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Post by Andorinha on Jan 8, 2007 17:07:35 GMT -6
Another set of great questions, Stormrider. Luckily I do still have my copy of the annotated Hobbit on hand, and its editor does try to give all the versions and alterations of Bilbo's tale from its first drafts to its post LotR version. I'll see what I can find there, and I'll be back!
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Post by Stormrider on Jan 9, 2007 17:42:12 GMT -6
Oh! The Annotated Hobbit! I have heard several people mention it but I do not have it. That might indeed fill in many of my questions! I wonder if I can get my hands on a copy of it!
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Post by Andorinha on Jan 9, 2007 22:07:07 GMT -6
www.amazon.com/Annotated-Hobbit-J-R-R-TolkienAmazon dot com has some new and used versions available, hardback at 40 bucks but some of the used ones can be found in excellent condition for about half that... Meanwhile I'm going through my copy now, and finding some things that will be useful in our addressing the points you brought up, Stormrider, and, unfortunately, finding some of the questions seem still to be left "up in the air"...
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Post by Andorinha on Jan 13, 2007 13:11:13 GMT -6
Ah, finally got back to this thread...
I've made up a list of the comments and questions you raised earlier, Stormrider, and I'm trying to work my through them, one-at-a-time. So far, most of the material I've been finding does not give any definite answers, so I'll mostly be posting just my comments, thoughts and speculations.
Concerning "The River of Enchantment in Mirkwood"
Does its magic have anything to do with The Necromancer?
RE: Stormrider's -- "Bilbo and the Dwarves were warned by Beorn not to drink the water and by Gandalf to stay on the path. Bombur fell in the black river stream and fell under a spell where he did nothing but sleep and dream for days."
In The Hobbit, The Necromancer ensorcels the southern portion of the woods, while the northern sections seem free from his inflence, but still are wild, dark and dangerous. So, I think that the northern half of Mirkwood may have some left-over "problems" from the First Age, remnants of the spite and ill that came with the Great Darkness before the Sun. Possibly something connected with Morgoth?
Maybe the enchantments of the river go back that far, into The First Age, or maybe even further back, and are a result of the first struggles between the Valar and Morgoth (when he was still Melko) and the Elves had not yet awakened? But, did Mirkwood/ Greenwood the Great exist then, did the Enchanted River go back that far in time?
But, sticking with The Hobbit and The Necromancer: what is the geographical source of this river anyway? It falls from the Mountains of Mirkwood (pp 76-77, Atlas of Middle-earth), and maps show the Enchanted River running out of the north side of these mountains. This would seemingly protect the springs or feeder-channels of the Enchanted River from direct pollution by the Necromancer who was some 300 miles to the south at Dol Guldur.
Also, I keep coming back to the statement that The Enchanted River seems to carry only one effect: the magic of extra long, extra deep sleep. Is this sleep-potion in the dark forest river something Sauron would devise? I think he would provide a simple, poisonous river -- you drink it, you sicken, you die. This river just puts you to sleep, and even allows happy dreams of feasting for Bombur, no torturing nightmares.
I believe the source, and cause of the Enchanted River's sleeping potion (as you say, Stormrider, it does not otherwise harm Bombadur at all) is likely to have nothing to do with the direct black magics of The Necromancer, or even some left over poison of Morgoth. I think such "sleep-producing," or otherwise enchanted streams come from deeper, fairy tale roots, and Tolkien just picked up the idea from his early readings of the Folk Stories of Northern Europe. Certainly the Greek Classical tradition, with which Tolkien was very familiar has a "sleep" river, Lethe, The River of Oblivion, from which we get our word "lethargy," drowsy, sleepy, forgetful. But, I also seem to recall that the idea of a River of Sleep shows up in several Germanic tales. I'll see if I can find the Nordic example (I am just barely remembering one such), maybe from the old Brothers Grimm material.
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Post by Stormrider on Jan 13, 2007 19:25:54 GMT -6
Now that you mention it, Bombur was dreaming of the feasts that Thorin and Company were going to see a few days later. Perhaps the Enchanted Stream was enchanted by the Elves of Mirkwood. Do Elves possess any such magical attributes?
