Tolkien and Scott: a Brief Note

David Demaret, 'Éowyn versus the Nazgul' (2019)

 

Like everyone of his generation who read, Tolkien read Walter Scott (it’s really remarkable actually how far Scott has fallen, from being one of the most popular and widely read authors in the world to today’s obscurity). And when Tolkien came to write his own fiction he worked a basically Scottian template. In this old blog, I discuss [you need to scroll down a few paragraphs] some of the ways in which The Lord of the Rings is an exercise in Scottian writing, with its leisurely, peripatetic narrative, it’s middling, ‘wavering’ (that is, ‘waverley’) protagonist caught between opposing forces at a moment of great historical interest (fictional history in Tolkien’s case, but still), its narrative set against a backdrop of deeper time, and its textual strategies of prose and inset verse — in all this, Tolkien as writer was working in the idiom established by Scott. But I think he took various other, more specific things from Scott too. Small things (the name Proudfoot for a bourgeois family from Fair Maid of Perth, say) and some bigger things.

1. In this post  I argue that Tolkien's Black Riders, or more specifically the scene where the Black Riders chase Aragorn and Frodo across the landscape to the Ford of Bruinen, is drawn from Quentin Durward, where Scott's Black Riders chase Quentin and Isabelle across a spacious medieval landscape of field, forest and river.

2. And here, at greater length, I argue that the episode in which the fellowship passes over the snowy pass of Caradhras reworks a very similar scene in Anne of Geierstein, or The Maiden of the Mist (1829)

Here's another small thing. At the end of A Legend of Montrose (1819), Allan M’Aulay, pitiless warrior, an individual possessed of magical abilities, strikes down the Highland Lord, old Ranald MacEagh, on the battlefield. ‘M’Aulay, setting his foot on him, was about to pass the broadsword through his body, when the point of the weapon was struck up by a third party, who suddenly interposed’. The intervention is by a humble—that is, non-noble—character, the mercenary Dalgetty. Then we get:

“Fool!” said Allan, “stand aside, and dare not to come between the tiger and his prey!”

But Dalgetty defends Ranald. In the great battle towards the end of The Lord of the Rings, the Witch King of Angmar, pitiless, possessed of magical abilities, strikes down the Lord of Rohan, old Théoden, and is about to finish him when Éowyn suddenly interposes. Then we get:

“Begone!” A cold voice answered: “come not between the Nazgul and his prey! … Thou fool.”

What Is The Earliest "Egyptian Mummy" Story?

I have several times encountered the claim that the earliest story of undead mummies is Jane C. Loudon's The Mummy!: Or a Tale of the Twenty-Second Century (1827): a novel in which an Egyptian mummy named Cheops is brought back in to life in 22nd century Britain. But is it really the earliest example of the Mummy sub-genre? It seems Loudon may

have drawn inspiration from the general fashion for anything pharaonic, inspired by the French researches during the Napoleonic invasion of Egypt; the 1821 public unwrappings of Egyptian mummies in a theatre near Piccadilly, which she may have attended as a girl; and, very likely, the 1818 novel by Mary Shelley, Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. As Shelley had written of Frankenstein's creation, ‘A mummy again endued with animation could not be so hideous as that wretch,’ which may have triggered her later concept. In any case, at many points Loudon deals in greater clarity with elements from the earlier book such as the loathing for the much-desired object and the immediate arrest for crime and attempt to lie one's way out of it.

There's been some work on the way Loudon writes in reaction to Frankenstein. But I'm curious about prior stories of, specifically, mummies.

Here's one, from Gabrielle de Paban's Histoire des fantomes et des démons (1819).

