"All that mankind has done, thought, gained or been: it is lying as in magic preservation in the pages of books."
-Thomas Carlyle

by Daniel Morgan

I remember my first encounter with literature that pierced me through. I was in the seventh grade sitting in that limbo-like period they called Study Hall or Enrichment where we flitted away our time. Happening upon a generic literature textbook, I leafed through the pages until my eye caught on a story where a murderous beast was invading a village. He would sneak in each night to ravage the mead hall until a single warrior finally proved his equal and in a mighty tussle tore the monster's arm from its socket. The arm was so huge that when it was hung on the wall, the nails of the hand scraped the ceiling. The wound would eventually prove fatal as the hellspawn escaped back to the fens, tracked by the courageous thane-hero . . . Well, I was hooked. I quickly transcribed what I could before the bell rang so I could read it at home.

The story I am referring to is, of course, Beowulf. The edition I read was not even in verse, but it captured me and pursues me still. Nowadays I find it hard to meet the eyes of my peers who confess how much they loathed having to read it in college, even though the same frontier worldview could be found in the Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown,” Robin Hood with Sherwood, Natty Bumppo with Glimmerglass, and Huck Finn with Jackson's Island. Even M. Night Shyamalan's film The Village echoes the theme. Nevertheless, these students' insular mentality was even shared by many of the scholars of Beowulf until such time as Professor J.R.R. Tolkien corrected them. Here I would like to join in with the Professor and correct the view that denigrates epics of old, especially the literature of Britannia from about A.D. 450 until 1066 when such heroic verse degenerated into the courtly romances of the Provencal Troubadours and Frenchified Arthurian tales of the High Middle Ages.

The reason for shunning Dark Age or heroic verse is, I believe, due to the belief that it is backward and small-minded to talk so much of the incontinent wilderness and typical testosterone-centered tropes that we've all strived so many centuries of civilization to escape. But this sheltered and suburban escapism is a far cry from the world of adventure that awaits such skeptics out of doors. They simply need a man with a staff to guide the way.

Middle-Earth Retread

The first thing to leaving the Shire, understanding the world of wilderness, and appreciating Dark Age heroic verse again is in understanding what the term "Middle-earth" really means. Due to the recent movies and revival in all things Tolkien, many fans are well on their way to discovering what mentality is held in that moniker. After learning how to read the map called Middle-earth, we can embark to see this frontier or pilgrim worldview lived out through the Germanic tribes, medieval Irish, and even the American Puritans.

The term "Middle-earth" appears throughout Anglo-Saxon or Old English literature. It is in our earliest English text, Caedmon's "Hymn," in his fellow bard Cynewulf's "Crist," anonymously in "The Wanderer," etc. In the cognate Nordic narratives it is known as "Miđgarđ." In our prime example here, Beowulf, it was called middan-geard (middan-eard), where eard means "yard," related to words like garth or girdle. Thus, it literally "Middle enclosure" and figuratively "The Inhabited World of Men" as opposed to the surrounding wilderness, sea, and chaos. One might even think Middle-garden. After all, "paradise" is an old Persian word (pairidaeza) that means "walled around" and was eventually used in our Septuangint (paradeisos) for the Garden of Eden. In Middle English, we have our Midden-erđe (erthe or sometimes midle erţe), "Middle-earth." Hence even in the late sixteenth century, Shakespeare could say of Falstaff, "But stay, I smell a man of middle earth" and mean the same thing as the Beowulf poet's: "How the Almighty had made the [Middle-earth] / a gleaming plain girdled with waters."

But why Middle-earth? The middle of what? Basically it is an island in the middle of the Great Sea (one thinks of Pangea) as well as situated between Heaven and Hell. But these concepts are complex and need some unpacking. Because of the confusion in mythic geography, I'm going to simplify a little for what I believe is the best interpretation for our purposes here.

First, in Norse mythology, earth can be considered to be positioned vertically between Asgard (or Asgarth, the realm of the gods) and Helheim (the abode of the dead), what the Judeo-Christian tradition might call heaven above and hell below. The axis mundi that connected these three worlds (and the six others associated with them) is what the Norse called the World Tree, Yggdrasil. However, in another sense, Asgard is represented as a citadel in the center of the plain of Middle-earth (what I usually associated with Tolkien's seven-tiered tower, Minas Tirith in Gondor). On the borders of the world beyond the sea is the citadel of the ice giants, Utgard of Jotunheim (Again, Tolkien's Barad-dűr, stronghold of Sauron, comes to mind). The sea that bounds the earth around is was naturally called the sea of Middle-earth: "Medi-terra-nea." (In Norse mythology, the sea was inhabited by the world-wide Midgard Serpent (Jormungard), popularly called the Worm Ouroboros). Either way, vertically or horizontally, earth was in a hierarchy with chaos without and order within.

