A Journey Through Middle-earth

[S. Gomez]

Hey, something cool. Apparently Tolkien reused the name "Eressëa" from The Book of Lost Tales for the name of another island in Middle-earth. And from what Wikipedia tells me it was always in The Silmarillion, I just never noticed. That's what's great about this re-reading, getting to recognize the many connections and interweaving ideas that I haven't realized before.

 

[S. Gomez]

I know these thread bumps are unfortunate, but getting through The Lord of The Rings takes a while. I'm trying to speed it up a bit so this doesn't fall down the line too drastically.

Progress report: I've finished Book II. "The Breaking of The Fellowship" is a great chapter, and I can just imagine the cliffhanger it caused back in the day. I also noted a couple other 'lost tales' or gaps in our knowledge of Middle-earth lore.

-The two missing wizards. A classic conundrum; what were the Blue Wizards up to during all this, and what happened to them?

-A detail I had forgotten: Saruman has made a Ring of Power. Whatever happened to this ring? Was it lost in the chaos of the destruction of Isengard, or lying in the rubble somewhere like the palantir? Did Saruman manage to hold on to it and take it when he went to The Shire? In that case, what happened to it after he died if it didn't dissolve along with his body? And possibly most important: did Sauron know, and was it under the control of the One Ring? Unlikely on the second, and perhaps also the first. (This just me hunting around for possible inspiration for that heresy of heresies: writing my own stories of Middle-earth--gasp!)

-So it seems Tolkien did indeed write something about Queen Beruthiel and her mysterious cats! (Forgive my ignorance up till now, I haven't yet read Unfinished Tales.)


PS. Happy Birthday, Bilbo and Frodo!

 

[CaptainWacky]

I want to know more about the Snowmen of Forochel.

 

[Evil Twin]

I want to know more about the Snowmen of Forochel.

Lord of the Rings Online added Forochel earlier this year:
http://www.lotro.com/article/532

 

[Stevil2001]

And once again the Black Riders are frightening as anything I've ever read. I remember one time when I got to those chapters in my bedtime reading. I was scared to go to sleep!

Oh yes. I'm not a big Tolkein fan (so why am I reading this thread?), but I clearly remember the scariness of the Black Riders-- when those guys were after you, you felt it.

 

[S. Gomez]

Progress report: Finished Book III.

 

[V]

-The two missing wizards. A classic conundrum; what were the Blue Wizards up to during all this, and what happened to them?

Oh he talks about that in other things:

Basically, the Blue Wizards are two (of the five) Wizards who went far to the lands in the East (Gandalf never even went to the East), where they were "behind the lines" as it were, in the barbarian lands far to the east of even Rhun, starting up local rebellions in lands Sauron occupied, etc. This had a cumulative effect on the whole war as it meant that less Easterlings came to fight in Gondor than might have. but Tolkien never really decided what *ultimately* happened to them, but the theory he had is that they "strayed from their path"; not necessarily even in a bad way. Just as Radagast started caring about Beasts and Birds, specifically what he was there to protect, more than the "big picture", the Blue Wizards started caring about the local lands in the East they were protecting more than the whole of Middle-earth. The idea is that they ultimately "went native" and stayed, just never returning even after Sauron was gone. Tolkien "suspects" that they ultimately passed on much of their knowledge to the local population and were thus the start of several of the "magic cults" which have existed down to the modern day (not "Illuminati", I mean like, wizards and witches in like Medieval Europe, etc.) this could be seen as either good or bad and even Tolkien never really finalized his decision: did they "go native" because they started trying to set themselves up as local lords, like Saruman did? Or is it really just they loved and cared about the lands they had defended for so long that they just stayed their as protectors that never left? We don't know.

-A detail I had forgotten: Saruman has made a Ring of Power. Whatever happened to this ring? Was it lost in the chaos of the destruction of Isengard, or lying in the rubble somewhere like the palantir? Did Saruman manage to hold on to it and take it when he went to The Shire? In that case, what happened to it after he died if it didn't dissolve along with his body? And possibly most important: did Sauron know, and was it under the control of the One Ring? Unlikely on the second, and perhaps also the first. (This just me hunting around for possible inspiration for that heresy of heresies: writing my own stories of Middle-earth--gasp!)

