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Gymnasium ¹2
The roots of some Tolkien’s characters.
Tolkien’s view on some events from the Bible
and archaic history.
Name: Yanov Andrey
Teacher: Mordasova L.M.
Voronezh 2004
CONTENTS
I. Introduction 3
II. Body
1. J.R.R.Tolkien: A biographical sketch
a) Tolkien’s birth 4
b) Tolkien’s childhood in South Africa 4
c) Tolkien's childhood in England 4
d) Tolkien's childhood fears 4
e) Tolkien's education at home 5
f) Tolkien's childhood books 5
g) Tolkien in elementary school 6
h) Tolkien learns some philology 6
i) Tolkien's mother dies 6
j) Tolkien in high school 7
k) Tolkien in Oxford 7
l) Tolkien after World War II 9
m) Tolkien now 10
2. The roots of some Tolkien characters 11
3. Tolkiens view on some events from
The Bible and archaic history 15
III. Conclusion 19
IV. List of used literature 20
V. Appendix 21
Introduction
I have many hobbies and one of them is reading. I like to read. Books
liberalize us, and it is just very interesting. My favorite kinds of
literature are fantasy, science fiction, myths and historical books. But
when I saw the film “The Lord Of The Rings” for the first time, I liked it
very much. I realized that there was something unusual in it that attracted
me. One day someone told me, that this film is a screen version of the
book, written by Tolkien. Then I decided to read the book. And when I read
its last page, I realized, that the world, that was described there is very
close to me. That is how my keening of Tolkien’s works started. I’ve read
the whole “The Lord Of The Rings”, “The Silmarillion”, “The Hobbit Or There
And Back Again”, some Tolkien’s poems, such as “Namarie” (which means
“farewell” in the “Quenya Lambe” (The Elvish Language)), “Oh, queen beyond
the western sees…” and other works. Besides I’ve read “The Biography Of
J.R.R.Tolkien”, written by H. Carpenter and many works of different famous
critics devoted to Tolkien. While reading such literature, I understand and
realize very interesting ideas of Tolkien, his philosophy, and it is very
interesting to know, what things influenced the creation of his characters
and his own world that he developed in “The Silmarillion”. And in my work
I’m trying to show you just some of those things.
J.R.R.Tolkien: A biographical sketch
Tolkien's birth
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was born to Mabel Suffield and Arthur Tolkien in
South Africa on January 3, 1892.
On February 17,1894, Mabel gave birth to Hilary Arthur Reuel Tolkien,
J.R.R's only brother.
When Ronald (J.R.R)'s health worsened in 1895, the Tolkiens (except for
Arthur, who had to stay in order to wrap up business) left to Southampton.
On February 15, 1896, Arthur Tolkien, in South Africa, died due to a severe
hemorrhage.
Tolkien's childhood in South Africa
'. . . many months later, when Ronald was beginning to walk, he stumbled on
a tarantula. It bit him, and he ran in terror across the garden until the
nurse snatched him up and sucked out the poison . . . Nevertheless, in his
stories he writes more than once of monstrous spiders with venomous bites'
(Carpenter 14)
'During the first year of the boy's life Arthur Tolkien made a small grove
of cypresses, firs and cedars. Perhaps this had something to do with the
deep love of trees that wood that would develop in Ronald' (Carpenter 14)
Tolkien's childhood in England
Since his father (the sole source of money) was dead, J.R.R. and his family
went to live with the Suffields (his maternal grandparents).
In the summer of 1896, the Tolkiens moved out of Birmingham to the hamlet
of Sarehole (located in the English countryside).
Tolkien's childhood fears
'An old farmer who once chased Ronald for picking mushrooms was given the
nickname 'The Black Ogre' by the boys . . . they began to pick up something
of the local vocabulary, adopting dialect words into their own speech:
'chawl' for a cheek of pork, 'miskin' for dustbin, 'pickelet' for crumpet,
and 'gamgee' for cotton wool. (Carpenter 21)
Tolkien's education at home
'Mabel soon began to educate her sons, and they could have had no better
teacher - nor she an apter pupil than Ronald, who could read by the time he
was four and had soon learnt to write proficiently.' (Carpenter 21).
'. . . his favorite lessons were those that concerned languages. Early in
his Sarehole days, his mother introduced him to the rudiments of Latin, and
this delighted him. He was just as interested in the sounds of the words as
their meanings, and she began to realize that he had a special aptitude for
language. (Carpenter 22).
