The Nature of Middle-earth

by J. R. R. Tolkien

  The Númenóreans before the Downfall were a people of great stature and strength, the Kings of Men; their full-grown men were commonly 7 ft. tall, especially in the royal and noble houses. In the North where men of other kinds were fewer and their race remained purer this stature remained more frequent. Elendil the Tall, leader of the Faithful who survived the Downfall, was said to have surpassed 7 ft., though his sons were not quite so tall. Aragorn, his direct descendant, in spite of the many intervening generations, must still have been a very tall and strong man with a great stride; he was probably at least 6 ft. 6. Boromir, of high Númenórean lineage, would not be much shorter: say 6 ft. 4.

  These figures [of the Fellowship] are thus all too short. Gandalf even bent must have been at least 5 ft. 6; Legolas at least 6 foot (probably more); Gimli is about the height that the hobbits should have been, but was probably somewhat taller; the hobbits should have been between 3 ft. 4 and 3 ft. 6. (I personally have always thought of Sam as the shortest, but the sturdiest in build, of the four).

  Dwarves were about 4 ft. high at least. Hobbits were lighter in build, but not much shorter; their tallest men were 4 ft., but seldom taller. Though nowadays their survivors are seldom 3 ft. high, in the days of the story they were taller, which means that they usually exceeded 3 ft. and qualified for the name of Halfling. But the name “halfling” must have originated circa Third Age 1150, getting on for 2,000 years (1868) before the War of the Ring, during which the dwindling of the Númenóreans had shown itself in stature as well as in life-span; so that it referred to a height of full-grown males of an average of, say, 3 ft. 5.

  The dwindling of the Dúnedain was not a normal tendency, shared by peoples whose proper home was Middle-earth; but due to the loss of their ancient land far in the West, nearest of all mortal lands to “The Undying Realm”. In both Arnor and Gondor, apart from mixture of race, the Númenóreans showed a dwindling of height and longevity in Middle-earth that became more marked as the Third Age passed. The much later dwindling of hobbits must be due to a change in their state and way of life; they became a fugitive and secret people, driven as Men, the Big Folk, became more and more numerous, usurping the more fertile and habitable lands, to refuge in forest or wilderness: a wandering and poor folk, forgetful of their arts and living a precarious life absorbed in the search for food and fearful of being seen; for cruel men would shoot them for sport as if they were animals. In fact they relapsed into the state of “pygmies”. The other stunted race, the Drúedain, never rose much above that state.

  Gollum

  Gollum was according to Gandalf one of a riverside hobbit people–and therefore in origin a member of a small variety of the human race, although he had become deformed during his long inhabiting of the dark lake. His long hands are therefore more or less right. Not his feet. They are exaggerated. They are described as webby (Hobbit 88), like a swan’s (I 398), but had prehensile toes (II 219). But he was very thin – in the LR emaciated, not plump and rubbery; he had for his size a large head and a long thin neck, very large eyes (protuberant), and thin lank hair. He is often said to be dark or black. At his first mention (Hob. 83) he was “dark as darkness”: that of course means no more than that he could not be seen with ordinary eyes in the black cavern – except for his own large luminous eyes; similarly “the dark shape” at night (I 399, 400). But that does not apply to the “black (crawling) shape” (II 219, 220), where he was in moonlight.[9]

  Gollum was never naked. He had a pocket in which he kept the Ring (Hob. 92). He evidently had black garments (II 219), and in the “eagle” passage (II 253),[10] where it is said that from far above, as he lay on the ground, he would look like “the famished skeleton of some child of Men, its ragged garment still clinging to it, its long arms and legs almost bone-white and bone-thin”. His skin was white, no doubt with a pallor increased by dwelling long in the dark, and later by hunger. He remained a human being, not an animal or a mere bogey, even if deformed in mind and body: an object of disgust, but also of pity – to the deep-sighted, such as Frodo had become. There is no need to wonder how he came by clothes or replaced them: any consideration of the tale will show that he had plenty of opportunities by theft, or charity (as of the Wood-elves), throughout his life.

