Enduring Hope

One of the classes I'm taking is a Freshman Seminar called Middle-Earth, Narnia and Beyond. Hehe. Yep, I thought it was perfect for me too. :D So anyway, I just turned in my final paper for it last week, and I thought I'd share it with all of you. It's basically about the astronomy of Middle-Earth and its deeper symbolism. You might find it interesting or you might not, but I thought I would share it anyway in case anyone was interested!

Note: This paper includes about half a million footnotes and references that I'm not going to put in here right now. If any of you would like to have/see an actual copy of the paper feel free to ask me. I will keep the footnotes, however, that are not just references. And I'm also going to put the bibliography at the bottom.

One more thing... it gets better toward the end, and easier to read I think....


Enduring Hope: Tolkien’s Starry Road of Night


Even-time is drawing nigh
And in the swiftly dimming sky
Bright Anor sinks her flaming head
And silver Ithil, round and fair,
Ascends once more the starry road
Of night, and mighty figures high....
— Lindë Elenion(1)

It is the middle of the night, and in an inn at Bree four hobbits and a ranger are hiding from an evil far darker than the black outside. Looking out the window before he locks and covers it, Frodo sees the bright constellation of the Sickle shining in the night sky. What is the Sickle? Why did Tolkien include it? Does the seemingly casual mention of it have a deeper meaning?

J.R.R. Tolkien’s sentences are rarely casual. By studying some of the stars and constellations that he kindled in the sky of Middle-earth, we indeed find a deeper meaning. We find an eloquent picture of a theme Tolkien used for all he wrote concerning Middle-earth: hope. There is a deep and glorious beauty about the stars. Hope is the opposite of the ugliness of despair, and Tolkien is careful to reflect this in his writings about the stars. In fact, that is partly why the stars are such an effective symbol of hope: they are beautiful in a way that is beyond the box of our world; higher than our understanding.

With its name meaning the “Sickle of the Valar,” Valacirca was a herald of doom to the forces of evil. This also made it a sign of hope for the people of Middle-earth. Tolkien wrote that Valacirca was, in fact, our own Ursa Major, the Big Bear, more commonly known as the Big Dipper. Because it is so far in the North, it never sinks below the horizon in the Northern Hemisphere. Though our hope here on Earth may be lost in despair, the high hope beyond our world will never fail.

Though Tolkien felt that subcreation is key to fantasy, he also understood that in order for readers to like a book, the book has to be at least somewhat founded in our own world—it has to relate in some way to the readers. In order to do this, Tolkien created Middle-earth, including its nighttime sky, as an early version of our own Earth. This adds a new level of significance to how we view our world. We can take the deeper meaning from the myth and apply it to our own experience. When we see the gleam of the stars, we should allow their light to stir us with the deeper meaning we’ve found in Tolkien’s myth.(2)

Another constellation from Middle-earth that is mentioned more frequently than Valacirca is Menelmacar, also known as Menelvagor. The Swordsman of the Sky, Menelmacar was Telumehtar, the son of the Vala Tulkas. Once, when Melkor escaped from the Valar, he fled to the sky to wreak whatever havoc he could, causing stars to fall and eclipses of the Sun and the Moon. He even tipped over the Sun and caused one of her maidens to fall into the sea, never to return. Telumehtar was sent to hunt down Melkor and protect the heavens from evil. Menelmacar’s companion Ingil went with him as the star Helluin (“Ice-Blue”).

Because of his silent watch over the sky, Menelmacar seems to hold a special significance for the people of Middle-earth. In the Silmarillion, Menelmacar and Helluin are rising for the first time when the Elves first wake by Cuiviénen and fall in love with the stars. Many years later, Frodo and the hobbits are nearly discovered by a black rider towards the beginning of their journey. When a group of Elves happens by, on their way to the Grey Havens, the black rider stops his pursuit. The hobbits stay for awhile to feast and make merry with the Elves. At one point during the night, when the clouds fade away and Menelvagor is revealed, “the Elves all burst into song.”

Are there any parallels to Menelmacar and Helluin in our own night sky? If the various references to Menelmacar’s “shining belt” and the association of the red star Borgil with the constellation aren’t enough to clue us into the identity (3), Tolkien tells us himself. Menelmacar is in fact our constellation Orion the Hunter, and Helluin is Sirius, a beautiful, bright silver-blue star that rises just after Orion. We can see the Swordsman ourselves; the image of that great protector of the sky and pursuer of evil. He climbs the night when the leaves turn to brilliant hues and winter breathes its frost, until the flowers blossom in the spring.

