Magic in Middle-earth
Magic in Middle-earth is the use of supernatural power in J. R. R. Tolkien's fictional Middle-earth. Tolkien distinguishes ordinary magic from witchcraft, the latter always deceptive, stating that either type could be used for good or evil.
Several of the races of Middle-earth are inherently able to work magic, from the godlike
Scholars have written that Tolkien felt the need for a magical cosmology to counter modernity's war against mystery and magic. In the sense that magic is the use of power to dominate other people, it is evil, and associated in Tolkien's mind with technology. The opposite of that is enchantment, something that Frodo experiences in the Elvish realms of
Appearances
Middle-earth is described both as being quite natural, with the ordinary features of Earth's
By race
The various races of Middle-earth had differing powers:[3]
Race | Description | Examples |
---|---|---|
Wizards |
Maiar, spirit beings sent in Man-like form by the godlike Valar to intervene at need in the affairs of Middle-earth[4] | Saruman, of great power but also able to use deceptive power to create illusions;[T 1] Gandalf, able to create fire[T 2] or blazing light;[T 3] use many spells;[T 4] read Frodo's mind and memory[T 5] |
Dark Lords |
Sauron greatly increased his power by putting much of his own power into the One Ring[T 8] | |
Balrogs | Evil fire-spirits, Maiar corrupted by Morgoth, in a man-shaped body | Moria closed with a spell by Gandalf.[T 9]
|
Dragons |
Descendants of Glaurung, created by Morgoth in the First Age in his war with the Elves[T 10] |
Smaug exerts a specific hypnotic power, the dragon-spell[T 11] |
Nazgûl (Ringwraiths) | Kings of men trapped by Sauron's gift of Rings of power |
Able to use spells of beckoning, location, and fire as weapons; their " |
Elves |
Immortal beings with powers from arts and crafts to the clearly magical[3] | Glorfindel and Elrond commanded the river Bruinen to rise and sweep the Nazgûl away, drowning their horses.[T 14] Elvish rope was extremely light, strong, and able to untie itself on command.[5][T 15][T 16] Elvish waybread, Lembas, was capable of keeping a "traveller on his feet for a day of long labour".[T 17][3] Elvish cloaks served almost magically as camouflage.[T 18] Galadriel's gifts, the Phial of Galadriel and the box of earth she gave to Sam had magical effects.[T 17] |
Dwarves |
Mortal beings, but able to set spells on gold and forge magical things | |
Men, Hobbits |
Mortal beings who in the Second Age, at least some of whom had some Elvish blood[3] |
Use of spell-wrapped swords |
Tom Bombadil (unknown race) | Timeless being in Manlike form; fearless, with powers in his cheerful singing [T 22] | Rescues hobbits from Old Man Willow, and again from the spell of the Barrow-wight, by singing[T 22][8] |
By artefact
Magical power is wielded through different artefacts:[3]
Artefact | Description | Examples |
---|---|---|
The One Ring | Extremely powerful, wholly evil;[3] able to corrupt any being of power such as an Elf-lord, King of Men, or Wizard; controlled all other Rings of power; conferred invisibility[T 12][T 8] | Effects on all who come close to the Ring |
The Palantíri | Stones of Seeing, made by Elves of Valinor, allow thoughts to be "transferred between wills"[T 23][T 24] | Saruman is deceived by Sauron through the Orthanc Stone.[T 24]
|
Hidden writing | Magical writing, invisible under normal conditions | Moon-letters on Thror's map of Doors of Durin at western entrance to Moria, made visible by a spell[T 4]
|
Indomitable masonry | Stonework embodying power preventing it from being broken by force | Unassailable tower of Orthanc built with wizardry "older and stronger than Saruman's";[T 26] "indomitable" Númenórean masonry of outermost wall of Minas Tirith.[T 27] |
Wizards' staffs | Channelled the Wizards' own power[9][T 28] | Saruman's staff broken by Gandalf the White at Orthanc; Gandalf's staff broken on Bridge of Khazad-dûm, and he died[T 29]
