Way back in 2024, I gave myself the task of reading the whole of the massive work with several titles like “The Thousand Nights and One Night” and “The Arabian Nights”. (See “Arabian Nights for Days”, 31 January, 2024)
This is massive because, each night, for 1001 nights, Sharahzad, so the story goes, begins a new story to keep the misogynistic sultan from beheading her.
Each story leads to another, maintaining the monstrous sultan’s curiosity until he finally allows her to live–which is actually a very clever way to put together such a gigantic collection—and to maintain the reader’s curiosity, as well.
Before I began, I read Robert Irwin’s introductory volume—
which, even if you don’t go on to do as I did, I would recommend just as an excellent summary of the work and its background.
Having done so, I then tackled Volume 1 of the Penguin 3-volume set.
There are a fair number of translations in English, some of them employing very unusual language, such as the. Sir Richard Burton’s,
but the Penguin seemed the best choice, using Irwin as a guide.
And Irwin provided a very encouraging beginning, but it was a long read: only up through Night 294 was 928 pages, and there were moments, I confess, when I felt that the story was being dragged out beyond its natural length (Sharahzad seeing the sultan beginning to nod off?), and sometimes there was that motif which would appear again and again through the whole 1001 nights: someone spots a beautiful stranger, immediately falls in love, and then the story spends itself scheming to meet the stranger, meeting the stranger, having difficulties, then finally uniting with the stranger and staying together until Death comes for them (a more realistic “happily ever after” I guess).
I persevered, however, into the second volume.
And there I got stuck. It was another 856 pages, bringing me up through Night 719, but somewhere, I think about Night 500, I began to nod off mentally—was it possible to have too many stories? Did there begin to be a certain sameness as this one was shipwrecked and that one was lovelorn and the other was helped by a djinn?
But then the djinn were really interesting. They rarely popped out of lamps,
there were male and female, as well as whole tribes, some heathen, some Muslim, all fierce and occasionally at war with each other, who inhabited a world outside our world, but who could interfere or be drawn into human affairs. This reminded me of the world of the Yokai, of Japanese folklore,
or the grimmer folk of the Other World which one sees in the Celtic tradition of the UK and Ireland, in stories like Tam Lin.
Although I thought that sometimes they were a bit too conveniently obliging to humans, they did add a certain spice here and there, loosening the frame of the narrative by their behavior.
Time went on, then, and that second volume, only half-finished, sat on the shelf till this spring. Maybe it was spring itself, but, somehow, I got a second wind, finished the second volume, and galloped through the third,
finishing its 734 pages and its 1001st night only the other day. My sigh of relief probably echoed Sharahzad’s,
as the violent sultan relented—although, realistically, who could ever trust such a person when it took a 1001 stories and what must have been nearly 3 solid years of telling him stories every night before he did?
But, although grounded in the real medieval Arab world, none of this is realistic, of course, and we never hear Sharahzad mutter to her sister, “About time!” Instead, it’s a very long fairy tale—which brings me to the question you might be asking: was this all worth it?
For myself, I would definitely answer yes. If you read this blog regularly, you know that I love stories of all sorts and am especially interested in how they’re told, whether in the form of song, prose narrative, or illustration, or film, and watching a 1001 stories told over, in my case, at least 2 years, gave me a real sense of the culture, the kind(s) of audience to whom the stories were told, the tastes of the listeners, and the narrative twists which kept the longer story going throughout all of those shorter ones.
Would I recommend picking up the three volumes and doing what I did? I would never say no to a reader, as I believe that what I might not enjoy, others might, and the broadest reading is the best. Perhaps, however, before plunging in, a reader might begin with something like this—
which will include those few tales with which she/he might already be familiar—
Ali Baba and his thieves,
(Munro S. Orr)
Sinbad with his wild adventures, including the giant Roc,
and, of course, Aladdin and his lamp.
After that, the choice will be up to you. Perhaps you will be willing to sit, as that sultan did, and let Sharahzad keep you awake for 1001 nights.
As ever, thanks for reading.
Stay well,
Beware of what lamps you polish, unless Robin Williams is inside,
When it comes to The Lord of the Rings, I’m sure that everyone has favorite characters. I suppose that mine, if I had to pin it down to one, would be Sam. At the same time, I would also say that, for me, if you asked for other favorites, I might say Saruman—and, perhaps surprisingly, this might have been true for Tolkien, I would suggest, as well.
Saruman? Maybe I just have a perverse taste for villains—after all, I’ve always secretly liked Captain Hook,
and have a sneaking fondness for the Orcs,
(Alan Lee)
but I think that there’s, ultimately, a poignancy about Saruman—not in his behavior in the earlier parts of The Lord of the Rings, but in his end–which Tolkien, who could simply have painted him as a villain, clearly chose to add to his depiction, which says to me that he, too, found something more to say about the character.
Consider the end of Sauron, which is quite dramatic, if not downright apocalyptic—
A Tolkien illustration by Ted Nasmith
(Ted Nasmith)
“And even as he spoke the earth rocked beneath their feet. Then rising swiftly up, far above the Towers of the Black Gate, high above the mountains, a vast soaring darkness sprang into the sky, flickering with fire. The earth groaned and quaked. The Towers of the Teeth swayed, tottered, and fell down; the mighty ramparts crumbled; the Black Gate was hurled in ruin; and from far away, now dim, now growing, now mounting to the clouds, there came a drumming rumble, a roar, a long echoing roll of ruinous noise…
And as the Captains gazed south to the Land of Mordor, it seemed to them that, black against the pall of cloud, there rose a huge shape of shadow, impenetrable, lightning-crowned, filling all the sky. Enormous it reared above the world, and stretched out towards them a vast, threatening hand, terrible but impotent; for even as it leaned over them, a great wind took it, and it was all blown away, and passed; and then a hush fell.” (The Return of the King, Book Six, Chapter 4, “The Field of Cormallen”)
In contrast, there is the death of Saruman—
“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.
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 shrivelled 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”)
And yet both were powerful beings, Sauron being the more powerful, but both Maiar, the equivalent, we might say, of angels, in our Middle-earth.
As if it were only an expression of his personality, when Sauron was destroyed, all Mordor came crashing down, although all that we see of Sauron himself is that one “vast, threatening hand, terrible but impotent…”
(JRRT)
So what is the purpose, the meaning, of that simple sigh?
For all that they might attempt to control it in their various ways and scales, these two were not natives of Middle-earth. Rather, they were once inhabitants of Valinor, to the far west.
(Karen Wynn Fonstad)
Sauron had come in an earlier age of his own accord, intent upon conquest, whereas Saruman had been sent as one of the five Istari, as a counterbalance to Sauron, once servant to the fallen Vala, Melkor, and now a would-be Melkor himself, until something began to go wrong and, instead of countering Sauron, Saruman began to become like him.
This had happened, I think, in stages.
To begin with, there is the question of how the Istari were to act as a balance. It’s interesting that the two others of whom we know anything, Gandalf and Radagast, appear to have been sent as wanderers, as if their role was to counter Sauron’s influence over a wide area and perhaps in different ways, depending upon that influence.
In contrast, Saruman has not just a fixed home, but a fortress, Isengard,
(the Hildebrandts)
where he has found one of the seeing-stones, the Palantiri,
(the Hildebrandts)
although he has kept this discovery secret, only to be revealed after his defeat—a disturbing sign: why not let the other Istari know–unless its use was in itself suspect?
