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- From: loos@frodo.mgh.harvard.edu (William D.B. Loos)
- Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien,alt.fan.tolkien,rec.answers,alt.answers,news.answers
- Subject: Tolkien: Frequently Asked Questions (1/2)
- Followup-To: rec.arts.books.tolkien,alt.fan.tolkien
- Date: 29 Mar 1994 11:38:11 GMT
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- Summary: Frequenty Asked Questions about the author J.R.R. Tolkien:
- questions commonly raised by the first reading of _The Hobbit_
- or _The Lord of the Rings_; details of the background mythology
- and invented history which relate directly to the stories;
- biographical matters.
- X-Last-Updated: 1994/03/29
- Originator: faqserv@bloom-picayune.MIT.EDU
- Xref: bloom-beacon.mit.edu rec.arts.books.tolkien:8472 alt.fan.tolkien:7921 rec.answers:4667 alt.answers:2259 news.answers:16979
-
- Archive-name: tolkien/faq/part1
- X-Last-Updated: 1994/03/28
-
- Posting Frequency: 28 days
-
-
-
-
- The Tolkien Frequently Asked Questions List (FAQ), is the first of
- two informational files on J.R.R. Tolkien and his writings, the other
- being the Less Frequently Asked Questions List (LessFAQ). The division
- of questions follows several general criteria. The FAQ leans towards
- questions of interest to people who have read only _The Lord of the
- Rings_ and _The Hobbit_, together with most questions on Tolkien himself
- and on topics which seem fundamental to his worldview (his linguistic
- games in particular). The LessFAQ contains questions of a more obscure
- nature, most questions arising from posthumous works, and in general
- aspects of the nature and history of Middle-earth which are important
- but tangential to _The Lord of the Rings_. There is also an element of
- personal arbitrariness. All available sources have been used for both
- lists. Criticisms, corrections, and suggestions are of course welcome.
-
- William D.B. Loos
- loos@frodo.mgh.harvard.edu
-
-
- ========================================================================
- ========================================================================
-
-
- TOLKIEN FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS LIST
-
-
- Questions numbered thusly: 1) are in their final form.
- Questions numbered thusly: 1] remain unrevised.
- Sections/questions marked: * have been revised since the last
- release.
- ** are new since the last release.
-
-
- Table of Contents
-
-
- I. Changes Since the Last Release (*)
-
- II. Acknowledgements
-
- III. Note on References and Conversion Table
-
- IV. Commonly Used Abbreviations
-
-
- V. Frequently Asked Questions
-
- A) Tolkien And His Work
- 1) Who was J.R.R. Tolkien anyway?
-
- 2) Were the languages presented in _The Lord of the Rings_ real
- languages?
- 3) What does it mean when people (or Tolkien himself) speak of him
- as having been the "editor" of _The Lord of the Rings_ ?
- 4) How thoroughly realized was Tolkien's fiction that he was the
- "translator" of _The Lord of the Rings_ ?
- 5) Why is Tolkien's work, _The Lord of the Rings_ in particular,
- so difficult to translate (into other languages of our world)?
-
- 6) Did the events in _The Lord of the Rings_ take place on another
- planet or what?
- 7) Was the northwest of Middle-earth, where the story takes place,
- meant to actually be Europe?
- 8) Was the Shire meant to be England?
-
- 9) What were the changes made to _The Hobbit_ after _The Lord of
- the Rings_ was written, and what motivated them?
-
- B) Hobbits
- 1) Were Hobbits a sub-group of Humans?
- 2) Did Hobbits have pointed ears?
- 3) When was Bilbo and Frodo's Birthday? To what date on our own
- calendar does it correspond?
- 4) Was Gollum a hobbit?
-
- C) Elves
- 1) Did Elves have pointed ears?
-
- D) Dwarves
- (*) 1) Did Dwarf women have beards?
-
- E) Istari (Wizards)
- 1] Who were the Istari (Wizards)?
- 2] Of the Five Wizards, only three came into the story. Was
- anything known about the other two?
