First Day of Hrivë

[Calantirniel]

On the Elven Path's Facebook page very recently, I made a post directing attention to Cuiverë Quendiva and linked it to the blog post made some time ago. The page itself is here, and you can easily find it (I posted as a "photo" rather than link because Facebook tends to like that, it reaches more people that way). Then, Carvin Knowles of "http://inelvenlands.com" commented directly on the blog post, of which I decided to copy herein below for the sake of time-saving! Here goes:

Hello Calantirniel,

On The Fellowship’s Second Edition Re-Release of IN ELVEN LANDS, there is a chant specifically for this holiday. Silmesse (with lyrics by Helge K. Fauskanger) was specified in the Tir Im Psalter as a “chant to be sung a cappella, under the open stars at the beginning of the time of Hrivë.”

Fauskanger’s translation of the lyrics can be easily googled.

The Fellowship have decorated their website with several of the illuminations from the Psalter. The Pleiades diagram appears at the bottom of the “Purchase” page. Other pages display the Sickle of the Valar, and the wolf Carcharoth.

I am curious if anyone had heard of this. Thoughts? :-)

[Meneldur Olvarion]

Their band name was vaguely familiar to me as I have seen you mention them before, but as I don't get into the whole Tolkien-genre sub-cultural stuff, I never checked out their site before.

The name "Tir Im Psalter" was not familiar to me, so I Googled it and the primary hits go directly to their site. On this page, they describe exactly what they did:

In 1992, composer Carvin Knowles attended an exhibit at Oxford University, celebrating the J.R.R. Tolkien Centennial. There, on display, were many of Tolkien's handwritten manuscripts which appeared, at first, to be so many early mediaeval texts. In that moment, the concept of using musicological techniques to reconstruct the music of Tolkien's ancient worlds was born.

[...]

Knowles writes "The concept of a 'lost manuscript' had been in my mind since that day in Oxford, back in 1992. It was reinforced by reading Tolkien's The Book of Lost Tales in the mid-90s. So I took the opportunity to create our ancient manuscript by writing new lyrics in Elvish." In the late 1990s, resources were limited to whatever books the band could find or order. There were no internet resources for Elvish languages at the time and the Etymologies hadn't been published...but for creating a "corrupt manuscript" those resources which they could find would be enough.

A strong operative principal in Tolkien's linguistic work is the way languages change over time, as witnessed by his artificial evolution of Sindarin which he describes as "changing with the changefulness of the tongues of men." The new "manuscript" would explore this linguistic evolution, so that each lyric is in a different dialect from the last. In the composition of lyrics, they sometimes created compound-words from existing vocabulary. Before long, the ancient manuscript began to take shape.

The Tir Im Psalter is described as "the most recent Eldarin text and, without a doubt, the most corrupt." According to the album notes, "the book was handwritten by no less than four different scribes, using at least four different writing systems and three different languages. In places, it is illustrated with brightly coloured inks, paints and both silver and gold leaf.

I can't comment on their music, as I haven't listened to it, but although this description is very honest and straightforward, it may be a little 'dangerous' -- not for them, but for the "Tolkien-fans", as many of them are likely to confuse this with Tolkien's original works, despite the disclaimer.

I think the reason this happens is that most people don't get the idea of gnosis,even if they are aware of the word. Consider this excerpt from the same page:

Throughout most of J.R.R. Tolkien's works, the author presents the idea that he was translating an ancient text from one of many ancient and lost languages. Recent studies of Tolkien's early papers from The University of Leeds would indicate that the idea dates from the beginning of his career and was part of the author's sense of humor. Considering his work translating The Book of Job for The Jerusalem Bible, and Sir Gawain And The Green Knight, it is clear that he had plenty of experience with ancient manuscripts.

It is a good example of a situation that is factually true, but in this case leaves out the strong likelihood that what they term "a sense of humor" was likely also a "quick and dirty explanation for the overculture"of something that had been going on for a long time with him but which he found very difficult to explain, and that was a shamanic gnosis, as explained here. Some of the clearest examples of this are his early artworks (see J. R. R. Tolkien: Artist and Illustrator) and Letter #328, paragraphs 4 and 5.

Interestingly, from his youth and old age respectively: youth when he began to experience the phenomenon, old age when he got a grip on it with ordinary waking consciousness and realized some of its implications.

