• About

doubtfulsea

~ adventure fantasy

Tag Archives: The Argonath

Who Goes There? (2)

21 Wednesday Nov 2018

Posted by Ollamh in J.R.R. Tolkien

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Beowulf, Ford of Bruinen, Haldir, Jules Verne, Lorien, Moria, Nautilus, Rivendell, Sentries, The Argonath, The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, The Shire, Tolkien, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

As ever, dear readers, welcome.

In our last, we had begun discussion of the use of watchmen/sentries in The Lord of the Rings.  In our last, in fact, we had stopped with what is well-known to have been a strong influence—especially in The Hobbit—upon JRRT:  Beowulf, and its two such figures.  Here’s Beowulf with the first.

image8coastguard

What particularly interests us is that, often when such a figure—or figures—is encountered, it slows the action, but, interestingly, may cause further action at the same time:  the protagonist can be challenged, questioned, or even forced to act—all part of what we call “no fiction without friction”—and we’ll see what this does for the characters now as we’re off on our journey through Middle-earth, beginning  where The Lord of the Rings begins, in the Shire.

image2shire

Before we go farther, however, we would like to expand our definition of watchman/sentry just a little to include the mobile equivalent of sentries, patrols:

“The Shirriffs was the name that the Hobbits gave to their police, or the nearest equivalent that they possessed…There were in the Shire only twelve of them, three in each Farthing, for Inside Work.  A rather larger body, varying at need, was employed to ‘beat the bounds’, and to see that Outsiders of any kind, great or small, did not make themselves a nuisance.”  (The Lord of the Rings, Prologue, 3, “Of the Ordering of the Shire”)

Tolkien says of these shirriffs that “they were in practice rather haywards then policemen”, and “hay” here doesn’t  mean horse and cattle feed  but, rather, it’s an old word for “hedge”(from Old English “haga”) and we see our next sentry at the hedge which surrounds Bree.  Initially, this is “old Harry”, who seems, when the hobbits arrive, a bit too inquisitive:

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

It says, perhaps, something about the confidence of the Elves that, at Rivendell, there are neither sentries nor patrols—although perhaps the River Bruinen might be considered at least a defense, considering that it sweeps away the Nazgul when they try to cross.

At the Ford, by Ted Nasmith

(Image by one of our favorite Tolkien illustrators, Ted Nasmith)

This idea of a natural force as sentry appears again before the Fellowship enters Moria—although, this time, as they climb along the mountains on the way south, it is decidedly not on their side:

“They heard eerie noises in the darkness round them.  It may have been only a trick of the wind in the cracks and gullies of the rocky wall, but the sounds were those of shrill cries, and wild howls of laughter.  Stones began to fall from the mountain-side, whistling over their heads, or crashing on the path beside them.  Every now and again they heard a dull rumble, as a great boulder rolled down from hidden heights above.” (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book Two, Chapter 3, “The Ring Goes South”)

The combination of rock and snow forces the Fellowship to make what seems at the time a fatal decision:  to go not south, but east, into the Mines of Moria, with the disappearance of Gandalf as the consequence.

At the western doors of Moria, however, they encounter another negative force, something in the manmade lake in front of those doors.  It is a watcher, if not an active sentry, although what it really is, even Gandalf doesn’t know:

“Something has crept or has been driven out of dark waters under the mountains.  There are older and fouler things than Orcs in the deep places of the world.”  (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book Two, Chapter 4, “A Journey in the Dark”)

alan-lee-moria-gate-particolare

Whatever this creature may be (and it has lots of tentacles, which makes us think immediately of the squid with which the crew of the submarine Nautilus has to contend in Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea)

20000detail

their encounter with it insures that their choice of traveling through Moria can’t be revoked:

“Many coiling arms seized the doors on either side, and with horrible strength, swung them round.  With a shattering echo they slammed, and all light was lost.  A noise of rending and crashing came dully through the ponderous stone…They heard Gandalf go back down the steps and thrust his staff against the doors.  There was a quiver in the stone and the stairs trembled, but the doors did not open.”

