Monthly Archives: July 2025

Pippin

30 Wednesday Jul 2025

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Welcome, as always, dear readers.

When I was little, I heard a folksong, “I gave my love a cherry”, with these lines:

“I gave my love a cherry that has no stone
I gave my love a chicken that has no bone
I gave my love a ring that has no end
I gave my love a baby with no cryen

How can there be a cherry that has no stone?
How can there be a chicken that has no bone?
How can there be a ring that has no end?
How can there be a baby with no cryen?

A cherry, when it’s blooming, it has no stone
A chicken when it’s pipping, it has no bone
A ring when it’s rolling, it has no end
A baby when it’s sleeping, has no cryen.”

Now, I know that it belongs to a riddle song tradition seen in two Child Ballads:  “Riddles Wisely Expounded” (#1) and “Captain Wedderburn’s Courtship” (#46), as well as in several supposedly-impossible task ballads, including “The Elfin Knight” (#2), but then it was just puzzling—especially that line about “A chicken when it’s pipping”. 

Since then, I have seen two explanations:

1. “pipping” is the chick still developing in the egg

2. “pipping” is the act of the chick breaking out of the egg and its bones have not yet matured

“Pipping” is characteristically sung “pippin’” and that was undoubtedly in my head when I first read The Lord of the Rings, and there was “Pippin”—Peregrine Took.

Took is a Norman-English family name, the first member in England being one of the invaders in 1066,

mentioned in (Robert? his first name is under discussion—sometimes he’s just called “Master”) Wace’s 12th century verse chronicle Roman de Rou (the “story of Rollo”—that is, of Hrolfr, a Viking colonizer of the western coast of France who became a vassal of the French king, Charles III (“ the Simple”), under the name “Rollo”, controlling what would become Normandy—“Norsemanland”—for more, see:  https://vikingr.org/explorers/rollo )

(from his tomb in Rouen Cathedral—a medieval idea of his appearance–and they wouldn’t have had much to go on as the tomb has been despoiled more than once:  report has it that only one femur remains inside)

which includes material about the conquest of England and where the sire “de Touques” (Touques is a town and river in Normandy—see:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Touques,_Calvados )  appears (see Master Wace, his chronicle of the Norman Conquest from the Roman de Rou, translated and edited by Edgar Taylor, 1837, where you can see the name on page 212:  https://archive.org/details/masterwacehischr00waceuoft/page/210/mode/2up )

“Peregrine” is Latin peregrinus, formed from peregre, literally “through the fields” (per agros), meaning “coming from somewhere else”, hence “foreign(er)/strang(er)/and, eventually, “pilgrim”.  See for more:  https://www.etymonline.com/word/pilgrim  I suspect that the name was inspired by Tolkien’s religious background, where there are several saints with that name:

1.  a 2nd-century AD martyr (you can read about him here:  https://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=5564 )

2. a 7th-century Celtic figure (you can read about him here:  https://www.saintforaminute.com/saints/saint_peregrinus_of_modena )

3. a 13th-century Italian (you can read about him here:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peregrine_Laziosi )

“Pippin”, however, appears to be a bit murkier.  One would assume that the nickname for Peregrine would be “Perry” (as in Perry the Platypus from the wonderful animated series “Phineas and Ferb”—for more see:   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phineas_and_Ferb    ).

So where does Pippin come from? 

I go back to what so often I find helpful for JRRT:  the Middle Ages.

And here I find Latin “Pipinus”, who could be this colorful character, Pepin (nicknamed “Shorty”—le Bref), c.714-768, the 8th-century Mayor of the Palace (chief officer under the king)

(to the right is Pepin’s father, Mayor of  the Palace before him, Charles “Martel”–“the Hammer”)

in Merovingian Francia (for more on this, see:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merovingian_dynasty .

Pepin is known in history for two things:

1. with the blessing of Pope Zachary, in 751, he overthrew the Merovingian king, Childeric III, ending the dynasty and making himself king

2. he was the father of Charlemagne, 747-814, creator of the short-lived Carolingian Empire (800-843)

(As always, coins have so much to tell us beyond their monetary significance.  This is a good example of using a Roman model to suggest that, somehow, the person depicted is descended from earlier Roman rulers:  it’s in Latin and uses Roman imperial titles—“IMP” = “Imperator”, once only “one holding the Senate’s authority outside Rome” but, from the time of Tiberius, 42BC-37AD, used as we use “emperor”; “AUG” = “Augustus”, a title originally given by a subservient Senate to Octavian, the heir to his greatuncle, Julius Caesar, and, after 30BC, owner of the whole Mediterranean basin.  As well, Charlemagne is wearing just the suggesting of later Roman armor, covered by a Roman military cloak and, on his head, is the early—and modest—imperial crown—a victor’s wreath.  Charlemagne’s ancestors were the Franks, Germanic invaders who would give France its name.  Charlemagne’s name is the Latin form, “Carolus”, of a Germanic name, “Karl” and note how it’s spelled in the Latin inscription:  “Karolus”.  Latin doesn’t use the letter K—so, a Germanic practice?) 

As Drogo and Freddie are out of the medieval Germanic past, I would suggest that, whereas Took is Anglo-Norman and Peregrine is Latin, Pippin may have gotten his nickname from a similar source, a fittingly distinguished name for someone who, after the War of the Ring, would become Thain of the Shire, Knight of Gondor, and Counsellor of the North Kingdom.

