Unhealing

23 Wednesday Jan 2019

Posted by lebedusya1 in Fairy Tales and Myths, Heroes, J.R.R. Tolkien, Literary History

Tags

Achilles, Frod, Greeks, Morgul Knife, Mysia, Nazgul, Neoptolemus, Odysseus, Philoctetes, Telephus, The Grey Havens, The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien, Tristan and Iseult, Troy, Weathertop, wound, wounded

As always, dear readers, welcome.

The war around Troy was a very complicated thing, with traditions stretching in all directions. In one, the Greeks actually sailed to Troy twice, the first time missing it entirely and landing in Mysia, to the east of Troy.

There, the Greeks were met by local defenders under their king, Telephus, who was wounded by Achilles

before the Greeks realized their mistake and withdrew.

After they’d gone, Telephus’ wound simply wouldn’t heal, but, after consulting oracles, he was told that there was a cure: rust from the spear which had wounded him. The Greeks had gone back to Greece to regroup and to try again, so Telephus went after them to request that Achilles treat the wound which he had made. For some reason, Achilles refused, so Telephus grabbed the High King Agamemnon’s baby son, Orestes, and threatened to kill him if Achilles didn’t grant his request.

(This scene bordered on the edge of hilarious to the Greeks and was the subject of parodies in ancient times—here’s a pot with one, Orestes being replaced by a wineskin.)

The threat worked and Achilles healed Telephus.

This isn’t the only example of the wound which won’t heal to be found in the Trojan material. Philoctetes, who had inherited Heracles’ bow (given to him by Heracles because he helped with Heracles’ funeral pyre), was on his way with the other Greeks to Troy when he was bitten by a snake. The wound wouldn’t heal and smelled so bad that the Greeks left him—and the bow—behind (this is one version—there are others).

Later in the story, however, a prophecy told the Greeks that they wouldn’t take Troy without the bow. (By late in the Troy tradition, there had piled up a number of these conditions—rather like the horcruxes in the Harry Potter books—all to keep the story going.) Odysseus and Achilles’ son, Neoptolemus, went off to persuade—or steal—the bow (in one version—there are lots of others) and eventually persuaded Philoctetes to come to Troy with the bow, where he was healed and used the bow to aid the Greeks.

The theme of the unhealing wound reappears in western medieval literature in several places. In the story of Tristan and Iseult,

Tristan is wounded fighting an Irish giant

and, as in the Greek stories of Telephus and Philoctetes, the wound won’t heal. The theme appears again in the story of the Holy Grail—and like the Troy tradition, it has many versions. In some, the last guardian of the Grail is a wounded king (sometimes called the “Fisher King”) .

But, if you’re a regular reader, you know where this is leading. On Weathertop, Frodo is attacked by the Nazgul.

He is wounded with a morgul knife

and the tip of the blade not only remains in the wound, but begins to travel towards Frodo’s heart. He is saved by Elrond’s healing powers, but, somehow, things are never quite the same and, some time after the hobbits return to the Shire–

“One evening Sam came into the study and found his master looking very strange. He was very pale and his eyes seemed to see things far away.

‘What’s the matter, Mr. Frodo?’ said Sam.

‘I am wounded,’ he answered, ‘wounded; it will never really heal.’” (The Return of the King, Book Six, Chapter 9, “The Grey Havens”)

We began with Greeks and the complex epic of Troy, then passed through a pair of medieval stories to The Lord of the Rings, but something in all of these tales interested us in what seemed a common theme: protecting something, keeping something, can bring long-lasting harm to the protector/keeper, even if done for the best of reasons. It’s less clear if this pertains to Philoctetes, but Telephus was defending his country, as was Tristan in fatally wounding the Irish giant, who was leading an invasion force to Cornwall, where Tristan lived. The Fisher King is the guardian of the Grail.

Frodo clearly has come to understand this and, when the time comes, he goes with Bilbo and Gandalf and others to the Grey Havens and beyond, saying to Sam:

“…But I have been too deeply hurt, Sam. I tried to save the Shire, and it has been saved, but not for me. It must often be so, Sam, when things are in danger: some one has to give them up, lose them, so that others may keep them.”

(These are two very different versions of the leave-taking at the Grey Havens—first, the Hildebrandts’, second, Alan Lee’s.)

Thanks, as always, for reading.

MTCIDC

A Little Ring, the Least of Rings

02 Wednesday Jan 2019

Posted by lebedusya1 in J.R.R. Tolkien, Military History, Military History of Middle-earth

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Aladdin, Alexandre Dumas, Barad-Dur, Chateau d'If, Edmond Dantes, Elba, French Revolution, Galadriel, Harad, Hitler, Jinghiz Khan, Louis XVI, Morannon, Mordor, Napoleon, Nazgul, Ring Wraiths, St Helena, The Count of Monte Cristo, The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien, Toulon, Umbar, Waterloo

Welcome, readers, as always, and, if it’s part of your culture, Happy New Year!

We’ve recently been reading a book about Napoleon

and his first fall, in 1814. He was forced to abdicate,

thereby losing the massive empire he had built up in the early 19^thcentury.

His many enemies had a number of possibilities as to what to do with him. They could, for example, have imprisoned him, as Edmond Dantes is in Dumas’ The Count of Monte Cristo (serialized 1844-46), in a fortress like the Chateau d’If.

Or, more radically—but certainly very effectively—they could have permanently removed him by the same means by which revolutionary France removed his predecessor, Louis XVI.

Instead, they allowed him not only to live, but even to continue to be a kind of monarch—although only of a tiny island, Elba, off the west coast of Italy.

They thought they’d seen the last of him, leaving him to spend the rest of his life as a sovereign of a ragged collection of fishermen and farmers.

For Napoleon, however, who always saw himself as destined for only the greatest things, being king of Elba must have felt to him rather like the way the genie in Disney’s Aladdin (1992) expresses the contrast in his life–

That being the case, Napoleon lived on Elba for less that a year before he planned and accomplished his escape.

Back in France, he was welcomed by the very soldiers sent to stop him,

image10fifth

raised new armies,

image11napog

marched north to deal with his nearest enemies, Prussia and England, and was finally—and permanently—defeated at Waterloo, 18 June, 1815.

image12waterloo

This time, his enemies, having learned their lesson, sent Napoleon as far away from Europe as they could and to a much less hospitable place, the island of St Helena, in the South Atlantic,

where he died in 1821.

From his first success, at the siege of Toulon in 1793,

Napoleon had climbed and climbed until, by 1801, he was the real ruler of France (as “First Consul”)

and then, in 1804, Emperor.

And yet, it was never enough, which reminds us of so many of the “great conquerors” of history, from Alexander,

to Jinghiz Khan and his successors,

to Hitler.

In every case throughout history, no conqueror has ever had enough and, if we move out of this earth to Middle-earth, we find Sauron, a figure in many ways like all of these earthly conquerors, who, although defeated by an alliance of Elves and Men in the past, has returned and, in time, reacquired immense power. To begin with, he has the entire realm of Mordor.

He has also somehow gained the means to create giant fortifications (sometimes based upon older constructions), like the Barad-dur

and the Morannon and all of the other inner and outer works of Mordor.

image26morannon image27mord image28cirithungol

He also controls the Nazgul,

massive armies of orcs,

as well as allies from the Harads and Umbar.

All of which he has done, it seems, by whatever innate powers he possesses—without the Ring. And this made us wonder: what is it that the Ring actually does for its wearer that Sauron wants it back?

Certainly, the only power Gollum appears to have gotten from the Ring is that of invisibility (and the side-effect of longevity).

This is true for Bilbo, as well,

and for Frodo–

although, when Frodo puts on the Ring on Weathertop, he is plunged into a kind of alternate dimension, seeing the Nazgul as they really are

and, again, on Ammon Hen, he is put into direct contact with the Ring’s real owner.

Does this suggest that the Ring’s power is only as powerful as the Ring’s current wearer? Galadriel confirms this when Frodo asks her about the other rings: “why cannot I see all the others and know the thoughts of those that wear them?”

