Lord of the Rings: Mythology (Original)

[Michelle Sandberg]

 
Europa

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   posted 07-31-2005 11:15 PM                       
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Let's make this a constructive discussion, shall we?

I'm judging from a lot of your posts around here that some of you have heard of the Bock Saga. Well, most likely, Tolkien heard of it in some fashion, too:

Quoting:

"It is clear that Tolkien studied early Indo-European language, which he studied from an early age and his professor-ship was in this domain. Tolkien was regarded by many to be a foremost expert on the Indo-European language.

This in itself is a complete contradiction as here we find Tolkien's own research and study led him to the more ancient language of Finland, not Sweden, and the study of Finnish Rot which became a passion in his life and became so entwined within his written works.

Wade Davis - anthropologist in residence for National Geographic Society - also discovered these facts as shown in the N.G.S. film on JRR Tolkien's life and Lord of the Rings. Wade Davis comments that "Tolkien learned Finnish in his early years".

Tolkien’s research was not understood and today is dismissed by the recognized mouth piece of academia: the Sceptic Society. It is very clear that academia was not willing to accept Tolkien’s research then, and continues today.

Michael White writes in his book, Tolkien: a Biography that " Perhaps even closer to Tolkien's creation is the Kalevala”...

JRR Tolkien's life long research - and specifically his Lord Of The Rings- is testament to his knowledge of the Kalevala and the Kela-saga, and his own research led him to discover this ancient language. One ring inscribed with the knowledge of the kela of sound, one ring that is the master to all other sounds; with this knowledge one can discover all other sounds and bring them all together and in the darkness, bind them.

Tolkien's well known verse, “ One ring to rule them all, one ring to find them, one ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.”

A number of authors on Tolkien's life have clearly stated that Tolkien spent not only a lot of time researching the ancient language of the Kalevala - which is based on oral tradition as a language - but also based his Elven language on the ancient Finnish Rot language.

It is also certain that at some point in Tolkien's life, he must have discovered the knowledge of the Bock Saga since Lord of the Rings encapsulates so much of the Saga.

It is said that Tolkien wanted his trilogy for England. Yet, how is this so when supposedly Finland and England are - according to academia - disconnected in all possible ways?

The connections from the Bock Saga originating from Finland and old Finnish culture to England are indeed extensive: from the Ros-et family to the War of the Roses, as per the first article - which appeared in the worldwide magazine Nexus Vol 9, No. 4 - to the knowledge of the Headen culture of Oden and the old breeding system that recognized many of the Headen celebration days, including the original Roman Empire that worshiped Oden, Sol, the Sun, and its remnants in the United Kingdom.

One of the last remnants of the breeding system was in Odens Burg, which later became Edinburgh in Scotland. Hadrian's wall was built to keep out the new Roman Empire which was based on a taking system, not a giving system. It is now known that the old Roman Empire stronghold in Scotland was to keep control of the mineral deposits there and specifically the silver deposits contained around Edinburgh. The links from the original old Finnish Headen culture and England are indeed immense, and clearly, Tolkien saw the relationship as much of this culture was imbued within his trilogy.

Some of the connections within the LOTR that pertain to the Saga are: the Third Age of Men when the One Ring was still in power and that the Ring of Knowledge of the breeding system was destroyed. The Bock family Temple containing knowledge, ancient artifacts and treasure was the place under a hill (the Underhill's) and keeper of the Ring of Knowledge, the Ring Bearer.

Middle Earth was all one land as per the Saga and now known to be in our ancient past as true as all the lands were together. The Elven system was the law of logic, a giving system of King/Queen-ship, which was centered on looking after all people and the plan-et. In truth the Fourth Age was taken over by men and the giving system was lost and removed. The One Ring - the Kela of sounds - was lost and only now is being rediscovered.

As the Forth Age comes to completion will the old Ring of Power be once more embraced or will mankind go to the fires of doom with a taking system and old rings of power to the detriment of all?

After the Ice age there was established in Finland nine provinces. The nine provinces were also called the Nine Ring Lands, which were governed by Uden-land with Hel at its center also known as Uudenmaa in Van. Thus the One Ring land where the ring bearer - the King of the Aser people (also known as Väinämöinen) and keeper of knowledge resided and controlled the nine.

It's important to understand that Odin/Per/Väinämöinen is a title - The father of Bock - and is passed from the father to son. So there has always been an Odin/Väinämöinen leading Finnish people from paradise time to year 1248.

