397 – Rebel, Rebel

Summary

The Prancing Pony Podcast

Episode 397 – Rebel, Rebel

Release Date: January 25, 2026
Host: Alan Sisto
Co-host: James Tauber
Special guest: Patron Joe Haffman

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Episode Overview

Main Theme:
Alan and James launch an in-depth, four-part exploration of "Tal-Elmar," one of Tolkien’s rare Second Age narratives, focusing on its unique "outsider" perspective. They explain why, although the story is a true "deep cut" from the History of Middle-earth series, it’s highly relevant to ongoing themes in the podcast, particularly its profound engagement with issues of colonialism, cultural identity, and the nature of history and memory in Middle-earth. The episode expertly mixes robust textual analysis, pop culture humor, and insightful moral discussion—all in the friendly, lively tone of two Tolkien friends bantering at a pub.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Listener Spotlight: North Wing with Joe Haffman

[05:03 – 12:55]

• Joe’s Background:
  • Retired industrial engineer, avid birder (29 countries), Tolkien enthusiast since the early ‘70s.
  • Family is supportive: son joined for film releases, wife finds Tolkien’s names confusing.
• Favorite Tolkien Works:
  • Book Two of LOTR (Council of Elrond, textual “ruins,” famous Dwarves); Father Christmas Letters for non-Legendarium.
• Memorable Tolkien Experience:
  • Attending the PPP Moot in Marquette for "Art of the Manuscript."
• Speed Round:
  • Favorite character: Frodo (“the finest hobbit in the Shire” [10:47]).
  • Favorite First Age character: Ecthelion (“deserves the elf equivalent of a medal of honor” [10:56]).
  • Place to visit: The Shire (preferably after Sam’s restoration).
  • Balrog wings: metaphorical (“when Gandalf said ‘fly, you fools,’ he didn’t mean literally fly…” [11:49]).
  • Favorite dwarf: Gimli (“From the books. The movies are okay, but he was more comical there” [12:00]).
  • Mary or Pippin? “Definitely a Merry.”
  • Who to take into Mordor: Feanor (“I’m doomed with either one” [12:35]).
• Tone: Urgent, warm, and humorous; frequent puns and lighthearted jabs.

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2. Corrections and Context

[13:08 – 14:04]

• Alan corrects historical slip-ups from episode 392:
  • "Phoney war" belongs to WWII, not WWI.
  • Archduke Ferdinand was assassinated in Sarajevo (Bosnia), not Serbia.

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3. Introduction to "Tal-Elmar"

[14:04 – 27:01]

• Why this Story, Why Now?
  • "Tal-Elmar" is a rare Second Age short narrative told not from the perspective of Numenoreans or Elves, but from native "wild men."
  • The story provides one-of-a-kind insight into Middle-earth’s colonial dynamics.
  • Although published only as part of The Peoples of Middle-earth (History of Middle-earth Vol. 12), James and Alan tie it closely to their just-completed deep dive on "Aldarion and Erendis" to expand the conversation on Numenorean colonization.
• Tolkien’s Intent and Dating:
  • Written ca. 1955 (amid pressure of The Lord of the Rings publication!), with Tolkien’s own 1968 note describing it as “the beginnings of a tale that sees the Numenoreans from the point of view of the Wild Men” [20:23].
  • Tolkien left it unfinished, having pondered whether it could be folded in to established legendarium geography/history, or must remain “vaguely linked.”
• Setting—Time and Place:
  • The geography is ambiguous: Is the action near the Isen or Morthond rivers? This ambiguity leads to interpretative mystery—and fun for Tolkien lore nerds.
  • If post–“permanent havens” (Second Age 1200), the story could fit almost anywhere in the 1800-year span to the Downfall.
• Segment Tone:
  • Analytical and candid, with playful ribbing about Tolkien’s impulsiveness (“procrastination!” [20:09]) and his ongoing struggle with worldbuilding consistency.

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4. Deep Dive: Opening of "Tal-Elmar"

[27:01 – 54:29]

A. Textual Dissection

[27:01 – 44:08]

• Opening Sentence Analysis:
  • “In the days of the Dark Kings, when a man could still walk dry-shod from the rising of the sun to the sea of its setting…”
    • “Dark Kings” vs. earlier drafts’ “Great Kings”: tonal shift from ambiguous greatness to explicit tyranny.
    • Playful banter about possible meanings—Nazgûl? Local chieftains?
    • Note the “dry-shod” phrase: possible nod to pre–Downfall flat-earth cosmology.
  • Early draft reference to “Rome to York” (a strongly non-Middle-earth allusion) reveals the tale’s original “mythic prehistory” mood.
• Character Sketches:
  • Hazad Longbeard: “Retired rugby hooker,” “human dwarf”—17+ sons, legendary beard.
  • Tal Elmar: Hazad’s youngest son, stands out for physical and temperamental differences—tall, fair-skinned, “flint-eyed,” gentle but strong and memorable for rare anger (“Flint Eye” [28:44]).
• Cultural Value Cues:
  • The people of Agar: Swarthy, brusque, not generally given to reverence toward age or difference.
  • Tal Elmar’s “strange” belief: treat the old kindly and with courtesy, “let it be done with respect, for they have seen many years…” [47:10].
  • This marks him as both an outsider and an unacknowledged culture hero.

B. Thematic Explorations

[44:08 – 54:49]

• Pride and Outsider Identity:
  • Two kinds of pride (self-assurance vs. lording over others)—Tal Elmar exemplifies the former.
• Family Dynamics:
  • Tal Elmar serves Hazad out of love, not obligation—unusual in Agar’s culture.
• Foreshadowing:
  • Alan and James speculate this setup is “laying groundwork” for future character arcs/plot turns—especially Tal Elmar’s sense of difference and justice.

Notable Quotes:

• James on pride:
  “There’s sort of two kinds of pride that Tolkien’s exploring here. The pride of a master… and the pride of one of alien race whom fate has cast away among an ignoble people and there bound him in servitude” [48:07].
• Alan on treatment of the old:
  “This is a philosophy common for our culture… but in Agar, it’s so strange nobody understands where he got it from” [52:12].

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5. Hazad’s Heritage and the “Fell Folk”

[54:49 – 73:55]

A. Hazad’s Parentage and the “Fell Folk”

[57:49 – 73:22]

• Hazad’s mother, Elmar, as captured ‘Fell Folk’:
  • The “Fell Folk” are an eastern people—tall, fair, flint-eyed, with “weapons made by demons in the fiery hills” [59:49].
  • The hosts debate possible identities:
    • Edain (kinsfolk of Numenoreans)?
    • “Easterlings” (but descriptions don’t fit)?
    • Northmen? Numenoreans?
  • Geography and migration complicate speculation: Isen/Morthond vs. Langstrand/Pelargir etc.
• The “Demons in the fiery hills”:
  • Likely an example of wild men viewing advanced metallurgy and weaponry as supernatural.
  • Possibly a mythic memory of elves or dwarves from their view as “demons.”
• Migration Motifs:
  • The “Fell Folk” aren’t military invaders but migrants, with wagons, cattle, women—again raising questions about who/what made them move.

B. Intergenerational Trauma

• Hazad’s mother Elmar’s fate foreshadows Tal-Elmar's outsider status—and prophecies of vengeance and doom attached to mixed heritage.

Notable Quotes

• James, on the “Fell Folk:”
  “There’s a strong case to be made they’re Edain of some kind… but the key is, if this is after the founding of permanent havens…” [63:34].

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6. Elmar’s Lament and Prophecy: Colonialism, Rights, and Personal Loss

[77:34 – 104:33]

• Elmar’s defiance:

  • Her speech to Buldar is both deeply personal and overtly political: she owes him nothing even though he “saved” her; her heart remains with her family (“you have torn me from my people and from him that I loved and from the child I bore him” [81:34]).
  • She declares Buldar's people “base and unlovely” and vows: “My thought far elsewhere, and this vengeance I will have—that while my body is kept here in exile, the lot of all this folk shall worsen and thine most. But when my body goes to the alien earth… one shall arise who is mine alone… and with his arising shall come the end of thy people and the downfall of your king.” [77:34]

• Layers of Colonialism and Cycles of Dispossession:

  • Buldar justifies his own people’s right to the land by “ancient” claim—Elmar retorts they themselves had driven out a yet earlier people (the Drúedain). “Are there not… wild folk in the caves of the mountains who once roamed here ere ye swart folk came hither and hunted them like wolves?” [77:34]
  • Alan and James emphasize Tolkien’s anti-colonialist sympathies, supported by direct letter citations and careful readings of similar themes in the Legendarium (e.g., Tar-Palantir, Akallabêth, Faramir's “not a mistress of many slaves” [95:45]).

• Personal vs. Political:

  • Alan: “Her refusal to love has nothing to do with the fact you stole the land for the Druidain. That’s bad—but that’s not why I don’t love you.” [98:03]
  • James: “This can get lost in discussions about rights—it’s important to remember they’re individuals who are harmed by these actions.” [98:13]

• Foreshadowing for Tal-Elmar:

  • The prophecy of “one who is mine alone” setting in motion the “downfall of your king”—is this Sauron, or a local “North King”? Hosts debate possible narrative trajectories, noting that Tolkien leaves it unresolved.

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7. Language, Memory, and Heritage

[104:33 – 106:58]

• Transmission of Song and Language:
  • Elmar teaches her children (especially Hazad) songs in her native tongue, which foreshadows Tal-Elmar’s much-later recognition of the Numenorean language.
  • The theme: “Genetic memory” of language ties past, present, and future; echoes Tolkien’s own family reverence and loss (Alan draws connections to Tolkien’s grief for his mother).

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8. Listener Q&A: "Lesser Known Númenórean Rulers"

[109:33 – 116:08]

• Listeners want to know: Which lesser-known rulers would Alan and James like to know more about?
  • Focus on the shadowy “in between” period after Aldarion and Ancalime but before Tar-Minastir—especially Telperien, the rarely mentioned queen.
  • Alan: “Tells us that the line needed time to recover from Aldarion and Erendis—generational trauma ends only with Telperien’s death.”

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Notable Quotes (with Timestamps & Speaker Attribution)

• On Pride
  • James: “There’s sort of two kinds of pride that Tolkien’s exploring here. The pride of a master… and the pride of one of alien race…” [48:07]
• On the 'Strange' Belief
  • Alan: “This is a philosophy common for our culture… but in Agar, it’s so strange nobody understands where he got it from.” [52:12]
• On Anti-Colonialism
  • Alan: “White skins and bright eyes are no warrant for driving a people off their lands—in other words, your race does not entitle you to commit genocide or steal the land. That’s… wow.” [89:20]
  • James (on Tolkien’s letters): “He says, ‘I should have hated the Roman Empire in its day, as I do.’ …He still does!” [91:06]
• On Perspective and Empathy
  • James: “It’s important… to never forget, they’re people. These are real people… that are treated cruelly.” [98:13]
• On Unfinished Narrative
  • James: “It’s fun to speculate… but we can't look in the answers in the back of the book.” [103:27]

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• 05:03 - North Wing segment with Joe Haffman
• 13:08 - Corrections and intro to “Tal-Elmar”
• 14:04 - Why “Tal-Elmar,” narrative context, dating
• 27:01 - Detailed reading and analysis of first paragraph(s)
• 54:49 - Analysis of Hazad’s family, the ‘Fell Folk,’ and migration
• 77:34 - Elmar’s lament, prophecy, and deeper colonial themes
• 109:33 - Listener Q&A: Númenórean Rulers

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Episode Highlights & Memorable Moments

• Frequent pop culture silliness (Talladega Nights, ZZ Top, rugby references), always woven into dense Tolkien lore chat.
• Alan and James' “rabbit holes” into historical and fictional geography (e.g., pondering walking dry-shod "from Rome to York": [32:40]).
• Use of “textual ruins” and “primary composition” as a way of thinking about Tolkien’s creative process.
• Segue into thoughtful discussion on the nature of pride, family duty, and empathy for elders.
• Discussion of how Tolkien’s anti-imperialist sentiments inform even the deepest cuts of the legendarium.

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Conclusion

Alan and James set the stage for the next phase of their Tal-Elmar exploration by closely examining Tolkien’s nuanced portrayal of inheritance, identity, and colonial injustice. They lay a foundation for speculation about where an unfinished “deep cut” like Tal-Elmar might have gone. All listeners are invited to read the entire story (about 16-18 pages) in advance to best follow the next part of the discussion.

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Next Time:
Tal-Elmar gets his first glimpse of the Numenorean “gods” from the west, and Hazad delivers more history and warnings.

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Episode summary prepared in the style and spirit of The Prancing Pony Podcast: erudite, heartfelt, and just silly enough.

Transcript

[Alan Sisto]

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[James Tauber]

Hank. What's going on? We haven't worked a case in years.

[Alan Sisto]

I just bought my car at Carvana and it was so easy. Too easy.

[James Tauber]

Think something's up?

[Alan Sisto]

You tell me. They got thousands of options, found a great car at a great price and it got delivered the next day.

[James Tauber]

It sounds like Carvana just makes it easy to buy your car, Hank.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, you're right. Case closed.

[James Tauber]

Buy your car today on Carvana. Delivery fees may apply.

[Alan Sisto]

Good evening, little masters and welcome to episode 397 of the Prancing Pony podcast where I have a strange belief that the old should be treated kindly and with courtesy.

[James Tauber]

That's not self serving in any way, is it, Alan?

[Alan Sisto]

Are you calling me old, James? You start with the old jokes already.

[James Tauber]

I think you are. But anyway.

[Alan Sisto]

Well, you know, I could use a little kindness and courtesy.

[James Tauber]

It's true, it's true. We all, we all could these days, I think. But especially you, Alan. Nice folks. Pull up a bench in the common room and join us. I'm James Tauber, the sage of the south, and I'm here with the man of the west who's beard is neither ruly nor soft. Alan Sisto.

[Alan Sisto]

It's also not five feet long without stretching, thank goodness. Floor dragging beards.

[James Tauber]

That's true. And I don't think you have 17 sons, but oh, heavens if I do.

[Alan Sisto]

I don't know about them. Yeah, folks, join us as we journey to an unknown land and an unclear time in the Second Age. As we begin our four part look at one of the more unique stories that Tolkien wrote, the story of Tal Elmar.

[James Tauber]

In many ways, it's a fitting follow up to Eldarion and Arendus, because even though it's almost certainly taking place much later.

[Alan Sisto]

Oh, much.

[James Tauber]

Yeah, now's a great time to jump in, I think. So as we'll discuss in more detail why. Why there's that relevance there. But folks, no matter whether you came to Middle Earth through the books, the films, the TV show, or something else, each of you is welcome here in our common room. The Prancing Pony Podcast continues in our 10th season of Reading and talking our way through Middle Earth with conversations, digressions, and even speculations.

