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To the Elves for Counsel

07 Wednesday Dec 2016

Posted by Ollamh in Fairy Tales and Myths, J.R.R. Tolkien, Literary History, Narrative Methods

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advised by elves, Aelfraed, Aethelwulf, Alaric Hall, Alfred, Alfred of Wessex, Alfred the Great, Anglo-Saxon, Aragorn, Boudicca, council, Counseling the Scippigraed, Danish invaders, Elder Days, Elves, Elves in Anglo-Saxon England, Frodo, Galadriel, Gildor Inglorion, Grey Havens, Hamo Thornycroft, Hobbits, Mirror of Galadriel, Morgul Knife, Shire, statue, T. A. Shippey, The Council of Elrond, The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien, Tolkien in the New Century, Tom Shippey, With Faerstice

Welcome, dear readers, as ever. In this posting, our attention was caught by the first paragraph of an article in Tolkien in the New Century: Essays in Honor of Tom Shippey (McFarland, 2014). The article, entitled, “Counseling the Scippigraed: How T.A. Shippey Taught Us to Read”, by John R. Holmes, begins:

“The Christening of Alfred Aetheling of Wessex in 849 may have played a role in his greatness. Alfred’s father, Aethelwulf, had wanted to establish his own name-prefix, Aethel, which means (more or less) “noble,” as the sign of the royal line: he gave it to his first four sons and a daughter. By the time his sixth child came along, however—his fifth son—there didn’t seem to be any point in giving him the Aethel- prefix, since there seemed to be no reasonable chance this infant could ever become king. But wishing the lad wisdom and happiness, Aethelwulf named him Aelfraed, “advised by elves.” While we have no historical proof that Alfred actually received counsel from elves, there is no evidence to the contrary, and the boy certainly prospered as if he had. Alfred, Elf-counsel, not only outlasted four older brothers to become king, but also would be the only English monarch known to history as “The Great”. “ (11)

Alfred, king of Wessex from 871-899, was perhaps the most distinguished ruler of pre-Norman England. Against heavy odds, he eventually stabilized Wessex against a powerful wave of Danish invaders

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and even forced the second Danish leader both into a treaty and into conversion to Christianity. As well, he was active in promoting Anglo-Saxon intellectuality and the rise of a vernacular literature.

Statue_d'Alfred_le_Grand_à_Winchester.jpg

(this statue, from 1901, by the way, was done by Hamo Thornycroft, the son of the man who did the famous Boudicca plus chariot statue on the Thames embankment—erected 1902, but created much earlier–)

boadicea1.jpg

For us, however, what was interesting was none of this, but rather the idea that it might be possible for someone in the 9th century AD to have the kind of contact with elves we see in The Lord of the Rings.

mirrorofgaladriel.jpg

We have always imagined Elves as belonging to the Elder Days and that, eventually, like Elrond and Galadriel, they had all traveled to the Grey Havens and taken ship for the West.

TN-Departure_at_the_Grey_Havens.jpg

Suppose, however, we said to ourselves, that, as JRRT suggests about hobbits, Elves continued to exist, even down into actual historical times:

“Hobbits are an unobtrusive but very ancient people, more numerous formerly than they are today…They do not and did not understand or like machines more complicated that a forge-bellows, a water-mill, or a hand-loom, though they were skillful with tools. Even in ancient days they were, as a rule, shy of ‘the Big Folk’, as they call us, and now they avoid us with dismay and are becoming hard to find. (The Lord of the Rings, “Prologue”)

Of elves, the actual Anglo-Saxon people of the period don’t appear to have much good to say, in fact. The 11th-century recipe, called the With Faerstice (“Against a Stabbing Pain”), suggests that elves were dangerous and, should they attack you, it required serious medical treatment, including what looks like a magic spell, to cure you of the wound, which was made by something which reminded us of the tip of the Morgul Knife broken off in Frodo’s wound.

morgulknife.jpg

Even in Middle-earth, Elves aren’t considered to be the most direct of people, however, as Frodo quotes:

“ And it is also said…’Go not to the Elves for counsel, for they will say both no and yes.’ “

And yet, in this scene, from The Fellowship of the Ring, Book 1, Chapter 3, “Three is Company”, in which Frodo, Sam, and Pippin fall into the company of Elves,

Alan_Lee_-_Gildor_and_the_Hobbits.jpg

their leader, Gildor Inglorion, does offer advice and the way he frames it might provide us with a model for how Alfred could have been counseled.

