When teaching adventure/fantasy, which I do regularly, one thing I always say to students as a general concept is that there is, “No fiction without friction”, meaning that a story happens when someone pushes or is pushed by something or someone into taking action.  Without the coming of Billy Bones to Jim Hawkins’ mother’s remote inn, for example, with his hidden map and his ex-fellow pirates pursuing him,

there would be no Treasure Island.

(This is my favorite edition, from 1911, illustrated by NC Wyeth.)

Jim Hawkins and his friends defeat Long John Silver and his band of ex-pirates

and the novel has a happy ending with the friction gone.

But what if that friction returns?  Perhaps persistent evil has its advantages…

It must have been a real shock for the Munchkins in the MGM film of The Wizard of Oz, having seen their original oppressor flattened by a flying house,

and celebrating her demise on a grand scale,

suddenly to see another witch appear—and a vengeful sister, at that.

(It’s made much more dramatic in the film, however.  In the original book, although the Wicked Witch of the West is mentioned as a menace from Chapter II, and turns up in speech in further chapters, usually tagged with something like”if you go into her country, she will enchant you and make you a slave”, she makes no initially violent appearance to threaten Dorothy.   Nor, in fact, does she actually appear until Chapter XII—nor does she claim the Wicked Witch of the East as her sister.  As you can see, the screen writers have fashioned a very different villain from that in the book—although they did keep the flying monkeys.  In case you don’t have your own copy of the original, here’s a LINK:  https://archive.org/details/wonderfulwizardo00baumiala  )

And this isn’t the only time a witch seems to have been vanquished, of course, only to resurface in a new form.  The White Witch of Narnia

is killed by Aslan in The Lion,The Witch and The Wardrobe,

but seems about to reappear in Prince Caspian,

where it is suggested that, although Aslan is said to have killed her, “…whoever heard of a witch that really died?  You can always get them back.”  (Prince Caspian, Chapter XII, “Sorcery and Sudden Vengeance”)

And though she isn’t revived then, she will reappear in The Silver Chair,

as the Lady of the Green Kirtle.

(A “kirtle”, by the way, looks like this, if you’re not a follower of medieval/Renaissance fashion.)

In fact, in her original form, as Jadis,

she is the large and terrifying figure in the prequel, The Magician’s Nephew.

(This is an interesting choice for the witch’s name, by the way.  It’s simply the French, jadis, from Latin jam, “already” + dies, “day”, meaning “formerly”.  Lewis can suggest by this that:  1. Jadis was a power in the past; 2. but, because of Aslan, will become a former power.)

This idea of persistent evil  forms a major feature  in the work of Lewis’ friend and fellow Inkling, Tolkien, rather as it does in the 1939 MGM film.

First, there is Melkor (later Morgoth, a kind of nickname), the rebel Vala, perhaps a kind of archangel, close kin to Milton’s Satan

 in Paradise Lost,

with his explanation of why he rebelled against God:

“Till Pride and worse Ambition threw me down
Warring in Heav’n against Heav’ns matchless King:
Ah wherefore! he deservd no such return
From me, whom he created what I was
In that bright eminence, and with his good
Upbraided none; nor was his service hard.
What could be less then to afford him praise,
The easiest recompence, and pay him thanks,
How due! yet all his good prov’d ill in me,
And wrought but malice; lifted up so high
I sdeind subjection, and thought one step higher
Would set me highest, and in a moment quit
The debt immense of endless gratitude,
So burthensome, still paying, still to ow…”

 (Paradise Lost, Book IV, Lines 40-53, 1667 edition.  If you’d like to see what 1667 looked like–versus Milton’s 1674 second edition—here’s a LINK to a modern transcription:   https://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1794/767/lost.pdf?sequence=1 )

After his ultimate defeat by his fellow Valar and his exile through the Door of Night, Melkor/Morgoth’s place is taken by one of what we might think of a lesser angel, a Maia, named, initially, Gorthaur, Melkor/Morgoth’s chief lieutenant.   As Annatar, and later as Sauron,

he appears and reappears in the Second and Third Ages until, with his Ring destroyed, he vanishes from Middle-earth.

For MGM’s script writers, having a second witch appear to avenge the first (as well as to covet those ruby slippers), produced extremely useful friction.   At every turn of the story, we see that witch seeking to harm Dorothy and her companions.

