Well, thank you, everybody,
for coming out in the middle of a term on a very overcast day.
But I hope you enjoy today's talk.
I'm Grace Curry, I'm a DPhil student here at the University of Oxford.
I'm writing my thesis on J.R.R.
Tolkien, Silmarillion and the influences of Norse
Smith and the First World War on his mythology.
Today, I'm going to be talking about
a portion of appendix A of a look
at the rings.
The appendices to J.R.R.
Tolkien's Lord of the rings.
Not only have a marginal place in that work, but also in Tolkien
scholarship. Recently, however, these texts
have enjoyed a scholarly and cultural renaissance.
Doctor Eleanor Parker, Medieval Lecture at Notes, gave a talk earlier this year
on the influence of the eighth century historian Bede on Appendix F,
viewable on the Oxford Tolkien Network's YouTube channel.
Meanwhile, in media reception,
the appendices form the basis for Amazon's Rings of Power series,
which just had its second season this year,
and Warner Brothers soon forthcoming anime film
The War of the roses ring, coming out December 13th.
The subject of today's talk will be
the main source text for The War of the religion,
constituting a portion of appendix A entitled
the House of the All.
While the filmmakers selected a specific storyline,
its wider context within appendix A and its roots in the literature, history,
nomenclature, and even material culture of Anglo-Saxon
or pre conquest, England will be brought into view,
as well as the complimentary nods to Old Norse myth and sagas.
As a part of this, I will also consider the film writers choice
to use the daughter and eldest child of King Alfred of Wessex,
half of that known as the Lady of Mercia,
as a model for
one of the film's main protagonists parents,
and elaboration of an unnamed daughter of the fiery warrior king.
Helm, hammer. Hand.
Appendix a Lord of the rings is a composite work
that is a hillier amalgamation of genealogies of various kingdoms,
animals, and prose narratives recounting events
that take place before the War of the ring.
The portion of appendix A dealing with the House of the Oral
and the genealogy of the Kings of the Mark, exhibits a synchronic
medievalism, merging more apparent Old English influences
with more oblique ones from Old Norse myth and sagas.
This type of amalgamation of medieval
sources was typical of Tolkiens fiction,
and so it comes as little surprise here.
Medievalism played plays a fundamental role in the nomenclature of
and world building for Rohan,
extending even to the textual layout.
With regard to the latter.
The lists of kings of the mark, complete with descriptions of their deeds,
is akin to the content and format of historical works
like the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.
This work survives in several versions and manuscripts, meeting early
and more recent editors and translators to label these as Anglo-Saxon chronicles.
The earliest was previously dated to the late ninth century.
Around the 1890s, towards the end of King Alfred's reign,
and even associated more directly with Alfred himself and his court.
More recently, one scholar, Daniel Amazon,
has related this a freedom chronicle
to earlier in the same century.
The oldest surviving manuscript
manuscript A is the Winchester Chronicle, Cambridge, Corpus Christi College,
manuscript 173, also called the Parker Chronicle
after its 16th century owner, Matthew Parker, Archbishop of Canterbury,
who was produced by a scribe at Winchester whose work was
then continued by others in the 10th century
as one of many such anarchistic works
organized in a year by year basis, with which Tolkien was familiar.
The Chronicle and its later variants would have been a prime model
for trying his hand at imitative works, like the King lists in appendix H.
Long before that, Tolkien had produced an elastic works
relating to his mythology in the 1930s,
including the Annals of Valinor and the Annals of Valerian,
as well as their later variants, the Annals of Amon and the Great Annals,
with reference to one of the later annals.
His son and editor Christopher stated that the later variants
were still on a stick, retaining the introductory here of the year.
Entries derived from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle,
but may even come as a surprise, although perhaps not that Tolkien
even produced an abortive set of annals also relating to his mythology.
The wider Silmarillion corpus in Old English
making the connection with medieval historical texts, is still closer.
Tolkiens king lists in appendix A approximate
the form of anarchistic material, like that of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.
However, each panel would give a year by year accounts rather than date ranges,
with a summary of key events in a ruler's life.
What Malcolm Parks has called blank or barren
panel numbers empty entries with just a year and nothing.
Follow it.
