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Finding Footing in a Forest of Fins: Name Etymology as a Characterization Technique of the Finwëan

Dawn M. Walls-Thumma Presented at the Tolkien at UVM Conference 7 April 2018, Waterman Building

I AM THE RARE Tolkien fan who became a true Tolkien fan not because of but because of . I loved The Lord of the Rings—still do—but what made me want to dive deeper into Middle-earth was The Silmarillion. And because I own a website about The Silmarillion and present and publish about topics related to The Silmarillion, then this means that I have talked with a lot of people about that formative, sometimes traumatic, nearly always memorable experience of reading The Silmarillion for the first time.

Aside from the shock that it is not another Lord of the Rings and the challenges posed by the “Old Testament style,” one of the major struggles new readers have with The Silmarillion is the names. There are not only a lot of them—quite a few more than there are characters even1—but many of them sound a lot alike. This complaint can be summed up as All Those Fins! How to tell Finrod from Fingon from Fingolfin? And the Fins are important characters too. On my own first reading of The Silmarillion, I failed to commit them adequately to memory, assuming I could just wing it as I went along, and I failed miserably at that first attempt at reading as a result. It seems knowing the difference between Finarfin and Finduilas did matter.

Today I’d like to return to that dark and seemingly impenetrable forest of Characters Named Something Starting with Fin because the reason for the resemblance between the names of so many characters isn’t just annoying and confusing, it’s also very meaningful. The ubiquitous Fin element in Silmarillion names is patronymic, showing that characters are descendants of the Noldorin king Finwë. Upon that patronymic foundation, Tolkien’s manipulation of the names of these characters adds subtle elements of characterization to the story, what I like to call, in the style of Tom Shippey, asterisk-characterization.

Tolkien’s assertion that he created Middle-earth as a place to speak his languages rather than creating his languages as an element of Middle-earth is well-known,2 as is the

1 By my admittedly quick count, there are 213 characters and 280 names of people in The Silmarillion. 2 See, for example, Letter 165 to the Houghton Mifflin Company: “If I might elucidate what H. Breit has left of my letter: the remark about 'philology' was intended to allude to what is I think a primary 'fact' about my work, that it is all of a piece, and fundamentally linguistic in inspiration. … The invention of Finding Footing in a Forest of Fins: Name Etymology as a Characterization Technique of the Finwëan Noldor centrality of his languages to his world. Language is central, in part, because it generates story. In The Road to Middle-earth, Tom Shippey called this technique building an “asterisk-world,” playing on the philological convention of using an asterisk to indicate a word not attested in any source but inferred to have existed . Shippey points to the “Dwarves’ Roster” in the Norse Elder Edda as an example of Tolkien building such an asterisk-world when he used the Eddaic list of the Dwarves for the names of characters in The (70). Essentially, he takes a linguistic oddity—a list of names without context—and provides the backstory that explains its existence.

He used this strategy in Middle-earth as well, where idiosyncrasies in language and etymology were used to generate stories that explained them. As notes in the introductory remarks to The Shibboleth of Fëanor, Tolkien had a habit of starting to write about language and almost inevitably falling into story (331). The Shibboleth of Fëanor details the etymologies of the names of Finwë’s descendants—All Those Fins. Found in the twelfth volume of The History of Middle-earth, The Shibboleth of Fëanor contains several examples of how Tolkien’s etymological musings spun into stories—complex, interesting stories.

Ironically, given its title, The Shibboleth of Fëanor provides little illumination on the names of the sons of Fëanor. Tolkien did not finish it and never progressed beyond naming the characters in and providing bare-bones meanings for those names. One asterisk-story, “The Legend of the Fate of Amrod,” emerged as Tolkien worked on the names of Fëanor’s twin sons, Amrod and Amras. The story, Christopher Tolkien writes, “is confused and confusing” because Tolkien wrote the story on the fly as an explanation for the etymologies behind the twins’ names, showing how easily language gave way to story in Tolkien’s mind.

