Silmarillion Stories - E19 - The Coming of Men into the West

[00:00:19] Welcome to Silmarillion Stories, where the Lorehounds are your guides to Tolkien's world of Middle-earth. I'm Jon, and this is our podcast for Of The Coming of Men into the West, the 19th portion of the Silmarillion. In this episode, we're going to be discussing the Houses of the Edine and the Friendship of Fingolfin. If you want to get in on the Tolkien Talk, send an email to lotr at thelorehounds.com or visit thelorehounds.com slash contact to leave a voicemail.

[00:00:46] One more note, if you want to support us directly, click the link tree in the show notes and follow it to Supercast or Patreon, where you can get ad-free access to all of our podcasts and bonus content like Second Breakfast and Elevencies.

[00:00:58] Today, our returning guest is, of course, Marilyn Arbukila, our favorite Tolkien scholar and host of Rings and Rituals. Marilyn, welcome back.

[00:01:07] Hello, Jon. Thank you. It's great to be back as always.

[00:01:10] This is the first time we've done two in a row in a while, right?

[00:01:13] I think ever.

[00:01:15] Maybe.

[00:01:16] But memory may not serve in this case.

[00:01:18] Maybe. Silmarillion Stories has been an ongoing journey in formatting since David and I were doing it and then David's like, I'm out.

[00:01:27] Right, right.

[00:01:28] Yeah, rotating guests.

[00:01:29] But I do remember that you were here for the first chapter about men. You were here for Of Men.

[00:01:37] Yes.

[00:01:37] So I'm glad that you're here to do Of The Coming of Men.

[00:01:41] Well, there you go.

[00:01:42] Into the West.

[00:01:43] It's nice to be consistent.

[00:01:45] Exactly.

[00:01:46] So Marilyn, again, could you just remind people of your background on Tolkien and Casey?

[00:01:50] This is their first, happens to be their first chapter of The Silmarillion and they're coming into this for some reason.

[00:01:55] Sure thing.

[00:01:56] I taught a course on Tolkien off and on for 35 years during my career at Colby College as an academic research librarian.

[00:02:06] I served as the research assistant for the Prancing Pony podcast and I've done a lot of guest interview type things on a variety of different Tolkien related podcasts.

[00:02:20] I sent in a question or I answered a question that you guys put out to your listeners about the Barovian.

[00:02:26] You did.

[00:02:28] Society, the Tea Club and Barovian Society.

[00:02:30] And wow, didn't that open the floodgates?

[00:02:32] It sure did.

[00:02:33] And then you covered all of Rings of Power season two with us.

[00:02:38] Yes.

[00:02:38] You covered all of Rings of Power season one with Dr. Sarah Brown on the Rings and Rituals feed.

[00:02:44] And I think you're going to come back sometime before season three to cover season two.

[00:02:48] Is that right?

[00:02:49] We absolutely are.

[00:02:50] It's a question of, you know, waiting until Sarah's schedule is not utterly insane.

[00:02:55] Well, the good news is that TV moves at a snail's pace these days.

[00:02:58] So you have some time.

[00:02:59] Yes, we do.

[00:03:00] And in the meantime, I'm writing book reviews for various Tolkien volumes of scholarship and not so scholarship as they come out.

[00:03:09] So yeah, I've got two on the board right now.

[00:03:12] So very good.

[00:03:14] So we're talking today about of the coming of men into the West.

[00:03:17] So this is his it's mostly been an elf's game.

[00:03:21] This whole book, right?

[00:03:23] The whole Quentin Silmarillion has been all about the elves.

[00:03:26] Mm-hmm .

[00:03:27] And now elves are still very much in this chapter, but we're finally going to meet some of our mannish counterparts.

[00:03:34] Yes.

[00:03:35] Of course, the idea of the whole setup for Silmarillion is that these are elven histories.

[00:03:43] And so obviously they would be less interested in human histories until they actually meet and mingle and-

[00:03:50] Right.

[00:03:50] Take important roles.

[00:03:51] I mean, we do hear about at least two, I think, groups of humans who migrate down to some other place and pass out of the histories.

[00:04:00] Yes, we do.

[00:04:00] So, you know, either you're in Valerian and you're in contact with elves or you just don't exist as far as they're concerned.

[00:04:08] Yeah.

[00:04:08] And of course, I love that it's like, and the best of the men were the elf friends.

[00:04:13] You know, like everyone who's good is our friend.

[00:04:16] Everyone who's bad is not our friend.

[00:04:18] And it really depends on which elf you're talking to.

[00:04:20] That's true.

[00:04:21] That's true.

[00:04:22] As we will see.

[00:04:23] Yes, we will see.

[00:04:24] So why don't we talk about the first elf that meets the men?

[00:04:27] And that is Finrod Felagand, of course, King of Nargothrond.

[00:04:31] Is he King?

[00:04:31] He's Lord.

[00:04:32] Lord of Nargothrond.

[00:04:34] Well, I think I've read both.

[00:04:36] He's called King and Lord at various times.

[00:04:39] He's almost like a small K king because you still have the King of the Noldor.

[00:04:45] Well, you have the High King.

[00:04:47] Okay.

[00:04:47] So, you know, Thingol calls himself King.

[00:04:50] I think it's perfectly fine if Enrod calls himself King.

[00:04:53] They're not calling themselves High King.

[00:04:54] And then there's a whole question of does Thingol actually recognize the High King ship because,

[00:04:58] you know…

[00:04:59] Right.

[00:04:59] He's a Sindar and the High King is an old daughter and the Noldor of the Green.

[00:05:03] I'm going to say no.

[00:05:03] He does not recognize the High King ship.

[00:05:05] I really don't think he does.

[00:05:06] They brought a lot of pain.

[00:05:06] I'm pretty unequivocal on that one, actually.

[00:05:10] They brought a lot of pain to Beleriand as far as the Sindar and the Green elves are concerned.

[00:05:15] Yeah, yeah.

[00:05:17] So, Baeor the Old, this is the first…

[00:05:19] I think this is the first named man we meet.

[00:05:23] I believe that's true.

[00:05:24] I mean, there's allusions to famous humans, but I don't think Tolkien or Christopher gave

[00:05:30] us their names.

[00:05:31] Yeah.

[00:05:32] Just, you know, yes, and the coming of this particular hero, and then the coming of this

[00:05:36] particular hero that even Malian's girdle could not prevent.

[00:05:39] I feel like there was a brief mention of Beren before this, but again, that's alluding to

[00:05:45] a future of it.

[00:05:46] Right.

[00:05:46] That's not meeting someone in there real time.

[00:05:49] So, this is the first story about a man we hear.

[00:05:51] You have a note here about a rude harp.

[00:05:55] Well, in the text, we read that Finrod hears singing in mountain area, and he's a little

[00:06:05] concerned because could this be a band of running orcs?

[00:06:09] I didn't think their singing was that bad, but anyway.

[00:06:11] Yeah.

[00:06:12] From a distance, I guess, who knows.

[00:06:13] He gets closer and he sees that they're not orcs, and they look like children of Luwatar.

[00:06:21] Mm-hmm.

[00:06:21] And so, after they all… they hear them singing and with accompaniment, after they all fall asleep,

[00:06:27] he creeps into the camp and the text says he picks up a rude harp and begins playing upon

[00:06:34] it.

[00:06:34] And it's very reminiscent of the classic stories about elves and fairies who would play music

[00:06:43] of enchantment.

[00:06:45] Humans would hear it, and they could actually see the things that the elf was singing about

[00:06:51] come before them.

[00:06:52] That's a particular gift of elvish musicians, supposedly.

[00:06:55] So, this is harking back to a Prancing Pony podcast episode when they first did so, really.

[00:07:01] This is a couple of years ago now.

[00:07:03] And they really loved to riff on the rude harp.

[00:07:06] You know, did it have indigestion that day or…

[00:07:10] That's pretty funny.

[00:07:11] Why was it rude?

[00:07:11] And so, it became part of the first Prancing Pony podcast, Moot, which was online.

[00:07:19] Hmm.

[00:07:20] And Katie had set up a D&D scenario and I was mastering it along with Corey Olsen because I

[00:07:29] had completely forgotten how to run combats.

[00:07:32] And so, I was perfectly happy I had the script in front of me.

[00:07:36] I could really go on and fill in and exaggerate and tell stories and all that.

[00:07:40] And Corey did all the dice throwing and calculations.

[00:07:42] So, it was a great combination.

