The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien

by Humphrey Carpenter

  fn33 There are thus no temples or ‘churches’ or fanes in this ‘world’ among ‘good’ peoples. They had little or no ‘religion’ in the sense of worship. For help they may call on a Vala (as Elbereth), as a Catholic might on a Saint, though no doubt knowing in theory as well as he that the power of the Vala was limited and derivative. But this is a ‘primitive age’: and these folk may be said to view the Valar as children view their parents or immediate adult superiors, and though they know they are subjects of the King he does not live in their country nor have there any dwelling. I do not think Hobbits practised any form of worship or prayer (unless through exceptional contact with Elves). The Númenóreans (and others of that branch of Humanity, that fought against Morgoth, even if they elected to remain in Middle-earth and did not go to Númenor: such as the Rohirrim) were pure monotheists. But there was no temple in Númenor (until Sauron introduced the cult of Morgoth). The top of the Mountain, the Meneltarma or Pillar of Heaven, was dedicated to Eru, the One, and there at any time privately, and at certain times publicly, God was invoked, praised, and adored: an imitation of the Valar and the Mountain of Aman. But Númenor fell and was destroyed and the Mountain engulfed, and there was no substitute. Among the exiles, remnants of the Faithful who had not adopted the false religion nor taken part in the rebellion, religion as divine worship (though perhaps not as philosophy and metaphysics) seems to have played a small part; though a glimpse of it is caught in Faramir’s remark on ‘grace at meat’, Vol. II p. 285.4

  fn34 The chief way in which Hobbits differ from experience is that they are not cruel, and have no blood-sports, and have by implication a feeling for ‘wild creatures’ that are not alas! very commonly found among the nearest contemporary parallels.

  fn35 ‘gods’ is the nearest equivalent, but not strictly accurate.

  fn36 The story of Beren and Lúthien is the one great exception, as it is the way by which ‘Elvishness’ becomes wound in as a thread in human history.

  fn37 There is only one ‘god’: God, Eru Ilúvatar. There are the first creations, angelic beings, of which those most concerned in the Cosmogony reside (of love and choice) inside the World, as Valar or gods, or governors; and there are incarnate rational creatures, Elves and Men, of similar but different status and natures.

  fn38 This was a delusion of course, a Satanic lie. For as emissaries from the Valar clearly inform him, the Blessed Realm does not confer immortality. The land is blessed because the Blessed dwell there, not vice versa, and the Valar are immortal by right and nature, while Men are mortal by right and nature. But cozened by Sauron he dismisses all this as a diplomatic argument to ward off the power of the King of Kings. It might or might not be ‘heretical’, if these myths were regarded as statements about the actual nature of Man in the real world: I do not know. But the view of the myth is that Death – the mere shortness of human life-span – is not a punishment for the Fall, but a biologically (and therefore also spiritually, since body and spirit are integrated) inherent part of Man’s nature. The attempt to escape it is wicked because ‘unnatural’, and silly because Death in that sense is the Gift of God (envied by the Elves), release from the weariness of Time. Death, in the penal sense, is viewed as a change in attitude to it: fear, reluctance. A good Númenórean died of free will when he felt it to be time to do so.

  fn39 There were evil Númenóreans: Sauronians, but they do not come into this story, except remotely; as the wicked Kings who had become Nazgûl or Ringwraiths.

  fn40 The Elves often called on Varda-Elbereth, the Queen of the Blessed Realm, their especial friend; and so does Frodo.

  fn41 Take the Ents, for instance. I did not consciously invent them at all. The chapter called ‘Treebeard’, from Treebeard’s first remark on p. 66, was written off more or less as it stands, with an effect on my self (except for labour pains) almost like reading some one else’s work. And I like Ents now because they do not seem to have anything to do with me. I daresay something had been going on in the ‘unconscious’ for some time, and that accounts for my feeling throughout, especially when stuck, that I was not inventing but reporting (imperfectly) and had at times to wait till ‘what really happened’ came through. But looking back analytically I should say that Ents are composed of philology, literature, and life. They owe their name to the eald enta geweorc2 of Anglo-Saxon, and their connexion with stone. Their part in the story is due, I think, to my bitter disappointment and disgust from schooldays with the shabby use made in Shakespeare of the coming of ‘Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill’: I longed to devise a setting in which the trees might really march to war. And into this has crept a mere piece of experience, the difference of the ‘male’ and ‘female’ attitude to wild things, the difference between unpossessive love and gardening.

