Fantasy Morality

[Morthoron]

Originally Posted by tumhalad2

But the point is that Turin's free agency is limited by his lack moral certainty. He does exhibit pride, and repeatedly rejects the advice of friends and those wiser than himself, but we need to bare in mind that as far as Turin is concerned, the advice of others constitutes only marginally better courses of action than his own decisoin. We may fault Turin for rejecting good advice, but we cannot fault Turin for rejecting divine will. Nowhere in the text is it implied that providential forces are at work in Turin's universe, as they are in LoTR.

You insist on mitigating the actual history of Middle-earth by narrowing your focus to "Turin's Universe", as if it exists independently of what else was occurring concurrently in Beleriand. There was, in fact, providential forces at work while Turin was alive. Tuor delivers a message to Turgon (who had already heard the call of Ulmo earlier in the 1st Age and did his bidding at that time). It was folly that Turgon loved too well the work of his hands, and his refusal to follow Ulmo's call led to a catastrophe that far outweighed what happened to Turin's family. So, your insistence on Turin being singled out by Morgoth is fundamentally incorrect, Morgoth had been searching for Gondolin for centuries. All his will was bent toward finding Gondolin and destroying it.

Turin, through Hurin, became entangled in the Doom of Mandos, which was a matter of fate, and a prophesy that the Noldor (and the Edain by association) were doomed by their own folly. Maedhros, who was also captured by Morgoth and hung by his wrist on Thangorodrim, can be seen as a precursor of Hurin's plight. In addition, Hurin was not the only captive Morgoth later freed to work his malice on his enemies. Many there were who were set free after torment and torture, only to be mistrusted and outcasts; however, we never get a fully developed story of their misery.

Originally Posted by tumhalad2

At this point I need to address another criticism. Given that we know Eru essentially grants the Valar power in Middle-earth, doesn't it follow that all this philosophical wrangling is just insubstantive talk? Well, no. It is true that Eru does give the Valar some kind of temporal authority, but we are never left thinking that he has cut himself off from the world entirely. As far as I understand it, Eru is the Christian god, and therefore must necessarily have certain attributes that the Christian god also possesses. If you argue that he does not possess these attributes, you are in fact admitting that Eru is necessarily imperfect and deistic, something that Tolkien seems not to have intended.

"we are never left thinking that he has cut himself off from the world entirely"? Really? Eru does not ever interfere with any of the Valar's decisions. None. He does not chastise them for their myriad mistakes. He does not overrule some of their more daft decisions. He allows untold suffering through an entire Age, as the Children of Iluvatar are slaughtered by Morgoth and his minions. If you have any specifics at all regarding Eru interfering at any time during the 1st Age, please produce it now, as I don't believe you will find it.

Eru only returns to Arda at the insistence of the Valar, who then surrendered their power to him. And what does he do? He kills every man, woman and child on Numenor. Eru is not necessarily the "Christian God" in a one-on-one quotient, particularly in his purposeful delegation of power to the Valar in the 1st Age. As I said, if you can offer any insight on Eru working his will in Arda in the 1st Age, then by all means produce it.

[tumhalad2]

Originally Posted by Morthoron

You insist on mitigating the actual history of Middle-earth by narrowing your focus to "Turin's Universe", as if it exists independently of what else was occurring concurrently in Beleriand. There was, in fact, providential forces at work while Turin was alive. Tuor delivers a message to Turgon (who had already heard the call of Ulmo earlier in the 1st Age and did his bidding at that time).

By "Turin's Universe" or more properly "the moral universe of The Children of Hurin" I refer merely to the textual, as opposed to the "historical" moral context of the story.

Originally Posted by Morthoron

It was folly that Turgon loved too well the work of his hands, and his refusal to follow Ulmo's call led to a catastrophe that far outweighed what happened to Turin's family. So, your insistence on Turin being singled out by Morgoth is fundamentally incorrect, Morgoth had been searching for Gondolin for centuries. All his will was bent toward finding Gondolin and destroying it.

I don't instist Turin is "singled out" by Morgoth, merely that Tolkien singled out Turin's saga for an extended novel-length treatment. As Christopher Tolkien's commentary makes clear, Tolkien devoted a great deal of his time to the Turin saga after he had finished TLoTR.

Originally Posted by Morthoron

Turin, through Hurin, became entangled in the Doom of Mandos, which was a matter of fate, and a prophesy that the Noldor (and the Edain by association) were doomed by their own folly. Maedhros, who was also captured by Morgoth and hung by his wrist on Thangorodrim, can be seen as a precursor of Hurin's plight. In addition, Hurin was not the only captive Morgoth later freed to work his malice on his enemies. Many there were who were set free after torment and torture, only to be mistrusted and outcasts; however, we never get a fully developed story of their misery.

All true.

Originally Posted by Morthoron

"we are never left thinking that he has cut himself off from the world entirely"? Really? Eru does not ever interfere with any of the Valar's decisions. None. He does not chastise them for their myriad mistakes. He does not overrule some of their more daft decisions.

So he is a deistic god?

Originally Posted by Morthoron

He allows untold suffering through an entire Age as the Children of Iluvatar are slaughtered by Morgoth and his minions. If you have any specifics at all regarding Eru interfering at any time during the 1st Age, please produce it now, as I don't believe you will find it.

So he is not omnipotent? Or is he not omnibenevolent? Which is it? Logically, he cannot be both while allowing suffering to flourish.

Originally Posted by Morthoron

Eru only returns to Arda at the insistence of the Valar,

So Eru's actions happen within time? Is he not omniscient, or does he only "return" after having been summoned by the Valar?

Originally Posted by Morthoron

who then surrendered their power to him. And what does he do? He kills every man, woman and child on Numenor.

Well, he is definitely not omnibenevolent, in that case.

Originally Posted by Morthoron

Eru is not necessarily the "Christian God" in a one-on-one quotient, particularly in his purposeful delegation of power to the Valar in the 1st Age.

No, perhaps you are right. What is the Christian God, anyway? Have you met him? It is my understanding that Tolkien conceived of Eru as equivalent to Christian God, that was my point. Can somebody contradict me? Am I wrong about this? Did I misread Tolkien's letters?

My point was, assuming that Eru is in some sense codeterminate with the Christian God, what is Tolkien doing thinking up a story like CoH, which lacks any sense of omnibenevolence at work through fate.

Neither CoH nor LoTR conceive of "god" or "providence" in satisfactory ways that account for the logical and philosophical problem of Evil. (Arda would be pretty boring if they did, because there could logically be no suffering). But each text does approach the notion of "providence" differently, and I'm not talking about the contextual stories that sit together with Turin's story.

