| Tolkien: Archaeology [message #262627] |
Sa, 06 Mai 2006 16:51 |
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One aproach to the natural features and man-made features of
Middle Earth is to consider the background of Gandalf. Who is Gandalf,
where does he derive from? Gandalf was inspired by the Madlener
painting named Berggeist. This Berggeist fellow has a lot of
precedence in the region where Germany, Poland and Czechoslovakia are
joined. I shall convently name it the Sudeten region, or the "Hog
Mountains, " mentioned by Ptolemy.
Berggeist is a presentation of Rubezahl, but hold on, who is
Rubezahl? With respect, I submit this site, and then pass on to more
ideas:
RUBEZAHL from Andrew Lang's Fairy Books.
Rubezahl is a character like Peer Gynt and Til Eulenspiegel, and the
Native American trickster, Coyote. I suggest that Tolkien adopts the
taoist perspective that character derives from the land where the
character lives. The Sudeten region, or Hog Mountains, is very
unstable as is evident from the steep geology. One piece of land is
pushing another and there is a reaction or mountains. And one culture
in the Sudeten region presses another into reaction. My hypothesis is
that Tolkien asked himself: what would be the physical and
anthropological features of a place which was as conflictred as the
Sudeten region? If we ask this, we can join Tolkien and then a lot of
answers start to present themselves.
Just a thought but it seems to me it makes a lot of sense.
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