In the story, which did not make it into the published Silmarillion, both twins were named Ambarussa by their mother, Nerdanel, at birth. Fëanor wasn’t enthused by this idea and asked that she change one of their names, so she changed the name of the youngest to Umbarto with the sinister meaning of “Fated.” Fëanor either misheard or, disturbed by the possible implications of the name, took it upon himself to change it to Ambarto, meaning “exalted or lofty.” Nerdanel ominously remarks, “Umbarto I spoke; yet do as you wish. It will make no difference.”

After the Darkening of , as Fëanor sets out for Middle-earth, Nerdanel meets him and begs him to leave one of the twins to her. When Fëanor refuses, Nerdanel answers, again ominously, “You will not keep all of them. One at least will never set foot on Middle-earth.” Her portents prove correct. Fearing that some of his company might return to Valinor, Fëanor sets fire to the stolen Telerin ships in the night. What he languages is the foundation. The 'stones' were made rather to provide a world for the languages than the reverse. To me a name comes first and the story follows” (219, emphasis in the original).

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Dawn M. Walls-Thumma doesn’t realize is that his youngest son—Umbarto, the Fated—sleeps on board and is burned with the ship.

The story is more than an interesting, if disturbing, vignette. Several important elements emerged in Tolkien’s attempt to explain the names of the Fëanorians twins.3 Most importantly, Nerdanel’s foresight emerges as an important element to the story, as well as in the naming of her sons, adding weight to the importance of those names in defining character.

The primary purpose of Shibboleth, however, is larger than this one story. As I noted earlier, Tolkien often created asterisk-worlds in which his languages made sense. Shibboleth arose out of Tolkien’s attempt to explain a detail of historical phonology in Quenya, namely how the unvoiced-th or thorn came to be pronounced instead as an S, and provides an example of phonology driving history—and big history, the kind of history that would literally and figuratively reshape the world.

Shibboleth is a late text, written no earlier than 1968, and as such the story of the strife of the Noldor was already in place. However, just as he weaves the existing burning of the ships at Losgar into the “Legend of the Fate of Amrod,” Tolkien leverages the story of the Noldorin strife—of Míriel Serindë’s unnatural death, Finwë’s remarriage, and Fëanor’s antipathy toward his stepfamily—into a historical phonological context, explaining how the idea of changing pronunciation of the thorn to a S-sound was arrived by consensus of the Noldor. As a linguistic loremaster, Fëanor—in true prescriptivist fashion—hated the idea and saw it as degrading and confusing the language. Complicating this: his late mother, Míriel, spelled her name with the thorn and preferred her name be pronounced using it. Fëanor’s stepmother, Indis, in an attempt to assimilate with the Noldorin culture into which she’d married, began to use the S-sound instead of the thorn, even though the Vanyar had retained the thorn. This had the unfortunate result of making it look like Indis was going out of her way to mispronounce Míriel’s name. Fëanor, naturally, took this as an affront to his mother’s memory, and as Shibboleth tells it, his retention of the thorn came to be a symbol of his pure Noldorin heritage and his primacy in the House of Finwë. Later, these attitudes would exacerbate his willingness to believe that Fingolfin and the Valar plotted to remove him, which made him susceptible to Melkor’s machinations.

These are all examples of building asterisk-worlds, of developing or enhancing plot using etymology. Where I’d like to turn is a technique less often recognized: Tolkien’s use of name etymology to develop character, what I’ll call asterisk-characterization. One of the challenges of The Silmarillion is its relative lack of characterization. Its heroic

3 New elements that arise in “The Legend of the Fate of Amrod” include Nerdanel’s foresight in naming her children, conflict between her and Fëanor regarding her relationship with the Valar, the implication that Fëanor’s sons were not wholly enthusiastic in their support of his agenda, and the death of Amras at Losgar rather than the Mouths of Sirion at the end of the First Age.