Or at any rate: that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

[Calantirniel]

Thanks Dave! Some snippets of the music can be heard on the Amazon page.

[Lúthien]

This reminds me somewhat of the discussion we had sometime ago about Welsh. Just about the same point surfaces in it.
DISCLAIMER!! Lisa, please realise that although my reaction sounds a bit grumpy, that is not meant towards you

Actually, there are a couple of issues that I'm having with these dudes' sleeve notes.

A strong operative principal in Tolkien's linguistic work is the way languages change over time, as witnessed by his artificial evolution of Sindarin which he describes as "changing with the changefulness of the tongues of men." The new "manuscript" would explore this linguistic evolution, so that each lyric is in a different dialect from the last.

My main problem, as Dave's, is that most of it is sort of half-true. But half-truths are more persistent than outright nonsense.
My problem with the above quote is in the adjective "artificial". Of course you can argue that these languages are artificial if you define "artificial" as "there's no historical, factual record of them". Indeed, Tolkien first described them.
But (as Dave also points out) "artificial" refers fully to the current paradigm of "true equals fact". "Artificial" used in this context has the meaning of "made up" and hence a "lie".
But we here all know - or at least I hope so! - that that is not how Tolkien experienced it.
I honestly think that he would have been deeply insulted by this qualification of "artificial" because to him they were a living experience. And something similar goes for me as well, which may explain why I react relatively intense to this sort of talk.

The Tir Im Psalter is described as "the most recent Eldarin text and, without a doubt, the most corrupt."

"Corrupt"? Where did they get that from? Another one of those half-(baked)-truths I'm afraid!
Sure it is true that Sindarin evolved a lot faster in Middle-Earth than did Quenya in Valinor. But nowhere in his writings did Tolkien ever hint that this corrupted Sindarin. That's nonsense. Even latter-day (third-age) Sindarin is always referred to as "the noble tongue".

Of course this "Tir Im" psalter may very well be a corruption of Sindarin. After all, it shows a regrettable lack of grammatical sense: _Tir Im_ means something like "Look (imperative) I (empathic)". I cannot figure out whether the intention was to write "look at me!" Or "Look, me!" or "I look" - it is none of these.
It could be the chopped-off first two words of a sentence meaning, for instance, "Look, *I* am ...." (As opposed to "someone else is ..."). But that seems rather unlikely: I think that these guys confuse "a poor grasp of the grammar" with "(regrettably) corrupted Sindarin".

I can't comment on their music, as I haven't listened to it, but although this description is very honest and straightforward, it may be a little 'dangerous' -- not for them, but for the "Tolkien-fans", as many of them are likely to confuse this with Tolkien's original works, despite the disclaimer. I think the reason this happens is that most people don't get the idea of gnosis,even if they are aware of the word. Consider this excerpt from the same page:

Throughout most of J.R.R. Tolkien's works, the author presents the idea that he was translating an ancient text from one of many ancient and lost languages. Recent studies of Tolkien's early papers from The University of Leeds would indicate that the idea dates from the beginning of his career and was part of the author's sense of humor.

Oh my, I don't think that this is just a "quick and dirty" explanation targeted at the overculture that doesn't understand gnosis.
I think that it is rather a blatant "factual = true; imaginal = false"-centric bending of (oh irony!) the facts that have been there for all to read, if they just would take the effort. It is all over "on Fairy-Stories" and "Mythopoeia"; you can read it in his letters, and it's the sole, barely veiled, subject of his short stories: for Tolkien, this was anything but a result of his "sense of humour".

I find it so absurd that I don't know whether to become angry or just laugh about it. This is not right! It isn't even wrong! It is the perfect demonstration of how the current paradigm about the nature of the imaginal works its way to erase the truth of the matter. And that truth is that this was, to Tolkien, the very most important fact of his life. To properly express the imaginal experience was his life's goal. He expressed it as he did, in all the various ways that he tried, because it was the fr**** most important thing in his life.

To say that he did that because "that was his sense of humour" is tantamount to denying that. It is as if the truth about the imaginal makes people very uneasy. Maybe it scares the hell out of them, I don't know. But why then do they take such great effort in order to ignore it, swipe it under the carpet, erase it from view?
Beats me stone-dead.