This volume includes a story called ‘Les Deux Momies’:

Le prince de Radziville, dans son voyage de Jérusalem, raconte une chose fort singulière, dont il a été le témoin:

Il avait acheté en Egypte deux momies, l'une d'homme et l'autre de femme, et les avait enfermées fort secrètement dans des caisses, qu'il fit mettredansson vaisseau, lorsqu'il s'embarqua à Alexandrie pour revenir en Europe. Il n'y avait que lui et deux domestiques qui le sussent, parce que les Turcs ne permettent que difficilement qu'on emporte ces momies, croyant que les chrétiens s'en servent, pour des opérations magiques. Lorsqu'on fut en mer, il s'éleva une tempête, qui revint à plusieurs reprises, avec tant de violence, que le pilote désespérait de sauver son vaisseau. Tout le monde était dans l'attente d'un naufrage prochain et inévitable. Un bon prêtre polonais, qui accompagnait le prince de Radziville, récitaît les prières convenables à une telle circonstance; le prince et sa suite y répondaient. Mais le prêtre était tourmenté, disait-il, par deux spectres, (un homme et une femme), noirs et hideux, qui le harcelaient et le menaçaient de le faire mourir. On crut d'abord que la frayeur et le danger du naufrage lui avaient troublé l'imagination. Le calme étant revenu, il parut tranquille; mais la tempête recommença bientôt; alors ces fantômes le tourmentèrent plus fort qu'auparavant; et il n'en fut délivré, que quand on eut jeté les deux momies à la mer: ce qui fit en niême temps cesser la tempête.

The prince of Radziwiłł, in his Travels to Jerusalem, recounts a very singular thing, which he personally witnessed:

He had purchased two mummies in Egypt, one of a man and one a woman, and had locked them very secretly in boxes, which he had stowed in his ship when he embarked from Alexandria to return to Europe. Only he and two servants knew about this, because the Turks are disinclined to permit these mummies to be taken away, believing that Christians use them for magical operations. When they were at sea a storm arose, which returned several times, with so much violence that the pilot despaired of saving his ship. Everyone was expecting an imminent and inevitable shipwreck. A good Polish priest, who accompanied the Radziwiłł family, recited the prayers appropriate to such a circumstance; the prince and his entourage responded. But the priest was tormented, he said, by two specters—a man and a woman—black and hideous—who harassed him and threatened to kill him. At first it was believed that the fear and danger of the shipwreck had disturbed his imagination. Calm weather having returned, the priest seemed himself to settle down; but the storm soon began again; then these ghosts tormented him more than before; a terror from which he was only relieved when the two mummies were thrown into the sea: which at the same time caused the storm to cease.

It is possible that Loudon was aware of this story from this 1819 French retelling, but the story itself is much older. The Prince to whom de Paban refers is Mikołaj Krzysztof Sierotka Radziwiłł (1549-1616), who travelled widely in the Holy Land, Syria, Egypt, Crete, Cyprus, Italy and Greece, and afterwards wrote an account of his voyaging: Hierosolymitana peregrinatio illvstrissimi domini Nicolai Christophori Radzivili (1601). It's from this volume that de Paban has sourced her story.

Indeed, Radziwiłł's book has quite a lot to say about mummies.

Et nos ad pyramidem quandam altiorem in soramen decem & ampliùs ulnas profundum nos eâdem ratione demisimus; ubi in petra reperimus plura alia antra ad longum excisa, in quibus multa hominum cadavera erant sepulta, è quibus mumia, quam vocant, petitur Affirmant ea corpora sive balsamo, sive aliis diversarum herbarum unguentis condita fuisse; que qualia suerint, discurrant medici: apparet certe aliquid egregium & singulare fuisse, quandoquidem à tribus annorum millibus absque, minimi alicuius membri putrefactione eiusmodi corpora integra in hanc usque diem conservantur. .

So we descended into a certain pyramid, to a depth of ten and more cubits; where we found in the rock several other long-cut caverns, in which many corpses of men were buried, and where the mummies, as they are called, are to be found. Let the doctors hurry to examine how they are stitched together and with what balsams and unguents they are preserved. It certainly appears that there is something excellent and unique about the process, since after three thousand years, without the slightest putrefaction of any member, these bodies are preserved intact to this day. [Hierosolymitana peregrinatio, 190-91]

Radziwiłł records that he took two mummies away with him (Emeram tunc temporis ab iisdem Arabibus duo corpora maris & femine duobus Cecchinis, quæ ibidem in tumbis reposita inueneramus: de quibus quid actum fit posteà, cùm Alexandriâ nauigaremus, dicetur inferiùs; ‘At that time I purchased from these same Arabs two corpses, a man and a woman, both of the Cheops era, which we had found there deposited in tombs. What happened afterwards, when we set sail from Alexandria, will be told below.’) What did happen? Read on and find out:

