Branch thread: Tolkien's military technology

[Alfirin]

[QUOTE=Kuruharan;653767]Hmm...I don't know about that. I don't think the climate of northern Middle earth would ever have been particularly well suited to them...at least through the time periods described to us.
QUOTE]

I'm not saying that POV is incorrect, all I want to point out is that the Hobbits must have heard of Oliphaunts from SOMEWHERE for the poem to exist, and if they never existed further North than the landmass of Far Harad this would seem unlikely (I sort of get the impression that travel between the North and the South of ME was NEVER all that common and that Near and Far Harad and the lands beyond have always been sort of terra incognita to the north). I suppose that some proto hobbit could have heard of oliphaunts from an elf who had seen them in Valinor (or had him or herself heard of them from one who did) where they supposedy are also (as per that whole "Ivory in Gondolin Argument".) but this seems tenous. And the theory that the connection between the real life Oliphaunts and the ones in the Hobbit poem is purely coincidental (i.e. that the Hobbits happened to create a made up creature that matched up exactly to a real life one.) seems to fly against the Tolkein ethos.
I will also point out the climate might not be as big an impediment as it seems on the surface. Our modern day elephants actually used to range far further north than they do now. And if you factor in such things as Mammoths (and not just the wooly kind, also things like the less hairy Colombian Mammoth) and Mastodons you have an orginal range that streches all the way to near the artic circle. Some the Greek islands had thier own, tiny version of elephant or mastodon (whose skulls whne found were thought to be the orgin for the legend of the Cyclops) It's really not all that different from the fact that in bibical times, there were lions to be found throughout a lot of southern europe and the middle east and out to India (where there still are some) and bits of Indonesia (Or how Singapore "city of the lion" got it's name, when the first people arrived there, there were lions). And africa still has a kind of elephant in the North that likes forests over grassy plains (and was recently declared a seperate species). I see no real climate problem with elephants in the north of Middle Earth.

[Kuruharan]

Originally Posted by Alfirin

(I sort of get the impression that travel between the North and the South of ME was NEVER all that common and that Near and Far Harad and the lands beyond have always been sort of terra incognita to the north).

To some extent yes, but don't forget Gondor had holdings in Harad (specifically Umbar which seems to have been a major hub in the south) for years and years and stories of oliphants could have crept north by that route, via their relatives in Arnor, and survived as a sort of folk legend among the hobbits.

Dwarves were another widely traveled folk and while we don't commonly associate them with the south we don't know where in the east the other dwarven kingdoms were. A southeastern location for one of them is as good a guess as any and commerce with their relatives might have brought all sorts of stories to the northwestern regions of Middle earth.

[Alfirin]

Originally Posted by Kuruharan

Dwarves were another widely traveled folk and while we don't commonly associate them with the south we don't know where in the east the other dwarven kingdoms were. A southeastern location for one of them is as good a guess as any and commerce with their relatives might have brought all sorts of stories to the northwestern regions of Middle earth.

Actually that latter theory would explain another (at least to me) interesting point, the name Mumakul. If you say it out loud it does sound a lot more(or at least, equally validly) like a word in Kuzdul than a word in either Quenya or Sindarin. I don't have an elvish disctonary next to me (so I don't know if there is a Quenya or Sindarin root involved there) Im just saying the word sounds sort of Dwarvish. Maybe, if it was southfaring dwarves who first brought the stories back, the elves, having no previos name or at least knowing no previous one (just because there were supposedly ones in Valinor does not mean they were common enough for the average elf (especially ME born ones) to be familiar enough to know it's "old name" if it had one.) adopted the Dwarvish one as thier own. It could of course, equally validly be a word, in Haradrian. We never hear anyone from Harad speak, so who knows what family thier native tounges beling to (though Khamul, who is supposed to be and Easterling does have a name that sounds like it could be from the same linguistic family, so if Khamul was actually the name he was born with (or at least, one he got while he still was an Eastling, there might be a clue there.)

[Kuruharan]

A brilliant suggestion.

According to this excellent page Adûnaic owed much to dwarven language so I see no reason why southern languages might not as well.

[Rumil]

Interesting thought on 'mumakil',

could it perhaps be Adunaic as used by the Black Numenoreans?

I don't think the hobbit stories of oliphants necessarily mean wooly mammoths on the Tower Hills, though I do sort of like the idea, maybe confined to the far North and hunted by the snowmen of Forochel?

