Talk a Walk with the Inklings on 15 March 2016

Next week at 8PM EST on 15 March please come and join the Inklings as they take a walk together on twitter. We will be quoting from their works and engaging in lively conversation and friendly banter. Who knows where we'll start (Addison's Walk?), but we'll probably stop and The Bird and the Baby for a swift drink, and maybe end up back at Lewis' rooms. 

With us will be:

J.R.R. Tolkien  -- @TolkienElfland

C.S. Jack Lewis -- @pilgriminnarnia

Charles Williams  --- @oddestinkling

Owen Barfield -- @BarfieldDiction

Hugo Dyson -- @hugodyson

Follow us all on twitter, and follow #inkwalk to stay up to date on what we're up to. 

(Rumor has it that Dyson is going to try to talk Tolkien into re-enacting his famed theft of an omnibus during his early days at Exeter College)

'Wraiths!' he wailed. 'Wraiths on Wings' -- (TT 4.ii.629-30)

Winged Messenger © Nick Marshall

[Gollum] went on again, but his uneasiness grew, and every now and again he stood up to his full height, craning his neck eastward and southward. For some time the hobbits could not hear or feel what was troubling him. Then suddenly all three halted, stiffening and listening. To Frodo and Sam it seemed that they heard, far away, a long wailing cry, high and thin and cruel. They shivered. At the same moment the stirring of the air became perceptible to them; and it grew very cold. As they stood straining their ears, they heard a noise like a wind coming in the distance. The misty lights wavered, dimmed, and went out.  

Gollum would not move. He stood shaking and gibbering to himself, until with a rush the wind came upon them, hissing and snarling over the marshes. The night became less dark, light enough for them to see, or half see, shapeless drifts of fog, curling and twisting as it rolled over them and passed them. Looking up they saw the clouds breaking and shredding; and then high in the south the moon glimmered out, riding in the flying wrack.

For a moment the sight of it gladdened the hearts of the hobbits; but Gollum cowered down, muttering curses on the White Face. Then Frodo and Sam staring at the sky, breathing deeply of the fresher air, saw it come: a small cloud flying from the accursed hills; a black shadow loosed from Mordor; a vast shape winged and ominous. It scudded across the moon, and with a deadly cry went away westward, outrunning the wind in its fell speed. 

They fell forward, grovelling heedlessly on the cold earth. But the shadow of horror wheeled and returned, passing lower now, right above them, sweeping the fen-reek with its ghastly wings. And then it was gone, flying back to Mordor with the speed of the wrath of Sauron; and behind it the wind roared away, leaving the Dead Marshes bare and bleak. The naked waste, as far as the eye could pierce, even to the distant menace of the mountains, was dappled with the fitful moonlight.  

Frodo and Sam got up, rubbing their eyes, like children wakened from an evil dream to find the familiar night still over the world. But Gollum lay on the ground as if he had been stunned. They roused him with difficulty, and for some time he would not lift his face, but knelt forward on his elbows, covering the back of his head with his large flat hands.  

'Wraiths!' he wailed. 'Wraiths on wings! The Precious is their master. They see everything, everything. Nothing can hide from them. Curse the White Face! And they tell Him everything. He sees, He knows. Ach, gollum, gollum, gollum!' It was not until the moon had sunk, westering far beyond Tol Brandir, that he would get up or make a move.  

(TT 4.ii.629-30, emphases original)

This scene, which replays itself twice more by the end of this chapter (TT 4.ii.634-35), is noteworthy for a couple of reasons. First, it allows us to make an observation that is important for understanding the power of the Ring, not because the Ring itself is directly in play here, but because of Gollum's similar behavior in another scene where its power is central. For outside the Black Gate, when Frodo declares that since there is no other way into Mordor, he must try this one, Gollum makes the mistake of suggesting that Frodo give the Ring back to him (TT 4.iii.637). At first Frodo appears not to have noticed what Gollum has said, or to attach no importance to it, so intent is he on his mission. When Gollum subsequently reveals the existence of another way into Mordor, Frodo's attention seems entirely devoted to considering that option.

But Frodo has not forgotten, not in the least.

'Sméagol,' he said, 'I will trust you once more. lndeed it seems that I must do so, and that it is my fate to receive help from you, where I least looked for it, and your fate to help me whom you long pursued with evil purpose. So far you have deserved well of me and have kept your promise truly. Truly, I say and mean,' he added with a glance at Sam, 'for twice now we have been in your power, and you have done no harm to us. Nor have you tried to take from me what you once sought. May the third time prove the best! But I warn you, Sméagol, you are in danger.' 

'Yes, yes, master!' said Gollum. 'Dreadful danger! Sméagol's bones shake to think of it, but he doesn't run away. He must help nice master.'  

'I did not mean the danger that we all share,' said Frodo. 'I mean a danger to yourself alone. You swore a promise by what you call the Precious. Remember that! It will hold you to it; but it will seek a way to twist it to your own undoing. Already you are being twisted. You revealed yourself to me just now, foolishly. Give it back to Sméagol you said. Do not say that again! Do not let that thought grow in you! You will never get it back. But the desire of it may betray you to a bitter end. You will never get it back. In the last need, Sméagol, I should put on the Precious; and the Precious mastered you long ago. If I, wearing it, were to command you, you would obey, even if it were to leap from a precipice or to cast yourself into the fire. And such would be my command. So have a care, Sméagol!' 

Sam looked at his master with approval, but also with surprise: there was a look in his face and a tone in his voice that he had not known before. It had always been a notion of his that the kindness of dear Mr. Frodo was of such a high degree that it must imply a fair measure of blindness. Of course, he also firmly held the incompatible belief that Mr. Frodo was the wisest person in the world (with the possible exception of Old Mr. Bilbo and of Gandalf). Gollum in his own way, and with much more excuse as his acquaintance was much briefer, may have made a similar mistake, confusing kindness and blindness. At any rate this speech abashed and terrified him. He grovelled on the ground and could speak no clear words but nice master. 

Frodo waited patiently for a while, then he spoke again less sternly. 'Come now, Gollum or Sméagol if you wish, tell me of this other way, and show me, if you can, what hope there is in it, enough to justify me in turning aside from my plain path. I am in haste.' 

But Gollum was in a pitiable state, and Frodo's threat had quite unnerved him. It was not easy to get any clear account out of him, amid his mumblings and squeakings, and the frequent interruptions in which he crawled on the floor and begged them both to be kind to 'poor little Sméagol'. After a while he grew a little calmer, and Frodo gathered bit by bit that, if a traveller followed the road that turned west of Ephel Duath, he would come in time .... 

(TT 4.iii.640-41, emphasis original)

In declaring that he trusts Gollum only because he must and only because of fate. Frodo is in essence declaring that he does not trust him at all. Indeed he has already twice indicated to Sam that this is so, first conceding that they were safe with Gollum 'at present' (TT 4.ii.622-23), and then that even the promise Gollum made on the Precious would hold only 'a while yet' (TT 4.ii.624). Frodo's 'so far' to Gollum here echoes his words to Sam there, and the private glance he steals at him as he says 'truly I say and mean' serves as a reminder to Sam that both patience and vigilance are still in order. And Frodo immediately gives evidence of both, and much more, as he glides smoothly from expressing, or seeming to express, concern for the danger which Gollum is in, to delivering a threat in which he invokes the power of the Ring to terrify him. He thus reduces him to a state of mumbling incoherence, something even the terror of the winged messengers had not done.

