Planting

29 Wednesday Apr 2026

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Welcome, as always, dear readers.

Recently, I’ve been thinking about plotting—not as in conspiracies, like Guy Fawkes,

who planned to blow up Parliament and James I with it,

but in the construction of fictional plots.  The worse kind is what I would call examples of “fiat” writing—from the Latin subjunctive “let it be”, as in “fiat lux”—“let there be light”.  In plots like this, things happen because the author wants them to and is too lazy or inept to work the details out in a systematic, believable way.  (As I avoid harsh criticism in this blog, I won’t mention any examples, but I suspect that, if you are a reader of this blog, you know exactly what I mean and can supply your own.)

So let me show you an example of good, if not downright elegant, plotting, instead.

It’s about to be spring here, with things reluctantly beginning to flower and bud and spread, and that makes me think of gardens—which, I hope logically, makes me think of gardeners and that makes me think of the Gamgees, who have been gardeners for the Baggins for at least two generations—

“No one had a more attentive audience than old Ham Gamgee, commonly known as the Gaffer [a dialect form of “grandfather”]. 

(my favorite image—there don’t appear to be many—of the Gaffer, by Denis Gordeev)

He held forth at The Ivy Bush,

(I imagine it—minus the modern road—as looking something like this, which is the White Lion Inn in Bartholmley, Cheshire—about which you can read a little here:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Lion,_Barthomley )

a small inn on the Bywater road; and he spoke with some authority, for he had tended the garden at Bag End for forty years, and had helped old Holman in the same job before that.  Now that he was himself growing old and stiff in the joints, the job was mainly carried on by his youngest son, Sam Gamgee.”  (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book One, Chapter 1, “An Unexpected-party”)

And here the plotting begins, which will end with Sam incorporated into Frodo’s adventure with the Ring—not by “fiat”, but by a careful planting (sorry!) of details.

So, we know that the Gamgees are long-established at Bag End, not only the Gaffer, but his son, Sam.

Now we’re given another detail—and a very important one:

“ ‘But my lad Sam will know more about that.  He’s in and out of Bag End.  Crazy about stories of the old days, he is, and he listens to all of Mr. Bilbo’s tales…

‘Elves and Dragons!’ I says to him.  ‘Cabbages and potatoes are better for me and you.  Don’t go getting mixed up in the business of your betters, and you’ll land in trouble too big for you.’ “

So now we know that Sam already has a taste for adventure, cultivated (sorry), if inadvertently, by Bilbo.

This is further developed in the next chapter—

“[Sam] believed that he had once seen an Elf in the woods, and still hoped to see more one day.  Of all the legends that he had heard in his early years such fragments of tales and half-remembered stories about the Elves as the hobbits knew, had always moved him most deeply.” (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book One, Chapter 2, “The Shadow of the Past”)

And now the scene is set:

“Sam sat silent and said no more.  He had a good deal to think about.  For one thing, there was a lot to do up in the Bag End garden, and he would have a busy day tomorrow, if the weather cleared.  The grass was growing fast.  But Sam had more on his mind than gardening.  After a while he sighed, and got up and went out.

…He walked home under the early stars through Hobbiton and up the Hill, whistling softly and thoughtfully.”

And here we even get the suggestion of a sound effect to come.

But there’s even more scene-setting:

“…It was over nine years since Frodo had seen or heard of [Gandalf]…But that evening, as Sam was walking home and twilight was fading, there came a once familiar tap on the study window.

…Next morning after a late breakfast, the wizard was sitting with Frodo by the open window of the study.

…There was another long silence.  The sound of Sam Gamgee cutting the lawn came in from the garden.”

There is a puzzle here.  Where were the lawn and garden of Bag End?  Here are two images by Tolkien—the first from a distance,

the second close up,

but I can’t make out where those items are supposed to be.  In the first, the road appears to run just below the house, with perhaps lawn and garden on the far side and down the hill?  In the second image, there appears to be a bench (where Bilbo would have sat, smoking and reading his mail when Gandalf turned up in the first chapter of The Hobbit) and, to the right, some garden? 

Let’s put this aside, however, to continue the action.

Gandalf has begun to talk about the Ring, and even closes the shutters and the curtains when he does so, but now the narrative inside and the action outside are about to be linked—as Gandalf begins to describe the search for Gollum—

“A heavy silence fell in the room.  Frodo could hear his heart beating.  Even outside everything seemed still.  No sound of Sam’s shears could be heard.”

Sam is still at work, however, as—

“[Gandalf] went to the window and drew aside the curtains and the shutters.  Sunlight streamed back into the room.  Sam passed along the path outside whistling.”

But is Sam really occupied with grass-cutting?

“Suddenly [Gandalf] stopped as if listening.  Frodo became aware that all was very quiet, inside and outside.  Gandalf crept to one side of the window.  Then with a dart he sprang to the sill, and thrust a long arm out and downwards.  There was a squawk, and up came Sam Gamgee’s curly head hauled by one ear.”

(Robert Chronister—I can find a few paintings by him, but no website or further biographic material than that he was born in 1933.)

Sam tries to defend himself—

“ ‘…I was just trimming the grass-border under the window, if you follow me.’ He picked up his shears and exhibited them as evidence.”

When pressed, however, he confesses that he had been listening:

“…I heard a deal that I didn’t rightly understand, about and enemy, and rings, and Mr. Bilbo, sir, and dragons, and a fiery mountain, and—and Elves, sir.  I listened because I couldn’t help myself, if you know what I mean.  Lor bless me, sir, but I do love tales of that sort…Elves, sir!  I would dearly love to see them.  Couldn’t you take me to see Elves, sir, when you go?”

And here we see how all of this has been patiently laid out:  the Gamgees and the Bagginses, the gardening, Sam and his interest—through Bilbo—in Elves and stories of adventure, Gandalf’s appearance and his narrative, which Sam overhears while gardening—and listening–only to be apprehended in his eavesdropping, with only one detail still needed and now mentioned:

“ ‘Get up, Sam!’ said Gandalf.  ‘I have thought of something better than that.  Something to shut your mouth, and punish you properly for listening.  You shall go away with Mr. Frodo!’ “

After all of the careful plotting, Sam’s reaction is no wonder, then—

“ ‘Me go and see Elves and all!  Hooray!’ he shouted and then burst into tears.” 

Elegant, and yet practical and completely convincing.

Thanks, as always, for reading.

Stay well,

How is your garden doing?

And remember that, as ever, there’s

MTCIDC,

O

PS

While working on this posting, I came across this very interesting and thoughtful piece:  https://thoughtsontolkien.wordpress.com/2024/04/14/gardens-in-the-lord-of-the-rings/

Subterranean

22 Wednesday Apr 2026

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As ever, dear readers, welcome.

I’m always amazed at how many kinds of phobias there are.

There’s the classic acrophobia—

and nyctophobia—

and trypanophobia

(of which George Lucas takes advantage in Star Wars IV

that needle is positively dripping!)

and one of my favorites, coulrophobia–

(and who wouldn’t be afraid of that?)

as well as the seemingly common arachnophobia,

of which Steven Spielberg took advantage in the first Indiana Jones movie—

Because of Shelob in The Lord of the Rings,

(Ted Nasmith)

Tolkien, perhaps suspected of this—after all, there are also those large spiders in The Hobbit—

(Alan Lee)

wrote to W.H. Auden in 1955:

“But I did know more or less all about Gollum and his part, and Sam, and I knew that the way was guarded by a Spider.  And if that has anything to do with my being stung by a tarantula when a small child,

people are welcome to the notion (supposing the improbable, that any one is interested).  I can only say that I remember nothing about it, should not know it if I had not been told; and I do not dislike spiders particularly, and have no urge to kill them.  I usually rescue those whom I find in the bath!”  (letter to W.H. Auden, 7 June, 1955, Letters, 316.  For more on this, see:   “Phobe” 24 May, 2023 here:  https://doubtfulsea.com//?s=phobe&search=Go )

So, as far as we know, then, JRRT makes no mention of any other fears and insists that he had no dread of arachnids, even if they make two major appearances in his works.  There is another possible phobia which he doesn’t discuss, however—claustrophobia—

and I’ve wondered:  could we perhaps see a mild form in his case?

I suppose that one might immediately point out that Bilbo, in effect, lives in a cave—

(JRRT)

but Tolkien’s illustration suggests that this isn’t a place for spelunking—

and his description of Bag End underlines this:

“Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat:  it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.

