epic, The Lord of the Rings. Although the symbol of the ring was widespread and prominent in many far more ancient cultures, it was the Norsemen who brought the ring quest to its fullest expression, and to the very heart of their cultural identity. Virtually all subsequent ring quest tales in myth and fiction are deeply indebted to the Norse myths. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, although striking in its originality and innovation, is no exception.
Among the Vikings, the gold ring was a form of currency, a gift of honour, and sometimes an heirloom of heroes and kings. (Such a ring belongs to the Swedish Royal House, the Swedish kings’ ring known as Sviagriss.) At other times, when great heroes or kings fell, and it was thought none other would be worthy of the honour of the ring lord, the ring-hoard was buried with its master.
So, in barrow and cave, in mere and grave, upon burial ship sunk beneath the sea, the rings slept with their ring lords. Afterward tales were told of dead men’s curses and supernatural guardians. In Norse myth and in Tolkien’s tales, guardians of treasures and ring-hoards take many forms: damned spirits, serpents, dragons, giants, dwarfs, barrow-wights, and demon monsters.
The rings of Norse mythology - like Tolkien’s - were commonly magical rings forged by Elves. These gold rings were tokens of both power and eternal fame. They were also symbolic of the highest power: destiny, the cycle of doom.
Indeed, the Domhring, the Ring of Doom - the ring of monolithic stones that stood before the Temple of Thor - was perhaps the most dreaded symbol of the violent law of the Vikings. (In Tolkien, an identically named ‘Ring of Doom’ stands outside the gates of Valimar, the city of the gods.) In the centre of this ring of stones was the Thunder God’s pillar, the Thorstein. The histories tell us of its use. In the ninth century the Irish King Maelgula Mac Dungail was made captive in the Viking enclave of Dublin. He was taken to the Ring of Doom and his back was broken upon Thorstein. Of another such ring in Iceland a scribe in the Christian twelfth century wrote that bloodstains could still be seen upon the central stone.
Yet the great pillared temple of the fierce, red-bearded Thunder God housed another very different - but to Norse society infinitely more important - ring. Thor’s weapon was the thunderbolt, the Hammer called Mjolnir ‘the Destroyer’, but Thor’s most valued gift to mankind was the altar ring that was housed in his temple. This was the Oath Ring of Thor, the emblem of good faith and fair dealing.
On the sacred altar was a silver bowl, an anointing twig, and the Oath Ring itself. Whether of gold or silver, it must weigh more than twenty ounces. Thor’s statue, mounted in his goat-drawn chariot, dominated the sanctuary while around the altar were grouped the twelve figures of his fellow gods, their eyes fixed upon the ring.
When an oath was to be taken, an ox was brought in and slaughtered and the hlaut, the sacred blood, was sprinkled on the ring. Then the man laid his hand upon the ring and, with Thor gazing down on him, faced the people and said aloud: ‘I am swearing an oath upon the Ring, a sacred oath; so help me Freyr, and Njorthr and Thor the Almighty …’
For the Vikings such an oath was legally binding, and when the world’s first democratic parliament, the Althing, was established in Iceland in ad 930 the temple priests brought out the Oath Rings to reinforce its law.
Yet Thor was not the only ring lord among the gods, nor was the power of his ring supreme. The greatest power was in the ring on the hand of Odin, the Magician-King of the gods. Odin was the Allfather, Lord of Victories, Wisdom, Poetry, Love and Sorcery. He was Master of the Nine Worlds of the Norse universe, and through the magical power of his ring was, quite literally, ‘the Lord of the Rings’.
But Odin was not always almighty and his quests for power and his magical ring were long and were achieved at great cost. He travelled throughout the Nine Worlds on his quests and hid himself in many forms, but most often he appeared as an old man: a bearded wanderer with one eye. He wore a grey or blue cloak and a traveller’s broad-brimmed slouch hat. He carried only a staff and was the model for the wandering Wizard and Magicians from Merlin to Gandalf.