Thanks for reading, as always.

Stay well,

Dark Ages?  What Dark Ages?  You just have to know where to look—Tolkien did,

And remember that there’s always

MTCIDC

O

King Returns and Tax Returns?

23 Wednesday Jul 2025

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As always, dear readers, welcome.

I’m always interested to try to imagine things which Tolkien may allude to, but goes into no more detail about—a kind of teaser, and, for me, a challenge:  what can we reconstruct—and how?

“About this time legend among the Hobbits first becomes history…They passed over the Bridge of Stonebows, that had been built in the days of the power of the North Kingdom, and they took all of the land beyond to dwell in, between the river and the Far Downs.  All that was demanded of them was that they should keep the Great Bridge in repair, and all other bridges and roads, speed the king’s messengers, and acknowledge his lordship.”  (The Lord of the Rings, Prologue I:  “Concerning Hobbits”)

The “Bridge of the Strongbows” is the stone bridge which crosses the Baranduin/Brandywine on the road into the Shire from Bree, “bow” here meaning “arch”.

As far as I know, no artist has as yet depicted it, but I’ve always imagined it as looking rather like the Elvet Bridge, which spans the River Wear in the middle of Durham, England.

This was begun in 1160AD by the Norman bishop, Hugh de Puiset (c.1125-1195—a very interesting figure in the early centuries of Norman domination—you can read about him here:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_de_Puiset and read more about the bridge here:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elvet_Bridge ), but only finished sometime in the following century, suggesting both the time-consuming nature of its construction, as well as the expense, something less visible, but always there in the medieval world—cathedrals could take centuries to build, and not only because they were large and complex.

So, as it took time and money to build the “Bridge of Strongbows”, it would have taken more time and money to keep it in repair, let alone “all other bridges and roads”.

And here we are in what Thomas Carlyle, 1795-1881, referred to as the “dismal science”:  economics in Middle-earth.  (Carlyle uses the term more than once, but the general citation is to his–originally published under a pseudonym–“ Occasional Discourse on the Negro Question”, which you can read here:  https://cruel.org/econthought/texts/carlyle/carlodnq.html  If you read this site regularly, you know that one of its pleasures for me is being able to recommend all sorts of books, articles, music, to my readers.  In this case, however, I must say that, for once, I don’t recommend something—unless you are curious as to the horrific attitudes of some 19th-century intellectuals on the subject of race and bondage.  As an historical artifact, then, it’s worth a glance, but as an example of bigotry, it’s appalling, and unworthy of a man with the mind and sensibilities to know better.)

Tolkien himself was well aware of economics.  As he says in a letter to Naomi Mitchison:

“I am not incapable of economic thought; and I think as far as the ‘mortals’ go, Men, Hobbits, and Dwarfs, that the situations are so devised that economic likelihood is there and could be worked out…”

(letter to Naomi Mitchison, 25 September, 1954, Letters, 292)

Tolkien, however, adds something to his letter which makes his ideas a little clearer and adds a medieval touch:

“…Gondor has sufficient ‘townlands’ and fiefs with a good water and road approach to provide for its population…”

“Townlands”, as Tolkien used it, was a term employed in Ireland to indicate the holdings, by landlords, of multiple farms held by tenants, who paid rent to the landlords.  “Fief” is the feudal term for land given to a vassal by an overlord in return for taxes and military support when required.  In other words, these are economic units, in which those who work the land pay for that work with rent, in one form or another. 

So let’s consider the Shire.

In that same letter, Tolkien says:

“The Shire is placed in a water and mountain situation and a distance from the sea and a latitude that would give it a natural fertility, quite apart from the stated fact that it was a well-tended region when they took it over (no doubt with a good deal of older arts and crafts).”

As far as we can see, there are neither “townlands” or “fiefs”, but there is a form of government—in fact, a rather confused form:

1. a Thain–from Old English “thegn”–a significant landholder, one step down from an “ealdorman” (it’s much more complicated—see:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thegn for more) a hereditary position owned by the Took family, whose holder was “master of the Shire-moot, and captain of the Shire-muster and the Hobbitry-in arms”

2. the Mayor of Michel Delving (or of the Shire) “who was elected every seven years at the Free Fair on the White Downs at the Lithe, that is at Mid-summer”  JRRT says that “as mayor almost his only duty was to preside at banquets given on the Shire-holidays”, but then, I think, contradicts himself somewhat, saying “But the offices of Postmaster and First Shirriff were attached to the mayoralty, so that he managed both the Messenger Service and the Watch.  These were the only Shire-services, and the Messengers were the most numerous, and much the busier of the two.”  The Shirriffs were only a dozen—three per quarter—“Farthings” of the Shire, but there were, at the time of The Lord of the Rings another, larger group, the “Bounders”, meaning border guards, presumably also under his command.

There’s a postal service, then, and a two-part police force, as well as the need for infrastructure maintenance, all of which require that which Tolkien understands, as he tells us, but does not go into:  money in some form. 

