I’m always amazed at how many kinds of phobias there are.
There’s the classic acrophobia—
and nyctophobia—
and trypanophobia
(of which George Lucas takes advantage in Star Wars IV
that needle is positively dripping!)
and one of my favorites, coulrophobia–
(and who wouldn’t be afraid of that?)
as well as the seemingly common arachnophobia,
of which Steven Spielberg took advantage in the first Indiana Jones movie—
Because of Shelob in The Lord of the Rings,
(Ted Nasmith)
Tolkien, perhaps suspected of this—after all, there are also those large spiders in The Hobbit—
(Alan Lee)
wrote to W.H. Auden in 1955:
“But I did know more or less all about Gollum and his part, and Sam, and I knew that the way was guarded by a Spider. And if that has anything to do with my being stung by a tarantula when a small child,
people are welcome to the notion (supposing the improbable, that any one is interested). I can only say that I remember nothing about it, should not know it if I had not been told; and I do not dislike spiders particularly, and have no urge to kill them. I usually rescue those whom I find in the bath!” (letter to W.H. Auden, 7 June, 1955, Letters, 316. For more on this, see: “Phobe” 24 May, 2023 here: https://doubtfulsea.com//?s=phobe&search=Go )
So, as far as we know, then, JRRT makes no mention of any other fears and insists that he had no dread of arachnids, even if they make two major appearances in his works. There is another possible phobia which he doesn’t discuss, however—claustrophobia—
and I’ve wondered: could we perhaps see a mild form in his case?
I suppose that one might immediately point out that Bilbo, in effect, lives in a cave—
(JRRT)
but Tolkien’s illustration suggests that this isn’t a place for spelunking—
and his description of Bag End underlines this:
“Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.
…The door opened on to a tube-shaped hall like a tunnel: a very comfortable tunnel without smoke, with panelled walls, and floors tiled and carpeted, provided with polished chairs, and lots and lots of pegs for hats and coats…” (The Hobbit, Chapter One, “An Unexpected Party”)
But consider all of his adventures in the novel: how many of them take place in adverse conditions under ground?
First, there’s the mention of the cave where the trolls
(JRRT)
kept their loot:
“There were bones on the floor and a nasty smell in the air; but there was a good deal of food jumbled carelessly on shelves and on the ground among an untidy litter of plunder, of all sorts from buttons to pots full of gold coins standing in a corner. There were lots of clothes, too, hanging on the walls—too small for trolls, I am afraid they belonged to victims…” (The Hobbit, Chapter Two, “Roast Mutton”—there was also “bacon to toast in the embers of the fire”—but, considering a major troll protein source and remembering William’s remark—“Yer can’t expect folk to stop here for ever just to be et by you and Bert. You’ve et a village and a half between yer since we come down from the mountains.” I wonder that Bilbo and the dwarves would touch it!)
Then there was the network of caves cut by the goblins under the Misty Mountains,
(JRRT—but looking from the east westwards)
where Bilbo and the dwarves were briefly held prisoner by the goblins
(Alan Lee)
and where Bilbo had his encounter with Gollum.
(Alan Lee again)
Later, we have the halls of Thranduil, where the dwarves are again held prisoner,
(JRRT)
before the final underground nightmare, the Lonely Mountain.
IJRRT)
And those are just the subterranean terrors in The Hobbit.
Continuing to The Lord of the Rings, we have Moria,
(Alan Lee)
where, besides being temporarily trapped by orcs in the Chamber of Mazarbul,
(Angus McBride)
the Fellowship loses Gandalf to the Balrog.
(Angus McBride)
There are the caves at Helm’s Deep, about which Gimli is enthusiastic, but Legolas is not.
I am always glad for recommendations—for films, YouTube videos, and books. Usually, these come to me in the form of conversations and e-mails, but this recommendation didn’t come from a person—well, directly—but from an image on YouTube.
I daily follow a number of language videos, both to increase my knowledge of old friends and to add new friends, and I was watching Easy Dutch on verbs of position (you can see it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5xEkwOo5Go ) when a Dutch children’s classic was mentioned and shown and I was immediately interested.
Tonke Dragt (TAWN-keh Dracht—with the g/ch in the back of the throat, like “Bach”, plus a T after it) is Antonia Dragt, 1930-2024, the author of a number of YA books in Dutch.
Her early life was a harrowing one: born in 1930, she lived as a child in Indonesia and, along with her family, was held in a prisoner of war camp from 1942 to 1945, but, while a prisoner, she began a writing career which would continue till at least 2017, when she published Als de sterren zingen (“If/Supposing That/In the Event That/Whenever the Stars Sing”—as far as I know, this hasn’t been translated into English and my Dutch is limited, so, Dutch readers, please forgive the translation!)
It appears that, when she published her first novel, in 1961, Verhalen van der tweelingbroers “To Tell of the Twin Brothers”—published in English in 2021 as The Goldsmith and the Master Thief),
YA (that’s “Young Adult”) fantasy was not popular in the Netherlands, but she persisted, and her 1962 book, De brief voor de koning (“The Letter for the King”)
was a great success—and even became, in time, a Dutch film–
(It’s available on DVD in Dutch, but there are English subtitles.)
“I once tried to write a very realistic story, so I wrote about a class of children who went somewhere on a bus and within two chapters they were flying in the air—it’s the way my mind works! I’m a fairytale teller…I was born like that and I cannot do anything else.”
But now to her books—that is, to the ones currently available in English—of which I’ve read four, a fifth, De torens van februari (“The Towers of February”)—published in Dutch in 1973 and in English in 1975—
is available only at a price beyond my current book budget, alas.
Because I was originally drawn to her work by that image on Easy Dutch, I didn’t begin with the first of her books, but De Seven Sprong, 1966,
“The Seven Leap”, published in English in 2018 as The Song of Seven.
The fantasy element appears almost at the beginning, when we learn that a teacher, Frans Van der Steg, to keep an unruly class amused, has been telling outrageous adventure stories—about himself–and, in today’s episode, says that he’s expecting an important letter. And, when he arrives at his landlady’s, that letter arrives, bringing the teacher into a complex adventure, including, among other things, a house so large and complicated as to be a kind of puzzle (which makes me wonder if Ms Dragt had read Mervyn Peake’s Titus Groan, 1946,
the scene of which is a gigantic, ruined castle, Gormenghast) a lost treasure, and—how not?—an evil uncle.
It was set, surprisingly, knowing the author’s bent for fairytale-telling, in the present, but, even though there’s a motorbike, there’s also a carriage and coachman, a muzzle-loading cannon, a practicing magician, an orphan-heir, and that vast labyrinth of a house. (The Dutch title, by the way, refers to a famous Dutch folkdance, which you can read about here: ,https://www.lookandlearn.com/blog/26053/the-traditional-dutch-jumping-dance-may-come-from-a-pagan-crop-ritual/ Seven is also a magic number which keeps appearing and reappearing in the novel.)
