Dragons Again

J. R. R. Tolkien describes the dragon, Chrysophylax:

For though the oaths he had taken should have burdened his conscience with sorrow and a great fear of disaster, he had, alas! no conscience at all. (J. R. R. Tolkien, Farmer Giles of Ham.)

As the people of Ham discovered, it does little good to negotiate with someone who has no conscience.

Masters in this Hall

One of the minor characters so well-drawn in Tolkien's Hobbit is the Master of the Town of Esgaroth. We first meet him in the tenth chapter when Bilbo Baggins and the dwarves enter a big feast which the Master is holding. His first reaction is one of surprise:

The Master of the town sprang from his great chair.

When the elves accuse the dwarves of being vagabonds and escaped prisoners, the Master's reaction provides a glimpse of a cynical character:

"Is this true?" asked the Master. As a matter of fact he thought it far more likely than the return of the King under the Mountain, if any such person had ever existed.

When presented with two competing claims,

the Master hesitated and looked from one to the other. The Elvenking was very powerful in those parts and the Master wished for no enmity with him, nor did he think much of old songs, giving his mind to trade and tolls, to cargoes and gold, to which habit he owed his position.

But the popular clamor takes over while the Master dithers and events are taken out of his hands.

When the dwarves leave,

the Master was not sorry at all to let them go. They were expensive to keep, and their arrival had turned things into a long holiday in which business was at a standstill.

In the fourteenth chapter, when the Master appears again, he is shown as a coward. When the dragon attacks, one of the fighting men

ran to and fro cheering on the archers and urging the Master to order them to fight to the last arrow.

The Master, however, has other concerns.

The Master himself was turning to his great gilded boat, hoping to row away in the confusion and save himself.

After the defeat of the dragon, the townsmen want to have the dragon-slayer be their king. The Master objects:

In the Lake-town we have always elected masters from among the old and wise, and have not endured the rule of mere fighting men.

His argument backfires, though he holds on to power temporarily.

Tolkien does not spend much time on this particular character. He does not even give him a name. But in a few words, concentrating mainly on actions, he is able to evoke a character type that anyone can recognize.

A Treacherous Weapon is Ever a Danger to the Hand

A little wisdom from J. R. R. Tolkien:

But let us not darken our hearts by imagining the trial of their gentle loyalty in the Dark Tower. For the Enemy has failed---so far. Thanks to Saruman.'

'Then is not Saruman a traitor?' said Gimli.

'Indeed yes.' said Gandalf. 'Doubly. And is not that strange? Nothing that we have endured of late has seemed so grievous as the treason of Isengard. Even reckoned as a lord and captain Saruman has grown very strong. He threatens the Men of Rohan and draws off their help from Minas Tirith, even as the main blow is approaching from the East. Yet a treacherous weapon is ever a danger to the hand. Saruman also had a mind to capture the Ring for himself, or at least to snare some hobbits for his evil purposes. So between them our enemies have contrived only to bring Merry and Pippin with marvellous speed, and in the nick of time, to Fangorn, where otherwise they would never have come at all!

'Also they have filled themselves with new doubts that disturb their plans. No tidings of the battle will come to Mordor, thanks to the horsemen of Rohan; but the Dark Lord knows that two hobbits were taken in the Emyn Muil and borne away towards Isengard against the will of his own servants. He now has Isengard to fear as well as Minas Tirith. If Minas Tirith falls, it will go ill with Saruman.'

'It is a pity that our friends lie in between,' said Gimli. 'If no land divided Isengard and Mordor, then they could fight while we watched and waited.'

'The victor would emerge stronger than either, and free from doubt,' said Gandalf. 'But Isengard cannot fight Mordor, unless Saruman first obtains the Ring. That he will never do now. He does not know his peril. There is much that he does not know.' (J. R. R. Tolkien, The Two Towers, chapter 5.)

Telling the Terrible Tale

Recently a colleague exasperatedly asked me why my blog covered such dreadful things all the time.

Well, forn spǫll fira means the ancient story of man. If it had been the forn gods spǫll, that is the ancient story of God, then it might be different. Men make a mess of things in ways that God does not. Men generally have not and do not treat their fellow mortals in a godly fashion. History reflects that. To contrast the way of God and the way of man, we actually have to look at both and see the differences; they are not hard to miss.

The fact that we repeat the same mistakes again and again show that we clearly have not learned from the past. One illustration of that is Paul Simon celebrating in not just one but two songs his ignorance. "Don't know much about history," he sang in one. "When I think back on all the crap I learned in high school, it's a wonder I can think at all," he sand in the other. Granted Paul Simon is a bit dated, he was singing these things about the time the parents of today's children were born. Studies show that today's students are actually studying considerably less than they were when Paul Simon extolled the virtues of knowing nothing. History repeats itself, depressingly so.

But telling the ancient tale of man is actually telling a story. The narrator's art, or lack thereof, can make some difference, but there is the actual story itself. A first rate storyteller, J. R. R. Tolkien, put it this way:

Now it is a strange thing, but things that are good to have and days that are good to spend are soon told about, and not much to listen to; while things that are uncomfortable, palpitating, and even gruesome, may make a good tale, and take a deal of telling anyway. (J. R. R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, chapter 3.)

What makes a story good to listen to and good to live in are usually not the same things.

On Descriptions of Dragons

I have always liked J. R. R. Tolkien's description of the dragon in the first chapter of the Hobbit:

Dragons steal gold and jewels, you know, from men and elves and dwarves, wherever they can find them; and they guard their plunder as long as they live (which is practically for ever, unless they are killed), and never enjoy a brass ring of it. Indeed they hardly know a good bit of work from a bad, though they usually have a good notion of the current market value; and they can't make a thing for themselves, not even mend a loose scale of their armour.

Tolkien was well versed in medieval lore and a wry observer of behavior. His description of the dragon reminds me of Hugh Nibley's description of managers that they know the price of everything and the value of nothing.

Should one consider a dragon as a manager, or a manager as a dragon?

A Lesson from Chrysophylax

This is a quote from one of Tolkien's lesser known works, Farmer Giles of Ham:

They were, of course, very foolish. For though the oaths he had taken should have burdened his conscience with sorrow and a great fear of disaster, he had, alas! no conscience at all.

 Chrysophylax today might be rather commonplace.

A Tolkien Quote

Putting a copy of The Lord of the Rings back on the shelf, my eye fell across this quote from the preface to the second edition:

Some who have read the book, or at any rate have reviewed it, have found it boring, absurd, or contemptible; and I have no cause to complain, since I have similar opinions of their works, or of the kinds of writing that they evidently prefer.

A astute observation, wryly put.