- 3] What happened to Radagast?
-
- F) Enemies
- 1] What was the relationship between Orcs and Goblins?
-
- G) Miscellaneous
- 1] Who or what was Tom Bombadil?
- (*) 2) What became of the Entwives?
-
-
- ========================================================================
- ========================================================================
-
- CHANGES SINCE THE LAST RELEASE
-
- Starting with this release the Less Frequently Asked Questions
- List is abbreviated as "LessFAQ" rather than "LFAQ". The desire is that
- its abbreviation should match its archive name, which was chosen for the
- sake of clarity.
-
- The changes indicated in the Contents were those needed to bring
- various sections to their final form. Unless otherwise noted, questions
- marked as revised were changed by the addition of references and of
- contributors (and stylistically: some were to some extent re-written)
- but not in content.
-
- -- Question D (1) (beards of dwarf-women) has been somewhat expanded.
- -- Question G (2) (Entwives) has been substantially expanded.
-
-
- ========================================================================
- ========================================================================
-
- ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
-
- The following individuals made suggestions and contributions to these
- FAQ lists:
-
-
- Wayne.G.Hammond@williams.edu (Wayne Hammond Jr)
- carl@class.gsfc.nasa.gov (Carl F. Hostetter)
- paul@ERC.MsState.Edu (Paul Adams)
- wft@math.canterbury.ac.nz (Bill Taylor)
- cpresson@jido.b30.ingr.com (Craig Presson)
-
- simen.gaure@usit.uio.no (Simen Gaure)
- abalje47@uther.Calvin.EDU (Alan Baljeu)
- sahdra@ecf.toronto.edu (SAHDRA KULDIP)
- sherman@sol1.lrsm.upenn.edu (Bill Sherman)
- markg@mistral.rice.edu (Mark Gordon)
- hunt@oils.ozy.dec.com (Peter Hunt)
- rrosen@cesl.rutgers.edu (Robert Rosenbaum)
-
-
- ========================================================================
- ========================================================================
-
- NOTE ON REFERENCES
-
- There is a certain amount of cross-referencing among the questions
- on both the FAQ and the LessFAQ lists. Any questions so referred to are
- specified by the list, section, and question number. Thus, the first
- question in the Hobbit section of the FAQ, "Were Hobbits a sub-group of
- Humans?" would be referenced as (FAQ, Hobbits, 1). Note that the
- section "Tolkien And His Work" is referred to merely as "Tolkien" and
- the section "General History of Middle-earth" is referred to merely as
- "General". E.g. the question "Who was J.R.R. Tolkien anyway?" is (FAQ,
- Tolkien, 1) and the question "What exactly happened at the end of the
- First Age?" is (LessFAQ, General, 1).
-
- Sources for quotations have been provided in the form of volume
- and page numbers; the specific editions utilized are listed in the next
- paragraph. For those occasions when the proper edition is not available
- (and the conversion table below is not applicable) the page numbers have
- been roughly located according to chapter, sub-section, or appendix,
- whichever is appropriate. For example, RK, 57-59 (V, 2) refers to
- pages 57-59 of Return of the King and further locates the pages in
- chapter 2 of Book V. PLEASE NOTE the distinction in the case of _Lord
- of the Rings_ between *Volumes* and *Books*. LotR is comprised of three
- Volumes (FR, TT, and RK) and of six Books (I - VI), which are the more
- natural divisions of the story into six roughly equal parts. There are
- two Books in each of the Volumes. Other sample references are below.
-
- References to _The Hobbit_ are from the Ballantine paperback (the
- pagination has been the same since the 60's. All other references are
- to the HM hardcovers. Sample references follow:
-
- Hobbit, 83 (Ch V) == Hobbit, chapter V
-
- RK, 408 (App F, I, "Of Men", "Of Hobbits") ==
- p 408 in Part I of Appendix F, the sections
- entitled "Of Men" and "Of Hobbits"
-
- Silm, 57 (Ch V) == Silmarillion, chapter V (BoLT and _The
- Annotated Hobbit_ treated similarly)
-
- UT, 351 (Three, IV, iii) == Unfinished Tales, Part Three,
- Chapter IV, sub-section iii
- (the Biography treated similarly)
-
- Letters, 230 (#178) == letter number 178.
