Minions and Henchmen

06 Wednesday Nov 2019

Posted by Ollamh in Films and Music, Theatre and Performance, Villains

Tags

carabiniers, Falscappa, Gilbert and Sullivan, Henchmen, Jacques Offenbach, Les Brigands, Major General, Minions, Pirate King, The Keystone Cops, The Pirates of Penzance

As ever, dear readers, welcome. In our last, entitled “Henchmen and Minions”, we had a brief look at henchmen—that is, the servants—in groups—of evil-doers, from orcs

to Imperial stormtroopers.

These were a grim lot, doing their masters’ work and showing no signs of remorse or regret and mostly very competent at doing so.

In this posting, we thought that we would take the opposite tack and look at minions—for our purposes, we’ll define them as the Light Side of the Dark Side. Often, unlike Sauron or Cardinal Richelieu in our last post, their bosses are hardly the object of fear themselves.

We begin with two combinations of comic ineptitude: government mounted police vs bandits and policemen vs pirates.

In 1869, Jacques Offenbach (1819-1880)

composed the music for Les Brigands (“The Bandits”).

The plot concerns the adventures of a group of Italian banditti, led by a chief called Falsacappa, (“Fake Cape”, suggesting that he’s only wearing the costume of a bandit and is, in fact, someone not so bold?)

who are scheming to pull off a major heist. Here (along with that of Falsacappa) are some of the original costume designs.

These bandits talk (and sing) as if they were blood-thirsty killers, mostly, but that seems to be all that they do, except indulge in petty crime. Their opponents, the carabiniers (here’s an original design for their uniforms),

the ancestors of the modern carabinieri,

although the costume design makes them look much more like French Napoleonic carabiniers,

a pair of cavalry units, rather than mounted police, are even less impressive. In fact, as they march onstage, they recite this (our crude translation):

“Nous sommes les carabiniers, gauche, gauche
La sécurité des foyers, gauche, gauche
Mais, par un malheureux hasard,
Au secours des particuliers
Nous arrivons toujours trop tard…”

“We are the carabiniers, left, left.

The security of homes, left, left.

But, by an unhappy chance,

In helping private citizens,

We always arrive too late.”

They are also so loud as they tramp along that they always alert criminals that they are coming (and there’s a song about that)—just look at this sheet music cover to give you an idea.

As for a leader, he seems just to blend in with his hapless men.

In 1871, WS Gilbert (1836-1911)

of (eventual) Gilbert and Sullivan (1842-1900) operetta fame,

published a translation of Les Brigands, which became the standard 19^th-century translation. The characters in the Offenbach clearly also influenced Gilbert, who, in 1879, created The Pirates of Penzance.

Led by a Pirate King, who looks the part, but…

the plot concerns some extremely tender-hearted pirates, who, being orphans themselves, always let people—and ships—go if the crews claim to be orphans.

Their opponents, who appear to be Metropolitan policemen (“Bobbies/Peelers”),

are extremely timid and jump at the slightest sound—which is not surprising, as their chief is an elderly major general whose greatest claim is that he knows everything about war—except for war.

Inept or timid policemen seem to be very popular as minions—early film featured The Keystone Cops from 1912-1917.

If earlier figures, like the carabiniers and the Gilbert and Sullivan police were dim or fraidy-cats, the Keystone Cops were an absolute disaster, causing more problems than they ever solved–

which brings us to our last exhibit

and perhaps enough said.

Thanks for reading, as always, and, as always,

MTCIDC

If you would like to see the Keystone Cops in action, here’s a LINK to one of their films, “For Better But Worse” at the Internet Archive.

(There are more there.)

Henchmen and Minions

30 Wednesday Oct 2019

Posted by Ollamh in Films and Music, J.R.R. Tolkien, Narrative Methods, Villains

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A History of Scotland, Albrecht Duerer, Alexandre Dumas, Cardinal Richelieu, Droids, druid, Emperor Palpatine, Flying Monkeys, gangster, Henchmen, Mignon, Neil Oliver, Odysseus, Orcs, Robin Hood, Saint Columba, Saruman, Sauron, Sheriff of Nottingham, Telemachus, The Lord of the Rings, The Three Musketeers, The Wizard of Oz, Tolkien, Winkie Guards

Welcome, dear readers, as ever.

A henchman was originally a hengestman, from hengest “horse/stallion” + man “man”—in other words, a groom, a servant who takes care of horses.

Although the word began with the meaning of “groom”, it has certainly changed over time and now it suggests something like “ thuggish follower”—like these gangster henchmen.

The word minion comes from the Old French word mignon, “a (little) darling”, but its meaning has also changed–even more than henchmen, now indicating a kind of low-level person who simply follows orders, which the peasants in this picture by Albrecht Duerer make us think of.

These words originally came to mind while we were watching the first episode of Neil Oliver’s excellent BBC series A History of Scotland. (Smart writing and wonderful photography.)

In the episode, a scene was reenacted, in which Saint Columba (521-597AD)

faces off against a Pictish druid.

(This is the closest we can come to an image of a druid. As far as we know, there are, in fact, no surviving images of the learned class of the Celtic world, just often very imaginative illustrations with little or no factual basis.)

In Adomnan’s (c.624-704AD) Life of Columba, Book II, Chapter XXXIV, Columba struggles to free a slave being held by the druid, Broichan.

The saint wins, of course, but what struck us about this story—and in this DVD depiction—was that it was a one-on-one contest: neither man called upon backup—something which one might especially expect from the antagonist of the story, as in so many. After all, we thought, just think of villains in all kinds of stories—

The Sheriff of Nottingham has his henchmen ready to try to capture Robin Hood at the famous archery contest.

Or, if you prefer—

The evil Cardinal Richelieu

has his guards

to fight the musketeers

in Alexandre Dumas’ The Three Musketeers.

The Wicked Witch of the West

has two sets of henchmen: the flying monkeys

which have been the terror of many childhoods, in our experience, and the Winkie Guards,

whose drum beat and deep chant always made us a little nervous when we were little (not to mention their skin color and odd noses).

