Scimitar?

[Arwen Imladris]

What is a scimitar?

...goblins of huge size with scimitars of steel.

It sounds like it is some sort of armour or sword or something, but what exactly is it?

[Elrian]

A scimitar according to Merriam Webster is:

: a saber having a curved blade with the edge on the convex side and used chiefly by Arabs and Turks

[Lush]

and used chiefly by Arabs and Turks

Hmm. This would be the perfect opportunity for some overly sensitive member to jump in and say that this is direct evidence that Tolkien was prejudiced against the Arabs & the Turks. I don't think this is the case, but it's still pretty interesting that he would associate the scimitar with evil goblins. Or am I taking the quote out of context?

[Elrian]

The quote came from Merriam Webster online, The dictionary site.

[Sarin Elfarmour]

Tolkein didnt have anything against turk/arabs, though he did hate machinery, and prefered the thought of ppl making thing with their own two hands

[Lush]

I meant the original quote, Elrian. About goblins wielding scimitars. Am I misunderstanding? Were they nice goblins? Heh.

[O'Boile]

In the movie Robin Hood: Prince of Theives, Azeem (morgan freeman) uses a scimitar.

[Aldagrim Proudfoot]

I've actually heard Tolien was prejudiced because he only used European mythology. Except that doesn't make sense because he was using European mythology. It wouldn't have been as fgood if he tried everything else. The straight sword was the kind used by the people he based ME on. The scimitar just wasn't. He probably wanted the orcs and other enemies to be different.

[Legolas]

Think of a pirate's sword.

[Mister Underhill]

Here's a pic that will give you the general idea:


[ July 29, 2002: Message edited by: Mister Underhill ]

[The Silver-shod Muse]

Ooooh. Looks evil. [img]smilies/eek.gif[/img]

In the Chronicles of Narnia and lots of other fantasy books scimitars are used by the evil people. I think it might be because, for whatever reason, straight swords were considered more honorable and the curved swords were considered crueler.

I noticed that in the movies the orcs never used scimitars. Intstead they used those funny-looking square swords with the notch or hook at the tip. Hmmm... sounds like PJ was avoiding something.

[Aldagrim Proudfoot]

I read a book that takes place in ealy 16th century Europe and the staright sword iscaled "honest". I think it has something to do with that old rivalry between the East and West.

[Lush]

I think little things like scimitars expose the caliber of Tolkien's writing-very scholarly and in depth. Sorry if I appeared like a bleeding heart earlier in this thread, but I am too eurocentric as it is.

[Arwen Imladris]

Wow! Thanks guys, I understand now! One more question, how the pie do you say it? [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]

[Eol]

are you asking how to pronounce scimitar?
you would pronouce it as sim-I-ter


or how to pronouce "pie"?
well I think that should anwser itself [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]

[ August 05, 2002: Message edited by: Eol ]

[The Silver-shod Muse]

you would pronouce it as sim-I-ter

Oh. I guess I've pronounced it wrong all this time (SIM-i-tar). I've never heard it spoken aloud, so I just made up a pronunciation for myself.

[Lady_Báin]

I've always pronounced it SEM-i-tar oh well wrong me

[Sharkû]

http://www.m-w.com

Online audio pronunciation can be a handy tool if you know it exists.

[ August 08, 2002: Message edited by: Sharku ]

[HerenIstarion]

additional information - scimitars were mostly fit for mounted warrior's use, though infantry used it too - yanichars (if i spell it correctly, though). Therefore I always pictured warg riding orcs using scimitars, rather then walking ones.

[The Squatter of Amon Rûdh]

Hmm. This would be the perfect opportunity for some overly sensitive member to jump in and say that this is direct evidence that Tolkien was prejudiced against the Arabs & the Turks. I don't think this is the case, but it's still pretty interesting that he would associate the scimitar with evil goblins.

I think there's a perfect alternative to this explanation (thanks to the Silver-Shod Muse for this one):

Ooooh. Looks evil.

