Epic battles of Middle-earth in miniature

I'd like to offer a half-hearted apology to readers of The Silver Key who don't care much for Middle-earth. Until I get through Blogging the Silmarillion, for now and in the foreseeable future it's all Tolkien, all the time.

But although I've been shirking RPGs and gaming these days, I thought gamers and Tolkien fans alike would appreciate this link. It's a site with some great pictures of miniatures and detailed descriptions of some of the large-scale battles of Middle-earth, from The Silmarillion all the way up through The Lord of the Rings. These were articles originally published in Miniature Wargames magazine; the owner of the Web site is apparently the author.

Awesome stuff. My personal favorite is Helm's Deep. That and the picture of Eowyn and the Witch-King from the Battle of the Pelennor Fields.

I love miniatures and wish I had the time and patience (and talent) to do work like this.

Blogging The Silmarillion: Of northern-ness, the death of Fëanor and the creep of doom

Part four of Blogging the Silmarillion continues with chapters 10-15 of the Quenta Silmarillion.
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“If we insist on asking for the moral of the story, that is its moral: a recall from facile optimism and wailing pessimism alike, to that hard, yet not quite desperate, insight into Man’s unchanging predicament by which heroic ages have lived. It is here that the Norse affinity is strongest: hammerstrokes but with compassion.”

—C.S. Lewis, “The Dethronement of Power,” from Tolkien and the Critics

J.R.R. Tolkien said in a letter that “The Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision.” While true, this oft-quoted statement has led some critics and observers to pigeonhole it and his works as simple analogues of Christianity. This leads to conclusions that The Silmarillion is a parable of the Fall of Man, for instance, when in fact Tolkien’s legendarium is perhaps more akin to a hauberk of hard scale armor, its iron plates hammered together from a mosaic of influences, both Christian and other.

The deeper you get into The Silmarillion the more you feel a coldness grip your spine. It’s a bitter wind whose source is the wild North. As the late Steve Tompkins once said, “Norse and Celtic elements are as integral to The Silmarillion as are hydrogen and oxygen to water; the book is so northern that compasses point quiveringly in its direction.” While it may have been only hinted at in past chapters, this northern-ness resounds like the great hammer of Thor in the section of The Silmarillion that I plan to cover here.

Chapter 10 of The Silmarillion moves the action from Valinor over to Middle-earth, specifically the lands of Beleriand which lie west of the mountains of Ered Luin. These next six chapters, though they contain three major battles, are largely a time of uneasy peace: Morgoth is forced inside his fortress of Angband where he remains under the watchful eyes of the Noldor, which begins a siege that lasts some 400 years.

The Noldor win all three of the first major Battles of Beleriand, the third of which (the Dagor Aglareb) results in utter ruin for a large force of orcs, which is completely destroyed before the gates of Angband. Yet the Elves suffer great casualties themselves. Wary of further attacks, they build great city-fortresses to protect themselves against further sorties. These include Menegroth, Nargothrond, and the hidden mountain fortress of Gondolin (above).

Indeed, while the Elves have the upper hand, it’s a momentary victory: Despair and impending tragedy weigh heavily on this section of The Silmarillion. More than once I felt the cold hand of a northern Doom laid upon my shoulder as I read.

In chapter 13 (“Of the Return of the Noldor”) we learn the fate of Fëanor. He and the Noldor land on the wasteland of Lammoth and disembark with shouts and great cries. Aroused by the tumult and by the burning of the Teleri ships, a great force of orcs arrive and attack. But with Fëanor at their head the Noldor drive them back in ruin.

Yet Fëanor in his pride crosses a bridge too far. He wildly presses the attack, an unquenchable firebrand bringing destruction to his enemies all the way to the gates of Angband. With his fortress in danger of being overrun Melkor calls in the heavy artillery: a force of Balrogs. Surrounded by these great spirits of the Maiar, Feanor incredibly fights on, but is eventually mortally wounded. His sons bear him from the field. Blood streaming from his wounds, Fëanor beholds the great volcanic peaks of the Thangorodrim which serve as a ring around Angband, and knows that the Noldor will never be able to take the fortress alone. At a glance, he knows his mission has been in vain. But rather than tell his sons to abandon their suicidal mission, Fëanor curses Morgoth thrice with his dying breath. He urges his sons to avenge him and hold to their oath. When he dies, Fëanor’s body is consumed by its own fiery energies.

So what are we to make of this mightiest of the Noldorin race? Does Fëanor serve as a simple instructive example to not become too attached to the works of our own hands, nor to swear oaths that place earthly objectives above the divine? The Valar Ulmo issues a warning which it seems folly to ignore: “Love not too well the work of thy hands and the devices of thy heart.” Fëanor is guilty of both trangressions, and dies because of it.

Yet this greatest of the Noldorin is something more than a mere allegorical example. I don’t believe that Tolkien was unsympathetic of Fëanor —that’s not the way he’s portrayed in The Silmarillion. He may be a casualty of his own limitless pride, and/or a victim of the lies of Morgoth, but Fëanor’s warrior spirit is a thing of beauty. He is a larger than life hero, and not a law-abiding, humble citizen “hero” with which we associate the term today, but a Greek or Norse hero, strong in arms and sure of purpose. He is a blazing flame among dimmer lights, and one that I cannot help but admire.

In Tom Shippey’s The Road to Middle-earth (and if you like Tolkien but haven’t read Shippey, get that fixed), Shippey states that one of Tolkien’s primary objectives in writing The Lord of the Rings was to dramatise and elevate the “theory of courage” from old Northern literature. The central tenet of this theory is that man and gods are doomed to suffer ultimate defeat at Ragnarök, the great last battle, but that defeat is no refutation. “The right side remains right even if it has no ultimate hope at all,” explains Shippey.

Now, I don’t believe that what Fëanor did was right. His actions brought ruin and death to countless Elves who otherwise would have lived merry lives in the sun of an earthly paradise. But if we can put ourselves in Fëanor’s position, his reckless oath of bringing war to Morgoth is perfectly understandable: Morgoth stole his jewels, killed his father, and extinguished the light of the two trees of Valinor. Having committed himself to his mission of revenge—one that he knew was hopeless— Fëanor fulfills his vow. He makes Morgoth tremble, so close does his reckless attack come to smashing Angband. Like Achilles, Fëanor carves out a name that lives forever in the great roll of heroes in the northern tradition.

