Tag Archives: Tolkien

Clubbing

15 Wednesday Jan 2025

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Welcome, as always, dear readers.

So many earlier events are tied to this scene:

“The great shadow descended like a falling cloud…Upon it sat a shape, black-mantled, huge and threatening.”

It’s Eowyn about to challenge the Witch King of Angmar, the chief of the Nazgul, mounted upon his really disgusting creature.  Behind it lie:

1. the Black Riders

(the Gaffer and a Nazgul—perfectly captured by Denis Gordeev)

2. a sword taken from the barrow where the Barrow Wight almost makes an early end to the story

(a sketch for a painting by Matthew Stewart.  You can see more of his work here:  https://mattstewartartblog.blogspot.com/ )

3. Merry swearing fealty to Theoden

(a statue group from a Dutch site called “Odd World”:  https://www.oddworld.be/the-lord-of-rings-merry-and-theoden-miniatuur-beeld-1_prod11508.html

4. Eowyn, in despair over her unrequited love for Aragorn, disguising herself as “Dernhelm”, and taking Merry with her to Minas Tirith

(another Matthew Stewart)

5. one of those disgusting creatures

(Alan Lee)

And I’m sure that you can think of more, as it’s a wonderfully rich dramatic scene, including Tolkien at his archaizing best (William Morris would be very pleased with him):

“Begone, foul dwimmerlaik, lord of carrion!”

As you can imagine, there are numerous illustrations of it—from the Hildebrandts

to Alan Lee

to Ted Nasmith

to Denis Gordeev—

In each case, it’s interesting to see what moment in the scene each artist has chosen.  What caught my eye this time, however, wasn’t a person or creature or even the action, but an object:

“…the Lord of the Nazgul.  To the air he had returned, summoning his steed ere the darkness failed, and now he was come again, bringing ruin, turning hope to despair, and victory to death.  A great black mace he wielded.”

If you knew nothing about weaponry, you’d know that, at least, it’s a weapon, if, for no other reason,from its effect:

“With a cry of hatred that stung the very ears like venom he let fall his mace.  Her shield was shivered in many pieces, and her arm was broken…”  (The Return of the King, Book Five, Chapter 6, “The Battle of the Pelennor Fields”)

If you look up “mace” in Wikipedia, you find a wide variety of possibilities, however, everything from a spice

to a kind of tear gas

to a Star Wars character

(I’m afraid that I don’t have an artist for this, but how could I resist such a wonderful depiction?)

and more—which you can investigate here:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mace –but it’s the weapon which I was interested in.

We have earlier seen Nazgul armed with swords:

“There were five tall figures:  two standing on the lip of the dell, three advancing.  In their white faces burned keen and merciless eyes; under their mantles were long grey robes; upon their grey hairs were helms of silver; in their haggard hands were swords of steel.”  (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book One, Chapter 11, “A Knife in the Dark”)

(Weathertop by Alan Lee)

And, of course, at least one dagger—the Morgul Knife which wounds Frodo.

The mace, however, is new—but, in fact, very old.  It’s a kind of club, originally probably nothing more than the sort of thing which Herakles carries.

(a rather sea-sick looking Herakles, sailing in the cup of Helios)

When it comes to violence, however, people are endlessly inventive and, by the time of the Egyptians, we find polished stone heads

which, when attached to a stick, became a favorite early bashing weapon.

(from the so-called “Narmer palette”—31st century BC—this is an interesting find from 1894 from the ancient Egyptian site of Nekhen—you can read more about it here:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hierakonpolis )

Tolkien’s model, however, would have come from a much later, probably medieval, period and the fact that it’s black might indicate that it’s made of iron.  Of course there’s one medieval wooden club which JRRT would have known—

This is Odo, the bishop of Bayeux, in Normandy, the half-brother of Duke William, at the battle of Hastings.  Apparently, as an ecclesiastic, he felt unable to wield a sword or spear, like other Normans, and so he has armed himself with what might be thought of (although not by its victims) as a more “peaceable” weapon.

But this is, shall we say, unusual, and there were a wide variety of types to choose from—here’s a selection, along with other medieval weapons–

(by the Funckens, Liliane and Fred, from a very lively 3-volume set on medieval and Renaissance clothing, armor, and weaponry)

Various artists have made different choices, modeling their work on actual maces, or spinning off into fantasy, but perhaps we can do what Tolkien did with the Rohirrim, when he suggested that their armor would look like the mail of the Normans in the Bayeux Tapestry.  (see letter to Rhona Beare, 14 October, 1958, Letters, 401).  I haven’t spotted a Norman actually using a mace, but there appears to be an image of one here, between the charging Normans and the defending Anglo-Saxons, on the left (thrown by one of the latter?)–

It’s a bit small for Tolkien’s description, but, blow it up a bit for scale (after all, the Nazgul towers over Eowyn) and perhaps the one labeled “German 16” below would be a rough match?

Ironically, it’s Merry’s ancient sword which saves Eowyn, but, before that, that mace, combined with the force of the Nazgul’s swing, smashes Eowyn’s shield (probably made of overlapping layers of wood, perhaps with a metal covering?) and would have smashed her as well, reminding me of a remark supposedly made by the early 20th-century US President, Theodore Roosevelt, “Speak softly—and carry a big stick”!

Thanks, for reading, as always.

Stay well,

Dare I say stick around

Because, as always, there’s

MTCIDC?

O

Bacon and Eggs, Etc.

08 Wednesday Jan 2025

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Dear readers, welcome, as always.

When Tolkien admitted that he was a hobbit, he defined them—and himself—in part in this way:

“…I like gardens, trees and unmechanized farmlands; I smoke a pipe, and like good plain food (unrefrigerated), but detest French cooking… “ (from a letter to Deborah Webster, 25 October, 1958, Letters, 411)

This follows, of course, his description in “Concerning Hobbits” in the Prologue to The Lord of the Rings:

“Their faces were as a rule good-natured rather than beautiful, broad, bright-eyed, red-cheeked, with mouths apt to laughter, and to eating and drinking.  And laugh they did, and eat, and drink, often and heartily, being fond of simple jests at all times, and of six meals a day (when they could get them).”

And this is an extension of the description in the first chapter, “An Unexpected Party”, of The Hobbit:

“[they] have long clever brown fingers, good-natured faces, and laugh deep fruity laughs (especially after dinner, which they have twice a day when they can get it).”

This propensity for the consumption of comestibles—and for the reporting of and description of eating and all that might go with it—is more, in The Hobbit, than simply a fond look at a foible, however.  In fact, it is a theme which seems, at times to dominate the book—and we see this practically on the first page of the novel, not only in that mention of multiple dinners, but even in the fact that hobbit laughs are “fruity”.

The opening setting itself announces the theme:  “Bilbo Baggins was standing at his door after breakfast…” and soon Bilbo is resisting Gandalf’s proposal of an adventure by saying “Nasty disturbing uncomfortable things!  Make you late for dinner!”  (The Hobbit, Chapter 1, “An Unexpected Party”)

(the Hildebrandts)

There follows the rattled Bilbo’s invitation to Gandalf to come to tea (after which he consoles himself with “a cake or two and a drink of something”), and then the party from the chapter title, which includes not only a major depletion of Bilbo’s pantry (or pantries, as the narrator has already informed us that Bilbo’s house has “lots of these”), but even a kind of heroic catalogue of what’s called for and which Bilbo seems able to supply including:  tea, beer, seed-cake, coffee, scones, ale, porter, red wine, raspberry jam, apple-tart, mince-pies, cheese, pork-pie, salad, eggs, chicken, and pickles (and a single biscuit—that is, cookie, for Bilbo).

The chapter ends with one last burst of food-talk as Bilbo offers bed and breakfast to the dwarves (as a way of seeing them off) and Thorin orders breakfast as if Bilbo were running an inn:

“But I agree about bed and breakfast.  I like six eggs with my ham, when starting on a journey:  fried not poached, and mind you don’t break ‘em.”

