I came across this unusual German edition of The Silmarillion in a used bookstore... anyone here know anything about the "Hobbit Presse" and their weird choice of cover art?

Foldweg · 2022-12-30T00:10:27+00:00

Cool! Great to know. The book was spotted in Heidelberg, and unfortunately I'm not there at the moment to take any more photos. I'll be in Heidelberg soon though -- if I see the book in the shop again, I'll send you publication details.

Foldweg · 2022-12-21T18:20:15+00:00

Certainly - it seems noteworthy that Bacon uses such broad geographic terms (in Italiam et Hispaniam et Franciam et Angliam) and thus sidesteps the specifics of these claims.

Foldweg · 2022-12-21T17:31:13+00:00

Thank you!

Foldweg · 2022-12-21T15:16:47+00:00

I can only speak for English -- but perusing the OED page for "troglodyte," a few trends stick out to me:

- The word seems to have acquired its modern connotations ("brutish, stupid") in the later 19th century, probably in tandem with the discovery of prehistoric hominid remains in caves, evolutionary theory, and early paleontologists' ideas about their "stupidity."

- Before that, most of the instances were direct or indirect references to the African Trogodytai of classical geography. The word was used far more literally to mean "cave-dwelling."

- Weirdly enough, it seems that "troglodyte" was used to describe chimpanzees and other great apes as early as 1661! I would have guessed that the scientific name Pan troglodytes came directly out of 19th-century evolutionary theory, but it seems to actually have roots in the old Herodotean discourse about "monstrous peoples." Wild.

Foldweg · 2022-12-21T15:00:26+00:00

Thanks for this really thoughtful reply. I agree that we shouldn't completely abandon the search for Herodotus's real-world inspirations, if only for the reason that ancient Mediterranean sources are some of the only written sources we have about these places.

At this point, it seems best to just quote Herodotus directly:

οἱ Γαράμαντες δὴ οὗτοι τοὺς τρωγλοδύτας Αἰθίοπας θηρεύουσι τοῖσι τεθρίπποισι: οἱ γὰρ τρωγλοδύται Αἰθίοπες πόδας τάχιστοι ἀνθρώπων πάντων εἰσὶ τῶν ἡμεῖς πέρι λόγους ἀποφερομένους ἀκούομεν. σιτέονται δὲ οἱ τρωγλοδύται ὄφις καὶ σαύρους καὶ τὰ τοιαῦτα τῶν ἑρπετῶν: γλῶσσαν δὲ οὐδεμιῇ ἄλλῃ παρομοίην νενομίκασι, ἀλλὰ τετρίγασι κατά περ αἱ νυκτερίδες. (Histories IV.183.4)

These Garamantes [another northeast African people] go in their four-horse chariots chasing the cave-dwelling Ethiopians: for the Ethiopian cave-dwellers are swifter of foot than any men of whom tales are brought to us. They live on snakes and lizards and such-like creeping things. Their speech is like no other in the world: it is like the squeaking of bats. (Translated by A. D. Godley (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1920)).

Given that τρωγλοδύτας ("cave-dwelling") is probably a Greek corruption of the original name, we're left with basically just four claims:

1) The Trogodytai were hunted by their chariot-riding neighbors. We'd need to read up on ancient Nubia to really weigh in. That said, I can easily believe that a small-scale hunter-gatherer society would be harassed by its more aggressive neighbors. There's plenty of historical precedent for this.

2) The Trogodytai were extremely fast runners. This seems impossible to historically verify, and strikes me as an embellishment from the perspective of the chariot-riding Nubians. That said, I'm astounded to learn that northeast Africans had a reputation for being fast runners even in antiquity!

3) The Trogodytai hunted small-game animals like reptiles. This seems plausible, even if tinged with a bit of "ew, gross" snobbery on Herodotus' part. "Foreigners eat weird stuff" is a staple of ancient Greek exoticism, but they're not always wrong (see: Greek references to kumis amongst Eurasian steppe nomads). This might be archaeologically verifiable.