On the far side of Moria, at the edge of Lorien, the company meets its next watcher—or watchers, rather, a listening post of Elves set on a platform in a tree, where:

“…[Frodo] found Legolas seated with three other Elves.  They were clad in shadowy-grey, and could not be seen among the tree-stems, unless they moved suddenly.”  (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book Two, Chapter 6, “Lothlorien”)

And here we see an interesting development brought on by contact with the Elves at this sentry-post.  Because the Elves are mistrustful of Gimli, there is an awkward moment:  he is to be led blindfolded into the center of Lorien, something he resists until Aragorn proposes that all be blindfolded, to which Gimli makes a counterproposal that only Legolas need be blindfolded, which Legolas resists, and all are back to Aragorn’s proposal, but the leader of the Elves, Haldir, draws a moral from the situation:

“Indeed in nothing is the power of the Dark Lord more clearly shown than in the estrangement that divides all those who still oppose him.”

Our last sentries for this posting are more a symbol in that they are inanimate, but full of warning all the same:

“  ‘Behold the Argonath, the Pillars of the Kings!’ cried Aragorn…

As Frodo was borne towards them the great pillars rose like towers to meet him.  Giants they seemed to him, vast grey figures silent but threatening.  Then he saw that they were indeed shaped and fashioned…Upon great pedestals founded in the deep waters stood two great kings of stone:  still with blurred eyes and crannied brows they frowned upon the North.  The left hand of each was raised palm outwards in gesture of warning; in each right hand there was an axe; upon each head there was a crumbling helm and crown.  Great power and majesty they still wore, the silent wardens of a long-vanished kingdom. “  (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book Two, Chapter 9, “The Great River”)

argonath hildebrandt

But, for all their forbidding look, they spark something in Aragorn—

“ ‘Fear not!’ said a strange voice behind him.  Frodo turned and saw Strider, and yet not Strider; for the weatherworn Ranger was no longer there.  In the stern sat Aragorn son of Arathorn, proud and erect, guiding the boat with skilful strokes; his hood was cast back, and his dark hair was blowing in the wind, a light was in his eyes:  a king returning from exile to his own land.”

And, on that inspiring note, we’ll pause for this posting, saving the rest of the sentries, watchers, and patrols for Part 3.

In the meantime, thanks, as always, for reading.

MTCIDC

CD

Beaux Gestes? (1)

20 Wednesday Apr 2016

Posted by Ollamh in J.R.R. Tolkien, Narrative Methods, Theatre and Performance

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Cicero, David Garrick, Edmund Burke, Elizabethan, Film, Galadriel, Globe theatre, Hamlet, Hildebrandt, Mirror of Galadriel, Quintilian, rejection, Roman theatre, The Argonath, The Lord of the Rings, The Phantom of the Opera, The Popular Entertainer and Self-Instructor in Elocution, theatre, Theatrical gesture, Tolkien

Dear Readers, welcome, as always.

In this posting, we want to begin to consider a pair of contrasting gestures in The Lord of the Rings, where they may come from, and how they may mirror each other.

We begin with Galadriel in The Fellowship of the Ring, Book II, Chapter 7, “The Mirror of Galadriel”.

In this scene, she has offered Frodo and Sam the chance to look into what appears to be a small pool of enchanted water, where she tells Frodo “You may learn something, and whether what you see be fair or evil, that may be profitable, and yet it may not. Seeing is both good and perilous.”

9ae941056ddb6946598d98690668e844.jpg

Sam goes first and endures a nightmarish depiction of the future of the Shire—although Galadriel warns him that it is perhaps potential, not fated future.

Frodo has, in turn, an even worse experience: the eye of Sauron himself appears and Frodo can feel that it is trying to discover the Ring.   It is something of which Galadriel herself is well aware, but she comforts Frodo, saying, “…I perceive the Dark Lord and know his mind, or all of his mind that concerns the Elves. And he gropes ever to see me and my thought. But the door is still closed!”

To emphasize this, “She lifted up her white arms, and spread out her hands towards the East in a gesture of rejection and denial.”

Repulsion.jpg

To modern people, like us, trying to visualize what Galadriel is doing , this might seem a very “theatrical” gesture. The closest we could find in our image bank of Galadriel actually doing it wasn’t more than a suggestion.

galadriel.jpg

 

And, in fact, the image we’ve chosen (obviously not Galadriel!) to depict this comes from a book published in 1898, with the intriguing title, The Popular Entertainer and Self-Instructor in Elocution.

