Thrones or Dominions, Principalities or Powers (1)

31 Wednesday Oct 2018

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

Tags

Al Capone, Christopher Tolkien, dictators, Edward VIII, Galadriel, gang, George V, George VI, King Edward VII, Monarchy, oligarchy, Queen Elizabeth II, Queen Victoria, Rivendell, Saruman, Sharkey, Shire government, The Lord of the Rings, Thranduil, Tolkien

Welcome, as ever, dear readers.

In a letter to his son, Christopher, of 29 November, 1943, Tolkien wrote:

“Give me a king whose chief interest in life is stamps, railways, or race-horses; and who has the power to sack his Vizier (or whatever you care to call him) if he does not like the cut of his trousers. And so on down the line. But, of course, the fatal weakness of all that—after all only the fatal weakness of all good natural things in a bad corrupt unnatural world—is that it works and has worked only when all the world is messing along in the same good old inefficient human way.” (Letters, 64)

Monarchs, of course, are all that he had known, when it came to heads of state. Born during the last years of Queen Victoria (ruled 1837-1901),

image1victoria

he lived under King Edward VII (reigned 1901-1910),

image2bertie

George V (ruled 1910-1936),

Edward VIII (ruled 1936—abdicated in favor of his younger brother),

George VI (ruled 1936-1952),

and died in 1973 during the reign of Elizabeth II (1952—the present).

It’s not that he was very enthusiastic about monarchies—in the same letter he says “My political opinions lean more and more to Anarchy (philosophically understood, meaning abolition of control not whiskered men with bombs)…”

but even there he couldn’t escape the structure he was a subject of, adding “or to ‘unconstitutional’ Monarchy.”

This made us consider how this conditioning might be reflected in Middle-earth—after all, the title of the third volume of The Lord of the Rings is The Return of the King. What were the governments of Middle-earth at, roughly, the time of the War of the Ring? How many were monarchies and what other forms might there be?

Recently, we had looked at the governing structure of the Shire,

about which, as JRRT has told us:

“The Shire at this time had hardly any ‘government’. (The Lord of the Rings, Prologue, 3. “Of the Ordering of the Shire”)

This depends, of course, upon what is meant by “government”. There is an elected Mayor, the “only real official in the Shire”, and whose job appears, at first, to be only ceremonial, until we are informed that “the offices of Postmaster and First Shirriff were attached to the mayoralty.” At the same time, there was an hereditary position of leader, the Thain, controlled by the Took family, and, the more Tolkien explains, the more it appears that what really governs the Shire is an oligarchy—that is, a small group of families who, together, quietly run things. (There may also be tension just below the surface about which families this oligarchy includes. When Saruman (aka “Sharkey”) takes over the Shire, he favors not the Tooks, but the Bagginses, suggesting that he is aware of this tension and may be exploiting it.)

As we move across Middle-earth with the Fellowship,

the next settlement we come to is Bree. The government of this is completely unclear. All that we’re told is that:

“The Big Folk and the Little Folk (as they called one another) were on friendly terms, minding their own affairs in their own ways, but both rightly regarding themselves as necessary parts of the Bree-folk…The Bree-folk, Big and Little, did not themselves travel much, and the affairs of the four villages were their chief concern.” (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book One, Chapter 9, “At the Sign of the Prancing Pony”)

Their only defense appears to have been “a deep dike [ditch] with a thick hedge on the inner side”, but who maintains it is not mentioned, although there is a gate guard—the evil Bill Ferny, when the hobbits first approach the gate. Unlike the Shirriffs of the Shire, however, we have no idea what structure might lie behind this position.

As we travel farther eastward, we come to Rivendell.

Here, Elrond is clearly in charge, but seems to have no distinct title—unlike Thranduil, who is called “the King of the Elves of Northern Mirkwood” (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book Two, Chapter 2, “The Council of Elrond”). The same lack of title seems to be true of Galadriel.

