Eternally Yours, or Do You Believe in Magic?

06 Wednesday Jun 2018

Posted by Ollamh in Artists and Illustrators, Fairy Tales and Myths, Films and Music, Literary History, Military History

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17th Century fashion, AB Durand, American Revolution, Arthur Rackham, Battle of Kolin, Bram Stoker, Captain Hook, Charles II, Christopher Lee, Darling Family, Darlings, Disney, Dracula, Fenian Cycle, Frederick the Great, Gerald du Maurier, Half Moon ship, Hudson River, J.M. Barrie, N.C. Wyeth, Neverland, Nina Boucicault, Oscar Wilde, Peter and Wendy, Peter Pan, Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, Rip Van Winkle, Saruman, Tepes, The Little White Bird, The Lord of the Rings, The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Wanderings of Oisin, Tinkerbell, Tir na nOg, Tolkien, vampire, Vlad, Washington Irving, WB Yeats

Welcome, as ever, dear readers.

In our last, we spent some time thinking about immortality and Middle-earth. Our main focus was upon the puzzle of Saruman’s seeming dissolution after his murder by Grima.

As one of the Maiar, it would seem that Saruman was, at least potentially, immortal, but his melancholy disappearance would suggest otherwise—perhaps because of his gradual betrayal of the trust the Valar had put in him to be an opponent of Sauron?

We had begun, however, with Bram Stoker’s (1847-1912)

1897 vampire classic, Dracula, and this has made us consider what appears to have been a popular theme in the late-Victorian-to-Edwardian literature we imagine JRRT read, growing up: immortality (or at least lengthened life-span) through, for want of a better word, magic, and several instances immediately spring to mind.

As for Dracula, we know that he was based upon a real late-15^th-century eastern European border lord, Vlad, nicknamed “Tepes” (said TSE-pesh), “impaler”, who lived from about 1428 to 1477, when he was murdered.

Stoker’s character has somehow avoided that death and has lived on for a further 500 years—how? By being “un-dead”, a condition whose origin is never really explained, but in which a dead person continues to exist—and even flourish—if able to feed upon the blood of living people. As this is not scientifically possible—dead is dead and actual vampire bats, after all, are alive, even if they drink blood.

All that we can say, then, is that, for all of one of the protagonists’, Dr. van Helsing’s, talk of science, we have no idea what gives Dracula his extended life–though here’s Christopher Lee, as Dracula,

from the 1958 film, Dracula (in the US, Horror of Dracula), with the basis of his continued existence fresh on his lips.

Considering our last post, by the way, it’s an odd coincidence that, in 1958, Lee could play Dracula and in 2001-2003, he would play Saruman.

A few years before Stoker’s novel, in 1889, the young WB Yeats (1865-1939)

had published The Wanderings of Oisin (AW-shin).

This is the story in verse based upon material from the “Fenian Cycle”, the third series of tales about early Ireland preserved by medieval monks. Yeats’ poem deals with an ancient Irish hero who traveled to the Otherworld, spent years there without knowing that it’s a place where time works differently, and returned, only to find that he’d been gone for 300 years and, once he’d actually touched Irish soil, he immediately changed from a vigorous young man to someone 3 centuries old. The place to which Oisin traveled, called Tir na nOg, “the Land of Youth”, is, unfortunately, not found on any ancient map, so, like Dracula’s vampirism, it is simply accepted.

This time-warp also makes us think of the 1819 story of Rip Van Winkle, by Washington Irving (1783-1859).

Rip Van Winkle goes off to hunt in the mountains, the Catskills, to the west of the Hudson River before the American Revolution.

(Here’s an 1864 painting of those mountains by AB Durand (1796-1886), who belonged to the first great group of American landscape painters, called the “Hudson River School”.)

While out hunting, Rip bumps into a group of troll-like creatures, who turn out to be the enchanted members of Henry Hudson’s crew

from his ship, the Half Moon—this is an image of the 1989 recreation of the ship—

with which he explored the Hudson River in 1609.

(We see here Edward Moran’s 1892 painting of Hudson’s ship entering New York harbor.)

Rip drinks and bowls with them,

then falls asleep, only to awaken over twenty years later to find himself old and now a citizen of the new United States.

(If you follow us regularly—and we hope you do!—then you know of our great affection for late-19^th-early-20^th-century illustrators and, when it comes to this story, we’re very lucky in that Arthur Rackham illustrated it in 1905

and NC Wyeth in 1921.)

Another late-Victorian story with the theme of the supernatural and long life is Oscar Wilde’s (1854-1900)

The Picture of Dorian Gray, first published in book form in 1891.

The picture here is a sinister one: all of that which would age the protagonist, Dorian—who has an increasingly dark, secret life—is transferred to the image on canvas, so that the sitter for the portrait never seems to age. We can see what that would look like from this image—as well as the tinted version, which is even worse,

from the 1945 film.

How the picture acts as a sponge for all of the worst of Dorian is, like vampirism, never explained—Dorian promises his life if he will never age, but we never see, for example, a satanic figure, standing to one side, nod in agreement.

We want to end, however, with a happier story—well, sort of. In 1902, the Scots novelist and dramatist, JM Barrie (1860-1937),

published a novel, The Little White Bird.

In it appeared for the first a seemingly-deathless character, Peter Pan.

Unlike Oisin, who has gone to a magical place, or Dorian Gray, who has his enchanted portrait, Peter just seems to be suspended in time—originally at the age of 7—days—old.

When Barrie returned to the character, in 1904, however, he made Peter grow up–slightly. His age isn’t exactly clear, but we know from the 1911 novelized version, Peter and Wendy,

that he still has his first set of teeth. [Footnote: not a very exact clue—children can begin shedding baby teeth beginning at 6 and continue till 12.] This is the Peter of Barrie’s famous play, Peter Pan,

about a boy who lives on an island in Neverland

and, on a visit to London, loses his shadow while eavesdropping on the three Darling children, whose oldest sibling, Wendy, tells stories about him, which she had learned from her mother.

Peter is able to fly and, with the help of a fairy, Tinkerbell, he takes the Darling children back to Neverland with him, where they have all sorts of adventures.

The original Peter—like so many Peters over a century to come—was a woman, Nina Boucicault.

We are lucky to have her costume, which differs a good deal from the Peter Pan everyone knows now from the 1954 Disney film.

The villain of the piece, Captain Hook, however, has maintained his general outline from 1904.

This is Gerald du Maurier, the original Captain.

Although Barrie himself suggested that Hook should look like someone from the time of Charles II (1660-1685),

to us, he appears to be modeled on the fashions of the late 17^th century—note the long coat with the big cuffs, not to mention the big wig.

And here is Disney’s 1954 Hook.

(A footnote: in 1904, Barrie had planned to have different actors play Mr. Darling, the children’s father, and Captain Hook, but du Maurier persuaded him to allow du Maurier to play both roles, which is still the tradition.)

The subtitle of Peter Pan is Or, the Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up, and here we see, for the first time on our little tour, an explanation for the immortality in which the mortal is an active agent: unlike Dracula or Oisin or Dorian Gray, Peter defies time simply by refusing to acknowledge its effects. He won’t age because he doesn’t want to.

We said that we wanted to end on a “sort of” happy story and Peter’s stubborn immortality might fit that, but Barrie later added a kind of epilogue, a one-act play first performed in 1908. In it, Wendy Darling, the oldest of the Darling children, has now grown up and gotten married, and had a daughter, Jane. One night, while Wendy is putting Jane to bed in the same nursery from which the earlier adventures began, Peter appears.

At first, he simply refuses to believe that Wendy has grown up, and wants her to return to Neverland with him, although she has lost the ability to fly. When she tries gently to explain that she can’t go with him because she has now become an adult, he collapses in tears and she runs from the room, leaving Jane asleep in her bed. Jane wakes up and soon Peter invites her to fly to Neverland with him. When Wendy reappears, she is quickly convinced and off the two go, leaving Wendy behind, but with the hope that Jane will have a daughter and she, in turn, will be taken to Neverland in an endless succession of daughters—perhaps immortality of a different sort? (Here’s a LINK to the play, if you would like to read it for yourself.)

This has been a long posting, but we can’t resist a brief ps. In 1757, Frederick the Great, the king of Prussia (1712-1786), was losing the battle of Kolin. Desperate to win, he tried to rally his men for a counterattack, shouting, “You rascals! Do you want to live forever?”

Virtually no one followed him, so we guess that most did.

Thanks, as always, for reading.

MTCIDC

And another ps—in 1924, the first film version of Peter Pan appeared.

It was much praised at the time and here’s a LINK so that you can see it for yourself.

