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Worshiping practices of Middle earth peoples

Treebeard says: The Darkness in this passage is certainly Morgoth.
It is a mark of evil things that came in the Great Darkness that they cannot abide the Sun; but Saruman&#8217s Orcs can endure it, even if they hate it.
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The Great Darkness here must also be Melkor/Morgoth, not Sauron. Orcs/Goblins were plentiful during the Elder days, and were responsible for the Fall of Gondolin in The Hobbit. In Tolkien’s earliest writings on this pont the Orcs were created with other monsters after the fall of the Lamps and before the Awakening of the Elves, but in his latest writings before the completed The Lord of the Rings they were created after Morogth’s return to Middle-earth from Valinor.

If Tolkien is following his earlier ideas then the Great Darkness would refer to the darkness after the destruction of the lamps. (But Elves also first awoke in that Darkness.)

If Tolkien is following here his later ideas, then the reference must be to the dark fumes and clouds that rose from Angband in the North (and probably the tale of the lamps has been put aside). Could the Darkness here be Sauron, not Morgoth? Sauron’s Shadow was later cast over Greenwood the Great, so that was renamed Mirkwood.

To me it feels wrong to dissassociate this Great Darkness from the Great Darkness under which the Orcs first came. So here also I would take the Great Darkness as referring to Morgoth. As to the following sentence, though it might refer to the sundering of the Elves, it might also, as Lindir indicates, be a surprisingly hasty epitome of all of Elvish history following Morgoth’s return from captivity in Valinor.

But Tolkien seems to me to link the passing over the Sea of some Elves and the flight into hiding of other Elves very closely with the phrase “the Great Darkness came”. It is not well worded to support Lindil’s suggestion, though that does not disprove it. No writer is always perfect in the expression of his thought.

Yet granting Lindir’s suggestion as possible, the references to the Darkness do not work well with Tolkien’s other writings (outside of parts of the material his son identified as “Myths Transformed&#8221). In earlier writings Morgoth does cause fumes and smoke to arise from Angband to offset the new light of Sun and Moon, but this darkness hardly lies heavily on vales as far south and east as Fangorn forest.

Treebeard’s references make me, at least, think more of the darkness following the destruction of the lamps, in which monsters were bred.

I see purposeful conflation here, but probably not fully thought out. Tolkien seems to me to be using some of the imagery and small pieces of history from his unpublished and uncompleted writings without worrying in the throes of creation about how everything fits.

If Tolkien did have a new vision at that time, he either lost it beyond recovery or later rejected it in favor of attempting something closer to his earlier accounts and more compatible with them.

Lindil mentions: Well, I find the Arthrabeth’s prevision of Christian theology too much an obvious artifice. His picture of Elvish family life is flat and undetailed and too obviously modeled on Roman Catholic theories of what sexual activity should be.

There is perhaps nothing wrong with either, but Tolkien, ambushed by the success of The Lord of the Rings and by theological and philosphical questions about it, seems to be mapping his way carefully through a minefield in great care to avoid anything that is not theologically, philosphically, morally, sociologically and linguistically unobjectionable.

But these maps through the minefield, though interesting in themselves, are not the stories which Tolkien once knew and never did tell.
 
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Well, I see you piont re: the darkness belonging to Morgoth in the above quotes as more likely, but I will try and do some wider research to see how 'darkness' and co is used in re: to Suaron and the Second Age.

As for the Laws and Customs being 'flat', well I suppose we are down to taste and predeliction.

I find passages such as:
Overall, I feel as I read it, that I am indeed peering into the lives of the eldar as through a peep hole, and that even though only a few words are used to indicate a concept, it opens up, expands in my mind to something very three dimensional and alive.

So curiously, my experience of Laws [and along with it, Athrabeth and Osanwe and most that was written after the LotR] is that of a master writer [and Christian philosopher] at the height of his powers.

Oddly enough excepting a few passages such as those of Gildor and co. in the shire, Lothlorien and one or 2 others, the LotR is becoming less 3/4 dimensional. A shame really, but the further I go into the later writings the more I see immaturity of formation and style in the earlier versions.