Money turns up in fantasy literature, but it only seems to belong to kings and people at the top, as well as in dragon hoards,

(JRRT)

and in mysterious caches linked to beings like witches,

(Vladyslav Yerko—you can read about him here:  https://www.artlex.com/artists/vladyslav-yerko/ and here:  http://ababahalamaha.com.ua/en/Vladyslav_Yerko )

as well as in the hands of thieves.

Tolkien, just like other such fantasy creators, doesn’t tell us where the money comes from ultimately, but I would suggest that he gives us some clues.

We can begin with the Shire itself.  It’s not a large place—

(JRRT/Christopher Tolkien?)

“Forty leagues it stretched from the Far Downs to the Brandywine Bridge, and fifty from the northern moors to the marshes in the south.”  (The Lord of the Rings, Prologue I:  “Concerning Hobbits”)  If we take about 3 miles per league (4.8km), then 40 leagues = 120 miles (193km), and 50 leagues = 150 miles (241km) and yet it’s divided into quarters, suggesting that this was done for some sort of administrative purposes, cutting it down into more manageable sections.  As there’s voting, perhaps the Shire is broken up into voting districts, as it is the method used here, in the US.

And, just as likely, it may be done for tax purposes—after all, how else is money raised for police, post, and infrastructure?

Tolkien would have been well aware that the Anglo-Saxons were sophisticated bureaucrats, producing detailed records—which the Normans took over in the so-called “Domesday Book”,

a late Anglo-Saxon joke on taxes being as sure and as unforgiving as the Last Judgment.

Not all of the volumes survive from the original survey of the 1080s, but what does survive breaks down the countryside by shires (sound familiar?), listing in great detail who owns what and how much tax does he pay on it.  (For more on this incredibly interesting document see:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domesday_Book )

One can imagine, then, the Shire equivalent, each of the farthings listed and, beneath each, the villages, farms, and private dwellings, with the name of the owner, what he possesses, and what he owes.  The North Farthing would then include:

NORTH FARTHING                 

Overhill

The Hill

in which would be “Bag End”, “Bilbo Baggins”, what property produces revenue, and what taxes he owes for it

Hobbiton

The king who had originally granted land to the Hobbits was Argeleb II, in TA1601, but it’s clear that, as the Northern Kingdom faded, so did the Hobbits’ memory of Numenorean kings, except in their folklore:

“But there had been no king for nearly a thousand years…Yet the Hobbits still said of wild folk and wicked things (such as trolls) that they had not heard of the king.  For they attributed to the king of old all their essential laws; and usually they kept the laws of free will, because they were The Rules (as they said), both ancient and just.”  (The Lord of the Rings, Prologue I:  “Concerning Hobbits”)

As they kept “The Rules”, however, we can presume that the Hobbits maintained their obligation to Argeleb, who had died in TA1670, as the Bridge of Strongbows was still standing when Frodo and his friends arrived there in TA3019.  Soon after, however, a new king appeared, Elessar (aka Aragorn II), and we might wonder:  what would he demand of the Shire?  After all, the War of the Ring had caused tremendous damage to Gondor and it’s clear that the new king had plans to rebuild Arnor (Aragorn travels to the site of the old northern capital, Annuminas, in TA1436  The Lord of the Rings, Appendix B, “Later Events Concerning the Members of the Fellowship of the Ring”) and so we’re back to economics:  would the return of the king mean, as the title of this piece suggests, tax returns?  Certainly the first Norman king, William, pretty quickly set his clerks to work wringing every penny they could out of local land-holders.

We aren’t told if the Shire was required to continue the agreement made so many centuries ago with Argeleb, but the new king was clearly very grateful, at least to certain Hobbits, and:

“[SR—Shire Reckoning]1427…King Elessar issues an edict that Men are not to enter the Shire, and he makes it a Free Land under the protection of the Northern Sceptre.”  (The Lord of the Rings, Appendix B, “Later Events Concerning the Members of the Fellowship of the Ring”)

Presumably, this lifts the responsibility for royal taxes, but, as the king visits his old friends at the bridge in FA1436, (The Lord of the Rings, Appendix B, “Later Events Concerning the Members of the Fellowship of the Ring”) I think that we can also presume that the ancient infrastructure agreement is still in force, even if the king doesn’t cross the bridge.

As for the post and the police?  We have a modern expression which mirrors the thinking behind the ancient sad joke about the “Domesday Book”:  “nothing is sure in this life except death—and taxes”.

Thanks, as always, for reading.

Stay well,

To add another proverbial expression, when it comes to their taxes, perhaps the Hobbits would cross that bridge when they came to it,

And remember that, as always, there’s

MTCIDC

O

Mars, Two

16 Wednesday Jul 2025

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Welcome, as ever, dear readers.

Recently, I’ve returned to my long-term project to learn more about Science Fiction, which I began several years ago.

When I began to assemble a reading list (it keeps growing), I knew that it would include older authors like Jules Verne (1828-1905),

whom I had first met through his novel, Vingt Mille Lieues Sous Les Mers

(first English translation, 1873)

usually (slightly mis-) translated as Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea—but needs a final –s on “Sea-“, which the first English translation, following the original French, added.  At first sight, one might think that those masses of leagues were about depth, but, in fact, they were about length:  the idea being that the Nautilus, the submarine of the antagonist, Captain Nemo, traveled that distance below the waves during the story—that is 20,000 x 2.5 miles—maybe about two circumferences of the Earth.  Here’s the ship from the original French publication—

but, for me, the Nautilus (inspired by an actual submarine experiment in France—see:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_submarine_Plongeur ) will always be the ship seen in Disney’s 1954 version of the story.

