Northhalde Tré and the Evil North

[Lord of the Rings]

Maybe it's kind of obvious, but I didn't realize until today that Morgoth's abode in the North probably had resonance with medieval works (or if I've heard this before, I've forgotten it).
In one of my classes (on Old Frisian), we came across the phrase northhalde trēin a 13th century text. This literally means 'northward tree', but actually is a kind of kenning for gallows. My professor explained this as reflecting traditional lore about the North: it's the one part of the sky that the sun never visits, and is therefore unlucky and the home of evil things. He said that some medieval sources called the North the home of the devil.
I didn't ask him what sources say that the devil lives in the North, but this seems a rather awful lot like Morgoth's dwelling there. Are there any writings about Tolkien that comment on whether this might really be at least partly a medieval derived idea?
(Presumably anit-north sentiment also existed is less Christian sources too. The Norse poemVǫluspácontains a bit about:
[The seeress] saw a hall standingfar from the sunon a shore of corpses;its doors faced north.Vǫl. 37
This hall is the abode, not of the devil of course (since this is an essentially pagan poem), but of the dragon Niðhǫggr, and a kind of hell for oathbreakers, murderers, and seducers (whom Niðhǫggr devours).)

[Almarëa Mordollwen]

I don't know of criticism on Tolkien that comment on the resonance with medieval works, but certainly the tradition of the North as the home of the devil is a long-standing one in medieval Christian texts.

There is a fair amount of criticism on a passage in Isaiah, which is possibly the origin of the notion:

12How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!

<sup versenum="versenum" style="font-size: 0.75em; line-height: normal; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: top; ">13</sup>For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God:I will sit also upon the mountof the congregation,in the sides of the north... (Isaiah 14: 12-13, KJV)

St. Augustine picks this up in some depth in the 5th century and writes about the opposition between north and south (north being the home of the devil) in his commentary on Psalm 48, also referencing the passage from Isaiah:

The North is wont to be contrary to Sion*: Sion forsooth is in theSouth, the North over against the South. Who is the North, but He who said, "Iwill sit in the sides of the North, I will be like the Most High"? (Isaiah 14:13-14)The devil had held dominion over the ungodly, and possessed the nations servingimages, adoring demons; and all whatsoever there was of human kind anywherethroughout the world, by cleaving to Him, had become North.
*Sion = Zion
For examples in early English verse - the poemGenesishas Satan making his "ham and heahsetl" (33) in the North:
Þahewordecwæð,niþesofþyrsted, þætheonnorðdælehamandheahsetlheofenaricesaganwolde, þawearðyrregod<dt style=": left; font-family: Times; line-height: normal; font-size: medium; ">andþamwerodewraðþeheærwurðode</dt><dd style="padding-left: 3em; padding-right: 3em; line-height: 21px; font-family: Times; ">...(Genesis 31-35 - online edition from the University of Calgary, ed. Murray Macgillivray)</dd>
Langland may be making a reference to Isaiah in Piers Plowman:
Lopen out with Lucifer in lothelich forme,For thei leveden upon hym that lyed in this manere:Ponam pedem in aquilone et simils ero altissimo.
.. leaping out with Lucifer in loathly shapes,Because they believed Lucifer who lied in this way:I shall set my foot in the north and I shall be like the most high.
(Piers Plowman, 1.117-119, B-text, translation by Donaldson, ed. Elizabeth Robertson and Stephen H.A. Shepherd)
*edit* And - much later example - I'm pretty sure that Milton has Lucifer marshal his forces in the north as well, though I don't have a copy of Paradise Lost in front of me at the moment.
*edit #2, slightly off-topic* Is the text in question the Seventeen Statutes? I only ask because I'm sitting at the library with Bremmer's An Introduction to Old Frisianin hand and the phrase shows up a couple of times: "... and to tha wathemhuse and therbinna bernt mon ieftha mar ieftha bethe twa, sa ach hi bi riuchte thet northhalde tre and thet niugenspatze fial ..."
*edit #2, back on topic* A search of the relevant databases I have access to and a visit to the periodicals section of my library is not turning up much - Matthew Fisher's article "Working at the Crossroads: Tolkien, St. Augustine, and the Beowulf-poet" has plenty to say about Augustine and Catholic influences on Tolkien but nothing about the passage from Isaiah or the north in particular; and Marjorie J. Burns' Mythlorearticle on "J.R.R. Tolkien and the Journey North" touches briefly on some negative associations with the North, but does not reference any medieval sources.













