425 – Questions After Nightfall 36
The Prancing Pony Podcast
In this episode, the hosts answer a series of deep-lore questions from patrons regarding J.R.R. Tolkien's Legendarium. The discussion ranges
Key takeaways
- The Rohirrim likely utilized settlements and ranches rather than a purely nomadic lifestyle to defend against Dunlendings.
- Dwarves are theorized to stand outside the Music of Arda, granting them mortality and free will similar to Men.
Main topics
- Rohirrim lifestyle
- Dwarven mortality and the Music of Arda
Notable quotes
The elves envy the men or humanity.
Conclusion
A deep dive for Tolkien enthusiasts that connects historical literary
Transcript preview
Speaker 5 (0:00) Hello, if you're the kind of person who loves books and the stories behind them, let me tell you about a podcast you might enjoy. I'm Jack Wilson, the host of the History of Literature podcast, where we talk to writers, scholars, biographers, and other guests as we try to understand just how literature works and what its impact on the world has been. Why are great books so great? How can reading fiction and poetry make us think and feel? and how does that fit into our busy lives today? At the History of Literature podcast, we dive into the greatest books from all over the world, from famous classics to underappreciated gems. Our goal is to stretch our minds and to see what big-hearted and great-souled people we can become, using literature as our inspiration and our guide. If this sounds like a journey you'd like to join, try the History of Literature podcast, available on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Speaker 7 (1:00) If you're looking for a podcast adventure, check out Dumb Dumbs and Dragons, a podcast where improvisers and comedians who've never role-played before journey into the world of Dungeons and Dragons. It's like Lord of the Rings, if everyone was an idiot. Dumb Dumbs and Dragons has been featured on the official Dungeons & Dragons podcast, ranked number two in fiction podcasts and number 72 of all podcasts in America, and has been downloaded more than 19 million times. With listeners in more than 115 countries, Dumb Dumbs and Dragons is one of the most binge-listened podcasts on Spotify. It's the perfect introduction to Dungeons & Dragons for people who've never played before and an absolute celebration of D &D for RPG veterans. Even better, if you join the show's patreon you can get ad free feeds supply names for npcs or even add your own character to the podcast be a smart smart to join the dum-dums follow and listen to dum-dums and dragons the podcast anywhere fine podcasts can be found Speaker 8 (2:09) Good evening, Little Masters, and welcome to episode 425 of the Prancing Pony podcast, where, well, I'm back isn't something that only Sam says. Speaker 2 (2:19) Yep, and after a long break, it's been good to be back. Grab a drink, pull up a bench in the common room, folks. It's time to talk Tolkien. I'm Sarah Brown, shield maiden of Rohan, and I'm here with the man of the West, who, I have a feeling, is going to throw me under the proverbial bus more than once today, Alan Sisto. Well, I Speaker 3 (2:37) mean, it's still better than the literal bus. Speaker 2 (2:41) Just, I've still got the tire marks from last season. Speaker 3 (2:43) That is true. Well, what else are co-hosts for on these episodes, Sarah? That's why you are here. Speaker 2 (2:50) All Speaker 8 (2:50) right, folks, join us as we welcome several of our patrons for our 36th quarterly Questions After Nightfall episode. Speaker 2 (2:57) Wow, has it been 36? Hard to believe, huh? Speaker 8 (3:00) It is a lot. Speaker 2 (3:01) Now, these days, folks are coming to Middle-Earth in so many different ways, from the Peter Jackson films to the Amazon TV show, from YouTube lore videos and from video game adaptations like Lotro. And of course, there's always the books. However you came here, we want to welcome each of you to our common room. That's Speaker 8 (3:18) right. The Prancing Pony podcast is in our 11th season of reading and talking our way through Middle-Earth with, we hope, plenty of insight and deep lore dives, along with the usual digressions and speculations. And if we keep true to form, plenty of bad jokes and a few high quality puns from time to time. But our purpose here is to help you explore and enjoy the works, to discuss the story itself, along with our favorite themes, Tolkien's inspirations and plenty more. And Speaker 2 (3:43) while we will always take the work seriously, we almost never take ourselves seriously. We're just a couple of friends chatting at the pub and we're genuinely glad you've joined us. Speaker 8 (3:52) Indeed. We hope and are