All Thin, Sort of Stretched

30 Wednesday May 2018

Posted by Ollamh in Fairy Tales and Myths, Films and Music, J.R.R. Tolkien, Villains

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Aragorn, Bilbo, Bram Stoker, Dracula, Dunedain, Gerontius, immortal, Nosferatu, Numenoreans, Professor Van Helsing, Saruman, The Lord of the Rings, The Scouring of the Shire, The Shadow of the Past, Tolkien, vampire, Voivode Dracula

As always, dear readers, welcome.

Once before, we wrote about the Scouring of the Shire and about the queer events after Saruman’s death, but, recently, we’ve come across something which might suggest an explanation.

This past term/semester, one of us taught Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel, Dracula, for the first time (and it seemed to be a big hit, we might add), as we’ve also mentioned before.

In the book, Professor Van Helsing tells the protagonists that Dracula:

“…must, indeed, have been that Voivode Dracula who won his name against the Turk, over the great river on the very frontier of Turkey-land.” (Dracula, Chapter XVIII)

If indeed true, this would mean that the Un-dead figure in the novel, who, historically, had been born about 1430, would, at the time of the novel, be about 467 years old. Van Helsing explains this longevity:

“The vampire live on, and cannot die by mere passing of the time; he can flourish when that he can fatten on the blood of the living.”

Worse—

“Even more, we have seen amongst us that he can even grow younger; that his vital faculties grow strenuous, and seem as though they refresh themselves when his special pabulum is plenty.” [pabulum is a little odd here, to us, as it’s an early word for “baby food”—perhaps Van Helsing is being sarcastic?]

We were easily, as always, prompted back to JRRT here and something Bilbo says to Gandalf when he is about to leave Bag End in the first chapter of The Lord of the Rings:

“I am old, Gandalf. I don’t look it, but I am beginning to feel it in my heart of hearts. Well-preserved indeed!…Why, I feel all thin, sort of stretched, if you know what I mean: like butter that has been scraped over too much bread. That can’t be right.” (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book One, Chapter 1, “A Long-Expected Party”)

Hobbits are, in comparison to humans in our current world and among non-Numenoreans in Middle-earth, a long-lived race, Bilbo’s family in particular being perhaps an extreme example, his grandfather, Gerontius (a small academic joke—geron in Greek means “old man”), living to be 130—and Bilbo will even surpass him, if only briefly.

“Stretched”, however, suggests something else—and we know, as Gandalf does, what that is–the Ring:

“A mortal, Frodo, who keeps one of the Great Rings, does not die, but he does not grow or obtain more life, he merely continues, until at last every minute is a weariness. And if he often uses the Ring to make himself invisible, he fades: he becomes in the end invisible permanently, and walks in the twilight under the eye of the Dark Power that rules the Rings. Yes, sooner or later—later, if he is strong or well-meaning to begin with, but neither strength nor good purpose will last—sooner or later the Dark Power will devour him.” (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book One, Chapter 2, “The Shadow of the Past”)

And so, Bilbo would have felt more and more “stretched”, had he not given it up, even as he continued to go on existing–Gollum, after all, is nearly 600 when he meets Bilbo for the riddling game.

As we’ve mentioned, the descendants of the Numenoreans had a naturally-extended life. Aragorn, for instance, is 87 at the time of The Lord of the Rings, and 210 at his death in FA120.

Others in Middle-earth, however, have simply been given what would seem to be life spans practically without limit. The elves, like Galadriel, are, in effect, immortal. Likewise are the Istari—the “wizards”, like Gandalf.

This should extend to Saruman, as well.

And yet, something seems to have gone wrong here, as we wrote about some time ago. Once Grima has cut his 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.”

This isn’t the end, however.

“Frodo looked down at the body with pity and horror, for as he looked it seemed that long years of death were suddenly revealed in it, and it shrank, and the shriveled face became rags of skin upon a hideous skull. Lifting up the skirt of the dirty cloak that sprawled beside it, he covered it over, and turned away.” (The Return of the King, Book Six, Chapter 8, “The Scouring of the Shire”)

It’s never explained why the—for lack of a better word—spirit of Saruman disappears as it does. The fact that it looks to the West—towards Valinor—and a cold wind blows from there suggests that, somehow, the Valar are punishing Saruman for betraying their trust and forbidding him from returning to them, as the living Gandalf will in the final chapter of the book (and for a second time, it seems, Gandalf having been “sent back” after his apparent death fighting the Balrog).

What Frodo sees in the sprawled body, however, suggests something more: “long years of death were suddenly revealed in it”. Here’s Stoker’s description of the end of Dracula:

“As I looked, the eyes saw the sinking sun, and the look of hate in them turned to triumph.

But, on the instant, came the sweep and flash of Jonathan’s great knife. I shrieked as I saw it shear through the throat; whilst at the same moment Mr. Morris’ bowie knife plunged into the heart.

It was like a miracle; but before our very eyes, and almost in the drawing of a breath, the whole body crumble[d] into dust and passed from our sight.” (Dracula, Chapter XXVII)

Bilbo and Gollum have continued to live because the Ring has given them the power to do so, but at a great cost, at least for Gollum, as Gandalf says. Dracula has been given nearly 500 years because he has become a parasite on the living, but those years were his with the loss of his soul. Could it be that Saruman, although given immortality because he is one of the Maiar, has, through his long years of plotting, either to work with Sauron or even to become Sauron, somehow become more like one of the Un-dead, gradually losing life even though immortal?

(This is the end of Count Orlok, the Dracula figure in our favorite vampire movie, FW Murnau’s 1922 Nosferatu. If you’d like to see the film, here’s a LINK to it from the Internet Archive site.)

In which case, his end is much worse than that of Dracula, as one of the protagonists, Mina Harker, writes:

“I shall be glad as long as I live that even in that moment of final dissolution, there was in the face a look of peace, such as I never could have imagined might have rested there.”

MTCIDC

A Power

25 Wednesday Apr 2018

Posted by Ollamh in J.R.R. Tolkien, Narrative Methods, Villains

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Gandalf, Grima, Harry Potter, Isengard, Istari, Mini-Me, Mirkwood, Necromancer, Ornthanc, Palantir, power, Rings of Power, Rohan, Saruman, Sauron, The Council of Elrond, The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, Theoden, Tolkien, Voldemort, White Council, Wormtongue

Welcome, dear readers, as ever.

Some time ago, we did a post on Saruman as a “Mini-Me” version of Sauron

but, since that time, one of us has used The Hobbit in a class. Mirkwood

and the Necromancer

came up and we began to think about him again, this time to consider his strategy: how long has he been planning something and what might be the elements within that plan?

Although there is no hard evidence for just how long Saruman has been at work, it seems like his scheme has been under construction for at least 80 years. We base that upon Gandalf’s description of the White Council’s meeting on the subject of Sauron and what to do when it’s discovered that he is in Dol Guldur, calling himself the Necromancer:

“Some, too, will remember also that Saruman dissuaded us from open deeds against him, and for long we watched him only. Yet at last, as his shadow grew, Saruman yielded and the Council put forth its strength and drove the evil out of Mirkwood and that was in the very year of finding this Ring…”

(The Fellowship of the Ring, Book One, Chapter 2, “The Council of Elrond”)

Almost 80 years before the story of Bilbo and the Ring, then, it appears that one element in Saruman’s plot was shielding Sauron—a fact clearly not lost on Treebeard:

“He was chosen to be the head of the White Council, they say; but that did not turn out too well. I wonder now if even then Saruman was not turning to evil ways.”

(The Two Towers, Book Three, Chapter 4, “Treebeard”)

From something Saruman says to Gandalf we might guess the obvious reason for helping Sauron to escape action by the White Council:

“A new Power is rising. Against it the old allies and policies will not avail us at all. There is no hope left in Elves and dying Numenor. This then is one choice before you, before us. We may join with that Power. It would be wise, Gandalf. There is hope that way. Its victory is at hand; and there will be rich reward for those that aided it.”

(The Fellowship of the Ring, Book One, Chapter 2, “The Council of Elrond”)

But being a lackey to that Power is not quite his ultimate design, as we see:

“As the Power grows, its proved friends will also grow; and the Wise, such as you and I, may with patience come at last to direct its courses, to control it. We can bide our time, 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…”

As is well-known, Saruman, as one of the Istari, was sent into Middle-earth as a counter to Sauron, not as an ally, and their purpose was:

“…coming in shapes weak and humble were bidden to advise and persuade Men and Elves to good and to seek to unite in love and understanding all those whom Sauron, should he come again, would endeavor to dominate and corrupt.”

(Unfinished Tales, 406)

Knowledge, yes, but Rule and Order? Emphatically not! But if that Power (and we note that even Saruman won’t just come out and say “Sauron” at this point, rather like the use of “He Who Must Not Be Named” in the Harry Potter books)

image5voldemort

can be used as a tool in Saruman’s hands—which may show us one element in his grand design.

