Author Archives: Ollamh

Treating

26 Wednesday Mar 2025

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Welcome, dear readers, as always.

It’s a grim moment, late in The Lord of the Rings.  Although Sauron’s forces have failed in their attempt to take Minas Tirith,

(John Howe)

they are still active and numerous, but concealed behind the barrier of the Ephel Duath, the “Mountains of Shadow”, to the east, in Mordor.

(a much-redrawn map, beginning with JRRT. For more details, see: https://tolkiengateway.net/w/index.php?title=Map_of_Rohan,_Gondor,_and_Mordor&section=2 )

Gondor’s pretend embassy rides out, hoping to keep Sauron’s eye upon them.

(from the Jackson film)

As they approach the Black Gate,

(the Hildebrandts)

they ride through the effects of the Industrial Revolution which JRRT so disliked:

“North amid their noisome pits lay the first of the great heaps and hills of slag and broken rock and blasted earth, the vomit of the maggot-folk of Mordor…”  (The Return of the King, Book Five, Chapter 10, “The Black Gate Opens”)

If we hadn’t known previously about Tolkien’s opinion of such, language choices like “vomit” and “maggot-folk”, would have told us all we needed to know and, in this posting, I want to talk a little about a particular form of language, that of diplomacy, in the scene which follows.

The embassy waits before the Black Gate in “a great mire of reeking mud and foul-smelling pools”  until, in a carefully-prepared entry, Sauron’s emissary appears:

“There came a long rolling of great drums like thunder in the mountains, and then the braying of horns that shook the very stones and stunned men’s ears.  And thereupon the door of the Black Gate [that is to say a wicket gate:  a smaller gate within a larger one, like this—

although clearly larger than this one] was thrown open with a great clang, and out of it there came an embassy from the Dark Tower.

At its head there rode a tall and evil shape…”

(Douglas Beekman—you can read more about this extremely productive sf/fantasy illustrator here:  https://www.askart.com/artist/Doug_L_Beekman/122294/Doug_L_Beekman.aspx )

The emissary—“the Mouth of Sauron”—speaks first and we see already the approach he takes:

“Is there anyone in this rout with authority to treat with me?”

Already he has turned representatives of Gondor into nothing more than an armed mob—a “rout”.

He continues:

“Or indeed with wit to understand me?”

Not only a mob, then, but a stupid one.

Then, turning to Aragorn—

“It needs more to make a king than a piece of Elvish glass, or a rabble such as this.  Why, any brigand of the hills can show as good a following.”

And you can see the general idea—

1. this isn’t an army, but a collection of nobodies—and a small one, at that

2. they are nothing but oafs

3. their leader is nothing more than a bandit chief who has appointed himself king

Gandalf then upbraids him:

“It is also the custom for ambassadors to use less insolence.  But no one has threatened you.”

To which the Mouth replies:

“So…Then thou arr the spokesman, old graybeard?  Have we not heard of thee at whiles, and of thy wanderings, ever hatching plots and mischief at a safe distance?”

First, there’s the implication that Gandalf is a doddering old man, then that he’s a plotter and of no certain abode, and then that he’s a coward.  It’s also important to notice the linguistic difference in his and Gandalf’s speech.  Unlike certain other Indo-European languages, including German, French and Italian, Modern English has abandoned the second person singular of verbs—no “thou/thy/thee”.  It’s “you” for everything.  The use of the second person singular is still preserved in those other languages and, at least in traditional French, is reserved for speaking to children, pets, loved ones, and close friends, (and, in older days, servants), there even being verbs, tutoyer, “to use thou” and vouvoyer, “ to use you”, to indicate which you might employ.  When uncertain, a person might ask, “On peut tutoyer?”—“Can we use thou?”  The advantage it provides, as we can see here, is that, whereas Gandalf is being polite, or at least neutral, the Mouth of Sauron is being  intentionally insulting—the old expression being “too familiar”—or at least downgrading Gandalf from an equal to someone of lower status, or even a child, which goes along with his earlier question as to whether anyone had the understanding (“wit”) to have a discussion with him.

The Mouth then shows Frodo’s gear, taken from him in Minas Morgul, and Pippin, recognizing it, “sprang forward with a cry of grief”, even as Gandalf tries to stop him, which gives the Mouth another opportunity:

“So you have yet another of these imps with you!…What use you find in them I cannot guess; but to send them as spies into Mordor is beyond even your accustomed folly.  Still, I thank him, for it is plain that this brat at least has seen these tokens before, and it would be vain for you to deny them now.”

Not content with downgrading the Gondorians, Aragorn, and Gandalf, hobbits are now either “imps”—that is, small demons, as in “imps of Satan” in our Middle-earth, or children, “brats”.  He then goes on to call the Shire “the little rat-land” as he builds what he claims the so-far successful resistance to Sauron actually is:

“Dwarf-coat, elf-cloak, blade of the downfallen West, and spy from the little rat-land of the Shire—nay, do not start!  We know it well—here are the marks of a conspiracy.”

Now we see where all of this is leading:  to Sauron’s terms—which are not about a cease-fire or a deal between equals, but simply a form of surrender:

“The rabble of Gondor and its deluded allies shall withdraw at once beyond the Anduin, first taking oaths never again to assail Sauron the Great in arms, open or secret.”

This repeats the Mouth’s earlier characterizing of the emissaries from Gondor as a mob—and the suggestion that they are nothing more than a group of plotters against Sauron’s (legitimate) authority.

“All lands east of the Anduin shall be Sauron’s for ever solely.”

His earlier struggles with the West had led to his defeat and loss of control of those lands, so here Sauron is attempting to guarantee that they stay in his hands this time.

“West of the Anduin as far as the Misty Mountains and the Gap of Rohan shall be tributaries to Mordor, and men there shall bear no weapons, but shall have leave to govern their affairs.”

Here we see the Rohirrim being:

a. disarmed

b. forced to pay tribute

“But they shall help to rebuild Isengard which they have wantonly destroyed…”

“wantonly” suggests, of course, that it was done without purpose—and, remembering what Saruman was actually up to, this is actually laughable, but it’s also a piece with the general tone:  we are the legitimate authorities, you have plotted against us and rebelled and with no good reason.

And then we see what the Mouth has in mind for himself:

“…and that shall be Sauron’s and there his lieutenant shall dwell:  not Saruman, but one more worthy of trust.”

(“Looking in the Messenger’s eyes they read his thought:  He was to be that lieutenant, and gather all that remained of the West under his sway; he would be their tyrant and they his slaves.”)

So far, all of this has been demands on Sauron’s part, but what will he give in return?

“It seemed then to Gandalf, intent, watching him as a man engaged in fencing with a deadly foe, that for the taking of a breath, the Messenger was at a loss; yet swiftly he laughed again,

‘Do not bandy words in your insolence with the Mouth of Sauron!…Surety you crave!  Sauron gives none.  If you sue for his clemency, you must first do his bidding.  These are his terms.  Take them or leave them.’ “

Putting all of this together, we see that, unlike the “custom of ambassadors” of Gandalf, this is a carefully-planned verbal attack, first denigrating the other side’s position for negotiating, then suggesting that, unlike an opposing state, the Gondorians are nothing more than illegimate plotters, then making a series of demands for which they are offered nothing in return except possible “clemency”.  

This, then, is not a treaty—none is offered—but the treatment of rebellious slaves and well deserves Gandalf’s rebuke which, you’ll notice, returns some of the Mouth’s medicine to him, even if not using “thou”:

“But as for your terms, we reject them utterly.  Get you gone, for your embassy is over and death is near to you.  We did not come here to waste words in treating with Sauron, faithless and accursed; still less with one of his slaves.  Begone!”

Is the Mouth’s reaction surprising, then?

“Then the Messenger of Mordor laughed no more.  His face was twisted with amazement and anger to the likeness of some wild beast that, as it crouches on its prey, is smitten on the muzzle with a stinging rod.  [How appropriate for the Mouth!]  Rage filled him and his mouth slavered, and shapeless sounds of fury came strangling from his throat.  But he looked at the fell faces of the Captains and their deadly eyes, and fear overcame his wrath.  He gave a great cry, and turned, leaped upon his steed, and with his company galloped madly back to Cirith Gorgor.”

