Somewhere Over…Ephel Duath?

02 Wednesday Dec 2015

Posted by Ollamh in Fairy Tales and Myths, J.R.R. Tolkien, Narrative Methods

Tags

Aragorn, Auntie Em, communication, crystal ball, Denethor, Dorothy, Emerald City, Galadriel, heroine, Kansas, Margaret Hamilton, Middle-earth, mirror, Oxford, Oz, Palantir, Pippin, Professor Marvel, Saruman, Sauron, seeing-stones, skype, The Lord of the Rings, The Wizard of Oz, Tolkien, Villains, Wicked Witch

Dear Readers,

Welcome, as always. This posting is now one of two, but it was originally a single posting in which we discussed both Palantiri and Galadriel’s mirror.

Our first thought had been, in fact, a vague one: what did one see in such things? As we reviewed the various possibilities, we realized that they were, in fact, very different in function (yes, we probably didn’t think long and hard enough—we should have pulled out our spares and dipped into that cask of Longbottom Leaf for a three-pipe problem). So we separated them and here’s the first, on the Palantiri.

We begin in 1939. It’s not a happy time: war in Europe has broken out again after only two decades of peace. The Depression is still lingering. But there is a new film which Priscilla (age 10) has heard about and would very much like to see and her loving and indulgent father has agreed to take her—after all, this is a children’s movie and he, since his first novel was published in 1937, has become a children’s author.

The film was the story of a quest: the heroine, torn from home, acquires a magical object (two, in fact), slowly gathers a disparate band of companions who help her on her way, visits a grand city, has dealings with a wizard, defeats a powerful enemy and returns home, at last, a wiser person.

In the very year he became a children’s author, the father had begun a new work. Based in part upon earlier materials and interests, as well as upon elements from his 1937 novel, this was to become not, as he thought at first (and his publishers hoped) a sequel to his previous work, but a kind of extension of that work and, in the years in which he continued to work on it, much more.

In the meantime, he sat in the theatre in Oxford and watched a bleak prairie world

turn into something almost hallucinogenically-technicolored

and filled with small and very energetic people.

But the heroine, as we said, has been torn from home and, worse, she arrives and is immediately in trouble with a powerful enemy,

having accidentally killed that enemy’s sibling.

And the story moves on from there—the gathering of the companions

the grand city

and, all the while, that powerful enemy is watching.

This isn’t the first time such a scrying device has been seen in the story. Earlier, the heroine had consulted another magical figure—or so he claimed.

What’s particularly interesting about this device is that, unlike crystal balls one remembers from film and books and from general folklore,

the one which is actually used sees not the future, but the present.

The Wicked Witch of the West sees Dorothy—as, of course, that’s who they are–

and Dorothy sees Auntie Em.

(And “Professor Marvel”, as he calls himself, at least pretends to see the present.)

This made us wonder about the Palantiri.

For a useful summary of information about these so-called “seeing-stones”, see the entry for Palantiri at Tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Palantiri, but, in short, they are an ancient communication device. That is, they are unlike the usual crystal ball, which looks into the future (or possibly the past), but are rather like the Middle Earth form of skype.

These items don’t have the security offered by our earthly form, however. Within The Lord of the Rings, we see them used by Saruman

Pippin

and Aragorn

and Denethor.

Aragorn, however, is the only one able to escape the control of Sauron as exerted by the sphere.

Their function as a medium of communication, so different from their usual use, brings us back to Margaret Hamilton, staring into her crystal ball

and we wondered whether, in that dark late summer of 1939, Tolkien might have sat in a theatre in Oxford, watching the Wicked Witch of the West, and, as he did so brilliantly with so many other things, absorbing, then recreating what he saw for his own purposes. What do you think, dear readers?

As always, thanks for reading.

MTCIDC

And Whither Then?

25 Wednesday Nov 2015

Posted by Ollamh in Artists and Illustrators, Fairy Tales and Myths, J.R.R. Tolkien, Narrative Methods

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Adrien Guignet, Aeneid, art, bibliomancy, Bilbo, Birth of Venus, Bouguereau, chimp painting, Chinese, critics, Cumae, Delphi, Etruscans, Frodo, future, Genesis, Greeks, Homer, Impressionism, It's a dangerous business going out your door, Joseph, Kansas City Royals, Monet, New York Mets, Oedipus, plastrons, prophetic, prophetic books, Pythia, Romans, Scapula, Sibyls, Sortes Tolkienses, Sortes Vergilianae, the Bible, The Lord of the Rings, The New Testament, Tolkien, Vergil, World Series, Zhang Dynasty

“It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your front door. You step onto the Road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to.” (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book 1, Chapter 3)

Dear Readers,

Welcome, as always. In this posting, we want to propose an aid for that dangerous business to which Frodo is referring when he quotes Bilbo.

The desire to know what will happen next makes for good novel readers—and writers—but it’s also an ancient human desire.

The Old Testament gives us a pharaoh with dreams, which Joseph interprets (Genesis 41-44) and which provides us with this splendid picture by Adrien Guignet (1816-1854).

(This is an example of a whole world of painting which was devalued and declared stuffy and old-fashioned and pompous once Impressionism—which was originally mocked as just that, “impressions” rather than paintings—gained a foothold among art-buyers and the more progressive art critics. To us, although it may not have the wonderful fragmentations and color-freshness of those later painters, such older works have great importance historically—it’s the yin to the Impressionists’ yang, after all—and the over-the-top quality of some things—like this “Birth of Venus” by Bouguereau—1825-1905—has, we think, its own loopy charm.

You see what we mean about yin/yang, however, when we compare it with this Monet, painted in the same year—1879. If you were brought up on academic painters like Bouguereau, Monet’s work must have looked like chimp paintings!

)

The Chinese of the Zhang Dynasty (1500-1000BC) used turtle plastrons and cow shoulder blades to consult about the future.

