Gondor has lost a lot of lore over the centuries and had a few plagues which likely killed many of the most skilled healers of their time. Aragorn had lessons from Elendil who may have been the best healer still in Middle Earth. Aragorn had the knowledge to get the most out of athelas which the healers of the Houses of Healing did not and he had some mental powers (his partial healing of Faramir even before the athelas is found) possibly derived from his descent from Luthien and honed with the help of Elrond and others.
I don't think Athelas only works for the King. In LoTR it's said that it is used in Gondor as a headache cure, and Aragorn is disappointed that the Houses of Healing don't have any, and in the Lays of Beleriand it's stated that it's used by Huan and Lúthien to treat Beren's wounds.
It certainly works better for Aragorn though, just like the palantiri. I wouldn't call that magic though. I would call it the will of Iluvatar manifested through the natural order. In Arda, nature and art are more responsive to those who have the right to exercise them. Tolkien is big on this.
But the lore of Gondor says athelas is 'life to the dying, in the king's hand lying' which sounds rather more potent than a headache remedy. And Aragorn doesn't do anything special with the leaves, just squashes them in his hand and throws them into water.
By all means, call it 'mental powers' if that makes you feel happier.
TurquoiseTastic may be on to something, though. Tolkien was a devout Catholic and wouldn't have wanted to create a world where just anybody was able to do magic... but calling on the power of God to work miracles fits right in with his worldview.
Well again, I'm not sure I would say miracle. It's the normal, natural thing to happen for the king, not a bizarre prodigy. It's just the way the world created by Tolkien works.
I don't think there are any overt miracles in LotR, though I think we are expected to think providence is at work.
I also don't think that some people have the right to use magic and others don't fits Tolkien either: it seems like something Saruman would think and Galadriel reject. I think, as the earlier quote says, that examples of people not having the right to do things are rather examples of people being possessive and seeking power to bring about quick fixes.
It certainly works better for Aragorn though, just like the palantiri. I wouldn't call that magic though. I would call it the will of Iluvatar manifested through the natural order. In Arda, nature and art are more responsive to those who have the right to exercise them. Tolkien is big on this.
The palantíri are an interesting example of this. They seem to "know" that they belong to the line of Elendil which is why they work better for Elendil's heirs (Aragorn) or their rightfully appointed deputies (Denethor) than they do for completely unrelated parties (Saruman, Pippin).
It certainly works better for Aragorn though, just like the palantiri. I wouldn't call that magic though. I would call it the will of Iluvatar manifested through the natural order. In Arda, nature and art are more responsive to those who have the right to exercise them. Tolkien is big on this.
The palantíri are an interesting example of this. They seem to "know" that they belong to the line of Elendil which is why they work better for Elendil's heirs (Aragorn) or their rightfully appointed deputies (Denethor) than they do for completely unrelated parties (Saruman, Pippin).
Yes, I rather like Tolkien's essay on this which is almost a "technical spec" for the palantiri. He particularly emphasises that Denethor was completely within his rights to make use of the Stone and "only expedience was against it".
We could have a separate thread about the theories of magic that appear in fantasy. For instance, we have the idea (used by James Blish) that all magic involves the summoning and compelling of demons, the idea that magic involves psychic abilities (used by Andre Norton and others), and the idea of the special language of magic (as in LeGuin's stories of Earthsea).
There are actual articles, studies, whatsits, on systems of magic that appear in fantasy. I've come across a few reading Diane Duane's Tumblr blog. Fascinating.
Aragorn is definitely a different level of person from your average Gondorian. He lived into his mid 200's. He could not just use the Palantir, but wrest control of it from Sauron. He, a mere mortal. There is definitely something qualitatively different about him, which is doubtless what gives him the ability to make athelas do more than freshen a room or cure toothache.
I think that in Athelas/Kingsfoil (Life to the dying/In the king's hand lying) there is an echo of the Royal Touch ceremony as a remedy for the King's Evil (scrofula). This took place on Maundy Thursday. The last English monarch to perform it was, I believe, James II. The 'touch' ran with the authentic English royal line, it was believed. William II, apart from Protestant scepticism about semi=magical beliefs, would not run the risk of the 'touch' not working because he was a usurper.
