As always, welcome, dear readers.

A few weeks ago, I did a posting on a once-influential poem, G.F. Buerger’s (1747-1794) Lenore,

with a line so famous that Bram Stoker (1847-1912) quotes it in Chapter 1 of Dracula, over a century after its original publication:

“Hurrah!  die Todten reiten schnell.”

“Hurrah!  the Dead ride swiftly.”

(For his purpose, Stoker changes the line’s beginning to “Denn die Todten reiten schnell”, which he translates as “For the dead travel fast”.)

But, with Stoker’s work in mind, in this posting I want to discuss how the Undead—specifically, the Nazgul—ride and more so what they ride.

We first see one of their number in early pursuit of Frodo:

“Round the corner came a black horse, no hobbit-pony but a full-sized horse; and on it sat a large man, who seemed to crouch in the saddle, wrapped in a great black cloak and hood, so that only his boots in the high stirrups showed below; his face was shadowed and invisible.” (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book One, Chapter 3, “Three is Company”)

(by John Howe)

And this pursuit is unremitting, following the hobbits to Crickhollow,

(an early illustration by the military artist Angus McBride)

to Bree,

(possibly an Alan Lee?)

to Weathertop,

(Denis Gordeev)

and would undoubtedly have continued but that the waters of the Bruinen swept their horses away,

(by Ted Nasmith)

and, as Gandalf says of the now-united Nazgul:

“It is rash to be too sure, yet I think that we may hope now that the Ringwraiths were scattered, and have been obliged to return as best they could to their Master in Mordor, empty and shapeless.”  (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book Two, Chapter 3, “The Ring Goes South”)

Because, later in the story, we see the chief of the Nazgul leaving Minas Morgul on horseback (The Two Towers, Book Four, Chapter8, “The Stairs of Cirith Ungol”)

(an Alan Lee)

and then see him mounted confronting Gandalf at the fallen gate of Minas Tirith (The Return of the King, Book Five, Chapter 4, “The Siege of Gondor),

(another Angus McBride)

we must assume that, having returned to Mordor, he has obtained a new mount there, as Gandalf tells Frodo earlier about such steeds:

“…these horses are born and bred to the service of the Dark Lord in Mordor.”  (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book Two, Chapter 1, “Many Meetings”)

The Nazgul chief has another means of transport, however:

“The great shadow descended like a falling cloud.  And behold 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; and it stank.” (The Return of the King, Book Five, Chapter 6, “The Battle of the Pelennor Fields”)

Needless to say, this has been a very popular subject for illustrators over the years, from the Hildebrandts

to Angus McBride

to Alan Lee

to John Howe

to Ted Nasmith,

as well as many very good artists, but who have not yet attained the prominence of those I’ve just listed, like Matthew Stewart

and Jake Murray. (I very much like both of these and the Murray has the added attraction that it looks like it could have been an illustration from a work by William Morris.)

JRRT hasn’t given artists a lot to go on, however:

1. featherless

2. leathery wings

3. and, shortly, we have a little more as it attempts to attack Eowyn:

“Again it leaped into the air, and then swiftly fell down upon Eowyn, shrieking, striking with beak and claw.”

So far, then, it’s something very large, with a naked body, leathery wings, claws, and a beak.

The various illustrations above all seem to suggest something dragonish to me, although, if we might match them against some of Tolkien’s own illustrations of Smaug,

Tolkien’s dragon seems more like E.H. Shepard’s (1879-1976) illustration of the Reluctant Dragon, from Kenneth Grahame’s (1859-1932) Dream Days (1898) than the destroyer of Dale.

(If you haven’t read “The Reluctant Dragon”, here’s a LINK to the 1902 republication of Dream Days, with illustrations by Maxfield Parrish:  https://www.gutenberg.org/files/35187/35187-h/35187-h.htm   Shepard illustrated a 1930 reprint. )

That being the case, does JRRT give us anything more?

