Myth, Song, and Music Education: The Case of Tolkien's the "Lord of the Rings" and

Swann's "The Road Goes Ever on"

Author(s): Estelle R. Jorgensen
Source: The Journal of Aesthetic Education , Autumn, 2006, Vol. 40, No. 3 (Autumn,
2006), pp. 1-21
Published by: University of Illinois Press

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/4140177

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Myth, Song, and Music Education: The Case of
Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings and Swann's The
Road Goes Ever On

ESTELLE R. JORGENSEN

In this article I explore how myth and song intersect in J. R. R. Tolkien's The
Lord of the Rings trilogy-The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The
Return of the King-and Donald Swann's song cycle setting of Tolkien texts,
The Road Goes Ever On.' In so doing I am drawn back to Tolkien's The Hobbit,
the novel from which The Lord of the Rings grew,2 and in the way of myth, I
go back to the beginning to see what is there. After sketching some impor-
tant themes in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, and commenting as I go
on Swann's musical setting of Tolkien's poems,3 I note several implications
for music education.

Why this particular tale? There are several reasons for my interest. Penned
as a novel a half century ago, it was reborn at the turn of the twenty-first
century in a widely circulated and highly acclaimed film trilogy. Its pagan
and northern European roots are likewise intriguing, pointing back to a dis-
tant and imagined past. This extended historical tale can be seen as an epic
journey in the genre of The Iliad and Beowulf.4 Such stories of other times
were often sung as well as spoken, and Albert Lord describes the process
whereby the telling and retelling of stories would be accommodated to the
needs and interests of listeners, all of whom could be presumed to more or
less know the story and identify with its characters.5 In a mass-mediated
and technologically driven society in which attention is often focused on
the present, evocations of the past fill a human need to know, individually
and collectively, the story of how we came to be here. They prompt impor-
tant philosophical questions such as those regarding the nature of good and

Estelle R. Jorgensen is Professor of Music Education in the Jacobs School of Music at

Indiana University in Bloomington, where she teaches courses in the foundations of
music education. Editor of the Philosophy of Music Education Reviews, founding chair
of the Philosophy SRIG of MENC, founding co-chair of the International Society for
the Philosophy of Music Education, author of In Search of Music Education (Urbana:
University of Illinois Press, 1997), Transforming Music Education (Bloomington: Indi-
ana University Press, 2003), and frequent contributor to leading research journals in
music education internationally, she has spoken and written about a broad array of
themes in the philosophy of music education.

Journal of Aesthetic Education, Vol. 40, No. 3, Fall 2006

@2006 Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

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2 Jorgensen

evil, ways to live a happy life, the role of supernatural events in human ex-
istence, and our responsibility to technology and the environment. And when
studied in the context of a song cycle, we may better understand how myth
and song intersect and be able to better reflect on what can be learned from
this intersection for music education and its place in general education.
Swann's song cycle evokes the cyclical journeys undertaken by Bilbo
and Frodo, beginning with a party at home and ending triumphantly at
home, although their pilgrimages generate yet others as ends become new
beginnings. There is no end to this story; its beginning culminates yet oth-
ers chronicled in The Hobbit and The Silmarillion, and its end commences an-
other tale yet to be told. The rings in Tolkien's novel are figurative of these
cycles: three rings for the elves, seven rings for the dwarves, and nine for
mortal men. Bilbo's ring chronicled in The Hobbit is unveiled in The Lord of
the Rings as the strategically most powerful one. Numerology, or the an-
cient study of numbers and their mythic significance, serves as a frame for
the dense narrative that follows in Tolkien's texts. Swann sets a song cycle
comprised of six songs, offering yet another number (whether intentional
or not) in counterpoint to Tolkien's.

The Hobbit

Within this narrative are to be found various mythic qualities: a pilgrim on

a quest, the band of travelers bound together in friendship by a common
objective, the climactic but eventually successful journey, the struggle be-
tween good and evil, the crucial role of elemental natural forces and the in-
terventions by powerful supernatural persons and forces in shaping events,
the blurring of the natural and supernatural worlds, the inevitable tests that
must be overcome in order to achieve the journey's objectives, the frailtie
of character demonstrated by the protagonist and his fellows, and the trans-
formative quality of the journey on all those who undertake it.6 The action
is set at a particular time and in a particular place with its own languages
and kinds of writing (including runes or archaic angular writing that can be
scratched in stone and "moon letters" that can be read by skilled persons
only by the light of the moon).7 Names of people and places are evocative of
northern European myths and places-Thorin, son of Thrain, son of Thror,
Carrock and Esgaroth on Long Lake, and Mirkwood, "The Greatest of the
Forests of the Northern world."8 Even the notion of the Ring of Power has
its antecedents in Plato's story (in his Republic) of Gyges, who finds a magi-
cal ring, and in other northern European myths such as Beowulf and The Lay
of the Niberlung.9 Tolkien invents and translates written languages evocative
of old northern European languages.10 Signs, symbols, and clues are offered
by those who would help the voyagers; for example, Thror's map provides
some guidance as does the clue that a thrush would be at the door at the

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 Myth, Song, iand Music Education 3