[00:07:44] That's nice.

[00:07:46] Get him to do that, man.

[00:07:47] And the rude harp was from Joy-Z when they picked him up and said,

[00:07:49] Hey, who are you?

[00:07:50] What, you think you could play harp?

[00:07:52] What do you mean?

[00:07:53] Well, look at your hold of me.

[00:07:54] Stop that!

[00:07:56] And it entered legend.

[00:07:58] So…

[00:07:59] Oh, that's pretty funny.

[00:08:00] That's pretty funny.

[00:08:00] I love the rude harp.

[00:08:02] The rude harp.

[00:08:03] So, here's where we are.

[00:08:05] We've got Finrod kind of just moseying about the fields.

[00:08:08] And over the mountains, over the blue mountains come the house of Beor.

[00:08:15] Mm-hmm.

[00:08:15] Come the Eddine, but first come the house of Beor, who becomes Beor the Old.

[00:08:21] And Finrod just kind of teaches them things by singing, it sounds like, right?

[00:08:28] He's just sitting there playing his harp and they…

[00:08:31] It says, each understands him according to their measure.

[00:08:36] Right.

[00:08:37] Right.

[00:08:37] Again…

[00:08:38] Which is really interesting.

[00:08:39] That elvish ability to convey meaning even though the languages are utterly different from one another.

[00:08:46] Mm-hmm.

[00:08:46] So, I made another note that it's kind of a form of a sonwe.

[00:08:52] Yes.

[00:08:53] Yes, it says in the text that Finrod can read and can see into their minds, right?

[00:08:58] Mm-hmm.

[00:08:58] So, he's able to speak with them both because he's good with language, but also because he can sense their inner meaning as well.

[00:09:06] Right.

[00:09:06] So, he can hear their thoughts.

[00:09:08] But to some degree, I think the human perception from the elvish singing is that same form of a sonwe at work.

[00:09:18] Mm-hmm.

[00:09:18] Because what we know of a sonwe is that both humans and elves had it, although elves were a lot better at it than humans were.

[00:09:24] Right.

[00:09:25] Right.

[00:09:25] It's interesting, this whole idea of getting into people's head through music.

[00:09:30] It almost reminds me of sort of conversations I've seen in academia of how do we write for the audience and not for other academics?

[00:09:39] Mm-hmm.

[00:09:39] Oh, yeah.

[00:09:40] Important question.

[00:09:41] Right.

[00:09:41] Important question.

[00:09:41] It's a problem of many, you know, like, educated professions of rather than speaking in technical language, how do you make something user-friendly?

[00:09:52] And it seems like Finrod automatically does that in the way he is conveying information to the men here.

[00:09:59] Yeah, I like that.

[00:10:00] And you have to think, well, who is my audience?

[00:10:02] And if your audience is fellow academics, well, great.

[00:10:04] Talk about Foucault and, you know, lenses of this, that, or the other thing all you want.

[00:10:09] But if you know that you have, you know, reasonably scholarly listeners who are not English literature PhD holders or whatever, and you want them to hear what you have to say, you have to use the words and the language and the concepts that they might understand.

[00:10:24] Or else, why are you speaking to them at all?

[00:10:28] Right.

[00:10:29] Look, men are a mixed bag.

[00:10:30] You got an Aragorn, you got a worm tongue.

[00:10:32] You could get a lot of space in between there.

[00:10:37] Absolutely.

[00:10:38] Absolutely.

[00:10:40] But it's, I think this is why Finrod is, I think he is actually called the beloved.

[00:10:48] But I think when people are asked, who's your favorite elf from the first stage, I think a lot of people, Finrod is their go-to.

[00:10:56] Finrod is pretty cool.

[00:10:57] And in some respects, I think we see and hear more of his thoughts and deeds than of any other elf.

[00:11:04] He's, he's in a lot of stuff.

[00:11:06] He's at least sort of woven into other people's stories a lot.

[00:11:10] Exactly.

[00:11:11] And other people weave themselves into his story.

[00:11:13] Right.

[00:11:14] And we, you know, we get these brief glimpses of his sister Galadriel in places, but really, I think that she would have also had a much more prominent role had Tolkien lived on a little longer.

[00:11:25] I agree.

[00:11:25] Because she wasn't there initially.

[00:11:27] I mean, in his very early versions of what became the Silmarillion, she really didn't appear until he was running Lord of the Rings.

[00:11:35] And at that point, his inspiration was much more Aisha or she from the, you know, late 1800s, I think.

[00:11:45] Mm.

[00:11:46] Action adventure novels and quite a different character from what Galadriel became.

[00:11:53] But I mean, this was just the beginning, right?

[00:11:55] Mm-hmm.

[00:11:55] Galadriel has had so much transfiguration over the years of all the writings of Legendarium.

[00:12:03] Right.

[00:12:03] But I don't know if it was Tolkien himself or if it was Christopher who inserted her in a couple of places when the Silmarillion was put together.

[00:12:15] Because they wanted to show that background.

[00:12:17] And some of the interesting touches to me are that they associated her very strongly with Malian and I'll have more to say to that.

[00:12:25] Yeah, that's true.

[00:12:25] In a little while.

[00:12:27] That's true.

[00:12:28] That's true.

[00:12:28] So, men, we get this background story on men, of course, again, the race of men, if you're new here.

[00:12:35] Tolkien is talking about humans, but he refers to them as men in his works.

[00:12:41] So, men awoke, we find out, at Hildorian.

[00:12:46] And their hearts were calling them West.

[00:12:48] Mm-hmm.

[00:12:48] But when they awoke, Morgoth goes, huh, a new toy.

[00:12:54] He's the first one to notice them, which I think is really interesting.

[00:12:57] Yeah.

[00:12:58] Well, he's there on the ground, isn't he?

[00:13:00] Exactly.

[00:13:01] And so, he plays with them a while.

[00:13:02] He puts a darkness on them.

[00:13:03] But I really like this idea that the text says, you know, he was incomplete in putting that darkness upon them because the Eldar gave him so much trouble in the West, he had to return to Angband.

[00:13:17] Yeah.

[00:13:18] So, like so many of his projects, it was unfinished as it were.

[00:13:22] Mm-hmm.

[00:13:22] I think equally he was seeing them as a potential threat.

[00:13:25] And he wanted to be-

[00:13:26] You think so?

[00:13:27] I do.

[00:13:27] I think he wanted to nail them down.

[00:13:29] He didn't know who they were.

[00:13:30] I mean, none of the Valar knew anything about the children of Lúbitar.

[00:13:34] That's true.

[00:13:34] Until they showed up in the world.

[00:13:36] And, you know, for Mordgoth, he certainly got an up-close-and-personal view of the elves during the early ages, you know, before the sun and moon kind of thing.

[00:13:49] So, here's a whole new thing and who knew what Lúbitar had given them or put into them and so forth.

[00:13:56] Right.

[00:13:57] Maybe when they die, they explode and then I get attacked, you know?

[00:14:00] Yeah, seriously.

[00:14:01] Who knows?

[00:14:01] I just don't see Mordgoth doing much in the way of play.

[00:14:05] Fear, yes.

[00:14:06] Well-

[00:14:06] I think his motivations of fear are mentioned throughout.

[00:14:10] He feared and he hated.

[00:14:12] Mm-hmm.

[00:14:12] It's amazing how many times that phrase is ascribed to him.

[00:14:16] Yeah.

[00:14:17] Yeah.

[00:14:18] And he gets quite angry later at the men, but we'll get there-

[00:14:22] Oh, seriously.

[00:14:22] In a little bit.

[00:14:23] I do like though that sort of, Mordgoth feels more-

[00:14:30] he feels like he wants to be friends with the elves in some ways.

[00:14:34] Like when he's in Valinor, he's pretty tight with the elves in some ways.

[00:14:39] But I think he really wanted his-

[00:14:41] I think he almost saw men as his children.

[00:14:44] I saw a Reddit post once that got me thinking, they said, you know, what could Melkor have been if he had not fallen to the dark?

[00:14:53] Could he have perhaps been the Vala who most showed himself and helped him?

[00:14:59] Men.

[00:15:00] Because the Valar are really absent for men.

[00:15:03] You know, they're-

[00:15:04] They're present in spirit, but they don't really appear to men very often.

[00:15:08] Especially compared to the elves.

[00:15:10] And could-

[00:15:11] Could Melkor in his angelic form have been a better role model for men, you know?