Here’s a LINK, in case you’ve forgotten what they were like.

In a more modern story, the Separatists have so many droids,

as Emperor Palpatine has so many stormtroopers.

And, of course, Saruman

has so many orcs

as, along with all of his human minions, does Sauron.

We can imagine several reasons for such overwhelming force in these stories. For the protagonist/s, the more of the enemy there are, the more impressive their defeat, as when Odysseus faces so many suitors (over a hundred) with only his son, Telemachus, and a couple of servants to help him.

(And Athena, of course!)

For the antagonist/s, there is the sense that they are so powerful that they have only to command and vast numbers of henchmen will do their bidding.

At the same time, we wonder if, underneath all of that force, there is a basic insecurity, a feeling that “my power by itself is really not enough—I can’t do this alone”? After all, it’s not the Sheriff of Nottingham who faces Robin Hood in the 1938 film,

but the secondary character, Guy of Gisborne (played by Basil Rathbone, who was the first great film Sherlock Holmes).

The Wicked Witch of the West relies upon her monkeys and her guards and Saruman and Sauron upon their armies and none ever faces an opponent alone: for that matter, we never even see Sauron except as a shadow at his fall.

And perhaps that underlying insecurity has some roots in reality: the only antagonist who actually confronts the protagonist is a little too sure of himself and of his major henchman and we all know what happens next…

As always, thanks for reading and

MTCIDC, dear readers!

See, the Conquering Hero?

09 Wednesday Oct 2019

Posted by Ollamh in Films and Music, Heroes, J.R.R. Tolkien, Narrative Methods

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Tags

Battle of Culloden, Beethoven, celebrations, Crowning of Aragorn, endings, George Lucas, Haendel, Joshua, Judas Maccabaeus, oratorio, Return of the Jedi, Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, The Field of Cormallen, the Force, The Grey Havens, The Last Jedi, The Lord of the Rings, The Phantom Menace, The Red Book of Westmarch, The Return of the King, The Scouring of the Shire, Tolkien

Welcome, as ever, dear readers.

With Star Wars IX to appear in mid-December, completing the series, we’ve been going back through all of the previous episodes, from I (The Phantom Menace)

through VIII (The Last Jedi).

It’s a remarkable achievement and we’re very grateful to George Lucas,

for bringing it so far, even if his strong sense of the story seems to have been abandoned after VI (Return of the Jedi).

Because there are now so many films (including all of the offshoots, like the animated features, as well as Rogue One and Solo), it’s sometimes hard to remember that, once upon a time, there was only Star Wars (only later A New Hope), with its triumphant conclusion—mass formations of troops, Princess Leia in an actual princess outfit, and medals all around.

The next film—now V (The Empire Strikes Back) had a much less secure ending, with Darth Vader and the Emperor appearing to win and Han Solo a prisoner, on his way to Jaba the Hutt,

but VI (The Return of the Jedi) is once more triumphant, both in its original ending, on the forest moon of Endor,

and in the later revised version, where we see galaxy-wide celebrations.

Among the other films, we’ve seen another celebration, on Naboo, at the end of I (The Phantom Menace),

a secret marriage in II (Attack of the Clones),

and a complex web of plot, including the construction of the Death Star, the separation of the babies—Leia to Alderan, Luke to Tatooine—and the funeral of Padme in III (The Revenge of the Sith).

VII (The Force Awakens) had a mysterious ending: Rey having gone to what appears the far end of the galaxy to find—

while VIII (The Last Jedi) seemed vaguely hopeful, with an unnamed stable boy showing signs of having the Force within him, as Anakin did in I.

With such a build-up, we’ve been wondering how IX (The Rise of Skywalker) will end. As it’s supposedly the final episode, we assume that it will not conclude up in the air, like V, but will it have a mass celebration, like I, IV, and VI?

Or will it, like III, have multiple endings? As we’ve thought about it, you could really see that as the case with The Lord of the Rings.

First, like I, IV, and VI, there are celebrations: of Frodo and Sam at the field of Cormallen, in The Return of the King, Book Six, Chapter 4, “The Field of Cormallen”.

Then, in Chapter 5, “The Steward and the King”, we have the crowning of Aragorn

followed by the wedding of Arwen and Aragorn.

After that, we have the return of the hobbits to the Shire and the defeat and death of Saruman in Chapter 8, “The Scouring of the Shire”. The Shire has been badly damaged by Saruman and his henchmen, however, so that, although they are gone, the healing will take many years.

And the story doesn’t conclude there. Only a little time goes by and then there is another ending: the trip to the Grey Havens and beyond in Chapter 9, “The Grey Havens”.

And then the story finally ends—or does it? We’ve seen in Star Wars VIII, when the stable boy seems to use the Force, though only for a moment,

the implication that perhaps the title, The Last Jedi, is more of a puzzle than it would first appear. The very last line of The Lord of the Rings, spoken by Sam, is “Well, I’m back…” and it’s true, as far as Sam won’t go off on another adventure. Before this, however, Frodo has been busy writing:

“There was a big book with plain red leather covers; its tall pages were now almost filled. At the beginning there were many leaves covered with Bilbo’s thin wavering hand, but most of it was written in Frodo’s firm flowing script. It was divided into chapters but Chapter 80 was unfinished, and after that were some blank leaves…

‘Why, you have nearly finished it, Mr. Frodo!’ Sam exclaimed. ‘Well, you have kept at it, I must say.’

‘I have quite finished, Sam,’ said Frodo. ‘The last pages are for you.’”

But what does this imply? We have no idea what Sam may have added, but the volume Frodo gave him was the origin of The Red Book of Westmarch, the basis not only for The Lord of the Rings, but for The Hobbit, as well. Are we being told that writing about adventure is an adventure in itself, and almost as important?

Thanks, as always, for reading.

MTCIDC, of course!

When we think of music in triumphs, the first piece which pops into our minds (after the Gungan march, of course) was one written by Haendel (1685-1759), “See, the Conquering Hero Comes”.

