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

Spare Change?

19 Wednesday Apr 2017

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

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1909 penny, Abraham Lincoln, Alexander the Great, Aragorn, Asia Minor, Augustus, bartering, Bilbo's birthday, British Royal Government, Brutus, Charlemagne, Classical Greek coins, Cleopatra VII, Coinage, daggers, Denethor, Domitian, Egypt, federal law, Frankish king, freedman, George Washington, Gondor, Greek Kings, Hanoverian kings, Hellenistic Greeks, Holy Roman Emperor, Ides of March, Julio-Claudian dynasty, Julius Caesar, libertus, Lucius Plaetorius Cestianus, Lydia, manumission, Middle-earth, Pennies, pilleum, Plebeians, portrait, Prince Charles, Ptolemy I, Queen Elizabeth II, Roman Empire, Romans, Seleucus, Senatus Consulto, The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien

Welcome, dear readers, as always.

We are veering a little to the left in this posting inspired by a comment on “Shire Portrait (2)” from our good friend, EMH. It was about currency and coins in Middle-earth and we were a little vague, but E pointed out:

Bilbo giving “a few pennies away” before the party
the price of Bill, the pony: “twelve silver pennies”
Gandalf praising Barliman and saying his news was “worth a gold piece at the least.”

With E in mind, we decided to do another posting on M-e money. Long ago, we did a posting on imagined currency in Middle-earth, but, since then, we’ve thought a bit more about the subject, and, right now, dear readers, we ask you to produce a coin, any coin. As we live in the US, here’s a US coin, a fourth of a dollar, hence, a “quarter”.

This is the front, or “obverse” in coin speech, and we’re going to focus on that and not on the back (the “reverse”). We use coins all day long every day, so we probably don’t look at them more than to note value when we pay for something or receive change, but let’s look at this one a bit more closely.

It seems pretty simple:

at the top a single word, “Liberty”
then a low relief (that is, cut very shallowly) portrait of the first president, General George Washington
then, to the left, a slogan, “In God We Trust”
at the bottom, the date, 1993

Let’s start with that date—1993. In 1993, the president was Bill Clinton.

Federal law, however, prevents coins—with very special and rare exceptions—to bear the portraits of living people. The first president on a coin was Abraham Lincoln, on a penny first minted to commemorate his 100^th birthday, in 1909.

The previous coin, up to 1909, had the idealized head of a Native American,

the pattern for which was first introduced in 1859.

The first coin in western European history is from the late 8^th century BC, and comes from Lydia, in Asia Minor.

Classical Greek coins seem to model themselves on Lydian coins like this, having badges–city emblems and religious tokens, like the famous Athenian owl, rather than portraits of humans, like that quarter with George Washington on it.

During the Hellenistic Period (post about 300bc and on), however, the Greek kings, from Greece to Asia Minor to Egypt, all began to issue coins with portraits of themselves. These were, initially, the generals of Alexander the Great, who, at Alexander’s death, had grabbed portions of his empire for themselves. We think of Seleucus, who controlled much of Asia Minor

Or of Ptolemy I,

the founder of a dynasty which ruled Egypt for nearly 300 years until their final descendant, Cleopatra VII, was defeated by the Romans.

Those Romans, we imagine inspired by the Hellenistic Greeks, produced coins by the bushel .(this is an obsolete dry measurement, based upon what you can put into a basket like this:

which was, in fact, made up of four pecks

which could also be divided into two kennings of two pecks apiece.)

Considering that Rome produced coins from the late 4^th century bc to late in the 5^th century ad, it’s not surprising that there would be so many—and considering the size of the Roman empire, as well.

Earlier Roman coins had been unlike Hellenistic coins, however, in not depicting living people—that is, until Julius Caesar gained power.

This opened the floodgates and it’s easy to see why.

Coins are short-hand wealth, originally standing in for earlier barter items, like flocks and herds.

As Romans spread out beyond farms and local markets, the wealth in animals and agricultural produce, as well as raw materials, was simply not portable enough, as this cartoon shows.

By making tokens which were accepted as a stand- in for that wealth, the agency which did so was asserting its claim to have a strong hand in, if not control of, the economy.