[Alan Sisto]

Not to mention a few puns and bad jokes here and there. Maybe a few more now that you're with me again, especially the bad ones. But our. Our purpose, of course, is to dive deep into the lore. In this case, very deep. I mean, Tal Omar is the deepest cut that we've tackled on the show so far. We love discussing the stories, our favorite characters and themes, Tolkien's inspirations, and a whole lot more.

[James Tauber]

And while we take the work seriously, the same can't be said about ourselves. As you can tell, we're just a couple of friends chatting at the pub. And we're glad you've joined us.

[Alan Sisto]

And I'm sure you'll be glad you joined as well. But before we get to tonight's chapter discussion, it's time to visit with one of our listeners in the North Wing. Well, today we're bringing you another new installment of the North Wing.

[James Tauber]

Barliman. Butterbur had a room or two in the North Wing at the Prancing Pony Inn, made special for hobbits. And this is our place, made special for some of our listeners to give us a chance to get to know them. Mm.

[Alan Sisto]

Now, rooms at the North Wing are a little hard to come by these days, so only our patrons at the Elronds honorarium and Kierdan's contribution tiers are eligible. So if you'd like to be one of the next patrons to join us here, be sure to check out patreon.com prancingconypod Please do.

[James Tauber]

We've got a waiting list for the north wing right now, but we'll get to them all soon and we'll make room for more if necessary.

[Alan Sisto]

Well, then, why don't we go ahead and welcome tonight's guest to the North Wing, Joe Haffman. Thank you.

[Joe Haffman]

Thank you, Alan.

[Alan Sisto]

Joe, it's pleasure to have you. I'm glad you could be with us today, and thanks for your patience. I know that we have been sort of renovating the north wing, so there have been some awfully long waits.

[Joe Haffman]

I got a good room in there. Not one of the ones destroyed.

[Alan Sisto]

That's true. The bolsters are all intact. That's they are.

[Joe Haffman]

Parliament will be happy.

[Alan Sisto]

I'm glad to hear that. As long as it doesn't have any mail for you.

[Joe Haffman]

Right?

[James Tauber]

Excellent. Okay, Joe, so tell us a bit about yourself. Where are you from? What do you do? What do your loved ones think of all this talking stuff that you're into? Do they think you're a total nerd? Do they like it? That sort of thing?

[Joe Haffman]

Okay, well, I'm a retired industrial engineer. Spent 35 years in that. And now I basically, I. I do a lot of birding, travel all around the country and a few other countries too, I guess. I've birded in about 29 different countries.

[Alan Sisto]

Wow.

[Joe Haffman]

And then my wife and I do a lot of traveling too. Non birding. But I'm always carrying my binoculars, so you can always recognize me. Family is very supportive of it. My son Jason, he went with me to all of the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit movies. My wife puts up with it. She gets a little bit confused with the names, especially first aid elf names.

[Alan Sisto]

It all start with F. All the Fs? Yes.

[Joe Haffman]

Or the seeds that are not real nice.

[Alan Sisto]

That's true. Keligor and Kudorfin, Those guys?

[James Tauber]

Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

Yes. My goodness. Well, that's amazing. By the way, have you. Did you spot any Krebine from Dunlin in particular when you were in your birding adventures? No.

[Joe Haffman]

No, I haven't.

[Alan Sisto]

All right, we'll keep your eye out. The question that we ask everybody, Joe, who comes to the Prancing Pony, when and how did you first discover Tolkien's works? And what was your experience like? What is it that keeps you coming back?

[Joe Haffman]

Well, it started in the early 1970s. I had a college professor who. He had mentioned how he read the books every year, and I had read them once and read them again, and I had A friend who had read them at the time. We were working at a book distributor loading trucks of paperback books. And we would quiz each other. These were very basic quizzes just on the Lord of the Rings because there were things in there that I had no clue on because the Silmarillion hadn't been published.

[Alan Sisto]

Right. Like you said, early 70s. So that gives us the setting.

[James Tauber]

Yeah. Yes.

[Alan Sisto]

So what is it that keeps you coming back then to Tolkien?

[Joe Haffman]

The depth of it. Every time you read it or listen to it, you learn something else. And there's. There's so much in there. I mean, the different languages. It's hard to believe how deep the history goes and how long for tens of thousands of years. And you think of it compared to our history. Our history is short than what we know compared to what Tolkien created.

[Alan Sisto]

That is true.

[James Tauber]

That is true.

[Alan Sisto]

I guess. Suppose if we had the Surly Longeval, let's say Egyptians. Right. Who could tell us all about what happened thousands of years ago. But yeah, it certainly is an incredibly deep world. No doubt about that.

[James Tauber]

So what's your favorite book in the legendarium? And if you have one, your favorite non legendarium work by Tolkien.

[Joe Haffman]

Okay, I'm going to go with book two of the Lord of the Rings. All the textual ruins that are in there with the Council of Elrod, the elf friends that were mentioned. And plus we got to catch up with a very important Dwarf there.

[Alan Sisto]

That is true. That's a good one. I don't know that people have chosen Book Two. I think so many people do choose Book three because there's so much adventure and story and everybody loves following Mary and Pippin's adventures and the Three Hunters and Rohan. But wow, Book two is a good one. You know, they got the Council of Elrond, you get, you know, Lothlorien. Right. You get that beautiful Galadriel's Lament in Quenya. But yeah, you get the Balrog and Gandalf. I mean, there's just so much there. Yeah. What about.

[James Tauber]

Do you have a non legendarian work of Tolkien's that you like?

[Joe Haffman]

Yes, I do. I would have to say it's Father Christmas letters and I got to read them to my great niece and great nephew. Oh, and that was a lot of fun when they were like five and seven.

[Alan Sisto]

That's perfect. Yeah. Oh, that's a great one. That actually may answer the next question. So I might have to ask you a different one instead. Your favorite memory of a Tolkien related activity, whether it's a moot or an event or reading the books out loud.

[Joe Haffman]

To somebody that certainly was up there. But one of my favorite activities was when we went to Marquette at the Prince and Pony podcast Moot and the Art of the Manuscript. And four times I went through there and looking at it. That was really amazing.

[Alan Sisto]

That was. We were so fortunate to be able to hold that event there at that exact time when they had the manuscript event going.

[James Tauber]

Wow. Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, that's mine too. Yeah.

[Joe Haffman]

I got to drink a spotted cow with the Lord the Mark there. Which is probably as good as a proper 1420, I would believe.

[Alan Sisto]

I say so, having had a few visits in the pub with the Lord of the Mark myself. I concur wholeheartedly.

[James Tauber]

Okay, let's go for a lightning round of quick questions and answers, starting with, who's your favorite character in the Lord of the Rings?

[Joe Haffman]

I'm going to go with Frodo. The finest hobbit in the Shire.

[Alan Sisto]

Absolutely.

[James Tauber]

Yeah.

[Joe Haffman]

If I had to pick a First Age one, I would have to go with Ecthelion, because here's a guy who took out Gothmog who had killed two High Kings of the Noldor. So I believe he deserves the elf equivalent of a medal of Honor, basically.

[Alan Sisto]

No doubt about it.

[James Tauber]

Yep.

[Alan Sisto]

Well, Joe, what's the one place in Middle Earth that you wish you could visit? Anywhere, anytime?

[Joe Haffman]

The Shire.

[Alan Sisto]

The Shire.

[James Tauber]

Yeah.

[Joe Haffman]

I think.

[Alan Sisto]

Choice. Yeah.

[Joe Haffman]

Either before or after the sacking of the Shire. Maybe even after with to see all Sam's work there.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah. I gotta say, seeing the shire in 1420 would be pretty amazing.

[James Tauber]

Yes. Yes, definitely. Okay, the important question. Balrog wings. Are they actual or metaphorical?

[Joe Haffman]

Metaphorical. Well, I mean, when Gandalf said, fly, you fools, fly, he didn't mean formula, actually fly.

[Alan Sisto]

Excellent answer. All right, who's your favorite dwarf?

[Joe Haffman]

Favorite dwarf? We have so much on Gimli, I'm gonna have to say. Gimli. We know so much about him. Gimli. From the books. The movies are okay. But he was more comical in the movies.

[James Tauber]

Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah. That's no slight on John Reese Davies, who did a great job. No, he really did a bit of comic relief.

[James Tauber]

Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah.

[James Tauber]

Do you consider yourself a Mary or a Pippin?

[Joe Haffman]

Definitely a Mary.

[James Tauber]

That's great.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah. All right. One does not simply walk into Mordor, as Boromir makes quite clear. But if you could, who would you rather have at your side, Turin, Turambar or Feanor?

[Joe Haffman]

Oh, God, I'm doomed with either one. I'm gonna go with Feanor.

[James Tauber]

Not a bad call.

[Alan Sisto]

Not a bad call. I think Sauron would be afraid of either one of them. But yeah, those are, those are some great answers. Joe, thank you so much for joining us today.

[Joe Haffman]

Thank you for having me.

[Alan Sisto]

It's been our privilege. Well, we've enjoyed having you here in the North Wing, but it is time for us to head over back to the common room and join the rest of the listeners.

[James Tauber]

Thanks again and we'll see you back at our next questions after nightfall, if not sooner.

[Alan Sisto]

And now we return to you to the podcast in progress. Always a pleasure to chat with our listeners, folks. Now, before we get started, I do have a few corrections to make, but to episode 392, which was released back in early December, while I don't recall the moment in the episode precisely, we apparently referred to the phony war, but we somehow connected it to World War I instead of World War II. Of course, that is the period of time between September of 1939 and May of 1940 after the British, along with their allies the French, had declared war on Nazi Germany, but hadn't really gotten off the sofa to do anything about it yet. In addition, I also completely forgot or botched my Archduke Ferdinand history. I had mentioned the assassination taking place in Serbia, but of course Sarajevo was both then and now in Bosnia, it was a Serb terrorist that killed him. So corrections done. James, let's go and get started.

[James Tauber]

Indeed. But we won't start with the usual reading. We'll get to that, I promise. But we're going to start by giving you some background on this story. We'll assume most of you have not read this. Unlike the Lord of the Rings and even most of Unfinished Tales, this is new territory for many of you. Indeed.

[Alan Sisto]

And it really is the deepest cut we've tried to tackle on the show so far. Now, in 1996, Christopher Tolkien finally published the 12th and last volume of the history of Middle Earth, the Peoples of Middle Earth. And we've looked at that a lot on the show, especially last season, because it included information on the appendices, like drafts of the Tale of Years and that entire making of Appendix A. Yeah.

[James Tauber]

And the peoples of Middle Earth is primarily concerned with that appendix material, but there's some additional stuff. Right. There's four parts in total. Four parts in total. And in the last chapter of the last part of this last volume of the history of Middle Earth. So it's the very last thing in the whole of the 12 volume series.

[Alan Sisto]

Exactly.

[James Tauber]

You find the story of Tal Elmar. That's what we're going to be Covering over the next few episodes. But why cover this story now in the middle of a season ostensibly on Unfinished Tales?

[Alan Sisto]

Well, ostensibly I do whatever I want. But no, you might remember last season we were in the appendices to the Lord of the Rings. But several times we visited Unfinished Tales to flesh out things that we found in the appendices. For example, to shed light on part of appendix A1 that talks about the history of Numenor, Don and I took an episode to cover a description of the island of Numenor from Unfinished Tales.

[James Tauber]

Right. And when you and Sara talked about Durin's folk In Appendix A3, you spent two episodes covering the quest of Erebor.

[Alan Sisto]

Right.

[James Tauber]

Unfinished House. Not to mention the massive six episode sidebar on Kyrie. Yeah, pretty big sidebar. But yeah, Kirian and Ale from Unfinished Tales that you and Matt covered as a quote, unquote addendum to your two episodes, appendix A2 on the House of Alex. Thanks.

[Alan Sisto]

For these two episodes, we're going to spend six on this sidebar. Yeah, it was a little. But you know, it fit perfectly. Right. And that was. So the plan was to. To find things to flesh these stories out and bring more detail to them. And in fact, it turns out, ironically, you're the only co host from last season that I didn't go into Unfinished Tales with. So as a way to make up for that, we're going to step out of Unfinished Tales for now in order to flesh out the recent story of Eldarion and Arendus that Sara and I just spent 11 episodes on.

[James Tauber]

Yeah, and that's really the answer to the question of why this story. Not because you need an excuse to go outside the covers of Unfinished Tales this season with me, but it's deeply connected to the story that you have just spent more than a quarter of.

[Alan Sisto]

A season on that is true. What is the deep connection to Aldarion and Erendis? Well, the story of Tel Elmar is a narrative that Tolkien wrote, but from the perspective of the inhabitants of Middle Earth, it's very unique in that sense. And I think you'll find that to be the case as we get into it. Also, not only is it the only narrative set in the Second Age, aside from the Eldarion and horrendous story we just covered, it's the only narrative written from the perspective of these wild men.

[James Tauber]

And to be clear, we have plenty of things written about the Second Age. The Calabeth, the description of the island of Numenor, the line of Elros, the first part of The Rings of Power in the Third Age, and even what we'll cover after this, the history of Galadriel and Celeborn, which I'm excited for.

[Alan Sisto]

Oh, I am, too.

[James Tauber]

All of those are histories, right? They're not narratives. They tell us events of the time, they give us some small bits of story, but they're not character and plot driven stories. The same way that Eldarin and Orendus is and the way that Tal Elmar is.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, at least for the length of time that Tolkien bothered to write it. So that's why this story. I mean, at least it's why we are going to spend time in this story. As for why Tolkien wrote this story, we'll have plenty of things to say about that as we go. Obviously, that's a little beyond the scope of this intro, but for now, let's go ahead and talk about when Tolkien wrote this. We'll talk about the why later. In Christopher's introduction to the story, which again is located in Chapter 17 in Part 4 of the Peoples of Middle Earth, Volume 12 of the History of Middle Earth, Christopher provides a note that Tolkien wrote in 1968, doesn't he?

[James Tauber]

Yeah. Before telling us that this note was, quote, written 13 years after he had abandoned the story, making that 1955. Right now, the story primarily exists in two portions, a typescript of six pages and a manuscript. Although there's also a single rejected piece of paper that's associated with the typescript, or we'll come to that. The manuscript is dated January 1955. And while there's no evidence to suggest a given time frame between the typescript and the manuscript, Christopher says, I believe that the typescript belongs also to the 1950s.