It was originally intended for his oratorio, Joshua (1747), but it fit his earlier piece, Judas Maccabaeus (1746) so well that he transferred it to the score of that oratorio. Judas Maccabaeus was composed as a tribute to the second son of George II of England, William Augustus, the Duke of Cumberland,

after he had decisively beaten the attempt to overthrow his father and replace him with the son of the former monarch, James II, at the battle of Culloden.

Here’s a LINK to a stirring performance.

In 1796, the young Beethoven (1770-1827)

wrote a series of 12 variations on the theme for cello and fortepiano. It’s a lot of fun to hear what Beethoven can do with Haendel’s tune, so we give you a LINK here.

Helm (2)

04 Wednesday Sep 2019

Posted by Ollamh in Films and Music, J.R.R. Tolkien, Military History, Military History of Middle-earth, The Rohirrim

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Alan Lee, Anglo-Saxon, Bayeux Tapestry, Christian Schwager, Dernhelm, Eowyn, Frank Frazetta, great helm, Great War, helmets, Howard Pyle, John Howe, kettle helm, King Arthur, spangenhelm, Tolkien, vikings, WWI

As ever, dear readers, welcome.

In our last, we focused upon the helmets worn by Tolkien and other European and US soldiers in the Great War, the French

the German,

and the British (US troops eventually settled on the British pattern).

The British helmet, we said, has produced the common comment that it looks like it was inspired by the medieval “kettle helm” (the second image being from the 13^th-century Maciejowski Bible—but these helmets were clearly so practical that they continued to be used well beyond that time).

“inspired by medieval” is the way we commonly see JRRT’s Middle-earth, and it made us wonder about the kinds of helmets we would meet in The Lord of the Rings. Unfortunately, if there were a concordance (that is, a book dedicated to listing all the times various words are used within a text, like this concordance for Homer’s Odyssey)

for Tolkien’s work, we are betting that perhaps the only word we would find there would be “helm”, which is generic, unless one adds “great”, which produces a more specific kind of head protection, looking like these, in use from the late 12^th to the mid-14^th centuries—

With only “helm” to go on, what clues might help us better to visualize what warriors are wearing?

We’ve suggested before that one possible visual resource for JRRT’s images of medieval warfare was the work of the American illustrator, Howard Pyle (1853-1911), in books like The Story of King Arthur and His Knights (1903), which Tolkien could have read as a boy.

And here’s a well-known illustration—with a knight in a great helm, in fact.

But what did Pyle use for models?

In Pyle’s time, the collection and classification of armor was still at its very beginnings (the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York only instituted an Arms and Armor Department in 1912, for example). We can only assume, then, that he thought “knights = medieval” and so any armor might do. (If Arthur were real—there’s been argument about this for many years—he would have lived centuries before the medieval period and so would have had neither knights nor the military equipment of later days anyway. As myth, Arthur can live at any time, of course. We think of Hal Foster’s Prince Valiant, where, at one moment, we’re facing Huns and, at the next moment, Vikings.)

If Pyle were one of JRRT’s sources, then, “helm” can easily stand for any kind of protective headgear made of metal and vaguely medieval. We think that there is more to be said on this, however, and we’ll go into a bit more detail about helmets in The Lord of the Rings in the third part of this little series, but, for now, we want to concentrate on one helmet in particular.

Normally, one thinks of helmets as protection, but, in the novel, we see one also used as a disguise, as Eowyn becomes “Dernhelm” (Old English dirne, “hidden/secret” + helm “head covering/helmet”, so, something like “a helm which hides”?).

What kind of helmet, we asked ourselves, would Eowyn be wearing which would:

keep her identity hidden
blend in with the helmets of other Rohirrim?

We began by looking at modern illustrations of Eowyn but, unfortunately, a cursory survey shows us that almost all modern illustrators appear to have chosen the same scene: the moment when Eowyn has removed her helmet when facing the Witch King.

So far, we’ve found only a few artists who capture the previous moment:

whose name so far has eluded us, but who shows a rear view of something which looks rather like a French Great War helmet.

the second, another anonymous (to us), again shows Eowyn from behind, but with a style of helmet which appears to owe more to fantasy than to any medieval reality—

and perhaps a little something to Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

the third is Christian Schwager, based in New Zealand.

Her armor is full plate, which, in our world, is later medieval. As for the helmet, it somewhat resembles a visored sallet, but only vaguely.

And that plume and its placement strike us as problematic, at best.

the last is the well-known fantasy illustrator, Frank Frazetta, and although we enjoy some of his work, this illustration suggests to us that the artist doesn’t appear to have taken the scene–or Eowyn– seriously—or practically.

As we wrote in a post some time ago, the basis of the Rohirrim is Anglo-Saxon, men who wore long mail shirts and conical spangenhelm,

making them look very much like dismounted versions of their Norman opponents, both being shown in the following panel from the Bayeux Tapestry.

A characteristic feature of the spangenhelm is that nasal—the bar which comes down to protect the wearer’s nose.

Potentially, this and the helmet’s brim might shade the eyes and make the face less visible.

So, with the need for disguise and blending-in being crucial, and only “helm” to go on in the text, we asked ourselves what did the two artists who acted as inspiration for Jackson’s films, Alan Lee and John Howe, choose to do? Here’s a picture of the battlefield confrontation by Lee—

image23lee

Eowyn is, as in the case of other illustrators, here depicted as having removed her helmet, and, even under magnification, it’s difficult to make much out. Howe, however, has given us a very detailed picture.

It’s clear, however, that, in choosing to emphasize the dirne in “Dernhelm”, he’s stepped away from the world of knights entirely and into a slightly older world, that of the Vikings, as his helmet more closely resembles the so-called “spectacle helmets”, of which a few examples survive from Viking burials, like this, reconstructed from a discovery at Gjermundbu, in Norway. (For a very useful view of Viking helmets in general, follow this LINK.)

In turn, Jackson’s designers have followed Lee—

This certainly gives us the “hidden/secret” part of “Dernhelm”, but what about the idea of blending in? Looking at a group shot of Rohirrim, we find a little surprise.