(Eggs and ham—those eggs will appear again, but with bacon, when Bilbo, more than once, yearns for them.  This is from a rather mouth-watering website called “The English Kitchen”, which you can visit here:  https://www.theenglishkitchen.co/2020/04/proper-ham-eggs.html  And, as, when you search for a useful image of ham and eggs, you suddenly find yourself surrounded by images of Dr. Seuss’ wonderful Green Eggs and Ham, you can it read here:  https://ia601502.us.archive.org/20/items/green-eggs-and-ham_202211/GreenEggs%20Ham.pdf )

And Bilbo goes off the bed annoyed not only at Thorin, but at all of the other dwarves, who have made similar orders.

After that opening, it’s not surprising that Chapter 2 begins with a still-annoyed Bilbo, faced with a mountain of dirty dishes, the remains of a breakfast he didn’t fix, but, cleaning up, he enjoys his own first breakfast and is starting on a second one when Gandalf appears and Bilbo is suddenly off on the adventure which takes up the rest of the book.

Food soon appears again as one of their ponies “got into the river before they could catch him…and all the baggage that he carried was washed away off him.  Of course it was mostly food, and there was mighty little left for supper, and less for breakfast.”  (Chapter 2)

But then the eating theme takes a different and disturbing turn:  trolls

(JRRT)

who, though currently munching mutton, have “…et a village and a half between yer, since we come down from the mountains” and soon, like amateur chefs on “The Great Goblin Bake Off”, are discussing how to prepare dwarf—will it be roasting?  boiling?  before the judge, one Gandalf, decides the argument by tricking them into being exposed to the sun and turned to stone.

(JRRT)

This is, in its way, a mirror to the original eating idea, in which the protagonists who do the consuming are at risk of becoming a potential article for consumption and we’ll see this repeated more than once with:

1. the goblins (Chapter 4):  “For goblins eat horses and ponies and donkeys (and other much more dreadful things), and they are always hungry.”

(Alan Lee)

2. Gollum (Chapter 5):  “He was looking out of his pale lamp-eyes for blind fish, which he grabbed with his long fingers as quick as thinking.  Goblin he thought good, when he could get it…” and there’s the possibility that Bilbo might be on the menu—if he loses the riddle contest.

(Alan Lee)

3. the spiders (Chapter 8):  “  ‘What nasty thick skins they [the dwarves] have to be sure, but I’ll wager there is good juice inside.’ ‘Aye, they’ll make fine eating, when they’ve hung a bit…’ ”

(and another Alan Lee)

4. and, of course, Smaug (Chapter 12):  “ ‘Let me tell you I ate six ponies last night and I shall catch and eat all the others before long…I know the smell (and taste) of dwarf…Girion Lord of Dale is dead, and I have eaten his people like a wolf among sheep…’ “

(JRRT)

On the other side (the eating, not eaten), however, there are:

1. supper with the Rivendell elves (Chapter 3)

(JRRT)

2. rabbit, hare, and sheep with the eagles (Chapter 6)

(JRRT)

3. meals with Beorn (Chapter 7)

(Ted Nasmith)

4. starving in Mirkwood while being tantalized by elvish feasts (Chapter 8)

(another elf king, in an illustration by A.W. Bayes, 1831-1909)

5. prison rations in the dungeons of Thranduil, the king of the forest elves (Chapter 9)—as well as food stolen by Bilbo

(a generic dungeon as, so far, I haven’t discovered a useful illustration of the original situation)

6. feasts in Lake-town (Chapter 10)

(JRRT)

7. a gourmet diet of snails (Chapter 11)

(Alan Lee)

8. and even the threat of siege and starvation (Chapter 15)—

(Alan Lee)

Given that so much of the text is handed over to eating and drinking, it’s surprising that the conclusion of the story doesn’t have Gandalf returning (with Balin) to tea some years later—

(Alan Lee)

could it be that even that academic hobbit is finally full?

As always, thanks for reading.

Stay well,

One slice of cake should do, I think, don’t you? Or maybe two?

And remember that, as always, there’s

MTCIDC

O

Hybrids

01 Wednesday Jan 2025

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As always, dear readers, welcome.

The title of this piece might suggest electric cars, and it definitely will mention several different wheeled vehicles, but it is actually what I hope is a little study in something Tolkien does wonderfully well:  taking different elements from different times and cultures and so blending them that they become believable new wholes.

Although I don’t always agree with elements in Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings, one thing has always given me pleasure:  the Rohirrim, whether en masse

or a small grouping.

And this is true for Edoras

as well as for Meduseld.

And yet they appear to be a kind of combination of peoples:  on the one hand, Tolkien imagined them to be Anglo-Saxons,

(Peter Dennis)

a people who primarily fought on foot, as at their last two major battles, Stamford Bridge,

(Victor Ambrus—who worked for years with the popular British archeology series, Time Team—which is available on YouTube and much recommended)

where they defeated another infantry force, the Vikings, and Hastings,

(Artist?)

in which they were overwhelmed at the battle’s conclusion by Norman cavalry.

(From the wonderful “Bayeux Tapestry”—actually the “Bayeux Embroidery”—if you’d like to see the whole thing, look here:  https://www.bayeuxmuseum.com/en/the-bayeux-tapestry/discover-the-bayeux-tapestry/explore-online/  To my knowledge, there’s nothing like it from the Middle Ages for depicting a specific series of events in the medieval world.)

On the other hand, the Rohirrim were mounted, more like those Normans who defeated the Anglo-Saxons,

although the language they speak is, basically, a form of Old English, the language of the Anglo-Saxons.  Tolkien imagined them, in fact, as looking like the Normans, as well, describing them in a letter to Rhona Beare:

“The styles of the Bayeux Tapestry (made in England) fit them well enough, if one remembers that the kind of tennis-nets [the] soldiers seem to have on are only a clumsy conventional sign for chain-mail of small rings.”  (letter to Rhona Beare, 14 October, 1958, Letters, 401)

That is, their armor actually can look like this—

(By Angus McBride—and ironic, as, for all that McBride must have painted dozens of figures in chain mail, he once confessed in an interview that it was his least favorite part of illustrating, as the mail took so long to do.)

It’s also interesting to think about them as a people.  Anglo-Saxons were descended from a combination of locals (Romano-British) and various groups of west-Germanic tribesmen who had either been early post-Roman invaders of Britain or Germanic tribesmen brought to Britain to protect the locals from those invaders and who had become colonizers in turn.

But who were the Rohirrim and where did they come from?

“Eorl the Young was lord of the Men of Eotheod.  That land lay near the sources of Anduin, between the furthest ranges of the Misty Mountains and the northernmost parts of Mirkwood.”

(JRRT)

They had not always lived there, however:

“The Eotheod [from Old English, “Horsefolk”] had moved to those regions in the days of King Earnil II [TA 1945-2043] from lands in the vales of Anduin between the Carrock and the Gladden, and they were in origin close akin to the Beornings and the men of the west-eaves of the forest.  The forefathers of Eorl claimed descent from kings in Rhovanion, whose realm lay beyond Mirkwood before the invasions of the Wainriders…They loved best the plains and delighted in horses and in all feats of horsemanship…” (The Lord of the Rings, Appendix A II “The House of Eorl”)

The combination of “They loved best the plains and delighted in horses” makes perfect sense when one thinks about comparative history in our Middle-earth.  Consider the Eurasian Steppe, stretching from western China all the way to the Hungarian puszta.

This is an immense belt of grassland,

some 5000 miles (8000km) wide,

and has been the homeland of numerous horsefolk throughout history, from the Scythians

to the Sarmatians

to the Huns

(Angus McBride)

to the Mongols.

(another McBride)

All of these peoples have used the Steppe to graze their herds of horses, sometimes moving west for grazing, sometimes moving west when pressured by others further east, and sometimes as predators, like the Huns, moving west to seek new plunder.

(I haven’t been able to identify an artist for this–it has the look of late-Victorian.)

In two of these cases, whole peoples might be on the move and this is perhaps where Tolkien has gotten part of his description of those Wainriders he mentions:

“The Wainriders were a people, or a confederacy of many peoples, that came from the East; but they were stronger and better armed than any that had appeared before.  They journeyed in great wains, and their chieftains fought in chariots…” 

So, we can imagine that the Eotheod, pressured by the Wainriders, were forced west, as one steppe people is pushed westward by another to the east. 