Some years earlier, in 1865, Verne had written De la Terre a la Lune, trajet direct en 97 heures et 20 minutes—From the Earth to the Moon, Direct Route in 97 Hours and 20 Minutes (usually simply translated as From the Earth to the Moon   You can read about it here:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_the_Earth_to_the_Moon  and read an early translation here: https://web.archive.org/web/20110520193116/http://jv.gilead.org.il/pg/moon/   Be aware that this is not a very good translation and cuts the text, as well, but it’s free and will give you a general idea of the story).

(the 1874 translation)

In this adventure, an organization called the “Baltimore Gun Club” constructed a giant cannon

(called a “Columbiad” after this heavy coastal defense gun—only much bigger—for more, see:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbiad )

designed to shoot passengers to the Moon.  How they are to return is only revealed in the 1869 sequel, Autour de la Lune—Around the Moon—

(the second translation, 1874)

You can read about it here:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Around_the_Moon And you can read the early translation depicted above here:  https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/16457/pg16457-images.html  This book inspired the early French film-maker, Georges, Melies, 1861-1938, to produce his own burlesque version, Le Voyage dans la Lune, 1902, which included that cannon—and a chorus line!)

Along with Verne, H.G. Wells, 1866-1946, was on my list, including The First Men in the Moon, 1901.

Wells’ protagonists reach the moon through a man-made anti-gravity material, called “Cavorite”, after its inventor (one of the two lunar travelers), which is attached in carefully-monitored sheets to a steel and glass sphere.  You can read the book yourself here:  https://ia601308.us.archive.org/2/items/firstmeninmoo00well/firstmeninmoo00well.pdf

(from the original English edition)

Early in my exploration of science fiction writers, I had read Edgar Rice Burroughs’, 1875-1950, A Princess of Mars (serialized 1912, first book edition, 1917).

(You can read about it here:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Princess_of_Mars and read the story itself here:  https://gutenberg.org/cache/epub/62/pg62-images.html )

As I said, I had known Verne already, and Wells from The War of the Worlds, (serialized 1897, first book publication 1898)

(read about it here:   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_of_the_Worlds and read it here:  https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/36/pg36-images.html ), but all I knew about Burroughs was

and so I was hesitant, but I was pleasantly surprised that, even with a certain amount of what we might call “period” language (and cultural attitudes), this was a very readable book.  (See “Busting Into Mars”, 27 September, 2023, for more.)

Taking a recent pause from my other reading, then, I tackled the next in Burroughs’ series, The Gods of Mars (serialized 1913, first published as a novel, 1918).

And, again, I found myself sucked in.  John Carter, the hero of the previous book, was back and quickly in the thick of it again.  (Here it is for you to read:  https://archive.org/details/godsofmars02burr )

And, as well, I found that part of what had struck me in the first book caught me again:  the attention to the detail of the physical world of “Barsoom” (Burroughs’ local name for Mars).

Burroughs had clearly prepped himself with the latest scientific ideas, many of them from Percival Lowell, 1855-1916, a prominent Victorian astronomer, who had become convinced, having read the work of the Italian astronomer, Giovanni Schiaparelli, 1835-1910, who, in 1877, having closely observed Mars during its nearest approach to Earth, believed that he could see long, straight, intersecting lines across the planet’s surface.  He published a map of Mars in which he called these lines “canali”, which has a number of meanings in Italian, including “ducts” and even “gullies”, but also means “channels” and, fatally, “canals”, which was immediately seized upon by some to suggest that Mars was—or at least had been—inhabited—and by people who had the engineering ability to create many-miles-long canals.

(We should probably consider terrestrial canals here, such as that the long-needed, occasionally-attempted 120-mile (193km) Suez Canal, which had only been relatively recently successfully completed in 1869.  We might add to this the 61-mile (98km) Kiel Canal, finished in 1895.  Could these have appeared as earthly parallels to those who wanted to believe in Martian versions?)

What were they for?  As Mars has a large northern ice cap, which grows and recedes yearly, it’s clear that the canals were used to direct melt across the planet.  But why?  To irrigate a dry planet, of course.  In time, Lowell published three books on the subject:   Mars (1896—read it here:  https://archive.org/details/marsbypercivallo00lowe ), Mars and Its Canals (1906—read it here:  https://archive.org/details/marsitscanals00loweuoft/page/n9/mode/2up ),  and Mars As the Abode of Life (1908—read it here:  https://archive.org/details/marsabodeoflife00loweiala )  They are filled with charts and graphs and illustrations,

piled high to convince his audience that what he observed through his powerful telescope was real.

In reality, none of it was—but it certainly inspired writers like Burroughs, who produced a world with:

1. increasing aridity

2. canals

3. declining civilizations, some of whose elaborate cities had been abandoned, only to be occasionally inhabited by tribes of warrior nomads

4. underground seas

5. 5 races of differently-hued (white, black, green, yellow, red) humanoids (although oviparous) plus masses of creatures, some tamable, some simply monstrous, like the Plant Men who appear in The Gods of Mars, which is, in fact, an ironic title, as what we see are various pretenders to that title, including the Therns, who belong to the white race and who run a kind of confidence game in which they maintain what is supposed to be a peaceful afterlife in a green river valley, but which is, in fact, a feeding ground for those Plant Men and for the fearsome White Apes.

