The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien (53 page)

Ar-Pharazôn, as is told in the ‘Downfall' or
Akallabêth
, conquered a terrified Sauron's
subjects,
not Sauron. Sauron's personal ‘surrender' was voluntary and cunning
^fn71
: he got free transport to Númenor! He naturally had the One Ring, and so very soon dominated the minds and wills of most of the Númenóreans. (I do not think Ar-Pharazôn knew anything about the One Ring. The Elves kept the matter of the Rings very secret, as long as they could. In any case Ar-Pharazôn was not in communication with them. In the
Tale of Years
III p. 364 you will find hints of the trouble: ‘the Shadow falls on Númenor'. After
Tar-Atanamir
(an Elvish name) the next name is
Ar-Adûnakhôr
a Númenórean name. See p. 315.
²
The change of names went with a complete rejection of the Elf-friendship, and of the ‘theological' teaching the Númenóreans had received from them.)

Sauron was first defeated by a ‘miracle': a direct action of God the Creator, changing the fashion of the world, when appealed to by
Manwë: see III p. 317. Though reduced to ‘a spirit of hatred borne on a dark wind', I do not think one need boggle at this spirit carrying off the One Ring, upon which his power of dominating minds now largely depended. That Sauron was not himself destroyed in the anger of the One is not my fault: the problem of evil, and its apparent toleration, is a permanent one for all who concern themselves with our world. The indestructibility of
spirits
with free wills, even by the Creator of them, is also an inevitable feature, if one either believes in their existence, or feigns it in a story.

Sauron was, of course, ‘confounded' by the disaster, and diminished (having expended enormous energy in the corruption of Númenor). He needed time for his own bodily rehabilitation, and for gaining control over his former subjects. He was attacked by Gil-galad and Elendil before his new domination was fully established.

Question 3. I have not named the colours, because I do not know them.
³
I doubt if they had distinctive colours. Distinction was only required in the case of the three who remained in the relatively small area of the North-west. (On the
names
see Q[uestion]5.) I really do not know anything clearly about the other two – since they do not concern the history of the N.W. I think they went as emissaries to distant regions, East and South, far out of Númenórean range: missionaries to ‘enemy-occupied' lands, as it were. What success they had I do not know; but I fear that they failed, as Saruman did, though doubtless in different ways; and I suspect they were founders or beginners of secret cults and ‘magic' traditions that outlasted the fall of Sauron.

Question 4. I do not know the detail of clothing. I visualize with great clarity and detail scenery and ‘natural' objects, but not artefacts. Pauline Baynes drew her inspiration for
F. Giles
largely from mediæval MS. drawings – except for the knights (who are a bit ‘King-Arthurish')
^fn72
the style seems to fit well enough. Except that males, especially in northern parts such as the Shire, would wear breeches, whether hidden by a cloak or long mantle, or merely accompanied by a tunic.

I have no doubt that in the area envisaged by my story (which is large) the ‘dress' of various peoples, Men and others, was much diversified in the Third Age, according to climate, and inherited custom. As was our world, even if we only consider Europe and the Mediterranean and the very near ‘East' (or South), before the victory in our time of the least lovely style of dress (especially for males and ‘neuters') which recorded history reveals – a victory that is still going on, even among those who most hate the lands of its origin. The Rohirrim were not ‘mediaeval', in
our sense. The styles of the Bayeux Tapestry (made in England) fit them well enough, if one remembers that the kind of tennis-nets [the] soldiers seem to have on are only a clumsy conventional sign for chain-mail of small rings.

The Númenóreans of Gondor were proud, peculiar, and archaic, and I think are best pictured in (say) Egyptian terms. In many ways they resembled ‘Egyptians' – the love of, and power to construct, the gigantic and massive. And in their great interest in ancestry and in tombs. (But not of course in ‘theology': in which respect they were Hebraic and even more puritan – but this would take long to set out: to explain indeed why there is practically no overt ‘religion',
^fn73
or rather religious acts or places or ceremonies among the ‘good' or anti-Sauron peoples in
The Lord of the Rings
.) I think the crown of Gondor (the S. Kingdom) was very tall, like that of Egypt, but with wings attached, not set straight back but at an angle.

 

The N. Kingdom had only a
diadem
(III 323). Cf. the difference between the N. and S. kingdoms of Egypt.

El
. Difficult to distinguish ‘star' and ‘elf', since they are derivatives of the same basic element EL ‘star'; as the first element in compounds
el
- may mean (or at least symbolize) either. As a separate word ‘star' was
^fn74
ělěn
, plural
^*
elenī
in primitive Elvish. The Elves were called
‘an Elf' (High-elven
Elda
) because they were found by the Vala
Oromë
in a valley under the star-light; and they remained always lovers of the stars. But this name became specially attached to those that eventually marched West guided by Oromë (and mostly passed Oversea).

The Grey-elven (Sindarin) forms should have been
êl
, pl.
elin
; and
eledh
(pl.
elidh
). But the latter term passed out of use among the Grey-elves (Sindar) who did not go over Sea; though it remained in some proper-names as
Eledhwen,
‘Elven-fair'. After the return in exile of the Noldor (part of the High-elves), the High-elven
elda
was taken over again by the Grey-elves as
eld>ell
, and referred to the High-elven exiles. This is, no doubt, the origin of
el, ell-
in such names as
Elrond, Elros, Elladan, Elrohir.