-
- RtMe, 53-54 (3, "Creative anachronisms") ==
- The Road to Middle-earth, in Chapter 3,
- sub-section "Creative anachronisms"
-
-
- CONVERSION TABLE
-
- In _The Atlas of Middle-earth_, Karen Wynn Fonstad provided a
- Houghton-Mifflin-to-Ballantine conversion table, which is reproduced
- below. The "table" is actually a set of formulae by which HM page
- numbers may be converted to Ballantine page numbers via arithmetic
- involving some empirically determined constants. Since these are
- discrete rather than continuous functions the results may be off by
- a page or so.
-
- [NOTE: in the Fall of 1993, Ballantine issued a new edition of the mass
- market paperback of LotR in which the text has been re-set, thereby
- changing the page on which any given quote is located. Thus, the
- following table will no longer work with the latest printings, which may
- be identified by the change in the color of the covers (the pictures are
- unaltered): in the previous set of printings all the covers were black;
- in the new set FR is green, TT is purple, and RK is red.]
-
- HM Page Subtract Divide By Add
- ------------- -------- --------- -------
- FR 10 to 423 9 .818 18
- TT 15 to 352 14 .778 16
- RK 19 to 311 18 .797 18
- RK 313 to 416 312 .781 386
- H 9 to 317 8 1.140 14
- Silm 15 to 365 14 .773 2
-
- Reference: Atlas, p. 191 (first edtion), p. 192 (revised edtion)
-
-
- ========================================================================
- ========================================================================
-
- COMMONLY USED ABBREVIATIONS
-
- General:
-
- JRRT J.R.R. Tolkien, John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
- CT, CJRT Christopher Tolkien (son; editor of most posthumous
- works)
-
- A&U, AU George Allen & Unwin (original British publisher)
- UH Unwin Hyman (new name for A&U c. 1987(?))
- HC HarperCollins (purchased UH c. 1992; current British
- publisher)
- HM Houghton Mifflin (American publisher)
-
- M-e Middle-earth
- SA Second Age
- TA Third Age
- SR Shire Reckoning
-
- Middle-earth Works:
-
- H The Hobbit
- LR, LotR The Lord of the Rings
- FR, FotR The Fellowship of the Ring
- TT, TTT The Two Towers
- RK, RotK The Return of the King
-
- TB, ATB The Adventures of Tom Bombadil
- RGEO The Road Goes Ever On
- Silm The Silmarillion
- UT Unfinished Tales
- Letters The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien
- HoMe History of Middle-earth
- BLT,BoLT Book of Lost Tales
- Lays The Lays of Beleriand
- Treason The Treason of Isengard
- Guide The Guide to the Names in the Lord of the Rings
- (published in _A Tolkien Compass_)
-
- Other Works:
-
- FGH Farmer Giles of Ham
- TL Tree and Leaf
- OFS On Fairy-Stories
- LbN Leaf by Niggle
- HBBS The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth, Beorhthelm's Son
- SWM Smith of Wootton Major
- SGPO Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, Sir Orfeo
- FCL The Father Christmas Letters
-
- Reference Works:
-
- Biography J.R.R. Tolkien: A Biography; by Humphrey Carpenter
- (published in the US as Tolkien: A Biography)
- Inklings The Inklings: C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Charles
- Williams, and Their Friends; by Humphrey Carpenter
- RtMe The Road to Middle-earth; by T.A. Shippey
- Scholar J.R.R. Tolkien, Scholar and Storyteller: Essays in
- Memoriam; edited by Mary Salu and Robert T. Farrell
- Atlas The Atlas of Middle-earth; by Karen Wynn Fonstad
-
-
- ========================================================================
- ========================================================================
-
-
- TOLKIEN AND HIS WORK
-
- 1) Who was J.R.R. Tolkien anyway?