Without saying so explicitly, Frodo has here identified himself as the master of the Precious, which not only 'mastered' Gollum long ago, but the Ringwraiths as well. He has also -- if momentarily, yet not for the last time (TT 4.vi.687; cf. RK 6.iii.944) -- adopted the preferred weapon of the Ringwraiths themselves. For, as Strider said back in Bree when asked if the Nazgûl would attack The Prancing Pony, 'that is not their way.... their power is in terror' (FR 1.x.174, italics mine); to which we may add Gandalf's statement that they 'are only shadows of the power and the terror they would possess if the Ruling Ring were on their master's hand again' (FR 2.iv.295). He is also doing what Galadriel said he must do if he wished to use to Ring -- and warned him strongly against -- 'train[ing his] will to the domination of others' (FR 2.vii.366). It is perhaps especially worth noting in this context that, until now, it has been with Sting alone that Frodo has threatened Gollum (TT 4.i.614, ii.635; see also FR 2.ix.384).

That Frodo has come so far in so short a time is chilling. Not even ten days before this moment he had left his comrades because 'the evil of the Ring [was] already at work in the Company' (FR 2.x.401). And a few days after that he found within himself the pity for Gollum that Gandalf had failed to elicit from him back in The Shire (FR 1.ii.59; TT 4.i.615). That pity arose, as I have recently argued, largely because he saw how Boromir had 'fallen into evil' owing to the power of the Ring (FR 2.x.401).  Yet here we see Frodo himself trammeled in the web of the Ring's power, moved both to show pity and wield terror by swift turns. Galadriel's concern that 'all the Company' remain 'true' applies at least as much to Frodo as it does to Boromir (FR 2.vii.357), a point that we can too easily forget given the events on the slopes of Amon Hen. Indeed, Gandalf's 'neither strength nor good purpose will last' could almost be viewed as summing up the two of them (FR 1.ii.47). 

The second reason the scene with the wraiths is noteworthy is that it marks a turning point whose importance should be clearer in view of what we have just seen. Continuing directly from the point at which we stopped in the first quote, we find the following:

From that time on Sam thought that he sensed a change in Gollum again. He was more fawning and would-be friendly; but Sam surprised some strange looks in his eyes at times, especially towards Frodo; and he went back more and more into his old manner of speaking. And Sam had another growing anxiety. Frodo seemed to be weary, weary to the point of exhaustion. He said nothing, indeed he hardly spoke at all; and he did not complain, but he walked like one who carries a load, the weight of which is ever increasing; and he dragged along, slower and slower, so that Sam had often to beg Gollum to wait and not to leave their master behind. 

In fact with every step towards the gates of Mordor Frodo felt the Ring on its chain about his neck grow more burdensome. He was now beginning to feel it as an actual weight dragging him earthwards. But far more he was troubled by the Eye: so he called it to himself. It was that more than the drag of the Ring that made him cower and stoop as he walked. The Eye: that horrible growing sense of a hostile will that strove with great power to pierce all shadows of cloud, and earth, and flesh, and to see you: to pin you under its deadly gaze, naked, immovable. So thin, so frail and thin, the veils were become that still warded it off. Frodo knew just where the present habitation and heart of that will now was: as certainly as a man can tell the direction of the sun with his eyes shut. He was facing it, and its potency beat upon his brow. 

Gollum probably felt something of the same sort. But what went on in his wretched heart between the pressure of the Eye, and the lust of the Ring that was so near, and his grovelling promise made half in the fear of cold iron, the hobbits did not guess: Frodo gave no thought to it. Sam's mind was occupied mostly with his master, hardly noticing the dark cloud that had fallen on his own heart. He put Frodo in front of him now, and kept a watchful eye on every movement of his, supporting him if he stumbled, and trying to encourage him with clumsy words.

(TT 4.ii.630-31)

The effect of the terror of the Nazgûl here once again brings to mind the verdict of Aragorn at Bree: 'In dark and loneliness they are strongest' (FR 1.x.174). The shriek Frodo and Sam heard on the cliffs of the Emyn Muil a few days earlier demonstrates the truth of this, as the narrator emphasizes how much more powerful that cry was now than in the comfortable woods of The Shire: 'Out here in the waste its terror was far greater: it pierced them with cold blades of horror and despair, stopping heart and breath' (TT 4.i.607).  Now, however, not only does it bring them temporarily to their knees. It changes them.

For as bad as the Emyn Muil were, the Dead Marshes are worse. So far from being merely a desolate, difficult, and lonely landscape, the Dead Marshes are a no man's land haunted by the phantasms of ancient wars whose appearance -- whether they are truly the ghosts of the dead in battle, evil spirits like the Barrow-wights, or altogether an illusion of Sauron -- mocks all victory and sacrifice as vain, and denies the glory of the Great Tales. The marshes and the phantasms seem to cast a spell over Frodo and Sam, much as Old Man Willow and the Barrow-wight did, inducing a dreamlike state of consciousness that nearly tempts them to their ruin.^[1] As in the Old Forest, Sam seems more resistant than Frodo. Here, too, Frodo has a 'vision' in his dreams, explicitly called 'fair' here and quite reasonably seen as such there (FR 1.viii.135; TT 4.ii.635). Also as in the Old Forest, they have a guide or escort, who helps see them through the dangers to the other side.

But how different an escort is Gollum -- who flinches as if in pain at the sound of his own true name (TT 4.i.616) and is a slave to the Ring -- from Bombadil whose name has power, and over whom the Ring has none at all. And though the 'fair vision' of Frodo's dream refreshes him, he cannot remember it upon waking, in stark contrast with the six vividly remembered dreams in the chapters centered on Bombadil and his land. In the Dead Marshes, where even the land may be called 'weary', the wailing cry of the Nazgûl casts over them 'a shadow of growing fear in which memory could find nothing to rest upon' (TT 4.ii.631). Unlike in the Old Forest and Barrow Downs, or in Lothlórien, where Bombadil and Galadriel are present to ward off the darker powers, in the Dead Marshes that darkness holds sway; and aims at that domination which distinguishes 'the devices of the Enemy' from 'elf magic.'^[2]

As a result Gollum, who had changed for the better after promising 'to serve the master of the Precious' (TT 4.i.618), begins to revert to his former self: only a few days pass before the 'two thoughts' scene, in which Sam hears Gollum's worse self persuading his better self to betray the hobbits and recover the Ring (TT 4.ii.632-34). For Frodo, too, the Ring now begins to be a torment from moment to moment. The moral weight of its evil becomes a physical burden, wearying him and weighing him down; and though before he could perceive the spiritual pressure of Sauron's mind hunting for the Ring only when wearing the Ring or looking in Galadriel's mirror, now he feels it beating on his brow like the heat of the sun. Note the narrator's emphatic and uncharacteristic shift in pronouns from the normal and expected third to the more forceful second person: '...to see you: to pin you under its deadly gaze, naked, immovable' (italics mine).^[3]  Frodo's pity for Gollum, their kinship because of the Ring, and ability to reach each other (TT 4.i.618), now seem of little avail. A moment after the narrator tells us that Gollum's experience must have been similar to Frodo's, he also makes a point (hence the colon) of telling us that 'Frodo gave it no thought.' Feeling threatened as he does, Frodo attends only to the Ring even as he struggles onward with the intention of destroying it.

© Ted Nasmith 

_____________________________

^[1] For an extended discussion of these states of consciousness, see here.

^[2] That The Dead Marshes exhibit these characteristics suggests that Faërie contains the enchantments that are an expression of the will to power as much as those that generate Art.

^[3] I find myself unable to think of a similar instance of this kind of shift by the narrator in The Lord of the Rings.