But why would the Elves do that unless they wanted to discourage travelers through their woods. I wonder if there were evil and shady people on the road those days. Or maybe it was a way to stop the Necromancer's spies from going further north.
I don't suppose there is any information anywhere about the Mountain of Mirkwood either.
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Post by Andorinha on Jan 16, 2007 19:34:33 GMT -6
Further Observations on The Enchanted River and the Mountains of Mirkwood:
RE Stormrider's: "I don't suppose there is any information anywhere about the Mountain of Mirkwood either."
Great idea, Stormrider, I'll check through the HOME volumes I have on hand, especially looking for references to the Third Age material regarding Mirkwood in general and these Mountains in particular.
********
Very interesting! In Unfinished Tales, there are a number of references in the index to Mirkwood and the Mountains, but these seem all to be connected with the Third Age of Middle-earth, and all seem to have been written as part of JRRT's effort to get The Silmarillion into a publishable form. Consequently, all of these citations seem to have been written after 1939/ 40, and do not necessarily depict Mirkwood as it was while JRRT was writing The Hobbit. In some cases, Christopher Tolkien tells us that parts of UT were first composed in 1969!
Relevant citations for UT are: pp243-44; 246; 256-7; 260; 281; 288-90; 295-8; 303; 307; 310-13; 337; and 343.
Most of these citations are obviously written long after the final version of the 1937/ 38 The Hobbit, and seem to have been used either as backstory material for LotR, or actually came after LotR (after 1956) as further explanations. So it looks like some of Tolkien's ideas about who the Necromancer was, and how powerful he might be in Mirkwood, actually have nothing to do with the story we have from the pages of The Hobbit.
The most relevant of the UT passages is, I think, Christopher Tolkien's explanatory footnote #14, on page 281:
"The Emyn Duir (Dark Mountains) were a group of high hills in the north-east of the Forest, so called because dense fir-woods grew upon their slopes; but they were not yet of evil name. In later days when the shadow of Sauron spread through Greenwood the Great, and changed its name from Eryn Galen to Taur-nu-Fuin (translated Mirkwood), the Emyn Duir became a haunt of many of his most evil creatures, and were called Emyn-nu-Fuin, the Mountains of Mirkwood."
From this passage, it would seem that The Necromancer had extensive powers all throughout these mountains, 2/3rds of the way to the northern boundary of Mirkwood. But, from data taken only from The Hobbit, it seems that Gandalf suggests that The Necromancer's effective sphere of influence was restricted to the southern 1/2, or even just the southern 1/3 of Mirkwood, going no further than the waist-constriction of the forest, The Bight of Mirkwood. At the time of Bilbo's journey, there were Woodmen living as far as 100 miles south of the Old Forest Road, the main path that Bilbo and the Dwarves never saw. (see map of Wilderland, hardback version Hobbit, end paper) While still being in a contested zone, a true frontier, and as such a perilous place, I do not think that Men would be living in a zone fully controlled, or even heavily influenced by The Necromancer. Radaghast and Beorn live just 25 to 50 miles north of the Old Forest Road, and they would not stay in an area under the sway of The Necromancer, would they? Then, the Mountains of Mirkwood are about 50 miles north of the Old Road, and the Elf-Path used by Bilbo and the Dwarves is yet another 50 miles further north of the Emyn Duir.
It may be significant that when Bilbo (Hobbit, hardback, p. 149) asks Gandalf if there is an alternative way "around" Mirkwood the wizard replies: "There is, if you care to go two hundred miles or so out of your way north, and twice that south. But you wouldn't get a safe path even then. There are no safe paths in this part of the world. Remember you are over the Edge of the Wild now... Before you could get round Mirkwood in the North you would be right among the slopes of the Grey Mountains, and they are simply stiff with goblins, hobgoblins, and orcs of the worst description. Before you could get round it in the South, you would get into the land of the Necromancer..."
Apparently Bilbo and the Dwarves would have to travel some considerable distance south (but just how far is not mentioned) before they would even get to the northern borders of The Necromancer's domain.
