Forgetting the Lore

On Being Religious in Middle Earth

As regular readers know, I'm a fan of J.R.R. Tolkien. Tolkien makes an appearance in Hunting Magic Eels and in 2021 I blogged through The Lord of the Rings. 

So, I'm a fan. But I wouldn't say I've been a hardcore fan for this very simple reason: I'd never read the The Silmarillion. Oh, I've tried from time to time to read The Silmarillion, but I'd never made much progress. As is well known, The Silmarillion is the background cosmology, mythology, and history of Middle Earth and it is, for many, a dry read. But I was finally able to tackle the The Silmarillion by listening to it as an audiobook. 

As Tolkien fans know, he wanted the The Silmarillion to be published alongside The Lord of the Rings. Not surprisingly, given its dryness, the publishers demurred and the The Silmarillion was only published after Tolkien's death. I find this interesting because many have remarked upon the lack of religiousness in The Lord of the Rings. Middle Earth is richly fleshed out, but in The Lord of the Rings we find no religious observance. No priests, no prayers, no worship. And yet, in the background, as recounted in The Silmarillion, both God and gods exist. There is also a primordial fall from grace that ruins, darkens, and haunts the world. Much of this though, since the The Silmarillion was delayed in publication, was hidden for many years from readers of both The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.

Still, this only deepens the puzzle. A metaphysical backdrop was there to be deployed, and yet The Lord of the Rings appears religionless. God and the gods exist, but we find no cult of worship associated with them.

Pondering this, and my observations here are not original, the religious connection between The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion seems to be less cultic than associated with lore. That is to say, to be "religious" in Middle Earth is less about worship than remembering the lore. To be religious is to remember the story. 

For example, Frodo of the Shire knows enough of the story that, in times of need, he petitions the gods. On Weathertop, for instance, Frodo's life is saved when he cries out "O Elbereth! Githoniel!" As readers of The Silmarillion know, the Valar are the gods in the cosmology of Middle Earth, the divine powers under Eru Ilúvatar, the Creator and Supreme Deity. The Lord of the Valar is Manwë, and his queen is Elbereth, who stands upon a great height looking toward Middle Earth listening for the cries of help from those in great peril or grief. Frodo knows enough of the lore concerning the Valar that he is able to cry out to Elbereth on Weathertop, a cry which saves his life.

Did Frodo worship Elbereth? Did he regularly pray to Elbereth? No. Again, the religiosity of Middle Earth wasn't cultic. Rather, as I said, it manifests in being knowledgable about the lore, knowing the story.

(The case of Denethor, though, would need to be analyzed here. Denethor knows the lore but his knowledge doesn't bear good fruit. So some attention, it would seem, needs to be given to how knowledge of the lore is related to virtue.)

I bring all this up to make an observation about our time and place. 

Specifically, as we move more deeply into a post-Christian culture we are coming to resemble Middle Earth. True, this manifests in a decline in cultic religious observance. Fewer people go to church. But the deeper concern here is that we are becoming a people who have forgotten the story. Like many in Middle Earth, we no longer remember the lore. Religionlessness is storylessness, lorelessness. We no longer know where we came from, why we are here, and where we are going. And as a loreless people we have been cast adrift upon the tides of history.