There you have it: a scimitar is a vicious-looking weapon, perfectly suited to the nature of goblins.
Plus it alliterates nicely with 'steel', providing a pleasingly threatening, possibly even onomatopoeic effect (the phrase 'scimitars of steel' can, with a little imagination, evoke the sound of a whetstone being drawn along a blade). I notice that even in his academic writing, Tolkien liked to use plenty of alliteration, which is one of the things that makes his essays and lectures so eminently readable.

[Mister Underhill]

Now this is why I love the Downs. “Scimitars of steel” as onomatopoeia – wonderful! I can hear the hiss of the sharpened blade. Fascinating observation with regard to alliteration in the prof’s scholarly work, too – I’ll have to keep an eye out for that.

Something interesting always turns up when you page through Letters, so I thought I’d toss this into the pot, too:

In any case if you want to write a tale of this sort you must consult your roots, and a man of the North-west of the Old World will set his heart and the action of his tale in an imaginary world of that air, and that situation : with the Shoreless Sea of his innumerable ancestors to the West, and the endless lands (out of which enemies mostly come) to the East.

The Hobbit (from which the “scimitars of steel” quote is drawn) was written in the early part of the century, a period when the popular (if not necessarily historically accurate) conception of Arabs in the West was as bands of warring, warlike tribes – many examples can be found amongst the pulp writers of the era, in films like The Lost Patrol, in the clashing “scymitars” of Burton’s Arabian Nights, in Kipling, and so on. I think the scimitars – especially within the context of when the work was written – allude to Orcish social organization as tribal and warlike, and also simply have vague associations of “enemy”.

[The Squatter of Amon Rûdh]

“Scimitars of steel” as onomatopoeia

Of course the repetition of the 't' sound is also reminiscent of the hiss and thud of a scimitar in use, but I preferred the tense threat of the sound of sharpening to the mindless brutality of the melee.

Fascinating observation with regard to alliteration in the prof’s scholarly work, too – I’ll have to keep an eye out for that

The line I had in mind is from The Monsters and the Critics, which I thought strangely poetic for an academic piece. I'll look up and post the exact quotation when I get home.

Nice point about Orcish tribalism as a parallel for European conceptions of the Middle-East. I hadn't thought of that one, but now that you come to mention it, 'scimitar' is a very alien-sounding word, whereas 'sword' and even 'cutlass' are too familiar to convey the sinister atmosphere invoked by its hissing sibilant and hard stop.

On the subject of enemies, though, I don't think that Tolkien was referring to Arabs when he spoke of them coming from the east: Arabic invaders got as far north as Poitiers, but Charles Martel beat them back into Spain and they certainly never came near the Northern lands of Britain and Scandinavia. My money would be on Tolkien's reference being more to Franks, Huns, Goths, Mongols and the like, who moved west through Europe. Being an Englishman it's even more likely that images of longships were on his mind: the first Viking raid on England struck the monastary at Lindisfarne, off the North-East coast, and the English came to know the Vikings as 'the scourge of God'.

[The Squatter of Amon Rûdh]

Further to the above, the following is from Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics:

[ Beowulf ] is divided in consequence into two opposed portions, different in matter, manner and length: A from 1 to 2199... B from 2200 to 3182 (the end). There is no reason to cavil at this proportion; in any case, for the purpose and the production of the required effect, it proves in practice to be right.
This simple and static structure, solid and strong, is in each part much diversified, and capable of enduring this treatment.

Here we have the alliteration of 'matter' and 'manner'; 'purpose', 'production' and 'proportion' and, most notably, of five out of eight words at the beginning of the last sentence.

Another example from the same piece is truly poetic:

The placing of the dragon is inevitable: a man can but die upon his death-day.

Of course I may just be getting carried away on the alliteration point. It may be unintentional, but it adds so much to the general tone of his writing that I doubt the effect was lost on him.