Having read and enjoyed the book, I went backwards in time to Dragt’s first book, the one entitled, in English, The Goldsmith and the Master Thief.
Unlike The Song of Seven, which was a novel, this was really a collection of short stories skillfully stitched together, being about twin brothers and their adventures, including, as seems almost inevitable, the use of identical twins to puzzle and confuse and even to pose a riddle, as well as to complicate a plot or two.
One thing I much enjoy, when I have the chance to work my way through an author’s writing, is to watch the author develop—just think, for example, of the difference between The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, completed about 20 years apart. In reading The Letter for the King,
published only a year after The Goldsmith and the Master Thief, the author has made the leap (only 1, not 7), from what was, in a way, a short-story collection to a full-scale and long—506 pages, in the English translation—adventure novel. It’s the story of a squire, Tiuri, who, spending the night before the knighting service supposedly in prayer in a chapel, answers a knock at the door, is given the letter of the title, which he is supposed to deliver to a knight, only to discover the knight ambushed and dying, and then spends most of the rest of the book attempting to deliver it to the king of the kingdom to the west.
As one would expect, along the way he meets friends and enemies, acquires a squire of his own, as well as a potential sweetheart, and, because the book is a fairy tale, it has a happy ending—but with some things—like the sweetheart—in doubt. (There’s a long plot summary here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Letter_for_the_King I would be wary, I might add, of the British NetFlix version, which has changed the story completely in the way in which The Hobbit was changed—as was Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials, the latter also by NetFlix. I’m reminded, as I always am, of Tolkien’s letter to Forrest J. Ackerman about a proposal in 1958, to make films of The Lord of the Rings, in which he says of the adapter and others interested in the project: “But I would ask them to make an effort of imagination sufficient to understand the irritation (and on occasion the resentment) of an author who finds, increasingly as he proceeds, his work treated as it would seem carelessly in general, in places recklessly, and with no evident signs of any appreciation of what it is all about…” “from a letter to Forrest J. Ackerman”, June, 1958, Letters, 389)
This then sets the scene for the sequel, Geheimen van het Wilde Woud, 1965, translated as The Secrets of the Wild Wood, published in 2015.
In this sequel, we see now Sir Tiuri, and his squire, Piak (his would-be squire of the previous book) on a quest first to find a missing knight, but then become tangled in a complex plot which includes two princely brothers, one the next king-to-be in his own land, the other now king of the land to the south and planning to invade his own land and overthrow his father, the king, and his brother. As well, there are the mysterious forest folk and a potential new sweetheart who is not quite what she seems to be. Here’s a longer summary: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secrets_of_the_Wild_Wood For me, this is the best book yet—not only for the twists and turns, but for the grownup feel to it: so much is not neat, characters are more complex, and there is a sort of happy ending, but not for everyone (although Tiuri does return to his first sweetheart from the previous book).
Sometimes one does something for a reason only to benefit in a way unexpected while doing it. I had no idea that Tonke Dragt and her engaging novels existed until Easy Dutch handed her to me. Now I only wish that someone would translate her other novels—what might De robot van de rommelmarkt (“The Robot from the Flea Market”) be about, I wonder?
As always, thanks for reading.
Stay well,
When purchasing robots in flea markets, consider previous owners,
“ ‘I greet you…and maybe you look for welcome. But truth to tell your welcome is doubtful here, Master Gandalf. You have ever been a herald of woe. Troubles follow you like crows, and ever the oftener the worse….Here you come again! And with you come evils worse than before, as might be expected. Why should I welcome you, Gandalf Stormcrow?’ “ (The Two Towers, Book Three, Chapter 6, “The King of the Golden Hall”)
Theoden is being less than hospitable, although we soon learn that he’s being manipulated by Grima to be so,
(Alan Lee)
but his insulting name seems odd: “Stormcrow”?
If we were southerners in the US, we might imagine that Theoden is actually calling Gandalf a cuckoo, as the yellow-billed cuckoo, native there, is sometimes called that,
because, as the Wiki article says, the nickname perhaps comes from the fact of “the bird’s habit of calling on hot days, often presaging rain or thunderstorms”. (For more, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow-billed_cuckoo )
Although we don’t hear of cuckoos in Middle-earth, certainly Gandalf appears in Meduseld in the middle of another kind of tempest, as Grima continues Theoden’s line of reasoning:
“ ‘It is not yet five days since the bitter tidings came that Theodred your son was slain upon the West Marches: your right-hand, Second Marshal of the Mark. In Eomer there is little trust…And even now we learn from Gondor that the Dark Lord is stirring in the East…Why indeed should we welcome you, Master Stormcrow?’ “
And there that word is again. What does Tolkien have against crows?
There might be a clue in that line “troubles follow you like crows”, which reminds me of something which happened earlier in The Lord of the Rings when “Flocks of birds, flying at great speed”, appeared over the Fellowship. Aragorn wakes and reports to Gandalf:
“ ‘Regiments of black crows are flying over all the land between the Mountains and the Greyflood…and they have passed over Hollin. They are not natives here; they are crebain out of Fangorn and Dunland. I do not know what they are about…but I think they are spying out the land.’ “ (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book Two, Chapter 3, “The Ring Goes South”)
It’s clear that, in Tolkien’s mind, crows do not get good press. Here they are in The Hobbit, as well, as Balin says to Bilbo:
“ ‘Those were crows! And nasty suspicious-looking creatures at that, and rude as well. You must have heard the ugly names they were calling after us.’ “ (The Hobbit, Chapter 15, “The Gathering of the Clouds”)
So, crows are “nasty suspicious-looking creatures”, “rude”, and even possibly spies.
They are also in contrast to another large black bird—
(I apologize to my non-North American readers for using North American birds in this chart, but this seemed the best choice and the European varieties are similar.)
“ ‘I only wish he was a raven!’ said Balin.
‘I thought that you did not like them! You seemed very shy of them, when we came this way before.’
‘Those were crows!…But the ravens are different. There used to be great friendship between them and the people of Thror; and they often brought us secret news…
‘They live many a year, and their memories are long, and they hand on their wisdom to their children.’ “ (The Hobbit, Chapter 15, “The Gathering of the Clouds”)
(Alan Lee)
Why the preference for ravens?
Possibly, as a small child, Tolkien was upset by this nursery rhyme—
Crows are also linked to the death of the Irish hero, Cuchulain,
the Morrigan, 3-formed battle goddess, who brings about the hero’s end , sometimes employing that form as “the Badb” (“Bath-v”, where the “a” is that in “father” and “th” is like the “th” in “either”, the name meaning “crow”). And Tolkien was not fond of Old Irish literature, writing:
“I do know Celtic things (many in their original languages Irish and Welsh), and feel for them a certain distaste: largely for their fundamental unreason. They have bright colour, but are like a broken stained glass window reassembled without design.” (letter to Stanley Unwin, 16 December, 1937, Letters, 35— I would strongly disagree with JRRT. Raised in Classics and fond of medieval chivalry, Tolkien, I suspect, found the Irish stories in particular full of an earlier, more chaotic, world-view, as well as sometimes wild violence, which, to him, meant “unreason”. But this is one of those times when I wish that we could e-mail him and ask him to say more! For the death of Cuchulain, see: The Cuchullin Saga in Irish Literature here: https://archive.org/details/cu31924026824940 beginning on page 251)
The real reason for his choice of ravens might actually be completely different: an association with Gandalf.
