Welcome, dear readers, as always, but, although the title of this posting might suggest taking cover during this time of worldwide illness, we persist in staying calm and remaining aboveground and writing more about subjects we—and, we hope you—find interesting.

We are about to teach The Hobbit again—although this time, not being sitting in a classroom with about 20 students, talking about what we’ve been reading, but somehow on-line, which is not very happy-making, as we really enjoy the always-intriguing reactions and questions which come from in-class discussion.

One observation from last term’s Hobbit reading has stuck with us:  just how much of the dramatic action takes place underground—and there are also a number of like scenes, also very dramatic scenes, in The Lord of the Rings, as well.

We started adding them up and found, in The Hobbit:

1. the world of the goblins under the Misty Mountains, where Gandalf kills the goblin king

and Bilbo finds the Ring and meets Gollum.

2. in Mirkwood, the caves where the dwarves are kept prisoner by Thranduil, the king of the Forest Elves

until Bilbo frees them with his barrel-riding.

3. the tunnels under the Lonely Mountain

where Bilbo and the dwarves must deal with Smaug.

In The Lord of the Rings, we find:

1. Moria, with its mysterious western door,

the chamber of Mazarbul,

and the Balrog.

2. the Pathways of the Dead

3. and the area around Cirith Ungol, where Shelob has her lair.

Darkness, often narrow or treacherous places, full of fear–it might be supposed that Tolkien was a claustrophobe–

until you read this letter from 1940, in which he tells us of having made several visits—one in 1916—to some very famous caves (in this letter, he’s replying to someone who has asked about the caverns at Helm’s Deep):

“It may interest you to know that the passage was based upon the caves in Cheddar Gorge and was written just after I had revisited these in 1940 but was still coloured by my memory of them much early before they became so commercialized.  I had been there during my honeymoon nearly 30 years before.”  (Letters, 407)

Cheddar Gorge is in Somerset, in southwest England and is famous for its caves–

as well as its cheese.

We can deduce, then, that, in fact, JRRT was interested in caves and enjoyed them.

Scary caves go back farther in his life, however.  We would suggest from childhood, when he read, one, and possibly two, stories by the once-popular Victorian children’s author, George MacDonald (1824-1905).

These books, The Princess and the Goblin (1872)

and The Princess and Curdy (1883),

as the titles suggest, have to do with the adventures of a princess, her friend, Curdy, and the swarms of goblins who live in a warren of caves below the palace.  JRRT himself confessed, in a 1938 letter published in The Observer, to MacDonald’s influence:

“As for the rest of the tale it is…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.”

(Letters, 31)

For later dark underground influences, we might add two spots in Beowulf:   the lair of Grendel, which is not only underground, but underwater,

and the tumulus in which the (unnamed) dragon lives, the slaying of which causes the death of Beowulf.

Perhaps the most traumatic influence might be what was a traumatic experience for many more than JRRT.

In the summer of 1916, Second Lieutenant JRR Tolkien

arrived at the Western Front, a subterranean land of trenches which cut up the world into endless crisscrosses of deep, often elaborate ditches with thickets of barbed wire in front of them,

protecting soldiers on both sides from the effects of heavy artillery

and machine guns,

in a crooked line which stretched for nearly 500 miles from Switzerland to the North Sea.

When he arrived, he was just in time to take part in a massive attack on a portion of the German lines in an assault which is now called the Battle of the Somme.  This was a tremendous effort which cost the British on the first day alone a total of over 57,000 casualties.

To soften up the enemy lines, the British had dug tunnels below them at various points,

filled them with explosives, called “mines”, and set them off just before the attacks.

Tolkien, as a signals officer—someone who dealt with communications after the first wave of attackers—

wouldn’t have been involved in mines or the initial assault, but would have followed behind, climbing into the enemy’s trenches to set up communication facilities after the attack had moved forward.  He would certainly have seen these underground burrows, some of them extremely elaborate,

and perhaps childhood reading, the Cheddar gorge, and the experience of the Great War were all in his head when he began his first novel by placing his hero in a hole in the ground, then putting him back underground again and again?

Thanks, as ever, for reading.  Stay well, dear readers, with

MTCIDC

CD

 

As ever, dear readers, welcome.