First, however, it would seem that he needed a base. As Treebeard tells Merry and Pippin:

“He gave up wandering about and minding the affairs of Men and Elves, some time ago—you would call it a very long time ago; and he settled down at Angrenost, or Isengard as the Men of Rohan call it.”

(The Two Towers, Book Three, Chapter 4, “Treebeard”)

image6orthanc

Saruman even then was already thinking of something, though the purpose was intentionally shrouded:

“There was a time when he was always walking about in my woods. He was polite in those days, always asking my leave…and always eager to listen. I told him many things that he would never have found out by himself; but he never repaid me in like kind. I cannot remember that he ever told me anything. And he got more like that; his face, as I remember it…became like windows in a stone wall: windows with shutters inside.”

Although he was powerful, Saruman needed allies—or, rather, servants—and he wasn’t too particular who or what they were:

“He has taken up with foul folk, with the Orcs…Worse than that: he has been doing something to them; something dangerous. For these Isengarders are more like wicked Men. It is a mark of evil things that came in the Great Darkness that they cannot abide the Sun; but Saruman’s Orcs can endure it, even if they hate it. I wonder what he has done? Are they Men he has ruined, or has he blended the races of Orcs and Men? That would be a black evil!”

With the help of these servants, Saruman has turned his base into a factory and storehouse for his scheme, as Gandalf says:

“…it had once been green and fair, it was now filled with pits and forges. Wolves and orcs were housed in Isengard, for Saruman was mustering a great force on his own account, in rivalry of Sauron and not in his service, yet.”

(The Fellowship of the Ring, Book One, Chapter 2, “The Council of Elrond”)

In fact, it would appear from what Saruman has told Gandalf, that he actually never intends to offer his service to Sauron.

From his base, he has been extending his own power into Rohan, in the south. In his encounter with Aragon and his companions, Eomer says:

“But at this time our chief concern is with Saruman. He has claimed lordship over all this land, and there has been war between us for many months. He has taken Orcs into his service, and Wolf-riders, and evil Men, and he has closed the Gap against us, so that we are likely to be beset both east and west.”

(The Two Towers, Book Three, Chapter 2, “The Riders of Rohan”)

His attacks aren’t always military and Eomer hints at another possibility:

“His spies slip through every net, and his birds of ill omen are abroad in the sky. I do not know how it will all end, and my heart misgives me; for it seems to me that his friends do not all dwell in Isengard. But if you come to the king’s house, you shall see for yourself.”

We know that this is “fifth-column” work—Grima Worm-tongue, who has been slowly poisoning King Theoden with defeatism.

And now we can see, in broad outline, what Saruman is up to:

establish a base
recruit an army
build up an intelligence network (birds, spies, even wandering himself to pick up information)
use your strength to expand power into the next land, Rohan
at the same time undercut the King of Rohan’s ability to resist by subversive methods

So far, so good, as long as all that Saruman wants is to be the ruler of the land south of the Gap of Rohan and north of Gondor, but we’ve already seen that he’s more ambitious yet, suggesting to Gandalf that they—really he, as Gandalf knows—can take over that unnamed Power and use it for their—his– purposes, Knowledge, Rule, Order. When he sees that Gandalf is unconvinced, Saruman lets slip the capstone of his scheme:

“Well, I see that this wise course does not commend itself to you…Not yet? Not if some better way can be contrived?…And why not, Gandalf? Why not? The Ruling Ring? It we could command that, then the Power would pass to us.”

And here is the real heart of Saruman’s design: to obtain the One Ring.

He has been searching for it for a long time, even traveling to Minas Tirith to examine ancient records.

“In former days the members of my order had been well received there,” says Gandalf to the Council of Elrond, “but Saruman most of all. Often he had been for long the guest of the Lords of the City.”

His purpose is now easy to guess.

Gandalf had been aware that Saruman had seemed to know a great deal about the Ring, even to its appearance, as Saruman had said to the White Council:

“The Nine, the Seven, and the Three had each their proper gem. Not so the One. It was round and unadorned, as it were one of the lesser rings; but the maker set marks upon it that the skilled, maybe, could still see and read.”

How had Saruman known that since, as Gandalf says, “What those marks were he had not said. Who now would know? The maker. And Saruman? But great though his lore may be, it must have a source. What hand save Sauron’s ever held this thing, ere it was lost? The hand of Isildur alone.”

Gandalf discovers the truth of this in the dusty records of Gondor:

“…there lies in Minas Tirith still, unread, I guess, by any save Saruman and myself since the kings failed, a scroll that Isildur made himself.”

And, with the discovery and reading of that scroll, Gandalf knows not only about much more about the Ring, but how Saruman knew about its appearance and now, in Orthanc, pressed by Saruman to join him, he understands the last element in Saruman’s design—and also why Saruman has summoned him:

“That is in truth why I brought you here. For I have many eyes in my service, and I believe you know where this precious thing now lies. Is it not so? Or why do the Nine ask for the Shire, and what is your business there?”

So here, lacking only one element, the real element under all, is Saruman’s long plan—but lacking “this precious thing” (a telling phrase!), we will see how successful the rest will be. Treebeard has said of him,

“He has a mind of metal and wheels; and he does not care for growing things, except as far as they serve him for the moment.”

What will happen when, without the Ring, Saruman will find that growing things, instead of serving him for the moment, might unseat him forever?

As always, thanks for reading!

MTCIDC

Wormy

21 Wednesday Feb 2018

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

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Adolf Hitler, Bilbo, Dragon, Fifth Column, Gandalf, Germany, Grima, Madrid, Middle-earth, Nazis, Norway, Norwegian facist party, Republican government, Rohan, Saruman, Second World War, Smaug, Spanish Civil War, The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, The Scouring of the Shire, Theoden, Tolkien, traitor, Vidkun Quisling, William Blake, worm, Wormtongue

Welcome, as always, dear readers.
In 1936, the Nationalist forces were marching to attack the Republican government in Madrid, during the Spanish Civil War.

When interviewed, a Nationalist general is reported to have said that, as four military columns were about to assault the city,

a fifth column of loyalists would join the attack from inside.

This phrase “fifth column”, then, was picked up and began to be used world-wide to mean “traitors/betrayers from within” and was popular during the Second World War era.

When the Nazis attacked Norway in 1940,

and the Allies failed to defend their positions there successfully and were forced to surrender or flee

a member of the small Norwegian fascist party, Vidkun Quisling,

declared himself ruler as the Germans marched in.

In time, the Nazis recognized him as the head of Norway and he even had an audience with Hitler.

This time, a specific “fifth columnist” had not only betrayed his country, but also profited greatly from it and, when we looked at the dates—1936 and 1940—we wondered, as we so often do, if the current events of our world may have colored JRRT’s relation of the events in Middle-earth—even as we hasten to say, as we always do, that this is just a suggestion.
In his first meeting with Aragorn, Eomer is troubled and his veiled comments suggest just the same sort of fifth-columnist action:
“But at this time our chief concern is with Saruman. He has claimed lordship over all this land, and there has been war between us for many months…”
His concern, however, as we see, is for more than border security, as he says of Saruman:
“His spies slip through every net, and his birds of ill omen are abroad in the sky. I do not know how it will all end, and my heart misgives me; for it seems to me that his friends do not all dwell in Isengard. But if you come to the king’s house, you shall see for yourself.” (The Two Towers, Book Three, Chapter 2, “The Riders of Rohan”)
So, all is not well, not only in Rohan, but in Meduseld itself. When Gandalf and the other survivors of the Fellowship arrive at the gates of Edoras, they are stopped by guards and by a command from Theoden, king of Rohan—or is it? A guard says:
“It is but two nights ago that Wormtongue came to us and said that by the will of Theoden no stranger should pass these gates.” (The Two Towers, Book Three, Chapter 6, “The King of the Golden Hall”)
“Wormtongue” seems a very odd name—do worms actually have tongues?

But this isn’t a worm, it’s a “worm”—an old term for “dragon”.

And, if Smaug’s speech and its effect upon Bilbo is anything to go by:
“Bilbo was now beginning to feel really uncomfortable. Whenever Smaug’s roving eye, seeking for him in the shadows, flashed across him, he trembled, and an unaccountable desire seized hold of him to rush out and reveal himself and tell all the truth to Smaug. In fact he was in grievous danger of coming under the dragon-spell.” (The Hobbit, Chapter 12, “Inside Information”)
then a person having a dragon tongue might be a real threat, as Wormtongue, seated at Theoden’s feet,

inserts himself between Gandalf and Theoden:
“Why indeed should we welcome you, Master Stormcrow? Lathspell I name you, Ill-news; and ill news is an ill guest they say.”
Gandalf immediately resists this and, in a burst of power, breaks the real “spell”—the dragon’s words which Grima Wormtongue has been pouring into Theoden’s ears, as Theoden says to him of Gandalf’s efforts: “If this is witchcraft…it seems to me more wholesome than your whisperings. Your leechcraft [that is, “medical skill”—obviously ironic here] ere long would have had me walking on all fours like a beast.”
[A footnote here—is JRRT making a quiet reference to the fate of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, mentioned in the book of Daniel in the Old Testament? In Chapter 4, the king is driven mad and spends seven years as a grazing animal to prove the power of the Hebrew divinity. Here is William Blake’s (1757-1827) striking depiction of the mad king.]

