Charge!

01 Wednesday Aug 2018

Posted by lebedusya1 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

In a Pukel

09 Wednesday May 2018

Posted by lebedusya1 in Artists and Illustrators, Fairy Tales and Myths, J.R.R. Tolkien, Maps, Medieval Russia, Military History, Military History of Middle-earth, The Rohirrim

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balbal, Carnac Stones, Cherna, Denis Gordeev, Druadan Forest, Dunharrow, Easter Island, Eored, Ghan-buri-Ghan, Gondor, menhirs, moai, Pukel-men, Rapa Nui, Rohan, Rohirrim, Stonewain Valley, Ted Nasmith, The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien, Unfinished Tales, Vsadniki, Woses

Welcome, dear readers, as ever.

After their mustering and rapid journey to the aid of Gondor, the Rohirrim

have been stopped:

“Scouts had been sent ahead. Some had not returned. Others hastening back had reported that the road was held in force against them. A host of the enemy was encamped upon it, three [4.8km]] miles west of Amon Din, and some strength of men was already thrusting along the road and was not more than three leagues [about 9 miles/14.5km] away.” (The Return of the King, Book Five, Chapter 5, “The Ride of the Rohirrim”)

And so they are camped temporarily in the murk which has fallen over the West—a sign of Sauron on the move.

As they remain there, Merry gradually hears a sound like distant drums and, when Elfhelm, the Marshal of the eored [Rohirrim unit of horsemen] in which Merry and his mysterious companion, Dernhelm, are riding, stumbles over him, Merry asks if it’s the enemy:

“Are those their drums?”

Elfhelm replies:

“You hear the Woses, the Wild Men of the Woods…They still haunt Druadan Foest, it is said…But they have offered their services to Theoden. Even now one of their headmen is being taken to the king.”

Merry follows Elfhelm and soon sees:

“A large lantern, covered above, was hanging from a bough and cast a pale circle of light below. There sat Theoden and Eomer, and before them on the ground sat a strange squat shape of a man, gnarled as an old stone, and the hairs of his scanty beard straggled on his lumpy chin like dry moss. He was short-legged and fat-armed, thick and stumpy, and clad only with grass about his waist.”

This, we find out, is Ghan-buri-Ghan, leader of the Wild Men, who, as Elfhelm has said, has come to offer his and his people’s aid to Theoden.

(We note, by the way, that this Hildebrandt illustration has taken certain liberties with the scene as described in the book: it appears to be daylight—no lantern—if Eomer is there, he isn’t seated, and there is more than one Wild Man–oh, and the Wild Man’s beard has suddenly sprouted.)

What Ghan-buri-Ghan offers Theoden is a long-forgotten road which would provide a way around the soldiers of Sauron who are blocking the direct route to Minas Tirith: the path through the Stonewain Valley.

What caught our attention here was the connection Merry made between Ghan-buri-Ghan and something he’d encountered only recently:

“Merry felt that he had seen him before somewhere, and suddenly he remembered the Pukel-men of Dunharrow. Here was one of those old images brought to life, or maybe a creature descended in true line through endless years from the models used by the forgotten craftsmen long ago.”

Dunharrow

was a mysterious place—

“…the work of long-forgotten men. Their name was lost and no song or legend remembered it. For what purpose they had made this place, as a town or secret temple or a tomb of kings, none in Rohan could say. Here they labored in the Dark Years, before ever a ship came to the western shores, or Gondor of the Dunedain was built; and now they had vanished, and only the old Pukel-men were left, still sitting at the turnings of the road.

Merry stared at the lines of marching stones: they were worn and black; some were leaning, some were fallen, some cracked or broken; they looked like rows of old and hungry teeth.” (The Return of the King, Book Five, Chapter 3, “The Muster of Rohan”)

For a moment, this description reminded us of something one sees in Brittany, on the west coast of France, the so-called “Carnac Stones”, a vast field of Neolithic upright stones, now called menhirs (Breton for “long stone”) in long lines in and around the village of Carnac.

And, just as the use or meaning of Dunharrow is lost, so is that of the elaborate construction of the Carnac Stones.

Once the Carnac Stones—and others like them, both in France and in Great Britain—came into our heads, we were whirled away to Rapa Nui (Easter Island) and all of those puzzling outsized heads on less-developed torsos, the moai.

