The Riddles of The Hobbit by Adam Roberts Read Free Book Online Page A

riddle: how may inanimate matter become animate? In various versions this asks ‘how can new life come into the world?’ and ‘from where did the first life come’ and similar questions that continue to give philosophers and scientists matter for their enquiries. A Biblical version of the question is Ezekiel’s ‘can these bones live?’ (Ezekiel 37:3)—a text read by Christians typologically as anticipating the resurrection. The inanimate object
is
brought alive. My point here, though, is that quite apart from its content the
form
of this conceit is riddling. In Daisy Elizabeth Martin-Clarke’s words, ‘the literary theme ascribing emotion to an inanimate object is characteristic of riddle literary traditions’. 12
The Lord of the Rings
takes this literary convention and literalises it, building a monumental imaginative edifice about it.
    Like scholars of the Anglo-Saxon age, the needful thing for readers of Tolkien is the ability to hold his quasi-pagan ‘Old English’ values and his immanent Christianity in harmonious relation. And there is a sense in which Tolkien’s use of Anglo-Saxon models functions, formally—as it were, essentially—as a riddle. Maria Artamonova hasdiscussed the ways that Tolkien, not content with writing
Lord of the Rings
and
The Silmarillion
in English, also composed Old English
Annals
or
Chronicles
-style texts relating important events in his imagined history. Here is an example:
    MMCCCCXCIX
Hér gefeaht Féanores fierd wiþ þam orcum / sige námon / þá orcas gefliemdon oþ Angband (þaet is Irenhelle); ac Goðmog, Morgoðes þegn, ofslóh Féanor, and Maegdros gewéold siþþan Féanores folc. Þis gefeoht hátte Tungolguð
    Here Fëanor’s host fought with the Orcs and was victorious, and pursued them to Angband (that is Iron Hell); but Gothmog, servant of Morgoth, slew Fëanor, and Maedhros ruled Fëanor’s folk after that. This battle was called the Battle-under-the-Stars. 13
    The composition of this kind of expert pastiche was more than a mere quirk or eccentricity on Tolkien’s part. Nor, more interestingly, was it the equivalent to a ‘method’ actor immersing himself in his role prior to stepping on stage. Instead, it is best read as Tolkien deliberately part-obscuring or riddling his fictional material as part of a deliberate aesthetic strategy. Stepping outside one’s linguistic comfort zone can have the effect of freshening or vivifying one’s apprehension. Artamonova quotes Tolkien that ‘seen through the distorting glass of our ignorance’ our ‘appreciation of the splendour of Homeric Greek in word-form is possibly keener, or more conscious, than it was to a Greek’. If our vernacular is deadened by the plainness born of over-familiarity, then learning—or better yet,
writing
—a language with which we are unfamiliar is a way of bringing alive the vividness inherent in poetry and story.

2
Cynewulf and the
Exeter Book
    I have started by arguing that riddles were important to Anglo-Saxon culture, important to Tolkien and that they remain important today. It is worth qualifying that judgement by noting that scholarship has not always seen things this way. For many people riddles are trivial and disposable, of only glancing relevance to larger questions of culture and art. Gwendolyn Morgan notes that the study of riddles and wisdom literature was ‘almost entirely neglected through the 1800s. Late in that century and into the first quarter of the twentieth a flurry of interest in solving riddles occurred … [but] this interest soon petered out.’ She adds that ‘the same tends to hold true up to the present’, although she does note that ‘Gregory Jember has defended the riddles as essential expressions of Anglo-Saxon culture and its world view.’ 1 This study thinks Jember is right. 2 In this chapter I will try to say something about specific Anglo-Saxon riddles themselves, and the significance of riddling more generally.
    Many hundreds of