Widows' sons and fairy stories in Middle-earth
Steuard Jensen
mind for some reason and I can't remember discussing it here before,
though that could just be my memory (and Google's) being faulty.
When Bilbo first encounters Gandalf in /The Hobbit/, he mentions
several memories of the wizard. Among other things, he says,
"Not the fellow who used to tell such wonderful tales at parties,
about dragons and goblins and giants and the rescue of princesss
and the unexpected luck of widows' sons?"
My question is, were Gandalf's stories /true/ stories that happened in
Middle-earth, or mere fairy tales?
I could make a lengthy list of stories about dragons and goblins in
Middle-earth myself, so those aren't a surprise, and I suppose there
must be stories about giants, too. (I still wish I knew what they
were, by the by.) I don't have any great guesses about stories of
rescued princesses, though I'm sure I could think of one or two
plausible examples given time (any suggestions?).
But are there known examples in Middle-earth's history of "the
unexpected luck of widows' sons"? I can certainly come up with
stories /about/ widows' sons (Tuor, for one), but I'm having trouble
thinking of any stories or story elements that seem to tie that
element directly to luck (to a degree that Bilbo would remember that
as the theme of the story). Gandalf apparently knew such stories--do
we?
As a related question, what do we know about "fairy tales" in
Middle-earth more generally? Can "fairy stories" as defined by
Tolkien really exist in a world that already has "the trade-mark /Of
Faerie/ written plain upon [it]"? Are there examples of such stories
described in the books? (Most of the stories I can think of offhand
are based on true history within Middle-earth, from ancient lays to
Rohirric rumors.) What form does the fantastic take in a fantasy
world?
Steuard Jensen
Steuard Jensen
In message <slrnhmf7j3...@steuard.local>, Steuard Jensen
<ste...@slimy.com> wrote:
> Can "fairy stories" as defined by Tolkien really exist in a world
> that already has "the trade-mark /Of Faerie/ written plain upon
> [it]"?
In thinking about this a bit further, a few things occur to me. The
core idea is that I have the impression that the average human (or
hobbit) at the end of the Third Age had relatively little direct
experience with "Faerie" in Middle-earth. The way the Rohirrim viewed
stories of Ents and Elves is one reflection of that; the attitude of
common hobbits to tales of walking trees and departing Elves is
another. Even Sam, with his deep longing for any hint of Faerie (as
evidenced by his attitude to cousin Hal's walking tree or to the
chance to visit the Elves), is still wishing as late as Lorien for a
clear taste of "Elf-magic".
The great difference, of course, is that tales "Of Faerie" in our
world are pretty certainly all fiction, while many tales "Of Faerie"
in Middle-earth are based on true history. As long as there were
dragons or Ents to be found in the world, or for that matter Elves, it
would be possible to verify the stories and know that there was a
touch of magic out there. Even second or third hand (or more), that's
bound to make a difference in peoples' attitudes: unlike our
real-world fairy stories, in Middle-earth there would be corroborating
evidence for the old stories if you looked.
But on the other hand, how long would that last? If there are five
degrees of separation between you and your great-great-grandfather or
cousin's friend's roommate's brother who once saw a dragon in the sky,
how different is that true history from the myths and legends of the
primary world that we know to be false? Even if there /is/
potentially evidence of old dragon scales to be found on the Withered
Heath, does that make a real difference to people who have never seen
that evidence or even imagined that they might meet someone who had?
In the beginning, Sam's belief in Faerie seemed to be based more on
hope or faith than on evidence, and he was clearly teased for it.
I can't shake the thought that Tolkien deliberately placed aspects of
this issue in the story (and its setting): it seems close to his
professional and personal interests. I'm not sure how exactly that
affects the status of fairy stories in Middle-earth, but I think it's
relevant.
Steuard Jensen
Steve Morrison
I can't think offhand of any examples of fairy stories in
Middle-earth, although some of the poems in /The Adventures of Tom
Bombadil/ have a fairy-tale flavor, e.g. "Perry-the-Winkle" or
"The Newlips". It would seem reasonable, though, given Tolkien's
theory of subcreation, that characters in a fairy story would do
their own sub-subcreating; after all, the line "We make still by
the law in which we're made" would apply to them, too! OTOH,
Tolkien did say in OFS that elves had their own "human-stories",
which were about the escape from _immortality_.
It's actually surprisingly difficult to think of cases of rescued
princesses, isn't it? Tolkien subverted this trope more often than
he followed it. T�rin failed to rescue the Princess when Nargothrond
fell, and Beren spent more time being rescued by his Princess than
rescuing her!
You might be interested to know that in the earliest extant draft
of that paragraph, it was Gandalf himself who had rescued princesses;
or rather, it was Bladorthin, which was what the wizard character
was called at that point. Bilbo says:
'Bladorthin? Bladorthin? Let me see -- not the wandering wizard
who gave Old Took a pair of magic diamond studs that fastened
themselves and never came undone -- not the fellow who turned
the dragon of the Far Mountains inside out, and rescued so many
princesses, earls, dukes, widow's sons and fair maidens from
unlamented giants -- not the man who made such particularrly
excellent fireworks (I remember them! Old Took used to let us
have them on Midsummer's Eve. Splendid! They used to go up like
great lilies and snapdragons and laburnums of fire and hang in
the twilight all evening) dear me! -- not the Bladorthin who
was responsible for so many quiet lads and lasses going off
into the blue for mad adventures, everything from climbing
trees to stowing away aboard the ships that sail to the Other
Side. Dear me, life used to be quite inter -- I mean you used
to upset things badly in these parts a while ago. I beg your
pardon -- but I had no idea you were still in business.'
[typos in the original]
Öjevind Lång
news:slrnhmf7j3...@steuard.local...
> I really don't have time to be here, but the question floated into my
> mind for some reason and I can't remember discussing it here before,
> though that could just be my memory (and Google's) being faulty.
>
> When Bilbo first encounters Gandalf in /The Hobbit/, he mentions
> several memories of the wizard. Among other things, he says,
>
> "Not the fellow who used to tell such wonderful tales at parties,
> about dragons and goblins and giants and the rescue of princesss
> and the unexpected luck of widows' sons?"
>
> My question is, were Gandalf's stories /true/ stories that happened in
> Middle-earth, or mere fairy tales?
In the context of TH, it seems to be fairy-stories he told the Hobbits-
[snip]
> As a related question, what do we know about "fairy tales" in
> Middle-earth more generally? Can "fairy stories" as defined by
> Tolkien really exist in a world that already has "the trade-mark /Of
> Faerie/ written plain upon [it]"? Are there examples of such stories
> described in the books? (Most of the stories I can think of offhand
> are based on true history within Middle-earth, from ancient lays to
> Rohirric rumors.) What form does the fantastic take in a fantasy
> world?
Gandalf tells Th�oden that much truth can be found in the "old wives' tales"
of his people - such as the existence of the Ents. That does not, however,
imply that all the old wives' tales are true.
�jevind
JJ
> I really don't have time to be here, but the question floated into my
> mind for some reason and I can't remember discussing it here before,
> though that could just be my memory (and Google's) being faulty.
>
> When Bilbo first encounters Gandalf in /The Hobbit/, he mentions
> several memories of the wizard. Among other things, he says,
>
> "Not the fellow who used to tell such wonderful tales at parties,
> about dragons and goblins and giants and the rescue of princesss
> and the unexpected luck of widows' sons?"
>
> My question is, were Gandalf's stories /true/ stories that happened in
> Middle-earth, or mere fairy tales?
>
I always thought that these (given that the comment is in 'The
Hobbit') were story-external. Wasn't Jack the Giant Killer - and Jack
and the Beanstalk - a widow's son? And the princesses were Snow
White, Sleeping Beauty and so on.
Stan Brown
<ste...@slimy.com>:
> When Bilbo first encounters Gandalf in /The Hobbit/, he mentions
> several memories of the wizard. Among other things, he says,
>
> "Not the fellow who used to tell such wonderful tales at parties,
> about dragons and goblins and giants and the rescue of princesss
> and the unexpected luck of widows' sons?"
>
> My question is, were Gandalf's stories /true/ stories that happened in
> Middle-earth, or mere fairy tales?
I always assumed hey were not-true tales, not true even within
Middle-earth.
> But are there known examples in Middle-earth's history of "the
> unexpected luck of widows' sons"? I can certainly come up with
> stories /about/ widows' sons (Tuor, for one), but I'm having trouble
> thinking of any stories or story elements that seem to tie that
> element directly to luck (to a degree that Bilbo would remember that
> as the theme of the story). Gandalf apparently knew such stories--do
> we?
Beren's father was dead, wasn't he? thus making him a widow's son.
And he had plenty of unexpected *good* luck (as it seemed): having
L�thien fall in love with him, being befriended by one of the
greatest of he Elven-Kings, being rescued beyond hope from Sauron's
castle, being brought back to life by the prayers of his beloved.
> As a related question, what do we know about "fairy tales" in
> Middle-earth more generally? Can "fairy stories" as defined by
> Tolkien really exist in a world that already has "the trade-mark /Of
> Faerie/ written plain upon [it]"? Are there examples of such stories
> described in the books? (Most of the stories I can think of offhand
> are based on true history within Middle-earth, from ancient lays to
> Rohirric rumors.) What form does the fantastic take in a fantasy
> world?
They probably tell stories about a world where people sit in
carriages and are drawn along faster than the fastest horse can run,
or where people communicate instantly across vast distances without
even the need for a Palant�r. :-)
--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com
Tolkien FAQs: http://Tolkien.slimy.com (Steuard Jensen's site)
Tolkien letters FAQ:
http://mysite.verizon.net/aznirb/mtr/lettersfaq.html
FAQ of the Rings: http://oakroadsystems.com/genl/ringfaq.htm
Encyclopedia of Arda: http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/default.htm
more FAQs: http://oakroadsystems.com/genl/faqget.htm
Stan Brown
<rim...@toast.net>:
> It's actually surprisingly difficult to think of cases of rescued
> princesses, isn't it? Tolkien subverted this trope more often than
> he followed it. T�rin failed to rescue the Princess when Nargothrond
> fell, and Beren spent more time being rescued by his Princess than
> rescuing her!
Idril Celebrindal was rescued by Tuor, but I might be stretching the
word "rescue" too far: what he really did was help her escape with
him. And even so, she's the only one I can think of.
It's hardly surprising: there aren't many female characters in the
legendarium, and most of those are too powerful to need rescuing.
pmh
> I really don't have time to be here, but the question floated into my
> mind for some reason and I can't remember discussing it here before,
> though that could just be my memory (and Google's) being faulty.
>
> When Bilbo first encounters Gandalf in /The Hobbit/, he mentions
> several memories of the wizard. Among other things, he says,
>
> "Not the fellow who used to tell such wonderful tales at parties,
> about dragons and goblins and giants and the rescue of princesss
> and the unexpected luck of widows' sons?"
>
> My question is, were Gandalf's stories /true/ stories that happened in
> Middle-earth, or mere fairy tales?
>
been speaking of Gandalf at that moment in a very general manner, as
though he were referring, say, to the bards of Ireland & Wales. Along
with being oral historians, the bards were repositories of much
cultural lore and a certain "scope" of material would be expected of
them. Each would have been highly trained in oral traditions, but
perhaps it's a stretch to think every one of them had his culture's
entire history & (what we would consider) literature tucked away.
I haven't the references just at hand, but you might investigate the
transition of The Mabinogian's Tuatha de Danae into the faeries &
pixies of Edwardian times - just as a possible parallel, and one
Tolkien might well have had in mind.
PMH
Troels Forchhammer
Steve Morrison <rim...@toast.net> spoke these staves:
> Steuard Jensen wrote:
>>
>> I really don't have time to be here, but the question floated
>> into my mind for some reason and I can't remember discussing it
>> here before, though that could just be my memory (and Google's)
>> being faulty.
>>
>> When Bilbo first encounters Gandalf in /The Hobbit/, he mentions
>> several memories of the wizard. Among other things, he says,
>>
>> "Not the fellow who used to tell such wonderful tales at
>> parties, about dragons and goblins and giants and the rescue
>> of princesss and the unexpected luck of widows' sons?"
>>
>> My question is, were Gandalf's stories /true/ stories that
>> happened in Middle-earth, or mere fairy tales?
You didn't just say 'mere fairy tales' did you? ;-)
I don't think this is a matter of just 'true' vs. 'false' in the
'primary reality of Middle-earth' (I hope this way of putting it
makes sense): the question is, IMO, far more complex than that, even
without adding Tolkien's views about the deeper truth revealed in
fairy-stories.
>> I could make a lengthy list of stories about dragons and goblins
>> in Middle-earth myself, so those aren't a surprise, and I suppose
>> there must be stories about giants, too. (I still wish I knew
>> what they were, by the by.)
I know it's a bit provocative, but I'm not really sure that there
truly are any giants in Middle-earth: they seem more a relic of the
compositional history of _The Hobbit_ -- something that I consider
likely to have been weeded out if Tolkien had ever reached that far
with the 1960s rewriting (which, despite any other weaknesses,
subjective or otherwise, had the advantage of bringing _The Hobbit_
much more in line with the other Middle-earth writings; weeding out
much that really does not belong in the legendarium).
>> I don't have any great guesses about stories of rescued
>> princesses, though I'm sure I could think of one or two plausible
>> examples given time (any suggestions?).
Stan has already mentioned Idril, and I suppose we could add �owyn
also if we allow ourselves to stretch the idea of 'rescuing'
(Imrahil, Aragorn and Faramir would have to share the honour,
though). I agree with the others who have rejected L�thien and
Finduilas and we might add Nienor N�niel to the unsaved princesses
;-)
>> But are there known examples in Middle-earth's history of "the
>> unexpected luck of widows' sons"? I can certainly come up with
>> stories /about/ widows' sons (Tuor, for one), but I'm having
>> trouble thinking of any stories or story elements that seem to
>> tie that element directly to luck (to a degree that Bilbo would
>> remember that as the theme of the story). Gandalf apparently
>> knew such stories--do we?
>
> I can't think offhand of any examples of fairy stories in
> Middle-earth, although some of the poems in /The Adventures of Tom
> Bombadil/ have a fairy-tale flavor, e.g. "Perry-the-Winkle" or
> "The Newlips". It would seem reasonable, though, given Tolkien's
> theory of subcreation, that characters in a fairy story would do
> their own sub-subcreating; after all, the line "We make still by
> the law in which we're made" would apply to them, too! OTOH,
> Tolkien did say in OFS that elves had their own "human-stories",
> which were about the escape from _immortality_.
Yes, that was also on my mind when I read Steuard's question ;)
> It's actually surprisingly difficult to think of cases of rescued
> princesses, isn't it? Tolkien subverted this trope more often than
> he followed it. T�rin failed to rescue the Princess when
> Nargothrond fell, and Beren spent more time being rescued by his
> Princess than rescuing her!
Well, there should be ample material for rescuing princesses in the
remnants of Arnor throughout the Third Age -- surely there must have
been some princesses that got themselves into trouble only to get
rescued by some manly widow's son or something -- but such tales
were never told.
> You might be interested to know that in the earliest extant draft
> of that paragraph, it was Gandalf himself who had rescued
> princesses; or rather, it was Bladorthin, which was what the
> wizard character was called at that point. Bilbo says:
>
> 'Bladorthin? Bladorthin? Let me see -- not the wandering wizard
> who gave Old Took a pair of magic diamond studs that fastened
> themselves and never came undone -- not the fellow who turned
> the dragon of the Far Mountains inside out, and rescued so many
> princesses, earls, dukes, widow's sons and fair maidens from
> unlamented giants -- not the man who made such particularrly
> excellent fireworks (I remember them! Old Took used to let us
> have them on Midsummer's Eve. Splendid! They used to go up like
> great lilies and snapdragons and laburnums of fire and hang in
> the twilight all evening) dear me! -- not the Bladorthin who
> was responsible for so many quiet lads and lasses going off
> into the blue for mad adventures, everything from climbing
> trees to stowing away aboard the ships that sail to the Other
> Side. Dear me, life used to be quite inter -- I mean you used
> to upset things badly in these parts a while ago. I beg your
> pardon -- but I had no idea you were still in business.'
