Hoards of the Things

28 Wednesday Jun 2017

Posted by Ollamh in Fairy Tales and Myths, Imaginary History, J.R.R. Tolkien, Literary History, Narrative Methods

Tags

A Christmas Carol, A Visit to William Blake's Inn, Aeetes, Alexander Deruchenko, Alice and Martin Provensen, Argo, Barrow-downs, Barrow-wights, Beowulf, Bilbo, Charles Dickens, Cinderella's Dress, Colchis, Collyer Brothers, David Gwillim, dragon-sickness, Dragons, Dwarves, Ebenezer Scrooge, Eurystheus, Hera, Heracles, Hoard, hordweard, Jack Gwillim, Jane Dyer, Jason and the Argonauts, Jason and the Golden Fleece, Kinder und Hausmaerchen, Ladon, Lonely Mountain, magpie, Nancy Willard, Neolithic, Scrooge McDuck, Scythians, Ted Nasmith, The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien, Treasure

Welcome, dear readers, as always.

Recently, we’ve had a couple of posts on dragons and hoards, but, having done a certain amount of research and thinking and writing, we’ve come back once again to the subject, with the question: why would a dragon want a hoard to begin with?

The earliest Western European stories we know in which dragons (or serpents—the Greek word can apply to either) are associated with valuables are:

the 11^th labor of Heracles, in which his cousin, Eurystheus, demands that Heracles bring him the Golden Apples of the Hesperides (“children of the evening star”)—which are on an island guarded by a 100-headed (in some versions of the story) dragon/serpent called Ladon

the story of Jason and the Argo, in which Jason must bring back to Greece the Golden Fleece, also guarded by a dragon/serpent (a sleepless one this time)

In both of these stories, the dragon is the agent for someone else—Hera, in the case of the Golden Apples,

and Aeetes, the king of Colchis, in that of the Golden Fleece.

(We’ve always loved the curly beard of Jack Gwillim in Jason and the Argonauts—1963. His son, David, by the way, was a perfect Prince Hal and Henry V in BBC productions from 1979—if you can find them, we highly recommend them.)

After these, we see the dragon of Beowulf.

In his case, although he’s called hordweard, “hoard guardian/watchman”, we are told that he has come upon a treasure in a barrow, piled in for safe-keeping several hundred years before. Europeans in the Neolithic Period and long beyond buried high-status people in such places—like this, in Denmark.

As it was the custom for high-status people to be buried with at least some of their riches, it’s easy to see how singers might be inspired to create a barrow like that of the Beowulf dragon. Some of our favorite grave goods come from the Scythians, a horse-people who once lived north of the Black Sea, and who had buried them in grave mounds with their dead.

(A wonderfully atmospheric picture by Alexander Deruchenko.)

The Beowulf dragon is not the proper owner of the hoard: rather, he has taken possession (the poem may even be suggesting that dragons—or this dragon, at least– have a special affection for barrows (2270-2278), rather as the barrow wights have taken over the tumuli on the Barrow Downs, both places being much older and long-abandoned. You may remember this striking image by one of our favorite Tolkien artists, Ted Nasmith–

In contrast, Smaug has taken possession of the Lonely Mountain by force, burning out the rightful owners.

In both cases, however, the latest owner is very sensitive about his new property: the removal of one object, as Beowulf and Bilbo find out.

(And we can’t resist this item—it’s copy of a cup used in the 2007 Beowulf film. We don’t see that it would be very useful for drinking from, but it’s certainly fun to look at!)

It’s one thing if it’s your job to guard gold: you’re like a sheepdog with a flock. (Here’s a Maremma, in fact, with a flock.)

It’s another if you are occupying, seized or not, someone else’s gold. In the latter case, however, we are still left with our initial question: why is this important to a dragon?

