The Standing Stone

[Priya]

What was the significance/purpose of the ‘stone’ at the center of the hollow in the Barrow-downs adventure?

“… they … went down into the hollow circle. In the midst of it stood a single stone, standing tall under the sun above, and at this hour casting no shadow. It was shapeless and yet significant: like a landmark or a guarding finger, or more like a warning.”

I presume Tom referenced it when at his abode:

“Don’t you go a-meddling with old stone or cold Wights …”.

and in poetry:

“… The cold stone is fallen; …”

I have my own theory about it - but what do others think?

[Mithadan]

My view of how the Standing Stone fits in the story is based upon Tom's explicit warning to the Hobbits. He "advised them to pass barrows by on the west-side, if they chanced to stray near one." The Hobbits ignored or forgot this warning. "It was shapeless and yet significant: like a landmark, or a guiding finger, or more like a warning. But they were now hungry, and the sun was still at the fearless noon; so they set their backs against the east side of the stone" and fell asleep. When they woke, "The standing stone was cold , and it cast a long pale shadow that stretched eastward over them." Having failed to heed Tom's warning to pass such markers to the west, they became ensnared.

One could argue that the Standing Stone was not a "barrow," itself. Yet, Tolkien was very specific about the warning and how the Hobbits failed to pass the Stone on the West.

I suspect that Priya's question here does not relate to how the Standing Stone fit into the narrative, but rather focuses upon the mythological significance of the Stone. However, the inspiration for the Stone and the barrows would clearly be Stonehenge and similar ancient sites in England.

[Priya]

Hello Mithadan

Thank you for pointing out how an eastern shadow lay over the slumbering hobbits after they’d propped themselves against its east facing side. Yes, direction was of supreme importance to Tolkien: the blessedness of the west versus Sauron’s threat in the east.

Actually, it’s more the logic of the tale I am initially interested in discussing. But I acknowledge your thoughts on our world’s similarities with regards to ancient monoliths.

But back to the story for a while. It’s curious that Tolkien decided that Tom would refer to the stone in the singular while pluralizing Wights. So I think the standing stone the hobbits encountered was the very one Tom was referring to.

“Don’t you go a-meddling with old stone or cold Wights …”.

At first I thought it must have had an enchantment placed on it: a sort of early warning system alerting the nearby Wight that ‘prey’ was approaching.

But I changed my mind!

There are whole a lot of strange things that happen in this chapter of the story. Nobody (at least to my research) seems able to provide ‘believable’ answers, which possess both consistency and give this part of the tale logical purpose. For instance:

Why a rounded hollowed-out hill with a rimmed mound?
Why was a single stone specifically placed at its center?
What was this fog that rolled in so suddenly after a blazing hot day and after the sun had just set?
What were the two stones that appeared like a headless door, yet had not been noticed earlier?
Why did darkness fall after Frodo went past them?
Why did Frodo’s pony bolt?
Why did the other hobbits not follow Frodo past the doorway?
Why was there no reply from them when Frodo called?
Why did their voices seem so far away after Frodo came back through the doorway?
What was the green light in the barrow that came up through the ground?
Why did Bombadil’s voice appear to come through the ground?
How did Bombadil appear so quickly in his rescue?
What happened to the stones making up the headless doorway?

And these are just some of the mysterious matters.
Was the story intentionally meant to have unexplainable facets, or was there more to it all that Tolkien never got round to telling us about?

Opinions and any enlightenment would be most welcome.

[Huinesoron]

Interesting. I'm not going to comment on the internal or metaphysical aspects, but the inspiration side is looking just as mysterious.

It is, I understand, established historical fact that the Great Barrow "is" Wayland's Smithy, about 30 miles from Stonehenge as the craban flies. I've driven there from the south, and you really do drive across the Barrow-Downs to get there. It's a fantastic monument on the landscape, but not associated with a hollow containing a single standing stone.

The obvious candidate in this part of the world would be a hill fort, and indeed, Uffington Castle is very close by. The famous chalk white horse doesn't directly appear in Middle-earth, though Rohan and the Prancing Pony both reflect it, and I understand Dragon Hill has been strongly linked to Weathertop. But... Uffington Castle is bigger and more complex than the "hollow circle" on the Downs, and doesn't have a standing stone.

Another key location nearby would be Lambourn Seven Barrows, within about 2 miles of Wayland's Smithy. These give a good picture of what a typical barrow on the Downs would look like, and I'm seeing descriptions of at least two of them as "shield" or "bowl" barrows - ie, you go up the mound and down into a hollow. There's no standing stones, though.