side of the Lonely Mountain, a secret entrance whereby Bilbo, Thorin, and
their band of dwarves might discover the treasure. The great dragon, Smaug,
the face of evil, is archetypal in his rage and lust--evils that cause him to
steal and murder in order to acquire and protect his treasure. Against the
collective forces of evil-Smaug (whom Tolkien depicts on his book cover
as a great four-footed and winged dragon with a long serrated tail and
snout from which spouts fire), the spiders, flies, trolls, goblins, and wargs
(or wild wolves)-are pitted the forces of good--Gandalf the wizard, the
thrush, the raven, the eagles, Beorn, "the skin changer" who can alter his
appearance from that of giant to bear, humans, elves, and hobbits. True,
Thorin, the leader of the dwarves, succumbs to the power of the treasure
and abandons his better self, only, in the end, to repent as he lies dying.
This is the sort of tale of which opera is made, a world of the extraordinary
in which the hero, Bilbo Baggins, discovers an inner strength and goodness
of which he was unaware at the outset of his journey. He arrives home a
changed person; as Gandalf comments, "You are not the hobbit that you
were."11 Afterwards, other hobbits regard him as a little queer, and some of
his relatives are upset when he resurfaces because they thought him dead
and had come to secure their inheritance. Tolkien leaves Bilbo quietly
chronicling his adventure in There and Back Again included in the Red Book of
Westmarch, until Frodo, his heir, comes into the story in The Lord of the Rings.
Striking to the artist are the songs and poetry that lace this narrative.
Songs, a poem, and various riddles are featured at key points of the tale,
and Tolkien reminds us that we need to imagine the sounds that might ac-
company the text. Among these are work songs, such as "Chip the glasses
and crack the plates," sung by the dwarves as they wash the dishes after a
feast at Bilbo's home, and "Roll-roll-roll-roll" and "Down the swift dark
stream you go," sung by the Wood elves as they roll the barrels down to the
stream; celebratory songs, such as "O! What are you doing?" and "The
Dragon is withered," sung by the elves in their happiness and joy; horror-
filled songs, such as "Clap! Snap! The black Crack" and "Fifteen birds in
five firtrees," sung by the Goblins to strike terror in Bilbo and the dwarves;
infuriating songs, such as "Old fat spider spinning in a tree!" and "Lazy
Lob and crazy Cob," sung by Bilbo in his quest to destroy the spiders who
had captured his friends; ballads, such as "Far over the Misty mountains
cold" and "The wind was on the withered heath," sung by the dwarves;
and songs to "soften" the mood, such as "Under the mountain dark and
tall."12 Bilbo's poem, "Roads go ever on," at the journey's end becomes the
figure that changes in The Lord of the Rings trilogy to become "The road goes
ever on and on" in Frodo's journey, and it is interesting that Bilbo's words
are often spoken, either as riddles exchanged with Gollum or his last
poem.3 As such, this music and poetry is both functional and powerful in
altering emotional states. On some occasions the music stops when Bilbo

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4 Jorgensen

and the dwarves are frightened and "had begun to feel that danger was not
far away on either side."14 At other times the elves are singing their song of
welcome to Bilbo on his return "as if they had not stopped," so constant
and continuing is the role of singing in their lived experience.
What is the importance of these poems (and hidden songs) to the narra-
tive? First, Tolkien's cosmology begins with the Song rather than the Word,
a beginning with artistic expressions rather than discursive propositions.15
The musical elves, led by Galadriel, an old, wise, yet sad female elf (and as
Tolkien reveals in The Silmarillion, one of the "disposed"), represent what
once was and is now being lost-the artistic and aesthetic center of a once
prevailing worldview. The tragedy of this loss is evident in texts that
chronicle the deeds of previous times and the bitter sweetness of the elves
present and future, condemned as they are to immortality yet increasingly
irrelevant in the new world of the Fourth Age. As such, the songs and sing-
ing signify the "lost beauty and dispossession" so apparent in The Fellow-
ship of the Ring. Yet even in the face of their loss, the elves "stand resolutely
and create in darkness" in the belief that "sorrow and wisdom" have "en-

riched" their "joy." As such, the songs are figurative of the tragedy within
the tale.

One has the sense here, both narratively and poetically, of entering and
leaving the story in the midst of something ongoing that stretches back to
distant past and forward to a time in the future.16 One has only entered
part of the story and Tolkien leaves the impression that there is more to tel
that has not been told. A sense of mystery is created in his constant refer-
ences to events at other times without telling us all about them. For ex-
ample, only in the Fellowship of the Ring do we learn more of Bilbo's effort
to hide the truth of the ring, of Gandalf's efforts to get the real story out of
him, and of Gandalf's dismay at Bilbo's dishonesty about the ring. Onl
when the Fellowship of the Ring begins, and Gandalf gives the ring to Frodo
do we learn of its more sinister properties.
Crucial to my going back to The Hobbit was my sense that I did not know
enough to begin the story; I had to resolve some of the mystery before I be
gan reading The Lord of the Rings. Constant references to people and event
with which I was unfamiliar required that I revisit the beginning of the
story, at least as Tolkien has told it here.17 I was unable just to accept thi
sense of mystery but found myself wishing, instead, to rationalize it. Thi
may be the result of my academic training, which leads me to look for reso
lutions to the unexplained and to cultivate a certain skepticism and unwill
ingness to rest in mystery and awe. In this respect, my approach to this
story might be like that of a Western musician beginning a study of Indian
classical music.18 I have heard musicians who set out to learn one of these
traditions speak of their desire to intellectualize what they were learning
rather than simply accept its being and mystery and follow unquestioningly

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 Myth, Song, and Music Education 5

the teacher's example. In order to make progress, they had to put aside their
intellectualizing and simply rest in the teacher's direction. They might think
about what they learned and how they learned it later. First, they must sim-
ply listen and learn, but they found this hard to do. So it may be that in
approaching this narrative I need to accept and even embrace the mystery if
I am to grasp the story's import. Seeming to enter the narrative in the midst
of the action also requires a quality of mind that Susanne Langer would
term "feeling," a sensibility that is felt and thought, imaginative and rea-
soned, holistically grasped and analytically worked through, inductively,
deductively, and analogically.19 As such, it lies within the realm of the
"non-discursive" symbol, in which words somehow fail to capture the full
import of the story or the events represented or expressed. And it requires a
certain faith in the author's storytelling that in the "fullness of time" all that
is necessary will be revealed.
The resonance of music, the arts, and narrative with mythic qualities in
this prelude to The Lord of the Rings saga, and the role of the poetry and
imagined sounds in capturing particular moments in the story and fore-
grounding them, is explained by the similarities in symbolic systems that
Langer calls "non-discursive" or "life" symbols.20 Langer groups myths,
rituals, and the arts (particularly music, of which she was an exponent) to-
gether as forms of knowing that have their own rationality yet rely on
means of understanding that are different from the discursive or proposi-
tional symbol systems that underlie the sciences and humanities and de-
pend on the assignment of particular and largely unambiguous connotations
to the things (ideas, persons, events, and phenomena) under examination.
For her, the arts, myths, rituals, and religions have "vital import" since they
are so inherently and richly ambiguous that grasping them requires the ex-
ercise of imaginative and intuitive thought and sensitivity. I continue to be
intrigued by her early and synthetic understanding of how these mythic,
ritualistic, and artistic ways of knowing are grounded in very dense (syn-
tactically and semantically) and replete symbol systems that require the ex-
ercise of imagination to grasp.21 From the perspective of her writing,
Tolkien's moving back and forth between narrative and poetry (and imag-
ined song) is to be expected, since the myth he is conjuring (in the guise of
historical reporting) is known in ways similar to poetry and music. His
construction of the story and our understanding of it is all an imaginative
exercise-a tale to be "felt" as well as "known."22