'His mother taught him a great deal of botany, and he responded to this and
soon became very knowledgeable. But again he was more interested in the
shape and feel of a plant than in its botanical details. This was
especially true of trees. And though he liked drawing trees he liked most
of all to be with trees. He would climb them, lean against them, even talk
to them.' (Carpenter 22)
Tolkien's childhood books
'He was amused by Alice in Wonderland, though he had no desire to have
adventures like Alice. He did not enjoy Treasure Island, nor the stories of
Hans Anderson, nor The Pied Piper. But he liked Red Indian stories and
longed to shoot with a bow and arrow. He was even more pleased by the
'Curdie' books of George Macdonald, which were set in a remote kingdom
where misshapen and malevolent goblins lurked beneath the mountains. The
Arthurian legends also excited him. But most of all he found delight in the
Fairy Books of Andrew Lang, especially the Red Fairy Book, for tucked away
in its closing pages was the best story he had ever read. This was the tale
of Sigurd who slew the dragon Fafnir: a strange and powerful tale set in
the nameless North.' (Carpenter 22)
Tolkien's first experience with grammer
''I desired dragons with a profound desire,', he said long afterwards. . .
. When he was about seven he began to compose his own story about a dragon.
'I remember nothing about it except a philological fact,' he recalled. 'My
mother said nothing about the dragon, but pointed out that one could not
say 'a green great dragon', but had to say 'a great green dragon'. I
wondered why, and still do. The fact that I remember this is possibly
significant, as I do not think I ever tried to write a story again for many
years, and was taken up with language.'' (Carpenter 24)
Tolkien in elementary school
In September of 1900, J.R.R. Tolkien entered into King Edward's School.
In order to prevent Ronald from walking several miles between the
countryside home and school, the Tolkiens moved from Sarehole to
Birmingham.
Due to school conflicts, Ronald Tolkien was transferred to King Phillip's
Academy for a short period.
Tolkien learns some philology
'. . . he especially remembered 'the bitter disappointment and disgust from
schooldays with the shabby use made in Shakespeare of the coming of 'Great
Birnam Wood to high Dunisiane hill'; 'I longed to devise a setting by which
the trees might really march to war' (Carpenter 28)
'By inclination, his form-master Brewerton was a medievalist . . . if a boy
employed the term 'manure' Brewerton would roar out: 'Manure? Call it muck!
Say it three times! Muck, muck muck!'. He encouraged his students to read
Chaucer, and he recited the Canterbury Tales to them in the original Middle
English. To Ronald Tolkien's ears, this was a revelation, and he determined
to learn more about the history of the language.' (Carpenter 28)
Tolkien's mother dies
'The New Year [1904] did not begin well. Ronald and Hilary were confined to
bed with measles followed by whooping-cough, and in Hilary's case by
pneumonia. The addition strain of nursing them proved too much for their
mother, and as she feard it proved 'impossible to go on'. By April 1904 she
was in hospital, and her condition was diagnosed as diabetes.' (Carpenter
29)
'At the beginning of November 1904, she sank into a diabetic coma, and six
days later, on November 14, she died.' (Carpenter 30)
'. . . Perhaps his mother's death also had a cementing effect on his study
of languages. It was she, after all, who had been his first teacher and who
had encouraged him to take an interest in words. Now that she was gone he
would pursue that path relentlessly. And certainly the loss of his mother
had a profound effect on his personality. It made him into a pessimist . .
. Nothing was safe. Nothing would last. No battle would be won for ever.'
(Carpenter 31)
Related to philosophy of THE LORD OF THE RINGS: Middle-Earth is never, ever
free from evil. The Simillirion states that Middle-Earth is destroyed and
all live in Valinor (quasi Middle-Earth) after the death of Morgroth (by
Turin, son of Thor).
Tolkien lives with his mother's aunt-in-law (in urban Edgbaston) along with
his brother Hillary.