At the very beginning of The Lord of the Rings, Gandalf identifies Saruman to Frodo as “…great among the Wise…chief of my order…” and yet adds something very interesting, and perhaps another disturbing sign: “His knowledge is deep, but his pride has grown with it, and he takes ill any meddling.” (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book One, Chapter 2, “The Shadow of the Past”)
We can’t know whether that pride which Gandalf mentions was already displaying itself then, but it’s clear that that discovery was fatal, the second stage in his corruption, pushing Saruman away from his role as a defender of Middle-earth into, in his own mind, the role of a potential conqueror and perhaps even rival to Sauron, although Saruman was
“…being deceived—for all of those arts and subtle devices, for which he forsook his former wisdom, and which fondly he imagined were his own, came but from Mordor; so that what he had made was naught, only a little copy, a child’s model or a slave’s flattery, of that vast fortress, armoury, prison, furnace of great power, Barad-dur, the Dark Tower, which suffered no rival, and laughed at flattery, biding its time, secure in its pride and its immeasurable strength.” (The Two Towers, Book Three, Chapter 8, “The Road to Isengard”)
In his description of Saruman to Frodo, Gandalf had been specific about Saruman’s knowledge:
“The lore of the Elven-rings, great and small, is his province. He has long studied it, seeking the lost secrets of their making…”
And here perhaps is revealed another stage in Saruman’s corruption:
“…but when the Rings were debated in the Council, all that he would reveal to us of his ring-lore told against my fears…”
That is, just as in the case of the Palantir, Saruman has kept things back. Was Saruman acting on his own in this, or had the seeing-stone and its real controller already been working at his mind?
Certainly, when he makes his pompous and revelatory speech to Gandalf, hoping to persuade him to join him (which Gandalf immediately not only sees through, but sees how much of it isn’t even Saruman’s thinking, but the words of someone else), we have the sense that, whoever Saruman had been when he came to Middle-earth, that person had been twisted away from protecting Middle-earth from Sauron and was stating, instead, completely alien goals, as Gandalf recognized:
“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 Fellowship of the Ring, Book Two, Chapter 2, “The Council of Elrond”)
To Gandalf, this is Sauron talking:
“ ‘Saruman…I have heard speeches of this kind before, but only in the mouths of emissaries from Mordor to deceive the ignorant.’ “
and it’s clear to him that Saruman, seemingly unknowingly, has become a puppet of someone more powerful and devious than he.
The immediate instrument for this was, as I would suggest, that seeing-stone, but, beyond that, there was a vulnerability inherent in Saruman’s very being in Middle-earth, as Tolkien describes in a letter:
“But since in this tale & mythology Power—when it dominates or seeks to dominate other wills and minds (except by the assent of their reason)—is evil, these ‘wizards’ were incarnated in the life-forms of Middle-earth, and so suffered the pains both of mind and body. They were also, for the same reason, thus involved in the peril of the incarnate: the possibility of ‘fall’, of sin, if you will. The chief form this would take with them would be impatience, leading to the desire to force others to their own good ends, and so inevitably at last to mere desire to make their own wills effective by any means. To this evil Saruman succumbed.” (drafts to Michael Straight, “probably January or February 1956”, Letters, 342-343)
And here is where that “pride”, which Gandalf had mentioned to Frodo had appeared, added to which was his losing sight of the Valar’s purpose in sending him and acquiring a fortress, where Sauron was able to turn him to his own purposes—although we might imagine that, under Sauron’s domination, Saruman might still believe that he could escape Sauron’s notice, when he suggests to Gandalf
“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.”
And even that he might imagine that he himself might employ the Ring—
“ ‘Why not? The Ruling Ring? If we should command that, then the Power would pass to us.’ “
Gandalf’s reply to this: “ ‘Saruman…only one hand at a time can wield the One, and you know that well, so do not trouble to say we…You were head of the Council, but you have unmasked yourself at last.” shows that Saruman has failed completely, both in his immediate quest to persuade Gandalf to tell him where the Ring currently is, and in his attempt to bring a fellow Istar to his side, having dismissed Radagast completely (“Radagast the Bird-tamer! Radagast the Simple! Radagast the Fool!”).
This, however, is only Saruman’s first failure. His attempt to out-Sauron Sauron by a war of conquest not only fails at Helm’s Deep, but brings about the destruction of his fortress at Isengard.
ends in his death—or the closest thing like it to someone from Valinor in the West—his rejection by it–
(Joan Wyatt)
“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.”
One has only to remember the beautiful, melancholy farewells at the Grey Havens to see what Saruman might have been part of—
(Ted Nasmith)
Gandalf, with Sauron defeated, returns whence he came, his task complete. Saruman, failing in that task, has no home to which to return and “dissolved into nothing”, but that sigh—so important here—says that he knows that he has failed and, in depicting that recognition, I believe we see JRRT show some deeper feeling for him than he might ever have expressed for Sauron, even as he had written that Sauron had not begun as evil (see draft to Peter Hastings, September, 1954, Letters, 284).
Thanks, as always, for reading.
Stay well,
As well, consider the deep feeling which can rest even in a sigh,
Ever since I first read The Castle of Otranto (1764),
(clearly a second edition)
I’ve been interested in its author, Horace Walpole (1717-1797),
especially after visiting his (restored) house, “Strawberry Hill”, which, in its crazy way, suggests what an 18th-century gentleman, living in the country, would prefer for a tasteful castle (you can see it in the background of his portrait)—
(as seen in 1774, during Walpole’s life)
(as seen today)
And, if you believe that the outside is eccentric, you have only to look at this corridor—
to see just how far Walpole’s ideas might run (wild, I would say).
The Castle of Otranto is usually cited as the first “Gothic” novel—a book with ghosts and potential horrors so extreme as to seem silly today, but it was a best-seller in the mid-18th century and it’s certainly worth a read, if nothing else as an important document in the evolution of the genre, as well as an forerunner of the Romanticism which would follow, in time. (You can read about the book here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Castle_of_Otranto and read the book itself here: https://archive.org/details/castleofotrant00walp/mode/2up )
An added pleasure, for me, is Walpole’s correspondence. Walpole is gossipy, quick, sometimes drily witty, and, over all, there is the voice of a real person in his letters which makes me wish that he had my e-mail address and would like to exchange letters with me now.
There’s a lot to read: 16 volumes in one edition plus supplements and extra volumes of correspondence with specific people, all available at the Internet Archive, but, in Volume 3 of Paget Toynbee’s edition, there’s this:
“This discovery, indeed, is almost of that kind which I call Serendipity, a very expressive word, which, as I have nothing better to tell you, I shall endeavour to explain to you : you will understand it better by the derivation than by the definition. I once read a silly fairy tale, called The Three Princes of Serendip : as their Highnesses travelled, they were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things which they were not in quest of : for instance, one of them discovered that a mule blind of the right eye had travelled the same road lately, because the grass was eaten only on the left side, where it was worse than on the right — now do you understand Serendipity?” (The Letters of Horace Walpole, Fourth Earl of Orford, Vol.III, 1750-1756, 204 You can read the letter for yourself here: https://archive.org/details/lettershoracewa09toyngoog/page/n224/mode/2up )
The title page reads “Translated from the Persian into French, and from thence done into English”, but perhaps the transmission story was a little more complicated, as the original story may have come from Persian—but then it appears in Italian, in Michele Tramezzino’s 1557 Peregrinaggio di tre giovani figliuoli del re di Serendippo (“Travels of the Three Young Sons of the King of Serendippo” There’s a translation here: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Translation:The_Three_Princes_of_Serendip ).