Another bit of information that suggests The Necromancer held only the southern 1/3 of Mirkwood comes at the end of The Hobbit where Gandalf explains his long absence: "It appeared that Gandalf had been to a great council of the white wizards, masters of lore and good magic; and that they had at last driven The Necromancer from his dark hold in the south of Mirkwood." (Hobbit p. 310 hb.) Here, there is no indication that The Necromancer held a full two thirds of Mirkwood, which he would need to control if his power really was functioning in the Mountains of Mirkwood. Or so I interpret this! LOL!
The 1937 version of The Hobbit was changed in several ways for the 1966 reprinting (the elevation of Bilbo's magic ring to become The One Ring is the most significant). In 1937, Gandalf indicates that The Necromancer has been definitely banished: "The North will be freed from that horror for many an age..." But, in 1966, reflecting the greater power The Necromancer has (now that JRRT has made him into the LotR Sauron) the text was alterred to read: "The North will be freed from that horror for many long years, I hope." Gandalf -- reflecting what will happen in LotR -- is no longer certain of the victory of the white council over The Necromancer.
Still, I have to admit that JRRT never directly tells us, anywhere I know, that The Necromancer was NOT originally Sauron, nor does he ever specifically say that The Necromancer was indeed restricted just to southern Mirkwood. But, it looks like, to me, that if we use the Hobbit data only, The Necromancer was not controlling the Mountains of Mirkwood, and probably had nothing to do with the Enchanted River...
One more point, perhaps in favour of the Elves as being connected with the magic of the Enchanted River is seen in the similar types of magic they use to protect their Fairy-Ring feasting places. When Bilbo, and then Thorin leap into the Wood Elves' Ring to beg for food, both of them fall into a deep enchanted sleep, and Bilbo, at least, follows Bombur's lead, he dreams of food! "'Good heavens! he has gone like Bombur,' they said." (The Hobbit, p. 164, hb) Bombur, fully immersed in the river's sleep enchantment, gets a full dose of the magic, Bilbo and Thorin are put less deeply to sleep for merely entering the Fairy Ring.
At this point in our Mirkwood studies, I am definitely "leaning" toward seeing the Enchanted River as being an Elven defense of their roadway and southeastern border. But it could be an independent phenomenon, one whose sleep-potion magics the Elves later copied for their Fairy-Ring defenses?
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Post by Stormrider on Jan 17, 2007 7:14:48 GMT -6
Maybe the Necromancer/Sauron had control over the Mountains of Mirkwood at one time and decided to move to the Southern region of Mirkwood himself as a better location for hiding out and rebuilding his strength.
However, I like the idea of the Elves enchanting the stream better than the spell being something of the Necromancer's doing, especially with the food dreams.
I will go and read the pages you noted above about the Mountains of Mirkwood and I still want to go and get The Annotated Hobbit.
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Post by Andorinha on Jan 18, 2007 12:39:37 GMT -6
Yes, Stormrider, there seems to be some "flexibility" in Sauron's reach, certainly in LotR, he is said to have sent trippled-power to Dol Guldur after he rose and proclaimed himself in Mordor. While he does not appear to have left Mordor himself, his minions were able re-expand northward, bringing war to the Wood Men villages, and even attacking Dale, Erebor, and The Woodland Elves.
RE: The Enchanted Stream:
The Annotated Hobbit has some explanatory notes on this as well: "An enchanted stream is a familiar motif in Celtic legends. In a similar episode in the Irish accounts of the life of Saint Brendan (c. 483 - 577), Brendan and his brethren land on an island and find a stream from which all save Brendan drink. Those who have drunk the water fall into fits of sleep and torpor, with those who have drunk the most suffering the longest." Annotated Hobbit, p. 198
"And thus were they affected by the drink; some of them fell into a sleep and torpor of three days and three nights, and [others who drank less] a sleep of two days and nights..., and sleep and torpor of a day and a night [for those who drank the least]" from Charles Plummer, "Bethada naem nErenn: Lives of the Irish Saints."
This is interesting, as JRRT, at least in his last two decades of life, claimed that the Celtic side of the Fairy Tale corpus did not influence him at all...
I also found a Letter where Tolkien discusses the term Mirkwood itself, and I've got some information on the "insect eyes" / spiders of Mirkwood I'll work up soon.
