• About

doubtfulsea

~ adventure fantasy

Tag Archives: Grendel

Middle-under-earth

04 Wednesday Apr 2018

Posted by Ollamh in Artists and Illustrators, Heroes, J.R.R. Tolkien, Literary History, Narrative Methods

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Alan Lee, Andrew Lang, Barrow-downs, Beowulf, cyclops, Dragons, George Macdonald, Goblin Feet, Goblins, Great War, Grendel, Grendel's Mother, John Howe, monsters, Polyphemus, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Smaug, Storia Moria Castle, Tales of Troy and Greece, The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, The Princess and the Goblin, The Red Book of Animal Stories, The Red Fairy Book, Tolkien, trenches, tumulus

As always, dear readers, welcome!

One of us is currently teaching The Hobbit and, is always seems to be the case when we are teaching an old friend, we are struck by something new.  In this case, it’s the idea of “what lurks beneath” and where it might come from.

What occurred to us now was that, virtually every time there is trouble for Bilbo and the dwarves, it is strongly linked with caves and hollowed-out places:  trolls who came out of a cave (“Roast Mutton”), goblins who live in caves (“Over Hill and Under Hill”), Gollum (“Riddles in the Dark”), hostile elves (“Flies and Spiders” and “Barrels Out of Bond”), and, of course, Smaug (“On the Doorstep”, “Inside Information”, and “Not At Home”).  Only the wargs, the overgrown spiders, and the men of Lake-town in the Battle of the Five Armies have above-ground origins, as, after all, the other forces—goblins, elves, and even Iron Hills dwarves (we assume), have subterranean dwellings.

We knew that JRRT thought to become a classicist early in his academic career and we can imagine right away that one influence upon him for this underground menace would have been Polyphemus the Cyclops, who, after all, lives in a cave.

image1cyclops.jpg

Before he read that part of Odysseus’ story in Greek, he might have seen it in Andrew Lang’s 1907 Tales of Troy and Greece—

image2alang.jpg

image3lang.jpg

Tolkien tells us that, as a child, he had read other Lang works and a story in one, The Red Fairy Book (1890), might even have influenced some Middle-earth geography, from “Storia Moria Castle”.

image4redfairybook.jpeg

image5leemoria.jpg

Another childhood favorite (although he appears to have changed his mind later in life) were the fantasy novels of George Macdonald

image6gmacd.jpg

and his The Princess and the Goblin (1872),

image7princess.jpg

as its title suggests, is full of goblins and their underground world.  These goblins are powerful, but have one fatal flaw—tender feet—which JRRT said that he never believed (see Letters, 178)—although Tolkien’s first published poem was entitled “Goblin Feet” (Oxford Poetry 1915).

Beyond possible childhood reading, there is his career focus, which includes two other potential underground influences.

First, there is Beowulf.  Grendel, the monster in this poem,

image8grendel.jpg

lives in a cave at the bottom of a pool with his mother and, in the second part of his monster-slaying, Beowulf has to dive into that pool to deal with her.image9beowulfandmama.jpg

This illustration comes from another Andrew Lang book, The Red Book of Animal Stories (1899).

image10redbook.jpg

(The picture of Grendel is by Brian Froud.  We found it on the website of K.T.Katzmann, I Write Monsters.  Here’s a LINK.)

Then, of course, there’s that dragon, against whom Beowulf fights and dies—and which is the direct ancestor of another famous and familiar dragon…

image11dragonandhoard.jpg

We are told that it lives in an abandoned tumulus—that is, an ancient grave mound, like this one.

image12tumulus.png

(This is, in fact, a famous Neolithic burial at Gavrinis, in Brittany.)

JRRT worked in Middle English, as well as Old English, and here we find one more possible source in his own edition (with E.V. Gordon) of the 14th-century poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

image13tolkgord.JPG

The Green Knight who challenges King Arthur’s court to a mutual head-chopping contest, is said, in the fourth part of the poem,  to inhabit a “green chapel” and to appear out of a hole when Sir Gawain, who has accepted the challenge and cut off the Green Knight’s head, makes his appearance there to fulfill his half of the contest.

image14sirg.jpg

This chapel has sounded like a tumulus to generations of scholars and here’s John Howe’s 2003 illustration, complete with chapel as tumulus (not to mention a very large green man).

image15johnhowe.png

Tumuli also make their appearance, of course, in The Lord of the Rings, when Frodo and his party go astray on the Barrow Downs.

image16barrowwight.jpg

We can’t finish this posting without at least suggesting one more source, something even more personal than JRRT’s scholarly work:  his experiences in the Great War.

image17lt.jpg

By the time Tolkien entered the service in France, the Western Front was, basically, a 500-mile trench, from Switzerland to the North Sea.

image18trenches.gif

Much of the entrenching was simply deep, reinforced ditching.

image19trenches.jpg

But some—particularly on the German side—could be elaborate, even built with stone or concrete, and set far enough into the ground as to be almost impervious to bombardment.

image21bunker.jpg

And we imagine that, with all of that earlier literary work in his mind, JRRT might have faced such defenses wondering whether what was inside them would be Germans

image22trenchclearing.jpg

or something much worse.

image23smaug.jpg

And did this haunt his later writing as much as the Great War haunted the minds of soldiers all over the world?