…The door opened on to a tube-shaped hall like a tunnel:  a very comfortable tunnel without smoke, with panelled walls, and floors tiled and carpeted, provided with polished chairs, and lots and lots of pegs for hats and coats…”  (The Hobbit, Chapter One, “An Unexpected Party”)

But consider all of his adventures in the novel:  how many of them take place in adverse conditions under ground?

First, there’s the mention of the cave where the trolls

(JRRT)

kept their loot:

“There were bones on the floor and a nasty smell in the air; but there was a good deal of food jumbled carelessly on shelves and on the ground among an untidy litter of plunder, of all sorts from buttons to pots full of gold coins standing in a corner.  There were lots of clothes, too, hanging on the walls—too small for trolls, I am afraid they belonged to victims…” (The Hobbit, Chapter Two, “Roast Mutton”—there was also “bacon to toast in the embers of the fire”—but, considering a major troll protein source and remembering William’s remark—“Yer can’t expect folk to stop here for ever just to be et by you and Bert.  You’ve et a village and a half between yer since we come down from the mountains.”  I wonder that Bilbo and the dwarves would touch it!)

Then there was the network of caves cut by the goblins under the Misty Mountains,

(JRRT—but looking from the east westwards)

where Bilbo and the dwarves were briefly held prisoner by the goblins

(Alan Lee)

and where Bilbo had his encounter with Gollum.

(Alan Lee again)

Later, we have the halls of Thranduil, where the dwarves are again held prisoner,

(JRRT)

before the final underground nightmare, the Lonely Mountain.

IJRRT)

And those are just the subterranean terrors in The Hobbit.

Continuing to The Lord of the Rings, we have Moria,

(Alan Lee)

where, besides being temporarily trapped by orcs in the Chamber of Mazarbul,

(Angus McBride)

the Fellowship loses Gandalf to the Balrog.

(Angus McBride)

There are the caves at Helm’s Deep, about which Gimli is enthusiastic, but Legolas is not.

(JRRT)

Then there are the Paths of the Dead,

(Darrell Sweet—you can read about him here:  https://blackgate.com/2022/04/17/andventure-to-be-had-a-journey-through-the-art-of-darrell-k-sweet/ )

then the tunnels of Cirith Ungol, where Frodo and Sam encounter Shelob,

(Ted Nasmith)

and, finally, the cavern under Mount Doom, where Frodo almost changes the plot, before Gollum appears.

(Ted Nasmith)

All evidence of a deep-seated fear of being trapped underground? 

Bag End may mean comfort, but what about:

“a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell” and who knows what else?

As always, thanks for reading.

Stay well,

When possible, stick to the sunlight,

And remember that, as always, there’s

MTCIDC

O

Serendipity?

15 Wednesday Apr 2026

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As always, dear readers, welcome.

Ever since I first read The Castle of Otranto (1764),

(clearly a second edition)

I’ve been interested in its author, Horace Walpole (1717-1797),

especially after visiting his (restored) house, “Strawberry Hill”, which, in its crazy way, suggests what an 18th-century gentleman, living in the country, would prefer for a tasteful castle (you can see it in the background of his portrait)—

(as seen in 1774, during Walpole’s life)

(as seen today)

And, if you believe that the outside is eccentric, you have only to look at this corridor—

to see just how far Walpole’s ideas might run (wild, I would say).

The Castle of Otranto is usually cited as the first “Gothic” novel—a book with ghosts and potential horrors so extreme as to seem silly today, but it was a best-seller in the mid-18th century and it’s certainly worth a read, if nothing else as an important document in the evolution of the genre, as well as an forerunner of the Romanticism which would follow, in time.  (You can read about the book here:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Castle_of_Otranto and read the book itself here:  https://archive.org/details/castleofotrant00walp/mode/2up )

An added pleasure, for me, is Walpole’s correspondence.  Walpole is gossipy, quick, sometimes drily witty, and, over all, there is the voice of a real person in his letters which makes me wish that he had my e-mail address and would like to exchange letters with me now. 

There’s a lot to read:  16 volumes in one edition plus supplements and extra volumes of correspondence with specific people, all available at the Internet Archive, but, in Volume 3 of Paget Toynbee’s edition, there’s this:

“This discovery, indeed, is almost of that kind which I call Serendipity, a very expressive word, which, as I have nothing better to tell you, I shall endeavour to explain to you : you will understand it better by the derivation than by the definition. I once read a silly fairy tale, called The Three Princes of Serendip : as their Highnesses travelled, they were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things which they were not in quest of : for instance, one of them discovered that a mule blind of the right eye had travelled the same road lately, because the grass was eaten only on the left side, where it was worse than on the right — now do you understand Serendipity?” (The Letters of Horace Walpole, Fourth Earl of Orford, Vol.III, 1750-1756, 204   You can read the letter for yourself here:  https://archive.org/details/lettershoracewa09toyngoog/page/n224/mode/2up  )

The “silly fairy tale” which Walpole read was probably in the form of The Travels and Adventures of Three Princes of Sarendip, 1722, which you can read here:  file:///D:/POSTS4/SERENDIPITY/bim_eighteenth-century_the-travels-and-adventur_1722.pdf  . 

The title page reads “Translated from the Persian into French, and from thence done into English”, but perhaps the transmission story was a little more complicated, as the original story may have come from Persian—but then it appears in Italian, in Michele Tramezzino’s 1557 Peregrinaggio di tre giovani figliuoli del re di Serendippo (“Travels of the Three Young Sons of the King of Serendippo”   There’s a translation here:  https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Translation:The_Three_Princes_of_Serendip ).

From here it turns up in the 1722 volume, although Walpole seems to have had a memory lapse, as the animal mentioned isn’t a mule, but a camel, and the story is a bit more complicated.  In brief, the three young princes, while traveling, stop to help a man who has lost a camel, describing the camel to him so accurately that he’s convinced, when they claim that they don’t have it, that they have stolen it.  They’re arrested and threatened with death if they don’t return the beast until they explain the clues which they have observed, which allowed them to be able to describe the camel in such detail, even though they had never seen actually seen it.  The man’s neighbor then appears with the camel and the adventure ends happily. 

It’s easy to see how Walpole invented the term.  With the Latin he had acquired in his education, he knew that abstract nouns could be formed on the ending -itas.  If you want a term in Latin meaning “worthiness”, for example, you take the Latin adjective for “worthy”—dignus—drop the -us, which signals that it’s in the nominative—that is the subject—case, then tack on the -itas and you have dignitas.  Walpole took “Serendip”, added the abstract ending, and voila:  serendipitas—or, in English, serendipity. 

But what does Walpole mean by it?  He writes of the princes that “they were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things which they were not in quest of’, and now, in English, we usually employ the term to indicate “something randomly discovered, but which proves to be useful” and that’s why I entitled the last posting “Serendipity”.  While watching an “Easy Dutch” video, I had been shown a Dutch YA (young adult) book which interested me—

although I had no idea, watching the video, that I would be given a book recommendation.  I took it as such, however, enjoyed the book, then read 3 more by the same author and wrote a review of the 4—a perfect example of “something randomly discovered, but which proved to be useful”—and fun.

Thanks, as ever, for reading.

Stay well,

May you enjoy some serendipity of your own,

And I hope that there will be even more serendipity for you in the

MTCIDC,

O

PS

For more on the three princes—and even the suggestion that they may have been an inspiration for detecting fiction, see:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Three_Princes_of_Serendip

Serendipity

08 Wednesday Apr 2026

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 Welcome, as ever, dear readers.

I am always glad for recommendations—for films, YouTube videos, and books.  Usually, these come to me in the form of conversations and e-mails, but this recommendation didn’t come from a person—well, directly—but from an image on YouTube.

I daily follow a number of language videos, both to increase my knowledge of old friends and to add new friends, and I was watching Easy Dutch on verbs of position (you can see it here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5xEkwOo5Go ) when a Dutch children’s classic was mentioned and shown and I was immediately interested.

Tonke Dragt (TAWN-keh Dracht—with the g/ch in the back of the throat, like “Bach”, plus a T after it) is Antonia Dragt, 1930-2024, the author of a number of YA books in Dutch.

Her early life was a harrowing one:  born in 1930, she lived as a child in Indonesia and, along with her family, was held in a prisoner of war camp from 1942 to 1945, but, while a prisoner, she began a writing career which would continue till at least 2017, when she published Als de sterren zingen (“If/Supposing That/In the Event That/Whenever the Stars Sing”—as far as I know, this hasn’t been translated into English and my Dutch is limited, so, Dutch readers, please forgive the translation!)