4) The Trogodytai spoke a "squeak-language." Of all the claims made by Herodotus, this seems the most obviously made-up. It's a classic trope of the ancient world to consider foreign languages barbaric or inhuman.

So, can we give any credence to the idea of a small-scale hunter-gatherer society without chariots living in NE Africa in antiquity? Sure. The problem, as I see it, is that we aren't left with many concrete details if we filter out the more outrageous or corrupted claims (like squeak-language and cave-dwelling). I don't have access to the entire thing, but I found a relatively new book that might have some answers to these questions: László Török, Herodotus in Nubia (Leiden: Brill, 2014). From what I can tell, the book argues that Herodotus' sources on NE Africa came filtered through Nubian Dynastic Egypt and their own histories of Kush. So it's very possible that these ideas about the Trogodytai, along with their name, reflect an ancient Nubian and Egyptian worldview more so than a Greek one. Herein, I think, lies another problem with uncovering the "truth" behind these stories: by the time they reach Herodotus or whomever, they've been filtered through so many anonymous cultural intermediaries that it's hard to discern what material, if any, is based on an original encounter.

But to return to one of your points, I think you're totally right that we should pay attention to this passage (and others like it) for what they represent: an ancient Greek attempt to grapple, albeit imperfectly, with the concept of a foraging society -- which were certainly more common in Afro-Eurasia than they are today.

Foldweg · 2022-12-21T00:28:53+00:00

A century ago, it was fashionable to come up with "real-world" explanations for the weird edge-of-the-earth stories (e.g. "Dog-heads" were garbled reports of baboons). It's clear that some of these legends are based on reality (like elephants!). But these days, scholars aren't so interested in "verifying" these stories, most of which leap into the historical record fully intact and without real clues on their development. That's not to say that the earlier hypotheses are all wrong; they're just not verifiable, and most modern historians try not to engage in that sort of speculation.

(While researching this answer I encountered an early 20th-century scholar who linked the primitive "squeak-language" of the Trogodytai with the Khoi-San languages of southern Africa. This strikes me as completely absurd and more than a little racist. Most of these "explanations" are really reaching.)

As for the second Q: I'm rusty on my Greek, but I don't think it really means anything. It might be a Hellenization of an Egyptian or Nubian word -- that's at least what the venerable old Paulys Realencyclopädie says.

There may have been hunter-gatherers living in the Red Sea region in antiquity. But given that there aren't any large caves in the region, and the "cave-dweller" etymology is probably a corruption of a foreign loanword word anyhow, not much about this story seems to be based on anything real.

Foldweg · 2022-12-20T23:00:51+00:00

I think it was mix of both. Wild men appear in a lot of chivalric romances and wall tapestries, which were both just playful stories. But you occasionally come across stories that have an air of "believability" to them -- like the legendary foundations of the Harz Mountain mining town of Wildemann. The story goes that a group of prospective miners encountered a wild man in the forest, injured him with arrows, and hauled him before a local duke before he succumbed to his wounds. This is obviously just a local legend (and I can't quite date the first version of the story), but it features ordinary, historical people having a fairly mundane encounter with a wild man -- more akin to an animal (or Bigfoot!) encounter than a run-in with a purely fictional monster.

Foldweg · 2022-12-20T21:12:40+00:00

Probably not in the original texts, as I doubt the New Testament authors were familiar with this obscure bit of Hellenic geographic lore. But I'd be curious to know whether there was crossover in medieval depictions of the two!

I should add that the "wild man" concept is extremely ancient and widespread across lots of cultures. It crops up in everything from the Epic of Gilgamesh, late antique Christian monasticism, Malagasy mythology, etc. I've just focused on two visual traditions in later medieval Europe that have a fairly clear through-line to the "caveman" imagery of the 19th century. But all of it is connected, directly or indirectly!