Aragorn is definitely a different level of person from your average Gondorian. He lived into his mid 200's.
Early 200s. His canonical age at death is 210. This is about the span of the later kings of Númenor and the kings of Arnor and the early kings of Gondor. It seems to be longer than the lifespans of his Dúnedain contemporaries.
I think that in Athelas/Kingsfoil (Life to the dying/In the king's hand lying) there is an echo of the Royal Touch ceremony as a remedy for the King's Evil (scrofula). This took place on Maundy Thursday. The last English monarch to perform it was, I believe, James II. The 'touch' ran with the authentic English royal line, it was believed. William II, apart from Protestant scepticism about semi=magical beliefs, would not run the risk of the 'touch' not working because he was a usurper.
I did not know this. I wonder if it works for the current royal family? I hope so.
IIRC William's successor and sister-in-law Anne was the last monarch to touch for the King's evil. Samuel Johnson was taken to be touched by her as a child.
Nowadays we have more reliable treatments for scrofula. Although Charles does believe in homeopathy, so he might be willing to try healing the king's evil the traditional way.
Nowadays we have more reliable treatments for scrofula. Although Charles does believe in homeopathy, so he might be willing to try healing the king's evil the traditional way.
The essence of homeopathy is that dilution makes the medicine stronger. Humans shed skin cells and so on naturally, so the space surrounding King Charles should surely contain increasingly dilute, and so increasingly potent, clouds of kingliness.
Nowadays we have more reliable treatments for scrofula. Although Charles does believe in homeopathy, so he might be willing to try healing the king's evil the traditional way.
Oh dear. I’d trust the possibly supernatural King’s Touch before homeopathy any day of the week.
As some of our earlier discussions indicate, there is probably no more divisive character in Tolkien’s Middle-earth corpus than Bombadil. This will be his first portrayal in an authorized screen production.
As some of our earlier discussions indicate, there is probably no more divisive character in Tolkien’s Middle-earth corpus than Bombadil.
Exactly why the article made me think of this thread.
I particularly liked this bit of the article:
The mystery and passivity of the character made him all the more intriguing to the showrunners, turning him into a narrative riddle to solve. “He has no clear dramatic function that would justify his inclusion in a really great movie adaptation. He’s whimsical and magical, and almost verging on silly. But also has the wisdom of the ages and the music of the spheres and deep emotional wells of ancient history and myth, and his conception and function are tied to Norse myths and have deep roots in European fairy tale,” McKay says. “So weirdly, he’s kind of the most Lord of the Rings thing in Lord of the Rings, and also the first thing you would cut if you were adapting it as a film. But we have the advantage of a television show, and hence we are going to find a way to tap into that.”
@Doublethink you forgot what is, to my mind, the cardinal sin:
6. It was dull. I really wanted to like it - diverse cast, dwarf queens, etc etc - but it was just incredibly slow and took itself far too seriously. I gave up after about three episodes.
I have a memory of reading that Bombadil was created by Tolkein to be met when the hobbits were leaving the Shire because he thought he might have a role to play later in the book but eventually decided to go in another direction.
I have a memory of reading that Bombadil was created by Tolkein to be met when the hobbits were leaving the Shire because he thought he might have a role to play later in the book but eventually decided to go in another direction.
Bombadil's creation predates The Lord of the Rings, and even The Hobbit, having been invented by Tolkien in a 1934 poem. The original purpose was probably to amuse his children, not for any wider publication, much like The Hobbit itself. When tasked with coming up with a sequel to The Hobbit Tolkien started relentlessly mining his previously unpublished compositions for material. This included not only the Bombadil poem but also material from what would later become The Silmarillion. Of course decisions about tone and direction have to be made and the more material derived from The Silmarillion the less Bombadil fit in with general narrative tone.
@Doublethink you forgot what is, to my mind, the cardinal sin:
6. It was dull. I really wanted to like it - diverse cast, dwarf queens, etc etc - but it was just incredibly slow and took itself far too seriously. I gave up after about three episodes.
