Tolkien Prediction #61 “That Tolkien would mention unveiling of the woman 7 times in The Lord of the Rings.”
This is a WORK IN PROGRESS.
My prediction finds its root in the other predictions surrounding my understanding of the 7 stars.
Tolkien Prediction #4
“That the meaning and description for Remmirath (the Pleiades) would incorporate the meaning/ description of ‘flies’.”
Tolkien Prediction #24
“That each of the Seven Stars in the Valacirca were butterflies.”
Tolkien Prediction #25
“Put simply, there is a gender swap which manifests most obviously at the usurpation of Tar-Miriel’s Sceptre by Ar-Pharazôn and the whole theme of ‘She That is Fallen’ (the meaning we are given for the word ‘Akallabêth’). That has implications for the 7 Stars. I then remembered the strange signs on the curtain in ‘Wickedness’ drawn by Tolkien in the Book of Ishness, 1912-14. From that I predicted that there would be 7 of them.”
Tolkien Prediction #26
“That the 7 stars of Remmirath in the East are in fact the 7 stars of the Valacirca but captured by the Enemy at the Fall (the Akallabêth..She That is Fallen). Shelob as ‘Her Ladyship’ is symbolic of this transformation.”
Tolkien Prediction #36
“After studying the Rauros scene (again), I predicted that the Cirth rune shown below would refer to the female in some way, or denoting ‘ng’ from its visual shape.”
Fig.1.
Tolkien Prediction #43
That Tolkien would use the word ‘delight’ to describe Shelob’s reaction to the Hobbits.
“Monstrous and abominable eyes they were, bestial and yet filled with purpose and with hideous delight, gloating over their prey trapped beyond all hope of escape.”
Tolkien Prediction #53
That Tolkien would refer to Shelob as abominable.
“The radiance of the star-glass was broken and thrown back from their thousand facets, but behind the glitter a pale deadly fire began steadily to glow within, a flame kindled in some deep pit of evil thought. Monstrous and abominable eyes they were, bestial and yet filled with purpose and with hideous delight, gloating over their prey trapped beyond all hope of escape.”
The following predictions were made below while writing this article.
Tolkien Predictions #62
I predicted that the 4th occurrence of the 7 instances of the woman being unveiled would be the instance in the Mirror of Galadriel.
Tolkien Predictions #63
That a door would be forced on the Moria side of the geometry.
Tolkien Predictions #64
That Boromir would curse at the West Gate.
Tolkien Predictions #65
That Tolkien would use the word ‘stoop’ in the scene with Eowyn and the Witch-King.
Tolkien Predictions #66
That gasp is related to gape etymologically.
The following predictions surrounding Shelob were made after I wrote this article.
Tolkien Prediction #68
From my understanding of Tolkien and his implementation of the 4 elements, I correctly predicted that the suit of Pentacles from the Tarot deck would be of the element Earth. However, I incorrectly assigned Swords and Staves. I swapped them.
I then predicted correctly the correlation between all 4 suits with hearts, diamonds, clubs and spades. I knew the correspondence between the Tarot suits and the elements. From my understanding of how Tolkien incorporates the 4 elements I then predicted all 4 correspondences to the 4 suits of the conventional card deck which descend from the Minor Arcanna.
Tolkien Prediction #70
That Tolkien would use the word ‘spread’ when Galadriel raises her hands in defiance during the Mirror scene.
Tolkien Prediction #71
That Tolkien would refer to Shelob as ‘loathly’ or loathsome’.
Tolkien Prediction #72
That there would be 8 radiating arms on the eye in the picture ‘Northern House’
Tolkien Prediction #73
That Tolkien would refer to Shelob as ‘foul’.
Tolkien Prediction #74
That quiver was etymologically a variant of quaver or vice versa.
Tolkien Prediction #75
That the house of Baba Yaga would have 3 legs.
Tolkien Prediction #76
That the passage where Gandalf encounters the Thrihyrne is positioned between the 4th and 5th unveiling in the 7 unveilings.
Tolkien Prediction #78
That Tolkien would use the word “laid” 7 times in the Théoden passage. The Théoden passage is defined as being from when they first enter the gate and ending with wit and command being restored to Théoden.
Tolkien Prediction #84
That She from Rider Haggard’s book would be referred to as a lion or lioness.
Tolkien prediction #85
That the phial of Galadriel is used 3 times against Shelob.
Tolkien Prediction #87
That Tolkien used 3 or 4 instances of the word ‘purple’ in The Lord of the Rings.
Tolkien Prediction #91.
That the instances of the words ‘fly’ and ‘flying’ in the Moria sequence would total 7.
Tolkien Prediction #92
That in the Moria sequence, the instance news of the words Fly and Flying would alternate because they are intended to describe zig-zag pattern.
Tolkien Prediction #93
That the first instance of the word fly in the Moria sequence would correspond to Frodo in some way. And that appears at the moment where Frodo stabs the Troll’s foot.
Tolkien Prediction #94
Instances of the occurrence of the word fly in the Moria sequence. That the first instance of the cluster of 3 would correspond to Aragorn, the third one to Boromir. The central one would apply to Gandalf.
Introduction.
The woman, the female is the left hand of Ilûvatar, the Sun. The woman is also the stars. The Sun is a star after all, albeit, in terms of guidance and navigation, a somewhat errant one. The man is the Moon and the stars guide the moon at night through darkness. Both the Sun and the Moon are fallen in nature. To prove my prediction I searched The Lord of the Rings for “unveiling”. I found lots of instances. I then narrowed the search down to the unveiling of the Sun and stars, knowing that they were symbols of the female.
We see the special pairing and significance of the Sun and stars in Sam’s song in the Tower of Cirith Ungol which is the tower that guards Cirith Ungol. Cirith Ungol is Sindarin for spider’s cleft. The location of the song you’ll see is very relevant.
In western lands beneath the Sun
the flowers may rise in Spring,
the trees may bud, the waters run,
the merry finches sing.
Or there maybe ‘tis cloudless night
and swaying beeches bear
the Elven-stars as jewels white
amid their branching hair.
Though here at journey’s end I lie
in darkness buried deep,
beyond all towers strong and high,
beyond all mountains steep,
above all shadows rides the Sun
and Stars for ever dwell:
I will not say the Day is done,
nor bid the Stars farewell.
I had already made more than one prediction concerning the 7 stars. The 7 stars in the Histories are all female figures who Guide the Free Peoples. While women are also fallen and flawed, as he cautions his son Michael in his letters, Tolkien still sets them in the Romance of his own Secondary World as Guiding stars. His chief influence being Dante.
| Its centre was not God, but imaginary Deities, Love and the Lady. It still tends to make the Lady a kind of guiding star or divinity – of the old-fashioned ‘his divinity’ = the woman he loves – the object or reason of noble conduct. This is, of course, false and at best make-believe. The woman is another fallen human-being with a soul in peril. But combined and harmonized with religion (as long ago it was, producing much of that beautiful devotion to Our Lady that has been God’s way of refining so much our gross manly natures and emotions, and also of warming and colouring our hard, bitter, religion) it can be very noble. Then it produces what I suppose is still felt, among those who retain even vestigiary Christianity, to be the highest ideal of love between man and woman. Yet I still think it has dangers. It is not wholly true, and it is not perfectly ‘theocentric’. It takes, or at any rate has in the past taken, the young man’s eye off women as they are, as companions in shipwreck not guiding stars. |
The ‘shipwreck’ referred to by Tolkien is symbolized both by Minas Tirith, with its keel shaped cliff, and ‘Her LadyShip’ Shelob. Two ships set in opposition: the Sun, Minas Anor and the Black Sun of Shelob. Minas Tirith is Minas Anor, the ‘Tower of the Setting Sun’. The symbolism of the setting sun will appear again, for e.g. in Henneth Annûn, and other places. I had already determined that the 7 stars of the Sickle, the Valacirca in the north became, at the Downfall, the 7 stars of the Remmirath in the east. This is because the 7 stars, the females, are captured by the Enemy. ‘She That is Fallen’ in the Akallabêth (the Downfall) is Womankind. The 7 stars are womankind. Hence they become captured in the nets of Shelob. Shelob is the Whore of Babylon from the Bible and Salome from the Dance of the 7 veils, a story which also finds its roots in the Bible. In the Bible, the whore of Babylon is referred to as ‘an abomination’. This is why I was able to make Prediction #55. My predictions listed at the top of the page surrounding this theme were generated from this understanding. Two of the 7 stars are Galadriel and Arwen. Galadriel is the Morning Sun. Arwen is the Setting Sun.
Here are the 7 veils from Prediction #26 numbered 1 to 7 in Fig.2 below. This is the aptly named image that Tolkien drew called ‘Wickedness’. You can see the eyes and the curtain. Tolkien refers to the waterfalls as curtains more than once as we’ll see. The path of reading the veils is intended as indicated. The path is intended to switch back and forth. The winding stair in Cirith Ungol is the same symbol. It’s here that we see a hint at the importance of the black and white squares. Tolkien uses colour symbolism. At the winding stair we read:
| So they came slowly to the white bridge. Here the road, gleaming faintly, passed over the stream in the midst of the valley, and went on, winding deviously up towards the city’s gate: a black mouth opening in the outer circle of the northward walls. |
In Tolkien’s colour symbolism white is Time, black is Space. Tolkien assigns these to the left and right hands, the female and male. For more information see ‘A Response to Priya Seth’s Breaking the Tolkien Code‘ and ‘The Symbolic Landscape‘. Tolkien was influenced by Carroll’s Alice Through the Looking Glass. In that book the countryside is divided into a chess board. Tolkien does the same in The Lord of the Rings, see The ‘Symbolic Landscape‘.
| If you think it good, and fair (the compliment to The Hobbit is rather high) to maintain the comparison – Looking glass ought to be mentioned. It is much closer in every way. ….[Letter 15 To Allen & Unwin] |
We’ll encounter another piece of supporting evidence in (4) The Mirror of Galadriel shortly.
Fig.2.
Fig.3.
In Fig.3 you can see the face of a woman with hair falling to either side. Tolkien hides things very often in his illustrations. See for example his illustration ‘Xanadu’ (see Prediction #61). This is the dominant female, left hand, a compound of ‘The Loathly Lady’ of medieval literature, Salome, and the Whore of Babylon, who later becomes in his works, ‘She That is Fallen’. The early mythology casts her as Fui Nienna. The Coleridge poem ‘Kubla Khan’ in which Xanadu, the false Paradise appears, of course has the Abyssinian Maid wailing for her demon lover. Note how the hair seems to be falling from both sides and takes on two colours black and red, both associated with the Enemy. We’ll meet this symbolism again in (4) below, shortly. The hair crosses in the middle suggesting an ‘X’. The ‘X’ symbolizes the butterfly rune dagaz (see Fig.1. above). The butterfly rune symbolizes the Door. The same imagery occurs in ‘Xanadu’ whose imagery symbolizes male dominance. The Door opens at twilight when the Sun (female) and Moon (male) are both in the sky together, when Man and Woman are in harmony.
EDIT: 20/05/20 Some weeks after writing this I came across this in ‘J.R.R Tolkien Artist & Illustrator’. I believe I can identify the woman by name. Hammond and Scull have missed the hidden woman but made these remarks about the picture ‘Wickedness’.
|
“The image of a mysterious chamber with torches or a brazier, here as in Before and Afterwards, persisted in Tolkien’s imagination, and it is tempting to view these pictures as visual; precursors of passages in The Book of Lost Tales written a few years later. In the tale of the coming of the Valar the hall ‘loved best’ by the death-goddess Fui Nienna ‘was one yet wider and more dark than Vë, the hall of Mandos, judge of the dead’. Therein before her black chair burnt a brazier with a single flickering coal, and the roof was bats’ wings, and pillars that upheld it and the walls about were made of basalt. Thither came the sons of Men to hear their doom, and thither are they brought by all the multitude of ills that Melko’s evil music set within the world. Slaughters and fires, hungers and mishaps, diseases and blows dealt in the dark, cruelty and bitter cold and anguish and their own folly bring them here, and Fui reads their hearts. Later in the tale of The Chaining of Melko, the chamber of the renegade Vala in the caverns of the North ‘was lit with flaming braziers and full of evil magic, and strange shapes moved with feverish movement in and out, but snakes of great size curled and uncurled without rest about the pillars that upheld that lofty roof.” |
Immediately before this passage we see reference to Shelob via webs:
| To Vê Fui came not much, for she laboured rather at the distilling of salt humours whereof are tears, and black clouds she wove and floated up that they were caught in the winds and went about the world, and their lightless webs settled ever and anon upon those that dwelt therein. Now these tissues were despairs and hopeless mourning, sorrows and blind grief. The hall that she loved best was one yet wider and more dark than Vê, and she too named it with her own name, calling it Fui.
