Aragorn's genealogy

[Chrysophylax Dives]

So in the Shire @Aranadhel is driving us to distraction with a riddle of Arnor (any guesses from anyone would be appreciated). But I learn (from some Tolkien Wiki):

Before the end of the first millennium of the Third Age, the land of Arnor fell into dispute between the sons of King Eärendur, and the Dúnedain who lived there became divided into three realms: Arthedain, Cardolan and Rhudaur. One by one, these kingdoms fell, until at last the Dúnedain of Arnor had become a dwindled and wandering people. Nonetheless, their chieftains maintained the bloodline of Elendil's eldest son, and Aragorn - among whose titles was Chieftain of the Dúnedain of Arnor - was his direct descendant through many generations.

I never thought to ask this before, but does the genealogy of the heir of Elendil (Aragorn) go through only one of these three royal houses, and are the Dúnedain a mixture of all three realms?

[Aranadhel]

Nay, tis said Aragorn is a direct descendent of Aranarth, whose father Arvedui was the last King of Arthedain. In Arthedain the blood of Numenor runs the purest from Elendil.

[Eldy Dunami]

Appendix A states that "in Arthedain the line of Isildur was maintained and endured, but the line soon perished in Cardolan and Rhudaur," and "in the days of Argeleb son of Malvegil, since no descendants of Isildur remained in the other kingdoms, the kings of Arthedain again claimed the lordship of all Arnor." The other kingdoms continued to exist under the rule of non-Isildurian monarchs for several centuries (Cardolan was still around to be decimated by the Great Plague some 300 years after its original royal house died out), though Rhudaur was allied to Angmar for much of that time. We are not, to the best of my knowledge, told of any royal marriages between the three houses, and in light of Arthedain's presentation in the Appendices as the "good" successor kingdom, I wouldn't put money on Tolkien having imagined there being any.* As for the rest of the Dúnedain, though, I think they were blended. Rhudaur always had an especially small Dúnedainic population, and when it was conquered in 1409, "the Dúnedain that remained there were slain or fled west." Those who escaped presumably went to Arthedain, since Cardolan was also in dire straits at the time.

* NB I have to get on my hobbyhorse and point out that after enough time has passed for a given population, any (by then deceased) individual with any living descendants will be the ancestor of all living members of that population. Hence the factoid about all Europeans being descended from Charlemagne, but also—what sometimes doesn't get mentioned—all of Charlemagne's contemporaries, across all social classes, who had descendants that lasted more than a few generations. (See various sources here.) In light of this, Aragorn, the other Dúnedain of the North, and plenty of other people (not all of them of recognized Dúnedainic descent) were descended from all three of the original ruling houses of the Arnorian successor kingdoms. But this is counterintuitive and not well-known even today, when we have the field of population genetics to back up what the mathematics of human reproduction implies, and Tolkien didn't take it into account in his writing, with the curious exception of the Men of Dol Amroth. If he had, Tolkien would've needed to reckon with the consequences of there being millions of descendants of Lúthien, with everything that implies, from congenital beardlessness (NoMe, p. 188) to magical aptitude (Letters, no. 155).

[Chrysophylax Dives]

Appendix A states that "in Arthedain the line of Isildur was maintained and endured, but the line soon perished in Cardolan and Rhudaur," and "in the days of Argeleb son of Malvegil, since no descendants of Isildur remained in the other kingdoms, the kings of Arthedain again claimed the lordship of all Arnor."

Sources, first. Thank you for the above and the comprehensive rest. From my (biographical) point of view the key point is the source, as in if this is in Appendix A then this history of Arnor is already in outline in 1948 and completion of the mss. of LOTR. I was not aware of this, but if my memory serves me right Christopher Tolkien in the relevant Home volume gives us very little from the last period of composition, so it takes more work than I have done to establish the history of the imagination of Arnor.

Of such imaginative histories, Arnor does stand out as singularly interesting. We begin with a map of The Hobbit, or rather with that bit between Bag-end and the trolls now filled in. The Barrow downs are at first an extension of the 1934 poem about Bombadil, with no connection to Numenor. Then all of a sudden Weathertop appears (unplanned in the notes to come at Bree), Trotter refers to the Last Alliance (and the story is suddenly the other side of Numenor) and the action unfolds pretty much as we read it today - Bingo is pierced by a blade of the Chief Ringwraith. This first scene on Weathertop was composed in 1938 on the first walk from the Shire to Rivendell. ...

Seven years later, 1945 and Pippin speaks to Gandalf about the Chief Ringwraith he must face as war approaches Minas Tirith, and the name and title appear for the first time: the Witch-king of Angmar (all references to Angmar on the journey with Strider are written in only now).

And ten years later, Christopher Tolkien gives us a rare, late typed section in which Weathertop is Amon Sûl, the place where one of the three Palantír of the North Kingdom was once housed.

Ten years - and it takes to the Appendixes (i think! should really check) for any mention of the the three kingdoms.

[Chrysophylax Dives]

As for the rest of the Dúnedain, though, I think they were blended. Rhudaur always had an especially small Dúnedainic population, and when it was conquered in 1409, "the Dúnedain that remained there were slain or fled west." Those who escaped presumably went to Arthedain, since Cardolan was also in dire straits at the time.

I appreciate this discussion very much, it is exposing to me some of my ignorance. Am I to take it, from the word choice in this quote as also the formulation of the riddle in the Shire (with its references to natives and conquerors) that the Northern Kingdom never contained a 'pure' Numenorean population as was the case at Gondor, but the Men of the West imposed their kingdom over an area already populated?

(One of the earliest Council of Elrond imaginations of Gondor has the Numenorean lords having been driven out by a non-Numenorean native population - an idea rejected and never to appear again in the South.)

[Chrysophylax Dives]

* NB I have to get on my hobbyhorse and point out that after enough time has passed for a given population, any (by then deceased) individual with any living descendants will be the ancestor of all living members of that population. ... In light of this, Aragorn, the other Dúnedain of the North, and plenty of other people (not all of them of recognized Dúnedainic descent) were descended from all three of the original ruling houses of the Arnorian successor kingdoms.

But this is counterintuitive and not well-known even today, when we have the field of population genetics to back up what the mathematics of human reproduction implies, and Tolkien didn't take it into account in his writing, with the curious exception of the Men of Dol Amroth. If he had, Tolkien would've needed to reckon with the consequences of there being millions of descendants of Lúthien, with everything that implies, from congenital beardlessness (NoMe, p. 188) to magical aptitude (Letters, no. 155).

What is this curious exception of the Men of Dol Amroth? (Wait, don't waste precious words, i will look it up). But this is a most curious point that you make. I suspect there is more beneath the surface than meets the eye.

I am aware that the biographical perspective that i tout may too easily become a pseudo-claim of authorial omnipotence and all-knowingness. I'm certainly not saying that the population dynamics of Arnor 'add up' according to the mathematical models of human reproduction.

But what is curious here is that, given where he was coming from as a scholar, Tolkien would have been more aware than most of the genealogical human tree over the generations. Comparative philology in the 19th century classified the languages of the world into Aryan, Semitic, and Hamitic, with the implicit idea that all language-speakers of the world today were descendants of one of these three sons of Noah. I'm saying that, while he did not have the mathematical models that we do, I would bet (though not with complete confidence) that Tolkien nevertheless had a fairly good idea of the reality of the point that you are making and justified (if that is the word) his Elendil genealogy with some notion of 'stepping into Fairie'.

[Chrysophylax Dives]

Just by the by, it is curious to encounter your point about population here because i was just grappling with something related in a lesser known story by John Buchan that i've been reading on my kindle. Buchan, let it be said, has all Tolkien's Tory values and worse, with far fewer of Tolkien's mitigating insights. So, he prefaces this story with a late night conversation after trout fishing or something, in which the scholar knocks out the ashes of his pipe and interjects that 'you fellows' don't take into account genealogy... what follows are 14 stories of a bloodline, which begins in a Norwegian ford and the son of the king, who follows his father's war band to Britain where all but him are wiped out, and each chapter steps a generation or two forward. We step through Norman adventurers, French Protestants, an English regicide (!), a family of royalists fallen on hard times, the immigration over the Atlantic, companion of Daniel Boone, and - drum roll - a wood cabin and a boy named Abe.

Astonishing stuff! Fascinating. Deeply repellant. But in all this there is no glimmer of recognition of your point. As I read the chapters I kept thinking on all these new mothers, and sometimes fathers, stepping into the bloodline. So by the time we get to Lincoln its kind of staring you in the face that, yes, this Norwegian Viking prince might indeed be somewhere in there, but so too likely the daughter of the witch woman who lives in a bog who he visits in the first chapter, and also everyone else we ever meet in the book!

So, i'd still say, Tolkien was not as blinkered as Buchan, and I think must have known what you are saying (albeit, in his own way).

