Richard Wagner and J.R.R. Tolkien - The Long Defeat, The Final Battle, and Glimpses of Victory

Here is the next part of my continuing thread exploring the works of Richard Wagner and J.R.R Tolkien - two of the greatest and most prolific sub-creators of their generation.

Wagner and Tolkien worked on the development of their legendariums over a course of many years and for each of them it was a great part of their lifework. The development of these works reflected their life experiences and changing attitudes. One series of related themes both Wagner and Tolkien explore throughout the development of each of their works are the concepts of the long defeat, the final battle and glimpses of victory.

For Wagner, these thoughts are illustrated in his changing ideas for the end of his great Ring-cycle which he rewrote six or seven times (an interesting personal comparison with Tolkien's habit of "niggling" over his works). In the original 1848 version, written in a time of revolutionary optimism, Siegfried and Brunnhilde rise out of the fire of the funeral pyre and ascend to the god's home of Valhalla. There Brunnhilde cleanses the gods of their guilt and prevents their fated destruction. This is the only version where the gods are saved from ultimate destruction. As Laurence Dreyfus says in his recent article Siegfried's Masculinity, in the early version of the Ring there is little that has to do with romantic love - instead of falling in love men force themselves on females, Grimhild, Gunther's mother is overpowered and Alberich does not forswear love to master the Rhinegold but simply abducts it. (Dreyfus, p. 5) This idea of love and healing begins to play a much more important part in the make up of the Ring in the next major version of the story Wagner penned in 1852 living as a poor political exile in Switzerland. For this version, Wagner re-wrote the ending which now saw the gods being destroyed and being replaced by a human society ruled by love. This version was very much influenced by the Philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach (1804-1872) whose work Das Wesen des Christentums (The Essence of Christanity) argues that the ultimate essence of God is love (gross oversimplification of a very complex theory). This influenced Wagner to change the end to Brunnhilde proclaiming to the gods -

"The holiest hoard of my wisdom I bequeath to the world. Not wealth, not gold, nor godly splendour; not house, not court, nor overbearing pomp; not troubled treaties’ deceiving union, nor the dissembling custom of harsh law: Rapture in joy and sorrow comes from love alone."

In 1856 Wagner fell under two new influences: the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer and a growing resurgence in Buddhist teachings. These influences caused him to revise the ending of the Ring again this time to to reflect the illusory nature of human existence (known in German as "wahn" as in Wagner's later home at Bayreuth - Wahnfried) and the negation of the will. In this version, Brunnhilde sees herself redeemed from an endless cycle of birth, suffering, death and rebirth – enlightened by love she achieves a state of non-being - her final lines to her horse Grane now are:

"Were I no more to fare to Valhalla's fortress, do you know whither I fare? I depart from the home of desire, I flee forever the home of delusion; the open gates of eternal becoming I close behind me now: To the holiest chosen land, free from desire and delusion, the goal of the world's migration, redeemed from incarnation, the enlightened woman now goes. The blessed end of all things eternal, do you know how I attained it? Grieving love's profoundest suffering opened my eyes for me: I saw the world end."

The final final version of Brunnhilde's Immolation was not written to the very end of orchestral composition for the Ring in 1874 when Wagner now a famous composer fully funded by his patron King Ludwig of Bavaria (ah those were the days!) revisited the ending again. He still has the gods perish in the flames of Valhalla (the last stage direction he gives is “the gods completely hidden from view by flames, the curtain falls”). Now Wagner uses his “elvish craft” of highly complex musical composition - using the network of leading motives he developed to illustrate characters, items and thoughts throughout the Ring. You will hear this theme in the final moments of this clip from my still favorite production of the Ring at the Metropolitan Opera featuring the incomparible Wagnerian soprano Hildegard Behrens as Brunnhilde

In these last glorious moments we hear blasting out of the orchestra the leading motive of “Redemption through Love” This motive has been heard only once before when Sieglinde learns she will give birth to the hero Siegfried and Brunnhilde helps her escape the anger of Wotan.