It was not the size or placement of those figures like “rows of old and hungry teeth” however, which made us think further about Ghan-buri-Ghan and his stony cousins, but how the figures were carved:

“At each turn of the road there were great standing stones that had been carved in the likeness of men, huge and clumsy-limbed, squatting cross-legged with their stumpy arms folded on fat bellies. Some in the wearing of the years had lost all features save the dark holes of their eyes that still stared sadly at the passers-by. The Riders hardly glanced at them. The Pukel-men they called them, and heeded them little…”

As the Rohirrim are translated as speaking among themselves a sort of Tolkien-adapted Old English, so “pukel” appears to be derived from “pucel” = “goblin/demon”, which suggests perhaps a quasi-religious or magical use, but, if they once represented spirits, they are now spiritless, with no ability to frighten. Rather, as the narrator tells us:

“…no power or terror was left in them; but Merry gazed at them with wonder and a feeling almost of pity, as they loomed up mournfully in the dusk.”

The narrator’s elaboration then reminded us of something else: balbal.

These are carved stone figures with a history probably as long as that of the Pukel-men. They appear to be the product of Turkic peoples in Central Asia—with even older relatives, perhaps, to the west, as well. Some may have been tomb guardians or monuments themselves—as with the Pukel-men, their origins and use/s are lost to us. We ourselves have stolen them for use in our series of novels based in an imaginary medieval fairy tale Russia, called Cherna, “The Black Land”—but please don’t think “Mordor?” In our case, the reason it’s named that is that it is steppe country with extremely fertile black soil. So rich, especially as pasture-land, that it’s worth invading and fighting over, which is what the villains of our trilogy, the Vsadniki, modeled on the Mongols, do.

Unlike Pukel-men and menhirs and moai, however, there is no mystery about what the Vsadniki are up to with their stones: every time they conquer a new land, they set such stones up at their new far-western border to say not only “what’s behind these is ours”, but also “and we’re looking at your lands next”.

Thanks, as always, for reading.

MTCIDC

In the Tolkien volume Unfinished Tales, we find further connections between the Wild Men/Woses and carvings. We use a paperback edition and this has somewhat different pagination from the hardbound, but, should you be interested, you can find it in either form in Part Four, I The Druedain.

pps

Here is a drawing of Ghan-buri-Ghan by Denis Gordeev, who has done a good deal of work illustrating a wide selection of JRRT’s fiction, rather as Ted Nasmith has, along with many other classics as well as modern fantasy fiction.

Gordeev has clearly been trained/trained himself in drawing as people did in that golden age of children’s writing and illustration, the 1880s to 1920s, and, once you get used to his very distinctive style, you may come to like it as we do. Here’s Gandalf arriving in Hobbiton, fireworks and all, just to give you a taste.

Weaving (Not Hugo)

31 Wednesday Jan 2018

Posted by lebedusya1 in Artists and Illustrators, Fairy Tales and Myths, J.R.R. Tolkien, Literary History, Military History, The Rohirrim

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Anglo-Saxon, Battle of Hastings, Bayeux Cathedral, Bayeux Tapestry, Bishop of Bayeux, Edward the Confessor, Harold Godwinson, Lambert Leonard-Leforestier, Louvre, Musee Napoleon, Napoleon, Normans, Odo, Odo Earl of Kent, Old English Hexateuch, Rohan, Rohirrim, The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien, Tower of Babel, William Duke of Normandy, William the Conqueror

Welcome, dear readers, as ever.

In our last, we quoted JRRT on the subject of the Rohirrim:

“The styles of the Bayeux Tapestry (made in England) fit them well enough, if one remembers that the kind of tennis-nets [the] soldiers seem to have on are only a clumsy conventional sign for chain-mail of small rings.” (Letters, 281)

We’ve mentioned the so-called Bayeux Tapestry before and even shown an illustration or two, but we thought that it would be fun to delve a little deeper into the subject—beginning with its name and why Tolkien added “(made in England)” to his sentence.

The first known reference to this approximately 230-foot-long (70.1 meters) by 20 inch high (.5m) piece of fabric dates from the latter part of the 15^th century AD, from an inventory at Our Lady of Bayeux Cathedral—commonly known in English as Bayeux Cathedral—in 1476. There has been much scholarly argument over its site of manufacture, but the evidence appears to us to identify the commissioner of the work as Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, and half-brother to William, Duke of Normandy (where Bayeux is situated), aka, “William the Conqueror”. Odo is depicted and identified three times on the piece, twice in more peaceful settings—once blessing a meal,

once sitting with William and his half-brother, Robert,

and once in a decidedly not peaceful setting, encouraging the troops at the Battle of Hastings, wearing a mail shirt and helmet and brandishing a club. (The Latin inscription—called a titulus—says “Here Bishop Odo, holding a club, puts strength into the lads”.)