From here it turns up in the 1722 volume, although Walpole seems to have had a memory lapse, as the animal mentioned isn’t a mule, but a camel, and the story is a bit more complicated. In brief, the three young princes, while traveling, stop to help a man who has lost a camel, describing the camel to him so accurately that he’s convinced, when they claim that they don’t have it, that they have stolen it. They’re arrested and threatened with death if they don’t return the beast until they explain the clues which they have observed, which allowed them to be able to describe the camel in such detail, even though they had never seen actually seen it. The man’s neighbor then appears with the camel and the adventure ends happily.
It’s easy to see how Walpole invented the term. With the Latin he had acquired in his education, he knew that abstract nouns could be formed on the ending -itas. If you want a term in Latin meaning “worthiness”, for example, you take the Latin adjective for “worthy”—dignus—drop the -us, which signals that it’s in the nominative—that is the subject—case, then tack on the -itas and you have dignitas. Walpole took “Serendip”, added the abstract ending, and voila: serendipitas—or, in English, serendipity.
But what does Walpole mean by it? He writes of the princes that “they were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things which they were not in quest of’, and now, in English, we usually employ the term to indicate “something randomly discovered, but which proves to be useful” and that’s why I entitled the last posting “Serendipity”. While watching an “Easy Dutch” video, I had been shown a Dutch YA (young adult) book which interested me—
although I had no idea, watching the video, that I would be given a book recommendation. I took it as such, however, enjoyed the book, then read 3 more by the same author and wrote a review of the 4—a perfect example of “something randomly discovered, but which proved to be useful”—and fun.
Thanks, as ever, for reading.
Stay well,
May you enjoy some serendipity of your own,
And I hope that there will be even more serendipity for you in the
I am always glad for recommendations—for films, YouTube videos, and books. Usually, these come to me in the form of conversations and e-mails, but this recommendation didn’t come from a person—well, directly—but from an image on YouTube.
I daily follow a number of language videos, both to increase my knowledge of old friends and to add new friends, and I was watching Easy Dutch on verbs of position (you can see it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5xEkwOo5Go ) when a Dutch children’s classic was mentioned and shown and I was immediately interested.
Tonke Dragt (TAWN-keh Dracht—with the g/ch in the back of the throat, like “Bach”, plus a T after it) is Antonia Dragt, 1930-2024, the author of a number of YA books in Dutch.
Her early life was a harrowing one: born in 1930, she lived as a child in Indonesia and, along with her family, was held in a prisoner of war camp from 1942 to 1945, but, while a prisoner, she began a writing career which would continue till at least 2017, when she published Als de sterren zingen (“If/Supposing That/In the Event That/Whenever the Stars Sing”—as far as I know, this hasn’t been translated into English and my Dutch is limited, so, Dutch readers, please forgive the translation!)
It appears that, when she published her first novel, in 1961, Verhalen van der tweelingbroers “To Tell of the Twin Brothers”—published in English in 2021 as The Goldsmith and the Master Thief),
YA (that’s “Young Adult”) fantasy was not popular in the Netherlands, but she persisted, and her 1962 book, De brief voor de koning (“The Letter for the King”)
was a great success—and even became, in time, a Dutch film–
(It’s available on DVD in Dutch, but there are English subtitles.)
“I once tried to write a very realistic story, so I wrote about a class of children who went somewhere on a bus and within two chapters they were flying in the air—it’s the way my mind works! I’m a fairytale teller…I was born like that and I cannot do anything else.”
But now to her books—that is, to the ones currently available in English—of which I’ve read four, a fifth, De torens van februari (“The Towers of February”)—published in Dutch in 1973 and in English in 1975—
is available only at a price beyond my current book budget, alas.
Because I was originally drawn to her work by that image on Easy Dutch, I didn’t begin with the first of her books, but De Seven Sprong, 1966,
“The Seven Leap”, published in English in 2018 as The Song of Seven.
The fantasy element appears almost at the beginning, when we learn that a teacher, Frans Van der Steg, to keep an unruly class amused, has been telling outrageous adventure stories—about himself–and, in today’s episode, says that he’s expecting an important letter. And, when he arrives at his landlady’s, that letter arrives, bringing the teacher into a complex adventure, including, among other things, a house so large and complicated as to be a kind of puzzle (which makes me wonder if Ms Dragt had read Mervyn Peake’s Titus Groan, 1946,
the scene of which is a gigantic, ruined castle, Gormenghast) a lost treasure, and—how not?—an evil uncle.
It was set, surprisingly, knowing the author’s bent for fairytale-telling, in the present, but, even though there’s a motorbike, there’s also a carriage and coachman, a muzzle-loading cannon, a practicing magician, an orphan-heir, and that vast labyrinth of a house. (The Dutch title, by the way, refers to a famous Dutch folkdance, which you can read about here: ,https://www.lookandlearn.com/blog/26053/the-traditional-dutch-jumping-dance-may-come-from-a-pagan-crop-ritual/ Seven is also a magic number which keeps appearing and reappearing in the novel.)
Having read and enjoyed the book, I went backwards in time to Dragt’s first book, the one entitled, in English, The Goldsmith and the Master Thief.
Unlike The Song of Seven, which was a novel, this was really a collection of short stories skillfully stitched together, being about twin brothers and their adventures, including, as seems almost inevitable, the use of identical twins to puzzle and confuse and even to pose a riddle, as well as to complicate a plot or two.
One thing I much enjoy, when I have the chance to work my way through an author’s writing, is to watch the author develop—just think, for example, of the difference between The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, completed about 20 years apart. In reading The Letter for the King,
published only a year after The Goldsmith and the Master Thief, the author has made the leap (only 1, not 7), from what was, in a way, a short-story collection to a full-scale and long—506 pages, in the English translation—adventure novel. It’s the story of a squire, Tiuri, who, spending the night before the knighting service supposedly in prayer in a chapel, answers a knock at the door, is given the letter of the title, which he is supposed to deliver to a knight, only to discover the knight ambushed and dying, and then spends most of the rest of the book attempting to deliver it to the king of the kingdom to the west.
As one would expect, along the way he meets friends and enemies, acquires a squire of his own, as well as a potential sweetheart, and, because the book is a fairy tale, it has a happy ending—but with some things—like the sweetheart—in doubt. (There’s a long plot summary here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Letter_for_the_King I would be wary, I might add, of the British NetFlix version, which has changed the story completely in the way in which The Hobbit was changed—as was Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials, the latter also by NetFlix. I’m reminded, as I always am, of Tolkien’s letter to Forrest J. Ackerman about a proposal in 1958, to make films of The Lord of the Rings, in which he says of the adapter and others interested in the project: “But I would ask them to make an effort of imagination sufficient to understand the irritation (and on occasion the resentment) of an author who finds, increasingly as he proceeds, his work treated as it would seem carelessly in general, in places recklessly, and with no evident signs of any appreciation of what it is all about…” “from a letter to Forrest J. Ackerman”, June, 1958, Letters, 389)
This then sets the scene for the sequel, Geheimen van het Wilde Woud, 1965, translated as The Secrets of the Wild Wood, published in 2015.