But Tolkien gives us another—or perhaps additional–possibility:

“Stirred up, as was afterwards seen, by the emissaries of Sauron, they made a sudden assault on Gondor…The people of eastern and southern Rhovanion were enslaved; and the frontiers of Gondor were for that time withdrawn to the Anduin and the Emyn Muil.” (The Lord of the Rings, Appendix A, IV “Gondor and the Heirs of Anarion”)

The Wainriders, then, might be both steppe peoples moving westwards, but also predators, like the Huns, or like the Mongols, who were both predators and empire-builders, and here we might see Mongols with their characteristic ger (a large round tent)—on a wagon—perhaps like the Wainriders?

(Wayne Reynolds)

Although there is no mention in our text of the Rohirrim migrating with wagons, it’s clear from parallels in our world that the peoples who crossed the Eurasian Steppe appear to have used them regularly.  But here, like the Rohirrim, we have another odd juxtaposition.  The Rohirrim are Anglo-Saxons on horseback:  cavalry, which was true for all of those migrants across the Steppe in our world.  Chariots, however, although Tolkien says that the Wainrider chiefs fought in them (of which fact this is the only mention) were not part of those other horsefolks’ arsenals.  Where did they come from?

The answer, I think, lies in the period of British history before the Anglo-Saxons and almost before the Romans, among the earlier Celtic settlers of England.  Julius Caesar encountered chariots there and described their use:

Genus hoc est ex essedis pugnae. Primo per omnes partes perequitant et tela coiciunt atque ipso terrore equorum et strepitu rotarum ordines plerumque perturbant, et cum se inter equitum turmas insinuaverunt, ex essedis desiliunt et pedibus proeliantur. 2 Aurigae interim paulatim ex proelio excedunt atque ita currus conlocant ut, si illi a multitudine hostium premantur, expeditum ad quos receptum habeant. 3 Ita mobilitatem equitum, stabilitatem peditum in proeliis praestant, ac tantum usu cotidiano et exercitatione efficiunt uti in declivi ac praecipiti loco incitatos equos sustinere et brevi moderari ac flectere et per temonem percurrere et in iugo insistere et se inde in currus citissime recipere consuerint.

“This is the kind of fighting from chariots.  At first, they ride around in all directions and throw spears and often, by the very frightfulness of the horses and the roar of the wheels, they shake the ranks [of the enemy] and, when they have slipped themselves among the troops of [enemy] cavalry, they leap from the chariots and fight on foot.  Meanwhile, the charioteers move out a little way from the fighting and so place their vehicles that, if they [the dismounted fighters] should be pressed by a large number of the enemy, they may have an easy retreat to them.  Thus, they provide the mobility of cavalry [as well as] the steadiness of infantry in [their] battles and they accomplish so much by daily practice and exercise that they are accustomed to control their stirred-up horses on a sloping and steep place and rein [them] in quickly and to turn [them] and to run along the yoke pole and to stand on the yoke and from there to take themselves back into the vehicles extremely speedily.”  (Caesar, De Bello Gallico, Book IV, Chapter 33—my translation)

(Angus McBride)

Tolkien may have remembered this from his schooldays, when he would first have encountered the text—and he might have found those wagons there, too, although slightly later.  When, in 60-61AD, the Iceni queen, Boudica, led a revolt against Roman rule,

(Peter Dennis)

in the final battle, when the tribesmen advanced towards the Roman formation, as Tacitus (c.56-c.120AD) tells us, their families watched from their wagons, placed behind the battle line (De Vita et Moribus Iulii Agricolae, Chapter 34).  And, as a prelude to the battle, Boudica had ridden among the ranks in a chariot (Chapter 35).

(another Peter Dennis—in fact, if you’d like to know more about this amazing woman, who, for a brief time, had been a real threat to the Romans, you might invest in: 

And so, as in combining Anglo-Saxon and Norman to create the Rohirrim, Tolkien may have taken Steppe people, added Celtic Britons, and produced the Wainriders. 

Thanks, as always for reading.

Stay well,

Remember that a horse will drink, on average, between 5 and 10 gallons (19-38 litres) of water a day,

And remember, as well, that there’s always

MTCIDC

O

The Toys of Dale

25 Wednesday Dec 2024

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Welcome, as always, dear readers.

From his letters, it’s clear that Tolkien had very mixed feelings about Christmas. 

To his son, Christopher, far away in the RAF, he writes:

“Today is the ‘last day for posting in time for Christmas’, and though I resent the way in which this feast of peace and joy is made into a labour (not to say a nightmare of shabby commercialism)…”

and continues:

“…The shops, by the way, pass belief here this year.  There is stuff that a barbarian would be ashamed of, bits of shapeless wood and paper smeared with paint, and would certainly not be such fools as to purchase, selling for idiotic prices like 18/6 [18 shillings, 6 pence, when 1 shilling, 3 pence would buy a quart of milk—see:  https://www.sunnyavenue.co.uk/insight/how-much-is-a-shilling-worth-today ).  Surely this Xmas Gift business is a form of dementia, when it allows itself to be cheated so transparently.”  (letter to Christopher Tolkien, 10 December, 1944, Letters, 149-150)

He has, however, already qualified this a bit by calling Christmas a “feast of peace and joy”, with a further proviso some years later in a letter to his son Michael:

“Well here comes Christmas!  That astonishing thing that no ‘commercialism’ can in fact defile—unless you let it.” (letter to Michael Tolkien, 19 December, 1962, Letters, 457)

I have no idea what “bits of shapeless wood and paper smeared with paint” might actually be, but, as Tolkien has clearly been shopping and there are children in the family, I imagine that it was some crude, mass-produced toy, which might also suffer from wartime shortages of raw materials.  Perhaps something like this?

Born in 1893, Tolkien had grown up in a world of increasingly-sophisticated children’s playthings, from Marklin’s beautifully-engineered toy trains

to William Britain’s popular toy soldiers

for boys and elaborate dolls,

elegant tea sets,

and doll houses for girls, among other toys.

As one of two sons of a mother barely scraping by,

it’s unlikely that he, or his younger brother, Hilary, could ever have more than glimpsed such things in a toy shop window,

and had to be contented with the lesser toys of the age—clay rather than stone marbles,

a wooden hoop, rather than a steel one,

or, in a moment of splurging on his mother’s part, perhaps a pop gun—one is mentioned in The Hobbit where, in Chapter 1, Gandalf refers to Bilbo opening his door like one—for more on that and other such weapons in fiction, see “Pop!” 13 December, 2017 here:  https://doubtfulsea.com//?s=popgun&search=Go

In the Third Age of Middle-earth, we might expect to be surprised and puzzled by Gandalf’s remark, as there are no guns to be seen there and here we can’t use the plausible explanation for other anachronisms in the text, that it’s the narrator telling the story in the 1930s, as it’s Gandalf who says it, not the exterior—and much more modern—narrator.

But I would suggest another explanation—which also appears in The Hobbit.  Speaking of the long-lost world of the dwarves’ Lonely Mountain and the town of Dale at its foot, Thorin says:

“Altogether those were good days for us, and the poorest of us had money to spend, and to lend, and leisure to make beautiful things just for the fun of it, not to speak of the most marvelous and magical toys, the like of which is not to be found in the world now-a-days.  So my grandfather’s halls became full of armour and jewels and carvings and cups, and the toy market of Dale was the wonder of the North.”  (The Hobbit, Chapter One, “An Unexpected Party”)

Perhaps, even before the appearance of gunpowder weapons (foreshadowed both by Saruman’s attack on Helm’s Deep and Sauron’s on the Causeway Forts in The Lord of the Rings), then, the dwarvish and human craftsmen of the region had created something which, in their time, used air to propel its missile, rather than this? 

But what about other “most marvelous and magical” toys?

The Third Age in Middle-earth is, at base, a medieval world, the kind of place Tolkien, as a boy, would have seen through the eyes of illustrators like Howard Pyle (1853-1911)

(from his The Story of King Arthur and his Knights, 1903, which you can read here:   https://archive.org/details/storykingarthur02pylegoog/page/n15/mode/2up )

and the writings of authors like his favorite, William Morris (1834-1896).

(You can read this here:  https://gutenberg.org/cache/epub/169/pg169-images.html )

Toys like that Marklin train above, therefore, wouldn’t have been available,

but, as Tolkien shows us a clock on the right-hand wall of the entryway at Bag End,

and, as mechanical toys were certainly for sale in the later Victorian world,

perhaps we can imagine something like this on sale in the Dale toy market?

or this?

always remembering that, although these might seem crude to us, they are antiques and worn from being once much-loved and much-played with, and, in medieval Middle-earth, anything which moved without being pushed or pulled would be magical!

