The Lord of the Kingdom

Nargothrond, West Beleriand. Seventh Age. - Scholars and experts in all things Tolkien are in general agreement that the most beautiful writing in all of Tolkien’s legendarium is Ainulindalë: The Music of the Ainur. This remarkable chapter opens The Silmarillion, Tolkien’s life-long endeavor and his chief love. Ainulindalë is a creation story, one which is drawn from, embellishes, and slightly distorts the true myth account found in the Book of Genesis in Jewish and Christian bibles. The style is high and lofty: one is caught up in the imaginative genius of the creator of Middle-earth, at times hoping that he is filling in gaps in the method employed by God to bring our own Middle-earth into being.

There is another short work by Tolkien that, for me, is even more compelling and gripping. It is found in Book X of The History of Middle Earth, Morgoth’s Ring: The Later Silmarillion, Part One: The Legends of Aman. The essay is entitled Athrabeth Finrod Ah Andreth, or The Debate of Finrod and Andreth. To my knowledge, this remarkable dialogue is only found in this book, which was edited by Christopher Tolkien. Like Ainulindalë, Athrabeth Finrod Ah Andreth provides an intimate glimpse into the heart and theological mind of the wizard who was J.R.R. Tolkien.*

The debate is between Finrod, the elven brother of Galadriel, who was also known as Edennil, the Friend of Men. Of him it was written,

Finrod (son of Finarfin, son of Finwë) was the wisest of the exiled Noldor, being more concerned than all others with matters of thought (rather than with making or with skill of hand); and he was eager moreover to discover all that he could concerning Mankind.

Andreth, of the race of Men, is introduced as

a woman of the House of Bëor, the sister of Bregor father of Barahir (whose son was Beren One-hand the renowned). She was wise in thought, and learned in the lore of Men and their histories; for which reason the Eldar called her Saelind, ‘Wise-heart’.

Tolkien tells us that,

In the days of the peace before Melkor broke the Siege of Angband, Finrod would often visit Andreth, whom he loved in great friendship, for he found her more ready to impart her knowledge to him than were most of the Wise among Men. A shadow seemed to lie upon them, and there was a darkness behind them, of which they were loth to speak even among themselves.

The debate covers a variety of subjects but one of the more fascinating is the discussion concerning redemption of Arda, i.e., creation. Their conversation had begun with the issue of Death, which Andreth held to be a curse placed upon Men by Melkor, the satanic lord of Middle-earth whose Ring was Middle-earth itself and into which he had placed much of his power. Finrod disputes such a notion of Melkor’s power and tells Andreth of his first-hand knowledge of the natures of Melkor and Eru (God):

‘We know Melkor, the Morgoth, and know him to be mighty. Yea, I have seen him, and I have heard his voice; and I have stood blind in the night that is at the heart of his shadow, whereof you, Andreth, know nought save by hearsay and the memory of your people. But never even in the night have we believed that he could prevail against the Children of Eru. This one he might cozen, or that one he might corrupt; but to change the doom of a whole people of the Children, to rob them of their inheritance: if he could do that in Eru’s despite, then greater and more terrible is he by far than we guessed; then all the valour of the Noldor is but presumption and folly . . .’

Andreth struggles to believe Finrod’s reasoning, however, and instead admits of her despair - the loss of hope - for Men. The debate now turns to the matter of hope, redemption, and a new creation.

‘Have ye then no hope?’ said Finrod.

‘What is hope?’ she said. ‘An expectation of good, which though uncertain has some foundation in what is known? Then we have none.’

‘That is one thing that Men call “hope”,’ said Finrod. ‘Amdir we call it, “looking up”. But there is another which is founded deeper. Estel we call it, that is “trust”. It is not defeated by the ways of the world, for it does not come from experience, but from our nature and first being. If we are indeed the Eruhin, the Children of the One, then He will not suffer Himself to be deprived of His own, not by any Enemy, not even by ourselves. This is the last foundation of Estel, which we keep even when we contemplate the End: of all His designs the issue must be for His Children’s joy. Amdir you have not, you say. Does no Estel at all abide?’

‘Maybe,’ she said . . . ‘It is believed that healing may yet be found, or that there is some way of escape. But is this indeed Estel? Is it not Amdir rather; but without reason: mere flight in a dream from what waking they know: that there is no escape from darkness and death?’

‘Mere flight in a dream you say,’ answered Finrod. ‘In dream many desires are revealed; and desire may be the last flicker of Estel. But you do not mean dream, Andreth. You confound dream and waking with hope and belief, to make the one more doubtful and the other more sure . . .

‘What then was this hope, if you know?’ Finrod asked.

‘They say,’ answered Andreth: ‘they say that the One will himself enter into Arda, and heal Men and all the Marring from the beginning to the end. . . . How could Eru enter into the thing that He has made, and than which He is beyond measure greater? Can the singer enter into his tale or the designer into his picture?’

‘He is already in it, as well as outside,’ said Finrod . . .

‘For, as it seems to me, even if He in Himself were to enter in, He must still remain also as He is: the Author without. And yet, Andreth, to speak with humility, I cannot conceive how else this healing could be achieved. Since Eru will surely not suffer Melkor to turn the world to his own will and to triumph in the end. Yet there is no power conceivable greater than Melkor save Eru only. Therefore Eru, if He will not relinquish his work to Melkor, who must else proceed to mastery, then Eru must come in to conquer him.

‘More: even if Melkor (or the Morgoth that he has become) could in any way be thrown down or thrust from Arda, still his Shadow would remain, and the evil that he has wrote and sown as a seed would wax and multiply. And if any remedy for this is to be found, ere all is ended, any new light to oppose the shadow, or any medicine for the wounds: then it must, I deem, come from without.’

