85 pages to go...
Damian John Paul Brown
I would say that it has been quite interesting so far, and I can
imagine how easy it was to create a film from so much detail, as
Tolkien gives such good descriptions and creates a certain kind of
atmosphere in each "scene", I write that as thought it was a play,
which is essentially what a film is...
The characters are all following a certain defined path, that we are
all likely to tread in real life, given a choice between Good and
evil, and sometimes most of us step off the Good path and taste a
little of the evil way, I can list several times that I have wandered
wearily on the path of no good, which I won't go into here, but
obviously reading LOTR is a good mainstay for youngsters to set their
mind straight at an early age, learning the wisdom gained by Tolkien's
way of Life...an education in itself...I don't know about the attempt
to create a folklore for England, as it is difficult to remember all
the facts and twists and turns of the books to make it easy to be told
by word of mouth...
anyway, being from Lancashire, the Red Rose County, I rather like to
think the Shire is reflective of Our Great County of the North West of
England, where you will find many a "hobbit" living Peacefully in a
subtle kind of way...
Share Tips from Shabbydabbydoo Shares
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Count Menelvagor
> 85 pages to go until I finish the Fellowship of the Ring...
> way of Life...an education in itself...I don't know about the attempt
> to create a folklore for England, as it is difficult to remember all
> the facts and twists and turns of the books to make it easy to be told
> by word of mouth...
Tolkien had planned to write "a mytholgy for England" very early; but
initially it was going to be the Silmarillion.
> anyway, being from Lancashire, the Red Rose County, I rather like to
> think the Shire is reflective of Our Great County of the North West of
> England, where you will find many a "hobbit" living Peacefully in a
> subtle kind of way...
The Shire was inspired by the west Midlands at around the end of the
Victorian era. Mind you, my grasp of English geography isn't of the
best ...
Michael Martinez
> to create a folklore for England, as it is difficult to remember all
> the facts and twists and turns of the books to make it easy to be told
> by word of mouth...
Don't worry about it. THE LORD OF THE RINGS is not the Mythology for
England anyway. That was THE BOOK OF LOST TALES, which Tolkien
abandoned work on around 1925.
THE LORD OF THE RINGS is nonetheless a very English book, loaded with
many nuances that a native of England should recognize much more
readily than an American.
Taemon
> 85 pages to go until I finish the Fellowship of the
> Ring...
I very much like this "diary of a first-time reader". I hope you
keep it up.
T.
the softrat
wrote:
As Mr. Martinez well knows, there is a difference of opinion about his
interpretation of the relationship between _The Book of Lost Tales_
and _The Silmarillion_. He ignores the fact that 'Eriol' or 'Aelfwine
of England' persisted well into at least the 1960's and was removed
from the published text by Christopher Tolkien, according to CT's own
testimony in HoME.
the softrat
"Honi soit qui mal y pense."
mailto:sof...@pobox.com
--
He's about as subtle as a chainsaw, but lacking the social grace.
AC
> Damian John Paul Brown <dam...@phpexpert.org> wrote in message news:<6t7qb051igdaqj1l5...@4ax.com>...
>> ...I don't know about the attempt
>> to create a folklore for England, as it is difficult to remember all
>> the facts and twists and turns of the books to make it easy to be told
>> by word of mouth...
>
> Don't worry about it. THE LORD OF THE RINGS is not the Mythology for
> England anyway. That was THE BOOK OF LOST TALES, which Tolkien
> abandoned work on around 1925.
I would hardly say that with the evolution of BoLT into Silm that the notion
of developing a mythology of England died. The idea of Aelfwine/Eriol was
never completely abandoned, and fits right into the early development of the
Second Age via The Lost Road. Since I take the position that LotR is an
integral part of the mythos, then I would have to say that it is indeed a
part of that mythology for England that a young JRRT began circa 1917 and
kept developing, in one form or another, right up until his death.
--
Aaron Clausen
mightym...@hotmail.com
Conrad Dunkerson
> Don't worry about it. THE LORD OF THE RINGS is not the Mythology for
> England anyway. That was THE BOOK OF LOST TALES, which Tolkien
> abandoned work on around 1925.
This is false information. Tolkien specifically stated that LotR WAS
part of his 'Mythology for England';
http://www.google.com/groups?selm=1178b6d1.0405030421.6b3f8936%40posting.google.com
AC
I think it's also false to state that BoLT was abandoned, when it is clear
that it was simply the earliest stage in the evolution of the Silm, and not
a fundementally different work.
--
Aaron Clausen
mightym...@hotmail.com
John Jones
news:6bfb27a8.04060...@posting.google.com...
> Damian John Paul Brown <dam...@phpexpert.org> wrote in message
news:<6t7qb051igdaqj1l5...@4ax.com>...
>
> > think the Shire is reflective of Our Great County of the North West of
> > England, where you will find many a "hobbit" living Peacefully in a
> > subtle kind of way...
>
> Victorian era. Mind you, my grasp of English geography isn't of the
> best ...
Well, a hint: Lancashire is somewhere else...
;o)
Michael Martinez
> Mic...@xenite.org (Michael Martinez) wrote in message news:<3b26e128.04060...@posting.google.com>...
>
> > Don't worry about it. THE LORD OF THE RINGS is not the Mythology for
> > England anyway. That was THE BOOK OF LOST TALES, which Tolkien
> > abandoned work on around 1925.
>
> This is false information. Tolkien specifically stated that LotR WAS
> part of his 'Mythology for England';
Conrad, the only false information around here is the bullshit you
keep posting. You have absolutely no idea of how to make (let alone
USE) a proper citation. You keep pointing to the same passage without
ever paying attention to what the Hell Tolkien was discussing. When
are you going to get a clue?
Letter 180 does NOT prove that Tolkien still considered THE LORD OF
THE RINGS to be THE BOOK OF LOST TALES.
I refer you to paragraph four (4) of Letter 180:
"My chief reason for talking so, is to say that, of course, all these
things are more or less written. There is hardly any reference in THE
LORD OF THE RINGS to things that do not actually exist on its own
plane (of secondary or sub-creational reality): sc. have been written.
THE SILMARILLION was offered for publication years ago, and turned
down. Good may come of such blows. THE LORD OF THE RINGS was the
result....."
In this letter, the mythology to which Tolkien refers is the
SILMARILLION mythology, which (being unpublished at that time) would
have been incomprehensibly complex to any casual reader were Tolkien
to refer to it in a full context revealing its historical lineage from
the ACTUAL "mythology for England".
How many times do I have to cite Christopher Tolkien for you, from
books you allegedly have, which prove beyond all insane arguments that
THE BOOK OF LOST TALES was the only mythology for England that Tolkien
ever set out to create?
As recently as April 27, I was still debunking your bullshit about THE
LORD OF THE RINGS being the so-called mythology:
http://www.google.com/groups?selm=3b26e128.0404270649.754827e8%40posting.google.com&output=gplain
For example, you could have just cited Christopher's opening remarks
from THE BOOK OF LOST TALES, PART ONE's foreword, in which he said:
"THE BOOK OF LOST TALES, written between sixty and seventy years
ago, was the first substantial work of imaginitive literature by
J.R.R. Tolkien, and the first emergence in narrative of the Valar,
of the Children of Iluvatar, Elves and Men, of the Dwarves and
the Orcs, and of the lands in which their history is set, Valinor
beyond the western ocean, and Middle-earth, the 'Great Lands'
between the seas of east and west. Some fifty-seven years after
my father ceased to work on the LOST TALES, THE SILMARILLION,
profoundly transformed from its distant forerunner, was published;
and sixh years have passed since then."
"first substantial work of imaginitive literature" and "distant
forerunner" set the pace for Christopher's MANY distinctions between
the two mythologies (BOOK OF LOST TALES/mythology for England versus
SILMARILLION/Silmarillion mythology).
When Christopher Tolkien writes:
"...Some fifty-seven years after my father ceased to work on the LOST
TALES, THE SILMARILLION, profoundly transformed from its distant
forerunner, was published; and sixh years have passed since then."
You show a lot of gall, not to mention outright unmititgated
arrogance, in announcing to the world that you know better than
Christopher whether his father abandoned a work or not.
The above quote was previously cited on May 5, 2003:
http://www.google.com/groups?selm=3b26e128.0305051932.2ea1e70%40posting.google.com&output=gplain
I was citing these texts back in 1996:
http://www.google.com/groups?selm=N.110496.025131.11%40pm5-03.swcp.com&output=gplain
There was no direct connection between THE BOOK OF LOST TALES and THE
SILMARILLION.
THE SILMARILLION represents an evolutionary projection of some of the
themes
developed in TBOLT.
Here is the first paragraph from the Foreword to Part One:
"THE BOOK OF LOST TALES, written between sixty and seventy
years ago, was the first substantial work of imaginitive
literature by J.R.R. Tolkien, and the first emergence in
narrative of the Valar, of the Children of Iluvatar, Elves
and Men, of the Dwarves and the Orcs, and of the lands in
which their history is set, Valinor beyond the western
ocean, and Middle-earth, the 'Great Lands' between the
seas of east and west. Some fifty-seven years after my
father ceased to work on the LOST TALES, THE SILMARILLION,
profoundly transformed from its distant forerunner, was
published; and six years have passed since then. This
Foreword seems asuitable opportunity to remark on some
aspects of both works."
Much further into the Foreword Christopher writes:
"THE BOOK OF LOST TALES was begun by my father in 1916-17
during the First War, when he was 25 years old, and left
incomplete several years later. It is the starting-point,
at least in fully-formed narrative, of the history of
Valinor and Middle-earth; but before the TALES were
complete he turned to the composition of long poems,
the *Lay of Leithian* in rhyming couplets (the story of
Beren and Luthien), and *The Children of Hurin* in
alliterative verse. The prose form of the 'mythology'
began again from a new starting-point [*] in a quite
brief synopsis, or 'Sketch' as he called it, written
in 1926 and expressly intended to provide the necessary
background of knowledge for the understanding of the
alliterative poem...."
Christopher does point out a little later that "much is to be found
here that my
father never (so far as one can tell) expressly rejected."
However, the abandonment itself is attested. Tolkien went on to
rewrite the
mythology again and again, and he did not return to THE BOOK OF LOST
TALES.
So, do us all a favor, and PLEASE abandon this stupid idea of yours
that Tolkien did NOT abandon work on THE BOOK OF LOST TALES and that
THE LORD OF THE RINGS is the mythology for England.
You can never prove anything with your partial citations, except that
you're brave and foolish enough to keep looking stupid. Just give it
up and move on.
Geeze, I can't believe you had the nerve to drum up this shit again.
I was TRYING To be civil, and you just HAD to be an idiot one more
time.
AC
Michael Martinez <Mic...@xenite.org> wrote:
<snip>
>
> However, the abandonment itself is attested. Tolkien went on to
> rewrite the
> mythology again and again, and he did not return to THE BOOK OF LOST
> TALES.
Except that it was never abandoned, but modified and evolved. The most
substantial differences between the two stages of the mythology was the
structure and the importance of the Silmarils.
>
>
> So, do us all a favor, and PLEASE abandon this stupid idea of yours
> that Tolkien did NOT abandon work on THE BOOK OF LOST TALES and that
> THE LORD OF THE RINGS is the mythology for England.
Since you have not proved your point, I'd say you shoudl do us a favor and
quit making statements which you cannot back up.
>
> You can never prove anything with your partial citations, except that
> you're brave and foolish enough to keep looking stupid. Just give it
> up and move on.
I see how everything becomes instantly personal with you.
>
> Geeze, I can't believe you had the nerve to drum up this shit again.
> I was TRYING To be civil, and you just HAD to be an idiot one more
> time.
I think it's pretty clear that you read a good deal more into passages than
actually exists. That the character of Aelfwine/Eriol survived long past
BoLT is evidence in and of itself that Tolkien still had clear links to
English mythology. You will note that your entire argument is based upon
little more than semantics, and to call it "debunking" is ludicrous and over
the top.
--
Aaron Clausen
mightym...@hotmail.com
Christopher Kreuzer
> conrad.d...@worldnet.att.net (Conrad Dunkerson) wrote
[about connections between BoLT and Silmarillion]
I think that you both mean different things by 'abandoned', or
misinterpret what the other means. Michael seems to think that
'abandoned' means that BoLT and the Silmarillion should be considered
separate works. Conrad seems to think that despite the hiatus between
the writings, a lot of BoLT concepts were used in the Silmarillion. And
these are both valid points.
You are both working from the same facts, and putting a different gloss
on those facts. It might be better to stick to just reciting the textual
history as known, rather than speculating about how connected the works
were.
As for the status of LotR with regards to these two works, you have to
remember that it also started as a sequel to 'The Hobbit', and developed
new material. It then became the story of the end of the Third Age, and
provided the endcap to the legendarium.
As to the framework for transmitting these stories, changing and ranging
from Aelfwina to Eriol (both the mythology for England) and the Red
Book, I am not getting into that debate! I just don't know enough about
the details.
Christopher
--
---
Reply clue: Saruman welcomes you to Spamgard
The American
"Michael Martinez" <Mic...@xenite.org> wrote in message
news:3b26e128.0406...@posting.google.com...
> conrad.d...@worldnet.att.net (Conrad Dunkerson) wrote in message
news:<1178b6d1.04060...@posting.google.com>...
> > Mic...@xenite.org (Michael Martinez) wrote in message
news:<3b26e128.04060...@posting.google.com>...
> >
> > > Don't worry about it. THE LORD OF THE RINGS is not the Mythology for
> > > England anyway. That was THE BOOK OF LOST TALES, which Tolkien
> > > abandoned work on around 1925.
> >
> > This is false information. Tolkien specifically stated that LotR WAS
> > part of his 'Mythology for England';
>
> Conrad, the only false information around here is the bullshit you
> keep posting.
Ah, here we go.
I still think Martinez and Conrad are one in the same and this is all some
massive joke that gets replayed here time and again that is supported by the
old-timers who are in on it.
Like the Gimli/Eowyn love affair joke to the extreme.
Probably softrat's idea too!
T.A.
AC
Christopher Kreuzer <spam...@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
>
> As to the framework for transmitting these stories, changing and ranging
> from Aelfwina to Eriol (both the mythology for England) and the Red
> Book, I am not getting into that debate! I just don't know enough about
> the details.
If we're going to use the abandonment of Aelfwine/Eriol as the line in the
sand, and claim one side is one mythology and the other side is another,
then I'm afraid we'd have to say that the pre-LotR and post-LotR Silms are
the different mythologies.
It's rather like saying each of the Gospels describes a different Jesus
getting crucified on a different cross because of differences between the
accounts.
Now it may very well be that by the time of the final work on the
Silmarillion was done that the idea of an English mythology had faded from
view, and if Michael were to put it this way I wouldn't have any argument.
But during that fuzzy period between the abandoment of BoLT and the
rewriting as the earliest versions of Silm (the Sketch of Mythology and the
Quenta as I recall), the idea of transmission via Aelfwine/Eriol was still
very much a key part of the mythology, and would remain so until, as far as
I can tell, the idea of the Red Book of Westmarch as LotR was being
completed.
Tolkien obviously had Silm and the pre-LotR Numenor stories in mind as he
wrote LotR, and while LotR itself may not have been part expressly of that
English myth cycle, it was certainly embedded in a mythology that was
intended as Tolkien's English mythology.
--
Aaron Clausen
mightym...@hotmail.com
Michael Martinez
> On 2 Jun 2004 00:51:14 -0700, Mic...@xenite.org (Michael Martinez)
> wrote:
>
> >Damian John Paul Brown <dam...@phpexpert.org> wrote in message news:<6t7qb051igdaqj1l5...@4ax.com>...
> >> ...I don't know about the attempt
> >> to create a folklore for England, as it is difficult to remember all
> >> the facts and twists and turns of the books to make it easy to be told
> >> by word of mouth...
> >
> >Don't worry about it. THE LORD OF THE RINGS is not the Mythology for
> >England anyway. That was THE BOOK OF LOST TALES, which Tolkien
> >abandoned work on around 1925.
> >
> >THE LORD OF THE RINGS is nonetheless a very English book, loaded with
> >many nuances that a native of England should recognize much more
> >readily than an American.
>
> As Mr. Martinez well knows, there is a difference of opinion about his
> interpretation of the relationship between _The Book of Lost Tales_
> and _The Silmarillion_.
It never fails to amaze me how, whenever I cite Christopher or J.R.R.
Tolkien's books, I am simply expressing "my opinion", but whenever one
of you distorts the facts with bullshit like this, you're being
"objective".
> ...He ignores the fact that 'Eriol' or 'Aelfwine of England'
Persistence would require that the character actually be USED in
stories. He vanished, never to return, from Tolkien's stories in the
1930s.
When Tolkien had Quenta Silmarillion retyped in the 1950s, he did so
(as Christopher LABORIOUSLY EXPLAINS) for referential purposes, not as
a continuation of the development of the pre-LoTR SILMARILLION works.
However, given that these facts are clearly presented by Christopher
Tolkien (and I have cited them NUMEROUS times), I am not surprised
that you would ignore them and misrepresent them as my "opinion".
But, please, feel free to post a coherent citation. It would be a
welcome change in your posting habits.
Michael Martinez
> On 2 Jun 2004 00:51:14 -0700,
> Michael Martinez <Mic...@xenite.org> wrote:
> > Damian John Paul Brown <dam...@phpexpert.org> wrote in message news:<6t7qb051igdaqj1l5...@4ax.com>...
> >> ...I don't know about the attempt
> >> to create a folklore for England, as it is difficult to remember all
> >> the facts and twists and turns of the books to make it easy to be told
> >> by word of mouth...
> >
> > Don't worry about it. THE LORD OF THE RINGS is not the Mythology for
> > England anyway. That was THE BOOK OF LOST TALES, which Tolkien
> > abandoned work on around 1925.
>
> I would hardly say that with the evolution of BoLT into Silm that the notion
> of developing a mythology of England died.
Considering that the English landscape, the English people, and the
English-like language was abandoned (not to mention the entire story
cycle), I would say that your assessment of the texts is a bit out of
sync with what Christopher Tolkien has published.
> The idea of Aelfwine/Eriol was
> never completely abandoned,
Yes, it was. You're now just repeating more of Conrad's bullshit.
Tolkien had a number of texts retyped (or he retyped them himself) in
the 1940s and 1950s, in some cases for his own personal use, in other
cases to send to someone else. These typescripts, dated and
meticulously identified and cross-referenced by Christopher, do not
represent a "developing mythology of England". They represent
Tolkien's efforts to go back to works he had left unfinished years
before and start new projects based on the older stories.
Since THE LORD OF THE RINGS is not set in England, does not include
any English people, and doesn't actually involve a
pseudo-proto-English language as THE BOOK OF LOST TALES did, it
follows that THE LORD OF THE RINGS (which wasn't even conceived of
when Tolkien worked on the mythology for England) is a distinct and
separate work from the mythology for England.
Of course, given how little attention is actually paid to what either
J.R.R. Tolkien or Christopher Tolkien wrote concerning these matters,
I am not surprised to find people have been swayed by the repititious
nonsense Conrad keeps flooding these discussions with.
Flame of the West
> Letter 180 does NOT prove that Tolkien still considered THE LORD OF
> THE RINGS to be THE BOOK OF LOST TALES.
I don't think anyone is asserting that he did. The assertion is that
LotR is part of Tolkien's mythology for England. BoLT/Silmarillion
was another part.
> I refer you to paragraph four (4) of Letter 180:
>
> "My chief reason for talking so, is to say that, of course, all these
> things are more or less written. There is hardly any reference in THE
> LORD OF THE RINGS to things that do not actually exist on its own
> plane (of secondary or sub-creational reality): sc. have been written.
> THE SILMARILLION was offered for publication years ago, and turned
> down. Good may come of such blows. THE LORD OF THE RINGS was the
> result....."
>
> In this letter, the mythology to which Tolkien refers is the
> SILMARILLION mythology, which (being unpublished at that time) would
> have been incomprehensibly complex to any casual reader were Tolkien
> to refer to it in a full context revealing its historical lineage from
> the ACTUAL "mythology for England".
Tolkien is obviously referring to the Silmarillion, but he is not
drawing the distinction that you are drawing between Silmarillion
and mythology for England. Indeed, the first paragraph seems to
indicate that he did not intend such a distinction. The passages
you cite are perfectly consistent with BoLT and Silmarillion
being two stages of the same mythology.