I found it sloggy and problematic for various reasons at first, but somewhere around episode 3 or 4, I found myself really getting into it. I actually finished the season, and then went back and watched it all again, paying particular attention to the things I’d missed the first go through.
Meanwhile, I may have said this when we discussed Tom Bombadil earlier, but I always thing of him as something akin to Melchizedek—coming out of nowhere, no explanation or backstory, and then disappearing from the narrative again, save a few passing references later.
I do think he adds do the general mythological/folklore vibe, where some things just are.
Bombadil was a necessary teacher of toughness to Frodo. When the Willow had Merry and Pippin, Frodo runs up and down the river path flailing his arms and shouting "help! help!" After their stay at Bombadil's, when he is in the barrow and tempted to ditch his friends, he rejects the temptation, and steels himself, which enables him to remember the poem and summon help. He's a different hobbit, so to speak, before and after his encounter with Bombadil.
Bombadil also shows the hobbits that the Ring is not all-powerful.
And doesn’t Frodo find Sting in the barrow? That’s quite necessary to the plot, I think.
They are all armoured from the barrow which makes a big difference.
Bombadil shows everyone that amidst the seriousness of the quest is not everything - that there can be a higher story. That there is bigger stories that are happy and carefree despite the seriousness of the current moment.
Frodo's sword from the barrow was broken, IIRC, by the spell of the leader of the Ringwraiths at the boundary of Rivendell.
Bombadil is, for Tolkien, a personification of nature itself, a version of Silvanus. I note that he tends to speak in classical poetic metre.
Frodo's sword from the barrow was broken, IIRC, by the spell of the leader of the Ringwraiths at the boundary of Rivendell.
Bombadil is, for Tolkien, a personification of nature itself, a version of Silvanus. I note that he tends to speak in classical poetic metre.
No. Sting was used later in Moria and in Mordor. Frodo had no sword from the Barrow.
I think you may be confusing it with the barrow sword that Merry used to bring down the Witch-King at the Pelannor Fields.
And doesn’t Frodo find Sting in the barrow? That’s quite necessary to the plot, I think.
They are all armoured from the barrow which makes a big difference.
Bombadil shows everyone that amidst the seriousness of the quest is not everything - that there can be a higher story. That there is bigger stories that are happy and carefree despite the seriousness of the current moment.
Frodo's sword from the barrow was broken, IIRC, by the spell of the leader of the Ringwraiths at the boundary of Rivendell.
Bombadil is, for Tolkien, a personification of nature itself, a version of Silvanus. I note that he tends to speak in classical poetic metre.
No. Sting was used later in Moria and in Mordor. Frodo had no sword from the Barrow.
I think you may be confusing it with the barrow sword that Merry used to bring down the Witch-King at the Pelannor Fields.
Each of our hobbit principals received a barrow blade, but not armor. I'm guessing that four hobbit-sized suits of armor in a tomb of Men would have been too much of a plot convenience.
For each of the hobbits he chose a dagger, long, leaf-shaped, and keen, of marvellous workmanship, damasked with serpent-forms in red and gold. They gleamed as he drew them from their black sheaths, wrought of some strange metal, light and strong, and set with many fiery stones. Whether by some virtue in these sheaths or because of the spell that lay on the mound, the blades seemed untouched by time, unrusted, sharp, glittering in the sun.
'Old knives are long enough as swords for hobbit-people,' he said. 'Sharp blades are good to have, if Shire-folk go walking, east, south, or far away into dark and danger.'
<snip>
Their new weapons they hung on their leather belts under their jackets, feeling them very awkward, and wondering if they would be of any use. Fighting had not before occurred to any of them as one of the adventures in which their flight would land them.
That's from Fog on the Barrow-Downs (FotR, chapter 8). So yes, Merry's blade from the barrow down was used against the witch-king, but each of his companions had a similar blade.
Frodo's sword from the barrow was broken, IIRC, by the spell of the leader of the Ringwraiths at the boundary of Rivendell.
Correct.
Then the leader, who was now half across the Ford, stood up menacing in his stirrups, and raised up his hand. Frodo was stricken dumb. He felt his tongue cleave to his mouth, and his heart labouring. His sword broke and fell out of his shaking hand. The elf-horse reared and snorted. The foremost of the black horses had almost set foot upon the shore.
