Latest / Mythmakers / Everything You Need To Know About The Silmarillion But Were Too Afraid To Ask

Transcript

Everything You Need To Know About The Silmarillion But Were Too Afraid To Ask · Mythmakers

• 0:00
  Hello and welcome to MythMakers. MythMakers is the podcast for fantasy fans and fantasy
• 0:12
  creatives brought to you by the Oxford Centre for fantasy. My name is Julia Golding, I'm
• 0:19
  an author but also director of the Centre and I'm joined today by a friend of our endeavors
• 0:26
  here Jacob Renica. So Jacob tell us where you're speaking to us from. I'm coming to you now from
• 0:33
  Seattle, Seattle, Washington in the United States and just moved here relocated from Los Angeles
• 0:40
  area. So change a little change of scenery it's from what I can tell so far it's a little bit closer
• 0:48
  to Tolkien's environs than kind of the more desert-like at times and quite congested Los Angeles area.
• 0:57
  So you basically moved from Harad and you're now somewhere a bit more like Bri or the Shah
• 1:03
  or even a bit further north. So Jacob you've also shifted role a bit you were telling me that you're
• 1:09
  now working in fantasy in a different way. Yes yes so from you know an academic kind of examination
• 1:17
  of fantasy it's still continuing that on the side but now my primary role is helping to develop
• 1:28
  and produce fantasy games, board games etc so. That's very exciting fantastic job.
• 1:37
  Both of us are keen Tolkien fans and readers we're a little bit of expertise and the subject of
• 1:46
  today's podcast is the Silmarillion. Now what's the number of reasons for that the most important
• 1:52
  of which is that we're about to start a reader-thon where we invite all of you out there who
• 2:00
  have read it before and want to talk about it with others or would like to try it for a first time
• 2:05
  to take on a chapter and share your thoughts on that chapter with everybody who's following the
• 2:12
  journey. We did a successful reader-thon on the Lord of the Rings in the spring put this out to
• 2:19
  public vote. I think the choices were the Hobbit the Silmarillion or one of the Narnia books and
• 2:24
  the Silmarillion picked the Hobbit at the post and I'm actually very proud of the choice because
• 2:29
  it means we're really kind of going to tackle the harder stuff. So if you have thought of reading
• 2:35
  the Silmarillion or tried it and failed hopefully the conversation that Jacob and I will be having
• 2:42
  will ease you into reading it again. So first of all here's an easy ball Jacob. What is the
• 2:51
  Silmarillion? You know what's it all about? If you've just found the Lord of the Rings what happens
• 2:56
  when you pick out the Silmarillion? Yeah it depends if you've just finished Lord of the Rings and
• 3:03
  you pick up the Silmarillion expecting it to be a lot more of the same. It's really it's quite
• 3:09
  different. There's similarities there's a lot of intersection there but I guess yeah the place
• 3:14
  to probably start in before you're cracking open the Silmarillion if you haven't before one of
• 3:20
  the most important things to understand is kind of contextually what the Silmarillion is and that is
• 3:25
  there's a series of stories as I'm not a series of stories it's a collection really of stories
• 3:32
  that kind of flesh out Tolkien's secondary world what you might hear referred to as the
• 3:37
  Legendarium or you know Middle Earth sometimes is but that's technically doesn't quite cover
• 3:45
  everything that's in the Silmarillion because there's a lot more outside of that but essentially
• 3:50
  if you're just coming to Lord of the Rings if this is essentially you know all the stories
• 3:57
  from which the Lord of the Rings emerged and they weren't created in kind of a chronological
• 4:05
  systematic way this was really kind of an organic kind of springing forth of ideas that Tolkien
• 4:10
  had started in the you know starting in about the 1910s or so where he started kind of putting
• 4:15
  these down to you know pen to paper until his death in 1973 he's continuing to kind of I like
• 4:24
  to think of the Silmarillion his his work that becomes kind of codified in the Silmarillion as kind
• 4:31
  of a garden right where he has all these different ideas and he's pruning and he's going back and
• 4:36
  sometimes he's pulling them out and putting in something new that's kind of close to it but it's
• 4:41
  just kind of ever evolving he was never completely finished with it he was tinkering until the
• 4:46
  very end and so he have all of these different stories some of them are well developed other others
• 4:54
  are just kind of simple sketches some are kind of philosophical essays on different ideas within
• 5:00
  there but what what happened was but how we have the book as it is right now is it was something
• 5:08
  that Tolkien tried publishing earlier before Lord of the Rings right so this is the things that he
• 5:14
  was working on after after the Hobbit was published and you know to to a great enthusiasm from
• 5:23
  the audience publisher asked for for more and so he had all of these stories that he'd been
• 5:28
  tending to that were kind of these these background stories of right of his legendary of this this
• 5:35
  world that he's created secondary world and he handed the publishers a few chapters of this and
