All Thin, Sort of Stretched

30 Wednesday May 2018

Posted by lebedusya1 in Fairy Tales and Myths, Films and Music, J.R.R. Tolkien, Villains

Tags

Aragorn, Bilbo, Bram Stoker, Dracula, Dunedain, Gerontius, immortal, Nosferatu, Numenoreans, Professor Van Helsing, Saruman, The Lord of the Rings, The Scouring of the Shire, The Shadow of the Past, Tolkien, vampire, Voivode Dracula

As always, dear readers, welcome.

Once before, we wrote about the Scouring of the Shire and about the queer events after Saruman’s death, but, recently, we’ve come across something which might suggest an explanation.

This past term/semester, one of us taught Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel, Dracula, for the first time (and it seemed to be a big hit, we might add), as we’ve also mentioned before.

In the book, Professor Van Helsing tells the protagonists that Dracula:

“…must, indeed, have been that Voivode Dracula who won his name against the Turk, over the great river on the very frontier of Turkey-land.” (Dracula, Chapter XVIII)

If indeed true, this would mean that the Un-dead figure in the novel, who, historically, had been born about 1430, would, at the time of the novel, be about 467 years old. Van Helsing explains this longevity:

“The vampire live on, and cannot die by mere passing of the time; he can flourish when that he can fatten on the blood of the living.”

Worse—

“Even more, we have seen amongst us that he can even grow younger; that his vital faculties grow strenuous, and seem as though they refresh themselves when his special pabulum is plenty.” [pabulum is a little odd here, to us, as it’s an early word for “baby food”—perhaps Van Helsing is being sarcastic?]

We were easily, as always, prompted back to JRRT here and something Bilbo says to Gandalf when he is about to leave Bag End in the first chapter of The Lord of the Rings:

“I am old, Gandalf. I don’t look it, but I am beginning to feel it in my heart of hearts. Well-preserved indeed!…Why, I feel all thin, sort of stretched, if you know what I mean: like butter that has been scraped over too much bread. That can’t be right.” (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book One, Chapter 1, “A Long-Expected Party”)

Hobbits are, in comparison to humans in our current world and among non-Numenoreans in Middle-earth, a long-lived race, Bilbo’s family in particular being perhaps an extreme example, his grandfather, Gerontius (a small academic joke—geron in Greek means “old man”), living to be 130—and Bilbo will even surpass him, if only briefly.

“Stretched”, however, suggests something else—and we know, as Gandalf does, what that is–the Ring:

“A mortal, Frodo, who keeps one of the Great Rings, does not die, but he does not grow or obtain more life, he merely continues, until at last every minute is a weariness. And if he often uses the Ring to make himself invisible, he fades: he becomes in the end invisible permanently, and walks in the twilight under the eye of the Dark Power that rules the Rings. Yes, sooner or later—later, if he is strong or well-meaning to begin with, but neither strength nor good purpose will last—sooner or later the Dark Power will devour him.” (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book One, Chapter 2, “The Shadow of the Past”)

And so, Bilbo would have felt more and more “stretched”, had he not given it up, even as he continued to go on existing–Gollum, after all, is nearly 600 when he meets Bilbo for the riddling game.

As we’ve mentioned, the descendants of the Numenoreans had a naturally-extended life. Aragorn, for instance, is 87 at the time of The Lord of the Rings, and 210 at his death in FA120.

Others in Middle-earth, however, have simply been given what would seem to be life spans practically without limit. The elves, like Galadriel, are, in effect, immortal. Likewise are the Istari—the “wizards”, like Gandalf.

This should extend to Saruman, as well.

And yet, something seems to have gone wrong here, as we wrote about some time ago. Once Grima has cut his throat:

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

This isn’t the end, however.

“Frodo looked down at the body with pity and horror, for as he looked it seemed that long years of death were suddenly revealed in it, and it shrank, and the shriveled face became rags of skin upon a hideous skull. Lifting up the skirt of the dirty cloak that sprawled beside it, he covered it over, and turned away.” (The Return of the King, Book Six, Chapter 8, “The Scouring of the Shire”)

It’s never explained why the—for lack of a better word—spirit of Saruman disappears as it does. The fact that it looks to the West—towards Valinor—and a cold wind blows from there suggests that, somehow, the Valar are punishing Saruman for betraying their trust and forbidding him from returning to them, as the living Gandalf will in the final chapter of the book (and for a second time, it seems, Gandalf having been “sent back” after his apparent death fighting the Balrog).

What Frodo sees in the sprawled body, however, suggests something more: “long years of death were suddenly revealed in it”. Here’s Stoker’s description of the end of Dracula:

“As I looked, the eyes saw the sinking sun, and the look of hate in them turned to triumph.

But, on the instant, came the sweep and flash of Jonathan’s great knife. I shrieked as I saw it shear through the throat; whilst at the same moment Mr. Morris’ bowie knife plunged into the heart.

It was like a miracle; but before our very eyes, and almost in the drawing of a breath, the whole body crumble[d] into dust and passed from our sight.” (Dracula, Chapter XXVII)

Bilbo and Gollum have continued to live because the Ring has given them the power to do so, but at a great cost, at least for Gollum, as Gandalf says. Dracula has been given nearly 500 years because he has become a parasite on the living, but those years were his with the loss of his soul. Could it be that Saruman, although given immortality because he is one of the Maiar, has, through his long years of plotting, either to work with Sauron or even to become Sauron, somehow become more like one of the Un-dead, gradually losing life even though immortal?

(This is the end of Count Orlok, the Dracula figure in our favorite vampire movie, FW Murnau’s 1922 Nosferatu. If you’d like to see the film, here’s a LINK to it from the Internet Archive site.)

In which case, his end is much worse than that of Dracula, as one of the protagonists, Mina Harker, writes:

“I shall be glad as long as I live that even in that moment of final dissolution, there was in the face a look of peace, such as I never could have imagined might have rested there.”

MTCIDC

Small Talk

02 Wednesday May 2018

Posted by lebedusya1 in Fairy Tales and Myths, Films and Music, Heroes, J.R.R. Tolkien, Narrative Methods, Villains

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Assyrians, Charles Goodyear, cyclops, David and Goliath, Death Star, Egypt, Ewoks, Greeks, Hetep Senworset, Hobbits, Jack and the Beanstalk, Kelandry of Mindelan, Lachish, Medieval, Odysseus, Polyphemus, Protector of the Small, Romans, Sling, slingers, Slingshot, Smaug, Star Wars, Tamora Pierce, thrush, Tortall, Vulcanized, Woses, Yoda

Welcome, dear readers, as always.

Sometimes, ideas for posts come from something we’ve seen in a movie theatre or something we’re reading or even from something we’re teaching or studying. Sometimes we employ the Sortes Tolkienses. And sometimes things just seem to fall into our hands. And that’s where this post comes from.

We were moving a bookshelf and something literally dropped into our hands, a boxed set of books by one of our favorite YA authors, Tamora Pierce.

As you can see from our image, the series is called “Protector of the Small” and is about the life of Keladry of Mindelan, who lives in Pierce’s imaginary Tortall, where it is possible—just possible—for a girl to become a knight. Through the four volumes, Kel gradually works her way from pre-page to knighthood and, is always the case with TP’s books, there are both surprises and interesting and not always predictable difficulties along the way, as well as an ultimate humanity which makes her books such satisfying reading.

It wasn’t the actual books, however, which got us to thinking, but the word “small” in the series title. How often, in our favorite adventure stories, it’s a case of small versus big

and, very often, the big thinks that that’s all which counts—think of the fairy tale “Jack and the Beanstalk” for example.

For all that the giant is huge and menacing in the story, he’s vulnerable as he climbs down the beanstalk and Jack’s quick thought–to cut down the stalk even as the giant descends–makes quick work of the oversized (but perhaps overconfident—and underbrained?) creature.

In the Judeo-Christian tradition, we have the Biblical story of David and Goliath.