  fn42 Not any better I think than The Marvellous Land of Snergs, Wyke-Smith, Ernest Benn 1927. Seeing the date, I should say that this was probably an unconscious source-book! for the Hobbits, not of anything else.

  fn43 The name, spelt this way, also entered the United States, 2 or 3 generations ago, from Canada. I recently had some correspondence with a family in Texas.

  fn44 The ‘Sindarin’, a Grey-elven language, is in fact constructed deliberately to resemble Welsh phonologically and to have a relation to High-elven similar to that existing between British (properly so-called, sc. the Celtic languages spoken in this island at the time of the Roman Invasion) and Latin. All the names in the book, and the languages, are of course constructed, and not at random.

  fn45 I once scribbled ‘hobbit’ on a blank page of some boring school exam. paper in the early 1930’s. It was some time before I discovered what it referred to!

  fn46 The cats of Queen Berúthiel and the names and adventures of the other 2 wizards2 (5 minus Saruman, Gandalf, Radagast) are all that I recollect.

  fn47 I am not Gandalf, being a transcendent Sub-creator in this little world. As far as any character is ‘like me’ it is Faramir – except that I lack what all my characters possess (let the psychoanalysts note!) Courage.

  fn48 Not quite ‘certainly’. The clumsiness in fidelity of Sam was what finally pushed Gollum over the brink, when about to repent.

  fn49 They shared in its ‘making’ – but only on the same terms as we ‘make’ a work of art or story. The realization of it, the gift to it of a created reality of the same grade as their own, was the act of the One God.

  fn50 Notably C. L. Wrenn who succeeded me as professor of Anglo-Saxon and who is, I believe, coming to the U.S.A. this autumn for a year, if you (i.e. U.S.A. officials) let him in.

  fn51 humane: this (being in a fairy-story) includes of course Elves, and indeed all ‘speaking creatures’.

  fn52 chiefly interested: that is as themes of ‘literature’, as an amusement. Actually most of them were primarily interested in the acquisition of land and the use of marriage-alliances in furthering their aims.

  fn53 Not unless ‘political’ is narrowed (or enlarged), so that we are considering imaginatively only one centre or fortress of order and grace surrounded by enemies: the untilled woods and mountains, hostile and barbarous men, wild beasts and monsters, and the Unknown. The defence of the realm may then indeed become symbolic of the human situation.

  fn54 Of the same kind as Gandalf and Saruman, but of a far higher order.

  fn55 By a triple treachery: 1. Because of his admiration of Strength he had become a follower of Morgoth and fell with him down into the depths of evil, becoming his chief agent in Middle Earth. 2. When Morgoth was defeated by the Valar finally he forsook his allegiance; but out of fear only; he did not present himself to the Valar or sue for pardon, and remained in Middle Earth. 3. When he found how greatly his knowledge was admired by all other rational creatures and how easy it was to influence them, his pride became boundless. By the end of the Second Age he assumed the position of Morgoth’s representative. By the end of the Third Age (though actually much weaker than before) he claimed to be Morgoth returned.

&n
bsp; fn56 My Sam Gamgee is Samwise not Sam(p)son or Samuel.

  fn57 Having geological interests, and a very little knowledge, I have not wholly neglected this aspect, but its indication is rather more difficult – and perilous!

  fn58 By ‘assistance’ I do not, of course, mean interference, though the opportunity to consider specimens would be desirable. My linguistic knowledge seldom extends, beyond the detection of obvious errors and liberties, to the criticism of the niceties that would be required. But there are many special difficulties in this text. To mention one: there are a number of words not to be found in the dictionaries, or which require a knowledge of older English. On points such as these, and others that would inevitably arise, the author would be the most satisfactory, and the quickest, source of information.

  fn59 Anyway Canétang=Puddleduck2 is several classes above this performer!

  fn60 Actually referred to as ‘the One’ in App. A III p. 317 1. 20. The Númenóreans (and Elves) were absolute monotheists.

