Crawford Comments on LOTR (ROTK book 1, ch. 4-10)

Jackson Crawford reads more of The Lord of the Rings. Start with video no. 1: • Old Norse Expert Reads...
Jackson Crawford, Ph.D.: Sharing real expertise in Norse language and myth with people hungry to learn, free of both ivory tower elitism and the agendas of self-appointed gurus. Visit jacksonwcrawfo... (includes bio and linked list of all videos).
Jackson Crawford’s Patreon page: patreon.com/ norsebysw
My books, other recommended books, and even some clothes and costumes in my Amazon shop at www.amazon.com...
Music © I See Hawks in L.A., courtesy of the artist. Visit www.iseehawks.com/
Logos and channel artwork by Justin Baird. See more of his work at: justinbairddesign.com
#norway
#odin
#jacksoncrawford
#iceland
#archeology
#archaeologynews
#historynews
#kratosvsthor
#ageofmythology
#vikingrise
#vikings
#cosmicwonder
#justicelandic
#amazingfacts
#odinlanguage
#etymology
#everythingalways
#mythologyretold
#personalgrowth
#oldnorse
#linguistics
#oldenglish
#norsemythology
#norwegianlanguage
#scandinavia

[@Oakleaf012]

If you haven’t heard it already, I highly recommend looking up the recording (it’s on KZbin) of Tolkien reading the charge of the Rohirrim. If only for the sheer pleasure of hearing the passion he brings to it Edit: to answer the Gandalf question: he is sent as a guide, not a leader or warrior, by book lore. They had hm fight in the movies bc it wouldn’t have looked right for him to just sit there, but in the books he’s a watcher and a shaper, not a fighter. Sitting by Faramir’s side, possibly keeping him alive, is exactly where he should be, but given that his nature is left so ambiguous in the text, it’s not really clear why on a first read

[@shelby_harriel_author]

Faramir is the only one at that time and space with the humility, wisdom, and (quiet) strength to recognize, give deference to, and ultimately peacefully transfer power over to the rightful king. If Faramir had died, who knows the chaos that could (would?) have ensued. Gandalf was surely aware of that. (And then you can also observe Uncle Imrahil's importance in multiple situations. Absolute pity and shame he wasn't included in the movies. Not to mention what Jackson did to Faramir's character....)

[@jacobrodgers7743]

You're right that Merry's weapon (recovered from the barrow and made to fight the Nazgûl) being more effective than Éowyn's more mundane sword. But it is also subtle worldbuilding that won't come to light on a casual reading as well.

[@Roberthomas]

Theoden’s death at the Battle of Pelennor Fields seems like a direct echo of the Gothic King Theodoric’s death at the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains. Theodoric redeemed his oath to help the Romans and brought his host to fight Attila the Hun alongside Flavius Aetius. Theodoric was killed when he was thrown from his horse during the battle.

[@jackforseti224]

never realized that. Great point!

[@Matt_The_Hugenot]

No ringwraiths involved though 😁

[@TackyParker]

@@Matt_The_Hugenot that we know of….

[@asmith1022]

On a note mostly unrelated to this video, I've always thought that the Goths finding the body of Theodoric on the battlefield must've inspired the Dwarves reaction to the death of Azaghal at Nirnaeth Arnoediad.

[@HubrisInc]

On the topic of the Nazgûl, Jackson et al do us a service of clarifying that that is the word for the Nine Ring-Wraiths, not their mounts, in Aragorn's dialog at Bree, though I feel like Aragorn of the books would be loth to speak that name when they were so near at hand Regarding the description given of the Witch-King of Angmar, my impression is that though his flesh is unseen it is tangible, and his raiment lies visibly upon it, such that his form can be seen though his face may not, save the two piercing lights of his eyes I don't know why I got so poetic in my language just there but it felt right

[@F7024-f3p]

In a draft to a letter, dated Aug 1967 Tolkien writes "It [Nazgul] means 'Ring-wraith" and the element nazg is surely plainly identical with nazg 'ring' in the fiery inscription on the One ring."

