The Book of Lost Tales Part I: A Readthrough

[Orphalesion]

Originally Posted by jallanite

A post which solves the main difference between Orphalesion and myself.

The term complete opposite, when used in describing characters in fiction, is normally use to compare normal mortals and is really a short form for diametric opposite in many ways. Since Orphalesion was describing what could be described as two different versions in subsequent texts of the same character, an immortal who might be ascribed many characteristics not attributable to morals at all, I took the phrase complete opposite more literally than Orphalesion intended.

Orphalesion was not, I believe, even thinking of comparing beings like Varda, Manwë, Ulmo, Vána, Tom Bombadil, or Gandalf with either Fui Nienna or Nienna. Yet such comparisons immediately sprang to my mind. The number of beings comparable in some sense to both Fui Nienna and Nienna is far greater in Tolkien’s legendarium than would be so in most novels, in which characters comparable to Fui Nienna or Nienna don’t exist at all.

So when Orphalesion posted, “Sorry, but no..... no two characters could be further apart from each other than Fui Nienna from the BOLT and Nienna from the Silmarillion,” I immediately thought of various figures in Tolkien’s legendarium who were more different from each other than Fui Nienna and Nienna.

Similarly when Orphalesion posted, “Fui Nienna and ‘our’ Nienna are complete opposites!”, I immediately thought of other beings who could also be described as complete opposites of Fui Nienna, if one wished to think in such terms. For example, Vána and Tom Bombadil.

Yes, perfectly worded. That was the crux of the discussion

My identification was based on Vána being the chief goddess of what one might call female sexuality among Tolkien’s Valar, not on theories of the origins of the comparable characters. The Sumerian goddess Inanna, for example, is often imagined, I think rightly, to have earlier been mainly a granary goddess. I did not include the Egyptian Hathor because, although identified with Aphrodite and Venus in classical times, she originally seems to have been identified with the Semitic Asherah/Athirat rather than with Ashtarte/Athtart, which makes her originally closer to Hera/Juno.

I don't know enough about Inanna to confirm or deny this, but Venus definitely is often thought to originally have been a goddess of fields and gardens.
Interesting that you would connect (at least primitive) Vana to feminine sexuality. I never saw that and actually always thought that a "Love Goddess" was oddly lacking among the primitive Vala.
Though apparently in an even earlier, now lost phase before the BOLT, (still alluded to in the Gnomish dictionary at the end of the book) Eirinty was the Goddess of "love, beauty and music" and had the role later given to Meril-i-Turinqui. Though Tolkien in that early state seemed fond of mixing the tropes of mythological love and spring goddesses creating Erinti, Vana and Nessa out of basically the same cloth(CT even points out that in the Gnomish dictionary they share some of their epitomes)
However linking Vana to female sexuality (while valid) is as much interpretation as linking Fui Nienna to the archetype of the crone. And in a later phase of the mythology we briefly have Vana the Everyoung, Nessa the Ever-Maid (now not married to Tulkas) and Leah, the Young (temporarily replacing Nessa as Tulkas' wife)
So many goddesses/Valier of youth and associated with flowers and springtime, but never do we get a Valier known simply as "the Beautiful" or, more explicit, "the Lover", probably because Tolkien would have never included a traditional spirit of female sexuality in his work. A Freyja/Inanna/Aprhodite type character would have been as out of place as Makar and Measse and would have disappeared just as quickly (and perhaps has, if Eirinty was supposed to fill that role)

[jallanite]

Originally Posted by Orphalesion

So many goddesses/Valier of youth are associated with flowers and springtime, but never do we get a Valier known simply as "the Beautiful" …

Except for Vána, significantly.

In the published Silmarillion, in the Index of Names, Christopher Tolkien notes under the entry Vanyar: “The name (singular Vanya) means ‘the fair’, referring to the golden hair of the Vanyar ….”

In the Book of Lost Tales, Part One, he states in the “Appendix: Names in the Lost Tales – Part 1” under the entry Vána (bolding by me):

   A derivative of the QL root vᴀɴᴀ, together with vanë ‘fair’, vanessë ‘beauty’, vanima ‘proper, right, fair’, úvanimo ‘monster’ (ú-=‘not’), etc. Here also are given Vanar and Vani=Valar, Vali, with the note: ‘cf. Gnomish Ban-’. See Valar.
   Vána’s name in Gnomish was Gwân or Gwani (changed later to Gwann or Gwannuin); gwant, gwandra ‘beautiful’, gwanthi ‘beauty’.

Both the Norse Vanir and the goddess Venus are by some believed to derive from PIE root wan/wen* ‘beautiful’. The Norse goddess Freyja is called Vanadís in the Skjáldskaparmál, meaning ‘dís of the Vanir’.

Nessa I consider to be derived by Tolkien from Artemis, Nessa being sister of the archer god, connected with deer, and as you point out, at one later stage in Morgoth’s Ring is distinguished from the wife of Tulkas and called “the ever-maid”. She remains quite distinct from Vána, save in being young and beautiful.

