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Tag Archives: Mumakil

Sugar and Oliphaunts

08 Wednesday Nov 2017

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

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Africa, Bag End, Bodleian Library, Boromir, Chanson de Roland, creative misreading, Elephants, Greenway, Harad, horn, Mumakil, Oliphaunt, Oliphaunts, Savanna, sugar cane, sugar loaf, Sunlands, Swanfleet, Swertings, Tharbad, Tolkien, tropical, Umbar, war-horn

Welcome, dear readers, as always.

In our last posting, through a piece of “creative misreading” we saw a hat on Bilbo’s hallway table as a sugar loaf

image2sugarloaf

and, before you knew it, we were thinking about where the sugar behind the cakes, seed cakes, and tarts in his pantry came from.

Sugar cane is a tropical plant

image3sugarcanefield

so, logically, we began to consider where, on the Middle-earth maps we have, tropical might be.

image4memap

In our world, that would be south, of course, and, looking as far south as we can go, we reach Harad, a name which actually means “south” in Sindarin.  It consists of two big regions, Near Harad and Far Harad.

As far as we can find, JRRT has left us no detailed geographic information about this region.  On page 413 of The War of the Ring, we are given the clue that, when the Corsairs of Umbar are driven back,

“all the enemy that were not slain or drowned were gone flying over the [?borders] into the desert that lies north of Harad.”

This would suggest that at least Near (as in “near to Gondor”, as we presume that our cartographers were Gondorians) Harad might be imagined as being like our world’s North Africa—

image5northafrica

with some fertile coastline, backed by the Sahara.  And we can’t resist including this view of the Sahara from space here.

image6saharafromspace

And, just as in our world, the whole south can’t be desert, since people from Harad are associated with elephants—or “oliphaunts”, as Sam says:

“But I’ve heard tales of the big folk down away in the Sunlands.  Swertings we call ‘em in our tales; and they ride on oliphaunts backs and all, and the oliphaunts throw rocks and trees at one another.” (The Two Towers, Book Four, Chapter 3, “The Black Gate is Closed”)

The Mûmak of Harad, by Ted Nasmith

This would suggest more fertile land south of the northern desert, a savanna, or region of great, grassy plains.  Such an area forms one of two habitats for elephants in our Africa.

image8savanna

South of the African savanna lies the rain forest—the other African elephant habitat.

image9rainforestelephants

Sugar cane, a little research tells us, can grow in savanna lands

image10caneinsavanna

as well as in rain forest (which, in our world, is being destroyed to provide more space for growing it—here’s a LINK about that).  Thus, we imagine that this must be the point of origin for Bilbo’s sugar.  From its growing and processing point (for something about those things in our world, please see the previous posting), it might then be shipped to the city of Umbar and from there to Gondor.

As to how it reaches Bilbo, well, we know that there must have been some trade up and down the old North-South Road/Greenway, as Saruman has a supply of pipe-weed from the South Farthing, with “the Hornblower brandmarks on the barrels” (The Two Towers, Book Three, Chapter 9, “Flotsam and Jetsam”), which takes us as far as Isengard.  From Gondor to Isengard?  Packhorse up the Greenway to Bree?  Butterbur tells Frodo & Co that “”There’s a party that came up the Greenway from down South last night” (Fellowship of the Ring, Book One, Chapter 9, “At the Sign of the Prancing Pony”)—though he then says that “that was strange enough to begin with”.

As we said in our last, this is all based upon a “creative misreading”, so we admit that there are some gaps here and there–just as there is a gap in the North-South Road at the Swanfleet, where the great bridge at Tharbad is down, but that’s what we get with such a “creative misreading” of a hat!

Thanks, as ever, for reading.

MTCIDC

CD

PS

But another thought—not based upon a “misreading”, but rather upon The Lord of the Rings, so, at the posting’s end we can have at least something a little less speculative.

There is another medieval spelling of “oliphaunt”—“Olifant/oliphant”, with its own specific meaning:  a horn made from an elephant’s tusk, like this one, which is just over a thousand years old and is in the treasury of York Minster.

KIPPA MATTHEWS - COPYRIGHT NOTICE

image12york

 

This is a drinking horn, but such horns could also be used for signaling, the most famous being that of Roland, the hero of the later-11th-century Old French epic poem, the Chanson de Roland. Here is a page from the oldest known ms, now in the Bodleian Library at Oxford.

image13chanson

(Here are links to two translations in English, one in prose, one in verse.)  If you don’t know the poem, its main action is a rear guard defense of a pass by a group of Carolingian soldiers commanded by Roland.  He has an olifant and can use it to call for help, but refuses to do so until the last moment because, in his view, asking for reinforcements would be cowardly.  As a consequence, the Carolingians, including Roland, do not survive the battle, as Roland blows the horn only at the last moment (and blows it so hard that he bursts his brains in the process—there would be those who might argue that someone who sacrifices his troops on a point of honor doesn’t have much in the way of brains to begin with!).

image14roland

Warriors and horn-blowing immediately make us think of Boromir.

Tolkien, Nasmith, painting, illustration, Lord of the Rings, Silmarillion, Hobbit, Middle-earth

His horn is just called a “war-horn” (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book Two, Chapter 3, “The Ring Goes South”), with no further description, but, as medieval horns in our world can be made of elephant tusk, why mightn’t Boromir’s be made of the equivalent, mumak tusk?

image16oliphant

 

 

 

 

 

 

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.)

minas-tirith

Then they begin to attack with stone-throwers,

siege1

siege towers,

lotr-siege-towers

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

grond1

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

witch_king_of_angmar_ii_by_dudeskindasketchy-d4d6uvd

And that’s when the Rohirrim appear.

rohirrimabouttocharge

And move to strike the Orcs from behind.

Charge_rohirrim

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

archery

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

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

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.

img-2845793-1-charge-1024x425

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

Battle_of_Hoth

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.

Ottoman_Empire_Map_1359-1856

They had first reached Vienna in 1529,

Siegeofvienna1529

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

Battle_of_Vienna_1683_map

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

1-vienna-1683

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.

Battle_of_Vienna_1

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

bitwa-pod-wiedniem-obraz

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

Atak_husarii

Battle_of_Vienna_1683_11

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

CD

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