|
Spell-wrapped weapons | Men of Númenor wielded | |
Magic horn | Ancient horn brought from the North by Scatha the Worm 's dragon-hoard, brings joy to friends, fear to enemies |
Merry Brandybuck rouses the Shire by blowing the horn-call of Buckland on it[T 30][12] |
Analysis
A magical cosmology
The scholar and critic
Two kinds of magic
In an unsent draft of
- Mageia involves the use of some mechanism, like speaking the proper words at a magic door, such as the Doors of Durin, to make it open. Sauron used it to create the dark cloud that covered Mordor and Gondor before the Battle of the Pelennor Fields.[3]
- Goeteia influences perception and will. The Elves used it to create artistic beauty without effort and without deception. Sauron used it to dominate the wills of his subjects.[3][2]
Tolkien stated that these could not be acquired by studying ancient lore or books of spells, but that they were "inherent power not possessed or attainable by Men as such".[T 31] He however qualified this by writing "But the Númenóreans used 'spells' in making swords?" alongside the end of the letter explaining these points.[T 32] He further explained that both Mageia and Goeteia could be used for good and bad purposes, but neither was inherently good or bad in itself. In his view, using them to control free will was the most extreme kind of evil.[T 31]
Enchantment
Curry states that enchantment is "the paradigmatic experience, property and concern of the Elves", as seen both in Rivendell when Frodo listens to the Elves' singing in the Hall of Fire,[T 5] and even more strongly in Lothlórien:[14]
Frodo stood awhile still lost in wonder. It seemed to him that he had stepped through a high window that looked on a vanished world. A light was upon it for which his language had no name.... He saw no colour but those he knew, gold and white and blue and green, but they were fresh and poignant, as if he had at that moment first perceived them... On the land of Lórien there was no stain.[T 34]
Curry cites what he calls
In the Tolkien scholar
Deceptive in use
A palantír could not be made to create false images, even by Sauron, but he could use one to selectively display truthful images to create a false impression in the viewer's mind. In each of the four uses of a stone in The Lord of the Rings, a true image is shown, but the viewer draws a false conclusion from the facts. This applies even to Sauron, when he sees Pippin in Saruman's stone and assumes that Pippin has the One Ring, and that Saruman has therefore captured it.[15][T 24] Similarly, Denethor is deceived by Sauron, who drives Denethor to suicide by truthfully showing him the Black Fleet approaching Gondor, without telling him that the ships are crewed by Aragorn's men.[16] The Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey suggests that Tolkien's message is that one should not try to double-guess the future through any device, but should trust in providence and make one's own mind up, bravely facing one's duty in each situation.[15]
Addiction to power
The One Ring offers power to its wearer, and progressively corrupts the wearer's mind to evil; the effect is strongly addictive.[17][18] Shippey applied Lord Acton's 1887 statement that "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men" to it, noting that this was a distinctively modern thought: contemporary authors such as George Orwell with Animal Farm (1945), William Golding with Lord of the Flies (1954), and T. H. White with The Once and Future King (1958) similarly wrote about the corrupting effects of power.[19]
Wish-fulfilment
Shippey writes that there is a "streak of '
References
Primary
- ^ Tolkien 1954, book 3, ch. 10 "The Voice of Saruman"
- ^ a b Tolkien 1954a, book 2, ch. 3 "The Ring Goes South"
- ^ Tolkien 1954, book 3, ch. 5 "The White Rider"
- ^ a b c Tolkien 1954a, book 2, ch. 4 "A Journey in the Dark"
- ^ a b c Tolkien 1954a, book 2, ch. 1 "Many Meetings"
- ^ Tolkien 1977, "Ainulindalë"