• 5:41
  they said nope like that's this is not the Hobbit we want more Hobbit and so what he ended up
• 5:48
  doing was kind of striking kind of what I feel is kind of a middle ground between this kind of
• 5:54
  like larger more epic history of an entire of an entire world universe in essence and and the
• 6:05
  the adventure past past story with a lot of dialogue in the Hobbit and that's where Lord of the Rings
• 6:12
  it kind of grows grows out of there but so Lord of the Rings gets published and then you know
• 6:18
  people are clamoring for more Tolkien Tolkien passes away and so his son Christopher is left with
• 6:25
  you know the publisher saying like hey we know that he was working on things get us some more of that
• 6:30
  we want more everyone wants more and so Christopher has to file through all of these different
• 6:36
  stories and different stages of completion put them together create some sort of kind of coherent
• 6:43
  narrative arc from them and flesh them out really and so he does so pouring through the material
• 6:52
  some self he has helped from fantasy author Guy Gabriel K who helps kind of create some kind of
• 7:00
  connective narrative threads between these stories that weren't that Tolkien hadn't you know set
• 7:05
  down and kind of put everything out in one in one go and so it ends up and and apparently Christopher
• 7:12
  was under a lot of pressure to get this done quickly so he puts it together gets it good enough
• 7:19
  and then chips it off and that's what you have in your hands is this kind of posthumous collection
• 7:26
  of larger stories in varying degrees of completion that Tolkien had about this you know this world
• 7:34
  that he that he created yes and it as people probably aware there are other follow one
• 7:41
  papers that Christopher Tolkien edited I think it's fair to say that the Silmarillion feels
• 7:50
  more polished and more complete than some of them so you know you would be getting a satisfying
• 7:59
  read if you read the Silmarillion it's not it's not quite as unfinished as the unfinished
• 8:05
  nails for example as the name suggests so that's the sort of the history of how it came to be written
• 8:15
  it was definitely really what Tolkien loved I think this is well thing to understand is
• 8:21
  it's the fertile material as you said it's the soil out of which his garden grew so here I've got
• 8:29
  actually it's a first edition of the Silmarillion and looking at the the table of contents here
• 8:38
  you see that it's basically in right it's in four bits really forgive me for my pronunciation
• 8:50
  but the first one is the a non lindale which is a sort of creation setting up story
• 8:59
  the Valor Quenta which is the story of the Valor who are the sort of gods and goddesses of this
• 9:10
  world and that goes into the Quenta Silmarillion which is like the what gives the book its name so
• 9:18
  that's all takes part in the first age of Tolkien's world it's the one which we probably spend
• 9:27
  most times talking about I think today then I'd say the last half or last third is split into two
• 9:38
  bits and the next thing is called the Akhalabeth so don't get scared off by these titles basically
• 9:47
  that's the subtitle of that is the downfall of Numenor that takes place in the second age and
• 9:54
  we'll spend some time talking about that because this is rings of power territory and then the last
• 10:01
  section is called hopefully of the rings of power and the third age and that is partly in the
• 10:11
  second age and obviously partly in the third age so that's the table of contents but do you
• 10:17
  want to sketch out a little bit more detail um let's start with the the form of creation that we
• 10:23
  read about what's going on there and we all know the biblical versions of creation what is Tolkien's
• 10:31
  sort of myth of creation that he uses yeah and this is fascinating so my what really hooked me
• 10:41
  was this beginning was the very beginning part because of my you know academic area of expertise
• 10:47
  in kind of world historical mythologies um you know belief traditions uh you know stories
• 10:55
  tales that connect with gods monsters etc uh so the yeah so the first section this
• 11:03
  uh Ina lindale uh literally literally you all that's that's how you say Ina lindale thank you
• 11:09
  lindale uh so literally it means the music of the Inair uh so whereas you have for those readers
• 11:16
  familiar with the Hebrew Bible or christian Old Testament um Genesis uh first chapter you have
• 11:23
  kind of god speaking uh kind of commanding the world into into existence in different stages um
• 11:31
  and uh you know different world you know different world uh areas cultures have different myths
• 11:37
  you know cosmogonic myths which means like the creation of the cosmos or the order of world
• 11:42
  around us um so Tolkien is the the name of this you know Ina lindale the music of the Inair his
• 11:48
  kind of override being metaphor for creation is music is song right so you have few different
• 11:55
  characters you have uh eluvatar who is the this kind of primary large deity this that's kind
• 12:05
  of could be equated with the kind of your Judeo christian god um in some ways but again
• 12:11