It is not hard to see that the concept of the Nine Ring Lords governed by the One Ring has a direct comparison with JRR Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy in reference to the “nine”. Thus the number nine also stood for and represents completion as recognized within numerology.

Within LOTR are the "seeing stones" and as Tolkien wrote, " Not all are accounted for." The three crystal balls are interesting in that they were apparently used to determine a number of things.

Crystals are found underground and look like a glass however inside there is a prism which divides the rays of the light. During Paradise Time,when a child was born, a crystal sphere was taken to a dark room or the Temple where one candle of light divided the Prism of light into rays. Rays at the surface of the crystal sphere were like stars of the whole universe that shone on the Temple wall. In this way, from the crystal sphere, was seen where the stars were located in the sky.

Constellations are part of the star system and every star belonged to some constellation. When a child was born from the sperm of the breeder, the child received a name from a star from the constellation of his breeder. His first child became the first star, the second named by the second star and so on. The star system enabled people to see their brother and sister in right order in the stars of the night sky. When someone died they could be still thought of by looking at the stars and their place of order in the family. After Paradise Time, during star nights one could go out to watch the stars of the relatives or one's own star, which shone from the light of Oden and so one could honour the whole family.

Stars consist of different metals. Solar rays hit the stars, which reflect the rays in the eyes of the humans. Because of this, people are born under different stars and this has it's own effects upon each person, which was understood by Astrology: which was the study of the sun, moon and stars. Solar rays had great importance: when the solar rays hit the moon, which is metal, these rays reflect in the eyes of the human and was an important symbolism of the moon. According to astrology, rays of the sun create all green leaves, which turn to mold. From this mold, seeds sprouts which enables new growth. In this way Oden created the Earth.

One was able to communicate with any person holding one of the other crystal balls and so these are the "seeing stones", the crystal balls buried with each golden Bock.

Will myth change back to legend once more and become life as we know it or be forever lost in the midst of subservience to a system of illogical control of a hierarchy based on ill beginnings, false records, and denial of our true history and true inheritance? Will we also go to the grey havens and depart forever?

To continue to falsify our history, our origins and our heritage - using a science that is crumbling day by day - is as clear a sign that the old Rings of Power are indeed loosing their power. Much of academia is based upon what the churches allowed to be taught, yet many still try to deny this. Our known history relies upon documentation that has barley existed for a thousand years, yet scoffs at a history intact that reaches far back in thousands of years.

As Wade Davis said, " A language is a flash of the human spirit, not just a set of grammatical rules." Is this not then what Tolkien achieved? Truly his flash of human spirit has inspired generations to dare think that a new Ring of Power in a giving system - based on honoring people and our planet - can be achieved. To declare that even a small hobbit can shake the foundations of all is to say we each can make a difference if we only allow ourselves to believe in our own flash of goodness -God within.

And so it is, that flash of spirit is once more shown to us, via alphernas baten - the language of the Elves, the Kela of sound - the original Ring of sounds on our planet. We can once more connect our light and goodness - Oden - through the grace of Ior Bock and his family history.

Shown to us through the works of Tolkien, indeed by our own grace, we can embrace the beauty and power within each of us, and is a blessing in our times. For those who deny this, is a refusal to see and embrace that which is offered: a new light to create a new paradigm of goodness and wholeness so needed in our times.

We can only open eyes that are willing to see.

In this light we begin to see the truth and logic of the sound system and how it relates and created other languages. How this sound system works and is so different to any other known language, yet contains the knowledge and history of our planet is the next step of unfoldment we need to embrace. It is within the sounds of the Kela that retain the knowledge of our ancient past that was whole and was the original ring of power to create wholeness within."

http://paulapeterson.com/Bock_Saga_Part2.html#TOP
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Posts: 424 | From: Illinois | Registered: Jul 2005 
 

[Michelle Sandberg]

Europa

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   posted 07-31-2005 11:18 PM                       
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J.R.R. Tolkien - The Silmarillion

"The Silmarillion" reads like ancient mythology. Though it was written by Tolkien, essentially throughout his long life, it basically is ancient mythology. Using his deep knowledge of language and lore, Tolkien created the underpinnings for his other works.
There is not much of the "psychological novel" about "The Silmarillion". It is rather a compilation of Mythical stories. It includes much of what we would expect from such a treasure store. It contains a creation myth, an explanation for the shape of the Earth, as well as the genesis of the various races that populate Tolkien's Middle-Earth.