Well. As I said, sorry for the passionate tone .. but I really find this issue touching the core of the matter.

[Meneldur Olvarion]

Oh my, I don't think that this is just a "quick and dirty" explanation targeted at the overculture that doesn't understand gnosis.

I think that it is rather a blatant "factual = true; imaginal = false"-centric bending of (oh irony!) the facts that have been there for all to read, if they just would take the effort. It is all over "on Fairy-Stories" and "Mythopoeia"; you can read it in his letters, and it's the sole, barely veiled, subject of his short stories: for Tolkien, this was anything but a result of his "sense of humour".

Well, of course, those of us who accept the validity of gnosis understand that, but among the overculture there is this meme that JRRT was laughing behind his hand with all of his linguistic 'inventions'. For example, this quote:

Took is one of the few names Tolkien claims not to have “Englished” — that is, adapted into the translation conceit by which he explained so many other names. These “one or two older names of forgotten meaning [which Tolkien was] content to anglicize in spelling” in-cluded “Took for Tûk and Boffin for Bophîn”. [1] In the “Nomenclature”, Tolkien echoes this: “Took. Hobbit-name of unknown origin representing actual Hobbit Tūk […]. It should thus be kept and spelt phonetically according to the LT [i.e., the Language of Translation].” [2]

From a story-internal point of view, this is perfectly plausible, but from the story-external vantage, why wouldn’t Tolkien just “come up with something”? A possible answer is that he was stuck with Took from The Hobbit, long before Middle-earth had come into focus and the translation conceit entered Tolkien’s mind, and he simply couldn’t think of anything {else}. Or perhaps there was a source, but it simply wasn’t appropriate for or adaptable to The Lord of the Rings.

I’m not aware of any real source criticism on this name, not even by my friend, Mark Hooker, who has worked his way pretty systematically through the “Nomenclature”. Perhaps the claim of invention on Tolkien’s part has discouraged scholars and dictionary divers. But let’s not be discouraged!

--- From tookish-musings 

I've bolded the terms here that contribute to the meme.

This is the sort of thinking that is pervasive in the overculture, to the extent that if you tell them the truth, they react to an explanation of gnosis in a manner very similar to this Seinfeld script excerpt:

ELAINE: Well, I hear three distinct sounds. A low rumple, followed by a metallic squink.
GEORGE: Yes! Yes, I heard the squink!
ELAINE: Followed by a mysterious glonk.
GEORGE: It's baffling, isn't it?

To say that he did that because "that was his sense of humour" is tantamount to denying that. It is as if the truth about the imaginal makes people very uneasy. Maybe it scares the hell out of them, I don't know. But why then do they take such great effort in order to ignore it, swipe it under the carpet, erase it from view?

Beats me stone-dead.

Of course it scares the Hell out of them. Why? Because they are only (by default) capable of hearing 'noise' when exposed to the truth (signal), as in my Seinfeld quote. However, given logical explanation and examples (explanation of gnosis) a goodly percentage of them start to get part of the underlying signal, and as that signal conflicts with their pre-existing worldview, they react with verbal violence (e.g., the SGU-ers).

It all goes back to Terrence McKenna's observation,

There is a great phobia about the mind: the Western mind is very queasy when first principles are questioned. Rarer than corpses in this society are the untreated mad, because we can’t come to terms with that. A shaman is someone who swims in the same ocean as the schizophrenic, but the shaman has thousands and thousands of years of sanctioned technique and tradition to draw upon.

[link]

That is why the "scholars and dictionary divers" are diving in the wrong 'pools'. They simply can't imagine anything else.

[Calantirniel]

Yes, I do believe he is using the term "artificial" as to differentiate the languages Tolkien brought forth into the world (and I also believe it was a process of discovery rather than creation too, so we are on the same page there). However, I do wonder if there is a more appropriate term to use where not just people here, but everyone would understand. I also do not know if Carvin himself wrote these, or if it was someone else in the Fellowship.

Honestly, I do not know what the term "corrupt" is describing either. I caught that too but instead of being offended, I am just confused. Perhaps I can drop him a line to figure out what he (or the Fellowship folks) is/are really saying.