This brings us back to a time in history when public speaking was a polished art and men (primarily—although the women’s rights movement from the mid-19th century had its speakers, as well) practiced stylized gestures to help them convey their meaning in lecture halls, theatres, and open spaces. Older public statues sometimes capture such a speaker in mid-gesture—as in this of the British intellectual and politician, Edmund Burke, in Bristol.

bristolbroadquayburke.jpg

Such combinations of gesture and speech are derived from a tradition which stretches all the way back to the last century BC/first century AD in the works of the Roman orators/writers Cicero

cicero.jpg

And Quintilian.

QuintWikiImage.JPG

These men described the art of public speaking, and Quintilian, in particular, discusses the use of gesture to expand and underline the spoken text emotionally. This tradition was continued from the Renaissance and beyond initially in translations of the two into local languages, but then in expansions of their ideas. Such gestures were also found useful for the young popular theatre and continued to form part of an actor’s training into the twentieth century. Here, for instance, is the 18th-century actor, David Garrick, in a role for which he was famous, Hamlet. And you’ll notice that same gesture of rejection: arms extended, hands spread.

davidgarrickashamlet.jpg

(This is not, by the way, the same gesture we see depicted on the Argonath. That seems to us more to convey the message: Stop! You have reached the boundary of Gondor—go no farther!

argonath hildebrandt.jpg

This is the Hildebrandt twins rather mild version. A fiercer one would be that from the film.)

argonathfilm.jpg

To us, such gestures may seem very overdone, if not downright silly—as in this from the 1925 film of The Phantom of the Opera.

lchaneysrphantom

And it is probably film itself which has changed our view. Originally, these gestures were developed to extend a speaker’s ability to convey thought and feeling in a public space—a big place where there was no elaborate sound system with microphones and speakers to help.

cicerovscatiline.jpg

In a big, noisy place like an Elizabethan theatre, such an extension would have proved just as useful.

Hodge's_conjectural_Globe_reconstruction.jpg

And, until artificial vocal magnification was invented in the 20th century, it would have continued to help.

Theatre_drury_lane2.jpg

sadlers_wells_interior_rowlandson_microcosm_1810.jpg

Film began as an offshoot of the stage—after all, what other model was there for actors? Film was much more intimate than the stage, however, even before sound films arrived at the very end of the 1920s. The heavy make-up and big, stylized gestures brought over from earlier drama must have seemed even more exaggerated, in time, to audiences, and everything was gradually scaled down. What Tolkien saw as a young man,

hunchback.jpg

however, having been born in 1893, would have been the product of that earlier time—a time all the way back to the Romans—and thus, when he wants to depict strong emotion, he clearly uses what would have been more appropriate for an older time, just as he uses older language, borrowed from people like William Morris and Tennyson, when he wants to add a certain weight to the words.

In our second posting, we want to continue our exploration with what we feel to be an opposing gesture—and the final gesture—of Saruman.

greg-hildebrandt-isengard-orthanc-saruman-607429-1300x962.jpg

Thanks, as always, for reading.

MTCIDC

CD

What’s In A Name?

26 Wednesday Aug 2015

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

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Anglo-Saxon, artefacts, Balin, Beaumaris, Bladorthin, Gandalf, Girion, Hadrian's Wall, Hoard, Middle-earth, Raedwald, Ship burial, Sigeberht, spears, Staffordshire Hoard, Stonehenge, Suffolk, Sutton Hoo, The Argonath, The Hobbit, Thorin, Thror, Tolkien, weapons

Dear Readers, welcome, as ever.

If you look for the name “Bladorthin” in The Annotated Hobbit (our standard source), you will find it only once, on page 287, where Thorin and Balin discuss what they can remember of the great hoard of the Lonely Mountain.

bilbowithsmaug

This includes not only the usual golden items and jewels, but also what appears to have been a military consignment, “the spears that were made for the armies of the great King Bladorthin (long since dead), each had a thrice-forged head and their shafts were inlaid with cunning gold, but they were never delivered or paid for.”

IMG_1566

thames spearhead1 img01

292_183

Who this king was and why he was arming his men with what appear to be deluxe weapons is a mystery and probably forever unsolved. This is likewise true for the original Bladorthin, who exchanges his name for that of the head dwarf in the first drafts, Gandalf, just as the head dwarf loses his name, Gandalf, to become Thorin. Why does Tolkien make the shift?

If neither of these can be answered, perhaps we can step back a little to wonder why Bladorthin, the king, is in The Hobbit at all?