I understand that Tuor talks to Ulmo, or whatever, but I'm talking about how Tolkien actually writes the CoH itself. The story, it seems to me, deliberately evokes a sense of undirected fate. That is a very different proposition to Gandalf's "you were meant to have it...and that is an encouraging thought..."

Getting back to the original essay, it is clear from having had a look through the rest of the site that the author very much dislikes Tolkien generally. He lauds Michael Moorcock and seems to think that liking Tolkien constitues some kind of mental disability. He gives all the usual misunderstandings and makes Tolkien out to be some kind of freak. Having now read wider, I'm less inclined to give credence to his conception of Tolkien's work.

Still, the question of morality in fantasy is a delicate one, and fantasy seems to be a really ripe place to unpack and examine issues of philosophical import, like moral absolutism (or some version thereof) vs. moral relativism (which seems to be all the craze nowadays.

It is intersting to me that most "hip" fantasy today is all about the "grey" areas, or even a denial of the efficacy of moral thinking altogether. For what it's worth, I think most of these writers get Tolkien wrong from the start, and just assume his depiction of morality is binary and lacking in nuance. As Rosebury writes, Tolkien does display significant "moral courage" throughout his work, and he clearly differentiates between detrimental and ethical behaviours, but Tolkien himself noted that he is not "dealing with Absolute Evil."

Do you think the nihilism of much modern fantasy is actually shared by the people who like and read it? I have no problem with fantasy that depicts colliding worldviews (as in George RR Martin) but some fantasy seems to revel in the depiction of violence as though it is sanctioned because it is no longer fashionable (at least among readers of that type of fantasy, apparently) to discourse in terms of ethical standards.

[Mnemosyne]

tumhalad2, have you read the book of Job?

[tumhalad2]

Originally Posted by Mnemosyne

tumhalad2, have you read the book of Job?

Yes, actually.

The "Poetic Dialogue" aspect of the Book of Job is very interesting. As Bart Ehrman writes "It cannot be overlooked that in the divine response from the whirlwind to Job's passionate and desperate plea for understanding, why he, an innocent man, is suffering so horribly, no answer is given. God does not explain why Job suffers." (God's Problem, 188)

Ehrman argues convincingly that there are many variant conceptions of suffering in the Bible, and that the Book of Job offers one: essentially, that there is no humanly convincing answer, and that we are deserving of no explanation from the Almighty. There are certain similarities between Job and CoH, the least of which is the sense of a cruel, hard world existing at the limits of our understanding.

[Mnemosyne]

Originally Posted by tumhalad2

Yes, actually.

Then I don't understand why you're suggesting that Tolkien's delving into the problem of bad stuff happening to good people, for no reason perceptible to those people, is somehow inconsistent with a (supposedly) Judeo-Christian-style god like Iluvatar, when we have a primary-world Scripture dealing with that exact problem.

More later, including a couple of very important metaphysical differences between Arda and the primary world as revealed in the Christian scriptures. I have to be off to work soon.

[tumhalad2]

Originally Posted by Mnemosyne

Then I don't understand why you're suggesting that Tolkien's delving into the problem of bad stuff happening to good people, for no reason perceptible to those people, is somehow inconsistent with a (supposedly) Judeo-Christian-style god like Iluvatar, when we have a primary-world Scripture dealing with that exact problem.

The book of Job does not satisfy the Problem of Evil either; no biblical text does, and the ancients weren't really trying to respond to that problem anyway. They did want to find some ways to justify, or account for, suffering. Tolkien does the same; I'm not saying that Tolkien is being inconsistent, but that Eru, like the Judeo-Christian god, seems to act in certain ways that exacerbate the problem of evil and bring it to the forefront. Why suffering should exist in a world governed by an omnibenevolent god is not something that Job accounts for; indeed the very reason it does not is because it makes god into a kind of prideful Morgoth figure, or at leat a powerful but indifferent bureaucrat. The conception of God as omni- this and omni- that is one tradition (and certainly the mainstream one), but why that tradition should be true, and why, say, the God of Job should be false is beyond me.

If we do characterise Eru in terms of the God of Job, then the Problem of Evil does go away (we are no longer obliged to ascribe god maximally fantastic characteristics), but I see little evidence to suggest to me that Tolkien conceived of Eru in this way.

[Galadriel55]

For the gazilionth time, tumhalad, a christian God also allows suffering. Suffering that is brought upon the people by their own choices. If you want to compare the two, you must consider this.

But each text does approach the notion of "providence" differently, and I'm not talking about the contextual stories that sit together with Turin's story.

Yes, one text is told through the eyes of hobbits, and one through the eyes of elves, or suffering Edain.

The story, it seems to me, deliberately evokes a sense of undirected fate. That is a very different proposition to Gandalf's "you were meant to have it...and that is an encouraging thought..."

What do you mean by 'undirected'? That there was no power driving Turin to where he got? Please reread all the posts before this one. I remember myself and others addressing this issue many times.

[tumhalad2]

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

For the gazilionth time, tumhalad, a christian God also allows suffering. Suffering that is brought upon the people by their own choices. If you want to compare the two, you must consider this.

Wow, glad you have all the answers. The Problem of Evil is a question for the "real" god as well as Tolkien's "sub-created" one. And besides, there is no single view of the Christian god, so speculation as to what he does and does not allow is arbitrary. I'm assuming that Eru corresponds to the mainstream notion of the Christian god: one who is both omnipotent and omnibenevolent. If the "real" god does allow suffering, then he, too, lacks one of these qualities. So your "answer" does not actually negate anything I've said. Why the tone of annoyance?

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

What do you mean by 'undirected'? That there was no power driving Turin to where he got? Please reread all the posts before this one. I remember myself and others addressing this issue many times.

I mean "undirected by providential aid/assistance/guidance". I see nowhere in your answers where you have refuted that contention: the Valar don't count, Melian doesn't count, Ulmo doesn't count. These actors are qualitatively different to the forces behind the scenes operating on the side of Good throughout LoTR.

[Dakêsîntrah]

Excellent topic, Tumhalad!

I am a person who is profoundly interested in world mythology and comparative religion; I also happen to love Tolkien's Midgard - which, in my view is yet another myth adaptation of the real world. So I chanced upon your thread and devoured its contents. Some of you make good points; others, not so much.


First, let me start with my concept of myth, by my quoting an excerpt from modern day mytheographer, Allan Alford in his "Myth And Religion":

It is widely presumed that myth and religion are two different things. To the extent that religion involves a whole array of non-myth elements – a moral code, a faith in a supreme being, and an obedience to the Church – this is true. However, if we focus on the primary element in religion, namely the Supreme Being (or God), then religion and myth become synonymous. Indeed, the conclusion of life-long study of religion is that God is actually the personification of myth.

