Welcome, dear readers, as always.

When I was a child, I loved nursery rhymes, but sometimes the words puzzled me.

“Ride a cock horse

To Banbury Cross…”

What was a “cock horse”?

As a grownup, I can gather a great deal of information to try to explain, but it’s complex, including a possible first appearance of the rhyme in Tommy Thumb’s Pretty Song Book, 1744, although this is from a reconstruction from later texts of Volume 1, as what survives is only Volume 2.

Banbury is a town northwest of London.

A cock horse?  I checked the earliest mono-lingual English dictionary, Robert Cawdrey’s Table Alphabeticall, 1604, and found nothing (if you would like to see this early work, look here:   https://extra.shu.ac.uk/emls/iemls/work/etexts/caw1604w_removed.htm )

(As you can see, this was clearly a popular book, this being the 3^rd edition, of 1613.)

Consulting dictionaries near-contemporary to Tommy Thumb, we find:

1. Nathan Bailey’s ( ?-1742) Dictionarium Britannicum, 1730-36, defines “cock-horse” as “a high horse” ;

(You can consult Bailey here:  https://archive.org/details/b30449698/page/n185/mode/2up )

2. Dr. Samuel Johnson’s  (1709-1784)  A Dictionary of the English Language, 1755,

defines “cockhorse” (which he indicates is to be accented on the first syllable) as “on horseback; triumphant; exulting” (you can see this definition here:  https://johnsonsdictionaryonline.com/views/search.php?term=cock  This site contains the several early editions of the dictionary, including both in modern type and as they appear in those editions—if you enjoy such things, this is simply lots of fun to browse.)

If you do a quick WIKI search, you discover:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ride_a_cock_horse_to_Banbury_Cross , which presents several other possibilities, including, “a high-spirited horse, and the additional horse to assist pulling a cart or carriage up a hill. It can also mean an entire or uncastrated horse”.  None of these struck me as quite the appropriate definition, but this one:  “From the mid-sixteenth century it also meant a pretend hobby horse or an adult’s knee.^” seemed more like it.  I know this as a “dandling song”, a game played with babies and small children.  There are a good number of them, usually with rhythmic but sometimes nonsensical lyrics, like

“To market, to market,

To buy a fat pig.

Home again, home again,

Jiggety, jig.

To market, to market,

To buy a fat hog.

Home again, home again,

Jiggety jog.”

And you can see what happens:  bouncing a small person on your knee to the rhythm.  Unfortunately, the WIKI only cites Iona and Peter Opie’s 1951 The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes for this definition, and, for the moment, I can’t trace that meaning back any farther, as I don’t have a copy of the Opies’ book readily available.

But this leads me to another mysterious nursery rhyme:

“Bat, bat,

Come under my hat

And I’ll give you a slice of bacon.

And when I bake,

I’ll give you a cake,

If I am not mistaken.”

Although I have an ecologist friend, whose main work is on bats and loves, them, I’m afraid that I don’t share this affection.  And here’s why—

(If you, dear reader, like my friend, are fond of flittermice, I apologize.  Too much Dracula in childhood, I suspect!)

But, as a child, I wondered:  why would you want a bat under your hat?  And do bats actually eat bacon?  And cake?

The Baring-Goulds, in The Annotated Mother Goose, 1962, seem to think that this is a part of a children’s game, their only note being “Here the child who was hunting bats would clap hands.”  Children hunting bats? 

My hunting an early source for this nursery rhyme would seem to need more than hand-clapping.  After a little survey of early collections, here’s what I found so far.

It’s not in the 1744 Tom Thumb’s Pretty Song Book,

or in

Mother Goose’s Melody, 1781  https://ia804703.us.archive.org/3/items/mothergoosesmelo00pridiala/mothergoosesmelo00pridiala.pdf  (This is a 1904 reprint of the 1791 edition)

or in

Gammer Gurton’s Garland, 1784,    https://archive.org/details/gammergurtonsgar00ritsiala/page/62/mode/2up  (This is an 1866 reprint of the 1810 edition.)

but it does appear in the first edition of James Orchard Halliwell, The Nursery Rhymes of England, 1842, https://ia800301.us.archive.org/27/items/nurseryrhymesofe00hall/nurseryrhymesofe00hall.pdf (This is the 5th edition, of 1886.  He also identifies it as a children’s game, and the Baring-Goulds are actually simply quoting him.)

(In case you’d like to serenade the bat, this has, in a version sung once upon a time in south Florida, a little tune.  The recording, from 1940, is a little hard to make out, but it sounds like a close cousin of “Yankee Doodle”:  https://www.loc.gov/item/flwpa000062/?loclr=blogflt  )

This flurry of research began in a completely different place, however, with a possible anachronism in The Hobbit, which I’m currently teaching.  JRRT himself was aware that there were a number of these in the 1937 edition of the text, and, in the 1966 edition, changed or considered changing a number of them, so that what was once “cold chicken and tomatoes” in 1937, then became “cold chicken and pickles”, for example.  Some things remained, however, such as Bilbo’s scream, “like the whistle of an engine coming out of a tunnel”, and Douglas Anderson, in his invaluable The Annotated Hobbit, suggests that:

“This usage need not be viewed as an anachronism, for Tolkien as narrator was telling this story to his children in the early 1930s, and they lived in a world where railway trains were a very important feature of life.”  (The Annotated Hobbit, Chapter One, “An Unexpected Party”, 47-48, note 35)

It’s clear that Tolkien himself must have had rather mixed feelings about this, however, allowing tobacco (although called “pipe-weed” in The Lord of the Rings) and potatoes (“taters” in The Lord of the Rings) to remain, but removing those tomatoes.  He also considered replacing that engine with “like the whee of a rocket going up into the sky”, but, ultimately retained the railway image.  (see Chapter One, “An Unexpected Party”, note 35)

What caught my attention was a simile in Chapter 8, where Bilbo and the dwarves, marching into Mirkwood, were assailed by night creatures, moths “nearly as big as your hand, flapping and whirring round their ears”—

“They could not stand that, nor the huge bats, black as a top-hat, either…”  (The Hobbit, Chapter Eight, “Flies and Spiders”)

Was this Tolkien the 1930s narrator?  Or was this allowed to stand, like potatoes and tobacco and the train, because he felt that it somehow fit the story?  Or was this simply something he missed?  I suppose that we’ll never know, as this is something that JRRT, unlike a bat, kept under his hat.

As ever, thanks for reading.

Stay well,

Ponder what recipe one might need for a bat cake,

And know that, as always, there’s

MTCIDC

O

PS

There is a very interesting article on Dr. Johnson, early English dictionaries, and his dictionary at:  https://johnsonsdictionaryonline.com/blog/about-johnsons-dictionary/

PPS

For more on hobby horses, see:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobby_horse_(toy)

As ever, dear readers, welcome.

The English language has many challenges for those learning it—pronunciation vs spelling is a big one, but another is caused by a linguistic feature called ablaut.  You see it in some nouns, where a change in spelling can cause a change in meaning, as in foot/feet and woman/women, where even the pronunciation changes.  It also occurs in verbs and, sometimes, it can seem pretty spectacular, as in some old verbs, like smite/smote/smitten and slay/slew/slain.

This brings me to creep.  Is it creep/creeped/creeped?  No—it’s creep/crept/crept.  But then there’s the expression which forms the title of this posting.

If you go browsing the various etymological sites, like Etymonline (https://www.etymonline.com/word/creep) or the now defunct (isn’t that a great word?  from Latin defungor, “to finish/have done with something”, used euphemistically of the dead) The Word Detective (http://word-detective.com/2011/09/the-creeps/ ), you find that the basic idea is that, if you’re spooked (another great word, seemingly in English from Dutch spook, “ghost”—and there’s the Swedish spoeke, “scarecrow”, which can really spook you out—for how this is said in Swedish, see:   https://en.glosbe.com/en/sv/scarecrow )

it’s as if you can feel something crawling across your skin.  (A medical term for this is formication, from Latin formica, “ant” and a very vivid term it is, too!)

It’s Halloween time again (not “Holloween”, although I hear that all the time—see the posting “Holloween”, 5 February, 2020, for more) and, although things can spook us during the year, this season, when according to ancient Western belief, the doors between the worlds lie open and the dead may return, is particularly rich in weirdiosity (from Old English wyrd, meaning, among other things, “fate” plus Latin –osus, “full of” plus Latin –itas, which creates an abstract noun).  In other words, more creeps us out.

For me, it’s usually not the obvious—

although, given a darkened movie theatre or living room late at night, I wouldn’t say that I felt completely safe in the parking lot afterwards or going to the kitchen for a snack—but it’s more the implied which makes me look over my shoulder in dim places.

For an example, take M.R. James’ (1862-1936) 

(Dr. Montague Rhodes James was actually a prominent member of the English academic community, hence the gown.)

short story, “Oh, Whistle and I’ll Come to You, My Lad” from his 1904 collection, Ghost Stories of an Antiquary.