The Fellowship of the Ring

Among the themes that emerge in the narrative are the gradual unfolding
of Frodo's understanding of his predicament, the sense that he cannot avoid
his destiny, that things are "meant to be," and a constant and unremitting

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6 Jorgensen

pursuit by the powers of darkness and evil that are only ever barely
avoided and narrowly escaped.23 Natural elements of water, wind, fire, and
earth are ever-present means of supernatural power or salvific healing. As
to the origin of evil, Gandalf says that "nothing is evil in the beginning,"
and Tom Bombadil believes that evil is personified by the Dark Lord, who
brought evil with him "from Outside" and before whom "the dark under
the stars was fearless."24 Although some fear treason on the part of trusted
others,25 the pilgrimage is also aided by a bond of friendship as a fellow-
ship in which all are free to continue or not, helped by beings who sustain
the travelers along the way and natural and supernatural forces.26 Three
places of rest and refuge are provided by benevolent persons, namely, Tom
Bombadil and Goldenberry, Elrund at Rivendell, and Lord Celedorn and
Lady Galadriel at L6rien. I see Frodo as a Jonah figure, of whom it is said,
"It is you, Frodo, and that which you bear that brings us all in peril."27 As a
hobbit or "halfling," he also symbolizes weakness, yet Elrund comments
that "This quest may be attempted by the weak with as much hope as the
strong."28 Layer upon layer of mythic references undergird the text and en-
rich the narrative, for example, the defeat of the Black Riders swept away
by a flood is reminiscent of the story of Moses and his people passing
through the Red Sea so that the waters swallowed up the pursuing Egyp-
tian army; the Eye, the powerful force that confronts Frodo is evocative of
the Egyptian deities Isis and Osiris. There are also New Testament allu-
sions; for example, Galadriel's words, "Do not let your hearts be troubled,"
is reminiscent of Jesus's instruction to his disciples, and her comment "I
must diminish" is reminiscent of John the Baptist's comments about the
coming ascendancy of Jesus.29
Shapes, colors, and songs play a prominent role in the tale. To focus on
the songs, there are those taught to Frodo, "The Road goes ever on and on,"
"Upon the heath the fire is red," "I sit before the fire and think," "There is
an inn, a merry old inn," and a hobbit drinking song, "Ho! Ho! Ho! to the
bottle I go"; Bilbo's bath song, "Sing hey! for the bath at close of day";
Bilbo's song taught to Sam, "Gil-galad was an Elven-king"; Merry and
Pippin's song, "Farewell we call to hearth and hall"; Tom Bombadil's songs,
"Hop along, my little friends, up the Withywindle!" "Hey! Come derry do!
Hop along my hearties," "Now let the song begin! Let us sing together," "I
had an errand there: gathering water lilies," and a special song to "sing if
the hobbits ran into danger," "Ho! Tom Bombadil, Tom Bombadillo!";
Strider's ballad of Tin6iviel, "The leaves were long, the grass was green";
the ballad, "Eairendil was a mariner"; an elvish song, "A! Elbereth
Gilthoniel"; a ballad sung by the dwarf Gimli, "The world was young the
mountains green"; a ballad sung by Legolas, "An Elven-maid there was of
old"; Frodo's song, "When evening in the Shire was grey"; and Galadriel's
songs, "I sang of leaves, of leaves of gold, and leaves of gold there grew"

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 Myth, Song, and Music Education 7

and her lament in Elvish, "Ai! laurie lantar lassi s6rinen."30 There are also
the many references to elvish singing, for example, their song, "Snow-white!
Snow-white! O Lady clear!" songs of "wonder and delight" that went to the
"heart" and gave one the sense that one was "inside a song."31 All the
peoples of the free world sing, and their songs serve to celebrate, encourage,
mourn, remember people and events, and protect against danger.32
In his song cycle The Road Goes Ever On, Swann sets five of these texts in
four songs: "The road goes ever on," "Upon the hearth the fire is red," "I sit
beside the fire" (including "A! Elbereth Gilthoniel"), and "Namdrie (Fare-
well)" or "Ai! laurie lantar lassi sdrinen." He also includes a text of another
of Tolkien's poems, "Errantry," in The Adventures of Tom Bombadil.33 (I men-
tion this text here because it relates most directly to Tom Bombadil, one of
the problematic characters in the tale and omitted in its later film version.)
Swann comments that when he was "playing over the songs" in The Road
Goes Ever On "to Dick Plotz, the President of the Tolkien Society of America,"
Plotz remarked, "It must be hard to write new tunes for these poems when
there are already existing ones." Swann admits to being "nonplussed by
this for a moment, and there was a short silence." "Where?" he asked. "In
Middle-earth," replied Plotz.34 Plotz's comment reminds me of the peren-
nial problems musicians (particularly those dedicated to historically in-
formed performance practice) encounter in attempting to reconstruct an-
cient musics and the dangers of taking myth (and music) too literally.35
Texts may be found (especially since Tolkien's dwellers of Middle-earth
might have set them down in runes), but musical sounds are elusive. Still,
Tolkien provides us with a few musical clues: his texts are by and large
metrical; he has left recordings of some of his songs;36 his references to
chants in connection with elvish music provide reasonable grounds for
Swann to set Galadriel's lament, "Namarie" or "Ai! lassi lantar laurie
sirinen," as a chant with guitar accompaniment (lending it an intimacy and
poignancy that are very evocative) even though, according to Swann, Tolkien
heard it as "a Gregorian chant."37 Likewise, the hobbit chant learned from
the elves, "A! Elbereth Gilthoniel," included as a part of the song setting "I
sit beside the fire," reprises the melody of "The road goes ever on and on,"
unifying a song cycle that seems to come back on itself and illustrating the
effects of acculturation as elvish and hobbit culture intersect. Since Middle-
earth is a figment of Tolkien's imagination, and I assume that the sounds he
heard in mind's ear as he penned the words are imaginary, albeit influ-
enced by those in the mid-twentieth century and his knowledge of Gre-
gorian chant, Swann's musical settings seem justified. One is struck by
Swann's simple, folklike, and tonal strophic settings, harking back to an
earlier time before atonal music, which seem appropriate to the rustic char-
acter of the hobbits and others he portrays.38 The particular texts he has
chosen are reflective of the journey (with its central metaphor of the road