-L



So for me this
 
Originally posted by lindil

So curiously, my experience of Laws [and along with it, Athrabeth and Osanwe and most that was written after the LotR] is that of a master writer [and Christian philosopher] at the height of his powers.
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here "harold" feels inclined to agree...or so I think..

Now, if I just knew who "harold" is supposed to be...
 
Lindil posted:
As for the Laws and Customs being 'flat', well I suppose we are down to taste and predeliction.
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I certainly do not find all this later material flat and certainly not uninteresting or ill-written for the most part.

Yet much of it does remind me of Jewish midrash and Jewish commentary on scriptures, or later Hindu commentary or reinterprtation on early stories, or Christian commentary of the same kind: mostly a reworking and flattening and intellectualization of earlier and far more visionary and vigorous material.
A shame really, but the further I go into the later writings the more I see immaturity of formation and style in the earlier versions.
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Immaturity (and maturity) and related words are rather vague in meaning when applied to literary or philosphical work.

To some all Tolkien’s work is childish and “immature”.

John Boorman and other modern critics of his kind seem to find The Hobbit more mature than The Lord of the Rings because of its more ironic approach to its material.

Maturity is very subjective.
 
I agree [and seemingly failed to convey] that indeed, my sense of 'maturity' in Tolkien's ability as a writer is subjective. As is your sense of 'flatness'.

It all comes down to what we want and or need emotionally or spiritually or intellectually from our encounters with Tolkien [or any Art].

I see your point about midrash/commentary etc. And I must admit, I often find such works as interesting as the original text, as it brings the text in question into closer contact with the 'real' world or more specifically with the problems and issues that arise here and exposes to a degree [at least according to my perceptions!] the motives and level of awareness of the author in a way more 'revalatory' texts often do not.

As for the incompleteness of Earendil in particular, I would not be suprised if JRRT had not 'seen' it in any more detail than the scattered poems and compressed versions we have.

It could be that [and how ironic and 'modern' it would be] the starting point of the entire Legendarium, the Earendel line from the poem Crist never opened itself fully to his mind's eye as did so much else.
 
Lindil posted:
It could be that [and how ironic and 'modern' it would be] the starting point of the entire Legendarium, the Earendel line from the poem Crist never opened itself fully to his mind's eye as did so much else.
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Considering that the original story of Earendel was supposed to taken five nights to tell in full, it would appear that the rest of Tolkien’s Lost Tales material was originally inspired by the wish to provide the necessary background to it.

From letter 137:
... for of course in such a story one cannot make a map for the narrative, but must first make a map and make the narrative agree.
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I imagine Tolkien knowing approximately what he wanted to tell about Earendel, but deciding that before writing it in full he would produce a first complete mapping of the background for the story, starting with the tale of Earendel’s father and the Fall of Gondolin and the lineage of Earendel’s mother and then her ancestry, and tales of the gods and demons of his legendarium, and so forth, working back from Earendel on one side and forward from creation on the other.

The map failed to cohere and the result was that the main story was never written at all (for the sketchy material we have about Earendel is hardly a story).

If in his younger days Tokien had also starting speculating about whether Orcs have immortal souls and the philosphical problem of how evil beings could themselve work against Melko and the physics of Aman, Tolkien would perhaps never have written the Lost Tales material either.

Making “maps” of the historical background and metaphysical background, and cosmological background, and religious background, creating an aware metaphysics, after the story is already conceived, is just as problematical as making geographical maps after one has first written the story.

Things don’t fit.

It seems that Tolkien found it equally difficult to change the stories to fit the necessities of his increasingly detailed and changed “maps”, yet he couldn’t bend “maps” to fit the stories either.

Tolkien became locked in a world-building puzzle, concerned more with the continuity for the tales rather than the tales themselves.

This perhaps seemed reasonable, as the stories were largely written, many in long form, and all Tolkien had to do, in theory, was make this already written cycle of tales self-consistant.