The title comes from a lyric by Robert Burns to a slightly older tune, the lyric beginning with the chorus:

 “O, whistle, and I’ll come to you, my lad;
  O, whistle, and I’ll come to you, my lad;
  Tho’ father, and mother, and a’ should gae mad,
  O, whistle, and I’ll come to you, my lad.”

(You can read the rest here:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oh,_whistle_and_I%27ll_come_to_you,_my_lad and hear a lovely performance by the Canadian mezzo, Patricia Hammond, here:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=542RhM5K9mI )

This seems like the opening of something rather gentle, but that title is typical of a James story, just as he describes:

“Two ingredients most valuable in the concocting of a ghost story are, to me, the atmosphere and the nicely managed crescendo. … Let us, then, be introduced to the actors in a placid way; let us see them going about their ordinary business, undisturbed by forebodings, pleased with their surroundings; and into this calm environment let the ominous thing put out its head, unobtrusively at first, and then more insistently, until it holds the stage.” (originally in V.H. Collins, Ghosts and Marvels, 1924, quoted in the M.R. James Wiki article:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M._R._James )

This story begins at dinner in a Cambridge University college.  Professor Parkins announces that he’s going to the seaside to work and to play golf at a local course.  (It’s called “Burnstow” in the story, but is actually Felixstowe—

which does have a golf course, the Felixstowe Ferry Golf Club being the fifth oldest in England.)

Another (unnamed) faculty member casually asks him to check the site of the “Templars’ preceptory” there to see if it’s worth excavating the following summer.

The Templars were a medieval military order much involved with the Holy Land and the Crusades,

and built nearly a thousand foundations and fortresses in their two centuries of existence.  Here’s an actual preceptory (a kind of administrative center) at Balantrodoch, in Scotland, south of Edinburgh.

The order ran into trouble in the early 14^th century and was disbanded by Pope Clement V in 1312, but not before state violence against some of its members, including some burned at the stake.

Because of this trouble, the “Templars” (they take that name from their capitol in Jerusalem, which they claimed was perched on  top of Solomon’s temple—for more about them, see this very detailed WIKI article:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knights_Templar ) gained a certain dark reputation and we might imagine that the anonymous scholar’s request to Parkins already suggests something different for him on his vacation than he had planned.

Off he goes, however, to academic work and golf, but (literally) stumbles on the remains of the preceptory and discovers a little bronze whistle at the site

with two inscriptions on it in Latin.  He appears unable to translate the first, but the second says:  “Quis est iste qui venit”—“Who is that one who comes (or “has come”, depending upon the sound of the e in venit).”  As he turns to go back to his hotel, he notices a odd figure behind him, “in the shape of a rather indistinct personage in the distance, who seemed to be making great efforts to catch up with him, but made little, if any, progress.”  This makes Parkins vaguely uneasy, but he proceeds to the hotel and dinner. 

In fact, he should have paid more attention to the first inscription, which reads, almost in the form of a puzzle:

                              fla

                        fur      bis

                             fle

“Thief—you will blow, you will weep”.

I don’t want to spoil the story for you, but, needless to say, Parkins cleans and blows the whistle and things begin to happen, things particularly unexpected by a man who has declared that he doesn’t believe in the supernatural.  I’ll add the two original illustrations from the 1904 publication to give you a hint—

And I’ll add one caution:  don’t expect obvious violence (although others of James’ stories have such an element)—what happens is, to my mind, not shocking, but eerie, a word which comes to us probably through Scots and has this, among other definitions, in The Scottish National Dictionary:  “an undefined sense of fear; dread” (see:  https://dsl.ac.uk/entry/snd/eerie ).  This undefined dread makes this one of my favorite stories of this sort (though I don’t read it too often, remembering the first time I did, and the two days of such dread I felt afterwards).   Read it here:   https://archive.org/details/ghoststoriesana00jamegoog  and see if you agree with what James wrote in his preface:

“The stories themselves do not make any very exalted claim.  If any of them succeed in causing their readers to feel pleasantly uncomfortable when walking along a solitary road at nightfall, or sitting over a dying fire in the small hours, my purpose in writing them will have been attained.”

Will you, too, be creeped out?

Stay well,

Remember that fiends of any sort can’t cross running water,

(this is from a series of wood carvings of Robert Burns’ “Tam O’Shanter”, c.1860 from a great website:  https://monsterbrains.blogspot.com/2015/10/thomas-hall-tweedy-tam-oshanter-wood.html  )

And remember, as well, that there’s always

MTCIDC

O

PS

Does it also suggest something vaguely sinister that James’ preface is dated “Allhallows’ Eve”?

As ever, dear readers, welcome.

In my last, in contrast to the previous two postings (on happy returns, or at least the expectation of them), I began discussing returns which were not quite as expected.

In that posting, I began with Agamemnon, who came home victorious from the Trojan War only to be murdered by his wife, Clytemnestra, and her BF and Agamemnon’s cousin, Aegisthus.

(In one version of the story, as seen here, killed when stepping out of his bath)

This is a fate which haunts the text I went on to next, the Odyssey, which I have just finished teaching.  Over and over, Agamemnon’s betrayal and death are mentioned, each time seeming to point to what could be Odysseus’ fate, if his wife, Penelope,

pestered by over a hundred suitors, should prove as faithless as Clytemnestra.  In the end, of course, she is faithful, those suitors meet a bloody end, and Odysseus and Penelope are happily reunited.

(Alan Lee—as good at Homer as he is at Tolkien!)

I had said, in that last posting, that I would move on in the next to what I’ll be teaching in the near future, The Hobbit, but, before that, I wanted to pause at another JRRT work, the title of which immediately suggests why:  “The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm’s Son”, first published in 1953 in Volume 6 of Essays and Studies by Members of the English Association (New Series)—

which you can check out from the Internet Archive here:  https://archive.org/details/essaysstudies1950000geof

This was republished in 1966 in The Tolkien Reader

and, in the 1975 edition of Tree and Leaf,

as well as in the 2023 The Battle of Maldon.

That title immediately links Tolkien’s work with an actual historical event, as well as an Old English poem about it.

In 991AD, a Viking raiding force, which had been moving along the English coast, had paused on Northey Island, poised to attack the local town of Maldon.

Our main source for what happened next comes from that (fragmentary) Old English poem, “The Battle of Maldon”, a translation by Tolkien being included in that recent volume, along with “The Homecoming…”.

The Vikings were opposed by the local Anglo-Saxon leader, or ealdorman, Byrhtnoth (Beerht-nawth, approximately, where the “h” is like the “ch” in Bach—Tolkien uses an alternative spelling,).  There was a landbridge between the island and the mainland at low tide

and, if we can believe the poem, the Vikings, initially repelled by the Anglo-Saxons under Byrhtnoth, then suggested that they be allowed to cross that landbridge to fight it out with their opponents on the mainland.  Byrhtnoth accepts this proposal (there is a lot of scholarly discussion on why, including byTolkien, in an afterpiece called “Ofermod”), the Vikings cross, and, although the poem doesn’t tell us this, it appears , from other sources, that the ensuing battle ends with Byrhtnoth dead and his men driven from the battlefield, although the Vikings suffered heavily for their victory.

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

Tolkien’s “The Homecoming…” is a short verse play (the text suggests even a radio play) which is a dialogue between two characters,  Tidwald (Tida) and  Torhthelm (Tota), Anglo-Saxon servants of Byrhtnoth, who have come to the battlefield to collect his body.  The verse is mostly of a loose alliterative kind, approximating Old English verse and, upon occasion, even using real Old English verse, as well as a number of mentions of its subjects.  The themes of the play include a traditional one—searching a battlefield for a lost loved one—as well as a potential criticism of the ealdorman for agreeing to the Viking proposal and its consequences:

“Tidwald:  …Alas, my friend, our lord was at fault…

                     Too proud!  Too princely!”

(You can read about the poem “tThe Battle of Maldon”  here:   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Battle_of_Maldon  and read a translation here:  https://oldenglishpoetry.camden.rutgers.edu/battle-of-maldon/    For the Old English, see:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ToAu_tyafp4    For a modern historical view of the battle see:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6Nqp-I1BIY    For a Lego reenactment, which uses the poem itself as the narrative, see:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cbpc3nsJ3ec  )

Byrhtnoth’s return was not a happy one, his body recovered, but headless, was taken to the religious establishment at Ely for burial—and reburial and reburial, as Ely became a major cathedral.

Here’s his latest tomb—

Bilbo’s anticipated return also had its darker moment.

From the beginning of the story, Bilbo had been pulled between the traits of his paternal and maternal inheritance.  His father’s side (the Bagginses)—well, I’ll let JRRT tell you:

“The Bagginses had lived in the neighbourhood of The Hill for time out of mind, and people considered them very respectable, not only because most of them were rich, but also because they never had any adventures or did anything unexpected:  you could tell what a Baggins would say on any question without the bother of asking him.”