It is in this final moment of the opera we glimpse a final victory against the downfall of the gods – a victory heralding the start of a new world of mankind. However, Wagner does not indicate what happens to the Lord of the Ring Alberich himself – the last time he is seen is telling his son to “be true” so in this new world Wagner hints that evil may persist.

In J.R.R. Tolkien's legendarium, within the context of his secondary world of Arda and its history there is also a long defeat - a series of historical episodes that move inexorably from the creation to the end of the world. Each age of Middle Earth has defeats and peoples who are the slaves to fate. The great hapless hero of the first age Turin Turambar's, like Wagner's ultimate hero, Brunnhilde, is ruled by fate. The etymological derivation of Turin's very name carries with it the idea of fate. In The Etymologies Tolkien outlines the linguistic roots of this name from the roots TUR (Mastery)and UMBAR/AMBAR (FATE) (History of Middle Earth, The Lost Road, p. 395) and the story of Turin ultimately turns this name against him - "Turin Turambar Master of Fate by Fate Mastered."

As in Wagner's world there is also a persistence of evil. We see a distant echo of this in Tolkien's The New Shadow Tolkien's late unfortunately unfinished sequel to the Lord of the Rings where there is evidence of orc and Morgoth worship in Fourth Age Gondor (Alberich knocking on the Door perhaps?). There is definitely a pessimism and a sense of elegy and fading (one thinks of the Two Trees, the passing of the Elves back to the West, etc.).

Tolkien like Wagner also gives evidence of glimpses of a final victory in the wreck of the "ragnarok" of the end of the world. Looking into the legendarium we see evidence of both aspects. In one of the earliest prose versions of the Turin story from the Book of Lost Tales - Turambar and the Foaloke we are told that after a ritual cleansing in the bath of flame both Turin and his sister Nienori will -

"dwelt as shining Valar among the blessed ones, and now the love of that brother and sister is very fair, "but Turambar indeed shall stand beside Fionwe in the Great Wrack, and Melkor and his drakes shall curse the sword of Mormakil" (History of Middle Earth, The Book of Lost Tales 2, p.116)

An interesting echo of the early version of the ending of the Ring with Siegfried and Brunnhilde ascending to Valhalla in glory?

Later in The Book of Last Tales this concept of the "Wrack of the Gods" is paired with "the Great End -

"The Elves'prophecy is that one day they will fare forth from Tol-Eressea and on arriving in the world they will gather all the fading kindred still live in the world and march towards Valinor - through the Southern lands. Then they will only do with the help of Men. If men, and them, the fairies will take Men to Valinor - those that wish to go - fight a great battle with Melko in Erumani and open Valinor. Laurelin and Silpion will be rekindled and the mountain wall being destroyed then soft radiance will spread over all the world, and the Sun and the Moon will be recalled." (The History of Middle Earth, The Book of Lost Tales 2, p.285)

But as Tolkien continued to develop his legendarium we can see the blending of another theme - the "Great End" starts to be referred to as "Arda Healded." In The Sketch of the Mythology (1926) the last battle is followed by a passage about Yavanna finding the lost Silmarils and using them to rekindle the light of the Two Trees.

"When the world is much older, and the Gods weary, Morgoth will come back through the Door, and the last battle of all will be fought. Fionwe will fight Morgoth on the plain of Valinor, and the spirit of Turin shall fight beside him, it shall be Turin who with his black sword will slay Morgoth, and thus the Children of Hurin will be avenged. In those days the Silmarils shall be recovered from sea and earth and aid, and Maidros shall break them and Belaurin (ed - Palurien/Yavanna) with their fire rekindle the Two Trees, and the great light shall come forth again, and the Mountains of Valinor shall be levelled so that it goes out over the world, and Gods and Elves and Men (Men was struck out according to the notes) shall grow young again and all their dead awake." (The History of Middle Earth, The Shaping of Middle Earth, p.41).