>
> [typos in the original]
Yes, it is quite interesting the way this evolved. And to me it also
invokes the question of what we actually mean by asking the
question.
It may also be interesting to see what this passage became in the
attempted 1960 retelling of _The Hobbit_:
'Gandalf, Gandalf! Not the old wizard who used to visit
the Tooks? Good gracious me! He used to make marvellous
fireworks for the Old Took's parties on Midsummer's Eve. I
remember them! Splendid! They used to go up like great
roses and lilies and snapdragons of fire, and hang in the
sky like flowers of golden-rain in the twilight!' Mr.
Baggins was not quite so prosy as he liked to believe, and
any way he delighted in flowers. 'Bless me!' he went on.
'Not the Gandalf who used to tell such wonderful tales
about dragons, and goblins, and giants, and mountains in
far countries -- and the Sea. They used to send many quiet
lads, and lasses, off on adventures, it is said: any mad
thing from climbing tall trees to visiting Elves, and even
trying to sail in ships'. Bilbo's voice fell almost to a
whisper. 'To sail, sail away to the Other Shore. Dear me!'
he sighed. 'Life used to be quite interest- I mean, you
used to upset things badly in the Shire, once upon a time.
I beg your pardon, but I had no idea you were still in
business'.
[_History of the Hobbit 2: Return to Bag End_, The Fifth Phase ch. 1
'A Well-Planned Party' p. 771]
The magical diamond studs and the stories about princesses are
notably absent. The presence of stories about giants may point to my
being wrong about them having no place in the more developed
legendarium, but I cannot see how the giants described in _The
Hobbit_ could be fit in (a few giants as another of the Melkorh�ni
might work out, but not, IMO, the decent giant Gandalf wanted to
block the Goblins' back door).
While Tolkien definitely set his Hobbit story in the world of his
Silmarillion legendarium (IIRC, about the time that is, in later
versions, the end of the First Age), but it seems to me that he did
not intend for any influence to work the other way -- he made a copy
of his sub-creation for use for the Hobbit story, but he saw this as
wholly independent from his work on the legendarium -- none of what
he did in _The Hobbit_ was supposed to be merged back into the
legendarium.
In this way the stories referred to (whether actually done or merely
told by the wizard) is an addition that belongs only to _The Hobbit_
-- and with the highly Victorian setting of the Shire, they are
probably roughly the same stories that we can find in Andrew Lang's
coloured fairy books.
One thing that we can be sure that these stories are _not_ is
stories about the real, physical, fa�rie of Arda: of the Blessed
Realm to the West (Tolkien even speaks about this in _The Hobbit_:
[Most of the Wood-elves] were descended from the ancient
tribes that never went to Faerie in the West. There the
Light-elves and the Deep-elves and the Sea-elves went and
lived for ages, and grew fairer and wiser and more learned,
and invented their magic and their cunning craft, in the
making of beautiful and marvellous things, before some came
back into the Wide World.
[_The Hobbit_ ch. 8 'Flies and Spiders' TAH p. 219]
If we take into account the greater legendarium as well as Tolkien's
views of Fairy-tales (as explained in 'On Fairy-Stories' and
exemplified in much of his fiction), it fits the role of Gandalf
very well to be telling fairy-stories of the kind that Tolkien talks
about in OFS -- offering a hope together with recovery and
consolation and a transient escape from the oppressive evil of
Sauron (though the Hobbits were quite good at forgetting that).
Gandalf's role was to arouse the hearts of the free peoples of
Middle-earth to resistance to Sauron, and for that purpose the
fairy-tale would suit him emminently.
In LotR, Sam mentions the tale of Beren and L�thien at the Stairs of
Cirith Ungol, but my impression is that he didn't learn about this
tale until he got to Rivendell, and I suppose that this is true also
of the other tales we know from the Elder Days: if Sam had not
wheedled the story of Beren and L�thien out of Bilbo, then surely
Bilbo didn't know it and, I am sure, neither did any other Hobbit in
the time before the War of the Ring. It is, in my opinion, unlikely,
then, that these stories would have dealt with anything prior to
that Last Alliance of Men and Elves that Gandalf had to explain
Frodo about, and so it would seem to me that all these stories would
have dealt with the Third Age -- whether complete fiction or with
some elements of historical truth (story-internal historicity, that
is), the stories would deal with a world that was like the world of
the Third Age (and so all we have to go by in terms of
story-internal history is the relatively scanty material in the
appendices to LotR).
This, finally, brings me to consider the further question of truth
-- story-internal truth. But here I shall turn to 'On Fairy-Stories'
in which Tolkien several times considers the, according to Lang,
'great question children ask', and I'll quote the final word Tolkien
has to say about this question in his essay:
The peculiar quality of the 'joy' in successful Fantasy can
thus be explained as a sudden glimpse of the underlying
reality or truth. It is not only a 'consolation' for the
sorrow of this world, but a satisfaction, and an answer to
that question, 'Is it true?' The answer to this question
that I gave at first was (quite rightly): 'If you have
built your little world well, yes: it is true in that
world.' That is enough for the artist (or the artist part
of the artist). But in the 'eucatastrophe' we see in a
brief vision that the answer may be greater -- it may be a
far-off gleam or echo of _evangelium_ in the real world.
['On Fairy-Stories' - Epilogue, _Tree and Leaf_ p. 71]
It doesn't, I think, matter whether these stories were wholly,
partly or not at all 'true' within the Secondary Reality of
Middle-earth: the point is that they were used, by the developed
character of Gandalf the Istar, to awaken the hearts of the peoples
of Middle-earth to resist Sauron, and in particular for the Hobbits
this approach to awakening them was surely extremely well-chosen.
--
Troels Forchhammer <troelsfo(a)googlewave.com>
Valid e-mail is <troelsfo(a)gmail.com>
Please put [AFT], [RABT] or 'Tolkien' in subject.
It is useless to meet revenge with revenge: it will heal
nothing.
- Frodo Baggins, /The Return of the King/ (J.R.R.
Tolkien)
pmh
> mind for some reason and I can't remember discussing it here before,
> though that could just be my memory (and Google's) being faulty.
>
> When Bilbo first encounters Gandalf in /The Hobbit/, he mentions
> several memories of the wizard. Among other things, he says,
>
> "Not the fellow who used to tell such wonderful tales at parties,
> about dragons and goblins and giants and the rescue of princesss
> and the unexpected luck of widows' sons?"
>
> Steuard Jensen
One thing hat has been discussed at various times is Tolkien's having
dropped in little bits of "back matter" which added depth and fullness
to his main story lines. It's my feeling many of these bits of "back
matter" were developed to varying degrees of "completeness," while
some seem never to have been revisited or fleshed out. The one cited
above may be one that Tolkien a) forgot to revisit, b) had no
appropriate material for further development or c) simply didn't want
to bother with even though the potential for additional material was
evident.
Just a thought.
PMH
Clams Canino
"pmh" <pmhi...@verizon.net> wrote in message news:87d6e739-f12e-4886-bbae-
One thing hat has been discussed at various times is Tolkien's having
dropped in little bits of "back matter" which added depth and fullness
to his main story lines. It's my feeling many of these bits of "back
matter" were developed to varying degrees of "completeness," while
some seem never to have been revisited or fleshed out. The one cited
above may be one that Tolkien a) forgot to revisit, b) had no
appropriate material for further development or c) simply didn't want
to bother with even though the potential for additional material was
evident.
______________________________________________
Yes.. but *most* of the "back matter" had some genesis in the earlier tales
of the First Age.
As Troels said... the hobbit is a strange bird because in its inception it
was not supposed to be "attached" to the legendarium. Of course we all know
how that worked out for him. :)
I think a re-write of The Hobbit would have seen references to "giants"
disappear.
-W
Stan Brown
<Tro...@ThisIsFake.invalid>:
> In LotR, Sam mentions the tale of Beren and L�thien at the Stairs of
> Cirith Ungol, but my impression is that he didn't learn about this
> tale until he got to Rivendell,
Strider told the tale on Weathertop, so Sam would have known it then
at the latest.
But why would you think he didn't already know it in the Shire? As a
young hobbit-lad who was mad for stories of Elves and the Elder days,
wouldn't he have picked it up from Bilbo, along with "Gil-galad was
an Elven-king", which he recites for the company?
Bill O'Meally
>
> Yes.. but *most* of the "back matter" had some genesis in the
> earlier
> tales of the First Age.
> As Troels said... the hobbit is a strange bird because in its
> inception it was not supposed to be "attached" to the legendarium.
> Of
> course we all know how that worked out for him. :)
>
> I think a re-write of The Hobbit would have seen references to
> "giants" disappear.
Though Tolkien suggests in "Letters" that he intended to have more
giants in LotR. That he did not end up using them certainly does not
negate what you suggest.
--
Bill
"Wise fool."
Gandalf _The Two Towers_
(The Wise will remove 'se' to reach me. The Foolish will not!)
Clams Canino
"Bill O'Meally" <omea...@wise.rr.com> wrote in message
> Though Tolkien suggests in "Letters" that he intended to have more giants
> in LotR. That he did not end up using them certainly does not negate what
> you suggest.
No.
Instead it leaves us to wonder what he was thinking - and when.
-W
Steve Morrison
Probably Treebeard, who was originally intended to be an evil giant.
Derek Broughton
Wasn't he? Anti-progress Luddite, who figured the world just owed him a
living...
--
derek
Troels Forchhammer
Stan Brown <the_sta...@fastmail.fm> spoke these staves:
> Tue, 02 Feb 2010 21:01:14 +0100 from Troels Forchhammer
> <Tro...@ThisIsFake.invalid>:
>>
>> In LotR, Sam mentions the tale of Beren and L�thien at the Stairs
>> of Cirith Ungol, but my impression is that he didn't learn about
>> this tale until he got to Rivendell,
>
> Strider told the tale on Weathertop, so Sam would have known it
> then at the latest.
Strider's retelling is quite brief except for the passage from the
Lay that he sings to the hobbits. I would rather say that Sam came to
know _about_ it at that time.
> But why would you think he didn't already know it in the Shire?
For two reasons.
One is that Strider clearly feels a need to explain what he was
singing about at Weathertop, 'Beren was a mortal man . . .' etc.
Because of the length of Strider's explanation, story internally,
this explanation only makes sense if his audience didn't know the
story. Strider goes on for a full 441 words of explaining the story
and the significance of Beren and L�thien, but if his audience had
shown signs of already knowing about this -- or even just signs of
re-emerging memories stirring -- the explanation would have been cut
short or taken a different direction. To some extent this could,
story externally, be explained by the need to fill in the reader, but
for one thing Tolkien doesn't seem overly concerned about this at
other points of ancient history (such as the reference to Hador,
H�rin, T�rin and Beren at the Council of Elrond), and for another
thing, the explaination would have been different -- the hobbits
would have interacted with Strider's explanation.
The other reason is the later statement that in the last days before
the Company set out from Rivendell, 'the hobbits sat together in the
evening in the Hall of Fire, and there among many tales they heard
told in full the lay of Beren and L�thien and the winning of the
Great Jewel' (II, 3 'The Ring Goes South'). Sam emphasizes this later
when they stand awaiting Doom after the Ring had been destroyed: 'Do
you think they'll say: Now comes the story of Nine-fingered Frodo and
the Ring of Doom? And then everyone will hush, like we did, when in
Rivendell they told us the tale of Beren One-hand and the Great
Jewel.' (VI, 4 'The Field of Cormallen' -- I had a hard time not
quoting the entire paragraph simply for its evocative beauty)
> As a young hobbit-lad who was mad for stories of Elves and the
> Elder days, wouldn't he have picked it up from Bilbo, along with
> "Gil-galad was an Elven-king", which he recites for the company?
Overall I would say that there is nothing that suggests that the
tales of the Elder Days were known in the Shire prior to the arrival
there of Bilbo's translations from Elvish, and by implication that
even Bilbo himself knew anything about these tales before he settled
in Rivendell. The story of Gil-galad is different in that it refers
to the kingdom of which the Hobbits still saw themselves as a part:
the stories of the earliest days of Arnor in the Second Age would be
told at such times as the kingdom reaffirmed its unity when the
earliest settlers of the Shire got leave from the king to settle in
that land. That these would be the only to take some root (however
scantily) in Hobbit tradition is not, IMO, surprising.
--
Troels Forchhammer <troelsfo(a)googlewave.com>
Valid e-mail is <troelsfo(a)gmail.com>
Please put [AFT], [RABT] or 'Tolkien' in subject.
You can safely assume that you've created God in your own
image when it turns out that God hates all the same people
you do.
- Anne Lamott
Öjevind Lång
news:Xns9D15EA7E...@130.133.4.11...
[snip]
>> As a young hobbit-lad who was mad for stories of Elves and the
>> Elder days, wouldn't he have picked it up from Bilbo, along with
>> "Gil-galad was an Elven-king", which he recites for the company?
>
> Overall I would say that there is nothing that suggests that the
> tales of the Elder Days were known in the Shire prior to the arrival
> there of Bilbo's translations from Elvish, and by implication that
> even Bilbo himself knew anything about these tales before he settled
> in Rivendell. The story of Gil-galad is different in that it refers
> to the kingdom of which the Hobbits still saw themselves as a part:
> the stories of the earliest days of Arnor in the Second Age would be
> told at such times as the kingdom reaffirmed its unity when the
> earliest settlers of the Shire got leave from the king to settle in
> that land. That these would be the only to take some root (however
> scantily) in Hobbit tradition is not, IMO, surprising.
I doubt that anyone living in the Shire knew anything about Gil-galad until
Bilbo went on his first voyage. The limit of the hobbits' historical
knowledge seems to have been faint memories of the king in Fornost. Remember
that during his first voyage Bilbo visited Rivendell twice, and that he
sometimes met Elves who roamed through the Shire; in fact TH says they
visited him. I'd say it was because of these contacts that Bilbo learned
Elvish and started to translate songs and stories from the Elvish. I even
find it likely that he brought books back with him from his first voyage, or
that Gandalf or somebody else brought them to him at a later date. Or that
he was given books as gifts by the Elves he met; he was well-known and well
liked among them. The Elves even knew who his kinsman Frodo was; Gildor
greets him by name. Anyway, in the light of Sam having heard Bilbo's
translation of the Elvish poem about Gil-galad, I find it very unlikely that
Bilbo's nowledge of Elvish went no further back than his retirement to
Rivendell.
�jevind
Troels Forchhammer
�jevind L�ng <ojevin...@bredband.net> spoke these staves:
> "Troels Forchhammer" <Tro...@ThisIsFake.invalid> skrev i
> meddelandet news:Xns9D15EA7E...@130.133.4.11...
>>
>> tales of the Elder Days were known in the Shire prior to the
>> arrival there of Bilbo's translations from Elvish,
>> The story of Gil-galad
[...]
and other stories dating from after the establishment of Arnor
>> tradition is not, IMO, surprising.
>
> I doubt that anyone living in the Shire knew anything about
> Gil-galad until Bilbo went on his first voyage.
You could be right.
> The limit of the hobbits' historical knowledge seems to have been
> faint memories of the king in Fornost.
