Frodi's men:
"...would have followed him to Jotunheim if he bade them." (War Of The Gods, p. 261)
Centuries later, Skafloc and Mananaan MacLir do make this journey. However, when Harald Hardrada attempts it, something different happens. His fleet finds only icebergs and a whale and must turn back. Poul Anderson's The Last Viking Trilogy, about Hardrada, is neither heroic fantasy nor historical fantasy but historical fiction. Jotunheim does not exist. Either the supernatural realms were always imaginary or they have somehow withdrawn as in Anderson's The Broken Sword or in JRR Tolkien's Middle Earth History. For further treatment of this idea, see here.
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
Harald Hardrada, because he was a historical person living in recorded times, could not find Jotunheim because it never existed.
And I think you were alluding to how the Vala appealed to Eru, the One, as Ar-Pharazon, the last king of Numenore, invaded the Blessed Realm. Eru's response was to remove the land of the Valar from "the circles of the world."
Sean
Sean,
Yes, Tolkien goes to the trouble of explaining why the world is no longer flat and he has the haunting idea of sailors occasionally glimpsing the straight way to the true West!
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Quite true! And I've wondered if the ships mentioned as leaving Middle Earth for the Blessed Realm were actually SPACE ships--because they had to somehow leave the now round world to find the land of Aman.
I know not all readers liked THE SILMARILLION, finding it too austere, remote, "historical," etc. But I loved the book!
Sean
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