An Observation on The Ring Verse (FR 1.ii.50)

Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky,
Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone,
Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die,
One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie
One Ring to rule them all. One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.

One of the facts of Arda is that Men dwell in this world only a short time, and after death go where none but Ilúvatar can say. It is also true that a 'mortal ... who keeps one of the Great Rings, does not die, but he does not grow or obtain more life, he merely continues, until at last every minute is a weariness' (2.ii.47).  Thus the power that Men gain from their rings is an alienation of their very nature, unlike the power of the other rings. The rings of Men keep them in Arda, where they do not belong. The Ring Verse acknowledges this difference in its descriptions. Men are defined here by the doom of their nature; Elves, Dwarves, and Sauron by their place within Arda. 

Boromir, Fear, and the Pity of Frodo (FR 2.x.396-402)

In studying the long lead-up to the introduction of Gollum as an active character in The Taming of Sméagol, I have come more and more to consider the following question: given that the portrayal of Gollum in the first three books of The Lord of the Rings is negative, dark, and monstrous, why does Frodo pity him? The narrator (Frodo) has taught the reader to regard Gollum with fear and loathing, and thus Frodo's pity, when it comes, may seem right in a high moral sense, but terribly wrong in visceral, practical terms.  Let us first examine the moment itself:

Things would have gone ill with Sam, if he had been alone. But Frodo sprang up, and drew Sting from its sheath. With his left hand he drew back Gollum's head by his thin lank hair, stretching his long neck, and forcing his pale venomous eyes to stare up at the sky. 

'Let go! Gollum,' he said. 'This is Sting. You have seen it before once upon a time. Let go, or you'll feel it this time! I'll cut your throat.'  

Gollum collapsed and went as loose as wet string. Sam got up, fingering his shoulder. His eyes smouldered with anger, but he could not avenge himself: his miserable enemy lay grovelling on the stones whimpering.  

'Don't hurt us! Don't let them hurt us, precious! They won't hurt us will they, nice little hobbitses? We didn't mean no harm, but they jumps on us like cats on poor mices, they did, precious. And we're so lonely, gollum. We'll be nice to them, very nice, if they'll be nice to us, won't we, yes, yess.'  

'Well, what's to be done with it?' said Sam. 'Tie it up, so as it can't come sneaking after us no more, I say.'  

'But that would kill us, kill us,' whimpered Gollum. 'Cruel little hobbitses. Tie us up in the cold hard lands and leave us, gollum, gollum.' Sobs welled up in his gobbling throat. 

'No,' said Frodo. 'If we kill him, we must kill him outright. But we can't do that, not as things are. Poor wretch! He has done us no harm.'  

'Oh hasn't he!' said Sam rubbing his shoulder. 'Anyway he meant to, and he means to, I'll warrant. Throttle us in our sleep, that's his plan.'  

'I daresay,' said Frodo. 'But what he means to do is another matter.' He paused for a while in thought. Gollum lay still, but stopped whimpering. Sam stood glowering over him.  

It seemed to Frodo then that he heard, quite plainly but far off, voices out of the past: 

What a pity Bilbo did not stab the vile creature, when he had a chance!  

Pity? It was Pity that stayed his hand. Pity, and Mercy: not to strike without need.  

I do not feel any pity for Gollum. He deserves death.  

Deserves death! I daresay he does. Many that live deserve death. And some die that deserve life. Can you give that to them? Then be not too eager to deal out death in the name of justice, fearing for your own safety. Even the wise cannot see all ends.  

'Very well,' he answered aloud, lowering his sword. 'But still I am afraid. And yet, as you see, I will not touch the creature. For now that I see him, I do pity him.'  

Sam stared at his master, who seemed to be speaking to some one who was not there. Gollum lifted his head.  

'Yess, wretched we are, precious,' he whined. 'Misery misery! Hobbits won't kill us, nice hobbits.' 

'No, we won't,' said Frodo. 'But we won't let you go, either. You're full of wickedness and mischief, Gollum. You will have to come with us, that's all, while we keep an eye on you. But you must help us, if you can. One good turn deserves another.' 

'Yess, yes indeed,' said Gollum sitting up. 'Nice hobbits! We will come with them. Find them safe paths in the dark, yes we will. And where are they going in these cold hard lands, we wonders, yes we wonders?' He looked up at them, and a faint light of cunning and eagerness flickered for a second in his pale blinking eyes.  

Sam scowled at him, and sucked his teeth; but he seemed to sense that there was something odd about his master's mood and that the matter was beyond argument. All the same he was amazed at Frodo's reply. 

(TT 4.i.614-15, emphases original)

It is essential to point out here, and to bear in mind as we go on, that Frodo in the book is not taken in by Gollum, as the version of Frodo in Peter Jackson's film is.  He may pity him. He may wish him well (4.ii.622-23). He may even trust him, conditionally and because he has no other choice (4.i.618; iii.640; cf. ii.624). Yet he is never fooled. Between their meeting at the foot of the Emyn Muil and their parting in Shelob's Lair, for as long as they journey together, Frodo repeatedly indicates that he knows well the danger Gollum poses, and that even the restraint placed upon him by his oath to the Precious will last only so long (4.ii.623-24; iii.640-41; viii.713-14), an oath Frodo will twice use to terrify Gollum into submission (4.iii.640-41; vi.687). 

Note how Frodo's first action compares to what he said to Gandalf.  He shows not the least hesitation. He springs up, draws Sting, seizes Gollum, and threatens to cut his throat. So far here, Frodo seems as swift and decisive as when he refused to pity Gollum and declared him worthy of death in The Shadow of the Past.  And yet if that were entirely correct, we might expect him simply to kill Gollum outright. Now in part it may well be that Frodo is finding that it is one thing to say 'he deserves death' in the safety of one's own home, and another to become the executioner of that sentence.  But there are other clues here we should not ignore.

At this crucial moment, with Sam's life at immediate risk, Frodo doesn't just kill Gollum or even simply threaten to kill him. Rather, he reminds him that he has seen Sting before and that Bilbo had shown him mercy. He then points out, to Sam's annoyance, that they cannot just kill Gollum, 'not as things are,' that 'he has done us no harm,' and that 'what he means to do' is not strictly relevant. These words, too, are striking reminders of Bilbo's encounter long before:

Bilbo almost stopped breathing, and went stiff himself. He was desperate. He must get away, out of this horrible darkness, while he had any strength left. He must fight. He must stab the foul thing, put its eyes out, kill it. It meant to kill him. No, not a fair fight. He was invisible now. Gollum had no sword. Gollum had not actually threatened to kill him, or tried to yet. And he was miserable, alone, lost. A sudden understanding, a pity mixed with horror, welled up in Bilbo’s heart: a glimpse of endless unmarked days without light or hope of betterment, hard stone, cold fish, sneaking and whispering. All these thoughts passed in a flash of a second. He trembled. And then quite suddenly in another flash, as if lifted by a new strength and resolve, he leaped. 

(The Hobbit, 97, emphasis mine)

So Frodo is clearly thinking of Bilbo here, and seeing the parallels in their situations, even before he recalls his own conversation with Gandalf. In fact that memory seems evoked by his own echo of Gandalf's words and attitude in response to him then. For Frodo's 'I daresay,' followed by a dismissal of what Sam has said about Gollum's intentions parallels Gandalf's 'I daresay' and dismissal of the question of Gollum's deserts.  It is at this moment that their conversation comes back to him, a conversation to which Bilbo had been as crucial as Gollum and the Ring.  But Frodo does not recall Gandalf's words with perfect accuracy:

‘What a pity that Bilbo did not stab that vile creature, when he had a chance!’ 

