Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Origin of animals (was Re: Huan the Maia? thanks!) References: <63Qt4.6896$YG.486987@bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net> X-Newsreader: trn 4.0-test70 (17 January 1999) From: sbjensen@midway.uchicago.edu (Steuard Jensen) Lines: 88 Message-ID: Date: Sun, 27 Feb 2000 09:28:02 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 128.135.12.7 X-Trace: uchinews 951643682 128.135.12.7 (Sun, 27 Feb 2000 03:28:02 CST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 27 Feb 2000 03:28:02 CST Organization: The University of Chicago Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.datacomm.ch!newscore.gigabell.net!newsfeed.tli.de!newsfeed.berkeley.edu!uchinews!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:14922 Quoth "Rick" : > "Often he saved his Gnomish lord" suggests that this truly was an > early poem... Conrad's quote was from the second stanza of Canto VIII of the Lay of Leithian in _The Lays of Beleriand_ (how's that for a lengthy citation?), so the poem was undoubtedly quite early. (And yet, there are at least a few places in _The Silmarillion_ where Christopher had to reach back even farther than this to fill in gaps in the later stories...) > ...if " in other places JRRT specifically indicates that he was [a > Maia?]." then what are we to make of the eagles... Here, Conrad is referring to Text VIII of "Myths Transformed", at the end of _Morgoth's Ring_ (and perhaps others in that section; I didn't make an exhaustive search). This essay deals with the origins of Orcs, but more generally of all the rational, speaking creatures other than the Children of Iluvatar. In this one, he suggests that the talking beasts were imported from Narnia, er, no. ...that they were in fact Maiar, but he ran into some problems because of references to their descendants. See the text I mentioned for more details. > ...and just how does a Maia go about becoming a 'mere' animal? Does > it just get bred out of them? Presumably, the same way Melian went about becoming sufficiently an Elf to bear Luthien to Thingol. Unfortunately, I don't quite know how this worked. :) > Are all hounds, eagles, horses, and any other animals people > respected descended from Maia? Are *any* of the olvar and kelvar > *not* inspired by the natures and shapes taken by these minor Maiar? Now _this_ is an extremely interesting question! I just started wondering the same thing after reading Conrad's post, in fact; I hadn't really considered it before. After all, we're never told _how_ Yavanna went about producing all these living things; she sang the Two Trees into existence herself, but this was clearly an act of incredible creative power. Perhaps she was in charge of a great many of the weakest of the Maiar, and organized them to breed the full ecology of Middle-earth directly. In fact, I wouldn't be the least bit surprised to learn that in the Music of the Ainur, there were many Ainur (or groups thereof) who focussed entirely on one species of animal (or one type of plant, or whatever). Those Ainur might well have chosen to enter Arda under Yavanna's guidance and take on incarnate form to _directly_ give life to their song. (Tolkien says in a little-known essay that "begetting" acted to bind Ainur to their incarnate form more than anything else. I've always suspected that this was just a quaint way of referring to sexual intercourse, but perhaps he _did_ mean it literally.) Of course, those creatures would not have been _rational_, speaking creatures without special dispensation from Eru (as was given to the Dwarves, for example, and even more obviously to Elves and Men). I think that (considering Tolkien's lack of a final statement) I'll assume that he granted a similar gift to the Eagles and Ents (and to Huan, I suppose... this gets a bit odd). This certainly isn't canonical, but it makes some sense. Incidentally, following this notion (and my own preference in recent months), I would propose that Orcs were the product of breeding between Maiar in Orcish form (or worse) and Children of Iluvatar, perhaps after they had been raised under animal conditions for a few generations. (This connects with several of Tolkien's comments about both First Age Orc breeding and about Saruman's experiments.) At any rate, all Orcish speculation aside, I think this is a particularly cool idea. Thanks for bringing it up! > Too many questions, but thanks for the verse :) Not at all too many questions! This is a very interesting issue, and one that I haven't seen (at least, not in exactly this form) before on these groups, and that's saying something. :) Thank _you_ for inspiring this discussion. Steuard Jensen P.S. I don't know exactly how new you are to these groups, or whether I've made a similar comment to you before, but you might want to check out the Tolkien Newsgroups FAQ at: http://home.uchicago.edu/~sbjensen/Tolkien/TolkNgFaq.html Very helpful to newcomers (particularly in that Netiquette section, though this post of yours certainly wasn't bad), and probably to some oldtimers as well. _Most_ of what I say there is accepted by _most_ of the group. :) ###### From: brahms@mindspring.com (Stan Brown) Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Origin of animals (was Re: Huan the Maia? thanks!) Date: Sun, 27 Feb 2000 15:10:16 -0500 Organization: Oak Road Systems Lines: 27 Message-ID: References: <63Qt4.6896$YG.486987@bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: c7.ae.b2.86 X-Server-Date: 27 Feb 2000 20:07:26 GMT X-Newsreader: MicroPlanet Gravity v2.10 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!newsfeed.berkeley.edu!enews.sgi.com!nntp.primenet.com!nntp.gctr.net!news.mindspring.net!firehose.mindspring.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:14930 Said sbjensen@midway.uchicago.edu (Steuard Jensen) in rec.arts.books.tolkien: >you might want to check >out the Tolkien Newsgroups FAQ at: > >http://home.uchicago.edu/~sbjensen/Tolkien/TolkNgFaq.html > >[...] _Most_ of what I say there is accepted by _most_ >of the group. :) One hopes that *all* of it is accepted by *some* of the group, or did you write down stuff you yourself disagree with? :-) Seriously, I agree that it's a terrific reference, particularly in conjunction with William Loos' older FAQ. That's why I have the URLs for both in my sig. -- Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Cleveland, Ohio, USA http://www.mindspring.com/~brahms/ Encyclopedia of Arda: http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/default.htm Tolkien FAQs: http://home.uchicago.edu/~sbjensen/Tolkien/TolkNgFaq.html (Jensen) http://garnet.acns.fsu.edu/~gsl9286/aft/faq/ (Loos) Inklings site list: http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/GregorArlt/inklings_sites.html more FAQs: http://www.mindspring.com/~brahms/faqget.htm