One may see something similar in the later works of science fiction writer Isaac Asimov, where often the main point of a novel would be continuity explanations of the Asimov world, a methodological but not inspired filling in of a map.

So Tolkien changed Inglor’s name to Finrod and Finrod’s name to Finarfin niggling around with details, like someone working at a block puzzle with no clear strategy other than the hope that the puzzle does have a solution and that if you move things around enough the solution will emege.

I certainly exagerate here ... but I think in part that was what happened.

And Tolkien knew that if he did start writing new versions of the his tales, that the background map would change again, and his world had become so interlaced that almost any change in a part of it necessitated changes throughout it.

Explaining the legendarium as garbled legend within a supposed mostly untold truer history was an ingenious attempt to transcend the problem by saying that the map was not accurate.

But it would have been difficult to present aesthetically, and it gave Tolkien two continuities and two metaphysics to establish in place of one.
 

All true.

He seemingly ran out of steam in his old age.

I would summarize it this way. After say 1959 ir so his ability to write 'full sweeps' of story seemed to diminish, while his polish as a writer increased, and his tendency to niggle or sub-create within the legendarium[clearly a conscious one, but one he could not alter ] replaced his earlier tendency to subcreate the larger picture of the legendarium itself.
 
jallan wrote:

That's a somewhat cynical way of looking at it, I think. Yes, a lot of his later works were primarily concerned with territory that had already been covered, and with fleshing out and connecting various points. But I find some of those connections inspired, as it were. But then, I think I'm in the minority in my strong liking for, say, Robots and Empire.

I guess I see Tolkien's late work in something of a similar way. I do agree that no number of Osanwe-kentas or Athrabeths are compensation for, say, a full Tale of Earendil. But I also do not think that Tolkien's niggling was in vain; the Silmarillion as it stood after 1959 seems to me to be in many ways better than the Lost Tales, in part because Tolkien had worked out a more coherent metaphysics and history. And the pieces of actual narrative from the later period surpass, in my opinion, what we would have if he had brought the Lost Tales to completion. I would gladly trade Laws and Customs for The Lay of Earendil - but I would have a very hard time trading the later Lay of Leithien for it, and would flat out refuse if the price were the Narn i Chin Hurin.

I think you are right in saying that the other tales were originally intended as the background for the story of Earendel. But it seems to me that the emphasis changed over time, and Tolkien became interested in the tales themselves.

But I think your assessment is, as you say, true in part.
 
im going to reply to the first question of the thread and say that the elves and the edian didnt worship the valar though they did pray to them and hold them in revrence as the powers that are and though they paid them homage and made temples in there honor i wouldnt calll it worship. but under the dark lord there was worship and subitance becuase he put his power into his every servant and comanded there worship and sacrafice in mockery and defiance of eru. and though manwe was indeed king he was still (in my opion)seen as such aznd not a god
 
It appears that the Haladin have some kind of Valarin 'worship' as well, as they 'revered' the hallowed turf, used for the moot and had a general Valarian knowledge. (As shown in the 'Wanderings of Hurin, HoME 11)

Also, this comment from Pippin got me wondering abotu Hobbitish views on god/after-life:

The names of all the stars, and of all living things and of Middle-Earth and of over-heaven....
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So what was this 'over-heaven'? A Hobbit's view of heaven maybe? Maybe Hobbits did some kind of artifacts on 'after-life'. I also wonder as to whether men still kept records of 'Adanels Tale' or similar stories?

 
What was over-heaven?

From J.R.R. Tolkien’s “Guide to the Names in the Lord of the Rings”: I suppose the most normal modern English form would be Heaven Above.

The word heaven in origin seems to have meant ‘stoney vault’. See ak- The American Heritage Dictionary. The word sky seems to have originally meant something like ‘covering’. See (s)keu- The American Heritage Dictionary.

Pippin is probably more or less referring to all the regions of the universe when he says:
The names of all the stars, and of all living things, and the whole history of Middle-earth and Over-heaven and of the Sundering Seas
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... that is all earth and all sky and all sea.

