Drawing on the Power of Resonance in Writing (4 page)

Before I begin, it’s important for you to
know
that Tolkien was a master philologist (lover of words), and his first civilian job after WWI was to work on the
Oxford English Dictionary
, researching the roots of Germanic words. (For those who are not familiar with the
Oxford English Dictionary
, it is the most
exhaustive of English dictionaries in that it discusses in detail, not only the meanings of words, but their history, usage, and etymology. When I talk about the
Oxford English Dictionary
, I am not referring to the condensed volume you sometimes see in stores. The last published
Oxford English Dictionary
was 20 volumes long.)

The book
“Lord of the Rings” echoes the title of Wagner’s classic German opera
Der Ring des
Nibelung
, which is
best
translated as “
Nibelung’s
Ring.”
The two tales have some similarities
.
From Wikipedia, here is a brief synopsis
of the opera
:

The plot revolves around a magic ring that grants the power to rule the world, forged by the
Nibelung
dwarf
Alberich
from gold he stole from the Rhine maidens in the river Rhine. With the assistance of Loge, Wotan — the chief of the gods — steals the Ring from
Alberich
, but is forced to hand it over to the giants,
Fafner
and
Fasolt
. Wotan's schemes to regain the Ring, spanning generations, drive much of the action in the story. His grandson, the mortal Siegfried, wins the ring — as Wotan intended — but is eventually betrayed and slain as a result of the intrigues of
Alberich's
son Hagen. Finally, the Valkyrie
Brünnhilde
— Siegfried's lover and Wotan's estranged daughter — returns the ring to the Rhine maidens. In the process, the gods and their home, Valhalla, are destroyed.

Does it sound at all familiar? In
The Lord of the Rings
,
the One Ring is forged of gold and gives the wielder the power to rule the world.
The character of Wotan appears in
LOTR in
the guise of Gandalf
.
In both tales, the
ringbearer
is repeatedly referred to as the “Lord of the Ring.” 
Many people struggle to gain the ring, and eventually, instead of casting it into a river (a plan that Frodo suggests), it is thrown into the Crack of Doom.

So plot-wise there are a number of similar elements between the two works. Upon reading
The Lord of the Rings
, one might be tempted to conclude that the One Ring is an allegory for the nuclear bomb. Both, it would seem, are an ultimate weapon. And Tolkien’s use of a quest to destroy the Ring certainly mirrors many a person’s desire to rid the world of this “ultimate weapon.”

But Tolkien wasn’t writing an allegory about the A-bomb—at least not consciously. He was familiar with war, having fought in WWI, and I’m sure that he knew that in every war, there is a new ultimate weapon, whether it
be
the
fighter planes
of WWI,
or
the underwater mines of the Crimean War—it is all the same. In the 1100s it was the trebuchet and the crossbow. Every war brings its new horrors, and the Ring that represented those horrors is based upon sources lost in antiquity.

While the story form itself was probably inspired by the opera (or by one of the German sagas that inspired the opera), both stories also share a lead character—the Norse god Odin
(or Wotan)
, a god of wisdom, war, and travel. Odin of course is often depicted as a man robed for travel with a walking stick and a long gray beard, and among the Roman pantheon he is equated with the god Mercury. There is
no
doubt that the two were one and the same god. There is also little doubt that
Gandalf is modeled on Odin—a wise traveler who is also a master of war. In fact, here is the artist George von Rosen’s 1886 depiction of Odin.

No one who has seen the movies or other representations of Gandalf can fail to recognize that he and Odin are one and the same.
Yet sometimes even the author doesn’t recognize the source of a character that he creates
.
For example
, Tolkien
once
found an old postcard from Germany in his belongings and wrote on the back of it that the postcard—
which showed
an old wizard feeding a deer—served as inspiration for Gandalf.

But
critics
have
shown that it couldn’t have served as inspiration
.
Tolkien
had actually
created
Gandalf
several years
before
he saw the postcard
.
I suspect that
instead, Rosen’s
picture
of Odin, shown here,
served as
Tolkien’s
inspiration
for Gandalf
.

The similarities between the characters
can be seen in the design of Gandalf—
who is shown
wearing Mercury’s traditional gray traveling robe and peaked cap in the image below—from the film.