Not only does that build tension, but her end then produces the climax of the story,

after which the giving out of rewards

and Dorothy’s final difficulty of getting home

seem almost afterthoughts in comparison.

The White Witch almost returns in one novel, definitely appears, in a new guise in another, and has a major role in the prequel which sets up the whole idea of Narnia to begin with.  And even Long John Silver escapes his captors, although Stevenson never wrote a sequel.  (There is a prequel, however, in Arthur D Howden Smith’s 1924 Porto Bello Gold, for which Smith received permission from Robert Louis Stevenson’s stepson and heir, Lloyd Osbourne.

If you’d like to read it, here’s a LINK:  https://archive.org/details/portobellogold0000unse/page/n1/mode/2up )

And then there’s JRRT.  Certainly the reappearances of Melkor to trouble the Valar, as well as Sauron’s to stir up difficulties throughout the Second and Third Ages produces no end of friction for generations of those on Middle-earth and beyond.  It’s interesting, however, that, after all those manifestations of evil, Tolkien himself seems to have felt that there had to come an end—as if all that friction had finally worn the long story smooth.  As he says in a 1964 letter to Colin Bailey:

“I did begin a story placed about 100 years after the Downfall [of Mordor], but it proved both sinister and depressing.  Since we are dealing with Men it is inevitable that we should be concerned with the most regrettable feature of their nature:  their quick satiety with good.  So that the people of Gondor in time of peace, justice and prosperity, would become discontented and restless—while the dynasts descended from Aragorn would become just kings and governors—like Denethor or worse.  I found that even so early there was an outcrop of revolutionary plots, about a centre of secret Satanistic religion; while Gondorian boys were playing at being Orcs and going round doing damage.  I could have written a ‘thriller’ about the plot and its discovery and overthrow—but it would be just that.  Not worth doing.” (Letters, 344)

And so perhaps the witch was finally dead?

Thanks for reading, as always,

Stay well,

Be sure that your witch is an only child,

Turn your calendar to a new year,

And remember that, as ever, there will be

MTCIDC

O

As ever, welcome, dear readers.

The Russian dramatist and short- story writer, Anton Chekov  (1860-1904),

is recorded as remarking—more than once, in fact—that, if you mention a loaded rifle or pistol hanging on a wall early in a story or play, you should either use it later (in the second or third chapter, he says, of a story) or get rid of it as a distraction.  (There’s a useful little WIKI article citing all three times Chekov said this in various forms:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chekhov%27s_gun   The American writer, Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961), having read this, dismissed it in an unpublished essay entitled “The Art of the Short Story”.  For an introduction to that essay and the essay itself:  http://www.pfgpowell.plus.com/Pages%201/Resources/Art%20of%20the%20Short%20Story.pdf )

I’ve always felt this way about a scene from The Lord of the Rings which I discussed in a recent posting.  This is the moment when the Lord of the Nazgul is about to strike the brave Eowyn down with his mace, having just shattered her shield. 

Just as he swings his weapon:

“…suddenly he too stumbled forward with a cry of bitter pain, and his stroke went wide, driving into the ground.  Merry’s sword had stabbed him from behind, shearing through the black mantle, and passing up beneath the hauberk had pierced the sinew behind his mighty knee.”  (The Return of the King, Book Five, Chapter 6, “The Battle of the Pelennor Fields”)

Eowyn  then destroys the Nazgul by running her sword through what would have been his head, had anything been visible but his eyes.  Her sword is an ordinary one, but  s aided by the fact that she is a woman  just after the Witch King has announced that “No living man may hinder me!” (For more on this, see the posting “Echoes”) 

Merry’s is a different matter—and here’s Chekov’s loaded pistol.

Various adapters of The Lord of the Rings have had trouble over the years dealing with Tom Bombadil. 

He enters the story early, rescuing Frodo and his friends twice, once from Old Man Willow,

and a second time from a barrow wight. 

Most adapters have made what might appear to be an easy decision:  they’ve cut him out entirely.  I say “appear” because, in the process, they also remove that loaded pistol.  Not literally, of course—although it appears that gunpowder is available, at least for Orcs and their masters (it seems to be used at Helm’s Deep and again at the Rammas Echor, the great wall which surrounds the Pelennor)—the major missile weapon in Middle-earth is the bow.

It’s Merry’s sword.  After Tom and Frodo carry Sam, Merry, and Pippin out of the barrow,

Tom goes back in and brings out all sorts of treasures, including:

“For each of the hobbits he chose a dagger, long, leaf-shaped, and keen, of marvellous workmanship, damasked with serpent-forms in red and gold.