It is important to observe two things at this point: this Middle-earth outlook is not limited to the folk notions of ancient man and it does not necessarily equate to a flat earth. As far as ancient folk beliefs go, even the fictional ages of today's evolutionary theory proposes that the earth became a single landmass called Rodinia which broke up and was replaced by Pannotia and later Pangea, when it apparently split into Gondwana and Laurasia during the Jurassic. Thus, evolutionary mythology, only a couple of hundred years old, conveys the concept of the bent or violently ruptured earth. In the legendarium of Tolkien's books, the world was bent at the end of the Second Age by Eru Ilúvatar ("the One Father of All"). Both accounts are reminiscent of the Genesis Flood (Gen. 7:11) and the days of Peleg (10:25), when due to catastrophism there is no longer a central land mass bounded by waters.

Tolkien himself was not entirely decided in whether to make Arda (his Elvish term for the Earth, and later used for the whole solar system) round or flat. Of course, he and the ancients knew the world was literally round. Throughout history, Pythagoras, Aristotle, Ptolemy, Pliny the Elder, Dante, etc. believed in a spherical earth, even if several Church Fathers and our own Teutonic-enthusiast Tacitus were found among the occasional flat-earther. For goodness sakes, Erastothenes came closer to accurately measuring the Earth's circumference (off by 2%) than Columbus.

At any rate, Tolkien's own stories leave the question of a flat earth hanging. Certainly, the consonant idea of a flat earth carries more of a poetic resonance of being completely exposed as on a chessboard before God, and viscerally brings out the dreadful awe behind the phrase "edge of the world." Whether Tolkien meant for God to bend the earth or the solar system, the concept of Middle-earth itself is unaffected. The flatness or roundedness does not impinge upon what is meant by the geographic and spiritual boundaries of Middle-earth. The world is still hemmed in on all sides by awe. "That even this geography," Tolkien said of Middle-earth, "once held as a material fact, could now be classed as a mere folk-tale affects its value very little. It transcends astronomy. Not that astronomy has done anything to make the island seem more secure or the outer seas less formidable."

Pagan Germania and Middle-Earth in the Flesh

Tolkien explained how his epic story was no mere castle in the clouds but was deeply tied to the root of the world; Middle-Earth is not some other “planet of the science fiction sort but it’s just an old fashioned word for this world we live in, as imagined surrounded by the Ocean … at a different stage of imagination.” Imagine that scenario in microcosm and you have what it was like to live in a medieval village. It was a world full of dark foreboding woods and wolves of many shapes and sizes, much like the Märchen of the Brothers Grimm (only they include the conventional deus ex machina) and even the primitive Bloemfontein and the surrounding veldt of Tolkien's early childhood. It made men small and huddle together for communal safety, for death was ever present.

It is notable that Beowulf begins and ends with a funeral. A thousand years before him, Homer too made much of funerals, for his was an account from the Greek Dark Ages, the elegiac world of wine-dark seas. The same Dark Age in Scripture as in Homer's world (~1200-800 B.C.) is recorded in the book of Judges and 1st and 2nd Samuel (originally one book).* The lack of modern amendities and the comforts of civilization would have made every man a warrior. As Birhtwold said at the Battle of Maldon, "Purpose must be the firmer, heart the keener, courage shall be the more, as our might lessens." Even those not especially pious would feel like humble pilgrims, transitory as life was fleeting and looked upon the world of men as a mere waystation or inn.

The "Dark Age" society of Beowulf and his Geats was built on the foundation of a warrior's submission to his lord's will, recalling Jesus' words "My judgment is just, because I do not seek My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me." (Jn 5:30b) — a courageous counterpart to today's excuses for egalitarianism. A warrior was rewarded with rich gifts for his service, crowns of glory, which he in turn went out and won for his superior. The Arthurian tales mirror that riciprocal concept of glory from pre-feudal times; his knights seek adventure to glorify Camelot and return to treasures for themselves around the Round Table. The Rohirrim of The Lord of the Rings are also, according to Tolkien, "a simpler and more primitive people living in contact with a higher and more venerable culture." The nations are little more than kinship groups ruled by a high king, whose was to be kind to all (all three words have the same root). The law code was quite simply, built like the Old Testament talionic law. Even an accidental slaying required retribution. If in the form of money, the offender had to pay a man-price according the victim's specific rank in society — again, an unapologetic display for hierarchy.