Although Gimli calls her “Queen Galadriel” (The Two Towers, Book Three, Chapter 8, “The Road to Isengard”), and she, along with Celeborn, rules Lorien, she does not bear that title—in fact she may be a little anxious about it, as seen when Frodo offers her the ring:

“You will give me the Ring freely? In place of the Dark Lord you will set up a Queen.” (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book Two, Chapter 7, “The Mirror of Galadriel”)

Along with Frodo’s frightening vision of her, this seems more like a warning than a statement.

We’ve seen that monarchy seems to be linked with inheritance: the thainship in the Shire is passed down through the Tooks. Even Elrond and Galadriel appear to hold their positions through seniority. In our next government, it is self-assumed, as Saruman, once referred to by Gandalf as “the chief of my order” (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book One, Chapter 2, “The Shadow of the Past”), begins to have grander plans.

image11saruman

In contrast to other monarchs in The Lord of the Rings, Saruman, we would suggest, is not so much a medieval king, as others in Middle-earth are, but an avatar for modern (1930s-1940s) dictators,

with, as Treebeard says, “a mind of metal and wheels” (The Two Towers, Book Three, Chapter 4, “Treebeard”). In fact, Saruman is a relative newcomer to the business, “setting up on his own with his filthy white badges”, as Grishnakh describes him (The Two Towers, Book Three, Chapter 3, “The Uruk-hai”), in contrast with Sauron, who, although intermittent in his attempts at control, has been involved in the process in Middle-earth for many centuries.

In his role of metal and wheels dictator, Saruman turns Isengard into a factory/fortress, manufacturing everything from orcs to swords within its precinct. His orc captain, Ugluk, calls him “Saruman the Wise, the White Hand”, but we see him later in his real form, as he works to destroy the Shire, as “Sharkey”—a name he says “All my people used to call me that in Isengard, I believe. A sign of affection, possibly.” (The Return of the King, Book Six, Chapter 8, “The Scouring of the Shire”) This is hardly “His Majesty”. Rather, it’s more like the kind of nickname a gang-leader in the US in the 1920s-30s might have had, like “Scarface” Al Capone.

image12alcapone

“Sharkey” may be derived, as JRRT suggests, from “Orkish…sharku, ‘old man’,” but it also suggests a fishy predator—a very appropriate image for a would-be dictator.

In our next, we’ll answer Grishnakh’s question: “Is Saruman the master or the Great Eye?” as we continue our exploration of government in Middle-earth.

Thanks, as always, for reading.

MTCIDC

Lent to a Museum (Mathom.2)

07 Wednesday Mar 2018

Posted by Ollamh in Artists and Illustrators, Heroes, J.R.R. Tolkien, Literary History, Military History, Narrative Methods

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Abbotsford, armor, Ashestiel, Cartley Hole, Castle, Craigievar, cuirassier, czapska, Edinburgh, Gothic, Henry Fox Talbot, Horace Walpole, Marquis de Montrose, Mathom-house, Melrose Abbey, Napoleon's Hair, Prince Albert, Queen Victoria, Rob Roy MacGregor, Scottish, Scottish Baronial, Sir Walter Scott, Strawberry Hill, The Lay of the Last Minstrel, The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien, Waterloo, Waverly

Welcome, as always, dear readers.

In a posting from January, 2017, we discussed the idea of a “mathom house” at Michel Delving in the Shire. We know about this place from the Prologue to The Lord of the Rings:

“So, though there was still some store of weapons in the Shire, these were used mostly as trophies, hanging above hearths or on walls, or gathered into the museum at Michel Delving. The Mathom-house it was called: for anything that Hobbits had no immediate use for, but were unwilling to throw away, they called a mathom. Their dwellings were apt to become rather crowded with mathoms, and many of the presents that passed from hand to hand were of that sort.” (Prologue, The Lord of the Rings)

Rereading this passage this time, we were caught by two things: “some store of weapons” and “Their dwellings were apt to become rather crowded with mathoms” because, put together, they sound like part of the description of the personal Mathom-house of the original inspirer (we would say) of adventure-writing in English, Sir Walter Scott.