You seem to use the term "mythology for England" interchangably with
BoLT as opposed to the Silmarillion. But that's precisely the issue
under debate. By identifying mythology for England with BoLT, you're
assuming the result you're trying to prove.
> "first substantial work of imaginitive literature" and "distant
> forerunner" set the pace for Christopher's MANY distinctions between
> the two mythologies (BOOK OF LOST TALES/mythology for England versus
> SILMARILLION/Silmarillion mythology).
No one is denying Christopher's assertion that the Silm. is very
different from BoLT. Indeed, one can easily see why he sometimes
speaks of them as different works. The point once again is BOTH
works are part of Tolkien's mythology for England, as implied by
the first paragraph of Letter 180.
> You show a lot of gall, not to mention outright unmititgated
> arrogance, in announcing to the world that you know better than
> Christopher whether his father abandoned a work or not.
Where does Christopher say that his father abandoned the
mythology for England as opposed to abandoning the BoLT?
You have not proved yet that they are the same thing.
It really does seem that many of your arguments involve interpreting
JRRT's and Christopher's statements in light of the *assumption*
that "mythology for England" means precisely BoLT and nothing else.
That assumption is precisely what the rest of us are taking issue
with.
-- FotW
Reality is for those who cannot cope with Middle-earth.
AC
Flame of the West <jsol...@comcast.net> wrote:
>
> It really does seem that many of your arguments involve interpreting
> JRRT's and Christopher's statements in light of the *assumption*
> that "mythology for England" means precisely BoLT and nothing else.
> That assumption is precisely what the rest of us are taking issue
> with.
My feeling exactly. Michael is assuming his conclusion.
--
Aaron Clausen
mightym...@hotmail.com
Michael Martinez
> On 3 Jun 2004 13:25:27 -0700,
> Michael Martinez <Mic...@xenite.org> wrote:
>
> <snip>
>
> >
> > However, the abandonment itself is attested. Tolkien went on to
> > rewrite the
> > mythology again and again, and he did not return to THE BOOK OF LOST
> > TALES.
>
> Except that it was never abandoned, but modified and evolved.
Except that it was abandoned, as in "my father ceased to work on it",
as in J.R.R. Tolkien never went back to it, as in J.R.R. Tolkien
started new things, as in IT WAS ABANDONED.
Get over it.
> > You can never prove anything with your partial citations, except that
> > you're brave and foolish enough to keep looking stupid. Just give it
> > up and move on.
>
> I see how everything becomes instantly personal with you.
No, I seriously doubt you do.
the softrat
wrote:
>
>
>When Christopher Tolkien writes:
>"...Some fifty-seven years after my father ceased to work on the LOST
>TALES, THE SILMARILLION, profoundly transformed from its distant
>forerunner, was published; and sixh years have passed since then."
>
>You show a lot of gall, not to mention outright unmititgated
>arrogance, in announcing to the world that you know better than
>Christopher whether his father abandoned a work or not.
>
Tales to be a 'distant forerunner' of The Silmarillion. That citation
does imply a connection between the two works, i.e., they are not
completely separate. And indeed they are not: The Book of Lost Tales
is a very early draft of the material which was published as _The
Silmarillion_ about fifty-five years later. This is, of course,
obvious to anyone who has read the two works, whereas there is little
connection between The Book of Lost Tales and _Farmer Giles of Ham_ or
_Roverrandom_. JRRT never 'abandoned' the Book of Lost Tales; he
retitled as it grew and changed. He just never completed *that* early
draft.
the softrat
"Honi soit qui mal y pense."
mailto:sof...@pobox.com
--
If you cannot listen to the answers, why do you inconvenience me
with questions?
Michael Martinez
> Michael Martinez <Mic...@xenite.org> wrote:
> > conrad.d...@worldnet.att.net (Conrad Dunkerson) wrote
>
> [about connections between BoLT and Silmarillion]
>
> I think that you both mean different things by 'abandoned', or
> misinterpret what the other means.
Nope. Conrad is basically clueless. Always has been, probably always
will be.
> You are both working from the same facts,
Nope. Conrad only works from those portions and fragments of the
facts which suit his nonsense theories. That Christopher Tolkien
clearly refutes many of Conrad's pet ideas has undoubtedly been one of
the most stinging irritations in his life for years.
I have seldom, if ever, seen Conrad provide a full, complete, relevant
citation. He usually rewrites Tolkien to support his positions, or
just cuts bits and pieces from the texts -- deliberately omitting
relevant passages immediately preceding or following his citations.
He is, by far, one of the sloppiest, least reliable Tolkien
commentators I have ever had the displeasure to read.
I would much rather read a David Day book.
Michael Martinez
> >
> > In this letter, the mythology to which Tolkien refers is the
> > SILMARILLION mythology, which (being unpublished at that time) would
> > have been incomprehensibly complex to any casual reader were Tolkien
> > to refer to it in a full context revealing its historical lineage from
> > the ACTUAL "mythology for England".
>
> Tolkien is obviously referring to the Silmarillion, but he is not
> drawing the distinction that you are drawing between Silmarillion
> and mythology for England.
I REPEAT, for those who can't see the obvious:
In this letter, the mythology to which Tolkien refers is the
SILMARILLION mythology, which (being unpublished at that time) would
have been INCOMPREHENSIBLY COMPLEX TO ANY CASUAL READER were Tolkien
to refer to it IN A FULL CONTEXT revealing its historical lineage from
the ACTUAL "mythology for England".
It is not necessary for you to be unusually obtuse in this matter.
Christopher Tolkien devoted 7 out of 12 volumes of THE HISTORY OF
MIDDLE-EARTH to explaining how THE SILMARILLION came to be published.
In those 7 out of 12 volumes, Christopher Tolkien DREW THE LINES
HIMSELF between the various mythologies.
The Mythology for England exists ONLY in THE BOOK OF LOST TALES, was
NOT carried forward to other mythologies, and is NOT the "Silmarillion
mythology".
These facts are laid out in a very intricate relationship of
manuscript citations, dated by Christopher and annotated by him
extensively.
While it is conceivable that he could have blundered, or at every step
of the process deliberately misrepresented the transitions in his
father's works, I will under no circumstances simply ASSUME he did so
without someone offering some credible evidence.
You don't have to believe Christopher that there were multiple
mythologies. Frankly, I couldn't care less what you believe.
But you can't change the fact that the mythology for England is
confined to THE BOOK OF LOST TALES any more than Conrad can.
While he seems to have devoted his life to misciting, quoting out of
context, and rewriting the Tolkien books for his own convenience, you
might actually have a few better things to do.
I suggest you consider that option.
Michael Martinez
No, Michael is accepting what Christopher Tolkien has published over
the nonsense you and Conrad keep spouting.
Chris Kern
posted the following:
>Persistence would require that the character actually be USED in
>stories. He vanished, never to return, from Tolkien's stories in the
>1930s.
He may have vanished from the stories themselves, but he never
completely vanished from the texts.
1. The Dangweth Pengolod, which CT says "cannot be earlier than
1951", concerns Aelfwine asking a question to Pengolod.
2. The Akallabeth, which CT guesses to be written after the LotR, is
framed as a story from Pengolod to Aelfwine. CT writes "The
Akallabeth was conceived as a tale told by Pengolod the Wise (as it
must be supposed, although he is not named) in Tol Eressea to Aelfwine
of England, as becomes again very explicit..."
3. In the post-LotR work on the QS in the Dwarves section (p 206 of
XI), we find "Here end the words that Pengolod spoke to me concerning
the Dwarves...quoth Aelfwine", showing that in the post-LotR texts he
was still considered to have a part in the transmission of the work.
4. Aelfwine is supposed to have made a translation of Turin into Old
English (according to the introduction published in XI) and although
it's not explicitly said by CT that the introduction was written after
LotR, that is the only possible assumption given the time frame of the
rest of the work on the Narn.
5. Ainulindale D, which dates from the late 40's, is once again a tale
told by Pengolod to Aelfwine in Eressea.
6. In the later version of Finwe and Miriel, which CT dates to 1958,
we have a footnote that says "quoth Aelfwine" (p 257 of X).
All this shows that even into the late 50's, the idea survived that a
man from England named Aelfwine journeyed to Eressea and was told (at
least certain of the) stories in the Silmarillion by Pengolod.
Aelfwine then translated some of them into Old English. He is quoted
throughout the Annals of Aman and the Quenta Silmarillion texts, even
the ones made post-LotR into the late 50's and maybe beyond.
I'm not sure quite what you mean when you say that Aelfwine "vanished,
never to return". He ceased to play an active part in the stories
themselves, but IIRC that was done even by the Sketch of the Mythology
(or maybe even late version of the BoLT stories). But the idea of
Aelfwine, the man who came to Tol Eressea and was told the
Silmarillion stories, survived at least into the late 1950's, and I
don't recall any evidence to show that Tolkien ever completely
discarded such an idea.
-Chris
AC
> AC <mightym...@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:<slrncbv2qs.2us....@alder.alberni.net>...
>> On 3 Jun 2004 13:25:27 -0700,
>> Michael Martinez <Mic...@xenite.org> wrote:
>>
>> <snip>
>>
>> >
>> > However, the abandonment itself is attested. Tolkien went on to
>> > rewrite the
>> > mythology again and again, and he did not return to THE BOOK OF LOST
>> > TALES.
>>
>> Except that it was never abandoned, but modified and evolved.
>
> Except that it was abandoned, as in "my father ceased to work on it",
> as in J.R.R. Tolkien never went back to it, as in J.R.R. Tolkien
> started new things, as in IT WAS ABANDONED.
>
> Get over it.
If you could provide an actual statement to that effect, then I would be
happy to "get over it".
>
>> > You can never prove anything with your partial citations, except that
>> > you're brave and foolish enough to keep looking stupid. Just give it
>> > up and move on.
>>
>> I see how everything becomes instantly personal with you.
>
> No, I seriously doubt you do.
I think this sentence itself is evidence in point.
--
Aaron Clausen
mightym...@hotmail.com
AC
Except that CJRT never says that the notion of an English mythology was
abandoned.
--
Aaron Clausen
mightym...@hotmail.com
Conrad Dunkerson
> "Christopher Kreuzer" <spam...@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote
>> I think that you both mean different things by 'abandoned', or
>> misinterpret what the other means.
No, I understand Michael's view and have said previously that choosing
to separate the mythology into different segments that way can have
some valid use for discussion. The problem is that Michael is not
merely using the 'multiple mythologies' construct as a tool for
discussion... he is claiming that Tolkien viewed it that way.
Tolkien's own statements clearly indicate that this is false.
> Nope. Conrad only works from those portions and fragments of the
> facts which suit his nonsense theories. That Christopher Tolkien
> clearly refutes many of Conrad's pet ideas has undoubtedly been one of
> the most stinging irritations in his life for years.
None of the quotations of Christopher Tolkien you have provided
support your claim that the mythology for England ended with BoLT and
LotR was therefor not part of it. Indeed, Christopher consistently
refers to THE mythology as a singular item... just as his father did.
> He is, by far, one of the sloppiest, least reliable Tolkien
> commentators I have ever had the displeasure to read.
> I would much rather read a David Day book.
Michael, as I have pointed out before... you claim I lie and distort
Tolkien's texts, I claim you lie and distort Tolkien's texts. The
difference is... I can PROVE it;
"Having set myself a task, the arrogance of which I fully recognized
and trembled at: being precisely to restore to the English an epic
tradition and present them with a mythology of their own: it is a
wonderful thing to be told that I have succeeded, at least with those
who have still the undarkened heart and mind."
Letters #180 (January 14, 1956)
Tolkien was pleased in 1956 that with LotR he had succeeded in
producing the 'mythology for England'... that you falsely claim he had
abandoned decades earlier with BoLT.
"But the mythology (and associated languages) first began to take
shape during the 1914-18 war. The Fall of Gondolin (and the birth of
Earendil) was written in hospital and on leave after surviving the
Battle of the Somme in 1916. The kernel of the mythology, the matter
of Luthien Tinuviel and Beren, arose from a small woodland glade
filled with 'hemlocks' (or other white umbellifers) near Roos on the
Holderness peninsula..."
JRRT, Letters #165 (1955)
Again, Tolkien here describes 'The Fall of Gondolin' and other texts
from the 1910s as part of THE mythology... in a letter about LotR...
written in 1955.
Tolkien did not consider the mythology for England abandoned. He did
not consider BoLT to be part of a separate mythology from LotR. His
statements above directly contradict those ideas. And no amount of
your obfuscations and insults will ever change those facts.
Christopher Kreuzer
>> "Christopher Kreuzer" <spam...@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote
>>> I think that you both mean different things by 'abandoned', or
>>> misinterpret what the other means.
>
> No, I understand Michael's view and have said previously that choosing
> to separate the mythology into different segments that way can have
> some valid use for discussion. The problem is that Michael is not
> merely using the 'multiple mythologies' construct as a tool for
> discussion... he is claiming that Tolkien viewed it that way.
> Tolkien's own statements clearly indicate that this is false.
It would be helpful, then, to come up with precisely defined terms for
these various mythologies, whether single, dissected or whatever, and
maybe not even use the term 'mythology' for all of them. There seems to
be some confusion over the term 'mythology for England', which Michael
takes to mean the BoLT and Aelfwine/Eriol construct, and which you
[Conrad] take to mean the entire mythos or legendarium.
Seriously, this means that you should precisely define your terms to
avoid confusion, much as you see people referring to the 1977
Silmarillion as 'The Silmarillion' and the other versions by their other
names and/or dates. Also, the term 'the Silmarillion' (no capital 'T')
has been used in some senses to refer to the legendarium.
I think if you both use a more precise terminology, maybe agreeing to
use the terms that Christopher Tolkien uses in HoME, then you might be
able to avoid the misunderstandings that might account for a (small)
part of the animosity in this discussion.
Oh, and then you have to remember that Christopher and JRR Tolkien were
not precise with their terminology, and you may have to add editorial
notes when you provide quotations, to make it clear how their
terminology relates to your terminology. That would be close to the
spirit of HoME.
Hey! No-one said that it was going to be easy! :-)
<snip>
Michael Martinez
> Except that CJRT never says that the notion of an English mythology was
> abandoned.
Other than the several pages of text he wrote about the abandonment in
a couple of the HISTORY OF MIDDLE-EARTH books, you almost have a point
there.
the softrat
wrote:
>AC <mightym...@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:<slrncc171h.1bk....@alder.alberni.net>...
C'mon, Michael! Treat us to a 'cite-fest'.
the softrat
"Honi soit qui mal y pense."
mailto:sof...@pobox.com
--
Communism is man's exploitation of man. Capitalism is just the
opposite.
Flame of the West
> It would be helpful, then, to come up with precisely defined terms for
> these various mythologies, whether single, dissected or whatever, and
> maybe not even use the term 'mythology' for all of them. There seems to
> be some confusion over the term 'mythology for England', which Michael
> takes to mean the BoLT and Aelfwine/Eriol construct, and which you
> [Conrad] take to mean the entire mythos or legendarium.
>
> Seriously, this means that you should precisely define your terms to
> avoid confusion, much as you see people referring to the 1977
> Silmarillion as 'The Silmarillion' and the other versions by their other
> names and/or dates. Also, the term 'the Silmarillion' (no capital 'T')
> has been used in some senses to refer to the legendarium.
>
> I think if you both use a more precise terminology, maybe agreeing to
> use the terms that Christopher Tolkien uses in HoME, then you might be
> able to avoid the misunderstandings that might account for a (small)
> part of the animosity in this discussion.
I appreciate that you're trying to clear the air a bit so we can have
a fruitful discussion, but I don't think that the disagreements here
are the result of talking past each other or not understanding each
other's terminology. This thread alone makes it clear that there is
genuine disagreement. I think that MM and Conrad (and the rest of us
Conrad puppets) understand what each other are saying, we're just not
agreeing with it.
Flame of the West
> In this letter, the mythology to which Tolkien refers is the
> SILMARILLION mythology, which (being unpublished at that time) would
> have been INCOMPREHENSIBLY COMPLEX TO ANY CASUAL READER were Tolkien
> to refer to it IN A FULL CONTEXT revealing its historical lineage from
> the ACTUAL "mythology for England".
You are saying that, when Tolkien refers to "present[ing the English]
with a mythology of their own", he is speaking of the Silmarillion,
which he doesn't really regard as his mythology for England?
If so, then why does he accept Mr. Thompson's praise as indicating
that he succeeded, when he did no such thing but rather abandoned
the project long ago? Is he taking credit under false pretenses
because he thinks the real explanation is beyond Mr. Thompson? Why
bring up the mythology-for-England thing at all?
> Christopher Tolkien devoted 7 out of 12 volumes of THE HISTORY OF
> MIDDLE-EARTH to explaining how THE SILMARILLION came to be published.
> In those 7 out of 12 volumes, Christopher Tolkien DREW THE LINES
> HIMSELF between the various mythologies.
There's a difference between calling BoLT and Silmarillion separate
works and calling them separate mythologies. Does he *explictly*
say anywhere, in so many words, that they are different mythologies?
> The Mythology for England exists ONLY in THE BOOK OF LOST TALES, was
> NOT carried forward to other mythologies, and is NOT the "Silmarillion
> mythology".
I have yet to see a single citation from Christopher that *explictly*
asserts that.
> But you can't change the fact that the mythology for England is
> confined to THE BOOK OF LOST TALES any more than Conrad can.
I wonder if the point is that you only consider a "mythology for
England" to be a work in which Aelfwine appears in historical
England. I don't think the rest of us are using the term in that
way. One can have a mythology for England that doesn't use the
name "England" anywhere. Indeed, I take Letter 180 to indicate
that Tolkien took that position. Again, if you have a citation
of an *explicit* statement in the opposite direction, I'd be happy
to see it. But pointing to the fact that BoLT and Silmarillion
are different books isn't enough.
Chris Kern
<jsol...@comcast.net> posted the following:
>I think that MM and Conrad (and the rest of us
>Conrad puppets) understand what each other are saying, we're just not
>agreeing with it.
I'm not sure about that. I still don't quite get the point MM is
trying to make when he says that Aelfwine vanished from Tolkien's
stories after the 30's, never to return. Certainly he was mentioned
after the 30's numerous times, so I can't believe I'm understanding it
correctly (the only thing I can think of is that MM means that
Aelfwine as an active participant in the stories themselves, rather
than just as transmitter of the legends, vanished. I believe the last
time we see any sort of Aelfwine story is in the Lost Road writings
which are from the 30's, although I haven't read the Notion Club
Papers texts).
-Chris
AC
The chief difference between BoLT and Silm was that in BoLT we are seeing as
a part of the story the transmission of the myths to the mariner
Aelfwine/Eriol, whereas with Silm Aelfwine/Eriol that element is removed.
However, the fact that we have this Northern European mariner sailing to Tol
Eressea and learning the myths is there, and the reason is obvious. The
Silmarillion was, like BoLT, the mythology of England. What was abandoned
was a particular narrative style, not the concept.
--
Aaron Clausen
mightym...@hotmail.com
Michael Martinez
>
> I wonder if the point is that you only consider a "mythology for
> England" to be a work in which Aelfwine appears in historical
> England.
I honestly don't understand why you insist on being unbelievably
obtuse about this. How many times do I have to explain that the
mythology for England (THE BOOK OF LOST TALES) *IS* *SET* *IN*
*ENGLAND*?
Do you understand that?
It OCCURS IN ENGLAND. On the island, not in some imaginary "old
world" landscape (where THE LORD THE RINGS takes place), but on the
island which became England, Wales, and Scotland.
THE BOOK OF LOST TALES is concerned with a pseudo-history for the Old
English peoples, early Germanic tribesmen.
THE LORD OF THE RINGS has absolutely no such peoples in it.
How many citations from the Tolkien books is it going to take to get
it through to you that it doesn't revolve around Aelfwine and Eriol?
Never mind the fact that Aelfwine/Eriol didn't survive nearly as long
as you idiots think he did.
And I am sure I have just wasted yet another message on you. You are
absolutely hopeless.
Michael Martinez
> On 4 Jun 2004 00:05:04 -0700,
> Michael Martinez <Mic...@xenite.org> wrote:
> > AC <mightym...@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:<slrncbv2qs.2us....@alder.alberni.net>...