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8 Jorgensen
that calls the traveler onward), the warmth of home and hearth around
which family members gather, the longing for security of familiar places,
and the inevitable sorrow of parting that the journey produces.39 The long-
est poem, "Errantry," falls last in the song cycle, as an epilogue or extended
coda. It speaks of a wanderer-whether Tom Bombadil or Frodo-who
having completed one journey begins the next:

So now he must depart again and start again his gondola,

forever still a messenger, a passenger, a tarrier,
a-roving as a feather does.

As such, the cycle captures only one of the themes implicit in Tolkien's
novel-the most obvious and literal one of the journey.

The Two Towers

Again, in such a rich story, various themes emerge. Among them, we

the face of evil associated with foul smells, rottenness, filth, decay, d
ness, desolation, destruction, treachery, and slavery. The natural worl
destroyed as trees are cut down, the water is polluted, and fire, smoke,
dust fill the land and turn it brown, grey, and black.41 Black riders a
black men serve the Dark Lord, the personification of evil. Against evil,
good affords "water of life," sunshine, and gardens; Gandalf the Grey
comes Gandalf the White as a result of his triumph over the Balrog and
survival of "fire, water and the abyss"; and Galadriel's gift of light pro
a way for Frodo and Sam through impenetrable darkness.42 The destruc
of evil-doers seems to bring even greater evil-for example, the Nine Rid
or Servants of the Dark Lord now fly over the land on winged steeds-
as it also brings greater power to the good, for example, Gandalf's tran
mation into a wizard of greater power. Places of refuge afforded by the
in Fangwood, or the cave of the men of Gondor, allow the travelers so
relief in an otherwise arduous journey. This vulnerability of the force
freedom and light to those of enslavement and darkness is clearly dra
when Gandalf says that the power of Darkness is greater than that of l
Doom hangs "by a thread," and the "Evil of Sauron cannot be wholly c
nor made as if it had never been."43 Yet hope is to be found "where sits
greatest fear."44
From those who espouse the cause of light and freedom and resist t
power of Sauron, one sees kindness and generosity of spirit, for exam
when Frodo permits Gollum to live even though he is aware of his tre
ery, and Gandalf gives Wormtongue and Saruman a choice as to wheth
they will relinquish their treachery and join with the forces of good
throw in their lot with Sauron. This possibility of choice raises some in
esting problems. For example, Gandalf recognizes that evildoers were n

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 Myth, Song, and Music Education 9

always evil and there remains the possibility of redemption, and the hope
that they will decide to join those who resist and seek to overthrow
Sauron.45 Since neither Wormtongue nor Saruman decide to leave Sauron's
service, one wonders whether, just as it was predestined that Frodo should
bear the ring, so it was predestined that Wormtongue and Saruman should
be servants of the Dark Lord. Such a possibility implies that any choice in
the matter is more imagined than real and any hope to the contrary mis-
placed. Since the "free world" is populated by feudal overlords and ladies
and their retinues, the differences between the nature of the allegiance
owed by the servants of the free people and the slaves of the Dark Lord and
his followers presumably rests on the possibility of free choice in the mat-
ter. But if all are predestined to their fate, the real exercise of choice is pre-
sumably impossible and there cannot be a significant difference in their ex-
perience of freedom. Still, Tolkien assumes that good necessarily leads to a
qualitative difference in life that is felt by all its adherents as superior to evil
and worth fighting for to the death. One wonders how this can be if his
notion of "destiny" is to play out in the way his characters seem to believe.
Although there is not the richness of musicality in this part of the narra-
tive as in The Fellowship of the Ring, one thinks of Aragorn's and Legolas's
song of mourning over Boromir's funeral bier, "Through Rohan over fen
and field where the long grass grows"; Treebeard's chant, "In the willow-
meads of Tasarinan I walked in the spring"; an elvish song sung by the Ents
and Entwives, "When Spring unfolds the beechen leaf, and sap is in the
bough"; Bregalad's lament, "O Orofarnm, Lassemista, Carnimirin!"; the Ents'
battle song, "To Isengard!"; Gandalf's songs, "In Dwimordene, in L6rien"
and "Tall ships and tall kings"; and a "sort of" song croaked by Gollum,
"The cold hard lands."46 Most of the singing is done by the free peoples;
Aragorn, the Ents, and Gandalf are the principal singers, and the Ents'
songs are influenced by the musical elves. The text of Gollum's song, with
its references to cold, hard, and stone, contrasts with visions of light and
growth in the texts of the music of free peoples, and his rendition is not so
musical and stirring as are, for example, the songs of Blackbeard and the
Ents. Nor does Tolkien bestow an equal musical talent on all his characters;
rather, some groups and individuals are more likely to sing than others. For
example, although they wrote "no books," the men of Rohan were known
to sing "many songs after the manner of the children of Men before the
Dark Years."47
Swann's setting of one of these songs, "In the willow-meads of Tasarinan I
walked in the spring," set in common meter in d-minor conveys the strength
and resilience in the march of Treebeard, although it does not quite capture
the quality of a "chant" to which Tolkien refers or the fact that the Ents had
been influenced by elvish music and might therefore be expected to share
some of the selfsame chantlike quality in their music. Since by Swann's

