Prof Dimitra Fimi Profile picture
Jul 24, 2022 12 tweets 6 min read Read on X
THREAD: The scene below from the @LOTRonPrime trailer brought to mind #Tolkien’s the Hill of the Slain (Haudh-en-Ndengin in Sindarin) the memorial of the “Battle of Unnumbered Tears” the Elves fought against Morgoth in the First Age. Art: Ted Nasmith 1/11
#RingsOfPower #LOTRROP ImageImageImage
The monument first appears in the ‘Book of Lost Tales’, written c. 1916-18, where it is named
‘the Hill of Death’, is described as the ‘greatest cairn in the world’, and it is made
by the sons of Feanor, who arrive late and find their kin slaughtered (Lost Tales I: 241). 2/11 Image
It reappears in ‘The Lay of the Children of Húrin’, composed c. 1920-25, where it is now described as a ‘mighty mound’, but this time Túrin passes by some time after its construction, so it evokes past memories and acquires a sacred aura.
3/11 Image
It is covered with ‘fadeless green’ and becomes an άβατον, a place not to be trodden or violated by either friends or foes (Lays: 58-9). In c. 1930, Tolkien repeats this in the ‘Quenta’, but now the memorial is called again a ‘cairn’. In that version it is made by Orcs,
4/11
since none of the Elves or Men survived the battle. Though all the area around it was desolate and burnt, on that mound only ‘the grass grew green’, while it remained inviolable (Shaping: 119). It is here that Rian, Tuor’s mother, comes to lie and die (Shaping: 141)
5/11 Image
Much later, in the ‘Grey Annals’, written c. 1950-51, Tolkien added one more element to the mound: it is explicitly stated that the Orcs buried the dead Elves and Men with ‘all their harness and weapons’ (Jewels: 78-9).
6/11 Image
In the re-writing of the Túrin story around the same time, Sador refers to ‘the Great Mound’, as an ominous sign of the defeat of good and the dominance of evil in Middle-earth, as he claims that ‘happier are those in the Great
Mound’ (UT: 106)
7/11 Image
Haudh-en-Ndengin, therefore, commemorating a great defeat, made by foes as a repository of bodies, but having acquired a sacred status by being a restricted space and appearing evergreen against the laws of nature, is an important Middle-earth landmark.
8/11
Like a real-world memorial, it has created a new relationship between people, landscape and history. Turin curses the name of Morgoth – ‘the maker of the mourning’ – thrice when he passes by. It embodies the bitter memory of defeat but is also a sacred space.
9/11
Whether this is the site we see in the trailer remains to be seen. Meanwhile, here are some sources on Tolkien and archaeology available #OpenAccess:
Deborah Sabo, “Archaeology and the Sense of History in J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-Earth”:
dc.swosu.edu/cgi/viewconten…
@mythsoc
10/11
My own “Tolkien and Old Norse Antiquity: Real and Romantic Links in Material Culture” (scroll down to page 83):
vsnrweb-publications.org.uk/ONMN%20copyrig…
11/11
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More from @Dr_Dimitra_Fimi