God – the personification of myth? The idea will sound weird to modern ears, and many people will think that I am denigrating the Supreme Being. After all, the word ‘myth’, in modern linguistics, is held to be synonymous with a fiction or a lie. But this is not my definition of myth. Far from it.

In fact, the word ‘myth’ derives from the ancient Greek word muthos, which meant simply an ‘utterance’ or a ‘traditional tale’. And these utterances, or traditional tales – usually concerning Gods and heroes – were generally considered to be true stories.

But in what sense can a myth be true?

For the past two centuries, mythologists have been fixated by the idea of historical truth. They have sought to understand ancient myths as poetic portrayals of events in human history. But this is a fundamental mistake.

Prior to Greek times, ancient civilisations had very little interest in history as we understand that term. Rather than seeing the past in terms of a linear history, they saw it as a repeating pattern of cycles – the day, the month, the year, the reign of the king, and the periods of the planets and stars. At the beginning of each of these cycles, the creation was renewed and time began again. As for human beings, their machinations served only to validate this great cosmic mystery play. As Mircea Eliade writes in 'The Myth of the Eternal Return':

[The past is but a prefiguration of the future. No event is irreversible and no transformation is final. In a certain sense, it is even possible to say that nothing new happens in the world, for everything is but the repetition of the same primordial archetypes; this repetition, by actualizing the mythical moment when the archetypal gesture was revealed, constantly maintains the world in the same auroral instant of the beginnings.]

History and historical truth were thus alien concepts to the ancient mind. For the ancient myth-makers, truth lay rather in the primordial cosmic drama in which the Universe had been created and brought to life. The only true story in town was the myth of the genesis of the earth, the heavens, and all living things. In short, the myth of creation.

All ancient civilisations had their creation myths. The stories in the Old Testament Book of Genesis are but a reflection of much older myths that were told in ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia from at least 3000 BC. Indeed, the further back we go, the more dominant the creation myth becomes – to an extent that has yet to be fully apprehended by scholars.

Behind the creation myth lies the Supreme Being, who was worshipped by the ancients under a variety of names and guises. This Great God – or indeed Goddess – was the Creator of all things, and thus the cognate of Religion in the sense that He-She bound mankind back to its origins (the word ‘religion’ derives from the Latin religare ‘to bind back’).

Who, or what, was this Supreme Being? In what sense was He-She the Creator of the Universe and mankind?

Put out of your mind all those images of God as an Old Man with a beard. That’s just absurd. Consider instead the evidence from the world’s oldest civilisations – Egypt and Mesopotamia. Here, in the creation myths, the Great God, or Goddess, personifies the formative cosmos. He, or she, is identified with the death of the old cosmos; with the fall of the sky and the seeding of the earth; with the chaos of the primeval earth and waters; with the separation of the heavens from the earth; and with the new-born Sun, Moon, and stars. In short, the God and Goddess personify the entire myth of creation and the entire created Universe.

Here lies the key to the modern concept of God. As the Creator, God by definition becomes his creation. He becomes a Sun-god, a Moon-god, a star-god, a nature-god, a god of this river and that river, a god of this tribe and that tribe. But He is always much more than his visible manifestations, and he is mysteriously greater than the sum of his parts. His pure essence is thus said to be the Divine Soul, or Spirit, or Intelligence. In this aetheric and quintessential form, God stirred himself to life, created the Universe, filled it, and surrounded it. Thus He became immortal, invisible, omniscient, and omnipresent – visible and yet invisible, closer than we can possibly conceive, and yet further away than we can possibly imagine.

So, God is not a person. Rather, he is a personification. He personifies the ‘true’ story of the creation of the Universe. In this sense, God is the personification of myth.

Now, the ancients worshipped God under many different names and guises, since each region or city had its own local traditions. Thus in Egypt the Creator-God was known variously as Atum, Re, Khnum, Amun, Osiris, Horus, and Thoth, whilst in Mesopotamia He was known variously as Anu, Enlil, Enki, Utu, and Nannar. And for each God there was a corpus of myth which described how he had created the Universe. The same went for the Goddess too, who was known in Egypt as Hathor, Isis and Neit, and in Mesopotamia as Ninharsag, Mami and Inanna. This is only to mention the most popular names.

But behind this multiplicity there was only ever One God, One Goddess, and One Creation – by definition. The ancients knew this well, and would have much to say about the modern-day bickering between the devotees of Judaeo-Christianity and Islam.

Here lies the key to the future unity of all Gods and all religions.

God did not appear with the establishment of Judaism, nor with the establishment of Islam, nor with the earlier cults of Egypt and Mesopotamia. No, as the Creator of the Universe, God existed from the beginning of time, by definition.

By knowledge of this eternal, ever-unchanging axiom, the chasm between pagan religions and modern religions can be bridged, and the scattered ‘truths’ of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam can be reunited into the One Great Truth of the One Great God – a God who by definition cannot be the God of one tribe or the other but must be the God of all humanity.

This principle is straightforward enough, and many people intuitively will know it to be the truth.

The difficult part, though, is to resolve specific points of disagreement between the religions. For example, was Jesus Christ the Son of God, as Christianity maintains, or just another prophet, as Islam maintains?

To do this, there is only one way forward and it involves going backwards – into the past. If we can understand how religion evolved over the millennia, then we stand our best chance of reconciling the modern-day differences.

------------------------------------------------------

Tolkien's mythology adaptation stretches back even further into history than people usually give him credit for. In fact, his mythos comes from pre-history, when we can't even be sure the ancients had established a set world calendar that was permanent for many ages to come.

The best we can do is go back to ancient Sumeria and start from there. It is from the land of Abraham (the father of Tolkien's professed Catholic Christianity) that we find the original Elves, most especially. Herein we find,

~The Ring Lords~

From the earliest of Sumerian and Scythian times, over 5,000 years ago, the abiding symbol of wholeness, unity and eternity was the Ring. In those days, the kings-of-kings were also styled Ring Lords by virtue of their Rings of office which symbolised divinely inspired justice. They were golden circlets which, as time progressed, were often worn as head-bands - ultimately to become crowns.

As depicted in numerous reliefs, the Ring was a primary device of the Anunnage gods, who were recorded as having descended into ancient Sumer and were responsible for the establishment of municipal government and kingly practice. In view of this, it is of particular relevance that, when the author J.R.R. Tolkien was asked, in the 1960s, about the Middle-earth environment of his book trilogy The Lord of the Rings, he said that he perceived its setting to relate to about 4000 BC.

Tolkien was an Oxford professor of Anglo-Saxon language and, in this regard, the root of his popular tale was extracted directly from Saxon folklore. Indeed, the early Saxon god Wotan (Odin) was said to have ruled the Nine Worlds of the Rings - having the ninth (the One Ring) to govern eight others.

