The Moral Dilemmas of the Hero Thiodolf in William Morris’s The House ofWolfings
Yasuko Hatano
Introduction
William Morris (1834-96)’s The House of the Wolfings (1888) is a story about the life of the Gothic tribes andtheir first meeting with the Romans in war. Even though Morris’s literary books written in his later years have beenreferenced as forerunners of modern fantasy, little attention has been paid to them. Morris’s stories, set in remoteplaces and distant past, are called romances rather than novels, distinguishing them from the writing of his literarycontemporaries. His romance The House of the Wolfings tells of Thiodolf, an alien warrior of the House of Wolfings,
who leads a war against the Romans. His loyalties are divided between his divine lover and the House.
This essay explores The House of the Wolfings in terms of the style, language use, and narrative of Morris’s
romances in order to analyze the effects of his selecting romances for his creation of the tale of the past, and theeffective use of the traditional style of romances made in the portrayal of the hero’s life-and-death dilemmas
between his loyalty to the kindred and desire for personal survival will be examined.
I Morris’s Selection of the Romance Style and its Effects
I 1. Effective Description of the Hall-Sun, the Holy Lamp of Wolfing Hall and the Maiden
To depict the ancient community, Morris insists on using the genre and style of literary romances thatoriginated in medieval times. The life of the folk is inseparable from the “Roof of Wolfings,” a great hall “framedof the goodliest trees of the wild-wood” (5; ch. 1) that “their forefathers built” (29-30; ch. 4). At the heart of that
great hall as well as the romance itself lies the Hall-Sun, the holy lamp kept burning above the dais. In theformulaic narrative style of romance, the portrayal of the holy lamp in Morris’s story is elaborate and exquisite, for
the Hall-Sun is the signifying object of the story. The name of the lamp is given to the maiden that is its caretaker.
Like the holy lamp plays an important role in integrating the folk of the Wolfings, Hall-Sun, the daughter ofThiodolf and his divine lover Wood-Sun, plays a prophetic role and leads the folk in time of danger.
I 2. The Effect of a Geographical Style
Morris adheres to the traditional style of romance, a genre of stories set in the distant past dealing withchivalry and heroes. As C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) points out in his 1969 essay “William Morris,” this style wascriticized as antiquated and his language labelled as artificial (219-20). Nevertheless, Lewis praises its simplicity
and contends that Morris’s stories “have geography”; that is, Morris gives a reader the “lie of the land” (221):
So wended the Markmen between wood and stream on either side of Mirkwood-water, till now at last thenight grew deep and the moons set, and it was hard on midnight, and they had kindled many torches to lightthem on either side of the water. (The House of the Wolfings 49; ch. 20)
This style is often used in romances and fairy-tales to evoke a vivid image with striking contrasts. In his
introduction to Morris’s The Wood beyond the World (1894), Tom Shippey observes that the archaic style is there to
explicitly evoke a particular age; that is, the tales are “sharpened by what Tolkien called ‘the elvish hone ofantiquity’ and that Morris aimed at the effects of romance and fairy-tale narratives because he wanted to “reproducefor others the sensations which saga (ones like the Norse Eddas) and romance had aroused in him including“cultural solidity” (x-xi).
II The Style of Romance that Presents the Ideal Ancient Community
II 1. The Ancient Germanic Gens as a Living Model of the Future
Concerning Morris’s literary work and society, John Goode argues that Morris conceives the ancientcommunity of the Germanic gens as a living model for the future (263). The style of romance is used to present thesocial structure of this ancient society as an alternative to the ideal of the Roman notion of city. According to Goode,Lewis H. Morgan, in his book Ancient Society (1877), suggests that the world of the Germanic tribes could
represent the model for the future that Morris as a socialist would support (Goode 263-64; Morgan 552). Goode
contends that Morgan’s judgment offers a precise rationale of Morris’s Romances, stating that the individual
consciousness has to be seen in the context of a situation in which it has mastery over the society which mediates
its relationship with others, and that only such a mind can be a determinant in direct forms of action (264). In The
House of the Wolfings, the process of achieving individuality is seen as realizable within the social structure (Goode265). The tale is devoted to establishing a social world in which freedom means integration; the people are united
with the ‘objective’ conditions of their existence (Goode 265).
II 2. The Style that Differentiates the Folk of the Goths from Invading Romans
According to the Goode essay, in The House of the Wolfings, the salient feature of the hero’s “individualconsciousness of his social existence” is closely “linked with other men in the struggle against nature and hostileforces” (262). Thiodolf, on the eve of leading the folk in the battle against the Romans, goes into the woods tomeditate, being quite content with his life in the dale and finds no deviation in his individual from the community
he belongs to (105; ch. 17). In the chapter 29, the different attitudes towards the battle of the Goths and the Romansare described. Goode observes that for the Goths, the battle is a campaign for the community’s integrity as theirown individual being (263). On the contrary, the descriptions of the Romans are very different from the Wolfings.
