Tolkien and Iron

[EllethValatari]

Okay, I know that Tolkien in now way wanted his writings on Middle Earth to be allegorical. As Patrick Curry wrote,

I am aware, of course, that Tolkien’s fiction cannot be reduced to his views. Nonetheless it is idle to pretend that those views are not in his fiction and cannot be inferred from it, together with his letters and essays.

However, I am fascinated by his use of the word "iron," I think that he perhaps used iron in a way that agreed with his disinclination towards modernity.

About two minutes ago I was looking up a quote to present in this thread and (for the second time) came across an essay by Patrick Curry, the man quoted above. He presents this fascination with Tolkien's use of iron much better than I would, so here is the link to the essay:

Click here

Any comments?

[Gwaimir Windgem]

Iron certainly has a number of connotations in Tolkien: hard, cruel, strong. Most prominent, probably, is the connotation of power, and especially of domination. While this is certainly connected to Tolkien's Luddite tendencies, we must remember that iron has been a source of power for a very, very long time.

I suspect that the mentioned mythic protective ability of iron derives from its connotation of power and strength, and should not necessarily be seen as "positive." It is important to recall that the supernatural in fairy stories is much more ambiguous than people tend to think, and I would consider this a case of fighting fire with fire. It would be interesting to take a closer look at this understanding of iron, though.

Out of curiosity, where did you get this article?

[Varnafindë]

Whereas the few Elvish and Mannish crowns that Tolkien describes are made of gold or silver, the ultimate Enemy in Tolkien's world - Morgoth - wears an Iron Crown.

[GrayMouser]

Very interesting. On a historical note, one of the major causes of the great deforestation of Britain from the 16th to 19th Century was the demand for charcoal for iron smelting- first in England, then Wales, Scotland, and Ireland. In 1558 an "Act that Timber shall not be felled to make Coals for Burning of Iron" was passed, but didn't do much good.
From "The Energy Question":

"From about 1600 on iron was shipped to Ireland for smelting. The woodland destruction was immense and became a theme for lament in Irish poetry. The Welsh and Scottish forests were also devastated to provide fuel for English ironmasters."

And an updated lament, from The Men They Couldn't Hang:

Oh this is an old story that's rarely ever told
the raping of the country, of the valley
the men who came to reap with a musket and a bible
they wanted to take the valley
the valley! the valley!
they wanted to take the valley
and oh the ironmasters, they always get their way

The Bible reference - tying back into Max Weber, Protestantism, and the Spirit of Capitalism- was to these usually being English Protestants exploiting Catholic Ireland and the mostly Catholic Scottish Highlands.

Ironically, it was the switch to fossil fuels that was responsible for the great reforestattion of the British Isles, Northern Europe, Eastern North America, and Japan during the 20th Century.

Beyond that, the only hope we have is that “evil will oft evil mars”. We are now
fast approaching the day when the last tonne of fossilised coal is burnt and nature – the
fons et origo, deified/ personified as Venus-Aphrodite, of autonomous enchantment –
will reassert herself against Nature plc, an insensible set of external manageable
resources to be manipulated by power-knowledge

Given that approaching day, I'm afraid that the great reassertion of Aphrodite is more likely to leave us resembling Ethiopia or Somalia (or a post-Saruman Fangorn) than Lothlorien.

[GrayMouser]

As well, I would question the wholly positive spin on "enchantment" given here. Yes, Lorien was an enchanted land, but so was Sleeping Beauty's Castle, the Underworld controlled by the Lady of the Green Kirtle, the island of Circe and the "elfin grot" of La Belle Dame Sans Merci.

One of the common themes in Faerie is that entering into the Enchanted Realm, while indeed wonderful, can also be very dangerous- you may not be able to get back.
To me it would seem that Enchantment, like Magic, can also be used (or abused) as a form of power.

Though this ties into his Mars/Venus dichotomy- it's surely no coincidence that the word "enchantress"- but not "enchanter"- survives in common usage.

And iron- often referred to as "cold iron"or "cold steel"- is often used to cut through the web of enchantment- IIRC, this is a pretty common happening in the more masculine-oriented fantasy of Sword and Sorcery- usually some hulk like Conan whipping out his trusty sword and destroying a spell and bringing things back of the "real world". Because, in spite of all the magicians , Elder Gods and assorted weird beasties floating around, the actual background world of S&S is always prosaic- one of the features that distinguishes it from High Fantasy.

You can see this in Tolkien in the unease felt by Boromir and the Rohirrim -very cold steel, broad daylight types of guys- toward the Lady of the Golden Wood and 'net-weavers and sorcerers' who may be associated with her. In LOTR, with its straightforward Good/Evil distinction, they're simply mistaken, of course.