[@user-eq8ww1gr6v]

Tolkien trained with a calvary regiment, King Edward's Horse, while an undergraduate, before transferring to the infantry.

[@brovold72]

Yes! Plus I'm assuming that, given the region and era in which he grew up, familiarity with horses would have been the norm.

[@user-eq8ww1gr6v]

@brovold72 Agreed!

[@lyndonmarquis414]

Well, I did _not_ know this. Thanks for sharing.

[@asmith1022]

He was responsible for breaking new horses in with the regiment, so he would've been pretty familiar with temperaments and care.

[@the3rdgray]

Sanctus Gandalfus gave me a good chuckle.

[@brovold72]

The meta framing of the story is that it is compiled by Frodo and, later, Sam, but the final version we're getting (later translated by the narrator) is actually *written* -- committed to paper or scrolls -- after the fact by a royal scribe (with some assistance from Merry?) This conceit explains or justifies some of the very lofty "staves" delivered in the midst of furious action.

[@brovold72]

I've wondered if this conceit is Tolkien's commentary on Shakespearean soliloquies, or just wanting to add some further device of plausibility? Perhaps he'd had students who scoffed when characters in the Sagas or other such tales would wax poetic.

[@haleyschreiter9746]

It's all good! As much as I enjoy the movies, I still prefer the books in just about every instance 😊

[@mcolville]

Tolkien thought a LOT about where these people in his legendarium fit into the real-world creation he believed in. If you know where to look, there are various references to God and the future coming of Christ.

[@andrewhide5140]

If Dr Crawford is doomed to be snowed in, I'm glad he's not finding "The Return of the King" too much of a slog as winter reading. (And as a bonus, we get another installment of his fascinating analysis 🙂.) When Théoden speaks of going to join his fathers, he means it in both the metaphorical/ metaphysical sense of joining his ancestors in some afterlife, but also literally: the Rohirrim bury their kings in the barrows outside the gates of Edoras, and there Théoden expects to be buried in turn. Yes, the original Numenorean realm in Middle Earth was established as two constituent kingdoms of Gondor and Arnor, under Elendil as effectively the "high king". Isildur was the elder son of Elendil and king of Arnor, the northern kingdom; Anarion was the younger son and king of Gondor. A slade, from memory, is a type of valley. I think when Gandalf makes reference to "heathens", it's a shorthand for cultures in Middle Earth that... I hesitate to say "worship", because Tolkien's world doesn't really do worship in a modern sense, but give allegiance to the dark powers of the world rather than the Valar. Regarding Théoden and Denethor and their fates: I'm pretty sure Tolkien set them up very deliberately as simultaneously parallels and opposites to each other, even down to the elements of their names. They're both rulers of their respective realms, both quite elderly for the cultures they come from. Both of them have paid a high price in this war already: Théoden has lost his only son, Denethor has lost his favourite son, and by the end looks likely to lose his second son as well (something I'm sure Tolkien must have seen in real life after his service in the Lancashire Fusiliers in World War I). However, even though they both end in death, the trajectories of the ends of their last days are very different. Théoden begins in a kind of senile madness (it's interesting that there's no clear implication in the book that it's directly being ensorcelled by Saruman, unlike the films), but emerges from it with Gandalf's help, and becomes a leader embodying all the virtues that the Rohirrim admire: he's brave, decisive, honourable, fulfills his oaths, even shows a final generosity in forgiving Merry for disobeying his orders to stay behind. His death in battle is sad, but it's not _tragic_ because, in a sense, it's appropriate. "Meet was his ending", as Éomer rightly puts it. Denethor begins as a rational, even Machiavellian, figure; someone who can, as Gandalf notes, use even his grief as a tool of statecraft. He describes a willingness to sacrifice even his own children in wartime as a necessity. And yet, there are cracks in the rationality. He suspects that Gandalf is plotting to supplant him with Aragorn. The death and injury of his children clearly eats away at him, and combined with the visions of Sauron's strength shown to him in the _palantir_ of Minas Tirith, eventually cause him to descend into despair. And that, I think, is the difference between them. One of Tolkien's thematic intentions was to write a story set in a world that was Christian (and specifically Catholic) in its essence, even if it didn't have a Church and the other external trappings of Christianity; and one of the significant tenets of Catholicism is that despair, the abandonment of all hope of salvation, is a mortal sin. More than once in LotR, there are situations where the characters might very well conclude that things are hopeless and they should just pack it in, but the correct response is to hitch up your belt, put one foot in front of the other, and keep struggling on. There is a moment just before the Rohirrim charge onto the Pelennor when Merry thinks, just for a moment, that Théoden is going to turn around and give up without a fight; but he doesn't, and even in death, he's exalted. Denethor gives in to despair, and ends up (literally and figuratively) in the flames.