Elrond, Elros.
^*
rondō
was a prim[itive] Elvish word for ‘cavern'. Cf.
Nargothrond
(fortified cavern by the R. Narog),
Aglarond,
etc.
^*
rossē
meant ‘dew, spray (of fall or fountain)'.
Elrond
and
Elros
, children of
Eärendil
(sea-lover) and
Elwing
(Elf-foam), were so called, because they were carried off by the sons of Fëanor, in the last act of the feud between the high-elven houses of the Noldorin princes concerning the Silmarils; the Silmaril rescued from Morgoth by Beren and Lúthien, and given to King Thingol Lúthien's father, had descended to Elwing dtr. of Dior, son of Lúthien. The infants were not slain, but left like ‘babes in the wood', in a cave with a fall of water over the entrance. There they were found: Elrond within the cave, and Elros dabbling in the water.
⁴

Elrohir, Elladan:
these names, given to his sons by Elrond, refer to the fact that they were ‘half-elven' (III 314): they had mortal as well as Elvish ancestors on
both
sides; Tuor on their father's side, Beren on their mother's. Both signify
elf+man. Elrohir
might be translated ‘Elf-knight';
rohir
being a later form (III 391) of
rochir
‘horse-lord' from
roch
‘horse'+
hir
‘master': Prim. Elvish
rokkō
and
khēr
or
kherū
: High-elven
rocco, hēr
(
hĕru
).
Elladan
might be translated ‘Elf-Númenórean'.
Adan
(pl.
Edain
) was the Sindarin form of the name given to the ‘fathers of men', the members of the Three Houses of Elf-friends, whose survivors afterwards became the Númenóreans, or
Dún-edain
.

Legolas
means ‘green-leaves', a woodland name – dialectal form of pure Sindarin
laegolas:
^*
lassē
(High-elven
lasse,
S.
las(s))
‘leaf';
^*
gwalassa/
^*
gwa-lassiē
‘collection of leaves, foliage' (H.E.
olassiē
, S.
golas, -olas
);
^*
laikā
‘green' – basis LAY as in
laire
‘summer' (H. E.
laica,
S.
laeg
(seldom used, usually replaced by
calen
), woodland
leg
).

Pterodactyl
. Yes and no. I did not intend the steed of the Witch-King to be what is now called a ‘pterodactyl', and often is drawn (with rather less shadowy evidence than lies behind many monsters of the new and fascinating semi-scientific mythology of the ‘Prehistoric'). But obviously it is
pterodactylic
and owes much to the new mythology, and its description even provides a sort of way in which it could be a last survivor of older geological eras.
⁵

Question 5. Manwë, husband of Varda; or in Grey-elven Manwë and Elbereth. Since the Valar had no language of their own, not needing one, they had no ‘true' names, only identities, and their names were conferred on them by the Elves, being in origin therefore all, as it were, ‘nicknames', referring to some striking peculiarity, function, or deed. (The same is true of the ‘Istari' or Wizards who were emissaries of the Valar, and of their kind.) In consequence each identity had several ‘nicknames'; and the names of the Valar were not necessarily related in different Elvish languages (or languages of Men deriving their knowledge from Elves). (
Elbereth
and
Varda
‘Star-lady' and ‘Lofty' are not
related words, but refer to the same person.) Manwë (Blessed Being) was Lord of the Valar, and therefore the high or Elder King of Arda.
Arda
‘realm' was the name given to our world or earth, as being the place, within the immensity of Eä, selected to be the seat and special domain of the King – because of his knowledge that the Children of God would appear there. In the cosmogonic myth Manwe is said to be ‘brother' of Melkor, that is they were coeval and equipotent in the mind of the Creator. Melkor became the rebel, and the Diabolos of these tales, who disputed the kingdom of Arda with Manwë. (He was usually called
Morgoth
in Grey-elven.)

The One does not physically inhabit any part of Eä.

May I say that all this is ‘mythical', and not any kind of new religion or vision. As far as I know it is merely an imaginative invention, to express, in the only way I can, some of my (dim) apprehensions of the world. All I can say is that, if it were ‘history', it would be difficult to fit the lands and events (or ‘cultures') into such evidence as we possess, archaeological or geological, concerning the nearer or remoter part of what is now called Europe; though the Shire, for instance, is expressly stated to have been in this region (I p. 12).
⁶
I could have fitted things in with greater versimilitude, if the story had not become too far developed, before the question ever occurred to me. I doubt if there would have been much gain; and I hope the, evidently long but undefined, gap
^fn75
in time between the Fall of Barad-dûr and our Days is sufficient for ‘literary credibility', 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 contemporary mode of seeking remote globes in ‘space'. However curious, they are alien, and not lovable with the love of blood-kin.
Middle-earth
is (by the way & if such a note is necessary) not my own invention. It is a modernization or alteration (N[ew] E[nglish] D[ictionary] ‘a perversion') of an old word for the inhabited world of Men, the
oikoumenē
: 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
, mediæval E.
midden-erd, middle-erd
. Many reviewers seem to assume that Middle-earth is another planet!