We Need A Scholarly Approach to Myths

In an unfinished time travel story called “The Lost Road,” J.R.R. Tolkien expressed a sentiment about the status of Germanic myth and language in intellectual circles that is more true today than it was at the time he wrote it.

“
And summer slipped by, and he went to school and went on learning Latin.

Also he learned Greek. And later, when he was about fifteen, he began to learn other languages, especially those of the North: Old English, Norse, Welsh, Irish. This was not much encouraged–even by his father, who was an historian. Latin and Greek, it seemed to be thought, were enough for anybody; and quite old-fashioned enough, when there were so many successful modern languages (spoken by millions of people); not to mention the maths and sciences.

But Alboin liked the flavour of the older northern languages, quite as much as he liked some of the things written in them.
“
-The History of Middle-Earth: The Lost Road and Other Writings by J.R.R. Tolkien, edited by Christopher Tolkien

A classical education consisted of three “humanities” subjects, called the trivium, and four “science” subjects, called the quadrivium. The trivium is made up of grammar, rhetoric, and logic. The quadrivium is made up of arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy. This program was designed to produce well-rounded individuals who could think critically, navigate public life, and cultivate virtue.

This curriculum is referred to as “classical” because it traces its origins back to Rome and ancient Greece. Much of the assigned reading comes from ancient Greco-Roman philosophers and historians. As any proper man of letters will tell you, to truly understand these texts, one must read them in their native tongues. Therefore, Latin and ancient Greek were required subjects of early study for any young man (and it was usually men) seeking entry into academia in Tolkien’s time. These were important languages, worth preserving, because important things were written in them. Other old languages, as well as the pre-Christian cultures to which they belonged, were deemed unimportant at best and barbaric at worst.

The Role of Myth in Western Philosophical Tradition

The term “Western Civilization” has always been loaded with all sorts of problematic associations. For centuries, Europeans divided the world into the nebulously defined Orient (from the Latin for “east”) and the Occident (from the Latin for “west”). Any attempt to clearly define “The West” is bound to fail, but broadly speaking, “Western” philosophy is commonly thought of as being heavily influenced by ancient Rome, Greece, and Christianity (it also tends to correspond to the equally nebulous concept of “whiteness”). Most of the books of the New Testament are known from manuscripts that were originally written in Greek. Latin later became the ecclesiastical language of the Catholic Church. The Church also organized itself according to Roman administrative practices, into dioces for example. As Christianity swept across pagan Europe, so too did its Roman ideas about education. Latin became the language used for most intellectual pursuits.

The Germanic peoples did not fully Christianize until the 12th century CE. Iceland was Christianized in 1000 CE. The Codex Regius, from which much of what we know as the Poetic Edda, was probably written in Iceland around this time. The Codex Regius is likely copied from an earlier text that recorded still earlier oral traditions. Snorri Sturluson’s Prose Edda was originally composed in the 13th century, hundreds of years after the native religion lost all political influence, but still much closer to the time when it was practiced than we are today. The church took a dim view of the preservation of pagan religious practices, and so preservation efforts were often undertaken by those with an antiquarian or artistic interest in the material. None of these texts contains detailed instructions on how to worship Odin. They contain stories of days long past that were passed down by oral tradition. Iceland is one of the few places where this preservation of pagan stories was popular (and tolerated). It probably helps that it is so remote. In fact, modern Icelandic remains linguistically very similar to Old Norse.

People raised in an Abrahamic religion tend to associate religious beliefs with an established canon of texts. There is an expectation that all religions must have a book like the Tanakh, the Bible, or the Quran. We tend to think that if a culture has a system of writing and a religion, it must have religious texts. This isn’t necessarily the case, and as far as we know, it was not the case for the Germanic pagans. There are examples of highly literate societies that believe some things are too sacred to be written and must be preserved by oral tradition. This may have been the case for Germanic pagans, or the religious practices may just not have been complex enough to merit the heavy expense of writing down. Aside from a few runestones, there is not much about the Norse Gods and heroes that is recorded in the native runic alphabet. This lack of books did nothing to improve the conquering Christians’ perception of the intellectual value of Germanic paganism or the native philosophy of its worshippers. Over time, many practices from the old religion became quaint folk magic and superstitions practiced by Christians who did not see them as incompatible with Christianity at all. This lack of a clear distinction between spiritual beliefs that canonized texts would have provided has left a gap that is exploited by modern reconstruction movements, but we’ll come back to that.