Trained to become a lawyer, Scott had lived for some years in several houses in Edinburgh, for much of his later life at Number 39, North Castle Street–

Although he began his rise to literary fame with the publication of The Lay of the Last Minstrel, a long poem, in 1805,

money began to pour in with his first novel, Waverley, published anonymously, in 1814.

(What a great illustration, by the way—both the first edition and the manuscript.)

Because his legal work required him to have a residence outside Edinburgh, Scott had rented this, at Ashestiel, from 1804-1811.

When the lease was up, he then invested in this rather modest farm house at what was called “Cartley Hole”, which locals called “Clarty Hole”, “clarty” being a Scots word for “mucky”, suggesting that our illustration is prettier than the actual place.

More commercially successful novels and an eventual baronetcy gave Scott grander ideas and he began to rebuild—and rebuild—the house, as well as changing its name to the more dignified “Abbotsford”, as it was near the ruins of the 12^th-century Melrose Abbey.

“Bigger” at this time might have meant something Georgian, like this—

but Scott, no doubt influenced by the Gothic ideas of people like Horace Walpole

image9hw

and his Strawberry Hill

fixed upon a design which, in time, was not only bigger, but Gothic—and Scottish, in the style called “Scottish Baronial”, like this castle at Craigievar, completed in 1626.

In a way, such a choice makes sense: many of his novels have Scots locations and they made him wealthy enough to build such a place.

This is perhaps the first photographic image of Abbotsford. It dates from 1844 and is by the English inventor, as far as we currently know, of photography, Henry Fox Talbot.

And here is a modern image.

The outside of Abbotsford is striking enough, but it’s what’s inside which made us think of a Mathom-house.

There is seemingly an endless “store of weapons”.

And then there are all of those other things. A lock of Napoleon’s hair.

image17nappy'shair.jpg

The sword of a 17^th-century Scottish hero, the Marquis of Montrose.

The sporran (purse) of that early-18^th century Highland legend, Rob Roy MacGregor.

(Scot also believed he had Rob Roy’s musket.)

And even souvenirs he had picked up from the battlefield of Waterloo, which he had visited only a short time after the battle.

Note the hole in the breastplate—and also that the headgear with it (a czapska) belongs not to the man who would have worn the breastplate, a cuirassier,

but to a French/Polish lancer

With all of these trophies tacked onto every possible surface—including full suits of armor–

we wouldn’t be surprised to see a rather familiar object, ancient, famous, which we are told “was arranged on a stand in the hall (until he lent it to a Museum)”—would you?

Thanks, as ever, for reading.

MTCIDC

Abbotsford was opened to visitors within a few months of Scott’s death. Among those tourists were Queen Victoria and Prince Albert.

They liked the place so much that, when they decided that they needed a little place in the country, Abbotsford would be one of their models.

Long after Albert’s death in 1861, the Queen continued to pay a yearly visit to Balmoral.

PPS

If you’d be interested in seeing Abbotsford as an early 20^th-century tourist might have seen it, here’s a LINK to Beautiful Britain: Abbotsford (1912).

Crowning Achievement

20 Wednesday Sep 2017

Posted by Ollamh 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

Shire Portrait (3b)

22 Wednesday Feb 2017

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

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24Hr Trench, Andrew Robertshaw, architecture, Birmingham, Brandywine, crop rotation, Diamond Jubilee, dugouts, Dunedain, feudal system, German lawn chairs, Hornblotton, Inns, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Lavenham, manor, Marish, Medieval, Queen Elizabeth II, Queen Victoria, Sarehole, Sarehole's mill, Somerset, Suffolk, The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, The Shire, Tolkien, village, Western Front, WWI Trenches

Welcome, dear readers, as always.

