Kingship in Middle-earth

[LausTibiChriste]

I don't take drinking advice from chugs, and I don't take familial advice from singles.

[Melkor]

Better up your insult game there bud. It's a little weak, eh.

[Bonaventure]

Sigh.

[bilbobaggins]

You're a grown man. Time to put away the fairy tales.

Myths and Tales were originally for adults! And kids, for all ages.

Not until Disney did people somehow think they were for kids. Don't let this system of spreading truth that has excited all cultures throughout time be canceled and degraded to modern Americas false marketing views.

Tolkien himself beloved they were for adult, specifically age 30-50!

[LausTibiChriste]

You're a grown man. Time to put away the fairy tales.

Myths and Tales were originally for adults! And kids, for all ages.

Not until Disney did people somehow think they were for kids. Don't let this system of spreading truth that has excited all cultures throughout time be canceled and degraded to modern Americas false marketing views.

Tolkien himself beloved they were for adult, specifically age 30-50!

Tolkien had class, holiness and a keen eye for the intellectual.

Virtues which Heinrich clearly lacks. I would ignore him.

And I am sincerely sorry he's denigrating your excellent work.

[Bernadette]

I studied fairy tales in AP English.

[Bonaventure]

I studied fairy tales in AP English.

English Lang or English Lit?

What did you get on the tests?

I got a 4 for Lang, 3 for Lit

[Bernadette]

English lit. I got 4s both years. I had to do independent study for AP English during my senior year. There weren't enough students at that level to make a full class.

[Heinrich]

You're a grown man. Time to put away the fairy tales.

Myths and Tales were originally for adults! And kids, for all ages.

Not until Disney did people somehow think they were for kids. Don't let this system of spreading truth that has excited all cultures throughout time be canceled and degraded to modern Americas false marketing views.

Tolkien himself beloved they were for adult, specifically age 30-50!

Tolkien had class, holiness and a keen eye for the intellectual.

Virtues which Heinrich clearly lacks. I would ignore him.

And I am sincerely sorry he's denigrating your excellent work.

You're a grown man. Time to put away the fairy tales.

Myths and Tales were originally for adults! And kids, for all ages.

Not until Disney did people somehow think they were for kids. Don't let this system of spreading truth that has excited all cultures throughout time be canceled and degraded to modern Americas false marketing views.

Tolkien himself beloved they were for adult, specifically age 30-50!

Canterbury Tales, Piers Ploughman are incredible testaments to creativity motivated by Faith. We can add Don Quixote,Song of Roland. Epics galore. Many other such examples exist.

It seems to me that there is trend among(grown 18+) trad men to maintain a childlike attachment to Tolkien. Indeed the heroes of this age are faithful fathers who support large families under the duress of global ZOG. I can't help but think that a sizable number of 20-30 year old trad men are maintaining an adolescence unsuitable to win the culture wars. We can grow and enrich our lives by building on the Western canon of allegorical imagination.

[LausTibiChriste]

I know you're American and all so manners and decorum aren't your strong suit.

But if you have an issue, take it up legitimately, without blindly attacking a man who is posting honest work that is nothing even remotely close to the issue you bring up.

I know that's a lot to ask of an uncouth, roid-raging meathead, but if you keep trying one day you'll get there bud!

[bilbobaggins]

You're a grown man. Time to put away the fairy tales.

Myths and Tales were originally for adults! And kids, for all ages.

Not until Disney did people somehow think they were for kids. Don't let this system of spreading truth that has excited all cultures throughout time be canceled and degraded to modern Americas false marketing views.

Tolkien himself beloved they were for adult, specifically age 30-50!

Tolkien had class, holiness and a keen eye for the intellectual.

Virtues which Heinrich clearly lacks. I would ignore him.

And I am sincerely sorry he's denigrating your excellent work.

It does not bother me if others disagree, it is ingrained in me!

[Heinrich]

I know you're American and all so manners and decorum aren't your strong suit.