[This is what “damasked”—also called “damascened”– looks like.]

They gleamed as he drew them from their black sheaths, wrought of some strange metal, light and strong, and set with many fiery stones.  Whether by some virtue in these sheaths or because of the spell that lay on the mound, the blades seemed untouched by time, unrusted, sharp, glittering in the sun.

‘Old knives are long enough as swords for hobbit-people,’ he said.   ‘Sharp blades are good to have, if Shire-folk go walking, east, south, or far away into dark and danger.’  Then he told them that these blades were forged many long years ago by Men of Westernesse:  ‘ they were foes of the Dark Lord, but they were overcome by the evil king of Carn Dum in the Land of Angmar.’ “ (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book One, Chapter 8, “Fog on the Barrow Downs”)

It’s important to understand that last fact:  the “evil king of Carn Dum” is, in fact, the Witch King of Angmar, aka The Lord of the Nazgul.  Merry’s sword, then, was fashioned long before for a distinct purpose:  to deal with the forces of an ancient evil.  And, unlike its original owner, it has survived the final fall of the kingdom of Arnor. 

One of the great powers of The Lord of the Rings is that it is not a kind of one-off adventure, but set into a very long history.  The Ring itself is extremely old, Aragorn’s remade sword, Anduril, was actually the sword of Elendil, a shard of which Isildur used to cut the ring from the defeated Sauron’s hand centuries and centuries earlier.  Like Anduril, Merry’s sword was created to fit into the history of those wars which will finally end only with the destruction of the Ring.  In its own way, it is in the story for a purpose.

There is a moment, however, when it looks like it may disappear from that story.  When Merry and Pippin are captured by the Orcs,

it was seized, along with Pippin’s:

“ ‘Well!’ said Merry.  ‘I never expected to see those again!  I marked a few orcs with mine; but Ugluk took them from us  How he glared!  At first I thought that he was going to stab me, but he threw the things away as if they burned him.’ “ (The Two Towers, Book Three, Chapter 9, “Flotsam and Jetsam”)

But was it actually gone for good?

When the two hobbits are reunited with the surviving members of the Fellowship, Aragorn says to them:

“ ‘Here are some treasures that you let fall…You will be glad to have them back.’ He loosened his belt from under his cloak, and took from it the two sheathed knives.”

And Merry still has the sword when he climbs onto Dernhelm’s horse to join in Theoden’s last ride;

“ ‘No mail have we to fit you,’ said Eowyn, ‘nor any time for the forging of such a hauberk, but here is also a stout jerkin of leather, a belt, and a knife  A sword you have.’ “ (The Return of the King, Book Five, Chapter 3, “The Muster of Rohan”)

Tolkien doesn’t mention the sword’s pedigree in the scene between Eowyn and the Nazgul, but its effect, we can presume, is that for which its makers had designed it long ago, wounding the seemingly unwoundable, crippling him so that Eowyn can then bring him down:

“Then tottering, struggling up, with her last strength she drove her sword between crown and mantle, as the great shoulders bowed before her.  The sword broke sparkling into many shards.  The crown rolled away with a clang.  Eowyn fell forward upon her fallen foe.  But lo! the mantle and hauberk were empty.  Shapeless they lay now on the ground, torn and tumbled, and a cry went up into the shuddering air, and faded to a shrill wailing, passing with the wind, a voice bodiless and thin that died, and was swallowed up, and was never heard again in that age of this world.”  (The Return of the King, Book Five, Chapter 6, “The Battle of the Pelennor Fields”)

As I’ve said, most adapters have removed Tom Bombadil and thus the barrow wight and thus the power of Merry’s sword, but, when Peter Jackson’s Aragorn simply dumps a sack of swords on the hobbits,

saying something like “You’ll need these”, we have not only lost what Tom Bombadil himself may have  brought to the story, but we lose something more:  that sense which runs throughout the novel that, although things change over time, much is never lost, but remains to fulfill its historical purpose–and the loaded gun will go off.

Thanks, as always, for reading.

Stay well,

Examine your blade closely for runes,

And remember that there’s always

MTCIDC

O

As always, dear readers, welcome.