Following it in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is a practice
replicated by Tolkien, whose king lists sometimes as just a range of dates
and a name of a ruler with no other details
or history provided.
As you see here.
Putting a page from the Winchester or Parker Chronicle
side by side, with one from Tolkiens list of Kings of the Mark,
reveals rather similar formatting of entries,
harking back to its Old English counterpart.
Both feature entries of differing lengths,
and both have years or year ranges in the margins.
Tolkien's familiarity with such historical
material dates back to his undergraduate years,
and he studied extracts from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles
in the 19 tens.
In Tolkien's undergraduate
copy of Henry Sweets 1908 Anglo-Saxon reader, preserved in the Western Library,
passages like Queen 12 and heart Cunard
from the Parker manuscript and The Martyrdom of Elf Hare,
drawn there, mainly from the D version of the chronicle,
are underlined by Tolkien.
Is continuing engagement with such material is recorded
in one of his drafts for a 1933 lecture on Beowulf,
where he reproduces the West Saxon genealogy of King Arthur,
the father of Alfred the Great, grandfather of Apple.
Blood will be discussed later.
There, Tolkien also mentions
royal genealogies from other similar texts,
like the Chronicle of Arthur,
a late 10th century Latin translation of the ninth century Anglo-Saxon Chronicle,
which had originally been produced in Old English, as were most of the versions,
and William of Malmesbury s 12th century
deeds of the Kings of the English,
as attested by his published letters, unpublished papers
in the Bodleian Library, and other catalogs of his book.
Ownership and usage in works like around their Child's Tolkien Library.
We know that Tolkien used and often owned
many editions and translations of such works.
These were a pertinent background reading for teaching Old English texts.
As Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon,
a post he held from 1925 to 1945.
This inevitably led to his eventual reproduction of style and format
of such works, and several experiments, like The Kings of the Mark,
thereby gaining a measure
of historical authenticity.
The House of arrow,
part two of appendix A, documents the foundation of the Kingdom of Rohan,
which was established on land given to Ian and his people
as a reward for their military and
they named it the new the Mark of the writers.
And they called themselves the they or linguists.
But in Gondor their land was called Rohan and its people.
The program that is the Horse Lords.
Thus arrow became the first king of the Mark,
and he chose for his dwelling Green
hill before the feet of the White Mountains
that were the south wall of his land,
where the real him lived afterwards, as freemen
under their own kings and laws,
but in perpetual alliance with Gondor.
First off, this
passage reads like an elaboration of an Old English maxim from the late
10th century poetic anthology The Exeter Book.
Error
shall on our earth shall you through mode redone.
Earl or nobleman must ride on war.
Horse's back the mountain truth must ride as a host.
An unlikely hypothetical source text
given Tolkiens capabilities in skillfully elaborating
a single word or name into a character or narrative.
Gnomic statements like this one offered
still more story potential.
Also of note in this passage is the tribal name.
The hay lingers
by inventing a tribe named after ale.
Tolkien borrows the historical practice of building eponymous
out of the names, the founders, rulers of a dynasty, or people.
Perhaps the most well-known example comes in Beowulf,
in which the Danish shield rings
are so-named from their eponymous founder
shield shipping ancestor of King Hrothgar.
Similar examples can be found in historical texts.
The eighth century historian
Bede, in his Ecclesiastical History of the English People,
gives the ancestry of Rat World,
the seventh century king of the East Angles, referencing his grandfather,
who for his personal name was converted into the dynastic.
One of the things.
The opening chapter of FME.
Stantons Anglo-Saxon England, which Tolkien read in the 1940s,
tells how the Kentish royal house of boys
schools for boys, Kangas was named after the surname
of their founder. It,
as originally told in Bede's History,
its name Warwick was the reputed son Peng
Just one of the two legendary fifth century invaders of England.
Name of another people in appendix A,
the the earnings kindred of the proto robber in
follows the same principle
drawn from the name Bjorn.
Allusions
to historical legends and even to real places.
Yet another feature of Tolkien's fiction.
Proto wrote her in
once called The Men of Chaos, had a combination
of the Old English words, of course,
and failed when people
have failed literally means horse people.
