Another Middle Earth Tale From Tolkien’s Archives Is Being Published

The Story of Kullervo is set to shed more light on the world of Middle-earth.

The Story of Kullervo is Tolkien’s reimagining of the Kullervo cycle from the Karelian and Finnish epic poem Kalevala. “Hapless Kullervo”, as Tolkien called him, is a luckless orphan boy with supernatural powers and a tragic destiny.

According to Amazon, The Story of Kullervo “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”. 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.

The fantasy writer once claimed that the novel was “the germ of [his] attempt to write legends of [his] own to fit [his] private languages”.

The story takes place during the First Age of the world, and Kullervo is an ancestor of one of the central figures in The Silmarillion, , Túrin Turambar.

(I mean, duh.) But before all of these affairs leading up to Lord of the Rings, Tolkien had written another work, which can, as Wired points out, be seen as a sort of precursor to The Silmarillion. It was “a major matter in the legends of the First Age”.

It’s worth noting this isn’t technically the first time the piece has been published. The latter was published a few years ago in Tolkien Studies: Volume 7, as part of an annual scholarly review.

It is a relatively unknown story, and a significant read for Tolkien addicts. Most crucially, it led to his Elvish languages for Middle-earth.

“He was “immensely attracted by something in the air” of this verse epic of dueling Northern wizards and lovestruck youths, beer-drinkers and shape-changers”, noted biographer John Garth in his book, “Tolkien and the Great War”. Although he never completed it, it’s full of ancillary materials, and includes a character who’s closely related to the Lord of the Rings universe.