I’ve never polled anyone on this, but I’m willing to bet that most people are visually-oriented.  Certainly, in my experience, students always learn better when they have lots of images to go on and I know that this is true for me, as well.   It’s one thing, for example, to read Jonathan Harker’s description in Dracula of what he observed below him:

“What I saw was the Count’s head coming out from the window. I did not see the face, but I knew the man by the neck and the movement of his back and arms. In any case I could not mistake the hands which I had had so many opportunities of studying. I was at first interested and somewhat amused, for it is wonderful how small a matter will interest and amuse a man when he is a prisoner. But my very feelings changed to repulsion and terror when I saw the whole man slowly emerge from the window and begin to crawl down the castle wall over that dreadful abyss, face down with his cloak spreading out around him like great wings. At first I could not believe my eyes. I thought it was some trick of the moonlight, some weird effect of shadow; but I kept looking, and it could be no delusion. I saw the fingers and toes grasp the corners of the stones, worn clear of the mortar by the stress of years, and by thus using every projection and inequality move downwards with considerable speed, just as a lizard moves along a wall.”  (Dracula, Chapter III)

It’s another to see it visualized in this Marvel Classics comic book—

or, even better done, I think, by Fritz Schwimbeck (1889-1972) in this early-20^th century depiction.

(If you don’t have a copy of Dracula, Project Gutenberg has one of the original 1897 American edition at:  https://www.gutenberg.org/files/345/345-h/345-h.htm .  If you would like to see more of Schwimbeck’s definitely odd work, the wonderfully-named Monster Brains has a selection:  https://monsterbrains.blogspot.com/2021/02/fritz-schwimbeck-1889-1972.html  )

Illustrations of Tolkien’s work interest me in particular.  There’s a huge amount of it—rather like fan fiction—with everything on-line from amateur drawings inspired by the Jackson films, some very skillfully done, to professional art.   Using last week’s posting, where I talked about two possible influences from earlier literary works on the scene between Eowyn and the chief Nazgul, as a basis, I thought that I would examine a few such depictions, thinking out loud about the artists’ choices of focus and elements to include in their presentation.

We should begin, as those artists did, with the scene as painted by the author.  There’s a lot to take in, so I’ll try to stick to the most important points, as I see them, from the standpoint of illustration.  So that I don’t need to repeat the references, with the exception of the depiction of the original lighting (from the end of The Return of the King, Book Five, Chapter 5, “The Ride of the Rohirrim”), all the rest of the detail is from Chapter 6, “The Battle of the Pelennor Fields”.

First, there’s the general setting:

“Theoden…had reached the road from the Gate to the River, and he turned towards the City that was now less than a mile distant…Ahead nearer the walls Elfhelm’s men were among the siege-engines…”

So, as a backdrop, there, potentially, are the walls of Minas Tirith.  What about the lighting?  Initially, it was this:

“For morning came, morning and a wind from the sea; and darkness was removed…”

But, suddenly:

“The new morning was blotted from the sky.”

This is the arrival of the chief of the Nazgul, who kills Snowmane, Theoden’s horse, and Theoden is pinned underneath him.  That chief is riding a very peculiar mount:

“…it was a winged creature:  if bird, then greater than all other birds, and it was naked, and neither quill nor feather did it bear, and its vast pinions were as webs of hide between horned fingers…Down, down it came…and settled upon the body of Snowmane, digging in its claws, stooping its long naked neck.”

Its rider is all menace:

“Upon it sat a shape, black-mantled, huge and threatening.  A crown of steel he bore, but between rim and robe naught was there to see, save only a deadly gleam of eyes…A great black mace he wielded.”

At first, we might think that Theoden is alone, trapped under his horse:

“The knights of his house lay slain about him, or else mastered by the madness of their steeds were borne far away.”

But there is one survivor:  “Yet one stood there still:  Dernhelm…”

And there is another: 

“Right through the charge Merry had been borne unharmed behind him, until the Shadow came; and then Windfola had thrown them in his terror, and now ran wild upon the plain.  Merry crawled on all fours like a dazed beast…”

Now the scene is set for the action to come:

“There some paces from him sat the great beast, and all seemed dark about it, and above it loomed the Nazgul Lord…A little to the left facing them stood she whom he had called Dernhelm.  But the helm of her secrecy had fallen from her, and her bright hair, released from its bonds, gleamed with pale gold upon her shoulders…A sword was in her hand, and she raised her shield against the horror of her enemy’s eyes.”