Certainly something Grima has been doing has affected Theoden, as he is initially described as “a man so bent with age that he seemed almost a dwarf…” and this shrinking is suddenly reversed when Gandalf strikes Grima down:
“From the king’s hand the black staff fell clattering on the stones. He drew himself up, slowly, as a man that is stiff from long bending over some dull toil. Now tall and straight he stood, and his eyes were blue as he looked into the opening sky.”
For all that Grima has been blocked and Theoden restored, the fifth columnist tries once more. When he is told that he must ride with the king and his warriors to battle, he makes a countersuggestion:
“One who knows your mind and honours your commands should be left in Edoras. Appoint a faithful steward. Let your counsellor Grima keep all things till your return…”
But he gives himself away by finishing that sentence with “and I pray that we may see it, though no wise man will deem it hopeful.”
And Gandalf sees all too clearly what is behind Grima’s proposal—and who is behind it:
“Down, snake!…Down on your belly! How long is it since Saruman bought you? What was the promised price?…”

Although it is said that Grima deserves death for his treachery, he is allowed to flee, and, when we next see him, he is with his true master, acting as his “footman” as Gandalf calls him (The Two Towers, Book Three, Chapter 10, “The Voice of Saruman). And here, as Bilbo’s pity has preserved Gollum for an unseen but vital part in the later story of the Ring, so Gandalf’s mercy to Grima preserves him for two final acts: first, his mistaken use of a palantir as a missile, which puts it into Gandalf’s hands and, ultimately into Aragorn’s, who shakes Sauron’s nerve with it; second, Saruman’s ultimate end:
“[Saruman] kicked Wormtongue in the face as he groveled, and turned and made off. But at that something snapped: suddenly Wormtongue rose up, drawing a hidden knife, and then with a snarl like a dog he sprang on Saruman’s back, jerked his head back, cut his throat, and with a yell ran off down the lane.” (The Return of the King, Book Six, Chapter 8, “The Scouring of the Shire”)

Grima doesn’t survive this attack, however: “Before Frodo could recover or speak a word, three hobbit-bows twanged and Wormtongue fell dead.”
Merry calls these final acts of violence “the very last end of the War”, but we would suggest a parallel with a specific event in our world: the end of Vidkun Quisling–executed by firing squad in October, 1945, for treason. Could we say that Grima’s death—deserved earlier, but deferred—was also a kind of execution for treason, against Rohan, finally carried out?
And a final thought: after World War 2, Quisling’s name became, for a time, an easy synonym for “fifth columnist/traitor”—could we imagine that, in the Common Speech of Middle-earth after the War of the Ring, the same might have happened to “Grima Wormtongue”?
Thanks, as ever, for reading.
MTCIDC
CD

I Think That I Shall Never See…

10 Wednesday Jan 2018

Posted by Ollamh in Artists and Illustrators, Economics in Middle-earth, Fairy Tales and Myths, J.R.R. Tolkien, Literary History, Military History, Military History of Middle-earth, Narrative Methods, Uncategorized

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Alan Lee, Alexander Volkov, Battle of the Somme, C.S. Lewis, Caspar David Friedrich, deforestation, Fangorn, Fangorn Forest, German Romantics, Grimm Brothers, Haensel and Gretel, Industrial Revolution, Isengard, Kansas, L. Frank Baum, Leonid Vladimirsky, Mordor, pre-industrial, Saruman, The Lord of the Rings, The Scouring of the Shire, The Wizard of Emerald City, The Wizard of Oz, Tin Woodman, Tolkien, trees

Welcome, dear readers, as always.

In a letter to his aunt, Jane, dated 8-9 September, 1962, JRRT wrote:

“Every tree has its enemy, few have an advocate.” (Letters, 321)

We know, from his letters and from interviews, just how passionate he was about trees,

but we were immediately caught by just how very Treebeardish he sounded:

“I am not altogether on anybody’s side, because nobody is altogether on my side, if you understand me…” (The Two Towers, Book Three, Chapter 4, “Treebeard”)

Trees almost seemed to be people to Tolkien—in fact, we know that Treebeard was based in part upon a person—his friend, CS Lewis—at least his voice and manner of speaking.

As near-people, then, to Tolkien, their destruction would have been a kind of murder. With that in mind, we thought of our last posting, in which we quoted Farmer Cotton talking about Sharkey’s regime in the Shire, including “They cut down trees and leave ‘em lie.” (The Return of the King, Book Six, Chapter 8, “The Scouring of the Shire”). And we wondered whether, behind this, JRRT was talking not only about the orcs’ wanton devastation of trees,

but also reliving the Battle of the Somme, in 1916, and seeing once more the acres of unburied dead (60,000 British casualties alone on the first day, 1 July, 1916).

Certainly Treebeard saw this as murder, as he says to Merry and Pippin about Saruman

“He and his foul folk are making havoc now. Down on the borders they are felling trees—good trees. Some of the trees they just cut down and left to rot—orc-mischief that; but most are hewn up and carried off to feed the fires of Orthanc…Curse him root and branch! Many of those trees were my friends, creatures I had known from nut and acorn; many had voices of their own that are lost for ever now. And there are wastes of stump and bramble where once there were singing groves.” (The Two Towers, Book Three, Chapter 4, “Treebeard”)

Saruman, a person with “a mind of metal and wheels”, who was “plotting to become a Power”,

has turned Isengard into a vast factory, where “there is always a smoke rising”.

Thus, just as JRRT may have been recalling the Battle of the Somme, so perhaps he was also suggesting the industrialization which had been in full swing when he was born and which he disliked intensely and which was reducing much of the part of England in which he grew up to the smoking wasteland Sharkey tried to make the Shire

as we see in this Alan Lee depiction.

Of course the deforestation went back long before the Industrial Revolution began. Once upon a time, great forests covered much of the northern European world and humans lived in the midst of miles and miles of trees in clearings which they cut for themselves.

And we still have a distant memory of these, we would suggest, in some of our fairy tales. If you think about the Brothers Grimm fairy tale of “Haensel and Gretel”, for example,

you’ll remember that, not only did the children live in the middle of such forest, as did the witch, but their father was a woodcutter, someone who would have been involved in that very deforestation, if in a very small way.

This memory, collected by the Grimms and others in folktale form in the early 19^th century, also provided inspiration for the German Romantics—as you can see in this painting by one of their greatest painters, Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840).

To those Romantics, the forest was scary—but fascinating, as well—and disappearing, as the industrialism which JRRT disliked swallowed it.

Wood was, however, the plastic of the world for many generations, with infinite uses, from home heating to ship-building, and, wherever humans settled, wood was eaten up. Here is a telling chart for Britain of the contrast between 2000BC and 1990AD.

It is no surprise, then, that, during the 17^th century colonization of what is called New England in the US, a major attraction was the availability of wood and the colonists took full advantage of that availability, as this chart shows—

The forest which Treebeard shepherds is, in fact, rather like the forest depicted in that chart of Britain, as Aragorn says:

“Yes, it is old…as old as the forest by the Barrow-downs, and it is far greater. Elrond says that the two are akin, the last strongholds of the mighty woods of the Elder Days, in which the Firstborn roamed while Men still slept.” (The Two Towers, Book Three, Chapter 2, “The Riders of Rohan”)

But what would have happened to it had Saruman not lost Isengard to the very trees he was destroying?

In thinking about this, we were reminded of another woodcutter in a children’s story.

Or, if you prefer the film—

He lives in the still-wooded land of Oz

where there are even talking trees (although a lot less friendly than Treebeard).

Dorothy, however, lives in a Kansas seemingly blighted by the so-called “Dust Bowl” of the 1930s.

Would this have been Fangorn’s fate? We have only to look at Mordor to believe it might have been, when all the trees fell silent.

As ever, thanks for reading.

MTCIDC

In 1939, a Russian children’s author, Alexander Volkov, published The Wizard of the Emerald City. When one compares it with a certain American book of about 40 years before, striking similarities appear, starting with the title character. And the illustrations, by Leonid Vladimirsky, also have something familiar about them…

There was one very practical change, however: the Tin Woodman became the “Iron Lumberjack”, which rectifies a mistake in the original. When Dorothy discovers the Woodman, he has rusted in place, but tin can’t rust!