" 'Perilous, indeed', said Aragorn, 'fair and perilous, but only evil need fear it, or those who bring some evil with them.' "

Well, maybe...but you might want to keep that piece of iron handy....

[EllethValatari]

Originally Posted by Gwaimir Windgem

Out of curiosity, where did you get this article?

When I went to start this post, I was looking up a quote, and for the second time came across his essay. I have a folder on my desktop filled with essays that I come across and don't want to forget; I often end up quoting them in essays. Anyways, I decided to post his as conversation starter, since I had a limited amount of information.

Back to Tolkien and Iron, I wanted to point out a couple of things:

1. In my signature, a quote from Tolkien's On Faerie-Stories,

We have come from God, and inevitably the myths woven by us, though they contain error, will also reflect a splintered fragment of the true light, the eternal truth that is with God. Our myths may be misguided, but they steer however shakily towards the true harbour, while materialistic 'progress' leads only to a yawning abyss and the Iron Crown of the power of evil.

2. A couple of excerpts from Tolkien's Mythopoeia,

Paragraph 6:
Blessed are the men of Noah's race that build
their little arks, though frail and poorly filled,
and steer through winds contrary towards a wraith,
a rumour of a harbour guessed by faith.

Paragraph 7:
Blessed are the legend-makers with their rhyme
of things not found within recorded time.
It is not they that have forgot the Night,
or bid us flee to organized delight,
in lotus-isles of economic bliss
forswearing souls to gain a Circe-kiss
(and counterfeit at that, machine-produced,
bogus seduction of the twice-seduced).

Paragraph 8:
I will not walk with your progressive apes,
erect and sapient. Before them gapes
the dark abyss to which their progress tends
if by God's mercy progress ever ends,
and does not ceaselessly revolve the same
unfruitful course with changing of a name.
I will not treat your dusty path and flat,
denoting this and that by this and that,
your world immutable wherein no part
the little maker has with maker's art.
I bow not yet before the Iron Crown,
nor cast my own small golden sceptre down.

Sorry about the long post, but I wanted to post the whole stanza for context.

First, in the 1st reference,

Our myths may be misguided, but they steer however shakily towards the true harbour

and in the second,

Blessed are the men of Noah's race that build
their little arks, though frail and poorly filled,
and steer through winds contrary towards a wraith,
a rumour of a harbour guessed by faith.

In both of these he speaks of ships and harbors; ships that represent myths and man's creative works, and the true harbor, found through faith. In his fictional works, the immortal elves depart in ships to Valinor, while we rarely find evil beings in ships. "Noah arks" would have to be made of wood, and they were made by people, not machines.

This and their good connotation makes sense because in paragraph 7 he clearly says,
and counterfeit at that, machine-produced

In addition to the good connotation of wood and naturally made things, you have the event in LoTR when Saruman tears down part of Fanghorn Forest (wood) to burn and use to build weapons (iron).

Secondly, in the first reference,
while materialistic 'progress' leads only to a yawning abyss and the Iron Crown of the power of evil.

and in Paragraph 8,

I will not walk with your progressive apes,
erect and sapient. Before them gapes
the dark abyss to which their progress tends
if by God's mercy progress ever ends,
and does not ceaselessly revolve the same

I bow not yet before the Iron Crown,
nor cast my own small golden sceptre down.

These are both more clear...progress is obviously a very bad thing in his mind, it leads to a yawning and dark abyss. And, in both he speaks of this "Iron Crown," which Morgoth also wears and it looks like represents progress. But then again, are his views, essays, and fictional writings really that coherent?

[GrayMouser]

Kipling, in Puck of Pook's Hill, parts of which I vaguely remember reading years ago, writes of the aversion of Faerie to iron:

But you told us last year, in the Long Slip — when we met you — that you didn’t mind Cold Iron,’ said Dan.

‘I don’t; but folk in housen, as the People of the Hills call them, must be ruled by Cold Iron. Folk in housen are born on the near side of Cold Iron — there’s iron in every man’s house, isn’t there? They handle Cold Iron every day of their lives, and their fortune’s made or spoilt by Cold Iron in some shape or other. That’s how it goes with Flesh and Blood, and one can’t prevent it.’
......

‘Well, Sir Huon was young when that song was new. But about tricks on mortal babies. I said to Sir Huon in the fern here, on just such a morning as this: "If you crave to act and influence on folk in housen, which I know is your desire, why don’t you take some human cradle-babe by fair dealing, and bring him up among yourselves on the far side of Cold Iron — as Oberon did in time past? Then you could make him a splendid fortune, and send him out into the world?"

‘"Time past is past time," says Sir Huon. "I doubt if we could do it. For one thing, the babe would have to be taken without wronging man, woman or child. For another, he’d have to be born on the far side of Cold Iron — in some house where no Cold Iron ever stood,— and for yet the third, he’d have to be kept from Cold Iron all his days till we let him find his fortune. No, it’s not easy," he said, and he rode off, thinking. You see, Sir Huon had been a man once.

