The Song of the She-Wolves

Build cultural artifacts to cement fictional worlds

One of the most astonishing aspects of JRR Tolkien’s work is the creation of cultural artifacts that underpin the authority and verisimilitude of the worlds that he creates.

Multiple languages, histories, religious systems, technological artefacts, songs, forgotten lore, legends of lost civilisations, libraries full of scrolls and codices that contain all kinds of cultural material and hidden wisdom about the world.

Tolkien was unquestionably a genius and this kind of creativity may not be available to mere mortals. However the lesson remains: the insertion of plausible, well-constructed cultural artifacts into our mythical fiction will improve the texture and believability of our worlds.

This is an example from the Chronicles of Lupa. A song sung to the hero Jesse James by the sisters of Lupa, otherwise known as the She-Wolves. He half-hears a fragment of the song early in the narrative, and this version is sung to him directly when he finally meets the She-Wolves.

Here are the lyrics of the song:

The Song of the She-Wolves

Who is this, whose eyes are the morning sun His face as irresistible as the dawn? Who is it that comes among us Like the balsam that flows upon the slopes of Gilead?

He is chief amongst the ten thousand They kneel and wait upon his command He has no equal in the lands of Canaan The house of our mothers, the lands of our desire.

He is tall like the cedars of Lebanon His fruits are sweet to our taste His heart is a temple The clouds wreathe his head His brow is sovereign amongst the heavens The grasses of the field bend gladly beneath his feet.

1 Lupa 13:1–4

It is worth noting that are other parts to this song that Jesse never hears, which never appear in the text. I think this lends the whole thing a special kind of plausibility, those parts never disclosed which call to us from just beneath the surface of the “told” story.

Here are some of those hidden lines:

What man could hope to stand against him? Who would rebel against the edict of his hand? He scatters the wicked before him The ungodly cower before him and repent.

Literate readers will detect the strong debt this work owes to Song of Songs.

This is another powerful technique to increase the plausibility of our fictional artifacts, by giving them strong echoes of established works. Readers can encounter them with a sense of familiarity, a sense of immanence or “that they always were”.

P. Julian

Click here if you would like to read (free!) a full text version of The Complete Chronicles of Lupa.