The Moon! What Moon?!

[alatar]

Thanks, Legate of Amon Lanc, for the quotes.

But Tilion was wayward and uncertain in speed, and held not to his appointed path; and he sought to come near to Arien, being drawn by her splendour, though the flame of Anar scorched him, and the island of the Moon was darkened.

and

But Morgoth hated the new lights, and was for a while confounded by this unlooked-for stroke of the Valar. Then he assailed Tilion, sending spirits of shadow against him, and there was strife in Ilmen beneath the paths of the stars; but Tilion was victorious.

I'd considered this, but 'scorching' to me would (yes, this is nuts and picayune) produces a different pattern. The moon, as we currently see it (no pictures available from the Third Age), looks blotchy - stained, or blood-splattered - and not scorched, which could result in a more uniform darkening. If blood, who's? If not blood, what? And doesn't anyone have a towel and bucket of soapy water? And weren't these chariots of the gods hallowed?

[William Cloud Hicklin]

It seems to me that Tolkien was already thinking along "Myths Transformed" lines as early as 1942, where Treebeard refers several times to the Great Darkness (T also used this term for Sauron's volcanic overcast, which echoes his MT concept of Morgoth's worldwide smog).

Still, Moria was written *very* early, not all that long after the Bombadil chapters (which are explicitly "flat-earth")- so I'd go with 'poetic device'. Longing for a lost Golden Age is a Tolkien hallmark. After all, the mountains wer still "tall" in Gimli's day!

[Galin]

I tend to agree with Robert Foster and Hammond and Scull that Treebeard's Great Darkness refers to a time of Morgoth's influence in Middle-earth.

If this is true Treebeard's story of the Entwives is interesting: 'When the world was young, and the woods were wide and wild' the Ents and the Entwives walked together and housed together. But their hearts did not go on growing in the same way, and the Entwives gave their minds also to the 'meads in the Sunshine.' Then the Darkness came in the North, and the Entwives move.

There was seemingly Sun and seasons before Morgoth exerted this influence in Middle-earth (though I suppose this sequence could be more fluid). Treebeard also relates that the Elves began waking trees up and teaching them to speak-- but then the Great Darkness came, and the Elves passed over the Sea, or fled into far valleys (Treebeard implies that Orcs were 'made', or first appeared at least, in the Great Darkness as well).

In Myths Transformed however, the idea seems different: in Text II Melkor darkens the World with great clouds, knowing that the coming of the Children is imminent. The Moon and Stars are invisible in the North, Day is dim. Manwe and Varda strive against the Clouds but Melkor closes the veil. Then comes the Great Wind of Manwe, rending the veil -- the stars shine, seemingly terribly bright. 'It is in the dark just before that the Elves awake. The first thing they see in the dark is the stars.' Melkor brings up glooms out of the east, and the stars fade away West.

'Just before what' is the question. And I think the meaning is just before Manwe has achieved the rending of the clouds, that is, or at least about the same time, so that the Quendi can first see the stars despite Morgoth's plan. In Text V indeed at the time when the Valar removed to Aman, 'it [darkness and diminishment of growth) was due to obscurations devised by Melkor: cloud and smokes (a volcanic era!).

In the Quenta Simarillion of HME V, this 'Great Darkness' would seem to be the time discussed in §18 Of the Coming of The Elves, where Morgoth's 'realm spread now ever southward over the Middle-earth' (though in this version it is said that although Morgoth made many monsters of divers kinds and shapes 'yet the Orcs were not made until he had looked upon the Elves.'). Treebeard's words do not seem to be in reference to a time after Morgoth's return, because the Hiding of Valinor followed this, and the Noldor returned to Middle-earth (again, as Treebeard says when the Darkness came the Elves passed over Sea, or fled)

According to the Later Annals of Valinor (HME V) this seems to fit: '... and he made his fortress at Utumna in the North; but he held sway with violence and the lands were yet more broken in that time.'

In the (later) Annals of Aman (HME X): 'Long the Quendi dwelt in their first home by the water under the Stars' and when they had dwelt three hundred and thirty five years Orome first heard the Elves. Melkor had been sowing fear, but he was taken captive before the Great march.

[alatar]

Why does Tolkien make the same, ah, mistake that other mythologies seems to do in making the Moon a 'light' when actually it's a reflector, having no light of its own?

On the other hand, Tolkien's world actually does start out flat (necessitating a trans subterranean west-to-east railroad of sorts), then becomes spherical later in time, meaning that the sun and moon begin to act more like our sun and moon.

[Galin]

My view is that flat world notions are but one tradition among others (including traditions that are 'mixed'). Myths Transformed are not the only texts which hint at Round World mythology. In the 'Atlantis' or Númenórean works, for example, I note the following from 'The Theory Of The Work' in The Drowning of Anadûnê

Sketch I (bracketed text):

'The Enkeladim told them that the world was round, but that was a hard saying to them. Some of their great mariners tried to find out.' (An interesting added passage reads: 'Sauron says the world is round. There is nothing outside but Night -- and other worlds.')

Sketch III:

'The ancient Númenóreans knew (being taught by the Eledái) that the Earth was round; but Sauron taught them that it was a disc and flat, and beyond was nothing, where his master ruled.' JRRT, The Drowning of Anadûnê' (though this part appears to have been struck through by Tolkien).

Christopher Tolkien follows the Sketches with an interesting commentary, part of which reads...