[@randallharness103]

Yes yes the perfect cameo for the professor. He might hàve actually done it.

[@ElizabethT-nn5nt]

Thank you, this is another interesting and informative segment in this series - and the comments you've received so far add to the interest. I do want to put in a good word for Frodo and Sam though;- Frodo is my favourite character in the book (not in the movie), and I find those chapters incredibly moving and inspirational for us ordinary everyday people without great and mysterious powers and big armies.

[@stevenklinden]

I think the Witch-king is meant to be invisible but not incorporeal. He has sinews; they're just invisible. Like Frodo if he puts the Ring on.

[@David.Bowman.]

Sweeeet. I’m going to be sad when these are over. Please do the Hobbit and Silmarillion too🙏

[@LaurenSóldís]

He’s about to start the Silmarillion - stay tuned!

[@David.Bowman.]

@ fantastic. Persuade him to do the Hobbit too; it may be ‘children’s’ but the language, wordplay and themes are all cross-relevant!

[@pwmiles56]

Shippey points out that the imagery of the Witch-King is lifted from Milton's Death, who guards the gate of Hell: ...The other shape, If shape it might be call'd that shape had none Distinguishable in member, joynt, or limb, Or substance might be call'd that shadow seem'd ,For each seem'd either; black it stood as Night, Fierce as ten Furies, terrible as Hell, And shook a dreadful Dart; what seem'd his head The likeness of a Kingly Crown had on. --Paradise Lost II, 666-673

[@joannemoore3976]

I can empathise with the 'oh no we are back to Frodo and Sam' because i felt like that when i first read it. With subsequent readings, however, this shifted and I came to find the Frodo and Sam chapters almost unbearably moving. Also Tom Shippey pointed out that what Tolkien's method of staying with one set of characters for a whole 'book' does do, is put the reader in the same mental space as the characters, not knowing what is going on elsewhere.

[@Matt_The_Hugenot]

When I first read the books as a child in the 1970s it was the Rohirrim that fascinated me most and I reread the poetry over and over. Both pronunciations of dour, -OW- and -OO- are current in the UK, in particular I associate the latter with Scottish accents. In the past the -OO- was normal but I think the former arose from people reading the word before hearing it.

[@DavidLC11]

Originally, after the fall of Numenor, Isildur and his brother Anarion held the rule of Gondor jointly, while their father Elendil was in Arnor, and was the high king of both kingdoms. Anarion was killed during the siege of Barad-Dur. Following Elendil’s death defeating Sauron, Isildur became the high king, and left his brother’s son in charge in Gondor while he headed to Arnor. He did not relinquish his rule over Gondor. He never reached Arnor, as he was killed by Orcs while crossing the Anduin on his way. So Isildur’s heir did have a claim to the throne of Gondor (even if an earlier heir who tried to take the crown was rejected by Gondor, but that is another story).

[@Wien1938]

The Nâzgûl king is invisible BUT he is wearing a mantle (cloak) that is not. This would reveal his movements and limbs to his enemies and also make him more intimidating as he is flaunting his unnatural power to subject and foe.

[@YouTubalcaine]

Gandalf's magic is more akin to seiðr. You're not meant to see the strings he pulls.

