New Challenge: Crossroads of the Fallen King
Cross "The Silmarillion" with a second text or fandom in this month's crossover challenge.
SWG News
A Sense of History: Thálatta! Thálatta!
While he never climbs the stairs of this Elf-tower, in Lothlórien Frodo Baggins descends a flight of steps to look into Galadriel’s Mirror, wherein he first sees the sea. This post examines the view.
Choose a Name for Our New Column!
Our temporarily titled "location bio" will focus on the landscapes and locations of Middle-earth. We need your help naming it!
New Challenge: Tengwar
Each day for thirty-six days, we feature a randomly chosen letter from the Tengwar as a prompt.
New & Updated Fanworks
[Writing] Tengwar: To The Letter by cuarthol
For the Tengwar prompt challenge. To be updated as new prompts are completed.
Current up through '…
[Writing] A blip on the radar by daughterofshadows
Humanity took to the skies. Eärendil and Ilmarë adjust.
[Writing] History abandons us by AdmirableMonster
During his incarceration in Roderick Burgess' basement, Dream receives a strange, ancient visitor.
[Writing] Tengwar Acrostics by Himring
Responses to the Tengwar Challenge in which first letters spell out the name of a tengwa.
1) Early Encounter (Nerdanel, Indis)
2) Numenorean Lullaby (Almarian, Aldarion)
[Writing] Tengwar Drabbles by cílil
A collection of Silmarillion-centric drabbles written for the Tengwar Challenge. Short and sweet!
[Writing] If i get home before daylight by BloodwingBlackbird
a traveler meets a stranger at a crossroads.
Current Challenge
Crossroads of the Fallen King
Create a fanwork that crosses with a second text or fandom. Read more ...
Tengwar
A daily prompt of a Tengwar letter per day. Read more ...
Random Challenge
Color of ...
Create a fanwork that is built around a color or colors. Read more ...
New in References
Thálatta! Thálatta! by Simon J. Cook
[]While he never climbs the stairs of this Elf-tower, in Lothlórien Frodo Baggins descends a flight of steps to look into Galadriel’s Mirror, wherein he first sees the sea. This post examines the view.
[]
With Gildor Inglorion we finally climb the stairs of Elostirion and look on the view, and what we see appears to reveal a hidden thread in the story of Frodo Baggins. This post reads two annotated translations of two Elvish songs to step through a crossroads in the narrative to arrive at the tower on the margin of the story, wherein is a stone that is a window onto Valinor.
Grief, Grieving, and Permission to Mourn in the "Quenta Silmarillion" by Dawn Walls-Thumma
[]In a book as full of death as the Quenta Silmarillion, grief and mourning are surprisingly absent. The characters who receive grief and mourning—and those who don't—appear to do so due to narrative bias. Grief and mourning (or a lack of them) serve to draw attention toward and away from objectionable actions committed by characters.
Beyond the Silmarillion
[Writing] Waybread (The Waybredlik) by Himring
[]Lembas speaks out.
[Series] Apr 1st Stories by Uvatha the Horseman
[]Once a year on April 1st, a canon character from LOTR or the Silmarillion gets pranked.
[Writing] Crossing Forest River by Dawn Felagund
[]Bilbo recounts, in verse, the attempt of Gandalf, Beorn, and him to cross the Forest River after the Battle of Five Armies. Written for the Hungarian Tolkien Society's 2024 Mailing Competition.
Around the World and Web
Mythcon 53: Fantasies of the Middle Lands
Mythcon 53 will be held 2-5 August 2024 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, with the theme "Fantasies of the Middle Lands."
Teitho May/June Challenge: Joker
For the May/June Teitho challenge, you can pick ANY of our past challenges that stir your imagination and write a story or create art for it.
Monstrous May 2024
Monstrous May is a Tumblr event where, for each day of the month of May, there is a prompt involving and invoking the monstrous.
Fellowship of the Fics: Modern AU May
During May, Fellowship of the Fics offers modern AU prompt lists for setting, character occupation, and dialogue on Tumblr.
May challenge at tolkienshortfanworks
The May challenge has been posted to the tolkienshortfanworks community on Dreamwidth. Thematic challenge: name; formal challenge: acrostic. As usual, these can be filled independently and freely combined with other prompts such as the SWG challenges. New participants welcome!
Sunday Scriberies by Elleth
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Merpeople in Middle-earth
Written for the question: Were merpeople ever included in the Middle Earth mythopea [sic]? My Quenya dictionary has oarwen as mermaid.
Given the linguistic foundation of Tolkien's legendarium, many words in his Elvish languages hold significance due to their existence in the stories, rather than as mere exercises in language-making. Merfolk definitely had their place in the early versions of Middle-earth, even so far that Tolkien devised several different names (and probably different concepts) for them: The Book of Lost Tales lists "Oarni and Falmaríni and the long-tressed Wingildi" as the followers of Ossë and Uinen, and describes them as "the spirits of the foam and the surf of ocean". The name-list of the Lost Tales lists Oar as "child of the sea, merchild", from a Qenya poetic word Ô for water, Falmaríni may translate to "women of the foam(ing waves)" and Wingildi is glossed as "nymph(s), foam-fays, foam-maidens", with the element wingë, "foam, spray, spindrift, crest of wave". There also are Oaris and Oarwen, both listed as "mermaid", and Uinen of the Lost Tales also bears the name Ui Oaritsa, "Queen of Mermaids", though this concept seems to have abandoned early on, and the Oarni especially are then associated with Ossë.
