The Nature of Middle-earth

by J. R. R. Tolkien

  The “note on these points” that Tolkien refers to here in connection with fate and free will arose in an earlier version of this same discussion of certain strictly linguistic points, beginning on a sheet which Tolkien subsequently titled “Fate” (after bracketing the discussion of MBAR and striking out the more strictly linguistic discussion that preceded it), and continuing on for four more pages, the first of which Tolkien titled “Fate and Free Will”. The text begins in a clear hand in black nib-pen, with various notes and alterations made in blue ball-point pen, but this ends half-way down the second page, where Tolkien switched to pencil and began scrawling very hastily through the third page. Fortunately, on the fourth page Tolkien recapitulated, in blue ball-point pen and a much more careful hand, (nearly) all that he had written so hastily before. To this he added some footnotes in red ball-point pen. A final very difficult and faint paragraph was added in light pencil.

  I give here the reading of the second version, which for the most part follows the first version very closely, but interpolate one significant paragraph (here set in square brackets) of the first version that is lacking in the second into the body of the text.

  This text was previously published in a slightly different editorial form in Tolkien Studies vol. VI (2009). Ellipses indicate the omission of more strictly linguistic or otherwise technical passages.

  MBAR ‘settle, establish’ (hence also, settle a place, settle in a place, establish one’s home) also to erect (permanent buildings, dwellings, etc.); extended form barat with greater intensity. From this was derived S. barad ‘tower’ (not of a tall slender building, but in the sense of the Tower of London) great permanent building of defensive strength, as in Barad-dûr.[fn1] The Quenya form would have been *marto … but this word was lost and generally replaced by *ostō > osto, S. ost (as seen in os(t)giliath).[fn2] Common Eldarin *bar’tă ‘permanent establishment’ > fate of the world in general as, or as far as, established and pre-ordained from creation; and that part of this “fate” which affected an individual person, and not open to modification by his free will.[fn3]

  In Q. * bar’tă > umbart- > umbar (genitive umbarto) ‘Fate’ … in S. amarth … The word from the simple stem mbar- … was *ambara ‘establishment’, Q. ambar ‘the world’, T. ambar, S. *amar (not found).

  This was to the Eldar more obviously related to *ṃbar’ta than we might feel it to be, since “fate” so far as they recognized it was conceived as a much more physical obstacle to will.

  They would not have denied that (say) a man was (may have been) “fated” to meet an enemy of his at a certain time and place, but they would have denied that he was “fated” then to speak to him in terms of hatred, or to slay him. “Will” at a certain grade must enter into many of the complex motions leading to a meeting of persons; but the Eldar held that only those efforts of “will” were “free” which were directed to a fully aware purpose. On a journey a man may turn aside, choosing this or that way – e.g. to avoid a marsh, or a steep hill – but this decision is mostly intuitive or half-conscious (as that of an irrational animal) and has only an immediate object of easing his journey. His setting-out may have been a free decision, to achieve some object,[fn4] but his actual course was largely under physical direction – and it might have led to/or missed a meeting of importance. It was this aspect of “chance” that was included in umbar. See L.R. III p. 360: “a chance-meeting as we say in Middle-earth”.[3] That was said by Gandalf of his meeting with Thorin in Bree, which led to the visit to Bilbo. For this “chance”, not purposed or even thought of by either Thorin or Gandalf, made contact with Gandalf’s great “will”, and his fixed purpose and designs for the protection of the NW frontiers against the power of Sauron. If Gandalf had been different in character, or if he had not seized the opportunity, the “chance” would, as it were, have failed to “go off” (misfired). Gandalf was not “fated” to act as he did then. (Indeed his actions were most odd, idiosyncratic, and unexpectable: Gandalf was a powerful “free will” let loose, as it were, among the physical “chances” of the world.)[4]

  Umbar thus relates to the net-work of “chances” (largely physical) which is, or is not, used by rational persons with “free will”. That aspect of things which we might include in Fate – the “determination” that we each carry about with us in our given created character (which later acts and experience may modify but not fundamentally change) was not included in Umbar by the Eldar; who said that if it was in any way similar it was on a different “plane”. But the ultimate problem of Free Will in its relation to the Foreknowledge of a Designer (both of the plane of Umbar and of the Mind and the blending of both in Incarnate Mind), Eru, “the Author of the Great Tale”, was of course not resolved by the Eldar.

