Shire Portrait (3a)

15 Wednesday Feb 2017

Posted by Ollamh in Economics in Middle-earth, Imaginary History, J.R.R. Tolkien, Literary History, Maps, Narrative Methods

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Welcome, dear readers, to the third installment of our rough portrait of the Shire. We call it a “rough portrait” because, so far, we’ve relied upon only three sources: The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien. We’ll continue to do so in this installment, but we will add two works of geography, K. W. Fonstad’s The Atlas of Middle-earth and Barbara Strachey’s Journeys of Frodo (although we may take a hint of two from other works).

So far, we’ve discussed the government of the Shire (Shire Portrait 1) and the economy (Shire Portrait 2). In this, we want to move on to the geography of the Shire. We begin with Fonstad’s map.

Except for Buckland, all of the Shire lies west of the River Baranduin (the “Brandywine”). This river can be broad enough to require a cable ferry

and it is navigable, at least by small boats—after all, it was in such a boat that Frodo’s parents were drowned.

As well, there is the Bridge of Stonebows on the Great East Road. Since it’s wide enough for gates and is reported to have had houses on the far side of it, we might imagine it to look like the Old Dee Bridge, at Chester, in England.

3olddeebridgechester

This bridge dates from Norman times (although there was a bridge there from the days of the Roman occupation—“Chester”, after all, is only a corruption of castra, Latin for “military camp”—founded as Deva Victrix in 79AD), with the present version being more-or-less 14^th-century. In the Prologue to The Lord of the Rings, the Bridge of Stonebows is said to have been “built in the days of the power of the North Kingdom”, making us wonder whether the Dwarves, who had cut the Great East Road long before, had only had a ford at that place.

To the west of the river stretches the Shire, most of it to the north and south of the Great East Road, which acts as a kind of spine, there being subsidiary roads leading off it towards the various villages. Originally built by the Dwarves in the First Age, it led from Doriath in Beleriand eastward beyond the Baraduin towards the Misty Mountains. After the destruction of Beleriand, the remaining section ran only from the Grey Havens eastward. When Marcho and Blanco, the Fallowhide brothers, gained permission to colonize the area in TA1601 from Argeleb II, the only payment required was “that they should keep the Great Bridge in repair, and all other bridges and roads, speed the king’s messengers, and acknowledge his lordship”, which would have included the Great East Road.

In a previous posting, we talked about the North-South Road (later, the “Greenway”, which once ran from Fornost Erain, in the north, to Minas Tirith, in the south. Because of its ancient importance and places like the causeway and bridge at Tharbad, we imagined it to be like a Roman road—carefully laid out by engineers and paved but, no longer maintained, gone to seed.

Because of its great age and one-time importance, we’ve always pictured the Great East Road to be similar, especially when it is clear that the kings of Arnor considered its maintenance to be the equivalent of tribute or taxes from the new Shire. Subsidiary roads which split off from the East Road, however, we might see as the usual rutted country roads.

The Shire, besides being bisected by the Great East Road, is also divided into four parts—hence the name “Farthings”—like the pre-decimal English coin, which was a fourth part of a penny (when a penny obviously was worth a lot more!).

We wonder what these divisions were intended to be used for—perhaps for the election of the Mayor? In our previous posting on the government of the Shire, we quoted JRRT as saying in the Prologue to The Lord of the Rings, “The Shire at this time had hardly any ‘government’”, so, for the moment, that’s our best guess.

(We should note here the “Three Farthing Stone”, which marks more or less where the North, East, and South Farthings meet. It has been suggested that it has been based upon the actual English “Four Shires Stone”—

which sits at the place where, pre-1931, four shires—Worcestershire, Warwickshire, Oxfordshire, and Gloucestershire — touched. Not only is there a similarity in the names and what the stone may function as, but the Three Farthing Stone is just to the west of Frogmorton, whereas the Four Shire Stone is just east of Moreton-in-Marsh. And is JRRT having a quiet joke in that, after a boundary adjustment in 1931, the Four Shire Stone should really be called the Three Shire Stone?)

Just south of the Great East Road is the Green Hill Country, which appears to be heavily forested.

11gribskov

This is mirrored by a smaller wood north of the road, Bindbole.

Other than these (and, of course, the Old Forest in Buckland), the land seems to be open. To the north are the North Moors. These are windy uplands, mostly grass, with little in the way of trees.

13adartmore

Dartmoor (which is the image above), in southwest England, seems so bare (although it has the fallen remains of earlier cultures on it), that it can seem a little spooky—the perfect setting for Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes novel The Hound of the Baskervilles (first published in book form in 1902).

(We love the original Sidney Paget illustrations in The Strand Magazine, but our favorite film version is the one starring Jeremy Brett as Holmes. For pure fun, by the way, we recommend Steven Spielberg’s Young Sherlock Holmes—not for the purist, we hasten to add.)

To the west are two lines of downs, the White and the Far (or Fox) Downs. When we think of downs, we think of the chalky rolling hills southeast of the Thames in England. Here’s what the English South Downs look like

and it’s easy to imagine that the Shire version would look very similar and the chalk would easily be cut into to make Michel Delving (“Big Dig”) and Little Delving (“Little Dig”). The chalk just below the surface is exposed on the south English coast

making that name “the White Downs” clear. And we can’t resist adding another chalk artifact. In Oxfordshire (but once Berkshire), on the edge of the Berkshire Downs, is a Late Bronze Age horse, cut into the chalk. We wonder why there isn’t one in Rohan…

Last of all, there’s the South Farthing, stretching south of The Green Hill Country. As it is a tobacco-growing area, but in a temperate climate (at least, we understand that the Shire is in a temperate zone—they appear to have—or to have had—snowy winters), we visualize it as looking like the Connecticut Valley, which runs south down from Vermont, through western Massachusetts and through central Connecticut, in the US.

In the central part of the valley are tobacco plantations.

These always include drying barns for the tobacco—which would become the Longbottom Leaf Merry and Pippin discover two casks of in Saruman’s pantry.

The one farthing we haven’t studied directly is the East Farthing, but, as it contains a continuation of the Green Hill Country, abuts the Brandywine, and has the already-mentioned bridge of Stone Bows, and thus has no main features we haven’t mentioned, we’ll conclude here for the moment. In our next, we want to examine Shire architecture, from hobbit holes to mills.

Thanks, as ever, for reading.

MTCIDC

When One Door Closes.4

30 Wednesday Nov 2016

Posted by Ollamh in Imaginary History, J.R.R. Tolkien, Literary History, Maps, Uncategorized

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Alfred Lord Tennyson, Cirith Ungol, doors, Gilbert and Sullivan, Gondor, Grond, Hobbit door, James Fennimore Cooper, Minas Morgul, Minas Tirith, Morannon, Mordor, N.C. Wyeth, Nazgul, Orodruin, Princess Ida, Shelob's Lair, The Last of the Mohicans, The Lord of the Rings, The Princess, The Siege of Gondor, Tolkien

Welcome, as always, dear readers. In this posting, we’ll complete our survey of doors and entryways and what happens at them in The Lord of the Rings.

We began this series a little while ago when we got to thinking about Bilbo’s remark to Frodo that: “It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door.”

Bilbo had learned this the hard way when Gandalf had come to his door and he had embarked upon an adventure he, originally, had no desire to be part of.

gandalfvisitsbilbo

In three postings, we’ve followed the story through doors and entryways from that moment all the way to the moment when Gandalf blocks the Lord of the Nazgul from entering Minas Tirith through its ruined main gate.

In the process, we have come to see that doors and entryways seem to come in two forms: first, there are doors which lead to safety; second, there are doors which lead to danger. We’ve added other elements, natural entryways, like fords and bridges, and the fact that many of the entryways have challenges and challengers barring the way.

In a moment of cheerful intellectual cruelty, we ended the last posting at that crucial moment in “The Siege of Gondor”, in which Grond, the battering ram of the armies of Mordor, has, with the magical aid of the Lord of the Nazgul, broken down the gate and that Lord is about to enter the city, when he meets Gandalf as the challenger:

“ ‘You cannot enter here,’ said Gandalf, and the huge shadow halted. ‘Go back to the abyss prepared for you! Go back! Fall into the nothingness that awaits you and your Master. Go!’ ”

And, just at that moment, “Great horns of the North wildly blowing. Rohan had come at last.”

