No Sun or Moon

[Eomer of the Rohirrim]

Trees specifically, LMP? My knowledge of mythology doesn't stretch much further than Norway, but they had light before the Sun too -- it came from the original fire in the world.

Reminds me of the Ricky Gervais joke, about God creating the universe in the dark.

[littlemanpoet]

Well, trees are what Tolkien puts in there.

What strikes me is that there are ancient mythologies across the world that record a time before the sun was in the sky. I suppose Tolkien must have known about these?

[Nilpaurion Felagund]

I do not know anything about the mythological roots of the the Trees, and I can't remember anything ever being said about them in the HoMEs/Letters I've read so far, but I do dimly recall that Tolkien was trying to portray the Sun as a flawed source of light (cf. Ecclesiastes's 'life under the sun').

[littlemanpoet]

Fascinating, Nilp. Every little tidbit of information I pick up on this adds up to some incredible stuff. There is an interdisciplinary school of thought that is researching a new paradigm about the history of our solar system, such that the earth was not always as near the sun as it is now but had other sources of light to sustain life. In it, "life under the sun" is understood as a "second best" condition after cataclysms that ruined the original situation.

[alatar]

Originally Posted by littlemanpoet

What strikes me is that there are ancient mythologies across the world that record a time before the sun was in the sky. I suppose Tolkien must have known about these?

Like in Genesis? You (and Tolkien) may have come across this...

Originally Posted by Moses in Genesis 1:3-5

And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and He separated the light from the darkness. God called the light "day," and the darkness he called "night." And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.

Originally Posted by Moses in Genesis1:14-19

And God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years, and let them be lights in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth." And it was so. God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. God set them in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth, to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day.

But there's nothing on trees.

[Hookbill the Goomba]

As one learning Hebrew I feel I HAVE TO point out a slight mistake...

Originally Posted by alatar

Moses in Genesis 1:3-5
And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and He separated the light from the darkness. God called the light "day," and the darkness he called "night." And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day..

Actually, the Hebrew reads "Yom Ekhad", "Day One". The rest of them are labeled 'second', 'third', 'fourth' and so on. 'One' is absolute, 'first' is comparative. <--- closests to geeky glasses...

But, yes, you are right, light came before the sun even in Genesis. Though it is not unique even amongst mesopotamian creation narratives. The root word, in Hebrew, is “אור” (Or) which means; to ‘become light’, ‘shine’, ‘be enlightened’, ‘kindle’ and ‘light’. The word is also used to mean; ‘glorious’.
The obvious question is ‘where is the light coming from?’ because we, as yet, do not have the sun. In Jewish mysticism, a lot is said about this light. Some say it is ‘the light of ultimate awareness’. It is given all sorts of attributes, such as being a thousand times brighter than the sun and allowing someone to see across time. What I find most interesting (and this is why I think it is relevant), is that the definition 'to enlighten' is expounded upon in a few writings. That this light is not like visible light, but rather, the light of knowledge. Again, I do not think this idea is restricted to Jewish Mysticism. The idea is that, before the sun, there was a time of 'enlightenment' where knowledge was abounding.

I think this ties in with the idea that there is some sort of 'Golden Age'. The time of the lamps is one that brings the trees that are like living mountains. They never appear again. The time of the Two Trees brings forth many things of beauty, not least, The Silmarills, which are never equaled. This narrative device of a Golden Age is prominent in a lot of Tolkien's work. The Sun and Moon ages are 'normal', whereas the Lamps and the Trees represent a time immemorial, where wisdom was fresh and things were different.

This idea of time before the sun is an interesting one.

[alatar]

Originally Posted by Hookbill the Goomba

As one learning Hebrew I feel I HAVE TO point out a slight mistake...

Actually, the Hebrew reads "Yom Ekhad", "Day One". The rest of them are labeled 'second', 'third', 'fourth' and so on. 'One' is absolute, 'first' is comparative. <--- closests to geeky glasses...

You will want to let those who collated the NIV, KJV and NKJV. The NASV states it as "one day" and "a fourth day."

And your thoughts regarding 'enlightenment are interesting. Never saw that light before.

This idea of time before the sun is an interesting one.