Oct 25, 2022
Inspired by my last post, here's how #Tolkien got carried away and made a mistake:
The Book of Mazarbul is a manuscript compilation recording the fate of Balin and his Dwarves that the Fellowship of the Ring found and read in Moria.
1/21
@TolkienSociety @theoneringnet @JRRTolkien
It is described this way:
"It had been slashed and stabbed and partly burned, and it was so stained with black and other dark marks like old blood that little of it could be read. Gandalf lifted it carefully, but the leaves crackled and broke as he laid it on the slab…
2/21
he gingerly turned the leaves… written by many different hands, in runes, both of Moria and of Dale, and here and there in Elvish script."
3/21
Read 21 tweets
Jul 3, 2022
THREAD: Re-reading Marina Warner’s (@marina_warn) From the Beast to the Blonde, in preparation of welcoming her to @UofGlasgow and @UofGFantasy soon for @OnceFantasies! Her emphasis on transformation in fairy tales really foregrounds the affordances of fantasy:
1/6
#OnceFuture
For Warner, metamorphosis/shape-shifting/change, defines the fairy-tale. The wonders of the fairy-tale “disrupt the apprehensible world in order to open spaces for dreaming alternatives” - a lot of common ground with many definitions of fantasy/the fantastic here.
2/6
#OnceFuture
I like Warner’s double reading of the verb “to wonder” (cf. wonder tale/märchen): both to marvel and also to enquire, to seek to know. Together they highlight to key elements of the fairy tale (and fantasy, I’d say!): “pleasure in the fantastic, curiosity about the real”.
3/6
Read 6 tweets
Sep 28, 2021
THREAD🧵We don’t know if #Tolkien read Hope Mirrlees’ Lud-in-the-Mist (no evidence he even knew of it) but thinking about Nathaniel Chanticleer and Bilbo Baggins, both middle-class, middle-aged, unlikely/reluctant heroes, going there + back again, 1/7
@TolkienSociety @UofGFantasy ImageImage
and returning having lost their respectability but having gained something more important, makes one wonder… 2/7
(Art above👆by Michael Herring and David Wenzel)
(Below👇 first edition covers) ImageImage
Consider also appearance: Nathaniel is “rotund, rubicund” with eyes “in which the jokes, before he uttered them, twinkled like a trout in a burn” while Bilbo (like all hobbits) is “inclined to be fat in the stomach” and laughing “deep, fruity laughs”Art: @ben_towle + #Tolkien 3/7 ImageImage
Read 8 tweets
Aug 3, 2021
Do you remember this iconic scene from Peter Jackson’s The #LordoftheRings? I think it’s visual origins go back to the early 20th century, long before #Tolkien ever thought about hobbits and Black Riders! THREAD 🧵👇 1/12
@TolkienSociety @theoneringnet @UofGFantasy @JRRTolkien Image
In the film, the hobbits hide away as they hear a horse approaching. They’ve found the perfect hiding spot, the root of a tree, but it’s touch-and-go! They’re nearly discovered! 2/12 Image
The scene seems to have come from artist #JohnHowe (who worked on the films) and reproduces exactly this specific work, initially created for the 1987 Tolkien Calendar (john-howe.com/portfolio/gall…). But Howe himself points to yet another source -some of you will have spotted it! 3/12 Image
Read 13 tweets
Aug 27, 2020
For @FolkloreThurs’s #wild men theme: in #Tolkien’s hapless Túrin Turambar 3 myths collide: Kullervo (Finnish), Sigurd (Old Norse) + Oedipus (Greek). Oedipus is important not only for the incest motif
1/6
#FolkloreThursday @TolkienSociety
Art: @TedNasmith, Akseli Gallen-Kallela
but also because of his movement from wilderness to city. Abandoned as an infant in Mount Cithaeron (wilderness), Oedipus moves from Corinth (city), to the cross-roads (wilderness, where he unwittingly kills his father)...
2/6
#FolkloreThursday @FolkloreThurs @TolkienSociety
to Thebes (city- where he unwittingly marries his mother), to self-exile in desolate spaces away from the city. He is the saviour, but also the destroyer of Thebes, via his patricide and incest. 3/6
@FolkloreThurs #FolkloreThursday @TolkienSociety
Read 6 tweets
Aug 17, 2020
I've been asked several times today to give my view on this so here it goes. First things first, there are links between Middle-earth and the history of Europe but not in any way this thread suggests. 1/13
@TolkienSociety @theoneringnet @JRRTolkien
There is no such quotation in Tolkien's published works - unless the author of this thread or the article they cite have access to unpublished letters/manuscripts by Tolkien (and permission to quote from them):

2/13
No he didn't. He found lots of "old books" in several languages in the Bodleian, but this is hardly "the basement of the school's library" (which school, I wonder? and which library?)
3/13
Read 14 tweets

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