The Silmarillion in the Vernacular

[Thinlómien]

This is pretty amazing, and I daresay it requires quite a good memory and storytelling skills from you, Huine. I'm really curious what your kids will think of the Silm when they are old enough to read it themselves.

That being said, I had rather the deep end experience with Silm as a kid and it worked too. My father (alias Nogrod) read all the major Tolkien works aloud to me and my little sister (alias A Little Green) and I don't think he ever censored a bit, and I loved it that way (and I don't think it was bad influence in any way unless you count him raising a kid who has been even more Tolkien obsessed than him ).

I don't quite recall how old we were when this all happened though. I don't remember much of The Hobbit, so we must have been very little, but I have many vivid memories of the LotR readthrough (including a story I have told here many times about how I got super mad about my dad closing the book in the middle of The Voice of Saruman and threatening to read the rest of the chapter myself if he doesn't finish ). But I think I was about 6-7 when he read LotR to us which was pretty much the perfect age, while Greenie at 5ish was perhaps a little too young (I also love recounting the story about how she found Cirith Ungol so scary she didn't want to hear more, not much before Frodo and Sam have the same exact conversation).

But we went from LotR, probably not immediately, but anyway to Silmarillion and even (parts of?) The Unfinished Tales. I very much doubt I would have such good grasp of the myriad Silm characters, places and family trees if I hadn't absorbed them back then with the wonderful memory children have. I don't think I ever found The Silmarillion too scary - or too confusing or boring or whatever - it was just a story. Children are pretty amazing, I don't think you need to shelter them too much.

Also to be fair I think The Lord of the Rings is, in some ways, a lot more mature work than The Silmarillion. Sure, Silm has suicide and incest and genocide and no happy ending, but it is mostly told from a rather detached perspective. It is, in a sense, very close to whether you would expose your children to any traditional mythology at a young age.

While LotR? Is actually super creepy and emotionally affecting at times. The descriptions can be very vivid and you get attached to the characters much easier, and therefore you as a reader are probably much more worried about Frodo's fate than you ever were for say Túrin's. If you're listening to the story as a child who doesn't know what's going on, there is a lot of scary. The Black Riders are scary (Merry as a potential Black Rider is scary too), the Old Forest is scary, the Barrow-Downs are scary, the Black Riders are scary again, Moria is scary, the breaking of the Fellowship is scary (or at least bewildering because it breaks the basic heroic narrative children are used to), basically all the wars are very suspenseful, the Dead Marshes are scary, Cirith Ungol is scary, Mordor is scary, the Scouring of the Shire is again bewildering... I don't think The Silmarillion is half as emotionally unsettling for kids simply for the more detached tone and less atmospheric descriptions.

So, from my personal experience, you shouldn't be too worried about the upsetting elements in Tolkien' works, children can take it. But like I said, I love how you've put such a personal spin on The Silmarillion and basically made your family's own branch of The Legendarium. I can't help thinking The Professor would greatly approve.

[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by Lhunardawen

So did the story progress any further while the world is on lockdown?

Alas, it has not. I find it hard to be appropriately off-the-cuff when I'm not driving at the same time, so "Elves" (as in, "Can we do Elves?") is on hold while we're stuck at home.

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

You could do a "let me tell you a bit about Gondolin" backstory. It doesn't even matter when you tell it, cause it's disentangled from the other Silm stories. Aredhel just does her thing sometime before H&H arrive.

This is the plan, now that you suggested it. We'll do Princess Aredhel and the Spooky Man, lead into Grubby Mortals Wind Up In Gondolin, then jump over to The Long Grim Tale of Turin and Tuor, Or, Grubby Mortals In Gondolin 2.0. Y'know... someday.

Originally Posted by Rune Son of Bjarne

At what age did you guys start introducing them them to Tolkien's Legendarium?
Did you start with the Hobbit (which is my least favorite) or did you jump straight into the fun stuff?

I tried reading The Hobbit in a different car setting (waiting to pick up my wife after work). We got... nearly to Gollum, I think? It wasn't a great hit, which is a shame. That would have been, oh, a year and a bit ago? So they were 8 and 6.

Originally Posted by Estelyn Telcontar

I've told them some of the events of LotR and bits of Sil, but we have entered the realm of fan fiction. When they stay with me, they demand Bilbo stories of the Hobbit's life as a child. One of the girls suggested I write those down and publish them, but of course copyright laws would prohibit that - and the fact that the Shire looks and feels an awful lot like their own modern life!

Excellent! This sounds like the sort of thing that would happen in the Shire itself - tales of Mad Baggins and all.

Originally Posted by Thinlómien

This is pretty amazing, and I daresay it requires quite a good memory and storytelling skills from you, Huine. I'm really curious what your kids will think of the Silm when they are old enough to read it themselves.