As well, several of the figures on the piece have been identified as vassals (feudal allies) of Odo. Finally, Odo was not only the Bishop of Bayeux, but also instrumental in rebuilding the cathedral in which the artefact was first known to have been housed, Bayeux Cathedral (elements of which are buried inside this later Gothic version).

It seems natural to us, then, that he, at one time William’s right-hand man, would have been responsible for the creation of the work. (We might also add that the Norman victory made Odo Earl of Kent—one more reason for commissioning a work which shows that victory in detail.)

We said that there was argument as to where the work was made, but we, ourselves, would agree with JRRT and the idea that it was made in England for, among other reasons, the depiction of people and scenery on it remind us strongly of the Anglo-Saxon artistic tradition—especially embodied in the mid-11^th-century manuscript of the “Old English Hexateuch”, with its 394 colored illustrations, which is to be found in the British Library (Cotton MS Claudius B. iv.).

This is a depiction of the construction of the Tower of Babel. Below is a picture of Normans building ships for their invasion of England from the Bayeux work.

The Bayeux work is much sparer, but there’s that same interest in illustrating motion.

But, when we say that the Bayeux work is sparer, that is not to say that it lacks detail, as there are (at least) four visual levels throughout. If we take just one scene at random

and go from top to bottom we see:

a narrow band of single figures—in this case, animals
a broader band of action—in this case it’s Normans loading their equipment—and other things—for the attack on England (The titulus says: “These are carrying arms to the ships and here they are dragging a cart with wine and arms.”)
the captions—tituli—for every scene
a lower narrow band—again, here, animals, but there are other possibilities, as in this scene, where we see scavengers removing the arms and armor of the dead after the Battle of Hastings

The images in the “Old English Hexateuch” illustrate individual Bible stories. Those in the Bayeux work are scenes, all parts of a long historical narrative, which begins in 1064 (it is thought) with Edward the Confessor, the King of England,

sending the powerful nobleman, Harold Godwinson, on what appears (from subsequent panels) to be a mission to France.

The last scenes, at the far end, include the death of Harold on the battlefield of Hastings

and the flight of the English from the field, with Normans in hot pursuit in October, 1066.

Throughout our discussion, we have avoided calling this work by its traditional name because, in fact, the “Bayeux Tapestry” is not a tapestry. A tapestry is a solid piece of fabric, woven on a loom.

The Bayeux Tapestry is really the Bayeux Embroidery, in which various designs are stitched onto a cloth.

In this close-up, you can see how it’s done, with outlines giving the figures shape, as if they were drawn with a needle, then filled in. (For more on this, and on the work in general, try this LINK.)

For its size and detail and historical importance, there’s no embroidery like it from early medieval England, and perhaps from Europe, but there was one moment when it almost disappeared for good. During that period of the French Revolution when the Church (1% of the population which owned 10% of the land), was being nationalized (and plundered),

it was destined to be used for military wagon covers.

It was only saved at the last minute and shipped off to the Musee Napoleon (formerly—and subsequently—the Louvre).

Eventually, it was returned to Bayeux where, today, it can be seen in a museum there, cleverly displayed in a way which allows the entire length to be viewed.

Without a member of Bayeux’ city council, Lambert Leonard-Leforestier, and his quick thinking, however, the last anyone might have seen of it would have been more like this—

destroyed on wagons lost in Napoleon’s disastrous retreat from Russia.

Thanks, as ever, for reading.

MTCIDC

There is one more detail from the Bayeux Embroidery we’d like to mention. If you’re a fan of Game of Thrones, you might remember a passing comet. In fact, a passing comet—Halley’s Comet—appears on the Embroidery and, for people of the time, portended something big to come…

For more on Halley’s comet, here’s a LINK.

In Shining Armo(u)r

17 Wednesday Jan 2018

Posted by lebedusya1 in Artists and Illustrators, Heroes, J.R.R. Tolkien, Literary History, Military History, Military History of Middle-earth, Narrative Methods, The Rohirrim, Tolkien

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Agincourt, Anglo-Saxon, armor, Bayeux Tapestry, chain-mail, Crecy, Dark Ages, Embroidery, Howard Pyle, knights of Dol Amroth, Medieval books, medieval manuscript drawings, N.C. Wyeth, Norman knight, Pauline Baynes, Romans, sub-Roman period, Sutton Hoo, The Lord of the Rings, The Rohirrim, The Story of King Arthur and His Knights, Tolkien

Welcome, as always, dear readers.