Merry isn’t long at center stage:  “Slowly, slowly he began to crawl aside…”

There is a brief pause, then:

“Suddenly the great beast beat its hideous wings…Again it leaped into the air, and then swiftly fell down upon Eowyn, shrieking, striking with beak and claw.”

This turns out to be an ill-judged move as:

“A swift stroke she dealt, skilled and deadly.  The outstretched neck she clover asunder, and the hewn head fell like a stone.  Backward she sprang as the huge shape crashed to ruin, vast wings outspread, crumpled on the earth, and with its fall the shadow passed away.  A light fell about her, and her hair shone in the sunrise.”

But

“Out of the wreck rose the Black Rider, tall and threatening, towering above her.  With a cry of hatred…he let fall his mace.  Her shield was shivered in many pieces, and her arm was broken; she stumbled to her knees.  He bent over her like a cloud, and his eyes glittered; he raised his mace to kill.”

And reenter the unnoticed Merry:

“But suddenly he too stumbled forward with a cry of bitter pain, and his stroke went wide, driving into the ground.  Merry’s sword had stabbed him from behind, shearing through the black mantle, and passing up beneath the hauberk had pierced the sinew behind his mighty knee.”

When Eowyn completes his downfall:

“Then tottering, struggling up, with her last strength she drove her sword between crown and mantle, as the great shoulders bowed before her.  The sword broke sparkling into many shards.  The crown rolled away with a clang.  Eowyn fell forward upon her fallen foe.  But lo! The mantle and hauberk were empty.  Shapeless they lay now on the ground, torn and tumbled…”

This is obviously too much to incorporate in one picture (it takes two minutes and twenty-three seconds in the Jackson film version), but here could be the major elements of such an image:

1. the mile-away city as a backdrop

2. Theoden under his horse

3. the Nazgul on his beast

4. Eowyn standing in front of him

5. Merry lurking to one side

What choices, then, will a selection of artists make and which part of the action will they portray?

There are, in fact, heaps of illustrations to choose from, but, in the interests of space—and maybe sanity—I’ve narrowed it down to about a half-dozen, which I’ve selected as a mixture of mostly early and later depictions and all but one of which I believe to be among the most convincing.   As is my usual policy, rather than criticize (there is much too much of that on the internet, so much of it uninformed ranting), I just want to observe and comment.

Let’s begin with this, which I’d guess is the oldest, by the Hildebrandts.

As you can see, it’s the moment when Eowyn is about to remove the flying beast from the scene.  In terms of the setting, it’s missing Theoden under Snowmane, as well as the city in the distance, and Merry isn’t visible, everything being focused upon the bravery of Eowyn—but you’ll notice that the light has already reappeared, when the text specifically says that it only did after the beheading of the beast.

Our second image, and probably the second oldest, is by Frank Frazetta, known now mainly for his depictions of very lush women.  I almost didn’t add this, fearing that some of my readers might think it a bit over the top, but, as I was determined to employ a number of professional artists, it seemed important to include it.

This seems to me one of the most basic depictions, focusing entirely on only two figures, Eowyn and the Nazgul, who has had his crown replaced with a helmet, and leaving out any background, Theoden under Snowmane, the beast, and Merry.  Eowyn is dressed in very impractical armor and is still wearing her (equally impractical) helmet.  In contrast to the Hildebrants’ heroic view, this appears to show a defeated Eowyn, which, to me, misses the main point of the scene as the author presented it.

A third early illustration is by Angus McBride, who was primarily a military artist with a strong interest in ancient and medieval wars and armies.  Here’s his depiction of a Celtic chieftain in his chariot, for example.

And here’s his version of our scene.

If we count up the elements—Theoden under Snowmane, the Nazgul on his beast, a helmetless Eowyn (with the most convincing armor and shield—a proper mail hauberk and the white horse of Rohan on that shield), and Merry crawling in the foreground—not to mention Eowyn’s defiant pose—this strikes me as one of the images which is most faithful to the text.

We are lucky to have not one, but two illustrations by Ted Nasmith.

It’s always the case with Nasmith’s work that he is a very careful reader of Tolkien and both of these illustrations show the care with which he approaches a scene.  Although Theoden isn’t visible in the first, or the city, you’ll see both in the second and in both the Nazgul with beast, alive or dead, a defiant Eowyn, and Merry, sword in hand, in the foreground, just in sight.

As I’ve said, there are numerous versions of this scene, but I’ll include two more.  The first is by Donato Giancola and fits very nicely into the same careful  approach as those of McBride and Nasmith.