For centuries after Europe’s Christian conversion, the Church would remain the primary source of education and literacy. The few books we have preserving Norse myth were scribed (though not necessarily composed) by Christian hands. These myths and heroes, unlike the Greek and Roman, were not connected to grand philosophical treatises or scientific theories. They represented only the niche interests of a few odd individuals on a remote, frozen island. The Renaissance would bring a renewed interest in classical Greek and Roman culture, while academic interest in the native Celtic, Germanic, and Slavic cultures continued to fade. This renewed interest influenced intellectual life in Europe for centuries. Poets and playwrights drew heavily on the Greco-Roman supernatural imagery with renewed vigor. Outside of intellectual circles, though, these local stories retained some influence. Tales of fairies, elves, dwarves, trolls, and giants remained popular among the common folk. Rejected by the church as superstition, at best, they were tolerated as children’s stories and old wives’ tales.

Interest in “folklore” became a childish pursuit, unworthy of an educated gentleman. Things continued in much this way until the Industrial Revolution. The rise of the machine radically altered life for many. The entrepreneurial man of science displaced the gentleman of letters at the top of intellectual society. Agricultural populations underwent rapid urbanization. The world began to look unrecognizable to those who remembered what had come before.

Some began to feel a nostalgia for a “better” time. People (mostly wealthy people who had the privilege of sitting around and feeling nostalgic) began to look back to a time when humanity lived closer to the land. They began to eschew things they associated with modernity in favor of things they associated with that better time. The church, though profoundly changed and fractured, remained a fixture of modern life. Its teachings and the intellectual society influenced by them slowly fell out of fashion. A counterculture formed. Some of the more radical of these counterculture movements began trying to reconstruct pagan religions of the past, which they perceived to be closer to nature than the highly systematized and oppressive Christian faith. Some rejected the machinery in favor of handmade arts and crafts, encouraging a simpler lifestyle and raging against what the machine had done to skilled craftsmen.

J.R.R. Tolkien was born during this time. His experiences with modern warfare did nothing to endear him to modernity. Though he remained a devoted Catholic, he took comfort in imagining the distant past. Among his motivations for creating the Middle-Earth stories was a desire to fill in England’s missing mythology. The Celts had the Tuatha de Danann. The Scandinavians had the Aesir. England’s own cultural inheritance had been deeply muddled by successive invasions of Romans, Normans, and Danes.

Do not laugh! But once upon a time (my crest has long since fallen) I had a mind to make a body of more or less connected legend, ranging from the large and cosmogonic, to the level of romantic fairy-story – the larger founded on the lesser in contact with the earth, the lesser drawing splendour from the vast backcloths – which I could dedicate simply to: to England; to my country. It should possess the tone and quality that I desired, somewhat cool and clear, be redolent of our ‘air’ (the clime and soil of the North West, meaning Britain and the hither parts of Europe: not Italy or the Aegean, still less the East), and, while possessing (if I could achieve it) the fair elusive beauty that some call Celtic (though it is rarely found in genuine ancient Celtic things), it should be ‘high’, purged of the gross, and fit for the more adult mind of a land long now steeped in poetry. I would draw some of the great tales in fullness, and leave many only placed in the scheme, and sketched. The cycles should be linked to a majestic whole, and yet leave scope for other minds and hands, wielding paint and music and drama. Absurd.

Tolkien, J. R. R.. The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien (pp. 144-145). HarperCollins Publishers. Kindle Edition.

Tolkien did not view fairy stories as purely childish. He believed that adults could benefit from these stories if only someone could be troubled to write them. As a scholar, Tolkien became fascinated with the ancient languages of the British Isles and nearby Scandinavia. He loved their mythology and the sagas of their heroes. As a hobby, he began designing his own languages that would eventually become the Elvish tongues of Middle-Earth. Then he crafted stories like those of nearby cultures about the people who spoke these languages. He was so successful in his efforts that he basically created the modern fantasy genre. Ultimately, I think it was the popularity of The Lord of the Rings that revived modern interest in Germanic mythology.