  Black Riders

  They are clearly described as being themselves invisible and clad in long black cloaks with great hoods that hung down over their faces, so that people they met would not realize that they had no visible faces (I 84).[11] Neither could their hands be seen. In any case horsemen so accoutred would have worn gauntlets. Nor of course would their limbs have been so thin and emaciated if visible.

  Shelob

  Shelob is not described in precise spider terms; but she was “most like a spider” (II 334).[12] As such she was enormously magnified; and she had two horns and two great clusters of eyes. But she had the characteristic tight constriction of spiders between the front section (head and thorax) and the rear (belly) – this is called (II 334) her “neck”, because the rear portion is swollen and bloated out of proportion. She was black, except for the underpart of her belly, which was “pale and luminous” with corruption. She would have eight legs, properly disposed, four a side, where they could function as organs of movement and seizure.

  VII

  MIND-PICTURES

  This text arose as a digression in the text presented in chap. XIV, “The Visible Forms of the Valar and Maiar”, below. It was previously published in slightly different form in Parma Eldalamberon 17, (2007), p. 179.

  For further discussion of communication between minds, see chap. IX, “Ósanwe-kenta”, below.

  The High Elves distinguished clearly between fanar, the “physical” raiment adopted by the Spirits in self-incarnation, as a mode of communication with the Incarnates,[fn1] and other modes of communication between minds, that might take “visual” forms.

  They held that a superior “mind” by nature, or one exerting itself to its full in some extremity of need, could communicate a desired “vision” direct to another mind. The receiving mind would translate this impulse into the terms familiar to it from its use of the physical organs of sight (and hearing) and project it, seeing it as something external. It thus much resembled a fana, except that in most cases, especially those concerned with minds of less power (either as communicators or receivers) it would frequently be less vivid, clear or detailed, and might even be vague or dim or appear half-transparent. These “visions” were in Quenya called indemmar ‘mind-pictures’.[fn2] Men were receptive of them; according to the records of the time, mostly when presented to them by the Elves. To receive them from another human being required a special urgency of occasion, and a close connexion of kinship, anxiety or love between the two minds.

  In any case indemmar were by Men mostly received in sleep (dream). If received when bodily awake they were usually vague and phantom-like (and often caused fear); but if they were clear and vivid, as the indemmar induced by Elves might be, they were apt to mislead Men into taking them as “real” things beheld by normal sight. Though this deceit was never intentional on the part of the Elves,[fn3] it was often by them [i.e., Men] believed to be.

  VIII

  KNOWLEDGE AND MEMORY

  Among the “several pages of roughly written notes” at the end of the c. 1957 manuscript version (A) of Laws and Customs among the Eldar (see X:250) are two lengthy notes, written by contrast in a clear hand, but likewise in black nib-pen, concerning (broadly speaking) the nature of knowledge and of memory among the Eldar. The first of these arose as a long digression on the opening of the note concerning Elvish knowledge of the “Fate of Men” that Christopher Tolkien labels “(ii)” (X:251), sparked by the words “‘supposed’ or ‘guessed’” there.

  TEXT 1

  The Eldar hold some things “for certain”: they therefore know or assert things, when the evidence or authority is sufficient for certainty. They judge and have an opinion, when the evidence is sufficient to consider with reason (o
r the authority worthy of attention), but incomplete (or not compulsive). When the evidence is very incomplete (and there is no authority) they suppose or surmise. When the evidence is too incomplete for reasonable inference, or is not known they guess. This last process they do not usually distinguish from feign or pretend [save] only in this: that guessing implies a wish to know (and would use more evidence if that were available); it is intended to correspond as far as possible to fact, independent of the guessing mind; whereas feigning refers primarily to the mind itself, and is rather an exercise, or amusement, of the mind, independent of fact.[1]