Tolkien continues to develop this theme throughout his later works with the idea that for all the suffering of the world there is an ultimate recovery or perhaps to go further redemption - and as we learn in some of Tolkien's later works - especially in the very interesting Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth" — A discussion between two characters, an Elven king (Felagund) and a mortal woman (Andreth), about the metaphysical differences between Elves and Men - there is indeed an "old hope" men possess about their ultimate fate -

"'What then was this hope, if you knew?" Finrod asked. 'They say,' answered Andreth 'they say that the One will himself enter into Arda, and heal Men and all the Marring from the beginning to the end. This they say, also, or they feign, is a rumour that has come down through years uncounted, from the days of our undoing." (Morgoth's Ring, p. 321).

So in Tolkien's legendarium there is a reason to fight another day (one thinks of the rousing Quenya war cry - Auta I lome - passing is the night!), there is a reason to suffer and strive - the hope of a final victory - an Arda restored - the ultimate movement from "elegy to eucatastrophe"



Thus in the development of their vast and shifting legendarium's both Wagner and Tolkien using their own versions of their "elvish craft" - each a form of "gesamtkunstwerk" - depicts stirring visions of the fall, recovery and glimpses of redemption - the world's ultimate hope.

Works/Sites Cited:

Dreyfus, Laurence - Siegfried's Masculinity in The Wagner Journal (Vol 4: 2011)

Tolkien, J.R.R. - The History of Middle Earth (Vol 1) - HarperCollins: 2002

Tolkien, J.R.R. - Morgoth's Ring - Harper Collins: 2002

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Der_Ring_des_Nibelungen:_Composition_of_the_poem


Posted from Andrew Higgins IPAD asthiggins@me.com

"Gundryggia dort, Kundry Hier"

In his recent excellent article Sourcing Tolkien's "Circles of the World:" Speculations on the Heimskringla, the Latin Vulgate Bible, and the Hereford Mappa Mundi, Jason Fisher mentions J.R.R. Tolkien's preference to "wringing the juice out of a single sentence, or exploring the implications of one word" (quoted from Tolkien Monsters and the Critics, p. 224). I have decided in the course of writing this blog to attempt to adapt a strand of posts where I will attempt to do just that - look at one word or phrase and attempt to extract meaning and the sources of historical etymology from it - words and phrases found either in Tolkien's legendarium or in the primary world of myth and legend (or opera).

This first one was inspired by my attendance last night at English National Opera's production of Richard Wagner's Bühnenweihfestspiel final work Parsifal in the incredibly powerful staging by Nikolaus Lehnhoff. I had seen this production before when I worked at San Francisco Opera and this time it had a special relevance as it was sung in English with John Tomlinson as a stirring Gurnemanz.

What struck me (and not for the first time) was a line in Act 2 when the evil necromancer Klingsor summons the doomed Kundry to seduce the pure, or half fool, Parsifal. In the evil invocation to awaken Kundry, Klingsor says:

"Herauf! Herauf! Zu mir!
Dein Meister ruft dich, Namenlose,
Urteufelin! Hollenrose!
Herodias warst du, und was noch?
Gundryggia dort, Kundry hier!"

"Arise Arise To me!
your master calls you! Nameless one
Primeval witch, rose of hell
You were Herodias, and what else?
Gundryggia there, Kundry here!"

So the phrase I would like to "wring the juice out of" is the very last line of this passage "Gundryggia dort, Kundry hier"

In her personal diary entry for March 14, 1877- Cosima Wagner relates... at lunch R (Wagner) tells me: "She will be called Gundrygia (sic), the weaver of war", but then he decides to keep to Kundry."