It comes up frequently when discussing Genesis between those that read it as a literal seven day creation and those that see it as more poetic/allegoric.

[Hookbill the Goomba]

Originally Posted by alatar

You will want to let those who collated the NIV, KJV and NKJV. The NASV states it as "one day" and "a fourth day."

I can see why they render it 'first', editors want consistency. It also makes it look more poetic (which it is, the Hebrew is filled with alliteration, puns and rhyme). But enough of this nerd fest.

I read somewhere once that "Poetry is more interested with truth than history".

Anyway...

Tolkien's vision of an age without the sun fills me with intrigue. I really like the idea. Middle Earth was, presumably, quite cold, at the time, though.
The Lamps raise some interesting topics, though. They are raised on mountains, yet they are fashioned by Aule. So, they are like an ultimate 'work of hands', as it were. How quickly are they thrown down? Pretty quickly. The Trees, a more 'natural' source of light, last a little longer and require Melkor to use a bit more of his cunning. The Sun is what confounds him at the last. Perhaps this is Tolkien's love of nature winning over manufacture coming through. I like to think so.

[Gwathagor]

Originally Posted by Hookbill the Goomba

In Jewish mysticism, a lot is said about this light. Some say it is ‘the light of ultimate awareness’. It is given all sorts of attributes, such as being a thousand times brighter than the sun and allowing someone to see across time. What I find most interesting (and this is why I think it is relevant), is that the definition 'to enlighten' is expounded upon in a few writings. That this light is not like visible light, but rather, the light of knowledge. Again, I do not think this idea is restricted to Jewish Mysticism. The idea is that, before the sun, there was a time of 'enlightenment' where knowledge was abounding.

Oh! This comes up in Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco.

[littlemanpoet]

Originally Posted by alatar

Like in Genesis? You (and Tolkien) may have come across this... ..... But there's nothing on trees.

On the contrary: there are two trees: one a tree of life, one a tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

[alatar]

Originally Posted by littlemanpoet

On the contrary: there are two trees: one a tree of life, one a tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Excellent! Right under my nose and I didn't even see it. And those trees were illuminating too - at least in some sense.

[littlemanpoet]

Originally Posted by Hookbill

But, yes, you are right, light came before the sun even in Genesis.

Not only in Genesis. It's in many myths around the world, as Alatar relates. Mesopotamian, Mesoamerican, Nordic, Oriental, Greek, Egyptian, etc.

Originally Posted by Hookbill

The obvious question is ‘where is the light coming from?

Indeed. Tolkien's answer was "the Two Trees". Genesis is not the only source for the tree archetype though. The Norse have Yggdrasil. There may be other myths that feature something like it, maybe not a tree..

What's fascinating is that from many myths around the world, the light before the sun comes from what is called, depending upon the ancient culture, "the great sun", "the unmoved mover", "the polar sun", and so forth. The "great sun" is always at the north pole, and it is always associated with the planet Saturn. Which begs the question, "were they all equally nuts, or was earth's sky different within human memory than it is now?"

Obviously, Tolkien didn't pick up on this Saturnian theme. On the contrary, he located his evil persona, Morgoth, in the frigid North instead.

Originally Posted by Hookbill

I think this ties in with the idea that there is some sort of 'Golden Age'

This again is common to all ancient myths, when the earth produced abundantly, there was no sun, and there was no extreme of hot and cold. All of these cultures' myths share so many inexplicable traits like this, yet they knew nothing of each other. It suggests, strongly, that something was going on that we have forgotten about, or perhaps ignore, calling it "superstition" while not really understanding it.

Tolkien obviously knew a lot about different myths, especially the Norse, Finnish, and Greek, and perhaps Celtic. It comes as no surprise that he incorporated much of the ideas and archetypes from them into Middle Earth.

What I do find intriguing is that in his later years he wanted to try to "correct" his early stories to fit the current structure of the solar system. I think this was a mistake because it is to presume that the solar system always was as it is now. Fact is, it's littered with shrapnel and disarray as if it has been a war zone of some cosmic kind: asteroid belt, comets, various moons and planets with striations crisscrossing them; planets rotating oddly, unstable atmospheres - all of which should not exist in a solar system unchanged for billions of years.

