Oxonmoot 2024

Before they were Inklings, Lewis, and Tolkien were both members of the Coalbiters. Tolkien founded this group to increase the readership of Icelandic texts among Oxford dons. Their participation in the Coalbiters highlights their deep interest in Norse mythology and culture. However, each author assimilated Nordic materials in distinctive and characteristic ways in their fiction. Tolkien was primarily interested in Scandinavian culture and customs. In contrast, Lewis focused on divine and mortal figures in Scandinavian mythology. Also, Tolkien’s imagination seemed to be ignited by words or names, while Lewis seems to have had more of a pictorial imagination. Some of these differences can be clearly seen in the two authors’ different responses to the classic Norse text Heimskringla, written by the twelfth-century scholar Snorri Snurluson.