MythLore

[Eldy]

Eldy, I'm still interested in hearing your thoughts if you read it!

Unfortunately, I am terrible at budgeting my time, so with a lot of big transition-related things going on IRL and my allotted Tolkien time routinely eaten up by my poor self-control over making stupidly long Lore posts about tangential topics in other people's threads, I have a backlog of stuff to read. But your paper is now at the top of the list, and I've read about half of it so far. I'll try to finish soon, though this weekend is going to be very busy for me. I'm sorry about the delay!

[Inanna]

Which part do you not understand, the part about Círdan bringing us to the Other Shore by his example, or the part about the Other Shore being right here?

The other shore being right here.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Which part do you not understand, the part about Círdan bringing us to the Other Shore by his example, or the part about the Other Shore being right here?

The other shore being right here.

I'm sure that you are not the only person to be confused by that, though you might be the only one honest enough to say so! It certainly is purposefully obscure. But if you think of the Other Shore as a metaphor for enlightenment (as I say earlier in the paper), it is a "wrong perception" that that is a separate place from right here.

Hope that helps.

[Inanna]

So - since the “other shore” is enlightenment, it is obviously, right here. We just have to work to attain it.

Yes?

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Yes. And Círdan's example shows us part of the path towards doing that work - through service to others.

[Inanna]

Got it. Thanks.

[Eldy]

I enjoyed reading your paper, Voronwë! It was good to hear your thoughts at greater length after our recent, brief conversation about Círdan remaining in Middle-earth. I've never put much thought into interpreting the legendarium through a Buddhist lens. When I'm in a revisionist mood, my thoughts tend to nonetheless be guided by Primary World debates over Christian theology—just coming to different conclusions on many important topics than Tolkien did. (I've recently begun playing around with neopagan readings of certain aspects of the legendarium, particularly focusing on Elbereth and her relationship with the Quendi, but that's neither here nor there.) I think you make a convincing case for Círdan's resemblance to a bodhisattva. Your footnote connecting his inexplicable beard with artistic depictions of bodhisattvas with facial hair had me on the verge of exclaiming "Aha! So that's what it was about!" before remembering that (as you note) there's no evidence Tolkien was influenced by Buddhism. Nonetheless, this is one of the more fascinating examinations of Tolkienian "applicability" I've read in some time.

My formal education in comparative education was brief and, by now, is long past, but I have vague recollections of reading articles comparing the concepts of bodhisattvas and Catholic saints. Do you think there's any substance to this comparison? And, if so, might that account for the curious resemblance between this creation of a Catholic author and Buddhist religious figures? I don't know one way or another, but the thought occurred to me while reading your piece.

Congratulations on this publication, and thank you for bringing such thought-provoking ideas to wider attention.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Eldy, thanks for your thoughts! I'm glad you enjoyed the paper. I definitely think that there is substance to the idea of comparing the concepts of bodhisattvas and Catholic saints. As for Círdan's beard, that was actually a point made by the peer reviewer that the editor had read the paper. He mentioned it not as something to be added to the paper, but just as an observation, but I thought it was worth noting in a footnote, so I added it in.

[Eldy]

I'm glad you did!

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Forgive me for posting this but it was so gratifying to see. I just received this on the MythSoc email list.

I received Mythlore 140 today, and just wanted to send a note saying how incredibly impressed I was with Douglas Charles Kane's essay about Círdan the Shipwright. There has not been very much written about the character over the years, and I was delighted to see this in-depth analysis.

[Inanna]

Wonderful!