-
- John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, Englishman, scholar, and storyteller
- was born of English parents at Bloemfontein, South Africa on Jan. 3,
- 1892 and died in England on Sept. 2, 1973. His entire childhood was
- spent in England, to which the family returned permenantly in 1896
- upon the death of his father. He received his education at King
- Edward's School, St. Philip's Grammar School, and Oxford University.
- After graduating in 1915 he joined the British army and saw action in
- the Battle of the Somme. He was eventually discharged after spending
- most of 1917 in the hospital suffering from "trench fever". [It was
- during this time that he began The Book of Lost Tales.]
-
- Tolkien was a scholar by profession. His academic positions were:
- staff member of the New English Dictionary (1918-20); Reader, later
- Professor of English Language at Leeds, 1920-25; Rawlinson and Bosworth
- Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford (1925-45); and Merton Professor of
- English Language and Literature (1945-59). His principal professional
- focus was the study of Anglo-Saxon (Old English) and its relation to
- linguistically similar languages (Old Norse, Old German, and Gothic),
- with special emphasis on the dialects of Mercia, that part of England
- in which he grew up and lived, but he was also interested in Middle
- English, especially the dialect used in the _Ancrene Wisse_ (a twelfth
- century manuscript probably composed in western England). Moreover,
- Tolkien was an expert in the surviving literature written in these
- languages. Indeed, his unusual ability to simultaneously read the
- texts as linguistic sources and as literature gave him perspective
- into both aspects; this was once described as "his unique insight at
- once into the language of poetry and the poetry of language" (from
- the Obituary; Scholar, p. 13).
-
- From an early age he had been fascinated by language, particularly
- the languages of Northern Europe, both ancient and modern. From this
- affinity for language came not only his profession but also his private
- hobby, the invention of languages. He was more generally drawn to the
- entire "Northern tradition", which inspired him to wide reading of its
- myths and epics and of those modern authors who were equally drawn to
- it, such as William Morris and George MacDonald. His broad knowledge
- inevitably led to the development of various opinions about Myth, its
- relation to language, and the importance of Stories, interests which
- were shared by his friend C.S. Lewis. All these various perspectives:
- language, the heroic tradition, and Myth and Story (and a very real
- and deeply-held belief in and devotion to Catholic Christianity) came
- together with stunning effect in his stories: first the legends of the
- Elder Days which served as background to his invented languages, and
- later his most famous works, _The Hobbit_ and _The Lord of the Rings_.
-
-
- References: Biography; Letters; RtMe (esp. ch 1, on philology);
- Inklings; Scholar.
-
- Contributors: WDBL, Wayne Hammond Jr
-
- ----------
-
-
- 2) Were the languages presented in _The Lord of the Rings_ real
- languages?
-
- Most certainly they were, especially the Elven languages Sindarin
- and Quenya. "[These were] no arbitrary gibberish but really possible
- tongues with consistent roots, sound laws, and inflexions, into which
- he poured all his imaginative and philological powers..." (Obituary,
- in Scholar, p. 12). Furthermore, they were both derived from a
- "proto-Elvish" language, again in a linguistically realistic manner.
- [Sindarin was the "everyday" elvish language while Quenya was a kind
- of "elf-latin"; therefore, most Elvish words in LotR were Sindarin.
- Examples: most "non-English" (see FAQ, Tolkien, 4) place-names on the
- map (e.g. Minas Tirith, Emyn Beriad) were Sindarin, as was the song
- to Elbereth sung in Rivendell; Galadriel's lament was in Quenya.]
-
- The language of the Rohirrim *was* a real language: Anglo-Saxon
- (Old English), just as their culture (except for the horses) was that
- of the Anglo-Saxons. (It was, however, not the "standard" West Saxon
- Old English but rather the Mercian equivalent (RtMe, 94).) Most of
- the other languages in LotR were much less fully developed: Entish,
- Khudzul (Dwarvish) and the Black Speech (the language of Mordor, e.g.