Thanks for reading, as always.

Stay well,

Remember what JRRT said about keeping Christmas magical,

And remember, as well, that there’s

MTCIDC

O

PS

There are many sites for early mechanical toys, some informational, some for collectors, and some both at once.  Here’s one which is fun to read and has a practical side:  https://www.unclealstoys.com/origin-of-wind-up-toys-discovering-the-fascinating-history/

Learning the Ropes

04 Wednesday Dec 2024

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As always, dear readers, welcome.

“At last they were brought to a halt.  The ridge took a sharper bend northward and was gashed by a deeper ravine.  On the farther side it reared up again, many fathoms at a single leap; a great grey cliff loomed before them, cut sheer down as if by a knife stroke.  They could go no further forwards, and must turn now either west or east.  But west would lead them only into more labour and delay, back towards the heart of the hills; east would take them to the outer precipice.” 

Frodo and Sam have been traveling away from the Anduin and their friends, headed for Mordor, even as Sam has said,

“ ‘What a fix!…That’s the one place in all the lands we’ve ever heard of that we don’t want to see any closer, and that’s the place we’re trying to get to!’ “

And now they’re in the area called Emyn Muil (translated by Paul Stack as “Drear Hills”—see: https://eldamo.org/index.html )

(This appears to be from Karen Wynn Fonstad’s The Atlas of Middle Earth, an invaluable book.)

which, to me, has always seemed volcanic, like this—

and Peter Jackson must have had a similar idea, as this part of his second film was set in the land near Mt. Ruapeha, an active volcano on New Zealand’s North Island—

Confronted by that ravine, Frodo has tried climbing down, only “…to come down with a jolt to his feet on a wider ledge not many yards lower down.”  Sam, helpless, shouts that he’ll come down, until Frodo replies:  “Wait!  You can’t do anything without a rope.”

 An approaching storm has darkened the air around them, but Frodo’s words bring a sudden light to him: 

“Rope!…Well, if I don’t deserve to be hung on the end of one as a warning to numbskulls!  You’re nowt but a ninnyhammer, Sam Gamgee:  that’s what the Gaffer said to me often enough, it being a word of his.  Rope!” 

And not ordinary rope, but Elvish rope:

“ ‘Maybe you remember them putting the ropes in the boats, as we started off in the Elvish country,’ “ says Sam.  “ ‘I took a fancy to it, and I stowed a coil in my pack… ‘It may be a help in many needs’ he said:  Haldir, or one of those folk.  And he spoke right.’ “

And so Sam “unslung his pack and rummaged in it.  There indeed at the bottom was a coil of the silken-grey rope made by the folk of Lorien.”

With it, Frodo is quickly up beside Sam and soon, using the rope, they reach the bottom of the ravine.

(Donato Giancola—you can see more of his impressive work here:  https://donatoarts.com/  Don’t forget to check out the dragons.)

But there’s a further problem:

“But Sam did not answer:  he was staring back up the cliff.  ‘Ninnyhammers!’ he said.  ‘Noodles!  My beautiful rope!  There it is tied to a stump and we’re at the bottom.  Just as nice a little stair for that stinking Gollum as we could leave.’ “

And then—

“ [Sam] looked up and gave one last pull to the rope as if in farewell.

To the complete surprise of both the hobbits it came loose.  Sam fell over, and the long grey coils slithered silently down on top of him.”

Frodo, of course, mocks Sam, who, hurt, replies:

“ ‘I may not be much good at climbing, Mr. Frodo…but I do know something about rope and about knots.  It’s in the family as you might say.  Why, my grand-dad, and my uncle Andy after him, him that was the Gaffer’s eldest brother, he had a rope-walk over by Tightfield many a year.’ “ (all of the above from The Two Towers, Book Four, Chapter 1, “The Taming of Smeagol”)

When you read the title of this posting, you’ll probably smile and say, “That means understanding how something works”, and you’d be right.  Imagine, however, that the expression began with someone press-ganged (forcibly drafted) into the British Navy during the Napoleonic era.

The Royal Navy’s pressgangs tried to kidnap actual sailors, usually from commercial vessels, but, to make up numbers, practically any male of over a certain age might do.

Once aboard (and incapable of escaping), the new crew member might be assigned any number of different duties, from cook

(Long John Silver, from Stevenson’s Treasure Island, was originally a cook)

to gunner,

but a major job was in handling the complicated power which made the ship move:  the sails and what controlled the sails, the rigging.  Many sailors were specifically trained to deal with the sails, but, in emergencies, it could even mean “all hands to the rigging!”  (To learn more about how complex this process is, see this 1848 The Art of Rigging:  https://archive.org/details/artrigging00steegoog/page/n4/mode/2up  based upon David Steel’s 1794 2-volume work.)

An 18th-century naval frigate (smaller war ship), like this one, HMS Pomone,

required, as you can imagine, a vast amount of rope for its rigging, and the biggest ships, like HMS Victory,

needed the equivalent of over 30 miles (48km+) of the stuff, so “learning the ropes” was clearly never an easy job for a beginning  (and, if pressganged, probably very reluctant) sailor! 

To provide that rope, there were what Sam’s grandfather and uncle had—ropewalks—and long walks they could be, like this one, from the Chatham dockyards in England.

To make rope, one began with the fibers of the hemp plant

and twisted and stretched them just as is done with wool to make woolen thread. 

The difference is that rope is commonly much longer than thread, as is the case with the ropes needed for HMS Victory’s rigging and so ropewalks had to be long enough to produce long lines.  (It’s a complicated process so, for more on this, see:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ropewalk )

It might seem puzzling, looking at that ropewalk, and thinking about HMS Victory, why hobbits, who certainly weren’t sailors (think:  Frodo’s parents died in what must have been a rowboat accident on the Brandywine—see The Fellowship of the Ring, Book One, Chapter 1, “A Long-Expected Party” for gossip on the subject) would have a ropewalk, but we might ask the same question of the elves of Lorien, which was far from the sea, even though elves did take ship at the Grey Havens,

Departure at the Grey Havens, by Ted Nasmith

(Ted Nasmith)

to sail westwards.  The answer might be, as Sam and Frodo found out, in Haldir’s words, “It may be a help in many needs” and even if one needs and uses rope, it isn’t necessary for most people to require Victory’s 30 miles of the stuff. 

But then there’s that other question:  if Sam was as familiar with rope as he claimed, and an expert at knot-tying, why did that elvish rope come tumbling down on his head after supporting the two hobbits on their climb?

Thanks for reading, as always.

Stay well,

Considering solving knotty rope problems as Alexander did, with the Gordian knot,

And remember that, as always, there’s

MTCIDC

O

Drums (but no guns)

20 Wednesday Nov 2024

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Dear readers, welcome, as always.

JRRT was well aware of anachronisms and, in his 1966 revision of The Hobbit, he replaced certain items.  Certain ones remained, however, including:

“…In that last hour Beorn himself had appeared—no one knew how or from where.  He came alone, and in bear’s shape; and he seemed to have grown almost to giant-size in his wrath.

The roar of his voice was like drums and guns…”  (The Hobbit, Chapter 18, “The Return Journey”)

This is the narrator speaking and it has been argued, quite plausibly, to my mind, that he’s someone speaking in the 1930s, telling a tale to his children, and therefore is perfectly justified in using things which are normal in his own time period, as out of place as they might be in Bilbo’s world.  (Although Gandalf is known for his fireworks,

meaning that gunpowder is available, and, as we know from explosions at Helm’s Deep and the Causeways Forts, Saruman and Sauron both appear to use some sort of explosive.)

(This is by the brilliant Grant Davis, a Lego wizard—you can read something about him here:  https://www.georgefox.edu/journalonline/summer19/feature/building-blocks.html )

Drums, however, are a different matter and, when it comes to Tolkien, I always immediately think of

“…We cannot get out.  The end comes, and then drums, drums in the deep.”  (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book Two, Chapter 5, “The Bridge at Khazad-dum”)

Gandalf has been reading to the Fellowship from a ruined diary of the reoccupation of Moria by the dwarves

as they sit in what was once the Chamber of Records, having no idea that, very soon, they could be duplicating the same doomed words as orcs attack them.