Of course the Valar and Maiar, at least in Tolkien’s later conception, had dwelt in places which from the point of view of earth make up the sky, where Varda had kindled the stars.

One would expect some confusion between the perceived sky and the regions totally outside creation.

In The Road Goes Ever On Tolkien discusses Sam’s invocation A Elbereth Gilthoniel o menel palan-diriel, ... to be translated as &#8216O Star-queen, Star-kindler from heaven looking afar ...’. Tolkien notes: Of course, by the third age the Undying Lands had been removed from the circles of the world, an so were perhaps, in a sense, in the sky, part of heaven according to one of its possible meanings.

From the chapter “A Conspiracy Unmasked”:
‘Good heavens!’ said Frodo. ‘I thought I had been both careful and clever. I don’t know what Gandalf would say. ...’
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and
‘You have read his book!’ cried Frodo. ‘Good heavens above! Is nothing safe?’
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From the chapter “In the House of Tom Bombadil”:
The stars shone through the window and the silence of the heavens seemed to be round him.
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From the chapter “A Knife in the Dark”:
      the countless stars of heaven’s field
      were mirrored in his silver shield.
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and I could continue, but further examples only show that Tolkien’s uses of heaven have various meanings of normal modern English usage, sometimes a simple synonym for sky, sometimes poetic, sometimes suggesting a transcendant state of being.
 
Over-heaven - Menel - Firmament

According to Tolkien's connection to "firmament" in the Guide of Names:

Heaven (german Himmel) derives from germanic *himena (gothic: himins) and it somehow developed dissimilatorically to old saxon he?an and old english heofon. In the "stoney vault of heaven" where the connection to "stone" is expressed, this connection is made because of the other indoeuropean word-roots of a similar meaning(with futher connections to hammer and anvil (gr. ákmon).

In northern mythology Thor's weapon was mjöllnr, the hammer, and when he used it there was "thunder" and "lightning" in the sky. There the sky - in this case the "over-heaven" was created from the skull of the giant Ymir, whereas in the Genesis God made the dome and separated the waters that were under the dome from the waters that were above the dome. And it was so. God called the dome Sky.

Interestingly, in the first occurence of "heaven" in the Genesis: In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth,... "heaven" is used as translation for shaw-mah'-yim(heaven, sky) whereas in the other passage - given above - in older translations also "heaven" is used, whereas the new (revised) standard edition uses "sky" (transl. from raw-kee'-ah (firmament, extended surface). But "firmament" IMO resembles the "stoney vault of heaven", that separates us from the "waters above the dome" more closely than "heaven" does.

So the menel, the "firmament" or "over-heaven" could be the "stoney vault" or "dome" that separates the "heaven" or maybe better the "visible sky" (our atmosphere) from the "encircling seas" (the space outside, the universe).

What I find also interesting is that in the Abarkanta, Tolkien used an even more complex (and in some ways more realistic) model.

So, I guess, Pippin was just asking for the "Creation of Heavens and the Earth", Tolkien's "Genesis"...
 
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Well menel literally means in Elvish ‘star-direction’ or ‘star-region’.

From The Road Goes Ever On, in his comments on “A Elbereth Gilthoniel”, Tolkien writes: It would seem Tolkien is using firmament in two cases in its derived meaning as a synonym for sky or heaven, not for its etymological meaning of a firm partition.

Hebrew lacks distinct words to express the overlapping and differing connotations that sky and heaven have in English. Šǝˈmāyîm ‘heavens, skies’ is the only common word and is translated into English variously as ‘heaven(s)’ and ‘sky’.

I tend to think that Pippin was just saying he wanted to know about everything, not especially about creation.

If I were Gandalf I think I would have immediately started him on the names of all the stars, which is the first thing Pippin mentioned, just to see how long his enthusiasm would last.
 
What I was trying to point out in my former post is, that there are a few creation myths where the earth has to be "separated" from an "outer sphere" by some sort of a "roof" and that this also - at least partly - can be gathered from the etymologic roots of - at least some - words in the general meaning of heaven, sky, etc...
 
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