In this post, we’re continuing our series on the Shire. So far, we’ve looked at its government and organization (1), its economy (2), and its geography (3a). Now we want to look at Shire architecture.

Our initial inspiration for this was from a line in a letter from JRRT to Allen & Unwin, 12/12/55. Speaking of the Shire, he says: “It is in fact more or less a Warwickshire village about the period of the Diamond Jubilee… (Letters, 230)

The “Diamond Jubilee” was the 60^th anniversary of the reign of Queen Victoria (she came to the throne in 1837–Queen Elizabeth II celebrated her Diamond Jubilee just five years ago).

The Jubilee was a huge celebration, bringing in people from all over Britain’s empire, who converged on London in the summer of 1897.

2adiam 2bdiam 2cdiam

JRRT was born in 1892 and had been brought to England in 1895, for a visit which became permanent when his father died back in South Africa. He and his brother

lived with their mother for a time in the village of Sarehole, just south of the huge industrial city of Birmingham. Sarehole’s mill

still stands. It has been said that this mill is the model for the one by The Water in The Hobbit, as drawn by JRRT.

Thus, when we think about Shire architecture, we can have a double picture:

bits of description in JRRT’s works
actual late Victorian rural villages of the sort in which Tolkien spent part of his childhood

If we begin with historical villages, there isn’t anything to see in the actual Sarehole, except for the mill, which, though built upon the site of a mill which can be dated to 1542, is a building from 1771, just before the industrial revolution, an event with which Tolkien certainly had problems. If we look at other such villages, however, we can get a general picture. Basing our image upon a schematic medieval village plan, we find a double line of houses strung out along a single road.

Spreading back from the houses are the fields, as villages in this world were self-sustaining. You can see these in JRRT’s illustration of the mill and the Hill. You’ll notice that these are in strips. In the feudal world, they illustrated both the use of crop rotation (different plants in different fields, with some fields allowed to rest), plus fields of the lord of the manor, which the tenants were obliged to tend. In Tolkien’s Shire, as there is no feudal system, we presume the stripping is for rotation.

4hob

Missing, however, from Hobbiton, would be two features you can see in the medieval illustration: a manor house and a church.

In the feudalism mentioned above, this ideal village is part of the social/governmental system in which it is attached to the smallest unit of that system, the manor.

As the chart explains, in the early medieval world, land was power and kings used their claim to control their lands (supposedly given to them by God) as a way to control the state in general. They deeded certain sections of land to their nobles, in return for taxes and military service. Those nobles, in turn, deeded out land to lesser nobles, all the way down to individual knights, who might hold no more than one parcel, or manor, with its house, church, and village of freemen (literally, free men, who could own land but paid taxes to the lord for it), peasants (who were also free, but held no land), and serfs (who were landless as well as being the property of the local lord).

Although Tolkien once described the Shire as “granted as a fief” (Letters, 158) and “half republic half aristocracy” (Letters, 241), it is not a feudal property and therefore lacks those marks of that system, those manor houses.

As well, it is also missing churches, or, for that matter, any form of religious shrine. A real English medieval village, depending on its size and wealth, could have had a very modest building, such as this at Hornblotton, in Somerset.

Or, if your village had become a prosperous town, like Lavenham, in Suffolk, you could even have a mini-cathedral. (Lavenham’s money had come from the international trade in woolen cloth.)

Although Tolkien insisted that there was a monotheistic underlay to Middle-earth in the Third Age, he also says of the folk of the Shire: “I do not think Hobbits practiced any form of worship or prayer (unless through exceptional contact with Elves).” (Letters, 193)

Without manors and churches, the Shire consists of private dwellings and inns. Inns seem to be like their parallels in our medieval world.

And, of course, there are the inns of the Shire and the Prancing Pony in Bree.