In this sequel, we see now Sir Tiuri, and his squire, Piak (his would-be squire of the previous book) on a quest first to find a missing knight, but then become tangled in a complex plot which includes two princely brothers, one the next king-to-be in his own land, the other now king of the land to the south and planning to invade his own land and overthrow his father, the king, and his brother. As well, there are the mysterious forest folk and a potential new sweetheart who is not quite what she seems to be. Here’s a longer summary: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secrets_of_the_Wild_Wood For me, this is the best book yet—not only for the twists and turns, but for the grownup feel to it: so much is not neat, characters are more complex, and there is a sort of happy ending, but not for everyone (although Tiuri does return to his first sweetheart from the previous book).
Sometimes one does something for a reason only to benefit in a way unexpected while doing it. I had no idea that Tonke Dragt and her engaging novels existed until Easy Dutch handed her to me. Now I only wish that someone would translate her other novels—what might De robot van de rommelmarkt (“The Robot from the Flea Market”) be about, I wonder?
As always, thanks for reading.
Stay well,
When purchasing robots in flea markets, consider previous owners,
What makes The Lord of the Rings so convincing? One might argue that it was simply good story-telling—convincing characters, fast-moving plot, surprises along the way, sad, but satisfying conclusion—and I would certainly agree. For me, however, there is something more and I’ve come to think about it through what might seem a rather remote back door…
Several of the characters in Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Mikado (1885),
are in trouble. They have told a lie—in a song, of course–and were so convincing that they’re now about to be executed for it. Inevitably, this leads to recriminations and one character, Pooh-Bah,
defends himself, saying that his part in the lie, was
“Merely corroborative detail, intended to give artistic verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative.”
I thought of this line when an old friend sent me a piece from the BBC with the headline “Musketeer D’Artagnan’s remains believed found under Dutch church” (see the article here: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cm2rew2dgzzo )
“Musketeer D’Artagnan” is the protagonist of Alexandre Dumas’ (1802-1870) historical adventure novel The Three Musketeers (1844),
as well as being a major character in two more, Twenty Years After (1845) and The Viconte of Bragelonne (1847).
He also happens to have been a real person, Charles de Batz de Castelmore (1611-1673), who had once been a member of Louis XIII’s Musketeers,
(Graham Turner)
one of the units of Louis’ bodyguard.
In 1673, he had been at the siege of the Dutch town of Maastricht,
during Louis XIV’s (son of Louis XIII—surprised?) interminable wars, where he was killed, perhaps by a sniper’s bullet—and may have been buried under the floor of this church—
d’Artagnan had already appeared in a somewhat fictionalized form in an earlier book, Memoires de Monsieur d’Artagnan, (1700) by Gatien de Courtilz de Sandras (1644-1712).
Dumas claimed, in fact, that he was only working from de Courtilz de Sandras’ account, along with a manuscript (which he himself had actually created), Memoire de M. le conte de la Fere (who is, in fact, Athos one of the three musketeers), implying, therefore, that the work isn’t really a novel, but a true story based upon documents from the 17th century.
Why do this, rather than simply write an original novel and let it go at that?
This is where “artistic verisimilitude” comes in: a novel is fun, but what if this weren’t really a completely-manufactured story, but real history—though much more exciting than simply dry accounts of political decisions and battles (“a bald and unconvincing narrative”)?
Dumas may have been inspired by Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832), whose first novel, Waverley (1814),
had done the opposite of Hugo, attaching a fictional character—the Waverley of the title—to actual events—the last Jacobite uprising of 1745-46,
in which a group of Scots (plus some English to the south) attempted to restore the Stuart family to the throne of the UK (if you’re a fan of the Outlander novels or tv series, you’ll be aware of this). Scott’s novel was so successful that he kept using the method all the way to the end of his creative life, taking different periods in UK history as the basis.
(Here’s a copy of the novel for you, in case you haven’t read it: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/5998/5998-h/5998-h.htm You’ll notice that the notes are by Andrew Lang, whom, if you read this blog regularly, you will remember as the editor of the “Fairy” books, some of which Tolkien read or had read to him as a child.)
But what if you don’t have an historical period into which to place a character? One answer would be to create the period, then add the character, and that’s exactly what we see Tolkien doing. Much has been written about JRRT writing to “create a mythology for England” and he himself seems to have had an early plan for something like this, as he writes to a “Mr. Thompson”:
“Having set myself a task, the arrogance of which I fully recognized and trembled at; being precisely to restore to the English an epic tradition and present them with a mythology of their own…” (letter to “Mr. Thompson, 14 January, 1956, Letters, 335)
In time, Tolkien appears to have abandoned this goal (see this piece for more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_mythology_for_England ), but all of the material which JRRT had created, however, remained in the form of the “Prologue” and the “Appendices” to The Lord of the Rings and here we see Pooh-Bah’s “corroborative detail” with essays on Hobbits, Pipe-weed, the ordering of the Shire, and “Note on the Shire Records”, as well as “Annals of the Kings and Rulers”, “The Tale of Years”, and even a section on Middle-earth calendars, all created by Tolkien, but written as if he’s merely an editor, filling in background to actual events. Frodo and those around him, including the antagonists, have thus become 3-dimensional, their actions given an imaginary historical context, just as Waverley and d’Artagnan, one fictional character, one fictionalized actual person, when attached to history, are deepened and, potentially, more convincing, which, in turn, makes the whole story, for me, that much more believable. In fact, it gains verisimilitude, at least while I’m reading it.
All of which makes that news story of the potential discovery of d’Artagnan’s tomb seem so much odder to me. He was a real man turned into fiction in a real historical period. Tolkien created a rich imaginary historical world and placed his characters in it: now I’m wondering when archaeologists will announce that they’ve found the tomb—not of Frodo, who went off to Valinor—
(Ted Nasmith)
but perhaps of Aragorn, in Rath Dinen?
Thanks for reading.
Stay well,
Remember that great literary figures are, in fact, immortal,
And remember, as well, that there’s
MTCIDC
O
PS
Pooh-Bah survives, in case you were worried.
PPS
Here’s an English translation of Dumas’ novel, in case you haven’t read it (it’s fun in itself and, if you would like to see an ancestor of modern adventure novels and films, I would certainly recommend it): https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/1257/pg1257-images.html For an introduction to the Musketeers, I would also recommend the old Richard Lester films, which mostly stick to the plot and have some of the liveliest dueling scenes after the Errol Flynn era.
Villains with ambitious plans for world conquest need armies.
Emperor Palpatine
initially employs droids by the million to face the Republic’s clone armies, and not just ordinary foot soldier droids—
but super battle droids
and even commando battle droids
before, in his complex plan, he turns the Republic’s clones against his real target, the Jedi, in Order 66.
On a lighter level, Gru,
of Despicable Me, has masses of Minions to work his will (sort of)—
It’s clear that Sauron has similar plans—and similar armies—orcs—along with masses of humans.
(Alan Lee)
Orcs, we’re told, are a kind of distortion of actual living creatures—
“But Trolls are only counterfeits, made by the Enemy in the Great Darkness, in mockery of Ents, as Orcs were of Elves.” (The Two Towers, Book Three, Chapter 4, “Treebeard”)
Orcs began, however, as something more traditional and, for Tolkien, begin with the works of George MacDonald (1824-1905),
and, in particular, with one of his fantasy novels, The Princess and the Goblin, 1870-2.
(First US edition, 1871)
For our purposes, the princess, although an heroic figure, can be removed, as we’re interested in those goblins.
