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Post by artanaro on Jun 12, 2006 15:41:25 GMT -5
Letter 75
"Finnish was the original germ of the Silmarillion"
Letter 122
"Fafnir in the later Norse versions of the Sigurd story is better, and Smaug and his conversation obviously is in debt here"
It is mentioned several times that some have attributed a "Celtic beauty to the Silmarillion.
Letter 131
"The mere stories were the thing. They arose in my mind as 'given' things, and as they came, seperately, so too the links grew. An absorbing, though continually interrupted labor (especially since, even apart from the necessities of life, the mind would wing to the other pole and spend itself on the linguistics) : yet always I had the sense of recording what was already 'there', somewhere : not of 'inventing'
(speaking of the Valar) : " On the side of mere narrative device, this is, of course, meant to provide beings of the same order of beauty, power, and majesty as the 'gods' of higher mythology, which can yet be accepted - well, shall we say badly, by a mind that believes in the Blessed Trinity"
Comment : To me this seems like Tolkien tailored the Valar to be acceptable to the Christian mind. Therefore the original myths must have been different (the actual elven myths)
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Post by artanaro on Jun 12, 2006 16:30:36 GMT -5
"It moves then swiftly to the History of the Elves, or the Silmarillion proper; to the world as we perceive it, but of course transfigured in a still half - mythical mode : that is it deals with rational incarnate creatures of more or less comparable stature with our own. The Knowledge of the Creation Drama was incomplete : incomplete in each individual 'god', and incomplete if all the knowledge of the pantheon were pooled. For partly to redress the evil of the rebel Melkor, partly for the completion of all in an ultimate finesse of detail, the Creator had not revealed all . The making, and nature of the Children of God, were the two chief secrets. All that the gods knew was that they would come, at appointed times. The Children of God are thus primevally related and akin, and primevally different. Since also they are something wholly 'other' to the gods, in the making of which the gods played no part, they are the object of the special desire and love of the gods. These are the First-born, the Elves, and the Followers, Men. The doom of the Elves is to be immortal, to love the beauty of the world, to bring it to full flower with their gifts of delicacy and perfection, to last while it lasts, never leaving it even when 'slain', but returning - and yet, when the Followers come, to teach them, and make way for them, to 'fade' as the Followers grow and absorb the life from which both proceed. The Doom (or the Gift) of Men is mortality, freedom from the circles of the world. Since the point of view of the whole cycle is in the Elvish, mortality is not explained mythically ; it is a mystery of God of which no more is known than that 'what God has purposed for Men is hidden' : a grief and an envy to the immortal Elves " --Letter #131
This passage as a whole is extremely Christian in view point and does not feel like "the point of view of the Elves" as Tolkien puts it, or at least was not a point of view of my people.
The gods here do not make the elves and men which is interesting....more on that later
From the elven point of view they showed no signs of aging and subsequent death from aging which would lead them to suppose that their lifespan is as long as the lifespan of the earth. I think that was more of a figure of speech, not referring to their physical lifespan, but rather I feel it is a kenning expressing their respect and affinity for the community of life on this planet.
The limits of the physical lifespan is not known (at least not by me) as I know of no one in actual Elven form who lived since the rising of the Elven race.
Elves only started viewing their long lives as a doom when they came into contact with humans, as before that time they had no other biologically similar race to compare themselves to (or at
least they did not encounter any), this also was a result of foreign ideas infecting their minds. Before this idea infection, Elves viewed themselves as having a place within the web of life, and they saw the Men having a different role in the web of life and they did not experience envy of the human race. That is something that either happend as a result of human expansion and the resulting increased communication between elves and men as well as the decrease of population among elves.
All the information on the fate of men, is ungrounded speculation
Elves clearly believed in reincarnation where they would descend into the Underworld (Halls of Mandos, being one area of that) and await rebirth.
The Children of Eru concept was a way to explain the similarities and differences of the two races. It was figured, that if they could have fertile children, then they must come from the same place, which was conceived of as a Creator.
