Just when you thought it was safe to enter the maze...
Talk about tortuous, confusing passages! Go to one site, and it defines a maze precisely the way another site defines a labyrinth! Apparently common usage has confused and mingled the two terms to the point where no one is really certain where the maze leaves off and the labyrinth starts.
The Christian "labyrinth" is a pathway designed to assist a contemplative person to enter a deeper meditative state by directing the movements of the body in a formal, dance like system that re-enacts a questing soul's search for Truth, God, whatever. Oops! Other sites call such a device, a "unicursal" maze!
www.geocities.com/mikesmazes/what.htm#maze"It should also be noted that the word 'maze' is very much an English word. In most other languages the word 'labyrinth' is used to describe all types of maze, whether they contain branches or not."
While in England, I was told by the warden of a maze in London that a labyrinth was originally a trap. It was an artificial construction in Minoan Crete designed to house, isolate, and neutralize a monster, the Minotaur. Being half-royal, half-divine Bull from the Sea, it was considered inexpedient/ unwise to simply kill the creature, but its unfortunate carnivorous tendencies had to be contained. So the Minotaur was thrust into the labyrinth, and became himself its first victim -- he could not find his own way out. A succession of human sacrificial food-offerings was then made to sustain the Minotaur, and again, those who entered the complex ways of that place were not meant to find a way out. The original labyrinth was, therefore, a one way passage to death. Theseus found his way out of this death trap only by following a string that he unwound as he penetrated further into the confusion of the crossed paths. He got out by simply retracing his steps in reverse, after killing the Minotaur. (He cheated!)
www.minotaur-websites.com/minomyth.htm#birthA true maze, on the other hand, is a sort of geometric puzzle, a physical riddle built to a specific plan that will have one, or several entrances/ exits. If you are smart enough to figure out the formula of a given maze, you can always get through it, and back out again to "safety:"
"First turn left, skip next opening, second turn right, next opening always turn the opposite of the first, fourth turn always the same as the second turn plus one..." etc.
A unicursal maze is simpler, put one hand on one wall, never let it leave that wall, follow each turn required to keep your hand in constant contact with the wall...
A maze is then, according to the warden, a deliberate, planned construction involving a
solvable problem in navigation.
There is, by the warden's fiat, no necessary plan to a labyrinth, and it may in fact be an accidental system of mixed up passages (as in a natural cave, or a complex cross-cutting system of arroyos/ canyons). There is no way of finding a formula by which those who enter can always find a way out. One only gets out by luck/ chance, trial and error, strings or bread crumb trail markers... (In this sense, Bilbo's trek through the Goblin caves put him into a labyrinth, one which would have confused (to death) anyone not possessing outstanding good luck. Lucky for Bilbo, he had a "string" to follow, Gollum.)
Unfortunately, the Christian labyrinth must then be misnamed! It
does have a pattern, usually unicursal, and it certainly is not specifically designed to trap and destroy those who dare to tread its ways. An amazing confusion here!
With so many different, sometimes conflicting definitions of labyrinth and maze, I suppose, to answer Sparrow's questions, one would have to first state which definitional system he/ she is using.
Trying to apply the warden's definitional apparatus, I think the artificially constructed passageways of Erebor and Moria could only be a maze, because the place was designed to facilitate entry and exits from its corridors -- it was not a death trap.
Using other definitions, it could be either a maze or a labyrinth. If the passages were laid out with a master formula so that one could navigate them by mathematics, then they would be a maze. If the passages were laid out topsy-turvy like the organic pattern of streets in a medieval city, random junctures, curving paths that lead to cul de sacs, etc, then it would be more of a labyrinth?
Thorin does move with authority through Erebor, so, either it was not a truly bewildering place, not a torturously confusing jumble of ways, or, he knew the formula. From the statements in The Hobbit, p. 229, "Not at Home," I get the feeling that the layout was not really very complex, certainly not like the hodge-podge labyrinth of the Goblins' tunnels, or the natural cave systems that underlay them on the way to Gollum's lair.
This brings up a point of relativity: If Bilbo had been alone in the Dwarven passages of Erebor, would
he have found it a labyrinth/ maze? Following Thorin's lead, negotiating the way to the surface was easy, but how long would it have taken Bilbo to find his own way out? In Moria, was Gandalf using Maiar senses to find a "maze-like" solution-pathway through what would have been a death trap labyrinth to all the other, lesser gifted members of the Fellowship?
For those familiar with the Christian labyrinth, is there a metaphorical/ mystical aspect to Bilbo's wanderings through the Goblin caves/ Erebor and the soul's search through a cathedral's cosmati floor design? Did Tolkien intend us to see such a connection?
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Circular = labyrinth? / cornered = maze?
A circular design, sometimes unicursal, sometimes branching, with a center zone that has an anthropomorphic figure in it, is called the "Man in the Maze" motiff in the U.S. desert Southwest. Prehistoric and historic examples of this pattern are frequently met with by anthropologists/ archaeologists.
- 'It's an ill wind as blows nobody no good, as I always say. And All's well as ends Better!'
