Warning: Tolkien was a philologist. He was a world expert in his field and worked on the O.E.D more than once. He also had strong opinions regarding the language, and its use in literature.
If you have not read Tolkien’s published letters, you absolutely do not know Tolkien. When I read his letters I felt that I knew ten time more about him than before I did. The image the public have, and indeed like to have, of Tolkien, is a very shallow one. Before you read anything else on this site, I recommend you read his letters first.
1. First and foremost, Tolkien was a Devout Catholic. Tolkien lived and breathed etymology. If you don’t know what a philologist is or what an etymological definition is, this might help. All etymologies will be given as grey shaded text. All quotes from sources will be given in blue shaded text. You’ll be seeing a lot of these on this site:
| etymology (n.) |
| late 14c., ethimolegia “facts of the origin and development of a word,” from Old French etimologie, ethimologie (14c., Modern French étymologie), from Latin etymologia, from Greek etymologia “analysis of a word to find its true origin,” properly “study of the true sense (of a word),” with -logia “study of, a speaking of” (see -logy) + etymon “true sense, original meaning,” neuter of etymos “true, real, actual,” related to eteos “true,” which perhaps is cognate with Sanskrit satyah, Gothic sunjis, Old English soð “true,” from a PIE *set- “be stable.” Latinized by Cicero as veriloquium. In classical times, with reference to meanings; later, to histories. Classical etymologists, Christian and pagan, based their explanations on allegory and guesswork, lacking historical records as well as the scientific method to analyze them, and the discipline fell into disrepute that lasted a millennium. Flaubert [“Dictionary of Received Ideas”] wrote that the general view was that etymology was “the easiest thing in the world with the help of Latin and a little ingenuity.” As a modern branch of linguistic science treating of the origin and evolution of words, from 1640s. As “an account of the particular history of a word” from mid-15c. Related: Etymological; etymologically. As practised by Socrates in the Cratylus, etymology involves a claim about the underlying semantic content of the name, what it really means or indicates. This content is taken to have been put there by the ancient namegivers: giving an etymology is thus a matter of unwrapping or decoding a name to find the message the namegivers have placed inside. [Rachel Barney, “Socrates Agonistes: The Case of the Cratylus Etymologies,” in “Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy,” vol. xvi, 1998] |
2. Tolkien loved riddles and secret codes and he explicitly set riddles for his readers in his works.
| riddle (n.1) |
| “A word game or joke, comprising a question or statement couched in deliberately puzzling terms, propounded for solving by the hearer/reader using clues embedded within that wording” [Oxford Dictionary of English Folklore], early 13c., from Old English rædels “riddle; counsel; conjecture; imagination; discussion,” common Germanic (Old Frisian riedsal “riddle,” Old Saxon radisli, Middle Dutch raetsel, Dutch raadsel, Old High German radisle, German Rätsel “riddle”). The first element is from Proto-Germanic *redaz-, from PIE *re-dh-, from root *re- “to reason, count.” The ending is Old English noun suffix -els, the -s of which later was mistaken for a plural affix and stripped off. Meaning “anything which puzzles or perplexes” is from late 14c. |
| “There is of course a clash between ‘literary’ technique, and the fascination of elaborating in detail an imaginary mythical Age (mythical, not allegorical: my mind does not work allegorically). As a story, I think it is good that there should be a lot of things unexplained (especially if an explanation actually exists); and I have perhaps from this point of view erred in trying to explain too much, and give too much past history. Many readers have, for instance, rather stuck at the Council of Elrond. And even in a mythical Age there must be some enigmas, as there always are. Tom Bombadil is one (intentionally).” [Letter #144 To Naomi Mitchison] |
| enigma (n.) |
| 1530s, “statement which conceals a hidden meaning or known thing under obscure words or forms,” earlier enigmate (mid-15c.), from Latin aenigma “riddle,” from Greek ainigma (plural ainigmata) “a dark saying, riddle,” from ainissesthai “speak obscurely, speak in riddles,” from ainos “tale, story; saying, proverb;” according to Liddell & Scott, a poetic and Ionic word, of unknown origin. General sense in English of “anything inexplicable to an observer” is from c. 1600. |
So, Tolkien told his readership that he had set riddles. Some 73 years after its publication, Adam Roberts discovered the Alvissmael meta-riddle in the Hobbit, as published in 2013 in his book The Riddles of the Hobbit. Before I read the book in 2019, I had already referred to the series of riddles as a meta-riddle some 3 years earlier, in reference to the way in which the riddles are linked together. My critique will be available on this site. Priya Seth discovered a number of anagrams which you can read in her book “Breaking the Tolkien Code” and to which you can find a response on here. They lay hidden for almost 60 years. My point being, Tolkien also set riddles without telling anybody he had set them.