Contraption

27 Wednesday Dec 2017

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

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Bag End, Barbegal, Birmingham, Caillebotte, contraptions, haymows, Hobbiton, machines, mill, plowing, reaping, Roman bread, Sandyman's Mill, Sarehole, Sarehole Mill, Saruman, sowing, The Lord of the Rings, The Shire, Tolkien, water mill, wheels, winnowing

Welcome, as always, dear readers.

Although we think we might have another post or two on things in Bilbo’s hall, we thought it would be fun to take a break and look elsewhere in Middle-earth.

In a posting long ago now, we looked at Saruman and his attempt to ruin the Shire. Cutting down trees was certainly part of his plan, as Farmer Cotton tells the hobbits: “They cut down trees and let ‘em lie” (The Return of the King, Book Six, Chapter 8) There was much worse, however, as he continues:

“Take Sandyman’s mill now. Pimple knocked it down, almost as soon as he came to Bag End. Then he brought in a lot o’ dirty-looking men to build a bigger one and fill it full o’ wheels and outlandish contraptions.”

“Wheels” made us think of two things:

Fangorn’s description of Saruman himself: “He has a mind of metal and wheels” (The Two Towers, Book Three, Chapter 4, “Treebeard”)
and, secondly, just what level of technology Middle-earth actually has

JRRT himself wrote of Hobbits, in the Prologue to The Lord of the Rings:

“They do not and did not understand or like machines more complicated than a forge-bellows, a water-mill, or a hand-loom, though they were skilful with tools.”

As far as authentic depictions, we have one, by Tolkien himself, in this picture of Hobbiton.

Presumably, that’s the Sandyman mill in the foreground. You can see in the left middleground what appear to be hay stacks (also called “haymows”) which rather resemble these from a painting by Caillebotte (whose work appeared in our posting on umbrellas) and are where the material saved from the growing/reaping cycle is stored.

The whole process for what eventually gets to the mill begins with plowing the land and sowing the seed (and keeping off the birds, if possible).

Then, when the grain is ripe, it is reaped and stacked.

At this point, the grain is still on the stalk and needs to be detached. This is done by flailing it.

At that point, however, it’s still in its beard

and the kernels of wheat need to be shaken free by the process called winnowing. This can be done by a number of methods, but the easiest includes using the air currents to help remove the hull (the chaff—and, if you know the expression “to separate the wheat from the chaff”, now you also know where it comes from).

Now, when you finally have the pure grain, the next step is to grind it to a powder. The most ancient method (still used for crushing grain in some parts of the world) is this—

But the Romans sped this up with a kind of early machine, both slave-driven and animal-propelled—

The flour (pretty coarse and gritty, we understand—which wore down people’s teeth) was then mixed with water and baked

and sold as this.

(This is real Roman bread—abandoned in an oven when Vesuvius exploded and found many centuries later, still in the oven.) Some bakers liked to label their bread, as you can see, with a special name stamp.

In time, some clever Roman got the idea that there might be a more efficient method than slaves and animals and harnessed water as a power source and even occasionally harnessed it more than once, as here, at Barbegal, in southern France.

This technology does not appear to have been lost along with so much else of the Roman world and continued to be used in later centuries.

As you can see from this illustration, the basic idea is simple: the water is channeled to pour over the paddles of the wheel, thus turning it. The turning motion is then conveyed through a series of gears until it spins the upper stone of the two millstones, thus grinding the grain.

There are several types of wheel: overshot, breast, undershot, and pitchback.

Our research suggests that the overshot is the most powerful—but, as you can see in JRRT’s illustration, the Hobbiton mill is of the undershot variety.

Tolkien’s model for this is assumed to have been the Sarehole Mill, in the village of Sarehole, south of Birmingham, where his mother took him and his brother to live, for about 4 years in the late 1890s, in this house.

From its front door, he could look across and see this mill—here’s a 1905 postcard of the mill.

After a certain amount of searching, we still can’t tell what kind of wheel Sarehole had in Tolkien’s day, but there are certainly some other strong differences visible between it and the Hobbiton mill. First, of course, there’s that chimney on Sarehole, which was installed in 1852 as part of the addition of a steam engine to the mill’s older water-driven system. (Is this one of the “outlandish contraptions” Farmer Cotton complains about?) But perhaps this suggested the tower on the left of the Hobbiton mill? Second, and a little stranger, might be those round windows—although we might see these as a quiet joke: just as an older Hobbit hole, like Bag End, had such windows, so it might be fitting for a Hobbit mill to have them, too?

Thanks, as ever, for reading.

MTCIDC

Here’s a LINK, by the way, to a 1966 interview with JRRT about his early years in Sarehole.

Orcked

22 Wednesday Nov 2017

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

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Arthur Rackham, Bosch, Brueghel, counterfeit, creation, Elves, Ents, Fangorn, Goblins, John Bauer, mockery, Orcs, Saruman, Sauron, The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien, Treebeard, trolls, US Treasury Department, Weimar Republic

Welcome, dear readers, as always.

In our last, we discussed less familiar characters in The Lord of the Rings, the Corsairs of Umbar, and what we imagine they could look like.

In this posting, we want to look at much more familiar characters, Orcs—but from the viewpoint of Fangorn.

He says of them:

“Maybe you have heard of Trolls? They are mighty strong. But Trolls are only counterfeits, made by the Enemy in the Great Darkness, in mockery of Ents, as Orcs were of Elves.” (The Two Towers, Book Three, Chapter 4, “Treebeard”)

We’ve always been a bit puzzled by this. “Counterfeit” makes us think, immediately, of counterfeit money. Here are a pair of US 10-dollar bills: can you tell the counterfeit (from Old French via a Latin compound, contra, “against” + facere, “make/do”—in Medieval Latin a contrafactio is a thing put against another, something in contrast, thus “imitation”)?

To be a successful counterfeit, normally, it’s necessary that the imitation be as close to the original as possible, as in the case of these two tens. The US Treasury Department goes to a lot of time and expense to make counterfeiting as difficult as possible

image3anticounterfeit

but, if a counterfeiter is successful, he stands to make (in two senses) a lot of money. He can also cause a great deal of financial damage, breeding distrust in a government’s ability to coin money and to stand behind it. The more counterfeit money in the system, the more money the government has to back, which, in time, could lead to what is called hyperinflation and can bring a currency to collapse. When a government does this itself it can cause havoc with a country’s economy, as happened in the Weimar Republic in 1921-1924. At that time, for complex reasons having to do with paying off the German Empire’s war debts, the government began producing too much paper money and too rapidly. This caused the money to lose value very quickly, rendering it almost worthless.

image4weimarmoney

It’s no wonder that the penalty for counterfeiting was usually the most severe possible.

image5tyburn

Treebeard’s use of the word “counterfeit”, then, would suggest that what Sauron was doing was trying to make nearly-exact copies of something, either Ents or Elves, in his creation of Trolls and Orcs. So what do we find when we first see a description of Orcs?

“There were four goblin-soldiers of greater stature, swart, slant-eyed, with thick legs and large hands.”

(The Two Towers, Book Three, Chapter 1, “The Departure of Boromir”)

That’s not much to go on:

“greater stature” would suggest that most Orcs were short
“swart” means “dark-complexioned” (a term Sam uses to describe men from Harad, whom he calls “Swertings”—The Two Towers, Book Four, Chapter 3, “The Black Gate is Closed”)
“slant-eyed”—for contemporary people this is a tricky term, even a racial slur, but JRRT probably meant no more than that these Orcs had epicanthic folds to their eyelids, which is not uncommon among many of the world’s peoples.

image6epicanth

“with thick legs and large hands” suggests very stocky builds—like the “Trolls turned to stone” in JRRT’s illustration of the scene in The Hobbit.

image7stonetrolls

This is a start, but will our next view help? Pippin and Merry are the prisoners of the Orcs and Pippin is listening to a quarrel between those of Saruman and those of Sauron:

“In the twilight he saw a large black Orc, probably Ugluk, standing facing Grishnakh, a short crook-legged creature, very broad and with long arms that hung almost to the ground.” (The Two Towers, Book Three, Chapter 3. “The Uruk-hai”)

Counterfeit Elves? Of course we know—also from Fangorn—that perhaps Saruman was up to something more, as Fangorn says of him:

“He has taken up with foul folk, with the Orcs. Brm, hoom! Worse than that: he has been doing something to them; something dangerous. For these Isengarders are more like wicked Men. It is a mark of evil things that came in the Great Darkness that they cannot abide the Sun; but Saruman’s Orcs can endure it, even if they hate it. I wonder what he has done? Are they Men he has ruined, or has he blended the races of Orcs and Men? That would be a black evil!” (The Two Towers, Book Three, Chapter 4, “Treebeard”)

This might account for the size of the Uruk-hai, as well as for their ability to endure daylight, but what about the crook-leggedness and “long arms that hung almost to the ground”?