  fn61 For example: Ford of Bruinen = Björnavad! Archet = Gamleby (a mere guess, I suppose, from ‘archaic’?) Mountains of Lune (Ered Luin) = Månbergen; Gladden Fields (in spite of descr. in I. 62) = Ljusa slätterna, & so on.4

  fn62 Or (I surmise) the nomenclature of later volumes.

  fn63 Soon after AD 1400.

  fn64 But even so we do not know the original meaning of tooth. Did it mean ‘spike, sharp point’ or was it (as some guess) really the participial agent to ED ‘eat’, sc. a functional and non-pictorial name?

  fn65 Because a single word in human language (unlike Entish!) is a short-hand sign, & conventional. The fact that it is derived from a single facet, even if proved, does not prove that other facets were not equally present to the mind of the users of this conventional sign. The λóγος is ultimately independent of the verbum.

  fn66 But we do not know how Tiw (=dívus) became a ‘name’ equated in the interpretatio romana with Mars. Perhaps another substitution of a general term (divinity) for a ‘true name’. The plural tívar in O. Norse verse still means ‘gods’.

  fn67 That is: they refer to undisturbed norms of habitual change (like simple statements of the action of frost), but the norms may be interfered with – the patterns on a given window are practically unpredictable, though one believes that if one knew all the circumstances, it would not be so.

  fn68 By which he means that they are not connected by lost semantic change; but how can he be sure of that?

  fn69 (See the lament of Galadriel 1394) oiolossëo = from Mt. Uilos.

  fn70 In High-elven. There was also a more or less synonymous stem gal (corresponding to gil which only applied to white or silver light). This variation g/k is not to be confused with the grammatical change or k, c > g in Grey-elven, seen in the initials of words in composition or after closely connected particles (like the article). So Gil-galad ‘star-light’. Cf. palan-díriel compared with a tíro niu.

  fn71 Note the expression III p. 364 [2nd edition p. 365] ‘taken as prisoner’.

  fn72 Sc. belong to our ‘mythological’ Middle-Ages which blends unhistorically styles and details ranging over 500 years, and most of which did not of course exist in the Dark Ages of c. 500 A.D.

  fn73 Almost the only vestige of ‘religion’ is seen on II pp. 284–5 in the ‘Grace before Meat’. This is indeed mainly as it were a commemoration of the Departed, and theology is reduced to ‘that which is beyond Elvenhome and ever will be’, sc. is beyond the mortal lands, beyond the memory of unfallen Bliss, beyond the physical world.

  fn74 I imagine the gap to be about 6000 years: that is we are now at the end of the Fifth Age, if the Ages were of about the same length as S.A. and T.A. But they have, I think, quickened; and I imagine we are actually at the end of the Sixth Age, or in the Seventh.

  fn75 Hence the Elves called the World, the Universe, Eä – It Is.

  fn76 It is the view of the Myth that in (say) Elves and Men ‘sex’ is only an expression in physical or biological terms of a difference of nature in the ‘spirit’, not the ultimate cause of the difference between femininity and masculinity.

  fn77 In narrative, as soon as the matter becomes ‘storial’ and not mythical, being in fact human literature, the centre of interest must shift to Men (and their relations with Elves or other creatures). We cannot write stories about Elves, whom we do not know inwardly; and if we try we simply turn Elves into men.

  fn78 [A note apparently added later:] It was also the Elvish (and uncorrupted Númenórean) view that a ‘good’ Man would or should die voluntarily by surrender with trust before being compelled (as did Aragorn). This may have been the nature of unfallen Man; though compulsion would not threaten him: he would desire and ask to be allowed to ‘go on’ to a higher state. The Assumption of Mary, the only unfallen person, may be regarded as in some ways a simple regaining of unfallen grace and liberty: she asked to be received, and was, having no further function on Earth. Though, of course, even if unfallen she was not ‘pre-Fall’. Her destiny (in which she had cooperated) was far higher than that of any ‘Man’ would have been, had the Fall not occurred. It was also unthinkable that her body, the immediate source of Our Lord’s (without other physical intermediary) should have been disintegrated, or ‘corrupted’, nor could it surely be long separated from Him after the Ascension. There is of course no suggestion that Mary did not ‘age’ at the normal rate of her race; but certainly this process cannot have proceeded or been allowed to proceed to decrepitude or loss of vitality and comeliness. The Assumption was in any case as distinct from the Ascension as the raising of Lazarus from the (self) Resurrection.