Tolkien loved riddles and secret codes. His letter to his guardian Friar Francis when he was 7 years old exhibits a very early fascination with codes, puns and the link between language meaning and visual appearance and form. He speaks about codes in his essay A Secret Vice, including codes and code-like languages he and his friends had invented. He was known to use codes in his letters to his wife Edith during the war to get around postal censorship. He was also approached by Bletchley Park during the World War II war effort to help break the German Enigma Code. Tolkien read detective stories, which as a genre invites the reader to solve a puzzle set by the author. Kilby writes..
| I think he did a good deal of reading detective stories and science-fiction. He told me more than once of his pride of being chosen a member of a science fiction writers’ association in the United States….He said he found Dorothy Sayers a “fair” writer of detective stories but believed he found some “vulgarity” both in them and in her Man Born to be King. He did not care for the detective stories of G.K. Chesterton. ibid |
3. He was very widely read in all kinds of unexpected literature, including popular and Science Fiction. An excerpt from his Letters:
| “There are exceptions. I have read all that E. R. Eddison wrote, in spite of his peculiarly bad nomenclature and personal philosophy. I was greatly taken by the book that was (I believe) the runner-up when The L. R. was given the Fantasy Award: 5 Death of Grass. 6 I enjoy the S.F. of Isaac Azimov. Above these, I was recently deeply engaged in the books of Mary Renault; especially the two about Theseus, The King Must Die, and The Bull from the Sea. A few days ago I actually received a card of appreciation from her; perhaps the piece of ‘Fan-mail’ that gives me most pleasure.” (Letter 294 To Charlotte and Denis Plimmer) |
Eddison wrote The Worm Ouroboros. You may have spotted the ouroborus in the title header on this page. The Death of Grass is a post-apocalyptic science fiction novel written by the English author Sam Youd under the pen name John Christopher. He also wrote the young-adult novel series The Tripods.
4. He was a very private and self-effacing man, which extended to his family. To quote Clyde Kilby who spent a summer with Tolkien and got to know him quite well.
| “I felt Tolkien was like an iceberg, something to be reckoned with above water in both its brilliance and mass and yet with much more below the surface. In his presence one was aware of a single totality but equally aware of various levels of a kind of consistent inconsistency that was both native-perhaps his genius-and developed, almost deliberate, even enjoyed. The word, if there were one, might be “contrasistency.” If my account of him is sketchy and in itself inconsistent, it has the virtue of reflecting my real impression of the man. [Tolkien and the Silmarillion] |
Tolkien writes to W.H.Auden:
| “I was very pleased to hear from you, and glad to feel that you were not bored. I am afraid that you may be in for rather a long letter again; but you can do what you like with it. I type it so that it may at any rate be quickly readable. I do not really think that I am frightfully important. I wrote the Trilogy 1 as a personal satisfaction, driven to it by the scarcity of literature of the sort that I wanted to read (and what there was was often heavily alloyed). A great labour; and as the author of the Ancrene Wisse says at the end of his work: ‘I would rather, God be my witness, set out on foot for Rome than begin the work over again!’ But unlike him I would not have said: ‘Read some of this book at your leisure every day; and I hope that if you read it often it will prove very profitable to you; otherwise I shall have spent my long hours very ill.’ I was not thinking much of the profit or delight of others; though no one can really write or make anything purely privately. However, when the BBC employs any one so important as yourself to talk publicly about the Trilogy, not without reference to the author, the most modest (or at any rate retiring) of men, whose instinct is to cloak such self-knowledge as he has, and such criticisms of life as he knows it, under mythical and legendary dress, cannot help thinking about it in personal terms – and finding it interesting, and difficult, too, to express both briefly and accurately.”(Letter 163 To W. H. Auden) |
5. He had a sense of humour and played word games of all kinds, puns being a favourite.
| I am fond of mushrooms (out of a field); have a very simple sense of humour (which even my appreciative critics find tiresome); (Letter 213 From a letter to Deborah Webster 25 October 1958) |
And it seemed God had a sense of humour too:
| “I meant to write to let you know how much I am perturbed by and sorry for your afflictions: poor dear. I pray for you – because I have a feeling (more near a certainty) that God, for some ineffable reason which to us may seem almost like humour, is so curiously ready to answer the prayers of the least worthy of his suppliants – if they pray for others. I do not of course mean to say that He only answers the prayers of the unworthy (who ought not to expect to be heard at all), or I should not now be benefitting by the prayers of others.” |
6. He was known to be sometimes bawdy when in the right company.
| bawdy (adj.) |
| late 14c., “soiled, dirty, filthy,” from bawd + -y (2). Perhaps influenced by Middle English bauded, bowdet “soiled, dirty,” from Welsh bawaidd “dirty,” from baw “dirt, filth.” Meaning “lewd, obscene, chaste” is from 1510s, from notion of “pertaining to or befitting a bawd;” usually of language (originally to talk bawdy). Bawdy Basket, the twenty-third rank of canters, who carry pins, tape, ballads and obscene books to sell. [Grose, “Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue,” 1785] Related: Bawdily; bawdiness. Bawdy-house “house of prostitution” is from 1550s. |