Julius Caesar, who had already forced the Senate to make him “Dictator for Life” (that “S…C” on both sides of his profile stands for “Senatus Consulto”—“by a decree of the Senate”), by putting his face on the currency is implying that he now is the state—and therefore possesses a power which extends to regulating the money economy by which people live and survive or prosper. (There may be a quiet joke here, as well. “SC” was stamped on bronze coins to guarantee their worth—on the back side—to have those letters surrounding Caesar on the front side, the obverse, may suggest a double meaning: he is dictator by Senatorial decree, but his worth is also being guaranteed by that decree.)

It is no surprise, then, that Brutus, one of those who murdered Caesar, would, in turn, issue his own coins—and these are even more heavily symbolic.

On the obverse, there is Brutus, his name above, to our right his title “imp[erator]”—a title given to a general by his soldiers with the implication “You rule!” To our left is an abbreviated form of the name of the moneyer, the man who directed the mint, L[ucius] Plaet[orius] Cest[ianus]. Although we said that we would only examine obverses, we can’t resist the reverse here. At the bottom is the inscription, “eid mar”, standing for “eides Martis”, the “Ides of March”, the 15^th of March, the day Caesar was murdered. Above that is a “pilleum”, the kind of cap worn by a slave during the ceremony called “manumission”, in which a he was turned into a “libertus”, or “freedman”.

To both sides of the cap are daggers.

Put all of this together and we see Brutus’ claim: on the 15^th of March, we murdered Caesar and, as a consequence, we freed Rome from its slavery.

Coins like Caesar’s and Brutus’ are simple in their claims. Later emperors were less so. Look at this coin of Domitian (81-96ad).

On the rim of the obverse is a pile of information:

Imp[erator] Caes[ar] Domit[ianus] Aug[ustus] Germ[anicus] P[ontifex] M[aximus] Tr[ibunicia P[otestas] VIII

“Emperor Caesar Domitianus Augustus Germanicus, Chief Priest of Rome, Holding the Power of the Representative of the People 8 Times”

In fact, Domitian was sailing under false colors—Caesar, Augustus, and Germanicus all belong to the earlier Julio-Claudian dynasty, of which his family was not a part. As for “Holding the Power of the Representative of the People”, this was an ancient elective office, which allowed a member of the lower class, the Plebeians, special powers in the legislative process. As emperor and son of an emperor most of a century after elections had been abolished, this looked like an honor, but was just an empty title. “Chief Priest” had once been an extremely important position in the state, but, from the time of the first emperor, Augustus, it had simply become another title emperors claimed.

Later European rulers, eager to suggest that they were as powerful as the ancient Romans, used Roman coins as a model. Here’s one from Charlemagne, Frankish king and first Holy Roman Emperor (768-814).

Returning to our George Washington quarter,

let’s look at the comparatively meager inscriptional material. If the coin of Domitian had so much to tell us about how important he was, the inscription on the quarter has a very different message, its focus being upon cultural values: 1.freedom; 2. religion. In our culture, probably everyone would agree with 1, but our ancestor/founders were very adamant on the subject of keeping church and state completely apart, with no influence of either upon the either, so that that 2, “In God We Trust”, shows that there is some confusion about those values. In any case, the plainness might remind us of Caesar’s coin more than Domitian’s, but, in both cases, the point of the artwork and labeling is to put the government’s stamp, whether republic or empire, upon the everyday life of everyone who buys and sells.

There is another message to be read here, as well. The George Washington quarter was first issued on Washington’s 200^th birthday, in 1932, and is still on the obverse of the quarter, suggesting the continuity of what he stood for. In the case of monarchs, however, each new emperor/king/queen demands the issuing of new coinage, with the new ruler’s portrait, suggesting not only royal government continuity, but also, in some cases royal family continuity. Here are the first four Hanoverian kings of England, for example, all sons or grandsons, from 1714 to 1830.

So, When Prince Charles succeeds his mother, Elizabeth II,

new coins will have to be minted.