“A creature of an older world maybe it was, whose kind, lingering in forgotten mountains cold beneath the Moon, outstayed their day, and in hideous eyrie bred this last untimely brood, apt to evil.  And the Dark Lord took it, and nursed it with fell meats, until it grew beyond the measure of all other things that fly; and he gave it to his servant to be his steed.”

In 1784, the Italian scientist (although he probably called himself a “natural philosopher”), Cosimo Collini, published the first report on a strange new creature whose skeleton had been discovered in Bavaria, where he was the curator of the natural history collections of the Elector.

There then began intense discussion:  what was this?  A bird?  Mammal?  Lizardish thing?  (For lots more on this see:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pterodactylus )

Eventually, it was decided that it was a flying reptile, to be called Pterodactylus (“wing-fingered”).  Other differing flying reptiles began to appear, forming a whole class of pterosaurs (“winged lizards”), many resembling something like this, in which the leathery wings were attached to the claws (hence that “wing-fingered”), this being a Rhamphorynchus (“beak-snout”—for more on them, see:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhamphorhynchus )

If we consider its look and perhaps the look of the class in general—those wings, that beak, and, of course, the great age (from the Jurassic Period, 200,000,000 to 145,000,000 years ago)—might this have been an inspiration for Tolkien’s creation of whatever this thing—we don’t appear to have any name for it except “foul beast”–upon which the chief Nazgul rode?

Then again, perhaps there is another inspiration, one which Tolkien might have carried about quite unconsciously.  He had been introduced to the Alice books as a child (see Carpenter’s Tolkien, 24) and, among the original illustrations by Tenniel for the second volume is this—

set it against that very familiar scene on the fields of the Pelennor and, minus a Nazgul, is there very much difference?

(by Arkady Roytman)

Thanks, as ever, for reading.

Stay well,

Avoid Tulgey Woods,

And know that, as always, there’s

MTCIDC

O

Welcome, as always, dear readers.

It all began with Tom Bombadil,

his being left out of almost all adaptations of The Lord of the Rings, both radio and film, and how, although I believed, as Tolkien suggested, that Tom had a part to play in the story, it was the Barrow-downs I missed because of that omission, as much because I find the chapter in which they play a major role a really well-crafted piece of story-telling—and a chilling one, at that.

 

(This is an image you can see on various Tolkien websites and, for my taste, although it’s nicely done, it has a few too many standing stones, although, to do the artist justice, he/she is probably modeling it on some spots on Dartmoor, where such things can tend to congregate.)

In the first installment of this posting, we and the hobbits had left Tom’s house with the intent to reach the East Road, which will take us to Bree.

This required a straight line, more or less, due north, skirting the Old Forest to the west (to our left)

and the Barrow-Downs to the east (to our right—an important fact and well worth keeping in mind for what’s to come).

While doing so, we’ve encountered a rather strange earthwork, a so-called “saucer barrow”,

with a single standing stone in its midst (although no barrow).

From the lip of this earthwork, the hobbits believe that they can make out the East Road, not so much farther to the north:

“Then their hearts rose; for it seemed plain that they had come further already than they had expected.  Certainly the distances had now all become hazy and deceptive, but there could be no doubt that the Downs were coming to an end.  A long valley lay below them winding away northwards, until it came to an opening between two steep shoulders.  Beyond, there seemed to be no more hills.  Due north they faintly glimpsed a long dark line.  ‘That is a line of trees,’ said Merry, ‘and that must mark the Road.  All along it for many leagues east of the Bridge there are trees growing.  Some say they were planted in the old days.’ “ (All quotations in this posting are from The Fellowship of the Ring, Book One, Chapter 8, “Fog on the Barrow-downs”)

(a Van Gogh pen and ink sketch from 1888.  Such tree-lined roads remind me of long stretches of highways in France—here’s a short history of why they look the way they do:   https://archive.macleans.ca/article/1914/3/1/french-roads-and-their-trees)

And, lulled by what so far seems a mild day, we and the hobbits stop for an impromptu picnic—

“But they were now hungry, and the sun was still at the fearless noon; so they set their backs against the east side of the stone.  It was cool, as if the sun had had no power to warm it; but at that time this seemed pleasant.  There they took food and drink, and made as good a noon-meal under the open sky as anyone could wish; for the food came from ‘down under Hill’.  Tom had provided them with plenty for the comfort of the day.  Their ponies unburdened strayed upon the grass.”