[Aiwendil]

Originally Posted by littlemanpoet

What I do find intriguing is that in his later years he wanted to try to "correct" his early stories to fit the current structure of the solar system. I think this was a mistake because it is to presume that the solar system always was as it is now. Fact is, it's littered with shrapnel and disarray as if it has been a war zone of some cosmic kind: asteroid belt, comets, various moons and planets with striations crisscrossing them; planets rotating oddly, unstable atmospheres - all of which should not exist in a solar system unchanged for billions of years.

I agree that Tolkien's later attempt to "correct" his Legendarium's cosmology was a mistake, but I disagree about why.

Tolkien's concern that the story of the Trees and the flat earth was unbelievable or unrealistic (especially in light of modern science) seems to me to miss a fundamental point - his whole Legendarium was necessarily unrealistic. Of course, nowadays no educated person would believe that the sun and moon were actually the last fruit and flower of two ancient trees; similarly, no educated person would believe that there was once a magical Ring that turned its wearer invisible. Nor that Venus is in fact not a world like ours but rather a radiant gem worn on the brow of a mariner on a ship that can fly.

To attempt to make the Legendarium scientifically accurate would have been to discard the whole thing and invent an entirely new story. These things are not realistic; they cannot be made realistic save by deleting them; and they are not supposed to be realistic for these are works of fantasy. I, for one, find the late 'Myths Transformed' mythology no more believable than the earlier one, and significantly less beautiful.

[Estelyn Telcontar]

Aiwendil, you bring up an interesting point there - perhaps Tolkien's mythology of decreasing beauty and power applies to himself as well?! His later revisions did not equal the power and imagination of his first sub-creative works.

[littlemanpoet]

Originally Posted by Aiwendil

I agree that Tolkien's later attempt to "correct" his Legendarium's cosmology was a mistake, but I disagree about why.... - his whole Legendarium was necessarily unrealistic. Of course, nowadays no educated person would believe that the sun and moon were actually the last fruit and flower of two ancient trees; similarly, no educated person would believe that there was once a magical Ring that turned its wearer invisible. Nor that Venus is in fact not a world like ours but rather a radiant gem worn on the brow of a mariner on a ship that can fly.

Of course. These are beautiful symbols meant to convey something real.

Originally Posted by Aiwendil

To attempt to make the Legendarium scientifically accurate would have been to discard the whole thing and invent an entirely new story.

I would distinguish between a few points here. To discard the whole thing would be tragic. To invent an entirely new story would be wonderful. In Tolkien's case, I think this would not have mattered so much considering that he kept many of his previous drafts. As to making the Legendarium scientifically accurate, this I think was a waste of time because we can't be sure to what degree current science is, in fact, an accurate representation of what is real. For example, Black Holes and neutron stars have never been proven to exist. But more significantly a 'uniformitarian' paradigm for the history of the solar system is falling apart like a house of cards the more we explore it. Yet the current scientific community writes as if they are all givens.

Originally Posted by Aiwendil

These things are not realistic...

This is in my opinion an unfortunate word choice. If, by realistic, you mean "not accurate according to current scientific and cultural understanding", I can agree. If, however, you mean "not real", then I cannot agree on the grounds that it cannot be proven that material phenomena understood by modern humans is all that is real.

But all this deviates from the main thread I am most interested in pursuing, which is: what is Tolkien's basis for a pre-sun and moon Golden Age?

[alatar]

Originally Posted by littlemanpoet

Which begs the question, "were they all equally nuts, or was earth's sky different within human memory than it is now?"

Not nuts, and nor was the sky different. We looked at what we 'knew' and extrapolated that into 'how the heavens worked.' You looked up at your hut roof, and if you could hang (or even just imagine hanging) a light up there, well then a god, who was pretty much like you but just bigger, older, wiser and with greater powers, hung its lights in its hut called Earth.

This again is common to all ancient myths, when the earth produced abundantly, there was no sun, and there was no extreme of hot and cold. All of these cultures' myths share so many inexplicable traits like this, yet they knew nothing of each other. It suggests, strongly, that something was going on that we have forgotten about, or perhaps ignore, calling it "superstition" while not really understanding it.