| “Tolkien too was a regular caller while Warnie Lewis was at work in Magdalen. He and Jack were in the habit of spending an hour together on Monday mornings, generally concluding their conversation with a pint of beer in the Eastgate Hotel opposite the college. ‘This is one of the pleasantest spots in the week,’ remarked Jack. ‘Sometimes we talk English School politics; sometimes we criticize one another’s poems; other days we drift into theology or “the state of the nation”; rarely we fly no higher than bawdy or puns.’ By ‘bawdy’ Lewis meant not obscene stories but rather old-fashioned barrack-room jokes and songs and puns. For example, he greatly relished one of his pupils’ perfectly serious description of courtly love as ‘a vast medieval erection’, and in meetings of the Coalbiters he and the other members of that club listened with delight to scurrilous jests composed in Icelandic by Tolkien, who was a past master of bawdy in several languages. Lewis believed that to be acceptable, bawdy ‘must have nothing cruel about it. It must not approach anything near the pornographic. Within these limits I think it is a good and wholesome genre.” (Carpenter, Humphrey. The Inklings: C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien and Their Friends) |
| pun (n.) |
| 1660s (first attested in Dryden), of uncertain origin, perhaps from pundigron, which is perhaps a humorous alteration of Italian puntiglio “equivocation, trivial objection,” diminutive of Latin punctum “point.” This is pure speculation. The verb also is attested from 1660s. Related: Punned; punning. Pun was prob. one of the clipped words, such as cit, mob, nob, snob, which came into fashionable slang at or after the Restoration. [OED] |
| punster (n.) |
| c. 1700, “a low wit who endeavours at reputation by double meaning” [Johnson], from pun + -ster. |
| equivocation (n.) |
| late 14c., “fallacy of using a word in different senses at different stages of the reasoning” (a loan-translation of Greek homonymia, literally “having the same name”), from Old French equivocation, from Late Latin aequivocationem (nominative aequivocatio), noun of action from aequivocus “of identical sound, of equal voice, of equal significance, ambiguous, of like sound,” past participle of aequivocare, from aequus “equal” (see equal (adj.)) + vocare “to call” (from PIE root *wekw- “to speak”). |
We can detect a note of irreverent irony in Carpenter’s quote of Lewis in The Inklings, that is, that the world of theology and (at least these) academics, is suggested to be perhaps very different to what the layman might appreciate:
| “When some of Lewis’s teetotal American readers heard of his fondness for drinking beer, and asked him how he could square the consumption of alcohol with his Christianity, they received the reply: ‘I strongly object to the tyrannic and unscriptural insolence of anything that calls itself a Church and makes teetotalism a condition of membership. Apart from the more serious objection (that Our Lord Himself turned water into wine and made wine the medium of the only rite He imposed on all His followers), it is so provincial (what I believe you people call ‘small town”).’ Talking, rather than reading aloud, was the habit at these morning sessions in a pub. ‘The fun is often so fast and furious’, Lewis told Arthur Greeves, ‘that the company probably thinks we’re talking bawdy when in fact we’re very likely talking theology.’” (Carpenter, Humphrey. The Inklings: C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien and Their Friends) |
In the letter to his son Michael regarding male and female relations, Tolkien alludes to this bawdy company in highlighting the differences in preferences, natural inclinations and humour of men and women. Clearly Tolkien had witnessed the difference himself from personal experience.
| If they have any delusion it is that they can ‘reform’ men. They will take a rotter open-eyed, and even when the delusion of reforming him fails, go on loving him. They are, of course, much more realistic about the sexual relation. Unless perverted by bad contemporary fashions they do not as a rule talk ‘bawdy’; not because they are purer than men (they are not) but because they don’t find it funny. I have known those who pretended to, but it is a pretence. It may be intriguing, interesting, absorbing (even a great deal too absorbing) to them: but it is just plumb natural, a serious, obvious interest; where is the joke? (Letter 43 From a letter to Michael Tolkien 6-8 March 1941) |
And we mustn’t forget the incursions into bawdiness in much of his professional reading material such as the obscene Anglo Saxon riddles of the Exeter Book. The book was donated to the library of Exeter Cathedral by Leofric, the first bishop of Exeter, in 1072.
| I’m a wonderful thing, a joy to women, to neighbors useful. I injure no one who lives in a village save only my slayer. I stand up high and steep over the bed; underneath I’m shaggy. Sometimes ventures a young and handsome peasant’s daughter, a maiden proud, to lay hold on me. She seizes me, red, plunders my head, fixes on me fast, feels straightway what meeting me means when she thus approaches, a curly-haired woman. Wet is that eye. |
Answer: Onion of course.
Tolkien’s observed differences between male and female are clearly nothing new :
| “[9 July] A propos of bullfinches, did you know that they had a connexion with the noble art of brewing ale? I was looking at the Kalevala the other day – one of the books which I don’t think you have yet read? Or have you? – and I came across Runo XX, which I used to like: it deals largely with the origin of beer. When the fermentation was first managed, the beer was only in birch tubs and it foamed all over the place, and of course the heroes came and lapped it up, and got mightily drunk. Drunk was Ahti, drunk was Kauko, drunken was the ruddy rascal, with the ale of Osmo’s daughter – Kirby’s translation is funnier than the original. It was the bullfinch who then suggested to Osmo’s daughter the notion of putting the stuff in oak casks with hoops of copper and storing it in a cellar. Thus was ale at first created. . . best of drinks for prudent people; Women soon it brings to laughter. Men it warms into good humour, but it brings the fools to raving.” (Letter 75 To Christopher Tolkien) |
| I was invited to dinner with some of the faculty at Christ Church and afterwards one member asked me if the Silmarillion had a any sex, in the modern sense, in it. Next day I mentioned this to Tolkien and, to my surprise, he said that he had written a couple of sex stories, though he did not volunteer to show them to me. Readers of the Lord of the Rings know of the moving account of love between Arwen and Aragorn, and when the Silmarillion is published we shall have others of the same sort, but they are vastly different from what we call sex stories today.” [Tolkien and the Silmarillion, Clive Kilby] |
Tolkien was not lying. More elsewhere on this site.