Instead of looking like Anglo-Saxons, as depicted on the Bayeux Tapestry, Jackson’s Rohirrim look more like Vikings—and so Eowyn’s helmet blends right in (in fact, in this picture, you can see at least one other warrior with a spectacled helmet), almost as if her helmet and its secrecy requirement have been the basis for all of the warriors of Rohan.

There are lots of other helmets to pursue, however, which we’ll do in our next, so, with thanks to you, dear readers, for reading this, we’ll say

MTCIDC,

Smugglers, or Pub Crawl 2

24 Wednesday Jul 2019

Posted by Ollamh in Films and Music, Literary History

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Anne, Church of St Peter and St Paul, Clegg, Disney, Doctor Syn, Doctor Syntax, Dymchurch, Fairfield, French Revolution, George Arliss, George I, George II, George III, inn, Kent, King John, Louis XIV, Louis XV, Louis XVI, Napoleon, Navy, Oxford, Patrick McGoohan, pub, Romney Marsh, Russell Thorndike, Ship Inn, Smuggler, St Tomas a Becket, The Scarecrow, William and Mary, William Combe

Welcome, as always, dear readers.

In our last, we were talking about inns and pubs, both in Middle-earth and in 1930s Oxford and we thought we had finished with the subject until there arrived in the mail/post a book from our good friend, Michael, in England.

Pubs anywhere are, we believe, immediately understandable, but why Kent and smugglers?

Since the royal government, under King John at the beginning of the 1200s, had begun to tax exports and imports, the best way around those taxes was either to smuggle or to deal, at some level, with smugglers.

Although such dealings had gone on for centuries, it appears that things intensified by the late 17^th century and France was the reason.

From the late 17^th-century, throughout the 18^th century, and into the early 19^th, England was at war with France, on land and sea. In governmental terms, this meant that this warfare went through the reigns of Louis XIV,

Louis XV,

image3louie15

Louis XVI,

image4louie16

the French Revolution and its multiple governments,

and Napoleon.

In English terms, this meant William and Mary, Anne, and Georges I, II, and III, basically from 1690 to 1815.

During each one of those wars, there were laws in England about the importation of goods from the enemy. That being the case, if those with the money to pay for such things wanted prohibited goods, they would have to rely upon the same smuggling used in peacetime, which they did.

Although the south coast of England in general had its smugglers, a map will show us why Kent would have been a very good place for such smuggling to go on.

As you can see, Dover, here, is only about 25 miles from the coast of France—a very easy trip and one not requiring large merchant ships to do it.

Smaller local boats, called luggers, could do the job and were also handy for offloading goods from larger English or foreign vessels, as well.

The government, seeing not only its laws violated, but revenue lost to the treasury from all the taxes not collected, tried to stop smuggling, using the navy

and occasional army units.

Success was very uncertain, however, as the officers of the law and their assistants were usually vastly outnumbered by the locals, whether smugglers or the many people in the area somehow complicit in smuggling operations. Because pubs were social meeting places, they were obviously useful as headquarters for smugglers.

In 1915, Russell Thorndike (1885-1972),

image12rt

an English actor and writer, published the first of a series of books about the adventures of a leader of one gang of smugglers, “Dr Syn”, in Doctor Syn, A Smuggling Tale of the Romney March.

(If you’d like to read a first edition, here’s a LINK.)

“Dr. Syn” looks like an easy joke on “sin”, but it may also be inspired by a figure from early-19^th-century English comic literature, “Dr. Syntax”, a clergyman whose rhymed adventures, began with The Tour of Dr. Syntax: In Search of the Picturesque, published in 1812 and written by William Combe.

image14drsyntax

The smuggler, “Dr. Syn” is actually a retired pirate, named Clegg, who masquerades as an Anglican priest, which is what “Dr. Syntax” actually is. As well, we might imagine that “Dr. Syn” the smuggler, finds it a sin to pay the import taxes the government charges and has therefore joined the local smugglers.

If Clegg is masquerading as a clergyman by day, by night he takes on another mask: as the leader of the gang which is based in Dymchurch, he becomes “The Scarecrow”. Dymchurch is at the edge of Romney Marsh. Here’s a map of the Marsh to give you an idea of its location and extent.

image15romney

And, to give you an idea of the Marsh itself, here’s an image of a church on the Marsh, St. Thomas a Becket, which was originally in the village of Fairfield. The village has disappeared, but the church remains. (You can see it depicted on the left-hand side of the map of the Marsh.)

Thorndike’s character has appeared several times in films, the first time in 1937, where Dr. Syn was played by a famous character actor of the time, George Arliss.

image17poster

If you would like to see this film, here are two links. The first LINK is to the Internet Archive version.

The second LINK is to that on YouTube.

In 1963, the Walt Disney studio released their own version, Dr. Syn,

starring Patrick McGoohan as “The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh” and we think he’s pretty creepy in his mask.

image19pm

Both movies are worth seeing, the Disney, in color, is full of Marsh and red coated dragoons, but the earlier film has a Dr. Syn who has the original pirate just below the surface—not so much hero, perhaps, as trickster.

But, you may be asking by this point, what about the pub? To which we answer, here it is—the Ship Inn, in Dymchurch, headquarters for “The Scarecrow” and his gang.

And, right across the way, is the Church of St Peter and St Paul, where, in his other disguise, the ex-pirate, Clegg, appeared each Sunday as “Dr. Syn”.

Thanks, as ever, for reading and

MTCIDC

It’s a Long Way…

22 Wednesday May 2019

Posted by Ollamh in Films and Music, J.R.R. Tolkien, Literary History, Military History, Military History of Middle-earth

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American Civil War, Aulos, Crusaders, Great War, Greek, Hoplites, Julius Caesar, Macbeth, Marching song, May 4th, Palestine Song, Rohirrim, Roman songs, songs, Star Wars, Star Wars Day, The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien, Walter von der Vogelweide

Welcome, dear readers, as always.