In a letter to Miss [Rhona] Beare, of 14 October, 1958, JRRT wrote to answer what was clearly a question about dress in The Lord of the Rings:

“Question 4. I do not know the detail of clothing. I visualize with great clarity and detail scenery and ‘natural’ objects, but not artefacts. Pauline Baynes drew her inspiration for F. Giles largely from medieval MS drawings—except for the knights (who are a bit ‘King-Arthurish’)* the style seems to fit well enough.” (Letters, 280)

To which he adds this footnote:

“*Sc. [= “Know/understand”] belong to our ‘mythological’ Middle-Ages which blends unhistorically styles and details ranging over 500 years, and most of which did not of course exist in the Dark Ages of c. 500 A.D.”

In the next paragraph he adds:

“The Rohirrim were not ‘mediaeval’, in our sense. The styles of the Bayeux Tapestry (made in England) fit them well enough, if one remembers that the kind of tennis-nets [the] soldiers seem to have on are only a clumsy conventional sign for chain-mail of small rings.” (Letters, 280-281)

The Bayeux Tapestry (which should really be called the “Bayeux Embroidery”, since it’s actually a long piece of cloth with hundreds of figures and details stitched on to it, rather than woven into it) presents us with a detailed history of the invasion of England in 1066AD. The soldiers Tolkien is talking about look like this:

You can see what he means by “tennis-nets”—which should really look like this:

That chain-mail, then, looks like this:

And, at the bottom of this next illustration, you can see how it’s made:

We know, then, how JRRT envisaged the Rohirrim in its eoreds, marching towards Minas Tirith, but how did he imagine other soldiers, we’ve asked ourselves, and, in particular, the knights of Dol Amroth—the only soldiers specifically described as such in The Lord of the Rings?

JRRT writes of them as they enter Minas Tirith:

“And last and proudest, Imrahil, Prince of Dol Amroth, kinsman of the Lord, with gilded banners bearing his token of the Ship and the Silver Swan, and a company of knights in full harness riding grey horses…”(The Return of the King, Book Five, Chapter 1, “Minas Tirith”)

“Full harness” means “complete armor”. When we think of the term, we think of something later than the Normans, who are, after all, just wearing a kind of very long ringed shirt. Here’s a useful chart to give you of an idea of what we mean.

So, since “full harness” doesn’t look like the Rohirrim, how might it look?

In Jackson’s films, we don’t believe that we ever see those knights singled out, as we see the Rohirrim. The best we could find was this picture of Faramir’s men about to mount a cavalry charge against what appears to be Osgiliath. (We’ve talked about this in a much earlier posting—one of the most unbelievable moments in the whole of Jackson’s work.)

This is a big picture, but the details, unfortunately, aren’t very clear. There are a few things, however, which we found rather odd:

although there appear to be a few lances with penons among them, most seem to be armed only with swords—a close-up weapon—which is why actual knights also carried lances—heavy cavalry came crashing down on infantry or slamming into enemy mounted men—or intended to—spearing right and left and then drawing swords (or using maces or battle axes)
a minor detail, but everyone seems to be wearing his sword on the right-hand side, which would have made it very hard to draw, unless all were left-handed men!
the helmets and armor seem very standardized, and we would believe that budgetary considerations probably influenced this uniformity—50 identical helmets were probably cheaper to make than 50 different ones—but such sameness reminds us more of Roman imperial troops than of any western medieval army we can think of.

We assume, then, that this is the film’s view of soldiers at least like Imrahil’s men, but when Tolkien wrote “a company of knights in full harness”: what might he have had in mind? We think there is a clue in that adjective “King-Arthurish”, which he uses of Pauline Bayne’s illustrations and in his footnote, where he refers to “our ‘mythological Middle-Ages”. What does he mean?

JRRT would have been about ten when Howard Pyle published his The Story of King Arthur and His Knights in 1903.

Here is how Pyle saw Arthur’s knights.

image9aknight image10asknights

Could this have inspired Tolkien’s view of Imrahil’s men? (Judge for yourself by following this LINK.)

Tolkien would have been nearly 30 when The Boy’s King Arthur, illustrated by N.C. Wyeth, was published in 1922,

but, if this were in among his children’s books, perhaps these illustrations might have given him ideas. (And here’s a LINK to your own copy, from the Internet Archive.)

These are two well-known sets of illustrations of Arthurian figures, both available in Tolkien’s early lifetime. If Arthur was real, of course, he would have lived, as JRRT was well aware, in what is called the “sub-Roman period”, c.500AD—at the beginning of the so-called “Dark Ages”– and he and his men would actually have looked like this:

But this is where “our ‘mythological’ Middle-Ages” comes in—little would have been known, when JRRT was writing The Lord of the Rings, of what such warriors would have looked like, although the spectacular Sutton Hoo find of 1939, with its splendid helmet, would have given an inkling, once restored.