And this brings us back to Middle-earth and to a puzzle about Gondor. There are certainly coins, as our good friend has thoughtfully pointed out. There has been no king on the throne of Gondor for many centuries, however. If Denethor’s behavior is anything to go by, the Stewards have become kings in everything but title, even though Denethor avoids the royal throne. If everyone from the Hellenistic kings to Elizabeth II has his/her portrait on the coinage, are the Stewards on Gondor’s? And what happens when Aragorn becomes King Aragorn II Elessar?

MTCIDC

Mathoms and Fathoms

18 Wednesday Jan 2017

Posted by Ollamh in Economics in Middle-earth, Imaginary History, J.R.R. Tolkien, Literary History, Research, Uncategorized

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Across the Doubtful Sea, alternate history, anachronisms, Anglo-Saxon, Bertil Thorvaldsen, cabinet of curiosities, Cicero, Elias Ashmole, Gaius Verres, Greeks, Hellenistic, hobbit measurement system, John Tradescant the Younger, Marquette University, mathom, Mathom-house, mathum, Muses, Oxford, Renaissance, Rochester, Romans, sculptor, Shire, Strong Museum of Play, The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien, Victorian Museum

Welcome, dear readers, as always.

A year or two ago, we were visiting the Strong Museum of Play in Rochester, New York, a wonderful place, filled with memorabilia of childhood, as well as up-to-date exhibits and generally just fun things to see and do. (Strong Museum website)

Museums, as public display areas, are rather recent in western history.

The name tells us that it was to be a place devoted to the inspirers of the arts, the ancient Greek Muses.

(This is not ancient, but a 19^th-century imitation by Bertil Thorvaldsen, 1770-1844, one of the early Romantic period’s most famous sculptors.)

Greeks—later ones (in the period called “Hellenistic”)—and the Romans collected artistic things, but they were private collections—although Cicero

in his orations attacking the corrupt ex-governor of Sicily, Gaius Verres, mentions that a predecessor had nobly allowed his art to be loaned out to decorate the public streets on festive occasions. (It is a horrible irony that Verres, who had fled Rome when it was clear that Cicero had demolished him and his reputation in his first speech, was eventually murdered in Massilia—present-day Marseilles–over a piece of sculpture.)

The first actual “museums” in modern times were Renaissance collections—often hodgepodge assemblies called things like “cabinet of curiosities”, but in England, by the 17^th century, John Tradescant the Younger (1608-1662)

had built upon his father’s collection, which was held in the family house south of the Thames (called “The Ark”).

At his death, that collection passed to Elias Ashmole (1617-1692)

—and there’s a really strange story about how this happened and the consequences, including the very suspicious death of Tradescant’s second wife, Hester.

Ashmole bequeathed it to his alma mater, Oxford, on the condition that an appropriate building be constructed for it. That structure was built, in 1678-83, and may have been the first public museum in western Europe.

There is, in fact, a museum in the Shire. In the Prologue to The Lord of the Rings, we are told of Bilbo that:

“…his coat of marvellous mail, the gift of the Dwarves from the Dragon-hoard, he lent to a museum, to the Michel Delving Mathom-house, in fact.”

(where Gandalf supposes it is “still gathering dust”—The Fellowship of the Ring, Book 2, Chapter 4, “A Journey in the Dark”). Its name and function are described in the Prologue:

“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.”

Such a description suggests something more like an old-fashioned Victorian museum,

or even a “cabinet of curiosities” like Ole Worm’s 17^th-century one.

We suspect that the Mathom-house is JRRT’s quiet joke on such older museums, which, even in his day, could be filled with dusty glass cases in which were a wide variety of objects, from fossils to rusty weapons found in the fields, all described on yellowing, hand-labeled cards. In the Hammond and Scull Companion, they suggest that the joke is even more complex, first quoting Tolkien “mathom is meant to recall ancient English mathm”, to which they add:

“Bosworth and Toller’s Anglo-Saxon Dictionary (1898) notes mathum ‘a precious or valuable thing (often refers to gifts)’. Thus Tolkien uses mathom ironically for things which are not treasured, only for where there was ‘no immediate use’ or which the Hobbits ‘were unwilling to throw away’.”