To begin, we might picture the elves as being unimaginably older than the Anglo-Saxons, and, with that age, having a longer view of things. As Gildor says to Frodo, when Frodo says, “I knew that danger lay ahead, of course; but I did not expect to meet it in our own Shire.”:

“But it is not your own Shire…Others dwelt here before hobbits were; and others will dwell here again when hobbits are no more. The wide world is all about you: you can fence yourselves in, but you cannot for ever fence it out.”

Great age, then, can lend great perspective. When you’ve lived as long as the Elves, you have seen much more of change within time, and what concerns them might be very different from what engages humans, as Gildor tells Frodo:

“The Elves have their own labours and their own sorrows, and they are little concerned with the ways of hobbits, or of any other creatures upon earth. Our paths cross theirs seldom, by chance or purpose.”

So what would be the kind of raed (“advice/counsel”) which the elves would have given Alfred? we asked ourselves. It’s easy to imagine his approach: often, particularly in the early years of his kingship, Alfred was faced with defeat. The Danes were numerous, powerful, and unscrupulous, once even killing hostages after swearing to a peace agreement. His question might then have been: how can I beat the Danes and regain my kingdom?

The elves would have been cautious, of course. Gildor says:

“Elves seldom give unguarded advice, for advice is a dangerous gift, even from the wise to the wise, and all courses may run ill.”

This is spoken by someone who has many centuries of experience behind him, as would an elf advising Alfred. Time and its changes had clearly taught the Elves both caution and patience and we imagine that those two elements would have been the basis of a reply—and, in fact, it appears to have been Alfred’s method, as we learn from the first biography, by Bishop Asser, a contemporary, who was asked by Alfred to join his court. Rather than seek victory in one climactic battle, had that been possible, Alfred attacked the problem from multiple angles, doing things which not only contributed to the Danish defeat (and to the defeat of a subsequent invasion), but also strengthened the kingdom in general, changing and improving the tax and military systems, building the first English navy, as well as producing a law code and encouraging education in Anglo-Saxon. This method brought peace and stability to Wessex (much of southern England), but did so over the period of twenty years or more, suggesting to us that the counsel of elves had surely been at work.

When we picture the scene of Alfred receiving the elves’ advice, we think of this Hildebrandt painting of Galadriel and Aragorn.

gift.jpg

And perhaps those elves said the same thing to Alfred which Galadriel said to Frodo before her mirror:

“ ‘Do you advise me to look?’ asked Frodo.

‘No,’ she said, ‘I do not counsel you one way or the other. I am not a counsellor. You may learn something, and whether what you see be fair or evil, that may be profitable, and yet it may not. Seeing is both good and perilous. Yet I think, Frodo, that you have courage and wisdom enough for the venture, or I would not have brought you here. Do as you will!’ “ ( The Fellowship of the Ring, Book 2, Chapter 7, “The Mirror of Galadriel”)

In Alfred’s case, he would have been brave and wise enough, and therefore has come down to us both as “Alfred the Great” and as “Alfred Elf-counsel”.

as_silver_penny_alfred.jpg

Thanks, as always, for reading.

MTCIDC

CD

PS

If you are interested in knowing more about Anglo-Saxon attitudes about elves, we very much recommend Alaric Hall’s Elves in Anglo-Saxon England which is, miraculously, available for free on-line.