All of this information is very convenient for anyone who wants more information about Hobbits and Elves and Orcs. We find out, for example, that Gandalf the Grey, is a Maia, roughly equivalent to an Angel in Christian belief. He was created by the Valar who were in turn created by Iluvatar, the One God.

It is interesting to note that in his work, Tolkien meticulously avoided any conflict between his myth making and the cosmology produced in the Bible. Tolkien was a Catholic, his guardian after his parents died was a Catholic Priest. His eldest son would later enter the Priesthood. In a sense, the myths laid down in "The Silmarillion" in many ways suplement the book of Genesis.

Even so, his mythical explanations must explain the existence of Sauron, Wizards, Elves and the ring. We find his universe to be highly influenced by personality. As when the Dwarves are created by Aule the Smith who is anxious to populate the world sooner than Iluvatar had planned. To do so he creates the Dwarves. Yet, he realizes without Iluvatar's creative hand, these people will be mere automatons. Thus, he goes to Iluvatar and offers to destroy the Dwarves. Iluvatar takes pity on the Dwarves and gives them a place in his scheme of the world.

At the same time very little about "The Silmarillion" defies (too drastically) the laws of Newtonian physics or at least the physics Tolkien is able to conjure in his imagination. There are, indeed, mystical forces, but these forces all operate within certain boundaries.

"The Silmarillion" is not light reading. It seems that when Tolkien created his Middle-Earth, he was able to look at it from every aspect. He wrote about it in a children's book, The Hobbit. He wrote about it in an epic novel written for adults The Lord of the Rings, and he set down its entire cosmology in "The Silmarillion.

http://www.indepthinfo.com/tolkien/sil.shtml

[ 08-01-2005, 09:49 PM: Message edited by: Europa ]
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Posts: 424 | From: Illinois | Registered: Jul 2005   

[Michelle Sandberg]

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   posted 07-31-2005 11:28 PM                       
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Michelle,

When Tolkein was able to study Prof. Lonrot's library of notes that he had compiled before assembling the Kalevala. Tolkein, a linguist, actually learned ancient Finnish, one of the most complex and most probably THE most vast language on the planet, in order to study Prof. Lonrot's collection of folk stories and histories.

It turned out that Lonrot could have assembled a whole stack of Kalevalas with the amount of material in his collected notes. So Tolkein had access to material of the most ancient history of Europe, that no one else has seen, which helped to form his epic works.

Apparently he used ancient Finnish to design the Elvish language.

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"Illigitimi non carborundum!"
All knowledge is to be used in the manner that will give help and assistance to others, and the desire is that the laws of the Creator be manifested in the physical world. E.Cayce 254-17

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Posts: 3128 | From: Port Townsend WA | Registered: Feb 2004   

[Michelle Sandberg]

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   posted 08-01-2005 08:22 PM                       
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Hi Michelle,

Here is some information on Lord of the Rings connection to the Finnish language that you might find helpful:

Finnish Words in The Lord of the Rings
Many might be interested to know how many Finnish influences have found their way into Tolkien's most popular work. Unlike The Silmarillion, LotR does not seem to have any obvious connections to Finland in the actual story, but it does have some phrases of Quenya with Finnish words. I know of the following three:

In Galadriel's song when the Company leaves Lórien (Book II, ch. , line 11:
ar ilyë tier undulávë lumbulë
"and all paths are drowned deep in shadow"
Tier is the plural of tie 'path' (Finnish has tie 'road').
Line 13 of the same song:
i falmarinnar imbë met, ar hísië
"...on the foaming waves between us, and mist..."
The word met comes from the pronoun me 'us' + the dual ending -t indicating that there are two persons in question. Me is 'we' in Finnish.
In the words Aragorn cites at his coronation (Book VI, ch. 5), originally spoken by Elendil:
Et Eärello Endorenna utúlien
"Out of the Great Sea to Middle-earth I am come"
Utúlie (the ending -n means 'I') is the perfect tense of tul- 'to come', which has the same meaning as Finnish tulla. Another possible Finnish element in this sentence is et. Here the meaning is 'out', but it could also be translated 'forth', a bit like Finnish eteen.
Names
There are also some names in Tolkien's works that show Finnish influence. However, one should be careful not to jump into conclusions here. It must be remembered that words in Tolkien's languages are connected to each other, and that names have meanings.