Erinti/Ilmarë, daughter to Manwë and Varda, I see as derived from both the Greek Hebe, daughter of Zeus by Hera, and her Latin counterpart, Juventas, the goddess of youth, daughter of Jupiter by Juno.

But it is part of Tolkien’s game, as you point out, that none of Tolkien’s Valar exactly correspond to any deity taken from a real mythology.

[Orphalesion]

Originally Posted by jallanite

Except for Vána, significantly.

In the published Silmarillion, in the Index of Names, Christopher Tolkien notes under the entry Vanyar: “The name (singular Vanya) means ‘the fair’, referring to the golden hair of the Vanyar ….”

In the Book of Lost Tales, Part One, he states in the “Appendix: Names in the Lost Tales – Part 1” under the entry Vána (bolding by me):

   A derivative of the QL root vᴀɴᴀ, together with vanë ‘fair’, vanessë ‘beauty’, vanima ‘proper, right, fair’, úvanimo ‘monster’ (ú-=‘not’), etc. Here also are given Vanar and Vani=Valar, Vali, with the note: ‘cf. Gnomish Ban-’. See Valar.
   Vána’s name in Gnomish was Gwân or Gwani (changed later to Gwann or Gwannuin); gwant, gwandra ‘beautiful’, gwanthi ‘beauty’.

Both the Norse Vanir and the goddess Venus are by some believed to derive from PIE root wan/wen* ‘beautiful’. The Norse goddess Freyja is called Vanadís in the Skjáldskaparmál, meaning ‘dís of the Vanir’.

I meant in the epithet, and going by that it is: Vana the Everyoung, not Vana the Beautiful. From the translation of the name, you are of course correct.

However I can never remember if the word used for the Vanyar had "blonde/pale coloured" as its primary meaning and beauty as its second or the other way around. I remember that Tolkien explained it was equivalent to the English word "fair" but that one of those words had beauty as its primary meaning and blonde/paleness as secondary meaning and the while the other had the primary and secondary meaning reversed.
But considering that Aragorm calls Arwen vanimelda I assume the Elvish one had beauty as its primary meaning (or at least had acquired it by the Third Age), since Arwen is very beautiful, but not blonde.
So much for that fanon theory (which I personally always disagreed with) that Celegorm had blonde hair only because he was "the Fair"

Of course Nessa's name seems to be Quenya for "the Young" so we have if we translate completely:

"The Fair", the Ever-Youg and "The Young", the Dancer.

Yeah Vanadis is my favorite name of Freyja, I always found it be a very beautiful name in its sound as well as its written form. I did not know that Vanir was thought to derive from an ancient word for beautiful, thanks

Nessa I consider to be derived by Tolkien from Artemis, Nessa being sister of the archer god, connected with deer, and as you point out, at one later stage in Morgoth’s Ring is distinguished from the wife of Tulkas and called “the ever-maid”. She remains quite distinct from Vána, save in being young and beautiful.

Good catch! Didn't see the Artemis connection in the ever-maid. She is very much the Helenised Artemis when her primeval aspects had been lost and she became this eternal, youthful maiden goddess who wandered the woods in her short tunic.

Erinti/Ilmarë, daughter to Manwë and Varda, I see as derived from both the Greek Hebe, daughter of Zeus by Hera, and her Latin counterpart, Juventas, the goddess of youth, daughter of Jupiter by Juno.

But it is part of Tolkien’s game, as you point out, that none of Tolkien’s Valar exactly correspond to any deity taken from a real mythology.

See I would link Vana to Hebe, Juventas and Flora and Eirinti with Aphrodite, but I of course see that Tolkien mixed and matched here and Eirinti was a non-entity anyway. Ilmare however is again very different, from her name she doesn't seem to be associated with love and music like Eirinti was.

To Ilmare I have a question that has bugged me for a while now. In the "Complete Guide to Middle Earth" (I know) David Day makes a reference to her "throwing spears of light from the night sky" is that based on anything in Tolkien's writing at all, or did Mr. Day just make things up? I mean the edition I have (from 2001) also claims the "Age of Starlight" (Awakening of the Elves - Death of the Two Trees) lasted ten millennia and that seems to be contradicted by the HoME....

This actually quite nicely parallels the Norse goddesses in the Edda who all seem vaguely, to different degrees to be associated with fertility "seiðr" (magic, precognition) to the point that there are still theories on how many goddesses really existed in the pagan Norse and Germanic believe systems and how many just were alternate names of the same deity.

[jallanite]

[quote=Orphalesion;695632]

Originally Posted by Orphalesion

However I can never remember if the word used for the Vanyar had "blonde/pale coloured" as its primary meaning and beauty as its second or the other way around. I remember that Tolkien explained it was equivalent to the English word "fair" but that one of those words had beauty as its primary meaning and blonde/paleness as secondary meaning and the while the other had the primary and secondary meaning reversed.

