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.
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In the days of magic long ago, when magic was yet new, a swan nurtured her brood of cygnets by the banks of a smooth river in the reedy marshland of Sutse.
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(@HarperCollinsUK, 27 August 2015, ebook, 192 pages, borrowed from @AmazonKindle, #PrimeReading)
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I've read a few of Tolkien's other pieces recently and I'm sad to say none have even an iota of the impact of The Lord of the Rings series. I find myself wondering if these stories were written by the same author at all. I don't think I'll bother reading any again as they always disappoint me. The story is only 42 pages long and the rest of the book is made up with unnecessary fluff such as a list of characters and notes. The story is just okay and is apparently Tolkien's first piece of work. The story is also not finished which makes reading it and it's publication pointless. Sorry, but I have no desire to read half-finished stories no matter the fame of the author. I also didn't like the fact that everything that happens to Kullervo is bad. There's no balance.