The Northmen would have greatly respected that. I think Tolkien did too.

Speaking of Northern-ness, we also learn that the Mandos-pronounced Doom of the Noldor isn’t going away any time soon, not even after Feanor’s death. It comes crashing back into the story after Thingol and Melian begin asking some uncomfortable questions about the Noldor, and why a dark cloud seems to hang about them. When Thingol learns of the Kinslaying at Alqualonde, he severs ties with the Noldor, banishing them from his realm. This creates a rift between the Sindar and Noldor that Morgoth exploits. United the strength of the Elves may have kept him penned up in Angband indefinitely, but as two tribes they will ultimately fall. And it all goes back to the Doom of the Noldor.

The Doom of the Noldor is another way in which Tolkien’s legendarium diverges from Christianity, and it’s why I refuse to classify The Silmarillion solely as a Christian parable. There is always hope for redemption in Christianity, but there is no escape or appeal from Doom; when pronounced by Mandos its fulfillment is as sure as nightfall. After they choose to follow Fëanor the Noldor are pulled along implacably with Fëanor to certain destruction. The Doom of the Noldor is in this respect much akin to the sacred oaths of the old Norse culture: Anathema to break, and often ruinous to follow.

There’s another angle to consider here: The Doom of the Noldor could be Tolkien’s statement that the old heroic way of life—the exaltation of power, might equals right—is ultimately ruinous and must come to an end if our species is to survive. Looking ahead to The Lord of the Rings, the forces of good reach the conclusion that evil power cannot be bested by power; the only way to defeat Sauron is to destroy his ring (in essence, abandoning force). Boromir is arguably the closest character in northern martial spirit to Fëanor that we have in The Lord of the Rings, and perhaps not coincidentally he shares a similar grim end.

This section of The Silmarillion (chapter 15) ends with yet another bleak foreshadowing of doom: Galadriel asks King Finrod Felagund (the eldest son of Finarfin, who is Feanor’s half-brother) why he has taken no wife. His answer is chilling:

Foresight came upon Felagund as she spoke, and he said, ‘An oath I too shall swear, and must be free to fulfill it, and go into darkness. Nor shall anything of my realm endure that a son should inherit.’

But despite the growing despair there are glimmers of hope. When Turgon leaves his ancestral home in Nevrast to retreat to the (temporary) security of hidden Gondolin, the sea-god Ulmo warns him that the curse of the Noldor will reach him even there, and “treason will awake within thy walls.” Turgon appears doomed, but Ulmo tells the Elf-king to leave behind weapons and armor for the coming of some future hope: “Leave therefore in this house arms and sword, that in years to come he may find them.”

At this point in the book we don’t know who this hero shall be, but we at least have a slim ray of light to illuminate a coming dark age in Middle-earth.

While Fëanor’s arrival in Middle-earth and death were a personal highlight of chapters 10-15, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention some of the other important details:

• Costly battles. In addition to the death of Fëanor, Denethor (not the Steward of Gondor, but a Sindar Elf) and a large force of his brethren are killed to the last man on a hill during the first Battle of Beleriand.

• The forging of a pseudo-friendship between Dwarves and Elves. Though these two races never see eye-to-eye, they are far from hostile in the first Age of Middle-earth. They share arts and knowledge, and the Elves employ the Dwarves to build their fortresses in exchange for precious gems.

• The creation of the sun and moon. I had forgotten until this re-read that Middle-earth was a lightless place for most of its early days (I can only imagine the terror Melkor must have wrought with his forces unhindered by the light of day). Two of the Valar try to restore life to the blackened, poisoned trees of Valinor: Nienna cries upon them, and Yavanna sings to them. While they cannot restore life, the two goddesses cause Telperion to bear one flower of silver which becomes the moon, and Laurelin a single fruit of gold which becomes the sun. These provide Middle-earth with its first reckoning of the passage of time, and light to hinder the deeds of Morgoth.

• The walling off of Valinor. The Valar render Valinor unreachable behind a string of enchanted isles and a wall of sleep, such that only one in after days will ever reach Valinor via ship.

• The first coming of Men into Middle-earth. The Elves’ description of Men sums up how I feel about our race in one of my darker moods: “They called them also Hildor, the Followers, and many other names: Apanonar, the After-born, Engwar, the Sickly, and Firimar, the Mortals; and they named them the Usurpers, the Strangers, and the Inscrutable, the Self-cursed, the Heavy-handed, and the Night-fearers, the Children of the Sun.”

• The first glimpse of Glaurung, a great wingless dragon. In his first appearance he emerges from the gates of Angband as a young, immature wyrm in an attempt to break the siege, and is driven back inside by Elven archers. Later, full-grown and at the height of his powers, he returns to wreak great havoc.

Terrific Tolkien: Fingon’s “helping hand” frees Maedhros

This is going to hurt, but it's for the best.

At one point in the long war Morgoth sends an embassy to treat with the Noldor. It’s pure trickery. Maedhros, son of Fëanor, is taken captive, and his companions are slain. Morgoth tortures Maedhros by chaining him by one hand to a sheer cliff in the great mountains of Thangorodrim. The Noldor are helpless to save him.

Fingon, the eldest son of Fingolfin,embarks on a rescue mission. In the barren mountains he plays on his harp an ancient song of Valinor, and the song is taken up by Maedhros, who responds with a clear Elven voice. With the help of an Eagle sent by Manwë, Fingon reaches Maedhros, but the malice-forged manacle is too strong. In order to free him Fingon cuts off his hand at the wrist. Maedhros will go on to fight better with his left hand, writes Tolkien.

Not only does this passage reveal Maedhros as a bad-ass who loses his sword hand and emerges stronger from the maiming, but it also contains an act of incalculable altruism by Fingon. With the memory of betrayal still in his heart—remember that Fingon was abandoned by Fëanor and his sons (including Maedhros) after the burning of the Teleri ships—he alone dares a deed which earns him renown, even among the feats of the brave princes of the Noldor. Afterwards, the hatred between the houses of Fingolfin and Fëanor is assuaged.

Blogging The Silmarillion: Melkor strikes back, and the pride and exile of Fëanor

Part three of Blogging The Silmarillion continues with chapters 6-9 of the Quenta Silmarillion.