- the Ring inscription). Adunaic, the language of Numenor, developed in
- 1946 while he was finishing up LotR, was said to be his fifteenth
- invented language.
-
-
- References: Biography, 35-37 (II,3), 93-95 (III,1), 195 (V,2);
- Letters, 175-176 (#144), 219 (footnote) (#165), 380 (#297);
- RtMe, 93 (4, "The horses of the Mark");
- Scholar, 12 (Obituary).
-
- Contributor: WDBL
-
- ----------
-
-
- 3) What does it mean when people (or Tolkien himself) speak of him as
- having been the "editor" of _The Lord of the Rings_ ?
-
- The fiction Tolkien sought to maintain was that _The Lord of the
- Rings_ (and _The Hobbit_ and the Silmarillion) were actually ancient
- manuscripts (written by Frodo and Bilbo, respectively) of which he was
- merely the editor and translator (a situation identical to much of his
- scholarly work). He never stated this directly but it is implicit in
- the way in which many sections of LoTR outside the story are written.
- Thus, the Prologue is plainly written as though by a modern editor
- describing an ancient time. Other examples are the introductory note
- to the revised edition of _The Hobbit_, the Preface to _The Adventures
- of Tom Bombadil_, and parts of the Appendices, especially the intro-
- ductory note to Appendix A, Appendix D, and Appendix F. Most inter-
- esting of all is the Note on the Shire Records, where Tolkien further
- simulates a real situation by inventing a manuscript tradition (the
- suggestion was that Frodo's original manuscript didn't survive but
- that a series of copies had been made, one of which had come into
- Tolkien's hands).
-
- This entire notion was by no means a new idea: many authors have
- pretended that their fantasies were "true" stories of some ancient
- time. Few, however, have done so as thoroughly and successfully as
- did Tolkien. The most effective component of his pretense was the
- linguistic aspects of Middle-earth, for he was uniquely qualified to
- pose as the "translator" of the manuscripts (see FAQ, Tolkien, 4).
-
-
- References: introductory note to _The Hobbit_ (precedes Ch I);
- FR, Prologue, Note on the Shire Records;
- RK, Appendix A, Appendix D, Appendix F;
- ATB, Preface.
-
- Contributor: WDBL
-
- ----------
-
-
- 4) How thoroughly realized was Tolkien's fiction that he was the
- "translator" of _The Lord of the Rings_ ?
-
- Very thoroughly indeed. The scenario was that "of course" hobbits
- couldn't have spoken English (the story took place far in the past --
- see FAQ, Tolkien, 6); rather, they spoke their own language, called
- Westron (but often referred to as the Common Speech). Tolkien "trans-
- lated" this language into English, which included "rendering" all the
- Common Speech place-names into the equivalent English place-names.
- The object of the exercise was to produce the following effect: names
- in the Common Speech (which were familiar to the hobbits) were
- "rendered" into English (in which form they would be familiar to us,
- the English-speaking readers); names in other languages (usually
- Sindarin) were "left alone", and thus were equally unfamiliar to the
- hobbits and to us. Since the story was told largely from the hobbits'
- point of view, that we should share their linguistic experience is a
- desirable result (especially for Tolkien, who was unusually sensitive
- to such matters).
-
- In portraying the linguistic landscape of Middle-earth he carried
- this procedure much further. The main example was his "substitution"
- of Anglo-Saxon for Rohirric. The "rationale" was that the hobbits'
- dialect of Westron was distantly related to Rohirric; therefore, when
- hobbits heard Rohirric they recognized many words but the language
- nevertheless remained just beyond understanding (RK, 65 (V,3)). Thus,
- Tolkien attempted to further "duplicate" hobbit linguistic perceptions
- by "substituting" that language of our world (Anglo-Saxon) which has
- (more-or-less) the same relation to English that Rohirric had to the
- hobbit version of Westron.
-
- There were many other nuances in the intricate and subtle linguis-
- tic web he devised (always, he carefully explained, in the interests
- of "reproducing" the linguistic map of Middle-earth in a way that
- could be easily assimilated by modern English-speaking readers). Thus:
-
- a) Archaic English roots were used in those Common Speech place-
- names which were given long before the time of the story (e.g.
