The translation of The Lord of the Rings into Swedish has been the subject of controversy. The first version, by Åke Ohlmarks, done in 1959–1961, was the only one available in Swedish for forty years. The book's author, J. R. R. Tolkien, took issue with Ohlmarks's translation, identifying numerous errors and inconsistencies. In response to Ohlmarks and to Max Schuchart's Dutch translation, Tolkien wrote a "Guide to the Names in The Lord of the Rings", a framework for translating personal names and place names; it gives multiple examples from Ohlmarks's text of what not to do. Ohlmarks rejected all criticism, stating that he had intentionally created an interpretation of Tolkien, not a straight translation. Swedish commentators took a wide range of positions on Ohlmarks's version: some admired it, others did not. Ohlmarks’s version was superseded in 2005 by Erik Andersson's more direct translation of the prose, with Lotta Olsson's rendering of the embedded poetry. Andersson followed Tolkien's framework for translating names. He kept some of Ohlmarks's choices, such as Vidstige for Strider and Fylke for the Shire, on the grounds that they were well established and did not contradict Tolkien’s wishes. The 2005 version attracted great interest in Sweden, and was on the whole well received.

Åke Ohlmarks 1959–1961

Åke Ohlmarks (1911–1984) was a philologist and prolific translator, who published Swedish versions of Shakespeare, Dante and the Quran. His translation of The Lord of the Rings was the only one available in Swedish for forty years. He ignored complaints and calls for revision from readers, stating in his 1978 book Tolkiens arv ("Tolkien's legacy") that his intention had been to create an interpretation, not a translation. The translation had its merits. Ohlmarks's experience translating Old Norse enabled him to find suitable old Swedish words for some of Tolkien's terms: Tolkien scholar Anders Stenström (pen name Beregond) praises his choices of alv for "elf", and of väströna (modelled on norröna, North Sea coast people of the heroic age) for "Westron". On the other hand, Beregond notes, Ohlmarks failed to use harg for the cognate "harrow" in Dunharrow, or skog for "shaw" in Trollshaws, things that "should have been obvious". A much more widespread issue was Ohlmarks's "propensity for embroidering every description". When Tolkien calls Bilbo's wealth "a legend"; Ohlmarks goes beyond Tolkien's text to assert that "his travels are sägenomsusade ('legendary') as well." When The Silmarillion was published in 1977, Tolkien's son and literary executor Christopher Tolkien consented to a Swedish translation only on the condition that Ohlmarks have nothing to do with it. The translation was done by Roland Adlerberth. Ohlmarks went on to write a book in 1982 called Tolkien and Black Magic.

Tolkien's response

Tolkien intensely disliked Ohlmarks and his translation of The Lord of the Rings. He thought Ohlmarks's version was even worse than Shuchart's 1956–57 Dutch translation, as is evident from a 1957 letter to his publisher Rayner Unwin: "The enclosure that you brought from Almqvist &c. was both puzzling and irritating. A letter in Swedish from fil. dr. Åke Ohlmarks, and a huge list (9 pages foolscap) of names in the L.R. which he had altered. I hope that my inadequate knowledge of Swedish – no better than my kn. of Dutch, but I possess a v. much better Dutch dictionary! – tends to exaggerate the impression I received. The impression remains, nonetheless, that Dr. Ohlmarks is a conceited person, less competent than charming Max Schuchart, though he thinks much better of himself." Examples singled out by Tolkien in the same letter include: In his 1967 "Guide to the Names in The Lord of the Rings", produced in response to Ohlmarks' version, Tolkien pointed out numerous other translations that he found dubious. For example, Ohlmarks used Vattnadal ("Water-dale") for Rivendell, apparently, Tolkien commented, by way of taking riven for river. The Ent Quickbeam becomes Snabba solstrålen ("Swift Sunbeam"), apparently taking beam in the sense of "beam of light" instead of "tree", ignoring the fact that all Ents have names connected with trees. Tolkien stated that Quickbeam was so named because he was a "hasty" Ent; Tolkien advises translating the name to give the sense "quick (lively) tree", noting that both "Quickbeam" and "Quicken" are actual English names for the rowan tree. Ohlmarks sometimes offers multiple translations for names: for example, he renders Isengard variously as Isengard, Isengård, Isendor or Isendal. The "Guide to the Names in The Lord of the Rings" states that this name was meant to be so "archaic in form" that its etymology had been forgotten. Tolkien advises that it could be used either as it was or, for Germanic languages (like Swedish), "one or both elements in [the] name" could be translated using "related elements" in those languages, mentioning gård as an option.

