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

As the mythic heroes grew in the new lands, so a mythology developed about the new lands. The colonial ethic, the movement of peoples from the old homeland to the new, was historically motivated by economics and the need for supplies and wealth for the depleted home territories. As the colonial movement grew, colonies achieved strategic as well as economic significance. Yet the panacea which was used to encourage departure to the new lands was based largely upon the myths of ‘ennoblement of inferior races’ or ‘spreading the benefits of civilisation’ or the downright greed of ‘there’s gold in them thar hills’.

I do not dismiss such factors as poverty at home, bad crops or a general disenchantment with the old system. But the colonial movement used a form of myth which was factually based to a small degree, but which was inflated beyond reality to justify a wholesale system of landgrabbing.

The mythologising process continues as man searches for answers even today in the modern heroes. In a system that is so profoundly materialistic and historically based as Communism, mythical figures arise and some even suffer the fate of demythologisation. Large portraits of Marx and Lenin in Red Square on May Day attest to this fact as does the removal of Stalin’s body from its Kremlin tomb. Even the life of Lenin has much in common with that of the classic hero of epic. It is no accident that Soviet historians have seized upon this in the process of virtually deifying the founder of the Russian Soviet State. Yet, even more surprisingly, another Communist leader lived a life in which, from time to time, he engaged in symbolic acts and who was a myth in his own lifetime. Who can forget the 1967 photographs of Mao Zedung having a recreational swim in the torrents of the Yellow River in the midst of the Cultural Revolution. Mao, like Lenin, is a modern epic hero, whose quest is the liberation of a nation from oppression. The mere words ‘The Long March’ to a student of Chinese history conjure up a symbol which has its parallels in the exile phase of the epic hero in mythic literature.

Because the process of mythologisation continues, it is wrong to relegate myths to the status of children’s tales of the past which have their origins beyond the beginning of recorded history. The fact that the process does continue demonstrates the fact that myth is an important aspect in the continuing development of human society. So at this stage I should like to turn to what constitutes a myth, and how mythologies have developed. This is more an overview than a detailed study, and I intend to avoid an anthropological discussion of the significance of myth in primitive societies. Rather, what I intend to do is to view myths and mythologies as a factor in the development of societies and in a following chapter I shall look at how myths have become a part of the literature of societies.

There is no common definition of the word ‘myth’ or for the concept that it represents. Myth means one thing to an anthropologist, another to the psychologist and yet another to the thematologist. Curiously enough, within all the different views and opinions there is only slight divergence – a shift in emphasis. Each of the various definitions of myth have a small seed of common agreement and because myth has been so important in the past, and as a motivator in the development of man and of his institutions and as an inspiration for, and indeed a part of, much of his literature, we should understand the basis and meaning of myth.

Myth in its basic form was a vehicle of religious symbolism. It was symbolic in its approach. It was not like ritual which is symbolic or imitative behaviour, or a symbolic object such as an icon or a reliquary. It is a tale told in a symbolic language. A child’s definition of a parable is ‘an earthly tale with a heavenly meaning’. A parable uses everyday objects and events to symbolise a greater and often divine truth. Not so myth, for frequently the myth uses divine beings either as participants in, or symbols for, a supposed truth. In the main, myths are tales concerning gods or superhuman beings and extraordinary events, or amazing circumstances, in a time that is quite different from normal human experience.

Robert Graves defines true myth as ‘the reduction to narrative shorthand of ritual mime performed on public festivals, and in many cases recorded pictorially on temple walls, vases, seals, bowls, mirrors, chests, shields, tapestries, and the like’.1 He then goes on to distinguish ‘true’ myth from what could otherwise be described as ‘mythlike’ accounts. He numbers these as:

1 Philosophical allegory, as in Hesiod’s cosmogony.

2 ‘Aetiological’ explanation of myths no longer understood as in Admetus’s yoking of a lion and a boar to his chariot.