Tolkien, Christopher. The Book of Lost Tales 1 (The History of Middle-earth, Book 1) |
For the Door to function it requires both the male and female. The courses of the Sun and Moon are a metaphor for the relationship of Man and Woman. See Fig.9. in (7) below. The astronomical courses describes the ‘battle of the sexes’. Dominant behaviour, shuts out the other and leads to tyranny. Dominant behaviour is caused by the will. Tolkien’s symbol of the will is the hand and the number 5. This is why the hand on the curtain in the image has 5 fingers. The etymological root of finger is five.
| finger (n.) |
| “terminal or digital member of the hand” (in a restricted sense not including the thumb), Old English finger, fingor “finger,” from Proto-Germanic *fingraz (source also of Old Saxon fingar, Old Frisian finger, Old Norse fingr, Dutch vinger, German Finger, Gothic figgrs “finger”), with no cognates outside Germanic; perhaps ultimately from PIE root *penkwe- “five.”
As a unit of measure for liquor and gunshot (late Old English) it represents the breadth of a finger, about three-quarters of an inch. They generally are numbered from the thumb outward, and named index finger, fool’s finger, leech- or physic-finger, and ear-finger. |
In this situation the dominant partner forces the Door to open. This is symbolized by the ‘X’ here. Here the dominant female is shutting out the man and has taken control of the Door. The eye below suggests a mouth with marks made to either side to suggest the jaw line. This is completely intentional and is in fact linked to why in Faramir kisses the brow of Éowyn in (7) below, and why we can render the name “Isenmouthe” as a wordplay on “eyes and mouth”.
You can see the suggestion of the breasts of the woman in the two arches to either side of the central arch. The bases of the spiral columns suggest spiders. They are intended to also suggest the hands of the woman at the ends of the spirals columns. The spiral columns are intended to be her arms. Arms and hands are important symbols in Tolkien’s works. Arms and hands symbolize the will of male and female, Moon and Sun, which are created in the Music of the Ainur when Ilúvatar raises his hands. Each will, each arm/hand is signified by the numbers 6 and 9 in his numerology. 6 is the anti-clockwise spiral, 9 is the clockwise spiral. In this way her arms readily equate to the spiral columns.
In a very subtle hint Tolkien draws a heart shape on the right hand side of the image. Note how there is a single scrawl of black ink among the red hair on the right. This echoes the small amount of black fire amidst the red fire in the brazier. Heart symbolism refers to the two hearts of the Man and the Woman. In Fig.3a. below there are 4 instances to my knowledge of Tolkien drawing this symbolism. The illustration ‘Eeriness’ on the right shows two hearts hidden in the trees in the centre. That symbolizes the Door, which as I’ve stated, requires both male and
Fig.4.
female to function, and open. The path towards the hearts and the Door is variously known as the ‘Straight Road’, the ‘Path of the Heart’, the ‘narrow way’, or the road to the Cottage of Lost Play. The appearance of only one heart in the image symbolizes an imbalance. That imbalance, as we’ll see in (7) below, is replicated in the West Gate of Moria and North Gate of the Argonath. It symbolizes domination by either the man (Moon) or woman (Sun). The top middle illustration is of the West Gate of Moria. The heart of stone in the rock aligns exactly in the middle of the Two stunted Trees to the left and right of the Doors of Durin. Again indicating a central, middle path. The illustration bottom middle is of the Merking’s Palace. The road leading to the door of the palace symbolizes the Path of the Heart. The Door to the palace is surrounded by shark’s teeth. This symbolizes discord. For more information see ‘A Response to Priya Seth’s Breaking the Tolkien Code‘. The discords of Melkor in the Music of the Ainur are responsible for the fallen, willful ways of Man and Woman and the battle of the sexes, which produces the dominating behaviour. And not surprisingly we find ‘heart’ in the etymology.
| discord (n.) |
| early 13c., descorde, “unfriendly feeling, ill will;” also “dissension, strife,” from Old French descorde (12c.) “disagreement,” from Latin discordia, from discors (genitive discordis) “disagreeing, disagreement,” from dis- “apart” (see dis-) + cor (genitive cordis) “heart,” from PIE root *kerd- “heart.”
Musical sense “want of harmony between two notes sounded together; a combination of notes not in harmony with one another” is from late 14c.’ |
There is a cat suggested at the bottom of the curtain. We have a further piece of evidence in the hole in the red light cast from the glare from behind the curtain revealing the patch of chequered floor. Clearly there is something there stopping the light. The cat appears quite a lot in Tolkien’s works. The cat is intended here to be a ‘pussy’ and also the cat on the back of the wizard in ‘Eeriness’; symbolizing their relationship suggested. That drawing was influenced by Rudyard Kipling’s poem ‘The Cat that Walked by Himself’. Tolkien was influenced by the relationship in that poem of the cat and dog to the wife and husband. An analysis will appear later on this site. This influenced his treatment of them as symbols in his works. The curtain is the female sexuality. The usage of the term is surprisingly old.
| pussy (n.2) |
| slang for “female pudenda,” 1879, but probably older; perhaps from Old Norse puss “pocket, pouch” (compare Low German puse “vulva”), but perhaps instead from the cat word (see pussy (n.1)) on notion of “soft, warm, furry thing;” compare French le chat, which also has a double meaning, feline and genital. Earlier uses are difficult to distinguish from pussy (n.1), as in:
The word pussie is now used of a woman [Philip Stubbes, “The Anatomie of Abuses,” 1583] “What do you think, pussy?” said her father to Eva. [Harriet Beecher Stowe, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” 1852] |
As we are speaking of whores, and the Whore of Babylon, I thought it worth including (left) the cited reference above in Stubbes’s “The Anatomie of Abuses”. We don’t have time to go into the full proofs and supporting evidence here but the cat is intended to be a sexual reference. It is intended to represent the man and the woman at once, in other words, their relationship. Its positioning is at the focal point of the picture, the two areas of chequered floor right and left can be viewed as suggesting the legs of the woman drawing the eye to the cat. Tolkien told Clyde Kilby that he had written ‘a couple of sex stories’ (in the modern sense of sex stories). See ‘Tolkien’s Contrasistency‘. There is also more evidence of sexuality in his illustration ‘Xanadu’ Prediction #61.
The subject of ‘Wickedness’ is very much an echo of the title and content of Stubbes’s book “The Anatomie of Abuses”. Did Tolkien encounter this book? It’s possible. Tolkien definitely took an interest in the vulgar and language of the common man. The etymological definitions are certainly fitting of the subject matter of Wickedness.
| anatomy (n.) |
| late 14c., “study or knowledge of the structure and function of the human body” (learned by dissection); c. 1400, “anatomical structure,” from Old French anatomie and directly from Late Latin anatomia, from late Greek anatomia for classical anatome “dissection,” literally “a cutting up,” from ana “up” (see ana-) + temnein “to cut” (from PIE root *tem- “to cut”).
“Dissection” (1540s), “mummy” (1580s), and “skeleton” (1590s) were primary senses of this word in Shakespeare’s day; meaning “the science of the structure of organized bodies” predominated from 17c. Of persons, “the body,” from 1590s. Often misdivided as an atomy or a natomy (see N). The scyence of the Nathomy is nedefull and necessarye to the Cyrurgyen [1541] |
| abuse (n.) |
| mid-15c., “improper practice,” from Old French abus (14c.), from Latin abusus “a using up” (see abuse (v.)). From 1570s as “violation, defilement” (surviving in self-abuse “masturbation,” if at all). In reference to drugs by 1961. Modern use in reference to unwanted sexual activity is from late 20c. Earlier in Middle English was abusion “wicked act or practice, shameful thing, violation of decency” (early 14c.), “an insult” (mid-14c.), from Old French abusion, from Latin abusio. |
Queen Berúthiel, perhaps the most infamous instance of the cat in Tolkien’s works has 9 black cats and 1 white. And here we have a black and white chequer board pattern on the floor. Berúthiel is another symbol of female domination. The suggestion here is that the cat, through its ‘shadow’ on the floor, is composed of black and white squares. In ‘Wickedness’ and its symbolism, while the woman is cast as the fallen whore, the man in the relationship is cast as being ‘pussy whipped’ because he is dominated by the woman. He believes he has power over her, but in reality she has power over him because she uses her sexuality as a weapon and can withhold affection, sex and have sex with whomever she pleases. This is the battle of the sexes. Powerful female sexuality is one of the themes in ‘Kubla Khan’. This is portrayed in the poem ‘The Cat That Walked Alone’ in which the woman displays power over the domestic situation and the cat. The cat’s power lies in its independence, as ‘walking alone’, but it is also an outsider to the domestic environment. It is a conflict between those two tensions.
The signs on the curtains symbolize Shelob on the left, the ‘Loathly Lady’, the motif from medieval literature, most famously found in Chaucer’s ‘The Wife of Bath’, and Galadriel on the right. The signs on the left curtain symbolize the veils in the Dance of the Seven Veils. The signs on the right are two circles, one within the other. The circle is the sign for the female in Tolkien’s heraldic devices. The square is the male. Domination of female by the male is indicated by the square on the outside of the circle. Two circles present indicates an attempt to completely silence the male. Galadriel is ‘She’, the woman who seeks her sovereignty in the Loathly Lady tale. The man fears her and casts her as ‘She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed’. Her counterfoil Shelob is the Loathly Lady, ‘She-lob’. That is, Galadriel as a spider. Careful examination of the geometry and symbolism reveals that Galadriel is at odds with Celebrimbor. The two symbolize Man and Woman in a state of strife, albeit a subtle one. Galadriel’s complaint is justified but her grace does not permit her to become Shelob.
There are a number of allusions to cats and lions surrounding Sauron and aspects of the narrative involving Mordor in the Lord of the Rings. That’s because the lion of the Tetramorph is in the east. (A full explanation will follow on this site. See diagram below in the section ‘Sauron‘). Indeed the early precursor to the character of Sauron before The Lord of the Rings was written was Tevildo Prince of Cats, who later became the Necromancer Thû in the narrative. The tale of Tinúviel in which he appears has a strong cats versus dogs theme. The Necromancer was no longer a cat but a werewolf, a dog. Werewolves are strongly bound to the Moon, and in this we see the recurrent underlying theme between Tevildo and Thû. The Moon as stated is the male-right hand. We can render ‘Tevildo’ as ‘T-evil-do’. Tevildo symbolizes Tolkien himself as the right hand, the Moon. Tolkien regularly shortened initials of names and words to single letters, and was known to sign himself as ‘T’. The lion and the cat is a very important symbol. The symbolism of cats will be covered in full elsewhere on this site.
We know that Tolkien refers to Shelob as a cat and the wizard in the illustration ‘Eeriness’ (the picture with the two hearts in the trees in Fig.4.) has a cat on his back. The wizard is Tolkien, the cat that walked by himself
| If now and again Shelob caught them to stay her appetite, she was welcome: he could spare them. And sometimes as a man may cast a dainty to his cat (his cat he calls her, but she owns him not) Sauron would send her prisoners that he had no better uses for: he would have them driven to her hole, and report brought back to him of the play she made. So they both lived, delighting in their own devices, and feared no assault, nor wrath, nor any end of their wickedness. Never yet had any fly escaped from Shelob’s webs, and the greater now was her rage and hunger. |
It is said that cats own their masters. But Shelob is not Sauron’s master. The hole of her lair is intended to suggest female sexuality. ‘Driven’ in the context also suggests sexual connotations. There is a lot of sexual symbolism in the entire Shelob passage particularly in her encounter with Sam.
| own (v.) |
| c. 1200, ounen, ahnen, “to possess, have; rule, be in command of, have authority over;” from Old English geagnian, from root agan “to have, to own” (see owe), and in part from the adjective own (q.v.). It became obsolete after c. 1300, but was revived early 17c., in part as a back-formation of owner (mid-14c.), which continued. From c. 1300 as “to acknowledge, concede, admit as a fact,” said especially of things to one’s disadvantage. To own up “make full confession” is from 1853. Related: Owned; owning. |
And, after writing this whole section I found some details in the image which I’d not seen before. At first I saw what looked like the face of a wizened old hag above the column on the left. I was unsure, but I’ve found that Tolkien disguises things all of the time in his drawings. I’ve looked at the image many, many times over the last few years and I have never seen that detail before. Indeed a similar thing happened with the image ‘Before’, so it is possible to miss these things when you’re not looking for them, even with extreme familiarity. In fact, mistaken ‘familiarity’ is probably a barrier to seeing all of the details. I described that same process of discovery in ‘A Response to Priya Seth’s Breaking the Tolkien Code‘. I didn’t want to commit to identifying the face on the left until I’d found a corresponding one opposite on the right. Tolkien always uses symmetry because of his geometry. Occasionally the symmetry is flawed, like in the West and North Gates, but it is flawed to make exactly that point: that the symmetry is broken. I had no idea what to look for. At first I thought I saw the suggestion of a female nude form toward the bottom of the right column but it was far too small. I did have one clue though. The mark that constitutes the nose was suspicious. Tolkien never makes a mark as definite as that without there being a purpose for it. That mark is not part of any other feature. So I was encouraged to keep looking. And then all of a sudden I saw it. And it was a lion! Coincidence? Tolkien had left the mark for the nose as a hint. It was probably a jest, a statement to the effect of ‘follow your nose’. The nose is very important in Tolkien’s symbolism and symbolizes things that are ‘hidden under your nose’, ‘in plain sight’. I’ve outlined the forms in red and you can compare them to the unedited version.