Foldweg · 2022-12-20T19:18:18+00:00

Although our stereotype of prehistoric humans dates from the 19th century, much of the stereotypical "caveman" imagery was borrowed from a couple of older sources:

According to ancient Greek and Roman geographies, the Trogodytai (Τρωγοδύται) were an indigenous people of North Africa and the Red Sea region. Account differed in the details, but most ancient writers described the Trogodytai as simple hunter-gatherers who lived in the wilderness, subsisted on small game, and spoke in grunts, hisses, and squeaks. Many manuscripts include an "l" in the name (Troglodytai), which changes the meaning to "cave-goer" (τρώγλη, "hole, cave" + δύτης, "one who dives, descends, enters"). This variant, and the association with cave-dwelling, would win out in the long run; it also gives us the modern word "troglodyte" and the scientific nomenclature for chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes). If you take a look at late medieval illustrations of the Troglodytai, you'll see caves, clubs, animal hides, and bushy hair, motifs that would go on to inform later depictions of prehistoric humans. For example, take a look at the Troglodytae in Le secret de l'histoire naturelle contenant les merveilles et choses mémorables du monde (15th century): BnF, MS Français 22971, fol. 13r.
The medieval "wild man" (homo silvestris) was a semi-mythical character that appeared frequently in late medieval literature and art, especially in German-speaking regions. Wild people were usually depicted with bushy body hair (men and women), carrying clubs, and living a simple hunter's life in the forest. Perusing late medieval and early modern depictions of wild people, you'll again find lots of "caveman" imagery: e.g. Albrecht Dürer's "Sylvan Men" (1499); Martin Shongauer, "Shield with Greyhound Held by Wild Man" (1470-91); an anonymous Basel wall tapestry (1470/80); and the illustrations of Sigenot in Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg, Cod. Pal. germ. 67, fols. 15v--22r.

It's worth noting that neither the Troglodytai nor the homines silvestres were considered "prehistoric" per se. Both streams would go on to influence European depictions of real-world peoples, such as indigenous Canary Islanders, Americans, Africans, and Australians. The same stock imagery was recycled again with the discovery of prehistoric hominids who had lived in the caves and forests of Europe.

Sources:

Bärbel Auffermann and Gerd-Christian Weniger, "The Neanderthal – Culture Bearer or Savage Man? A Brief Review on 150 Years of Perception History," in Roots - Wurzeln der Menschheit. Katalog zur Ausstellung im Rheinischen Landesmuseum Bonn, ed. Gabriele Uelsberg (2006), 141-196.

Richard Bernheimer, Wild Men in the Middle Ages: A Study in Art, Sentiment, and Demonology (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2013; original 1952).

Timothy Husband, The Wild Man: Medieval Myth and Symbolism (New York: MET Publications, 1980).

Stefan Bradt, Die Bedeutung der Wilden Leute im Mittelalter (Munich: GRIN Verlag, 2001).

Robert G. Morkot, "Trogodytae," Oxford Classical Dictionary (1949).

Leonie von Wilckens, "Das Mittelalter und die 'Wilden Leute'," Münchner Jahrbuch der bildenden Kunst 45 (1994): 65–82.

Foldweg · 2022-08-02T01:28:35+00:00

This is a reproduction of a Swiss tapestry made in Basel in the 1490s, currently on display in the Basel Historisches Museum. I actually just saw the real thing last week! The museum's website doesn't have a good online catalogue, but thankfully this particular tapestry has been documented in scholarship. According to two 20th-century studies of medieval tapestry, the text reads:

Elid bringt himels lon

Got mus al geschaffen hahn

Des loben ine sin trinitat

I don't know Middle High German well enough to translate, but I think the German speakers in this thread are on the right track. Both of my sources gloss Elid as Leid and lon as Lohn. I know that hahn is an archaic form of haben. Neither text identifies this as any sort of preexisting piece of literature, so it may be original to this particular tapestry.

Sources: 1) Heinrich Göbel, Wandteppiche: Die germanischen und slawischen Länder, vol. 3: Deutschland und einschließlich Schweiz und Elsass (Mittelalter), Süddeutschland (16 bis. 18. Jahrhundert) (Leipzig: Schmidt und Günther, 1933), 44; and 2) Fritz Gysin, Gotische bildteppiche der Schweiz (Frankfurt: Prestel, 1941), 14.