  [But they would have said it is the continual clash of umbar, the “chances” of ambar as a fixed arrangement which continues to work out inevitably (except only for “miracle”: a direct or mediate intervention of Eru, from outside umbar and ambar), and purposeful will that [?ramifies] a story or tale (as an excerpt from the total drama of which Eru is the Author or as that Drama itself). Until the appearance of Will all is mere preparation, interesting only on a quite different & lower plane: like mathematics or observing the physical events of the world or in a similar way the workings of a machine. Will first appeared with the Ainur/Valar, but except for Melkor and those he dominated their wills being in accord with Eru effected little change in Ambar or deflected Umbar.][5]

  They said that, though this likeness is only a “likeness”, not an equation, the nearest experience of the Incarnates to this problem is to be found in the author of a tale. The author is not in the tale in one sense, yet it all proceeds from him (and what was in him), so that he is present all the time.[fn5] Now while composing the tale he may have certain general designs (the plot for instance), and he may have a clear conception of the character (independent of the particular tale) of each feigned actor. But those are the limits of his “foreknowledge”. Many authors have recorded the feeling that one of their actors “comes alive” as it were, and does things that were not foreseen at all at the outset and may modify in a small or even large way the process of the tale thereafter. All such unforeseen actions or events are, however, taken up to become integral parts of the tale when finally concluded. Now when that has been done, then the author’s “foreknowledge” is complete, and nothing can happen, be said, or done, that he does not know of and will or allow to be. Even so, some of the Eldarin philosophers ventured to say, it was with Eru.

  The note originally ended here, about a third of the way down the page; but at a later point (judging by the change of writing implement), Tolkien added one more very rough and faint paragraph (readings marked here as uncertain are for the most part very uncertain indeed), apparently applying the simile of “the author of a tale” to his cosmogonic myth:[6]

  Let the Music of Ainur [be an] ancient legend from Valinórean days. First stage: the music or “concert” of voices and instruments – Eru takes up alterations by their created wills (“good” or bad) and adds of His own. Second stage: the theme now transformed is made into a Tale and presented as visible drama to the Ainur, bounded but great. Eru had not [?complete] foreknowledge, but [?after it His] foreknowledge was complete to the smallest detail – but He did not reveal it all. He veiled the latter part from the eyes of the Valar who were to be actors.

  XII

  THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE VALAR

  This text arose as a long digression in “The Visible Forms of the Valar and Maiar”, given here as chap. XIV below. Like that text, it was previously published in slightly different form in Parma Eldamberon 17 (2007), pp. 177–9.

  The Knowledge of the Valar; or Elvish ideas and theories concerned with them

  [The Valar] remained in direct contact with Eru, though they, as far as the legends go, usually “addressed” Him through Manwë the Elder King. No doubt these legends are somatomorphic[1] (sc. almost as anthropomorphic as are our own legen
ds or imagination), and most Elves, when speaking of Manwë appealing to Eru or having converse with Him, imagined him as a figure, even more majestic than one of their own ancient kings, standing in attitude of prayer or supplication to the Valar.[fn1] By nature one of the Valar, or of those of the prime order of created spirits to which they belonged, would be in the presence of Eru only by presenting themselves in thought. The Eldar, and still less the Elves of Middle-earth (and again still less Men, especially those who had no contact with Elves or shunned it), knew little of such things; but they believed that “direct” resort to Eru was not allowed to them, or at least not expected of them, except in gravest emergency. The Valar were themselves “on trial” – an aspect of the mystery of “free will” in created intelligences. They had a sufficient knowledge of the will of Eru and his “design” to undertake the responsibility of guiding its development by means of the great prowess given to them and according to their own reason and intelligence.

  There was, however, one element in the Design of Eru that remained a mystery: the Children of Eru, Elves and Men, the Incarnate. These were said to have been an addition made by Eru Himself after the Revelation to the primal spirits of the Great Design. They were not subject to the subcreative activities of the Valar, and one of the purposes of this addition was to provide the Valar with objects of love, as being in no way their own subject, but having a direct relationship to Eru Himself, like their own but different from it. They were, or were to be, thus “other” than the Valar, independent creations of His love, and so objects for their reverence and true (entirely unselfregarding) love. Another purpose they had, which remained a mystery to the Valar, was to complete the Design by “healing” the hurts which it suffered, and so ultimately not to recover “Arda Unmarred” (that is the world as it would have been if Evil had never appeared), but the far greater thing “Arda Healed”.[fn2]