However - what I was really wondering in my original question is: Is there evidence of a ritual for the first day of the Elven Winter? By Tolkien himself, not the linguist. I was unaware of those references. I am sorry I did not clarify my question further. Thank you! :-)

[Meneldur Olvarion]

[...] However, I do wonder if there is a more appropriate term to use where not just people here, but everyone would understand.

In all honesty, probably not, given the width of the gap in understanding between the secular mindset and the gnostic. It would be like trying to explain Quantum Mechanics without using higher math, although for all I know, maybe someone has, so I suppose it's possible -- just not possible for me.

Honestly, I do not know what the term "corrupt" is describing either. I caught that too but instead of being offended, I am just confused. Perhaps I can drop him a line to figure out what he (or the Fellowship folks) is/are really saying.

They are probably using this schema from "The Lays of Luthien" as a sort of "fictive template" (as they would term it):

[...] Lewis had thus reached in his reading about line 2017. He had evidently received more; it may be that the typescript by this time extended to the attack on Luthien and Beren by Celegorm and Curufin fleeing from Nargothrond, against which (at line 303 t) is the date November 1929 in the manuscript. Some time after this, probably early in 1930, Lewis sent my father 14 pages of detailed criticism, as far as line 1161 (if there was any more it has not survived). This criticism he contrived as a heavily academic commentary on the text, pretending to treat the Lay as an ancient and anonymous work extant in many more or less corrupt manuscripts, overlaid by scribal perversions in antiquity and the learned argumentation of nineteenth-century scholars; and thus entertainingly took the sting from some sharply expressed judgments, while at the same time in this disguise expressing strong praise for particular passages. Almost all the verses which Lewis found wanting for one reason or another are marked for revision in the typescript B if not actually rewritten, and in many cases his proposed emendations, or modifications of them, are incorporated into the text. The greater part of Lewis's commentary is given on pp. 315 ff., with the verses he criticized and the alterations made as a result.

However - what I was really wondering in my original question is: Is there evidence of a ritual for the first day of the Elven Winter? By Tolkien himself, not the linguist. I was unaware of those references. I am sorry I did not clarify my question further. Thank you! :-)

Not as far as I know. I've searched repeatedly using the Recoll database search tool, and I have a great deal of published material here. If they do exist, they are either unpublished or were published in a very obscure journal at some point.

[Calantirniel]

Thanks for those explanations Dave, that does help and I bet you are onto it. As for the lack of references, it doesn't surprise me since I remember years ago scouring the whole text for any notation of ritual mentioned - just thought I maybe missed something after I read this. Apparently, it was the linguist who created a 1st day of Winter ritual, not Tolkien! ;-) Not that it is a bad idea, it perfectly rounds out the calendar, but I honestly like Dave's version better (thus the Awakening of the Elves' observance hehe) :-)

[Lúthien]

Well, of course, those of us who accept the validity of gnosis understand that, but among the overculture there is this meme that JRRT was laughing behind his hand with all of his linguistic 'inventions'. For example, this quote:
...
<snip>
....
I've bolded the terms here that contribute to the meme.

This is the sort of thinking that is pervasive in the overculture, to the extent that if you tell them the truth, they react to an explanation of gnosis in a manner very similar to this Seinfeld script excerpt:

ELAINE: Well, I hear three distinct sounds. A low rumple, followed by a metallic squink.
GEORGE: Yes! Yes, I heard the squink!
ELAINE: Followed by a mysterious glonk.
GEORGE: It's baffling, isn't it?

Indeed. Although in the case of gnosis it is a bit more complex, because not everyone can "see" or "hear" it so easily. In any case not in this culture, that systematically tells everyone that it doesn't exist - or at least, that it is irrelevant to the real world.
I mean: you know, we know, I know, that at some point in our lives we had the experience of something so inevitable that we had to take it seriously: it forced us to look again, and again, and think, look again, etcetera. But how many people have a similar experience and ignore it?

In this case, there is still another factor that is being overlooked. It's not just that they are unaware of the imaginal world. Really, I cannot blame anyone for that; it's not easy to go against the barrage of facts. I find it much, much more reproachable that they did not consider how JRR Tolkien himself experienced it.
I think that this is why Mythopoeia has such an overpowering impact on me, no matter how often I read it. It brings out my tears every damn time again. The poem shows his own, private thoughts and feelings about the matter. It is huge, far-reaching and touches the fundaments of our being, who we are, our purpose, you name it. I honestly cannot not think of anything more important than this.
It is all in that short text, and reading it, I think that I can get away with a pretty good idea of what he and Lewis discussed in that time.