So am I. I know I had repeatedly read LotR by the time I was 12 or so (that would be 1998), but I think I didn't lay hands on the Silm until after the movies came out. In fact, my personal copy of LotR (as opposed to either of my parents') and my original Silm were under matching covers, so I must have gotten them fairly close together.

Listening to your story, I'm wondering whether my children would be up for LotR now (or at least, once we've finished our current storybook). I shall have to ponder the point. Original Silm, I'm afraid, they'd probably find rather dull; I read them Rosemary Sutcliff's Arthurian retelling and had to liven the language up in that, let alone Silm.

Originally Posted by Thinlómien

But like I said, I love how you've put such a personal spin on The Silmarillion and basically made your family's own branch of The Legendarium. I can't help thinking The Professor would greatly approve.

It's been fun! I've heard them playing at Luthien a time or two, too... I occasionally think of the way Tolkien started hearing back versions of Errantry that had been orally transmitted through multiple iterations, and the only word that was universally unchanged was "sigaldry".

hS

[Galadriel55]

Yesterday I unexpectedly found myself in a similar boat. My dad, at some point which I have not witnessed, told my kid brother to ask me about hobbits. And I had the question sprung on me at a point most unexpected. Seeing as the kid has only recently graduated from the Three Pigs And The Wolf story level, and whose ideal story has no bad guys, I wasn't even considering introducing him to Tolkien yet. But he asked, so I told him about hobbits, and Dwarves, and a bit about Elves. And then he asked "When are you going to get to the actual interesting part?", so I took that as the cue to launch into a modified retelling of The Hobbit.

So far I told the story up to the Trolls. He was absolutely dazed by the amount of new creatures introduced into his lexicon (he hasn't met many fictional creatures yet due to not being very far in his reading schedule), and he was really scared that the Trolls were gonna eat the company. His favourite part was when the Dwarves showed up in a ridiculous fashion at Bilbo's door. He found it funny, and I had him guess how many Dwarves were standing at the door each time. I don't remember TH that well, but at least I can recite all of Thorin's companions without fail! He was also very upset that Bilbo would do such a bad thing as leave his home without a handkerchief. Burrahobbit, and the whole burglar business, had to be left out, because it doesn't translate well but mainly because I did not feel myself capable to handle the questions that would be met with. Ethics are an issue I did not want to get myself into.

Because I don't remember TH well at all, I did a quick skim of the next few chapters so that I would be able to do Rivendell and the Goblins next. I didn't even remember how the Dwarves got captured by Goblins, and had to look that up. But I think I'll call them Orcs when I get to that part.

[Pitchwife]

[OT]

Originally Posted by Thinlómien

Also to be fair I think The Lord of the Rings is, in some ways, a lot more mature work than The Silmarillion. Sure, Silm has suicide and incest and genocide and no happy ending, but it is mostly told from a rather detached perspective. It is, in a sense, very close to whether you would expose your children to any traditional mythology at a young age.

While LotR? Is actually super creepy and emotionally affecting at times. The descriptions can be very vivid and you get attached to the characters much easier, and therefore you as a reader are probably much more worried about Frodo's fate than you ever were for say Túrin's.

Yep, LotR was a huge step forward in Tolkien's development as a writer, and I think he knew it - hence the reworking of the Great Tales in a more detailed, vivid, LotR-ish style that brought us the prose Narn, Tuor and his Coming to Gondolin etc. Whereas the Silmarillion reads more like an Elven bible, its gruesome parts tempered by the distanced mode of telling - which is why the Old Testament isn't usually considered unfit for children (or is it?).[/OT]

As to the topic proper, I fear I have little to contribute, having neither children nor underage siblings, and I'm not sure the cats and dogs would appreciate being told about Huan and Tevildo, so... as you were.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

It's worth pointing out that even in the QS proper, and the Annals, the post-LR material tends toward a closer focus with more dialogue and psychology, as in the Finwe/Miriel story; or in the Silmarillion's "short Turin" which largely came from the Grey Annals.

[Rune Son of Bjarne]

Originally Posted by Thinlómien

I very much doubt I would have such good grasp of the myriad Silm characters, places and family trees if I hadn't absorbed them back then with the wonderful memory children have. .

When I first read the Silmarillion I tended to skim a lot of the early chapters, and to this day I have a hard time remembering the different valar etc.

Originally Posted by Pitchwife

[OT]

Yep, LotR was a huge step forward in Tolkien's development as a writer, and I think he knew it - hence the reworking of the Great Tales in a more detailed, vivid, LotR-ish style that brought us the prose Narn, Tuor and his Coming to Gondolin etc. Whereas the Silmarillion reads more like an Elven bible, its gruesome parts tempered by the distanced mode of telling - which is why the Old Testament isn't usually considered unfit for children (or is it?).[/OT]

Bible?
I always saw it as a history text book in style. You know, first semester of your undergrad you have to pick up "A brief history of middle-earth". Just to set the stage for later studies.