Goliath is not only huge, but armored, and David is a boy who has only his shepherd’s staff, a sling, and five stones from a river bed, but it’s all he needs.

A sling is an ancient weapon

This is from the Egyptian Middle Kingdom town of Hetep Senwosret, c. 1895BC. The Assyrians were still using the weapon more than a thousand years later, as this scene from one of the Lachish reliefs (c.700BC) shows.

The Greeks had slingers

as did the Romans

as did medieval westerners.

Slings shouldn’t be confused with slingshots, by the way. (Or “catapult” if you’re one of our British friends.)

This is the weapon of choice of the cartoon character, Dennis the Menace.

These are a modern invention which requires a large rubber band (an “elastic”) to propel the missile and such rubber bands can only come from the 1840s and beyond, when the process of heat-hardening rubber (“vulcanization”) was patented by Charles Goodyear.

For us, then, the image of Ori in P Jackson’s film armed with a slingshot

goes into our catalogue of anachronisms, like the steam engine whistle, the popgun, and the tomatoes in The Hobbit.

But, as we were saying, small David has no fear of big Goliath, as one of those stones from the riverbed stuns the giant warrior, allowing David to use Goliath’s own sword to cut off his head.

In ancient Greek tradition, Polyphemus the Cyclops obviously thinks his size will allow him to consume all of Odysseus’ men—and then Odysseus, too, saving him for last as a “guest gift”.

Big body, however, doesn’t necessarily mean big brain as Odysseus gets the Cyclops drunk and then blinds him with his own staff.

Then, he uses the Cyclops’ own sheep as escape vehicles for himself and his men.

Small versus big is a major theme in Star Wars, from the fact that the gigantic Death Star has a single ventilator duct which makes it vulnerable

to attack by a single fighter,

to the ferocious Ewoks,

and, of course, Yoda, with his famous question.

And then there are The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, where the world of the small and tough seems to be everywhere, from the hobbits

to the dwarves

and even to the Woses.

Their opponents are suitably large—trolls,

dragons

wizards

to the biggest evil in Middle-earth (although it’s not clear, really, how big he is, physically).

But there’s someone even smaller in The Hobbit who, because of that size, perhaps, is left behind, but is crucial to the story: the elderly thrush

who informs Bard the Bowman just where to fire that black arrow which never fails him—and doesn’t this time, thanks to the bird.

We were sorry that his part was completely removed from The Battle of the Five Armies, but perhaps this was, in fact, one of the few times when the small hero lost to the big–studio.

Thanks, as ever, for reading.

MTCIDC

Here’s a LINK to an amazing demonstration of just how accurate the sling can be.

A Power

25 Wednesday Apr 2018

Posted by lebedusya1 in J.R.R. Tolkien, Narrative Methods, Villains

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Gandalf, Grima, Harry Potter, Isengard, Istari, Mini-Me, Mirkwood, Necromancer, Ornthanc, Palantir, power, Rings of Power, Rohan, Saruman, Sauron, The Council of Elrond, The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, Theoden, Tolkien, Voldemort, White Council, Wormtongue

Welcome, dear readers, as ever.

Some time ago, we did a post on Saruman as a “Mini-Me” version of Sauron

but, since that time, one of us has used The Hobbit in a class. Mirkwood

and the Necromancer

came up and we began to think about him again, this time to consider his strategy: how long has he been planning something and what might be the elements within that plan?

Although there is no hard evidence for just how long Saruman has been at work, it seems like his scheme has been under construction for at least 80 years. We base that upon Gandalf’s description of the White Council’s meeting on the subject of Sauron and what to do when it’s discovered that he is in Dol Guldur, calling himself the Necromancer:

“Some, too, will remember also that Saruman dissuaded us from open deeds against him, and for long we watched him only. Yet at last, as his shadow grew, Saruman yielded and the Council put forth its strength and drove the evil out of Mirkwood and that was in the very year of finding this Ring…”

(The Fellowship of the Ring, Book One, Chapter 2, “The Council of Elrond”)

Almost 80 years before the story of Bilbo and the Ring, then, it appears that one element in Saruman’s plot was shielding Sauron—a fact clearly not lost on Treebeard:

“He was chosen to be the head of the White Council, they say; but that did not turn out too well. I wonder now if even then Saruman was not turning to evil ways.”

(The Two Towers, Book Three, Chapter 4, “Treebeard”)

From something Saruman says to Gandalf we might guess the obvious reason for helping Sauron to escape action by the White Council:

“A new Power is rising. Against it the old allies and policies will not avail us at all. There is no hope left in Elves and dying Numenor. This then is one choice before you, before us. We may join with that Power. It would be wise, Gandalf. There is hope that way. Its victory is at hand; and there will be rich reward for those that aided it.”

(The Fellowship of the Ring, Book One, Chapter 2, “The Council of Elrond”)

But being a lackey to that Power is not quite his ultimate design, as we see:

“As the Power grows, its proved friends will also grow; and the Wise, such as you and I, may with patience come at last to direct its courses, to control it. We can bide our time, we can keep our thoughts in our hearts, deploring maybe evils done by the way, but approving the high and ultimate purpose: Knowledge, Rule, Order; all the things that we have so far striven in vain to accomplish…”

As is well-known, Saruman, as one of the Istari, was sent into Middle-earth as a counter to Sauron, not as an ally, and their purpose was:

“…coming in shapes weak and humble were bidden to advise and persuade Men and Elves to good and to seek to unite in love and understanding all those whom Sauron, should he come again, would endeavor to dominate and corrupt.”

(Unfinished Tales, 406)

Knowledge, yes, but Rule and Order? Emphatically not! But if that Power (and we note that even Saruman won’t just come out and say “Sauron” at this point, rather like the use of “He Who Must Not Be Named” in the Harry Potter books)

image5voldemort

can be used as a tool in Saruman’s hands—which may show us one element in his grand design.

First, however, it would seem that he needed a base. As Treebeard tells Merry and Pippin:

“He gave up wandering about and minding the affairs of Men and Elves, some time ago—you would call it a very long time ago; and he settled down at Angrenost, or Isengard as the Men of Rohan call it.”

(The Two Towers, Book Three, Chapter 4, “Treebeard”)

image6orthanc

Saruman even then was already thinking of something, though the purpose was intentionally shrouded:

“There was a time when he was always walking about in my woods. He was polite in those days, always asking my leave…and always eager to listen. I told him many things that he would never have found out by himself; but he never repaid me in like kind. I cannot remember that he ever told me anything. And he got more like that; his face, as I remember it…became like windows in a stone wall: windows with shutters inside.”

Although he was powerful, Saruman needed allies—or, rather, servants—and he wasn’t too particular who or what they were:

“He has taken up with foul folk, with the Orcs…Worse than that: he has been doing something to them; something dangerous. For these Isengarders are more like wicked Men. It is a mark of evil things that came in the Great Darkness that they cannot abide the Sun; but Saruman’s Orcs can endure it, even if they hate it. I wonder what he has done? Are they Men he has ruined, or has he blended the races of Orcs and Men? That would be a black evil!”

With the help of these servants, Saruman has turned his base into a factory and storehouse for his scheme, as Gandalf says:

“…it had once been green and fair, it was now filled with pits and forges. Wolves and orcs were housed in Isengard, for Saruman was mustering a great force on his own account, in rivalry of Sauron and not in his service, yet.”

(The Fellowship of the Ring, Book One, Chapter 2, “The Council of Elrond”)

In fact, it would appear from what Saruman has told Gandalf, that he actually never intends to offer his service to Sauron.

From his base, he has been extending his own power into Rohan, in the south. In his encounter with Aragon and his companions, Eomer says:

“But at this time our chief concern is with Saruman. He has claimed lordship over all this land, and there has been war between us for many months. He has taken Orcs into his service, and Wolf-riders, and evil Men, and he has closed the Gap against us, so that we are likely to be beset both east and west.”