The Greeks had a number of prophetic sites, like Delphi, with its Pythia.

And the Romans had several methods, beginning with what they inherited from their big brothers to the north, the Etruscans.

And, yes, this is a sheep’s liver, done in bronze. What does it do? Lots of discussion about that! It appears to have gods and perhaps constellations, or at least the sky, involved. (For more and some useful references, google “liver of Piacenza”)

The Romans consulted the insides of selected animals

and the flying patterns of birds

although this could lead to the occasional argument

as well as their own counterpart to people like the Pythia at Delphi, the Sibyls. One Sibyl, who was reputed to live at Cumae, even had a collection of prophetic books which talked about the future.

Later Romans also consulted a particular book, Vergil’s Aeneid, the idea being that you would open the book (a scroll, early on, a book—a codex—in later imperial times), close your eyes, run your finger along the lines and stop—and the line your finger was on would tell you something about the future. This is a form of bibliomancy, or telling the future by using a book. Ancients might choose Homer, or, in this case, Vergil (the Aeneid) or, for the Judeo-Christian tradition, the Bible. If you use Vergil, the practice is called Sortes Vergilianae (“Vergilian lots”—that is to say, not building sites—although one could build an interpretation upon one—but things used to determine the fate of something).

Today, we, as Tolkien fans, propose to add another text, suggesting Sortes Tolkienses (SOR-tes tol-kee-EN-ses). Pick up your copy of The Lord of the Rings, and ask it a question. Then close your eyes, open the book (make sure that it is rightsideup before you do this—although perhaps upsidedown would provide a greater-yet feel of randomness), run your index finger down the page, stop, open eyes, and read.

For our first try, we asked it who would win this year’s World Series, the New York Mets or the Kansas City Royals.

Hmm. Page 351 of the 2004 HarperCollins edition.

“…Frodo felt that he was in a timeless land that did not fade or change or fall into forgetfulness.”

Well, this is the 111^th World Series—that would certainly suggest a kind of timelessness, we supposed. Then there was that business about not fading or changing—which team had won the Series last? A quick flick through statistics gave us the Royals in 1985 and the Mets in 1986. Okay. Does that mean that, since the Mets won more recently, that wouldn’t change?

Should we try again? Influenced by the rash Oedipus, asking the Pythia only one question and not pausing for clarification, we decided that it meant the Mets.

But then the Royals won.

So, we leave it to you, dear readers. You consult the Sortes Tolkienses—just make sure that the course of your life—or your team—doesn’t depend upon it!

Thanks, as always, for reading.

MTCIDC

There is a very entertaining experiment with the more established Sortes Vergilianae to be found by googling timesonline.typepad.com/dons_life/2012/03/sortes-virgilianae.html—an essay by the ever-lively Mary Beard.

Of Boats and Boromir

18 Wednesday Nov 2015

Posted by Ollamh in Fairy Tales and Myths, J.R.R. Tolkien, Narrative Methods, Poetry, Uncategorized

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Abbotsford, Anduin, Aragorn, boat, Boromir, burial, Camelot, Edoras, Eglinton Tournament, Falls of Rauros, Gimli, Gondor, Gyeongju, Henryk Siemiradski, Hero-Worship and the Heroic in History, Horace Walpole, Ibn Fadlan, Ibn Fadlan and the Rusiyyah, Idylls of the King, Ivanhoe, Journal of Islamic and Arabic Studies, King Arthur, Korea, Legolas, medievalism, neo-medievalist, On Heroes, poetry, pre-Romantics, Prose Edda, Pugin, Rohan, Romanticism, Ship burial, Silla, Sir Frank Dicksee, Sir Lancelot, Sir Walter Scott, Snorri Sturluson, Snorro, St. George's chapel, Story, Strawberry Hill, Sutton Hoo, Tennyson, The Departure of Boromir, The Hero as Divinity. Odin. Paganism: Scandinavian Mythology, The Lady of Shalott, The Lord of the Rings, The Vikings (1958), Thomas Carlyle, Tolkien, vaults, Victorian, viking burial, vikings, Westminster, Windsor

Dear Reader,

Welcome, as always.

In this posting, we want to take something we mentioned in our last about Tolkien having read Tennyson. This is our guess—but in the late Victorian world into which JRRT was born, he must have been inescapable.

We _could_ say that medievalism was in the air then, brought in by Romanticism—and even before, by pre-Romantics, like Horace Walpole, with his mock-castle at Strawberry Hill (1749-76).

]

There were lots of early neo-medievalist things—some of Sir Walter Scott’s novels, like Ivanhoe (1820)—not to mention his mock-castle, at Abbotsford.

the absolutely wonderful and crazy Eglinton Tournament of 1839 (we may have to have a posting about this)

the medieval-revival architecture of Pugin

before Tennyson began publishing Idylls of the King in 1859, with its poems about King Arthur and his court.

Even before Idylls, Tennyson had been interested in writing about King Arthur’s world, producing the poem “The Lady of Shalott” in his Poems (1833, revised version 1842), in this poem, a lady under a curse sees, from her tower, Sir Lancelot riding by, and falls in love with him without ever meeting him. What happens next was what brought us to write this posting.

Because it reminded us of Boromir.

At the beginning of The Two Towers, Aragorn finds the dying Gondorian sitting, with his back against a tree, and, scattered around him, and “Many Orcs lay slain, piled all about him and at his feet.” (The Two Towers, Chapter 1, “The Departure of Boromir”) When Legolas and Gimli join Aragorn, they decide upon a hasty, but they hope, appropriate burial.

