Posted on by Olga · 2 Comments

In starlit memory.

In many ways Elvish immortality in Tolkien’s Legendarium is more like a doom for its bearers, rather than a blessing: being not permanent living per se, it is rather the state of an immensely long life until the end of Arda without any knowledge of what comes afterwards. Thus, alongside moments of joy, Elves carry great burdens of battles lost, dear ones dead and sorrows experienced over the courses of their really long lives, and the burden becomes only heavier with years. As Men are growing stronger and more powerful, Elves are waning and fading gradually. In Tolkien’s own words, they “are concerned rather with the griefs and burdens of deathlessness in time and change, than with death” (Letters, № 131).

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Posted on by Olga · 2 Comments

In the pits of iron.

Over the course of Middle-earth history its villains have always been inventive in hiding the places of their habitation as much as they possibly could so that nothing and nobody could interfere with their evil deeds. Various camouflage devices have been applied, beginning with going deep underground to veiling tall towers in shadows and deceits. Unsurprisingly, the first bad boy to go subterranean was Melkor: he had set the trend for living below ground level way before the counting of time even started.

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Posted on by Olga · 4 Comments

Down in the inky dark.

Hobbit folklore is a very curious layer of their culture, giving an insight into the race’s beliefs, views of the world, fears and ways of storytelling. Among the usually light-hearted, simple tales, there can be found some truly creepy oddities, which is rather peculiar for the quiet hobbit folk most of whom will not come within gunshot of anyone smelling even faintly of adventure. Despite looking like spooky tales to give hobbit children nightmares and keep them clean of any unwholesome, disreputable (in the hobbits’ opinion) spots after dark, they may as well be based on real places or creatures inhabiting Middle-earth, albeit largely unseen by the general public. One of such tales is about the Mewlips. Written in verse form, it is one of the creepiest stories of hobbit folklore.

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Posted on by Olga · 7 Comments

“I came from the end of a bag, but no bag went over me”

The opening line of The Hobbit firmly belongs to the treasury of best-known book openers in literature. “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit”. This short sentence invites readers into a whole new world full of  interesting places, charismatic characters and glorious deeds. Both in the world of Middle-earth and outside it this very hobbit-hole becomes the starting point of dangerous journeys and exciting adventures. So what exactly is this dwelling of a hobbit?

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Posted on by Olga · 9 Comments

What’s in the spelling?

As the manuscripts of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings made their ways to the publishers in their respective time, Tolkien faced an unexpected problem. All of the instances of Dwarves or dwarvish and elvish or elven were corrected to Dwarfs, dwarfish, elfish and elfin to coincide with the standard dictionary spelling. Tolkien had a lot of issues with those corrections, and in the present reflection I am going to look into the example of Dwarves.

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Posted on by Olga · 11 Comments

Mirror, mirror on the wall. On Sauron’s appearance.

Sauron should be thought of as very terrible. The form that he took was

that of a man of more than human stature, but not gigantic.

In his earlier incarnation he was able to veil his power

(as Gandalf did) and could appear as a commanding

figure of great strength of body and supremely

royal demeanour and countenance.

(Letters, № 246)

Readers of The Lord of the Rings are well aware of Sauron’s being the chief menace of the Second and Third Ages after the capture of Morgoth and the War of Wrath. What is rather obscure, though, is what the great Middle-earth adversary looked like. In his writings and letters Tolkien gave a few clues concerning the looks of Sauron, leaving all the rest to his readers’ imagination.

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