As the generations passed from those ancient times, the ideal of dynastic kingship spread through the Mediterranean lands into the Balkans, the Black Sea regions and Europe. But, in the course of this, the crucial essence of the old wisdom was diluted and this gave rise to dynasties that were not of the original kingly race. Instead, many were unrelated warrior chiefs who gained their thrones by might of the sword.

The oldest complete version of the Ring Cycle comes from the Norse mythology of the Volsunga Saga. Compiled from more than forty separate legends, this Icelandic tale relates to the god Odin, to the kingdom of the Nine Worlds and to a dark forest called Mirkwood - a name later repeated by Tolkien in The Lord of the Rings. It tells of how Prince Sigmund of the Volsung dynasty is the only warrior able to pull the great sword of Odin from a tree in which the god had driven it to its hilt - as replicated in the Arthurian story of the sword and the stone. Additionally, we learn of the water-dwarf Andarvi, whose magical One Ring of red-gold could weave great wealth and power for its master - precisely as depicted in all related Ring legends.

Contemporary with the Volsunga Saga was a similar tale which appeared in and around Burgundy in the 1200s: a German epic called The Nibelungenlied. In this account, which follows a similar path, the hero is called Siegfried and the tale is given a knightly gloss of the Gothic era, while unfortunately losing some of the pagan enchantment of the Northern legend.

In ancient Sumer, the Anunnage were said to have governed by way of a Grand Assembly of nine Councillors who sat at Nippur. The nine consisted of eight members (seven males and a female), who held the Rings of divine justice, along with their president, Anu, who held the One Ring to bind them all. This conforms precisely with the nine kingdoms of the Volsunga Saga, which cites Odin as the ultimate presidential Ring Lord.

In recent times there have been some astonishing archaeological discoveries which now prove that Sumerian was not the first written language as is commonly portrayed. Also that the Sumerian culture (generally held to be the earliest cradle of civilization) had an older origin in the Balkans, specifically in Transylvania and the Carpathian regions.

The earliest type of Mesopotamian writing, which preceded the strictly wedge-shaped Sumerian cuneiform, is known to be a little over 5,500 years old. It was found at Uruk in Sumer and at Jemdat Nasr, between Baghdad and Babylon, where the Oxford Assyriologist, Stephen Langdon, made numerous important discoveries in 1925. But, around thirty years ago a more significant find was subsequently made beneath the ancient village of Tartaria in Romania. Here were found clay tablets inscribed with a form of script which Carbon-14 dating and strata positioning have revealed to be more than 1,000 years older than the earliest Sumerian writings.

That was not the only surprise, however, for the Tartarian symbols were practically identical to those which emerged later in Mesopotamia. - and it was discovered that the very name of Ur (the capital of Sumer) came from the Scythian word Ur, meaning Lord. Not only that, but the name of Enki is clearly defined on one tablet in an identical form to that subsequently used in Sumer. Hence, it became very apparent that the Anunnage culture was far more widespread than had previously been thought.

Another significant discovery was made high in the Altai Mountains between Siberia and Mongolia. There, preserved by the severe cold since the distant BC years, was found a Scythian burial mound, where the bodies of ancient chieftains, together with their horses, clothing and possessions had all been remarkably preserved from decay.

These were the people who, in the Black Sea steppe lands, first domesticated the horse in about 4000 BC. Consequently, the extent of their travels through the centuries and their influence on the various indigenous cultures is most impressive. It ranges geographically from Hungary and Romania, north into the Russian steppes and Siberia, eastwards across the Ukraine and Anatolia (modern Turkey), south into Syria and Mesopotamia, and still further east into Mongolia, Tibet and the Chinese border country.

Digging first commenced at the Altai site in 1927, but it was not until 1947 that the richest mound containing six separate tombs was discovered and the various bodies found. They were preserved not only by the extreme cold of the region, but also by skilled embalming. There was hair on their heads, but their brains had been removed, along with other internal organs (just as in Egyptian mummification).

Some way south of the Altai site, in the northern foothills of the Himalayas, are the centres of Hami, Loulan and Churchen. It was close to these places, nestling in the Tarim Basin below Mongolia, to the north of Tibet, that a number of similar discoveries were made as recently as 1994. Unlike the intensely cold climate of the Altai Mountains, this lower region of the Central Asian desert is quite different, as a result of which the bodies were preserved in the perfectly dry air, coupled with moisture-absorbing salt beds and, again, expert mummification.

Dated at around 4,000 years old, these interred men, women and children have undermined all the established history teaching of the area, which previously stated that no one of their type arrived there until about 120 BC. But there they were from 2,000 years earlier at the time of Abraham, when Egyptian pharaohs such as Tutankhamun and Ramesses the Great were more than 500 years into the future. These mummies, although contemporary with the mummies of ancient Egypt, are actually far better preserved.

Like their Romanian counterparts, the Himalayan mummies are of impressive stock, with light skin, auburn hair and pale eyes. The leather and woollen clad men stood at least 6-feet, 6-inches and upwards, while even the women were over 6-feet tall. Undoubtedly, these forebears of the Gaelic High Kings were among the most formidable warriors of their time, and their use of finely woven tartan cloth serves as identifiable proof of the plaid designs which they eventually brought into Ireland and Scotland.

From the 1st century, the Ring Lord culture fell into decline when various Roman emperors decreed that the Messianic heirs (the descendants of Jesus and his family) should be hunted down and put to the sword. This fact was recorded by eminent chroniclers such as Hegesippus, Africanus and Eusebius. Then, once the Roman Church was operative from the 4th century, the sacred dynasty was forever damned by the bishops.

It was this formal damnation which led to such events as the Albigensian Crusade in 1209 and the subsequent Catholic Inquisitions - for these brutal assaults by the papal machine were specifically directed against the upholders and champions of the original concept of Grail kingship, as against the style of pseudo-monarchy which had been implemented by the Bishops of Rome.

In practical terms, Church kingship has prevailed from the 8th century and has continued, through the ages, to the present day. But the fact is that, under strict terms of sovereign practice, all such monarchies and their affiliated governments have been invalid.

Church kingship is precisely that with which we have become so familiar. It applies to all monarchs who achieve their regnal positions by way of Church coronation by the Pope or other Christian leader (in Britain, by the Archbishop of Canterbury). Previously, in terms of true kingship, there was no necessity for coronation because kingly and queenly inheritance were always regarded as being 'in the blood'.

The change was made possible by way of a text called the Donation of Constantine - a document which led to just about every social injustice that has since been experienced in the Christian world. When the Donation made its first appearance in 751, it was alleged to have been written by Emperor Constantine some 400 years earlier, although strangely never produced in the interim. It was even dated and carried his supposed signature. What the document proclaimed was that the Emperor's appointed Pope was Christ's personally elected representative on Earth. He had the power to 'create' kings as his subordinates since his palace ranked above all the palaces in the world.