But, although Tom may have provided lunch, he also gave the hobbits a warning:

“Tom reckoned the Sun would shine tomorrow, and it would be a glad morning, and setting out would be hopeful.  But they would do well to start early; for weather in that country was a thing that even Tom could not be sure of for long, and it would change sometimes quicker than he could change his jacket.  ‘I am no weather-master,’ said he, ‘nor is aught that goes on two legs.’”

And now they found that Tom was right:

“Riding over the hills, and eating their fill, the warm sun and the scent of turf, lying a little too long, stretching out their legs and looking at the sky above their noses:  these things are, perhaps, enough to explain what happened.  However that may be:  they woke suddenly and uncomfortably from a sleep they had never meant to take.  The standing stone was cold, and it cast a long pale shadow that stretched eastward over them.  The sun, a pale and watery yellow, was gleaming through the mist just above the west wall of the hollow in which they lay; north, south, and east, beyond the wall the fog was thick, cold and white.  The air was silent, heavy and chill.  Their ponies were standing crowded together with their heads down.”

As they had left Tom Bombadil’s, Goldberry had said to them:  “North with the wind in the left eye and a blessing on your purpose.  Make haste while the Sun shines!”, but now:

“The hobbits sprang to their feet in alarm, and ran to the western rim.  They found that they were upon an island in the fog.  Even as they looked out in dismay towards the setting sun, it sank before their eyes into a white sea, and a cold grey shadow sprang up in the East behind.  The fog rolled up to the walls and rose above them, and as it mounted it bent over their heads until it became a roof:  they were shut in a hall of mist whose central pillar was the standing stone.”

(And I wonder if this last bit of description isn’t a foreshadowing of the inside of the main chamber in a barrow?  Here’s the partially-reconstructed late-Neolithic barrow at Belas Knap for a comparison.)

As I wrote in Part I of this posting, I’m interested in watching the way in which Tolkien entangles both the hobbits and us, the readers, in this ghostly and unstable world.  The hobbits have been lulled into being too leisurely and now the change of weather has begun to ensnare them.  Their route was due north, but, without Goldberry’s sun, how might they know which way was north?

“They felt as if a trap was closing about them; but they did not quite lose heart.  They still remembered the hopeful view that had had of the line of the Road ahead, and they still knew in which direction it lay.”

But did they?

“The valley seemed to stretch on endlessly.  Suddenly Frodo saw a hopeful sign.  On either side ahead a darkness began to loom through the mist; and he guessed that they were at last approaching the gap in the hills, the north-gate of the Barrow-downs.  If they could pass that, they would be free…But his hope soon changed to bewilderment and alarm.  The dark patches grew darker, but they shrank; and suddenly he saw, towering ominous before him and leaning slightly towards one another like the pillars of a headless door, two huge standing stones.  He could not remember having seen any sign of these in the valley, when he looked out from the hill in the morning.”

But he might have seen them, and what they lead to, just not making the immediate connection with his earlier optimistic view of their progress:

“ ‘Splendid!’ said Frodo.  ‘If we make as good going this afternoon as we have done this morning, we shall have left the Downs before the Sun sets and be jogging on in search of a camping place.’ But even as he spoke he turned his glance eastwards, and he saw that on that side the hills were higher and looked down upon them, and all those hills were crowned with green mounds, and on some were standing stones, pointing upwards like jagged teeth out of green gums.”