To which she replies:

“Did not Gandalf tell you that the rings give power according to the measure of each possessor?”

(The Fellowship of the Ring, Book Two, Chapter 7, “The Mirror of Galadriel”)

This then accounts for Gandalf’s almost violent explanation when Frodo offers it to him:

“’No!’ cried Gandalf, springing to his feet. ‘With that power I should have power too great and terrible. And over me the Ring would gain a power still greater and more deadly.’ His eyes flashed and his face was lit as by a fire within. ‘Do not tempt me! For I do not wish to become like the Dark Lord himself. Yet the way of the Ring to my heart is by pity, pity for weakness and the desire of strength to do good. Do not tempt me! I dare not take it, not even to keep it safe, unused. The wish to wield it would be too great, for my strength. I shall have such need of it. Great perils lie before me.’” (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book One, Chapter 2, “The Shadow of the Past”)

Or when Frodo offers it to Galadriel:

“You will give me the Ring freely! In place of the Dark Lord you will set up a Queen. And I shall not be dark, but beautiful and terrible as the Morning and the Night! Fair as the Sea and the Sun and the Snow upon the Mountain! Dreadful as the Storm and the Lightning! Stronger than the foundations of the earth. All shall love me and despair!” (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book Two, Chapter 7, “The Mirror of Galadriel”)

Sauron has been able to accomplish so much without the Ring—what would happen should he ever wear it again? In “The Shadow of the Past”, Gandalf tells Frodo that it controls the other rings—even the three long-concealed from Sauron:

“The Three are hidden still. But that no longer troubles him. He only needs the One; for he made that Ring himself, it is his, and he let a great part of his own former power pass into it, so that he could rule all the others. If he recovers it, then he will command them all again, even the Three, and all that has been wrought with them will be laid bare, and he will be stronger than ever.”

And, just as important—maybe even more so—Sauron has based his place of power and refuge, his sure foundation in Middle-earth, upon it, as Elrond tells the council:

“Sauron was diminished, but not destroyed. His Ring was lost but not unmade. The Dark Tower was broken, but its foundations were not removed; for they were made with the power of the Ring, and while it remains they will endure.” (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book Two, Chapter 2, “The Council of Elrond”)

So, then, just as Napoleon, exiled on Elba, could plot and accomplish return, given the Ring, Sauron, defeated before, could return and, with a greed for conquest as insatiable as that of the French emperor, reappear again and again in Middle-earth, where there was no St Helena to keep him for good.

Thanks for reading!

MTCIDC

Thrones or Dominions (2)

07 Wednesday Nov 2018

Posted by lebedusya1 in Economics in Middle-earth, Imaginary History, J.R.R. Tolkien, Maps, Military History, Military History of Middle-earth

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1984, Adolf Hitler, Barad-Dur, Benito Mussolini, Big Brother, Denethor, dictatorships, Elf Kingdom, Eye of Sauron, Gondor, Maiar, map, Middle-earth, Minas Tirith, Mouth of Sauron, Nazgul, Ornthanc, Rohan, Saruman, Sauron, Steward of Gondor, The Lord of the Rings, Theoden, Tolkien, Uruk-hai

As always, dear readers, welcome.

In our last, we began to discuss what we called the governments of Middle-earth at the time of the War of the Ring, making a kind of Grand Tour using the plot movement of The Lord of the Rings to loosely shape our itinerary. (And here we’re borrowing from a witty idea, on a site called brilliantmaps.com, where we found “If Frodo and Sam had Google Maps of Middle-earth”.)

Our first stop was the Shire, where we proposed that this was a “government by the few”: that is, an oligarchy, a certain number of old and established families controlling the state. From there, we moved on to Bree, where there was so little information that our best guess was that it, too, was probably an oligarchy, some sort of loose-knit one among—or perhaps uniting—the four villages which made up the general area.

Next, we grouped together what we suggested were two Elf kingdoms, Rivendell and Lorien, where Elrond and Galadriel (along with the nearly-invisible Celeborn), clearly were in charge, although neither would claim the title of monarch.

At our next stop, Isengard, Saruman,

who had begun as one of the five Maiar sent to oppose the annoyingly-persistent Sauron, had moved from being what Gandalf called “the chief of my order” (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book One, Chapter 2, “The Shadow of the Past”), to being a kind of dictator—but one in the shadow of Sauron, just as Mussolini (1883-1945), who, from 1922, had been a model for such figures,

had fallen, by the later 1930s, into being the shadow of another, more powerful, dictator.

Like Elrond and Galadriel, he carries no title, but his captain, Ugluk, calls him “the Wise, the White Hand: the Hand that gives us man’s-flesh to eat”, which probably tells us more than we want to know about his rule. (The Two Towers, Book Three, Chapter 3, “The Uruk-hai”)

We believe that this shadow may have been created by Saruman’s growing arrogance (which Gandalf points out to Frodo in “The Shadow of the Past”) combined with his overconfidence in using a palantir he has found in Orthanc and which puts him into communication with Sauron—and Sauron’s ability to seduce.

Sauron himself seems like the primal dictator, but a dictator before the 20^th century, when dictators began to have a growing media world to employ to make themselves omnipresent in the lives of their citizens.

Instead, he’s remote—sitting in the Barad dur, yet

(and we can’t resist this image by “Rackthejipper”)

represented as being like 1984’s Big Brother, always watching.

Or, as it is crudely represented in the Jackson films, literally a giant eye on a tower.

When one thinks of modern dictators, however, one imagines them backed by huge bureaucracies, like the ministries in 1984:

“The Ministry of Truth–Minitrue, in Newspeak [Newspeak was the official

language of Oceania. For an account of its structure and etymology see

Appendix.]–was startlingly different from any other object in sight. It

was an enormous pyramidal structure of glittering white concrete, soaring

up, terrace after terrace, 300 metres into the air. From where Winston

stood it was just possible to read, picked out on its white face in

elegant lettering, the three slogans of the Party:

WAR IS PEACE

FREEDOM IS SLAVERY

IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

The Ministry of Truth contained, it was said, three thousand rooms above

ground level, and corresponding ramifications below. Scattered about London

there were just three other buildings of similar appearance and size. So

completely did they dwarf the surrounding architecture that from the roof

of Victory Mansions you could see all four of them simultaneously. They

were the homes of the four Ministries between which the entire apparatus

of government was divided. The Ministry of Truth, which concerned itself

with news, entertainment, education, and the fine arts. The Ministry of

Peace, which concerned itself with war. The Ministry of Love, which

maintained law and order. And the Ministry of Plenty, which was responsible

for economic affairs. Their names, in Newspeak: Minitrue, Minipax, Miniluv,

and Miniplenty. (George Orwell, 1984, Chapter 1)

Instead, what we can see of Sauron’s government is much more medieval, beginning with the Nazgul, who were once human kings,

who would be like the barons, the chief feudal deputies of a king in a feudal world of the sort medieval England was and upon which much of Middle-earth, as we’ve suggested in many earlier postings, was based. The chief of these was then the commander of Sauron’s main attack on Minas Tirith.

To which we would add “the Voice of Sauron” (reminding us, of course, that he is only the spokesperson and Sauron would be presumed to have his eye on him, as well). If you look for images of him, you will commonly find this:

But, like certain other depictions in the Jackson films (that eye, for example), it is a very literal interpretation for someone JRRT described as:

“The rider was robed all in black, and black was his lofty helm; yet this was no Ringwraith but a living man…it is told that he was a renegade, who came of the race of those that are named the Black Numenoreans…” (The Return of the King, Book Five, Chapter 10, “The Black Gate Opens”)

Here’s an image possibility which comes a bit closer to the text, in our opinion.

From dictators, we make a final stop at two actual feudal kings, the first, the ruler of Rohan, Theoden,

is clearly the descendant of earlier kings, as we are told in Appendix A, of The Lord of the Rings, “The Kings of the Mark”, where the line begins with Eorl the Young and continues for about five hundred years.

