Resilience fascinates and inspires me. What kept Hugh Glass going as he crawled and stumbled across the plains after being savagely mauled by a grizzly bear? What drives a woman to keep on keeping on in the face of repeated emotional and physical blows?
And the obverse: Why do some people insist upon coddling themselves physically and emotionally, exalting emotional comfort as their primary value?
I believe it comes down largely to the stories we tell ourselves. Do we see ourselves as hero or victim? I am convinced that the stories I’ve fed myself upon for my entire life have made me more resilient. From historical tales — Jedediah Smith’s mountain men suffering through the desert on the way to or from California — to outright fantasy, like Conan of Cimmeria nailed to a cross and biting the head off a vulture in a primal act of defiance, I’ve convinced myself that the ideal is simply to never quit — even unto death.
It occurs to me that my ethic — both in Story and in Life — is all about “the Northern Thing.”
A couple of days ago I was listening to Alastair Stephens’ brilliant podcast The Scot and The Sassenach — Week 15 of a deep textual dive into the novel Outlander. As most of you are aware, my whole clan is quite besotted with that story. Stephens was examining a scene in which the heroine, Claire Fraser, is literally thrown to the wolves. She fights one successfully, but more approach. Stephens:
“She kills the wolf with her bare hands and it means almost nothing, because there are more wolves. And the truth of it is, there are ALWAYS more wolves…. We can’t permanently win. But there is nobility in the battle. And part of the consequence of victory is knowing that you’ll have to fight again.”
I know that Stephens is a Tolkien guy, and maybe that’s why I instantly recognized what he was describing as “the Northern Thing.” The phrase goes back to a talk the poet W.H. Auden gave on Tolkien back in 1966, where he identified the tragic-heroic ethic in The Lord of the Rings as a particular kind of worldview rooted in Norse and Germanic legendry.
Stephens, speaking about a tale set in a different North — the Scottish Highlands — encapsulates it nicely. You can’t win, at least not permanently, but you struggle anyway because there is value in the struggle. A TOR Books essay on the subject describes it thus:
“All the peoples of the north held the same basic belief: that Fate was inexorable, that the good fight must be fought, and that victory — however glorious — was transient. In the end the monsters would win, and the long twilight of the north would give way to an eternal darkness where even the gods were doomed.”
I find this worldview profoundly useful — and indescribably beautiful. I am aware that others find it “depressing.” I am convinced that you cannot win anyone over to this worldview. You have it or you don’t. Unsurprisingly, I tend to gravitate toward people who do have it, whether they’ve identified and defined it in this manner or not.
I confess, I do not understand those who find “the Northern Thing” depressing. I find it comforting. Tremendously so. I know for a fact that there will always be more wolves. I know for a fact that some day, they’ll take me down, along with everything I love. I also know that I can fight and that there is nobility in the battle, and that, in the end, is enough — and more than enough.
•••••
Craig Rullman and I are turning such cultural ruminations — and the actions that arise from them — into a new online project. It’s all about striving to live with honor in a dishonorable time. Look for Running Iron Report to launch soon.
Barry McKnight says
Great essay. Can’t wait to see your new project.
Paul McNamee says
The essence that informed of so much of Robert E. Howard’s output. For me, the utter distillation came in “Worms of the Earth.” Bran Mak Morn, knowing history is transient, knowing the Romans will conquer, knowing time will conquer if not the Romans, stands and fights – and in some respects, sells his soul to the Devil (the Worms) – because the act is what he is destined to do, supposed to do – go down fighting.
JimC says
Perfect.
Matthew says
And the obverse: Why do some people insist upon coddling themselves physically and emotionally, exalting emotional comfort as their primary value?—
Our age seems to teach people to value emotional comfort above all. Even people who complain about “victim culture” often value their own comfort too highly. There’s movements away from this since heroic stories are becoming more popular.
Off on a bit of a tangent, I think this is why you (and I) don’t like books like the Great Gatsby. We are supposed to think of Gatsby and Nick (who are avatars of Fitzgerald) as horribly wrong. Even though their own choices were the cause.
JimC says
i do hope the pendulum is swinging back. I am trying to give it a shove.
Matthew says
I hope the pendulum is swinging back too. However, I do worry about the type of person who likes to think he’s tough, but not. The world is filled with “Internet Tough Guys” people online (or offline) who spill about how to be manly/tough/whatever but never put their money were their mouth is.