[Alan Sisto]

And I will always defer to Christopher on these kinds of things because he does things like figures out, you know, what ink he was using on the typewriter or which typewriter he was using. I mean, it's incredible how much he's able to decipher from these pages. So it would appear that Tolkien wrote the entirety of this story, that is the entirety of what he actually wrote, because it's not finished. Wrote it sometime in that 1950-1955 timeframe. And that's something that Christopher says is remarkable, as the professor would therefore, quote, have been working on it during the time of extreme pressure between the publication of the Two Towers and that of the Return of the King. And as a reminder, folks, the Two Towers was published in November 1954 and the Return of the King in October 1955, making January of 1955, a pretty crazy time to start writing a whole new story, right?

[James Tauber]

He's smack in the middle of finishing Return of the King.

[Alan Sisto]

Seriously, man. He's probably checking proofs and figuring out the appendices and all of this stuff.

[James Tauber]

I think this is a form of procrastination. I could review the galley proofs, or I could start a whole new story.

[Alan Sisto]

That's right. I think I'd rather start a whole new story. Yeah.

[James Tauber]

And even though he abandoned work on it in 1955, it didn't seem to leave his mind entirely, given that he wrote the note that Christopher shares with us some 13 years later.

[Alan Sisto]

Exactly.

[James Tauber]

So let's go ahead and read that note and talk about what Tolkien was doing here. He writes that this story is the, quote, beginnings of a tale that sees the Numenoreans from the point of view of the Wild Men. And this is Tolkien continuing it was begun without much consideration of geography or the situation as envisaged in the Lord of the Rings.

[Alan Sisto]

You don't say, Professor. Yeah, it's pretty clear, as we'll see that he didn't begin with that in mind. We'll look at an abandoned start to the story that actually seems to have nothing at all to do with the Lord of the Rings. But if that's the case, once you do decide you want to fit into the legendarium, what are you going to do with it to make that happen, Professor? So he continues in this note from 1968, either it must remain as a separate tale, only vaguely linked with the developed Lord of the Rings history. That makes me think Adventures of Tom Bombadil, by the way. Sort of vaguely linked, like there's a connection, but it's pretty tenuous. And it's not. I mean, calling it part of the legendary is kind of a stretch, right?

[James Tauber]

Well, I mean, it's almost. It makes me think like the Hobbit.

[Alan Sisto]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[James Tauber]

Maybe was perhaps conceived of in relation to the Silmarillion before the Lord of.

[Alan Sisto]

The Rings early on, before he decided to retcon the connection between the two.

[James Tauber]

Yeah, I mean, it makes references. It. It talks about Gondolin and the Goblin wars and the sundering of the Elves and that sort of stuff, but in a sense, it's still separate from.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, you can tell. I mean, it's. I mean, it's like, okay, sure, I mean, the Elven King is obviously thingol, but he isn't. You know, the. The Arkenstone is a silmaril, but it isn't.

[James Tauber]

Right.

[Alan Sisto]

It's but so either it's going to be that way, he says, right. It's only going to be this separate tale, still kind of vaguely connected, or coming back to the professor's words, and I think so it must recount the coming of the Numenoreans elf friends before the downfall, and represent their choice of permanent havens. So the geography, Tolkien writes, must be made to fit that of the mouths of Anduin and the Langstrand.

[James Tauber]

That's, I think, really, really important. We've got to remember that phrase, permanent havens, because we'll see how that fits into establishing, you know, when this story is taking place.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah.

[James Tauber]

But also note that Tolkien sees two possible solutions. Either leave it vaguely linked, or, and this seems to be his preference, recount the arrival of the Numenoreans sometime before the fall in second age 3319.

[Alan Sisto]

That's a pretty big window of time, as we'll get to. But clearly Tolkien ran out of time to do this preferred thing to connect it to the coming of the Numenoreans. By the way, going Back to that 68 letter, he says, specifically the coming of the Numenoreans elf friends. So he's not talking about the King's Men, he's talking about the faithful, if that split has yet happened, depending on when this takes place. And I think it has, as we'll probably get to. But, you know, Christopher points out that there is no sign that Tolkien returned to it in his last years, which of course, explains why it still feels only vaguely linked, if that. So one of the things James and I are going to do as we go through this is speculate from time to time how Tolkien would have reconciled this. So let's get ready for a lot of what ifs, huh?

[James Tauber]

Yeah, there's no avoiding the what ifs readings.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, you can't when you're getting this.

[James Tauber]

Deep, incomplete, it is. Exactly. And finally, we should mention the when and where in Middle Earth, but only to say we can't really answer either definitively, and we'll discuss them as clues in the text come up. Although based on Tolkien's 1968 note that we just read, it's clear that he meant for this to take place in what you might think of as Southern Gondor, the geography of, quote, the mouths of Anduin and the Lung Strand. Although, again, there's still going to be some other.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, because the Ison shows up later, which is not in Southern Gondor, so.

[James Tauber]

We'Ll talk a bit about that. But you can basically think of the Lang Strand as the southern coast, which is going to be problematic when it starts talking elsewhere about the West Coast. And so we'll get to all that.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, yeah, it is a little confusing.

[James Tauber]

It's going to be complicated.

[Alan Sisto]

It is. But it's a lot of fun to kind of work our way through. Now, the other thing is that if this is after the founding of Permanent Havens, as it sure seems to be based on Tolkien's words in that letter, that this represents their choice of Permanent Havens, that would mean the story has to take place after Second Age 1200. That's when the Tale of Years tells us that during the reign of Taron Calumet. And yes, that's another connection to Eldarin and Arendus. That is when the Numenoreans, quote, begin to make Permanent Havens.

[James Tauber]

That exact phrase.

[Alan Sisto]

Exactly. That's why it's so important. So with the downfall taking place in 3319, we have a period of over 1800 years that this story could take place in. But as we go through this, I think you'll see why we think it's later in that window rather than earlier. When you listen to Nobody Listens to Paula Poundstone, the comedy podcast, you learn stuff.

[James Tauber]

I've been learning to throw a boomerang because this is the kind of thing that. That really gets the listeners engaged.

[Alan Sisto]

You know, interviews with people who will make you smarter. Does the amount that you learn protect.

[James Tauber]

You from cognitive decline?

[Alan Sisto]

Paula, don't catch that. Can't people just listen to the show? Can't they just enjoy a delightful treehouse.

[James Tauber]

Full of information and.

[Alan Sisto]

I think I'm bleeding.

[Joe Haffman]

Join us and be a nobody.

[Alan Sisto]

Now. Soon we'll start the story of Tal Elmar properly. But before we do, I want to take a minute to thank the amazing community that has grown up around this show. After all, there is a lot more talk going on at the Prancing Pony Podcast than just us.

[James Tauber]

Indeed, the PPP really does have a warm and welcoming listener community. If you've got questions or just want to talk about how much you love Middle Earth, be sure to check out our common room on Facebook and across all social media. On Facebook, just look for the Prancing Pony podcast. Yeah, there's a page. But you're going to want to join the group for that great fan community.

[Alan Sisto]

Exactly. And on every social media platform other than Facebook, we're just Prancingponypod. And of course, you can find our subreddit at R. Prancingponypod. And please Consider checking out my Daily Show, Today's Tolkien times on YouTube and all your favorite podcast apps. That's where you can get your daily Middle Earth fix with everything from Middle Earth map Mondays to first stage Fridays. Be sure to watch or listen at YouTube.com prancingponypod James let's dive in to the story of Tal Omar. Would you take us away?

[James Tauber]

Absolutely. In the days of the Dark Kings, when a man could still walk dryshod from the rising of the sun to the sea of its setting, there lived in the fenced town of his people in the green hills of Agar, an old man by name Hazard Longbeard. Two prides he had in the number of his sons, 17 in all, and in the length of his beard, five feet without stretching. But his joy in his beard was the greater, for it remained with him, and it was soft and ruly to his hand, whereas his sons for the most part were gone from him, and those that remained or came ever nigh were neither gentle nor rully. They were indeed, much as Hazard himself had been in the days of his youth. Broad, swarthy, short, tough, harsh tongued, heavy handed and quick to violence save one only, and he was the youngest. Tal Elmar Hazad his father named him. He was yet but 18 years of age, and lived with his father and the two of his brothers next elder. He was tall and white skinned, and there was a light in his grey eyes that would flash to fire if he were wroth. And though that happened seldom and never without great cause, it was a thing to remember and beware of those who had seen that fire, called him Flint Eye, and respected him, whether they loved him or no. Fatal El Mar might seem among that swart, sturdy folk, slender built and lacking in strength of leg and neck that they praised. But a man that strove with him soon found him strong beyond guess, and sudden and swift, hard to grapple and harder to elude.

[Alan Sisto]

Already so much to go into here. I mean, just this first sentence alone we're probably going to spend far too much time on, because we begin with this sort of obtuse reference to the days of the Dark Kings. We're going to find out later that we might or might not, but we'll get to that too. Be in the time of the rise of Sauron in the second Age. So what Dark Kings, plural, are we talking about?

[James Tauber]

Yeah, I mean, at this stage it's difficult to tell. Obviously. One of the things that comes to mind is either the Nazgul themselves or the men that became the Nazgul. Right, right.

[Alan Sisto]

Because they do become kings and things like that. And. Yeah, that could be.

[James Tauber]

But, yeah, we really don't necessarily know at this stage.

[Alan Sisto]

Just a reminder, I guess, that in some ways, you know, these tribes of wild men would all have their own kings in some ways. So you're dealing with dozens of kings.

[James Tauber]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

So some of them are dark.

[James Tauber]

I think it's helpful to think of this sort of more in sort of early Old Testament times when we're really talking at sort of a tribal level. Not kings with castles.

[Alan Sisto]

Not Solomon or David. But like. Yeah, yeah, this does have sort of almost a judge's feel to it. This whole story does. Yeah.

[James Tauber]

Yes, very much so. That's not all, though. In the footnote to this, we learn that the Dark Kings was actually added later on in Tolkien's writing. The first two versions had in the days of the great Kings instead.

[Alan Sisto]

Huh. What an interesting change. I mean, it's a tone change for sure. It makes you feel like, okay, these people are living in some difficult times.

[James Tauber]

Right.

[Alan Sisto]

Whereas the great kings. But I don't know. I mean, it's. You wonder if early on he was imagining a connection to specific kings. But I don't think so, only because, as we'll see, we get a really weird reference in the early drafts.

[James Tauber]

Yeah. I don't think that it's not a.

[Alan Sisto]

Middle Earth reference at all. At all.

[James Tauber]

Well, we'll come to that. But it's interesting because the fact that he's using this term, the Days of means, it's a contrast with when this is being told or written.

[Alan Sisto]

Right.

[James Tauber]

So the contrast used to be great to whatever they are now. So maybe there are no Kings or they're not very good. That shifts to Dark Kings, as if to say there was a period in history where the Kings weren't as. As good.

[Alan Sisto]

Now we're not in the period of the Dark Kings. This was back in the days of the Dark Kings. Yeah, you're right. Because that's what that is. You're right. It's a tonal contrast. It's saying to the. To the people who are listening to the story at a contemporary time, to the storyteller, are hearing a story of the past, and they're being told essentially when in the past this is taking place.

[James Tauber]

But I wonder also whether that shift represents a change in Tolkien's mind about perspective or actual content.

[Alan Sisto]

Right, right.

[James Tauber]

Like, did he change who the Kings were in his mind, or did he just change the perspective of how the Kings were viewed That's a good question.

[Alan Sisto]

And it's one I don't think we're going to answer.

[James Tauber]

I don't think we're going to be able to answer.

[Alan Sisto]

Not on this one. Not on this one. And then we get a reference to this ability to walk from the far east to the far west, Right from the rising of the sun to the setting of the sun without getting your feet wet. Now, if we hadn't already been told that sounds like a flat earth, we're talking about the story being before the downfall of Numenor. Mm.

[James Tauber]

But again, there's some interesting stuff in the initial version. As Christopher points out in the rejected version of the opening section of the text, the story actually begins in the days of the great kings, when a man could still walk dry shod from Rome to York. Not that those cities were yet built or thought of there lived in the town of his people and so on.

[Alan Sisto]

I'm gonna need a judge's ruling on this. Walking from Rome to York. Yeah, I mean, first of all, when could you ever walk from Rome to York dry shod? I mean, because the channel wasn't right, I guess you could do it now. But according to Google Maps, by the way, it would take 450 hours to walk from Rome to York with the shuttle in place. So that's the kind of goofy rabbit holes I go down all the time. But dry shod. And folks, by the way, geographically, York is a, is an old, old town in England. It was originally a Roman town, later a Viking settlement northeast of leeds. It's about 1300 miles to the northwest of Rome. So it's a long way off. Is he talking about like Pangea? Are we talking about like ancient? Ancient.

[James Tauber]

It's interesting. It goes to the point of saying not that those cities were yet built or thought of. So he's not claiming that it's at a time when that existed.

[Alan Sisto]

Right.

[James Tauber]

But rather relating it. And it reminds me a lot of like really early Book of Lost tales, associating Warwick with Tolaaressia and so on, places in Tolaressia. That's the sort of feel it has to me. Unless as you say, it's just completely unrelated at all.

[Alan Sisto]

It's wild because I mean, Rome was established around what, 750 BC something like that? A little before that, I think I just looked it up and York was founded in 71 AD. So I mean, we're talking about very, very long time Rome. If Rome did not exist yet and.

[James Tauber]

Was not even or not even thought.

[Alan Sisto]

Of, we're Talking about, you know, 750, 800 BC.

[James Tauber]

Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

So long time. Clearly he wasn't originally thinking Middle Earth. This was definitely procrastination. Like you said, I'm just going to write a story and it's going to take place a long, long time ago.

[James Tauber]

Which of course raises the question as well whether the Great to Dark change is somehow connected with this shift to now. It's going to be in Middle Earth.

[Alan Sisto]

Except that the second version, after he changed the Rome to York bit, still had great kings. It was only the typescript that ended up including Dark Kings.

[James Tauber]

The manuscript is after the typescript. Yeah, yeah. It's hard to say what he was thinking, much less when he was thinking it.

[Alan Sisto]

I mean, it's often hard to do that, but in this case, it's virtually impossible. So I'm going to stop trying and give myself that big of a headache.

[James Tauber]

But anyway, all of that aside, we now get to the location of the story. It's a fenced town in the green hills of Agar. Where are these green hills of Agar?

[Alan Sisto]

Kind of what I'm thinking, like, okay, great. Not only do we not know when, we don't know where now, while we will eventually get there in the story, I want us to jump ahead real briefly to near the very, very end. And a note that Tolkien wrote. And it's in a moment where he's kind of writing to himself, really. He's sort of working out things like when the story is taking place and where it's headed. He writes, the place is on estuary of Icen, question mark or Morthond, period.

