Tolkien followed the tradition of the Nibelunglied from Norse Mythology of a Wife who brow beats her husband to remove all emotion from his life so he may in turn bury that part in his children and kill all logical opposition to him. For if he can not control his own life or wife’s, who else can he push around besides his children?
This is the predecessor for all Dragon stories. Not only that it is the original story of a ring of extraordinary powers one must renounce all love for. Roma for Amor, the ring is the symbol of marriage that traps some women in the cave of subconscious repression of a bad emotion. The fear of financial security coupled with social opinion. But where does this start, when did it happen, Who’s fault is it, and how to change it?
The story starts with Frigga, Odin’s second wife representing civilization’s triumph over his first wife of Nature, condemning the fear of an incestuous relationship of Sieglinde and Siegmund. This pair is also present in the relationship of Princess Leia and Luke Skywalker, the pair separated at birth in the life of a borderline child. The emotions are never validated within the family and forced to be second guessed which should of naturally been accepted in healthy homes. Before a child takes any action with consequence, career or marriage, he must bridge his emotional (Princess Leia/Sieglinde) with their Logical (Luke Skywalker/Siegmund) thinking. This motif is represented by the pair crossing the chasm through a leap of faith (Fool card in Traot) or walking a razor’s edge between the two modes of thinking. The Goal is to gain employment (Logic) but which employment (Emotion). But Frigga has her husband to act on her behalf.
Now Odin, the megalomaniac ego that replaces emotional thinking for fear and consequence, now kills opposition where he can and removes the logical thinking and the self directed action from his children. By killing Siegmund. This is spurred on by Siegmund pulling the sword out of the tree, symbol of decisive action upon a goal. The fear of opposition to his weak ego, the child is suppressed and the anger toward the wife or mother is transferred. Like the Bully that is beaten in the home robs the milk money of the nerd.
After the death of Siegmund and the pieces of the broken sword are collected, sieglinde is hidden by Brunhilda in the east forest guarded by the Dragon Fafner. The sword Islidor breaks opposing Saurian, is the same sword that Siegmund finds in the tree which his son Siegfired like Aragorn will wield later. The east forest sieglinde is hidden in is the subconscioussnes of the inner child. The east represents the beginning and new start. The child of borderline parents, like the child, has a stunted development and is removed from access to adulthood. Only when a person has its emotions validated and has self direction in its action to attain its goals, in many ways it still reacts to the world much like a child and looks for others to make decisions and tell it how it feels. Its direction comes from Fox news, the mate, boss, or parent. Now Brunhilda is the emotional stirring that still remains in Odin, the father, that is entrapped after the scorn from his wife of Sieglinde escaping. Brunhilda is circled by fire until a hero can free her.
Now Sigelinde carries the seed of the logic of he dead brother. For even in the Dao symbol, there is a little white hole in black and vice versa. Emotional thinking caries a spark of logic that can grow. For her child Siegfried will become the dragon slayer. The Dragon is the generational and cultural split that pervades in families to bring societies into the wasteland expressed in T.H. Whites poem. The King and the land are one. As long Odin is separated in his thinking, so is the land in which the patriarchs or patriots of the country control. As after September 2001, it can be seen what happens when emotions from outside create fear in men to ignore their own emotions to ride a band wagon and put the their actions into others to invade countries that do not oppose any logical threat. Now Siegfried will have his father’s sword put back together again to slay the dragon. Like Aragorn.
After the slaying of the dragon, Siegfired will free Brunhilda and return emotional thinking to Odin the father. In alchemy the megalomaniac ego is called the sennex. In the Grail Cycle it is the Fischer King whose creative powers were staunch by a groin injury from raping a maiden at a well. Siegfried brings love and compassion to Brunhilda. This act overcomes the fear thinking that Frigga, civilization over nature, has bestowed upon her husband Odin. This is also seen in Nineteenth century architecture in America. Federalism was the response of better ships and the math of probability in shipping insurance that seemed to overcome nature. What in the previous century was exposed natural wood was covered up for painted wainscoting and wall paper. Everything man mad or improved was better than the poor man’s natural finishing. Merchant over farmer. Christianity over paganism. Siegfried as Tolkien hoped his story world answer to the strip mining that was going on in his England merge civilization to nature. Ents and all. The wasteland is the void before the merger. But till then the sennex will not accept the son, Siegfried, until he has a better course of action than Frigga. The sons answer will not be accepted wholesale, but digested and absorbed to bring about a better and more individual answer than what the son brought. The son will give self determination, motivation, and acquisition of the self to the father.
Now to the person who started this all. Remember our foreparents had to fight ice age, Frost storms, draughts, famine, earthquakes, and unpredictable herds. Nature seemed to be a fickle parent. So man strove for technology and civilization to bring order and control to the world it feared. Civilization made us separate from the world that threatened us. Today we can be locked in our environment controlled homes. Even in the hottest summer sun in the Sahara, men can drive Hummers with A/C setting the interior to 60 degrees. But who has become our safe keepers? Those that promote the fear and separation. Frigga as civilization and fear removes our natural mother in the earth and instinct. Granted for a time in our world expressed in Tribal oriented societies in the third world up to the beginning of the last century had maintained a balance between civilization and nature. They had the latest technology but not the latest fashion out of Paris. They had people coordinate society lives and not dictate. Frigga has grown to large degrees in the way of woman since the suffrage movement. Woman gave up the emotional grounding they gave children for goal setting. Love became conditional on success. At the same time men came back from two great Wars broken and not able to nurture their children but push forward their wives ambitions. If the spoke up it was aggressive and logical only. This has been prevalent in most of the worlds leading classes, with queens like Katherine of Aragon positioning of her wealth and power against her Husband Henry the Second. Just watch the Lion and Winter to see what happened to their children that became the predecessors of English Law that w find in America today. With the rise of economic success, we have seen the rise of latch key kids and children sent to boarding schools. The Ruling class disease is prevalent through the world. The disease that does not let the father bring emotional support to the children if the Mother wants to pursue her goals outside of the family. To the slurs of Mr. Mom. Frigga is the woman that is opposed to her own emotional non logical and some times passive side. Frigga’s separation from her self and lack of control is found within that of the husband and child. If she can not control herself, she controls those in her life and the world around her in the home at least.
After the freeing of Brunhilda to allow Odin’s support of his logic with that of his emotions, Siegfried has freed him to use the sword to discern for himself his own direction that is finally guide by the balance of emotional validation and the knowledge of logic to become truly a king in his head to coordinate all his skills and wisdom to action and accomplishment of his dreams. In doing so he heals Frigga and society. Society learns to live in nature, not against but with. Alternative fuel sources and biodegradable resources that function and out perform hazardous ones of the past.
The song remains the same but the tune changes. In the Twelve hundreds the cultural response to this story in England and Europe was the Grail Cycle with fashionable Knights of the Round Table. In the beginning of the Twentieth century, it was Norse heroes fighting for the ring to control in the Lord of the Rings. Ring of marriage that controls many to forsake love of thyself. For when the ring is that of wealth and position, it is deadly. For when ring becomes more important than love, it is too powerful. True marriage comes with true love of oneself first. Without that you only have a ring, and you will never understand how to love another. So to Frigga the ring was the wealth and control of her spouse to provide for her against the her fear of nature and the pieces of herself.
All that from a fairy Tale?