The Strong Museum, in contrast, is bright-colored and inviting, and, in a section dedicated to children’s authors, there is an entire display case devoted to JRRT, which included this. It’s a beautiful replica from the Marquette University Tolkien archive of a menu (the label gives the date “1937-1955”) on which JRRT has carefully written out the hobbit linear measurement system.

You can see that, unlike the rather abstract mechanism of the metric system, with its linear basis being a segment of the distance from the North Pole to the equator, Tolkien has used the Anglo-Saxon tradition, where the “foot” was actually originally based upon body parts, being divided into 4 palms or 12 thumbs (although there is another system based upon barley corns).

And, just to confirm this, to the right of his bold numbers, there are fainter numbers which indicate the English equivalents.

This system, as ingenious and carefully-worked out as it is, is never used, either in The Hobbit or in The Lord of the Rings. The measurements we can remember—this was done off the top of our heads—any reader who would like to supply more, please feel free!– actually being used are:

leagues (about 3 miles per league is pretty standard = 4.8km)
ells—30 make the coil of elven rope Sam takes from the boat in The Fellowship of the Ring, Book 2, Chapter 8, “Farewell to Lorien” (one ell = about 45 inches = 114 cm; 30 ells = about 112 feet = about 34 metres)
inches–Sam, in The Return of the King, Book 6, Chapter 4, “The Field of Cormallen”, comments that Merry and Pippin are “three inches taller than you ought to be” (3 inches = 7.6cm)

Why spend so much time and effort on something which never went anywhere farther than a menu card in an archive, then?

It’s possible, of course, that this was written in a moment of boredom: although we don’t actually know the occasion, we can imagine that the menu was for a formal dinner to which JRRT had been obliged to go and he improved upon a dull moment with a little Middle-earth fun. Then again, the dating of the card, “1937-1955” places it between the publication of The Hobbit and that of The Lord of the Rings: was this something worked up to be employed in the latter, but simply never needed—or was it, once produced, abandoned as too obscure and hence the use of the (potentially) more familiar leagues, ells, and inches? Or, again, was this simply a product of the almost-obsessive side of JRRT, where so much was so painstakingly created in fine detail? Here is another item from the Strong Museum which displays that side. It is a working-out of the phases of the moon for The Lord of the Rings (sorry it’s a little blurry—this was taken through plexiglass with an i-phone).

In an early posting, we once wrote about achieving authenticity in a fantasy novel. Our first, Across the Doubtful Sea, which was set in an alternate 18^th century, in France, in London, in South America, and in the South Pacific, required a great deal of research.

To prepare for it, we spent some time reading books on everything from 18^th-century navies to South Pacific exploration (and even posted a partial bibliography). Much of our research went into the finished book, but much never did. What we hoped, however, was that, by having so much background in our heads, that background would be reflected in our text. That meant, even if it were an alternate 18^th-century, there wouldn’t be glaring anachronisms, on the one hand, but, on the other, that we would give our work a “feel” for the period which would be convincing to our readers and so increase both their engagement and their enjoyment. We would like to think that JRRT, when scribbling hobbit measures on a menu card, had had the same goals.

Thanks, as always, for reading.

MTCIDC

We’ve had the crazy idea to build our own imaginary Mathom-house for the works of JRRT and we’re having fun thinking what visitors would see hung from the walls or lying in the cases. Readers: what would you like to see on display?

Strange as News from Bree

03 Wednesday Feb 2016

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

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

Welcome, dear readers, as always.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here, the Hobbits stay at the Prancing Pony.

Tolkien describes it as

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

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

And we begin our research inside.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

or, if you are rich, this—

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thanks, as always, for reading.

MTCIDC

And Whither Then?