[The Silver-shod Muse]

My money would be on Tolkien's reference being more to Franks, Huns, Goths, Mongols and the like

Huns and Mongols - I hadn't thought of them. They do match the description that Tolkien gives of the Easterlings: swarthy, dark, short and compact, a different people altogether from the Numenorean descendents, though I think the Easterlings came primarily on foot (correct me if I'm wrong on this point, I haven't got my LotR on hand) while the Huns and Mongols would most definitely have been horsed.

[The Squatter of Amon Rûdh]

You're spot on about the Easterlings: they're mostly infantry with some cavalry and elephants. However, my reference was to Tolkien's statement in the letter quoted by Mr. Underhill:

In any case if you want to write a tale of this sort you must consult your roots, and a man of the North-west of the Old World will set his heart and the action of his tale in an imaginary world of that air, and that situation : with the Shoreless Sea of his innumerable ancestors to the West, and the endless lands (out of which enemies mostly come) to the East.

[Mister Underhill]

And I, in my turn, didn't mean to imply that I think Tolkien meant Arabs or Turks exclusively when he alludes to enemies from the East. I think of the "North-west of the Old World" as including the traditionally "Western" cultures, and I'd tend to disagree with lumping in, for example, the Vikings as included in the "enemies" reference. Who are the Rohirrim most notably based on if not the Vikings?

I was thinking of East vs. West in more traditional terms -- Mongols, certainly, Huns, maybe, Saracens, Pathans, and the like. But then again maybe I'm just talking out of school. [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]

[The Squatter of Amon Rûdh]

Sorry about that. I seem to be misunderstanding rather too much of what you say these days. Reading that post again it's obvious that you weren't implying any such thing.

This one, however, may be justified: I think that the Rohirrim are much more closely related to the Anglo-Saxons than the Vikings (cf the rather good Gilbert and Sullivan parody on Flying Moose of Nargothrond), although where their tendency to fight as cavalry comes from is anybody's guess. As such, Vikings could be enemies from the East, although on reflection I'm not sure that Tolkien was partisan when it came to Northern Europe.

I suppose that it's all a bit academic anyway: enemies from the south and east could mean just about anyone when talking about this part of Europe, so I suppose that anything goes.

[ August 09, 2002: Message edited by: Squatter of Amon Rudh ]

[Mister Underhill]

No problem. The fault’s likely on my end.

I’m at best a dabbler in matters of sociology and anthropology, so I’ll bow to your assessment of the Rohirrim’s real-world influences. In any case, you’re right that all this conjecture is only academic in the end. The comparisons quickly break down. The Orcs can hardly be conceived as stand-ins for any real-world race or society, and those bronco-busting Horse-lords don’t have any direct analogs either, as you so rightly point out. Part of Tolkien’s genius was an ability to evoke dim associations we have by using small details like arming his Orc-folk with scimitars. He uses words like spice to conjure whole layers of depth and breadth, as I think our discussion here has shown.

[The Squatter of Amon Rûdh]

I'm not an anthropologist either, just a history graduate with an interest in early medieval Europe. My smattering of Sociology is sufficiently long in the tooth to be rusted through, or at least thoroughly blunt. I mainly drew my conclusion from names like Eorl, Eomer and Theoden, which have a distinctly Old English air about them, and from the organisation of Rohan's society. You're right, though: Tolkien was far too sophisticated just to copy history verbatim. His geographical positioning of the heroes and their enemies may be drawn from the past, but there's no direct correlation between Middle-Earth's inhabitants and any real-world races or tribes, whatever may have been borrowed to paint them more convincingly.