Name is perhaps an oblique reference to the fact
that the legendary brothers Angus and Horse,
both names meaning horse,
and speculated by one historian to be names to get
or rather than actual personal names, symbolically connect
the Anglo-Saxons with horses despite their having no cavalry.
Historically.
Pronounce original name
as given by the new audience as themselves.
The mark of the writers is elusive
of the ancient Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Mercia,
which was at the height of its power in the eighth century.
Name Mercia stems from Old English yeah,
equivalent to the later word
equivalent to the word for meaning boundary.
Border.
Therefore,
Iwan, as the first king of the mark, rules,
I take Tolkien in parallel of a real kingdom
in pre conquest England.
Memory of this founder
figure lives on hundreds of years later,
during the reign of Fadden, during the War of the ring.
The chapter The King of the Golden Hall in the Two Towers
depicts a permanent memorial to the founder of Roman.
Many woven cloths were hung up on the walls,
and over their wide spaces marched figures of ancient legend,
some dim, with years, some darkling in the shade.
But upon one form the sunlight fell.
The young man on a white horse.
He was blowing a great horn.
And his yellow hair was flying in the wind.
The horse's head was lifted and its nostrils were wide and red
as it made smelling that on the far foaming water.
Green and white rushed and curled at its knees.
Many woven cloths,
visually representing the ancestors and heroic legends of the rocky road,
represents Tolkien in replication, something like the 11th century.
The tapestry, which depicts the 1066 Battle of Hastings.
In one letter, Tolkien even points out if you thought the type of armor found
in the tapestry gave a useful sense of that
of his invented warriors,
like the inhabitants of Anglo-Saxon England and their Germanic kin.
On the continent and in Scandinavia, the people of Rohan have their own
heroic legends developed out of their early history.
According to one passage,
many lords and warriors
sorry, this is not the right side.
I'm just going to read that many lords and warriors,
many fair and valiant women,
are named in the songs of Rohan.
That still remember the North from GA,
they say, was the name of the chieftain who led his people to ale. That
of the sun.
From they tell that he slew scar, the great dragon of Arab myth, from.
And the land had peace from the Long Worms.
Afterwards
this from one great wealth.
But was it feud with the dwarves who claimed the horde of Skara
from would not yield them a pen, and sent them
instead the teeth of scabbard made into a necklace,
saying tools such as these you will not match your treasures.
They are hard to come by.
Some say
that the dwarves slew from for this insult.
There was no great love between the eye of that and the dwarves.
The two figures here from gar,
whose name in Old English means first spear, and his son from first
are kin to two key types of work figures
the founder figure and the monster slayer.
In the tradition of their will and Saigo that are more secure
from the defeat of the Great Worm
scholar, whose name is an anglicized version
of the genitive singular of Old Norse scabby, meaning ski farm.
Damage aligns more with the Norse dragon legend,
as singular survives his fight with farmer.
However, there are also possible periodic echoes
here of the legendary dwarf forged breathing human
or necklace
uprisings.
Also mentioned in Beowulf, they are called
the rose in the manner
necklace of the bruising.
In Norse myth, the goddess
Freya obtains a necklace from the dwarves,
and the object inspires both personal and martial complex,
including a duel between the half god giant Loki,
who stole it, and Heimdall, the watchmen of the gods.
Another version of the story
told in the longer version of the Saga of Olaf
trying to give a son in the 14th century, a tale about marital conflict
relating to the necklace between Oden
and Freya leads to the former.
Is the former to acquire the latter to preside over two kings,
Orkney and Heaven, fighting forever,
which they do for 143 years
until the curse is broken by Christian king Olafur.
Even the
necklace, his constant associations with martial conflict and strife.
It is no surprise that Tolkiens periodic version,
made out of Scholastic, has a similar effect.
It's also worth noting that elsewhere in the 1919
tale, the now offering in The Book of Lost Tales,
a dwarf made a necklace with much closer parallels to the freezing human
also, institutes instigates a war in that case
between dwarves and elves.
The House of the orb
achieves a measure of historical authenticity
through its plethora of Old English personal names, several of which occur
in royal genealogies in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
and sometimes elsewhere.
To start with some more familiar examples,
Hiram means prince or king
can also have the sense of any king or leader, any kind of leader,
appearing in two heroic poems
that Tolkien translated, Beowulf and The Battle of Mountain.