The provisions of the Donation were enacted by the Vatican, whereupon the Merovingian Kings of the Grail bloodline in Gaul were deposed and a whole new puppet-dynasty was supplemented by way of a family of hitherto mayors. They were dubbed Carolingians and their only king of any significance was the legendary Charlemagne. By way of this strategy, the whole nature of monarchy changed from being an office of community guardianship to one of absolute rule and, by virtue of this monumental change, the long-standing code of princely service was forsaken as European kings became servants of the Church instead of being servants of the people.

The fact is, however, that over 500 years ago in the Renaissance era, proof emerged that the Donation was an outright forgery. Its New Testament references relate to the Latin Vulgate Bible - an edition translated and compiled by St. Jerome, who was not born until AD 340, some 26 years after Constantine supposedly signed the document! Apart from that, the language of the Donation, with its numerous anachronisms in form and content, is that of the 8th century and bears no relation to the writing style of Constantine's day. But the truly ridiculous aspect is that the Donation's overwhelming dictate, which cemented the Pope as the supreme spiritual and temporal head of Christendom, has prevailed regardless.

Victimized prior to the formal Church Inquisition in the Middle Ages were the Cathars of the Languedoc region in the South of France. The Cathars were fully conversant with the Ring Lord culture and, in accordance with tradition, referred to the Messianic bloodline as the Elven Race, venerating them as the Shining Ones.

In the language of old Provence, a female elf was an 'albi', and Albi was the name given to the main Cathar centre in Languedoc. This was in deference to the matrilinear heritage of the Grail dynasty, for the Cathars were supporters of the Albi-gens - the elven bloodline which had descended through the Grail queens such as Lilith, Miriam, Bathsheba and Mary Magdalene. It was for this reason that, when Simon de Montfort and the armies of Pope Innocent III decimated the region from 1209, it was called the Albigensian Crusade.

The concept of calling the original princely race the Shining Ones, while also defining them as 'elves', dates well back into ancient Bible times and can be traced into Mesopotamia and Palestine. The ancient word El, which was used to identify a god or lofty-one (as in El Elyon and El Shaddai) actually meant Shining in old Mesopotamian Sumer. To the north in Babylonia, the derivative Ellu meant Shining One, while in Saxony and Britain it became Elf.

The concept of fairies was born directly from the Ring Lord culture and, deriving from the Greek word 'phare', the term related to a Great House, from which also stemmed the designation 'pharaoh'. In the Gaelic world, certain royal families were said to carry the fairy blood - that is to say, the fate or destiny of the Grail bloodline and of humankind at large. Meanwhile, the elf-maidens of the Albi-gens were the designated guardians of the earth, starlight and forest. It is for these reasons that fairies and elves have so often been portrayed as shoemakers and lamplighters, for the fairy cobblers made the shoes which measured the steps of life, while the Shining Ones of the elven race were there to light the way.

In national terms (although fairies present a widespread image), they are particularly associated with Ireland, where they are epitomized by the ancient people of the Tuatha Dé Danann. This formidable king tribe was, nevertheless, mythologized by the Christian monks, who rewrote the majority of Irish history to suit their own Church's vested interest in Ireland.

From a base of the monastic texts, which arose onwards from medieval times, it is generally stated that the Tuatha Dé Danann were the supernatural tribe of the agricultural goddess Danaë of Argos, but their true name (rendered in its older form) was Tuadhe d'Anu - the people (or tribe) of Anu, the great sky god of the Anunnage.

Onwards from the year 751, the Church sought all possible measures to diminish the status of any royal strain emanating from the original Ring Lords so that the fraudulent Donation of Constantine could be brought into play. Henceforth, only the subjugative Church could determine who was a king, while the elves and fairies of the Albi-gens were manoeuvred from the forefront of history into a realm of apparent fantasy and legend.

Settling in Ireland from about 800 BC, the noble Tuadhe d'Anu hailed from the Central European lands of Scythia, which stretched from the Carpathian mountains and Transylvanian Alps, across to the Russian River Don. They were strictly known as the Royal Scyths and they were said to be the masters of a transcendent intellect called the Sidhé, which was known to the druids as the Web of the Wise.
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As the Church rose to power, so the underground stream, which supported the Ring Lord culture, found strategic methods of preserving the traditions of the royal bloodline. In the course of this, the fairy tale concept was born - stories which were not unlike many of the parables inherent in the New Testament Gospels. They were likewise contrived 'for those with ears to hear', while others among the uninitiated would perceive them as no more than fanciful entertainment.

A focal message built into these fairy tales was an understanding of the importance of perpetuating the family line, regardless of the power of the bishops and the Church's puppet kings. The whole scenario was presented, time after time, as if it were a struggling nightmare, wherein the female (the elf-maiden who carried the essence of the strain) was out of reach of the prince, so that his torturous quest to find her was akin to the quest for the Holy Grail itself.

Consequently, many of the tales which emanated from this base were stories of lost brides and usurped kingship, based upon the Church's subjugation of the Grail bloodline. The fairy tale ideal was essentially geared to relate the truth of these persecutions. They were allegorical accounts of the predicament of the Messianic family, whose fairies and elves (having been manoeuvred from the mortal plane of orthodoxy and status quo) were confined to a contrived otherworldly existence.

They emerged as tales of valiant princes who were turned into frogs; of swan knights who roamed the wasteland, and of Grail princesses locked in towers, or put to sleep for hundreds of years. In the course of their persecution, the elf-maidens were pricked with bodkins, fed with poisoned apples, subjected to spells or condemned to servitude, while their champions swam great lakes, battled through thickets and scaled mighty towers to secure and protect the matrilinear heritage of the Albi-gens.

These romantic legends include such well-known stories as the Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Snow White and Rapunzel. In all cases, the underlying theme is the same, with the princess kept (through drugging, imprisonment or some form of restraint) out of reach of the prince, who has to find her and release her in order to preserve the dynasty and perpetuate the line.

It was during the period of France's Carolingian dynasty that the seeds of most of these popular stories were planted, and it is because of the inherent truths which lie behind the stories that we find them so naturally appealing. Some academics argue that fairy tales survive because they are often based upon a rags-to-riches doctrine, but this is not the case. They survive because deep within our psyche is an inherent, inbred awareness that the Grail (symbolised by the Lost Bride) has to be found if the wasteland is to return to fertility.

A primary feature of the traditional folklore related to the Ring and Grail quests is that it embodies a nominal terminology that was historically applicable to the Messianic dynasts. As cited, the terms fairy and elf each related to certain castes within the succession of the Shining Ones. But there were others - notably the pixies - who were of the utmost importance within the overall structure of the princely bloodline. Having the same Sidhé heritage as the historical elves and fairies, their familiar name derived from the description Pict-sidhé. In time, following their migration into Anjou, Ireland and the far North of Britain, they became better known, the Picts. They called their northern domain 'Caledonia' - the land of the Caille Daouine forest people.