'His feelings towards the rural landscape, already sharp from the earlier
severance that had taken him from Sarehole, now become emotionally charged
with personal bereavement. This love for the memory of the countryside of
his youth was later to become a central part of his writing, and it was
intimately bound up with his love for the memory of his mother.' (Carpenter
32-3)
Tolkien in high school
'Headmaster Gilson also encouraged his pupils to make a detailed study of
classical linguistics. This was entirely in keeping with Tolkien's
inclinations; and, partly as a result in the general principles of
language' (Carpenter 34)
'It was one thing to know Latin, Greek, French, and German; it was another
to understand why they were what they were. Tolkien had started to look for
the bones, the elements that were common to them all: he had begun, in
fact, to study philology, the science of words.' (Carpenter 34)
Tolkien studies all languages (Studies Chaucer, Beowulf, Old Norse, Gothic)
'He continued his search for the 'bones' behind all these languages,
rummaging in the school library and exploring the remoter shelves of
Cornish's bookshop down the road. Eventually he began to find - and to
scrape enough money to buy - German books on philology that were 'dry-as-
dust' but which could provide the answers to his questions. Philology: 'the
love of words'. For that was what motivated him. It was not an arid
interest in the scientific principles of language; it was a deep love for
the look and sound of words, springing from the days when his mother had
given him his first Latin lessons . . . And as a result of this love of
words, he had started to invent his own words' (Carpenter 35) Tolkien
begins to (at age 14) to create his own languages, namely 'Nevbosh', a
language filled with Gothic and Norse words.
1908 - Tolkien falls in love with Edith Bratt
1911 - Tolkien starts the Tea Club and goes to Switzerland
Tolkien in Oxford
In 1911 Tolkien entered Exeter College of Oxford. There he started writing
(poem 'Wood-sunshine'), modeled after several different authors.
'In 'Wood-sunshine' there is a distinct resemblance to an episode in the
first part of Thompson's 'Sister Songs' where the poet sees first a single
elf and then a swarm of woodland sprites in the glade; when he moves, they
vanish . . .' (Carpenter 48)
'Being taught by Joe Wright, Tolkien managed to find books of medieval
Welsh, and he began to read the language that had fascinated him since he
saw a few words of it on coal-trucks. He was not disappointed; indeed he
was confirmed in all his expectations of beauty. Beauty: that was what
pleased him in Welsh; the appearance and sound of the words almost
irrespective of their meaning. He once said: 'Most English-speaking people,
for instance, will admit that cellar door is 'beautiful', especially if
disassociated from its sense (and its spelling). More beautiful than, say
sky, and far more beautiful than beautiful'.' (Carpenter 56-7)
Tolkien starts advanced languages (new): 'He abandoned neo-Gothic and began
to create a private language that was heavily influenced by Finnish. This
was the language that would eventually emerge in his stories as 'Quenya' or
High-elven. That would not happen for many years; yet already a seed of
what was to come was germinating in his mind' (Carpenter 59)
1913 - Tolkien graduates from three-year program with second-class honors
and proceeds to study philology in graduate school.
At the same period Tolkien reads Cynewulf - ''I felt a curious thrill,' he
wrote long afterwards, 'as if something had stirred in me, half wakened
from sleep. There was something very remote and strange and beautiful
behind those words, if I could grasp it, far beyond ancient English'.'
(Carpenter 64) Tolkien reads the Völuspa - 'The most remarkable of all
Germanic-mythological poems, it dates from the very end of Norse
heathendom, when Christianity was taking the place of the old gods; yet it
imparts a sense of living myth, a feeling of awe and mystery, in its
representation of a pagan cosmos. It had a profound appeal to Tolkien's
imagination' (Carpenter 65) Tolkien sees Edith again (he was previously
banned to see him by Father Francis, his guardian)
Tolkien reads Morris (NOTE: Mirkwood is the name of the great Necromancer's
forest in The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings trilogy) 'Written partly in
prose and partly in verse, [Morris's book] centers on a House or family-
tribe that dwells by a great river in a clearing of the forest named
Mirkwood, a name taken from ancient Germanic geography and legend. Many
elements in the story seem to have impressed Tolkien. It's style is highly
idiosyncratic, heavily laden with archaisms and poetic inversions in an
attempt to recreate the aura of ancient legend. Clearly Tolkien took not of
this, and it would seem that he also appreciated another facet of the
writing: Morris' aptitude, despite the vagueness of time and place in which
the story is set, for describing with great precision the details of his
imagined landscape. Tolkien himself was to follow Morris' example in later
year.' [Carpenter 70]
In the same year Tolkien visits Cornwall [NOTE: This is the location for
the Sea in The Hobbit and LOTR] ' 'Nothing I could say . . . could describe
it to you. The sun beats down on you and a huge Atlantic swell smashes and
spouts over the snags and reefs. The sea has carved weird wind-holes and
spouts into the cliffs which blow with trumpety noises or spout foam like a
whale, and everywhere you see black and red rock and white foam against
violet and transparent seagreen.'.' [Carpenter 70]
Tolkien begins to create works with Quentya (language of the high-elves):
'He had been working for some time at the language that was influenced by
Finish, and by 1915 he had developed it to a degree of some complexity. He
felt that it was 'a mad hobby', and he scarcely expected to find an
audience for it. But he sometimes wrote poems n it, and the more he worked
at it the more he felt that it needed a 'history' to support it. In other
words, you cannot have a language without a race of people to speak it. He
was perfecting the language; now he had to decide to whom it belonged.'