3 Satire or parody, as in Silenus’s account of Atlantis.

4 Sentimental fable, as in the story of Narcissus and Echo.

5 Embroidered history, as in Arion’s adventure with the dolphin.

6 Minstrel romance, as in the story of Cephalus and Procris.

7 Political propaganda, as in Theseus’s Federalization of Attica.

8 Moral legend, as in the story of Eriphyle’s necklace.

9 Humorous anecdote, as in the bedroom farce of Herakles, Omphale and Pan.

10 Theatrical melodrama, as in the story of Thestor and his daughters.

11 Heroic saga, as in the main argument of the Iliad.

12 Realistic fiction, as in Odysseus’s visit to the Phaecians.

Thus, Graves defines true myth by elimination, and claims that it is a tale embodying a magical ritual, invoking fertility, peace, water, victory at war, long life to the ruler or death to the enemies. He also comments that genuine mythic elements may be found in the least promising sources. In studying mythic writing he says:

When making prose sense of a mythological or pseudo-mythological narrative, one should always pay careful attention to the names, tribal origins, and fates of the characters concerned; and then restore it to the form of dramatic ritual, whereupon its incidental elements will sometimes suggest an analogy with another myth which has been given a wholly different anecdotal twist, and shed light on both.2

Graves’ study of the Greek myths is as vast as some of the epics that he studies. His examination is not merely of the myths, or their religious background, but their significance within the political and religious systems that existed in Europe before the advent of the Aryan invaders. Yet his sources are the great writers of the classical period: Homer, Herodotus, Plato, Aeschylus, Plutarch, Ovid, Virgil among many others. In effect Graves must go deep into the stories, past the peripheral words of the tales to discover their true meaning, context and significance.

Graves’ approach to the Greek myths may lead him to one definition. His subject matter and his mythology are the best documented in existence. In settling upon his particular definition Graves is able to approach his subject from that point of view.

But despite the apparent sophistication of ‘true’ myth, and the exclusion of those other tales that may be regarded as ‘mythic’, Graves could not deny that all the mythic tales both of the ‘true’ or other forms of myth deal with liminal phenomena. They are tales told or conceived at a time or in a location that is apart from the here and now reality. ‘Myths relate’ by direct language or by symbols how a particular state of affairs came to be, or ‘how one state of affairs became another’.3

Myths tell how the world came to be out of chaos, and how an unpeopled world became populated. They tell how those who were immortal forsook their immortality or departed the real world for some other region where immortals dwell. Myths tell or explain how the seasons came, the cause of rain, the origin of particular plants and how a united mankind in a Golden Age became a plurality of nations. There is, of course, religious significance in myth. The gods or supernatural beings of myth were the object of worship. If we see myth as being an explanation of natural phenomena under the control of supernatural beings, a myth then embodies a desire to control nature for the advantage of the tribe, group or society.

However, the field of myth and the purpose and the definition of myth has been a battleground for scholars for many years. Mircea Eliade says:

Myth narrates a sacred history; it relates an event that took place in primordial Time, the fabled time of the ‘beginnings’. [It] tells how, through the deeds of Supernatural Beings, a reality came into existence, be it the whole of reality, the Cosmos, or only a fragment of reality – an island, a species of plant, a particular kind of human behavior, an institution. Myth, then, is always an account of a ‘creation’; it relates how something was produced, began to be … In short, myths describe the various and sometimes dramatic breakthroughs of the sacred (or the ‘supernatural’) into the World … Furthermore, it is as a result of the intervention of Supernatural Beings that man himself is what he is today, a mortal, sexed, and cultural being.4

Eliade himself has been the subject of controversy and his views have been subjected to vitriolic academic denigration or paeans of critical praise. The difficulty is that ‘there is no agreement as to what the myth and ritual pattern actually is’.5 Each scholar who has established expertise in the field inevitably comes into conflict with others – Frankfort cannot tolerate the views of Frazer; Rose savagely attacks Graves and Graves gores Carl Jung. And if this academic carnage were not enough, there is no agreement as to the meaning of myth. Whalley describes it as a direct metaphysical statement beyond science; Watts believes that the purpose, source and end of myth is revelation; Wheelwright opines that myth is a set of depth meanings of per-during significance within a widely shared perspective; whereas Frazer says that they are mistaken explanations of phenomena founded on ignorance and misapprehension – they are always false for if they were true they would cease to be myths.6

Yet perhaps K. K. Ruthven, although not resolving the problem, casts sufficient light upon it to clarify the difficulty.

