The Story of Kullervo [Paperback]

“Shows how Finnish mythology and folk tales were instrumental to how Tolkien created his own legendarium.”—Boston Globe
 
Kullervo, son of Kalervo, is perhaps the darkest and most tragic of all J.R.R. Tolkien’s characters. “Hapless Kullervo,” as Tolkien called him, is a luckless orphan boy with supernatural powers and a tragic destiny.
 
Brought up in the homestead of the dark magician Untamo, who killed his father, kidnapped his mother, and tried three times to kill him when he was still a boy, Kullervo is alone save for the love of his twin sister, WanMna, and the magical powers of the black dog Musti, who guards him. When Kullervo is sold into slavery he swears revenge on the magician, but he will learn that even at the point of vengeance there is no escape from the cruelest of fates.
 
Tolkien himself said thatThe Story of Kullervowas “the germ of my attempt to write legends of my own,” and was “a major matter in the legends of the First Age.” Tolkien’s Kullervo is the clear ancestor of Túrin Turambar, the tragic incestuous hero ofThe Silmarillion. Published with the author’s drafts, notes, and lecture essays on its source work, theKalevala,The Story of Kullervois a foundation stone in the structure of Tolkien’s invented world.
 
“A fascinating read.”—NPR

The Story of Kullervo,one of Tolkien’s earliest works, published with commentary by Verlyn Fleiger

J.R.R. TOLKIEN (1892–1973) is the creator of Middle-earth and author of such classic and extraordinary works of fiction asThe Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings,andThe Silmarillion.

VERLYN FLIEGER, Ph.D., is retired from the University of Maryland as professor emerita in the department of English, where her specialties were the worlƒ6