Of course, the question of what makes a person resilient is hard to answer. You said it is about the stories you tell yourself. I think there’s a lot of truth there but one can make up lies about oneself. In my experience, the lies we tell ourselves are the most dangerous lies of all.
JimC says
Yep. Gotta be ruthless with our own bullshit. A daily struggle.
Keith West says
Jim,
Have you read Poul Anderson’s Dominic Flandry stories and novels? They’re part of a larger future history, but I especially like the Flandry portion of the sequence for the very thing you’ve mentioned here. Flandry is an agent for the Terran Empire, which is in decline, while a rival alien empire is in ascendance. Flandry knows his empire will fall, and when it does, the Long Night will begin. He knows there’s nothing he can do to stop the inevitable, but piece by piece he sells his soul (tip of the hat to Paul) to hold it off as long as he can. The cover on one of the books put it this way (paraphrasing from memory): sometimes a lost cause is the only one worth fighting for.
Of course, Anderson came from Scandanavian stock, so the Northern Thing runs deep through much of his work. See The Broken Sword for when he really lets it loose.
JimC says
I have not read the Flandry stories — but I did read The Broken Sword and his Harald Hardrada books lo these many years ago. Anderson was definitely of the “Northern Thing” school.
Matthew says
I have some of the Flandry books laying around on the shelf for my unread books. Interesting, I read “The Queen of Air and Darkness” by him recently. It’s a version of the changeling stories from British folklore but on another planet. It is also a tale of struggle between colonizers and natives. And a tip of the hat to Sherlock Holmes stories.
Breaker Morant says
Matthew, you poser-“Shelf (singular?) for unread books? Try “shelves, boxes, rooms, floors” for unread books. LOL-it is a sickness.
We had a furnace fire recently and Service Master was here cleaning. The guy who wiped down a lot of my books asked me “Have you read all these books.” Thank God for small favors that he did not ask that in front of my wife. I kind of, sort of had to equivocate and dodge the question.
JimC says
That’s wonderful. Have you read all these books… Hah!
Matthew says
Speaking of Anderson and “The Northren Thing” I just read “The Tale of Hauk” which is a Norse fantasy. Interestingly, Hauk isn’t a viking raider but a trader. People forget vikings were great traders too.
Also this list from Tor.com
https://www.tor.com/2017/06/22/the-northern-thing-five-books-inspired-by-norse-sagas/
deuce says
Excellent post, Jim. I’ll have more commentary — and an REH quote — later.
deuce says
Here’s a small part of Howard’s fairly long rumination on spitting in the face of implacable Fate:
“A man who does not resign himself is like a caged wolf who breaks his heart and beats his brains out against the bars of his cage. (…) Defeat is the lot of all men, and I come of a breed that never won a war. Men, and women too, of my line have fought for hopeless lost causes for a thousand years.”
REH makes the wolf itself the defiant victim of a tragic doom. The “breed” he speaks of is from nowhere north of Odense or east of Bergen.
I sent you an email, Jim.
lane batot says
There you go, using negative wolf symbolism again! THERE IS an alternative–befriending or just coming to an understanding with wolves–reminds me of one of my favorite Abraham Lincoln quotes. After the Civil War, when he was doing all he could to try and restore the South, someone said to Lincoln, “I don’t understand why you are being so kind to your enemies. I should think you’d want to destroy them!” Whereupon Lincoln famously replied, “When I make them my friends, I DO destroy my enemies…..”. But okay, we’re dealing with just symbolism here(although I HOPE there will always be real wolves–CERTAINLY there will always be the wolf’s smaller trickster brother–Coyote!), and relate another good quote I came across recently, this from G.K.Chesterton–“Fairy tales are more than true. Not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten!” With my immediate apologies to the Daeneryus/Kaleeshi fans out there…..
JimC says
I plead the limitations of my source material…
john roberts says
My friend, author Jane Lindskold (and can you have a more Viking name than that?) is very active in the movement to preserve the wolf and return them to natural habitats. They are magnificent beasts. Not that I’d want to meet a pack in a snowy forest.
JimC says
Right on both counts.
Matthew says
Wasn’t Lindskold Roger Zelazny’s girlfriend? Or am I thinking of someone else?
john roberts says
That’s Jane. She nursed him through his final illness.