> >> On 3 Jun 2004 13:25:27 -0700,
> >> Michael Martinez <Mic...@xenite.org> wrote:
> >>
> >> <snip>
> >>
> >> >
> >> > However, the abandonment itself is attested. Tolkien went on to
> >> > rewrite the
> >> > mythology again and again, and he did not return to THE BOOK OF LOST
> >> > TALES.
> >>
> >> Except that it was never abandoned, but modified and evolved.
> >
> > Except that it was abandoned, as in "my father ceased to work on it",
> > as in J.R.R. Tolkien never went back to it, as in J.R.R. Tolkien
> > started new things, as in IT WAS ABANDONED.
> >
> > Get over it.
>
> If you could provide an actual statement to that effect, then I would be
> happy to "get over it".
Have already done that numerous times. You insist on discussing me,
rather than Tolkien, though, so clearly you're only interested in
engaging in more character assassination.
Let me know if you ever actually want to discuss TOLKIEN (but that
will require you NOT to ignore relevant citations or to reword what I
say).
That's my offer. Take it or leave it.
Chris Kern
posted the following:
>Never mind the fact that Aelfwine/Eriol didn't survive nearly as long
>as you idiots think he did.
How do you explain the numerous references to Aelfwine in the
post-LotR texts even up to the 1958 revisions of the QS? Or do you
mean "survive" in a different sense than I'm thinking of it?
-Chris
Christopher Kreuzer
> I don't think that the disagreements here
> are the result of talking past each other or not understanding each
> other's terminology. This thread alone makes it clear that there is
> genuine disagreement. I think that MM and Conrad (and the rest of us
> Conrad puppets) understand what each other are saying, we're just not
> agreeing with it.
Yes... But _I_ don't always understand what you lot are talking about!
And from my point of view, that seems to be because of a random use of
personalized terminology. I'm as bad at doing this as anyone, but you
have to admit that this does in general decrease the clarity of a
discussion.
Christopher Kreuzer
> Flame of the West <jsol...@comcast.net> wrote in message
> news:<LLCdnX7IQP8...@comcast.com>...
>>
>> I wonder if the point is that you only consider a "mythology for
>> England" to be a work in which Aelfwine appears in historical
>> England.
>
> I honestly don't understand why you insist on being unbelievably
> obtuse about this. How many times do I have to explain that the
> mythology for England (THE BOOK OF LOST TALES) *IS* *SET* *IN*
> *ENGLAND*?
[I think this mean 'yes']
So you have your narrow 'geographical' definition for 'a mythology for
England', and Tolkien referred to LotR as part of his 'mythology for
England' in a broader, more vague, 'imagined history' sense.
Do you see the distinction I am trying to draw? And why I think that
certain terms in this discussion (specifically 'mythology for England')
are being used to mean several different things?
Maybe the terms 'pseudo-history' and 'imagined history' would be
helpful, though I imagine that this might cause even more confusion. The
only thing to do is to find and use the terms that Christopher (and JRR)
Tolkien used, and to be sure that you are clear what they mean by these
terms.
Flame of the West
> [I think this mean 'yes']
<chuckle> Me too.
> So you have your narrow 'geographical' definition for 'a mythology for
> England', and Tolkien referred to LotR as part of his 'mythology for
> England' in a broader, more vague, 'imagined history' sense.
>
> Do you see the distinction I am trying to draw? And why I think that
> certain terms in this discussion (specifically 'mythology for England')
> are being used to mean several different things?
>
> Maybe the terms 'pseudo-history' and 'imagined history' would be
> helpful, though I imagine that this might cause even more confusion. The
> only thing to do is to find and use the terms that Christopher (and JRR)
> Tolkien used, and to be sure that you are clear what they mean by these
> terms.
Yes, now I see what you were trying to say, and I fully agree with it.
I didn't get it before.
But I'm not sure if we really need to redefine our terms to accomodate
the eccentricities of one person who is rarely here anyway.
Flame of the West
> I honestly don't understand why you insist on being unbelievably
> obtuse about this. How many times do I have to explain that the
> mythology for England (THE BOOK OF LOST TALES) *IS* *SET* *IN*
> *ENGLAND*?
>
> Do you understand that?
I do now. You might have said so in the first place. (I Googled
to see if you ever used the phrase "set in England" anytime since
May 12, 1981, and you haven't.)
And you are welcome to your geographical definition of "mythology
for England." My point is that Tolkien didn't define the term so
narrowly. I find the first paragraph of Letter 180 to be decisive
in that regard. You disagree, but I find your explanation to be
confusing, so I repeat my questions on it below. I would welcome
your response. Perhaps I'm being obtuse again, but I'm willing to
listen if you'll spell it out for me carefully.
========================
Michael Martinez wrote:
> In this letter, the mythology to which Tolkien refers is the
> SILMARILLION mythology, which (being unpublished at that time) would
> have been INCOMPREHENSIBLY COMPLEX TO ANY CASUAL READER were Tolkien
> to refer to it IN A FULL CONTEXT revealing its historical lineage from
> the ACTUAL "mythology for England".
You are saying that, when Tolkien refers to "present[ing the English]
with a mythology of their own", he is speaking of the Silmarillion,
which he doesn't really regard as his mythology for England?
If so, then why does he accept Mr. Thompson's praise as indicating
that he succeeded, when he did no such thing but rather abandoned
the project long ago? Is he taking credit under false pretenses
because he thinks the real explanation is beyond Mr. Thompson? Why
bring up the mythology-for-England thing at all?
Conrad Dunkerson
> It would be helpful, then, to come up with precisely defined terms for
> these various mythologies, whether single, dissected or whatever, and
> maybe not even use the term 'mythology' for all of them.
Wait... again, the disagreement is not over how we might choose to
classify the texts into 'various mythologies'. That's a whole other
argument. The point of contention here is whether or not JRRT, and to
a lesser extent Christopher, considered there to be separate and
distinct mythologies or only one.
Thus, my understanding of the JRRT 'classification system' would be;
'Mythology for England' = 'Silmarillion Mythology' = 'THE Mythology'
Just one mythology.
Michael's view seems to be something like;
'Mythology for England' = BoLT
'Early Silmarillion Mythology' = Anything post-BoLT which he would
like to exclude from the current discussion
'Late Silmarillion Mythology' = Anything post-BoLT which he would like
to include in the current discussion. Possibly including different
sentences from works that are otherwise 'Early Silmarillion Mythology'
Note, these are our views of how TOLKIEN classified the texts. If the
issue were only how WE choose to classify them it would be a
non-issue. Michael could define the texts as above for purposes of
referencing different stages of development and that'd be fine, but it
is not ok when he falsely claims that TOLKIEN did so. It's a device
Michael invented for purposes of excluding particular passages from
discussions and has since attempted to 'elevate' to the status of
Tolkien's 'One True Intent'.
> There seems to be some confusion over the term 'mythology for England',
> which Michael takes to mean the BoLT and Aelfwine/Eriol construct, and
> which you [Conrad] take to mean the entire mythos or legendarium.
Right. So where's the confusion? We both know what the other
means... we disagree on which of these two views was held by Tolkien.
Conrad Dunkerson
> AC <mightym...@hotmail.com> wrote;
>> Except that CJRT never says that the notion of an English mythology
was
>> abandoned.
> Other than the several pages of text he wrote about the abandonment in
> a couple of the HISTORY OF MIDDLE-EARTH books, you almost have a point
> there.
Except that we all know this is a lie.
Christopher wrote about his father 'ceasing to work on the Book of
Lost Tales' and various other particular manuscripts within the
mythology.
He never wrote about the idea of a mythology for England being
abandoned.
Never.
AC
Your citations hardly prove your point, Michael, which is why there is a
debate.
--
Aaron Clausen
mightym...@hotmail.com
Christopher Kreuzer
> "Christopher Kreuzer" <spam...@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
>> There seems to be some confusion over the term 'mythology for
>> England', which Michael takes to mean the BoLT and Aelfwine/Eriol
>> construct, and which you [Conrad] take to mean the entire mythos or
>> legendarium.
>
> Right. So where's the confusion? We both know what the other
> means... we disagree on which of these two views was held by Tolkien.
You both know what you mean. But you both use the same term, "mythology
for England", to mean different things. That is just inherently
confusing. The bit I snipped (where you explained the different stages
and meanings) made things much clearer. Thanks.
Sorry to imply that neither of you knew what you meant by the terms. It
just looked like that from the sidelines. You both seem to be trying to
change each other's definitions, rather than agreeing that you mean two
different things. Though I agree that claiming that one or the other
position is what Tolkien meant is another issue again entirely.
Michael Martinez
> Your citations hardly prove your point, Michael, which is why there is a
> debate.
I can't force people to change their minds. I can only point out
where they are wrong by citing Tolkien.
Michael Martinez
This comes down to Conrad's bungling mismanagement of the history of
the various texts and mythologies. Aelfwine was removed from the
emerging mythology of Middle-earth. He barely had a foot-hold in it
at the beginning, and he didn't stay long, except in a couple of
understandable situations where older manuscripts were used as the
basis for retyping. He appears in two relatively late contexts which
are not associated with the Middle-earth mythology.
Many citations follow, but I am going to summarize extensive portions
of the books for brevity's sake. Nonetheless, what follows is very
long.
In the "Ainulindale" chapter of MORGOTH'S RING, Christopher Tolkien
discusses the history of "Ainulindale", which had evolved considerably
through the years ("Ainulindale" text B was published in THE LOST
ROAD AND OTHER WRITINGS). He notes that
'the manuscript became the vehicle of massive rewriting many
years later, when great changes in the comological conception
had entered.' So drastic was this revision (with a great deal
of new material written on the blank verso pages) that in the
result two distinct texts of the work, wholly divergent in
essential respects, exist physically in the same manuscript.
This new text I shall distinguish as 'C'.
But there is another text, a typescript made by my father, that
was also directly based on AINULINDALE B of the 1930s; and in
this there appears a much more radical -- one might say a
devastating -- change in the cosmology: for in this version the
Sun is already in existence from the beginning of Arda. I shall
refer to this typescript as 'C*'.
A peculiarity of C* is that for a long stretch it proceeds in
very close relationship to C, but yet constantly differs from it,
though always in quite insignificant ways. In many cases my
father late WROTE IN THE C READING on the typescript....
He provides an example of how a paragraph was lifted from C and used
to replace a paragraph in C*.
Now in C this passage was written at the same as what precedes it
and what follows it -- it is all of a piece; whereas in C* the
original typed passage was struck through and the C text
substituted in pencil.
There seemed no other explanation possible but that C* preceded
C; yet it seemed extraordinary, even incredible, that my father
should have FIRST made a clear new typescript version from the
old B manuscript and THEN returned to that manuscript to cover
it somewhat chaotically with new writing -- the more so since
C* and C are for much of their length closely similar.
Christopher goes on to describe some papers associated with "The
Notion Club Papers" and a draft for what became Letter 115. Tolkien
had typed up some materials for Katherine Farrar in response to what
Humphrey Carpenter describes as an apparent "desire to read THE
SILMARILLION and related manuscripts."
That letter is tentatively dated by both Carpenter and CJRT to 1948, a
year in which there was no coherent relationship between the
SILMARILLION materials and the just-finished or nearly finished LORD
OF THE RINGS (and the LoTR appendices would not be started until
1950).
In the actual letter sent, Tolkien wrote:
I am sorry that I have been so long in replying and so may have
seemed ungrateful, when I was really very touched by your kind
letter -- and also excited. For though I have (in the cracks of
time!) laboured at these things since about 1914, I have never
found anyone but C.S.L. and my Christopher who wanted to read
them; and no one will publish them. I have spent what time I
could spare since you wrote in collecting out of the unfinished
mass of things as are more or less finished and readable (I mean
legible). You may find the 'compendious history' or SILMARILLION
intolerable -- though it is only really half-revised.
The long tales out of which it is drawn (by 'Pengolod') are either
incomplete or not up to date.
The Fall of Gondolin
The Lay of Beren and Luthien (verse)
The Children of Hurin
I am distressed (for myself) to be unable to find the 'Rings of
Power', which with the 'Fall of Numenor' is the link between the
SILMARILLION and the Hobbit world. But its essentials are included
in the Ch. II of THE LORD OF THE RINGS. That book would, of course,
be easier to write, if the SILMARILLION were published first!
The SILMARILLION texts Katherine Farrer read included "Ainulindale" in
two versions.
Christopher cites a couple of early drafts, which mention
Aelfwine/Eriol. He also points out that the two versions of
"Ainulindale" are labelled "Flat World" and "Round World".
Returning to the narrative, Christopher says (after citing a draft for
Letter 115):
It cannot be doubted that these were drafts for the undated letter
to Ketherine Farrer which is printed as no. 115 in THE LETTERS OF
J.R.R. TOLKIEN, for though there is not much left from these drafts
in that form of it, it contains the words 'I am distressed (for
myself) to be unable to find the "Rings of Power", which with the
"Fall of Numenor" is the link between the SILMARILLION and the
Hobbit world.'
Katherine Farrer wrote back to JRRT in October 1948, expressing a
preference for the Flat World tale. Christopher concludes:
It must have been when he was preparing the texts for her that he
wrote the words 'Flat Word Version' and 'Round World Version' on
the texts B/C and C* of the AINULINDALE. Beyond this one can only
go by guesswork; but my guess is that the 'Flat World Version'
was the old B manuscript BEFORE it had been covered with the
revisions and the new elements that constitute version C. It may
be that Katherine Farrer's opinion had some influence upon my
father in his decision to make this new version C on the old
manuscript -- deriving much of it from C* and emending C* in
conformity with the new readings. Thus:
-- AINULINDALE B, a manuscript of the 1930s. When lending this
to Katherine Farrer in 1948 he wrote on it 'Flat World Version'.
-- A new version, lost apart from a single torn sheet, written
in 1946.
-- A typescript, AINULINDALE C*, based on this text. When lending
this in 1948 he wrote on it 'Round World Version'.
-- AINULINDALE C, made after the return of the texts by covering
the old B manuscript with new writing, and removing certain
radically innovative elements present in C*.
It would in this way be entirely explicable how it came about that
the typescript C* PRECEDED the complicated and confusing revision
(C) on the old manuscript -- this being the precursor of the last
version of the work that my father wrote, AINULINDALE 'D', made in
all probability not longer after C.
Christopher then presents the text of "Ainulindale" C. The C
manuscript thus represents a merger of the B and C* manuscripts
provided to Katherine Farrer. It is a starting point midway between
Tolkien's actual work in developing the story in the 1930s and his
resumption of development on the story after THE LORD OF THE RINGS.
"Ainulindale" C therefore retains the Aelfwine reference for
historical purposes, not because he remained integral to the (as-yet
undeveloped post-LoTR) Silmarillion mythology. Tolkien gave Katherine
Farrer texts which were consistent with the 1930s SILMARILLION because
-- in 1948 -- that is all that existed.
Katherine Farrer therefore helped to re-ignite the Silmarillion
development process in the late 1940s, but it was a false start.
Christopher goes on to discuss "Ainulindale" D, which he concludes was
composed very soon after C (that is, 1948-9). It, too, mentions
Aelfwine. However, in starting his commentary on D after the text
ends, Christopher says, "It will be seen that this text, which can
only in part be called a new version, does not extend, contradict, or
clarify the 'new cosmology' in any respect -- that is to say, as D was
originally written...."
Although JRRT made some notes on D later on, he never rewrote
"Ainulindale" again. So, after the new Silmarillion mythology emerged
in the 1950s, "Ainulindale" was historically inconsistent with the
traditions Tolkien developed for the world of THE LORD OF THE RINGS.
As far as "Ainulindale" is concerned, Aelfwine survived into the 1940s
only in the sense that there was no 1940s version of "Ainulindale" for
Tolkien to send to Katherine Farrer (we do not know when C* was
written, nor what the purpose of its lost predecessor text would have
been).
However, Aelfwine was borrowed into another mythology Tolkien created
in the 1930s, THE LOST ROAD. That mythology was a time travel story
which borrowed many Silmarillion concepts but also incorporated
historical elements and some modern (20th century) characters. THE
LOST ROAD represents a divergent path taken from the original
mythology for England (THE BOOK OF LOST TALES) which more closely
resembles that concept. That is, THE LOST ROAD is more of a mythology
for England than is THE SILMARILLION because THE LOST ROAD at least
involves Englishmen and Anglo-Saxons. THE LOST ROAD is also the first
appearance of Tolkien's Numenor legend.
He returned to this mythology in 1944 with THE NOTION CLUB PAPERS,
according to Christopher in SAURON DEFEATED:
On 18 December 1944, when THE LORD THE RINGS had reached the end
of what would become THE TWO TOWERS (and a few pages had been
written of 'Minas Tirith' and 'The Muster of Rohan' at the
beginning of Book V), my father wrote to me (LETTERS no. 92) that
he had seen C.S. Lewis that day: 'His fourth (or fifth?) novel
is brewing, and seems likely to to clash with mine (my dimly
projected third). I have been getting a lot of new ideas about
Prehistory lately (via Beowulf and other sources of which I may
have written) and want to work them into the long shelved time-
travel story I began. C.S.L. is planning a story about the
descendants of Seth and Cain.'...
Suffice it to say that Aelfwine recurs in THE NOTION CLUB PAPERS (see
Part Two). From THE NOTION CLUB PAPERS, which Tolkien abandoned. THE
NOTION CLUB PAPERS was still concerned with Tolkien's Atlantis legend,
the destruction of Numenor (which by this time had appeared in the
LoTR text as a brief bit of background material, but had only been
referenced in a few places in the narrative).
There was, however, another tradition regarding Numenor which Tolkien
started in the 1930s. He mentioned "The Fall of Numenor" in his
letter to Katherine Farrer and apparently could not send it to her.
In SAURON DEFEATED, Christopher says there were three versions of "The
Fall of Numenor" before his father began working on "The Drowning of
Anadune". Thematically and mythologically, "Drowning" is more closely
related to THE NOTION CLUB PAPERS than it is to THE LORD OF THE RINGS.
I will return to "The Fall of Numenor" much father on.
Adunaic, the language of LoTR's Numenor (and the basis for true
Westron), was developed in "The Drowning of Anadune" (Christopher says
that Adunaic emerged in 1946). Adunaic replaced the earlier Taliska
language, which was a pseudo-Germanic language Tolkien had constructed
for his various Anglo-Saxon related stories.
Part Two of THE NOTION CLUB PAPERS introduced a linguistic influence
shift to Hebrew, and Adunaic is said by Tolkien linguists to owe
something to Hebrew (I am not enough of a linguist to explain how
much, although I have been told by several people who know Hebrew that
Adunaic is not simply a copy of Hebrew). "The Drowning of Anadune"
more fully developed the Adunaic features. It also represents a much
fuller account of the Numenorean history which would eventually be
written for THE LORD OF THE RINGS and "Akallabeth".
The second version of "The Drowning of Anadune" does conclude with a
reference to Sauron's return to Middle-earth, but there are so many
other elements in the story which conflict with THE LORD OF THE RINGS
(even the early texts) that it is clearly only an experimental attempt
to associate this developing tradition with THE LORD OF THE RINGS.
Significantly, there is no mention of Aelfwine/Eriol in "The Drowning
of Anadune". While "The Drowning of Anadune" is closely associated
with THE NOTION CLUB PAPERS, it is a more direct antecedent for
"Akallabeth" than THE NOTION CLUB PAPERS. But Christopher stresses
critical differences in nomenclature and geography between "The
Drowning of Anadune" and other texts. Tol Eressea is not named, for
example, and Avalloni is a name for the Blessed Realm, and Lonely Isle
refers to the peak of the mountain which survives the Downfall.
In a section following the "Drowning of Anadune" texts which
Christopher titled "The theory of the work", he wrote (on page 405 of
SAURON DEFEATED):
It seems to me that there are broadly speaking two possible lines
of explanation of my father's thinking at this time. On the one
hand, many years had passed since the progressive development of
'The Silmarillion' had been disrupted, and during all that time
the actual narrative manuscripts had lain untouched; but it cannot
be thought that he had put it altogether out of mind, that it had
not continued to evolve unseen. Above all, the relation between
the self-contained mythology of 'The Silmarillion' and the story
of THE LORD OF THE RINGS boded problems of a profound nature. This
work had now been at a standstill for more than a year; but THE
NOTION CLUB PAPERS was leading to the re-emergence of Numenor as
an increasingly important element in the whole, even as the
Numenorean kingdoms in Middle-earth had grown so greatly in
significance in THE LORD OF THE RINGS.