[Mister Underhill]

Literary allusions and quasi-historical associations aside, I found some interesting info in the aforementioned Burton’s “The Book of the Sword” regarding the practical reasons for the scimitar’s curved shape and some notes on how its use in battle differs from a straight sword. I’ll risk over-quoting here because I think some of this stuff is interesting:

...the shape of any pattern or model, whether of tool or of weapon, suggests its own and only purpose. A swordsman chooses his Sword as a sawyer his saw. Show the mechanic a new chisel, and its form at once explains to him its use: he learns by the general shape, the edge-angle, the temper, the weight, and similar considerations, that it is not made to drive nails, nor to bore holes, and that it is intended to cut wood or soft substances. Thus, too, the form of the Sword is determined by the duty expected of it... The Sword has three main uses, cutting, thrusting, and guarding. If these qualifications could be combined, there would be no difficulty in determining the single best shape. But unfortunately – perhaps I should say fortunately – each requisite interferes to a great extent with the other. Hence the various modifications adopted by different peoples...

[...]

The peoples who fought from chariots and horseback – Egyptians, Assyrians, Indians, Tartars, Mongols, Turks, and their brethren the ‘white Turks’ (Magyars or Hungarians), Sarmatians, and Slavs – preferred for the best of reasons the curved type. The straight Sword, used only for thrusting, is hard to handle when the horse moves swiftly; and the broad straight blade loses its value by the length of the plane along which it has to travel. On the other hand, the bent blade collects, like the battle-axe, all the momentum at the ‘half-weak’, or centre of percussion, where the curve is greatest. Lastly, the ‘drawing-cut’ would be easier to the mounted man, and would most injure his enemy.

[...]

...it is the drawing motion which, added to the curve of the weapon and its oblique presentation, increases the trenchant power. The ‘Talwár’, or half-curved sabre of Hindustan, cuts as though it were four times as broad and only one-fourth the thickness of the straight blade. But the ‘drawing-cut’ has the additional advantage of deepening the wound and of cutting into the bone. Hence men of inferior strength and stature used their blades in a manner that not a little astonished and disgusted our soldiers in the Sind and Sikh campaigns.

[...]

The old Persian Sword, often called by mistake the Turkish Sword, ends in a point beyond a broadening of the blade. The effect is to add force to the cut; the weapon becomes top-heavy, but that is of little consequence when only a single slash, and no guarding, is required of it. This peculiarity was curiously developed in the true Turkish scimitar, which we see in every picture of the sixteenth century, and which has now become so rare in our museums. The end gradually developed to monstrous size; the length was cut down for the sake of handiness and the guard was almost abolished, because parrying was the work of the shield.

[...]

I have given precedence to the curved blade because cutting is more familiar to man than thrusting. Human nature strikes ‘rounders’ until severe training teaches it to hit out straight from the shoulder... Yet there is no question of superiority between the thrust and the cut. The man who delivers point has an advantage in time and distance over the man who uses edge. Indeed, the man who first ‘gave point’ made a discovery which more than doubled the capability of his weapon. Vegetius tells us that the Roman victories were owing to the use of the point rather than the cut: ‘When cutting, the right arm and flank are exposed, whereas during the thrust the body is guarded, and the adversary is wounded before he perceives it.’ Even now it is remarked in hospitals that puncture wounds in the thorax or abdomen generally kill, while the severest incisions often heal... Moreover, the history of the ‘white arm’ tells us that the point led to the guard or parry proper, and this ‘defence with the weapon of offence’ completed the idea of the Sword as now understood in Europe.

Hence, we can see that different weaponry suggests different fighting styles to those who are knowledgeable in such matters. It’s easy to imagine the Orcs using a weapon designed for chopping and hacking, employing a style that is more brutal and savage and less refined, less concerned with guard and defense.

I imagine those Orc-Dwarf wars were just bloody chop-fests, no quarter asked and none given, with battlefields no doubt strewn with severed limbs and cloven gear after the dust had settled.

As a bonus, here are a few etymological notes:

‘Scymitar’ is originally the Persian Shamshír, but as the Greeks have no sh sound, it made its way into Europe curiously disguised... In England scymitar was further degraded to semitarge. I have no objection to scimitar, but scymitar is the older form.