As an example, de Anna suggests that Valinor, which is often associated with light in Tolkien's mythology, would be connected to valo, the Finnish word for 'light'. This is quite possible, but the matter may not be as simple as this. Valinor means 'the land (or people) of the Valar', and according to de Anna, the Valar didn't get their name from Finnish but from ancient Scandinavian, where it meant 'a prophetess'. Because of problems like these, we can often do no more than speculate.

De Anna also presents the idea that an early Quenya name for the Sun, Kalavent- / Kalavún- ('ship of light'), would have been inspired by Finnish kalavene ('fishing boat'). If so, the word kala, which remained in use as quite an important word (it can be seen in the names Calacirya and Calaquendi), might have quite an interesting Finnish origin! (As seen in the list above, Quenya has the word hala 'small fish' as well.)

There is a group of Quenya names that resemble ilma ('air') and Ilmarinen (a character in the Kalevala, originally a Finnish god):

Ilmen, 'the region of the stars'
Ilmare, handmaid of Varda
Ilmarin, 'mansion of high skies', the mansion of Manwe
It is notable that Ilmarinen can be divided into Ilmari + the diminutive -nen. Did Tolkien intend to associate Manwe with Ilmarinen, the god of travellers and winds in the ancient Finnish religion, or is the word ilma the only connection between these two? The boldest may also make guesses on whether Silmaril and related words have been inspired by ilma.

Similarity between the names of Eru Ilúvatar and Ilmatar of the Kalevala encourages speculation, especially since both have a part in the creation of the world. Another Quenya name that would fit well into the Kalevala is Annatar, used by Sauron in the Second Age. This is probably just a coincidence, though. Finnish -tar/-tär is a feminine ending, seen in many names in the Kalevala. In Quenya tar is 'high' or 'lord'.

http://www.sci.fi/~alboin/finn_que.htm
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Posts: 79 | From: Hyperborea | Registered: Oct 2004   

[Michelle Sandberg]

Elric

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   posted 08-01-2005 08:23 PM                       
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Grammar Comparison

The similarities of sound structure are often mentioned when discussing Quenya's relationship with Finnish, but that is not the only area where connections can be found. "The grammatical structure [of Quenya]," writes Fauskanger, "involving a large number of cases and other inflections, is clearly inspired by Latin and Finnish" (Ancient Tongue).

Finnish and Quenya are thus both synthetic languages: they express things by adding endings to words rather than using prepositions and other separate little words. As a simple example, 'in a house' is talossa in Finnish and apparently coasse in Quenya.

If the endings and words can be "glued" together without changing them, a language is called agglutinative. Quenya and Finnish are both like this in principle, but neither is a pure agglutinative language. An example in Quenya is casar + the partitive plural ending -li, producing casalli instead of casarli (Fauskanger, Ancient Tongue). In Finnish hauki + genitive -n gives hauen, not haukin.

The number of noun cases in Finnish is usually said to be fifteen, while mature Quenya had nine or ten. The cases themselves are fairly different in the two languages, but their amount suggests that the two languages are closer to each other than to most Indo-European languages. The only cases that would seem related are the Quenya locative -sse and Finnish inessive -ssa/-ssä, which I used in the 'in a house' example above.

In Quenya, pronouns usually appear only as endings: for example, in hiruvalye 'thou shalt find', the part meaning 'thou' is -lye. Finnish verbs are inflected according to the subject of the sentence, and a pronoun can often be omitted, but I think there are other languages that are closer to Quenya in this respect.

At least one of the pronominal endings is apparently a Finnish loan: the first person plural is marked by -mme in both languages (actually Quenya has another 1.p. plural, too). In Quenya it also exists as a separate pronoun, me 'we'. This is also identical to Finnish. A more uncertain case is the 1. person singular: in Quenya it can be either -nye or -n. The latter happens to be the same ending as in Finnish, but this might be just a coincidence, since nasals are common in 1.p. pronouns in languages all around the world.

However, Quenya seems to have a simpler structure than its Finno-Ugrian model. For example, there are lots of endings in Finnish, like -ko/-kö, -kaan/-kään and -han/-hän that are used to express questions, emphasis and such (toimiikohan tämäkään means 'I wonder if this will work either'). These probably have no equivalents in the published samples of Quenya. It is likely that a large number of complicated forms did not fit Tolkien's image of a beautiful language.

http://www.sci.fi/~alboin/finn_que.htm
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Posts: 79 | From: Hyperborea | Registered: Oct 2004   

[Michelle Sandberg]

Elric

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   posted 08-01-2005 08:24 PM                       
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The Sounds of Quenya and Finnish
Let us first look at the consonants of the two languages (the lines correspond roughly to different types of sounds) [2]:

Quenya Finnish

t, p, c t, p, k
d, b, g d
s, f, h, hw, hy s, h
v v
n, ng, m n, ng, m
l, hl l
r, hr r
w, y j
Quenya c and Finnish k are the same sound spelled differently, as are y and j. With ng I mean the sound in king, not as in finger. hw, hl and hr are the unvoiced counterparts of w, l and r, and hy is like the ch in German ich. Finnish also has b, g, f and sh, but they only appear in loanwords and are not proper phonemes.