Here we see the walls, Theoden and Snowmane, the Nazgul and dead beast, the helmetless Eowyn, and a small Merry poised to deliver his deadly blow. 

The last is by the prolific Russian illustrator, Denis Gordeev.

No Minas Tirith, no Theoden and Snowmane, but definitely the Nazgul and part of the beast, Merry slipping up behind and what I suspect was, for the artist, the point of his depiction:  the defiant, helmetless Eowyn. 

So, dear readers, which of these is—or are—most memorable for you?

Thanks, as ever, for reading,

Stay well,

Strike skilled and deadly strokes,

And know that, as always, there’s

MTCIDC,

O

As ever, dear readers, welcome.

In my last posting, which was about goblins,  I quoted a stanza from a poem which my grandmother used to recite, James Whitcomb Riley’s “Little Orphant Annie” (1885).  Riley wanted to sound like someone from rural Ohio, so the poem is written in late 19^th-century Midwestern US dialect:

“An’ one time a little girl ‘ud allus laugh an’ grin

An’ make fun of ever’one, an’ all her blood an’ kin;

An’ onc’t, when they was “company,” an’ ole folks was there,

She mocked ‘em an’ shocked ‘em, an’ said she didn’t care!

An’ jist as she kicked up her heels, an’ turn’t to run an’ hide,

They was two great Black Things a-standin’ by her side,

An’ they snatched her through the ceilin’ ‘fore she knowed  what she’s about!

An’ the Gobble-uns’ll git you

Ef you

   Don’t

     Watch

        Out!”

(If you don’t know the poem, here’s a LINK to the whole text:  https://poets.org/poem/little-orphant-annie )

It was, for a small person, a fairly disturbing poem, and this stanza in particular, haunted me (pun definitely intended).   I was used to monsters of all types and sizes, from Frankenstein

to Godzilla,

to fairy tale dragons,

but somehow these goblins were especially troubling because, unlike those other creatures, who all had a distinctive look, these had no shape, being described as just “two great Black Things”. 

I forgot all about them, however—except for that warning at the end of the stanza—“And the Gobble-uns’ll  git ef you don’t watch out!” (always good to be watchful about the supernatural), until I was in grad school and I met this in Milton’s Paradise Lost:

“The other shape,

If shape it might be call’d that shape had none

Distinguishable in member, joint, or limb,

Or substance might be call’d that shadow seem’d,

For each seem’d either;  black it stood as Night,

Fierce as ten Furies, terrible as Hell,

And shook a dreadful Dart; what seem’d his head

The likeness of a Kingly Crown had on.”

(Paradise Lost, Book II, 666-673)

It was a description of Death and there was that shapelessness again.  But there was another  shapeless something  in my life by then—and, I suspect for you, dear readers, as well:

“Upon it sat a shape, black-mantled, huge and threatening.  A crown of steel he bore, but between rim and robe naught was there to see, save only a deadly gleam of eyes:  the Lord of the Nazgul.”  (The Return of the King, Book Five, Chapter 6, “The Battle of the Pelennor Fields”)

(A wonderful image by Donato Giancola)

JRRT could be a little touchy about influences—see, for instance, this from a surviving draft of a letter to a “Mr. Drang”:

“As in the case with Moria.  In fact this first appeared in The Hobbit chap.1.  It was there, as I remember, a casual ‘echo’ of Soria Moria Castle in one of the Scandinavian tales translated by Dasent.  (The tale had no interest for me:  I had already forgotten it and have never since looked at it.  It was thus merely the source of the sound-sequence …”  (Letters, 384)

(Tolkien mentions  “Dasent”—who is actually Sir George W. Dasent—and “Scandinavian tales”—meaning his Popular Tales from the Norse (1859—actually a translation of a Norwegian work by Asbjornsen and Moe, 1843/4—and the two praised Dasent’s translation)—here’s a LINK for you for it:  https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/8933/pg8933-images.html –in which said castle appears, but I suspect that it’s more likely that he read it—or probably first had it read to him by his mother—in Andrew Lang’s 1890 The Red Fairy Book.  Here’s a copy for you—https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Red_Fairy_Book )

And there’s only one direct mention of Milton in Letters (see page 344), but Tolkien was a Victorian, if a late one, which meant that, even as a schoolboy, he would have been exposed to what would then have been considered the core of English literature (and, to a degree, morality), poems like Paradise Lost (1667/1674)

(This is the 1674 edition, in which Milton made some changes to the text and redivided it from the original 10 into 12 books, inspired, I suspect, by the Aeneid.  And here’s a LINK to a copy of that edition for you:   https://archive.org/details/ParadiseLost1674CopyB )

and books like John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress (1678). 