From Tolkien’s The War of the Jewels, page 383:

Vanyar thus comes from an adjectival derivative *wanjā from the stem *wᴀɴ. Its primary sense seems to have been very similar to English (modern) use of ‘fair’ with reference to hair and complexion; although its actual development was the reverse of the English: it meant ‘pale, light-coloured, not brown or dark’, and its implication of beauty was secondary. In English the meaning ‘beautiful’ is primary. From the stem was derived the name given in Quenya to the Valie Vána wife of Orome.

Of course Tolkien might have thought beauty to be the primary meaning of *wanjā when he wrote the Book of Lost Tales, or not.

So much for that fanon theory (which I personally always disagreed with) that Celegorm had blonde hair only because he was "the Fair".

The name is translated into Old English by Tolkien as Cynegrim Fægerfeax in The Shaping of Middle-earth (HoME 4). Fægerfeax in modern English is ‘Fairfax’, that is ‘Blond-hair’. Tolkien may have imagined Celegorm to have a rather dark blond hair, to be an ash blond, that is to possess hair-color which might count as fair among the dark-haired Noldor. Tolkien may rather have later changed his mind on Celegorm’s hair-color when he came to consider Noldorin genetics. On the other hand he may have thought that Celegorm merely had particularly beautiful hair. Perhaps Fægerfeax should be translated as ‘Gleaming hair’.

To Ilmare I have a question that has bugged me for a while now. In the "Complete Guide to Middle Earth" (I know) David Day makes a reference to her "throwing spears of light from the night sky" is that based on anything in Tolkien's writing at all, or did Mr. Day just make things up? I mean the edition I have (from 2001) also claims the "Age of Starlight" (Awakening of the Elves - Death of the Two Trees) lasted ten millennia and that seems to be contradicted by the HoME....

I think these are two of the inventions for which David Day is notorious. See the discussion of Ilmarë at http://valarguild.org/varda/Tolkien/...are/Ilmare.htm . See the comments on David Day by Steuard Jensen at http://tolkien.slimy.com/essays/DayBooks.html . See also the general discussion of David Day at http://www.lotrplaza.com/archives/in...0Age&TID=83477 .

[Zigûr]

Originally Posted by jallanite

I think these are two of the inventions for which David Day is notorious.

I had the misfortune of being given a David Day book as a child before I'd properly read The Silmarillion (I found it tough going at ten years old) and unfortunately it coloured my perceptions of things for a while.

While Day's style and method are interesting (trying to convey an 'in-universe' perspective, for instance) the assumptions he makes are a step too far. He more or less states outright that Bombadil is a Maia, among other things.

As a result his books are part of, and contribute to, a general culture which has stood in the way of intellectualizing Professor Tolkien's work for years.

[Orphalesion]

Originally Posted by Zigûr

I had the misfortune of being given a David Day book as a child before I'd properly read The Silmarillion (I found it tough going at ten years old) and unfortunately it coloured my perceptions of things for a while.

While Day's style and method are interesting (trying to convey an 'in-universe' perspective, for instance) the assumptions he makes are a step too far. He more or less states outright that Bombadil is a Maia, among other things.

As a result his books are part of, and contribute to, a general culture which has stood in the way of intellectualizing Professor Tolkien's work for years.

Similar story here got the guide when I was 10 and reading the Lord of the Rings for the first time. It makes a lot of funny claims, almost as if the author tried to make the book appear thicker on the shelf. And as the link Jallanite posted states, he has a very evocative writing style, like that image of Ilmare "throwing spears of light from the night skies" is very beautiful and gives us more about her than we ever get from Tolkien's work, so I held onto it longer than the rest and really hoped that it was from some obscure part of the HoME.

It's also funny how David Day at the same time writes how Lothlorien was founded by Amdir AND by Galadriel and Celeborn (not together apparently, he just writes under their respective entries that each of them founded Lorien) who both reigned in the forest....somehow....at the same time.

He also eirdly neglects parts of the story, for Gondolin he writes "its people perished" no mention of Idril's escape route and the refugees. And apparently Middle Earth has vampires.

[Tar-Jêx]

Originally Posted by Orphalesion

He also eirdly neglects parts of the story, for Gondolin he writes "its people perished" no mention of Idril's escape route and the refugees. And apparently Middle Earth has vampires.

It had 'vampires', at one point, in The Lay of Leythian, as Luthien dressed up as one to get close to Melkor as part of their master plan.
However, David Day was just making up nonsense, and probably had no idea about The Lay of Leythian.

[jallanite]

Originally Posted by Orphalesion

And apparently Middle Earth has vampires.

From “Of Beren and Lúthien” in the published Silmarillion (italics mine):

Then Sauron yielded himself, and Lúthien took the mastery of the isle and all that was there; and Huan released him. And immediately he took the form of a vampire, great as a dark cloud across the moon, and he fled, dripping blood from his throat upon the trees, and came to Taur-nu-Fuin, and dwelt there, filling it with horror.

Also …

He [Huan] turned therefore at Sauron’s isle, as they ran northward again, and he took thence the ghastly wolf-hame of Draugluin, and the bat-fell of Thuringwethil. She was the messenger of Sauron, and was wont to fly in vampire’s form to Angband; and her great fingered wings were barbed at each joint’s end with an iron claw.