However, before going further into the myth of Odin’s ring, it is worthwhile and necessary to take a broad overview of Tolkien’s Middle-earth and compare it to the lands of Norse mythology. Although Tolkien’s world is profoundly different in many of its basic moral and philosophical perspectives from that of Viking mythology, similarities are numerous and significant.
The most immediate parallel for anyone even mildly familiar with Norse myth is that the world of mortal men in both have the same name: the Norse ‘Midgard’ literally translates to ‘Middle-earth’.
The immortal gods of the Norsemen are made up of two races: the Aesir and the Vanir; while Tolkien’s gods are originally called the Ainur, but become known as the Valar in their earthly form. In both systems, the gods live in great halls or palaces in a world apart from mortal lands. The Aesir live in Asgard, which can be reached only by crossing the Rainbow Bridge on the flying horses of the Valkyries. Tolkien’s Valar live in Aman, which can be reached only by crossing the ‘Straight Road’ in the flying ships of the Elves.
Norse cosmology was rather more complex than Tolkien’s in its elemental structure. Asgard and Midgard were just two of its nine ‘worlds’. However, Tolkien’s ‘worlds’ are far more cosmopolitan and most of the inhabitants of the nine Norse worlds are recognizable within his two.
Besides the worlds of Midgard and Asgard, Norse myths tell of the worlds called Alfheim and Swartalfheim: the realms of the Light Elves and the Dark Elves. These were parallel to Tolkien’s Elves, who are divided into two great races: the Eldar who are (for the most part) Light Elves, and the Avari who are Dark Elves.
The Dwarfs of Viking mythology were also given their own world. This was a dark underground world of caves and caverns called Nidavellir which was found beneath Midgard, where the Dwarfs constantly worked their mines. These Dwarfs share many of the characteristics of Tolkien’s Dwarves, although in Tolkien both Dwarves and Elves are more highly defined and individual, and their genealogies are far more complex.
It is notable that Tolkien took the names of most of his Dwarves directly from the text of Iceland’s twelfth-century Prose Edda. The Edda gives an account of the creation of the Dwarfs, then lists their names. All the Dwarves in the Hobbit appear on this list: Thorin, Dwalin, Balin, Kíli, Fíli, Bifur, Bofur, Bombur, Dori, Nori, Ori, Óin and Glóin. Others names of Dwarfs which Tolkien found in the Prose Edda included Thráin, Thrór, Dáin and Nain. The Edda also gives the name Durin to a mysterious creator of the Dwarfs, which Tolkien uses for his first Dwarf king of ‘Durin’s Line’. Rather surprisingly, another of the Icelandic Dwarfs is called Gandalf. Undoubtedly, it was the literal meaning of Gandalf - ‘sorcerer elf’ - that appealed to Tolkien when choosing this name for his wizard.
The Norsemen gave two worlds to their races of Giants: Jotenheim and Muspellsheim. Jotenheim was the home of the cave-dwelling Rock and Frost Giants. In them we see the recognizable characteristics of the large, stupid and easily outwitted monsters that evolved into the Trolls of Scandinavian fairy tales. In Tolkien, these became his similarly stupid Stone Trolls and Snow Trolls.
In the world of Muspellsheim, however, we find the far more formidable Fire Giants. Undoubtedly Fire Giants are personifications of volcanic subterranean powers. For once released from Muspellsheim, Fire Giants were virtually unstoppable. In Ragnarok, the final battle of gods and giants at the end of time, they played a major part in the destruction of the world. In Tolkien we see something of these terrible titans in his creation of the Balrogs, the fiery ‘demons of might’.
Another world was Vanaheim, the home of the second race of gods, the Vanir - a race of nature spirits of the earth and air who are also magicians capable of casting terrifying spells. In Norse myth these magician gods are not clearly defined like dominant Aesir gods, but they seem to resemble Tolkien’s Valar in their early manifestations as elemental spirits or ‘forces of nature’.