In the case of our other monarchy, Gondor, the kings who ruled for so many centuries (from SA3320 to TA 2050), have disappeared and, though the fiction is maintained that they will someday return, the actual ruler is their deputy, the Steward, and his role as lieutenant is symbolized literally by his position in the old throne room:

“At the far end, upon a dais [a kind of raised platform] of many steps was set a high throne under a canopy of marble shaped like a crowned helm; behind it was carved upon the wall and set with gems an image of a tree in flower. But the throne was empty. At the foot of the dais, upon the lowest step which was broad and deep, there was a stone chair, black and unadorned, and on it sat an old man gazing at his lap.” (The Return of the King, Book Five, Chapter 1, “Minas Tirith)

At the same time, Denethor, and all of the previous Stewards, were kings in all but name, having ruled Gondor for twenty-five generations (see Appendix A, “The Stewards” for details).

So, in sum we have:

2 possible oligarchies (the Shire, Bree)
4 kingdoms (or at least sort of, in the case of the Elves—Rivendell, Lorien, plus Rohan and Gondor)
2 dictatorships (eastern Rohan, extending from Isengard, Mordor)

And, just when we were summarizing, the thought came to us: what about the dwarves? We can imagine that, considering Thorin’s family, there have been the equivalent of kings among the dwarves, but that’s a posting for another day!

Thanks, as ever, for reading.

MTCIDC

The Nazgul Brothers?

27 Wednesday Sep 2017

Posted by lebedusya1 in J.R.R. Tolkien, Military History, Military History of Middle-earth, Narrative Methods

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aircraft, anti-aircraft gun, Aviation, Bellerophon, bombers, British Army, dogfights, Dragons, early airships, flight, flying machines, Great War, harpies, Hermes, machine gun, manoeuvres, military intelligence, Nazgul, Paris, Pegasus, Schlieffen Plan of 1914, Sir Douglas Haig, Sir James Grierson, The Blitz, The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien, trench fever, trenches, Wraiths, Wright Brothers, WWI Trenches

Welcome, dear readers, as ever.

Imagine a world where there were no airports, no contrails, no roar of engines, no small silver objects crossing the skies, the sound of their flight trailed behind them. The only flying things would be birds and those in different seasons, some permanent, some migratory (or used to be—where we live in North America the Canada Geese, whose great chevrons across our skies used to be powerful signs of winter to come or spring soon to appear, now squat here year round).

This would have been England in 1892, the year JRRT was born. There were early airships—basically big balloons of various sorts, but they were primarily stationary and used for (limited) military intelligence.

Then came the Wright brothers

who, in December, 1903, produced the first engine-propelled, manned flight in their enlarged kite.

Thereafter, flight would, literally, take off, but the Wrights, who were idealistically inclined, believed that such an invention would actually end war by making it too terrible.

The British army thought differently, however, and there were soon aerial observation units attached to military formations. In fact, Sir James Grierson

tactically outfoxed his rival, Sir Douglas Haig,

not only by his skillful use of aircraft for observation, but also by his keen understanding of how to conceal his own movements from Haig’s aircraft

in the army manoeuvres of 1912.

The Great War, when it came, two years later, would then be the proving ground for all sorts of aerial experimentation.

First, it was just observation.

A British aviator, flying north of the army, first spotted the massive German columns which were designed to outflank the British and French armies and capture Paris in the Schlieffen Plan of 1914.

Because observation was their task, the earliest aircraft were unarmed, but this changed and soon there was aerial combat, the so-called “dog fights”, the popular images being “knights of the sky” who jousted with manoeuvres and machine guns, rather than with lances, maces, and swords.

Next came the use of aircraft to disrupt enemy formations and their movements, bombing and strafing, sometimes as part of major attacks, the whole idea being to dominate the sky over the enemy’s trenches, while protecting your own.

And this is where we imagine 2^nd Lieutenant JRR Tolkien

in the summer of 1916, standing in such a trench,

looking up, and thinking…

We can also imagine him imagining—not seeing flying machines, but something much earlier. After all, with his education, background, and interests, it would have been difficult not to think of classical harpies

or Hermes

or Bellerophon, mounted on Pegasus.

And, with his Norse passion, there would also, of course, be dragons…

And, perhaps a combination: a Bellerophon mounted on a miniature dragon?

In the world of the trenches, there were two defences against aircraft: friendly aircraft in the air

and anti-aircraft guns on the ground.

But the war ended fairly quickly for the scholarly lieutenant, laid low by a more primitive enemy than Industrial Age Germans with bombs: lice.

JRRT became sick with what was then called “trench fever”, an illness conveyed, like typhus, by the bite of the tiny insects who colonized the clothing and bodies of soldiers in every dugout in Europe. Wracked with recurring fevers, headaches, and complete exhaustion, among other complaints, men ill with trench fever were brought to base hospitals and, if sick enough, were sent home, as there was no cure, to recover as best they could. Tolkien spent the rest of the war in the hospital or in garrison in England and thus escaped the last and perhaps worst years of the war in the trenches.

At home, he became Professor Tolkien, taught his classes, fathered four children, and then a second war came, one in which the primitive air war of the first war was intensified by more sophisticated aircraft, more powerful explosives, and plans to bomb Britain into ruin and submission in what was called “The Blitz”.

JRRT went back into service, this time as an air raid warden, even as two of his sons were more directly involved in the war.

Night after night, the bombers came,

to be met with the same weapons as the previous war: aircraft,

anti-aircraft guns

and, because the enemy began to attack at night,

searchlights.

And this brings us back to our imaginings. Working on The Lord of the Rings, staring into the night sky, listening for enemy bombers, would Tolkien have thought of danger to Middle-earth in the form of flying things, not machines but terrible figures mounted on even more loathsome creatures—and what could be done about them? Magic, perhaps?

Thanks, as always, for reading!

MTCIDC

Crowning Achievement

20 Wednesday Sep 2017

Posted by lebedusya1 in Artists and Illustrators, J.R.R. Tolkien, Literary History, Narrative Methods

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Alexander the Great, Alice in Wonderland, Barrow-downs, Barrow-wights, Bayeux Tapestry, Brunhilde, Charlemagne, Cheshire Cat, circlet, Cleopatra VII, diadem, Egypt, Egyptian crowns, Elightenment France, Eowyn, French Revolution, Gondor, Gondorian crown, Greek, Greek coins, Hildebrandts, Imperial Crown of the Holy Roman Empire, Julius Caesar, Lupercalia, Marcus Antonius, Medieval, Napoleon I, Nazgul, Octavian Augustus, Pharoahs, Philip II, Pontifex Maximus, Ptolemy I, Queen Elizabeth I, Queen Elizabeth II, Queen Victoria, Richard Wagner, Rohan, Romans, Tenniel, The Lord of the Rings, Theoden, Tolkien, William Shakespeare, Witch-King of Angmar, wreaths

Welcome, dear readers, as ever.

Recently, one of us was lecturing on ancient Egypt, a country of two lands, in fact, Upper and Lower, and each could be represented in the crown worn by the pharaoh.

Within in blink, we began to think about JRRT’s illustration of the traditional crown of Gondor,

of which Tolkien says:

“I think that the crown of Gondor (the S. Kingdom) was very tall, like that of Egypt, but with wings attached, not set straight back but at an angle.

The N. Kingdom had only a diadem (III 323). Cf. the difference between the N. and S. kingdoms of Egypt.”

(Letters, letter to Rhona Beare, 10/14/58, 281)

For us, the first crown we believe we ever saw as children was either one in an illustrated fairy tale (here’s a Tenniel illustration from Alice)

or the actual one of Queen Elizabeth II, and that hardly fits JRRT’s idea about the southern crown—or the northern one

or that of her ancestor, Queen Victoria

or that of their distant ancestor, Elizabeth I.

When we think of a “diadem”, however, we are reminded of the earliest western European crowns, which, in contrast to Elizabeth’s, is barely there at all.