Perhaps here we should remember the end of Fangorn’s description: “…in mockery of Ents, as Orcs were of Elves.”

Hmm. Trolls certainly don’t look much like Ents—

Is this the “mockery”? It’s certainly not counterfeiting in the usual sense!

Should we understand the same for Orcs vs Elves? Here are illustrations of Galadriel and Legolas (both by the Hildebrandts):

Set those against any modern artist’s view of Orcs and, again, it’s not counterfeiting, in the strictest sense, so we suppose that we have to assume “mockery”—but with the added assumption that Sauron had a very twisted sense of humor. (There’s also that nasty half-suggestion of Fangorn’s that, since Saruman’s Orcs are behaving more like men, Saruman has been performing genetic experiments, something even Fangorn doesn’t want to think about.)

Looking at all of these illustrations, by the way, we were struck by where we’d seen creatures like this before. Could it be in the works of those strange Flemish/Dutch painters like Brueghel and Bosch?

Or Arthur Rackham?

Or the early 20^th-century Swedish painter, John Bauer, who, in his depiction of forests was an influence upon JRRT?

And, more recently, considering P. Jackson’s Orcs,

their skin color and general look: is there a suggestion here of the so-called “Bog People” (about whom we wrote a posting some time ago)—a whole series of bodies, at least one dating from the 4^th century bc

who have been discovered buried in peat bogs (a great preservative) in northern Europe?

And, in their color and oozy look–not to mention that they seem to move in scuttly groups–is there something cockroachy about them?

But, just as there is a place Fangorn doesn’t want to go, it’s true for us as well!

Thanks, as ever, for reading.

MTCIDC

You probably spotted this (we have very intelligent readers), but it’s the top 10-dollar bill which is the counterfeit.

PPS

It has also occurred to us that JRRT more than once discussed the fact that Sauron, as a lesser deity-figure, could never originate, only copy and “subcreate”—perhaps suggesting another reason for making “mockeries”: his anger at his inability to do original work?

In Bad Hands

30 Wednesday Aug 2017

Posted by Ollamh in Heroes, J.R.R. Tolkien, Literary History, Maps, Military History, Narrative Methods

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CBS Television News, Denethor, Dunkirk, Early newspapers, early radio, Ecthelion, fake news, Gandalf, Henry IV, Isengard, Lifestyle Magazine, Minas Tirith, Nazi, Nazi Propaganda, news, newspaper, Orthanc, Osgiliath, Palantir, propaganda leaflet, Relation, rumors, Saruman, Shakespeare, texting while driving, The Detroit News, The Illustrated London News, The White Tower, Tolkien

Welcome, dear readers, as ever.
Not so long ago, news came to most people through one—very undependable–source: rumor and gossip. As Shakespeare’s Rumor (depicted as “all painted with tongues” in a stage direction), who appears at the beginning of Henry IV, Part 2, Prologue, 1-5, describes herself:
“Open your ears, for which of you will stop
The vent of hearing when loud Rumour speaks?
I, from the orient to the drooping west,
Making the wind my post-horse, still unfold
The acts commenced on this ball of earth.”
At almost the same time as this play was written and first performed (1596-99), the first printed Western newspaper appeared, the Relation, in Strasbourg in 1605.

For the next 300-and-some years, newspapers were then the accepted conveyor of popular information about local, national, and world events. Until 1842, these could only convey that information in words, but, in that year, the first illustrated newspaper appeared, The Illustrated London News.

And soon other newspapers followed, opening a wider world of information to the reading public. In under a century, however, news appeared in a new form of technology entirely: the first news broadcast by radio believed to have been on August 31, 1920, by a set owned—perhaps not surprisingly by a newspaper— The Detroit News. Considering what radios looked like in the early 1920s, we doubt that many people heard it (this is an image from Lifestyle Magazine from 1923).

Radios soon improved, however, so that, along with newspapers, people could tune in to hear news, news sometimes more up-to-date than even the newspapers could supply. And then came television. Experiments had been made with television broadcasting as early as 1940, but steady broadcasting really only began in 1948, with CBS Television News.
And then the internet appeared, so that, today, more people are believed to get their news from some form of electronic means than any other (or so electronic means tell us). Practically anywhere you go in our world, you see people staring at screens (not always reading the news, of course—with the universe of apps, people can be doing almost anything imaginable), many of them so portable that you can watch people doing it while walking

eating,

even while driving (which, frankly, terrifies us!).

There is a problem with news, however, in every era. Shakespeare’s Rumor may have been pushed to one side by later technological innovations, but, in the form of so-called “fake news”, it’s still with us. And, in fact, faked news—news distorted—or even manufactured—has become a standard feature in newer technology. One has only to think about Nazi propaganda (certainly not the first, but perhaps, for us, the most extensive and most vivid), where—just as one example out of thousands—the mostly horse-powered German army of 1940

was publicly depicted as streamlined and gasoline-powered (or, even more high-tech, diesel-powered).

Some time ago, we talked about literacy in Middle-earth. There was no printed material, of course, and literacy appears to have been limited (we only have to mention Gaffer Gamgee saying of Sam, “Mr. Bilbo has learned him his letters—meaning no harm, mark you, and I hope no harm will come of it.” to imagine that not only was it limited, but there might even be a certain suspicion attached to it.)
And what news there was came by the oldest of methods:
“There were rumours of strange things happening in the world outside; and as Gandalf had not at that time appeared or sent any message for several years, Frodo gathered all the news he could. Elves, who seldom walked in the Shire, could now be seen passing westward through the woods in the evening, passing and not returning; but they were leaving Middle-earth and were no longer concerned with its troubles. There were, however, dwarves on the road in unusual numbers. The ancient East-West Road ran through the Shire to its end at the Grey Havens, and dwarves had always used it on their way to their mines in the Blue Mountains. They were the hobbits’ chief source of news from distant parts—if they wanted any: as a rule dwarves said little and hobbits asked no more. But now Frodo often met strange dwarves of far countries, seeking refuge in the West. They were troubled, and some spoke in whispers of the Enemy and of the Land of Mordor.” (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book One, Chapter 2, “The Shadow of the Past”)
(See also the scene in The Green Dragon a little later in the chapter, where there is discussion, all based on hearsay, about Shire and extra-Shire events, between Sam and Ted Sandyman.)
For two people in Middle-earth, however, news came by a method in a strange way like that of the internet: the palantir, and that news which they received was not to their advantage. Made “from beyond Westernesse, from Eldamar. The Noldor made them…” Gandalf tells Pippin. (The Two Towers, Book Three, Chapter 11, “The Palantir”)

The palantiri were made “to see far off, and to converse in thought with one another.” Although there were seven, one, that at Osgiliath, was the master: “each palantir replied to each, but all those in Gondor were ever open to the view of Osgiliath.” Saruman had one of the others

—the one under discussion in this chapter, after Pippin had almost come to disaster from looking in it—which Grima flung off Orthanc

in what, although unexplained, must have been an attempt to brain Gandalf.

Unfortunately for Saruman, what he presumably thought would benefit his quest for what he speciously tells Gandalf is “Knowledge, Rule, Order; all the things that we have so far striven in vain to accomplish…” (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book Two, Chapter 2, “The Council of Elrond”), becomes a snare, as it seems that the master stone of Osgiliath has fallen into Sauron’s hands and “Easy it is now to guess how quickly the roving eye of Saruman was trapped and held; and how ever since he has been persuaded from afar, and daunted when persuasion would not serve.” (The Two Towers, Book 3, Chapter 11, “The Palantir”)
There is another surviving stone, however, and, though it doesn’t turn its possessor into an unwilling ally of Sauron, its propaganda—faked news—does terrible damage, all the same. In the White Tower of Ecthelion in Minas Tirith,

Denethor

holds a palantir and he, too, is caught, as Gandalf surmises:
“…I fear that as the peril in his realm grew he looked in the Stone and was deceived: far too often, I guess, since Boromir departed. He was too great to be subdued to the will of the Dark Power, he saw nonetheless only those things which that Power permitted him to see. The knowledge which he obtained was, doubtless, often of service to him; yet the vision of the great might of Mordor that was shown to him fed the despair of his heart until it overthrew his mind.” (The Return of the King, Book Five, Chapter 7, “The Pyre of Denethor”)
This overthrow, brought on by Sauron’s propaganda, results in Denethor accusing Gandalf of plotting “to rule in my stead, to stand behind every throne, north, south, or west” as well as delivering what clearly sounds like the “speech long rehearsed” Gandalf has long ago said that Saruman delivered to him in Orthanc:
“For a little space you may triumph on the field, for a day. But against the Power that now arises there is no victory. To this City only the first finger of its hand has yet been stretched. All the East is moving. And even now the wind of thy hope cheats thee and wafts up the Anduin a fleet with black sails. The West has failed. It is time for all to depart who would not be slaves.”
“to depart” quickly seems a euphemism for something much more radical as Denethor:
“leaped upon the table, and standing there wreathed in fire and smoke he took up the staff of his stewardship that lay at his feet and broke it on his knee. Casting the pieces into the blaze he bowed and laid himself on the table, clasping the palantir with both hands upon his breast.”

