Bruce N H
Active Member
Hi all,
I'm listening back to session 169 from three weeks ago and I have a theory about an insertion by Findegil, King's Writer.
First up, I have a head canon about Findegil. We know he finished his work in FA 172, which is 50 years after the death of Elessar and the departure of Legolas and Gimli, so he didn't have access to any of the principal characters of LotR. At most he may been taken to the court as a young child and seen Strider from a distance. So what did Findegil have that he could add to the story? He had the court records of Gondor (and Arnor), and presumably also of Rohan. My theory is that he mainly inserted bits of song, or prose derived from song, or from official accounts. These would largely focus around the King, and his Queen, and also the great battles at the end of the Third Age, and they would tend to have a more "high" or courtly language in comparison to the more day-to-day speech of the hobbits who wrote the bulk of the tale (of course both Bilbo and Frodo could do "high" speech as well). The most obvious case of this is from the Muster of Rohan. The text explicitly says that the story of the ride of Theoden was written about "for many long lives of men thereafter", and then we get the "From dark Dunharrow in the dim morning" poem, one of those poems written "long lives of men" after the action. The only person who could have put this in was Findegil.
So whenever I hear "high" or poetic passages inserted into the narrative, especially if they concern Gondor or Rohan, I think they might be the work of Findegil. Yes, I grant that Bilbo, Frodo, and even Sam were all poets, so I know this isn't a great proof. But anyway, one passage I was proud of discovering was the "So it was that Frodo saw her whom few mortals had yet seen; Arwen, daughter of Elrond, in whom it was said that the likeness of Luthien had come on earth again" passage from Many Meetings. Both the change in tone and the subject matter suggest this is a Findegilian insertion - we discussed this back in the before-times when we were in Many Meetings.
Okay, on to session 169.
I would suggest another Findegilian insertion, when Gandalf meets Shadowfax. Three weeks ago we discussed this passage starting "True indeed!" said Gandalf. 'And there is one among them that might have been foaled in the morning of the world." We talked about the mythic reference, the descriptive language, and even the alliteration "man mounted ... took him and I tamed him ... so speedily ...". Here's my proposal. It seems obvious that the meeting of the White Rider and his mythic steed would have been the subject of an epic poem - if not in Gondor then certainly in Rohan. I think this passage is a gloss inserted by Findegil, who took passages from that poem and put them into story of Gandalf.
Anyway, what do you think?
Bruce / Bricktales
I'm listening back to session 169 from three weeks ago and I have a theory about an insertion by Findegil, King's Writer.
First up, I have a head canon about Findegil. We know he finished his work in FA 172, which is 50 years after the death of Elessar and the departure of Legolas and Gimli, so he didn't have access to any of the principal characters of LotR. At most he may been taken to the court as a young child and seen Strider from a distance. So what did Findegil have that he could add to the story? He had the court records of Gondor (and Arnor), and presumably also of Rohan. My theory is that he mainly inserted bits of song, or prose derived from song, or from official accounts. These would largely focus around the King, and his Queen, and also the great battles at the end of the Third Age, and they would tend to have a more "high" or courtly language in comparison to the more day-to-day speech of the hobbits who wrote the bulk of the tale (of course both Bilbo and Frodo could do "high" speech as well). The most obvious case of this is from the Muster of Rohan. The text explicitly says that the story of the ride of Theoden was written about "for many long lives of men thereafter", and then we get the "From dark Dunharrow in the dim morning" poem, one of those poems written "long lives of men" after the action. The only person who could have put this in was Findegil.
So whenever I hear "high" or poetic passages inserted into the narrative, especially if they concern Gondor or Rohan, I think they might be the work of Findegil. Yes, I grant that Bilbo, Frodo, and even Sam were all poets, so I know this isn't a great proof. But anyway, one passage I was proud of discovering was the "So it was that Frodo saw her whom few mortals had yet seen; Arwen, daughter of Elrond, in whom it was said that the likeness of Luthien had come on earth again" passage from Many Meetings. Both the change in tone and the subject matter suggest this is a Findegilian insertion - we discussed this back in the before-times when we were in Many Meetings.
Okay, on to session 169.
I would suggest another Findegilian insertion, when Gandalf meets Shadowfax. Three weeks ago we discussed this passage starting "True indeed!" said Gandalf. 'And there is one among them that might have been foaled in the morning of the world." We talked about the mythic reference, the descriptive language, and even the alliteration "man mounted ... took him and I tamed him ... so speedily ...". Here's my proposal. It seems obvious that the meeting of the White Rider and his mythic steed would have been the subject of an epic poem - if not in Gondor then certainly in Rohan. I think this passage is a gloss inserted by Findegil, who took passages from that poem and put them into story of Gandalf.
Anyway, what do you think?
Bruce / Bricktales
