The Song of Middle-earth: J. R. R. Tolkien’s Themes, Symbols and Myths

THE SONG OF

MIDDLE-EARTH

J.R.R. Tolkien’s Themes, Symbolsand Myths

DAVID HARVEY

COPYRIGHT

Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

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First published in Great Britain by George Allen & Unwin 1985

Copyright © David Harvey 1985

‘Tolkien’® is a registered trade mark of The Tolkien Estate Limited

Cover illustration © J.R.R. Tolkien

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Source ISBN: 9780008184810

Ebook Edition © July 2016 ISBN: 9780008184827

Version: 2016-06-17

DEDICATION

To my Father and my Wife

with love and thanks

CONTENTS

COVER

TITLE PAGE

COPYRIGHT

DEDICATION

PREFACE

FOREWORD

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

1 A Question of Mythology

2 The Myth as Literature

3 The Music of Ilúvatar: Tolkien and the Major Mythic Themes

4 Wheels within Wheels: The Submyth and Reality

5 The Eternal Conflict: Good and Evil in Middle-earth

6 The Tragic Hero

7 The Quest Hero

8 The Importance of Being Eärendil

9 Tree and Leaf: The Idiom of Nature

10 A Fanfare for the Common Hobbit

NOTES

INDEX

OTHER BOOKS BY

ABOUT THE PUBLISHER

PREFACE

When I was approached about re-releasing “The Song of Middle-earth” I wondered if it would present an opportunity if not to rewrite the text, to revise it in light of the extraordinary amount of material that has been published since 1985 under the collective title of “The History of Middle-earth”.

“The Song” was written in 1985 and shortly after the manuscript was finished “The Book of Lost Tales I” was published. I referred to it in the Foreword to the 1985 printing. I observed that the themes that I discussed in “The Song” were present and what was different was the tale-telling. As further volumes in “The History of Middle-earth” were published the enormous scope of Tolkien’s creation became apparent. What those volumes presented was the way in which the various tales and deep background that Tolkien developed and that formed Tolkien’s sub-creation was published in “The Hobbit”, “The Lord of the Rings” and, posthumously “The Silmarillion” came to be and continued to be developed.

Had I decided to recast “The Song” it would have turned out to be substantively the same book but with a vast array of cross references to the various volumes in “The History” which would interrupt and distract from the narrative of the various arguments that I had developed. Certainly, such an approach would appeal to a completist – and I confess that I am such – but it would produce an book of unwieldy size and unnecessary complexity. Those analytical studies have been produced in the many compendia that have been published about Tolkien’s work and I single out for mention the excellent and extraordinary work of Wayne Hammond and Christina Scull – The J.R.R. Tolkien Companion and Guide in two volumes – the Chronology and The Readers Guide.

In addition there has been an extraordinary amount of other scholarship that has been published since 1985, and a proper recasting of “The Song” would necessarily require a consideration of these subsequent works. The result would be a completely different work from that which is before you.

My conclusion was to let the text stand as it was originally written. Its approach was a thematic one and Tolkien’s texts – The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion formed a “canon”. Unfinished Tales shed a little extra light on the nature of the creation and some different tale-telling. External published sources such as Tolkien’s Letters and Humphrey Carpenter’s Biography provided some added assistance. But I thought that the best approach was to use the published canon – a discrete set of material that provided a defined compass for an examination not so much of tale-telling – to which I will return – but of the way in which the various themes within a mythos were developed and realised.

I have noted above that The History provides us with an insight into the creative process. It is also an example of the way in which story-telling develops. Many mythological structures derive from oral tale telling. What survives as Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey was originally an oral tale with frequent use of mnemonic structures to assist the tale teller. Inevitably there are shifts in the tale as the story is taken up and recounted by other tale tellers. The fundamental tale may remain the same in terms of major plot development and the themes that underlie it. But the telling of the tale itself may shift either subtly or significantly. In some respects The History reflects this tale telling method and the way in which shifts may occur. What is interesting is that the one author has fulfilled the role of different tale tellers.

There are those who will say, correctly, that Tolkien’s creative style and his desire for perfection is the reason why we have alternative versions of the same story. I cannot dispute that. But I suggest that in the same sense that there are variations on the stories that comprise a mythos1 so Tolkien’s retellings can be viewed in the same light. But even with a variety of story-telling approaches, the essential thematic elements are still present. These do not change substantively.

For these reasons I have decided to let the original text stand and speak for itself, using the canon as the essential sources for Tolkien’s subcreation, although at the same time acknowledging that variations of some of the stories appear elsewhere.

