Elvish Star Lore

Elvish Star Lore Jim Manning Taylor Planetarium Museum of the Rockies Bozeman, Montana USA Away high in the east swung Remmirath, the Netted Stars, and slowly above the mists red Borgil rose, glowing like a jewel of fire. Then by some shift of airs all the mist was drawn away like a veil, and there leaned up, as he climbed over the rim of the world, the Swordsman of the Sky, Menelvagor with his shining belt. The Elves all burst into song. J. R. R. Tolkien The Fellowship of the Ring This holiday season we await the much- know of how the Elves and the other And let us see where it leads. As Frodo anticipated final film in Peter Jackson’s ren- denizens of Tolkien’s universe perceived that reminded the wizard Gandalf at Moria’s dition of J. R. R. Tolkien’s classic fantasy trilo- universe through the tales they told of it. For stone door, all you must do is to “speak gy, The Lord of the Rings. It is in The Return of tales they did tell. ‘Friend’ and enter …. the King that all of the great questions of As academic an exercise as this may seem, Tolkien’s classic story – the ageless questions it does have value to the likes of us. If the Of Creation and Sub-creation that underpin all epic myth – will be tales you tell now of the sky are taking on a Why is it that The Lord of the Rings, in answered. Will Good triumph over Evil? “same old” quality, if those cosmic egg origin Waterstone’s 1999 poll, for example, has been Will Frodo successfully complete his hero’s stories and sun-catcher myths and bear tales voted (by readers if not the critics) the great- quest? Will the bad guy Sauron get his “just and all of that “arcing to Arcturus” begin to est twentieth century novel in English? The desserts”? Will Aragorn get the girl? reasons are probably many: it deals Tolkien fans, whose copies of his with universal mythic themes that res- books have grown threadbare from onate in the human imagination, it’s pleasurable reading, already know the compellingly apocalyptic, its prose answers. But Jackson’s treatment of reads like poetry, and it’s a ripping them is awaited with considerable good story. Another reason may be interest just the same – with an understand- feel as threadbare as your volumes of Tol- that, for a fantasy work, in many respects it ing among the more accommodating of kien, then perhaps an Elvish interpretation feels “real.” This is entirely on purpose. Tolkien’s readership that the story, as in the can offer a fresh perspective and a different Tolkien was insistent that his work was first two films, is bound to be condensed for spin – not only on the tales we tell, but in neither mere representation nor allegory, the silver screen. What this means, aside reminding ourselves of the purpose and but was rather what he termed “sub-cre- from the certainty of purist web sites and power of myth in ancient lives and in our ation” – the creation of a secondary world chat rooms fretting over the differences, is lives today. with, as Tolkien put it, an “inner consistency that most of Tolkien’s incredibly rich back- So put aside, for the time it takes to read, of reality” so skillful that it compels belief (at story for his fabled Middle-earth will not those familiar star mythologies, and let us least “secondary” belief) on the part of the make it into the theaters – including the fas- delve for that time into the cosmic lore of reader. It is a world “which your mind can cinating glimpses he offers of the star lore of the Elves as the Dwarves might delve for enter. Inside it what he (the writer) relates is the Elves. their prized mithril in the mines of Moria. ‘true’: it accords with the laws of that world.” Now matters of star lore are One of things this meant was that matters of some import, or at least If the tales you tell now of the sky are tak- the sub-created world had to be com- some interest, to those who care ing on a “same old” quality … then perhaps plete, containing sun, moon, stars, detailed landscapes, and weather as about such things – like Elves and an Elvish interpretation can offer a fresh planetarians. So it seems appropri- well as the assorted dragons, trolls, ate, before the film version of the perspective and a different spin – not only talking animals and magic rings that trilogy passes into cinematic histo- on the tales we tell, but in reminding our- made it fantastical. In Tolkien’s ry having spawned a whole new selves of the purpose and power of myth mind, this world had to have a histo- kindred of Middle-earth devotees, ry, a mythology, and a cosmology. to compile and review what we in ancient lives and in our lives today. And so his does – reinforcing the 14 Planetarian December 2003 sense of the real that is one of the keys to down together for the night, they see in the The Elves of Middle-earth seem in fact to enjoying his work. east the Pleiades (Remmirath, the “Netted be rather similar to the legendary Tuatha Dé Tolkien, in crafting his mythos, would Stars”), the star Aldebaran (as Borgil must Danann of Irish lore, the “Fairy Folk” who probably have agreed with Joseph Campbell, surely be), and then Orion (Menelvagor) ris- were the first inhabitants of Ireland prior to one of the world’s foremost examiners of ing above the mists “over the rim of the the arrival of the Sons of Míl, or Milesians, comparative mythology, who said that the world.” The time of year is late September, the ancestors of the Irish to come. Like the material of myth was “the material of our and these stars do indeed rise a little before Tuatha Dé Danann, Tolkien’s creations had life, the material of our body, the material of midnight (Standard Time) at that time of of the stature of Men, although more slender our environment, and a living, vital mythol- year – at least in the modern day. (Given that than Men and fairer to look upon. They were ogy deals with these in terms that are appro- the scene is set in a remote age, we must for- immortal, but not eternal in the sense that priate to the nature of the knowledge of the give Tolkien the lack of any precessional their existence was tied to the Earth, and time.” And, Tolkien might have added, effect.) Another example is Tolkien’s treat- when the Earth ultimately died, so would appropriate to the nature of the place in ment of the moon. Always meticulous in his they. They could, however, be killed by which that material exists. For Tolkien that chronology, he has the moon moving and weapons or grief, but stayed within the “cir- place was Middle-earth, a world that was sup- phasing correctly as time passes and events cles of the world” until its end. They were posed to be our own in an archaic and of the story occur. grey-eyed and, contrary to the movies, gen- unrecorded earlier age. And it was necessary, In Tolkien’s sub-created world, the sky erally were dark-haired but for a certain kin- it seems, for this world to have an astronomy works familiarly and believably, and plays a dred and the family line of Galadhriel. And I if it were to be truly complete and believ- visible role in the detailed descriptions of have never seen a reference suggesting that able. environment – which is one of the ways Tolkien meant for them to have pointy ears In The Lord of the Rings and its prequel, Tolkien achieves the story’s sense of realness. as seems required for all elf depictions today. The Silmarillion, Tolkien’s principle of sub- Tolkien did, however, mean for his Elves creation is manifested in two ways, I think, Of the Elves to be a representation of some of the higher when it comes to matters of the sky. First, The second way in which Tolkien brings aspects of human nature (as indeed, all his the sky behaves accurately (and thus realisti- astronomy into Middle-earth is through an creatures were meant to “partially represent” cally) in his stories. And secondly, there is a invented cosmology, most apparent in The human beings). In Tolkien’s words, “The known cosmology and bits of star lore, Silmarillion, the prequel to the events of the Elves represent, as it were, the artistic, aes- attributed primarily to the Elves. trilogy. Since all of the myth of Middle-earth thetic, and purely scientific aspects of the We see an example of the first manifesta- is decidedly Elf-centered, it is useful to gain Humane nature raised to a higher level than tion in the excerpt from The Fellowship of the some further understanding of these charac- it is actually seen in Men.” They had a Ring, the first book of his trilogy, that begins ters before we consider their perceptions of “devoted love of the physical world, and a this tome. Frodo and his hobbit companions the universe. desire to observe and understand it for its have encountered a group of Elves after his It is first important to understand that own sake.” And they especially loved the departure from his home in The Shire at the Tolkien’s Elves are not the tiny, green-suited stars.

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