Going Around in Cycles

17 Wednesday Sep 2025

Tags

Barrow-wight, Finnegans Wake, Giambattista Vico, goblin king, James Joyce, La Scienza Nuova, lotr, Mirkwood spiders, Nazgul, Ouroboros, Palantir, runes, Shelob, swords, The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, The Return of the King, Tolkien, Tom Bombadil, Yogi Berra

“It’s déjà vue all over again.”

(attributed to Yogi Berra, US baseball player, but see: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/10/08/deja-vu-again/ )

Dear readers, as always, welcome.

In later life, James Joyce, 1882-1941,

was interested in the work of the 17-18^th-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”).

(For more on Vico, see: https://www.philosopheasy.com/p/the-eternal-return-giambattista-vicos This is, potentially, a very large subject, and even more so when Joyce is combined with Vico. For an introductory view, see: https://archive.org/details/vicojoyce00vere_0/page/n5/mode/2up )

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.

(For more on Finnegans Wake, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnegans_Wake For more on the serpent, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ouroboros )

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,

(Oleksiy Lipatov—you can see more of his work here: https://www.deviantart.com/lipatov/gallery/85631839/old-comic  )

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:

Thanks, as always, for reading.

Stay well,

Remember one more piece of Yogi wisdom

And remember, as well, that there’s always

MTCIDC

AI? Ay!

10 Wednesday Sep 2025

Posted by Ollamh in Uncategorized

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Tags

AI, I Robot, Isaac Asimov, Karl Capek, robots, RUR, science fiction, Tolkien

Welcome, dear readers, as ever.

AI seems to be everywhere and talked about all the time, sometimes in the kind of excited tones that earlier centuries used for STEAM! ELECTRICITY! THE INTERNAL COMBUSTION ENGINE! NUCLEAR POWER! COMPUTERS! and sometimes in less than enthusiastic voices which point out the pitfalls, including the (apocryphal? urban legend? true?) story about the computer which refused to turn itself off, or the one which supposedly tried to blackmail its user (possibly the same story?).

The latter, for me, has brought up this—

and this fragment of dialogue, where the Terminator’s target is being given a crash course by her protector in why she is that target:

“SARAH

I don’t understand…

REESE

Defense network computer. New.

Powerful. Hooked into everything.

Trusted to run it all. They say it

got smart…a new order of intelli-

gence. Then it saw all people as

a threat, not just the ones on the

other side. Decided our fate in a

micro-second…extermination.”

(if you’d like to read what appears to be a late draft of the screenplay, see:

https://assets.scriptslug.com/live/pdf/scripts/the-terminator-1984.pdf?v=1729115040 )

This uneasiness about new technology—and robots, in particular, is hardly new. In the early 20^th century, as technology was rapidly accelerating, we see Karl Capek ‘s (that’s CHA-pek), 1890-1938,

1920 play R.U.R.,

which stands for “Rossum’s Universal Robots”, a company which is supplying the world with mechanical workers, as one of the main characters says of the formula which produced the original successful models:

“Dr. Gall. We go on using it and making Robots. All the universities are sending in long petitions to restrict their production. Otherwise, they say, mankind will become extinct through lack of fertility. But the R. U. R. shareholders, of course, won’t hear of it. All the governments, on the other hand, are clamoring for an increase in production, to raise the standards of their armies. And all the manufacturers in the world are ordering Robots like mad.” (R.U.R., Act II)

And you can see here the tensions which such an invention can—and do– bring: those who can see the future are concerned, those who are only interested in profit—or death—are boosting production, regardless of any hazard.

This all comes apart when a limited number of robots (from the Czech word roboti, “workers”) gain sentience—“got smart…a new order of intelligence”—you can see that uneasiness started early—realize that they are far more intelligent and stronger, with more endurance, than humans, and revolt, determined to wipe out humanity and replace it with themselves.

They rally all of the other robots and, by the play’s end, only one human appears to be left. That ending is perhaps a little more hopeful, but I won’t spoil it for you—you can read it (in its first English translation) here: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/59112/59112-h/59112-h.htm

Tolkien was somewhat of a science fiction fan, enjoying, in particular, the work of Isaac Asimov, 1920-1992. (See the second footnote to a letter to Charlotte and Denis Plimmer, 8 February, 1968, Letters, 530)

He doesn’t list what he had read, unfortunately, but, as the letter in which he mentions (and misspells) Asimov dates from 1967, I’ve wondered whether he had read Asimov’s 1950 classic collection of short stories, I, Robot,

the first of a series of “Robot” novels, beginning with The Caves of Steel, 1954.

To Asimov’s annoyance, the publisher took the title of that short story collection from a 1939 short story by “Eando Binder” (pen name of Earl and Otto Binder) published in the January, 1939, issue of Amazing Stories.

It’s an odd little tale in which a robot, already an object of local fear, is mistaken for the murderer of his scientist creator (actually killed in an accident) and hounded to the point at which he commits mechanical suicide, the entire story being, as he terms it, his “confession”. You can read it here: https://archive.org/details/Amazing_Stories_v13n01_1939-01_cape1736 And read more about it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I,_Robot_(short_story)

Asimov tells us that he had read and been inspired by the 1939 short story, but his 1950 collection, of which a number of the stories had been published earlier, is told from the outside, and is a very interesting series of what might be seen as profiles of robots and their behavior over a number of years and events, narrated by Dr. Susan Calvin, a “robopsychologist”. You can read the collection here: https://dn720004.ca.archive.org/0/items/english-collections-1/I%2C%20Robot%20-%20Isaac%20Asimov.pdf And read about it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I,_Robot

One aspect of Asimov’s early stories is that robot behavior—almost as if the creators there had seen or read R.U.R. and paid attention to the warning implied (and I’ll bet that Asimov, who appears to have read everything, probably had read the play)- – is governed by a set of basic laws, first appearing in the story “Runaround” in I, Robot:

“Powell’s radio voice was tense in Donovan’s ear: ‘Now, look, let’s start
with the three fundamental Rules of Robotics—the three rules that are built
most deeply into a robot’s positronic brain.’ In the darkness, his gloved
fingers ticked off each point.
‘We have: One, a robot may not injure a human being, or, through
inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.’

‘Right!’
‘Two,’ continued Powell, ‘a robot must obey the orders given it by
human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.’
‘Right!’
‘And three, a robot must protect its own existence as long as such
protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.’
‘Right! Now where are we?’ “

As we confront the extremely rapid growth of AI, still so much a mystery, even if we don’t believe stories about increasing—and potentially menacing—sentience, I’m only hoping that, as I suppose Tolkien did, at least some of the designers have read “Runaround” and built those laws into their experimental models.

Thanks, as ever, for reading.

Stay well,

Be interested in technology, but be aware, as Asimov was, that it should be addressed critically,

And remember that, as always, there’s

MTCIDC

For more on the history of automata and droids, see: “Eyeing Robots”, 8 April, 2021. Capek came from a very interesting family. Read about him and them here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karel_%C4%8Capek

PPS

As Tolkien was an admirer of Asimov, so Asimov was an admirer of Tolkien, see his article, “All and Nothing” in Fantasy and Science Fiction, January, 1981, which you can read here: https://archive.org/details/Fantasy_Science_Fiction_v060n01_1981-01/mode/2up

Horse, Two

03 Wednesday Sep 2025

Posted by Ollamh in Uncategorized

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Achilles, Alexander the Great, Balios and Xanthus, Bucephalus, Grani, Nazgul, Podarge, Richard III, Shadowfax, Shakespeare, Sleipnir, The Lord of the Rings, the-iliad, Tolkien, Volsunga Saga, Zephyrus

Welcome , dear readers, as always, and, as always, I’m interested in Tolkien’s inspirations…

Enter Richard

King A horse, a horse, my kingdome for a horse.