Matthew says
He died too young.
john roberts says
I’ve long held that our two real enemies are time and gravity. One breaks us down, the other drags us down. In the end, if nothing else gets us first, they will.
JimC says
Ain’t that the truth.
john roberts says
Age is the Giant’s Nurse, against whom even Thor wrestled in vain.
Pat McGowan says
I feel like Jason Isbell’s song “If We Were Vampires ” is taking on the same idea in the area of relationships. The searing honestly of limits in all things appears in a lot of recovering artists and can be guided to for our lives. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fyiEJaf-IzE
Saddle Tramp says
Perhaps an aside but just came across this from the tomb of the Griffin Warrior. Jim, my guess is that you are already familiar with it, but just in case:
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/found-rare-minoan-sealstone-greek-mycenaean-ancient-history
Matthew says
“suggests greater and more complex cultural interchange between the civilizations than was previously known.”
That’s probably true of every culture interchange including ones we don’t think about interacting.
JimC says
One of my favorite aspects of frontier and borderland studies is discovering that cultural exchange is almost always so much greater than previously understood.
Matthew says
It shouldn’t surprise us. It’s as natural as water running down hill, but it does.
john roberts says
Shells and artifacts from Pacific Indian cultures have been found in Mississippian
mounds. And that’s between stone-age cultures without riding or pack animals.
JimC says
Yes! The Mandan were middle men in a huge trade network long before “contact.” It’s just glorious.
Diomedes says
I understand how one can think of this world view as depressing.. taken to it’s end.. it’s pretty hopeless. Fatalism is useful, though I’ve learned that like everything else moderation is key. Understanding that we are finite beings is valuable I think. Being realistic and practical about yourself, situation, and environment doesn’t mean that there is no room for idealism. What value is there in fighting for fighting’s sake? Idealism can allow for motivation to fight. Perhaps resilience is the balance between fatalism and idealism? Randy Shugart and Gary Gordon knew they were going to die when they stepped off the helicopter and made their way to Durant’s position. To them, giving their brother even an inkling of hope was worth it. That is valuable. The troubled person who brands himself “outlaw” and fights the world in order to uphold some fantasy he created about himself is a waste which is sad. Resilience, that sweet spot between fatalism and idealism, may be best showcased in the warriors mindset. It is no mistake that much of the current culture among warriors adopts much from the Norse culture. If victory has a consequence then defeat (death) has a reward. The most effective warrior ardently seeks his reward yet his hope is that he attains it while doing something of value. There is comfort in this. Once death is viewed as a reward then it looses it’s bite. One becomes free to pursue their ideals with utter disregard for one’s self. Emerson understood this. There may be “miles to go” but eventually we find rest so giving up isn’t valuable. We may be sitting a top a lonely mountain watching the last remaining light fade from the graveyard of empires, longing for a distant place, but the warrior understands that there is work to be done, even in darkness. Most importantly though he knows in his heart that the sun will always rise; his face will feel it’s warmth; either here or in Valhalla. Are you hero or victim? Or are you warrior, who cares not if he is a hero and understands he will be a victim of the human condition yet steps out into the darkness anyway because there is important work to be done?
JimC says
Thoughtful and well-expressed. More nuanced than my own presentation, and, I think, right in the x-ring. “Something of value” — a key element. Thank you.
lane batot says
Such depressing world views are the product, mostly(in my opinion), of TOO MUCH URBAN human thinking. No doubt there is PLENTY to be depressed about, but there is a BIGGER picture here, and I take comfort in what I heard an Ojibway medicine man say many years ago at a lecture I attended–that regardless of what man does to it, he WILL NOT destroy Mother Earth–to think thus is just human arrogance! The most “mankind” will do is destroy his capacity to live on this earth(although that certainly is depressing enough, as well as all the other species we’ll destroy along with ourselves), and Mother Earth will shrug, and carry on and start over. What is inspiring and uplifting, is to GET FRIKKIN” AWAY from TOO MUCH human(URBAN HUMAN, specifically) NOISE, and just see how resilient Mother Nature is, and how incredibly she bounces back, given ANY opportunity. And learn to live in the NOW, more like your brother animals, not only to enjoy your own life more, but learn to live with Nature better, instead of AGAINST her. THAT is the salvation of our world. This stuff, though hokey and new-agey to the Urban social scene, is NOT new, by any means, and can be easily understood by anyone spending any comparable amount of time in Nature. It truly renews the spirit. I have read about so many “lasts”, animals and people, that I have well entrenched in my own personal philosophy, that, by gosh, if I am also a “last of my kind”, then so be it; but it will NOT make me compromise MY ideals or philosophies for the IGNORANT majority!!!!
