Smith of Wootton Major in Middle Earth?

[Galadriel55]

I don't remember Smith in great detail, but when reading it a bit less than a year ago I picked up a few whiffs of ME. But I recall thinking that, albeit the whiffs, Faerie is not a physical place, because out of all the Men only the "chosen ones" with the Star were allowed to find it / were able to find it. It reminded me more of some representation of... well, I didn't really figure out what exactly it was but something like, perhaps, utter good? Or a kind of mix between hope and imagination/? Or something inside us?

I'd like to comment on some other things that were said, but I have to read the whole thread for that. So... *starts reading*

Edit: I've read a bit, and I think Mark described it very accurately in one word: dreams.

[Galadriel55]

Originally Posted by littlemanpoet

But if Middle Earth is part of the Realm of Fairy, who knows? Is this just an example of one of those common themes that haunted Tolkien's mind? What think you?

I think that in a way, yes, and in a way ME just shows up in whatever he wrote... somehow...

Maybe Valinor is Faerie. Maybe ME/Arda as a whole. Or maybe, as you said, it is only a part of Faerie. Or maybe neither.

Originally Posted by davem

If 'men know nothing' of the battles on the Dark Marches then those battles cannot take place in the human world - they must take place 'elsewhere'. This means that there is a 'third' place - not the human world & not Faerie

ME? It is in a way the "human world", or our world, only in different time&space dimensions. It is like a cross between our world and Faerie.

I'm trying to erase the mental image of Bilbo and Frodo as the first mortals on American soil...

Originally Posted by Estelyn Telcontar

I do have the book to hand, and it is "elven", so the mariners are definitely Elves.

Maybe they were Men who seemed to be Elvish to the onooker, Smith. The Numenorians are described as a "species" of Men that comes fairly close to Elves, both physically, mentally, and spiritually. (I'm not talking about Pharazonian Numenorians, but rather them at the height of their spiritual glory).

Originally Posted by Esty

From the context, we can assume that both their goal at home and that of their journey to the Dark Marches, where they fought, are located in Faery, since Smith was in Faery when he saw them there. So the connection between the Elves and our world is not through their journey. It is Smith himself who makes the transition from real life to Faery, by way of the star, and he made the journey by foot or by horse.

This is a very interesting view.

Originally Posted by littlemanpoet

Either way, Bêthberry, Alf would therefore be Manwë, and the Queen of Faerie would be Varda! Such company Smith kept! Not that I'm convinced of this, but it's fun to imagine it this way.

This makes me think of Smith as Earendil...

Yet he's more similar to Beren. I think he found Doriath with the dancing princess Luthien pretty enchanting...

Originally Posted by Findegil

But we can not be sure if it was to Valinor that Smith did go. The geography he described is not fully consistent with what we know about Valinor or any other part of Arda described by Tolkien in detail. In a place the land of Faery in Smith is seen as a isle. This could be a hint to Tol Eressea in the later Ages when it was again inhabited by the Elves from Beleriand. But I remember no event in the history of Arda where elvenwarriors of Tol Eressea would take part.

But if we take that point of view, then there's the possibility that they were the Elves heeding the call of the Sea during the later part of the Third Age.

Originally Posted by mark12_30

Maybe.

Smith of Wootton Major seems to me to be one of Tolkien's more dreamlike works; not that it is meant to all signify "And he woke up and lo it was just a dream"-- but Tolkien put a lot of stock in dreams, and wrote about them within his works as well as wrote the works because of the dreams he himself had (Alkallabeth.)

To me the dreamlike quality of Smith is akin to the dreamlike quality of Frodo's Dreme in Adventures of Tom Bombadil, or (in a less serious vein) the dreamlike quality of 'The Man In The Moon Came Down Too Soon'. They are tales about wanderers feeling very much out of their element, very much vulnerable, and actually in some danger (the danger varies from piece to piece.) But Smith's vision (did he really 'see' them? Was it a dream, a vision, or outside of time, or ...) ... Smith's vision of the "Eleven men" (sic) reminds me of Frodo's Dreme and of The Man In The Moon much more than it reminds me of the Sil, for example.

From the LOTR and the Sil and Tolkien's later works, Valinor is no dream; it has soil, trees, shores, sand, feasts. Reading about it feels very real and solid and tangible. But Smith's Faery is not; it is shifting, ethereal, dreamlike. So is the land that Frodo nightmares his way through. And The Man In The Moon's sojourn among men is humorously nightmarish too.

How would I compare Smith's Faerie to Valinor-- Not to the 'real thing'. I would compare it to Frodo's dreams of Valinor (in Tom Bombadil's house, and other of his dreams) , and perhaps to some of his foreshadowings of Valiinor (in Lorien, or in Rivendell); those times when he was enchanted or in a dreamlike state.

Wow. You've looked way beyond "the simple mathematics of the legendarium", as I often call my Books arguments. And, like Elempi, I'm very moved by this post.