  They distinguish all these from divining, which is neither guessing nor feigning; for they hold that the fëa can arrive directly at knowledge, or close to it, without reasoning upon evidence or learning from living authority. Though divining is, they say, truly only a swift mode of learning from authority: since the fëa can only learn (apart from reasoning) by direct contact with other minds, or at the highest by “inspiration” from Eru. (This is truly called “divining”.) This contact can at times take place between embodied minds of the same order without bodily contact or proximity. Minds of a higher Order, such as the Valar (including Melkor) can more easily influence those of a lower order (such as the Eldar) from afar. They cannot thus coerce or dictate, though they can inform and advise.[fn1] This too (except at great need) they do only when the mind is of its consent or desire opened to them: particularly, as when one of the Eldar calls one of the Valar by name in some need or doubt; generally as when one of the Eldar places himself under the protection and guidance of Manwë or Varda (or other Vala).[2]

  The occupations of the embodied mind awake are an obstacle to such contacts, lower or higher. They occur therefore, the Eldar say, most often in “sleep” – not in “dreams”. But “dreaming” and “sleeping” are to the Elves other than to Men. In sleep the body may, as in Men, cease from all activities (save those essential to life, such as breathing); or it may rest from this or that activity or function[fn2] as the fëa directs. While it is so, the mind may seek repose also, and be utterly quiet, but it may be absorbed in its own activity: “thinking” – that is, reasoning or remembering, or devising and designing; but these things are at will and of volition. The state that with the Elves nearest resembles human “dreaming” is when the mind is “feigning” or devising.[fn3] It is when the mind is quiet and inactive that it most readily receives and perceives contacts from without.[3]

  TEXT 2

  Note on Elvish Memory, especially of the Reborn, & its relation to Language[4]

  It will be seen that by rebirth the memory of things and happenings in the past may be for the Eldar long and abundant and fresh. (Fresh since the “Waiting”[5] does not in their memory occupy time: to an Elf that had waited a thousand years the events of a thousand years before would seem by that space the nearer than to one who had not.) But this is not complete. Those who had passed through a Waiting often desired to forget some or all of their past, and they were relieved of their memory of such things. Others, remembering, would not communicate their recollection.[6]

  There was one matter in which rebirth did not assist their “lore” – though this might be expected to be otherwise. This was the history and lore of language and the speech of bygone days. In such matters the Eldar were dependent mostly, as are we, upon visible records, or upon the “lore” consciously stored in the minds of those concerned with the branch of history. “Upon lore” not memory, that is – instinctive memory for the language of any Elf is that of the time in which he speaks; the languages of other times (as of other peoples and places) he must learn consciously, or deliberately store in mind as a thing separate from unpremeditated speech, the immediate and “natural” clothing of his thought. Not all the Eldar can do this, or do it readily and accurately; only “loremasters” specially concerned with “lore of tongues” commit such things (as for example the language of the period in which they are at that time) to visible record, or to the storehouse of mental lore.

  Thus it will be seen that an Elf, remembering the past, must, if he will communicate it, clothe it in language. But to them “language” is essentially an art of the cohering fëa and hrondo,[7] and the chief product of their cooperation. The reborn Elf must learn language anew, and he will therefore re-clothe all his memory in the language of the later time (even as his fëa is reclothed in a body belonging to that time).

  But it may be asked: “Will he not remember sounds? And will he not remember things that have been said to him and by him?” The answer is yes and no. In the disbodied Waiting he had no language (for that requires a body and is not required without one), only “thought”. Through this interval all memory of his former life has passed; and it must, therefore, be re-clothed. He will, of course, remember sounds, and find words to describe those heard long ago, even as he might describe light, or colours, or emotions. But, say the Eldar, “language” is not sounds. Things said or heard in “language” are remembered as thoughts or meanings, and must be re-embodied in those modes of expression which at any given time a “speaking creature” uses without reflection.

