For many readers, Tolkien offers a lavish, if temporary, escape from our increasingly-utilitarian culture into a realm of visual riches. We are led into several unforgettable courts across the great tale of The Lord of the Rings, each with its own unique impact upon our senses. In the venerable but communal inclusivity of Elrond's dining hall, the lofty beauty of Celeborn and Galadriel's reception chamber, and the grave grandeur of the kingless throne room of Minas Tirith, we escape a civilization that champions industrial world-building. We become the guests of high folk in places of splendor as we follow the fellowship.
Half-seen colours
For me it is Meduseld that quickens my blood to the rhythm of some ancestral memory, captured by the Beowulf poet beneath the golden roof of Heorot in a far northern clime and re-gilt by Tolkien's hobbit scribes from their memories of their time in Rohan. The exact sensation, known to me from childhood, is one for which I had no name until I learnt it from Tolkien's friend, Jack:
"Pure 'Northernness' engulfed me: a vision of huge, clear spaces hanging above the Atlantic in the endless twilight of Northern summer, remoteness, severity… and almost at the same moment I knew that I had met this before, long, long ago." - C.S. Lewis, Surprised By Joy
Just as the hobbits realize that there is some misty connection between their own language and that of the Rohirrim, my heritage sparks off little signals of recognition in my heart and mind whenever Northernness appears on the written page. My mother feels it, too, and I cannot help but wonder whether this odd, ephemeral "knowing" may have been a powerful, shared understanding between Tolkien and Lewis as they walked and talked together, now long ago. A single line, like this one, from Chickering's translation of Beowulf is enough to make experiencers of Northernness tingle in every limb:
"On Danish belts swing shining heirlooms"
J.R.R. Tolkien is unequaled in his ability to wind the horn-call of ancientry in his writing. He is the master of making the "inner consistency of reality" so present to us that it blends with our splintered remnants of textbook history. In a close reading, we not only see but feel the Golden Hall, with its storytelling weavings, its fragrant fire pit, its looming, carven pillars with their hints of half-seen colors.
Where are we? Are we in Denmark, where Professor Tom Shippey suggests the audience of the Beowulf poet may once have lived, solving the riddle of why a Northern story which never once mentions England is set down in the Old English language? Or do we stand with Merry before Eomer King's throne somewhere on a plain in the midst of the lovingly-inked map of Tolkien's Middle-earth, receiving our own shining heirloom that confirms we have played a part in this tale?
I sincerely hope you will enjoy visiting this moment in time in Rohan via this video short:
Elemental Tolkien and necessary escape
What is it that makes it so satisfying to disappear into the pages of The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, or The Silmarillion? At some point, I would like to write more about the things I am learning from the joyous endeavor of illustrating Tolkien, but for now, I'd like to briefly share six elements which I've come to realize are nearly ever-present in the Professor's writings:
Water
Fire
Air/features of the sky
Hints of older history underlying everything
Gold
Silver
Water, fire, and air/features of the sky aren't just the attributes of the three elven rings; they are continuously present in some form in page after page of The Lord of the Rings. There aren't just random hangings in Meduseld. They depict the epic history of the Rohirrim, hinting that we must dig deeper to uncover the story of Eorl.
And the lavish use of precious metals not only makes the legendarium sparkle for the reader like the treasure-trove that it is and creates whole moods for mithril-mining dwarves and for elves whose tree-houses giltter with gold, but propels the plot and everyone caught up in it. Each of these elements can be good or evil as each new context arrives, but all are powerful.
And I think to many modern readers, let down as we are by a daily setting of endless parking lots, strip malls, big box stores, and imagination-less housing developments that might well be called Sharkey's End, the appeal of bejeweled-golden-silver The Lord of the Rings can only increase. We are given plastic to clothe ourselves with, plastic to furnish our humble smials, and little plastic busy boxes to be hand-held so that they can eat up the limited hours of our lives.
None of it is beautiful. None of what we build now for ourselves to inhabit is the height of creativity and endeavor. None of it is a silver horn taken from the hoard of Scatha the Worm that we can sound in the presence of foes to be sure aid will fly to us. In my land these days, when we cry for help, we are processed through systems cleverly designed to discourage and abandon us instead of rallied 'round by heroes large and small who don't want us to be sick, or wounded, or hungry, or in peril all alone.
No wonder then if we retreat into Tolkien, if we dream of being Eärendil with a Silmaril shining on our brow as we win the intercession of the Valar, or even of being little Bilbo who gets to wear gold buttons on his waistcoat in his old age, because he worked hard for such small tokens of his life story and his dignity.
Someday, if you'd like some consolation in all this, look up what Tolkien said about ugly electric lampposts and people who believed that cars were somehow more indicative than horses of the "real world". Read On Fairy-Stories.
Because that's where many of us would rather be experiencing our lives than in this weird wreckage of the industrial revolution: in the fairy-story we somehow sense we're inside of, if only we could fully see it and get others to, as well. Regardless of all utilitarian evidence to the contrary, in some corner of our mind, we stand near Éomer's wonderful throne, marveling at his courage and family-feeling and power for good. We stand by Éowyn's side, admiring the starry mantle set about her by Faramir's love and helping her gather herbs for her new high-status work as a healer.
And we stand with little Merry and look at the silver horn in our hands, heirloom of a high past, and dream of elves and dwarves and flowering stars on necklaces and green gems left for us on bridges and flowing raiment of white and grey and blue and of golden halls and "the escape of the prisoner" and Northernness and ancient days and the friendship of horses and the fellowship we long for in a place of stirring beauty that is the best we can create rather than the least-imaginative. Can you, too, feel all that? I think Professor Tolkien almost certainly did.