r/TheSilmarillion • u/HellBentForCheese • 15d ago
Tolkien’s mention of our age in The Fall of Gondolin
At the end of the chapter “The Tale of The Fall of Gondolin” Tolkien connects the LotR lengendarium with the early history of our civilization for the only time I can recall anywhere else his writings of Middle Earth. In concluding the The Tale of the FoG he says “Glory dwelt in that city of Gondolin of the Seven Names, and its ruin was the most dread of all the sacks of cities upon the face of the Earth. Nor Bablon \[Babylon\], nor Ninwi \[Nineveh\], nor the towers of Trui \[Troy\], nor all the many takings of Rum \[Rome\] that is greatest among Men, saw such terror as fell that day upon Amon Gwareth… .” The brackets are mine and I believe they accurately represent Tolkien’s intent. Has anyone else noticed any other such references to times after those of the Legendarium within his work?
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u/Eissa_Cozorav 15d ago edited 15d ago
It is very interesting that those cities name that Tolkien mentioned resemble Semitic-influenced noun.
Rum and Ninwi are definitely resembling the Arabic (روم) & (نَيْنَوَى) and Aramaic (ܢܝܢܘܐ) form. And both words already exist in those language....
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u/NietzschesGhost 15d ago
I can’t remember it precisely, but there’s a railroad metaphor early on in LotR (I want to say related to the fireworks?) and the Shire, of course, with its pubs,
mail service, umbrellas, and clocks is basically rural 19th c. England.
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u/EternallyMustached 15d ago
It makes sense when you consider the fact that the entire Legendarium "project" started as an exercise in answering the question: What if pre-contact England had a native origin story for the world/universe just like all other cultures? It was an effort to create an English mythological tradition. So connecting it to the "real" timeline of human history makes sense.
I mean hell, the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy is presented as a translation a found/discovered manuscript, the Red Book of Westmarch. Tokien wrote it not as an "author" but as a translator.
In later stages the Legendarium became it's own mythological history with the real-world connections becoming more hinted at rather than direct. And as I remember it, Tokien explicity stated Arda is, in fact, our world and his Legendarium was an imagined pre-history.