[@brovold72]

Ha I always feel that the Frodo/Sam chapters (post-"Fellowship") are like "taking your medicine" -- I actively resist the temptation to skip them or skim through them, so as to let the (intended) dread and anxiety percolate.

[@MrBribomb]

Hey I think it would be neat if you made a book about the misconceptions about Norse people and mythology that have arisen over the years due to art and media. It’s something I would love to read

[@kaptnhansenpresidentjamaic9577]

There is a translation of the end of the battle on the Pelennor Fields and the Mounds of Mundburg poem into Old English on KZbin.

[@sit-insforsithis1568]

Great video !

[@magister343]

It may be worth noting that the dagger Merriadoc was wielding had been enchanted specifically with to counter

[@brettevill9055]

I take the _-laik_ in _dwimmerlaik_ as representing OE _-līċ_ re: horses, dangerousness of. For all the excessively venomous animals with which Australia is said to be beset, it is by a long way horses that kill the most people here. Cattle come second. "Staff" (pl. "staves") is in the dictionaries as a synonym of "stanza", but Tolkien is the only writer I've know to use that sense.

[@SNWWRNNG]

Thank you for the long video :) Looking forward to Book VI and the Appendices. Gondor and Arnor are indeed partly inspired by Eastern and Western Rome iirc, alongside other sources like the upper and lower kingdom of Egypt. I'd guess Gandalf uses heathen in the sense of people not believing in Eru, maybe those who worship Dark Lords specifically.

[@jennyc3919]

IIRC most humans, and certainly hobbits, are not aware of Eru. They definitely don’t worship him outright, so I don’t think it’s that exactly

[@F7024-f3p]

In a draft to a letter, dated Aug 1967 Tolkien writes "We are in a time when the One God, Eru, is known to exist by the Wise, but is not approachable svae by or through the Valar, thouggh He is still remembered in (unspoken) prayer by those of Númenórean decent." So if Gandalf in talking to Denethor mentions heathens he means it.

[@chuckbridgeland6181]

I just finished a re-read of LOTR. (Last read through was around 1972, so been a while.) Book V, "Minas Tirith", is the one where the Peter Jackson's LOTR has the most variances from the book. Anyway, elves. There're a lot of hints, if you pay attention, throughout the book. The difference in fate (vs. Men) is hinted at. How they, at least to some extent, seem also to live in a parallel invisible (spiritual?) existence, and how those that remain in Middle Earth will eventually "fade". Also, how they appear to others is often kind of folkloric. Example, when the hobbits are on their way to Bree, and trying to avoid the Black Riders, they run into a party of elves. "No problemo." say the elves, and spirit them away to where they can't be seen. They have a party, then wake up alone under a tree the next morning. Also note the attitude of the Rohirrim toward Lothlorian -- a magic land, don't go there. I noticed what you did about economy as well. The hobbits grow food. There are farms in the Pellanor. Otherwise, they only other place I can recall it being mentioned is that Mordor is fed from slave plantations somewhere deeper in Mordor from the parts we see. Where do the Elves get their food? And how do they pay for it?

[@steveblunden2295]

Elves and food provision. In the Hobbit, the Elves of Mirkwood ride out to hunt, and in the Silmarillion, one of the Sons of Feanor has a hunting hound, Huan. But hunting would not be enough. The Mirkwood Elves had established trade with Laketown (and later Dale and the Dwarves of the Lonely Mountain. But yes it's vague and assumed. There were feasts in Rivendell and Lothlorien, and Lembas is shown to be Travelling Food. But that's about it. And I don’t think JRR Tolkien conceived of a guest going to an Elf-Feast and exclaiming "where's the meat?" !!! Ah well ....

[@benjaminkeepfer8968]

The prophecy that lies over the Witch King ( quote: "Not by the hand of man shall he fall" ) is subtly ironic in the story. Eowen gets the public credit for slaying him (as a woman), but it was actually Merry who did it (not a human).

[@jonathonfrazier6622]

My dog is Baldwin. And he is a bold friend.