[We wondered, by the way, if that “Great horns of the North wildly blowing” was an accidental or deliberate allusion to a lyric from Alfred Lord Tennyson’s

poetic criticism of the idea of women’s education, The Princess (1847),

in which we find the line “The horns of Elfland faintly blowing”—here’s the whole poem:

from The Princess: The Splendour Falls on Castle Walls

By Alfred, Lord Tennyson

The splendour falls on castle walls

And snowy summits old in story:

The long light shakes across the lakes,

And the wild cataract leaps in glory.

Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying,

Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.

O hark, O hear! how thin and clear,

And thinner, clearer, farther going!

O sweet and far from cliff and scar

The horns of Elfland faintly blowing!

Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying:

Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.

O love, they die in yon rich sky,

They faint on hill or field or river:

Our echoes roll from soul to soul,

And grow for ever and for ever.

Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying,

And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying.

This then formed the basis of an 1870 play by W.S. Gilbert, which he converted, with his collaborator, Arthur Sullivan, into an operetta, in 1884.]

Gilbert and Sullivan Cartoon.jpg

For the Aragorn and company half of the story, we see the arrival of the army of Gondor and its allies at the Morannon as the last door.

morannon.1.gif

Here, there are, in fact, two challengers/challenges. First,

“When all was ordered, the Captains rode forth towards the Black Gate with a great guard of horsemen and the banner and heralds and trumpeters…They came within cry of the Morannon, and unfurled the banner, and blew upon their trumpets; and the heralds stood out and sent their voices up over the battlement of Mordor.” (The Return of the King, Book 5, Chapter 10, “The Black Gate Opens”)

In return,

“There came a long rolling of great drums like thunder in the mountains, and then a braying of horns that shook the very stones and stunned men’s ears. And thereupon the door of the Black Gate was thrown open with a great clang, and out of it there came an embassy from the Dark Tower.”

In both cases, it goes without saying that this is a door to danger, the difference being that those from Gondor want those within to come out so that, by defeating them (though they have little hope of this), those from Gondor can enter, while those within the gate want to prevent their entry (except, perhaps, as prisoners).

As we turn to the other half of the narrative, we begin at the same gate, where Gollum has brought Frodo and Sam.

Here, there is no easily visible challenger, just the forbidding nature of the gate, but it is still not an entryway to safety, as, on the other side is an inhospitable landscape, populated by Sauron’s vast armies, constantly on the move, as we see in later chapters. As well, from those later chapters, we gain the sense that Frodo doesn’t believe he’s going to return from Mordor anyway.

Seeing no way to enter, Frodo pushes Gollum to lead them south and, with a diversion to Faramir’s base behind a waterfall (which, to us, is reminiscent of a similar hide-out in James Fennimore Cooper’s The Last of the Mohicans (1826)

—and how can we resist mentioning that, in 1919, N.C. Wyeth illustrated an edition?)

they arrive at the southern entryway to Mordor, the pass with Minas Morgul at its western end and Cirith Ungol at its eastern.

The challengers of Minas Morgul are the Lord of the Nazgul and a vast army, on their way to attack Minas Tirith, but these are skirted, as Gollum guides the two hobbits around the site and up on a perilous climb—and into Torech Ungol, Shelob’s Lair. Safety? Gollum wants the hobbits to think so. Danger? With Shelob as a challenger, what else?

Even as Sam drives Shelob off, however, he loses Frodo, paralyzed and cocooned, and is faced with an inner door closed by the orcs as they withdraw. Climbing over it, he moves forward, cloaked by the ring, to look out towards Orodruin and the Tower of Cirith Ungol.

cirith-ungol2

And, with this, we have finished our survey.

Unless, of course, we consider two more events.

First, there is what happens at Mount Doom, where Gollum is the challenger, and the door, such as it is, leads to safety for Middle-earth, but not for Sam and Frodo.

And, finally, at the edge of the Shire, in “The Scouring of the Shire”, where the returning hobbits meet with the followers of “Sharkey” at the bridge. Those followers, brain-washed by fear of “The Chief” and his “big man” followers, attempt to deny what should be a door to safety to Frodo, Merry, and Pippin, as the three had expected, but which leads, in fact, to conflict and open violence before their return home is safely accomplished.

With that, we complete the pattern and here is our chart:

Entryway	Source	Challenger	Challenged	Outcome
Bilbo’s door	The Hobbit	Bilbo	Dwarves	Bilbo is tricked into hospitality
Beorn’s house	The Hobbit	Beorn	Gandalf	Beorn tricked into hospitality
Goblin cave	The Hobbit	Goblins	Bilbo	Escapes by use of the Ring
Mirkwood	The Hobbit	Elves	Dwarves/Bilbo	Bilbo rescues dwarves with Ring and barrels
Lonely Mountain (Back door)	The Hobbit	Smaug	Dwarves/Bilbo	Understanding the inscription, Dwarves open the door
Lonely Mountain (Front door)	The Hobbit	Dwarves	Men, Elves, Goblins	Battle of the Five Armies—eventual settlement
Bilbo’s door	The Hobbit	Hobbits	Bilbo	Bilbo’s things are up for auctions—Bilbo gets most things back
Ford of Bruinen	The Lord of the Rings	Wraiths	Frodo/Elves	After Frodo’s challenge, elf magic overwhelms wraiths
Moria (west gate)	The Lord of the Rings	Elves of Hollin	Fellowship	Gandalf discovers password—the group enters
Lothlorien (western side)	The Lord of the Rings	Elves	Fellowship	Challenged by elves, but allowed to enter
Edoras	The Lord of the Rings	Rohirrim	Gandalf et al.	Challenged by gate guards, but allowed to enter
Meduseld	The Lord of the Rings	Hama	Gandalf et al.	Challenged, but allowed to enter
Helms Deep	The Lord of the Rings	Aragorn	Orcs/Wildings	Aragorn warns them of their danger
Isengard	The Lord of the Rings	Merry/Pippin	Gandalf et al.	Greeted and offered food, drink, and smoke
Paths of the Dead	The Lord of the Rings	Oath-breakers	Aragorn at al.	Allowed to enter, but followed—leave safely
Morannon	The Lord of the Rings	Sauron	King Elessar et al.	Sauron’s army appears for battle
Morannon	The Lord of the Rings	Sauron	Frodo/Sam/Gollum	No way of entry—the three head south
Minas Morgul	The Lord of the Rings	Lord of Nazgul	Frodo/Sam/Gollum	Entry blocked by Lord’s Army
Torech Ungol	The Lord of the Rings	Shelob	Frodo/Sam	Gollum escapes, Frodo paralyzed by Shelob
Cirith Ungol	The Lord of the Rings	Orcs	Sam	With Ring as aid, Sam enters
Mt. Doom	The Lord of the Rings	Gollum	Frodo	Gollum gains Ring, but perishes in fire
Shire bridge	The Lord of the Rings	Hobbits	Frodo et al.	Hobbits climb over gate, guards run

Because this material becomes increasingly complex, there is always the possibility that, as thorough as we try to be and as inclusive, we’ve missed something. If so, we’d be glad to hear from our readers!

Thanks, as always, for reading!

MTCIDC

When One Door Closes.3

23 Wednesday Nov 2016

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

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Common Tongue, doors, Doorward, Edoras, Elvish, Fangorn Forest, Gandalf, Gondor, Hama, Helm's Deep, Isengard, John Ruskin, Meduseld, Minas Tirith, Moria, passages, Paths of the Dead, The Hobbit, The King of the Golden Hall, The King of the Golden River, The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien, Witch-King of Angmar

Welcome, dear readers, to the third part of our series on doors and entryways in JRRT’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.

We began, several postings ago, by writing that we were intrigued by Bilbo’s statement to Frodo: “It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door.” (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book 1, Chapter 3, “Three is Company”)

It made us want to look at doors (to which we quickly added entryways of all sorts) in Tolkien and, in doing so, we’ve come up with a very crude classification system, in which there were two kinds of doors, those which seemed to promise safety and those through which you might be in danger. And a major component of such places seems to be a challenge, and a challenger of some sort.