(The Two Towers, Book Three, Chapter 2, “The Riders of Rohan”)

His attacks aren’t always military and Eomer hints at another possibility:

“His spies slip through every net, and his birds of ill omen are abroad in the sky. I do not know how it will all end, and my heart misgives me; for it seems to me that his friends do not all dwell in Isengard. But if you come to the king’s house, you shall see for yourself.”

We know that this is “fifth-column” work—Grima Worm-tongue, who has been slowly poisoning King Theoden with defeatism.

And now we can see, in broad outline, what Saruman is up to:

establish a base
recruit an army
build up an intelligence network (birds, spies, even wandering himself to pick up information)
use your strength to expand power into the next land, Rohan
at the same time undercut the King of Rohan’s ability to resist by subversive methods

So far, so good, as long as all that Saruman wants is to be the ruler of the land south of the Gap of Rohan and north of Gondor, but we’ve already seen that he’s more ambitious yet, suggesting to Gandalf that they—really he, as Gandalf knows—can take over that unnamed Power and use it for their—his– purposes, Knowledge, Rule, Order. When he sees that Gandalf is unconvinced, Saruman lets slip the capstone of his scheme:

“Well, I see that this wise course does not commend itself to you…Not yet? Not if some better way can be contrived?…And why not, Gandalf? Why not? The Ruling Ring? It we could command that, then the Power would pass to us.”

And here is the real heart of Saruman’s design: to obtain the One Ring.

He has been searching for it for a long time, even traveling to Minas Tirith to examine ancient records.

“In former days the members of my order had been well received there,” says Gandalf to the Council of Elrond, “but Saruman most of all. Often he had been for long the guest of the Lords of the City.”

His purpose is now easy to guess.

Gandalf had been aware that Saruman had seemed to know a great deal about the Ring, even to its appearance, as Saruman had said to the White Council:

“The Nine, the Seven, and the Three had each their proper gem. Not so the One. It was round and unadorned, as it were one of the lesser rings; but the maker set marks upon it that the skilled, maybe, could still see and read.”

How had Saruman known that since, as Gandalf says, “What those marks were he had not said. Who now would know? The maker. And Saruman? But great though his lore may be, it must have a source. What hand save Sauron’s ever held this thing, ere it was lost? The hand of Isildur alone.”

Gandalf discovers the truth of this in the dusty records of Gondor:

“…there lies in Minas Tirith still, unread, I guess, by any save Saruman and myself since the kings failed, a scroll that Isildur made himself.”

And, with the discovery and reading of that scroll, Gandalf knows not only about much more about the Ring, but how Saruman knew about its appearance and now, in Orthanc, pressed by Saruman to join him, he understands the last element in Saruman’s design—and also why Saruman has summoned him:

“That is in truth why I brought you here. For I have many eyes in my service, and I believe you know where this precious thing now lies. Is it not so? Or why do the Nine ask for the Shire, and what is your business there?”

So here, lacking only one element, the real element under all, is Saruman’s long plan—but lacking “this precious thing” (a telling phrase!), we will see how successful the rest will be. Treebeard has said of him,

“He has a mind of metal and wheels; and he does not care for growing things, except as far as they serve him for the moment.”

What will happen when, without the Ring, Saruman will find that growing things, instead of serving him for the moment, might unseat him forever?

As always, thanks for reading!

MTCIDC

Wormy

21 Wednesday Feb 2018

Posted by lebedusya1 in J.R.R. Tolkien, Military History, Military History of Middle-earth, Villains

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Adolf Hitler, Bilbo, Dragon, Fifth Column, Gandalf, Germany, Grima, Madrid, Middle-earth, Nazis, Norway, Norwegian facist party, Republican government, Rohan, Saruman, Second World War, Smaug, Spanish Civil War, The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, The Scouring of the Shire, Theoden, Tolkien, traitor, Vidkun Quisling, William Blake, worm, Wormtongue

Welcome, as always, dear readers.
In 1936, the Nationalist forces were marching to attack the Republican government in Madrid, during the Spanish Civil War.

When interviewed, a Nationalist general is reported to have said that, as four military columns were about to assault the city,

a fifth column of loyalists would join the attack from inside.

This phrase “fifth column”, then, was picked up and began to be used world-wide to mean “traitors/betrayers from within” and was popular during the Second World War era.

When the Nazis attacked Norway in 1940,

and the Allies failed to defend their positions there successfully and were forced to surrender or flee

a member of the small Norwegian fascist party, Vidkun Quisling,

declared himself ruler as the Germans marched in.

In time, the Nazis recognized him as the head of Norway and he even had an audience with Hitler.

This time, a specific “fifth columnist” had not only betrayed his country, but also profited greatly from it and, when we looked at the dates—1936 and 1940—we wondered, as we so often do, if the current events of our world may have colored JRRT’s relation of the events in Middle-earth—even as we hasten to say, as we always do, that this is just a suggestion.
In his first meeting with Aragorn, Eomer is troubled and his veiled comments suggest just the same sort of fifth-columnist action:
“But at this time our chief concern is with Saruman. He has claimed lordship over all this land, and there has been war between us for many months…”
His concern, however, as we see, is for more than border security, as he says of Saruman:
“His spies slip through every net, and his birds of ill omen are abroad in the sky. I do not know how it will all end, and my heart misgives me; for it seems to me that his friends do not all dwell in Isengard. But if you come to the king’s house, you shall see for yourself.” (The Two Towers, Book Three, Chapter 2, “The Riders of Rohan”)
So, all is not well, not only in Rohan, but in Meduseld itself. When Gandalf and the other survivors of the Fellowship arrive at the gates of Edoras, they are stopped by guards and by a command from Theoden, king of Rohan—or is it? A guard says:
“It is but two nights ago that Wormtongue came to us and said that by the will of Theoden no stranger should pass these gates.” (The Two Towers, Book Three, Chapter 6, “The King of the Golden Hall”)
“Wormtongue” seems a very odd name—do worms actually have tongues?

But this isn’t a worm, it’s a “worm”—an old term for “dragon”.

And, if Smaug’s speech and its effect upon Bilbo is anything to go by:
“Bilbo was now beginning to feel really uncomfortable. Whenever Smaug’s roving eye, seeking for him in the shadows, flashed across him, he trembled, and an unaccountable desire seized hold of him to rush out and reveal himself and tell all the truth to Smaug. In fact he was in grievous danger of coming under the dragon-spell.” (The Hobbit, Chapter 12, “Inside Information”)
then a person having a dragon tongue might be a real threat, as Wormtongue, seated at Theoden’s feet,

inserts himself between Gandalf and Theoden:
“Why indeed should we welcome you, Master Stormcrow? Lathspell I name you, Ill-news; and ill news is an ill guest they say.”
Gandalf immediately resists this and, in a burst of power, breaks the real “spell”—the dragon’s words which Grima Wormtongue has been pouring into Theoden’s ears, as Theoden says to him of Gandalf’s efforts: “If this is witchcraft…it seems to me more wholesome than your whisperings. Your leechcraft [that is, “medical skill”—obviously ironic here] ere long would have had me walking on all fours like a beast.”
[A footnote here—is JRRT making a quiet reference to the fate of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, mentioned in the book of Daniel in the Old Testament? In Chapter 4, the king is driven mad and spends seven years as a grazing animal to prove the power of the Hebrew divinity. Here is William Blake’s (1757-1827) striking depiction of the mad king.]