The social structures of the Scythian Ring Lord were firmly centred upon designated seats of assembly which became known as Fairy Rings. These royal seats (from Scythia to Ireland) were known as Raths, which denoted round or circular constructions. On that account, the Round Table of Arthurian romance was designed to symbolize this concept. What is generally not recognized, however, is that (just like the Volsunga Saga and the Nibelungenlied) the Arthurian mythos is itself a very powerful Ring Cycle. The true legacy of the Round table lies not in the Table itself, but in the knights who sat at the table - for these noble emissaries represented the most important aspect of ancient lore by presenting themselves as a living, iron-clad Ring. In accordance with traditional Ring lore, the land fell into waste and chaos when the power of the Ring was usurped by virtue of Queen Guinevere being unfaithful to Arthur with Lancelot.

From around 1800 BC, the Kassites of Babylonia were predominant in the Rath culture. They gained their name from the word 'kassi', which meant 'place of wood' - the place in question being a sacred mound dwelling, variantly called a 'caddi'. By virtue of this, the Kassites were designated Wood Lords.

Following their time in Babylonia, they moved across Syria and Phoenicia into Europe and, eventually, to Britain where they established many great kingdoms within which the remnant of their name survived - the Welsh King Cadwallan, for example, and the earlier British King Casswallan, who reigned at about the time of Herod the Great. In each of these names the 'wallan' aspect is important since it was also the distinction of a Wood Lord - again with Mesopotamian roots. The original Wallans were called Yulannu, and it was from their ancient tradition that the winter solstice Yuletide festival derived before moving into Scandinavia.

Apart from the fairies, pixies and elves of history, there are others of the Shining Ones who are also said to inhabit the magical Land of Elphame; they are the sprites, goblins, gnomes and leprechauns.

The definition 'sprite' means no more nor less than a spirit person - one of the transcendental realm of the Sidhé. The original sprites were the ancient Scythian ghost warriors, who painted their bodies grey-blue to look like corpses when they entered the battlefield.

The 'goblin' description stems from the Germanic word kobelin, which denoted a mine-worker or one who worked underground. In the context of the Ring culture, goblins and gnomes were attendants of the Raths, wherein they were custodians of the wealth and wisdom of the ages, being essentially treasurers and archivists. It was their role as guardians of the treasures which led to their nominal distinction being used in association with banking, as in the Gnomes of Zurich. The word root is in the Greek equivalent of 'g-n-o', from which we derive gnosis (knowledge).

As for the 'leprechauns', they were the armoured horse troops of the Pict-sidhé. Their body armour was made from small overlapped plates of bronze, which tarnished to a greenish colour so they looked like lizards or dragons. In this regard, they were called 'lepra-corpan' (scaly body), a word corrupted in Ireland to leprechaun.

The Catholic Inquisition, although ostensibly set against heretics, managed to include all manner of groups and factions within this overall classification. Witchcraft was a common accusation, and into this particular net fell the gypsies. Any person with no fixed place of residence was regarded with suspicion because an itinerant lifestyle was perceived as a means by which to evade Church authority.

The main premise of Christianity was the promise of salvation as achieved through subservience to the bishops, aligned with the perpetuation of a serene afterlife in a heavenly environment. But how could the alternative notion of Hell be portrayed on Earth in a manner which would scare the life out of tentative believers or reluctant worshippers? Somehow Hell had to be given an earthly form, and what better than the notion of dead people who could not complete their dying because they were so hideously unclean - people who were, in fact, 'undead'. Such people, said the churchmen, had to roam the mortal world like lost souls with no dimension of life or death to call their own.

The concept was good enough in part, but it was really no more scary than the idea of ghosts with a physical form. Something else was needed; these beings had to become predators in order to make people fearful enough to lean wholly upon the Church for deliverance. So, what would all people, rich and poor alike, fear to lose the most if they were seeking salvation for their souls?

The answer to this question was found in the Bible - to be precise, in the Old Testament book of Leviticus, which states: "It is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul". It was therefore decided that the undead creatures would be said to prey upon people's blood, thereby divesting them of the route to atonement.

A problem to overcome in this regard was the fact that this Leviticus statement was part of a very ancient Hebrew law and had little or nothing to do with Christianity. But a way was soon found to cope with the anomaly when the Church ruled that every good Christian who partook of the Communion wine was figuratively drinking the blood of Christ. This divine blood then became a part of his or her own body and any creature which then extracted blood from such a person was reckoned to be stealing the blood of Christ!

These bloodthirsty revenants could only be repelled, it was decreed, by such devices as holy water and the crucifix. And so the Church introduced a truly fearsome creature into its subjugative mythology. They were classified as vampires - a word which derived from the old Scythian title for a kingly overlord of the Rath - a Lord of the Rings. [Ring(w)ra(i)ths.]

In summary it can be said that the ancient progenitors of our culture and spiritual heritage have never been positively featured in our academic teachings. Instead, their reality was quashed from the earliest days of Roman suppression as the literal diminution of their figures caused a parallel demolition of their history - to be portrayed as the fairies, elves, pixies and vampires of legend.

Notwithstanding this, the sovereign culture, from which derived all the so-called mythology that sits so comfortably within our collective memory comes from one place alone. It comes from a place and time which, to use J.R.R. Tolkien's definition, might just as well be called Middle-earth as by any other name. It comes from the long distant Realm of the Ring Lords.

[Dakêsîntrah]

Now, to continue with the topic at hand: Tumhalad contends that "God" (Eru, Tolkien's world) is an inconsistent god as he does not exercise clear omnipotent sovereignty in the Children of Hurin compared to the Creation narrative at the beginning of the Silmarillion.

That is a very good point.

It's always been a problem, Tumhalad, for orthodoxy to logically explain an omnipotent god of the Universe that also allows suffering and evil in the same token. I use the term 'omnipotence' to denote that which also includes omnipresence, omniscience, and the like, because, All-Power ought to encompass all of the said aspects.

The problem of Evil lies in an orthodox paradox; and it has perpetuated ever since Augustine of Hippo systematized it. It is perpetuated so much, that is has become an Evil in its own right. And that is the notion of Original Sin. One of the biggest frauds the Church endorses by coercion. Now, to that extension, you will find that "God" must be evil Himself by allowing evil, because He is the actual origin of such a thing. If someone wants to argue here, by exonerating God as the author of evil, then that person will have to logically find a origin that is not God in such a paradox that cannot exist without a Good, additionally conceding that Morality is not an umbrella notion transcendent by God as a non-active Idea before it is set out in real time to actually become a "sin" in the world.