(Angus McBride)

“Gandalf had hardly spoken these words, when there came a great noise:  a rolling Boom that seemed to come from depths far below, and to tremble in the stone at their feet.  They sprang towards the door in alarm.  Doom, doom it rolled again, as if huge hands were turning the very caverns of Moria into a vast drum.  Then there came an echoing blast:  a great horn was blown in the hall, and answering horns and harsh cries were heard farther off.  There was a hurrying sound of many feet.

‘They are coming!’ cried Legolas.

‘We cannot get out,’ said Gimli.

‘Trapped!’ cried Gandalf.  ‘Why did I delay?  Here we are, caught, just as they were before.  But I was not here then.  We will see what—‘

Doom, doom came the drum-beat and the walls shook.”

And this booming sound will pursue the company all the way to the Bridge of Khazad-dum itself.

(Alan Lee)

We never see this drum, but I’ve always wondered what it and other drums used by the orcs and other opponents of the Fellowship and their friends might have looked like and, if possible, sounded like.

Certainly whatever the orcs are using here must be rather large to penetrate the stone walls of Moria.

My first choice might be o-daiko, a Japanese drum which can be as big as six feet in diameter

and I’ve seen mention of one which is almost ten feet.  It is played with two large, thick wooden sticks, called bachi,

and has been used for everything from folk festivals to war to theatre.  By itself, it has a deep boom, but played in groups…

You can read about it here:   https://instrumentsoftheworld.com/instrument/131-Odaiko.html  and hear and watch three drummers here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7HL5wYqAbU  (And perhaps I should add some sort of warning here:  they’re not only loud, but frenzied and, well, the sound can carry you away…)

And what about the Haradrim?  Here’s how they are depicted in the Jackson films—

(They are wearing, to me, a very odd helmet/mask, making them look a little like mechanical pandas—which is, I admit, a pretty terrifying thought!)

(By the wonderfully creative Patrick Lawrence.  You can see more of his work here:  https://pwlawrence.com/ )

but I’ve always pictured them as more like the Ottoman Turks, the sort who came to dominate southeastern Europe from the 14th century on, captured Constantinople in 1453,

and almost captured Vienna twice—in 1529 and again in 1683.

Their terror weapon—besides their fearsome reputation—was their music, often called mehter in the West. 

Drums, cymbals, wind and brass instruments combined to make a very fierce sound—as you can hear here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktBSoeSmMio  and you can read more about them here:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottoman_military_band )

And I’d add to all of this booming racket one more sound from the enemy:

“For Anduin, from the bend at the Harlond, so flowed that from the City men could look down it lengthwise for some leagues, and the far sighted could see any ships that approached.  And looking thither they cried in dismay; for black against the glittering stream they beheld a fleet borne up on the wind:  dromonds, and ships of great draught with many oars, and with black sails bellying in the breeze.”  (The Return of the King, Book Five, Chapter 6, “The Battle of the Pelennor Fields”)

Here’s a dromond (this is a version of the word dromon, “runner”, the name of the standard Byzantine warship)

and you’ll notice that it is an oared vessel, as are those which JRRT describes  as“ships of great draught”.  To coordinate the oars, a basic tempo must be kept and that would mean, traditionally, a drum—and a fairly large one, too, to carry the rhythm across the ship, rather like the cartoons we always see of Roman galleys, like this from the French comic Asterix—

You can see/hear a classic rowing scene here (from the 1959 Ben Hur):  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ax7wcShvrus

So, as advertised in the title of this posting, no guns, but certainly lots of drums—perhaps Howard Shore would consider a second edition of his score?

Thanks, as ever, for reading.

Stay well,

If rammed, be sure to have your life jacket handy (and plan to save the Roman admiral, as Ben Hur does),

And remember that, as always, there’s

MTCIDC

O

PS

I couldn’t resist adding this image—surely the Haradrim from the far south would have had camels—and kettle drums?

(not sure of the artist–perhaps Richard Hook?)

Watery Connections?

13 Wednesday Nov 2024

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As ever, dear readers, welcome.

Dennis, the politicized peasant,

 has something to say:

“ARTHUR: I am your king!

WOMAN: Well, I didn’t vote for you.

ARTHUR: You don’t vote for kings.

WOMAN: Well, how did you become King, then?

ARTHUR: The Lady of the Lake,…

[angels sing]

…her arm clad in the purest shimmering samite, held aloft Excalibur from the bosom of the water signifying by Divine Providence that I, Arthur, was to carry Excalibur.

[singing stops]

That is why I am your king!

DENNIS: Listen. Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.

ARTHUR: Be quiet!

DENNIS: Well, but you can’t expect to wield supreme executive power just ’cause some watery tart threw a sword at you!”  (Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Scene 3, “Repression is Nine Tenths of the Law?”  which you can read here:  http://www.montypython.50webs.com/scripts/Holy_Grail/Scene3.htm  

In case you are wondering what “samite” is, see

and:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samite

The Pythons, by the way, look to be mocking lines from “The Passing of Arthur”, a poem in Tennyson’s long series of Arthurian poems Idylls of the King here, where the dying Arthur commands his one surviving knight, Sir Bedivere, to toss his sword, Excalibur, into the local lake.  Bedivere is tempted not to, but, on his third try, he does so and

“So flashed and fell the brand Excalibur:
But ere he dipt the surface, rose an arm
Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful,
And caught him by the hilt, and brandished him
Three times, and drew him under in the mere.”

For the whole of the poem see:  https://d.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/text/tennyson-passing-of-arthur   Arthur had received the sword from this same Lady in “The Coming of Arthur”, which you can read here:  https://d.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/text/tennyson-coming-of-arthur  These are both drawn from the excellent Arthurian website which, if you don’t know it and are interested in Arthur, you need to:  https://d.lib.rochester.edu/camelot-project  There’s some confusion about Arthur and his swords, which you can read about here:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excalibur )

“Strange women lying in ponds” is the Pythons’ way of mentioning a rather common phenomenon we see in various forms both in folklore and in literature which is influenced by it, everything from classical water nymphs, naiads,

to mermaids

to the Rhinemaidens (Rheintoechter—“Rhine Daughters”) who appear in the “Ring Cycle”, Der Ring des Nibelungen, the 4-part series of Germanic mythological operas of Richard Wagner (1813-1883).

(Here chatting with the trickster god, Loge, an illustration by Arthur Rackham, 1867-1939.  You can see all of his illustrations to Wagner’s story here:  https://archive.org/details/rhinegoldvalkyri00wagn )

They are the guardians of the mysterious, but powerful “Rheingold”

which the dwarf, Alberich,

steals from them and fashions into a ring containing all the power of the original gold, which would enable its possessor to rule the world.

With another Ring in mind, there is, I would suggest, a bit more than a faint resemblance here between Wagner’s story and Tolkien’s, although Tolkien, seemingly fairly knowledgeable about Wagner’s work from early in his school days (see Carpenter Tolkien, 52) was very clear about just how faint that resemblance was as far as he was concerned:

“Both rings were round, and there the resemblance ceases.”  (from a letter to Allen & Unwin, 23 February, 1961, Letters, 436)

But might there be at least a little more similarity than that?

One fact is obvious:  Tolkien’s is a circlet which embodies tremendous power, just as the Nibelungen ring does, although that power wasn’t in the material from which it was made, but in the maker, Sauron. 

Alberich’s ring, like Sauron’s, has not remained with him, coming first into the possession of the god Wotan, and then into the possession of a dragon, Fafner (formerly a giant), then into that of his killer,  Siegfried (who also happens to be Wotan’s grandson), and then into that of the Valkyrie, Bruennhilde, Siegfried’s lover, who, leaping onto Siegfried’s funeral pyre, leaves the Ring to be collected from her ashes by the Rhinemaidens while, meanwhile, there is a cataclysm in the background and Valhalla, the home of the gods, is destroyed, along with the gods—“die Goetterdaemmerung”—literally “the gods’ dusk”. 