  making equivalence is something that uh won't get to when we get to the valiquenta talking about
• 12:17
  a little bit and and Tolkien's pantheon but it's it's this kind of the primary main all powerful
• 12:23
  all-knowing deity that's behind it and this uh eluvatar and again like Julia said the names don't
• 12:31
  let the names throw you off so that's one of the things that might trip readers up is running
• 12:36
  into these names that are so foreign and you're not used to seeing in Lord of the Rings or Hobbit
• 12:40
  or anywhere else in the world for that matter um so these words you the more that you hear them
• 12:47
  it's good to you know reference and charts there's plenty online that people have kind of
• 12:53
  helpedfully put together lists of gods lists of genealogies relationships between these different
• 13:00
  characters so absolutely don't feel there's one thing that i would like to get to to new readers is
• 13:06
  you you're not alone in reading this there's a number of people who are also reading this and people
• 13:10
  who've provided helps and different things so toward the end of our conversation i think we'll
• 13:14
  go through some of the resources that would be helpful but this is just you know kind of try to
• 13:18
  what your appetite give you a kind of 30,000 foot view of what we're looking at so
• 13:24
  so again i i'm only delay all powerful god um then commands you have brings forth these kind of
• 13:31
  minor deities uh beings of of power uh who are themselves he brings it this this all powerful god
• 13:42
  brings into create with him and they do so through song um and each of them sings something he
• 13:49
  the this eluvitar of this god kind of he he proposes a theme a musical theme and the different
• 13:58
  individual uh you know powerful beings that you created kind of each riff on that in their own way
• 14:05
  yeah it's kind of jazz yeah right right right right it's really is yeah and so and and that's
• 14:14
  that's what happens in there and they're kind of working together figuring out how to work to
• 14:17
  them play off of one another and then uh one of one of these uh beings of power uh kind of wants a solo
• 14:26
  all the time and so it kind of goes louder and louder and kind of throws off the others um and kind
• 14:33
  of throws everything into chaos and then the island really is a story of you know how the group and
• 14:40
  this god deal with this commotion uh that's kind of destructive chaotic um not participation of one
• 14:47
  of these in different rounds and then ultimately what they sing uh the god put you know has them
• 14:58
  create into being so it's kind of like the initial like blueprint outline of everything
• 15:02
  that's happening and then they go in and the world is created and they kind of recapitulate
• 15:10
  this song uh into reality so there's some wonderful things i just want to pick out of that so
• 15:20
  um melcore who also gets known later he's renamed morgoth by one of the elves but he's the
• 15:27
  fan or who will get to a lot um he is the one who wants to sing his own song and we were
• 15:37
  referring we're having a chat before we started talking about how this is described as him ending
• 15:42
  up sounding just like brass instruments so for those of you who want him to find connections to
• 15:48
  Lord of the Rings films that they love please note that Howard Shaw has read the Silmarillion
• 15:53
  because um he or included it because all of his ways of um characterizing the evil side is to
• 16:03
  use a lot of brass which is entirely appropriate the other thing about it is how beautifully it reads
• 16:12
  now it's got a wonderful poetry to it but it's also got lots of surprises it's like there's waves
• 16:21
  of creation uh imagine it like waves on the shore sort of again and again um with eluvia
• 16:28
  tar saying i'm sort of paraphrasing here but he says to melcore and the others anything you've
• 16:36
  done here can't be outside my plan and which is very interesting philosophically about the nature
• 16:43
  of evil uh that i mean this is really if you're interested in philosophy this is a fascinating book
• 16:48
  for you and then the final thing is actually when they he then shows them the world he actually says
• 16:56
  it's not happened yet creation hasn't happened so they decided some of those have been in part
• 17:03
  the scene decide to go into the world to create the world they've already sung about fascinating
• 17:11
  perspective on time and we could mention breathiest and other people here if we wanted but the idea
• 17:16
  of where does eternal time fit within a sort of temporal world anyway maybe that's another
• 17:22
  podcast um so they have to go in and create it and there's a little bit that says how many
• 17:28
  eons pass before the elves arrive of the waves of creation by the good guys and then melcore coming
• 17:37
  and spoiling it which is a way of talking and accounting i think for the very long history of our
• 17:44
  well before there's any any any of us here to see it um he does give us sort of scientifically if
• 17:50
  you're putting it along science it kind of fits quite well because he suggests this is a much longer
• 17:55
  period but we're only going to concentrate on the bit where there are elves and men and dwarves
• 17:59