(Arthur Hughes)
Later in life, Tolkien became disenchanted with MacDonald’s work, failing to complete a proposed preface for his The Golden Key, a short story from MacDonald’s Dealings with the Fairies, 1867—you can read it here: https://archive.org/details/dealingswithfair00macd_0/page/n5/mode/2up
and you can read about his disenchantment in Carpenter’s J.R.R. Tolkien, page 244.). Earlier, however, he had acknowledged MacDonald’s influence, writing to the editor of The Observer about The Hobbit:
“As for the rest of the tale it is, as the Habit [the pen name of a commentator on the book] suggests, derived from (previously digested) epic, mythology, and fairy-story—not, however, Victorian in authorship, as a rule to which George Macdonald [sic] is the chief exception.” (letter to the editior, February, 1938, Letters, 40-41)
Tolkien refers to this influence again in a much later letter to Hugh Brogan:
“Your preference of goblins to orcs involves a large question and a matter of taste, and perhaps historical pedantry on my part. I personally prefer Orcs (since these creatures are not ‘goblins’, not even the goblins of George MacDonald, which they do to some extent resemble).” (letter to Hugh Brogan, 18 September, 1954, Letters, 278)
And a little earlier, in a letter to Naomi Mitchison:
“They are not based on direct experience of mine [an interesting remark—did JRRT have supernatural experiences which he doesn’t discuss?]; but owe, I suppose, a good deal to the goblin tradition (goblin is used as a translation in The Hobbit, where orc only occurs once, I think), especially as it appears in George MacDonald, except for the soft feet which I never believed in.” (letter to Naomi Mitchison, 25 April, 1954, Letters, 267)
Those soft feet turn out to be the Achilles’ heel (sorry!) of the goblins as we overhear in a conversation between a goblin father and son:
” ‘You say so, dad. I think myself I’m all right. But I could carry ten times as much if it wasn’t for my feet.’
Recently, however, I’ve met another goblin, to whom I was introduced by a dear friend. This is Book Goblin.
Unlike the clones and droids and Minions and orcs, who only exist to do their master’s bidding, Book Goblin lives for books, stacking shelves full, longing for the mailman to bring more, even believing in “Bookhalla”, which is, basically, an immense library, where those who are gathered there read books all day and hold book clubs all night. You can see and hear Book Goblin describing it here: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/vkjErlwUA2A Only brave readers are allowed to go there, including those who read “without bookmarks”!
Book Goblin is, in fact, the creation of the fantasy author Elizabeth Wheatley
and you can read more about her and her work here: https://www.bookseriesinorder.com/elisabeth-wheatley/ And YouTube has many short features in which Book Goblin discusses likes and dislikes and often seems like the Id of all passionate readers, which is why I bring her to your attention. Unlike droids, clones, Minions, and orcs, however, she is one of kind and, as for world conquest—I suspect that it would interfere with her reading.
Thanks for your reading, as always,
Stay well,
If you’re like me, you probably aren’t brave enough to read without a bookmark, so I guess no Bookhalla, sadly,
In Parts 1 and 2 of this short series, I’ve looked at Tolkien’s use of speech to characterize—and bring to life—the antagonists of The Lord of the Rings, leaving out Sauron, as having little to say for himself, but observing Saruman,
(the Hildebrandts)
the chief of the Nazgul,
(the Hildebrandts)
and the Mouth of Sauron.
(Douglas Beekman)
I’ve been doing this as a descent down the social ladder and now we’ve reached the foot with the Orcs.
(Alan Lee)
JRRT had very complex thoughts and feelings about them, as his letters show us (see, for instance, some of his thoughts in his unfinished, unsent letter to Peter Hastings, September, 1954, Letters, 285 and 291) but then the Orcs themselves seem more complex than mere (in more modern terms) “cannon-fodder”—that is, a simple mass of undifferentiated infantry.
(Alan Lee)
Something which has always struck me about them is Tolkien’s choices for their speech. At one level, as I pointed out in “Tolkien Among the Indians”, (21 January, 2026), one of their leaders, Ugluk, can sound like a figure out of James Fenimore Cooper’s The Last of the Mohicans—
“ ‘We are the fighting Uruk-hai! We slew the great warrior. We took the prisoners. We are the servants of Saruman the Wise, the White Hand: the Hand that gives us man’s-flesh to eat. We came out of Isengard, and led you here, and we shall lead you back by the way we choose. I am Ugluk. I have spoken.’ ”
On another level—but here I want to quote another of Tolkien’s letters, one often cited when referring to Sam Gamgee:
“My ‘Sam Gamgee’ is indeed, as you say, a reflexion of the English Soldier, of the privates and batmen [officers’ servants, not denizens of Gotham] I knew in the 1914 war, and recognized as so far superior to myself.” (draft of a letter to H. Cotton Minchin, April, 1956, Letters, 358)
and obviously Tolkien knew what he intended, but I’ve always seen those “privates and batmen” as something more: as models for the Orcs—
and their commanders, Ugluk and Grishnakh—and later Shagrat and Gorbag—not as of the officer class, to which Tolkien belonged—
but as sergeants, the tough, experienced men who ran the infantry on a day-to-day basis.
Here they are, talking—
“ ‘Orders,’ said a third voice in a deep growl. ‘Kill all but NOT the Halflings; they are to be brought back ALIVE as quickly as possible. That’s my orders.’
“ ‘What are they wanted for?’ asked several voices. ‘Why alive? Do they give good sport?’
‘No! I heard that one of them has got something, something that’s wanted for the War, some Elvish plot or other. Anyway they’ll both be questioned.’
‘Is that all you know? Why don’t we search them and find out? We might find something that we could use ourselves.’
‘That is a very interesting remark,’ sneered a voice, softer than the others but more evil. ‘I may have to report that. The prisoners are NOT to be searched or plundered: those are my orders.’
‘And mine too,’ said the deep voice. ‘Alive and as captured, no spoiling. That’s my orders.’ “
So far, those two main voices—the “deep growl” and the “softer…but more evil”–are just that: voices. And we can tell immediately that they, being the ones given orders and threatening to make reports, are in charge. Shortly, we’ll find that the deep voice belongs to ”a large black Orc, probably Ugluk” and the softer to Grishnakh, “a short, crook-legged creature, very broad and with long arms that hung almost to the ground.”
Why sergeants, not officers? It’s the tone, I think. When Grishnakh proposes taking the prisoners to the east bank of the Anduin, where a Nazgul is waiting, Ugluk replies
“ ‘Maybe, maybe! Then you’ll fly off with our prisoners, and get the pay and praise in Lugburz, and leave us to foot it as best we can through the Horse-country.’ “
“pay and praise” and “footing it” sound to me more like the language of soldiers than those of higher ranks, but there’s something more to their talk. Ugluk sneers at the Nazgul and Grishnakh replies:
“ ‘Nazgul, Nazgul,’ said Grishnakh, shivering and licking his lips, as if the word had a foul taste that he savoured painfully. ‘You speak of what is deep beyond the reach of your muddy dreams, Ugluk.’ “
There is a fear in this that’s a little surprising: aren’t the Nazgul on the same side as Grishnakh, at least?