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Finding Footing in a Forest of Fins: Name Etymology as a Characterization Technique of the Finwëan Noldor characters are defined by their acts rather than their personalities or characteristics as people. Yet in their names, these characteristics begin to emerge and, sometimes, suggest tensions or conflicts with the potential to drive character development much as we have seen language drives plot development.

According to the text Laws and Customs among the Eldar, found in the tenth volume of The History of Middle-earth Eldarin children were given a public name by their father and, in some cases, also a public name by their mothers. Mother-names are of particular importance because these were often names of insight, revealing an important characteristic of the person or alluding to the character’s fate (214-7). It’s important to note that no Tolkien character fails to fit his or her name. In other words, there are no ugly Bonitas or video-gaming shut-in Hunters. Character names—especially mother- names—are the character.

In Shibboleth, Tolkien gave father- and mother-names for all of Finwë’s descendants. While I cannot cover all of them in the time I have, I would like to consider a selection of these in the context of asterisk-characterization: What they potentially reveal about the Finwëans that Tolkien does not directly reveal in The Silmarillion.

To begin, Tolkien often states whether a character prefers his or her father- or mother- name, and this choice often seems meaningful and is sometimes surprising. It makes sense to begin this discussion with Fëanor himself. Both Laws and Customs and Shibboleth state that Finwë initially named his firstborn son after himself: Finwion, or “son of Finwë,” according to Laws and Customs and the even less original Finwë, according to Shibboleth (’s Ring 217). When Fëanor’s knack for craft became apparent, Finwë enlarged the name to Curufinwë or “crafty Finwë” (Peoples 343). (Yes, this means that even Fëanor, at least originally, was a member of All Those Fins!)

Finwë’s uninspired name for his firstborn suggests some asterisk-characterization for Finwë himself, who does not stand out in The Silmarillion as a particularly astute character. Not only does he make decisions that exacerbated the conflict in his family, like his hasty remarriage to Indis, he seems utterly unable to quell that conflict once he starts it. His naming his firstborn with his own name suggests that he saw Fëanor as an extension of himself rather than a person with independent needs and desires. This perhaps makes it less surprising that he didn’t anticipate Fëanor’s extreme displeasure with Finwë’s remarriage, perhaps seeing Míriel’s loss solely through the lens of his own grief and amplifying his own desire for more children over Fëanor’s need for his mother.

Finwë would repeat this naming convention with his next two sons, Nolofinwë and Arafinwë (who would, Sindarinized, become Fingolfin and Finarfin in The Silmarillion). In Shibboleth, Tolkien speculates, “This maybe was done to assert their claim to be his legitimate sons,” which seems to support the idea that Finwë was rather naïve of the

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Dawn M. Walls-Thumma potential impact of his various choices concerning his new family upon an emotionally susceptible Fëanor (343). This choice also has the perhaps unintended consequence of marking all of Finwë’s sons foremost as potential kings—in their father’s mind, and through his name for them, publicly as well--and giving more emphasis to the matter of succession than seems necessary, especially in an immortal people living in a peaceful realm, rather than drawing attention to each of his sons as a person independent of him.

Míriel gave her son the name Fëanáro, “spirit of fire,” and this was the name that Fëanor chose to use. In Laws and Customs, Tolkien tells us that his choice was in honor of his mother, but the choice also becomes something of a self-fulfilling prophecy, emphasizing the more perilous aspects of Fëanor’s personality rather than the more tempered characteristic of his skill in craft and his place in the succession (217). Of course, we see fire arise at various points in Fëanor’s character arc: in the destruction of his mother’s energy, his impetuous temper, the making of the , the burning of the ships, his fatal battle with multiple , and the eventual immolation of his body at death. In Fëanor’s rejection of his father’s name for him—a name denoting kingship—in favor of Fëanáro, he also accentuates traits that make him unsuitable as a king. His brief kingship is bracketed by fire: the light of torches as he swears the Oath of Fëanor and the fire that bears his dying body away to Mandos.