At the end of our second posting, we had come to the breaking up of the Fellowship and now we want to continue, having a look at what could be seen as good examples of what we mean along the way.

Because of the major split in the story, we decided to follow Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas first.

The first part of their adventure takes place across open country or in Fangorn Forest. It’s only when they, with Gandalf, arrive at Edoras that we see the pattern fall into place.

But here we wondered if we should add an extra subcategory, linguistic challenge. We’ve already seen the western gates of Moria and the need to read Elvish and to know the word for friend, and now we have the gates of Edoras

and a suspicious guard of Rohirrim:

“There sat many men in bright mail, who sprang at once to their feet and barred the way with spears. ‘Stay, strangers here unknown!’ they cried in the tongue of the Riddermark.” (The Two Towers, Book 3, Chapter 6, “The King of the Golden Hall”)

[We wonder, by the way, if the chapter’s title owes something to John Ruskin’s 1841/51 fairy tale “The King of the Golden River”, in which a major figure has been changed through evil magic, but is freed and eventually helps the underdog hero…]

As he was (eventually) up to the challenge of the gate of Moria, so is Gandalf up to this and challenges them in return:

“ ‘Well do I understand your speech,’ he answered in the same language; ‘yet few strangers do so. Why then do you not speak in the Common Tongue, as is the custom in the West, if you wish to be answered?’ “

After a little parleying in this manner, Gandalf and his companions are allowed to enter and sent up to Meduseld, where there is a second challenger, the Doorward Hama.

Here, after a brief repetition of the previous language challenge, things relax: “Then one of the guards stepped forward and spoke in the Common Speech.” After a tussle about leaving weapons behind (and Gandalf escapes this with his staff), they are permitted into the hall and the scene continues.

After the battle of Helm’s Deep, Denethor, Gandalf, and the rest of the company ride to Isengard, only to find there:

“…ruined gates. There they saw close beside them a great rubble-heap; and suddenly they were aware of two small figures lying on it at their ease, grey-clad, hardly to be seen among the stones. There were bottles and bowls and platters laid beside them…” (The Two Towers, Book 3, Chapter 8, “The Road to Isengard”)

It’s Merry and Pippin, of course, who describe themselves as “doorwardens”, just as Hama was at Meduseld. The difference is, instead of barring the door and challenging those who would enter, they are welcoming and comical in their lordly self-indulgence. This seems to turn the pattern on its head, and, although it’s the only time such a thing appears, we believe that it is an example of another subcategory, that of parody. It has the elements of other occasions, but, here, the door is a ruin and the guards seem slightly tipsy, rather than menacing, as well as very glad to see those who come to their ward.

In contrast to this merriness, there is stony silence at the next door: The Paths of the Dead.

The challenge seems to be in the very air itself:

“And so they came at last deep into the glen; and there stood a sheer wall of rock, and in the wall the Dark Door gaped before them like the mouth of night. Signs and figures were carved above its wide arch too dim to read, and fear flowed from it like a grey vapour.” (The Return of the King, Book 5, Chapter 2, “The Passing of the Grey Company”)

It is Aragorn who accepts the challenge and leads the group through what, in the film, is a kind of funhouse of skulls and greenish figures,

But, to us readers, what we think is much more disturbing is that there is no more than a restless murmur, which we hear through the dauntless, but quivering Gimli—

“…but if the Company halted, there seemed an endless whisper of voices all about him, a murmur of words in no tongue he had ever heard before.”

And, at the end of their passage, it is Aragorn who is the challenger—not to block those murmurers, but to invite them:

“ ‘Keep your hoards and your secrets hidden in the Accursed Years! Speed only we ask. Let us pass, and then come! I summon you to the Stone of Erech!’ “

We can see in this multiple ends: first, it fits the pattern of confrontations at doors (all feel the sense of Something There and must rise to the challenge, conquering their fear); second, it provides a route for Aragorn’s strategy: to gain supernatural allies on the way to natural ones along the southern seacoast; third, it underlines Aragorn’s right to the kingship: only he has the knowledge and authority to call up the long-dead for his purposes.

Our last challenge of this posting is at what is perhaps the most dramatic moment in the attack upon Minas Tirith. Grond the ram has, with the aid of the Lord of the Nazgul, burst open the great gate and the Wraith is about to enter when he encounters:

“…Gandalf upon Shadowfax…

‘You cannot enter here,’ said Gandalf, and the huge shadow halted. ‘Go back to the abyss prepared for you! Fall into the nothingness that awaits you and your Master. Go!’ ” (The Return of the King, Book 5, Chapter 4, “The Siege of Gondor”)

But—then? We admit it—we shamelessly want a cliffhanger here. And so we’ll stop—till our next, in which we’ll finish the story—we promise!—and provide a breakdown of all of the doors and entryways in a chart, as well.

Thanks, as always, for reading—and we’re sorry that we gave in to temptation, but, as novelists ourselves, we couldn’t resist!

MTCIDC

Tobago to Lothlorien 2

26 Wednesday Oct 2016

Posted by Ollamh in Heroes, J.R.R. Tolkien, Uncategorized

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Anduin, Barad-Dur, Bree, Caras Galadhon, Cirith Ungol, defense, Edoras, fortification, Galadriel, Helm's Deep, Hildebrandts, John Howe, Lothlorien, Minas Tirith, Morannon, Nenya, Offa's Dyke, Rhodes, Robinson Crusoe, stockades, Swiss Family Robinson, The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien, tree house

Welcome, dear readers, as always. As you can see from the title, this is a continuation of our previous post.

In that previous posting, we began with the novel, Robinson Crusoe (1719),

then on to Swiss Family Robinson (1812),

being especially interested in the stockade of the former

0_8a62b_11562dfa_orig

and the tree house of the latter.

swiss-family-robinson

The connection here was the tree house and Lothlorien, where the elves lived high up in the trees.

At least, that’s where we began. As we looked more seriously at the architecture of Lothlorien, however, we began to wonder, in a world in which darkness had gradually spread, how it protected itself. After all, Robinson Crusoe, afraid of the cannibals he had seen, had walled himself in. Part of it was the power of Galadriel herself, as she implies to Frodo:

“But do not think that only by singing amid the trees, nor even by the slender arrows of elven-bows, is this land of Lothlorien maintained and defended against its Enemy.” (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book 2, Chapter 7, “The Mirror of Galadriel”)

But was there anything more besides singing, arrows, and Nenya, the Ring of Adamant?

Far to the south, Minas Tirith had seven concentric (more or less) walls,

and its opponents across the Anduin had the Morannon

and Cirith Ungol

and even the Barad Dur.

It is not so clear about Edoras. There is mention that “A dike [that is, a ditch/moat] and mighty wall and thorny fence encircle it”, along with the phrase “wide wind-swept walls and gates” (The Two Towers, Book 3, Chapter 6, “The King of the Golden Hall”), but little else. And you can see that lack of information reflected in the rather scanty look in the Jackson films—

Helm’s Deep, is, of course, a different matter—we show you versions by the Hildebrandts and by John Howe

Lothlorien is, in fact, not a single site, like any of the above. This map

gives you an idea of its complexity. There is the outer forest, with its camouflaged guard flets in trees, seemingly along its borders, and then the actual center, the city of Caras Galadhon. Here’s JRRT’s description of that center:

“There was a wide treeless space before them, running in a great circle and bending away on either hand. Beyond it was a deep fosse lost in soft shadow, but the grass upon its brink was green, as if it glowed still in memory of the sun that had gone. Upon the further side there rose to a great height a green wall encircling a green hill thronged with mallorn-trees taller than any they had yet seen in all the land.” (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book 2, Chapter 7, “The Mirror of Galadriel”)

We are then told that there is a bridge, on the southern side, which crosses to “the great gates of the city; they faced south-west, set between the ends of the encircling wall that here overlapped, and they were tall and strong, and hung with many lamps.”

A fosse (from the Latin verb, fodio, fodere, fodi, fossum, “to dig”) means that there was a moat—in this case, it would appear to be a dry moat, like this one at the city of Rhodes.