Thus the narrative requirement of replacement blade, Sting, supplied by Bilbo at Rivendell.
’Sharp blades are good to have, if Shire-folk go walking, east, south, or far away into dark and danger.'
I don’t think I noticed the alliteration just now either speaking of poetic meter. And that kind of alliteration is very specifically some thing that turns up a lot in Anglo-Saxon/Old English poetry… sharp, Shire, dark, danger…
In addition to Rings of Power, another screen adaptation of Tolkien's work is being released later this year. Warner Animation has made an animated feature film called The War of the Rohirrim that is due to be released in December. It seems to cover material from Appendix A.II, The House of Eorl that deals with Helm Hammerhand, Rohan's war against the Dunlendings, and the founding of Rohan's second line of kings. The protagonist seems to be Helm's daughter, named Hèra in the film, who Tolkien mentioned briefly but did not give a name. Philippa Boyens, who was heavily involved in Peter Jackson's adaptations of Lord of the Rings, is a producer on this project.
Poetic metre: I was thinking of the rhythm of the words - tum tum tumy tum/ tumty tumty tumty. Which I remember from my schooldays to have been a Latin verse form whose name I have forgotten. As I recollect, most or all of Bombadi's utterances fall into that rhythm. It gets irritating after a while.
Poetic metre: I was thinking of the rhythm of the words - tum tum tumy tum/ tumty tumty tumty. Which I remember from my schooldays to have been a Latin verse form whose name I have forgotten. As I recollect, most or all of Bombadi's utterances fall into that rhythm. It gets irritating after a while.
I think Bombadil's verse is trochaic tetrameter. This isn't a meter that's common in Latin verse (those favor dactylic hexameter), but it is found in Germanic and Scandinavian verse. David Dettman claims that Tolkien was riffing on the Finnish epic the Kalevala, advancing this argument in his essay Väinämöinen in Middle-earth: The Pervasive Presence of the Kalevala in the Bombadil Chapters of The Lord of the Rings.
Yes, I have read the Kalevala (in translation, of course) and I think you're right. The Kalevala fills the bill. It also, to my mind, fills the music of Sibelius, but that is another topic.
Bombadil's verse seems to be trochaic with the odd dactyl or spondee, and I'd say it's hexameter: three beats per half-line.
I had an errand there: gathering water lilies,
Green leaves and lilies white to please my pretty lady
I'm tempted just to call it sprung rhythm as in Hopkins.
(While dactylic hexameter was used in Latin epic verse and satire, much of Ovid outside the Metamorphoses is in elegiac couplets - one dactylic hexameter followed by a pentameter -, and Horace uses a wide variety of stanza forms in his odes.)
Sting was from the trolls' cave in The Hobbit, and wielded by Bilbo for the rest of that book. It was named by him after he killed his first giant spider. Frodo's first blade, which was from the barrow, melted away after he slashed at the chief Nazgul. Bilbo gave him Sting in Rivendell.
(It's interesting how many blades melt away only when someone looks at them. They're quantum blades, and that collapses the wave function.)
Comments
By all means, call it 'mental powers' if that makes you feel happier.
TurquoiseTastic may be on to something, though. Tolkien was a devout Catholic and wouldn't have wanted to create a world where just anybody was able to do magic... but calling on the power of God to work miracles fits right in with his worldview.
I also don't think that some people have the right to use magic and others don't fits Tolkien either: it seems like something Saruman would think and Galadriel reject. I think, as the earlier quote says, that examples of people not having the right to do things are rather examples of people being possessive and seeking power to bring about quick fixes.
The palantíri are an interesting example of this. They seem to "know" that they belong to the line of Elendil which is why they work better for Elendil's heirs (Aragorn) or their rightfully appointed deputies (Denethor) than they do for completely unrelated parties (Saruman, Pippin).
Yes, I rather like Tolkien's essay on this which is almost a "technical spec" for the palantiri. He particularly emphasises that Denethor was completely within his rights to make use of the Stone and "only expedience was against it".