Here is the first type of crown we know of being depicted—it’s that “diadem” in a Greek form, being on a coin of Philip II, King of Macedon and father of Alexander the Great (the reverse—the back side—the front side is called the “obverse”—shows Philip’s Olympic victory horse and Philip’s name in the genitive—possessive—case, “of Philip”—showing not only possession of the horse, but of the victory, of the coin, and, by implication, the right to issue coins).

This became a regular pattern, both of coin and of crown for those who followed Philip, and, thinking about Philip’s victory, we can imagine that the original of the crown was based upon the wreath athletic game victors wore.

And coins like Philip’s set the pattern for classical coins—and crowns—for centuries. Here’s the crown pattern on the head of Ptolemy I, one of Alexander’s generals.

At Alexander’s death, Ptolemy seized Egypt, making it a family possession for the next nearly three hundred years, all the way down to his greatgreatgreat etc granddaughter Cleopatra VII.

The pattern was not confined to Greece or Egypt, however—Julius Caesar wore something similar—

although, unlike Ptolemy and other such rulers, Caesar might have hoped to muddy people’s perceptions of what such a thing symbolized and what position (dictator for life) he’d forced the Senate to give him. Rome had hated monarchs, after all, since they’d kicked out their last king 450 years before.

(And see Act I, Sc.2 of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar in which, at the festival of the Lupercalia, Marcus Antonius publically offers him a crown and Caesar rejects it, much to the loud delight of the mob.)

In the Greco-Roman world, wreaths had many purposes: besides Greek kings and winners at games, people at parties and weddings and other festive occasions wore them, as well as celebrants at religious rites.

Perhaps Caesar hoped that, appearing in one, he might appear less like a Hellenistic king and more like anything from an Olympic victor or party-goer to a priest (he was Pontifex Maximus, head of religion in Rome, so there was a certain credibility to the latter).

Malicious people in Rome also suggested another reason for the wreath: Caesar was sensitive about his thinning hair.

Caesar’s grandnephew and successor, Octavian/Augustus, continued the tradition,

as did following emperors for several centuries—and even Charlemagne, hundreds of years after the last western emperor, revived it.

At some point, just after Charlemagne’s time or thereabout (c1000ad), a new pattern appeared, which you can see in the famous “Imperial Crown of the Holy Roman Empire”.

Instead of a wreath, this was a built-up circlet, with lots of “bits and bobs” on top.

This newer look persisted in various more or less complicated forms in the west for centuries

and seems to underlie the crowns seen in more recent times (often with what appears to be a red velvet balloon in the middle).

There is a throwback, however: Napoleon I. He had grown up in Enlightenment France, in a world which idealized classical learning and art, and so, when he made himself emperor in 1804, his model wasn’t medieval and Germanic, but Augustine.

This doesn’t mean that he wasn’t aware of that other model and he would have used it—the so-called “crown of Charlemagne”–at his self-coronation

had it not suffered the fate of many medieval treasures and been destroyed during the French Revolution (the famous Bayeux Tapestry was almost converted to wagon covers by revolutionaries). In fact, a “crown of Charlemagne” did turn up for the ceremony—“recreated” by a clever Paris jeweler.

[A footnote about the coronation. In the painter David’s sketches for it, he shows the pope (Pius VII) with his hands in his lap.

Napoleon saw the drawing and said to David that the pope should be blessing the occasion—after all, that’s why Napoleon had dragged him all the way from Rome. David redid his sketch, of course!]

Beyond the Crowns of Gondor, most of the crowns seen in The Lord of the Rings are described as “circlets”—

Sam, Merry, and Pippin, laid out in the barrow:

“About them lay many treasures of gold maybe, though in that light they looked cold and unlovely. On their heads were circlets, gold chains were about their waists, and on their fingers were many rings.”(The Fellowship of the Ring, Book One, Chapter 8, “Fog on the Barrow-Downs”)

Theoden:

“Upon it sat a man so bent with age that he seemed almost a dwarf; but his white hair was long and thick and fell in great braids from beneath a thin golden circlet set upon his brow.” (The Two Towers, Book Three, Chapter 6, “The King of the Golden Hall”)

But there is one which, well, looking at the various illustrations of its wearer, reminds us of Alice’s comment upon the Cheshire Cat:

“Well! I’ve often seen a cat without a grin…but a grin without a cat! It’s the most curious thing I ever saw in my life!” (Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Chapter 6, “Pig and Pepper”)

On the Fields of the Pelennor, a “great shadow descended like a falling cloud. And behold! It was a winged creature.”

This might be bad enough, but:

“Upon it sat a shape, black-mantled, huge and threatening. A crown of steel he bore, but between rim and robe naught was there to see, save only a deadly gleam of eyes: the Lord of the Nazgul.” (The Return of the King, Book Five, Chapter 6, “The Battle of the Pelennor Fields”)

We are aware of at least half-a-dozen professional renderings of this scene (and we plan to discuss them all in a future post), but it seems to us that those eyes, seeming to float in space, make it extremely difficult to illustrate it, no matter what crown—simply described as “steel”—he’s wearing. And that brings us back to our original crown. As JRRT described it:

“It was shaped like the helms of the Guards of the Citadel, save that it was loftier, and it was all white, and the wings at either side were wrought of pearl and silver in the likeness of the wings of a sea-bird, for it was the emblem of kings who came over the Sea; and seven gems of adamant were set in the circlet, and upon its summit was set a single jewel the light of which went up like a flame.” (The Return of the King, Book Six, Chapter 5, “The Steward and the King”)

If his drawing (seen at the beginning of this post) is what he had in mind, then the only professional illustration we’ve seen of it, by the Hildebrandts, is only an approximation.

And, in fact, reminds us all-too-easily of Brunhilde, the Walkuere, from Wagner’s operas.

If illustrators as good as the Hildebrandts struggle, this must be a tough one. The designers of the P. Jackson films are even farther away from the original, as so often.

Here, however, we have some sympathy! Somehow the medieval world of Middle-earth can not easily assimilate an Egyptian artifact. And so, we suspect that they thought “circlet” and “wings” and left it there. What do you think, readers? How do you imagine the crown?

Thanks, as ever, for reading.

MTCIDC

Healing (II)

16 Wednesday Aug 2017

Posted by lebedusya1 in Heroes, J.R.R. Tolkien, Literary History, Narrative Methods

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Akira Kurosawa, Aragorn, athelas, bleeding, Boromir, cinquefoil, Eowyn, Faramir, four humors, Greco-Roman, healers, herbal medicine, Hildebrandts, Japanese block prints, John Bradmore, Kingsfoil, Macbeth, Medieval medicine, Medieval Monastery, Merry, Morgul Knife, Nazgul, Prince Hal, Prince Imrahil, Pyre of Denethor, Rammas Echor, The Battle of the Pelennor Fields, The Grey Havens, The Houses of Healing, The Lord of the Rings, The Return of the King, Throne of Blood, Tolkien, Washizu, Westernesse, Witch-King of Angmar, wounding, Yoshitoshi, Yoshitoshi's Courageous Warriors

Welcome, dear readers, as ever.
Two postings ago, we were talking about woundings in The Lord of the Rings and thinking about the medical care there as compared with that available in what we always think of as the actual parallel medieval world. We had gotten as far as Boromir, who, we imagined, would have been beyond help, pierced as he was by multiple arrows.

(We had also said that Boromir’s wounding reminded us of the death of the Macbeth figure in Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood, 1957.