[Carpenter 75]
Tolkien creates Valinor [Land of the Gods in the Silmarillion] 'This, he
decided, was the language by the fairies or elves whom Earendel saw during
his strange voyage. He began work on a 'Lay of Earendel' that described the
mariner's journeying across the world before his ship became a star. The
Lay was to be divided into several poems, and the first of these, 'The
shores of Faery', tells of the mysterious land of Valinor, where Two Trees
grow, one bearing golden sun-apples and the other silver moon-apples.'
[Carpenter 76]
1916 - Tolkien marries Edith, continues war, and gets to know soldiers
[Tolkien is an officer]. All of Tolkien's friends die [except C.S. Lewis]
Tolkien after World War II
Continuing the last wishes of the T.B.C.S (the society he had founded with
his friends at St. Edwards), Tolkien decides to create a whole society.
[Founding precepts of the LOTR] ' 'I [Tolkien] had a mind to make a body of
more or less connected legend, ranging from the large and cosmogonic to the
level of romantic fairy-story - the larger founded on the lesser in contact
with the earth, the lesser drawing splendor from the vast backcloths -
which I could dedicate simply: to England; to my country. It could possess
the tone and quality that I desired, somewhat cool and clear, be redolent
of our 'air' (the clime and soil of the North West, meaning Britain and the
hither parts of Europe; not Italy or the Aegean, still less the East), and,
while possessing (if I could achieve it) the fair elusive beauty that some
call Celtic (though it is rarely found in genuine ancient Celtic things),
it should be 'high', purged of the gross, and fit for the more adult mind
of a land long steeped in poetry, I would draw some of the great tales in
fullness, and leave many only placed in the scheme, and sketched. The
cycles should be linked to a majestic whole, and yet leave scope for other
minds and hands, wielding paint and music and drama' [Carpenter 90]
[Researching, not inventing] 'When he wrote The Silmarillion Tolkien
believed that in one sense he was writing the truth. He did not suppose
that precisely such peoples as he described, 'elves', 'dwarves', and
malevolent 'orcs', had walked the earth and done the deeds that he
recorded. But he did feel, or hope, that his stories were in some sense an
embodiment of a profound truth . . . Tolkien believed that he was doing
more than inventing a story. He wrote of the tales that make up the book:
'They arose in my mind as 'given' things, and as they came, separately, so
too the links grew . . . yet always I had the sense of recording what was
already 'there', somewhere: not of 'inventing'.' [Carpenter 91-2]
Influences from language: 'As to the names of persons and places in 'The
Fall of Gondolin' and the other stories in The Silmarillion, they were
constructed from Tolkien's invented languages. Since the existence of these
languages was a raison d'être for the whole mythology, it is not surprising
that he devoted a good deal of attention to the business of making up names
from them'
Tolkien creates Sindarin, precursor to Quentya
[Development of 'what is real?'] 'As the years went by he came more and
more to regard his own invented languages and stories as 'real' languages
and historical chronicles that needed to be elucidated. In other words,
when in this mood he did not say of an apparent contradiction in the
narrative or an unsatisfactory name: 'This is not as I wish it to be; I
must change it.' Instead he would approach the problem with the attitude:
'What does this mean? I must find about.' [Carpenter 94]
On the 16 of November 1917 Tolkien gets a son and writes story of Luthien &
Beren
1918 - Tolkien gets job in the OED (Oxford English Dictionary)
1920 - Tolkien gets a professorship at Leeds University
In October of 1920 Tolkien gets second son.
Tolkien writes poems: 'Another, 'The Dragon's Visits', describes the
ravages of a dragon who arrives at Bimble Bay and encounters 'Miss
Biggins'. A third, 'Glip', tells of a strange slimy creature who lives
beneath the floor of a cave and has pale luminous eyes' [Carpenter 106] :
Dragon ~ Smaug, Miss Biggins ~ Bilbo Baggins, Glip ~ Gollum
1924 - Tolkien gets a third son Christopher.