There is just no way in which anyone, who has read this, could ever talk about "Tolkien's artificial languages" or think about him, laughing behind his hand about how cunningly he had constructed his make-believe universe, so that the reader would almost be fooled to believe in it. Imagine that!

You really need not have had the experience yourself in order to come to the conclusion that Tolkien was damn serious. It only takes a couple of hours with a few thin books, and even if just for once, postpone the need for "amusement" and listen and understand what he's trying to say.
If there is anything that I would want to ask not only those musicians to do, but everyone who is interested in Tolkien.

But yeah, maybe you are right, and even that scares people. If that is so, I'm afraid that I don't understand people very well :dontknow:

Of course it scares the Hell out of them. Why? Because they are only (by default) capable of hearing 'noise' when exposed to the truth (signal), as in my Seinfeld quote. However, given logical explanation and examples (explanation of gnosis) a goodly percentage of them start to get part of the underlying signal, and as that signal conflicts with their pre-existing worldview, they react with verbal violence (e.g., the SGU-ers).

I never figured out whether that is due to their pre-existing worldview being very vulnerable and touchy - which makes you wonder how certain they are about it themselves - or that they are just being very rude and ill-mannered. Some people are like that, it seems.
Of course, I also get passionate when I feel that something of particular value is ignored or dismissed, as is the case in this discussion. I'm not sure that I could defend that right now in a debate, but I have a hunch that that's about something different though

It all goes back to Terrence McKenna's observation,

There is a great phobia about the mind: the Western mind is very queasy when first principles are questioned. Rarer than corpses in this society are the untreated mad, because we can’t come to terms with that. A shaman is someone who swims in the same ocean as the schizophrenic, but the shaman has thousands and thousands of years of sanctioned technique and tradition to draw upon.

[link]

That is why the "scholars and dictionary divers" are diving in the wrong 'pools'. They simply can't imagine anything else.

Yes, Jung says precisely the same.

[Lúthien]

It would be like trying to explain Quantum Mechanics without using higher math, although for all I know, maybe someone has, so I suppose it's possible -- just not possible for me.

Indeed, someone has:



You can download the pdf version here (members only section)

I read this years ago. It is a very clear, non-mathematical introduction of part of Quantum Physics called QED - Quantum ElectroDynamics. It treats the interactions of electrons and photons, mainly.
The part often called QCD, or Quantum Chromodynamics is a bit more hairy though, that treats the interactions of quarks (hence the 'chromo-'; the force that binds quarks together is also referred to as the 'color force' because there is a good analogy using the three elementary colors).

But anyhow, this book does a great job explaining QED.

[Lúthien]

Gee, I just realised that I'm guilty of major topic drift .. I'm sorry.
Lisa, if you want me to split the topic just say so.

- back on topic -

I just listened to some samples of the music. It's quite ok I think, though I do find it a bit heavy on the hurdy-gurdy which typecasts it firmly in a sort of Welsh*-folk-music-played-on-authentic-instruments that, to me, feels rather European-medieval than Middle-Earthish.
But, they play and sing it well.

When I was studying I knew some guys who played quite like this, although their style was a bit more brisk and animated. I once went with them to a gig; they played at a folk-dancing festival. I remember they played a really fun song - it was fun because it was something completely different, and they performed it remarkably well with their medievalish instruments. The song was called "It must be love, love, love" and I just found it on Youtube




* or Flemish, or Breton, or even Dutch, to my ears at least because I'm not very familiar with it)

EDIT - I see Madness has performed it as well:



The version these guys played did resemble this more than the original. But maybe there was even another, later version.

[Meneldur Olvarion]

[...] I just listened to some samples of the music. It's quite ok I think, though I do find it a bit heavy on the hurdy-gurdy which typecasts it firmly in a sort of Welsh*-folk-music-played-on-authentic-instruments that, to me, feels rather European-medieval than Middle-Earthish.

I just listened too, to the Amazon samples.

Yes, I agree, although in all fairness, that sort of music just isn't my style, so I rarely listen to that genre. Here's a "Dave Woosley-affine" tune:



Hmm, I wonder if this (and by extension, the wider cultural implications behind it) are not part of the reason that I and most "Tolkienists" don't get along?