Cates Withdraw my lord, ile helpe you to a horse.

King Slaue I haue set my life vpon a cast,

And I will stand the hazard of the die,

I thinke there be sixe Richmonds in the field,

Fiue haue I slaine to daie in stead of him,

A horse, a horse, my kingdome for a horse. (Wm Shakespeare, Richard III, Act V, Scene 4, First Quarto, 1597 You can read it here at the excellent Internet Shakespeare site: https://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/doc/R3_Q1/index.html   )

(artist?)

Richard III is clearly not having a good day: one of his allies has waited out the battle until a fatal moment, then changed sides. And Richard has lost his horse, which, as a good horseback soldier, gives him an advantage, in terms of mobility on the battlefield, height over enemy infantry,

(Adam Hook)

and even a better chance of escape. Without it, surrounded by enemy soldiers, he’s about to be dead. (In the Shakespeare play, he’s killed by the Earl of Richmond, Henry Tudor, who, in turn, is about to become Henry VII, but, in reality, we don’t know who did him in, but see here for more: https://le.ac.uk/richard-iii/identification/osteology/injuries/how-richard-iii-died )

Soldiers in the West didn’t begin on horseback. The Sumerians first had yoked wild asses to their battle cars.

The ancient Egyptians had, by the New Kingdom (1550-1070BC), yoked horses to chariots.

(Rameses II, c.1303-1213BC)

The Assyrians, breeding bigger horses, began to sit soldiers upon their backs.

Greeks in the Iliad went to battle in and sometimes fought from their chariots (sometimes called by classical scholars “battle taxis” under the mistaken impression that they used those chariots only for transportation, which a close reading of the text shows not to be the case), although cavalry, as cavalry, are briefly mentioned, though never shown in action.

But cavalry, when it finally appeared in the Greek world, was meant for scouting and pursuit.

(Angus McBride)

All of this changed with Philip II of Macedon. 382-336BC, and his son, Alexander. Macedon was prime horse-breeding country and Philip was a military innovator, so, with chariots long gone, Philip trained real battle cavalry, which Alexander then led to victory.

(Peter Connolly)

Alexander had a famous horse, Bucephalus (“Ox Head”),

whom he alone could tame. (see Plutarch’s life of Alexander here—section.6: https://www.lexundria.com/plut_alex/1-77/prr )

He also fancied himself a kind of descendent of the Trojan War hero Achilles, who had two famous horses, Balios (“Dapple”) and Xanthus (“Palomino”), born of a Fury, Podarge (“Swiftfoot”), and Zephyrus, the god of the West Wind.

This divine lineage for horses made me think about a famous horse in another adventure story: Shadowfax.

(Luca Michelucci—you can see more of his work here: https://www.artnet.com/artists/luca-michelucci/ I like especially his image of Gwaihir rescuing Gandalf from Orthanc)

Shadowfax, according to Gandalf, is the chief of the Mearas, horses descended from one Felarof, the horse of Eorl, the founder of Rohan. Felarof was said to have understood the speech of men (Rohirric, we can presume) and may have been brought by Orome, the huntsman of the Valar, from across the sea, suggesting a horse of the Valar themselves. (See The Lord of the Rings, Appendix A, II, “The House of Eorl”)

Mearas is the plural of mearh, one of the Old English words for “horse” and this might suggest that, with his interest in things early Germanic, we might imagine that Tolkien would have looked towards Grani,

(from the Ramsund Carving—for more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigurd_stones )

the horse of Sigurd, descended from Odin’s 8-legged steed, Sleipnir

(on the Tjaengvide image stone—you can read more about it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tj%C3%A4ngvide_image_stone For the story of how Sigurd found Grani, see the Icelandic Volsunga Saga in this bilingual edition, pages 23-24: https://archive.org/details/vo-lsungasaga-text-translation-finch/page/n89/mode/2up

And I can’t resist this very clever way of producing a modern Sleipnir—

Lachlan Templar—his work appears at Deviant Art, but, when I try to find out more, the site is blocked.)

as an inspiration, but, remembering that Tolkien had begun his formal education in the traditional way: studying Classics at King Edward’s School in Birmingham,

and, initially, continuing in Classics at Oxford,

I wonder—and return to Balios and Xanthus. These are horses with as distinguished a lineage as Grani, coming from a Fury

and the god of the West Wind.

As well, Felarof—and, in turn, Shadowfax–understand human speech and Balios and Xanthus show emotion more human than equine, weeping when their temporary master and charioteer, Patroclus, is killed in battle by the Trojan hero, Hector, refusing to return to battle, but, instead—

“…but as a monument remains firmly in the ground, one set up on a tomb

For a dead man or woman,

So they remained, immobile, holding the very beautiful chariot [still],

Leaning [their] heads to the earth, and their hot tears

Flow down from under [their] eyelids to the ground

In longing for [their] charioteer.” (Iliad, Book 17.434-439—my translation]

And there’s more. Felarof and Shadowfax may understand human speech, and Balios and Xanthus may grieve, in a human way for the death of Achilles’ friend and charioteer, Patroclus, but, in an eerie moment, one of them, Xanthus, actually speaks to Achilles, warning him of his own impending doom:

“We will still keep you safe for now, mighty Achilles,

But a deadly day is near to you.” (Iliad, Book 19.408-409—my translation)

Could there be another link here?

“But lo! suddenly in the midst of the glory of the king his golden shield was dimmed. The new morning was blotted from the sky. Dark fell about him. Horses reared and screamed. Men cast from the saddle lay groveling on the ground…Snowmane wild with terror stood up on high, fighting with the air, and then with a great scream he crashed upon his side; a black dart had pierced him. The king fell beneath him…”

(Ted Nasmith)

Although we have no idea of Snowmane’s lineage except that he’s “Lightfoot’s foal”, and he never speaks a word, he’s certainly involved in a death and, as Balios and Xanthus might have inspired Shadowfax, could this horse-speech be related to Theoden’s horse, Snowmane?

(Joona Kujanen, aka Tulikoura, a bit more of whose work you can see here: https://hole-intheground.blogspot.com/2012/03/fridays-at-mathom-house-joona-kujanen.html )

We have no idea of the fate of Achilles’ horses, though we are told that Achilles himself was buried in a mound—

as Agamemnon says to him in the Underworld, speaking of the cremated remains of Achilles and his friend, Patroclus (over whom Achilles’ horses mourned):

“And over them then we, mighty army of the Argive spearmen,

Heaped up a tumulus…” (Odyssey, Book 24.81-81—my translation)

Just as Snowmane received a similar grave:

“And afterwards when all was over men returned and made a fire there and burned the carcase of the beast; but for Snowmane they dug a grave and set up a stone upon which was carved in the tongues of Gondor and the Mark:

‘Faithful servant yet master’s bane,

Lightfoot’’s foal, swift Snowbane.’

Green and long grew the grass on Snowmane’s Howe…” (The Return of the King, Book Five, Chapter 6, “The Battle of the Pelennor Fields”)

All coincidence? Or were JRRT’s many years of classical training still at work, when he’d long abandoned it for Germanic, Finnish, and Welsh?

As ever, thanks for reading.

Stay well,

Horses are wonderful, but remember that they, like us, have their limits—what would you do if a Nazgul on a frightful thing came down upon you?

(Craig J. Spearing—you can read more about him and his work here: https://pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Craig_J_Spearing )

And remember that, as ever, there’s

MTCIDC

Return to Horrors?