Certainly something Grima has been doing has affected Theoden, as he is initially described as “a man so bent with age that he seemed almost a dwarf…” and this shrinking is suddenly reversed when Gandalf strikes Grima down:
“From the king’s hand the black staff fell clattering on the stones. He drew himself up, slowly, as a man that is stiff from long bending over some dull toil. Now tall and straight he stood, and his eyes were blue as he looked into the opening sky.”
For all that Grima has been blocked and Theoden restored, the fifth columnist tries once more. When he is told that he must ride with the king and his warriors to battle, he makes a countersuggestion:
“One who knows your mind and honours your commands should be left in Edoras. Appoint a faithful steward. Let your counsellor Grima keep all things till your return…”
But he gives himself away by finishing that sentence with “and I pray that we may see it, though no wise man will deem it hopeful.”
And Gandalf sees all too clearly what is behind Grima’s proposal—and who is behind it:
“Down, snake!…Down on your belly! How long is it since Saruman bought you? What was the promised price?…”

Although it is said that Grima deserves death for his treachery, he is allowed to flee, and, when we next see him, he is with his true master, acting as his “footman” as Gandalf calls him (The Two Towers, Book Three, Chapter 10, “The Voice of Saruman). And here, as Bilbo’s pity has preserved Gollum for an unseen but vital part in the later story of the Ring, so Gandalf’s mercy to Grima preserves him for two final acts: first, his mistaken use of a palantir as a missile, which puts it into Gandalf’s hands and, ultimately into Aragorn’s, who shakes Sauron’s nerve with it; second, Saruman’s ultimate end:
“[Saruman] kicked Wormtongue in the face as he groveled, and turned and made off. But at that something snapped: suddenly Wormtongue rose up, drawing a hidden knife, and then with a snarl like a dog he sprang on Saruman’s back, jerked his head back, cut his throat, and with a yell ran off down the lane.” (The Return of the King, Book Six, Chapter 8, “The Scouring of the Shire”)

Grima doesn’t survive this attack, however: “Before Frodo could recover or speak a word, three hobbit-bows twanged and Wormtongue fell dead.”
Merry calls these final acts of violence “the very last end of the War”, but we would suggest a parallel with a specific event in our world: the end of Vidkun Quisling–executed by firing squad in October, 1945, for treason. Could we say that Grima’s death—deserved earlier, but deferred—was also a kind of execution for treason, against Rohan, finally carried out?
And a final thought: after World War 2, Quisling’s name became, for a time, an easy synonym for “fifth columnist/traitor”—could we imagine that, in the Common Speech of Middle-earth after the War of the Ring, the same might have happened to “Grima Wormtongue”?
Thanks, as ever, for reading.
MTCIDC
CD

A Pirate’s Life…

15 Wednesday Nov 2017

Posted by lebedusya1 in Imaginary History, J.R.R. Tolkien, Literary History, Maps, Military History, Military History of Middle-earth, Narrative Methods, Villains

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Abd el-Ouahed ben Messaoud ben Mohammed Anoun, Algiers, Anduin, Barbary Coast, buccaneer, corsair barbary, Corsairs, draught, dromon, dromunds, galley, Harad, Haradrim, Harlond, Helm's Deep, Legatus Regis Barbariae, Pelennor, Pirates, Ramas Echor, Southrons, The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien, Turkish galley, Umbar, US Navy WW2 fighter

Welcome, dear readers, as always.

In a previous posting, we mentioned the Corsairs of Umbar.

If you google “corsair” in images, the first thing which appears is this:

It’s a US Navy WW2 fighter—but hardly what was sweeping to attack the south coast of Gondor in Sauron’s massive campaign.

Change that to “corsair pirate” and you see things like

image2piratecostume

which is definitely a bit better, but he looks so 18^th-century. As we have discussed in many of our postings, Middle-earth is Middle Ages (more or less), even if it mixes High Medieval (things like the plate armor of the Prince of Dol Amroth) with Anglo-Saxon (the Rohirrim). So “corsair pirate” is too late in time. Another word (with a much-discussed origin) for “pirate” is “buccaneer”, so, how about “corsair buccaneer”?

image3trailer

Ooops! Okay—clearly that doesn’t work!

So what will—and what are we really looking for? Well, what do these corsairs look like according to JRRT?

They have black sails:

For Anduin, from the bend at the Harlond, so flowed that[,]from the City[,] men could look down it lengthwise for some leagues, and the far-sighted could see any ships that approached. And looking thither they cried in dismay; for black against the glittering stream they beheld a fleet borne up on the wind: dromunds, and ships of great draught with many oars, and with black sails bellying in the breeze.

‘The Corsairs of Umbar!’ men shouted. (The Return of the King, Book Five, Chapter 6, “The Battle of the Pelennor Fields”)

Anything more?

In The Lord of the Rings, unfortunately not.

Umbar is in Harad,

however, and there is a little about the Haradrim. Our first view of them is Sam’s:

Then suddenly straight over the rim of their sheltering bank, a man fell, crashing through the slender trees, nearly on top of them. He came to rest in the fern a few feet away, face downward, green arrow-feathers sticking from his neck below a golden collar. His scarlet robes were tattered, his corselet of overlapping brazen plates was rent and hewn, his black plaits of hair braided with gold were drenched with blood. His brown hand still clutched the hilt of a broken sword. (The Two Towers, Book Four, Chapter 4, “Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit”)

Other details?

Just before Sam speaks, Gollum has reported seeing:

‘Dark faces. We have not seen Men like these before, no, Smeagol has not. They are fierce. They have black eyes, and long black hair, and gold rings in their ears; yes, lots of beautiful gold. And some have red paint on their cheeks, and red cloaks; and their flags are red, and the tips of their spears; and they have found shields, yellow and black with big spikes. Not nice; very cruel wicked Men they look. Almost as bad as Orcs, and much bigger.’ (The Two Towers, Book Four, Chapter 3, “The Black Gate is Closed.”)

“cruel and tall” (The Return of the King, Book Five, Chapter 4, “The Siege of Gondor”)

They have cavalry and they are armed with scimitars. (The Return of the King, Book Five, Chapter 6, “The Battle of the Pelennor Fields”)

These would seem to be people from Near Harad (that is, near to Gondor). The men to the south of them differ:

“…Southrons [men from Near Harad] in scarlet and out of Far Harad black men like half-trolls with white eyes and red tongues.” (The Return of the King, Book Five, Chapter 6, “The Battle of the Pelennor Fields”)

But all of this to us suggested a model from our own world (as always): the Barbary Pirates. So how about the search terms “corsair barbary”?

Ah. That’s a bit more like it, we think. He has to lose his gunpowder weapons, though—the only gunpowder in Middle-earth appears to be something in the hands of Saruman and Sauron’s orcs, as we see at Helm’s Deep

and the wall of the Pelennor, the Ramas Echor.

We would imagine those corsairs, then, as looking like the infamous “Barbary Pirates”.

They certainly fill the bill geographically—they’re southern (at least in relation to JRRT’s England)–their hangouts being on the coast of North Africa

and, if you wanted a big port city, as Umbar was supposed to be, here’s Algiers.

What about ships—that is, “dromunds and ships of great draught with many oars”?

“Dromund” is a medieval form of the Byzantine Greek dromon, literally a “runner”—a word you’d recognize from the English word “hippodrome”—the “place where horses run”. This was the common larger Byzantine warship.

Here’s a Renaissance-era engraving of a Turkish galley.

There’s a difficulty with “ships of great draft with many oars”, however. Draught (also spelled “draft”) is the distance between the waterline and the bottom of the keel, as in this diagram.

Ships with many oars are, commonly, galleys,

and galleys commonly have a shallow draft—both to allow for maneuver in shallow waters and to allow for the oars to do their job most efficiently. So, we presume that all of the Corsairs’ vessels were actually galleys of various sizes.

Jackson’s Corsair ships have something of the look of JRRT’s description, but his

depiction of the Corsairs, unlike that of Rohan and the Rohirrim, is not even close to the little we have learned so far from the text.

The Barbary Pirates, to us, not only match point of origin and vessels, but are much more exotic and colorful, whereas those in the film look to us more like dingy Vikings.

And here’s a portrait

of the Moroccan ambassador to the court of Queen Elizabeth I (notice that, in the caption he’s called Legatus Regis Barbariae, “deputy of the King of Barbary”—a splendid figure with a splendid name: Abd el-Ouahed ben Messaoud ben Mohammed Anoun—imagine him facing Aragorn from the deck of a galley—we think that the Oath-breakers would have had little fear for him, even as they overwhelmed him and his crew.

So, as always, we ask you, readers, what do you think?

And thanks, as always, for reading.