This posting started with a signpost.  In the UK, this can be called a fingerpost, like

this wooden one, a very old one, where you can see directions and mileage from the point where the post was planted.  Where we began, there is a finger, but:

“Suddenly a tall pillar loomed up before them.  It was black; and set upon it was a great stone carved and painted in the likeness of a long White Hand.  Its finger pointed north.” (The Two Towers, Book Three, Chapter 8, “The Road to Isengard”)

Gandalf, Denethor, Aragorn, and their company have ridden north from Helm’s Deep, passing into Nan Curunir, “The Wizard’s Vale”:

“After they had ridden for some miles, the highway became a wide street, paved with great flat stones, squared and laid with skill; no blade of grass was seen in any joint.  Deep gutters, filled with trickling water, ran down on either side.”

If we were asked what JRRT had in mind here, we would say at once, “it’s a Roman road, like this one”—

which, if you could see it in cross-section, would look like this—

The Romans had mileposts, too, a bit like signposts.  This is the first one on the oldest Roman road, the Via Appia, and the long inscription tells us who put it up (the Emperor Nerva—96-98AD) and who restored it (the Emperor Vespasian—117-138AD), but also how many (Roman) miles it was from there to the center of Rome:  1.

It’s interesting, then, to see that the fingerpost which Gandalf & Co encounter has no inscription at all, its information seeming to consist only of the indication of a direction, north.   As we thought about it, however, it occurred to us to ask:  are we ever shown any public inscriptions in Middle-earth?  And, if there were any, where are they?   We could think of only two, and neither on a road.  The first was on the western gate of Moria, with the command which puzzled Gandalf–

the other was above the Dark Door, the entrance to the Paths of the Dead (this is a sketch by John Howe)

where we’re only told that “Signs and figures were carved above its wide arch too dim to read”.

With no more information than a direction, we are led northwards:

“Beneath the mountain’s arm within the Wizard’s Vale through years uncounted had stood that ancient place that Men called Isengard.  Partly it was shaped in the making of the mountains, but mighty works the Men of Westernesse had wrought there of old, and Saruman had dwelt there long and had not been idle.”

Long before Saruman arrived, those Men of Westernesse hadn’t been idle, either:

“A great ring-wall of stone, like towering cliffs, stood out from the shelter of the mountain-side, rom which it ran and then returned again.”

In trying to picture this, we thought of Iron Age hill forts, like Castle Ring, whose walls were of earth, rather than stone, but extensive, all the same.

“One entrance only was there made in it, a great arch delved in the southern wall.  Here through the black rock a long tunnel had been hewn, closed at either end with mighty doors of iron…One who passed in and came at length out of the echoing tunnel, beheld a plain, a great circle, somewhat hollowed like a vast shallow bowl, a mile it measured from rim to rim.”

Tunnels like this may be seen in more modern fortresses, like Ehrenbreitstein, in Germany.

But what has Saruman been up to?

“Once it had been green and filled with avenues, and groves of fruitful trees, watered by streams that flowed from the mountains to a lake.  But no green thing grew there in the latter days of Saruman.  The roads were paved with stone-flags, dark and hard; and beside their borders instead of trees there marched long lines of pillars, some of marble, some of copper and of iron, joined by heavy chains.”

Here, we think of what are called allees, long walks between rows of trees of the sort you can see in Europe—

which we juxtapose with the Hildebrandt’s portrait of Saruman.

That vast circle is still too green in their depiction, however, as we read on:

“Many houses there were, chambers, halls, and passages, cut and tunneled back into the walls upon their inner side, so that all the open circle was overlooked by countless windows and dark doors…The plain, too, was bored and delved.  Shafts were driven deep into the ground; their upper ends were covered by low mounds and domes of stone, so that in the moonlight the Ring of Isengard looked like a graveyard of unquiet dead.”

A very vivid image!

But too peaceful for the activity found there seemingly 24/7:

“Iron wheels revolved there endlessly, and hammers thudded.  At night plumes of vapor streamed from the vents, lit from beneath with red light, or blue, or venomous green.”

In a posting some time ago, we likened Mordor to the old industrial area in England, the Black Country, and this description certainly brings that to mind—

But in the center is this:

“There stood a tower of marvelous shape.  It was fashioned by the builders of old, who smoothed the Ring of Isengard, and yet it seemed a thing not made by the craft of Men, but riven from the bones of the earth in black and gleaming hard:  four mighty piers of many-sided stone were welded into one, but near the summit they opened into gaping horns, their pinnacles sharp as the points of spears, keen-edged as knives.”

As always, we think about where all of this may have come from.  JRRT was a medievalist, after all, and medieval models must always have been in his mind.  The idea of a circuit of walls with a central citadel says to us a place like Old Sarum

or perhaps the Tower of London—

and the White Tower at the Tower of London, although the wrong color, shares a definite similarity with Orthanc, being square, with four corner towers.