27 Wednesday Aug 2025

Posted by Ollamh in Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

'Salem's Lot, Acrophobia, Arachnophobia, Billina, Claustrophobia, Coulrophobia, Dracula, ECT, Film, Goblins, Gump, Herpetophobia, jack-pumpkinhead, nome-king, Oz, Ozma of Oz, Return to Oz, Smaug, spiders, Stephen King, The Hobbit, The Marvelous Land of Oz, The Shining, Tik-Tok, Tolkien, trolls, Trypanophobia, Wheelers, wolves

Welcome, dear readers, as always.

Does this picture make your hands sweat? Can you barely look at it?

How about this one—

Or this one—

Or—

Or—

Or—horror of horrors!—

It’s possible that all of these might have an effect upon you and, in which case, I imagine that you’re reading this hiding under your bed.

Why all of this phobic display? Because, back in June, I read an article from the BBC about the 40^th anniversary of Disney’s Return to Oz entitled:

“ ‘It has the appeal of an actual horror’: How Return to Oz became one of the darkest children’s films ever made”

(You can read the article here: https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20250616-the-darkest-childrens-film-ever-made )

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.

(And, if you haven’t read it, I would certainly recommend it. Here it is in the first US edition of 1897: https://gutenberg.org/files/345/345-h/345-h.htm )

Think, for a moment, about The Hobbit.

Here, we go from the safety of Hobbiton

(JRRT)

to a world where there are trolls,

(JRRT)

goblin-infested mountains,

(Alan Lee)

wolves in large packs,

(Tove Jansson)

giant spiders,

(John Tyler Christopher—you can see more of his work here: https://johntylerchristopher.com/ )

and, finally, an intelligent and vengeful dragon.

(JRRT)

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.

Thanks, as ever, for reading.

Stay well,

Pick a bed with a reasonable clearance,

And remember that, as always, there’s

MTCIDC

Bogged Down

20 Wednesday Aug 2025

Posted by Ollamh in Uncategorized

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Barrow-wight, bog bodies, bog sacrifices, bogs, Danish National Museum, de-bello-gallico, Dr Seuss, Fionn mac Cumhaill, Frodo, heroic burials, human sacrifice, La Tene, sacrificial-objects, The Lord of the Rings, Thomas Pennant, Tolkien, Tom Bombadil, Vimose

As always, dear readers, welcome.

What’s going on here?

“He turned, and there in the cold glow he saw lying beside him Sam, Pippin, and Merry. They were on their backs, and their faces looked deadly pale; and they were clad in white. About them lay many treasures, of gold maybe, though in that light they looked cold and unlovely. On their heads were circlets, gold chains were about their waists, and on their fingers were many rings. Swords lay by their sides, and shields were at their feet. But across their three necks lay one long naked sword.” (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book One, Chapter 8, “Fog on the Barrow Downs”)

(Matthew Stewart–you can see more of his impressive work here: https://www.matthew-stewart.com/ I like his dragons especially.)

This might appear to look like an early heroic burial, with grave goods piled up,

like this chieftain’s grave from 530BC, found near Hochdorf an der Enz in Baden-Wuerttemberg, Germany—which even has this beautiful wagon (reconstructed—for more see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hochdorf_Chieftain%27s_Grave ).

There is a difficulty, however: none of the hobbits is dead—although that sword across three of their necks suggests that they soon will be.

And I would further suggest that what we’re looking at is the scene of a potential human sacrifice—especially if we add what the narrator calls an “incantation” on the part of the Barrow-wight:

“Cold be hand and heart and bone,

And cold be sleep under stone:

Never more to wake on stony bed,

Never, till the Sun fails and the Moon is dead.

In the black wind the stars shall die,

And still on gold here let them lie,

Till the dark lord lifts his hand

Over dead sea and withered land.”

Human sacrifice had certainly been practiced in Middle-earth. We know that Sauron, defeated temporarily, corrupts the king of Numenor, Tar-Calion (also known as Ar-Pharazon), preaching the worship of the fallen Vala, Morgoth:

“A new religion, and worship of the Dark, with its temple under Sauron arises. The faithful are persecuted and sacrificed. The Numenoreans carry their evil also to Middle-earth and there become cruel and wicked lords of necromancy, slaying and tormenting men… “ (letter to Milton Waldman, late 1951, Letters, 216-217—for more on this see “Melkor/Morgoth/Melqart” 29 June, 2022)

I suspect that Tolkien’s own first experience with such sacrifices may have come from a boyhood reading Julius Caear’s (100-44BC) De Bello Gallico, where he would have found:

“Natio est omnis Gallorum admodum dedita religionibus, atque ob eam causam, qui sunt adfecti gravioribus morbis quique in proeliis periculisque versantur, aut pro victimis homines immolant aut se immolaturos vovent administrisque ad ea sacrificia druidibus utuntur, quod, pro vita hominis nisi hominis vita reddatur, non posse deorum immortalium numen placari arbitrantur, publiceque eiusdem generis habent instituta sacrificia. Alii immani magnitudine simulacra habent, quorum contexta viminibus membra vivis hominibus complent; quibus succensis circumventi flamma exanimantur homines.”

“The whole nation of the Gauls is completely devoted to religious practices and because of this, those who are afflicted with very serious illnesses and those who are involved in battles and dangers either sacrifice men in place of animal victims or pledge that they will sacrifice them and use the druids as the priests for those sacrifices because they think that, unless the life of a person is paid back for the life of a person, the divine will of the immortal gods can’t be appeased and they [even] have sacrifices set up of the same kind at public expense. Others have images of immense size of which the chambers, woven of willow withies, are filled with living people. [So that], when they are set alight, the people, surrounded by flame, are killed.” (De Bello Gallico, Book VI, Sec.16, my translation—you can read more at the invaluable Sacred Texts site here in a parallel Latin/English text: https://sacred-texts.com/cla/jcsr/index.htm )

(This is from Thomas Pennant’s, 1726-1798, A Tour of Wales, 1778. Pennant was a naturalist, antiquarian, traveler, etc etc and one of those wonderful 18^th people seemingly interested in everything and eager to report what they discovered. You can read about him here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Pennant but don’t forget to read about his draftsman, Moses Griffith, an equally impressively-talented man: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moses_Griffith_(artist) There is even a Thomas Pennant Society: https://www.cymdeithasthomaspennant.com/eng/t-p.html And you can read the Tour itself here: https://archive.org/details/toursinwales00penngoog/page/n8/mode/2up For more on the idea of the “wicker man”, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wicker_man )

The Romans, with very rare (and early) exceptions, frowned upon human sacrifice, but northern people, before being overwhelmed by the Romans, or too far north for them to conquer effectively, could, as in the case of the Gauls mentioned above, have a different approach to their gods.

Unfortunately, as they were not, like the Romans, extremely literate, what little description we have comes from people like Caesar, curious (and probably horrified) outsiders—and perhaps also propagandists, who wanted to paint those outside the Mediterranean world as savages and therefore worthy of nothing more than conquest.

We do, however, have other and very vivid evidence in the form of archaeological discoveries.

One of these turned up in my last posting, the “Vimose comb” (see “Runing Things”, 13 August, 2025).

The “-mose” in Vimose means “bog/wetland/moorland” in modern Danish, descended from “mosi” in Old Norse and this immediately tells us about a different method of making a sacrifice—and not necessarily a human one—dropping it into water.

Without local explanation, we can only guess what was thought to happen when the object was deposited. For myself, I’ve always thought of the pool in the story of Fionn mac Cumhaill.