Slow down there, slow down there: It is *not* a "Ring of Power"; there are only 20 Rings of Power (3 for Elves, 7 for Dwarves, 9 for Men, 1 for Sauron). ****they do mention that the Elves made other magic rings before that, but they were "essays in the craft"; that is, in the centuries that they were developing and refining "ring technology" or the "craft of making magic rings" they of course made many many "rough draft" rings of varying power. But none come close to the Great Rings. ***notice that Gandalf himself suspected that Bilbo's magic ring might just have been one of those "lesser rings", which is why he tried to convince himself it couldn't be a Great Ring (re-read the second chapter of FOTR).

Saruman doesn't have "a Ring of Power" which you read that line that "he had a ring on his finger". It's not a serious upgrade anymore than that he's a "magical wizard" in the first place. ***the entire point of that is just to show that he is TRYING to make his own rings, and he's trying to imitate Sauron, and this shows***how far he has fallen. But that doesn't mean he's GOOD at MAKING them yet!

It's just another of his gimmicks, like the "fire of Orthanc" (in the books it is ambiguous if this is a magical attack or blasting powder; i personally always thought it was gunpowder, as it kind of fits with Saruman's whole motif of using "scientific knowledge" for corrupted ends like making weapons and industrialization, etc.; the movies fall on the side of "it was gunpowder" but they said that's because they honestly interpret the text to mean that, which I frankly already agreed with)

So don't worry or think this is some major plot point: Saruman has lots of little magical gimmicks and toys, and you should be no more worried about this specific "ring" than "wow, what other types of wizard artifacts are in there"?

In case you're wondering about what happened to Orthanc, though: Aragorn granted Isengard and Nan Curunir (the surrounding valley) to the Elves for trees to return, but he regained Orthanc tower as part of his birthright as king (it was built by the old kings). "Unfinished Tales" mentions (though not as a narrative) that Aragorn & Co. would some time later make a thorough exploration of Orthanc tower, where Aragorn found all sorts of goodies that Saruman had been hiding, i.e. the original Star of Elendil.

-So it seems Tolkien did indeed write something about Queen Beruthiel and her mysterious cats! (Forgive my ignorance up till now, I haven't yet read Unfinished Tales.)

Oh that's just "local folklore"; logically all sorts of local folklore is present in countries, their own backstory, etc. and "Queen Beruthiel" is just an evil queen of old Gondor, who was sort of a sorceress and spied on her enemies using her magic cats, but eventually everyone turned on her and the king threw her out; it's really not a big story its just a fable even in Gondor; it sounds cool because he mentions it in passing in a tantalizing way; but that's the point; real people wouldn't bother to fully explain their folklore, i.e. if I were to say "yeah right, Snow White, lets eat the strange apples" in a sarcastic way, you'd know what I was talking about but stranger would not; similarly, Aragorn *mentions* Beruthiel in an off-hand way as just a part of folklore.

 

[S. Gomez]

^

1) I meant in detail.

2) "Ring of Power" was used by me as a figure of speech while writing in haste. Don't read too much into it.

3) I was referring to the fact that *anything* more existed about it; I had thought it was nothing beyond what Aragorn said.

 

[Klaus]

...since you haven't read it, here's the bit on Queen B. from Unfinished Tales:

Even the story of Queen Berúthiel does exist, however, if only in a very 'primitive' outline, in one part illegible. She was the nefarious, solitary, and loveless wife of Tarannon, twelfth King of Gondor (Third Age 830-913) and first of the 'Ship-kings', who took the crown in the name of Falastur 'Lord of the Coasts', and was the first childless king (The Lord of the Rings, Appendix A, I, ii and iv). Berúthiel lived in the King's House in Osgiliath, hating the sounds and smells of the sea and the house that Tarannon built below Pelargir 'upon arches whose feet stood deep in the wide waters of Ethir Anduin'; she hated all making, all colours and elaborate adornment, wearing only black and silver and living in bare chambers, and the gardens of the house in Osgiliath were filled with tormented sculptures beneath cypresses and yews. She had nine black cats and one white, her slaves, with whom she conversed, or read their memories, setting them to discover all the dark secrets of Gondor, so that she knew those things 'that men wish most to keep hidden', setting the white cat to spy upon the black, and tormenting them. No man in Gondor dared touch them; all were afraid of them, and cursed when they saw them pass. What follows is almost wholly illegible in the unique manuscript, except for the ending, which states that her name was erased from the Book of the Kings ('but the memory of men is not wholly shut in books, and the cats of Queen Berúthiel never passed wholly out of men's speech'), and that King Tarannon had her set on a ship with her cats and set adrift on the sea before a north wind. The ship was last seen flying past Umbar under a sickle moon, with a cat at the masthead and another as a figure-head on the prow.