(Those stone balls, by the way, are left over from the Turkish artillery and stone-throwers which pounded the walls of Rhodes in 1522–when we have another posting–soon–on the attack on Minas Tirith, we’ll say more about that.)

That “green wall”, however, is a bit of a puzzle. Is it a wall of green stone of some sort? Or is it a “thorny fence”, like that which surrounds Edoras? There are two similar defenses, or at least boundaries, in LOTR. First, there is the border between Buckland and the Old Forest:

“Their land was originally unprotected from the East; but on that side they had built a hedge: the High Hay. It had been planted many generations ago, and it was now thick and tall…” (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book 1, Chapter 5, “A Conspiracy Unmasked”)

The second such construction appears at Bree (which sounds much like Edoras):

“On that side, running in more than half a circle from the hill and back to it, there was a deep dike with a thick hedge on the inner side.” (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book 1, Chapter 9, “At the Sign of the Prancing Pony”)

So what is the green wall? English hedges can be very dense things, often to mark off fields, as in this photo of Offa’s Dyke–and you can see the fosse/ditch/moat here, as well.

In at least one previous entry, we discussed Offa’s Dike, a (possibly) 8^th-century-AD ditch and earthen wall between England and Wales.

Can we imagine the palisading of this reconstruction replaced with a thorny hedge? Here’s a long shot of Offa’s Dike with a bit of hedging visible.

When we consider the general look of Caras Galadhon, it is of something organic: the elves loved the trees and, instead of cutting them down, as the hobbits had done outside the High Hay, they climbed up into them. Might we then see that their physical barrier against their enemies was of the same green and growing material as were their dwellings?

What do you think, dear readers?

Thanks, as ever, for reading,

MTCIDC

“A kind of proud, venerable, but increasingly impotent Byzantium”

01 Wednesday Jun 2016

Posted by Ollamh in Artists and Illustrators, J.R.R. Tolkien, Literary History, Maps, Military History, Military History of Middle-earth, Narrative Methods

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Adventure, Byzantine Empire, Byzantium, Constantinople, Gondor, Justinian, Megara, Mehmet II, Milton Waldman, Minas Arnor, Minas Tirith, Mont Saint Michel, Ottoman Empire, Ted Nasmith, The Lord of the Rings, The Tower of Guard, Theodosian walls, Theodosius, Tolkien

Welcome, as always, dear readers.

The title of this posting is taken from a very long letter (10,000 words), written to Milton Waldman probably in 1951 (Letters No.131, 157). Waldman represented the English publisher, Collins, which had expressed an interest in The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion when Allen & Unwin had been hesitant. Determined to justify the simultaneous publication of both, Tolkien wrote in great detail about the general narrative, with an emphasis upon the religious aspects.

In the process, he likened Gondor to the Byzantine empire, a comparison which immediately attracted our attention. We ourselves had suggested in an earlier posting that the attack on its capital, Minas Tirith, had been like the siege of the Byzantine capital, Constantinople.

What was JRRT thinking of when he likened the two?

First, they both were—or had been—large kingdoms—in the case of Byzantium, an empire, really, as these maps demonstrate.

2000px-Byzantiumby650AD.svg.png

Their capitals were both of great age. Minas Tirith, “The Tower of Guard”, had been built originally as Minas Anor, “Tower of the Sun” in SA 3320 by Anarion, the younger son of Elendil, but only became the capital of Gondor in TA1640, after Osgiliath had been devastated by a plague. If we add its time in the Second Age (121 years) to the whole of the Third Age (3021 years), we reach a total of 3142 years at the defeat of Sauron. (For comparison, we might look at Athens, whose continuous habitation began before 3000BC, giving it a more-than-5000-year history.)

Constantinople, is old, by anyone’s standards, having been founded in 667BC as a Greek colony (there’s a bit of argument over the dating of this, which is typical of such things), and is still inhabited (and an absolutely amazing place!), but a bit younger than Minas Tirith at the time of The Lord of the Rings by some 500 years or so.

Third, there is the matter of the elaborate construction of these capitals.

“For the fashion of Minas Tirith was such that it was built on seven levels, each delved into the hill, and about each was set a wall, and in each wall was a gate. But the gates were not set in a line: the Great Gate in the City Wall was at the east point of the circuit, but the next faced half south, and the third half north, and so to and fro upwards; so that the paved way that climbed towards the Citadel turned first this way and then that across the face of the hill. And each time that it passed the line of the Great Gate it went through an arched tunnel, piercing a vast pier of rock whose huge out-thrust bulk divided in two all of the circles of the City save the first. For partly in the primeval shaping of the hill, partly by the mighty craft and labour of old, there stood up from the rear of the wide court behind the Gate a towering bastion of stone, its edge sharp as a ship-keel facing east. Up it rose, even to the level of the topmost circle, and there was crowned with a battlement; so that those in the Citadel might, like mariners in a monstrous ship, look from its peak sheer down upon the Gate seven hundred feet below.”

The Lord of the Rings, Book 5, Chapter 1, “Minas Tirith”

Here’s one of our favorite paintings (by Ted Nasmith—one of our favorite Tolkien artists).

TN-Minas_Tirith_at_Dawn.jpgnaismith.jpg

And here’s the film.

The designers have said that they were influenced by the look of Mont Saint Michel, a medieval monastery just off the coast of Normandy in France.

Mont_St_Michel_3,_Brittany,_France_-_July_2011.jpg

The complex nature of the place is captured in this diagram.

minas-tirith-diagram.0.jpg

Byzantium (or, Constantinople, its later name) began its life, as we said, as a colony of the Greek mainland city of Megara. In the 4^th century AD, the Roman emperor Constantine I, the last survivor in a long civil war, chose the site for his new capital. As much of the weight, both of commerce and defense, lay in the eastern part of the Roman world by this time, he chose very wisely: his new city was placed to control trade with the rich Black Sea region and to provide a strategic jumping-off point for dealing with invaders and emerging kingdoms in Asia Minor.

The position was also well-chosen for defense, being at the end of a peninsula—the main strategy then being its walling-off from the mainland.

There is, of course, a big difference here between the 7 levels and 7 gates of Minas Tirith and the two walls—the older inner 4^th-century one of Constantine and the slightly-later (early 5^th century) walls of Theodosius II. Nevertheless, those later walls were well-constructed, in two successive lines, with a moat on the outside.

Theodosian Walls.jpg

The Theodosian walls were about a mile-and-half from the older, Constantine wall, encompassing a population which, at its height, may have been over 400,000 in number. By the time of its fall to the Ottoman army in 1453, that number had dropped to perhaps only 50,000, which reflected the gradual shrinking of the empire from its greatest size, in the 6^th century

Byzantine-empire.6thc.gif

under the emperor Justinian

when it encompassed the majority of the Mediterranean basin, to its last, worn-out phase in the early 15^th century, when it controlled a few scattered outposts, but mainly the area directly around the capital.

This shrinking of the empire and of its population proved disastrous for the capital. When the Ottoman army, under Mehmet II, arrived outside the walls in the spring of 1453, the imperial government could only provide 7000 defenders, 2000 of whom were foreigners, to defend about 3 and ½ miles of wall (that’s 5 ½ km). Against them were anywhere from 50 to 80,000 attackers, who brought with them (or cast on the spot), massive artillery pieces and, after a 53-day siege, broke into the city and put an end to an empire which had lasted for over 1100 years.

Illustration-of-angus-mcbride-showing-the-ottoman-cannon-basilica-during-the-siege-of-constantinople-in-1453-ad.jpg

Benjamin-Constant-The_Entry_of_Mahomet_II_into_Constantinople-1876.jpg

And this is the last sad similarity with Gondor and its capital, as we see through Pippin’s eyes:

“Pippin gazed in growing wonder at the great stone city, vaster and more splendid than anything that he had dreamed of, greater and stronger than Isengard, and far more beautiful. Yet is was in truth falling year by year into decay, and already it lacked half the men that could have dwelt at ease there. In every street they passed some great house or court over whose doors and arched gates were carved many fair letters of strange and ancient shapes: names Pippin guessed of great men and kindreds that had once dwelt there; and yet now they were silent, and no footsteps rang on their wide pavements, nor voice was heard in their halls, nor any face looked out from door or empty window.”