Perhaps they just like the look of it. After all, Smaug seems quite proud of what he sees as a waistcoat of precious things. When Bilbo says: “What a magnificence to possess a waistcoat of fine diamonds!” Smaug replies “Yes, it is rare and wonderful, indeed.” (The Hobbit, Chapter 12, “Inside Information”) Yet there is the darker side:

“To say that Bilbo’s breath was taken away is no description at all. There are no words left to express his staggerment, since Men changed the language that they learned of elves in the days when all the world was wonderful. Bilbo had heard tell and sing of dragon-hoards before, but the splendor, the lust, the glory of such treasure had never yet come home to him. His heart was filled and pierced with enchantment and with the desire of dwarves; and he gazed motionless, almost forgetting the frightful guardian, at the gold beyond price and count.” (The Hobbit, Chapter 12, “Inside Information”)

Just seeing such wealth brought on “lust” and “the desire of dwarves” and it’s clear that this is what infects Thorin after Smaug’s death and eventually brings on the “dragon-sickness” which leads to the end of the Master of Laketown (The Hobbit, Chapter 19, “The Last Stage”). As this “lust” for beautiful, valuable things seems inherent in the dwarves, it strikes us that we might imagine dragons as somehow enablers or carriers—like anopheles mosquitoes and malaria—

rather than originators of the disease and that the name is derived from that combination of acquisitiveness and sensitivity we noted earlier and which so clearly disturbs Thorin’s judgement.

But perhaps there is something in the idea of hoarding itself. In our world, “hoarding” has come to have a different meaning, being a kind of psychological condition in which a person acquires and acquires and has lost the ability to discard anything for complex internal reasons. In literature, one might imagine that misers have something of this—think of Ebenezer Scrooge, in Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol (1843).

Or, Uncle Scrooge McDuck, from Walt Disney comics. Who, as you can see, takes this to an extreme even Dickens’ Scrooge might find a bit excessive.

Underneath this, however, is the sad side: those who become imprisoned by their possessions, a famous case being that of the Collyer brothers in New York, whose apartment, after their joint deaths in 1947, was a subject both of curiosity and of mild horror in the New York newspapers of the time.

Is it possible that the Beowulf dragon and Smaug both suffer from this condition? Is that why the theft of a single piece from an uncountable hoard seems to mean so much?

We never want to shy away from serious subjects—after all, all of the best fantasy/adventure writers never did—but it’s an early summer day where we live—just after Midsummer’s Day, in fact, and so we’d like to end with another kind of acquisitor—the magpie.

Traditionally, magpies are famous for being attracted to—and collecting—shiny objects. Our favorite magpie story, however, isn’t about obsession, but about generosity. It’s a beautiful children’s book by Nancy Willard and Jane Dyer, entitled Cinderella’s Dress.

image21cind'sdress.jpg

In this book, told in light, easy verse, we see a magpie couple as fairy godparents for Cinderella, using their cache of shiny things to—but we’ll leave that to you to discover (although the title is a bit of a give-away). Here’s another page to tease you…

Thanks, as ever, for reading.

MTCIDC

Another Nancy Willard book you might enjoy is A Visit to William Blake’s Inn (1981), illustrated by Alice and Martin Provensen.

It Will Have To Be Paid For!

12 Wednesday Aug 2015

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

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Tags

Asia Minor, Bilbo, Bronze, Chinese, Coinage, Currency, Deagol, Egyptians, Germanic, Gondor, Greeks, Isengard, Italy, Middle-earth, Moria, Pennies, Rohan, Roman Coins, Roman Roads, Romans, Saruman, Shire, Silver, Smeagol, Sumerians, Theodric, Tolkien, Trade, Treasure

Dear Readers,

Welcome, as always!

We recently wrote about Saruman and his pipeweed trade along the North-South and Great East Roads, and concluded that those roads reminded us of Roman Roads. Looking at road networks from both Rome and Middle-earth, we see both as just that, networks, lines of communication which travel to and from central points.

The roads of Middle-earth don’t appear to be so elaborately constructed and paved, of course, but then, at least for many centuries before The Lord of the Rings, there had been no central authority to maintain the system.

Although the idea of a Roman road—especially one that is incomplete or ruinous–

gives us a similar image.

But there’s still something missing—Saruman has roads and connections, but how would he have paid for the pipeweed? He could have used a barter system, although that would mean understanding what it would be that he might use—raw material from the mountains? Some sort of manufactured goods made at Isengard? This could certainly be so, if we’re thinking of Middle-earth as a place set in pre-currency times, such as the Sumerians and the Egyptians, who managed their extensive trade just fine without a single coin.

And we could just leave it at that, but then there’s a clue in the first chapter of The Fellowship of the Ring which suggests that the actual commercial system is based upon currency.