In the prologue it is said that
Their own records began only after the settlement of the
Shire, and their most ancient legends hardly looked further
back than their Wandering Days. It is clear, nonetheless,
from these legends, and from the evidence of their peculiar
words and customs, that like many other folk Hobbits had in
the distant past moved westward. Their earliest tales seem
to glimpse a time when they dwelt in the upper vales of
Anduin, between the eaves of Greenwood the Great and the
Misty Mountains.
I took this to speak about the Hobbit records, stories, legends about
themselves, not necessarily to limit their legends about other stuff --
the story of Gil-galad is an example of a story that is earlier than
that described here.
> Remember that during his first voyage Bilbo visited Rivendell
> twice, and that he sometimes met Elves who roamed through the
> Shire;
There can be no doubt that Bilbo had occasion to learn stories from the
Elves and I'd even say it is unlikely that he didn't. I may have been a
little rash in excluding _all_ stories from the Elder Days from his
repertoire -- it'd be natural if he had, for instance, inquired about
Gondolin from whence his sword probably came. My main point is that Sam
and Frodo did not know the tale about Beren and L�thien which makes it
very unlikely, IMO, that Bilbo would have known it prior to leaving the
Shire.
In any case stories about the Elder Days would not, in my opinion, have
been among those tales that Gandalf had told the Hobbits.
> Anyway, in the light of Sam having heard Bilbo's translation of
> the Elvish poem about Gil-galad, I find it very unlikely that
> Bilbo's nowledge of Elvish went no further back than his
> retirement to Rivendell.
His knowledge of Elvish in general certainly came by as a result of his
adventure, though it would have taken him years to build it, seeking
out such few travellers through the Shire as he could find, questioning
Gandalf eagerly each time the wizard came by etc. Bilbo would also have
tried to gather the tales about other matters that were available
within the Shire from the Hobbits themselves.
--
Troels Forchhammer <troelsfo(a)googlewave.com>
Valid e-mail is <troelsfo(a)gmail.com>
Please put [AFT], [RABT] or 'Tolkien' in subject.
It is useless to meet revenge with revenge: it will heal
Stan Brown
<Tro...@ThisIsFake.invalid>:
> In message <news:MPG.25d4087bd...@news.individual.net>
> Stan Brown <the_sta...@fastmail.fm> spoke these staves:
when he (Sam) was in Rivendell]
> > But why would you think he didn't already know it in the Shire?
>
> For two reasons.
>
> One is that Strider clearly feels a need to explain what he was
> singing about at Weathertop, 'Beren was a mortal man . . .' etc.
> Because of the length of Strider's explanation, story internally,
> this explanation only makes sense if his audience didn't know the
> story.
I think this is a compelling reason. I agree with you that Tolkien
would not have gone into that explanation for the benefit of the
readers, so it must have been intended for the benefit of the
hobbits.
That leaves us with the question of *why* Sam had not heard the story
from Bilbo. It doesn't seem reasonable to me that Bilbo himself had
not heard it until he took up permanent residence in Rivendell. I
mean, what was he doing in Bag End for 50-plus years, with all those
visits from Elves, if not learning everything they could tell him
about the Elder Days?
Öjevind Lång
news:MPG.25d72416b...@news.individual.net...
[snip]
>>
>> One is that Strider clearly feels a need to explain what he was
>> singing about at Weathertop, 'Beren was a mortal man . . .' etc.
>> Because of the length of Strider's explanation, story internally,
>> this explanation only makes sense if his audience didn't know the
>> story.
>
> I think this is a compelling reason. I agree with you that Tolkien
> would not have gone into that explanation for the benefit of the
> readers, so it must have been intended for the benefit of the
> hobbits.
>
> That leaves us with the question of *why* Sam had not heard the story
> from Bilbo. It doesn't seem reasonable to me that Bilbo himself had
> not heard it until he took up permanent residence in Rivendell. I
> mean, what was he doing in Bag End for 50-plus years, with all those
> visits from Elves, if not learning everything they could tell him
> about the Elder Days?
It's possible that there was no need for Strider to explain the story to
Frodo, only to the other three. As for Bilbo not telling Sam the story,
there were many stories and Sam was often kept busy cutting the lawn,
trimming the hedge, tending the flowers, raking leaves, helping the Gaffer
with the taters, cooking for the Gaffer and himself, and so on.
�jevind
Öjevind Lång
> In message <news:7t22s8...@mid.individual.net>
> īŋŊjevind LīŋŊng <ojevin...@bredband.net> spoke these staves:
[snip]
> and other stories dating from after the establishment of Arnor
>>> would be the only to take some root (however scantily) in Hobbit
>>> tradition is not, IMO, surprising.
>>
>> I doubt that anyone living in the Shire knew anything about
>> Gil-galad until Bilbo went on his first voyage.
>
> You could be right.
>
>> The limit of the hobbits' historical knowledge seems to have been
>> faint memories of the king in Fornost.
>
> In the prologue it is said that
>
> Their own records began only after the settlement of the
> Shire, and their most ancient legends hardly looked further
> back than their Wandering Days. It is clear, nonetheless,
> from these legends, and from the evidence of their peculiar
> words and customs, that like many other folk Hobbits had in
> the distant past moved westward. Their earliest tales seem
> to glimpse a time when they dwelt in the upper vales of
> Anduin, between the eaves of Greenwood the Great and the
> Misty Mountains.
>
> I took this to speak about the Hobbit records, stories, legends about
> themselves, not necessarily to limit their legends about other stuff --
> the story of Gil-galad is an example of a story that is earlier than
> that described here.
It seems clear to me that they neither knew nor cared about events outside
their own borders, now or in the past, and that their memories even of the
King in Fornost were hazy. Their memories, from times further back would
have been hazier still. Those memories, or legends, were also unlikely to
include much material about the Elves, with whom the Men they were in
contact, part and present, had had little or no interaction. Tolkien says in
the Appendices to LotR that many of the hobbits gave their children
"high-sounding" names out of the past. Since those names (Fredegar, Pippin,
Hildifons and so on) are generally Germanic in character, they presumably
refer to people related to the DīŋŊnedain of the First or Third House -
kinglets and warriors in the same area, and of the same stock, as Beorn, the
Brandings and the people of Dale. Perhaps also the kings of Rhovanion, such
as Vidugavia. Tolkien says something to that effect in the appendix about
translation: "In some old families, especially those of Fallohide origin
such as the Tooks and the Bolgers, it was, however, the custom to give
high-sounding first-names . Since most of these seem to have been drawn from
legends of the past, of Men as well as of Hobbits, and many while now
meaningless to Hobbits closely resebled the names of Men in the Vale of
Anduin, or in Dale, or in the Mark, I have turned to those old names,
largely of Frankish and Gothic origin, that are still used by us or are met
in our histories."
If the Hobbits had been aware of Elvish or (DīŋŊnadan) nomenclature , they
would probably have given their children such names. After all, Pippin named
his son Faramir, and Sam gave his eldest daughter the name Elanor, a flower
name from the Elvish. In other word, I'd say that with few or no exceptions,
the hobbits knew there were Elves, but thatw as pretty much all. After all,
they believed the Tooks had Elvish ancestry, which suggests great
unfamilarity with the Elves,
>> Remember that during his first voyage Bilbo visited Rivendell
>> twice, and that he sometimes met Elves who roamed through the
>> Shire;
>
> There can be no doubt that Bilbo had occasion to learn stories from the
> Elves and I'd even say it is unlikely that he didn't. I may have been a
> little rash in excluding _all_ stories from the Elder Days from his
> repertoire -- it'd be natural if he had, for instance, inquired about
> Gondolin from whence his sword probably came. My main point is that Sam
> and Frodo did not know the tale about Beren and LīŋŊthien which makes it
> very unlikely, IMO, that Bilbo would have known it prior to leaving the
> Shire.
Frodo might have known the story. Perhaps the story was primarily told for
the benefit of Merry and Pippin, and probably Sam.
> In any case stories about the Elder Days would not, in my opinion, have
> been among those tales that Gandalf had told the Hobbits.
No, because with the exception of Frodo, Bilbo and Sam, they wouldn't have
been intersted. "Queer dealings!" they would have said, and reached for
their tankards of beer.
>> Anyway, in the light of Sam having heard Bilbo's translation of
>> the Elvish poem about Gil-galad, I find it very unlikely that
>> Bilbo's nowledge of Elvish went no further back than his
>> retirement to Rivendell.
>
> His knowledge of Elvish in general certainly came by as a result of his
> adventure, though it would have taken him years to build it, seeking
> out such few travellers through the Shire as he could find, questioning
> Gandalf eagerly each time the wizard came by etc. Bilbo would also have
> tried to gather the tales about other matters that were available
> within the Shire from the Hobbits themselves.
I completely agree.
īŋŊjevind
Prai Jei
continuum:
> and the unexpected luck of widows' sons?"
Perhaps there was justice for the widow's son after all.
--
ξ:) Proud to be curly
Interchange the alphabetic letter groups to reply
JimboCat
> mind for some reason
...and for the same reason, sort-of, I'm going to hijack this thread
for a simple public-service announcement:
One of our pet issues is glancingly addressed in this web comic:
No, not Balrog wings, but wacky ME physics. I've never understood how
Legolas did that!
That is all.
Jim Deutch (JimboCat)
--
"I come in from mowing the lawn one day, and there's my Mom's favorite
soap on, and the scene is everybody's favorite bad guy, lying dead on
the floor in a pool of his own blood. I Immediately (because it was
*so* obvious) told my Mom that it wasn't him, it was his identical
twin brother that nobody had ever heard of before. And sure enough, a
week later, my Mom forbade me from ever watching her soaps
again." [Terry Austin]
Steve Hayes
<10313...@compuserve.com> wrote:
>"I come in from mowing the lawn one day, and there's my Mom's favorite
>soap on, and the scene is everybody's favorite bad guy, lying dead on
>the floor in a pool of his own blood. I Immediately (because it was
>*so* obvious) told my Mom that it wasn't him, it was his identical
>twin brother that nobody had ever heard of before. And sure enough, a
>week later, my Mom forbade me from ever watching her soaps
>again." [Terry Austin]
I like it.
--
Steve Hayes
Web: http://hayesfam.bravehost.com/litmain.htm
http://www.goodreads.com/hayesstw
http://www.bookcrossing.com/mybookshelf/Methodius
Paul S. Person
<10313...@compuserve.com> wrote:
>On Feb 1, 10:39�pm, Steuard Jensen <steu...@slimy.com> wrote:
>> I really don't have time to be here, but the question floated into my
>> mind for some reason
>
>...and for the same reason, sort-of, I'm going to hijack this thread
>for a simple public-service announcement:
>
>One of our pet issues is glancingly addressed in this web comic:
>
>http://xkcd.com/702/
>
>No, not Balrog wings, but wacky ME physics. I've never understood how
>Legolas did that!
It was part of his nature as an Elf.
Some, of course, might call it "magic".
--
Nature must be explained in
her own terms through
the experience of our senses.
Troels Forchhammer
petered out so quickly. Let's see if we can blow a bit more life into
it now that summer seems to have arrived -- hopefully with people
having just a bit more leisure time :-)
In message <news:slrnhmfei8...@steuard.local>
Steuard Jensen <ste...@slimy.com> spoke these staves:
>
> In message <slrnhmf7j3...@steuard.local>, Steuard Jensen
> <ste...@slimy.com> wrote:
>>
>> As a related question, what do we know about "fairy tales" in
>> Middle-earth more generally? Can "fairy stories" as defined by
>> Tolkien really exist in a world that already has "the trade-mark
>> /Of Faerie/ written plain upon [it]"?
>
> In thinking about this a bit further, a few things occur to me.
> The core idea is that I have the impression that the average human
> (or hobbit) at the end of the Third Age had relatively little
> direct experience with "Faerie" in Middle-earth.
Little experience, little understanding -- too often also both scant
knowledge and no belief. Apart from the acceptance of the existence
of Elves and Dwarves, there seems to have been very little difference
in the relation of the average Man or Hobbit to the world of Faërie
in Middle-earth.
> The way the Rohirrim viewed stories of Ents and Elves is one
> reflection of that;
We should, of course, not forget that their views of these two races
are different: they don't even believe in the existence of the Ents
in the first place, but they acknowledge the existence of the Elves
while considering them to be unknown (perhaps even unknowable),
mysterious and dangerous.
Both of these views of mythical creatures can be found also in modern
times -- and even more so if we go back 75 years or more.
> the attitude of common hobbits to tales of walking trees and
> departing Elves is another.
Yes. The Shire hobbits add to the reservation towards Faërie by being
so insular: the maps in the Shire show only blank white outside the
borders of the Shire -- even the Elf-havens a couple of day's ride
west of the Shire were reduced to an old tradition -- possibly only
half believed (no more, I'd venture, than the tradition about the
ghost at the manor was believed in a Berkshire village half a century
ago).
> Even Sam, with his deep longing for any hint of Faerie (as
> evidenced by his attitude to cousin Hal's walking tree or to the
> chance to visit the Elves), is still wishing as late as Lorien for
> a clear taste of "Elf-magic".
Yes. That Sam, even after weeks in Lothlórien, can wish to see som
Elf-magic, does, I believe, show that his ideas of what Elves are,
and in particular what Elf-magic is, have atrofied in the way of
tradition or even myth. Even to one such as Sam who loves the stories
about Faërie and loves the myths (a kind of Philomythus, one might
say <GG>), these stories have turned his idea of Elves and Elf-magic
into rigid stereotypes.
> The great difference, of course, is that tales "Of Faerie" in our
> world are pretty certainly all fiction, while many tales "Of
> Faerie" in Middle-earth are based on true history.
At least supposedly ;-)
I wonder, however, whether that is really such a great difference? As
a physicist that sounds like utter nonsense (or like asking if
empirical methodology really makes a difference <GG>), but I these
are stories, and I think the relevant question is not whether they
are really, deep down, true, but rather what the people _believe_
about them. It may not, today, be a good parallel to look at real
world beliefs in fairy-stories, but take such stories as "Bigfoot",
the "Yeti" or even "Nessie" -- there are people who fully believe in
these creatures; they have _seen_ them and they _know_ that the
creature exists. Many of the wierder conspiracy theories are of the
same kind, IMO -- just as evidently wrong as the belief in fairies,
if you ask me (I never cease to wonder at the number of people who
_know_, absolutely and beyond any shadow of doubt, that President
Bush ordered the planes to crash into the World Trade Center . . .).
My point is, whether they are stories about fairies or about some
other crazy thing, each age has its own stories and beliefs, and I
don't think that we should treat the fairy-stories that are told in
the Shire any differently than we should treat the fairy-stories told
in England in Tolkien's childhood or the stories that get told today.
The important part is not their objective Truth, but their subjective
truth to the people who are telling them to each other.
> As long as there were dragons or Ents to be found in the world, or
> for that matter Elves, it would be possible to verify the stories
> and know that there was a touch of magic out there.
That is, I think, a very theoretical possibility to most Shire
hobbits -- the vast majority of them couldn't really verify the
stories (other than seeing Dwarves and possibly Elves pass through
the Shire) -- Bilbo's story was Bilbo's alone: it changed _Bilbo_
fundamentally, but not until the War of the Ring with the occupation
by Saruman, the scouring and not least the Four Travellers (mostly
the three younger of them) opening up to the wider world and bringing
a bit of that wide world into the Shire, did the average hobbit get
an outlet for such curiosity.
> Even second or third hand (or more), that's bound to make a
> difference in peoples' attitudes:
I wonder. Does it make a difference to you if your uncle's boss'
nephew 'really' saw Bigfoot last year? Will that make you more
inclined to actually go out and search for corroborating evidence for
Bigfoot? Or, the same question, but this time your uncle's boss has
worked with someone whe had worked at Area 51 (isn't that the name?)
who told him all about the UFOs and the aliens that they 'truly' had
there. Does that make a difference?