Another name with the same sense.
Single Prince also appears in The Line of Kings,
the name of Thayer, and sister son alma, meaning of course, famous,
appears in a royal genealogy of Mercia
as an ancestor of King Offer.
The entry for 755 in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.
The name also appears in Beowulf.
Our area is a descendant of king, author.
Harald
is a designated term for hereditary nobility,
attested in seventh century Kentish laws.
See the laws of Albert, King of Kent.
Beowulf.
The term signifies nobleman or warrior.
It is also a title frequently applied to the doomed
Bernoulli War, leader of the English troop against the Vikings.
Here north is called Arthur Loretta's ale, and so our
latter title,
as Mark Atherton points out in his monograph Battle of Melton War
and Peace in 10th Century England, signifying the Earl.
In this way, from around the ninth century,
ale came more in line with the Old Norse
yard.
A couple of the king's names
listed in the royal genealogy of Rohan
are what in historical terms, would be considered the euphoric names
for ones with an element referring to a deity.
The first line Kings of Rohan.
The first line of Kings of Rohan feature two such instances
where the fourth king of Rohan,
followed by his son okay, a winner.
First is what is called a mano phonetic
or single element name of the second is type emetic.
Two elements.
Its proto theme or first element consisting of what was probably a famine. In
the Old English,
Freyr means lord and could signify both a divine or a secular ruler
for a winner consisting of elements lord plus friend on a literal level
could also in theory denote someone who was a friend
of the god associated with this name,
which has been put forward to be the fertility deity.
Old Norse prayer
A noteworthy example from Beowulf is King Hrothgar.
His daughter Freya Walter, consisting of two elements
Freya Ward, environment protection
Freya Winner appears in royal genealogies
in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, as does Freya.
Last,
another name Tolkien borrows for one of his kings
in appendix A, he is the sister son of King Helm,
Hammer Hand, and succeeds helm after his death.
With its literal meaning of Lord plus, loaf,
Fray Olaf evokes the widespread term lathered,
generally rendered lord, but stemming from a compound cloth
where for literally most guardian, which also evokes
the fertility associations of prayer, it works well with the literal sense.
The latter.
Other Old English names are
used for kings or other royal persons.
Other kings in the first line are called gold went a gold friend,
and they are the latter named after the wandering poet
and poem of the same name found in the late 10th century AD.
The book.
The name is Britta, Prince Lord,
while the ruler folk folk, folk winner,
folk friend are featured in the second line of Kings.
According to the Bosworth and Taller Anglo-Saxon dictionary, Old English
folk had a variety of meanings, signifying a people, nation, tribe,
also referring to a company or troop
with a sense of a levied harmony.
Therefore, a name like folk winner could mean
friend of the people, a friend of those in the military band, or both.
There is a queen named Hilde,
Old English, an Old Saxon for war or battle.
Old Norse silver,
a name of a real person in seventh century.
A member of the royal House of Northumbria,
she became known as Saint Hilda or sometimes Saint Hilda
Thomas, Abbess of Whitby on what is now North
Yorkshire coast.
The Old Norse equivalent with the same meaning.
Hilda was also the name of the valkyrie and appears in various
mythological sources, including Snorri sons, Prose Edda
and also in the Poetic Edda.
Tolkien, of course, would have been familiar
with both the relevant Old English history about Saint Hild
and Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People
and the legendary Hilda, a Norse attic
materials.
Tolkien also
lightly borrowed from Old Norse, notably in the name Grand Old Norse
grammar, meaning wrath for the king of the first line
from is the name
of singular source Seagate's mighty sword,
recorded in accounts of his fight with the dragon Daphnia and a pelagic ad.
Thus fatness not only of fat men,
and in the 14th century Bissouma saga,
the 10th King.
Second line Fray Olaf has the matter.
Nick Hilversum and many medieval Icelanders in the sagas
had such names, but these were usually patronymic.
There was also the infamous tragic English example
of the last Anglo-Saxon king, Harold Godwinson,
Son of God winner died in the Battle of Hastings
in 1066.
Notable counter-example.
In Norse myth is the infamous betrayer of the gods at Ragnarok.
Loki version.