(Michael Whalen—you can see more of his impressive work here:  https://www.michaelwhelan.com/ )

Setting these peoples into an increasingly-harsh environment then allowed Burroughs to explain why certain of these peoples—the green ones, in particular—were themselves harsh, as the declining climate turned them into brutal survivalists.

6. sophisticated aircraft and even submarines (for use on the underground waters)—for more on the aircraft, see:  https://www.erbzine.com/mag28/2806.html  This is from:  https://www.erbzine.com/mag/ the weekly on-line magazine devoted to Burroughs and his output.  I wish that every one of my favorite authors had people as creative and dedicated at work on websites as rich as this one.

7. sophisticated firearms, but, when it comes to real fighting, it is always swords

For more on things Barsoomian, see:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barsoom as well as the extensive Erbzine.  I’ve already provided the text of The Gods of Mars above, and you can read a plot summary and more here:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gods_of_Mars .  There are the occasional creaky moments, but, on the whole, this was as much fun as A Princess of Mars.  And there’s an added twist here:  it ends as a cliff-hanger.

(This is, in fact, Harold Lloyd, in his comedy Safety Last!, 1923.  Overshadowed in time, I would say, by Chaplin, Lloyd was an accomplished comic actor and this film is a pleasure to watch—and laugh at.  You can see it here:   https://archive.org/details/SafetyLastHaroldLloyd1923.FullMovieexcellentQuality.  It’s one of a great number of early films available at the Internet Archive, which, if you read this blog regularly, you know is my go-to place for any number of different things, from silent films like this one to Percival Lowell on Mars—and much more.)

But there is one little problem.  Verne’s voyagers travel in what is, basically, an enormous artillery shell.  Wells’ two men ride in a sphere powered by some sort of anti-gravity material.  Neither of these, I suppose, is really any more convincing than Cyrano de Bergerac’s claim to have visited the Moon using, in his first attempt, bottles of dew in his L’Histoire comique des Etats et Empires de la Lune, 1655 (You can read about Cyrano’s adventures here:  https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/46547/pg46547-images.html and you can read about the book here:   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comical_History_of_the_States_and_Empires_of_the_Moon  ),

but they at least travel in their bodies.  John Carter’s voyage to Barsoom is done through what appears to be an “astral body”:

“ I made the same mighty and superhuman effort to break the bonds of the strange anaesthesia which held me, and again came the sharp click as of the sudden parting of a taut wire, and I stood naked and free beside the staring, lifeless thing that had so recently pulsed with the warm, red life-blood of John Carter.

With scarcely a parting glance I turned my eyes again toward Mars, lifted my hands toward his lurid rays, and waited.

Nor did I have long to wait; for scarce had I turned ere I shot with the rapidity of thought into the awful void before me. There was the same instant of unthinkable cold and utter darkness that I had experienced twenty years before, and then I opened my eyes in another world, beneath the burning rays of a hot sun, which beat through a tiny opening in the dome of the mighty forest in which I lay.” (The Gods of Mars, Chapter 1, “The Plant Men”)

This isn’t explained, but, however it’s done, Carter is able to use his terrestrial muscles, developed under a much denser gravity, to bounce around the Martian surface, pilot aircraft, and swing a sword, so I, for one, am able to perform a “willing suspension of disbelief” and see how the story gets off that cliff in The Warlord of Mars.

Thanks, as ever, for reading.

Stay well,

When visiting, remember that Mars’ gravity is only 38% of Earth, so look before you leap,

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

MTCIDC

O

PS

Although he was wrong about those canals, Lowell was a creative and energetic scientist, as well as a highly-intelligent and well-read man—and a very interesting man, as well.  You can read more about him here:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percival_Lowell  If you find him as intriguing as I do, here’s the Internet Archive page on his works—which include more than writings about Mars:  https://archive.org/search?query=creator%3A%22Percival+Lowell%22

Bard

09 Wednesday Jul 2025

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Welcome, as ever, dear readers,

When Bilbo and the dwarves

(the Hildebrandts)

set out on their quest, they’re aware that, at its end, they must face the reason the dwarves’ forebears died or fled Erebor, the “Lonely Mountain”.

(JRRT)

And yet they go, suggesting an almost foolhardy shrug of an attitude, particularly as Gandalf has suggested that they need someone right out of myth to help them:

“ ‘That would be no good…not without a mighty Warrior, even a Hero.’ “

But:

“ ‘I tried to find one; but warriors are busy fighting one another in distant lands, and in this neighbourhood heroes are scarce, or simply not to be found.’ “ (The Hobbit, Chapter 1, “An Unexpected Party”) 

Everything about this trip already seems haphazard, having no map of their destination, till Gandalf furnishes them with one,

(JRRT)

and even then they have no idea of another, secret entrance until Elrond spots the inscription which describes it—and how to open it.  Clearly, then, this is a case of “we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

Uh oh.