MTCIDC

Just a thought, but, if Sauron, as one of the Maiar, was virtually immortal and had the kind of power which is displayed in the forging of the Ring, why did he need vast fortresses and armies and fleets? Something to think about in a future posting!

And Then the Dragon Came

14 Wednesday Jun 2017

Posted by lebedusya1 in Artists and Illustrators, Fairy Tales and Myths, Heroes, Imaginary History, J.R.R. Tolkien, Literary History, Narrative Methods, Villains

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A.A. Milne, Apollonius, Arthur Rackham, Beowulf, Chrysophylax, Cressida Cowell, Dragons, Drawn From Life, Drawn From Memory, Dream Days, E.H. Shepard, Edwardian, Farmer Giles of Ham, How to Train Your Dragon, Kenneth Grahame, Maxfield Parrish, Nine Dragons, Now We Are Six, Octavian, Prince Valiant, Renaissance, Sir Gawain, Smaug, St. George and the Dragon, The Argonautica, The Hobbit, The House at Pooh Corners, The Reluctant Dragon, The Wind in the Willows, Tolkien, Victorian, Walt Disney, Western Medieval, When We Were Very Young, Winnie the Pooh

Welcome, dear readers, as always.
One of us is in the midst of creating a course for the fall term. It’s called “Handling Monsters: A Handbook” and several of those monsters are dragons—the “Sleepless Serpent/Dragon” of the ancient Greek literary epic by Apollonius, The Argonautica,

the dragon which Beowulf fights,

(when small, we always imagined this as looking like the one which Sir Gawain, Prince Valiant’s master, fights)

Smaug,

and Toothless, from How to Train Your Dragon (by Cressida Cowell—there’s also a movie by that name, which is fun—great flying scenes–but it’s so different from the book that it really should have another title!)

We must confess that we’ve never been big saurian fans, either dinosaurs or dragons, but, as monsters go, they have their uses. Saying that, however, we do have to add that we’ve always loved the “Nine Dragons” scroll, a 13th-century Chinese painting…

[And here’s a LINK to a site at the Center for the Art of East Asia which you can see the whole scroll—well worth the visit—and revisit, if you’re like us and love Chinese painting.]
While putting together this course, we’ve been spending some time gathering dragon images. Sometimes, they seem pretty fantastic—painters with wild imaginations—

And sometimes they look like someone once saw a crocodile.

[Perhaps on an old coin? For example, Octavian—the Emperor Augustus-to-be—after the defeat of Antonius and Cleopatra, issued this coin, which reads “Egypt Taken”,

suggesting that, when a Roman thought of Egypt, it wasn’t the pyramids which came to mind, but a scaly, many-toothed amphibian!]
And the image before the coin reminds us that, in Western medieval/early Renaissance art, a major source of dragon pictures is religious, being depictions of St. George and his dragon-slaying.

We’ve mentioned JRRT and Smaug, but that it only his first dragon story. There is another, Farmer Giles of Ham, written in 1937 and published in 1949.

If you haven’t read it, we recommend it as a look at JRRT at play, more Hobbit than Lord of the Rings. The story is about a very practical, but hardly adventurous farmer, Giles, who, after chasing off a giant from his village, is given the job of dealing with an invading dragon, Chrysophylax (maybe something like “Watchman of the Gold”).

Although the dragon is tricksy, Giles eventually overcomes him with a combination of shrewdness and a famous sword, Caudimordax (“Tailbiter”). In the process, he becomes not only wealthy, but also founds his own kingdom-within-a-kingdom. As well, though JRRT, more than once in his letters, lets us know that he is not an enthusiast for democracy, he provides a very critical view of monarchy and its pretensions. (This may also explain why, although those in the Shire may refer to “the king” and “the rules”, which presumably came with that monarch, their own local form of government is more familial than bureaucratic.)
Chrysophylax is chatty, rather like Smaug, but there is a much lighter touch here, and Chrysophylax reminds us of our favorite dragon after Tolkien’s, the unnamed dragon in Kenneth Grahame’s

short story, “The Reluctant Dragon”, from his 1898 collection, Dream Days.

If you recognize Grahame’s name, you probably know it from his 1908 novel, The Wind in the Willows, with its well-known characters, Toad, Rat, Mole, and Badger—not to mention the wicked weasels!–

first illustrated by E.H. Shepard

whom you may also know as the illustrator of A.A. Milne’s Winnie the Pooh, The House at Pooh Corners, When We Were Very Young, and Now We are Six.

[Shepard also wrote two volumes of autobiography—which he illustrated, of course—Drawn from Memory (1957) and Drawn from Life (1961)

and, for a picture of a growing up in the later Victorian world, beautifully written and illustrated, we very much recommend both.]
[And a second footnote here: Arthur Rackham—one of our favorite late-19th-early-20th-century illustrators– also illustrated The Wind in the Willows,

his last project before his death in 1939. It was published a year later, in 1940.]
The title gives away a great deal of the plot of Grahame’s “The Reluctant Dragon”. Instead of being a murderous hoarder, like Beowulf’s dragon, or Smaug, this is dragon-as-pacifist, (as depicted by his original illustrator, Maxfield Parrish):

not in the least interested in plundering and burning, but rather in viewing sunsets and living a peaceful existence—until St. George appears. As to what happens next, we’re not going to issue a spoiler alert here, but rather provide links to three works by Grahame: two collections of stories and essays, The Golden Age (1895), Dream Days (1898), and The Wind in the Willows (1908), inviting you to read for yourself and to enjoy Grahame’s elegant Edwardian prose and gentle approach.
With thanks, dear readers, for…reading.
MTCIDC
CD

PS
Walt Disney studios made cartoons of “The Reluctant Dragon” (1941) and “The Wind in the Willows” (1949), which are currently available in Disney collections. They both stray rather far from the original stories, but are fun in themselves (and Eric Blore’s voice is perfect for “the handsome and popular Toad”).
PPS
One of us has written what we might immodestly call a very good short story based upon Arthur Rackham’s last days and his determination to finish his illustrations to The Wind in the Willows before his death and we plan to publish it here next week as a kind of “Summer Holidays Extra”. We hope you’ll enjoy it.

Shire Portrait (5b): Hostile Takeover

15 Wednesday Mar 2017

Posted by lebedusya1 in Economics in Middle-earth, Imaginary History, J.R.R. Tolkien, Military History, Military History of Middle-earth, Narrative Methods, Villains

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Baggins, Chief, Der Fuehrer, Gestapo, Hitler, Lotho, SA, Sackville-Bagginses, Saruman, Sharkey, Shire, Shirriffs, Southfarthing, The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, The Scouring of the Shire, Tolkien

Welcome, dear readers, to the second part of our last (for the moment?) posting on the Shire. This is actually a two-part posting and is devoted to the takeover of the Shire by “Sharkey” and his followers and how it might have happened, based upon evidence from the texts of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.

We decided upon a two-part posting because we saw the takeover as a two-step process. Initially, we believe that Saruman looked for someone within the Shire to act as his agent there and, as a local agent, both to foment the kind of discontent which would provoke a demand for change, and to act as the leader of that change.

Because the Shire had so little government and most problems were dealt with within families, we wondered if that discontent wouldn’t begin as something Shire-wide, but be found within one or more families, instead.

With this in mind, we immediately thought of the Sackville-Bagginses. From the final chapter of The Hobbit, it was clear that the S-Bs (as they’re called) had grievances against their cousins, the Bagginses, mostly because they wanted Bag End and its contents.

How this led to leaguing with Saruman is not explained, but merely suggested, by Pippin, who says, of reported disturbance in the Southfarthing:

“ ‘Whatever it is…Lotho will be at the bottom of it: you can be sure of that.” The Return of the King, Book Six, Chapter 7, “Homeward Bound”

This is then confirmed when the hobbits reach the bridge over the Brandywine and one of the hobbit guards (Hob Hayward), mentions “the Chief…up at Bag End.”