It might seem at least arguable, therefore, that the departures from
the 'received tradition' (not a line of which had been published,
as must always be borne in mind) seen in my father's writing at
this time represent the emergence of new ideas, even to the extent
of an actual dismantling and transformation of certain deeply
embedded conceptions. Chief among these are the nature of the
'dwelling' of the Valar in Arda and the interrelated question of
'the shape of the world'; and the 'Fall of Men', seduced in their
beginning by 'Meleko', but followed by the repentence of some and
their rebellion against him.
On the other hand, it may be argued that these developments were
inspired by a specific purpose in respect only of THE DROWNING
OF ANADUNE. Essentially this is the view that I myself take;
but the other is not thereby excluded radically or at all points,
for ideas that here first appear would have repercussions at a
later time.
In my opinion, Christopher is stating the case fairly. These
experimental writings might represent an attempt to thresh out ideas
in the emergence of what would be the combined Middle-earth mythology
of THE HOBBIT, THE LORD OF THE RINGS, and THE SILMARILLION; or they
may simply be fresh stories Tolkien attempted while taking a
much-needed break from THE LORD OF THE RINGS, which resulted in the
production of ideas that he would eventually incorporate into that
emerging combined mythology.
But in neither case does Aelfwine survive the process. When the time
travel element is removed, there is no need for Aelfwine, and there is
no time travel in Tolkien's canonical Middle-earth (that is, THE
HOBBIT, THE LORD OF THE RINGS, and THE SILMARILLION do not involve
time travel or mention any character like Aelfwine). Nor does the
concept of mortals slipping into Aman survive the process.
Tolkien carried forward texts from the 1930s which he then pruned,
purged, or replaced with wholly new texts in the 1940s and 1950s. The
new texts show clearly that Aelfwine was not carried forward.
Then there is the matter of "Quenta Silmarillion". The Quenta texts
are closely associated with the various Annals Tolkien composed.
Their history is extremely complex.
The "Quenta Silmarillion" text in the published SILMARILLION is based
mostly on a mid-1930s manuscript referred to throughout THE HISTORY OF
MIDDLE-EARTH as QS. Christopher stipulated in THE LOST ROAD AND OTHER
WRITINGS (pp.199-201) that QS actually consists of two texts: one
typed, one hand-written. JRRT made corrections to the typed QS text in
two phases: first in late 1937, and then about 14 years later in 1951.
QS ends just before the tale of Beren and Luthien.
There are also supplemental texts, which Christopher refers to as
QS(A)-QS(E), which were composed in the 1930s. QS(E) was the last
pre-LoTR addendum that JRRT made to QS. (LOST ROAD, pp. 292-5,323).
Christopher says his father abandoned work on the QS manuscripts when
he began working on THE LORD OF THE RINGS.
On page 173 of THE WAR OF THE JEWELS Christopher says he based the
second half of the published "Quenta Silmarillion" on three texts: QS,
LQ 1, and LQ 2. In the Foreword to MORGOTH'S RING (Vol. X of THE
HISTORY OF MIDDLE-EARTH), Christopher says "it seems not to have been
until the end of the 1950s that [JRRT] turned again seriously to the
SILMARILLION narrative..." (p. viii).
The Foreword continues to say that "much had changed since...the
publication of THE LORD OF THE RINGS" and "before [JRRT] could prepare
a new and final SILMARILLION he must satisfy the requirements of a
coherent theological and metaphysical system, rendered now more
complex in its presentation by the supposition of obscure and
conflicting elements in its roots and its tradition." (Ibid.)
On page 141, Christopher explains that, in the first phase of the
1950s work on THE SILMARILLION, JRRT merely wrote some corrections on
the 1930s texts and then had them typed. This period (1951-2) produced
the LQ 1 text. Christopher uses a letter his father wrote in 1957 to
argue that LQ 2 was probably begun in 1958. He suggests that "Annals
of Aman" may also date to 1958. The second phase of work on THE
SILMARILLION commenced after these texts were finished (MR, p. 142-3).
Also, JRRT hired typists to prepare the LQ 1 and LQ 2 manuscripts.
They do not, therefore, in their original forms, represent any
advancement of the text at all. LQ 1 and LQ 2 were prepared by
different typists, according to Christopher's commentary.
The Grey Annals text GA 2 is part of phase two. In the Foreword to THE
WAR OF THE JEWELS (Vol. XI of THE HISTORY OF MIDDLE-EARTH),
Christopher writes "there is some evidence that the GREY ANNALS
followed the ANNALS OF AMAN (in its primary form), but the two works
were, I feel certain, closely associated in time of composition. For
the structure of the history of Beleriand the GREY ANNALS constitutes
the primary text, and although much of the latter part of the work was
used in the published SILMARILLION with little change I give it in
full. This is really essential on practical grounds, but is also in
keeping with my intention in this 'History', in which I have traced
the development of the Matter of the Elder Days from its beginning to
its end within the compass of my father's actual writings: from this
point of view the published work is not its end, and [he excluded his
father's later writing]".
Hence, the Grey Annals proved to be JRRT's last word on the history of
Beleriand. There are no later texts.
Now, Aelfwine is mentioned in "The Later Quenta Silmarillion", but as
I pointed out above, LQ 2 was not typed by Tolkien. He only made
corrections and changes on it. Furthermore, on page 173 of THE WAR OF
THE JEWELS, Christopher says the typist of LQ 2 worked from QS, not LQ
1.
In fact, in the Foreword to THE WAR OF THE JEWELS, Christopher writes:
In Part Two of this book it will be seen that in this latter phase
of his work the QUENTA SILMARILLION underwent scarcely any further
significant rewriting or addition, other than the introduction of
the new chapter OF THE COMING OF MEN INTO THE WEST with the
radically
altered earlier history of the Edain in Beleriand; and that (the
most remarkable fact in the whole history of THE SILMARILLION) the
last chapters (the tale of Hurin and the dragon-gold of Nargothrond,
the Necklace of the Dwarves, the ruin of Doriath, the fall of
Gondolin, the Kinslayings) remained in the form of the QUENTA
NOLDORINWA of 1930 and were never touched again. Only some meagre
hints are found in later writings.
On page 370 of MORGOTH'S RING (in the opening section of "Myths
Transformed"), Christopher cites a note (regarding ANNALS OF AMAN)
which his father wrote in 1958:
This descends from the oldest forms of the mythology -- when it
was still intended to be no more than another primitive mythology,
though more coherent and less 'savage'. It was consequently a
'Flat Earth' cosmogony (much easier to manage anyway): the Matter
of Numenor had not been devised.
It is now clear to me that in any case the Mythology must actually
be a 'Mannish' affair. (Men are really only interested in Men and
Men's ideas and visions.) The High Eldar living and being tutored
by the demiurgic beings must have known, or at least their writers
and loremasters must have known, the 'truth' (according to their
measure of understanding). What we have in the SILMARILLION etc.
are traditions (especially personalized, and centred upon ACTORS,
such as Feanor) handed on by MEN in Numenor and later in
Middle-earth
(Arnor and Gondor); but already far back -- from the first
association
of the Dunedain and Elf-friends with the Eldar in Beleriand --
blended
and confused with their own Mannish myths and cosmic ideas.
Further on, Christopher points out the difficulties which arose from
this change in perspective on his father's part. He cites from Letter
131 and discusses the myth of the creation of the Sun and Moon. Then:
But: 'You cannot do this any more.' In the following pages will be
seen how, driven by this conviction, he attempted to undo what he
had done, but to retain what he might. It is remarkable that he
never at this time seems to have felt what he said in this present
note provided a resolution of the problem that he believed to exist:
What we have in the SILMARILLION etc. are traditions...handed on
by MEN in Numenor [rest is cited above]....BLENDED AND CONFUSED
WITH
THEIR OWN MANNISH MYTHS AND COSMIC IDEAS.
It is tempting to suppose that when my father wrote that 'in
reconsideration of the early cosmogonic parts' he was 'inclined
to adhere to the Flat Earth and the astronomically absurd business
of the making of the Sun and Moon', he was referring to AINULINDALE
C and the ANNALS OF AMAN. If this were so, it might account for
the developments in AINULINDALE C discussed on pp. 27-9, where
Arda becomes a small world within the vastness of Ea -- but retains
the 'Flat Earth' characteristics of Ilu from the AMBARKANTA and
before.
In connection with my father's statement that the legends of THE
SILMARILLION were traditions handed on by Men in Numenor and later
in the Numenorean kingdoms in Middle-earth, this is a convenient
place to give an entirely isolated note carefully typed (but not
on his later typewriter) on a small slip and headed 'Memorandum'.
The three Great Tales must be Numenorean, and derived from
matter preserved in Gondor. They were part of the ATANATARION
(or the Legendarium of the Fathers of Men). ?Sindarin NERN IN
EDENEDAIR (or IN ADANATH).
They are (1) NARN BEREN ION BARAHIR also called NAR-E-DINUVIEL
(Tale of the Nightingale)
(2) NARN E-MBAR HADOR containing (a) NARN I-CHIN
HURIN (or NARN E-'RACH MORGOTH Tale of the Curse of Morgoth);
and (b) NARN EN-EL (or NARN E-DANT GONDOLIN AR ORTHAD EN-EL)
Should not these be given as Appendices to the SILMARIIION?
In THE WAR OF THE JEWELS, Christopher refers to the above note in the
chapter titled "Aelfwine and Dirhaval". This chapter presents two
versions of an introduction to the "Narn i Hin Hurin" published in
UNFINISHED TALES, and one speaks of Aelfwine in the third person
whereas the second text presents itself as Aelfwine's own composition.
Christopher provides no date for text A, but argues from textual
evidence that it must be a post-LoTR text. He is only sure that it
precedes text B.
Text B, Christopher suggests, was composed at the same time and on the
same typewriter as "The Coming of Men into the West" (the only
significant addition to LQ 2). We are looking at 1958-9 for this last
appearance of Aelfwine. Whereas Aelfwine's appearances in LQ 1 and LQ
2 are directly attributable to the typists who were working from the
1930s manuscript QS, we know that these two "Aelfwine and Dirhaval"
texts were original compositions.
These texts undeniably prove that Tolkien had resurrected the name
Aelfwine in the late 1950s, but they do not extend Aelfwine into the
Middle-earth mythology of THE HOBBIT, THE LORD OF THE RINGS, and THE
SILMARILLION. These texts are isolated, and only represent a brief
period of Tolkien's attention in the 1950s.
Of this last usage of the name Aelfwine, Christopher writes
(concerning text A):
It is therefore very notable that at this relatively late date
[JRRT] was propounding such a view of the 'transmission' of the
NARN I CHIN HURIN (in contrast to the statement cited in X.373,
that 'the three Great Tales must be Numenorean, and derived from
matter preserved in Gondor': the second of the 'Great Tales'
being the NARN I CHIN HURIN). Striking also is the information
(in both texts) that the verse-form of Dirhaval's lay bore some
likeness to the verse known to Aelfwine (meaning of course the
Anglo-Saxon alliterative verse), but that because Aelfwine was
no SCOP (see note 6) he translated it into (Anglo-Saxon) prose.
I do not know of any other statement bearing on this. It is
tempting to suspect some sort of oblique reference here to my
father's abandoned alliterative LAY OF THE CHILDREN OF HURIN of
the 1920s, but this may be delusory.
The second version B, in which the introductory note becomes a
preface by Aelfwine himself, rather than an 'editorial' recounting
of what Aelfwine did, was clipped to and clearly belonged with a
twelve-page typescript composed AB INITIO by my father and
bearing the title 'Here begins the tale of the Children of Hurin,
NARN I CHIN HURIN, which Dirhaval wrought.' This text provides
the opening of the NARN in UNFINISHED TALES (pp. 57-8) and
continues into the story of Hurin and Huro in Gondolin (omitted
in UNFINISHED TALES) which was based very closely indeed on the
version in the GREY ANNALS and is described on pp. 169-70 (then
follows the story of Turin's sister Lalaith and of his friendship
with Sador Labadal, ending with the riding away of Hurin to the
Battle of Unnumbered Tears, which is given in UNFINISHED TALES
pp. 58-65). It is very difficult to interpret, in the story of
the visit to Gondolin, the close similarity or (often) actual
identity of wording in Dirhaval's lay with that of the version
in the GREY ANNALS. The same question arises, despite a central
difference in the narrative, in the case of the NARN version of
the Battle of Unnumbered Tears and that in the ANNALS (see pp.
165 ff.). The NARN text is not linked, as is the Gondolin story,
to the name of Dirhaval; but it is a curious fact that it begins
(p. 165) 'Many songs are yet sung, and many tales are yet told by
the Elves of the Nirnaeth Arnoediad, the Battle of Unnumbered Tears,
in which Fingon fell and the flower of the Eldar withered' -- for
this is identical to the opening of Aelfwine's preface (text B,
p. 312), except that the latter has 'are yet told by the Elves
IN THE LONELY ISLE'.
Tolkien's final disposition of the legends -- with respect to Aelfwine
-- is laid out in THE PEOPLES OF MIDDLE-EARTH in the chapters "The
History of the Akallabeth" and "Dangweth Pengolod". While some people
might point to a paragraph in MORGOTH'S RING where Christopher wrote
(concerning his father's last note on "The Drowning of Anadune", "in
which he referred to it as a Mannish tradition"):
The handwriting and the use of a ball-point pen suggest a relatively
late date, and were there no other evidence I would guess it to be
some time in the 1960s. But it is certain that what appears to have
been the final phase of my father's work on Numenor (A DESCRIPTION
OF NUMENOR, ALDARION AND ERENDIS) dates from the mid-1960s
(UNFINISHED TALES pp. 7-8); and it may be that the AKALLABETH
derives from that period also.
However, citing this paragraph on page 141 of THE WAR OF THE JEWELS,
Christopher says:
This last remark is patent nonsense. The great extension of the
line of the Numenorean kings, which entered in the course of the
development of the AKALLABETH, was present in Appendix A (and a
mere glance through the texts of the work is sufficient to show,
simply from their appearance, that they could not conceivably
date from so late a time)....
A little further on, he begins to lay out the textual history of
"Akallabeth":
The textual history is relatively brief and simple in itself.
The earliest text, which I will call A, is a clear manuscript of
23 pages; a good deal of this text is extant also in pages that
were rejected and written out again, but virtually nothing of any
significance entered in the rewriting, and the two layers of this
manuscript need not be given different letters.
My father then corrected A, fairly extensively in the earlier part,
very little in the story of the Downfall, and made a second text,
a typescript, which I will call B. He followed the corrected
manuscript with an uncharacteristic fidelity, introducing only a
very few changes as he typed. It cannot be demonstrated, but I
think it virtually certain, that the series A, A corrected, B,
belong to the same time; and there is usually no need to distinguish
the stages of this "first phase", which can be conveniently
referred to as AB.
After some considerable interval, as I judge, he returned to the
typescript B and emended it. This left the greater part of the
text untouched, but introduced a vast extension to the Numenorean
history: primarily by the insertion of a long rider in manuscript,
but also by transpositions of text, alteration of names, and the
rewriting of certain passages.
The third and final text (C) was an amanuensis typescript (in
top copy and carbon) taken from B when all alterations had been
made to it. It seems to me very probable that this was made at
the same time (?1958) as the typescripts of the ANNALS OF AMAN,
the GREY ANNALS, and the text LQ 2 of the QUENTA SILMARILLION
(see X.300, XI.4). To this typescript my father made only a
very few and as it were casual corrections.
The alterations (including the long inserted rider) made to B
constitute a 'second phase'; and this is the final form of the
AKALLABETH (apart from the few corrections to C just mentioned).
There are thus only two original texts, the manuscript A and
the typescript B, but other corrections, and extensions made to
B represent a significantly different 'layer' in the history
of the work. To make this plain I will call the typescript B
AS SUBSEQUENTLY ALTERED B 2.
Let me interject my own clarification here:
First phase, phase AB
-- Manuscript A, of uncertain date
-- Manuscript A corrected
-- Typescript B, based on the corrected A manuscript
Second phase
-- Typescript B emended
-- Typescript C, based on the emended B typescript (?1958)
-- Typescript B 2, consisting of B with subsequent alterations
Christopher then stipulates that his commentary will work backwards
from the published SILMARILLION text (which he refers to as SA,
'Silmarillion-Akallabeth').
The SILMARILLION text was of course that of B 2 (with the
corrections made in C), but as I have said a number of
editorial changes were made, for various reasons, but
mostly in the quest (somewhat excessively pursued, as I now
think) for coherence and consistency with other writings.
Unless these changes were trivial they are noticed in the
account that follows.
He dispenses with a discussion of the relationship of "Akallabeth" to
"The Fall of Numenor" because he did that in SAURON DEFEATED. I have
only briefly described the connection, but the two-fold progression
was "Fall of Numenor" --> "Drowning of Anadune" --> "Akallabeth" and
THE LOST ROAD --> THE NOTION CLUB PAPERS --> "The Drowning of Anadune"
--> "Akallabeth".
Akallabeth A was originally titled "The Fall of Numenor" and was
retitled "The Downfall of Numenor". Christopher points out that,
while working on Appendix A (see page 255), JRRT referred to this text
as "Akallabeth" (with the variant title "The Fall of Numenor"). So,
we do know that Akallabeth A probably existed around 1950-1, which is
when Tolkien began working on Appendix A. We still do not know when
it was written. At the latest, it would have been written in 1950-51.
At the earliest, it was probably written in 1948-9.
Christopher says: "The original opening of A was almost a simple copy
of the opening of FN III (IX.331-2)". FN == "Fall of Numenor". The
text, "Fall of Numenor" III, is dated to the early period of
composition for THE LORD OF THE RINGS (late 1930s, possibly 1938-9).
So, Aelfwine does indeed occur in FN III, and therefore he is carried
forward into Akallabeth A. Christopher says the original opening for
Akallabeth A "was at once rejected".
$$1-2 The original opening of A was almost a simple copy of the
opening of FN III (IX.331-2): 'In the Great Battle when Fionwe
son of Manwe overthrew Morgoth', etc.; but this was at once
rejected, though appearing in revised form in SA $3, and a new
opening substituted, which constitutes, with some editorial
changes, that in SA ($$1-2). The authentic text begins: 'Of
Men, Aelfwine, it is said by the Eldar that they came into the
world in the time of the Shadow of Morgoth...', and in SA I
removed the address to Aelfwine[note 2]. The AKALLABETH was
conceived as a tale told by Pengolod the Wise (as it must be
supposed, though he is not named) in Tol Eressea to Aelfwine
of England, as becomes again very explicit (in the original)
in the end; and no change was made in this respect in the
'second' phase B 2, nor on the final amanuensis typescript C.
[note 3]
Note 2 explains how Christopher changed two subsequent addresses to
(without naming) Aelfwine in the text.
Note 3 says:
THE LINE OF ELROS ends with the words (UNFINISHED TALES p. 224):
'Of the deeds of Ar-Pharazon, of his glory and his folly, more
is told in the tale of the Downfall of Numenor, WHICH ELENDIL
WROTE, and which was preserved in Gondor.'
Aelfwine was thus preserved through all the copying and notation, but
it is clear from this note that Christopher Tolkien did not simply
take it upon himself to excise Aelfwine from the texts. "The Line of
Elros" was probably written between 1958 and 1965, as note 16 for that
text says that "Aldarion and Erendis" was preserved in Gondor because
the story was of interest to Elendil.
At the very start of this message, I said that Aelfwine appeared in
two relatively late contexts which are not associated with the
Middle-earth mythology. I have already addressed the texts associated
with the NARN I HIN HURIN (which ultimately was incorporated into the
published SILMARILILON). The other text is the "Dangweth Pengolod",
which was published in THE PEOPLES OF MIDDLE-EARTH.
Christopher speaks of two versions, A and B, and he says that A could
not have been written earlier than 1951 and B could not have been
written earlier than 1959. So, for convenience' sake, and because I
really need to get on to other things, I will stipulate that A was
probably written in 1951-54 and B was probably written in 1956-9. I
don't believe it matters whether they were written more closely
together than that. B follows A very closely. This narrative is
Pengolod's explanation of why/how Elf languages change.