The book was first published in 1985 and has been out of print for some time. I have had enquiries form a number of readers who have tried to locate copies and for some reason prices for second hand copies seem to be rather high. A reprinted version of the text will now be available again. Given that over 30 years have elapsed since the first publication, there will be a new generation of readers for whom this analysis may present a refreshing and informative study of Tolkien’s creation, and it is a joy for me that the book will be available to them at a price that may be more reasonable and accessible than that of the second hand market.

FOREWORD

This book was written for two reasons: curiosity and dissatisfaction.

The curiosity has been present for the last twenty-three years, and began when I first read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. The same question that was raised then continued as, each year, I read and re-read the books. I felt that there was something greater, more significant, more meaningful than was immediately apparent upon the printed page. A cause of the curiosity, of course, lay in the method of Tolkien’s writing. He had an incredible depth to his tale, a great sense of time and a deep and rich historical background. The action in The Lord of the Rings, although set in a mythical past, takes place at the end of the historical cycle. Preceding the story is a vast tapestry of history, extending over many thousands of years, and to which frequent allusions are made, and, of course, the characters are inextricably a part of that tapestry. The question that flows from this is, ‘What are the details of this historical background?’

My attempts to answer this were hampered by the lack of detail and clues that appeared in the Appendices to The Lord of the Rings which gave tantalising glimpses only of fragments of the overall design. A part of the problem was that the Appendices to the first edition did not contain many of the clues that Tolkien included in the revised Appendices to the second edition, and it was only when I came to this latter publication that I perceived the first hints of the existence of The Silmarillion.

In 1977 The Silmarillion was published and for me it was a matter of great expectation. But the book raised even more questions whilst at the same time it answered many others. The answers began to filter through from other sources. Humphrey Carpenter’s Biography, with its hints of The Book of Lost Tales, Unfinished Tales itself, and Tolkien’s Letters began to provide the wind that dispersed the clouds from the face of the sun of understanding. It was rapidly becoming clear that Tolkien had not only woven a tapestry of history, but had also created a mythology. But for what purpose, how successfully, and with what result? It was after my studies for the New Zealand and International Mastermind shows that I determined, once and for all, to try to satisfy my curiosity and answer the questions that had plagued me for so long.

I have also mentioned dissatisfaction. My dissatisfaction is with much of the published literature about Tolkien’s Middle-earth. With the exception of Carpenter and Shippey, most of the writers and commentators seemed to have missed a vital point. I did not think that Tolkien’s work was merely derivative – that he had examined other mythologies and extracted tales, elements and themes and plopped them into his creation. With great respect to the authors who have followed such a course, it is a simplistic one and unflattering to the creator. Nor did I think that mere critical comparisons with the earlier greats of English and European literature were wholly productive. There was something deeper and more meaningful to Middle-earth than that.

I decided to eschew the derivative approach and avoid, as much as I could, comparisons with other works and examine and analyse the Middle-earth works as they stood – alone. And the obvious starting point, and one which has received scant examination in the earlier literature, was myth. Tolkien had left for me, and for others, an abundance of clues – that he was creating a Mythology for England – and I began my examination from the point of view of myth and mythology. Rather than examine the works as derivative from other mythologies, it became clear that the approach should be thematic – study the themes that are common to most, if not all, mythologies and ascertain what elements are present in Tolkien’s work. As this book shows, the elements are satisfied.

The starting point must be The Silmarillion, a difficult book to read and with which to come to terms. But it is essential to an understanding of the creation and development of the Tolkien cosmos, as well as being a history of the Elves in Middle-earth, and it establishes the framework within which is set the Third Age as portrayed in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Yet The Silmarillion gives hints of other writings and accounts that deal with the Matter of Middle-earth. Some of these accounts are collected in Unfinished Tales, and in this volume we find more detail of the acts of Tuor and of Túrin, a background to the realm of Númenor, the Tale of Aldarion and Erendis, and much information about the Istari, the palantíri and the early history of the Third Age. For one interested in the stories, Unfinished Tales is essential. For the aficionado it provides a penetrating insight into the manner in which Tolkien worked.

