Tolkien's Fourth Age

[Captain_Crunchy_Crunch]

Just finished reading the fascinating Michael Martinez essay
J.R.R. Tolkien and Middle-earth - Exploring Tolkien’s Fourth Age, and I have a couple of questions:

Borlas was concerned with rumors of a strange and secret cult gaining popularity in Gondor. It had become fashionable among Gondorian boys to play at being Orcs, doing Orcish things (such as destroying trees for no apparent reason). But now men were whispering of a new leader, Herumor (which is Quenya for “dark lord”), around whom a cult had formed (Tolkien called it a Satanic cult, and presumably it would have been a revival of Morgothian worship). The story proceeds no farther than Borlas’ receipt of an invitation from Saelon, a younger man who grew up with Borlas’ son, to attend a secret meeting (most undoubtedly of Herumor’s followers). It is not clear whether Saelon would have been a member of the cult attempting to recruit (or murder) Borlas, or if he was engaged in some campaign against the cult and required Borlas’ aid.

1. Apparently, Tolkien only wrote a couple of pages for The New Shadow. Has the complete text ever been published? If so, where can I find it?

2. Is Herumor Gondorian? If not, where is he from?

It is most likely, because of the power exhibited by the Barrow-wight which captured Frodo, that the spirits were those of corrupted elves (enslaved by Melkor in the First Age) or lesser Maiar, not as powerful as, say, a Balrog, nor even as the Nazgul, but more powerful than the spirits of Men.

3. Is this correct? I always thought the Barrow-Wights were ancient Arnorian princes and/or kings?

4. Where can I find some good Tolkien fan fiction? Particularly regarding Herumor and the Fourth Age?
   Thanks

[Kythereia]

1. Tolkien did start a sequel, but never got very far and didn’t finish; the basic premise was as you describe. You can find some scanned pages here.

2. Dunno. I think he’s Gondorian, but I can’t tell for sure.

3. This is a great article on the Barrow-Wights…

4. Whatever you do, PLEASE don’t go to fanfiction.net! I beg of you! (To elaborate: 5% of the fiction there is good. 95% is mindless drivel. It’ll melt your brain.)

[Qadgop_the_Mercotan]

1. You can read the whole thing in JRRT’s “Unfinished tales”.

2. From his writings, it appears that JRRT didn’t know who Herumor was. He wrote that way a lot. At one point the Balrog in Moria was going to be a ringwraith. Later it was Saruman in disguise. He worked it out as he went along.

3. JRRT didn’t provide a real rigorous explanation for barrow-wights. In his early drafts of LOTR, they were elven shades who had been corrupted by the dozens of rings that Sauron threw all over the freaking place. This later got revised. See 2).

4. Fanfic? Fanfic?!?! :eek: You want the genuine JRRT experience, get out there and read Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales, and all 12 volumes of HOMES! Once you’ve done that, you can write an essay on all 4 names that JRRT considered for the Rider of Rohan he later called Dernhelm. Extra points if you can translate what each name meant, and why you think he first considered that name, and why he discarded it.

[Captain_Crunchy_Crunch]

Thanks guys

Qadgop, I have read The Hobbit (2 times), LotR (4 times), The Silmarillion (2 times), and Unfinished Tales (3/4th of it - I guess the 1/4th that I have not read included The New Shadow ). The Book of Lost Tales is next. I will eventually get around to reading the rest of the HOMEs series.

The only reason I was asking about good fan fiction was because Tolkien wrote so little on the Fourth Age. If there is any really good fan fiction regarding the Fourth Age, I would love the read it. The problem is finding the good fan fiction, and weeding out the bad (which I know, is most of it).

Thanks again

[Polycarp]

@Captain Crunchy Crunch

The problem is finding the good fan fiction, and weeding out the bad (which I know, is most of it).

Thanks again

You need to make at least three successive passes with Sturgeon’s Law!

[c_carol]

@Captain Crunchy Crunch

4. Where can I find some good Tolkien fan fiction?

www.henneth-annun.net/ is pretty good.

[Gorsnak]

I can’t believe I’m correcting Qadgop on something Tolkien-related, but the Fourth Age story does not appear in Unfinished Tales. It must be somewhere in HOMES, because my only familiarity with it comes from the brief mention in Letters, and I’ve read UT any number of times.

[Humble_Servant]

If you look at Kytheria’s link, you will see that it is the entire “New Shadow” draft scanned from Vol. 12 of Homes–The Peoples of Middle Earth. (One asks: Do the lawyers for Chris and The Estate search the web periodically for additional potential hours? It would be a sinecure–find work without even having to deal directly with the client!)

[Qadgop_the_Mercotan]

@Gorsnak

I can’t believe I’m correcting Qadgop on something Tolkien-related, but the Fourth Age story does not appear in Unfinished Tales. It must be somewhere in HOMES, because my only familiarity with it comes from the brief mention in Letters, and I’ve read UT any number of times.

You are so right! It’s in HOMES XII, in a section called “Unfinished Tales”. My mind slipped a cog. I blame age and colder temperatures.