I'm a little intrigued regarding your intended meaning. And not all myths share 'many' features; think that we just interpret them that way. Surely there'd be some overlap - all cultures lived under the sun and moon, but how they thought of these (objects, gods, vessels) differed. And I think that it's easier to talk about the olden days being Golden as many people remember the good times and forget/bottle up the bad. Think of your parents lives - everything was wonderful when they were growing up, not the 'going to the dogs' world we live in today. I'm currently gathering items to later tell my grandchildren so that they can have the same experience - Grandpap alatar lived in the golden days when you could still buy gasoline.

Anyway, what all of these stories are is science. This thought helps me when thinking of ancient writings. Those people way back when did their best to describe what they saw and how it may have worked. They might of been completely wrong, but that happens in science today as well.

While I'm warming up my rant...what really annoys me is when persons want to pick and chose the science they want to believe (which is nuts in itself - believing in the theory of gravity or not does not change the outcome of jumping from a roof). If you think that science today is wrong and the science of 2000-4000 years ago is perfect, well, that's fine with me. Just give up your cell phone and germ theory.

Sorry.

What I do find intriguing is that in his later years he wanted to try to "correct" his early stories to fit the current structure of the solar system. I think this was a mistake because it is to presume that the solar system always was as it is now. Fact is, it's littered with shrapnel and disarray as if it has been a war zone of some cosmic kind: asteroid belt, comets, various moons and planets with striations crisscrossing them; planets rotating oddly, unstable atmospheres - all of which should not exist in a solar system unchanged for billions of years.

That's sad. To me it's fine as it is; flat then round as we see that a change is made. It even makes for more mythology...like the Straight Road.

For example, Black Holes and neutron stars have never been proven to exist. But more significantly a 'uniformitarian' paradigm for the history of the solar system is falling apart like a house of cards the more we explore it. Yet the current scientific community writes as if they are all givens.

You can find some definitive information regarding black holes at this site. And this link shows how wrong science can be as they thought this star was going to become a black hole, but it became a neutron star instead. No points for that one.

Note that these observations validate the math predicting such things. Think that Einstein's work showed that these things should exist. Not sure what your last sentence means.

Anyway, Darwin talked about a tree of life (common descent) but I don't think that this tree provided any visible light, as did Tolkien's trees did at the beginning.

[Lush]

Hey now. I'm both with lmp and alatar on this one. Anyone ever heard about Ken Wilber's ideas? I don't necessarily buy into his thinking as much as I believe that it has opened up a new door: the idea that both science and religion hold the key to understanding reality from a single perspective. Wilber believes that science as it is today is too narrow, though he also claims that narrow science is more developed than narrow religion.

I know that the moon and the sun are not magical fruits, but another part of me thinks that there is a reason why someone would believe that, and that reason goes well beyond "teh primitive peoples r primitive" meme. I think there is a lot to the universe that the human eye does not see, but that another part of us does. I think Tolkien taps into that part in a mean way.

[skip spence]

Originally Posted by alatar

what really annoys me is when persons want to pick and chose the science they want to believe

Seconded,

I guess that's what makes a religious fundamentionalist: people not being able to acknowledge, to themselves or others, that they choose some parts of science or holy books to believe in and other parts to ignore.

Reminds me of the creationist-nuts in the US who've sexed up the old genesis-story trying to make it appear like serious science. I used to know a guy who ranted on about evolution being impossible due to the law of entropy, among other ludicrous pieces of "evidence". He was also convinced the moonlanding never happened, and that no airplanes hit the twin towers at 9/11.

I've got the impression that Tolkien wanted to revise his mythology to make it more plausable as a real but ancient part of our history. Guess he figured his modern readers would find the idea of a flat earth and life without the sun quite primitive and far fetched. He himself certainly wasn't happy about it.

[littlemanpoet]

Originally Posted by alatar

Not nuts, and nor was the sky different. We looked at what we 'knew' and extrapolated that into 'how the heavens worked.' You looked up at your hut roof, and if you could hang (or even just imagine hanging) a light up there, well then a god, who was pretty much like you but just bigger, older, wiser and with greater powers, hung its lights in its hut called Earth.