[00:15:18] Well, as I understand it, I mean, if you accept Melkor as a sort of a stand-in for Lucifer, as I understand it, in Arabic story, in Muslim story, this being is called Shaitan, who is the greatest of all the archangels, and wants to spend all his time at the feet of God.

[00:15:51] Mm-hmm.

[00:15:53] And Shaitan refuses and says, I only want to serve God. And that was his fall. So, there's possibly a little connection there. Now, listeners, if anyone knows the Muslim stories better than I do, please write in and correct me on that. That's what I understand at this point. But I'm sure there's nuances that I have not heard or overlooked.

[00:16:14] And Robert Jordan also takes Shaitan from that story and puts that as the name of the dark- one of the names of the dark one in The Wheel of Time.

[00:16:23] Uh-huh, uh-huh.

[00:16:24] Mm-hmm.

[00:16:25] Mm-hmm. I like when these authors take from different cultures and they mishmash them into different fairy tale stories.

[00:16:33] A whole new kaleidoscope.

[00:16:35] Yeah, definitely.

[00:16:37] So, we got that backstory that men are sort of partially darkened.

[00:16:43] The darkness of Norgoth has gotten to their door, but it didn't get let in, I like to think.

[00:16:50] But there are other men besides the House of Beor.

[00:16:54] And we've got the House of Beor, which we've already met, and they're the ones who are going to be closest with the elves.

[00:16:59] Mm-hmm.

[00:17:00] We've got the House of Haladin, and that is the house that speaks the same tongue as the House of Beor.

[00:17:08] They are sort of allies more when they were in the east, and they're going to come over next.

[00:17:14] And then we've got the House of Marak, which are this warrior type of men, and they seem like tough guys.

[00:17:20] You don't want to mess with them.

[00:17:21] Yeah, and if I remember correctly, well, Tolkien loves to describe different peoples in terms of their physical appearance and characteristics.

[00:17:31] And so the Beor's people were slighter of build, dark of hair, gray of eyes.

[00:17:36] I mean, think Edith again, because she becomes the model for the finest, whether it's elves or humans.

[00:17:44] I believe it was the Haladin who were tall, blonde-haired, blue-eyed.

[00:17:54] And to my mind, sounded very much like very, very early Proto-Rohirrim.

[00:17:59] Mm-hmm.

[00:18:01] And then the Marak, do you remember how the Marak are described?

[00:18:05] You know, I just want to correct myself.

[00:18:07] I had before said that the Haladin had the same speech.

[00:18:10] It was the House of Marak that had the same speech.

[00:18:13] That's what I thought.

[00:18:13] The House of Haladin had their speech sundered.

[00:18:16] Because they were so separate.

[00:18:16] That's what I wrote in my notes.

[00:18:17] Yeah, they were so separated.

[00:18:19] Yes, they were very separate.

[00:18:19] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:18:20] So nobody at me.

[00:18:22] You all heard my correction.

[00:18:24] The House of Haladin spoke a different tongue.

[00:18:25] Maybe it was the House of Marak to look like Proto-Rohirrim.

[00:18:30] But I think it was the Haladin because of Haladin that we'll get to in a minute.

[00:18:33] Okay.

[00:18:34] Okay.

[00:18:35] That would make sense to me.

[00:18:36] I would be good with that.

[00:18:38] Yeah.

[00:18:39] But Marak was the house that was closer with Beor.

[00:18:44] Right.

[00:18:44] I just wanted to be clear on that before we move on.

[00:18:47] And so the green elves are very unhappy.

[00:18:50] Because there's all these men going across Assyrian.

[00:18:52] Which Assyrian, if you take a look at the map of Beleriand, you'll see that it's all these rivers.

[00:18:58] And I think that's such a cool idea.

[00:19:00] That it's just this little area in the southeast corner of Beleriand where you have all these rivers flowing just in lines.

[00:19:09] And Treebeard remembers wandering in that country in his youth.

[00:19:13] The Seven Rivers of Osir as he describes it.

[00:19:16] Yeah.

[00:19:16] It's beautiful.

[00:19:17] Yeah.

[00:19:17] It's a beautiful idea.

[00:19:19] And so the green elves are very displeased that all these men are treading over their rivers and causing a ruckus.

[00:19:25] They're very loud.

[00:19:27] And so Finrod says, all right, I'm going to settle you elsewhere because obviously nobody's getting along over here.

[00:19:32] And he helps them found Estolad, which is going to be their home for a while.

[00:19:37] But Béor decides, no, I'm actually going to go back to Nargothran with Finrod and I'm going to serve under him.

[00:19:44] Yeah.

[00:19:45] He's almost a bit like the light elves.

[00:19:50] When they get to Valenor, they walk up the hill and they sit at the feet of Manwë and that's that.

[00:19:55] Mm-hmm.

[00:19:56] Béor, you know, he sees Finrod, recognizes him as this amazing creature and wants to pledge his life and support to him and says bye to his folks and off he goes.

[00:20:10] Yeah.

[00:20:10] One of the things I remember about the green elves, they were unhappy because these people are hunters and hewers of wood.

[00:20:19] Yes.

[00:20:20] And we will be unfriends with them forever.

[00:20:23] Yeah.

[00:20:23] It reminds me a lot of spoilers for Rings of Power season two.

[00:20:26] So fast forward a couple of minutes if you don't want this, but it reminds me of the Entwife being very upset.

[00:20:33] Right.

[00:20:33] With Arandir and with Isildur for being hewers of trees, right?

[00:20:37] Mm-hmm.

[00:20:38] Mm-hmm.

[00:20:38] Well, and of course, I think of the creation of the dwarves and the last line in that particular story is Aule saying,

[00:20:45] and nevertheless, they will have need of wood.

[00:20:49] Yeah, exactly.

[00:20:50] Exactly.

[00:20:51] Honestly, that's one of my favorite early stories because you can feel like the husband-wife bickering there.

[00:20:58] It's beautiful, isn't it?

[00:20:59] It's really wonderful.

[00:21:00] There's a trend going on on TikTok right now where husbands and wives or partners in general are standing next to each other and they go in unison.

[00:21:11] We listen and we don't judge and then they take turns telling each other things like they hide or something like that.

[00:21:18] It's like, I pretend you clogged the toilet.

[00:21:20] And I just think of Aule and Yavanna there together.

[00:21:24] We listen and we don't judge.

[00:21:26] Nevertheless, they'll have need of wood.

[00:21:28] Right.

[00:21:29] Well, they still better watch out for my aunts.

[00:21:33] Right.

[00:21:34] Right.

[00:21:35] Okay.

[00:21:36] Okay.

[00:21:36] But I have to wonder, you know, how do the green elves keep warm?

[00:21:40] Mm.

[00:21:41] And are they strict vegans?

[00:21:44] I wonder.

[00:21:45] I don't know.

[00:21:45] You know?

[00:21:46] Do you know about this diet where you only eat fruit of things?

[00:21:52] Nothing that will kill anything?

[00:21:53] What am I thinking of?

[00:21:55] Yeah, I have heard mention of that.

[00:21:57] I'm not sure what it is.

[00:21:58] I think it would be very uncomfortable diet in terms of your digestive system.

[00:22:05] No, it's a religious thing though.

[00:22:07] It's a,

[00:22:07] Oh, I understand.

[00:22:08] I understand.

[00:22:09] But why not?

[00:22:10] You know, why not whole grains at least?

[00:22:14] Yeah.

[00:22:15] Anyway, I, I think it's that you can't, I think the philosophy is you can't have anything that will kill a living being, including a plant.

[00:22:22] So you can only eat things like fruit, the things that they do, milk, eggs, you know, something that's not actually going to kill a living thing.

[00:22:29] But if you're harvesting grain, you're not killing the grain.

[00:22:32] You're not, I mean, you're not, well, maybe that's allowed.

[00:22:34] I don't know.

[00:22:34] So, okay.

[00:22:35] I don't know.

[00:22:35] Okay.

[00:22:36] Listeners right in.

[00:22:38] Yeah.

[00:22:38] I can't think of this.

[00:22:39] I used to know this.

[00:22:40] I can't think of it, Marilyn.

[00:22:42] It will come back to you when it does.

[00:22:44] We can just put a little insert in it.

[00:22:45] That's true.

[00:22:46] That's true.

[00:22:46] So let's go on to Hallidan.

[00:22:48] Let's go to the house of Hallidan.

[00:22:49] Hallidan's people moved near Charon Thir.