Edited by: Almarëa Mordollwen

[Lord of the Rings]

Thanks very much, Almarëa! That's a great sample of sources



The passage from Augustine seems particularly clear, and of course his works had immense influence - even without any reinforcement from pre-Christian beliefs about the North that things like Vǫluspámight show, Augustine alone would certainly explain however much popularity it enjoyed throughout the Middle Ages.
There seems to be a bit of a difference here about whether the 'North' is the North of heaven or of earth. Augustine, although he's using 'North' metaphorically, seems to root it in earthly geography, while Genesis Ais clearly referring to a part of heaven(Then he said with speech, craving strife, that he wished to own/rule home and high-seat of the kingdom of heaven in the north-part . . .). I'm not sure how significant this is, since the idea of the North as Satan's direction is constant, but it would be interesting to know if any Anglo-Saxon sources allude, in Augustinian tradition, to the North as the devil's abode on earth.

Edited by: Lord of the Rings

[Lord of the Rings]

Ah, simuled with your edits. Yes, it is from the Seventeen Statutes(from a set of qualifications to the 16th, to be precise). Bremmer is teaching the class, so unsurprisingly enough we're using his book.

[Almarëa Mordollwen]

... That is seriously awesome. *temporarily speechless*

Back to the North in heaven vs. on earth - it's a really interesting distinction, all the more so because the other Old English / Middle English / Old Norse sources I'm finding seem at first glance totally contradictory.
The Anglo-Saxon version of the Hexameron of St. Basil sides with theGenesispoet, withthe devil's throne in the north but above the clouds:
God hine geworhte wundorlicne and faegerne.ða sceolde he. gif he wolde. wurðian his scyppend mid micelre eaðmodnysseðe hine swa maerne gesceop. ac he ne dyde na swa. ac mid dyrstigre modignysse cwaeððaet he wolde wyrcan his cynesetl bufan Godes tunglum oferðaera wolcna heannysseonðam norðdaeleand beon Gode gelic.
God wrought him wondrous and fair, then it was his duty, if he had (only willed it, to worship, with great humility, his Creator, who had created him so exalted, but he did not so, but with a presumptuous pride he said that he would make his throne above the stars of God, over the height of the clouds, in the north part, and be like unto God.(p. 16-17, ed. Henry W. Norman, 1849.)
Very similar wording shows up in Aelfric's Homilies, again making it clear that it is the North of heaven that is being discussed:
ða began he to modigenne forðaere faegernysseðe he haefde, and cwaeðon his heortanðaet he wolde and eaðe mihte beon his Scyppende gelic, andsitan onðam norð-daeleheofenan rices, and habben andweald and rice ongean God Aelmihtigne.
Then he began to wax proud by reason of the comeliness that he hand, and said in his heart that he would and easily might be equal to his Creator, and sit in the north part of heaven's kingdom, and have power and sway against God Almighty.(From Aelfric'sSermo de initio creaturae, ad populum, quando volueris, trans. Benjamin Thorpe)
Milton does place Satan's domain in the north, but it is again (following the homiletic tradition perhaps?) in heaven, in this case before the rebellion or the fall:
At length into the limits of the northThey came, and Satan to his royal seat ...(Milton, V. 756-757)
Skeats' commentary onPiers Plowman, meanwhile, provides some more earthly examples:
In Chaucer's Freres Tale, 115, the fiend lives "in the north contre". In Text C of Piers Plowman, William inquireswhyLucifer chose thenorthside, but fears he will offendNorthern menif he says much about it. Yet he hints that the north is the place for cold and discomfort, and suitable enough for the fallen angel. In the Icelandic Gylfaginning we find - "niðr ok norðr liggr Helvegr", i.e. "downwards andnorthwardslieth the way to Hell".(p. 110,The vision of William concerning Piers the Plowman, ed. Walter W. Skeat, 5th ed., emphasis in original)
And just to make the matter more confusing - Norman's notes on the Hexameron attribute the devil's association with thenorð-daelewith an entirely pagan tradition:
The idea, too, of placing the evil spirits in the "norðdael"is pagan, and derived from the habitation of the giants (or "Iötenas") in "Iötunhelm," which lay to the north of Valhalla.(Norman, op. cit., p. 17)