Thanks, as ever, for reading!

MTCIDC

CD

Paying No Attention to the Man Behind the Curtain

08 Wednesday Jun 2016

Posted by Ollamh in J.R.R. Tolkien, Literary History, Narrative Methods

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Beowulf, Cloacina, Connacht, Grendel, Heorot, Horatius, King of Leinster, Lembas, Lord Chesterfield, Mac Da Tho, Mordor, Odysseus, Penelope, Tamora Pierce, The Lord of the Rings, The Odyssey, The Wizard of Oz, Tolkien, Ulster

Behind-the-Curtain.jpg

Dear Readers,

Welcome, as always, to our blog. In this posting, we want to consider something usually invisible, but, at the same time, for reader/listeners, always there in adventure stories.

Think for a moment about your day. And how filled it is with requirements of the body, from sleep to washing to eating to—yes, you see where we’re going.

PoplarForestPriviesRob.jpg

(And we can’t see this 18th century outhouse—sometimes called a “necessary” or a “privy” then—without thinking of part of a letter by the famous 18th-century essayist/letter-writer Lord Chesterfield (1694-1773).

Philip_Stanhope,_4th_Earl_of_Chesterfield.PNG

Who wrote a series of affectionate and very worldly-wise letters to his illegitimate son. In one of them he had the following advice—

“I knew a gentleman who was so good a manager of his time that he would not even lose that small portion of it which the calls of nature obliged him to pass in the necessary-house; but gradually went through all the Latin poets in those moments. He bought, for example, a common edition of Horace, of which he tore off gradually a couple of pages, carried them with him to that necessary place, read them first, and then sent them down as a sacrifice to Cloacina: this was so much time fairly gained, and I recommend you to follow his example…. Books of science and of a grave sort must be read with continuity; but there are very many, and even very useful ones, which may be read with advantage by snatches and unconnectedly: such are all the good Latin poets, except Virgil in his Æneid, and such are most of the modern poets, in which you will find many pieces worth reading that will not take up above seven or eight minutes.”

earlyeditionofhorace.jpg

Cloacina was the patron goddess of the ancient main drain of Rome. Here’s an image of her shrine—

Coins-venus-cloacina.jpg

and here’s her drain

Domitian-Cloaca-Forum.jpg

But, as we were starting to say, things of the body, ordinary things, are almost entirely ignored both in traditional adventure and in modern versions. In fact, it’s a bit of a shock to see, in some of Tamora Pierce’s YA novels (a big favorite of ours), that people actually use a latrine.

tpiercebooks.jpg

When we look at JRRT, for example, whose works we’ve often tried to set into a medieval context, we never see what one would have seen in such a context, whether behind a farmhouse

garderobe1.jpg

or in some place grand.

garderobe.jpgGarderobe,_Peveril_Castle,_Derbyshire.jpg

We began with the least common possibility, but this is as true for other functions—usually taken for granted, except for specific reasons. Sleep, for example, is very often employed simply as a way to show the passage of time during an adventure—and, in worlds without googlemaps, Siri, and perhaps even signposts

HauntedForest_sign.jpg

it’s a very natural and easy way to mark time and distance simultaneously.

samandfrodoasleep.jpg

Eating can show the same—think of Sam hoarding lembas as he and Frodo trek towards Mordor—

leaf-lembas.JPG

JRRT then uses it to show urgency, as well—what will they do in Mordor, when it runs out?

602_NASMITH_Across_Gorgoroth_02.jpg

Of course, eating—in the form of feasting, in particular—can provide a major plot element.

Think of Heorot, the feasting hall, in Beowulf, for instance,

heorot.jpg

where feasts are ruined until Beowulf defeats their ruiner, Grendel.

Stories_of_beowulf_head_of_grendel.jpg

Or the endless feasting of the suitors in the Odyssey

greekfeastpaestumdivertomb.jpg

as they eat up everything which makes Odysseus the lord of his lands, besides trying to steal his wife, Penelope.