Of course there will always be a small minority who are sceptical,
but not so sceptical that they are unwilling to consider actually
trying to gather evidence (such as I would be unwilling to do if
someone _first hand_ told me they had seen Nessie -- or a ghost to
use something that many people also believe to be true), and for this
small minority, the ability to actually prove some aspect of the
story ("there truly exist Elves. The Elves confirm that there was a
person named Beren") may make a difference, but I think these are a
small minority and for the majority, whether believers or non-
believers, it will not make a difference.
> unlike our real-world fairy stories, in Middle-earth there would
> be corroborating evidence for the old stories if you looked.
Another myth that I might point to here is the belief in the literal
(in the modern sense of 'literal') interpretation of the Biblical
Genesis story. In this case it is possible, in the Primary World, to
find evidence that disproves the Biblical story. Since this,
obviously, doesn't make a difference for a great many people, why,
then, should be believe that it would make a difference the other way
around?
> But on the other hand, how long would that last? If there are
> five degrees of separation between you and your
> great-great-grandfather or cousin's friend's roommate's brother
> who once saw a dragon in the sky, how different is that true
> history from the myths and legends of the primary world that we
> know to be false?
Exactly -- and I think that the distance at which it becomes
completely comparable to the status of fairy-stories in the Primary
World a couple of hundred years ago is much shorter than we might
think.
Most people don't really care about evidence and self-consistency or
all those things that we require of a scientific world-view: they
will believe what makes them most comfortable, or makes their life
easiest or whatever the criteria might be.
> Even if there /is/ potentially evidence of old dragon scales to be
> found on the Withered Heath, does that make a real difference to
> people who have never seen that evidence or even imagined that
> they might meet someone who had?
Right -- I think I've covered that base now ;-)
> In the beginning, Sam's belief in Faerie seemed to be based more
> on hope or faith than on evidence, and he was clearly teased for
> it.
At least as far as it went beyond the 'Elves exist' kind of
proposition. Even the idea of the Elves leaving Middle-earth was
ridiculed and made doubtful, I'd say, and certainly his belief in
giants (which Bilbo had, after all, himself observed in the Misty
Mountains -- a first hand witness that all the hobbits in the inn had
access to) was thoroughly ridiculed.
> I can't shake the thought that Tolkien deliberately placed aspects
> of this issue in the story (and its setting): it seems close to
> his professional and personal interests. I'm not sure how exactly
> that affects the status of fairy stories in Middle-earth, but I
> think it's relevant.
Yes, I agree that this is highly relevant.
I feel confidence that Tolkien would say that there are fairy-stories
in Middle-earth. Some of these will deal with that Faërie that is
Valinor, others will be tales of Elves and Edain and Dwarves others
and their wars against first Morgoth and later Sauron -- or they may
be late pervasions of such tales: even if a hobbit had heard the
story of Beren and Lúthien told at some point while the Hobbits were
migrating across Eriador, who knows what that story may have become
when they reached the Shire? I certainly think that the evidence
implies that the four hobbits did not know the story of Beren and
Lúthien when Aragorn told it and it is strongly implied that even
knowing about Gil-galad (who was, after all, much closer in both time
and place than Beren and Lúthien) was rare in the extreme.
Personally I think the fairy-stories told in the Shire or in Bree or
in Rohan were very close to the fairy-stories told in culturally and
technologically equivalent socieites in the Primary World -- they
might even have believed in diminutive 'fairies' while at the same
time _knowing_ that the Elves are real. The details would change, but
why shouldn't Gandalf tell the Hobbits stories about the luck of
widows' sons? Gandalf was out to kindle the hearts of the good
peoples of Middle-earth to resistance against Sauron, and a good
story has a great power to kindle the heart of the listeners
regardless of whether it is true in the scientific sense or in the
sense of 'On Fairy-Stories'.
So, being certain that such stories _were_ told, that fairy-stories
do belong in Middle-earth, the next step would, I think, be to find
them as well as possible and to see how they work in context.
>> Are there examples of such stories described in the books? (Most
>> of the stories I can think of offhand are based on true history
>> within Middle-earth, from ancient lays to Rohirric rumors.) What
>> form does the fantastic take in a fantasy world?
The first untrue myth that comes to my mind is the story the Elves
told about the Hunter while they were still at Cuiviénen. We don't
get much details about that, except that the Elves still have songs
that tell of 'the dark Rider upon his wild horse that pursued those
that wandered to take them and devour them.'
Of course we also have the stories mentioned by Bilbo and told by
Gandalf. I don't think we should put too much emphasis on the fact
that in the original draft, Bilbo was talking about Gandalf's own
exploits rather than of his stories. Judging by what little we're
told about them, these stories seem to be fairly conventional
examples of the folk-fairy-tale type, and clearly they had the effect
that Gandalf wanted: they kindled the hearts of the hobbit audience,
making them slightly more adventurous, slightly more curious about
the world outside the Shire and, consequently, slightly less insular.
And of course we also have the poems in _The Adventures of Tom
Bombadil_ though these were, as a rule, not really written for
Middle-earth, but rather adapted to the context.
We also know that the Rohirrim also told fairy-stories to their
children -- and that they contain Ents, thought these were believed
to be imaginary (so much for verification . . .), and when the Three
Hunters meet Éomer and his éored, there is a comment about legends
coming to life, which suggests that all this stuff about Men,
Dwarves, Elves and Hobbits working together, the widow's son turning
out to be the heir to the throne (there you have your widow's son!)
and carrying a magic (or at least legendary) sword, all that was, to
the Rohirrim, appropriate elements of a legend such as they might
tell each other.
These were off the top of my head -- I think we should be able to
find other examples of fairy-stories if we actually look for it :-)
I wrote in one of my other recent thread-resurrections about the
unity in Tolkien's mind of the people, the physical lands, the
language and their culture. I should have mentioned the stories,
legends and myths explicitly, as I believe that this was an important
element of the unity that Tolkien saw: this was, in fact, the element
that he was missing in England, the stories, legends and myths that
should be tied up with the soil, the people and the language of
England. While many stories 'get around', I think Tolkien would argue
that there is a special bond between the story and the place where it
originated, and so I would expect the traces of folk-tales (of any
kind) that we can find in his works to function very much as
important elements in the characterisation of the peoples that tell
them. This discussion could actually get highly interesting!
--
Troels Forchhammer <troelsfo(a)googlewave.com>
Valid e-mail is <troelsfo(a)gmail.com>
Please put [AFT], [RABT] or 'Tolkien' in subject.
It is the theory which decides what can be observed.
- Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
Steuard Jensen
<Tro...@ThisIsFake.invalid> wrote:
> I was sorry to see that this conversation that Steuard started
> petered out so quickly. Let's see if we can blow a bit more life into
> it now that summer seems to have arrived -- hopefully with people
> having just a bit more leisure time :-)
Maybe, maybe! Though I'm still generally quite busy (both with
research and supervising a student at work, and with doing a variety
of useful things to our new house now that the weather's good enough).
Speaking of which, and going 100% off topic, I probably didn't ever
post pictures: http://www.slimy.com/~steuard/personal/AlmaHouse.html
> Steuard Jensen <ste...@slimy.com> spoke these staves:
>> Even Sam, with his deep longing for any hint of Faerie (as
>> evidenced by his attitude to cousin Hal's walking tree or to the
>> chance to visit the Elves), is still wishing as late as Lorien for
>> a clear taste of "Elf-magic".
> Yes. That Sam, even after weeks in Lothlórien, can wish to see som
> Elf-magic, does, I believe, show that his ideas of what Elves are,
> and in particular what Elf-magic is, have atrofied in the way of
> tradition or even myth.
The more I think about all this (as expressed in my earlier posts and
as you've so nicely explored it here), the more significant it feels.
The idea that the vast majority of inhabitants of Middle-earth were
likely no more familiar with Faerie than we are is quite likely the
biggest shift in how I think about Middle-earth that I've had in
years.
As readers of /The Hobbit/ and LotR, we're "spoiled" in a way that Sam
would envy: practically our entire experience of Middle-earth is
touched by Faerie. We see Elves all over the place, so much so that
I've often unthinkingly assumed you'd be likely to run into a few on
the road if you were in the right general region. But that's wildly
inaccurate: even a die-hard Elfophile like Sam merely "believed he had
once seen an Elf in the woods". Similarly, our experience with
Dwarves touches on their more "magical" side quite often
(Ring-resistance, secret doors, reincarnation, smoke-ring remote
control), but to almost every hobbit and human they were simply
bearded guys eager to trade craft work for food. We meet trolls,
giants, walking trees, wraiths, talking birds, a dude who transforms
into a bear, dragons, a Balrog, corpse candles, conscious statues, and
an honest to goodness army of ghosts. (That last one is particularly
interesting, since the locals near Erech seem to have transformed the
Dead into a folk belief, albeit one that likely had more empirical
evidence than most.) The fraction of inhabitants of Third Age
Middle-earth who have ever seen even one of those things is probably
minute (and even smaller if we add "and lived to tell about it"!).
We're also constantly running into magical things. I'd guess that
fully half of the swords or even knives mentioned in the story have
some obvious enchantment, while even the very special characters we're
following probably still see them as remarkably rare and unique. We
see five magic rings "on screen" and we're assured that there are a
bunch of others out there that nobody kept track of, but it's easy for
us to forget that most of them were last seen /three thousand years
ago/ and by this point could be scattered literally anywhere on the
continent. Sam complains in Lorien that he hasn't seen any real "Elf
magic" yet, but we can't sympathize because we get to skip straight to
the scene where he finally does.
And the history! We "know" the full history of Middle-earth, and we
even know where to go to learn about it: just wander over to Rivendell
(or maybe Lorien) and you'll meet folks who can tell you pretty much
all of it from firsthand experience. Or failing that, we've got books
of lore either at Rivendell or translated by Bilbo and available to
study. But again, our experience as readers is immensely distorted
compared to everyday life in Middle-earth: even in the Citadel of
Gondor, where lore and knowledge are probably preserved better than in
any other human community, Imladris was just a rumor from the distant
past (and it took months of effort for one of Gondor's greatest heroes
to find it at all). And Bilbo's texts weren't just the hobby of an
aging hobbit, they were a tremendous work of scholarship, highly
prized in Gondor itself.
Anyway. The point of all that is that my next reading of the books
will probably feel rather different now that I've thought of all this.
To realize that practically every human being in the story who wasn't
raised by Elves would react to elements of Faerie pretty much the same
way that you or I would, and that they haven't read /The Silmarillion/
or even heard (or heard of!) most of the stories there... that's a big
shift from the way I've approached the book. I'm quite looking
forward to what I'll find.
One slightly more obscure but potentially very relevant reference for
all this is "The Drowning of Anadune", Tolkien's retelling of the
Akallabeth as remembered by the descendants of the Numenorians many
generations later. That tale didn't really click with me when I first
read it many years ago (it just felt "wrong"), but on more recent
readings I've found it completely enthralling. In it, we see true
(Secondary) history in the process of transforming into myth. The
story includes many elements that are recognizable from the "true"
Elvish tradition, others that are clearly incorrect (or at least,
we've been led to think so...), and some that are absolutely
tantalizing in their ambiguity. (Did the Numenorians truly have
aircraft? It's just close enough to plausible that I'm tempted to
believe it, especially since the description preserved in the story
seems unlikely to have occurred spontaneously to someone who hadn't
seen them.)
Ok, there's surely more to say (especially since I've barely begun to
respond to your specific comments), but I'm /so/ out of time for this
right now. :) I'd very much like to bring all this back around to the
original topic of "Faerie stories in Middle-earth", since I think that
it does tie in well, but that will have to wait. Hopefully I'll
manage to get back and follow up sooner this time. :)
Steuard Jensen
Stan Brown
> Forgive the top post
>
Because it just takes soooooooooooooooo long to trim your quote and
move the cursor to the right spot.
Stan Brown
> Speaking of which, and going 100% off topic, I probably didn't ever
> post pictures: http://www.slimy.com/~steuard/personal/AlmaHouse.html
>
Thanks, Steuard -- it looks charming, and I'm jealous!
Stan Brown
> likely no more familiar with Faerie than we are is quite likely the
> biggest shift in how I think about Middle-earth that I've had in
> years.
You're right. This explains why Pippin was such a sensation in Minas
Tirith: he was the most unusual thing any of them had seen in their
lives, even though by our standards as readers he was not magical at
all.
I think we get a tiny sense of this from Éomer's words when he met
Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli. They were unusual enough in their own
right (to him), but he was blown away by the idea that he was
speaking with someone who had recently spoken with the "Lady in the
Golden Wood", who to him had been just the name of something that
might or might not exist.
The Orcs are a special point, I think. To us they seem magical, part
of a different world; but to Rohan and Gondor they are quite ordinary
enemies. Éomer talks matter-of-factly about hunting them. This might
be part of how Denethor came to look on Sauron as a rival potentate
rather than an evil to be removed: Gondor had a tradition of
generations of fighting Sauron's soldiers.
> We're also constantly running into magical things. ... We
> see five magic rings "on screen"
Five? I count only three or four: the One (Bilbo and Frodo), Nenya
(Galadriel), Narya (Gandalf). We're told that Elrond wears Vilya,
but do we ever quite see it? I may have forgotten, but I don't think
so.
And if you count Vilya, what is the fifth? Thráin's Ring was never
on screen. I could be mistaken but I don't think even Gandalf ever
saw it. I'm pretty sure we never do.
This is quibbling on one small point, and I fully agree with your
main argument.
Steve Morrison
> On Wed, 9 Jun 2010 14:07:58 +0000 (UTC), Steuard Jensen wrote:
>> We're also constantly running into magical things. ... We
>> see five magic rings "on screen"
>
> Five? I count only three or four: the One (Bilbo and Frodo), Nenya
> (Galadriel), Narya (Gandalf). We're told that Elrond wears Vilya,
> but do we ever quite see it? I may have forgotten, but I don't think
> so.
>
> And if you count Vilya, what is the fifth? Thráin's Ring was never
> on screen. I could be mistaken but I don't think even Gandalf ever
> saw it. I'm pretty sure we never do.
We also see Saruman's ring, though only in a flashback
narrated by Gandalf.
Stan Brown
Does that qualify as "on screen"? To me, it doesn't. Anything that
a character tells the others about isn't "on screen" (to me) as far
as the books are concerned. If someone were making a movie of
Tolkien's /The Lord of the Rings/, they'd probably have to take all
that narration by characters and *put* it on screen, but the book
doesn't need that.
Also, do we have any reason to believe Saruman's ring is magic? He
calls himself a Ring-maker, but even in Gandalf's narration he
doesn't do anything with it. I've always assumed it was just a bit of
empty bravado by Saruman.
Steuard Jensen
Brown <the_sta...@fastmail.fm> wrote:
> On Wed, 9 Jun 2010 14:07:58 +0000 (UTC), Steuard Jensen wrote:
>> likely no more familiar with Faerie than we are...
> This explains why Pippin was such a sensation in Minas Tirith:
Good point!
> I think we get a tiny sense of this from Éomer's words when he met
> Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli.
Yes, Eomer's comments there probably ought to have clued me in on this
point earlier, but I think I must have written them off as
representing the relative "backwardness" of Rohan compared to its
"more civilized" neighbors. To some extent that may be true, but I
think it's also that Eomer was simply more willing than a comparable
Gondorian to voice his skepticism about those legends of the past.
> The Orcs are a special point, I think. To us they seem magical, part
> of a different world; but to Rohan and Gondor they are quite ordinary
> enemies.
Oh, that /is/ an important exception. Man, there are layers to this
idea that I'm going to need to think through.