He was the son of the yeoman or giant or bounty and a goddess.
Now if you
his name he adopted because of the stigma of having Johan.
For a father, it was acceptable for gods to take giant asses
as wives and mistresses, but not for male giants to take goddesses.
Given this choice to include Norse names, echoes
historical pre conquest England, in which various Scandinavian settlers,
both Danes and Norwegians, were living alongside their Saxon counterparts.
There is, of course, the Danish
ruler King Canute, Old Norse producer,
appearing in an otherwise English line of kings.
In this way, Tolkien invented randomness
of echoes of historical reality.
The second king of Rohan Perego,
I think, was Braga, lord ruler has a son named Balder, old
English for prince, ruler,
equivalent to Norse mother,
ill fated, son of a god Odin
was killed by the stratagem of the duplicitous Loki.
Tolkiens text states that Perego son
and grandson Balder
wished to tread the paths of the dead,
a direct allusion to the fact that the boulder of Norse mythology
did the same in the underworld of hell,
after being slain by the blind god.
Over at the advice and really trickery of Loki,
Tolkien also would have
known that Balder was the comparative of both, signifying more bold,
more courageous, meaning equally relevant reprints,
undertaking a terrifying endeavor without any real necessity.
Another Old English equivalent of this name,
Baldock, son of Wotan, was English equivalent of Old Norse.
Then occurs in the entry for 855
that presents the genealogy of Apple, father of Alfred
the Great, in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.
Another variant, Belgic, occurs in the ninth century
history of the Britons, previously attributed to Gnaeus.
In the genealogies of the kings of both Venetia and Dara,
other Anglo-Saxon kingdoms are also listed as the son of Wotan.
This nexus of sources and influences demonstrates the complex context
behind Tolkiens choice of personal names.
Tolkiens brief
account of the prehistory and early history of Rohan
invokes real circumstances of early English history.
In the sixth and seventh centuries, there was an ongoing cycle
of tribal warfare and jostling for, claiming or reclaiming territories.
According
to information laid out by deed, around 600
there were a dozen or more kingdoms in Anglo-Saxon England,
and their boundaries were in a state of flux due to the ambitions
of warlords and expansionist rulers.
Prose texts of appendix A represent
a fictive representation of this historical reality
the tribal warfare of the dawn landings and the room, the story
that is being adapted in the Warner Brothers anime film
The Inciting Incident, is a poorly received request
by the powerful on lending Lord Raka
Old English for both man warrior hero
for the hand of the here
unnamed daughter of Rohan's current king, Callum.
Hammer hand
for Africa's son Wolf.
Both English folk.
However, King Helm, who already mistrusted
the ambitious fracas, both refuses and insults him.
But helm said, you have
grown big since you were last here, but it is mostly fat.
I guess, and men laughed at that.
The fracas was wide and about,
then fracas fell in a rage and reviled the king and said this at the last
old kings that refuse a proffered staff,
they fall on their knees.
Sometime after this heated exchange of insults,
helm takes up the matter again with more dire consequences.
When the council was over, helm
stood up and laid his great hand on his shoulder, saying, the king does not
permit brawls in his house, but men are freer outside
and he forced cracker to walk before him out
from under us into the field, now demanding to the king.
You have only helm to deal with alone and unarmed.
But you have said much already, and it is my turn to speak.
Fracas.
Your folly has grown with your belly.
You talk of a staff.
Helm dislikes a cook.
Staff that is thrust at him breaks it. So
with that he
smote fracas such a blow with his fist that he fell back,
stunned and died soon after.
A sort of
flash flood temper and primal violence
evokes the wilder world of the Norse sagas.
Many are memorable for their temperamental, asocial
and even outlawed anti-heroes.
Some more famous examples, including the ornery poet warrior eagle,
scholar Grimm, some Tolkien owned sequels are signature,
Nadal's 1933 edition annual Sala
saga, scallop and Sonar,
or the monster slaying Outlaw Good Theater
as Mendelsohn in Greatest Saga,
helm had been just
previously described as a grim man of great strength,
very much like descriptions in the sagas,
in which some of their more surly protagonists have volatile temperaments
that flare up with disastrous consequences.
One of these being correct here.
