A Toast to Tolkien!
I’ve always had a love/hate relationship with J.R.R.Tolkien. While I love the fantasy world he created and the impact it has had on the fantasy genre and the world as a whole… I’m sorry but I find him incredibly difficult to read. The Hobbit is fine but Lord of the Rings is a mammoth and The Silmarillion is a mountain (1). I completely adore the world of Middle Earth but mostly through Peter Jackson’s films rather than the source material. Writing style aside, I like Tolkien as a person and one thing in particular I like about him is his relatability. Despite being a privileged Oxford Don and attending feasts and banquets held in his honour, Tolkien’s favourite meal was tea and buttered toast. I read somewhere (I should admit that I have no idea if this is true) that Tolkien was much more comfortable wearing his dressing gown than his dinner suit or tuxedo.
Today would have been Tolkien’s birthday and to mark the occasion I invite you to take the Tolkien Toast. At nine in the evening raise your drink (it doesn’t have to be alcoholic) and say:
“To the Professor!”
Until this time, why don’t you entertain yourself by reading my list, the inspiration behind five of Tolkien’s greatest creatures.
1 – Shelob the Spider
Poor Shelob is often overlooked by the audience in favour of other antagonists such as Sauron or Saruman. Shelob, a giant half spider half demon lives in the mountains bordering Mordor (2). She preys on anything than enters her caves, human, orc or goblin alike. Sauron, while very much aware of Shelob’s existence, allows her to live as she offers an extra layer of defence to Mordor. Despite continuously besting orcs, she was defeated by Sam, a mere hobbit, who was able to injure her badly enough to force a retreat. Oddly enough it isn’t made clear in the books or the films if Shelob died of these injuries or if she, like the rest of Sauron’s forces, died when the One Ring was destroyed.
The fear of spiders, arachnophobia, is fairly common but it is unclear if Tolkien had this condition. When he was a child growing up in South Africa, Tolkien was bitten by a tarantula with the bite later becoming infected. Although Tolkien suffered no long lasting effects he gave several conflicting interviews about his opinions on spiders. In a letter to a friend Tolkien wrote “I do not dislike spiders particularly, and have no urge to kill them. I usually rescue those whom I find in the bath” but in a later interview he stated “I don’t like spiders. It’s not a pathological fear, but I rather won’t have anything to do with them.”
It seems the confusion actually comes from Peter Jackson, director of the Lord of the Rings films. Jackson explained to reporters that he does suffer from arachnophobia and based the design of Shelob on New Zealand tunnel-web spiders that lived near his childhood home.
2 – Elves and Ents
To understand the origin of Tolkien’s elves we will need a brief explanation on how Middle Earth came to be. At the start of the universe there was a God called Eru Ilúvatar (3). He created Ainur (angels) and together they created difference species to inhabit Middle Earth. Eru Ilúvatar personally created two species, men and elves. While the men were stronger physically the elves had a better connection to nature and the world around them. The elves were also gifted (some would say cursed) with immortality. Although they would witness the passage of time they would also watch everyone they love die.
Tolkien created his elves in response to William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer’s Night Dream. The play involves four lovers from Athens plus a group of traveling actors falling victim to the elves of the forest who trick the humans into falling in love with the wrong person. Needless to say, by the end of the play everyone has fallen back in love with their respective partners and the audience are treated to a triple wedding. Tolkien later admitted in a letter that he felt Shakespeare had committed a “disastrous debasement” of the word elf. What is meant by this is that Shakespeare changed the meaning of the word. When people think of the world elf, prior to Lord of the Rings, they thought of Shakespeare’s characters, little people wearing silly hats and skirts that lived in trees. Tolkien was also disappointed in another Shakespeare play, Macbeth. In the play, Macbeth receives the following prophecy:
“Macbeth shall never vanquished be until / Great Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane Hill / Shall come against him”
Macbeth assumes that as forests can’t walk, the prophecy means he can never be vanquished. Tolkien was disappointed to discover that the prophecy was referring to the besieging army camouflaging themselves as trees and approaching Macbeth’s castle at night thus giving the impression of a walking forest. From this, Tolkien created the Ents, living sentient trees who assist in the destruction of Isengard.
3 – Tom Bombadil
The name Tom Bombadil may not be familiar to fans of Peter Jackson’s films. All scenes involving this character were cut from the end product as they did not advance the plot. In the books however, Tom plays a large role in Frodo’s journey. He is encountered by Frodo and Sam after Merry and Pippin are captured by Old Man Willow, an evil Ent living close to The Shire, and easily rescues the two hobbits. Following this, Tom invites the four travellers to his house in the woods where they stay and make merry for two days. During their stay Tom extracts information about the One Ring from Frodo and convinces the ring bearer to surrender the magical item. When Tom wears the ring, it has no effect on him and when Frodo turns invisible once the ring is returned, Tom is still able to see him. When the hobbits reach Rivendell, Gandalf explains they can’t ask Tom to take the ring to Mordor as, although he would be capable, he wouldn’t understand the reason why or the implication of what would happen if he failed. After the ring is destroyed and the hobbits return home, Gandalf mentions to Frodo that he met with Tom and that he was ‘as well as ever.’