Way past midnight where I am, so more thoughts in the morning!

[Saranna]

Also totallyspeechless, but you've convinced me!

[Lord of the Rings]

The subject of the North came up again in class today, this time with the etymology of the old Germanic word for 'left' (as in, left hand). The word's etymology appears to be euphemistic, originally 'the friendlier side' (Old Frisian winster, Old English winstre, Old High German winistar, in which the win(i)part is the same word for 'friend' seen in Ælf<u style="font-style: italic; ">wine[/u]). This is theorized to be the same sort of euphemism that we see in the term 'fair folk' - calling something you fear or distrust by a positive, or at least neutral, name to propitiate it and/or avoid calling it's attention.



In this case, aside from the inherent symbolism of left = sinister, Bremmer suggested that there was an additional directional aspect, since North and left are the same when one orientates oneself to the East. This kind of orientation is a very old tradition, obviously important to Christianity, in which churches face east, but also in other traditions because of the importance of the sunrise in determining direction. It was probably also an Indo-European idea, reflected in the Sanskrit worddakṣiṇa(related to Latindexter), which regularly means both 'right (hand)' and 'south', with the latter sense showing up (after some Middle Indic changes) in the name for the DeccanPlateau of southern India. No devils in any of this, but maybe a little more support for the long-standing sinister nature of the North, so to speak.
Anyway, it looks like we have quite a widespread tradition of the North as bad, and at least as the home of monsters, and of Satan dwelling at least in the North of heaven, and maybe also earth. Quite a stew for him to draw on! I'm not sure that we can get too precise about the sources, since he would have known virtually all of the sources mentioned here - certainly the Old and Middle English and Old Norse ones well (and Vǫluspáand Gylfaginningare not exactly obscure Norse texts), and probably Augustine to some degree. It's highly plausible he would have read the note in Skeat too, who was very prominent in Tolkien's field of specialization, Middle English.
I also happened to find this Wikipedia page, which (ifit's accurate) would be an additional aspect to this whole North/devil thing. Though even if it's true, I have no idea if Tolkien would have heard of this architectural feature and its accompanying beliefs:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil%27s_doorAnyone know about Sussex or English churches who might be able to comment on this?





Edited by: Lord of the Rings

[Dorwiniondil]

South = "right hand region" also occurs in Welsh (de / deheu), among, I believe, other languages. However, I don't recollect north=bad in Welsh tradition, except of course when South Walians (Hwntws) are talking about North Walians (Gogs).

[Saranna]

Vague bits surfacing in mymind- I read somewhere somewhen about China having a south/good and north/bad orientation?
Also there is the paradoxical idea of something good beyond or behind the North - At the back of the north wind, byMacDonald, for example, and the Hyperboreans. Sorry this is so bitty, the sudden heat has knocked me out!

[Saranna]

Just spotted, in Garmonsway and Simpson's Beowulf and its analogues, this exchange that takes place during Hermodr's journey to Hel to attempt to redeem Baldr;



He meets Modgudr, who guards the bridge across the river Gjoll and asks her if she has 'seen Baldr at all on the road to Hel?'
She replies "that Baldr had indeed ridden there across Gjoll Bridge--'and downward and northwards runs the road to Hel.'" [My bold emphasis]

[Lord of the Rings]

Saranna, that also forms a nicely alliterating phrase in Old Norse: niðr ok norðr liggr Helvegr.