These texts, and others, are bound up in what could be called the
Tradition of Pengolodh (or Pengolod). Pengolod, as I usually call,
was a character who evolved through the various stages of Tolkien's
mythologies. He was always intended to be the primary narrative voice
for the "source materials" for the mythologies.
An early version of the name Pengolod occurs in THE BOOK OF LOST
TALES, Penlodd of Gondolin, but the narrator is Littleheart, son of
Bronweg (also an Elf of Gondolin -- his role was eventually assumed by
Voronwe, Tuor's friend). Pengolod first appears as the author of the
"Annals of Valinor" (published in THE SHAPING OF MIDDLE-EARTH).
Christopher writes (on page 274):
In the preamble to the ANNALS OF VALINOR (AV) we meet one Pengolod
the Wise of Gondolin, who dwelt at Tavrobel in Tol Eressea 'after
his return unto the West'. Pengolod (or Pengolodh) often appears
later, but nothing more is told of his history (the reference to
Sirion's Haven shows that he was one of those who escaped from
Gondolin with Tuor and Idril). I am much inclined to think that his
literary origin is to be found in Gilfanon of the LOST TALES, who
also lived at Tavrobel (which now first emerges again); there Eriol
stayed in his house ('the house of a hundred chimneys'), and
Gilfanon bade him write down all that he had heard (II. 283), while
in the preamble to AV Eriol saw Pengolod's book at Tavrobel and
translated it there. Moreover, Gilfanon was of the Noldoli, and
though in the LOST TALES he is not associated with Gondolin he was
an Elf of Kor, 'being indeed one of the oldest of the fairies and
the most aged that now dwelt in the isle.' and had lived long in
the Great Lands (I. 175); while Pengolod was also an Elf whose life
began in Valinor, since he 'returned' to into the West.
Pengolod re-emerges each time Tolkien starts a new mythology, but he
almost never actually appears IN the mythology. A bit of history is
provided for him, eventually. He turns out to be an Elf of Gondolin
of mixed Sindarin and Noldorin blood, and he is the last of the
Lambengolmor, the Loremasters of Tongues (the school of loremasters
founded by Feanor in Valinor). Pengolod eventually settles in Eregion
and survives its fall, but after the War of the Elves and Sauron he
sails over Sea.
As someone who is so crucial to so many narratives which provide the
foundation of the various SILMARILLION narratives, why is he not
present in the final SILMARILLION? Furthermore, why does his role
keep changing?
Those are questions that, frankly, I don't have the time or energy to
go into right now. I've devoted most of my day to writing this much.
Suffice it to say that Aelfwine goes with Pengolod, and Pengolod goes
with Aelfwine.
Tolkien never incorporated either character into THE LORD OF THE
RINGS. Furthermore, he never brought them into THE HOBBIT, THE
ADVENTURES OF TOM BOMBADIL, or THE ROAD GOES EVER ON.
They have no place in the Middle-earth mythology. Several pairs of
Pengolods and Aelfwines have places in various external texts which
were never directly associated with Middle-earth. They MENTION
Middle-earth, but Middle-earth doesn't include them.
"The Fall of Numenor" was their only real connection to the emerging
Middle-earth mythology. They retained into the "Akallabeth" texts but
ultimately dropped from the published SILMARILLION. They never made
it into THE LORD OF THE RINGS, which provides us with the core of the
mythology.
In fact, the idea that an Anglo-Saxon mariner wandered into Tol
Eressea and copied down/translated books of Elven lore is completely
inconsistent with the LoTR tradition that all Tolkien knew about the
various aspects of Middle-earth came from the Red Book of Westmarch,
which included Bilbo and Frodo's diary and Bilbo's TRANSLATIONS FROM
THE ELVISH.
While it would be tempting to suggest that Pengolod could be the
source for many of the Elvish stories Bilbo translated, how does one
explain Aelfwine? He cannot be explained, because he is an
Anglo-Saxon -- from Merry old England, circa 10th century CE, and
therefore he lived about 5,000 years too late. So, all of Pengolod's
salutations and comments to Aelfwine immediately render themselves
incompatible with the Middle-earth mythology.
There is thus, sadly, no place in Middle-earth for Pengolod, and there
hasn't been any place for either him or Aelfwine since about 1939-41.
There was absolutely no development of their history with respect to
Middle-earth from that point forward, because they were dropped from
the Middle-earth mythology.
They were retained in what we can loosely refer to as "the Pengolod
Tradition", but what purpose that tradition served is open to debate.
We will never really know what J.R.R. Tolkien had in mind. What we do
know, however, is that he never tied them into Middle-earth.
I have, on many occasions through the years, used the various Pengolod
anecdotes and narratives as sources for events in Middle-earth's
history. That usage, however, has always been consistent with my
principle of drawing upon sources which are not contradicted by
canonical sources.
I can well see how my jumping into and out of the Pengolod Tradition
would confuse some people, but there is absolutely no basis for anyone
to say that Pengolod and Aelfwine were a part of the Middle-earth
mythology. They were not.
Michael Martinez
> On 4 Jun 2004 15:56:37 -0700, Mic...@xenite.org (Michael Martinez)
> wrote:
>
> >AC <mightym...@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:<slrncc171h.1bk....@alder.alberni.net>...
> >> Except that CJRT never says that the notion of an English mythology was
> >> abandoned.
> >
> >Other than the several pages of text he wrote about the abandonment in
> >a couple of the HISTORY OF MIDDLE-EARTH books, you almost have a point
> >there.
>
> C'mon, Michael! Treat us to a 'cite-fest'.
With respect to a different topic, your wish is granted. By the time
you see this, you should have seen yet another extensive list of
citations from me which you may now ignore and pretend was never
posted.
Chris Kern
OK, thanks for the cites -- I see what you're trying to say now.
It seems possible to me that the inclusion of AElfwine in some of the
later texts is perhaps attributable to a sort of nostalgia -- I get
the feeling sometimes that while the BoLT had been abandoned, Tolkien
sort of wished that he had finished them. Maybe all the inclusion of
AElfwine is just sort of a nod to the stories he wrote in his youth,
-Chris
Christopher Kreuzer
<snip looong HoME quotes>
Hmm. I was just about to start reading HoME again.
Maybe not... There are more interesting things, right?
the softrat
wrote:
>AC <mightym...@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:<slrncc3o43.2g8....@alder.alberni.net>...
....relevant or not.
the softrat
"Honi soit qui mal y pense."
mailto:sof...@pobox.com
--
Drugs cause amnesia and other things I can't remember...
AC
>
> However, Aelfwine was borrowed into another mythology Tolkien created
> in the 1930s, THE LOST ROAD. That mythology was a time travel story
> which borrowed many Silmarillion concepts but also incorporated
> historical elements and some modern (20th century) characters. THE
> LOST ROAD represents a divergent path taken from the original
> mythology for England (THE BOOK OF LOST TALES) which more closely
> resembles that concept. That is, THE LOST ROAD is more of a mythology
> for England than is THE SILMARILLION because THE LOST ROAD at least
> involves Englishmen and Anglo-Saxons. THE LOST ROAD is also the first
> appearance of Tolkien's Numenor legend.
I let others deal with the rest, but I think this is where things go awry.
Michael has a ludicrious definition of "different". How many mythologies
did Tolkien write, Michael? I'm up to three now, because you've just
labelled the Lost Road a separate mythology. I guess if you are willing to
invent your own private definitions, you can prove damn near anything.
By this definition, I can only presume that you feel the Hobbit was also a
different mythology.
--
Aaron Clausen
mightym...@hotmail.com
AC
Or, more reasonably, it is that the fundemental plan to make a mythology for
England had a lot longer life than the mid-1920s.
--
Aaron Clausen
mightym...@hotmail.com
AC
And not a one says Tolkien abandoned the idea of a mythology for ENgland.
If it was that easy, Michael, then there would be no debate. Your cite-fest
has produced the revelation that you have a rather silly definition of
"mythology" which allows you to cut it Tolkien's work into as many pieces as
you care to.
--
Aaron Clausen
mightym...@hotmail.com
Michael Martinez
> Mic...@xenite.org (Michael Martinez) wrote in message news:<3b26e128.04060...@posting.google.com>...
>
> > AC <mightym...@hotmail.com> wrote;
> >> Except that CJRT never says that the notion of an English mythology
> was
> >> abandoned.
>
> > Other than the several pages of text he wrote about the abandonment in
> > a couple of the HISTORY OF MIDDLE-EARTH books, you almost have a point
> > there.
>
> Except that we all know this is a lie.
Really? Gosh. Christopher Tolkien must be a liar, too.
> Christopher wrote about his father 'ceasing to work on the Book of
> Lost Tales' and various other particular manuscripts within the
> mythology.
>
> He never wrote about the idea of a mythology for England being
> abandoned.
>
> Never.
Not that I expect you to accept the facts as published by Christopher
Tolkien, but perhaps you mean something like the following passages?
From the Foreword to THE BOOK OF LOST TALES, PART ONE:
THE BOOK OF LOST TALES, written between sixty and seventy years
ago, was the first substantial work of imaginitive literature
by J.R.R. Tolkien, and the first emergence in narrative of the
Valar, of the Children of Iluvatar, Elves and Men, of the
Dwarves and the Orcs, and of the lands in which their history
is set, Valinor beyond the western ocean, and Middle-earth,
the 'Great Lands' between the seas of east and west. Some
fifty-seven years after my father ceased to work on the LOST
TALES, THE SILMARILLION, profoundly transformed from its
distant forerunner, was published; and six years have passed
since then....
And:
THE BOOK OF LOST TALES was begun by my father in 1916-17 during
the First [World] War, when he was 25 years old, and left
incomplete several years later. It is the starting-point, at
least in fully-formed narrative, of the history of Valinor and
Middle-earth; but before the TALES were complete he turned to
the composition of long poems, the LAY OF LEITHIAN in rhyming
couplets (the story of Beren and Luthien), and THE CHILDREN
OF HURIN in alliterative verse. The prose form of the 'mythology'
began again from a new starting-point* in a quite brief synopsis,
or 'Sketch' as he called it, written in 1926 and expressly
intended to provide the necessary background of knowledge for
the understanding of the alliterative poem. The further written
development of the prose form proceeded from that 'Sketch' in
a direct line to the version of 'The Silmarillion' which was
nearing completion towards the end of 1937, when my father broke
off to send it as it stood to Allen and Unwin in November of
that year; but there were also important side-branches and
subordinate texts composed in the 1930s, as the ANNALS OF VALINOR
and the ANNALS OF BELERIAND (fragments of which are extant also
in Old English translations made by Aelfwine (Eriol)), the
cosmological account called AMBARKANTA, the Shape of the World,
by Rumil, and the LHAMMAS or 'Account of Tongues', by Pengolod
of Gondolin. Thereafter the history of the First Age was laid
aside for many years, until THE LORD OF THE RINGS was completed,
but in the years preceding its actual publication my father
returned to 'The Silmarillion' and associated works with great
vigour.
The footnote (*) reads:
Only in the case of THE MUSIC OF THE AINUR was there a direct
development, manuscript to manuscript, from THE BOOK OF LOST
TALES to the latter forms; for THE MUSIC OF THE AINUR became
separated off and continued as an independent work.
And:
The LOST TALES never reached or even approached a form in which my
father could have considered their publication before he
abandoned them; they were experimental and provisional, and the
tattered notebooks in which they were written were bundled away
and left unlooked at as the years passed....
From THE BOOK OF LOST TALES, PART ONE (pages 22-23):
The story of Eriol the mariner was central to my father's
original conception of the mythology. In those days, as
he recognized long after in a letter to his friend Milton
Waldman, the primary intention of his work was to satisfy
his desire for a specifically and recognizably English
literature of 'faerie':
I was from early days grieved by the poverty of my own beloved
country: it had no stories of its own (bound up with its tongue
and soil), not of the quality that I sought, and found (as an
ingredient) in legends of other lands. There was Greek, and
Celtic, and Romance, Germanic, Scandinavian, and Finnish (which
greatly affected me); but nothing English, save impoverished
chap-book stuff.
In his earliest writings the mythology was anchored in the ancient
legendary history of England; and more than that, it was peculiarly
associated with certain places in England.
Eriol, himself close kin to famous figures in the legends of North-
western Europe, came at last on a voyage westward over the ocean
to Tol Eressea, the Lonely Isle, where the Elves dwelt; and from
them he learned 'The Lost Tales of Elfinesse'. But his role was
at first to be more important in the structure of the work than
(what it afterwards became) simply that of a man of later days who
came to 'the land of the Fairies' and there acquired lost or hidden
knowledge, which he afterwards reported in his own tongue: at
first, Eriol was to be an important element in the fairy-history
itself -- the witness of the ruin of Elvish Tol Eressea. The
element of ancient English history of 'historical legend' was at
first not merely a framework, isolated from the great tales that
afterward constituted 'The Silmarillion', but an integral part of
their ending. The elucidation of all this (so far as elucidation
is possible) must necessarily be postponed to the end of the
TALES; but here something at least must be said of the history of
Eriol up to the time of his coming to Tol Eressea, and of the
original significance of the Lonely Isle.
The 'Eriol-story' is in fact among the knottiest and most obscure
matters in the whole history history of Middle-earth and Aman.
My father abandoned the writing of the LOST TALES before he reached
their end, and when he abandoned them he also abandoned his original
ideas for their conclusion....
A history of Eriol follows, wherein he is related to Hengest and
Horsa, wanders around Europe, and is involved in various Germanic
traditions from Europe.
It is not to be thought that these notes represent in all respects
the story of Eriol as my father conceived it when he wrote THE
COTTAGE OF LOST PLAY -- in any case, it is said expressly there
that ERIOL means 'One who dreams alone', and that 'of his former
names the story nowhere tells' (p. 14). But what is important is
that (according to the view that I have formed of the earliest
conceptions), apparently the best explanation of the very difficult
evidence) this was still the leading idea when it was written:
ERIOL CAME TO TOL ERESSEA FROM THE LANDS TO THE EAST OF THE NORTH
SEA. He belongs to the period preceding the Anglo-Saxon invasions
of Britain (as my father, for his purposes, wished to represent it).
Later, his named changed to Aelfwine ('Elf-friend'), the
mariner became an Englishman of the 'Anglo-Saxon period'
of English history, who sailed west over sea to Tol Eressea
-- he sailed from England out into the Atlantic Ocean; and
from this later conception comes the very remarkable story
of AELFWINE OF ENGLAND, which will be given at the end of the
LOST TALES. But in the earliest conception he was not an
Englishman of England. England in the sense of the land of
the English did not yet exist; for the cardinal fact (made
quite explicit in extant notes) of this conception is that
THE ELVISH ISLE TO WHICH ERIOL CAME WAS ENGLAND -- that is
to say, Tol Eressea would become England, the land of the
English, at the end of the story. Koromas or Kortirion, the
town in the centre of Tol Eressef to which Eriol comes in
THE COTTAGE OF LOST PLAY, would become in after days Warwick
(and the elements KOR- and WAR- were etymologically connected);
Alalminore, the Land of Elms, would be Warwickshire; and
Tavrobel, where Eriol sojourned for a while in Tol Eressea,
would afterwards be the Staffordshire village of Great
Haywood.
None of this is explicit in the written TALES, and is only found in
notes independent of them; but it seems certain that it was still
present when THE COTTAGE OF LOST PLAY was written (and indeed, as
I shall try to show later, underlies all the TALES)....
And then there is the passage in THE BOOK OF LOST TALES, PART TWO (pp.
300-301):
Humphrey Carpenter, writing in his BIOGRAPHY of my father's life
after he returned to Oxford in 1925, says (p. 169):
He made numerous revisions and recastings of the principal
stories in the cycle, deciding to abandon the original sea-
voyager 'Eriol' to whom the stories were told, and instead
renaming him 'Aelfwine' or 'elf-friend'.
That ERIOL was (for a time) displaced by Aelfwine is certain.
But while it may well be that at the time of the texts now
to be considered the name ERIOL had actually ben rejected, in
the first version of 'The Silmarillion' proper, written in
1926, ERIOL reappears, while in the earliest ANNALS OF VALINOR,
written in the 1930s, it is said that they were translated in
Tol Eressea 'by Eriol of Leithien, that is Aelfwine of the
Angelcynn'. On the other hand, at this earlier period it seems
entirely justifiable on the evidence to treat the two names
as indicative of different narrative projections -- 'the ERIOL
story' and 'the AELFWINE story'.
'Aelfwine', then, is associated with a new conception, SUBSEQUENT
TO the writing of the LOST TALES. The mariner is Aelfwine, not
Eriol, in the second 'Scheme' for the TALES, which I have called
'an unrealised project for the revision of the whole work' (see
I. 234). The essential difference may be made clear now, before
citing the difficult evidence: TOL ERESSEA IS NOW IN NO WAY
IDENTIFIED WITH ENGLAND, and the story of the drawing back of the
Lonely Island across the sea has been abandoned. England is indeed
still at the heart of this later conception, and is named LUTHANY.
The mariner, Aelfwine, is an Englishman sailing westward from the
coast of Britain; and his role is diminished. For whereas in the
writings studied thus far he comes to Tol Eressea BEFORE the
denouement and disaster of the Faring Forth, and either he himself
or his descendants witness the devastation of Tol Eressea by the
invasion of Men and their evil allies (in one line of development
he was even to be responsible for it, p. 294), in the later
narrative outlines he does not arrive until all the grievous
history is done. His part is only to learn and to record.
On page 327, Christopher summarizes thusly:
This brings to an end my rendering and analysis of the early
writings bearing on the story of the mariner who came to the
Lonely Isle and learned there the true history of the Elves.
I have shown, convincingly as I hope, the curious and complex
way in which my father's vision of the significance of Tol
Eressea changed. When he jotted down the synopsis (10), the
idea of the mariner's voyage to the Island of the Elves was of
course already present; but he journeyed out of the East and
the Lonely Isle of his seeking was -- England (though not yet
the land of the English and yet lying in the seas where England
lies). When later the entire concept was shifted, England, as
'Luthany' or 'Luthien', remained pre-eminently the Elvish land;
and Tol Eressea, with its meads and coppices, its rooks' nests
in the elm-trees of Alalminore, seemed to the English mariner
to be remade in the likeness of his own land, which the Elves
had lost at the coming of Men: for it was indeed a re-embodiment
of Elvish Luthany far over the sea.
All this was to fall away afterwards from the developing
mythology; but Aelfwine left many marks on its pages before
he too finally disappeared.
The chapter "The Lay of the Children of Hurin" in THE LAYS OF
BELERIAND opens with:
There exists a substantial manuscript (28 pages long) entitled
'Sketch of the Mythology with especial reference to "The Children
of Hurin"'; and this 'Sketch' is the next complete narrative, in
the PROSE tradition, after the LOST TALES (though a few fragmentary
writings are extant from the intervening time). On the envelope
containing this manuscript my father wrote at some later time:
Original 'Silmarillion'. Form orig[inally] composed c. 1926-30
for R.W. Reynolds to explain background of 'alliterative version'
of Turin & the Dragon: then in progress (unfinished) (begun
c. 1918).
He seems to have written first '1921' before correcting this to
'1918'.
From the Preface to THE SHAPING OF MIDDLE-EARTH:
In the ANNALS OF VALINOR and the ANNALS OF BELERIAND are seen the
beginnings of the chronological structure which was to become a
central preoccupation. The Annals would develop into a separate
'tradition', parallel to and overlapping but distinct from 'The
Silmarillion' proper, and (after intervening versions) emerging
in the years following the completion of THE LORD OF THE RINGS
in two chief works of the Matter of Middle-earth, the ANNALS OF
AMAN and the GREY ANNALS OF BELERIAND (see pp. 262, 294)....
The first sentence from Chapter I of THE SHAPING OF MIDDLE-EARTH:
Before giving the 'Sketch of the Mythology', the earliest form
of the prose 'Silmarillion', there are some brief prose texts
that can be conveniently collected here.
Chapter II, paragraph 3, begins with:
The 'Sketch' represents a new starting-point in the history
of 'The Silmarillion'; for which it is a quite brief synopsis,
the further written development of the prose form proceeded
from it in a direct line. It is clear from details that need
not be repeated here that it was oritinally written in 1926
(after the LAY OF THE CHILDREN OF HURIN had been abandoned,
III.3); but it was afterwards revised, in places very heavily,
and this makes it a difficult text to present in a way that
is both accurate and readily comprehensible....