confident that you'll be glad you joined as well. Now, before we get back into Baron Luthien next week, let's get some questions and some possible embarrassment from our patrons. Sara, who is up first today? Speaker 2 (4:06) Up first today is Neil. Speaker 1 (4:08) Welcome, Neil, or I should say, welcome back. Thank you very much, Alan and Sara. So I have a question today about Rohan. You talked about the word nerdery of places like Edoras and other names. And it got me thinking, are the Rohirrim nomads when they don't live in the main towns? So we've got a place like Edoras, Arlberg, there's a few other towns. But I don't recall anything specific in the legendarium anywhere, which says, do they roam around with their horses around the plains? Or do they actually have ranches, basically? And I just thought, if it doesn't actually say that, would you like to speculate on it? Speaker 8 (4:47) That is an interesting question. Sarah, what's your initial thought? I can remember something about sparsely populated portions of the world and things along those lines, but it feels to me more like there would be settlements, small farms and ranch settlements. I Speaker 2 (5:04) think so. I mean, one of the things that they're famed for is the breeding of horses. Speaker 8 (5:08) It's Speaker 2 (5:09) easier to do that if you're in a settled space, Speaker 8 (5:11) which Speaker 2 (5:12) doesn't mean to say they don't move around a little bit at times, depending, but... I would say, I'm really going on headcanon here a little bit and speculating quite a lot, but I would have thought that it is much more likely, given that they are banded on a number of sides by people who are not pleasant, that it would be safer for them to be in settlements that you could then defend. Whereas if they were nomadic, it would be much harder. to defend themselves against orcs and other unpleasant critters that come along. Don't forget the Dunlendings are still pretty cross with them. So there would probably be depredations upon herds and livestock and all sorts of things from Dunlendings. It's going to be easier to defend a settlement. Speaker 3 (6:05) That makes a lot of sense. And yeah, they're going to be living in... homesteads and Speaker 8 (6:09) villages and, you know, defensible territory. Like you said, the Dunlendings on the west, you've got, they're terrified of the forest. It's not like Fangorn's a threat to them, but they've got Fangorn to the north. Enemies that have come from the east across the Anduin in the past, you know, they of course fought off the Balchoth, you know, at the beginning. That's how they got the land in the first place. All right, Neil, Speaker 1 (6:32) you've got something to add here real quick? Yes, I would agree with your thoughts. One of the things I've had at the back of my mind is Tolkien based the Rohirrim certainly very closely to Anglo-Saxons, and they certainly weren't people that rode around on horses particularly. They had homesteads, they had settlements, and they didn't have big herds roaming around like perhaps the Mongols would do. So, yes, I say it was something that when I heard you talking about on the TTT that Everastner likes. It was like, oh, okay, yeah, it doesn't actually say that, but I would agree with what you've suggested there. Speaker 8 (7:09) Yeah, that's the thing. I mean, I'm thinking of some of the things he described both in Unfinished Tales and in some of his letters he's talked about them settling into these unpeopled lands. Settling does seem to indicate a permanent settlement rather than just... some sort of nomadic existence. And of course, he does describe actual nomads, right? We talk about the wainriders coming in. The Rohirrim are not described in those terms. You don't hear about great wains. You don't hear about them bringing their homes with them, so to speak. And of course, the breeding of horses is very different than simply the utilization of horses as nomads might do. And so, you know, in a context like that, you'd almost have to have actual settlements. Speaker 2 (7:55) I would say so. And let's also remember what's on the flip side of settlement, especially when you're coming into a land that you have been given by somebody who didn't actually really own that land. You go in and you're pushing out the people who did live there. That's the Dunlendings, right? Speaker 8 (8:14) That's correct. Speaker 2 (8:15) So if you're doing that, it doesn't make sense for you to then keep moving along and moving along and moving along. If you're pushing out the people who actually lived there so that you can create settlements, this is a little bit primary world-ish that I'm tiptoeing across here. But