I'll let you all waffle on...:-D just kiddin...I'll try get round to reading some replies as and when I get a chance. I just bought Hammond and Scull's 'The Art of the Lord of the Rings'. Bit of a hole there in my library. Tut tut.
Can you see the bull's head now in the cliff face?
http://www.thewindrose.net/mythopostupdate/
You can clearly see the head of the bull- probably a minotaur. Moria being the labyrinth.
As it states in the essay in the update. I firmly believe Tolkien drew the final version of the picture. Then he turned the page over and drew the faint embelishments. It was a riddle much like the Moon letters he wanted to include in the Hobbit. Ithildin was also on the Doors of Moria linking the two riddles. This is similar to the covering flap in his Land of Pohja illustration: the other side of a turned page revealing something. The rest of the riddle- in fact only the faintest scratchings of it, are in the link. 200 pages written from the close study of the etymology of hundreds of words IN TEXT and how they interrelate in context.
In addition, Check out the bull's head shape and appearance of page 5 of the Book of Mazarbul (Mazarbul = Maze -AR (Sun) Bull).
http://www.thewindrose.net/bullshead2/
`You cannot pass,' he said. The orcs stood still, and a dead silence fell. `I am a servant of the Secret Fire, wielder of the flame of Anor. You cannot pass. The dark fire will not avail you, flame of Udűn. Go back to the Shadow! You cannot pass.'
Anor = ...? That's right the Sun. The same sun as 'AR' in Mazarbul. And none of this disagrees with any etymology given by Tolkien because Tolkien was more than capable of layering more than one meaning into words.
wield (v.)
Old English weldan (Mercian), wieldan, wealdan (West Saxon) "have power over, compel, tame, subdue" (class VII strong verb; past tense weold, past participle gewealden), merged with weak verb wyldan, both from Proto-Germanic *waldan "to rule" (source also of Old Saxon and Gothic waldan, Old Frisian walda "to govern, rule," Old Norse valda "to rule, wield, to cause," Old High German waltan, German walten "to rule, govern").
The Germanic words and cognates in Balto-Slavic (Old Church Slavonic vlado "to rule," vlasti "power," Russian vladeti "to reign, rule, possess, make use of," Lithuanian veldu, veldėti "to rule, possess") probably are from PIE *woldh-, extended form of root *wal- "to be strong, to rule." Related: Wielded; wielding.
Of course this links up with the star constellations: Orion, Taurus and the Pleiades. See my previous posts.
http://www.thewindrose.net/predictio...abaranpleides/
Orion = Aragorn (the Three Hunters). Taurus = the Enemy. Pleaides = Arwen (the Seven Stars trapped in the nets of Shelob).
Riddle of the West Gate essay here.
http://www.thewindrose.net/blogs/the...ate-drawing-2/
So...the bull is the Balrog because they are both incarnations of the same thing, the Enemy. They are from the Dialectic Tolkien incorporated. His sources: The Republic and the Timeaus. The dialectic is his 'Secret Grammar' from 'A Secret Vice'. There was no little man. That's Tolkien. The grammar is the hands of Ilúvatar, his "symphony". The dialectic being the idiomatic expressions 'on the one hand'...'on the other hand'..as per a conversation ('dialectic' from dialektos "discourse, conversation") as used in The Republic. This is why the bull and the Balrog are the same thing. And if you look again at the first image I posted you can even see the suggested outline to the left of a large axe head behind the minotaur- which doubles for a wing, because wings (Balrog wing) are also part of the hand/arms dialectic. Tolkien puns on the word 'axes'- an axis...the two axes correspond to the left and right hands of Ilúvatar. That's why the Balrog spreads out both wings- it's part of this dialectic symbolism equivalent to the raising of both hands by Ilúvatar which is an act of command (see iglishmek too for the same hand gestures dialectic grammar). That's the symbolism in the Gate of the Argonath, axes and arms..the West and North gate are the same gate, two sides of the same gate. The two gates exhibit asymmetry: two clockwise spirals on the West gate and two raised left arms on the North gate.
Did anyone ever wonder why Frodo both hears and sees on Amon Hen, the Hill of Seeing? That's the same asymmetry, an imbalance. Amon Hen and Amon Lhaw are the two hands of Ilúvatar- part of the grammar. The spirals (left and right) are the hands of Ilúvatar- the grammar is all duality and planar geometry. The duality extends to man and woman - and is about the imbalance between left and right- the domination of woman by man-hence the Loathly Lady theme and the Balrog. Left hand = woman. Right hand = man. That imbalance is finally put right at the end of The Lord of the Rings with the marriage of Aragorn and Arwen. The planar geometry (his dialectic) originated from his reading of the Republic and The Timeaus at King Edwards. He went on to finalize his symbolism in The Book of Ishness at the end of that period. Here's the geometry hidden in the landscape just like the Bull is hidden in the cliff face (pun on cliff face of course).
http://www.thewindrose.net/blogs/tol...s_door_post-2/
The two hearts in 'Eeriness'...if you study the etymology of the words Tolkien uses in The Music of the Ainur where the geometry is created, you will find it's actually fundamentally about 'the heart'. Music is secondary- from cord, chord etc. See my homepage where I show that and the relation between the two hearts and the two hands of Ilúvatar. The two hearts in 'Eeriness' are the two hands. Tolkien's world is a medieval symbolic landscape where the inner spiritual world is incarnated in the outer world.
Symbolic landscape involving 'planar reversals' logic. See my essay The riddle of the Hidden images of the West Gate.
http://www.thewindrose.net/blogs/a-r...arkanta_devil/
And note how the ear and the eye are on both sides of the face in that map. That's Amon Hen and Amon Lhaw later in The Lord of the Rings. Both that map and Rauros have a line of symmetry down the middle: Tol Brandir at Rauros and the heart of stone in the rock face at the West Gate which is exactly between the two trees/spirals.
It's the same system and he never changed it.
Movement between the left and right hands occurs via the TURN. See '
Before and Afterwards' through the megalithic Door- which is the right-angle in the geometry. The movement between is the conversation between the left and right hands- it's a narrative device. At root its not about gender per se..its about manner (etymology Latin manuarius "belonging to the hand," from manus "hand"- see prediction #40) and handedness. That's the grammar. Left and right hand grammar for e.g: Merry and Pippin. Legolas and Gimli. Boromir and Faramir. Théoden and Denethor. Gorbag and Shagrat, etc, etc. Here's the
geometry of the grammar, the dialectic at its most simple.
The Music (of the Ainur) is his 'Music of the Spheres' (musica universalis), his symphony. Tolkien's two biggest influences apart from north European literature are Plato and Dante. Minas Tirth- which is intended to "ocularly" suggest Mino Taur (Taur being the great forest of Dante's Purgatory and elsewhere, the maze of the world, hence the classical labyrinth design used in its plan) is Tolkien's Purgatory (more on that if you'd like). Again it's a riddle. The courses of the labyrinth are finally unravelled at the marriage of Aragorn and Arwen culminating at Minas Tirith (Anor). Recall the 'Theseus Theme' (Rateliffe, The History of the Hobbit) in the ball of twine in the Forest of Mirkwood. [And this is why Shelob (spider thread in the maze) is incorporated into this scheme as I state above in my posts. Orion:Taurus Pleiades.] Aragorn = right hand (Moon), Arwen = left hand (Sun). Hence Maze-AR-bul and the Music of the Spheres, Sun and Moon and the Sun and Moon on Narsil which must be reforged, symbolically the two halves of Sun and Moon reunited.
Care to argue any point. Try me.
monks