“ ‘Then let us lay him in a boat with his weapons, and the weapons of his vanquished foes,’ said Aragorn. ‘We will send him to the Falls of Rauros and give him to the Anduin. The River of Gondor will take care at least that no evil creature dishonours his bones.’” (The Two Towers, Chapter 1, “The Departure of Boromir”)

In other burial scenes of important people in The Lord of the Rings, we see that the Kings and Stewards of Gondor are laid to rest in special vaults, rather like medieval and later English kings buried either in St. George’s chapel at Windsor or in Westminster Abbey.

The Kings of Rohan lie beneath a series of mounds just before Edoras,

like those of the Silla kings of Korea at Gyeongju (57BC-935AD).

Or like the sort of ship burials of which Tolkien must have read in the newspapers of 1939, the famous Sutton Hoo grave.

From which came treasures like this helmet (with its reconstruction).

A number of ship burials of northern European upper class people survive, all more or less in the same pattern: the ship is dragged to a spot where it is filled with the deceased, occasionally accompanied by others and even animals, and grave goods of a high quality, then a mound is built over it. The deceased may have been cremated beforehand, but not necessarily. There is a well-known description of this process by an Arab traveler, Ibn Fadlan. (for a translation of this with copious annotations, see James E. Montgomery, “Ibn Fadlan and the Rusiyyah”, Journal of Islamic and Arabic Studies 3, 2000—available on-line by googling “Ibn Fadlan and the Rusiyyah”)

Here’s an 1883 reconstruction of one part of that process by the Polish painter Henryk Siemiradski.

In contrast, the image of the deceased being placed in such a ship, the ship being launched, and then torched, would appear to be a Hollywood popularization, perhaps originating with the 1958 movie, The Vikings, of something rare (or at least difficult to document).

At the conclusion of this film, a major character is given this treatment.

(That the Victorians were aware of this alternative can be seen in this 1893 painting by Sir Frank Dicksee.

Dicksee had based this painting not on a scholarly source, but upon a lecture by Thomas Carlyle, “The Hero as Divinity. Odin. Paganism: Scandinavian Mythology”, which he would have found in Carlyle’s On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History. Carlyle very loosely cites “Snorro” for his description of such an event, by which he means Snorri Sturluson, author of the Prose Edda)

But this brings up back to “The Departure of Boromir”—and to Tennyson.

In “The Departure of Boromir”, as we have seen, Boromir is placed into one of the Elven boats.

The three companions tow the boat as close to the Falls of Rauros as they can, then cast it loose to be carried over the Falls.

The companions, of course, are pressed for time: Frodo and Sam have gone one direction, Merry and Pippin have been carried off in another and there isn’t time, they feel, to bury Boromir or to build a cairn over him. As they have boats and there is the river below them, the method chosen seems a natural one, but we wondered if the author didn’t have Tennyson’s model in his mind, as well.

In “The Lady of Shalott”, after seeing Lancelot through her window (or in a reflection in the 1842 version of the poem), the Lady places herself in a small boat, with note in hand, and dies on her way down the river on the way to Camelot, apparently of a broken heart (as the backstory, appearing as early as the 13^th century, tells us).

Not only would the poem (which has a rather catchy rhythm) have been readily available, but there were a number of paintings and engravings illustrating the story, practically from the time of the 1842 version.

This is not so dramatic as going over the falls and her death is pale in comparison to multiple arrow wounds, but there is that rhythm, the image of the body in the boat going downstream, and the popularity of the poet—plus the numerous illustrations. We’ll include a link to the poem so you can judge for yourself: was this a possible influence on JRRT?

Thanks, as always, for reading.

MTCIDC

A Holiday Special

05 Thursday Nov 2015

Posted by Ollamh in Fairy Tales and Myths, Military History

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American Revolution, Boston, British, Caesar, Celtic, drawing and quartering, England, Gam, Guy Fawkes, holiday, James I, Pagan, Parliament, Remember the Fifth of November, Sam, Samhain, St. Patrick's Day, tradition, traitor, Westminster

Dear Readers,

Welcome, as always.

This posting is a little bonus because of the day, November 5th.

Because laws in the US tend at least to try to separate church and state, how do the people of Boston celebrate St. Patrick’s Day legally?

Easy– they dug into their history, and somebody remembered that during the American Revolution, the British abandoned their occupation of Boston on March 17th, 1776: St. Patrick’s Day.

The same is true when we follow those British soldiers home.

Samhain is the ancient Celtic holiday which celebrates that time of year between summer and winter. (Sam—in various forms, depending on which branch of Celtic you speak—means “summer” and its opposite is Gam). The Celts believed that, at that time, the doors between the worlds lay open and the dead could return.

In a Christian country like Britain, this would be rather an awkward holiday to celebrate without the same sort of adaptation the Bostonians used to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day. November 1st, All Saints’ Day, will cover some of this, but the clever British, just like the Bostonians, reached into their history and produced Guy Fawkes Day.

Guy Fawkes was, in fact, the leader of a group of Catholic gentlemen who wanted to block the succession of the Protestant James I to the throne of England.

To do this, they planned to blow up Parliament with the king and his court inside on the 5^th of November, 1605.

To do so, they managed, by using a building next door, to smuggle 3 dozen barrels of gunpowder into the basement of Parliament (and this is the old Parliament in Westminster palace, not the one we see today, which was built after the great fire of 1834).

Fawkes and the others were caught, however, and suffered a gruesome end as traitors: drawing and quartering.

So, if you want to have a pagan holiday under Christian auspices—and patriotic ones, at that, you can celebrate the end of Guy Fawkes, failed conspirator and Samhain favorite.

The older tradition in Britain was that children would put together a flammable dummy, called a “Guy” and take him around the neighborhood, begging for pennies under the slogans, “Penny for the Old Guy, Remember, Remember, the Fifth of November!”

These pennies then bought sweet and fireworks. On the evening of the 5^th of November, the dummy would be set on fire, the fireworks would be set off, and the sweets consumed.

And so ancient holiday and political event could be blended and both survive.

