Month: March 2015

mapsburgh:

Reading the Book of Lost Tales, I came across this fascinating map — the earliest sketch Tolkien made of the lands where his stories were to be set. At this point he had created the earliest versions of what would later become the Ainulindale and Quenta Silmarillion. At this stage of development, there was no Second or Third Age, as the fall of Beleriand was to lead directly to the fading of the Elves and the dominion of Men. Tolkien had also not inserted the rearrangement of the world’s geography after the fall of the two lamps.

The only labels on this sketch were for Utumna (later Utumno) and for the locations of the two lamps, called at this time Ringil and Helkar (the latter being shown in two options). In BoLT, Christopher Tolkien added several letters identifying place names he inferred from the text: Valmar (a), Two Trees (b), domain of Mandos ©, Kôr (later Tirion) (d), the pass through the Pelori through which Melkor and Ungoliant attacked the Trees (e), the Iron Mountains (originally a single range incorporating what would become the Ered Wethrin as well) (f), Hisilome (later Hithlum) (g), Eruman/Arvalin (later Avathar) (h), the Mountains of Valinor (j), and Magic Isles (k).

This map is obviously a sketch, found in another place by Christopher and not intended to be an integral part of the text. The text of the Book of Lost Tales gives a great deal of geographical description (especially of Aman), so a map would not have been strictly necessary. 

One of the most interesting features to me of this early conception of Middle-earth’s geography is the asymmetry of Aman. Rather than a single smooth curve from north to south, the coastline bulges outward in the south to create the region of Eruman (which served as a sort of Purgatory for the souls of Men in this version), and inward in the north as a great bay. A symmetrical Aman certainly seems more god-like. But the asymmetrical version makes an interesting parallel with the coast of the Outler Lands (later Middle-earth proper), with its northwestern bulge of Hisilome/Beleriand. In this version we can easily imagine Belegaer being created by simply splitting the land apart, leaving mirror-image coastlines similar to Africa and South America. (And of course Belegaer is geographically parallel to the Atlantic Ocean, though the latter was created and widened by plate tectonics rather than divine magic.) I have no idea whether this interpretation was intended by Tolkien, but it is an interesting twist in the early geography of Middle-earth.

mapsburgh:

One of the best-known extended maps of Middle-earth is the above one, which was drawn by Allan Curless for A Tolkien Bestiary, published in 1979. The map is a gorgeous piece of art, but also hideously inaccurate. It mashes together elements from disparate time periods (e.g. putting the two lamps, the two trees, Beleriand, and Numenor all together). Beleriand is placed to the north of the lands where Lord of the Rings took place, in a weird attempt to include it in the map while leaving the familiar coast of Eriador intact. And all of the land appears to be in the northern hemisphere.

My kingdom for a map of Aman that makes any goddamn sense