Private houses, including farms, however, fall into two categories: traditional hobbit (that is, built into hillsides) and what we might call outside-influence houses. As Tolkien says in the Prologue to The Lord of the Rings:

“All Hobbits had originally lived in holes in the ground, or so they believed…Actually in the Shire of Bilbo’s days it was, as a rule, only the richest and the poorest Hobbits that maintained the old custom. The poorest went on living in burrows of the most primitive kind…while the well-to-do still constructed more luxurious versions of the simple diggings of old…in the hilly regions and the older villages, such as Hobbiton and Tuckborough, or in the chief township of the Shire, Michel Delving on the White Downs, there were now many houses of wood, brick, or stone…Hobbits had long accustomed to build sheds and workshops…

The habit of building farmhouses and barns was said to have begun among the inhabitants of the Marish down by the Brandywine.

It is probable that the craft of building, as many other crafts beside, was derived from the Dunedain. But the Hobbits may have learned it direct from the Elves… “

Our Tolkien illustration of The Hill

shows us both styles. In the background, burrows; in the foreground, outside-influence houses. The traditional style reminds us of something from US western history: the use of “dugouts” as (at least temporary) dwellings as settlers moved west across the plains.

As fans of the Laura Ingalls Wilder books will remember, her family lived in one of these along the banks of Plum Creek in the 1870s.

On a more sinister note, we’ve always wondered whether JRRT’s inspiration for hobbit holes may have come from his time on the Western Front, where, from late 1914, soldiers had burrowed into the earth to protect themselves from enemy attack and from the increasingly inclement weather. The shelters could be simply cutouts in the earth

or very elaborate cottages. The Germans were especially admired for their creativity in building the more elaborate ones.

We can’t mention the Great War and trenches without also mentioning the brilliant Andrew Robertshaw, the English military historian, who actually reconstructed sixty feet of a trench line in his backyard.

He shares his experience in doing this in his book, 24Hr Trench.

511PnAeovzL._SX342_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg

Continuing our medieval parallel, we imagine the outside-influence houses to look something like these:

medhouse1 medhouse2

And, for outbuildings, there are a few surviving medieval barns, like this one:

whose roofs are often held up by the most beautiful woodwork, always reminding us of cathedrals, on the one hand, and sailing ships on the other.

Imagine that this is what Farmer Cotton’s farm might have looked like.

And, with this image, we conclude this posting. In our next, we’re going to move to the edge of the Shire, to discuss marches—geographical ones, that is.

Thanks, as ever, for reading!

MTCIDC

Beaux Gestes? (2)

27 Wednesday Apr 2016

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

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

Welcome, as always, dear readers.

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

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

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

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

In sudden resentment at the contemptuous treatment consistently dealt him by Saruman, Grima Wormtongue has drawn a hidden knife and cut the wizard’s throat.

“To the dismay of those that stood by, about the body of Saruman a grey mist gathered, and rising slowly to a great height like smoke from a fire, as a pale shrouded figure it loomed over the Hill. For a moment it wavered, looking to the West; but out of the West came a cold wind, and it bent away, and with a sigh dissolved into nothing.” The Lord of the Rings, Book 6, Chapter viii.

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

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

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

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

This brings us back to Saruman’s gesture: “For a moment it wavered, looking to the West; but out of the West came a cold wind, and it bent away, and with a sigh dissolved into nothing.”

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

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

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

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

Thanks for reading, as always.

MTCIDC

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

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

Knowledge, Rule, Order

06 Wednesday Jan 2016

Posted by Ollamh in Fairy Tales and Myths, Imaginary History, J.R.R. Tolkien, Military History, Military History of Middle-earth, Narrative Methods

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Adolf Hitler, Anduin, Benedict Cumberbatch, Benito Mussolini, British Government, Charlie Chaplin, dictatorships, England, Gandalf, George V, Germany, Gondor, gothic script, Government, History, India, Isengard, Kaiser Willhelm II, Lenin, Mehmed VI, Middle-earth, monarchs, Mordor, Nazis, newsreel, Numenor, Ottoman Empire, Oz, Peter Jackson, Queen Mary, Queen Victoria, Rohan, Saruman, Sauron, Scott, Smaug, Stalin, Stock Market Crash of 1929, Sultan, The Great Dictator, The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien, Treaty of Versailles, Valar, Victoria Louise, Weimar Republic, William Morris, Writing

Dear Readers,

Welcome, as always.