1925 - Tolkien becomes a professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford
1929 - Tolkien gets a daughter
Tolkien now
[Tolkien's Workplace] 'The shelves are crammed with dictionaries, works on
etymology and philology, and editions of texts in many languages,
predominant among which are Old and Middle English and Old Norse; but there
is also a section devoted to translations of The Lord of the Rings into
Polish, Dutch, Danish, Swedish, and Japanese; and the map of his invented
'Middle-Earth' is pinned to the window - ledge.' (Carpenter 4) [Tolkien's
view of The Lord of the Rings] 'He explains it all in great detail, talking
about his book not as a work of fiction but as a chronicle of actual
events; he seems to see himself not as an author who has made a slight
error that must now be corrected or explained away, but as a historian who
must cast light on an obscurity in an historical document.' [Tolkien's
Voice] 'He has a strange voice, deep but without resonance, entirely
English but with some quality in it I cannot define, as if he had come from
another age or civilization' (Carpenter 5)
The roots of some Tolkien characters
Gandalf
While reading “The Hobbit” and “The Lord Of The Rings” you will meat
such character as Gandalf. He is a magician (or Istary in the “The
Silmarillion”). And like all magicians he wears a long, thick, grey (or
white) beard, a big cone-shaped hat with wide fields and a wide grey
raincoat. This character owes with his existence to Tolkien’s trip to
Switzerland, where in the shop among the mountans he bought a postcard. It
was a reproduction of a picture of a german painter Madlenner, which was
called “Der Berggeist” (it could be translated as “The spirit of the
mountans”). There was an old man with white long beard and cone-shaped hat
with wide fields, who was seating under the tree. Many years later Tolkien
wrote on the other side of this postcard the following: “The prototype of
Gandalf”…
Sam Gamgee
Sam Gamgee is a hobbit (It tells us many things). He is the best
friend of Frodo and besides that, he is Frodo’s gardener. He is very brave,
bonhomous, kind, but careless and light-hearted, and, as all hobbits, he
likes to eat very much. It is very interesting, that the word “gamgee” can
be translated from one of the English dialects as cotton wool and besides
that, it was a surname of a doctor, who had invented 'gamgee-tissue', a
surgical dressing made from cotton wool. But the real character of Sam was
copied from the character of the mere english soldier of the war of 1914.
You already now from the biographical sketch that Tolkien took part in that
war. He battled on the front line in France. And he knows, what the war
is. Later in one of his letters he wrote: “My Sam Gamgee is indeed a
reflection of the English soldier, of the privates and batmen I knew in the
1914 war, and recognized as so far superior to myself”.
Hobbits
Hobbits is a people of Halflings. They live in holes. They are very short,
practical, strait-laced and they like tasty food most of all things in the
world. These creatures were created by J.R.R.Tolkien. He was the first,
who used them in his books. There are two versions about the origin of the
word “hobbit”. V.A. Muravjov keeps one of them. He wrote in his entrance to
“The Lord Of The Rings”, that the world “hobbit” is a mixture of latin word
“homo”, which means “human” and english word “rabbit”. But Humphrey
Carpenter explained the origin of this word in a different way. In his “The
biography of J.R.R.Tolkien” he wrote, that in his youth Tolkien read the
book “Babbit” by Sincler Luis and it influensed him very much. Carpenter
shows us the resemblance of the personality of Babbit and Bilbo Baggins,
the main character of Tolkien’s book “The hobbit or there and back again”.
Tolkien himself told in one of his interview, that his hobbits have no even
a hint on rabbits. That is why I can say, that the second version about the
origin of the word “hobbit” is more correct.
The Shire
The Shire is a country of hobbits. But it also has its roots. From the
biographical sketch we know, that four best years of his childhood Tolkien
spent in the village of Sarehole. And wile reading Tolkien’s description of
the Shire I realized, that it is very close to the Carpenter’s description
of Sarehole. The same water-mill, the same pretty flower-beds, the roads
paved with stones of different colors. We can see the festive tree, which
was decorated by hobbits every holiday. And we know, that in Sarehole there
was a tree, that Tolkien remembered all his life. The first his wise tree.
In hobbits-halflings we can see the same efficient, plain and stiff english
peasants so much loved by Tolkien.
