Happy 100th Anniversary, Middle-earth! (Basically)

Today Middle-earth turns 100 years old! On September 24, 1914, Tolkien wrote the poem “The Voyage of Earendel the Evening Star” while staying with his aunt at Phoenix Farm in Gedling. He was twenty-two years old and studying at Oxford.

Shortly after he wrote the poem, Tolkien admitted to a friend that he didn’t really know what it was about, but he would “try to find out.” He’d spend the next six decades on that.

The poem introduced Earendel the character, as well as the idea of him becoming the Morning Star. It was the first writing to have anything to do with what would eventually become Middle-earth.

Neither the name Earendel nor the term Middle-earth were invented by Tolkien. Both came from the Anglo-Saxon poem “Crist”:

Hail Earendel, brightest of angels,
over Middle-earth to men sent,
and true radiance of the Sun
bright above the stars, every season
thou of thyself ever illuminest.

Earendel actually meant “morning star” in Old English (in a round about way, I guess). And Middle-earth (translated from middangeard) was the term used for the parts of the land where people could live.

Curiously, Tolkien did not use the term Middle-earth right away. In fact, it wasn’t until (probably) 1937, when writing the Fall of Numenor, that he used it. Prior to that, he called it various things like Great Lands, Hither Lands, Outer Lands, and even middangeard. So maybe it’s more accurate to say that Middle-earth was conceived today, born in 1917 and then finally named in 1937. But really, that’s splitting hairs.

You can read the poem here.

Also, you can read quite a bit about all of this at John Garth’s blog.

Camera: Kodak Brownie No. 2 Model D
Film: Kodak Verichrome (expired in 1964)

About the Photo
What better way to illustrate a poem about the ocean from 1914 than a photo of the ocean taken with a camera that was made in 1914 using film that expired in 1964? This was taken a week and a half ago at Ruby Beach along the Washington coast. Usually even film this old is in better condition, but there’s not much you can do about things like that.

All that is Gold Does Not Wander… Or Some Such Nonsense

Oh this…. I’ve not been a Tolkien fan for too incredibly long. A couple of years or so, really. I didn’t grow up with it, and though I saw the movies, I wasn’t taken by them – especially when compared to how I was completely taken by the books when I finally got around to them.

But this poem, the “All that is gold does not glitter / Not all those who wander are lost” poem, I think I really hate it. And though it’s ridiculous, I think it’s because of how often it’s quoted. It’s easily the most overused Tolkien quote. But that’s neither the fault of the poem nor of Tolkien. So let’s try to ignore the borishness and get into the heart of this. And then probably forget it.

This was blurted out by Bilbo during the Council of Elrond when Boromir and Aragorn sort of had a disagreement about whether it was to be the House or Sword of Elendil that would come to Minas Tirith.

It is in response to the doubt in Boromir’s eyes over about Aragorns noble lineage. So, *sigh* … let’s hear it.

All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not whither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.
From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken:
The crownless again shall be king.

The purport of it is pretty obvious. Though Aragorn doesn’t look like much and is a Ranger, he’s actually of nobility. Though the world has turned dark, it hasn’t touched him. And out of the darkness, the Sword of Elendil will be made anew and Aragorn will be king. The End.

As it turns out, Bilbo had made up the poem a long time ago, just after Aragorn told him who he was. He then voices a sentiment that will come back to us before the Fellowship leaves Rivendell: “I almost wish that my adventures were not over, and that I could go with him when his day comes.”

Aragorn admits that he doesn’t much resemble Isildur or his kin, so he can’t blame Boromir for doubting. But he assures him, “I am the heir of Isildur, not Isildur himself.”

This is a strange thing for him to say. In Gondor, they didn’t really know much about Isildur, other than that he was the guy who took the Ring. Boromir didn’t go into detail about knowing anything else, but maybe Aragorn (who did know more) assumed that Boromir might suspect that Isildur’s Bane would soon become Aragorn’s Bane. This would explain Aragorn’s reminder that he wasn’t Isildur himself.

He goes on to explain his life and how he was descended from Valandil and a “long line unbroken from father unto son for many generations.” Thought he days had grown darker and the Dunadain had dwindled, “ever the Sword has passed to a new keeper.”

This brings us to just why the over-used poem was so important. More than likely, it was the first time that Tolkien wrote about the Sword of Elendil being broken. If not for this poem, the writing might have continued in a very different direction. After writing that draft, in subsequent drafts and in additions, Tolkien simply added the broken sword. But he first wrote about it here, because of a poem (and possibly because “broken” rhymes with “woken” – good god!).