From "Ainulindale" in THE LOST ROAD AND OTHER WRITINGS:
In all the works given in this history so far, there has been only
one account of the Creation of the World, and that is in the old
take of THE MUSIC OF THE AINUR, written while my father was at
Oxford on the staff of the [Oxford English] Dictionary in 1918-20
(I.45). The 'Sketch of the Mythology' (S) makes no reference to
it (IV. 11); Q and AV 1 only mention in their opening sentences
'the making of the World', the making of 'all things' by Iluvatar
(IV. 78, 263); and AV 2 adds nothing further. But now, among the
later writings of the 1930s (see pp. 107-8), he turned again to
the tale told by Rumil to Eriol in the garden of Mar Vanwa Tyalieva
in Kortirion, and wrote a new version; and it is remarkable that
in this case he went back to the actual text of the original
MUSIC OF THE AINUR. The new version was composed with the 'Lost
Tale' in front of him, and indeed he followed it fairly closely,
though rephrasing it at every point -- a great contrast to the
apparent jump between the rest of the 'Valinorean' narrative in
the LOST TALES and the 'Sketch', where it seems possible that he
wrote out the condensed synopsis without re-reading them (cf. IV.
41-2).
The 'cosmogonical myth', as it called it long after (I. 45), was
thus already, as it would remain, a separate work, independent
of 'The Silmarillion' proper; and I believe that its separation
can be attributed to the fact that there was no mention of the
Creation in S, where the QUENTA tradition began, and no account
of it in Q. But QS has a new opening, a brief passage concerning
the Great Music and the Creation of the World, and this would
show that the AINULINDALE was already in existence, even were
this not demonstrable on other grounds (see note 20).
Michael Martinez
> The chief difference between BoLT and Silm was that in BoLT we are seeing as
> a part of the story the transmission of the myths to the mariner
> Aelfwine/Eriol, whereas with Silm Aelfwine/Eriol that element is removed.
> However, the fact that we have this Northern European mariner sailing to Tol
> Eressea and learning the myths is there, and the reason is obvious. The
> Silmarillion was, like BoLT, the mythology of England. What was abandoned
> was a particular narrative style, not the concept.
Since I just posted extensive citations which show you couldn't be
farther from the truth, I will just refer everyone to those.
The chief difference between THE BOOK OF LOST TALES ane THE
SILMARILLION is that the BOOK OF LOST TALES was a mythology for
England, whereas THE SILMARILLION is part of the mythology of
Middle-earth.
AC
> AC <mightym...@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:<slrncc2lg2.3rc....@alder.alberni.net>...
>> The chief difference between BoLT and Silm was that in BoLT we are seeing as
>> a part of the story the transmission of the myths to the mariner
>> Aelfwine/Eriol, whereas with Silm Aelfwine/Eriol that element is removed.
>> However, the fact that we have this Northern European mariner sailing to Tol
>> Eressea and learning the myths is there, and the reason is obvious. The
>> Silmarillion was, like BoLT, the mythology of England. What was abandoned
>> was a particular narrative style, not the concept.
>
> Since I just posted extensive citations which show you couldn't be
> farther from the truth, I will just refer everyone to those.
None of which really prove your point at all.
>
> The chief difference between THE BOOK OF LOST TALES ane THE
> SILMARILLION is that the BOOK OF LOST TALES was a mythology for
> England, whereas THE SILMARILLION is part of the mythology of
> Middle-earth.
And now we find out that you have even more mythologies, as you apparently
define The Lost Road as a different mythology again.
--
Aaron Clausen
mightym...@hotmail.com
Michael Martinez
> Michael Martinez wrote:
>
> > I honestly don't understand why you insist on being unbelievably
> > obtuse about this. How many times do I have to explain that the
> > mythology for England (THE BOOK OF LOST TALES) *IS* *SET* *IN*
> > *ENGLAND*?
> >
> > Do you understand that?
>
> I do now. You might have said so in the first place. (I Googled
> to see if you ever used the phrase "set in England" anytime since
> May 12, 1981, and you haven't.)
Like this one from the year 2000?
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=8balhq%24254_008%40news.uswest.net&output=gplain
Down towards the bottom:
"The world of THE BOOK OF LOST TALES is not related to the world of
THE SILMARILLION. THE BOOK OF LOST TALES concerns a mythology set in
England (Tol Eressea). There was even a one-to-one correlation
between modern England's cities and cities in the mythology."
> And you are welcome to your geographical definition of "mythology
> for England."
Oh, thank you very much. Of course, it's a HISTORICAL and SOCIAL
definition (as provided by Christopher Tolkien) as well as
Geographical.
> My point is that Tolkien didn't define the term so
> narrowly.
You still haven't quite got it right, though. So, let's wait and see
if you concede any more ground on what *I* am saying before we try to
go farther on what Tolkien said.
Michael Martinez
I will let the extensive citations I posted earlier today answer you
as best I am capable of doing in one afternoon's time.
Michael Martinez
Christopher actually says something very similar in one of the books
(I think it was in "Myths Transformed" MORGOTH'S RING, but don't hold
me to that).
Michael Martinez
I WAS going to do something constructive today. But I have to admit,
this came close to feeling like one of the old challenges that used to
really get me posting (sans flames).
Michael Martinez
> Michael Martinez <Mic...@xenite.org> wrote:
> > Flame of the West <jsol...@comcast.net> wrote in message
> > news:<LLCdnX7IQP8...@comcast.com>...
> >>
> >> I wonder if the point is that you only consider a "mythology for
> >> England" to be a work in which Aelfwine appears in historical
> >> England.
> >
> > I honestly don't understand why you insist on being unbelievably
> > obtuse about this. How many times do I have to explain that the
> > mythology for England (THE BOOK OF LOST TALES) *IS* *SET* *IN*
> > *ENGLAND*?
>
> [I think this mean 'yes']
You're wrong.
> So you have your narrow 'geographical' definition for 'a mythology for
> England', and Tolkien referred to LotR as part of his 'mythology for
> England' in a broader, more vague, 'imagined history' sense.
Nope. You're still wrong.
> Do you see the distinction I am trying to draw? And why I think that
> certain terms in this discussion (specifically 'mythology for England')
> are being used to mean several different things?
Tolkien's "mythology for England" was ABOUT England. It was about how
England came to be English and it was about how England came to lose
its fairy-folk.
There are ENGLISHMEN in THE BOOK OF LOST TALES. Those Englishmen are
doing things which are relevant to the English people's (imagined)
history.
THE LORD OF THE RINGS is not ABOUT England. It doesn't speak of
England, mention England, refer to England, or do anything which in
any way constitutes itself as "a mythology for England".
It was not even dedicated to England.
It did not arise out of THE BOOK OF LOST TALES or THE SILMARILLION.
It is a wholly original story, which Tolkien composed as a sequel to
THE HOBBIT. THE HOBBIT is not a "mythology for England", either.
There are no Englishmen in THE LORD OF THE RINGS. There are no
English-relevancies in the story.
Now, all that said, THE LORD OF THE RINGS clearly draws upon Tolkien's
intimate knowledge English nomenclature (both modern and archaic) and
people like Tom Shippey have argued reasonably well that it includes
some very interesting if subtle allusions to Tolkien's life and
profession.
At best, that would make it a mythology for English philologists.
But more reasonably, it is a "mythology for everyone" or a "mythology
for the entire world", because it is set in Middle-earth (the entire
world) and is putatively ABOUT our ancestors (all of them, those who
opposed Sauron and those who served him).
> Maybe the terms 'pseudo-history' and 'imagined history' would be
> helpful, though I imagine that this might cause even more confusion. The
> only thing to do is to find and use the terms that Christopher (and JRR)
> Tolkien used, and to be sure that you are clear what they mean by these
> terms.
It would be more helpful if people stopped mischaracterizing THE LORD
OF THE RINGS as a mythology for England.
But, whatever.
Michael Martinez
> Such nonsense! As you yourself cite, CJRT considered The Book of Lost
> Tales to be a 'distant forerunner' of The Silmarillion. That citation
> does imply a connection between the two works, i.e., they are not
> completely separate.
They ARE completely separate. That doesn't mean they aren't
connected. No one ever said they weren't connected.
Tolkien borrowed from "Beowulf". Since there is a connection between
Tolkien's THE LORD OF THE RINGS and "Beowulf", by your nonsense, we
would have to conclude that THE LORD OF THE RINGS is just an updated
version of "Beowulf".
Michael Martinez
> On 3 Jun 2004 16:28:11 -0700, Mic...@xenite.org (Michael Martinez)
> posted the following:
>
> >Persistence would require that the character actually be USED in
> >stories. He vanished, never to return, from Tolkien's stories in the
> >1930s.
>
> He may have vanished from the stories themselves, but he never
> completely vanished from the texts.
I have already addressed this in a much longer article.
> I'm not sure quite what you mean when you say that Aelfwine "vanished,
> never to return".
To put it more concisely, Aelfwine does not appear in THE SILMARILLION
or THE LORD OF THE RINGS. He was cut from the texts that Christopher
used because he didn't fit into the stories which comprised the
published SILMARILLION.
The reason he didn't fit into those stories is that there was no
longer a place for him in the mythology.
The mythology was not something being handed on by an Anglo-Saxon
named Aelfwine. It had been handed on by Hobbits.
While we know that on one level the Hobbits are clearly based on
English people, they are not connected with the Anglo-Saxons in the
pseudo-history. They are a separate and distinct people.
Nothing of the Pengolod/Aelfwine tradition made it into THE LORD OF
THE RINGS, which was completed in 1948, the appendices of which were
completed by 1952, and all of which was published by 1956.
As far as Middle-earth is concerned, Aelfwine is a non sequitur.
Christopher Kreuzer
> It would be more helpful if people stopped mischaracterizing THE LORD
> OF THE RINGS as a mythology for England.
But would you be happy to call LotR an "imagined mythology for the
world"? And England is a part of that world? Do you accept that some
people can proceed from that to say that LotR can be a mythology for
England. Especially considering that the Shire has peculiarly English
(Worcestershire countryside) qualities, and that the NW of ME is
identified with Europe. And further, that is what people mean when they
say that they consider that to be Tolkien's view.
Sure, this use is different from *your* use of the phrase 'mythology for
England', but it is still a valid use of the phrase.
AC
Now you're saying that BoLT was borrowed for Silm? For goodness sake
Michael, your position gets more ludicrous with each retrelling.
--
Aaron Clausen
mightym...@hotmail.com
Flame of the West
>>I do now. You might have said so in the first place. (I Googled
>>to see if you ever used the phrase "set in England" anytime since
>>May 12, 1981, and you haven't.)
>
>
> Like this one from the year 2000?
>
> http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=8balhq%24254_008%40news.uswest.net&output=gplain
>
> Down towards the bottom:
>
> "The world of THE BOOK OF LOST TALES is not related to the world of
> THE SILMARILLION. THE BOOK OF LOST TALES concerns a mythology set in
> England (Tol Eressea). There was even a one-to-one correlation
> between modern England's cities and cities in the mythology."
I stand corrected, although I don't know why my Google search didn't
bring that one up. I wonder if Google misses exact phrases with
line feeds in the middle or something.
-- FotW
Reality is for those who cannot cope with Middle-earth.
Flame of the West
This is all a perfectly reasonable defintion and nomenclature. My point
is that Tolkien himself doesn't seem to have defined the term the way
you do.
Michael Martinez
> Michael Martinez <Mic...@xenite.org> wrote:
>
> > It would be more helpful if people stopped mischaracterizing THE LORD
> > OF THE RINGS as a mythology for England.
>
> But would you be happy to call LotR an "imagined mythology for the
> world"?
If you're going to talk about Tolkien's "mythology for England", why
not just talk about the one he actually created, and not the one which
has been mythologized into most people's idioms out of ignorance?
What is so wrong with a little accuracy?
Michael Martinez
> This is all a perfectly reasonable defintion and nomenclature. My point
> is that Tolkien himself doesn't seem to have defined the term the way
> you do.
Well, just feel free to post a clear citation where Tolkien says, "My
definition of 'the mythology for England' is...."
I'll just wait right here until you do.
Michael Martinez
> I stand corrected, although I don't know why my Google search didn't
> bring that one up. I wonder if Google misses exact phrases with
> line feeds in the middle or something.
Google is frustrating to work with on a good day.
All the search tools are.
Michael Martinez
> On 6 Jun 2004 15:07:28 -0700,
> Michael Martinez <Mic...@xenite.org> wrote:
> > With respect to a different topic, your wish is granted. By the time
> > you see this, you should have seen yet another extensive list of
> > citations from me which you may now ignore and pretend was never
> > posted.
>
> And not a one says Tolkien abandoned the idea of a mythology for ENgland.
Not coincidentally, you won't find any passages which say he retained
it, either. So, given that they all say he moved on, abandoned the
texts, everything "falls away", and so forth, you're just looking
damned silly for digging your feet in on a groundless point.
It IS that easy to back up what I say because I take the time to check
my facts before I say things.
The really meaty debates don't happen any more because people get
bogged down on the easy stuff.
Why not choose to disagree over something where you cannot so easily
be shown to be blowing smoke through your hat?
There are plenty of ambiguities in Tolkien.
Pick one.
Michael Martinez
> On 6 Jun 2004 17:38:49 -0700,
> Michael Martinez <Mic...@xenite.org> wrote:
> >
> > Since I just posted extensive citations which show you couldn't be
> > farther from the truth, I will just refer everyone to those.
>
> None of which really prove your point at all.
Yada, yada, yada.
> > The chief difference between THE BOOK OF LOST TALES ane THE
> > SILMARILLION is that the BOOK OF LOST TALES was a mythology for
> > England, whereas THE SILMARILLION is part of the mythology of
> > Middle-earth.
>
> And now we find out that you have even more mythologies, as you apparently
> define The Lost Road as a different mythology again.
Really? I see you pay as little attention to what I write as to what
Tolkien has written.
I see now why you've been able to put up with Conrad for the past ten
years.
Michael Martinez
> On 6 Jun 2004 09:11:29 -0700, Mic...@xenite.org (Michael Martinez)
> wrote:
>
> >AC <mightym...@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:<slrncc3o43.2g8....@alder.alberni.net>...
> >> Your citations hardly prove your point, Michael, which is why there is a
> >> debate.
> >
> >I can't force people to change their minds. I can only point out
> >where they are wrong by citing Tolkien.
>
> ....relevant or not.
Since when has relevancy mattered to you and your friends?
I noticed Tar-Elenion didn't say you ever posted anything relevant.
AC
> AC <mightym...@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:<slrncc7arv.1ts....@alder.alberni.net>...
>> On 6 Jun 2004 15:07:28 -0700,
>> Michael Martinez <Mic...@xenite.org> wrote:
>> > With respect to a different topic, your wish is granted. By the time
>> > you see this, you should have seen yet another extensive list of
>> > citations from me which you may now ignore and pretend was never
>> > posted.
>>
>> And not a one says Tolkien abandoned the idea of a mythology for ENgland.
>
> Not coincidentally, you won't find any passages which say he retained
> it, either. So, given that they all say he moved on, abandoned the
> texts, everything "falls away", and so forth, you're just looking
> damned silly for digging your feet in on a groundless point.
No, Michael, I think my position is quite reasonable. I hope you can accept
that I'm not going to agree with you.
>
> It IS that easy to back up what I say because I take the time to check
> my facts before I say things.
It's not like a picked up Tolkien's writings yesterday, Michael. I find
your attitude presumptious, insulting and arrogant.
>
> The really meaty debates don't happen any more because people get
> bogged down on the easy stuff.
How would you know what occurs here? I thought you weren't lurking.
>
> Why not choose to disagree over something where you cannot so easily
> be shown to be blowing smoke through your hat?
Why don't you provide an actual citation that states your case rather than
constructing a house of cards?
>
> There are plenty of ambiguities in Tolkien.
>
> Pick one.
You're the one trying to assert that this is an open and shut case. I
disagree, and I'm accused of being Conrad's puppet.
--
Aaron Clausen
mightym...@hotmail.com
Michael Martinez
>
> Now you're saying that BoLT was borrowed for Silm? For goodness sake
> Michael, your position gets more ludicrous with each retrelling.
If that bothers you, then I suggest you stop "retrelling" my position,
since you never get it right anyway (which I am convinced is
deliberate -- obviously, since you can't win on facts, you'll try to
win on bullshit -- how original).
AC
I think I'm about two posts from killfiling you. I think I'd rather deal
with an out and out troll like Chris Wright. Well, I've got a taste of your
particular brand of arrogant lunacy. Don't worry, I won't break into your
house.
--
Aaron Clausen
mightym...@hotmail.com
Michael Martinez
> How many mythologies did Tolkien write, Michael? I'm up to three now,
> because you've just labelled the Lost Road a separate mythology.
Keep counting. You'll get there eventually, especially if you start
to count Mr. Bliss, Roverandom, Farmer Giles of Ham (which is ANOTHER
mythology for England), Smith of Wootton Major....
> ...I guess if you are willing to invent your own private definitions,
> you can prove damn near anything.
I wouldn't know. I go strictly by what is in the books.
> By this definition, I can only presume that you feel the Hobbit was also a
> different mythology.
Well, since the Tolkiens felt THE HOBBIT was unrelated, yeah, I tend
to take them at their word for it.
Of course, there were three editions of THE HOBBIT and two or three
editions of THE LORD OF THE RINGS, so wait until you get to the
subtleties.
Michael Martinez
> This is all a perfectly reasonable defintion and nomenclature. My point
> is that Tolkien himself doesn't seem to have defined the term the way
> you do.
It all comes from Tolkien. My point is that you're just being assinine about this.
I'm still waiting for you to dip into the books. It would be a refreshing change.
the softrat
wrote:
>
>Since I just posted extensive citations which show you couldn't be
>farther from the truth, I will just refer everyone to those.
>
>The chief difference between THE BOOK OF LOST TALES ane THE
>SILMARILLION is that the BOOK OF LOST TALES was a mythology for
>England, whereas THE SILMARILLION is part of the mythology of
>Middle-earth.
I read all your citations and remain unconvinced. You are splitting
hairs where no hairs exist. It's all one legendarium, no matter which
label you choose to attach to it.
the softrat
"Honi soit qui mal y pense."
mailto:sof...@pobox.com
--
Barium: What you do with dead chemists.
Chris Kern
the following:
>Or, more reasonably, it is that the fundemental plan to make a mythology for
>England had a lot longer life than the mid-1920s.
Well, I get Michael's point and I think there's definitely something
to it. The last version of any actual narrative involving AElfwine,
even in sketch form, is from the Lost Road writings in the 1930's.
In the LotR and post-LotR writings there are a number of things that
specifically contradict the AElfwine/Pengolod transmission idea (e.g.
Bilbo's red books, and the idea that the Silmarillion would be written
by humans).
-Chris
Troels Forchhammer
Michael Martinez <Mic...@xenite.org> enriched us with:
>
<snip>
> From the Foreword to THE BOOK OF LOST TALES, PART ONE:
What was it they called it? "Cite-fest"?
Thanks!
;-)
Looking over this and other quotations cited in this thread, I think it
is quite clear that Tolkien abandoned his idea of creating a legendary
history for England. Inasfar as this is what he meant by 'mythology for
England', I quite agree that that concept was abandoned.
It does, however, IMO, create an unnatural break when considering the
development of the mythology irrespective of the location - there is a
clear line in the overall structure, the topics and themes of most of the
mythological stories from BoLT to the Silmarillion. I think, to put it in
a (perhaps overly) simple way, that "for England" was abandoned, but "the
mythology" survived.
That is not to say that material from BoLT has much to tell us about the
later conception of this, can I call it 'overall mythology'?, as Tolkien
evidently scrapped much of it, and made a new starting point (except for
the Ainulindalė). I don't think that we can infer anything about his
later conception of the Elder Days from the representation in BoLT (where
the idea/information is missing in later texts). The retention of story
arcs etc. does, however (and IMO) show that the mythological subject
matter (most of which was independent of England anyway) belong to
different stages of the same 'overall' mythology.
--
Troels Forchhammer
"What're quantum mechanics?"
"I don't know. People who repair quantums, I suppose."
- (Terry Pratchett, Eric)
AC
You will note that I never denied that Aelfwine/Eriol idea did fade away.