  and so on to see it so i think it's rather beautifully written it's a wonderful myth a wonderful
• 18:04
  metaphor for creation yeah i've certainly canonized it myself in my own
• 18:12
  yeah devotional it's just it is it is you know like you said it's poetic it's beautiful it's moving
• 18:17
  it's inspiring uh and i by return to it fairly often probably more often than i do the rest of the
• 18:24
  of the silver one to be quite frank again because of my just like love for myth and kind of like
• 18:29
  creation stories but that's one that just i keep i keep finding myself coming back to it's not terribly
• 18:34
  long no no no exactly i was that you took the words out of my mouth i was about to say um i wouldn't
• 18:41
  advise sitting down and trying to read the silver really in like a story i'd read it in bits and if
• 18:46
  you just felt oh i feel like it's like mythic today go to the beginning and read that chapter
• 18:52
  and just to sort of you know if you're if you're a student out there you might want to compare it
• 18:57
  to the beginning of paradise lost there are very strong parallels between um the way Milton
• 19:06
  sets up his world in paradise lost and this so you can chuck it into your essay or just a
• 19:14
  more general interest because of course um Tolkien would have been fully aware of what Milton
• 19:18
  was up to and his philosophical underpinning so he he's also as well as the bible he's definitely
• 19:25
  in conversation with um Milton and of course moving slightly on he's also in conversation with
• 19:33
  the Norse pantheon so let's have a look at the next section which is we don't need to spend very
• 19:40
  long on it's a little description of the valar and the mire now if you've wondered
• 19:48
  who Gandalf is and what a Balrog is and where does Sauron fit in the grand scheme of things
• 19:56
  this is a wonderful short section for you to read so Jacob do you want to tell us about um you don't
• 20:01
  need to recap everything in there but just outline this is one of the more summary version you know
• 20:06
  we move from the myth beautifully told to more summary set of motion right so this is just you know
• 20:13
  Tolkien's kind of brief overview of kind of the ruling powers of this this world that he's created
• 20:19
  so Arda and there's different yeah actually get into the universe itself is created and then within
• 20:24
  the universe there's this world um which is referred to as Arda which you know this is this
• 20:30
  equivalent to earth you know what we're on right now um and then so there's a number of these
• 20:36
  powers that we mentioned at the beginning several of them choose to come down and be tied to this
• 20:42
  world um and that their kind of you know fates their fortunes uh sorrows and everything we're all
• 20:50
  tied up and what's happening in this in this in this world in this particular world within the
• 20:54
  larger universe um and so this is Tolkien kind of outlining who the you know what is the pantheon
• 21:01
  and so you have uh pairs of gods often male and female uh pairs uh and some of which are brothers
• 21:10
  also brothers it's not just that you know that's where I think where it feels quite Norse um so
• 21:19
  melkor is paired like coeval I think is the word used with manwe who's like the odin or zoos or
• 21:29
  you know they're sort of top good guy right odin's good but you know what I mean he's like the top of
• 21:34
  that side yeah so yeah some of them have like specific are said you know their brothers to this one
• 21:39
  some are you know wedded to other gods so you have you know they had some the like Norse Greek
• 21:46
  uh pantheons there and then uh there's so fourteen that are kind of functioning there were
• 21:55
  fifteen with melkor um who is the the chaotic that's our trumpeter our trumpeter soloist um
• 22:03
  extraordinaire he uh yeah it's kind of you know falls outside kind of takes things over and there's
• 22:10
  a separation between the two so yeah so this uh they're different kind of categories different
• 22:14
  areas of the world that they're that they kind of have responsibility for um so right so you
• 22:21
  mentioned manway who's kind of the head your chief uh of this that has a seems to have a particularly
• 22:27
  special relationship with eluvitar the primary overarching god um but it's largely this overarching
• 22:34
  god kind of leaves everything up to these powers these kind of lower orders of beings can compared to
• 22:41
  the god eluvitar and each of them is responsible for developing some person you know some part of
• 22:48
  of creation itself so for instance yes you have um right so you have uh alay who's
• 22:54
  responding what kind of the crafts craftsman god um construction who's tied to you know like rock
• 23:02
  you have ulmo who's the god of the water uh and song as well so there's so there's
• 23:08
  there's different is one of the things that i think is uh a mistake to really do it to is to try
• 23:13
  to identify directly this god of of Tolkien is equivalent to Poseidon so ulmo has some similarities
• 23:22
  with Poseidon or Neptune um but there are differences in that say so ulmo is really is a solitary
• 23:32
  figure right so Poseidon so well yeah so so ulmo is solitary doesn't take a wipe and oftentimes
• 23:38