>> We're also constantly running into magical things. ... We
>> see five magic rings "on screen"
> Five? I count only three or four: the One (Bilbo and Frodo), Nenya
> (Galadriel), Narya (Gandalf). We're told that Elrond wears Vilya,
> but do we ever quite see it? I may have forgotten, but I don't think
> so.
My memory is that we see all of the Three when their wearers are
heading to the Havens. (When else do we see Narya, at that? I
thought Gandalf's possession of it was only revealed at the end.) The
One was the fourth, and yes, I was counting Saruman's Ring as the
fifth.
(Gandalf's encounter with Saruman is narrated in the past tense but
still in more or less complete detail. My inclination is to count
that as "on screen", along with other lengthy, detailed segments like
the Grey Company's journey from Erech to Minas Tirith. I don't see
much distinction between those cases and other tales recorded in the
Red Book by Frodo but not based on his direct experience.)
Steuard Jensen
Jim Heckman
On 12-Jun-2010, Stan Brown <the_sta...@fastmail.fm>
wrote in message <MPG.267d09f66...@news.individual.net>:
> On Wed, 9 Jun 2010 14:07:58 +0000 (UTC), Steuard Jensen wrote:
[...]
> > We're also constantly running into magical things. ... We
> > see five magic rings "on screen"
>
> Five? I count only three or four: the One (Bilbo and Frodo), Nenya
> (Galadriel), Narya (Gandalf). We're told that Elrond wears Vilya,
> but do we ever quite see it? I may have forgotten, but I don't think
> so.
From RotK, "The Grey Havens":
There was [sic] Gildor and many fair Elven folk; and there to
Sam's wonder rode Elrond and Galadriel. Elrond wore a mantle
of grey and had a star upon his forehead, and a silver harp
was in his hand, and upon his finger was a ring of gold with
a great blue stone, Vilya, mightiest of the Three. [...]
[...]
--
Jim Heckman
Weland
> In message <news:hun606$p8g$1...@news.eternal-september.org>
> Weland <gi...@poetic.com> spoke these staves:
>> Forgive the top post and the speed...as always, Troels, very
>> thoughtful post.
>
> Thank you
>
>> I'll point out that it is a useful exercise to compare the
>> attitudes of the Rohirrim and Hobbits, one might call them
>> real world people after all, to Faerie and the Ents and
>> legends and Tolkien's comments in "On Faerie Stories", quite
>> illuminating.
>
> Yes, the more I think of this, the more I believe that it would be
> prove a very interesting and useful exercise. I've half (or more) a
> mind to include the Elves as well, simply because we know the Elvish
> legends much better than any of the others'. I've half a mind to try
> and write up an essay on this subject, though I fear my knowledge of
> fairy-stories may fall short of the target.
>
> I'm not sure what you mean by saying that 'one might call them real
> world people after all'? Do you mean simply in their attitudes to
> fairy-stories, or is it something that goes further -- perhaps a
> reference to the claims that these two peoples more or less are Anglo-
> Saxons and rural Victorian West-Midlanders respectively?
>
What I mean is that of all the sentient beings we encounter in Middle
Earth, the groups who would really fit into our world (regardless of the
now commonplace associations of Rohan with Germanic tribes generally or
Anglo-Saxons specifically and the Hobbits with Victorian West Midlanders
as you point out) whereas Ents, Elves, Orcs, Dwarves,Trolls, and even
Numenoreans, talking Eagles and such don't. The former are "us", the
latter are the stuff of legends. If you reread On Faerie Stories, the
Hobbits and Rohirrim display the same attitudes about the things of
legend that Tolkien criticizes about the modern world. Gandalf to
Theoden and Aragorn to the Hobbits and Eomer are the voice of Tolkien in
a very explicit way when they talk about these legends and even nurse's
stories to frighten the children that are real in the waking world. It
is really interesting to compare esp. Gandalf to Theoden and the essay.
Öjevind Lång
news:s_GdndB3tb1-8InR...@posted.localnet...
I wonder what songs Elrond entertained the others with during their ride.
Perhaps he simply strummed tunes while they told limericks:
"There was a girl from the Carrock
Who deeply admired Beorn's haddock..."
�jevind
Stan Brown
Thanks, Jim. I *completely* forgot that Elrond and Galadriel were on
the same sailing with Bilbo, Frodo, and Gandalf.
I still wouldn't count Saruman's ring, because even *he* doesn't say
that it's magical. (And if he had, I wouldn't believe it unless he
gave a demonstration.)
Stan Brown
> In message <MPG.267d09f66...@news.individual.net>, Stan
> Brown <the_sta...@fastmail.fm> wrote:
> > On Wed, 9 Jun 2010 14:07:58 +0000 (UTC), Steuard Jensen wrote:
> >> ...the vast majority of inhabitants of Middle-earth were
> >> likely no more familiar with Faerie than we are...
>
>
> Yes, Eomer's comments there probably ought to have clued me in on this
> point earlier, but I think I must have written them off as
> representing the relative "backwardness" of Rohan compared to its
> "more civilized" neighbors. To some extent that may be true, but I
> think it's also that Eomer was simply more willing than a comparable
> Gondorian to voice his skepticism about those legends of the past.
I think I've tended to underrate �omer over the years, thinking of
him as "just a Rider". But he's got depths, and there's much more in
him that resembles Faramir than I gave him credit for.
Each of them, meeting strangers traveling in the land in wartime,
actually stopped to consider whether it made sense to apply the law
against letting strangers roam free. In our world they'd each have
been court martialed or at least (being close kin to the sovereign)
forced out of the army. And even in their world they knew they were
taking a risk, that if they had judged wrongly they *and* their
country would be in trouble.
Barry Schwarz
>From RotK, "The Grey Havens":
>
> There was [sic] Gildor and many fair Elven folk; and there to
> Sam's wonder rode Elrond and Galadriel. Elrond wore a mantle
> of grey and had a star upon his forehead, and a silver harp
> was in his hand, and upon his finger was a ring of gold with
> a great blue stone, Vilya, mightiest of the Three. [...]
Which raises a question. Galadriel was one of the eldest elves, very
powerful (it was her power that brought down Dol Goldur after the
destruction of the One), and obviously with great influence (she
convinced the Valar to allow Sam and Gimli to sail across the sea).
Cirdan was also "senior". So how did Elrond, who was only half-elven
and really very young for an elf, end up with the mightiest of the
Three?
--
Remove del for email
Troels Forchhammer
Barry Schwarz <schw...@dqel.com> spoke these staves:
>
[Elrond being the keeper of 'Vilya, mightiest of the Three']
> Which raises a question. Galadriel was one of the eldest elves,
> very powerful (it was her power that brought down Dol Goldur after
> the destruction of the One),
And in later writings even made out to be the peer of Fëanor . . .
I am not sure how detailed Tolkien's view of Galadriel was when he
wrote LotR, but the descriptions there seem to me to belong to the
period in which Galadriel was the last truly exiled of the Noldor --
the last Noldo (Noldië?) to be allowed to return to Valinor, and
while she was not at that time as powerful as he would later make
her, she was nevertheless a very powerful Elf -- and that may well
have been part of her problem.
> and obviously with great influence (she convinced the Valar to
> allow Sam and Gimli to sail across the sea).
I should say that if Sam was allowed to pass, that would be part of
the original deal, purportedly arranged by Arwen, Gandalf and others
(_Letters_ #246), but it is strongly suggested in LotR that Galadriel
was involved in obtaining permission for Gimli to come.
> Cirdan was also "senior".
Círdan was the oldest Elf around and purportedly on a personal
mission for Ulmo to ensure the ships that allowed the Elves to flee
Middle-earth. It is interesting -- and probably speaks volumes about
the actual importance of Círdan -- that it is he who willingly gives
up his Ring to the emmissary of the West.
> So how did Elrond, who was only half-elven and really very young
> for an elf, end up with the mightiest of the Three?
The descendant of Lúthien, Thingol, Melian and Turgon, Elrond's
blood, before even considering the Mannish side, bluer than any other
Elf's in Middle-earth. There is also the matter of his dad to
consider -- the one with that shiny gem up in the air . . . ;-) One
can, I should say, hardly exaggerate the importance of the descent
from Lúthien.
Elrond's role in Rivendell was that of the loremaster: he is
preserving the lore of the Elder Days and uses his comprehensive
knowledge of that which had gone before to guide and advice others. I
believe that Tolkien put a lot of emphasis on this kind of lore, and
that his emphasis on lore adds to the importance also of Elrond.
It also seems to me that applying 'only' to Elrond's status as one of
the peredhil is seriously misleading: being one of the peredhil was a
badge of honour as it meant descendance from the very highest blood
from _both_ kindreds. Furthermore Elrond had chosen to be counted
among the Eldar, which would mean that he was fully considered an Elf
in every respect except in descent (where his descent from Tuor and
Beren would only be counted ennobling, elevating him rather than the
opposite).
If we consider the earlier history of the Three Rings, it also
becomes easier to understand. Though there are contesting versions of
the story, I think the one that is generally accepted is that
Celebrimbor first gave Nenya to Galadriel and Narya and Vilya to Gil-
galad, who passed Narya on to Círdan soon after while keeping Vilya
for himself. Gil-galad gave Vilya to Elrond 'before he died' -- my
guess would be on the slopes of Orodruin about the same time that
Isildur was doing his finger-cutting -- which makes sense, not only
because Elrond was then the last male descendant of the High Kings of
the Noldor left in Middle-earth even if he never tried to claim this
title (Turgon was High King of the Noldor from the death of Fingon in
YS472 to the Fall of Gondolin in YS510) but also because of the
greater context.
One might say that Galadriel and Círdan's greater seniority ensured
that they got their Rings earlier than Elrond, but that his nobler
descent ensured him the mightiest of the Three.
--
Troels Forchhammer <troelsfo(a)googlewave.com>
Valid e-mail is <troelsfo(a)gmail.com>
Please put [AFT], [RABT] or 'Tolkien' in subject.
A good bookshop is just a genteel Black Hole that knows
how to read.
- /Guards! Guards!/ (Terry Pratchett)
Stan Brown
> Galadriel was one of the eldest elves, very
> powerful (it was her power that brought down Dol Goldur after the
> destruction of the One), and obviously with great influence (she
> convinced the Valar to allow Sam and Gimli to sail across the sea).
Did she? I thought that was Gandalf's decision. He outranked her,
being an emissary of the Valar. AFAIK, she was not in direct
communication with the Valar. Gandalf probably wasn't either, while
in middle-earth, but he had been sent by Manw� to act in Middle-earth
on behalf of the Valar. And his "reboot' to Gandalf the White, done
recently by Eru, would have clothed him with even more authority.
IIRC, Tolkien says in a Letter that Arwen suggested the idea to
Gandalf, and that he was able to make sure Frodo and Bilbo had no
trouble boarding the ship in middle-earth or leaving it at Tol
Eress�a.
> Cirdan was also "senior". So how did Elrond, who was only half-elven
> and really very young for an elf, end up with the mightiest of the
> Three?
From the FAQ of the Rings (URL below):
"The third ring, Vilya, was held by Gil-galad, who 'before he died
gave his ring to Elrond.' [LotR App B (1121-1122)]."
Stan Brown
>
> On Sun, 13 Jun 2010 14:15:21 -0700, Barry Schwarz wrote:
> > Galadriel was one of the eldest elves, very
> > powerful (it was her power that brought down Dol Goldur after the
> > destruction of the One), and obviously with great influence (she
> > convinced the Valar to allow Sam and Gimli to sail across the sea).
>
> Did she? I thought that was Gandalf's decision.
D'oh! You said "Sam and Gimli", not "Frodo and Bilbo". Sorry -- I
was reacting to something you didn't say. I don't know how the
decision for Sam and Gimli to cross the Sea was made. I've always
assumed that Sam's passage was arranged at the same time as Frodo's,
though Sam waited to take ship till he was weary of Middle-earth.
But you could be right about Sam.
Regarding Gimli, I have no trouble believing Galadriel was involved.
But how would she have "persuaded the Valar"? AFAIK she didn't have
any way to communicate with them except through Gandalf.
Dirk Thierbach
> On Sun, 13 Jun 2010 02:08:27 +0000 (UTC), Steuard Jensen wrote:
>> To some extent that may be true, but I think it's also that Eomer
>> was simply more willing than a comparable Gondorian to voice his
>> skepticism about those legends of the past.
> I think I've tended to underrate Éomer over the years, thinking of
> him as "just a Rider". But he's got depths, and there's much more in
> him that resembles Faramir than I gave him credit for.
Definitely. There's a reason that Grima can represent Eomer to
Theoden as a danger to his authority (see UT).
> Each of them, meeting strangers traveling in the land in wartime,
> actually stopped to consider whether it made sense to apply the law
> against letting strangers roam free. In our world they'd each have
> been court martialed or at least (being close kin to the sovereign)
> forced out of the army. And even in their world they knew they were
> taking a risk, that if they had judged wrongly they *and* their
> country would be in trouble.
And that wasn't the only time Eomer acted on his own against orders:
"[Wormtongue] persuaded you to forbid Eomer to pursue the raiding
Orcs. If Eomer had not defied Wormtongue's voice speaking with your
mouth, those Orcs would have reached Isengard by now, bearing a great
prize."
In RtME, Shippey points out this trait. He states that "I was just
obeying orders" as it happens in so many war-crimes, even present-day
ones, certainly wouldn't have been an excuse for Tolkien.
- Dirk
Öjevind Lång
news:20100614121512...@dthierbach.news.arcor.de...
This, by the way, militates strongly against the conceit Eentertaiend by
soem and inspired, apparently, by PJ's film) that Faramir could have been
executed for lifting the ban against permitting strangers in Ithilien in the
case of Frodo and Sam. The army of Gondor was not the army of Nazi Germany
or the Soviet Union.
Öjevind
Taemon
> Weland <gi...@poetic.com> wrote:
>> Stan Brown wrote:
>>> I still wouldn't count Saruman's ring, because even *he* doesn't say
>>> that it's magical. (And if he had, I wouldn't believe it unless he
>>> gave a demonstration.)
>> I would. Look, he's a Maia. He's imitating Sauron.
> He's *trying* to imitate Sauron. Apparently, he failed.
Oooh, nitpick! He *is* imitating Sauron. He's just not very good at it.
/me glowers
Look, I'm imitating Sauron!
T.
Tamf Moo
> Taemon <Tae...@zonnet.nl> wrote:
>> /me glowers
>> Look, I'm imitating Sauron!
>
> But you're not very good at it. No, really.
<points and laughs at T's laughable (and pointy) imitation>
neener, neener, neener. two-eyes!
tamf
imitating herself
Taemon
> Taemon <Tae...@zonnet.nl> wrote:
>> Dirk Thierbach wrote:
>>> He's *trying* to imitate Sauron. Apparently, he failed.
>> Oooh, nitpick! He *is* imitating Sauron. He's just not very good at
>> it.
>> /me glowers
>> Look, I'm imitating Sauron!
> But you're not very good at it. No, really.
/me dons a ring
And now?
T.
Taemon
Did I make you laugh?
T.
Taemon
> "Tamf Moo" <liddle...@yahoo.com> skrev i meddelelsen
> news:87ni0c...@mid.individual.net...
>> <points and laughs at T's laughable (and pointy) imitation>
>> neener, neener, neener. two-eyes!
> <adds to diss>
> Neener, neener, ten-fingers!
<gruff voice, with otherworldly undertones> Nine. </gruff voice, with
otherworldly undertones>
I saw raven in a small zoo annex "owl park" a couple of weeks ago. Another
visitor and child walked passed, and the mother said "Look, the crows are
eating!" I know most people don't really care about birds (and no reason
they should) but how can someone mistake a raven for a crow?