Modern Interest in Germanic Myth and Legend

There were certainly literary types who immediately recognized the value of Tolkien’s work, but it would not be academics leading the charge to popularize Germanic myth and legend. It would be ordinary nerds. Tolkien was correct. Adults did enjoy fairy stories once someone took the time to write them, and they wanted more. Tolkien would not be able to satiate their hunger alone. Other authors, most with far less academic background in ancient texts and languages than Tolkien, took up the pen. By the 1970’s, Tolkien-style elves, dwarves, orcs, and halflings were genre staples. Table Top Role Playing Games (TTRPGs) like Dungeons and Dragons have players create fantasy characters and embark on fantasy adventures. Numerous video games would incorporate these TTRPGs into their DNA. The award-dominating Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings films only threw gasoline on the fire.

In parallel, modern neopagan movements were becoming popular. The Ásatrúarfélagið (Asatru) religious movement, inspired by the myths of the Poetic Edda, was founded in 1972 in Iceland. Some branches of Asatru have placed an uncomfortable emphasis on ethnicity and overlap significantly with white nationalist movements. More recently, I’ve seen a growing Norse Animism movement that seeks to “reconstruct” the Norse Pagan religion’s “land connectedness.” This movement states explicitly that it rejects white nationalism and racism, and I hope they continue to do so as they grow, but these things tend to have a way of growing beyond their founder’s intentions.

Modern fantasy media and modern religious movements have proven that there is incredible interest in these stories and cultures. The popularity is disproportionate to the academic conversation. This is leading ot a serious lack of authoritative information on the topic. The demand for information is being supplied by self-appointed gurus who intentionally or unintentionally distort the myths. The last time I was at the bookstore, I was able to find translations of the Eddas, but I was much more easily able to find Neil Gaiman’s Norse Mythology, a fictionalized retelling of stories from the poetic and prose Eddas. In the spirituality section, I saw half a dozen books on rune magic, the details of which were almost entirely invented by the author. When I Google search for information about Norse mythology, I am again directed to Neil Gaiman’s fictionalized book and a handful of other non-authoritative sources.

The Need for Academic Engagement

This may seem like a cliche, but stories have power. Myths have power. Religions have power. The revival of interest in Germanic myth and legend has come at a culturally significant moment. The culture these myths arose in is undeniably violent. It is hyper masculine. It is European. It is ripe for co-opting by all sorts of bad actors, from New Age grifters to white supremacists. These bad actors are not going to focus on the complex themes and insights into the human beings who inspired and recorded these myths. They’re going to focus on rune magic and the warrior mindset. There is more to this culture and these stories than big, brave men killing each other. We need people who can dig deeply into these stories. We need people who can provide cultural, linguistic, historical, and archeological context. We need people who can peer review those people.

In addition to ensuring that these stories are not abandoned to people who will distort them in furtherance of some agenda, these myths and others deserve to be taught alongside the Greek and Roman. This particularly applies to English Literature programs, as these stories have an enormous impact on modern and medieval fiction. The emphasis on Greco-Roman myth in English Literature has caused generations of students to see all of mythology through a Greco-Roman lens, in which all Gods have domains, temples, and clearly defined powers. It would benefit students to learn several different mythological systems in enough depth to understand the different perspectives that shaped them.

Conclusion

I understand that what I’m asking for is unrealistic in an age where the entire university system is under attack. I understand that every department, including Classics, is fighting for funding. We may need to find some alternative to the ivory tower in the future, though that is beyond the scope of this already overlong essay. I encourage and celebrate people with proper credentials who are making an effort to take relatively obscure and “unprofitable” topics directly to the people who are interested in them. I’m a big fan of scholars like Jackson Crawford and Justin Sledge (I’ll probably write a similar essay about the Western Esoteric tradition someday), who have embraced direct public education of “niche” topics that have been cut from universities. I certainly do not want to take anything away from the Classics, but I hope we can add a wider perspective and context to English literature that takes into account these old tales. They’re more powerful than many people realize, and they’re in real danger of being given over to the wrong hands.