Welcome, dear readers, as always.

This posting is an example of…fan-tasy fiction, I’d guess.  I’ve always thought that it was good for people to admire a writer so much that they wanted to write in her/his style, or use her/his characters in a new adventure.  On the one hand, it can help in the development of a writer’s own style, and, on the other, it can, perhaps, produce something fresh about people I’ve followed through books. For myself, I would certainly like to know how Eowyn was trained as a shield maiden, for example, or what happened to Long John Silver after he escaped from Treasure Island, or why Sherlock Holmes, in retirement, really took up beekeeping! 

It’s becoming real winter here in the northern US, with some snowfall about once a week or so, and, probably from reading too much 19^th-century Russian fiction, I always imagine moonlight and wolves at this time of year.

Unfortunately, we don’t actually have local wolves, but we do have coyotes,  a pack of which I heard just the other night,

and snow and coyote calls, brought to mind this detail from “The Ring Goes South”:

“No living hobbit (save Bilbo) could remember the Fell Winter of 1311, when white wolves invaded the Shire over the frozen Brandywine.” (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book Two, Chapter 3)

So, I thought, the Baranduin can freeze.  And, if it can freeze, but there aren’t any white wolves, what might you do with it?  Clearly some hobbits thought there was fun to be had there in warmer weather—until it went all wrong, as Gaffer Gamgee tells it:

“And Mr. Drogo was staying at Brandy Hall…and he went out boating on the Brandywine River; and he and his wife were drownded, and poor Mr. Frodo only a child and all.” (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book One, Chapter 1, “A Long-Expected Party”)

Although the Gaffer’s Hobbiton audience disapproves, it seems that the “queer folk” along the river thought that “messing about in boats”, as Ratty refers to the sport in the first chapter of The Wind in the Willows,

was a perfectly normal activity.

So, putting together:

a. the river being capable of freezing

b. hobbits having fun on the river,

I wondered:  perhaps they could have winter entertainment on the water, as well?

As far as I currently know, there is no reference in The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings to ice skating,

but, as I said at the opening, this is a bit of fan-tasy, so why not?

Because so much of Middle-earth is based upon events and details of our world, and, in particular, of our medieval world, I thought that perhaps I might find historical authority for speeding across the ice here, if I could discover no scriptural authority there.

If, dear readers, you’ve ever learned to skate, you won’t be surprised to learn that what appears to be one of the earliest illustrations of ice skating, which dates from 1498, is this–

from a biography of Saint Lidwine (or Lydwine–you see both spellings), 1380-1433, of Schiedam, in the Netherlands.  (She was actually knocked over by someone else who came barreling up behind her.)

But skating, it turns out, is much older than 1498.  In fact, the earliest skates appear to date from about 1800BC, from Finland.  Although these are a later archaeological discovery, from Viking Dublin, they probably looked something like this—

Certainly nothing like modern ice skates,

and the technique for using them was also very different, as we can see from this 1539 Swedish map.

Instead of using their legs to move them along, as modern skaters do, early skaters poled themselves.  Here’s a LINK to a very interesting article about one man’s experiments in trying to figure out how to fashion such skates and to use them:  http://www.hurstwic.org/history/articles/daily_living/text/ice_skates.htm

The skates themselves were made of horse or cow bones and, rather than cutting into the ice, slid across it. 

The first use of metal blades appears to date from about the 13^th century and to come from the area of the Netherlands.  Here’s an illustration from a psalter (collection of psalms) made in Ghent in the 1320-30s.

(This is from Ms.Douce 5,  in the collection of the Bodleian Library at Oxford.  It has many wonderful illustrations—there’s someone sledding on the same page—as you can see for yourself, if you follow this LINK:   https://medieval.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/catalog/manuscript_4476 )

You can see that poor St Lidwine was using these later skates when she had her accident.

Such skates clearly also changed the method of propulsion, from a pole to a leg, and seem to have added another reason for skating from simple movement across icy ponds and down frozen streams to having fun on the ice, as these late-Renaissance Dutch paintings show.