To which we would add—just because we love Japanese block prints (ukiyo-e)—this figure from Yoshitoshi’s series Yoshitoshi’s Courageous Warriors—1883-1886—)

[Here, by the way, are some great links—one to a massive collection of Yoshitoshi prints, the other is an excellent guide to the world of Japanese block prints in general—both highly recommended!]

http://yoshitoshi.net/

http://www.ukiyo-e.se/
The next wounding is that of Faramir.
After the fall of the Rammas Echor, the long wall which was meant to protect the far side of the Pelennor, Faramir was leading the rear guard, but:
“…there came flying a deadly dart, and Faramir, as he held at bay a mounted champion of Harad, had fallen to the earth.” (The Return of the King, Book Five, Chapter 4, “The Siege of Gondor”)
At this time, we are not told of how the arrow was removed (we later are told that Prince Imrahil did it on the battlefield), but, that which concerned John Bradmore about the wounded Prince Hal in our 1403, after he had suffered an arrow wound,

now afflicted Faramir: infection.:
“During all this black day Faramir lay upon his bed in the chamber of the White Tower, wandering in a desperate fever…”
In our medieval world, medicine was based upon a combination of beliefs, some of which even dated back to the Greco-Roman world.
One major foundation block was the idea that the body was governed by four elements, called “humors”: black bile, yellow bile, phlegm, and blood.

They determined personality and behavior, but, although they were natural to the body, they could be thrown out of balance and part of a medieval doctor’s job was to rebalance them.

This rebalancing could include doses of all sorts of things—dangerous metals, like mercury, concoctions from various plants, some of which were helpful, some poisonous, and bleeding—based upon the idea that, by removing blood, you were helping rebalance the body’s natural humorous proportions.

In Faramir’s case, a doctor might try a number of drugs based upon plants which were believed to bring fever down:
angelica

chamomile

datura

or coriander

In the text, however, although Pippin suggests that Gandalf be consulted, Denethor dismisses the suggestion and Faramir is left to burn—before almost being literally consumed by fire along with his mad father.
[And here we would suggest that the over-the-top scene of Denethor’s death in the film missed an important point. In the book, it is clear that what drove Denethor to try to set up a kind of Viking funeral for himself and his son was the palantir by which his mind was poisoned by a Sauron whose influence over him he fatally underestimated. And what a wonderfully spooky moment JRRT describes when the orb survives the fire which destroys the Steward:
“And it was said that ever after, if any man looked in that Stone, unless he had a great strength of will to turn it to other purpose, he saw only two aged hands withering in flame.” (The Return of the King, Book Five, Chapter 7, “The Pyre of Denethor”)]
We will return to Faramir, but, first, we want to look at two more woundings, both occurring almost in the same moment: when Eowyn and Merry face the chief of the Nazgul.

In confronting the Witch King, Eowyn suffers what might seem a perfectly ordinary battle wound in a world of hand-to-hand combat such as this:
“Out of the wreck rose the Black Rider, tall and threatening, towering above her. With a cry of hatred that stung the very ears like venom he let fall his mace. Her shield was shivered in many pieces and her arm was broken; she stumbled to her knees.” (The Return of the King, Book Five, Chapter 6, “The Battle of the Pelennor Fields”)

Eowyn is saved from the Nazgul by Merry, who “had stabbed him from behind, shearing through the black mantle, and passing up beneath the hauberk had pierced the sinew in his mighty knee.”
Combined with Eowyn’s final blow at the wraith’s face, this destroyed what we presume was an undead being, but, in return, both Merry and Eowyn take an invisible wound, something which the medical people of Minas Tirith can only observe:
“But now their art and knowledge were baffled; for there were many sick of a malady that would not be healed; and they called it the Black Shadow, for it came from the Nazgul. And those who were stricken with it fell slowly into an ever deeper dream, and then passed into silence and a deadly cold, and so died. And it seemed to the tenders of the sick that on the Halfling and on the Lady of Rohan this malady lay heavily.” (The Return of the King, Book Five, Chapter 8, “The Houses of Healing”)
Eowyn and Merry (and Faramir) have been taken to “the Houses of Healing”, which, in our world, would be a hospital, something which, in our Middle Ages, would either have been part of a monastery/cloister, or were a private foundation, supported by charitable donations.

Medical people there could certainly have set Eowyn’s broken arm, even sealing it in plaster to keep it immobile, but the Black Shadow would have been as difficult for them as for the healers in Minas Tirith. Comas were recognized in the Middle Ages, but there was little to be done: apparently, comatose people lose the swallowing function, which means that someone in that condition would die of dehydration, probably within a few days (speed of dehydration depends upon many factors, as well as the individual, but the longest we’ve seen is about 10 to 12 days).
To their credit, those in the Houses of Healing tried to do something by observation:
“Still at whiles as the morning wore away they [Eowyn and Merry] would speak, murmuring in their dreams; and the watchers listened to all they said, hoping perhaps to learn something that would help them to understand their hurts.”
But the Shadow spreads quickly as day fades:
“But soon they began to fall down into the darkness, and as the sun turned west a grey shadow crept over their faces.”
And there is the added difficult of Faramir, who “burned with a fever that would not abate.”
At this point, both medieval healers and those in Minas Tirith were stumped—until another factor was added. In fact, two.
Plants have been used since ancient times for medicine world-wide, so it should be no surprise that Middle-earth should have a parallel. In this instance, the plant is called “kingsfoil” or athelas. (The “foil” in the first name is—in English—based upon the Old French foil/foille, “leaf”, which comes, in turn, from a Latin word for leaf, folium—perhaps JRRT was inspired by the plant called “cinquefoil” = “fiveleaf”. Athelas is also a compound, based upon Sindarin athaya, “helpful” and lass, “leaf”.) [There’s a really useful posting on possible our world parallels for this herb and we provide the LINK here.]
When Aragorn tended to Frodo’s Morgul-knife wound earlier in The Lord of the Rings, we would have seen its use then:
“He threw the leaves into boiling water and bathed Frodo’s shoulder. The fragrance of the steam was refreshing, and those that were unhurt felt their minds calmed and cleared. The herb had also some power over the wound, for Frodo felt the pain and also the sense of frozen cold lessen in his side…” (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book One, Chapter 12, “Flight to the Ford”)
This is not all to the treatment, however. Just before he uses the herb, Aragorn appears to employ some sort of counter-spell to that which was on the knife:
“He sat down on the ground, and taking the dagger-hilt laid it on his knees, and he sang over it a slow song in a strange tongue. Then setting it aside, he turned to Frodo and in a soft tone spoke words the others could not catch.”
This pattern of speech and herb is now employed in the healing not only of Eowyn and Merry, but of Faramir, as well, and forms both a part of the movement towards the eventual defeat of Sauron and the return of light to Middle-earth, and of the confirmation of Aragorn as the rightful heir to the throne. As the herb-master, when called upon by Aragorn to produce the herb, recites:
“When the black breath blows
And death’s shadow grows
And all lights pass,
Come athelas! Come athelas!
Life to the dying
In the king’s hand lying!”
Previously, the herb-master says “it has no virtue that we know of, save perhaps to sweeten a fouled air, or to drive away some passing heaviness…old folk still use an infusion of the herb for headaches.” Now, however, Aragorn proceeds to use it three times in quick succession, along with something else, to bring back the three so sunk towards death:
“Now Aragorn knelt beside Faramir, and held a hand upon his brow. And those that watched felt that some great struggle was going on. For Aragorn’s face grew grey with weariness; and ever and anon he called the name of Faramir, but each time more faintly to their hearing, as if Aragorn himself was removed from them, and walked afar in some dark vale, calling for one that was lost.”
Moving to Eowyn, Aragorn uses the athelas again, but summons her, as well:
“Then, whether Aragorn had indeed some forgotten power of Westernesse, or whether it was but his words of the Lady Eowyn that wrought on them, as the sweet influence of the herb stole about the chamber it seemed to those who stood by that a keen wind blew through the window…”

And a third time, with Merry: “I came in time, and I have called him back.”
We’ll end the second part of our discussion of woundings here—or almost. There is one more patient whom it appears even the king can’t heal:
“But I have been too deeply hurt, Sam.” Says Frodo. “I tried to save the Shire, and it has been saved, but not for me. It must often be so, Sam, when things are in danger; some one has to give them up, lose them, so that others may keep them.” (The Return of the King, Book 6, Chapter 9, “The Grey Havens”)