‘Pity? It was Pity that stayed his hand. Pity, and Mercy: not to strike without need. And he has been well rewarded, Frodo. Be sure that he took so little hurt from the evil, and escaped in the end, because he began his ownership of the Ring so.With Pity.’  

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

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

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

‘Deserves it! I daresay he does. Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends.   

(FR 1.ii.59)

Now, noticing that these two passages do not correspond word for word is nothing new. The remembered conversation condenses and omits much. One could easily argue that this is a realistic touch, since memory is selective both in what it recalls and what it forgets. One could also suggest, as Christopher Tolkien does, that the original conversation and the memory of it 'remain different in detail of wording, perhaps not intentionally at all points' (HoME VIII 97).  Thus the discrepancy might owe itself to chance rather than choice.  

I would argue otherwise. The words 'fearing for your own safety' represent a significant addition to Gandalf's actual statement, which stresses Pity and Justice and Life and Death merited and unmerited. To be sure, Frodo had mentioned that he was frightened, but Gandalf in his response had ignored the fear Frodo adduced as a motive. Gandalf, as we saw at that time, argues from higher ground. And yet here Frodo puts these words in his mouth.

In his recent near encounters with Gollum, Frodo had given no indications of pity, only revulsion and fear. In fact when they had come face to face in the darkness on the banks of the Anduin Frodo had also drawn his sword and then informed Aragorn -- who of course already knew -- that Gollum was stalking them (FR 2.ix.384). As Frodo knew well, Aragorn had once captured Gollum and treated him rather harshly (FR 2.ii.253). He cannot have expected less if Strider caught him again.

So what has changed? Is it merely the sight of Gollum, as Frodo openly says? Is it that Frodo has suffered more from evil and had more experience of the Ring since that morning in Bag End? We cannot ignore these factors of course. On no account may Gollum be called prepossessing, and Frodo has certainly learned much of the Ring. Yet between Frodo's encounter with Gollum on the banks of the Anduin and the moment when he holds Sting to his throat, but does not use it, something happens which can help explain Frodo's change of heart as well as the intrusion into his memory of the false detail 'fearing for your own safety.' We will be able to see it even more clearly if we step back to consider the setup. 

The heart of Legolas was running under the stars of a summer night in some northern glade amid the beech-woods; Gimli was fingering gold in his mind, and wondering if it were fit to be wrought into the housing of the Lady's gift. Merry and Pippin in the middle boat were ill at ease, for Boromir sat muttering to himself, sometimes biting his nails, as if some restlessness or doubt consumed him, sometimes seizing a paddle and driving the boat close behind Aragorn's. Then Pippin, who sat in the bow looking back, caught a queer gleam in his eye, as he peered forward gazing at Frodo. Sam had long ago made up his mind that, though boats were maybe not as dangerous as he had been brought up to believe, they were far more uncomfortable than even he had imagined. He was cramped and miserable, having nothing to do but stare at the winter-lands crawling by and the grey water on either side of him. Even when the paddles were in use they did not trust Sam with one. 

(FR 2.ix.382)

What a beautiful paragraph this is in detail and movement, from character to character and from boat to boat. Beginning with the loveliness of Legolas' vivid, dreamlike memory, and Gimli's chivalrous, romantic imaginings, we never expect the uneasy turn it takes, with Merry, Pippin, and the disturbing, almost threatening behavior of Boromir. We then follow Boromir's gaze through Pippin's eyes straight to Frodo in the boat ahead with Strider and Sam. But suddenly and unexpectedly, since our attention has just been directed to Frodo, we find ourselves with Sam instead. But the introduction of Sam here, uncomfortable, unhappy, and untrusted Sam, is a misdirection. It lightens the menace of the sentences on Boromir, but only in order to refocus it a moment later on another threat that is present on the Great River, another one who has his eyes fixed on Frodo and Frodo's burden. The next paragraph reads:

As dusk drew down on the fourth day, he was looking back over the bowed heads of Frodo and Aragorn and the following boats; he was drowsy and longed for camp and the feel of earth under his toes. Suddenly something caught his sight: at first he stared at it listlessly, then he sat up and rubbed his eyes; but when he looked again he could not see it any more. 

(FR 2.ix.382)

It is of course Gollum whom Sam has seen, but the way in which the narrator shifts our attention from Boromir to Gollum is masterful. Notice how Sam is looking back towards the boats behind his own. Given the previous paragraph, we might expect him to have caught the same 'queer gleam' in Boromir's eyes as Pippin did. But it is not so. For just as we followed Boromir's gaze forward to Frodo, but found Sam instead, so, too, we now follow Sam's back, not to Boromir, but to Gollum. Sam's remarking over and over again on Gollum's eyes further pairs these two threats. Nor is this the first time that Frodo has been the object of Boromir's intense gaze (FR 2.viii.369; ix.388). As the moment nears when Frodo must decide between Minas Tirith and Mordor, danger is converging on him from more than one direction. From Gollum of course, but also from Boromir, who, desperate to save his land, feels quite keenly the anguish of the choice which lies before Frodo. And if Gollum, as Boromir himself said, is 'small, but great in mischief' (FR 2.ii.255), what is Boromir?

So much of what Boromir says in the scene where he tries to take the Ring from Frodo plays off earlier scenes involving the Ring. When Boromir says it was only 'unhappy chance' that Frodo had the Ring, and that it should have been his, it recalls the justifications of Bilbo and Gollum (FR 1.i.33, ii.xx. 53, 56-57; 2.x.399) His statement that the Ring is 'a gift to the foes of Mordor', to use as a weapon against Sauron, turns on its head Gandalf's assertion that Bilbo and Frodo had been meant to find the Ring, with the result that they might destroy it (FR 1.ii.55-56; 2.x.398). When he imagines what he might accomplish with the Ring, and avers that ruthlessness -- that is, the want of pity -- is essential to victory, he follows in the footsteps of Gandalf and Galadriel, who also imagined what they might do if they had the Ring, but Boromir falls into the trap that they avoided (FR 1.ii.61; 2.vii.365-66, x.398). When he claims that the Ring belonged by right to the men of Númenor, he reasons as Frodo did when he said that the Ring should be Aragorn's, the heir of Isildur, but Aragorn rejected this reasoning (FR 2.ii.246-47, x.399).  When Boromir threatens to take the Ring from Frodo with his greater strength, it echoes Bilbo's paranoid fear that Gandalf wished to do the same, only now Frodo is not deceived by the Ring as Bilbo was (FR 1.i.34; 2.x.399).  And when Boromir's face changes 'hideously' and 'a raging fire' appears in his eyes, it echoes Frodo's vision of Bilbo as Gollum at Rivendell, but here the change is real, not imaginary (FR 2.i.232, x.399). It is also a reminder of the Eye of Sauron, 'rimmed with fire' that Frodo saw in Galadriel's mirror (FR 2.vii.364).  Again, however, this is not a vision, but a present, physical threat.

Finally, Boromir's attempt to take the Ring plays off the three scenes in which Frodo has freely attempted to give it away -- to Gandalf, Aragorn, and Galadriel (FR 1.ii.61; 2.ii.246-47, vii.365-66), all of whom refused to take it. But after Frodo's confrontation with Boromir, he never again makes this offer. He has seen for himself, unquestionably, how terrifying the evil that the Ring works can be. He has seen it happen to a comrade, whom he had so far known to be brave, self-sacrificing, and honorable. And after this present and personal experience of the evil of the Ring with Boromir, his vision of the Mordor and his near discovery by the Eye itself, his own eyes see some things more clearly.