But, although Guy Fawkes and the other conspirators might suffer horrible ends, no one was burned. There is, however, another Celtic tradition, reported by Julius Caesar. In his Gallic Wars, Caesar claimed that the priests of the Celts sacrificed victims by burning them alive in a huge woven figure. Perhaps the fiery death of the Old Guy is one more remembrance of Samhain-long-gone?

Happy Guy Fawkes Day!

MTCIDC

Like Smoke From a Fire: Sharkey’s End

04 Wednesday Nov 2015

Posted by Ollamh in Fairy Tales and Myths, Imaginary History, J.R.R. Tolkien, Maps, Narrative Methods, Research

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Adventure, Birmingham, Branywine, Bywater, Coketown, Dickens, Dol Amroth, England, Ents, factory, Fangorn, feudalism, Galadriel, Gandalf, Grima, Hard Times, Hobbiton, Idylls, industrial, Industrial Revolution, Isengard, King Edward School, Medieval, Merry, Midlands, Mordor, Morris, Oxford, Palantir, Pippin, poetry, pre-industrial, Saruman, Sauron, Scouring of the Shire, Sharkey, Southfarthing, Tennyson, The Lord of the Rings, The Shire, Tolkien

Dear Readers,

Welcome, as always.

In a previous posting, we talked about Saruman as a kind of imitation Sauron and Isengard as a mini-Mordor.

In this posting, we want to consider the implications of Gandalf’s remark about him in “Many Partings”, from The Return of the King: “I fancy he could do some mischief still in a small mean way.”

The mischief, when we see it, is definitely mean, but not small, even though confined to the limits of the Shire.

The world of The Lord of the Rings is a pre-industrial one. The most advanced technology, on the one hand, is the palantir (actually perhaps a magical, rather than mechanical, device)

and , on the other hand, a watermill.

Beyond that, it’s a medieval world, but without, it seems, feudalism, although there are, for example, castles and knights in the form of the Prince of Dol Amroth.

We can easily see why JRRT wanted this regression. On the one hand, like so many boys of his age, he had grown up reading Tennyson

and William Morris

who had created a world of Victorian medievalism, Tennyson in poetry, Morris in many different art forms.

On the other, Tolkien had grown up in Birmingham, in the English Midlands, where there had been massive development throughout the era of the Industrial Revolution.

Here’s Charles Dickens’ description of such a place from Hard Times (1856):

(Excerpt Describing Coketown)

Needless to say, although Tolkien kept a strong affection for King Edward School, where he was educated before Oxford,

he was less enthusiastic about the industrial world which surrounded it and this clearly colors his picture of Saruman. Look, for instance, at Fangorn’s description of him:

“He has a mind of metals and wheels; and he does not care for growing things, except as far as they serve him for the moment.” (The Two Towers, Book 1, Chapter 4, “Treebeard”) (It’s revealing, by the way that this is almost a quotation of something which Saruman later says of Gandalf, “When his tools have done their task he drops them.” The Return of the King, Book 2, Chapter 8, “The Scouring of the Shire”)

Saruman, then, with his metal mind, has turned the once-beautiful Isengard

into an arms factory

another Midlands,

and has angered the Ents, as well, by the wanton destruction of trees, not just for fuel, it appears, but just out of sheer spitefulness.

As we wrote earlier, all of this has remade Isengard into a mini-Mordor—as Frodo says: “Yes, this is Mordor…just one of its works. Saruman was doing its work all the time, even when he thought he was working for himself.” (The Return of the King, Book 2, Chapter 8, “The Scouring of the Shire”)

So, when Saruman, Grima in tow, leaves his ruined factory, one could almost imagine just what he might have in mind when he says to the hobbits:

“Well, it will serve you right when you come home, if you find things less good in the Southfarthing than you would like.” (The Return of the King, Book 2, Chapter 6, “Many Partings”)

We know from Merry and Pippin’s experience at the gate of Isengard that Saruman has been importing pipe-weed, a main export of the Southfarthing.

But when the hobbits, having forced the gate at the Brandywine, are making their way towards Hobbiton, they begin to have a feeling that much more has been damaged than the South Farthing: “Still there seemed an unusual amount of burning going on, and smoke rose from many points round about. A great cloud of it was going up far away in the direction of the Woody End.” (The Return of the King, Book 2, Chapter 8, “The Scouring of the Shire”)

This smoke bears an ominous resemblance to the Midlands (and, in fact, to all of industrial England):

There is worse to come, however: Bywater. “Many of the houses that they had known were missing. Some seemed to have been burned down. The pleasant row of old hobbit-holes in the bank on the north side of the Pool were deserted, and their little gardens that used to run down bright to the water’s edge were rank with weeds. Worse, there was a whole line of ugly new houses all along the Pool Side, where the Hobbiton Road ran close to the bank. An avenue of trees had stood there. They were all gone. And looking with dismay up the road towards Bag End they saw a tall chimney of brick in the distance. It was pouring out black smoke into the evening air.” (The Return of the King, Book 2, Chapter 8, “The Scouring of the Shire”)

And here, we move from a single smoking mill to a smoking mill town.

Saruman’s revenge has been more than small and mean, especially in terms of the industrial world which The Lord of the Rings rejects: the Shire is on its way to becoming another Midlands,

even to the workers’ miserable housing.

And the cutting down of trees (including, as we will find out, the Party Tree) insures the truth of Saruman’s sneering statement to the hobbits:

“…I have done much that you will find it hard to mend or undo in your lives.” (The Return of the King, Book 2, Chapter 8, “The Scouring of the Shire”)

But, as we know, Saruman, even in his moment of triumph, has no more than a moment to enjoy it. He is murdered by Grima and here we see the final irony. As Saruman has turned the medieval, bucolic Shire into a smoky horror, so he himself is turned to smoke:

“To the dismay of those that stood by, about the body of Saruman a grey mist gathered, and rising slowly to a great height like smoke from a fire, as a pale shrouded figure it loomed over the Hill. For a moment it wavered, looking to the West; but out of the West came a cold wind, and it bent away, and with a sigh dissolved into nothing.” (The Return of the King, Book 2, Chapter 8, “The Scouring of the Shire”)

A final thought, however. Might we see Saruman’s gesture towards the West, in which he clearly feels that he has been rejected by that which sent him to Middle Earth, as a mirror Galadriel’s gesture of rejection towards the East, when she refuses the Ring?