JimC says
Right there with you my friend!
john roberts says
I think one of the best depictions of the Fate-determined (or wyrd-determined) last fight is the Battle of Bloody Porch that climaxes ” The Wild Bunch.” Pike, Dutch, Tector and Lyle at last understand that their time is done. The only way they can redeem their honor is to try to rescue Angel from slow death by torture. So they confront an entire Mexican army led by the murderous General Mapache. In an instant of confrontation, Angel is murdered and instantly avenged as Pike and Dutch blast Mapache. For a moment, it looks like they could get away, but that’s not what they came here for. A gigantic free-for-all erupts, in which another Northern Thing is demonstrated.Yes, there is such a thing as “bererkergang.” One after another the Buch take mortal wounds and keep on fighting. In the end, nothing is left sve proof that bd men can redeem themselves by valor againt wven worse men.
JimC says
How I love this. Yes! The Northern Thing enacted in a modern context. And Bloody Sam of all people could extract the beauty from the brutality.
lane batot says
….in response to the comment above about not wanting to encounter wolves in a snowy forest, I couldn’t DISAGREE more! You really are wasting a lot of worry and stress fearing wild wolves, especially here in North America, where any attacks are extremely rare, and depend on very specific circumstances that are mostly nonexistent. I, for one, would be THRILLED to even get a glimpse of wild wolves–I WAS(as a student helper) on a study once that went to Alberta(from Montana) back before wolf reintroduction, to an area well populated by wolves, but only saw tracks and scat, alas. Being in Oregon, J. C., YOU might get this rare privilege one day, as gray wolves are in Washington now, and seen in Northern California, so you are right between! Just remember how unworried virtually ALL the mountain men and Indians(including the Lewis and Clark expedition) were of the wolves CONSTANTLY around their campsites. Grizzlies were a whole ‘nuther matter, however! Besides, any true Frontier Partisan out in the bush SHOULD be carrying some means to protect themselves, although wolves should be the least of your concerns(at least here in North America……)
JimC says
Wolves are in Oregon, too.
lane batot says
You should be THRILLED! What BETTER representative of the “frontier” than a wild wolf?! What better hope for our future, than a return and understanding and acceptance of these parallel spirits? Hopefully you WILL get to see or hear them one day yerself…….
JimC says
We had reliable sightings nearby for one that passed through to California. It is thrilling, indeed. Just compensate ranchers for depredation.
thedarkman says
Wolves. We have wolves here. Lots. I recently had a close encounter with a big timber wolf last hunting season. I was walking a trail looking for grouse when I came face to face with the wolf, possibly only 10 meters away. I have seen wolves before, and even “spoke” with packs howling in the frozen night, but nothing this close. Thrilling and chilling at the same time. The look in those eyes made my hair stand on end, and I was transported a million years into the past. The ancient instincts buried in my DNA was awakened as I looked upon my prehistoric rival. It was incredibly awe-inspiring and an honor, as this big boy let me see him, rather than melt away unseen before I got down that trail. After a moment, once he was satisfied, he turned an slipped into the bush, and I carried on. Although our dogs of today came from a common root like this wolf, they are far, far different now. When my time comes, I hope I can carry myself with just a little of the wolf’s power and ferocity, and go snarling and snapping into the long cold night!
JimC says
That is magnificent.
thedarkman says
Thanks Jim, but my feeble wordsmithing cannot describes fully the feeling one has looking into those eyes!
Big fan of that “Northern Thing”. Love those dark, bloody tales from the likes of Poul Anderson, and the grim, fatalistic adventures of REH. Maybe it appeals to my Germanic origins (my father was born in the north of Holland, historical stomping grounds of the Jutes, Angles and Saxons), or maybe I’m just a little savage and barbaric on the inside. Either way, it works for me.
Arpon Files says
Una gran verdad que nos obliga siempre estar alertas y no cantar victoria… “Siempre hay más lobos” (Imperdible!!)