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Say farewell to bondage! But say farewell also to ease! Say farewell to the weak! Say farewell to your treasures! More still shall we make. Journey light: but bring with you your swords! For we will go further than Oromë, endure longer than Tulkas: we will never turn back from pursuit. After Morgoth to the ends of the Earth!

—from Fëanor’s speech to the Noldor, J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Silmarillion


Difficult and boring. Too dry. Too much history and too many names. Not enough heat and passion.

These are some of the typical complaints often leveled at The Silmarillion. As you can probably guess I don’t have much sympathy for them, and I hope that my first two Blogging The Silmarillion posts have helped dispel the myth that nothing exciting or worthwhile happens in this book. But after 50 pages of The Silmarillion it’s not an unfair question to ask (literally and figuratively): What’s the story, JRRT?

The disappointed and befuddled critics who reviewed The Silmarillion back in 1977 wanted a main character upon whose sturdy frame the story could be told; at the outset of the book such a protagonist does not seem to exist. Instead of hobbits, we’re fed a steady diet of creation myths and lists of demigods.

But I would counter with: Did these critics and disappointed readers ever get beyond Ainulindalë and Valaquenta? And if they did, how did they miss the great, proud, headstrong, damn the torpedoes Noldorin Elf known as Fëanor? Fëanor is what I would consider the first “big name” in The Silmarillion, a larger than life hero that seems to have strode out of some wild northern legend and into the pages of Tolkien’s magnificent legendarium. He shatters the pale, washed-out, emotionless Elven stereotype that people have unfairly associated with Tolkien.

In addition to being a kick-ass character, Fëanor introduces a couple important themes that run throughout The Silmarillion: The sin of excessive pride, and the danger of embracing the material at the expense of the spiritual. His character also adds another facet to Tolkien’s interesting and complex portrayal of the nature of evil.

(As an aside, Melkor is also shaping up to be another main characters that critics of The Silmarillion seem to overlook. Unlike Sauron, who we glimpse only as a shadowy dark lord or as a burning eye in The Lord of the Rings, Melkor is firmly on center stage. We see his ambitions and fears, his triumphs, defeats, and pettiness all over the pages of this book).

Fëanor is the eldest son of Finwë, king of the Noldor. His name means Spirit of Fire, and this is quite apt: He burns with the fires of unquenchable passion, and seems more akin to Man than Elf in this regard. His mother, Miriel, dies shortly after delivering Fëanor, so much energy has his coming into the world consumed.

The Noldor are master craftsman and Fëanor represents the pinnacle of their unearthly skill. Drawing on all his abilities he fashions the Silmarils, three gemstones which contain the light of the two trees of Valinor. They are a once in a lifetime creation whose beauty transcends the skill of their creator.

But the Silmarils are of course eyed greedily by Melkor. As I alluded to in my last post, Chapters 6-9 of The Silmarillion have a bit of an Empire Strikes Back feel to them: Evil arises from the ashes of defeat to shatter any illusions of triumph. In these chapters Melkor returns to wreak his revenge, of which Fëanor gets the brunt.

Chapter 6 of The Silmarillion begins with a time of bliss. The light of the two trees is shining on Valinor, and the Valar and Elves are at peace. Melkor, defeated by the Valar in the Battle of the Powers, is in chains. But his time of imprisonment (he got three Ages in the slammer for breaking the lamps of Illuin and Ormal, and causing general mayhem on Arda) is drawing to a close, and he sues for pardon. Most of the Valar want to keep him locked up, but Melkor’s words to Manwë are sweet, and he promises to use his powers in the cause of good. Manwë lets Melkor go and allows him to remain in Valinor.

Manwë has made an apparent grievous mistake. Melkor obviously still hates the Valar and the Elves, in fact more than ever after his imprisonment, and shortly after his release begins planning his revenge. Having learned a lesson that he cannot win by force, Melkor uses his sweet tongue to sow seeds of discord among the Noldor. He appeals to their pride, telling the Noldor that the Valar let them live in Valinor only so that they may keep them under their thumb. He tells them that they could be ruling in splendor on Middle-earth, masters of their own destiny, and not the whim of the Valar.

Ungoliant and the Two Trees, Ted Nasmith.

In addition to poisoning the minds of the Noldor, Melkor also wreaks more immediate, visible havoc. In Chapter 8 he flees Valinor, returns in secrecy with the great monstrous spider Ungoliant, and poisons and destroys the two trees of Valinor. He then adds insult to injury by slaying Fëanor’s father and stealing the Silmarils.

Fëanor is enraged. He curses Melkor, naming him Morgoth, the Black Foe of the World, and the Elves call him by that name ever after. Fëanor vows revenge, and against the counsel of the Valar leads the main of the Noldor on a mission of vengeance. He commandeers the beautiful swan-ships of the Teleri and slays a great number of the sea-Elves in terrible incident known as the Kinslaying at Alqualondë.

Fëanor’s actions earn him exile from Valinor. The Valar known as Mandos—aka, Fate—pronounces on them the Doom of the Noldor, which is pure poetry from Tolkien:

Tears unnumbered ye shall shed; and the Valar will fence Valinor against you, and shut you out, so that not even the echo of your lamentation shall pass over the mountains.

All in all it’s absolute disaster for the forces of good, and it appears as though it’s all Manwë’s fault. Why couldn’t he have just kept Melkor locked up?

It’s largely a given among Tolkien’s readers that mercy is always the correct path to walk in Middle-earth. Recall Gandalf’s famous quote from The Lord of the Rings, “Pity? It was Pity that stayed [Bilbo’s] hand. Pity, and mercy: not to strike without need.” Indeed, Frodo’s mercy and pity for Gollum saves the Third Age from a long, dark rule under Sauron. But Manwë’s apparent mistake of freeing Melkor makes us re-think this long-held belief.

Of course, we don’t know whether Manwë’s act of benevolence will work out in the long run. Fate has a very long reach in Tolkien’s legendarium, and at this point in The Silmarillion it remains to be seen whether his choice to free Melkor will ultimately work out for good or ill.

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Fëanor: An exile of his own making?

As I mentioned at the outset of this post, Fëanor is three-dimensional character. He’s got grand ambitions and a fearless, take-no-prisoners attitude. He’s also riddled with faults, including a swollen pride and an attachment to the work of his own hands. He’s complicated, and damned interesting.