(Not that that text is alliterative, but it's not uncommon to find 'alliterative formulae' even in prose texts.)
Would it be straining things too much to see a parallel between Hermóðr's ride Beren and Lúthien's journey into Angband? The 'drear dale' /døkkva dala('dark dales') and 'nethermost hall' / niðr. . . . . .í hallarinnarin both? Probably a stretch too far, but fun to think about

Edited by: Lord of the Rings

[Saranna]

Yes, why not stretch - of stretching are whole theories, articles, and monographs born! Thanks for the ON version.

[Lord of the Rings]

Thanks for the ON version.



It might be less useful, since it's not a facing page edition, but the original text of the Prose Eddacan be found in full on the Viking Society's site (an astoundingly useful resource!):http://www.vsnrweb-publications.org.uk/Edda-1.pdfHermóðr is introduced on page 46, line 19, and his ride is recounted on page 47, line 7 on (this phrase is lines 17-18).
The editor of the Viking Society edition, Anthony Faulkes, has also done up a very nice translation of the Prose Edda, published by Penguin. Faulkes is, I think, also the one responsible for the Viking Society's initiative to upload these resources.
However, I don't recollect north=bad in Welsh tradition, except of course when South Walians (Hwntws) are talking about North Walians (Gogs).

The whole veneration of 'Hen Ogledd', and Peredur, actually shows the North in a rather positive light, doesn't it? Though maybe that's a 'geographic north' rather than a 'directional north' . . . I can't think of anything in my meagre knowledge of Old Irish literature that hints at an 'evil north' there either.

[Dorwiniondil]

As for 'Hen Ogledd', I think that's not only geographical, but cultural, since it's associated with the literature of what is now northern England and Southern Scotland (Taliesin, Aneirin), but which until the 7th century was solidly Welsh.

Another direction sometimes associated with evil is the West; in Arabic 'Dar al-Harb' (land of war and chaos) is often also interpreted as 'Dar al-Garb' (land of the west). Similarly, many Eastern Orthodox Christians regard the East as the source of light and good, while worshippers turn their backs on the evil West.

[Saranna]

Guess we have no good place to go, then, Dorwiniondil! Thanks LotR, I do have that site bookmarked but mustconfessI haven't yet used it much. Can you advise on a Primer (print form or online) that would help someone who wasstupidenough not to study ON when she should have done but would like to at least have some awareness of the rudiments. (I did spot nether in nithre). [And moreover can I somehowincludeThorn, Eth, etc in posts or do I need to compose them in Word and copy them in?]

[Lord of the Rings]