Frodo, who has sold his house at Bag End (see The Fellowship of the Ring, Book One, Chapter 3, “Three is Company”) to the S-Bs, immediately asks Hob, “ ‘Chief? Chief? Do you mean Mr. Lotho?’ said Frodo.” The Return of the King, Book Six, Chapter 8, “The Scouring of the Shire”

Otho and Lobelia had been Bilbo’s enemies long ago, but, whereas Lobelia is still alive, Otho is long dead and Lotho (and yes, the word “loathe” must lie just below the surface here, though this is probably not his name in the Common Tongue, just as Pippin’s name isn’t Pippin), his son, has somehow become not the Mayor of the Shire (who is actually Will Whitfoot), but the much vaguer (and more menacing) “the Chief”. (We also note that “Mr. Lotho” is a courtesy title and one for established land-owners, really, and not for Lotho.)

The family theme is underlined when Hob replies that “we have to say ‘the Chief’ nowadays” and Frodo says, in turn:

“ ‘Do you indeed!’ said Frodo. ‘Well, I am glad he has dropped the Baggins at any rate. But it is evidently high time that the family dealt with him and put him in his place.’ ”

If Frodo’s remark suggests the familial aspect of justice in the Shire, the reply of an anonymous hobbit to it suggests the second or external step of the takeover:

“A hush fell on the hobbits beyond the gate. ‘It won’t do no good talking that way,’ said one. ‘He’ll get to hear of it. And if you make so much noise, you’ll wake the Chief’s Big Man.’ ”

As JRRT began The Lord of the Rings in 1937, just four years after the Nazis took control of Germany, “The Chief” surely has echoes of “Der Fuehrer”, which simply means “The Leader”.

In which case, should we associate the threat of “the Chief’s Big Man” with everything from the SA

to the Gestapo?

Merry, at least, certainly makes a connection with something which Butterbur had said earlier:

“It all comes of those newcomers and gangrels that began coming up the Greenway last year, as you may remember; but more came later. Some were just poor bodies running away from trouble; but most were bad men, full o’ thievery and mischief.” The Return of the King, Book Six, Chapter 7, “Homeward Bound”

Answering the anonymous voice, Merry says:

“If you mean that your precious Chief has been hiring ruffians out of the wild, then we’ve not come back too soon!”

When the Big Man appears, Merry’s conclusion is confirmed: it’s Bill Ferny, who, Butterbur believes, who had been involved in a minor battle in Bree, in which five hobbits had been killed:

“ ‘And Harry Goatleaf that used to be on the West-gate, and that Bill Ferny, they came in on the strangers’ side, and they’ve gone off with them; and it’s my belief they let them in. On the night of the fight I mean.’ “

If some of these “Big Men” were criminal drifters from the east, almost randomly recruited, there were others who were sent.

“ ‘It all began with Pimple, as we call him,’ said Farmer Cotton; ‘and it began as soon as you’d gone off, Mr. Frodo. He’d funny ideas, had Pimple. Seems he wanted to own everything himself, and then order other folk about. It soon came out that he already did own a sight more than was good for him; and he was always grabbing more, though where he got the money was a mystery: mills and malt-houses and inns, and farms, and leaf-plantations. He’d already bought Sandyman’s mill before he came to Bag End, seemingly.

Of course he started with a lot of property in the Southfarthing which he had from his dad; and it seems he’d been selling a lot o’ the best leaf, and sending it away quietly for a year or two. But at the end o’ last year he began sending away loads of stuff, not only leaf. Things began to get short, and winter coming on, too. Folk got angry, but he had an answer. A lot of Men, ruffians mostly, came with great wagons, some to carry off the goods south-away, and others to stay. And more came. And before we knew where we were they were planted here and there all over the Shire, and were felling trees and digging and building themselves sheds and houses just as they liked…”

There is a bit more to add to this. The “Big Men” were not alone. As in our own historical world of Nazi occupiers, there were those willing to collaborate, as Robin Smallburrow tells Sam:

“There’s hundreds of Shirriffs all told, and they want more, with all these new rules. Most of them are in it against their will, but not all. Even in the Shire there are some as like minding other folk’s business and talking big. And there’s worse than that: there’s a few as do spy-work for the Chief and his Men.”

With Farmer Cotton’s narrative, however, the two steps come together: the local was, indeed, as Pippin has suspected, Lotho. The external was a combination of opportunists, like Bill Ferny, and agents dispatched from an unnamed southern source, but we know that it was “Sharkey” who sent them, just as we know that “Sharkey” was Saruman, who was still capable of mischief—but not “in a small mean way”.

Thanks, as always, for reading.

MTCIDC

Which Witch

31 Monday Oct 2016

Posted by lebedusya1 in Artists and Illustrators, Fairy Tales and Myths, Films and Music, Literary History, Villains

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Goya, Halloween, Holinshed's Chronicles, Istari, L. Frank Baum, Macbeth, Mother Goose, The Wizard of Oz, Theodore Chasseriau, W. W. Denslow, Welsh traditional clothing, Wicked Witch, William Shakespeare, Witch-King of Angmar, witches, Witches' Sabbath, wizards

Welcome, dear readers.

This is our annual Guy Fawkes’ Day/Halloween/Samain posting. Last year, we looked at GFD. This year, it’s Halloween—and a little puzzle from JRRT (how not?).

Magic and mystery—centered on witches—is a central theme for Halloween celebrations. Just look at the variety of commercially-made costumes available.

witch-costumes-blue-white-storybook-witch-costume-013639.jpg

For many of us, our introduction to witches was probably in the person of the Wicked Witch of the West in the 1939 The Wizard of Oz.

This is not quite what the witch in L. Frank Baum’s original book, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900)

(illustrated by W.W. Denslow) looked like,

wicked_witch_of_the_west

but you can see, in her hat and dress, things which were already symbolic of witchery in popular culture: black cats, crescent moons, toads, some of it echoes from the words of the three Weird Sisters in Shakepeare’s Macbeth (1606), who meet the protagonist on the road after his victory over the enemies of Duncan the king of Scotland. (Theodore Chasseriau)

A dark Cave. In the middle, a Caldron boiling. Thunder.

Enter the three Witches.

1 WITCH. Thrice the brinded cat hath mew’d.
2 WITCH. Thrice and once, the hedge-pig whin’d.
3 WITCH. Harpier cries:—’tis time! ’tis time!
1 WITCH. Round about the caldron go;
In the poison’d entrails throw.—
Toad, that under cold stone,
Days and nights has thirty-one;
Swelter’d venom sleeping got,
Boil thou first i’ the charmed pot!
ALL. Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and caldron bubble.
2 WITCH. Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the caldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt, and toe of frog,
Wool of bat, and tongue of dog,
Adder’s fork, and blind-worm’s sting,
Lizard’s leg, and owlet’s wing,—
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.
ALL. Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and caldron bubble.

Somehow, somewhere, witches acquired those distinctive clothes and hat—especially the hat. The story of Macbeth and the witches comes from Holinshed’s Chronicles (1577/1587) and here is that scene illustrated from that first edition of 1577.

As you can see, to the modern eye, there’s nothing “witchy” about these ladies. So where do those clothes and hat come from? We have no firm answer for this, just a guess—and from another literary tradition, Mother Goose.

The first published version of stories (and, in time, rhymes) under that name dates from 1695. Here’s the frontispiece from the first English translation (1729).

Houghton_FC6.P4262.Eg729s_-_Perrault,_frontispiece.jpg

Mother Goose was supposed to be a country woman and, by the latter part of the 19^th century, was dressed as one—but we think with a particular look, that of Welsh women in distinctive traditional clothing.

The style of hat is much older—here we have, in succession, three earlier versions from the 17^th century—1610, 1640, 1676.

rubens_isabella_brant_c1610

Country people tend to be conservative, so something worn in much of the UK in the 17^th century appears to have existed, at least in modified form, in the depths of Wales long after then.