[Aikári Salmarinian]

Aragorn is through Elrond's twinbrother Elros descending from all three mortal houses Bëor, Hador and Haleth, and all three kindred of the elves, Vanyar, Noldor and Teleri, and even had Maia traits in his blood. From the four heirlooms, only the Ring of Barahir survived to the days of Aragorn. The axe of Tuor, the bow of Bregor and the sword of Thingol were lost in the downfall of Numenor. There is nothing known about most of the women his third age forefathers married, and produced a new heir. The Faithful who fled from Numenor were nobles and common people (among the people of Aldúnië). There is a possibility that all of Elendil's heirs married women descending from the Faithful of Numenor, but it is likely as well they married indigenous women who always lived in Eriador.

Who can say that the peoples of Arthedain, Rhudaur and Cardolan (re)joined when one by one the kingdoms fell and their cities fell to ruin? The Dúnedain were the women and men from Numenor and their descendents who peopled Middle Earth during the Second and Third Ages. And where over countless generations indigenous humans would join one of those three northern kingdoms, after Arnor was divided in TA861. Eriador was populated by humans who never crossed the Ered Luin into Beleriand during the First Age. As there were elven stragglers known as the Avari, there were human stragglers too and became indigenous to Eriador. I never considered it really otherwise about the decendency of Aragorn.

[Eldy Dunami]

I appreciate this discussion very much, it is exposing to me some of my ignorance. Am I to take it, from the word choice in this quote as also the formulation of the riddle in the Shire (with its references to natives and conquerors) that the Northern Kingdom never contained a 'pure' Numenorean population as was the case at Gondor, but the Men of the West imposed their kingdom over an area already populated?

(One of the earliest Council of Elrond imaginations of Gondor has the Numenorean lords having been driven out by a non-Numenorean native population - an idea rejected and never to appear again in the South.)

Both of the Realms in Exile were majority-non-Númenórean, though Arnor had the smaller Númenórean population in absolute numbers and proportionally (though I can't recall offhand if the latter was explicitly stated). According to Appendix F, when the ships of the Faithful came to "the North-western shores of Middle-earth" after the Downfall, there were already "many" people of whole or partial Númenórean descent, but "[a]ll told the Dúnedain were thus from the beginning far fewer in number than the lesser men among whom they dwelt and whom they ruled" (LOTR, p. 1129). The (not yet Dead) Men of Dunharrow were part of the indigenous population of Gondor, and Minas Tirith was built to guard against similar native peoples of the western White Mountains. With the passage of time, pretty much everyone had at least a little Númenórean ancestry, but it wasn't until the time of the Stewards (more than two-thirds of the way through the Third Age) that Gondor "recruited the strength of [its] people from the sturdy folk of the sea-coast, and from the hardy mountaineers of Ered Nimrais" (TTT, IV 5). Even at the time of LOTR, the mixed descent of the people of Lossarnach and Lebennin was contrasted unfavorably with the "high blood" of the men of Dol Amroth (ROTK, V 1).

We know less about the history of Arnor, but Appendix A makes for awkward reading, to readers with egalitarian sensibilities, in its discussion of the North-kingdom. While praise is consistently heaped on people with "pure" Númenórean blood throughout the Appendices and the main body of LOTR, the history of Gondor counterbalances this to an extent by making the bad guys of the Kin-strife racial chauvinists (though it bears noting that the good guys were only okay with Northmen intermarriage; native Gondorians were still on the outs). In Arnor, by contrast, the decline in racial purity is pretty much always a bad thing. Arthedain are the protagonists because they continued to be ruled by Númenóreans, while Rhudaur is completely taken over by "evil" non-Númenóreans and become the co-antagonists of the history, along with Angmar, to which they are allied. Granted, Angmar is literally ruled by an evil sorcerer-king, but the Angmar War ending in ethinc cleansing ("not a man nor an orc of that realm remained west of the [Misty] Mountains"; LOTR, p. 1051) is an uncomfortable contrast with Aragorn's treatment of the formerly Sauron-aligned human peoples of Rhûn and Harad after the War of the Ring (Orcs are unmentioned but most likely still marked for death), and Sam's musing on the essential non-evilness of the Haradrim.

What is this curious exception of the Men of Dol Amroth? (Wait, don't waste precious words, i will look it up). But this is a most curious point that you make. I suspect there is more beneath the surface than meets the eye.

So, i'd still say, Tolkien was not as blinkered as Buchan, and I think must have known what you are saying (albeit, in his own way).

Dol Amroth, one of the fiefs of Gondor, was ruled by a princely family. According to legend, one of their members married a Silvan Elf about a thousand years before LOTR. This is never explicitly confirmed as true—it would be hard to do so within the bounds of Tolkien's fictional historiographic approach, but Prince Imrahil himself doesn't make any certain claims to its accuracy. However, Legolas believed it was true based on the Prince's appearance (ROTK, V 9). Earlier, when the men of Dol Amroth arrived to aid in the defense of Minas Tirith, we learned the specifics of their appearance. "Prince Imrahil ... was of high blood, and his folk also, tall men and proud with sea-grey eyes"; even his foot soldiers are described as "tall as lords" (V 1). These are classically Elvish traits, and since they're possessed by regular people as well as the ruling family, that implies Tolkien was aware that people have massive numbers of descendants after a millennium. This meshes with your very interesting point about Tolkien's philological background improving his awareness.

On the other hand, this awareness seems lacking in other places. There were multiple borderline cases in The Nature of Middle-earth where I was unsure if Tolkien grasped the point or not, but the chapter on beards felt pretty unambiguous to me:

Any element of an Elvish strain in human ancestry was very dominant and lasting (receding only slowly – as might be seen in Númenóreans of royal descent, in the matter of longevity also). The tribes of Men from whom the Númenóreans were descended were normal, and hence the majority of them would have beards. But the royal house were half-elven [...] The effects were long-lasting e.g. in a tendency to a stature a little above the average, to a greater (though steadily decreasing) longevity, and probably most lastingly in beardlessness. Thus none of the Númenórean chieftains of descent from Elros (whether kings or not) would be bearded. It is stated that Elendil was descended from Silmariën, a royal princess. Hence Aragorn and all his ancestors were beardless. (NoMe, pp. 187–188; italics in the original)

The mention of longevity is questionable in light of other texts: the decline in monarchs' lifespans didn't really begin until Tar-Telemmaitë, the fifteenth king, who was the first to die more than two years shy of 400 (he "only" made it to 390). The Kings lived longer than anyone else in the realm, including their relatives, indicating a cause other than the normal laws of heredity. (The Lords of Andúnië might have been an exception, since there weren't enough of them to last the whole Second Age at "normal" noble lifespans. That might have been a mathematical error on Tolkien's part, or it might account for the special regard they were held in if they were the only people to match the Kings for longevity.) But beardlessness is not a quality bestowed upon a select few by the Valar or Eru: it's presented as something inherited by anyone with Elvish blood, and it evidently lasts for more than 6000 years without a new "infusion," since Aragorn bore that trait. But even before the end of the Second Age, there should have been few if any bearded Númenóreans left.

Elsewhere, Tolkien made a big deal about descent from Lúthien, using it to explain why Aragorn was an exception to his general statement that humans couldn't use magic (Letters, no. 155). Granted, we shouldn't listen to Letter 155, but it can explain Aragorn's crediting of Elrond's healing skill to him being "the eldest of all our race" (ROTK, V 8). Because Elrond and his sons had healing abilities, Hammond & Scull argue that the bit of folk wisdom the hands of the king are the hands of a healer was incorrect, and descent from Lúthien was the crucial factor (Reader's Companion, note to p. 871). I find their argument convincing for the most part, but that should mean everyone had these abilities. One could explain away the apparent inconsistency by saying most people were simply unaware they had this ability since they were never given training, and the rare individuals who figured it out anyway came up with alternate explanations for the gift, but this is speculation.

[Chrysophylax Dives]

Wow, @Eldy Dunami! Loremistress Emerita indeed. I am so very glad you are back posting here again - this was what I found on the old plaza that made me stick around.

I have to read through your post a couple more times. I have an uneasy feeling that you are more right than me on the, let us say, dubious aspects of these idea of descent. I confess that I formed my own opinions (and it was some years ago now) in relation to the primary rather than the secondary world. On this my main source was the lecture 'English and Welsh', which disassociates language from race and makes the point that the various 'nationalities' of the British Isles are composed of the same racial mixture, and then offers what I call a spiritual idea of race in this odd notion that we all have a native language as distinct from our cradle language. All this is quite in keeping with the scholarly tendencies of the day, which already by the 1930s had in Britain pretty much concluded that the notion of 'race' had little scientific value.

But what I never bothered to do is to examine these issues from within Middle-earth; which is pretty stupid on my part really given how pronounced are the notions of descent that you highlight. As I said, gotta re-read what you say and think on it a bit!

