What ain't there and ought to be.

[Lalwendë]

I've had to throw my lot in here because this is getting very interesting. I think that the concept of immortality is just as alien to us as is the concept of mortality to Elves. I am saying 'us' as I wish to draw our own thoughts and concepts into this as we are all mortal, but when I say 'us' you can think of Mortals in Arda. If I was immortal I would live through everything this world has to throw at me. For example, I may have been born in 2000 BC. If so, I would have seen the world change from small communities worshipping the Moon to vast urban communities worshipping Mammon; and considering my life would pass by extremely slowly, these changes would seem dizzying. Imagine staying in all week and then opening the door to find the world being covered in shiny metal, populated by weird floating beings who communicate by clicking their fingers. Mad idea, yes, but that is the kind of thing you would experience if you were immortal, in terms of your concept of time and change.

It is no surprise that Elves kept themselves shut away, and this is not even taking into account the fact that they would need to keep themselves away from mortals to spare themselves an endless cycle of grief. I don't think that they never had to face mortality at all, but many Elves will have chosen not to face it purely to save themselves the distress. So both Child and Fordim are right in a way. Immortality seems wonderful to us as Mortals, I for one would love to have a few extra years in which to get on with reading all those books I got for Christmas, but really, we couldn't even begin to comprehend the burdens of immortality. One of the few pieces of work which does approach it in some way is Dennis Potter's Cold Lazarus which really brought the horror of the concept home to me. In terms of Tolkien there is one heart-wrenching example, and that is the marriage of Aragorn and Arwen. Without doing the precise maths, it would be the equivalent of falling in love and then both your lives ending after just one week together. So Arwen gave up her life for just one week of love. Horrible.

Now, I want to throw in something else about Hobbits and Holes seeing as Hobbits are the topic here. And I want to defend the concept of a hole in the ground as a place of safety. I often see a similarity between the holes of Hobbits and the monuments of ancient peoples. Cave dwellers sought out 'holes' for safety, and as time went by, actually created their own caves. The Fogous of the South West of England (e.g. Pendeen Vau) are chambers cut into hillsides and lined with stone; each features a 'creep' through which access is gained to the inner chamber/s. One archaeological theory states that they were merely storage places; I reject this as if so, why were they not more widespread? Another theory states that they were ritual places, where a person might crawl into the safety of mother earth and there visualise, meditate or whatever they might do. Another example involves Mam Tor in Derbyshire; this is the great Mother Hill of the valley, but underneath is Odin's Mine which has been found to contain ritual objects, suggesting that people wished to find safety within the symbolic 'mother'. In many cases burial mounds and barrows were also used for this purpose. I think it is Wayland's Smithy which has shown evidence that it would be opened up not just for burial, but for ritual purposes. So, what am I hoping to say here (apart from giving an amatuer but enthusiastic lecture on archaeology )? I think that this is another example of the 'hole' as a place of safety and significance. Bag End has been passed on as a highly signififcant place right down to the Gamgee family; it clearly symbolises safety and protection and somewhere special. Interestingly, we even see, at the start of FotR, a Hobbit being caught delving for treasure in there; many of the old barrows and other such sites were often rumoured to contain treasure (and most did not!). If Tolkien had knowledge of Barrows and such, he may have known or suspected of the other uses of such places; even if not, it is an ancient concept and one that I couldn't lightly turn aside when thinking of why a hole should be invested with such status as Bag End.