“…like the pillars of a headless door…”—but a door leading to what?  Here, I’m reminded of the cave now called “Oweynagat” (translated either as “Cave of the Cats”, or, probably more likely, “Cave of the Battles”) at Cruachan Ai (modern Rathcroghan) in Eire, which was believed to be an entrance to the Otherworld…

(although in both Old Irish and Middle Welsh literature, at times it seems that one might step from one world into the other without even knowing it—see, for example, the story of Pwyll here:  https://sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/mab/mab20.htm#page_339 )

And now, disoriented by the fog and in increasing panic, Frodo makes a mistake—and his pony is well aware of it:

“He had passed between them almost before he was aware:  and even as he did so darkness seemed to fall round him.  His pony reared and snorted, and he fell off.  When he looked back he found that he was alone:  the others had not followed him.”

Frodo runs back between the pillars, but, hearing what he believes to be a distant cry–

“It was away eastward, on his left as he stood under the great stones, staring and straining into the gloom.  He plunged off in the direction of the call, and found himself going steeply uphill.”

Now, looking once more at a map, we see that Frodo, coming to those standing stones, has become completely turned around—east is not to his right, as when the hobbits began their passage of the Barrow-downs, but to his left and Frodo is now running south, back into the Downs—and towards those barrows he had spotted that morning—has he, going between those standing stones, entered another world?  If so, it’s a very menacing one.

And now, as Tom had warned them, the weather changes again:

“The mist was flowing past him now in shreds and tatters.  His breath was smoking, and the darkness was less near and thick.  He looked up and saw with surprise that faint stars were appearing overhead amid the strands of hurrying cloud and fog.  The wind began to hiss over the grass…and even as he went forward the mist was rolled up and thrust aside, and the starry sky was unveiled.”

Where had Frodo come to?

“A glance showed him that he was now facing southwards and was on a round hill-top, which he must have climbed from the north.  Out of the east a biting wind was blowing.  To his right there loomed against the westward stars a dark black shade.  A great barrow stood there.”

We know what happens next—the Barrow-wight seizes the paralyzed Frodo and he wakes up among his friends, about to be sacrificed–until he defends himself

(a Ted Nasmith)

and then calls for Tom Bombadil—who arrives, drives out the Wight, and it’s almost as if we’re back to where we began—although perhaps warier and Merry has that sword with which he wounds the chief of the Nazgul, once the Witch King of Angmar—

“Then he told them that the 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.”

(another Ted Nasmith)

Peter Jackson, explaining his decision to drop Tom Bombadil, Old Man Willow, and the Barrow-downs is quoted as saying:

“In the plot of ‘The Lord of the Rings,’ in our movie, in its most simple form, is Frodo carrying the Ring. Eventually, he has to go to Mordor and destroy the Ring. So, you know, what does Old Man Willow contribute to the story of Frodo carrying the Ring? What does Tom Bombadil ultimately really have to do with the Ring? I know there’s Ring stuff in the Bombadil episode, but it’s not really advancing our story. It’s not really telling us things we need to know.”  (quoted from:  https://www.msn.com/en-us/movies/news/why-peter-jackson-cut-tom-bombadil-from-the-lord-of-the-rings/ar-AAVCAT4 )

Although I understand what Jackson means, for me, “things we need to know” does not necessarily include only the “Ring stuff”, but also the wider, deeper picture which JRRT is at such pains to provide us with, an ancient world, inhabited by ancient good, in the form of Tom Bombadil, but also ancient evil in the Barrow-wight and the Downs which he—and presumably others—haunt.  When I reread The Lord of the Rings, “Fog on the Barrow-downs” is a chapter to which I look forward, both to enjoy the story-telling and to be as haunted as the Downs themselves are, as well.

Thanks for reading, as ever.

Stay well,

Keep the wind in your left eye,

And know, that, as always, there’s

MTCIDC

O

Welcome, dear readers, as always.

Adapters of The Lord of the Rings, with rare exceptions, have never liked Tom Bombadil.