The publication of The Book of Lost Tales I, the first volume of an extended ‘History of Middle-earth’, came shortly after the completion of this manuscript, and whilst it was being prepared for publication. The Book of Lost Tales I comprises a part of what may be called a ‘proto-Silmarillion’. Most of the ingredients of the tales of The Silmarillion are present, although it is obvious, both from the Tales themselves, and the notes by Christopher Tolkien, the editor, that the Tales underwent many fundamental changes before they became The Silmarillion. But Lost Tales I is, in my opinion, almost as significant as The Silmarillion in that it indicates that it was always Tolkien’s desire to create a Mythology for England. To give even greater credence to his intention (as if we needed more than the confessed desire of the writer), the manner of the telling of the Tales is significant. Eriol, a traveller from Middle-earth (or The Great Lands), comes to the Isle of Tol Eressëa and in his travels in that land comes to a dwelling which is, in some respects, a forerunner of Imladris in Middle-earth. During his sojourn he requests and is told tales of early Arda. Most of the tales are told in a common-room before a Tale-fire which is ‘a magic fire, and greatly aids the teller in his tale’.1 The tales are told by Lindo, Rúmil and Gilfanon, Elvish inhabitants of Tol Eressëa. Now the significance of the setting is that the Tales are recounted orally, and indeed are so written that they have a lyric and rhythmic quality when read aloud. Thus, in introducing his myth, Tolkien resorts to the oral or bardic tradition of story-telling, a feature of mythological tale-telling that predates Homer. Apart from the themes of the cosmological myths that comprise Lost Tales I, the whole cycle is distinctively myth oriented and is a clear indication of Tolkien’s desire and intention. Christopher Tolkien gives us tantalising hints of things to come in later publications, but perhaps most interesting is the reference to Ælfwine of England. Ælfwine is another realisation of the character Eriol.

Later, his name changed to Ælfwine (‘Elf-friend’), the mariner became an Englishman of the ‘Anglo-Saxon period’ of English history, who sailed west over sea to Tol Eressëa – he sailed from England out into the Atlantic Ocean; and from this later conception comes the very remarkable story of Ælfwine of England, which will be given at the end of the Lost Tales. But in the earliest conception he was not an Englishman of England: England in the sense of the land of the English did not yet exist; for the cardinal fact (made quite explicit in extant notes) of this conception is that the Elvish Isle to which Eriol came was England – that is to say, Tol Eressëa would become England, the land of the English, at the end of the story.2

Apart from the very method of tale-telling, the major themes that I have examined in The Silmarillion are present, as one would expect, in Lost Tales. Certainly some major changes in plot as well as changes in matters of detail have occurred. But this too is consistent with the development of myth. The tales of myth are never constant, and there is no one ‘authorised version’ (even the Bible has its Apocrypha). Rather, as I note later, the tale-tellers vary, refine and embellish. But the constant ingredient is the basic theme, and certainly the themes that Tolkien propounds and illustrates do not change.

The Silmarillion, Lost Tales and, to a degree, Unfinished Tales set the stage for the drama at the end of the Third Age recounted in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. The mythology is complete and the questions that have been bedevilling readers for the last forty or fifty years may now finally be answered. But I believe that the main inspiration for the questions and the curiosity that readers have for Middle-earth lies deep in the realms of myth. Because the Middle-earth saga was conceived as a mythology the reader, perhaps only subconsciously, recognises myth as the sound of a far-distant trumpet echoing through the mind. Can the reader, perhaps, recognise within his own experience the desire for a subcreated realm of faerie that is as meaningful to him or her as were the great tales that rang through the rafters of the mead halls of early England and the Viking lands, or which were majestically and sonorously intoned by Homer sitting by the tale-fire on an evening in ancient Greece? Perhaps that ‘desire for dragons’ that we all have is now realised in Tolkien’s created mythology for England.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

A number of people have played a part in the realisation of this book. Some of them are not aware of the influence that they have given but it behoves me to take this opportunity to thank them, and acknowledge their support and assistance.

First, I must thank my late father for all things but, more especially as far as this book is concerned, for providing me with the necessary finance to purchase a trilogy of books by a then little-known Oxford don twenty-three years ago – after not a little boyish cajoling – and also for his encouragement, for as long as I can remember, in the study, understanding and love of the glories of English literature and the majesty of the English language. No greater legacy could he have left.

I must also thank former magistri David Canning, Dick Sibson and Den Burton, graduates of Oxford all. One of them, I know, sat at the feet of Tolkien. They provided some of the signposts for the road that I have travelled. Also I must thank Max Cryer for his patience and kind understanding and unflagging assistance at the time of trial by interrogation.

My gratitude must also go to Rayner Unwin, whose advice during the writing of this book and whose encouragement, comments and patience with a new traveller on the road to writing have been of invaluable assistance.

There are many writers whom I have never met who have written reams on the subject of myth and mythology. They helped to clarify the questions and provided leads to the answers. But of all the writers I must acknowledge the one whose works this book examines. J. R. R. Tolkien has provided me with reading enjoyment for the last twenty-three years and his work was the inspiration for this book.

