Tolkien's Influence Galactic?
 

If I might record a stellar bit of trivia...

I stumbled across this today, as perhaps some others have too. To think that the word once scrawled on a page is now so well known that it is considered a fit name for a type of galaxy. What next pixies and sprites? :D

Haha, genius!

Thank God! For once something not named after some random scientist... Nice, simple, practical. :p

Next thing we know, "hobbit" will be the accepted term for anything "miniature" or the like. For the English language is especially...adaptable...or absorbent...or something like that? ;)

Interesting to use "hobbit" as a relative size, smaller than "dwarf". I find it even more interesting, considering Tolkien's claim that hobbits are still around, just not visible to "big people", that the galaxies thus named are also described as "faint". Faded, perhaps?

Yes, I was also thinking of the hobbit's supposed ability to hide from men of this Age. But who would have guessed that we would find them with a high powered telescope! :)

Whoever came up with the designation must be a bit versed in Middle-earth. Better than me at least, for I can't recall if a height comparison was ever made between dwarves and hobbits. Certainly hobbits are slighter and more elusive, and it seems about right, but memory fails me.

I do wonder if they would entertain the idea of actually naming the galaxies after 'historic' hobbits or their towns. Most likely we will be introduced to a generation of new hobbits with names sounding suspiciously like the names of random scientists or worse yet, numbers and letters. I suppose we might see how many Tolkien fans are to be found in the pool of astronomers, but given the choice of naming a newly found galaxy after themself or their favorite hobbit, I assume that the former would prevail.

EDIT: After a bit of a search on dwarf galaxies, it seems they are named after the constellations they are found in, or near, so perhaps we will have some new and interesting names for any futuristic RPGs, Cygnus Sandheaver, anyone?

Nice to see that Tolkien had so much influnce in so many fields of science.
First we have LOTR-related species, now we have galaxies.

Hobbits I think are described as being smaller than dwarves in "Concerning Hobbits" and you may recall that Balin's spare hood and cloak were rather large for Bilbo at the start of the Hobbit. How the ent-draught assisted Merry and Pippin compared I am unsure.

However as a stargazer I am delighted by this development and since Tolkien took some trouble over his astronomy to make sure phases of the moon were consistent in LOTR and giving Elvish names to heavenly bodies (as well as astronomy- related names to many elves), I can't help thinking he would be rather pleased.

Although Tolkien's use of astronomy was possibly more in "poetic" than "physics" terms, I agree with you. It is really interesting... but it does not end with "hobbit" galaxies: I know about an asteroid named Bilbo... There is even an asteroid named Tolkien! I'm quite sure the Professor would be pleased... :)

If you'll forgive me, this link lends a bit of atmosphere. And though it does not mention Bilbo or hobbits or Tolkien, at the end it does give us an inkling of just how many galaxies there are. It is easy to imagine that there may be many faint ones.

Many thanks Mith, for the refresher on hobbit stature! :D

Well to be fair, Tolkien was unlikely to have had much scientific education himself and there has been quite a lot of progress since his day but this article which someone directed me to on another thread a while back, may be of interest.

Having live so long with light pollution it took the blessed chance of waking in the small hours during a rail journey across the Australian outback to become aware of the full glory of a starlit night (and truly "get" the Elvish wonderment at it). It inspired me to take a course but having myself opted for poetry over Physics at 16 I struggled a bit :p . I wonder if the stars would have been so important in Tolkien's middle earth had he not lived in his youth, at least in lands of dark skies.

While the use of names from Classical Mythology for planets and their moons is long standing, it really is quite an achievement for an invented mythology to have entered the collective consciousness to be used usefully. Splendid news...

Yes, it is good to see that the mythology 'took', no pun intended.

Since this thread includes Tolkien's knowledge of constellations, I'm going to post this bit here, although it is unrelated to astrophysicists' naming practices.

Mithalwen's link does not mention this reference early in LotR:

Yes, that's right. The asterisks mark a footnote in the text, a Tolkien footnote presumbably, not a CT footnote.

What I find remarkable about this footnote is that it distinctly erases the difference between our/Tolkien's Primary World and the sub-created world of Middle-earth.

Part apparently of what we Downers have named the "Translator Conceit", it directly links the hobbit nomenclature with that of our world. Perhaps it is one way Tolkien intended to suggest that Middle-earth was but our world in an early age--that is, it is part of his fictional bag of tricks--but what it also does is tie the text to something outside itself.