(the Hildebrandts)

And Tolkien himself had to find ways to explain his presence in the story, even admitting, in one letter that:

“Tom Bombadil is not an important person—to the narrative.  I suppose he has some importance as a ‘comment’.  I mean, I do not really write like that:  he is just an invention…and he represents something that I find important, though I would not be prepared to analyze the feeling precisely.  I would not, however, have left him in, if he did not have some kind of function.” (letter to Naomi Mitchison, 25 April, 1954, Letters, 178)

For me, he has a number of functions:

1. he presents a brief slowing-down of the narrative—with the exception of that close encounter with Old Man Willow, of course—

(the Hildebrandts)

from the initial pursuit of the hobbits by the Nazgul–

(a Denis Gordeev)

to their attack on the Hobbits in Bree and their relentless pursuit afterwards.

(a second Gordeev)

2. he represents, as JRRT is always at pains to do, something from an older time on Middle-earth, always suggesting to us that traveling across a Third Age landscape means moving above many earlier layers of history (something which any traveler to the UK today must always feel).

3. he adds an element of mystery to Middle-earth—who is he?  Where is he from?  Why has he such great power that the Ring, which makes even Gandalf nervous, means nothing to him?

4. he also provides a link with an element which, in adaptations, disappears as he disappears:  the Barrow Downs,

which combine that sense of deeper past, the supernatural, and even how the past can help the present, in Merry’s sword, which can pierce the Chief Nazgul, the ancient Witch King of Angmar.

(Ted Nasmith)

(For more on this and on Tom in general, see “Jolly Tom.1”, 9 September, 2015, and “Jolly Tom.2”, 16 September, 2015)

Although I miss the pause, I think that I miss much more those Downs, haunted as they are and the way in which Tolkien’s narrative gradually pulls us into them, just as the hobbits are pulled in.

We are told that the hobbits were already aware of them:

“Even in the Shire the rumour of the Barrow-wights of the Barrow-downs beyond the Forest had been heard.” 

Tom, however, provides a fuller picture:

“Suddenly Tom’s talk left the woods…wandering at last up on to the Downs.  They heard of the Great Barrows, and the green mounds, and the stone-rings upon the hills and in the hollows among the hills…Gold was piled on the biers of dead kings and queens; and mounds covered them, and the stone doors were shut; and the grass grew over them all.”

Such mounds had appeared in Tolkien’s own literary life from his student days, when he would have read this in Beowulf:

“Through the dark of the night-tide, a drake, to
hold sway,
In a howe high aloft watched over an hoard,
A stone-burg full steep ; thereunder a path sty’d
Unknown unto men…”

(Lines 2211-2214–This is from William Morris’ 1895 translation, with A.J. Wyatt, and, knowing how much Tolkien loved Morris’ work, I imagine that he had read this, along with other translations, before he could read it in the original.  For the complete text, see:  https://ia800501.us.archive.org/25/items/taleofbeowulfsom00morr/taleofbeowulfsom00morr.pdf  You can also see Morris’ proof sheets at:   https://exhibitions.lib.cam.ac.uk/linesofthought/artifacts/beowulf/   Proof sheets, for me, are magical, just like hand-written drafts, as they reveal the author in the process of creation—or correction!  For a list of Beowulf translations, by the way, see:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_translations_of_Beowulf   )

Beyond the literary, Tolkien could have seen barrows practically everywhere around him in southern England, perhaps the most dramatic one near him at Oxford being West Kennet Long Barrow, which is only about 50 miles (about 80km) southwest,

in countryside which has all sorts of mounds, including the very odd Silbury Hill,

what may have been stone-bordered processional ways,

and at least one surviving stone circle with a ditch and rampart.

When they leave Tom Bombadil, the hobbits ride into a rolling landscape

which, to me, already sounds just this side of mazy:

“Their way wound along the floor of the hollow, and round the green feet of a steep hill into another deeper and broader valley, and then over the shoulders of further hills, and down their long limbs, and up their smooth sides again, up on to new hill-tops and down into new valleys.”