His half-brothers decide differently, choosing their father-names, and both go on to have kingships longer and more successful than Fëanor’s. Especially in the case of Finarfin or Arafinwë, this choice may seem at first contrary to what we know of his character. As the neutral, amicable brother, it might seem that Finarfin would embrace his mother-name, his Vanyarin heritage, and the remove from Noldorin strife that it grants him. However, the adoption of their father-names by both of Indis’s sons suggests that their role as Finwë’s heirs remained a more prominent part of their identities than that role was for Fëanor, whose relationship to the succession was driven more by emotional attachment to the idea of kingship than a sincere desire to rule.

The sons of Fëanor, except for Curufin, all selected their mother-names as their chosen names. This is unusual. With the exception of Aegnor, all of Finwë’s sons and grandsons by Indis used their father-names, so one has to wonder why the Fëanorian branch of the family chose differently (see Figure 1 below). Like Finwë, Fëanor chose father-names for all of his sons that ended in -finwë, so their choice could be seen as intended to extricate themselves from All Those Fins, preferring instead to be known by their mother-names, which allude to their characteristics as unique individuals.

The choice also suggests a tension in the House of Fëanor between the sons’ allegiance to their mother versus their father. In The Silmarillion, the seven sons become almost a composite character, acting in unison and in seeming obedience to their father’s will, formalized in their Oath. Fëanor and Nerdanel are depicted somewhat as opposites— both gifted craftspeople but with wildly different personalities—but Nerdanel’s role is

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Finding Footing in a Forest of Fins: Name Etymology as a Characterization Technique of the Finwëan Noldor

Name Preference of Sons and Grandsons of Indis Father-name Mother-name Nolofinwë (Fingolfin) Aikanáro (Aegnor) Arafinwë (Finarfin) Findekáno (Fingon) Unclear Turukáno (Turgon) Orodreth Arakáno (Argon, not in Silmarillion) Findaráto (Finrod) Angaráto (Angrod) Name Preferences of Sons of Fëanor Father-name Mother-name Curufinwë (Curufin) Maitimo (Maedhros) Macalaurë (Maglor) Tyelkormo (Celegorm) Carnistir (Caranthir) Ambarussa (Amrod & Amras) Figure 1. so reduced that her relationship to her sons goes unremarked upon. The Silmarillion notes, however, of Nerdanel that “her mood she bequeathed in part to some of [her sons], but not to all,” without further elaboration as to which sons Tolkien had in mind (66). It is also in Shibboleth, in the “Legend of the Fate of Amrod,” that Tolkien begins to play with the idea that Fëanor’s sons were not entirely enthusiastic in their support of his cause. I have to wonder if the sons’ preference for their mother-names, in defiance of family norms, might suggest that Tolkien planned to complicate their characters through their affiliation with Nerdanel.

Of course, one son did choose his father-name: Curufin, which is short for Curufinwë. This was Fëanor’s own father-name, and Shibboleth tells us that it was “given to [Curufin], his favourite son, because he alone showed in some degree that same temper and talents” (352). Not that his mother-name was much better: It was Atarinkë, which means “little father.” Reference to Curufin alone having the same personality as his father again suggests that Tolkien might have complicated the other sons’ characters, had he finished Shibboleth.

As with Fëanor’s choice of names, Curufin’s use of his father-name becomes something of a self-fulfilling prophecy. It is Curufin who adheres most closely to his father’s agenda. Ironically, despite his association with his brilliant and talented father, Curufin is not distinguished by his skill. Both Fëanor and Curufin’s son, , are credited with some of Arda’s most extraordinary objects, but Curufin, whose identity is as a caricature of his father, is incapable of such originality. We are told he is similarly

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Dawn M. Walls-Thumma gifted, but none of his creations are important enough to feature in the story. His legacy becomes the carrying of his father’s agenda, along with this name, to ruinous fruition.