- Tindrock, Derndingle; see Guide).
-
- b) Some of the Stoors (who later settled in Buckland and the Marish)
- dwelt in Dunland at one time (Tale of Years, entries for TA 1150
- and 1630 (RK, App B)); the men of Bree also came from that region
- originally (RK, 408 (App F, I, "Of Men", "Of Hobbits")). "Since
- the survival of traces of the older language of the Stoors and the
- Bree-men resembled the survival of Celtic elements in England"
- (RK, 414 (App F, II)), the place-names in Bree were Celtic in
- origin (Bree, Archet, Chetwood) (see also Guide). Similarly, the
- names of the Buckland hobbits were Welsh (e.g. Madoc, Berilac).
-
- c) Among hobbits some of the older Fallohide families liked to give
- themselves high-sounding names from the legendary past (an example
- of hobbit humor). Tolkien "represented" such names by names of
- Frankish or Gothic origin (Isengrim, Rudigar, Fredegar, Peregrin).
-
- These matters and much else is explained in detail in Appendix F.
-
-
- References: RK, Appendix F;
- Guide;
- Letters, 174-176 (#144), 380-381 (#297);
- RtMe, 88-89 (4, "Stars, shadows, cellar-doors: patterns
- of language and of history").
-
- Contributor: WDBL
-
- ----------
-
-
- 5) Why is Tolkien's work, _The Lord of the Rings_ in particular, so
- difficult to translate (into other languages of our world)?
-
- Because his interest in, skill with, and love of language are man-
- ifest at every level and indeed in almost every word of LotR, thereby
- producing a result difficult if not impossible to duplicate.
-
- The previous question describes how Common Speech names were
- "rendered" into English. The Guide to the Names in _The Lord of the
- Rings_, Tolkien's instructions for translators, does attempt to
- address this. In it he goes down the list of names in the index and
- specifies which should be translated (being Common Speech) and which
- should be left alone. It would require skillful translation to get
- even this far, but that would only be the beginning. Reproducing the
- other linguistic intricacies described in the previous question would
- be well-nigh impossible; for example, Rohirric would have to be
- replaced with some ancient language whose relation to the language of
- translation was the same as that of Anglo-Saxon to modern English.
-
- On another level, there is the diction and style of everything
- said and told. The language used has a strong archaic flavor; it is
- not an exact recreation of how Anglo-Saxon or medieval people actually
- spoke but rather is as close an approximation as he could achieve and
- still remain intelligible to modern readers. This was not accidental
- but rather was deliberately and carefully devised. (See Letters,
- 225-226 (#171)).
-
- There were, moreover, variations in the style in which characters
- of different backgrounds spoke the Common Speech ("represented" as
- English) (e.g. at the Council of Elrond, FR, II, 2; see also RtMe
- 90-93). There were variations in the style of individual characters
- at different times (RK, 412 (App F, II)). There was even an attempt
- to indicate a distinction between familiar and deferential forms of
- pronouns (which doesn't exist in modern English) by use of the archaic
- words "thee" and "thou" (RK, 411 (App F, II); for an example, see the
- scene with Aragorn and Eowyn at Dunharrow, RK, 57-59 (V, 2)).
-
- Finally, there was Tolkien's poetry, which was often far more
- complicated than it appeared, and which in many cases is very probably
- untranslatable. (The extreme case is Bilbo's Song of Earendil, FR,
- 246-249 (II,1); T.A. Shippey has identified five separate metrical
- devices in this poem: RtMe, 145-146).
-
-
- References: RK, Appendix F, 57-59 (V, 2);
- FR, "The Council of Elrond" (II, 2), 246-249 (II,1);
- Guide;
- Letters, 225-226 (#171), 250-251 (#190) [on the Dutch
- translation], 263 (#204) [on the Swedish translation];
- RtMe, 90-93 (4, "'The Council of Elrond'"),
- 145-146 (6, "the elvish tradition").