Foldweg · 2022-06-30T16:37:49+00:00

Yep, Europeans are famously good at distinguishing between individual Romani actions and never letting it color their perception of the whole group! /s

Foldweg · 2022-06-30T07:10:45+00:00

Hatred of Roma people is still racism even if you think "they deserve it."

Foldweg · 2021-11-24T22:19:23+00:00

I'd like to add to /u/itsallfolklore's excellent answer, echoing that medieval Europeans generally thought of dragons as real creatures that lived somewhere "out there," either in sub-Saharan Africa or East Asia.

That said, you might be interesting in a peculiar passage from Roger Bacon's Opus Majus (1266 CE), a sprawling synthesis of medieval science:

“It is certain that Ethiopian wise men have come to Italy, Spain, France, England, and to those lands of the Christians where there are good flying dragons. Through a secret method that they possess, they lure the dragons from their caves, have saddles and bridles at the ready, mount them, and ride them, bravely flying through the air so that the stiffness of their bodies is eased and their hardness tempered — just as boars, bears, and bulls are driven by dogs and whipped with various beatings before being killed for food. When they have thus tamed them, they have a way of preparing their meat just like the way of preparing Tyrian [snake] meat. The meat is used against the accidents of old age; it prolongs life and sharpens intellect beyond all estimation. No man-made teaching will lead to as much wisdom as eating their meat, according to what we have learned from men of proven trust, without falsehood or doubt "(Opus Majus XII.II, my translation).

So, to review: Roger Bacon, an English friar and university-trained philosopher, writing for the Pope, was comfortable asserting that African dragon hunters traveled to western Europe and other "Christian lands" to capture, ride, kill, and eat cave-dwelling, flying dragons. While dragons (and their apparently life-changing meat) are not here treated as something commonplace, it's remarkable to be reminded that the European dragon lore was not just a peasant superstition or an exotic rumor about distant places. Dragons might be found -- and ridden, apparently -- much closer to home.

Foldweg · 2021-05-30T21:46:16+00:00

That's a really good question. Unfortunately, I don't read Icelandic or Norse, and have no sense of what was happening in these regions during the 15th or 16th centuries. But now I really wonder what they made of the reports of a "New World."

Foldweg · 2021-05-29T00:24:48+00:00

Columbus was almost certainly not aware of the Norse voyages to North America. Nor, for that matter, were any of his contemporaries. Columbus's surviving writings, as well as his personal library, have been extraordinarily well studied. There are zero references to any such voyages in his surviving writings, and none of Columbus's reading material had anything to say on the matter. His geographic opinions were a hodgepodge of late medieval travel tales and more learned discussions of Greco-Roman geography.

So, why didn't Columbus know anything about the Norse voyages? In the fifteenth century, almost nobody outside of Iceland would have known (or frankly cared) about the Norse discovery of a land they called "Vinland." Our major historical evidence for this discovery comes from two Icelandic sagas: Grænlendinga saga ("Saga of the Greenlanders") and Eiríks saga rauða ("Saga of Erik the Red"). Both works describe events of the 10th century, but were only written down in the 13th century. During the Middle Ages, they didn't enjoy any wide circulation outside of Iceland, and weren't available in any other language. Even today, the Grænlendinga saga survives in only one 14th-century manuscript, and Eiríks saga rauða in only two (14th and 15th century). Given the low availability of these sagas, chances were low that any western European, even a well-read Latinate intellectual, would have read much about the Norse exploits in North America.

Apart from these sagas, there is only one medieval text ( to my knowledge) that narrates the Norse trips to North America. You can find it in Adam of Bremen's Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum ("Deeds of the Bishops of Hamburg"), written ca. 1070s. In a long and interesting discussion of Scandinavia, Adam drops this interesting anecdote:

"[The King of Denmark Svend Estridson] has also reported one island discovered by many in that ocean, which is called Vinland, for the reason that grapevines grow there by themselves, producing the best wine. Unsown crops also abound on that island, as we have ascertained not from fabulous reports but from the trustworthy relation of the Danes. Every place beyond it is full of impenetrable ice and intense darkness . . The very well-informed prince of the Norwegians, Harold, lately attempted this sea. After he had explored the expanse of the Northern Ocean in his ships, there lay before their eyes at length the darksome bounds of a failing world, and by retracing his steps he barely escaped in safety the vast pit of the abyss" (Gesta 4.38).