7. Tolkien was a perfectionist- a Niggler as he put it. He spent his whole life building a persistent, self-consistent world with intense rigour. He even made changes to the publication of the Hobbit to accommodate The Lord of the Rings and preserve the artistic integrity of his world some 14 years after the first publication.
| Among my characteristics that you have not mentioned is the fact that I am a pedant devoted to accuracy, even in what may appear to others unimportant matters. (Letter 294 To Charlotte and Denis Plimmer) |
We should not take his words lightly when he says:
| The writing of The Lord of the Rings is laborious, because I have been doing it as well as I know how, and considering every word. (Letter 35 To C. A. Furth, Allen & Unwin 20 Northmoor Road, Oxford.) |
In my analysis I have also been considering every word, the etymologies of them, not because of what Tolkien wrote, but because of my own personal curiosity and love for the English language, and of course Tolkien’s world. So I naturally fell into this method of working from the start, and what I discovered very slowly over the last decade, is that Tolkien has a method, an over-arching rationale, and he is predictable. His rationale applies to everything he ever wrote, including all of his illustrations. I want to make it very clear that the predictions here do not demonstrate my talents, they demonstrate Tolkien’s. I never had any desire to be a critic. It’s only because Tolkien’s conception of his Secondary World is so elegant and his exposition is so rigorous, that I have been able to make any predictions at all.
I rely almost entirely on etymononline.com for my research. Many thanks to those guys. Without their site, my research would have been probably practically impossible! You can find a donate button on their page.
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Here are a small selection of the 55 predictions I’ve made over the last 5 years, with some slight edits to explain things. You can read the original unedited version in the linked pdf. Tolkien Predictions.
Tolkien Prediction #1. From my offered solution to the Bombadil-Goldberry riddle [It will be published on this site] I had a little moment where the penny dropped and I thought “Ahhhhh…I bet the hobbits met him [Tom Bombadil] on the 26th of a month…”. I looked it up and yes, they met him on the 26th Sept. I’ve found Tolkien uses numerology a lot.
At this point I’d worked out that Tom and Goldberry are ‘2 and 6’ from the pre-decimal currency of the ‘half a crown’.
Tolkien Prediction #2. Another prediction derived from my solution to the riddle of Bombadil-Goldberry. I posted on the Mythopoeic Society boards asking if anybody on there could provide me with a translation of Tolkien’s poem ‘I Love Sixpence’ (from the collection ‘Songs for the Philologists’). I needed his Anglo Saxon poem translated into English. Jason Fisher asked me why I wanted a translation since he said he could do it. I told him that I thought it might a have reference to a ‘wife’ and was relevant to my ideas about Bombadil and Goldberry. Someone then posted on the boards and told me that the poem was not Tolkien’s originally and he just translated it into Anglo Saxon. The poem was originally a nursery rhyme in English. I’d never even heard of this obscure poem before. As you can see it does indeed make reference to a ‘wife’. Note, the reason I thought it made reference to wife is because I think Goldberry represents Tolkien’s wife.
| I love sixpence, jolly, jolly, sixpence, I love sixpence as my life. I spent a penny of it, I spent a penny of it, I took a penny home to my wife. I love fourpence, jolly, jolly fourpence, I love fourpence as my life. I spent twopence of it, I spent twopence of it, I took twopence home to my wife. I have nothing, jolly, jolly nothing I love nothing as my life. I spent nothing of it, I spent nothing of it, I took nothing home to my wife. |
Tolkien Prediction #4 That the meaning and description for Remmirath (the Pleiades) would incorporate the meaning/ description of ‘flies’.
| GL gives no other information beyond that cited on p. 279, note 10, but compares sithagong ‘dragonfly’ (sitha ‘fly’, Sithaloth or Sithaloctha (‘fly-cluster’), the Pleiades). (The Book of Lost Tales, Part One, Appendix) |
This is an early word in the evolution of Remmirath. You often find clues to meanings in the histories of the words. This prediction was made because of my theory regarding the hidden function of the Seven Stars and Tolkien’s geometry.
Tolkien Prediction #6. That the first instance where Denethor makes the statement ‘The West has failed’ in the Lord of the Rings would contain the word or reference to ‘spirit’ in the text.
| ‘Why? Why do the fools fly?’ said Denethor. ‘Better to burn sooner than late, for burn we must. Go back to your bonfire! And I? I will go now to my pyre. To my pyre! No tomb for Denethor and Faramir. No tomb! No long slow sleep of death embalmed. We will burn like heathen kings before ever a ship sailed hither from the West. The West has failed. Go back and burn!’ The messengers without bow or answer turned and fled. Now Denethor stood up and released the fevered hand of Faramir that he had held. ‘He is burning, already burning,’ he said sadly. ‘The house of his spirit crumbles.’ Then stepping softly towards Pippin he looked down at him. |
This prediction was generated from my theory of Tolkien’s systemmatic (and predictable) use of rational planes, geometry and language change. While reading Tom Shippey’s ‘Tolkien: Author of the Century’ I read about Denethor and Théoden and how they were linked as characters according to Shippey. From his remarks I had a strong hunch that the Denethor pyre sequence incorporated one of my theories: a narrative device for the movement between rational planes. I was able to predict the appearance in the first instance of the sequence of three.
What’s more, do you think it’s a coincidence that the name Denethor is almost an anagram of Théoden? And that Denethor contains the word ‘thor’ and Théoden contains ‘oden’? Given the background and sources for Tolkien’s areas of expertise and life-long interests, I think that’s very significant. It agrees with the rationale I’m putting forward. In fact I’d argue that the two words are in fact anagrams, not just near anagrams, but you have to consider what the symbolic relation is between the accent over the ‘e’ of Théoden and the letter ‘r’ (in Denethor) in the Floral Alphabet cipher. [The letter r is in fact the Atlantean wave, the slippery slope to ruin. The leaning accent is a visual embodiment of this. You’ll have to read the next page for an explanation on how this could be true].