if you're doing that, then it doesn't make sense to be nomadic. It makes more sense to actually create settlements, villages, etc. Speaker 3 (8:39) I did find something interesting in the letters, because of course, that's one of the other things that I'll look and try to find evidence for things Speaker 8 (8:47) that Tolkien might have stated. And in letter 297, he's talking about the language. He's talking about the names and he speaks about the name Rohan. He says, I cannot understand why the name of a country stated to be Elvish should be associated with anything Germanic, still less with the only remotely similar Old Norse ran, meaning house, which is incidentally, and this is where we come back to the question, not at all appropriate to a still partly mobile and nomadic people of horse breeders. So there are some nomadic aspects to their lives, but I don't think we'd Speaker 3 (9:21) be Speaker 8 (9:21) describing them as fully nomadic. Like you pointed out, Sarah, it's not realistic being surrounded by enemies for them to be fully nomadic. We know that they had marshals that were in charge of the... military structure in the different parts of the nation of Rohan. So they would have had settlements. They would have had cities. We know that the capital itself was moved to Edoras because it didn't start there. Speaker 2 (9:49) Edoras, of course, was easier to defend, wasn't it? Speaker 8 (9:53) Yes, it was. That's correct. And it moved there for that reason. Aldberg was the previous capital. And so we know that there are other cities. We can't imagine that those are the only two. But it's an Speaker 3 (10:05) interesting question. Certainly, they're going to be a little bit more mobile, a little bit more nomadic than the Gondorians, but they're not going to be Wainriders. Good question, though. All right. Sara, who do we have up next? Speaker 2 (10:17) Oh, next Speaker 3 (10:17) we have Sam. Sam, welcome, or welcome back again. Thank you. Great to be Speaker 5 (10:22) back here. So I have a question for you both about the nature of the dwarves related to the music. So we know that elves are more constrained by the music of Arda while men have the ability to change their role within the music. Where do you think dwarves fit in this spectrum as the adopted children of Iluvatar? Speaker 8 (10:44) Well, that is another really good question because there's not an explicit answer, but we can certainly infer that because they were not part of the music in the beginning, they would likely not be subject to the music the way elves are. they would therefore be, like men, both mortal and capable of exercising more free will. In fact, just the fact that they're mortal would be evidence of that, right? Speaker 2 (11:13) I agree. You could go so far as to say the dwarves stand outside the music. Speaker 8 (11:17) Yeah, they really do. Because they Speaker 2 (11:18) weren't part of it in the first place. I mean, Iluvatar, I'm sure, would sit here and say, yeah, I planned it all along. I knew it would happen. That's right. I foresaw what Owlay would do. That's why I was right there and saw him doing it. But the fact is they were not part of the music. They were not envisioned as part of the music. Just means that they stand outside of it. But I think they're okay with that. They have their own beliefs, their own systems. And although the whole thing about the dwarvish set of beliefs. which is about how they will return to Aule and he will lead them eventually into whatever the last battle is, all that kind of thing. That only comes from the dwarves' own tales about themselves. Speaker 8 (12:07) That's right. Speaker 2 (12:07) And that's really important because it's a different story with the elves and men because we know what will happen to them because it is Iluvatar that tells us this. Speaker 3 (12:16) That's fair, especially with the elves. With the men, we get the elves version of it, which is they go where the elves know not. So we know there's something. We don't know what it is. But with the dwarves, Speaker 8 (12:27) we don't know anything. We only know what the dwarves believe about themselves and their afterlife. And then you can also look at the idea of free will is associated with serial longevity versus mortality. Speaker 8 (12:42) Sort of the price to be paid for serial longevity is that you are subject to the music and that part of the gift of men is not just death, though it is that. It is also that they can shape the events and things of their world to a degree that the elves cannot. Right. And the dwarves similarly are mortal, so have that option. Yes. Speaker 2 (13:04) And I think that's actually a really important point about that