Perhaps because we’re writing this on May the 4^th, we’ve been in a musical mood—after all, there’s such a catchy tune involved with it—

image1vader

And we wondered if there were words to it? Certainly soldiers have been singing songs seemingly forever. Greek hoplites sang a hymn to Apollo before battle.

(They are accompanied by an aulos player here. “Aulos” is sometimes mistranslated “flute”, but it’s not a kind of recorder. Instead, it’s a member of the oboe family.)

Julius Caesar’s (100-44bc)

soldiers, marching behind his chariot when he celebrated his triumph (formal victory parade) in Rome

sang an unprintable song about his sex life. There’s only a fragment surviving and we’ll print it here—but in Latin—a typical Victorian thing to do.

“Urbani, servate uxores: moechum calvom adducimus.
Aurum in Gallia effutuisti, hic sumpsisti mutuum.”

(Here’s a LINK which we would recommend about reconstructing Roman soldiers’ songs.)

There’s a stirring piece by Walter von der Vogelweide (c.1170-c.1230),

called the “Palestine Song”, supposedly sung by a crusader after reaching the Holy Land. We can imagine later Crusaders singing it as they marched

As in the case of the Caesar fragment, however, we won’t print the text—we aren’t enthusiastic about crusades, especially the medieval ones, believing them to have been the drawn-out attempt at a massive landgrab of places already long-inhabited.

On long, monotonous marches, we imagine soldiers always sang. The American Civil War was fought over hundreds of miles and, with the rare exception when trains could be used,

soldiers walked everywhere.

That being the case, it’s no wonder that so many of their favorite songs had the word “marching” in the title.

(And that last one’s chorus begins, “Tramp, tramp, tramp, the boys are marching…”)

Russian soldiers appear to have had designated regimental singers, who, when called, hurried up to the front of the column and broke into choruses to keep up the men’s spirits on long journeys.

(We apologize that these Russians aren’t singing—but this is, in fact, a film of the last czar, Nicholas II, reviewing his guards just before the Great War, so, at least, they’re marching.)

Which brings us to the Great War and our own officer in it, JRRT.

Certainly, the soldiers in his battalion (13^th, Lancashire Fusiliers)

would have sung—here are two popular favorites—

There were other songs, too, but not cheery at all, and officers were instructed to discourage their singing. The words of one, sung to the tune of “Auld Lang Syne”, expressed the terrible monotonous nature of trench warfare, being only “We’re here because we’re here because we’re here because we’re here”. A second, “Hangin’ On the Old Barbed Wire”, as it was called, had a mocking little tune, like something from a music hall, but described the whereabouts of soldiers who, for various reasons, were out of the firing line—until it came to the last verse:

“If you want the old battalion,

I know where they are, I know where they are, I know where they are

If you want to find the old battalion, I know where they are,

They’re hanging on the old barbed wire,

I’ve seen ’em, I’ve seen ’em, hanging on the old barbed wire.

I’ve seen ’em, I’ve seen ’em, hanging on the old barbed wire.^“

Here’s a LINK, if you’d like to hear an abbreviated version. In this , the group, Chumbawamba, uses an alternative line, “If you want to find the private”, but both versions are grim—and we presume that Tolkien knew all of these songs and many more, some, like the song about Julius Caesar, completely unprintable!

(Our image, by the way, is of a wiring party from the 1^st Battalion, Lancashire Fusiliers. Those curly things, called “screw pickets”, you see resting on the front man’s right shoulder are the stakes which were twisted into the ground and then barbed wire was run through them and wrapped around them. Here’s an early US WW2 picture of a soldier working with the upper loops of one.)

As we’ve often discussed before, things from JRRT’s real life sometimes have a way of seeping into his fiction, and we can certainly see it here.

Although they’ve been silent on the march, on their way to the attack, the Rohirrim, for example, are far from that:

“And then all of the host of Rohan burst into song, and they sang as they slew, for the joy of battle was on them, and the sound of their singing that was fair and terrible came even to the City.” (The Return of the King, Book Five, Chapter 5, “The Ride of the Rohirrim”)

Unfortunately, we have no idea what their songs might have been like—perhaps they would have resembled Theoden’s cry to the Rohirrim:

“Arise, arise, Riders of Theoden!

Fell deeds awake: fire and slaughter!

Spear shall be shaken, shield be splintered,

A sword-day, a red day, ere the sun rises!

Ride now, ride now! Ride to Gondor!”

Oddly, we do have two of what might be called Goblin marching songs,

both from The Hobbit. The first is sung right after the dwarves are captured in a cave in which they’ve taken shelter in the Misty Mountains.

“Clap! Snap! the black crack!
Grip, grab! Pinch, nab!
And down down to Goblin-town
You go, my lad!

Clash, crash! Crush, smash!
Hammer and tongs! Knocker and gongs!
Pound, pound, far underground!
Ho, ho! my lad!

Swish, smack! Whip crack!
Batter and beat! Yammer and bleat!
Work, work! Nor dare to shirk,
While Goblins quaff, and Goblins laugh,
Round and round far underground
Below, my lad!”

(Chapter Four, “Over Hill and Under Hill”)

The second appears two chapters later, when the company is trapped in the pines and the Goblins and Wargs are below:

“Burn, burn tree and fern!
Shrivel and scorch! A fizzling torch
To light the night for our delight
Ya hey!

Bake and toast ’em, fry and roast ’em!
till beards blaze, and eyes glaze;
till hair smells and skins crack,
fat melts, and bones black
in cinders lie
beneath the sky!
So dwarves shall die,
and light the night for our delight,
Ya hey!
Ya-harri-hey!
Ya hoy!”

(Chapter Six, “Out of the Frying-pan Into the Fire”)

We notice that the opening of the second bears a certain resemblance to another song sung in a wild location—by wild people:

“First Witch
Round about the cauldron go;
In the poison’d entrails throw.
Toad, that under cold stone
Days and nights has thirty-one
Swelter’d venom sleeping got,
Boil thou first i’ the charmed pot.

