Again, my notes on the South, for what they’re worth.

I have to say, for all the trouble I had with finding critics who had something to say about the East-West duality in Tolkien’s worlds, it paid off. It’s quite a rich topic, actually. But no one that I could find, had much to say about the South-North axis, if such a thing can even be said to exist in Tolkien.

So this is kind of catch as catch can, today.

One theme I got from doing a close reading of The Silmarillion, was that the War of the Jewels which is the core of the Quenta Silmarillion, is fought on a North-South axis: Morgoth is in the North, in Thangorodrim, raiding and attacking the Elf-lands, and the Elves are to the South, launching hopeless wars on Morgoth.

Curious has argued that this is the major “axis” of The Silmarillion. I don’t think so, though I can see his point. I think the story of the Elves is an East-West one, and that is the story of the Silmarillion legends overall. While the War against Morgoth is a major part of that story, and the War does have a Northern center of Evil, the War is not the whole story. North-South is subsidiary to East-West on the largest scale, that of the book as a whole: Elves are born, head West; Elves double back East; most Elves that don’t die go West again.
A. Did Tolkien write Morgoth’s northern Thangorodrim in evocation of Norse mythology, and only later meld it into his vast tale of Westward migration and Eastward return that echoes the entire Western European racial experience?

As I read the Silmarillion, looking for references to the East and South, I found that many many times a direction was just a direction, as Freud might say. I thought this might be because 1) Tolkien just thought of them as tales, and didn’t assign a kind of overarching moral geography to them as he wrote them. 2) The tales, and the lands they take place in, are so jumbled, that his Beleriand map seems positively stitched together. Characters head east, north, west and south just to find their way home.
D. Do you agree? Does Lord of the Rings take its compass directions more seriously than the Silmarillion?

I did very badly in my research of Norse myths, and never did find out how the Old Norse regarded the various compass-points. Given Tolkien’s debt to Norse mythology, I felt this was a bad slip on my part.
C. Can you help me out and tell me how East and South have been regarded in traditional Northern European (Norse, English, German) mythology?

Does anyone remember the dwarves’ approach to the Desolation of the Dragon in The Hobbit? I’m reminded of it when I read about Frodo and Sam approaching Mordor from the West. One interesting difference is that the dwarves are heading North towards the heart of evil in Wilderland, from a civilized town in the South (Laketown). Even though The Hobbit has nothing like the moral underpinnings of The Sil or the LotR, there is a distinct East-West divide at the Mountains. The West represents Civilization (Bilbo’s past/Baggins side); and the East represents Wilderness and Adventure (Bilbo’s future/Took side). Now, like the Sil that we just talked about, within the larger E-W adventure there is the core experience of the Dragon in the Mountain, and like Morgoth in Thangorodrim, Smaug lives to the North.
D. Do you think this analysis is significant, or overblown? What in The Hobbit argues against trying to impose a moral geography on the North-South axis?

Moving on to The Lord of the Rings, one way that the South is distinguished is its association with a sunny, warm climate.

“ ‘How wide and empty and mournful all this country looks! ' said Frodo. `I always imagined that as one journeyed south it got warmer and merrier, until winter was left behind for ever.'
     'But we have not journeyed far south yet,’ answered Aragorn. ‘Far away down in the Bay of Belfalas, to which Anduin runs, it is warm and merry, maybe…’” (on the Great River, FotR)

Sam also carries this impression in his Shirelore:

“ ‘But we have our tales too, and news out of the South, you know. … I've heard tales of the big folk down away in the Sunlands. Swertings we call 'em in our tales…’” (Sam, at the Black Gate, TTT)

This is interesting on two fronts. First, as we see from Tolkien’s comments for translators (“Guide to the Names in LotR”) in my notes, he uses “swertings” to identify darker-skinned people, using an older word to convey antiquity and, perhaps, get around the issues of racist language used by more contemporary speakers about people of color. We hear it again in modern form here:

“ ‘Still, you may at the least disturb the Orcs and Swarthy Men from their feasting in the White Tower.’” (Hirgon messenger of Gondor, Muster of Rohan, RotK)

E. Does Swertings and Swarthy Men work for you as Tolkien’s way around using a more common term like Negro?

The other point about Tolkien’s use of the Sun to characterize the South, is that it risks confusion (on a symbolic level) with the very Sun that is a key to understanding the East-West journey in LotR. The Sun (and the Moon) are the Valar’s messengers, to give light to Middle-earth after Morgoth poisons the trees; and images of Setting Suns, Rising Moons, etc., are central to the astronomical portion of this central symbol-set in LotR. Think of Minas Anor and Minas Ithil, Anorien and Ithilien: set West and East of Osgiliath, the central city of Gondor (Citadel of the Stars); or the meaning of the rising Sun at the Barrow, or the setting Sun at Henneth Annun; or at the Crossroads – for instance.

How does that symbolic use of the Sun relate to the warmth of the Sun in the South and the darkness of Men’s skins in that direction? It doesn’t, as far as I can see.

In fact, Tolkien’s translation notes betray this confusion. He gives, right next to each other, the terms “Sunlands” and “Sunlending”, which would seem to share a common meaning, but don’t. We’ve seen Sam use “Sunlands”; and “Sunlending” appears here:

           through Folde and Fenmarch and the Firienwood,
           six thousand spears to Sunlending,
           Mundburg the mighty under Mindolluin,
           Sea-kings' city in the South-kingdom (Muster of Rohan, RotK)

Shouldn’t “Sunlending” be a translation from the Rohirric for the Sunlands, as the associated term “South-kingdom” seems to suggest? No, in fact. Tolkien cheerfully puts it this way: “It is ‘heraldic’ rather than climatic”. That is, “Sunlending” is Anórien! That is, the fief-lands of Minas Anor (Minas Tirith), and the counterpart of Ithilien on the opposite bank of Anduin. The Sun of “Sunlending” is the Sun that sets in the West; while the Sun of “Sunlands” is the Sun that warms the South.

I call that confusing. (Well, not really. But I warned you, this is a very thin topic; we have to pick what fights we can!)
F. Who cares?

G. Finally, does anyone know what the etymology of the Elvish words for “South” is (Sindarin=Harad, Quenya=Hyarmen)? It’s really quirky and Elvish and cool!

Well, that’s it for the South today, and for my discussion this week. Thanks for hanging in there, everybody! I appreciate all your fine comments and thoughts on what are, after all, rather difficult topics to present and discuss briefly.

*guttural accent* I’ll be back… In August to talk about my Encyclopedia article on The Treason of Saruman.

Link to squire’s adventure