So are you up to a quick history of Narsil, the Sword of Elendil? Sure you are! The sword was created in the first age by Telchar the Dwarf. It was made for the Elves and eventually found its way to Elros, Elrond’s brother and the first King of Numenor. It seems to have been handed down through the different kings of Numenor until Elendil received it and saved it from the drowning of Numenor.

During the war with Sauron that closed out the Second Age, Elendil carried it with him into battle, and when he fell, he broke the sword in two. Nearby, Isildur picked up the sword and used the hilt and shard to cut off Sauron’s finger and take the Ring. He then carried it with him to the Gladden Fields where he gave it to Ohtar before being killed by Orcs. Ohtar took it to Rivendell.

But the shards didn’t stay in Rivendell. Valandil, who was Isildur’s youngest son (and Aragorn’s ancestor) took them with him when he re-established the kingdom of Arnor in the north. There, as Aragorn says, it was handed down from father to son until he finally received it from his own father.

I suppose it doesn’t matter much that it was broken. It just as easily could have been a normal sword. But that it couldn’t be reforged until Aragorn had it and Sauron returned in force adds a bit of magic to it all. And that’s a very good thing.

Aragorn ends his piece by laying it all out for Boromir: “A new hour comes. Isildur’s Band is found. Battle is at hand. The Sword shall be reforged. I will come to Minas Tirith.”

Boromir still has some questions, of course. For instance, he wants to understand how everybody can just know that it’s the One Ring. Good question, Boromir, and we’ll get to that tomorrow.

A Few Notes

• I know that my dislike of this poem will probably shock people. I mean, not only is this the most over-used, it’s also the most over-tattooed. Just… just ugh.
• If someone would ask me which Tolkien tattoo they should get, I would give this as advise: Get whatever moves you, whatever you have taken into your heart. Get something important, driving – something that will always make you ecstatic. Get something that, when you first read it, took your breath away, and changed your life. … Unless it’s that fucking “not all who wander are lost” poem. Seriously. Knock it off.

Camera: Mamiya C3 (1962ish)
Film: FujiChrome Provia 400D (expired 10/94 — xpro as C-41)

About the Photo
That said, this is one of my favorite shots. Certainly not glittery, but a whole lot of golden in there. Thanks, creepy closed service station! Thanks!

• Day 136
• Miles today: 5
• Miles thus far: 671 (217 from Rivendell)

• 123 miles to the Doors of Moria
• 250 miles to Lothlórien
• 1,108 miles to Mt. Doom

Today’s stopping place in the narrative: Book II, Chapter 3. Encamped along the western foothills of the Misty Mountains. 13th night out from Rivendell. January 7, 3019 TA. (map)

Earendil Was an Errantry – A Metre So Difficult

Yesterday, I wrote about the Earendil poem chanted by Bilbo in Rivendell the night before the Council of Elrond. But, not at all surprisingly, that wasn’t the first version of the poem.

Originally, it had started as a completely different piece (as far as subject matter went), called ‘Errantry’. Around 1930 or 1931, Tolkien composed the poem with a meter and rhyme scheme so difficult it makes the Earendil poem seem like iambic verse. Tolkien referred to it in a 1966 letter as “a piece of verbal acrobatics and metrical high-jinks… intended for recitation with great variations of speed.” Once the reader came to the end, he or she “was supposed at once to begin repeating (at even higher speed) the beginning, unless somebody cried ‘Once is enough’.”

You can hear Tolkien himself reading it here.

The first version of ‘Errantry’ was published in Oxford Magazine in November of 1933, while a (very) slightly altered version of included in The Adventures of Tom Bombadil. It grew out of itself to become the Earendil poem, but had absolutely nothing to do with Middle-earth prior to that.

Tolkien famously had great disdain for the Victorian idea of faeries as small sprites who dance around. In fact, one of the early goals of his Book of Lost Tales writings (basically the early versions of the Silmarillion material) was to explain that the Elves used to be great beings who faded to become the small sprites we know of today.

Still, in 1930, he dipped back into the idea of small faeries.

There was a merry passenger,
A messenger a mariner:
He built a gilded gondola
To wander in and had in her
A load of yellow oranges
And porridge for his provender;
He perfumed her with marjoram,
And cardamom and lavender.