It appears that, when she published her first novel, in 1961, Verhalen van der tweelingbroers “To Tell of the Twin Brothers”—published in English in 2021 as The Goldsmith and the Master Thief),

YA (that’s “Young Adult”) fantasy was not popular in the Netherlands, but she persisted, and her 1962 book, De brief voor de koning (“The Letter for the King”)

was a great success—and even became, in time, a Dutch film–

(It’s available on DVD in Dutch, but there are English subtitles.)

For more on the author, see:  https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/sep/19/tonke-dragt-interview-i-was-born-a-fairytale-teller-letter-for-the-king as well as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonke_Dragt, so I’ll let you read about her there—although I can’t resist one story from an interview done by the English Guardian some years before her death in 2024:

“I once tried to write a very realistic story, so I wrote about a class of children who went somewhere on a bus and within two chapters they were flying in the air—it’s the way my mind works!  I’m a fairytale teller…I was born like that and I cannot do anything else.” 

But now to her books—that is, to the ones currently available in English—of which I’ve read four, a fifth, De torens van februari (“The Towers of February”)—published in Dutch in 1973 and in English in 1975—

is available only at a price beyond my current book budget, alas. 

Because I was originally drawn to her work by that image on Easy Dutch, I didn’t begin with the first of her books, but De Seven Sprong, 1966,

“The Seven Leap”, published in English in 2018 as The Song of Seven.

The fantasy element appears almost at the beginning, when we learn that a teacher, Frans Van der Steg, to keep an unruly class amused, has been telling outrageous adventure stories—about himself–and, in today’s episode, says that he’s expecting an important letter.  And, when he arrives at his landlady’s, that letter arrives, bringing the teacher into a complex adventure, including, among other things, a house so large and complicated as to be a kind of puzzle (which makes me wonder if Ms Dragt had read Mervyn Peake’s Titus Groan, 1946,

the scene of which is a gigantic, ruined castle, Gormenghast) a lost treasure, and—how not?—an evil uncle. 

It was set, surprisingly, knowing the author’s bent for fairytale-telling, in the present, but, even though there’s a motorbike, there’s also a carriage and coachman, a muzzle-loading cannon, a practicing magician, an orphan-heir, and that vast labyrinth of a house.  (The Dutch title, by the way, refers to a famous Dutch folkdance, which you can read about here:  ,https://www.lookandlearn.com/blog/26053/the-traditional-dutch-jumping-dance-may-come-from-a-pagan-crop-ritual/    Seven is also a magic number which keeps appearing and reappearing in the novel.)

Having read and enjoyed the book, I went backwards in time to Dragt’s first book, the one entitled, in English, The Goldsmith and the Master Thief.

Unlike The Song of Seven, which was a novel, this was really a collection of short stories skillfully stitched together, being about twin brothers and their adventures, including, as seems almost inevitable, the use of identical twins to puzzle and confuse and even to pose a riddle, as well as to complicate a plot or two.

One thing I much enjoy, when I have the chance to work my way through an author’s writing, is to watch the author develop—just think, for example, of the difference between The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, completed about 20 years apart.  In reading The Letter for the King,

published only a year after The Goldsmith and the Master Thief, the author has made the leap (only 1, not 7), from what was, in a way, a short-story collection to a full-scale and long—506 pages, in the  English translation—adventure novel.  It’s the story of a squire, Tiuri, who, spending the night before the knighting service supposedly in prayer in a chapel, answers a knock at the door, is given the letter of the title, which he is supposed to deliver to a knight, only to discover the knight ambushed and dying, and then spends most of the rest of the book attempting to deliver it to the king of the kingdom to the west.

As one would expect, along the way he meets friends and enemies, acquires a squire of his own, as well as a potential sweetheart, and, because the book is a fairy tale, it has a happy ending—but with some things—like the sweetheart—in doubt.  (There’s a long plot summary here:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Letter_for_the_King  I would be wary, I might add, of the British NetFlix version, which has changed the story completely in the way in which The Hobbit was changed—as was Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials, the latter also by NetFlix.  I’m reminded, as I always am, of Tolkien’s letter to Forrest J. Ackerman about a proposal in 1958, to make films of The Lord of the Rings, in which he says of the adapter and others interested in the project:  “But I would ask them to make an effort of imagination sufficient to understand the irritation (and on occasion the resentment) of an author who finds, increasingly as he proceeds, his work treated as it would seem carelessly in general, in places recklessly, and with no evident signs of any appreciation of what it is all about…”  “from a letter to Forrest J. Ackerman”, June, 1958, Letters, 389)

This then sets the scene for the sequel, Geheimen van het Wilde Woud, 1965, translated as The Secrets of the Wild Wood, published in 2015.

In this sequel, we see now Sir Tiuri, and his squire, Piak (his would-be squire of the previous book) on a quest first to find a missing knight, but then become tangled in a complex plot which includes two princely brothers, one the next king-to-be in his own land, the other now king of the land to the south and planning to invade his own land and overthrow his father, the king, and his brother.  As well, there are the mysterious forest folk and a potential new sweetheart who is not quite what she seems to be.  Here’s a longer summary:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secrets_of_the_Wild_Wood  For me, this is the best book yet—not only for the twists and turns, but for the grownup feel to it:  so much is not neat, characters are more complex, and there is a sort of happy ending, but not for everyone (although Tiuri does return to his first sweetheart from the previous book). 

Sometimes one does something for a reason only to benefit in a way unexpected while doing it.  I had no idea that Tonke Dragt and her engaging novels existed until Easy Dutch handed her to me.  Now I only wish that someone would translate her other novels—what might De robot van de rommelmarkt (“The Robot from the Flea Market”) be about, I wonder?

As always, thanks for reading.

Stay well,

When purchasing robots in flea markets, consider previous owners,

And remember that, as always, there’s

MTCIDC

O

Verisimilitude

01 Wednesday Apr 2026

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Dear readers, welcome, as always.

What makes The Lord of the Rings so convincing?  One might argue that it was simply good story-telling—convincing characters, fast-moving plot, surprises along the way, sad, but satisfying conclusion—and I would certainly agree.  For me, however, there is something more and I’ve come to think about it through what might seem a rather remote back door…

Several of the characters in Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Mikado (1885),

are in trouble.  They have told a lie—in a song, of course–and were so convincing that they’re now about to be executed for it.  Inevitably, this leads to recriminations and one character, Pooh-Bah,

defends himself, saying that his part in the lie, was

“Merely corroborative detail, intended to give artistic verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative.”

 I thought of this line when an old friend sent me a piece from the BBC with the headline “Musketeer D’Artagnan’s remains believed found under Dutch church” (see the article here:  https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cm2rew2dgzzo   )

“Musketeer D’Artagnan” is the protagonist of Alexandre Dumas’ (1802-1870) historical adventure novel The Three Musketeers (1844),

as well as being a major character in two more, Twenty Years After (1845) and The Viconte of Bragelonne (1847).

He also happens to have been a real person, Charles de Batz de Castelmore (1611-1673), who had once been a member of Louis XIII’s Musketeers,

(Graham Turner)

one of the units of Louis’ bodyguard.

In 1673, he had been at the siege of the Dutch town of Maastricht,

during Louis XIV’s (son of Louis XIII—surprised?) interminable wars, where he was killed, perhaps by a sniper’s bullet—and may have been buried under the floor of this church—

(You can read about the real musketeer here:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_de_Batz_de_Castelmore_d%27Artagnan )

d’Artagnan had already appeared in a somewhat fictionalized form in an earlier book, Memoires de Monsieur d’Artagnan, (1700) by Gatien de Courtilz de Sandras (1644-1712). 

(A 1704 printing.  You can read about Gatien here:    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gatien_de_Courtilz_de_Sandras and read the first English translation of his fictionalized work here:  https://archive.org/details/memoirsofmonsieu01couruoft/page/n7/mode/2up  This is Volume 1 of 3, all being available at the Internet Archive, where you’ll find this volume.)

Dumas claimed, in fact, that he was only working from de Courtilz de Sandras’ account, along with a manuscript (which he himself had actually created), Memoire de M. le conte de la Fere (who is, in fact, Athos one of the three musketeers), implying, therefore, that the work isn’t really a novel, but a true story based upon documents from the 17th century. 

Why do this, rather than simply write an original novel and let it go at that?

