[ Daily Tolkien ] Kryptic Tales of Middle-earth

Suite 101 ^ | April 28, 2000 | Michael Martinez

[JameRetief]

Kryptic Tales of Middle-earth

We don't often hear about the ghost stories people must have told each other in Middle-earth. Tolkien's work is permeated with well-crafted legends that are usually founded in fact (within the scope of his pseudohistory), but when you stop to consider the immense expanses of time the pseudohistory of Middle-earth covers, you have to wonder just how far-fetched some of those legends must have become.

Everyone has heard the story about the lunatic who escapes from an insane asylum and nearly kills a young couple on a dark road, leaving his claw hanging on the car door (this would have to be a very old car, of course). Maybe that story owes something to the Norse myth of the war god Tyr, who put his hand in the mouth of Fenris and let the wolf bite it off while the other Aesir chained the wolf. Tyr had to be a little crazy to do that.

Middle-earth's first ghost stories were probably the long-forgotten tales the Elves made up about Melkor's monsters before Orome discovered their home at Cuivienen. "And indeed the most ancient songs of the Elves, of which echoes are remembered still in the West, tell of the shadow-shapes that walked in the hills above Cuivienen, or would pass suddenly over the stars; and of the dark Rider upon his wild horse that pursued those that wandered to take them and devour them."

The early Elves were rather unsophisticated when compared with their Eldarin successors. They knew nothing of who the Valar were, how the world came to be, or what these monsters were (bred from Yavanna's innocent creatures, or corrupted Maiar who had assumed shapes of horror). Nor were their powers of mind and body well-developed. Did the Elves even know, before they met the Valar, how to use their sub-creational faculties? It would be interesting if the first Elf-minstrels, who in later ages could "make the things of which they sing appear before the eyes of those that listen", made such songs of power that their audiences saw again the terrifying and mystical shadow shapes which crept around their otherwise pleasant world.

Orome led the Eldar west through a frightening, large, unknown world to the western shores of Middle-earth, and from there most of the Eldar departed to a land of light. It is difficult to imagine the High Elves of Aman dwelling on the ghosts and demons of their past. They took up the study of high civilization and high art, and built great cities and powerful artifacts. But the Eldar who remained in Middle-earth, the Sindar, were left in the darkness (or the faint light of the stars), and though for long ages they were mostly untroubled by Melkor's creatures they still had reason to know fear.

For the Sindar were trouble by the Noegyth Nibin, the Petty-Dwarves, exiles from the great Dwarven cities of the east who had found their ways to Beleriand. There in the wild lands before the coming of the Elves they established their own culture, of which we know virtually nothing, save that they were secretive and resentful. The Noegyth Nibin attacked the Elves, who retaliated by hunting them down, unwitting of the fact that the Noegyth Nibin were fallen from a higher state of civilization, thinking them only animals, or small monsters of the darkness.

In time the Sindar became friends with the Dwarves of Nogrod and Belegost, and they learned the true nature of the Noegyth Nibin, and the two peoples left each other alone. But the Sindar were eventually warned by the eastern Dwarves that evil creatures were multiplying in the lands beyond the Ered Luin. If the Sindar had had time to forget the ancient monsters, they were eventually reminded of them when Melkor's creatures began creeping into Beleriand, "wolves...or creatures that walked in wolf-shapes, and other fell beings of shadow".

The Sindar were divided into two groups: woodland Elves who spread north and west from Doriath, and sea-faring Elves who dwelt on the western coastlands and spread northward. Many of these Elves lived outside the cities, most likely in towns or villages which never appeared on any maps. But being far from the centers of power and knowledge they would have been less secure in their homes and perhaps more prone to wonder about the dark things which crept around them. Did these Elves, perhaps, sing of the shadowy things that haunted Beleriand?

After the return of the Noldor and the onset of the War of the Jewels creatures of shadow and horror would have become well-known throughout Beleriand. Imagine if an army of goblins, vampires, and werewolves were to invade your home town and remain close by for many years. Would you be as prone to tell "ghost stories", knowing the ghosts were just beyond the hill? The tales would be real stories, not legends. The creatures would be known enemies, not mysterious evil horrors.

