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07-26-2021, 08:59 AM | #1 | |
Curmudgeonly Wordwraith
Join Date: Jun 2007
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There are also numerous citations for Breaking Faery Taboo, or mortal incursions on the Faery realm which are punished, like entering a fairy ring or stumbling onto a faery rade or in the case of Rip Van Winkle and the Irish tale of Oisín, where they return to the mortal world aged beyond recall. Nowhere that I can recall in folklore are mortals gifted an entrance to Faery. That seems more Tolkienesque than true to folklorish motifs.
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07-26-2021, 05:28 PM | #2 | |
Cryptic Aura
Join Date: May 2002
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What Tolkien does is transform motifs in fairy tales (and elsewhere). In so doing, he does not dismiss fairie but instead expands it. SoWM is all the more intriguing when readers can see how he transforms (and I use that word in a Genette manner) the received tradition. btw, the gift to mortals from fairies is likely a technical issue. It's not like Tolkien could just have Smith run off and become enchanted with the Fairy Queen and then just saunter home to wife, not after the romance and love of Beren and Tinuviel. The dancing has to be elevated by the Fairy Queen having a Fairy King, a couple who work together to educate the mortal. It also reverses the gift from Thomas the Rhymer, which was given when he departed Fairy.
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I’ll sing his roots off. I’ll sing a wind up and blow leaf and branch away. |
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07-27-2021, 04:23 AM | #3 |
Itinerant Songster
Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: The Edge of Faerie
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I can't find the quote from one of you, who mentioned Smith's occupation as mere ironmonger. Did Tolkien perhaps choose his occupation because of the possible pun of himself being a 'word-smith?' Reading the descriptions of Smith's faerie-blessed works in that light, it seems that Tolkien may be saying that his own craft of word-smithy was enriched by Faerie. And this could be taken in the sense of his philology as well as being a writer of stories.
To expand upon Guinevere's evidence that the Village Hall and Kitchen and Master Cook are a play on the village church and parson, the reversal of gift draws attention to itself. Gift given without merit, as described in SoWM, is known as grace. It seems to me that Tolkien's description of the King and Queen of Faerie as essentially benevolent cuts across the grain of the tradition of Faerie as well, and in this he seems to follow George MacDonald instead of the larger tradition. Faerie seems to partake of spirituality in some sense. And thus SoWM has in some ways the feel of a parable, not unlike George MacDonald's work. |
07-27-2021, 08:55 PM | #4 | |||||
Cryptic Aura
Join Date: May 2002
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That edition which Guinevere recommends, the one edited by Flieger, has some very interesting comments from Tolkien about SoWM. I'll quote a few passages which pertain to our discussion, of course with the provisio that I don't think an author's comments necessarily are the last word on his or her art. Tolkien's essay opens with Quote:
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I’ll sing his roots off. I’ll sing a wind up and blow leaf and branch away. Last edited by Bêthberry; 07-28-2021 at 01:10 AM. |
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07-28-2021, 07:36 AM | #5 |
A Voice That Gainsayeth
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: In that far land beyond the Sea
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Just a side remark about "mere ironmongers": I am sure we are all aware that smiths and their craft in other Tolkien's works are the most important craft of all, at least in terms of their impact on the world. They are given prominent place. Rings, Silmarils, swords (Andúril)... Fëanor, Celebrimbor AND Sauron. Aulë and his making of the Dwarves gets a separate story and is the closest anybody got to actual creation. In the terminology of Tolkien from On Fairy Stories, Aulë is the subcreator - par excellence. And it is his former Maiar and "apprentices" who are responsible for every great and problematic in Arda's history.
The Silmarils, the Rings... Things of great beauty and power but also of great danger. Just like Faerie itself. It seems to me that it is not a coincidence that it was the Smith who gained the access to Faery. The association of smithcraft and faery appears too often in all his works not to be a pattern. For clarification, I do not think Tolkien thought the smithing skill to be somehow inherently "magical" like the early-Post-stone-age cultures often did; I simply think that the had that association in his mind, somehow. And that explains why he does not see Iron as the traditionally "anti-faery" metal, but quite the opposite, THE faery metal.