In a letter to Stanley Unwin in which he discusses potential illustrations by Horus Engels for a German translation of The Hobbit, he says:
“He has sent me some illustrations (of the Trolls and Gollum) which despite certain merits, such as one would expect of a German, are I fear too ‘Disnified’ for my taste: Bilbo with a dribbling nose, and Gandalf as a figure of vulgar fun rather than the Odinic wanderer that I think of…” (letter to Stanley Unwin, 7 December, 1946, Letters, 172)
Odin is the Germanic high god and has not only a many-legged horse, Sleipnir,
If Tolkien sees Gandalf as “Odinic”, then we can imagine that his preference for ravens over crows may not come from dread of a nursery rhyme or dislike of a Celtic warrior, but from his strong attachment to things northern Germanic and, if so, then Theoden and his puppeteer, Grima, were right in picking a bird to label Gandalf, but wrong in choosing which one—although “stormraven” sounds a little clunky in comparison with “stormcrow”.
I’m always interested in influences on Tolkien and have written about them here and there in the past. It’s clear that he was always susceptible to them and would sometimes, when questioned, candidly admit to them, as he did, in this letter to the editor of The Observer:
“Beowulf is among my most valued sources; though it was not consciously present to the mind in the process of writing, in which the episode of the theft [of a cup by an escaped slave from a dragon’s hoard] arose naturally (and almost inevitably) from the circumstances. It is difficult to think of any other way of conducting the story at that point. I fancy the author of Beowulf would say much the same.” (letter to the editor of The Observer, printed 20 February, 1938, Letters, 41)
This theft and its consequences are readily apparent in Beowulf. Athough, unlike Smaug, he never speaks a word, the dragon who has suffered the loss very eloquently protests that theft—
”Then the baleful fiend its fire belched out, and bright homes burned. The blaze stood high all landsfolk frighting. No living thing 2315would that loathly one leave as aloft it flew. Wide was the dragon’s warring seen, its fiendish fury far and near, as the grim destroyer those Geatish people hated and hounded. To hidden lair, 2320to its hoard it hastened at hint of dawn. Folk of the land it had lapped in flame, with bale and brand.”
Along with the theft, Tolkien actually uses the idea of dragon destruction more than once, beginning with:
“The pines were roaring on the height,
The winds were moaning in the night.
The fire was red, it flaming spread;
The trees like torches blazed with light.
The bells were ringing in the dale
And men looked up with faces pale;
The dragon’s ire more fierce than fire
Laid low their towers and houses frail.”
(The Hobbit, Chapter One, “An Unexpected Party”)
where the dwarves sing it in the dark in Bilbo’s house.
(the Hildebrandts)
This is a poetic description of Smaug’s initial taking possession of Mt Erebor (“the Lonely Mountain”), after destroying the town of Dale, just below it.
(JRRT You can see the remains of Dale, just to the lower right.)
We’ll see more of this when Smaug later attacks Lake-town—
“Fire leaped from thatched roofs and wooden beam-ends as he [Smaug] hurtled down and past and round again…Back swirled the dragon. A sweep of his tail and the roof of the Great House crumbled and smashed down. Flames unquenchable sprang high into the night. Another swoop and another, and another house and then another sprang afire and fell…” (The Hobbit, Chapter Fourteen, “Fire and Water”)
This is wonderful, vivid story-telling, but, for me, the most powerful part of it is not the destruction itself, but the consequences of such destruction, beginning with Smaug’s original arrival, something which Bilbo only learns about from eavesdropping on the boatmen, in whose barrels Bilbo has hidden the dwarves in their escape from the forest elves.
(JRRT)
“As he listened to the talk of the raftmen and pieced together the scraps of information they let fall, he soon realized that he was very fortunate ever to have seen it [the Lonely Mountain] at all, even from this distance…The talk was all of the trade that came and went on the waterways and the growth of the traffic on the river, as the roads out of the East towards Mirkwood vanished or fell into disuse; and of the bickering of the Lake-men and the Wood-elves about the upkeep of the Forest River and the care of the banks. Those lands had changed much since the days when dwarves dwelt in the Mountain…Great floods and rains had swollen the waters that flowed east; and there had been an earthquake or two (which some were inclined to attribute to the dragon…). The marshes and bogs had spread wider and wider on either side. Paths had vanished, and many a rider and wanderer too, if they had tried to find the lost ways across. The elf-road through the wood which the dwarves had followed on the advice of Beorn now came to a doubtful and little used end at the eastern edge of the forest…” (The Hobbit, Chapter Ten, “A Warm Welcome”)
The dragon, the cup and its theft, and the consequences for Beowulf’s southern Sweden all are derived from the Old English poem.
For all of this landscape of destruction described by the raftsmen, however, I would propose one further source, not something which Tolkien had read, but which he himself had experienced.
When JRRT arrived in northern France in June, 1916, just in time for the Somme offensive, the war had been going on for nearly two years in the region and the heavy artillery of the era
had done a very good job of leveling virtually everything in sight, from houses
to churches
to whole towns
to bridges
to railways,
and this was the world through which Tolkien walked for some months, till invalided out with trench fever in November, 1916.
The destruction either caused by or attributed to Smaug would seem to be everywhere in these images.
I would add, however, a prophetic element to JRRT’s description.
The idea of Tolkien’s Great War experiences and how they may have shaped his views on many things has become a commonplace of Tolkien studies, the seminal work being John Garth’s Tolkien and the Great War, 2003.
But then another war came, and, with it, many dragons flying over Britain,
remind him, on the one hand, of what he had seen in the Great War, and, on the other, of what he had imagined and described from what he had seen then?
“They removed northward higher up the shore; for ever after they had a dread of the water where the dragon lay. He would never again return to his golden bed, but was stretched cold as stone, twisted upon the floor of the shallows. There for ages his huge bones could be seen in calm weather amid the ruined piles of the old town . But few dared to cross the cursed spot, and none dared to dive into the shivering water or recover the precious stones that fell from his rotting carcase.” (The Hobbit, Chapter Fourteen, “Fire and Water”)
Thanks, as always, for reading.
Stay well,
When you think of dragons, remember the Reluctant one, as well as the terrible,
“Just can’t wait to get on the road again The life I love is makin’ music with my friends And I can’t wait to get on the road again And I can’t wait to get on the road again”
As always, welcome, dear readers. This is from a Willie Nelson, a US country and western singer’s,
virtual theme song, and it seemed to fit where this posting wanted to go.