because the whole thing with the elves being bound up in the fate of Arda means that serial longevity is not that much fun, really. Once you go to the Athrobeth, Finrodda, and Wreth, you can see. Yeah, Speaker 3 (13:22) which we'll be doing soon enough. Speaker 2 (13:24) Yes, the whole thing here is that the elves envy the men or humanity. I really get annoyed with having to reuse men. I get you. It's Speaker 3 (13:35) the capital M, so we're talking about the race of men. But yes, it's still worth pointing Speaker 2 (13:40) that out. Speaker 3 (13:40) Yes, which is easy to do when Speaker 2 (13:41) you're writing, not so easy to do when you're speaking. That's true. But anyway, humanity. Speaker 2 (13:48) They envy them in many ways because they're not bound to the circles of the world. Whereas, of course, the humans are sitting there going, yeah, but. Speaker 3 (13:57) That's right. Speaker 2 (13:58) We kind of like this Speaker 3 (13:59) idea. We Speaker 2 (13:59) live for a blink of time and then we get, what, this gift that we can't return? What's up with that? Speaker 3 (14:04) I know, seriously, where's the receipt? Can I have the receipt? Yeah. Exactly. Speaker 2 (14:09) Whereas the dwarves are just like, yeah, well, we have these stories about how things happen for us. Yeah. And we're pretty okay with that. It's very kind of Valhalla-ish, isn't it? What the dwarves believe about themselves. They get to Speaker 8 (14:22) work in their afterlife. That's what they get to do. They get to rebuild Arda after Speaker 2 (14:27) the Speaker 8 (14:27) last battle. That's their job is to assist Ale in remaking Arda. I don't know about you, but I'd Speaker 3 (14:32) rather retire. And go to a beach? Right. I'm not sold on the whole, your Speaker 2 (14:37) afterlife will involve a lot of physical work. Yeah. Speaker 8 (14:40) But I guess if you're a dwarf, that's a cool thing. Speaker 2 (14:43) Yeah. Yeah. Because they are, of course, they are craftspeople. They are hewers of stone. They are hands-on, aren't they? So it would be the kind of thing that they would enjoy doing. Speaker 3 (14:54) Exactly. I mean, look at who made them. Speaker 2 (14:55) Yes. I may be the height of a dwarf, but I'm opting out of their afterlife. Speaker 3 (15:00) Fair enough. Fair enough. I think we'll allow it. Excellent question, though, Sam. Appreciate it very much. All right, Sarah, who is up next? Up Speaker 2 (15:08) next, we have Jenny. Hi, Jenny. Speaker 3 (15:10) Jenny, welcome Speaker 2 (15:11) back. Speaker 6 (15:13) It's lovely to be back with you all again. I have a question that actually really piggybacks on Sam's in a very interesting way, because my question is about the hobbits and the origin of the hobbits. I'm all about the hobbits, and it took me the longest time to get into the Silmarillion because they're not there. Speaker 3 (15:34) Yes, they are not. But I discovered they are. Speaker 6 (15:38) They do go back to the elder days. We're told that. Their origins are, quote, unquote, lost in time. But they are obviously an offshoot of humanity. But how did they get that offshootness? I have a theory. Because Aule was involved with the dwarves, couldn't one of the other Valar be involved with the breaking off of the hobbits from the humanity? And my candidate for that is Nienna. Speaker 4 (16:10) Yeah, yeah, that's what I thought the same. Speaker 6 (16:12) Because that would explain Gandalf's interest in the hobbits. It sure would. Yeah? It sure would. So I want you to speculate on that. And if you would. You're thinking over all the many, many wonderful stories in the Silmarillion. Which one are the hobbits? Should they appear in? And what would they be doing? Can you speculate on that? Speaker 3 (16:36) Let's think about the themes first, and then we'll go to that one. Sara, that might be something I'll let you take the lead on as I think through that. Well, only because my brain immediately went to the themes. and the idea of their origin. So as I take a look at that, going to Aina Speaker 8 (16:55) Lindelay, specifically about the third theme, and behold, the third theme grew amid the confusion, and it was unlike the others, for it seemed at first soft and sweet, a mere rippling of gentle sounds and delicate melodies, but it could not be quenched, and it took to itself power and profundity. Now later, there is something that makes you think that, hmm, I wonder what's going on in that third theme. Well, we read that for the children of Iluvatar were conceived by him alone, and they came with the third theme, and were not in the theme which Iluvatar propounded at the beginning. So we get that the children of Iluvatar are elves and men. If the