There is a rivalry between the two groups as well—and clearly even between their two masters, as Grishnakh reveals:
“ ‘You have spoken more than enough, Ugluk,’ sneered the evil voice. ‘I wonder how they would like it in Lugburz…They might ask where his strange ideas came from. Did they come from Saruman, perhaps? Who does he think he is, setting up on his own with his filthy white badges? They might agree with me, with Grishnakh their trusted messenger; and I Grishnakh say this: Saruman is a fool, and a dirty treacherous fool.’ “ (all of the text here is from The Two Towers, Book Three, Chapter 3, “The Uruk-hai”)
All of this shows a level of internal tension which would not bode well for an alliance between Sauron and Saruman and, when we reach Shagrat and Gorbag, later in the story, there’s even something more and we’ve already seen it in that “We might find something that we can use ourselves.”
So far, the speech of the two Orc leaders has suggested creatures who clearly don’t trust each other, and one is fearful of something on his own side, revealing, as well, that his master, Sauron, is less than impressed by Saruman and his efforts.
And now we find that such sergeants may not even trust their men, as when Shagrat says to Gorbag:
“ ‘…but they’ve got eyes and ears everywhere; some among my lot, as like as not.’ “
But why such wariness? First, because these Orcs are aware that knowledge of the progress of the war in which they’re a part is being kept from them, and it’s not good news:
“ ‘…they’re troubled about something. The Nazgul down below are, by your account; and Lugburz is too. Something nearly slipped…As I said, the Big Bosses, ay,’ his voice sank almost to a whisper, ‘ay, even the Biggest, can make mistakes. Something nearly slipped, you say. I say, something has slipped.’ “
And second because these Orcs, not trusting their masters and perhaps even fearful of them, may have plans of their own—
“ ‘What d’you say?—if we get a chance, you and me’ll slip off and set up somewhere on our own with a few trusty lads, somwhere where there’s good loot nice and handy, and no big bosses.’
‘Ah!’ said Shagrat. ‘Like old times!’ “ (The Two Towers, Book Four, Chapter 10, “The Choices of Master Samwise”)
As we’ll see, however, later in the story, Shagrat and Gorbag don’t even trust each other—
“Quick as a snake, Shagrat slipped aside, twisted round, and drove his knife into his enemy’s throat.
‘Got you, Gorbag!’ he cried. ‘Not quite dead, eh? Well, I’ll finish my job now.’ He sprang on to the fallen body, and stamped and trampled it in his fury, stooping now and again to stab and slash it with his knife.“ (The Return of the King, Book Six, Chapter 1, “The Tower of Cirith Ungol”)
So much for “old times”! But a fitting ending for this posting. Here, on the lowest rung of the social ladder, we see how JRRT shows both the threat of the enemies’ soldiers and, at the same time, undercuts that threat, as we hear the Orcs doing everything from threatening each other, dissing their own leaders and those of their own side, mistrusting each other and their own men, and even plotting to desert and set up their own little kingdoms before cheerfully knifing each other. We might wonder—even if Sauron had won, how long would his empire have lasted, with such allies and underlings?
Thanks, as ever, for reading.
Stay well,
I guess that I don’t have to tell you now: watch your back,
And remember that there’s
MTCIDC
O
PS
For more on Orcs and their language, see “Lingua Orca”, 16 April, 2025.
…her arm clad in the purest shimmering samite, held aloft Excalibur from the bosom of the water signifying by Divine Providence that I, Arthur, was to carry Excalibur.
[singing stops]
That is why I am your king!
DENNIS: Listen. Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.
ARTHUR: Be quiet!
DENNIS: Well, but you can’t expect to wield supreme executive power just ’cause some watery tart threw a sword at you!” (Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Scene 3, “Repression is Nine Tenths of the Law?” which you can read here: http://www.montypython.50webs.com/scripts/Holy_Grail/Scene3.htm
The Pythons, by the way, look to be mocking lines from “The Passing of Arthur”, a poem in Tennyson’s long series of Arthurian poems Idylls of the King here, where the dying Arthur commands his one surviving knight, Sir Bedivere, to toss his sword, Excalibur, into the local lake. Bedivere is tempted not to, but, on his third try, he does so and
“So flashed and fell the brand Excalibur: But ere he dipt the surface, rose an arm Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful, And caught him by the hilt, and brandished him Three times, and drew him under in the mere.”
“Strange women lying in ponds” is the Pythons’ way of mentioning a rather common phenomenon we see in various forms both in folklore and in literature which is influenced by it, everything from classical water nymphs, naiads,
to mermaids
to the Rhinemaidens (Rheintoechter—“Rhine Daughters”) who appear in the “Ring Cycle”, Der Ring des Nibelungen, the 4-part series of Germanic mythological operas of Richard Wagner (1813-1883).
(Here chatting with the trickster god, Loge, an illustration by Arthur Rackham, 1867-1939. You can see all of his illustrations to Wagner’s story here: https://archive.org/details/rhinegoldvalkyri00wagn )
They are the guardians of the mysterious, but powerful “Rheingold”
which the dwarf, Alberich,
steals from them and fashions into a ring containing all the power of the original gold, which would enable its possessor to rule the world.
With another Ring in mind, there is, I would suggest, a bit more than a faint resemblance here between Wagner’s story and Tolkien’s, although Tolkien, seemingly fairly knowledgeable about Wagner’s work from early in his school days (see Carpenter Tolkien, 52) was very clear about just how faint that resemblance was as far as he was concerned:
“Both rings were round, and there the resemblance ceases.” (from a letter to Allen & Unwin, 23 February, 1961, Letters, 436)
But might there be at least a little more similarity than that?
One fact is obvious: Tolkien’s is a circlet which embodies tremendous power, just as the Nibelungen ring does, although that power wasn’t in the material from which it was made, but in the maker, Sauron.
Alberich’s ring, like Sauron’s, has not remained with him, coming first into the possession of the god Wotan, and then into the possession of a dragon, Fafner (formerly a giant), then into that of his killer, Siegfried (who also happens to be Wotan’s grandson), and then into that of the Valkyrie, Bruennhilde, Siegfried’s lover, who, leaping onto Siegfried’s funeral pyre, leaves the Ring to be collected from her ashes by the Rhinemaidens while, meanwhile, there is a cataclysm in the background and Valhalla, the home of the gods, is destroyed, along with the gods—“die Goetterdaemmerung”—literally “the gods’ dusk”.
That ring isn’t destroyed, but we can certainly note that combination of the ring changing hands and huge destruction associated with that act—
“And even as he spoke the earth rocked beneath their feet. Then rising swiftly up, far above the Towers of the Black Gate, high above the mountains, a vast soaring darkness sprang into the sky, flickering with fire. The earth groaned and quaked. The Towers of the Teeth swayed, tottered and fell down; the mighty rampart crumbled; the Black Gate was hurled in ruin; and from far away, now dim, now growing, now mounting to the clouds, there came a drumming rumble, a roar, a long echoing roll of ruinous noise.” (The Return of the King, Book Six, Chapter 4, “The Field of Cormallen”)
(Ted Nasmith)
As well, coming back to the beginning of this posting, there is also a water association. In fact, two:
1. after the defeat of Sauron at the foot of Orodruin, in which Isildur took the Ring from Sauron:
“…It fell into the Great River, Anduin, and vanished. For Isildur was marching north along the east bank of the River, and near the Gladden Fields he was waylaid by the Orcs of the Mountains, and almost all his folk were slain. He leaped into the waters, but the Ring slipped from his finger as he swam, and there the Orcs saw him and killed him with arrows…And there in the dark pools amid the Gladden Fields…the Ring passed out of knowledge and legend…”
2. but, many years later, two “akin to the fathers of the fathers of the Stoors”
“…took a boat and went down to the Gladden Fields…There Smeagol got out and went nosing about the banks but Deagol sat in the boat and fished. Suddenly a great fish took his hook, and before he knew where he was, he was dragged out and down into the water, to the bottom. Then he let go of his line, for he thought he saw something shining in the river-bed; and holding his breath he grabbed at it.