  Thus, those specially gifted to observe and recall variations of sound (as others may be gifted to observe and recall colour) might be able to recall and to repeat a sequence of spoken sounds heard long before. But this sequence would be dissociated from meaning, even as it would be, if an Elf found it written down in an ancient book; and it would have to be translated or deciphered by reference to the context of remembered scenes in which it occurred (aided by resemblances which it might still possess to other known tongues or periods of tongues). Thus it has come to pass that the Eldar possess much accurate lore concerning the speech-sounds used in days long past, but the linguistic memories of the Reborn are in other respects only like broken fragments of old books that must be reinterpreted and deciphered by lore and reasoning.

  The text ends here, near the bottom of a page; or rather, the text in this mode of relation ends here. For in the margins of the page the topic of memory and “reclothing” of speech is taken up again in a new mode, with a first-person narrator, sc. Ælfwine – the c. 900 A.D. Anglo-Saxon mariner who serves as an interlocutor with the Elves, and especially with the loremaster Pengoloð, in numerous texts of this period[8] – as indicated by the words: “Quoth Ælfwine” written faintly but ornately in pencil in the left margin.

  To me the Eldar said: “You may understand this by considering the case of Men. Suppose now that a Man listened to a discourse in his own tongue and understood it in full as spoken. If then that by some chance, strange but not impossible, by change of life, by exile, or by some sickness, his mother-tongue were to be changed and utterly forgotten, how would he report the discourse? He would reclothe its meaning in the language that he now used as the natural expression of meanings. For the Eldar, contemporary languages (of common origin), which we should call kindred languages, or dialects according to the degree of divergence, and the same language lineally considered at widely sundered periods, present almost identical problems. In their earlier days their language (as other characteristics) changed hardly less quickly than those of Men.”

  IX

  ÓSANWE-KENTA

  The far-ranging essay entitled by Tolkien in Quenya Ósanwe-kenta, ‘Enquiry into the Communication of Thought’, occupies eight typescript pages, numbered 1–8 by Tolkien. It is presented and (self-)described as a “résumé” (see below) or “abbreviation” (X:415) by an unnamed redactor[1] of another work of the same title that the Elvish Loremaster Pengolodh “set at the end of his Lammas or ‘Account of Tongues’” (ibid.).[2] While thus a separate document, it nonetheless is closely associated and no doubt closely contemporary with the longer essay that Tolkien titled Quendi and Eldar (the bulk of which has been published in The War of the Jewels), with which it is located among Tolkien’s papers.[3]

  According to Christopher Tolkien, one of the copies of Quendi and Eldar is “preserved in a folded newspaper of Marc
h 1960”, and notes written by his father on this paper and on the cover of the other copy include the Ósanwe-kenta among the Appendices to Quendi and Eldar (X:415). Christopher concludes that this complex of materials, including the Ósanwe-kenta, “was thus in being when the newspaper was used for this purpose, and although, as in other similar cases, this does not provide a perfectly certain terminus ad quem, there seems to be no reason to doubt that it belongs to 1959–60” (ibid.).

  The eight typescript pages presented here appear to comprise the sole extant text of the Ósanwe-kenta; if it was preceded by any typescript or manuscript versions, they have apparently not been preserved. In the top margin of the first of these pages, Tolkien has written the three lines of its present title in ink. He has also numbered the first seven pages in the upper right-hand corner by hand, and written the notation “Ósanwe” to the left of the numeral on each of these pages, also in ink; but the page number and notation are typed in the same positions on the eighth page. This suggests that Tolkien may have paused, or perhaps originally concluded the essay, somewhere on the seventh page, and written the short title and page number on those pages he had typed at that point, before the eighth page was begun. If so, he may have done so at the break on the seventh page indicated by a blank space before the paragraph beginning “If we speak last of the ‘folly’ of Manwë”. The typescript has also been emended at points by Tolkien in ink, chiefly in correction of typographical errors, though on a few occasions supplying a change of wording. Save in a very few instances these changes have been incorporated silently in this edition.