Helm's slaying of
fracas has other pale parallels,
such as the Wolf's own father
had begun the feud by killing a man in the hand,
Slayer of the man, leading to a great scene in that context,
one cannot ignore the parallels between
Helm's suggestive nickname Hammer Hand
and the Norse god Thor.
Mythical analog can be found
in the poem chemistry that or the lay of him, in which Thor
and really punches the giant him here, causing him to fall into the sea.
This action was in retaliation for him years fear motivated decision
to cut the line with which Thor caught and was about to slay
the mid-card serpent.
The missed opportunity had fatal consequences,
as that same serpent would mean force death at Ragnarok.
Like his Norse counterpart, helm also dies,
albeit under very different circumstances.
The inevitable feud and war between the and
it comes after the slaying of Fracker is equally representative of such conflicts,
depicted in Old English heroic verse like Beowulf or the Fight at Finsbury
Helm that follows its attack on Frigga by declaring Frank, son, Wolf
and all the done landings as the king's enemies, forcing them to flee.
A few years later,
Wolf leads an army against Rohan, defeating it
and forcing the overrun Rohirrim to flee.
Helm's son Khalif
and the Old English word for warrior hero, dies in the siege,
and Wolf declares himself king in the Great Hall of Medusa's
now exile's king, helm and the robbery
are forced to take refuge in the horn burg, later known as Helm's Deep.
There they suffer famine, a brutal winter.
Another consequence is that one of Helms sons, hammer,
named after another warrior fugitive mentioned in Beowulf
and with different spelling in the 13th century.
Since the Rex saga burn is lost in the snow
while on a for a foraging party.
In this desperate context,
descriptions of helm become more saga like.
Helm grew fierce and gaunt
for famine and grief, and the dread of him alone was worth many men.
In the defense of the Burg, he would go out by himself, clad in white,
and stalk like a snow troll into the camps of his enemies,
and slain them with his hands.
In several Norse sagas, the protagonist or their relatives
can have more or less oblique connections with the monstrous.
The reference to helm
stalking like a snow troll has many parallels
in the use lending of silver.
For sagas of Icelanders, troll was a catch all term
for several varieties of monstrous or magical beings or persons, including
giants, berserkers, shapeshifters, and revenants,
which happened in Dragon.
Like his son
hammer House also doomed to die in the snow.
However, he had an unexpected afterlife.
There stood helm dead as a stone, but his knees were unbent.
Yet men said that the horn was still heard at times in the deep,
and the Wraith helm would walk among the followers of Rohan
and kill men with fear
and greatest saga
A very strange shepherd named Plummer
also dies on a snowy night and returns to terrify the living,
as were over Old Norse for ghost
spirit, dead inhabitant of a care,
even killing other herdsman and becoming good at theaters.
Most formidable opponent, not least for his curse on the hero.
A little time
after men were aware that glum lay not quiet
folk got great hurt therefrom,
so that many fell into swoons when they saw him.
Others lost their wits thereby.
But after Yule and thought they saw him home, the farm
folk became exceeding a feared thereat, and many fled there.
And then.
In the North,
sagas don't know what are more,
they're more physical beings.
And so, unlike the Wraith the town became.
However, such incidents of hauntings were a common
feature of sagas, and Tolkien would have known this well
and emulated the concept with Helm's hauntings.
In 1869, William Morris
and Icelander Petter Magnusson
had produced a translation of Gracchus saga,
retitled The Story of Greek Theater the Strong, which I've just read from.
Relevant for the upcoming anime film is the development
of the unnamed daughter of King Helen into the warrior Princess had a
previous interviews.
The film's producer, Philippa Boyens, revealed that the writers used up of Lord
Lady of Mercy Ends and eldest child of King Alfred of Wessex,
as the blueprint for the film's elaborated version of Helm's daughter.
It is unclear how close the parallels would be,
however, given the mercy and inspired inspirations of The Rookery
and as a whole, it is unsurprising that a rare instance
of a female ruler and Mercia in the war torn ninth century
would be regarded as ideal for expanding the role of Helm's daughter,
just as the historical father and daughter, Alfred and Arthur
Flood were both military leaders, so also are Helm and Hera.
In the forthcoming film.