A fitting end—wordless, he flees—undoubtedly with Gandlaf’s last words in his ears:  “…slave.  Begone!”

Thanks, as always, for reading.

Stay well,

Avoid evil emissaries with their own agendas,

And remember that, as always, there’s

MTCIDC

O

Doom

19 Wednesday Mar 2025

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As ever, dear readers, welcome.

If nothing else would tell us that Tolkien had a fine ear for rhythm and rhyme, just take this stanza from “Errantry”, first published in The Oxford Magazine, Vol.52, No.5–

“Of crystal was his habergeon,
His scabbard of chalcedony;
With silver tipped at plenilune
His spear was hewn of ebony.
His javelins were of malachite
And stalactite – he brandished them
And went and fought the dragon flies
Of Paradise, and vanquished them.”

In his rhyming, JRRT has used some rather specialized words:

habergeon  an (often-half-sleeved) chain mail shirt—usually made of steel, not something as fragile as crystal might be

chalcedony   a kind of silica which comes in a number of varieties and colors—here’s one—

plenilune    full moon—the idea being that his spear was given its tip/blade at the full moon, suggesting perhaps a magical making? 

ebony      a dark hardwood which can be turned into a glossy black

malachite   another stone, which is copper-bearing

stalactite   this isn’t a stone, but a stone deposit which hangs down in caves

and is probably there for the internal rhyme with malachite, although malachite can be discovered in stalactites, so possibly JRRT is using two different possibilities at once

brandish     to wave—something heroic warriors sometimes do with their weapons, in a boasting or threatening manner

(I haven’t been able to find an artist for this one, alas.)

For the “dragon flies of Paradise”, you’re on your own—although–

So, when it came to the soundscape of The Lord of the Rings (a subject which could use a lot of exploring—there are cues everywhere), I wasn’t surprised to see him play a little game with an unlikely toy, a drum.

(a traditional Turkish drum—with two sticks, the larger for the top, the smaller for the underside, which gives it a distinctive double sound—you can hear—and see—some here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eaxzv6obf8  These musicians are dressed as Janissaries, members of the Sultan’s elite troops

 and you can see why such bands then influenced later 18th-century-early-19th-century composers like Mozart and Beethoven—and frightened defenders when they heard this music coming.  Here’s Beethoven’s impression:     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nd0OjCO9x5Y   )

Here’s a passage of that scape which recently caught my eye:

“Gandalf had hardly spoken these words, when there came a great noise:  a rolling Boom that seemed to come from depths far below, and to tremble in the stone at their feet.  They sprang towards the door in alarm.  Doom, doom it rolled again, as if huge hands were turning the very caverns of Moria into a vast drum.  Then there came an echoing blast:  a great horn was blown in the hall, and answering horns and harsh cries were heard further off.  There was a hurrying sound of many feet.”  (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book Two, Chapter 5, “The Bridge of Khazad-dum”)

You see what I mean about soundscape:  everything described, except the movement of the Fellowship, is a sound—and notice that even the place name in the chapter title, which has, in the original, a circumflex over the –u- in “dum” , lengthening  the sound of the word, echoes  that drum and its message:  doom!

And “doom”  is an interesting word. 

A quick look at its past can take us as far back as Gothic, the ancestral cousin of the Germanic languages and our oldest surviving sample of such ancestors.  Etymonline has “Gothic doms, ‘discernment, distinction’”– https://www.etymonline.com/word/doom  but, using my on-line Gothic dictionary, we find domjan and afdomjan, where the basic sense seems to be “to establish”, from which comes the meaning “to judge” and possibly even “to condemn”.  (Here’s the page:  http://www.wulfila.be/gothic/browse/search/?find=domjan&mode=1  at the very helpful  “Wulfila” site—Wulfila was the 4th-century AD translator of the Judeo-Christian Bible from Greek into Gothic.  It’s interesting that, often the original Greek word is a form of krino, which probably original meant to “separate”, but came, in time to be used to mean “to judge, decide”, and even “to condemn”—see the Perseus page here:  https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=kri%2Fnw&la=greek&can=kri%2Fnw0#lexicon )

This brings us to what, I imagine, was a strong influence on Tolkien whenever he wrote that word:  that oppressor of the conquered Anglo-Saxons, the so-called “Domesday Book”.

After the defeat of Harold Godwinson and his army at Hastings, in October, 1066,

Duke William of Normandy drove a ruthless campaign of conquest throughout England, giving out land to his chief followers, who then built early castles, which we call “motte and bailey”, to protect themselves and to dominate the landscape.

As well, perhaps helped by previous Anglo-Saxon tax records (easily accessible to the Norman officials because both they and their predecessors would have written in Latin), the Normans created a massive census, both of people and places, detailed practically down to the last chicken, asking, basically, “who is the owner? what does he own?  what’s it worth?  how much tax does he pay?”  It had no name, originally, as such, being called Liber de Wintonia—“the Winchester Book”—because that’s where the manuscript was originally stored.  (There were originally two volumes and you can read much more about them here:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domesday_Book   And you can see the work itself here:  https://opendomesday.org/

The name by which we know it seems to have been a grim local joke, first known reference being in the 12th-century Dialogus de Scaccario, “Dialogue Concerning the Exchequer” (“scaccarium” being  a chess board, because the table used for accounting was gridded like one—it’s explained, in fact, in the “Dialogue”, but you can read about it here:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exchequer ). 

In the text, the author (thought to have been Richard FitzNeal, the bishop of Ely, c.1130-1198), wrote:

“Hic liber ab indigenis ‘Domesdei’ nuncupatur id est dies iudicii per metaphoram.”

“This book is called by the locals ‘Doomsday’” : that is, as a metaphor, the Day of Judgment.”

(Dialogus de Scaccario, Book 1, Section 16B, which you can read here:  https://archive.org/details/cu31924021674365/page/n119/mode/2up in Latin, or here, in English:  https://avalon.law.yale.edu/medieval/excheq.asp#b1p16   This is a wonderfully practical text, explaining in enormous detail things like the vocabulary of the exchequer.  As is so often the case with medieval Latin, it’s a very pleasant read, written in plain, straightforward language and being just what it says it is, a dialogue between a “magister” and a “discipulus” .) 

Considering the choice of phrase, it isn’t surprising that that it was the choice of the “indigeni” .  One part of William’s master plan of conquest was to take the land away from its original Anglo-Saxon (indigenous) land-holders

and hand it over to his own followers, thus dispossessing most of the former—and, because those owners had no recourse, it must have seemed very like the Last Judgment—the original Doomsday.

Thus, when the members of the Fellowship hear “boom” turn into “doom”, it can suggest not only a play with sound, but the same kind of catastrophic event, trapped, as they seem to be, in the record room of Mazarbul—

(Angus McBride)

And we can take this one step farther.   As Tolkien’s income grew from the sale of his books, his frustration at the amount which disappeared into tax-paying grew, as he writes:

“A Socialist government will pretty well reduce me to penury on retirement!  As it is socialist legislation is robbing me of probably ¾ of the fruits of my labors, and my ‘royalties’ are merely waiting in the bank until  the Tax Collectors walk in and bag them.  Do you wonder that anyone who can gets out of this island?  Though soon there will be nowhere to go to escape the rising tide of ‘orquerie’.”  (letter to Michael Tolkien, 6 November, 1956, Letters, 367) 

So, when JRRT thought of “doom”, as a medievalist, might he also have been equating himself with those Anglo-Saxons, not only losing their homes, but forced to hand over their hard-earned cash

to those grim Normans, as well?

Thanks for reading, as always.

Stay well,

We’re only a month away, here in the US, from 15 April, our own “Domesday” for taxes owed,

And remember that, as ever, there’s

MTCIDC

O

Tea Time

12 Wednesday Mar 2025

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This is camellia sinensis

and, without it, two literary moments might never have appeared:  one zany (or weird, depending upon your taste for such things) scene, and one scene crucial to the whole fabric of the piece.