All
Double, double, toil and trouble; (10)
Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.

Second Witch
Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the cauldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt and toe of frog,
Wool of bat and tongue of dog,
Adder’s fork and blind-worm’s sting,
Lizard’s leg and howlet’s wing,
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.”

(Macbeth, Act 4, Scene 1)

In The Lord of the Rings, JRRT blurs Goblins and orcs and, considering that we almost always see orcs as moving in companies, we’ll see them that way, too, marching across Rohan or on the stone roads of Mordor, and we’d like to imagine that they, too, have songs to make the way shorter. But what do they sing about? And, judging by the Goblin’s songs, do we want to know?

Thanks, as always, for reading and

MTCIDC

Another Great War soldiers’ song was more melancholy than sarcastic, although it still suggested marching,

and, when you read the chorus, you’ll see why.

Here’s a LINK of it sung by a famous tenor of that time, John McCormack (1884-1945) and here are soldiers at a happier moment and we hope that Tolkien sometimes saw them this way, too.

Bilbo’s Clarinet

01 Wednesday May 2019

Posted by Ollamh in Films and Music, J.R.R. Tolkien

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anachronism, Antonio Vivaldi, Benny Goodman, clarinet, Disney, Dwarves, Fantasia 2000, George Gershwin, instruments, Johann Cristoph Denner, Juditha Triumphans, medieval musicians, Paul Dukas, Rhapsody in Blue, The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, The Sorcerer's Apprentice, Tolkien

Welcome, as always, dear readers.

Tolkien scholars have long noticed that the 1937 Hobbit has a certain number of anachronisms—as did JRRT himself.

As have we, too, in past postings, including one on popguns

[Gandalf speaking to Bilbo: “It is not like you, Bilbo, to keep friends waiting on the mat, and the open the door like a pop-gun.” “An Unexpected Party”)]

and tomatoes

[Gandalf: “And just bring out the cold chicken and tomatoes!” “An Unexpected Party”]

and steam engines.

[“At may never return 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.” “An Unexpected Party”]

In the 1966 edition, Tolkien changed “tomatoes” to “pickles” and considered changing that engine whistle to “like the whee of a rocket going up into the sky” (see Douglas A. Anderson, The Annotated Hobbit, 47, note 35) but decided against it. And the popgun—remained the popgun.

Recently, we fell upon another:

“Kili and Fili rushed for their bags and brought back little fiddles; Dori, Nori, and Ori brought out flutes from somewhere inside their coats; Bombur produced a drum from the hall; Bifur and Bofur went out too, and came back with clarinets that they had left among the walking-sticks.” (“An Unexpected Party”)

Hmm, we thought. Well, Middle-earth is more or less a medieval world and medieval musicians played stringed instruments and drums and flutes, both transverse (like a modern flute) and recorders, as well as certain other wind instruments, but clarinets?

image8medmus

When we think of clarinets, the first thing which comes into our minds is the famous 20^th-century clarinetist, Benny Goodman (1909-1986)

with his Bflat clarinet,

playing the opening of George Gershwin’s (1898-1937)

Rhapsody in Blue (1924)

image12rhap

in a 1942 recording. (Here’s a LINK so you can hear that recording for yourself.) Even if you don’t read music, you can see (and hear) that it begins with a clarinet doing a long trill, then playing a glissando, meaning a slide, up several octaves. We wonder if Bifur and Bofur could play like that!

(We also recommend a very unusual rendition of the piece. In 2000, Disney Studios released a film called Fantasia 2000,

image13fantasia

which was their modern take on the 1940 Fantasia

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which consisted of a series of piece of classical pieces with Disney animation interpretations. Here’s a famous moment from Paul Dukas’ The Sorcerer’s Apprentice.

image15mick

The 2000 version features a very lively performance of Rhapsody drawn as if it’s taking place during the Great Depression—and even features a cameo appearance by Gershwin himself.

image16gg

Here’s a LINK to the scene so that you can enjoy it for yourself.)

But we were wondering about those clarinets, so we did a little research and found this, the ancestor of the clarinet, the chalumeau.

image17chal

About 1700, it is thought, this man, Johann Christoph Denner, (1655-1707)

image18denner

a famous wind instrument maker, extended the range of the chalumeau and thus made it a more flexible instrument.

image19clar

The (presently) first known use of clarinets in an orchestra is in Antonio Vivaldi’s (1678-1741)

image20vivaldi

1716 oratorio, Juditha Triumphans.

image21juditha

And, with that, we thought: “Hmm. Yep. Another anachronism” and were about to move on when our eye was caught by this about Beorn at the Battle of the Five Armies:

“The roar of his voice was like drums and guns…” (Chapter 18, “The Return Journey”)

Drums—well, of course. Bombur had one. And, in The Lord of the Rings, there’s that mention of “drums, drums in the deep”, but…guns?

Thanks, as ever, for reading and—as you can see—

MTCIDC

Camouflaged

27 Wednesday Mar 2019

Posted by Ollamh in Films and Music, Heroes, J.R.R. Tolkien, Military History, Military History of Middle-earth

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camouflage, Disney, Douglas Fairbanks Sr., Errol Flynn, Faramir, feldgrau, Great War, Ithilien, jaeger, khaki, Men in Tights, Richard Knoetel, Robin Hood, The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien, trenches, uniforms

As ever, dear readers, welcome.

After standing and reciting his “party piece”, and stewing two rabbits, Sam is about to see his first—and only—oliphaunt.

Before he does, however:

“Four tall Men stood there. Two had spears in their hands with broad bright heads. Two had great bows, almost of their own height, and great quivers of long green-feathered arrows. All had swords at their sides, and were clad in green and brown of varied hues, as if the better to walk unseen in the glades of Ithilien. Green gauntlets covered their hands, and their faces were hooded and masked with green, except for their eyes, which were very keen and bright.” (The Two Towers, Book Four, Chapter 4, “Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit”)

The chief of these men soon identifies himself as “Faramir, Captain of Gondor” and the men with him are rangers, a term which first appears in 14^th-century English to mean “game keeper”, which seems appropriate for Faramir and his men, as far as their dress is concerned. One might expect that those who spend their days in the woods would only naturally want to blend in, especially if part of their job is to apprehend poachers—trespassers who illegally hunt game. Faramir’s and his men’s clothing could also be that of poachers, if we match that description—the green and brown part—with some very familiar figures from another famous story—

If you read us regularly, you will probably recognize them, especially if we add one of our favorite illustrations.