So where did Wagner derive this Norse name from - the name of what the nameless one was "dort" (there) and how does the word in Wagner's mind come to mean a "weaver of war"

For me the first part of the name "gunn" looks the most familiar as the Old Norse word - gunnr. According to the entry in the Cleasby-Vigfusson Old Norse dictionary there is an entry for:

"GUNNR, f., older form guðr, [A. S. gûd; O. H. G. gundia], war, battle, only used in poetry, Lex. Poët, passim. COMPDS: gunnar-fúss, -gjarn, -örr, -tamðr, adj. warlike, Lex. Poët. gunnar-haukr, m. a hawk. gunn-blíðr, -bráðr, -djarfr, -fíkinn, -hagr, -hvatr, -mildr, -rakkr, -reifr, -snarr, -sterkr, -tamiðr, -tamr, -þorinn, -öfligr, -örðigr, adj. all laudatory epithets = valiant, Lex. Poët.: of weapons and armour, the shield is called gunn-blik, -borð, -hörgr, -máni, -rann, -tjald, -veggr, n.; the sword and spear, gunn-logi, -seiðr, -sproti, -svell, -viti, n.; of the battle, gunn-el, -hríð, -þing, n.; the carrion crow, gunn-gjóðr, -már, -skári, -valr, n.; of the warrior, gunn-nórungr, -slöngvir, -stœrandi, -veitir, -viðurr, -þeysandi, n. etc., vide Lex. Poët. II. in pr. names; of men, Gunn-arr, Gunn-björn, Gunn-laugr, Gunn-ólfr, Gunn-steinn, etc.; of women, Gunn-hildr, Gunn-laug, Gunn-löð; and in the latter part. Þor-gunnr (-guðr), Hlað-gunnr, Hildi-gunnr" (cite)

On a relavatory website called Guide to Nordic Names we find the following historic analysis of this word:

Ancient Germanic
*guntho = 'battle, fight' [1]
Proto Norse
*gunþi- = 'battle, fight' [2]
*gunþiō = 'battle, fight' [2]
Old Norse
gunnr = 'battle, fight' [2] [3] [4] [1]
Old Saxon
gûth = 'battle, fight' [1]
Anglo-Saxon
gûdh = 'battle, fight' [1]
Old High German
gund- = 'battle, fight' [5] [1]

This word survives in English as the word "gun"

So clearly the War part of the name makes sense from the etymological record.

According to Geir T. Zoega's Concise Dictionary of Old Icelandic there is the Old Norse verb - drygja which means "to commit, perpetrate, carry out, practise with secondary meaning
to comply with ones wishes, to obey one (cite p. 97). In Michael Barnes' Glossary to An Introduction to Old Norse (Part 3) the same verb is cited as "carry out, engage in; suffer?"

So one can posit that someone who "weaves" does carry out and perpetrates something. Of course the very meaning of the name points a very important set of characters in Norse mythology who are "war weavers" and carriers out of Wotan's will - the Valkyrie

Going back to the first part of the name GUNNR we find that although not counted among the Valkyries in Wagner's Ring cycle - there is in the corpus of Norse mythology a Valkyrie called GUNNR. We first find her name on the Rök Stone a 9th century memorial block bearing the longest runic inscription which was found in Östergötland, Sweden where it occurs as part of a kenning for the word "wolf" (a good association with Wotan/Walse of course!)

"Þat sagum tvalfta, hvar hæstR se GunnaR etu vettvangi a, kunungaR tvaiR tigiR svað a liggia."

Translation:

I say this the twelfth, where the horse of Gunnr sees fodder on the battlefield, where twenty kings lie...

In the Prose Edda she is described as riding out with her sisters Rota and Skuld - "Guðr ok Róta ok norn in yngsta, er Skuld heitir, ríða jafnan at kjósa val ok ráða vígum"

We also find mentions of her in the Voluspa among the other Valkyries.

So with this etymology is Wagner saying that at one time this primeval witch was a valkyrie - a weaver or carrier out of war - certainly the Valkyrie were charged with carrying the dead heroes of the battlefield to Valhalla where they are to fight eternally as part of Wotan's army for the final end battle of Ragnarok.

Before calling her Gundryggia , Klingsor says "Herodias warst du, und was noch?" Interestingly there is another Valkyrie link here. In the German Poet Henrich Heine's 1843 poem Atta Troll we are told that it was Herodias, not Salome, who asks for severed head of John the Baptist and for doing so is cursed for all eternity to ride, laughing, with the Wild Hunt -

Yes, she really was a princess,
Was the queen of all Judea,
And the lovely wife of Herod,
Who the baptist's head did covet.