But if you have an issue, take it up legitimately, without blindly attacking a man who is posting honest work that is nothing even remotely close to the issue you bring up.

I know that's a lot to ask of an uncouth, roid-raging meathead, but if you keep trying one day you'll get there bud!

Please retract this libel, here and elsewhere. Think of me what you want, but scandal must be addressed.

[bilbobaggins]

A relevant section from my book, The Road Goes Ever On and On

The truths of Middle earth are valid to all humanity throughout time. After reading his works, we can see our world more accurately. Tolkien's close friend C. S. Lewis said that reading myths "isn't a retreat from reality. It's a rediscovery of it...a child doesn't despise real woods because he's been reading about enchanted woods. What he's read makes all real woods a little enchanted."2 Author Joseph Pearce told us that when he first read Tolkien, he "encountered a world that was more real than the one [he] was living in."4

Tolkien himself believed that myths, fantasy, and stories could be a conduit for truth. In a discussion at an inn called the Green Dragon, one of Tolkien's main characters, the hobbit Sam Gamgee, said of children's stories he had heard while growing up in the Shire, "I daresay there's more truth in some of them than you reckon."5 The great Catholic writer and critic of modernity G. K. Chesterton, who influenced Tolkien, wrote, "People wonder why the novel is the most popular form of literature; people wonder why it is read more than books of science or books of metaphysics. The reason is very simple; it is merely that the novel is more true than they are."6 And Tolkien himself said:

Not long ago—incredible though it may seem—I heard a clerk of Oxenford declare that he "welcomed" the proximity of mass-production robot factories, and the roar of self-obstructive mechanical traffic, because it brought his univer�sity into "contact with real life." The notion that motor-cars are more "alive" than, say, centaurs or dragons is curious; that they are more "real" than, say, horses is pathetically absurd. How real, how startlingly alive is a factory chimney compared with an elm tree... The maddest castle that ever came out of a giant's bag in a wild Gaelic story is not only much less ugly than a robot factory, it is also (to use a very modern phrase) "in a very real sense" a great deal more real.
(J. R. R. Tolkien, "On Fairy Stories")


And finish with another great quote from  a well known Tolkien scholar

our world does not have wolves that disguise themselves as grannies, but it does have "wolves who disguise themselves as sheep or grannies." It does not have pumpkins that turn into carriages but perhaps pumpkins themselves are as miraculous and should surprise us as much as when Cinderella saw her carriage the night of the ball-there is a real danger that those who do not believe in dragons become dragons. There is a real danger that those who do not believe that Jack could slay the giant become servants of the giant and slayers of Jack. Such people, who are very successful in politics and law, are placed in the giant's pocket and are  used by him to ensure that Jack remains power�less.
(Joseph Pearce, Bilbo's Journey Discovering the Hidden Meaning of the Hobbit [Charlotte, North Carolina: Saint Benedict Press, 2012])

[bilbobaggins]

Some more relevant content from my book.


In The Keys of Middle-earth, Stuart Lee and Elizabeth Solopova argued that the keys to understanding Tolkien's creation were to first understand the primary medievalist literature that influenced him. Those documents provided the roots and ingredients that made up Tolkien's imagination. C. S. Lewis once said to Tolkien, "There is too little of what we really like in stories. I am afraid we shall have to try and write some ourselves."573 Tolkien incorporated many elements of medieval literature into his works, such as poetry, quests, heroes, rings and riddles. In addition, medieval literature heavily influenced Tolkien's languages, characters, names, plots, the structure of his poetry, and songs. By bringing back medievalist literature, Lewis and Tolkien were in part, attempting to resurrect the wonder of nature that had been lost by the widespread acceptance of materialism.
And as with medieval tales, the intended audience was adults;

Tolkien said, "fairy-story" is really an adult genre, and one for which a starving audience exists."574 People living during the Middle Ages and hobbits alike enjoyed life and the telling of tales. There was never an age when they must, in our modern sense, grow up. G. K. Chesterton wrote, "We envy children for still doing what men used to do, such as play games and enjoy fairy tales."575

"Storytelling was another beloved pastime, and the aristocracy especially favored long tales in verse about chivalric adventures. Stories of King Arthur and his knights were particularly popular and enjoyed by aristocrats across Europe.
(Jeffrey Singman, The Middle Ages: Everyday Life in Medieval Europe, Reprint Edition [Sterling, 2013])

However, it was not just the nobles and aristocrats of the Middle Ages that enjoyed fantasy tales; consider the modern Brothers Grimm, read the original German folklore; these are not the child's tales we think of today. It seems to me that Walt Disney created the modern perception that tales are only for children.