And yet, there is perhaps the promise of healing beyond Middle-earth, something which may even bear a faint suggestion of the scent of Athelas:
“And the ship went out into the High Sea and passed on into the West, until at last on a night of rain Frodo smelled a sweet fragrance on the air and heard the sound of singing that came over the water…the grey rain-curtain turned all to silver glass and was rolled back, and he beheld white shores and beyond them a far green country under a swift sunrise.”
Thanks, as ever, for reading.
MTCIDC
CD

Too Narrow Escapes

05 Wednesday Jul 2017

Posted by lebedusya1 in Fairy Tales and Myths, J.R.R. Tolkien, Literary History, Narrative Methods

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Abu al-Qasim Khalaf ibn al-Abbas al-Zahrawi, Agincourt, Albucasis, Anglo-Scots, arrow removal, arrows, bascinet, bodkin points, Dagger, David Gwillim, elf shot, Elverskud, English Longbowmen, healing, Henry V, John Bradmore, Kenneth Branagh, Laurence Olivier, Medieval, Morgul Knife, Nazgul, Neolithic, Niels W Gade, Otherworld, Philomena, poignard, Prince Henry, Renaissance, Shrewsbury, St Mary Magdalen, Tolkien, Two Men in a Trench, Weaponry, Weathertop, Wraiths

Welcome, dear readers, as ever.

We had what we thought was a very interesting idea for this posting—about the effect of a Morgul-knife and that of something from western European—perhaps specificially Germanic?—folk tradition, an “elf shot”.

“Elf shot” was once thought to be a condition in humans and animals, caused by an arrow fired by someone from the Otherworld. There was a long tradition of methods of healing, which could be a difficult problem because the entry wound might be nearly—if not completely—invisible and it took special skills to find it and to remove the arrowhead, while, in the meantime, the victim slowly withered away.

When it was supposedly removed, by someone who was believed to have competence in such matters, the arrowhead was probably actually a Neolithic point, like one of these—

picked up from somewhere and whatever had actually caused the withering was a disease brought on in the natural order of things, but all of the stories we’ve read about the belief and cures appear to end with the point removed—and the sufferer in recovery.

Hmm—we thought. Something familiar about this. On Weathertop, Frodo is attacked by Nazgul.

“The third was taller than the others: his hair was long and gleaming and on his helm was a crown. In one hand he held a long sword, and in the other a knife; both the knife and the hand that held it glowed with a pale light. He sprang forward and bore down on Frodo.” (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book One, Chapter 11, “ A Knife in the Dark”)

The figure stabs Frodo, but the weapon which did it was no ordinary one, as Strider indicates, lifting

“…up a long thin knife. There was a cold gleam in it. As Strider raised it they saw that near the end its edge was notched and the point was broken off. But even as he held it up in the growing light, they gazed in astonishment, for the blade seemed to melt, and vanished like a smoke in the air, leaving only the hilt in Strider’s hand.” (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book One, Chapter 12, “Flight to the Ford”)

In the film, this is represented by something which looks like a medieval fighting dagger.

It seems that its purpose was not to act as a secondary weapon in combat, however, but to inflict a fatal stabbing wound. As Gandalf says,

“They tried to pierce your heart with a Morgul-knife which remains in the wound.” (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book Two, Chapter 1, “Many Meetings”)

Thus, we could imagine it looking like a Renaissance poignard, like this one—

Whatever its look, its point is embedded in Frodo’s shoulder and, like someone elf-shot, Frodo is fading and, also like the victim of elf-shot, the wound has changed.

“ ‘What is the matter with my master?’ asked Sam in a low voice, looking appealingly at Strider. ‘His wound was small, and it is already closed. There’s nothing to be seen but a cold white mark on his shoulder.; “ (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book One, Chapter 12, “The Flight to the Ford”)

Neither Strider nor, in turn, Glorfindel, can heal Frodo and even Gandalf was daunted:

“Elrond is a master of healing, but the weapons of our Enemy are deadly. To tell you the truth, I had very little hope; for I suspected that there was some fragment of the blade still in the closed wound. But it could not be found until last night. Then Elrond removed a splinter. It was deeply buried, and it was working inwards.” (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book Two, Chapter 1, “Many meetings”)

We thought, then, that we could write a very interesting post about the parallels between that knife and elf-shot—and then we found that it had already been done: see “Elf-shot” in Drout, Michael, ed., J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia, London: RKP, 2006.

We are not given to despair, however, and something Gandalf said interested us: “Then Elrond removed the splinter.”

As our regular readers know, we take particular pleasure in linking things of Middle-earth with those of the medieval world in which JRRT spent his scholarly life. In this case, we were reminded of the removal of part of another weapon—the head of an arrow (just like elf-shot) from the head of a real person: Prince Henry of England—the future Henry V (1386-1422) of Shakespeare’s wonderful play. (We grew up on the 1944 Laurence Olivier version, which is full of color and action—the reconstruction of the Globe Theatre at the opening alone is worth watching—although, as we’ve gotten older, we’ve come to prefer both Kenneth Branagh’s 1989 filming and the 1979 David Gwillim version which we mentioned in our last posting.)

When he was fifteen, Prince Hal commanded the left wing of his father’s army at the battle of Shrewsbury, on 21 July, 1403.

(Note: this is an old map, based upon the tradition that the church of St. Mary Magdalen was built on the site of the battle.

In 2006, the Anglo-Scots archaeologists, Tony Pollard and Neil Oliver, led a team to probe the churchyard, where it had long been held that there was a burial pit for some of the dead of the battle. After geophysical exploration and the digging of several test trenches, no trace of such a pit was found, leaving the tradition to remain, at least for the moment, just that. If you are interested to learn more, their visit to the site is from their 2-year series, Two Men in a Trench. Here’s a LINK—you can watch the whole show—and we recommend the entire series for a combination of light-hearted looniness and serious archaeology.)

The battle began with a barrage of arrows from the longbowmen on each side.

The arrows had what were called bodkin points—

which were specifically designed to penetrate plate armor of the very sort which the prince was wearing.

A practiced longbowman could fire ten arrows a minute and his original battlefield issue would have been two 24-arrow linen bundles. We don’t know how many archers both sides had, but even if each had no more than a thousand, at the end of in a single minute, that would have meant 20,000 arrows in the air.

If Hal was wearing a bascinet—as you see on the knight above–because of the shape of the helmet, many of the arrows might have glanced off. Perhaps Hal was wearing an open-face bascinet

or had raised his visor, to give a command, say, but, instead of bouncing off, an arrow hit him in the face, below his eye (there is argument as to which eye) and penetrated his head. Had it gone all the way through, it might have been possible to saw off the arrow head and remove both arrow and shaft, but the arrow head had sunk into the bone at the back of the skull, instead. (Remarkably, it is reported that Hal continued to direct his troops, even in this condition. Tough people, those medievals!) And the first attempt at extraction had broken off the shaft, leaving the arrowhead still embedded. And this, of course, is what made us think of Elrond and the Morgul-knife splinter.

We aren’t told how Elrond found or removed it. A medieval tool for removing arrowheads had been invented by the brilliant Arab physician with the splendid name of Abu al-Qasim Khalaf ibn al-Abbas al-Zahrawi, reduced by westerners to “Albucasis” (936-1013). (Here’s a LINK—this is a man of science well worth knowing much more about!)

This might have worked, had the arrow been in a less delicate place, as well as not barbed, but Hal’s wound was just below his brain stem and next to all sorts of delicate blood vessels and the arrowhead was a bodkin point.

At this point, John Bradmore appeared. Interestingly, he had been a goldsmith, as well as a practicing surgeon, and the two seem to have come together as he tackled the problem. First, while he considered the possibilities, he kept the wound open and cleaned. Then he invented this—

It’s a simple but cunning design: the two outer parts are gradually introduced into the wound and spread it gently open. In the middle is a screw mechanism which could insert itself into the socket of the arrowhead. When it is firmly in place, the outer parts are closed as far as possible and then the whole, with, Bradmore hoped, the arrowhead, could be extracted from the wound. And it was. And then Bradmore washed out the wound with wine and kept it clean during the healing process. A completely remarkable piece of work, from the use of antisepsis to the invention and manufacture of the necessary tool.