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Post by Stormrider on Jan 18, 2007 17:46:51 GMT -6
I guess Tolkien read so many different tales from such diverse cultures and religions that he must have gotten a bit muddled in his thinking in his later life and forgot about the Celtic influence! lol!
I can hardly wait to read about the insect eyes!
I'm going to see if I can order The Annotated Hobbit on line tonight with another book that I need to get, The Aeneid by Virgil. I have been reading Homer's Iliad and Odyssey because I was interested in Troy and the Trojan Horse tale.
Well, after reading through all the descriptive slaughtering, blood, gore, and boasting of killings and fame and glory in the Iliad, I was surprised that it ended with Hector's death, Achille's dragging his body through mud, Priam coming to beg for Hector's body back for a proper burial, and Achille's agreeing to give Hector back for a ransom!
I thought, "OK, the Trojan Horse story must be in the Odyssey". But to my surprise, aside from a few mentions of it, there isn't much of that tale in that book! I knew there had to be more story behind the Horse somewhere, so I looked on line and found that it was told in The Aeneid so I am getting that with The Annotated Hobbit.
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Post by Andorinha on Jan 18, 2007 19:16:16 GMT -6
Oh, KOOL, Stormrider! One thing leads to another, reading can become a habit -- now you are picking up some of the heroic-literature sources that inspired Tolkien back in his youth! Before World War One, the Graeco-Roman classics were the foundation of the English school system. Everybody who went to the "Public Schools" (which were actually "private schools" by our standards, but back then, in England private school meant you stayed at home with a tutor!) learned Latin and at least a smattering of Greek. The good old British Empire modelled itself (at least in ideals) on the Roman Empire, so by the time he was 9 or 10, JRRT would have swallowed almost all of the various stories about Troy.
Yes, the Illiad of Homer actually stops before the fall of Troy, and the Oddysey starts after it! Some scholars assume the Trojan Horse chapters were in existance around 700 BC, but this section of the war was really popularized around the time of Augustus (almost 700 years later) with Vergil's Latin epic the Aeneid, where he tried to give Rome some class by deriving the ancestral Romans from the Trojan prince Aeneas -- a great story even if was used as a propaganda piece!
Michael Wood has a great video/ DVD, "In Search of the Trojan War," and a book that goes with it, but by the time you get done buying just Homer and Vergil, and the Annotated Hobbit... Well, it all adds up!
I'll drop off two more quick bits on the Mirkwood material yet tonight, I think: Tolkien's Letter about the name Mirkwood, and then some observations on the "insect eyes."
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Post by Andorinha on Jan 18, 2007 19:19:47 GMT -6
Tolkien on Mirkwood
Letter # 289: to Michael George Tolkien, 29 July 1966, pp 369-70
"Mirkwood is not an invention of mine, but a very ancient name, weighted with legendary associations. It was probably the Primitive Germanic name for the great mountainous forest regions that anciently formed a barrier to the south of the lands of Germanic expansion. In some traditions it became used especially of the boundary between Goths and Huns. I speak now from memory: its ancientness seems indicated by its appearance in very early German (11th century?) as mirkiwidu although the 'merkw-stem 'dark' is not otherwise found in German at all (only in O.E., O.S., and O.N.), and the stem*widu -- witu was in German (I Think) limited to the sense 'timber',not very common, and did not survive into modern German. In Old English mirce only survives in poetry, and in the sense 'dark', or rather 'gloomy', only in Beowulf 1405 ofer myrcan moe elsewhere only with the sense 'murky' -- wicked, hellish. It was never, I think, a mere 'colour' word: 'black', and was from the beginning weighted with the sense of 'gloom'....
"It seemed to me too good a fortune that Mirkwood remained inteligible (with exactly the right tone) in modern English to pass over: whether mirk is a Norse loan or a freshment of the obsolescent O.E. word."
William Morris also used the term Mirkwood in one his earlier novels, The House of the Wulfings, which Tolkien had read with great relish.