This is where “artistic verisimilitude” comes in:  a novel is fun, but what if this weren’t really a completely-manufactured story, but real history—though much more exciting than simply dry accounts of political decisions and battles (“a bald and unconvincing narrative”)?

Dumas may have been inspired by Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832), whose first novel, Waverley (1814),

had done the opposite of Hugo, attaching a fictional character—the Waverley of the title—to actual events—the last Jacobite uprising of 1745-46,

in which a group of Scots (plus some English to the south) attempted to restore the Stuart family to the throne of the UK (if you’re a fan of the Outlander novels or tv series, you’ll be aware of this).  Scott’s novel was so successful that he kept using the method all the way to the end of his creative life, taking different periods in UK history as the basis.

(Here’s a copy of the novel for you, in case you haven’t read it:  https://www.gutenberg.org/files/5998/5998-h/5998-h.htm  You’ll notice that the notes are by Andrew Lang, whom, if you read this blog regularly, you will remember as the editor of the “Fairy” books, some of which Tolkien read or had read to him as a child.)

But what if you don’t have an historical period into which to place a character?  One answer would be to create the period, then add the character, and that’s exactly what we see Tolkien doing.  Much has been written about JRRT writing to “create a mythology for England” and he himself seems to have had an early plan for something like this, as he writes to a “Mr. Thompson”:

“Having set myself a task, the arrogance of which I fully recognized and trembled at; being precisely to restore to the English an epic tradition and present them with a mythology of their own…” (letter to “Mr. Thompson, 14 January, 1956, Letters, 335)

In time, Tolkien appears to have abandoned this goal (see this piece for more:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_mythology_for_England ), but all of the material which JRRT had created, however, remained in the form of the “Prologue” and the “Appendices” to The Lord of the Rings and here we see Pooh-Bah’s “corroborative detail” with essays on Hobbits, Pipe-weed, the ordering of the Shire, and “Note on the Shire Records”, as well as “Annals of the Kings and Rulers”, “The Tale of Years”, and even a section on Middle-earth calendars, all created by Tolkien, but written as if he’s merely an editor, filling in background to actual events.  Frodo and those around him, including the antagonists, have thus become 3-dimensional, their actions given an imaginary historical context, just as Waverley and d’Artagnan, one fictional character, one fictionalized actual person, when attached to history, are deepened and, potentially, more convincing, which, in turn, makes the whole story, for me, that much more believable.   In fact, it gains verisimilitude, at least while I’m reading it.

All of which makes that news story of the potential discovery of d’Artagnan’s tomb seem so much odder to me.  He was a real man turned into fiction in a real historical period.  Tolkien created a rich imaginary historical world and placed his characters in it:  now I’m wondering when archaeologists will announce that they’ve found the tomb—not of Frodo, who went off to Valinor—

(Ted Nasmith)

but perhaps of Aragorn, in Rath Dinen?

Thanks for reading.

Stay well,

Remember that great literary figures are, in fact, immortal,

And remember, as well, that there’s

MTCIDC

O

PS

Pooh-Bah survives, in case you were worried.

PPS

Here’s an English translation of Dumas’ novel, in case you haven’t read it (it’s fun in itself and, if you would like to see an ancestor of modern adventure novels and films, I would certainly recommend it): https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/1257/pg1257-images.html For an introduction to the Musketeers, I would also recommend the old Richard Lester films, which mostly stick to the plot and have some of the liveliest dueling scenes after the Errol Flynn era.

Goblins and Goblin

25 Wednesday Mar 2026

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Welcome, dear readers, as always.

Villains with ambitious plans for world conquest need armies.

Emperor Palpatine

initially employs droids by the million to face the Republic’s clone armies, and not just ordinary foot soldier droids—

but super battle droids

and even commando battle droids

before, in his complex plan, he turns the Republic’s clones against his real target, the Jedi, in Order 66.

On a lighter level, Gru,

of Despicable Me, has masses of Minions to work his will (sort of)—

It’s clear that Sauron has similar plans—and similar armies—orcs—along with masses of humans.

(Alan Lee)

Orcs, we’re told, are a kind of distortion of actual living creatures—

“But Trolls are only counterfeits, made by the Enemy in the Great Darkness, in mockery of Ents, as Orcs were of Elves.”  (The Two Towers, Book Three, Chapter 4, “Treebeard”)

Orcs began, however, as something more traditional and, for Tolkien, begin with the works of George MacDonald (1824-1905),

and, in particular, with one of his fantasy novels, The Princess and the Goblin, 1870-2.

(First US edition, 1871)

For our purposes, the princess, although an heroic figure, can be removed, as we’re interested in those goblins.

(Arthur Hughes)

Later in life, Tolkien became disenchanted with MacDonald’s work, failing to complete a proposed preface for his The Golden Key, a short story from MacDonald’s Dealings with the Fairies, 1867—you can read it here:  https://archive.org/details/dealingswithfair00macd_0/page/n5/mode/2up

and you can read about his disenchantment in Carpenter’s J.R.R. Tolkien, page 244.).  Earlier, however, he had acknowledged MacDonald’s influence, writing to the editor of The Observer about The Hobbit:

“As for the rest of the tale it is, as the Habit [the pen name of a commentator on the book] suggests, derived from (previously digested) epic, mythology, and fairy-story—not, however, Victorian in authorship, as a rule to which George Macdonald [sic] is the chief exception.” (letter to the editior, February, 1938, Letters, 40-41)

Tolkien refers to this influence again in a much later letter to Hugh Brogan:

“Your preference of goblins to orcs involves a large question and a matter of taste, and perhaps historical pedantry on my part.  I personally prefer Orcs (since these creatures are not ‘goblins’, not even the goblins of George MacDonald, which they do to some extent resemble).”  (letter to Hugh Brogan, 18 September, 1954, Letters, 278)

And a little earlier, in a letter to Naomi Mitchison:

“They are not based on direct experience of mine [an interesting remark—did JRRT have supernatural experiences which he doesn’t discuss?]; but owe, I suppose, a good deal to the goblin tradition (goblin is used as a translation in The Hobbit, where orc only occurs once, I think), especially as it appears in George MacDonald, except for the soft feet which I never believed in.”  (letter to Naomi Mitchison, 25 April, 1954, Letters, 267)

Those soft feet turn out to be the Achilles’ heel (sorry!) of the goblins as we overhear in a conversation between a goblin father and son:

” ‘You say so, dad. I think myself I’m all right. But I could carry ten times as much if it wasn’t for my feet.’

‘That is your weak point, I confess, my boy.’

 ‘Ain’t it yours, too, father?’

‘Well, to be honest, it is a goblin-weakness. Why they come so soft, I declare I haven’t an idea.’  (The Princess and the Goblin, Chapter VIII, “The Goblins”  You can read more here:   https://archive.org/details/princessgoblin00macd/mode/2up  And you can read more about the author here:   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_MacDonald )

Recently, however, I’ve met another goblin, to whom I was introduced by a dear friend.  This is Book Goblin.

Unlike the clones and droids and Minions and orcs, who only exist to do their master’s bidding, Book Goblin lives for books, stacking shelves full, longing for the mailman to bring more, even believing in “Bookhalla”, which is, basically, an immense library, where those who are gathered there read books all day and hold book clubs all night.  You can see and hear Book Goblin describing it here:  https://www.youtube.com/shorts/vkjErlwUA2A   Only brave readers are allowed to go there, including those who read “without bookmarks”!

Book Goblin is, in fact, the creation of the fantasy author Elizabeth Wheatley

and you can read more about her and her work here:  https://www.bookseriesinorder.com/elisabeth-wheatley/   And YouTube has many short features in which Book Goblin discusses likes and dislikes and often seems like the Id of all passionate readers, which is why I bring her to your attention.  Unlike droids, clones, Minions, and orcs, however, she is one of kind and, as for world conquest—I suspect that it would interfere with her reading.

Thanks for your reading, as always,

Stay well,

If you’re like me, you probably aren’t brave enough to read without a bookmark, so I guess no Bookhalla, sadly,

But remember that, as always, there’s

MTCIDC

O

Crowing and Raven

18 Wednesday Mar 2026

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Welcome, as always, dear readers.

“ ‘I greet you…and maybe you look for welcome.  But truth to tell your welcome is doubtful here, Master Gandalf.  You have ever been a herald of woe.  Troubles follow you like crows, and ever the oftener the worse….Here you come again!  And with you come evils worse than before, as might be expected.  Why should I welcome you, Gandalf Stormcrow?’ “  (The Two Towers, Book Three, Chapter 6, “The King of the Golden Hall”)

Theoden is being less than hospitable, although we soon learn that he’s being manipulated by Grima to be so,

(Alan Lee)

but his insulting name seems odd:  “Stormcrow”? 