It would not be until after the breakdown of the great kingdoms that fact turned into legend again. Mortal men would remember the stories and pass them on, but with each generation the stories became less real. Did Dirhavel of Arvernien understand what he was singing about if he told the tale of Barahir and his outlaws some 70 years after the events unfolded? How many of the Elves who survived the destruction of the kingdoms in Arvernien and the Isle of Balar were old enough to remember the great battles, or the ancient past? Even Elrond, who was ancient at the time of the War of the Ring, would have grown up in the days when Hurin and Turin and were but memories of the old men and women, and Hador was a distant ancestor, and Cuivienen was Elven generations removed from his experience.

How real would the tales of wolf-Sauron and Draugluin, father of were-wolves, and Thuringwethil the bat-hamed messenger of Sauron, and Gorlim the Unhappy's ghost have seemed to the generations of Men and Elves who grew up early in the Second Age? Their world was changed. Most of Beleriand was gone. The great kings who had led the Elves and Edain in the war against Morgoth were all dead. The western Edain sailed over Sea to build a great civilization and the eastern Edain receded to the plains and woods where they would slowly forget that once some of their kinsfolk had departed over the mountains.

Yet after Sauron began stirring again in the Second Age, and gathering once more evil creatures under his control, as evidence of the return of evil crept toward the Elven lands Men might have dusted off the old legends of were-wolves and vampires and orcs and demons and recounted how once there had been a dark lord against whom only a few Elves and Men stood defiantly.

Yet evil eventually took on a clearer face, and the War of the Elves and Sauron brought an end to many Elf and Mannish realms, and there would be long centuries of warfare afterward. The Second Age may have given rise to new legends of horror, especially when the Nazgul appeared in Middle-earth, but it may also, like the First Age, have brought the evil too close to home for people to develop a weird fascination for it. We only dream of vampires and were-wolves when we know they are not real and cannot hurt us.

But the final war of the Second Age laid the foundation for one of the greatest legends of horror in the Third Age. Isildur called upon a mountain people to march against Sauron, and they refused, for they had once worshipped Sauron as a god. These faithless men Isildur condemned to fade away as a people. They dwindled and died, lost and alone in the highlands, doomed to haunt their old lands until the day when they could redeem their oaths to an Heir of Isildur.

The hardy mountain-folk of Gondor lived beside the Dead Men of Dunharrow, and one must wonder if they didn't spend their long winter nights swapping tales of unwary travellers who became lost in the paths of the Dead, or who came upon a conclave of ghosts the great stone of Erech in times of trouble. No one knows how the Elven lady Nimrodel was lost in the mountains, but did the local people adopt her as a victim of their legends? Did they picture her lost and terrified, pursued by the ancient ghosts?

The paths of the Dead were renowned throughout the lands of the Dunedain, it seems. Malbeth the Seer, who lived in Arnor, foretold that one day an Heir of Isildur would walk those paths and wake the Dead. Centuries later when the Rohirrim settled in Calenardhon and Brego their second king had finished the construction of the golden hall of Meduseld, he and his sons passed up into the mountains and found an old man sitting at the entrance to the paths of the dead.

"The way is shut," he told them. "The way is shut. It was made by those who are Dead, and the Dead keep it, until the time comes. The way is shut." And then he died, and the prince Baldor resolved to enter the paths of the Dead and see for himself what secrets lay there. He never returned, and all Rohan wondered what became of him.

Probably the bones Aragorn found inside the passage were Baldor's: "Before him were the bones of a mighty man. He had been clad in mail, and still his harness lay there whole; for the cavern's air was as dry as dust, and his hauberk was gilded. His belt was of gold and garnets, and rish with gold was the helm upon his bony head face downward on the floor. He had fallen near the far wall of the cave, as now could be seen, and before him stood a stony door closed fast: finger-bones were still clawing at the cracks. A notched and broken sword lay by him, as if he had hewn at the rock in his last despair."

What could have happened inside that dark and lonely cave, that one of Rohan's bravest warriors would fall into madness and hew the very stone of the earth? He must have been assailed by an army of the Dead, and seeking a way of escape had been led astray. Or perhaps he merely succumbed to fear and dread, shaken to his very soul, and unreasoning fled headlong into the dark until he could no longer find his way, and slowly, sadly, spent his last days or hours vainly seeking admission to a refuge of dubious safety.

The Dead Men of Dunharrow were not the only haunts inhabiting Middle-earth in the Third Age. The Nazgul emerged from Mordor in the year 2000 and laid siege to the mountain city of Minas Ithil. After two years they took the city and turned it into a place of living horror, and it was said to be the abode of ghosts and other monsters. Even the Orcs who were stationed there were unnerved by the grisly creatures with which the Nazgul filled the city. All the nearby lands became deserted as people fled across the Anduin, and in time only the hardiest of Gondor's people dared to live anywhere in Ithilien, which had once been its fairest and most pleasant land.

