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N.E. Brigand
Half-elven
Apr 12 2008, 4:13am
Post #1 of 18
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The Barrow-wight's creeping arm.
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Greetings from Burlington! I'm attending this weekend's Tolkien conference at the University of Vermont. Also here is Modtheow and of course our host, INIDGO ISTARI (and visualweasel is due in tomorrow). Tonight things kicked off with a fireside reading series, with about a dozen readings from Tolkien's works. Modtheow read Frodo's "Man in the Moon" poem; I read Tolkien's early "Iumbo" poem, a far distant precursor of "Oliphaunt" (with references to Mohammed and cocaine). Marjorie Burns, author of Perilous Realms, a study of Norse and Celtic influences on Tolkien, read some passages from "Fog on the Barrow-downs". Most readings were followed by a little discussion, and after Burns read, she noted that her keynote speech tomorrow, on sources in the Norse sagas for Tolkien's monsters, will include some comments on Tolkien's presentation of the Barrow-wight, for which she apparently has found no clear analogues in other literature (Norse or otherwise). A quick glance at drogo's discussion of the chapter last fall doesn't reveal any discussion of the subject. Does anyone here have thoughts on where Tolkien got the idea of the creeping arm in the tomb?
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We're discussing The Lord of the Rings in the Reading Room, Oct. 15, 2007 - Mar. 22, 2009!
Join us Apr. 7-13 for "The Departure of Boromir".
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Finding Frodo
Tol Eressea
Apr 12 2008, 4:38am
Post #2 of 18
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I'd be interested to hear about it. The Barrow-wight and its creeping arm is what grabbed me (!) and propelled me through the rest of LotR at age 12 after having started the book and given up after the first few chapters several times.
Where's Frodo?
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FarFromHome
Valinor
Apr 12 2008, 10:16am
Post #3 of 18
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It sounds a bit Arthurian to me...
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I can't think of any clear analogies, but there is a severed arm in the Queste del Sant Graal, according to the summary here: 'Gawain and Hector fall asleep, and dream of bulls in a field, p. 164; then they see a disembodied arm and a voice calls them “weak in faith and erring in belief...”' Not much detail, and I've never read this myself so I don't know just what's involved here. Of course, there's the disembodied arm that takes back Excalibur at the end of Arthur's life as well. And the Green Knight with his severed head....
There a lot of these odd, mystical, unexplained things in the later Arthurian manuscripts, and I think they might be worth a look. The Barrow Wight scene, with those white garments and everything, does remind me of the mystical sort of Arthurian literature, although I'm sure Tolkien would disown the idea totally!
...and the sails were drawn up, and the wind blew,
and slowly the ship slipped away down the long grey firth;
and the light of the glass of Galadriel that Frodo bore
glimmered and was lost.
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Kimi
Forum Admin
/ Moderator
Apr 12 2008, 11:56am
Post #4 of 18
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regarding hands may be found here.
I really shouldn't have read them this late at night :-)
My writing (including The Passing of Mistress Rose)
Do we find happiness so often that we should turn it off the box when it happens to sit there?
- A Room With a View
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Dreamdeer
Valinor
Apr 12 2008, 4:32pm
Post #5 of 18
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You know, that might make a great name for a pub! "The Creeping Arm".
My website http://www.dreamdeer.grailmedia.com offers fanfic, and message-boards regarding intentional community or faerie exploration.
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dernwyn
Forum Admin
/ Moderator
Apr 13 2008, 1:32am
Post #6 of 18
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What did Beowulf do, with that arm? Perhaps it's in some deep burial mound, creeping around, looking for its body...
You're obviously already having a great time, so I'll just say, keep having an enjoyable weekend!
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"I desired dragons with a profound desire"
"It struck me last night that you might write a fearfully good romantic drama, with as much of the 'supernatural' as you cared to introduce. Have you ever thought of it?"
-Geoffrey B. Smith, letter to JRR Tolkien, 1915
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weaver
Half-elven
Apr 13 2008, 2:45am
Post #7 of 18
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Well...maybe it's from an African folk tale, from Tolkien's very early days in South Africa. Might have been a scary bedtime story told to him...
If you think about how some of these images get passed along, I wonder if a case could be made that the "bloody hook" on the car door scary story that gets told around campfires is a distant cousin twice removed of some original folk tale that Tolkien tapped into as well.
I am sure neither of those is correct, but I tried! Glad you are having fun, though, and thanks for stopping by with this view of things over there!
Weaver
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N.E. Brigand
Half-elven
Apr 14 2008, 2:07am
Post #8 of 18
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I only had time for a brief glance at the internet yesterday, just before Burns' talk, but I did mention your responses to her and will be forwarding her the relevant links.
