Seeing the Elephant– Oliphaunt

30 Wednesday Sep 2015

Posted by Ollamh in Films and Music, Heroes, J.R.R. Tolkien, Military History, Military History of Middle-earth

Tags

Adventure, Alps, ATAT, Elephants, Greeks, Hannibal, Hoth, Mammoth, Mumak of Harad, Napoleon, Oliphaunt, Peter Jackson, Pyrrhus of Epirus, Romans, Sam Gamgee, Star Wars, The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien, war

Grey as a mouse,
Big as a house,
Nose like a snake,
I make the earth shake,
As I tramp through the grass;
Trees crack as I pass.
With horns in my mouth
I walk in the South,
Flapping big ears.
Beyond count of years
I stump round and round,
Never lie on the ground,
Not even to die.
Oliphaunt am I,
Biggest of all,
Huge, old, and tall.
If ever you’d met me
You wouldn’t forget me.
If you never do,
You won’t think I’m true;
But old Oliphaunt am I,
And I never lie.

(“The Black Gate is Closed”, LOTR 646)

Dear Readers,

Welcome, as always.

Sam dearly wants to see an oliphaunt– and he will get his chance. Were he able to see the third part of Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings, he would see many more than one.

Sam does see one, however:

To his astonishment and terror, and lasting delight, Sam saw a vast shape crash out of the trees and come careering down the slope. Big as a house, much bigger than a house, it looked to him, a grey-clad moving hill” (“Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit”, LOTR 661).

Here’s how the film shows two of them:

These are, of course, based upon real war elephants.

The west– our west– first saw such elephants in the 280s BC, in the army which Pyrrhus of Epirus brought from Greece to fight the Romans.

Such elephants were thought to be useful against great blocks of infantry.

They could be used like tanks to knock holes in the formations.

To most people, the most familiar images, however, would be from Hannibal’s invasion of Italy in 218 BC.

And, most famous of all, is his taking of the elephants across the Alps.

In fact, this did not end well for the elephants. Ancient accounts suggest that out of forty elephants, only one survived.

Crossing the Alps reminded us of Napoleon doing this in 1800. Here’s the heroic version:

And this is what really happened (a little like Hannibal’s elephants):

JRRT says of the oliphaunt Sam saw that “…the Mûmak of Harad was indeed a beast of vast bulk, and the like of him does not walk now in Middle-earth” (“Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit”, LOTR 661).

It’s unclear what he means by this, except perhaps that an oliphaunt was more like a mammoth

Even so, we can only contrast an ancient war elephant (reconstructed)

with those in the film

and which reminded us strongly of ATATs from the assault upon Hoth,

and think how disappointed Sam would be in what he would see in our world versus his!

Thanks, as always, for reading!

MTCIDC

The Two Sieges

22 Wednesday Jul 2015

Posted by Ollamh in Heroes, J.R.R. Tolkien, Military History

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Tags

Agincourt, Aragorn, English Longbowmen, Faramir, French Knights, Gondor, Grond, Hoth, Jan Sobieski, Lithuania, Minas Tirith, Mumakil, Nazgul, Orcs, Ottoman, Peter Jackson, Poland, Rammas Echor, Rohan, Rohirrim, Siege Towers, Stone Throwers, The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien, Vienna, Winged Hussars

Welcome, as always, dear readers!

In this posting, we’re going to make another suggestion about a model for something in Tolkien’s work.

If you read us regularly, you know that our favorite part of P. Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings is anything to do with the Rohirrim. When we rewatch favorite scenes, the charge against the Orcs outside Minas Tirith is always first on our list (and high on our general list of cavalry charges—more on those in a future posting).

First, we see that massive Orc army marching up to the walls. (In the book, this is more dramatic: the Orcs blow two holes in the Rammas Echor, outflank the defenders, and drive them into retreat, which is where Faramir is badly wounded by an arrow.)

Then they begin to attack with stone-throwers,

siege towers,

and, eventually a giant, flame-filled battering ram.

Things look increasingly desperate for Gondor as the Orcs press their attack, led by the Chief Nazgul.

And that’s when the Rohirrim appear.

And move to strike the Orcs from behind.

When the Orcs realize what’s happening, they try to stop the attack with bows.

This immediately reminded us of the 1415 battle in which English longbowmen and their clever use defeated an army of brave French knights, Agincourt.

Unlike Agincourt, however, arrows didn’t stop the Rohirrim, who sweep through the enemy—but are brought up short by the sight of a row of mumakil—giant war elephants—bearing down on them.

Seeing this scenario made us think of another attack by huge, lumbering things in a galaxy long ago and far away—

The film goes on from there, including an attack by a ghost army, instead of by the actual forces brought from southern Gondor by Aragorn, but we want to back up a bit to the actual siege and another one which bears a strong resemblance to it.

For centuries, the Ottoman Turks had been expanding their dominions.

They had first reached Vienna in 1529,

but had given up the siege. Now, however, in 1683, they were back.

Their attacks against a dwindling number of defenders in a crumbling town

had brought them to the edge of conquest when an army of reenforcements, including cavalry from the army of the combined state of Lithuania/Poland, had appeared. Some of the cavalry were the famous Polish winged hussars.

Just as the Rohirrim are led by their king, Theoden, so are the Poles led by their king Jan Sobieski—

The reenforcements, Poles in the lead, rush upon the Turks and drive them back through their camps and out of the siege entirely.

So similar, isn’t it? No giant war elephants, ghost armies, or Nazgul, but the basic elements of siege, relieving army with cavalry led by a king attacking an unprepared enemy, and chasing off the besiegers, is nearly identical.

Tolkien was an extremely well-read man, with a strong interest in history. Was the siege and relief of Vienna somewhere in the back of his mind when he began to plan the siege of Minas Tirith?

Thanks for reading!

MTCIDC

doubtfulsea

~ adventure fantasy

Tag Archives: Hoth

Seeing the Elephant– Oliphaunt

The Two Sieges