Tolkien Prediction #24 That each of the Seven Stars in the Valacirca were butterflies.
| From the The Book of Lost Tales I…”The passage just cited from The Silmarillion goes on to tell that it was at the time of the second star-making that Varda ‘high in the north as a challenge to Melkor set the crown of seven mighty stars to swing, Valacirca, the Sickle of the Valar and sign of doom’; but here this is denied, and a special origin is claimed for the Great Bear, whose stars were not of Varda’s contriving but were sparks that escaped from Aule’s forge. In the little notebook mentioned on p. 13, which is full of disjointed jottings and hastily noted projects, a different form of this myth appears: The Silver Sickle The seven butterflies Aule was making a silver sickle. Melko interrupted his work telling him a lie concerning the lady Palurien. Aule so wroth that he broke the sickle with a blow. Seven sparks leapt up and winged into the heavens. Varda caught them and gave them a place in the heavens as a sign of Palurien’s honour. They fly now ever in the shape of a sickle round and mund the pole.” |
I predicted this from the identification of the role of the Seven Stars and the function of the butterfly rune Dagaz.
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 Akallabeth..She That is Fallen). Shelob as ‘Her Ladyship’ is symbolic of this transformation. [Shelob symbolically captures the 7 stars in her webs at the Fall of Numenor. See previous prediction which predicted that the seven stars were originally butterflies]. I just found this in the Akallabeth..note the words ‘jewels and its 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. |
According to my research, the 7 stars are actually 7 female figures who guide the Free Peoples through the Histories. And we see this entry in the The Lord of the Rings appendices:
2 As in galadhremmin ennorath (I, 153) ‘tree-woven lands of Middle-earth’. Remmirath (I, 54) contains rem ‘mesh’,
Q. rembe, + mîr ‘jewel’.
Tar-Míriel, a Quenya name, had an approximate meaning of “Jewel-daughter”. The Adûnaic name Ar-Pharazôn gave her, Ar-Zimraphel is presumably a translation of this. Zimra- means, disputably, ‘jewel’, while -phel is possibly ‘daughter’. http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Tar-Miriel
Thus we can see that Miriel is a Queen who represents a guiding light, and those guiding lights have been captured by Shelob in her webs, and this is referred to in the line ‘jewels and webs’ at the Downfall. The downfallen Woman is ‘She That is Fallen’.
The quote that Tolkien refers to is in BOOK II, Chapter 1, Many Meetings:
| Even as they stepped over the threshold a single clear voice rose in song. A Elbereth Gilthoniel, silivren penna míriel o menel aglar elenath! Na-chaered palan-díriel o galadhremmin ennorath, Fanuilos, le linnathon nef aear, sí nef aearon! |
| Frodo halted for a moment, looking back. Elrond was in his chair and the fire was on his fa like summer-light upon the trees. Near him sat the Lady Arwen. To his surprise Frodo saw that Aragorn stood beside her; his dark cloak was thrown back, and he seemed to be clad in elven-mail, and a star shone on his breast. They spoke together, and then suddenly it seemed to Frodo that Arwen turned towards him, and the light of her eyes fell on him from afar and pierced his heart. He stood still enchanted, while the sweet syllables of the elvish song fell like clear jewels of blended word and melody. `It is a song to Elbereth,’ said Bilbo. `They will sing that, and other songs of the Blessed Realm, many times tonight. Come on!’ |
The prediction relies on a geometrical transformation where the world turns on its head at The Fall of Numenor. The meaning of the word ‘web’ is etymologically a tapestry of course but the implication is that Shelob weaves tapestries of Death. To explain…the Queen Tar-Miriel is symbolic of all Womankind. The Star of Numenor is in fact Stella Maris, the Virgin Mary as representative of all Womankind (Tolkien’s mother, Edith his wife, etc) Stars are referred to as both flowers and jewels. Tar-Miriel means Jewel-Daughter. In a long story arc (actually a circle/cycle) Tar Miriel is in fact an ‘echo’ of Feanor’s mother Miriel who was known as ‘Serinde’ ‘the Broideress. Shelob is the broideress of the Fallen world of the Lord of the Rings.
Tolkien Prediction #29.
That ‘squaring the circle’ is incorporated into Tolkien’s symbolism and geometry. In Tolkien’s (sacred) geometry the Square = Male. The Circle = Female as is evinced in his heraldic designs. The process and symbolism of ‘squaring the circle’ can be found in his geometry in a number of places. I stumbled across Hippocrates’ moons and immediately recognized the design for Luthien. . From this I’m beginning to formulate an understanding of the role of the moon and its phases in The Lord of the Rings.
Tolkien prediction no. #40
That the etymology of the word ‘manner’ gives us hand.
| manner (n.) |
| c. 1200, manere, “kind, sort, variety,” from Anglo-French manere, Old French maniere “fashion, method, manner, way; appearance, bearing; custom” (12c., Modern French manière), from Vulgar Latin *manaria (source of Spanish manera, Portuguese maneira, Italian maniera), from fem. of Latin manuarius “belonging to the hand,” from manus “hand” (from PIE root *man- (2) “hand”). The French word also was borrowed by Dutch (manier), German (manier), Swedish (maner). Meaning “customary practice” is from c. 1300. Senses of “way of doing something; a personal habit or way of doing; way of conducting oneself toward others” are from c. 1300. Meaning “specific nature, form, way something happens” is mid-14c. Of literature, art, etc., “way in which a work is made or executed,” from 1660s. Most figurative meanings derive from the original sense “method of handling” which was extended when the word was used to translate Latin modus “method.” Phrase manner of speaking is recorded from 1530s. To the manner born (“Hamlet” I iv.15) sometimes is used incorrectly; it means “accustomed by birth to be subject to the practice,” but the noun is sometimes understood as manor (which formerly also was spelled manner). |
In my analysis of the Fall of Denethor, in Tolkien’s geometry the right and left hands are symbolic of the opposite and adjacent sides of the triangle. Boromir is the right hand. Faramir is the left. From Denethor’s words to Faramir “‘That depends on the manner of your return,’This is the same symbolism which Tolkien first sets out when, in the Music of the Ainur, Iluvatar responds to the discords of Melkor with his left and right hands. This links with Prediction #7.
