Sagan om ringen (1971) Part 1 (English subtitles)

Sagan om ringen is a 1971 Swedish live action television film in two parts, adapting the first half of The Fellowship of the Ring. Actors were filmed against a blue screen and later inserted into hand-painted backgrounds. The film was created due to the success of the 1970 progressive rock album of the same name, by Bo Hansson (who was in turn inspired by . Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings). ON THE TRANSLATION The first thing to note is that I am not a native Swedish speaker. Neither would I qualify myself as completely fluent in the language, though I certainly have enough mastery to get by. To my knowledge, this English translation represents the first and only one of its kind. I undertook the effort both as a challenge to myself, and out of love for the works of . Tolkien (and all the associated adaptations, however strange they might be). To that end, if anyone with a better command of the Swedish language watches this video and finds any errors (and I am quite sure there are some), please do comment or send me a private message, and I shall endeavor to correct my mistakes or omissions. As with any translation, I, as the translator, have exercised some degree of liberty over the exact word choices used. In most cases this is simply a matter of semantics and syntax, making what would otherwise be an awkward turn of phrase in English understandable. In some fewer cases, I have exercised a greater degree of control in order to associate this adaptation more closely with Tolkien’s writings. The screenwriting was clearly done by someone with a great deal of respect for the books, and many lines were lifted verbatim, or almost so. This fact was a boon in the translation process, and some of the subtitles here are simply taken from the book, either directly or with some small modification. Some lines in the film however, are a distinct invention of its creators, such as the persistence in referring to Elrond as “alvkungen“ or “the elf king.“ It is possible this choice was made so that audiences would understand that Elrond was in possession of one of the “Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky.“ This is despite the fact that Elrond was only ever known as a Lord (of Rivendell), and in fact received his ring from Gil-Galad, the original Elven-king owner. I eventually chose to give Elrond the title of “Elvenking“ (note the lack of hyphen), a title used to refer to Thranduil throughout the text of The Hobbit. In this way, though it is not Elrond’s typical title, it does have a root in Tolkien’s writings as commonly used Elvish appellation (albeit for a completely different elf). I know for many such a small choice seems inconsequential, but I felt it important to make the effort. For similar reasons, I used the original English Ring Verse, as well as inserted some of Tom Bombadil’s English nonsense into his otherwise maintained Swedish nonsense. ON THE PRINT I downloaded these prints directly from SVT’s archive site, meaning they are likely the best quality that exist. I own none of the visuals or audio, and can only hope the Swedes will take pity on me and allow this video to remain up. These YouTube videos are after all, already blocked in Sweden, as viewers that live there already have access to the aforementioned archive site. This was a lot of effort for what is only a low budget, 70s television adaptation of one-half of one book, but I hope you will enjoy nonetheless :) Utúlie’n aurë!