Having just written two postings about traveling to Bree, it struck me just how many Western adventure stories, as a main element of the plot, require the characters to travel, often long distances. (I’m sure that there are lots of Eastern stories which do this, too—see, for example, Wu Cheng’en’s (attributed) Journey to the West, which appeared in the 16th century—see, for more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journey_to_the_West You can read an abridged translation of this at: https://www.fadedpage.com/books/20230303/html.php )
Such adventures are commonly quests—that is, journeys with a particular goal and are commonly round- trip adventures. (For more on quests, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quest )
There are lots of folktales with this pattern, but the literary begins for us with the story of Jason, and his task of finding the Golden Fleece and bringing it back to Greece. (You can read a summary of the story here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Fleece The full Greek version we have of the story is from a 3rd century BC poem, the Argonautica of Apollonius of Rhodes, which you can read in a translation here: https://archive.org/details/apolloniusrhodiu00apol And you can read about the poem itself here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argonautica )
Then there’s the Odyssey, a later story, in mythological time, in which the main plot is that of Odysseus, a Greek and ruler of the island of Ithaka, who, having participated in the war against Troy, spends 9+ years of many adventures getting home to his island once more.
It’s no wonder, then, that Tolkien, originally destined to be a classicist, in telling a long story to his children, would make it a quest.
This quest would take the protagonist, Bilbo Baggins, from his home in the Shire hundreds of miles east, to the Lonely Mountain (Erebor) and back.
(Pauline Baynes—probably JRRT’s favorite illustrator—and whom he recommended to CS Lewis, for whom she illustrated all the Narnia books. You can read about her here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pauline_Baynes )
In the last two postings, we first followed Bilbo eastwards to Bree—only to find that, in The Hobbit, there is no Bree. We then retraced our steps and followed Frodo and his friends as they journeyed in the same direction, although this time with more success.
(Ted Nasmith)
Part of Frodo’s trip (with some detours), took him along the Great East Road, which ran through the Shire,
(Christopher Tolkien)
crossing the Greenway ( the old north/south road—more about this in a moment) at Bree and proceeding eastwards from there–
(Barbara Strachey, The Journeys of Frodo, 1981)
although Frodo and his friends, led by Strider,
(the Hildebrandts)
took an alternate route from there to Weathertop.
Because I’m always interested in the physical world of Middle-earth, I try to imagine what, in our Middle-earth, either suggested things to JRRT, or at least what we can use to try to reconstruct something comparable.
For the Great East Road, because it was constructed by the kings of Arnor, and had a major bridge (the Bridge of Strongbows—that is, strong arches), across the Brandywine,
(actually a 16thcentury Ottoman bridge near the village of Balgarene in Bulgaria. For more on Bulgarian bridges, some of which are quite spectacular, see: https://vagabond.bg/bulgarias-wondrous-bridges-3120 )
I had imagined something like a Roman road, wide, paved, with perhaps drainage on both sides.
The Romans were serious engineers and roads could be very methodically laid out and built.
This may have been true once, but the road Frodo and his friends eventually reach doesn’t sound much like surviving Roman work—
“…the Road, now dim as evening drew on, wound away below them. At this point it ran nearly from South-west to North-east, and on their right it fell quickly down into a wide hollow. It was rutted and bore many signs of the recent heavy rain; there were pools and pot-holes full of water.” (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book One, Chapter 8, “Fog on the Barrow-downs”)
Following the road, however, has made me consider just how many miles of roads we actually see in Middle-earth and over which various characters travel and how they might appear. Just look at a map—
(cartographer? clearly based on JRRT and Christopher Tolkien’s map)
The Great East Road (named “East-West Road” there) is drawn and identified, and we can see the North Road (as “North-South Road”), but these are hardly the only roads in Middle-earth and certainly not in the story, and, as we’re following Frodo & Co. on their journeys, I thought that it would be interesting to examine some of the others—the main ones, and one nearly-lost one.
So, when Frodo and his friends eventually reach the edge of Bree, they’re actually at a crossroads—
“For Bree stood at the old meeting of ways: another ancient road crossed the East Road just outside the dike at the western end of the village, and in former days Men and other folk of various sorts had traveled much on it. ‘Strange as News from Bree’ was still a saying in the Eastfarthing, descending from those days, when news from North, South, and East could be heard in the inn, and when the Shire-hobbits used to go more to hear it.”
With the fall of the northern realm of Arnor about TA1974, however, things had changed:
“But the Northern Lands had long been desolate, and the North Road was now seldom used: it was grass-grown, and the Bree-folk called it the Greenway.” (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book One, Chapter 9, “At the Sign of the Prancing Pony”)
We’re not given a detailed description of this road—was it like what I had imagined the Great East Road might have looked like, Roman and paved, but overgown?
If so, it led back to the city of Tharbad to the south, which had had its own elaborate bridge at the River Greyflood—
“…where the old North Road crossed the river by a ruined town.”
Of this bridge we know:
“…both kingdoms [Arnor and Gondor] together built and maintained the Bridge of Tharbad and the long causeways that carried the road to it on either of the Gwathlo [Greyflood]…” (JRRT Unfinished Tales, 277)
It must have been massive—could it have looked something like this?
As we also know, it had fallen into ruin, becoming only a dangerous ford, as Boromir found out, losing his horse there on the way north (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book Two, Chapter 8, “Farewell to Lorien”)
For me, one of the great pleasures of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings is that they are both so wonderfully imagined. Consider the beginning of The Hobbit, for example, where the opening could just have been the bare line “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.” Instead, it continues:
“Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.”
(JRRT)
And even this is not enough, as it continues:
“It had a perfectly round door like a porthole, painted green, with a shiny yellow brass knob in the exact middle.”
And it will go on for an entire paragraph beyond that sentence, listing rooms and even explaining why some are preferred.
Even with so much detail, I sometimes find myself wanting more—often more of the outside world. In this posting, then, I thought that we might take a trip to Bree and spend some time sightseeing as we go. Via the Great East Road, this is about 100 of our miles (160 km), according to the very useful website of Becky Burkheart (which you can visit here: https://www.beckyburkheart.com/traveltimesinmiddleearth ).
Why Bree? To quote The Lord of the Rings:
“It was not yet forgotten that there had been a time when there was much coming and going between the Shire and Bree.” (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book One, Chapter 9, “At the Sign of the Prancing Pony”)
If we use both The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings together, however, we’ll soon encounter some difficulties, as we shall see.
Our starting point for Bilbo is the Green Dragon Inn, in Bywater.
