Thursday, May 26, 2005 |
11:45 - It's not porn, it's a "fertility totem"
http://www.mark-shea.com/LOTR.html
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Here's a real gem, via JMH: "source criticism" of Lord of the Rings.
T suggests some skill on Aragorn's part in the use of pharmaceutical (and hallucinogenic?) plants which may account for some of the more "visionary" moments of mysterious beings like "Black Riders" who appear to have been tribal chieftains hostile to the Aragorn dynasty. PJ, however, exalts Elrond's healing powers over Aragorn's. This is probably rooted in some incident of psychosomatic healing repeatedly chronicled in different sources. Thus, the G source also has an account of Frodo's "healing by Aragorn" on the Field of Cormallen but E places it at Rivendell and attributes the healing to Elrond. Since we know that "Frodo" is likely just a figure representing the rural population and not an historical personage, most scholars therefore conclude that "Frodo's" healing is just T's symbolic representation of Aragorn's program of socio-economic appeasement of the agrarian class, while his healing by Elrond is a nature myth representing the renewal of the annual crops.
Of course, the "Ring" motif appears in countless folk tales and is to be discounted altogether. Equally dubious are the "Gandalf" narratives, which appear to be legends of a shamanistic figure, introduced to the narrative by W out of deference to local Shire cultic practice.
Some people have far too much time on their hands. And thank goodness for that.
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