  fn79 One, the eldest, alone, and six more with six mates.1

  fn80 Between 2463 and the beginning of Gandalf’s special enquiries concerning the Ring (nearly 500 years later) they appear indeed to have died out altogether (except, of course, for Sméagol); or to have fled from the shadow of Dol Guldur.

  fn81 Anciently this apparently took place, shortly after birth, by the announcement of the name of the child to the family assembled, or in larger more elaborate communities to the titular ‘head’ of the clan or family. See note at end.

  fn82 Hence the Hobbit expression ‘a twelve-mile cousin’ for a person who stickled for the law, and recognized no obligations beyond its precise interpretation: one who would give you no present if the distance from his doorstep to yours was not under 12 miles (according to his own measurement).

  fn83 No presents were given at or during the celebration of Hobbit weddings, except flowers (weddings were mostly in Spring or early Summer). Assistance in furnishing a home (if the couple were to have a separate one, or private apartments in a Smial) was given long before by the parents on either side.

  fn84 In more primitive communities, as those still living in clan-smials, the byrding also made a gift to the ‘head of the family’. There is no mention of Smeagol’s presents. I imagine that he was an orphan; and do not suppose that he gave any present on his birthday, save (grudgingly) the tribute to his ‘grandmother’. Fish probably. One of the reasons, maybe, for the expedition. It would have been just like Smeagol to give fish, actually caught by Déagol!

  fn85 We are here dealing only with titular ‘headship’ not with ownership of property, and its management. These were distinct matters; though in the case of the surviving ‘great households’, such as Great Smials or Brandy Hall, they might overlap. In other cases, headship, being a mere title, and a matter of courtesy, was naturally seldom relinquished by the living.

  fn86 This title and office descended immediately, and was not held by a widow. But Ferumbras, though he became Thain Ferumbras III in 1380, still occupied no more than a small bachelor-son’s apartment in the Great Smials, until 1402.

  fn87 descendants of a common great-grandfather of the same name.

  fn88 In the original poem he was said to wear a peacock’s feather, which (I think you will agree) was entirely unsuitable to his situation in the L.R. In it his feather is merely repor
ted as ‘blue’. Its origin is now revealed.

  fn89 Only in this respect – hatred of trees. She was a great and gallant lady.

  fn90 See III p. 245.1

  fn91 Actually, since the events at the Cracks of Doom would obviously be vital to the Tale, I made several sketches or trial versions at various stages in the narrative – but none of them were used, and none of them much resembled what is actually reported in the finished story.

  fn92 We frequently see this double scale used by the saints in their judgements upon themselves when suffering great hardships or temptations, and upon others in like trials.

  fn93 No account is here taken of ‘grace’ or the enhancement of our powers as instruments of Providence. Frodo was given ‘grace’: first to answer the call (at the end of the Council) after long resisting a complete surrender; and later in his resistance to the temptation of the Ring (at times when to claim and so reveal it would have been fatal), and in his endurance of fear and suffering. But grace is not infinite, and for the most part seems in the Divine economy limited to what is sufficient for the accomplishment of the task appointed to one instrument in a pattern of circumstances and other instruments.

  fn94 It is not made explicit how she could arrange this. She could not of course just transfer her ticket on the boat like that! For any except those of Elvish race ‘sailing West’ was not permitted, and any exception required ‘authority’, and she was not in direct communication with the Valar, especially not since her choice to become ‘mortal’. What is meant is that it was Arwen who first thought of sending Frodo into the West, and put in a plea for him to Gandalf (direct or through Galadriel, or both), and she used her own renunciation of the right to go West as an argument. Her renunciation and suffering were related to and enmeshed with Frodo’s: both were parts of a plan for the regeneration of the state of Men. Her prayer might therefore be specially effective, and her plan have a certain equity of exchange. No doubt it was Gandalf who was the authority that accepted her plea. The Appendices show clearly that he was an emissary of the Valar, and virtually their plenipotentiary in accomplishing the plan against Sauron. He was also in special accord with Cirdan the Ship-master, who had surrendered to him his ring and so placed himself under Gandalf’s command. Since Gandalf himself went on the Ship there would be so to speak no trouble either at embarking or at the landing.