Quite succinctly, then, Turin Turambar's higher standard to follow in Eru is still quite consistent in the Children of Hurin. If one sees 'God' as a cosmomythological cycle perpetuated by man, then Turin as part of that cycle of godhood, the races of Midgard are simply "gods" to themselves (as Midgard is the revelatory aspect of Eru). Tolkien quite understood this notion.

Turin "listens" to his sword, because it comes from the highest metal. Tolkien devotes quite a few words to Anglachel/Gurthang in his accounts of Túrin. The made characteristics we learn is that the weapon was made of iron that came from a fallen star. This material could cleave all iron ore from Middle-earth.

Star-Fire or the nectar of the gods has a prominent role in Ancient Near Eastern cosmomyth.

In strict terms, the original Star Fire was the lunar essence of the Goddess, but even in an everyday mundane environment, menstruum contains the most valuable endocrinal secretions, particularly those of the pineal and pituitary glands. The brain's pineal gland in particular was directly associated with the Tree of Life, for this tiny gland was said to secrete the very essence of active longevity, referred to as soma - or as the Greeks called it, ambrosia.

In mystic circles, the menstrual flow-er (she who flows) has long been the designated flower, and is represented as a lily or a lotus. Indeed, the definition 'flow-er' is the very root of the modern word flower. In ancient Sumer, the key females of the royal succession were all venerated as lilies, having such names as Lili, Luluwa, Lilith, Lilutu and Lillette.

In pictorial representation, the Messianic Dragon bore little relation to the winged, fire-breathing beast of later western mythology. It was, in essence, a large-jawed serpent with four legs - very much like a crocodile or a monitor. This was the sacred Messeh whose name was Draco. This sovereign beast was a divine emblem of the Egyptian pharaohs, a symbol of the Egyptian Therapeutate in Karnak and Qumrân, while also being the Bistea Neptunis sea-serpent of the descendant Merovingian Fisher Kings in Gaul.

In old Hebrew texts references to serpents are made by use of the word nahash (from the stem NHSH), but this does not relate to serpents in the way that we might perceive them as venomous snakes. It relates to serpents in their traditional capacity as bringers of wisdom and enlightenment - for the word nahash actually meant 'to decipher', or 'to find out'. Serpents, in one form or another, were always associated with wisdom and healing - with the Trees of Life and Knowledge being customarily identified with serpents. Indeed the insignia of many of today's medical associations is precisely this image of a serpent coiled around the Plant of Birth - a depiction shown in the reliefs of ancient Sumer to be Enki's own personal emblem.

Interestingly, though, another common emblem for medical relief organizations depicts two coiled serpents, spiralling around the winged caduceus of Hermes the magician. In these instances, the true symbolism of the Star Fire ritual is conveyed and this symbol can be traced back to the very origins of the alchemical mystery schools and gnostic institutions. The records explain that the central staff and entwined serpents represent the spinal cord and the sensory nervous system. The two uppermost wings signify the brain's lateral ventricular structures. Between these wings, above the spinal column, is shown the small central node of the pineal gland.

The combination of the central pineal and its lateral wings has long been referred to as the Swan and in Grail lore (as in some Yogic circles) the Swan is emblematic of the fully enlightened being. This is the ultimate realm of consciousness achieved by the medieval Knights of the Swan - as epitomized by such chivalric figures as Perceval and Lohengrin.

The pineal is a very small gland, shaped like a pine-cone. It is centrally situated within the brain, although outside the ventricles, and not forming a part of the brain-matter as such. About the size of a grain of corn, the gland was thought by the 17th-century French optical scientist, Renê Descartes, to be the seat of the soul - the point at which the mind and body are conjoined. The ancient Greeks considered likewise and, in the 4th century BC, Herophilus described the pineal as an organ which regulated the flow of thought.

In the days of ancient Sumer, the priests of Anu (the father of Enlil and Enki) perfected and elaborated a ramifying medical science of living substances with menstrual Star Fire being an essential source component. In the first instance, this was pure Anunnaki lunar essence called Gold of the Gods, and it was fed to the kings and queens of the Dragon succession. Later, however, in Egypt and Mediterranea, menstrual extracts were ritually collected from sacred virgin priestesses who were venerated as the Scarlet Women. Indeed, the very word 'ritual' stems from this practice, and from the word ritu (the redness), which defined the sacred ceremony.

Hormonal supplements are, of course, still used by today's organo-therapy establishment, but their inherent secretions (such as melatonin and serotonin) are obtained from the desiccated glands of dead animals and they lack the truly important elements which exist only in live human glandular manufacture.

In the fire symbolism of ancient alchemy, the colour red is synonymous with the metal gold. In some traditions (including the Indian tantras), red is also identified with black. Hence, the goddess Kali is said to be both red and black. The original heritage of Kali was, however, Sumerian, and she was said to be Kalimâth, the sister of Cain's wife Luluwa. Kali was a primary princess of the Dragon house and from her Star Fire association she became the goddess of time, seasons, periods and cycles.

In the early days, therefore, the metals of the alchemists were not common metals, but living essences, and the ancient mysteries were of a physical, not a metaphysical, nature. Indeed, the very word 'secret' has its origin in the hidden knowledge of glandular secretions. Truth was the ritu, from which stems not only ritual, but also the words rite, root and red. The ritu, it was said, reveals itself as physical matter in the form of the purest and most noble of all metals: gold, which was deemed to represent an ultimate truth.

Just as the word secret has its origin in the translation of an ancient word, so too do other related words have their similar bases. In ancient Egypt, the word amen was used to signify something hidden or concealed. The word occult meant very much the same: 'hidden from view' - and yet today we use amen to conclude prayers and hymns, while something occult is deemed sinister. In real terms, however, they both relate to the word secret, and all three words were, at one time or another, connected with the mystic science of endocrinal secretions.

Such 'Star-Fire' could only have come from the heavens, it is certain. And most likely we get the ancients insisting on a world in successive catastrophe. Intruding comet and cometary debris is evident in geological and dendrology. Yes, the sky was much different to the ancients and they most certainly made time-honored rituals according to fallen meteor or cometary debris.

Such a hidden tradition I am sure Tolkien invested time into; for the Anglo-Saxon tradition is the latest ancient world heir.

As known by world ritual, most meteorite that is venerated (example the Ka'aba in Mecca) is also made into fantastic weapons that not only had better strength and power, it also was a medium to communicate to the godhead (the bringer of knowledge), and the mechanism behind this cosmic energy- which is THE "supreme God" personified by cyclical world upheavals (Creations) that signified the passing of the Sun through various planet gateways, moreover creating successive Ages of Men and Elves.

