"Of Beleriand and its Realms" Discussion Post

[indy1776]

Of Beleriand and its Realms

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Welcome this fortnight's chapter discussion!

Important: This is not a spoiler-free zone. It is hard to discuss any chapter in depth without referring to things that happen in later chapters. Proceed at your own risk! Furthermore, it’s perfectly fine to jump in

Comments

[hhimring]

I think despite the maps the geography of Beleriand is in a more fluid state than that for LOTR where Tolkien apparently calculated scales and distances quite precisely.
Distances seem to shift--for instance, it looks to me as if in the text Hithlum is closest to Angband, no, Dorthonion is, no, the Marches of Maedhros are--all depending on who the narrative happens to be praising or critizing at the time...

[indy1776]

I think so, too. I actually hadn't realized until the research for this chapter exactly how small Beleriand is. Nor have I ever really been able to keep in mind exactly what is where. That may be me being dense, but things just seem less… solid.

[hhimring]

The bit about Beleriand seeming small might be partly a North American perspective. Something the size of France doesn't seem small to me--and I live in the UK like Tolkien did.
Especially as in Beleriand quite a lot of the travelling is apparently done on foot.

[indy1776]

Undoubtably is-- though I wouldn't call France small, either. Beleriand just seems small in comparision to what I imagined, which was more like half the size of North America.

And travel on foot makes a difference, too. I sort-of thought horses were more common, but it doesn't seem that way to me now. (The distance betweeen the town where I spent my teenaged years and the city where I live now is pretty much the size of Beleriand. Imagining traveling that on foot or horseback makes it seem a lot larger.)

[anna_wing]

The late, great Pauline Baynes published four gloriously beautiful maps of Middle-earth including one of Beleriand. The others were from LOTR, "The Hobbit" and of "Bilbo's Last Song". I would certainly subscribe to any attempt to have them re-published.

[indy1776]

She did?! Ooh, now I really wish they were still published.

I did find this collection of maps just now on a Google search for the Baynes maps, but I'm not sure how large or detailed they are.

[mrowe]

They're about 70 by 75 cm - the centre quadrant is map, with fairly wide borders illustrated by John Howe. They're nice to have on a wall, but nowhere as detailed as Fonstad, and no scale is given on the maps, which makes comparing them hard.

[indy1776]

Thank you! Pity they're not more detailed; I'd love to have something I can look at my wall for reference.

(Your icon made me laugh.)

[angelica_ramses]

I've already told this story more than once but bear with me: I have a soft spot for this chapter because when many many many (believe me, many) years ago I first read the Silm (though I hadn't read Lord of the Rings!) I turned page after page without understanding a thing. One evening I was on the train going back home from the university and deciding whether to chuck the book through the window when wow! the whole vistas of Beleriand opened and I was in. I can still recall the magic of the moment :)

[indy1776]

That is a wonderful story!

[lalwen]

Does anyone else wish for a giant poster-sized map of Beleriand like they sell for LotR?

I have often considered running a pic of the map through rasterbator.net and covering the wall opposite my bed with the result. It would not look very nice close up, though... (A more aesthetically pleasing but much more hardcore alternative would be to somehow... trace and magnify the outlines, reproduce each individual bit on cardstock, and assemble them together on the wall. A summer project if there ever was one.)

I actually like this chapter, but only because of the map at the back. Without it I would be totally lost. (Kinda like how I once tried to read On the Road and it made NO SENSE until I grabbed a map of the US showing all the different states.)

And damn, I didn't know that Nevrast was supposed to be milder in climate... I recently wrote something where the sea there froze over. Oh well. No ice-swimming for the elves there, then.

[indy1776]

I've occasionally thought of tracing and enlarging, but I have no idea how to do that. Maybe with an overhead projector? (Not that I have access to one.)

The map is absolutely vital. It's the only way I know where everything is, too.

Milder doesn't mean no freezing. And hey, no one can memorize everything in the Silm. :)