That is, this footnote clearly suggests that we are to view the story world as our world, and be prepared to see similarities between the two. It would, then, put a nail (just one nail, mind you) in the coffin of davem's insistence that the text must exist independently as a text, without any external references to our world or to our own literatures, that is must best be enjoyed as internally coherent story without any references to things outside it. Yet here is Tolkien directly linking Middle-earth to our own cultural practices of naming the heavens.
It isn't a reader seeing an analogy, as in Mithalwen's link to Tolkien's use of moon phases and stars, but something directly in the text which invites the reader to see hobbits as existing in our universe, but with their own system of naming things.

Fascinating, eh?

The same stars may be viewed from a different planet ;) But I will not presume to argue for davem and since he may not do so for himself....

Still the same point of reference, Mithalwen, and still invites comparison between the hobbits' world and ours, between sub-created world and readers' or Primary world. ;)

Wow, the article is really interesting, Mith. Anyway, I always liked to think of what the stars (planets) Tolkien mentioned in his works are... and it seemed obvious to me that the Sickle is just a name belonging to that thing in the sky, as much as Plough or Great Bear or Velký Vůz or Velká Medvědice (in my mother language). If someone pointed in the sky and told me "show me the Sickle" or "show me the Wilwarin and Menelmacar", I'll do it. "A man may do both" *

*The acknowledged should know what this quote refers to and where it comes from ;)

Don't be mean you can't do this to me when I don't have davem to sift what I was trying to say from what I might say and make it sound sensible and coherent.
And while I love the fact that Tolkien created such a detailed mythology for England that it seems plausible I am not going to admit to anything that might encourage the wearing of foot wigs.

Legate - yes was so delighted with it I cannot resist any opportunity to share. I must track back and find the original kind soul who refered me to it. And to save me "Babel fish"-ing - does Velká Medvědice mean Great Bear in Czech?

Yes the quote is familiar :D

So there's a Sickle above Middle-earth and a Plough above Earth and they look the same? Well if that's evidence that Middle-earth is an earlier version of our own world then I'll happily await the day that archaeologists dig up a Neolithic umbrella or mantel clock. Maybe they will also unearth an express train at Avebury?

Its as likely that he drew a comparison to a constellation everyone aged five years and up knows to signify that The Sickle was a group of stars rather than have readers dumbfounded and wondering why a Druidic blade was hanging mysteriously in the sky.

There are too many anomalies for me to accept that this is anything like our own past, and I know too much about our own past (and have done since I was about seven) for it to be sensible for me to go down that odd path wearing a furry foot wig. It's a nice idea that it was our past, but it wasn't. It's a made up story. I can suspend my knowledge enough to be thoroughly enchanted by it, such is Tolkien's skill unlike many other writers, but when Gandalf says "Fly! You Fools!" I often think "Aye, many a true word..."

Yours, Lal-telling small children the world over that Father Christmas is just their dad-wende.

PS
If that was far too cynical for any faint-hearted readers please accept my warm apologies... I'll kick myself if the missing 17:16 to Doncaster is found at some stage in West Kennett Long Barrow... :)

EDIT I am now informed I am being sarcastic. I thought I was being satirical and all Impish. :(

And apparently Pullman said a similar thing and had to eat his words when they dug up 'Hobbit bones' ... that's the price you pay for nailing things to masts...I take it all back.

Hmm.

I don't see that this necessarily follows. Clearly the intention is that M-e is our world in the ancient past. Tolkien never changed that intention, & in the earliest writings (pre-BoLT - see Garth Tolkien & the Great War) the link is made between the world of the mythology & our world. It is, in short a mythology of our world. The 'spark' was Cynewulf's Crist (Eala Earendel engla beorhtast, Ofer Middengeard monum sended )

However, the world created is self contained, & the story stops at a certain point in our own history (7-8,000 years ago possibly), therefore, it must be taken on its own terms. To bring in a mention of a particular constellation is not in any way the same thing as bringing in references to cultural artefacts/concepts which did not exist during the mythico-historical period of the story.

Now, of course, it is entirely possible to read the story as 'autobiography' & seek influences in Tolkien's life that may have inspired incidents in the work. Or to read it as an academic excercise in the creation of an 'ur' mythology - or even as (which Tolkien stated) an excercise in linguistic aesthetic. In support of the former I suppose one could propose the Nazgul on their Fell Beasts = german pilots strafing the trenches (though we must remember that Tolkien would have seen aircraft flying over his beloved Oxford even before he left for France - the Air Force took over a meadow on the edge of Oxford for training, & army cadets were billeted in the Universities throughout the early years of WWI.) Beren & Luthien tells a good deal about his feelings for Edith (& possibly even something about her fellings for him) - but we all know that stuff.