Once you see them you can’t ‘unsee’ them.
The hag is wearing a cloak with a pointed hat. I would refer to it as a witch, because of the importance of the Witch-king and Éowyn in the symbolism of the unveiling sequence. It’s possible that the feature I’ve marked for her eye is not intended. Instead the line marked as the top of her eyebrow could be intended to be her eye. A slit for a blind-eyed hag. Both of the figures have one arm, formed by the downward pointing arch, ending in a claw. I then found the tail of the lion which was prompted by the identification of the two solid black lines protruding from the right of the right-hand column. Again, they are very definite marks. However, there is another set of two definite lines immediately above those two. What are we to make of those? If that is also a tail, the end of the tail is less obvious than the first. I decided to google for two tailed lions suspecting something in heraldry might be relevant. The rampaging lion is a lion with two tales. But there are also two more sets of double lines above those two, and there are no heraldic devices for 4 tailed lions. I would probably dismiss there being any more than one tail here. The two marks for the base of the tail is disguised among the other sets of marks after all. They simply serve to hide the tail. The bottom set of marks are also a lot clearer than the others.
The other detail is the phallus suggested on both forms. At first I saw the left one. After finding the lion, especially given the relevance of cats and lion to the symbolism, I’d accepted that there were indeed two figures. So, it was a lot easier to accept, because it was attached to a figure in approximately the correct place. Moreover, Tolkien draws at least three other phalluses to my knowledge in his illustrations ‘Xanadu’ and ‘Before’ and his illustration of the West Gate, below.
I’d already encountered sexuality in his drawings. The symbolism supports this too. The other images ‘Xanadu’,’Before’ and the West Gate deal with exactly the same fundamental geometry, the left and right hands of the female and male, and the battle of the sexes. The Door will always comprise of this geometry because the Door is comprised of Male and Female. Given that, the symbolism of the domineering female, is the ‘appropriation’ of the phallus. The woman is wearing the trousers, and this is in fact the underlying symbolism of Tolkien’s inclusion of the strange conversation in the Notion Club Papers about ‘pants’. The phalluses are straight and curved. This corresponds to the Straight and Winding Stairs in Cirith Ungol. In Tolkien’s symbolism Space is curved and Time is Straight. We have the ‘timeline’ after all. This symbolism was set out very early in his life and underpinned every work he ever created. The basis of it can be found in ‘On Fairy Stories’.
| We do not, or need not, despair of drawing because all lines must be either curved or straight, nor of painting because there are only three “primary” colours. |
Both of the figures have phalluses even though usually in the symmetry, one is male and the other is female-see ‘Before’: Moon and Sun. But here the symmetry is broken because we have a state of disharmony in the relationship. We have the female domineering the male, hence ‘Wickedness’. The single flame in the brazier is contrasted to the twin flames in ‘Before’. The single flame symbolizes the disunion and divorce from the marriage.
The symbolism in the West Gate is the opposite. It is the male dominating the female. Here the figures are back to back, turned away form each other. The figure far left is the Loathly Lady from medieval literature (Chaucer’s ‘The Wife of Bath’). The figure on the right is the Lovely Lady.
In addition the two phalluses of ‘Wickedness’ is further supported by the symbolism of the disfunctional relationship. This disfunction is symbolized by the diamond shape, which we see in the image. This disfunction happens during the day and the night, when the Sun and then the Moon dominate the other in the relationship. One of the phalluses is straight and one is curved. That conforms to the symbolism of the straight and curved property in the geometry. We also see it in the West Gate. For more information see ‘A Response To Priya Seth’s Breaking the Tolkien Code‘.
Each of the pair in the relationship is symbolized by an arm. This begins with the raising of the hands by Ilúvatar in the Music of the Ainur when the geometry, and the woman and man are created. Whenever we see an instance of hand or arm imagery in his works, he is referring to this symbolism, the geometry of Time and Space. The relationship between Time and Space is a conversation, a dialectic. When this disfunction occurs the domineering partner, refuses to listen or see and silences the other. They are each symbolized by an arm, so this silencing of the other, is described as ‘seizing both arms’. And indeed this is what happens in the last chord of Eru when he raises both hands simultaneously in a command. This is why we see Galadriel raise both of her arms when she refuses the Ring and why she raises both of her arms when she sings her lament when they leave Lothlórien. And thirdly, Tolkien references the raising of the two arms by Varda in the lament itself.
| I perceive the Dark Lord and know his mind, or all of his mind that concerns the Elves. And he gropes ever to see me and my thought. But still the door is closed! ‘ She lifted up her white arms, and spread out her hands towards the East in a gesture of rejection and denial. |
Galadriel is rejecting Sauron. What ‘door’ is that she speaks of? The door is the Door I’ve spoken of which symbolizes the union of female and male. In the the context of her words, it refers to both the battle of the sexes, it has a sexual-relationship meaning, and also symbolizes the West and North Gates, through which the Fellowship enter and leave Lothlórien. It’s important to state here that everything in Tolkien’s works is assigned to one side of the geometry or another. Therefore, the opposition between Galadriel and Sauron can easily be interpreted in this manner. For more information see ‘A Response to Priya Seth’s breaking the Tolkien Code‘.
| Soon the white form of the Lady was small and distant. She shone like a window of glass upon a far hill in the westering sun, or as a remote lake seen from a mountain: a crystal fallen in the lap of the land. Then it seemed to Frodo that she lifted her arms in a final farewell, and far but piercing-clear on the following wind came the sound of her voice singing. |
| For now the Kindler, Varda, the Queen of the Stars, from Mount Everwhite has uplifted her hands like clouds, and all paths are drowned deep in shadow; |
We know that Shelob does not own Sauron. She is not his Master. He therefore dominates her. She is, after all, a whore and he allows her to ‘play’, as Tolkien puts it. By contrast we know that the reverse is true of Galadriel. In her refusal of the Ring, she is able to dominate Sauron, or rather, reject and conquer his domination. This realization makes it possible to decipher the symbolism of what Sam and Frodo see in the Mirror of Galadriel which is (4)below.
Fig.5.
In Fig.5, superimposed on the vision of the woman with spiraled arms ending in spider-like hands, we also see a spider. Its head is at the skull and its legs are formed by the black arches ending in hand-like feet. It has six legs. We could also see it as extending to include the two spider-like bases of the spiraled columns, to give eight.
My interpretation of the illustration ‘Wickedness’ and understanding of Tolkien’s incorporation of geometry, the rune dagaz of Fig.1, sexuality, and the theme of the fallen woman in ‘She That is Fallen’, is why I was able to make prediction #38 regarding the velar nasal. As stated elsewhere on this site, Tolkien’s language and its evolution is ‘mathematical’ (as he told Clyde Kilby in ‘Tolkien and the Silmarillion’). Geometry is part of mathematics. See ‘Tolkien’s Contrasistency‘.
| velar (adj.) |
| 1726, from Latin velaris, from velum “sail, curtain” (see veil (n.)). Originally an architect’s term for a type of cupola resembling a swelling sail; phonetics sense is from 1876, on notion of “pertaining to the velum,” the anatomist’s name for the soft palate (velum in this sense is attested from 1771, in full velum palati). The noun meaning “a velar guttural” is recorded from 1886. |
In Tolkien Prediction #25 I’d already predicted that “each of the Seven Stars in the Valacirca were butterflies.” Now observe the rune for the velar nasal in the Cirth above in Tolkien Prediction #38 is dagaz, the butterfly rune. As stated elsewhere on this site, Tolkien, in his mathematical language system, assigns the sense of smell to the plane of the hypotenuse in a right angled triangle which forms the ‘Sacred Geometry’ of his marriage. See ‘A Response to Priya Seth’s Breaking the Tolkien Code‘. Spiders dwell on the plane of the hypotenuse. Nasal refers to the nose. Hence why I was able to predict the Cirth for the velar (veil) nasal from its geometric shape.
The capture of the 7 stars by Shelob is why we see in the final scene of the fall of Númenor, a focus on the women and children, and the reference to “webs”.
| In an hour unlocked for by Men this doom befell, on the nine and thirtieth day since the passing of the fleets. Then suddenly fire burst from the Meneltarma, and there came a mighty wind and a tumult of the earth, and the sky reeled, and the hills slid, and Númenor went down into the sea, with all its children and its wives and its maidens and its ladies proud; and all its gardens and its balls and its towers, its tombs and its riches, and its jewels and its webs and its things painted and carven, and its lore: they vanished for ever. And last of all the mounting wave, green and cold and plumed with foam, climbing over the land, took to its bosom Tar-Míriel the Queen, fairer than silver or ivory or pearls. Too late she strove to ascend the steep ways of the Meneltarma to the holy place; for the waters overtook her, and her cry was lost in the roaring of the wind. |
Tolkien knows the etymology of the word web is from O.E webb, tapestries and woven things but the foreshadowing of Shelob is hinted at because the non-philologist reader would associate webs with spiders.
| web (n.) |
|
Old English webb “woven fabric, woven work, tapestry,” from Proto-Germanic *wabjam “fabric, web” (source also of Old Saxon webbi, Old Norse vefr, Dutch webbe, Old High German weppi, German gewebe “web”), from PIE *(h)uebh- “to weave” (see weave (v.)). Meaning “spider’s web” is first recorded early 13c. Applied to the membranes between the toes of ducks and other aquatic birds from 1570s. Internet sense is from 1992, shortened from World Wide Web (1990). Web browser, web page both also attested 1990. |
The name of Tar-Miriel, the final Queen who was usurped by Ar-Pharazôn means ‘jewel-daughter’. She symbolizes ‘She That is Fallen’. Tolkien sets up the association of jewels with webs from the above final scene of the Downfall.
| The name Míriel means “Jewel-daughter” in Quenya, from mír (“jewel”) and -iel (“daughter”). Her epessë Þerindë, or Serindë in the Quenya of Tirion, means “the Broideress”, referring to her great skill in embroidery for ‘her chief talent was a marvelous dexterity of hand’, which she applied to her skill of embroidery, ‘achieving in what even the Eldar thought haste’ embroidery that ‘was finer and more intricate than any that had before been seen’. It was her Mother Name.[5]:333 It is to be noted that she preferred and requested her kin use the older pronunciation of Þerindë, and that her son upheld the use of Þ over s out of respect and in her memory.[5]:336 [http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Miriel] |
And of course we have the mother of Fëanor who was known as the Broideress. She shares the same name with Tar-Miriel. This links her and her name meaning ‘jewel’ and the story arc with Shelob who also weaves.
Piercing the Door.
To return to briefly to Galadriel’s piercing-clear voice in her lament. The word ‘pierce’ symbolizes a piercing or a forcing of the Door, that is a control over it and a rejection of the opposite partner. The tear in the curtain on the left between the veils 3 and 4 is indicative of this. It’s here that I made prediction #66. That, in The Lord of the Rings there is probably going to be a forcing of the Door between instance 3 and 4 in the unveiling story arc. As laid out above, given that instance 3 is the Barrow and 4 is the Mirror of Galadriel, the obvious choice is the door in Moria which is burst asunder by the Balrog in the Chamber of Mazarbul. This makes sense because Frodo is the female half of the alchemical marriage of Sun-Arwen and Moon-Aragorn (see 4 below) and is attacked in the Chamber of Mazarbul by the orc whose colours are black and has a red tongue. Red and black being the colours here in ‘Wickedness’. Supporting evidence has to involve a discussion of the implementation of alchemy and the 4 humours in his works which were related to alchemy. The hunt begins at this moment in Moria which finds its most explicit expression in the 3 hunters. This again involves the Lion of the Tetramorph. See (7) below.