Just one 'scholarly' context, if you are interested. These themes of conquerors and natives and the mixing of blood were very prominent in English scholarship around 1900. What happened was that in the 1860s it was assumed that the Indo-European languages had been disseminated by the wanderings of Indo-European (or Aryan) folk, and so each nation with its particular language was one branch of this same family. But with the new interest in prehistory the idea of race entered the picture and a new model was proposed: the Indo-European languages had been disseminated by a small band of northern warriors, who conquered lots of darker peoples, gave them their language, but then assimilated into the natives through intermarriage (and so lost their northern vigour). The account you give of Arnor reflects quite well this new (and pernicious as hell) model of history.

[Eldy Dunami]

Thank you, @Chrysophylax Dives. It's really nice to be back, and I'm grateful for the role you've played (as well as others) in keeping the Lore forum turning. It was what drew me to the Old Plaza as well. And I very much appreciate your insights into intellectual history, which is not at all my field!

You know far more about Tolkien's scholarship than I do, but based on your brief description here, I suspect that your approach has more merit than that uneasy feeling might say. I probably should have made note of this in my previous post, but Tolkien himself cast doubt on the notion of Númenórean racial superiority. The Appendices are presented as products of in-universe historians, primarily Gondorian. Much of Appendix A is printed within quotation marks, indicating that it's ostensibly directly reproduced from these in-universe texts—unlike the main body of LOTR, which is a modern adaptation of material from the Red Book. The Appendices therefore reflect the attitudes of their authors (a recurring theme in Tolkien; see this shameless plug), but Tolkien wrote from other points of view at times, as well as texts that were basically his musings to himself. Unsurprisingly, these give a very different picture of Númenórean imperialism.

Here are a few highlights just from "Of Dwarves and Men" (HoMe XII; my emphasis):

...Faramir gives a brief account of the contemporary classification in Gondor of Men into three kinds: High Men, or Númenóreans (of more or less pure descent); Middle Men; and Men of Darkness. The Men of Darkness was a general term applied to all those who were hostile to the Kingdoms, and who were (or appeared in Gondor to be) moved by something more than human greed for conquest and plunder, a fanatical hatred of the High Men and their allies as enemies of their gods. The term took no account of differences of race or culture or language. With regard to Middle Men Faramir spoke mainly of the Rohirrim, the only people of this sort well-known in Gondor in his time, and attributed to them actual direct descent from the Folk of Hador in the First Age. This was a general belief in Gondor at that time, and was held to explain (to the comfort of Númenórean pride) the surrender of so large a part of the Kingdom to the people of Eorl.

The term Middle Men ... was therefore modelled on the classification by the Atani of the Elves: the High Elves (or Elves of Light) were the Noldor who returned in exile out of the Far West; the Middle Elves were the Sindar, who though near kin of the High Elves had remained in Middle-earth and never seen the light of Aman; and the Dark Elves were those who had never journeyed to the Western Shores and did not desire to see Aman. This was not the same as the classifications made by the Elves, which are not here concerned, except to note that 'Dark Elves' or 'Elves of Darkness' was used by them, but in no way implied any evil, or subordination to Morgoth; it referred only to ignorance of the 'light of Aman' and included the Sindar. Those who had never made the journey to the West Shores were called 'the Refusers' (Avari). It is doubtful if any of the Avari ever reached Beleriand or were actually known to the Númenóreans.

Thus it came about that the Númenórean term Middle Men was confused in its application. Its chief test was friendliness towards the West (to Elves and to Númenóreans), but it was actually applied usually only to Men whose stature and looks were similar to those of the Númenóreans, although this most important distinction of 'friendliness' was not historically confined to peoples of one racial kind.... Also it must be said that 'unfriendliness' to Númenóreans and their allies was not always due to the Shadow, but in later days to the actions of the Númenóreans themselves. Thus many of the forest-dwellers of the shorelands south of the Ered Luin, especially in Minhiriath, were as later historians recognized the kin of the Folk of Haleth*; but they became bitter enemies of the Númenóreans, because of their ruthless treatment and their devastation of the forests...

* [Eldy note: this means they were related to the Númenóreans, though the linguistic ties had been lost, as the Folk of Haleth were mostly wiped out in the course of the First Age, and most Númenóreans were descended from the other two tribes of the Edain. But there had already been intermarriage between all three, and the Númenórean royal family had Haladin ancestry through Hareth, daughter of Halmir; the great-grandmother of Eärendil.]

The discussion of the Númenóreans' devastation of the Minhiriath (UT, The History of Galadriel and Celeborn, Appendix D) and the early colonization of Gondor (HoMe XII, Tal-Elmar) provide pretty searing critiques of Númenor. Tal-Elmar is especially brutal, with Númenórean sailors showing up, talking about their reverence for Elbereth (normally something we would consider a mark of goodness!), and then dropping the bomb on the indigenous main character that actually they're here to ethnically cleanse the area in preparation for Númenórean settlement. This really shows the lie to the Akallabêth's attempt at absolving the Faithful of culpability in colonial crimes, but it's consistent with Tolkien's opinion of Primary World colonialism: "I know nothing about British or American imperialism in the Far East that does not fill me with regret and disgust" (Letters, no. 100).

A lot of readers get hung up on the fact that the Númenóreans were objectively physically harder better faster stronger than the Men of Middle-earth, and buy into the Númenóreans' belief that this made them fundamentally worth more as people, but Tolkien himself did not believe that.

[Chrysophylax Dives]

More to process, and more good stuff! (And Nolondil bookmarked for when i get through the above!) I cannot pretend to have processed all this - it is all to the point and a pleasure to read, but it will take some while to assimilate. In the meanwhile, I thought i'd just make one intellectual history point that might have some bearing on the wider context of all this.

Because of the prominence of Germany and North America in our thinking about the modern history of the idea of race, certain elements that are perhaps peculiar to the British discourse tend to be overlooked. While there is certainly some racial purity stuff going on in the new models of Aryan conquests,* the discourse of race in late Victorian Britain was in general anti-nationalistic and emphasized the importance of racial mixing. Again and again you find late Victorian and Edwardian writers explaining how history shows that the pure races are weak and the mixed races strong. What was going on here was that the discovery of prehistory and accompanying ideas of race were understood to undermine local English/Welsh/Scottish nationalisms because, it was now argued, all the inhabitants of the British Isles were a mixture of the same races. This is just so counterintuitive for those of us who associate the very idea of race with racial purity, but this is how it was.

* The classic British study on these lines is William Ridgeway's Early Age of Greece, without doubt the most offensive book i have carefully studied. Ridgeway is grappling with the following problem: English upper class culture is based upon the Classics, with Homer an ideal of literature. But the Greeks today are not like 'us' at all but 'southern Europeans' who are deemed effeminate and lazy and what have you. So Ridgeway proposes - with great erudition - an explanation: classical Greek culture arose when, in the generation before Homer, northern warriors conquered the degenerate Mycenaean civilization - and this classical culture basically lasted until the northern blood was too diluted.

Here, incidentally, you see very clearly how gender and race issues connect, or at least did connect. Ridgeway builds much of his argument by a comparison of Beowulf and Homer, and argues that in both we see the same 'noble Germanic' idea of woman, which is contrasted with the promiscuous sexual behavior of southern European women. (I'm telling you, Ridgeway makes Buchan appear progressive!)

But i mention Ridgeway because he is part of the reason that i have (too casually) given Tolkien a free pass on the race issue. Tolkien most certainly knew Ridgeway's book and he seems to replicate something of the theory with the Rohirrim coming to the aid of Gondor (in a couple of places Tolkien calls the Rohirrim 'Homeric' and when they first appear in the drafts of LOTR they have a Greek name). But of course in Middle-earth the northern barbarians do not conquer the older civilization but rather acknowledge its superiority.

EDIT PS. @Eldy Dunami please forgive me this, as i mentioned elsewhere i work as an editor and i have a hard time with typos and, well i apologize for this, but on your About page you have 'The ones I remember mostly fondly' --> 'most fondly'! I am really sorry that i cannot help myself but point out such things.

[Eldy Dunami]

This is really interesting (if offensive ) stuff! I did not know that about 19th century British racialism, but I'm wondering now if Frank Herbert was into that. I reread Dune (and read Dune Messiah for the first time) last year after seeing the Denis Villeneuve adaptation, and the book's uncomfortable fixation on race jumped out at me far more than it had been prominent in my memory, but I was struck by the fact that Herbert was all about mixing, not purity. That seemed odd to me, but perhaps that's my provincial North American education speaking.