Early 200s. His canonical age at death is 210. This is about the span of the later kings of Númenor and the kings of Arnor and the early kings of Gondor. It seems to be longer than the lifespans of his Dúnedain contemporaries.
I did not know this. I wonder if it works for the current royal family? I hope so.
The essence of homeopathy is that dilution makes the medicine stronger. Humans shed skin cells and so on naturally, so the space surrounding King Charles should surely contain increasingly dilute, and so increasingly potent, clouds of kingliness.
Oh dear. I’d trust the possibly supernatural King’s Touch before homeopathy any day of the week.
Harking back to the discussion up thread about Tom Bombadil, Old Tom will appear in season 2. For those interested, here’s a Vanity Fair article on him and his screen appearance: Tom Bombadil Finally Steps Forth in The Rings of Power—An Exclusive First Look.
I particularly liked this bit of the article: I’m interested to see him.
I quite enjoyed the first series. You just have to think about it as being a piece of slightly bizarre Tolkien fan fiction.
Etc etc
6. It was dull. I really wanted to like it - diverse cast, dwarf queens, etc etc - but it was just incredibly slow and took itself far too seriously. I gave up after about three episodes.
Bombadil's creation predates The Lord of the Rings, and even The Hobbit, having been invented by Tolkien in a 1934 poem. The original purpose was probably to amuse his children, not for any wider publication, much like The Hobbit itself. When tasked with coming up with a sequel to The Hobbit Tolkien started relentlessly mining his previously unpublished compositions for material. This included not only the Bombadil poem but also material from what would later become The Silmarillion. Of course decisions about tone and direction have to be made and the more material derived from The Silmarillion the less Bombadil fit in with general narrative tone.
Meanwhile, I may have said this when we discussed Tom Bombadil earlier, but I always thing of him as something akin to Melchizedek—coming out of nowhere, no explanation or backstory, and then disappearing from the narrative again, save a few passing references later.
I do think he adds do the general mythological/folklore vibe, where some things just are.
Bombadil also shows the hobbits that the Ring is not all-powerful.
They are all armoured from the barrow which makes a big difference.
Bombadil shows everyone that amidst the seriousness of the quest is not everything - that there can be a higher story. That there is bigger stories that are happy and carefree despite the seriousness of the current moment.
Bombadil is, for Tolkien, a personification of nature itself, a version of Silvanus. I note that he tends to speak in classical poetic metre.
No. Sting was used later in Moria and in Mordor. Frodo had no sword from the Barrow.
I think you may be confusing it with the barrow sword that Merry used to bring down the Witch-King at the Pelannor Fields.
This.
Each of our hobbit principals received a barrow blade, but not armor. I'm guessing that four hobbit-sized suits of armor in a tomb of Men would have been too much of a plot convenience.
That's from Fog on the Barrow-Downs (FotR, chapter 8). So yes, Merry's blade from the barrow down was used against the witch-king, but each of his companions had a similar blade.
Correct.
Thus the narrative requirement of replacement blade, Sting, supplied by Bilbo at Rivendell.
I don’t think I noticed the alliteration just now either speaking of poetic meter. And that kind of alliteration is very specifically some thing that turns up a lot in Anglo-Saxon/Old English poetry… sharp, Shire, dark, danger…
For those who are interested a trailer of this film was released today.
I think Bombadil's verse is trochaic tetrameter. This isn't a meter that's common in Latin verse (those favor dactylic hexameter), but it is found in Germanic and Scandinavian verse. David Dettman claims that Tolkien was riffing on the Finnish epic the Kalevala, advancing this argument in his essay Väinämöinen in Middle-earth: The Pervasive Presence of the Kalevala in the Bombadil Chapters of The Lord of the Rings.
I had an errand there: gathering water lilies,
Green leaves and lilies white to please my pretty lady
I'm tempted just to call it sprung rhythm as in Hopkins.
(While dactylic hexameter was used in Latin epic verse and satire, much of Ovid outside the Metamorphoses is in elegiac couplets - one dactylic hexameter followed by a pentameter -, and Horace uses a wide variety of stanza forms in his odes.)
(It's interesting how many blades melt away only when someone looks at them. They're quantum blades, and that collapses the wave function.)
Interesting observation!