If you still don’t recognize them, we’ll add a book cover.

This is the 1917 publication of the retelling of the Robin Hood stories, with illustrations by NC Wyeth and it’s clear that his depictions of Robin and his men—just like his illustrations of pirates—have influenced story-tellers and costume-designers long after that initial 1917 publication. Just look at Douglas Fairbanks Sr.’s 1922 Robin Hood,

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or the 1938 Errol Flynn The Adventures of Robin Hood

or even Disney’s 1973 animated Robin Hood

and even the 1993 parody, Robin Hood: Men in Tights.

Tolkien, we presume, would have known the Wyeth illustrations and perhaps the Errol Flynn, and might have had them in mind when he was describing the basic dress of Robin and his men. Beyond the basic outfit, however, these men are clearly dressed for more than poaching and apprehending—and it isn’t just the weapons, but also the gloves and the face-coverings. These men are soldiers and rangers have been soldiers, or the models for them, since at least the 18^th century, when certain German states, including Prussia and Hesse Kassel, employed forest rangers as light infantry—men trained as sharpshooters and skirmishers, called jaeger (“hunter” in German).

In the 19^th century, increasing numbers of ordinary troops of many western nations were given similar training, but the jaeger continued to be allowed special uniforms, usually green.

This is an illustration by one of the greatest (and one of our favorite) German military/historical artists of the late 19^th-early-20^th centuries, Richard Knoetel, dated 1910.

When the Great War began in 1914, all the soldiers of many of the countries involved were already moving away from the bright-colored uniforms of past years and dressing more like hunters. The British put off their parade uniforms

and dressed in a mud-color, that color being called “khaki” (originally a Persian word meaning “dust”).

The Germans, whose parade dress was blue,

dressed in a color called feldgrau (“field grey”).

Only the French began the war still on parade,

but even they gradually changed into something which blended in better with the terrain.

And blending in was absolutely necessary in a world in which war was being fought not with muskets and cannon, as in Napoleon’s days

but with machine guns which could fire 600 rounds per minute

and guns so big that some had to be transported on railroad trains.

Whenever possible, soldiers dug in, spending their days below ground level, in trenches.

When they had to go above ground level, they wanted to be as inconspicuous as possible. Here’s what 2^nd Lieutenant Tolkien might have looked like in 1916 (notice that, by 1916, British soldiers had put aside caps in the trenches and used helmets which looked positively medieval).

The term for this blending-in was “camouflage”, which entered English from French in 1917 and it was used not only by infantry, but the practice was extended to everything on the battlefield and beyond– to the new tanks

and even to ships, where the goal was to conceal or sometimes simply to confuse the eye.

Some of the most extreme varieties take us back to the rangers of South Ithilien, like this sniper, whose job was to pick off unsuspecting soldiers (officers were a special prize) from complete concealment.

This makes us wonder what Faramir and his men would have done if they had been armed with magazine rifles,

instead of bows as, after all, they are there for an ambush…

As always, thanks for reading and

MTCIDC

Hands Down

19 Wednesday Dec 2018

Posted by Ollamh in Films and Music, J.R.R. Tolkien, Military History of Middle-earth

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1984, Argonath, Barad-Dur, Big Brother, Eye of Sauron, Galadriel, Saruman, Sauron, The Ten Commandments (1956), Theatrical gesture, Uruk-hai, White Hand

As always, dear readers, welcome.

Recently, we quoted the leader of the Uruk-hai, Ugluk:

“We are the fighting Uruk-hai! We slew the great warrior. We took the prisoners. We are the servants of Saruman the Wise, the White Hand: the Hand that gives us man’s-flesh to eat.” (The Two Towers, Book Three, Chapter 3, “The Uruk-hai”)

That White Hand is, of course, Saruman’s

special badge (in our contemporary world, we might say that it was his “logo”), which we see for the first time on the shield of a dead orc:

“There were four goblin-soldiers of greater stature, swart, slant-eyed, with thick legs and large hands. They were armed with short broad-bladed swords, not with the curved scimitars usual with Orcs; and they had bows of yew, in length and shape like the bows of Men. Upon their shields they bore a strange device: a small white hand in the centre of a black field… (The Two Towers, Book Three, Chapter 1, “The Departure of Boromir”)

We can imagine why Sauron has that red eye

for his emblem—fiery to indicate Sauron’s turbulent nature (and perhaps relation to Satan—another fallen angel/Maia), plus unblinking, to show that, like Big Brother,

he’s always watching—a fact rather broadly expressed in the Jackson films, where the eye has been turned into a searchlight—or, at best, a lighthouse beacon. (And yes, this is a Barad-dur desk lamp.)

But why does Saruman use a white hand? And which direction should it face? In the films, it seems to be applied upside down

which, to us seems like the wrong way up—besides being more difficult to apply as face paint. What is the meaning of the symbolic use of that hand?

This put us to thinking about hands in The Lord of the Rings in general. We considered the Ring on and off various hands and even those who lost a finger wearing it, but these all seemed rather passive and, thinking of what Ugluk says, we imagine Saruman’s hand as active. That being the case, the first prominent hand we could think of was that of the Barrow-wight:

“[Frodo] heard behind his head a creaking and scraping sound. Raising himself on one arm he looked, and saw now in the pale light that they were in a kind of passage which behind them turned a corner Round the corner a long arm was groping, walking on its fingers towards Sam, who was lying nearest, and towards the hilt of the sword that lay upon him.” (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book One, Chapter 8, “Fog on the Barrow-downs”)

This is certainly a menacing thing and reminds us of something from the 1956 film, The Ten Commandments, where to indicate the deaths of the first-born of Egypt (from the Book of Exodus, Chapter 11, in the Hebrew Bible), the film makers showed viewers this—

a kind of spindly green hand, which can still creep us out as its function is to grasp things—in this case a sword which will be used to sacrifice the hobbits.