For this blood-guilt must she also
Be accursed; she must, as Night-Spook,
'Til the very Day of Judgement,
Ride along with this Wild Hunt.

In her hands she bears forever
That sad platter, with the head of
John the Baptist, which she kisses;
Yes, she'll kiss the head with fervor.

For, at one time, she loved John -
It's not found within the Bible,
Yet the people keep the saga
Of Herodias' bloody loving (Heine, Atta Troll, XVIII)

We know Wagner was a great reader of Heine's works and based two of his earlier works on poems by him - Der Fliegende Hollander and Tannhauser.

In Germanic folklore thunder was often thought to be caused by an army of wild horsemen flying through the night sky. The riders were said to be the dead heroes following the Valkyries to Valhalla. In Jessie L. Weston's Legends of Wagner's Dramas there is an interesting quote from a passage in Simrock's Deutsche Mythologie in the passage for Herodias "which relates how the enmity of Herod's queen towards John the Baptist was really caused by the saint's rejection of her proffered love. When after death she would have covered the severed head with tears and kisses, it recoiled, and from the dead lips issued a blast of wind so powerful that Herodias was carried away by it and made to joint the wild hunt, and like Dante's sinful lovers sweeps for ever onward before its resistless force. This curious legend appears to owe its origin to a misunderstanding of Hrödes, one of the many names of Wotan, who, in his elementary character of the air, is the original Wild Huntsman. Among the many explanations traditionally given of the object of this mysterious chase we find the god represented as pursuing his flying bride; and vice- versa the deserted goddess seeking her lost husband. This chase being closely associated with St. John's (Midsummer) Day, the remembrance of the saint, coupled with the misunderstanding of the name, probably contributed to the evolution of this quaint legend (author's footnote: cf. Simrock, 'Herodias')."

Note: Need to do more exploring with Hrödes - perhaps related to Hrjóðr meaning "the roarer"

So perhaps it is through this association that Gunndryggia and Herodias become associated - you were the pagan Valkyrie war weaver and that Herodias who was doomed to ride with the Wild Hunt with the severed head of John the Baptist laughing for all eternity (and one thinks of Kundry mocking Christ - "Ich sah ihn...ihn und lachte...")

But wait a minute - there is another Valkyrie in the room that can not be ignored - name THE Valkyrie - Brunnhilde - who is also certainly a "war weaver". It is a matter of knowledge that Wagner considered Parsifal to in many ways be the fifth act of the Ring and as early as 1848/9 in his sub-creative essay for his legendarium -Die Wibelungen has already made connections between the Nibelung hoard and the Holy Grail. For a brilliant analysis of all this connection I refer you to Paul Schofield's excellent book The Redeemer Reborn - Parsifal as the Fifth Act of the Ring.

Certainly Brunnhilde and Kundry share similar dual nature character traits (they are both the loving servant and the traitor - both cursed for their deeds and ultimately play a part in redemption). I also believe, and have yet to prove, that we may find in Kundry's music some echos of Brunnhilde's themes in the Ring (more to come on this). So could "Gunndryggia there" mean - yes, you were the weaver of war - Brunnhilde back there, and Herodias and now here in this life you are Kundry - a seductress and a servant.

Going back to the name Gunnr - we also find parallel meaning in the "hilde" part of Brunnhilde's name a poetic name for battle and in Old Norse to vekja hildi means to "wage war, to fight"

I will end this posting with one more interesting observation made by Schofield - Amalie Materna (pictured) was the first soprano to sing the roles of both Brunnhilde in the 1876 Bayreuth production and Kundry in the 1882 premiere. Wagner gave inscribed copies of his photograph to a number of friends and performers. The inscription given to Frau Materna read "Kundry here, Brunnhilde there, the work's bright jewel everywhere." Clearly Wagner is playing on the line "Gundryggia there, Kundry here," he was know to enjoy making plays on words and ideas that had both humorous and serious levels of meaning. In this light the association of Brunnhilde and Gundryggia, and thus with Brunnhilde having been a former life of Kundry, can be taken seriously as well as playfully."