[James Tauber]

Pretty big difference.

[Alan Sisto]

Big difference.

[James Tauber]

Yeah. The Isen is of course, the river that begins in the south of the Misty Mountains, going through Isengard, then heading west after the fords of Isen. And it comes out on the coast about 150 miles south of Londyre, or Vigna Londe, as it was called when originally founded by Eldarin. But that's. That's on the west. That's on the portion of Middle Earth where the coastline is running north to south.

[Alan Sisto]

Correct. The more Thund. Yeah, it's the other way around. Right. I mean, it's a river whose source is in the southern part of the White Mountains. And yeah, of course, is an east west range. So it flows from the valley. Actually flows from the valley where the stone of Etrek is located, though, like Roman York, the stone is not yet there and has not been thought of along with the accompanying oath breakers. They're still far, far in the Future. But that's the geography of where the more is. It flows down, it joins the ring low at Etherland, which is the Elf Haven just north of Dole Amroth. And that's where the coast is running east, west, and so you're looking at a southern shore. It's a little confusing because the two locations, they're about 450 miles apart as the crow flies or as the crabine fly. So it certainly makes a difference to the story because as we'll get into. And I don't want to get too far into it yet, because we'll get some clues later as well. It also seems to make a difference as to who the Fell Folk might be.

[James Tauber]

Right. Because it's. And I want to emphasize this, if people want to look on a map, if you look at Middle Earth, there's that. That sort of cape that juts out the. Under us. Yeah, that juts out. And, you know, so there's a part that's, as I said, running, running north to south, where the coast is facing west.

[Alan Sisto]

Right.

[James Tauber]

And then there's the part where the coast is facing south. So the geography is completely different in terms of what you would think of as north, south, west, and most importantly, east, as we'll get to. Because what east means is vastly different depending on what part of the landscape we're talking about.

[Alan Sisto]

There really is a significant difference there. I'm wondering, though, the way he wrote this, the places on Estuary of Isen or Morthond, period, almost makes me think he was thinking initially Isen or Morthand.

[James Tauber]

And then he settles on more than. Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

Sort of like he did earlier, like.

[James Tauber]

Yes.

[Alan Sisto]

It could either be vague and vaguely connected or. And I think this is what we need to do.

[James Tauber]

Exactly. Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

Connected this way.

[James Tauber]

Yeah. Yeah, I think you're. I think you're right there. Oh, it certainly seems plausible to me that he was.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah.

[James Tauber]

Considering some things. And it's like. No, no, it's. It's.

[Alan Sisto]

It's more fun literally thinking out loud all on paper, probably not talking to himself like I do.

[James Tauber]

Well, he might be.

[Alan Sisto]

Who knows? Who knows?

[James Tauber]

Yeah. But after all that, we meet the first of the characters in this story, a man named Hazard Longbeard in the first draft, an old man by name Tal Arghan Longbeard, presumably related to possibly the place. Yeah. Tal must mean son of or something.

[Alan Sisto]

Exactly. A patronymic of some kind. I promise you, folks, we will not always take this long to dissect one sentence. We're not trying to. We're not changing the format of the show. But we just needed to establish a bit about when and where this story might be taking place. This first sentence gave us not only the best chance to do that, but also the best clues to start that process. But back to the text. Hazad, of course, is proud of two things we're told, his sons and his beard. Now, the beard is arguably irrelevant for anything other than a really cool illustration about what his sons are like, but it is proper ZZ Top territory. 5ft long without even stretching it out. This guy needs to be, like, sponsored by Gillette and get millions of dollars to shave his beard on tv.

[James Tauber]

Yeah, yeah. ZZ Top, who famously the. The one guy that did not have a beard. Yeah, his surname was Beard.

[Alan Sisto]

That's right. I'd forgotten. Oh, my goodness. Things I completely forgot from the 80s for 500. Alex. Yeah.

[James Tauber]

Anyway, we learn later in this paragraph, he's broad, short, tough, etc, and has the five foot long beard. Any connection possibly between his name, Hazard, and the name of the dwarves, Khazad?

[Alan Sisto]

I sort of feel like that. I mean, he's described like a human dwarf.

[James Tauber]

Yeah, it's interesting.

[Alan Sisto]

It is. I mean, it's coincidental, I'm sure.

[James Tauber]

Yeah. Or it speaks to some of the phonoesthetics of Tolkien sort of having associations in his mind with certain sounds that when he heard that Hazad or Khazad, he's thinking of a.

[Alan Sisto]

Of a broad shoulder, stout, broad, strong. I love the way they get to the description later when we get to tell Elmar that, you know, he's unlike the people of this area. He's clearly not built for rugby. He's built for something else. I mean, that's. That's literally something. Strength of neck and leg. And I'm like, okay, so he's not a New Zealand all black, you know. Yeah, but.

[James Tauber]

But, you know, you said the. The beard isn't particularly relevant, but it is used to an interesting effect here as. As Tolkien contrasts it to Hazard's sons.

[Alan Sisto]

I do love that. That sort of analogy. It's great. But first off, I gotta stop. 17 sons and doesn't even count as daughters, so.

[Joe Haffman]

Right.

[Alan Sisto]

Heaven knows how many children he actually had. The text says 17 in all, which initially made me think, like multiple wives. Again, I'm getting some of that very, very old, Old Testament feel from this. But the text later says he took a wife late. So that's, you know, probably not the case. But. But that's interesting because if he took a wife late, his youngest son is as we'll find out, 18. And he has 17 sons, not counting his daughters. How old is Hazad? And how worn out is his wife? His late wife. No wonder she's dead. Yeah. I mean, good heavens. Even if the odds favored him, and he had 17 sons and only, like, four or five daughters, still an insane number of children.

[James Tauber]

Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

For somebody who took a wife late. And the youngest is 18, so. Yeah, he's got to be pushing 150.

[James Tauber]

Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

I mean, he's got to be up there. I don't know. Men didn't live that long then, so could. Could you have that many if. With one wife? If you got married late, which, let's say in this culture is ballpark. 35 would. Yeah, 30. 35 would be late. Sure. But even if he had a kid a year.

[James Tauber]

Yep.

[Alan Sisto]

You're talking about kids until your mid-50s. Well, I guess it'd be erratic. Yeah, I guess he could be late 70s. Yeah, he could be late 70s.

[James Tauber]

Charlie Chaplin was 73.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah. But he hadn't.

[James Tauber]

He couldn't pick him up. Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

He also didn't have 17, but.

[James Tauber]

Yeah, he didn't have 17. That.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, I think, you know, of. Oh, man.

[James Tauber]

Anyway, that contrast between the beard and the sons is. Is that his sons are mostly gone. Not soft, and definitely not ruly. The beard, though, is always with him. Soft to the touch and Ruly.

[Alan Sisto]

That's right. That ruly is one of those words in English that we mostly or almost exclusively know by its opposite. We know the word unruly all the time. We almost never hear the word ruly. It's pretty much, you know, an obsolete word.

[James Tauber]

His beard was kempt.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, exactly. It's kempt, which is another one that is mostly by its opposite. And, of course, ruly just means orderly, well behaved, easy to control. So not us.

[James Tauber]

Finally, we learn about Hazard himself, or at least what he was like as a young man many decades before. Short and broad. Probably broader now.

[Alan Sisto]

Well, yeah. Aren't we all swarthy?

[James Tauber]

So dark skin, dark complexion, tough and given to anger and violence.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah. And just as the beard is compared to his sons in a sense of opposites, we are finally introduced to the star of today's show, Tal Elmar, who is the opposite of Hazad and his other sons at the time of the story. He's recently turned 18. He still lives with Hazad, but it isn't just the two of them. His next two older brothers also live with them. It's kind of interesting because they don't feature in the story at all. At all.

[Joe Haffman]

Yeah.

[James Tauber]

I wonder if Tolkien was going to introduce them.

[Alan Sisto]

There are a couple other moments that feel like very much non sequiturs. We'll get to one of them in this episode too.

[James Tauber]

Yeah, they're setting something up maybe.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, for later on. But then we never get to the later on.

[James Tauber]

We also get a vivid physical description of the young man and it's very much an opposite of hazard. He's tall, he's white skinned instead of short and swarthy. He's got gray eyes with a flash that would appear when he was angry.

[Alan Sisto]

I like that. This anger is said to be rare and also never without good reason. But it was enough that it earns him a nickname in the community. Flint Eye. And of course, that's not just the spark of flint, though it references that too. It's also the eye color because remember, his eyes are gray. Flint is a gray rock. And as we will see later, the Fel folk are said to have this same appearance. Fair, tall and flint eyed they were. And we will get to why that's so important and what that tells us, if anything, when we get there.

[James Tauber]

Yep. Now, even if he wasn't a popular kid, he was well respected. Even if he wasn't built like the people of Agar, he was strong beyond guess, quick and agile and tough to bring down.

[Alan Sisto]

We're going to get to that because he, in a way, he reminds me of. We'll get to that. I want to get to that later because when we talk about who the Fel folk are and we get into, you know, the different potential races and kinships or kins of the Edine, we'll get to that. So. Yeah, yeah, but that's for later.

[James Tauber]

Yeah, but for now, would you like to continue the reading?

[Alan Sisto]

Indeed I will. A fair voice he had, which made even the rough tongue of that people more sweet to hear. But he spoke not over much, and he would stand often aloof when others were chattering, suffering with the look on his face that men bred rightly as pride. Yet it was not the pride of a master, but rather the pride of one of alien race whom fate has cast away among an ignoble people and there bound him in servitude. For indeed, Tal Elmar labored hard and at menial tasks, being but the youngest son of an old man who had little wealth left save his beard and a repute for wisdom. But strange to say, in that town he served his father willingly and loved him more than all his brothers in one and more than was the want of any sons in that land. Indeed, it was most often on his father's behalf that the flint flash was seen in his eyes. For Tel Elmar had a strange belief. Whence it came was a wonderful that the old should be treated kindly and with courtesy, and should be suffered to live out their life days in such ease as they could. If ye must gainsay them, he said, let it be done with respect, for they have seen many years and many times maybe have they faced the evils which we come to untried.

[James Tauber]

Turns out, Tal Alma would make a pretty good podcaster. His voice was so good, it made the rough language of Hazard's people sound good.

[Alan Sisto]

He is smooth as silk. The problem, of course, is he doesn't talk much, so maybe podcasting isn't a great idea.

[James Tauber]

Not so good.

[Alan Sisto]

Not so good. Yeah, maybe not. Yeah.

[James Tauber]

He stands around, apparently, while everyone else talks and folks look at his face.

[Alan Sisto]

And see pride, and they actually are right to see that they're not misreading. But it's not the sort of like, I'm better than you pride. I mean, it kind of is. It's pride in his origin.

[James Tauber]

Yeah. He's of alien race, placed by fate among an ignoble people where he's held in servitude.

[Alan Sisto]

He's not held in servitude, but it's like. That's part of the analogy. Right. The fate has placed him in servitude among these ignoble people.

[James Tauber]

Yeah, exactly. And it's really interesting, this contrast of pride and there's sort of two kinds of pride that Tolkien's exploring here. The pride of a master.

[Alan Sisto]

Right.

[James Tauber]

Which is the pride of thinking that you're better than somebody and lording it over them. And. Yeah, this is not that. This is a pride of knowing who.

[Alan Sisto]

He is, that he actually is better than them. Well, they're an ignoble people.

[James Tauber]

Yeah, maybe. But. But the thing is, he. What's interesting about it is it's not pride that leads him to dominate in any way.

[Alan Sisto]

No.

[James Tauber]

It's a pride that makes him content.

[Alan Sisto]

Yes.

[James Tauber]

With where he's at. He doesn't need to.

[Alan Sisto]

Self assurance.

[James Tauber]

It's self assurance.

[Alan Sisto]

Exactly. Yeah. Yeah.

[James Tauber]

I really like that, that contrast between these two types of pride. This is the good pride.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, exactly. This is the good pride, you know, because it's. It is something that we see in Tolkien. There are times, most of the time, of course, pride being a negative, but there are times where pride is a really good thing. You think of. I always Think of Aragorn standing up in the bow of the boats as they go through the Argonath and you know, the Hobbit seeing in him this lordliness, this kingly nature and you know how proud he is. Well, he better be proud, for crying out loud. I mean, he's got something to be proud of. Yeah, but it's so different than the pride of say, Melkor, who's just going to rule over everything or the pride of Sauron in the same way. And. Yeah, that's a very good point. I mean, he's. He's not their superior in any way in terms of positionally. Right. He's the youngest son of an old poor man. So he's very, very low on the social totem pole. But he's so confident who he is and he is proud of the fact that he is different. And it is interesting that the story says among an ignoble people because we'll get to more of that from his grandmother later. Yeah, so like I said, you know, he's not a man of status at all, obviously, being the youngest son of a poor man who already doesn't have any status. But I love that he serves his father out of a genuine love. And it's something the text goes out of its way to tell us is strange to say. And it interesting because he even is said to love his father more than all the other 16 brothers do combined.

[James Tauber]

Yeah. And there's this really interesting bit that the fiery flash in his eye that we talked about earlier comes primarily on his dad's behalf. He gets angry when somebody's wronged his dad. Don't necessarily him.

[Alan Sisto]

I love that. Yeah, boy, that's another. Mm. We're going to get to more on this. That's another thing that reminds me of the Dwarves, but we'll get to that.

[James Tauber]

Okay, there's also this. He holds another strange belief. It's described as strange, this idea of treating the old with kindness and courtesy.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah. And it's interesting because it's not only told to us that it's a strange belief. The text, even parenthetically where it came from is a wonder. Nobody even has a clue as to where he got this unusual philosophy to treat the old with kindness. What's interesting here though is that this is another one of those things where it feels like Tolkien is setting up something for later because it never really bears any fruit. It doesn't come back in the story or I mean, it shows up, but it isn't central like you'd expect it to be for this much time being spent on it. I wonder what he's getting at.

[James Tauber]

Yeah. Because, I mean, he goes to great lengths to contrast this with what everyone else thinks. Presumably everyone else thinks that once you get older, who cares about you?

[Alan Sisto]

It's Logan's run, man.

[James Tauber]

Yeah. And just this idea that they should be allowed to live out their remaining days in ease.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah.

[James Tauber]

And, you know, that seems to explain perhaps, why he's willing to work so hard on his dad's behalf, including the menial tasks. Yeah. But it's interesting that this seems to be in such contrast to the culture that he's in.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah. Yeah. It's not just his brothers who are like, oh, these guys don't like their dad. It's the whole culture. I mean, it's so strange that he has this belief and nobody understands where he got it from. He even says, look, if you have to disagree with your elders, do it respectfully, remembering that they have experience that we don't.