By Tom’s advice,

“…they decided to make nearly due North from his house, over the western and lower slopes of the Downs:  they might hope in that way to strike the East Road in a day’s journey, and avoid the Barrows…”

And here a map might help—

(by Astrogator, from Deviant Art)

It’s not very detailed, when it comes to their trip, so let’s add this one—

(by someone named Don Hitchcock)

Basically, they intended to ride to the west of the Downs as best they could, while holding towards the north—as Goldberry has said to them, “And hold to your purpose!  North with the wind in the left eye…”.  At mid-day, however, they rode into what appears to be, in terms of ancient landscape, what is called a “saucer barrow”,

although, in place of a central mound, there is this:

“In the midst of it there stood a single stone, standing tall under the sun above, and at this hour casting no shadow.”

This almost sounds like the gnomon—that’s the thing which casts a shadow–on a sun dial,

as if, at this moment, the hobbits are standing in the middle of time—but time will pass more quickly than they think and that stone may be more than an ancient monument:

“It was shapeless and yet significant:  like a landmark, or a guarding finger, or more like a warning.”

As we’ll see in Part II of this posting next week.

As ever, thanks for reading.

Stay well,

“Make haste while the Sun shines!” as Goldberry reminds us,

(the Hildebrandts)

And know that, as always, there’s

MTCIDC

O

Welcome, dear readers, as ever.

I’m always interested in the intersections between Tolkien’s Middle-earth and our medieval Middle-earth, which is so often his model.  This includes the military element.  There is a moment in Jackson’s The Two Towers, however,which recently caught my attention because—well, I hope you’ll see why.

 We’re at Helm’s Deep,

awaiting Saruman’s

(by the Hildebrandts)

private orc army, when suddenly, there’s a horn call and, at the gateway appears a uniformly-clad detachment of Elf archers,

 led by Haldir, who, in The Fellowship of the Ring, commanded elves who watched the borders of Lorien and intercepted the Fellowship as it fled away from Moria and the fall of Gandalf.  (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book Two, Chapter 6, “Lothlorien”)

I’m not clear, in terms of the narrative, why these elves have been added to the garrison (or even, practically speaking, how they’ve gotten there, as the countryside between their home in Lorien and Helm’s Deep is infested with orcs, as Eomer would be the first to testify) as the author saw no reason to employ them, but what I noticed most of all was the drill-ground precision of their movements, which you can see here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqIMhrS14B0 .

As someone who had first been introduced to such movements as a member of the King Edward’s School Cadet Corps in 1907,

and then, at Oxford, both as a trooper in King Edward’s Horse

(This is from the very informative website for the long-disbanded regiment:  https://kingedwardshorse.net/ )

and then as a 2^nd Lieutenant in the Lancashire Fusiliers,

Tolkien would have been very aware of close-order drill of the sort which had become part of the life of any soldier in the British army all the way back to the later-17^th century, if not earlier.

The original point of such drill was two-fold.  In the 17^th century, infantry units were formed of musketeers and pikemen mixed

and 16-18-foot-long pikes (about 5-5.5m.)

would be dangerous not only to the enemy, but to their own side, if not methodically handled. 

The musketeers’ weapon, both the earlier matchlock

 and the later flintlock,

were very short-range weapons (under 100 yards—about 90m.) and so had to be massed to have much punch and, since they were single-shot weapons, loading and reloading had to be carefully organized, as well.

The pike was replaced by about 1700, all infantry then being armed with muskets, but, otherwise, the drill would have remained the same, and battles would be fought by long lines of carefully-trained men firing at each other through the Napoleonic Wars of the late-18^th and into the 19^th century.

Even as weapons changed, and, more slowly, tactics, throughout the 19^th century, older drill was still practiced, more for learning discipline—to obey commands without question—

by Tolkien’s time than for firepower.

(If you’d like to see the reenactment of actual drill, have a look at:  https://i.ytimg.com/vi/NrwbjzxSIHA/maxresdefault.jpg )

Although there is a hint of something like gunpowder, both at Helm’s Deep and at the Rammas Echor (see, for instance, “Fourth Age—Big Bang Theory” 17 February, 2016), in general, everyone uses sword, axe, lance, and bow, just as western soldiers did before bombards

appeared first at sieges

and hand gonnes

began to appear with any regularity on battlefields.