The first book in English on skating was published in 1772:  Robert Jones, A Treatise On Skating, with a number of editions up to the 1850s, but, to look at these two portraits, Gilbert Stuart’s “Portrait of William Grant” (1782)

and Henry Raeburn’s “The Reverend Robert Walker Skating on Duddingston Loch” (1790’s—and there’s some discussion about Raeburn being the artist—see:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Skating_Minister )

skating had become as popular an entertainment in the UK as it had been in the Renaissance Netherlands. 

And so, in my fun-fan-tasy, I’m imagining those rascals, Merry and Pippin, joining others along the frozen Brandywine to slap on their skates—the metal variety—to zoom across the ice, perhaps to the disapproval of the Gaffer and his cronies in The Ivy Bush, when they hear of such behavior among those “queer folk” in Buckland.

Thanks for reading, as always,

Stay well—be sure to test the ice beforehand—

And trust that there will be

MTCIDC

O

ps

I case you haven’t read that last Sherlock Holmes adventure in which he has taken to bee-keeping,

here’s a LINK:  https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/His_Last_Bow.-_The_War_Service_of_Sherlock_Holmes

As ever, dear readers, welcome.

In my last, I began to talk about pigs in early Western literature, from Herakles’ capture of the Erymanthian Boar

to the Kalydonian Boar Hunt,

to the scar on Odysseus’ thigh, which almost got him killed when it was discovered by his old nurse, Eurykleia.

In all of these stories, the pig in question is a wild boar and hunting it down was both an heroic sport and a form of pest-control.

There was so much material, however—much more than I could use in a whole series on pigs—that I thought that I would add a second posting to take the story a bit farther.

If you do your own research—and I hope that you will—you will find that there are all sorts of theories about the importance of the boar in the world of the early Indo-Europeans, and the Celts, in particular, but, practically speaking, the main importance for such people was this—

(For several interesting postings on the subject of boars and symbolism, see:

https://balkancelts.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/merida-cult-add.jpg?w=820   and  https://wordandsilence.com/2017/07/28/dont-be-such-a-boar/  

Apologies, by the way, to any reader who is a vegetarian or vegan, which is why I selected this authentic historical illustration.)

Pigs supplied a major source of protein for anyone who kept them.  The meat was also, as I understand it, easy to preserve, either by smoking

or salting,

and, in a world before refrigeration, such preserved meat would be crucial for surviving winter in northern climates.

(We take salt for granted, but in earlier times, salt was an extremely important and valuable commodity.  One source of power for the early Romans, in fact, was that their settlement, on those seven hills, potentially controlled a ford across the Tiber over which ran the Via Salaria, the Salt Road, which led inland from the salt pans on the west coast of Italy.)

It’s not surprising, then, that pig was the preferred food of heroes.  The warriors carried by the Valkyries to Valhalla were said to be fed by Saehrimnir, a boar who could be killed, consumed, and reborn every day as the main course in feasts.

And, in the Irish world, their heroes could come to all-out warfare over the carving and distribution of Mac Datho’s pig.

(This is a wonderful, weird story—like so many Old Irish stories–and the first one I studied when I began to learn Old Irish.  Here’s a LINK to an early translation by A.H. Leahy (1857-1928) so that you can enjoy it yourself:  https://sejh.pagesperso-orange.fr/keltia/version-en/datho2-en.html  )

By ingesting the boar, we might imagine that heroes believed that they acquired something of its power.  By putting it on their helmets, as is not only mentioned in Beowulf (see lines 1326-1328), but for which we have archaeological evidence,

perhaps Anglo-Saxon (and Celtic) warriors thought that they could add a little of the menace that boars in the wild could convey.

You only have to look at the kind of spear used in hunting them to see what those who did feared—

When a boar attacked, it would continue attacking, even if it ran onto your spear, which is why there is that crosspiece below the head:  to try to stop if from getting any closer!

Pigs might feed heroes, but pigs themselves need feeding.  They are omnivores who, in the wild, spend their days consuming what lies on the ground or digging into it.

In feudal western Europe, one could have pannage, which is the right to graze pigs on common land.