 

A Country for Old Men—and Old Men for a Country

11 Wednesday May 2016

Posted by Ollamh in Fairy Tales and Myths, J.R.R. Tolkien, Literary History

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Tags

Apollonius, Aragorn, Argo, Blue Wizards, Denethor, Faramir, Gandalf and the Balrog, Grey Havens, Heracles, Hildebrandts, Hylas, Istari, Jason and the Golden Fleece, Merlin, Radaghast, sage, Saint Nicholas, Saruman, Sharkey, The Argonautica, The Fantastic Four, The Lord of the Rings, Theoden, Tiresias, Tolkien, Valar, W.B.Yeats

Dear readers, welcome, as always.

Recently, we wrote a posting about Saruman and his fate. It was fun to think about, but it made us think further about why Saruman, in the Shire, is called “Sharkey” by his thugs—supposedly from Orcish sharku, “Old Man”. If we had never read a description of Saruman, but only the nickname, we might think of “the old man” either as an older Anglo-American expression either for a father—“my old man keeps nagging me about cutting the grass, if I want my allowance” (note the use of the possessive “my”)—a naval/military term for commander—“the old man said that, on his ship, smoking would never be allowed again” (always without the possessive)—or older English for husband—“her old man is fooling around behind her back—I hope she turns around!” (again, with a possessive).

In fact, Saruman is, literally, an old man

greg-hildebrandt-isengard-orthanc-saruman-607429-1300x962.jpg

—as are all five of the Istari, the wizards sent to Middle-earth by the Valar about the year 1000 of the Third Age. As JRRT says in a letter to Robert Murray, S.J. (there’s a surviving draft on pages 200-207 of The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien):

“They are actually emissaries from the True West, and so mediately from God, sent precisely to strengthen the resistance of the ‘good’, when the Valar become aware that the shadow of Sauron is taking shape again.” Letters, 207

He further explains their role:

“At this point in the fabulous history the purpose was precisely to limit and hinder their exhibition of ‘power’ on the physical plane, and so that they should do what they were primarily sent for: train, advise, instruct, arouse the hearts and minds of those threatened by Sauron to a resistance with their own strengths; and not just to do the job for them.” 202

JRRT could have chosen a different path, of course, and created a plot in which there was constant, open war between the wizards and Sauron, and there is mention of war of some sort, as, during the time of The Hobbit, the White Council drives “the Necromancer” out of Dol Goldur in the southern part of Mirkwood. It’s not said how, but no army is mentioned, so we presume that it was done by magic against magic (on the subject of magic, see JRRT in the letter previous to the one to Murray, Letters, 199-200).

We wonder if, in choosing to limit the wizards’ power, Tolkien made the same choice which Apollonius of Rhodes (3rd century BC) made in his version of the story of Jason and the Golden Fleece, The Argonautica. If you don’t know this story, the shortest way to explain it is to say that Jason’s wicked uncle has stolen the throne which rightfully belongs to Jason and, in an effort to make Jason disappear, his uncle has sent him off on what he hoped was a suicide mission. That mission was to bring back a magical golden fleece from the far side of the Black Sea (at the time, this would have been like a mission to Mars). To help him, Jason summons heroes from across the Greek world.

Unfortunately for Apollonius, the traditional story on which his epic is based had, over time, gradually come to include every hero from ancient Greece on Argo,

The_Argo.jpg

This means that Heracles had to be asked to join, but there is a big difficulty in including Heracles: he’s so powerful that he could do the job all by himself.

