The Battle of the Pelennor Fields

OK, time for another complete digression coupled with a futile attempt to make it look as if this blog has some sort of planning involved. The last two postings have concerned the Fall of Constantinople and Wagner's Ring Cycle. The former prompted MS Foy to refer in a comment to the sinister and superhuman dread that the Ottomans inspired then and now. As for the second, Wagner was clearly one of the sources for Tolkien's later ring based epic although the elf-fancier rather strangely denied it when asked.

Gandalf the Orangey-Brown

There has always been speculation - also strongly refuted by the author - that Lord of the Rings was allegorical. As a callow youth I indulged myself in a large number of pointless and no doubt erroneous conversations regarding the ring as atomic bomb or orcs as the Japanese in the second world war. Now it seems obvious that a more likely parallel would be between Gondor and Byzantium and between Minas Tirith and Constantinople, with Tolkien - a devout Christian - rewriting the events of 1453 as a counter-factual more to his taste; this time the west does come to the aid of the besieged city, the heathens are seen off and civilisation (as JRR would understand it) is saved.

This isn't an especially original thought, but if completely new stuff was all the blog contained then postings would be pretty damned infrequent.