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The Byzantine Borders of Tolkien's Biblical/Classical/Medieval/Geo Journal of Tolkien Research Volume 13 Issue 1 Article 3 2021 The Walls of the World and the Voyages of the Evening Star: The Byzantine Borders of Tolkien’s Biblical/Classical/Medieval/ Geocentric/Heliocentric Complicated Cosmology Kristine Larsen Central Connecticut State University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholar.valpo.edu/journaloftolkienresearch Part of the Modern Literature Commons Recommended Citation Larsen, Kristine (2021) "The Walls of the World and the Voyages of the Evening Star: The Byzantine Borders of Tolkien’s Biblical/Classical/Medieval/Geocentric/Heliocentric Complicated Cosmology," Journal of Tolkien Research: Vol. 13 : Iss. 1 , Article 3. Available at: https://scholar.valpo.edu/journaloftolkienresearch/vol13/iss1/3 This Conference Paper is brought to you for free and open access by ValpoScholar. It has been accepted for inclusion in Journal of Tolkien Research by an authorized administrator of ValpoScholar. For more information, please contact a ValpoScholar staff member at [email protected]. Larsen: The Walls of the World and the Voyages of the Evening Star This paper was delivered largely as is at the 2020 International Medieval Congress sponsored by the University of Leeds, and is the second of three related works on Tolkien’s early cosmology. The first detailed descriptions of Tolkien’s cosmology are collected in the posthumous work The Book of Lost Tales. These are accompanied by “I Vene Kemen,” which son and editor Christopher Tolkien translates as “The Vessel of the Earth,” a contemporaneous (circa 1916-20) cosmological diagram (BOLT I 85). Christopher describes this as a “very remarkable” sketch in which the cosmology is “presented as a huge ‘Viking’ ship, with mast arising from the highest point of the Great Lands, [a] single sail on which are the Sun and Moon” (BOLT I 83). The world-ship floats within Vai, the Outer Ocean, surrounded by the airs. These are arranged in three layers: Vilna, where birds fly; Ilwë, the realm of the stars; and Vaitya, “which is wrapped dark and sluggish about the world and without it,” possibly suggesting an enclosed system (BOLT I 65). In her work The Evolution of Tolkien’s Mythology, Elizabeth Whittingham (109) argues that “This representation of Tolkien’s world portrays a three-layered world that parallels those of classical and northern European mythology.” Later maps accompany “The Ambarkanta,” or “The Shape of the World,” a six-page handwritten manuscript. At the center we have the flat Earth, with its oceans and other bodies of water. Above it lies the ordinary air, or Vista, and further out still is found Ilmen, “air that is clear and pure being pervaded by light though it gives no light” (SOME 236). Beyond this is the Vaiya, the “Enfolding Ocean,” which is more water-like beneath the flat Earth and more air-like above the flat Earth (SOME 236). This in turn is circumscribed by the “Walls of the World. They are as ice and glass and steel… cold, transparent, and hard. They cannot be seen, nor can they be passed, save by the Door of Night” (SOME 235). Beyond this lies “Kúma, the Void, the Night without form or time” (SOME 237). Whittingham (111) argues that the diagrams that accompany “The Ambarkanta” resemble those of “the third day of creation in Genesis” found in Norbert Samuelson’s Judaism and the Doctrine of Creation (Figure 1). She opines that “The Ptolemaic conception of an earth-centered universe … and the modern scientific image of the solar system and universe is neither confirmed nor denied” in Samuelson’s (and we are to assume, by analogy, therefore also in Tolkien’s) interpretation (106-7). Published by ValpoScholar, 2021 1 Journal of Tolkien Research, Vol. 13 [2021], Iss. 1, Art. 3 Figure 1: Norbert Samuelson’s interpretation of ancient Hebrew cosmology. Diagram by K. Larsen based on Samuelson’s original illustrations (pg 162) So the question becomes, which is it? Is Tolkien’s cosmology classical or medieval? Is there a geocentric to heliocentric “Copernican Revolution”? Instead of simply focusing on the structural layers of the world, we should also look to the motions of the major heavenly bodies, in particular the Sun, Moon, and Venus. The Sun and Moon seem obvious choices, as the brightest lights in the heavens. Venus is the third brightest object and, in addition, as I have described in a previous talk,1 Tolkien puts a great deal of effort into describing the motions of Venus (in the form of Eärendel the Mariner). To begin, the Norse influence on Middle-earth is undisputed. Whittingham (104) draws attention to parallels she sees with “early descriptions of Tolkien’s world,” in particular that “the universe portrayed in the Norse Eddas exists on three planes…. the formation of the heaven and earth from Ymir’s skull and blood account for two planes of the universe… the halls of Hel, the Netherworld,… depicting the third plane.” She draws further connections she sees between Tolkien’s cosmology and that in Hesiod’s Theogony, where the “universe exists on three planes: the sky arches over the earth around which flows the ocean and below which lies the underworld” (101). The concept of the underworld (and afterlife) in Tolkien’s mythology is, how shall I put this politely, complicated, far more so than Whittingham’s statement implies. It is true that in the earliest cosmology in The Book of the Lost Tales, the halls of Mandos where the Elves await a time to be “born into their children” are delved very deep indeed, “stretching even down under the Shadowy Seas” (BOLT I 76). 