The severest criticism of them is that they have “forgotten kindred, and have none, nor do they heed whom theywed, and great is the confusion amongst them” (45; ch. 6). In the style of romance, Morris makes a sharp contrast
between the attitudes of Goths and the Romans to represent the differences between their social systems that
illuminate the difference in nature in each. The description of the Romans is rendered in prose narrative and neverconducted in a poetic conversational style. When the Goth warriors or war-dukes address their folk, however, their
poetic style with its rhyming effect seems fit to present their remarks. Morris foregrounds a sense of integrity in thecommunity of the Wolfings by aligning it with the style of romance.
III The Romance Hero Thiodolf’s Moral Dilemma
III 1. Thiodolf’s Love for his Kindred and for his Divine Lover Wood-Sun
As his love for Wood-Sun causes conflicts within his heart, Thiodolf himself is divided between loyalty to hiskindred and his desire for life. More significantly, the dwarf-wrought Hauberk armour plays an important role in
the tale as “a symbol of personal relationships which isolate the self from the community” (Goode 266). Even
though he realizes that the hauberk “is for the ransom of a man and the ruin of a folk” (111; ch. 17), Thiodolf does
wear it in battle against the Romans, and brings the disaster to him and the kindred. The warrior met Wood-Sun in
the woods, that is, outside the community, relaxing his integration into his society. It seems that Thiodolf achieves
greater selfhood in the woods, but it turns out that this is reversed as he recognizes that for his communal ‘self’
could be lost if he lives for his divine lover. The hero’s encounter with Wood-Sun results in isolating him from his
kindred and community, with whom he identifies himself. Thus his encounter with the divine being inevitably
estranges him from his community and, in the end, from the “condition of his existence” (Goode 268).
III 2. Thiodolf’s Daughter Hall-Sun and Hope for the Future of the Community
It is Thiodolf’s daughter Hall-Sun who realizes something is wrong with her father and takes him by the handto go to the wood-lawn to see Wood-Sun (163; ch. 26). Hall-Sun is determined to arrange a family reunion topersuade her mother to let her father die for his kindred (165; ch. 26). Hall-Sun’s poetic words would soundresolute and bitter to Wood-Sun, but they give hope for the future to the kindred of the Wolfings. Thiodolf finallyregains his identity as a kinsman in his society (170; ch. 26). As Goode points out, in her dramatic role, Hall-Sun isaware of an integration that extends beyond the gen as it is (269). It is Hall-Sun who has the greatest potential tocreate a bright future for the folk of the Wolfings.

Conclusion
This essay explored William Morris’s romance The House of the Wolfings in terms of the style, language use,and narrative of romances, in order to clarify the effects of his uses of romances creating the tale of the past.
Morris persisted in the use of the rather formulaic style of romances when he tried to depict the ancientcommunity. His aim was to utilize the effects of marked contrasts. At the heart of the tale is situated the holy
artifact of the Hall-Sun. The sustained detail of the portrayal of the holy lamp marks the Hall-Sun as the central
signifying object in the story. Furthermore, the holy lamp which plays an important role in integrating the folk of
the Wolfings in worship shares its name with Thiodolf’s daughter. Resonating with the same exquisite detail,Hall-Sun’s speeches are presented in rhymed verses and her words of wisdom have the effect of enhancing theintegration of the community as well as echoing the divinity that is innate with her birth.
Morris foregrounds a sense of integrity in the community of the Wolfings by aligning it with the style ofromance. The description of the ideal ancient community of Germanic gens is also stylistically linked to romance.
Moreover, the moral dilemma of the hero conflicted between his love for his kindred and his lover is represented asconversational dialogue in rhymes. It is the warrior’s longing for Wood-Sun that isolates him from the community.
In an integrated society individual existence cannot be conceived as separate from the kindred. Recognizing this,Hall-Sun takes her father to arrange the family reunion to persuade her mother to let her father die for his kindred
and restore the community’s cohesion. The use of mixed style of prose and verse in the fixed form of the romanceis thus formally apt to present Morris’s model of an integrated society.
Works Cited
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by John Lucas. Methuen, 1971, pp. 221-80.
Hodgson, Amanda. The Romances of William Morris. Cambridge UP, 1987.
Lewis, C. S. “William Morris.” Selected Literary Essays, edited by Walter Hooper. Cambridge UP, 1969, pp. 219-31.
Morgan, Lewis H. Ancient Society: Researches in the Lines of Human Progress from Savagery through Barbarism toCivilization. The Early Sociology of the Family, vol. 3, edited by Bryan S. Turner, 1877. Routledge, 1998.
Morris, William. The Wood beyond the World. Oxford UP, 1980.
---. The House of the Wolfings / The Story of the Glittering Plan. The Collected Works of William Morris, vol. 14. Russel,1966. 24 vols.
Shippey, Tom. Introduction. The Wood beyond the World, by William Morris. Oxford UP, 1980.