If we were southerners in the US, we might imagine that Theoden is actually calling Gandalf a cuckoo, as the yellow-billed cuckoo, native there, is sometimes called that,

because, as the Wiki article says, the nickname perhaps comes from the fact of “the bird’s habit of calling on hot days, often presaging rain or thunderstorms”.  (For more, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow-billed_cuckoo )

Although we don’t hear of cuckoos in Middle-earth, certainly Gandalf appears in Meduseld in the middle of another kind of tempest, as Grima continues Theoden’s line of reasoning:

“ ‘It is not yet five days since the bitter tidings came that Theodred your son was slain upon the West Marches:  your right-hand, Second Marshal of the Mark.  In Eomer there is little trust…And even now we learn from Gondor that the Dark Lord is stirring in the East…Why indeed should we welcome you, Master Stormcrow?’ “

And there that word is again.  What does Tolkien have against crows?

There might be a clue in that line “troubles follow you like crows”, which reminds me of something which happened earlier in The Lord of the Rings when “Flocks of birds, flying at great speed”, appeared over the Fellowship.  Aragorn wakes and reports to Gandalf:

“ ‘Regiments of black crows are flying over all the land between the Mountains and the Greyflood…and they have passed over Hollin.  They are not natives here; they are crebain out of Fangorn and Dunland.  I do not know what they are about…but I think they are spying out the land.’ “  (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book Two, Chapter 3, “The Ring Goes South”)

It’s clear that, in Tolkien’s mind, crows do not get good press.  Here they are in The Hobbit, as well, as Balin says to Bilbo:

“ ‘Those were crows!  And nasty suspicious-looking creatures at that, and rude as well.  You must have heard the ugly names they were calling after us.’ “ (The Hobbit, Chapter 15, “The Gathering of the Clouds”)

So, crows are “nasty suspicious-looking creatures”, “rude”, and even possibly spies. 

They are also in contrast to another large black bird—

(I apologize to my non-North American readers for using North American birds in this chart, but this seemed the best choice and the European varieties are similar.)

“ ‘I only wish he was a raven!’ said Balin.

‘I thought that you did not like them!  You seemed very shy of them, when we came this way before.’

‘Those were crows!…But the ravens are different.  There used to be great friendship between them and the people of Thror; and they often brought us secret news…

‘They live many a year, and their memories are long, and they hand on their wisdom to their children.’ “  (The Hobbit, Chapter 15, “The Gathering of the Clouds”)

(Alan Lee)

Why the preference for ravens?

Possibly, as a small child, Tolkien was upset by this nursery rhyme—

“Sing a song of sixpence,
A pocket full of rye.
Four and twenty blackbirds
Baked in a pie.

When the pie was opened,
The birds began to sing.
Wasn’t that a dainty (or dandy) dish
To set before the king?

The king was in his counting house,
Counting out his money.
The queen was in the parlour,
Eating bread and honey.

The maid was in the garden,
Hanging out the clothes,
When down came a blackbird
And pecked off her nose.”

(This is by Winifred Smith from her 1895 collection of nursery rhymes—all of which you can read here:  https://archive.org/details/nurserysongsrhym00smit/page/n7/mode/2up )

and he associated blackbirds with crows?  (For more on this rather mysterious rhyme, see:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sing_a_Song_of_Sixpence )

Crows are also linked to the death of the Irish hero, Cuchulain,

the Morrigan, 3-formed battle goddess, who brings about the hero’s end , sometimes employing that form as “the Badb” (“Bath-v”, where the  “a” is that in “father” and “th” is like the “th” in “either”, the name meaning “crow”).  And Tolkien was not fond of Old Irish literature, writing:

“I do know Celtic things (many in their original languages Irish and Welsh), and feel for them a certain distaste:  largely for their fundamental unreason.  They have bright colour, but are like a broken stained glass window reassembled without design.”  (letter to Stanley Unwin, 16 December, 1937, Letters, 35— I would strongly disagree with JRRT.  Raised in Classics and fond of medieval chivalry, Tolkien, I suspect, found the Irish stories in particular full of an earlier, more chaotic, world-view, as well as sometimes wild violence, which, to him, meant “unreason”.   But this is one of those times when I wish that we could e-mail him and ask him to say more!  For the death of Cuchulain, see:   The Cuchullin Saga in Irish Literature here:   https://archive.org/details/cu31924026824940  beginning on page 251)

The real reason for his choice of ravens might actually be completely different:  an association with Gandalf.

In a letter to Stanley Unwin in which he discusses potential illustrations by Horus Engels for a German translation of The Hobbit, he says:

“He has sent me some illustrations (of the Trolls and Gollum) which despite certain merits, such as one would expect of a German, are I fear too ‘Disnified’ for my taste:  Bilbo with a dribbling nose, and Gandalf as a figure of vulgar fun rather than the Odinic wanderer that I think of…”  (letter to Stanley Unwin, 7 December, 1946, Letters, 172)

Odin is the Germanic high god and has not only a many-legged horse, Sleipnir,

(from the Tjaegnvide Image Stone—about which see:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tj%C3%A4ngvide_image_stone )

but also two ravens, Huginn and Muninn,

(bronze helmet plate from one of the Vendel period helmets—550-800AD–see for more:  http://early-med.archeurope.com/iron-age-scandinavia/the-late-iron-age-in-scandinavia/helmets-from-the-vendel-period/ )

whom he sends around the world every day to seek information about world events.  (You can learn more about Odin here:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odin  and about his ravens here:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huginn_and_Muninn )

If Tolkien sees Gandalf as “Odinic”, then we can imagine that his preference for ravens over crows may not come from dread of a nursery rhyme or dislike of a Celtic warrior, but from his strong attachment to things northern Germanic and, if so, then Theoden and his puppeteer, Grima, were right in picking a bird to label Gandalf, but wrong in choosing which one—although “stormraven” sounds a little clunky in comparison with “stormcrow”.

Thanks, as ever, for reading.

Stay well,

Avoid birds with a one-word vocabulary,

And remember that there’s always

MTCIDC

O

The Damage of Dragons

11 Wednesday Mar 2026

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Welcome, as always, dear readers.

I’m always interested in influences on Tolkien and have written about them here and there in the past.   It’s clear that he was always susceptible to them and would sometimes, when questioned, candidly admit to them, as he did, in this letter to the editor of The Observer:

“Beowulf is among my most valued sources; though it was not consciously present to the mind in the process of writing, in which the episode of the theft [of a cup by an escaped slave from a dragon’s hoard] arose naturally (and almost inevitably) from the circumstances.  It is difficult to think of any other way of conducting the story at that point.  I fancy the author of Beowulf would say much the same.”  (letter to the editor of The Observer, printed 20 February, 1938, Letters, 41)

This theft and its consequences are readily apparent in Beowulf.  Athough, unlike Smaug,  he never speaks a word, the dragon who has suffered the loss very eloquently protests that theft—

”Then the baleful fiend its fire belched out,
and bright homes burned. The blaze stood high
all landsfolk frighting. No living thing
2315would that loathly one leave as aloft it flew.
Wide was the dragon’s warring seen,
its fiendish fury far and near,
as the grim destroyer those Geatish people
hated and hounded. To hidden lair,
2320to its hoard it hastened at hint of dawn.
Folk of the land it had lapped in flame,
with bale and brand.”

(from Francis Gummere’s 1909 translation, which you can read here:  https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Oldest_English_Epic   This is an old, but still very handy, volume, as it contains not only Beowulf, but a number of other Old English poems, and includes, as well, the Germanic  Hildebrandslied.  The latter is one of the puzzles of early Germanic literature and there’s a very useful article about it here:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hildebrandslied#Sources   If you’d like to see where Tolkien might have first learned the story as a child, see:   https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_red_book_of_animal_stories/The_Story_of_Beowulf_and_the_Fire_Drake  which is from the 1899 The Red Book of Animal Stories which you can read here:  https://archive.org/details/redbookanimalst00fordgoog/page/n11/mode/2up )

Along with the theft, Tolkien actually uses the idea of dragon destruction more than once, beginning with:

“The pines were roaring on the height,

The winds were moaning in the night.

The fire was red, it flaming spread;

The trees like torches blazed with light.