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10 Jorgensen

account Tolkien approved of this song setting, I assume that the solid,
square character of the chordal accompaniment and the minor mode cap-
tured, for him, the tragic and heroic figure of Treebeard-ancient being and
guardian of a forest under threat of destruction.48

The Return of the King

Several themes stand out for me in this text. I am struck by the attention
Tolkien pays to the final ending of his narrative and the bittersweet fare-
wells. In his view, "[t]here is no real going back."49 As an immigrant, even
an interloper, I can never really go back to the place I have left;50 the people
and places I knew in the past have changed, as have I, as a result of my own
journey. There is also the idea Tolkien has Frodo express: "I tried to save
the Shire, and it has been saved, but not for me. It must often be so ... when
things are in danger; some one has to give them up, lose them, so that oth-
ers may keep them."51 This idea of abnegation, atonement, the perfect sacri-
fice, the suffering savior who must give his life in order for others to live is
seen in Judeo-Christian thought and practice-be it Abraham's willingness
to sacrifice his son Isaac, or Jesus's willingness to die in order to atone for
the sins of the world. Darkness in counterpoint to light, figurative of the
forces of evil (darkness) and good (light), despair (darkness) and hope
(light), is a significant factor in the siege of Minas Tirith, the battles on
Palennor and Cormallen Fields, and the experience of Frodo and Sam as
they make their way to Mount Doom. Darkness, the work of Sauron, the
coming of the Nazghl-the Black Riders of the air-and approaching the
very seat of evil creates depression, despair, and dread and helps to per-
suade the free peoples that their cause is hopeless. Lightness, which breaks
out when Sauron and his forces are defeated, likewise impacts evildoers
just as it brings hope to his enemies.52 Internal strife and treachery also are
to be feared as much as the external forces of warfare.53 This war, as
Gandalf observes, is not won by arms but by distracting the Dark Lord so
that the ringbearers can fulfill their quest to destroy the Ring of Power.54
Power corrupts even the good, and resisting it becomes, finally, a heroic yet
ultimately unsuccessful act. Even Frodo is unwilling to surrender the Ring
at the very end. Evil is destroyed, only for a time, by the very treachery it
breeds, signified by Gollum who eventually destroys himself and the Ring.
Allied with darkness are the smells and fumes that choke and burn, the
deadness of the landscape, the impure water, and the creatures enslaved by
the enemy. The closer Sam and Frodo come to Mount Doom, the more hos-
tile the landscape and the more difficult it is to reach their destination. De-
spite the life-giving elvish food they carry and on which they rely (similar
to the role of manna in sustaining the Israelites during their desert wander-
ings) and the water they find to sustain them (as with the "water of life"

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 Myth, Song, and Music Education 11

offered by Jesus), Frodo eventually despairs. Sam must carry Frodo, and it
was a "torment greater than Sam had ever thought he could bear."55
Tolkien's view of history is also epochal. His tale, set at the end of the
Age of the Rings and of Middle-earth and at the dawn of the Fourth Age of
Human Beings, shows how, in order for something new to be forged, the
old must be destroyed, decay, or otherwise disappear. Treebeard recog-
nizes this when he states: "For the world is changing: I feel it in the water, I
feel it in the earth, and I smell it in the air. I do not think we shall meet
again."56 The disappearance of the old world-the world of the mythical, in
which supernatural and natural forces collaborate and contest in the
struggle between good and evil-is cause for nostalgia for what is lost. As
Gandalf states, "I will not say: do not weep; for not all tears are evil."57 And
there is the comfort, kindness, and sustenance of friendship with which to
face the inevitable partings that feature in all existence.
Any story takes time to tell and to hear. One needs to be willing to spend
the time in hearing and telling. Legolas's rebuke to Gimli, "Do not spoil the
wonder with haste," reminds me of the importance of savoring the story
and wondering about it. I wonder, for example, where the journey begins,
and where it ends, since the tale is a partial one. Even Tolkien's appendices
and his other writings cannot answer all of these questions or provide a
comprehensive accounting. The reader is left to ponder such questions as,
How would Arwen possibly cope with Aragorn's mortality? Does Aragorn
remain pure and honorable, or does power eventually corrupt him, even
though the master ring has been destroyed? What is the experience of the
travelers after they leave the Grey Havens? Are Sam, Merry, and Pippin
able to settle down in the Shire or are they (as with Bilbo and Frodo) even-
tually dissatisfied and unhappy, especially if their hobbit land is overrun by
humans? Is the new human age destined for extinction just as Middle-earth
passed away?
I am also intrigued by Tolkien's view of women. towyn is a case in
point. A noblewoman, she wishes to fight and escape what, for her, is a
"cage," being left at home and unable to contribute actively to the over-
throw of Sauron and his forces. She pleads with Aragorn and her father
Th"oden to allow her to join the army, and when she is refused, she dis-
guises herself as a man. Carrying Merry, likewise excluded on account of
his size, she goes to battle, where she and Merry play a crucial role on
Pelennor Fields by slaying the Lord of the Nazgfil, leader of the enemy
forces.58 In that battle she is wounded, and after she is rescued, she is again
rendered powerless and fickle: although physically healed, she is again not
allowed to ride with Eomer to the land of Mordor, and she is caught in a
love triangle with Aragorn and Faramir-she loved Aragorn (already com-
mitted to Arwen) and Faramir loved her. All is resolved by her change of
affection from Aragorn to Faramir, while both men have their own way.59