As the comparison shows, Finnish has quite few consonants, especially voiced ones. Even d, the only voiced stop, is a relatively new phoneme created by the written language.

One of the characteristic features of Finnish is the phenomenon called consonant gradation. In means the weakening of t, p, k in certain positions. For example, if we add the genitive ending -n to the word lappu, the doubled consonant is reduced to a single one, and we get lapun. In a similar situation, a single p becomes v, so the genitive of tapa is tavan. Quenya does not have a similar system.

Vowels are very frequent in Finnish. Approximately every other sound in Finnish is a vowel, and words usually end in vowels. Both features are present in Quenya as well. The richness of vowels must have been one of the features of Finnish that made the greatest impression on Tolkien.

Quenya has five vowels, a e i o u, while Finnish has eight, a e i o u y ä ö. Since Quenya lacks the front vowels y, ä, ö, it could not have vowel harmony, another characteristic feature of Finnish. In Finnish, these vowels cannot appear in the same word with the back vowels a, o, u (e, i are neutral in this respect).

Both languages avoid consonant clusters, Finnish perhaps even more than Quenya. This, together with the frequency of vowels, gives the languages a similar "style". However, because of the many differences listed above (and the differences in spelling), Quenya usually doesn't look very familiar to a Finn. Spoken Quenya is also likely to sound unfamiliar because of its different placement of stress: it follows a rule similar to that of Latin, while Finnish always has stress on the first syllable.

http://www.sci.fi/~alboin/finn_que.htm
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Posts: 79 | From: Hyperborea | Registered: Oct 2004   

[Michelle Sandberg]

 
Elric

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   posted 08-01-2005 08:26 PM                       
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The Etymologies
The etymological dictionary known simply as the Etymologies, published in The Lost Road, is arranged around "primitive stems" from which all words are derived. It was written just before The Lord of the Rings, which means its Q(u)enya isn't quite "mature" yet, but very close. It is in any case the most important single source of Elvish vocabulary. There are (a rough estimate) a little less than 600 stems and about 1000 words of Quenya.

Rautala has examined the Etymologies, finding recognizably Finnish words under fifteen stems. These words have both a similar meaning in both languages and an identical or nearly identical pronunciation. She has taken into account the Quenya words, their early (primitive Elvish) forms and even the stems. Using this method, it could be said that a few percents of Quenya's vocabulary are influenced by Finnish.

However, I would like to limit this examination to the actual Quenya words that can be identified as Finnish. This would leave us about eleven words out of a thousand; in other words, about one percent of the Quenya words in the Etymologies come directly from Finnish. These are the words in the Etymologies that seem like direct loans to me:
Quenya Finnish
anta- 'give' antaa 'give'
et- prefix 'forth, out' eteen 'forward, to the front', etu- prefix 'front-'
hala 'small fish' kala 'fish'
kulda 'flame-coloured, golden-red' and other forms kulta 'gold'
lapse 'babe' lapsi 'child'
nasta 'spear-head, point, gore, triangle' nasta 'thumbtack, pin'
panya- 'fix, set' panna 'put, place, set, lay'
rauta 'copper', changed to 'metal' rauta 'iron'
tie 'path, course, line, direction, way' tie 'road, path, way'
tereva 'fine, acute' (from an older form meaning 'piercing, keen') terävä 'sharp'
tul- 'come' tulla 'come'


To know exactly how significant these amounts are, it would be necessary to know how much of Quenya's vocabulary is borrowed from existing languages and how much of it is pure invention. Unfortunately, I am unable to make any guesses about it. Tolkien certainly took words from various languages beside Finnish, such as Hebrew, Arabic, Chinese, Greek and Scandinavian languages.