(Marga Gomila—you can see drafts of this work at: https://margagomila.artstation.com/projects/OmEwgv )

This was connected with the otherworld and nuts from hazel trees would fall into the pool from that otherworld, to be consumed by a salmon in our world. Cooking the salmon (caught in this world), Fionn, then a boy, burned his thumb and, putting it into his mouth, gained supernatural knowledge thereby. (See for more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fionn_mac_Cumhaill and: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wells_in_the_Irish_Dindsenchas There is a similar story attached to the Germanic hero, Sigurd, which you can read in the form Tolkien probably first read it: https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/540/pg540-images.html )

So, were these earlier sacrificers dropping in their treasures in hopes of sending them out of this world, presumably to the place where their gods lived?

Certainly the person who dropped the comb into the Vimose must have had some such hope and that person was hardly alone as, to date, about 2500 objects have been recovered from the site. (For more on Vimose, check out this very interesting site: https://ageofarthur.substack.com/p/the-homeland-of-the-angles-and-the See, as well, the Danish National Museum site, with all sorts of short articles on Vimose and other places: https://en.natmus.dk/historical-knowledge/denmark/prehistoric-period-until-1050-ad/the-early-iron-age/the-weapon-deposit-from-vimose/the-offerings-in-vimose/ )

And it’s not the only site. From Ireland eastwards through much of Germany, there are sites, some more specific, like La Tene, in Switzerland, where there was a huge cache of swords,

(no citation, but it looks like a Peter Connolly)

and Hjortspring, in Denmark, where there was a boat,

and Dejbjerg, also in Denmark, where there was a wagon.

There are animal sacrifices,

(Miroslaw Kuzma–as a sometime horseman, I hesitated to include this illustration.)

but the most sinister deposits are human ones,

some of whose well-preserved remains would probably have worried those who believed that, once the victim had been dealt with, and sunk in the water, the sacrifice would have been accepted and then the next step would be a god’s. (For more on so-called “bog bodies”, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bog_body )

Although Frodo was responsible for halting what may have been about to be a sacrifice—

“But the courage that had been awakened in him was now too strong: he could not leave his friends so easily. He wavered, groping in his pocket, and then fought with himself again; and as he did so the arm crept nearer. Suddenly resolve hardened in him, and he seized a short sword that lay beside him, and kneeling, he stooped low over the bodies of his companions. With what strength he had he hewed at the crawling arm near the wrist, and the hand broke off; but at the same moment the sword splintered up to the hilt. There was a shriek and the light vanished. In the dark there was a snarling noise.”

It was the appearance of Tom Bombadil, summoned by Frodo, who rescued them all—

“There was a loud rumbling sound, as of stones rolling and falling, and suddenly light streamed in, real light, the plain light of day. A low door-like opening appeared at the end of the chamber beyond Frodo’s feet; and there was Tom’s head (hat, feather, and all) framed against the light of the sun rising red behind him.”

And there was Tom’s incantation—

“Get out, you old Wight! Vanish in the sunlight!

Shrivel like the cold mist, like the winds go wailing,

Out into the barren lands far beyond the mountains!

Come never here again! Leave your barrow empty!

Lost and forgotten be, darker than the darkness,

Where gates stand for ever shut, till the world is mended.” (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book One, Chapter 8, “Fog on the Barrow-downs”)

I wonder whether, about to be consecrated to a god we no longer know of, a victim might have called upon his/her gods, hoping for a similar rescue?

Thanks for reading, as ever.

Stay well,

Avoid barrows—unless they’re wheeled,

(Is this by a medieval Dr. Seuss?)

Definitely stay out of bogs,

And remember that, as always, there’s

MTCIDC

If you’re interested in a scientific explanation for the surprising preservation of some bodies, see:

https://en.natmus.dk/historical-knowledge/denmark/prehistoric-period-until-1050-ad/the-early-iron-age/the-woman-from-huldremose/the-chemistry-of-the-bog-bodies/

Runing Things

13 Wednesday Aug 2025

Posted by Ollamh in J.R.R. Tolkien, Language, Tolkien

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Anglo-Frisian Runes, Balin, Bryggen, divination, Fireworks, Futhark, Futhorc, Gandalf, Harys Dalvi, Kylver Stone, Moria, Robwords, runes, Tacitus, The Lord of the Rings, Thror's Map, Tolkien, Vimose comb

Welcome, as ever, dear readers.

It is a grim moment, in The Lord of the Rings when the company, making its way through the complexity of Moria in near-darkness, save for Gandalf’s staff, reaches this—

“Their feet disturbed a deep dust upon the floor, and stumbled among things lying in the doorway whose shapes they could not at first make out. The chamber was lit by a wide shaft high in the further eastern wall; it slanted upwards and, far above, a small square patch of blue sky could be seen. The light of the shaft fell directly on a table in the middle of the room: a single oblong block, about two feet high, upon which was laid a great slab of white stone.

(the Hildebrandts)

‘It looks like a tomb,’ muttered Frodo, and bent forwards with a curious sense of foreboding, to look more closely at it. Gandalf came quickly to his side. On the slab runes were deeply graven:

‘These are Daeron’s Runes, such as were used of old in Moria,’ said Gandalf. ‘Here it is written in the tongues of Men and Dwarves:

BALIN SON OF FUNDIN

LORD OF MORIA ‘.” (The Lord of the Rings, Book Two, Chapter 4, “A Journey in the Dark”)

Even if you’re not an expert in early western writing systems, you’ve probably encountered runes before. They appear to be a Germanic invention, with their first known outside mention thought to be in P. Cornelius Tacitus’ (c.56-c.120 AD) essay on some northern tribes, Germania, where this passage is cited.

“[10] Auspicia sortesque ut qui maxime observant: sortium consuetudo simplex. Virgam frugiferae arbori decisam in surculos amputant eosque notis quibusdam discretos super candidam vestem temere ac fortuito spargunt. Mox, si publice consultetur, sacerdos civitatis, sin privatim, ipse pater familiae, precatus deos caelumque suspiciens ter singulos tollit, sublatos secundum impressam ante notam interpretatur.”

“[the Germans] pay very close attention to auspices and lot-drawing: the practice of lot-drawing is simple. They split a branch cut from a fruit tree into splinters and scatter those, marked out with certain signs, on a white robe casually and randomly. Then a priest of the settlement, if it may be the public consulting of an oracle, but if private, the father of a family himself, having prayed to the gods and raising his eyes to the sky, draws three [splinters] one at a time [and] interprets those drawn according to the mark stamped upon [them] previously.”

(Tactius, Germania, Section 10—my translation. If you’d like to read the whole text, here’s a useful Victorian translation: https://archive.org/details/tacitusagricolag00taciiala/page/62/mode/2up )

We don’t know where Tacitus got his information from, but he lived at about the same time as one of the earliest currently-known runic inscriptions, the “Vimose comb”, dated to about 160AD,

(There seem to be two guesses at to what the inscription says—transliterated, it appears to read “harja”, meaning either the obvious “comb” or the less obvious “warrior”. For more on this and other early rune-marked artifacts, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vimose_inscriptions and https://en.natmus.dk/historical-knowledge/denmark/prehistoric-period-until-1050-ad/the-early-iron-age/the-weapon-deposit-from-vimose/the-offerings-in-vimose/ Until they sold out, you could even get a bone replica of the comb here: https://norseimports.com/products/vimose-comb )

so the notae, “marks”, he mentioned could, indeed, be early runes.