His mother’s side (the Tooks) were of a very different order indeed:

“It was said (in other families) that long ago one of the Took ancestors must have taken a fairy wife.  That was, of course, absurd, but certainly there was still something not entirely hobbitlike about them, and once in a while members of the Took-clan would go and have adventures.  They discreetly disappeared, and the family hushed it up; but the fact remained that the Tooks were not as respectable as the Bagginses, though they were undoubtedly richer.”  (The Hobbit, Chapter 1, “An Unexpected Party”)

Throughout the novel, we see these two sides struggle for dominance, although, by the latter part of the book, t he Took side is clearly in control.  After the Battle of the Five Armies, the death of Thorin, and return of the dwarves to the Lonely Mountain, however, he begins his journey home at last as

“The Tookish part was getting very tired, and the Baggins was daily getting stronger.” (The Hobbit, Chapter 18, “The Return Journey”)

But when Bilbo and Gandalf

”…came right back to Bilbo’s own door…There was a great commotion, and people of all sorts, respectable and unrespectable, were thick round the door, and many were going in and out—not even wiping their feet on the mat, as Bilbo noticed with annoyance.

If he was surprised, they were more surprised still.  He had arrived back in the middle of an auction!  There was a large notice in black and red hung on the gate, stating that on June the Twenty-second Messrs Grubb, Grubb, and Burrowes would sell by auction the effects of the late Bilbo Baggins Esquire, of Bag-End, Underhill, Hobbiton.” 

Bilbo is put to some trouble in reestablishing himself in the Shire:

“It was quite a long time before Mr. Baggins was in fact admitted to be alive again…and in the end to save time Bilbo had to buy back quite a lot of his own furniture.”

This is, on the one hand, mildly comic—after so many death-defying adventures—trolls, goblins, wargs, Smaug—Bilbo has to prove to people who had known and seen him all his life that he was really himself and still alive?  On the other hand, why might people be so ready to believe him dead after a single year?  (The number of years differs significantly around the world—in Italy, it appears that 20 years must pass.  See this for more:   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_death   )

Students always ask me about this.  It’s an excellent question and the best answer I can offer at the moment is that Bilbo, on his return, has become a kind of Castor and Pollux.

In a complex ancient myth, these are twin brothers who share one immortality and one death, each alternating between the two, and perhaps we can see Bilbo, both Baggins and Took, as someone similar.  As a Took, he was dead to his Baggins side, but, as a Baggins, it was the Took who died.  In his return to the Shire, that transition might be signified by the question of his mortal status and also by the fact that, although

“…he was quite content; and the sound of the kettle on his hearth was ever after more musical than it had been even in the quiet days before the Unexpected Party…”

yet

“He took to writing poetry and visiting the elves…”

As Gandalf said, “My dear Bilbo!…Something is the matter with you!  You are not the hobbit that you were.”

I want to conclude, however, with one more return and, from our viewpoint, one of the happiest, although, on a personal  level , it began with misery.  JRRT had been on the Western Front in time for the Battle of the Somme, in which one of his friends was killed on the first day, 1 July, 1916 (among nearly 60,000 other British casualties on that day alone), when Second Lieutenant J.R.R. Tolkien

became a casualty, on 27 October, 1916.  It was not from a German bullet or shell, however, but from the bite of this–Pediculus humanus humanus—in plain terms, a louse–

This led to an intermittent fever, with all sorts of pains and complications for which a common name was “trench fever”  (for more, see:    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trench_fever )   and, effectively, it removed him from France and active participation in the Great War till its end, so that, although Tolkien was promoted to temporary Lt. 6 Jan 1918—see London Gazette (under 21 March, 1918 here:    https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/30588/supplement/3561  ), he spent the rest of the war in England, happily resigning his commission  in 1920 as this entry from the Gazette for 2 November, 1920 tells us:

“The undermentioned temp. Lts. relinquish their commissions on completion of service, 3 Nov. 1920, and retain the rank of Lt.: — J. R. .R. Tolkien…”

(for the complete entry, see:    Page 10711 | Supplement 32110, 2 November 1920 | London Gazette | The Gazette )

And I would imagine that, even after his brief experience on the Western Front, Tolkien would agree with his Tidwald from “The Homecoming…”:

“Bitter taste has iron, and the bite of swords

Is cruel and cold, when you come to it.”

and be glad to be done with it and home.

Thanks, as ever, for reading.

Stay well,

May your returns always be happy ones,

And remember that, as always, there’s

MTCIDC

O

And, next week, HALLOWEEN!

As always, dear readers, welcome.

My last two postings have discussed the idea of the mythic/folkloric figure sometimes referred to as “the king under the mountain”, who, the story goes, instead of dying, seems either to take himself off or is carried off to another place, where he stays, usually sleeping, until some need awakens him (often his native land is in danger) and he will return to the world of the living to save the day.

In my latest teaching, however, which includes both the Odyssey and The Hobbit, people definitely return, but the day does not quite go as planned.

Although Odysseus is the main character of the Odyssey, a figure who haunts the text is Agamemnon, the Greek high king, who organizes the expedition to Troy.  While he is gone, his wife, Clytemnestra, is seduced by Agamemnon’s cousin, Aegisthus, and, upon Agamemnon’s return, he and his men are lulled into a false sense of security by Aegisthus at a banquet and then murdered.

(This is a depiction—on the right—of an alternate version of Agamemnon’s death, just after leaving a bath—and, on the left, the death of Aegisthus some years later by Agamemnon’s son, Orestes.  It’s on a red figure krater, a wine-mixing bowl, at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.  You can learn more about it here:  https://collections.mfa.org/objects/153661 )

Why should this man, now long dead and far from Odysseus’ home on Ithaka, be such a dominant figure in the story? 

Odysseus was reluctant to go off to the Trojan War.  To escape, he pretended to be mad, plowing the beach of his home island, Ithaka, as if it were real arable land—and doing so with the combination of a mule and an ox–

The Greeks might have believed in his insanity if another Greek, Palamedes, hadn’t intervened, snatching up Odysseus new-born son, Telemachus, and putting him directly in Odysseus’ path.  Odysseus swerved, of course, but this suggested that he wasn’t so mad as he looked and soon he was off on a boat for Asia Minor.  (In several later stories, Odysseus gets his revenge by planting evidence that Palamedes was actually in the pay of the Trojans and he dies in several unpleasant ways:  stoning and drowning.  As the ancient Greek travel writer, Pausanias, c.110-c.180AD, tells us that Palamedes had invented dice, we might think that he would have been a bit more careful about chance!  This is in Pausanias’ tour of Argos—The Description of Greece 2.20.3—which you can read in an English translation here:   https://www.theoi.com/Text/Pausanias2B.html )

10 years go by, Troy falls, thanks to a trick which might have been invented by Odysseus himself,

but, for the Odyssey, that’s only backstory.  Now Odysseus will spend another 9 years struggling to get home, slowed on his way by

1. eaters of a substance which makes people forget about going home,

2. a large hominid with one eye and a taste for human flesh,

3. a group of giants who eat most of Odysseus’ fleet,

4. a sorceress who amuses herself with animal transformations,

5. not to mention a trip to the Land of the Dead,

6. Sirens,

7. clashing rocks

(James Gurney—and what a beauty!  Here’s his website for more:  https://jamesgurney.com/ )

8. a thing with six barking heads across from a whirlpool,

(Stephen Somers—about as frightful as they come—here’s his website:  https://stephen_somers.artstation.com/store/art_posters/Mokp/scylla-and-charybdis   He’s the art director for Fantasy Flight Games, which might interest you, if you don’t know their work:   https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/index/ )

9. as well as a minor goddess, who keeps Odysseus as a prisoner on her island for 7 years.

Meanwhile, for the past 4 years, Odysseus’ home on Ithaka has been invaded by over 100 young local men who are in hot pursuit of Odysseus’ wife, Penelope.

(by John William Waterhouse, 1849-1917)

They are convinced—or at least pretend—that Odysseus is long dead and that Penelope, a widow, should marry one of them—which brings us back to the ghost of Agamemnon, which, as I said, haunts the Odyssey.  Agamemnon left his wife to go off to Troy and, coming home, found himself betrayed and murdered.  And, in the Troy tradition, he’s not the only one:   another major Greek, often paired at Troy with Odysseus, is Diomedes—we  see him here as he appears in Book 10 of the Iliad, when he and Odysseus make off with the horses of the Thracian prince, Rhesus, having killed the horses’ owner in the process.