A strongly-marked feature of The Lord of the Rings is the sense of age, of great time having passed. Part of this comes from Tolkien’s own sense of history, part from living in a place where things like stone circles

stonehenge

and Roman fortifications

hadrianswallL_tcm4-553745

let alone more recent things, like castles

Beaumaris_Castle

Beaumaris Aerial North Castles Historic Sites

are everywhere to be seen every day.

Part of it, too, comes from Tolkien’s seemingly-unquenchable desire to add to what he had created, providing more and more and more context practically per page.

What might be seen as obsessive, or nearly, however, adds what we might call convincing texture, and in two ways: on the one hand, it makes the story that much more vivid because it’s so much more detailed, and, on the other, it gives it weight: this is not a tale of yesterday, but of a long ago, even if not a long ago from the world of the Neolithic or Romans or Edward I.

This sense of age comes from a number of elements, including not only the idea that the text has been translated from a manuscript, a handwritten text from a pre-Gutenberg age, but also from the landscape which, like Tolkien’s own mid-20th-century Britain, is full of visible reminders of the past–

argonath+hildebrandt

In fact, not long after the publication of The Hobbit, in 1937, a major uncovering of the English Anglo-Saxon past took place near the coast, in Suffolk, at a place called Sutton Hoo. Here, a series of mounds

03 Sutton Hoo, several mounds, c_1983_jpg

yielded a ship burial

sutton_h

Sutton Hoo, Woodbridge, Suffolk.  Reconstruction drawing of the Sutton Hoo ship burial in 620 or 630 - by Peter Dunn (English Heritage Graphics Team).     Date: circa 620

with nothing short of a hoard, including such items as these pieces from a purse

0523787e795fd30ca6116541512926f0

and a helmet.

sutton-hoo

2008-05-17-SuttonHoo.2

(And, since then, it turns out that the area is an extensive cemetery, which, though much plundered, has yielded many other finds.)

athelstan-albums-general-picture2865-sutton-hoo-1

Although Tolkien doesn’t mention this discovery in his selected letters, it would be difficult to imagine that he hadn’t seen something about it: it was even featured in the US National Geographic, in the year of discovery, 1939. Unfortunately, who the man buried there was appears impossible to say, leaving one aspect unknown, and all of the valuables simply generic Anglo-Saxon. (The theory now is that he is the early 7th-c AD ruler, Raedwald, or his son/step-son, Sigeberht.)

The Hobbit, written earlier in terms of years and even earlier, perhaps, in terms of literary sophistication, has, in comparison, much less depth. Much of the backdrop is, particularly in comparison, fairy-tale flat, without all of those levelsl of history.

But then there is Bladorthin.

That mound of wealth, extending beyond the sleeping Smaug is initially described as:

“…on all sides stretching away across the unseen floors, lay countless piles of precious things, gold wrought and unwrought, gems and jewels, and silver red-stained in the ruddy light.” TH 270

This is impressive enough to wake a kind of primal greed in Bilbo:

“His heart was filled and pierced with enchantment and with the desire of dwarves; and he gazed motionless, almost forgetting the frightful guardian, at the gold beyond price and count.” TH 271

Imagine, then, that such a hoard—like Sutton Hoo, or the more recent—and astonishing—Staffordshire Hoard (see the link here)

stafforshire hoard

could have names attached to some of its pieces, if not to the hoard in general. Thorin and Balin, in their reminiscing, combine general description with some specific detail, as well as identifying several one-time object owners:

“…shields made for warriors long dead; the great golden cup of Thror, two-handed, hammered and carven with birds and flowers whose eyes and petals were of jewels; coats of mail gilded and silvered and impenetrable; the necklace of Girion, Lord of Dale, made of five hundred emeralds green as grass, which he gave for the arming of his eldest son in a coat of dwarf-linked rings the like of which had never been made before, for it was wrought of pure silver to the power and strength of triple steel. But fairest of all was the great white gem, which the dwarves had found beneath the roots of the Mountain, the Heart of the Mountain, the Arkenstone of Thrain.” TH 287

Just as places in Middle-earth, by having history, are deepened, the same would be true for artefacts: not just a necklace, but Girion’s necklace, not just a golden cup, but Thror’s cup, and not just spears, but spears commissioned by Bladorthin, a king of long ago.