  With regard to Elves and Men Eru had made one absolute prohibition: the Valar were not to attempt to dominate the Children (even for what might seem to the Valar to be their good), neither by force nor fear nor pain, nor even by the awe and reverence that their wisdom and overwhelming majesty might inspire if fully revealed. The minds of the Children were not open to the Valar (except by the free will of the Children), and could not be invaded or violated by the Valar except with disastrous consequences: their breaking and enslaving, and the substitution in them of the dominating Vala as a God in place of Eru.[2]

  It was for this reason that the Valar adopted the fanar;[3] but they did this also out of the love and reverence for the Children that they conceived when Eru first revealed to them His idea of them. From that time onwards they had ever looked and longed for the coming of Elves and Men into the world.

  The Valar – all save one, Melkor – obeyed this prohibition by Eru, according to their wisdom.[fn3] But there was thus introduced an element of uncertainty into all their operations after the Coming of the Elves and Men. The wills and desires and the resultant deeds of the Elves remained forever in some measure unpredictable, and their minds not always open to admonition and instruction that was not (as was forbidden) issued as commands supported by latent power. This was even more evident in the case of Men, either by their nature, or by their early subjection to the lies of Melkor, or by both. It was also held by some that the Valar had even earlier failed in their “trials” when wearying of their destructive war with Melkor they removed into the West, which was first intended to be a fortress whence they might issue to renew the War, but became a Paradise of peace, while Middle-earth was corrupted and darkened by Melkor, long unopposed. The obduracy of Men and the great evils and injuries which they inflicted upon themselves, and also, as their power increased, upon other creatures and even upon the world itself, was thus in part attributable to the Valar. – not to their wilful revolt and pride, but to mistakes which were not by design intended to oppose the will of Eru, though they revealed a failure in understanding of His purposes and in confidence in Him.

  XIII

  SPIRIT

  TEXT 1

  This text is located in Tolkien’s linguistic papers with a group of etymological notes that Tolkien has dated to Sep. 1957. Further supporting the date of this text to 1957 is the use of the word hrondo ‘body’, whereas this form was abandoned by 1959 for hröa (see X:141–3, 209, 304). It is written in an increasingly hasty hand in black nib-pen.

  This text was first published in slightly different form in Parma Eldalamberon 17 (2007), pp. 124–5.

  Eldar did not confound ordinary “breath” of the lungs with “spirit”. The particular spirit indwelling in a body they called fëa [< *fáyā]; spirit in general as a kind of being they called fairë. These terms were chiefly applied to the spirits or “souls” of Elves (and Men); since though these were held to be of a similar sort to those of the máyar (and Valar), they were not identical in nature: it was part of the nature of a fëa to desire to dwell in a body (hrondo), and by that mediary or instrument to operate upon the physical world; and the fëa did not and could not make its own body, according to its desire, or conception of itself, but could only modify its given or appointed hrondo by indwelling (as a living person may modify a house, filling it with a sense of his own personality, even if no visible physical alterations are made in its shape).

  But the Eldar held that “spirits”, the more as they had more native inherent power, could emit their influence to make contact with or act upon things exterior to themselves: primarily upon other spirits, or other incarnate persons (via their fëar), but also in the case of great spirits (such as the Valar or greater máyar) directly upon physical things without the mediacy of bodies normally necessary in the case of “fairondi” or incarnates. To describe this they used (but by deliberate symbolism – taken e.g. from such cases as their breathing upon a cold or frosted surface, which was then melted) the √thū- (or √sū). In addition Manwë, the most powerful spirit in Arda, in this respect was Lord of Air and Winds, and the winds were in primitive Eldarin thought to be especially his emission of power for himself. Hence *thlē ‘blowing forth’ was used = ‘spirit’ in this special sense: the emission of power (of will or desire) from a spirit. [?Formulated] on *sū chiefly were Q sūre (ĭ), S sūl. Cf. Manwë Sūlimo or Thūrimo, thūle, S Thū.

  The Eldar still hold that winds may be [?such] and not all are naturally [?made] sc. that the air is [?easily] disturbed by direct will or [?alternatively] that [?the?] of such power may seem to incarnates like a wind.