In addition to the actual loans, the Etymologies contains Quenya words that exist in Finnish in a completely different meaning. Tolkien probably knew enough Finnish to recognize many of these words, but I think some of them are just a result of the phonological similarity rather than actual loans. I would say there are over eighty of these words in the Etymologies. Quite many of them seem to be of the form CVC-CV (C=consonant, V=vowel). Some examples: Quenya Finnish
amme 'mother' amme 'bathtub'
arka 'narrow' arka 'shy, timid'
harya- 'to possess' harja 'a brush'
kúma 'the Void' kuuma 'hot'
lanta- 'to fall' lanta 'dung'
poika 'clean, pure' poika 'boy, son'
ráka 'wolf' raaka 'raw, rough; cruel'
Vala 'Power, God' vala 'oath'


Closely related to the previous group are the words that could well be Finnish, although they are not. These words (for example morko, lepse, lauka) often differ very slightly from an existing Finnish word, or they just have a phonetic appearance suitable for Finnish. This group of words is larger than the group of actual Finnish words in Quenya. However, about one third of Quenya's vocabulary in the Etymologies is incompatible with Finnish [3]. Much of this is due to the differences in consonants noted earlier.

Other Sources
From Fauskanger's Quenya Corpus Wordlist we can get a good idea of Quenya's vocabulary outside the Etymologies. The words are mostly from later texts, and probably represent Tolkien's final image of his language fairly well.

Studying this wordlist gives mostly the same results as with the Etymologies. Again, about one third of the words would clearly not fit Finnish phonology; among the rest, there are some Finnish words in different meanings, although they are not as frequent as before.

Perhaps the most notable thing is that Tolkien seems to have given up taking Finnish loans after the Etymologies: I found none in this wordlist.

http://www.sci.fi/~alboin/finn_que.htm
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Posts: 79 | From: Hyperborea | Registered: Oct 2004   
 

[Michelle Sandberg]

 
Elric

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   posted 08-01-2005 08:27 PM                       
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Bradfield, Julian. "Elvish Pronunciation Guide." http://www.dcs.ed.ac.uk/misc/local/TolkLang/pronguide.html

Carpenter, Humphrey. J. R. R. Tolkien: elämäkerta. [Finnish translation of J. R. R. Tolkien: A Biography.]

De Anna, Luigi. "The Magic of Words: J. R. R. Tolkien and Finland." Scholarship & Fantasy: Proceedings of The Tolkien Phenomenon. Ed. K. J. Battarbee. [Available, at least, at the library of Turku, Finland.]

Fauskanger, Helge.

"Tolkien's Not-So-Secret Vice." http://www.uib.no/People/hnohf/vice.htm.
"Quenya Corpus Wordlist." http://www.uib.no/People/hnohf/qlist.htm.
"Quenya - the Ancient Tongue." http://www.uib.no/People/hnohf/quenya.htm.
Hakulinen, Lauri. Suomen kielen rakenne ja kehitys. [A book on the structure and development of Finnish.]

Rautala, Helena. "Familiarity and distance: Quenya's relation to Finnish." Scholarship & Fantasy: Proceedings of The Tolkien Phenomenon. Ed. K. J. Battarbee.

Tolkien, J. R. R. The Lost Road and Other Writings. Ed. Christopher Tolkien. The History of Middle-earth vol. 5.

Notes
[1]
The dh in raudha is pronounced like the th in English this.
[2]
The listing of Quenya's consonants is based on Fauskanger, Ancient Tongue. For a slightly different way of presenting them (which makes the system seem even less similar to Finnish), see Bradfield.
[3]
The amount depends greatly on how it is calculated. I decided to count words with a d as incompatible with Finnish, although d appears in Finnish as a weak grade of t in some inflected forms (and in recent loanwords).
Harri Perälä, <harri.perala@iki.fi>
This version of the text was published 8 Jan 2000. Latest minor changes were made 7 May 2005 (misspelling "gradiation" corrected to "gradation").
Studies on the Works of J.R.R. Tolkien


http://www.sci.fi/~alboin/finn_que.htm
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Posts: 79 | From: Hyperborea | Registered: Oct 2004   
 

[Michelle Sandberg]

Aphrodite

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   posted 08-01-2005 08:45 PM                       
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Michelle Sandberg, before this topic gets a little too academic, might I also suggest including a discussion of the themes of Lord of the Rings, too, which are:

Courage, self-sacrifice, honor.

Things that people of this world might do well to also remember.