Within the tradition of the Nostoi—that is the “homecomings” of the Greeks from Troy—there exists a version of the homecoming of Diomedes, which almost mirrors that of Agamemnon and might foreshadow that of Odysseus.  While he was away at Troy, his wife, Aegialia, takes one of several possible lovers—or several at once—and, when he returns, Diomedes barely escapes with his life.

And so, through Agamemnon’s fate, the theme is set:  what will happen to you when you come home after so many years away?  Is your wife still faithful?   Or will you suffer as Agamemnon did and Diomedes might have?

In fact, Penelope has been faithful these 19 years, even, when the suitors arrived nearly 4 years before, putting them off by explaining that, until she had finished weaving a shroud (burial garment) for her father-in-law, Laertes, (still quite alive) she can’t even think about remarrying.  So she says.  During the day, she weaves, but, during the night, she unweaves,

(This is the fragment of a needlework by Dora Wheeler Keith, 1856-1940, showing Penelope doing her un-doing.  It’s in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City and you can read about it here:   https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/16951  Dora and her mother, Candace, were remarkable craftspeople and you can read about them here:   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candace_Wheeler  and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dora_Wheeler_Keith  There’s also the American impressionist William Merritt Chase’s beautiful portrait of Dora at the Dora Wheeler Keith wiki site)

continuing (literally) to string the suitors along for several years before one of her maids tells the suitors what’s really going on and they force her to finish.  Thus, when Odysseus returns, although Agamemnon’s ghost makes a final reappearance near the very end of the story (Book 24) to discuss his own death, Odysseus is at least safe from his wife.  The suitors, however, are another matter, but, with the inadvertent aid of Penelope, he—with his son, Telemachus, two loyal slaves, and Athena—defeats and kills all 100+.  It’s a fairly complicated process, including what looks a bit like the archery contest in the Robin Hood story

(this is by NC Wyeth, 1882-1945—you can find my favorite edition of the Robin Hood story—illustrated by Wyeth here:   https://archive.org/details/robinhood00cresrich  )

or the Pixar movie Brave (2012),

but the story (nearly) concludes with a heap of dead suitors

(by Fyodor Petrovich Tolstoy, 1783-1873)

and the happy reunion of Penelope and Odysseus (which Athena thoughtfully prolongs by extending the night).

(by Alan Lee, who clearly does Homer just as well as he does JRRT)

But what about JRRT and his returns, happy or otherwise?

That’s for the second part of this posting.

Thanks, as ever, for reading.

Stay well,

Listen to ghosts—they may have good advice,

And remember, as well, that there’s

MTCIDC

O

Welcome, dear readers, as always.

In the previous posting, I began to discuss a common folktale motif, called “The Kyffhaeuser  motif” or “the king under the mountain”, “the king asleep in the mountain” and several more titles as well.   The basic idea is that a culture hero, rather than die, either naturally, or after battle, say, disappears to a distant place and remains there, usually asleep, until awakened by the need of his people or country, when he will reappear as a savior.  (For more on this, see:   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_asleep_in_mountain )

Western heroes include everyone from Charlemagne to the Irish hero Finn Mac Cool to King Arthur, who, although seemingly mortally wounded, was carried off to the Isle of Avalon to be restored, with the possible suggestion that he will return, like the others in the pattern, if needed.

We know that Tolkien came to have rather mixed feelings about Arthurian material.  Humphrey Carpenter says that, as a child, “The Arthurian legends also excited him”, Carpenter, Tolkien,24), but Tolkien himself later wrote:  “Of course there was and is all the Arthurian world, but powerful as it is, it is imperfectly naturalized, associated with the soil of Britain, but not with English…for one thing its ‘faerie’ is too lavish, and fantastical, incoherent and repetitive.”  (letter to Milton Waldman, “probably written late in 1951”, Letters, 144).  Even saying so, he embarked, in the 1930s, on his own Arthurian poem “The Fall of Arthur”, eventually abandoned.  Christopher Tolkien published the manuscript with commentary in 1985 (you can read about it here:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fall_of_Arthur ).

This is one Tolkien work which I have yet to read, but, judging from summaries, it appears that it breaks off before Arthur’s end.  That JRRT was aware of the folkloric tradition of Arthur can be seen, however, in a letter  to Naomi Mitchison, in which he discusses the ultimate fate of mortals like Frodo and Sam, who are allowed to travel to Valinor, he mentions that other possibility for Arthur:

“…this is strictly only a temporary reward:  a healing and redress of suffering.  They cannot abide for ever, and though they cannot return to mortal earth, they can and will ‘die’—of free will, and leave the world.  (In this setting the return of Arthur would be quite impossible, a vain imagining.”  (letter to Naomi Mitchison, 25 September, 1954, Letters,, 198-199)

And there is another way in which, perhaps, we can see a small Arthurian/folklore influence upon Tolkien, even to one other name for Thompson’s  Kyffhaeuser  motif, “The King Under the Mountain”. 

When Bilbo and the much-battered dwarves seek to gain admittance to Lake-town,

(JRRT)

Thorin announces to the startled guards at the gate that he is “Thorin son of Thrain son of Thror King under the Mountain. ..I have come back.”

He subsequently repeats this to the Master and his court:  “I am Thorin son of Thrain son of Thror King under the Mountain!   I return!”  (The Hobbit, Chapter 10, “A Warm Welcome”)

And here we can see JRRT slip right into the second part of the motif, the return of the hero:

“Some began to sing snatches of old songs concerning the return of the King under the Mountain; that it was Thror’s grandson not Thror himself that had come back did not bother them at all.  Others took up the song and it rolled loud and high over the lake:

The King beneath the mountains,

The King of Carven stone,

The Lord of silver fountains

Shall come into his own!

His crown shall be upholden,

His harp shall be restrung,

His halls shall echo golden

To songs of yore re-sung.

The woods shall wave on mountains

And grass beneath the sun;

His wealth shall flow in fountains

And the rivers golden run.

The streams shall run in gladness,

The lakes shall shine and burn,

All sorrow fail and sadness

At the Mountain-king’s return!”

As for the savior part of this motif, something is implied, rather than stated:  the reason that there is no current king is that the last one was driven out by Smaug, after killing (and presumably eating) many of his people.

(JRRT)

If the king is really to return,  then, he must deal with the current occupant.   The Master of Lake-town, who, at first, cynically welcomed the dwarves, “but believed they were frauds who would sooner or later be discovered and be turned out”  then appears to change his mind and “…wondered if Thorin was after all really a descendant of the old kings”.  Still cynical, however, he tells Thorin “What help we can offer shall be yours…” even while thinking, “Let them go and bother Smaug, and see how he welcomes them!” 

Although the return of the king does not turn out quite as the Master—or the dwarves—expected, Smaug dying after destroying Lake-town,

(JRRT)

still, even after Thorin’s death in the Battle of the Five Armies, he remains what he claimed to have been as”  They buried Thorin deep beneath the Mountain, and Bard laid the Arkenstone upon his breast.” (The Hobbit, Chapter 18, “The Return Journey”)

(Alan Lee)

But, in the previous posting, I mentioned ravens.

(I include this just as much because it’s such a beautiful image as it’s relevant…)

The Holy Roman Emperor, Frederick I, called “Barbarossa”, is one of the many heroes who appear in a  version of “the king under the mountain” and, among the variants told of him is this one, to be found in the Grimm brothers Deutsche Sagen,  (“German Legends”) where it’s reported that  when a dwarf led a shepherd under the mountain, Barbarossa stood up and asked, “Are the ravens still flying around the mountain?”   At the shepherd’s affirmation, he cried, “Now must I sleep yet a hundred years longer!” 

(Brothers Grimm, Deutsche Sagen, Number 23, Vol.1, page 30, my translation.  You can find the text here:  https://books.google.com/books?id=SRcFAAAAQAAJ&pg=PR1#v=onepage&q&f=false   ) 

After Smaug has flown off to Lake-town and his doom, the dwarves and Bilbo emerge from the Lonely Mountain, where they are met by the same thrush which had helped in finding and opening the back door, as prescribed in the moon letters on Thror’s map.

He twitters excitedly at them, but they can’t understand him and Balin exclaims, “I only wish he was a raven!”

When Bilbo replies, “I thought you did not like them!  You seemed very shy of them, when we came this way before.”

To which Balin responds: 

“Those were crows!  And nasty suspicious-looking creatures at that, and rude as well.  You must have heard the ugly names they were calling after us.  But the ravens are different.  There used to be great friendship between them and the people of Thror; and they often brought us secret news, and were rewarded with such bright things as they coveted to hide in their dwellings.” (The Hobbit, Chapter 15, “The Gathering of the Clouds”)

The thrush flies off and an ancient raven appears, Roac, son of Carc, who says to Thorin:

“Now I am chief of the great ravens of the Mountain.  We are few, but we remember still the king that was of old.”