NB Regarding the Rohirrim, their ancestors (the Northmen) had a really interesting relationship with Gondor at its imperial peak. Gondor fought a civil war over the right of a half-Northman prince to inherit the throne (well, partly over that; there were other considerations such as the shift in royal priorities from sea power to continental warfare). But of King Eldacar, contrary to what one might expect after listening to characters sing paeans to the virtues of pure Númenórean blood, we read: "To the lineage of Gondor he added the fearless spirit of the Northmen. He was handsome and valiant, and showed no sign of ageing more swiftly than his father" (Appendix A; p. 1046). A couple pages later, the narrator hedges his bets about exactly how much of a role the "mingling" of blood played a role in "the waning of the Dúnedain," but ultimately argues it was primarily an inevitable consequence of the Downfall of Númenor. Though one imagines scholars' professed views on the virtues of Northman ancestry were at least as much about currying favor with the winning side of the civil war as anything else.

EDIT: Thanks for pointing out the typo! God knows how long that's been sitting there.

[Chrysophylax Dives]

I love the way, Eldy Dunami, that you provide two weighty posts above, the first convincing me of one thing and the second of its opposite! I know that sounds like a criticism disguised as a complement but it is honestly a total complement - lore is subtle!

But with regard to the descent issue, it is hard to answer this:

There were multiple borderline cases in The Nature of Middle-earth where I was unsure if Tolkien grasped the point or not, but the chapter on beards felt pretty unambiguous to me:

Any element of an Elvish strain in human ancestry was very dominant and lasting (receding only slowly – as might be seen in Númenóreans of royal descent, in the matter of longevity also). The tribes of Men from whom the Númenóreans were descended were normal, and hence the majority of them would have beards. But the royal house were half-elven [...] The effects were long-lasting e.g. in a tendency to a stature a little above the average, to a greater (though steadily decreasing) longevity, and probably most lastingly in beardlessness. Thus none of the Númenórean chieftains of descent from Elros (whether kings or not) would be bearded. It is stated that Elendil was descended from Silmariën, a royal princess. Hence Aragorn and all his ancestors were beardless. (NoMe, pp. 187–188; italics in the original)

To take this further it would be good to hammer out how Tolkien understood inheritance, or racial 'strains' in the term from the quote. I should really look again at 'English and Welsh' but from what I recall about the idea of 'native language' the idea seems to be something like this: the British population are a racial mixture of the different populations - aborigines, Celtic-speakers, English-speakers; each individual has inherited from all these groups, but in the case of 'native language' some one or other strain happens to be dominant (so we have implicit the lovely idea that someone's native language might be one of the aboriginal tongues that is today completely lost - a native language of which no words are known today!) Here seems to be a notion of randomness in racial inheritance, but this seems quite different to the idea of descent that generates Aragorn's non-beard.

By the by, my personal leaning, or to use your terms, my 'living legendarium' approach that edges into being 'transformative', is that we are all descended from Lúthien and as such have all inherited some elvish 'magical' potential. This is my personal lore heresy :)

[Eldy Dunami]

I'll take the compliment as it was intended, Chrys. And I look forward to reading any further insights you might share after thinking about the subject more! I know it's a lot; I've been rolling these ideas over in my mind for years.

By the by, my personal leaning, or to use your terms, my 'living legendarium' approach that edges into being 'transformative', is that we are all descended from Lúthien and as such have all inherited some elvish 'magical' potential. This is my personal lore heresy :)

I'm fascinated by the possibilities this presents, though in keeping with my weeaboo tendencies, I used it to firm up my justification for what I was already doing, which is writing trashy LOTR/Naruto fusion fanfic about Númenóreans with supernatural ninja powers (and about a whole boatload of other things, but it's less amusing to focus on that). Doubtlessly that's not what Hammond & Scull intended to enable, but oh well.

(To be clear, that project is far beyond what I might describe as the "living legendarium" approach, no matter my attempts at methodologically rigorous worldbuilding, aside from certain first principles like the existence of ninja.)

[Romeran]

Very interesting discussion here! @Eldy Dunami has done a much better job summarizing my statistical issue with Tolkien's concern with differentiating Númenorean descendants etc. with how we understand population genetics now than I would have done. I had mostly attributed it to a lack of understanding (as someone born and educated many generations after it's hard for me to say what he would have known) but also simply mimicking some of these tropes which exist in other mythology. For example tracing one's heritage back to Zeus or Achilles etc. or recalling long lines of kings back to fictional ones, or ancient kings living for 500 years. But all of these things had to make you special if you being descendent from Achilles meant everyone likely was too, well that's not much to brag about! Almost as if he's practicing "mythical genetics" rather than "real genetics". Similar to how Middle-earth's geography isn't really one which could have occurred naturally (requiring instead that powerful forces like Melkor can raise impossible mountain shapes).

This is really interesting (if offensive ) stuff! I did not know that about 19th century British racialism, but I'm wondering now if Frank Herbert was into that. I reread Dune (and read Dune Messiah for the first time) last year after seeing the Denis Villeneuve adaptation, and the book's uncomfortable fixation on race jumped out at me far more than it had been prominent in my memory, but I was struck by the fact that Herbert was all about mixing, not purity. That seemed odd to me, but perhaps that's my provincial North American education speaking.

I read Dune for the first time after watching the movie recently and I really didn't like it for a lot of the, for lack of a better word, eugenics themes.

[Chrysophylax Dives]

Very interesting discussion here! @Eldy Dunami has done a much better job summarizing my statistical issue with Tolkien's concern with differentiating Númenorean descendants etc. with how we understand population genetics now than I would have done. I had mostly attributed it to a lack of understanding (as someone born and educated many generations after it's hard for me to say what he would have known) but also simply mimicking some of these tropes which exist in other mythology. For example tracing one's heritage back to Zeus or Achilles etc. or recalling long lines of kings back to fictional ones, or ancient kings living for 500 years. But all of these things had to make you special if you being descendent from Achilles meant everyone likely was too, well that's not much to brag about! Almost as if he's practicing "mythical genetics" rather than "real genetics". Similar to how Middle-earth's geography isn't really one which could have occurred naturally (requiring instead that powerful forces like Melkor can raise impossible mountain shapes).

Yes, this was my first response to Eldy's observations, and i still think there is something to it. All the Anglo-Saxon kings seem to have had a genealogy that made them a direct descendant of Odin. More to the point is Scyld Scefing, who in Beowulf is presented as the founder of the Danish royal house. Scyld Scefing is said to have been placed as a baby in a boat by unknown hands on the other side of the ocean and sent to the people of the shore to be their king. In his commentary, Tolkien proposes that the name Scyld Scefing is composite, that the myth of Scef is a very ancient origin myth of the northern tribes and that when the Scyldings - the Danish royal house - conquered Zealand (the home of the ancient cult of the north) they took over the old myth and wrote themselves into it.

In the present context I suggest that there is more going on here than just another example of mythical genealogies. Here is Tolkien's translation of the ship funeral of Scyld Scefing:

… at his allotted hour Scyld the valiant passed into the keeping of the Lord; and to the flowing sea his dear comrades bore him… With lesser gifts no whit did they adorn him, with treasures of that people, than did those that in the beginning sent him forth alone over the waves, a little child…

Who are these unnamed 'those' on the other side of the shoreless sea?

In his commentary, Tolkien argues that the ship burial is an innovation of the poet and reads here “the suggestion” – no more, for “the idea was probably not fully formed” in the mind of the poet – that Scyld Scefing had come “out of the Unknown beyond the Great Sea, and returned into it: a miraculous intrusion into history, which nonetheless left real historical effects” (Beowulf T&C 151). This no doubt requires further justification, but I have long been convinced that Tolkien discerned here a "suggestion" of Valinor and that Elendil is Tolkien's imagination of the 'original' origin myth that became the ancient myth of Scef, the king who came from over the sea.

Point is, i think that to grapple with these issues of race and descent requires not only getting to grips with Tolkien's (pre-genetics) understanding of inheritance but also with the 'translation' from real to imagined history. Simply put, its not clear if these Numenorean ideas of descent reflect: (a) dubious notions of hereditary held by Tolkien, (b) dubious notions of hereditary held by the Numenoreans (but not Tolkien), or (c) a fantasy of royal genealogies that reflects something in the historical sources that Tolkien drew out in the way he did for reasons unrelated to notions of racial descent.

[Aranadhel]

Wondered if Aragorn knew he was descended from Silmarien, the maternal side of Elros' line?

[Eldy Dunami]

Descent from Silmarien appears to have been a point of pride for the House of Elendil, particularly with the whole "our house would've been Kings of Númenor if the succession law was changed a few generations earlier" angle (which was presumably the reason Tolkien invented her in the first place), so it seems vanishingly unlikely to me that Aragorn wouldn't be aware of that part of his family history.

[Aranadhel]

I concur, Eldy. The fact that she is the eldest child of her father (the King), just for me the title given to her husband and her descendants therefore as the Lords of Andunie does feel like a downgrade.

I do wonder if her brothers descendants survived the Downfall and were already in Arda by then?