That ring isn’t destroyed, but we can certainly note that combination of the ring changing hands and huge destruction associated with that act—

“And even as he spoke the earth rocked beneath their feet.  Then rising swiftly up, far above the Towers of the Black Gate, high above the mountains, a vast soaring darkness sprang into the sky, flickering with fire.  The earth groaned and quaked.  The Towers of the Teeth swayed, tottered and fell down; the mighty rampart crumbled; the Black Gate was hurled in ruin; and from far away, now dim, now growing, now mounting to the clouds, there came a drumming rumble, a roar, a long echoing roll of ruinous noise.”  (The Return of the King, Book Six, Chapter 4, “The Field of Cormallen”)

(Ted Nasmith)

As well, coming back to the beginning of this posting, there is also a water association.  In fact, two:

1. after the defeat of Sauron at the foot of Orodruin, in which Isildur took the Ring from Sauron:

“…It fell into the Great River, Anduin, and vanished.  For Isildur was marching north along the east bank of the River, and near the Gladden Fields he was waylaid by the Orcs of the Mountains, and almost all his folk were slain.  He leaped into the waters, but the Ring slipped from his finger as he swam, and there the Orcs saw him and killed him with arrows…And there in the dark pools amid the Gladden Fields…the Ring passed out of knowledge and legend…”

2. but, many years later, two “akin to the fathers of the fathers of the Stoors”

“…took a boat and went down to the Gladden Fields…There Smeagol got out and went nosing about the banks but Deagol sat in the boat and fished.  Suddenly a great fish took his hook, and before he knew where he was, he was dragged out and down into the water, to the bottom.  Then he let go of his line, for he thought he saw something shining in the river-bed; and holding his breath he grabbed at it.

Then up he came spluttering, with weeds in his hair and a handful of mud; and he swam to the bank.  And behold!  when he washed the mud away, there in his hand lay a beautiful golden ring…” (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book One, Chapter 2, “The Shadow of the Past”)

To steal the Rhinegold from the Rhinemaidens, Alberich the dwarf has dived into the Rhine.

His son, Hagen, trying to regain the ring, is dragged into the river and drowned by them, even as they keep the ring.

Might we imagine, then, that the death of Gollum and all which precedes it is—perhaps—somehow a bit more related to Wagner’s story than JRRT was comfortable with?

(Ted Nasmith)

As ever, thanks for reading.

Stay well,

Stay dry,

And remember that there’s always

MTCIDC

O

Paleo-Tolkien

06 Wednesday Nov 2024

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As always, welcome, dear readers.

Recently, I’ve been watching a very interesting dramatized documentary, “The Voyage of Charles Darwin”.

As the name implies, this includes his 5-year journey around the globe on HMS Beagle,

but goes on to follow his subsequent intellectual development through his gradual understanding of evolution.  (You can learn more about him from this rather provocative Britannica entry here:  https://www.britannica.com/biography/Charles-Darwin/The-Beagle-voyage )

On his travels along the east coast of South America, Darwin uncovered fossils which puzzled him, including those of a giant ground sloth,

a creature whose (much smaller) tree-dwelling descendant Darwin could see in his own day.

(For more on ground sloths, see:    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground_sloth ;  for modern sloths, see:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sloth  For more on Darwin and fossils, see:  https://www.khanacademy.org/partner-content/amnh/human-evolutio/x1dd6613c:evolution-by-natural-selection/a/charles-darwins-evidence-for-evolution )

When I first saw this series, replayed on PBS (Public Broadcasting Service) many years ago, I had come across it by accident—very much an accident because I had, I thought, no interest whatever in science, not having enjoyed the required courses in school (gross understatement).  It was so well done, both visually and dramatically, that I was hooked and now, years later, I’ve acquired both an active interest in the history of science as well as my own DVD set of the documentary and am enjoying it even more.  It was in my mind, then, when I came across this Tolkien letter to Rhona Beare, an early Tolkien enthusiast, who had written to Tolkien with a number of questions about various details in The Lord of the Rings, including “Did the Witch-king ride a pterodactyl at the siege of Gondor?” to which JRRT replied:

“Yes and no.  I did not intend the steed of the Witch-King to be what is now called a ‘pterodactyl’, and often is drawn (with rather less shadowy evidence than lies behind many monsters of the new and fascinating semi-scientific mythology of the ‘Prehistoric’).  But obviously it is pterodactylic and owes much to the new mythology, and its description even provides a sort of way in which it could be a last survivor of older geological eras.”  (letter to Rhona Beare, 14 October, 1958, Letters, 403)

The choice of “steed” Beare andTolkien are referring to is based upon this:

“The great shadow descended like a falling cloud.  And behold!  It was a winged creature:  if bird, then greater than all other birds, and it was naked, and neither quill nor feather did it bear, and its vast pinions were as webs of hide between horned fingers; and it stank.  A creature of an older world maybe it was, whose kind, lingering in forgotten mountains cold beneath the Moon, outstayed their day…” (The Return of the King, Book Five, Chapter 6, “The Battle of the Pelennor Fields”)

And one can see why a pterodactyl might be tempting—

(Alan Lee)

Those words in Tolkien’s text, “A creature of an older world maybe it was, whose kind, lingering in forgotten mountains cold beneath the Moon…” reminded me of a novel Tolkien may once have read, Conan Doyle’s The Lost World, 1912.  In this novel, a group of adventurers gains access to just that:  a secluded South American valley, in which various early creatures, including pterodactyls, are still living and, in fact, a young pterodactyl is even brought back to London.  Neither Letters nor Carpenter’s biography mentions Conan Doyle or the novel, but the idea of the “older world” and the pterodactyl suggest, at least to me, that this is a book which JRRT had read.  Here it is for you to read as well:  https://gutenberg.org/cache/epub/139/pg139-images.html

And, for further evidence, perhaps this, from Chapter IX?

“Well, suddenly out of the darkness, out of the night, there swooped something with a swish like an aeroplane. The whole group of us were covered for an instant by a canopy of leathery wings, and I had a momentary vision of a long, snake-like neck, a fierce, red, greedy eye, and a great snapping beak, filled, to my amazement, with little, gleaming teeth. The next instant it was gone—and so was our dinner. A huge black shadow, twenty feet across, skimmed up into the air; for an instant the monster wings blotted out the stars, and then it vanished over the brow of the cliff above us.”

This beast derived, perhaps, from Conan Doyle, and/or from what Tolkien called the “new and fascinating semi-scientific mythology of the ‘Prehistoric’”, made me think about another of Tolkien’s creatures, which some have fancifully believed may have come from memories of dinosaurs,

something which had engaged his imagination from far childhood:  dragons.

In his essay “On Fairy-Stories” he depicts this as a kind of early passion:

“I desired dragons with a profound desire.  Of course, I in my timid body did not wish to have them in the neighborhood, intruding into my relatively safe world, in which it was, for instance, possible to read stories in peace of mind, free from fear.  But the world that contained even the imagination of Fafnir was richer and more beautiful, at whatever cost of peril.”  (“On Fairy-Stories” in The Monsters and the Critics, 1983, edited by Christopher Tolkien, 135).

Tolkien freely admitted, and more than once, the strong influence of Beowulf on his work and nowhere is this influence stronger, I would say, than in The Hobbit.  And yet dragons in Beowulf are surprisingly disposable.  The dragon which brings about Beowulf’s dramatic death is dumped over a cliff into the sea:

dracan éc scufun

wyrm ofer weallclif·    léton wég niman,

flód fæðmian  frætwa hyrde. 

“The dragon, too, [that] wyrm they pushed over [the] cliff wall.  They let [the] waves take away,

To grasp, [the] keeper of [the] treasure.”  (Beowulf, 3132-33)

(My translation, with help from this excellent site:  https://heorot.dk/beowulf-rede-text.html I’ve kept “wyrm” mostly because it works nicely with those other double-u words, wall, waves, away. )

And, earlier in the poem, we are told that the dragon which Sigemund kills “hát gemealt”—“has melted”, presumably from its own heat.  (Beowulf, 897)

Smaug, however, is different.

(JRRT)

Not only does he talk, which Beowulf’s dragon does not, but, killed by Bard’s black arrow, he becomes a potential paleontological discovery:

“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.”  (The Hobbit, Chapter 14, “Fire and Water”)

If Darwin had been puzzled about giant ground sloth remains, what might he have felt if he had discovered Smaug?

Thanks, as always, for reading.