“When the old man, helped by Bilbo and some dwarves, had finished unloading, Bilbo gave a few pennies away…” LOTR 25

Bilbo is rumored to have treasure hidden away in his hobbit-hole, with much speculation from all,

“’There’s a tidy bit of money tucked away up there, I hear tell,’ said a stranger… ‘All the top of your hill is full of tunnels packed with chests of gold and silver…’” LOTR 23

And the Shire isn’t the only place where pennies are used—when Sam wants to purchase Bill the pony in Bree,

“Bill Ferny’s price was twelve silver pennies; and that was indeed at least three times the pony’s value in those parts.” LOTR 175

This indicates a standard value based upon that currency, which one assumes was universal (with a tone in the text which implies that everyone might share that opinion), and old enough that it was the accepted modus for buying and selling. As Tolkien himself once wrote:

“I am not incapable or unaware 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 can be worked out…” LT, L.154 P.196.

Thus, although he was clearly aware of such economic transactions, he didn’t need them for a plot and Merry and Pippin’s food and drink–and smoke–are simply there–with the implication that Saruman’s reach is longer than anyone has assumed.

In fact, there are very few scenes where money is needed at all—the Prancing Pony is the only inn they come across on the road, and the Fellowship otherwise camps out until they are taken in at Lorien, Edoras, and Gondor, and a guest/host relationship becomes a major part of the story. We’ve actually even seen this sort of thing near the very beginning of the story, when Frodo becomes Elf-friend to Gildor, and is awarded provisions (and a hearty breakfast) for their journey.

We have only a little knowledge of the commercial world of Middle Earth, as you can see, and no description of “pennies”, except that some are silver. What might they have looked like? In our earlier essays, we’ve used parallels from the history of our earth, just as JRRT might used road systems which could easily have been influenced by the Roman roads which once connected so much of Britain, to build the roads in Middle-earth. Some of those Roman roads, even in his time, were still visible–some even still used (although usually paved over).

Using our parallel method, we turn to Roman coinage.

We’re dealing with silver coinage in northwest Middle-earth, where Saruman’s imports come from, and if we’re thinking about Rome, we’d be looking at a time where coinage had already existed. We have no idea when coins were first issued in Middle Earth–considering how complexly organized the North and South Kingdoms had been for many centuries, we would imagine that a thousand years before the events of The Lord of the Rings probably wouldn’t be too soon. We have a small piece of evidence from some five hundred years before, when Deagol says to Smeagol:

“’I don’t care,’ said Déagol, ‘I have given you a present already, more than I could afford.’” LOTR, 52

In Rome, silver coinage was introduced in 269 BC, courtesy of the Greeks, after the Romans had been using bronze.

Coins originated in Asia Minor in the 6^th c. BC and quickly caught on, being a convenient and highly portable way of transporting wealth—it was much easier to carry and design to designate between currencies, and the Chinese even began to manufacture coins which could be strung together.

In Middle-earth, this would make it easier to trade beyond the borders of a local market, or even the Shire–and would certainly have been accepted at The Prancing Pony.

All of this leads, however, to Questions for Further Study, as textbooks often say. Currency needs backing—the Roman republic and then the empire backed Roman coins. What backed those pennies in the Shire and beyond?Imagine that, in Middle-earth, the major legitimate government was Gondor—would these pennies have been originally Gondor-issued? If so, perhaps just what happened to Roman currency in late imperial times might have happened in Middle-earth—as Rome began to fall apart, semi-independent governments began to issue coins on their own, such as Theodric, the Germanic ruler of Northeastern Italy:

Visually, they remind us–and they were certainly intended to–of imperial coins, with their images of Roman emperors. Theodoric, even with his unusual hairstyle, meant to be seen as a new ruler for an old Rome. Can we imagine dwarf coins, perhaps issued from the Moria mint? And, when we remember that Mordor has tried to acquire horses from Rohan, what would Mordorian currency have looked like? And, returning to Saruman for a final time—if he paid for pipeweed in coins, did they bear a white hand?

Thanks, as ever, for reading,

MTCIDC,

doubtfulsea

~ adventure fantasy

Tag Archives: Treasure

Hoards of the Things

It Will Have To Be Paid For!