Trees and ents
All his life Tolkien loved trees. In his childhood he dreamed, they
could have mind, speak to each other and even move. And his dream came
true as we can see it in his works (mostly in “The Silmarillion” and “The
Lord Of The Rings”). When professor created reasonable trees, he desided to
creat someone, who will look after them. That is how ents appeared. Ents
look like trees, but they more reasonable, more movable and of course they
are immortal. They are not fidgety, but very wise. Their speech is very
slow and calm. Its manner (“Hrum, Hoom”) was copied with the deep bass of
Luis, the best friend of J.R.R.Tolkien.
The elves
The elves in their appearance, whom we can see in the books of Tolkien
were also mostly created by him. The roots of these characters are very
ramified. Professor read a lot of information about all kinds of elves and
finding something general tried to create something new. Finally he got
immortal creatures, who can be killed only with a sword or they can pine
away to death. They are tall, have perfect eyesight, bright hair and brave
harts. They are wise, because of the memory they keep in their immortal
mind. But elves themselves estimate their immortality as end-around
infinity of analogical events, which exhaust and oppress them. But they
have a dream to return to Valinor, country, where their immortality wont be
so hard and difficult.
Lutien
Lutien Tinuviel (“Tinuviel” could be translated from Quenya as
“nightingale”) is the most beautiful elven virgo in the whole Arda (The
Earth). One day she was singing the hymn to Varda in the forest:
Ir Ithil ammen Eruchin (When the Moon is for us, the
children of Eru,
Menel-vir sila diriel Like sky precious stone
shines and saves,
Si loth a galadh lasto din! Let the flower and the tree
listen in silence!
A hir Annun gilthoniel Oh, queen of the West, which
light the stars,
Le linnon im Tinuviel! I sing to you, it’s me,
Tinuviel.)
Beren, the bravest warrior herd this sounds and loved Lutirn in a
moment. But he was mortal and she was an elf. That is why they could not be
together. But their love was so strong, that Lutien managed to ask the
goddess Varda to help them. And Varda helped them, so Lutien became mortal
and shared the destiny of her sweetheart.
Lutien is a copy of Edith Bratt, the wife of Tolkien. Like Lutien
Edith had hair of the color of raven’s wing, satin skin, shining eyes. She
danced and sang very well. And like the elven virgo, she danced for him in
the forest. And there is a inscription on her tomb: “Edith Mary Tolkien
(Lutien)”
Shelob
Shelob is a brainchild of Ungoliant, a jumbo spider with a beak,
pincers and bottomless stomach. Ungoliant is the evil and concentrated
darkness. She terminated the Two Great Trees Telperion and Laurelin and
deprived the world frome the light that give life.
Shelob is smaller then her mother, but she is even more cruel and
always hungry. This creature lives in a lair on the border of Mordor (the
Dark Land). She has a poison in her stinger, using which she kills and
devours her victims.
In his early childhood, being in South Africa, Tolkien stumbled on a
tarantula. It bit him, and he ran in terror across the garden until the
nurse snatched him up and sucked out the poison. Since that time he began
to afraid spiders. Maybe this made him to create such a creature.
“She”+”lob” is a quite wide-spread model of forming words, like female
animals. For example “she-goat” or “she-wolf”. In this case words should be
written with hyphen. Tolkien took hyphen away and used the received word as
the name of his creature. It looks rather horribly, isn’t it?
Tolkiens view on some events from
The Bible and archaic history
The crash of the Lamps
In the beginning of ages in “The spring of Arda” (“Arda” means “The
Earth”) there was no light at all. The Earth was bare: no trees, no plants,
no animals. The Valar saw, that there was a need of the light. And then
“Aule at the prayer of Yavanna wrought two mighty lamps for the lighting of
the Middle-earth which he had built amid the encircling seas. Then Varda
filled the lamps and Manwe hallowed them, and the Valar set them upon high
pillars, more lofty far than are any mountains of the later days. One lamp
they raised near to the north of Middle-earth, and it was named Illuin; and
the other was raised in the south, and it was named Ormal; and the light of
the Lamps of the Valar flowed out over the Earth, so that all was lit as it
were in a changeless day.” And then plants and trees began to grow. And
Arda filled with different animals and creatures. But when Morgoth (the
lord of darkness and evil) saw the fragrance of Arda in his anger he
decided to destroy this all. He built an unshakable citadel in Utumno and
concentrated all his dark forces there. His power grew and he started the
war. He made his stroke when the Valar where not prepared. “He assailed the
lights of Illuin and Ormal, and cast down their pillars and broke their
lamps. In the overthrow of the mighty pillars lands were broken and seas
arose in tumult; and when the lamps were spilled destroying flame was
poured out over the Earth. And the shape of Arda and the symmetry of its
waters and its lands was marred in that time, so that the first designs of
the Valar were never after restored.”