“She lifted up her hand and from the ring that she wore there issued a great light that illuminated her alone and left all else dark. She stood before Frodo seeming now tall beyond measurement, and beautiful beyond enduring, terrible and worshipful. Then she let her hand fall, and the light faded, and suddenly she laughed again, and lo! she was shrunken: a slender elf-woman, clad in simple white, whose gentle voice was soft and sad.” (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book 2, Chapter 7, “The Mirror of Galadriel”)

Thanks, as always, for reading.

MTCIDC

The Return of the Who.2?

28 Wednesday Oct 2015

Posted by Ollamh in Fairy Tales and Myths, Heroes, Imaginary History, J.R.R. Tolkien, Narrative Methods, Villains

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Aragorn, Aslan, C.S. Lewis, Catholicism, Gondor, Hobbits, Jadis, Medusa, Middle-earth, monotheism, Narnia, Oxford, religion, Sauron, secular, The Bird and the Baby, The Chronicles of Narnia, The Eagle and the Child, The Hobbit, The Inklings, The Lamb and Flag, The Lord of the Rings, the Pevensies, The Return of the Ring, The White Witch, Tolkien, White Tree

Dear Readers,

Welcome, as always.

This posting is a continuation of our last, in which we made a brief attempt to think about what the title “The Return of the King” might have meant for its author in his time.

In this posting, we want to expand that meaning from a secular king to one with more religious overtones.

We ourselves, as we’ve said before, are World Civ people, believing that all people in all times and places are and should be of interest and value to everyone. We are also pan-spiritual, thinking with Gandhi that, “I believe in the fundamental Truth of all great religions of the world.”

In the case of Tolkien, this meant Catholic Christianity, a form of monotheism. Of religion and The Lord of the Rings, he wrote in 1953:

“The Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision. That is why I have not put in, or have cut out, practically all references to anything like ‘religion’, to cults or practices, in the imaginary world. For the religious element is absorbed into the story and the symbolism.” Letters, 172.

He adds to this, in a letter to Houghton Mifflin, in 1955, that “It is a monotheistic world of ‘natural theology’. (Letters, 220). At the same time, however, he adds “I am in any case myself a Christian; but the ‘Third Age’ was not a Christian world. Letters, 220.

And yet we would suggest that there is not only more of a Christian theme, but also a Christian parallel with a book written at about the same time as the later stages of The Lord of the Rings and published slightly before it. This is C.S. Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (1950).

As is well known, both Lewis and Tolkien

were members of a literary group in Oxford, the Inklings.

Lewis and Tolkien formed part of the permanent core, with other members coming and going over the years (1933-1949). The meetings were held in Lewis’ rooms at Magdalen College,

as well as at two local pubs, The Eagle and Child (called locally “Bird and Baby” or just “Bird”)

as well as The Lamb and Flag.

The purpose (besides refreshments) was literary discussion, both of others’ works and of their own, and an important feature was the reading aloud of works in progress. Lewis had been very supportive, both of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, but Tolkien had not been so enthusiastic in return. All the same, we would suggest that various elements of Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and events around Gondor in Tolkien’s The Return of the King at times bear strong similarities.

In Lewis’ book, the main protagonists are four children, the Pevensies.

In Tolkien’s, there are four grown Hobbits, often mistaken, beyond the borders of the Shire, for children.

Both groups are on an errand which they barely understand and are faced with a supernatural enemy, the White Witch for the one, Sauron for the other. (There seems to be a lot of mirroring in all of this: the White Witch is already in Narnia and must be driven out. Sauron is outside Gondor and wants to get in, for example. The White Witch’s name is “Jadis”, by the way. Undoubtedly Lewis’ little linguistic joke: jadis in French means “formerly”, suggesting that even from the first time she appears, she’s already on her way out.)

(Notice, in the movie version of Jadis, the strong similarity between her and the Medusa. In fact, Jadis turns her enemies, when she can, to ice.)

Before the current world of Narnia, to which the children come, there was a king who had been somehow ejected a century before. In Middle Earth, there has been no king in Gondor for ten times that. In Narnia, there has been winter for that century.

In Gondor, in Middle Earth, its symbol of growth and stability, the White Tree, has withered and died.

When the Pevensie children have been involved in the defeat of the White Witch, they will rule Narnia in the place of the true king, the lion Aslan.

For about a thousand years, stewards ruled Gondor in place of the king. (Another example of mirroring.)

When Lewis’ Aslan returns, it is from death, having sacrificed himself to save one of the Pevensie children.

Thus, Aslan, in effect, heals himself. When the king of Gondor, Aragon, appears, he heals others. (Tolkien would probably associate this with the old English custom of having the monarch touch people attacked with a disease called scrofula, or “the King’s evil”. We include a picture of Queen Mary—1516-1558—doing so.)

When Aslan appears, spring returns to Narnia.

When Aragorn claims the throne, he and Gandalf discover a sapling of the old tree on Mindolluin, bring it down, and plant it and it soon flowers.

We’re sure that there are other parallels, dear reader: can you think of any?

Thanks, as always, for reading this.