And neither of these options really makes me happy. You don't put a standing stone in the middle of a barrow, because that's where you put the dead people! And hill forts are normally much bigger than Tolkien's description sounds - you can fit a village inside them, so a single stone wouldn't really stand out, and you don't feel like you're in a hollow.

What we really want is a henge. Not a stone henge (Stonehenge itself is way off), but a henge in the original sense: a circular earth enclosure, smaller than a hill fort but larger than a bowl barrow - and, for our purposes, with a single standing stone in the centre. Something like Mayburgh Henge is a very good match, except for the minor fact that it's over 200 miles north of Wayland's Smithy and the real Barrow-Downs. I can't find anything close by.

So... slightly to my disappointment, despite "we fell asleep by the stone and then the kids got lost in the barrow" sounding exactly like the sort of family story Tolkien would have put in the book (see: every part of The Hobbit in the vicinity of the Misty Mountains), it looks like he might actually have made this one up. ^_^

(Though there is a survey marker on the east bank of Uffington Castle. It's not a traditional standing stone, but it's an impressive concrete monolith nonetheless... here's how it looks from inside the hill fort. Not perfect, but very close, and in exactly the right place; maybe my first idea was right all along.)

hS

[Priya]

Hello Huinesoron

Those links were very much appreciated. The one of Mayburgh Henge is, as you say, a great match - and I quite agree.

By the way, is there a ‘real’ English region (with a capital D) called the Barrow-Downs?




So with that - switching the conversation from the storyline back to a real world fit - I want to throw out to readers of this thread, an idea.

All the real-world examples (or more accurately - the vast majority) folk cite for the standing stone and stone rings in the Barrow-downs chapter tend to focus on English parallels. But although Tolkien might well have used his visits to Wayland’s Smithy and Lambourn Downs to include similar designs into the tale, perhaps his actual siting of them for the story was considered to be outside of ‘home’ territory?

One reason is that the barrows, stone rings and standing stone in the novel are, quite obviously, located outside of the Shire.

Tolkien said the following:

“ ‘The Shire’ is based on rural England and not any other country in the world …”, 

– The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, Letter #190 – 3 July 1956, Edited by H. Carpenter, 1981 (Tolkien’s emphasis)

“Buckland … occupied a position with regard to the Shire such as Wales does to England; …”. 

– The Peoples of Middle-earth, The Appendix on Languages – pg. 50

I’m rather reminded here of one of Tom Shippey’s chapter titles in The Road to Middle-earth where he uses the term ‘A Cartographic Plot’.

Of course Tolkien equated some geography of Middle-earth with our world (e.g. Florence, ancient Troy & Oxford per Letter #294). So would it be beyond the realms of possibility that the Barrow-downs of our tale, lay in Tolkien’s mind, outside of mainland British borders (England & Wales) in the agglomerate land mass of Middle-earth?

The obvious candidates where monoliths are found in abundance close by to Britain are: France (Brittany) and Ireland. Could Tolkien have based the Barrow-downs locale on a region within one of these countries?

Please throw stones or even rocks if such an idea seems outrageous. But there again, if you’re going to do so - please provide some reasonable logic along with scholastically based criticism!

[Priya]

Well no pebbles thrown so far - let alone standing stones!

So below is what I think Tolkien may have modeled the shallow hill with its standing stones upon. It’s Ireland over France that I’ve selected.

The Historic Hill of Tara, County Meath, Ireland

Two rimmed mounds at the top of the Hill of Tara and a Barrow
(Mound on right with round saucer-like inner bowl,
 Mound on left with the ‘Stone of Destiny’, Barrow – upper right corner)





Lia Fáil: The ‘Stone of Destiny’ – atop Hill of Tara

So I think the hill of the novel was not meant to be an identical copy – but one whose resemblance was unmistakably akin to the knowledgeable. The shallow Irish hill in County Meath, I have a feeling, was ‘slightly’ modified in terms of architectural features for the tale. Instead of two distinct mounds at the top, Tolkien merged them together to make one:

“… shallow saucer with a green mounded rim.”
– The Fellowship of the Ring, Fog on the Barrow-downs

The ditches and outer humps were discarded while the hollow turfed circle at the hill’s summit was kept. In the middle of the hollow Tolkien might well have placed the equivalent of Tara’s ‘Stone of Destiny’.

“It was shapeless and yet significant: like a landmark, or a guarding finger, …”.
– The Fellowship of the Ring, Fog on the Barrow-downs

The Tara stone does have a finger-like shape. Though I’m perplexed as to how anything finger-like could be termed ‘shapeless’.


Any massive objections so far?