25 Wednesday Nov 2015

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

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Adrien Guignet, Aeneid, art, bibliomancy, Bilbo, Birth of Venus, Bouguereau, chimp painting, Chinese, critics, Cumae, Delphi, Etruscans, Frodo, future, Genesis, Greeks, Homer, Impressionism, It's a dangerous business going out your door, Joseph, Kansas City Royals, Monet, New York Mets, Oedipus, plastrons, prophetic, prophetic books, Pythia, Romans, Scapula, Sibyls, Sortes Tolkienses, Sortes Vergilianae, the Bible, The Lord of the Rings, The New Testament, Tolkien, Vergil, World Series, Zhang Dynasty

“It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your front door. You step onto the Road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to.” (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book 1, Chapter 3)

Dear Readers,

Welcome, as always. In this posting, we want to propose an aid for that dangerous business to which Frodo is referring when he quotes Bilbo.

The desire to know what will happen next makes for good novel readers—and writers—but it’s also an ancient human desire.

The Old Testament gives us a pharaoh with dreams, which Joseph interprets (Genesis 41-44) and which provides us with this splendid picture by Adrien Guignet (1816-1854).

(This is an example of a whole world of painting which was devalued and declared stuffy and old-fashioned and pompous once Impressionism—which was originally mocked as just that, “impressions” rather than paintings—gained a foothold among art-buyers and the more progressive art critics. To us, although it may not have the wonderful fragmentations and color-freshness of those later painters, such older works have great importance historically—it’s the yin to the Impressionists’ yang, after all—and the over-the-top quality of some things—like this “Birth of Venus” by Bouguereau—1825-1905—has, we think, its own loopy charm.

You see what we mean about yin/yang, however, when we compare it with this Monet, painted in the same year—1879. If you were brought up on academic painters like Bouguereau, Monet’s work must have looked like chimp paintings!

)

The Chinese of the Zhang Dynasty (1500-1000BC) used turtle plastrons and cow shoulder blades to consult about the future.

The Greeks had a number of prophetic sites, like Delphi, with its Pythia.

And the Romans had several methods, beginning with what they inherited from their big brothers to the north, the Etruscans.

And, yes, this is a sheep’s liver, done in bronze. What does it do? Lots of discussion about that! It appears to have gods and perhaps constellations, or at least the sky, involved. (For more and some useful references, google “liver of Piacenza”)

The Romans consulted the insides of selected animals

and the flying patterns of birds

although this could lead to the occasional argument

as well as their own counterpart to people like the Pythia at Delphi, the Sibyls. One Sibyl, who was reputed to live at Cumae, even had a collection of prophetic books which talked about the future.

Later Romans also consulted a particular book, Vergil’s Aeneid, the idea being that you would open the book (a scroll, early on, a book—a codex—in later imperial times), close your eyes, run your finger along the lines and stop—and the line your finger was on would tell you something about the future. This is a form of bibliomancy, or telling the future by using a book. Ancients might choose Homer, or, in this case, Vergil (the Aeneid) or, for the Judeo-Christian tradition, the Bible. If you use Vergil, the practice is called Sortes Vergilianae (“Vergilian lots”—that is to say, not building sites—although one could build an interpretation upon one—but things used to determine the fate of something).

Today, we, as Tolkien fans, propose to add another text, suggesting Sortes Tolkienses (SOR-tes tol-kee-EN-ses). Pick up your copy of The Lord of the Rings, and ask it a question. Then close your eyes, open the book (make sure that it is rightsideup before you do this—although perhaps upsidedown would provide a greater-yet feel of randomness), run your index finger down the page, stop, open eyes, and read.

For our first try, we asked it who would win this year’s World Series, the New York Mets or the Kansas City Royals.

Hmm. Page 351 of the 2004 HarperCollins edition.

“…Frodo felt that he was in a timeless land that did not fade or change or fall into forgetfulness.”

Well, this is the 111^th World Series—that would certainly suggest a kind of timelessness, we supposed. Then there was that business about not fading or changing—which team had won the Series last? A quick flick through statistics gave us the Royals in 1985 and the Mets in 1986. Okay. Does that mean that, since the Mets won more recently, that wouldn’t change?

Should we try again? Influenced by the rash Oedipus, asking the Pythia only one question and not pausing for clarification, we decided that it meant the Mets.

But then the Royals won.

So, we leave it to you, dear readers. You consult the Sortes Tolkienses—just make sure that the course of your life—or your team—doesn’t depend upon it!