-
- Contributor: WDBL
-
- ----------
-
-
- 6) Did the events in _The Lord of the Rings_ take place on another
- planet or what?
-
- No. Tolkien's intention was that was that Middle-earth was our
- own world, though his way of stating this idea was somewhat unusual:
- he spoke of having created events which took place in an *imaginary
- time* of a real place. He made this fully explicit only in Letters,
- but there were two very strong indications in the published _Lord of
- the Rings_, though both were outside the narrative.
-
- The first was in the Prologue. It is there stated: "Those days,
- the Third Age of Middle-earth, are now long past, and the shape of all
- lands has been changed; but the regions in which Hobbits then lived
- were doubtless the same as those in which they still linger: the
- North-West of the Old World, east of the Sea." (FR, 11). Since no
- other reference is made to this matter either in the Prologue or in
- the main narrative, it makes little impression on most readers, but
- is clear enough once pointed out.
-
- The second was in Appendix D, which presents lore on calendars in
- Middle-earth. The discussion begins as follows:
-
- The Calendar in the Shire differed in several features from ours.
- The year no doubt was of the same length (*), for long ago as those
- times are now reckoned in years and lives of men, they were not very
- remote according to the memory of the Earth.
-
- (*) 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, 46 seconds.
- (RK, 385 (App D))
-
- The quote is clear enough in and of itself, but that the year length
- specified in the footnote is the precise length of our own year must
- surely remove all doubt.
-
- There follow excerpts from three letters wherein the matter is
- further discussed.
-
- 'Middle-earth', by the way, is not a name of a never-never land
- without relation to the world we live in .... And though I have not
- attempted to relate the shape of the mountains and land-masses to
- what geologists may say or surmise about the nearer past, imagina-
- tively this 'history' is supposed to take place in a period of the
- actual Old World of this planet.
- Letters, 220 (#165)
-
- I am historically minded. Middle-earth is not an imaginary
- world. ... The theatre of my tale is this earth, the one in which
- we now live, but the historical period is imaginary. The essentials
- of that abiding place are all there (at any rate for inhabitants of
- N.W. Europe), so naturally it feels familiar, even if a little
- glorified by the enchantment of distance in time.
- Letters, 239 (#183)
-
- ... I hope the, evidently long but undefined, gap(*) in time between
- the Fall of Barad-dur and our Days is sufficient for 'literary cred-
- ibility', even for readers acquainted with what is known or surmised
- of 'pre-history'.
-
- I have, I suppose, constructed an imaginary *time*, but kept my
- feet on my own mother-earth for *place*. I prefer that to the con-
- temporary mode of seeking remote globes in 'space'. However curious,
- they are alien, and not lovable with the love of blood-kin. Middle-
- earth is ... not my own invention. It is a modernization or
- alteration ... of an old word for the inhabited world of Men, the
- _oikoumene_ : middle because thought of vaguely as set amidst the
- encircling Seas and (in the northern-imagination) between ice of the
- North and the fire of the South. O. English _middan-geard_ ,
- mediaeval E. _midden-erd_, _middle-erd_ . Many reviewers seem to
- assume that Middle-earth is another planet!
- Letters, 283 (#211)
-
- The footnote in the first sentence of the last-quoted excerpt offers
- a fascinating insight:
-
- (*) 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.
- Letters, 283 (#211)
-
- A final note is that not only is the place our own world but also the
- people inhabiting it are ourselves, morally as well as physically:
-
- ... I have not made any of the peoples on the 'right' side, Hobbits,
- Rohirrim, Men of Dale or of Gondor, any better than men have been or
- are, or can be. Mine is not an 'imaginary' world, but an imaginary
- historical moment on 'Middle-earth' -- which is our habitaion.
- Letters, 244 (#183)
-
-
- References: FR, 11 (Prologue);
- RK, 385 (Appendix D);
- Letters, 220 (#165), 239, 244 (#183), 283 (#211).
-
- Contributors: WDBL, Carl F. Hostetter, Bill Taylor
-
-