Personally, I find Fëanor’s thirst for vengeance rather sympathetic. When he says:

Here once was light, that the Valar begrudged to Middle-earth, but now dark levels all. Shall we mourn here deedless for ever, a shadow-folk, mist-haunting, dropping vain tears in the thankless sea? Or shall we return to our home?

My reaction is: Go Fëanor. Screw the Valar: Rally the Noldor and go kick some ass. In a book which doesn’t contain an identifiable main character in its first 50-plus pages, he’s a red-blooded hero we can latch onto like a drowning man at sea. I certainly did upon this most recent re-reading.

Though he’s an Elf, Fëanor doesn’t deliberate or take the long view, but chooses to act, and act like a Man. When the herald of Manwë warns Fëanor of the folly of leaving Valinor on his mission of revenge, Fëanor states that he’d rather find ruin in Middle-earth than sit idly by in paradise:

“If Fëanor cannot overthrow Morgoth, at least he delays not to assail him, and sits not idle in grief. And it may be that Eru has set in me a fire greater than thou knowest. Such hurt at the least will I do to the Foe of the Valar that even the mighty in the Ring of Doom shall wonder to hear it.”

In other words: I may perish, but I’m doing some damage on the way down. I like this attitude: It’s got a northern, hopeless, death-wish feeling about it.

But Fëanor is not without faults. He’s selfish and rather vain, particularly when it comes to his own skill as a craftsman. He lacks humility in the face of his betters: When he utters that the Noldor shall become “lords of the unsullied Light, and masters of the bliss and beauty of Arda,” he has stepped over the proverbial line in the sand and crossed into Valar/ Ilúvatar territory.

Fëanor also seems to lack an altruistic bone in his body. He leads his people into exile not out of a desire to save Middle-earth, or to get revenge for his father (though these certainly add fuel to his fire), but because he wants his Silmarils back. When you get to the heart of why the Noldor leave Valinor, it’s over possessions. Contrast this with Galadriel: She also chooses to join the Noldor in exile, but is motivated by her love for Middle-earth. In this respect, she’s closer to Ilúvatar—to the land, his primary creation—and not a lesser Elf-made subcreation. Thus she is in the right, even in choosing exile.

Ted Nasmith - The Kinslaying at Alqualondë

Later Fëanor goes fey, stranding Fingolfin and some of the Noldor whom he deems unworthy (including Galadriel) on the barren coast of Araman. He burns the stolen swan-ships of the Teleri to prevent his people from returning and helping their brethren, which would potentially slow down his mission of revenge. Fingolfin, Galadriel and the abandoned Noldor respond with a quiet, heroic endurance, eventually reaching Middle-earth (though not without great loss) after a long voyage by foot across grinding ice. In contrast, Fëanor’s brash, brazen, martial quest is not half so noble.

While Tom Shippey explains it far better than I in his seminal work J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century, Tolkien performs a neat trick with his depiction of evil throughout his legendarium: He leaves it up to the reader to decide whether evil is an actual force acting upon us and influencing us, or whether it is of our own making. Shippey calls these two opposing theories Manichaean and Boethian. The Manichaean school holds that evil is a real external force that can influence or overwhelm us, while the Boethian view holds that there is no such thing as evil, that it is an absence, and that “evil” arises out of selfish decisions.

Applying Shippey’s theory to The Silmarillion raises an interesting question: Is Fëanor a victim of Melkor’s Manichaean influence, or a reckless Elf bent on his own destruction? Did he rebel against the Valar and choose exile because of Melkor’s poisonous lies, or did he succumb to his own selfish desire to reclaim the Silmarils, to show up the Valar, and to be a master of his own fate, forsaking the wisdom of the gods?

What do you think? The text seems to support both interpretations, so we can’t be sure, but one thing is certain: Tolkien makes us think in The Silmarillion. This is always a good thing.

Terrific Tolkien: Morgoth dissed

The Lord of the Rings contains a great scene in which Aragorn rides up to the Black Gate and orders Sauron to come out of his dungeons to “have justice done upon him.” It’s an incredibly brave and brazen act, this mortal man issuing marching orders to one of the Maiar.

Yet Aragorn’s act pales alongside the verbal dressing-down Melkor/Morgoth receives in The Silmarillion. No Man or Elf in Tolkien’s legendarium would dare diss a Valar to his face, save one alone: Fëanor.

Here’s the set-up: Shortly after he is freed from his imprisonment in the fastness of Mandos, Melkor comes to Fëanor’s home in Formenos in an attempt to recruit Fëanor to his side. Melkor’s poisonous lies at first find a willing ear: Fëanor’s heart is still bitter from his humiliation at the hands of the Valar, and the smooth words of Melkor, the mightiest of the Valar, seem to promise powerful aid and allegiance.

But when Melkor’s conversation turns to the Silmarils, Fëanor sees through the dark lord’s disguise, and dismisses this greatest of the Valar with a contemptuous send-off that surely echoes throughout fantasy literature:

“Get thee gone from my gate, thou jail-crow of Mandos!” And he shut the doors of his house in the face of the mightiest of all the dwellers in Eä.

Wow … naming Melkor, lord of darkness and the equivalent of Milton’s Satan, a jail-crow of Mandos, and then slamming the door in his face? That takes some serious stones.

Fëanor... fuck around and find out.

Blogging The Silmarillion: Of the coming of elves, and several degrees of separation

Part two of Blogging the Silmarillion picks up with the end of chapter 1of the Quenta Silmarillion (“Of the Beginning of Days”) and continues through the end of Chapter 5 (“Of Eldamar and the Princes of the Eldalie”).
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“There cannot be any ‘story’ without a fall—all stories are ultimately about the fall—at least not for human minds as we know them and have them.”

–J.R.R. Tolkien, Letters

If the opening chapters of The Silmarillion introduce us to the first painful split on Arda—the evacuation of the godlike Valar from Middle-earth to Valinor, a sort of heaven on earth—in the following chapters the sunderings both multiply and grow more acute. First, we’re introduced to the divisions between Men and Elves—both are Children of Ilúvatar, but have some important differences. Next comes a series of painful rents that occur when the Elves dissolve into various groups, sometimes freely and other times against their will. Finally, there’s the little matter of death, the king of all sunderings.