Thanks, as always, for reading.

MTCIDC

There is a very entertaining experiment with the more established Sortes Vergilianae to be found by googling timesonline.typepad.com/dons_life/2012/03/sortes-virgilianae.html—an essay by the ever-lively Mary Beard.

Seeing the Elephant– Oliphaunt

30 Wednesday Sep 2015

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

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

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

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

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

Dear Readers,

Welcome, as always.

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

Sam does see one, however:

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

Here’s how the film shows two of them:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

with those in the film

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

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

Thanks, as always, for reading!

MTCIDC

It Will Have To Be Paid For!

12 Wednesday Aug 2015

Posted by Ollamh in Economics in Middle-earth, J.R.R. Tolkien, Maps

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Asia Minor, Bilbo, Bronze, Chinese, Coinage, Currency, Deagol, Egyptians, Germanic, Gondor, Greeks, Isengard, Italy, Middle-earth, Moria, Pennies, Rohan, Roman Coins, Roman Roads, Romans, Saruman, Shire, Silver, Smeagol, Sumerians, Theodric, Tolkien, Trade, Treasure

Dear Readers,

Welcome, as always!

We recently wrote about Saruman and his pipeweed trade along the North-South and Great East Roads, and concluded that those roads reminded us of Roman Roads. Looking at road networks from both Rome and Middle-earth, we see both as just that, networks, lines of communication which travel to and from central points.

The roads of Middle-earth don’t appear to be so elaborately constructed and paved, of course, but then, at least for many centuries before The Lord of the Rings, there had been no central authority to maintain the system.

Although the idea of a Roman road—especially one that is incomplete or ruinous–

gives us a similar image.

But there’s still something missing—Saruman has roads and connections, but how would he have paid for the pipeweed? He could have used a barter system, although that would mean understanding what it would be that he might use—raw material from the mountains? Some sort of manufactured goods made at Isengard? This could certainly be so, if we’re thinking of Middle-earth as a place set in pre-currency times, such as the Sumerians and the Egyptians, who managed their extensive trade just fine without a single coin.

And we could just leave it at that, but then there’s a clue in the first chapter of The Fellowship of the Ring which suggests that the actual commercial system is based upon currency.

“When the old man, helped by Bilbo and some dwarves, had finished unloading, Bilbo gave a few pennies away…” LOTR 25

Bilbo is rumored to have treasure hidden away in his hobbit-hole, with much speculation from all,

“’There’s a tidy bit of money tucked away up there, I hear tell,’ said a stranger… ‘All the top of your hill is full of tunnels packed with chests of gold and silver…’” LOTR 23

And the Shire isn’t the only place where pennies are used—when Sam wants to purchase Bill the pony in Bree,

“Bill Ferny’s price was twelve silver pennies; and that was indeed at least three times the pony’s value in those parts.” LOTR 175

This indicates a standard value based upon that currency, which one assumes was universal (with a tone in the text which implies that everyone might share that opinion), and old enough that it was the accepted modus for buying and selling. As Tolkien himself once wrote:

“I am not incapable or unaware of economic thought; and I think as far as the ‘mortals’ go, Men, Hobbits, and Dwarfs, that the situations are so devised that economic likelihood is there and can be worked out…” LT, L.154 P.196.

Thus, although he was clearly aware of such economic transactions, he didn’t need them for a plot and Merry and Pippin’s food and drink–and smoke–are simply there–with the implication that Saruman’s reach is longer than anyone has assumed.

In fact, there are very few scenes where money is needed at all—the Prancing Pony is the only inn they come across on the road, and the Fellowship otherwise camps out until they are taken in at Lorien, Edoras, and Gondor, and a guest/host relationship becomes a major part of the story. We’ve actually even seen this sort of thing near the very beginning of the story, when Frodo becomes Elf-friend to Gildor, and is awarded provisions (and a hearty breakfast) for their journey.