We’ve seen runes three times before in the book, each time related to Gandalf and the first letter of his name in runes–

The first is a jolly appearance:

(Darrell K. Sweet, who died, unfortunately, in 2011, but you can see his archived website here: https://web.archive.org/web/20110131141507/http://www.sweetartwork.com/DKSmainPage.html and read a little more about this very talented illustrator here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darrell_K._Sweet And I couldn’t resist adding this knowledgeable appreciation of his work: https://blackgate.com/2022/04/17/an-adventure-to-be-had-a-journey-through-the-art-of-darrell-k-sweet/ )

“At the end of the second week in September a cart came in through Bywater from the direction of Brandywine Bridge in broad daylight. An old man was driving it all alone…It had a cargo of fireworks…At Bilbo’s front door the old man began to unload: there were great bundles of fireworks of all sorts and shapes, each labeled with a large red G [runic letter] and the elf-rune [see the image above].” (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book One, Chapter 1, “A Long-Expected Party”)

The second is not, being Gandalf’s much-delayed letter to Frodo, still at the Prancing Pony in Bree, instead of being delivered 3 months before to the Shire, meant to alert Frodo to the possibility that he won’t meet them, with some consolation that Strider might appear. (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book One, Chapter 10, “Strider”)

(the Hildebrandts)

And the third is only guessed at as seeming to be a sign from Gandalf on Weathertop:

“ ‘The stroke on the left might be a G-rune with thin branches,’ said Strider. ‘It might be a sign left by Gandalf, though one cannot be sure…I should say…that they stood for G3, and were a sign that Gandalf was here on October the third: that is three days ago now. It would also show that he was in a hurry and danger was at hand, so he had no time or did not dare to write anything longer or plainer. If that is so, we must be wary.’ “ (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book One, Chapter 11, “A Knife in the Dark”)

(John Howe)

In our Middle-earth, there are several iterations of runes, with the melodious (modern) names of “Futhark”(Elder and Younger) and “Futhorc”, which get those names, as the word “alphabet” does, from putting together a collection of the first letters of the series in a standard order. Here’s the Elder Futhark—

It’s easy to see why the letters might be shaped as they were, appearing to be relatively easy to inscribe on things with a knife. (Or a chisel for the stone inscriptions?)

(a 12^th-century AD inscription on wood from Bryggen in Norway—one of 670 inscriptions on wood or bone found at the site since 1955—for more see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bryggen_inscriptions and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bryggen One of the many amazing things about this second piece is that it underlines just how sophisticated trade could be in northern Europe in the Middle Ages.)

(This is the Kylver Stone from Gotland, Sweden, c.400AD, which lists the Elder Futhark letters. For more, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kylver_Stone and you can see from the translation of the runes where “Futhark” came from. )

Tolkien’s own runes, as he tells us, are derived from what are sometimes called the “Anglo-Saxon” or “Anglo-Frisian” Futhorc:

“There is the matter of the Runes. Those used by Thorin and Co., for special purposes, were comprised of an alphabet of thirty-two letters (full list on application), similar to, but not identical, with the runes of Anglo-Saxon inscriptions.” (letter to the editor of The Observer, published there 20 February, 1938, Letters, 42)

We can then imagine that this is what must appear as the “moon letters” on Thror’s map—

And this brings me to my final point.

In my last, in connection with the conlang (constructed language) toki pona, I mentioned the internet site Robwords, one of my favorite places for information and discussion about languages, primarily English, German, and French, but with some surprises (see last week’s “Simple Words” for more).

(This is Rob Watts, of Robwords)

One of those surprises was toki pona, but, in another, Rob made the suggestion that the Roman alphabet, in which I’m writing this posting, was rotten for the English language, being adapted from the Greek alphabet (in turn adapted from the Phoenician alphabet) via the Etruscan alphabet,

and lacking letters for certain common English sounds like “th” and “sh” and “ng”.

In his playful way, he suggested that we’d be better off with the runic system, and specifically that Anglo-Saxon version, aka Futhorc.

To prove his point, he cites something familiar to Tolkien readers—

and then proceeds to translate it, showing that it’s not in the language of the dwarves, as one might expect from a dwarvish map, but English (or, if you prefer, “the Common Speech”).

Watch the video, then, and see if you agree with Rob: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4npuVmGxXuk

And, if you’d like to try your hand at using the runes, here’s something to help—it’s a link to Harys Dalvi’s Old English runic keyboard: https://www.harysdalvi.com/futhorc/ Harys Dalvi’s website is full of really interesting language and computer stuff and just plain fun: https://www.harysdalvi.com/

Thanks, as always, for reading,

(ᚦᚫᛝᚳᛋ᛫ᚫᛋ᛫ᚫᛚᚹᛠᛋ᛫ᚠᚪᚱ᛫ᚱᛁᛁᛞᛁᛝ)

Stay well,

(ᛥᛠ᛫ᚹᛖᛚ)

Try runisizing today,

(ᛏᚱᚫᛁ᛫ᚱᚢᚾᛁᛋᛁᛋᛁᛝ᛫ᛏᚣᛞᛠ)

And remember that, as always, there’s

ᛗᚪᚱ᛫ᛏᚣ᛫ᚳᚢᛗ᛫ᛁᚾ᛫ᛞᚣ᛫ᚳᚣᚱᛋ

At “wikiHow” there’s a pronunciation guide and a rather New Age interpretation of the Elder Futhark’s runes. It’s fun, but, as it sits to the left of such “How” guides as “telekinesis”, and “reading palms”, I myself would stick to the pronunciations! https://www.wikihow.com/Elder-Futhark-Runes

PPS

And how could I resist listing this: https://runicstudies.org/ the website for the American Association for Runic Studies? If you get hooked on runes—and I think that that would be quite easy to do, especially after playing on Harys’ website—this site has links in all directions.

Simple Words

06 Wednesday Aug 2025

Posted by Ollamh in Uncategorized

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A Martian Odyssey, Aladdin, conlang, Robwords, science fiction, Stanley Weinbaum, The Lord of the Rings, Toki Pona, Tolkien

Welcome, as always, dear readers.

I’ve read and reread Tolkien since the surprising appearance of this—

and the two volumes which followed–

which got me hooked and, as the (rather tired) saying goes, the rest is history—although I much prefer the genie’s words at the end of Disney’s Aladdin

“…ciao! I’m history! No, I’m mythology!”

as JRRT himself said of creating a language:

“As one suggestion, I might fling out the view that [in] the perfect construction of an art-language it is found necessary to construct at least in outline a mythology concomitant…because the making of language and mythology are related functions.” (“A Secret Vice” in J.R.R. Tolkien, The Monsters and the Critics, 210)

In all of those readings, however, I’ve never quite believed something which Tolkien wrote—and more than once—that:

“The invention of languages is the foundation. The ‘stories’ were made rather to provide a world for the languages than the reverse.” (taken from letter to the Houghton Mifflin Co., June, 1955, Letters, 319)

Gollum? Saruman? Grishnakh and Ugluk? Treebeard? Sam? All created only so that they could speak JRRT’s languages? Such vivid major and minor characters—surely there was also a pure pleasure not only in having them talk, but in what they said and what effect their talk—and actions—had on the ‘stories’?