Frodo rose to his feet. A great weariness was on him, but his will was firm and his heart lighter. He spoke aloud to himself. 'I will do now what I must,' he said. 'This at least is plain: the evil of the Ring is already at work even in the Company, and the Ring must leave them before it does more harm. I will go alone. Some I cannot trust, and those I can trust are too dear to me: poor old Sam, and Merry and Pippin. Strider, too: his heart yearns for Minas Tirith, and he will be needed there, now Boromir has fallen into evil. I will go alone. At once.'  

(FR 2.x.401, emphases mine)

Where previously Frodo had been afraid to go to Mordor, as Sam correctly told the others (FR 2.x.403), he now fears to remain with his companions.  The gentle phrases 'the Ring must leave them' and 'now Boromir has fallen into evil' reveal the pity that Frodo feels for the man of Gondor, quite unlike the purely harsh words he had had for Gollum, when he rejected out of hand Gandalf's suggestion that pity was in order (FR 1.ii.59).  Then, too, he had scorned the idea that seeing Gollum would move him to pity, but here seeing does precisely that, not only for Boromir, but potentially for others, too. And so, fearing what the Ring could do to others, Frodo flees the company, only to run almost at once straight into the Tale's foremost example of the evil one could fall into because of the Ring. Although the structure of the book can lead the reader to forget this, only three days pass between The Breaking of the Fellowship and The Taming of Sméagol (RK App B 1092).

Notice, however, that Frodo does not seem to see the 'evil of the Ring' working on himself. He sees his friends and comrades as susceptible to something that makes at least some of  them  -- who, precisely? -- untrustworthy. He nowhere wonders what it is doing to him. Indeed his self-deception here is visible in his thinking that, with the Ring at work, he can trust any of them, regardless of how 'dear' they might be. After all, were not 'Give us that, Déagol, my love' very nearly the last words that luckless hobbit ever heard (FR 1.ii.53)?

What is the whole question of trust bound up with except the fear that someone else will try to take the Ring for himself just as Boromir did? From Gollum's cry of 'thief, thief, thief'' to Bilbo backed against the wall with his hand on his sword, from Frodo wanting to strike Bilbo for reaching for the Ring to Boromir's 'For I am too strong for you, halfling,' the fear of this threat persists, and underlying it is one simple sentence: 'The Ring is mine.'

Thus Frodo will not only pity Gollum when at last he meets him, but will use the Ring to dominate and terrify him, while allowing himself to be called the Master of the Precious. Frodo's journey from Bag End, where he can't throw the Ring into the fire, to the Sammath Naur, where he can't throw the Ring into the fire, is no simple quest by a hero without flaws.

__________________________

Gollum Before the Taming of Sméagol (I)

Gollum Before the Taming of Sméagol (II)

Gollum Before the Taming of Sméagol (III)

Gollum Before the Taming of Sméagol (IV)

Glad Would He Have Been To Know Its Fate (RK 5.vi.844)

So passed the sword of the Barrow-downs, work of Westernesse. But glad would he have been to know its fate who wrought it slowly long ago in the North-kingdom when the Dunedain were young, and chief among their foes was the dread realm of Angmar and its sorcerer king. No other blade, not though mightier hands had wielded it, would have dealt that foe a wound so bitter, cleaving the undead flesh, breaking the spell that knit his unseen sinews to his will. 

(RK 5.vi.844)

We all know how Éowyn fulfilled Glorfindel's prophecy that 'not by the hand of man will [the Witch-king] fall' (RK App. A 1051), a prophecy uttered again in slightly different form by the Witch-king himself even in the hour of his reckoning: 'No living man may hinder me' (RK 5.vi.841). 

Yesterday I was having a conversation with my friend, +Paul Mitchener (distinguished Maths Lecturer at Sheffield and illustrious writer of RPGs), about Merry's experience on the Barrow-downs, and the sword mentioned in the quote above came up. Paul called it 'the final revenge of Arnor.' That was when it hit me. You see, it's obvious that Éowyn fulfills the prophecy by not being a man. Slightly less obviously, so does Merry, who is no man in a different sense (cf. RK App A 1070). Thus we can already see Tolkien playing with the word 'man' in two different ways. But with the addition of 'living' comes yet another layer of meaning, especially given the great emphasis he places on the timeless sword and its history, both here and when Bombadil gave it to Merry back on the Barrow-downs (FR 1.viii.145-46; cf. RK 5.i.756). Only now the weight is on living where before it was on different meanings of man. The smith who wrought this sword is no living man. Yet across the centuries and from out of the grave -- a grave that lies open now because the Witch-king himself once sent an evil spirit to inhabit it (RK App. A 1041) -- that smith has hindered the greatest of the servants of Sauron. 

That's a very cold revenge indeed, and very sharp play on meanings of words.

No irony in Tolkien? 

"We will burn like heathen kings before ever a ship sailed hither from the West." (RK 5.iv.825)

In my recent Abraham, Wilfred, and John at The Pyre of Denethor (RK 6.vii.850-57) we saw how Tolkien and Owen each used Genesis 22 to inform his own art.  One striking aspect of Tolkien's text that received only scant attention was the two uses of 'heathen.' This word occurs nowhere else in The Lord of the Rings or The Hobbit, The Silmarillion, The Book of Lost Tales, Unfinished Tales, or in the fiction and poetry contained in The History of Middle-Earth, with one exception which we will consider presently. 

Now 'heathen', according to the Oxford English Dictionary, 'is applied to persons or races whose religion is neither Christian, Jewish, nor Mohammedan; pagan; Gentile. In earlier times applied also to Mohammedans, but in modern usage, for the most part, restricted to those holding polytheistic beliefs, esp. when uncivilized or uncultured.'¹ So within The Lord of the Rings it clearly requires explanation.

Here are the two passages in which the word occurs:

Messengers came again to the chamber in the White Tower, and Pippin let them enter, for they were urgent. Denethor turned his head slowly from Faramir's face, and looked at them silently. 

'The first circle of the City is burning, lord,' they said. 'What are your commands? You are still the Lord and Steward. Not all will follow Mithrandir. Men are flying from the walls and leaving them unmanned.' 

'Why? Why do the fools fly?' said Denethor. 'Better to burn sooner than late, for burn we must. Go back to your bonfire! And I? I will go now to my pyre. To my pyre! No tomb for Denethor and Faramir. No tomb! No long slow sleep of death embalmed. We will burn like heathen kings before ever a ship sailed hither from the West. The West has failed. Go back and burn!'  

The messengers without bow or answer turned and fled. 

(RK 5.iv.825)

And:

'Authority is not given to you, Steward of Gondor, to order the hour of your death,' answered Gandalf. 'And only the heathen kings, under the domination of the Dark Power, did thus, slaying themselves in pride and despair, murdering their kin to ease their own death.'

(RK 5.vii.853)

Tolkien here uses 'heathen' to distinguish between the men of Middle-earth before and after year 600 of the Second age when the Dúnedain first returned from Númenor. And in the only other passage where we find the word -- not surprisingly, in The Notion Club Papers -- the link between heathendom and Sauron (here called Zigur) is reinforced:

Then he, King (Tarcalion) landed on the shores of middle-earth, and at once he sent his messengers to (Zigur), commanding him to come in haste to do homage to the king; and he (Zigur) dissembling humbled himself and came, but was filled with secret malice, purposing treachery against the people of the Westfarers..... Thus he led astray wellnigh all the (Numenore)ans with signs and wonders.... and they built a great temple in the midst of the town (of Arminaleth) on the high hill which before was undefiled but now became a heathen fane, and they there sacrificed unspeakable offerings on an unholy altar.... Thus came death-shade into the land of the Westfarers and God's children fell under the shadow.