  functions outside of the rest of the pantheon kind of does his own thing has a special relationship with
• 23:45
  elves uh and and humans and uh he also is really enamored with song and so you see that uh the
• 23:56
  song of the ironer has said isn't that but the analogy that you used uh Julia about waves about
• 24:01
  creation kind of happening in waves um Tolkien says in this that the the music of the ironer kind of
• 24:08
  is echoed in the music of the sea right the sound of the sea oh yes i wrote that down because i
• 24:13
  thought it was so beautiful i wrote it on today let me read it to you yeah and it is said by the
• 24:17
  elder that the water the in water there lives yet the echo of the music of the anor more than in
• 24:24
  any substance else that is in the earth and many of the children of a Louvertare how can still
• 24:31
  unsated to the voices of the sea and yet no not for what they listen which is why there's a link
• 24:39
  here of course if you're looking for your Lord of the Rings links to why it's so dangerous for
• 24:46
  legolas to hear the sea and he doesn't know why but he's listening to the music of the anor
• 24:53
  so um that's you know i love those little moments waiting oh right that's what that's all about
• 24:58
  yeah and that's and that's right that the reading one of the big things i think uh a reason for
• 25:03
  encouraging you know audience members to pick up the some early in is it enhances if you like
• 25:09
  Lord of the Rings this will only enhance your reread of Lord of the Rings so it didn't yeah you
• 25:16
  you you pick up on different things that are laying behind us that Tolkien doesn't spell out
• 25:19
  specifically but this is like you mentioned the soil from which Lord of the Rings is is growing so
• 25:26
  everything you read here is going to only heighten your appreciation for understanding of
• 25:31
  what's happening in Lord of the Rings absolutely so belief beneath the valar is like a
• 25:39
  none of these words quite work but arcane jaws or something angelic beings or beings of power
• 25:47
  um who were called the maya and and here we got another wonderful little clue
• 25:53
  do you want to just run through who the valar are um the maya are maya yeah so they're yeah so
• 25:59
  so within these so the the anor who said right that the anor linda lay at the music of the anor
• 26:05
  anor are all of these beings of power that god that that luvitar creates um and within that group
• 26:14
  there's higher and lower um beings the higher ones of the valar these that we kind of were saying
• 26:21
  are function similar in somewhat similar ways to like you know pantheons you know Norse,
• 26:27
  Greco-Roman pantheons but then the maya are are beings of lesser power sometimes but they
• 26:35
  they all have specific but a lot of them have specific purposes um in different ways and often
• 26:40
  align themselves with some of the valar so they might be you know up apprentices too so for
• 26:46
  instance one of the the valar uh that i find most fans fascinating that you don't really have an
• 26:53
  equivalent for in other world pantheons is niena who's the goddess of sorrow of pity sorrow and
• 27:02
  wisdom and so i'm talking about these maya are so it's said that uh allorin who is one of these
• 27:09
  uh maya are these lesser beings i've written down let's have it so why did so the maya was allorin
• 27:17
  he too dwelt in lorian that's lorian over in the west not the one in east but his ways took him
• 27:24
  often to the house of niena and of her he learned pity and patience so are you going to do the big
• 27:31
  reveal who is the lorian lorian we're told later that that's uh gandalf right so that's a maya who
• 27:38
  who a maya who chose to put on flesh uh and and to have his fate tied directly and among the people
• 27:50
  of middle earth and the you know elves humans dwarves uh yeah so that so every time so those
• 27:56
  against like reading this one that's one of the biggest things that it did for me was opened up
• 28:01
  this different avenue that then i saw what gandalf is doing in lord of the rings in a completely
• 28:07
  different way so he's an apprentice to this goddess of weeping and wisdom and so she's all and her
• 28:14
  music is also featured in the uh in allinda lay the creation where there's this kind of overarching
• 28:21
  sorrow that kind of weaves its way in creation but it's it's a sorrow that is generative it's not
• 28:27
  kind of a depressing sorrow but it's a sorrow that is leading ultimately to wisdom and good
• 28:34
  in in the end and so that's what gandalf is doing here is kind of a emissary if you will for this
• 28:40
  goddess niena a disciple of niena and that's why when he talks about pity to Frodo right about
• 28:49
  golem that's coming from his experience and training with this goddess of of of pity and sorrow and wisdom
• 29:00
  and it's just because you know sorrow and wisdom kind of come hand in hand from the perspective of
• 29:05
  that goddess that's kind of her thing is how sorrow can be generative of wisdom and so you'll see
• 29:10
  so if you read this somewhere and if you haven't to this point and if you don't get anything else but
• 29:14
  just you know looking at these gods and following you know this goddess of weeping and she does a
• 29:18