- ^ Carpenter 2023, #156 to Robert Murray, S.J., 4 November 1954
- ^ a b Carpenter 2023, #131 to Milton Waldman, late 1951
- ^ Tolkien 1954a, book 2, ch. 5 "The Bridge of Khazad-Dum"
- ^ Tolkien 1977, "Of the Return of the Noldor"
- ^ Tolkien 1937, ch. 12 "Inside Information"
- ^ a b c Tolkien 1977, "Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age"
- ^ a b c Tolkien 1955, book 5, ch. 6 "The Battle of the Pelennor Fields"
- ^ Tolkien 1954a, book 1, ch. 12 "Flight to the Ford"
- ^ Tolkien 1989, ch. 13 "Galadriel"
- ^ Tolkien 1954, book 4, ch. 1 "The Taming of Sméagol"
- ^ a b Tolkien 1954a, book 2, ch. 8 "Farewell to Lórien"
- ^ Tolkien 1954, book 3, ch. 2 "The Riders of Rohan"
- ^ Tolkien 1980, part 2, ch. 4 "The History of Galadriel and Celeborn", "Concerning Galadriel and Celeborn"
- ^ Tolkien 1954, book 4, ch. 9: "Shelob's Lair"
- ^ Tolkien 1955, book 5, ch. 1 "Minas Tirith"
- ^ a b Tolkien 1954a, book 1, chs. 6–8, "The Old Forest", "In the House of Tom Bombadil", "Fog on the Barrow-downs"
- ^ Tolkien 1980, part 4, ch. 3 "The Palantíri"
- ^ a b c Tolkien 1954, book 3, ch. 11 "The Palantír"
- ^ Tolkien 1937, ch. 3 "A Short Rest"
- ^ Tolkien 1954, book 3, ch. 8 "The Road to Isengard"
- ^ a b Tolkien 1955, book 5, ch. 4 "The Siege of Gondor"
- ^ Tolkien 1980, part 4, ch. 2 "The Istari"
- ^ Tolkien 1954a, book 2, chapter 5 "The Bridge of Khazad-dûm"
- ^ a b Tolkien 1955, book 6 ch. 8 "The Scouring of the Shire"
- ^ a b c Carpenter 2023, #155 to Naomi Mitchison (draft, September 1954)
- ^ Carpenter 2023, footnote 2 to #155 to Naomi Mitchison (draft, September 1954)
- ^ Tolkien 1954a, book 2, ch. 7 "The Mirror of Galadriel". "'And you?' [Galadriel] said, turning to Sam. 'For this is what your folk would call magic, I believe; though I do not understand clearly what they mean; and they seem also to use the same word of the deceits of the Enemy. But this, if you will, is the magic of Galadriel. Did you not say that you wished to see Elf-magic?'"
- ^ Tolkien 1954a, book 2, ch. 6 "Lothlórien"
Secondary
- ^ a b Curry 2004, p. 19.
- ^ a b c Purtill 2003, pp. 139–140.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Perry 2013, pp. 400–401.
- ^ Stanton 2013, pp. 709–710.
- ^ Russell 2005, p. 21 note 27.
- ^ a b Kocher 1974, pp. 44–45.
- ^ Milbank 2013, p. 35.
- ^ Jacobs 2020, Article 6.
- ^ Shippey 2005, p. 110.
- ^ Burdge & Burke 2013, pp. 703–705.
- ^ Shippey 2005, pp. 242–243.
- ^ a b c d Shippey 2005, pp. 198–199.
- ^ Curry 2004, p. 68.
- ^ a b c Curry 2008, pp. 99–112.
- ^ a b Shippey 2005, pp. 188, 423–429.
- ^ Kocher 1974, p. 63.
- ^ Perkins & Hill 1975, pp. 57–68.
- ^ Roberts 2006, p. 63.
- ^ Shippey 2002, pp. 112–119.
- ^ Carlos 2020, p. 535.
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- Burdge, Anthony; Burke, Jessica (2013) [2007]. "Weapons, Named". In ISBN 978-0415865111.
- Carlos, Caitlin Vaughn (2020). "'Ramble On': Medievalism as a Nostalgic Practice in Led Zeppelin's Use of J.R.R. Tolkien". In Meyer, Stephen C.; Yri, Kirsten (eds.). The Oxford Handbook of Music and Medievalism. ISBN 978-0-19-065844-1.
- ISBN 978-0-35-865298-4.
- ISBN 0-6184-7885-X.
- ISBN 978-3-90570-312-2.
- Jacobs, Suzanne (2020). "Tolkien's Tom Bombadil: An Enigma '(Intentionally)'". Mythlore. 38 (2). Article 6.
- ISBN 0140038779.
- ISBN 978-0-8126-9806-0.
- Perry, Michael W. (2013) [2007]. "Magic: Middle-earth". In ISBN 978-0-415-86511-1.
- Perkins, Agnes; Hill, Helen (1975). "The Corruption of Power". In ISBN 978-0-8754-8303-0.
- ISBN 0-89870-948-2.
- Roberts, Adam (2006). "The One Ring". In Eaglestone, Robert (ed.). Reading The Lord of the Rings: New Writings on Tolkien's Classic. ISBN 9780826484604.
- Russell, Beth (2005). "Botanical Notes on the Mallorn". Mallorn (The Journal of the Tolkien Society) (43): 21 note 27.
- ISBN 978-0-2611-0401-3.
- ISBN 978-0261102750.
- Stanton, Michael N. (2013) [2007]. "Wizards". In ISBN 978-0-415-86511-1.
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