(Christopher Tolkien)
Tolkien doesn’t describe the inn, but, using a real inn, we might imagine the Green Dragon as looking something like this–
Just to the south of Bywater is the spot where the Hobbiton road meets the Great East Road. Again, Tolkien gives us no description, but there may be a hint as to this road in the original grant of the Shire by Argeleb II in TA1601:
“For it was in the one thousand six hundred and first year of the Third Age that the Fallohide brothers, Marcho and Blanco, set out from Bree; and having obtained permission from the high king at Fornost, they crossed the brown river Baranduin with a great following of Hobbits. They passed over the Bridge of Strongbows, that had been built in the days of the power of the North Kingdom, and they took all the land beyond to dwell in, between the river and the Far Downs. All that was demanded of them was that they should keep the Great Bridge in repair, and all other bridges and roads, speed the king’s messengers, and acknowledge his lordship.” (The Lord of the Rings, Prologue I, “Concerning Hobbits”)
We’ll cross the bridge a little later in our journey, but we might start with the road. That it’s sometimes called “the Great East Road” suggests that it’s more than a dirt path.
Could Tolkien have been thinking of the bits of surviving Roman road which crisscross England? Most are now buried under modern roads, but, here and there some are still available on the surface, as here—
and perhaps we can use this as a model. As an ancient stone road, it would certainly fit in with the ancient stone Bridge, as we’ll see.
Just beyond the spot where the lesser road meets the greater, we see marked on our map, the “Three Farthing Stone”. A “farthing” is a “four-thing”—that is, a quarter, and it marks the spot where three of the quarters, the four farthings, of the Shire meet. This appears to be modeled on the “Four Shire Stone” in our Middle-earth
And, from here, we head eastwards—and meet our first difficulty. Here’s the description in The Hobbit—
“At first they had passed through hobbit-lands, a wide respectable country inhabited by decent folk, with good roads, an inn or two, and now and then a dwarf or a farmer ambling by on business.”
That fits our Shire map: we might be traveling through Frogmorton and Whitfurrows, villages which might look like this—
but then there’s—
“Then they came to lands where people spoke strangely, and sang songs Bilbo had never heard before. Now they had gone on far into the Lone-lands, where there were no people left, no inns, and the roads grew steadily worse. Not far ahead were dreary hills, rising higher and higher, dark with trees. On some of them were old castles with an evil look, as if they had been built by wicked people.” (The Hobbit, Chapter 2, “Roast Mutton”)
The bridge is just ahead, but “dreary hills”? “old castles”?
And you can really see the difference here between the two books. Tolkien had yet to discover much of the East Farthing and was simply penciling in something which we might think of as “travel filler”, to indicate that the expedition was riding eastwards, but the trip was already becoming more difficult.
And then we come to the (here unnamed) bridge:
“Fortunately the road went over an ancient stone bridge, for the river, swollen with the rains, came rushing down from the hills and mountains in the north.”
As this is the first bridge mentioned, I’m going to assume that this is the “Bridge of Strongbows/Great Bridge” mentioned in Argeleb II’s grant to the original hobbit settlers.
(This is the Roman Pont Julien in southeastern France—over a bit drier patch than described in the book. For more on this ancient bridge, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pont_Julien )
Once over this bridge, we’re in a different world. We reach another river:
“Then one of the ponies took fright at nothing and bolted. He got into the river before they could catch him…”
Then, attempting to camp in the rain, Bilbo and the dwarves spot a fire, go to it, and find trolls.
(JRRT)
With the trolls dealt with by Gandalf, we move on to Rivendell–
(JRRT)
and suddenly we realize that: there’s no Bree!
It’s at the crossroads of the Great East Road and what the locals call “the Greenway”, the old north/south road, now long overgrown,
but, somehow, Bilbo and the dwarves have not encountered it. The reason is clear, of course: just as the Tolkien of The Hobbit had yet to discover the East Farthing, so, too, he had yet to discover Breeland.
So, it looks like we have to turn around, back to the Green Dragon, stop for a pint, as any hobbit would,
and try again—in “To Bree (Part 2”).
As always, thanks for reading.
Stay well,
When approaching a crossroads, be prepared for anything—especially monsters with questions–
was interested in the work of the 17-18th-century philosopher (among other things) Giambattista Vico, 1668-1744,
and his idea that history followed a definite repeated pattern in three ages, Divine, Heroic, and Human, posited in his 1725-1744 work, La Scienza Nuova (“the new understanding, knowledge, learning”).
Joyce incorporated his understanding of Vico in his last work, Finnegans Wake, 1939, in which
the idea of repeated patterns cycling throughout appears in the very opening—and closing– lines of the book:
“A way a lone a last a loved a long the / riverrun, past Eve and Adam’s, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs.”
which, in fact, are reversed, the opening of the book being:
“…riverrun, past Eve and Adam’s, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs…”
and the last words of the book are:
“A way a lone a last a loved a long the…”
so that, by joining them, we have the effect of the serpent Ouroboros, tail/tale joined to mouth—and the book can begin again.
I’ve always thought that leaving Tom Bombadil and the Barrow-wight
(Matthew Stewart—see more of his work here: https://www.matthew-stewart.com/ See, in particular, his Middle-earth work, but then go through his other galleries to view his impressive ability to capture other imaginary worlds.)
out of the first Lord of the Rings film was a mistake, even though Tolkien himself once wrote:
“Tom Bombadil is not an important person—to the narrative.” (letter to Naomi Mitchison, 25 April, 1954, Letters, 268—but read on, as JRRT has much more to say and, to my mind, justifies his position in the narrative, in fact, in a spiritual way.)
Tom is interesting in himself, being a kind of parallel for Treebeard, among other things (and the writers of the Rings of Power series thought highly enough of him to include him in their telling), but, for me, in the narrative, it’s what he gives them, particularly Merry, which is important—
“For each of the hobbits he chose a dagger, long, leaf-shaped, and keen, of marvelous workmanship…”
(probably something like this, but more elaborately-worked)
‘Old knives are long enough as swords for hobbit-people,’ he said…Then he told them that the blades were forged many long years ago by Men of Westernesse: they were foes of the Dark Lord, but they were overcome by the evil king of Carn Dum in the Land of Angmar.” (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book One, Chapter 8, “Fog on the Barrow-downs”)
This is, of course, the weapon which Merry uses to stab the chief of the Nazgul while he’s attacking Eowyn, the Nazgul being the very witch-king who had overcome the Men of Westernesse so long before.
(Ted Nasmith)
To keep Tom and the Barrow-wight in the film is then to underline the cyclic nature of much of the story.
This unnamed but crucial sword is only one of the swords scattered throughout the later story of Middle-earth, however, and there is a cyclic potential for others, as well.
