Two questions about "Of Tuor and his coming to Gondolin"

[Rivendell_librarian]

1. This tale starts at page 19 in my edition. On page 27 it reads: "Tuor found often winding stairs cut in the living stone"
and I was curious why the stone is described as "living". There didn't seem to be any obvious reason in the context except for traces of the Noldor of old being found there.
"Living stone" has a Christian redolence but I don't think that's relevant to the meaning here except it may explain why Tolkien uses that precise phrase.

2. There is a sequence of seven gates that have to be passed to enter Gondolin. (Anyone remember Get Smart!) The sequence is wood, stone, bronze, iron, silver, gold and steel.
Was there any significance to this sequence of materials?

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

I always took No.1 to mean that the steps were cut into the existing stone, rather than constructed from stone brought there for the purpose.

As for No. 2, there is an increase in value, until we get to "steel" -- but of course, that could indicate Mithril.

 

[Rivendell_librarian]

A little bit of searching on this forum and elsewhere revealed:
Beyond the gates wide passages ran down to high halls and chambers far below that were hewn in the living stone, so many and so great that that dwelling was named Menegroth, the Thousand Caves
from chapter 10 of The Silmarillion: Of The Sindar.

However, I'm none the wiser about the use of the adjective "living" except maybe it is stone that has been cut in situ as you suggest.

Wood, stone, bronze, iron suggest prehistoric ages in time sequence (Woodhenge).
And bronze, silver and gold is a well known sequence of value but it was steel that threw me. Ok it's harder than gold but then isn't iron harder than silver of gold?

 

[Olorgando]

However, I'm none the wiser about the use of the adjective "living" except maybe it is stone that has been cut in situ as you suggest.

It may very well be a term used mostly in literature; I doubt geologists use it.

Prominent examples would be the city of Petra in modern-day Jordan, capital of the ancient Nabataean kingdom, or the rock-cut monolithic churches at Lalibela in Ethiopia. While Petra was carved horizontally into sheer cliffs, so to speak, for these Ethiopian churches the rock hewing first went down vertically, creating something like a large trench around a central monolith which was then hollowed out.

Such use of the term "living stone" might be related in some way to some concepts of "Gaia" which view the whole earth as a living organism.
So as long as the stone remained in situ, as you say, the stone remained "alive" (the rubble from the excavation would then obviously be "dead", as would be anything hewed from a quarry and transported elsewhere).

 

[Rivendell_librarian]

In the same tale there is (describing the walls of Mt Taras and Vinyamar):

The years had not shaken it, and the servants of Morgoth had passed it by; but wind and rain and frost had graven it, and upon the coping of its walls and the great shingles of its roof there was a deep growth of grey-green plants that, living upon the salt air, throve even in the cracks of barren stone.

Here the meaning seems to be tending to be barren of plant life

 

[Aldarion]

I always took No.1 to mean that the steps were cut into the existing stone, rather than constructed from stone brought there for the purpose.

As for No. 2, there is an increase in value, until we get to "steel" -- but of course, that could indicate Mithril.

Wood, stone, bronze, iron suggest prehistoric ages in time sequence (Woodhenge).
And bronze, silver and gold is a well known sequence of value but it was steel that threw me. Ok it's harder than gold but then isn't iron harder than silver of gold?

I always figured it is related to Ages of Man:

Ages of Man - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

"Wood, stone, bronze, iron, silver, gold and steel" could easily just mean the sequence in which materials become abundant: wood was the first building and tool-making material (apes with sticks eat termites). It was soon supplemented with stone (so Stone Age), which was then succeeded by the first metal age - the Bronze Age (though some place Copper Age between Stone Ages and Bronze Age). Bronze Age was succeeded by Iron Age. It is in Iron Age Anatolia that first coins appeared, and these were electrum alloy (gold and silver). Steel only appeared well after both silver and gold coinage was in widespread use.

Things do get to be a bit more complex. When it comes to tool-making, Iron Age should transcend directly into Steel Age. But we also have Hesod's "Gold, Silver, Bronze, Heroic, Iron" Ages. So after Iron you get basically Hesod's ages in reverse: Iron, Bronze, Silver, Gold. Question then is why the steel doors are the last? Is it that Tolkien ran out of metals, or didn't want gold (a symbol of both purity and corruption at once) to be the last gate? Or maybe Steel symbolizes the modern age?

Anyway, this is just throwing ideas. Tolkien may not have had any of this in his mind when writing gates of Gondolin, though it is likely he was familiar with Hesod.

EDIT:

A little bit of searching on this forum and elsewhere revealed:
Beyond the gates wide passages ran down to high halls and chambers far below that were hewn in the living stone, so many and so great that that dwelling was named Menegroth, the Thousand Caves
from chapter 10 of The Silmarillion: Of The Sindar.

However, I'm none the wiser about the use of the adjective "living" except maybe it is stone that has been cut in situ as you suggest.

For what it is worth, there is an expression in Croatian - "živa stijena" (literally "living stone"), with "isklesan u živoj stijeni" ("carved into living stone") basically refers to things such as Petra: not built from pieces of stone, but rather carved into the stone already there.

 

[Alcuin]

In Lord of the Rings there are citations of “living” used in this same sense as the “living stone” of the Noldor’s stairs along the coastlands south of Drengist. (p 159 in the book The Fall of Gondolin) Describing his battle against Durin’s Bane, Gandalf recalled, “We fought far under the living earth,” and the Endless Stair which “issued at last in Durin’s Tower carved in the living rock of Zirak-zigil.” (Two Towers, “White Rider”)

Also in Two Towers, “Road to Isengard”, narration describes the gates of Isengard as “so wrought and poised upon their huge hinges, posts of steel driven into the living stone, that when unbarred they could be moved with a light thrust of the arms.”

Return of the King, “Mount Doom”, narration describing the One Ring after Gollum bit off Frodo’s finger, which was still thrust through the Ring: “It shone now as if verily it was wrought of living fire.”

We have here four examples: “living earth”, “living rock”, “living stone”, “living fire”. I suppose the last, “living fire”, is easiest: frozen fire might be its opposite, but “living fire” indicates something burning. The phrase “living stone” appears in The Fall of Gondolin and is also the subject of Rivendell_librarian’s question: in this case, I think it means the steel posts of the Númenórean gates of Isengard were driven into the rock of the wall, which was (the phrase indicates, I think) a naturally occurring structure the Dúnedain shaped and used to their own purposes, namely to enclose the circle of Angrenost and the tower of Orthanc. The example “living rock” is nearly identical: Durin’s Tower was carved and shaped from the natural pinnacle of stone atop the Silvertine. In which case “living earth” means the natural formations beneath the earth, unshaped by the Balrog, the Dwarves, and possibly (probably) even the Nameless Things that gnawed the “living earth” at that great depth.

In short, “living stone” is neither unique to Fall of Gondolin nor a peculiar turn of phrase – for Tolkien, that is.

As for the steel gate, the seventh, last, and strongest of the Seven Gates of Gondolin, I tip my hat to Squint-eyed Southerner: perhaps they were made of mithril. But if they were of steel, we should recall that they were constructed by Maeglin before his capture and treason, when he was still loyal to his uncle, Turgon the King, meant to be the most beautiful, the mightiest, and most impressive of the Seven Gates: for when Tuor stepped through, he could see the city rising from Tumladen. The first six gates were already in place, and gold was used last: Maeglin needed something stronger, something resistant, something shiny, and steel is strong, resistant, and shiny: after all, it is in place for a martial purpose.