Of course, there is something of a downside to every green pasture. While Tacitus boasts of German hospitality and morality ("Good morality is more effective in Germany than good laws are elsewhere"), he also observed that "renown is more easily won among perils, and a large body of retainers cannot be kept together except by means of violence and war . . . The wherewithal for this openhandedness comes from war and plunder. A German is not so easily prevailed upon to plough the land and wait patiently for harvest as to challenge foe and earn wounds for his reward. He thinks it tame and spiritless to accumulate slowly by the sweat of the brow what can be got quickly by the loss of a little blood." The world of Middle-earth, with all of its customary law and comitatus, was a dangerous place to live. After all, the Germans, Franks, and Saxons all got their ethnic names from the weapons they used. But without danger, there can be no adventure — only sedentary lives of comfort and regret.

Heterodox Hibernia and the Christianizing of Middle-Earth

The medieval Irish certainly knew what the Middle-earth mentality was like, to be a pilgrim and sojourner, outcast and exile, which they called the Green Martyrdom. For centuries after the fall of Caesar's Rome, their monasteries like Sceilg Mhicil clung to the bare crags at the edge of civilization, at the farthest reachest of the newly christened Rome. Even preceding the Age of Beowulf, the Irish of the sixth century utilized their community in isolation to create an amazing and unique blend of traditions that continue today in Celtic Christianity. Thomas Cahill's “How the Irish Saved Civilization” is a decent overview of how such men of legend conversed with animals, confronted the power of the Druids, and walked upon whales. When civilization tottered on the brink of ruin, a handful of holymen almost single-handedly preserved Greek and Latin texts and learning. In just a few generations they in turn evangelized Europe, a mission field largely abandoned by the Roman church. Patrick took Ireland, Columcille (Columba) invaded Scotland (Iona), Columbanus reclaimed France, Germany, Switzerland, and Italy, and Aidan hallowed England, and so on.

The old admonition "What does Ingeld have to do with Christ?" Alcuin made against Hygebald, the Bishop of Lindisfarne, for enjoying epic verse at the monastery is thus not only misguided (and dealt with in the Primum Mobile article "The Art of Saving Face"), but misdirected. The Irish had every claim to having fought the good fight and finished the race set before them while the Caesarian church was still twiddling away in their precious Ecumene.

However, while Beowulf may have had sword-happy drawbacks, the monks always had the temptations of watering down Christ's doctrine with the pagan earth-religions. The next pioneers had neither problem, but were phased out nonetheless as the tide of mercantilism and industrial capitalism began to gather the dispersed back into metropolises again.

The Doom of the Puritans and the Last Stand of Middle-Earth

The Pilgrims of Protestant England were not worried. They knew Christ's promise to preserve His remnant and be with them, lo, even unto the end of the age. Firm in their typological belief that they were retaking the New World as the New Promise Land and reliving Old Testament history, they took this luminous "City Upon a Hill" feeling with them. Nevertheless, the tension of Asgard among the giants was still there, looking out from the green commons at the red savages and black devils lurking within the wood.

In many ways, the Pilgrims/Puritans resembled a vision of the medieval world in miniature: they had a fresh start from the Old World just as the Germanic tribes had wider horizons and blacker soil in the wake of Rome; they counted perseverance as one of their chief virtues; and they fought the adventure of survival on the frontier, following God outside the camp (Heb. 11: 8-16; 13:12-14), on the outskirts of Middle-earth, what Romans knew as the Ecumene and the Greeks the Oikoumene, the inhabited land. Like the Germanic tribes and medieval Irish before them, the Puritans were among the "barbarians" of frontier history again.

By Jonathan Edwards’ day, however, the Puritans were a dying breed. The oikoumene had overrun the noble savages and paved over the wilderness. Middle-earth had been cleared of forests and was now a prospector’s heaven. Puritanism, long cut off from its English persecutors, accordingly grew fat off the land and spiritually apathetic. On top of that, the Age of Absolutism (what textbooks refer to as the Age of Enlightenment) had come to wipe the slate rasa of their antiquated creeds with more fashionable "reason" and "progress." Any hold that Puritan or Reformation doctrine continued to have was mostly over communities that, as Dan Walker Howe has said, “still faced aboriginal enemies or were still overwhelmed by the forces of nature and brooded in their lonely isolation.” The universe of Calvinism filled the needs of a pre-industrial agrarian hinterland like the American South. The yeoman farmer, it might be said, has a “personality” for it. It is no surprise then to see frontier towns like Stockbridge welcome Edwards when affluent, heretical ones like Northampton rejected him. The later Puritans like Edwards were like anachronistic islands, an orthodox outpost in a world where Calvinism was almost a lost cause, having been wounded by compromise and losing ground to the modern monsters of the Locke, Berkeley, and Enlightenment philosophy. Nevertheless, Edwards fought like Beowulf fighting the Fire-drake or Birhtnoth at the Battle of Maldon or the Norse gods versus the Ragnarok, and lived Tolkien's words: "The wages of heroism is death."