  TEXT 2

  This text is written in a clear hand in black nib-pen on three sides of two sheets of Oxford examination paper. It was gathered by Tolkien with “Primal Impulse” (chap. II of part two of this book), but is presented here separately. There are two pieces of internal evidence that have bearing on its date. First is the use of the word hrondo ‘body’, whereas this form was abandoned by 1958 for hröa (see X:141–3, 209, 304). Second in the apparently inadvertent reference to the language “N.” (that is, Noldorin) when citing the form gwae; this suggests that the change whereby Sindarin came to be the name of the Welsh-like Elvish language formerly and for long called Noldorin, was still relatively recent. I would therefore date this text to no later than 1957.

  Concerning “Spirit”

  The Eldar retained, even after their dwelling in Aman and their instruction by the Valar, many traces in their language of more primitive thought and theory.

  At no time did they confuse, or identify, ordinary “breath” of the lungs, with “spirit”. (They were indeed slow in arriving at the conception of a difference between “spirit” and “body” in their own case.) But they were much impressed by wind and all movements of air, especially as accompanying the passage of things going with speed, and (as they declared) the coming and going of other beings than themselves. The words for wind and motions of the air were therefore also used of, or modified and applied in use to, manifestations of “spirit”, or incorporeal presences and operations.

  The chief an
cient stems concerned were: √thū/thus- ‘blow, cause an air movement’: √sū/sur ‘blow, move with audible sound (of air)’: the latter being seldom applied except to actual wind. The two stems owing to tendency in Quenya of s/r and s/th to coalesce became much confused. Q. thussë, sussë ‘puff (of air)’ (S. thus, thos); súrë (*sūri) ‘wind’, &c. are only used of wind. But Q. thúlë usually equals ‘(movement of) spirit’, whence S. súl = ‘wind’; and thû = ‘movement of spirit’ (thus-?)[1]. In the title Manwë Thúlimo/Súrimo, later Súlimo, we see the blending.

  Later the Eldar used the word Q. fëa (*phắyā, from stem √phay) for the particular spirit indwelling in a given body or hrondo. In Sindarin we have fân (*phănā) and rhond, rhonn. “Spirit” of this kind,[2] as a variety or mode of being was called in Q. fairë (*phai-rĭ), in S. faen (*phainĭ) = ‘vapour’.

  Also *wā, *swā, *wa-wa, *swa-swa, *swar, etc. as “echoic” representations of sound of wind. Q. hwá; hwarwa ‘violent wind’. N. gwae is apparently < *wā-yo > gwoe > gwae. But gwaew < *wagmē, Q. vangwë ‘storm’.

  These seem based on quite different analogies. √pha/phay/phan appear in origin to have referred to exhalations, as mists upon water or steams and the like. Cf. Q. fanya ‘cloud’ (S. fein, fain ‘pallid, white’, diaphanous), fanwë ‘vapour, steam’.[fn1][3]

  In Quenya these terms: fëa, fairë were chiefly applied to the spirits or “souls” of Incarnates (Elves and Men); since though these were held to be of a similar mode of being to the Ainur, Valar, and Máyar,[4] they were not identical in nature. They had no power, or very little power, of direct action upon other things or beings, and it was an important aspect of the nature of a fëa to desire to dwell in a body (hrondo), and by that mediacy or instrument to operate upon the physical world. Also, since the fëa was given a body at once, upon its entry into Eä, it had no experience or memory of separate existence. Death (that is separation from its body) was therefore for it an unnatural and unhappy condition.[5] Also, a fëa did not and could not make for itself any body, according either to its nature or its conception of itself, though it could and did modify and inspire its hrondo by indwelling – somewhat as a living person may modify and fill with a sense of its personality a house that it lives in long, even if it make no visible alteration in the shape of its dwelling. Whereas a Máya’s normal experience was “disembodied”; its experience began before Eä, it had far more power over physical things, a far clearer and more accurate conception of itself – it could therefore “array” itself in forms of its own choosing. These might be only “phantoms”, as were the appearances of disembodied fëar; but not necessarily so. By a “phantom” (Q. níma or nimulë; S. nîf, nivol = lit. a ‘seeming’) was meant an appearance having no existence in the physical world, existing only as a conception/memory/picture in one mind, and more or less accurately transferred direct to another. The Valar and greater Máyar were held to have made for themselves real bodies – ascertainable by Incarnates by all their senses, and occupying space; though since maintained by their true selves indestructible – in the sense that garments may be removed or repaired.