[James Tauber]

Yeah. And in the part we skipped, we're reminded that feeding and sheltering them in their old age is just partial return for the care they showed you when you were kids.

[Alan Sisto]

Exactly. I mean, this is sort of common sense for most of us. This is a philosophy that is common for. For our culture. That we respect our elders, that we want to take care of our folks, that we want to, you know, let them live out their lives as best we can. This, along with that, that bit about how he gets mad on his dad's behalf really reminds me of how, okay, we talked earlier about Hazad being dwarf, like, in stature. This feels dwarven. If you remember, last year, Sara and I were in Of Dwarves and Men. As sort of a footnote to some of the things you're talking about in the Quest of Erebor, there we read about how devoted the parents and children of dwarves were to one another. It was described as often, rather fiercely, very much. I mean, you know, we think about. I mean, the whole battle of Azanul Bazaar was to, you know, go after the people who killed, you know, the. The father of so many of these dwarves. It's all about, you know, revenge for your father. It's all about protecting your children. And this feels very dwarven, but it also feels like a total non sequitur because it kind of goes nowhere.

[James Tauber]

Well, given what we have of the story, for sure.

[Alan Sisto]

Right.

[James Tauber]

But as you suggested before, this seems like it's setting something up, that this will actually turn out to be an important part of the story.

[Alan Sisto]

We'll have to speculate later maybe where that might have fit in, but anyway.

[James Tauber]

Well, we definitely will. We'll do that.

[Alan Sisto]

Good. I'm glad.

[James Tauber]

We also learned that the people see this as plain folly, but it's the rule in their house. Even his two older brothers who still live with him and Hazard don't break this rule.

[Alan Sisto]

That's right. Because they don't want to wrestle with Tal Omar. He's tough guy.

[James Tauber]

Yeah, it's fascinating. How would they have ordinarily treated them?

[Alan Sisto]

I mean, seriously, is this like. Well, fend for yourself, man. If you can't get out there and farm and grow your own food, I guess you're just going to starve to death. Too bad.

[James Tauber]

Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

Does feel like a complete lack of parental care at all. Like. Well, you did your job in feeding me and giving me a roof over my head.

[James Tauber]

Yep.

[Alan Sisto]

See ya. I mean, it's pretty unreal, but you wonder if Tolkien is getting at something here about him being, as we'll see, sort of a symbol of good amongst the symbol of savagery and incivility. So we'll come back to that, I'm sure.

[James Tauber]

Sorry, I just have to mention that I'm thinking of that meal scene in Talladega Nights. The way that they're treating their grand. Those kids are treating their grandfather.

[Alan Sisto]

And it took me a second, like a half a beat, I'm like, okay, I know where he's going. Oh man.

[James Tauber]

When Ricky Bobby says, you know, the only good thing you ever did was made a whole hot daughter. And that's the only thing I can think of as an example of this. The opposite of what that was so.

[Alan Sisto]

Shocking at the time. You're kind of like, what? This is so off the charts, you know? Yeah, like what?

[James Tauber]

You weren't expecting a Talladega Knights reference, were you?

[Alan Sisto]

No, I, that's not a reference I, I ever expected, honestly. Well played though, sir.

[James Tauber]

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[Alan Sisto]

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[Joe Haffman]

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[Alan Sisto]

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[Joe Haffman]

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[Alan Sisto]

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[James Tauber]

We told you about the amazing PPP community after our earlier break. If you're part of that community and want to enjoy something even more special, come join the Fellowship of the Podcast on Patreon. You get to be in the best discord community around, one that includes host hangouts and even live episode recordings.

[Alan Sisto]

And of course, your support there is what enables me to work full time doing all of the shows. The Prancing Pony podcast of course, but also Today's Tolkien Times, the Rings of Power Wrap up and my streaming show the PPP Plays. When you join you can get episode postscripts, add free episodes, free merch and.

[James Tauber]

More and you can join our Questions after Nightfall episodes or even appear as a guest in the north wing. Go to patreon.com prancingponypop to show your support and join the Fellowship of the Podcast.

[Alan Sisto]

And don't forget to rate and review on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. And please recommend us to your friends, which is something you can do now directly on Spotify. Just share the show with them. Well, James, we've got at least a couple more readings this episode. Can you take us away with the next one?

[James Tauber]

Absolutely. For Hazard also had been the youngest son of his mother, and she died in his boyhood, and she was not of their people. Such was the tale that he had overheard, not openly spoken indeed, for it was held no credit to the house. She came of the strange folk, hateful and proud, of which there was rumour in the Westlands coming out of the east, it was said, fair, tall, and flint eyed they were, with bright weapons made by demons in the fiery hills. Slowly they were thrusting towards the shores of the sea, driving before them the ancient dwellers in the lands not without resistance. There were wars on the east marches, and since the older folk were yet numerous, the Incomers would at times suffer great loss and be flung back. Indeed, little had been heard of them in the hills of Agar, far to the west, for more than a man's life since that great battle of which songs were yet sung in the valley of Ishmaelog it had been fought the wise in lore told, and there a great host of the Fel folk had been ambushed in a narrow place and slaughtered in heaps. And in that day, many captives were taken, for this had been no affray on the borders or fight with advance guards. A whole people of the Fel folk had been on the move with their wains and their cattle and their women. Now, Buldar, father of Hazad, had been in the army of the North King that went to the muster of Ishwar, and he brought back from the war as booty a wound and a sword and a woman. And she was fortunate, for the fate of the captives was short and cruel. But Buldar took her as his wife.

[Alan Sisto]

All right, well, we are introducing more and more of the characters of this story. Now we get to meet Buldar. We skipped a tiny bit at the beginning, by the way, where we learn, unsurprisingly, that Hazad loves Tel Elmar dearly. And it's partly, not surprisingly, because of the love that is shown by his son to him. That's why it's unsurprising. But the other reason is because Tal Elmar reminded him of somebody, his own mom.

[James Tauber]

Now, Hazard was also a youngest child and lost his mum early in his youth, and we're told that she was not of their people. Now we're starting to see why Tal Elmar is so different from his brothers and the rest of Hazard's people.

[Alan Sisto]

That's right. Not that Hazad knew this, by the way, from public records or openly known histories. It was an overheard tale because it was considered a shame to his house. And I get the feeling that this shame is not because she was taken as a spoil of war, which is still shameful, but instead it was because she was of a different people. That's interesting.

[James Tauber]

I'm almost wondering if that was also unusual, because it does say that she was fortunate.

[Alan Sisto]

Oh, yeah.

[James Tauber]

Yeah. I'm wondering if the. The fact that she was allowed to live.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah. Is actually unusual, let alone taken as a wife.

[James Tauber]

Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah. It's a combination of the two.

[James Tauber]

Even though that's a horrible thing, it's different from perhaps what was the norm in that. And that's why they didn't talk about it, because it was not the done thing to do. Normally, you would kill them.

[Alan Sisto]

Not. Right.

[James Tauber]

Not. Not to take them, not marry them.

[Alan Sisto]

Force the advanced version of Kiss, Kill Mary or something like that. Right. Or whatever that is.

[James Tauber]

Yeah, well, yeah, something like that. Finally, we're told about these strange folk who are both hateful and proud.

[Alan Sisto]

And these strange folk are coming from the east. They are described in a similar way to Tal Elmar, fair skinned, tall and flint eyed, but also carrying weapons crafted by demons in the fiery hills.

[James Tauber]

We'll say more on that in a moment.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, we will, definitely.

[James Tauber]

It's interesting. This is where we're starting to get the geography of the east and the West. Yeah, they're people in the east traveling to the west. And so who they are is going to largely depend on which west we're currently.

[Alan Sisto]

Yes, exactly. It really does.

[James Tauber]

Yeah. Yeah. But the result of the arrival of these people is that Hazard's people, the ancient dwellers in this part of the world, are being driven off as these strange folk push their way to the sea.

[Alan Sisto]

I think it's finally time for us to start talking about who they might be. We've got different ideas. This is a total freeform discussion. I know. There are a few points I wanted to kind of bring up or talk about. The first thing that comes to my mind is the visual description of these people. It actually combines various houses of the Edda. We get the height and fair skin that are described as being typical of the House of Hador. They of course are blonde hair and blue eyed though. So this isn't the House of Hador. But we get the gray eyes, which is very much a House of Beor trait. And we also get the description of Tal Omar being slender, sudden and swift. Remember earlier I said this reminds me of somebody. It reminds me of Hurin. He was lithe and swift after the manner of. Of his mother's kin, Hotter of the Haladin. So they sort of in some ways have elements of all three of the Houses of the Edain.

[James Tauber]

Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

The heightened skin color of Hodor, Goldenhead, the eye color and perhaps even sort of that anger of the House of Beor. But then that wiriness of the House of Haleth.

[James Tauber]

Yeah, I mean, I think we're going to see a bunch of evidence as we continue to read on that they're probably Edain of some kind. I think that's.

[Alan Sisto]

Oh, yeah.

[James Tauber]

I mean, we'll discuss some. Some other possibilities, but I think that's. There's a pretty strong case to be made there, as you say, even just on the grounds of what look like.

[Alan Sisto]

Exactly.

[James Tauber]

But I want to talk a little bit about this coming from the east as well, and not only what that might mean, but what. What we might incorrectly jump to.

[Alan Sisto]

Right, right. What it probably doesn't mean because of.

[James Tauber]

What we tend to think of when we. When the East. Right. It could easily lead to the conclusion, you know, that these are Easterlings.

[Joe Haffman]

Right.

[James Tauber]

Or The Wain Riders or Balcoff and so on. Right. We even. The word wayne is.

[Alan Sisto]

That's true. That's true. We get a wayne right here in this passage.

[James Tauber]

But the Easterlings are described as. Well, more like hazards. People. Short and broad, long and strong in the arm. Their skins were swart or sallow and their hair was dark, as were their eyes. Right. So that does not at all.

[Alan Sisto]

No. That doesn't fit the Fell Folk at.

[James Tauber]

All, these people at all.

[Alan Sisto]

Not that they've been caught. The Fel Folk yet. My bad. Spoilers.

[James Tauber]

The strange folk, at this point, we can call them. Yeah, yeah. If they're coming from the east and this is where it's so important, where the hills of Agar are.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah. Right.

[James Tauber]

If it's taking place in the mouth of the Isen, then what's actually east is like the gap of Rohan and Calanavan and so on.

[Alan Sisto]

Right.

[James Tauber]

That's what's east.

[Alan Sisto]

Exactly. That's a big difference from if it's happening down at the moron. Because if you look to the east of Morthon, what's east of Mordathond? Pelargir.

[James Tauber]

Right.

[Alan Sisto]

Which is giving you the strong feeling that these are Numenoreans of some kind. Whether they're king's men or faithful. I don't know.

[Joe Haffman]

Yeah.

[James Tauber]

I mean, if it's Pelagia, that's a faithful.

[Alan Sisto]

That would be faithful.

[James Tauber]

The king's men apparently settled further south in Umbar and Harad. They could have come up. But here's the thing I think rules all of that out. We're told that they were pushing their way to the sea. Sea?

[Alan Sisto]

But which part of the sea, if you look at the map, could they hit?

[James Tauber]

But what I mean is that suggests they weren't already. Like, if they were, they were coastal to start with.

[Alan Sisto]

I mean, that's a fair point. I mean, now, Pelargir is not coastal. Pelargir is pretty far inland, actually, quite a bit inland from the mouths of Anduin.

[James Tauber]

But if you were in Pelagia, pushing your way to the sea, you would.

[Alan Sisto]

Just go down to the mouths and you'd be there at the Go south. You wouldn't follow us, Right?

[James Tauber]

Yeah, exactly. You wouldn't go west across the Langstrand.

[Alan Sisto]

No, that's.

[James Tauber]

Yeah. It's difficult to say who that. Who. Who they are, where they're coming from. I mean, the other thing is, maybe we just don't have a really good sense of where. I mean, we're jumping ahead here. But if they're Edain that did not go to Numenor.

[Alan Sisto]

Right.

[James Tauber]

Where were the Edain that didn't go to Numenor? We. I don't know that we know some of them.

[Alan Sisto]

Well, we know that some of them were the folks who would make up the Northmen, who would become the Eotheod, who would become the Rohirrim.

[James Tauber]

Sure. Right.

[Alan Sisto]

So we know. And they were in southern Mirkwood, Rhovanion, which suggests the Kalanavo, which exactly suggests that connection. Some of them were much further north. Right. The men of Dale were said to have been kin.

[James Tauber]

But that goes against what we suggested earlier, that Tolkien had sort of settled on. On more Thond as being the.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, it really does. Because if you're. If it's more Thond, then who's coming from the East? And why would you come all the way that far when you could just at any point hang a left and you're at the sea that faces south.

[James Tauber]

Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

I don't know.

[James Tauber]

The other thing I'll just mention about Pelagia and Umbar and so on is that they weren't. I mean, Pelagia was settled in 2350. Yeah. So that does put it pretty much later.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, much later still.

[James Tauber]

A thousand years before the ultimate downfall, but a thousand years more than a thousand years after the permanent havens began. And the other thing I was just going to mention is the permanent havens, the way that they're described, it does talk about. On the western part.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah.

[James Tauber]

Which, if it was the Langstrand, you would probably call that the southern part, not the Western.

[Alan Sisto]

Probably.

[James Tauber]

I don't know. It's sort of. It's tricky thinking about all this geography.

[Alan Sisto]

That's a very good point. You would say. I don't know that you would say west if you were talking about the Longstrand that faces south. I don't know. I mean, because that's like Dol Amroth and Etherlond and all of that.

[James Tauber]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

It's very. We'll get to more of this, folks, I promise.

[James Tauber]

I do want to, just briefly.

[Alan Sisto]

Oh, yeah, please do.

[James Tauber]

There's this mention. This is what it says in Fall of Numenor, although this is quoting from the Akalabeth, and The context is 2350, when Pelagia is built.

[Alan Sisto]

Right.

[James Tauber]

It says it came to pass in that time that the Numenoreans first made great settlements upon the west shores of the ancient lands.

[Alan Sisto]

Great settlements as opposed to the permanent havens that we began in 1200.

[James Tauber]

But notice it says the west shores I don't think you would describe the Langstrond as the west shores.

[Alan Sisto]

No, that would be a. It's a southern shore because it faces south. It's a southern shore.

[James Tauber]

That's, of course, implying that what's being described there is what we're coming to in this story, which might not be. It might be a completely different. That's true, that might be arrival of Numenoreans. But anyway, these are all the ingredients that go into this speculation.