Hal not only survived the operation (he had reportedly been dosed with henbane, which would have stupefied him but, given the wrong dose, would have killed him within a couple of days), but lived another 19 years to beat the French at Agincourt, marry the daughter of the king of France, and, for a brief time, imagine seeing his son succeed him on the now-joint thrones.

As for Bradmore, he wrote a medical treatise, Philomena, the title being a learned joke– St. Philomena was an early Christian martyr, part of whose martyrdom included surviving arrow attacks—before dying, a very well-off man, in 1412.

(If you’d like to see a very well-done visual segment on Bradmore and Prince Hal, here’s a LINK for a NOVA program of some years ago.)

In both cases, the patient survived, although it would appear that Prince Hal had a better recovery than Frodo. Then again, Hal, for all that his wound was life-threatening, hadn’t been hit by an elf-shot, but only by a mortal arrow, while the hobbit was almost doomed to the Nazgul world by a Morgul-knife.

Thanks, as ever, for reading.

MTCIDC

One of our favorite Danish composers, Niels W. Gade (1817-1890), has left us a very beautiful dramatic cantata, Elverskud—“Elfshot” (1854). Based upon a Danish ballad, it’s the story of Sir Oluf, who prefers the Elf king’s daughter to his own human bride and the consequences of that preference. If you’d like to hear it—we recommend it and much other music by Gade, as well—here’s a LINK.

PPS

This posting is our 151st! Five more will make exactly three years of weekly postings. Thank you for reading, and we hope to keep you interested for another 150 postings at least.

Tintinnabulations

24 Wednesday May 2017

Posted by lebedusya1 in Fairy Tales and Myths, J.R.R. Tolkien, Literary History, Narrative Methods

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Asfaloth, bells, Child Ballad, dance, Edgar Allan Poe, Glorfindel, Headless Horseman, Joan of Arc, John Howe, Medieval, Minas Tirith, Morris Dance, Nazgul, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Sortes Tolkienses, Sortes Vergilianae, sun-down bells, The Hobbit, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, The Lord of the Rings, Thomas the Rymer, tocsin, Tower of Echthelion

Welcome, once more, dear readers.

The sources of our postings come from all sorts of places. Sometimes, we are reading something and we have an idea, or we spot an image or see a film. Sometimes, it’s from a friend’s e-mail, or reaction to an earlier posting. Sometimes they come from our sortes tolkienses. If you’ve missed our original posting where we invented this, it’s based upon an ancient fortune-telling method, where one closes one’s eyes, opens an important book, like the Aeneid or the Bible, puts one’s finger on a verse—and hopes that it tells you something about the day or the future. In our case, we use The Lord of the Rings or The Hobbit.

And what did we find today? This, from The Lord of the Rings—

“Hand in hand they went back into the City, the last to pass the Gate before it was shut; and as they reached the Lampwrights’ Street all the bells in the towers tolled solemnly.” (The Return of the King, Book Five, Chapter 1, “Minas Tirith”)

These are the “sun-down bells”, as Pippin learns from Bergil, son of Beregond. Bergil is a boy of Minas Tirith and has just given Pippin a tour of the city.

“Sun-down bells” made us think first about the bells of Minas Tirith, and then about bells in Middle-earth in general, and we could easily pick out three kinds.

To begin with, there are the city bells. Or, rather, where are the city bells? The text says “in the towers”. In the medieval world in which we so often find illustrations and parallels to Middle-earth, those bells are commonly in church belfries.

Minas Tirith clearly has towers—and, in fact, is a towering place—literally:

“…the Tower of Echthelion, standing high within the topmost wall, shone out against the sky, glimmering like a spike of pearl and silver, tall and fair and shapely, and its pinnacle glittered as if it were wrought of crystals; and white banners broke and fluttered from the battlements in the morning breeze, and high and far he heard a clear ringing as of silver trumpets.” (The Return of the King, Book Five, Chapter 1, “Minas Tirith”)

Because there are no churches—or even temples—in Minas Tirith, by examining some images of the city, from John Howe’s painting to the model used in the films, we can pick out towers here and there and some of those, we might imagine, could hold bells.

image4howe

image5mt In our medieval world, such bells had a number of functions. Not only did they ring the hours of the medieval Christian day, but they could also sound a warning, called the “tocsin”, and signal that the day was over and that fires should be covered for the night, the “curfew”—rather like the “sun-down” bells in Minas Tirith. Joan of Arc (c.1412-1431) said that she could sometimes hear the sound of angelic voices, inspiring her to drive the English out of France, in her village bell.

There are other uses—and places—for bells in Middle-earth, however. In The Fellowship of the Ring, Book One, Chapter 1, “A Long-Expected Party”, they turn up at an impromptu dance:

“Master Everard Took and Miss Melilot Brandybuck got on a table and with bells in their hands began to dance the Springle-ring: a pretty dance, but rather vigorous.”

The wording of this sounds like it came from the “society section” of a newspaper, as not only are the hobbits’ names given, but given with their social titles—“Master” and “Miss”—to show that they are unmarried.

The boisterous dance, being energetic and accompanied by bells, makes us think of traditional English Morris dances, where the dancers not only strap bells to their arms and legs, but occasionally carry sticks with bells attached to them.

image7morris OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA image9jinglestick

This also makes us think about medieval music bands, which could include a percussionist who played bells.

image10medbellers image11bellplayers

A further use is as decoration—and perhaps as something more. When Aragorn is leading the hobbits, with the wounded Frodo, towards Rivendell, they heard “a sound that brought sudden fear back into their hearts: the noise of hoofs behind them.” The fear is, of course, of pursuing Nazgul, depicted here first in an Alan Lee sketch, and then in a painting which we believe is by the Hildebrandts, of one of the Ringwraiths almost riding down Farmer Cotton.

image12nazgul image13nazgul

[We are always struck, by the way, how the Nazgul bear a certain resemblance to the “Headless Horseman” from Washington Irving’s (1783-1859) story, “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” (1820). Walt Disney made a musical version of this in 1949, which was shown on Disney tv programs in later years, around Halloween, and the image of the Horseman could always give us nightmares.]

image14headlessh

What Aragorn and the hobbits are actually hearing is the horse of the Elf lord, Glorfindel, Asfaloth—

“The sound of the hoofs drew nearer. They were going fast, with a light clppety-clippety-clip. Then, faintly, as if it was blown away from them by the breeze, they seemed to catch a dim ringing, as of small bells tinkling.” (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book One, Chapter 12, “Flight to the Ford”)

image15glorf

Although Frodo never explains why he says this, he exclaims, “That does not sound like a Black Rider’s horse…” The only difference in sound clearly is coming from the bells, perhaps on Asfaloth’s halter or bridle—or perhaps on his mane, as in the case of what might be a source for those bells, Child ballad 37 (we’re quoting from Variant A). 37 is called “Thomas Rymer” and describes the meeting of the actual 13^th-century Thomas of Earlston with the Queen of Elfland. [We include a LINK here to the useful Wiki entry.)

image16tther

In the ballad, her horse is described as having

“At ilke tett [“every tuft/lock”] of her horse’s mane

Hung fifty silver bells and nine.”

We are always careful never to say, without documentary evidence, that such-and-such is “definitely” the source for something in JRRT, but this particular detail seems to line up so well:

Glorfindel is an Elf
so is the unnamed Queen
each has bells on his/her horse

And these bells suggest—at least to Frodo—something unworldly, but, unlike the Nazgul, something positive. We can add to this another—okay, undeniable—source, and our evidence for this is JRRT himself. In 1925, Tolkien (in collaboration with E.V. Gordon) published an edition of the 14^th-century Middle English poem, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

image17greenknight

The Green Knight is an enchanted being and part of his magic lies in his greenness and in the elaborate decoration of himself and his horse, including

“Ther mony bellez ful bry3t of brende golde rungen” (line 195)

This is only a preliminary investigation—done out of our heads, rather than from a thorough scouring of the text—so, can you, dear readers, think of other bells in The Lord of the Rings? We could think of two references in The Hobbit—but we leave it to you to guess where they are (and to find more?).