[Eldy Dunami]

It is, by definition, a downgrade to be a nobleman instead of the King, except that there was no precedent for royal succession passing through the female like and thus no reason for Silmarien or anyone else to expect her descendants to inherit the Sceptre. Which is unfair, yes, but unfairness is sorta baked in to the concept of monarchy.

In line with the discussion upthread about how many descendants people have after thousands of years, I think it's certain that Tar-Elendil had a multitude of descendants in Middle-earth who survived the Downfall. Elendil and his sons were probably among them, just as Ar-Pharazôn and Tar-Míriel were descended from Silmarien. But I don't think any recognized members of the House of Elros lived in the Realms in Exile. The Downfall might have sufficiently destroyed people's sense of the Elrosians' right to rule, but that still seems the sort of thing that would merit a mention in the histories. I could imagine rulers of Black Númenórean states claiming authority in part based on their descent from the Kings, though, which would include Tar-Elendil.

[Chrysophylax Dives]

Any element of an Elvish strain in human ancestry was very dominant and lasting (receding only slowly – as might be seen in Númenóreans of royal descent, in the matter of longevity also). The tribes of Men from whom the Númenóreans were descended were normal, and hence the majority of them would have beards. But the royal house were half-elven [...] The effects were long-lasting e.g. in a tendency to a stature a little above the average, to a greater (though steadily decreasing) longevity, and probably most lastingly in beardlessness. Thus none of the Númenórean chieftains of descent from Elros (whether kings or not) would be bearded. It is stated that Elendil was descended from Silmariën, a royal princess. Hence Aragorn and all his ancestors were beardless. (NoMe, pp. 187–188; italics in the original)

... beardlessness is not a quality bestowed upon a select few by the Valar or Eru: it's presented as something inherited by anyone with Elvish blood, and it evidently lasts for more than 6000 years without a new "infusion," since Aragorn bore that trait. But even before the end of the Second Age, there should have been few if any bearded Númenóreans left.

Hi Eldy, I got back to this by way of the beardless dwarves thread, which picks up on the same NoMe section on beards. I'm not sure that beardlessness is inherited by anyone with Elvish blood and am wondering if the passage on Denethor that follows might help tease out Tolkien's presuppositions. Here we have the notion of:

[Because of] some event in Denethor's ancestry which Gandalf had not investigated, he had this mark of ultimately 'royal' descent.

This event, it is suggested, is that the First Steward ("from whom Denethor was directly descended") must have been a kinsman of King Minardil, and so of ultimately royal descent.

I'm wondering if the phrase to focus on is "direct descent," at which point, I suspect, issues of patriarchy and gender mingle with and perhaps crowd out notions of race. That is, I presume Tolkien means by a 'direct descendant' someone who can trace their genealogy back through father, grandfather, his father, and so on. I take it that 'biologically' Tolkien would have presumed that an individual inherits from both mother and father and so have recognized that this patriarchal notion of descent cannot 'scientifically' account for racial strains, but made a conscious decision to project his notion of 'proper' descent into the world of his stories.

I'm not at all sure on this, just trying to think it through. But it accords, I think, with other elements of Tolkien thinking and values. Bilbo Baggins inherits a queer Took quality from his mother, but Tolkien reacted most indignantly to the suggestion of a reader that Hobbits, even as long ago as in the days of Smeagol's grandmother, were ever matriarchal.

[Chrysophylax Dives]

Eldy, i find i am walking in your footsteps - as i read the NoMe more closely echoes of your previous posts appear in my mind; and i now think you are quite right.

I now take on board that this note on beards goes on from Denethor to his children by way of their mother, sister of Prince Imrahil - a line with its own "special Elvish strain according to its own legends".

So the direct descent may pass from either father or mother, which means that, as you say, everyone has some elvish blood. Tolkien appears confused.

But i find this confusion inexplicable because it is a very basic blunder on Tolkien's part, especially for one who studied in pre-WWI Oxford (where all these themes of descent were hammered out in learned discussions).

[Chrysophylax Dives]

Just for what it is worth, as pertaining to hereditary and descent, just typed this into the Quotebank submission thread:

It had always been said that long ago one or other of the Tooks had married into a fairy family (the less friendly said a goblin family); certainly there was still something not entirely hobbit-like about them, and once in a while members of the Took-clan would go and have adventures.

The Hobbit or There and Back Again by J.R.R. Tolkien. London: George Allen & Unwin. 1937 (2016 facsimile), pp. 12-13.

[Romeran]

Speaking of the NoME quotation it's interesting that Tolkien seems to emphasizes that it's the Númenorean chieftains who do not have beards:

* When I came to think of it, in my own imagination, beards were not found among Hobbits (as stated in text); nor among the Eldar (not stated). All male Dwarves had them. The Wizards had them, though Radagast (not stated) had only short, curling, light brown hair on his chin. Men normally had them when full-grown, hence Eomer, Theoden, and all others named. But not Denethor, Boromir, Faramir, Aragorn, Isildur, or other Númenorean chieftains"

In fact the whole thing is quite relevant to this discussion so I add it here as well

I replied that I myself imagined Aragorn, Denethor, Imrahil, Boromir, Faramir as beardless. This, I said, I supposed not to be due to any custom of shaving, but a racial characteristic. None of the Eldar had any beards, adn this was a general racial characteristic of all Elves in my "world". Any element of an Elvish strain in human ancestry was very dominant and lasting (receding only slowly -- as might be seen in Númenóreans of royal descent, in the matter of longevity also). The tribes of Men from whom the Númenóreans were descended were normal, and hence the majority of them would have beards. But the royal house was half-elven, having two strains of Elvish race in their ancestry through Lúthien of Doriath (royal Sindarin) and Idril of Gondolin (royal Noldorin). The effects were long-lasting: e.g. in a tendency to a stature a little above the average, to a greater (though steadily decreasing) longevity, and probably most lastingly in beard-lessness. Thus none of the Númenórean chieftains of descent from Elros (whether kings or not) would be bearded. It is stated that Elendil was descended from Silmariën, a royal princess. Hence Aragorn and all his ancestors were beardless.

The passage also continues to explain how Denethor's beardlessness comes from Húrin the First Steward being a kinsman of King Minardil thus also being of royal descent (so ironically here Tolkien is finding that many non royals ought to share this genetic trait and yet seems to be at odds with certain Elvish traits remaining strictly within 'royal' bloodlines, again really 'mythological genetics'). He also points out that people having Quenya names was a privilege of only those of proved royal descent. He continues to explain that Faramir and Boromir also share a "strain" via their mother and royal house of Dol Amroth which also explains Imrahil being beardless.

[Eldy Dunami]

I now take on board that this note on beards goes on from Denethor to his children by way of their mother, sister of Prince Imrahil - a line with its own "special Elvish strain according to its own legends".

So the direct descent may pass from either father or mother, which means that, as you say, everyone has some elvish blood. Tolkien appears confused.

I'd go so far as to say the matter of descent through the female line is essential to the legendarium. Besides the examples of Denethor and Bilbo which you brought up, all three official (LOTR, Appendix A) unions of the Eldar and the Edain—Lúthien and Beren, Idril and Tuor, and Arwen and Aragorn—were between an Elvish woman[1] and a human man. The significance of this is stated in the final chapter of The Silmarillion: "from these brethren [Elrond and Elros] alone has come among Men the blood of the Firstborn and a strain of the spirits divine that were before Arda," referring to their descent from Eldarin royalty and from Melian the Maia (TS, p. 254). In Letter 153, Tolkien ascribed to this world-historical importance: "[t]he entering into Men of the Elven-strain is indeed represented as part of a Divine Plan for the ennoblement of the Human Race, from the beginning destined to replace the Elves." I think the reason all three unions involved a human man is because Eldarin and Edainic cultures were patrilineal, so to have a partly Elvish/divine line of human kings, that "strain" needed to be inherited by men. But the initial involvement of a female ancestor is equally essential.

Similar marriages crop up again and again in the legendarium. The unconfirmed Númenórean/Tawarwaith marriage of Imrazôr and Mithrellas follows the standard pattern, whereas the gender-reversed lovers Aegnor (elf-man) and Andreth (human woman)—who could not have founded a line of human "chieftains"—never married. There are parallels even in unions between members of the same class of beings. The wedding of Silmarien to Elatan of Andúnië, establishing the line of the Lords of Andúnië and eventually the royal houses of the Realms in Exile, is another example. Elatan must have been a man of some importance to marry a king's daughter, but his descendants' significance is entirely due to Silmarien.