Why is The Silmarillion so concerned with these small separations (adding up to a great fall) from the early paradise of Middle-earth? I believe the reason is twofold. First, we know that Tolkien constructed his legendarium to create either a foundational myth for Middle-earth and/or for England itself. He needed to provide an explanation for how magic went out of Middle-earth, and how it evolved (devolved?) to become the humdrum, human-populated England that we know today, and/or the Fourth and subsequent Ages of Middle-earth. Each step away from Ilúvatar/the Valar/Valinor/the Elves is a distancing from this magic time, and a step closer to the prosaic age of Men.

Secondly, remember that Tolkien was suffused in death from his earliest days. Both his parents died when he was young, and two of his best friends were killed during World War I. How to make sense of this tragedy? Spend your life creating a grand myth to explain it. The Silmarillion provided him with a stage on which he could grapple with its mystery and create a myth for death itself.

All of these divisions are either caused by, or fall under the corruptive influence of, the wicked Valar known as Melkor, known to the elves as Morgoth. Melkor/Morgoth is shaping up as the arch-villain of all villains, so much so that Sauron looks like a kid with his hand in the candy jar in comparison.

But despite Melkor’s power—remember that he’s the greatest of the Valar—in Chapter 3 of the Quenta Silmarillion (“Of the Coming of the Elves and the Captivity of Melkor”) he gets his comeuppance. In this chapter Iluvatar creates the Quendi—aka., the Elves—which are the first of his Children. Men will follow later. The Valar, who had previously left Middle-earth to its own devices, fear that these lovely new creatures will fall under the yoke of Melkor and decide to take action: They will “take up again the mastery of Arda, at whatever the cost, and deliver the Quendi from the shadow of Melkor,” Tolkien writes.

That’s right, more war. In a conflict known as The Battle of the Powers (the third major battle of The Silmarillion, by my count), the Valar attack Melkor’s forces and drive them back to his fortress of Utumno. They then successfully assault the fortress and take Melkor away in chains, bound hand and foot. Melkor never forgets that the Valar waged war on the Elves’ behalf and this is the reason for his eternal spite for the race.

After whipping up on Melkor, the Valar decide to grant the elves the unimaginably sacred gift of sharing eternal life with them in Valinor. Orome picks three ambassadors from the Elves to come to the Blessed Realm and speak for their people to determine if they want to go. These are Ingwë, Finwë, and Elwë. Filled with the awe of the Valar and suffused with the light of the two trees, they return to Middle-earth and counsel their people to go West, and leave broken Middle-earth behind.

But, as is Tolkien’s wont, this results in another sundering, this time among the elves themselves. Some of them choose to go to Valinor right away (the Vanyar), some of them go for the time being, and later return to Middle-earth (the Noldor), and some of them tarry and are either too late to join the others, or decide to remain behind altogether (the Teleri). The Teleri are further broken up into various tribes, including the Umanyar and the Avari, who are both later both dumped into the same bucket known as the Moriquendi (Elves of the Darkness, for they never see the light of the trees of Valinor). There’s many more Elvish subdivisions besides. I will freely admit that I still don’t have all these straight in my head, and this is a point in The Silmarillon that perhaps (gasp) begins to feel a bit like a telephone directory in Elvish.

But this is a minor complaint. These first few chapters of the Quenta Silmarillion contain more wonder and magic than I can possibly capture here. Instead, I’ll highlight a few of the creation myths that provide the backstory of the wonderful peoples and places we’ll come to meet in The Lord of the Rings:

• The origin story of the dwarves. I found it fascinating that the dwarves were made by Aulë, not Ilúvatar, and are therefore not one of his Children. As a result they are flawed: they share Aulë’s love of the forge and of making, and stone and tunnels and earth instead of the outdoors. They also resemble Aulë in their physical traits and stature, including their hardihood. It’s a wonderful myth for why dwarves are as they are, and provides the reason for their mistrust and strife with the nature-loving elves.

• The creation of the great eagles and ents. Yavanna, a Valar and queen of the earth, asks Ilúvatar to protect her beloved trees, and he responds by creating shepherds of the trees to walk the forests of Middle-earth and eagles to fly over them. I found it interesting that these races are older than men.

• The unholy birth of the orcs. The orcs are not a created race, but elves corrupted and twisted by the malice of Melkor. As Tolkien explains, evil cannot create life anew, only twist and manipulate that which already exists.

• A love at first sight to end all loves at first sight. Chapter 4 of The Silmarillion (“Of Thingol and Melian”) is a wonderful one-a-half page interlude that tells the story of how the great Elf-king Elwë falls head over heels in love with Melian, a Maia of the race of Valar. The feeling is mutual. When these two clasp hands, they stand dumbstruck, like no other lovers that I can recall in books or film. “They stood thus while long years were measured by the wheeling stars above them; and the trees of Nan Elmoth grew tall and dark before they spoke any word,” writes Tolkien. The image of this fair goddess and the tall Elf-lord standing still, hand-in-hand in the glade of a virgin Middle-Earth, is simply beautiful. Remaining thus while the trees around them grow from saplings to giants is awe-inspiring

• An island as a ship. The sea-god Ulmo uses an island to transport the Elves across the sea to Valinor, which verily rocks. Later while bringing a group of Teleri over to Valinor he halts the island permanently in the Bay of Eldamar just off the coast of Valinor at the behest of the Teleri, who don’t want to leave their god Ossë behind. There it becomes a dwelling for the Teleri, who mourn for their separated brethren. This is how it earns its name Tol Eressëa, The Lonely Isle.

• The swan-ships of Aqualonde. I very much enjoyed this minor but cool detail by Tolkien in which we learn that the sea-shore dwelling Teleri made their unparalleled ships “in the likeness of swans, with beaks of gold and eyes of gold and jet.” The gate of the harbour of the Teleri is an arch of living rock sea-carved.

While I tremendously enjoyed the first chapters of the Quenta Silmarillon, I’ve already started on the next section, which is starting to look and feel like The Empire Strikes Back. Melkor may be defeated and in chains, but he’s not vanquished, and in the next chapters he administers some serious payback to the Elves and the Valar alike.