[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by Pitchwife

Whereas the Silmarillion reads more like an Elven bible, its gruesome parts tempered by the distanced mode of telling - which is why the Old Testament isn't usually considered unfit for children (or is it?).[/OT]

Ah, but I love the way The Silmarillion reads! Old-fashioned language has always been an interest of mine (probably explains too why my Bible is the KJV).

[Lhunardawen]

[OT]

Originally Posted by Inziladun

Ah, but I love the way The Silmarillion reads! Old-fashioned language has always been an interest of mine (probably explains too why my Bible is the KJV).

I was in high school when I read it the first time so no, not really a child, but so do I!

I'm curious though, Zil, if you've ever read The Message version and what you think of it.
[/OT]

Unlike Rune, the Valaquenta and knowing the Valar's distinctive characteristics was exciting to me, it probably seemed a bit like animal taxonomy to me at the time. And it was fun seeing all the genealogies. I think I might have even read through the entire index of names at one point, just because.

Which brings me to this question: Hui, do you think your kids would be too overwhelmed with the idea that there are beings in "Elves" who can control different elements (so to speak), if they ever become directly relevant to your retelling of the story?

Originally Posted by G55

Because I don't remember TH well at all

At that rate? You have quite a memory! (Obligatory - or maybe not - admission: I don't remember TH at all.)

[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by Lhunardawen

I'm curious though, Zil, if you've ever read The Message version and what you think of it.

I have to say I'm unfamiliar with it.

[Pitchwife]

Originally Posted by Lhunardawen

I think I might have even read through the entire index of names at one point, just because.

Is it weird that the index and the appendix on elements in Quenya and Sindarin names may well be the parts I've read most often? The map, too.

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by Pitchwife

Is it weird that the index and the appendix on elements in Quenya and Sindarin names may well be the parts I've read most often? The map, too.

Is this the moment when I'm allowed to say that I have read the LotR names index before I read the actual story? (And the point was exactly to marvel at the amount of amazing names and locations that all sounded so exciting even though I had no idea what they were, with an occasional translation of the name on the side.)

In the same vein, looking at maps was a necessary part of the reading (call it multimedial experience), and I may not have read the Elvish languages "dictionary" the most often, but before the first time I finished the Sil - and possibly even LotR - I had read it several times and knew most of the basic words. I was about eight-ish around that time.

Depending how much "linguistic" your kids are, Hui, you might find them devouring the dictionary if you actually let them loose on it, and it might add an extra dimension to the whole "people whose names start with F-" issue. I don't know how much such an experience can be generalised, but it seems to me that there is a certain fascination with strange names among many children, which manifests equally in areas like Tolkien or for example kids learning names of dinosaurs very easily, and being actually super interested in learning them. It may be that it is not as common as I perceive it to be, or that your kids may not be interested in that, but an eight-year-old me would have been perfectly happy to be entertained for several hours with a map and a dictionary even without the story.

In any case, it is a splendid testimony and I can only say that this sounds like parenting done right. And I join those who marvel at you being able to remember all the facts correctly, or more like, feeling confident enough to tell that. I used to, but I would be very hesitant and afraid that I would mix up some of the F- people. But I am also much more confident in The Hobbit and LotR - or, say, the Ainulindalë, but not the "middle part" of Sil. Perhaps it is because I was never so much into the cloak-and-dagger family-dramas which form the bulk of it. I liked the "myths" about how the first Elves or first Men came here or there or about the Trees or Sun and Moon, but found the repeated unsuccesful ventures against Morgoth and recurring personal tragedies of individuals pretty dull and waited for something interesting to happen. But if you used Fëanor to illustrate the destructive potential of anger, then, well... that's some use of the story, hats off.

But I wanted to say: I commend you for remembering all this, but I am absolutely not surprised at your kids keeping track of it, and I would absolutely not fear them not being able to remember the names. Because that's what kids do. I would rather fear, if this keeps up, that in a couple of years, you might need to revise who was who or what was the difference between Brithombar and Eglarest, because they will know, and you might not.

[Huinesoron]

We made it through Turin!

Stars and water he's hard work. But I've finally managed to bump off not just Turin, but his entire family and most of his friends and enemies as well. Thingol is still alive, but... I think he's it? Well, Morgoth, I guess.

Now to decide whether to wrap up the Saga of Turin Kills Everyone by killing Thingol too (it is too his fault), or give myself a break and go visit Gondolin for a bit.

...

Stars... after maybe one session of Gondolin, I don't get another break from deaths until Earendil reaches Valinor, do I?

hS