Tom is an enigma in the mythos of Middle Earth. None of the characters, even characters such as Gandalf or Elrond understand what he is. It is suspected that he is a deity of some kind, dating back to the dawn of creation but what role he played in this is uncertain. Tolkien deliberately left Tom’s background vague stating that “some things must remain mysterious in any narrative, especially if an explanation really exists.” We do know, however, what inspired the character of Tom.
Tom was based off Tolkien’s son’s toy. The toy in question, a dutch doll, was accidentally dropped down a… used toilet. Upon being rescued and cleaned, Tolkien returned the toy to his son and invented a funny story to explain the misadventure. The word Bombadil was the sound the character made while swimming in the toilet bowl. Tom also had a wife called… Goldberry (4).
4 – Frodo and Sam
There is some debate among fans over who the main character of The Lord of the Rings is. Some point to Aragon and while he certainly looks the part of the hero, he isn’t present for all of the story. Neither is Gandalf, most fans argue that the hero is either Frodo or Sam.
The inspiration behind Frodo’s character is unknown. During the first draft of Fellowship of the Ring Frodo was to be called Bingo Bolger-Baggins but as the novel grew darker in later drafts the name changed (5). Sam, however was always intended to be the embodiment of the typical British solider during World War One. This idea is examined in detail in the 2019 film Tolkien. (I’m personally not a fan of the film, I can’t forgive the fact that they had Gandalf ride Shadowfax along the British trenches under mortar fire). Sam is often seen as Frodo’s “soldier-servant” a role referred to in the British army as a batman (no link to the superhero). The purpose of a batman was to be a typical solider who also looked after a senior officer by completing mundane tasks for them such as keeping their kit clean. Sam acts in a similar manner to Frodo helping him clean the house and gardens at Bag End and later helping cook and carry equipment while on the quest to destroy the ring.
There are other elements of the First World War that can be found in Lord of the Rings. The Dead Marshes that Frodo and Sam pass through are based on Tolkien’s memories of the aftermath of the Battle of the Somme in which the dead left in pools of mud. During their adventure Frodo receives several life changing injuries including the loss of his ring finger and a stab wound, injuries he must come to terms with when he returns to life in The Shire. Frodo and the other hobbits also experience PTSD, similar to British soldiers returning home from war with shell shock.
5 – Lúthien and Beren.
The story of Luthien and Beren takes place thousands of years before the events of Frodo and the One Ring. In the story Beren, a mortal man, falls in love with an immortal elf Luthien and in order to win her hand in marriage must complete an impossible task set by her Father. Eventually Beren is killed and dies in his lover’s arms resulting in her choosing to forsake her immortality and allow herself to die from heartbreak.
The story is somewhat fractured as Tolkien wrote the tale over many years in different mediums, often re-writing over his old work. In 2017, Christopher Tolkien published a book called Beren and Luthien which contained one linear story constructed through the various versions and drafts. The inconsistencies in the tale can also be explained in-universe. Myths, similar to an typical Ancient Greek or Norse Myth, change over the years with characters being added, subtracted and heavily altered. As the events of Luthien and Beren take place in the First Age, the version Aragon and Frodo know in the Third Age of Middle Earth would have changed in the telling. Interestingly, the story of Luthien and Beren mirrors that of Aragon and his love Arwen. Aragon, like Beren completes a great quest and Arwen, like Luthien chooses a life of mortality for her lover.
The reasons that the myth is so important to the Lord of the Ring mythos is that Tolkien based the character of Beren after himself and Luthien on his wife Edith! When the pair died they had both names engraved on their gravestones, as seen below.
I find that rather romantic.
That’s it from me. I hope you raise a glass at nine o’clock and I’ll see you all some time soon.
Additional thoughts
(1) Someone once said to me in conversation that when you pass the first seventy pages of The Silmarillion it gets really good.
(2) I don’t intend to explain the history of every single creature or character. Braver writers than me have tried and if I attempted such a herculean task this post would be somewhere near twenty thousand words long. Just trust me, Shelob is a half spider, half demon on the same power tier as Gandalf, Saruman and the Balrog. It makes the fact Sam defeated her all the more impressive.
(3) I… think its pronounced EH-roo i-LOO-vatar.
(4) Tolkien is credited with creating the grammar and vocabulary of at least fifteen different languages. While this is incredibly impressive, I do laugh when he decides upon a silly name like Goldberry. I also chuckle at the name Mount Doom for its sheer simplicity.
(5) Good. Bingo is clearly a dog’s name.