Think of the swords which Gandalf and Co. find in the trolls’ hideout in The Hobbit—
“…and among them were several swords of various makes, shapes, and sizes. Two caught their eyes particularly, because of their beautiful scabbards and jeweled hilts…
‘These look like good blades,’ said the wizard, half drawing them and looking at them curiously. ‘They were not made by any troll, nor by any smith among men in these parts and days; but when we can read the runes on them, we shall know more about them.’ “ (The Hobbit, Chapter Two, “Roast Mutton”)
In the next chapter, Elrond then identifies them:
“Elrond knew all about runes of every kind. That day he looked at the swords they had brought from the trolls’ lair, and he said: ‘These are not troll-make. They are old swords, very old swords of the High Elves of the West, my kin. They were made in Gondolin for the Goblin-wars. They must have come from a dragon’s hoard or goblin plunder, for dragons and goblins destroyed that city many ages ago. This, Thorin, the runes name Orcrist, the Goblin-cleaver in the ancient tongue of Gondolin; it was a famous blade. This, Gandalf, is Glamdring, a Foe-hammer that the king of Gondolin once wore.’ “ (The Hobbit, Chapter Three. “A Short Rest”)
And you’ll remember that Gandalf runs the king of later goblins through in the next chapter with that very sword:
“Suddenly a sword flashed in its own light. Bilbo saw it go right through the Great Goblin as he stood dumb-founded in the middle of his rage. He fell dead, and the goblin soldiers fled before the sword shrieking into the darkness.” (The Hobbit, Chapter Four, “Over Hill and Under Hill”)
(Alan Lee)
The knife which Bilbo picks up from the trolls’ hoard “only a tiny pocket-knife for a troll, but it was as good as a short sword for the hobbit”, comes in handy later in The Hobbit, when Bilbo uses it to kill some of the spiders of Mirkwood,
but it will reappear many years later in The Lord of the Rings, when Frodo and Sam use it against another ancient evil, Shelob–
(Ted Nasmith again—and, unusually for his work, just plain weird—but vivid!)
Perhaps the most consequential sword to return, however, is that which maimed Sauron many centuries ago, causing him to lose the Ring, and which, reforged, Aragorn shows him in Saruman’s palantir
(the Hildebrandts)
(itself appearing from a far older world, being as Aragorn says, “For this assuredly is the palantir of Orthanc, from the treasury of Elendil, set here by the Kings of Gondor.” The Two Towers, Book Three, Chapter 11, “The Palantir”):
“…The eyes in Orthanc did not see through the armour of Theoden; but Sauron has not forgotten Isildur and the sword of Elendil. Now in the very hour of his great designs the heir of Isildur and the Sword are revealed; for I showed the blade re-forged to him. He is not so mighty yet that he is above fear; nay doubt ever gnaws him.” (The Return of the King, Book Five, Chapter 2, “The Passing of the Grey Company”)
And there are more cyclings.
Consider the Ring itself: forged in the fires of Mt Doom, it is eventually returned there and destroyed,
(another Ted Nasmith)
which causes the final end of Sauron, after several ages of struggle,
(and one more Ted Nasmith–and who better to paint a cataclysm?)
and which, in turn, brings the—return of the King.
(Denis Gordeev–and note that the artist has painted Aragorn’s crown as depicted by Tolkien in a letter to Rhona Beare, 14 October, 1958, see Letters, 401.)
After thinking about this, I can see that there are even more cyclic events, like the movement of the elves westwards, and Gandalf traveling the same way, originally sent eastwards to oppose Sauron,
(one more Ted Nasmith)
but I think that this is enough for one posting—though considering all of the cycles I’ve already identified, I’ll end with another (supposed) quotation from Yogi Berra:
This is a film I own and have seen perhaps half-a-dozen times and I’ve never viewed it as the horror film which the article would suggest. Granted, sensationalism sells the news, but, having read the article again, I’ve thought about how horror can be an element in a work—and a powerful one—without making the work as a whole into something like Bram Stoker’s Dracula.
But does the appearance of all these dangers make the book a horror novel, like one of Stephen King’s more forbidding works?
The article points to some potentially disturbing moments—and at least the first is certainly disturbing and, interestingly, is not in the two books upon which the film is based—The Marvelous Land of Oz, 1904,
and Ozma of Oz, 1907. (For more on the combination and the scriptwriters’ changes, see: “Chickening In”, 12 February, 2025)
The Kansas of the 1939 film was as bleak as a 1930s sound stage could make it, in sepia, suggesting photos of the Dust Bowl of the Great Depression era—
The 1985 movie showed us the real rolling hills of Kansas and the ruin of Uncle Henry and Aunt Em’s farm.
(This is at the end of the film, when the house has been rebuilt—early in the film, the house—which, of course, was ripped from Kansas and dropped on the Wicked Witch of the East—remains unfinished and Uncle Henry crippled from the twister.)
Dorothy, to Aunt Em, also seems somehow ruined, having reappeared after the tornado with stories about having been in a foreign land, Oz, but with no proof of it, and Em, having seen a newspaper ad for medical treatment by electricity, decides to take Dorothy to the clinic and its all-too-calm and rational Dr. Worley.
The treatment consists of running a powerful electrical current through Dorothy’s brain, (now called ECT—electroconvulsive therapy), which is supposed to erase Dorothy’s (supposedly false) memory of Oz.
As the audience, with its own memories of Oz, from the 1939 film, the many books, or both, knows perfectly well that Oz is real, as is Dorothy’s memory of it, and, as the article points out:
“…the power of these scenes lies in the fact that they are trying to silence Dorothy, to obliterate her memories of Oz”
Dorothy escapes the clinic (one might really says “asylum”, as it has that grim look of Victorian asylums for the insane)
(A real Victorian asylum—and not the grimmest, there being some real competition here)
and turns up in Oz, once more, where the article mentions other potentially disturbing elements:
the destruction of Oz and its citizens petrified,
its ruins haunted by the Wheelers,
the minions of Princess Mombi, who collects heads and wears them for different occasions,
and then there is the Nome King, who is the current ruler of Oz,
and is the destroyer of the Emerald City, the overlord of Mombi, and has enchanted Dorothy’s former friends, the Scarecrow, the Tinman, and the Cowardly Lion, turning them into inanimate objects.
For the sake of sensationalism, it seems that the article leans heavily on these—as if, I suggested above, one could do the same for The Hobbit, but this leaves out the fact that, although Dorothy’s first allies in Oz have been neutralized, she finds others, just as Bilbo has dwarves, Gandalf, Elrond, the Eagles, and Beorn, not to mention Sting and the Ring.
These include the caustic hen, Billina, who arrives with her from Kansas,
“the Army of Oz”—Tik-Tok,
Jack Pumpkinhead,
and the Gump.
I teach story-telling on a regular basis and a dictum I use is “No fiction without friction” . Just as trolls, goblins, wolves, Gollum, spiders, and Smaug provide the friction in The Hobbit, so the clinic and its smooth-talking doctor, the Wheelers, Princess Mombi, and the Nome King, provide it in Return to Oz. These plot elements supply the problems which must be solved before the ultimate goal of the story can be achieved—coming home safely (and much better-off) for Bilbo, coming home and keeping her memories of Oz for Dorothy (guaranteed for her when she sees Ozma, rescued from the Nome King, in her mirror in Kansas).
Disturbing moments—in both—what’s that riddle contest with Gollum if nothing short of harrowing?—but is Return to Oz just this side of a horror movie? As always, I suggest that you see it for yourself, but remember “no fiction without friction” before you rank it with The Shining.
set out on their quest, they’re aware that, at its end, they must face the reason the dwarves’ forebears died or fled Erebor, the “Lonely Mountain”.