The deepest world of all was Niflheim, the dark and misty land of the dead. In this cold and poisoned land was the great walled citadel of Hel, the goddess of the dead. The gate of the fortress of Hel was guarded by Garm the Hound, and within were imprisoned the damned spirits of the dead. This is comparable in Tolkien’s Silmarillion to the cold and poisoned land of Angband (‘iron-fortress’) which is ruled by Morgoth, the god of darkness. The gate of the fortress of Angband was guarded by Carcharoth the Wolf and within were imprisoned many Elves who were hideously tortured and transformed into a race of damned beings called Orcs. By the time of the War of the Rings, Morgoth’s disciple Sauron attempts to recreate Angband in his dark and evil Land of Mordor.
Ultimately, Norse myth and Tolkien’s fiction both had cosmologies that share a stoic fatalism in their ultimate destiny. In Viking myth, the spirits of slain warriors are gathered in the Hall of Valhalla in Asgard: while in Tolkien’s tales, the spirits of slain Elves inhabit the Halls of Mandos in Aman. Both remain there and await the time when they are called to participate in the cataclysms that will end their worlds, This is the great conflict of elemental forces that the Vikings called Ragnarok and Tolkien called the World’s End.
Tolkien’s vision of his World’s End is deliberately veiled, but we see some comparisons between the Viking Ragnarok - when the rebel god Loki led the Giants into battle against the gods - and Tolkien’s cataclysmic Great Battle in The Silmarillion. When Eönwë the Herald of the Valar blew his trumpet, the Valar went into battle against the rebel Vala Morgoth and his monstrous servants at the end of the First Age of Sun. The Viking Ragnarok was a battle between the gods and the Giants, which similarly commenced when Heimdall the Herald of the Gods blew his horn. Ragnarok ended with the destruction of all the Nine Worlds. Tolkien’s Great Battle resulted in the total destruction of Morgoth and his evil kingdom of Angband, but it also tragically caused the beautiful Elvish realms of Beleriand to sink beneath the sea.
Some tales in Tolkien’s writing directly echo episodes in that cataclysm of Ragnarok. In the Quest of the Silmaril, the hero Beren attempts to use the fiery Silmaril to drive back Carcharoth the Giant Wolf of Angband. However, the beast bites off Beren’s hand at the wrist and swallows both hand and the flaming jewel. Carcharoth the Red Maw is filled with horrific pain as the jewel sears his accursed flesh and consumes his evil soul from within. The great beast is like a raging meteor loose in the land, full of pain and wrathful power until at last he is slain.
In Tolkien’s tale, Carcharoth is comparable to the Norse myth of Fenrir the Giant Wolf who bit off the hand of Tyr, the heroic son of Odin. Fenrir was the monstrous offspring of the evil rebel god Loki, and like Carcharoth was the largest and most powerful Wolf in the spheres of the world. During Ragnarok, the Wolf devoured the sun, which burned and consumed him from within but filled him with wrathful power until at last he was slain.
In The Lord of the Rings, Gandalf’s battle with the Balrog of Moria mirrors another duel in Ragnarok. In the giant Balrog of Moria, who fights the Wizard Gandalf with a sword of flame on the stone bridge of Khazad-dûm, we have a diminished version of Surt the Fire Giant, who fights the god Freyr with a sword of flame on the Rainbow Bridge of Bifrost. Both duels end in disaster when the bridges collapse beneath them and all the combatants hurtle down in a rage of flame.
Although both Tolkien and the Norsemen share a cataclysmic vision of the end of their cosmologies, this vision is not without hope. Out of these conflicts, both promise that this ending is also a transition: a newer, better and more peaceful world is to be reborn from the violent old one.
Tolkien’s inspiration is drawn from a far wider range of sources than this brief comparison of cosmologies suggests. However, the influence of Norse myth in the shaping of Tolkien’s world is undeniable. This becomes even more evident when we examine ring myths of that civilization; and especially those myths that relate to the king of the Viking gods, Odin.