There’s also no clue in the text as to who or what may destroy the destroyer—until Bilbo, flattering Smaug, spots that fatal weak point:

“ ‘I’ve always understood…that dragons were softer underneath, especially in the region of the—er—chest…’ “

The dragon stopped short in his boasting.  ‘Your information is antiquated,’ he snapped.  ‘I am armoured above and below with iron scales and hard gems.  No blade can pierce me.’ “

There’s a clue here, if not for Bilbo, for readers who are aware of something in Tolkien’s own past reading: 

“Then Sigurd went down into that deep place, and dug many pits

in it, and in one of the pits he lay hidden with his sword drawn.

There he waited, and presently the earth began to shake with the

weight of the Dragon as he crawled to the water. And a cloud of

venom flew before him as he snorted and roared, so that it would

have been death to stand before him.

But Sigurd waited till half of him had crawled over the pit, and

then he thrust the sword Gram right into his very heart.”  (Andrew Lang, ed., The Red Fairy Book, 1890, “The Story of Sigurd”, page 360)

And Bilbo persists, goading Smaug to turn over, where Bilbo sees—and says:

“ ‘Old fool!  Why, there is a large patch in the hollow of his left breast as bare as a snail out of its shell!’ “ (The Hobbit, Chapter 12, “Inside Information”)

Still, although we might have a target now, who will make use of it and how and with what?  Sigurd is just what Gandalf says is not locally available, a Hero, and it’s clear that neither Bilbo nor the dwarves are capable of taking on that role.

And here we can bring in another clue from Tolkien’s past.

In “On Fairy-Stories”, he writes:

“I had very little desire to look for buried treasure or to fight pirates, and Treasure Island left me cool.  Red Indians were better:  there were bows and arrows (I had and have a wholly unsatisfied desire to shoot well with a bow)…”  (“On Fairy Stories”, 134)

This suggests that Tolkien may have been exposed to the works of James Fenimore Cooper, 1789-1851, who, beginning with The Pioneers, 1823, wrote a series of novels set on the 18th-century western Frontier (much of it what is now central and eastern New York State), called the “Leatherstocking Tales”,

the best known, even now, being The Last of the Mohegans, 1826. 

These books were filled with battles between the British and French, with Native Americans on both sides and I wonder if it’s from the adventures depicted there that JRRT was inspired with his passion for bows and arrows?

(artist?  A handsome depiction and I wish I could identify the painter.)

Another clue might lie in British history.  During the medieval struggle for English control of France, the so-called “Hundred Years War” (1337-1453), the English enjoyed three great victories, at Crecy (1346), Poitiers (1356), and Agincourt (1415), where companies of English longbowmen shot their French opponents to pieces.

(Angus McBride)

Tolkien would have read about this as a schoolboy, but, in an odd way, he might have had his knowledge of these long-ago events refreshed in 1914.

Outnumbered and in danger of being outflanked by massive German columns, the small BEF (British Expeditionary Force), in the early fall of 1914, retreated, one unit (2nd Corps) fighting a desperate battle to slow the Germans at Le Cateau.

The British managed to fend off the enveloping Germans and, considering the odds against them, some might have believed their escape miraculous. 

Enter the fantasist Arthur Machen, 1863-1947. 

In the September 29th,  1914,  issue of The Evening News, Machen published a short story which he entitled “The Bowmen”.  This was a supposed first-hand account of a British soldier who had seen a line of ghostly British longbowmen shooting down German pursuers, just as they had shot down the French, centuries before.

Machen subsequently republished it with other stories in 1915—

but was astonished when his fiction was believed to have been true, and widely circulated as such. We don’t have any evidence that JRRT actually read this story, but it was extremely widespread at the time and, once more, we see men with bows. (For more on this, see:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angels_of_Mons And you can read the stories in Machen’s volume here:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angels_of_Mons )

I think we can add to this the legends of Robin Hood, which could appear in any number of sources—our first known reference being in William Langland’s (c.1330-c.1386) late 14th-century Piers Plowman, where Sloth—a priest deserving of his name, doesn’t seem to have any religious knowledge, but says,

“Ich can rymes of Robyn Hode” (that is, “I know rhymes/songs about Robin Hood”—see the citation at:  https://robinhoodlegend.com/piers-plowman/ at the impressively rich Robin Hood site:  https://robinhoodlegend.com/ )

Then there is the collection of poems/songs from about 1500, A Gest of Robyn Hode,

which JRRT might have encountered in F.J. Child’s (1825-1896) The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, 1882-1898,

where it appears as #117.  (If you don’t know the so-called “Child Ballads”, here’s a beginning:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_Ballads  And, for a massive one-volume edition:  https://archive.org/details/englishscottishp1904chil/page/n11/mode/2up The texts are interesting in themselves, but, for me, they’re even better as songs.  To hear one, you might try one of my favorite folk singers, Ewan McColl’s version of “The Dowie Dens o’ Yarrow here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vfsv8zUdqKM&list=RDVfsv8zUdqKM&start_radio=1 For more on Yarrow, see “Yarrow”, 10 April, 2024.

For lots more on Robin Hood, see:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_Hood )

In more recent times, perhaps Tolkien had seen Howard Pyle’s (1853-1911) The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood, 1883,

 or Paul Creswick’s (1866-1947) 1917 Robin Hood,

with its wonderful illustrations by N.C.Wyeth (1882-1945).