  number of other things with with the gods um that that are really interesting and important for
• 29:24
  the world itself and the lights that's tied to the you know this the silmarils and the silmarillion
• 29:29
  proper that we'll talk about but if you get nothing else like that just following that thread with
• 29:35
  the myar this lesser being of power olorin who then takes on flesh and becomes gandalf and
• 29:42
  understanding that that that alone I think can help change and deepen your reading of lord of the
• 29:48
  rings um all the way through and hobbit for that matter yeah and there's three more I mean because
• 29:53
  we could spend yeah yeah so there's three more myar to highlight one is sarron is also a myar
• 30:06
  so he is um that's where a lot of his power comes from um and and so are the bowrocks
• 30:17
  so when gandalf says you know he's really shocked when he finds a barrel they're supposed to have
• 30:23
  all most of them are supposed to have been destroyed at the end of the first stage um he knows it's
• 30:29
  he says something about it's not a foe that you can match it you know he knows it's on his level
• 30:34
  rather than on their level and then the last one is a myar called melian who is very very important
• 30:42
  in the first stage um so let's move now to the quintessilmarillion now we obviously can't cover
• 30:51
  this but just reading it you'll find when you look at the table of contents that it breaks down
• 30:56
  into um quite readable sections it's very well divided up the first part of it is the story of
• 31:07
  how it's basically the story of how the world is lit if I so strange but it starts with the trees
• 31:15
  so if you've been watching the rings of power um they mentioned the trees briefly and if you
• 31:21
  were confused by that you can find the explanation in the summarillion and these beautiful trees
• 31:28
  are destroyed this is me really rapidly going forward really um they're destroyed by
• 31:34
  melco who has with him an enormous spider what's the name of the spider forget her name
• 31:41
  i'm brilliant there you are who she love is a descendant of um and so she has this voracious
• 31:47
  appetite and so she sort of chumps down all the light and the only light that is left is is captured
• 31:55
  in some jewels which were made by an elven smith called fiano fiano where do you put them? fiano
• 32:03
  yeah i'm never quite sure about the emphasis there so over there yeah fiano um and but he has
• 32:11
  a sickness of craftsmanship really which is a recurrent problem in this world
• 32:18
  he doesn't want to let go and so uh when these jewels are taken by morgoth who runs off with them
• 32:33
  he decides he won't share the light he wants to go and get them back for himself
• 32:39
  but he sets it up like a crusade and this divides the elves i've skipped over the fact that the
• 32:47
  elves have been created i'm really sorry but we haven't got time
• 32:52
  the elves were created invited to go and live over in the west i should have said that um
• 32:57
  anyway so fiano and his supporters set off to regain the silmarils and that's the big big big
• 33:06
  driver of the first age now i think it's helpful just to point out the family trees here
• 33:14
  so we've got fiano who the parent of and fiano is somebody called finway and his wife i think
• 33:24
  myriall um they have three sons my get it correct me if i get this wrong right yeah yeah three sons
• 33:33
  fiano yeah yeah he has a whole range of sons under him who are like his sort of supporters like
• 33:40
  his clan and then his brothers this is where he gets interesting because we all meet lots of characters
• 33:49
  that you recognise he's in fact there's a helpful family tree in the back of the um
• 33:58
  if i can show that if you're watching and his brothers are fin golfing half brothers in fact
• 34:09
  and finafin and in the thing golfing family line is gill gallot who is the king that you see in
• 34:19
  rings of power um and ending up at el rondon el ross so that's that bit and then finafin one of
• 34:30
  his children is galadriel and her brother she has a number of brothers but her brother finrod
• 34:42
  is the one that i think you saw at the beginning of the rings of power so it's quite a tight family
• 34:49
  group and just to point out here galadriel is very old he is one of these knoll door as the name
• 34:58
  of that group and she's one of the elves who goes on the crusade but importantly she isn't
• 35:09
  responsible for the next big thing that happens which perhaps you could take over Jacob and
• 35:14
  tell us about the the evil amongst the elves yeah so right so so feanor is kind of driving this
• 35:23
  he's the one that created the silmarils these gems that capture in the light of the trees of
• 35:32
  valin or that were now destroyed so this is the last of those they're supposed to be the most
• 35:36
  beautiful things ever created um within you know this this worth with an art uh and uh so when
• 35:42
  they're stolen by milk or he makes an oath and his children make an oath uh to that they will not
• 35:49
  rest until you know they retrieve those and so they so and then the anyone that they will slay
• 35:57
  anyone who you know holds you know touches holds keeps uh these um that doesn't return it
• 36:05
  directly to them um and so that you have them you know again this is by the they're they're