[00:22:52] So we're back to the sons of Fanor.

[00:22:56] And then Marak moved near the house of Baor and struck up an alliance because they were already buddies.

[00:23:02] Yeah.

[00:23:03] And Fingolfin hears about all this and he welcomes them.

[00:23:07] And he's like, hey, why don't you know, let's all let's all further integrate.

[00:23:10] Let's so he opens up the houses to have, you know, wards and serving under Elvis lords.

[00:23:19] And all the men are like, cool, we get all this free education and we get to live in castles and everyone's happy.

[00:23:26] Eat better food.

[00:23:28] Exactly.

[00:23:28] Eat better music.

[00:23:29] Exactly.

[00:23:30] It's interesting because you see this cycle of this is sort of the, the waxing of the relationship between the two of the intermingling.

[00:23:38] And towards the end of the chapter, you get sort of the waning, right?

[00:23:41] You get this idea of, all right, maybe we're, we got a little too close for comfort.

[00:23:46] Well, nothing good ever lasts.

[00:23:48] I know.

[00:23:49] Sort of a subtext for a lot of Tolkien, I'm afraid.

[00:23:52] Yeah.

[00:23:53] I see you have a lot of notes on the next one.

[00:23:55] So I'm going to go right to it because right now I've just been listing off where people move.

[00:23:59] The house of Baor moves to Dorthonian.

[00:24:03] That one always throws me off because I want to say onion.

[00:24:06] Dorthonian.

[00:24:09] Marak mostly moves to Hithlum, but a portion of Marak's people go elsewhere to Arid Wethryn.

[00:24:17] Now, if none of that makes sense to you, it's okay.

[00:24:20] Just know that the peoples of house of Baor and Marak are sort of moving in different directions here.

[00:24:27] Thingol is big mad.

[00:24:28] He's big mad.

[00:24:30] When is he ever happy?

[00:24:31] I know he, he spends, I feel like he constantly has steam coming out of his ears.

[00:24:35] The guy just could, could heat a furnace with all the steam coming out.

[00:24:39] Well, at least since the coming of an old order, let's put it that way.

[00:24:42] I'm sure he and Melian enjoyed their 500 years staring into each other's eyes.

[00:24:46] Yeah, exactly.

[00:24:47] And the early days of building Doriath and stuff.

[00:24:52] He used up all the calmness of his being during those 500 years and the rest of it is just anger.

[00:24:57] Kind of sounds that way.

[00:24:59] So he's really mad and he's like, men, you can't even come to Doriath.

[00:25:03] And they're like, okay, we didn't even try to, but whatever.

[00:25:07] I don't even want your weird girdle.

[00:25:10] And he tells all the other elf lords, you know, if you are harboring these little twerps and they mess up, you are responsible for them.

[00:25:21] Mm hmm.

[00:25:23] Yes.

[00:25:23] If your puppy messes in my dining room, you're going to hear about it.

[00:25:28] But of course, this is where Galadriel comes into the story.

[00:25:31] Yes.

[00:25:32] And Melian turns to Galadriel.

[00:25:34] She's like, I'm not going to say this to my husband because he's not, he doesn't have ears for this right now.

[00:25:38] He doesn't ever listen to me anyway.

[00:25:40] Exactly.

[00:25:41] Not anymore.

[00:25:42] Exactly.

[00:25:42] And she says to Galadriel, now the world runs on swiftly to great tidings and one of men, even of Baor's house shall indeed come and the girdle of Melian shall not restrain him for doom greater than my power shall send him.

[00:25:57] And the songs that shall spring from that coming shall endure when all middle earth is changed.

[00:26:06] Yeah.

[00:26:06] So what or who is this doom that's greater than her power sending.

[00:26:11] Yeah.

[00:26:12] Baron into the realm of Doryoth.

[00:26:15] Yep.

[00:26:16] Spoilers.

[00:26:18] It's going to be a big story.

[00:26:20] We're going to spend multiple episodes on it.

[00:26:22] Yes.

[00:26:23] Yes, indeed.

[00:26:23] And it continues on as, as she says, this is still the first age, but the.

[00:26:30] The, the outcomes of this particular encounter will resonate throughout the second age and the third age.

[00:26:39] Yep.

[00:26:41] So you've got a lot of notes here.

[00:26:43] So I want to give you space to bring in some new ideas.

[00:26:46] Yeah.

[00:26:47] Well, I think part of this is interesting to see the internal politics between Yoldov and Sindor and to some degree with the green elves, you know, you.

[00:26:58] We, we usually hear about one group or another doing something, but here we get sort of all of them kind of saying, well, you know, nimby is I'm not in my backyard.

[00:27:08] Or good heavens.

[00:27:09] What are you doing with those weak creatures?

[00:27:11] Or, oh my gosh, I guess they're not so bad after all, after half of them have died defending their home from work rates.

[00:27:16] And yeah, maybe I will take them under my wing after all.

[00:27:19] They could be, you know, useful cannon fodder.

[00:27:21] I mean, I, I'm being somewhat cynical about it because this is one of the C elves, you know, those C elves were not S E A, but letter C elves.

[00:27:30] Quotershin.

[00:27:30] Mm-hmm.

[00:27:31] Yeah.

[00:27:32] They, they don't wind up showing themselves in a very good light as things progress.

[00:27:38] But.

[00:27:39] No, they don't.

[00:27:39] But in this chapter, they, they're honestly pretty good in this chapter.

[00:27:43] They are.

[00:27:44] No, they are.

[00:27:44] I will give them that.

[00:27:45] They, they haven't, I guess their daddy's curse is kind of sleeping for the moment.

[00:27:51] Yeah.

[00:27:51] Yeah.

[00:27:52] What I find interesting, humans cross the mountains looking for peace, but yet when they're offered

[00:27:59] chances for war, they, they just, they're all excited about that.

[00:28:03] Although some do try to escape the war too, but some of them, particularly Beor and Haad are

[00:28:10] just re up under the Elven Lords.

[00:28:12] Yeah.

[00:28:13] You know, for better or worse.

[00:28:13] I think it's a hard drug to quit.

[00:28:15] Violence.

[00:28:16] Yeah.

[00:28:16] I don't know.

[00:28:17] I mean, I, we don't know anything about whatever kind of violence and warfare they were fleeing

[00:28:22] from before.

[00:28:23] Right.

[00:28:24] Um.

[00:28:25] Probably orcs, right?

[00:28:26] Because this is all Morgoth.

[00:28:28] Well, it could be other humans.

[00:28:30] Yeah.

[00:28:31] It could be other humans too.

[00:28:32] That's true.

[00:28:33] Who came under Morgoth's influence.

[00:28:35] You know, the, the, Tolkien is so vague about this.

[00:28:37] Yeah.

[00:28:37] And I think the reason for that is this is his, um, version of the story of Eden.

[00:28:46] Middle Earth style.

[00:28:48] Mm-hmm.

[00:28:49] That he's not going to actually have a serpent and a tree and an apple and all that kind

[00:28:53] of thing, because that would be way overroading the primary world imagery.

[00:28:57] Right.

[00:28:58] But we have Melchor as an explanation for why humans migrated.

[00:29:02] And this is the closest that Tolkien will come to the Garden of Eden and the serpent

[00:29:07] in Arda.

[00:29:08] Right.

[00:29:09] So, you know, once again, Melchor is Arda's serpent, if you like.

[00:29:12] We'll just let a spider be on the tree.

[00:29:14] We don't, we don't need to serve it.

[00:29:17] Yeah.

[00:29:17] And no fruit, you guys, no fruit for you.

[00:29:21] Um, so, I mean, for some of them, it's a wonderful thing to re-up under the Elven Lords,

[00:29:25] but it really didn't do a lot of good for one or two houses that we'll be hearing more

[00:29:30] about as time goes on.

[00:29:33] Right.

[00:29:33] And, you know, Thingol is just continuing in a rather poor light, as we've already said,

[00:29:38] grumbling about interlopers and trying to hem people into small corners and out of the

[00:29:41] white pockets.

[00:29:42] Though, of course, the Green Elves weren't much better either.

[00:29:45] I mean, they coined the term unfriends, which has all kinds of resonances nowadays with social

[00:29:51] media and whatnot, which is kind of funny.

[00:29:54] We'll be right back after a quick break.

[00:30:16] It's really interesting.

[00:30:17] I want to ask you, why do you think the Noldor are so much more friendly to men than

[00:30:23] the other Elves?