There are a very large number of new ideas to digest on this blog. All of which will be addressed and discussed on this site. I’ve made 55 (now 72) predictions from my understanding, and they cover a very wide spectrum, from predicting the appearance of specific words in specific places in the narrative, predicting the etymologies of words because of the surrounding context of the text and the underlying symbolism and structures. Predictions involving numerology, genealogies, and language elements. You won’t find this anywhere else because a) no one else has studied the etymologies of Tolkien’s texts so forensically in the same way for so long, and b) I just happened by sheer LUCK to spot the patterns in the Akallabeth ten years ago. I refer to that in the opening on this page. In the next page I’ll begin to explain WHY Tolkien is predictable. I’ll look at the fundamental principles of how he constructed and invented his languages.
STOP PRESS!!…
The time here now in the UK is 17:28, 29/12/19. Last night I bought Priya Seth’s ‘Breaking the Tolkien Code’. It’s an amazing book and one of the most insightful ever written on Tolkien. My other top favourite being ‘Alchemy in Middle-Earth’ by Mahmoud Shelton. At this moment of posting this I’ve been skimming through and have arrived at page 155. Here’s my prediction….
Tolkien Prediction #54
That the 4th letter in Priya Seth’s ‘Tolkien Code’ (Seth, Priya. Breaking the Tolkien Code) would be the letter ‘T’.
| “Whatever term one uses to describe the type of riddle – it is clear that the last letter of ‘The Tolkien Code’ is the letter ‘T’.” (p 165) |
Correct!
I was reading through the book today. At page 155 we already had 3 letter ‘R’, ‘R’, ‘R’. And I read:
| “The Professor was very careful with his words and so it is important that they are precisely paid heed to. As such it will help establish the answer to the fourth letter of ‘The Tolkien Code’.” |
I knew that Tolkien was incorporating his monogram into the map on a large scale. I also knew that the two Rs represented the two Rs in the monogram and the line that runs through the Moria sequence is the same line that runs down his monogram along the letter T, which is flanked by the two Rs. I also knew that there were 3 references to wrath in the Moria sequence, and that the letter ‘r’ is ‘wrath’ from my understanding of the Floral Alphabet rebus. And reading that there was a 4th letter, I immediately knew that Tolkien had incorporated his initials into the anagram sequence that Seth had found.
But where is the letter ‘J’ you ask?
One of the letters should be ‘J’. I have yet to finish the book so perhaps Seth will correct this. The letter ‘J’ represents the Dragon and the oak. The oak is the Devil (Lit from his poem Lit and Lang in Songs for the Philologists), – as is the Balrog of course. The figures representing the Enemy are all interchangeable all having the same root in the Devil. The two holly trees at the West Gate are veiled references to the oak:
| holly (n.) |
| evergreen shrub especially used for decoration at Christmas, mid-15c., earlier holin (mid-12c.), shortening of Old English holegn, holen “holly,” from Proto-Germanic *hulin- (source also of Old Saxon, Old High German hulis, Old Norse hulfr, Middle Dutch huls, Dutch, German hulst “holly”), cognate with Middle Irish cuilenn, Welsh celyn, Gaelic cuilionn “holly,” probably all from PIE root *kel- (5) “to prick” (source also of Old Church Slavonic kolja “to prick,” Russian kolos “ear of corn”), in reference to its leaves. French houx “holly” is from Frankish *huls or some other Germanic source. |
| ilex (n.) |
| “evergreen oak,” late 14c., from Latin ilex “holm-oak, great scarlet oak,” perhaps from an extinct non-Indo-European language. |
And furthermore, the Moria sequence takes place in the Misty Mountains, and the Misty Mountains are actually the dragon Ancalagon. Ancalagon is the Enemy and as such is the oak. The map is a medieval symbolic landscape. And the dragon IS the letter J in the monogram, that being the Enemy.
I skimmed forward and found:
Whatever term one uses to describe the type of riddle – it is clear that the last letter of ‘The Tolkien Code’ is the letter ‘T’.
Correct!
What’s more she arrives at her solution to the fourth letter using geometry. The very same geometry that underpins everything in my theories. To reiterate the top of this page:
The following predictions were generated and derived from my theory of Geometry, Rational Planes and Time and Space within Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. The geometry within his works is accompanied by a device called THE TURN.
Tolkien Prediction #55
First off. Now having only skimmed through this book in hours I’m wondering whether I understood correctly in saying in the previous prediction that she had the first 3 letters as RRR at the point of page 155 when she revealed there was a 4th letter. I didn’t know that there were 4 letters in her anagram and I thought that the first three had been the letter ‘R’ up until I read page 155. I may have been mistaken. But I definitely did think she had made an error and was waiting for her to correct it or explain it. I was waiting for her to correct one of the letter Rs to a J.
Referring to my statement about the letter J in the previous prediction being the correct letter and asking whether Seth would correct her ‘mistake’. I need now to go back through the book and check what it says regarding that letter up until page 155.
