The Straight Road

[Lalwendë]

I'm fascinated by The Straight Road. By what is it, what it means, what it symbolises, even by how to find it.

What exactly is it?

It seems that at the point Eru changed the world he broke it into two 'planes' of existence. Before, it was flat and it was possible to travel from Valinor to Middle-earth and vice versa, even if it was forbidden to Men to do so, and against their nature for Elves to return to Middle-earth. Afterwards, the earth was curved and if you set sail from Middle-earth's western shores you'd just eventually come back to the eastern ones (presumably a bit thirsty and as bonkers as the Ancient Mariner by then).

But not for the Elves. They could find the Straight Road and land in Valinor, and so, it seems, could those special enough to gain what seems to have been an actual title - Elf-friend.

What bugs me is whether they got there. We've no way of knowing. Am I alone in finding that Frodo's final journey has a double meaning? On one level you think it's fantastic that he's going off to this place where he can be healed. But on the other, you have a niggling worry about whether he ever got there. Yes, there is a description of him going there, but it's not logically possible for us to know that - given the translator conceit.

And then there's the question of How Does It Work? I always like to know how things work.

So, would a ship set sail and then suddenly hit a secret point known only to Elves/Ainur at which point it departs normal existence and enters another dimension/plane? Or is it that the ship would hit a point where it enters a kid of static world which is unchanging, almost like going through a wormhole? And does being able to find the Road depend upon knowing where it is? Upon being able to see it? Or upon having permission?

Your thoughts, please.

[Morthoron]

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

And then there's the question of How Does It Work? I always like to know how things work.

So, would a ship set sail and then suddenly hit a secret point known only to Elves/Ainur at which point it departs normal existence and enters another dimension/plane? Or is it that the ship would hit a point where it enters a kid of static world which is unchanging, almost like going through a wormhole? And does being able to find the Road depend upon knowing where it is? Upon being able to see it? Or upon having permission?

Your thoughts, please.

Well, there are plenty of instances in classical literature of heroes passing to the netherworld, the underworld, Faerie, heaven or hell. There is Hercules' and Aeneas' journeys to Hades (Persephone's passage to Hades on a yearly basis presages the coming of winter), Arthur's final journey to Avalon, Ossian's dialogue with St. Patrick after returning from Hy Brasil, Thomas the Rhymer, and a host of Changelings stolen from their families and brought to Faerie.

I would say it would be dimensional and the door/passage is only availaible to a hero with the proper attributes (as it happens in Tolkien with Earendil, Frodo or Bilbo, as well as in Mallory --Galahad, the perfect knight, allowed to find the Sangreal), or by chance (mystic lands appearing at certain times of year), or by kidnapping by a denizen of the Netherworld with access to the passage (Hades kidnapping Persephone is an archetype), or by stepping into a Faery Ring or washed ashore on Faery (which abounds in Irish folklore such as Ossian's tale, and also reiterated in Irving's Rip Van Winkle).

[Nogrod]

Adding to the the wealthy examples by Morthoron, I'd say that in the simple plane it would be easy to just state there is a one-way traffic-line there. Whether someone from the Middle-Earth was approaching, who was not permitted the seas would just arise and prevent them from getting anywhere - and the same would go for any of the "blessed" who would try to to reach the M-E as there would be no admission without a special purpose (like Gandalf geting back wherever it was he was while "dead").

Originally Posted by Lal

Afterwards, the earth was curved and if you set sail from Middle-earth's western shores you'd just eventually come back to the eastern ones (presumably a bit thirsty and as bonkers as the Ancient Mariner by then).

That kind of brings to my mind the then (and now) hot debates over quantum physics, the possibilities of wormholes, the parallel universes, the curved universe with relation to the Einstein's speculations which Tolkien must have known...

The idea surely is an interesting one - and it has this "down to earth" -explanation available even if the physical science professionals wouldn't allow it - where the world actually goes around itself and gives you the the round globe; but on another plane the laws would be different and you only have access to them through those wormholes / parallel universes etc... And linking them with old myths about "moving to a different plane" would fit the mythologial structures of the worlds of every conceivable nation or tribe living up north about 1000 AD or before that...

Kind of a stuff Robert Holdstock used later?

[Ibrîniðilpathânezel]

Letter 325 (just about the whole thing) says:

The ‘immortals’ who were permitted to leave Middle-earth and seek Aman. . .set sail in ships specially made and hallowed for this voyage, and steered due West towards the ancient site of those lands. They only set out after sundown; but if any keen-eyed observer from that shore had watched on of these ships he might have seen that it never became hull-down but dwindled only by distance until it vanished in the twilight: it followed the straight road to the true West and not the bent road of the earth’s surface. As it vanished it left the physical world. There was no return. The Elves who took this road and those few ‘mortals’ who by special grace went with them, had abandoned the ‘History of the world’ and could play no further part in it.

The angelic immortals (incarnate only at their own will), the Valar or regents under God, and other of the same order but less power and majesty (such as Olórin=Gandalf) needed no transport, unless they for a time remained incarnate, and they could, if allowed or commanded, return.

As for Frodo or other mortals, they could only dwell in Aman for a limited time – whether brief or long. The Valar had neither the power nor the right to confer ‘immortality’ upon them. Their sojourn was a ‘purgatory’, but one of peace and healing and they would eventually pass away (die at their own desire and of free will) to destinations of which the Elves knew nothing.