Then up he came spluttering, with weeds in his hair and a handful of mud; and he swam to the bank. And behold! when he washed the mud away, there in his hand lay a beautiful golden ring…” (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book One, Chapter 2, “The Shadow of the Past”)
To steal the Rhinegold from the Rhinemaidens, Alberich the dwarf has dived into the Rhine.
His son, Hagen, trying to regain the ring, is dragged into the river and drowned by them, even as they keep the ring.
Might we imagine, then, that the death of Gollum and all which precedes it is—perhaps—somehow a bit more related to Wagner’s story than JRRT was comfortable with?
When I first saw this series, replayed on PBS (Public Broadcasting Service) many years ago, I had come across it by accident—very much an accident because I had, I thought, no interest whatever in science, not having enjoyed the required courses in school (gross understatement). It was so well done, both visually and dramatically, that I was hooked and now, years later, I’ve acquired both an active interest in the history of science as well as my own DVD set of the documentary and am enjoying it even more. It was in my mind, then, when I came across this Tolkien letter to Rhona Beare, an early Tolkien enthusiast, who had written to Tolkien with a number of questions about various details in The Lord of the Rings, including “Did the Witch-king ride a pterodactyl at the siege of Gondor?” to which JRRT replied:
“Yes and no. I did not intend the steed of the Witch-King to be what is now called a ‘pterodactyl’, and often is drawn (with rather less shadowy evidence than lies behind many monsters of the new and fascinating semi-scientific mythology of the ‘Prehistoric’). But obviously it is pterodactylic and owes much to the new mythology, and its description even provides a sort of way in which it could be a last survivor of older geological eras.” (letter to Rhona Beare, 14 October, 1958, Letters, 403)
The choice of “steed” Beare andTolkien are referring to is based upon this:
“The great shadow descended like a falling cloud. And behold! It was a winged creature: if bird, then greater than all other birds, and it was naked, and neither quill nor feather did it bear, and its vast pinions were as webs of hide between horned fingers; and it stank. A creature of an older world maybe it was, whose kind, lingering in forgotten mountains cold beneath the Moon, outstayed their day…” (The Return of the King, Book Five, Chapter 6, “The Battle of the Pelennor Fields”)
And one can see why a pterodactyl might be tempting—
(Alan Lee)
Those words in Tolkien’s text, “A creature of an older world maybe it was, whose kind, lingering in forgotten mountains cold beneath the Moon…” reminded me of a novel Tolkien may once have read, Conan Doyle’s The Lost World, 1912. In this novel, a group of adventurers gains access to just that: a secluded South American valley, in which various early creatures, including pterodactyls, are still living and, in fact, a young pterodactyl is even brought back to London. Neither Letters nor Carpenter’s biography mentions Conan Doyle or the novel, but the idea of the “older world” and the pterodactyl suggest, at least to me, that this is a book which JRRT had read. Here it is for you to read as well: https://gutenberg.org/cache/epub/139/pg139-images.html
And, for further evidence, perhaps this, from Chapter IX?
“Well, suddenly out of the darkness, out of the night, there swooped something with a swish like an aeroplane. The whole group of us were covered for an instant by a canopy of leathery wings, and I had a momentary vision of a long, snake-like neck, a fierce, red, greedy eye, and a great snapping beak, filled, to my amazement, with little, gleaming teeth. The next instant it was gone—and so was our dinner. A huge black shadow, twenty feet across, skimmed up into the air; for an instant the monster wings blotted out the stars, and then it vanished over the brow of the cliff above us.”
This beast derived, perhaps, from Conan Doyle, and/or from what Tolkien called the “new and fascinating semi-scientific mythology of the ‘Prehistoric’”, made me think about another of Tolkien’s creatures, which some have fancifully believed may have come from memories of dinosaurs,
something which had engaged his imagination from far childhood: dragons.
In his essay “On Fairy-Stories” he depicts this as a kind of early passion:
“I desired dragons with a profound desire. Of course, I in my timid body did not wish to have them in the neighborhood, intruding into my relatively safe world, in which it was, for instance, possible to read stories in peace of mind, free from fear. But the world that contained even the imagination of Fafnir was richer and more beautiful, at whatever cost of peril.” (“On Fairy-Stories” in The Monsters and the Critics, 1983, edited by Christopher Tolkien, 135).
Tolkien freely admitted, and more than once, the strong influence of Beowulf on his work and nowhere is this influence stronger, I would say, than in The Hobbit. And yet dragons in Beowulf are surprisingly disposable. The dragon which brings about Beowulf’s dramatic death is dumped over a cliff into the sea:
dracan éc scufun
wyrm ofer weallclif· léton wég niman,
flód fæðmian frætwa hyrde.
“The dragon, too, [that] wyrm they pushed over [the] cliff wall. They let [the] waves take away,
To grasp, [the] keeper of [the] treasure.” (Beowulf, 3132-33)
(My translation, with help from this excellent site: https://heorot.dk/beowulf-rede-text.html I’ve kept “wyrm” mostly because it works nicely with those other double-u words, wall, waves, away. )
And, earlier in the poem, we are told that the dragon which Sigemund kills “hát gemealt”—“has melted”, presumably from its own heat. (Beowulf, 897)
Smaug, however, is different.
(JRRT)
Not only does he talk, which Beowulf’s dragon does not, but, killed by Bard’s black arrow, he becomes a potential paleontological discovery:
“He would never again return to his golden bed, but was stretched cold as stone, twisted upon the floor of the shallows. There for ages his huge bones could be seen in calm weather amid the ruined piles of the old town.” (The Hobbit, Chapter 14, “Fire and Water”)
If Darwin had been puzzled about giant ground sloth remains, what might he have felt if he had discovered Smaug?
Thanks, as always, for reading.
Stay well,
As the proverb says, “Never laugh at live dragons”,
I’ve just read an interesting piece of news: there’s going to be an opera based upon The Lord of the Rings (see: https://www.classicfm.com/music-news/lord-of-the-rings-opera-approved-tolkien-estate/ ). The composer is Paul Corfield Godfrey, 1950-, who had already composed a rather massive work on the Silmarillion, of which you can hear an excerpt here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4HUnCx4dLI You can also hear “The Lament for Boromir” here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nxvzZ98LS4 and “The Man in the Moon Came Down Too Soon” and “The Song of the Troll”, along with one or two others on YouTube as well. (There’s the proviso with these: you may be accused of being a bot, unless you know the secret password.)
For me, opera began with a cartoon.
As a child, I saw it, loved it (Bugs Bunny always being a favorite, along with Daffy Duck), and that’s where opera first appeared in my life.
In terms of real opera, it’s an odd little piece, having, at one level, a standard plot: Elmer Fudd pursues Bugs, as he had done many times before.
At another level, however, it’s a parody of grand opera, in which Elmer plays the Wagnerian hero, Siegfried, and Bugs, at a certain point in the story, turns himself into the Valkyrie, Brunnhilde.
And, for only the third time in their lives of pursuit and escape, Elmer actually succeeds in dealing with Bugs.