Have you ever wondered what Middle Earth would have been like if the Fourth Age had begun on a calendar written by Sauron?

That of the Third Age was hardly a democratic paradise: a king rules Rohan, a stand-in for king rules Gondor. Elrond and Celeborn/Galadriel behave and are treated like royalty and Thranduil, as we learn from The Hobbit, is the king of Mirkwood. The dwarves have hereditary rulers. Only the outliers—communities like Bree and the Shire and the earlier inhabitants like Tom Bombadil and Fangorn—appear to be completely independent. (The Shire even has elections and a mayor, although the actual government, except for the shire reeves, appears to bemostly token—you wonder who’s running their seemingly-efficient postal service.)

This is not surprising, not only for an author born during the later years of Victoria,

but also for someone powerfully influenced by the medievalist interests of everyone from Scott

Sir_William_Allan_-_Sir_Walter_Scott,_1771_-_1832._Novelist_and_poet_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg

to William Morris.

(We might add that the world of fairy tales, full of princes and princesses, queens and kings, was also a powerful influence at the time—and not only on story-tellers born in monarchies—after all, even Oz is ruled by a queen—

Yet, after Smaug—who could better be a medieval fantasy villain (especially with the voice of the incomparable Benedict Cumberbatch attached)?

—something changed in Tolkien’s world. In fact, something changed in the whole outside world. With the end of World War One, monarchs toppled all over Europe and beyond, from:

Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany

to Mehmed VI, last Sultan of the Ottoman Empire.

In place of the former, there appeared the always-troubled Weimar Republic, full of good intentions, but badly crippled, not only by the war which had sapped its manpower and resources, but by all kinds of social unrest and then by the Crash of 1929, which notoriously destroyed the value of its currency.

weimar currency.jpg

As early as 1919, there had been clashes among the forces of different ideologies—

CombatesEnBerlín19190903.jpg

And, amidst all of the unrest, there was a failed coup attempt in 1923 by the man in the overcoat in this picture.

Bundesarchiv_Bild_102-00344A,_München,_nach_Hitler-Ludendorff_Prozess.jpg

He, of course, was only following the footsteps of this man, who had pushed his way into power the year before—

to be followed, in turn, by the man on the left, from the mid-1920s.

That first man, having failed at obvious violence, tried again through more complicated means (although still employing violence, if it suited his purposes) and succeeded in 1933.

He was, so we are told, a riveting public speaker, but, if the newsreels we’ve seen are evidence, we guess you would have had to have been there.

Some people thought the style exaggerated in the 1930s and caricatured it even then.

He had a definite social agenda, which he outlined at length and often, although concealing certain of the most horrible aspects. And he liked big words and big concepts, like:

It would have been impossible for someone as intelligent and generally well-informed as Tolkien not to have been very much aware of this man and all of the other like men, busy oppressing as much of the world as they could. And this would have been especially true in a time when radio and film were changing how people received news—and how those interested in influencing others might shape what people saw. As early as 1911, the British government was using newsreel film to show the might and reach of its empire (2/5 of the globe was in their hands) when the king, George V, and his wife, Queen Mary, visited India.

Delhi_Durbar,_1911.jpg

Not to be outdone, Kaiser Wilhelm II encouraged a grand—and filmed–event in 1913, for the wedding of his daughter, Victoria Louise—and some of the film was even in color.