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We're discussing The Lord of the Rings in the Reading Room, Oct. 15, 2007 - Mar. 22, 2009!
Join us Apr. 7-13 for "The Departure of Boromir".
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Aunt Dora Baggins
Immortal
Apr 14 2008, 7:11pm
Post #9 of 18
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of the more modern story of the hook-handed murderer and the kids making out in the car:
link
I guess human imagination is pretty constant through the ages.
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"For DORA BAGGINS in memory of a LONG correspondence, with love from Bilbo; on a large wastebasket. Dora was Drogo's sister, and the eldest surviving female relative of Bilbo and Frodo; she was ninety-nine, and had written reams of good advice for more than half a century."
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"A Chance Meeting at Rivendell" and other stories
leleni at hotmail dot com
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Tolkien Forever
Gondor
Apr 14 2008, 8:16pm
Post #10 of 18
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Wasn't there a B-Flick horror movie about a murderer who's severed hand is atatched to someone else & causes them to start murdering people?
I doubt Tolkien was inspired by that & besides, I think it was done in the '50's.
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Istar Indigo
Bree
Apr 16 2008, 2:03pm
Post #11 of 18
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Thank you for your description of the Open-mike Tolkien reading, NE. I did print out the "Iumbo" poem you read for us, and i read it to my 3 sections of Tolkien's Middle-earth. The students loved it.
As for the arm, I am still wondering about this myself. Grendel's arm seems a possibility as was pointed out in the Reading Room already. I'm reading through the Zupitza Beowulf facsimile this week and will look more closely at the description surorunding Grendel's arm and shoulder.
I haven't gone through all the tales in the Lang collection, but it seems like something one could encounter there too. But Marjorie must have read through those.
Thank you for all your wonderful insights this past weekend.
yours,
II
[Chris]
PS. Istari is plural, so I Guess I need to change my ID. Is Istar the singular form? :)
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visualweasel
Rohan
Apr 16 2008, 2:18pm
Post #12 of 18
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I've followed people's various guesses and analogues with interest — especially the idea of Grendel's arm. I even did a little searching myself. There is apparently a bit of a tradition of this image in connection with American Civil War literature — not likely to be an influence for Tolkien, but clearly related to the universal of the uncanny "Landscape with Corpse", as Modtheow discussed in her paper last weekend. I also found reference to a severed arm in Barclay's Euphormion, to which Sir Walter Scott alludes in Marmion. There's a possibility there.
But ...
Isn't it funny that we're all so sure there must be a source? Couldn't the image be original with Tolkien, springing right out of his imagination, a priori? I know, what a crazy idea! 
Jason Fisher
Lingwë - Musings of a Fish
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visualweasel
Rohan
Apr 16 2008, 2:27pm
Post #13 of 18
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Regarding your postscript, yes, Indigo, the singular Quenya noun for "wizard" is istar (pl. istari). The Sindarin, in case you like that better, is ithron (pl. ithryn*). These forms, unlike many the fan community has collectively extrapolated, are actually attested by Tolkien in the essay "The Istari" (Unfinished Tales).
* As in the Ithryn Luin, the Blue Wizards. Since you like indigo, I guess maybe you could call yourself ithron luin "the blue wizard". Tolkien has several Elvish words for various shades of blue, but none of them are quite indigo.
Jason Fisher
Lingwë - Musings of a Fish
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a.s.
Valinor
Apr 16 2008, 3:23pm
Post #14 of 18
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"Maddo...which Tolkien drew in 1928, can be explained more fully, thanks to a later inscription by the artist:
'Maddo and Owlamoo were two of Michael's imagined bogeys when he was about 6-8 years old. I tried to draw them from his descriptions--which seemed to rob them of terror and leave them merely nursery mythological creatures. Maddo was (he said) a gloved hand without an arm that opened curtains a crack after dark and crawled down the curtain...'"
The above from Hammond and Scull's Artist and Illustrator. H&S connect the drawing of Maddo with other Tolkien drawings:
"Maddo recalls the hand in Wickedness [32] parting a decorated curtain, and in turn may have influenced the one Tolkien drew on the first version of Thror's Map..."
I'm not saying there is a direct correlation between the hand in the Barrow Wight scene and Maddo, but it's apparent that Tolkien thought about disembodied hands as "creepy" and capable of inspiring "terror" well prior to the Barrow Wight chapter.
a.s.
"an seileachan"
"Good night, little girls, thank the Lord you are well!
Now go to sleep" said Miss Clavel.
And she turned out the light and shut the door,
And that's all there is. There isn't any more.
