The Second Age Read Along - Part 2 - Week 6: HoMe12: Of Dwarfs and Men / Glorfindel

Previous Post|Post Index | Resources | Next Post :|:|:|:|

#What we’re reading today

Today we’re reading four excerpts of essays from Tolkien which concern the 2nd age, all of which can be found in chapters 10 and 13 of the “Part Two - Late Writings” section of The People’s of Middle-earth.

• HoMe 12 / Part Two - Late Writings / X. Of Dwarves and Men / Relations of the Longbeard Dwarves and Men

  Read from the subheader “Relations of the Longbeard Dwarves and Men” until the next subheader “The Atani and their Languages”

• HoMe 12 / Part Two - Late Writings / X. Of Dwarves and Men / The Atani and their Languages

  Read from “On the relations of the different kinds of Men in Eriador” (a bit over halfway through this subsection) until the end

• HoMe 12 / Part Two - Late Writings / XIII. Last Writings / Glorfindel

  Read from “When did Glorfindel return to Middle-earth?” (a bit over halfway through “Glorfindel”) until “The text ends here” (roughly a page later)

• HoMe 12 / Part Two - Late Writings / XIII. Last Writings / The Five Wizards

#Before you read

We’re going to be jumping around a lot, and reading a bunch of short parts of larger writings. It may feel a bit disorientating.

“Of Dwarves and Men” is a long rambling essay that Tolkien describes as “an extensive commentary and history of the interrelation of the languages in The Silmarillion and The Lord of the Rings, arising from consideration of the Book of Mazarbul, but attempting to clarify and where necessary to correct or explain the references to such matters scattered in The Lord of the Rings”. The first page of the essay is lost and some sections of it were previously published in Unfinished Tales and are thus omitted from this book. We aren’t reading the whole thing, just two specific passages that concern the Second Age.

The first of these discusses the dwarves in depth and gives their history throughout the Second Age and their dealings with Men. The second describes the different groups of Men living in Middle-earth at the time and their dealings with Elves.

“Glorfindel” is an essay where Tolkien tries working out how to deal with the discrepancy of Glorfindel having been killed during the Fall of Gondolin in the first age, but an active character in The Lord of the Rings in the third age. The majority of the essay deals with Tolkien considering various solutions, but he eventually decided that the two Glorfindels are the same character. We are just reading the last page of the essay where Tolkien explores Glorfindel’s reincarnation and return to Middle-earth in the Second Age.

“The Five Wizards” (or in full, “Note on the landing of the Five Wizards and their functions and operations”) is an essay that was mostly published in Unfinished Tales, but upon further reflection Christopher has been able to make out more of the notes on the back, and so has published them here. These deal with the two Blue Wizards and their landing during the Second Age.

#After you read

We read four passages today. The first two were subsections of Tolkien's late "Of Dwarves and Men" essay. "Relations of the Longbeard Dwarves and Men" was mainly concerned with the economic and linguistic interaction between the Longbeards, the house of Dwarves which appears the most in The Lord of the Rings, and the Men of the North. They had an alliance that built up throughout the end of the First Age and peaked in the middle of the Second Age before Sauron invaded Eriador and destroyed everything.

The passage we read from "The Atani and their Languages" described the Numenorean classifications system of "High Men", "Middle Men", and "Men of Darkness. Tolkien describes many conflicting rules that went into who belonged to which group, but that it was mainly decided by the level of genetic relation, the languages spoken, and their friendliness to the Numenoreans.

The other two passages we read were very brief and talked about Glorfindel and the two Blue Wizards. Tolkien determines that they must have travelled to Middle-earth between the year 1200 and 1600, before the world was changed with the Fall of Numenor. Glorfindel was sent to aid Elrond in the war in Eriador and the Blue Wizards were sent to the far east to stir up rebellion against Sauron and help the few tribes of Men who had rejected him.

#Discussion questions

• Tolkien has said that his work is primary a linguistic one, to give a historic setting to his invented languages and their relations. While we've skipped much of the linguistic parts of this essay, do the parts that you've read help you understand what Tolkien might mean?

• Compare again this style (where Christopher presents the essay in its entirety) to the style we encountered a few weeks ago in The History of Galadriel and Celeborn (where Christopher interspersed short excerpts with his commentary). Now that you’ve seen both, which of the two do you prefer?

• How would the events of the third age and late second age be different if the Dwarf-Men alliance had been allowed to continue?

• Can it be said that even the "good" Numenoreans are focusing too much on genetics here?