In fact, I would extend my understanding to read the tear in the curtain as also lying between the 4th and 5th veil; between both the 3rd and 4th and 4th and 5th veils. There should be a forcing of the Door to either side of the Mirror of Galadriel since that appears as the 4th. There is a symmetry. This reading is supported by the symmetry of the pairing of the West and North Gates. See Fig.7. and (7) below. Therefore, I would amend my previous statement and say that the first forcing of the Door is not by the Balrog, but by the Troll and the orcs at the west door in the Chamber of Mazarbul. And that rooms reflects this symmetry. The west door of the Chamber paired with the West Gate and the east door of the chamber, with the North gate. This reading of the chamber of Mazarbul is completely borne out by previous research into the Moria sequence and the riddle of the book amounting to some 200 pages. That will also appear on this site. The Chamber is a mise-en-abyme of the world. That is, it is symbolically, the world in miniature. And in this way the doors in the chamber correspond to the doors, the gates, to either side of the plane of the Mirror. See Fig.7. below.
So, the first forcing of the door is by the Troll at the west door of the chamber. The second forcing of the door is by the Balrog at the east door.
Boromir casts a stone into the water. This foreshadows the attack by the Troll at the west door of the chamber. And that in turn foreshadows his slaying by the orcs at the North gate. Boromir shares some blame in the forcing of the west door in the chamber by the troll and later his fall at the North Gate, because of the stone he cast. Pippin likewise is partly culpable for the attack by the Balrog at the east door of the chamber by the Balrog. His stone raises the Balrog. Similarly Pippin’s stone foreshadows the fall of Gandalf at the West Gate.
The stone symbolizes the diamond shape. It symbolizes alchemy which is a process where the living tree is turned to dead stone. See elsewhere for a more thorough treatment.
The mirror symmetry looks like this. We can refer to this as the ‘stone sequence’.
- Boromir casts the stone into the water.
- Pippin drops the stone into the well.
- The Troll forces the west door in the Chamber of Mazarbul
- Frodo is attacked. The Enemy attempts to force ‘The Door’. **LINE OF SYMMETRY**
- The Balrog forces the east door in the Chamber of Mazarbul.
- The Fall of Gandalf. Linked to the stone of Pippin.
- The Fall of Boromir. Linked to the stone of Boromir. The orcs kill Boromir.
The dropping of both of the stones symbolizes the fall of both Boromir and Gandalf. Boromir casts the first stone. Ultimately he falls over the waterfalls. Pippin drops the second stone, Gandalf falls in the place of Pippin into the pit which has water at its bottom. If Pippin had fallen instead of Gandalf we would see a perfect symmetry. Both stones are cast into water and both falls are also into water. One of the indications of the pairing of Gandalf with Pippin is to be found in the links between the words door, stone, and fool. Remember the subject is of the Enemy forcing the Door.
| `If you wish to know, I will tell you that these doors open outwards. From the inside you may thrust them open with your hands. From the outside nothing will move them save the spell of command. They cannot be forced inwards.’ `What are you going to do then? ‘ asked Pippin, undaunted by the wizard’s bristling brows. `Knock on the doors with your head, Peregrin Took,’ said Gandalf. `But if that does not shatter them, and I am allowed a little peace from foolish questions, I will seek for the opening words. … `What’s that? ‘ cried Gandalf. He was relieved when Pippin confessed what he had done; but he was angry, and Pippin could see his eye glinting. ‘Fool of a Took! ‘ he growled. ‘This is a serious journey, not a hobbit walking-party. Throw yourself in next time. … `Yes,’ said Gandalf, ‘and I do not like it. It may have nothing to do with Peregrin’s foolish stone … Gandalf raised his head and looked round. `They seem to have made a last stand by both doors,’ he said; ‘but there were not many left by that time. So ended the attempt to retake Moria! It was valiant but foolish. … He staggered and fell, grasped vainly at the stone, and slid into the abyss. ‘Fly, you fools! ‘ he cried, and was gone. |
I could go on at great length. I hope I have explained the importance of the notion of forcing and piercing the Door and how it relates to the tear in the curtain in ‘Wickedness’. This is not the only mirror symmetry to be found in the Lord of the Rings. Three years ago I made an exhaustive study of the whole Chamber of Mazarbul riddle sequence. The imperfect symmetry relating to Gandalf falling instead of Pippin can also be found in the diagram below. The plane of a mirror also runs through the Chamber of Mazarbul in another symmetrical sequence, this time there 8 points of symmetry. Note how the plane of the mirror below is the same plane as the one in the previous symmetrical sequence, namely through the chamber of Mazarbul at the attack on Frodo.
The mirror in the chamber of Mazarbul is created by the Enemy as a trap. The plane is also reproduced in the facsimiles of the pages of the book of Mazarbul. The Chant of Gimli, the narrative details of the Moria sequence, and the pages of the book are all linked and reproduce the same structure. The symmetry is created by the lake of the Watcher on the west side which is paired with Mirrormere on the east side. The Watcher in the Water is paired with Durin. The Watcher from the water is a counterfeit of Durin who looks into the water and the friendship of the Dwarves of Khazad-dum and the Elves of Eregion. It is a counterfeit of the narrative. The mirror is a counterfeit of the mirror of Galadriel which is created by the Music and the geometry of the symbolic landscape. The geometry was created by Ilúvatar in the Music of the Ainur. This is why the stanza form of the chant of Gimli has broken symmetry. The two stanzas which represent this broken symmetry are the stanza of 6 lines which is paired with the 4 lined stanza. Those 2 numbers happen to be the same numbers you will find below in the courses of the Sun and Moon of Fig.9. which symbolize the diamond. And the diamond represents discord and disfunctional. domineering behaviour, which we see in ‘Wickedness’.
The real mirror is the Mirror of Galadriel. That is the mirror which reflects true. The symmetry which begins in the 6 line chant of Gimli finally finds its true reflection in the events on Amon Hen when Boromir attempts to seize the Ring from Frodo. We can look at the details of 7 above in the ‘stone sequence’. Frodo climbs to Amon Hen. Compare the 6 lined stanza in Gimli’s chant with the description of Amon Hen.
The chant:
| A king he was on carven throne In many-pillared halls of stone With golden roof and silver floor, And runes of power upon the door. The light of sun and star and moon In shining lamps of crystal hewn Undimmed by cloud or shade of night There shone for ever fair and bright. |
The description of the top of Amon Hen:
| Soon he came out alone on the summit of Amon Hen, and halted, gasping for breath. He saw as through a mist a wide flat circle, paved with mighty flags, and surrounded with a crumbling battlement; and in the middle, set upon four carven pillars, was a high seat, reached by a stair of many steps. Up he went and sat upon the ancient chair, feeling like a lost child that had clambered upon the throne of mountain-kings. |
The scene at the top of Amon Hen is the true reflection of the 6 lined stanza in Gimli’s chant, not the 4 lined stanza. The 4 lined stanza is a counterfeit narrative, a twisted mirror whose plane runs through the Chamber of Mazarbul. The true reflection is through the plane running through the Mirror of Galadriel. See Fig.7. below. And in true Tolkeinian fashion we find 6 instances of the word stone. Note he describes the area as “paved with mighty flags” but he does not use thew words tone. Stone is the key word, the spell word here.
- “Rowan trees grew about it, and in the midst was a wide flat stone…
- He sat down upon the stone and cupped his chin in his hands,…
- Frodo did not answer, but moved away till the great flat stone stood between them….
- Frodo dodged aside and again put the stone between them….
- For I am too strong for you, halfling,’ he cried; and suddenly he sprang over the stone and leaped at Frodo…
- Curse you and all halflings to death and darkness! ‘Then, catching his foot on a stone, he fell sprawling and lay upon his face. For a while he was as still as if his own curse had struck him down; then suddenly he wept.”.
In other words the words of the curse and the stone he cast into the water at the West Gate, comes back to smite him down at the North Gate. Learning that, here’s where I made prediction #64. That the word curse would appear at the West Gate in relation to Boromir and his actions of throwing the stone.
| ‘Then what was the use of bringing us to this accursed spot?’ cried Boromir, glancing back with a shudder at the dark water. … How I hate this foul pool! ‘ He stooped and picking up a large stone he cast it far into the dark water. … Boromir muttered under his breath, but the echoing stone magnified the sound to a hoarse whisper that all could hear: `In the deep places of the world! And thither we are going against my wish. Who will lead us now in this deadly dark? ‘ |
Note how “deadly dark” of his curse at Moria is repeated in his curse on Amon Hen in “death and darkness”. His words come full circle. We recall at his casting of the stone. “Great rippling rings formed on the surface out beyond where the stone had fallen, and they moved slowly towards the foot of the cliff.” Frodo asks Boromir “Why did you do that, Boromir?” It’s only later at Amon Hen in the mirror scene that we learn the reason. Boromir secretly desires the Ring.
So, let’s make another prediction. I predict that there will be 6 instances of a stone from the point Boromir casts the stone into the water at the West Gate and the revelation of the mithril coat in the dell on the east side of Moria, where the Moria sequence ends.
But on checking, there are 7. My understanding was incorrect. Here’s why. The 7th is the reference to the sound of the hoarse laughter of the Cave Troll sounding like ‘sliding stones into a pit’. Trolls are made of stone so we know that refers to the Troll. And that is when the Fellowship are in the Chamber. And specifically after the trap has been sprung by the Book of Mazarbul. `Trapped! ‘ cried Gandalf. `Why did I delay? Here we are, caught, just as they were before. As you can see from the above 8 points of symmetry in the diagram, the events in the book start replaying, unfolding in reverse, ending at the revelation of the mithril coat in the dell, which is the symmetry I suggested. But that symmetry is the one created by the Enemy in the trap of the Chamber. That’s not the correct one. The correct symmetry is the one that is paired with events at the North Gate on Amon Hen. That’s the symmetry around the Mirror of Galadriel, which is the symmetry of the Music, of Ilúvatar centred on the chess board scheme you can see in Fig.7.
There are actually 6 instances of the word stone before the sound of hoarse laughter. 3 in relation to Boromir and 3 in relation to Pippin.
- How I hate this foul pool! ‘ He stooped and picking up a large stone he cast it far into
the dark water. - The stone vanished with a soft slap; but at the same instant there was a swish and a bubble.
- Great rippling rings formed on the surface out beyond where the stone had fallen, and they moved slowly
towards the foot of the cliff. - Moved by a sudden impulse he groped for a loose stone, and let it drop.
- Then far below, as if the stone had fallen into deep water in some cavernous place, there came a plunk, very distant, but magnified and repeated in the hollow shaft.
- `Yes,’ said Gandalf, ‘and I do not like it. It may have nothing to do with Peregrin’s foolish stone;
To quote my own words above: “The mirror in the chamber of Mazarbul is created by the Enemy as a trap. The plane is also reproduced in the facsimiles of the pages of the book of Mazarbul. In other words the narrative before before the Chamber of Mazarbul is the real image which is reflected in the 6 instances of the ‘stone sequence’ on Amon Hen. That’s because, again, that is the Music of Ilúvatar. The Chamber is not the Music, it is a counterfeit, designed to counterfeit the Mirror of Galadriel. Again quoting my previous statement:
| The Chamber is a mise-en-abyme of the world. That is, it is symbolically, the world in miniature. And in this way the doors in the chamber correspond to the doors, the gates, to either side of the plane of the Mirror. |
The Chamber is intended to trap Frodo the Ring bearer and create his fall. All falls in Tolkien fall into water (including Gollum’s ultimate demise but that requires a lot of supporting explanation). Note the wave imagery at the fall of Sauron for e.g. Stones are cast into water. Frodo is pulled into the Mirror of Galadriel by the Eye. Rhovanion symbolizes this water. This is why we find Galadriel’s Mirror here and why the Ring of Water was given to her for safe keeping. It is also where we find Mirrormere and Rauros at the West and North Gates. And, it is also why we see the whale Uin and the Kraken hidden in the symbolic landscape.For a discussion of that you will have to read the relevant section of the The Symbolic Landscape. Rhovanion symbolizes Twilight, the grey square in the chess board scheme laid out in Fig.7. below.
