A Comparison Of Volund And Hrolf Kraki

Before Christianity permeated European cultures, polytheist religion was central to society. This religion consisted, as all do, of stories meant to teach societal values and important lessons. Thus, many of these tales, including “The Saga of the Volsungs,” “The Lay of Volund,” and Hrolf Kraki, had similar patterns and themes. However, as the culture started transitioning to Christianity, its stories began transitioning as well. Thus, there are often two very similar tales that “originate” from two different locations. Older stories are often heroic, meaning that a large consideration is in the success of a family or group, rather than an individual. The people of these stories valued family more than marriage. Conversely, chivalric tales

The storyline starts much earlier in the character’s life. There is an aspect of the heroic pattern to the story, since Velent’s father dies, leaving him to come of age alone. However, the story does not follow many of the other aspects of the heroic pattern identified by Lord, nor those by Raglan (Lecture 09/26, 28/2017; Theorizing About Myth). Velent is taken in by the king, Nidung, and is appointed as a personal knife-watcher for the king. Much more of this story centers on Nidung and the relationship Velent has with the king, showing the transition from importance of family to importance of kings. This makes “Velent” a more chivalric tale (Office Hours 12/13/2017). Velent eventually goes through similar experiences to Volund, in that he rapes Nidung’s daughter and flies away to safety. However, after Nidung dies and his son succeeds him, Volund returns so he may be part of his son’s life, and can be a proper husband to Nidung’s daughter (“Velent” PDF reading). This close to the story shows the significance placed on marriages by people of the south, and the influence of Christianity on their values, since Christianity strongly promotes the sanctity of

For example, the seven books of Harry Potter include most aspects of the heroic pattern as defined by Albert Lord and Milman Parry. This shows that society still values the idea of everyday people being able to make a difference and rise to challenges. The heroic pattern is one that people relate to, and people aspire to be like the heroes they know the stories of, as these people embody many of the values of society – courage, kindness, intelligence, forgiveness, and stamina. The main character in this particular modern heroic story, Harry Potter, possesses all of these principles, and he fits the heroic pattern identified by Albert Lord. First, he is orphaned as an infant. His challenge is to defeat Lord Voldemort, who singled him out while he was a baby due to a prophecy and killed his parents while attempting to kill him. He is mainly helped by Albus Dumbledore, a wise, old, cunning wizard. Harry must go on a quest to find all of the horcruxes that must be destroyed in order to defeat Voldemort. While he is retrieving a horcrux with Dumbledore, the latter dies. Eventually, Harry defeats Voldemort, and he is celebrated throughout the wizarding world. This story fits six out of seven requirements of heroic oral epic theory proposed by Lord and Parry. Harry does borrow equipment, but that is not a central part of the story, nor is it from divinity (Structure