See, how gracefully professor Tolkien handled the legend of the ruin of
dinosaurs and the fall of a giant asteroid which destroyed everything on
earth! Isn’t he a genius?
The fall of Beleriand
It was the end of the first age of Arda. The forth battle of Beleriand
against Morgoth and Sauron (the “right arm” of Morgoth) finished with a
defeat of the forces of the light, the armies of men, elves and dwarves.
And the only hope of the light was Earendel, the man, who dared to try to
find Valinor and ask the Valar for help (men never were in Valinor and they
where forbidden to go there). He sailed so long, and he was so tired, that
he thought to turn back. But suddenly he saw a big white bird like a white
cloud under the see. There was a shining silmarill on her bosom. The bird
flew on Earendels ship and he saw, that it was his wife, Elwing. Together
they continued their sail and the silmarill lighted their way to Valinor.
When the Valar saw the bravery of this man and his wife (by the way, she
was an elf), the understood, there is something in Middle-Earth, they must
save. That is how the fifth and the final battle for Beleriand started.
This battle was named The War of Wrath. The Valar, with the power of
their fire of anger terminated Angband (the citadel of Morgoth), they
knocked Morgoth down and numbed him with the chain of Angoinor. Sauron was
forgiven and turned into light, he became Majar again, as he was before
Morgoth tempted him.
But in their destructive anger, the Valar didn’t even noticed, that
they had destroyed the Beleriand. Many of Elves where save and settled in
Imladrise, Lothlorien and Mirkwood. But Beleriand was swallowed by the See
and no one could ever see its beauty: “Thus an end was made of the power of
Angband in the North, and' the evil realm was brought to naught; and out of
the deep prisons a multitude of slaves came forth beyond all hope into the
light of day, and they looked upon a world that was changed. For so great
was the fury of those adversaries that the northern regions of the western
world were rent asunder, and the sea roared in through many chasms, and
there was confusion and great noise; and rivers perished or found new
paths, and the valleys were upheaved and the hills trod down…”
Critics say, that this story is the Tolkiens view on the legend about
Atlantis. Who knows, maybe it was really so…
The fall of Numenor
In the end of the second age of Arda after the War of Wrath and the
fall of Beleriand the Valar opened a new land for elected genders of men.
It was an island. And it didn’t belong neither to Middle-Earth nor to
Valinor (the country of the Valar). The Valar decorated it with gardens,
fountains and flowers from Valinor. And this land was named Numenor (The
Western Land).
The life of the inhabitants of Numenor was very long – near 300 years.
But they still stayed mortal men. Hundreds of years passed and their
discontent about their mortality grew. They began to murmur on the Valar:
“Why didn’t they give us eternity, if they love us so much? They told us,
they could not. Maybe, they just don’t want to?” But the Valar really
couldn’t deprive men from death, the Eru’s gift (Eru – the one, who create
the Valar and Arda, elves and men and everything), just because they
couldn’t understand it.
And exactly in this moment, when the faith of men staggered, Sauron,
who betrayed the Valar and turned in the Darkness again, made his stroke.
He tempted men and directed them against the Valar. Finally the king of men
concentrated all his forces and threw his giant army against the Valar. Eru
saw this and made abyss to swallow this army and the isle of Numenor and
men and Sauron: “But Iluvatar (the other name of Eru) showed forth his
power, and he changed the fashion of the world; and a great chasm opened in
the sea between Numenor and the Deathless Lands, and the waters flowed down
into it, and the noise and smoke of the cataracts went up to heaven, and
the world was shaken. And all the fleets of the Numenoreans were drawn down
into the abyss, and they were drowned and swallowed up for ever.”
“There came a mighty wind and a tumult of the earth, and the sky
reeled, and the hills slid, and Numenor went down into the sea, with all
its children and its wives and its maidens and its ladies proud; and all
its gardens and its balls and its towers, its tombs and its riches, and its
jewels and its webs and its things painted and carven, and its lore: they
vanished for ever. And last of all the mounting wave, green and cold and
plumed with foam, climbing over the land…” And the world has changed.