Here, we thought of all of those people we see who seemingly can never put down their phones—even in death Denethor still grips the very thing which has brought about his destruction.

Was JRRT sending us, here in the future, a warning: beware of your source of news—and sometimes let go of what brings it to you? We can only add his description of Denethor’s palantir when it was retrieved from the pyre:
“And it was said that ever after, if any man looked in that Stone, unless he had a great strength of will to turn it to other purpose, he saw only two aged hands withering into flame.”

Thanks, as always, for reading!
MTCIDC
CD
PS
The new film, Dunkirk, opens with a British soldier catching a German propaganda leaflet based upon an actual one. Below on the left is the movie version, on the right the original. (Notice, by the way, that, in the one on the right, the English is not quite parallel to the French, including the line, “Your commanders (chefs) are going to flee by airplane.”) If Middle-earth had had a print culture, it’s easy to see such a leaflet being dropped by Nazgul over Minas Tirith!

Re: Tree

23 Wednesday Aug 2017

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

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Alfred Tennyson, Dreamflower, Fangorn Forest, Galadriel, Gondor, Helm's Deep, Isengard, Laurelindorenan, Lothlorien, Lotus-eaters, mallorn, Minas Tirith, Mirkwood, Old Forest, Old Man Willow, Palantir, Rath Dinen, Samwise Gamgee, Saruman, The Lord of the Rings, The Odyssey, Tolkien, Treebeard, trees, White Tree of Gondor

Welcome, as always, dear readers.
image1ajrrttree
The inspirations for our postings come from many places: from something we’re reading or have just watched/seen, from a connection between two texts, or between Tolkien’s world—the real or Middle-earth—and something from the history of this world. Sometimes ideas come from the Sortes Tolkienses—our take on an ancient fortune-telling method, in which one posed a question, then opened a copy of an important text like The Bible or Vergil’s Aeneid, closed one’s eyes, and pointed and the text where the finger landed was believed, through interpretation, to contain an answer to that question. In our case, should we require inspiration, we sometimes use our 50th Anniversary hardbound of The Lord of the Rings to do this and, surprisingly often, what we find gives us an idea about what to write.
In the case of this posting, however, it was more of a “we were working on something else entirely and then there it was.” The “it” here is the White Tree of Gondor.
image1treeofgondor
(We confess, by the way, that we have iphone cases with the image—and we are often complimented on them.)
image2phonecase
We had, in fact, been thinking about another post, this one about corruption through technology, as represented by the palantiri, and had been reading references to Denethor. This had led us to his fiery death in Rath Dinen, “Silent Street”, which led to the tombs of the kings and stewards of Gondor. Besides the rulers of Gondor, however, the street had another occupant, the old White Tree, long dead,

but which, when a new sapling

was found in the mountains by Gandalf and Aragorn, was still treated with ceremony:
“Then the withered tree was uprooted, but with reverence; and they did not burn it, but laid it to rest in the silence of Rath Dinen.” (The Return of the King, Book Six, Chapter 5, “The Steward and the King”)
This seemed a rather odd thing to do to a tree and this led us, finally, to consider one function of trees in The Lord of the Rings: just as the White Tree is buried, as human rulers were, could trees act as a mirror for the condition of the human world at what would be the end of the Third Age? And can they also act as a mirror of change for the better?
Consider, for example, the dead White Tree as a symbol for the withering of Gondor itself, as Minas Tirith is described:
Pippin gazed in growing wonder “at the great stone city, vaster and more splendid than anything that he had dreamed of; greater and stronger than Isengard, and far more beautiful. Yet it was in truth falling year by year into decay; and already it lacked half the men that could have dwelt at ease there…(The Return of the King, Book Five, Chapter 1, “Minas Tirith”)
And this decay of city and tree appears to be echoed in the natural world of Middle-earth in general, as Treebeard says of Lothlorien:

“Do not risk getting entangled in the woods of Laurelindorenan! That is what the Elves used to call it, but now they make the name shorter: Lothlorien they call it. Perhaps they are right: maybe it is fading, not growing. Land of the Valley of Singing Gold, that was it, once upon a time. Now it is the Dreamflower.”
[Just a quick footnote here. “Dreamflower” immediately takes us to Odyssey, Book 9, 82-105, where a small party of Odysseus’ men, set ashore to explore, meet up with the Lotus-eaters, who give them the mysterious lotus to eat and that “whoever might eat of the sweet fruit of the lotus, no longer wished to bring word back or to return home/but wanted, feeding on lotus, to remain in the very same place with the lotus-eating men and to forget about home-going.” (94-97, our translation). This certainly could describe at least some of the Fellowship’s reaction to Lothlorien. Here’s an illustration from a cartoon-version:

Alfred Tennyson wrote a poem on the same subject—here’s a LINK, in case you would like to read his 1832 (revised 1842) interpretation.]
Beyond Lothlorien, other parts of the tree-covered natural world seem more menacing–there’s the Old Forest,

and Mirkwood,

described by Haldir:
“ ‘There lies the fastness of Southern Mirkwood…It is clad in a forest of dark fir, where the trees strive against one another and their branches rot and wither.’ “ (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book Two, Chapter 6, “Lothlorien”)
It wouldn’t take much imagination to replace “where the trees strive” with “where the humans strive against one another and their kind rots and withers”!
There is the sentient, malevolent Old Man Willow,

and even Treebeard and his forest do not at first offer the kind of invitation one hears in the first verse of this song, from Shakespeare’s As You Like It:
Under the greenwood tree
Who loves to lie with me
And tune his merry note,
Unto the sweet bird’s throat,
Come hither, come hither, come hither:
Here shall he see
No enemy
Than winter and rough weather.

Instead, when Treebeard

overhears Pippin say:
“This shaggy old forest looked so different in the sunlight. I almost felt I liked the place.” (The Two Towers, Book Three, Chapter 4, “Treebeard”)
he says, “ ‘Almost felt you liked the Forest!’ That’s good! That’s uncommonly kind of you…Turn round and let me have a look at your faces. I almost feel that I dislike you both…”
Treebeard’s hostility towards Pippin and Merry actually springs from another source—Saruman:
“He and his foul folk are making havoc now. Down on the borders they are felling trees—good trees. Some of the trees they just cut down and leave to rot—orc-mischief that; but most are hewn up and carried off to feed the fires of Orthanc.”
Treebeard’s growing anger, however, then marks a turn in the behavior of the natural world: somehow the appearance of Pippin and Merry acts as a catalyst:
“Curse him, root and branch! Many of those trees were my friends, creatures I had known from nut and acorn; many had voices of their own that are lost for ever now. And there are wastes of stump and bramble where once there were singing groves. I have been idle. I have let things slip. It must stop!”
And it’s not simply the Revenge of the Ents. Treebeard has a larger strategy, saying to the two hobbits:
“You may be able to help me. You will be helping your own friends that way, too; for if Saruman is not checked Rohan and Gondor will have an enemy behind as well as in front.”
As we know, Treebeard convinces the other Ents to help and, in a short time, they not only destroy Isengard

but also the orcs at Helm’s Deep,

effectively removing Saruman from the story except as an empty threat—and a final, petty Sauron, ruining the Shire, which included cutting down numbers of trees—among them the famous Party Tree. And here we see one more symbol, perhaps. Long before, Galadriel had given Sam a gift which, in her wisdom (and perhaps in her foresight?) seemed almost perfect for a gardener:
“She put into his hand a little box of plain grey wood, unadorned save for a single silver rune on the lid….’In this box there is earth from my orchard, and such blessing as Galadriel has still to bestow is upon it…Though you should find all barren and laid waste, there will be few gardens in Middle-earth that will bloom like your garden, if you sprinkle this earth there.’ “ (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book Two, Chapter 8, “Farewell to Lorien”)
Once the Shire has been scoured of Saruman’s final evil, Sam remembers this present and uses it, spreading the earth across the Shire:
“So Sam planted saplings in all the places where specially beautiful or beloved trees had been destroyed, and he put a grain of the precious dust in the soil at the root of each.” (The Return of the King, Book Six, Chapter 9, “The Grey Havens”)
And his plan succeeds:
“His trees began to sprout and grow, as if time was in a hurry and wished to make one year do for twenty.”
In midst of such fertility, there is an extra favor. Sam had found within Galadriel’s box “a seed, like a small nut with a silver shale [shell or husk].”
Sam planted this in the Party Field, where the tree had once stood, and, in the spring:
“In the Party Field a beautiful young sapling leaped up: it had silver bark and long leaves and burst into golden flowers in April. It was indeed a mallorn [the golden tree specific only to Lothlorien], and it was the wonder of the neighborhood.”
Just as the human world of Middle-earth, stunted by Sauron and his minions, is now free, so is the natural world free once more—no more orcs to abuse its forests, no malevolent will to taint its woods, and the reflowering of the Shire and, at its center, the mallorn, may stand as a symbol for that rebirth—and even be twinned with the new White Tree of Gondor, far to the south.