The immortal female/mortal male dynamic hearkens back to well-established European folkloric traditions, which also held Tolkien's interest in non-Middle-earth contexts. The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun is maybe the most blatant example, but he also namechecks Thomas the Rhymer in "On Fairy-stories", and we can perhaps see echoes of this in Smith of Wootton Major, where the Fairy King spends nearly the entire story incognito for reasons unknown, and it's the Fairy Queen who is at the heart of Smith's interactions with the realm of Faery. One can also read this as part of Tolkien's wider use of the sovereignty goddess motif, whereby sovereignty over a region is conferred upon a king by virtue of his marriage to (or having sex with) a goddess associated with that land. This is most explicit in the case of Thingol and Melian: Thingol enters into the woods inhabited by Melian, meets and marries her, and subsequently becomes king of that region, which continues to be protected by Melian's divine powers. Aragorn and Arwen are a (deliberate) echo of this and of the First Age Eldar/Edain marriages. Their marriage does not confer kingship upon Aragorn, but the two events are inextricably connected. Notably, Arwen created the banner Aragorn flies in proclamation of his kingship in ROTK.

Even Bombadil and Goldberry are reminiscent of this idea. Bombadil, "the Master of wood, water, and hill" (FOTR, I 7), is married to Goldberry, the daughter the River Withywindle, who appears to be a genius loci. The account of their meeting and marriage in The Adventure of Tom Bombadil comes across as somewhat less than consensual, but poems based on Hobbit folklore should perhaps not be taken literally. But I'm not a Bombadil specialist, so I won't push my luck trying to expound on them to you of all people.

I feel on firmer ground connecting the sovereignty goddess concept to the kingship of Arda, in the chronologically earliest parts of the mythology, with the interplay of Melkor, Manwë, and Varda. This is hinted at in the Valaquenta: "Out of the deeps of Eä she [Varda] came to the aid of Manwë; for Melkor she knew from before the making of the Music and rejected him, and he hated her, and feared her more than all others whom Eru made" (TS, p. 26). In itself this doesn't prove anything, but Tolkien obliquely referred back to it in Myths Transformed. In Text II, Varda gave to Árië (i.e., Arien, here a Maia of Varda rather than Vána) a portion of the light she was gifted by Ilúvatar.[2] Melkor then went to Árië and said, "I have chosen thee, and thou shalt be my spouse, even as Varda is to Manwë, and together we shall wield all splendour and mastery. Then the kingship of Arda shall be mine in deed as in right, and thou shalt be the partner of my glory" (HoMe X, p. 381). That implies Melkor thinks marriage to a sufficiently powerful "goddess," one in possession of the light, is necessary to become King of Arda, which is pretty much the definition of a sovereignty goddess. Though that union evidently has to be consensual, since his subsequent rape of Árië left Melkor "burned and his brightness darkened, and he gave no more light,[3] but light pained him exceedingly and he hated it."

I would apologize for writing this much in response to a fairly tangential point, but you've said nice things about my posts before, so I hope this one will not be unwelcome.

---

[1] Not a contradiction in terms—in Quendi and Eldar, Tolkien translated the Sindarin words Ellon and Elleth as "Elf-man" and "Elf-woman" respectively (HoMe XI, p. 363).

[2] This light is referred to in the 1977 Silmarillion as "the light of Ilúvatar [that] lives still in her [Varda's] face" (TS, p. 26). When the Valar created the great lamps Iluin and Ormal, Varda is credited with "fill[ing] the lamps," presumably with light, and when the Two Trees are created following the lamps' destruction, "Varda hoarded in great vats like shining lakes" the dew and rain of the Trees (pp. 35, 39), from which she made the stars. However, the Trees themselves were the work of Yavanna, and Tulkas later credited their light to her work (p. 78). In Myths Transformed, Varda's association with light is given much greater significance. "To Varda Ilúvatar said, 'I will give unto thee a parting gift. Thou shalt take into Eä a light that is holy, coming new from Me, unsullied by the thought and lust of Melkor, and with thee it shall enter into Eä, and be in Eä, but not of Eä.' Wherefore Varda is the most holy and revered of all the Valar, and those that name the light of Varda name the love of Eä that Eru has, and they are afraid, less only to name the One" (HoMe X, p. 380). In this version, Varda's light is (in my reading) implied to be the source of the Two Trees' light, as the Trees are mentioned directly following a separate reference to Varda "preserv[ing] some of the Primeval Light" (p. 377).

Verlyn Flieger wrote an entire book on the symbolic significance of light in Tolkien's works (Splintered Light), which I unfortunately do not have a copy of and have misplaced by notes about (or else I only read Interrupted Music and A Question of Time, which is very possible). Flieger compared the use of light in The Silmarillion to the notion of refracted light in Tolkien's poem "Mythopoeia," where light is associated with the ability to create. Flieger's argument hinges on a comparison of the light to the Christian concept of the Logos, which is Jesus, but I've previously been more inclined to connect this to the Flame Imperishable ("Therefore I say: Eä! Let these things Be! And I will send forth into the Void the Flame Imperishable, and it shall be at the heart of the World, and the World shall Be"; TS, p. 20), which is closer to the Holy Spirit if we want to force a Trinitarian analogy. But I've recently been intrigued by the idea that Varda played an essential role in this light-centric creative process, with the Primeval Light perhaps being connected to the Flame Imperishable somehow. It would add some interesting subtext if the Flame Imperishable, which Melkor spent so long searching for before the creation of Eä, ended up in the possession of the woman Melkor hated for rejecting him. But this is already way too much for a footnote to a post that was supposed to be about beards.

[3] In contrast to his original fana, or assumed physical form, which presumably had once been similar to those of the Valar. "[T]he fanar of the Valar and Maiar usually appeared 'radiant' (in some degree) as if lit or suffused by a light from within, the word fana in Quenya acquired an additional sense of shining shape" (PE 17, p. 174).

But i find this confusion inexplicable because it is a very basic blunder on Tolkien's part, especially for one who studied in pre-WWI Oxford (where all these themes of descent were hammered out in learned discussions).

Yes, I was already puzzled given the counter-example of Dol Amroth, but I appreciate you pointing out that Tolkien's academic environment should also have led him to that conclusion. I'm not particularly knowledgeable about the intellectual milieu of early 20th century Britain, but it does make this situation all the more confounding.

[Eldy Dunami]

Speaking of the NoME quotation it's interesting that Tolkien seems to emphasizes that it's the Númenorean chieftains who do not have beards

He does, he's just wrong about that.

To explain by analogy, Tolkien himself concluded that the mythological origin story of the Sun and the Moon from The Silmarillion was wrong because we know the Sun and Moon are not, in fact, a magical fruit and flower, respectively, and so he had to come up with an alternate explanation. Since we know heredity does not work in a way that's consistent with the NoMe chapter on beards—and Tolkien himself knew, or should have known, the same, as my conversation with Chrys has covered—I disregard the notion of beardlessness being a distinctive characteristic of Númenórean nobles, but not commoners, when constructing my own personal mental image of the Second Age. Which is not to say others are wrong to do otherwise, but I feel this is a case where diverging from Tolkien's words is actually more in keeping with the spirit in which the legendarium was constructed.

[Aikári Salmarinian]

I have followed on the discussion from my last post of 19 March. I don't know really what to add to it. I have dowloaded Ridgeway's book and it reads rather scientific long explanatory and dry to me than anything else, which is normal with books from these times.

I wanted to add though, that I think the Eldarin Minyár weren't as patrilineal as we all think, solely based on their starting number of fourteen members in the very beginning. To get out of them a real healthy people, without siblings and cousins marrying each other, needs very careful family planning and matrimonial agreements. And I have a feeling that quite some Maiar in the shapes of elven men and women have fallen victim to them, in the sense of (entranced) love as happened between Melian and Elwë. I am trying to survey this part of lore into RP, via Romeran's Sundering of the Elves RPG in Rohan during YT era and my just introduced character Námorinyë (Minyárin girl). I have a feeling that the Minyár culture really works on gender equality, where the voices of their women and men are heard, this creating a collective bond that seals later on the decision to stand unified to follow Oromë to Valinor, without any strive or division between the members alive by YT1105. And in a sense it is always what I loved about them.

[Chrysophylax Dives]

Since we know heredity does not work in a way that's consistent with the NoMe chapter on beards—and Tolkien himself knew, or should have known, the same, as my conversation with Chrys has covered—I disregard the notion of beardlessness being a distinctive characteristic of Númenórean nobles, but not commoners, when constructing my own personal mental image of the Second Age. Which is not to say others are wrong to do otherwise, but I feel this is a case where diverging from Tolkien's words is actually more in keeping with the spirit in which the legendarium was constructed.

Well Eldy, you are the first person ever to have got me profoundly interested in what i call 'Silmarillion' material. I feel that your long post above, underlining the significance of the female side of the union, is at the heart of things. But as i do not begin to understand what is going on here, I'll pass over that for now; and as a Lore forum is about debate I'd say that, while I applaud your choice to disregard beardlessness as a distinctive mark of royal lineage, I'm not sure I agree that the choice is in keeping with the spirit in which Tolkien derived his world.