MTCIDC

Jolly Tom.2

16 Wednesday Sep 2015

Posted by Ollamh in Fairy Tales and Myths, Imaginary History, J.R.R. Tolkien, Narrative Methods

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Barrow-downs, Barrow-wights, Bree, Dagger, Dorset, Eowyn, Fangorn, Frodo, Gandalf, Middle-earth, Nazgul, Neolithic, Old Forest, Old Man Willow, Peter Jackson, Sauron, The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, The Ring, Tolkien, Tom Bombadil, Weaponry, Westernesse, Witch-King of Angmar

Dear Readers,

Welcome, as always!

As you can see from the title, this is a continuation of the previous posting, in which we began a discussion of a two-part question: 1. What would be the advantage of keeping Tom Bombadil in a recorded (audio or film) version of The Lord of the Rings? 2. What would you need to keep?

To summarize the previous posting, we suggested that:

he, along with Fangorn/Treebeard, represents the great age of Middle Earth—something very important to the author–and a continuity of living things, which leads us to
he might also be seen as a form of hope: the Ring has no effect upon him and he remembers a time before the arrival of Sauron, suggesting that there might be a time after him, as well, and that the Ring has limits
as it seems out of place even in the current text, the bulk of Tom’s verse and the sometimes rhythmicized prose could be removed, leaving only the character himself and his part in the plot

We believe, however, that there is a more pressing reason for keeping him in the text, and it has to do with something Gandalf says to Frodo when Frodo, panicked at the prospect of having to deal with the Ring, demands, “Why did it come to me? Why was I chosen?” LotR 61.

“’Such questions cannot be answered,’ said Gandalf, ‘You may be sure that it was not for any merit that others do not possess: not for power or wisdom, at any rate. But you have been chosen, and you must therefore use such strength and heart and wits as you have.’” LotR 61.

This is a continuation of Gandalf’s earlier statement that:

“Behind that there was something else at work, beyond any design of the Ring-maker. I can put it no plainer than by saying that Bilbo was meant to find the Ring, and not by its maker. In which case you also were meant to have it.” LotR 56.

Thus, there is a level of intentionality at work in Middle-earth, something beyond Sauron. And, when we see Bombadil next, he will prove to be an instrument of the intention.

The Hobbits have left his house and, following his directions, have passed onto the Barrow-downs.

A down is a piece of rolling countryside, often bare at the top, with trees in its folds—as here in Dorset.

The Dorset Downs have lots of Neolithic remains, including numbers of barrows or tumuli, grave mounds commonly covering an interior structure, not uncommonly made of stone—

Such tumuli once contained the body or bodies usually of high-status persons

and all sorts of grave goods, either as a display of wealth or perhaps for some sort of afterlife use.

Bombadil has been careful, however, to say “more than once” (LotR 134) that the Hobbits are to avoid the barrows themselves, telling them not to meddle with them or “cold Wights” (LotR 133). (He also says that they should pass them “on the west-side”—there have been lots of guesses about this—we would add our guess that it might have to do with the orientation—literally—of the entry. If entries faced east and the rising sun, it would be wise of the Hobbits to skirt the barrows’ potential blind side, on the west. And there is also the rather obvious point, once you’ve looked at a map of the area, that, if they kept the barrows to the right and the Old Forest to the left, they would be heading north towards the road to Bree, as they intended.)

Those Barrow-wights are not the original inhabitants of the mounds, but agents of the Witch-king of Angmar, who sends them to take possession (The Lord of the Rings Companion, 144-145), long after their original occupation—but, what’s interesting is that, at least one of these tumuli appears not to have been plundered and this leads us to our next point about Tom Bombadil. After he rescues the Hobbits (showing again his mastery over at least the minor forces of evil), he does a little plundering of his own, including:

“For each of the hobbits he chose a dagger, long, leaf-shaped, and keen, of marvellous workmanship, damasked in serpent forms in red and gold…Then he told them that these blades were forged many long years ago by Men of Westernesse: they were foes of the Dark Lord, but they were overcome by the evil king of Carn Dum in the Land of Angmar.” LotR 146.

Here are a few ideas of what, at least, the leaf shape might have looked like:

And we include this third one just because it looks so cool—

Bombadil, of course, has actually seen all of this happen, and here we see that theme of great age appear again. And there’s the pedigree of those blades. Unlike the sack ‘o swords slung without any more explanation than “These are for you. Keep them close.” to the Hobbits in the film, these were weapons made by heroic men of the past, doomed men, but who fought evil until they were overcome (a strong theme throughout the history of Middle-earth).

Late in the story, one of those blades seems to be the instrument of intentionality once more. When Eowyn faces the Witch-king of Angmar, now the chief of the Nazgul—

and he is about to kill her with his mace, Merry strikes him from behind, stabbing him in what, on a living man, would have been a vulnerable spot, the back of the knee. (LotR 842.)

Distracted and, surprisingly, in pain, the Nazgul stumbles and Eowyn destroys him and here, once more, we may see intentionality, and all because of Tom Bombadil. Merry’s sword, from its contact with the undead flesh of the Nazgul, withers away, but—

“So passed the sword of the Barrow-downs, work of Westernesse. But glad would he have been to know its fate who wrought it slowly long ago in the North-kingdom when the Dunedain were young, and chief among their foes was the dread realm of Angmar and its sorcerer king. No other blade, not though mightier hands had wielded it, would have dealt that foe a wound so bitter, cleaving the undead flesh, breaking the spell that knit his unseen sinews together.” LotR 844.

So, for everything from Old Man Willow (whom the script writers couldn’t resist completely, transposing him to an improbable scene with Fangorn/Treebeard) to showing the great age of Middle-earth to suggesting other powers untouched by the Ring to offering possible hope to showing something of the intentionality behind certain actions in the story to providing the ancient and magical weapon which could finally bring down the Witch-king of Angmar and save Eowyn at the same time, might we suggest that, next production—audio or visual—of The Lord of the Rings, Jolly Tom might have a place in the cast?

Thanks, as always, for reading.