For transparency, I’ll log prediction #67 with the included correction and explanation, and a link to this prediction here.
To finish our introduction, there are 7 instances of the Sun or stars being unveiled in The Lord of the Rings as predicted. The unveiling sequence, is symmetrical around the mirror of Galadriel with unveiling number 4. 123/4/567. The mirror represents the line of symmetry that runs through the geometry of the symbolic landscape which you can see in Fig.7. below.
During the writing of this prediction I made prediction #64. That the middle instance (the 4th one) of the 7 instances of the unveilings of the Sun and stars, would be with Galadriel’s mirror.
The Seven Veils
1. Remmirath. “Then by some shift of airs all the mist was drawn away like a veil” (LotR 1.III.81).
2. Goldberry’s Washing Day. “a grey rain-curtain, and growing stronger to turn the veil all to glass and silver, until at last it was rolled back” (LotR 1.VIII.135).
3. The Barrow-Wight. “the mist was rolled up and thrust aside, and the starry sky was unveiled” (LotR 1.VIII.139).
4. The Mirror of Galadriel. (Line of symmetry). “As if a dark veil had been withdrawn, the Mirror grew grey, and then clear” (LotR 2.VII.362).
5. Shelob’s Trap. “the upper portion blew and swayed like a loose veil in the incoming wind” (LotR 4.IX.722).
6. The Standard of Arwen. “the Sun unveiled, and we unfurled the great standard in battle” (LotR 5.IX.877).
7. Sauron Overthrown. “the Shadow departed, and the Sun was unveiled” (LotR 6.V.963).
The first instance of the 7 unveilings begins with the Remmirath.
1. Remmirath
| Away high in the East swung Remmirath, the Netted Stars, and slowly above the mists red Borgil rose, glowing like a jewel of fire. Then by some shift of airs all the mist was drawn away like a veil, and there leaned up, as he climbed over the rim of the world, the Swordsman of the Sky, Menelvagor with his shining belt. The Elves all burst into song. Suddenly under the trees a fire sprang up with a red light (LotR 1.III.81). |
Note the reference to “netted stars”. The stars, the 7 females are caught in the nets of Shelob. In the unveiling in Shelob’s lair, (see 5 below) Tolkien again uses the word “net”. He also identifies red Borgil with jewels. Borgil is the Enemy. More elsewhere on this. Menelvagor has been identified with Orion. The Remmirath with the Pleides. The Enemy is the bull, Taurus. See ‘A Response to Priya Seth’s Breaking the Tolkien Code’. As you can see in Fig.6. below the bull stands between Orion and the Seven Sisters. The Seven sisters must be rescued from their fate. This almost certainly identifies Aragorn as Orion. I’ve yet to research this but this would explain why the Elves react so favourably to seeing Menelvagor in the first instance of the unveiling sequence at the beginning of The Lord of the Rings:
| Away high in the East swung Remmirath, the Netted Stars, and slowly above the mists red Borgil rose, glowing like a jewel of fire. Then by some shift of airs all the mist was drawn away like a veil, and there leaned up, as he climbed over the rim of the world, the Swordsman of the Sky, Menelvagor with his shining belt. The Elves all burst into song. Suddenly under the trees a fire sprang up with a red light. |
Fig.6.
2. Goldberry’s Washing Day.
The 2nd is the foreshadowing of the restoration of Goldberry from her “Washing Day”. See my Solution to the Riddle of Bombadil and Goldberry as Right hand-Tolkien-Space-Moon and Left hand-Edith-Sun-Time which will be uploaded to this site.
|
That night they heard no noises. But either in his dreams or out of them, he could not tell which, Frodo heard a sweet singing running in his mind; a song that seemed to come like a pale light behind a grey rain-curtain, and growing stronger to turn the veil all to glass and silver, until at last it was rolled back, and a far green country opened before him under a swift sunrise. |
This is the moment that Goldberry returns from her Washing Day. On the previous morning, her Washing Day, Goldberry was conspicuously absent. Her washing day symbolizes the waterfall “Nothing could be seen all round the house but falling water.” Tom was up singing under her window but she did not appear. Her Washing Day symbolizes her fall. It is described here as a grey-rain curtain. The curtain, the veil is rolled back to reveal the swift sunrise and the slanting Sun. In this day Goldberry is already up as usual, back to her usual self. Her Washing Day is a metaphor for a quarrel between Bombadil and Goldberry (see (3) below). Tom has take his boots off and entertain the children in her absence. Tom repeatedly tells us Goldberry is waiting. Goldberry is not happy with Tom when he finally arrives home from the Withywindle. And again at the end of the Old Forest passage, the hobbits invite Tom for a drink, but he says that Goldberry is ‘waiting’. He plays the dutiful husband.
| wait (v.) |
| c. 1200, “to watch with hostile intent, lie in wait for, plot against,” from Anglo-French and Old North French waitier “to watch” (Old French gaitier “defend, watch out, be on one’s guard; lie in wait for;” Modern French guetter), from Frankish *wahton or another Germanic source, from Proto-Germanic *waht- (source also of Dutch wacht “a watching,” Old High German wahten, German wachten “to watch, to guard;” Old High German wahhon “to watch, be awake,” Old English wacian “to be awake”), from PIE root *weg- “to be strong, be lively.” General sense of “remain in some place” is from late 14c.; that of “to see to it that something occurs” is late 14c. Meaning “to stand by in attendance on” is late 14c.; specific sense of “serve as an attendant at a table” is from 1560s. Related: Waited; waiting.
To wait (something) out “endure a period of waiting” is recorded from 1849. Waiting room is attested from 1680s. Waiting list is recorded from 1841; the verb wait-list “to put (someone) on a waiting list” is recorded from 1960. Waiting game is recorded from 1835, originally in horse-racing. |
3. The Barrow-Wight.
The third is on the Barrow Downs with Frodo. In other words there are two unveilings in the Old Forest sequence. In Tolkien’s numerology, the number 2 is symbolic of the Fallen Bombadil, the fallen man. This unveiling symbolizes the sexual objectification of the woman by the man. Bombadil is neglecting Goldberry.
| He imagined suddenly that he caught a muffled cry, and he made towards it; and even as he went forward the mist was rolled up and thrust aside, and the starry sky was unveiled. A glance showed him that he was now facing southwards and was on a round hill-top (LotR 1.VIII.139). |
The waterfall symbolizes the fallen female. The Sun is the female. This is why the sounds of many waterfalls are heard at the first rising of the Sun when they are created.
| Then Anar arose in glory, and the first dawn of the Sun was like a great fire upon the towers of the Pelóri: the clouds of Middle-earth were kindled, and there was heard the sound of many waterfalls. Then indeed Morgoth was dismayed, and he descended into the uttermost depths of Angband, and withdrew his servants, sending forth great reek and dark cloud to hide his land from the light of the Day-star. |
As previously stated the Day-star is a star nonetheless. This “double fall” in the two instances in the Old Forest is the reason why the waterfall at Faramir’s secret place Window of the Sunset, Henneth Annûn has been doubled in height. The first fall of Goldberry is Bombadil’s fault. Bombadil’s fallen nature appears as Old Man Willow. It is Bombadil’s loitering at the Withywindle which almost gets the hobbits killed. The hobbits symbolize the children of Tolkien (Bombadil) and Edith (Goldberry). This results in Goldberry’s ‘washing day’- which is a waterfall. The second fall is from her own fallen nature in her appearance as the Barrow Wight. She does not want the children to leave and tries to trap them. The marriage and the children are saved when Bombadil and Goldberry unite to open the Door of the barrow. The rising sun behind Bombadil at the moment he opens the Door is Goldberry.
Tolkien describes the waterfall of Henneth Annûn as both a veil and a curtain recalling ‘Wickedness’.
| But in front a thin veil of water was hung, … and the red light was broken into many flickering beams of ever-changing colour. It was as if they stood at the window of some elven-tower, curtained with threaded jewels of silver and gold, and ruby, sapphire and amethyst, all kindled with an unconsuming fire. |
We can draw a link between curtain, waterfalls, veils, Remmirath and spiders via Old English fleonet. We see tapestries in curtain which links the webs in the fall of Tar-Miriel to curtains and in turn to waterfalls.
| curtain (n.) |
| c. 1300, curtine, “hanging screen of textile fabric used to close an opening or shut out light, enclose a bed, or decorate an altar,” from Old French cortine “curtain, tapestry, drape, blanket,” from Late Latin cortina “curtain,” but in classical Latin “round vessel, cauldron,” from Latin cortem (older cohortem) “enclosure, courtyard” (see cohort).
The meaning shift apparently begins with cortina being used as a loan-translation of Greek aulaia (“curtain”) in the Vulgate (to render Hebrew yeriah in Exodus xxvi:1, etc.). The Greek word was connected to aule “court,” perhaps because the “door” that led out to the courtyard of a Greek house was a hung cloth. Figuratively from early 15c. as “something that conceals or screens.” From 1590s as “large sheet used to conceal the stage in a theater.” Many of the figurative senses are from stage plays: Behind the curtain “concealed” is from 1670s; curtains “the end” is by 1912. The theatrical curtain call “appearance of individual performers on stage at the end of a performance to be recognized by the audience” is from 1884. To draw the curtain is from c. 1500 in opposite senses: “to conceal,” and “to reveal.” Curtain-rod is from c. 1500. An Old English word for “curtain” was fleonet “fly-net.” |
| fly (n.) |
| O.E. fleoge “fly, winged insect,” from P.Gmc. *fleugjon (cf. O.S. fleiga, O.N. fluga, M.Du. vlieghe, Du. vlieg, O.H.G. flioga, Ger. Fliege “fly); lit. “the flying (insect)” (cf. O.E. fleogende “flying”), from same source as fly (v.1). Originally any winged insect (hence butterfly, etc.); long used by farmers and gardeners for any insect parasite. The O.E. plural in -n (cf. oxen) gradually normalized 13c.-15c. to -s. Fly on the wall “unseen observer” first recorded 1881. An O.E. word for “curtain” was fleonet “fly-net.” Fly-swatter first attested 1917. Fly-fishing is from 1650s. |
4.The Mirror of Galadriel.
This is the central instance, the 4th one, in the middle of the geometry.
| `There’s only stars, as I thought,’ he said. Then he gave a low gasp, for the stars went out. As if a dark veil had been withdrawn, the Mirror grew grey, and then clear (LotR 2.VII.362). |
We discussed the symbolism of the 7 veils on the curtain of ‘Wickedness’, their zig-zag pattern symbolizing the winding stair of Cirith Ungol.
| But before Sam could make up his mind what it was that he saw, the light faded; and now he thought he saw Frodo with a pale face lying fast asleep under a great dark cliff. Then he seemed to see himself going along a dim passage, and climbing an endless winding stair. It came to him suddenly that he was looking urgently for something, but what it was he did not know. |
His vision is of things to come. The winding stair is the stair in the tower of Cirith Ungol which echoes the Winding Stair.
| But soon his staring eyes were aware of a dim light at his right hand. It came from an opening that led to another stairway, dark and narrow: it appeared to go winding up the turret along the inside of its round outer wall. |
Sat at the top of the stair Sam sings:
| beyond all mountains steep, above all shadows rides the Sun and Stars for ever dwell: I will not say the Day is done, nor bid the Stars farewell. |
The connection with Dance of the 7 Veils is clear. He sings about both the Sun and the stars and refuses to accept that they are gone forever.
Fig.7.