(If you don’t own a copy, here’s a LINK to an 1878 facsimile of the first edition:   https://archive.org/details/pilgrimsprogress1878buny/page/n15/mode/2up )

There is also another echo, I think, in the same passage, where the Nazgul says to Eowyn:

“ ‘Hinder me?  Thou fool.  No living man may hinder me!’

Then Merry heard of all sounds in that hour the strangest.  It seemed that Dernhelm laughed, and the clear voice was like the ring of steel.  ‘But no living man am I!  You look upon a woman.  Eowyn I am, Eomund’s daughter.  You stand between me and my lord and kin.  Begone, if you be not deathless!  For living or dark undead, I will smite you, if you touch him.’ “

(by Ted Nasmith)

In Act IV of Shakespeare’s Macbeth (1606?),

Macbeth is given a series of prophecies by the same witches who had appeared to him in Act I.

One of these prophecies (delivered by the “Apparition” of a “Bloody Childe”) is:

Be bloody, bold, & resolute:

Laugh to scorne

The powre of man:  For none of woman borne

Shall harme Macbeth.”

(Macbeth, Act IV, Scene 1, 1619-1622)

This makes Macbeth quite cocky as he polishes off one opponent, Seyward,  near the end of Act V, sneering at him as “borne of woman”.  But then he meets MacDuff (“MacDuffe” in the spelling of the First Folio (1623), from which my text comes) and to his boast:

“I beare a charmed Life, which must not yield

To one of woman borne.”

MacDuff replies:

“Dispaire thy Charme,

And let the Angell whom thou still hast serv’d

Tell thee, MacDuffe was from his Mother’s womb

Untimely ript.”

(Macbeth, Act V, Scene 7, 2451-6)

Needless to say, “Exeunt fighting”—“they leave [the stage] fighting”, but only MacDuff reenters—carrying Macbeth’s head.

Although Tolkien professes an early dislike of Shakespeare (Letters, 213), there is no doubt that he had read Macbeth, as he expresses his disappointment in Shakespeare’s employment of Birnam Wood.  Speaking of the Ents, he writes:

“Their part in the story is due, I think, to my bitter disappointment and disgust from schooldays with the shabby use made in Shakespeare of the coming of ‘Great Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane hill’. “

(Letter to W.H. Auden, 7 June, 1955, Letters, 212)

So, like it or not, somewhere in the back of JRRT’s capacious mind lay an image from Milton and an idea from Shakespeare, waiting to come together in a new and stirring scene.

Thanks, as always, for reading,

Stay well,

Avoid elderly ladies making suspicious stews in public,

And know that, as ever, there’s

MTCIDC

O

ps

But if Shakespeare was “disliked cordially” by JRRT, the present author loves him and perhaps you do, too.  If so, you might enjoy reading him as I do, in the earliest editions, which give you a clearer sense of how “chewy” Shakespeare’s speech was.  Here’s a LINK to the First Folio version of Macbeth so that you can see what I mean:  https://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/doc/Mac_F1/complete/index.html   And, if you’d like to learn about the reconstructed pronunciation of south-central English in Shakespeare’s time, have a look at this:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gi7IyqOjarA

“Ding-dong!  The Witch is dead!

Which old Witch?  The Wicked Witch!

Ding-dong!  The Wicked Witch is dead.

Wake up you sleepy head, rub your eyes, get out of bed.

Wake up, the Wicked Witch is dead.

She’s gone where the goblins go–

Below, below, below.

Yo-ho, let’s open up and sing and ring the bells out.

Ding-dong the merry-oh, sing it high, sing it low.

Let them know the Wicked Witch is dead!”

(E.Y. Harburg, 1939—my additional punctuation where it seems to be needed)

Welcome, as always, dear readers.  This rather blood-thirsty ditty appears, as probably all readers know, after a house lands on an unsuspecting practitioner of magic, the Wicked Witch of the East.

She may be unsuspecting, but she is also an oppressor, having previously subjugated those now singing about her demise, the Munchkins.