Like hobbits, people in the Middle Ages knew how to throw a party, and did so frequently. A marriage or a jousting tournament could set the entire medieval countryside into a two-week celebration; one that would put Bilbo Baggins's birthday party to shame. They consistently gathered on holy days, which were many, and also for baptisms, fairs, and various ceremonies, such as oaths of fealty and the dubbing of knights. They used any event as a reason to have great festivals full of drinking, feasting, dancing, joking, singing, telling of tales, and general merrymaking; something the puritans of Jesus' day accused him of in Luke 7:34. Jesus' first miracle was to keep the celebration at Cana's wedding going by turning water into wine after they had run out.

Entering adulthood in our modern world means that you concede certain freedoms and agree to unwritten rules; including many freedoms that hobbits and medieval peasants would have never given up. As an adult, you are now old enough to become a slave-wage earner and pay tax to a government you may or may not support; this is now your life and is now your identity and purpose.Fun, entertainment (outside of those approved by our socialistic and capitalistic and materialistic economy) are forbidden to men who are now slaves.

If there lurks in most modern minds the notion that to desire our own good and earnestly to hope for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing, I submit that this notion has crept in from Kant and the Stoics and is not part of the Christian faith. Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak.
(C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory, First American Edition [Macmillan, 1949, 1–3])

[bilbobaggins]

And I think it is a modern secular view, a materialistic view that leads some to object to fair-tales. But we should have a Christian view, not one that fits our current society.


It may be true that the sun rises regularly because he never gets tired of rising. His routine might be due, not to lifelessness, but to a rush of life...a child kicks his legs rhythmically through excess, not absence of life.Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit force and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say "do it again" and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead... It is possible that God says every morning "do it again" to the sun, and every evening, "do it again" to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike, it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never tired of making them. It may be that he has the eternal appetite of infancy, for we have sinned and grown old, and our father is younger than we. The repetition in nature may not be a mere recurrence, it may be a theatrical ENCORE.
(G. K. Chesterton, The Three Apologies of G. K. Chesterton [Middletown, Delaware: Mockingbird Press, 2018])


It is essential that we should regard them in the philosophic manner of fairy tales, not in the unphilosophic manner of science and the "Laws of Nature." When we are asked why eggs turn to birds or fruits fall in autumn, we must answer exactly as the fairy godmother would answer if Cinderella asked her why mice turned to horses or her clothes fell from her at twelve o'clock. We must answer that it is magic... The only words that ever satisfied me as describing Nature are the terms used in the fairy books, "charm," "spell," "enchantment." They express the arbitrariness of the fact and its mystery. A tree grows fruit because it is a magic tree. Water runs downhill because it is bewitched. The sun shines because it is bewitched. I deny altogether that this is fantastic or even mystical...this fairy-tale language about things is simply rational and agnostic. It is the only way I can express in words my clear and definite perception that one thing is quite distinct from another; that there is no logical connection between flying and laying eggs. It is the man who talks about "a law" that he has never seen who is the mystic. Nay, the ordinary scientific man is strictly a sentimentalist. He is a sentimentalist in this essential sense, that he is soaked and swept away by mere associations. He has so often seen birds fly and lay eggs that he feels as if there must be some dreamy, tender connection between the two ideas, whereas there is none.
(G. K. Chesterton, The Three Apologies of G. K. Chesterton [Middletown, Delaware: Mockingbird Press, 2018])