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Reward...ld_Iron_(story)

For another take, see Kipling's poem "Cold Iron" where iron, representing the power of force and conquest, is transformed into the power of Redemption; the iron being from the nails of the Crucifixion (which, as Curry notes, was supposed to be the source of band on the Iron Crown of Lombardy).

http://www.kipling.org.uk/poems_coldiron.htm

[GrayMouser]

These are both more clear...progress is obviously a very bad thing in his mind, it leads to a yawning and dark abyss. And, in both he speaks of this "Iron Crown," which Morgoth also wears and it looks like represents progress. But then again, are his views, essays, and fictional writings really that coherent?

Certainly I think on the whole issue of technology, progress, and modernity he was pretty coherent- he didn't like it. I think what makes his opposition to it so forceful is that it is a double-fronted attack, not only against Christianity- at least in his view- but also against the world of myth and legend, i.e. the two things he loved the most.

[EllethValatari]

Originally Posted by GrayMouser

Certainly I think on the whole issue of technology, progress, and modernity he was pretty coherent- he didn't like it. I think what makes his opposition to it so forceful is that it is a double-fronted attack, not only against Christianity- at least in his view- but also against the world of myth and legend, i.e. the two things he loved the most.

Nice point, and now that I think about it, I think it is understandable how progress, in his mind, was an attack against Christianity and faerie.

Think of it this way. Science, in his day and age, was becoming more and more secular. Up until the past few centuries, the majority of European scientists had a Christian worldview, and the people believed that if their discoveries did not coincide with their Christian beliefs, they were heretical. For example, when Galileo's heliocentrism was declared "false and contrary to Scripture" by the Catholic church, he was put under house arrest. However, now, and when Tolkien was alive, science does not and did not have to go along with the teachings of the Church; in fact it now contradicts them. All that to say, if progress is the result of scientific discoveries, then yes, it is an attack against Christianity.

As for faerie, it is a bit simpler. The more we discover through science, the more we can explain. The more we can explain, the less ambiguity there is in the world. The less ambiguity there is, the more absurd absurd things become. It's just as "impossible" for God to have made something out of nothing as it is for there to be a place called Middle Earth. Both Christianity and Faerie are absurdities, and they are both attacked by science/progress; but that's where faith comes in.

[BeardofPants]

But if you were to perceive science as an attack against christianity, then you would be fundamentally misunderstanding what science is, and what it is used for. It is simply a tool, used to develop theories; it is not intended to be used as an attack on the sky father.

[Gwaimir Windgem]

Originally Posted by EllethValatari

These are both more clear...progress is obviously a very bad thing in his mind, it leads to a yawning and dark abyss. And, in both he speaks of this "Iron Crown," which Morgoth also wears and it looks like represents progress. But then again, are his views, essays, and fictional writings really that coherent?

I don't think the Iron Crown represents progress; the first of these two quotes lay down the relation more exactly. Progress leads to the Iron Crown, rather than being the same. The Iron Crown is itself "the power of evil," which I think could be equated with domination, and which Curry certainly seems to want to do.

However, now, and when Tolkien was alive, science does not and did not have to go along with the teachings of the Church; in fact it now contradicts them.

I think that claim is rather dubious; science cannot contradict Christianity, or vice versa. Both belong to different spheres of reality.

Did Tolkien see progress specifically as an attack on Christianity, or simply on an older mythical view of the world, in which Christianity could be included? I don't recall any statements that it was against Christianity as such, but it's been a v. long time since I've read the Letters or anything along those lines.

[EllethValatari]

Originally Posted by BeardofPants

But if you were to perceive science as an attack against christianity, then you would be fundamentally misunderstanding what science is, and what it is used for. It is simply a tool, used to develop theories; it is not intended to be used as an attack on the sky father.

Yes, a tool. Remember though, as GrayMouser pointed out about Magic, a tool can be used or abused as a form of power; therefore not simply a tool.

As for it being used to develop theories, that is a nice thought. But I don't believe there are many scientists out there who would describe their discoveries as theories. When I went to the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, and walked along the wall upon which progressed the evolution of mankind, nowhere did it say that this evolution is only a theory.

The government chooses to force-feed the theory of evolution into the people's mouths, and it contradicts the teachings of the Bible; it contradicts Christianity. Despite that fact, in claiming to have proven something like evolution, or even the non-existence of a certain animal, scientists are attacking Christianity; they are attacking God. Universal affirmative and negatives are very tricky statements, and most are known only to Him.