[HerenIstarion]

Great stuff. thanks

[lindil]

I was so indoctrinated by the scimitar=bad guys that while learning T'ai-Chi Ch'uan I wanted to skip the Broadsword [aka Scimitar] altogether and proceed straight to the Gim or straightsword [ the main swords used in Crouching tiger , Hidden dragon - for instance]. It took me quitea while to get over JRRT's effect on me and get uased to the idea of learning the weapons in the 'proper sequencce'.

In China the scimitar was used by those who had to fight multiple opponents, anf the straight sword was more of a dueling and gentleman's weapon, and extremely difficult to use properly. The saying is 'the broadsword can be learned in 100 repetitions' the straightsword in 10,000'.

Thanks for all the great historical info folks, the downs is truly the 'straightsword' of Tolkien sights!
A queen among farmers wives!

[Bill Ferny]

Hmm. This would be the perfect opportunity for some overly sensitive member to jump in and say that this is direct evidence that Tolkien was prejudiced against the Arabs & the Turks.

I’m not overly sensitive… I just call like it is. Tolkien was prejudiced against the Arabs and Turks.

What is being ignored is a rather uncomfortable historical and modern fact. Ever since the eighth century the western world has been embroiled in an off-and-on-again struggle with the Arab/Muslim world. From the Arab conquest of North Africa and the Battle of Tours in AD 732 to the modern day struggles on the Dalmatian Coast, Cyprus, Palestine and now Iraq, western European culture/Christianity and the Arab culture/Islam has been at odds with each other. It doesn’t take much research to find extreme examples of racism on either side, from chanting in the streets of Damascus and the anti-western statements of the Imams in Saudi Arabia, to the comments of the Rev. Billy Graham, Jr. We who consider ourselves enlightened moderns might not like it, and ignoring the issue is all the vogue, but it’s still a historical circumstance that has left an indelible mark on the world and our respective cultures and social psyches.

Tolkien’s use of the word “Corsair” to describe a presumably doped-into-evil seafaring people from the south is enough to demonstrate a certain parallel to the Saracens. His use of this word is not the only hint of prejudice. He also places scimitars in the hands of his villains from Umbar (not from the east) and orcs, but I’ve yet to find any reference to the “free peoples of Middle Earth” using scimitars or labeled according to Arab history or culture. The attempt to explain this away by intelligent contributors to this thread is both par for the coarse for this forum, and distressing.

I’ve stayed away from threads dealing with the possibility of Tolkien being racist, simply because I thought I would get myself into trouble. Tolkien has made prejudiced statements, that can be interpreted as racist, and most on this forum will go to extraordinary lengths to explain them away. Of course, I’m not saying that Tolkien was a racist the likes of a Wagner or the Nazis. He was appalled by such beliefs, as has been pointed out on this forum in so many ways that it doesn’t need to be rehashed. However, he, like everyone else, held some racial prejudices. There’s no need to defend Tolkien or explain these things away. Nor is there any reason to demonize him for it. Doing either will only bury these prejudices, causing them to fester just under the surface.

We are so concerned with doing away with all prejudice and demonizing those we think racist, that the western academic world is quickly losing its ability to understand the social and historical causes of these prejudices. A relativistic approach, one that assigns no demerit to other cultures, neither assigns any merit. By making all cultures equal, we are no longer inspired to study diverse cultures in order to better our own. More alarming in light of recent world events… not everyone shares the modern relativistic approach (nor should they), and attempting to rebuild a country whose culture we are not only prejudiced against, but are no longer capable of understanding, could very well end in disaster.

[Feanor of the Peredhil]

Please don't jump on me for this, as it's but my own two cents, and it's a distinct possibility that nobody will agree with me. It doesn't really bother me that Tolkien had prejudices, I mean, everybody does. Although Tolkien was amazing, he had flaws just like everyone else. I'm not justifying racism; actually, people won't say anything racist near me for fear that I'll bite their heads off, but if Tolkien was racist, it doesn't really matter, since it's his own personal opinion, and we have to respect that, even if we don't agree with it.