The genus is clearly very talented, producing, on the one hand, camellias, with their beautiful flowers, like this—

(this is by Clara Maria Pope and comes from Samuel Curtis’ A Monograph on the Genus Camellia, 1819)

and, on the other, this—

The history of drinking the latter stretches back farther in Chinese history than is probably ever datable (you can read about it here:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_tea ), but we’ll join it when it arrives as a popular beverage in England.   That early history begins, in fact,  with coffee.

In 1652, the valet of an English Levant (Middle-Eastern) merchant, Pascua Rosee, opened what is thought to be the first coffee house in London.  It was a success and soon coffee houses became popular hangouts for those with the time and money for the then-exotic drink.

Rosee even advertized it as a kind of health-drink.

(Note the “scientific” tone of this handbill.)

In 1657, Thomas Garway (also spelled “Garraway”) began selling tea at his coffee house, later producing his own handbill on his new product.

How it spread from a London venue and eventually became a “national institution” is really about society and its influence, beginning with the wife of Charles II, Catherine of Branganza, 1638-1705,

who was already drinking tea, probably because the Portuguese had, from the early 16th century, been trading in China.  As tea was initially expensive, it remained in the hands (and mouths) of the upper classes, in part because it was taxed, almost from its beginnings.  As happened here in colonial America, this led to smuggling, but, in contrast to American violent protests,

this, in turn, led to pressure by British tea merchants upon Parliament and the tax was lowered and lowered and, in time, tea became a common (non-alcoholic) drink, even becoming part of the Temperance (anti-alcohol) Movement.  (for a good survey of all this, see:  http://www.tea.co.uk/page.php?id=98 )

As for “tea” as a kind of meal, there is a rather comic story of its invention by Anna Maria Russell, the 7th Duchess of Bedford, which you can read here:  https://www.britishmuseum.org/blog/tea-rific-history-victorian-afternoon-tea  She claimed to have created afternoon tea about 1840, but, in fact, “tea” as a meal stretches back into the 18th century, as you can read here:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_(meal)   Afternoon tea, as practiced by the wealthier classes, could be quite a spread, as you’ll read,

but it could also be simply a sort of late afternoon break, about 4, and I wonder if that must be the time of our first literary moment.

(Arthur Rackham)

“THERE was a table set out under a tree in front of the house, and the March Hare and the Hatter were having tea at it: a Dormouse was sitting between them, fast asleep, and the other two were using it as a cushion resting their elbows on it, and talking over its head. ‘Very uncomfortable for the Dormouse,’ thought Alice; ‘only as it’s asleep, I suppose it doesn’t mind.’ “  (Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Chapter VII, “A Mad Tea-Party”)

(A dormouse is a kind of mouse, as the name suggests, but I suspect that Carroll, with his keen ear for language, was also hearing “dormeuse”—French for a feminine “sleeper”)

The oddness of it is that, with a long, set table, there are only three participants, until Alice arrives and the Hatter and Hare then both shout “No room!  No room!”

“Mad as a hatter” and “mad as a March hare” are old expressions for being less-than-sane, but there is an odd sane answer for the long, set table.  It seems that, for a rather complex reason, local time has stopped, as the Hatter explains, adding:

“‘It’s always six o’clock now.’

A bright idea came into Alice’s head. ‘Is that the reason so many tea-things are put out here?’ she asked.

‘Yes, that’s it,’ said the Hatter with a sigh: ‘it’s always tea-time, and we’ve no time to wash the things between whiles.’

‘Then you keep moving round, I suppose?’ said Alice.

‘Exactly so,’ said the Hatter:  ‘as the things get used up.’

‘But what happens when you come to the beginning again?’ Alice ventured to ask.”

But, like so many questions in Wonderland, this is never answered.

Afternoon tea is, customarily, at 4pm, suggesting that, in fact, the Hatter and Hare really don’t dirty the dishes because, if it’s always 6pm, tea is long over and therefore they may never actually have it, which is a very Carrollian way of thinking.  (Alice, however, helps herself to tea and bread and butter, but perhaps this is because, of the three (or four, counting the dormouse), she is the only sane—and perhaps real?—one.)

Our second literary moment begins with an actual invitation to tea—after all, Alice simply sat down, which the March Hare suggests was very rude.  But was it really meant?

“ ‘Sorry!  I don’t want any adventures, thank you.  Not today.  Good morning!  But please come to tea-any time you like!  Why not come tomorrow?  Come tomorrow!  Good bye!’

With that the hobbit turned and scuttled inside his round green door, and shut it as quickly as he dared, not to seem rude.”  (The Hobbit, Chapter 1, “An Unexpected Party”)

(the Hildebrandts)

We know what happens next, of course:  the next day, not only Gandalf, but a whole troop of dwarves arrive and the quiet tea for two quickly becomes a boisterous—not afternoon tea (as we know from Chapter 18 that Bilbo sees tea as the traditional 4pm and serves cake)–but what’s called “high tea” or “meat tea” , and which, in older days, might have been dinner for working class people.

(the Hildebrandts again)

Meat tea, as its name suggests, is more than bread and butter or cake (you can read about it here:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_(meal)#High_tea  )—and that’s exactly what the dwarves—and Gandalf– demand, from “mince-pies and cheese” to “cold chicken and pickles”, but, interestingly, tea itself quickly disappears as coffee, red wine, and ale are called for, so what began as a simple invitation—and one meant to avoid adventure—itself becomes a culinary adventure, but, for that tea originally offered, would there ever have been any adventure at all?

And, remembering where tea came from in our Middle-earth, where do you suppose Bilbo’s may have come from?

Thanks, as always, for reading.

Stay well,

Enjoy this pixilated version of the tea party from Disney’s Alice , 1951:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KDwE6MjfmQ  (warning:  if you’re a purist, this will not be—dare I say it?—your cup of tea)

And remember that there’s always

MTCIDC

O

Riddle Me Ree

05 Wednesday Mar 2025

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“Riddle me, riddle me, riddle me ree,

Perhaps you can tell what this riddle may be:

As deep as a house, as round as a cup,

And all the king’s horses can’t draw it up.”

I sometimes think that the world could be divided between those who love puzzles and can do them and those, like me, to whom puzzles don’t appeal—possibly because we can’t.  For instance, can you guess the answer to the riddle above?  I’ll give you a minute…

For that One Half of the world, the answer was probably embarrassingly easy:  “a well”.

You got it, didn’t you?  I got it—but only afterwards when I reread “draw it up”, which looks like it was planted as an obvious clue, as one “draws water from a…well”.

Riddle culture is clearly very old.  Trying to go as far back in time as I could, suddenly there was Oedipus and the Sphinx sitting outside Thebes—

with her:

“What goes on four legs at dawn,

What goes on two legs at midday,

What goes on three legs at sunset?”

If you belong to the Other Half—my half—and you don’t know the play (and the footnotes), you might think for a while, then shrug.  If you’ve read the footnotes, or are a member of the One Half, you’ll smile and say, “Easy.  A baby–at the dawn of life, a grownup– in midlife, an old person leaning on a stick–in the ‘Sunset Years’, so, in short, Man.”

Having read the footnotes, you know the fate of that riddler—seemingly instant death—although I can imagine her flapping off, muttering to herself about finding suckers somewhere else, like Corinth.

And a little research produces—and this is just for western Europe—the following collections:

1. Symphosius (4th-5th century AD)

2. Aldhelm (c.609-739)

3. Tatwine (c.670-734)

4. Boniface (c.675-754)

5. Eusebius (8th century)

6. The Bern Riddles (early 8th century)

7. The Lorsch Riddles (8th-9th century)

8. The Exeter Book Riddles (10th century)

I’ve gotten this list (which I’ve rewritten slightly) from a very good site on the subject:  “The Riddle Ages”, here:  https://theriddleages.com/riddles/collection/  A rich site and a good read, if medieval literature appeals.

I think that my first riddle came from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,1865/6,

which generally has always been considered a children’s book, but, as a child, I really didn’t like it, mostly because I didn’t understand it.  I now enjoy it, but still find it almost as weird as I thought it the first time I read it.