Krater_Niobid_Painter_A_Louvre_G341.jpg

Apollonius was extremely scrupulous, as far as we can tell, in following tradition, so he finds a way out. He puts Heracles’ bff, Hylas, on board the ship, then, at a watering spot, has the boy lured away by some randy water nymphs.

hylas_and_the_nymphs.waterhouse1896.jpg

When Heracles goes off to find the boy, the ship leaves without him and the problem is solved. (Although Apollonius chooses to ignore the fact that the ship is still absolutely crammed with the ancient equivalent of The Fantastic Four. We suppose that, for him, Heracles was the only really major hero.)

fantasticfour.png

Thus, we can imagine that Tolkien, believing that he could create a more interesting (and longer?) story without too much magic, has, in general, limited the wizards not in their power, but in the use of it. (There are exceptions, of course—we immediately think of Gandalf and the Balrog, for instance.)

balroggandalf.jpg

The wizards do not just have the shape of men, however, but old men—“Thus they appeared as ‘old’ sage figures” (Letters, 202).

The word “sage” here is definitely one element in Tolkien’s choice for his characters. There is a world-wide tradition that old men are wise men—think of the ancient Greek seer Tiresias, for example—

Johann_Heinrich_Füssli_tiresias.jpg

or the Arthurian Merlin

vivien-and-merlin-by-gustave-dore-cc.jpg

or Father Christmas/Santa Claus.

FatherChristmas.JPG

We wonder whether there might also be the idea that, dramatically, older rulers, like Theoden

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And Denethor

hildebrandtdenethor.jpg

might be more inclined to listen to such a person (although we notice that the corrupted Denethor is less than willing).

And, that younger men like Aragorn

Image result for hildebrandts aragorn

and Faramir

Tim Hildebrandt - Faramir rencontre Frodon et Sam (2).jpg

would see them as mentors.

kingreturn.jpg

And, as the Istari have been sent by the Valar, the last act on Gandalf’s part, as depicted in this Hildebrandt twins’ painting, has special significance, suggesting that, Aragorn has been given the throne with divine approval and, with his crowning, Sauron has been completely defeated and balance has been restored, even if only temporarily, to Middle-earth.

When this has been accomplished, Gandalf is then allowed to “retire”, as we seem to expect old men to do in our world (and as Tolkien himself did, in 1959), going to the Grey Havens and a final journey back to the West.

greg_tim_hildebrandt_at_the_grey_havens.jpg

We hear nothing more of Radagast and the two so-called “Blue Wizards”, but, Saruman also leaves Middle-earth—though not in Gandalf’s gentle way. And perhaps his end, shabby and disgraced, also shows a kind of divine approval: those given power must not abuse it, for the consequences not only to the world around them, but to them, can be fatal.

Thanks, as always, for reading.

MTCIDC

CD

 

PS

Our title is an adaptation of the first line of W.B. Yeats’ gorgeous poem, Sailing to Byzantium (first published in 1928). Although it has nothing to do with Middle-earth, it does depict a strange, magical place.

wby.jpg

Beaux Gestes? (2)

27 Wednesday Apr 2016

Posted by Ollamh in Artists and Illustrators, Fairy Tales and Myths, J.R.R. Tolkien, Villains

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

19th-century tombs, Cicero, Galadriel, Gandalf, Grey Havens, Hildebrandts, Istari, Mourning, Queen Victoria, Quintilian, Saruman, Scouring of the Shire, The Lord of the Rings, The Mirror of Galadriel, Theatrical gesture, Tolkien, Valar

Welcome, as always, dear readers.

In our last, we commenced a small examination of gesture in The Lord of the Rings, relating specifically to Galadriel and Saruman. We began with Galadriel

galadriel.jpg

and her rejection of Sauron. JRRT describes it in this way: “She lifted up her white arms, and spread out her hands towards the East in a gesture of rejection and denial.” In that post, we said that her gesture seemed theatrical, almost melodramatic, and we suggested that JRRT had been influenced by what we imagined he had seen on stage and on screen late in the 19th and into the 20th centuries, a time when such broad gestures were still considered the best way to convey strong emotion. This mode was, we proposed, ultimately based upon the writings of two ancient Romans, Cicero and Quintilian, who lived between the years 100BC and 100AD. In their day and up to the 20th century, the only magnification available to allow speakers to be heard over crowds was the human voice. Thus, a range of gestures emphatic enough to be seen and clear enough to be understood at a distance was an important component of effective speaking and such gestures were adopted and adapted by actors and used and reused for many centuries to come.