[Alan Sisto]

There's so many reasons why we don't understand exactly who this is or when this is. But let's get back to their weapons that certainly grabbed us by surprise. Weapons made by demons in the fiery hills. It seems kind of hyperbolic in a way. This is sort of like anything I don't understand is magic, you know, like, these aren't demonic weapons. Right. These are.

[James Tauber]

Right.

[Alan Sisto]

We're just talking about weapons that the people of this region, the people of the hills of Agar, see as far beyond their. Their technical skill.

[James Tauber]

Exactly. And I think that's the key. I think this is just a technology that they're not familiar with.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, yeah.

[James Tauber]

You can imagine certain legends cropping up around these strange swords. If they're not. If you're not familiar with iron, if you're a Bronze Age culture and you come across iron, what do you make of it? Yeah, well, you start to tell these stories of how they were forged by the gods or whatever, you know.

[Alan Sisto]

Right. You'd have to. You'd have to come up with something.

[James Tauber]

Or made by demons in the. In the fiery hills.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, demons in the fiery hills. I mean, you know, is. Is Erodrun erupting and we're casting weapons in Mordor now? I don't think so. Yeah, I don't think so.

[James Tauber]

Yeah. But wherever they're from and whoever really made their weapons. Yeah, as we said, they're pushing toward the sea. And where this takes place, that really.

[Alan Sisto]

That's how we know. If we knew exactly where this took place, it would help us. I don't think it would still fully answer the question. It might rule some out, but it wouldn't determinedly answer the question of who they are. They could be anybody from the Predecessors to the Northmen or Kingsman coming from up the coast from Umbar and in. I mean, they are clearly related to the Edain. And we know that because at the end of the story. And spoilers a little bit, because we don't expect everybody to have read this, Tal Elmar will eventually encounter some Numenorean men. And he will understand or recognize the language and eventually be able to communicate with them. And that's really the key where this comes down. Because he's remembering all this from his grandmother. Well, hereditary, because he didn't know his grandmother.

[James Tauber]

The implication is that he's of the same kind as the Amenoreans.

[Alan Sisto]

Exactly. So he's Edain, at the very least. And is he, you know, descended from the Numenoreans of Pilar Gear? That doesn't seem likely, like you said. But what is the connection?

[James Tauber]

Yeah, we'll get to that. But we do have to jump ahead like this occasionally because I think a lot of the early stuff only makes sense in light of things we find out later, so.

[Alan Sisto]

Exactly.

[James Tauber]

If we didn't do this, we'd have to go back and repeat the whole thing.

[Alan Sisto]

We pretty much would. So even though, in case it's not too late. Great. For those of you who are following along with the text, it's not a very long story. I want to say 16, 18 pages, something like that. Go ahead and read the whole thing first, rather than what we always recommend you do when we went through the Silmarillion or Lord of the Rings, where you're like, just read the chapter. No, read the whole thing, because it's all. It's all one piece. And we'll be talking about some of the things towards the end, in the middle or in the beginning, as we're doing here. This inevitable march to the sea, though, is not happening unopposed. There is war on what the text says is the east marches, which once again, where are the east marches? Yeah, Hazad's people still have the numerical advantage and that sometimes translates into victories against the invaders.

[James Tauber]

And it turns out it's been a long time, perhaps 100 years since a great battle that has made its way into their oral history. And this battle took place in yet another location, we don't know, Ishmael, somewhere to the east of the hills of Agar.

[Alan Sisto]

Now, this battle saw a huge group of these flint eyed people, now called for the first time, the Fell Folk. But this wasn't a purely military force. This wasn't, you know, an army or a company or even a battalion, which.

[James Tauber]

I think is also worth noting. This wasn't a military invasion. These people were migrating, which raises questions of why they were doing that. Was there some motivation for them to need to move out of wherever they.

[Alan Sisto]

Why do we need to pick up and go? Or are we just trying to establish our dominion over this whole area?

[James Tauber]

Yeah, yeah, that's not to say they didn't have some force for protection. But this was a group looking to settle somewhere, right? Wagons, cattle, women. This was a civilian group. Yeah, but Hazard's people ambushed and killed as many as they could. Or not. Hazard himself, he hadn't been born yet. Well, yeah, that's tr.

[Alan Sisto]

He's ancestors, the wild men here that we're talking about. And that's when we're introduced to another character in the story. Very important one, even if he's on stage for a short time, and that is Hazad's father, Buldar. He's said to be a soldier, perhaps an officer in the army of a regional king. That regional king is here called the North King. But again, what's north? Are we talking about the hills? We're talking about the white mounds? Are we talking about Enid Wife? You know?

[James Tauber]

Right.

[Alan Sisto]

But in the drafts, it was actually the fourth king. And the change from fourth King to North King happened at the same time that Tolkien went from the Great Kings to the Dark Kings. So if the Dark Kings were potentially future Nazgul, the fourth King becomes the North King. Who's the North King? We're not talking about, like, the King of Arnor or anything like that.

[James Tauber]

Yeah, it's interesting.

[Alan Sisto]

Petty king of some kind of.

[James Tauber]

And I doubt the fourth King is a reference to anything we would know. I'm guessing this is sort of a textual ruin.

[Alan Sisto]

That's what I'm getting a sense of.

[James Tauber]

The suggestion that there were other kings and so on.

[Alan Sisto]

Sort of like Ishmael is another textual ruin. It's nothing at all. It's not a Sindarin word. It's nothing that has a. Yeah, well.

[James Tauber]

All of these words that we're encountering.

[Alan Sisto]

Are all Hazad and Agar and Dildar and so even.

[James Tauber]

Tell us, Thelma. Yeah, but it's interesting why he would change the fourth king to the North King. And we've already talked about the Great King to the Kings to the Dark Kings.

[Alan Sisto]

This almost feels like an attempt to make it even more vague.

[James Tauber]

Right.

[Alan Sisto]

To take it out of a potential timestamp. Not that he would have joined the fourth king of, you know, whatever. Because certainly Gondor and Arnor didn't exist. So it wasn't that. We're not talking about the fourth King of Numenor.

[James Tauber]

Right.

[Alan Sisto]

Because at this point, Numenoreans were not, you know, back in Middle Earth. So I. It just takes away any specificity. Well, whatever the case, and whoever the North King was, Buldar comes Back from the war with a few souvenirs, as one does, you know, he's got a battle wound, he's got his sword. I mean, where else is he gonna put that? And also, whoa, hey, look what I brought back. A woman.

[James Tauber]

Yeah, yeah. And. And as we discussed, that seems unusual that. That she wasn't then immediately killed. Right. Most of the people were captured and that were captured were killed.

[Alan Sisto]

Again, I'm getting more of those Old Testament vibes of the whole, you know, wipe them all out. And the ones that, like, brought property back or brought people back, there were trouble for that.

[James Tauber]

Right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so, yeah, Bulldar forced her to marry him instead, which, you know, as we read, is something that they had to almost hide. Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

I mean, it's a bad thing to force anybody to marry you, but that's not why they had to hide it. They had to hide it because she was a spoil of war and a foreigner.

[James Tauber]

Right, exactly.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah. That's interesting. And, you know, in the. The part that we skipped, he did this. He forced her to marry her because of her beauty. Like, that's why he didn't kill her. Presumably. Her beauty was so great that Buldar didn't even want one of their own women. Like, it totally turned him off of the women of the. The hills of Agar.

[James Tauber]

Yep.

[Alan Sisto]

Which is interesting because we'll see that Hazard has a similar preference.

[James Tauber]

Unlike Hazard, Buldar had money and influence, so it didn't matter to him that people in his community.

[Alan Sisto]

That's true. Yeah. He scorned the. I forget exactly what the text says, but, you know, something about scorning the people and their opinions, you know, in the part of the text that we didn't actually read.

[James Tauber]

Read.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah. Interesting stuff.

[James Tauber]

Okay. You want to go ahead and read some more, Alan?

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah. This will actually be the last reading. It's a little longer, but I think you'll understand why we couldn't really break this one up. But when his wife Elmar had learned at length enough of the speech of her new kin, she said to Buldar, on a day I have much to thank thee for, Lord, but think not ever to get my love. So for thou hast torn me from my own people and from him that I loved and from the child that I bore him. For them ever shall I yearn and grieve and give love to none else. Never again shall I be glad while I am held captive among a strange folk that I deem base and unlovely. So be it, said Boldar. But it Is not to be thought that I should let thee go free? Free? For thou art precious in my sight. And consider well, vain is it to seek to escape from me. Long is the way to the remnant of thy folk, if any still live. And thou wouldst not go far from the hills of Agar ere thou met death, or a life far worse than shall be thine in my house, base and unlovely thou namest us. Truly, Mabel, be yet true. Is it also that thy folk are cruel and lawless? And the friends of demons, thieves are they, for our lands are ours from of old, which they would wrest from us with their bitter blades. White skins and bright eyes are no warrant for such deeds. Are they not? Said she? Then neither are thick legs and wide shoulders. Or by what means did ye gain these lands that ye boast of? Are there not, as I hear men say, wild folk in the caves of the mountains who once roamed here free ere ye swart folk came hither and hunted them like wolves? But I spoke not of rites, but of sorrow and love. If here I must dwell, then dwell I must, as one whose body is in this place at thy will. But my thought far elsewhere, and this vengeance I will have, that while my body is kept here in exile, the lot of all this folk shall worsen and thine most. But when my body goes to the alien earth and my thought is free of it, then in thy kin one shall arise who is mine alone. And with his arising shall come the end of thy people and the downfall of your kin, King. Thereafter, Elmar said no more on this matter, and she was indeed a woman of few words while her life lasted, save only to her children. To them she spoke much when none were by, and she sang to them many songs in a strange, fair tongue. But they heeded her not, or soon forgot, save only Haza God the youngest. And though he was, as were all her children, unlike her in body, he was nearer to her in heart. The songs and the strange tongue he too forgot when he grew up. But his mother he never forgot. And he took a wife late, for no woman of his own. Folk seemed desirable to him that knew what beauty in a woman woman might be. There's a lot of sadness in there, a lot of emotion, but also a lot of things to really unpack, including some deep thoughts on.

[James Tauber]

Oh, yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

Oh, we're going to get to this. That's why we left so much room in this episode for this portion of the reading.

[James Tauber]

Yeah, there's a lot there for sure. So let's start.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, let's get in.

[James Tauber]

Bulda has a wife. Yes, but he doesn't have a wife who loves. Her name is Elmar, which is obviously why our protagonist is named Tal Elmar. He's named after her grandmother.

[Alan Sisto]

Now, it did take her time to learn their language. Right. That's the rough tongue that Tell Elmar's voice made sound a little sweeter, but she eventually learned enough of it to tell him what she thought. And I got to say, to her credit, her statement is simple and clear. And honestly, it's more than reasonable under the circumstances.

[James Tauber]

She acknowledges that she has a lot to think. Thank Buldar for sparing her life. That's presumably the main thing. Perhaps he's even treated her relatively well. After all, he was a man of wealth and power in those days.

[Alan Sisto]

Right? Right.

[James Tauber]

And it seems like he was trying to give her something in order to get her love. Because she makes it plain. Don't think you will ever get my love. So sounds like he was trying.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah. I mean, of course, her point is both obvious and. And completely reasonable. You've ripped me away, not just from my people, but from my family, my husband and my child. You've taken me away from all of that.

[James Tauber]

Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

How could you ever expect me to love you?

[James Tauber]

There's a couple of moments in this whole passage, this being the first of them, where she takes something that's morally questionable on a large scale and makes it very personal.

[Alan Sisto]

Yes.

[James Tauber]

In the. In the sense of, you know, ripping me away from my people. That's bad. Is bad. It's unforgivable. But there was a personal impact.

[Alan Sisto]

Correct.

[James Tauber]

To me, beyond simply it being, you know, just wrong.

[Alan Sisto]

Exactly.

[James Tauber]

That. You know, it affected me and my family and my husband. I had a child. Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

That child's gonna grow up without their mother. It's terrifying. It's. What you did is evil. Evil. And how could I. No matter how thankful I am that I'm alive, even if I end up having children, that's fine. But I have a child that I'm never going to see again, and you are the one who took me away from that child.

[James Tauber]

She'll always miss them and grieve that loss. It would be impossible for her to love anyone else. Right. In fact, she knows she won't even be happy for the rest of her life while she's a prisoner among these people.

[Alan Sisto]

Absolutely. She ends, though, with this personal insult. I get it. They're not just estrange folks. There are people that she finds base, which means low, without Morals also unlovely. Now, that latter could be a physical thing, like just short, swarthy, you know, a whole different opposite. Bills, that kind of thing. And it could just mean unattractive. But I tend to think that it's deeper than that. Like something in their character that is unlovely, that there's everything about them as a whole makes them an unappealing people to her. And it brings me back to Tal Omar's idea that they should treat the old people with respect and kindness. She's seeing a lot of, like, cultural standards that are not what she has grown up with and is accustomed to. And so she sees these people. I think that's why base is the first word. That's because that does imply the low morals. Yeah.

[James Tauber]

Yep. Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

But, you know, being in a position of power, Bulldar, frankly, doesn't seem trouble at all. He gives her a verbal shrug of the shoulders. So be it. He doesn't care.

[James Tauber]

You know, it doesn't matter if you're unhappy or don't love me. You're not going to be released.

[Alan Sisto]

You're not going anywhere.

[James Tauber]

Yeah. Primarily because Bulldar values her. It's really interesting that line, thou art precious in my sight sounds so biblical.

[Alan Sisto]

It does. It also sounds Gollum, but it also sounds biblical.

[James Tauber]

I mean, I literally think Isaiah has a line about dark, precious in my sight, but I wonder if that was always the case. I wonder if we'll find out any more about this part of the story or if this is just the setup and it seems to find out anymore.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah. I mean, what about 30 years from now, 40 years from now, if you like her because she's pretty. Is she going to be pretty in her old age enough that you still want her around as your wife, you know?

[James Tauber]

Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

Especially since she doesn't love you. She's never going to love you, dude.

[James Tauber]

Right, Right.

[Alan Sisto]

She's not that into you.

[James Tauber]

No.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, definitely not. But, you know, don't even think about trying to escape. He says. Right. You are far, far away from the remnant of your people. Again. Who is that and where are they? I really want to know. But also, it's a rough world out there. You're going to have a better life here. Of course. Of course she will. He's still a man of wealth and power, and she could not possibly survive on her own in the wilderness trying to find her people.

[James Tauber]

Yeah, I wonder if had Elmar ended her statement with never again shall I be glad while I am held captive among a strange folk and just dropped the basin unlovely what would have happened here in the story?

[Alan Sisto]

Oh, that's a good question. I mean like. Because that does seem to be what furthers the argument here.