The Silmarillion and the myths of death

As I stated in the lead-in to this entry, Tolkien uses The Silmarillion to explain why Men are subject to age and decay, and why mortality is a Good Thing. Eternal life on this planet seems like a wonderful fate, but a host of problems result when we’re denied the ability to age and properly shuffle off our mortal coil (including the fact that we become navel-gazers and possession-hoarders). To demonstrate this point, Tolkien introduces Elves as a counterpoint to Men.

There are some important differences between the two races, both in this life and in the afterlife. Whereas Tolkien’s Elves are more like in nature to the Valar, to Men Iluvatar bequeaths “strange gifts.” They are lesser in beauty and brilliance, but burn with the hot fires of ambition, and are also promised more in the afterlife (or, more accurately, an assured afterlife). Writes Tolkien:

Therefore he willed that the hearts of Men should seek beyond the world and should find no rest therein; but they should have a virtue to shape their life, amid the powers and chances of the world, beyond the Music of the Ainur, which is as fate to all things else; and of their operation everything should be, in form and deed, completed, and the world fulfilled into the last and smallest.

Man can never be satisfied nor fulfilled in this mortal life, and shall always yearn for something he cannot have here on (Middle) Earth. He is doomed “to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield” and never experience fulfillment in these pursuits. But Men are promised something greater beyond the Circles of the World which will give purpose to all their wanderings and struggles.

Elves are doomed to live forever, immortal unless they be slain or waste away in grief. Even when they “die,” they are gathered to the halls of Mandos in Valinor until the world’s ending (this has always reminded me of Valhalla, the hall for slain warriors, but of course more solemn and without all the drinking and fighting). Elves are peerless artists and craftsman, with the ability to create items like The Silmarils. They love Arda much more deeply and unreservedly than Men. But with the long passage of time the Elves experience correspondingly less joy and greater sorrow. They see the world changing—sometimes for the better, sometimes not—and they miss that which used to be.

Imagine your worst bout of nostalgia and multiply it a hundredfold. This is the plight of the Elves and the problem with deathlessness, and is why death is viewed rightly as a boon for mankind, “the gift of Ilúvatar which as Time wears even the Powers shall envy,” Tolkien writes. It’s rather strange to think of death with its bitter grief, terrible finality, and unsolvable mystery as a gift, but Tolkien has an explanative myth for this too: Melkor has cloaked it in darkness and fear and corruption, which is the root of our fears.

Tolkien’s iron-clad faith assured him that there was life after death in the arms of God; The Silmarillion is his explanation to his readers for why this is so.

Terrific Tolkien: A divine royal rumble

During the Battle of the Powers, a vengeful Tulkas tracks down Melkor, who, his forces broken, takes refuge in the uttermost pit beneath his fortress of Utumno. The two demigods wrestle and Tulkas casts Melkor down on his face.

This scene was surely inspired by Tolkien’s love of the Norse and Greek myths, which often featured gods like Thor and Herakles wrestling other gods, monsters, and giants. It also hearkens to E.R. Eddison’s high fantasy novel The Worm Ouroboros, which opens with Goldry Bluszco wrestling King Gorice XI over the fate of Demonland.

Though Tolkien’s description of the match is quite short it’s nevertheless revealing. It feels like a formal affair. You would expect someone like Melkor to go for a dagger in his belt or stoop to some other form of treachery, but there is no mention of this. Perhaps Melkor understood that this was a formal contest whose conventions he dared not break. Pitting naked strength against strength in a bout of wrestling just feels right in this scene, a true contest for mastery.

Blogging The Silmarillion: The creation of Arda and myth-making

Blogging The Silmarillion: Series introduction

In part one of Blogging the Silmarillion, I’m sharing my thoughts on the first two sections of the book, “Ainulindalë,” and “Valaquenta,” as well as Chapter 1 of section three of the Quenta Silmarillion, “Of the Beginning of Days”.

The Silmarillion begins with “Ainulindalë,” which means “Music of the Ainur." This is Tolkien’s creation myth. As I re-read this chapter, I was struck by its affinity with John Milton’s Paradise Lost, both in terms of its imagery and characters, and in its thematic similarity to the Christian fall of man. The language is also similar, biblical and epic and “high.”

In “Ainulindalë” we learn that Ilúvatar is the creator of the known universe, including Arda. This place of wizards, heroes, orcs, dragons, and dark lords, has an omnipotent, single creator. This is an incredibly important fact. We can guess at the presence of a creator in The Lord of the Rings, but only barely. For example, Sam, journeying with Frodo in the heart of Mordor and at the nadir of his faith and endurance, senses the presence of something greater beyond this world, buoying his spirit and giving him the strength to continue:

"Far above the Ephel Duath in the West the night-sky was still dim and pale. There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach."

Though we don’t have a name for which to assign Sam’s divine revelation, upon re-reading The Silmarillion I realized that this is Varda (Elbereth), whose face radiates the light of Ilúvatar. It’s always been one of my favorite moments in Tolkien, and The Silmarillion helped me understand why.

The Silmarillion begins with Ilúvatar creating the Ainur, who are like to Norse and/or Greek gods. Each represent concepts and elements, but they are also actual beings, many of whom take shape and choose to dwell on Arda (aka., Middle-earth). This piece of the legendarium allows Tolkien to reconcile the old pagan gods, whose legends he so adored, with the Christian conception of a single creator. I always found the pagan Gods—Zeus, Odin, Thor, Ares, Athena, Baldur, etc.,—extremely interesting and entertaining, much like humans “turned up to 11.” Likewise, in The Silmarillion we’re introduced to great demigod personalities like Oromë the Hunter, Ulmo, Lord of Waters, and Aulë, master of the forge. While powerful beyond human ken, they are not omnipotent, and each comprehends only a piece of eternity.

As in Paradise Lost, Melkor/Morgoth (aka, Satan) is arguably the most interesting character in “Ainulindalë.” He is the greatest of the Ainur, and Ilúvatar imbues him with “the greatest gifts of power and knowledge.” His name means “He who arises in Might.” He’s ambitious and fearless, but also proud, impatient, and tyrannical. This begs the question: Did Ilúvatar create Melkor knowing that he was going to rebel and wreak havoc on Arda? If Ilúvatar is (like the Christian God) all-knowing and all-powerful, he must have. Think about that: He created a being that was, perhaps, fated to bring discord to the new universe. Why? Perhaps he realized that the urge to power is a necessary characteristic of a truly independent, free-willed being.