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12 Jorgensen

Songs of jubilation and heroic ballads such as "Out of doubt, out of dark,
to the day's rising," "From dark Dunharrow in the dim morning," "We
heard of the horns in the hills ringing," "Sing now, ye people of the Tower
of Anor," and "Long live the Halflings! Praise them with great praise!"60
mark festive and ceremonial occasions.61 There are also hobbit songs such
as Bilbo's song, "The Road goes ever on and on," and Sam's song, "In west-
ern lands beneath the Sun"; elvish songs such as "A! Elbereth Gilthoniel!";
and Legolas's songs, "To the Sea, to the Sea! The white gulls are crying,"
and "Silver flow the streams from Celos to Erui."62 In the last scene, as
Frodo departs on his journey from the Grey Havens, he hears "the sound of
singing" coming "over the water."63
Swann's setting of "In western lands beneath the sun," in F major and
common meter, is a simple folklike melody that appears as the third of the
cycle. Here, Swann has disregarded the order of appearance of the songs in
the novel, opting rather to set them alongside each other in order to create a
musical unity of his own design. Happiness, for Sam, is in the simple plea-
sures of a land in which the sun shines, flowers bloom, trees bud, waters
run, finches sing, and the beech trees on a cloudless night "bear Elven stars
as jewels white amid their branching hair." Ultimately, for Sam, there is
lightness and the remembrance of darkness that he is unwilling to relin-
quish in memory's eye. Sam sings,

Though here at journey's end I lie in darkness buried deep,

beyond all towers strong and high, beyond all mountains steep,
above all shadows lies the Sun and stars forever dwell:
I will not say the Day is done nor bid the Stars farewell.64

Implications for Music Education

Beyond the values of studying music mythically, about which I have writ-
ten elsewhere,65 I suggest several ways in which relating song and myth
can inform music education. The importance of song in the Tolkien narra-
tive draws attention to music qua music and alternative means of knowing
the symbol systems at the heart of the general education curriculum. Know-
ing "that" is generally emphasized in the quest for propositional knowl-
edge, be it grammatical and mathematical principles and rules, scientific
formulae, or historical facts. Since childhood is primarily a time of gather-
ing knowledge about beliefs and practices that underlay the social world
and axioms that govern the natural world, focusing on propositional knowl-
edge in general education is understandable and defensible. Nevertheless,
it betrays a bias in the Judeo-Christian perspective toward viewing the
world as beginning and ending with the Word, rather than Boethian and
Tolkien worldviews, which envisage the cosmos as beginning and ending
with music.66 Each paradigm is associated with different attitudes, beliefs,

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 Myth, Song, and Music Education 13

values, mores, and educational purposes. For example, Herbert Read sug-
gests that education should be conducted through art and schools should
be organized around the arts.67 In his "A Message from Mars," Nelson
Goodman suggests how very different education would be if the arts rather
than the sciences were central to education and its raison d'etre.68 Given its
investment in feeling, this artistic perspective contrasts with other proposi-
tional ways of knowing and, as such, balances and enriches the pervasively
discursive thrust of the curriculum.

Since myths and songs are known in terms of particular peoples, places,
sounds, and times, they need to be studied specifically. Tolkien's tale is
only one of many possible stories, and Swann's songs only some of the pos-
sible settings of the poems. What, then, about the host of other myths and
songs that might be considered? Since each evokes particular beliefs, val-
ues, attitudes, and practices, which myths and songs need to be studied?
How shall this decision be made? My sense is that questions about "whose
songs" or "which myths" may not be the most important ones, since they
can obfuscate the value of studying myths and songs of whatever sort and
divert attention from the need to make this a reality. As we have seen,
Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings and Swann's The Road Goes Ever On provide
opportunities to directly engage myth and song in compelling and intersect-
ing ways; I may have chosen others, but this myth and these songs suffice
for now.

The Lord of the Rings is a particularly interesting choice since the film is
widely known and the study of this myth can be accessed through novel,
poetry, film, and music. The poetry in Tolkien's novels can be compared
with Swann's song settings, and students can draw on this understanding
of how musicians set texts as they develop their own song settings. The re-
newed interest in this myth opens a way through which music teachers can
reach students whose musical tastes are formed mainly through the mass
media. In addition, the possibility of intersecting myth and song to which
students can readily relate is an additional advantage of studying this
myth. John Dewey would describe these natural inclinations, desires, and
interests as "impulses" that teachers can employ in broadening students'
musical horizons.69
The fact that Tolkien's songs are imagined creates openings whereby
teachers and their students can improvise, compose, perform, and record
their own melodies to these texts; write and perform their own poems, tales,
plays, and films in which these or other songs might play a role; and, through
a host of ways, imaginatively and artistically construct their own realities.
Teaching for such creative openings through such means as fostering im-
provisation, composition, performance, and listening (even while watching
films or musicals and attending to the musical score) foster divergent
thought that is manifested in an array of sometimes very different artistic