Stay well,

As the proverb says, “Never laugh at live dragons”,

And remember that, as ever, there’s

MTCIDC

O

PS

Flanders and Swann, whom I have mentioned before, have a quietly cheerful song about a sloth here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blDNO5qznjM

Deserving

23 Wednesday Oct 2024

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Welcome, dear readers, as always.

“ ‘I am sorry,’ said Frodo.  ‘But I am frightened and I do not feel any pity for Gollum.’

‘You have not seen him,’ Gandalf broke in.

‘No, and I don’t want to,’ said Frodo.  ‘I can’t understand you.  Do you mean to say that you, and the Elves, have let him live on after all those horrible deeds?  Now at any rate he is as bad as an Orc, and just an enemy.  He deserves death.’

‘Deserves it!  I daresay he does.  Many that live deserve death.  And some that die deserve life.  Can you give it to them?  Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement.’”  (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book One, Chapter Two, “The Shadow of the Past”)

(Alan Lee)

I’ve always thought that this was one of the most striking passages early in The Lord of the Rings.  Gandalf has been telling Frodo about his meeting with Gollum, including the unwelcome thought that Sauron, who has found out from Gollum that the Ring wasn’t lost and, in fact, was in the hands of someone called “Baggins” and may even be aware that “Baggins” and “Shire” are linked.  Frodo’s natural reaction is to panic and to blame Gollum, turning vindictive in his fear.  In contrast, Gandalf, whose more humane reaction was probably a product of his Maia nature and his long experience of events and people in Middle-earth (having arrived there in TA 1000, 2000 years before the joint birthday party which sets The Lord of the Rings in motion—TA 3001—see Christopher Tolkien, Unfinished Tales, 405,    “The Istari”), opposes Frodo’s sentence of death with one of compassion, so, when Frodo says, “What a pity that Bilbo did not stab that vile creature when he had a chance!”  Gandalf replies, “Pity?  It was Pity that stayed his hand.  Pity, and Mercy:  not to strike without need.”

I’ve also wondered where such a humane sentiment came from in Gandalf’s creator.  His deep Christian faith must have played a part, but I think another element was his experience in 1916,

when, as he writes to his son, Michael:

“Bolted into the army:  July 1915.  I found the situation intolerable and married on March 22, 1916.  May found me crossing the Channel…for the carnage of the Somme.”  (from a letter to Michael Tolkien, 6-8 March, 1941, Letters, 73)

This was the beginning of Tolkien’s short experience of actual combat in what was called, at the time, The Great War—meaning “the Big War” in British English, as it was the biggest war in any contemporary’s experience and, without World War II, it obviously couldn’t be called “World War I”.  At the same time, I think that JRRT’s time at the front, although really only measured in a few months (June to November, 1916—see Carpenter, Tolkien, 90-96 for details) might have made him find that other meaning of “great” ironic and I suspect that he would have agreed with Yoda’s reply to Luke’s “I’m looking for a great warrior.”—“Ahhh!  A great warrior…Wars not make one great.” in Star Wars V .  (You can read the script for this scene, pages 55-58, at:  https://assets.scriptslug.com/live/pdf/scripts/star-wars-episode-v-the-empire-strikes-back-1980.pdf )

The new second lieutenant

belonged to one of the battalions (sub-units) of the Lancashire Fusiliers,

one of the oldest infantry regiments in the British Army (begun as “Peyton’s Regiment” in 1688—you can read more about it here:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancashire_Fusiliers ).  It was only one of the many units designated to be part of what would become known as “The Somme”, a battle which lasted from 1 July to 18 November, 1916—and which would cost the British alone 57,470 casualties on the first day and a total of 415,690 by 18 November.  (You can read a very detailed article about it here:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Somme )

The battlefield was huge—

and Tolkien would have seen only a tiny portion of it, but what he saw should have terrified any sensible person.

We begin with the trench he would have crouched in, waiting for the order to attack (going “over the top”, which means climbing up over the forward lip of the trench).

In front of the trench was a long stretch of barbed wire, which had to be negotiated before any further forward motion was to be made.

Ahead lay the wilderness called “no man’s land”.

This varied, depending upon what had been there before the War, but, since it was often pounded by one side or the other’s artillery, whatever had been there before—farms, villages, forests—had been turned into a beaten-down desert of ruins.

Beyond there, lay the enemy’s wire entanglements.

And, beyond there were the enemy’s trenches—as many as three lines of them.

These could look like the trench Tolkien had crawled out of, but they could also be much more elaborate, with pillboxes made of concrete, reinforced with steel girders, and buried under a layer of soil both to conceal them and to help to protect them from the shells which the enemy would attempt to drop on them.

(This is the rear entry of a German pillbox.)

In those trenches would be multiple machine guns, placed to sweep the wire which lay before them.

Each of these guns could fire 600 rounds per minute, to which would be added the rifle fire of the infantry who were the trenches’ garrison.

(Peter Dennis)

Behind the trenches would be artillery, whose job was, when an attack began, to fire as many shells as possible into the enemy trenches and into no man’s land, to slow down, if not stop, the enemy attack, forcing the attackers back with heavy casualties.

Before the attack on 1 July, the British had used their heavy artillery

to destroy enemy entrenchments and, hopefully, to cut apart those deep fields of barbed wire in front of them.

Unfortunately, on 1 July, the artillery—even after a massive bombardment—failed to disrupt the wire and soldiers were simply pinned to it, perfect targets for machine gunners and the casualties mounted—and mounted

so that one can easily see why Tolkien would refer to his experience in 1916 as “the carnage of the Somme” with its British 57,470 casualties on its first day and 415,690 by its final one.

In later years, he might have a somewhat ambivalent view of what he had gone through, writing to his son Michael that

“War is a grim hard ugly business.  But it is as good a master as Oxford, or better.” (letter to Michael Tolkien, 12 July, 1940, Letters, 61)

and yet could also write this about the end of the second war:

“The appalling destruction and misery of this war mount hourly, destruction of what should be (indeed is) the common wealth of Europe, and the world, if mankind were not so besotted, wealth the loss of which will affect us all, victors or not.  Yet people gloat to hear of the endless lines, 40 miles long, of miserable refugees, women and children pouring West, dying on the way.  There seem no bowels of mercy or compassion, no imagination, left in this dark diabolic hour.”  (letter to Christopher Tolkien, 20 January, 1945, Letters, 160)

Having experienced one of the bloodiest periods in the Great War, it is no wonder, then, that JRRT could sound like Gandalf, speaking of mercy, on the one hand, and, on the other, like a changed Frodo near the end of his adventures:

“ ‘Fight?’ said Frodo.  ‘Well, I suppose it may come to that.  But remember:  there is to be no slaying of hobbits, not even if they have gone over to the other side.  Really gone over, I mean;  not just obeying ruffians’ orders because they are frightened.  No hobbit has ever killed another on purpose in the Shire, and it is not to begin now.  And nobody is to be killed at all, if it can be helped.  Keep your tempers and hold your hands to the last possible moment.’ “ (The Return of the King, Book Six, Chapter 8, “The Scouring of the Shire”)

As always, thanks for reading.

Stay well,

Consider what, had Bilbo done what Frodo wished, might have been Frodo’s fate—and Middle-earth’s,

(Ted Nasmith)

And remember that, as always, there’s

MTCIDC

O

Opera…Tolkien?

16 Wednesday Oct 2024

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As always, dear readers, welcome.

I’ve just read an interesting piece of news:  there’s going to be an opera based upon The Lord of the Rings (see:  https://www.classicfm.com/music-news/lord-of-the-rings-opera-approved-tolkien-estate/ ).  The composer is Paul Corfield Godfrey, 1950-, who had already composed a rather massive work on the Silmarillion, of which you can hear an excerpt here:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4HUnCx4dLI                           You can also hear “The Lament for Boromir” here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nxvzZ98LS4  and “The Man in the Moon Came Down Too Soon” and “The Song of the Troll”, along with one or two others on YouTube as well.  (There’s the proviso with these:  you may be accused of being a bot, unless you know the secret password.)

For me, opera began with a cartoon.

As a child, I saw it, loved it (Bugs Bunny always being a favorite, along with Daffy Duck), and that’s where opera first appeared in my life.