Along with his written description, however, JRRT has left us some small images of what he had in mind, like—

and this drawing, in particular, brought to mind something we suspect he might have rejected, but which, to us, bears a certain resemblance, the unfinished Cathedral of the Holy Family, in Barcelona, Catalunya—

We are still standing at that signpost, however, and something about it suggests is that, for all of the work of the Men of Westernesse and for all of Saruman’s alterations, all may not be right in the Wizard’s Vale:

“Now Gandalf rode to the great pillar of the Hand, and passed it, and as he did so the Riders saw to their wonder that the Hand appeared no longer white.  It was stained as with dried blood; and looking closer they perceived that its nails were red.  Unheeding Gandalf rode on into the mist, and reluctantly they followed him.  All about them now, as if there had been a sudden flood, wide pools of water lay beside the road, filling the hollows, and rills went trickling down among the stones.”

Perhaps, instead of the White Hand, this would have been a better signpost?

Thanks, as ever, for reading and

MTCIDC

CD

Welcome, dear readers, as ever.

In our last, we discussed Gandalf’s confrontations with evil, including his meeting with the head of the Nazgul, the Witch King of Angmar, at the main gate of Minas Tirith.  As we think about it, we believe that there’s a bit more to say—but with JRRT, isn’t there always?

In the background of this Ted Nasmith picture, you can see what has broken open the gate:  the giant battering ram, Grond.  Here is an image of it from the Jackson films—

and here is Tolkien’s description—which is, although grim, in a much lower key, we would say:

“Great engines crawled across the field; and in the midst was a huge ram, great as a forest-tree a hundred feet in length, swinging on mighty chains.  Long had it been forging in the dark smithies of Mordor, and its hideous head, founded of black steel, was shaped in the likeness of a ravening wolf, on it spells of ruin lay.  Grond they named it, in memory of the Hammer of the Underworld of old.  Great beasts drew it, orcs surrounded it, and behind walked mountain-trolls to wield it.”  (The Return of the King, Book Five, Chapter 4, “The Siege of Gondor”)

At its simplest, a battering ram is just a heavy log used by a gang of men, soldiers or otherwise, to bash a wall

or bash in a gate.

(You’ll notice that the first of these two images has an actual ram’s head on it.  This would give the point of the battering ram a harder surface and probably is a reference to the way two rams will actually fight, butting heads against each other.)

Grond is a more complex ram, however, being suspended on chains so that the weight of the swing of it will increase its force.  Here is a model of the ram from the film, to make it a bit clearer.

And here is an illustration of a medieval ram so that you can see how it works.

Rams as an engine of war have been around a long time.  The Egyptians used a very simple version,

while the Assyrians employed a more complex model.

Both of these, you’ll notice—and you can see it especially in the Assyrian example—aren’t actually attempting to slam into the wall.  Rather, they are working to drive a wedge among the wall’s blocks—probably in both cases of mud brick—so that the upper face of the wall will collapse in their direction and, with any luck, pile up enough fallen material that the besiegers might even be able to scramble up it and into the city.

You’ll notice, too, that the Assyrian ram is covered in something—possibly animal hides?  These would not only protect those inside from missiles shot or thrown from the wall above, but would also (those who constructed it must have hoped) make it somewhat nonflammable.  In fact, here’s another illustration where the besieged are trying to throw torches at it and the besiegers are attempting to keep the covering wet in return.  (JRRT is aware of this—as he says of Grond:  “Upon its housing no fire would catch…”)

The Assyrians also appear to have used an actual battering ram—this image showing one aimed at a gate,

as is Grond.  And this is the Witch King’s target:

“It was against the Gate that he would throw his heaviest weight.  Very strong it might be, wrought of steel and iron, and guarded with towers and bastions of indomitable stone, yet it was the key, the weakest point in all that high and impenetrable wall.”

Tolkien appears to have left us only a few images of Minas Tirith, and the two we’ve seen are very rudimentary (this is the only one we could post), and

probably made to help him to visualize the position of the seven gates.  As far as we know, he has not left us any image of the Gate itself, except the description above.  In the Jackson films, the gate has been elaborated—

The outermost frame is in the style known as Romanesque.  Here is a good example from the church of Santa Maria Seu d’Urgell, in Catalonia.

Just under the arch of the Gate at Minas Tirith is the suggestion of another part of a gate structure, a portcullis.  Ordinarily, this would be a full-size inner gate behind the main gate and would act as a secondary defense.

It would be worked by a system of pulleys and weights, as in this diagram.

As this isn’t mentioned in Tolkien’s description, however, we presume that the Gate of Minas Tirith isn’t backed up by one—and it doesn’t appear in the Jackson films, only this hint of one.