The bells were ringing in the dale

And men looked up with faces pale;

The dragon’s ire more fierce than fire

Laid low their towers and houses frail.”

(The Hobbit, Chapter One, “An Unexpected Party”)

where the dwarves sing it in the dark in Bilbo’s house.

(the Hildebrandts)

This is a poetic description of Smaug’s initial taking possession of Mt Erebor (“the Lonely Mountain”), after destroying the town of Dale, just below it.

(JRRT     You can see the remains of Dale, just to the lower right.)

We’ll see more of this when Smaug later attacks Lake-town—

(Christopher Burdett—you can see more of his work at:  https://christopherburdett.blogspot.com/2012/08/lotr-battle-of-lake-town.html   For Burdett’s grand  and wonderfully imaginative project, “The Grand Bazaar of Ethra VanDalia”, see:  https://christopherburdett.com/work/grandbazaar  )

“Fire leaped from thatched roofs and wooden beam-ends as he [Smaug] hurtled down and past and round again…Back swirled the dragon.  A sweep of his tail and the roof of the Great House crumbled and smashed down.  Flames unquenchable sprang high into the night.  Another swoop and another, and another house and then another sprang afire and fell…”  (The Hobbit, Chapter Fourteen, “Fire and Water”)

This is wonderful, vivid story-telling, but, for me, the most powerful part of it is not the destruction itself, but the consequences of such destruction, beginning with Smaug’s original arrival, something which Bilbo only learns about from eavesdropping on the boatmen, in whose barrels Bilbo has hidden the dwarves in their escape from the forest elves.

(JRRT)

“As he listened to the talk of the raftmen and pieced together the scraps of information they let fall, he soon realized that he was very fortunate ever to have seen it [the Lonely Mountain] at all, even from this distance…The talk was all of the trade that came and went on the waterways and the growth of the traffic on the river, as the roads out of the East towards Mirkwood vanished or fell into disuse; and of the bickering of the Lake-men and the Wood-elves about the upkeep of the Forest River and the care of the banks.  Those lands had changed much since the days when dwarves dwelt in the Mountain…Great floods and rains had swollen the waters that flowed east;  and there had been an earthquake or two (which some were inclined to attribute to the dragon…).  The marshes and bogs had spread wider and wider on either side.  Paths had vanished, and many a rider and wanderer too, if they had tried to find the lost ways across.  The elf-road through the wood which the dwarves had followed on the advice of Beorn now came to a doubtful and little used end at the eastern edge of the forest…” (The Hobbit, Chapter Ten, “A Warm Welcome”)

The dragon, the cup and its theft, and the consequences for Beowulf’s southern Sweden all are derived from the Old English poem.

For all of this landscape of destruction described by the raftsmen, however, I would propose one further source, not something which Tolkien had read, but which he himself had experienced.

When JRRT arrived in northern France in June, 1916, just in time for the Somme offensive, the war had been going on for nearly two years in the region and the heavy artillery of the era

had done a very good job of leveling virtually everything in sight, from  houses

to churches

to whole towns

to bridges

to railways,

and this was the world  through which Tolkien walked for some months, till invalided out with trench fever  in November, 1916.

The destruction either caused by or attributed to Smaug would seem to be everywhere in these images.

I would add, however, a prophetic element to JRRT’s description.

The idea of Tolkien’s Great War experiences and how they may have shaped his views on many things has become a commonplace of Tolkien studies, the seminal work being John Garth’s Tolkien and the Great War, 2003.

But then another war came, and, with it, many dragons flying over Britain,

bringing more fiery destruction.

Oxford escaped bombing (see:    https://www.exploringgb.co.uk/blog/whywasntoxfordbombedworldwar2  ), but Tolkien could see vivid images of London and other British cities suffering terrible damage from Nazi aerial attacks from 1940 on—

and, did  images like this

remind him, on the one hand, of what he had seen in the Great War, and, on the other, of what he had imagined  and described from what he had seen then?

“They removed northward higher up the shore; for ever after they had a dread of the water where the dragon lay.  He would never again return to his golden bed, but was stretched cold as stone, twisted upon the floor of the shallows.  There for ages his huge bones could be seen in calm weather amid the ruined piles of the old town .  But few dared to cross the cursed spot, and none dared to dive into the shivering water or recover the precious stones that fell from his rotting carcase.”  (The Hobbit, Chapter Fourteen, “Fire and Water”)

Thanks, as always, for reading.

Stay well,

When you think of dragons, remember the Reluctant one, as well as the terrible,

And remember, as well, that, as always, there’s

MTCIDC

O

PS

If you don’t remember the Reluctant Dragon, see:  https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/35187/pg35187-images.html#Page_149

Encouragement

04 Wednesday Mar 2026

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Welcome, as always, dear readers.

I almost feel like I should be delivering a parental warning before adding this terrible image.

This is the execution of a senior British naval officer, Admiral John Byng (1704-1757), by firing squad on the quarterdeck of HMS Monarch, 14 March, 1757, for what we might call “hesitation in the face of the enemy”.  (For more on this, see:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Byng#Death_warrant )

Byng was, it would seem, a scapegoat for poor naval policy and government mismanagement of the war with France, and this provoked the French philosopher, dramatist, and satirist, Voltaire (Francois-Marie Arouet, 1694-1778),

who had a personal connection to Byng, to include his death in his satirical novel, Candide (1759).

(Because of its controversial nature, the novel was published outside France and, as you can see by this image of the title page of the first edition, not even under the author’s name—for more on this see:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candide )

In Chapter XXIII, entitled “Candide and Martin Land on the English Coast:  What They See There”, we read a description of Byng’s execution—although Byng himself is never named, the victim simply being called “un Amiral”—“an admiral”.  Puzzled as to what’s happening, Candide asks who the man is and why he’s being shot, the reply becoming a classic quotation:  “Mais dans ce pays-ci il est bon de tuer de tems en tems un Amiral pour encourager les autres.”—“But in this country it’s good to kill an admiral, from time to time, in order to put heart in the others.”

This is obviously meant as a jab at what Voltaire thought of as the barbaric behavior of Britain towards a distinguished officer, but it made me think about that “putting heart” in a military context in The Lord of the Rings.  Here, however, instead of focusing upon encouraging the leaders, as Voltaire has mockingly remarked, I want to examine how certain leaders try—or don’t try—to do the same for their followers, focusing upon two kings, Theoden

(Michael Kaluta—you can see more of his work here:  https://www.kaluta.com/ )

and the chief of the Nazgul.

(Erin Kelso—you can see more of her work here:  https://www.cuded.com/illustrations-by-erin-kelso/ )

Theoden, when we first meet him, has almost lapsed into senescence and certainly has developed a hostility towards those who were once his allies.

(the Hildebrandts)

“Slowly the old man rose to his feet, leaning heavily upon a short black staff with a handle of white bone…

‘I greet you…and maybe you look for welcome.  But truth to tell your welcome is doubtful here, Master Gandalf.  You have ever been a herald of woe.  Troubles follow you like crows, and ever the oftener the worse.  I will not deceive you:  when I heard that Shadowfax had come back riderless, I rejoiced at the return of the horse, but still more at the lack of the rider…”

It soon turns out that this hostility—and, perhaps the senescence—are the work of Theoden’s counselor, Grima Wormtongue.

(Alan Lee)

“Wormtongue” would seem a strange epithet for a counselor, unless we remember Bilbo’s experience with Smaug, where, because of Smaug’s speech, Bilbo begins to question his trust in the dwarves:  “That is the effect that dragon-talk has on the inexperienced.”  (The Hobbit, Chapter 12, “Inside Information”)  “Wormtongue”, then, can suggest persuasiveness—but maybe persuasiveness to be wary of, which is certainly the case here, where it’s clear that Grima is, in fact, behind Theoden’s look and behavior, and, freed from Grima by Gandalf, Theoden becomes a different man, taking Eomer’s sword and

“As his fingers took the hilt, it seemed to the watchers that firmness and strength returned to his thin arm.  Suddenly he lifted the blade and swung it shimmering and whistling in the air.  Then he gave a great cry.  His voice rang clear as he chanted in the tongue of Rohan a call to arms.

‘Arise now, arise, Riders of Theoden!

Dire deeds awake, dark is it eastward.

Let horse be bridled, horn be sounded!

Forth Eorlingas!’ “

And here’s where the encouragement begins:

“The guards, thinking that they were summoned, sprang up the stair.  They looked at their lord in amazement, and then as one man they drew their swords and laid them at his feet.  ‘Command us!’ they said.