Can you advise on a Primer (print form or online) that would help
(I'm adding this in after having written up the rest of the post: yes, I can give my thoughts on Old Norse learning materials, but apparently I can'tdo so briefly! Sorry for the length in advance!)
Old Norse is actually a little lacking in the primer front, at least compared to Old English or Gothic. Probably the best known overview is E.V. Gordon's Introduction to Old Norse, which includes a veryabbreviated grammatical sketch, and very large selection of texts. Some people love it, others find it completely unusable (both groups include people with a lot of experience studying old languages). A major issue with the grammar is that it's very focused on simply giving large numbers of paradigms, without commenting on general patterns in the language - so unless you're very good at memorizing forms, it can be very daunting to learn from. It's also including as a reference grammar sketch at the back of the book - if you just open up the book, you get an introduction, and then texts right away! It's also rather pricey (print only).
Somewhat older is Henry Sweet's An Icelandic Primer. If you know is Anglo-Saxon Primer, you'll be familiar with how this book works. He gives quite a few paradigms, but presents them in a perhaps more pedagogically useful way than Gordon does. His text has the advantages of being both clear and concise, but the disadvantage of being somewhat dated (nothing serious, but he sometimes uses notations and terms no longer usual in talking about Norse). It's out of copyright, and so available free online from various places. The Germanic Lexicon Projecthas a PDF:http://lexicon.ff.cuni.cz/misc/oi_sweet_text/clprm10p.pdf
There's also a more 'modern' introduction, put out by the Viking Society itself, called A New Introduction to Old Norse, which I think is intended to counterbalance the problems of Gordon's book. It's in three volumes - grammar, reader, glossary. The latter two are verywell done.
The grammar, by Miachael Barnes, takes the approach of trying to give you the 'general idea' and focuses on reading capacity and recognizing forms over strict knowledge of the grammar and knowing paradigms inside and out. It also likes to spend a lot of time explaining things - this means it has an excellent pronunciation section (I recommend this even if you don't use this grammar for anything else), and is great if you've never encountered dativeor genitivebefore. And it includes a lotof examples. All this can be useful, but makes the book very verbose and a bit cluttered.
Barnesmostlygets around to giving all the paradigms and such eventually (though the text to paradigm ration is weighted heavily towards text), but does kind of gloss over some complications in its quest for clarity. Again, it's pretty good at explaining how things are working, but can be rather long-winded in the process. Of course, in an advantage over Sweet, it does use purely modern notations and terms.It's available both as a fairly cheap print book, or as a free PDF from the Viking Society's page (http://vsnrweb-publications.org.uk/- the PDFs are just below the list of Saga Book issues).
I might recommend using Sweet as a basic primer, but read Barnes for the pronunciation section (in particular the one for the ancient pronunciation - he also has a section on Modern Icelandic), and for clarification of any topics that seems confusing in Sweet. Gordon might be useful as a reference grammar or place with some more technical explanations, but I can't say it's price tag is justified unless you really want to work through the texts in the book.

Edited by: Lord of the Rings

[Lord of the Rings]

Sorry for the double post, but I forgot to mention about ð, þ, etc. in the last post (which was probably getting a bit lengthy and cluttered anyway).



On a Windows computer, there's basically no perfect way to get a lot of useful characters ('useful' to people who like old languages, anyway).
1) The simplest way, probably better than Word, is to use the Character Map (usually listed under Accessories &gt;&gt; System Tools). This includes a search box - so a search for 'thorn' returns upper and lowercase thorn, and you can select the one you want and copy-paste it.

2) Alternatively, you can use the alt-codes. So you hold down the ALT key, and type in several numbers on your number pad. The relevant codes are:
Þ (uppercase thorn) - ALT 0222þ (lowrcase thorn) - ALT 0254Đ (uppercase eth) - ALT 0208ð (lowercase eth) - ALT 0240
This lets you input the characters directly into wherever you're typing (say, a Plaza post box), but only really works if you know the codes. (You can look the codes up in the aforementioned Character Map, which displays the code for a selected character in the lower right corner).

3) If you want an easier way to input the characters, you'll actually have to change your keyboard layout. You can, for instance, change your settings so that your computer thinks your using an Icelandic keyboard. It will then think that your / key is a þ, and your [ key is an ð. This can be very confusing.
For my symbol use, I've made up a keyboard layout using a free program from Microsoft. It is basically a US keyboard layout, but you can do things like hold down ALT and type d to get ð, or ALT t to get þ. This let's me have a normal keyboard, but I can use this ALT function to get a pretty wide array of special characters, accents, and diacritics relatively easily. It's slightly more work to set up, but very easy once it's going. If anyone thinks this would be useful, I can send them the file with my keyboard layout, and a bit of an explanation for what keys do what.

4) The other thing to do is buy an Apple computer, and learn the relatively simple commands they have for producing special characters (explained here:http://www.forlang.wsu.edu/help/keyboards2.asp). This is my single favourite thing about Macs, though it's still never persuaded me to shell out the extra money for one (especially considering there aregood DIY fixes for Windows).

Hope that helps, and isn't too confusing!

[Lord of the Rings]

For my 'PhilKey' keyboard layout, including a PDF explaining everything about it:https://sites.google.com/site/ahannahim/philkey




Edited by: Lord of the Rings

[Saranna]

Well thanks for all of that! Will get to it as soon as I'vereturnedfrom Loughborough (I may seeyouthere?)