• 36:11
  willing to do this by any means necessary even at the cost of the lives of their kindred so there's
• 36:17
  this this one you know tragic event where they go in to get ships to try to sail across the ocean
• 36:23
  to go back into the east which is again like the Julia said they're in the west um with the gods
• 36:28
  to sail east um they don't have ships they come to their kindred who do who do have ships
• 36:33
  and end up you're asking them to say like hey we need your ships to go do this and they didn't want
• 36:39
  to part with their ships and so they slaughtered uh their kin took the ships sailed over um and then
• 36:47
  also burned the ships and kind of had it sell to injury uh so this so that's kind of where you have
• 36:53
  this idea of of of sundering so this is kind of almost again to make loose connections uh kind of
• 37:01
  can enable moment where you have the kindreds separating themselves and kind of the first schisms
• 37:09
  between the elves as a whole whereas before they see they were kind of functioning more or less
• 37:14
  in harmony or kind of doing their own things and finding them in places here's where they start
• 37:18
  to really come into conflict and and it just continues as long as the Silmarils are around which
• 37:25
  through the rest of this you know first-age uh uh so that's this kind of series of stories about
• 37:33
  essentially this this this this is what drives the conflict within the Quenta Silmarilian is the
• 37:40
  the the children of Fein or Fein or in the children of Fein or trying to get the Silmarils back
• 37:45
  among all and which are part of this history of all these elves and then men come into the picture
• 37:51
  eventually and which brings them into conflict with this kind of oath of Fein or in this children
• 37:57
  to get the Silmarils back yeah so um in case you're worried that Galadriel is guilty of
• 38:02
  kin slaying uh it's only the sons of Fein or and Fein or himself who were part of the kin slaying um
• 38:10
  and they don't even have enough boats and so he's an osteo bit of work this guy
• 38:18
  in the boat the sails off leaving his allies have also sworn this oath um some people turn back
• 38:24
  at that point but the rest of the Nolder including Galadriel and including um Gil Gallad's father
• 38:32
  and all sorts of people they all carry on um they have to go across the northern like the ice
• 38:41
  passage across the North so you know the equipment of Alaska you have to go over that
• 38:48
  as a beautiful means that the hell carraxa it's the the land of grinding ice so these are just
• 38:54
  yeah and many people many of the elves die at that time so they obviously arrive in middle earth
• 39:00
  still bound by this oath um but not very pleased obviously you're horrified by the actions of
• 39:10
  Fein or children and they're also under a doom so a curse the valar say that you've chosen
• 39:18
  that you can't come back so one of the um just to do a link forward to the rings of power series
• 39:25
  one of the things they've not followed through is that Galadriel as one of the Nolder is under a
• 39:33
  particular doom that she can't go back to the west other elves could so all that stuff about
• 39:39
  you've been given a special ticket back that that's not right in terms of the Tolkien story um
• 39:47
  and in fact her journey isn't completed until she resists the power of the ring later on it's like
• 39:55
  one moment where finally she can go into the west um so that story arc is beautifully described
• 40:05
  you can pick it out with a similar really and so you want to might want to delete that bit from
• 40:09
  your memory of the rings of power and it doesn't quite work with Galadriel's story it's a better story
• 40:14
  that Tolkien's come up with um okay so we can't go into every single story here but what we do get
• 40:21
  is a collection of quite often pairs um so brothers and sisters there's a lot of tragic stories
• 40:30
  brothers and sisters uh love story and of course one of the stories that we can't overlook is
• 40:37
  the marvelous love story of Baron and Luthian Jacob George tell us a little bit about the importance
• 40:44
  of this story in this of Tolkien mythos right so Baron and Luthian are a story of a human who
• 40:52
  falls in love with uh an ends up marrying an elf uh elf maiden uh and this is a story this
• 41:00
  this is probably the most i think the closest perhaps in kind of tone and pacing to what you see
• 41:08
  in Lord of the Rings uh so you can read just you can pick up this story of Baron and Luthian
• 41:13
  and read it through and i think it's very readable uh and engaging and it's this wild adventure
• 41:21
  with uh a hero and heroine the heroine saves the hero several different times there's you know
• 41:28
  there's there's battles uh and Tolkien fights is it Tolkien yeah there's a talking there's a dog
• 41:35
  who can only talk three times uh so he has to use his uses his words carefully um and then they
• 41:42
  fight uh Sauron um so you have a confrontation with the board just Luthian fights on and it's
• 41:48
  anyway she puts more gossars I think she fights Sauron she's she puts more goth to sleep so
• 41:58
  ah anyway so there's kind of a you have kind of a most reverse orpheus in your riddacy um yeah yeah
