The Story of Kullervo

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

The world first publication of a previously unknown work of fantasy by J.R.R. Tolkien, which tells the powerful story of a doomed young man who is sold into slavery and who swears revenge on the magician who killed his father.

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 who tries three times to kill him when still a boy, Kullervo is alone save for the love of his twin sister, Wanona, and guarded by the magical powers of the black dog, Musti. 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 cruellest of fates.

Tolkien wrote that The Story of Kullervo was 'the germ of my attempt to write legends of my own', and was 'a major matter in the legends of the First Age'; his Kullervo was the ancestor of Túrin Turambar, tragic incestuous hero of The Silmarillion. In addition to being a powerful story in its own right, The Story of Kullervo - published here for the first time with the author's drafts, notes and lecture-essays on its source-work, The Kalevala, is a foundation stone in the structure of Tolkien's invented world.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

This book is perhaps the final offering from the desk of medieval scholar and beloved fabulist Tolkien, who died in 1973. It may also be the thinnest, a 36-page story that breaks off halfway through, followed by a page and a half of notes outlining a possible ending. The text is important, though, as the first attempt by a very young Tolkien to shape myth into fiction. Editor Flieger, a noted Tolkien scholar, notes similarities between the character of Kullervo and Turin Túrambar of The Silmarillion. Tolkien was barely 20 when he became enamored of the Finnish epic Kalevala: this slim tale is his bid to flesh out the saga of a character in that dark savage tale. Kullervo, enslaved by his uncle, escapes but later returns to kill him. Afterward, Kullervo realizes that he had committed incest with his own sister, and he orders his enchanted sword to kill him as well. The volume is enhanced with essays by the editor and two drafts of a nearly identical talk on the Kalevala first delivered by Tolkien at Oxford in 1914. Verdict This slim volume will disappoint all but the most dedicated Tolkienite but is valuable for its historical significance. [See Prepub Alert, 10/26/16.]-David Keymer, Modesto, CA © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.