Stephan Grundy
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Dr. Stephan Downs (born 1967 in New York, USA) is an American author. Being versed in particularly the Germanic mythology and cultural history, Grundy is known best for his modern adaptations of legendary sagas.
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[edit] Life and work
Born 1967 in New York, Stephan Downs grew up mainly in Dallas in the U.S. state of Texas. Already during his school days Grundy began to write down numerous stories—partly mere fiction, partly already oriented towards mythologigal themes or legends as the Arthurian romance.
Under the pseudonym Kveldulf Gundarsson, the neo-paganist Grundy—temporarily a member of the North American Ring of Troth and other Ásatrú organisations—prior to his first novel brought two non-fiction books to paper, which dealt with Germanic religion and magic, and which are enjoying quite a good reputation among appreciators until this day.
[edit] Rhinegold
Grundy began working on his first complete novel during his first year at the Southern Methodist University in Dallas, where he was studying English and German philology. Originally, the Anglo-Saxon epic poem Beowulf was intended to be the novel’s fundament, yet Grundy was convinced by his professor Dr. Stephen Flowers (author of numerous widely respected works about Germanic history and magic) that the Nibelung myth would be a far more appropriate basis for a first novel.
The largest part of the novel Grundy wrote down in a dormitory in St. Andrews, Scotland, where he spent one year as an exchange student. Also one year as an exchange student he spent—virtually at the foot of the Drachenberg—in Bonn, Germany, what he combined with the research for his novel (which led Grundy all across Scandinavia as well). Rhinegold — adorned with dedications to, amongst others, Richard Wagner and J. R. R. Tolkien— came out in 1994, and quickly developed into an international best-seller. In the same year, Grundy graduated at the University of Cambridge with a thesis on Wotan, the Germanic god of war (“The Cult of Óðinn: God of Death?”).
[edit] Attila’s Treasure
Two years later, 1996, Grundy completed the novel Attila’s Treasure, in whose centre stands to a lesser extend Attila the Hun, but rather Grundy’s favourite legendary figure Hagen. This novel, too, was an internationel success, but to a lesser degree than the forerunner novel Rhinegold.
[edit] Gilgamesh
The novel was followed by the 1999 opus Gilgamesh, a modern adaptation of the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh. It attempted, in a courageous and sensitive manner, to address directly the unequivocally homosexual nature of the original text largely ignored by modern scholars. The reactions of the readership were quite ambivalent, but altogether this work is considered weaker than Grundy’s two earlier novels by the larger part of his readers.
[edit] Falcon Dreams Trilogy
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[edit] Stephan Grundy today
In 1995 Stephan Grundy and his wife Melodi Lammond Grundy spent a year in a restored castle (Emmel Castle) in Shinrone, Ireland. They now occupy an 18th century Gregorian-style vicar's estate in southern Offaly. Mr. Grundy enjoys classical singing, beer-brewing, medieval combat and fencing in the Society for Creative Anachronism (for which he has attained high honor), and harp-playing. Currently, Grundy is working on another novel, which will deal finally with the Beowulf poem.
[edit] Bibliography
- Kveldulf Gundarsson: Teutonic Magic: The Magical and Spiritual Practices of the Germanic People, 1990
- Kveldulf Gundarsson: Teutonic Religion: Folk Beliefs & Practices of the Northern Tradition, 1993
- Stephan Grundy: Rhinegold, 1994
- Stephan Grundy: Attila’s Treasure, 1996
- Stephan Grundy: Gilgamesh, 1999
- Stephan and Melodi Grundy: Falcon’s Flight, 2000
- Stephan and Melodi Grundy: Eagle and Falcon, 2002
- Stephan and Melodi Grundy: Falcon’s Night, 2002