The Lord of the Rings, Book 5, Chapter 1, “Minas Tirith”

And, just as in the case of Constantinople, the capital of Gondor was hard-pressed to defend itself. Luckily for it, however, there was an uncrowned king with a ghostly army, a brave reinforcement of southern yeomen, a mass of wild horsemen from the north, a wizard, and the fulfillment of an ancient prophecy about a witch king to aid it in its hour of need…

Thanks, as always, for reading.

MTCIDC

“My subject is War, and the pity of War.”

13 Wednesday Apr 2016

Posted by Ollamh in Artists and Illustrators, Heroes, J.R.R. Tolkien, Military History, Military History of Middle-earth, The Rohirrim

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Adventure, Alexander Gardner, Alfred Waud, Alonzo Chappel, American Civil War, Antietam, Battle of the Somme, Charge of the Rohirrim, Confederate, early photography, Felice Beato, First Virginia Cavalry, Fort Geroge, Matthew Brady, Mexican-American War, Minas Tirith, Pelennor, Peter Jackson, Rohirrim, Second Opium War, The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien

Welcome, dear readers, as always.

In this posting, we want to talk a little about a subject so often left out of heroic stories: the aftermath of battle.

In Chapter 10 of The Return of the King, what we might call the GEF—the Gondorian Expeditionary Force—sets off from Minas Tirith for the Morannon. It begins with this little army mustered on the Pelennor and we see events through the eyes of one left behind, Merry:

“At last the trumpets rang and the army began to move. Troop by troop, and company by company, they wheeled and went off eastward. And long after they had passed away out of sight down the great road to the Causeway, Merry stood there. The last glint of the morning sun on spear and helm twinkled and was lost, and still he remained with bowed head and heavy heart, feeling friendless and alone.”

Considering what these folk had endured in the previous days, and what they dreaded might happen in those to come, it’s hardly surprising that it’s not described as a joyous event. What is not described, however, is the landscape in which they gather and which they initially march through.

The Minas Tirith to which Gandalf rides with Pippin

has been attacked by a massive army.

In an attempt to lift the siege, the Rohirrim have charged across the Pelennor,

only to encounter the fierce Southrons and their mumakil.

These are defeated, in turn, by Aragorn, his companions, and troops from South Gondor, as well as the surviving Rohirrim and a party from Gondor itself.

When the carnage is over and the invaders killed or driven off, the story, while touching on the burial of Snowmane, quickly moves back to the city. In real life, such destruction would have left behind a ghastly memorial, something only touched upon in the film of The Return of the King. As you can see in this still, all which seems to remain is the wreckage of the war machines.

In fact, there would have been thousands of bodies, not only of men and orcs, but of horses and mumakil as well.

Such an aftermath has not been a popular subject for art, except in scenes where fallen heroes are lamented when found among the slain. (Think here of Boromir, surrounded by dead orcs, for example.)

That sense of war was changed, in our world, by the introduction of the camera to the battlefield, first, briefly, by Felice Beato, during the Second Opium War (1860)

but in the US by Alexander Gardner, in the fall of 1862.

Previous images of war had tended towards the glorious, full of bravery and flags, as in this engraving made from Alonzo Chappel’s painting of the taking of the Canadian Fort George in 1813—

Even if the depiction tended to be more realistic, it came heavily filtered. During the American Civil War, several northern newspapers and magazines sent artists into the field, who drew what they saw or at least heard about from those who had seen events. One of the best was the Englishman, Alfred Waud.

He drew from life, as in the picture of the First Virginia Cavalry, with whom he spent a brief time in late September, 1862. Here’s his original drawing, which he would have sent to his publisher, in New York.

In New York, the drawing would have been turned into a woodblock print for ease of conversion to a magazine page.

1st-virginia-cavalry-halted-based-on-sketch-by-waud-harpers-sept-27-1862.jpg

And, thus, the reading public would have lost immediacy practically at the first step.

Photographs had been made in the US since the 1840s, and even some during the Mexican-American War of 1846-8, but they had been static pictures of soldiers off the battlefield.

In September, 1862, however, Gardner had been sent by his boss, Matthew Brady

from the studio in Washington, DC, to the field of the recent battle of Antietam, which had been fought only two days before. Gardner came with his photographic wagon

brady'swhatsit.jpg

and ranged the battlefield. The battle was over, but the dead were still in place, where they had fallen, and soon he had a collection of images. Because there was already a tradition of photographing the dead (and, no, we’re not going to continue this practice here—just do google.images “photos of dead victorians” or the like and you can see this for yourself), it was probably not quite so horrifying as one might imagine, but those who saw the exhibit in Brady’s New York gallery

brady'snygallery.jpg

might have agreed with the New York Times review of 20 October, 1862, that “Mr. Brady has done something to bring home to us the terrible reality and earnestness of war.”

Gardner didn’t take the pictures he did out of a morbid interest, but because the cameras of the day were large and cumbersome

and the process necessary to make a picture took too long to capture motion (just look what happens when there is motion).

Grand Review of Army May 1865 02796u.jpg

Thus, what one might see in a painting, even if it had attempted to depict reality, as in this Keith Rocco painting of a moment in the battle of Antietam when Confederates were fighting behind a fence on the Hagerstown Road,

was impossible to capture. What Gardner could capture was the aftermath. And so he did.

For us, who are modern Rohirrim, as far as horses are concerned, it’s just as well that he confined himself to humans. After Gettysburg, several other photographers included them—only a few photos, but representing anywhere from 3 to 5000 horses and mules who died during the three days of battle. (And, no, again, we won’t show you those—google.images will, but we’re not sure what’s harder to look at.)

Lieutenant Tolkien

would have seen such horrors every day during the battle of the Somme

and perhaps that’s why he moves so quickly from the battlefield to the city and healing. Perhaps it’s also why the view we are given of the GEF is through the eyes of a wounded survivor and, at this moment in the story, one full of foreboding at the thought of another battle. And it may be that Peter Jackson felt the same way.

What do you think, dear readers?

Thanks, as always, for reading.

MTCIDC

Our title is taken from the work one of our favorite Great War poets, Wilfred Owen (1893-1918), who, having survived the entire war, was killed just before the armistice which halted the fighting.

Beacons or Wills of the Wisp?

16 Wednesday Mar 2016

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

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Adventure, Agamemnon, Beacons, British Royal Government, Byzantines, film changes, Lays of Ancient Rome, Minas Tirith, Mulan, Peter Jackson, Spanish Armada, The Great Wall, The Lord of the Rings, Thomas Babington Macaulay, Tolkien

Dear Readers,

Welcome, as always. We begin this posting with something which puzzled us when we last read The Lord of the Rings.

Gandalf and Pippin are on their nonstop ride to Minas Tirith.

Then—

“There was silence again for a while. Then, ‘What is that? Cried Pippin suddenly, clutching at Gandalf’s cloak. ‘Look! Fire, red fire! Are there dragons in this land? Look, there is another!’

For an answer Gandalf cried aloud to his horse. ‘On, Shadowfax! We must hasten. Time is short. See the beacons of Gondor are alight, called for aid. War is kindled. See, there is the fire on Amon Din, and flame on Eilenach; and there they go speeding west: Nardol, Erelas, Min-Rimmon, Calenhad, and the Halifirien on the borders of Rohan.’ ” (The Return of the King, Chapter 1, “Minas Tirith”)

Beacons as a means of rapid communication occurs often, both in western literature and in history.

In Aeschylus’ Agamemnon (458BC), for example, Clytemnestra has a famous (and rather lengthy) speech in which she describes the beacons which alert Mycenae that Troy has been captured—alerting her to begin her plot to kill her husband and take over with her BF, Aegisthus.

The towers along the Great Wall in China were used as beacon stations, as in Mulan.

mulan-wall-of-china

In the 9^th century AD, the Byzantines had developed a system of beacons to warn them of invasion by their neighbors to the east.