(JRRT)
And yet they go, suggesting an almost foolhardy shrug of an attitude, particularly as Gandalf has suggested that they need someone right out of myth to help them:
“ ‘That would be no good…not without a mighty Warrior, even a Hero.’ “
But:
“ ‘I tried to find one; but warriors are busy fighting one another in distant lands, and in this neighbourhood heroes are scarce, or simply not to be found.’ “ (The Hobbit, Chapter 1, “An Unexpected Party”)
Everything about this trip already seems haphazard, having no map of their destination, till Gandalf furnishes them with one,
(JRRT)
and even then they have no idea of another, secret entrance until Elrond spots the inscription which describes it—and how to open it. Clearly, then, this is a case of “we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”
Uh oh.
There’s also no clue in the text as to who or what may destroy the destroyer—until Bilbo, flattering Smaug, spots that fatal weak point:
“ ‘I’ve always understood…that dragons were softer underneath, especially in the region of the—er—chest…’ “
The dragon stopped short in his boasting. ‘Your information is antiquated,’ he snapped. ‘I am armoured above and below with iron scales and hard gems. No blade can pierce me.’ “
There’s a clue here, if not for Bilbo, for readers who are aware of something in Tolkien’s own past reading:
“Then Sigurd went down into that deep place, and dug many pits
in it, and in one of the pits he lay hidden with his sword drawn.
There he waited, and presently the earth began to shake with the
weight of the Dragon as he crawled to the water. And a cloud of
venom flew before him as he snorted and roared, so that it would
have been death to stand before him.
But Sigurd waited till half of him had crawled over the pit, and
then he thrust the sword Gram right into his very heart.” (Andrew Lang, ed., The Red Fairy Book, 1890, “The Story of Sigurd”, page 360)
And Bilbo persists, goading Smaug to turn over, where Bilbo sees—and says:
“ ‘Old fool! Why, there is a large patch in the hollow of his left breast as bare as a snail out of its shell!’ “ (The Hobbit, Chapter 12, “Inside Information”)
Still, although we might have a target now, who will make use of it and how and with what? Sigurd is just what Gandalf says is not locally available, a Hero, and it’s clear that neither Bilbo nor the dwarves are capable of taking on that role.
And here we can bring in another clue from Tolkien’s past.
In “On Fairy-Stories”, he writes:
“I had very little desire to look for buried treasure or to fight pirates, and Treasure Island left me cool. Red Indians were better: there were bows and arrows (I had and have a wholly unsatisfied desire to shoot well with a bow)…” (“On Fairy Stories”, 134)
This suggests that Tolkien may have been exposed to the works of James Fenimore Cooper, 1789-1851, who, beginning with The Pioneers, 1823, wrote a series of novels set on the 18th-century western Frontier (much of it what is now central and eastern New York State), called the “Leatherstocking Tales”,
the best known, even now, being The Last of the Mohegans, 1826.
These books were filled with battles between the British and French, with Native Americans on both sides and I wonder if it’s from the adventures depicted there that JRRT was inspired with his passion for bows and arrows?
(artist? A handsome depiction and I wish I could identify the painter.)
Another clue might lie in British history. During the medieval struggle for English control of France, the so-called “Hundred Years War” (1337-1453), the English enjoyed three great victories, at Crecy (1346), Poitiers (1356), and Agincourt (1415), where companies of English longbowmen shot their French opponents to pieces.
(Angus McBride)
Tolkien would have read about this as a schoolboy, but, in an odd way, he might have had his knowledge of these long-ago events refreshed in 1914.
Outnumbered and in danger of being outflanked by massive German columns, the small BEF (British Expeditionary Force), in the early fall of 1914, retreated, one unit (2nd Corps) fighting a desperate battle to slow the Germans at Le Cateau.
The British managed to fend off the enveloping Germans and, considering the odds against them, some might have believed their escape miraculous.
Enter the fantasist Arthur Machen, 1863-1947.
In the September 29th, 1914, issue of The Evening News, Machen published a short story which he entitled “The Bowmen”. This was a supposed first-hand account of a British soldier who had seen a line of ghostly British longbowmen shooting down German pursuers, just as they had shot down the French, centuries before.
Machen subsequently republished it with other stories in 1915—
but was astonished when his fiction was believed to have been true, and widely circulated as such. We don’t have any evidence that JRRT actually read this story, but it was extremely widespread at the time and, once more, we see men with bows. (For more on this, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angels_of_Mons And you can read the stories in Machen’s volume here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angels_of_Mons )
I think we can add to this the legends of Robin Hood, which could appear in any number of sources—our first known reference being in William Langland’s (c.1330-c.1386) late 14th-century Piers Plowman, where Sloth—a priest deserving of his name, doesn’t seem to have any religious knowledge, but says,
In more recent times, perhaps Tolkien had seen Howard Pyle’s (1853-1911) The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood, 1883,
or Paul Creswick’s (1866-1947) 1917 Robin Hood,
with its wonderful illustrations by N.C.Wyeth (1882-1945).
(If the Tolkien journal Amon Hen, is available to you–but, alas, not to me–you might also have a look at Alex Voglino’s “Middle-earth and the Legend of Robin Hood” in issue 284.)
And, although Tolkien may not have liked Treasure Island, we might add to this possible influence Robert Louis Stevenson’s (1850-1894) The Black Arrow (serialized 1883, published as a book in 1888).
“ ‘Arrow!’ said the bowman. ‘Black arrow! I have saved you to the last. You have never failed me and always I have recovered you. I had you from my father and he from of old. If ever you came from the forges of the true king under the Mountain, go now and speed well!’ “ (The Hobbit, Chapter 14, “Fire and Water”)
(Michael Hague, one of my favorite Hobbit illustrators)
So, we’re about to see that the Hero to kill Smaug is a Lake-town local, Bard, and his weapon of choice is Tolkien’s special favorite, the bow. But how to attack?
We first see Smaug on the ground, lying on his hoard.
(JRRT)
Angered at Bilbo’s teasing, he gets up long enough to attempt to flame him, but his real method of destruction is to take to the air.
(Ted Nasmith)
Fafnir was never airborne, dragging himself along the ground. Sigurd solved the problem of his scaly protection by digging a pit and attacking him from below with his sword. It makes good sense, then, with all of the possible bowman influences upon him, that Tolkien would imagine that the way to deal with a flying dragon would be an arrow from below.
(JRRT)
To which we might add one more potential influence from JRRT’s own experience.
In 1914, there were few military aircraft and their main task was reconnaissance.
By 1918, there were many different models, with different tasks, including heavy bombers.
To protect their troops on the ground, all of the warring nations developed the first artillery defenses: anti-aircraft guns, designed to shoot down threats from above.
JRRT would certainly have seen such guns and possibly even in action, attempting to knock flying danger out of the sky.