We have no direct experience of myth as such, but only of particular myths: and these, we discover, are obscure in origin, protean in form and ambiguous in meaning. Seemingly immune to rational explication, they nevertheless stimulate rational enquiry, which accounts for the diversity of conflicting explanations, none of which is ever comprehensive enough to explain myth away.7

Myth and legend have been often equated or compared. They have similarities and differences. Purists would say that myths and legends are quite distinct, because myths have as their purpose the explanation of things and the embodiment of a religious heritage, whereas legends are folk or national tales of the heroes or outstanding persons of a nation, state or tribe.

Legends are stories embedded in some elements of fact and history, however tenuous, concerning heroes and events. In my opinion legends and myths have a point of connection; like overlapping circles they have in common a part of each other, but also may occupy separate areas. Fancy and exaggeration may elevate the hero to a superhuman status; he may have a god for a parent or an ancestor and may, as a result, receive divine aid or suffer divine disfavour. In common with myths, legends were handed down through generations and enriched the lives of their listeners, and their values and lessons were a link with a heroic past and often divine wisdom. Legends became the heroic or traditional stories that were modified or embellished, but although there may have been divergence in the detail of the tales, such modifications were used for the purpose of explanation or clarification. Always the basic theme remained the same. Myths, legends and, to a degree, fable (which was obviously untrue and allegorical only, whereas myth and legend are represented as ‘true’) all underwent embellishment, addition or modification in the telling process. Yet both myth and legend arise from the nature of man and his desire to know the answers to the same universal questions, demanding to understand the same universal truths. Perhaps it is because myth is so elemental and basic that it is hard to settle upon a fundamental definition that will satisfy all. But if myth cannot be satisfactorily defined, its use, function and purpose merit a study so that we may understand myth within the context of the human experience.

Many views have been put forward to explain the function of myth. These seem to differ in the same way as the attempts at definition. Thus we have Frazer stating that the function of myth is a primitive fumbling attempt to explain the world of nature. According to Müller, myths are the production of poetical fantasy from prehistoric times, misunderstood by succeeding ages, and to Durkheim, a repository of allegorical instruction to shape the individual to his group. Carl Jung advocates the psycho-analytical view that myth is a group dream, symptomatic of archetypal urges within the depths of the human psyche, and the view of the Church or organised religion is that myth is God’s revelation to His children.

Whatever differences there may be in the sophistication of the opinions, they all come down to the same function in the end – myths answer the awkward questions that seem to be asked, primarily by children, ‘Who made the world?’ to ‘How will it end?’ According to Graves, myths justify an existing social system and account for traditional rites and customs. Thus myth may explain why I am here and where I am going and in addition it may explain why things around me are as they appear to be.

The word ‘myth’ that we use derives from the Greek mythos which means ‘word’ or ‘spoken word’ or ‘speech’. Logos originally had this meaning and the use of both words together meant, and still means, ‘stories’ although in Greek context such stories included the pantheon of Olympus, the activities of the heroes and the allegorical folktales of Aesop. Even to the Greeks, myths were the subject of debate. In the fifth century BC the word mythos is applied to those stories for which the truth is not vouched. Pindar considered mythos to be decked out with lies in excess of the true story.8 Thucydides commented that some historians incorporated material into their work which got to the stage of being mythodes.9 Plato described the mythoi as being essentially untrue although there may be elements of truth in them. Thus Thucydides doubts the truth of myths whereas Plato views them as a vehicle for imparting a truth, rather like a parable. Plato, in fact, draws upon mythological elements and characters to explain why certain skills may be peculiar to certain members of society, whilst a sense of justice is common to all. Indeed, at the end of the Georgics, Phaedo and the Republic, he recounts what happens to the soul after death. The reason for this account is to evidence a lesson and to lead the reader to a resultant behavioural practice. The story draws on traditional religious symbols and upon traditional religious beliefs. With the passage of time these traditional beliefs became lost, leaving the stories as symbolic vehicles. Thus there is a very strong body of opinion which holds that beneath the apparent meaning of a myth lies a deeper ‘real’ meaning.10 Certainly myth has within it the richest of symbols and was the language of the ancient mystery religions with their highly symbolic rites. Indeed, it has been suggested that all the sacred books of the world are written in a symbolic language, and certainly an example must be The Revelation of St John the Divine.