The riddle is in Chapter VII, “A Mad Tea-party” , which begins:

“THERE was a table set out under a tree in front of the house, and the March Hare and the Hatter were having tea at it: a Dormouse was sitting between them, fast asleep, and the other two were using it as a cushion resting their elbows on it, and talking over its head. ‘Very uncomfortable for the Dormouse,’ thought Alice; ‘only as it’s asleep, I suppose it doesn’t mind.’ “

(In case you’re wondering, that’s supposed to be straw on the Hare’s head, a stagey sign of madness.  The very useful site Word Histories (https://wordhistories.net/2018/06/01/straws-hair-origin/ ), points us to a Victorian source—Punch, January, 1842, 34, “Extemporaneous Dramas No.1 Hamlet”—where a stage direction says “Ophelia discovered with straws in her hair”, but this looks to be a misunderstanding of Hamlet, Act 4, Scene 5, where a Gentleman says of Ophelia that “[she] spurns enviously at straws”—that is, “she reacts spitefully to trifles”, not that she’s wearing straw.  You can read the Punch excerpt here:  https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=iau.31858029795295&seq=339&q1=extemporaneous  )

It’s immediately clear that Alice isn’t welcome, as the Mad Hatter and March Hare, sitting at a large and nearly empty table, begin shouting “No room!  No room!”, and out of nowhere the Mad Hatter remarks:

“ ‘Your hair wants cutting…’ “

To which Alice replies:

“ ‘You should learn not to make personal remarks…it’s very rude,’

The Hatter opened his eyes very wide on hearing this; but all he said was, ‘Why is a raven like a writing desk?’ “

Alice puzzles over this throughout most of the scene until, pressed, she confesses that she doesn’t know the answer—and the Hatter replies that he has no idea either!

(For the 1866 Alice, see:   https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Alice%27s_Adventures_in_Wonderland_(1866)  for the 1907 edition, with illustrations by Arthur Rackham, see:   https://www.gutenberg.org/files/28885/28885-h/28885-h.htm )

And, reading that then, and rereading it now, I agree with the Mad Hatter—although there are numerous modern answers, including my favorite:  “Poe wrote on both.”—that is, Edgar Allan Poe, 1809-1849,

wrote a poem about a raven,

and could have done so at a desk.

There are more possible answers, including a surprisingly limp one by Lewis Carroll himself, here:   https://gizmodo.com/the-answer-to-the-most-famous-unanswerable-fantasy-ridd-5872014

Knowing, then, on which side of the aisle I stand (or should I say, sit?) on the subject of riddles, I am brought to a scene which all Tolkien readers know well—

(Alan Lee)

It is, of course, The Hobbit, Chapter 5, “Riddles in the Dark”, and includes brain-teasers like Bilbo’s:

“No-legs lay on one-leg, two-legs sat near on three legs, four-legs got some”.

Without blinking, Gollum replies:

“ ‘Fish on a little table, man at table sitting on a stool, the cat has the bones.’ “

As one on the Other Side, however, I might have to rely upon Sting

and what I might find in my pocket!

Thanks, as ever, for reading.

Stay well,

Solve:  “The more you take, the more you leave behind”,

And remember that there is always

MTCIDC

O

PS

In case you’ve a voracious appetite for riddles, try this site, which says that it has 10,337 riddles:  https://www.riddles.com/archives

Drogo?

26 Wednesday Feb 2025

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Welcome, as ever, dear readers.

If you’re a Game of Thrones fan (and I include myself here), you’ll immediately think of Khal Drogo, the leader of a tribe of the nomadic Dothraki,

whether you’ve seen the films,

or read the books,

or both.  

I’m presuming that “Khal” is modeled on “khan”, a word of disputed origin among scholars, but which signifies someone above “king”—imagine something more like “high king”—and is used as the title for the ruler of an “ulus”, a “horde” in English.  (For more about the name, see:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khan_(title) )  When you hear that word, you may think of Temujin, c.1162-1227AD, aka Chinggiz/Genghis Khan,

who founded the Mongol Empire and began the great wave of conquest from China to Russia.  (More about him here:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genghis_Khan I’ll add here that, so far, I’ve been unable to locate an artist for the illustration below.)

But he’s not the Drogo who is the subject of this posting.

Instead, it’s a much more humble Drogo, but, without him, Sauron’s Ring

would, barring that near disaster,

(Ted Nasmith)

never have been destroyed and, with it, Sauron.

(another Nasmith—and you can see why he’s one of my favorite Tolkien illustrators:  no scene too big and also no scene less known will stop him)

JRRT has reported to us the Hobbits’ passion for genealogy:

“All Hobbits were, in any case, clannish and reckoned up their relationships with great care.  They drew long and elaborate family-trees with innumerable branches.”  (The Lord of the Rings, Prologue I, “Concerning Hobbits”) 

And here we see that name in the Appendices, C “Family Trees (Hobbits)”

     I                                        I                                I

Dora                               Drogo                         Dudo

1302-1406                    1308-1380                 1311-1409

                                         = Primula                     I

                                         Brandybuck                 I

                                              I                                I

                                         Frodo                       Daisy

                                         1368                         1350

                                                                            = Griffo

                                                                            Boffin

It is, of course, Frodo’s father, drowned in a boating accident thought suspicious by some.  (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book One, Chapter 1, “A Long-expected Party)

I don’t have either the Hobbits’—or Tolkien’s—enthusiasm for genealogy, but I was curious, as I always am, about JRRT’s sources:  just where did this name come from?  It could be entirely from his fertile imagination, of course, but, as so much good scholarship has pointed to medieval sources for certain details in his works—think about those dwarvish names, right out of Icelandic saga material—the 13th-century Prose Edda of Snorri Sturluson (whose own name has a dwarvish ring and whose work you can read here:  https://archive.org/details/proseedda01brodgoog/page/n54/mode/2up   The dwarf name list is to be found on page 26)—I thought that a medieval influence might be possible.

At the moment, I have a short list of possible medieval candidates:

1. Drogo, the short-lived Duke of Brittany (reigned 952-958AD)—who may have been murdered by the connivance of his step-father, Fulk II, the Count of Anjou.  (This is from the 11th-century Chronicle of Nantes, of which only fragments survive, but the murder plot does—Fulk threatens and persuades Drogo’s nurse to do away with him in his bath—see pages 109-110 in the 1896 edition of the fragments by Rene Merlet here:  https://archive.org/details/lachroniquedenan00merl/page/108/mode/2up )

2. Drogo de la Beuvriere (? 11th century)—a companion of William the Conqueror, best known for poisoning his wife (these Normans and their allies seem to specialize in violence, don’t they?)—this information is in little bits of gossip, with the added fact that Drogo then borrowed travel money from William to enable his escape–https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drogo_de_la_Beuvri%C3%A8re

3. Drogo d’Hauteville, the Norman count of Apulia (died 1051AD)—the Normans had gradually conquered whole sections of Italy and Sicily in the 11th century

and this Drogo succeeded his brother, William, as count, only to be murdered! 

4. and then there’s Saint Drogo (1105-1186AD)—a Flemish nobleman who, suffering from a disease that made it difficult for people to look at him (leprosy?), he became a hermit and, not surprisingly, is the patron saint of shepherds  (feast day, April 16).  As, unlike the other Drogos, he seems to have died of natural causes, after a long life, I think that we should end our catalogue here!

Thanks, as always, for reading.

Stay well,

Be very suspicious of ambitious Normans,

And remember that there’s always

MTCIDC

O

PS

Perhaps the violence done to so many of those Drogos influenced Tolkien in that nasty rumor about his Drogo?

PPS

If you are Hobbitish or Tolkienean in your interest in genealogy, there’s another Drogo—Drogo de Teigne—whom you can read about here—with the warning:  if there were a genealogical rabbit hole, you’ll be standing at the mouth of it when you begin to read this:  https://www.carolbaxter.com/Drew-families-of-Devonshire-and-Ireland?r_done=1   

Into the Fire

19 Wednesday Feb 2025

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As ever, welcome, dear readers.

