Item #109250 The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs. William MORRIS.
The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs
The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs

The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs

London, Ellis and White, 1877.

Octavo, viii, 392 pages.

Three-quarter dark blue morocco and cloth (with the stamp of the binders, Root & Son); spine gilt in compartments; sides ruled in gilt; top edge gilt; leather a little rubbed at the extremities; the rear top corner lightly bumped; an old tear to the first contents leaf neatly sealed; light traces on the front pastedown where a bookplate has been removed; trifling signs of use; overall an excellent copy.

Provenance: T.G.H. Strehlow (Melbourne, 31 January 1945), with these details in ink on an early binder's blank. This provenance is significant, given that Strehlow was soon to begin work on his magnum opus, 'Songs of Central Australia' (not published until 1971). 'A dense, often bewilderingly literary work, with Greek and Norse mythological analogies, ["Songs"] seamlessly merged his own and his father's research into Arrernte sacred verse and totemic geography' ('Australian Dictionary of Biography'). Morris's epic would have been of interest to Strehlow both for its subject matter (the Volsung saga) and for its setting in an archaic loose epic metre. Strehlow invokes Morris explicitly at least once in 'Songs' (in the conclusion), and draws regularly on archaic verse forms and Norse legends in his exposition of the ceremonial verse of the Arrernte people.

Item #109250

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