For the anthropologist, myth has a different function or purpose. For example, the controversial Eliade defines ‘fables’ or ‘tales’ as false stories. Where myth is still alive, it is a true story. Tales dealing with the origin of the world, the adventures of a national hero or of the world of the shaman are true, whereas tales of a profane content, such as those of tricksters, deceivers and rogues, are false. However, caveats must be added to Eliade’s theories because for Eliade a myth is always an origin story which functions for existential orientation in the widest sense. They ‘transport men ontologically and experientially into the non-temporal “time” of the “beginnings”. They originate as expressions of the desire to accomplish this orientation.’11

But can it be said that myths and mythologies have any relevance to the here and now of the twentieth century. What has become of myths in the modern world? What has taken the place that myth used to occupy in primitive societies? The world of myth is a continuous source of knowledge which is required for the crucial problems of man’s existence – war and peace, life and death, good and evil, truth and falsehood. Myth at an individual level has never disappeared. It exists in dreams, fantasies and in the longings of every one of us. Even what we call myths at the present time are expressions of the experience of earlier times, and what we are willing to regard as myths current in our own time are, for the most part, what we recognise to be the survivals or revivals of those earlier myths. As I have already stated, Marxist Communism is strongly mythic, especially in its eschatological aspects. It has the part played by the just and good and their redemption (the dictatorship of the proletariat). The classless, stateless society is the Golden Age which pre- or post-dates recorded historical existence. Nazism, with its feet embedded in the Teutonic myth, had problems. The racial myth was limited in appeal, and there was the inevitable pessimism of the Teutonic myth, beset as it was with Ragnarok or Gotterdammerung and the total destruction of everything. Teutonic myth was a bad foundation for a political order. It holds out no hope, unlike Christianity. Rather, it faces a climax in total blood and destruction.

Carl Jung, in Modern Man in Search of a Soul, suggests that modern man is on a quest for a new myth, which alone could enable mankind to draw upon fresh spiritual resources and renew its creative powers since its profound break (speculated by Jung) with Christianity. If we accept Jung’s theory of myth, dealing as it does with archetypes and the subconscious, the popularity of modern media efforts such as Star Wars, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and E.T. are explicable. They appeal to the subconscious desire for the hero, or the desire to touch the hand of a superior being.

Thus, the images and themes remain the same although the mystical or religious basis for myth seems to have faded. Man harks back to archetypes, expresses his primitive fears and seeks universal understanding. For these reasons, and many others, the popularity of the Middle-earth books by Tolkien is explicable. Tolkien set out to create a mythology for England. His was not a mystic mythology, based in symbolic religious rite. His mythology is founded upon the basic symbols which permeate all mythologies that have come to us as part of the heritage and literature of cultures. Tolkien also uses his mythology to explain a language and the development of the linguistic process. His ability to fasten upon the themes, the symbols, the archetypes and the structure of the mythic tales is not accidental but planned. Because he deals with elemental themes he appeals to man’s search for universal truths. Such basic ingredients of myth are present in Tolkien’s work. But it is appropriate, before we examine Tolkien’s myth, that we look briefly at myth as a literary form, for it is upon this that Tolkien constructed the Middle-earth mythology.

CHAPTER 2

The Myth as Literature

Although myth began as a symbolic tale with a ritual or religious meaning, today myths are the stories of a culture, and as much importance is placed upon their position within the literature of a culture, as upon their significance within its religious or social development. The myth collectors or the myth writers were trying to preserve part of the culture or interpret the cultural tales within the field of literature. It is unlikely that the ancient collectors were as motivated as Sir George Grey who studied the mythology of the New Zealand Maori so that he could better understand their culture and thereby deal with them more effectively. At a later date Grey collected the myths together and had them published, but the primary function of the collection was for the purposes of a cultural understanding.