Perhaps, at least we can see that the etymological history of the phrase points in that direction although I am sure there is more "wringing" to be done!

Please note: the most incredible resource on-line for anything about Parsifal is the website Monsalvat - The Parsifal Pages which I have used many times for this research.


Posted from Andrew Higgins IPAD asthiggins@me.com

J.R.R. Tolkien, The Rivals and Mrs Malaprop

This weeks blog posting came about from a visit last night to London's The Haymarket Theatre to see Penelope Keith (Good Neighbors) and Peter Bowles (To the Manor Born, Rumpole of the Bailey) in Peter Halls excellent production of Richard Brinsley Sheridan's first comedy The Rivals (1775)

I had planned for this weeks posting to be more about early Tolkien linguistics but then as I sat in the theatre I realised that as much as I tried to put Tolkienan things aside for one night - I had actually come back around to Tolkien - for Tolkien himself has been involved with a production of Sheridan's The Rivals and in his youth had played not the dashing Captain Jack Absolute or his father Sir Anthony Absolute - but indeed Tolkien played the "she wolf" Mrs Malaprop - she who "calls her words so ingeniously misapplied, without being mispronounced" as Julia Melville the cousin of our heroine Lydia Languish says of her in the play. It seems natural that Tolkien with his love for language would savour the opportunity to play a character who uses language in shall we say interesting ways - so what is the evidence of Tolkien taking to the stage to do this?


According to Christina Scull and Wayne G Hammond's J R R Tolkien Companion and Guide in Volume Two The Readers Guide in the section on Tolkien's involvement in pre World War One school days with "The Tea Club Barrovian Society"* -

"In autumn term 1911 Gilson (Robert Quilter Gilson) was Secretary of the Musical and Dramatic Society and planned a performance of The Rivals by Sheridan to be staged at the end of the term. Tolkien, by then at Oxford, was lured back to play Mrs Malaprop, while Wiseman (Christopher) played Sir Anthony Absolute, Gilson Captain Absolute and T.K Barnsley Bob Acres." (p. 999)

Gilson's motivation for producing The Rivals seems to have come a year earlier when according to Scull and Hammond's Tolkien Chronology for December 1910 RQ Gilson during a dinner of the King Edward's School Music and Dramatic Society recited the abduction speech from Shakespeare's Richard II and two scenes from Sheridan's The Rivals (p. 22).

The production of The Rivals was set for Autumn 2011. In Hammond and Scull there is a note that "after the dress rehearsal, the friends, still in costume, marched up Coronation Street in Birmingham to have tea in Barrow's stores (p.999). One could imagine Tolkien decked out as Mrs Malaprop walking up the high street!!

The T.C.B.S performance of The Rivals was given on 21 December 1911 at King Edwards School Birmingham. According to the King Edwards School Chronicle quoted in Scull and Hammond's Tolkien Chronology

"the performance was a thorough success both artistically and financially (ed note - in my line of work both items very welcome!) J R R Tolkien's Mrs Malaprop was a real creation, excellent in every way and not least so in make-up...." (p. 31)

(Now there is a oh I wish I could get in the TARDIS and go back in time moment to see the soon to be Oxford don in drag playing Mrs. Malaprop!!)

It is quite interesting to think that Tolkien a future philologist and creator of languages would play a character whose very name and action would be responsible for a new word in our language