As for the sons more like Nerdanel in mood, asterisk-characterization suggests that Maedhros might have been chief of them. He is given not only father- and mother- names—Nelyafinwë Maitimo—but also an epessë or nickname, Russandol (Peoples 352-3). His father-name, Nelyafinwë is a provocative choice of name for Fëanor's firstborn child because of its political implications. It means third Finwë—but Nelyafinwë is not the third Finwë; he is, at best, the fifth, and if one counts the daughters of Finwë as well, he is the seventh. The only way this name makes sense is as a reference to the succession. In other words, the reminder of Maedhros’s status would have been articulated each time his father-name was spoken, a reminder to Fëanor's half-brothers of their place.

But Maedhros, like all of his brothers except Curufin, chose to use his mother-name: Maitimo, which means “well-shaped one.” He also answered to his epessë Russandol, meaning “copper-top” and a reference to his red hair, which he inherited from Nerdanel’s father Mahtan. Maedhros’s choice of names, therefore, affiliates him with Nerdanel’s side of the family, while his rejection of his father-name could be an attempt to distance himself from speculation and paranoia about the succession.

There is a potential asterisk-story buried in his name as well, specifically in the Sindarinization of Maitimo to Maedhros. Here I am admittedly going out on a limb a little. A hasty and largely illegible note at the end of Shibboleth states that the name Maedhros is a sort of portmanteau, combining elements from Maitimo and Russandol (366). However, the text The Problem of Ros, which follows Shibboleth, shows that the name Maedhros was also in a state of flux at the time, and Tolkien hadn’t settled on its final form (372). That uncertainty makes me more comfortable in reverting to an older etymology of Maedhros, found in The Etymologies of the fifth History of Middle-earth volume, containing material from the late 1930s.

The transition from Maitimo to Maedhros parallels Maedhros’s character arc. The character named for his physical beauty (and by a mother with foresight, nonetheless) becomes ironic when he is captured and tormented by Melkor and irreparably maimed in his rescue. In The Etymologies, Maedhros isn’t merely a composite of his two preferred names. Instead, it means “pale glitter,” alluding to the coruscation of light on metal, especially sword blades (413, 429). Thus, the new name Maedhros retains the sound of the original Maitimo with a vastly different meaning, and in the translation from Quenya to , in the transit from Aman to Middle-earth, Maedhros’s character loses his prelapsarian identification with beauty and becomes instead associated with war and violence. For he is no longer Maitimo, and the change in name stands for not only his loss of bodily integrity but a loss of innocence that comes with his turning to war. That such a subtle change in name produces such a vast difference in meaning speaks to exactly how fine a line exists between the states of Maitimo and Maedhros,

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Finding Footing in a Forest of Fins: Name Etymology as a Characterization Technique of the Finwëan Noldor between innocence and ruin: surely one of the biggest takeaways from the story of the House of Finwë, and Fëanor in particular.

To conclude, it is not surprising that the names of Tolkien’s characters had meaning beyond the sound and sense they imparted. Indeed, these names often revealed important characterization details and, from their meanings, Tolkien often derived new stories. Had he finished Shibboleth, one has to wonder what we might have learned of All Those Fins that might have further distinguished them from each other.

Acknowledgements Ithilwen’s story The Glitter of Metal first introduced me to the deeper significance of the meanings of Maedhros’s various names in the context of his story. As always, I owe a debt of gratitude to my friend Janet McCullough John for reading a draft of this essay and giving me much-needed encouragement.

Works Cited Shippey, Tom. The Road to Middle-earth: How J.R.R. Tolkien Created a New Mythology. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2003.

Tolkien, J.R.R. The History of Middle-earth: Morgoth’s Ring. Ed. Christopher Tolkien. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1993.

---. The History of Middle-earth: The Peoples of Middle-earth. Ed. Christopher Tolkien. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1996.

---. The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien. Ed. Humphrey Carpenter. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2000.

---. The Silmarillion. 2nd edition. Ed. Christopher Tolkien. New York: Ballantine, 1977.

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