Living on the Edge: The Rainbow Bridge of Christian Fantasy

But this does not mean frontier people kept a provincial or escapist mentality. The Beowulf poet was a genius writing around A.D. 700s. The Irish produced illuminated manuscripts like the intricately illustrated Book of Kells that defy modern reproduction. Edwards too was a shining light in the wilderness. He is recognized as America’s premier genius, an ardent and capable contender against the humanist rationalism of Locke, Newton, and the Scientific Revolution. He pitted science against science, and reason against reason, while his firm religious convictions rested on the heart. Herein lies the Christian key to countering the modern culture, pointing intellectuals and the small-minded back to the need in their souls. As the Dark Ages came on, and Arminianism gave way to Deism to atheism, the Great Awakening flared up as a bonfire of frontier Christianity.

This is the epic progression of the spirit found in Beowulf, a poem so blatantly Christian and declaring the Edward's doctrine of the sovereignty of God though without any New Testament references. The poet took issue with the Dane's heathenism, while at the same time appraising their apocalyptic courage (i.e., ll. 181-188, 1384-89), much like Snorri Sturlson's Edda, and wonderfully novelized in William Moris' foreboding fantasy The House of the Wolfings or C. S. Lewis' Till We Have Faces. Tolkien echoes similar Teutonic (especially for him Anglo-Saxon) Dark Age values of the hearth and pipe: "If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world." He was caught by its tragic vision of Middle-earth, the fortitude and melancholy, the heroic and elegiac.

While Tolkien revamped appreciation of Beowulf and fantasy in general, C.S. Lewis made fantasy sanative to the suspicious Christian palate. Out of Lewis' wide corpus, I think especially of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, where Eustace is brought up by modern parents and "read none of the right books" so that his ignorance of dragons would prove baneful later on. Then there is the grand speech of Reepicheep as he declares his intention to brave sailing to the eastern rim of the world or die trying.

Like Bifrost or Jacob's Ladder or a hundred other rainbows of legend, Tolkien and Lewis bridged Gothic values with the full revelation of Christ just as did their Anglo-Saxon forebearers. Andreas reads like a Gospel version of Beowulf. The Dream of the Rood, another Christian if rather sacramental OE text, even protrays the cruxifixion in terms of a battle and Christ as the stout hero mounting up in glory. The genius of this is that the tale is told by the cross that like a loyal thane strained to bear its mightly Lord. The Descent in Hell told one of the favorite themes in the Middle Ages, when the conquering Christ harrows hell.

We can conclude with the sentiment of the medievalist W.P. Ker, who said, "The barbaric invasion of literature is in its own way a renaissance — a revival of the old common tastes in story-telling, a rediscovery of the world of Homer or indeed something more ancient still." This oral tradition, the voice of the glee-wood that took me by force in the seventh grade, as well as Tolkien, the Puritans, the medieval Irish, the tribal Germans, and the bard of Beowulf itself, is in dire need of popular appreciation. Tolkien once related of when as a boy, he read of Sigurd slaying the dragon Fafnir, "I desired dragons with a profound desire. Of course, I in my timid body did not wish to have them in the neighborhood. But the world that contained even the imagination of Fafnir was richer and more beautiful, at whatever cost of peril." Peradventure, we shall not have to travel the route of Eustace again, but I for one would welcome the battle.

*The parallels between Homer and the Old Testament provide keen historical insight through the heroic values and vignettes protrayed. In cunning and wit there is David and Odysseus. In rivalries, there is Agamemnon angry at the greater warrior Achilles and Saul sore at David. Achilles had his Myrmidons, David his mighty men, and Beowulf his Geats. One-on-one duels were common enough with David and Goliath, Paris and Meneleus, Ajax and Hector, and Achilles and Hector. Strength is shown in Beowulf, Samson, and Odysseus (remember his bow?). David and Achilles displayed their physical beauty. Homosocial friendships are found among David and Jonathan, Achilles and Patroclus, and Hrothgar and Aeschere. David and Odysseus were both skilled in deception. The Cyclopes and Grendel were monsters for not respecting comity. Zeus sent his lying dream to Agamemnon just as Yahweh sent his evil spirit upon Saul to harry David. Finally, in such desperate climes, Odysseus consults the shade of Tiresias as Saul searches out Samuel from beyond the grave.

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