Furthermore, Turin's sword is said to be black. This denotes a meteoric rock. For such objects, we have the name Kali which in English is 'coal' (denoting that which is black) stems also from this name via the intermediate word kol. In the Hebrew tradition, Bath-Kol (a Kali counterpart) was called the Daughter of the Voice, and the voice was said to originate during a female's puberty. Hence, the womb was associated with the enigmatic voice and Star Fire was said to be the oracular Word of the Womb. Is this alignment too coincidental to be true? It is the Voice from the Stone, which immediately applies to Turin's sword cut from the stone of a meteorite.

----------------------------------------------

Now, for someone's reference to Job:

The Problem of Evil cannot be applied here.

Why?

Satan is not evil.

"Satan" in ancient Hebrew simply means "judge," "opposer" or "accuser." God can be all of these things. However, he has agents of good that carry out his commands, as he is actually not "omnipresent" (an ad hoc claim perpetuated by orthodoxy). There is a hierarchy of being called e'lim or elohim in the ancient Hebrew and the "messengers are one of the lowest ranks. The Judges or Accusers stand in court judging the wicked. These are the satans. Concurrently, humans can also be called satans if they simply oppose. Peter is called satan by Jesus. He opposed him. In all of the Bible, there is no strong evidence to suggest any main antagonist called THE Satan. It's simply a title. And Lucifer is simply a title. It means Son of the Dawn, or Helel ben Shachar in Hebrew, as Isaiah puts it. It can be applied to any messenger who comes in the Name of the El.

I hope this may clear up some things, Tumhalad. These posts were for you.

Always be aware that people tend to disagree, not because they are "idiots" but because they already have an established presupposition.

Best Regards

[Mnemosyne]

Originally Posted by Dakesintrah

Now, for someone's reference to Job:

I have a name, you know.

And I fail to see how the identity or good/evilness of Satan applies to Job in the context of bad stuff happening to good people.

I specifically did not bring up the "behind the scenes" parts of Job, or Satan at all, because Job the person did not have access to that side of the story. All that happened was that his life suddenly started going sour, even though he had done nothing wrong.

In fact, I didn't even apply Job to the "Problem of Evil"--that was tumhalad. I only wanted to highlight the context of a text accepted by Jews and Christians, in which suffering happens for no apparent reason, and suggesting that the fact that Jews and Christians alike have used it to grapple with the idea of suffering, without necessarily engendering a different "moral universe," would suggest that the same sort of reconciliation could and did happen in the fictional Middle-earth.

All of this is quite far, I think, from Tumhalad's original point, but I dislike being misrepresented. This, however, is spot-on:

Always be aware that people tend to disagree, not because they are "idiots" but because they already have an established presupposition.

For you and me both, Dakesintrah. Cheers.

[Inziladun]

Interesting stuff, Dakêsîntrah.

Just so it's clear, you may wish to cite the other sources of these quotes, in addition to the one you did note from the Alford essay.

This and this.

It's always been a problem, Tumhalad, for orthodoxy to logically explain an omnipotent god of the Universe that also allows suffering and evil in the same token.

Once again, it isn't that suffering is "allowed". Many misfortunes, Túrin's certainly among them, were caused by, or at least were enhanced by individual exercise of free will.

As to the age-old argument of "why do good things happen to bad people", well, think of it this way. If life were all sunshine and roses, what meaning would faith have? It's quite easy to be reverent and good when things are going well; quite different when things are falling to bits around one.

Let's look at Tuor again. He was born an orphan, raised in the wild by fugitive Elves; a hard life. As a boy he was captured by the Easterlings and made a slave. He was able to escape after three years. He watched the signs and was led to Vinyamar. There, met by an incarnate Ulmo, he agreed to take up Ulmo's errand.

What ultimately set Tuor apart from his cousin was humbleness, and a realization that his own feelings and desires were not the basis on which all his decisions should be made. Tuor, like Frodo later, possessed the instinctive knowledge that there were things above him that he had to do, regardless of whether he himself would be rewarded or even would understand what was happening. Faith.

[Bêthberry]

Wow, Dakêsîntrah, I think you've just set the record for longest post ever on the Barrow Downs.

Originally Posted by Dakêsîntrah

First, let me start with my concept of myth, by my quoting an excerpt from modern day mytheographer, Allan Alford in his "Myth And Religion":

It is widely presumed that myth and religion are two different things. To the extent that religion involves a whole array of non-myth elements – a moral code, a faith in a supreme being, and an obedience to the Church – this is true. However, if we focus on the primary element in religion, namely the Supreme Being (or God), then religion and myth become synonymous. Indeed, the conclusion of life-long study of religion is that God is actually the personification of myth.

Just an aside here for accuracy's sake, but Buddhism is considered a religion yet it has no concept of God. Those troubled by the absence might tend to refer to it as a "spiritual philosophy" rather than religion, but that perspective tends to avoid the very interesting questions which Buddhism raises about divinity.

Originally Posted by Mnemo

I have a name, you know.

Yes, you do, Mnemosyne, and a lovely and fascinating name it is.

[alatar]

Originally Posted by Dakêsîntrah

Who, or what, was this Supreme Being? In what sense was He-She the Creator of the Universe and mankind?

Put out of your mind all those images of God as an Old Man with a beard. That’s just absurd. Consider instead the evidence from the world’s oldest civilisations – Egypt and Mesopotamia. Here, in the creation myths, the Great God, or Goddess, personifies the formative cosmos. He, or she, is identified with the death of the old cosmos; with the fall of the sky and the seeding of the earth; with the chaos of the primeval earth and waters; with the separation of the heavens from the earth; and with the new-born Sun, Moon, and stars. In short, the God and Goddess personify the entire myth of creation and the entire created Universe.

I would disagree.

It is thought, and I don't have my source (H. G. Wells?) that God is simply the tribe's Alpha Male and Alpha Female glorified. If we are walking back gods into prehistory, we may see that each small tribe of humans has a leader, selected for strength etc, who keeps the tribe surviving (poor leaders' tribes are eaten, and so do not live on to write history). As our hominids become more sentient, they began to remember, and tell stories of leaders deeds, both past and present. These stories of course are stretched, and over time (who even has a calendar?) become the basis of god's doings.

Clever leaders perpetuate mysticism, as it makes holding power much easier. And when one tribe meets another, this god belief can give an advantage to one tribe over the other. And so on.

In contrast, in Tolkien's world characters can look back as things were actually better in the past. Their ancestors were stronger, smarter, better. Cults could appear to worship these ancestors. A character that stays around too long, like Sauron who should have exited the stage in the Second Age, are thought to be gods by the Third Age inhabitants.

So I don't think that creation plays much of a part, except as one more thing to add to 'our' leader's resume.