Although, in case you haven’t seen it, or forgot the plot and are worried, Bugs comes back from the dead long enough to say to the audience, “Well, what did you expect in an opera? A happy ending?” before subsiding again. (You can see it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jDcWAWRRHo provided, of course, that you’re not a bot. You can also read a very interesting article about the making of the cartoon here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What%27s_Opera,_Doc%3F )
Peter Schickele, 1935-2024,
the creator of PDQ Bach, 1807-1742?,
whom he once described as “the youngest and oddest of Johann Sebastian’s 20-odd children”, in a memorable introduction to Baroque opera as exemplified in PDQ Bach’s, “Haensel and Gretel and Ted and Alice”, explained that there were, in the period, two kinds of opera, “opera seria”, which was concerned with tragedies and histories, and “opera funnia”—and you can guess where this would go.
Opera seria, however, was real and where opera began, with Jacopo Peri’s, 1561-1633,
Dafne, in 1598. This is based upon the ancient story of Daphne, who, pursued by Apollo, is turned into a laurel tree (you can read the most familiar version of the story, as told by Ovid in Book 1 of his Metamorphoses, here: https://www.theoi.com/Text/OvidMetamorphoses1.html at line 452 and following).
(by Gian Lorenzo Bernini, 1598-1680, dated to 1622-25)
The goal of this and subsequent works, both by Peri and others, was to attempt to revive what they understood Greek tragedy to have been like, with its dark mythological stories—truly opera seria! To Peri and his contemporaries, this meant not only solo songs and choruses, but that all of the dialogue would be sung, too, in what came to be called recitativo, and this convention continued into the 20th century.
There is another possibility, however, although not “opera funnia”. It’s a form known in German as “Singspiel” and in French as “Opera comique” and combines the solo songs and choruses of opera seria with spoken dialogue, rather than recitativo, in just the way contemporary musicals are really plays with music, where songs appear at important dramatic points in the story.
(Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “Oklahoma”, 1943)
In 1964, an English composer, Carey Blyton, 1932-2002, wrote to JRR Tolkien requesting his permission to create a “Hobbit overture”. Tolkien was clearly delighted and granted permission immediately, providing for us, as well, with this sidelight on himself and music:
“As an author I am honoured to hear that I have inspired a composer. I have long hoped to do so, and hope also that I might find the result intelligible to me, or feel that it was akin to my own inspiration…I have little musical knowledge. Though I come from a musical family, owing to defects of education and opportunity as an orphan, such music as was in me was submerged (until I married a musician), or was transformed into linguistic terms. Music gives me great pleasure and sometimes inspiration, but I remain in the position in reverse of one who likes to read or hear poetry but knows little of its technique or tradition, or of linguistic structure.” (from a letter to Carey Blyton, 16 August, 1964, Letters, 490. You can hear Blyton’s overture, composed in 1967 as Opus 52a, here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rybV4xDq_DM –that is, if you persist in insisting that you’re not a bot.)
The musician was, of course, his wife, Edith, and Tolkien’s interest in music was certainly developed enough that, in a trip to Italy in 1955 with his daughter, Priscilla, he reacted to a performance of Giuseppe Verdi’s Rigoletto, with the words “Perfectly astounding”. (from a letter to Christopher and Faith Tolkien, 15 August, 1955, Letters, 325)
I’ll be very curious to see what comes of this opera project, which claims to be retaining Tom Bombadil
(the Hildebrandts)
and the equally neglected Barrow-wight.
Under the Spell of the Barrow-wight, by Ted Nasmith
(Ted Nasmith)
If the selection I’ve heard from Godfrey’s Silmarillion provides us with an idea of his treatment of The Lord of the Rings, we will hear not only Tolkien’s poems, like “The Man in the Moon”, set to music, but the dialogue may also be done in recitativo, and I’ll be very curious to see how he manages this, as there’s so much of it—perhaps a narrator for continuity?
Thinking about this has set me wondering about how one might turn The Hobbit into an opera, dialogue aside. Tolkien has provided us with about 15 lyrics throughout:
Chapter 1, “An Unexpected Party”:
“Chip the glasses…” a chorus for the dwarves
“Far over the misty mountains cold…” a second chorus for the dwarves
“Far over the misty mountains cold…” a reprise of the first verse, sung by Thorin and overheard by Bilbo
Chapter 3, “A Short Rest”
“O! What are you doing…” a chorus for elves
Chapter 4, “Over Hill and Under Hill”
“Clap! Snap! the black crack!” a chorus for goblins
Chapter 5, “Riddles in the Dark”
Just a thought, but perhaps these riddles could all be sung, the glaring exception being Bilbo’s “What have I got in my pocket?”
Chapter 6, “Out of the Frying-Pan into the Fire”
“Fifteen birds in five fir-trees” another goblin chorus
“Burn, burn tree and fern” a goblin chorus—but possibly add in the howling of the wolves?
Chapter 7, “Queer Lodgings”
“The wind was on the withered heath” a chorus for dwarves
Chapter 8, “Flies and Spiders”
“Old fat spider”
“Lazy lob and crazy cob” two songs for Bilbo—the first time we’ve heard his voice
Chapter 9. “Barrels Out of Bond”
“Roll—roll—roll—roll”
“Down the swift dark stream you go” two choruses for the forest elves
Chapter 10, “A Warm Welcome”
“The King beneath the mountains” sung by the people of Lake-town
Chapter 15, “The Gathering of the Clouds”
“Under the Mountain dark and tall” a dwarf chorus
Chapter 19, “The Last Stage”
“The dragon is withered” a chorus for the elves of Rivendell
“Sing all ye joyful, now sing all together!” a second chorus for the elves
“Roads go ever ever on” a song for Bilbo and the last in the book
Reading through this list:
1. it’s easy to see that the majority of the lyrics are meant for a chorus of dwarves, goblins, Lake-town people, and assorted elves
2. the only solo numbers (excepting the riddles, if sung) are few in number and given to Bilbo
3. there are lyric gaps in the potential script: Chapters 11-14 and 16-18 have no songs at all
If you were the librettist, how would you fill not only those gaps, but provide for more solos—for Gandalf, Bilbo,Thorin, the Chief Goblin, Gollum, Beorn, Thranduil (the forest elf king), the Master of Lake-town, Bard, Smaug, Roac (the elderly raven), as well as perhaps small comic parts for the Sackville-Bagginses, and something for the stone trolls (a trio about eating might be appropriate) too? It’s also important to note the complete lack (except with the possible exception of the Lake-towners) of female voices in solos and choruses. How could that imbalance be readjusted—without seriously messing with Tolkien’s text (and we know from his correspondence with Forrest J. Ackerman on a potential film version of The Lord of the Rings that, although he conceded that a different art form might require some adjustment, he had his limits as to just what and how much might be altered—see “from a letter to Forrest J. Ackerman”, June, 1958, Letters, 389-397) Considering the story, it would seem that it would be a fitting subject for an opera seria, but there would be the danger—as there will be for Godfrey’s The Lord of the Rings—that, not maintaining the tone and making too many additions or changes to the text might quickly turn it into an opera—funnia.
Thanks for reading, as ever,
Stay well,
Beware of Godfrey’s “The Song of the Troll”—it’s catchy!
And remember that, as always, there’s
MTCIDC
O
PS
I’m not aware that Tolkien ever heard that “Hobbit overture”, but, in 1967, he collaborated with the composer, Donald Swann, 1923-1994, on a short cycle of his poems drawn from various sources, entitled The Road Goes Ever On.
doubtfulsea 