Tolkien says that the Gate itself is made of “steel and iron” and seems to lack any features.  As you can see, the gate of Jackson’s Minas Tirith has figures upon it, like certain elaborate medieval cathedral doors.

Such figures are usually part of the outer structure of the door, being cast bronze, like the famous door leaves from the church of St Michael in Hildesheim, in Germany.

We don’t know who the figures are meant to be on Jackson’s gate, although it’s clear that some are warriors, being in armor, and there is one woman, at least, in the top row.  Founders of Gondor?

Whoever they were meant to be, even if they had been on Tolkien’s Gate, they would have been no defense against what happened next:

“The drums rolled and rattled.  With a vast rush Grond was hurled forward by huge hands.  It reached the Gate.  It swung.  A deep boom rumbled through the City like thunder running in the clouds.  But the doors of iron and posts of steel withstood the stroke.

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.”

We have seen earlier—and written earlier—about the use of some sort of explosive device both at Helm’s Deep and at the Rammas Echor, the outward defensive wall of the Pelennor, the far boundary of the fields outside Minas Tirith.  Here, however, something else is at work, magic of some sort.  Grond has had “spells of ruin” laid upon it and now:

“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.”

All of which brings us back to our last posting—

“In rode the Lord of the Nazgul.  A great black shape against the fires beyond he loomed up, grown to a vast menace of despair.  In rode the Lord of the Nazgul, under the archway that no enemy ever yet had passed, and all fled before his face.

All save one.”

What an ending—or, really, a beginning.  As we can’t better it, we’ll simply say thanks, as always, for reading and

MTCIDC

CD

As ever, dear readers, welcome.

We recently received an e-mail from our dear friend, Erik, which included a new Ted Nasmith illustration of Gandalf opposing the Witch King of Angmar at the ruined main gate of Minas Tirith (see The Return of the King, Book Five, Chapter 4, “The Siege of Gondor”).

As Ted Nasmith is one of our favorite Tolkien artists, this would have been a treat in itself, but Erik included a quotation from the artist, which we present here since, so far, this is the only direct description we’ve seen of such an artist at work–

“I’m pleased to present a newly completed commission, ‘Gandalf Defies the Witch King’. A lot of thought went into this work, and it was more focused and difficult than some. How to capture the intensity of this scene, where the wizard is described as “silent and still”, so I’ve used perspective (seeing from a low angle), and the wizard’s staff alit to evoke his power and steadiness in the face of the onslaught by Sauron’s minions and their Captain.

The riven doors of Minas Tirith were another concern. A blow powerful enough to shatter iron was tricky to depict, and I spent a good deal of effort showing the imagined effect, and recognized that it in itself gave the viewer a perfect metaphor for the destruction and violence the Enemy was bringing to the war.

Pippin is not described in detail at this point, but was present. It is impressed upon us that anyone in the vicinity of the Witch King was seized with intense terror, but I chose that Pippin, a Guard of Minas Tirith in uniform, would need to be at least standing, if frightened, waiting to confront Gandalf with the news he brings so urgently about what was unfolding far above at Rath Dinan, with Faramir and his father Denethor. And yes, I included the rooster which heralds the dawn, and whose crowing is answered by the horns of Rohan.”

Throughout The Lord of the Rings, we see numerous Gandalfs:  the wise counselor of Bilbo and Frodo, in turn, the scholar of the Ring, the hardy traveler in the trip south, the mysterious figure in white seemingly returned from the dead, but a role which he assumes only a few times is that of which he really is, one of the Maiar, spirits sent from Valinor to Middle-earth to combat the influence of Sauron, himself one of them before his corruption by Melkor.  In this role, Gandalf speaks with an authority he rarely uses.  We see this the first time when the Fellowship is desperately trying to escape the Mines of Moria and they are being pursued by orcs and trolls—and something more:

“The ranks of the orcs had opened, and they crowded away, as if they themselves were afraid.  Something was coming up behind them.  What it was could not be seen:  it was like a great shadow, in the middle of which was a dark form, of man-shape maybe, yet greater; and a power and terror seemed to be in it and to go before it.

It came to the edge of the fire and the light faded as if a cloud had bent over it.  Then with a rush it leaped across the fissure.  The flames roared up to greet it, and wreathed about it; and a black smoke swirled in the air.  Its streaming mane kindled, and blazed behind it.  In its right hand was a blade like a stabbing tongue of fire; in its left it held a whip of many thongs.