I can certainly believe, however, that the languages were a major feature of JRRT’s making of Middle-earth—just the essay I quoted above—“A Secret Vice”– would show you just how devoted Tolkien was to languages and their creation, or look up “Languages” in the Index to Letters

and you’ll find two columns and a little more (pages 667-669) of references to languages, name-formation, Quenya vs Sindarin, Dwarvish, the Black Speech, and much more. And, digging below the surface, you can find such details as Tolkien writing to a fan with the declension of two nouns in Quenya: cirya, “ship” and lasse, “leaf” (declensions are patterns of noun/adjective formation in which the functions of the words are shown by their endings—think of “whose” and “whom” in English as the last remnants of something which would earlier have look like this:

Nominative (shows subject): who

Genitive (shows possession): whose

Dative (indirect object): whom

Accusative (direct object/takes prepositions): whom

Ablative (would take some other prepositions—fell together with the accusative): whom

and there can be other endings—all called “case endings”—like the instrumental, the ending of which would tell you that the noun was being used as a means to do something, the locative, which indicates at what place something is, and the vocative, employed when you’re addressing someone/thing)

(see “From a letter to Dick Plotz, c.1967, Letters, 522-523)

Such profusion is in strong contrast to something which I discovered a week or two on YouTube.

One of the real pleasures I find there are the number of languages and essays about them available in great profusion. One of my current favorites is a feature called “RobWords”, which is written and presented by Rob Watts, its subjects tending to center around English, but touching upon German and French, among other topics, as well.

It’s a very informative and light-hearted site with occasional surprises, as I found with one entitled “The World’s Smallest Language”, which introduced a conlang (constructed language—in fact, just like Tolkien’s languages), but with an extremely simple grammar and an initial vocabulary of 120 words: “Toki Pona” (you can see the episode here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PY3Qe_b9ufI )

The inventor, Sonja Lang, is, not surprisingly, a linguist, combining her knowledge of world languages with her own creations—something you might guess from the name of the language itself: “toki” coming from the language “Tok Pisin”—that is, “Talk Pidgin”—“pidgin” meaning a kind of trade language—and “pona” coming from Latin “bonus –a –um”—“good”. (More about pidgins here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pidgin and Tok Pisin here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tok_Pisin )

Here’s how Lang explains it:

“Toki Pona was my philosophical attempt to understand the meaning of life in 120 words.

Through a process of soul-searching, comparative linguistics and playfulness, I designed a simple communication system to simplify my thoughts.” (Toki Pona The Language of Good, Preface)

And simple it is: things which appear in Indo-European languages like grammatical gender (whether a noun is masculine, feminine, or neuter—not important in English, but necessary, for instance, in language descended from Latin—Italian, French, Spanish, Catalan, Portuguese, and Romanian), plurals, case endings (see above), definite and indefinite articles (the/a/an in English) verb tenses, even more than one form for a verb—are all gone. Sentence formation basically follows English, which is Subject, Verb, Object (SVO in linguistic terms—“Cats [subject] drink [verb] milk [object]”)—but use the link above to learn more and be entertained by a bit of a catchy pop song in Toki Pona. If you want more about its grammar, see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PgytSj-YVE and, if you go to YouTube, there are many more places to visit. If you watch these two videos, you’ll see that that simplicity might easily lead to vagueness (something which “RobWords” points out), but, for a fluent speaker, with an imagination, perhaps it’s less vague than may seem at first. For example, watch this speaker demonstrate how you can create the term “video game” using only the readily-available vocabulary: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/z2ltEHfgR2g

Tolkien had been a learner and admirer of an earlier conlang: Esperanto (if you don’t know about it, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esperanto and https://esperanto.net/en/ ) and I wonder what he would have made of Toki Pona? As a number of its words are derived from a language he loved, Finnish, I think that we might not be surprised if he found Toki Pona fun (see: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/UoVTWjMrlp4 for a list of parallels between the two languages)—although he probably wouldn’t be able to resist adding to that 120-word basic vocabulary.

But all of this raises the question: just how many words do you need to communicate?

In my science fiction reading, I’ve found one ingenious answer in a short story by Stanley G. Weinbaum, “A Martian Odyssey”, published in the July, 1934 issue of Wonder Stories. For another wonder, it was his first published story in what was, unfortunately a brief career, Weinbaum dying in 1935. (You can read more about him here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_G._Weinbaum )

In this story, the main character, Jarvis, is one of a 4-man expedition, the first to reach Mars (and this is a Mars with Martian gravity, but also with a thin, breathable surface layer of oxygen). While exploring, his ship crashes and he’s stranded many miles from where the rocket which brought the crew to Mars, the Ares, has landed. While hoping that the others will search for him, he sets off to walk back towards the Ares and, in the process, rescues a local, whom he calls “Tweel”, as he can’t really pronounce the local’s actual name, that being a loose approximation. He attempts to communicate, using a few words, based upon the setting, and then a little math, and it’s clear that the local understands some of what he tries to do, but, interestingly, while “Tweel” can speak a little of what Jarvis tries to convey, Jarvis has no luck—and doesn’t even really try—to speak the other’s language. So, with about half-a-dozen words between them, they set off together on Jarvis’ original journey, meeting strange creatures—and a deadly one—on the way.

I won’t do a summary beyond this as, if you read this far and you’re interested in languages or science fiction, or both, you’ll want to read the story for yourself: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/23731/23731-h/23731-h.htm

Thanks, as ever for reading,

Stay well,

mi tawa (“Goodbye” in Toki Pona—simply meaning “I’m going”, although I’d prefer to say the “hello” greeting, powa tawa sina—“peace be with you”),

And remember that, as always, there’s

MTCIDC

PS Weinbaum wrote a sequel to “A Martian Odyssey” which, if you enjoyed that story, you can read here: https://gutenberg.org/cache/epub/22301/pg22301-images.html

Pippin

30 Wednesday Jul 2025

Posted by Ollamh in Heroes, Imaginary History, J.R.R. Tolkien, Maps

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Charlemagne, Child Ballads, Childeric III, Merovingian Kingdom, Pepin le Bref, Perry the Platypus, Pippin, pipping, Pope Zachary, The Bayeux Tapestry, Tolkien

Welcome, as always, dear readers.

When I was little, I heard a folksong, “I gave my love a cherry”, with these lines:

“I gave my love a cherry that has no stone
I gave my love a chicken that has no bone
I gave my love a ring that has no end
I gave my love a baby with no cryen

How can there be a cherry that has no stone?
How can there be a chicken that has no bone?
How can there be a ring that has no end?
How can there be a baby with no cryen?

A cherry, when it’s blooming, it has no stone
A chicken when it’s pipping, it has no bone
A ring when it’s rolling, it has no end
A baby when it’s sleeping, has no cryen.”

Now, I know that it belongs to a riddle song tradition seen in two Child Ballads: “Riddles Wisely Expounded” (#1) and “Captain Wedderburn’s Courtship” (#46), as well as in several supposedly-impossible task ballads, including “The Elfin Knight” (#2), but then it was just puzzling—especially that line about “A chicken when it’s pipping”.

Since then, I have seen two explanations:

1. “pipping” is the chick still developing in the egg

2. “pipping” is the act of the chick breaking out of the egg and its bones have not yet matured

“Pipping” is characteristically sung “pippin’” and that was undoubtedly in my head when I first read The Lord of the Rings, and there was “Pippin”—Peregrine Took.