Such battles as there were in our western medieval world lacked the disciplined structure of later times, as soldiers were more like armed crowds than drilled infantry and cavalry in regular units.

As an easy example, and one which Tolkien would have known well, there’s Agincourt, fought between English and French armies in northwestern France in October, 1415, the third battle in the Hundred Years War in which the English relied upon their firepower to beat the French.

The French were a mainly cavalry-heavy army, although mostly dismounted for the actual engagement.

These would have been various levels of the nobility and their followers, only roughly organized into divisions.

The English, in contrast, were a mostly longbow-armed infantry

with a much smaller contingent of nobles and their followers, also dismounted.

Just like the French, they would mainly be very loosely organized into troops of noblemen’s retainers.

When it came to the actual fighting, the French attacked the English across open, muddy fields in several waves and great numbers were shot down by the English longbowmen before much hand-to-hand combat took place.  When it did, the English had already so punished the French that there wasn’t much fight left in them and they soon left the field to the English, along with great numbers of their dead and wounded.

Warfare in The Lord of the Rings has the two sieges—Helm’s Deep and Minas Tirith–both of which are conducted pretty much as one would do in our Middle Ages.  As for battles, if we don’t count the attack of the Rohirrim against the besiegers of Minas Tirith,

(by Denis Gordeev)

or the ambush of the Southrons by Faramir,

(Alan Lee)

there’s really only one–at the Morannon–

(the Hildebrandts)

and, like the sieges, its model in western medieval battles is clearly evident.

We aren’t given much detail, unfortunately, as to dispositions, but here’s what the text says:

“…Aragorn now set the host in such array as could best be contrived; and they were drawn up on two great hills of blasted stone and earth…Little time was left to Aragorn for the ordering of his battle.  Upon the one hill he stood with Gandalf, and there fair and desperate was raised the banner of the Tree and Stars.  Upon the other hill hard by stood the banners of Rohan and Dol Amroth, White Horse and Silver Swan.  And about each hill a ring was made facing all ways, bristling with spear and sword.  But in the front towards Mordor where the bitter assault would come there stood the sons of Elrond on the left with the Dunedain about them, and on the right the Prince Imrahil and the men of Dol Amroth tall and fair, and picked men of the Tower of Guard.”

By this description, I wonder if one medieval model might have been that of it King Harold and his Anglo-Saxons in their last moments on Senlac Hill, at the Battle of Hastings in 1066, facing the Norman cavalry.

We’re given much less of the other side, only:

“The orcs hindered by the mires that lay before the hills halted and poured their arrows into the defending ranks.  But through them came striding up, roaring like beasts, a great company of hill-trolls out of Gorgoroth…Reckless they sprang into the pools and waded across, bellowing as they came.  Like a storm they broke upon the line of the men of Gondor, and beat upon helm and head, and arm and shield, as smiths hewing hot iron.” (The Return of the King, Book Five, Chapter 10, “The Black Gate Opens”)

Even without more description, it’s clear what Tolkien had in mind:  mass meets mass, with a certain amount of previous arrow fire on the part of the orcs, which we can often see in medieval battles, even without the three great English longbow victories of Crecy (1346), Poitiers (1356), and Agincourt (1415).  The Norman use of bowmen at the aforementioned Battle of Hastings, for example, may even have caused the death of King Harold himself and the subsequent Anglo-Saxon defeat.

(The Latin reads:  “Here King Harold has been killed”.  There is scholarly argument, however, about which figure represents Harold, the warrior holding the arrow or the one being struck down by the Norman cavalryman.   The first written source, which appeared about 4 years after the battle, doesn’t mention the arrow, which only appears in a poem from about 40 years later.)

If there’s no such discipline to be seen in JRRT’s usual models for warfare, what is it—not to mention those elves—doing at Helm’s Deep?

Thanks, as ever, for reading.

Stay well,

Keep your helmet closed at all times on the battlefield,

And remember that there’s always

MTCIDC

O

Welcome, as ever, dear readers.