We have only a little knowledge of the commercial world of Middle Earth, as you can see, and no description of “pennies”, except that some are silver. What might they have looked like? In our earlier essays, we’ve used parallels from the history of our earth, just as JRRT might used road systems which could easily have been influenced by the Roman roads which once connected so much of Britain, to build the roads in Middle-earth. Some of those Roman roads, even in his time, were still visible–some even still used (although usually paved over).

Using our parallel method, we turn to Roman coinage.

We’re dealing with silver coinage in northwest Middle-earth, where Saruman’s imports come from, and if we’re thinking about Rome, we’d be looking at a time where coinage had already existed. We have no idea when coins were first issued in Middle Earth–considering how complexly organized the North and South Kingdoms had been for many centuries, we would imagine that a thousand years before the events of The Lord of the Rings probably wouldn’t be too soon. We have a small piece of evidence from some five hundred years before, when Deagol says to Smeagol:

“’I don’t care,’ said Déagol, ‘I have given you a present already, more than I could afford.’” LOTR, 52

In Rome, silver coinage was introduced in 269 BC, courtesy of the Greeks, after the Romans had been using bronze.

Coins originated in Asia Minor in the 6^th c. BC and quickly caught on, being a convenient and highly portable way of transporting wealth—it was much easier to carry and design to designate between currencies, and the Chinese even began to manufacture coins which could be strung together.

In Middle-earth, this would make it easier to trade beyond the borders of a local market, or even the Shire–and would certainly have been accepted at The Prancing Pony.

All of this leads, however, to Questions for Further Study, as textbooks often say. Currency needs backing—the Roman republic and then the empire backed Roman coins. What backed those pennies in the Shire and beyond?Imagine that, in Middle-earth, the major legitimate government was Gondor—would these pennies have been originally Gondor-issued? If so, perhaps just what happened to Roman currency in late imperial times might have happened in Middle-earth—as Rome began to fall apart, semi-independent governments began to issue coins on their own, such as Theodric, the Germanic ruler of Northeastern Italy:

Visually, they remind us–and they were certainly intended to–of imperial coins, with their images of Roman emperors. Theodoric, even with his unusual hairstyle, meant to be seen as a new ruler for an old Rome. Can we imagine dwarf coins, perhaps issued from the Moria mint? And, when we remember that Mordor has tried to acquire horses from Rohan, what would Mordorian currency have looked like? And, returning to Saruman for a final time—if he paid for pipeweed in coins, did they bear a white hand?

Thanks, as ever, for reading,

MTCIDC,

Ringed In

05 Wednesday Aug 2015

Posted by Ollamh in J.R.R. Tolkien

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Tags

Anglo-Saxon, Bilbo, Deagol, Dwarves, Elves, Faramir, Frodo, Gandalf, Gollum, Gondor, Isildur, Kenning, Lorien, Men, Nazgul, Ring, Ring-bearer, Roman senator, Romans, Sam, Sauron, Silmaril, The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien, Tom Bombadil

Dear Readers, as always, welcome!

Everyone at all interested in the works of Tolkien knows this passage (and many could recite it by heart, we’re sure):

“Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky,

Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone,

Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die,

One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne

In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.

One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,

One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them

In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.” LoTR 50.

But why a ring? Since the Ring is about power, why not something which looks like power:

a sword, for example

or a crown

or even, considering Tolkien’s own mythology, a silmaril.

In The Hobbit of 1937, the Ring was originally simply a magic ring right out of folk and fairy tales, with apparently one gift, invisibility, for which Gollum treasures it.

As is well known, Tolkien reconsidered its powers and, as The Lord of the Rings grew, the ring became the Ring, and the central focus of the sequel to the earlier book. By the beginning of the 1950s, he states (in a letter to Milton Waldman dated by Carpenter/C. Tolkien as “probably written late in 1951” LTR 143):

“the primary symbolism of the Ring, as the will to mere power, seeking to make itself objective by physical force and mechanism, and so also inevitably by lies…” LTR 160.

(by “mere” we imagine that Tolkien is using the word here in its original Latin—merus –a –um— sense of “pure/unmixed”)

Although this tells us something about the force within the Ring, it doesn’t really explain why a ring.

