Lord of the Rings: The Animated Musical | Overview of Appendix A “Annals of the Kings and Rulers”

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For the second week of my miniseries on the Appendixes of The Lord of the Rings, I look at the brief introduction to “Appendix A: Annals of the Kings and Rulers”, which appears on page 341 of Part Three The Return of the King, directly opposite the final page of dialogue. Annals — written histories focusing on political leaders — are found across the real world in literate cultures, but few survived in legible forms or are deemed interesting enough to study. J.R.R. Tolkien successfully managed both when construction the fictional history of Middle-earth.

This introduction described how the following parts of the section were written in-universe. Bilbo Baggins had an interest in the First Age, as Elrond’s family was influential during that time, although the text does not clarify if these sections were part of his translations from Elvish languages that he gifted to Frodo. “Appendix A III Durin’s Folk” was based on work by Gimli, noted in the text for maintaining a friendship with Pippin and Merry after the war, and further solidifying his status as my favorite character.

The other note of importance was an in-universe discrepancy about when the Third Age (T.A.) ended, and the Fourth Age (F.A.) began. The calendar for Gondor marked the date as 25 March T.A. 3021 / F.A. 1, two years after the One Ring went into the Crack of Doom, and the same day Elanor Gardner Fairbairn was born. The Fourth Age technically began on 29 September T.A. 3021 / F.A. 1, when two of the One Ring bears — Bilbo and Frodo — along with the bearers of the three rings for the elven-kings — Elrond, Galadriel, and Gandalf, none of which were elven-kings — passed away from the Grey Havens for Valinor, thereby leaving Middle-earth. The real world explanation for the March 25 date is that it marks the Feast of Annunciation in the Catholic Church, celebrating when the Archangel Gabriel appeared to Mary and announced that she would give birth to Jesus.

We Love the Bible Here

As evident in both The Lord of the Rings and the contents of this blog, Tolkien was a devout Catholic, while I am a Calvinist, two vastly different flavors of Christianity. While a common joke is that Catholics do not read their Bible, this was clearly not the case for the translator, who contributed to the Book of Jonah in the Jerusalem Bible, the Catholic Church’s official English-language translation published in 1966. Some of the “Song of Jonah” in Jonah 2, with its discussion of the Sea and the ancient past, has similarities to Legolas’ “Song of Nimrodel” in Part One The Fellowship of the Ring and the poem “The Sea-bell (Frodo’s Dreme)” published in The Adventures of Tom Bombadil.

You cast me into the abyss,
into the heart of the sea,
and the flood surrounded me.

All your waves, your billows,
washed over me…

The waters surrounded me right to my throat,
the abyss was all around me.

The seaweed was wrapped round my head
at the roots of the mountains.

I went down into the countries underneath the earth,
to the peoples of the past…” (Jonah 2: 4, 6, 7a)

Some of the best known annals of kings in the real world are found in the Bible, especially 1 & 2 Samuel, 1 & 2 Kings, and 1 & 2 Chronicles. These texts, often called historical books, focus on three eras for the original Kingdom of Israel. First, the country transitioned from rule by a judge or shofet to rule by a king or melek. Next, the country split between the northern country of Israel and the southern country of Judah. Finally, Israel fell to the empire of Neo-Assyria, and Judah fell to the empire of Neo-Babylon, also known as Chaldea. While these books do not meet modern standards of historical accuracy, they have not changed for thousands of years. The Dead Sea Scrolls include fragments of Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles, along with similar texts now considered apocryphal.

At one time, additional historical books likely existed, called Books of the Chronicles ‘Of the Kings of Judah’ and ‘Of the Kings of Israel’. According to Russian-Israeli biblical scholar Menahem Haran, academics are divided over the contents of these lost books. Believed in the 19th and early 20th century to be “annals, pure and simple”, research by prolific American Episcopal biblical scholar James Alan Montgomery and Swedish biblical professor Tryggve N.D. Mettinger supported this theory.

However, during the 20th century, scholars inferred that these books might be “narrative or literary, and definitely not annalistic in character”, like surviving books found in the Bible. Additionally, they believed only one book originally existed, and the copying process did not happen until many years later, not so unlike the in-universe origin of The Lord of the Rings being derived from the Red Book of Westmarch. The hypothetical author of Deuteronomy and the books with similar syntax — including Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings, and Jeremiah — might have used these annals as sources.

Besides these histories, the Bible contains genealogies scattered across five books: Genesis, Ruth, and Chronicles in the Old Testament, and Matthew and Luke in the New Testament. These genealogies do not always match up exactly; in fact, Matthew and Luke have extreme discrepancies when detailing the ancestry of Joseph, husband of Mary. Biblical scholars have presented several explanations for this. According to three theories neatly summarized by Christian book publisher Zondervan Academic, Luke’s genealogy might actually belong to Mary, Matthew’s highlights the kings of Judah instead of Joseph’s biological lineage, or Joseph may have been adopted through levirate marriage where Mary was an only child and her father needed a man to inherit his property. In light of the theme of adoption found in The Lord of the Rings, I really like the third option.

Additional Ancient Annals

While the defeat of Israel by Akkadian nations was not a good thing for ancient Israelites, the annals may not have existed without this influence. When considering the lost historical books, Mettinger hypothesized that these annuals were in fact a single book with two columns. Akkadian rulers ordered the keeping of such documents, and Jewish scribes likely copied them.