How do you know that this is how myths came to be? You see, farflung cultures recorded a Golden Age followed by cataclysms that destroyed the Golden Age. They created rites (sometimes quite gruesome) that recapitulated both Golden Age and the destroying cataclysms so that (1) they would not forget them (2) they might appease the gods and "head off a repetition of the cataclysms" (which by the way always seems to have to do with comets). They intended to remember something that had been lost. If only one culture had done this, we could say that a regional conflagration of some sort occurred. That the same kind of cataclysm is described in farflung cultures, does not merely suggest, but leads a reasonable mind to ask what can be understood from the strange points of agreement from culture to culture.

Originally Posted by alatar

I'm a little intrigued regarding your intended meaning. And not all myths share 'many' features; think that we just interpret them that way.

There is a hermeneutic of comparing myths. One must take the culture's mode of expression as a given, and allow it to say what it says, suspending judgement until comprehension is as complete as it can become. The results, across many different mythologies, are striking in their similarity.

Before we get any further, let me just clarify to the moderators that this bears on Tolkien's legendarium to a great degree in that he picked up on many of these themes, but not all.

Points of similarity:

• a sun god who is the benevolent universal ruler par excellence, who resided at the north pole, and is associated with the planet Saturn
• an anatomically impossible dragon, sometimes bearded, or hairy, flying across the sky, wreaking destruction upon earth
• a comet which is the heart of the dying sun god, which bursts forth into the heavens, and is associated with the planet Venus

These are not the only similarities from culture to culture. Tolkien does not record any comets, but does record the planet Venus, as not having always been in the sky. The universal ruler is in middle earth the evil Morgoth, residing in the northern Angband. What is intruguing to me is that Tolkien turns the "par excellence" of the benevolent deity on its head. Obviously, Tolkien has a number of dragons.

Originally Posted by alatar

Those people way back when did their best to describe what they saw and how it may have worked.

That is a fundamental part of what I'm trying to get across.

Originally Posted by alatar

They might of been completely wrong, but that happens in science today as well.

I'd like to qualify this in this way: they might have been completely wrong that they were gods, but suppose that what they were trying to describe really did occur. There is too much agreement from culture to culture to ignore that something must have happened (except that it is being ignored by and large).

Originally Posted by alatar

While I'm warming up my rant...what really annoys me is when persons want to pick and chose the science they want to believe (which is nuts in itself - believing in the theory of gravity or not does not change the outcome of jumping from a roof). If you think that science today is wrong and the science of 2000-4000 years ago is perfect, well, that's fine with me. Just give up your cell phone and germ theory.

You mis-apprehend what I'm saying. The reason I have a problem with much of modern science is that when confronted with yet more evidence that the paradigm is wrong, our scientists do not question the paradigm; instead they create yet another ad hoc theory that cannot be tested in any lab.

Regarding black holes, according to Einstein's theory of general relativity, a thing cannot exist with an infinite degree of any one aspect of reality, such as gravity. Black holes have, according to theory, infinite gravitational force. So either one or the other is incorrect; yet, modern science is not denying Einstein's theory, nor is it admitting that black holes cannot exist. With good science, either one or the other must be put to rest.

[Eönwë]

Originally Posted by Eomer of the Rohirrim

Trees specifically, LMP? My knowledge of mythology doesn't stretch much further than Norway, but they had light before the Sun too -- it came from the original fire in the world.

The flame imperiahable?

[Eomer of the Rohirrim]

Interesting thought, Eönwë. The flame imperishable was more central, though, as opposed to the fire and ice of Norse mythology. But there's another thread for that, started by Rune, which is very interesting.

[Eönwë]

Originally Posted by Eomer of the Rohirrim

Interesting thought, Eönwë. The flame imperishable was more central, though, as opposed to the fire and ice of Norse mythology.

Remind you of anyone in the sil?

Originally Posted by Ainulindale

[He] is clad in ice and crownd with smoke and fire; the light of the eyes of Melkor was like a flame that withers with heat and pierces with a deadly cold

Or perhaps the lamps in BoLT (No! I just packed this book.)

edit: sorry, Elempi, I wrote this before you said that, and just forgot to press the post button.