If you read the Tolkien sites, you see a fair amount more on beacons, in particular, those set up by the British royal government along the southern shore of England in the 1580s to act as an early warning system to alert the country to the Spanish armada.

Tolkien would have known the story of these either from studying English history in his early schooling, or from reading “The Armada”, a well-known poem by Thomas Babington Macaulay first published in his Lays of Ancient Rome (1842).

In Jackson’s The Return of the King, Denethor has been stubborn about not lighting the beacons to alert Rohan that Gondor has need of it. Pippin climbs up the outside of the rock face where the beacon is and, while the guards are distracted, he lights the beacon which, in turn, sets off the whole series.

This is not the first or last time one sees changes made in the story—what, for example, are Merry and Pippin doing in a cornfield (that is, a field of maize—do we know that maize even grows in Middle Earth) when Pippin has actually been with Frodo and Sam from the time they left Hobbiton?

In past postings, we have sometimes commented upon the changes made to the story by the scriptwriters—especially the changes to The Hobbit, which have done so much to take the story away from the author’s intent entirely, to the point where, in the third film, Bilbo, the main character, is reduced to something like Third Spear-Carrier from the Left, when the story becomes something like The Tragical Historie of Thorin, Sometime King Under the Mountain. When questioned about this, the scriptwriters, in general, have always made the same reply: “film is different from print” (although, in interviews, they sometimes become more aggressive, once even suggesting that those who disagree with their approach don’t understand the books).

In this posting, however, we intend to follow a different path, trying to understand why the change was made and how it might or might not benefit the narrative.

To a degree, the film has followed its source, in that Gandalf has taken Pippin with him on the ride to Minas Tirith, but Pippin’s role, from that point on in the book, becomes more that of observer than active participant. This is in contrast to Merry, who rides into the battle on the Pelennor and helps Eowyn destroy the Chief Nazgul.

We can imagine, then, that the scriptwriters, who have brought the two Hobbits so far, have decided to give Pippin another moment of action, as a kind of balance: if Merry fights a Nazgul, Pippin can do a little rock-climbing and alert the Rohirrim.

If you, readers, don’t know it, there is very useful area on the site www.theonering.com, called “Film Changes”. This particular change does not appear there, one presumes because, as the site says, their text was based upon a scripts still in the midst of production, but the structure of the area is very useful. It provides a summary title for each change, then there is this:

Film:

Book:

Pro:

Con:

It’s interesting to see how more-or-less neutral in tone this is. The writer shows the contrasts, suggests why the change, and then explains why this is not necessarily a change for the better, but there is none of the hostility we sometimes see on-line, one way or the other, and, if you’re a regular reader of blogs and websites, we’re sure you’ve seen that hostility. It’s one of the least attractive, but widespread features of the internet and it’s a pity that certain of these commentators couldn’t be delayed till dawn would overtake them and send them the way of Tom, Bert, and William in The Hobbit!

img__Art-The_Three_Trolls_are_Turned_to_Stone,_by_JRRT.jpg

[Tolkien’s trees, by the way, always remind us of the work of the Danish illustrator, Kay Nielsen (1886-1957), which we presume JRRT had seen–at least his illustrations for East of the Sun, West of the Moon (1914).

We have already provided you with the first two sections: the film has Pippin touch off a beacon after reaching Minas Tirith; in the book, Pippin sees the beacons alight, one after the other, as he and Gandalf ride towards Minas Tirith.

We presume that the Pro would be something like:

provides a balance between the two Hobbits who are so closely linked throughout the story
adds to the drama and underlines Denethor’s less-than-full-commitment—as depicted in the films—to defending Gondor to the end
adds a bit of visual spectacle, seeing the beacons light up, one after another

And the Con?

not in the original—and, as we always wonder, how far can you change things before you forfeit your claim that it’s “JRR Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings” you’ve filmed?
Denethor is actually much more active and aggressive in his stance in the original, not being willing to give up anything without a fight until the near-fatal wounding of Faramir (and a late-night séance with the palantir)—the beacons have already been lit because he’s attempting to gather all of the forces he can to defend Gondor
in fact, the beacons are not on snowy mountain peaks in the original, but on reachable hilltops, just as are the sites for the beacons used to alert southern England of the approach of the Spanish armada in 1588, as in this fine photo by David Bellamy.

So, it might be a striking visual effect, but, as in #1, this isn’t quite what JRRT had in mind.

What do you think, dear readers? A justifiable change?

Thanks, as always, for reading.

MTCIDC

The Fall of Two Cities?

09 Wednesday Mar 2016

Posted by Ollamh in Economics in Middle-earth, Imaginary History, J.R.R. Tolkien, Language, Maps, Military History, Military History of Middle-earth, Narrative Methods

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Agincourt, Anadoluhisari, Anatolia, Asia Minor, Bayezid I, Bosphorus, Byzantium, Constantine I, Constantinople, Crecy, English Civil Wars, Eowyn, Gondor, map, Mehmet II, Minas Tirith, motte and bailey, Newark, Normans, Osgiliath, Ottoman Empire, Poitiers, Rumelihisari, siege, The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien, Witch-King of Angmar

Dear Readers,

Welcome, as always. A little while ago, we talked about the “siege of Gondor”, which really wasn’t a siege in the formal sense, at all, but rather an assault. (We suspect that JRRT liked the sound of “siege” and so used it, not caring if it were strictly accurate or not.) In this posting, we want to look at a real siege and examine what might be parallels with events in Middle Earth.

Before we do, we want to take a moment to talk about the word “siege”. It comes into English through Old French asegier, which comes from Latin ad + sedeo > adsideo, adsidere , literally, “to sit down at”. The northern French who passed the word on to England must have liked to say what’s called a y-glide when certain consonants came before e, so, though it was spelled asegier, it would have been said “ah-see-YED-jier”. And that’s why English today has what can be a confusing spelling. (In our experience, lots of native speakers have trouble distinguishing between the ie of “siege” and the ei of “seize”). The stress on the word in English would have been away from the initial a, and so that would have disappeared from the word as it moved from being a borrowing.

[As what we think is a cool footnote, Latin also has the verb obsideo “to sit down right before=to besiege” and we can see that used in English in the word “obsession”, with the idea that something bothers you so much that it’s like you’re being besieged by it. You can also see it on this wonderful bit of 17^th-c. English history.

Although it doesn’t look like a modern coin, this is a form which used to be called “half-a-crown”—that is, 30 pennies (that’s what those three xses mean), or two shillings, sixpence. This coin was struck in the town of Newark-upon-Trent, when it was besieged during the English Civil Wars (1642-1651).

And that’s where obsideo comes in. The back (the “reverse” in coin language—the front is called the “obverse”) says:

OBS: Newark (with a date, either 1645 or 1646, depending on when the coin was struck)

OBS = Obsessa Newark = “Newark Besieged”

There were a lot of coin-substitutes struck by various besieged towns, but, apparently, those from Newark are the most numerous.]

In the medieval western military world, sieges were more common, it seems, than pitched battles. As castles and towns were focal points for the possession and control of land—think of the hundreds of early castles, called “motte and bailey”, which the Normans built all across England in the first years after their conquest–it’s not surprising that they would have been a focus of attack.

As well, we can imagine that, ultimately, they would have been cheaper, in terms of the most irreplaceable manpower, sparing the highly-trained, hard-to-replace, knights and men-at-arms.

Battles like Crecy (1346), Poitiers (1356), and Agincourt (1415), cost the French dearly as their brave knights threw themselves at their English opponents, whose longbows shot them and their horses down.

In a siege, although there was the occasional combat, including the exploitation of a break in the enemy’s defenses,

most of a siege would be spent in using machinery of various sorts to aid you in breaking down the walls—and the resistance of the defenders, as well.

This brings us to the real, historical siege we want to examine: Constantinople, 1453.

Constantinople had begun life as a Greek colony, called Byzantium, on the European side of the narrow passageway between the Black Sea and the northeastern Mediterranean.

It had been refounded and greatly expanded by the Roman emperor, Constantine I, to be a new capital in the east.

