Which Tolkien book, published posthumously in 2009, retells the Norse legend of Sigurd and Gudrún?

J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún retells the Norse legend of Sigurd and Gudrún. Christopher Tolkien edited the work, which was published in 2009, decades after his father’s death.

The book contains two long narrative poems, “The New Lay of the Völsungs” and “The New Lay of Gudrun.” They draw on the Völsung tradition found in sources including the Poetic Edda and the medieval Völsunga saga. Tolkien composed the poems in modern English using alliterative techniques inspired by older Germanic verse.

The story includes Sigurd’s killing of the dragon Fafnir, the cursed treasure, Brynhild, Gudrún, and the tragic relationships among the Völsungs and Niflungs. Tolkien’s version is therefore a literary recreation rather than a direct translation of one medieval text.

The title is sometimes confused with Tolkien’s Middle-earth books. Unlike The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, this volume is an adaptation of material from the wider Norse heroic tradition.