[EllethValatari]

Originally Posted by GrayMouser

"From about 1600 on iron was shipped to Ireland for smelting. The woodland destruction was immense and became a theme for lament in Irish poetry. The Welsh and Scottish forests were also devastated to provide fuel for English ironmasters."

I find this very interesting, because it reminds me of something I read about Tolkien a long time ago. Is is not true that as a child he loved to look at the names on the trains that passed by; mostly Welsh and Irish? A lot of his inspiration for Middle Earth and the Elvish language came from his childhood...right? Does anyone have a reference or am I just tired?

[EllethValatari]

Originally Posted by Gwaimir Windgem

I think that claim is rather dubious; science cannot contradict Christianity, or vice versa. Both belong to different spheres of reality.

Third post...sorry if it's supposed to be all in one.

What do you mean by "different spheres of reality?" What I believe religiously is what I believe scientifically and theoretically-do you separate those things?

[BeardofPants]

ONLY a theory? Do you know what the scientific definition of theory is?

[GrayMouser]

Originally Posted by EllethValatari

As for it being used to develop theories, that is a nice thought. But I don't believe there are many scientists out there who would describe their discoveries as theories. When I went to the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, and walked along the wall upon which progressed the evolution of mankind, nowhere did it say that this evolution is only a theory.

The government chooses to force-feed the theory of evolution into the people's mouths, and it contradicts the teachings of the Bible; it contradicts Christianity. Despite that fact, in claiming to have proven something like evolution, or even the non-existence of a certain animal, scientists are attacking Christianity; they are attacking God. Universal affirmative and negatives are very tricky statements, and most are known only to Him.

You have to be careful here with the distinction between the everyday use of 'theory' and the scientific definition:

1.a coherent group of general propositions used as principles of explanation for a class of phenomena: Einstein's theory of relativity.

2. a proposed explanation whose status is still conjectural, in contrast to well-established propositions that are regarded as reporting matters of actual fact.

Number 2 is the one in popular use: the detective has a theory about who committed the crime.

No.1 is the scientific version, and includes not only the Theories of Evolution
and Relativity but also the Atomic Theory of matter, the Germ Theory of disease, the Molecular Theory of chemistry, the Plate Tectonic Theory of geology, Newton's Theory of Universal Gravitation, the Genetic Theory of biological inheritance and so on.

Having a theory is what makes a science a science; a scientist who makes a discovery tests it against the theory. If the new discovery is well-founded ( testable and repeatable by other scientists) it's either incorporated into the theory or sits there as a challenge to it, which must sooner or later be explained. Sometimes the challenges to the existing theory become so overwhelming that the theory is overturned-the heliocentric system replaces the geocentric; the oxygen theory of combustion replaces phlogiston; the theory of evolution replaces special creation.

Note that all these challenges are brought by scientists operating within the scientific community- they don't come from people running for local school boards and demanding their pet beliefs be taught.

[GrayMouser]

Originally Posted by Gwaimir Windgem

I

I think that claim is rather dubious; science cannot contradict Christianity, or vice versa. Both belong to different spheres of reality...

I've been meaning to post on this using creationism as an example but thought it was going a little OT- but since the OP lead the way....

That depends on what truth-claims Christianity makes about the natural world. To a Biblical literalist, the claims of science contradict the claims of Scripture and must be wrong. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the Catholic Church's position is that it's impossible for science to be incompatible with faith, because God created the Universe based on reason and natural law.

This is evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould's Non-Overlapping Magesteria (NOMA):

"the magisterium of science covers the empirical realm: what the Universe is made of (fact) and why does it work in this way (theory). The magisterium of religion extends over questions of ultimate meaning and moral value. These two magisteria do not overlap, nor do they encompass all inquiry (consider, for example, the magisterium of art and the meaning of beauty)."[1]

Ahhh, late for class. Later.

[GrayMouser]

Which I actually don't agree with...it seems to me that the central point of Christianity is based on a miracle, and therefore conflicts with science. What would Jesus's DNA reveal? OK, that's only semi-serious, but still the essence of Christian belief is, is it not, a supernatural intrusion into the natural world?
And therefore makes a claim about the world that could be subject to verification?
........

From Eliath's quoting of the Myhopoeia, this looks to be a reference to evolution:

'I will not walk with your progressive apes,
erect and sapient.'


At that time Java Man [I]Homo erectus[/Iwas still known as Pithicanthropus erectus](discovered 1891)

[Coffeehouse]

I don't usually do this but...

GreyMouser, you're a fountain of wisdom (and knowledge)! I haven't chipped in on this thread yet but I've been reading it and learned a lot. Thanx all. *Waves his hand* *BBC-accent*, Now continue please!

[GrayMouser]

Originally Posted by Coffeehouse

I don't usually do this but...

GreyMouser, you're a fountain of wisdom (and knowledge)!

Thanx. It's amazing what Wiki can do for your reputation