T.
derek
> Raven wrote:
> > "Tamf Moo" <liddlelel...@yahoo.com> skrev i meddelelsen
How can they not? We've got big crows and small ravens around here,
and I have a hard time telling them apart. Bilbo wasn't so good at
it, either.
Taemon
Well. These where thrice crow-sized :-) It was like seeing swans and
thinking ducks. It's no big deal, I know. But I was truly surprised.
T.
Stan Brown
> Agreed, but Saruman's ring needn't have been the equal of the One
> Ring or even the Elven made 3 to have been a magical ring--which is
> the only point I'm trying to make.
But that's not logic -- "we can't prove it wasn't a magic ring so it
must be magic." Can you cite a single piece of evidence that shows
it was anything but a showy piece of jewelry? I might be missing
something, but I don't think so.
Stan Brown
> But they did. Saruman had been doing this *for years*, and had a
> ring of his own for sometime.
The ring is irrelevant. The *only* specific power that we know
Saruman had was his voice. That's it. We might *guess* that he can
do some enchantments, since Gandalf could, but we've never seen any
evidence of it.
Saruman, with his "mind of wheels and gears", basically set himself
up as a plain ordinary dictator. Probably he got his initial
followers through his power of persuasion, but from there on he would
be able to command. There's no question he had the most advanced
technology in Middle-earth, though it ended up not helping him much.
Whatever powers he had as a Maia, he didn't seem to use them.
Julian Bradfield
> The ring is irrelevant. The *only* specific power that we know
> Saruman had was his voice. That's it. We might *guess* that he can
> do some enchantments, since Gandalf could, but we've never seen any
> evidence of it.
The question arises of how he confined Gandalf. It's not obvious why,
if he simply marched in a squad of Uruks (which Gandalf would in any
case surely have mentioned at the Council), Gandalf should not have
zapped them. It seems to me that either Saruman used physical force
which he was able to protect from Gandalf, or he used non-physical
means, and I don't see how that differs from enchantment or Maiarin
powers.
> be able to command. There's no question he had the most advanced
> technology in Middle-earth, though it ended up not helping him much.
> Whatever powers he had as a Maia, he didn't seem to use them.
The difference between technology and magic being;-?
Öjevind Lång
news:MPG.26826277b...@news.individual.net...
> On Mon, 14 Jun 2010 23:49:30 -0500, Weland wrote:
>> Agreed, but Saruman's ring needn't have been the equal of the One
>> Ring or even the Elven made 3 to have been a magical ring--which is
>> the only point I'm trying to make.
>
> But that's not logic -- "we can't prove it wasn't a magic ring so it
> must be magic." Can you cite a single piece of evidence that shows
> it was anything but a showy piece of jewelry? I might be missing
> something, but I don't think so.
Why should a wizard, one of the Wise (originaly) wear a ring that was merely
ornamental?
Öjevind
Raven
news:87s7gv...@mid.individual.net...
> Why should a wizard, one of the Wise (originaly) wear a ring that was
> merely ornamental?
Why not? Saruman in his degradation became an idiot, not just a jackdaw.
We know that he despised Gandalf for smoking, yet secretly aped him by
taking up the art himself. Then the snotshovel dug a grave for his
neighbours and was actually offended when they pushed back and he fell into
it himself...
It was typical for evil creatures in Arda that they believed themselves
to be other and more than they were. This includes Morgoth believing
himself to be the Elder King: a liar who apparently *expected* H�rin to
believe that he did not lie - probably because he believed all his bollox
himself, the fellow who put the original lie in beLIEve. In line with my
earlier rants about the gravest frailty of humans (self-delusion springing
from wishful thinking, therefore fitting morality to desires rather than
behaviour to morality), the evil creatures especially were given to fanciful
thinking.
Same thing with tyrannical regimes in the real world today: they serve
shit on a plate and actually expect visitors and slaves alike to believe it
to be the sausage that propaganda insists it to be ---
There is a comics series called "Alle macht ann de generaal"/ "De
machteloze generaal" where the general continuously tries and fails to usurp
power from the marshall, ineffectually aided by the soldier and the
professor. It was authored by one of Taemon's countrymen, Peter de Smet.
In one episode we see him actually achieving his goal, with a masterful
attack against the marshall's fort, and then it is revealed in the last
panel that it was just a movie that he had paid a lot of money to produce so
that he could please himself by watching it, with the soldier and the
professor snoring away.
I should see it as compatible with the character of Saruman the
bling-maker, such as we see it, to do something similar if he could not make
a real Ring of Power: to make an ornamental trinket and put it on his finger
and flatter himself with the title "ring-maker", bragging to Gandalf about
it given half a chance.
All this does of course not prove that Saruman's ring was not magical. I
just see no evidence either way. "Was Saruman's ring some sort of Ring of
Power" seems fit to join Morgoth's Curse's phone-book-sized list of
unanswerable questions about Middle-earth.
Raaf.
Stan Brown
> The question arises of how he confined Gandalf. It's not obvious why,
> if he simply marched in a squad of Uruks (which Gandalf would in any
> case surely have mentioned at the Council), Gandalf should not have
> zapped them.
I don't believe Gandalf *could* have "zapped" them. Remember the
scene with the Wargs in the trees, after Thorin & company escaped
from the Misty Mountains? All he could do was annoy them with
burning pinecones. He was planning to sacrifice his life to take a
few of them with him.
When the Istari took their physical forms, they accepted great
limitations on their physical power.
Stan Brown
>
> Stan Brown wrote:
> > On Tue, 15 Jun 2010 00:58:55 -0500, Weland wrote:
> >> But they did. Saruman had been doing this *for years*, and had a
> >> ring of his own for sometime.
> >
> > The ring is irrelevant.
>
I don't know what language "not hardly" may be, but the ring is
irrelevant because as far as we know it was nothing but jewelry.
> > The *only* specific power that we know
> > Saruman had was his voice. That's it.
>
> Is it? He certainly has knowledge of technology, that's certainly a
> power,
Sorry, I suppose I should have spelled it out for you: the only
*supernatural* power.
> We know that he can cover a huge distance in a short matter of time
> or at least project himself across that space.
Sorry, I'm drawing a blank. How do we know that?
> We know that he can raise a "wall" that wearies the pursuers.
You're right about that; I had forgotten that he did that to Aragorn,
Legolas, and Gimli. I don't think we ever know for certain that it
was Saruman, but I agree he seems by far the most likely candidate.
> We know his gifts ran to uncovering all secrets as UT tells us,
> discovering all secrets even such secrets as Gandalf was bearing
> one of the three is magical stuff.
That's not a "power" in any meaningful Tolkienian sense. It's called
intelligence aided by observation.
> We might *guess* that he can
> > do some enchantments, since Gandalf could, but we've never seen any
> > evidence of it.
>
> It is more than a guess, unless when Gandalf describes Saruman as
> "greatest of my order" he really means that Saruman can do much less
> than Gandalf can.
(a) Characters' evaluations of others cannot be taken at face value.
Or do you think Celeborn was the wisest of Elves, just because
Galadriel said so?
(b) "Greatest" does not mean "most powerful", even leaving aside the
fact that "most powerful" doesn't mean very much.
(c) The Istari were the Wizards, those who know. It seems reasonable
that the greatest Istar was the one who knew the most and was the
wisest (not always the same thing). The rest of the Council did
think he was wisest, since they accepted his advice in dealing with
Sauron and the Ring.
> > Saruman, with his "mind of wheels and gears", basically set
> > himself up as a plain ordinary dictator.
>
> So did Melkor and Sauron...are you arguing that Sauron didn't make a
> magic ring on those grounds?
Now you're just being silly.
The difference between Sauron's and Saruman's rings is obvious (even
if not, sadly, to you): Sauron's ring worked, as we have plenty of
evidence,. Despite my repeated requests, no one has produced a shred
of evidence that Saruman's ring was more than jewelry. Don't you
think that if Saruman had actually made a magic ring he would have
shown *some* of its power to gandalf, to lord it over him?
Stan Brown
For bluff, and out of vanity. Why did he wear many-colored robes?
Stan Brown
> I should see it as compatible with the character of Saruman the
> bling-maker, such as we see it, to do something similar if he could not make
> a real Ring of Power: to make an ornamental trinket and put it on his finger
> and flatter himself with the title "ring-maker", bragging to Gandalf about
> it given half a chance.
Thank you. That's what I've been trying to say, but you said it
perhaps better than I have.
Julian Bradfield
> On Wed, 16 Jun 2010 10:06:59 +0000 (UTC), Julian Bradfield wrote:
>> The question arises of how he confined Gandalf. It's not obvious why,
>> if he simply marched in a squad of Uruks (which Gandalf would in any
>> case surely have mentioned at the Council), Gandalf should not have
>> zapped them.
>
> I don't believe Gandalf *could* have "zapped" them. Remember the
> scene with the Wargs in the trees, after Thorin & company escaped
> from the Misty Mountains? All he could do was annoy them with
> burning pinecones. He was planning to sacrifice his life to take a
> few of them with him.
I don't think the LotR conception of Gandalf sits well with the Hobbit
one - nor that the narrator of H is necessarily correctly informed.
However Gandalf fought the Balrog, it surely wasn't just a matter of
poking it with a sword and hitting it with a stick.
And in the warg attack before reaching Moria, Gandalf "zapped" rather
a lot of wolves. Remember the command: "Naur dan i ngaurhoth!", "Let fire
fall upon the wolves!".
Stan Brown
> Well, first, I'd have to say you've merely stated the inverse of your
> own reasongin. You seem to be saying "We can't prove it's magical, so
> it likely isn't."
I do wish you'd stop putting up straw men.
Here is a ring. How do we decide if it's magical or not? Most rings
are not magical, so the odds are this one isn't.
Hmm.
Does anyone *tell* us it's magical? No.
Do we see it *do* anything magical? No.
If it were magical, would we expect to see some demonstration of
that? Yes.
Conclusion: We can't be 100% certain, but the smart money would bet
long odds against its being magical.
auspex
<jon.lennart.beck.its.my.n...@mail.its.in.danmark> wrote:
> " jevind L ng" <ojevind.l...@bredband.net> skrev i meddelelsennews:87s7gv...@mid.individual.net...
>
> > Why should a wizard, one of the Wise (originaly) wear a ring that was
> > merely ornamental?
>
> Why not? Saruman in his degradation became an idiot, not just a jackdaw.
> We know that he despised Gandalf for smoking, yet secretly aped him by
> taking up the art himself. Then the snotshovel dug a grave for his
> neighbours and was actually offended when they pushed back and he fell into
> it himself...
Which I guess is what Ojevind was hinting at with his "(originally)".
However, I feel much as he does that it doesn't make much sense within
the story if it's purely ornamental.
> It was typical for evil creatures in Arda that they believed themselves
> to be other and more than they were.
True here, too :-) [oh, right, you said that later!]
> I should see it as compatible with the character of Saruman the
> bling-maker, such as we see it, to do something similar if he could not make
> a real Ring of Power: to make an ornamental trinket and put it on his finger
> and flatter himself with the title "ring-maker", bragging to Gandalf about
> it given half a chance.
I "feel" (though I certainly can't give any definitive evidence to
back it up) that Saruman would have at least _thought_ his ring was
magical. When he waves his Ring and commands armies, they do his
bidding - "See, it works!". So, I wouldn't call it an ornament, but
it may well be a fetish object.
> All this does of course not prove that Saruman's ring was not magical. I
> just see no evidence either way. "Was Saruman's ring some sort of Ring of
> Power" seems fit to join Morgoth's Curse's phone-book-sized list of
> unanswerable questions about Middle-earth.
Yep, definitely belongs in the list.
Troels Forchhammer
Julian Bradfield <j...@inf.ed.ac.uk> spoke these staves:
> On 2010-06-17, Stan Brown <the_sta...@fastmail.fm> wrote:
>>
>> On Wed, 16 Jun 2010 10:06:59 +0000 (UTC), Julian Bradfield wrote:
>>>
>>> The question arises of how he confined Gandalf. It's not obvious
>>> why, if he simply marched in a squad of Uruks (which Gandalf
>>> would in any case surely have mentioned at the Council), Gandalf
>>> should not have zapped them.
>>
>> I don't believe Gandalf *could* have "zapped" them. Remember the
>> scene with the Wargs in the trees, after Thorin & company escaped
>> from the Misty Mountains? All he could do was annoy them with
>> burning pinecones. He was planning to sacrifice his life to take
>> a few of them with him.
>
> I don't think the LotR conception of Gandalf sits well with the
> Hobbit one - nor that the narrator of H is necessarily correctly
> informed.
I quite agree about the difficulties inherent in trying to make too
many inferences about the conception in LotR based on the conception
in TH -- and not just about Gandalf either.
There seems, however, within LotR itself to be indicated that
Gandalf's use of power was increasing as the crisis grew nearer (and
of course at the onset of the crisis, he died and was transformed,
but that is a different matter), and so Gandalf's exploits early in
the book would appear to form some kind of upper bound for the power
he could have exerted in Isengard.
These exploits would include his fight with the Nazgūl on Weathertop
(where he 'hard put to it indeed' to keep them all nine at bay during
a whole night; the encounter with the wolves in Eregion (some more
fireworks) and the encounter with the Balrog, which was of a
different kind.
> However Gandalf fought the Balrog, it surely wasn't just a matter
> of poking it with a sword and hitting it with a stick.
No, not 'just', though there was probably also quite a bit of that
involved -- it was, however, also a matter of fire and light against
fire and shadow . . .
Those that looked up from afar thought that the mountain
was crowned with storm. Thunder they heard, and lightning,
they said, smote upon Celebdil, and leaped back broken into
tongues of fire. Is not that enough? A great smoke rose
about us, vapour and steam. Ice fell like rain. I threw
down my enemy, and he fell from the high place and broke
the mountain-side where he smote it in his ruin.
> And in the warg attack before reaching Moria, Gandalf "zapped"
> rather a lot of wolves. Remember the command: "Naur dan i
> ngaurhoth!", "Let fire fall upon the wolves!".
Actually Gandalf didn't zap any wolves -- but he did burn down a lot
of trees with that spell, and the fire appears to have driven away
the wolves more effectively than Legolas' arrow (ignited by Gandalf's
fires) that killed a chieftain.
However, as Gandalf points out himself, he 'must have something to
work on' -- without some fuel his fire was rather inefficient (though
I'd assume that even in Orthanc there would at least be some
furniture and tapestries and probably also carpets that could burn).
Saruman wouldn't have needed more than a handful of uruks to take
Gandalf prisoner -- besides Saruman himself they would have a whole
army to back them up, so rather than killing that handful and be
flooded with a thousand others, Gandalf bided his time.
--
Troels Forchhammer <troelsfo(a)googlewave.com>
Valid e-mail is <troelsfo(a)gmail.com>
Please put [AFT], [RABT] or 'Tolkien' in subject.
The truth may be out there, but lies are inside your head.
- /Hogfather/ (Terry Pratchett)
Troels Forchhammer
Stan Brown <the_sta...@fastmail.fm> spoke these staves:
> On Wed, 16 Jun 2010 18:50:25 -0500, Weland wrote:
>>
>> Stan Brown wrote:
>>>
> but the ring is irrelevant because as far as we know it was nothing
> but jewelry.
You have no more direct evidence to the power of Narya and Vilya than
you do to the power of Saruman's ring, yet I take it you don't
propose that these too were just over-hyped pieces of fancy jewelry?
Saruman strongly implies that his ring is magic, and Gandalf never
implies otherwise, though he is generally careful to call Saruman's
lies and deceptions.