Did Tolkien know this legend?  If you consult indices to both Carpenter’s biography and  his edition of Tolkien’s letters, there is no trace to be found there under everything from “Barbarossa” to “raven” and yet the confluence of “king under the mountain” and that mountain hosting ravens would seem suggestive, I think.  Or perhaps a little bird told him…

(Alan Lee)

As ever, thanks for reading.

Stay well,

When a raven speaks, it’s wise to listen,

And remember that, as always, there’s

MTCIDC

O

PS

Which reminds me of a famous old ballad, “The Three Ravens” (Child Ballad #26) which you can read about here:   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Three_Ravens  and listen to here:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8ZASCwSRN0

As ever, dear readers, welcome.

It’s a sad fact, perhaps, but, sometimes, even authors we really enjoy don’t quite succeed and, with the best will in the world, it’s hard not to think, “I was following along and enjoying the book and then came the conclusion and…”

For me, in the latest read of my science fiction project, such was the case with Fletcher Pratt and  L. Sprague de Camp’s The Land of Unreason (first published in Unknown Worlds, October, 1941,

then expanded into book form in 1942).

It began with an interesting premise:  an American in early wartime Britain, makes the mistake of violating the custom of leaving out food and drink for “the Good People” (that is, the “Fee”).  This causes him to fall into a world in which “reason” has laws of its own and much of the fun, for me, was in watching the protagonist attempt to figure out how to deal with this.  (You can read a full summary here:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_of_Unreason )  It was a bit uneven here and there, but not enough to trouble, so long as it kept moving, but then came that ending, where the protagonist, “Fred Barber”, is revealed to be the Holy Roman Emperor, Frederick I (also known as “Barbarossa”, 1122-1190)

(This is a reliquary—a place to store a sacred relic or two–and was supposedly modeled on old Fred himself—for more see:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Barbarossa  )

and there the story rather abruptly ends.

If you only knew that Frederick was the Holy Roman Emperor, this would be puzzling—why should that matter in resolving the plot?–but perhaps what the authors wanted the readers to remember is that Fred, as Frederick, belonged to a folklore tradition, called by the folklorist, Stith Thompson, “the Kyffhaeuser type” or “the king under the mountain” (also known as “the king asleep in the mountain” , No.1960.2 in Thompson’s motif index)

In this tradition, a once-famous culture hero, like Frederick, is said not to be dead, but, instead, away somewhere else, often sleeping, but, given the right moment—usually when his country is in danger–he will awaken, or be awakened, and then come to the rescue. Perhaps the authors were suggesting a sequel?

Legend has it, for example, that Frederick is drowsing under a German mountain, either the Untersberg, between Austria and Germany,

or the central German hill range of the Kyffhaeuser (hence Thompson’s name for the motif type).

The latter has been decorated—or marred, depending upon your taste—with a gigantic monument, dedicated in 1896, combining an image of Frederick, deep in slumber still, with an equestrian statue of Kaiser Wilhelm I (1797-1888) posed above him (the idea being that now there’s a German empire—ruled by Wilhelm I’s grandson, the erratic and trouble-making Wilhelm II—Barbarossa can continue to doze).

An interesting side detail about the Barbarossa story can be found in the Grimm brothers Deutsche Sagen,  (“German Legends”) where it’s reported that  when a dwarf led a shepherd under the mountain, Barbarossa stood up and asked, “Are the ravens still flying around the mountain?”   At the shepherd’s affirmation, he cried, “Now must I sleep yet a hundred years longer!” 

(Brothers Grimm, Deutsche Sagen, Number 23, Vol.1, page 30, my translation.  You can find the text here:  https://books.google.com/books?id=SRcFAAAAQAAJ&pg=PR1#v=onepage&q&f=false   )  Those ravens will return in Part II.

This motif is surprisingly common (there’s a whole WIKI article devoted to it here:   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_asleep_in_mountain ), including , in the West, everyone from Ogier the Dane, who is involved in the medieval Charlemagne stories

(and who even turns up the in a fairy tale of Hans Christian Andersen, from an 1899 translation of which this illustration appears—you can read it here: https://ia800505.us.archive.org/26/items/fairytalesofhans00ande/fairytalesofhans00ande.pdf  )

to the early Irish hero, Fionn mac Cumhaill (who, in English, becomes ”Finn mac Cool”—if you’d like to read more about him, you might begin with Lady Gregory’s fiercely-named Gods and Fighting Men, 1913, available for you here:   https://archive.org/details/godsfightingmens00greg  )

to the South Slavic Marko Kraljevic (KRAL-jeh-vitch—“Kingson”, so, “Prince Marko” )

who has the most wonderful horse, Sarac (SHA-rats—in English “roan”, a sort of reddish-brown—although the word has a fairly wide meaning, and illustrations, like the one here, depict him as what appears to be what we’d call a “piebald”), with whom he shares his wine—you can read about them here:  https://archive.org/details/BalladsOfMarkoKraljevic/page/n3/mode/2up  Although, in this translation of ballads about Marko, he dies, after killing Sarac so that he can’t be turned into a beast of burden by Marko’s enemies.  See this article for his sleeping, as well as the good news that Sarac isn’t killed:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_Marko )

to a very familiar figure, King Arthur.

Our earliest-known reference to Arthur’s disappearance, Geoffrey of Monmouth’s (c.1095-c.1155)  Historia Regum Britanniae (“History of the Kings of Britain”, c.1130s), has only this to say:

Sed et inclytus ille Arturus rex letaliter vulneratus est, qui illine ad sananda vulnera sua in insulam Avallonis advectus,

“But  that famous king Arthur was mortally wounded, too, and who was carried from there [Cornwall]  for the healing of his wound to the island of Avalon…”

 (Geoffrey of Monmouth, Historia Regum BritanniaeHistoria Regum Britanniae, Book XI, Chapter II, my translation—and you can read a very useful English summary/translation of the Arthurian bits of Geoffrey here:   https://d.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/text/geoffrey  This comes from the University of Rochester (NY, not UK), “Camelot Project”, which is invaluable if you’re interested in things Arthurian.)

By the late 15^th century, it appears that this tradition has been extended and that it begins to have more the look of the “king under the mountain”:

“Yet somme men say in many partyes of Englond that  kyng Arthur is not deed / But had by the wylle of our lord Ihefu in to another place / and men say that he shal come ageyn & he shal wynne the holy croffe . I wyl not say that it shal be so / but rather I wyl say here in thys world he chaunged his lyf / but many men say that there is wryton vpon his tombe this vers  Hic iacet Arthurus Rex quondam Rex que futurus /”

(Sir Thomas Malory (?  There is much discussion about who he was and when he lived, but a manuscript says that the text was completed by 1470),  Le Morte d’Arthur,  Book XXI, Chapter VII—this is from the 1889 edition of Oskar Sommer, which reprints the first printed edition of 1485 of William Caxton—and here it is for you:  https://archive.org/details/lemortedarthuror00malouoft/page/n5/mode/2up   If you read this blog regularly, you know that I always prefer the earliest edition of a work which I can find, as I believe that earlier English, both the language and the printing, is so much more interesting and memorable. )

(one of the only two copies of that first printing—it’s in the Morgan Library in New York)

That cross, with its inscription, is a monkish fake from 1190/1, (See a chatty but useful article here:  https://arstechnica.com/science/2016/03/medieval-monks-used-king-arthurs-grave-as-an-attraction-to-raise-money/  as well as an article about all sorts of possibilities for Arthur’s burial here:  http://www.badarchaeology.com/controversies/looking-for-king-arthur/the-archaeology-of-arthur/ ) but there seem to be two versions of it, one, reported by Gerald of Wales, c.1146-c.1223, in his Speculum Ecclesiae—“The Mirror of the Church”—Part II, Sections VIII-X , and presumably the earlier version, says nothing about “quondam” or “futurus”, that is, “one-time” and “to be” , quoting the inscription to say (my translation):

“Hic jacet sepultus inclytus rex Arturius in insula Avallonia  cum Wennevereia uxore sua secunda”

“Here lies buried the famous king Arthur in the island of Avalon with Guinevere his second wife”

(You can find the full text in Latin here:   https://ia902902.us.archive.org/10/items/giraldicambrensi04gira/giraldicambrensi04gira.pdf  and an English translation of the relevant parts here:   https://www.earlybritishkingdoms.com/sources/gerald02.html  )

As you can see, no “quondam” (“one-time”) and no “futurus” (“to be”).  So where did they come from?  As far as we know, this appears only in Malory, although Malory cites “his tombe”.  When the supposed Arthur was reburied, in the presence of Edward I and Eleanor of Aquitaine, in 1278, he was given what must have been a rather showy tomb—

(This is a reconstruction by the Department of Archeology at Reading, which has done major work for the study of Glastonbury from its ancient roots at least to the end of the ecclesiastical period.  See:   https://research.reading.ac.uk/glastonburyabbeyarchaeology/digital/arthurs-tomb-c-1331/arthurs-tomb/ )