hobbits are in fact an offspring or offshoot, I should say, of men, then they also count as children of Iluvatar. a branch of men, as opposed to the dwarves, which are an entirely independent creation. But going back to that line that I read earlier about the third theme, we get one more that talks about the theme being deep and wide and beautiful, but slow and blended with an immeasurable sorrow from which its beauty chiefly came. That's where I get the Nienna connection. That's where, in my mind, I hear Nienna's theme playing. And knowing how much Olorun Gandalf learned from her, it wouldn't surprise me at all if their existence was already something in Iluvatar's mind as something that would come up later as an offshoot of men. We do know that the Ainur didn't know any of these things, what was going to come, right? Some things there are that they cannot see, neither alone or taking counsel together. And here's the kicker, in every age there come forth things that are new and have no foretelling, for they do not proceed from the past. So that's probably the extent of my entire knowledge of the origin of the hobbits, Sarah. But that's what I would hang my hat on in saying that I lean towards Jenny's headcanon here on the origin of hobbits as having been something connected to Nienna and her role in the third theme. Speaker 2 (19:01) I mean, I love that. I think that that would explain the Gandalfian connection, as you say, Jenny. The Speaker 3 (19:06) Gandalfian connection. I like that. Speaker 2 (19:09) Why, thank you. I'll be here all week. The third theme has always struck me as being a response to the fact that Arda is marred even in the music. And so the deep sorrow of the third theme is the recognition that even in its making, Arda is marred. from the very beginning. So I've always thought that's where the sorrow comes from. And that's where the sort of feel of Nienna comes into it because this is the whole thing of Nienna, isn't it? That she is so deeply connected to the sorrows of the world. that she channels those. I always thought it would be a little bit miserable to be Nienna, but I'm sure it's fine. She knows what she's doing and has a good pocketbook. As long as she Speaker 3 (19:57) doesn't run out of Kleenex, you know, I mean, she just- Speaker 2 (19:59) Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. Now, speculating as to where the hobbits come from, the closest Tolkien really ever gets to telling us about this is that he does say that they are connected to humanity, that they are an offshoot of humanity. I think he learned his lesson with the orcs. Speaker 6 (20:17) where Speaker 2 (20:18) he tried to actually pin it down and then went, no, not that. How about this version? No, no, not that either. How about this? And instead he just hand waves the hobbits because he wants hobbits, right? Speaker 3 (20:30) Of course he does. Speaker 2 (20:32) Here's the other thing, because if you remember when he wrote The Hobbit, The Hobbit as a book, when he first wrote it, was not part of Middle-earth. It was not part of the legendarium. But then he's told to write the second Hobbit, and now he wants more Hobbits, and now it's got to be part of the Legendarium. So now he has to actually figure out, where did the Hobbits come from? Speaker 3 (20:55) It doesn't matter. Speaker 2 (20:56) It's fine. It's all good. He Speaker 3 (20:59) does sort of hand wave it, doesn't he? Speaker 2 (21:01) He really does hand wave it. And I'm okay with that because it leaves space for us to speculate, to have headcanons about it, which I actually quite like. Yeah. I find it preferable, actually, to his hand-wringing over the origin of the orcs, which he never then pinned down. And then we're left with actually speculating more about his hand-wringing than we are on the origins of the orcs. Speaker 3 (21:29) Yeah, that's a fair point. Because if he had not told us, if he just said, you know, we don't know, we just know that Melkor can't create on his own, well then... We could theorize whatever we wanted, but instead Speaker 2 (21:41) - Speaker 3 (21:41) We Speaker 2 (21:41) could Speaker 3 (21:41) theorize just the Speaker 2 (21:42) way that we do with the Hobbits. Actually, I would have accepted that because I don't require an explanation for everything about world building. Whereas, of course, as we know, Tolkien, the effervescent niggler that he was, he really enjoyed trying to pin down every single potential detail as part of his world building. Speaker 3 (22:05) I like that. I also like the effervescent niggler. I think that needs to be a subtitle to something. I really, I'm going to use that somehow. That was good. Speaker 2 (22:13) Oh, I gift it