Quamobrem diligenter admonentur ij, qui res in nauem inferunt, ne Mumiam secum accipiant: cuius rei ca redditur ratio. Quandoquidem Mumia, Ethnicorum sunt cadauera, in quibus idola, vt dictum est superiùs, reconduntur: dubium non est, quin in cura & potestate Dæmonum, prout & animæ ipsorum, sint constituta: qui numquam ab eis, etiamsi de loco in locum transferantur, recedere solent. Cùm Cairi in antrum, ubi eiusmodi cadauera sunt condita, me demisissem, duo integra corpora, vt iam diximus, maris & feminæ, pretio empta acceperam ... que ut commodiùs deferri possent, quodlibet in tres partes divulsum, in capsas maiores ex corticibus arborum siccatis confectas, imponendum curaui: ita ut sex eiusmodi capsas Mumia refertas haberem: in septima verò erant idola sitilia iisdem illis corporibus copulari solita. Cùm igitur de periculo deportationis ex nautis intellexissem, consului negotiatores mihi notos, quid mihi agendum suaderent, et num vera essent, quæ nautæ dicerent. Multi affirmabant rem ita se habere: multi pro fabulis hæc ducebant, affirmantes, quòd ipsimet in Italiam sæpissimè Mumias per mare deportarunt, neque tamen in vllum periculum hoc nomine inciderunt. Persuasione igitur illorum adductus decreui corpora hæc mecum asportare, vt in Europa ostenderem, qua ratione condîta reperiantur. Quamobrem nihil ea de re cum nauclero communicans, septem capsas illas Mumiarum, cum rebus aliis in nauem inserri iussi. Sed parum absuit, quin statim in magnas difficultates incidis sem. ...Cùm itaque priori tempestate iactaremur, nullus nostrûm de Mumia hac meminerat. Erat mecum in eadem navi Sacerdos Polonus Simon Albimontanus, qui patentes Regis Stephani literas habebat, & sepulchrum Dominicum visitauerat. In Mumiis illis viderant, nec de illo Sacerdoti indicare poterant, mirari accuratiùs cœpimus. Certissimum enim erat, neminem servitorum de cadaueribus istis sciuisse, præter duos illos, qui secretum hoc nemini proculdubiò, extraneo præfertim, aperuerant. Sed nec tunc quidem Mumia nobis in mentem venerat. Postremò totus conturbatus, pallidus, & tremens Sacerdos ad me accurrit, exposuitque quàm họrret.dum in modum à spectris hisce inter orandum exagi tetur, immò laceretur. Tandem incidit mihi, fortè illum hæc pati occasione corporum istorum Mumiaticorum. Misi itaque ad nauarchum, ut inferiorem Saitiæ nauis partem nobis recludi iuberet, caussam tamen reticendo: volebam siquidem capsas illas Mumiarum clàm in mare proijcere. Sed nauarchus respondit, se id facere non posse propter ingentes fluctus, qui Saitiam ita operiebant, ut omnes madesieremus ... Et videbamus quidem apertè periculum maximum instare; si nauis aperiretur: ex alia parte Presbyter de spectrorum vexatione mirum in modum lamentabatur. Nefciebamus itaque quid nobis agendum effet. Ubi verò S. Germanus apparere, & ventus contrarius subsidere cœpit; cùm iam illucesceret, nauem aperiri iussi. Et spectris nihilominùs Sacerdoti molestiam inferentibus, septem capsas illas in mare proijci iussi. Quod vbi factum, nauarchus statim ad me accurrit, percunctans quidnam abiecissemus: numquid Mumiam? Fassus sum. Expauit illicò vehementer; sed posteà se recolligens erat recreatus; & certò promittebat, nos tempestatem ampliùs non habituros. Et non frustrà hæc prędixit. Nam licet apud insulam Carpathos insurrexerat, minùs vehemens tamen fuit, & S. Germano semel apparente, statim cessauit. Dixit mihi posteà nauarchus, quo tempore ad eum mittebam ut nauem aperiret, etiamsi illi dictum fuisset, id propter Mumiam fieri, numquam tamen aperturum fuisse, propter undarum infurgentium impetum: & quod iam certò nos interituros credebat, momentum tantùm demersionis expectans. Quærebat & Sacerdos, quidnam in mare proiectum fuisset. Cumque illi dixissem, maiore etiam timore correptus, tamquam vir Ecclesiasticus arguere me cœpit, quòd Ethnicorum corpora circumferre veritus non fucrim, propter quæ tantum vexationis pertulerit; nec aliam spectrorum apparentium caussam fuisse. Ego reprehensionem boni Sacerdotis grato animo suscepi