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Post by Andorinha on Jan 18, 2007 19:27:40 GMT -6
RE "bulbous, insectile eyes"
Almost as soon as the Dwarves and Hobbit enter Mirkwood they are given presentiments concerning the presence of spiders, probably huge ones: "The nastiest things they saw were the cobwebs: dark dense cobwebs with threads extraordinarily thick, often stretched from tree to tree, or tangled in the lower branches on either side of them." (Annotated Hobbit, "Flies and Spiders," pp 191-92) Apparently then, the "insectile" eyes Bilbo remarks on, were some of the spiders, coming down to the path -- but unable to actually go on it -- to watch the troupe go by. "But the eyes that he liked the least were horrible pale bulbous sort of eyes. 'Insect eyes,' he thought, 'not animal eyes, only they are much too big.'" (Annotated Hobbit, p. 194)
Here, the Annotated Hobbit makes it clear that this version was never changed, it is the same in the 1937, and 1966 editions, so the bit about spiders in Mirkwood seems to be in the narrative from the beginning. The spiders of TheHobbit would appear to be pre LotR, then, and probably pre-Shelob. It seems that after writing Bilbo's tale, while he was putting together LotR, JRRT decided to use the spider theme again, and invented Shelob, and the story that the spiders of Mirkwood were her descendants after the fact. In this way, he got to tie The Hobbit narrative ever closer to the LotR by "backreading" material into the tale of Bilbo and the Dwarves.
I wonder now, if the Elf Path could be crossed at all by the spiders? Were they trapped north of it, or, if they wanted to, could they pass over the path if only they stayed high enough up in the canopy? This is also another bit of evidence that the Elves can do some kinds of magic -- apparently they had some enchantment that would work effectively to keep the actual pathway free of the hungry spiders.
It seems then, that in the early Silmarillion versions, there was the use of a Great Spider, a Maia or even a Vala figure that was so completely corrupted and fallen as to become capable of appearing only as a Spider, Ungoliant. Some of the passages using Ungoliant as the destroyer of the Two Trees of Light in Valinor are from the 1930s (and may be earlier but I cannot find any better dates just now). So I think, tentatively we have Ungoliant as the first spider used by Tolkien, but there are some other, lesser spiders said to haunt the forests of Belleriand, hence the Elf-blade sting, made presumably in Gondolin, has special powers even over Shelob's web in Cirith Ungol (Two Towers). After these early spider uses in the Silmarillion material, I think we have The Hobbit version spiders, suitably "cleaned-up" for a children's book, and then 15 years later comes the creation of Shelob for LotR, and at that time she is connected with the Mirkwood spiders.
I find it interesting, regarding "talking animals," that Ungoliant speaks; the Mirkwood Spiders speak; but by the time of LotR, Tolkien has apparently given up on the idea of talking animals: Shelob does not speak, nor does the magical horse Shadowfax (though he can understand human speech!).
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Post by Stormrider on Jan 19, 2007 7:33:54 GMT -6
In his early writings, it seems Tolkien wrote about the talking animals without and scruples. Tevildo the Cat and Huan spoke in that passage I posted on the BLT1 thread and Ungoliant, too (I had forgotten about her!)
When The Inklings gathered and read portions of the stories they were writing, Tolkien didn't seem to like C. S. Lewis' talking animals in Narnia. I think that may have given JRRT cause to rethink talking animals in his later works. Maybe that is way Huan eventually spoke only three times in the published version of The Silmarillion -- which was a big change from the Tevildo/Huan version.
The spiders of The Hobbit had each other to talk to. Shelob was all alone in her cave. Perhaps she forgot how to talk since there was no other spiders to talk to.
I ordered my two books today and should get them by the 30th.
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Post by Stormrider on Jan 26, 2007 19:06:13 GMT -6
My copy of The Annotated Hobbit and The Aeneid arrived today. I am going to get all comfy cozy now and settle into the most comfortable chair in the quietest corner and start my new Hobbit book!
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Post by Andorinha on Jan 28, 2007 0:31:47 GMT -6
Fantastic, Stormrider! The Annotated Hobbit has so many great, explanatory side-notes that you really get two books for the price of one! I only wish it came with an index!
We might also, someday, look at the Graeco-Roman classical models JRRT was familiar with, so as you read Vergil, if anything feels familiar, jot it down. It might make a good discussion topic to see if JRRT's battle descriptions owe anything to the "Trojan War" stories...
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