(HoME IX.258, emphasis added)

So, by falling under the domination of Sauron, the Númenoreans, till then 'God's children', became heathens. And, to see the meaning even more clearly, we need only recognize that the words 'a heathen fane' are the character Rashbold's translation from an Old English original of the words 'haethenum herge' (HoMe IX.257), literally a 'temple for the heathens.'² The point here is not to criticize Tolkien's translation, but to emphasize what the translation may not fully reveal to the modern ear, namely, that 'heathen' in 'a heathen fane' is a religious reference to a group of people who are not or are no longer God's children; it is not merely a disparaging synonym for 'barbaric' or 'uncivilized,' as it has become for most moderns. It is also perhaps noteworthy that the other four uses of heathen in The Notion Club Papers refer to pagan Vikings (IX 269, 270 twice, 272). That is, they refer to people, proper heathens, who are rightly so called.

Thus, for Denethor to liken himself and his son to 'heathen kings,' and for Gandalf to agree with this characterization, apparently without any knowledge of Denethor's statement, indicates that this word and the act which Denethor has in mind share a meaningful context, at least for those like Gandalf and Denethor whose knowledge of the history of Men in Middle-earth is deep. Equally obviously the word here has nothing to do with Christianity, but rather with the few slim references we find to 'worship' in Tolkien's legendarium.

The most immediate to spring to mind here would be the Men of the Mountains who betrayed Isildur during the War of the Last Alliance, 'for they had worshipped Sauron in the Dark Years' (RK 5.ii.782). Then, too, there is the Mouth of Sauron, of the race of the Black Númenoreans who, 'during the years of Sauron's domination' had 'worshipped' him (RK 5.x.888). With the next we leave The Lord of the Rings and turn to Akallabêth, which brings us once again into close contact with the passage from The Notion Club Papers which we saw above:

Then Ar-Pharazôn the King turned back to the worship of the Dark, and of Melkor the Lord thereof, at first in secret, but ere long openly and in the face of his people; and they for the most part followed him. 

(Silm. 272)

Turned back?

Now since the worship of any but Eru had been previously unknown in Númenor, and since the remarks of Denethor and Gandalf clearly are not referring to the Númenoreans as 'heathens', but rather as those who rescued the men of Middle-earth from both the domination of Sauron and heathen practices,³  these words -- 'turned back' -- can only refer to a much earlier period, one rarely mentioned and one few men apparently knew much about, though it loomed behind them like a cloud:

But when [Finrod] questioned him concerning the arising of Men and their journeys, Bëor would say little; and indeed he knew little, for the fathers of his people had told few tales of their past and a silence had fallen upon their memory. 'A darkness lies behind us,' Bëor said; 'and we have turned our backs upon it, and we do not desire to return thither even in thought. Westwards our hearts have been turned, and we believe that there we shall find Light.'  

But it was said afterwards among the Eldar that when Men awoke in Hildórien at the rising of the Sun the spies of Morgoth were watchful, and tidings were soon brought to him; and this seemed to him so great a matter that secretly under shadow he himself departed from Angband, and went forth into Middle-earth, leaving to Sauron the command of the War. Of his dealings with Men the Eldar indeed knew nothing, at that time, and learnt but little afterwards; but that a darkness lay upon the hearts of Men (as the shadow of the Kinslaying and the Doom of Mandos lay upon the Noldor) they perceived clearly even in the people of the Elf-friends whom they first knew. 

(Silm. 141)

That darkness upon the hearts of Men was the result of a Fall, in which hasty humans chose to follow Melkor, who promised them much and soon, rather than the Voice they heard, who counselled them that it was better for them to discover things slowly on their own. Too late they learned they had chosen wrong. For so says Adanel, wise woman of the Edain in the First Age, who told the tale to her kinswoman of Andreth:

The first Voice we never heard again, save once. In the stillness of the night It spoke, saying: 'Ye have abjured Me, but ye remain Mine. I gave you life. Now it shall be shortened, and each of you in a little while shall come to Me, to learn who is your Lord: the one ye worship, or I who made him.'      

(Morgoth 347)

This Tale of Adanel is 'given explicitly as a Númenórean tradition' (Morgoth 344), which brings it into close contact with Akallabêth, written by Elendil himself (UT 224), and allows us an understanding of 'turned back' not otherwise possible. Whether Ar-Pharazôn himself knew this tradition about the worship of Melkor himself and thus knowingly turned back is unclear, but Elendil did and saw the Fall happening all over again. Little wonder he called his account 'The Downfallen.'⁴ 

 ________________

¹ OED s.v. 'heathen'. 'Mohammedan,' while outdated and offensive today, was common usage at the time the OED was first published.

² Rashbold is pun, being a literal translation of the name 'Tolkien' from its German roots.

³ We need to distinguish between the worship of Sauron and the worship of Melkor. Clearly different groups practiced each of them. As has been pointed out many times, Sauron could hardly have credibly proposed to Ar-Pharazôn, his seeming conqueror, that the king should worship him as a god as he was worshipped in Middle-earth. Thus he turned him back to Melkor, cynically or sincerely, but expediently all the same. On this, see Morgoth 398:

Sauron was not a 'sincere' atheist, but he preached atheism, because it weakened resistance to himself (and he had ceased to fear God's action in Arda).  As was seen in the case of Ar-Pharazôn. But there was seen the effect of Melkor upon Sauron: he spoke of Melkor in Melkor's own terms: as a god, or even as God. This may have been the residue of  a state which was in a sense a shadow of good: the ability once in Sauron at least to admire or admit the superiority of a being other than himself. Melkor, and still more Sauron himself afterwards, both profited by this darkened shadow of good and the services of 'worshippers'.  But it may be doubted whether even such a shadow of good was still sincerely operative in Sauron by that time. His cunning motive is probably best expressed thus. To wean one of the God-fearing from their allegiance it is best to propound another unseen object of allegiance and another hope of benefits; propound to him a Lord who will sanction what he desires and not forbid it. Sauron, apparently a defeated rival for world-power, now a mere hostage, can hardly propound himself; but as the former servant and disciple of Melkor, the worship of Melkor will raise him from hostage to high priest. But though Sauron's whole true motive was the destruction of the Númenóreans, this was a particular matter of revenge upon Ar-Pharazôn, for humiliation. Sauron (unlike Morgoth) would have been content for the Númenóreans to exist, as his own subjects, and indeed he used a great many  of  them  that he corrupted to his allegiance.    

⁴ I believe there is also a link here between King Sheave and the idea of the ships sailing in from the West and 'converting' the heathens to whom Gandalf and Denethor refer, but that is for another day. 

Tulkas and 'Sir Gawain' revisited, ever so briefly

Not long ago, my Mythgard fellow, Luke Baugher, posted an intriguing essay here on Tulkas and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, in which he argued that a connection may well exist between the word tulkes in Gawain and the Vala Tulkas in The Silmarillion.  Though as Luke pointed out there was no way to prove that Tulkas' name originates in this way, the suggestion makes a great deal of sense.