In fact, I think I posted something to that effect. I think that by the
final stages of the mythology it was likely not present at all, though as
CJRT at times is at pains to say, one cannot determine where there is an
actual abandonment or simple compression. The idea of Aelfwine/Eriol
transmitting the Elvish myths was retained after BoLT disappeared and the
idea of an alternate transmission route didn't appear until LotR was
written. There's a good deal of time between the abandonment of BoLT and
LotR.
But to start cutting the Silm into pieces and actively call them separate
mythologies is quite clearly wrong. BoLT is the first stage, the Sketch and
the Quenta the second, and so on and so forth. Michael's claim that The
Lost Road is yet another mythology leads me to believe that he has a
non-standard notion of the concept. The Lost Road is set in the overall
legendarium, just as the Hobbit is (at least to a point). They are not
independent works, but part of a larger picture. Admittedly it was an
ever-evolving picture, but Michael is splitting it all into odd chunks for
no reason that I can see.
--
Aaron Clausen
mightym...@hotmail.com
Christopher Kreuzer
I was horrified to discover once that it seems to have a problem
searching very long subject lines. A case in point was the Chapter of
the Week discussion on 'The Council of Elrond'. Searching in the subject
field using Advanced Google Groups, a search for "chapter" and "council"
works, but searching for "chapter" and "elrond" fails. It seems that
"elrond" is too far down the subject line to register on the Google
radar :-(
I now (as is standard netiquette anyway) put all the important bits up
front in the subject line, tend to keep it short, and put keyword-type
references in the main text of the message.
Christopher Kreuzer
> There are plenty of ambiguities in Tolkien.
>
> Pick one.
Balr... <aaaaagggggghhhhhhh>
<falls into the Outer Darkness>
Christopher Kreuzer
>>> I can't force people to change their minds. I can only point out
>>> where they are wrong by citing Tolkien.
>>
>> ....relevant or not.
>
> Since when has relevancy mattered to you and your friends?
So...
Michael confesses to posting irrelevant stuff to delude us poor dupes.
Christopher
--
---
Reply clue: Saruman welcomes you to Spamgard
"I think, Michael, that maybe you will not need to come back, unless you
come very soon. For about this time of the year, when the leaves are
gold before they fall, look for Conrad in the woods of the Shire. I
shall be with him."
Michael Martinez
>
> It does, however, IMO, create an unnatural break when considering the
> development of the mythology irrespective of the location - there is a
> clear line in the overall structure, the topics and themes of most of the
> mythological stories from BoLT to the Silmarillion. I think, to put it in
> a (perhaps overly) simple way, that "for England" was abandoned, but "the
> mythology" survived.
Tolkien never stopped mythologizing, if I may use the word that way
without sending little old ladies' wigs into the air.
However, he didn't confine his mythologist's creativity to a single
mythology. He engaged in a great deal of experimentation. And when he
first set out to write a sequel to THE HOBBIT, he had no idea of what
it should be about or what he would do with it. He didn't conceive of
it being related to his Silmarillion stories.
> That is not to say that material from BoLT has much to tell us about the
> later conception of this, can I call it 'overall mythology'?, as Tolkien
> evidently scrapped much of it, and made a new starting point (except for
> the Ainulindalė). I don't think that we can infer anything about his
> later conception of the Elder Days from the representation in BoLT (where
> the idea/information is missing in later texts). The retention of story
> arcs etc. does, however (and IMO) show that the mythological subject
> matter (most of which was independent of England anyway) belong to
> different stages of the same 'overall' mythology.
Christopher says some interesting things about the evolution of his
father's stories. They didn't just vanish from JRRT's mind. But they
emerged in new contexts and new forms. They moved into separate and
distinct traditions (that is often what Christopher calls them,
"traditions").
The focus of JRRT's work, however, shifted away from creating a pagan
Old English mythology to creating a mythology which was coherent and
aesthetically pleasing to the modern English audience (and that
includes people outside of Great Britain).
There were three stories Tolkien wanted to tell the most: the story of
Beren and Luthien, the story of Turin, and the story of the Fall of
Gondolin. Everything else was secondary, to whom. And all three of
these stories had some sort of impact on THE LORD OF THE RINGS. I
think they also had an impact on THE HOBBIT, since you have elements
from all three of them in that book.
Michael Martinez
> On 6 Jun 2004 21:57:05 -0700,
> Michael Martinez <Mic...@xenite.org> wrote:
> > Not coincidentally, you won't find any passages which say he retained
> > it, either. So, given that they all say he moved on, abandoned the
> > texts, everything "falls away", and so forth, you're just looking
> > damned silly for digging your feet in on a groundless point.
>
> No, Michael, I think my position is quite reasonable. I hope you can accept
> that I'm not going to agree with you.
Sure. Not a problem. You just keep turning this into a personal
attack.
> > It IS that easy to back up what I say because I take the time to check
> > my facts before I say things.
>
> It's not like a picked up Tolkien's writings yesterday, Michael. I find
> your attitude presumptious, insulting and arrogant.
Funny. I feel exactly the same way about YOUR attitude.
> > The really meaty debates don't happen any more because people get
> > bogged down on the easy stuff.
>
> How would you know what occurs here? I thought you weren't lurking.
Google makes it easy NOT to lurk. I've mentioned the Google
connection dozens of times over the past couple of years.
> > Why not choose to disagree over something where you cannot so easily
> > be shown to be blowing smoke through your hat?
>
> Why don't you provide an actual citation that states your case rather than
> constructing a house of cards?
I've provided the citations, as you and everyone else well knows. Now
you're just posturing. You have yet to provide ANY citations, much
less any which support your viewpoint.
> > There are plenty of ambiguities in Tolkien.
> >
> > Pick one.
>
> You're the one trying to assert that this is an open and shut case. I
> disagree, and I'm accused of being Conrad's puppet.
I never accused you or anyone of being Conrad's puppet. So, Solinas
HAS started a new lie.
Thank you SO much for propagating yet another falsehood about me.
You're becoming very consistent in this respect.
Michael Martinez
> On 6 Jun 2004 17:38:49 -0700, Mic...@xenite.org (Michael Martinez)
> wrote:
> >The chief difference between THE BOOK OF LOST TALES ane THE
> >SILMARILLION is that the BOOK OF LOST TALES was a mythology for
> >England, whereas THE SILMARILLION is part of the mythology of
> >Middle-earth.
>
> I read all your citations and remain unconvinced. You are splitting
> hairs where no hairs exist. It's all one legendarium, no matter which
> label you choose to attach to it.
Piffle. You're just a sore loser.
I'm still waiting for your relevant citations.
Christopher Kreuzer
> That is not to say that material from BoLT has much to tell us about
> the later conception of this, can I call it 'overall mythology'
Maybe legendarium?
As described in the book 'Tolkien's Legendarium':
http://www.elvish.org/legendarium/
"...the [HoMe] series revealed the evolution, over half a century, of a
vast store of connected myths, legends, and fairy tales."
Which is actually a quote from my review of this book:
http://www.tolkiensociety.org/tolkien/book_reviews_03.html
The most apt bit is the quote from 'Leaf by Niggle', given at the end of
the webpage at the first link I quoted.
Michael Martinez
Just killfile me and shut up.
About all you're good for in a discussion is tossing out lame insults
and rewriting everything you don't like.
Conrad Dunkerson
> This comes down to Conrad's bungling mismanagement of the history of
> the various texts and mythologies. Aelfwine was removed from the
> emerging mythology of Middle-earth.
Pssst... Michael, I haven't said one word about Aelfwine as yet. But
since you bring it up;
> However, Aelfwine was borrowed into another mythology Tolkien created
> in the 1930s, THE LOST ROAD.
Heh... so Aelfwine was in 'the BoLT mythology', 'the Lost Road
mythology' and the early 'Silmarillion mythology'... but these are all
completely separate and unrelated. Got it.
> That is, THE LOST ROAD is more of a mythology for England than is THE
> SILMARILLION because THE LOST ROAD at least involves Englishmen and
> Anglo-Saxons.
Gonna want to be careful with your semantics... that Lost Road is MORE
of a mythology for England than Silmarillion implies that The
Silmarillion is still, in some degree, a mythology for England.
Which, of course, we know it can't possibly be... just because there
was an englishman in it at one point doesn't make it connected AT ALL.
> Also, JRRT hired typists to prepare the LQ 1 and LQ 2 manuscripts.
> They do not, therefore, in their original forms, represent any
> advancement of the text at all. LQ 1 and LQ 2 were prepared by
> different typists, according to Christopher's commentary.
Translation: You don't like some of the things preserved in LQ1 & LQ2,
therefor they must be discarded. :)
Never mind that Tolkien made updates to both.
> Now, Aelfwine is mentioned in "The Later Quenta Silmarillion", but as
> I pointed out above, LQ 2 was not typed by Tolkien. He only made
> corrections and changes on it.
Which is true of many of the texts and often where Tolkien introduced
new concepts or removed the old. Still, while he didn't here edit out
Aelfwine I'd generally agree that BY ITSELF this is weak evidence that
the character should be considered 'still active' or 'reintroduced'.
> On page 370 of MORGOTH'S RING (in the opening section of "Myths
> Transformed"), Christopher cites a note (regarding ANNALS OF AMAN)
> which his father wrote in 1958:
> This descends from the oldest forms of the mythology -- when it
> was still intended to be no more than another primitive mythology,
> though more coherent and less 'savage'.
Note... "THE mythology". Singular. Including the oldest forms in
with his work of 1958.
> We are looking at 1958-9 for this last appearance of Aelfwine.
Very near the end of all development on the mythology.
> Whereas Aelfwine's appearances in LQ 1 and LQ 2 are directly attributable
> to the typists who were working from the 1930s manuscript QS, we know that
> these two "Aelfwine and Dirhaval" texts were original compositions.
> These texts undeniably prove that Tolkien had resurrected the name
> Aelfwine in the late 1950s, but they do not extend Aelfwine into the
> Middle-earth mythology of THE HOBBIT, THE LORD OF THE RINGS, and THE
> SILMARILLION. These texts are isolated, and only represent a brief
> period of Tolkien's attention in the 1950s.
So, if I understand you have now identified at least four different
'mythologies';
Book of Lost Tales mythology
The Lost Road mythology
Middle-earth mythology (The Hobbit, LotR, Silm)
and some sort of 'post Middle-earth' mythology
And Aelfwine/Eriol appeared in all of them at some stage or another...
but was also abandoned completely after BoLT. Are we all seeing the
'logic'?
> Pengolod re-emerges each time Tolkien starts a new mythology, but he
> almost never actually appears IN the mythology.
Perhaps Pengolod keeps showing up because Tolkien thought of them all
as ONE mythology which he was just writing and rewriting different
aspects of?
> Tolkien never incorporated either character into THE LORD OF THE
> RINGS. Furthermore, he never brought them into THE HOBBIT, THE
> ADVENTURES OF TOM BOMBADIL, or THE ROAD GOES EVER ON.
> They have no place in the Middle-earth mythology.
Ah... now here you seem to be separating 'the Silmarillion mythology'
from 'the Middle-earth mythology', though you had specifically
combined them before. It is true that Pengolod and Aelfwine never
appeared in any book published during Tolkien's lifetime... but the
same can be said of the Balrog Gothmog... Huan the hound... Mandos...
and in truth the MAJORITY of what we think of as 'Middle-earth'.
> Several pairs of Pengolods and Aelfwines have places in various external
> texts which were never directly associated with Middle-earth. They MENTION
> Middle-earth, but Middle-earth doesn't include them.
And yet for some reason Christopher Tolkien decided to include them in
something he called 'The History of MIDDLE EARTH'.
> There is thus, sadly, no place in Middle-earth for Pengolod, and there
> hasn't been any place for either him or Aelfwine since about 1939-41.
> There was absolutely no development of their history with respect to
> Middle-earth from that point forward, because they were dropped from
> the Middle-earth mythology.
> They were retained in what we can loosely refer to as "the Pengolod
> Tradition", but what purpose that tradition served is open to debate.
> We will never really know what J.R.R. Tolkien had in mind. What we do
> know, however, is that he never tied them into Middle-earth.
So... mythologies were abandoned, but still continued to be developed
at the same time as 'the Middle-earth mythology'? Do you see how
silly this is getting? You can't even cut things off from one
'mythology' to another by time period... only by their CONTENTS. Yet
neither JRR Tolkien nor Christopher Tolkien EVER called those texts
'different mythologies'. When you start separating the texts by
specific elements of their >content< regardless of when they were
written or what other elements of Middle-earth appeared in the same
texts you are CLEARLY attempting to bring these 'multiple mythologies'
into existence by re-defining Tolkien's work into your own scheme of
categorization.
> I can well see how my jumping into and out of the Pengolod Tradition
> would confuse some people, but there is absolutely no basis for anyone
> to say that Pengolod and Aelfwine were a part of the Middle-earth
> mythology. They were not.
No basis for ANYONE?
"You may find the 'compendious history' or Silmarillion tolerable -
though it is only really half-revised.
The long tales out of which it is drawn (by 'Pengolod') are either
incomplete or not up to date.
The Fall of Gondolin
The Lay of Beren and Luthien (verse)
The Children of Hurin
I am distressed (for myself) to be unable to find the 'Rings of
Power' which with the 'Fall of Numenor' is the link between the
Silmarillion and the Hobbit world."
Letters #115
Is not Tolkien here saying that Pengolod IS a part of the Middle-earth
mythology? Connected to 'the Silmarillion' and 'the Hobbit world'?
Is not 'the Hobbit world' part of 'the Middle-earth mythology'?
Conrad Dunkerson
> Really? Gosh. Christopher Tolkien must be a liar, too.
If Christopher Tolkien had ever said that his father abandoned the
idea of creating a 'mythology for England' I would not be calling you
a liar for falsely claiming that he had. There it is... a gauntlet
thrown down. All you have to do is provide a short quotation where
Christopher said this... but you can't, because he never has. And no
amount of you quoting Christopher saying OTHER things will ever change
that.
I had written;
>> Christopher wrote about his father 'ceasing to work on the Book of
>> Lost Tales' and various other particular manuscripts within the
>> mythology.
>> He never wrote about the idea of a mythology for England being
>> abandoned.
>> Never.
> Not that I expect you to accept the facts as published by Christopher
> Tolkien, but perhaps you mean something like the following passages?
For anyone actually bothering to read along, I regret that I must
leave Michael's full quotations, including a great deal of largely
irrelevant text, but if I did not he would go into his usual routine
about how I am snipping out the (non-existant) proof of his claims.
> From the Foreword to THE BOOK OF LOST TALES, PART ONE:
> THE BOOK OF LOST TALES, written between sixty and seventy years
> ago, was the first substantial work of imaginitive literature
> by J.R.R. Tolkien, and the first emergence in narrative of the
> Valar, of the Children of Iluvatar, Elves and Men, of the
> Dwarves and the Orcs, and of the lands in which their history
> is set, Valinor beyond the western ocean, and Middle-earth,
> the 'Great Lands' between the seas of east and west. Some
> fifty-seven years after my father ceased to work on the LOST
> TALES, THE SILMARILLION, profoundly transformed from its
> distant forerunner, was published; and six years have passed
> since then....
First, note that only the last sentence is remotely relevant to the
question at hand. The first mentions the age of BoLT but that is
repeated in the last as well.
Second, note that it says only that JRR Tolkien "ceased to work on the
LOST TALES". See above where I stated that "Christopher wrote about
his father 'ceasing to work on the Book of Lost Tales'"... but not
'the mythology for England'. Realize that this passage shows EXACTLY
that in very nearly the same words I used.
Third, Christopher here calls BoLT the "distant forerunner" of The
Silmarillion... drawing a connection between them rather than dividing
them into separate mythologies.
> And:
> THE BOOK OF LOST TALES was begun by my father in 1916-17 during
> the First [World] War, when he was 25 years old, and left
> incomplete several years later. It is the starting-point, at
> least in fully-formed narrative, of the history of Valinor and
> Middle-earth; but before the TALES were complete he turned to
> the composition of long poems, the LAY OF LEITHIAN in rhyming
> couplets (the story of Beren and Luthien), and THE CHILDREN
> OF HURIN in alliterative verse. The prose form of the 'mythology'
> began again from a new starting-point* in a quite brief synopsis,
> or 'Sketch' as he called it, written in 1926 and expressly
> intended to provide the necessary background of knowledge for
> the understanding of the alliterative poem. The further written
> development of the prose form proceeded from that 'Sketch' in
> a direct line to the version of 'The Silmarillion' which was
> nearing completion towards the end of 1937, when my father broke
> off to send it as it stood to Allen and Unwin in November of
> that year; but there were also important side-branches and
> subordinate texts composed in the 1930s, as the ANNALS OF VALINOR
> and the ANNALS OF BELERIAND (fragments of which are extant also
> in Old English translations made by Aelfwine (Eriol)), the
> cosmological account called AMBARKANTA, the Shape of the World,
> by Rumil, and the LHAMMAS or 'Account of Tongues', by Pengolod
> of Gondolin. Thereafter the history of the First Age was laid
> aside for many years, until THE LORD OF THE RINGS was completed,
> but in the years preceding its actual publication my father
> returned to 'The Silmarillion' and associated works with great
> vigour.
> The footnote (*) reads:
> Only in the case of THE MUSIC OF THE AINUR was there a direct
> development, manuscript to manuscript, from THE BOOK OF LOST
> TALES to the latter forms; for THE MUSIC OF THE AINUR became
> separated off and continued as an independent work.
Again, clearly the vast majority of this is irrelevant to the question
of 'no more mythology for England'.
The first sentence indicates when BoLT was begun and the fact that it
was not completed. No mention of 'mythology for England'.
The second sentence calls BoLT the starting point for the history of
Middle-earth... again Christopher includes BoLT into the Middle-earth
mythology in contradiction to your claims.
It then goes on to say that Tolkien stopped BoLT to do the LoB poems
before returning to narrative form with 'Sketch of the Mythology',
from which the later narrative texts (Quenta Silmarillion and
descendants) later evolved. I don't know where LoB falls in your
'multiple mythologies', but note that Christopher says that the "prose
form of the 'mythology' began again from a new starting-point"
(Sketch)... THE mythology. Began again. Christopher here says that
'Sketch of the mythology' was the same mythology as BoLT... and
indeed, that he says 'the prose form' suggests that he considered LoB
the same mythology as well.
Christopher mentions that the evolution of the narrative continued
until it was submitted to A&U in 1937 and notes that before then 'side
branches' also began to appear. Again, 'side branches' and
'subordinate texts' suggests these were part of the same
'mythology'... yet amongst these Christopher lists "ANNALS OF
BELERIAND (fragments of which are extant also in Old English
translations made by Aelfwine (Eriol))" and "the LHAMMAS or 'Account
of Tongues', by Pengolod of Gondolin". Christopher Tolkien calls
these texts by Aelfwine and Pengolod "side-branches" of the line of
development from 'Sketch of the mythology' to 'The Silmarillion' as it
was submitted to A&U in 1937. Does that not extend these central
figures of the 'mythology for England' far into the development of
'the Silmarillion mythology'? Again... as >Christopher Tolkien<
describes it.
The rest of the main text says that Silm was put on hold while LotR
was being written. The footnote says that 'Music of the Ainur' was
directly developed "manuscript to manuscript" from BoLT to Silm. So
the creation story of what you define as 'the mythology for England'
was preserved into what you define as 'the Silmarillion mythology'...
along with the two characters telling the tale and numerous elements
of the history.
> And:
> The LOST TALES never reached or even approached a form in which my
> father could have considered their publication before he
> abandoned them; they were experimental and provisional, and the
> tattered notebooks in which they were written were bundled away
> and left unlooked at as the years passed....
BoLT was not finished / ready for publication and the notes were
locked away. Again, nothing about the idea of a 'mythology for
England' being abandoned. Only BoLT... just as I said in the
quotation at the top of this message.
> From THE BOOK OF LOST TALES, PART ONE (pages 22-23):
> The story of Eriol the mariner was central to my father's
> original conception of the mythology. In those days, as
> he recognized long after in a letter to his friend Milton
> Waldman, the primary intention of his work was to satisfy
> his desire for a specifically and recognizably English
> literature of 'faerie':
>
> I was from early days grieved by the poverty of my own beloved
> country: it had no stories of its own (bound up with its tongue
> and soil), not of the quality that I sought, and found (as an
> ingredient) in legends of other lands. There was Greek, and
> Celtic, and Romance, Germanic, Scandinavian, and Finnish (which
> greatly affected me); but nothing English, save impoverished
> chap-book stuff.