In terms of real opera, it’s an odd little piece, having, at one level, a standard plot:  Elmer Fudd pursues Bugs, as he had done many times before.

At another level, however, it’s a parody of grand opera, in which Elmer plays the Wagnerian hero, Siegfried, and Bugs, at a certain point in the story, turns himself into the Valkyrie, Brunnhilde.

And, for only the third time in their lives of pursuit and escape, Elmer actually succeeds in dealing with Bugs.

Although, in case you haven’t seen it, or forgot the plot and are worried, Bugs comes back from the dead long enough to say to the audience, “Well, what did you expect in an opera?  A happy ending?” before subsiding again.  (You can see it here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jDcWAWRRHo provided, of course, that you’re not a bot.  You can also read a very interesting article about the making of the cartoon here:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What%27s_Opera,_Doc%3F )

Peter Schickele, 1935-2024,

the creator of PDQ Bach, 1807-1742?,

whom he once described as “the youngest and oddest of Johann Sebastian’s 20-odd children”, in a memorable introduction to Baroque opera as exemplified in PDQ Bach’s, “Haensel and Gretel and Ted and Alice”, explained that there were, in the period, two kinds of opera, “opera seria”, which was concerned with tragedies and histories, and “opera funnia”—and you can guess where this would go.

Opera seria, however, was real and where opera began, with Jacopo Peri’s, 1561-1633,

Dafne, in 1598.  This is based upon the ancient story of Daphne, who, pursued by Apollo, is turned into a laurel tree (you can read the most familiar version of the story, as told by Ovid in Book 1 of his Metamorphoses, here:  https://www.theoi.com/Text/OvidMetamorphoses1.html at line 452 and following).

(by Gian Lorenzo Bernini, 1598-1680, dated to 1622-25)

The goal of this and subsequent works, both by Peri and others, was to attempt to revive what they understood Greek tragedy to have been like, with its dark mythological stories—truly opera seria!  To Peri and his contemporaries, this meant not only solo songs and choruses, but that all of the dialogue would be sung, too, in what came to be called recitativo, and this convention continued into the 20th century.

There is another possibility, however, although not “opera funnia”.  It’s a form known in German as “Singspiel” and in French as “Opera comique” and combines the solo songs and choruses of opera seria with spoken dialogue, rather than recitativo, in just the way contemporary musicals are really plays with music, where songs appear at important dramatic points in the story.

(Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “Oklahoma”, 1943)

In 1964, an English composer, Carey Blyton, 1932-2002, wrote to JRR Tolkien requesting his permission to create a “Hobbit overture”.  Tolkien was clearly delighted and granted permission immediately, providing for us, as well, with this sidelight on himself and music:

“As an author I am honoured to hear that I have inspired a composer.  I have long hoped to do so, and hope also that I might find the result intelligible to me, or feel that it was akin to my own inspiration…I have little musical knowledge.  Though I come from a musical family, owing to defects of education and opportunity as an orphan, such music as was in me was submerged (until I married a musician), or was transformed into linguistic terms.  Music gives me great pleasure and sometimes inspiration, but I remain in the position in reverse of one who likes to read or hear poetry but knows little of its technique or tradition, or of linguistic structure.”  (from a letter to Carey Blyton, 16 August, 1964, Letters, 490.  You  can hear Blyton’s overture, composed in 1967 as Opus 52a, here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rybV4xDq_DM  –that is, if you persist in insisting that you’re not a bot.)

The musician was, of course, his wife, Edith, and Tolkien’s interest in music was certainly developed enough that, in a trip to Italy in 1955 with his daughter, Priscilla, he reacted to a performance of Giuseppe Verdi’s Rigoletto, with the words “Perfectly astounding”.  (from a letter to Christopher and Faith Tolkien, 15 August, 1955, Letters, 325)

I’ll be very curious to see what comes of this opera project, which claims to be retaining Tom Bombadil

(the Hildebrandts)

and the equally neglected Barrow-wight.

Under the Spell of the Barrow-wight, by Ted Nasmith

(Ted Nasmith)

If the selection I’ve heard from Godfrey’s Silmarillion provides us with an idea of his treatment of The Lord of the Rings, we will hear not only Tolkien’s poems, like “The Man in the Moon”, set to music, but the dialogue may also be done in recitativo, and I’ll be very curious to see how he manages this, as there’s so much of it—perhaps a narrator for continuity? 

Thinking about this has set me wondering about how one might turn The Hobbit into an opera, dialogue aside.  Tolkien has provided us with about 15 lyrics throughout:

Chapter 1, “An Unexpected Party”: 

“Chip the glasses…”  a chorus for the dwarves

“Far over the misty mountains cold…”  a second chorus for the dwarves

“Far over the misty mountains cold…”  a reprise of the first verse, sung by Thorin and overheard by Bilbo

Chapter 3, “A Short Rest”

“O!  What are you doing…”  a chorus for elves

Chapter 4, “Over Hill and Under Hill”

“Clap!  Snap!  the black crack!”  a chorus for goblins

Chapter 5, “Riddles in the Dark”

Just a thought, but perhaps these riddles could all be sung, the glaring exception being Bilbo’s “What have I got in my pocket?”

Chapter 6, “Out of the Frying-Pan into the Fire”

“Fifteen birds in five fir-trees” another goblin chorus

“Burn, burn tree and fern” a goblin chorus—but possibly add in the howling of the wolves?

Chapter 7, “Queer Lodgings”

“The wind was on the withered heath”  a chorus for dwarves

Chapter 8, “Flies and Spiders” 

“Old fat spider”

“Lazy lob and crazy cob”  two songs for Bilbo—the first time we’ve heard his voice

Chapter 9. “Barrels Out of Bond”

“Roll—roll—roll—roll”

“Down the swift dark stream you go”  two choruses for the forest elves

Chapter 10, “A Warm Welcome”

“The King beneath the mountains”  sung by the people of Lake-town

Chapter 15, “The Gathering of the Clouds”

“Under the Mountain dark and tall”  a dwarf chorus

Chapter 19, “The Last Stage”

“The dragon is withered”  a chorus for the elves of Rivendell

“Sing all ye joyful, now sing all together!”  a second chorus for the elves

“Roads go ever ever on”  a song for Bilbo and the last in the book

Reading through this list:

1. it’s easy to see that the majority of the lyrics are meant for a chorus of dwarves, goblins, Lake-town people, and assorted elves

2. the only solo numbers (excepting the riddles, if sung) are few in number and given to Bilbo

3. there are lyric gaps in the potential script:  Chapters 11-14 and 16-18 have no songs at all

If you were the librettist, how would you fill not only those gaps, but provide for more solos—for Gandalf, Bilbo,Thorin, the Chief Goblin, Gollum, Beorn, Thranduil (the forest elf king), the Master of Lake-town, Bard, Smaug, Roac (the elderly raven), as well as perhaps small comic parts for the Sackville-Bagginses, and something for the stone trolls (a trio about eating might be appropriate) too?  It’s also important to note the complete lack (except with the possible exception of the Lake-towners) of female voices in solos and choruses.  How could that imbalance be readjusted—without seriously messing with Tolkien’s text (and we know from his correspondence with Forrest J. Ackerman on a potential film version of The Lord of the Rings that, although he conceded that a different art form might require some adjustment, he had his limits as to just what and how much might be altered—see “from a letter to Forrest J. Ackerman”, June, 1958, Letters, 389-397)  Considering the story, it would seem that it would be a fitting subject for an opera seria, but there would be the danger—as there will be for Godfrey’s The Lord of the Rings—that, not maintaining the tone and making too many additions or changes to the text might quickly turn it into an opera—funnia.

Thanks for reading, as ever,

Stay well,

Beware of Godfrey’s “The Song of the Troll”—it’s catchy!

And remember that, as always, there’s

MTCIDC

O

PS

I’m not aware that Tolkien ever heard that “Hobbit overture”, but, in 1967, he collaborated with the composer, Donald Swann, 1923-1994, on a short cycle of his poems drawn from various sources, entitled The Road Goes Ever On. 

 You can read about it here:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Road_Goes_Ever_On  And, provided that you have finally proved to YouTube’s satisfaction that you are not, indeed, a bot, you can hear it here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtH6ROfV7WA  I’ve loved the cycle for years, have sung it, and very much recommend it. )