[@caseyrogers573]

I always thought Mumakil referred to the elephant drivers, with the -kil morpheme meaning something like “driver.”

[@DerrickSeaborne-d2j]

Interesting video

[@MrLigonater]

I think the parallels between Arnor and Gondor has gone a long way to tincture how they appear in my minds eye as I read the books. I like the movies, and I think the costume designers did a laudable job, but I imagine it differently. I imagine a material culture much more reminiscent of the 10th or 11th century as I read. As a miniatures gamer, the Lord of the Rings game sells models based on the movies, but I have much more fun proxting historical miniatures and then trying to paint them in a way that the text seems to imply is appropriate. I suppose it is just my niche way I like to interact with the lore of middle earth. lol

[@fostermoody]

I too thought the loss of Ghan-buri-ghan and the Druedain/Wild men from the movies was a shame. It would have been fantastic to have seen them played by Maori actors fighting alongside the Rohirrim and Gondorians at Pellenor, even though that too would have been a departure from the books.

[@et.qui.auques.recoillir]

Please do the Silmarillion too🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺

[@LaurenSóldís]

He’s just starting it!!

[@Pengalen]

Gandalf to Denethor: "Deus Vult! Infidel!"

[@F7024-f3p]

About the archaic language in Tolkiens text. Tolkien answers critique he had recieved for it in a draft dated september 1955 (171). In the lenghty draft Toliken writes "This is an fair sample -- moderated or watered archaism. Using only words that are still used or known to the educated, the King would really have said: Nay, thou (n')wost^1 not thine skill in healing: It shall not be so. I will myself go to war, to fall...etc. I know well enough what a modern would say. 'Not at all my dear G. You don't know your own skill as a doctor. Things aren't going to be like that. I shall go to the war in person, even if have to be one of the casualties' -- and then what? Theoden would certainly think, and probably say 'thus shall I sleep better'! But people who think like that just do not talk a modern idiom.

[@RobertFisher1969]

I think it is hard to not sound critical of the movies when discussing the book. My review of the movies has always been: The parts actually from Tolkien are good. I certainly understand that adaption requires changes, but the needlessly added stuff and inexplicably reversed stuff in the movies, for me, doesn't fare well juxtaposed against the faithful parts.

[@TheOtherTed]

30:47 According to Blondal / Benedikz "The Varangians of Byzantium," the old Russian terms 'Varyag' or 'Varegu' may have been used to refer to "Norse merchants and soldiers who entered the service of Russian rulers." Maybe a Russian adaptation of Vaeringjar? In any case, to the best of my knowledge, Tolkien never made it clear who or what they were.

[@troelspeterroland6998]

Yes, it is an Old East Slavic rendering of Old Norse Væringjar

[@dougsundseth6904]

It's not just you who has a problem with what an elf might look like. It's been an argument that I've seen since the 70s. We hear about tall elves, but from Hobbits, so we have no real evidence about what "tall" might mean in that context. When you're three feet tall, both five feet tall and seven feet tall are "tall". Another long-running argument is about dwarven women, who are said to be indistinguishable from dwarven men. So do they then have beards as well? The life of a Tolkien fan is rife with this kind of pedantry.

[@oliverschoneck7750]

Heathen i think refers to thoose under the dominion of sauron or morgoth. Edit: on gandalf focusing on faramir, i think he is trying to prevent political turmoil as faramir is the new steward.

[@JenksAnro]

It's hit him with the right thing and hes there ☝️ 🤓

[@howardhavardramberg333]

By Bombadil's beard!

[@barryjeanfontenot4502]

I saw ROTK and thought you’d made a dramatic Eastward pivot.

[@et.qui.auques.recoillir]

Maybe you would like the recent "Frieren" Anime series. It is very tolkienesque. Not superficial like most of today's fantasy anime

[@_Loken]

I think Theoden does get crushed by his horse in the movie, doesn't he? Maybe I misremember it.

[@jamieyoung9392]

Don't worry - "Strange accent does not mar fair speech" :-)