I’ve always admired the way in which JRRT shows the slow descent of Denethor into darkness, from someone who rules Gondor

(Denis Gordeev)

as if he were its rightful king, accepting Pippin’s offer of allegiance,

(Douglas Beekman—a prolific sci-fi fantasy illustrator.  You can see numbers of his illustrations here:  https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?23068  This catalogue if from the Internet Speculative Fiction Data Base, a wonderfully rich site if you have an interest in sci-fi.)

to the pensive and grieving father,

(an Alan Lee sketch)

to the desperate madman of his last scene—

(artist? so far, I can’t locate one)

But that last scene has always impressed me as Tolkien at his dramatic best.

It begins with the setting:

“There Pippin, staring uneasily around him, saw that he was in a wide vaulted chamber, draped as it were with the great shadows that the little lantern threw upon its shrouded walls.  And dimly to be seen were many rows of tables, carved of marble; and upon each table lay a sleeping form, hands folded, head pillowed upon stone.  But one table near at hand stood broad and bare.  Upon it at a sign from Denethor they laid Faramir and his father side by side, and covered them with one covering, and stood then with bowed heads as if mourners beside a bed of death.”

I think that we can imagine that JRRT’s image here is based upon any number of medieval English churches, with their tombs, usually along the walls, or,

more grandly,  the basilica of St Denis, in a northern suburb of Paris,

of which he might have seen a photo.  (As I haven’t found a reference that he had actually visited the place.)

What happens next, however, has a different model—or, rather, perhaps two. 

After having himself and Faramir placed on that empty table, Denethor then makes the terrible command:

“ ‘Here we will wait,’ he said.  ‘But send not for the embalmers.  Bring us wood quick to burn, and lay it all about us, and beneath; and pour oil upon it.  And when I bid you thrust in a torch.’ “ (all of the above from The Return of the King, Book Five, Chapter 4, “The Siege of Gondor”)

What’s going on here?   When Gandalf, summoned by Pippin attempts to stop this, Gandalf says to Denethor:

“ ‘Authority is not given to you, Steward of Gondor, to order the hour of your death,’…And only the heathen kings, under the domination of the Dark Power, did thus, slaying themselves in pride and despair, murdering their kin to ease their own death.’”  (The Return of the King, Book Five, Chapter 7, “The Pyre of Denethor”)

“Heathen”, from Old English haethen, came into English with the meaning “non-believer (in Christianity)” and seems, at first, rather an odd word for Gandalf to have employed, as Tolkien has written himself that “…the ‘Third Age’ was not a Christian world.” (letter to the Houghton Mifflin Co., 30 June, 1955, Letters, 319)

I wonder, however, whether JRRT was remembering something from early medieval history, which he might have read in conjunction with his early avid study of Gothic (which almost ruined his academic career—see his letter to Christopher of 2 January, 1969 (Letters, 558).

It’s in the account by the 6th-century Gothic historian, Jordanes, of the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains (also known as the Battle of Chalons), between Roman and their Germanic allies, including Visigoths, led by the Roman general, Aetius, and an invading army of Huns and their subject peoples, led by Attila, a battle fought on 20 June, 451.

(by Peter Dennis, one of my favorite contemporary military artists)

The battle was very much a back-and-forth affair, but late in it, the Huns had been driven back to their camp and Attila, usually the soul of confidence, was troubled–and this is where Jordanes’ description comes in:

Fertur autem desperatis rebus praedictum regem adhuc et suppraemo magnanimem equinis sellis construxisse pyram seseque, si adversarii inrumperent, flammis inicere voluisse, ne aut aliquis eius vulnere laetaretur aut in potestate hostium tantarum gentium dominus perveniret.  (Jordanes, De Origine Actibusque Getarum, XL, 213—my translation)

“It is said, moreover, that things were [so] despaired of, that the king [that is, Attila] still supremely brave,  commanded at this point that [they] build a pyre from horse saddles and, should the enemy break in [to his camp], he wished to throw himself into the flames lest either anyone take joy in wounding [him] or lest he, the master of so many peoples come into the power of the enemy.”

None of Attila’s kin is involved in this potential self-immolation, but certainly the pride is there and even despair (as in that “desperatis rebus”) which Gandalf mentions.

But, as I said earlier, there might be another model—and perhaps an even darker one.  Notice that

“But one table near at hand stood broad and bare.”

What immediately came to mind was that it resembled an altar—not a Christian one, but something from a different world, in which the symbolic sacrifice of the Christian religion was a real sacrifice—

(artist unknown)

I thought of this because of something which Tolkien had written about Sauron, who has become the prisoner of the Numenorean king Tar-Calion:

“…and seduces the king and most of the lords and people with his lies.  He denies the existence of God, saying that the One is a mere invention of the jealous Valar of the West, the oracle of their own wishes.  The chief of the gods is he that dwells in the Void, who will conquer in the end, and in the void make endless realms for his servants…

A new religion, and worship of the Dark, with its temple under Sauron arises.  The Faithful are persecuted and sacrificed.”  (letter to Milton Waldman, late 9n 1951, Letters, 216)

Why, we might ask, is Denethor so prepared to make a fiery end to himself and his son?

“ ‘Come!’ said Gandalf.  ‘We are needed.  There is much that you can yet do.’

Then suddenly Denethor laughed.  He stood up tall and proud again, and stepping swiftly back to the table he lifted from it the pillow on which his head had lain.  Then coming to the doorway he drew aside the covering, and lo!  he had between his hands a palantir.  And as he held it up, it seemed to those that looked on that the globe began to glow with an inner flame, so that the lean face of the Lord was lit as with a red fire, and it seemed cut out of hard stone, sharp with black shadows, noble, proud, and terrible.  His eyes glittered.

‘Pride and despair!’ he cried.  ‘Didst thou think that the eyes of the White Tower were blind?  Nay, I have seen more than thou knowest, Grey Fool.  For thy hope is but ignorance.  Go then and labour in healing!  Go forth and fight!  Vanity….The West has failed.  It is time for all to depart who would not be slaves.”

And the answer is in that palantir.  As it had earlier corrupted Saruman,

(the Hildebrandts)

and nearly driven Pippin mad with only one look into it, so it has shown Denethor exactly what Sauron had wanted him to see and, deluded, we might imagine that, in his action, he was not only destroying the current ruler of Gondor and his son, but was also acting like the Numenoreans who were his ancestors, making a sacrifice which Sauron had once demanded of them.

And, although Faramir is rescued, Denethor:

“…leaped upon the table, and standing wreathed in fire and smoke he took up the staff of his stewardship that lay at his feet and broke it on his knee.  Casting the pieces into the blaze he bowed and laid himself on the table, clasping the palantir with both hands upon his breast.  And it was said that ever after, if any man looked in that Stone, unless he had a great strength of will to turn it to other purpose, he saw only two aged hands withering in flame.”

And so Sauron had his sacrifice.

Thanks, as ever, for reading.

Stay well,

And remember that, as always, there’s

MTCIDC

O

Chickening In

12 Wednesday Feb 2025

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Welcome, dear readers, as always.

Recently, I had an interesting conversation with a dear friend on the subject of Oz books.  As a child, he had read all of them, whereas I used to look at the whole shelf of them in the local library

and puzzle over names like “Tik-Tok” and “Rinky-Tink”, with their strange covers,

but, interested in history and science fiction, I never read one of them, going to other sections of the library for my books.  My only contact with Oz lay in the (then) yearly showing of “The Wizard of Oz” on TV, where I would be yearly creeped out by what I later found out were the Winky Guards and their song—

which you can see/hear here, in case you’ve forgotten the Winkies:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nx8-J66yawM

Then came a kind of sequel, “The Return to Oz”,

with its wonderful Claymation figures

and its critics:  it had run together a number of different Oz books, taking something from here and there, as well as adding what might be a disturbing element about the early use of shock treatment (Dorothy’s Aunt Em has Uncle Henry take her to an early clinic where her stories of her adventures in Oz are to be—literally—shocked out of her.  Anyone who has read Silvia Plath’s The Bell Jar, 1963, will know what a horrific form of treatment this is.)