I'd say that the implications in the book strongly point to Saruman's
ring having some kind of magic power, though I presume that it is not
nearly as powerful as Saruman would like to make Gandalf believe --
it is rather one more 'essay in the craft', a lesser ring.
>>> The *only* specific power that we know Saruman had was his voice.
>>> That's it.
>>
>> Is it? He certainly has knowledge of technology, that's certainly
>> a power,
>
> Sorry, I suppose I should have spelled it out for you: the only
> *supernatural* power.
I think it is time to recall the conversation in 'Flotsam and Jetsam'
[Merry] 'His wizardry may have been falling off lately, of
course; but anyway I think he has not much grit, not much
plain courage alone in a tight place without a lot of
slaves and machines and things, if you know what I mean.
Very different from old Gandalf. I wonder if his fame was
not all along mainly due to his cleverness in settling at
Isengard.'
'No,' said Aragorn. 'Once he was as great as his fame
made him. His knowledge was deep, his thought was subtle,
and his hands marvellously skilled; and he had a power over
the minds of others. The wise he could persuade, and the
smaller folk he could daunt. That power he certainly still
keeps. There are not many in Middle-earth that I should say
were safe, if they were left alone to talk with him, even
now when he has suffered a defeat. Gandalf, Elrond, and
Galadriel, perhaps, now that his wickedness has been laid
bare, but very few others.'
Saruman's powers are not primarily with fire and lightning, but that
doesn't make them any less magic. Saruman's understanding for
technology _is_ supernatural!
_You_ might call it an ordinary gunpowder explosion that blasted a
hole in the Deeping-wall, but the story-internal explanation is
magical, 'the fire of Orthanc' Aragorn calls it, and it doesn't
matter even if it _was_ ordinary black gunpowder -- that is 'magic
knowledge' in the language of Middle-earth.
>> We know that he can cover a huge distance in a short matter of
>> time or at least project himself across that space.
>
> Sorry, I'm drawing a blank. How do we know that?
I would presume his apparent visit to Fangorn -- and the explanations
offered for this visit.
>> We know that he can raise a "wall" that wearies the pursuers.
>
> You're right about that; I had forgotten that he did that to
> Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli. I don't think we ever know for
> certain that it was Saruman, but I agree he seems by far the most
> likely candidate.
As long as no one is suggesting that Saruman directed the storm on
Caradhras ;-)
>> We know his gifts ran to uncovering all secrets as UT tells us,
>> discovering all secrets even such secrets as Gandalf was bearing
>> one of the three is magical stuff.
>
> That's not a "power" in any meaningful Tolkienian sense. It's
> called intelligence aided by observation.
That is very definitely a power in the Tolkienian sense! And probably
a far more important power than making a fire in a snow storm. It is
also very close to Elrond's primary power -- that of _lore_. Elrond
used Vilya to preserve the _lore_ of the Elder days, not, as
Galadriel used Nenya, to preserve, as it were, a piece of First Age.
Elrond became a loremaster, and that was his great preservation
project: there is a reason why it would be in Rivendell that Bilbo
should write his _Translations from Elvish_.
Don't underestimate a magic power just because you have some measure
of it yourself -- knowledge, understanding, lore, is of very great
importance in Middle-earth, and possessing it is a magic power in
itself (this is, for instance, the basis of Bombadil's power over Old
Man Willow and the Barrow-wight: he _understands_ them), and the
wisdom of the Istari is so great that it is magic in nature.
>>> We might *guess* that he can do some enchantments, since Gandalf
>>> could, but we've never seen any evidence of it.
There is certainly enough evidence to satisfy me . . .
>> It is more than a guess, unless when Gandalf describes Saruman as
>> "greatest of my order" he really means that Saruman can do much
>> less than Gandalf can.
>
> (a) Characters' evaluations of others cannot be taken at face
> value. Or do you think Celeborn was the wisest of Elves, just
> because Galadriel said so?
I tend to disregard the superlatives in Tolkien's work -- 'wisest'
simply means 'very wise' just as 'greatest' means 'very great'. I
certainly accept that Celeborn is a very wise elf because Galadriel
says so :-)
> (b) "Greatest" does not mean "most powerful", even leaving aside
> the fact that "most powerful" doesn't mean very much.
Whatever might be understood by 'greatest' (or 'very great'), Saruman
_was_ the head of the Order of Wizards from the start, and despite
Galadriel's attempt to elevate Gandalf, Saruman was also the head of
the White Council. There is certainly more than one sense in which
Saruman was the 'greatest' of the Wizards, even if we cannot pinpoint
exactly what might be meant by that.
However, 'highest in Valinorean stature' does mean something close to
'most powerful' -- whatever that might mean :-) I agree that it
isn't really a very meaningful word, but the real point is that
Saruman was very great and very wise and very powerful -- his power
would probably fall somewhere between Gandalf the Grey and Gandalf
the White (who, after all, calls himself 'Saruman as he should have
been').
> (c) The Istari were the Wizards, those who know. It seems
> reasonable that the greatest Istar was the one who knew the most
> and was the wisest (not always the same thing).
Unfortunately the term 'highest in Valinorean stature' doesn't bring
us much closer to anything meaningful ;-)
> The rest of the Council did think he was wisest, since they
> accepted his advice in dealing with Sauron and the Ring.
And you imply that there is no magic power involved in that?
Off the top of my head I remember the tale of Odin and the runes, but
I am sure that there are other of the old Eddaic tales (as well as
other tales in Old Norse or Old English) that make the connection
between knowledge and magic clear -- my impression is that knowledge
and magic power are two words for the same thing in many of the Old
Norse texts.
Tolkien is never very precise with his use of 'magic', but the
connection between magic and knowledge is not entirely lost in his
work: great magic requires great knowledge, and great knowledge
requires magic.
<snip>
> Don't you think that if Saruman had actually made a magic ring he
> would have shown *some* of its power to gandalf, to lord it over
> him?
More than he did?
Sorry, Stan, but now you sound as if you would require Tolkien to
have written something like that ludicrous Wizard-tossing contest we
suffered in the Jackson film. Is there any way Tolkien could have
satisfied your desire for flashy magic without resorting to that kind
of thing?
Saruman showed Gandalf his Ring, and that was enough! Tolkien was a
subtle author, and Gandalf would not deceived by some mere trinket --
neither as one of the Wise, as a Wizard or as a Ring-keeper. Since
Gandalf doesn't call out Saruman's ring as a hoax, the presumption
should rather be that Gandalf accepts it as magical and that Gandalf
is right. Given that the intention clearly is to present the ring as
magic, and that there is never any attempt to cast doubt on that, I
see no reason not to believe it.
--
Troels Forchhammer <troelsfo(a)googlewave.com>
Valid e-mail is <troelsfo(a)gmail.com>
Please put [AFT], [RABT] or 'Tolkien' in subject.
Science without religion is lame. Religion without science
is blind.
- Albert Einstein
Troels Forchhammer
Weland <gi...@poetic.com> spoke these staves:
>
> Let me try and lay it out, hopefully better than I have in the tit
> for tat manner of a thread:
Good idea! I should have done that also, as I discovered when I sent
off a 500+ lines message where I repeat myself several times in 'the
tit for tat manner of a thread'.
<snip agreement>
> In short he had motive, means, and opportunity: and what's more
> was already acting on those motives by utilizing his means and
> taking the opportunity....the only thing missing is an explicit
> comment by the author saying that Saruman's ring was an attempt to
> make a ring of power.
>
> The idea seems to have occurred to Tolkien. In HoME for the
> Council of Elrond Tolkien wrote after Gandalf's observation that
> Saruman wore a ring in July 3018 that Saruman had made a ring of
> power. He seems to taken the phrase out in later versions, but it
> does show that the idea occurred to him, and though excised he
> wrote nothing to disabuse one of the notion.
And even if Saruman's isn't exactly a 'Ring of Power', it could still
be a lesser magic ring such as those the Elven-smiths of Eregion had
made before they attempted to make the Rings of Power.
Curumo was a Maia of Aul�, same as Sauron, and in the beginning they
were peers both in power and knowledge. Saruman lost much of Curumo's
power and knowledge when he became one of the Wizards, and it is
likely that Sauron would have studied the making of items of power
while he served Morgoth, while I can't imagine that Aul� gave much
credit to such things (certainly not items meant to dominate others).
It would, in my view, follow that Saruman would be far behind Sauron
in the making of items of power, and his first efforts would, again
IMO, accordingly be rather weak.
Another point that I would wish to make here is that we do know some
things about the workings of the Rings of Power. Their chief power
was that of preservation -- not a power that Saruman would have much
use for -- on top of which some had the ability to turn the wearer
invisible (but that came directly from Sauron). Apart from that, they
appear to have worked primarily by enhancing what was already there
-- enhancing the natural powers of the wearer. This is where Saruman
might have benefited from having a ring.
But Saruman's powers are not in flashy magic. His powers are
knowledge, cunning, persuation -- and in the corrupted version, the
Machine and domination. These powers we see Saruman exert all the way
to the end (even the corruption of the Shire is based on the Machine
and domination).
> So while none of this *proves* that Saruman's ring was magical,
> certainly not enough to satisfy the math and science crowd,
Well, 'proof' in the mathematical sense is only possible in math.
Even in science the best we can do is 'failed to disprove despite
persistent attempts'. The evidence, such as it is, does, in my
opinion, support the position that Saruman made a magic ring more
strongly than the opposite position (i.e. that he made a mere non-
magical trinket with no more power than the immanent Morgoth-
element).
> And no, the idea that Saruman thinks having a bauble on his hand
> when he knows Gandalf has one of the 3 is going to intimidate
> Gandalf means we think the head of the White Council and greatest
> of the Istari according to Gandalf is stupid and if so stupid,
> hardly capable of massing armies to threaten Rohan.
It would also mean that we would consider Gandalf, himself a Keeper
of one of the Three and by some (many?) considered the best of the
Wizards, was gullible enough not to detect that the ring that Saruman
was boasting about was just another ordinary bauble. Certainly
Gandalf is fast enough in other ways to call Saruman's hoaxes ('he
that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of
wisdom'). On the other hand, the ring is not a large enough threat
after Saruman's defeat for Gandalf to demand that Saruman hand it
over.
--
Troels Forchhammer <troelsfo(a)googlewave.com>
Valid e-mail is <troelsfo(a)gmail.com>
Please put [AFT], [RABT] or 'Tolkien' in subject.
The errors hardest
to condone
in other people
are one's own.
- Piet Hein, /Our Own Motes/
Matthew Woodcraft
> Saruman showed Gandalf his Ring, and that was enough! Tolkien was a
> subtle author, and Gandalf would not deceived by some mere trinket --
> neither as one of the Wise, as a Wizard or as a Ring-keeper. Since
> Gandalf doesn't call out Saruman's ring as a hoax, the presumption
> should rather be that Gandalf accepts it as magical and that Gandalf
> is right. Given that the intention clearly is to present the ring as
> magic, and that there is never any attempt to cast doubt on that, I
> see no reason not to believe it.
If Gandalf believed the ring was magic, it seems odd that there's no
mention of what happened to it, either in the Voice of Saruman chapter
or near the end of the book.
-M-
Troels Forchhammer
Matthew Woodcraft <mat...@woodcraft.me.uk> spoke these staves:
> If Gandalf believed the ring was magic, it seems odd that there's
> no mention of what happened to it, either in the Voice of Saruman
> chapter or near the end of the book.
There's obviously an element of taste involved here, but to me this
'problem' is less worrying than the problems inherent in assuming
Saruman's ring to be without any power at all. What I am suggesting is,
after all, not that Saruman's ring was on par with the other Rings of
Power, but rather that it was a lesser ring, which would not be
seriously dangerous -- particularly not after Saruman had lost most of
his power.
Furthermore, in an ironic twist, if Saruman had learned his ring-lore
from studying what the Elven-smiths of Eregion did and studying Sauron,
then I would consider it very likely that his ring would also be under
the dominion of the One Ring and thus lose all power after the
destruction of the One, making the question of its later fate of no
matter.
--
Troels Forchhammer <troelsfo(a)googlewave.com>
Valid e-mail is <troelsfo(a)gmail.com>
Please put [AFT], [RABT] or 'Tolkien' in subject.
The major problem [encountered in time travel] is quite
simply one of grammar, and the main work to consult in this
matter is Dr Dan Streetmentioner's Time Traveller's
Handbook of 1001 Tense Formations.
- Douglas Adams, /The Restaurant at the End of the Universe/
Matthew Woodcraft
> Furthermore, in an ironic twist, if Saruman had learned his ring-lore
> from studying what the Elven-smiths of Eregion did and studying Sauron,
> then I would consider it very likely that his ring would also be under
> the dominion of the One Ring and thus lose all power after the
> destruction of the One, making the question of its later fate of no
> matter.
I think that's a satisfying answer (though on another level I think it's
likely that Tolkien didn't consider the question).
-M-
Stan Brown
> I "feel" (though I certainly can't give any definitive evidence to
> back it up) that Saruman would have at least _thought_ his ring was
> magical. When he waves his Ring and commands armies
And when is that, please?
Stan Brown
> You have no more direct evidence to the power of Narya and Vilya than
> you do to the power of Saruman's ring
That's a straw man, Troels, and not worthy of you, if you'll forgive
my saying so.
I never demanded "direct evidence" that Saruman's ring was more than
jewelry -- I would have been happy to accept Gandalf's testimony on
the matter, as I accept it on the powers of the Three. But Gandalf
didn't say anything about Saruman's ring. Don't you think if
Saruman's ring was magical that Gandalf might have mentioned it to
someone?
I'm not sure what you mean by "direct evidence", though come to that
we have no *direct* evidence for any of the events in LotR since none
of were eyewitnesses. But we do have plenty of evidence for the
events, and evidence too for the powers of the Three, in the form or
lore communicated by Gandalf during the story and by the chroniclers
in the appendices.
Stan Brown
> To address this, the original issue, from the outset, I agree that
> Saruman's Ring is most likely 'magic' (at least as the hobbits would
> use that word). Otherwise there is really no point in Saruman's boast
> in calling himself 'Saruman Ring-maker'.
Of course there is -- it's bluff and bombast and perhaps, as has been
noted by others, self deception.
It seems that many people here are forgetting that Saruman was a
liar, and it was foolish to believe anything that came out of his
mouth. So if he had said that his ring had powers, I would have
hesitated to believe it. How much less should I believe it had
powers since he didn't even *try* to claim that it did?
Öjevind Lång
news:87pqzps...@golux.woodcraft.me.uk...
I agree. Story-externally, it is probable that he simply forgot Saruman's
ring. Or else Gandalf removed all power from the ring when he deprived
Saruman of all his other magical powers.
�jevind
Troels Forchhammer
February) . . .
The immediate context was a discussion of Hobbit knowledge of some of
the great tales -- this part originated with a discussion of the tale
of Beren and L锟絫hien, of which there is no evidence that any of the
Four Travellers knew before Aragorn presented it to them at
Weathertop. This led to 锟絡evind's statement that
>>> I doubt that anyone living in the Shire knew anything about
>>> Gil-galad until Bilbo went on his first voyage.
to which I agree.
The insularity of the Hobbits and Rohan is not just a matter of not
knowing about the Fa锟絩ie aspect of Middle-earth.
In message <news:7t5fij...@mid.individual.net>
锟絡evind L锟絥g <ojevin...@bredband.net> spoke these staves:
>
> It seems clear to me that they neither knew nor cared about events
> outside their own borders, now or in the past,
This is also strongly implied by the fact that their maps had merely
white space outside the Shire proper.
> and that their memories even of the King in Fornost were hazy.