Early this week, I was lying in the grass, enjoying a late October mackerel sky,

when suddenly a jet flew high overhead and left a contrail (short for “condensation trail”, meaning that those white streaky lines are actually condensed water crystals—the jet’s engines were really acting as a kind of high-powered ice machine).

Without a moment’s thought, I was imagining the Wicked Witch of the West at work

her contrail more menacing, both for its message and for its funereal color.

And, as I lay there, looking up, I began to count just how many flying things appeared from the skies of Oz, first in the 1939 film,

and then the original The Wonderful Wizard of Oz from 1900.

(If you don’t have a copy of this, here’s a LINK to one:  https://archive.org/details/wonderfulwizardo00baumiala )

There is, of course, first of all, Dorothy’s house.

(And, Miss Gulch metamorphosed from the bicycle rider into her real shape in Dorothy’s vision)

Then there’s Glinda’s floating ball.

The Wicked Witch of the West in flight.

The terror of my childhood, those flying monkeys—

And then the Wizard’s balloon, which almost takes Dorothy back to Kansas.

I had seen the film numerous times before I ever opened the book, but, thinking about it now, the contrast between 1900 and 1939 in terms of available air technology really struck me.  In 1900, there were plenty of experiments with manned aircraft

but only balloons

(which dated back to the Montgolfier Brothers in the 1780s)

actually worked.  So, anything in the air, if not natural and not a balloon, would be highly unusual—unless in a fairy tale, of course.

Looking at the book, then, we see that the house is there (with Toto in tow)

as, after all, it was propelled by the natural force of a twister.

Glinda—who is not Glinda in the book, but simply the Witch of the North (the real Glinda appears much later)—rather than floating down from the heavens, does the equivalent of walking onstage (accompanied by Munchkins).

A new flying figure appears, however, in Chapter VIII, a stork, who rescues the Scarecrow from being stuck in the middle of a river (see Chapter VIII, “The Deadly Poppy Field”).

When Dorothy finally encounters the Wicked Witch of the West,

the Witch has no broomstick, but she has, in fact, an arsenal of natural (and unnatural) flying weapons, employing a flock of crows to attack the Scarecrow,

as well as bees to attack Dorothy, Toto, and the Lion,

and finally those flying monkeys,

 who trash the Scarecrow and the Tin Man and make off with the Lion, Dorothy, and Toto, but who later become Dorothy’s allies, through a magic cap (you can see Dorothy wearing it in the illustration).  It might be a puzzle as to how they fly, but they are flying animals, not something in an unworkable mechanical device.

The wizard and his balloon then appear—and disappear, Dorothy-less.

Between 1900 and 1939, successful air flight made its debut,

airships had become available, although not for ordinary people,

and I suspect that, with the terrible explosion of the Hindenburg, in 1937, 

they were already on the way to fading away, as they did, with only small revivals, into the current century.

(Except, of course, for Indiana Jones and his father–)

Transcontinental air travel was in its earliest stages, although it was expensive and most people took the trains.  (In fact, the first transcontinental air service was actually a hybrid of trains and planes—see:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcontinental_Air_Transport )

Skywriting (first appearing in 1922) might have inspired the Wicked Witch,

(I found this at a very interesting site you might enjoy:  http://www.terriwangard.com/2017/10/the-worlds-largest-signboard.html?spref=pi )

although brooms have been a vehicle of choice for much longer.

(This is perhaps the earliest depiction of a woman on a broomstick—for more, see:   https://www.history.com/news/why-witches-fly-on-brooms )

And then, thank goodness, the next step which happened with real aircraft—

did not become part of the flying monkeys’ repertoire, who remained no more complex than the idea of monkeys in flight and no more menacing than tearing the stuffing out of a scarecrow.

Imagine what the Emerald City might have looked like, if the Wicked Witch had turned her monkey bombers on it—“Surrender Dorothy” might have been quickly obeyed!

Thanks for reading, as always.

Stay well,

Avoiding spinning houses and swooping simians,

And remember that, as ever, there’s

MTCIDC

O