As someone innocent of Oz, I had no idea if any of this criticism were true—although I was sure that L. Frank would never have sent Dorothy to such a place—but much later, doing research for an earlier posting, I saw that the script writers had combined two figures the witch Mombi, from The Marvelous Land of Oz, 1904

with Princess Langwidere, from Ozma of Oz, 1907,

making her the “Princess” Mombi and giving her the actual Princess’ collection of heads (she liked to change them, depending upon her mood).  Also from Ozma, along with other characters and details, came the Nomes, led by their king, Dorothy, and Dorothy’s pet chicken, Billina, who, in the world of Oz, could talk.

This last character would actually be crucial in the film as in the book, as the Nomes had a definite weakness:

“But—thunderation! Don’t you know that eggs are poison?” roared the King, while his rock-colored eyes stuck out in great terror. «Poison! well, I declare,” said Billina, indignantly. «I’ll have you know all my eggs are warranted strictly fresh and up to date. Poison, indeed!” «You don’t understand,” retorted the little monarch, nervously. “Eggs belong only to the outside world—to the world on the earth’s surface, where you came from. Here, in my underground kingdom, they are rank poison, as I said, and we Nomes can’t bear them around.” (Ozma of Oz, Chapter XV, “Billina Frightens the Nome King”)

In the film, it’s one of Billina’s eggs which destroys the Nome king, but, in the book, they are more of a provocation and the Nome king is defeated—but not killed—when his magic belt (which Billina has heard mentioned earlier) is pulled from him.

Dorothy and Billina are, of course—and proudly—from Kansas but, as I’m always interested in backstories and origins, I wondered:  before Kansas, where did chickens come from originally?  Are chickens indigenous?

But, as chickens turn out to be ancient, the answer is “it’s complicated”.

Wikipedia begins:

“The chicken (Gallus gallus domesticus) is a large and round short-winged bird, domesticated from the red junglefowl of Southeast Asia around 8,000 years ago.”

The first question which immediately springs to mind is:  “Southeast Asia?  Around 8,000 years ago?”  And how did this domesticated creature come west—and when?  Lots of mystery here, with explanations like “it came via Persia”, which is a pretty long distance from Southeast Asia.  Ancient Greece, clearly had them, but, although it has a word for “rooster” (“alektor”, among related forms, transliterated) and provides us with lots of illustrations of them,

(5th century BC)

doesn’t appear to have a separate word for hens—without hens, however, no more roosters, so hens were obviously present.  Ancient Rome has gallus for a rooster and gallina for a hen (along with pullus, which has a more generic meaning of “young one”—but is clearly the ancestor of “pullet” from Old French poulette, a diminutive of poule, “a hen”), but, when it comes to illustrations, images are seemingly almost entirely of roosters

and images of hens are as rare as—dare I say it?—hens’ teeth.

The Romans didn’t introduce chickens to the UK—recent archeological evidence suggests the pre-Roman 5th-3rd century BC—but we can presume that the chickens found a home there and, from there, traveled to the New World in the Age of Colonization, eventually making their way to Kansas, where some gallinaceous ancestors produced Billina.

As we know, Tolkien became aware of anachronisms in the 1937 The Hobbit—

things like:

“…he began to feel a shriek coming up inside, and very soon it burst out like the whistle of an engine coming out of a tunnel”

and, in the 1966 revision of the text, he considered replacing them.  Ultimately, references to tobacco remained, as did that engine, but one thing did change, Gandalf’s demand:

“And just bring out the cold chicken and tomatoes”

 became “And just bring out the cold chicken and pickles!” 

Gandalf just previously had requested, “Put on a few eggs, there’s a good fellow!”

showing an instance where the egg came before the chicken—always a philosophical problem as to precedence—but it’s clear that JRRT was quite convinced that, although tomatoes might be alien, chickens and their produce were native and that the Nome king’s view of eggs:

“Eggs belong only to the outside world—to the world on the earth’s surface, where you came from. Here, in my underground kingdom, they are rank poison, as I said, and we Nomes can’t bear them around.”

might pertain to Oz, but not to Middle-earth.

As always, thanks for reading.

Stay well,

Whichever came first, where would bacon be without eggs?

Fresh breakfast with a tasty fried egg and crispy bacon in a sauce pan waiting to be served and eaten

(Bilbo might be polled on this as, throughout The Hobbit, his thought of comfort always includes this dish)

And remember that there’s always

MTCIDC

O

At Their Pleasure

05 Wednesday Feb 2025

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Dear readers, welcome, as always.

Because I enjoy reading letters from people in the past, I sometimes wonder from whom I would like to receive one—or more.  Certainly from the 18th-century English literary man, Horace Walpole (1717-1797),

who is credited with writing the first “Gothic” novel—1764—and, on the title page of the 2nd edition of 1765 actually calls it one—

and who so loved what he understood to be the medieval past that he built himself a castle in a “Gothic” style, Strawberry Hill, which you can visit today as it’s being lovingly restored.

The letters are gossipy and often quietly humorous and have the sound of a real voice, which is one reason why I enjoy reading them.  Here he is in 1760 complaining about the mail—

“I would give much to be sure those letters had reached you. Then, there is a little somebody of a German prince, through whose acre the post-road lies, and who has quarrelled with the Dutch about a halfpennyworth of postage ; if he has stopped my letters, I shall wish that some frow may have emptied her pail and drowned his dominions !”  (letter to Sir Horace Mann, 14 November, 1760—this is #722 in Volume V of the 16-volume Oxford collection, which you can find here:  https://archive.org/details/lettersofhoracew56walp/page/n7/mode/2up   “frow” is Walpole’s spelling of Dutch huisvrouw, “housewife” and I suspect that the “pail” is more likely a chamberpot, from his tone–)

Certainly I would be glad to receive something from Emily Dickinson, 1830-1886, which might even include a poem, as hers sometimes did.

Like Walpole’s, these are missives full of a living—and like Walpole, sometimes skeptical and humorous—person.  (There are two modern editions of the letters, the more recent just published last year, but you can get a sense of her for free from volume one of the first edition, from 1894, here:  https://archive.org/details/lettersofemilydi00dick )

And, of course, letters directly from Tolkien, rather than being forced to read over his shoulder as we do with The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien,

would be wonderful, not only for their voice, everything from affectionate to outraged, but also because there may be something more, even perhaps something unexpected to be read in them, even if you’ve read the same letters more than once.

Just the other day, for example, I was thumbing through, looking for something else, and I came upon this:

“But the Elves are not wholly good or in the right.  Not so much because they flirted with Sauron; as because with or without his assistance they were ‘embalmers’.  They wanted to have their cake and eat it:  to live in the mortal historical Middle-earth because they had become fond of it (and perhaps because they had there the advantages of a superior caste), and so tried to stop its change and history, stop its growth, keep it as a pleasaunce, even largely a desert, where they could be ‘artists’—and they were overburdened with sadness and nostalgic regret.” (to Naomi Mitchison, 25 September, 1954, Letters, 293)

What an interesting view of the Elves!  And that’s another reason to read letters:  you never know what you may learn and what may surprise you.  In this case, we are given a very much more nuanced picture of Middle-earth than, say, The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings—and, in this case, a darker picture.

And one word in particular in this letter caught my attention:   “pleasaunce”, which can mean a “pleasure garden”.  Harkening back to Eden,

(Adam and Eve and a scaly friend from my favorite west-Byzantine mosaics in Monreale cathedral)

such places became a feature of medieval settings—both real and in literature—as we see in this depiction of the garden which is the scene of the opening of the 13th-century Roman de la Rose.

or Emilia in Theseus’ garden from Boccacio’s 14th-century Teseida.

