Stephan Grundy (born 1967 in New York, U.S.) is an American author best known for his modern adaptations of legendary sagas and also a non-fiction writer on Germanic mythology, Germanic paganism, and Germanic neopaganism, often under the pseudonym Kveldulf Gundarsson (with some variations in spelling).
Grundy grew up mainly in Dallas in the U.S. state of Texas.
Contents |
Grundy began working on his first complete novel during his first year at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, where he was studying English and German philology. Originally, the novel was intended to be based on the Anglo-Saxon epic poem Beowulf, but Grundy was convinced by his professor Dr. Stephen Flowers (author of numerous widely respected works about Germanic history and magic) that the Nibelung legend would be a more appropriate basis for a first novel.
Grundy wrote most of the novel in a dormitory at the University of St Andrews, Scotland, where he spent one year as an exchange student. He also spent a year as an exchange student in Bonn, Germany - virtually at the foot of the Drachenberg - spending some of his time on research for his novel (which also led him all across Scandinavia). Rhinegold — a retelling of the entire Sigurð cycle[1] dedicated to, among others, Richard Wagner and J. R. R. Tolkien — came out in 1994, and quickly developed into an international best-seller.[2] In the same year, Grundy received his PhD from the University of Cambridge with a dissertation on Odin: ("The Cult of Óðinn: God of Death?").
Terri Windling identified Rhinegold as one of the best fantasy debuts of 1994, describing it as "both scholarly and entertaining".[3]
Two years later, 1996, Grundy completed Attila’s Treasure, focused less on Attila the Hun than on Grundy’s favorite legendary figure, Hagen. This novel, too, was an international success, but to a lesser degree than the forerunner novel Rhinegold.
This was followed in 1999 by Gilgamesh, a modern adaptation of the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh that attempts to address directly the homosexual nature of the original text largely ignored by modern scholars. This was less well received than the two earlier novels.
With Melodi Lammond-Grundy, Grundy has since published the Falcon Dreams series, a trilogy first published in German and available in English in e-book format: Falcon’s Flight (2000), Eagle and Falcon (2002), and Falcon’s Night (2002).
Before publishing his first novel, Grundy published, as Kveldulf Gundarsson, two books on Germanic neopaganism and Germanic magic. He has since edited and co-written both editions of the handbook of The Troth, Our Troth, and written other works on ancient and modern Germanic paganism and Germanic culture.
Grundy was previously Lore Warden and Master of the Elder Training Program for the Ring of Troth (now known simply as The Troth) and carried on the organization's tradition of being based in scholarship, started by Edred Thorsson.[4] Mattias Gardell also regards him as important in the organization's move to the left and development of a "strict antiracist and antisexist ideology."[5] He is cited by other writers on Germanic paganism inside and outside academia, for example as Grundy by Jenny Blain in her discussion of the social role of seiðr in Iceland,[6] also as Grundy by Julia Bolton Holloway on pagan priestesses,[7] and by Charlotte Hardman and Graham Harvey in their survey of neo-paganism for editing Our Troth, "a large work collecting articles about almost every conceivable issue of importance to Asatrúar" as well as having "clarified the group's objection to fascism and racism."[8]