[00:30:26] Well, I mean, if you think about the Sindar, they have their enclosed kingdom.

[00:30:33] They were already sundered from the Noldor by language and, you know, by being apart for

[00:30:39] however many thousands of sun years that was before the Noldor came back.

[00:30:45] They were pretty much established in Beleriand and, you know, for a long time holding their

[00:30:54] own.

[00:30:54] Things were starting to get more desperate as more Elk orcs came along.

[00:30:58] And in the first instance, they thought that the Noldor had come at the bidding of

[00:31:03] the Valar to help them resist the orcs and say, oh great, you're arriving just in time.

[00:31:07] This is wonderful.

[00:31:08] And then they find out, oh gosh, they're actually going to start taking over our land.

[00:31:12] And they didn't ask us about this and they're establishing their kingdoms.

[00:31:16] And hey, what about me?

[00:31:17] You know, I'm the high king here, except he wasn't high king of the Noldor.

[00:31:22] Um, and so Fingal just gets on his high horse and, you know, nobody likes somebody on their

[00:31:30] high horse, right?

[00:31:32] And is not necessarily helping the Noldor specifically with their battles.

[00:31:37] And, you know, along come the humans and he's like, oh gosh, these are even worse.

[00:31:43] And, you know, get off my lawn.

[00:31:47] So, so, so are you telling me that these are basically just two immigrant communities

[00:31:52] finding camaraderie?

[00:31:53] Well, I really think that there's a lot more to looking at these stories through the lens

[00:31:59] of immigration.

[00:32:00] Hmm.

[00:32:01] Because...

[00:32:02] That's a very interesting idea.

[00:32:03] I never considered that actually.

[00:32:05] Yeah.

[00:32:05] Yeah.

[00:32:06] Well, think about it.

[00:32:07] Everybody in this story is migrating of the children of Aluikar.

[00:32:12] The only ones that stay in place, well, even, even the Valar migrated from one place to

[00:32:17] another as Mordogoth destroyed it.

[00:32:19] But we get this notion that migration is an exception.

[00:32:24] Right.

[00:32:24] Because, you know, as soon as the new people move into an established area where people

[00:32:28] already were, they're the newcomers, you know, we're, this is our place, that, that

[00:32:33] whole dynamic intention comes along.

[00:32:35] And the irony is, of course, in this country, we're all newcomers, we're all migrators.

[00:32:41] Yeah.

[00:32:41] Unless we are of, you know, American Indian descent.

[00:32:43] But of course, that, that is a relative, a relatively modern idea, right?

[00:32:50] This, this idea of mass...

[00:32:51] It really is.

[00:32:52] ...migration.

[00:32:53] Um, other than, you know, there are, there have been points in history where this has

[00:32:58] happened, but what I mean is for the last like thousand years, it was much less common

[00:33:05] for populations to, you know, become the melting pot of America, if we're going to use that,

[00:33:11] that, you know, that term that everybody loves to use.

[00:33:15] Well, that's...

[00:33:16] Like, this is, this is a new thing.

[00:33:18] Hmm.

[00:33:18] I wish back a little on the newness of it all.

[00:33:21] I mean, if you think about the origin of human species, which is what we're talking about

[00:33:25] here in, in some brilliant terms, we all migrated out of Africa.

[00:33:29] Yeah, yeah.

[00:33:30] Every last one of us.

[00:33:31] No, I'm, I'm definitely not disputing that people have migrated over history.

[00:33:34] Okay.

[00:33:35] Okay.

[00:33:35] But I just, we seem to forget that.

[00:33:37] I just mean, this idea of like individuals freely just going where, to whatever country

[00:33:42] they want to live in.

[00:33:43] And I know there, you know, there's plenty of reasons people can't do that money, uh,

[00:33:48] travel restrictions, all that, but this is the most freedom of travel we've ever had.

[00:33:53] So it's only, you're right that the idea that these populations are just coming over

[00:33:57] and just finding a new place, that would have been something that felt new in Tolkien's

[00:34:02] world, I think.

[00:34:04] I suppose their archeological knowledge and anthropological knowledge wasn't as great

[00:34:09] as ours is now, but I think they knew enough about the Celts, for example, to know that

[00:34:14] they migrated across, you know, most of the Europe.

[00:34:16] All right, well then I'm just making it all up, Marilyn.

[00:34:18] So...

[00:34:18] That's fine.

[00:34:19] No, I just, I think much depends on how you view history and how you're, um, you know,

[00:34:26] how you're framing this.

[00:34:28] Yeah.

[00:34:29] And I think it's, I'm not sure that Tolkien was even conscious about writing stories of

[00:34:36] migration, but...

[00:34:37] Yeah.

[00:34:37] I mean, he even basically adapts the Bering Strait story, right?

[00:34:40] Right.

[00:34:41] By doing the Helcoraxae.

[00:34:43] Right, right.

[00:34:44] And you have the hobbits, you know, wandering across mountains and so on and so on.

[00:34:48] Mm-hmm.

[00:34:49] So, you know, I think in the Shire we see an example of we think of as, okay, this is

[00:34:57] what a settled and orderly community is like.

[00:34:59] Mm-hmm.

[00:35:00] Um, and that's eventually protected by King Elisar when he decrees that no big people

[00:35:06] will ever enter the Shire.

[00:35:07] So, okay, they're set there now.

[00:35:10] But that still is, wow, really the exception.

[00:35:15] Mm-hmm.

[00:35:15] The elves are known for traveling west in the Third Age.

[00:35:19] Mm-hmm.

[00:35:20] You know, the Rohirrim, 500 years earlier, migrated down from the north.

[00:35:25] The Numenoreans migrated from the destruction of Numenor.

[00:35:28] So, I suppose it depends on the scope of your historical land.

[00:35:34] Yeah.

[00:35:34] I mean, within a hundred year period, you know, I've lived here, my grandfather's lived

[00:35:37] here, and so forth, that gives you a sense of rootedness.

[00:35:40] And yet, if you start looking a little more closely, I think there may be more migration

[00:35:44] going on there.

[00:35:46] Yeah.

[00:35:46] I don't know.

[00:35:46] I mean, my grandfather moved from Europe, so.

[00:35:49] Sure.

[00:35:50] You know, I'm no stranger to immigration.

[00:35:52] Well, and I had one, you know, one side of my family came over in the 1600s, and the

[00:35:58] other side of my family migrated from Finland in 1912.

[00:36:02] You know?

[00:36:02] Oh, no, we're all recent on my family.

[00:36:04] We're all like, I think the latest one was like late 1800s.

[00:36:07] Okay.

[00:36:08] Okay.

[00:36:09] Yep.

[00:36:10] Yep.

[00:36:11] All right.

[00:36:12] So, or the earliest one, rather.

[00:36:15] Anyway.

[00:36:16] Yeah.

[00:36:16] My point is, I think I was just wrong.

[00:36:19] I think that Thingol is just a xenophobe, and he kind of sucks.

[00:36:25] Well, but he's not unlike Turgon in some respects.

[00:36:28] Mm-hmm.

[00:36:29] In that both of them have sought to create safe communities for their peoples by shutting

[00:36:35] themselves in and hiding themselves away.

[00:36:37] By building a girdle.

[00:36:38] By building a girdle or finding a place led by a vala, for crying out loud.

[00:36:44] Mm-hmm.

[00:36:45] To a secret place encircled by mountains.

[00:36:48] Yeah.

[00:36:48] You can only see it from atop an eagle.

[00:36:50] Right.

[00:36:51] And in that instance, you're never allowed to leave.

[00:36:54] I don't know if Thingol ever puts that kind of restrictions on the people of Doriath,

[00:36:58] but maybe he doesn't feel the need to because he feels that the girdle of Malion should be strong enough to figure thing out.

[00:37:04] Yeah, I think that's probably true.

[00:37:05] True.

[00:37:05] Yeah, I...

[00:37:06] It never felt as restricted as Gondolin.

[00:37:09] Gondolin felt really like a closed society.

[00:37:11] No, it doesn't, does it?

[00:37:25] No, you're right.

[00:37:26] You're right.

[00:37:26] Whereas, you know, Gondolin is kind of a gated community, let's face it.

[00:37:30] Yeah, that's the country club of the Elves Kingdoms.

[00:37:33] Yeah.

[00:37:35] But they didn't invent the game of golf.

[00:37:38] That was the Hobbits.