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"He who controls others maybe powerful, but he who has mastered himself is mightier still.” - Lao Tsu

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Posts: 238 | From: Minnesota | Registered: Jul 2005   

[Michelle Sandberg]

Calvin Noble

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Rate Member   posted 08-01-2005 09:18 PM                       
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The themes of Lord of the Rings are paganism and violence. They teach an ambiguous lesson at best, and are clearly anti-Christian in their message. They lines between good men and bad men are blurred easily within them, and they glamorize the descent of good men into evil.

There is no depiction of a single monotheistic religion in there, and the thing that is the most powerful, the one ring, clearly is evil and perhaps means to suggest that God is evil as well.

The book is anti-Christian and I would encourage all not to read it.

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"An atheist believes in nothing, and so he shall find nothing."

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Posts: 344 | Registered: Nov 2004

[Michelle Sandberg]

Norman Pounders

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Member # 2237

Rate Member   posted 08-01-2005 10:06 PM                       
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Michelle, might I suggest you get back into bed and pull the covers back over your head.

In other words, in your time away, you weren't missed.

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"The world is not divided into men and women. It's divided into great minds and small minds;

- Anassa

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Posts: 344 | Registered: Nov 2004

[Michelle Sandberg]

Aristotle

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   posted 08-01-2005 11:19 PM                       
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I think that most of us here would actually rather say that about you, Norman.

Glad to see you have returned, Michelle, and I hope you are doing better.

Aphrodite rose an interesting point about the themes of Lord of the Rings that should be explored, to which I would also add, responsibility.

Calvin did not raise an interesting point about the paganism, as, apparently, he believes that anything that isn't Christian just has to be evil.

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"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it."
- Aristotle

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Posts: 357 | From: ancient Athens | Registered: Nov 2004   

[Michelle Sandberg]

Michelle Sandberg

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   posted 08-01-2005 11:58 PM                       
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Hi everybody, thanks for all that you added to my thread.

Rockessence, you're sure right about the Kelavelas and ancient Finnish lanuage influencing the language of Lord of the Rings! Tolkien was as interested in linguistics as he was in writing the story. Elric, thank you for all that material displaying the work.

Europa, I have to disagree with that article that says that the Bock Saga influenced te Lord of the Rings. From what I have heard Lor Bock only began revealing the Bock Saga in 1984, while Lord of the Rings was written back in the 1940's and 1950's.

Calvin, Lord of the Rings is NOT anti-Christian. It's about good overcoming evil at all costs, what could be more Christian than that?

Norman, you ought to be ashamed of yourself the way you treat people around here, you're worse than Pagan in my book.

Aphrodite, gee, I like your idea of talking about the themes of Lord of the Rings, too, as they are the ones that affect us all. I think I'll leave it to you to start talking about them, if you don't mind. I've read some of your posts here and you're a great writer.

Aristotle, thanks for welcoming me back, buddy, guess I am doing a little better and might stay this time.
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Posts: 202 | Registered: Nov 2004

[Michelle Sandberg]

Boreasi

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   posted 08-02-2005 03:02 AM                       
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Europa;

Quote;

//"The Silmarillion" is not light reading. It seems that when Tolkien created his Middle-Earth, he was able to look at it from every aspect. He wrote about it in a children's book, The Hobbit. He wrote about it in an epic novel written for adults The Lord of the Rings, and he set down its entire cosmology in "The Silmarillion".//

"Midle-Earth" equals what the Fenno-Scandian sagas refer to as "Mid-Gaard".

"Gard" refers to the english "garden", but goes much deeper still. "Gard" represent the central place on any larger piece of land, like "yard" in England. On this yeard we will have a house of major importance for this peculiar area (property). Thats why the common Scandinavian word "Gard" normally gets translated to "Farm" or "Manor".

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The Norse Sagas tell about "Mid-gård" - meaning "Midle-Yard" or "Midle-Farm", being the mid-point of As-gard, the land of Oden.

The land of Oden is considered to be the homeland of The Aser, who in turn creates off-springs, that populate the rest of the northern hemisphere. Thus the land of Oden would represent the land of The First Ring. The semantics of the name O-den, says "THE Ring". The Bock-saga then goes on explaining the wholeness of life symbolized by the complete circle, as "O-den`s ring represents ev-ri-thing".

The land of Oden was divided in three sectors; one western area (Ut-gard), one eastern area (Van-gard) and the midle area "Mid-gard", where the the seven hills and the seven islands lay. Once the exact point of the North Pole the Finnish material refer to Midgard, as the very center of all As-gard, developing into the capitol city of Hel. That unfortunately became extinguished - as the post-roman empire - by 1050 - finally succeeded to conquer the very north of Eurasia, - too.