Although it was supposed to be called “New Rome”, everyone in the east called it after its refounder, and so it was “Constantinople”, becoming the capital of an eastern empire which we call “Byzantine”. Even with setbacks and a number of unsuccessful attacks over the centuries, it was, for a long time, a very wealthy and powerful city.

But even the wealthiest and most powerful cities will fade—especially when faced with ambitious enemies. Constantinople had had a number of those, but, finally, in its last years, perhaps its most ambitious and most powerful arose in Asia Minor: that of the Ottoman Turks. As you can see from this map, its beginnings were modest: one Turkic-speaking group among many.

This was a period of instability, however. The Ottoman leaders quickly took advantage of that instability to grab power and territory, so that, by 1400, they had spread beyond the shrinking Byzantine world, into the Balkans, and, soon, Constantinople was surrounded.

This surrounding took place in an increasingly-methodical way. In 1393-4, the ruler of the Ottomans, the sultan Bayezid I

built a small fortress on the Asia Minor side of the Bosphorus, the name for the northern stretch of the passage which led from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean. It was called Anadoluhisari, “the Anatolian fort”.

You can see from the map that this was the beginning of setting up a choke point upstream from Constantinople.

In 1451-2, the sultan Mehmet II finished the job with the Rumelihisari just opposite, on the European side (and that’s what its name means, “the Roman—that is, European—fort”).

Guns were mounted

and any help which might have come from the Black Sea was blocked.

And here we want to take a minute to look at our imaginary city and its danger—because we see some easy parallels here. First, of course, the Ottoman empire was an eastern threat—so was Mordor. Mordor had taken the east bank of the Anduin, just as the Ottomans had taken the Asian side of the Bosphorus. And, in the capture of the European side and the building of Rumelihisari, we might see the taking of Osgiliath and the west bank of the Anduin. Then there is the massive city of Minas Tirith and the attack upon it.

Constantinople was also a massive city.

It was, basically, on a triangular piece of land, with two sides protected by water. The original Greek town had had a wall, but it was long gone and almost all of Constantine’s land wall had long disappeared, as well. The latest walls are called the Theodosian, after their originator, the emperor Theodosius II (408-450AD), but the walls included bits of the Constantinian walls and many repairs, over the centuries. The main land defenses included three lines of wall and a moat.

This sounds very impressive until one considers two things: first, is there a garrison big enough to defend what are, in fact, a number of miles of wall? And, second, although the walls have withstood previous attacks, including one made by the Ottomans in 1422AD, how will they stand up to the threat of modern artillery?

At the height of its power and prosperity, it is estimated that Constantinople had had a population of anywhere from 500,000 to 750,000 (although scholars argue over this). At the time of the final siege, the population had fallen to as low as 40,000. Thus, large parts of the city were empty—just like Minas Tirith:

“Pippin gazed in growing wonder at the great stone city…Yet it was in truth falling year by year into decay; and already it lacked half the men that could have dwelt at ease there.” (The Return of the King, Book 5, Chapter 1, “Minas Tirith”)

The garrison of Constantinople was perhaps about 9,000, in all, which meant that they were very thinly stretched. We don’t know just how many troops were in Minas Tirith. Some reinforcements had come from South Gondor, as we noted in an earlier posting, but only a few thousand and the defenders were powerfully outnumbered, just as those of Constantinople were, when the forces of Mordor began to arrive. The Ottoman army is thought to have had between 50,000 and 80,000 men, but just how many Orcs and others marched down the causeway from Osgiliath isn’t known–they are just a horde—something which the Jackson film shows very well.

Then the assault begins, the Orcs having giant stone throwers, siege towers, and, finally, a giant, fire-breathing ram, Grond.

If you’ve been following our postings (and we hope you have!), then you know that we’ve discussed the use of what appears to be gunpowder, both at Helm’s Deep and at the Rammas Echor. The Orcs who attack the walls of Minas Tirith don’t appear to have such a weapon, but, unfortunately for the defenders of Constantinople in 1453, the Turks do, in the form of plentiful modern artillery.

Attacks wear down the small garrison and huge, stone-throwing weapons knock down the walls, so that, finally the city falls, on 29 May, 1453.

Its conqueror, Mehmet II, rides in—

which is something the witch king of Angmar never gets to do, perishing instead, at the hands of Eowyn and Merry.

And there the parallels end, as does our posting. Did JRRT have the fall of Constantinople somewhere in the back of his mind? What do you think?

Thanks, as always, for reading.

MTCIDC

Strange as News from Bree

03 Wednesday Feb 2016

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

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acta, Barad-Dur, Barliman Butterbur, Bree, Bronte, copyists, Dwarves, English coaching inn, Forum Romanum, Frodo Baggins, Gandalf, Gondor, Gutenberg, Haworth, Johann Carolus, Literacy, manuscripts, Medieval, Minas Tirith, Orality, Peter Jackson, pre-print, press, printing press, Romans, royal archives, Sauron, scriptoria, Story, The Lord of the Rings, The Prancing Pony, The Red Book of Westmarch, The Shire, Tolkien, War of the Ring, word-of-mouth, Yorkshire

Welcome, dear readers, as always.

After the last couple of postings, full of war, this is a rather peaceful one. We want to put forward a scheme for a larger project, all about orality versus literacy in Middle Earth, of which this is one small step, our initial question for the project being, “What is written and how and what is only spoken and remembered?”

Early in Chapter 9 of The Fellowship of the Ring (“At the Sign of the Prancing Pony”), we encounter this passage:

“For Bree stood at an old meeting of ways; another ancient road crossed the East Road just outside the dike at the western end of the village, and in former days Men and other folk of various sorts had travelled much on it. Strange as News from Bree was still a saying in the East Farthing, descending from those days, when news from North, South, and East could be heard in the inn, and when the Shire-hobbits used to go more often to hear it.”

Bree, of course, is the little town to which Frodo and his companions travel once they have gotten free of the Barrow Downs.

The little town is described as being surrounded by a dike—a wide ditch, the inner side topped with a thick hedge—perhaps something like this—

And consisting of “some hundred stone houses of the Big Folk, mostly above the Road…”. Without knowing the kind of stone, we have imagined it as looking rather like Haworth, in Yorkshire, the home of the Bronte family (without the modern touristy stuff, of course).

(And we note, by the way, that its depiction in the Jackson films doesn’t appear to reflect JRRT’s description that the houses were made of stone: rather, it appears to be filled with half-timbered, plaster and lath constructions.)

Here, the Hobbits stay at the Prancing Pony.

Tolkien describes it as

“a meeting place for the idle, talkative, and inquisitive among the inhabitants, large and small…”

To our minds, it probably looked like one of those very old English coaching inns.

And we begin our research inside.

Before we do, let’s spend a moment thinking about that word “news”, as in “Strange as news from Bree”.

In pre-print days, for most people in most places, information about events was circulated only by word-of-mouth. There were a few exceptions: the government in Rome produced hand-written circulars, called acta which were put up in the Forum Romanum from the middle of the last century BC through to the 3^rd century AD. These would obviously have had a very limited circulation, however, and we can imagine that the contents would still have been passed on mouth-to-mouth for most people in Rome.

To gain greater circulation really demanded print. Although Gutenberg produced the first press and movable lead type by 1440,

the earliest surviving printed newspaper known at present dates from 1609, produced in Germany. (It appears that the publisher, Johann Carolus, had actually begun printing, rather than hand-copying, in 1605.)

As far as we can tell, true to the general image of Middle Earth as a medieval world, printing presses have yet to appear (unless Sauron is producing very limited editions at the Barad-dur Press and circulation consists of exactly one copy). This means that we are still in the preprint world of hand-copying, when it comes to documents. In the western European world, on which places like Gondor are modeled, this means scriptoria—copy centers—mainly in monasteries and in royal courts where the copyists had probably been trained in monastic scriptoria.

Because there are no religious foundations or even schools of any sort mentioned in Middle Earth, we don’t know how or where documents were written or copied or even how and where anyone learned to read and write (except Sam, who was taught his letters by Frodo), but literacy turns up all over the place, from the Red Book of Westmarch to the runes of the dwarves to the writings Gandalf says he searched through in the archives of Minas Tirith.