They reached big—commercial—time in 18th-century London, with the very elaborate Ranelagh Gardens

with its large and elegant rotunda, and famous organ (Mozart at 9 played a concert at Ranelagh)

and Vauxhall,

known for its long, green avenues, its music,

and for the suggestion of naughtiness in such a large, but shadowy place.  (Although older, Vauxhall survived longer—its final closing came in 1859.  For more on both Gardens, see:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranelagh_Gardens and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vauxhall_Gardens )

A key feature of such places is the potential not only for including, but for excluding, as well.  After all, because of their naughtiness, Adam and Eve were eventually barred from their pleasaunce,

(another image from Monreale)

medieval gardens had walls to allow for limited entrance (the protagonist of The Roman of the Rose has to have the help of a character called “Indolence” to get in), and Ranelagh and Vauxhall had gates and entrance fees, so it’s interesting to see what Tolkien means by his choice of word.  As he says, his Elves had become “embalmers’, by which he means that they were like Egyptian mummifiers,

although their body was still alive, and their process was meant to stop history, not decay, and, at the same time, to change Middle-earth from something naturally progressing through time for all its inhabitants into a “pleasaunce”—an artificial walled pleasure garden for themselves, something frozen in time, in which they could enjoy themselves as if they were the sole owners and masters, including and excluding as they wished.

It would be easy to believe that Tolkien means by this to show the Elves as ultimately lordly and selfish and there is the suggestion of this—but there’s something more and I would suggest that this makes clear JRRT’s wish to move beyond the surface of his elaborate creation.  By their desire, the Elves might be thought selfish, but Tolkien reveals for us the price for such behavior:  “they were overburdened with sadness and nostalgic regret.”  By attempting to preserve the past, and yet seeing that it couldn’t be preserved, the Elves had created not a pleasaunce, but a mirror of the passing of time which, powerful as they were, they could never control, and, gazing into that mirror, they could only see that truth, leaving them with nothing more than to feel sadness and regret.

The melancholy of the Elves is always there, but, in this particular letter, Tolkien explains and therefore deepens that haunting feeling, giving us figures who, in some sense, have tried to do the impossible:  to stop time, and, realizing that they can’t, can only grieve—and retreat from the world of their failure. 

I’ll always read letters for the living voice I might find there (the ancient Roman Seneca, c.4BC-65AD, first became real for me from one of his letters), but this one underlines my other point:  reading letters—rereading letters—may bring surprises.

Thanks, as always, for reading.

Stay well,

Beware of staring too long into mirrors (think of Snow White’s stepmother),

And remember that, as always, there’s

MTCIDC

O

Lud-ite?

29 Wednesday Jan 2025

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Welcome, as ever, dear readers.

Perhaps you’ve heard someone—often, I would say, an older person—who, confronted with something electronic, will say, “I’m not a Luddite, but…”

It’s taken to mean “I’m not against technology, but…”

But the history of the word casts a shadow on that disclaimer, as the real Luddites were very much against technology—technology which put them out of work and set them and their families to starve—or to be worked to death in the new factories.  (Charles Dickens captures a little of this in Hard Times, 1854:  https://archive.org/details/hardtimes0000char_w0u2/page/n11/mode/2up )

It all began with wool.

Wool production had made certain elements of medieval England very rich.

At the same time, because it was such a labor-intensive industry, it kept many ordinary people employed in everything from raising sheep to sheering, washing, carding, spinning, and weaving, almost all of which you can see in this illustration.

The demand for more and more wool and wool products in the later 18th century brought about the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution, when clever men began to invent devices which sped up the originally slow process of wool production, creating machines and then factories.

(This is a room in Quarry Bank, a wool mill complex in Cheshire, just a few miles from where Tolkien grew up, in Manchester.  It is held by the National Trust and, if like me, you’re interested in the history of the Industrial Revolution, you’ll want to learn more at:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quarry_Bank_Mill )

Such places not only sped up production, but also cut down on the number of people needed to process the wool, which soon began to trouble the many who once lived by the old methods. 

As early as 1768, there had been attacks on machines and the name “Ludd” had originally been attached to an apprentice, “Ned Ludd”, who had supposedly smashed two knitting machines, called “stocking frames” in 1779.

In 1811, things had reached a stage where organized violence against machines, factories, and even factory-owners, increased and “King Ludd” or “General Ludd” became a kind of meme for the anti-industrial movement.  (You can read more here:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite )

This imaginary Ludd is, however, only one of a number of figures under that name.  There is, for instance, the Biblical Lud, the son of Shem, the son of Noah.

(from the wonderful mosaics of Monreale, in Sicily—Noah, we’re told, got drunk and his embarrassed sons are covering him up—see Genesis 9.20-23 for details)

There is Lud, son of Heli, and king of Britain, according to Geoffrey of Monmouth’s 12th century Historia Regum Britanniae, the founder of London, and buried at Ludgate, of course.  (You can read, in a 1904 translation, about Lud in Historia 3.20 here:  https://archive.org/details/geoffreyofmonmou00geofuoft/geoffreyofmonmou00geofuoft/page/80/mode/2up

(as reconstructed in 1895—you can read more about the site here:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludgate  including the actual etymology of the name)

And then there’s Lud-in-the-Mist, a 1926 fantasy novel

by Hope Mirrlees (1887-1978),

where Lud is the name of a town in the imaginary country of Dorimare.

(Ryuk-Duck, but, when I’ve gone to DeviantArt, I’ve been unable to locate anything more.)

Mirrlees had published two previous novels, Madeleine:  One of Love’s Jansenists (1919)

and The Counterplot (1924),

as well as a rather complex “modernist” poem, Paris (1920),

but this was her only fantasy novel. 

(You can read all four of these four works here:  Madeleine https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/65926/pg65926-images.html   Paris https://www.paris-a-poem.com/ —this is, by the way, a real work of scholarship and a very useful way to approach this poem—The Counterplot https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/63935/pg63935-images.html and Lud-in-the-Mist https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/68061/pg68061-images.html  You can read more about the author here:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hope_Mirrlees )

I’ve just finished Lud-in-the-Mist, which, after disappearing for about 50 years, resurfaced in a first reprint in 1970, and several more, in 2000, 2005, and 2013.  The 2005 reprint had very distinguished opening matter:  a foreward by Neil Gaiman and an introduction by Douglas Anderson, of The Annotated Hobbit.  Gaiman has said of Lud-in-the-Mist that it’s “My favourite fairy tale/detective novel/history/fantasy”  (quoted from:  https://radicalreads.com/neil-gaiman-favorite-books/ ) and I would agree that it’s a combination at least of fairy tale and fantasy and there is a sort of detective story mixed in, but I’m not so sure that this all comes together for me as it clearly has for him.

The fantasy/fairy tale lies in the basic setting that:  Dorimare is an imaginary country and Lud-in-the-Mist is its capital, sitting at the meeting of two rivers:  Dapple and Dawl.  The Dawl seems to be the usual, expected kind of river, flowing southwards to the sea from somewhere inland, but the Dapple

“…had its source in Fairyland (from a salt inland sea, the geographers held) and flowed subterraneously under the Debatable Hills, was a humble little stream, and played no part in the commercial life of the town. But an old maxim of Dorimare bade one never forget that ‘The Dapple flows into the Dawl.’ It had come to be employed when one wanted to show the inadvisability of despising the services of humble agents; but, possibly, it had originally another application.”

This is at the very beginning of the second chapter, and already sets the tone:  Dorimare may be a picturesque little country on a river so broad that the town is also a seaport, although 20 miles from the actual sea, but that broad river is fed, in part, by a second stream, one which comes from the west (and the West, of course, is always a place perhaps to be dreaded, as it is often the direction to which the dead go in many folk traditions, as well as being the home of weird, otherworldly folk, the sort of people and creatures that voyagers west, like St Brendan

and Oisin, of the Irish Fenian Cycle, and Yeats’ early The Wanderings of Usheen, 1889, which you can read here:  https://www.gutenberg.org/files/38877/38877-h/38877-h.htm#THE_WANDERINGS_OF_USHEEN encounter. )  The river’s beginning lies, as well, in a place not visited by the Dorimarites for hundreds of years, Fairyland, and much of the book is taken up with “fairy fruit”, which is banned in Dorimare, along with any dealings or even mentions of fairies, but somehow keeps appearing and seriously disturbing the minds of those who consume it—as if the Dapple, under its pretty name, is actually underflowing and perhaps undercutting all of Dorimare.