Took is a Norman-English family name, the first member in England being one of the invaders in 1066,

mentioned in (Robert? his first name is under discussion—sometimes he’s just called “Master”) Wace’s 12^th century verse chronicle Roman de Rou (the “story of Rollo”—that is, of Hrolfr, a Viking colonizer of the western coast of France who became a vassal of the French king, Charles III (“ the Simple”), under the name “Rollo”, controlling what would become Normandy—“Norsemanland”—for more, see: https://vikingr.org/explorers/rollo )

(from his tomb in Rouen Cathedral—a medieval idea of his appearance–and they wouldn’t have had much to go on as the tomb has been despoiled more than once: report has it that only one femur remains inside)

which includes material about the conquest of England and where the sire “de Touques” (Touques is a town and river in Normandy—see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Touques,_Calvados ) appears (see Master Wace, his chronicle of the Norman Conquest from the Roman de Rou, translated and edited by Edgar Taylor, 1837, where you can see the name on page 212: https://archive.org/details/masterwacehischr00waceuoft/page/210/mode/2up )

“Peregrine” is Latin peregrinus, formed from peregre, literally “through the fields” (per agros), meaning “coming from somewhere else”, hence “foreign(er)/strang(er)/and, eventually, “pilgrim”. See for more: https://www.etymonline.com/word/pilgrim I suspect that the name was inspired by Tolkien’s religious background, where there are several saints with that name:

1. a 2^nd-century AD martyr (you can read about him here: https://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=5564 )

2. a 7^th-century Celtic figure (you can read about him here: https://www.saintforaminute.com/saints/saint_peregrinus_of_modena )

3. a 13^th-century Italian (you can read about him here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peregrine_Laziosi )

“Pippin”, however, appears to be a bit murkier. One would assume that the nickname for Peregrine would be “Perry” (as in Perry the Platypus from the wonderful animated series “Phineas and Ferb”—for more see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phineas_and_Ferb ).

So where does Pippin come from?

I go back to what so often I find helpful for JRRT: the Middle Ages.

And here I find Latin “Pipinus”, who could be this colorful character, Pepin (nicknamed “Shorty”—le Bref), c.714-768, the 8^th-century Mayor of the Palace (chief officer under the king)

(to the right is Pepin’s father, Mayor of the Palace before him, Charles “Martel”–“the Hammer”)

in Merovingian Francia (for more on this, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merovingian_dynasty .

Pepin is known in history for two things:

1. with the blessing of Pope Zachary, in 751, he overthrew the Merovingian king, Childeric III, ending the dynasty and making himself king

2. he was the father of Charlemagne, 747-814, creator of the short-lived Carolingian Empire (800-843)

(As always, coins have so much to tell us beyond their monetary significance. This is a good example of using a Roman model to suggest that, somehow, the person depicted is descended from earlier Roman rulers: it’s in Latin and uses Roman imperial titles—“IMP” = “Imperator”, once only “one holding the Senate’s authority outside Rome” but, from the time of Tiberius, 42BC-37AD, used as we use “emperor”; “AUG” = “Augustus”, a title originally given by a subservient Senate to Octavian, the heir to his greatuncle, Julius Caesar, and, after 30BC, owner of the whole Mediterranean basin. As well, Charlemagne is wearing just the suggesting of later Roman armor, covered by a Roman military cloak and, on his head, is the early—and modest—imperial crown—a victor’s wreath. Charlemagne’s ancestors were the Franks, Germanic invaders who would give France its name. Charlemagne’s name is the Latin form, “Carolus”, of a Germanic name, “Karl” and note how it’s spelled in the Latin inscription: “Karolus”. Latin doesn’t use the letter K—so, a Germanic practice?)

As Drogo and Freddie are out of the medieval Germanic past, I would suggest that, whereas Took is Anglo-Norman and Peregrine is Latin, Pippin may have gotten his nickname from a similar source, a fittingly distinguished name for someone who, after the War of the Ring, would become Thain of the Shire, Knight of Gondor, and Counsellor of the North Kingdom.

Thanks for reading, as always.

Stay well,

Dark Ages? What Dark Ages? You just have to know where to look—Tolkien did,

And remember that there’s always

MTCIDC

King Returns and Tax Returns?

23 Wednesday Jul 2025

Posted by Ollamh in Uncategorized

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Argeleb II, Dismal Science, Farthings, taxes, The Bridge of Stonebows, The Shire, Tolkien

As always, dear readers, welcome.

I’m always interested to try to imagine things which Tolkien may allude to, but goes into no more detail about—a kind of teaser, and, for me, a challenge: what can we reconstruct—and how?

“About this time legend among the Hobbits first becomes history…They passed over the Bridge of Stonebows, that had been built in the days of the power of the North Kingdom, and they took all of 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”)

The “Bridge of the Strongbows” is the stone bridge which crosses the Baranduin/Brandywine on the road into the Shire from Bree, “bow” here meaning “arch”.

As far as I know, no artist has as yet depicted it, but I’ve always imagined it as looking rather like the Elvet Bridge, which spans the River Wear in the middle of Durham, England.

This was begun in 1160AD by the Norman bishop, Hugh de Puiset (c.1125-1195—a very interesting figure in the early centuries of Norman domination—you can read about him here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_de_Puiset and read more about the bridge here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elvet_Bridge ), but only finished sometime in the following century, suggesting both the time-consuming nature of its construction, as well as the expense, something less visible, but always there in the medieval world—cathedrals could take centuries to build, and not only because they were large and complex.

So, as it took time and money to build the “Bridge of Strongbows”, it would have taken more time and money to keep it in repair, let alone “all other bridges and roads”.

And here we are in what Thomas Carlyle, 1795-1881, referred to as the “dismal science”: economics in Middle-earth. (Carlyle uses the term more than once, but the general citation is to his–originally published under a pseudonym–“ Occasional Discourse on the Negro Question”, which you can read here: https://cruel.org/econthought/texts/carlyle/carlodnq.html If you read this site regularly, you know that one of its pleasures for me is being able to recommend all sorts of books, articles, music, to my readers. In this case, however, I must say that, for once, I don’t recommend something—unless you are curious as to the horrific attitudes of some 19^th-century intellectuals on the subject of race and bondage. As an historical artifact, then, it’s worth a glance, but as an example of bigotry, it’s appalling, and unworthy of a man with the mind and sensibilities to know better.)

Tolkien himself was well aware of economics. As he says in a letter to Naomi Mitchison:

“I am not incapable of economic thought; and I think as far as the ‘mortals’ go, Men, Hobbits, and Dwarfs, that the situations are so devised that economic likelihood is there and could be worked out…”

(letter to Naomi Mitchison, 25 September, 1954, Letters, 292)

Tolkien, however, adds something to his letter which makes his ideas a little clearer and adds a medieval touch:

“…Gondor has sufficient ‘townlands’ and fiefs with a good water and road approach to provide for its population…”

“Townlands”, as Tolkien used it, was a term employed in Ireland to indicate the holdings, by landlords, of multiple farms held by tenants, who paid rent to the landlords. “Fief” is the feudal term for land given to a vassal by an overlord in return for taxes and military support when required. In other words, these are economic units, in which those who work the land pay for that work with rent, in one form or another.

So let’s consider the Shire.

In that same letter, Tolkien says:

“The Shire is placed in a water and mountain situation and a distance from the sea and a latitude that would give it a natural fertility, quite apart from the stated fact that it was a well-tended region when they took it over (no doubt with a good deal of older arts and crafts).”

As far as we can see, there are neither “townlands” or “fiefs”, but there is a form of government—in fact, a rather confused form:

1. a Thain–from Old English “thegn”–a significant landholder, one step down from an “ealdorman” (it’s much more complicated—see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thegn for more) a hereditary position owned by the Took family, whose holder was “master of the Shire-moot, and captain of the Shire-muster and the Hobbitry-in arms”

2. the Mayor of Michel Delving (or of the Shire) “who was elected every seven years at the Free Fair on the White Downs at the Lithe, that is at Mid-summer” JRRT says that “as mayor almost his only duty was to preside at banquets given on the Shire-holidays”, but then, I think, contradicts himself somewhat, saying “But the offices of Postmaster and First Shirriff were attached to the mayoralty, so that he managed both the Messenger Service and the Watch. These were the only Shire-services, and the Messengers were the most numerous, and much the busier of the two.” The Shirriffs were only a dozen—three per quarter—“Farthings” of the Shire, but there were, at the time of The Lord of the Rings another, larger group, the “Bounders”, meaning border guards, presumably also under his command.