[00:37:39] And I was also really interested to see this conversation between Malion and Galadriel,

[00:37:44] and I'm wondering why they gave that role to Galadriel, whoever it was, whether it was Tolkien initially or if Christopher put this in,

[00:37:53] because of course, you get the resonance of the secret realm that people talk about but don't necessarily enter.

[00:38:02] And that's pretty much what Galadriel eventually sets up in Lothlorien.

[00:38:08] Yeah.

[00:38:08] And so, I wonder how much she thought about this once she found herself queen of the guarded forest realm.

[00:38:16] She left before Thingol's death and Malion's departure.

[00:38:20] Hmm.

[00:38:22] According to, you know, some of the texts.

[00:38:25] I think most of the different stories of Galadriel would all match with that.

[00:38:30] I think by the time Thingol was killed, Galadriel was out of the picture as far as Valerian was concerned.

[00:38:41] Okay.

[00:38:42] But I won't swear to it.

[00:38:44] I almost feel like, and this perhaps is just because Tolkien didn't have time to give her a more active role,

[00:38:50] but I almost feel like to start weaving her into the first stage, Tolkien just had Galadriel as witness to a lot of these events, right?

[00:38:58] Yes, I would say so.

[00:38:59] Witness to a lot of these events, learn from them, and that way by the time she's in the second age, she is wise enough to rule her own kingdom.

[00:39:07] Mm-hmm.

[00:39:08] And once he figured out her ancestry and figured out that she was sister to Finrod,

[00:39:15] he uses her as a means of stimulating Finrod's self prediction that he will never marry.

[00:39:27] So she's, she serves an interesting role in a couple of places.

[00:39:33] Mm-hmm.

[00:39:34] Including, you know, the first evidence that Thingol gets at the kinslaying, you know, when Galadriel shows up and he says, oh, my relative, you're welcome.

[00:39:45] Yeah.

[00:39:45] And Malian looks at her and says, you know, there's something going on at the back of your head that you're not telling.

[00:39:50] Yeah, exactly.

[00:39:52] And Galadriel replies, yeah, there was more.

[00:39:55] This is where Malian says, the Noldor did not come at the beginning of the Valar, just to help us gain victory over Morgoth.

[00:40:04] And Galadriel said, well, you're right about that, but you're not going to learn any more about it from me.

[00:40:10] Right.

[00:40:11] So.

[00:40:12] Well, we've got more deceivers in our midst.

[00:40:15] Oh, we do.

[00:40:16] So we've got to talk about the bad guys.

[00:40:20] We really do.

[00:40:20] Berig, who's from the House of Beor, and Amlak from the House of Morgoth.

[00:40:25] So these guys, they're not very happy with the way things are going.

[00:40:29] And they start to go like, why are we even friends with the elves?

[00:40:33] What's what's in it for us?

[00:40:35] Mm hmm.

[00:40:35] And then, you know, everyone's starting to get a little rowdy.

[00:40:38] And one who appears to be Amlak says, it's all been a lie.

[00:40:45] You know, we should coexist with orcs and there's enough room for everybody.

[00:40:48] As long as the elves leave us alone, they're the real problem.

[00:40:52] And he goes away.

[00:40:54] And then the real Amlak comes in and goes, hey, where's the party at?

[00:40:57] And they all look at him like he's a ghost.

[00:40:59] And he's like, wait, I didn't say any of that.

[00:41:02] So they realize that most of the men then go, okay, we are being played here.

[00:41:09] Right.

[00:41:10] And we are being sent into a battle on the wrong side.

[00:41:14] So let's not do that.

[00:41:16] You know, a few people go with Berig to, you know, sort of strike out and leave the whole situation.

[00:41:23] They kind of fall out of history, right?

[00:41:25] Right.

[00:41:27] And then some of the people under Amlak also follow Berig.

[00:41:31] But Amlak himself goes, oh, no, now I have a bone to pick.

[00:41:34] Right.

[00:41:34] Now I have personal beef with this Morgoth guy.

[00:41:37] It's gotten personal.

[00:41:38] Yeah.

[00:41:39] Yeah.

[00:41:39] It's pretty funny.

[00:41:40] It's like, you know, I don't understand people who are just like, no, it has to get personal before I care.

[00:41:46] Well, I mean, if you've been undergoing a generations long migration from a really long distance away to avoid war.

[00:41:53] Yeah.

[00:42:00] Yeah.

[00:42:01] So let's just try and find a place where they'll leave us alone and we can live our lives as peacefully as possible.

[00:42:07] We thought there was peace here.

[00:42:08] Now we find out it's a whole half gotten in the way on the other side of an ocean.

[00:42:13] Yeah.

[00:42:14] So how can we just kind of hunker down and, you know, stay as safe as possible?

[00:42:18] Yeah.

[00:42:18] If we can't go there, we better just find our own peace somewhere else.

[00:42:22] And yeah, I don't blame him on that.

[00:42:24] I don't blame him on that.

[00:42:26] I think I actually think that if milk or hadn't interfered here, the men would have torn themselves apart more effectively.

[00:42:35] Because that's an interesting thought.

[00:42:37] Yeah.

[00:42:37] It's actually the deception of milk or that brings them back together.

[00:42:42] Right.

[00:42:43] Gives them a common enemy.

[00:42:45] It's not that you did the thing.

[00:42:47] It's such a light about it to me.

[00:42:48] Yeah.

[00:42:49] What did the president know?

[00:42:51] And when did he know it?

[00:42:53] I hate that.

[00:42:54] I hate that line of questioning because the real question is, what were the crimes committed?

[00:42:59] That's the question.

[00:43:00] But we always, we as a society love a scandal and we love when we think that something has been hidden from us.

[00:43:11] Yeah.

[00:43:12] We love to discover it.

[00:43:13] And so we're so much more concerned with what did the president know and when did he know it than we are what happened.

[00:43:19] And that's true in this story too.

[00:43:21] It is.

[00:43:22] Now you're reminding me of way, way back when Melkor came out of his 3000 year solitude and is starting to spread lies.

[00:43:35] Mm.

[00:43:35] There's some reference to the fact that it was the sort of knowledge that the people who held it felt wiser.

[00:43:42] Mm-hmm.

[00:43:42] Than the people who didn't know it.

[00:43:44] And the people who didn't know it felt disadvantaged.

[00:43:47] And it's that same kind of feeling of, oh, well, I know something you don't.

[00:43:51] But there's also a bit in that same section that I'm thinking about now where he tries to push his luck with Feanor.

[00:43:57] And goading him more and Feanor pushes right back and it actually goads him into the opposite.

[00:44:05] Yes.

[00:44:05] So you're right about that.

[00:44:07] You know, Melkor and Morgoth doesn't always really understand creaturely nature, shall we say?

[00:44:14] I think Sauron's actually better at that than he is.

[00:44:17] Oh, yeah.

[00:44:18] Sauron is a much better manipulator.

[00:44:21] Yes.

[00:44:21] Morgoth is a much more blunt instrument on this kind of thing.

[00:44:25] Definitely.

[00:44:26] He's a nihilist and Sauron is a tyrant who wants to have a world to rule in.

[00:44:33] And his amazing insight, which the Rings of Power did convey very effectively.

[00:44:38] Find out what they fear and give them the means to overcome it.

[00:44:44] And then they're in your hands.

[00:44:45] Right.

[00:44:46] That's such a great line.

[00:44:50] Paraphase there, I know.

[00:44:52] Yep.

[00:44:53] Yep.

[00:44:54] Shall we talk about Haleth?

[00:44:55] Oh, I can't wait to talk about Haleth.

[00:44:58] Can I tell you, I completely forgot about this story before rereading it.

[00:45:02] Seriously?

[00:45:02] Yeah.

[00:45:03] For some reason it had wiped from my mind.

[00:45:06] Wow.

[00:45:07] Wow.

[00:45:07] Wow.

[00:45:07] And I reread it and I was like, wow, this is heartbreaking.

[00:45:10] This whole situation.

[00:45:12] Mm-hmm.

[00:45:13] Mm-hmm.

[00:45:13] So we've got a guy named Hal Dad.

[00:45:16] And you could remember that because he's got dad in the name.

[00:45:18] So he's the dad of these other people.

[00:45:21] That's the last joke in this section.

[00:45:24] Seriously.

[00:45:24] Seriously.

[00:45:25] And he's in the house of Haladin and they're living in peace, you know, living the life.

[00:45:33] And Morgoth gets very angry because he realizes his plans for men have failed and they're thriving.