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N.E. Brigand
Half-elven
Apr 16 2008, 4:04pm
Post #15 of 18
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...to change your nickname to INDIGO ISTAR (and sorry about misspelling Indigo in the post above) I think you'll need to contact Altaira via PM.
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We're discussing The Lord of the Rings in the Reading Room, Oct. 15, 2007 - Mar. 22, 2009!
Join us Apr. 14-20 for "The Riders of Rohan".
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Reera the Red
Rivendell
Apr 17 2008, 9:07pm
Post #16 of 18
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Another barrow-wight sighting?
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A quick glance at drogo's discussion of the chapter last fall doesn't reveal any discussion of the subject. Does anyone here have thoughts on where Tolkien got the idea of the creeping arm in the tomb?
I have always wanted to know whether Tolkien ever happened to read any of Elliott O'Donnell's ghost stories. I am very fond of ghost stories, both fiction and folklore, and have accumulated a sizable collection of ghost books. O'Donnell (1872-1965), a self-styled "ghost-hunter" who wrote numerous books, mostly published in the early 20th century, is a favorite of mine.
In his "Byways of Ghost Land" (1911) he gives a brief account of his (ostensibly true, but don't take him too seriously) encounter with a very familiar critter. He begins:
"Before concluding this chapter, I must make a brief allusion to another
type of spirit -- the barrowvian -- that resembles the vagrarian and
pixie, inasmuch as it delights in lonely places. Whenever I see a barrow,
tumulus or druidical circle, I scent the probability of phantasms --
phantasms of a peculiar sort. Most ancient burial-places are haunted, and
haunted by two species of the same genus: the one, the spirits of whatever
prehistoric forms of animal life lie buried there; and the other, grotesque
phantasms, often very similar to vagrarians in appearance, but with
distinct ghoulish propensities and an inveterate hatred to living human
beings."
After a brief digression, he continues:
"At about two o'clock one morning, when I was keeping my vigil beside a
barrow in the South of England, I saw a phenomenon in the shape of a hand
-- only a hand, a big, misty, luminous blue hand, with long crooked
fingers. I could, of course, only speculate as to the owner of the hand,
and I must confess that I postponed that speculation till I was safe and
sound, and bathed in sunshine, within the doors of my own domicile."
(Incidentally, "vagrarian" is a name O'Donnell bestows on certain types of "elementals", spirits which supposedly have never held physical form, and which are often associated with natural objects -- trees, pools, etc.)
Anyway, I thought it was an interesting parallel, and would love to know whether there's any connection -- either directly, or due to O'Donnell and Tolkien both drawing on some obscure folklore about a barrow haunt.
"People accuse me of being cross, and crabbed, and unsociable, and they are quite right." --Red Reera, the Yookoohoo
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visualweasel
Rohan
Apr 18 2008, 3:58pm
Post #17 of 18
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I find no mention of Elliott O'Donnell in any of the major reference works to which I have access, but that doesn't conclusively disprove that Tolkien could have known him or his work. The image isn't exactly the same, but it's certainly suggestive. If we could peruse Tolkien's personal library (part of which is at Oxford, part in the keeping of Christopher Tolkien, and part — unfortunately — scattered to the four corners of the earth via auction), I wonder whether we might find an O'Donnell or two. He seems especially right up Charles Williams's alley; I wonder if Tolkien might have met hm there?
Jason Fisher
Lingwë - Musings of a Fish
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visualweasel
Rohan
Dec 5 2008, 3:32pm
Post #18 of 18
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Dale Nelson has just published a piece on the possible influence of M.R. James's ghost stories on Tolkien (in the latest issue of Beyond Bree). There, in addition to the possibility of James, Nelson points to a story by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu (1814-1873), “The Authentic Narrative of the Ghost of a Hand,” in which "[a] household is terrorized by a hand." Nelson quotes from the story:
There was a candle burning on a small table at the foot of the bed, beside the one [Mr. Prosser] held in one hand […]. He drew the curtain at the side of the bed, and saw Mrs. Prosser lying, as for a few seconds he mortally feared, dead, her face being motionless, white, and covered with a cold dew; and on the pillow, close beside her head, and just within the curtains, was, as he first thought, a toad—but really the same fattish hand, the wrist resting on the pillow, and the fingers extended towards her temple.
It seems just possible, though I can't recall any evidence to establish that Tolkien read Le Fanu. (We do now know, thanks to the expanded edition of "On Fairy-stories") that Tolkien read M.R. James. And James was an admirer of Le Fanu and edited a collection of his stories. So, like I said, just possible.
Jason Fisher
Lingwë - Musings of a Fish
The Lord of the Rings discussion 2007-2008 – The Two Towers – III.4 “Treebeard” – Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
“On Fairy-stories” discussion 2008 – “Origins” – Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
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