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14 Jorgensen

processes and constructions. Improvisation and composition have consti-

tuted important elements of artistic education from antiquity, and it is not
surprising to see them represented in some music curricula today. The op-
portunities to imagine and construct something that is one's own is a pre-
cious element of learning how to think musically and in other ways. This
form of teaching demands teachers who themselves need to be able to think
and act imaginatively, constructively, and musically in order to lead their
students to improvise and compose.
Not enough is made in music education of the power of natural singing
as an inherently human endeavor. In technologically oriented societies it is
tempting to downplay the human voice in the interest of foregrounding in-
strumental music making. At least, this is the reality in the United States,
where mediated music has fostered high decibel sound that is instrumen-
tally produced and technologically manipulated. The singing typically en-
countered in popular musics (including the phenomenon of "belting") is
amplified and even distorted in order to allow the singer to match the elec-
tronically boosted volume of other instruments. This very-close-to-the-mi-
crophone singing typical of popular musics requires a very different tech-
nique from that of natural acoustic sound production. Using the natural
singing voice without a microphone in solo or ensemble song enables one
to experience music making within one's body without resorting to any
other technological means and allows one to express oneself in ways that
are very different from this otherwise pervasively and technologically driven
music making. To sing without the aid of instruments or technologies is to
be human and vulnerable and open to the possibilities and risks evoked by
interpreting text and creating tone. It is to disclose oneself and communi-
cate with others with whom this song and this singing are shared and
meaningful. Singing Swann's songs enacts thought and combines knowing
about and constructing this myth and music. Since the singer's focus is pri-
marily upon the text and how to realize this music, the act of singing invites
self-forgetfulness-absorption of mind, heart, and body on the things about
which one sings. Although this self-forgetfulness and absorption can be
found in all sorts of musical performance, in our time, where young and old
alike need opportunities to make music naturally, singing is of crucial
importance.
The singing of songs from or about Middle-earth and repeating these
texts recall a past in which singing was natural. Here, song and myth come
together in evoking a world in which people were vulnerable and at one
with the earth, where free peoples expressed their joy through singing and
came to believe in the possibilities of freedom and the benefits of lives lived
in lightness rather than darkness. The song texts also serve didactic pur-
poses; texts are evocative of the benefits of living in harmony with the envi-
ronment, the pleasures of home life, and a sense of wonder, mystery, and

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 Myth, Song, and Music Education 15

awe as one sings the songs transmitted from the past. Since many of these
song texts are intimately interconnected with lived life, they support the
idea of the arts as likewise interwoven with the rest of life. This homely ap-
proach to song invites students to participate in making and taking music
as a natural part of their daily lives.
Alfred North Whitehead forwards the idea that "the essence of education

is that it be religious." By religious he means the sense of duty that "arises

from our potential control over the course of events" and reverence, or the
perception "that the present holds within itself the complete sum of existence,
backwards and forwards, that whole amplitude of time, which is eternity."70
Within such a view of education, singing can be at the center, especially
when singing is viewed as a spiritual or even religious activity, as in ancient
notions of song as breath, or the artist as the vessel, caught in Hildegard's
metaphor of the feather floating on the breath of God.71 Such a view of the
centrality of singing in general education reprises arguments forwarded by
nineteenth-century pioneers of American public school music education,
such as William C. Woodbridge, in which music's spiritual purposes were
explicated.72
Although song has been an important feature of music in general educa-
tion historically, a critic may charge that we are now in a different time, a
time in which technologically produced and electronically manipulated
music is of great interest to the young, and there is less interest on their
part, especially by boys, in song and singing. Music education programs
that focus on song are thereby doomed to irrelevance and failure to en-
trance those interested mainly in instrumental music. Arguments once ad-
vanced in the cause of vocal music instruction, namely, that it could con-
tribute to the conduct of those religious rituals in which singing plays an
important role, can also be questioned on two opposing grounds: there are
those who may wish to exclude religious music from the curriculum in
order to ensure the separation of church of state; and there are others who
may repudiate singing because they see it as a profane and sensuous activ-
ity. Instrumental music has the advantage of not being tied to texts in which
values are enunciated and explicated, and it is thereby less open to such
criticisms.

In reply, I suggest that singing is needed as a corrective to the pervasive

technological and electronically generated music of our time. Neil Postman
notes, and I believe correctly, that one of the functions of education is to act
as a thermostat to correct an overemphasis on certain beliefs and practices
by advancing others.73 Since the musical world is so very technological and
electronic, school music might foster a capella singing and the use of acous-
tic instruments. Whereas people today are preoccupied with the present,
school music might encourage the study of myth and music of the past.
Where people are prone to isolate religion and education and promote a

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16 Jorgensen

materialistic approach to education, school music could promote a unified

grasp of human culture, the experience of wonder and awe, and a spiritual
approach to education. Where societies are too often frayed and frag-
mented, school music might enhance understandings of and empathy for
different others through performing disparate texts and singing with
people from various backgrounds. Singing the songs of hobbits or halflings
from The Lord of the Rings is one more way in which students can come to
view the world more inclusively, value different others, and grasp the fact
that these hobbit males thought it very appropriate to sing. Instead of for-
warding a limited and macho view of masculinity, school music could offer
opportunities for boys and girls, men and women, to sing in ways that forge
mutual respect and regard. Much hangs on how the teacher undertakes
these tasks as to whether or not singing can or will be an enjoyable and re-
warding way to know music. And given the evidence of successful choral
and vocal programs,74 there is every reason to believe that singing, espe-
cially as it centers around myth, is as relevant today as it may have been in
the mythic past.
In sum, I have briefly sketched some of the important ways in which
myth and song intersect in Tolkien's The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings and
Swann's The Road Goes Ever On. I have also noted some of the potentials and
criticisms of this focus on myth and song and how those criticisms may be
met. Pondering the deepest questions of life and making music in ways that
call upon the intellectual, emotional, and physical powers are worthwhile
activities that deserve a central place in general education. Tolkien's asso-
ciation of singing with the forces of good suggests that singing can benefit
society as it transforms those who undertake and undergo it, and its effects
can likewise ripple outwards to benefit the wider society. Tolkien's view
may be overly optimistic and fail to take sufficient account of musics and
texts that express and foster the dark side of humanity. Still, I like to think
that whether light or dark, or good or evil, may seem to prevail in society at
large, teachers have the opportunity to choose myths and songs that they
believe offer ways and means of transforming their students for good. This
is a hopeful view that emphasizes the benefits of bringing together myth
and song in music education and of singing songs that touch the most im-
portant things in life, that move, as they also instruct, participants toward
becoming better people and finding meaning and happiness in their lives.