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* The story is told of one of Tolkien’s sons who was completing paperwork prior to being inducted into the English military during World War II. When required to state his father’s occupation, Tolkien’s son wrote, “Wizard.”

(The following is a replication of a page describing one of the people groups in Middle-earth, the Númenoreans. Each of the groups or individuals listed in the Sidebar {”Peoples”} has or will have a link to a page providing more information for that particular heading.)

The short answer is that Númenoreans are those survivors from Númenor who came to Middle-earth following the destruction of the island Kingdom. Númenor was Tolkien’s Atlantis mythology: both sank into the sea.

The long answer is again provided by Tyler:

Númenor [was] the greatest realm of the world in the Second Age, apart from the Undying Lands. Founded by the Edain, at the very beginning of the Age, for three thousand years this land continued to grow in both power and splendour until ultimately, the vaulting ambitions of the Númenoreans caused them to commit the most appalling act of sacrilege. As a punishment, the island-realm was thrown down and buried under the waves, with only a chosen few of the Faithful surviving to start afresh in Middle-earth . . .

“[A] number of the Faithful escaped this downfall and, led by Elendil the Tall, sailed to Middle-earth to found the Númenorean realms-in-exile: Arnor and Gondor . . .

“The Realms in Exile, although less imperial and magnificent than ancient Númenor, were thus no whit less royal; for many years both North- and South-kingdoms flourished in Middle-earth, before they were gradually diminished in various ways. Yet even at the end of the Third Age much still survived in Middle-earth of the last remnant of Númenor, originally founded - with the full blessing of the Valar - nearly two full Ages before.”

This somewhat begs the question, however, for it remains to be explained what set this particular group of men apart from other men, who were also the Atani, the ‘Second People,’ the second-born Children of Ilúvatar. This requires some background on the creation and origins of Men in general, also provided by Tyler:

[Men are,] after the Elves, the noblest of all ’speaking-peoples’; for whom the Gift of Mortality was expressly conceived as an alternative for life everlasting (the fate of the Elves) . . .

“[Following the awakening of the Elves] at last the Second People awoke, in the land of Hildórien in the wide East. For centuries they wandered gradually away from their birth-place, in all directions save north; and at last the westerly vanguard came first into Wilderland, and then into Eriador, and finally into Beleriand. These were the Edain (the Sindarin form of the more ancient Quenya name Atani). Originally the term [Edain]had been applied to the race of Men as a whole, but everafter the Elves of Beleriand used it specifically for the Three Houses of the Elf-friends who fought alongside them in their wars against Morgoth, and who dwelt with them in allied kingdoms . . . their providential contact with the Elves at such a crucial stage in their development singled out this people from all other Mannish races for elevation. Consequently, their direct descendants, the Dúnedain, eventually came to deem themselves a ‘High People’ - in comparison with other Men, whom they divided into ‘Middle’ and ‘Wild’ Peoples.

“The ‘Middle Peoples’ shared the same origins and earliest histories as the ‘High People’, but their development was largely unaided by Elven-lore or fortuitous circumstance. For the ancestors of the Middle People were those of the Edain and their close kin who did not pass west to Númenor after the end of the First Age, remaining instead in Middle-earth where they elevated their culture at a far slower rate. However, they greatly increased in number and, by the end of the Second Age, their descendants were far more numerous than those of the Dúnedain who had returned meanwhile to Middle-earth . . .

“One may note close parallels with the ‘High’ and ‘Middle’ Elves, i.e., the Noldor and the Sindar, likewise separated at an early point in their history but later reunited under circumstances both grievous and uplifting . . .

“So, while the cultural differences among the Mannish peoples were (and still are) immense, ultimately, they were (and are) cancelled out by the great factors in common, most notably Free Will, the gift of all Free Peoples, and the possession of immortal souls tempered by Mortality: the Gift of Men.”

From The Complete Tolkien Companion by J.E.A. Tyler

The similarity between the name “Númenoreans” and the term “numinous” is hardly accidental. Duriez discusses the importance of the numinous in Tolkien’s writings:

[Numinous] is a term created by the German Lutheran theologian Rudolf Otto (1869-1937). He was concerned to isolate the universal element in human experience that is religious. He rejected the attempts to explain away such experience by materialistic theories . . . The numinous experience involves a sense of dependence upon what stands wholly other to humanity. This otherness (or other-worldliness) is unapproachable and awesome. At the same time it has a fascination and attraction. Rudolf Otto believed that Christianity has the clearest concept of the numinous.

“Whatever the rights and wrongs of Otto’s analysis, the implication is that the experience of the numinous is captured better by suggestion and allusion than by a theoretical analysis . . .

“Much of the numinous in Tolkien is the effect of his linguistic creativity . . . His use of Elvish names, words and phrases, which are beautiful and yet foreign, often invokes a numinous quality, similarly his employment of Runes . . .

“Tolkien has great ability in capturing the numinous through the symbolic . . . whether in landscape (as in Doriath or Lórien) or the natural elements . . .

“The numinous is embodied most of all, in Tolkien’s work, in his idea of faerie . . . an other world in which it is possible for beings such as elves to live and move and have a history . . . Some of his elves (like Lúthien or Galadriel) are incarnations of the numinous.

“Where the numinous is capture, its appeal is firstly to the imagination, which also senses it most accurately. It belongs to the area of meaning rather than concept.”

From Tolkien and The Lord of the Rings, by Colin Duriez.

Númenoreans, therefore, more than any other race of Men, are more spiritually- minded. In this sense, they have more in common with the Elves than with other races of Men.