Finally I must pay tribute to the limitless patience, co-operation and understanding of my wife who really must wonder what she started when she suggested I enter Mastermind in 1980. Her help in all phases of this work has been invaluable.

CHAPTER 1

A Question of Mythology

There is a feature common to all human cultures and that is the creation and use of myth. Cultures such as those of Central America and Polynesia did not develop the skill of writing, or the basic technology of the wheel. Yet both these cultures, and many others that lacked similar attributes, had as richly developed a mythology as the civilisations of the Mediterranean, India, Persia and north-western Europe.

C. S. Lewis said to Tolkien that ‘myths are lies’. In one respect he may have been right. Certainly the cosmogonic myths cannot be anything but the hypotheses offered by primitive cultures to explain their own presence and purpose. But the development of myths and their use in societies both primitive and modern is of such importance that to dismiss them as the products of an overactive imagination is to denigrate man’s curiosity and his quest for the answers to the eternal questions, ‘Why am I here?’; ‘Where am I going?’; ‘Where did I come from?’; ‘What lies at the end of the road?’

In our twentieth-century world myths and mythologies seem rather remote. In the technological age they represent a primitive past – a past that goes before recorded history. Myths to the historian are tales that are unsubstantiated by fact or evidence. Yet they may be based on fact. They may have their foundation in some actual historic occurrence that was not (or could not be) recorded. However, the passage of time and the raconteur’s ability for embellishment have submerged or even obliterated what historical facts there may have been. It is valid to suppose that at some stage in history the Greeks came into conflict with a civilisation in Asia Minor that had its centre in Troy. The historical detail of that conflict is lost. What remains is Homer’s account of it. The historical fact has become myth. The intervention of the deities explains the ebb and flow of the fortunes of the participants. Even so, Homer’s account is a mere fragment of the total history of the conflict and really is the tale, as Robert Graves has entitled his retelling, of the anger of Achilles.

The mythologising of historical events, or the explanation of historical events in a mythological context has continued into the age of recorded history. Aeneas becomes the forefather of the Latin races who founded Rome. That there may have been a Romulus is possible. But his origins and activities that led to the founding of the Roman community on the banks of the Tiber have become the subject of myth. A similar situation takes place with the actions of folk heroes. As time passes the hero grows beyond his immediate community and becomes representative of an ethic or attribute of a nation or a country. St Patrick casts snakes out of Ireland. Robin Hood embodies an individualistic nobility of spirit that was not possessed by the nobility of the time, and also serves as the focus for the feelings of frustration on the part of a disenchanted community. Coeur de Lion becomes the embodiment of the noble warrior king to both Englishmen and Saracen and by the latter was named Melech-Ric and was used to frighten the young Islamic children of the day. Arthur and Barbarossa are the founders of nations, who will come again when the land is beset. Even such an historical figure as Richard III has achieved a mythical stature, mainly as a result of the writings of the Tudor apologists Sir Thomas More, Shakespeare and more recently A. L. Rowse, as the embodiment of evil in search of power, and the archetypal wicked uncle, although the latter symbol has been common through myth, folktale and history, to the displeasure, no doubt, of a multitude of benevolent uncles.

As with individuals, so do classes achieve a mythical stature. The cavalier image, no doubt fostered and exploited after the Restoration, has achieved the status of an archetype that would make it mythical for, as we shall see, myth deals with archetypes both in the actual sense and in the sense attributed to that word by Carl Jung. The ‘working class’ is a myth that had its origins in the revolutionary movements of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and which reached its flowering in the works of Marx and Engels. It is a myth to which politicians pay more than lip service.

The European part of the North American culture is in the throes of developing its own mythology. As time progresses the historical figures of Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett become the embodiment of the pioneering spirit. The myth of the American frontier as a boundless new horizon was subtly used by President J. F. Kennedy in the catchphrase for his administration as ‘The New Frontier’. Longfellow mythologised the Sioux Indian in The Song of Hiawatha, using the image of the noble savage, a rich Plains Indian mythology, and the metre of the Finnish Kalevala – a New World mythic tale told in Old World mythic form. Similarly the folk heroes of the American West have been raised to mythic proportions, embodying or having attributed to them traits that they never had or intended, and having attributed to them actions that embody or exemplify a philosophy from which, hopefully, later generations can learn. The historical proximity of such characters to the present means that some demythologising may also take place. Thus, the heroic bad guys such as Billy the Kid, Jesse James, Bonnie and Clyde, Ma Barker and, in Australia, Ned Kelly, are found, historically, to have feet of clay and black hearts. Yet they do not lose their mythic or heroic status, despite the assaults of historians from the groves of academe.