For this reason, I will delve into the life
and some of the achievements of the so-called Lady of Mercia.
It's the only instance of sustained soul rule
by a woman in pre conquest England.
Although the slew of full
length biographies and biographical essays were produced
well after the publication of the Lord of the rings starting with 14.
Wainwright's 1959 essay path of Lord, lady of the machines.
Rutherford's reputation has been touted in many medieval sources,
and experienced a notable renaissance in the 19th and early 20th century,
culminating in a pageant in her honor in 1913.
Castle Flatt
was born around the year 1870, during a period of relentless Viking incursions
which forced even her father into a fugitive status.
For a time she was the oldest of five, and her brother Edward
the Elder would succeed his father as King of Wessex and meet 99
at the flat.
Was married to the alderman Ethelred,
who ruled the western half of Mercia, which remained under English control.
The eastern portion was under Danish rule.
Ethelred held a subsidiary position to the kings of Wessex, both
during the rule of King Alfred and his son King
Edward the Elder, half brother.
During Ethelred lifetime.
His relationship with his wife was collaborative.
They jointly ordered the fortification of Worcester and other defenses.
In the late 90s and early 1900s, Arthur Flat also witnessed
and issued charters and participated in the Witan, or Council of Mercia.
After the death of her husband in 911, Arthur
Flood became so ruler of Mercia until her death in 19,
although during her husband's final illness she had served as a regent,
there were no male heirs, only a daughter.
Alpha went for elf Joy, ever so briefly succeeded her mother.
As historian Ian Walker has pointed
out, Arthur flooding was the only example from the entire Anglo-Saxon period
of a female ruler of one of the kingdoms.
Arthur Flood could not have ruled
after her husband's death without the support of Mercian nobles.
Yet another achievement extraordinary not only for the period more generally,
but not least for a time of war for the Vikings, both things and Norwegians,
who had successfully exploited the weaknesses
of even many male rulers.
In Walker writes that Arthur Flood appears to have inherited many of the qualities
of character demonstrated by her father, King Alfred of Wessex,
qualities which she would reveal during her personal rule.
Although never titled queen at the time,
she was called so in Irish and Welsh sources.
This title had been given to her powerful and accomplished aunt,
Ethel Swett, whose name means noble, strong,
who also played an active role in ruling Mercia,
causing many charters between 855
and 872 to call her Arthur Smith.
Regina.
Arthur Flood's authority
was more than equitable with the male peers and relatives of her day,
and she skillfully guided Mercia through a turbulent period of threats
from the Danes, much as her own father had done for Wessex.
She expanded the fortified verse fortresses,
fortified towns that her father had built, also building new ones,
simultaneously maintaining
the alliance between the English port portion of Mercia
and Wessex, which was ruled by her brother Edward.
After Alfred's death in 1899.
Historian Pauline Stafford
writes that, like Elizabeth, she became a wonder
to later ages.
Despite the post medieval fascination, half of
what is barely mentioned in the West Saxon version of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle,
the single reference being to her death in nine 919,
and intentional neglect ascribed to the presumed
anxieties of her brother Edward and his affiliates
about circulating accounts of his proactive, proactive sister's
accomplishments.
She does have a more substantial presence
in the so-called annals of apple flat for the Mercian Register,
both terms coined by Charles Plummer, an early editor of the Chronicles.
In the late 19th century,
the Mercian Register, as found in three of the vernacular
Anglo-Saxon chronicles from the late 10th and 11th centuries.
Pauline Stafford believes it originated in or near
the Mercian court, possibly made at the behest of Apple herself.
Longer
and legend infused accounts of Arthur Flat appear in 11th
and 12th century chronicles like the Fragmentary Annals of Ireland.
William, now William of Malmesbury, Chronicle of the Kings of England
and the History of Wales, showing considerable
geographical spread interest in life
even in the Late Middle Ages,
might be regarded as the first fanfiction for the Mercian ruler came in the form
of an eight line Latin poem by Henry of Huntington in the 12th century,
praising her prowess as a martial figure.
One scholar, Paul Sir Mac, has even argued
for a Latin gusta for kind of lyric poem on apple flat
as a possible source for the Mercian Register.