1 https://scholar.valpo.edu/journaloftolkienresearch/vol13/iss1/2/ https://scholar.valpo.edu/journaloftolkienresearch/vol13/iss1/3 2 Larsen: The Walls of the World and the Voyages of the Evening Star However, Whittingham misses an opportunity to draw another connection to Norse mythology. As she notes, Yggdrasill, the World Tree, lies at the heart of the Norse cosmology (103). It serves as an axis mundi, the axis of the world. Doesn’t the mast of the World ship serve much the same purpose? However, Christopher Tolkien suggests that a “close examination of the original drawing strongly suggests to me that the mast and sail, and still more clearly the curved prow were added afterwards (perhaps a ‘jeu d’esprit, without deeper significance’)” (BOLT I 87). Tolkien’s early cosmology also brings to mind other cultural cosmologies, in particular the ancient Hebrew model. James Christian (495-6) describes the ancient Hebraic universe as a gigantic bowl of beaten metal… that separated the lower from the upper waters. This ‘firmament’ was shot through with small holes through which the water could shower upon the Earth. The Sun and Moon were attached to the vaulted firmament and appeared to roll across it each day…. An ocean of water extended around the sides of the inverted bowl and down under the Earth…. Beneath the flat surface on which the people lived ‘roots of Earth’ plunged deep into the abysmal waters. Also under the earth, near its center, there existed an enormous cavern called sheol where (some said) the ghost- shades of men slept after death (Figure 2). Figure 2. Illustration of the early Hebraic Cosmology. From Chamberlin (84). Public domain image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. Published by ValpoScholar, 2021 3 Journal of Tolkien Research, Vol. 13 [2021], Iss. 1, Art. 3 Ignoring the issue of the underworld in Tolkien’s mythology, it is easy to see why Whittingham points out parallels. In particular, returning to Samuelson’s illustration of the Genesis cosmology, Whittingham explains, “he shows the outermost ring of water as still positioned outside the ring of sky. Interestingly, the diagram closely resembles drawings by Tolkien that accompany his cosmological essay Ambarkanta” (106). She is clear to point out that “Samuelson’s conception of the earth as a ‘globe’ is influenced, of course, by science since the biblical description does not indicate the shape of ‘the dry land’ and ‘Seas’ that comprise the world” (106). It should be noted that Tolkien’s world clearly begins flat and only becomes globed during a great catastrophe that owes much to the legend of Atlantis (a recurring nightmare Tolkien calls his “Atlantis-haunting” [Letters 347]). An even closer relationship between the Ambarkanta maps and the cosmology of Genesis is suggested by a simple Google search for any number of such images of the ancient Hebrew cosmology (Figure 2). So, is Tolkien’s cosmology the universe of Genesis? It’s more complicated. In the Aristotelean geocentric (Earth-centered) cosmology (Figure 3) the Sun, Moon, planets, and stars are composed of ether and travel on concentric ethereal spheres that have the Earth at their center. Below the orbit of the Moon exist the four classical elements, from highest to lowest, fire, air, water, and earth. Ptolemy’s geocentric cosmology (Figure 4) is more complicated, using gear-like combinations of circular orbits (with the Earth slightly off center) to explain the decidedly non- uniform apparent motion of the heavenly bodies (caused by the orbits being heliocentric rather than geocentric and elliptical rather than circular, as eventually demonstrated by Johannes Kepler). https://scholar.valpo.edu/journaloftolkienresearch/vol13/iss1/3 4 Larsen: The Walls of the World and the Voyages of the Evening Star Figure 3 (Left) and Figure 4 (Right). A simple Aristotelian geocentric universe compared with a more complex Ptolemaic geocentric model. Public domain images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. These geocentric cosmologies became the medieval standard. The Moon orbits closest to the Earth, then the Sun and planets, and finally the Primum Mobile. God resides in the Empyrean (true heaven) beyond the Primum Mobile, and His hand sets the Primum Mobile into motion.
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