The 'chain' might be another explanation, like for trade goods. For example Bilbo's coffee beans might be grown in Ithilien, traded to Minas Tirith, then Rohan, Isengard, up the Greenway to Bree then to the Shire. Nobody actually travels all the way but the goods get passed along the chain. (An inverse Denethor's umbrella for those that remember the thread!). Likewise stories get passed from person to person and can travel further than the individuals

How about the oliphant description starting in Harad, the men of Khand see the oliphants while serving under Sauron, tell the Easterlings about this impressive beast, who mention it while collecting tribute from the Dorwinrim, who pass the story on the the men of Laketown, who tell the Wood-elves, who compose several poems, lays and theatrical performances on the subject, impressing a visiting elf from Rivendell, who recites his favourite back at home in company with the Rangers, one of whom recounts the amusing story at the Prancing Pony, where it's heard by a visiting Took, who relates this in the Green Dragon, and in five minutes half the Shire has heard of oliphants.

Of course the description might not be terribly accurate by the time it reaches Hobbiton, a bit like Chinese whispers.

[Alfirin]

Originally Posted by Rumil

Interesting thought on 'mumakil',

could it perhaps be Adunaic as used by the Black Numenoreans?

I don't think the hobbit stories of oliphants necessarily mean wooly mammoths on the Tower Hills, though I do sort of like the idea, maybe confined to the far North and hunted by the snowmen of Forochel?

The 'chain' might be another explanation, like for trade goods. For example Bilbo's coffee beans might be grown in Ithilien, traded to Minas Tirith, then Rohan, Isengard, up the Greenway to Bree then to the Shire. Nobody actually travels all the way but the goods get passed along the chain. (An inverse Denethor's umbrella for those that remember the thread!). Likewise stories get passed from person to person and can travel further than the individuals

How about the oliphant description starting in Harad, the men of Khand see the oliphants while serving under Sauron, tell the Easterlings about this impressive beast, who mention it while collecting tribute from the Dorwinrim, who pass the story on the the men of Laketown, who tell the Wood-elves, who compose several poems, lays and theatrical performances on the subject, impressing a visiting elf from Rivendell, who recites his favourite back at home in company with the Rangers, one of whom recounts the amusing story at the Prancing Pony, where it's heard by a visiting Took, who relates this in the Green Dragon, and in five minutes half the Shire has heard of oliphants.

Of course the description might not be terribly accurate by the time it reaches Hobbiton, a bit like Chinese whispers.

It could indeed be that, in fact that would explain how it could still have an elvish ending (I miswrote it as "ul" you are right it is "il" so it may come from a languages that has borrowed words and word fragments from both Dwarvish and Elvish, and Andunaic does fit that bill.

Well, what we know of the Lossoth says they use thier sleighs to hunt massive animals in their lands, Mammoths would fit that bill as well as anything else, and since the runners of thier sleighs are described as being bone, there has to be something up there with ribs big enought to make a god sleigh strut (whales would also work, but a mammoth rib would also fit the bill. The Inuit in our world (on which the Lossoth are supposedly based) certainly hunted mammoths, modern
Inuit still have folk stories about it.
I will point out, however, that the Mumakil are not described as woolly mammoths. No mention is made of a long coat so they are probably no harier than our elephants. In fact since Sam knows they are grey they really can't be, Mammoth fur is reddish (we know this from frozen specimens). And if Mumakil really have six tusks (I can't remember if this is actually from Tolkein, or an invention of Peter Jackson.) they aren't likey to be close relatives of our modern elephants, either (there were polytusked elephants, but those died out in deep prehistory. Freak elephants can grow more than two tusks, but they are incredibly rare.) So no wooly (at least in the south) Colombian Mammoths (less hairy) maybe, but not Woolies. My money has always been on mastodons (with their straighter tusks would be a great battle beast, they would have a great advantage in goring) or maybe a Stegodont (bigger and beefier than the modern elephant)

[Rumil]

Interesting Alfirin,

I'd forgotten that bit about the Lossoth, it sounds at least possible. I reckon that if the oliphants did exist in Forochel they would have to be wooly to survive.

Agree that the oliphants of the Haradrim aren't wooly, and the six tusks thing was indeed a PJ-ism, no indication of more than two tusks in the books.

So perhaps a wooly mammoth-like species in the far North and a mastodon/ stegodont/ stegomastodon in the South?