JohnWilliamWaterhouse-PenelopeandtheSuitors(1912).jpg

Here, eating and drinking take on a greater significance in that they are symbolic of the slow destruction of Odysseus’ household. They also provide a great setting for his reappearance and then, with the help of Athena, his massacre of the suitors in one of the wildest revenge scenes we know. It has quite a number of illustrators, from ancient

Mnesterophonia_Louvre_CA7124.jpg

to Victorian

odysseus-kills-the-suitors1.jpg

to modern—and our favorite, for the way it’s being shown from the angle of Odysseus’ patron, Athena

peterconnollysuitors.jpg

And then there is the feast, held in the rath of the king of Leinster, Mac Da Tho, which has to be one of the zaniest scela in Old Irish literature. Leinster’s most powerful neighbors, Ulster and Connacht, are at dinner, but there is a sudden difficulty over who will carve the pig.

Pictish_symbol_stone_from_Dores Wiki Commons.JPG

Like so many of the stories of the so-called “Ulster Cycle”, it is full of over-the-top violence and grim humor as both powers struggle to gain the honor of carving and therefore having the right to award the curadmir, the “hero’s portion”.

As you think about your favorite heroic or adventure story, consider the above—where can you see body care/body functions? Then, to take it a step farther: where does anyone ever sneeze? (We can think of one special one, but what can you come up with?—Hint: see Odyssey 17…)

Thanks, as ever, for reading.

MTCIDC

CD

 

The Doubtful Sea Series Facebook Page

The Doubtful Sea Series Facebook Page

  • Ollamh

Categories

  • Artists and Illustrators
  • Economics in Middle-earth
  • Fairy Tales and Myths
  • Films and Music
  • Games
  • Heroes
  • Imaginary History
  • J.R.R. Tolkien
  • Language
  • Literary History
  • Maps
  • Medieval Russia
  • Military History
  • Military History of Middle-earth
  • Narnia
  • Narrative Methods
  • Poetry
  • Research
  • Star Wars
  • Terra Australis
  • The Rohirrim
  • Theatre and Performance
  • Tolkien
  • Uncategorized
  • Villains
  • Writing as Collaborators
Follow doubtfulsea on WordPress.com

Across the Doubtful Sea

Recent Postings

  • We’re All Mad…Here? February 24, 2021
  • Would You Be Mine February 17, 2021
  • Bog-Trotting February 10, 2021
  • In the Sky, a Spy February 3, 2021
  • An Earful January 27, 2021
  • On Thin Ice January 20, 2021
  • Pigs is Pigs? January 14, 2021
  • It’s a Boar January 6, 2021
  • Take a Letter! December 30, 2020

Blog Statistics

  • 46,275 Views

Posting Archive

  • February 2021 (4)
  • January 2021 (4)
  • December 2020 (5)
  • November 2020 (4)
  • October 2020 (4)
  • September 2020 (5)
  • August 2020 (4)
  • July 2020 (5)
  • June 2020 (4)
  • May 2020 (4)
  • April 2020 (5)
  • March 2020 (4)
  • February 2020 (4)
  • January 2020 (6)
  • December 2019 (4)
  • November 2019 (4)
  • October 2019 (5)
  • September 2019 (4)
  • August 2019 (4)
  • July 2019 (5)
  • June 2019 (4)
  • May 2019 (5)
  • April 2019 (4)
  • March 2019 (4)
  • February 2019 (4)
  • January 2019 (5)
  • December 2018 (4)
  • November 2018 (4)
  • October 2018 (5)
  • September 2018 (4)
  • August 2018 (5)
  • July 2018 (4)
  • June 2018 (4)
  • May 2018 (5)
  • April 2018 (4)
  • March 2018 (4)
  • February 2018 (4)
  • January 2018 (5)
  • December 2017 (4)
  • November 2017 (4)
  • October 2017 (4)
  • September 2017 (4)
  • August 2017 (5)
  • July 2017 (4)
  • June 2017 (4)
  • May 2017 (5)
  • April 2017 (4)
  • March 2017 (5)
  • February 2017 (4)
  • January 2017 (4)
  • December 2016 (4)
  • November 2016 (5)
  • October 2016 (6)
  • September 2016 (5)
  • August 2016 (5)
  • July 2016 (5)
  • June 2016 (5)
  • May 2016 (4)
  • April 2016 (4)
  • March 2016 (5)
  • February 2016 (4)
  • January 2016 (4)
  • December 2015 (5)
  • November 2015 (5)
  • October 2015 (4)
  • September 2015 (5)
  • August 2015 (4)
  • July 2015 (5)
  • June 2015 (5)
  • May 2015 (4)
  • April 2015 (3)
  • March 2015 (4)
  • February 2015 (4)
  • January 2015 (4)
  • December 2014 (5)
  • November 2014 (4)
  • October 2014 (6)
  • September 2014 (1)

Blog at WordPress.com.

Cancel

 
Loading Comments...
Comment
    ×