• 42:07
  story happening here uh and so yeah they're they're passed uh ultimately so there's something
• 42:14
  again which said Melkorist stole the Silmarils right and has them in a crown and so these two brave
• 42:20
  angband and the hosts of uh of of more goth uh to go take one of these back to um Luthian's father
• 42:29
  so that he can have her hand in marriage uh so quite a task anyway so this is it's this story
• 42:35
  of and there's there's Sauron there's and i don't want i don't want to spoil anything for people
• 42:40
  haven't read it yet but there's there's changing of Sauros there's yeah there's there's real
• 42:45
  there's uh you catastrophes right these moments of unexpected uh joy and surprise in the face of
• 42:52
  defeat and sorrow um and ultimately so this kind of becomes a paradigm for the uniting of different
• 43:00
  peoples right humans elves um of you know the you know the worldly with the kind of like higher
• 43:07
  our artistic beautiful and this story of elves and men kind of uniting gets recapitulated time
• 43:14
  and again even unto right so we have uh in Lord of the Rings, Aragorn and Arwen their love
• 43:20
  we see um Aragorn singing parts of this song of this story in Lord of the Rings so if you want
• 43:25
  that kind of the full story of what happens here and why Aragorn would be singing this and
• 43:31
  identify so much with Baron and Luthian so we have that Lord of the Rings but then even Tolkien
• 43:37
  carrying over into his own life um this is kind of inspired by his relationship with his wife
• 43:43
  and so this story is recapitulated uh he's saying you know echoes we're either we're seeing echoes
• 43:49
  of Tolkien's life in Lord of the Rings or and Tolkien sees echoes of Lord of the of of this
• 43:56
  you know in the Silmarillion history of Baron of Luthian sees echoes of this in his own life
• 44:01
  going the opposite direction so much so that when his wife dies he has Luthian carved on her
• 44:07
  on her head stuff and then after he dies then Baron is inscribed in on his kimstone so he saw himself
• 44:15
  in essence kind of part of this recapitulating story of uh of the bringing together of two people
• 44:23
  one person who seems to be like an ordinary ordinary Joe uh ordinary guy then like
• 44:30
  marrying up finding some you know finding a woman who is clearly beyond him and uh who enriches
• 44:37
  his life um in in in married ways and so that story you see kind of popping up and again in waves
• 44:44
  kind of coming up over and over uh with the within Tolkien's broader uh legendary um yes it's told
• 44:51
  in well it's not it's told in in quite quite a length in this um book but also there's a separate
• 45:00
  volume of even longer version of this Baron and Luthian story which you can get separately but
• 45:06
  this is a good place to start if you want to read that story so um perhaps then the last place in
• 45:12
  the first age we should pay attention to is a fabulous section which i think um i just reread it
• 45:21
  for doing this podcast and realised how brilliant it is it's one actually one of my favourite
• 45:26
  bits in the Silmarillion now and that's the voyage of Air Rendal now we won't go into all the
• 45:32
  family backgrounds but perhaps listeners will want to know that Air Rendal is the father of your
• 45:40
  favourite elf lord Elrond so he's um and he is absolutely key to how the first age ends so
• 45:53
  i think if i was looking for a place to someone said i want to read something in the Silmarillion
• 45:58
  that um has has sort of a big battle in it and lots of sort of scope i think this is a fantastic
• 46:05
  story because it also includes the sort of mythic element of a voyage to the west and becoming a
• 46:11
  star and all sorts of wonderful things plus his wife is you know very active and you know it's all
• 46:17
  great stuff so um the voyage of Air Rendal ends the first age because he successfully crosses the sea
• 46:29
  um with one of the is he got one of the uh somewhere else with him she brings him a Silmarillion his wife
• 46:38
  brings him a Silmarillion she yes i think that's right and so they get to the other side where they're
• 46:44
  not supposed to go um but they appeal to the valar to come and save middle earth from the evil
• 46:55
  uh melcore and there's a big battle i'm not going to spoil the do you just read it because it's
• 47:01
  fantastic it's you know everybody comes and helps and this is when the geography changes because as a
• 47:09
  result of locking down literally or locking down this um original bad guy this power there's huge
• 47:21
  sort of geological upheaval and that's when the old map transforms into the more familiar
• 47:28
  map of middle earth and so that's the end of the first age and that's the the point where we're
• 47:37
  going to stop for this podcast and we're going to pick up at the second age and the ancalabeth
• 47:44
  in our next episode
• 47:54
  thanks for listening to MythMakers podcast brought to you by the Oxford Center for Fantasy
• 48:01
  visit oxfordcenterforfantasy.org to join in the fun find out about our online courses
• 48:08
  in person stays in Oxford plus visit our shop for great gifts tell a friend and subscribe
• 48:15
  wherever you find your favorite podcasts worldwide