We find a hint as to the symbolism and identification of the Sun and stars with the female in the discussion of the Fellowship about time in Lothlórien and the Moon. Time is the female, the Sun and stars. The disappearance of the Moon is related to why time does not flow the same.
| `In that land, maybe, we were in a time that has elsewhere long gone by. It was not, I think, until Silverlode bore us back to Anduin that we returned to the time that flows through mortal lands to the Great Sea. And I don’t remember any moon, either new or old, in Caras Galadhon: only stars by night and sun by day.’ |
The Silverlode bearing them back to where time flows normally is a reference to the Moon’s reappearance. Silver-lode symbolizes the Moon (as silver) and the right hand of the geometry. In Lothlórien Galadriel dominates Celeborn, the Sun dominates the Moon. Hence why Time does not flow normally. Their relationship is central to the exposition of the “battle of the sexes”, of left and right hands, in The Lord of the Rings. However, Galadriel’s domination is a justified re-assertion of the place of women, of ‘She That is Fallen’, after the Downfall, and in fact before even that. The Downfall of Númenor is really just the latest instance of it. It begins with the creation of Arda in the positioning of Illuin and Ormal. They are placed in the wrong place. The Sun, Ormal, should be placed up in the north. This confusion is a result of the discords of Melkor in the Music of the Ainur. See ‘The Turn in Practice‘. The left hand female and right hand male are created in that sequence as the raised hands of Ilúvatar. As stated Galadriel and Celeborn’s relationship is central to the geometry. Her domination is a ‘lover’s complaint’. This is why Galadriel’s light in the phial is taken into the lair of Shelob and is instrumental in her overpowering and in the breaking of the webs in the entry (5) below because Shelob symbolizes ‘She That is Fallen’, the Whore of Babylon and Salome. To quote another essay on here (‘A Response to Priya Seth’s Breaking the Tolkien Code‘). In reference to my previous statement regarding the red and black hair of Salome in the illustration ‘Wickedness’:
Tolkien described Galadriel interestingly in Unfinished Tales:
| “even among the Eldar she was accounted beautiful, and her hair was held a marvel unmatched. It was golden like the hair of her father and of her foremother Indis, but richer and more radiant, for its gold was touched by some memory of the starlike silver of her mother; and the Eldar said that the light of the Two Trees, Laurelin and Telperion, had been snared in her tresses. Many thought that this saying first gave to Feanor the thought of imprisoning and blending the light of the Trees that later took shape in his hands as the Silmarils.” |
The suggestions in the language are clear: ensnare and imprison. [] The fact that her hair has the light of both Sun and Moon symbolizes that she has ‘shut out’ the Moon. We see this same idea in (7) below at the Argonath.
[]
We see the same unusual hair symbolism in his poem ‘The Cottage of Lost Play’. The pair symbolize the left and right hands of Edith and Tolkien.
| But side by side a little pair with heads together, mingled hair, went walking to and fro still hand in hand; and what they said, ere Waking far apart them led, that only we now know. |
Speaking of cottages we recall from Stubbes’s “The Anatomie of Abuses” the words “Every boy huggles his pretty-pussy, and runs-up a cottage”. Galadriel as stated is one of the 7 stars, the Morning Sun. The Valacirca is Ursa Major. The two stars of Galadriel and Arwen represent Dubhe and Merak. These two stars (α Ursae Majoris and β Ursae Majoris), can be used as the navigational pointer towards the place of the current northern pole star, Polaris in Ursa Minor. Polaris is the axis mundi and runs through the centre of Minas Tirith up through the Tower of Ecthelion. This is where the alchemical marriage of the Sun and Moon culminates.
Fig.8.
Ursa Minor symbolizes the Man. Ursa Major, the Woman. I have already stated that the Downfall of Númenor creates the fall of the Woman as ‘She That is Fallen’. Major and Minor also refer to the keys in music, hence the Music of the Ainur. Edith was a keen pianist as we know. Tolkien writes in his letters:
| So the end of the Second Age draws on in a major catastrophe; but it is not yet quite concluded. From the cataclysm there are survivors : Elendil the Fair, chief of the Faithful (his name means Elffriend), and his sons Isildur and Anarion. [131 To Milton Waldman] |
Here ‘major’ is a private reference to the Woman. He also says that it is not quite concluded. The conclusion comes in the restoration of the Sun, the Woman at the end of the Lord of the Rings. And I reiterate this pairing in the notes on Sauron below. Isildur and Anarion of course refer to the Moon and Sun.
| I regard the text (in all its details) of The Lord of the Rings far more jealously. No alterations, major or minor, re-arrangements, or abridgements of this text will be approved by me [188 From a letter to Allen & Unwin 3 April 1956] |
Tolkien is making a private reference here to his wife Edith and himself as major and minor. He describes The Lord of the Rings as a Romance, the Romance of Aragorn and Arwen. Aragorn is Tolkien and Arwen is Edith.
| jealous (adj.) |
| c. 1200, gelus, later jelus, “possessive and suspicious,” originally in the context of sexuality or romance (in any context from late 14c.), from Old French jalos/gelos “keen, zealous; avaricious; jealous” (12c., Modern French jaloux), from Late Latin zelosus, from zelus “zeal,” from Greek zēlos, which sometimes meant “jealousy,” but more often was used in a good sense (“emulation, rivalry, zeal”), from PIE root *ya- “to seek, request, desire” (see zeal). In biblical language (early 13c.) “tolerating no unfaithfulness.” Also in Middle English sometimes in the more positive sense, “fond, amorous, ardent” (c. 1300) and in the senses that now go with zealous, which is a later borrowing of the same word, from Latin.
Most of the words for ‘envy’ … had from the outset a hostile force, based on ‘look at’ (with malice), ‘not love,’ etc. Conversely, most of those which became distinctive terms for ‘jealousy’ were originally used also in a good sense, ‘zeal, emulation.’ [Buck, pp.1138-9] |
And in the preface to the Lord of the Rings Tolkien talks about guides and refers to major and minor defects.
| The prime motive was the desire of a tale-teller to try his hand at a really long story that would hold the attention of readers, amuse them, delight them, and at times maybe excite them or deeply move them. As a guide I had only my own feelings for what is appealing or moving, and for many the guide was inevitably often at fault. … The most critical reader of all, myself, now finds many defects, minor and major, but being fortunately under no obligation either to review the book or to write it again, he will pass over these in silence |
5. Shelob’s Trap.
At the top of the winding we had the tunnel of Shelob.
| Sam groaned. ‘Longer, did you say? ‘ he asked. ‘Yes, yess, longer,’ said Gollum. `But not so difficult. Hobbits have climbed the Straight Stair. Next comes the Winding Stair.’ ‘And what after that? ‘ said Sam. `We shall see,’ said Gollum softly. `O yes, we shall see! ‘ ‘I thought you said there was a tunnel,’ said Sam. `Isn’t there a tunnel or something to go through? ‘ ‘O yes, there’s a tunnel,’ said Gollum. `But hobbits can rest before they try that. If they get through that, they’ll be nearly at the top. Very nearly, if they get through. O yes! ‘ |
The Straight Stair is Time, the left-hand. The Winding Stair is Space. the right-hand.
The tunnel is described as a trap.
| They had not gone more than a few yards when from behind them came a sound, startling and horrible in the heavy padded silence: a gurgling, bubbling noise, and a long venomous hiss. They wheeled round, but nothing could be seen. Still as stones they stood, staring, waiting for they did not know what. `It’s a trap!’ said Sam, … Monstrous and abominable eyes they were, bestial and yet filled with purpose and with hideous delight, gloating over their prey trapped beyond all hope of escape. … |
And also at the top of the winding stair in the Tower of Cirth Ungol we had the trapdoor. And we see the web cords described as a ladder. This is cut just before Sam faces and fights Shelob. The second winding stair in this way is an echo of the first. Sam fights the orcs to save Frodo after passing through the trapdoor via the ladder. The link with the winding stair seen by Sam in the Mirror of Galadriel is further supported in his realization after he has fought Shelob:
| Presently he came back, and bending looked at Frodo’s face, pale beneath him in the dusk. And suddenly he saw that he was in the picture that was revealed to him in the mirror of Galadriel in Lórien: Frodo with a pale face lying fast asleep under a great dark cliff. Or fast asleep he had thought then. `He’s dead! ‘ he said. ‘Not asleep, dead! ‘ |
The tunnel of Shelob symbolizes her vagina. She is the Fallen Woman. She That is Fallen, the Whore of Babylon. This lies at the top of the winding stair. This is the same place that the cat is found in the illustration of Wickedness. Yes, the cat in the image suggested in the curtain is Shelob. The eye is drawn down the zig-zag 7 veils towards the bottom of the curtain where we see the cat, the pussy. The reason why the 7 veils are to be read going down, and why the winding stairs in Cirith Ungol go up, is best left to another discussion on this site. Shelob’s lair is again described as a trap when they Break the webs of Shelob to escape.
|
`Trapped in the end! ‘ said Sam bitterly, his anger rising again above weariness and despair.`Gnats in a net. May the curse of Faramir bite that Gollum and bite him quick! ‘ ‘That would not help us now,’ said Frodo. `Come! Let us see what Sting can do. It is an elvenblade. There were webs of horror in the dark ravines of Beleriand where it was forged. But you must be the guard and hold back the eyes. Here, take the star-glass. Do not be afraid. Hold it up and watch!’ |
The trap that is broken is the one set out in the first occurrence describing the Remmirath, a net.
We read “Gnats in a net”. The wind is the winds of the world mentioned in the Sauron entry (see bottom) and the winds in the Aragorn entry (see 6).
The day, the Sun, does not die but returns as a ‘sudden morning of hope’. As stated previously Galadriel symbolizes the Morning Sun, Arwen the Evening. We see the suggestion of the erotic dance in Tolkien’s words “the upper portion blew and swayed like a loose veil in the incoming wind“
6. The Standard of Arwen.
|
‘But Aragorn halted and cried with a great voice: “Now come! By the Black Stone I call you! “ |
These winds are the winds of the world that is turning as mentioned in the Sauron entry (bottom). The tide turning is also mentioned in Minas Tirith- which is a reference to Aragorn’s coming up the river. See ‘The Turn in Practice’. As detailed in my riddle solution to Bombadil and Goldberry, as Time-Sun, the female, Goldberry is wind and water, that is, weather. Therefore time and tide and winds are all references to the female. The female is turning and returning to her rightful place. What actually happens is the Sun is restored to her place in the north, from the south. To explain see ‘The ‘Turn in Practice‘ and ‘A Response to Priya Seth’s Breaking the Tolkien Code‘ .
The following quote is Aragorn AFTER he’s arrived at Minas Tirith- but it comes before this 6th instance in the Book.
|
Now as the sun went down Aragorn and Éomer and Imrahil drew near the City with their captains and knights; and when they came before the Gate Aragorn said: |
7. Sauron Overthrown.
This is the final unveiling and note how he kisses Éowyn’s brow and refers to her as ‘White Lady’. Her purity has been restored. It is also a reference to her role as the left hand of Ilûvatar, as Time. Stars are worn on the brow of women who are the guiding stars. Their role has been acknowledged and restored.
|
‘No,’ said Faramir, looking into her face. ‘It was but a picture in the mind. I do not know what is happening. The reason of my waking mind tells me that great evil has befallen and we stand at the end of days. But my heart says nay; and all my limbs are light, and a hope and joy are come to me that no reason can deny. Éowyn, Éowyn, White Lady of Rohan, in this hour I do not believe that any darkness will endure!’ And he stooped and kissed her brow. |
Note the mention of noon. This is paired with midnight in Aragorn’s unveiling of the standard of Arwen in (6)… ‘But at midnight hope was indeed born anew.’ Night and Day are the times when the Moon (male) and the Sun (female) dominate each other in the discordant ‘battle of the Sexes’. Midnight and noon symbolize the time when each of them is directly overhead at the 12 o’clock position. This is the time that they are perfectly aligned with God in heaven, take his counsel, and thereby begin their return back to twilight where they, briefly, achieve harmony once more. This is the moment that Bombadil and Goldberry, the rising Sun, open the door to the barrow. This explains why Frodo decides to take the Ring to Mordor on the stroke of noon. As stated previously Frodo represents the female half, the Sun, in the alchemical marriage of Sun and Moon in The Lord of the Rings.