But those who bring things onto their ship should be carefully warned not to take a mummy with them: the reason for this is given here. Since mummies are the corpses of the peoples of this region, in which idols, as has been said above, are worshipped: there is no doubt that they are placed in the care and power of demons, and their souls have never withdrawn from them, even when they are transferred from place to place ... When I had let myself down into the cave of Cairo, where such corpses were buried, I had taken two whole bodies, as we have already said, of a man and a woman, bought at a price ... which, in order that they might be conveniently carried, each was torn into three parts, and placed in large boxes made of the dried bark of trees, I took care to put them in these containers: so that I had six such mummy boxes filled: and in the seventh were the various idols associated by custom with those same bodies. But when I had heard, from certain sailors, of the danger of shipping these items, I consulted the businessmen known to me, asking of them what they advised me to do, and whether what the sailors said were true. Some affirmed that this was the case: others insisted the stories were mere fables, telling me they had often brought mummies to Italy by sea, and yet they had not run into any such peril on that account. Therefore, being persuaded by them, I resolved to take these bodies away with me, that I might show them in Europe, just as I had found them preserved. So, communicating nothing of the matter with the shipowner, I ordered those seven boxes of mummies to be loaded onto the ship, along with my other things. But it was not long before we ran into great difficulties ... When, therefore, we were tossed about in this storm, none of us thought of the mummy. 

Simon Albimontanus, a Polish priest, was in the same ship with us, carrying letters from King Stephen, in order to visit the tomb of Dominicus. It was most certain that none of the servants knew of these corpses, except those two, who doubtless had revealed this secret to no one, especially to a stranger. But not even then did we think of the Mummy. Then the priest, very troubled, pale, and trembling, ran to me, and told me his story. At last I realised that he was suffering these hauntings because of the bodies of these mummies. I therefore sent to the captain to order the ship's hold be opened for us, although I did not tell him why: of course, I wanted to throw those boxes of mummies into the sea. But the sailor replied that he could not do so, on account of the size of the waves, which did indeed crash over the decks in such a way that we were all wet ... And truly we could see it would be a grave and pressing danger if we were to open the hold of the ship. At the same time, here was the priest, lamenting in a most strange way about being harassed by these ghosts. When at last St. Germanus became visible, and the contrary wind began to subside, and dawn had broken, I ordered the ship's hold to be opened. And since the spectres were continuing to cause great trouble to the priest, I commanded those seven boxes be thrown into the sea. When this was done the captain immediately ran to me, inquiring what exactly we had thrown away. Was it a mummy? I admitted the truth. He was at first utterly terrified; but afterwards, recollecting himself, somewhat regained his good senses; and he promised me with absolute assurance that we had seen the last of the great storm. In this he proved correct. For although the storm had risen near the island of the Carpathians, it lessened in ferocity once we approached St. Germanus, and then abruptly ceased. The captain told me afterwards that when I first told him to open up the ship, even if he had been informed then that I needed this done to dispose of the mummy, he could not have opened the hold, owing to the onslaught of the raging waves, and that he now believed we would certainly have perished, with capsize inevitable. After that the priest came and asked me what it was we had thrown into the sea. When I had told him, he was seized with even greater fear, and began to lecture me, in the way priests will, that I ought never to have carried the corpses from those lands with me, since doing so must have been the cause he had had to endure so much harassment. I accepted the good priest's rebuke with a grateful heart. [Hierosolymitana peregrinatio, 233]

This 1601 story is, surely, the earliest Mummy tale. Or is there an earlier?