You can see the simularities to the Earendil poem, especially in meter and rhythm, but also the idea that a mariner built a boat to set sail.

Basically, a mariner sailed rivers and crossed land apparently on a mission of some sort. But soon he forgot the mission…

He sat and sang a melody,
His errantry a tarrying,
He begged a pretty butterfly,
That fluttered by to marry him.

This is some brillian rhyming, and in my opinion far superiour to the Earendil poem. Anyway, borrowing a bit from the Beren and Luthien story, the butterfly “laughed at him unpitying” and scorned him. Angery, he took up learning magic, “sigaldry,” and smithying. He then used those trades to build a beautiful trap and a bridal bed.

Somehow or another, he caught her and gave her gems and necklaces, but she squandered them and they fought. Unable to convince her to love him, he continued on his way, which was that of a warrior. As later in the Earendil poem, Tolkien described his armament. The Mariner fought many different insects (both real and made up).

He battled with the Dumbledors,
The Hummerhorns, and Honeybees,
And won the Golden Honeycomb,
And running home on sunny seas,
In ship of leaves and gossamer,
With blossom for a canopy,
He sat and sang, and furbished up,
And burnished up his panoply.

But none of this was his original task, which he had completely forgotten to accomplish before returning home. And so he had to once more set out on his mission.

The poem had many, many revisions, which are all well documented in The Treason of Isengard by Christopher Tolkien. For its inclusion in the Lord of the Rings, Tolkien reworked “Errantry,” created fifteen or so different drafts which spanned the spectrum from the original to the Earendil poem. Eventually, he decided upon the version that’s now published (though there was an even longer version that was apparently supposed to be used).

A few years after Lord of the Rings, when Tolkien wished to include ‘Errantry’ in his Adventures of Tom Bombadil collection, he came up with a bit of retcon, as he was wont to do.

The poem, “Errantry,” was “evidently made by Bilbo. This is indicated by its obvious relationship to the long poem recited by Bilbo, as his own composition, in the house of Elrond.” And so Tolkien projected his own writing history upon Bilbo.

“Probably because Bilbo invented its metrical devices and was proud of them. They do not appear in other pieces in the Red Book. The older form, here given, must belong to the early days after Bilbo’s return from his journey.”

Or, to use Tolkien’s own words from a 1952 letter (No. 133): “It is for one thing in a metre I invented (depending on trisyllabic assonances or near-assonances) , which is so difficult that except in this one example I have never been able to use it again – it just blew out in a single impulse.”

A Few Notes

• In the very first draft of the poem, the subject wasn’t a mariner, but “an errander” who mostly rode around on insects.
• I’ve heard from a fairly reputable Tolkien scholar that the word “sigaldry” was made up by Tolkien, that it didn’t exist before he wrote about it in this poem. That’s not true. In James Orchard Halliwell-Phillipps’ Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words published in 1852, sigaldry is defined “(1) Deceit; trick. (2) To deceive.” An example of its use appears in the Chester Plays, 14th Century plays based upon Biblical scripture, which Tolkien most certainly must have known about. At any rate, the definition fits. The Mariner in the poem learned deceit, along with wizardry and smithying.
• “Dumbledores” are what bumblebees were called in Hampshire and Cornwall, England. I’m not sure if J.K. Rowling nicked the word from Tolkien. But I hope so. It’s a great word.

Camera: Kodak Duaflex II
Film: FujiChrome Velvia 100 cross-processed as C-41.

About the Photo
I don’t really take pictures of insects (or faeries), but here’s a purple starfish!

• Day 114
• Miles today: 5
• Miles thus far: 571 (117 from Rivendell)

• 350 miles to Lothlórien
• 1,208 miles to Mt. Doom

Today’s stopping place in the narrative: Book II, Chapter 3. Encamped along the western foothills of the Misty Mountains. Seventh night out from Rivendell. Yule 2 – Jan 1, 3019 TA. (map)

Earendil Was a Mariner and Elves are Still Dicks

After Frodo met up with Bilbo in Rivendell, they had a little chat and he discovered that Strider and Bilbo were friends. Not only that, we were introduced to the term “Dunadan,” which means Numenorean. We also see that there might be something of a romance between Strider and Arwen.

But the most interesting thing is Bilbo’s poem! He apparently wrote it nearly on the spot and in his head. He needed just a bit of help from Strider to complete it. So the two of them sat down and pounded it out.