‘Ai! ai! wailed Legolas.  ‘A Balrog!  A Balrog is come!’ “ (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book Two, Chapter 5, “The Bridge of Khazad-Dum”)

As Gandalf encourages the others to run—“Over the bridge!  Fly!…This is a foe beyond any of you.  I must hold the narrow way.  Fly!”—he himself stands in the middle of the bridge, “leaning on the staff in his left hand, but in his other hand Glamdring gleamed, cold and white.”

There are many depictions of this—and here are just a few.  First, by the Hildebrandts,

then a rough sketch by John Howe

and some preliminary work by Alan Lee

 

and finally two complete pictures by Ted Nasmith.

It interests us to see what will be the focus of the illustration.  In JRRT’s complete description of the scene, we see the two figures juxtaposed when Gandalf challenges him:

“The Balrog made no answer  The fire in it seemed to die, but the darkness grew  It stepped forward slowly on to the bridge, and suddenly it drew itself up to a great height, and its wings were spread from wall to wall; but still Gandalf could be seen, glimmering in the gloom; he seemed small, and altogether alone:  grey and bent, like a wizened tree before the onset of a storm.”

In the images we’ve selected, the focus is generally on the physical confrontation, but the first of the two Nasmiths shows a defiant Gandalf, mirroring his actual challenge:

“ ‘You cannot pass,’ he said.  The orcs stood still and a dead silence fell.  ‘I am a servant of the Secret Fire, wielder of the flame of Anor.  You cannot pass.  The dark fire will not avail you, flame of Udun.  Go back to the Shadow!  You cannot pass.’ “

Here, for a moment, Gandalf sheds his pose as an elderly counselor, revealing that he is one of the Maiar, a servant of the divine figure Eru Illuvatar, who had placed that Secret Fire at the heart of Arda, or earth.  The Balrog is itself a Maia, but Gandalf then makes a strong contrast between them.  “Anor” is the sun, the flame of which burns away the shadows.  “Udun” presents two possibilities.  In the present, it’s a valley on the northwest side of Mordor, whose exit is the Black Gate, thus tying the Balrog to Sauron.  In the past, it’s a version of the name of a stronghold of the rebel Vala, Melkor, Utumno.  Thus, Gandalf is implying that, even though a Maia, the Balrog has less power as servant of the “Shadow”, that is, Sauron, who has lost his previous form and only appears as the searching eye or, at his fall, as “a huge shape of shadow, impenetrable, lightning-crowned, filling all the sky” (The Return of the King, Book Six, Chapter 4, “The Field of Cormallen”) before collapsing and disappearing.

The second time Gandalf reveals himself, it is in the scene with which we began.

“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.

In rode the Lord of the Nazgul.  A great black shape against the fires beyond he loomed up, grown to a vast menace of despair.  In rode the Lord of the Nazgul, under the archway that no enemy ever yet had passed, and all fled before his face.

All save one.  There waiting, silent and still in the space before the Gate, sat Gandalf upon Shadowfax.”

(The Return of the King, Book Five, Chapter 4, “The Siege of Gondor”).

We’ve already seen Nasmith’s illustration, but here are several more.

The first we believe is by the Hildebrandts

and the second is by Angus McBride, mostly known as a military artist, but who also did a series of Tolkien illustrations.

The difference in focus is clear:  the Hildebrandts want us to see Gandalf facing the Witch King, with all of his servants behind and the gate barely there at all.  In the McBride, Gandalf is placed directly on top of the fragments of the gate, sharing the focus, his hand raised to block the King, who is framed in the arch of the gate.  In the Nasmith,

the gate has become much more developed and detailed, being a long passageway, into which the King has ridden, behind him Grond, the ram which has (perhaps along with the power of the King?) destroyed the gate.  The center of the picture is Gandalf and, in contrast to all of that detail—from the elaborate ram in the background to the fragments of the gate and even to the King’s horse’s breastband—he is the picture of simplicity:  Shadowfax has no tack (saddle, saddle cloth, halter, reins) and Gandalf himself is dressed simply in a long, white robe.

Against this are Gandalf’s words, not quite so revealing as those he spoke to the Balrog, but with the same force—here not in sun/flame imagery, but in prophecy:

“ ‘You cannot enter here,’ said Gandalf, and the huge shadow halted.  ‘Go back to the abyss prepared for you!  Go back!  Fall into the nothingness that awaits you and your master.  Go!’ ”

In return, the Witch King laughs and threatens, but the simple crowing of a cock—and then the sound of distant horns—both reassure us that dawn is coming and the Shadow to which Gandalf presents a contrast:  Witch King black to Gandalf white, will soon be swept away.

Thanks, as ever, for reading and, as always,

MTCIDC

CD