Stephan Scott Grundy (June 28, 1967 – September 29, 2021),[1][2] also known by the pen-name Kveldulf Gundarsson, was an American author, scholar, goði and proponent of Asatru. He published more than two dozen books and several papers. He is best known for his modern adaptations of legendary sagas and was also a non-fiction writer on Germanic mythology, Germanic paganism, and Germanic neopaganism.
Before publishing his first novel, Grundy published, as Kveldulf Gundarsson, two books on Germanic neopaganism and Germanic magic. He served as Lore Warden and Master of the Elder Training Program for the Ring of Troth (now 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 edited and co-wrote both editions of The Troth's handbook, Our Troth, and has written other works on ancient and modern Germanic paganism and Germanic culture.
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 as well as having "clarified the group's objection to fascism and racism".[8]
Grundy began working on his first complete novel during his freshman year at Southern Methodist University. Originally, the novel was intended to be based on the Anglo-Saxonepic poemBeowulf, but Grundy was convinced by his professor that the Nibelung legend would be a more appropriate basis for a first novel.
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 SumerianEpic 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. [citation needed]
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).
Stephan Grundy, "Shapeshifting and Berserkergang" in Carol Poster and Richard J. Utz, eds., Translation, Transformation and Transubstantiation in the Late Middle Ages, Disputatio 3 (1998), pp. 104–22.
Kveldulf Gundarsson: numerous articles in Idunna and Mountain Thunder.
^Stephan Scott Grundy, 'The Cult of Óðinn: God of Death?' (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Cambridge University, 1995); the thesis was accompanied by a self-published book, Stephan Grundy, Miscellaneous Studies Towards the Cult of Odinn (Everett, WA: Vikar, 1994).
^Kaplan, Jeffrey,『Chapter Nine: The Reconstruction of the Ásatrú and Odinist Traditions』in Lewis, James R. (1996) Magical Religion and Modern Witchcraft SUNY Press, ISBN0-7914-2890-7, pp. 224, 233 (note 48).
^Mattias Gardell, Gods of the Blood: The Pagan Revival and White Separatism, Durham, New Hampshire: Duke University Press, 2003, ISBN0-8223-3071-7, p. 163.
^Jenny Blain, Nine Worlds of Seid-Magic: Ecstasy and Neo-Shamanism in North European Paganism, Routledge, 2001, ISBN0-203-39876-9, p. 99.
^Julia Bolton Holloway, tr. and ed., Saint Bride and Her Book: Birgitta of Sweden's Revelations, new ed. Cambridge: Brewer, 2000, ISBN0-85991-589-1, p. 8.
^Charlotte Hardman and Graham Harvey, Paganism Today, London: Thorson's, 1995, ISBN0-7225-3233-4, p. 59.
^John Clute and John Grant, The Encyclopedia of Fantasy, New York: St. Martin's, 1999, p. 692.
^Like Wagner, Grundy used the Scandinavian version of the story. The German translation proved more popular than the English original. Winder McConnell, A companion to the Nibelungenlied, Columbia, South Carolina: Camden House, 1998, p. 140.