Pigs were turned out in late summer/early autumn, when many of the trees were shedding their fruit, like hazel and acorn.

Here we see two farm workers assisting the trees—and the pigs.

In later autumn, they were rounded up and slaughtered, most of the meat probably being preserved for winter, but a certain amount being put aside for the traditional turn-of-the-season feast, around the end of October—the holiday we still celebrate here in the US as Halloween.

If pigs were that important, both heroically and historically, perhaps pig-keepers were, as well?  Certainly, in the Old Irish story of “The Quarrel of the Two Pig Keepers”, Friuch and Rucht, the two keepers, are not only attached to royal households, but have a knowledge of magical arts, being shape-shifters, who eventually battle each other in various forms until they are finally trapped in the bodies of two bulls.  (To learn more about this, here’s a link to Lady Gregory’s 1902 translation, Cuchulain of Muirthemne:  https://archive.org/details/cuchulainofmuirt00greg_0/page/268/mode/2up   Turn to page 268 and read on.)

Which brings us to the title of this posting:  if pig-keepers aren’t always pig-keepers, at least in the Old Irish story, are pigs necessarily always pigs?  In Lloyd Alexander’s Chronicles of Prydain series,

which is based upon Welsh versions of Celtic myth, we have two characters who aren’t quite what they seem.  The first is Taran, a foundling, appointed by his master, Dallben (that’s DATH-ben, with the double ll sounding a bit like a lisp out of the side of your mouth), as Assistant Pig-Keeper.  By the end of the series, we—and Taran—discover that he is, in fact, the heir to the throne of Prydain (sorry for the spoiler, but the books are so good that it hardly matters).  As Assistant Pig-Keeper, Taran has only one pig, Hen Wen (“Old Whitey” from hen, “old” and gwyn, “white”?), who, like Taran, is not what she appears to be but is an “oracular pig”:  that is, a pig who can sense the future, which she conveys using a bundle of letter sticks.

From threat to food source to symbol of power to agent of prophecy—what else might an ambitious pig be or do?

As always, thanks for reading,

Stay well,

And know that, as ever, there is

MTCIDC

O

ps

The first image, of Herakles and the Boar, is a cast bronze by Giambologna (jahm-boh-LOE-nya), actually Jean de Boulogne (1529-1608).

In his time, he was a famous and influential sculptor, but equally known for his work in bronze.  There are lots of images available on-line of his marble work and his bronzes, but my favorites are his wonderful cast bronzes of animals and birds, a group of which I saw in Florence some years ago.   Here’s a particular favorite–

As ever, dear readers, welcome.

Pigs have had a prominent place in Western literature for many centuries.  In my first encounter with them, they were deeply interested in architectural experimentation and predator control.

One built a house of straw, a second a house of sticks, the third a house of bricks, as in the illustration.  Needless to say, when a wolf with very strong lungs arrived, he blew down the first and second houses, dealt with the residents, but failed against the third.

In case you don’t know this story, commonly called “The Three Little Pigs” in English (and that’s just one name for it—see this LINK for various versions– https://www.pitt.edu/~dash/type0124.html#halliwell ) here’s a standard telling, from Andrew Lang’s 1892 The Green Fairy Book: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/33571/33571-h/33571-h.htm . 

Although there are claims that the story is older, the earliest versions I’ve seen so far all date from the 19^th century.  There’s a somewhat odd one from 1853, to be found in English Forests and Forest Trees:  Historical, Legendary, and Descriptive, 189-190, in which the three pigs have been replaced by three pixies.  (“Pigsy” is a variant spelling for “pixie”, so perhaps that’s where the confusion came in. Here’s a link to English Forests, in case you’d like to see the story in context:  https://archive.org/details/englishforestsa01unkngoog )

Pigs themselves, however, appear at the very beginnings of Western literature, where we see Herakles dealing with a very large member of the species, the Erymanthian Boar, as one of his Labors.

(The person in the pot is his relative, Eurystheus, king of Tiryns, who has been given the job of devising and supervising the labors of Heracles, which are supposed to be a kind of penance for Herakles’ earlier murder of his first wife and their children–oh—and pulling his house down around them, as well.

