Abstract
In Chap. 3, “Bilbo as Sigurd in the Fairy-Story Hobbit (1920–1927),” Tolkien composes The Hobbit as a fairy-story, in the light of his regard for Andrew Lang’s paradigmatic Victorian fairy-story of the northern hero Sigurd. Fairies (=Elves) and the magic associated with them in this redacted fairy-story are based on the Völsungasaga, which Tolkien recreated in his own Legend of Sigurd. Guided at least implicitly by his overarching and developing legendarium, he reshapes the Old Norse story of Sigurd in his own eucatastrophic Hobbit via his own definitions of the fairy-story: comic antihero Bilbo queers the tragic Sigurd while he engineers a cosmic and peaceful solution to the problem posed by the dragon Smaug and the enmity between Men and Dwarves.
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Chance, J. (2016). Bilbo as Sigurd in the Fairy-Story Hobbit (1920–1927). In: Tolkien, Self and Other. The New Middle Ages. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-39896-3_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-39896-3_3
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Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
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Online ISBN: 978-1-137-39896-3
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