"The word malapropos is an adjective or adverb meaning "inappropriate" or "inappropriately", derived from the French phrase mal à propos (literally "ill-suited")।[1] The earliest English usage of the word cited in the Oxford English Dictionary is from 1630. Malaprop used in the linguistic sense was first used by Lord Byron in 1814 according to the OED. The terms malapropism and the earlier variant malaprop come from Richard Brinsley Sheridan's 1775 play The Rivals, and in particular the character Mrs. Malaprop. Sheridan presumably named his character Mrs. Malaprop, who frequently misspoke (to great comic effect), in joking reference to the word.A malapropism (also called a Dogberryism or acyrologia) is the substitution of a word for a word with a similar sound, in which the resulting phrase makes no sense but often creates a comic effect. It is not the same as an eggcorn, which is a similar substitution in which the new phrase makes sense on some level. Occasionally a phrase, rather than a single word, replaces the original word, for example Stan Laurel said "What a terrible cat's after me!" (i.e., catastrophe) in Any Old Port" (Wikipedia entry on Malaproprisms)

Some of the best of Mrs Malaprop's utterances are -

"...promise to forget this fellow - to illiterate him, I say, quite from your memory." (i.e. obliterate; Act I Scene II Line 178)
"...she might reprehend the true meaning of what she is saying." (i.e. comprehend; Act I Scene II Line 258)
"...she's as headstrong as an allegory on the banks of Nile." (i.e. alligator; Act III Scene III Line 195)
"Sure, if I reprehend any thing in this world it is the use of my oracular tongue, and a nice derangement of epitaphs!" (i.e. apprehend, vernacular, arrangement, epithets). (Sheridan, The Rivals)

One could just hear Tolkien declaring this in the play!!

In a similar way much later on his life Tolkien would construct a word that has now come into our language and the OED; namely "Hobbit"

But if Mrs Malaprop substituted "a word for a word with a similar sound in which the resulting phrase makes no sense but creates comic effect" what the later Tolkien did in developing his languages (not all together for comic effect) was use similar sounds to create a vast tapestry of language structure and from it developed the key languages of his legendarium.

It would be interesting to go through the legendarium and look for examples of malapropisms they must be there - the only related one I can think of right now is something I heard someone once say about Tolkien's works - "Middle Earth is Hobbit forming" (how true).

Welcome more Tolkienian malapropisms and thoughts!!

*it is sobering to think that many of these TCBS friends of Tolkien would soon perish on the battle fields of World War One as masterfully told in the best book on this subject John Garth's Tolkien and the Great War - soon to be in paperback and audio book.

Works Cited

Scull and Hammond The J.R.R Tolkien Companion and Guide (2 cols) HarperCollins:London 2006

Posted from Andrew Higgins IPAD asthiggins@me.com

Middle Earth Comes to the IPAD

When I purchased my IPAD last July (way back in the days of IOS 4.0) I hoped that there would be a whole library of Tolkienapps for it. However save a Quenya tutor and several Elf name generators for the Iphone there has not been much movement in this area....that is until now.

On Monday I discovered whilst going through the App store a bona fide Tolkien related app - The Middle Earth Map.

The app has been designed by Richard Blum who develped it as a personal resource when he was reading The Silmarillion. What is currently available is phase one which covers the first age and is a great guide to use if you are reading The Silmarillion or the early parts of The History of Middle Earth.

Richard will be bringing out versions to cover the second age with the Island of Numenor and the Third Age of Middle Earth at the time of The War of the Ring.

I am very impressed by this app. it is like having Google Earth for Arda. you can start with an "Iluvatar view" of Arda and then visits your favorite places, peoples,tombs, graves, mounds and hedges with a great navigation system and colour guide





From the walls of the night in the West to the East seas you can explore Arda of the First Age and stop off and visit the Valar in Valinor, Melian and Thingol in Doriath and Turgon in थेhidden kingdom of Gondolin (just don't anyone you have been there)

But not only does this excellent app offer a tour of Arda, it also connects in to several of the best online Tolkien resources including the One Ring.net and the Tolkien gateway so when you are in a certain land or place you can access information and links about it immediately


I wrote my first app store review about The Middle Earth map and gave it 5 stars - a must for any Tolkien lover. i've got my Sillmarillion on my Kindle app and my Middle Earth map app ready to explore the vast realm of Tolkien's Arda.

I applaud Richard Blum's work and look forward to the next editions! An app worthy of Feanor!!




Posted from Andrew Higgins IPAD asthiggins@me.com