However, the Legendarium is more than autobiography or linguistic aesthetic. A central desire on Tolkien's part was to 'enchant' the reader & he does this by enchanting the world - specifically by enchanting the reader's vision of the world he/she inhabits. Once we have passed through Lorien we will (if we still retain an 'undarkened heart') never look on a wood or stand of trees in the same way again, once we have stood at the Gray Havens the sea will forever be the Sea to us (cf 'Recovery' in OFS)

One cannot read LotR & leave our own world out of our thoughts. We can, & I think should, leave aside our culture & its artifacts (of course they are there to some extent in that Tolkien did not exist outside the 20th century world, but we should focus on the world itself, not on what went into its building). Our world is not, in truth, 'outside' the Legendarium - in fact, the Legendarium 'contains' our world (in the sense of the living earth & the stars).

Yes, it does. Actually, it means "Great Bear-female". ;) "Velký vůz" then, if you are interested, means "Great wagon" (as in many other languages).

Here is a link to a map of Stars that was given by Piosenniel , about 4 years ago... I thought that it might be on topic here.

I agree very much with Davem's post .
So true!!
(btw: Welcome back, Davem!! :) Very pleased to see you posting again!)

Here is what Tolkien himself wrote in letter 183 (notes on W.H.Auden's Review of RotK):
So of course the stars are essentially the same, they just have different names.

I like that quote, not least as it means I don't have to go and get me coat. ;)

But it also explains a lot - it's an imaginary past, like the past where you might have found the glittering towers of Camelot.

Tolkien also pinpoints it to having the essential of North West Europe. Does that include Valinor? Is it Ireland or Lyonesse? Tolkien was tapping into the genus loci of a whole region.

I don't think Valinor or Tol Eressea are related to a real place. They are more relating to the existing legends of a place somewhere to the West, where the Elves (or the gods) live...like "Tir nan og" (don't know the exact spelling of that) And anyhow,they are removed from the physical world now (as already in the 3rd age)

We can always play the game that it is the true past, but like much that has been passed down over the ages, has evolved from its true form. And methinks that if it were trumpeted enough, future generations wouldn't know it from real history - many today have a tough enough time not only discerning the historical truths, but also even caring about them.

"Whatever!?!" :rolleyes:

And Lalwendë, Father Christmas may have human helpers over there, but here in the USoA, he's actually Elvis Presley dressed up. The reindeer have been replaced with a red flying saucer...;)


Note that I would like to see scientists get some credit, though I realize that these people, who have discovered various cures and sent machines to distant worlds, already are overpaid, unlike those poorly compensated footballs players and actors who live simply to better the human condition. ;) That being said, it'd be nice to see names like Valacirca and Menelvagor and not XSG1358.

:eek: I can hear Tolkien turning in his grave right now! I bet he'd be horrified if people mistook his work for real history.

However the irony is that loads of our so-called history books are not exactly true anyway. I'm old enough to remember history books stuffed full of the glories of the British Empire and tales of how missionaries brought 'civilisation' to 'savages', with not even a passing mention of the millions of people exploued in the name of the Empire or the native peoples who lost their entire cultures due to Western influences.

So I may as well have been taught that Hobbits really existed. :(

Elvis? Elvis?! What do you leave him on Christmas Eve? Your whole Christmas Dinner? And I bet he'd even eat your selection box too!

Spinning heavenly bodies perhaps? ;)


It's not only that history is written by the victors, but also by a set of persons with a certain and limited point of view. 100 years from now we may realize that it was the Peter Jackson movies that radically changed the world; today they're just another set of fantasy movies based on some books. No one pays much attention to what happened during those 18 months in New Zealand, and even those that did may have missed the forest for the trees, or the mallorn for the maples. The persons documenting the feat, and those editing the miles of footage may have thought that they were capturing the essence of the event, but what they missed, seemingly unimportant, may be that proverbial mustard seed.


I see that people are more interested in Atlantis than Rome or Ur. Mayan carvings thousands of years old are thought to be of spaceships. When they are proved to be terrestrial, interest wanes. So, this being the trend, to encourage education and maintain rolls in government schools, we may see a shift to "edutainment," where you might learn that your great-great-greats had wooly toes.


What's a selection box? Any, it's customary to leave the King a chocolate-covered fried turkey stuffed with an entire ham, served with a pound or two of fries (chips) with bacon, cheese and Texas ranch dressing and a Diet Coke.

Yeah, throw away history and cultural artifacts and what are we left with but Celeb Couples Of the Moment. Andy Warhol where are you now--or is he one of those dead white male artists we are supposed to forget? ;)

Then again, it's good to remember that Tolkien was part of an historical reconstruction of the Anglo Saxon era. We may see more stars these days, but there's lost texts that even he couldn't find.