Needless to say, he quickly comes to regret his appointment, taking refuge in this pottery bunker whenever word comes to him that Herakles has returned with a new trophy.)

And, in the case of a wild boar, perhaps he was wise to do so.  The modern variety

can weigh over 600 pounds (272kg), is fast on his feet, and is said to be extremely intelligent. 

Here’s the view of a 14^th-century AD hunter on the subject:

“. It is the beast of this world that is strongest armed, and can sooner slay a man than any other. Neither is there any beast that he could not slay if they were alone sooner than that other beast could slay him, be they lion or leopard, unless they should leap upon his back, so that he could not turn on them with his teeth. And there is neither lion nor leopard that slayeth a man at one stroke as a boar doth, for they mostly kill with the raising of their claws and through biting, but the wild boar slayeth a man with one stroke as with a knife, and therefore he can slay any other beast sooner than they could slay him.”

(The Master of Game, primarily an early 15^th-century English translation by Edward Duke of York of Gaston Phebus’ Livre de Chasse, written in the late 1380s.  For a modern edition and all that is said about boars, see this link:  https://www.gutenberg.org/files/43452/43452-h/43452-h.htm#CHAPTER_VI)

Besides weight and speed, the killing weapon, as described above, is the tusk—

Our second view of a boar is from the Kalydonian Boar Hunt.

This illustration is from the neck of the well-known early 6^th-century BC “Francois Vase” (actually a large volute krater or mixing bowl—Greeks, at least at parties, usually mixed their wine with water).  One of a number of epic stories, like the attack on Troy, which brought in many famous heroes, it all happened because the king of Kalydon in western mainland Greece, neglected to make a sacrifice to Artemis.

(Here she is, with her twin, Apollo.)

In return, Artemis, as the mistress of wild animals,

sent a boar to terrorize the land and destroy the crops.  As boars’ method of grazing rips up the landscape,

this was probably even more serious than the direct threat of porcine violence.  Hunters gathered from all over the ancient Greek world (many of them are named on the vase) and, although the boar was ultimately killed, Artemis’ vengeance continued as a quarrel broke out over who would claim the carcass and this led to a civil war.

It’s no wonder, then, that the proto-Greeks, whom we call the Myceneans, would manufacture a piece of what I would suggest is trophy-armor, a leather cap covered in boars’ tusks.

As teeth dry out and become brittle after leaving the gums, I doubt that this would have provided much protection in battle, but it would certainly have backed up a warrior’s claim to being a more-than-capable hunter.

Odysseus himself, is given one of these in Book 10 of the Iliad—

“And Meriones gave to Odysseus a bow and quiver

And sword, and put a cap around his head

Made of hide.  It was pulled tightly inside with many straps

And outside the white tusks of a shining-tooth boar

Were well and skillfully held close together…”

(The Iliad, Book 10, 260-265, my translation)

And Odysseus had good cause for being glad that at least one boar had contributed his tusks:  when Odysseus was a teenager, he had gone on a hunt with his grandfather, Autolykos, and a boar had ripped open his thigh,

leaving a scar which was visible many years later.  This scar provided evidence which was handy in helping to prove that he was Odysseus, when he had secretly returned to Ithaka after 20 years away, but had almost proved the end of his secret—and perhaps of him—when it was identified by his old nurse, Eurykleia, who, in her surprise, was only blocked by Odysseus’ quick reaction from revealing his identity.

In The Odyssey, there is another approach to dealing with swine, however.  Circe the sorceress, who has a menagerie of one-time savage beasts already,

has no need to hunt them when, with a magic drink and a tap of her staff,

she can have as many pigs as she wants, with no risk at all—to herself.

At least at first…

There’s more to be said, but, lest we pig out on the subject (sorry!), I’ll continue this in my next posting, where we’ll move from the Classical world to the medieval.

In the meantime,

Thanks, as ever, for reading,

Stay well,

And know that, as always, there’s

MTCIDC

O