>
> In his earliest writings the mythology was anchored in the ancient
> legendary history of England; and more than that, it was peculiarly
> associated with certain places in England.
>
> Eriol, himself close kin to famous figures in the legends of North-
> western Europe, came at last on a voyage westward over the ocean
> to Tol Eressea, the Lonely Isle, where the Elves dwelt; and from
> them he learned 'The Lost Tales of Elfinesse'. But his role was
> at first to be more important in the structure of the work than
> (what it afterwards became) simply that of a man of later days who
> came to 'the land of the Fairies' and there acquired lost or hidden
> knowledge, which he afterwards reported in his own tongue: at
> first, Eriol was to be an important element in the fairy-history
> itself -- the witness of the ruin of Elvish Tol Eressea. The
> element of ancient English history of 'historical legend' was at
> first not merely a framework, isolated from the great tales that
> afterward constituted 'The Silmarillion', but an integral part of
> their ending. The elucidation of all this (so far as elucidation
> is possible) must necessarily be postponed to the end of the
> TALES; but here something at least must be said of the history of
> Eriol up to the time of his coming to Tol Eressea, and of the
> original significance of the Lonely Isle.
>
> The 'Eriol-story' is in fact among the knottiest and most obscure
> matters in the whole history history of Middle-earth and Aman.
> My father abandoned the writing of the LOST TALES before he reached
> their end, and when he abandoned them he also abandoned his original
> ideas for their conclusion....
First paragraph: Eriol central to JRRT's original conception of THE
mythology. JRRT's primary goal back then was faerie mythology for
England. Note that CT does not say that this goal was abandoned. It
can be inferred that CT believes it did not remain the 'primary' goal,
but that he believed it was abandoned is an added assumption on your
part.
Second paragraph, JRRT confirms his long standing wish to create such
a mythology... a desire I think unlikely to be abandoned easily.
Third paragraph, CT says earliest writings grounded THE mythology in
English legendary history and geography. Again, I'd guess that you
are assuming this means CT feels the later writings were not connected
to the 'mythology for England'... but he did not say that. Indeed, he
calls it part of the same mythology.
Fourth paragraph, CT confirms that the "element of ancient English
history of 'historical legend'" continued into 'The Silmarillion'
tradition... he says that it was no longer "an integral part" of the
great tales, but remained "a framework" around the tales. He is, of
course, referring (as he eludes later) to the Eriol/Aelfwine
transition from central figure to tale teller... but CT here clearly
connects 'the mythology for England' with The Silmarillion.
Fifth paragraph, BoLT was incomplete and JRRTs original ideas for its
conclusion were abandoned. Note that if CT considered ALL of BoLT to
be abandoned/rejected there would be no need to specify that its
unwritten (but sketched) conclusions were not carried forward. Much
of BoLT was copied or rewritten into Silm.
> A history of Eriol follows, wherein he is related to Hengest and
> Horsa, wanders around Europe, and is involved in various Germanic
> traditions from Europe.
> It is not to be thought that these notes represent in all respects
> the story of Eriol as my father conceived it when he wrote THE
> COTTAGE OF LOST PLAY -- in any case, it is said expressly there
> that ERIOL means 'One who dreams alone', and that 'of his former
> names the story nowhere tells' (p. 14). But what is important is
> that (according to the view that I have formed of the earliest
> conceptions), apparently the best explanation of the very difficult
> evidence) this was still the leading idea when it was written:
> ERIOL CAME TO TOL ERESSEA FROM THE LANDS TO THE EAST OF THE NORTH
> SEA. He belongs to the period preceding the Anglo-Saxon invasions
> of Britain (as my father, for his purposes, wished to represent it).
>
> Later, his named changed to Aelfwine ('Elf-friend'), the
> mariner became an Englishman of the 'Anglo-Saxon period'
> of English history, who sailed west over sea to Tol Eressea
> -- he sailed from England out into the Atlantic Ocean; and
> from this later conception comes the very remarkable story
> of AELFWINE OF ENGLAND, which will be given at the end of the
> LOST TALES. But in the earliest conception he was not an
> Englishman of England. England in the sense of the land of
> the English did not yet exist; for the cardinal fact (made
> quite explicit in extant notes) of this conception is that
> THE ELVISH ISLE TO WHICH ERIOL CAME WAS ENGLAND -- that is
> to say, Tol Eressea would become England, the land of the
> English, at the end of the story. Koromas or Kortirion, the
> town in the centre of Tol Eressef to which Eriol comes in
> THE COTTAGE OF LOST PLAY, would become in after days Warwick
> (and the elements KOR- and WAR- were etymologically connected);
> Alalminore, the Land of Elms, would be Warwickshire; and
> Tavrobel, where Eriol sojourned for a while in Tol Eressea,
> would afterwards be the Staffordshire village of Great
> Haywood.
>
> None of this is explicit in the written TALES, and is only found in
> notes independent of them; but it seems certain that it was still
> present when THE COTTAGE OF LOST PLAY was written (and indeed, as
> I shall try to show later, underlies all the TALES)....
Lots of stuff basically amounting to Eriol/Aelfwine being re-written
from travelling TO what would become England to travelling FROM
England. How is ANY of this relevant to the English connection having
been abandoned? Changed... yes. Abandoned... no.
> And then there is the passage in THE BOOK OF LOST TALES, PART TWO (pp.
> 300-301):
> Humphrey Carpenter, writing in his BIOGRAPHY of my father's life
> after he returned to Oxford in 1925, says (p. 169):
>
> He made numerous revisions and recastings of the principal
> stories in the cycle, deciding to abandon the original sea-
> voyager 'Eriol' to whom the stories were told, and instead
> renaming him 'Aelfwine' or 'elf-friend'.
>
> That ERIOL was (for a time) displaced by Aelfwine is certain.
> But while it may well be that at the time of the texts now
> to be considered the name ERIOL had actually ben rejected, in
> the first version of 'The Silmarillion' proper, written in
> 1926, ERIOL reappears, while in the earliest ANNALS OF VALINOR,
> written in the 1930s, it is said that they were translated in
> Tol Eressea 'by Eriol of Leithien, that is Aelfwine of the
> Angelcynn'. On the other hand, at this earlier period it seems
> entirely justifiable on the evidence to treat the two names
> as indicative of different narrative projections -- 'the ERIOL
> story' and 'the AELFWINE story'.
>
> 'Aelfwine', then, is associated with a new conception, SUBSEQUENT
> TO the writing of the LOST TALES. The mariner is Aelfwine, not
> Eriol, in the second 'Scheme' for the TALES, which I have called
> 'an unrealised project for the revision of the whole work' (see
> I. 234). The essential difference may be made clear now, before
> citing the difficult evidence: TOL ERESSEA IS NOW IN NO WAY
> IDENTIFIED WITH ENGLAND, and the story of the drawing back of the
> Lonely Island across the sea has been abandoned. England is indeed
> still at the heart of this later conception, and is named LUTHANY.
> The mariner, Aelfwine, is an Englishman sailing westward from the
> coast of Britain; and his role is diminished. For whereas in the
> writings studied thus far he comes to Tol Eressea BEFORE the
> denouement and disaster of the Faring Forth, and either he himself
> or his descendants witness the devastation of Tol Eressea by the
> invasion of Men and their evil allies (in one line of development
> he was even to be responsible for it, p. 294), in the later
> narrative outlines he does not arrive until all the grievous
> history is done. His part is only to learn and to record.
Humphrey Carpenter explains the Eriol/Aelfwine name change. Then CT
says that while Eriol was replaced for a time he then reappears in
"the first version of 'The Silmarillion' proper" and "the earliest
ANNALS OF VALINOR" (where Aelfwine is given as an alternate name). CT
then says that despite the two being equated there he feels that there
were by that time separate Eriol and Aelfwine stories. He then spells
these two traditions out in the final paragraph (to England as
participant / from England as recorder). However, BOTH maintain the
connection to Tolkien's English legend/myth. Again, this does NOTHING
to advance your claim that this connection had been abandoned.
Indeed, it disproves it.
> On page 327, Christopher summarizes thusly:
> This brings to an end my rendering and analysis of the early
> writings bearing on the story of the mariner who came to the
> Lonely Isle and learned there the true history of the Elves.
> I have shown, convincingly as I hope, the curious and complex
> way in which my father's vision of the significance of Tol
> Eressea changed. When he jotted down the synopsis (10), the
> idea of the mariner's voyage to the Island of the Elves was of
> course already present; but he journeyed out of the East and
> the Lonely Isle of his seeking was -- England (though not yet
> the land of the English and yet lying in the seas where England
> lies). When later the entire concept was shifted, England, as
> 'Luthany' or 'Luthien', remained pre-eminently the Elvish land;
> and Tol Eressea, with its meads and coppices, its rooks' nests
> in the elm-trees of Alalminore, seemed to the English mariner
> to be remade in the likeness of his own land, which the Elves
> had lost at the coming of Men: for it was indeed a re-embodiment
> of Elvish Luthany far over the sea.
>
> All this was to fall away afterwards from the developing
> mythology; but Aelfwine left many marks on its pages before
> he too finally disappeared.
Lots more stuff about the evolution of 'to England' vs 'from England'
which could have safely been summarized/left out. The last sentence /
paragraph is the only relevant bit. "All this was to fall away
afterwards from the developing mythology". Again CT refers to it as
THE mythology. He does say that the Eriol to England/Aelfwine from
England stuff all fell away, but notes that it left many marks on the
mythology. You apparently assume that the disappearance of this
framework mean that JRRT abandoned the idea of producing a 'mythology
for England'. However, that does not follow. What then are we to
assume when the framework REAPPEARS (as you know it did)? Or make of
letter #180? Tolkien stopped developing the story in that way, but
clearly the story which began as 'a mythology for England' continued
and Tolkien was later happy to consider LotR the success of this long
goal of his.
> The chapter "The Lay of the Children of Hurin" in THE LAYS OF
> BELERIAND opens with:
> There exists a substantial manuscript (28 pages long) entitled
> 'Sketch of the Mythology with especial reference to "The Children
> of Hurin"'; and this 'Sketch' is the next complete narrative, in
> the PROSE tradition, after the LOST TALES (though a few fragmentary
> writings are extant from the intervening time). On the envelope
> containing this manuscript my father wrote at some later time:
>
> Original 'Silmarillion'. Form orig[inally] composed c. 1926-30
> for R.W. Reynolds to explain background of 'alliterative version'
> of Turin & the Dragon: then in progress (unfinished) (begun
> c. 1918).
>
> He seems to have written first '1921' before correcting this to
> '1918'.
Returning back to the old BoLT was not completed and 'Sketch'
following it. Again, "in the PROSE tradition"... for it to be a
'tradition' there had to be multiple items. Those clearly being BoLT
and 'Sketch' - here again described as part of the same whole by CT.
The second paragraph touches on Sketch's origins as a summary of the
mythology to explain the background of LoB to A&U. Think about that.
Sketch was the direct ancestor of the published Silmarillion (as I
think we both agree), but it was also just a summary (with revisions)
of the mythology developed in BoLT.
> From the Preface to THE SHAPING OF MIDDLE-EARTH:
> In the ANNALS OF VALINOR and the ANNALS OF BELERIAND are seen the
> beginnings of the chronological structure which was to become a
> central preoccupation. The Annals would develop into a separate
> 'tradition', parallel to and overlapping but distinct from 'The
> Silmarillion' proper, and (after intervening versions) emerging
> in the years following the completion of THE LORD OF THE RINGS
> in two chief works of the Matter of Middle-earth, the ANNALS OF
> AMAN and the GREY ANNALS OF BELERIAND (see pp. 262, 294)....
Talks about the origins and development of the 'Annals' that evolved
in parallel with the narrative line from 'Sketch'. Good stuff, but
completely and utterly irrelevant to 'mythology for England'. It is
ridiculous that you throw in so much CLEARLY unrelated text.
> The first sentence from Chapter I of THE SHAPING OF MIDDLE-EARTH:
> Before giving the 'Sketch of the Mythology', the earliest form
> of the prose 'Silmarillion', there are some brief prose texts
> that can be conveniently collected here.
Silm evolved 'manuscript to manuscript' from Sketch (except for
Music). True, but again not relevant. This does not indicate that
the 'mythology for England' was abandoned... above it has already been
shown that Sketch was related to BoLT and the English mythology
carried over into the Sketch -> Silm line of development. Go over
that again... Tolkien retained the idea of the mythology for England
into the development of The Silmarillion. The framework within which
the mythology was to be transmitted changed over time (Eriol,
Aelfwine, Pengolod, mannish myth, Bilbo, Eriol re-introduced, et
cetera) but there is no indication that Tolkien ever severed the
connection.
> Chapter II, paragraph 3, begins with:
> The 'Sketch' represents a new starting-point in the history
> of 'The Silmarillion'; for which it is a quite brief synopsis,
> the further written development of the prose form proceeded
> from it in a direct line. It is clear from details that need
> not be repeated here that it was oritinally written in 1926
> (after the LAY OF THE CHILDREN OF HURIN had been abandoned,
> III.3); but it was afterwards revised, in places very heavily,
> and this makes it a difficult text to present in a way that
> is both accurate and readily comprehensible....
Again, Sketch was a synopsis of the mythology as it then stood and
Silm evolved from it. No 'my father abandoned the idea of a mythology
for England'.
> From "Ainulindale" in THE LOST ROAD AND OTHER WRITINGS:
> In all the works given in this history so far, there has been only
> one account of the Creation of the World, and that is in the old
> take of THE MUSIC OF THE AINUR, written while my father was at
> Oxford on the staff of the [Oxford English] Dictionary in 1918-20
> (I.45). The 'Sketch of the Mythology' (S) makes no reference to
> it (IV. 11); Q and AV 1 only mention in their opening sentences
> 'the making of the World', the making of 'all things' by Iluvatar
> (IV. 78, 263); and AV 2 adds nothing further. But now, among the
> later writings of the 1930s (see pp. 107-8), he turned again to
> the tale told by Rumil to Eriol in the garden of Mar Vanwa Tyalieva
> in Kortirion, and wrote a new version; and it is remarkable that
> in this case he went back to the actual text of the original
> MUSIC OF THE AINUR. The new version was composed with the 'Lost
> Tale' in front of him, and indeed he followed it fairly closely,
> though rephrasing it at every point -- a great contrast to the
> apparent jump between the rest of the 'Valinorean' narrative in
> the LOST TALES and the 'Sketch', where it seems possible that he
> wrote out the condensed synopsis without re-reading them (cf. IV.
> 41-2).
'Music' was directly copied/edited from BoLT while "it seems possible
that he wrote out the condensed synopsis [Sketch] without re-reading
them [BoLT]". Again, CT describes Sketch as a condensed synopsis of
BoLT. It was created to explain the background of LoB to A&U. No
indication whatsoever that BoLT and the 'mythology for England' were
abandoned. Indeed, when Sketch was expanded into a new narrative the
framework and details of that mythology clearly still existed.
> The 'cosmogonical myth', as it called it long after (I. 45), was
> thus already, as it would remain, a separate work, independent
> of 'The Silmarillion' proper; and I believe that its separation
> can be attributed to the fact that there was no mention of the
> Creation in S, where the QUENTA tradition began, and no account
> of it in Q. But QS has a new opening, a brief passage concerning
> the Great Music and the Creation of the World, and this would
> show that the AINULINDALE was already in existence, even were
> this not demonstrable on other grounds (see note 20).
Sketch and its early descendants did not include the 'cosmogonical
myth' (Music) until JRRT went back to BoLT and copied it into the new
narrative form evolving from Sketch. Note that this again shows that
he did not intend Sketch to be a break from BoLT. It was a summary of
BoLT which then expanded into a new (organized) version of the
narrative... much as would later happen with the 'Annals' that then
continued to develop in parallel. BoLT = Sketch = Annals = Silm...
all one continually evolving mythology and so called by BOTH JRRT and
CT.
Conrad Dunkerson
> Tolkien's "mythology for England" was ABOUT England. It was about how
> England came to be English and it was about how England came to lose
> its fairy-folk.
Yes! Finally something we agree on. That is PRECISELY what the
"mythology for England" was all about.
Now. Take a look at The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. What do you
see?
Explanations about how hobbits became smaller and hide away from us.
A story about how "...an end was come for the Eldar of story and of
song." (RoP) Why... it's almost like it were an explanation about
what happened to the fairy-folk of English legend.
You say also 'how England came to be English'. Well, where in
Middle-earth could we find something which might seem like it could
evolve into England? Could it be... the Shire? Do hobbits have any
passing resemblance to those Englishmen you insist don't appear in The
Hobbit / LotR?
You know it just so happens that Tolkien intended Hobbiton to be at
the latitude of Oxford (Letters #294) and Bombadil was "the spirit of
the (vanishing) Oxford and Berkshire countryside" (Letters #19).
How odd that LotR precisely meets the goals you lay out for a
'mythology for England'. How interesting that Tolkien said he was
pleased that it had fulfilles that dream in letter #180.
Christopher Kreuzer
Thanks for that, Conrad. I was almost beginning to believe Michael there
for a moment! I've now swung firmly back to your side. It is a very
different sort of 'mythology' to the Aelfwine/Eriol one though isn't it?
Much more subtle and harder to pin down. More a literary or metaphorical
mythology than a historical or geographical one.
Christopher Kreuzer
> Christopher says some interesting things about the evolution of his
> father's stories. They didn't just vanish from JRRT's mind. But they
> emerged in new contexts and new forms. They moved into separate and
> distinct traditions (that is often what Christopher calls them,
> "traditions").
> The focus of JRRT's work, however, shifted away from creating a pagan
> Old English mythology to creating a mythology which was coherent and
> aesthetically pleasing to the modern English audience (and that
> includes people outside of Great Britain).
Oh b*ugger! Having just agreed with Conrad's well-written post, I now
find myself agreeing with your post as well. Maybe (perish the thought)
you are both right?
> There were three stories Tolkien wanted to tell the most: the story of
> Beren and Luthien, the story of Turin, and the story of the Fall of
> Gondolin. Everything else was secondary, to whom. And all three of
> these stories had some sort of impact on THE LORD OF THE RINGS. I
> think they also had an impact on THE HOBBIT, since you have elements
> from all three of them in that book.
That is something that was well worth reading. Thanks, Michael.
the softrat
wrote:
>the softrat <sof...@pobox.com> wrote in message news:<fo18c094oc6cctfdk...@4ax.com>...
>> On 6 Jun 2004 17:38:49 -0700, Mic...@xenite.org (Michael Martinez)
>> wrote:
>> >The chief difference between THE BOOK OF LOST TALES ane THE
>> >SILMARILLION is that the BOOK OF LOST TALES was a mythology for
>> >England, whereas THE SILMARILLION is part of the mythology of
>> >Middle-earth.
>>
>> I read all your citations and remain unconvinced. You are splitting
>> hairs where no hairs exist. It's all one legendarium, no matter which
>> label you choose to attach to it.
>
>Piffle. You're just a sore loser.
>
>I'm still waiting for your relevant citations.
Please hold your breathe.
the softrat
"Honi soit qui mal y pense."
mailto:sof...@pobox.com
--
"Let them fight that battle in peace." -- Allan Lamport
(deceased), former mayor of Toronto.
Flame of the West
>>This is all a perfectly reasonable defintion and nomenclature. My point
>>is that Tolkien himself doesn't seem to have defined the term the way
>>you do.
>
>
> Well, just feel free to post a clear citation where Tolkien says, "My
> definition of 'the mythology for England' is...."
>
> I'll just wait right here until you do.
The closest thing we have is the first paragraph from Letter 180.
If Tolkien meant what he said, he regarded LotR as part of his
mythology for England. If there were some other text which
contradicted it, we could speculate about which one didn't really
mean what it said. But in this case, it's the clearest declaration
one way or the other, so it seems reasonable to take it at face
value.
-- FotW
Reality is for those who cannot cope with Middle-earth.
Flame of the West
> I'm still waiting for you to dip into the books. It would be a refreshing change.
Is this not a flame?
Flame of the West
> I now (as is standard netiquette anyway) put all the important bits up
> front in the subject line, tend to keep it short, and put keyword-type
> references in the main text of the message.
You sound like you *want* people to be able to look up what you said!
I'd prefer that people forget most of what I'd said! ;-)
[No comments from the peanut gallery please!]