Ben Hellman
Of Beasts that Gloat and Plunder
The Twa Corbies, preparing to dine on the dead knight below, from “Some British Ballads,” 1919, by Arthur Rackham, (Wikimedia Commons)....
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Ben Hellman
Oct 31, 2021
Her Undying Love; Gothic Viking Zombie Mayhem
Hild, unable to bear the deaths of her lover and father, raises their bodies with the bodies of their warriors, leading to an endless...
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Ben Hellman
May 9, 2021
Too Much of a Good Thing; Epic Burnout in the Jangar Cycle
Too much of a good thing isn't always fabulous. A hero of Jangar drinks a bowl of wine it would take sixty men to lift, a common...
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Ben Hellman
Apr 24, 2021
Beyond Beowulf: Curses, Shapechangers, and Doomed Love
The Saga of King Hrólf Kraki features two warriors, man and son, who fight as bears. The father is cursed to roam as a bear by day. The...
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Ben Hellman
Mar 7, 2021
One Sad Woman; Reclaiming Hildeburh’s Tale from her Men
“The lady lamented, sorrowed with songs...the greatest fire of the slain, roared before the mound” (Beowulf, 1117-1120; Benjamin Slade...
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Ben Hellman
Jan 25, 2021
Toying with Ancient Stories; Uncovering the Tales of the Old English Poem “Widsith”
Danish King Hrothgar with his nephew Hrothulf, cutting down the Heathobards as Heorot Hall burns, following the failed wedding union...
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Ben Hellman
Dec 8, 2020
Seldom Told Tales; Unraveling Viktor Rydberg’s Norse Mythos
Freya and Svipdag, by the illustrator John Bauer. This is one of several stories I had never read about before reading Viktor Rydberg's...
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Ben Hellman
Nov 10, 2020
The Endless Hunger; Confronting Grief With Gilgamesh
Statue of Gilgamesh at the University of Sydney (based on an ancient bas-relief at the Louvre) and Herbert Mason's Epic of Gilgamesh. If...
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Ben Hellman
Sep 3, 2020
No Stone Unturned; An Investigation of Steinn from Grettis Saga
Rock eaters, controllers, destroyers and shapers: Left to right and top to bottom: The Rockbiter from The Neverending Story; Ludo from...
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Ben Hellman
Aug 30, 2020
"Asphurtzela" and the Bear's Son Tradition
Public statue of the giant- and dragon-slaying Georgian culture hero Amirani, ამირანი, a figure associated with the Greek Prometheus myth....
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Ben Hellman
Jul 27, 2020
On the Challenges of Adapting Beowulf and My Suggestions for a Richer Experience
Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy in the early 2000s and Michael Crichton's 1999 The 13th Warrior understood the visual nature of...
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Ben Hellman
Jul 27, 2020
An Anglo-Saxonist Reviews Another Beowulf Rock Opera
Stage adaptations of Beowulf from 2019, 2013 and 2005. (Left to right) The Met Cloisters, A.R.T's Oberon and New York's Irish Repertory...
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Ben Hellman
Jul 19, 2020
Is the Georgian Folktale "Asphurtzela" an unrecognized Beowulf Analogue?
Beowulf Mural, Robert Eva, photographer, Sheerness, Kent, Great Britain, 2017 I've found some details in a Georgian folk tale that align...
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