Originally Posted by Aiwendil

I am curious regarding other people's opinions of Smith vs. the Silmarillion.

I find them both equally moving, but in different ways.

To add something of my own, I think Smith was verily doing what Gandalf couceled to do: choosing what to do with the time that is given to you. That made me think that Frodo is Smith's LORD copy and antipode at the same time. He is also "chosen" (though really, both chose their own fate in way, and in a way, both had no choice...) to bear a symbolic object, a connection to a different realm. If in Smith's case, through that object - the Star - h is connected to a heavenly realm. Through the Ring, Frodo is connected to Mordor, quite the opposite of heaven. And both have to give up these objects, yet Frodo has to destroy it completely, and Smith has to pass it on.

Another LOTR passage that came to mind is Frodo's discussion with Merry:

"Well here we are, just the four of us that started out together," said Merry. "We have left all the rest behind, one after another. It seems almost like a dream that has slowly faded."

"Not to me," said Frodo. "To me it feels mor like falling asleep again."

It seems like Merry "visited his Faerie" during his trip. Frodo "left his Faerie" in order to fulfil his mission.

Sorry if I am deviating a bit from the original topic, but there are just so many possibilities that come to mind...


Forgot to say this: In The Sil, especially in the beginning of the FA, Valinor & Inhabitants are still fresh, naive, unlearned, etc. Faerie is still too much a part of the world, and the world is a part of Faerie. By the TA, Faerie is separated from the world. It is wise, it seems ancient, etc. And it is far off, remote, leaving "our mundane world" independant of it. And that is what makes it "Faerie". In the FA, Faerie *is* the mundane, that's why it's not Faerie, or an undeveloped-Faerie.

Am I making any sense?

[mark12_30]

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

It seems like Merry "visited his Faerie" during his trip. Frodo "left his Faerie" in order to fulfil his mission.
?

Wow. Maybe I've been gone too long from this forum but that is the first explaination of that line that has ever resonated for me.

Wow.

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

Am I making any sense?

Mmm-hm.

[Galadriel55]

Originally Posted by mark12_30

Wow. Maybe I've been gone too long from this forum but that is the first explaination of that line that has ever resonated for me.

Wow.

I'm honoured.

Just expanding on my earlier thoughts: Perhaps in the time of The Sil, Valinor was still too young (or, rather, too youthful?) to really be Faerie. It was ready at the time of LOTR. Just like for us ME is like Faerie, but for many of its inhabitants is wasn't.

Also, since Roverandom was already mentioned, I think it's worth noting that the whale that showed the Rovers "Valinor" was Uin(en). I know it doesn't make sense, as this is cutting the root -nen- in half, but I couldn't help making the association.

[littlemanpoet]

Somehow, it doesn't seem enough for something to be "ready to be Faerie" just because it's aged some. Faerie has its own quiddity, if you will, that strikes me as timeless.

[Bêthberry]

Dimitra Fimi's book entitled Tolkien, Race, and Cultural History offers a very interesting study of how Tolkien's ideas about the fay world changed from his very earliest poems through the First, Second, and Third Ages, leading ultimately to SWM. I can't recommend it highly enough.

But perhaps this passage might be of interest here. It comes from Tolkien's public lecture Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, on the medieval poem of the same name. He is discussing Gawain's acceptance of the the Lady's girdle and the effects of Gawain's confession, before Gawain goes off to face his fate with the Green Knight. This is about an explicitly Christian work, which Tolkien's is not, and so it could refer just to the Gawain poem.

Originally Posted by Tolkien

And so, while Gawain does not accept the Girdle solely out of courtesy, and is tempted by the hope of magic aid, and when arming does not forget it, but puts it on for gode of hymseluen and to sauen hymself, this motive is minimised, and Gawain is not represented as relying on it at all when coming to the desperate point--for it, no less than the horrible Green Knight, and his faierie, and all faierie, is ultimately under God. A reflexion which makes the magic Girdle seem rather feeble, as no doubt the poet intended that it should.

The lecture was delivered in 1953.

[Galadriel55]

Originally Posted by littlemanpoet

Somehow, it doesn't seem enough for something to be "ready to be Faerie" just because it's aged some. Faerie has its own quiddity, if you will, that strikes me as timeless.

It's not that much about aging as about making it remote. As Valinor grew older, it happened to distance itself from ME. When ME got "got old", it became our faerie. When it's "young", it's too mundane, because it's too close to the present.

[littlemanpoet]

Not sure what to make of Tolkien's comments about Sir Gawain in context of SoWM. What do YOU make of it, Bethberry?

Galadriel, I get you. I do understand how the remoteness of time affects. I still see a difference between mere remoteness and that thing about Faery that makes it Faery. Consider: we don't consider ancient Egypt to be Faerie. However, we do consider ancient Ireland and ancient Britain to be full of Faery. What is it about the latter that separates them from Egypt and other non-Faery-ish place-times, that makes them feel like Faery?