……….and here you go at p 213..still reading here…
| “The four letters assigned to the four different riddles that revolve around the Balrog spell out the initials of the author’s name: J : for Jigsaw Riddle R : for Rearrangement Riddle R : for Rearrangement Riddle T : for Trigonometric Riddle. “ |
I’ll be back shortly…with clarification. posted 18:11 29/12/19
I’m back…18:36…I needed to check that my assumption by page 155 was correct or not..that so far we had 3 letter Rs…I’ve been skimming the book at fair speed and I missed this on p 54:
| “Yes the ‘Book of Mazarbul’ was the second example (intended to be within the original release of the trilogy) to use that technique. As such it helps to establish the first letter of ‘The Tolkien Code’. And that letter I conclude to be ‘J’ for ‘Jigsaw riddle’. “ |
So I was actually wrong that the first 3 of her letters were R, I missed that J. But as I said I had been skimming at fair speed through it today.
I missed that…but my understanding still enabled me to suggest the ‘correction’ and to predict that her last letter would be T..don’t forget I thought that there were 3 letter Rs at that point (in my misunderstanding). What’s more I didn’t know that there were 4 letters. I missed a lot of stuff. So up until p 155 as far as I was understanding her book, from the 3 letter Rs that I thought she had, I was able to a) suggest the correction of one of the letter Rs to J and b) once I read she had a 4th letter on p 155 to predict her 4th letter to be T. Again, once I knew at p 155 that she had a 4th letter I knew that it was Tolkien’s initials because Tolkien encodes his initials into the map in his symbolic landscape. The vertical stem of the letter ‘T’ in his monogram runs through the Moria passage, right through the east side of Moria on the map. There is a mirror that runs through the Chamber of Mazarbul because of the two Rs back to back in the monogram which run through the passage. The exact plane of the mirror can be found in the text at the end of Gandalf reading the Book of Mazarbul. There are 8 points of symmetry to either side.
In addition, I might disagree that the source of those initials is from the words ‘jigsaw’, ‘rearrangement’ and ‘trigonometric’. Rather, I would certainly say they are from the geometry which is in the map which runs through the Misty Mountains and the Moria sequence. The geometry is bound up with the monogram which appears in the map. The monogram IS the landscape because it’s a symbolic landscape. However, I will have to read Seth’s reasoning again more closely before I commit to any conclusion. I was only skimming through yesterday. It’s quite possible that the two reasons are not mutually exclusive. I’ll update this prediction once I’ve read those sections properly.
Tolkien Prediction #56 posted 22:35 29/12/19
That ‘waggon’ has its root in *wegh.
Why? From Seth’s identification of the anagram “TAKE MR T 4 A WAG”
| “In translating the dwarven runes [from the third facsimile page], the following letters and number at the start of each of the 12 lines8 are: W, T, A, R, M, G, A, 4, A, K, E, T Anagrammatic rearrangement provides, yet again, another remarkable statement: “TAKE MR T 4 A WAG”” Seth, Priya. Breaking the Tolkien Code (p. 208) |
Having looked at the etymology of wag before even getting half way through reading the definition I realized that waggon would share the same root. It’s not one of my best predictions but here’s how I made it.
The Wain in Iarwain refers to the Great Wain. The Great Wain is Bombadil as Space. He travels round round in circles (like the Great Wain around Polaris)- which is characterized by the etymology of wag:
| wag (v.) early 13c. (intransitive), “waver, vacillate, lack steadfastness,” probably from a Scandinavian source (compare Old Norse vagga “a cradle,” Danish vugge “rock a cradle,” Old Swedish wagga “fluctuate, rock” a cradle), and in part from Old English wagian “move backwards and forwards;” all from Proto-Germanic *wag- (source also of Old High German weggen, Gothic wagjan “to wag”), probably from PIE root *wegh- “to go, move, transport in a vehicle.” Transitive meaning “move (something) back and forth or up and down” is from c. 1300; of dogs and their tails from mid-15c.: “and whanne they [hounds] see the hure maystre they wol make him cheere and wagge hur tayles upon him.” [Edward, Duke of York, “The Master of Game,” 1456]. Related: Wagged; wagging. Wag-at-the-wall (1825) was an old name for a hanging clock with pendulum and weights exposed. |
| *wegh- |
| Proto-Indo-European root meaning “to go, move, transport in a vehicle.” The root wegh-, “to convey, especially by wheeled vehicle,” is found in virtually every branch of Indo-European, including now Anatolian. The root, as well as other widely represented roots such as aks- and nobh-, attests to the presence of the wheel — and vehicles using it — at the time Proto-Indo-European was spoken. [Watkins, p. 96] It forms all or part of: always; away; convection; convey; convex; convoy; deviate; devious; envoy; evection; earwig; foy; graywacke; impervious; invective; inveigh; invoice; Norway; obviate; obvious; ochlocracy; ogee; pervious; previous; provection; quadrivium; thalweg; trivia; trivial; trivium; vector; vehemence; vehement; vehicle; vex; via; viaduct; viatic; viaticum; vogue; voyage; wacke; wag; waggish; wagon; wain; wall-eyed; wave (n.); way; wee; weigh; weight; wey; wiggle. It is the hypothetical source of/evidence for its existence is provided by: Sanskrit vahati “carries, conveys,” vahitram, vahanam “vessel, ship;” Avestan vazaiti “he leads, draws;” Greek okhos “carriage, chariot;” Latin vehere “to carry, convey,” vehiculum “carriage, chariot;” Old Church Slavonic vesti “to carry, convey,” vozŭ “carriage, chariot;” Russian povozka “small sled;” Lithuanian vežu, vežti “to carry, convey,” važis “a small sled;” Old Irish fecht “campaign, journey,” fen “carriage, cart;” Welsh gwain “carriage, cart;” Old English wegan “to carry;” Old Norse vegr, Old High German weg “way;” Middle Dutch wagen “wagon.” |
To waver is a fundamental theme in Tolkien and it is symbolized by the two horns of the bull which are found throughout the Mazarbul riddle. You can see the giant wheel ruts of the wain in the Bombadil passage at both extreme ends of the narrative sequence which are from the rotating waggon. The waggon rotates around the Axis Mundi which is aligned with Time, Goldberry. In other words Tolkien-Bombadil’s world revolves around his wife Edith-Goldberry. Bombadil as Space is characterized as going round and around in circles like the Anglo Saxon Wanderer. That equates to a vacillating to and fro, never getting anywhere. If viewed two dimensionally without Time, the rotation is indeed ‘there and back again’ (c.f my Bombadil riddle solution elsewhere). He needs Goldberry to give him direction and take the rotation of the circle into a spiral upwards along the timeline. You can see the same behaviour in the Moon which is described as wayward. The etymology of ‘way’ gives us the same root and forms Prediction #36 ‘That the etymological root of the English word ‘way’ is weg from from the same PIE root *wegh- as ‘wag’ and ‘waggon’.’ Bombadil is Tolkien and Tolkien is the Moon: Tolkien-Righthand-Space-Bombadil-Moon-etc. We can translate this to mean that without Edith in his life he would disappear into his introverted world of languages and secret codes without any purpose.