Rings are an ancient status symbol, certainly. The Romans used them as one of the ways to show the class of a person: senators wore gold ones (although there is an old story that, originally, Roman senators wore rings made of iron)

and the other free classes wore any metal they chose. Tolkien would have had a vivid idea of the inherent status in a ring from Old English, as one of the kennings (poetic metaphorical phrases) for a great lord was “ring-giver”

—just as Sauron gives rings to the ancient kings and so holds their allegiance long after their natural lives should have ended.

This is echoed in “and in the darkness bind them” , which brings us back to those verses with which we began.

In them, the Ring’s powers are clearly laid out (rather like Saruman’s claimed goals, “Knowledge, rule, order”): rule, find, bring, bind.

As Gandalf tells us, the primary reason for the creation of the Ring was, in fact, to rule, both the other rings and, through them, Middle-earth and its peoples: Elves, Dwarves, Men. To do so, Sauron endowed the Ring with much of his own power, a perfect example of his arrogance, depriving himself of power he might need, clearly convinced that he would suffer no harm from its lack.

As he endows the Ring, it seems that he—intentionally?—passed on to it a small bit of his self-will. Unlike inanimate objects in our world (and we presume in Middle-earth, too), the Ring not only shows purpose, but can act upon it.

As Gandalf tells Frodo:

“A Ring of Power looks after itself…It was not Gollum, Frodo, but the Ring itself decided things. The Ring left him…The Ring was trying to get back to its master.” LotR 55.

To do so, it uses another of its powers, it brings people to use as vehicles, discarding them when they have served its purpose.

“It had slipped from Isildur’s hand,” says Gandalf (a hand already under the Ring’s control, as it couldn’t force itself to destroy the Ring when it had the chance) and betrayed him; then when a chance came it caught poor Deagol, and he was murdered and after that Gollum, and it had devoured him. It could make no further use of him: he was too small and mean…So now, when its master was awake once more…it abandoned Gollum, only to be picked up by…Bilbo.” LotR 55-56.

To acquire such vehicles, the Ring uses a third power, finding. Gandalf’s list suggests that that power entails some innate ability to sense who will be most attracted to it. They appear to be rather a wide assortment, from the heir to the throne of Gondor to two proto-hobbits. And there are also those not on Gandalf’s list: Saruman and even, to some degree, Galadriel. As for Gandalf himself, he, like the Lady of Lorien, is wise enough to avoid the ultimate temptation, as is Faramir, perhaps because, as his father accuses him, he has been Gandalf’s pupil and has acquired some of his awareness both of events and of himself.

Our list would not be complete, however, without Frodo and Sam. It is hard to imagine that the Ring has picked them: Frodo, after all, has inherited it. This doesn’t mean that he is not influenced by it, even, at the end, sounding more like Isildur than himself in his refusing to destroy it, suggesting that, even by inheritance, someone can be found, brought, and ruled. And Sam? He holds it only briefly, but surrenders it so easily that it appears to have little ultimate power over him, something which he shares with Tom Bombadil, perhaps because both are grounded—quite literally—in Middle-earth. It is no surprise that Galadriel gives him a gift for growing things and that, in his consolation of Sam, Frodo says that he will be “the most famous gardener in history” (LoTR 1029). As for Bombadil, it would appear that the same sort of protection which keeps Sam from being found, brought, and ruled keeps him safe. When he holds up the Ring and looks through it, for a moment we might see that, for him, the symbolism of the “will to mere power” means nothing and, instead, he sees it only as an empty metal band.

For others, from the Nazgul to Frodo, who never feels whole again, the fourth power, binding, has done its job and also perhaps, in doing so, answers the question, why a ring?

What better binder than a perfect circle, seemingly blank, but with a hidden message, almost a spell, and which, when put on, pulls you from the daylight world and, which, worn too long, can keep you there forever?

Thanks, as ever, for reading.

MTCIDC

doubtfulsea

~ adventure fantasy

Tag Archives: Romans

Crowning Achievement

Spare Change?

Mathoms and Fathoms

Strange as News from Bree

And Whither Then?

Seeing the Elephant– Oliphaunt

It Will Have To Be Paid For!

Ringed In