MTCIDC

If you would like to read more about Tom, see, for example, Dorathea Thomas, “He Is: Tom Bombadil and His Function in The Lord of the Rings” at Academia.edu.

Fairy Tale to Bill of Sale

19 Wednesday Aug 2015

Posted by Ollamh in Economics in Middle-earth, Fairy Tales and Myths, J.R.R. Tolkien

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Alice in Wonderland, Baggins, Bilbo, Contract, Dragon, Dwarves, Economics, Elves, Fairy Tale, Fantasy, Goblins, Hoard, Laketown, Middle-earth, Mirkwood, Odysseus, On Fairy Stories, Smaug, The Hobbit, The Odyssey, Tolkien

Dear Readers,

Welcome, as always!

Recently, when we discussed the economics of Middle-earth, Tolkien told us that he was not entirely ignorant about such matters, saying “…the situations are so devised that economic likelihood is there and could be worked out”. LT, 296

So that’s what we’ve set out to do in this posting, working out something of those economics in a modest way.

The Hobbit, as everyone knows, began as a story for his children, set in a fairytale world of elves, goblins, dwarves, and a dragon—the sorts of things which, in Tolkien’s essay “On Fairy Stories”, are derived from fantasy, which is “a natural human activity. It certainly does not destroy or even insult Reason,” but enhances it, lest fantasy become mere “Morbid Delusion” (which, later in the essay, Tolkien links with a work like Alice in Wonderland).

But something begins to happen, even early on, when Bilbo signs a contract before setting out for his adventure—an odd start for a fairytale hero who, traditionally, has to prove himself. The story proceeds for some time in fairy tale mode, but then, when the party loses everything in Mirkwood, it’s necessary for Bilbo and Company to resupply and here the story moves seriously from a fairytale world to capitalism, as the fairy tale quest evolves into a commercial venture.

To replace lost materiel, the company turns to the people of Laketown,

who provide it–and clearly do so on speculation, since the Dwarves have nothing to offer but promises.

The fairytale then seems to resume. The party reaches the mountain, gets in, the dragon wakes–but then things go very wrong, at least for the investors, as Smaug, easily putting together that two and two equal Laketown, sets off to destroy it and is destroyed himself, in the process. And then the fairy tale comes apart completely in a potential war over economic resources and compensation for damage caused during the investment: Laketowners versus Dwarves, which escalates when Elves stake a claim and then Dwarves come to reenforce Dwarves and then, just to keep things in flux, a goblin army arrives. One almost wonders whether the Eagles, when they arrived, have invested in Laketown bonds and are expecting to cash them in, with interest!

When all of this is resolved, we might think that we’ve returned to the fairy tale world once more: Bilbo, with his share of the hoard, sets off for home, where happily ever after lies–or does it?

In The Odyssey, Odysseus comes home to find his house in the hands of suitors, and must deal with them with the help of a goddess—very much a folktale. Bilbo comes home to find that his house and goods have just been auctioned off, and has to retrieve his happy ending by buying back his own things. That initial contract seems to have haunted the story, even to this moment.

Fantasy for Tolkien was, “founded on the harsh recognition that things are so in the world as they appear under the sun”—one of those things was economics, something which Bilbo may have found almost as unavoidable as a vengeful dragon.

What do you think, dear readers?

As always, thank you for reading,

MTCIDC,

Dead Ringers?

01 Wednesday Jul 2015

Posted by Ollamh in Fairy Tales and Myths, J.R.R. Tolkien, Narrative Methods, Poetry

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Tags

Daydreaming, Dragon, Eagles, Ford of Bruinen, Frigates, Frodo, Kites, Nazgul, Pterodactyl, Red-Tailed Hawk, Ring Wraiths, Robert Burns, Shire, Tam O'Shanter, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien, Washington Irving, Witches' Sabbath

Welcome! In this posting, we plan to talk about the Ring Wraiths (probably in hushed voices).

This entry was initially inspired by looking out the window (and no, we weren’t daydreaming—really!).

There was a harsh call from the sky.

Red-Tailed Hawk Scream (YouTube)

Peering out, we saw the local hawks, who are nesting on a tall building across the road, circling, balancing high on a thermal in that amazing way, something like a kite

combined with the nimbleness of an 18^th-c. frigate.

Red-Tailed Hawks Circling (YouTube)

And suddenly we were looking up at something completely different—

Nazgul!

In contrast to those very convenient Tolkien eagles, traditionally admired as a fierce and noble bird

the Wraiths appear to be riding a cross between a flying dragon

and a pterodactyl.

Of course, we first encounter the Nazgul on the ground

in their invasion of the Shire and their subsequent pursuit of Frodo.

And here, at the final moment, at the Ford of Bruinen, where the Wraiths are swept away,

perhaps we can catch a glimpse of one of the origins of a very dramatic scene.

The Scots poet, Robert Burns

wrote “Tam O’Shanter” in 1790 and published it the following year.

Tam O’Shanter Poem and Translation

It’s the story in verse of a farmer who stays too late at his local.

Then, on the way home, he is attracted by light in a local abandoned (and, of course, haunted) church

where a witches’ Sabbath is going on.

Still quite tipsy, he cheers it on and, of course, the witches and other otherworldly creatures are immediately in hot pursuit.

Tam can escape, but only if he can reach the nearby river Doon and cross its bridge.

He just manages to do this, but his poor horse, Meg, loses her tail.

If this plot has a familiar ring, it’s because the American author, Washington Irving,

used the poem as a major source for his short story, “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” (published in 1820). We begin with a very different story: in 1790, a poor schoolmaster with the poetic name of Ichabod Crane comes to the Hudson River valley town of Sleepy Hollow and, in the course of his stay, becomes such an annoyance to the local bravo, that he uses the local legend of a headless horseman to frighten Crane off.