This may imply a certain delight in wildness, if not violence, but in addition to tremendous power that enables the Oarni to drag the Valar to Valinor on an island after the destruction of Almaren, the Lost Tales also depict them as lovers of music and dancing. Especially in connection with Eärendel at the Mouths of Sirion they are described as benevolent, love him because of his beauty, give him gifts, teach him sea-craft, ship-building and swimming. In numerous outlines of the same story they even act in spite of Ossë and save Eärendel (and Voronwë) from drowning after they are ship-wrecked on their journeys.
But a later concept of the same story lists Oarni and mermaids as different creatures, and Tolkien expresses some insecurity as to what the latter are: "The fiord of the Mermaid: enchantment of his sailors. Mermaids are not Oarni (but are earthlings, or fays? - or both).' In [earlier text ouline] D mermaids and Oarni are equated." Fays, here, are the predecessors of the later Maiar, but to my knowledge nothing more was explained. It may be Tolkien's first stages toward abandoning his dainty Victorian fairy-lore and the idea of "foam-fays like butterflies" and "foam-maidens with blossom-white hair" of the 1920s and early 1930s, and even the whimsical but anachronistic descriptions that can be found in Roverandom. The 1925 book shows clear connections toward Middle-earth with figures and places from the Lost Tales, but its 'canonicity' is doubtful, seeing how the story Tolkien tells his sons subsumes Middle-earth into a larger idea of Faerië that is populated by figures from Norse, Greek and Roman myth alongside speaking toys and creatures from Tolkien's own imagination – but despite the difficulties to abstract "valid" concepts for Middle-earth, these are the most substantial descriptions of merfolk that we have.
In Roverandom most merfolk belong to the common fish-tailed variant, have either dark or golden hair, live in a a domed palace at the bottom of the sea (see Tolkien's own rendering of the Mer-king's palace as illustration), enjoy music, dance and laughter, are described as graceful and beautiful, but also imbued with a sense of unrest and mild danger – there exists an ambiguity whether they saved or drowned a shipwrecked sailor, and they vehemently protest developments in the plot of the story, and are even capable of "witchcraft" that does not always seem benign. Other creatures such as "sea-goblins" are also mentioned (very much the equivalent to the land-creatures of the same name insofar that they are mischievous and evil) and "smaller sea-fairies" that ride crabs or fishes or walk along the sea-bed.
But Tolkien, by his own admission, soon came to despise the dainty in favour of a "higher" mode of stories, which was also reflected in the linguistic evolution his languages passed through: They retained many words out of the earlier Qenya Lexicon, but the concepts changed. While a later reworded poem still had "Foam-riders [wingildi] with hair like blossom / And pale arms on the sea's bosom / Chanting wild songs" Tolkien translates it with a title that is later given to the Amanyar Teleri, while a simultaneous kind of earlier "fay" creatures is rather translated as "Wood-Elves". The explicit involvement of merfolk in the legendarium disappears as much as Andersen's Little Mermaid dissolves into sea-foam.
There is a fair amount of leeways to retain the idea of merfolk in Middle-earth, however. To the best of my knowledge and research Tolkien never explicitly contradicted the concept, even though other people came to inhabit their storylines in the published Silmarillion. Instead of the Oarni, Círdan and his people teach Eärendil ship-building and help him with the building of Vingilot. His journeys are not recorded in detail, and only an oblique mention is made toward his adventures in Bilbo's Lay of Eärendil that contains no mention of a shipwreck. However, there are echoes from the earlier legendarium: Ulmo and his servants ferry the Vanyar and Noldor across the sea on an island from the Bay of Balar, Uinen's hair like that of the Wingildi is given special mention, and there exists a description of the Ainur associated with the sea in the published Silmarillion:
But Ulmo was alone, and he abode not in Valinor, nor ever came thither unless there were need for a great council; he dwelt from the beginning of Arda in the Outer Ocean, and still he dwells there. [...] Salmar came with him to Arda, he who made the horns of Ulmo that none may ever forget who once has heard them; and Ossë and Uinen also, to whom he gave the government of the waves and the movements of the Inner Seas, and many other spirits beside. (Of the Beginning of Days; emphasis mine)
In my opinion, given the common association of the Valar's servants with their chosen elements or spheres (e.g. Ilmarë, "Starlight", the Handmaiden of Varda, and Fionwë/Eonwë, "Hawk", the Herald of Manwë), the existence of merfolk (if not necessarily of the same description as above) as a backdrop to the published legendarium still seems possible, even probable. Water-spirits do exist, at any rate, considering Goldberry and her mother, River-woman. Given the fact that Tolkien did indeed consider himself 'bound' by published material, they may be a glance into the less diminutive ideas that could be used to construct a fannish interpretation of his more mature concepts.
Chapter End Notes
The Book of Lost Tales I:
Chapter III: The Coming of the Valar and the Building of Valinor
Chapter V: The Coming of the Elves and the Making of Kôr
Chapter IX: The Hiding of Valinor: commentary
Appendix: Names in the Lost Tales Part I
The Book of Lost Tales II:
Chapter V: The Tale of Eärendel
The Silmarillion:
Chapter I: Of the Beginning of Days
Chapter V: Of Eldamar and the Princes of the Eldalië
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring:
Book I, Chapter VII: In the House of Tom Bombadil
Book II, Chapter I: Many Meetings
The Monsters and the Critics: On Fairy-Stories
The Monsters and the Critics: A Secret Vice
Parma Eldalamberon 14
Parma Eldalamberon 16
Wayne G. Hammond and Christina Scull: J.R.R. Tolkien. Artist and Illustrator
Ardalambion Quenya Wordlist: http://folk.uib.no/hnohf/quen-eng.htm
Victorian Fairies and the Early Work of J. R. R. Tolkien: https://repository.cardiffmet.ac.uk/dspace/bitstream/10369/3458/1/Fimi_31_05_06.pdf