| `But not yet, I beg, Master!’ said Bilbo. `Already the Sun is climbing to noon, and I feel the need of something to strengthen me. … but I am only an old hobbit, and I miss my meal at noon. Can’t you think of some names now? Or put it off till after dinner?’ No one answered. The noon-bell rang. Still no one spoke. Frodo glanced at all the faces, but they were not turned to him. All the Council sat with downcast eyes, as if in deep thought. A great dread fell on him, as if he was awaiting the pronouncement of some doom that he had long foreseen and vainly hoped might after all never be spoken. An overwhelming longing to rest and remain at peace by Bilbo’s side in Rivendell filled all his heart. At last with an effort he spoke, and wondered to hear his own words, as if some other will was using his small voice. `I will take the Ring,’ he said, `though I do not know the way.’ Elrond raised his eyes and looked at him, and Frodo felt his heart pierced by the sudden keenness of the glance. `If I understand aright all that I have heard,’ he said, `I think that this task is appointed for you, Frodo; and that if you do not find a way, no one will. This is the hour of the Shire-folk, when they arise from their quiet fields to shake the towers and counsels of the Great. Who of all the Wise could have foreseen it? Or, if they are wise, why should they expect to know it, until the hour has struck? |
Frodo wants to stay by Bilbo’s side but has to undergo a journey. The journey is a spiritual one. Aragorn and Bilbo symbolize the two halves of the Moon-Sun duality (dialectic), the two hands of Ilúvatar. The journey takes both of them to the other side of the duality. Aragorn journeys from male to female, from right to left. Frodo journeys from female to male, from left to right. Both Bilbo and Frodo symbolize the female part of the duality of Sun and Moon. Elrond’s statement ‘This is the hour of the Shire-folk’ associates noon, the time when the Sun is high in the sky and dominant, with hobbits. Frodo wants to remain hidden away from the dangers with Bilbo. He wants to remain on the female left hand side. This explains Tolkien’s anagram which Priya Seth found from assembling all of the names given to Bombadil. WARN FRODO AND BILBO I BE A MAIA – MR RONALD T. Bombadil represents the bombastic domineering male right hand, the fallen Tolkien in the marriage, which finds its most extreme form in the manifestation of his fallen will as Old Man Willow. Frodo and Bilbo represent the female left hand. The warning is a threat by the right hand to the left hand. It is another manifestation of the battle of wills in the battle of the sexes which are playing out in the courses of the Sun and Moon and throughout the entire histories beginning with the discords of Melkor.
| warn (v.) |
| Old English warnian “to give notice of impending danger,” also intransitive, “to take heed,” from Proto-Germanic *warōnan (source also of Old Norse varna “to admonish,” Old High German warnon “to take heed,” German warnen “to warn”), from PIE root *wer- (4) “to cover.” Related: Warned; warning. |
| garnish (v.) |
| late 14c., “to decorate, adorn, beautify,” also in Middle English “equip (a place) for defense; arm (oneself) for battle; prepare to defend,” from Old French garniss-, present participle stem of garnir “provide, furnish; fortify, reinforce” (11c.), from Frankish *warnjan, from Proto-Germanic *warnon “be cautious, guard, provide for” (source also of Old High German warnon “to take heed,” Old English warnian “to take warning, beware;” see warn), from PIE root *wer- (4) “to cover.”
Sense evolution is from “arm oneself” to “fit out” to “embellish,” which was the earliest meaning in English. Culinary sense of “to decorate a dish for the table” predominated after c. 1700. Older meaning survives in legal sense of “to warn or serve notice of attachment of funds” (1570s). Related: Garnished; garnishing. |
This is the same symbolism found in the Argonath. The statues are the Sun and Moon, Anarion and Isildur. The North Gate is paired with the West Gate as depicted in the Fig.7. above. The West Gate is the Moon, hence the 
crescent moons suggested in the tentacle-like tree forms and the crescent moons in the draft version for the gate in his illustrations (see left (L.R.R Tolkien: Artist & Illustrator p 158)). The West Gate should have the Sun and Moon to either side, depicting the balance of female and male, left and right hands in the geometry. The North Gate is the Sun and should also have the Sun and Moon, but both the figures of Isildur and Anarion are male. To complete the asymmetry, both are raising their left hands, and both have axes in their right hands. As stated in the Introduction, this continues the same symbolism of the hearts hidden in the drawings. Frodo represents the female, left hand side in the geometry and is especially threatened by the Argonath. And this is why Elrond says that hobbits will ‘shake the towers and counsels of the Great’. The Argonath are described as towers rising to meet him. The greetings is personal because here Frodo symbolizes the left hand, female. Note the reference to the Sun being ‘shut out’.
| Over them was a lane of pale-blue sky, around them the dark overshadowed River, and before them black, shutting out the sun, the hills of Emyn Muil, in which no opening could be seen. … Frodo peering forward saw in the distance two great rocks approaching: like great pinnacles or pillars of stone they seemed. Tall and sheer and ominous they stood upon either side of the stream. A narrow gap appeared between them, and the River swept the boats towards it. `Behold the Argonath, the Pillars of the Kings! ‘ cried Aragorn. `We shall pass them soon. Keep the boats in line, and as far apart as you can! Hold the middle of the stream! ‘ As Frodo was borne towards them the great pillars rose like towers to meet him. Giants they seemed to him, vast grey figures silent but threatening. Then he saw that they were indeed shaped and fashioned: the craft and power of old had wrought upon them, and still they preserved through the suns and rains of forgotten years the mighty likenesses in which they had been hewn. Upon great pedestals founded in the deep waters stood two great kings of stone: still with blurred eyes and crannied brows they frowned upon the North. The left hand of each was raised palm outwards in gesture of warning; in each right hand there was an axe; upon each head there was a crumbling helm and crown. |
In Fig.9. below the courses of the Sun and Moon are represented as the left and right hands (of Ilúvatar). The relationship is a dialectic, that is , a conversation between man and woman. On the left, we observe how the geometry alternates between the ‘X’ rune Dagaz, at twilight and the diamond shape. This is the same diamond symbolism that we see in ‘Wickedness’ (Fig.2.) both in the chequer pattern and in the shape of the red light on the floor. Twilight, Dagaz, represents convergent wills and harmony. Night and Day, the diamond, represents discord. Discord is the theme of ‘Wickedness’, hence the diamond shapes as stated. The Númenorean carpet drawn by Tolkien in later life is intended to be a ‘carpet page’ like those found in Insular Art such as the Book of Kells. The geometry is symbolic. For more information on the geometry of the courses of the Sun and Moon see A Response to Priya Seth’s ‘Breaking the Tolkien Code‘.
Fig.9.
Sauron.
Sauron has used veils. He has veiled the Woman. And we know that the veils refers to the curtains and webs of Shelob. In other words it was Sauron who had captured the 7 stars in the Downfall of Númenor: ‘She That is Fallen’. And now they were all destroyed. The unveiling of the Sun and stars is intended by Sauron to be a stripping naked of Womankind but the Enemy undoes itself. In stripping away the veils, the Enemy reveals once again the Sun and the stars.
| In fact with every step towards the gates of Mordor Frodo felt the Ring on its chain about his neck grow more burdensome. He was now beginning to feel it as an actual weight dragging him earthwards. But far more he was troubled by the Eye: so he called it to himself. It was that more than the drag of the Ring that made him cower and stoop as he walked. The Eye: that horrible growing sense of a hostile will that strove with great power to pierce all shadows of cloud, and earth, and flesh, and to see you: to pin you under its deadly gaze, naked, immovable. So thin, so frail and thin, the veils were become that still warded it off. Frodo knew just where the present habitation and heart of that will now was: as certainly as a man can tell the direction of the sun with his eyes shut. He was facing it, and its potency beat upon his brow. |
Again we see the notion of ‘piercing’ involving the dominant will. And it has a sexual dimension. The Door is the female sexuality, the vagina. It is intended to be a rape, a ravishment.
Shelob who symbolizes the Whore, the fallen woman is the anti-Galadriel and vice versa. It has been pointed out by John D. Rateliff in his essay “She and Tolkien, Revisited” that Galadriel is probably modeled on Haggard’s ‘She’.
| And so for the rest of this piece I’d like to set out some of those parallels by exploring the links between The Lord of the Rings and H. Rider Haggard’s classic series about Ayesha, She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed— not just the original book from 1887, but its sequel Ayesha (1905), set a generation later, and two prequels written in the last years of Haggard’s life, She and Allan (1921) and Wisdom’s Daughter (1923), [(Fisher, Jason. Tolkien and the Study of His Sources)] |
And coincidentally the theme of this prediction is very much around the dominant female. ‘She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed’ chimes very well with that. I have previously pointed out Galadriel as dominating Celeborn.
Tolkien refers to Galadriel and Shelob in similar ways. He refers to Shelob as ‘She’.
| ‘The Lady’s gift! The star-glass! A light to you in dark places, she said it was to be. The star-glass! … But other potencies there are in Middle-earth, powers of night, and they are old and strong. And She that walked in the darkness |
I’ve already stated that Shelob symbolizes ‘She That is Fallen’. If Galadriel is modeled on ‘She-That-must-Be-Obeyed’, then this supports the argument that Shelob is an anti-Galadriel, a fallen Galadriel.
The stripping naked of Womankind is why the Witch-King says to Éowyn:
|
A cold voice answered: ‘Come not between the Nazgûl and his prey! Or he will not slay thee in thy turn. He will bear thee away to the houses of lamentation, beyond all darkness, where thy flesh shall be devoured, and thy shrivelled mind be left naked to the Lidless Eye.’ |
That is in total contrast with the later kissing of her brow by Faramir. The same nakedness symbolism is used of Frodo too, because Frodo symbolizes the female half of the alchemical marriage of Sun and Moon of Aragorn-Frodo. See elsewhere on this site.
Sauron has tried to strip the and shame the Woman, however as part of the Music, and the Eucatastrophe, Eru turns the lustful unveiling intended by the Enemy to an unveiling of the Sun (a new dawn). This brings light and restores the Woman, She That is Fallen, to her rightful place. We can see the reversal process between the DownFall of Númenor and the Downfall of Sauron, in the name give to the Red Book of Westmarch.
THE DOWNFALL
OF THE
LORD OF THE RINGS
AND THE
RETURN OF THE KING
Here’s the quote:
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Most easterly of the roads followed them, until it ran off, hugging the skirts of the mountains, away into a wall of black shadow far ahead. Neither man nor orc now moved along its flat grey stretches; for the Dark Lord had almost completed the movement of his forces, and even in the fastness of his own realm he sought the secrecy of night, fearing the winds of the world that had turned against him, tearing aside his veils, and troubled with tidings of bold spies that had passed through his fences. |
Note, “tearing aside his veils” and “fearing the winds of the world that had turned against him, tearing aside his veils, and troubled with tidings” are a reference to the change in wind mentioned in Aragorn’s unveiling.
Here’s how the Akallabêth and the The Lord of the Rings are part of a single whole sequence. Fundamental to Tolkien’s entire works is the concept of orientation. My statement in Fig.7. regarding handedness and mirrors relates to this. It’s all about points of view. The two points of view are the left and right hands of the dialectic, the woman and the man, Edith and Tolkien. In the geometry, these two hands are Time and Space. The conversation, the dialectic, is between the two. His works are all about their relationship under God which is given mathematical and geometric expression. Even his languages are built from the geometry of Time and Space. Moreover his languages also change over time according to these mathematical concepts.
The world TURNS. Tolkien uses a device called the TURN. Please re-read the opening statement of this website on the homepage here. For a full explanation see ‘The Turn in Principle‘ and ‘The Turn in Practice‘.
A turn describes a change of state within the character which is influenced by the counsels of God, Eru, or the Enemy. That creates harmony or discord. A TURN is a turn of 90 degrees right or left. Each is a re-orientation of facing. You can see the importance of facing in the courses of the Sun and Moon in Fig.9. Characters turn between the planes of the geometry, between the vertical and horizontal cardinal axes. The turn occurs in 3 phases, each phase constituting a turn of 90 degrees in itself. Characters turn all of the time on the map, the map is the maze of life, the spiritual journey, but a TURN requires a special set of circumstances. The TURN takes the character through the Door which I’ve talked about in this essay. The Guiding stars- the 7 stars guide the way to the Door, down the Histories. This is why we see stars placed centrally about a symmetry, in so many Tolkien images. Nested within these main 7 points in the narrative of the Histories, there are other stars which also guide the way. In this way we have turns within turns, as we find in the Book of Ezekiel, wheels within wheels.