'At this time, perhaps, in the context of The Notion Club Papers and of the vast enlargement of his great story that was coming into being in The Lord of the Rings, he began to be concerned with questions of 'tradition' and the vagaries of tradition, the losses, confusions, simplifications and amplifications in the evolution of legend, as they might apply to his own -- within the always enlarging compass of Middle-earth. This is speculation; it would have been helpful indeed if he had at this time left any record or note, however brief, of his reflections. But many years later he did write such a note, though brief indeed, on the envelope that contains the texts of The Drowning of Anadûnê:'

'Contains very old version (in Adunaic) which is good -- in so far as it is just as much different (in inclusion and omission and emphasis) as would be probable in the supposed case:
(a) Mannish Tradition
(b) Elvish tradition
(c) Mixed Dúnedanic tradition'

JRRT (Christopher guesses this to have been written sometime in the 1960s)

Christopher guesses it is likely that:

The Drowning of Anadune -- Mannish tradition
The Fall of Numenor -- Elvish tradition
Akallabeth -- Mixed (Mixed Elvish and Numenorean 'he was surely referring to the Akallabeth, in which both the Fall of Numenor and the Drowning of Anadune were used.')

I note too the Legend of the Awakening of the Quendi, said to be 'preserved in almost identical form among both the Elves of Aman and the Sindar' in which the first Elves, Imin, Tata and Enel awoke before dawn in the spring of the year, and at one point Imin and his companions 'walked long by day and by twilight in the country about the lake'. In this tradition the Elves still see the Stars when they first awake, handled beautifully in comparison to other traditions (the Sun as a Tree-flower).

As late as 1971 Tolkien writes (in a letter) about the Immortals who travel to the West, explaining that they followed the Straight Road, left the physical world, including the idea that the Elves who sailed were abandoning history. JRRT touches upon the sojourn of the mortals Oversea as well, and concludes with...

'This general idea lies behind the events of The Lord of the Rings and the Silmarillion, but it is not put forward as geologically or astronomically 'true'; except that some special catastrophe is supposed to lie behind the legends and marked the first stage in the succession of Men to dominion of the world. But the legends are mainly of 'Mannish' origin blended with those of the Sindar (Gray-elves) and others who had never left Middle-earth.'

JRRT, Letter 325, 1971

[William Cloud Hicklin]

The newspaper-wrapper ca. 1965 raises a very interesting issue of analysis. It's certainly more than speculation or guesswork to identify each version of the Atlantis-myth with the three 'traditions'- The Drowning of Anadune with its Adunaic nomenclature and Numenocentric POV is unquestionably the 'Mannish' tradition; and the Akallabeth, elsewhere ascribed to Elendil himself, is literally a 'blended' tradition, its text representing a shuffling together of DA and the Fall of Numenor, with additional material- CRT illustrates this orthographically in HME IX p. 295f. Significantly, this Elendil-version amends DA material to bring it back to the Flat-world perspective, which is understandable since Tolkien's early Round-world experiments ca. 1946-48 had been rejected by 1951 and the explicitly Flat-world Annals of Aman.

But what was Tolkien thinking in the mid-1960's? I think it inescapable that the Elvish tradition, presumptively correct, is Flat-world, as is the Dunedainic tradition made under the influence of Lindon and Rivendell, whereas the one Round-world version must be taken as garbled (and indeed the earlier versions of DA are deliberately 'confused'). There follows a very strong deduction or supposition that by the mid-1960's Toklien had evolved a very sophisticated 'theory of the tale': the Flat world was correct, and the Breaking really did happen; but Men outside Eldarin tutelage were so small-minded/unimaginative/divorced from the Valar that they refused to believe that such naked Divine intervention had really occurred (after all it violates 'scientific' thinking).




I should emphasise that flat-world/round-world is not inextricably tied to the other part of the astronomical myth, the Sun and Moon. There is little doubt at all that JRRT had decided conclusively to abandon the flower and fruit story and that the Heavenly Lights had existed ab initio- indeed in the Hobbit 3rd Ed (1966) he emended text in just such a way.

[Galin]

Originally Posted by William Cloud Hickli

... But what was Tolkien thinking in the mid-1960's? I think it inescapable that the Elvish tradition, presumptively correct, is Flat-world, as is the Dunedainic tradition made under the influence of Lindon and Rivendell, whereas the one Round-world version must be taken as garbled (and indeed the earlier versions of DA are deliberately 'confused'). There follows a very strong deduction or supposition that by the mid-1960's Toklien had evolved a very sophisticated 'theory of the tale': the Flat world was correct, and the Breaking really did happen; but Men outside Eldarin tutelage were so small-minded/unimaginative/divorced from the Valar that they refused to believe that such naked Divine intervention had really occurred (after all it violates 'scientific' thinking).

Why (merely wondering about your reasons in more detail) do you state that the more correct flat-world legends are Elvish? because of the extant version of FN at the time of this note?

I should emphasise that flat-world/round-world is not inextricably tied to the other part of the astronomical myth, the Sun and Moon. There is little doubt at all that JRRT had decided conclusively to abandon the flower and fruit story and that the Heavenly Lights had existed ab initio- indeed in the Hobbit 3rd Ed (1966) he emended text in just such a way.

I agree. Tolkien does appear to very generally connect them 'in consideration', so to speak, in Myths Transformed text I -- being, I think, not unnaturally tied in general as 'counter conceptions' (this term based on Christopher Tolkien comments after text I):

'It is at any rate clear, for he stated it unambiguously enough, that he had come to believe that the art of the 'Sub-creator' cannot, or should not attempt to, extend to the 'mythical' revelation of a conception of the shape of the Earth and the origin of the lights of heaven that runs counter to the known physical tuths of his own days.'

But yes, 'evidence' of an early Sun is not necessarily evidence of Round World ideas, and I should have made that point before my comments on the legend of the Awakening of the Quendi. I tend to interpret these ideas as tied or that 'Early Sun' might imply Round World, but they need not be inextricably tied, as you say.