Tolkien and 🐴horses

[Nameless Thing]

Hi,

I have a question I've been wondering about for a really long time. Why do the really cool guys on Middle Earth, like the elves or Gandalf ride bareback? It's just weird to me because riding bareback actually damages the horse's back. It's cool for a show or to practice once in a while, but riding without a saddle every day, for long distances or in a battle is just not good for the horses. For a while I thought that Tolkien didn't actually know how to ride a horse, but I just read that he actually served in the cavalry during the war, so he must have known a lot about horses. It's even more weird that his friend, C. S. LewiL actually put it into one of his books, where the talking horse asks his rider to ride in a saddle so he won't hurt his back.

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

Tolkien did train, as an Oxford undergraduate, with the King Edward Horse, but that was in 1913. During the war he was a Signals officer in an infantry battalion.

As for the story, Gandalf on Shadowfax is a special case, as that horse is one of the Mearas, whose ancestors were brought from Valinor by Orome, and Shadowfax is considered one in whom "the blood ran almost pure"; it's a parallel with Faramir and the Numenorians.

In the case of the Elves, well,that's partly their affinity with all life in Middle Earth; but also their "magical" qualities: if Legolas could run across the surface of snow that men had to wade or burrow through, he could no doubt ride bareback without injury to the horse.

"Rationally", that would mean Elves weigh maybe about five pounds, which is impossible, but it's one of those story conventions you accept or not.

 

[Nameless Thing]

Thank you, that very much makes sense

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

You're welcome, and rereading my post, that last sentence comes off sounding a little short.

I think I may have cited the literary critic Northrop Frye somewhere around here. I recommend getting hold of his classic study "Anatomy of Criticism", for an analysis of genre. I'll give a quote from his essay on fictional modes:

"The hero of romance moves in a world in which the ordinary laws of nature are slightly suspended: prodigies of courage and endurance, unnatural to us, are natural to him,and enchanted weapons , talking animals, terrifying ogres and witches, and talismans of miraculous power violate no rule of probability once the postulates of romance have been established".

In order to begin reading with anything like enjoyment, we have to enter into a sort of contract with the author, in which we agree to accept his postulates. Otherwise, we'll find ourselves in the position of someone who can't enjoy Hamlet because he doesn't believe in ghosts.

Frye later goes on to say that the accepted postulate is the same thing as a convention. LOTR is a big-R Romance, and it's difficult to recall, in a post-Tolkien world filled with fantasy literature, what a shock it was for mid-twentieth century readers, at a time when romance was considered an outworn, moribund genre, attended to only by a tiny group of eccentrics. The conventions of romance were nearly forgotten, and a work which used them was considered a "children's story", as seen from some of the early reviewers, who had only their background in the conventions of the modern mimetic novel to go by. To judge one genre by the conventions of another is a kind of category error; to quote Frye again (though he is speaking of Walter Scott): "if [he] has any claims to be a romancer, it is not good criticism to deal only with his defects as a novelist".

When reading Tolkien, we have to agree to "accept his postulates", that is, the conventions of the genre, and leave our mimetic prejudices behind, jarring as that sometimes is to our sense of realism. It's doubly difficult with Tolkien, because of his feat in making his world feel so "real" to us.

 

[Nameless Thing]

"It's doubly difficult with Tolkien, because of his feat in making his world feel so "real" to us. "

Yes, that's why it was hard to figure out why did he include such a detail in his books

 

[Elthir]

I'm no horsalogist, but Glorfindel is cool, and he at least, had a saddle

(although I'm aware of the external chronology here, noted by Tolkien in a letter).

In any case, Squint-eyed Southerner makes a very good point, and one that probably needs to be made more often in Tolkien circles, in my opinion.

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

Yes, a reader questioned the reference to a "bridle" and Tolkien changed it to "headstall".

"Even Homer nods" could apply, but he was still working out the nature of the Elves; indeed , as we can see from the Histories, he was still working on it almost to the last day of his life.

 

[Barliman]

Gandalf even said, "I do not ride elf-fashion, except on Shadowfax. But Shadowfax will have no harness. You do not ride Shadowfax: he is willing to carry you - or not. If he is willing, that is enough. It is then his business to see that you remain on his back, unless you jump off in to the air."

I always assumed Shadowfax knew best for himself.

On a side, but related, note, I've always loved good horsemanship, not that I was ever that good. As such, the meeting in The Riders of Rohan was always one of my favorite scenes from The LoTR. Tolkien described it so well even after several score readings it still brings a tear. I really looked forward to it in the movie.
I couldn't believe such a wonderfully poetic and majestic scene could be so destroyed.

Interesting, I never though about it before, but my two favorite scenes from the book involve horses.
The one mentioned above and:
"All save one. There waiting, silent and still in the space before the gate, sat Gandalf upon Shadowfax who alone among the free horses of the earth endured the terror, unmoving, steadfast as graven image in Rath Dínen."