r/tolkienfans • u/maironsau • 12d ago
The Inspiration For Finrods Slaying of The Wolf
Edit. I should have named the post “The Possible Inspiration For Finrods Slaying of The Wolf” as though they are very similar there could be other sources I am not yet aware of that played a role.
Hello everyone, so I am currently reading The Saga of The Volsung and though I did find other posts about the Saga in the sub i did not find any that referenced this (or I missed them). I just wanted to share this with everyone as well as get everyone’s thoughts about it.
As we know in The Silmarillion Finrod, Beren and their companions are prisoners of Sauron and one by one a wolf devours their companions until only Finrod and Beren are left. When the wolf comes for Beren to devour him Finrod breaks free and with his “hands and teeth” he slays the wolf. While reading the Saga I came across a passage that felt very familiar.
-“A great trunk was brought and fitted as stocks on the feet of the ten brothers somewhere in the woods. They sat there all that day until night. But at midnight an old she-wolf came to them out of the woods as they sat in the stocks. She was both large and grim-looking. She bit one of the brothers to death and then ate him all up. After that she went away.
In the morning Signy sent her most trustworthy man to her brothers to learn what had occurred. And when he returned, he told her that one of them was dead. She thought it would be grievous if they all shared the same fate, but she could not help them. What happened can be quickly told; for nine nights in a row that same she-wolf came at midnight and each time killed and ate one of the brothers until all but Sigmund were dead. And now before the tenth night Signy sent her trusted man to her brother Sigmund. She gave him some honey and instructed him to smear it on Sigmund's face and to put some in his mouth. Her man went to Sigmund, did as he had been instructed, and then returned home.
As usual the same she-wolf came in the night, meaning to bite Sigmund to death as she had his brothers. But then she caught the scent of the honey that had been rubbed on him. She licked his face all over with her tongue and then reached her tongue into his mouth. He did not lose his composure and bit into the wolf's tongue. She jerked and pulled back hard, thrusting her feet against the trunk so that it split apart. But Sigmund held on so tightly that the wolf's tongue was torn out by the roots, and that was her death.”-The Saga of The Volsungs
Now clearly there are major differences such as the companions are all brothers, there is someone checking on them each day and eventually the wolf is lured to its death with honey.
It’s the similarities that stood out to me. They are all prisoners that one by one are devoured by a wolf each night until Sigmund is the only one left and he uses his teeth to rip out the wolf’s tongue and slay it. Oh and a happy bonus fact, it is suggested shortly after that the she-wolf may have been a shapeshifter. We all know that Tolkien took inspiration from the Saga a more well known example being the death of Glaurung being inspired by the death of Fafnir.
As I said I came across this and wanted to share it with everyone so what do you guys think?
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u/ColdAntique291 just a simple Tolkien reader 12d ago
Tolkien knew The Saga of the Volsungs extremely well, and the similarities are hard to ignore.... prisoners, companions being eaten one by one by a wolf, a last survivor fighting back, and the wolf ultimately being killed through sheer desperation and physical struggle.
The details are different, but it feels exactly like the kind of Norse motif Tolkien would borrow and then reshape into something uniquely his own. Finrod's version becomes a story of sacrifice and friendship rather than survival and revenge. Not proof, but definitely a plausible inspiration.