In addition to the two planes of the cardinal axes, there are also rational planes. Rational planes are like the rungs of a ladder, or layers of a cake. Each rung being spiritual states. The TURN moves the character up or down in spiritual states and thereby up and down between rational planes. In this way we have recovery and loss which Tolkien speaks about in ‘On Fairy Stories’. The direction up or down depends on whether the character re-orients facing God or away from God; whether they turn left or right. This is why we see the dichotomy so often between West and the East. Re-orientation towards God is an act of repentance. Moving up moves the character closer to God in heaven- a higher state of enlightenment or consciousness. Moving down moves the character closer to hell, and constitutes a ‘Fall’. In the narrative of the Lord of the Rings, the characters move through 7 spiritual states. Hence why I was able to make my predictions. (In addition to the 7 veils there are other manifestations of 7 states- more elsewhere on this site). Each tier of Minas-Tirith corresponds to the 7 spiritual states. In other words, the inner spiritual reality determines the outer physical reality. Tolkien’s world is a symbolic landscape, much like in the Arthurian Romances. See Symbolic Landscape. The direction of movement results ultimately from the spiritual state, not the other way around. In other words movement does not determine spirituality, quite the reverse. The outer world is an incarnation of the inner spiritual one. But once re-orientation has occurred, future spiritual states will be influenced. Movement right (clockwise) or left (anti-clockwise) in the TURN sequence, distinguishes between a move upwards or downwards. If the TURN has 3 phases, and each constitutes a turn of 90 degrees, then each TURN forms a loop which spirals around the Axis Mundi. This conception leads to the geometry of the courses of the Sun and Moon found in Fig.9.
| As far as we can go back the nobler part of the human mind is filled with the thoughts of sibb, peace and goodwill, and with the thought of its loss. We shall never recover it, for that is not the way of repentance, which works spirally and not in a closed circle; we may recover something like it, but on a higher plane. Just as (to compare a small thing) the convened urban gets more out of the country than the mere yokel, but he cannot become a real landsman, he is both more and in a way less (less truly earthy anyway). Of course, I suppose that, subject to the permission of God, the whole human race (as each individual) is free not to rise again but to go to perdition and carry out the Fall to its bitter bottom (as each individual can singulariter6). [96 To Christopher Tolkien 20 Northmoor Road, Oxford] |
The closed loop Tolkien speaks of is the Ring or the Iron Crown. They are incarnations of an inner spiritual state. It is a spiritual state which cannot proceed upwards. This is the state that the Nazgûl are trapped within and the plane on which spiders dwell. This occurs when the Door is closed.
In addition to TURNS, the world continually revolves around the Axis Mundi. The world turns 90 degrees at the changes between Day and Night. This makes sense when we regard the Sun and Moon as spiritual entities- as Edith and Tolkien. The turn of the World is the turn in their spiritual states and the course of the Sun and Moon in this way described their ever changing relationship: The ‘Battle of the Sexes’. In Fig.9. the courses of the Sun and Moon are revolving around Arda in a circle, around the Axis Mundi. We are told that the Moon chases the Sun because he desires her. Thus a spiritual state drives the movement. The Music proceeds and the revolving circles become two spirals. This is the Music of the Spheres. Each higher rational plane is ascended via the Doors of dawn and dusk when Sun and Moon meet in harmony in the sky. If the Music stopped there would be no movement through rational planes, only a closed revolving loop. Without the Door the world cannot go through the Door and proceed to a higher rational plane. This is what the Enemy seeks. In ‘Wickedness’ the female, left-hand has control over the Door. She is the Spider, hence “SHE-lob”. As already stated, the Door requires the harmonious union of the man and the woman in the relationship, to function. For more information regarding the specifics of the geometry and the Nazgûl see ‘A Response to Priya Seth’s Breaking the Tolkien Code‘.
In addition to the characters, there also exist The Powers. The Powers in Arda are the 4 figures of the Tetramorph which were later developed by medievalists from the visionary description found in the Book of Ezekiel. Each of the 4 figures is assigned to the points of the compass, W, N, E, S. They are the Eagle, the Bull, the Lion and the Man. The Bull is the Enemy. The Tetramorph appears in insular art, the Lindisfarne Gospels for e.g. In the Lord of the Rings the Powers hunt each other. This is the origin of the 3 hunters narrative of Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas. During the course of the Lord of the Rings the Powers hunt one another and the world TURNS like a giant wheel. Within that we have other turns. Again, wheels within wheels within wheels. The Tetramorph is the real subject of at least one of Seth’s anagrams in her book ‘Breaking the Tolkien Code’. I wrote to the author of my opinion.
She found.
RONALD T ! I HID NEWS ??
She asks at that point:
In revisiting the deciphered message – the burning question was: what was this ‘news’? What could it
possibly be? [Seth, Priya. Breaking the Tolkien Code (p. 87).] . Kindle Edition.
She then seeks a second anagram and discusses how Aragorn and Gandalf have a conversation and speak of riddles. She concludes. “The trail had started outside the walls of Moria before Gandalf’s loss and led to the point of his reappearance.”
She then muses.
| “But perhaps Tolkien had left a subtle clue with both Aragorn’s and Gandalf’s conversation. The pair of them used the term “riddles” in plural fashion. Surely this meant there was more than one anagram.” [Seth, Priya. Breaking the Tolkien Code (pp. 87-88). . Kindle Edition. ] |
She then found:
HIDDEN TRAILS ! NOW ??
She ultimately concludes that the NEWS is that the Balrog’s wings are made of physical substance. In my opinion that’s incorrect and it relies on a flawed argument. See ‘A Response to Priya Seth’s Breaking the Tolkien Code‘. I wrote to her giving her my opinion that the riddles were hints about the Tetramorph and the hunt, the Wheel of Fortune. We need to look at the etymology.
| trail (v.) |
| c. 1300, “to hang down loosely and flow behind” (of a gown, sleeve, etc.), from Old French trailler “to tow; pick up the scent of a quarry,” ultimately from Vulgar Latin *tragulare “to drag,” from Latin tragula “dragnet, javelin thrown by a strap,” probably related to trahere “to pull” (see tract (n.1)). Transitive sense of “to tow or pull along the ground” is from c. 1400. The meaning “follow the trail of” (an animal, etc.) is first recorded late 14c. Meaning “to lag behind” is from 1957. Related: Trailed; trailing |
We see ‘to pull’. This is the desire that the Sun creates in the Moon. More explanation elsewhere.
| hunt (v.) |
| Old English huntian “chase game” (transitive and intransitive), perhaps developed from hunta “hunter,” and related to hentan “to seize,” from Proto-Germanic *huntojan (source also of Gothic hinþan “to seize, capture,” Old High German hunda “booty”), which is of uncertain origin. Not the usual Germanic word for this, which is represented by Dutch jagen, German jagen (see yacht (n.)). General sense of “search diligently” (for anything) is first recorded c. 1200. Related: Hunted; hunting. To hunt (something) up “search for until found” is from 1791. Parlor game hunt the slipper is attested from 1766. |
The TRAILS refer to the hunt of the Tetramorph. Tolkien leaves hints in the conversation between Aragorn and Gandalf and we see that hint is related etymologically to hunt.
| hint (n.) |
| c. 1600 (Shakespeare), “an indirect suggestion intended to be caught by the knowing,” apparently from obsolete hent, from Middle English hinten “to tell, inform” (c. 1400), from Old English hentan “to seize,” from Proto-Germanic *hantijan (source also of Gothic hinþan “to seize”), related to hunt (v.). OED dates the sense “small piece of practical information” to 1777. |
Tolkien chose to implement the Tetramorph and the hunt because he left hints throughout his works and he knew the two words hunt and hint were related. My analysis of ‘Wickedness’ supports my assertion that he was constantly leaving clues. Seth’s great finds in her book also show the extraordinary lengths he went to and his great secrecy. Clyde Kilby was highly suspicious that Tolkien was hiding a lot. Tolkien almost let him into the secret. See ‘Tolkien’s Contrasistency‘.
And Seth’s statement that the hunt begins outside the walls of Moria is not too far off the mark. The hunt actually begins inside Moria and we have a hint here left by Tolkien after the characters escape Moria:
| They looked back. Dark yawned the archway of the Gates under the mountain-shadow. Faint and far beneath the earth rolled the slow drum-beats: doom. A thin black smoke trailed out. Nothing else was to be seen; the dale all around was empty. Doom. |
We can see the link between the hunt and the riddles throughout The Lord of the Rings.
| Well, well! The hunt is over, and we meet again at last, where none of us ever thought to come,’ said Aragorn. ‘And now that the great ones have gone to discuss high matters,’ said Legolas, ‘the hunters can perhaps learn the answers to their own small riddles. We tracked you as far as the forest, but there are still many things that I should like to know the truth of.’ |
The words of Aragorn, “small riddles” is a hint that there is a larger riddle which they are but a part of, a reflection of. The link between hints and riddles can be seen in the discussion about the Nazgûl and what they are:
| ‘Did you find out anything about them from Gildor?’ ‘Not much – only hints and riddles,’ said Frodo evasively. ‘Did you ask about the sniffing?’ ‘We didn’t discuss it,’ said Frodo with his mouth full. ‘You should have. I am sure it is very important.’ |
And knowing that hint and hunt are related in the etymology, we can establish a link between hunt and riddle.
The words NEWS and NOW in the anagrams are also riddles. I HID NEWS is a reference to the N,E,S,W of the Tetramorph.
| news (n.) |
| late 14c., “new things,” plural of new (n.) “new thing” (see new (adj.)); after French nouvelles, which was used in Bible translations to render Medieval Latin nova (neuter plural) “news,” literally “new things.”
The English word was construed as singular at least from the 1560s, but it sometimes still was regarded as plural 17c.-19c. The odd and doubtful construction probably accounts for the absurd folk-etymology (attested by 1640 but originally, and in 18c. usually, in jest-books) that claims it to be an abbreviation of north east south west, as though “information from all quarters of the compass.” Meaning “tidings, intelligence of something that has lately taken place” is from early 15c. Meaning “radio or television program presenting current events” is from 1923. Bad news in the extended sense of “unpleasant person or situation” is from 1926. Expression no news, good news can be traced to 1640s. Expression news to me “something I did not know” is from 1889. |
In other words, he is also having jests. The correct interpretation of the anagram is RONALD T ! I HID NESW ??Regarding the anagram HIDDEN TRAILS ! NOW ?? NOW is reference to the North (N) and West (W) Gates which are paired as stated. The intervening O is the closed loop of the plane of the hypotenuse which lies between the West and north Gates, that being Rhovanion- see Fig.7.
A more thorough discussion of the Tetramorph will appear on this site.
Conclusion.
At this moment of first writing I actually think there is a battle going on between the act of unveiling and veiling and that other references to veiling might be involved. I’ve not determined the exact chronology of events in the book yet regards the ordering of events 5, 6.
And finally an illustration of how Tolkien cunningly links the theme and scenes. Note the following similarity:
From (7). Éowyn, Éowyn, White Lady of Rohan, in this hour I do not believe that any darkness will endure!’ And he stooped and kissed her brow.
From the discussion of Sauron above. “Sam saw that he could not go much further in this fashion, crawling, stooping, now picking a doubtful way very slowly, now hurrying at a stumbling run.”
From the discussion of (3) The cavern behind the waterfall on which the setting Sun beats, in Henneth Annûn is described: “At once they found themselves in a rock-chamber, wide and rough, with an uneven stooping roof.”
There are at least 4 other instances where the brow is kissed and Tolkien describes it as ‘stoop’. This sequence might be involved in the suggested countervail to the unveiling I mentioned. My observation at the outset regarding the association between the eyes and mouth support this. The symbolism of the eye and the star on the brow refers to the ‘third eye’ in the centre of the forehead, above the mouth below. And here is where I made prediction#65. I predicted that the word stoop was very probably going to be used in the scene with Éowyn and the Witch-King. Note the reference to the Moon, since we are dealing with the battle to resurrect of the Sun to her rightful place here, and webs:
| A creature of an older world maybe it was, whose kind, fingering in forgotten mountains cold beneath the Moon, outstayed their day, and in hideous eyrie bred this last untimely brood, apt to evil. And the Dark Lord took it, and nursed it with fell meats, until it grew beyond the measure of all other things that fly; and he gave it to his servant to be his steed. Down, down it came, and then, folding its fingered webs, it gave a croaking cry, and settled upon the body of Snowmane, digging in its claws, stooping its long naked neck. Upon it sat a shape, black-mantled, huge and threatening. A crown of steel he bore, but between rim and robe naught was there to see, save only a deadly gleam of eyes: the Lord of the Nazgûl. |
This is why stoop appears:
| stoop (v.) |
| “bend forward,” Old English stupian “to bow, bend,” from Proto-Germanic *stup- (source also of Middle Dutch stupen “to bow, bend,” Norwegian stupa “fall, drop”), from PIE *(s)teu- (1) “to push, stick, knock, beat” (see steep (adj.)). Figurative sense of “condescend,” especially expressing a lowering of the moral self, is from 1570s. Sense of “swoop” is first recorded 1570s in falconry. Related: Stooped; stooping. The noun meaning “an act of stooping” is from c. 1300. Stoop-shouldered attested from 1773. |
The act of stooping is for the Enemy a condescension, from a place on high of power. The act of stooping for Faramir and the foes of the Enemy is an act of humility, grace. In terms of the woman, this translates as a recognition of the rightful place of the Woman, the Sun. The Sun is restored to the north on high, and the Moon, the male, voluntarily ‘falls’ back to the south.