Drawing on the Power of Resonance in Writing

Echoing Other Works:

Echoing Other Works: Der Ring des Nibelung and The Lord of The Rings

The book "Lord of the Rings" echoes the title of Wagner's classic German opera Der Ring des Nibelung, which is best translated as "Nibelung's Ring." The two tales have some similarities. From Wikipedia, here is a brief synopsis of the opera:

The plot revolves around a magic ring that grants the power to rule the world, forged by the Nibelung dwarf Alberich from gold he stole from the Rhine maidens in the river Rhine. With the assistance of Loge, Wotan — the chief of the gods — steals the Ring from Alberich, but is forced to hand it over to the giants, Fafner and Fasolt. Wotan's schemes to regain the Ring, spanning generations, drive much of the action in the story. His grandson, the mortal Siegfried, wins the ring — as Wotan intended — but is eventually betrayed and slain as a result of the intrigues of Alberich's son Hagen. Finally, the Valkyrie Brünnhilde — Siegfried's lover and Wotan's estranged daughter — returns the ring to the Rhine maidens. In the process, the gods and their home, Valhalla, are destroyed.

Does it sound at all familiar? In The Lord of the Rings, the One Ring is forged of gold and gives the wielder the power to rule the world. The character of Wotan appears in LOTR in the guise of Gandalf. In both tales, the ringbearer is repeatedly referred to as the "Lord of the Ring." Many people struggle to gain the ring, and eventually, instead of casting it into a river (a plan that Frodo suggests), it is thrown into the Crack of Doom.

So plot-wise there are a number of similar elements between the two works. Upon reading The Lord of the Rings, one might be tempted to conclude that the One Ring is an allegory for the nuclear bomb. Both, it would seem, are an ultimate weapon. And Tolkien's use of a quest to destroy the Ring certainly mirrors many a person's desire to rid the world of this "ultimate weapon."

But Tolkien wasn't writing an allegory about the A-bomb—at least not consciously. He was familiar with war, having fought in WWI, and I'm sure that he knew that in every war, there is a new ultimate weapon, whether it be the fighter planes of WWI, or the underwater mines of the Crimean War—it is all the same. In the 1100s it was the trebuchet and the crossbow. Every war brings its new horrors, and the Ring that represented those horrors is based upon sources lost in antiquity.

While the story form itself was probably inspired by the opera (or by one of the German sagas that inspired the opera), both stories also share a lead character—the Norse god Odin (or Wotan), a god of wisdom, war, and travel. Odin of course is often depicted as a man robed for travel with a walking stick and a long gray beard, and among the Roman pantheon he is equated with the god Mercury. There is no doubt that the two were one and the same god. There is also little doubt that Gandalf is modeled on Odin—a wise traveler who is also a master of war. In fact the artist George von Rosen's 1886 depicts  Odin as a wise old man with a long beard.

No one who has seen the movies or other representations of Gandalf can fail to recognize that he and Odin are one and the same. Yet sometimes even the author doesn't recognize the source of a character that he creates. For example, Tolkien once found an old postcard from Germany in his belongings and wrote on the back of it that the postcard—which showed an old wizard feeding a deer—served as inspiration for Gandalf.

But critics have shown that it couldn't have served as inspiration. Tolkien had actually created Gandalf several years before he saw the postcard. I suspect that instead, Rosen's picture of Odin, shown here, served as Tolkien's inspiration for Gandalf.

The similarities between the characters can be seen in the design of Gandalf—who is shown wearing Mercury's traditional gray traveling robe and peaked cap in the image below—from the film.