‘Westu Theoden hal!’ cried Eomer.  ‘It is a joy to us to see you return into your own.  Never again shall it be said, Gandalf, that you come only with grief!’ “ (The Two Towers, Book Three, Chapter 6, “The King of the Golden Hall”)

The King’s sudden energy energizes his men, and that energy is mixed with a kind of fierce joy, which Theoden will soon need as it is learned that Saruman is directing an attack against Rohan.  With the threat of being overwhelmed, Theoden and the others enter the stronghold of Helm’s Deep.

(JRRT)

There, with the threat of Saruman’s “blasting fire”, Theoden decides to make a sortie—that is, to make a mounted attack on the besieging forces outside the walls and here we see his determination—even if it’s of a grim variety:

“ ‘But I will not end here, taken like an old badger in a trap…When dawn comes, I will bid men sound Helm’s horn, and I will ride forth.  Will you ride with me then, son of Arathorn?  Maybe we shall cleave a road, or make such an end as will be worth a song—if any be left to sing of us hereafter.’ “

(In fact, badgers, when cornered, are very fierce, as I’m sure that JRRT was aware, seizing an opponent in a kind of death grip.  For more, see:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Badger#Culling )

He then leads a charge of the traditional “hell for leather” sort, which JRRT would have known from such earlier historical events as the charge of the Light Brigade at Balaclava in October, 1854—

and, once again, we see a kind of fierce excitement which the King brings to his men.

“ ‘Helm!  Helm!’ the Riders shouted.  ‘Helm is arisen and comes back to war.  Helm for Theoden King!’

And with that shout the king came.  His horse was white as snow, golden was his shield, and his spear was long….Light sprang in the sky.  Night departed.

‘Forth Eorlingas!’  With a cry and a great noise they charged.  Down from the gates they roared, over the causeway they swept, and they drove through the hosts of Isengard as a wind among grass.”  (The Two Towers, Book Three, Chapter 7, “Helm’s Deep”)

(John Howe)

Theoden will repeat this at his final battle in the Pelennor Fields–

(Denis Gordeev)

“At that sound the bent shape of the king sprang suddenly erect.  Tall and proud he seemed again and rising in his stirrups he cried in a loud voice, more clear than any there had ever heard a mortal man achieve before:

‘Arise, arise, Riders of Theoden!

Fell deeds awake:  fire and slaughter!

spear shall be shaken, shield be splintered,

a sword-day, a red day, ere the sun rises!

Ride now, ride now!  Ride to Gondor!’

Suddenly the king cried to Snowmane and the horse sprang away.  Behind him his banner blew in the wind, white horse upon a field of green, but he outpaced it.  After him thundered the knights of his house, but he was ever before them…And then all the host of Rohan burst into song, and they sang as they slew, for the joy of battle was on them, and the sound of their singing that was fair and terrible came even to the City.”  (The Return of the King, Book Five, Chapter 5, “The Ride of the Rohirrim”)

We can see now how Theoden’s encouragement works:  he’s always in the lead and he has stirring words in poetic form to give heart to his followers.

In contrast, there is the chief of the Nazgul, once a king himself.

(Darrell K. Sweet—you can see more of his work here:  https://blackgate.com/2022/04/17/an-adventure-to-be-had-a-journey-through-the-art-of-darrell-k-sweet/ )

Unlike Theoden, who has had a kind of rebirth, that chief is clearly one of the undead, a disturbing figure among a group of disturbing figures, as we hear in Grishnakh’s reaction—

“ ‘Nazgul, Nazgul,’ said Grishnakh, shivering and licking his lips, as if the word had a foul taste that he savoured painfully.  ‘You speak of what is deep beyond the reach of your muddy dreams, Ugluk!’ “ (The Two Towers, Book Three, Chapter 3, “The Uruk-hai”)

His method of leading is also disturbing—as an anonymous messenger says of him:

“ ‘But it is the Black Captain that defeats us.  Few will stand and abide even the rumour of his coming.  His own folk quail at him, and they would slay themselves at his bidding.’ “ (The Return of the King, Book Five, Chapter 4, “The Siege of Gondor”)

To which we can add Gandalf’s description:

“…the Captain of Despair does not press forward yet.  He rules rather according to the wisdom that you have just spoken, from the rear, driving his slaves in madness on before.’ “

Unlike Theoden, he has no poetry and virtually no words—certainly nothing encouraging.  His only two speeches are full of contempt, addressed to Gandalf, at the ruined gate of Minas Tirith–The Return of the King, Book Five, Chapter 4, “The Siege of Gondor”—and to Eowyn—The Return of the King, Book Five, Chapter 6, “The Battle of the Pelennor Fields”, although before he sneers at Gandalf, he seems to chant a spell of some sort to help Grond destroy the gate—

“Then the Black Captain rose in his stirrups and cried aloud in a dreadful voice, speaking in some forgotten tongue words of power and terror to rend both heart and stone.

Thrice he cried.  Thrice the great ram boomed.  And suddenly upon the last stroke the Gate of Gondor broke.  As if stricken by some blasting spell it burst asunder:  there was a flash of searing lightning, and the doors tumbled in riven fragments to the ground.”  (The Return of the King, Book Five, Chapter 4, “The Siege of Gondor”)

It seems then, that, in contrast to Theoden, the chief of the Nazgul’s only method of encouragement is the very opposite of giving heart, being more like what Voltaire suggested was behind the execution of poor Admiral Byng:  the desire to create fear.  Does it work?  Britain defeated France at sea, their greatest victory being at Quiberon Bay in 1759,

although Hawke, the British admiral there, had always been an aggressive and imaginative sailor (who had also testified against Byng) and would have needed no threat of court martial to spur him on.  

With the aid of Fangorn,

(Alan Lee)

the Ents, and Gandalf, Theoden’s men destroy Saruman’s army at Helm’s Deep, and, with the aid of Aragorn, his men ruin Sauron’s plans for Gondor, which leads, with the destruction of the Ring, to the destruction of Sauron himself.

(Ted Nasmith)

The end of Sauron brought peace and a new Age to Middle-earth.  War broke out again between Britain and France in 1778, which led to the loss of 13 of Britain’s North American colonies, and there was war with France again between 1793 and 1815.  Granted that the wars of our Middle-earth are often larger and more long-lasting (no Ring to destroy Napoleon—although Britain, I’m sure, would have been glad of one) but, given the choice, I, for one, would rather follow Theoden than a Nazgul.

Thanks, as always, for reading.

Stay well,

When you think of Theoden, imagine this wonderful creation made from Legos,

And remember that, as ever, there’s

MTCIDC

O

PS

For an English translation of Chapter 18 of Candide:

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/19942/19942-h/19942-h.htm#Page_122

For more about Voltaire and Admiral Byng:  https://voltairefoundation.wordpress.com/2020/05/20/pour-encourager-les-autres-admiral-byng-voltaire-and-the-1756-battle-of-minorca/

Eavesdropping

25 Wednesday Feb 2026

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Welcome, dear readers, as always.

Where are “eaves” anyway, and why would you drop from them?

On a modern roof, they look like this—

If you lived in the mid-15th century, when the expression “eavesdropper” first appears, it might look like this—that’s the overhang of the thatched roof–

As  Etymonline will be happy to tell you,“eaves” is from Old English “efes”, the “overhang of a roof”, plus “dropa”, “a drop (as of rain)”, so “that area of the roof from which the rain drips”.  (For more, see:  https://www.etymonline.com/word/eavesdrop )

The idea, then, is that, if you wanted to listen in on an indoor conversation, you might climb on a roof, hang your head over the side, and follow someone speaking below, say at an open window—rather as Sam Gamgee does, although he does so less precariously—

(Robert Chronister)

In our modern world, more than once, I’ve found myself doing this—and probably you have, too–although inadvertently, as someone nearby has been bellowing into his/her cellphone while sitting or standing near you.

Unless the person at the other end is bellowing, too, you don’t hear that end of the conversation, only the local speaker, but it might be an interesting experiment, perhaps, to see what you could reconstruct from this end and, in this posting, I want to try to do that–not with a cellphone, but with a rather older device, a palantir,

(Angus McBride)

and the person we’ll be eavesdropping on isn’t that loud person on the bus, but the Steward of Gondor, Denethor.