Only those who stayed faithful to the Valar was reminded about
forthcoming cataclysm. They sailed to Middle-earth on ships and founded
several kingdoms their: Gondor, Arnor and Eriador…
This legend intertwines with the Bible Great Flood. As in the Bible we
can see the sin of men and retribution for it. As in the Bible water
swallowed the sinners. And as in the bible there are some people, who
stayed faithful and who was saved and prized for their faith.
How the world changed
When Eru punished men in Numenor and destroyed the island, he changed
the whole world as well: “But the land of Aman and Eressëa (the islands of
Valinor) of the Eldar were taken away and removed beyond the reach of Men
for ever. And Andor, the Land of Gift, Numenor of the Kings, Elenna of the
Star of Eärendil, was utterly destroyed. For it was nigh to the east of the
great rift, and its foundations were overturned, and it fell and went down
into darkness, and is no more. And there is not now upon Earth any place
abiding where the memory of a time without evil is preserved. For Iluvatar
cast back the Great Seas west of Middle-earth, and the Empty Lands east of
it, and new lands and new seas were made; and the world was diminished, for
Valinor and Eressëa were taken from it into the realm of hidden things.”
Before the fall of Numenor the Earth was flat, but Eru changed her:
“Thus in after days, what by the voyages of ships, what by lore and
star-craft, the kings of Men knew that the world was indeed made round”
By this episode Tolkien managed to conciliate two archaic theories
about the form of our planet. He intended that at first the Earth was flat
and then changed its form. Of course it is just a myth, but who knows,
maybe it was really so…
About wars
In “The Silmarillion”, in “The Lord Of The Rings” and even in “The
Hobbit” we can see wars. In his works Tolkien shows us real war with its
blood, pain and cruelty. Why does he pay so much attention to War? The
answer is simple. In 1916 he was in army and took part in the battle of the
Somme (France). Many of his friends fell in this battle. There Tolkien saw
all sides of the war. This period of his life influenced on his creative
work very much. That is why we can see so many wars in the books of the
professor.
Conclusion
Well, I think, that now, when I have studied many reasons and roots of
different characters of “The Silmarillion”, “The Hobbit” and “The Lord Of
The Rings”, I understood Tolkiens philosophy and his views on things a
little bit deeper. But the views of the Professor on such events, as I have
mentioned in my work, can’t be named allegory, because Tolkien himself
always declined the presence of any kind of allegory in his books. But the
method of his viewing can be called “myth-poetical method”. In his “The
Silmarillion” and “The Lord Of The Rings” we can see all sings of myth-
poetical space, which makes the book fantastic, historical, mythable,
poetical and very informative. Besides, “The Lord Of The Rings” is very
real and vital. And there is no such question for me, on which I couldn’t
find an answer in it.
Well, to my mind, my own experience in the sphere of literature,
tolkienism and just life experience is enough to advise you to read this
book. I think, after such reading, you wouldn’t forget it!
List of used literature
1. J.R.R.Tolkien “The Silmarillion”
2. J.R.R.Tolkien “The Lord Of The Rings”
3. J.R.R.Tolkien “The Hobbit or There And Back Again”
4. J.R.R.Tolkien “The appendix to “The Lord Of The Rings”
5. V. Muraviov an introductory article to “The Hobbit”
6. H. Carpenter “The biography of J.R.R. Tolkien”
7. Pictures by J.R.R.Tolkien, Karen Wynn Fonstad, Patrick Wynne and
frames from the film “The Lord Of The Rings” by Peter Jackson.
Appendix
-----------------------
The map of Numenor
The map of Beleriand
Beren and Lutien
The elven virgo Galadriel
Ent Treebeard
The Shire
Hobbits hole inside
Gandalf the Grey
Ronald with his family in South Africa
Ronald and Hilary
Edith Bratt
Ronald in student years
Ronald in army
Prosessor J.R.R.Tolkien
The spring of Arda
The Change of the world
The Monogram of
J.R.R.Tolkien
Elvish and runic scripts made by J.R.R.Tolkien
“The door of Moria”
by J.R.R.Tolkien
Professor Tolkien
Ronald and Edith
Tolkien
The last photo of
J.R.R.Tolkien
The tomb of Edith Mary Tolkien (Lutien) and John Ronald Ruel Tolkien
(Beren)