Voltaire was far more cynical, but was dealing with far less practical and essentially primitive people when he said that the study of myths was an occupation for blockheads. However, the transition point for myths into a literary heritage is impossible to place. I believe that history takes over. The myth becomes part of the history of a culture and becomes recorded with it and, in doing so, becomes a part of the literature of the culture. For example, there was a siege of Troy. The myth aspect is the part that the gods played. In such a case there is an overlap between myth and history. The great expedition involves aspects of the sacred traditions. There can be no doubt that the Greeks did believe that the gods or supernatural forces were involved. It was only natural to mingle the acts of the gods with the acts of the heroes. Thus we have, in the Iliad and the Odyssey, a mingling of myth and legend for, in my opinion, pure ‘legend’ has a hero (be he folk or culture) as the main protagonist, whereas ‘pure’ myth is more religious in that it deals with the gods – the spiritual creative animi. Yet legend may have within it the raw symbolic power of myth that can lift it above folktale into allegory and indeed higher to the level of myth without the religious influence, although the hero of legend may be viewed with an almost religious awe.

Of course, the historians and writers may themselves create myths to embellish or background their history. Aristotle, for example, believed that myths as devised by Plato were a means of subordinating individuals to the devices of the State. In the sense that early societies were superstitious theocracies dominated by shamans, there is obvious validity in Aristotle’s supposition. To cross the line from theocracy to autocracy is not a long step, and would involve a small amendment to the tale but not the theme. Machiavelli, although dealing with historical examples, generalises to such a degree that the ancient power struggles which he describes in The Prince in Books IV–VIII become almost mythic archetypes for the political philosophy that he advocates. He has ‘mythologised’ history as a background for his advice to his patron. Der Mythus des 20 Jahrhunderts by Rosenberg is the Nazi ideology incorporated into a mythic form. Communist writers, even today, use quasi-mythic symbols in their writing – ‘the valiant soldiers, sailors and workers’ or ‘capitalist roaders’ and ‘running dogs’. This is not to say that modern political mythology is restricted to the east of the Iron Curtain. The United States system is full of mythic symbols, heroes and folk-legends. The War of Independence and those who were involved in it have achieved a mythic status. The ‘temples’ to the heroes of the Republic, the Lincoln and Jefferson Memorials, the Washington Monument and Mt Rushmore all take their places in the sacred political history alongside such relics as the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. J. Edgar Hoover and Senator Joseph McCarthy also made their contribution to the ritual political language with phrases such as ‘Communist front’, ‘Communist dupe’ and ‘Are you or have you ever been a member … ?’ Thus, the myth may be a background to a present history or even a part of it.

In the ancient and not so ancient historical writings, mythic backgrounds are used to place a contemporary leader or ruler into a mythic framework. Virgil links Augustus with Aeneas, the two being the embodiment of Roman virtues. Merovingian tradition traces the ancestry of the Franks to Francus the Trojan. Arthurian tradition claims a link with the Trojan Brutus, grandson of Aeneas who established the British in Albion. Henry VII used the Arthurian legend to give his tenuous hold on the throne more legitimacy. He referred to Monmouth’s Chronicles, claiming that ‘The Matter of Britain’ was unfinished and that another Arthur (his son) would return to rid the land of her enemies. Henry, in tracing his ancestry to Cadwallader and thereby to the Trojan Brutus, claimed to be a ‘British’ king ruling Britain. Henry’s granddaughter, Elizabeth I, was the subject of pseudo-myth in her own lifetime in Spenser’s Faerie Queen, William Warner’s Albion England and Drayton’s Heroical Epistles all of which glamorise Gloriana. Shakespeare had cause to refer to ‘mythic history’ in Macbeth. In Act IV Scene 1, Macbeth’s prophetic vision of Banquo as the ancestor of kings points in fact to the legitimacy of the claim of James I to the throne of Scotland and England. It was no accident that the play was written within a few years of James’ accession and creates a form of mythic background to give legitimacy to a present state of affairs.