Many people skip over or at most skim the poems and songs in Lord of the Rings. This is incredibly unfortunate, because many of them are just fun. Take this one, the Earendillinwe, for example.

Earendil was a mariner
that tarried in Arvernien;
he built a boat of timber felled
in Nimbrethil to journey in

(you should read the rest of it, either in the book or here)

The first thing I noticed about the poem was the crazy rhyme scheme. Now, I’ve written a ridiculous amount of poetry in my days, but mostly it was pretty free of form/meter/rhyme, etc. Here’s an example.

Having tried my hand at meter once or twice, I couldn’t wrap my head around it. This… well, this is just ridiculous. Some of the rhymes are trisyllabic (well, nearly so – there’s a lot of slant-rhyming going on here). There’s an intricate internal rhyme structure. Honestly, I don’t know much about this sort of thing, so I won’t bore you with more words like “trisyllabic.”

The poem is about Earendil the mariner. I wrote a bit about him here. In the poem, he builds a ship and sails in search of Valinor. He had left his wife, Elwing, behind, but she found her way to him on the sea (there’s a bunch more to that story). She carried with her the Silmaril, which she crowned him with. Continuing on, he finally reached Valinor, where he stayed for a time. Them poem really doesn’t go into why he went to Valinor, but it tells that the Valar built him a new ship and the Silmaril was her light.

But this was no ordinary ship. It was to take him “behind the Sun and light of Moon.” Earendil, with the light of the Silmaril would become “the Flammifer of Westernesse” – a star. Technically, Venus, the star by which the Edain followed to Numenor, where they became Numenoreans.

Bilbo “chanted” this poem in the Hall of Fire before the assembled Elves. The point had been for them to guess which lines were his and which were Aragorn’s. They asked to hear it again, supposedly because they couldn’t tell which lines were whose.

“‘It is not easy for us to tell the difference between two mortals,’ said the Elf.”

But Bilbo calls him on it: “If you can’t distinguish between a Man and a Hobbit, your judgment is poorer than I imagined.”

This is the cover to the Chinese edition of the Silmarillion. Lucky bastards.

And I think Bilbo was right. The Elves could totally tell the difference. They were, as they often were, being dicks. I’ve said it before, many times, Elves are dicks. It’s their nature.

“‘Maybe. To sheep other sheep no doubt appear different,’ laughed Lindir. ‘Or to shepherds. But Mortals have not been our study. We have other business.'”

Like hell. First, comparing Men and Hobbits to sheep was no accident. And come on, the Silmarillion (written by Elves for Elves) is full of stories about Men – Beren, Huron, Turin, Beor, and more!

Now, sure, maybe they were taking the piss out of Bilbo for having the chutzpah to tell the Earendil story in Rivendell. Earendil was Elrond’s father, and it was Elros, Elrond’s brother, who followed the Star of Earendil to Numenor. Maybe a slightly touchy subject.

So obviously, if the Elves wanted to hear it again, they must have liked it. But they apparently couldn’t tell Bilbo that (because they’re dicks), so they made up the (racist) story of not being able to tell mortals apart. In an earlier draft, in response to Bilbo saying that Men and Hobbits were “as different as peas and apples,” The dickish Elves replied : “No! – little peas and large peas!” And: “Their languages all taste the same to us, anyway.”

What dickishness even from the rough drafts!

A Few Notes
Oh, if you were wondering, or couldn’t remember, Aragorn added only one phrase to the poem – one about a “green stone,” which was probably: “upon his breast an emerald,” since no other green stone appears in the poem.

This poem was actually based on an earlier poem that’s even more intricate. I’ll dip into that and a bit of the history tomorrow, I hope.

Camera: Tru-View (Diana Clone, circa 1960) || Film: Kodak Ektachrome 64 (x-pro)

About the Photo
Well, I don’t really have a lot of watery photos, since I mostly shoot in the desert. Nevermind that there’s salt water only a few miles away from me…. This was taken on “Banks Lake,” which is actually the Columbia River flooded over by Grand Coulee Dam.

• Day 113
• Miles today: 5
• Miles thus far: 566 (112 from Rivendell)

• 355 miles to Lothlórien
• 1,213 miles to Mt. Doom

Today’s stopping place in the narrative: Book II, Chapter 3. Encamped along the western foothills of the Misty Mountains. Seventh night out from Rivendell. Yule 1 – Yule 2, 3018-9 TA. (map)