Because such knowledge was lacking, however, the historical Arthur (if there was one) had been moved to the Middle-Ages and re-equipped as a military figure of a much later era, and we believe that, when Tolkien wrote “Arthurish” and “knights”, this is what he meant—and how we’ve always seen Arthur, not only from books (and lots of films) but also from the armor galleries in a number of museums, from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York

to the Higgins Armory in Massachusetts

to the Philadelphia Museum of Fine Arts

to the Tower of London.

And, as we’ve discussed before, Prince Valiant, has been an influence from childhood (talk about ‘mythological’ Middle-Ages!).

And so, in turn, we imagine—and we think that JRRT did, too–the “company of knights in full harness” to have been individuals, brightly clothed in heraldic colors, their armor that, perhaps, of Crecy, in 1346—

or Agincourt, in 1415.

And you, dear readers, what do you think?

Thanks, as ever, for reading!

MTCIDC

Accuracy? Well, Yes, But…

07 Wednesday Jun 2017

Posted by lebedusya1 in Artists and Illustrators, Heroes, J.R.R. Tolkien, Literary History, Military History, Narrative Methods, The Rohirrim

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American Civil War, American Revolution, Concord, Don Troiani, Germantown, grenadiers, H. Charles McBarron, Harper's Monthly, Howard Pyle, Illustration, John Trumbull, Joseph Warren, King Arthur, Lexington, Pirates, Richard Simkin, The Battle of Bunker Hill, The Battle of Nashville, The Lord of the Rings, The Rohirrim, The Salem Wolf, Tolkien

Welcome, dear readers, as always.

Today’s post takes us to the question of what we like and why and how such likes may push us—who, we realize, are a little stiff on the subject of accuracy—to accept things which, if our feelings weren’t engaged, we would briskly reject.

We begin by looking at a painting by one of our favorite late Victorian/Edwardian illustrators, Howard Pyle (1853-1911).

If you’re a regular reader (and we hope you are—or will be!), you’ll have seen his work on our pages any number of times, from his King Arthur illustrations (and here’s a LINK to a free 1922 reprint at the Internet Archive)

to his pirates (and here’s a LINK to a later—c.1921—collection of Pyle’s pictures and writings on pirates at Internet Archive).

Pyle also wrote and illustrated original fiction—just look at this haunting picture from a short story, “The Salem Wolf”, which was published in the December, 1909, issue of Harper’s Monthly Magazine.

(And here’s a LINK to the story at Internet Archive)

Pyle also painted stand-alone historical pictures, such as this of “The Battle of Nashville” (1907).

MN 60

And we’re lucky to have a photograph of the artist at work on this very picture.

image6hppainting

Besides American Civil War pictures, Pyle painted several based upon incidents of the American Revolution, such as this, of the assault on the Chew House, at the Battle of Germantown (4 October, 1777).

image7pylegermantown

Another of his pictures of the Revolution is the subject of this post, “The Battle of Bunker Hill” (1897).

image8pylebunkerhill

We’re not sure when one of us first saw this picture—childhood, we’d guess—but we were immediately bowled over by it. It’s the adventure of it: those long ranks of redcoats stoically marching up the hill, drums beating behind. It’s not a sanitized picture—just look up the hill and all around you can see the wreck of the earlier British attacks—but its emphasis is upon the courage it must take to do what those soldiers did.

This was, in fact, the third battle of the American Revolution. The war had begun in mid-April, 1775, when a raiding party of British troops, ordered to disrupt local preparations for defense, fought two skirmishes with local militia, at Lexington

and Concord,

two rural settlements some twenty miles or so west of Boston.

When the British withdrew into Boston itself, those locals, who had grown in numbers to about 15,000, drawn from all over New England, blockaded the town and there was a period of stalemate, while both sides were reinforced. When it was clear that the locals had seized a nearby hill and were planning to plant artillery there which would then be capable of bombarding Boston, the British were forced to move. Their choice was to attack that hill, which was named “Breed’s Hill” but, through an historical mix-up, the battle was named for the hill to its rear, “Bunker Hill”.

Initially, the British plan was to have part of its force make a feint—a fake attack—against the main part of the hill, where the locals had built an open-backed fortification, called a redoubt, while the real attack was to push through the weaker local left and curve around to hit the locals from the rear.

By underestimating the defense, the British soon suffered over a thousand casualties to the local 450. As the assaults were driven back, the British plan changed and the main attack was to be uphill, straight at the redoubt and this is what is depicted in Pyle’s painting, specifically the advance of the 52^nd Foot (“Foot” is 18^th-century shorthand for “regiment of infantry”).