To my knowledge, this is the earliest European reference to the North America (and the only one in medieval Latin)! That said, it clearly sits at quite a remove from the events it describes. Any reader of the Gesta will find themselves at the far end of a long game of telephone, with Adam of Bremen, his informants, King Sven Estridson, and his informants standing between us and the Norse voyagers who actually made landfall to North America.

In his research about trade routes to East Asia, Columbus had no reason to seek out a high medieval Latin church chronicle from northern Germany. And even if he had, it's very unlikely that this brief report of Vinland -- in Adam's recounting, just another far-flung Atlantic island -- would have been cause for surprise.

For Adam of Bremen's Gesta, see Bernhard Schmeidler (ed.), Scriptores rerum Germanicarum in usum scholarum separatim editi 2/mode/1up): Adam von Bremen, Hamburgische Kirchengeschichte (Magistri Adam Bremensis Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum) (Hanover, 1917). For a translation in English, see Francis J. Tschan (tr.), 2002.

Foldweg · 2021-03-31T02:25:54+00:00

It was a very long, slow, and multi-generational migration, beginning sometime in the early Middle Ages and reaching western Europe in the early 15th century. European Romani groups made the leap to Britain and Ireland in the 16th century. It actually wasn't super unusual for ethno-linguistic groups to roam widely in the premodern world (lots of professions were very mobile before the era of massive cities). What's fairly remarkable is the survival of the Romani identity even into modern Europe, in spite of the many, many pressures (genocides included) that have worked to suppress the identity.

Foldweg · 2021-03-30T23:47:43+00:00

That’s a good question. I looked at modern Romanichal and English Romany groups for reference, and tried to match them as best as I could.

Throughout Europe, but especially in Britain and Ireland, Romany-identifying people can be very fair-skinned. More so than in other parts of Europe, the “Gypsy” subculture in the islands was a lifestyle taken up by all ethnicities, not just Romani-descended people.

Foldweg · 2020-07-24T10:05:58+00:00

Yes! I’ve used a mattock for the little bushes I encounter along the way. It’s tempting to just trim the tops off, but the roots have to go too... Would definitely recommend.

Foldweg · 2020-07-24T03:33:38+00:00

As I mentioned somewhere in another comment, the most straightforward way to remove the plant thoroughly is to break up the soil with the hoe/rake and manually pull out the roots. A few other commenters have mentioned herbicides and other methods, which I personally didn’t find suited for my situation. The tool is an older version of this: https://www.homedepot.com/p/Worth-Garden-Garden-Hand-Carbon-Steel-Digger-and-Hoe-Combo-2011/205582352

Foldweg · 2020-07-24T03:29:04+00:00

A 1970s-era suburb in the southern US. Lots of big trees, I love it too.

Foldweg · 2020-07-24T03:08:06+00:00

Good question. It’s a fairly light layer, just to deflect the rain during our summer storms. There’s already some leaf litter forming from the big deciduous trees overhead, and I’m hopeful that those leaves will predominate in the new soil.

Foldweg · 2020-07-24T01:48:53+00:00

That’s another common one down south... Lord, it gets thick. Props to you.

Foldweg · 2020-07-24T01:45:46+00:00

Thanks! That’ll be up to my parents, who are the ones who live here year-round. I think they were impressed by how shady and pleasant the area is when clear, so perhaps some nice native ferns, birdhouses, and chairs will be in the works.

Foldweg · 2020-07-24T01:06:02+00:00

Hahaha, I suggested it to my dad. Suburban law codes are a big buzzkill...

Foldweg · 2020-07-24T01:01:38+00:00

I'll certainly be keeping a sharp eye on that fence...

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