Some of those guns were rapid-firing, spraying the air with metal, hoping to guarantee the success of their defense. Bard, in turn, has his black arrow—and not just any black arrow, but one seemingly created perfectly for revenge: “ ‘I had you from my father and he from of old. If ever you came from the forges of the true king under the Mountain, go now and speed well.’ “
That is, this is an arrow created by the dwarves, whom Smaug had driven out or killed—or eaten—and it’s also an heirloom from the days before Smaug destroyed Dale: what better weapon to deal vengeance to the wicked creature who had ruined so much? To take out such a flying danger, but with a glaring vulnerability below, what means of propulsion, especially one known to have defeated whole medieval armies? And, as the seemingly last descendant of the last lord of Dale, Girion, who better to take that revenge?
As ever, thanks for reading.
Stay well,
Always monitor the skies—who knows what’s watching from above?
And remember that, as always, there’s
MTCIDC
O
PS
For more on birds, Bard, and Smaug, see “Why a Dragon?” 28 May, 2025.
PPS
While looking for just the right Smaug images, I came upon this, entitled, “Dante aka Smaug on his hoard” and couldn’t resist.
Every time I read or teach The Hobbit, I come to this passage:
“There in the shadows on a large flat stone sat a tremendous goblin with a huge head, and armed goblins were standing round him carrying the axes and the bent swords which they use.” (The Hobbit, Chapter 4, “Over Hill and Under Hill”)
and I wonder: what does Tolkien mean by “bent swords”?
As a medievalist, and as someone who grew up in the world of illustrators like Howard Pyle (1853-1911)
and NC Wyeth (1882-1945),
as well as an avid reader of the stories of William Morris (1834-1896),
it’s not surprising that Tolkien’s works so often include swords, although perhaps the first sword he met may have been in Andrew Lang’s (1844-1912) The Red Fairy Book, 1890, where, in the last chapter, he would have found Sigurd and a, to us, strangely-familiar sword—
“ONCE upon a time there was a King in the North who had won many wars, but now he was old. Yet he took a new wife, and then another Prince, who wanted to have married her, came up against him with a great army. The old King went out and fought bravely, but at last his sword broke, and he was wounded and his men fled. But in the night, when the battle was over, his young wife came out and searched for him among the slain, and at last she found him, and asked whether he might be healed. But he said ‘ No,’ his luck was gone, his sword was broken, and he must die. And he told her that she would have a son, and that son would be a great warrior, and would avenge him on the other King, his enemy. And he bade her keep the broken pieces of the sword, to make a new sword for his son, and that blade should be called Gram.” (“The Story of Sigurd”, 357 If you don’t have your own copy of Lang’s collection, here it is for you: https://archive.org/details/redfairybook00langiala/redfairybook00langiala/mode/2up courtesy of the invaluable Internet Archive. If you don’t know this source, and you enjoy this blog, you should check it out. It has the most remarkable things, even including a very good selection of silent films and film classics, like Kurosawa’s “The Seven Samurai”, 1954, which, for me—and for George Lucas—is a model for adventure films and you can see it here for free: https://archive.org/details/seven-samurai-1954_202402 )
Yes, “the sword that was broken”—Anduril—and Sigurd has it reforged—and uses it to kill Fafnir, the dragon.
In his own life, Tolkien would have been personally familiar with swords. When he was a member, briefly, of King Edward’s Horse,
in 1912, he would have been issued with this, the Pattern 1908 cavalry sword.
To me, it’s rather a strange weapon, seemingly designed only to stab,
whereas earlier cavalry blades might be used both to stab and to slash (very useful in chasing off enemy infantry)
Then, a new 2nd lieutenant in 1915,
JRRT would have had to buy himself the Pattern 1897 infantry officer’s sword
(as there were an increasing number of new officers from families who couldn’t afford it, there was a kind of subscription created to help such officers acquire a required piece of equipment. For more on just what was required of officers, who had to provide their own kit, see Field Service Manual 1914, pages 16-18, here (and yes, again, it’s from the Internet Archive): https://archive.org/details/fieldservicemanu00greauoft/page/n11/mode/2up )
These, as you can see, are straight-bladed swords, however.
Tolkien’s earliest experience with goblins was probably with George MacDonald’s (1824-1905) The Princess and the Goblin (1871/2), and he likens his own later goblins/orcs to them (see Letters, 267, 279).
The illustrations are by Arthur Hughes (1832-1915) and, as far as I can see, there’s not a bent sword among them (If you don’t know the story, here’s the text, but without its original illustrations, alas: https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/708/pg708-images.html )
If we try some Tolkien goblin illustrators, we find Justin Gerard’s version of the scene with the Great Goblin, where there are a few pole arms off to the left, but the only sword must be Orcrist.
with Orcrist peeking out of its scabbard and a straight sword and a couple of spears off to the left.
Then there’s Alan Lee’s, with the seemingly inevitable Orcrist, but with, just below it, perhaps a sabre—a curved sword
and we see this again in Lee’s depiction of Bilbo’s encounter with the goblin door guards.
In Michael Hague’s illustration for the escape from the Great Goblin’s throne room,
we see both Orcrist and Glamdring, along with one more seemingly curved sword.
Are any of these, however, an example of a “bent sword”? Archaeologists have discovered numerous ancient swords which appear to have been “sacrificed” by being bent–
but this is hardly what Tolkien meant. Then there is what might be taken literally for a “bent sword”—
from Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings, but I must say, this looks pretty improbable as a sword—if you see how the grip is shaped, that spike at the end if pointing upwards: what could it possibly be for? In fact, when one sees a chart of swords from the films, I’m not sure about many of them as useful weapons—
Those to the left share patterns with swords from our Middle-earth, both those on the right look like they might be dramatic over a fireplace, but I’d question their use as practical weapons.
So what might this “bent sword” be? Some of the swords in the illustrations above would suggest that their artists believed that, by “bent”, Tolkien meant “curved”. One possibility: we know that Tolkien had read or had read to him at least one of Andrew Lang’s fairy books (the Red Fairy Book, as mentioned above), but perhaps he had also seen Lang’s Arabian Nights Entertainments (1898) in which there are a number of illustrations with scimitars in them—
Scimitars are curved and, barring silly ones like those in Disney’s Aladdin—which look more like something used for carving meat–
are both deadly and would seem very exotic, if not alien,
in contrast to very medieval swords like Orcrist and Glamdring.
I doubt that we’ll ever know exactly what JRRT had in mind, but, if I had to illustrate “armed goblins…carrying axes and the bent swords…” I might consider drawing—in both senses—such blades.
Stay well,
Avoid inviting caves, even if Stone Giants are playing dodge ball outside,
And remember that, as always, there’s
MTCIDC
O
PS
I’ve just discovered a contemporary illustrator who clearly enjoys the dramatic style of artists like Pyle and Wyeth, as well as French historical artists, like Meissonier (1815-1891). This is Ugo Pinson (1987-) and here is a sample of his work.
doubtfulsea 
