Join Alan and Shawn as they don red shirts for the final chapter of the Quenta Silmarillion, the voyages of the star-ship Vingilot. Its continuing mission: to bring Eärendil and Elwing into the West, to seek the pardon and aid of the Valar, and to become a beacon of hope for Elves and Men forever after. The ensuing War of Wrath leaves behind a strange new world, and each of the Silmarils boldly goes where no one has gone before… or ever will again.
For an image of Maglor Casts a Silmaril into the Sea by Ted Nasmith, visit the artist’s home page here: http://www.tednasmith.com/tolkien/maglor-casts-a-silmaril-into-the-sea/
For the article “Dragon scale” by John Garth, on the size of Ancalagon the Black, visit his blog here: https://johngarth.wordpress.com/2015/01/18/dragon-scale-why-its-impossible-to-size-up-tolkiens-middle-earth/
For the essay “From Terrible Beauty to Beacon of Hope — The Silmarils from Fëanor to Eärendil” by listener Tom Hillman, visit his blog here: http://alasnotme.blogspot.com/2017/04/from-terrible-beauty-to-beacon-of-hope.html
Recommended Reading:
Carpenter, Humphrey, ed. The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien (Mariner Books, paperback)
Rateliff, John D. The History of the Hobbit (HarperCollins, one-volume hardcover)
Garth, John. Tolkien and the Great War: The Threshold of Middle-earth (Mariner Books, hardcover)
Garth, John. Tolkien at Exeter College (Exeter College, paperback)
Hello there. I’ve listened to more than half of this podcast. You guys are so easy to listen to, I just wish I had more time. But I’m getting there. This week I listened with my husband who knows a litt
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He laughed as he typed this, for the lust of etymology was upon him…
It didn’t seem so strange that the sails of Vingilot were argent, once I remembered that “argent” is the heraldic term for “white”. Eärendil spent a long time studying heraldry and sigaldry and smithying, after all.
Excellent point. Perhaps it wasn’t a slip into Romance etymology at all, but intended to describe a plain white sail with no device on it.
1:40:00 (Or thereabouts timestamp-wise…where Alan addresses the drowning of Beleriand)
WARNING! INCOMING RANT! Please, forgive me for this long-winded criticism of the Professor’s amazing work, but it is maybe the biggest problem I have with The Silmarillion (probably my fav book) and the only nit that I truly need picked. I understand not everyone will even recognize it as an issue or care anywhere near as greatly, if they do, but, IMHO, this is WAY WORSE than winged Balrogs or the Ancalagon size williwaw.
Quoting from the book, page 312 of my copy:
“Thus an end was made of the power of Angband in the North, and the evil realm was brought to naught; and out of the deep prisons a multitude of slaves came forth beyond all hope into the light of day, and they looked upon a world that was changed. For so great was the fury of those adversaries that the northern regions of the western world were rent asunder, and the sea roared in through many chasms, and there was confusion and great noise; and rivers perished or found new paths, and the valleys were upheaved and the hills trod down; and Sirion was no more.”
And, again, page 353 of my copy:
“In the Great Battle and the tumults of the fall of Thangorodrim there were mighty convulsions in the earth, and Beleriand was broken and laid waste; and northward and westward many lands sank beneath the waters of the Great Sea. In the east, in Ossiriand, the walls of Ered Luin were broken, and a great gap was made in them towards the south, and a gulf of the sea flowed in.”
Alan sort of addresses the difficulty this raises in a Beleriand which, despite Morgoth’s destruction of almost all its kingdoms, still MUST have had thousands, if not millions, of Elves and Men and Dwarves living in its lands, but also quickly dismisses it by saying it had to have been a “slow descent.” Well, unless the waters came in at WALKING SPEED (something that would have required MUCH more time than the course of a fairly decisive and one-sided battle, not a long-contested one taking years, so freed slaves would NOT have been able to behold the results), or unless the Valar somehow sent in evacuation teams months before the battle to help those who did not participate in the war (the old, women, and children?) flee the region (without Morgoth catching on, mind you), then MULTITUDES OF PEOPLE DROWNED, the remnants of the Noldor, Naugrim, Sindar, Green Elves, Edain, etc. And, surely, such a tragedy would have made it into the annals of the time, maybe even inspiring tales and songs of woe, whose morals might have concluded that it was all worth it if Morgoth was banished.
But, realistically, does wording like “so great was the fury of those adversaries” and “rent asunder” and “sea roared in” and “confusion and great noise” and “valleys were upheaved and the hills trod down” and “mighty convulsions in the earth” suggest something happening in slow motion? The earthquakes alone would have claimed many lives, never mind a flood so epic and tremendous it swallowed up a continent-sized swath of land.
It pains me to find what I feel is such a glaring flaw in an otherwise incredibly cohesive narrative, but, sorry, this is something that, had Tolkien survived to publish The Silmarillion himself, he would have had to have worked feverishly to clarify/correct. It is a fairly insurmountable predicament in my estimation.
The Tale of Years does say the War of Wrath took something like 40 years, but I agree that doesn’t quite match the description we get of apocalyptic, earth-rending upheaval… and in any event, 40 years of constant earthquakes and flooding would have taken quite a toll on anyone living in Beleriand even if they were migrating out to higher, more stable ground. An entire generation would be traumatized. So I see your point. I imagine it is something Tolkien would have corrected if he’d seen _The Silmarillion_ published in his lifetime.
Ah, OK. Thanks for the info. The “Tale of Years” would be found somewhere in “The History of ME” I can only assume. I have to admit that, other than parts of “Morgoth’s Ring,” I have not read it. Forty years, obviously, would allow plenty of time for evacuations, so that’s good news, but now a ton of other questions are coming to mind. For instance, most of the conflict’s duration must have been taken up by Ancalagon and the winged dragons driving back the hosts of Valinor, because that’s about the only “non-decisive victory” language we get for the battle, in The Silmarillion at least. It just doesn’t seem like it would take four decades to reach a conclusion if Morgoth’s infantry was going down like shrivelled leaves before a burning wind. And I do have to wonder how many of the mortal participants, like the remaining Edain, died of old age rather than in combat before a war lasting that long could run its course. 😉