This story played no part in the original ideas of the Elves and was clearly a result of a long history of human and elven interaction and communication.
The followers grow and absorb the life from which both races proceed. ::: This is a characteristic way to describe the intensive spread of totalitarian agriculture, and so one of the reasons for the diminishing of the elves, is that they were forced out of their lands as more and more of the planet was converted into human biomass. Another Elven otherkin that I have spoken to has memories of Elves being hunted down and driven away, chased away, to the ends of the earth it seems (journey over the sea) and so some became assimilated via mating into the human population while others simply devised ways of hiding. Which could suggest that there are those elves in elven form still surviving somewhere on this planet.
The Mannish conception that they go beyond the circles of the world when they die is evidence of a salvationist and perhaps even a monotheistic religion among some groups of men, though it is unlikely that they would have developed a philosophy like that until the end of the Second Age, as men were tribal until the Agricultural revolution around 8000 BC. Man became more and more hierarchal as dependence solely on agriculture grew, this being a gradual process, with some groups of men abandoning agriculture altogether. now the events of the end of the Third Age happen around 4000 BC which means salvationism was budding among some groups around 7000 BC.
The dangerous thing about Tolkien, which also tainted the telling of the actual events of which he bases his fiction of, is the assumption, that the way things are now in OUR culture was the ways things were since the 'beginning' of time in nearly all cultures. This is hardly Tolkien's fault perse as he was a Christian and believed, as Christians do, that the humans were meant to build civilizations, and were created by God to be agriculturalists.
Archaeology tells us clearly that the first organized standing armies appear around 5000 BC.
An aside :" Cultures
c. 4800 - 4600 BC; arrangements of circular ditches are built in Central Europe
c. 4500 BC – Civilization of Susa and Kish in Mesopotamia and Khuzestan (see Sialk)
Cucuteni culture in Central Europe
the chalcolithic Sredny Stog, Samara and early Maykop cultures, candidates for the early Proto-Indo-Europeans "
This would make any reference to armies and such a purely modern conception, which is not necessarily shared by the people living at that time. This little bit of info drastically changes the story of what happend. A story that I intend to uncover, as these preliminary efforts show.
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Post by artanaro on Jun 12, 2006 16:49:28 GMT -5
An aside :" Cultures
c. 4800 - 4600 BC; arrangements of circular ditches are built in Central Europe
c. 4500 BC – Civilization of Susa and Kish in Mesopotamia and Khuzestan (see Sialk)
Cucuteni culture in Central Europe
the chalcolithic Sredny Stog, Samara and early Maykop cultures, candidates for the early Proto-Indo-Europeans "
4000 BC = 3019 TA
Civilization of Susa and Kish in Mesopotamia 4500 BC = 2516 TA
Heres the closest Tolkien event
2510 - The alliance between Rohan and Gondor comes into existence. The Easterlings launch a massive invasion of Gondor. The Balchoth invade Rhovanion (which disappears as an independent realm) and Gondor, conquering much of Calenardhon, but are driven back by the people of Éothéod; Gondor gives the now-uninhabited province of Calenardhon to the people of Éothéod
4800BC (arrangements of circular ditches found in Central Europe) - 2219 TA
this is between several events in Tolkien
2050 - The Witch-king again challenges King Eärnur, this time he accepts. Eärnur rides out of Minas Tirith to meet the Witch-King in Minas Morgul. He enters the city's gates and is never seen again, thus ending the reign of the Gondorian Kings and cuasing the beginning of the ruling Stewards of Gondor, until the time of King Elessar.
2430 - approximate birth year of Sméagol
2019 TA (5000 BC)
happens between two Tolkien events
1999 - Erebor is founded
2043 - King Eärnil II of Gondor dies and his son, the Witch-king's old enemy, Eärnur inherits the throne. Upon his coronation, the Witch-king challenges him to combat, but King Eärnur refuses.
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