P.S. Here's another great iconic tune of theirs, and is the one that made me aware f their existence, as it got heavy radio airplay circa 1994:



P.P.S. Another one. {This was originally a David Bowie song, but for whatever reason, I prefer the Nirvanna cover.}

[Lúthien]

Hmm, I wonder if this (and by extension, the wider cultural implications behind it) are not part of the reason that I and most "Tolkienists" don't get along?

Part perhaps, but I think that the Tolkienist' lack of recognition and appreciation of the gnostic elements in Tolkien's work is a much more important factor.

As I've experienced it, hurdy-gurdyish folk music tends to be appreciated by persons that I'd say are quite intelligent, macro-biotic, politically left-wing.
IMO, there's no specific reason why they would be especially unreceptive to the concept of gnosis.

But maybe it works along a different route as well: maybe that sort of music is perceived as "Celtic" (no idea why, but you never know) by the sort of people that are especially drawn towards (perceived) Celtic(-ish) stuff. I think that those people are much more likely to have a kind of bias against Gnosticism, because they're probably also attracted to pagan things, rites etc. which is a static, "social" thing by nature (as opposed to fluid & personal, as gnosis is).

I'd say that in general, if "Tolkien inspired music" has a very marked character, it indicates that the people who made it also view Tolkien's work in the context of that culture.
That's why I find Martin Rombergs music somehow liberating. His music only points to the (western classical- or serious-) music tradition that he comes from. He doesn't shoehorn the listener into the smaller box of a subculture.

There exists also quite a lot of Tolkien-inspired metal music. The same applies there of course as for the hurdy-gurdy music. Although in the case of most metal I find it even harder to figure out what the musicians could possibly have had in mind because it all sounds rather monotonous ("rhaaah mumble grumble scream rhoaah rrraaaarghh grrunt grronk").


_{Replaced "hurdy-hurdyish" in sentence 2 with "hurdy-gurdyish", as it seemed to be a typo. -- Dave}

[Meneldur Olvarion]

[...] But maybe it works along a different route as well: maybe that sort of music is perceived as "Celtic" (no idea why, but you never know) by the sort of people that are especially drawn towards (perceived) Celtic(-ish) stuff. I think that those people are much more likely to have a kind of bias against Gnosticism, because they're probably also attracted to pagan things, rites etc. which is a static, "social" thing by nature (as opposed to fluid & personal, as gnosis is).

That makes a lot of sense. Thanks!

There exists also quite a lot of Tolkien-inspired metal music. The same applies there of course as for the hurdy-gurdy music. Although in the case of most metal I find it even harder to figure out what the musicians could possibly have had in mind because it all sounds rather monotonous ("rhaaah mumble grumble scream rhoaah rrraaaarghh grrunt grronk")

Yeah, because a lot of it is influenced by the black-metal genre, and so has that character. Doesn't really have much to do with the Legendarium, unless you are writing a tribute to Morgoth or something.

But then, "NT's will be NT's" & all that.

[Lúthien]

There exists also quite a lot of Tolkien-inspired metal music. The same applies there of course as for the hurdy-gurdy music. Although in the case of most metal I find it even harder to figure out what the musicians could possibly have had in mind because it all sounds rather monotonous ("rhaaah mumble grumble scream rhoaah rrraaaarghh grrunt grronk")

Yeah, because a lot of it is influenced by the black-metal genre, and so has that character. Doesn't really have much to do with the Legendarium, unless you are writing a tribute to Morgoth or something.

But then, "NT's will be NT's" & all that.

They certainly seem very interested in everything that's dark and gloomy. There's a guy in Unquendor, the Tolkien Society here who is a Cradle of Filth fan. When I first met him I was really surprised because he was a very sympathetic, quiet, introvert and gentle guy. He's the treasurer of the society even.
In other words, his behaviour and disposition are almost diametrically opposed to anything that Cradle of Filth stands for .. you can only tell he's a fan by the black clothes, his long hair and the Cradle of Filth t-shirt

But then, "NT's will be NT's" & all that.

I suppose so, indeed.

Talking about cradle of filth, This is from The IT Crowd, my current favourite comedy show