Although, with the dissolution by Henry VIII of Glastonbury Abbey in  1539, the tomb was lost, but  the early antiquary, John Leland (c,1503-1552), has left us a partial description in his Itineraries (notebooks of his travels around England—really remarkable stuff for the 1530s, when his extensive journeying would have been extremely difficult, and sometimes perhaps even dangerous).  He says of it that it had: 

1. a crucifix at the head

2. an image of Arthur at the foot

3. a cross on the tomb

4. lions at the head and foot

5. two inscriptions, at least the first of which was written by Henry Swansey an abbot of Glastonbury

The first inscription reads:

“Hic jacet Arturus flos regum gloria regni

Quem mores probitas commendant laude perenni”

“Here lies Arthur the flower of kings, the glory of the kingdom,

Whom his character and uprightness commend for eternal praise.”

and the second, at the foot of the tomb says:

Arturi  jacet hic conju[n]x tumulata secunda

Quae meruit coelos virtutum prole secunda”

“Here lies buried the second wife of Arthur,

Who has deserved Heaven from the fortunate offspring of [her] virtues.” (a wordplay—“secunda” can mean both “second” and “lucky”)

(my translations from John Leland, The Itinerary of John Leland, Parts I to III, edited by Lucy Toulmin Smith, 1907, page 288 and it’s right here for you:  https://archive.org/details/itineraryjohnle02lelagoog/page/n11/mode/2up )

No “quondam” and no “futurus” here, either, and, presumably, this is the “tombe” which Mallory mentions.  Did he make that inscription up?  Certainly Mallory assembled a large body of previous work and not all of his sources are traceable.  Perhaps this will remain a mystery, along with the reported disappearance and subsequent non-reappearance of Arthur?

But the influence of Arthur, or, at least of his motif type, will appear in the second (and I hope fortunate) part of this posting.  I’ll provide a hint here—someone once lived under another mountain before a new and destructive tenant arrived…

Thanks, as ever, for reading.

Stay well,

May you be both quondam and futurus/a,

And remember that, as always, there’s

MTCIDC

O

Welcome, as always, dear readers.

I was reminded of my last posting by seeing this on the back bumper of a car—

Mars to me is this—

and this—

which hardly makes it look worth busting for, or even visiting, for all of the scientific curiosity about it which could be satisfied by extensive exploration, if not colonization.

Suppose, however, it looked like this—

or this—

(This is from https://www.erbzine.com/mag33/3387.html  a fan magazine devoted to the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs—about whom more shortly!)

 or this—

(Joe Jusko—you can visit his website here:  http://www.joejusko.com/default.asp )

Beginning in the 1870s, these latter views were the basis of science—and science fiction.

The first figure to put forward such a view of Mars was Giovanni Schiaparelli (1835-1910),

who, turning his telescope towards the Red Planet, believed that he saw patterns of crisscross lines across its surface, which he called canali, in Italian, and which can mean everything from the anatomical  “duct” to (now) a television channel, to “canal” (as in i canali di Venezia),in an 1877 publication.

It’s important here to note that Schiaparelli was no crackpot, but a well-known and well-respected astronomer, and this will be true for the prominent men who furthered the idea that Mars was inhabited by sentient beings with engineering and architectural skills.  The texts which such men wrote are carefully-reasoned, based on the latest science known to them.  The basic problem was that Schiaparelli hadn’t seen canals at all, even as he produced maps of Mars’ surface which included them

and wrote articles about the potential inhabitants (see https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/7781/pg7781.html  La Vita sul Pianeta Marte, extracts from the journal “Natura ed Arte” from 1893, 1895, 1909 ) in scientific journals.

He was followed by the splendidly-named Camille Flammarion (1842-1925),

another prominent astronomer and the author of numerous books on the subject, including

La planete Mars et ses conditions d’habitabilite (1892)  and which is available here: https://archive.org/details/laplantemarset01flam   For a complete translation into English of this work, log in to the Internet Archive and take out the Patrick Moore version here:  https://archive.org/details/camilleflammario0000flam  For a brief review of Flammarion’s ideas in English, see:    https://ia903207.us.archive.org/33/items/jstor-25118640/25118640.pdf   The North American Review, 1 May, 1896, 546-557, “Mars and Its Inhabitants” .

For English-speakers, the scientist who probably had the greatest effect upon popular views of Mars was Percival Lowell (1855-1916),

who, besides lectures and scholarly articles, produced three extensive works on the subject:  Mars (1895—available here:   https://archive.org/details/mars01lowegoog/page/n12/mode/2up  ), Mars and Its Canals (1906—dedicated to Schiaparelli and available here:   https://archive.org/details/marsanditscanals00loweiala/mode/2up  ), and  Mars As the Abode of Life (1908 and available here:   https://archive.org/details/marsasabodelife03lowegoog/mode/2up    ).

What I find particularly interesting about the approach over time to the subject of Mars, its inhabitants, and its architecture is that this was believed to be an archaic civilization and may even be in serious decline, a fact which was picked up—among other details–by a man who was about to make his name by basing a series of fictional works upon the scientific research and publications of such scientists, Edgar Rice Burroughs (1875-1950).

In February, 1912, Burroughs published the first of six installments of a series entitled “Under the Moons of Mars” in The All-Story (and which you can read here:   https://archive.org/details/all-story-v-022n-02-1912-02-ifc-ibc-ufikus-dpp )

It concerns the adventures of John Carter, an ex-Confederate, who after the war, turns prospector in the American Southwest, only to be mysteriously whisked to what he in time discovers is called “Barsoom”, but is based upon the Mars of the Victorian/Edwardian astronomers, dying civilization, canals, and all.

It has two main races, a more human one, who were the city-builders, and a larger and more barbaric humanoid  green-skinned race, who are nomads, but who inhabit the deserted human cities during their wanderings.

(by Adam C. Moore, a wonderfully-talented artist who can seemingly draw anything and who goes by LAEMEUR—visit his website at:  https://laemeur.com/illustration/ )

Although I’ve always known that Burroughs was an early science fiction, fantasy writer, I hadn’t read a word of his work until, in my current slow study of science fiction, I added “Under the Moons of Mars” in its 1917 novel form, A Princess of Mars, to my reading list (and you can add it to your list here:   https://archive.org/details/aprincessmars00burrgoog/page/n9/mode/2up  ) 

It didn’t take more than a chapter or two before I found myself with a page-turner.  Although the characters are familiar from any high adventure novel—the man of his hands dropped into a new and strange situation, the proud princess in need of rescue, etc—Burroughs, for me, had set these against a backdrop which, though based upon period popular scientific thought, he made his own by taking what he’d found and expanding it into something more dynamic, both in setting and in the politics and conflicts of what might be a dying world. 

So far, I’ve only read the first book, but there are 9 more stories in novel form to come, from 1918 (The Gods of Mars) to 1948 (Llana of Gathol—for a listing, see:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barsoom ) to look forward to and Burroughs wrote other series, including one which he began publishing in the same year and in the same magazine as “Under the Moons of Mars” and which probably brought him more fame and wealth than the adventures of John Carter—

(This is also from the Burroughs website which, if Burrough’s work interests you, and you don’t know the site, I encourage you to visit and browse its extensive archive.)

As ever, thanks for reading.

Stay well,

If dropped onto another planet, hope that its gravity is lighter,

And remember that, as always, there’s

MTCIDC

O

As always, welcome, dear readers.

Spelling, in English, which can cause non-native English-speakers to wonder just how crazy we are, began to become standardized only in the 18^th century.  Before this, one might, for example, see two competing spellings of the main word in the title of this piece:  “Compleat” and “Complete”, both considered valid, at least by the spellers.

Although the spelling “compleat” might have been commonly acceptable in the 17^th century, it is one work, in particular, which has continued to provide us with that competing spelling, Izaak Walton’s (1593-1683)

well-known fishing manual, The Compleat Angler,

first published in 1653, with various later editions, including one with an extensive addition, in 1676, by Walton’s friend, and fellow-angler, Charles Cotton (1630-1687),

to whom was attributed, in the 18^th century, another “Compleat”, The Compleat Gamester (1674).

(This is the 1680 edition.  If you’d like to learn how to play such card games as “Lanterloo” and “Bragg”, here’s the 1725 edtiion to show you the way:   https://ia902708.us.archive.org/6/items/bim_eighteenth-century_the-compleat-gamester-o_cotton-charles_1725/bim_eighteenth-century_the-compleat-gamester-o_cotton-charles_1725.pdf  For myself, the cockfighting is distasteful and I’d avoid it. For the Walton/Cotton, here’s a wonderfully leisurely 1897 edition, heavily illustrated with handsome engravings, and based upon that 1676 edition:  https://archive.org/details/compleatangler00gallgoog/page/24/mode/2up   One of my favorite illustrators, Arthur Rackham, made an illustrated edition, but, as it’s from 1931, it’s still locked in copyright, but you can see images from it if you write in:  “Compleat Angler Rackham”.)