[James Tauber]

Right. Yeah. Fortunately we get this argument instead and it is rich with some things.

[Alan Sisto]

Yes.

[James Tauber]

To talk about.

[Alan Sisto]

It really is. I'm really glad she did that because otherwise we wouldn't have this stuff to talk about. Right. Bulldar. Base and unlovely, I find. Maybe. But let's turn that around. This is very much, you know, what about you ism. You know, your folk are cruel, lawless and the friends of demons. So we come back to this idea of the demons that make their weapons. I still think it's hyperbole, but could we be talking about from the perspective of the wild men, like elves or maybe dwarves? But I'm thinking elves. Almost like later on in the notes Tolkien will say that the Numenoreans goal is to ally with the cruels of the North. Talking about the elves of Lindon, the cruels. So if the elves are cruel to the wild men. Demons. I don't know.

[James Tauber]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because we've got to remember this is from the perspective of.

[Alan Sisto]

Of.

[James Tauber]

Yeah, the wild men. What who would they perceive as. As being demons?

[Alan Sisto]

Immortal beings who have eyes of fire and Yeah, I, I can see why they'd see the elves as demonic.

[James Tauber]

Yeah, interesting.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah.

[James Tauber]

At least as an explanation of. I mean is. It's interesting because we do know that the humans in Middle Earth developed all sorts of interesting mythologies around the gods.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, oh yeah, right.

[James Tauber]

That were not true. And this was something that Sauron sort of capitalized. Maybe this is part of that. Right. That their explanation for these immortal creatures was oh, they're demons, they're demons, they must be demons.

[Alan Sisto]

Right?

[James Tauber]

Yeah, that's the idea. Yeah. Also thieves of the land. This land belonged to Bulldar's people, these wild men from of old, he says. But we'll get to the question of how accurate that is.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, exactly. From of old. But yeah, we'll see about that. And then he ends Buldar with what I can only view as a very potent anti colonial statement put in the words of. Well, not a hero of the story. Instead the view of somebody who we don't normally consider. Bulldar says and this is. I mean listen to this. This is strong words. White skins and bright eyes are no warrant for driving a people off their lands. In other words, your race does not entitle you to commit genocide or steal the land. That's. Wow.

[James Tauber]

But before we discuss the anti colonial Nature of this statement, we do need to hear from Elmar because she's got some things.

[Alan Sisto]

Oh, she does. She does indeed. Yeah, yeah.

[James Tauber]

If our nature, white skins and bright eyes, isn't a valid reason to take your land, then what about your people?

[Alan Sisto]

That's right. Your physical nature with the thick legs and wide shoulders.

[James Tauber]

Right.

[Alan Sisto]

That's precisely what gained you this land in the first place. You weren't native to this land. You took it from people who were here before you, and you even hunted them. Now, while this would be a perfect spot to talk about the druedine, I mean, that is, after all, precisely who Elmar is referring to. The sidebar is a bit too long, so tune into the postscript for the episode to learn more.

[James Tauber]

Before we go on to what this is about for Elmar, let's chat about whether this is Tolkien's anti colonial stance coming through.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, I mean, I think here's the thing we often think, and I know I'm guilty of this, thinking of Tolkien as very traditional. Right. I mean, he's a little stodgy, he's a little, you know, and you might imagine somebody who's very traditional being very pro British Empire and all that, but I gotta tell you, that can't be further from the truth. His letters make it very clear. Letter 53. I want to start with that one. In 1943, he writes, I love England, not Great Britain and certainly not the British Commonwealth. Grr. That's like the 1950s version of an emoji that he just adds there. That's the angry face emoji. British Commonwealth. Grr. I mean, could he make his opinions more clear? Clear.

[James Tauber]

A year later in letter 77, also to Christopher, he writes, I should have hated the Roman Empire in its day. As I do.

[Alan Sisto]

As I do. I love that.

[James Tauber]

He still does. Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

It's 1955 or 1944, and I still hate the.

[James Tauber]

Still hate the Roman Empire.

[Alan Sisto]

The Roman Empire.

[James Tauber]

And though he says remained a patriotic Roman citizen.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah.

[James Tauber]

While preferring a free Gaul and seeing good in Carthaginians, which of course, you.

[Alan Sisto]

Know, Carthage was like, just destroy Carthage. I mean, nobody in Rome would have seen good in Carthaginians, but Tolkien would have. Tolkien would have. He's very much a contrary in so many ways. Just another year after that. So now, 1945, Tolkien writes again to Christopher. This time it's letter 100. I know nothing about British or American imperialism in the Far East. That does not fill me with regret and disgust.

[James Tauber]

Yeah. And of course, even a cursory reading of Aeldarion and Horrendous. And the Akalabeth shows that he doesn't exactly paint the colonialism of the Numenoreans in a positive light.

[Alan Sisto]

Not at all. No. I mean, that's when things go bad. It's one thing to come over and help the people. And there is a little bit of that. That's sort of like White Savior sort of thing. We also see that with Khan Bri Khan and the sort of noble savage. There's some other tropes that are still a little bit on the, you know, uncomfortable side, but clearly when it comes to this sort of imperialism and colonialism.

[James Tauber]

Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

Not a big fan.

[James Tauber]

Yeah. I wonder if he's playing. Even though there are those signs of the sort of noble savage and White Savior thing, I wonder if he's still always playing with that idea that that can never.

[Alan Sisto]

That's still not bad. Right?

[James Tauber]

Exactly.

[Alan Sisto]

Right.

[James Tauber]

You can't. Yeah, Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

I mean, even because you think about it, the one thing that saves Gondor is an act of sort of the opposite of colonialism. They give up land, they give Calenardhon to the Eotheod and they become the Rohirrim. But even that act drives out the Dunlendings and is still problematic and results in there being trouble later on for Gondor. So I think he's sort of saying this is always going to be complicated when you do this kind of thing and there's always going to be trouble coming from it.

[James Tauber]

Yeah. I mean, I think that is the setup in the overall Numenorean story in the Telepath is that there's an inevitability to the downfall of Numenorean.

[Alan Sisto]

Correct, Correct.

[James Tauber]

At the moment. The moment that they started exploiting the resources.

[Alan Sisto]

They start as teaching you agriculture and bringing you technology. But we all know where that's going to lead.

[James Tauber]

It leads to a death cult.

[Alan Sisto]

And it's inevitable.

[James Tauber]

It's inevitable that human sacrifices.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, maybe human sacrifices beyond the inevitable portion, hopefully. But yeah, certainly the bad aspects of it, the exploitation, the driving out of people, that is an inevitability. And it's something that we begin to see the moment Aldarion looks at the coast of Middle Earth and sees resources. Things to take. The minute he sees things to take is the beginning of the downfall of Numenor.

[James Tauber]

Yep.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah. I have to say there's one other, and this is one that didn't come to me right away as I was sort of thinking through sort of these statements of Tolkien's, both in the legendary man in his letters, where he makes it very clear, you know, what his stance is on these kinds of issues. I actually think of Faramir. There's a line, it's one of my favorite lines in the text. You'll recognize it when I get there. But I don't think I'd ever realize just how anti colonial it is. But let's go back to this line. So first off, I want to say Faramir. No character speaks for Tolkien directly. But in a footnote to letter 180, Tolkien says, as far as any character is like me, it is Faramir. Except that I lack what my characters possess. Let the psychoanalysts note courage. And I love his little sense of humor there. But I say that, to say this because I think that Tolkien often puts very important words, words into Faramir's mouth, maybe more than anybody other than Gandalf. And one of those is this wonderful and oft repeated line, one of my favorites in all of the legendarium about not loving the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, or the warrior for his glory. But in that very same paragraph, Tolkien tells us, I believe, what he really thinks about colonial powers. Faramir desires to see Minas Tirith in peace. Quite quote, high and fair, beautiful as a queen among other queens. Not a mistress of many slaves. Nay, not even a kind mistress of willing slaves. That speaks British Commonwealth to me.

[James Tauber]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

In a way that I don't know that it did when I first read that as a 14 year old. You know what I mean?

[James Tauber]

Right? That it doesn't even matter how kind you are. Sue your slaves.

[Alan Sisto]

Exactly. Exactly. Even if they're willing, they are your peers. They are equal to you. They are a queen among other queens. This is potent. And I feel like we miss this sort of at our peril. If you don't catch this aspect of the story of Tal Omar, I think, honestly, you're missing the point of Tal Omar, or one of the points, I should say, because there are a few others. But this is a big one early on. On.

[James Tauber]

Yeah, yeah. To say nothing of where he may have been going.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, I know exactly. Who knows where he's going to go with this? Yeah. It's such a really explicit statement that he doesn't really do in anything else except for those letters. I mean, this. This is very. White skin and bright eyes are no warrant for this. Wow. Could you call out?

[James Tauber]

Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

Goodness.

[James Tauber]

Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

So powerful. Stuff. Stuff.

[James Tauber]

Yeah. Okay.

[Alan Sisto]

What do you think? As a Commonwealth subject, James from Australia.

[James Tauber]

Well, I mean, don't let me comment on the current state of things here. There's something to be said for alternative. For other systems. But anyway, that and other colonial matters aside for now.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah.

[James Tauber]

At the end of the day, for Elmar, this isn't a matter of. Of who has the legal right to this land.

[Alan Sisto]

Right.

[James Tauber]

This is another one of those examples we talked about before of her not just making this kind of a principled ethical issue. Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

This isn't just a global wrong. This is a personal wrong.

[James Tauber]

Personal, Exactly.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah.

[James Tauber]

It isn't a matter of who has the legal right to this land. The wild folk that were hunted, the Druidain, the people of Bulldar, or the fell folk from the east. For Elmar, it's about sorrow and love.

[Alan Sisto]

Deeply personal.

[James Tauber]

Right.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah.

[James Tauber]

She says it's not about rights, it's about sorrow and love. Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

My refusal to love you is. Has nothing to do with the fact that you stole the land for the Duradine. I mean, sure, that's bad.

[James Tauber]

Right.

[Alan Sisto]

But.

[James Tauber]

Exactly.

[Alan Sisto]

That's not why I don't love you. Yeah.

[James Tauber]

Yeah. And I think that that can get lost in a lot of discussion about rights. Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

Oh, it can, Very much so.

[James Tauber]

I mean, it's good to talk in those sort of abstract terms, but also to never forget they're people. These are real people.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah. They're real people at the core of every one of these stories. Yeah.

[James Tauber]

That are treated cruelly.

[Alan Sisto]

Absolutely. In fact, if anything, that's the thing that'll help us not do that ourselves. And helping to make sure that society doesn't do that going forward is realizing these are individuals who are harmed by these actions, not just a vague abstract notion of a people. Yep.

[James Tauber]

Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. So for her, it's about sorrow and love. If I have to live here, then I'll leave here, but I won't be thinking here.

[Alan Sisto]

I love that this is just the place.

[James Tauber]

My body is not my spirit.

[Alan Sisto]

Oh, so good. And it makes me think a little bit of. On fairy stories and the importance of escape. You know, this. This idea of, you know, we don't fault the prisoners for thinking of something beyond the four walls of concrete that he's imprisoned in.

[James Tauber]

She's the prisoner.

[Alan Sisto]

She's the prisoner. Absolutely. And she is thinking of anything except what is here.

[James Tauber]

Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

Then she gets that little vengeance curse on him. And I love this. Right. While I'm kept here, your people's circumstances, they're going to get worse. And your family more than everybody else. That's right.

[James Tauber]

Yeah. And of Course we're not going to. You know, we don't get the full fulfillment of this. It would be interesting to see where it went.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah. Because I have questions about who the downfall of your king is. But we'll get to that.

[James Tauber]

Oh, yeah, we'll get to that. But if that's not bad enough, when I do die, a descendant of mine who is mine alone will mark the end of your people.

[Alan Sisto]

And if that hasn't been made clear to you yet, who she's referring to, that is, of course, Sal Elmar, the hero of our story. I mean, he is very much the descendant of hers. Right. All of her children, including Hazad, were like Buldar. All of Azad's children were like Hazad, except for Tal Omar. But then we get that line that I was referencing earlier, the downfall of your king. We have no clue who she means here. Is she talking about that North King that Buldar had been fighting for? Right. I mean, he'd gone with the North King to the muster of Ishmael Og or whatever. Or does she mean the king, which we'll later find out is Sauron? Is this a huge legendarium prophecy about the downfall of Sauron or is this just a local king?

[James Tauber]

So, I mean, we will come back and revisit this for sure. Because it's only later on that we're explicitly told in a note that one of the king.

[Alan Sisto]

That's referring to the time of the king, Sauron. Yeah.

[James Tauber]

Which is. I mean, it's actually problematic for.

[Alan Sisto]

I know it makes it worse, makes it harder.

[James Tauber]

We'll get to that. But it's really interesting. I do want to touch a little bit on it now. Just sort of our first impressions of this prophecy. If it is Sauron, where would this have gone?

[Alan Sisto]

How would Tel Elmar be related?

[James Tauber]

Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

Unless. Okay. At the end of the story, we don't get an end. Right. We get him meeting the Numenoreans.

[James Tauber]

Not even remotely. Yeah. It's just the beginning, I think. I think that's just the inciting.

[Alan Sisto]

That's totally joking. Just the beginning. Yeah, that is the. Because then we get the little hints, little suggestions that Tel Omar goes with them and then ends up having these adventures.

[James Tauber]

Right.

[Alan Sisto]

Does his involvement with the Numenoreans give them some sort of insight that enabled them to then take down. But no, because that's the time. I mean, our Farazan comes with a mighty army, and it wouldn't matter what Tal Elmar did in the story. That's not going to lead to the capture of Sauron, and it's sure not going to lead to the Battle of the Last Alliance.

[James Tauber]

Yeah, that's what I'm wondering. Given what we know about the Akalabeth, I can't see Tal Elmar having a role.

[Alan Sisto]

No. No matter what he did, I mean, he could have gone back and become a great general and it wouldn't matter.

[James Tauber]

Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

I mean, our Pharazon shows up with so much in terms of numbers that Sauron's army's like, forget this. I'm out of here, pal.

[James Tauber]

Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

And Sauron's like, well, I guess if I can't get anybody to fight for me, oh, no, no. I'll have to be your prisoner.

[James Tauber]

Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah. Oh, no. Yeah.

[James Tauber]

So we'll continue to speculate on this, but it's not clear to me at all.

[Alan Sisto]

I think when she says the downfall of your king, I've got to lean towards the very king that was involved in the battle that caused her to be taken captive. Anyway, this North King. So some petty regional king who's presumably dead already. Well, maybe not. I mean.

[James Tauber]

I mean, in the time of Tel Elmar.