The Marriage of Victoria Louise Color Film

It would be easy to imagine, then, that the weight of such public figures might have influenced Tolkien in his depiction of late-3^rd-Age villains. We can see it in Saruman’s unsuccessful attempt to persuade Gandalf to join him:

“ ‘He drew himself up then and began to declaim, as if he were making a speech long rehearsed. ‘The Elder Days are gone. The Middle Days are passing. The Younger Days are beginning. The time of the Elves is over, but our time is at hand: the world of Men, which we must rule. But we must have power, power to order all things as we will, for that good which only the Wise can see.” (The Fellowship of the Ring, Chapter 2, “The Council of Elrond”)

Thus, unlike the script of Jackson’s version, there is no plan to wipe out men and replace them with orcs. Instead, men are to survive: to be ruled—perhaps under what definitely sounds like it should be a translation from something written in Fraktur—the fake Gothic script favored by the Nazis–

die-schöne-deutsche-Schrift-detail1.jpg

“ ‘We can bide our time,’” says Saruman, “ ‘we can keep our thoughts in our hearts, deploring maybe evils done by the way, but approving the high and ultimate purpose: Knowledge, Rule, Order; all the things that we have so far striven in vain to accomplish…’ ”

Such abstract, but somehow menacing, words sound like a translation of something from Hitler’s Germany: Kenntnisse, Herrschaft, Ordnung. They do not sound in the least like Gandalf’s goals, ever, and he, in fact, replies by implying that not only are they not really Saruman’s words, but that Saruman is foolish for believing them:

“ ‘Saruman,’ I said, ‘I have heard speeches of this kind before, but only in the mouths of emissaries sent from Mordor to deceive the ignorant.’ “

As really the words of Sauron, however, they give us an idea of what to expect in a world under his control. Knowledge would be for Sauron alone, we suppose, perhaps after regaining his lost ring? Certainly he wouldn’t share it with Saruman, whom, it will become clear, he never trusted. As for Rule and Order, the world would be a place full of rules and those watching that they be obeyed. And here we can remember Sharkey’s Shire, with its “by order of the Chief” signs—and its gangs of human enforcers. As well, we can think of its grey, industrial character, as we’ve discussed in a previous post, a universal Mordor, devoted to production. To this, we can add the Mouth of Sauron’s recitation of surrender conditions, delivered to the allies before the Morannon:

“ ‘These are the terms…The rabble of Gondor and its deluded allies shall withdraw at once beyond the Anduin, first taking oaths never again to assail Sauron the Great in arms, open or secret. All lands east of the Anduin shall be Sauron’s for ever, solely. West of the Anduin as far as the Gap of Rohan shall be tributary to Mordor, and men there shall bear no weapons, but shall have leave to govern their own affairs. But they shall help to rebuild Isengard which they have wantonly destroyed, and that shall be Sauron’s, and there his lieutenant shall dwell: not Saruman, but one more worthy of trust.’ “ (The Return of the King, Chapter 10, “The Black Gate Opens”)

In keeping with the influence of current events in this world, we might see this as being a parallel with the 1919 Versailles Treaty, in which Germany was to be forced to make huge territorial concessions, to disarm almost entirely, and to pay massive amounts in reparation to the victorious allies.

Treaty_of_Versailles,_English_version.jpg

The Treaty of Versailles– Wiki Article

Such terms as Sauron offers would also destroy Rohan as an ally and set up a permanent garrison between it and the north. We might also expect the restored Isengard to be a staging area for an assault upon Fangorn and the ents, to their ultimate destruction. As well, “west of the Anduin” is a very vague expression—does it include Gondor, as well as Rohan?

Religion in The Lord of the Rings has always been the subject of debate: how much or how little? Of what kind? Tolkien is quoted as saying that it was monotheistic, although, when attacked by the Mumak, Faramir’s men called on the (plural) Valar. There is no mention, in what is often extremely detailed landscape description, of any kind of temple or shrine, however. Nevertheless, we would like to conclude with an eerie thought about religion in this alternative Fourth Age. The Mouth of Sauron, aka, The Lieutenant of the Tower of Barad-dur, is described as:

“…a renegade, who came of the race of those that are named the Black Numenoreans; for they established their dwellings in Middle-earth during the years of Sauron’s domination, and they worshipped him, being enamoured of evil knowledge.”