Luckily the memory of The White City of Hel was kept alive in the north - and by 1532 the reformer-king, Gustav Wasa of Sweden-Finland, re-constituted a new capitol for Finland on the premises of the old. Thanks to him we can find todays capitol - Hel-sinki, built on the same Seven Hills, in front of the same Seven Islands.

Evry hill had a temple - that once used to receive visitors from all corners of the world - to worship and appreciate, exchanging news, views and informations.

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It was from this First City we find the origin of all arctic people, - and their various expressions of the basicly same culture.
Which means that the basis of the arctic arcetypes, and their etnical and cultural history, as well as their language, knowledge and skills - have a common origin. Of an age hereto unknown...

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Recovering the main-lines of the old European myths we find that both Basques, Irish, Anglo-Saxon and Fenno-Ugrian actually refers to paralell mythological cosmos` - reflecting a common origin.

Today we also find that these panteons reflect the same ideals and personage as we actually find back in the Indian, Persian, Greek, Roman and Egyptian panteons.

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It`s true that Tolkien learned a lot from the Lönnroth-collections of Finnish myth and folklore. Some of them touches on the same grounds as the Bock Saga. It may be that Tolkien got to know about the old Finnish kingdom that actually existed, before it suddenly, at some point mysteriously disappeared.

First with the revelations from the Family Saga from Strömsö Manor did we get to hear the full version of the siege of Oden, 1050, where the Capitol of Peace was rendered, massacred, plundered and completly destructed. The royal family managed to escape up north, where they continued to rule Finland for another 198 years. The year 1248 the Swedish gouvernour visited Kajaani Castle - where he stroke a deal with the last remaining king of Finland. To abvoid further autrossities he abdicated - and where allowed to reinstate the families on their old estates, of the Land of Oden.

Before 1248 there was still no-one inhabbitting the old capitol area of Hel. But when the ban was lifted the royal family from Kajaani castle were the first to start the re-population of the old disaster-area. Recreating - in silence - new yards and family-lines inhabitting the old premises of "Utgard", "Vangard" and "Midgard".

The distance between facts and fiction can be intrigueingly close - at times.

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Elric,

Great work! This was most interesting - especially the comparission of the basic elements, such as the clear sounds.

Today there is only two alphabets existing with more than 5 or 6 clear sounds. While the Van-language, today called "Väne", "Vendi" or Fenni/Finni" have 8 clear sounds.
As the old Fenno-Swedish, the so-called Rot-language - have full 9, - as the only one of all the worlds languages.

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Anyway; Nice thread, Michelle.

It sure puts new ligths on an historic epoch when there still was real virtue existing. As there was dignity, prudence and genuine honesty.
So; please don`t mind the present representatives of the "highest civilsation ever to roam this planet" - trying to get and re-engage your attention - with a rather pathetic door-slamming...

Regards

[ 08-02-2005, 03:12 AM: Message edited by: Boreasi ]
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Posts: 1330 | From: Norway | Registered: Apr 2005   

[Michelle Sandberg]

Aphrodite

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Member # 2573

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   posted 08-02-2005 07:32 PM                       
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Michelle asked me to say my part about what I believe to be the themes of Lord of the Rings, and so, I'll do that now. The book is not anti-Christian, and only a FOOL would even think that Christianity would even enter into the equation at all when Tolkien was compiling it. Rather, it would seem to be a homage to ancient mythology.

The basic themes would seem to be that nature is to be honored while technology is to be shunned. The Shire is painted as a pleasant place to live in while Isengard, where Sauriman is building an army of wicked army of orcs, in mass production fashion, is seen as evil.

Tolkien seems to suggest that we would all be happier in simpler times, as do I.

Courage against all odds is the predominant theme of the book, of course, but a more subtle theme is the idea that none of us is perfect and that evil can only be conquered by a supreme force of will, and, of course, at great sacrifice to one's self. How many would be prepared to do the same today?

No one comes through the book unchanged. Gollum is a walking shadow of the havoc wanting the ring can do to one and the Ringwraiths are examples of what it means to lose one's soul.

It would have been quite easy for Tolkien to give the book a happy ending, but that is not real life, nor how the world truly works. In reality, the ending is always bittersweet and no one really achieves all that they desire.

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"He who controls others maybe powerful, but he who has mastered himself is mightier still.” - Lao Tsu

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Posts: 238 | From: Minnesota | Registered: Jul 2005