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"Should the story say 'he ate bread,' the dramatic producer can only show 'a piece of bread' according to his taste or fancy, but the hearer of the story will think of bread in general and picture it in some form of his own." -On Fairy-Stories Last edited by Legate of Amon Lanc; 07-28-2021 at 07:44 AM. |
07-28-2021, 11:28 AM | #6 |
Shady She-Penguin
Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: In a far land beyond the Sea
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I hadn't read The Smith in ages, perhaps never (it was read aloud to me as a child) and I had really no idea what I was getting into. All in all, I quite enjoyed it. Unlike Legate, I wasn't disturbed by the Smith's keeping the Faery to himself because - sorry Professor - I saw the story as deeply allegoric. It seemed to me indeed that you could just as well say that Nell, or Nan, or Ned, or even old Noakes had their own Faery where they could travel and see marvellous things of their own (well maybe Noakes would not be interested, but theoretically). Faery is fantasy, and fantasy is private - even if Tolkien's children visited Middle-Earth with him, it wasn't quite the same place as it was for him. It's not the same for anyone; we all have our private imaginations no one else can ever fully enter. To me, the story is a lot about this.
Also, about how the Smith's extensive journeys in Faery, as wonderful as they are, put a distance between him and the rest of the village, even his family. When he comes home in the end, you can see how his son Ned is relieved that his father will now spend more time with his family and be there for him and teach him things, as well as being there for his daughter and little nephew and his wife. I know Tolkien advocated fantasy as a means of escapism, but this story seems to say, too much is too much. You have to come back to real life, there are people who need you. All that being said, I loved how faery itself was described. The Elf-Queen, very much like both Goldberry and Galadriel, the Elven party reminiscent of King Thranduil's forest feast, the fearsome Elven warriors with their ships, the magical flowering tree with the fruit... it's all very Middle-Earth, and very beautiful. There are rather unsettling things too, such as the lake that is not made out of water but of stone. Everything in Faery is very atmospheric and it was a joy to read. Lastly, it is interesting to hear the cooks were an allegory. I have to say I was wondering about them the whole time. I have never heard of a medieval custom of there being a cook in a village that cooks for everyone (in a castle yes, but in a village?), yet that seems to be the arrangement in the village in the Smith. I wonder if there is any historical precedent of this, or if it's simply there for the allegory.
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07-28-2021, 11:47 AM | #7 | |
Cryptic Aura
Join Date: May 2002
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I’ll sing his roots off. I’ll sing a wind up and blow leaf and branch away. |
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07-28-2021, 02:01 PM | #8 | ||||
A Voice That Gainsayeth
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: In that far land beyond the Sea
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Thank you.
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I concede that she may appear a little more Goldberry-ish when she meets the Smith the first time, but there she also reminds me of just a common, tra-la-la-lley girl from Rivendell. But the second time, she is definitely Galadriel/Melian. Her giving the gift of the strange blossom to the Smith (that they later keep in a box) also reminds me of Galadriel's gift to Sam (also flower - seeds - and also in a box). Quote:
One Lovecraft's story in particular seems very similar thematically to the "Smith", and that is "The Silver Key". There, the protagonist loses the key to his dreams that he had owned when he was a child, and that allowed him to visit strange places of forgotten beauty and see majestic kings and marvellous vistas. And that land, too, was beautiful yet dangerous. Lovecraft is obviously one level "darker", I would say: but the border is close. The beautiful places in Lovecraft's Dreamlands are such that could exist in Tolkien's Faery, and the dark places in Lovecraft seem like they might be akin to what is hinted at in Tolkien, where his heroes never go. There is the fundamental difference that Lovecraft can be raw and naturalistic, "ugly" in a way Tolkien never would: he describes things like cannibals, which Tolkien could mention in passing - we know that the trolls wanted to eat the Dwarves, but he would not elaborate. Lovecraft might. More importantly, despite nearly 100% overlap between the looks and feel of Faery and Dreamlands, there is a fundamental difference, testified already in the name. Lovecraft's Dreamlands are the stuff of dreams that in the worst case turn into nightmares. Dreamlands is not the product of a creative imagination, but the projection of wild subconsious. And the protagonist of "The Silver Key" does not enter the beautiful faraway lands the way the Smith does, there is the use of narcotic substances involved, however poetically described. Nevertheless, the feel is very similar and I felt like I should point it out. (It is also of note that both writers published around the same time - Lovecraft a little earlier - although I sincerely doubt that there was any mutual influence; more like common influence from other literature that was popular at that time - for instance the abovementioned MacDonald. Some English/American literature experts would probably be able to speak in a more informed manner.)
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"Should the story say 'he ate bread,' the dramatic producer can only show 'a piece of bread' according to his taste or fancy, but the hearer of the story will think of bread in general and picture it in some form of his own." -On Fairy-Stories |
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