But another way of looking at this is that Melkor was not destined for evil. As I had alluded to in my introductory post, one of the benefits of reading The Silmarillion is discovering the complexity of Tolkien’s universe. For example, many critics have criticized The Lord of the Rings for its simplistic portrayal of good and evil, complaining that Sauron and the Nazgul are irredeemably evil, and the forces that oppose them are stainlessly good. Examples like Gollum and Denethor to the contrary, this mistake can be (somewhat) excused if your only exposure to Tolkien is The Lord the Rings.

However, once you read The Silmarillion, Middle-earth’s “simplistic” universe grows more complex, for Ilúvatar has created the Ainur with free will. In addition, some of the lesser Ainur (called Maiar) willingly join Melkor’s side. If you buy that Melkor chose evil, and that Sauron chose to follow Melkor, Tolkien’s depiction of good and evil becomes far grayer, and this criticism of “black and white” depictions of good and evil fails to hold water.

Here’s another important bit supporting the case of free will in Tolkien’s universe, and one I had forgotten about until this re-reading: The minor sea god Ossë joins Melkor’s side for a brief time and creates havoc in the lakes and streams. But he repents and receives absolution from Ulmo, the sea god. Ossë’s example is particularly instructive as it indicates that not only is evil a choice, but that redemption is also possible.

Since Melkor was created as the avatar of might, you could argue that rebellion may have been in his blood and an inevitable consequence of his being. But does the fact that Melkor was predisposed toward rebellion absolve him of his evil actions? Perhaps, and perhaps not. Ilúvatar is clearly angry at Melkor for creating discord, and it’s unlikely he’d feel this way if Melkor had no choice and was simply acting according to a pre-programmed, unchanging nature. My reading is that Iluvatar is expressing anger that his most exalted Ainur “failed,” and chose to walk the path of darkness.

Another question with which I’m unclear is whether Ilúvatar is “God,” i.e., the Christian God. Nothing in the text of The Silmarillion suggests this, but neither is this interpretation invalidated. Personally I like the equivocation, as Tolkien’s universe supports Christianity while not invalidating other interpretations, including pagan/other beliefs, even atheism (for those who believe that all such myths are plain fiction). It’s worth repeating that Tolkien was himself a devout Catholic, and that he was seeking to if not wholly align the myths of Middle Earth with Christian belief, than to create the former without invalidating the latter. Tolkien also makes mention in “Ainulindalë” of the end of days in which the choirs of the Ainur and the Children of Ilúvatar (i.e., men and elves) will make music together, and the purpose of the universe will be revealed. This is much like the Christian conception of revelation.

After creating the Ainur, Ilúvatar creates Ea, The World that Is, which is a shapeless mass. Some of the Ainur choose to descend to Ea to give it beauty and form, and these are henceforth called the Valar, the Powers of the World. Arda is, of course, coveted by Melkor, and shortly after their Valar arrive the first battle for its dominion ensues. We’ll see a similar pattern repeated again and again in The Silmarillion. Strife is woven into the fabric of Middle-earth. It’s already there in the earliest stages of Tolkien’s primordial work, and it will follow the history of Middle-earth down through its Ages.

The next section of The Silmarillion is called the Quenta Silmarillion. This section comprises the bulk of the book and encapsulates all of the First Age of Middle-earth, including the shaping of Arda by the Valar, the creation of men and elves, and a chronology of the great events and wars of age, ending with the War of Wrath (awesome) and the overthrow of Melkor.

Chapter 1, “Of the Beginning of Days,” continues the creation myth of Arda. In this chapter we get our second major conflict of The Silmarillion. Aule fashions two mighty lamps and the Valar set them on high pillars, allowing the first rays of light to shine on Middle-earth. Melkor, who has been dwelling in the darkness of the void since his first defeat, has come to love the dark and hate the light. He returns to Arda and delves a vast fortress under the earth, marshalling his forces for a second sortie. When he attacks, he smashes the lights of Aulë, breaking the lands in the process and throwing the seas into tumult.

Arda’s beautiful symmetry is thereafter marred. While Melkor is defeated and dispersed for a second time, Arda’s spring—its period of Edenic peace, to again draw a comparison with Christianity and the myth of man’s fall from innocence—is over. The Valar’s dwelling in Middle-earth is utterly destroyed, and they depart to the Land of Aman, the westernmost of all lands in the world. There the Valar establish their domain of Valinor. This is hereafter known as The Blessed Realm, which lies beyond the reach of mortal men.

Valinor is a place of wonders, beautiful beyond anything in Middle-earth. Here the goddess Yavanna sings and calls forth the Two Trees of Valinor, whose flowering begins the first march of time in Middle-earth, which was previously timeless and unchanging. Recalling the end of The Return of the King, Aragorn (directed by Gandalf) finds one of the seedlings of these trees on the slopes of Mount Mindolluin. The tree is a metaphor for Aragorn’s arrival as king and also signifies a preservation of the glorious past days of Middle-earth.

Poor Middle-earth is dark and wretched in comparison to Valinor, but the Valar don’t completely abandon it. Manwe, the spirit of the skies, watches over it; Ulmo dwells in its Outer Ocean and hovers on its shores, and Yavanna blesses it with spring. This is wonderful myth-making by Tolkien: These gods are the sources of our reverence of the skies, the eternal call of the sea, and the joy we experience with the ending of winter and the coming of spring.

Yet despite the continued attention of the Valar, these two lands—Valinor and Middle-earth—are hereafter sundered, a word which takes on great meaning in Tolkien’s legendarium. A deep, tragic loss, the sense of something great that once was and is irreparably gone (but whose presence we can sense, resulting in great sadness and nostalgia), is at the heart of Tolkien’s works. This separation starts here, in The Silmarillion, and is woven into the fabric of Middle-earth from its earliest days.

And as we’ll see in the later history of Middle-earth, when the Children of Ilúvatar try to reclaim what was lost by forcing passage to Valinor (a metaphor for cheating death), big trouble ensues.

Terrific Tolkien: Oromë the Hunter

(I added this last section to highlight cool scenes/characters from The Silmarillion, in an effort to prove to the  types that cry “dry as dust!” and “A telephone directly in Elvish!” that this book does bring the awesome).