This is not the first well-known painting of the battle, however. In the first third of the 19^th century, John Trumbull (1756-1843), a prominent American artist, painted several versions of a work entitled, “The Death of General Warren at the Battle of Bunker’s Hill, June 17, 1775”.

This picture belongs to what we might call both the “heroic school” and the “portrait school”, the former because of a certain flashy quality (look at the way the wind seems to be whipping everything—and where are those flames on the right coming from?), the latter because, not only is the local officer, Joseph Warren depicted, but so are a number of other figures—two of the British generals, two British majors, and a number of more minor participants.

Bunker Hill remained—and remains—a popular subject for historical painters, most of them depicting events from the local side. Here is one version, by the distinguished 20^th-century American military artist, H. Charles McBarron (1902-1992).

And here are two by one of our favorite contemporary American Civil War artists, Don Troiani (1949-).

All pictures are not from the viewpoint of the colonists, however. The late-Victorian/Edwardian British military artist, Richard Simkin (1850-1926), gave us this view.

Of all of these images, the Trumbull has drawn upon his memory and upon his sketchbooks, too, we bet, to give a general impression of the look of the soldiers, but, although he was part of the colonial force besieging Boston, he only saw the battle through a telescope. McBarron was a collector of uniforms and equipment, as is Troiani, and their works are painstakingly accurate. Simkin, although he, too, was a collector, came from an earlier time, just at the beginning of serious research on weapons and uniforms of the past, and, therefore, certain elements in his picture—the plumes and cords on his men’s bearskins and those packs (left behind in Boston, in reality), for instance—are not correct. Even so, his picture is far more accurate than Pyle’s, which is full of mistakes, in everything from the uniforms and equipment to those grenadiers (those guys in the fuzzy hats in the center), who shouldn’t be there at all, having been detached to form part of the right wing assault force.

And yet the Pyle is still our favorite depiction of the battle. Why? Because it feels right: it’s a 19^th-century image of courage and discipline, and appeals to our romantic souls, even though there are casualties strewn about, which, to us, only serves to emphasize the bravery and stick-to-it-iveness of those solid infantry.

And this is where JRRT comes in. We’ve said before: our favorite part of P. Jackson’s films is anything to do with the Rohirrim.

The fact that, in the books, they live in wide, grassy plains (unavailable in New Zealand) and that their capital, Edoras, does not have “a dike and mighty wall and thorny fence” in the films, along with any other details it would be easy to extract from The Lord of the Rings, doesn’t matter to us in the least. The depiction in the films feels right and we’re content with that, even when there are other parts of the films where we have other reactions. Simple (and perhaps surprising to us) as that.

So, dear readers, do you have similar reactions? And to what? We’d love to hear!

And thanks, as always, for reading.

MTCIDC

“My subject is War, and the pity of War.”

13 Wednesday Apr 2016

Posted by lebedusya1 in Artists and Illustrators, Heroes, J.R.R. Tolkien, Military History, Military History of Middle-earth, The Rohirrim

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Adventure, Alexander Gardner, Alfred Waud, Alonzo Chappel, American Civil War, Antietam, Battle of the Somme, Charge of the Rohirrim, Confederate, early photography, Felice Beato, First Virginia Cavalry, Fort Geroge, Matthew Brady, Mexican-American War, Minas Tirith, Pelennor, Peter Jackson, Rohirrim, Second Opium War, The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien

Welcome, dear readers, as always.

In this posting, we want to talk a little about a subject so often left out of heroic stories: the aftermath of battle.

In Chapter 10 of The Return of the King, what we might call the GEF—the Gondorian Expeditionary Force—sets off from Minas Tirith for the Morannon. It begins with this little army mustered on the Pelennor and we see events through the eyes of one left behind, Merry:

“At last the trumpets rang and the army began to move. Troop by troop, and company by company, they wheeled and went off eastward. And long after they had passed away out of sight down the great road to the Causeway, Merry stood there. The last glint of the morning sun on spear and helm twinkled and was lost, and still he remained with bowed head and heavy heart, feeling friendless and alone.”

Considering what these folk had endured in the previous days, and what they dreaded might happen in those to come, it’s hardly surprising that it’s not described as a joyous event. What is not described, however, is the landscape in which they gather and which they initially march through.

The Minas Tirith to which Gandalf rides with Pippin

has been attacked by a massive army.

In an attempt to lift the siege, the Rohirrim have charged across the Pelennor,

only to encounter the fierce Southrons and their mumakil.

These are defeated, in turn, by Aragorn, his companions, and troops from South Gondor, as well as the surviving Rohirrim and a party from Gondor itself.