[00:45:42] So he sends orc raids to the house of Haladin.

[00:45:46] And Hal Dad and his son, Haldor die.

[00:45:49] But his daughter Haleth holds the people together until Carinthir comes to rescue the men.

[00:45:56] He invites Haleth to settle her people north, but no Haleth and her people refuse.

[00:46:01] Instead, settling in Estalad.

[00:46:04] Remember, that's the place where Finrod had initially taken the men to have a permanent settlement.

[00:46:10] Right.

[00:46:12] Eventually, she forces everybody with her basically through peer pressure to go further west.

[00:46:19] Mm-hmm.

[00:46:20] And those who remain with her settle in the forest of Brethil, which is part of Thingol's realm.

[00:46:25] Ha, bum, bum, bum.

[00:46:26] Oh.

[00:46:27] Yep.

[00:46:27] They're only allowed to do that, of course, because Finrod brokers a deal that Haleth's people will guard the past against orcs and Thingol will just be quiet and be less of a baby about people in his realm.

[00:46:41] Ha, ha, ha.

[00:46:42] Yeah.

[00:46:43] And that section in particular delivers one of my favorite pieces of dialogue where Finrod reports to her, okay, this is what Thingol has said.

[00:46:55] Mm-hmm.

[00:46:55] And I'm not going to get the wording exactly right, but as close as I can.

[00:47:00] All you have to do is, you know, keep the orcs from invading.

[00:47:03] And she says, where is my father?

[00:47:06] Right.

[00:47:07] Where are my brothers?

[00:47:09] The thoughts of the Eldad are strange if they think I would ever ally with the Slayers of Kim.

[00:47:16] Right.

[00:47:17] You know, it's just, ba-bam, boom.

[00:47:19] Ha, ha.

[00:47:20] Come on, Thingol, wake up.

[00:47:22] She goes, did I stutter?

[00:47:24] Ha, ha, ha.

[00:47:27] Yeah.

[00:47:28] It's, so, you know, that was a lot of facts that I read, but essentially what you need to know is there's this tragic story of a descendant of the House of Haladin named Haleth who leads everyone, those who follow her, because some fall off the path go, I think some of them go into Eredor, some of them scatter into the different realms of the Noldor.

[00:47:51] Right.

[00:47:51] And the people who follow her, but the people who follow her end up in Doriath.

[00:47:54] Well, sorry, it's not within the girdle of Melian, but it is within Thingol's realm.

[00:47:59] Right.

[00:47:59] It is, it is.

[00:48:00] And she leads them through that horrible midway section between the girdle of Melian and the crazed mountains, right?

[00:48:09] Mm-hmm.

[00:48:10] So, in her way, she's showing as much strength as does Arathal.

[00:48:15] Mm-hmm.

[00:48:16] Yeah.

[00:48:16] Because she, you know, she says, yeah, I know this is terrible and we got to keep going.

[00:48:21] Yeah.

[00:48:21] And they do.

[00:48:22] And this settlement is going to be very important in the future stories about the children of Hurin.

[00:48:30] Hmm.

[00:48:32] Well, we'll have to wait for that one.

[00:48:33] You've already signed on to that, so.

[00:48:35] We will.

[00:48:36] You signed on to that earlier.

[00:48:37] I think I remember, uh, one of the first Sumerian stories you came on, you said, well, I'm calling the, I'm calling up Turin Turinbar right away.

[00:48:44] Yeah.

[00:48:45] Which is ironic because it's such a depressing story.

[00:48:49] And yet.

[00:48:49] It's really good though.

[00:48:50] It's really good.

[00:48:51] That are grounded in Finnish literature and, um, I, I want to convey my own sense of this character who so many people, you know, just really dump on a lot.

[00:49:04] He's, I think he's really fascinating.

[00:49:06] He, you know, I do think he is extremely flawed, but hey, this isn't about Turin.

[00:49:11] The point is we're, we're going to end up doing about two podcasts at least on that.

[00:49:14] So let's.

[00:49:15] I would say so.

[00:49:16] Let's just save it for that.

[00:49:18] Mm-hmm.

[00:49:20] So you've got, uh, you've got some lore details and history details on Haleth.

[00:49:25] Yes.

[00:49:25] I think that she, rather think that she may be inspired by Ethelphleta, the Lady of the Mercians.

[00:49:32] She was the daughter and oldest child of Alfred the Great of Wessex, who became king of the Anglo-Saxons.

[00:49:39] And she was raised in the royal household and she was taught reading and all kinds of things that were unusual for women at the time.

[00:49:47] And he arranged a marriage of Ethelphleta to the king of the Mercians.

[00:49:55] After the two people, the Wessex and the Mercier had been warring together.

[00:50:00] And so this was a means of cementing their alliance against the invading Danish Vikings.

[00:50:05] Because Alfred became known as the Great because of his defense against the great army that came through.

[00:50:13] And some people say that he saved the notion of an Anglo-Saxon England.

[00:50:18] That if he had not defeated them, you know, England would look very different.

[00:50:23] No way.

[00:50:23] From what it is now.

[00:50:27] So, she went with her husband and ruled with him for a while, but then he died shortly after they had their only child, who was a daughter.

[00:50:33] And Ethelphleta carried on as the leader of the Mercian people, following in her father's footsteps of building burrs, or burrs some people might call it, which are the earliest form of villages or towns, which Alfred basically invented.

[00:50:47] So that instead of, you know, you have all these scattered farmsteads all around.

[00:50:51] Well, if you create a burg, when somebody says, hey, the Vikings are coming out to the river, everybody can flee to this fortified place.

[00:50:57] There's always stores left there and they have their cattle and their goods in there.

[00:51:01] And it's much more defensible.

[00:51:02] So, the Danish didn't want to be, you know, fighting a siege.

[00:51:07] They were smart enough, smarter than Saurabon actually, to know that there were better ways of getting what you wanted.

[00:51:12] And so, they just kind of give the burrs a miss and carry on.

[00:51:16] So, she brought that knowledge and understanding to Mercier, which includes London, but also stretches up north and over to the border of Wales.

[00:51:25] So, it's rather a large territory.

[00:51:27] Yeah.

[00:51:28] Yeah.

[00:51:29] So, she also was initiating diplomatic relations with other of the Anglo-Saxon peoples in the north, which were, you know, very much on their own at this point.

[00:51:42] She would appear at the head of her armies and with her husband when he was alive, contributed a lot to the consolidation of Mercier culture.

[00:51:51] When she died, her daughter was named Lady of the Mercierans, as Ethelflaedda had been, but soon after, her nephew, Edward, supplanted his cousin and became King of the Mercierans, as well as, a few years later, King of the Anglo-Saxons.

[00:52:06] So, this is probably an inspiration for Haleth, but also for Eowyn.

[00:52:11] Wow.

[00:52:12] I mean, that makes sense to me.

[00:52:14] I mean, the whole succession bit in Rohan 2 feels very tonally in line.

[00:52:21] Right.

[00:52:21] I know it's not exactly the factually in line, but very tonally in line with this succession.

[00:52:25] Yeah.

[00:52:27] And leading her people to something that maybe not all of them agreed with.

[00:52:31] Mm-hmm.

[00:52:34] You know, becoming respected in the whole scene when Eowyn is designated as the one who will watch over the people of the king's absence.

[00:52:44] I think there was probable, I don't know if there's direct evidence, but it certainly seems likely.

[00:52:51] And I believe that Mercier included the realm where Tolkien always felt that his Suffield mother's Suffield ancestors came from.

[00:53:03] So, this was the region of this particular form of Middle English that he found in Gawain in the Green Knight that he so resonated with.

[00:53:11] So, there's a lot of sort of personal connections here for Tolkien.

[00:53:17] His known language.

[00:53:20] Right.

[00:53:20] Exactly.

[00:53:21] Exactly.

[00:53:22] The language he felt resonated with.

[00:53:23] He already knew it.

[00:53:24] Yeah.

[00:53:25] Yeah, yeah.

[00:53:25] Mm-hmm.

[00:53:27] So, there was a period of intermingling after this, but that was interrupted at some point.

[00:53:34] Yeah, you could say so.

[00:53:35] To found new mannish realms.

[00:53:37] Hador of the House of Marak was a man in service to Fingolfin.

[00:53:43] He is given by Fingolfin lordship over Dor Loman.

[00:53:48] And that's going to be an important place to remember that.

[00:53:50] Dor Loman, he becomes the mightiest of the Eddine.