Years ago, a friend who owned a video game company called me and said, “Dave, I have a problem. We’ve made this great fantasy videogame, but we don’t have a name for our hero. I’ve been going over names with my staff for days, and we’re stuck. How do you name a fantasy character?”

“That’s easy,” I said. “You take two words that come to mind to describe that character, then put them together, and consider their sounds to make sure that they resonate properly.”

I then asked him to describe the character in five or six words, and I spat out a name. My friend was silent for a moment, and then said, “That’s perfect. That’s perfect! We’ve been beating our heads against a wall for weeks, and you come up with the name in ten seconds. Tell me again how you do that?”

I can’t even recall the name, but I met the friend a few weeks ago, and he reminded me of the incident. So I’ll try to make this process a little clearer.

A classic example of this might be seen in George Lucas’s use of the name Darth Vader. “Darth” is probably a contraction of “dark” and “death,” or it might be a modification of “dearth.” “Vader” could be a truncation of “invader,” or it could simply be Dutch (
vader
) for “father.” Hence, I’m fairly certain that it is inspired by the words “dark,” “death,” “invader” and “father.” But by happy coincidence, it resonates with other dire-sounding words as well.

Similarly, Tolkien used these techniques in creating names. Some of his names are easily untangled.
Treebeard
is an ancient tree with a lichen-like beard. Mount
Doom
doesn’t need to be untangled at all.
Mordor
, the name of the evil kingdom where
Sauron
dwells, sounds like “murder,” but of course “more” and “door,” the two words that make up the name, suggest that by entering this place, you might be walking through a door into murder.

However, Tolkien complicates what Lucas did by using names that often have foreign roots. Remember that Tolkien was a philologist, one of the world’s foremost authorities on the origins of words with Germanic roots. He was very familiar with old German, Norse, Danish, English, and so on.

Take Gandalf
Greyhame
. The name “Gandalf” is an Old Norse name taken from a list of dwarves
from folklore
. The word
Gandalf
is a contraction of
gandr
(wand) and
alf
(elf). Hence his name literally means “elf with a wand.” But you don’t have to speak Old Norse for it to resonate. In English it sounds like a contraction of
grand
and
elf
. So whether you are talking Old Norse or English, the sound of the name resonates.
Greyhame
is a bit easier.
Hame
is an Old Dutch word for “home,” and is also the root for the word “hamlet.” Thus, the name itself sounds
like “gray home,” (much like the Gray Havens that the Elves in
The Lord of the Rings
are fleeing to for refuge). Tolkien says that the word translates into one of his mythical languages as “gray mantle”—which is an odd mistake for Tolkien to make. Having words in two separate languages that are spoken as “gray” and that mean “gray” sounds odd. It just doesn’t happen unless those languages are linked by common roots. Tolkien once lamented that the name Gandalf was concocted unwisely in an hour with little thought, but it’s still quite serviceable as a name.

Here’s another name: Gollum. Gollum is a hobbit-like character who was magically turned by sorcerous power into a monster. His name is obviously morphed from the word “golem,” which in Jewish folklore was a creature made from inanimate materials—such as twigs and string—so that it was magically transformed into a living servant. In many ways, Gollum is a golem—a monster given long life so that he can serve his evil master.

What about the name
Sauron
? Once again, Tolkien says that it has a meaning in a foreign tongue (the
elvish
language
Quenya
) and that it means “abhorred.” But the name has entirely different roots. In Greek, the word
saur
means “lizard,” as in “
dino-saur
.” The suffix
on
in “
Sauron
” means “the first.” Hence,
Sauron’s
name translated from Greek is “The First Lizard,” or perhaps more appropriately, “The Great Lizard” or even “The Lizard King.” Tolkien would have known this. So
Sauron
is, in essence, the king of all cold-hearted creatures, the ultimate heartless killer.

Interestingly, Tolkien seemed to be keyed into creating names as a way of
developing
his characters.

I’ve seen poets—Leslie Norris, Shakespeare, and Tennyson—who seem to be led by sounds to create stories. An internal rhyme may suggest a couple of words, which then lead to a sentence. The sentence gives rise to a paragraph in which an interesting string of words creates a whole new image that must be elaborated upon—which leads to a new twist in the plot of the tale.