Reception in Sweden

Early welcome

Some of the initial reception was warm; author and translator Sven Stolpe wrote in Aftonbladet that Ohlmarks "has made a ’swedification’ [försvenskning] – he has found wonderful, magnificent, Swedish compound words, he has translated poem after poem with great inspiration, there is not a page in his magnum opus that does not read like original Swedish work by a brilliant poet". Staffan Björck, reviewing the book for Dagens Nyheter, listed some objections but wrote that "I only list these objections so that I can with greater emphasis praise the translation as a whole: it is magnificent."

Later hostility

Later, the translation's reception became more hostile. In 2000, Leif Jacobsen (writer) of Lund University's Institute of Linguistics noted among other things Ohlmarks’s confusion/conflation of Éowyn and Merry in the Battle of the Pelennor Fields, and wrote that "There can be no doubt that the Swedish translation is defective and in many ways a failure". He argued that whereas Tolkien was writing for adults, Ohlmarks translated for children; and that Ohlmarks tried to make the text his own, supplanting Tolkien rather than directly translating him. In 2004, Malte Persson wrote in Göteborgsposten that the translation was "so full of misunderstandings, misconceptions, inconsistencies, and arbitrary additions that it must mean that Ohlmarks was either significantly worse at English than Icelandic, or that he had not taken the assignment seriously". Also in 2004, Tolkien scholar Anders Stenström (pen name Beregond) wrote that Ohlmarks’s translation contains numerous factual errors, mistranslations of idiomatic expressions, and non-sequiturs. Andreas Brunner commented in Sydsvenska Dagbladet that Ohlmarks' prose is hyperbolic in style, where the original uses simple or even laconic language.

Erik Andersson and Lotta Olsson, 2005

Approach

Ohlmarks's translation was not superseded until 2005, when a new translation was made by Erik Andersson (author), with poems interpreted by Lotta Olsson (author). This translation was by intention much closer to the original, hewing to Tolkien's instructions. In the translation process, Andersson had access to a team of Tolkien fans as advisors. In 2007, he published a book called Översättarens anmärkningar ("The Translator's Notes") based on his diaries from the project. Andersson retained some of Ohlmarks's more popular and well-established choices, such as Vidstige (roughly ”Wide-walker”) for "Strider", Midgård for Middle-earth and Fylke for the Shire. Stefan Spjut, reviewing the new translation in Svenska Dagbladet, commented that Ohlmarks's version had its merits, and that his Vidstige "even outdoes the original’s Strider", but that people would probably get used to the new version.

Reception

The 2005 translation project attracted great interest from Swedish Tolkien fans and Swedish media. Henrik Williams, reviewing the new translation for Dagens Nyheter, wrote: "Let me say that Andersson & Olsson have prepared a readable, even and in large part correct translation, a test of a very robust piece of work that deserves deep respect, but also a careful review". Malte Persson wrote in Göteborgsposten that "the new translation follows the original's fluent prose very closely, and only a linguistic pedant could find anything to object to".

Comparisons

Titles

Charlotte Strömbom notes that the Swedish titles chosen for the books immediately indicate differences between Andersson and Ohlmarks. Andersson’s title for the trilogy is, she writes, plainly closer to Tolkien's in both meaning and form; Ohlmarks' title shifts attention to the Ring itself. Ohlmarks omits the "Fellowship" from Volume I, giving what Strömbom suggests is a more epic feeling to the title, where Andersson's is more grounded in reality.

Names

Strömbom comments that Ohlmarks prefers to give names a desired form, where Andersson wants to stay close to the meanings of the original names. Ohlmarks uses Lavskägge (Lichen-beard) for Treebeard, and Vattnadal (Water-dale) for Rivendell, where Andersson chooses the more literal Trädskägge and Riftedal. She adds that sometimes Ohlmarks' choices come closer to the sound of Tolkien's names.

Prose

Commentators including Petter Lindgren in Aftonbladet have remarked on Ohlmarks's wordy text compared to Andersson's more laconic version. Strömbom notes the following as an instance of the difference in styles and length:

Verse

Aftonbladet wrote of the poetry that "Lotta Olsson has had the thankless task of translating the book's numerous verses which many readers skip, though she does it well and economically". Olsson rendered a sample of Tolkien's verse like this:

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