[00:53:53] And again, this is all by the judgment of the elves.

[00:53:57] So, I do like that they're like, you know, Fingolfin's bestie was actually the best man.

[00:54:02] We gave him a medal for the best man.

[00:54:03] Because Fingolfin was our high king, after all.

[00:54:05] Yeah.

[00:54:05] He he he.

[00:54:07] He he.

[00:54:07] They are actually the people who are going to create what becomes Adanaic, the language of Numenor.

[00:54:13] Very cool.

[00:54:15] And then from Hador will come Hurin and Turin.

[00:54:20] They're going to come from that house.

[00:54:23] And like you said, Marilyn, we're going to talk about that at length later on.

[00:54:27] And then Dorthonion is given to Boromir, familiar name, but not familiar person.

[00:54:34] Not that's the grandson of Beor.

[00:54:36] That is not Sean Bean.

[00:54:38] No, no, no, no, no, no.

[00:54:40] And from Borowin comes Morwen, who is the mother of Turin.

[00:54:45] So again, we're uniting these lines in that.

[00:54:48] And Rian, how do you pronounce that?

[00:54:52] Rian.

[00:54:53] Rian.

[00:54:53] Okay.

[00:54:55] Rian.

[00:54:55] Mother of Tur and Barahir, father of Beren.

[00:55:01] Now Beren, everybody knows Beren and Luthien is a big story in the Silmarillion.

[00:55:05] It's sort of the flagship story of the Silmarillion.

[00:55:07] Rian.

[00:55:07] Yes, indeed.

[00:55:09] So yeah.

[00:55:10] Probably the one closest to Tolkien's heart because of the resonances with his own personal experiences.

[00:55:15] Yep.

[00:55:16] So we've got the two mannish realms here, Dorloman and Dorthonian to remember.

[00:55:23] And then just know that a lot of important people are going to come from these lines.

[00:55:26] It's so funny.

[00:55:27] These few paragraphs where I outlined this from are so biblical.

[00:55:31] Oh, yeah.

[00:55:32] This is exactly how the Hebrew Bible is written of this person was this person's son and from

[00:55:39] this line will come these.

[00:55:41] And, you know, the Hebrew Bible is read.

[00:55:45] It's written to be read annually and is written to be read regularly.

[00:55:50] Right.

[00:55:50] And so when the whole idea is when you're telling these stories, you go, oh, I know the story

[00:55:54] of Turin.

[00:55:55] Right.

[00:55:56] And so I think Tolkien really wants to emulate that here.

[00:55:59] Right.

[00:55:59] You know, you're rereading the Silmarillion and you're going, oh, so that's how that links

[00:56:03] up.

[00:56:04] And so it's sort of trying to wow the crowd by name dropping.

[00:56:07] I love it.

[00:56:07] Mm hmm.

[00:56:08] It's interesting that they're, they all are, they're all cousins together there.

[00:56:12] Mm hmm.

[00:56:12] Right.

[00:56:12] All this intermingling and so forth.

[00:56:15] Yeah.

[00:56:15] The last few chapters of the Quenta Silmarillion are really going to center around these people.

[00:56:21] Definitely.

[00:56:22] Yeah.

[00:56:22] Definitely.

[00:56:24] And two people who never actually speak to one another, but do cross paths.

[00:56:31] That's quite a critical moment in their stories of their lives.

[00:56:36] Right.

[00:56:38] So we close out by saying, you know, the men of the Eddine do have longer lives than their

[00:56:43] predecessors because I guess they're living among elves.

[00:56:47] They're eating, you know, they're on the Elvis diet.

[00:56:48] They're on the Mediterranean diet.

[00:56:51] And, but the elder are still like very shocked when Bayor the old dies willingly of old age.

[00:56:58] Yeah.

[00:56:59] Yeah.

[00:57:00] With no illness, no wounds, no injuries, just okay.

[00:57:05] That's it.

[00:57:06] They were just completely taken aback by this, but we see here, you know, we talked a lot in

[00:57:12] the rings of power about the willingness of men to die.

[00:57:15] Right.

[00:57:16] And how going away from the willingness to die is how you die faster and also how you go

[00:57:22] towards evil.

[00:57:23] And here we have Bayor who is supposed to be this giant of a man just, and I say giant

[00:57:29] in terms of not his physical stature, but yeah, um, he's just going off into the sunset.

[00:57:36] You know, he is just ready to be with a rule.

[00:57:40] Uh, yeah, I've done my thing.

[00:57:43] I got my people across the mountains.

[00:57:45] I entered service with the one I consider to be the finest of all the noldor.

[00:57:50] I made a best bro.

[00:57:52] I had descendants and gee, one of them might be one of the most famous humans of all time.

[00:57:59] Who knows?

[00:58:00] Yeah.

[00:58:01] Well, that's the chapter, Marilyn.

[00:58:03] Do you have any other parting thoughts for us?

[00:58:07] Um, always, of course, we would like to have more of the stories.

[00:58:12] Um, yeah.

[00:58:13] And we get details on just a few of the people, most of whom, as I think we've already discussed,

[00:58:24] will wind up being important in the great tales.

[00:58:28] Yeah.

[00:58:28] As Christopher called them, you know, the Baron and Luthien children of Hurin and the

[00:58:32] fall of Gondolin.

[00:58:33] Yeah.

[00:58:34] So I guess as so often happens, I'm left with the feeling of, oh gosh, I wish Tolkien had

[00:58:39] written more.

[00:58:40] I know.

[00:58:40] I know.

[00:58:41] But so you've, we've got not too many things to remember from this chapter.

[00:58:46] I would say you could forget most of this chapter and the rest will make sense to you.

[00:58:49] No, that's true.

[00:58:50] That's true.

[00:58:51] It's, it's for, you know, genealogists and historians and, um, culture folks who like

[00:58:58] culture.

[00:58:58] I think you could just remember from this chapter, if you, you know, obviously read the

[00:59:03] chapter and enjoy it, but you can remember, I think Haleth is a great person to remember

[00:59:08] in that whole story.

[00:59:09] Yes.

[00:59:10] And then for facts that you should remember, just remember they've got Dorthonian, they've

[00:59:13] got Dorloman.

[00:59:14] Those are going to be major havens for men and that we have, uh, the, the forest of

[00:59:21] Brethil.

[00:59:22] That's going to be another, another important area.

[00:59:26] Mm-hmm.

[00:59:26] And just taking a look at the map and locating those names that John just gave.

[00:59:30] Yes.

[00:59:31] I think it's helpful in a physically situating yourself in, in the stories and understanding

[00:59:38] the locations and the distances.

[00:59:40] So I'm looking up right now.

[00:59:43] So Karen Wyn Fonsted made the Atlas of Middle Earth.

[00:59:48] It is a really excellent resource.

[00:59:50] I have it myself.

[00:59:51] Absolutely.

[00:59:52] Uh, this, this has all the maps of Valerian and whatnot.

[00:59:55] So go check that out if you want some physical maps, if not just Google maps of Valerian

[00:59:59] and you'll be happy.

[01:00:00] Yeah, no, it should be included.

[01:00:02] And for those of us who got the, uh, edition of the Silmarillion that has the tipped in

[01:00:07] map that unfolds carefully so you don't tear it from the book.

[01:00:11] No.

[01:00:11] Yeah.

[01:00:12] Um, it's all in there too.

[01:00:14] Right.

[01:00:15] All right, everyone.

[01:00:16] It's been another fun month of Silmarillion stories.

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[01:02:36] DJ Miwa, Andra B, Kwong Yu, Dead Eye Jedi Bob, Nathan T, Alex V, Aaron T, Sub Zero, Aaron K,

[01:02:46] Dally V, Mothership 61, Gnarls, Kathy W, Lestu, Jeffrey B, Elisa Yu, Neil F, Ben B, Scott F,

[01:02:56] Steven N, and Adrian.

[01:02:58] Thank you, everyone.

[01:03:00] Great times, as always.

[01:03:02] Join us next month for the next chapter of The Silmarillion.

[01:03:05] The Lorehounds Podcast is produced and published by The Lorehounds.

[01:03:08] You can send questions and feedback and voicemails at thelorehounds.com slash contact.

[01:03:14] Get early and ad-free access to all Lorehounds Podcasts at patreon.com slash the Lorehounds.

[01:03:19] Any opinions stated are ours personally and do not reflect the opinion of or belong to any employers

[01:03:24] or other entities.

[01:03:25] Thanks for listening.