I most recently happened upon this spelling in a completely/compleatly different context:

This is a collection of short novels or novellas jointly written by L(yon) Sprague de Camp (1907-2000)

and Fletcher Pratt (1897-1956),

2 prolific fantasy/science fiction authors of the mid-to later 20^th century.  (For a very partial list of de Camp’s works, see:   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L._Sprague_de_Camp ;  for the same for Pratt—who also wrote a number of historical works—see:   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fletcher_Pratt )

Although there are three novellas in this collection, “The Roaring Trumpet”, “The Mathematics of Magic”, and “The Castle of Iron”, there is a fourth, published as “Wall of Serpents”.   And these were not their original publication—or forms—as  all had been previously published in fantasy/science fiction magazines of the 1940s and early 1950s, like Unknown (about which you can read a wonderfully detailed account here:   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unknown_(magazine) ).

In these stories, the main character, Harold Shea, a psychologist by training, travels, with various colleagues, to a series of worlds based upon mythology and literary sources, “The Roaring Trumpet” upon Norse legends,

(the original cover of Unknown where the story first appeared)

“The Mathematics of Magic”, in which the characters fall into the world of Edmund Spenser’s (1552-1599)

The Fairy Queen,

“The Castle of Iron” into the world of Ludovico Ariosto’s (1474-1533)

Orlando Furioso

(originally published in 1532, this is an early edition from 1562)

and Wall of Serpents, into the land of Finnish myth from Elias Loenrot’s (1802-1884)

Kalevala,

(This is the more complete edition of 1849, Loenrot had published an earlier version in 1835.)

but, in mid-book, the main characters are suddenly transported from ancient Finland to ancient Ireland, where they spend time with characters out of the Ulster Cycle, the main charmer being the hero Cu Chulainn.

(This is actually a rather subdued portrait of “the Hound of Ulster”, most of those I’ve seen have absolutely no relation to the figure we know from Old Irish Literature.  If you’re interested, you might try Lady Gregory’s  Cuchulain of Muirthemne, 1903, here:  https://archive.org/details/cuchulainofmuirt00greg_0  bearing in the mind that Lady G was a late-Victorian and the original stories can be a bit raunchier than she will translate them. )

Although the original editor, John W. Campbell, as we learn from the article on Unknown cited above, wanted  “the fantasy elements in a story to be developed logically”, I confess that I have no idea as to how the characters are transferred to these places.  The theory behind the transference is discussed in “The Roaring Trumpet” , but my eyes crossed when I tried to follow it.  The method is really quite beside the point, however, as, once the characters are dropped into each world, the narrative roars by, and, although there are in-jokes, if you know the originals (parts of Wall of Serpents, for example, are written in the same metre as the original Finnish text), the stories are solid enough in themselves to be enjoyable without doing anything more than following along. (If you’d like to read them—and I would encourage you to—you can read the first three by joining the Internet Archive and borrowing a copy of The Compleat Enchanter here:  https://archive.org/details/compleatenchante00deca  )

The title of this piece is “Incompleat”, however, and refers, in fact, to a larger project I’ve set myself.  Although I’ve read a certain amount of fantasy and science fiction, I’ve never done this systematically.  Consequently, I decided to give myself a better education, beginning with science fiction, compiling a list of books, novellas, and short stories in chronological order which I intend to read.  I admit to doing a bit of skipping around as I fill things in, so I still have to read Jules Verne’s De la Terre a la Lune (“From the Earth to the Moon”, 1865, first English translation, 1867), for example, but I’d gotten caught by de Camp/Pratt after reading earlier things like Edgar Rice Burrough’s (1875-1950) A Princess of Mars (1912/17, which you can read here:  https://archive.org/details/aprincessmars00burrgoog/page/n9/mode/2up ),

about which I’m definitely going to write in the future.  The field is vast (and fantasy is just as large—go to any decent bookstore and look at the shelves and shelves of the stuff), so I want to be selective, trying to find what’s most representative of different eras and trends.  This will mean that I’ll definitely wind up with some less than masterpieces, but it’s important, to understand the field, to see just what has been considered noteworthy in the past.

I doubt that I’ll ever write a posting with the title “Compleat”, but I’m sure to find much that’s worth the read and, when I do, I’ll be glad to pass it on to you.

Stay well,

Beware any enchanter who claims compleatness,

And remember that there’s always

MTCIDC

O

PS

And, if you read this blog for Tolkien, not to worry—he’s always there and always will be.  After all, he himself was a fan of the work of Isaac Asimov.

As always, welcome, dear readers.

When I saw the new Indiana Jones film the first time,

I was a bit concerned that the actor’s actual age—80—might be an impediment to the action and certain remarks, mainly made early in the film–the character called “Teddy” initially addresses him as “old timer” and his co-star, “Helena”, remarks to him, “I like the hat, by the way.  Makes you look at least two years younger.”  as well as later calling him “an aging grave robber”—made me wary, but, once the action set in, age was mostly ignored, even though Jones’ character in the film was supposedly 70.

At the same time, I was disappointed that, when his old friend, Sallah, appeared,

after a brief scene, he was told, “This is not an adventure, Sallah.  Those days have come and gone.” and he was dismissed from the film, only to reappear briefly as a grandfatherly figure at the end.

To me, this seemed like the waste of an interesting character, who had twice helped Jones against Nazis,  and, as Jones was on his way to Tangier, it would seem that Sallah, a native Arabic-speaker, might have been of real use there, as well.  Was the actor (John Rhys Davies’) actual age (79) against him, especially if Jones is supposed to be older, as well?

This set me thinking about the ages of heroes in adventure.  Are there more like Indiana Jones?  And would that mean a second chance for Sallah?

Adventure is obviously a giant subject, and growing larger all the time, so I’ll restrict my questions for the moment to what I’m teaching this fall:  the Odyssey, Beowulf, and The Hobbit.

Beginning with the hero of the first of these, how old is Odysseus, for instance?  Athena, to protect him from being initially overwhelmed by the 100+ suitors and their minions,

 turns him into an old beggar

(This may be an Alan Lee?)

when he arrives on Ithaka, which presumably suggests he will be at least somewhat different from his  actual age.  (Odyssey, Book 13.397-403)  Although the text never provides a definite answer, we might do a little creative arithmetic, using the few facts we have about Odysseus’ early life.

1. His first adventure appears to be recorded in the Odyssey.  His grandfather had instructed his parents to send the boy to him when he first entered adulthood, so might we guess 18 to 20?  While staying with his grandfather, Odysseus was wounded during a boar hunt

and carried the scar with him into his later adult life, as its recognition, many years later, by his old nurse, Eurykleia,

almost gives away his disguise.  (Odyssey, Book 19, 386-490)

Of other early events, we learn of Odysseus winning Penelope in a footrace (Pausanias, Description of Greece, 3.12.2, 3.12.4—which you can read at:  https://www.theoi.com/Text/Pausanias3A.html ), although we have no idea of how old either Odysseus or Penelope was at that time.  There has been, as you can imagine, lots of scholarly discourse on when people in ancient Greece married, but there may be some consensus that girls would marry after about the age of 14 or 15—although the age of men is much less firm.  One ancient source suggests that girls should be about 19 and men about 30 (Hesiod, Works and Days, 695-699—for one view of the question, see:  https://talesoftimesforgotten.com/2023/02/28/at-what-age-did-ancient-greek-women-typically-marry/ )

Beyond this event, we see Odysseus acquiring a bow from Iphitos, which he receives on a trip upon which his father, Laertes, and the elders of Ithaka had sent him (Odyssey, Book 21, 1-41), suggesting that he is still young enough to be under his father’s authority.  (This is the bow with which he later deals with the suitors.)

And we learn that his son, Telemakhos, was a baby when Odysseus left for the Trojan War.  (Apollodorus, Epitome, E 3.7, see:  https://www.theoi.com/Text/ApollodorusE.html  and Hyginus, Fabulae, 95, see:  https://topostext.org/work/206 )

Odysseus goes off to the War for ten years and spends a further 9 years coming home, adding 20 years to whatever total we can imagine.  He might have been about 40, then, or, considering the passage from Hesiod above, maybe fifty—although this would go against the idea that Athena has turned him into an old beggar.  Even if we settle upon 40, Odysseus, in a world where life expectancy may have been relatively short (lots of scholarly argument on this—just read through the Wiki article on “Life Expectancy” here:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy ), was rather far along in his life and, though vigorous (with Athena’s help), perhaps about the equivalent of Indiana Jones in Dial.  (For a long, detailed look at Odysseus, see:  https://mythopedia.com/topics/odysseus )

We don’t know very accurately the ages of the title character in Beowulf when he’s involved in his major conflicts, but we do know that, when he finally faces the dragon, near the poem’s end,

he’s been king of his people for “fifty winters” (fiftig wintra, Beowulf, 2208—for a very useful translation, with the original Old English text placed parallel and lots of notes, see:  https://heorot.dk/beowulf-rede-text.html ).  Presuming that he was a young man when he fought Grendel and his mother earlier in the poem, I think that it’s safe to assume that he’s at least in his very late 60s or early 70s.