Regular readers of the blog may recall the term “Akkadian”, which describes a series of empires ruled by Semitic people living in Mesopotamia beginning around 2300 BC and ending with its defeat by the Persian Empire in 539 BC. These empires included the Sumerian, Assyrian, Babylonian, and Neo-Babylonian, also called Chaldean. As described in Old Testament Parallels by Dr. Victor H. Matthews and Dr. Don C. Benjamin, the Akkadian ways of life, such as religion and writing style, greatly influenced other cultures in the Mesopotamian and greater Mediterranean area. Their mythologies on creation, the sea, and floods are similar to stories told by nearby peoples, while cuneiform created a standard for writing that lasted hundreds of years.

More importantly for today’s topic, the earliest Akkadians established a standardized system for chronicles, where the scribe listed the name of the kingdom, the name of the kings, and the length of rule for each king. Unfortunately, many claims appear to be greatly exaggerated. When the several versions of the Sumerian King List (SKL) also known as Chronicle of the One Monarchy were written around the 21st century BC, a time known as the Ur III period, the scribes noted that first king Alulim from Eridu ruled for 28,800 years. Legendary hero Gilgamesh, famous for speaking to flood survivor Utnapishtim and trying but failing to gain eternal life, ruled for a ridiculous 126 years, and his father is listed as “an invisible being”. Realism was not a concern here.

Out of the many names on the list, only one woman was permitted to become the ruler. Ku-Baba began her career as a tavern-keeper in Kish and is listed as a “king” like all the other rulers. French historian and Mesopotamia specialist Jean-Jacques Glassner, who wrote the French-language translation Chroniques Mésopotamiennes [available to me as English-language translation Mesopotamian Chronicles], believed this designation was given because the Sumerian word for king — lugal — did not have a female version.

If you want to see one of the lists in person, you can visit the Weld-Blundell Prism at Ashmolean at the University of Oxford, named for its discoverer, British archaeologist Herbert Joseph Weld Blundell. Shocked that this is not held at the British Museum? No worries; the rest of his small collection is there.

Another ancient chronicle of note was the Cyrus Cylinder, frequently considered among the best-known texts written in cuneiform. The cylinder was part of a late 19th century hoax that its writing was a command by Cyrus the Great to let captive Jews go back to Israel, as featured in the Bible. A hoax perpetrated by Shah Mohammad Reza Palavi, the last monarch of Iran, in 1971 presented the text with no religious references. An iteration of this hoax continues to make its rounds across the internet to this day, even appearing on otherwise reputable educational organizations, like this lecture at Gresham College. Myth busting aside, you will never, ever guess where the original cylinder has ended up. (It’s in the British Museum.)

Outside of the Western world, the Twenty-Four Histories or Orthodox Histories of the Chinese Dynasties covers about 5000 years of history. A 2020 article for The China Project by Chinese American freelance writer Kaiser Kuo, who holds a graduate degree in East Asian Studies, notes that the works have never been fully translated into English, as the type of person so interested in the exacting details already speaks the necessary dialects of Chinese. Even he found the writing “mostly unreadable” and “turgid”.

Pseudo-Annals

Besides lost texts and mythologized texts, pseudohistory abounds with fringe theories about actual historical events. While most of these theories involve racism, religion, political intrigue, ancient aliens, or a horrific combination of all four, Historia regum Britanniae was pure medieval silliness. Translated to History of the Kings of Britain in Modern English, Geoffrey of Monmouth created his Latin-language mythology bringing together stories from the Celts and his favorite King Arthur tales. While I have read only excerpts and summaries in English, the original book sounds like an absolute trip. Geoffrey connected the founding of Britain to The Aeneid by Virgil. Julius Caesar showed up and had a sea battle. Quite a bit of time was spent on Arthur, Merlin, and company, although Lancelot was not introduced to the story.

The book was popular in the public eye, but English historian William of Newburgh wrote a diatribe against Geoffrey’s work in the “Preface” of his own book, Historia rerum Anglicarum [History of English Affairs] published in 1198. In a translation by Joseph Stevenson from 1861, William calls Historia “the most ridiculous fictions” and “unblushing effrontery”. He was particularly angry that Geoffrey “declares that this Merlin was the issue of a demon and woman” and then offers a lengthy explanation how this could not be true, since the book was written at a time when people could not be sure. While I agree that this characterization was a heresy, I also imagine poor William was weaned on a lemon.

Modern Annals

Here in the 21st century, monarchies still exist! I am most familiar with the English and Danish monarchies, which take vastly different approaches to record keeping. Both monarchies recently had coronation. Queen Elizabeth II of England died in 2022, and her son King Charles III took the throne, while Queen Margrethe II of Denmark retired earlier this year, allowing her son King Frederik X to take the throne. After the coronation of Charles III, royal scribes created a Coronation Roll detailing everything that happened that day. All Coronation Rolls are kept in The National Archives of the United Kingdom. Up north in Denmark, while their official website beautifully tracks the line of succession and other historical information, no coronation scrolls exist. Instead, the work of knighted Danes is preserved through autobiographies stored in the Chapter of the Royal Orders of Chivalry. The autobiographies are read only after the writer has been dead for fifty years unless they request otherwise. My final note for the Danish monarchy is that Queen Margrethe II is a professional illustrator specializing in woodcut style. As a favorite of Tolkien, her work was published in the 1977 Danish translation of The Lord of the Rings.

Conclusion

While the contents of “Appendix A” are fantasy, the format has its roots in real world history. Tolkien drew upon thousands of years of Western tradition to create a realistic record of Middle-earth. Like the mix of narrative and genealogy found in biblical texts, “Appendix A” uses heightened prose, a grand style of writing found sporadically throughout the dialogue portion of the books and used in many translations of the Bible. Even today, historians detail events concerning the remaining monarchs. By blending the record keeping methodology of the past with a modern sense of historicity, the “Annals of the Kings and Rulers” feel like a work unearthed from an archaeological dig or ancient library rather than the invention of a single well-read author.


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