Our next hand—or hands–were those of Galadriel

when she takes Frodo and Sam to her Mirror and tells them about the struggle with Sauron:

“She lifted up her white arms and spread out her hands towards the East in a gesture of rejection and denial.” (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book Two, Chapter 7, “The Mirror of Galadriel”)

Long ago, we did a posting on that gesture, which comes right out of 19^th-century rhetorical and theatrical practice. As this plate illustrates, such gestures were stylized and memorized for their effect on the speaker’s platform, as well as the stage.

We were reminded of our final hands by Galadriel’s gesture: the Argonath,

described as:

“Upon great pedestals founded in the deep waters stood two great kings of stone: still with blurred eyes and crannied brows they frowned upon the North. The left hand of each was raised palm outwards in gesture of warning; in each right hand there was an axe…” (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book Two, Chapter 9, “The Great River”)

So far, we’ve seen hands which grasp, hands which reject, and hands which warn and perhaps we can imagine that all of these might be part of the message of Saruman’s white hand. Saruman, in taking up the role of “Mini-Sauron”, has rejected the West he was sent to protect. In his desire to build his own empire, he has allied himself with Sauron and made war on Rohan, attempting to grasp more and more territory while sacrificing his honor and purpose as one of the Maiar. That he is not now what he seems to have been in the past should also be a warning of what he intends in the present and what, even maimed, he might be capable of in the future, as the Shire will learn when Saruman becomes Sharkey.

Is there more to this image? We wouldn’t be surprised: Sauron is intentionally kept off-stage, we believe to make him that much more menacing, so the real evil we see is, literally, in the hands of Saruman.

Thanks, as ever, for reading.

MTCIDC

Charge!

01 Wednesday Aug 2018

Posted by Ollamh in Artists and Illustrators, Films and Music, J.R.R. Tolkien, Military History, Military History of Middle-earth, The Rohirrim

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16th Lancers, Aliwal, Australian Light Horse, Australians, Balaclava, Beersheba, Cavalry, Charges, Great War, Light Brigade, Palestine, Rohirrim, Scots Greys, The Lighthorsemen, The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien, Turks, Warhorse, Waterloo

As always, dear readers, welcome.

In an addition to an entry in Letters, the main portion of which has rather a murky history (see 217-218), but which the editor dates as “presumably written circa 1966”, Tolkien says that several features of The Lord of the Rings “still move me very powerfully”. These features include being “most stirred by the sound of the horses of the Rohirrim at cockcrow”.

As this is one of our favorite parts of the book,

we would absolutely agree, but, as is so often the case, both with JRRT and with ourselves, we wondered why.

The easiest answer is that it’s a highly-dramatic moment: the main gate of Minas Tirith is giving way under the blows of Grond, the orcs are about to pour in, and it looks like Aragorn and his companions won’t appear in time to save the situation.

We have been following the Rohirrim, of course, from their muster to their march

to their meeting with Ghan-buri-Ghan,

so the build is two-fold: the attack, which is completely focused on breaking in, and the approach of the Rohirrim. Thus, when it looks darkest, the charge is like sunlight breaking through heavy cloud.

This is a beginning, we thought, to why, but could there have been another reason for JRRT?

When Tolkien, growing up, thought of cavalry charges, he probably saw, in his mind’s eye, the glorious mounted attacks of Britain’s past, like the Scots Greys at Waterloo

image6scot

or the 16^th Lancers at Aliwal

or the Light Brigade at Balaclava.

In all of these, soldiers in bright-colored coats waved swords and lancers and dashed fearlessly against the enemy. Even his toy soldiers would have had that same devil-may-care look

as did the real cavalry of his childhood,

but, when 1914 and the Great War came, soldiers put away those bright colors and put on khaki.

But did that wild courage have to be put away, as well? In 1914, there were a few moments when even mud-colored mounted men had a moment of glory.

This wasn’t to last—at least on the Western Front and a major reason was this—

(Here’s a LINK to a clip from the film Warhorse, which shows the effect in rather a symbolic way, thank goodness! We love horses and mourn their terrible losses through all of world history—they never asked to be part of human violence and, so often, their fate was to die because of it. We also think that it’s just as well that the commander of this imaginary attack didn’t survive it—it’s absolutely inept, both in conception and its carrying-out and he would deserve to have been court-martialed.)

So, instead, those men dismounted and became infantry, fighting from hole in the ground to hole in the ground.

This was the world which JRRT

knew: heavy guns, gas, and the rattle of machine guns, no place for wide double ranks of sabre-wavers.

There was at least one bright moment, but not on the Western Front. Instead, it was in far-off Palestine, where, on 31 October, 1917, Australians and their horses swept over a line of Turkish trenches at Beersheba in a charge very reminiscent of the 19^th-century world.

Ironically, these were not cavalry at all, but Australian Light Horse—mounted infantry—who, lacking swords or sabres or lances, attacked using their long bayonets, instead.

(You can see this charge reenacted wonderfully in the 1987 Australian movie, The Lighthorsemen, one of our very favorite films of the Great War.

Here’s a LINK to the charge scene, before you see the whole film—but we recommend that you see that charge in context.)

On the whole, however, modern war had become one big, bloody ditch,

and victory came in mud-color and mass industrial slaughter. Perhaps it was a relief to imagine another world, where brave men in armor, mounted on flying horses, still had a place?

As always, thanks for reading!

MTCIDC

doubtfulsea

~ adventure fantasy

Category Archives: Films and Music

Minions and Henchmen

Henchmen and Minions

See, the Conquering Hero?

Helm (2)

Smugglers, or Pub Crawl 2

It’s a Long Way…

Bilbo’s Clarinet

Camouflaged

Hands Down

Charge!