When the carnage is over and the invaders killed or driven off, the story, while touching on the burial of Snowmane, quickly moves back to the city. In real life, such destruction would have left behind a ghastly memorial, something only touched upon in the film of The Return of the King. As you can see in this still, all which seems to remain is the wreckage of the war machines.

In fact, there would have been thousands of bodies, not only of men and orcs, but of horses and mumakil as well.

Such an aftermath has not been a popular subject for art, except in scenes where fallen heroes are lamented when found among the slain. (Think here of Boromir, surrounded by dead orcs, for example.)

That sense of war was changed, in our world, by the introduction of the camera to the battlefield, first, briefly, by Felice Beato, during the Second Opium War (1860)

but in the US by Alexander Gardner, in the fall of 1862.

Previous images of war had tended towards the glorious, full of bravery and flags, as in this engraving made from Alonzo Chappel’s painting of the taking of the Canadian Fort George in 1813—

Even if the depiction tended to be more realistic, it came heavily filtered. During the American Civil War, several northern newspapers and magazines sent artists into the field, who drew what they saw or at least heard about from those who had seen events. One of the best was the Englishman, Alfred Waud.

He drew from life, as in the picture of the First Virginia Cavalry, with whom he spent a brief time in late September, 1862. Here’s his original drawing, which he would have sent to his publisher, in New York.

In New York, the drawing would have been turned into a woodblock print for ease of conversion to a magazine page.

1st-virginia-cavalry-halted-based-on-sketch-by-waud-harpers-sept-27-1862.jpg

And, thus, the reading public would have lost immediacy practically at the first step.

Photographs had been made in the US since the 1840s, and even some during the Mexican-American War of 1846-8, but they had been static pictures of soldiers off the battlefield.

In September, 1862, however, Gardner had been sent by his boss, Matthew Brady

from the studio in Washington, DC, to the field of the recent battle of Antietam, which had been fought only two days before. Gardner came with his photographic wagon

brady'swhatsit.jpg

and ranged the battlefield. The battle was over, but the dead were still in place, where they had fallen, and soon he had a collection of images. Because there was already a tradition of photographing the dead (and, no, we’re not going to continue this practice here—just do google.images “photos of dead victorians” or the like and you can see this for yourself), it was probably not quite so horrifying as one might imagine, but those who saw the exhibit in Brady’s New York gallery

brady'snygallery.jpg

might have agreed with the New York Times review of 20 October, 1862, that “Mr. Brady has done something to bring home to us the terrible reality and earnestness of war.”

Gardner didn’t take the pictures he did out of a morbid interest, but because the cameras of the day were large and cumbersome

and the process necessary to make a picture took too long to capture motion (just look what happens when there is motion).

Grand Review of Army May 1865 02796u.jpg

Thus, what one might see in a painting, even if it had attempted to depict reality, as in this Keith Rocco painting of a moment in the battle of Antietam when Confederates were fighting behind a fence on the Hagerstown Road,

was impossible to capture. What Gardner could capture was the aftermath. And so he did.

For us, who are modern Rohirrim, as far as horses are concerned, it’s just as well that he confined himself to humans. After Gettysburg, several other photographers included them—only a few photos, but representing anywhere from 3 to 5000 horses and mules who died during the three days of battle. (And, no, again, we won’t show you those—google.images will, but we’re not sure what’s harder to look at.)

Lieutenant Tolkien

would have seen such horrors every day during the battle of the Somme

and perhaps that’s why he moves so quickly from the battlefield to the city and healing. Perhaps it’s also why the view we are given of the GEF is through the eyes of a wounded survivor and, at this moment in the story, one full of foreboding at the thought of another battle. And it may be that Peter Jackson felt the same way.

What do you think, dear readers?

Thanks, as always, for reading.

MTCIDC

Our title is taken from the work one of our favorite Great War poets, Wilfred Owen (1893-1918), who, having survived the entire war, was killed just before the armistice which halted the fighting.

Where From the Rohirrim?

10 Wednesday Jun 2015

Posted by lebedusya1 in Heroes, J.R.R. Tolkien, Military History, Military History of Middle-earth, Narrative Methods, The Rohirrim

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Amazons, Anglo-Saxon, Bayeux Tapestry, Burial mounds, Cavalry, Charge of the Light Brigade, descendants, Edoras, Eotheod, Horse people, Indo-European, Kurgan, language, Middle-earth, Normans, Rohan, Rohirric, Rohirrim, Scythians, The Lord of the Rings, The Mark, Tolkien, Tom Shippey

Dear Readers, welcome!

In this post, we want to think out loud a bit about the Rohirrim.