We wonder whether there hasn’t been a kind of cross-over effect: country women to Mother Goose to witches—all conservative dressers. There is also a long tradition in Wales of “wise women”—often mistaken in England for dealers-with-the-devil—those appear in this rather creepy painting by Goya of a witches’ Sabbath (1797-1798). (We note that there are no pointy hats here.) Perhaps the Welsh wise woman was consulted about wardrobe by Mother Goose?

GOYA_-_El_aquelarre_(Museo_Lázaro_Galdiano,_Madrid,_1797-98).jpg

Witches (as the “Harry Potter” books point out) aren’t and weren’t always just women.

Men, too, could take part, sometimes called witches, sometimes warlocks or wizards. When we think wizard, of course, we immediately think of the 5 Istari—

310993_121176884650130_120725101361975_85832_1441609629_n.jpg

When we think of witch, however, in the context of LOTR, we can see that:

In this respect, this is a different kind of culture—for instance, the only equivalent of a “wise woman” is Ioreth, in the “Houses of Healing”
But there is a witch-king, that of Angmar, who is also the head of the Nazgul

There is a puzzle here, however. In western tradition, witches are the servants of Satan, who spend their time, it seems, troubling humans at the daily level—making cows sick, tormenting babies, holding sabbbaths, casting spells.

witch_john_william_waterhouse_magic_circle_painting_casting_spells.jpg

In that tradition, the only ruler is Satan himself, as depicted in this second Goya painting of a sabbath (and we note here that most of the witches appear to be something between human and other—a great—but horrible—touch—and who is that girl sitting off to the right? This comes from a series of paintings done by Goya in the last years of his life and there is a certain mystery about why he painted them—they’re murals, in fact—and what they might mean.)

francisco_de_goya_y_lucientes_-_witches_sabbath_the_great_he-goat

As there are no other witches in Middle-earth, then, where are the witches for the witch-king to be monarch of?

And that, perhaps, is another mystery for Halloween…

Oh—and Happy Halloween, by the way!

Thanks, as ever, for reading.

MTCIDC

While gathering images for this posting, we happened upon this photograph. Is this a picture from Professor McGonagall’s 50th Hogwarts reunion?

Nought’s had, all’s spent

03 Wednesday Aug 2016

Posted by lebedusya1 in J.R.R. Tolkien, Literary History, Narrative Methods, Theatre and Performance, Villains

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A Shadow of the Past, Birnam Wood, Eowyn, Fangorn Forest, Gandalf, Gondor, Isengard, Istari, King Duncan, Lady Macbeth, Macbeth, Macduff, Orthanc, Palantir, Saruman, Sauron, Shakespeare, The Lord of the Rings, The Weird Sisters, The Witch-King, Tolkien

In “The Shadow of the Past,” Gandalf, giving Frodo backstory of the Ring, makes a confession:

“I might perhaps have consulted Saruman the White, but something always held me back.”

“Who is he?” asked Frodo. “I have never heard of him before.”

“Maybe not,” answered Gandalf. “Hobbits are, or were, no concern of his. Yet he is great among the Wise. He is the chief of my order and the head of the Council. His knowledge is deep, but his pride had grown with it, and he takes ill any meddling. The lore of the Elven-rings, great and small, is his province. He has long studied it, seeking the lost secrets of their making; but when the Rings were debated in the Council, all that he would reveal to us of his ring-lore told against my fears. So my doubt slept– but uneasily. Still I watched and I waited.” (The Lord of the Rings, The Fellowship of the Ring, Book 1, Chapter 2, “The Shadow of the Past”)

In terms of the spiritual life and safety of Middle-earth, Gandalf’s confession foreshadows much evil to come. Both Gandalf and Saruman are Istari, one of a group of five divine beings sent specifically to counteract the activities of Sauron.

Gandalf suspects that “the chief of my order and the head of the Council” is false, and his suspicion will prove to be true, but what has happened to Saruman? Gandalf suggests that it has something to do with the ring, but, in fact, the ring is only emblematic of the real problem: the lure of control.

Here is Saruman attempting to seduce Gandalf into joining him:

“I said we, for we it may be, if you will join with me. A new Power is rising. Against it the old allies and policies will not avail us at all. There is no hope left in Elves or dying Numenor. This then is one choice before you, before us. We may join with that Power. It would be wise, Gandalf. There is hope that way. Its victory is at hand; and there will be rich reward for those that aided it. As the Power grows, its proved friends will also grow; and the Wise, such as you and I may with patience come at last to direct its courses, to control it.” (The Lord of the Rings, The Fellowship of the Ring, Book 2, Chapter 2, “The Council of Elrond”)

Instead of fulfilling his role as a counter-balance to Sauron, Saruman proposes first to control Sauron, and then even to become Sauron. As Saruman says, “Why not? The Ruling Ring? If we could command that, then the Power would pass to us.” (The Lord of the Rings, The Fellowship of the Ring, Book 2, Chapter 2, “The Council of Elrond”) This use of the first person plural pronoun is not convincing:

“Saruman,” I said, standing away from him, “only one hand at a time can wield the One, and you know that well, so do not trouble to say we.” (The Lord of the Rings, The Fellowship of the Ring, Book 2, Chapter 2, “The Council of Elrond”)

But what is it which Saruman wants to do with that ring?

“We can bide our time, we can keep our thoughts in our hearts, deploring maybe evils done by the way, but approving the high and ultimate purpose: Knowledge, Rule, Order; all the things that we have so far striven in vain to accomplish, hindered rather than helped by our weak or idle friends. There need not be, there would not be, any real change in our designs, only in our means.” (The Lord of the Rings, The Fellowship of the Ring, Book 2, Chapter 2, “The Council of Elrond”)

Knowledge, rule, order? We immediately want to know, knowledge of what, and who is ruling whom, with what order? And the answers are all the same: Saruman’s knowledge, Saruman’s rule, Saruman’s order. But what has happened to Saruman to so turn him away from the purpose for which he was sent?

Saruman’s headquarters are at Orthanc, a tower set in a stone circle at Isengard.

Originally, this had been the site of a Gondorian strongpoint, but, as Gondor waned, it fell into disuse until taken over by Saruman with the permission of the Steward of Gondor, Beren. When we think of wizards, we imagine them as wanderers, like Gandalf and Radagast, and even more so, the two Blue wizards who have wandered so far as to have disappeared almost entirely from the history of Middle-earth. Could the very fact that Saruman would want a permanent base have been a hint that his plans went beyond the directive he had received in Valinor?

And there is worse to come. Within Orthanc, Saruman has discovered a Palantir, a far-seeing stone of Numenor.

Who else might have one of these stones? Unfortunately, one of them is in the hands of Sauron.

And the seduction of Gandalf began with the seduction of Saruman, as Gandalf says:

“Saruman…I have heard speeches of this kind before, but only in the mouths of emissaries sent from Mordor to deceive the ignorant.” (The Lord of the Rings, The Fellowship of the Ring, Book 2, Chapter 2, “The Council of Elrond”)

This figure for good being drawn away from the proper path reminded us of a similar situation in Shakespeare. Macbeth has been a successful general for Duncan, the king of Scotland. For his latest victory, he has been well-rewarded by the king, but just as in the case of Saruman, there is some part of him which wants more. Thus, when, after the battle, he and a companion meet three strange women on the edge of the battlefield, their prophetic words touch him in a place perhaps untouched before, but there.

MacbethAndBanquo-Witches

They first hail him by titles King Duncan has yet to give him–but will. Then they hail him as King of Scotland itself, and his corruption begins. It may have gone no farther than unquiet dreams had there not be a second element in his seduction: his wife.

Ellen-Terry-as-Lady-Macbeth-by-John-Singer-Sargent-1889

It is she who completes what these three strange women began, not only nurturing Macbeth’s ambition, but even planning the murder of King Duncan.

Lady_Macbeth_Cattermole Like Saruman, Macbeth is overcome, gives in, murders Duncan, seizes power, but, also like Saruman, can not retain it and, interestingly, an element in his defeat closely resembles an element in Saruman’s defeat: trees.