The Nazgul were especially good at bringing down neighborhoods. Centuries before the Lord of the Nazgul had gone north to establish the Witch-realm of Angmar. Men served him, but also Orcs, Trolls, and other creatures, including wraiths. He taught or encouraged the hill-folk of Rhudaur to practice sorcery, especially necromancy, and in the war with Cardolan and Arthedain in the year 1409 the Lord of the Nazgul sent wraiths to inhabit the ancient barrows in Tyrn Gorthad near Bree. These spirits became the Barrow-wights. They animated ancient bones and filled the land with dread and fear. Their power was so great that many generations later King Araval's efforts to recolonize Cardolan failed because people could not live near Tyrn Gorthad.

When the last remnants of the northern Kingdom were overthrown evil creatures filled its last capitol, Fornost Erain, though only a few months later they were destroyed or driven out by a great army from Gondor and Lindon. Much of the land was cleansed when Angmar itself was destroyed, but the Barrow-wights remained, and the Men of Bree became fearful of the ruinous Fornost Erain, eventually calling it Deadmen's Dyke, because they could only remember the horror which had briefly held sway there.

Arnor was nearly emptied of peoples, and ruins were left everywhere: Annuminas, Fornost, Tyrn Gorthad, the hills of Rhudaur, the Weather Hills. Tharbad, the last city of Arnor, dwindled and became a river-town, and eventually was abandoned after severe floods destroyed it. Nearly all of Eriador was an empty, desolate land with forgotten cities and haunted tombs.

It is a bit strange that the hobbits who set out from the Shire in 3018 weren't more fearful of the world around them. They had legends about the Old Forest which stood on the borders of Buckland, a strange land where the trees could move of their own will and harbored an ancient hatred for things which walked on two legs. Tolkien notes that "even in the Shire the rumour of the Barrow-wights of the Barrow-downs beyond the Forest had been heard. But it was not a tale that any hobbit liked to listen to, even by a comfortable fireside far away."

But Frodo and his friends knew nothing of the terrors which lay beyond the Barrow Downs and their wights, or of the legends that haunted the lands still, though the creatures which gave terror to the tales were long gone. If they had gone seeking old ghost stories instead of a way to destroy the One Ring they would have found enough legends to fill a book. There was the old monster living high in the mountains above Minas Morgul, the strange and ominous trees of Fangorn Forest, the dark and slimy Watcher in the Water, the spirit of fire and shadow which haunted the lost caverns of Moria, cold and cruel Caradhras, and dark flying things which blocked out the stars at night, and the Nazgul themselves.

Poor lost Eregion was become the abode of sorcerous wolves and menacing flocks of Crebain, and the land had forgotten that once it was the home to an Elven-folk who dared to tamper with the forces of Time in Middle-earth itself. But when all was done and the Lord of the Rings overthrown, the hobbits and their allies were once again reminded of all the great and ancient terrors, and they must have spent many a happy night swapping tales by the fireside, keeping alive the ghost stories of Middle-earth.

Author: Michael Martinez
Published on: April 28, 2000
Michael Martinez is the author of Visualizing Middle-earth

[JameRetief]

The Daily Tolkien articles by various authors	The Tolkien Virgin articles by Mark-Edmond
ARTICLES 01-10	ARTICLES 01-10
ARTICLES 11-20	11) Of the Sindar
ARTICLES 21-30	12) Of the Sun and Moon and the Hiding of Valinor
ARTICLES 31-40	13) Of Men
ARTICLES 41-50	14) Of the Return of the Noldor
51) And Now for the Other Love Story	15) Of Beleriand and its Realms
52) Kryptic Tales of Middle-earth	16) Of the Noldor in Beleriand
	17) Of Meglin
	18) Of the coming of Men into the West
	19) Of the Ruin of Beleriand and the Fall of Fingolfin

[JameRetief]

Your Daily Tolkien Ping!

Coming from many sources, these articles cover many aspects of Tolkien and his literary works. If anyone would like for me to ping them directly when I post articles such as this let me know. Enjoy!

[ecurbh]

Ring Ping!!

[Mudboy Slim]

Good Mornin'...MUD

[2Jedismom]

Great article...I'll post it in the lotr-tulsa egroup.

[fnord]

thanks for continuing to post these. I haven't read them all, they will be here when I need them :-)