(If the Tolkien journal Amon Hen, is available to you–but, alas, not to me–you might also have a look at Alex Voglino’s “Middle-earth and the Legend of Robin Hood” in issue 284.)

And, although Tolkien may not have liked Treasure Island, we might add to this possible influence Robert Louis Stevenson’s (1850-1894) The Black Arrow (serialized 1883, published as a book in 1888).

An adventure story set during the Wars of the Roses, you can read it here:  https://archive.org/details/blackarrowatale02stevgoog/page/n1/mode/2up

Although there are more possibilities (Tolkien might have read Sir Walter Scott’s (1771-1832) Ivanhoe, 1819, where Robin Hood makes an appearance, for instance—and here’s the book:  https://archive.org/details/ivanhoe-sir-walter-scott/page/n7/mode/2up )

that title suggests something else:

“ ‘Arrow!’ said the bowman.  ‘Black arrow!  I have saved you to the last.  You have never failed me and always I have recovered you.  I had you from my father and he from of old.  If ever you came from the forges of the true king under the Mountain, go now and speed well!’ “ (The Hobbit, Chapter 14, “Fire and Water”)

(Michael Hague, one of my favorite Hobbit illustrators)

So, we’re about to see that the Hero to kill Smaug is a Lake-town local, Bard, and his weapon of choice is Tolkien’s special favorite, the bow.  But how to attack?

We first see Smaug on the ground, lying on his hoard.

(JRRT)

Angered at Bilbo’s teasing, he gets up long enough to attempt to flame him, but his real method of destruction is to take to the air.

(Ted Nasmith)

Fafnir was never airborne, dragging himself along the ground.  Sigurd solved the problem of his scaly protection by digging a pit and attacking him from below with his sword.  It makes good sense, then, with all of the possible bowman influences upon him, that Tolkien would imagine that the way to deal with a flying dragon would be an arrow from below.

(JRRT)

To which we might add one more potential influence from JRRT’s own experience. 

In 1914, there were few military aircraft and their main task was reconnaissance.

By 1918, there were many different models, with different tasks, including heavy bombers.

To protect their troops on the ground, all of the warring nations developed the first artillery defenses:  anti-aircraft guns, designed to shoot down threats from above. 

JRRT would certainly have seen such guns and possibly even in action, attempting to knock flying danger out of the sky.

Some of those guns were rapid-firing, spraying the air with metal, hoping to guarantee the success of their defense.  Bard, in turn, has his black arrow—and not just any black arrow, but one seemingly created perfectly for revenge:  “  ‘I had you from my father and he from of old.  If ever you came from the forges of the true king under the Mountain, go now and speed well.’ “

That is, this is an arrow created by the dwarves, whom Smaug had driven out or killed—or eaten—and it’s also an heirloom from the days before Smaug destroyed Dale:  what better weapon to deal vengeance to the wicked creature who had ruined so much?  To take out such a flying danger, but with a glaring vulnerability below, what means of propulsion, especially one known to have defeated whole medieval armies?  And, as the seemingly last descendant of the last lord of Dale, Girion, who better to take that revenge? 

As ever, thanks for reading.

Stay well,

Always monitor the skies—who knows what’s watching from above?

And remember that, as always, there’s

MTCIDC

O

PS

For more on birds, Bard, and Smaug, see “Why a Dragon?” 28 May, 2025.

PPS

While looking for just the right Smaug images, I came upon this, entitled, “Dante aka Smaug on his hoard” and couldn’t resist.

Swords Drawn

02 Wednesday Jul 2025

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Welcome, dear readers, as always.

Every time I read or teach The Hobbit, I come to this passage:

“There in the shadows on a large flat stone sat a tremendous goblin with a huge head, and armed goblins were standing round him carrying the axes and the bent swords which they use.”  (The Hobbit, Chapter 4, “Over Hill and Under Hill”)

and I wonder: what does Tolkien mean by “bent swords”?

As a medievalist, and as someone who grew up in the world of illustrators like Howard Pyle (1853-1911)

and NC Wyeth (1882-1945),

as well as an avid reader of the stories of William Morris (1834-1896),

it’s not surprising that Tolkien’s works so often include swords, although perhaps the first sword he met may have been in Andrew Lang’s (1844-1912) The Red Fairy Book, 1890, where, in the last chapter, he would have found Sigurd and a, to us, strangely-familiar sword—

“ONCE upon a time there was a King in the North who had won many wars, but now he was old. Yet he took a new wife, and then another Prince, who wanted to have married her, came up against him with a great army. The old King went out and fought bravely, but at last his sword broke, and he was wounded and his men fled. But in the night, when the battle was over, his young wife came out and searched for him among the slain, and at last she found him, and asked whether he might be healed. But he said ‘ No,’ his luck was gone, his sword was broken, and he must die. And he told her that she would have a son, and that son would be a great warrior, and would avenge him on the other King, his enemy. And he bade her keep the broken pieces of the sword, to make a new sword for his son, and that blade should be called Gram.”  (“The Story of Sigurd”, 357  If you don’t have your own copy of Lang’s collection, here it is for you:  https://archive.org/details/redfairybook00langiala/redfairybook00langiala/mode/2up courtesy of the invaluable Internet Archive.  If  you don’t know this source, and you enjoy this blog, you should check it out.  It has the most remarkable things, even including a very good selection of silent films and film classics, like Kurosawa’s “The Seven Samurai”, 1954, which, for me—and for George Lucas—is a model for adventure films and you can see it here for free:  https://archive.org/details/seven-samurai-1954_202402 )

Yes, “the sword that was broken”—Anduril—and Sigurd has it reforged—and uses it to kill Fafnir, the dragon.