After the Valar leave Middle-earth, a few return as distant watchers and (half-hearted) stewards. One returns to kick ass: Oromë the Hunter, tamer of beasts, rides in the darkness of the unlit forests of Middle-earth. His prey are the fell beasts and followers of Melkor.

“As a mighty hunter he came with spear and bow, pursuing to the death the monsters and fell creatures of the kingdom of Melkor, and his white horse Nahar shone like silver in the shadows,” Tolkien writes. Oromë blows his great horn Valaroma as he rides, striking fear into the heart of his enemies. Remember how the Lord of the Nazgul is checked by the blowing of the horns of the Rohirrim at Minas Tirith? His fear derives from the legend of Oromë, the fierce, pale rider of the dark.

It’s a beautiful image by Tolkien and yet another example of his stellar myth-making.

Cimmerian sighting: Blogging The Silmarillion

Love this image of Maglor, hurling a Silmaril.

Nevertheless it was the work of his heart, which occupied him for far longer than The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings. The better-known works are in a way only offshoots, side-branches, of the immense chronicle/ mythology/legendarium which is the ‘Silmarillion.’

--Thomas Shippey, J.R.R. Tolkien, Author of the Century

Few works of fantasy are as maligned and misunderstood as J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Silmarillion. As the late Steve Tompkins noted, it’s a work that seemed to have been much-purchased upon its 1977 publication but is anecdotally little-read, and is certainly the subject of many strong opinions, both positive and negative. Wikipedia sums up a good portion of the critical response to The Silmarillion upon its release as follows:

Some reviewers, however, had nothing positive to say about the book at all. The New York Review of Books called The Silmarillion "an empty and pompous bore", "not a literary event of any magnitude", and even claimed that the main reason for its "enormous sales" were the "Tolkien cult" created by the popularity of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. The School Library Journal called it "only a stillborn postscript" to Tolkien's earlier works. Peter Conrad of the New Statesman even went so far as to say that “Tolkien can't actually write.”

Putting the ridiculousness of “Tolkien can’t actually write” and “a stillborn postscript” aside, there is some truth to the difficulty of reading The Silmarillion. Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey remarks in The Road to Middle-Earth that “it could never be anything but hard to read.” It’s not hard in terms of diction or structure, but rather, as Christopher Tolkien explains in Part One of The Book of Lost Tales, because it “lacks mediation of the kind provided by the hobbits (so, in The Hobbit, ‘Bilbo acts as the link between modern times and the archaic world of dwarves and dragons’).” The second reason is because it is not written as a novel. There is no main character in the foreground through which the story is relayed.

Prompted by the 118th anniversary of Tolkien's birthday and the dawn of the New Year, it’s my intention over the next several weeks to blog about The Silmarillion. I’m re-reading it in its entirety after the interval of several years and thought it would be enjoyable to write down my thoughts, impressions, and observations, and hopefully in the process make a small case for why it’s well-worth reading. I did something similar recently here at The Silver Key while re-reading The Lord of the Rings, and had a lot of fun with it. Please note that I am no self-appointed scholar or expert on Tolkien, just a fan. Writing about that which I read helps to further my own understanding and appreciation of the material.

I’d also like to use these posts to highlight some of the exciting stories to be found in this book, and draw attention to the fact that it can be read for enjoyment. Believe it or not, there are people who enjoy The Silmarillion for the sake of simple reading pleasure (yes, we’re as rare as Third Age Balrogs or Dragons, but we exist). While The Silmarillion serves one purpose as a reference and book of lore for Middle-earth’s history and mythology, including interesting indices that include an elven language reference, it also contains beautiful scenes, breathtaking battles, and visceral stories that pack emotional heft.

Badassery at Gondolin

I will start with a warning: I don’t recommend that anyone who wishes to introduce new readers to Tolkien’s works hand them a copy of The Silmarillion. It may have been Tolkien’s first major work (Christopher Tolkien states in the foreword that the earliest versions can be found in battered notebooks extending back to 1917), and the work of his heart, but it is, in many ways, a difficult read. There is no unifying, plot-driven narrative, and no recurring characters to follow on our journey back to the earliest days of Middle-earth. It also contains its share of foreign names and places with which the reader must cope. In fact, I would actively steer any new Tolkien reader away from The Silmarillion. You certainly don’t need to read it in order to understand and enjoy the events of The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings. These are far superior as introductory works.

That said, I believe that anyone who has read and enjoyed The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings should pursue The Silmarillion as a natural next step in Tolkien’s oeuvre. In its pages are wonders, including how Middle-earth was created, and from whence (or more accurately, from whom) Arda was formed. All of those tantalizing, evocative names of which the characters in The Lord of the Rings give utterance—Sam calling on Elbereth when facing the monstrous Shelob in dark pass of Cirith Ungol, Bilbo singing the tale of Eärendil in the Hall of Fire at Rivendell, Gandalf relaying the tale of Isildur to Frodo in “The Shadow of the Past”— are not only illuminated and revealed, but given breath and life in the pages of The Silmarillion. It also provides the background for the rise of Sauron and the forging of the rings of power, setting the scene for a more rewarding reading of The Lord of the Rings.

Some may fear that reading The Silmarillion may strip Middle-earth of wonder, that its gears and springs will be revealed and its magic dispelled. That’s not so. In fact, I found that reading sections of The Silmarillion and in particular The Children of Húrin (of which a much truncated version is included in The Silmarillion) infused me with a new perspective on Tolkien and his works. Tolkien has been labeled by some wrong-headed critics as “soft” and guilty of succumbing to happy endings. The Silmarillion reveals otherwise. In its pages are darkness and despair, including implacable evil, heartbreaking betrayals, and endless cycles of war. There’s grand triumphs and unearthly beauty to be found, too. In summary, it makes the world we inhabit when we read The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit feel all the more mythic and epic, multi-layered, and real.

Tolkien died before he could finish The Silmarillion and it was published posthumously by his son, Christopher, with help from fantasy novelist Guy Gavriel Kay. I wish Tolkien the elder (Eldar?) had lived long enough to finish it, and flesh out some of the stories that are only presented as sketches. But I am eternally glad that we have The Silmarillion. Middle-earth—and our own world, which are one and the same—are richer, better places for it.