All of this is, in a sense, commemorative—it’s history, really, whether a dwarvish map or tomb inscription, or an account of the War of the Ring. What about other things, however—word of daily events, or even entertainment forms, like songs and poems, things which may some day become part of history but, at the present, seem much more ephemeral? That’s what we’ve come to Bree to find out—and we’re quickly helped in our investigation by the host of the Prancing Pony, Barliman Butterbur, who says to Frodo and the others:

“ ‘I don’t know whether you would care to join the company…Perhaps you would rather go to your beds. Still the company would be very pleased to welcome you, if you had a mind. We don’t get Outsiders—travelers from the Shire, I should say, begging your pardon—often; and we like to hear a bit of news, or any story or song you may have in mind…’ “

And there’s that emphasis on the oral: “we like to hear”. You, readers, have a world of electronic devices to turn to for “a bit of news, or any story or song”, as well as, in the case of news, actual newspapers, not to mention bookstores, libraries, and the wonderful resources of Gutenberg and the Internet Archive. None of that in any form is available to carry or preserve information in Middle Earth. What books there are—and they are manuscripts, remember, things which look like this—

or, if you are rich, this—

are either in royal archives, as in the case of those which Gandalf consults in Minas Tirith, or in the hands of families, as is the fate of The Red Book of Westmarch and other such items in the Shire. And so people are, on the one hand, eager for news and entertainment, but, on the other, forced either to make it for themselves or to wait for willing strangers to add to their meager store.

It’s natural, then, that “As soon as the Shire-hobbits entered, there was a chorus of welcome from the Bree-landers.” The first local reaction to Frodo’s attempts to create an explanation for why he and his companions are traveling is also natural:

“He gave out that he was interested in history and geography (at which there was much wagging of heads, although neither of these words were [sic] much used in the Bree-dialect). He said he was thinking of writing a book (at which there was silent astonishment), and that he and his friends wanted to collect information about hobbits living outside the Shire, especially in the eastern lands.”

In the nearly-oral world of Bree (there must be some literacy—the Prancing Pony has a sign with an inscription and Barliman seems to know what a letter is), the next reaction is also natural:

“At this a chorus of voices broke out. If Frodo had really wanted to write a book, and had had many ears, he would have learned enough for several chapters in a few minutes. And if that was not enough, he was given a whole list of names, beginning with ‘Old Barliman here’, to whom he could go for further information.”

These would all be so-called “oral informants”—not one mention of manuscripts or documents to suggest that information is conveyed and recorded in writing—and so the Breelanders’ third and final reaction is also natural:

“But after a time, as Frodo did not show any sign of writing a book on the spot, the hobbits returned to their questions about doings in the Shire.”

It’s obvious then, that books, like the words “history” and “geography”, are almost alien to these people and so their interest is in the spoken—or sung—word, which is why, when Frodo breaks into Bilbo’s “There is an inn…” to distract the audience from Pippin’s indiscreet recounting of the birthday party, his stratagem almost works—until he overdoes it and—

But even in the aftermath, although it leads to more trouble for Frodo and his companions, Butterbur can imagine that, in time, that surprising event, like all of the others in this near-oral world, will subside into word-of-mouth.

“He reckoned, very probably, that his house would be full again on many future nights, until the present mystery had been thoroughly discussed.”

And then it would become just another piece of strange news from Bree.

Thanks, as always, for reading.

MTCIDC

Charge! The End?

14 Wednesday Oct 2015

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

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Adventure, Bataclava, Bigelow, British, British Heavy Brigade, Cavalry, Cawnpore, Charges, Chasseurs d'Afrique, Crimean War, French, Funckens, Gandalf, Helm's Deep, John Ford, Minas Tirith, Oliphaunts, Prussian, Remington, Rohirrim, Rossbach, Russian, Schreyvogel, seige, Stagecoach, surreneder, The Charge of the Light Brigade, The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien, Trostle Farm, Warhorse, Waterloo, Western, William Simpson

Dear Readers,

Welcome, as always.

In our last, we were discussing film music, where it comes from and what it does. This brought us, as always, it seems, back to JRRT. In that post, we talked about the “Shire theme”. In this, we want to talk not about a theme, but about a scene, one we have mentioned before, the charge of the Rohirrim and the attempted raising of the siege of Minas Tirith.

Although, strictly speaking, what is happening to Minas Tirith is simply a frontal assault, not a siege in the classic sense. Although, seen in this illustration (by the wonderful husband and wife team of the Funckens), they may look the same—

in a formal siege, you surround a town/fortress

call on the place to surrender

use your heavy weapons to bombard the place

Drive the defenders back from their outer works

And then call upon the defenders to surrender—which, often they do (fewer Alamos than myth would tell you)

But, if not, a final—usually costly—attack

and, potentially, the massacre of all—or at least all of the garrison–inside. (In Jackson’s LoTR, the Orcs are certainly not taking prisoners as they break into Minas Tirith).

The charge of the Rohirrim, though, brought to mind other charges, such as the charge of the Prussian cavalry against the French/Allied army at Rossbach, in 1757—

or the French and British cavalry charges at Waterloo, 1815—

or those _other_ charges at the battle of Balaclava, 1854, that of the French 4^th Chasseurs d’Afrique

or of the British Heavy Brigade, which drove the Russian cavalry from the British camp.

Those last two remind us, of course, of one of our favorite adventure movies, the 1936 The Charge of the Light Brigade

It is not so authentic in look as the 1968 movie of the same name,

and, in fact, the film states at its opening that it’s only loosely based on actual historical events (including not only the charge, but the 1857 massacre at Cawnpore—which, in reality, occurred some three years after the Crimean War battle). It also beefs up the Russian defense—adding non-existent earthworks, for instance. Here’s the movie’s view

and here’s William Simpson’s near-contemporary illustration (Simpson arrived after the battle, but must have talked to survivors and certainly could have seen the terrain).

All of these charges were directed at enemy forces on an open battlefield. The attack of the Rohirrim actually comes from a different scenario, one which is based upon a theme familiar to those who have seen American westerns: the arrival of the cavalry in the nick of time.

In this scenario, someone is trapped and surrounded—or at least persistently assaulted by a more numerous enemy—the classic is an attack upon circled wagons

The crisis comes and it looks like those attacked are about to be overwhelmed

but, at the last minute, help arrives—the cavalry, bugles sounding, guidons waving (although that illustrated in this vidcap is the 1885 pattern and the film from which this comes takes place in 1880—then again, the uniforms are a bit odd, too—here’s Remington’s and Schreyvogel’s more accurate views, as well) rides fearlessly to the rescue.

After sorting through more than 50 westerns, we believe that the movie from which our first image comes is probably the source of the modern idea of the arrival of the cavalry—see this clip from John Ford’s Stagecoach (1939)

CLIP

This happens twice, of course, in The Lord of the Rings, first at Helm’s deep, when Gandalf arrives—

and again, as we began, at Minas Tirith. It’s interesting, however, to see that, in this second example, the cavalry rescue is not so successful, since there are those oliphaunts we discussed in an earlier posting—

In our world, it wasn’t giant oliphaunts who eventually defeated cavalry and drove them to the edges of the battlefield, where they lasted a little longer, but this

as you can see in this clip from Warhorse.

CLIP

And it’s for the best, really. It’s bad enough that we humans engage in violent actions without dragging the rest of the animal kingdom into it…

(A few of the 80 horses lost by Bigelow’s 9^th MA Battery at the Trostle Farm, 2 July, 1863—and, as a sad ps, 25 horses were killed or so badly injured that they were put down at the filming of the 1936 The Charge of the Light Brigade—this so shocked those in Congress that a law for the protection of animals in films was passed to prevent future harm).

Thanks, as always, for reading.

MTCIDC

doubtfulsea

~ adventure fantasy

Tag Archives: Minas Tirith

Shire Portrait (3a)

When One Door Closes.4

When One Door Closes.3

Tobago to Lothlorien 2

“A kind of proud, venerable, but increasingly impotent Byzantium”

“My subject is War, and the pity of War.”

Beacons or Wills of the Wisp?

The Fall of Two Cities?

Strange as News from Bree

Charge! The End?