(This is from the “Sigurd Portal” of a  lost stave—wooden—church from Hylestad, in Norway, dating c1200AD.  Fortunately, the doorway carvings were saved and they show in detail the story of Sigurd.  Here’s where you can read more:  https://sites.pitt.edu/~dash/sigurddoor.html#location and here:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hylestad_stave_church )

In his own life, Tolkien would have been personally familiar with swords.  When he was a member, briefly, of King Edward’s Horse,

in 1912, he would have been issued with this, the Pattern 1908 cavalry sword.

To me, it’s rather a strange weapon, seemingly designed only to stab,

whereas earlier cavalry blades might be used both to stab and to slash (very useful in chasing off enemy infantry)

Then, a new 2nd lieutenant in 1915,

JRRT would have had to buy himself the Pattern 1897 infantry officer’s sword

(as there were an increasing number of new officers from families who couldn’t afford it, there was a kind of subscription created to help such officers acquire a required piece of equipment.  For more on just what was required of officers, who had to provide their own kit, see Field Service Manual 1914, pages 16-18, here (and yes, again, it’s from the Internet Archive):  https://archive.org/details/fieldservicemanu00greauoft/page/n11/mode/2up )

These, as you can see, are straight-bladed swords, however.

Tolkien’s earliest experience with goblins was probably with George MacDonald’s (1824-1905) The Princess and the Goblin (1871/2), and he likens his own later goblins/orcs to them (see Letters, 267, 279).

The illustrations are by Arthur Hughes (1832-1915) and, as far as I can see, there’s not a bent sword among them  (If you don’t know the story, here’s the text, but without its original illustrations, alas: https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/708/pg708-images.html )

If we try some Tolkien goblin illustrators, we find Justin Gerard’s version of the scene with the Great Goblin, where there are a few pole arms off to the left, but the only sword must be Orcrist.

(Justin Gerard—you can see more of his work here:  https://www.artstation.com/justingerardillustration and here:  https://www.justingerard.com/the-art-of-justin-gerard )

Here’s John Howe’s version of the scene—

with Orcrist peeking out of its scabbard and a straight sword and a couple of spears off to the left.

Then there’s Alan Lee’s, with the seemingly inevitable Orcrist, but with, just below it, perhaps a sabre—a curved sword

and we see this again in Lee’s depiction of Bilbo’s encounter with the goblin door guards.

In Michael Hague’s illustration for the escape from the Great Goblin’s throne room,

we see both Orcrist and Glamdring, along with one more seemingly curved sword.

Are any of these, however, an example of a “bent sword”?  Archaeologists have discovered numerous ancient swords which appear to have been “sacrificed” by being bent–

but this is hardly what Tolkien meant.  Then there is what might be taken literally for a “bent sword”—

from Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings, but I must say, this looks pretty improbable as a sword—if you see how the grip is shaped, that spike at the end if pointing upwards:  what could it possibly be for?  In fact, when one sees a chart of swords from the films, I’m not sure about many of them as useful weapons—

Those to the left share patterns with swords from our Middle-earth, both those on the right look like they might be dramatic over a fireplace, but I’d question their use as practical weapons.

So what might this “bent sword” be?  Some of the swords in the illustrations above would suggest that their artists believed that, by “bent”, Tolkien meant “curved”.  One possibility:  we know that Tolkien had read or had read to him at least one of Andrew Lang’s fairy books (the Red Fairy Book, as mentioned above), but perhaps he had also seen Lang’s Arabian Nights Entertainments (1898) in which there are a number of illustrations with scimitars in them—

(Here’s a copy of the book for you:  https://archive.org/details/arabiannightsent00lang/page/n9/mode/2up )

Scimitars are curved and, barring silly ones like those in Disney’s Aladdin—which look more like something used for carving meat–

are both deadly and would seem very exotic, if not alien,

in contrast to very medieval swords like Orcrist and Glamdring.

I doubt that we’ll ever know exactly what JRRT had in mind, but, if I had to illustrate “armed goblins…carrying axes and the bent swords…” I might consider drawing—in both senses—such blades.

Stay well,

Avoid inviting caves, even if Stone Giants are playing dodge ball outside,

And remember that, as always, there’s

MTCIDC

O

PS

I’ve just discovered a contemporary illustrator who clearly enjoys the dramatic style of artists like Pyle and Wyeth, as well as French historical artists, like Meissonier (1815-1891).  This is Ugo Pinson (1987-) and here is a sample of his work.

He has illustrated book covers as well as several graphic novels and done illustrations for the “Witcher” series.  His sketches alone show his skill and talent.  You can see more samples here:  https://duckduckgo.com/?q=ugo+pinson&iar=images&iai=http%3A%2F%2Fbdzoom.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2016%2F07%2F13427953_10154226704759687_4371726455862878086_n.jpg