I'm still on the same point both @Romeran and myself have made before, namely that linear genealogies of the kind we find here are of great significance in many ancient stories, and I still suspect that for Tolkien their story-significance trumped his 'scientific' understanding of actual inheritance.

The point has already been made - all the Old English kings, for example, who traced their descent back to Odin. But it might be worth taking on board also the genealogical cast of the Old Testament, which in the first instance is a genealogy of humanity from Adam and Eve (or the three sons of Noah), and which contains its own peculiarities: from the line of King David, it is said, will spring the mesiah, but David's ancestors include not only the convert Ruth but also the fruit of incest between Lot and his daughters). These biblical genealogies are rarely discussed in reference to Tolkien but have a two-fold importance for his thought: not only was he a deeply religious Catholic but his reading of Beowulf turns on his reading of the Anglo-Saxon reading of the Bible. (I think I'll mirror your long post with a long post of my own on this below).

Among the Jews it is said (or I think so - to be really honest, I don't know so much about all this) that the mesiah is born in every generation, but does not reveal himself because the people of the world are too mired in sin. This can be read as meaning that the line of David endures and that each child (= firstborn son?) is a potential mesiah. I don't think it occurred to the rabbis that by now probably all Jews and very many (all?) non-Jews are also descendants of David.

I'm just trying to say that the notion of a line of family descent that remains linear rather than branching off into endless mixing is deeply embedded in the ancient stories of our world, and I would guess that Tolkien put more store in the notion - even if deeming it mythical - than you or I.

[Chrysophylax Dives]

The following is extracted from work I did some years ago reading Tolkien's translation and commentary on Beowulf. Feel free to skip it if it does not chime with anything. My own belief is that Tolkien saw himself as achieving a second reconciliation between ancient heathenism and Christianity - the first achieved by his literary model, the Anglo-Saxon poet (whose name is lost) who composed Beowulf.

Tolkien believed that the tale of the monster in the Danish mead hall predated Beowulf, and that in the fight between Beowulf and Grendel the Anglo-Saxon poet was “sticking very close to some old material already in verse; hardly doing more in parts than work over it” (Beowulf T&C 162-3). Yet this working over involved a curious reconciliation of ancient heathen myths and Christianity, achieved by a genealogy of the monsters as descendants of Cain, the fratricide cursed by God and cast out of the human community (and, take note, marked by God).

þanon untýdras ealle onwócon,
eotenas ond ylfe ond orcnéäs,
swylce gígantas, þá wið Gode wunnon (Beowulf lines 111-13; Klaeber 5)

Of him [Cain] all evil broods were born, ogres and goblins and haunting shapes of hell, and the giants too, that long time warred with God. (Tolkien’s translation, Beowulf T&C 16)

In his commentary, Tolkien observes that the poet “begins with northern words eotenas, ylfe (two classes of non-human but human-shaped creatures), and ends with the word gigantus borrowed from the Latin version of scripture” (Beowulf T&C 162). Now, I presume that this borrowing is from Genesis vi: 4, one of the more obscure sentences in the Bible:

There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown. (KJV)

I take it that Tolkien saw that the Anglo-Saxon poet had been thinking about the intercourse between the sons of God and daughters of men, as well as the giants. Of the giants, there is nothing obvious in Genesis to suggest they were the progeny of Cain, and so Tolkien infers that certain (long forgotten) elements in ancient English traditions suggested to the poet such a genealogy. Elsewhere in his commentary he approaches these forgotten elements from a different angle.

deorc déaþscua, duguþe ond geogoþe,
seomade ond syrede; sinnihte héold
mistige móras; men ne cunnon,
hwyder helrúnan hwyrftum scríþað. (Beowulf lines 160-3; Klaeber 7)

…a dark shadow of death, lurking, lying in wait, in long night keeping the misty moors: men know not whither sorcerers of hell in their wanderings roam. (Tolkien’s translation, Beowulf T&C 17)

Grendel is named one of the helrúnan. Hell is a native word, related to helan ‘conceal’, and means here “the ‘hidden land’ of all the dead”; rún is ‘secret’ (probably ultimately ‘whispering’). A helrún is a necromancer, one who knows the secrets of the hidden realm of the dead (Beowulf T&C 167, 298). Necromancers wander far from the little circles of light that are human communities; they roam the shadowlands, where the monsters dwell - and they have intercourse with the monsters!

Grendel is a monster, but necromancers may be human. Between human necromancers and actual demonic beings, says Tolkien, “there was an ill-defined border” (Beowulf T&C 168). This ill-defined border is crossed in the wastelands. A human who wanders in the shadowlands, an outcast like Cain, has intercourse with the monsters.

Tolkien recounts an old story of a Gothic king of the time of the migration to the Black Sea region who expelled all the witches from his camp. The banished women went into the desert and consorted with the evil spirits of the waste: from this monstrous union sprang the loathsome race of the Huns. Tolkien deems this Gothic story representative also of ancient English traditions: it is “more than likely that dark ancient legends, concerning the origin of imagined evil beings, and of actual outlaw-folk and hated enemies of alien race, were associated in pagan Old English with the ancient word helrún” (Beowulf T&C 168-9).

Tolkien calls the Gothic story a “kind of reverse parallel” (Beowulf T&C 169) to the idea of Cain fathering the monsters. In Beowulf, the human Cain is the father of all the monsters. In the Gothic story, a loathed race of humans is born from a union of mortal woman and demonic male. Tolkien sees here the mark of the Anglo-Saxon’s poet’s reconciliation of English heathen traditions and Christianity. For Christians, humans are made in the image of God, and the idea that actual human beings (like the Huns) were fathered by monsters is horrendously heathen. In other words, Tolkien perceives that Christianity introduces an asymmetry into the ancient northern traditions: humans may have intercourse with monsters and beget monsters; but no union of monster and human will produce a human.

So, in terms of historical knowledge, Tolkien provides insights into long forgotten northern heathen beliefs. But in terms of his legendarium what is much more important, I think, is Tolkien’s understanding of his predecessor’s art, and his own reworking of the Anglo-Saxon poet’s reconciliation of heathen and biblical traditions.

The Anglo-Saxon poet discards the heathen stories of monsters begetting humans; but holds that a human (Cain) begat the monsters. Tolkien follows in discarding any hint of monsters begetting the Children of Ilúvatar, but also removes the sexual element from the making of monsters by necromancers. But Tolkien maintains the idea of human and non-human sexual union (and I suspect gives a gender-inverted reading of Genesis vi: 4) with the various unions of elf and mortal.

[Eldy Dunami]

@Chrysophylax Dives, I would love to hear your take on the long post if and when you're ever inclined to comment. I very much enjoyed reading your essay "The Peace of Frodo" some years ago, and it touched on some similar points regarding mortal/immortal marriages, as well as the whole asterisk-story concept, which you're much better positioned to comment on than I am.

as a Lore forum is about debate I'd say that, while I applaud your choice to disregard beardlessness as a distinctive mark of royal lineage, I'm not sure I agree that the choice is in keeping with the spirit in which Tolkien derived his world.

I'll admit I probably overstated my case, and would amend my statement to "in the spirit of Tolkien's approach in Myths Transformed and a number of other writings from the last ~15 years of his life," when he became focused on scientific plausibility. Which is not to say complete fidelity to our scientific understanding of the Primary World (or rather, the understanding of scientists from the late 1950s to the early 1970s); there are still plenty of supernatural and divine goings-on in his writing from that era. But Tolkien tried to keep his divergences from the real world more limited than before, most (in)famously by doing away with the concept of the World Made Round in favor of saying the world was always round—an idea he'd previously explored in The Drowning of Anadûnê in the 1940s.

I'm reluctant to give the heredity thing a pass in the same way I'll overlook the creation of mountains by supernatural means, partly because I don't think the former naturally follows from the foundational points on which the Secondary World diverges from reality, but it would be disingenuous of me to pretend I'm not biased, as my egalitarian sensibilities chafe against Tolkien's focus on bloodlines and kingship. Certainly, I think it's essential to remember while reading the text that these things were important to Tolkien—you'll get no disagreement from me that they were—because you'd struggle to understand a lot of things if you tried to ignore it completely.

I talked upthread about the special longevity of the Kings of Númenor, which clearly did not work according to any biological principles of heredity, since it passed only to those who held the Sceptre. I have no problem incorporating this into my personal legendarium, because it's clearly a case of the Valar or Eru granting a special gift to specific individuals within a bloodline, and that's an inherent possibility in a world where God is real (as are gods). If Tolkien had taken that approach to beardlessness or the magical potency of Melianic descent, I wouldn't object. But when he talks about something being inherited by anyone in a bloodline and then claims it's rare, I can't help but push back.

I will have to read your own long post another time (it's very late/early here, and also I already promised Doug Kane comments on something he wrote, which I'm now late with), but I look forward to it!