Everyone knows where their language is from, as Tolkien says in a letter to “one Mr. Rang”:

“…’Anglo-Saxon’…is the sole field in which to look for the origins and meaning of words and names belonging to the speech of the Mark.” LT 381

And yet they are horse people (their own name for themselves, in fact, is Eotheod, “horse people”), which the Angles and Saxons who went to make up the Anglo-Saxons, were not. Tolkien was well aware of this difference, saying in Appendix F of The Lord of the Rings:

“…this linguistic procedure does not imply that the Rohirrim closely resembled the ancient English otherwise, in culture or art, in weapons or modes of warfare, except in a general way due to their circumstances…” L1136

Tom Shippey, in The Road to Middle Earth, suggests that

“The Rohirrim are nothing if not cavalry. By contrast the Anglo-Saxons’ reluctance to have anything militarily to do with horses is notorious…How then can Anglo-Saxons and Rohirrim ever, culturally, be equated? A part of the answer is that the Rohirrim are not to be equated with the Anglo-Saxons of history, but with those of poetry, or legend.” (112)

Or, could there have been other models?

Tolkien may have been suggesting one when, in a letter to Rhona Beare of 14 October, 1958:

“The Rohirrim were not ‘mediaeval’ in our sense. The styles of the Bayeux Taptestry (made in England) fit them well enough, if one remembers that the kind of tennis-nets [the] soldiers seem to have on are only a clumsy conventional sign for chain-mail of small rings.” Ltr 280-281.

The Bayeux Tapestry depicts both Normans and their allies, on the one hand, and the Anglo-Saxons, on the other, but Tolkien doesn’t appear to distinguish between them. The Normans themselves are mounted, the Anglo-Saxons on foot, as was their custom (they did use horses to move rapidly from place to place, as in the race north to Stamford Bridge and then back south to face the Normans).

Here, to the left, we see those mounted Normans and, to the right, the Anglo-Saxons behind their shield wall. The “tennis-nets” are clearly visible and would actually have looked like this:

In this further illustration, by the way, it’s easy to see the consequences of having the shield wall crumble: men on horseback can have a significant advantage when their opponents lose cohesion.

This, however, is only their look . What about those horses and an entire culture based around them?

For a clue, we look to another element in the culture of the Rohirrim, the use of burial mounds. Here they are at Edoras.

(We can’t resist, by the way, saying that our absolute favorite part of the Jackson movies is anything to do with the Rohirrim—to us, absolutely inspired and we see the depiction of the charge of the Rohirrim against the army besieging Minas Tirith as being right up there with the Charge of the Light Brigade at Balaclava in 1854 and the charge of the Australian Light Horse at Beersheba in 1917–

One might say, in reply, that there are Anglo-Saxon mounds—like the famous Sutton Hoo ship burial.

But that leaves us where we started, in the land of foot soldiers.

So, let’s go farther afield, to the north of the Black Sea.

Here, we see the so-called “Kurgan Culture”, with its burial mounds

[This, by the way, is not to be confused with The Kurgan from the first Highlander movie

The Kurgan]

These were a people who:

are believed by many linguists (and some archeologists) to be the direct ancestors of the Indo-Europeans who gradually invaded Asia Minor and western Europe (including, eventually, the Anglo-Saxons) as well as moving east, to India and beyond
buried their dead (at least what appear to be the high status ones) in mounds
were a horse culture

And, in fact, were seemingly the forerunners of the Scythians, a later well-known Indo-European horse people

And the Scythians, in turn, may have been the model for those mythical horse folk, the Amazons.

In the 19^th century, when the idea of Indo-Europeans began to circulate, there was a preference for a northern European origin (a theory no longer held), but the idea of an eastern home was also circulating and we would suggest that Tolkien would have known about this, as well as, from his early classical training, Scythians and Amazons, their actual and mythical descendants.

Imagine, then, that what we see in the Rohirrim is, in fact, an interesting mixture of people sprung from an earlier people (as Tolkien tells us, the Rohirrim were descended from the Edain of the First Age—see LOTR, Appendix F 1129), both in our world and in Middle Earth, who based their culture upon horses, and bury their dead in mounds, combined with people who may also bury their dead in mounds, who speak a version of Anglo-Saxon and who dress like the Normans and Anglo-Saxons of the 11^thcentury AD.

What do you think, dear readers?

Thanks for reading, as always.

MTCIDC

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Category Archives: The Rohirrim

Charge!

In a Pukel

Weaving (Not Hugo)

In Shining Armo(u)r

Accuracy? Well, Yes, But…

“My subject is War, and the pity of War.”

Where From the Rohirrim?