When Varda kindled the stars and brought together the constellations, she made six wandering stars as well. These were Alcarinquë, Carnil, Lumbar, Elemmírë, Luinil and Nénar. The seventh wandering star, which is the brightest and most beautiful of all stars, doesn’t appear until much later in the history of Middle-Earth. This is Eärendil, our own Venus, the evening and morning star. Eärendil was a mariner who journeyed to the Undying Lands to plead for the Valar to help Middle-Earth. His plea was accepted, but he could never again return to Middle-Earth. Even so, he was given a new and more glorious ship, and forever after he would sail through the dawn and the dusk to lands beyond the stars with a Silmaril shining bright on his brow. When the people of Middle-Earth saw Eärendil’s star for the first time, they regained their hope, for they knew that it meant help was coming. They named it Gil-Estel, which means the “Star of High Hope.”

Throughout the Lord of the Rings, Eärendil is the most commonly mentioned inhabitant of the night sky. One of the most notable references to the star of Eärendil concerns the Phial of Galadriel, Galadriel’s gift to Frodo. This phial has a little of Eärendil’s light captured inside of it, and as Galadriel says to Frodo, it is a “light... in dark places, when all other lights go out.” And so it proves to be. When wrapped in the utter blackness of Shelob’s lair, Frodo remembers the phial and pulls it out, crying out in the tongue of the Elves of old to Eärendil, brightest of stars. It is not only a light. It is a brilliant, pure force that fights against the darkness, and the darkness flees before it. When Frodo gazes at the “dazzling light,” the darkness of fear flies from him as well, and though he knows not where it comes from, “it seemed that another voice spoke through his, clear, untroubled by the foul air of the pit.” As the light drives away the darkness, so hope drives away the urge to despair.

There is an important star in the Lord of the Rings that is not in the sky. This is Arwen Evenstar’s stone. Shining white like the Evenstar itself, it symbolizes Arwen’s immortality; her hope of a land beyond the sea where all is well and nothing fades. After marrying Aragorn and giving up that hope for another hope of greater joy yet deeper sorrow, she gives the stone to Frodo, and it brings him hope throughout his days, until finally he himself makes the journey to the land beyond the sea.

In one of the most beautiful moments of The Return of the King Tolkien employs stars to convey hope. Frodo and Sam are deep in the horror of Mordor on the final stage of their journey. One night after Frodo has fallen asleep, Sam falls into despair. Looking up, he sees through the oppressive gloom of the clouds “a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart... and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.”(4) Resting in that knowledge and hope, Sam lies down beside Frodo and falls asleep. He is free from care; he no longer fears for either Frodo or himself because he knows there are greater powers at work, powers that are good even beyond hope.

In Tolkien’s work, the stars have a meaning deeper than is often seen at first glance. They embody hope; a beauty enduring beyond the clouds of the deepest despair. And although each star or constellation differs in its character and lore, we find that each is set to the same tune; the same theme of hope. It is like a celestial symphony, where all the parts play in harmony to make one glorious piece of music. As you listen to the music of the spheres, let the beauty of it smite your heart.

~~~
(1) This is a stanza from a poem I wrote about the night sky of Middle-earth. The full version can be found here:http://homepage.mac.com/kvmagruder/linderaenielo/Menu26.html
(2) “The value of the myth is that it takes all the things we know and restores to them the rich significance which has been hidden by ‘the veil of familiarity’” (Lewis, On Stories, 90).
(3) One of the key features of Orion is his belt of three stars. Borgil probably refers to Betelgeuse, a bright red star on Orion’s shoulder.
(4) Italics added.

~~~
WORKS CITED
Fauskanger, Helge. “Ardalambion.” http://www.uib.no/People/hnohf/ 6 Oct. 2005.
Kocher, Paul H. Master of Middle-earth: The Fiction of J.R.R. Tolkien. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1972
Lewis, C.S. On Stories and Other Essays on Literature. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1982
Magruder, Rachel. “Lindë Raenielo.” http://homepage.mac.com/kvmagruder/linderaenielo 6 Oct. 2005.
Tolkien, J.R.R. The Silmarillion. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1999.
Tolkien, J.R.R. The Fellowship of the Ring. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1966.
Tolkien, J.R.R. The Two Towers. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1966.
Tolkien, J.R.R. The Return of the King. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1966.
Tolkien, J.R.R. The Book of Lost Tales Part Two. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1984.