So through this understanding, yes, Tolkien is a wag.
And of course Tolkien is also fond of fooling around, word play and riddling like Bombadil.
| wag (n.1) |
| “person fond of making jokes,” 1550s, perhaps a shortening of waghalter “gallows bird,” person destined to swing in a noose or halter, applied humorously to mischievous children, from wag (v.) + halter. Or possibly directly from wag (v.); compare wagger “one who stirs up or agitates” (late 14c.). |
We can also see the reference in the etymology of wag in the Duke of York to Bombadil-Tolkien:
| “of dogs and their tails from mid-15c.: “and whanne they [hounds] see the hure maystre they wol make him cheere and wagge hur tayles upon him.” [Edward, Duke of York, “The Master of Game,” 1456]” |
It’s quite possible Tolkien knew this reference. The vacillation can be seen in the famous rhyme ‘The Grand old Duke of York’ who famously marched his men to the top of the hill and marched them down again..for no good reason, echoes the futility of the Wanderer. Tolkien The Master of Game, the riddle game just as Bombadil is Master. The little man in ‘A Secret Vice’ is Tolkien himself. He is the hunt master. Tolkien is also the fox. There is a competition regarding who is the fox and who is hunter. Tolkien’s peers and critics think he is foolish and speaks gibberish. The literary establishment think that his writing is poor. The real fox is the Hunt Master Tolkien and this is why we have the hunting theme in the Moria passage and why trail features in one of Seth’s anagrams: HIDDEN TRAILS ! NOW ??
| 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. |
Javelin gives us spear which is what Frodo is hunted with.
| javelin (n.) |
| late 15c., from Middle French javeline (15c.), fem. diminutive of Old French javelot “a spear” (12c.), probably from Gaulish or another Celtic source (compare Old Irish gabul “fork;” Welsh gafl “fork,” gaflach “feathered spear”), from Celtic *gablakko-, from PIE *ghabholo- “a fork, branch of a tree.” Also found in Italian (giavelotto) and Middle High German (gabilot). Javelot itself was borrowed in Middle English (mid-15c.), but this is the form of the word that has endured. |
The fork also appears throughout the Moria passage.
The fox makes an appearance in the Lord of the Rings three times. This is the moment where Tolkien begins his secret grammar, and the fox makes its first appearance as both Tolkien and the reader/critic who has been fooled. And he foreshadows the ‘crackling’ pages of the Book of Mazarbul:
| Just over the top of the hill they came on the patch of fir-wood. Leaving the road they went into the deep resin-scented darkness of the trees, and gathered dead sticks and cones to make a fire. Soon they had a merry crackle of flame at the foot of a large fir-tree and they sat round it for a while, until they began to nod. Then, each in an angle of the great tree’s roots, they curled up in their cloaks and blankets, and were soon fast asleep. They set no watch; even Frodo feared no danger yet, for they were still in the heart of the Shire. A few creatures came and looked at them when the fire had died away. A fox passing through the wood on business of his own stopped several minutes and sniffed. ‘Hobbits!’ he thought. ‘Well, what next? I have heard of strange doings in this land, but I have seldom heard of a hobbit sleeping out of doors under a tree. Three of them! There’s something mighty queer behind this.’ He was quite right, but he never found out any more about it. (The Lord of the Rings. Book I, Chapter 3 Three is Company) |
The secret geometric grammar is hinted at in ” Then, each in an angle of the great tree’s roots, they curled up ” and “sleeping out of doors under a tree“.
01/01/20: After thinking about Seth’s book a bit more I’ve arrived at some conclusions about the meanings of the anagrams and how they relate to Tolkien’s geometry. I’ve posted the review I gave her book on Amazon, and I’ll be posting some more analysis of it over the next days. 02/01/20: Here’s my first response: A Response to Priya Seth’s ‘Breaking the Tolkien Code’.
Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.
And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. [1 Corinthians 13:1-2.]