Could we imagine that, in this other Fourth Age, a new and horrible religion might have appeared, one dedicated to the worship of Sauron—and to that Knowledge which Saruman finds so important? What do you think, dear readers?

As always, thanks for reading.

MTCIDC

The Return of Who.1?

21 Wednesday Oct 2015

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

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Alfred the Great, British history, Cold War, Edwatd VIII, Elizabeth II, Fairy Tale, George I, George III, George V, George VI, Great Britain, Ireland, James I, Kings, Monarchies, Queen Elizabeth, Queen Victoria, The Lord of the Rings, The Return of the King, Tolkien, Transvaal War

Dear Readers,

Welcome, as always!

In this posting, we want to talk about a larger issue than usual.

JRRT had always thought of The Lord of the Rings as a single work and had been forced to break it up into three parts by his publisher, Allen/Unwin, for financial reasons. The third part of this became “The Return of the King”. If you’ve read us for a while, you have probably decided that, although we are passionate Anglophiles (and Francophiles and Germanophiles and—well, we are World Civ folks—we love every country, young and old, and one of us has spent years very happily teaching World Civilizations, in fact), we are North Americans and, to narrow that, citizens of the USA. This means that we grew up in a democratic republic, the descendants of people who separated themselves from control by the 18^th-century monarchical government of George III of Great Britain by violent means.

Thus, the idea of “king” is rather an abstract one for us, rather fairy-talish, in fact, as distant as the traditional opening of Irish fairy tales which began “A king there was, over all of Ireland”.

So, what might the idea of that title, “The Return of the King” have meant to JRRT, when he chose it?

When JRRT was born, in 1892, Victoria had been the ruler of the UK since 1837.

She was a grandma in 1892.

The Queen could easily trace her descent back to George I (1660-1727), and, through him, back all the way to the eldest daughter of James I, Elizabeth (1596-1662).

Because JRRT lived until 1973, in his lifetime, the English monarchs were:

(whose death brought together all of Victoria’s grandsons, monarchs of various sorts—see the FILM CLIP)

George V

Edward VIII

George VI

Elizabeth II

During his lifetime, there had been a great colonial war (the Transvaal War, 1899-1902), two world wars, and the Cold War, and yet Britain survived them all under this succession of monarchs. “The King” in “The Return of…”, then, might be thought to have a very special meaning, one of unwavering stability. In the Shire in Middle Earth in the 3^rd Age, for example:

“There remained, of course, the ancient tradition concerning the high king at Fornost, or Norbury as they called it, away north of the Shire. But there had been no king for nearly a thousand years, and even the ruins of Kings’ Norbury were covered with grass. Yet the Hobbits still said of wild folk and wicked things (such as trolls) that they had not heard of the king. For they attributed to the king of old all their essential laws; and usually they kept the laws of free will, because they were The Rules (as they said), both ancient and just.” (The Lord of the Rings, 9)

And that “nearly a thousand years”, in terms of British history could easily be taken in reverse, with the foundations of the modern British monarchy—the one Tolkien spent his life being ruled by—appearing with Alfred the Great (849-899AD—and interesting to think that Alfred’s name may be spelled, in Old English, “Aelf-raed”, which means something like “elf counsel” or “wise elf”)—that is, about a thousand years before Tolkien’s birth in 1892.

This is, of course, a secular monarch. Tolkien being a devout Catholic (as well as one who wanted great depth in his Middle Earth), could there be another dimension? We’ll talk about that in our next posting…

Thanks, again, for reading.

MTCIDC

doubtfulsea

~ adventure fantasy

Tag Archives: Queen Victoria

Thrones or Dominions, Principalities or Powers (1)

Lent to a Museum (Mathom.2)

Crowning Achievement

Shire Portrait (3b)

Beaux Gestes? (2)

Knowledge, Rule, Order

The Return of Who.1?