(Alan Lee)

Initially, we don’t know that Denethor has one, of course, although we receive hints in the text—

“ ‘Yea,’ he [Denethor] said; ‘for though the Stones be lost, they say, still the lords of Gondor have keener sight than lesser men…’ “

“ ‘And the Lord Denethor is unlike other men:  he sees far.  Some say that as he sits alone in his high chamber in the Tower at night, and bends his thought this way and that, he can read somewhat of the future, and that he will at times search even the mind of the Enemy, wrestling with him.’ “ (The Return of the King, Book Five, Chapter 1, “Minas Tirith”)

“But he [Denethor] himself went up alone into the secret room under the summit of the Tower; and many who looked up thither at that time saw a pale light that gleamed and flickered from the narrow windows for a while, and then flashed and went out.” (The Return of the King, Book Five, Chapter 4, “The Siege of Gondor”)

It’s only at Denethor’s end that we see what gleamed and flickered and with what, as Beregond says, he “wrestles” with the Enemy—

(Robert Chronister)

“Then suddenly Denethor laughed.  He stood up tall and proud again, and stepping swifly back to the table he lifted from it the pillow on which his head had lain.  Then coming to the doorway he drew aside the covering, and lo!  he had between his hands a palantir.  As he held it up, it seemed to those that looked on that the globe began to glow with an inner flame, so that the lean face of the Lord was lit as with a red fire.”  (The Return of the King, Book Five, Chapter 7, “The Pyre of Denethor”)

We don’t, unfortunately, have record of either end of the conversations which Denethor has had, but we know one thing:  these were not happy chats—Beregond says, continuing the description above—“And so it is that he is old, worn before his time.”

And it’s not hard to guess another:  at the far end of the connection is Sauron, as Gandalf explains to Pippin:

“ ‘Who knows where the lost Stones of Arnor and Gondor now lie buried, or drowned deep?  But one at least Sauron must have obtained and mastered to his purposes.  I guess that it was the Ithil-stone, for he took Minas Ithil long ago and turned it into an evil place:  Minas Morgul, it has become.’ “

We can also guess what has happened to Denethor—exactly what happened to Saruman:

(the Hildebrandts)

“ ‘…yet it seems that he was not content.  Further and further abroad he gazed, until he cast his gaze upon Barad-dur.  Then he was caught!…Easy it is now to guess how quickly the roving eye of Saruman was trapped and held; and how ever since he has been persuaded from afar, and daunted when persuasion would not serve…How long, I wonder, has he been constrained to come often to his glass for inspection and instruction, and the Orthanc-stone so bent towards Barad-dur that, if any save a will of adamant now looks into it, it will bear his mind and sight swiftly thither?’ “ (The Two Towers, Book Three, Chapter 11, “The Palantir”)

The power of the voice is a strong theme, both in The Hobbit, where we see that Smaug

(JRRT)

can begin to damage Bilbo’s trust in the dwarves with a few words, and in The Lord of the Rings, Saruman’s spy, Grima,

(Alan Lee)

can actually prematurely age Theoden with his talk, sowing, as well, distrust of allies.

Perhaps the most powerful voice is that of Saruman himself, as Gandalf warns Pippin: 

“ ‘But there is no knowing what he can do, or may choose to try.  A wild beast cornered is not safe to approach.  And Saruman has powers you do not guess.  Beware of his voice!’ “

(Carl Lundgren)

One example will underline Gandalf’s warning:

“ ‘But my lord of Rohan, am I to be called a murderer, because valiant men have fallen in battle?  If you go to war, needlessly, for I did not desire it, then men will be slain…I say, Theoden King:  shall we have peace and friendship, you and I?  It is ours to command.’ ”

Saruman’s words are simply lies:  he began the war when his Orcs marched against Rohan and attacked Helm’s Deep, but his power is as dangerous as Gandalf has warned:

“For many the sound of the voice alone was enough to hold them enthralled; but for those whom it conquered the spell endured when they were away, and ever they heard that soft voice whispering and urging them.  But none were unmoved; none rejected its pleas and its commands without an effort of mind and will, so long as its master had control of it.” (The Two Towers, Book Three, Chapter 10, “The Voice of Saruman”)

The few words we actually hear from Sauron are brief questions and commands, but, at least initially, these wouldn’t have come to control as powerful a personality as Denethor, so I’m imagining something more like Saruman, but, judging from Denethor’s reactions to others, this included the kind of undermining which Smaug and Grima practice.

(This is medieval undermining, and shows one of two possibilities.  The first is to dig all the way under a castle wall and burst out suddenly behind the defenders.  The second, shown here, is to dig under the way, replace the foundations with wooden props, then set fire to the props in hopes that, without them, the wall will crumble.  The illustration is from the site “Classroom Adventures” and I recommend the essay which is attached to the illustration as a very useful way of getting up to speed on how medieval sieges—like that of Minas Tirith—were conducted:  https://www.classroomadventures.co.uk/post/under-siege-a-history-of-siege-weaponshttps://www.classroomadventures.co.uk/post/under-siege-a-history-of-siege-weapons )

This posting had a different title, when I began it:  “Sauron Psychologist” and, in Denethor’s reactions, it would appear that Denethor has been attacked on two main fronts:  jealousy and insecurity, suggesting that, in his conversations with the Steward, Sauron has learned just where Denethor’s psychological vulnerabilities lie.

Although Denethor favors Boromir, he seems more than a little anxious at Faramir’s attraction to Gandalf, as Denethor says bitterly:

“ ‘See, you have spoken skillfully, as ever; but I, have I not seen your eyes fixed on Mithrandir, seeking whether you said well or too much?  He has long had your heart in his keeping…For Boromir was loyal to me and no wizard’s pupil.”  (The Return of the King, Book Five, Chapter 4, “The Siege of Gondor”)

Sauron also appears to have worked to undermine Denethor’s understanding of his role in Gondor.  He is, after all, not the King, but the King’s lieutenant.  His family has ruled in place of the King for so long, however, that Denethor seems—I think that we can assume with Sauron’s encouragement– to have made the assumption that he is the King:

“ ‘I will not step down to be the dotard chamberlain of an upstart.  Even were his claim proved to me, still he comes but of the line of Isildur.  I will not bow to such a one, last of a ragged house long bereft of lordship and dignity.’ “

And I would suggest that, just as Gandalf, long before, has said that the beginning of Saruman’s attempt to persuade him in Orthanc had seemed “as if he were making a speech long rehearsed”, so Denethor’s reply to Gandalf’s question “What then would you have…if your will could have its way?” has that same ring, and is just as false:

“ ‘I would have things as they were in all the days of my life…and in the days of my longfathers before:  to be the Lord of this City in peace, and leave my chair to a son after me, who would be his own master and no wizard’s pupil.  But if doom denies this to me, then I will have naught:  neither life diminished, nor love halved, nor honour abated.’ “(The Return of the King, Book Five, Chapter 7, “The Pyre of Denethor”)

Without Sauron’s actual words, this can only be a guess, but I wonder if, behind all of this is Sauron’s “whispering and urging”, saying things like: “You once had two sons, but your favorite died on a mission which failed, and the other is no longer yours, is he?  A wizard’s pupil now, and you fear, but know, this.  And will the pupil ever become master, or will his master become master of all?  Without the interference of wizards, we could have had peace, you and I—it was in our power—two wise rulers sharing Middle-earth—I the East, you the West, for no King would ever return—should ever return—to take your place, in Gondor.  But now”—and here I switch from my text to JRRT’s–‘For a little space you may triumph on the field, for a day.  But against the Power that now arises there is no victory.  To this City only the first finger of its hand has yet been stretched.  All the East is moving.  And even now the wind of thy hope cheats thee and wafts up the Anduin a fleet with black sails.  The West has failed.  It is time for all to depart who would not be slaves.’ “

Smaug ultimately didn’t convince Bilbo.  Gandalf freed Theoden from Grima’s attempt at senescence.  Theoden’s mockery of Saruman broke the spell of Saruman’s voice.  But there was no rescue for Denethor:

“Then Denethor leaped upon the table; and standing there wreathed in fire and smoke he took up the staff of his stewardship and broke it on his knee.  Casting the pieces into the blaze he bowed and laid himself on the table, clasping the palantir with both hands upon his breast.  And it was said that ever after, if any man looked in that Stone, unless he had a great strength of will to turn it to other purpose, he saw only two aged hands withering in flame.” (The Return of the King, Book Five, Chapter 7, “The Pyre of Denethor”)

Thanks, as always, for reading.

Stay well,

Noise-canceling earphones definitely have their merits,

But avoid crystal balls at all costs,

Though remembering that, as always, there’s

MTCIDC

O