The 👑King of all Birds?

[baragund]

The following passage in Chapter VII, "Queer Lodgings" piqued my curiosity:

And though the Lord of the Eagles became in after days the King of All Birds and wore a golden crown, and his fifteen chieftains golden collars (made of the gold that the dwarves gave them), Bilbo never saw them again..."

Can anybody give me the story behind this? What does Tolkien mean by "after days"? What exactly is "King of All Birds"? Is there any background on the "fifteen chieftains"?

 

[YayGollum]

The story behind it ---> The Dwarves from The Hobbit got superly and achingly rich again after getting the Lonely Mountain back. They remembered the eagles helping them out and decided to repay them by tossing cool treasure type stuffs at them.

After days ---> The days after the stuff that happened in The Hobbit.

King of All Birds ---> How is that not self-explanatory?

Background on the fifteen chieftains ---> Haven't seen it. oh well. I would think that it's talking about fifteen other important type giant eagles. Silly me.

 

[Theoden_king]

If I remember correctly the 15 chieftains were the guards of the lord of the eagles.

The eagles were given gold in repayment for helping Gandalf, Bilbo and the dwarves when they were stuck in the trees surrounded by goblins and wargs and for helping in the battle of the five armies.

 

[baragund]

Yay, at first it seems straightforward, but in LOTR there were certainly birds that worked for the bad guys, Sauron and Saruman. So how far "after" are we talking about with the "after days"?

 

[Gandalf White]

The Eagles never worked for Sauron or Saruman, just to be clear on that point. They were aloof for the most part.

 

[Theoden_king]

There were birds working for Saruman and Sauron but no eagles

 

[FrankSinatra]

The birds which worked for Saruman and Sauron were mostly carrion fowl.

I dont think the eagles fall into either category as 'good' or 'bad', this is one of the vast differences between Tolkiens works and other fantasy novels, in other novels EVERYONE is either 'good' or 'bad'.

 

[baragund]

Ahhhh, I think everyone is starting to see what has me scratching my head. The quote from The Hobbit says that the Lord of the Eagles became king of all birds, not just eagles, and including carrion fowl.

 

[YayGollum]

I still don't get what the big deal is. There's no way we can really find out how long it took for these eagles to come up with the title you're talking about. What's the big deal with some birds that help out the evil type dudes? just because one eagle says he gets to tell you what to do doesn't mean that all birds will pay attention to him.

 

[Inderjit S]

'The Hobbit' was written at a point in which most of the ideas about M-E, such as LoTR were non-existent and the prose Quenta Silmarillion was just being begun, and though it did take some points from the Lost Tales legendarium, such as the repeated references to Gondolin, it had nothing to do with a barely conceived M-E. So, so what if there are a few statements that make little or no sense in the latter context? What about Elrond thinking that the Runes were of Dwarvish origin, and bear in mind that Elrond was latter said to be a loremaster , when it was rather well known that the Runes that they used were taken from the Daeronic/Feanorian script. Or what about Gandalf's statement that the 'White Wizards' drove the Necromancer out of Dol Guludur, heck in the original version of 'The Hobbit' Gollum gave the ring to Bilbo.....

 

[Tar-Elenion]

Originally posted by Inderjit S
...so what if there are a few statements that make little or no sense in the latter context? What about Elrond thinking that the Runes were of Dwarvish origin, and bear in mind that Elrond was latter said to be a loremaster , when it was rather well known that the Runes that they used were taken from the Daeronic/Feanorian script.

Elrond did not actually say that; what he said was:
""Moon-letters are rune-letters, but you cannot see them," said Elrond, "not when you look straight at them. They can only be seen when the moon shines behind them, and what is more, with the more cunning sort it must be a moon of the same shape and season as the day when they were written. The dwarves invented them and wrote them with silver pens, as your friends could tell you. These must have been written on a midsummer's eve in a crescent moon, a long while ago.""

The Dwarves are said, by Elrond, to have invented the 'Moon-letters', not the runes themselves.

 

[baragund]

Hmmmm....this seems just like Bilbo in "Riddles in the Dark" where he asked Gollum the eggs riddle. I thought this was going to be pretty easy for somebody, but it seems to be turning into quite a poser.

Yay, there is no big deal here, but it seems that something must have happened to give the Lord of the Eagles the chutzpah to call himself King of All Birds. It seems to me that JRRT had something more in mind than just simple monetary reward from the dwarves when he described the golden crown and all that.

Inderjit, I'll defer to the folks who are experts in the HOME series but I believe The Hobbit was first published in 1938 or so. By this time he had been writing about ME for over 20 years, he had at least two drafts of The Silmarillion, and he had LOTR developed past outline stage and was working on the details. Tar-Elenion gave a thorough explanation of the runes thing. As for the "white wizards" reference, that is simply another term for the White Council put in terms that would better suit The Hobbit being primarily a children's book.

I'm only about half way through The Book of Lost Tales, Vol. 1 but I'll bet that somewhere in the HOME series there is some kind of explanation.

 

[Ithrynluin]

Originally posted by FrankSinatra
The birds which worked for Saruman and Sauron were mostly carrion fowl.

I dont think the eagles fall into either category as 'good' or 'bad', this is one of the vast differences between Tolkiens works and other fantasy novels, in other novels EVERYONE is either 'good' or 'bad'.

What birds worked for Sauron? If you mean the winged steeds of the Nazgul - those were most likely a corrupted version of some other species. There is of course this passage from the LOTR: A Knife in the Dark:

'Yes; but the hope is faint. If he comes this way at all, he may not pass through Bree, and so he may not know what we are doing. And anyway, unless by luck we arrive almost together, we shall miss one another; it will not be safe for him or for us to wait there long. If the Riders fail to find us in the wilderness, they are likely to make for Weathertop themselves. It commands a wide view all round. Indeed, there are many birds and beasts in this country that could see us, as we stand here, from that hill-top. [color=sky blue]Not all the birds are to be trusted[/color], and there are other spies more evil than they are.'

But this is a more or less general statement, and doesn't link the birds to Sauron directly.

The birds that worked for Saruman were 'lent' to him by Radagast who was clueless of Saruman's treachery.

The Eagles were most definitely a force of ultimate Good. Just because they didn't do EVERYTHING to help the people of Middle Earth against their struggle with Sauron, doesn't mean we should whether or not they were (completely) good. They assisted others in the most critical of moments.

The quote from The Hobbit says that the Lord of the Eagles became king of all birds, not just eagles, and including carrion fowl.

That is more or less a figurative phrase. He was the most powerful and 'royal' bird. Manwë is King of Arda, that doesn't mean that everyone follows his orders (e.g. Sauron).

 

[baragund]

Ithrynluin, that sounds good to me. I was just wondering if there might have been any back story to that passage I quoted from The Hobbit.