This general idea lies behind the events of The Lord of the Rings and the Silmarillion, but it is not put forward as geologically or astronomically ‘true’; except that some special physical catastrophe is supposed to lie behind the legends and marked the first stage in the succession of Men to dominion of the world. But the legends are mainly of ‘Mannish’ origin blended with those of the Sindar (Grey-elves) and others who had never left Middle-earth.

From that description of the transit, it does sound, in science-fictional terms, like some kind of interdimensional shift, vanishing from the physical world of Arda to another plane of existence. It seems that if you don't have the right ship or don't have permission, you just keep sailing along in the water and remain on the earth. One does wonder how the passengers perceive that part of the transit where they leave the waters and continue straight on rather than following the curvature of the earth. It's interesting, I think, that the legends about it are written by people who never made the trip.

I have somehow always felt that Frodo reached Aman without incident -- possibly because he did dream of his arrival there long before he even knew it would ever happen, or what it was he saw in his dream, but also possibly because it felt like a classic heroic end. Not the attainment of an eternal paradise, but the bestowing of a reward, a sort of cosmic "even of the scales," to offset all he had suffered in struggling to achieve the onus that had been laid upon him. It seems to me that in most legends and myths, the end of the hero's journey is never wholly a "happily ever after" situation; either the "paradise" achieved is not perfect, or the road to it was so fraught with trials and tragedies, it could only be a bittersweet reward, at best.

[Morthoron]

Originally Posted by Ibrîniðilpathânezel

From that description of the transit, it does sound, in science-fictional terms, like some kind of interdimensional shift, vanishing from the physical world of Arda to another plane of existence. It seems that if you don't have the right ship or don't have permission, you just keep sailing along in the water and remain on the earth. One does wonder how the passengers perceive that part of the transit where they leave the waters and continue straight on rather than following the curvature of the earth. It's interesting, I think, that the legends about it are written by people who never made the trip.

In the classic mythological sense, attaining the shores of Faery (or Aman, Hy Brasil, Avalon, etc.) has its own sanctions, permissions and prohibitions (and seemingly, Tolkien subscribed to the classic fomulae). For instance, you can reach there with luck or permission, but you can usually never return; doing so will result in the breaking of a prohibition, and the sanction is usually something dreadful (Ossian, for instance, aged to the point of death while he was talking to St. Patrick, and poor old Rip Van Winkle also returned from his trip into the mountains so aged that every one he knew had died years before). Earendil was not allowed to return to Arda, save aboard his ship, which stayed aloft among the heavens, and the Numenoreans paid for breaking the prohibition against mortals setting foot in Aman with their lives.

As far as Frodo, his description of the silver curtain lifting to me infers passing through a portal into another plane of existence (he and Bilbo of course received permission, or intercession from Galadriel and Arwen).

[skip spence]

I also adore the straight road.

Originally Posted by Lal

So, would a ship set sail and then suddenly hit a secret point known only to Elves/Ainur at which point it departs normal existence and enters another dimension/plane? Or is it that the ship would hit a point where it enters a kid of static world which is unchanging, almost like going through a wormhole? And does being able to find the Road depend upon knowing where it is? Upon being able to see it? Or upon having permission?

You could picture the Straight Road like a bridge of water I guess, leaving the curvature of the earth and heading straight towards "heaven". But being rational-minded I see many problems with this analogy from a scientific viewpoint. In the letter Ibrin quoted, Tolkien wrote that a keen-eyed observer from shore would have noticed that a vessel heading towards the West never became hull-down, indicating that it was indeed on the Straight Road, and not following the curvature of the earth. But what if that keen-eyed observer were on look-out from a ship on a parallel course with the hallowed ship, far off but just within sight of it? Would he then observe the Elven ship slowly taking off and eventually heading off towards the firmament like Eärendil? What if they sailed towards it then? And what if a shrewd man unnoticed managed to tie a very long rope to the fin keel of a ship heading for Aman, and attach his small boat to it, thus being towed on to the Straight Road. Would this free passenger make it to the utmost West? But now I'm being silly. I suppose you can't see rationally upon something which essentially is miraculous.

I suppose the Straight road could be seen as a true road into a world unspoilt, the world as it was originally meant to be. And as the road is straight the old world must also be flat of course. That's funny, isn't it? Our round earth revolving around the sun is really a second best in Tolkien's mythology. In the good old days the world was flat as a pancake. Reading HoME X however, it seems Tolkien (for a while at least) wanted to represent this belief as a mannish misreading of the original Elvish sources and not a true account of history. It's a good thing nothing of this made it into the published Silmarillion though.

Originally Posted by Ibrin

One does wonder how the passengers perceive that part of the transit where they leave the waters and continue straight on rather than following the curvature of the earth. It's interesting, I think, that the legends about it are written by people who never made the trip.

I imagine that Frodo would would not have witnessed the ship leaving the water or a passage through a portal or anything of the kind. I just imagine it to have been a long sea journey without any direct point of transition, although I certainly imagine a gradual transition into a more fairie-like world, you know, with a Lórien-like shimmer to it. Eventually they would come within sight of the Tower of Avallone and know they were on the right course.

(must stop although I don't feel quite finished)