Click here to watch both episodes of 1066

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/1066/4od

Brian

Last night a friend and I got round to chatting about the Peter Jackson films, exploring our shared cussedness towards the trivialising details such as the dwarf-throwing jokes and the circus stunts.  Alas, it transpired that my friend was of the trenchant opinion that Professor Tolkien’s elves, never mind hobbits, did not have pointed ears.  Admittedly unambiguous references to pointed elvish ears are not easy to pin down in Professor Tolkien’s published corpus, so I was put to the trouble of digging out my The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien where ( Letter 27, to Houghton Mifflin in 1938) the Old Man does describe hobbits’ ears as “only slightly pointed and ‘elvish’” which, together with my dim recollection of the elvish words for ‘ear’ and ‘leaf’ sharing the same Quenyan root, or something, would seem to settle the question.

As well as hoping I hadn’t broken my friend’s heart, however, this did make me wonder where we get the assumption that the ‘historical’ elves of Professor Tolkien’s sources of inspiration, nature spirits believed in as fact amongst people of Germanic, Finnish and ( in a qualified sense) Celtic cultures, had pointed ears?  Call this assumption into question and see what happens.  Nobody wears pointed ears on the Gundestrup Cauldron or on any rude wooden idol left by the Germanic tribes of the Roman Iron Age, and historians and archaeologists would have reason to suspect that a nature spirit or minor deity was intended if anyone did.  So far as I can tell, the basis of the pointed-ears idea originated amongst the fauns and satyrs of Classical tradition; an idea that found its way into Northern Europe, I’m guessing, in a small way with Christianity, because Christian representations of devils/ demons/ the Devil owe much to Classical fauns and satyrs, and in a big way at the Renaissance when, for instance, French contes des fée ( if that’s the right spelling) or fairy-tales as we now conventionally think of them, were translated into English.  Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream is nothing is not the classic example of this blend: portraying Puck ( from Old English pūca, a nature spirit) or Robin Goodfellow, as thoroughly English a figure as can be, in Classical Attica; and Titania ( a Greek name) meeting Oberon ( certainly from Old High German and probably adalbero, ‘great/ noble bear’) in the moonlight of the same.  This was the big stick that stirred up confusion between the words ‘elf’ and ‘fairy’ from which Professor Tolkien’s influence has, so some extent, rescued us only recently.  As I understand it fairies as conventionally conceived are quite alien to Germanic culture having, if memory serves, some sinister provenance as titivation for paedophile French aristocrats.
 
So I’m guessing that any portrayal of Germanic, Celtic or Finnish nature spirits or minor supernatural beings wearing pointy ears before the Renaissance ( or thereabouts) is a back-projection of an assumption that didn’t get made until the Renaissance ( or thereabouts).  Give or take pious or ignorant associations between them and Christian devils.  Unless anyone can say me nay?  I don’t know whether to hope or fear I have a point, here, because the pointy-ears business can be one of the minor crosses Professor Tolkien’s admirers have to bear, and if the Old Man had been on the ball on this one it could have been another of the nursery-days associations from which he could have liberated us.

Can anyone say?

It is now coming up to three months since the New gegaderung/Website became operative. I am pleased to be able to report to members that during that time, especially more recently as the Website has grown in size, I have received quite a number of favourable comments. In addition, I have received a good number of enquiries from people wanting to join the English Companions and  Roy, our Membership Sec, informs me that most of the applications for membership of the Fellowship have come via the Website.

Evening meeting of the East Seaxe Scir now also posted on "Calendar" - 14th Sept.  All members, friends and potential members welcome.  Facilities very basic.  Bring any food or drink with you and seating if you want something more comfortable than a bench.  Any appropriate forms of entertainment welcome - music, song, poetry, juggling ......  and anyone who wants to come in costume will add to the atmosphere of the evening.
We start at about 1930.

Archaeolgical dig finds Danevirke Gate

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,714235,00.html

Brian