Because none of the illustrations based upon “The Mirror of Galadriel” depicts this gesture, we used a photograph from an 1898 book on public speaking to provide the sense of what we believe we were meant to see.

Repulsion.jpg

In our last, we also suggested that Galadriel’s gesture was linked to one of Saruman’s—in fact, his last gesture on Middle Earth, as far as we know.

In sudden resentment at the contemptuous treatment consistently dealt him by Saruman, Grima Wormtongue has drawn a hidden knife and cut the wizard’s 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.” The Lord of the Rings, Book 6, Chapter viii.

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Saruman had been one of the Istari, as Tolkien describes them all in describing Gandalf:

“There are naturally no precise modern terms to say what he was. I wd. venture to say that he was an incarnate ‘angel’—strictly an angelos: that is, with the other Istari, wizards, ‘those who know’, an emissary from the Lords of the West, sent to Middle-earth, as the great crisis of Sauron loomed on the horizon. By ‘incarnate’ I mean they were embodied in physical bodies capable of pain, and weariness, and of afflicting the spirit with physical fear, and of being ‘killed’, though supported by the angelic spirit they might endure long, and only show slowly the wearing of care and labour.” Letter to Robert Murray, S.J. (draft), 4 November, 1954.

Saruman, then, as another of the Istari, can be killed—and is, but what then? In his battle with the Balrog, it appears that Gandalf has met his end. He returns, however, suggesting that his physical body might be capable of the repair which Galadriel administers in Lorien.  As JRRT says in the same letter, “He was sent by a mere prudent plan of the angelic Valar or governors; but Authority had taken up this plan and enlarged it, at the moment of its failure.”—that is, Gandalf’s apparent death.

As Gandalf puts it, “I was the enemy of Sauron”, and, with Sauron defeated, apparently conclusively, Gandalf is allowed to return to the West, to do or be what, is never explained.   It is a privilege, clearly, since it is granted only to High Elves and, with special dispensation, to Bilbo and Frodo.

This brings us back to Saruman’s gesture: “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.”

In a way, what we see here is actually a lack of gesture—it is a wavering, with a sense of hope, perhaps? Almost as if Saruman is appealing for pardon? As in the case, of Galadriel, we have no artist’s depiction of this, but we’ve used the clue of “a pale shrouded figure”, as well as that wavering, to imagine that this is someone in mourning and so we can offer several figures from later 19th-century tombs as a possible image.

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Statue-to-Mourning-Zentralfriedhof-Vienna.jpg

It’s interesting that these all are female, as if this is one of the expected jobs of 19th-century women, to be the Mourners in Chief. We suppose that, since Queen Victoria mourned for her husband Albert from his death in 1861 to her own death in 1901, this shouldn’t be surprising, but we are planning a later posting about mourning in The Lord of the Rings which will examine the subject within certain western traditions in more depth.

Queen-Victoria-Her-Latest-Portrait-1900_tr_4643_566.jpg

In the meantime, we return to Galadriel to match these two gestures. Saruman had failed because he had accepted the East and the deceptive words of Sauron. His fate, then, is to be met with a cold wind and to dissolve, with a sigh, into nothing, rejected by the West from which he had been sent, several thousand years before. Galadriel, on the other hand, by protecting her people and rejecting Sauron, had been accepted back into the West and the last we see of her is aboard a ship at the Grey Havens, bound for her reward.

ghavens.jpg

Thanks for reading, as always.

MTCIDC

CD

PS

We couldn’t resist this final image: the Hildebrandts with the painting.

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For all of the wonderful paintings he and his brother have given us, may Tim Hildebrandt (1939-2006) have been given a safe passage to the West, as well.

 

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