[Chrysophylax Dives]

I wanted to add though, that I think the Eldarin Minyár weren't as patrilineal as we all think, solely based on their starting number of fourteen members in the very beginning. To get out of them a real healthy people, without siblings and cousins marrying each other, needs very careful family planning and matrimonial agreements. And I have a feeling that quite some Maiar in the shapes of elven men and women have fallen victim to them, in the sense of (entranced) love as happened between Melian and Elwë.

Aiks, i missed your post yesterday because i was writing mine when you posted. You are the expert on the Eldarin Minyár. What you say about gender equality rings true, so my question is do you think that in reaching such conclusions you are going where Tolkien was pointing, or is it simply that he never thought out this healthy population issue?

On the lack of beards of the chieftains of Gondor, @Eldy Dunami, where you choose to reject beardlessness because the hereditary does not work out as Tolkien suggests, how about keeping the beardlessness but rejecting this racial explanation? I veer to this direction in light of my Beowulf post above because i have an intuition (no more) that the key statement in the note in NoMe is that a visible (unshaven) chin = a "mark" of ultimately royal descent = a mark of evlish blood, and such a mark was conceived as a sort of inverse of the mark of Cain (obviously, it would take much to actually argue this through).

One question, Eldy. You originally introduced this NoMe note in the context of a broader discussion of Tolkien's racial thinking. This particular note you have convinced me is confused. But this we might put down to it being composed in the last year of Tolkien's life (and presume his mind was not what it had been). So my question: is this racial beardless issue representative of wider problems with Tolkien's thought or can it be sidelined as an anomaly?

PS. Eldy, I am quite proud of the 'Peace of Frodo' paper because it was composed before Tolkien's Beowulf commentary was published, and the core argument was (in my opinion) validated or confirmed by that publication. But the other side of this coin is that the paper must now be considered out of date because we can now go so much further thanks to the Beowulf translation and commentary.

[Aikári Salmarinian]

Chrys: Tolkien comes from a patrilineal world with all legal responsibilities and it was not before 1957 that the EEC or EAEC, or both issued that for economical reasons men and women rights were equalised among the six members at that time, Belgium, France, Italy, Germany, Holland and Luxemburg. I don't know when this equality of man versus woman was put into a bill in Great-Britain, as they became member in 1973. Could have been earlier than 1957, or later? Tolkien was a linguistic professor, healthcare and all related were not his field of expertise. He would have known the average of (non) interested people, and the knowledge on healthcare prior 1960 was not what we know today in 2022. He worked with what he was most comfortable and knowledgeable with and created fantastic tales. I have no idea what kind of ideas really lived in Tolkien's head, but it is evident that the books follow the patrilineal thought. There are no leading women characters in it. For me that is no bother.

But on the borders in his stories are peoples (nations) mentioned which never got a real cultural history, because he had no connection to them. As for the Minyár it is possibly I am going towards/back to extremely old social values (from prehistoric times) with equality between men and women. Healthy survival in a pure wilderness depends on all voices to be heard, if the mammal is intelligent enough to think and talk. That are the humans in our world. In Tolkien's Universe this about the elves, humans, dwarves and ents originally. Melkor created all his kindreds from what already existed and the hobbits are a sidebranch of the humans. I follow throughout the Silmarillion what I can find about the Minyár, combined what has been collected together from various other sources on the Tolkien Wiki. If you have a few facts and a couple of movements in different time frames, then you can write creatively in such ways it fits almost precise to what has next been given in the tales. But you need also to understand the fairness of the Minyárin mind, which is almost unpolluted by the darkness of Melkor and his acolites.

It is a bit 'shophopping' in the Jedi Code:

There is no emotion, there is peace.
There is no ignorance, there is knowledge.
There is no passion, there is serenity.
There is no chaos, there is harmony.

And on all four of these virtues... peace, knowledge, serenity and harmony is what Minyárin life in Valinor comes to full fruition. I didn't implement the Jedi Code, but I know the ideals written in them, and I think they are likely the Minyár loved to strive after for themselves.

[Eldy Dunami]

On the lack of beards of the chieftains of Gondor, @Eldy Dunami, where you choose to reject beardlessness because the hereditary does not work out as Tolkien suggests, how about keeping the beardlessness but rejecting this racial explanation? I veer to this direction in light of my Beowulf post above because i have an intuition (no more) that the key statement in the note in NoMe is that a visible (unshaven) chin = a "mark" of ultimately royal descent = a mark of evlish blood, and such a mark was conceived as a sort of inverse of the mark of Cain (obviously, it would take much to actually argue this through).

If we want to retain Númenórean noble beardlessness, I think the easiest way is to squint really hard at the relevant chapter of NoMe and pretend the part about "any element of an Elvish strain in human ancestry" isn't there. We could pretend—could headcanon, more generously—that noble beardlessness is a sign of divine and/or Valarin favor bestowed upon the Númenórean elite, and therefore isn't subject to the normal principles of heredity. Alternatively, we could simply ignore NoMe on this matter. I think it would be interesting to interpret beardlessness as a cultural thing—noblemen shave for the same reason they speak Sindarin as their mother tongue, because they identify with Elvish culture, whereas commoners identify more with a native Mannish identity—but that's not based on anything specific in the books, and so isn't really proper Lore.

One question, Eldy. You originally introduced this NoMe note in the context of a broader discussion of Tolkien's racial thinking. This particular note you have convinced me is confused. But this we might put down to it being composed in the last year of Tolkien's life (and presume his mind was not what it had been). So my question: is this racial beardless issue representative of wider problems with Tolkien's thought or can it be sidelined as an anomaly?

I don't think it's the only case of Tolkien missing, or at least glossing over, the non-exclusive nature of descent from antiquity, but I wouldn't go so far as to call that a "wider problem with Tolkien's thought." (The other example I've mentioned, the abilities inherited by descendants of Lúthien, is a lesser concern since the lack of impact it has on the world can be explained away by most people not knowing about their distant Maiarin ancestry and never having the chance to realize their potential healing powers.) The main reason it rubs me the wrong way is that I'm uncomfortable with elitism (especially when based on descent) and monarchy, but that's a matter for me and my relationship with the text, not a flaw on Tolkien's part.

[Chrysophylax Dives]

The main reason it rubs me the wrong way is that I'm uncomfortable with elitism (especially when based on descent) and monarchy, but that's a matter for me and my relationship with the text, not a flaw on Tolkien's part.

You have helped me see something i have missed about the whole genealogy back to mythical seed or womb, which is that what counts as 'racial' thinking fuses with some very ancient and widespread notions of political sovereignty and right to power, which in our day and age, when heard, are all too often a sign of fascism. It has been a bit of a shock to have this 'royal genealogy' of the half-elven pointed out for what it is, something i need to come to terms with. Basically, I can only write this because we now have Gondolin because i would not wish to draw out this side of Tolkien's thinking much further than this in a public forum.

[Eldy Dunami]

@Chrysophylax Dives, I would be delighted to read more of your thoughts on this topic, whichever subforum you feel most comfortable posting them in.

[Eldy Dunami]

@Chrysophylax Dives, I finally had the chance (delayed by me being awful at budgeting my time) to read your long post on Beowulf upthread. I'm not knowledgeable enough about the poem to offer much in the way of intelligent commentary, but I found it really interesting. I can see how the human/Elf marriages, and perhaps Thingol and Melian in their own way, could be a gender-reversed example of the phenomenon you describe. I wonder if the theory, based on Tolkien's Myths Transformed-era speculation about Orcish origins, that Orcs were created by the interbreeding of Maiar who assumed Orcish form ("Boldogs"; a term that had been used as a personal name in the early legendarium) with humans might be somehow related as well. In that theory, orcs are monsters begotten by quasi-divine beings and humans. But this is all speculative: Tolkien's ideas were very much in flux at that time, and he didn't explicitly state the notion that Boldogs might have been bred with captive humans, but mixed a Maiar/non-Maia origin would be a perverted mirror of (some ideas of) the origins of the Eagles.

[Eldy Dunami]

Not to keep beating a dead horse, but a discussion on another forum led me to stumble across something interesting. When Frodo and Sam see the decapitated statue of the king at the crossroads in Ithilien, we're told that its "carven beard was broken" (TTT, IV 7). I checked the corresponding portion of the Reader's Companion, and Hammond & Scull made the observation that this contradicts the idea of Númenórean royalty, and others of Elvish descent, being beardless (this includes Arnor and Gondor; Númenórean was an ethnonym, and a synonym of Dúnedain). Based on this passage as well as Círdan's beard, they speculate the idea that "it was a characteristic of all Elves to be beardless" (UT, p. 247) did not emerge until Tolkien tried to explain how Legolas recognized Imrahil's Elvish ancestry. That quote, and the NoMe chapter on beards, were not written until 1972–73.