Now one thing everybody loves about Tulkas is Tolkien's comment that he is 'of no avail as a counsellor' (Silm. 29), which does not fit particularly well with túlkr, the Old Norse word meaning 'interpreter' or 'spokesman' that is the source of tulkes. Yet, as Tolkien's comment above and his behavior elsewhere plainly show, he is by no means above a joke. 

Nor, I would suggest, is he above two jokes here, the first being the obvious one at Tulkas' expense, the second, the more ironic, philological joke of deriving the name of Tulkas, ultimately, from a word that suggests he should be a useful counsellor when he is in fact precisely the opposite.

Ah, Tollers! A philologist's work is never done.

War of the Ghosts -- A Guest Post By Simon Cook

War of the Ghosts

F. C. Bartlett

At the March 1920 meeting of the Folk-Lore Society, all three papers were delivered by Cambridge men. A.C. Haddon gave the presidential address, W.H.R. Rivers discussed the conception of ‘soul-substance’ in New Guinea and Melanesia, and F.C. Bartlett reported on ‘Some Experiments in the Reproduction of Folk-Stories’.

Does this have anything to do with Tolkien? 

It depends how you look at things; which is really what I want to talk about in this post. Tolkien studies are full of ‘influences’ – as highlighted in the recent flurry of discussion over the state of Tolkien scholarship. Personally, I don’t get ‘influence’, a seemingly occultist notion of action at a distance. No doubt the confusion is subjective.

Another perspective draws upon notions like context and conversation. These are my preferred terms of art, reflecting my training as an intellectual historian. I’ll illustrate how they work by first discussing Bartlett and his 1920 paper, and then pointing to its possible significance for how we think about Tolkien.

Anthropology at Cambridge was established in the wake of a university expedition to Torres Straits in 1898. Returning from the expedition, Haddon and Rivers joined forces with more traditional scholars, notably the classical archaeologist William Ridgeway and the Anglo-Saxonist H.M. Chadwick, to establish a new faculty of anthropology. Ridgeway and Chadwick were working on a novel approach to early European history, which combined archaeology with the study of old literature, such as the Iliad and Beowulf. Haddon and Rivers introduced to this approach the folktales of contemporary ‘primitives’. Bartlett’s 1920 paper was a contribution to an emerging account of the relationship between story and society in history.

Bartlett was a psychologist. His paper on the reproduction of Folk Stories discussed an experiment in which members of his university read a Chinook folk tale, ‘The War of the Ghosts’, and, after varying intervals of time, reproduced it. Reproduction, Bartlett showed, was actually reconstruction: over successive retellings familiar elements were substituted for unfamiliar and the plot structure changed to remove (seemingly) inexplicable connections. As such, Bartlett’s paper contributed to the study of cultural diffusion by way of a psychological experiment on memory.

So what does this tell us? If we approach Bartlett’s paper in terms of influence, pretty much nothing. Tolkien may possibly have read the paper, but probably did not; and even if he did, any direct connection we might establish would probably sit all too easily between the trivial and the vacuous.

Approaching Bartlett’s paper in terms of context is another matter. To begin with, we see immediately that disciplinary divisions were not then what they are now. Under the broad umbrella of ‘anthropology’ we find a sustained interaction between students of Classical and Old English literature, archaeologists, experimental psychologists, and practitioners of a new participant-observer method of ethnological fieldwork. This was not an exercise in what today is called ‘inter-disciplinary studies’; rather, it reflects the fact that before the 1930s the borders between scholarly disciplines had not yet ossified.

Subsequent closing of the borders between academic disciplines has fostered a distorted image of the recent intellectual past. If you search for Bartlett’s ‘War of the Ghosts’ on the internet you will find many accounts by modern psychologists of a celebrated chapter in the history of their discipline. Unless you open up the original report of the experiment in Folk-Lore, however, you would never guess that this psychological experiment was designed to illuminate the processes of cultural diffusion.

Something similar has happened to Tolkien, whose intellectual context is very largely missing from modern Tolkien studies. Verlyn Flieger is better than most, and has correctly identified the discussions of the Folk-Lore Society as important background to Tolkien’s 1939 lecture on ‘Fairy Stories’. Yet even Flieger presents these discussions as focused simply on explaining the unpalatable elements of ancient stories. This is to project the concerns of a modern discipline (English) onto a past in which such narrow and restricted focus would have seemed an inexplicable voluntary myopia. The Folk-Lore Society brought to the table a wide range of interconnected contemporary debates, ranging over issues of comparative religion, racial ethnology, social history, and much else besides.

The context of intellectual debate was different back then. Disciplinary divisions counted for less, and the scholarly mind roamed over a much larger intellectual terrain. Scholars from a wide variety of specialized fields were engaged in the same or similar conversations.

Reading Bartlett can tell us something about the nature of these conversations, which form a vital (yet passed over) context of Tolkien’s thought. Of course, Tolkien was not part of this Cambridge project, nor were his methods, interests, or conclusions aligned with theirs. Yet his were responses to similar questions, and it is easy to locate ground shared by Cambridge psychologist and Oxford philologist.

Consider the ‘Origins’ section in ‘On Fairy Stories’, where Tolkien introduces his notion of individual sub-creation, alludes to the debate over diffusion, and then introduces his metaphor of the Cauldron of Story. The Cauldron presents an image of diffusion at work, with invented elements of fantasy blending with elements of stories significant parts of which have been forgotten. It is the fact that we forget elements of the old stories that allows invented elements of fantasy to be blended into them to make fairy stories.

Whether or not Tolkien was ‘influenced’ by Bartlett is largely irrelevant. The point is that the two men were both participants in a wide-ranging and ongoing conversation. Their work, or at least parts of it, emerged from a shared intellectual context. Bartlett was particularly arrested by the distortions introduced by memory, Tolkien was concerned especially with forgetting. But reading their texts together reveals a wider scholarly community grappling with the relationship of memory and story in history.

One could go further (much further), had we but world enough and time. Suffice it here to point out that while Bartlett’s most famous book was entitled Remembering (1932), Tolkien’s Elves, with their immortal memories and seemingly perfect recall, can be viewed (in addition to many other things) as an intensive and prolonged thought-experiment on what human memory might aspire to, yet palpably is not.

Again, I suggest no influence of Bartlett’s psychology of memory upon Tolkien’s Elves. What I do suggest is that reading Tolkien in context reveals much about the kind of questions that stand behind his writing, just as Tolkien’s highly idiosyncratic answers illuminate the intellectual and cultural concerns of the twentieth century far more than is usually suspected.

Whatever the present state of Tolkien studies might be, it leaves much to be desired from the point of view of the intellectual historian. I submit that, alongside established methods, the cultivation of a contextualist reading of the history of ideas has the potential to transform our understanding of what Tolkien was about.

Some bibliographical references

On the recent ‘state of Tolkien studies’ debates, my favourite contribution, which contains links to others, is ‘Tolkien Criticism Unbound’.

Bartlett’s 1920 paper (as also those of Haddon and Rivers) can be accessed here, via the (wonderful) archive.org (make sure to turn to the second half of the volume).

Flieger has written about the Folk-Lore Society in several places. See for example the first chapter of her Interrupted Music (Kent State University Press, 2005).

You can no doubt access Tolkien’s ‘On Fairy Stories’ without need of biographical reference from me.

Those who wish to read more on Bartlett and Cambridge anthropology in the first decades of the twentieth century can soon turn to two papers available on my Academia.edu page: ‘The Tragedy of Cambridge Anthropology’, forthcoming in History of European Ideas, and (with Tiziana Foresti) ‘War of the Ghosts: Marshall, Veblen, and Bartlett’, forthcoming in History of Political Economy.