[With thanks to Britta Siemen’s blog, where we found this image—LINK here]
Thanks, as ever, for reading!
MTCIDC
CD

Finding a Voice

10 Wednesday May 2017

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

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Abraham Lincoln, Abraham Lincoln Vampire Slayer, American Civil War, Daniel Day Lewis, early photography, Edward Everett, Gettysburg, Gettysburg Address, National Cemetery, Saruman, Smaug, spell-casting, Steven Spielberg Lincoln, The Battle Cry of Peace, The Blue and the Gray, The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, The Voice of Saruman, Tolkien, voices

Welcome, dear readers, as always.

Recently, it has been thought that a new picture of Abraham Lincoln

at Gettysburg, on November 19, 1863 has been discovered. Lincoln had been invited as one of the speakers for the dedication of a new National Cemetery to honor the Union dead from the battle fought at Gettysburg on 1-3 July, 1863.

Battle of Gettysburg - Cyclorama - Paul Philippoteaux SAM_1322.JPG

The main speaker, and the one everyone was waiting for, was the famous orator, Edward Everett,

whose speech is now totally forgotten (here’s a link to it—it’s worth reading as a specimen of mid-19^th-century American oratory—something Everett was famous for), but, to say that Lincoln’s speech has survived is, for Americans—and for anyone who loves good rhetoric, for that matter–an understatement.

Up until recently, there was one definite photograph of Lincoln on the occasion.

Crowd_of_citizens,_soldiers,_and_etc._with_Lincoln_at_Gettysburg._-_NARA_-_529085_-crop.jpg

(There is a second picture, supposedly of Lincoln on horseback, but it’s been pointed out that the figure appears to be wearing epaulettes,

And, if so, is therefore more likely to be one of the military dignitaries at the ceremony.)

This new photo, which seems pretty convincing to us, now gives us two illustrations of one of the most famous moments of Lincoln’s presidency.

There are a number of films about Lincoln, at least since the 1915 The Battle Cry of Peace, with Lincoln portrayed by numerous American actors, some of them famous, such as Gregory Peck, from the television series The Blue and the Gray (1982)

with the most recent being two films from 2012, the improbable Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter

and Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln

starring Daniel Day Lewis.

Lewis, an actor famous for his strenuous preparations for every role he’s ever played, was sometimes criticized in reviews for his light voice, the impression being that such a deep, thoughtful man should have had a voice to match. In fact, contemporary accounts of Lincoln tell us that his voice was higher—a tenor rather than a baritone—and that his accent was a rural one, mirroring his boyhood years on the Indiana/Kentucky border (his sometimes somewhat phonetic spelling helps here to reconstruct this).

Thus, though his self-presentation—especially his voice–might have seemed to some (especially those who hated him—one of his main generals even referring to him as “the original gorilla”) less than impressive, his words, at least in written form, have endured.

This made us think of the opposite, from JRRT, characters whose words might not matter much, but the way in which they were delivered was persuasive—or almost.

We began with Smaug.

bilbo and smaug.jpg

As we said in our last, Smaug’s voice has a danger for Bilbo in it:

“Whenever Smaug’s roving eye, seeking for him in the shadows, flashed across him, he trembled, and an unaccountable desire seized hold of him to rush out and reveal himself and tell all the truth to Smaug. In fact he was in grievous danger of coming under the dragon-spell.” (The Hobbit, Chapter 12, “Inside Information”)

This dragon-spell has a persuasive power to it. It’s never explained, but it seems to embody the idea that the tone can bring out the worst in someone:

“Now a nasty suspicion began to grow in his mind—had the dwarves forgotten this important point too, or were they laughing in their sleeves at him all the time? That is the effect that dragon-talk has on the inexperienced. Bilbo of course ought to have been on his guard; but Smaug had rather an overwhelming personality.”

Perhaps this is what gives the “dragon-spell” its power: that it somehow embodies the personality of the spell-caster. As Smaug is evil and corrupt and suspicious, so his spell can cause others to have corrupt and suspicious thoughts, as Bilbo does.

We see this same effect on the inexperienced when Gandalf, the companions, and Theoden visit the defeated Saruman at Orthanc

obra-tolkien-mano-hildebrandt-ilustradores-fa-L-q4g6J8.jpeg

in the chapter named, appropriately, “The Voice of Saruman”:

“Suddenly another voice spoke, low and melodious, its very sound an enchantment. Those who listened unwarily to that voice could seldom report the words that they heard; and if they did, they wondered, for little power remained in them. Mostly they remembered only that it was a delight to hear the voice speaking, all that it said seemed wise and reasonable, and desire awoke in them by swift agreement to seem wise themselves. When others spoke they seemed harsh and uncouth by contrast; and if they gainsaid the voice, anger was kindled in the hearts of those under the spell.” (The Two Towers, Book Three, Chapter 10, “The Voice of Saruman”)

When Gandalf first meets Saruman in Orthanc, Saruman’s “robes, which had seemed white, were not so, but were woven of all colours, and if he moved they shimmered and changed hue so that the eye was bewildered.” (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book Two, Chapter 2, “The Council of Elrond”)

It may be, then, that the power of Saruman’s voice is in the same shimmer—he appears to be not just one, but many and therefore both momentarily persuasive, as well as ultimately insubstantial, since “those who listened unwarily to that voice could seldom report the words that they heard”. It’s clear, however, that, like the voice of Smaug, the spell within the voice was, potentially, horribly persuasive:

“For some the spell lasted only while the voice spoke to them, and when it spoke to another they smiled, as men do who see through a juggler’s trick while others gape at it. For many the sound of the voice alone was enough to hold them enthralled; but for those whom it conquered the spell endured when they were far away, and ever they heard that soft voice whispering and urging them.”

And yet—although

“..none were unmoved; none rejected its pleas and its commands without an effort of mind and will, so long as its master had control of it.”

There are those of the party on this visit to Orthanc who are not taken in at all. Gimli appears to be unaffected, saying, “The words of this wizard stand on their heads”, and Eomer calls Saruman “an old liar with honey on his forked tongue”. Theoden even breaks the spell, although he is said to speak “thickly and with effort.” At such resistance, Saruman shows both a degree of control and a losing of it, cajoling and calling names alternately, until “Gandalf laughed.” And “The fantasy vanished like a puff of smoke.”

Knowing Saruman’s eventual end, murdered by another whose tongue was persuasive enough to keep Theoden a prisoner once upon a time,

can we see the beginning of that end here? Once the “fantasy” created by Saruman’s voice is broken by Gandalf’s gentle mockery, what is left for him after his grand plans to be (at least) Sauron’s ally but “some mischief still in a small mean way”? (The Return of the King, Book Six, Chapter 6, “Many Partings”)

And, at the end of that mischief, Grima only escapes Saruman and his voice through murder—and his own quick death, following.

Gandalf’s laughter suggests that the source of escape from Saruman’s voice may be detachment: if one can step away from the sound, that sound loses its (literal) charm. It may take effort—as it does for Theoden—but, once away, whatever magic was in the voice vanishes into the smoke it really was. As well, obvious resistance seems always to shake Saruman’s control and that flattering tongue, which can say, on the one hand,

“Theoden Lord of the Mark of Rohan..declared by your noble devices, and still more by the fair countenance of the House of Eorl. O worthy son of Thengel the Thrice-renowned!”

But, when thwarted, can cry:

“Dotard! What is the house of Eorl but a thatched barn where brigands drink in the reek, and their brats roll on the floor among the dogs?” (The Two Towers, Book Three, Chapter 10, “The Voice of Saruman”)

It is striking that, in neither case, are his words to be trusted, any more than his voice—and here we can return to Abraham Lincoln, whose voice may not have impressed, but whose words continue to be remembered.

Thanks, as always, for reading.

MTCIDC

doubtfulsea

~ adventure fantasy

Tag Archives: Saruman

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Finding a Voice