To do this, he convinces Crane that, should he be pursued by such a creature, he can only escape it by crossing running water. (And here we can see the strong influence of Burns.) In the subsequent narrative, as the horseman, the bravo chases Crane to a bridge, and there the story stops. Crane disappears, never to be seen in Sleepy Hollow again. Irving_Sleepy

Unfortunately, neither the Carpenter letters nor the Hammond/Scull volumes provides any reference to Burns or Irving, but the idea that crossing the ford might stop the unearthly has, to us, a definite suggestion that, somewhere in the leaf mould, there may have been a tiny acorn of memory…

Thanks, as ever, for reading!

MTCIDC

You might know “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” from this–

Subsubcreations

03 Wednesday Jun 2015

Posted by Ollamh in Fairy Tales and Myths, J.R.R. Tolkien, Military History of Middle-earth, Narrative Methods, Villains

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Chicken Run, Corsairs, Easterlings, Gorbag and Shagrat, Haradrim, Melkor, Minions, Morgoth, Nazgul, Nick and Fetcher, Orc, Robin Hood, Sauron, Star Wars, Storm Troopers, The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien, Zorro

Dear Readers,

Welcome, as always!

Two posts ago, we talked about how it might be possible to make Sauron –the- nearly-invisible slightly more visible by means of his minions.

[oh yes—minions—from Middle French, “mignon”, meaning “little/darling” and coming to have a negative meaning in English, “lackey”]

These included the Nazgul

various humans—corsairs, Haradrim, Easterlings—

And, the real stars (as Nick and Fetcher, the two rats from Chicken Run, refer to themselves)

the Orcs.

Tolkien appears always to have had trouble placing them. We would suppose that this problem arose because Orcs were not the usual run-of-the-mill lackeys one usually sees in adventure, like the sheriff of Nottingham’s men

the soldiers of the evil commandante in the Zorro adventures

or the hordes of faceless stormtroopers in Star Wars

His first question—where do they come from? was immediately followed by a second—if they are created, do they have free will? That first question, any author might ask himself. The second, however, was pure Tolkien, fitting into the pattern which those who’ve only read The Lord of the Rings and not JRRT’s letters on the subject or the volumes produced by the admirable (a pale adjective!) Christopher Tolkien, would never see: the complex spiritual history which lies behind the creation of Middle Earth.

Not that the first question was simple. In The Lord of the Rings, Fangorn says of the Orcs:

“But Trolls are only counterfeits, made by the Enemy in the Great Darkness, in mockery of Ents, as Orcs were of Elves.” L486

The author, however, had a very different opinion:

“Their nature and origin require more thought. They are not easy to work into the theory and system.”

(Morgoth’s Ring 409)

Not easy because of that second question. As he wrote in an unpublished essay entitled (not surprisingly) Orcs (Morgoth’s Ring 409-413),

“…only Eru [the central creative deity] could make creatures with independent wills, and with reasoning powers. But the Orcs seem to have both: they can try to cheat Morgoth/ Sauron, rebel against him, or criticize him.”

Morgoth (Sauron’s former master) made the Orcs in some way, but, because only the central deity, Eru, can give independent wills and reasoning powers—which Orcs display by cheating, rebelling, and criticizing– to created beings, what is to be made of Orcs? Bound by those seemingly contrary facts, the conclusion was obvious to him that “therefore they must be corruptions of something pre-existing.” (409)

But of what?

“But Men had not yet appeared, when the Orcs already existed. Aule constructed the Dwarves out of his memory of the Music; but Eru would not sanction the work of Melkor [i.e. Morgoth] so as to allow the independence of the Orcs.

It also seems clear…that though Melkor could utterly corrupt and ruin individuals, it is not possible to contemplate his absolute perversion of a whole people, or group of peoples, and his making that state heritable.

In that case Elves, as a source, are very unlikely.” (409)

Thus, logically, if the Orcs are created, not corrupted, and created by a power which hasn’t the ability to give his creations independence, then–

“The Orcs were beasts of humanized shape (to mock Men and Elves) deliberately perverted/converted into a more close resemblance to Men. Their ‘talking’ was really reeling off ‘records’ set in them by Melkor. Even their rebellious critical words—he knew about them. Melkor taught them speech and as they bred they inherited this; and they had just as much independence as have, say, dogs or horses of their human masters. This talking was largely echoic (cf. parrots). ..Also (n.b.) Morgoth not Sauron is the source of Orc-wills. Sauron is just another (if greater) agent. Orcs can rebel against him without losing their own irremediable allegiance to evil (Morgoth).” (410-411)

We don’t know about you, dear Readers, but we confess to a certain disappointment at the idea that the Orcs are only more complex puppets. Consider this piece of villainous dialogue between Gorbag and Shagrat:

“I’d like to try somewhere where there’s none of ‘em. But the war’s on now, and when that’s over things may be easier.”

“It’s going well, they say.”

“They would,” grunted Gorbag. “We’ll see. But anyway, if it does go well, there should be a lot more room. What d’you say?—if we get a chance, you and me’ll slip off and set up somewhere on our own with a few trusty lads, where there’s good loot nice and handy, and no big bosses.”

“Ah!” said Shagrat. “Like old times.” (LOTR 738)

The plans and reminiscences of demons—how wonderful! And what an interesting sidelight into their world and even their past: they used to be masterless marauders, in the “old times”—could this suggest that perhaps they weren’t such puppets after all? We would like to imagine so!

And what is your opinion, dear readers?

Thanks, as ever, for reading.

MTCIDC

doubtfulsea

~ adventure fantasy

Category Archives: Fairy Tales and Myths

Somewhere Over…Ephel Duath?

And Whither Then?

Of Boats and Boromir

A Holiday Special

Like Smoke From a Fire: Sharkey’s End

The Return of the Who.2?

Jolly Tom.2

Fairy Tale to Bill of Sale

Dead Ringers?

Subsubcreations