--Unfinished Tales, "The Istari," p. 401-402 note 7

In 1956 JRRT said the cats and the other 2 wizards were the only major cases of him putting something in LotR w/o a real backstory, but apparently [and unsurprisingly] his natural proclivities made him at least work out some of it eventually lol...


...and as much as I love all things Tolkien, as a cat person this story has always disturbed me lol.

 

[S. Gomez]

^Yeah, they have that same excerpt in the Reader's Companion. It's actually a pretty cool idea; I love coming across a bit of fantasy literature that's very imaginative.

Well, I actually leave on a trip four weeks from today and I'm starting to feel a bit of a crunch. I kind of want to be on the early volumes of The History of Middle-earth while I'm away, but before I do I have to finish the "main"/first phase of my quest... which means that in the next month I need to read The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion (taking copious notes on the stories), Unfinished Tales, and The Children of Hurin. Not to mention finishing The Lord of The Rings. Gagh!

And also I'm wondering about reading the whole of HoME. I'm pretty sure it would take me past the end of the year; definitely the first three, maybe just the first five, up to The Lost Road.

 

[S. Gomez]

Finished Book IV.

"The Stairs of Cirith Ungol", "Shelob's Lair", "The Choices of Master Samwise". Three chapters that have got to be among the best in the whole book.

 

[S. Gomez]

Finished Book V.

 

[Derishton]

Beruthial is one of those canon problems: Tolkien later says humans can't perform magic, and yet Beruthial pretty clearly can. Any corpus as big as his, with as many versions, is bound to have a few of those, of course. I myself always liked the idea of Beruthial.

 

[S. Gomez]

Last night I finished The Lord of The Rings.

Every time I read the book again I feel something different about it--never in a negative way, understand, just a different aspect of the story reveals itself to me. I guess I’m still processing my feelings about this time, but looking back on the notes I made while I was reading one pops out: “Adventure by faith.” The page note beside it refers to the words of Elrond to Frodo in Chapter 3 of Book II:

I can foresee very little of your road; and how your task is to be achieved I do not know. The Shadow has crept now to the feet of the Mountains, and draws nigh even to the borders of the Greyflood; and under the Shadow all is dark to me. You will meet many foes, some open, and some disguised; and you may find friends upon your way when you least look for it. I will send out messages, such as I can contrive, to those whom I know in the wide world; but so perilous are the lands now become that some may well miscarry, or come no quicker than you yourself.

And it strikes me how similar this is to The Hobbit. There, Bilbo is thrust out into an adventure where he knows something of where he is going but no idea of how he will get there or how they plan to get the gold from Smaug (even the dwarves don't know that). But they find a way; not the easiest, not the most comfortable, but a way nevertheless. Frodo (and the other hobbits as well) find themselves in the midst of an adventure that turns out to be much bigger than they ever expected, and they set out without even the remotest suggestion as to how they will enter Mordor let alone make it across to Mount Doom without being seen. But Frodo and Sam find a way; certainly with a good deal more pain than they wanted to encounter, but the Ring is destroyed nevertheless. And contrary to what they both believed, they are saved by the eagles and make it home alive.

The stakes are a good deal higher in The Lord of The Rings than in The Hobbit, of course, and so while both journeys require strength, dedication, and a certain amount of blind faith, they do so at different scales. For Bilbo, taking a single step towards the dragon is "the bravest thing he ever did. The tremendous things that happened afterwards were as nothing compared to it. He fought the real battle in the tunnel alone, before he ever saw the vast danger that lay in wait." But the Quest to destroy the Ring is perhaps a little more important than recovering stolen treasure, and so the level of courage required to see it through is that much greater. The final push of Frodo and Sam is admirably conveyed by Tolkien in their journey through Mordor itself. After debating with himself, Sam finally grits his teeth, hardens his resolve, and even goes to the length of picking up Frodo and carrying him on his back to finish it all: "His will was set and only death would break it." In a single sentence, Sam becomes what a true hero should be, strong in the face of adversity.

This is just one element of what I've seen this time through Middle-earth. My journey isn't over yet, but I will be taking a small break to read George MacDonald's At The Back of The North Wind; I feel the need for a different voice discussing different things as a refresher for the Second Stage of the quest.