Don't worry, I tend to answer most questions at that sort of length too

[Lord of the Rings]

No, I won't be at the Return of the Ring - a little beyond my means just now, unfortunately. I'm definitely looking forwards to the reports of those who are going, though!

[Troelsfo]

Having noted this thread as one of the‘rewarding discussions’ in my August Transactions, I had a response in the Tolkien usenet groups, where poster Steve Morrison comments on what he sees as

the most obvious inspiration of all: the /Kalevala/. The evil land of Pohjola (also called Sariola) was located in the north, and better yet, the quest of the Sampo was an expedition to Pohjola with many obvious paralleles to the Quest of the Silmaril. (It begins in the 39th Runo, and takes up much of the rest of the work.)

The Kalevalacan be found in the Kirby translation on Project Gutenberg, and
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/33089/33089-h/33089-h.htm#Runo_XXXIX_The_Expedition_against_Pohjola(it is also available in the Crawford edition,http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5185, but that one doesn't have the internal anchors allowing me to link directly to the relevant Runo).



Tolkien students should also note this work for its other parallels. Kirby provides a short prose summary of each Runo, and for Runo 42, he has the following to say.

The heroes arrive at Pohjola, and Väinämöinen announces that he has come to take possession of the Sampo, either with good-will, or by force (1-58). The Mistress of Pohjola refuses to yield it either by consent or by compulsion, and calls together her people to oppose him (59-64). Väinämöinen takes the kantele, begins to play, and lulls to sleep all the people of Pohjola, and goes with his companions to search for the Sampo; they take it from the stone mountain and convey it to the boat (65-164). They sail homewards well satisfied, carrying the Sampo with them (165-308). On the third day the Mistress of Pohjola wakes from her sleep, and when she finds that the Sampo has been carried off, she prepares a thick fog, a strong wind, and other impediments, to oppose the robbers of the Sampo, which reach the vessel, and during the tempest Väinämöinen's kantele falls into the water (309-562).

The idea of a pair of heroes arriving at the mountain fortress of the opponent in the north to take back a great treasure, and achieving this by putting the opponent, and her minions to sleep . . . well, it rings a bell or two to me

[Saranna]

Here's a complete contrast from Claudius the God, which I am currently re-reading.



Taenarum is the southernmost promontory of the Pelopennese, where there is a short cut to Hell whichavoidsthe River Styx. It was by this way thatHerculesdragged the DogCerberusto the Upper World. The thrifty natives of Taenarum bury their dead without the customary coin in the mouth,knowingthat that they will not need it to pay Charon their ferryfare.[My bold emphasis]
Seems you can get to hell - in or out of a handbasket - in most directions. Assuming Graves is right, he issometimes!

[Lord of the Rings]

Troels, The Kalevalais indeed a very obvious source! Finnish northerness seems to have intruded (in a gloomy, though not necessarilyevil, way) into his earliest Qenya. Kirby's 'gloomy land'Pohja(aname 'chiefly used for the dark North, where the sun is hidden', PE12, p. xii) seems to be the inspiration for the Qenya word pōya, glossed by the editors of PE12 as 'northern'.

[Lord of the Rings]

Mark Hooker mentions the directions a little in English and Welsh, particularly in the essay 'Echoes in Middle-earth of One Hand Clapping in Wales'. He adds Old Irish dess(he cites it as des) as another example of right=south.



More interestingly, he notes that the Elvish words for handedness and directions also go hand-in-hand (pun intended), but in the opposite way from the various Indo-European examples that have been brought up so far:
Eldarin KHYAR 'left hand':Quenya hyarya'left', hyarmen'south'Noldorin hargam 'left-handed', harad'south'
Eldarin PHOR 'right-hand':Quenya forya'right', formen'north'Noldorin forgam'righthanded', forven'north', forn'right or north'
This makes sense, because of course the Elves 'oriented' themselves West, towards Valinor, and when facing West the south is to the left and the north to the right. But it does mean there is no 'sinister North' in Elvish tradition.