In the case of Bilbo, in The Hobbit, we are on firmer ground.  When Gandalf in April, TA2941, arrives to recruit Bilbo for the adventure Bilbo initially says he wants no part of,

(the Hildebrandts—and one of my all-time favorite illustrations by them)

Bilbo was 50, having been born in TA2890 (Bilbo’s birthday, as we know, is in September—for the date of Gandalf’s arrival, see “The Quest for Erebor”in Douglas Anderson’s The Annotated Hobbit, 375).

Hobbits, however, seem to have a longer life expectancy than humans, so that Bilbo’s 50 is probably not our 50—after all, hobbits only came of age at 33—although Bilbo’s state of preservation at 99 did cause remark in the Shire (see The Fellowship of the Ring, Book One, Chapter 1, “A Long-expected Party”).

Odysseus, in his 40s or even 50s, is able, with the aid of his son, Telemachus, and two slaves and a little help from Athena, to slaughter over a hundred suitors.  Beowulf, perhaps in his 70s, with the assistance of a single young warrior, Wiglaf, kills a fearsome dragon.  Even if Bilbo is a young fifty, he still manages to survive trolls, goblins, spiders, hostile elves, and a dragon and live another 80 years (we don’t know how much the Ring may have had to do with that longevity—after all, the Old Took manages 130 without it).  That being the case, perhaps the writers of The Dial of Destiny were a little premature in relegating Sallah to the sidelines?

Thanks for reading, as always.

Stay well,

Remember:  “It’s not the years, it’s the mileage”,

And remember, as well, that there’s always

MTCIDC

O

Welcome, as ever, dear readers.

The title of this posting is actually only part of a quotation—here’s the full line—

It’s Indiana Jones, of course, in The Last Crusade (1989),

who has just come upon a German operations center in an Austrian castle.

In my two-part review of the final Indiana Jones movie, The Dial of Destiny,

(“Jonesing for Indiana”, 24 July, 2023, 3 August, 2023)

I summed up the series’ villains, in which, out of five films in all, one (The Temple of Doom) has an evil prime minister,

one (Crystal Skull), has a Soviet agent,

(with that very odd sword—although she actually uses it at one point, it has always struck me as more of an obvious plot device than something natural to the character and particularly to the story)

one (The Dial of Destiny) has an ex-Nazi (really, a kind of Nazi in semi-retirement, with plans),

and two (Raiders of the Lost Ark)

and (The Last Crusade)

with active Nazis in uniform.

And yet, the more I’ve thought about it, the more it seemed that the Nazis weren’t really the villains at all, only the muscle for the real antagonists.

The basic premise for all three Nazi films was that Hitler was a collector of what he believed to be sources of power from the ancient world, including

the Ark of the Covenant from the Judeo-Christian tradition (Raiders),

the Holy Grail, from the Christian tradition (Crusade),

and the Lance of Longinus, also from the Christian tradition.

(If we can believe Mein Kampf, where Hitler refers to the Lance—and a nail attached to it—as “magical relics”, perhaps this is the basis for the idea in the films as to why he’s a collector?  I’m sorry that I’m relying upon an early translation here, rather than, as I normally do, making my own translation of the German text, but, so far, I haven’t been able to locate the original German passage—perhaps “magische Relikte ”?  It’s interesting, by the way, that both the villain of Dial and Indiana determine that the Lance which is being carried off in a train full of loot is a fake.  The history of various objects claimed to be the actual “Lance of Longinus” is long and complicated, but at least one of the leading candidates has been determined, by the latest scientific tests, to be inauthentic, something the two film characters seem to be able to do by eyesight alone.  For more, see:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Lance )

It’s never said what Hitler intends to do with these objects, but here’s where, I suggest, these real villains appear.

The first is Rene Belloque, a rather dodgy French archaeologist, who appears in the initial episode of Raiders, where, backed by “Hovitos” Native Americans, he takes the golden idol from Jones which Jones, in a memorable scene, has managed to extract from its deposit site.

He then reappears later in the film as director of a German (it’s 1936, which means Nazi) archaeological project in Egypt, employed to oversee the excavation of the “lost city of Tanis”—and to discover the whereabouts of the Ark.  (For more on the real city of Tanis, which was actually rediscovered in the 1860s, see:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanis )

When the Ark is in his hands, however, his behavior is hardly that of an archaeologist.  Instead of making drawings and taking photographs at each stage (unfortunately, archaeology, even as it discovers, is forced to destroy, so careful records are crucial to the understanding of a site or an object), he dresses up as a high priest

and recites what sound like prayers in Hebrew.  (In fact, it is a prayer—see this website for an explanation:  https://www.jta.org/jewniverse/2016/why-indiana-joness-nazi-loving-enemy-said-a-torah-prayer.  )  To me, this allows for the possibility that, at this stage, he’s abandoned his obligations to his sinister employers

and looks to be attempting to tap into what he believes to be the power of the Ark, or its contents, for himself, and, as we know, this leads to an unexpected consequence—

This, in turn, foreshadows the behavior—and fate–of Walter Donovan

in The Last Crusade.

He, too, although appearing to work for the Nazis, has his own agenda:  immortal life from drinking from the Holy Grail,

which goes awry, just as Rene’s attempt to use the Ark has been less than successful.

This leaves us with our retired Nazi in Dial of Destiny, “Juergen Voller”.

As I discussed in my two-part review, although Voller was once a Nazi,

or at least was surrounded by them, his ultimate goal is somewhat murky:  it appears that he’s going to use the “Dial” to cross time, arrive in Berlin just in time to assassinate Hitler and take his place, winning a war which, through his mistakes, Hitler lost.  He assumes—we’re never told why—that the “Dial” (aka “the antikythera”)

is a time-traveling device (and how it works is also never clearly explained, but it seems to have something to do with the weather) and it will transport him and his entourage to his chosen site at the moment of his choosing (and how this is supposed to happen is also not clear—and, at this point, I think that Indiana Jones’ remark in the first film—

is true for the writers of what I’m afraid is a pretty shaky script).

If you haven’t read my review, and are interested, turn back to “Jonesing for Indiana”, 24 July, 2023, 3 August, 2023, for more, but here, I would say that, as in the case of Belloque and Donovan, his villainy is more about him than about the cause of his employers.  It’s never mentioned directly, but, once he’s dealt with Hitler, doesn’t this assume that Voller will then be the new Fuehrer?  After all, he could use his time traveling, if it were real, to tweak history here and there wherever he wished, taking a backseat, but, controlling, role.  Instead, he will be front and center, suggesting less a German patriot than a would-be megalomaniac, rather like the man he intends to replace and this certainly fits in with the idea that these films aren’t about confronting the Nazis, but rather about foiling the massive egos of three men for whom the Nazis are nothing more than employers and enforcers.

Thanks, as ever, for reading.

Stay well,

As I’ve cautioned before, always choose wisely,

And know that, as always, there’s

MTCIDC

O

PS

While I always try to be as fair as I can be in reviews—after all, the majority of those creating films really do believe in their projects and aren’t simply trying to cheat the viewers—this last Indiana Jones film seems, for all the time and money spent, compromised by what is really very sloppy writing. I’ve mentioned some things, both here and in my review, but, as I was writing this, another example occurred to me.   Unlike Belloque and Donovan’s ends, Voller’s death is treated almost as an afterthought, as if the villain was nothing more than a plot device picked up, used, then discarded, as we simply see his body sprawled next to the ruined aircraft.  Archimedes goes over to the body and removes Voller’s wristwatch, putting it on his own wrist.  Possibly he thinks that this is just a nice addition to his jewelry collection, but, beyond that:

1. after such a crash, it would probably have been broken and therefore would no longer register time (although it seems to be in perfect condition—not even rusted—when it’s discovered by Jones in Archimedes’ tomb over 2000 years later) and how would Archimedes even understand that that was its function as

2. Archimedes, like other Greeks, used the letters of his alphabet for numbers—if the dial had Roman numerals, they would probably have meant nothing to him and, if it had Arabic numerals, not only would they have meant nothing, but they would also have been an anachronism, as Arabic numerals—which were, in fact, invented in India—only appeared in western Europe in the 10^th century AD—see this useful article:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic_numerals

All of which makes me sad:  I’ve always looked forward to the next Indiana Jones film, ever since the first one and, although I’ve been disappointed by 2 and 4, I had real hopes for 5 and, given better writers, who knows what we might have seen at the end of his long, adventurous career?