There’s a postal service, then, and a two-part police force, as well as the need for infrastructure maintenance, all of which require that which Tolkien understands, as he tells us, but does not go into: money in some form.

Money turns up in fantasy literature, but it only seems to belong to kings and people at the top, as well as in dragon hoards,

(JRRT)

and in mysterious caches linked to beings like witches,

(Vladyslav Yerko—you can read about him here: https://www.artlex.com/artists/vladyslav-yerko/ and here: http://ababahalamaha.com.ua/en/Vladyslav_Yerko )

as well as in the hands of thieves.

Tolkien, just like other such fantasy creators, doesn’t tell us where the money comes from ultimately, but I would suggest that he gives us some clues.

We can begin with the Shire itself. It’s not a large place—

(JRRT/Christopher Tolkien?)

“Forty leagues it stretched from the Far Downs to the Brandywine Bridge, and fifty from the northern moors to the marshes in the south.” (The Lord of the Rings, Prologue I: “Concerning Hobbits”) If we take about 3 miles per league (4.8km), then 40 leagues = 120 miles (193km), and 50 leagues = 150 miles (241km) and yet it’s divided into quarters, suggesting that this was done for some sort of administrative purposes, cutting it down into more manageable sections. As there’s voting, perhaps the Shire is broken up into voting districts, as it is the method used here, in the US.

And, just as likely, it may be done for tax purposes—after all, how else is money raised for police, post, and infrastructure?

Tolkien would have been well aware that the Anglo-Saxons were sophisticated bureaucrats, producing detailed records—which the Normans took over in the so-called “Domesday Book”,

a late Anglo-Saxon joke on taxes being as sure and as unforgiving as the Last Judgment.

Not all of the volumes survive from the original survey of the 1080s, but what does survive breaks down the countryside by shires (sound familiar?), listing in great detail who owns what and how much tax does he pay on it. (For more on this incredibly interesting document see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domesday_Book )

One can imagine, then, the Shire equivalent, each of the farthings listed and, beneath each, the villages, farms, and private dwellings, with the name of the owner, what he possesses, and what he owes. The North Farthing would then include:

NORTH FARTHING

Overhill

The Hill

in which would be “Bag End”, “Bilbo Baggins”, what property produces revenue, and what taxes he owes for it

Hobbiton

The king who had originally granted land to the Hobbits was Argeleb II, in TA1601, but it’s clear that, as the Northern Kingdom faded, so did the Hobbits’ memory of Numenorean kings, except in their folklore:

“But there had been no king for nearly a thousand years…Yet the Hobbits still said of wild folk and wicked things (such as trolls) that they had not heard of the king. For they attributed to the king of old all their essential laws; and usually they kept the laws of free will, because they were The Rules (as they said), both ancient and just.” (The Lord of the Rings, Prologue I: “Concerning Hobbits”)

As they kept “The Rules”, however, we can presume that the Hobbits maintained their obligation to Argeleb, who had died in TA1670, as the Bridge of Strongbows was still standing when Frodo and his friends arrived there in TA3019. Soon after, however, a new king appeared, Elessar (aka Aragorn II), and we might wonder: what would he demand of the Shire? After all, the War of the Ring had caused tremendous damage to Gondor and it’s clear that the new king had plans to rebuild Arnor (Aragorn travels to the site of the old northern capital, Annuminas, in TA1436 The Lord of the Rings, Appendix B, “Later Events Concerning the Members of the Fellowship of the Ring”) and so we’re back to economics: would the return of the king mean, as the title of this piece suggests, tax returns? Certainly the first Norman king, William, pretty quickly set his clerks to work wringing every penny they could out of local land-holders.

We aren’t told if the Shire was required to continue the agreement made so many centuries ago with Argeleb, but the new king was clearly very grateful, at least to certain Hobbits, and:

“[SR—Shire Reckoning]1427…King Elessar issues an edict that Men are not to enter the Shire, and he makes it a Free Land under the protection of the Northern Sceptre.” (The Lord of the Rings, Appendix B, “Later Events Concerning the Members of the Fellowship of the Ring”)

Presumably, this lifts the responsibility for royal taxes, but, as the king visits his old friends at the bridge in FA1436, (The Lord of the Rings, Appendix B, “Later Events Concerning the Members of the Fellowship of the Ring”) I think that we can also presume that the ancient infrastructure agreement is still in force, even if the king doesn’t cross the bridge.

As for the post and the police? We have a modern expression which mirrors the thinking behind the ancient sad joke about the “Domesday Book”: “nothing is sure in this life except death—and taxes”.

Thanks, as always, for reading.

Stay well,

To add another proverbial expression, when it comes to their taxes, perhaps the Hobbits would cross that bridge when they came to it,

And remember that, as always, there’s

MTCIDC

Bard

09 Wednesday Jul 2025

Posted by Ollamh in Uncategorized

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Agincourt, anti-aircraft gun, Archery, Arthur Machen, Bard, Bilbo, black arrow, Crecy, Dwarves, Fafnir, Fantasy, Howard Pyle, James Fenimore Cooper, Le Cateau, NC Wyeth, Poitiers, Robert Louis Stevenson, Robin Hood, Sigurd, Smaug, The Bowmen, The Hobbit, Tolkien

Welcome, as ever, dear readers,

When Bilbo and the dwarves

(the Hildebrandts)

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 18^th-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 (2^nd 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 29^th,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 14^th-century Piers Plowman, where Sloth—a priest deserving of his name, doesn’t seem to have any religious knowledge, but says,

“Ich can rymes of Robyn Hode” (that is, “I know rhymes/songs about Robin Hood”—see the citation at: https://robinhoodlegend.com/piers-plowman/ at the impressively rich Robin Hood site: https://robinhoodlegend.com/ )

Then there is the collection of poems/songs from about 1500, A Gest of Robyn Hode,

which JRRT might have encountered in F.J. Child’s (1825-1896) The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, 1882-1898,

where it appears as #117. (If you don’t know the so-called “Child Ballads”, here’s a beginning: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_Ballads And, for a massive one-volume edition: https://archive.org/details/englishscottishp1904chil/page/n11/mode/2up The texts are interesting in themselves, but, for me, they’re even better as songs. To hear one, you might try one of my favorite folk singers, Ewan McColl’s version of “The Dowie Dens o’ Yarrow here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vfsv8zUdqKM&list=RDVfsv8zUdqKM&start_radio=1 For more on Yarrow, see “Yarrow”, 10 April, 2024.

For lots more on Robin Hood, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_Hood )

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).

An adventure story set during the Wars of the Roses, you can read it here: https://archive.org/details/blackarrowatale02stevgoog/page/n1/mode/2up

Although there are more possibilities (Tolkien might have read Sir Walter Scott’s (1771-1832) Ivanhoe, 1819, where Robin Hood makes an appearance, for instance—and here’s the book: https://archive.org/details/ivanhoe-sir-walter-scott/page/n7/mode/2up )

that title suggests something else:

“ ‘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

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.

doubtfulsea

~ adventure fantasy

Tag Archives: Tolkien

Going Around in Cycles

AI? Ay!

Horse, Two

Return to Horrors?

Bogged Down

Runing Things

Simple Words

Pippin

King Returns and Tax Returns?

Bard