Highly effective brother and sister duo of Edward and Apple
Flat ran complementary campaigns against the Danes,
Apple flat and the
Danish controlled areas under the leadership of York and Edward
and his forces, dealing with those subject to the kings of East Anglia.
Castleford's military direction
and tactics were forceful and very effective.
In response to the murder of an abbot under her protection who was killed in
Wales, she proceeded to take many Welsh hostages, including the Welsh king's wife,
to reassert her authority over the region and enforce accountability for the loss.
He also ordered bold incursions into Danish territory.
The Mercian Register reports that in 1917,
after Flag Lady of the North Sea, ins, with the help of God before August 1st
obtained the borough, which is called Durban, a
major Danish power center.
The next year another similar attack
and capture was made, this time taking the key fortress of Leicester.
What is
extraordinary about the last case is that these same Danes
defied Apple Flat's brother the year before,
now willingly surrender to Edward's sister without a fight.
In 918, the last year of battle floods life.
Disgruntled Christian Danes in York, unhappy with being under pagan rule,
offered pledges and oaths to submit
to the rule of lady of the Mercian.
The sheer number and nature of mentions of her in various sources.
It is a testament, as Ian Walker observes, that she was clearly
a widely respected and feared ruler in the British Isles.
Charter from 904 to Worcester Cathedral
indicated a wish that afterwards daughter Islwyn succeed her.
However, this was not to be.
As the year of her mother's death, Alison was whisked off
to Wessex and her uncle took over from their.
This was substantiated by
Alpha standing witness for two charters,
a further indication that she should be considered for the line of succession.
These charters implied that it was her mother's wish.
Mercian Register indicates that Elphin did,
albeit very briefly, succeed her mother, and taking full authority of Mercia.
Initially, even her uncle Edward reinforced her authority, likely
securing the support of Mercian nobles and Welsh princes alike
were under the authority of that territory,
even when Edward took over from his niece.
This was most likely for military practicality,
as he had more experience than she did.
It is speculated
that, as was the common practice for royal widows and royal princesses alike,
Elphin was sent to live in a nunnery like an altar curse had been
relative to other kingdoms.
Mercia had a concentration of above average political
politically prominent women in the eighth through the early 10th centuries,
the line of which Atholl Flat was the culmination.
Arthur Flood's reputation inspired all in the coast conquest.
Chroniclers.
A few examples from William of Malmesbury are included here.
Here indeed Ethel Flood, which is a variant spellings
that used sister of the king and relict of Ethelred,
ought not to be forgotten,
as she was a powerful session to his party, the delight of his subjects,
dread of his enemies, a woman of an enlarged soul,
a spirited heroine, assisted her brother greatly with her
advice was of equal service in building cities.
So what have had a in Warner Brothers War of the year,
a figure modeled on Arthur Flood?
Well, it is difficult to guess the exact level of observable parallels
between the two figures, as the film has not been released yet.
Promotional materials offer clues.
The film emphasizes the father daughter bond between home and hero,
which evolves over the course of time of the poor
and exile of the River, and after these are evicted
from their homeland by the vengeful bond, lending.
Like her historical counterpart,
Hera has two brothers, Hammer and Holler,
although neither survives to rule
in the house of Aram.
The program eventually retake their homeland and drive out the dawn landings,
and Helm's sister sun, previously discussed
Hilversum becomes King.
In the forthcoming film, Hera
appears to take on a leadership role and is seen fighting in the trailers,
including with her one time suitor, Franco's son Wolf.
Given the long time connections
between Tolkiens fictional world Hiram, and the historical merchants,
it makes sense that Arthur flood herself of mercy and descent
who ruled Mercia for nearly a decade, was regarded as a suitable inspiration
for expanding Helm's unnamed daughter into a larger and more pivotal role.
This may or may not have been
also modeled on the relative absence of Arthur Flat
from the more Edward Edward centric Parker Chronicle,
which completely ignores the achievements of his illustrious sister,
which are detailed in succeeding versions
of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.
Hera is in some ways Kotor
in some ways represents older historical fiction.
On Arthur Flat, like 1/18
century work that had the lady of the merchants
literally fighting the Vikings alongside her husband, Arthur led
what remains to be seen how
the film will handle the historical influences.
That's something that we will find out in December.
Thank you for listening.