However, the way I see the whole thing with the scymitars is that they are awsome weapons whose name sounds different from our own tongue; that difference sounding harsher and more wild than other weapons, just as orcs are to the other races. Also the way that the blades work and how they look less refined than a simple sword adds to that bit of foreigness that orcs seem to have in spades.

In short, whether Tolkien was racist or not, everything he put in his books was there for a reason, whether it was onomonopoetic, alliteratory, or simply stuck in for a bit of humour. He wrote to entertain people and to make them think, so it seems, and just by seeing this thread, you can tell that it worked.

~Fea

By the way: I pronounce it sim-a-TAR

[The Saucepan Man]

Bill, I largely agree with what you have said. But I do not think that, just because JRRT had his marauding Men come (largely) from the East and the South East, it follows that he was prejudiced against the Arabic world.

As you say:

Ever since the eighth century the western world has been embroiled in an off-and-on-again struggle with the Arab/Muslim world.

So surely it follows that, if JRRT was seeking to build a mythology for England and on the assumption that the ME of the War of the Ring is analagous to (or the forerunner of) Europe, he would have his enemies come from the traditional direction. He recognises as much himself in the quote from the Letter given by Mister Underhill:

In any case if you want to write a tale of this sort you must consult your roots, and a man of the North-west of the Old World will set his heart and the action of his tale in an imaginary world of that air, and that situation : with the Shoreless Sea of his innumerable ancestors to the West, and the endless lands (out of which enemies mostly come) to the East.

It does not follow from the fact that JRRT had his enemies come from the traditional direction that he was racially prejudiced. Indeed, Sam's observations on the dead Southron in Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbits indicates, for me, a very enlightened view:

He was glad that he could not see the dead man's face. He wondered what the man's name was and where he came from: and if he was really evil of heart, or what lies or threats had led him on the long march from his home; and if he would not really rather have stayed there in peace ...

JRRT, through Sam, recognises that, just because this man was an enemy, he was not necessarily intrinsically evil. Quite possibly, he was just doing what he believed, or had been persuaded to believe, was his duty.

I am not seeking to be a Tolkien apologist here. I just don't think that the presence of the Variags and Haradrim in Sauron's armies or the attacks of the Wainriders of the early Third Age, or indeed the presence of a scimitar in goblin hands, indicates a prejudice against the Arab world on his part. I am sure that he, just as many in the West do today, recognised that, in reality, there have been faults present, and attrocities committed, on both sides of the centuries old, on-off struggle between the Arab and the Western worlds which you describe.

And finally, to momentarily stray with you off the Tolkien-related path, there is much truth in your final point:

... attempting to rebuild a country whose culture we are not only prejudiced against, but are no longer capable of understanding, could very well end in disaster.

I am not sure that prejudice is necessarily the worst of our worries (although it is clearly present to some degree on both sides), but lack of understanding (again, on both sides) is undoubtedly a major concern. I nevertheless endeavour to remain optimistic that some good can come out of what has happened. [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]

[Sophia the Thunder Mistress]

Bill Ferny said:

We are so concerned with doing away with all prejudice and demonizing those we think racist, that the western academic world is quickly losing its ability to understand the social and historical causes of these prejudices.

Yes. The same causes that would have a European mythology fighting Eastern enemies.

Tolkien was prejudiced against the Arabs and Turks.

Again, quite likely, I find it very hard to think outside my culture. I'm quite sure most of us do. Prejudice (to one degree or another) is inherent in all cultures.

I think, however, that Tolkien was able to see his own prejudice. Thanks Saucepan Man for the Sam quote, I was about to dig it out myself. [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]

Saucepan Man said:

but lack of understanding (again, on both sides) is undoubtedly a major concern.

In the real world, but in ME too. In neither place is understanding entirely lacking.

[ April 25, 2003: Message edited by: Sophia the Thunder Mistress ]