Thus, although Bladorthin’s history may remain a mystery outside The Hobbit, what history there is gives greater depth, narrative texture, to this early vision of Middle-earth and to the story of Bilbo, in particular.

Thanks, as ever, for reading.

MTCIDC

CD

The Doubtful Sea Series Facebook Page

The Doubtful Sea Series Facebook Page

  • Ollamh

Categories

  • Artists and Illustrators
  • Economics in Middle-earth
  • Fairy Tales and Myths
  • Films and Music
  • Games
  • Heroes
  • Imaginary History
  • J.R.R. Tolkien
  • Language
  • Literary History
  • Maps
  • Medieval Russia
  • Military History
  • Military History of Middle-earth
  • Narnia
  • Narrative Methods
  • Poetry
  • Research
  • Star Wars
  • Terra Australis
  • The Rohirrim
  • Theatre and Performance
  • Tolkien
  • Uncategorized
  • Villains
  • Writing as Collaborators
Follow doubtfulsea on WordPress.com

Across the Doubtful Sea

Recent Postings

  • (Failed) Rewards and (No More) Fairies June 22, 2022
  • Stretching Back (II) June 15, 2022
  • Stretching Back (I) June 8, 2022
  • Loathing, If No Fear June 1, 2022
  • Black and Ominous? May 25, 2022
  • (Un)happily Ever After ? May 18, 2022
  • Riddles in the (Not So) Dark May 11, 2022
  • Feeling Blue (II) May 5, 2022
  • Feeling  Blue (I) April 27, 2022

Blog Statistics

  • 61,583 Views

Posting Archive

  • June 2022 (4)
  • May 2022 (4)
  • April 2022 (4)
  • March 2022 (5)
  • February 2022 (4)
  • January 2022 (4)
  • December 2021 (5)
  • November 2021 (4)
  • October 2021 (4)
  • September 2021 (5)
  • August 2021 (4)
  • July 2021 (4)
  • June 2021 (5)
  • May 2021 (4)
  • April 2021 (4)
  • March 2021 (5)
  • February 2021 (4)
  • January 2021 (4)
  • December 2020 (5)
  • November 2020 (4)
  • October 2020 (4)
  • September 2020 (5)
  • August 2020 (4)
  • July 2020 (5)
  • June 2020 (4)
  • May 2020 (4)
  • April 2020 (5)
  • March 2020 (4)
  • February 2020 (4)
  • January 2020 (6)
  • December 2019 (4)
  • November 2019 (4)
  • October 2019 (5)
  • September 2019 (4)
  • August 2019 (4)
  • July 2019 (5)
  • June 2019 (4)
  • May 2019 (5)
  • April 2019 (4)
  • March 2019 (4)
  • February 2019 (4)
  • January 2019 (5)
  • December 2018 (4)
  • November 2018 (4)
  • October 2018 (5)
  • September 2018 (4)
  • August 2018 (5)
  • July 2018 (4)
  • June 2018 (4)
  • May 2018 (5)
  • April 2018 (4)
  • March 2018 (4)
  • February 2018 (4)
  • January 2018 (5)
  • December 2017 (4)
  • November 2017 (4)
  • October 2017 (4)
  • September 2017 (4)
  • August 2017 (5)
  • July 2017 (4)
  • June 2017 (4)
  • May 2017 (5)
  • April 2017 (4)
  • March 2017 (5)
  • February 2017 (4)
  • January 2017 (4)
  • December 2016 (4)
  • November 2016 (5)
  • October 2016 (6)
  • September 2016 (5)
  • August 2016 (5)
  • July 2016 (5)
  • June 2016 (5)
  • May 2016 (4)
  • April 2016 (4)
  • March 2016 (5)
  • February 2016 (4)
  • January 2016 (4)
  • December 2015 (5)
  • November 2015 (5)
  • October 2015 (4)
  • September 2015 (5)
  • August 2015 (4)
  • July 2015 (5)
  • June 2015 (5)
  • May 2015 (4)
  • April 2015 (3)
  • March 2015 (4)
  • February 2015 (4)
  • January 2015 (4)
  • December 2014 (5)
  • November 2014 (4)
  • October 2014 (6)
  • September 2014 (1)

Blog at WordPress.com.

  • Follow Following
    • doubtfulsea
    • Join 65 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • doubtfulsea
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...