Indeed -- at the time of Bilbo and Frodo the king seems about as much
a matter of legend as the much later 'Mad Baggins' 'who used to
vanish with a bang and a flash and reappear with bags of jewels and
gold.' Another way to put it is to say that 'the King', to the
Hobbits, is no long a historical figure (or, actually, several
historical figures from Argeleb II who gave the Hobbits permission to
settle in the Shire to Arvedui to whose defense at Fornost against
Angmar they claimed to have sent bowmen). 'The King' in Shire
perceptions at the time of Bilbo and Frodo had become an _idea_ of a
benevolent ruler.
> Their memories, from times further back would have been hazier
> still. Those memories, or legends, were also unlikely to include
> much material about the Elves, with whom the Men they were in
> contact, part and present, had had little or no interaction.
Indeed.
> Tolkien says in the Appendices to LotR that many of the hobbits
> gave their children "high-sounding" names out of the past. Since
> those names (Fredegar, Pippin, Hildifons and so on) are generally
> Germanic in character, they presumably refer to people related to
> the D锟絥edain of the First or Third House - kinglets and warriors
> in the same area, and of the same stock, as Beorn, the Brandings
> and the people of Dale. Perhaps also the kings of Rhovanion, such
> as Vidugavia. Tolkien says something to that effect in the appendix
> about translation:
[snipping quotation]
Yes -- the names seem to derive more immediately from the area of
Rhovanion where the Hobbits apparently lived for a very long time
before they migrated into Eriador.
But one thing is the words and names themselves, free of any
contexts, the other thing is the stories, first as historical lore,
later as stories and even later as legends, echoes of a legend (this
is where we find the folk-figure of 'Mad Baggins') and then just the
name. With respect to their time in Wilderland, the Hobbits appear to
have lost everything except some names and words. The only tradition
that would adhere to these names would therefore refer to the Shire
itself -- they didn't remember any Gorhendad before the Oldbuck one
of that name settled Buckland (and changed his name).
> If the Hobbits had been aware of Elvish or (D锟絥adan)
> nomenclature , they would probably have given their children such
> names. After all, Pippin named his son Faramir, and Sam gave his
> eldest daughter the name Elanor, a flower name from the Elvish.
Good point!
> In other word, I'd say that with few or no exceptions, the hobbits
> knew there were Elves, but thatw as pretty much all.
Yes, I agree.
This also leads me to wonder how widespread the 'enlightenment' at
the beginning of the Fourth Age was? We know that there was an
increased interest in knowledge about the wider world, but was this
disseminated into the wider populace, or did it remain an interest of
a few of the wealthiest families? How long would it take before the
average hobbits, Mr and Mrs Shirehobbit, would be telling their kids
stories from the Red Book ? (If that ever happened).
> After all, they believed the Tooks had Elvish ancestry, which
> suggests great unfamilarity with the Elves,
Yes, so much that the narrator (is that the Tolkien
translator/narrator speaking there? I believe it is) calls the notion
'absurd'. I would say that such a belief was the last hint in hobbit
culture (in the Shire at least) of the stories about the Beren and
L锟絫hien, Tuor and Idril, and about E锟絩endil and Elwing -- the concept
of the half-elven reduced to the gossip-tale 'that long ago one of
the Took ancestors must have taken a fairy wife'.
>>> Remember that during his first voyage Bilbo visited Rivendell
>>> twice, and that he sometimes met Elves who roamed through the
>>> Shire;
>>
>> There can be no doubt that Bilbo had occasion to learn stories
>> from the Elves and I'd even say it is unlikely that he didn't. I
>> may have been a little rash in excluding _all_ stories from the
>> Elder Days from his repertoire -- it'd be natural if he had, for
>> instance, inquired about Gondolin from whence his sword probably
>> came. My main point is that Sam and Frodo did not know the tale
>> about Beren and L锟絫hien which makes it very unlikely, IMO, that
>> Bilbo would have known it prior to leaving the Shire.
>
> Frodo might have known the story. Perhaps the story was primarily
> told for the benefit of Merry and Pippin, and probably Sam.
Of course Frodo 'might' have known it -- he was older and had far
more direct contact with Bilbo than any of the others. But somehow I
doubt that. In 'The Ring Goes South' (II,3) we hear that
In those last days the hobbits sat together in the
evening in the Hall of Fire, and there among many tales
they heard told in full the lay of Beren and L锟絫hien and
the winning of the Great Jewel;
And even later, in VI,4 'The Field of Cormallen' Sam, when he and
Frodo stand at the foot of Orodruin after the destruction of the
Ring, wishes that he could hear their own tale told aloud
And then everyone will hush, like we did, when in Rivendell
they told us the tale of Beren One-hand and the Great Jewel.
None of these passages state outright that this was the first time
that Sam or Frodo heard this story (apart from Aragorn's summary at
Weathertop), but they do, IMO, strongly suggest that this is so. It
was _there_ that they heard the story in full implies 'for the first
time' and Sam clearly associates the story with Rivendell -- not even
with Aragorn and Weathertop.
>> In any case stories about the Elder Days would not, in my
>> opinion, have been among those tales that Gandalf had told the
>> Hobbits.
>
> No, because with the exception of Frodo, Bilbo and Sam, they
> wouldn't have been intersted. "Queer dealings!" they would have
> said, and reached for their tankards of beer.
Aye. This, of course, just raises the question of what the stories
was about, then? I imagine stories that are not unlike those that
young John Ronald found in, for instance, in Lang's coloured fairy
books -- fairy stories and folk-tales. The subject matter that Bilbo
speaks of would certainly fit that very well: 'dragons and goblins
and giants and the rescue of princesses and the unexpected luck of
widows' sons'.
>>> Anyway, in the light of Sam having heard Bilbo's translation of
>>> the Elvish poem about Gil-galad, I find it very unlikely that
>>> Bilbo's nowledge of Elvish went no further back than his
>>> retirement to Rivendell.
>>
>> His knowledge of Elvish in general certainly came by as a result
>> of his adventure, though it would have taken him years to build
>> it, seeking out such few travellers through the Shire as he could
>> find, questioning Gandalf eagerly each time the wizard came by
>> etc. Bilbo would also have tried to gather the tales about other
>> matters that were available within the Shire from the Hobbits
>> themselves.
>
> I completely agree.
It also makes me wonder how much Bilbo would actually be able to
gather even given the sixty years he had before he left the Shire
again? We know that he became quite skilled in the Elvish languages
(I am presuming that his mastery of Quenya was associated with a
similar mastery of Sindarin), but this alone would have required many
years worth of seeking out the occasional wandering company and
learning from them what little he could before they moved on, out of
the Shire. Even with sixty years at his disposal, I doubt that he
could do much more than just scratch the surface of Elvish lore, and
his translation of the poem about Gil-galad suggests, I think, that
he started 'closer to home',
And then, here at the end, and just to confuse our counsels, we might
take a look at Tolkien's work on the 1960 Hobbit, where Bilbo says to
Gandalf:
'Bless me!' he went on. 'Not the Gandalf who used to tell
such wonderful tales about dragons, and goblins, and
giants, and mountains in far countries - and the Sea. They
used to send many quiet lads, and lasses, off on adventures,
it is said: any mad thing from climbing tall trees to
visiting Elves, and even trying to sail in [their] ships'.
Bilbo's voice fell almost to a whisper. 'To sail, sail away
to the Other Shore. Dear me!' he sighed.
with a comment pertaining to the inserted '[their]':
Added, but then omitted: 'to sail in _their_ ships'. The
passage in the next sentence about Bilbo's wistfully
thinking of sailing 'away to the Other Shore' (here
significantly capitalized to make it clear that Elvenhome
is meant) is of course a foreshadowing, in this first
encounter, of his eventual fate in the final chapter of
_The Lord of the Rings_.
Rateliff, _The History of the Hobbit II_, The fifth phase, the 1960
Hobbit, ch. 1 'A Well-Planned Party' p. 771, note on p. 783
I don't quite know what to make of this -- given everything else we
know about Hobbit society, it seems to me quite unlikely that Bilbo
at the beginning of _The Hobbit_ knew so much about Elvish lore that
he would be able to refer to the 'Other Shore' (where, as Rateliff
also points out, the capitalization removes any doubt about what
shore Bilbo is referring to). In particular in view of the other
changes that Tolkien was planning, which included making, as Rateliff
comments, Bilbo more 'foolish' ("Finally, Bilbo is made more foolish
- [...]. And this naivety is extended beyond the end of the book. We
are told that 'He got caught up in great events, which he never
understood; and he became enormously important, though he never
realized it'".) While I don't agree entirely with Rateliff's
assessment of the changes to Bilbo, I do agree that he is, at the
start of his adventure, made more na锟絭e, more clueless about the wide
world, and this makes his comment about sailing to the Other Shore
all that much more incongruous not only with the description of
Hobbit society in LotR, but also with the other changes introduced in
the same text.
--
Troels Forchhammer <troelsfo(a)googlewave.com>
Valid e-mail is <troelsfo(a)gmail.com>
Please put [AFT], [RABT] or 'Tolkien' in subject.
Behold! we are not bound for ever to the circles of the
world, and beyond them is more than memory, Farewell!
- Aragorn, /The Lord of the Rings/ (J.R.R. Tolkien)
Troels Forchhammer
>>
>> You have no more direct evidence to the power of Narya and Vilya
>> than you do to the power of Saruman's ring
>
> That's a straw man, Troels, and not worthy of you, if you'll
> forgive my saying so.
I'm sorry that you should think so -- it was certainly not my
intention. My intention, such as it was, was merely to point out that
we are generally accepting the magical nature of the Rings of Power
on rather circumstantial evidence: on 'hearsay' as we might call it.
> I never demanded "direct evidence" that Saruman's ring was more
> than jewelry -- I would have been happy to accept Gandalf's
> testimony on the matter, as I accept it on the powers of the
> Three.
Then I have misunderstood you -- my apologies! It seemed to me that
you were requiring a higher standard of evidence for Saruman's ring
than for the other Rings of power, but that, then, was clearly a
misinterpretation on my part.
> But Gandalf didn't say anything about Saruman's ring.
> Don't you think if Saruman's ring was magical that Gandalf might
> have mentioned it to someone?
No - I think it is rather the other way around. Gandalf reports
Saruman's words and actions, and I would expect Gandalf to point out
if the implications of these are false. The implications of Saruman's
words and deeds with respect to his ring is, in my opinion, that
Saruman presents his ring as magical. Therefore, since I would expect
Gandalf to refute it if the implication was wrong, I must believe
that it is correct when such a refutation is not forthcoming.
> I'm not sure what you mean by "direct evidence",
I am thinking such evidence as we have, for instance, with the One
Ring. There is ample evidence that the wearer of the One was turned
invisible, and of course there's the evidence of what happened when
it was destroyed (though of course in both cases it could be argued
that it's just a matter of a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy, but
that, IMO, would be taking it to rather silly extremes <GG>).
--
Troels Forchhammer <troelsfo(a)googlewave.com>
Valid e-mail is <troelsfo(a)gmail.com>
Please put [AFT], [RABT] or 'Tolkien' in subject.
Scientific reasoning works only with measurements: only
when we have a number and a unit. Thus, topics for which
we have no measurements, scientific investigation is not
useful. No math, no science. When we do have
measurements, scientific reasoning cannot be ignored.
- Dr Nancy's Sweetie on usenet
Message-ID: <ds159c$p45$1...@pcls4.std.com>
Troels Forchhammer
>>
>> To address this, the original issue, from the outset, I agree
>> that Saruman's Ring is most likely 'magic' (at least as the
>> hobbits would use that word). Otherwise there is really no point
>> in Saruman's boast in calling himself 'Saruman Ring-maker'.
>
> Of course there is -- it's bluff and bombast
Which I don't think is really very much in evidence in his talks with
Gandalf -- certainly no more than Gandalf himself ('He laughed at me,
for my words were empty, and he knew it.'). Saruman appears to me to
have been rather surprisingly candid with Gandalf on this occasion,
and he might as well, because just as he was able to see through the
emptiness of Gandalf's words, so Gandalf saw immediately through any
empty or deceitful words that Saruman spoke, '' "Saruman," I said,
standing away from him, "only one hand at a time can wield the One,
and you know that well, so do not trouble to say we!'
> and perhaps, as has been noted by others, self deception.
Which, as I see it, would not have deceived Gandalf even if true.
> It seems that many people here are forgetting that Saruman was a
> liar, and it was foolish to believe anything that came out of his
> mouth.
I don't think there's any suggestion that Saruman is lying in this
encounter with Gandalf -- he seems rather to be quite astonishingly
honest in the hope of getting Gandalf to side with him.
> So if he had said that his ring had powers, I would have
> hesitated to believe it. How much less should I believe it had
> powers since he didn't even *try* to claim that it did?
But he _does_ make that claim! What else do you think he means by
calling himself 'Saruman Ring-maker'? That is every bit as direct and
explicit a claim as if he had held the ring under Gandalf's nose
crying 'see this magic ring that I made!' You can disbelieve that
claim -- I fully acknowledge that there can be valid reasons for
_not_ believing his claim, but I don't think it is reasonable to say
that the claim isn't made.
It is the very explicit nature of Saruman's claim, combined with the
nature and tone of their encounter as Gandalf relates it that
convinces me that Saruman's ring is indeed magic.
Throughout the encounter Saruman is quite honest with his intentions
and thoughts. He never tries to pretend that his policies are still
the policies of the White Council, nor does he conceal that he wants
the One Ring and that he believes that Gandalf knows where it is. At
the same time they are both very quick to call each other out on any
faults, and in particular Gandalf doesn't try to hide his doubt: 'I
liked white better', 'he that breaks a thing to find out what it is
has left the path of wisdom', 'I have heard speeches of this kind
before, but only in the mouths of emissaries sent from Mordor to
deceive the ignorant', 'only one hand at a time can wield the One,
and you know that well, so do not trouble to say we' -- and I could
go on. It seems to me that Tolkien is careful to let Gandalf refute
and repudiate every false claim or argument on Saruman's part, and so
I conclude that Gandalf does indeed accept the claim that the ring is
magical.
Assuming for a moment that the claim is false, we end up with Saruman
believing that he can fool Gandalf with a non-magical trinket, and
Gandalf failing to see through it. Both of these would be highly out
of character as I see their characters: neither of them are stupid --
instead they are both extremely wise, intelligent and knowledgeable:
Gandalf would not, I believe, be fooled by am ordinary ring, and
Saruman would never, in my opinion, try to fool Gandalf with it (he
might have tried that trick with Wormtongue or some of his other
servants, but _not_ with Gandalf).
In the drafts for the 'Council of Elrond' chapter, it is quite clear
that Saruman's ring is magical. At one point it is one of the
nineteen Rings of Power, and at another point it is hinted that he
had learned the secret of the making of Rings of Power. None of this
is included in the final book, but while it is clear that Saruman's
ring is not one of the original nineteen Great Rings that were made
by the Elven-smiths, it is not clear that the idea that his ring was
magical was abandoned -- in particular as Tolkien was evidently
trying out different explanations for making it so. As argued
elsewhere I don't believe that Saruman's ring would be counted a
'Great Ring' (i.e. on par with the nineteen Great Rings) -- I rather
imagine something that is considerably more light-weight, but
nonetheless a magic ring.
I accept that this relies on my interpretation of the encounter and
of the natures of Gandalf and Saruman, and that others can come to
other conclusions, but I'll maintain that this is, in my view, the
interpretation that is the most in line with Tolkien's intention.
--
Troels Forchhammer <troelsfo(a)googlewave.com>
Valid e-mail is <troelsfo(a)gmail.com>
Please put [AFT], [RABT] or 'Tolkien' in subject.
It is useless to meet revenge with revenge: it will heal
nothing.
- Frodo Baggins, /The Return of the King/ (J.R.R. Tolkien)