As his reign suffers resistance and becomes bloodier and more confused, Macbeth sees a series of apparitions, including one which reassures him–or so he thinks–that

“Be lion-mettled, proud, and take no care

Who chafes, who frets, or where conspirers are.

Macbeth shall never vanquished be until

Great Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane Hill

Shall come against him.” (Macbeth, 4.1.94-98)

But his enemies, to disguise their numbers and movements, camouflage themselves with foliage from Birnam Wood,

Macbeth’s fortress is successfully taken, and Macbeth is killed in battle, his head taken by an avenging enemy, Macduff.

Where Macbeth has had Birnam Wood, Saruman suffers from the Forest of Fangorn–

Tolkien, Nasmith, painting, illustration, Lord of the Rings, Silmarillion, Hobbit, Middle-earth

The Wrath of the Ents, by Ted Nasmith

(We would add one more Macbeth parallel for The Lord of the Rings. Another seemingly reassuring apparition has told Macbeth that he can only be killed by a very special person:

“Be bloody, bold, and resolute. Laugh to scorn

The power of man, for none of woman born

Shall harm Macbeth.” (Macbeth, 4.1.81-83)

That person turns out to be Macduff, born from a Caesarian section.

Do we need to remind our readers of what Eowyn says in reply to the Witch-king’s “Hinder me? Thou fool. No living man may hinder me!”)

After the fall of Isengard, Saruman is imprisoned in his own tower. During his imprisonment, he is deprived of the Palantir, but Sauron’s seduction has been thorough and, even when offered another chance, there will be nothing left for him in the future but being a petty spoiler and then the victim of his own slave, someone he had once seduced.

jwyatt-sarumande

Thanks, as always, for reading.

MTCIDC

Terrifyingly Funny? (Part 2)

20 Wednesday Jul 2016

Posted by lebedusya1 in J.R.R. Tolkien, Language, Narrative Methods, Villains

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Andy Serkis, Ben Gunn, Bilbo, Deagol, Gollum, Received Standard English, Riddles in the Dark, Smeagol, The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien, Treasure Island

Dear Readers, welcome, as always.

In the first part of this posting, we began to think out loud about the idea of characters in Tolkien who might combine menace and comedy. Our first idea had been to consider Gollum—

but not the Lord of the Rings Gollum, at least not at first glance.

The idea then took us backwards to the large, rather dim trolls of The Hobbit, who certainly seemed to display that combination.

And The Hobbit brings us back to Gollum.

All Tolkien readers must know, we imagine, that the book which JRRT published in 1937 was a very different kind of book from what gradually grew up around it. Here, for example, is the beginning of the reader’s introduction to Smeagol (a name never used in The Hobbit, of course):

“Deep down here by the dark water lived old Gollum…” (The Hobbit, Chapter 5, “Riddles in the Dark”)

To us, this sounds like it could easily begin, “Once upon a time, deep down by the dark water, lived Old Gollum”, as if it were the opening of a fairy tale and The Hobbit was, of course, originally conceived of and written as a children’s book.

“Old Gollum”, by that name, might have been a cantankerous but lovable geezer—but the line continues, “a small slimy creature”. “Slimy” then leads to “dark as darkness, except for two big round pale eyes in his thin face…He liked meat too. Goblin he thought good, when he could get it; but he took care they never found him out. He just throttled them from behind…” And then, presumably, he ate them raw (as he does fish in The Hobbit and he would coneys in The Lord of the Rings), as Gollum’s level of civilization seems to begin and end with the little boat which he has—although where the materials came from for that is never explained. (Gandalf, in “The Shadow of the Past”, says that the Stoors and Fallowhides, to whom Gollum/Smeagol belonged, made boats out of reeds.)

In our last posting, we pointed to the speech of the trolls in The Hobbit as one possible source of humor.

THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY

Unlike the main characters, who spoke a Middle-earth version of RSE (Received Standard English), they displayed a number of the linguistic elements of lower-class London which are often used to show class—or even species?–difference (think of the orcs who carry off Merry and Pippin, for example) in Tolkien. If this is combined with the topics of their conversation—mainly about food, some of it sheep, but also both humans and dwarves—we then have what we set out to find, menace and humor.

As for Gollum, he certainly has a very distinctive form of speech. First, there’s his habit of carrying on a conversation with himself even in the presence of others. It reminds us of the talk of Ben Gunn,

bengunn

who was marooned by Captain Flint in Stevenson’s Treasure Island (1881-2; 1883) and has clearly developed a similar habit:

“If you was sent by Long John,” said he, “I’m as good as pork and I know it. But where was you, do you suppose?” (Treasure Island, Chapter XV, “The Man of the Island”)

There are four other distinctive elements of Gollum’s speech. First, there is that gollum. The narrator says of it:

“And when he said gollum he made a horrible swallowing noise in his throat.” (The Hobbit, Chapter 5, “Riddles in the Dark”)

Andy Serkis, who is the voice (and movement) of Gollum in the Jackson films, has, in interviews, said that the noise he makes is modeled upon his cat throwing up a hairball. As Tolkien has called it “a horrible swallowing noise”, it would seem that this is, in fact, the opposite sound from what is wanted. So what should it sound like—that is, and still sound like “gollum”? The word has two syllables—perhaps we might think that the noise would depend upon which syllable bore the primary accent: GOL-lum or gol-LUM. To us, accenting the first has more of a choky feel to it and the second more of a froggy. (We also wonder, knowing Gandalf’s later explanation of how Smeagol acquired the Ring, whether, in fact, Smeagol is actually imitating the noise Deagol made as he struggled for breath.)

A second element is his incessant referring—in the 1937 edition—to himself as “my precious”. In the 1951 revision, and beyond, Gollum can call both himself and the Ring by the term, and we are of two minds about the change. On the one hand, the 1937 version reflects what interests us: a word of tender endearment mixed with a murderous intent, all within Gollum. On the other, the post-1951 version’s double usage presents us with a picture of a creature so enslaved to the Ring that he uses that term of endearment (and we also know, from Gandalf’s later explanation, that the Ring does not return the affection, making it even more horrible). As well, others touched by the Ring can be seen as infected by its power when they use the expression.

bilbowithring

Third—and more potentially comic—is Gollum’s actual language. There are the odd expressions, sometimes based on actual older English expressions—“Bless us and save us” becomes “Bless us and splash us”, example. As well, there are the non-standard words like “bitsy” (a kind of diminutive) and plurals—“handses”, “eggses”, “pocketses”.

Fourth is the stressed sssssssssssssssssssssibilance. JRRT himself points to this in a letter to Rayner Unwin in a correction to the 1937 edition: “Not that Gollum would miss the chance of a sibilant.” (cited in Anderson, The Annotated Hobbit, 120, note 9)

Taken altogether, this makes for a very distinctive—and very different speaker from any other in The Hobbit (or The Lord of the Rings, for that matter) and this is clear from the very start of the conversation between Gollum and Bilbo:

“What iss he, my preciouss?”…

“I am Mr. Bilbo Baggins. I have lost the dwarves and I have lost the wizard, and I don’t know where I am and I don’t want to know, if only I can get away.” (The Hobbit, Chapter 5, “Riddles in the Dark”)

The menace is there in Gollum, from the very beginning:

“Bless us and splash us, my precioussss! I guess it’s a choice feast; at least a tasty morsel it’d make us, gollum!” (The Hobbit, Chapter 5, “Riddles in the Dark”)

And we would suggest that the humor is there, too, in the very same speech: the twisted expression, the self-address, the use of “my precioussss”, and the hissy sibilance. Tolkien, though personally drily witty, was not—nor intended to be—a comic writer. What he could do well, we suggest, is use that which interested him deeply—language and its expression—combine it, for contrast, with a certain darkness of theme, as here, and allow the reader to feel a kind of grim amusement in the balance–or imbalance–between what’s being said and how.

What do you think, dear readers?

Thanks, as always, for reading.

MTCIDC

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Terrifyingly Funny? (Part 2)