And thanks, as always, for reading.

MTCIDC

We include a LINK here to an appropriate poem which uses our title, Edgar Allan Poe’s, “The Bells” (1849).

When One Door Closes.4

30 Wednesday Nov 2016

Posted by lebedusya1 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 (2)

16 Wednesday Nov 2016

Posted by lebedusya1 in J.R.R. Tolkien, Literary History, Narrative Methods

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Balin, Barrows, Bree, Bridge of Khazad-Dum, Chamber of Mazarbul, Crickhollow, doors, Dwarves, Elven-way, Farmer Maggot, Gandalf, Greenway, Hobbit door, Hollin, Lothlorien, Moria, Nazgul, picaresque, Rivendell, Robert Burns, Tam O'Shanter, The Fellowship of the Ring, The Ford of Bruinen, The Hobbit, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, The Lord of the Rings, The Prancing Pony, Tolkien, Washington Irving, Watcher in the Water, Weathertop, West-door, West-gate

Welcome, dear reader, as always. It’s a rather gloomy late autumn day here as we write this, fitting, perhaps, for the gloomier The Lord of the Rings after the cheerier (well, sometimes) The Hobbit, as we continue our look at the functions of doors and their equivalents in JRRT.

If you’ve read our previous posting, you’ll know that, in it, we examined doors and gates in The Hobbit, dividing them into two basic categories: doors which might lead to safety and doors which led to danger, all based upon Bilbo’s remark about how dangerous it can be, just stepping outside your door.

Bilbo’s door adventures had begun with his own.

When comparing the two books, we get a strong sense of the episodic nature of The Hobbit: we can almost break it down into movement between doors, from the arrival of the dwarves to the knock of Gandalf and Balin, giving it more the feel of a picaresque novel: that is, a novel with an goal, but with much of its focus upon the adventures along the way, adventures which don’t always necessarily lead to that goal. This gives it a lighter tone, as well—after all, it was meant as a children’s book in a time (1937) when such books were understood in general never to be too solemn. The Lord of the Rings, in contrast, develops an almost grimly-focused forward motion, which impels it even when the Fellowship breaks into two after the death of Boromir, and much of the action spreads from Frodo and Sam on the way to Mordor to the separate adventures of Merry and Pippin in Rohan and Gondor.

So what might we see as the first door—in either sense—in The Lord of the Rings? we asked ourselves. And we supposed that we might see minor doors of safety at Farmer Maggot’s and Frodo’s new home in Crickhollow, in both cases brief refuges from the Nazgul, but, as we said in our last posting, doors commonly have some sort of challenge to them—and challenger—and the first one of those appears briefly at the hedge in Bree:

“They came to the West-gate and found it shut; but at the door of the lodge beyond it, there was a man sitting. He jumped up and fetched a lantern and looked over the gate at them in surprise.” (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book 1, Chapter 9, “At the Sign of the Prancing Pony”)

The watchman, when his challenges (and maybe a little too-inquisitive challenges) are turned aside, lets them in and they reach The Prancing Pony, only to escape murder in their beds and the loss of their ponies.

The first gateway which leads to real safety, however, isn’t a door or gate at all, but a natural barrier (with some magical help): the Ford of Bruinen. Here, the role of traveler and challenger is reversed, as the challenged are the Wraiths and the challenger is Frodo, but it is the power of the Elves which closes the door.

At the Ford, by Ted Nasmith

(It is interesting here that Tolkien has chosen not to take advantage of the folk belief—if you know “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” by Washington Irving, or its inspiration, the poet Robert Burn’s “Tam O’Shanter”, this will be readily familiar to you—that evil spirits are unable to cross running water, even at a bridge.

John_Quidor_-_The_Headless_Horseman_Pursuing_Ichabod_Crane_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg

To reach the Shire, the Wraiths have had to cross several bodies of water and now their hesitation to traverse another appears to be derived from their confidence that they can now control Frodo—either by the influence of the Ring, or perhaps from his wound—and call him back across the stream to them.)

From Rivendell, the next such door is that at the western side of Moria.

Here, there is no living challenger. Rather, it is a kind of riddle—or, at least, it is initially understood as such—which bars the way. Its answer is simple, which led us to wonder, what is the purpose of this door scene in the story? As the creature in the pool

barricades the door behind them, it adds to the tension: the Fellowship has been watched and, from the hostile mountains to the wolves to the tentacle thing, it has been forced into darker and narrower ways, those ways seemingly chosen by the malevolent force observing their journey. As well, it suggests the gradual decay of what was once a vibrant, active culture, as Gandalf explains:

“Here the Elven-way from Hollin ended. Holly was the token of the people of that land, and they planted it here to mark the end of their domain; for the West-door was made chiefly for their use in their traffic with the Lords of Moria. Those were happier days, when there was still close friendship at times between folk of different race, even between Dwarves and Elves.” (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book 2, Chapter 4, “A Journey in the Dark”)

This is a theme throughout The Lord of the Rings and one which, we believe, adds to its power: the events of the close of the Third Age are set against a background of other times and other events and the landscape still bears traces of those times, from the Barrows to the Greenway and Weathertop and far beyond. As well, so many of those traces suggest that violence and the dark spirit of Sauron, sometimes through his agents, sometimes in person, have had much to do with their end.

Now that the Fellowship is within Moria, it encounters its next door: that of the Chamber of Mazarbul.

Here, they are the challengers, when forced to defend themselves from a horde of “Orcs, very many of them…And some are large and evil: black Uruks of Mordor.” (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book 2, Chapter 5, “The Bridge of Khazad-Dum”). There is a second door, however, and, when they have beaten back their attackers, they escape by it—but only so that Gandalf may be the challenger at a crossing—as Frodo was at the ford—at the Bridge of Khazad-Dum, although here magic apparently cannot save him, as it had Frodo.

With Gandalf gone, we see the repetition of a scene from The Hobbit—the escape through a crowd to the outside world:

“…and suddenly before them the Great Gates opened, an arch of blazing light.

There was a guard of orcs crouching in the shadows behind the great door-posts towering on either side, but the gates were shattered and cast down. Aragorn smote to the ground the captain that stood in his path, and the rest fled in terror at his wrath.” (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book 2, Chapter 5, “The Bridge of Khazad-Dum”)

At this moment in The Hobbit, Bilbo had used his newly-discovered ring to escape (albeit with the loss of a few buttons), but Aragorn’s sword clearly does just as well.

It is easy to see just how prevalent the pattern is: even after that harrowing moment of being chased through the mines and losing Gandalf, where there is a door, there is someone at it to make a challenge, and this holds true even without an actual door, as the remaining members of the Fellowship seek to enter Lothlorien and are stopped by Elven sentries in a tree. (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book 2, Chapter 6, “Lothlorien”)

And the pattern continues, even as the Fellowship breaks up, but let’s take a moment to see what we’ve found so far. On the side of doors to safety, we have: Bree (although it’s not so safe as it looks), the Ford of Bruinen, the main door of Moria, and the entrance to Lorien. As for doors to danger, there are: the western doors of Moria and the door to the Chamber of Mazarbul.

In the third installment, we shall see just how many more doors/gates/entryways we find which continue to fit the pattern—and there are a fair number of them.

Thanks, as ever, for reading.

MTCIDC

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Tag Archives: Nazgul

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A Little Ring, the Least of Rings

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The Nazgul Brothers?

Crowning Achievement

Healing (II)

Too Narrow Escapes

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When One Door Closes.4

When One Door Closes (2)