[Alan Sisto]

Oh, by the time of Tel Elmar, yes. Oh, yeah, you're right.

[James Tauber]

So how can Tel Elmar.

[Alan Sisto]

Okay. The downfall of your king, meaning, like, you as a people will be leaderless. Like, they don't really have a king. These people. The hills of Aigar, they have the master of the town. We're not really told who their king is, other than maybe this North King who was once a fourth king. Yeah. I don't know. And I don't know that we'll really get to know.

[James Tauber]

I don't think we will not. That's the sad thing about this. I mean, it's fun to speculate.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah.

[James Tauber]

But we can't look. We can't look in the answers in the back of the book.

[Alan Sisto]

Exactly. There are none. There's nothing we can do to figure this out.

[James Tauber]

Yeah. What do you make of the line when my body goes to the alien Earth? Is she only referring to the fact here that away from her people, the Earth is alien?

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah. I don't know. It's just an interesting phrase. It's not something that doesn't sound very Tolkienian.

[James Tauber]

No, that struck me as well as not seeming particularly Tolkienian.

[Alan Sisto]

It certainly doesn't seem Edain. I mean, if she is of the Edain, if the Fel folk are related to the Numenoreans.

[James Tauber]

I'm wondering now about practices of, like, funerary rites. Funerary rites. And so On. On. Because this doesn't sound like something you would do if you had a. A funeral pyre. You wouldn't talk about your body going to the Earth. I don't think. I don't know.

[Alan Sisto]

Can't imagine that you would. Yeah. I don't know the. But I do think she means specifically that the Earth here is alien to me.

[James Tauber]

I think that's clear.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah. But going to the Earth at all, sort of the idea of a funerary rite is interesting.

[James Tauber]

Yeah. Well.

[Alan Sisto]

Well, whatever she thinks here, she never talks about this again, not once during the rest of her life. Now, she does talk to her kids a lot, but she doesn't talk to her to anybody else. Like Tal Elmar, again, very much. He is like her, reincarnated in so many ways.

[James Tauber]

Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

He's a man of few words. Doesn't talk to people. Stands there and looks at everybody as they talk. She too, a woman of few words.

[James Tauber]

Yeah. But she does talk to her kids, including her youngest, who has. Right. And he said to be nearer to her in heart, even though he looked like the rest of her kids. That is not like her.

[Alan Sisto]

Right. None of them did.

[James Tauber]

And when she spoke to them and to him, she sang in a foreign language.

[Alan Sisto]

I love language in Tolkien because it's always so significant. I mean, you can think even of all the way back in the Hobbit with the bird coming and, you know, Bard knowing, understanding the bird, like genetic language transmission and things like that, which is what we see later in this story in many ways. Like Tel Omar has a dream, a language that he hears in his dreams, and it turns out to be the language that he hears the Numenoreans speak. And that's what makes me think that again, we have no idea the origins of the Fel Folk, but the fact that Telawar understands the language of the Numenoreans a bit does strongly imply. Not strongly imply, but strongly suggests that there's some connection to the Numenoreans here.

[James Tauber]

Yeah. Although, I mean, the Numenorean language is itself descended from what Edain, what the Edain spoke. So it's really hard to say. And we'll get into some of the weird Elvish connection as well, because of course he dreams of the Eldar and the Numenoreans think he's dreaming and they.

[Alan Sisto]

Think he's an elf.

[James Tauber]

We'll get to that.

[Alan Sisto]

Which is wild. Like, how do you think a man.

[James Tauber]

Is an elf if you're a Numenorean as well?

[Alan Sisto]

That's.

[James Tauber]

I mean, it's One thing, if a wild man thought that, right?

[Alan Sisto]

I mean, a wild man would expect to think that a Numenorean is an elf, but for a Numenorean to think, that's wild.

[James Tauber]

Yeah, we'll get to that. We'll get to all that. While the rest of the kids didn't pay attention or they forgot. Hazard was different. He eventually. He eventually forgot the songs in the language, but he never, never forgot Elmar herself.

[Alan Sisto]

No, he did not. And like his father, again, so many of these things that we see, generation to generation, he didn't find any woman of his people that he wanted to marry. Right. He knew what a woman of beauty was. And I'm not saying this is some sort of an Oedipal complex, but clearly Hazad saw his mother as the epitome of beauty. Now, I can't help thinking of Bones in the Soup and this being Tolkien and his own deep respect and admiration for his mother, who he really. I'm not gonna say idolized, but elevated for sure.

[James Tauber]

Yes.

[Alan Sisto]

And saw as an ideal.

[James Tauber]

Yeah. And in many respects, that was because of the sacrifices that she made. And I wonder if. I can't help but think Hazard would come to the same conclusions.

[Alan Sisto]

Oh, yeah, he'd have to. I mean, her entire life for Hazad would be sacrificed.

[James Tauber]

Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

And like Hazad, Tolkien lost his mother in his youth.

[James Tauber]

Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

Just like Tal Elmar as well.

[James Tauber]

Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

I mean, we're not told anything about Tel Elmar's mother other than that his odd married late in life, but she's not in the picture. She's clearly dead. Yeah, so. Or ran away after having 20 some odd kids. Get me out of here. No, I just feel like there are some very interesting connections and things that come. Come up. Now, still, in the part that we did not read, Hazad does. Even though he doesn't find his women attractive, in the women of his people, he does eventually marry. Not by capturing a Fell folk woman. It wasn't easy, though, because Elmar's prophecy had already begun to come true. His people in general had suffered. But specifically his line. Right, the line of Buldar. And then Hazad. They lost their wealth and power. He's a poor man now.

[James Tauber]

Yeah. Not that Hazard knew about his mom's prophecy. Remember, she never spoke of it again. But he loved her enough to name his youngest son, who must have reminded Hazard of El Marati's birth.

[Alan Sisto]

Oh, of course. Fair skin and the gray eyes. Yeah. We should note, by the way, that this is the exact Point. And it might be the reason that I stopped our reading here, where Tolkien's rejected first page ends and the rest of the text is in the state that Christopher calls primary composition, meaning no edits. Yep, I love that primary composition. It makes it sound so much more, I don't know, fancy and serious than it really is. Just means he hasn't gotten around to fixing anything yet. All right, the songs and the strange tongue. Bartleman too, forgot when he grew up, but that's because Bartleman forgets nearly everything. James, what does Bartlem have in his bag for us today?

[James Tauber]

Neil from California asks a question that I think's really interesting to consider in light of. Of where we're at in Unfinished Tales. Which of the lesser known numenorean rulers do you wish was fleshed out more?

[Alan Sisto]

Oh, all of them.

[James Tauber]

Well, true. So it's interesting, of course, you know, Tolkien. Tolkien ends up listing, you know, what is it, 24 different rulers in the line of Elros. We do find out a decent amount even in Appendix B, but especially in the Akalabeth, about a bunch of them.

[Alan Sisto]

But mostly the later ones, but not others.

[James Tauber]

Yeah. So the period that seems the least fleshed out, I mean, obviously there's a lot of super early stuff. Like the first few would be interesting to know.

[Alan Sisto]

We know nothing about, you know, like Taramandil, and we know even less about Vardimir, who is like, ah, nevermind, I'm not too old.

[James Tauber]

But the other period that I think is really interesting is the period between Ancalame and Minas Deer.

[Alan Sisto]

Ah, okay.

[James Tauber]

So we get. We get three rulers. Anarion, Surion and Telperion.

[Alan Sisto]

That's right, A queen.

[James Tauber]

The second one of the queens. Yep, the second queen after Ankalame that when we're told almost nothing about. But things must have happened. Oh, things must have happened in this period. Well, certainly things happen in Middle Earth because this. Right. They were ruling at the time. This is when the rings were being forged and everything. So it's interesting because of course, Ancalome Aldarian and Arendys's daughter ruled, and she's the ruler at the time that the permanent Havens.

[Alan Sisto]

That's right.

[James Tauber]

And then we have these three rules that I mentioned. And then you get Tar Minastir who was of course the one that came to the rescue, ultimately came to the rescue of Gil Galad and really, really kicked off the downfall of Numenor in as much as they then started to get this lust for power after.

[Alan Sisto]

Right, well, and that's also when the Envy of the Eldar started coming into play.

[James Tauber]

Yes, exactly.

[Alan Sisto]

He said specifically to have loved the Eldar, but he envied them.

[James Tauber]

He envied them. But those three in the middle, like, in the line of Elros chapter in Unfinished Tales, we're told nothing very little about Aenarion and Surion other than dates, how long that. Yeah, dates. That's all we're told.

[Alan Sisto]

In a way, I feel like that's a direct connection to what Sara and I talked about with the story of Eldarin Hirendes and how Ancalame, sort of the generational trauma that she was not only the victim of, but then the perpetrator of that, in the sense that she, like, forbade her granddaughters from getting married and all of this stuff that was just really nasty. It's no surprise that her great granddaughter Telpel.

[James Tauber]

Yep.

[Alan Sisto]

Doesn't get married.

[James Tauber]

Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

And that. That's why Minasir ends up becoming king, because he's actually not. He's not her descendant. He's the son of. Of the. I think the second child of Tarsurion. So he's a cousin. And I mean, yes, he's still in the line of. Of Aldarian. Right.

[James Tauber]

But he's distant.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, but he's distant. So, yeah, I feel like that's just such a result of that. Like, it took that long for the line to recover from. From Altaria and Horrendous.

[James Tauber]

Yeah. I mean, because from that, from that point onwards, things start to happen.

[Alan Sisto]

Things start to move. Right. That's when he. Yeah, because, you know, because once you get past Monaster, you get to the bad guys. Right. You get to Kiryatan, who. Who, you know, actually forces his dad to give up the throne early.

[James Tauber]

Right.

[Alan Sisto]

You get Autonomir the Great. It's sort of. If you have to add the Great to your name, then maybe you're not.

[Joe Haffman]

Not.

[James Tauber]

Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah. I mean, and that's the time when the shadow explicitly is said to have fallen. So, yeah, it does start to really. To roll in after that. I want even more. I know we already have a lot on Tar Palantir, but, man, he's the one I admire the most. Again with some of those biblical references, the idea of a good king trying to turn the nation around after a series of bad kings. But it's too late. Late momentum has this weight of its own. Yeah, but I just. I mean, Tar Palantir, he's the one I'd want to know more about. But in fairness, he was fleshed out, so I guess I really can't say.

[James Tauber]

Well, yeah, there were two paragraphs written about him instead of one in the.

[Alan Sisto]

That's true, that's true. I mean, like almost. Yeah, he gets a bit more in a color. He does get a bit more. He actually gets more than our Farazan, to be honest.

[James Tauber]

But yes, that's true.

[Alan Sisto]

Our Farazan has enough written about him elsewhere. Yeah, I think that's a very good point because the story is so focused for us on what's happening in Middle Earth at that point in Eregion, with the forging of the Rings of Power. My goodness, the kingdom of Numenor is doing things at this point.

[James Tauber]

We have no idea what.

[Alan Sisto]

We have no idea, no idea. How are those permanent havens growing and becoming. What would eventually under or after Monastir become these, you know, settlements and. And sort of bases for the expansion of power? Difference between a small outpost and, you know, a military base. That's going to be for the projection of power.

[James Tauber]

So.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, that's a fair point. Those three in particular would be interesting. I. I'd want to know about Portaranarian. That's the son of Ankalame, who had. Has to know he was not wanted, who has to know that he was a pawn, just like Ancalame herself was. But unlike Ankalameh, who actually kind of liked that, she is said to have enjoyed the sport of playing her mom against her dad. I don't think Anarion was the same. I don't get that feeling.

[James Tauber]

We don't know.

[Alan Sisto]

No, we don't. We just know that. That she despised him so much that, you know, even his daughters, she was like, nope, you can't marry. You know, it's just awful. Yeah. So those three Anarian, Surian and Telperian. Yeah, yeah. Interesting stuff. Good question, though.

[James Tauber]

I think you knew.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, absolutely. Well, folks, thank you for joining us for another episode of the Prancing Pony podcast. Please join us again next week when Tal Elmar spots some unlikely visitors and Hazard gives him a history lesson.

[James Tauber]

It's going to be fun. It will be, Alan. And I want to thank the members of Team PPP editor Jordan Reynnells, Barleyman Becca Davis, social media manager Casey Hilsey, event and Patreon community coordinator Katie McKenna, graphic artist Megan Collins, video editor Jonathan Laysons and website guru Phil Dean.

[Alan Sisto]

And please take a minute to check out the prancingponypodcast.com. that's where you'll find show notes, outtakes and prancing pony ponderings. Now, we finally did get our merch vendor situation fix actually back in early December. But you know we're always coming to you from the recent past. Our online storefront is where you can get all sorts of cool PPP merch, including the amazing chapter art that Megan's been doing for us for three plus seasons.

[James Tauber]

We're all about the books here at the Prancing Pony Podcast, so be sure to also visit our library page. We try to make sure that any book we've mentioned on the show is linked there for you to purchase. We do get a small amount of compensation when you make your purchase, so thank you for that indeed.

[Alan Sisto]

We also want to thank our patrons at the Cirdance contribution tier. I'll start with Demay in Alaska, Chad in Texas, Lance in New Jersey, Joseph in Michigan, Kathy from North Carolina, Brian in the uk, Jerry from Washington, Irwin from the Netherlands, Ben in Minnesota, Anthony in Texas, Zaksu in Illinois, Joshua in Massachusetts, Lucy in Texas, Erica in Texas, Vivian in California and James in Massachusetts.

[James Tauber]

There's also Ann in Kentucky, Sean in New Jersey, Mason in California, Maureen from Massachusetts, Olivia in London, Robert in Arizona, Nick in Wisconsin, Lewis in South Carolina, Thomas in Germany, Craig in California, Kevin in Massachusetts, Joe in Maryland, D. Scott in California, Jeffrey in Michigan, and Paul in Colorado. Thank you all so very much for your support indeed.

[Alan Sisto]

Thank you.

[James Tauber]

Make sure you don't miss any episodes of the Prancing Pony Podcast. Subscribe now through Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, or your favorite podcast app.

[Alan Sisto]

And one last thing. As always, don't forget to send your thoughts, comments, and most of all your songs in a strange fair tongue to [e-mail] Barlow and Dulce have a lot.

[James Tauber]

Of mail to sort through, though, so we'll try to get to you just as soon as we're able.

[Alan Sisto]

As always, though, this has been far too short a time to spend among such excellent and admirable listeners.

[James Tauber]

But until next time, may you rekindle hearts in a world that grows chill. My dad taught me a lot, including.

[Alan Sisto]

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[James Tauber]

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[Alan Sisto]

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[James Tauber]

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[Alan Sisto]

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