The detective story seems almost a by-blow of the plot, although it involves a major character, Endymion Leer, who is a physician in Lud-in-the-Mist and, as the plot develops, much more, although I find that his role in the mystery somewhat trivializes the greater role he claims for himself near the end of the book at his trial for murder. 

I won’t summarize the complicated plot—you can read a brief and, I fear, inadequate précis here:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lud-in-the-Mist and there are longer summaries to be had at various fantasy sites, although I find the ones I read, for me, too intent upon constructing complex, deeper meanings than I think the book really holds.

Instead, as I always do with reviews—films and books—I would encourage you to read it for yourself and come to your own conclusion.

There’s dry, quirky humor on the part of the narrator, some lush nature writing, a vivid depiction of what Fairyland might be like (unpleasant to nightmarish, I found it), and an appealing character in the protagonist, Nathaniel Chanticleer, who begins conventionally as a comfortable petit bourgeois (although he does have something haunting him), but grows into a feeling being through the fate of his son, Ranulph, all of which are at least enough to lure you in and perhaps keep you reading, as they did me.

So, as always, thanks for reading,

Wonder what fairy fruit might do to you,

And remember that, as ever, there’s

MTCIDC

O

PS

If going west myself, I should meet Hope Mirrlees, I would request that, should she, in some spiritual form, ever do a revised edition, she might include a map—a nice end paper one would do—as it would definitely help to keep one oriented in the characters’ travels around Dorimare.

PPS

For a powerful speech by Neil Gaiman on writing and reading and fantasy see:  https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/oct/15/neil-gaiman-future-libraries-reading-daydreaming

Sally—and Harry

22 Wednesday Jan 2025

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Welcome, as always, dear readers.

If you’d seen the title of an earlier posting, “You’ve Got Mail”,

you might believe that I’m beginning to specialize in romcoms from the 1980s-90s with this title—

but, although some of the characters might be wearing mail in this posting,

(Denis Gordeev)

there’s no romance and no comedy.  Instead, it involves “sally” and “harry” not as nicknames for “Sarah” and “Henry”, but as verbs and nouns of destruction.

The war to which 2nd LieutenantTolkien

arrived in mid-1916

(Peter Dennis—a real favorite of mine for his ability to recreate scenes from the past, always with small, useful details.)

was not the war planned in 1913.  Into a world in which soldiers still wore fancy dress for parades—

(artist:  possibly Brian Fosten?)

and cavalry officers still dreamed of heroic charges,

(Richard Simkin)

came these

and this sort of thing

with many other horrors to come and soldiers did the only sensible thing, given that they couldn’t just run for their lives, and began to dig in.

(another Peter Dennis)

On the Western Front, where Tolkien served, this eventually meant 500 miles of such digging, from Switzerland to the North Sea, until, ultimately, there were two lines of trenches, one German, one Allied, now facing each other.

People at the time were reminded of what was called siege warfare, which, in the past had meant that an army surrounded a town or a fortress, blocking access to it from the outside, usually dug trenches to mark off the area and to protect their own soldiers and, depending upon the era and its weaponry, use various war machines against the walls and those inside.

(Julius Caesar’s siege of the Gallic stronghold of Alesia, 52bc)

(a kind of idealized medieval siege by Liliane and Fred Funcken)

(the siege of Swedish-occupied Riga by the Russians in 1710, by an artist whose name appears to be “Batov”)

The difference, in this case, being that both sides seemed to be besieging the other and neither was surrounding or surrounded.

During his stay on the Western Front in 1916, Tolkien participated in a massive assault on sections of the German lines—the Battle of the Somme—in which the British suffered over 50,000 casualties on the first day alone.

(and another Peter Dennis

Big battles like this were relatively rare, however, as they required so much planning and such great resources, but, in between them, soldiers raided each other’s trenches, both to keep their own soldiers busy and to keep the enemy off balance, as well as to gain intelligence from prisoners and captured documents.

(and a further Peter Dennis)

In older, traditional sieges, the besieged might try to do the same, as well as ruin the besiegers’ siege artillery and trenches, even carrying off the enemy’s entrenching tools.  This was called a “sally”, and here we can see the besieged Gauls trying this maneuver out at Caesar’s siege of Alesia in 52BC

(and yet another Peter Dennis)

and here are Texian volunteers sallying from the Alamo to destroy shacks (jacales) being used by Mexican skirmishers in 1836.

(Gary Zaboly)

“To sally” comes from French saillir, “to leap/jump”, and clearly implies “to jump out at someone”, preferably unexpectedly, and that’s why some fortresses have sally ports—

(this is at Fort Mifflin, on the Delaware River south of Philadelphia)

smaller gates which could be used for surprise attacks on attackers.  And, when you sally, your job is to harry the enemy, “to harry” coming from Old English hergian (HAIR-yee-an), “to harass/plunder/ravage”, among other warlike definitions.

Tolkien, perhaps with a strong memory of trench warfare, along with a reminiscence of the desperate Gauls at Alesia, recreates one of these attacks at Helm’s Deep, where Saruman’s army of orcs and Dunlendings has begun its assault upon the outer wall.

(the artist listed for this is “Brokenhill”, but the only one I could find was an art commune in Australia, which I’m hoping is correct and which you can visit here:  https://artofbrokenhill.com/ )

Strictly speaking, this isn’t really a siege, any more than the attack on Minas Tirith is really a siege, even though that’s the chapter title.  Rather, it’s an escalade—an assault by ladder, which has always struck me as about the last siege attack I’d join—look at what’s happening in this one—would you want to be on the top of a rickety ladder?

Included in the escalade is an attempt to break through the main gates:

“Again the trumpets rang, and a press of roaring men leaped forth.  They held their great shields above them like a roof, while in their midst they bore two trunks of mighty trees.  Behind them orc-archers crowded, sending a hail of darts against the bowmen on the walls.  They gained the gates.  The trees, swung by strong arms, smote the timbers with a rending boom.” 

That “like a roof” is, basically, a Roman formation called a “turtle”—a testudo—used in exactly the same way in Roman assaults.

(from the column of Trajan, showing Roman infantry attacking a Dacian town)

The tree trunks are improvised battering rams—although classical ones could be tipped with metal to make them more effective—

In response, Aragorn and Eomer, with “a handful of stout swordsmen”, attempt a sally: 

“There was a small postern-door that opened in an angle of the burg-wall on the west, where the cliff stretched out to meet it…Together Eomer and Aragorn sprang through the door, their men close behind.  The two swords flashed from the sheath as one.”

Initially, this harrying of the enemy is successful, driving them back from the gate, but then there are too many of them and Eomer is grabbed by two of the Orcs, only to be rescued by the sudden appearance of Gimli, as the sally party dodges back inside the postern/sally port, which is closed behind them.

(Donato Giancola—I’ve recommended his site before—and here it is:  https://donatoarts.com/ )

But this is only the first sally—Theoden, fretting at the rapidly decaying defensive situation, as Saruman’s early blasting powder blows holes in the ancient walls of the Deep, makes a second attack, although, this time, it seems more like the action of despair, rather than a good tactic:

“But I will not end here, taken like an old badger in a trap.  Snowmane and Hasufel and the horses of my guard are in the inner court.  When the dawn comes, I will bid men sound Helm’s horn and I will ride forth.  Will you ride with me then, son of Arathorn?  Maybe we shall cleave a road, or make such an end as will be worth a song—if any be left to sing of us hereafter.”  (this, as well as all of the previous quotations, are from The Two Towers, Book Three, Chapter 7, “Helm’s Deep”)

(Alan Lee)

It’s not, of course, a suicidal charge, as Gandalf arrives with re-enforcements and then there are the Ents, so the sally harries the Orcs to their doom among the trees

and, although there is, as I said at the beginning, neither comedy nor romance, this sally, like the romcom, has a happy ending.

As always, thanks for reading.

Stay well,

When deep in a forest, never sneer at the trees—someone might be listening,

(Alan Lee)

And remember that, also as always, there’s

MTCIDC

O