(This desire to dominate seems to run in her family, as her sister, the Wicked Witch of the West,

is the terror of the Winkies—who also form her bodyguard.

If this is unfamiliar to you, here’s a map to help—

When I was very little and first saw The Wizard of Oz, something in this song, although one of rejoicing, puzzled me.  I knew what “goblins” were, sort of, from a poem which my grandmother used to recite, Jame Whitcomb Riley’s “Little Orphant Annie” (1885).  Those goblins were mentioned at the end of most stanzas, but it was this stanza that stood out for me (it’s written in late 19^th-century Midwestern US dialect, which is why some of the spelling might seem a little odd):

“An’ one time a little girl ‘ud allus laugh an’ grin

An’ make fun of ever’one, an’ all her blood an’ kin;

An’ onc’t, when they was “company,” an’ ole folks was there,

She mocked ‘em an’ shocked ‘em, an’ said she didn’t care!

An’ jist as she kicked up her heels, an’ turn’t to run an’ hide,

They was two great Black Things a-standin’ by her side,

An’ they snatched her through the ceilin’ ‘fore she knowed  what she’s about!

An’ the Gobble-uns’ll git you

Ef you

   Don’t

     Watch

        Out!”

(If you don’t know the poem, here’s a LINK to the whole text:  https://poets.org/poem/little-orphant-annie )

But, if the goblins in the song went somehow “below”, where did those two “Things” come from which took the little girl through the ceiling?  My bedroom was at the top of the house, under the roof, and there were storage spaces tucked into the lower sides, each one closed by a little door,

and, when I went to bed at night, I began to be a little nervous:  did we have goblins in our house?  did the goblins live behind those doors?

We also had a small and very gloomy cellar, however, the dominant object being what seemed to me a gigantic coal furnace (yes, right out of the movie, Home Alone),

but away from its heat and light, there were nothing but dark, cobwebby corners.

I was as reluctant to go down there as I was to peek behind the little doors upstairs.  Was this “below”?

If so, it would certainly fit in with 19^th-century depictions of goblins, like those in fairy tales, both folk and literary, which my mother and grandmother read to me—and which I later read to myself– like George MacDonald’s The Princess and the Goblin (1870/2), illustrated by Arthur Hughes,

where the goblins live in an underground kingdom, but plan to tunnel to the surface to steal the princess of the book’s title and marry her to a goblin prince.  (May the idea of tunneling to the surface have been an inspiration for the gnomes of Underland in CS Lewis’ The Silver Chair (1953) and their mistress, the Lady of the Green Kirtle’s, plan to invade the upper world through a tunnel?

The goblins’ underground dwellings, however, were much larger and more elaborate than our little basement and so, as I grew, did my sense of those goblins, so that, by the time I first read The Hobbit, I could easily imagine, when Bilbo and the dwarves have been captured, that:

“…they stumbled into a big cavern.

It was lit by a great red fire in the middle, and by torches along the walls…There in the shadows on a large flat stone sat a tremendous goblin with a huge head, and armed goblins were standing around him carrying the axes and the bent swords that they use.”  (The Hobbit, Chapter 4, “Over Hill and Under Hill”)

Now this was a real “below”—and, just as in the song, the place was full of goblins.

And yet there was always the lingering question, even if “below” could be answered—or at least imagined—why “below” at all? Why didn’t goblins live in villages, or trees, or on beaches?  James Whitcomb Riley, after all, could suggest that some at least used a house’s upper floor (and my small  person fear easily agreed with that).

But I suppose that the answer is really a very basic one.  What was behind those little doors upstairs and what lay in the corners of the cellar was darkness.  As Tolkien described the goblins:

“Now goblins are cruel, wicked, and bad-hearted…”

to which Treebeard adds:

“It is a mark of evil things that came in the Great Darkness that they cannot abide the Sun…” (The Two Towers, Book Three, Chapter 4, “Treebeard”)

Above or below, then, the important element was avoiding the day and perhaps it’s instructive that, when I began to worry so much about those little doors that I couldn’t sleep, my mother bought me a flashlight.

As always, thanks for reading.

Stay well,

Always carry extra batteries,

And remember that, as ever, there’s

MTCIDC

O

ps

And, if you don’t have a copy of The Princess and the Goblin, here’s a LINK to an edition from 1907, which includes Hughes’ original illustrations:  https://www.gatewaytotheclassics.com/browse/display.php?author=macdonald&book=goblin&story=_front