__________________________

Another excellent piece of work by Simon Cook that I would recommend to readers is the monograph, J.R.R. Tolkien's Lost English Mythology, Thank you for agreeing to publish your post here first, Simon. 

The Saga of Wigend's Chicken Run -- Guest Post by Joe Hoffman

The Saga of Wigend’s Chicken Run


BY JOE

ON FEBRUARY 1, 2016

IN MYTHGARD ACADEMY


During last fall’s fundraiser for Signum University, Dr. Prof. President Olsen committed to running from the Shire to Minas Tirith in the form of a chicken. In Lord of the Rings Online, that is. The Great Mythgard Chicken Run took place on January 30th. I watched it on TV. Despite (or possibly because of) its absurdity, it was an interesting introduction for me to the LotRO world.


Of course, a chicken doesn’t stand a chance alone in the Wild. He had companions, so the quest should not fail. As the crowd of Mythgardians, elves, dwarves, hobbits, men, and other chickens, swarmed through a square in Edoras, temporarily quadrupling its population, I was provoked to tweet, “I would like to hear the minstrels of Rohan sing of the gang of weirdos who ran through their lands with a flock of chickens.” Be careful what you wish for on the Internet.


Tom Hillman started it, and deserves at least half the blame. The narrative lines are mine; the funny lines are his.


From dark Dunharrow in the dim morning

with hen and hatchling strode Hampshire’s son.

‘Gainst foes and foxes, fighters protecting him,

to Minas Tirith the tourist came.

With Foghorn Leghorn, long enduring:

son, I say, son, strong in scorning.

For no lectures would he linger in Lamedon or Lebennin.

His clumsy coursing carried him forward.

Even women long-skirted outran wingéd Wigend

Politely pausing until his approach.

From Rammas Echor to the door of Rath Dinen

Into every breach he stuck his beak.

‘Til his goal achieved, glory gaining

He gracefully tumbled from the Tower of Guard.

In red day dawning crew he loudly.

Eleven herbs and spices seasoned breast and drumstick,

Biscuits in bucket, slaw on the side.

Sweet was the feasting, so the songs tell us.





____________






My thanks to Joe for assembling the fragments of our verse into an at times nearly coherent whole.

Words Which They Only Partly Understood -- The First Hymn to Elbereth (FR 1.iii.79)

‘Listen! They are coming this way,’ said Frodo. ‘We have only to wait.’ 

The singing drew nearer. One clear voice rose now above the others. It was singing in the fair elven-tongue, of which Frodo knew only a little, and the others knew nothing. Yet the sound blending with the melody seemed to shape itself in their thought into words which they only partly understood. This was the song as Frodo heard it: 

    Snow-white! Snow-white! O Lady clear!
         O Queen beyond the Western Seas!
    O Light to us that wander here
        Amid the world of woven trees! 

    Gilthoniel! O Elbereth!
        Clear are thy eyes and bright thy breath!
    Snow-white! Snow-white! We sing to thee
        In a far land beyond the Sea.  

    O stars that in the Sunless Year
        With shining hand by her were sown,
    In windy fields now bright and clear
        We see your silver blossom blown! 

    O Elbereth! Gilthoniel!
        We still remember, we who dwell
    In this far land beneath the trees,
        Thy starlight on the Western Seas. 

(FR 1.iii.79)

Where is the partial understanding here? It cannot be of the sentences as such, since 'the song as Frodo heard it' is quite clear syntactically. So it must be the meaning of the content that eludes the hobbits. This suggests a limit to the power of elvish song. For elvish minstrels, we are told in The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen, 'can make the things of which they sing appear before the eyes of those that listen' (RK App. A 1058), a statement which is made in the context of The Lay of Leithian. When telling a tale, elvish minstrels can create the impression that the listener is inside it. But this is a hymn of praise, which invokes images without telling their story. 

So, even though elvish minstrelsy can overcome the barrier of language, it cannot overcome that of ignorance through allusions alone. While Frodo recognizes the name of Elbereth, and knows that the High Elves, i.e., the Noldor, have great reverence for her, the rest of the song is obscure to him, presumably because he lacks the knowledge to make sense of the references to the Sunless Year and Elbereth's sowing of the stars.

See how hard life was before Bilbo's Translations from the Elvish?

Frank Wilbert Stokes -- 1902

Gandalf, Odin, and the Wolf's Belly (FR 2.iv.298)

At Ragnarök the monstrous wolf, Fenrir, will swallow Oðinn, some of whose attributes Tolkien drew on in envisioning Gandalf, whom he saw as an 'Odinic wanderer' (Letters, no. 107).¹  Gandalf shows this in The Lord of the Rings, as Marjorie Burns points out, 

by wearing a broad-brimmed hat and carrying a walking staff, as the wandering Odin does, though Gandalf's association with eagles, his enmity with wolves, and his ownership of a nearly supernatural horse add to this as well.²

All of which leads me to think that Sam's remark when the Company is being menaced by wolves is a joke on Tolkien's part:

'My heart's right down in my toes, Mr. Pippin,' said Sam. 'But we aren't etten yet, and there are some stout folk here with us. Whatever may be in store for old Gandalf, I'll wager it isn't a wolf's belly.' 

(FR 2.iv.298)

___________________________

¹ See John Lindow, Norse Mythology: A Guide to Gods, Heroes, Rituals, and Beliefs, Oxford (2001) 111-14, 247-52, 254-58.

² Marjorie Burns, Norse and Christian Gods: The Integrative Theology of J. R. R. Tolkien, in Tolkien and the Invention of Myth: A Reader, ed. Jane Chance, The University of Kentucky Press (2004) 168; Marjorie Burns, Gandalf and Odin in Tolkien's Legendarium, edd. Verlyn Flieger and Carl Hostetter, Greenwood Press (2000) 219-31. Gandalf, however, would have balked at the claim that he owned Shadowfax, a horse that carried riders only by his own consent. In Perilous Realms: Celtic and Norse in Tolkien’s Middle-earth, University of Toronto Press (2005) Burns rightly notes that Odin's fate is hinted at in Sam's words, but overlooks their humor.

Let me have hobbits about me that are fat (TT 4.viii.714)

Gielgud as Cassius

In Shakespeare's Julius Caesar 1.2.193-96 Caesar points out Cassius to Antony and comments:

Let me have men about me that are fat;
Sleek-headed men and such as sleep o' nights:
Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look;
He thinks too much: such men are dangerous.

To anyone moderately acquainted with Julius Caesar these lines are quite familiar, and to say that someone has 'a lean and hungry look' has passed into the language as a warning against treachery. The words function much like a kenning, telling the reader more of a story than the words alone say. Now consider the following: 

Gollum looked at them. A strange expression passed over his lean hungry face. The gleam faded from his eyes, and they went dim and grey, old and tired. A spasm of pain seemed to twist him, and he turned away, peering back up towards the pass, shaking his head, as if engaged in some interior debate. Then he came back, and slowly putting out a trembling hand, very cautiously he touched Frodo's knee – but almost the touch was a caress. For a fleeting moment, could one of the sleepers have seen him, they would have thought that they beheld an old weary hobbit, shrunken by the years that had carried him far beyond his time, beyond friends and kin, and the fields and streams of youth, an old starved pitiable thing.

(TT 4.viii.714)

Thus, even as Gollum's teeters on the brink of repentance we find a hint that he is dangerous and not to be trusted, but at the same time the use of this phrase here deepens the pathos by sharpening the contrast between Gollum, never to be trusted, and Sméagol, shrunken, starved, and pitiable.