NOTES

1. In a conversation about my project with Mary Tilton at Indiana Univ

stumbled upon Donald Swann's setting of Tolkien's poems in his The Roa
Ever On: A Song Cycle (Poems by J. R. R. Tolkien) (New York: Ballantine
1967). It may be serendipity or synchronicity that Caitlin Burke, a gradu

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 Myth, Song, and Music Education 17
dent at Indiana University School of Music, had just performed them and was
eager to share her recording of the songs and the fruits of her research with me.
I was enchanted both by the songs and her performance of them. Throughout
this article I use J. R. R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, 3rd ed. (London: Allen and Unwin,
1966), hereafter cited as H; J. R. R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring (London:
Allen and Unwin, 1974), hereafter cited as FR; J. R. R. Tolkien, The Two Towers
(London: Allen and Unwin, 1974), hereafter cited as TT; and J. R. R. Tolkien, The
Return of the King (London: Allen and Unwin, 1974), hereafter cited as RK.
2. For a broader historical context to The Lord of the Rings, see Tolkien's prequel, The
Silmarillion, ed. Christopher Tolkien (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1977), hereafter
cited as S.
3. Making these connections should come as no surprise. For example, in vernacu-
lar oral traditions such as the Baltic epic song in the tradition of the Homeric
ballad, song, poetry, and drama come together in an improvised performance of
a story that has accreted layers of meaning over time. See, for example, Albert B.
Lord, The Singer of Tales, ed. Stephen Mitchell and Gregory Nagy, 2nd ed. (Cam-
bridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000). This ancient epic song tradition
can also be seen, for example, in Benjamin Bagby's reconstructions and perfor-
mances of Beowulf: "Beowulf," with voice and lyre, presented under the aus-
pices of the Patten Foundation in Auer Hall, Indiana University, Bloomington,
February 27, 2001; and accompanying the Patten lecture and demonstration en-
titled "Beowulf, the Singer of Tales, and the Genesis of a Performance," in the
Fine Arts Auditorium, Indiana University, March 1, 2001. A comprehensive
telling of the narrative might take up to six hours to complete.
4. FR, 7-8. Tolkien does not intend his narrative to be an allegory, although he
notes in his foreword to the 1974 edition of The Lord of the Rings that some of his
readers sought to find allegory in this work, which was begun in 1936, just after
The Hobbit was completed and before it was published in 1937, and completed in
1955.

5. Albert B. Lord, The Singer of Tales (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
1960). As adventures are recounted in an extended and complicated tale, the
myth presents a grand narrative, only parts of which might be recounted in any
one telling. It is an extraordinary story above and beyond normal lived experi-
ence, yet it is able to be entered into imaginatively and intuitively by the listen-
ers. Tolkien regularly lectured on Beowulf; see Tolkien, Finn and Hengest: The
Fragment and the Episode, ed. Alan Bliss (London: George Allen and Unwin,
1982), v.
6. On the transformative quality of the journey, see J. Lenore Wright, "Sam and
Frodo's Excellent Adventure: Tolkien's Journey Motif," in Lord of the Rings and
Philosophy: One Book to Rule Them All, ed. Gregory Bassham and Eric Bronson
(Chicago: Open Court, 2003), 192-203.
7. S.R., 1431, FR, 22, where S.R. is the abbreviation for Shire Reckoning by the
hobbits. Tolkien provides us with written examples of these letters and transla-
tions into English, see H, frontispiece. The letters resemble old Nordic letters,
indicative of the tale's ancient northern roots. See RK, Appendix E, 365-74.
8. FR, 126.
9. On the philosophical significance of the rings, see Eric Katz, "The Rings of
Tolkien and Plato: Lessons in Power, Choice, and Morality," in Lord of the Rings
and Philosophy: One Book to Rule Them All, ed. Gregory Bassham and Eric
Bronson (Chicago: Open Court, 2003), 5-20; Theodore Schick, "The Cracks of
Doom: The Threat of Emerging Technologies and Tolkien's Rings of Power," in
Lord of the Rings and Philosophy: One Book to Rule Them All, ed. Gregory Bassham
and Eric Bronson (Chicago: Open Court, 2003), 21-32; and Alison Milbank, "'My
Precious': Tolkien's Fetishized Ring," in The Lord of the Rings and Philosophy: One
Book to Rule Them All, ed. Gregory Basham and Eric Bronson (Chicago: Open
Court, 2003), 33-45.
10. In particular, Tolkien describes "the Westron or 'Common Speech' of the West-

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18 Jorgensen
lands of Middle-earth in the Third Age" (RK, 375). Pronunciations are specified
in RK, Appendix E, 360-64.
11. H, 276.
12. H, 11, 12, 169, 170, 271-72, 56, 98, 147, 148, 13, 117, 240-41.
13. H, 68-72, 275-76.
14. H, 42.
15. S, 3. In describing the creation of the world, Tolkien writes: "There was Eru, the
One, who in Arda is called I16vatar; and he made first the Ainur, the Holy Ones,
... and they were with him before aught else was made. And he spoke to them,
propounding to them themes of music; and they sang before him, and he was
glad." In another rendering of the creation, in his The Lost Road and Other Writ-
ings (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1987), 204, he writes: "In the beginning the All-
father, who in Elvish tongue is named Ilivatar, made the Ainur of his thought;
and they made music before him. Of this music the world was made; for
Ilivatar gave it being, and set it amid the Void." See also Bronson, "'Farewell to
L6rien': The Bounded Joy of Existentialists and Elves," in Lord of the Rings and
Philosophy: One Book to Rule Them All, ed. Gregory Bassham and Eric Bronson
(Chicago: Open Court, 2003), 72-84.
16. Beyond scholarly writing about Tolkien's work, students of his lore will know
his posthumous publications, including The Silmarillion; his five-volume history
of Middle-earth, The Book of Lost Tales, Part I, ed. Christopher Tolkien (Boston:
Houghton Mifflin, 1984); The Book of Lost Tales, Part II, ed. Christopher Tolkien
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1984); The Lays of Beleriand (Boston: Houghton
Mifflin, 1985); The Shaping of Middle Earth: The Quenta, the Ambarkanta, and the
Annals, Together with the Earliest "Silmarillion" and the First Map, ed. Christopher
Tolkien (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1986); and The Lost Road and Other Writings;
his four-part history of The Lord of the Rings, The Return of the Shadow: The History
of the Lord of the Rings, Part One, ed. Christopher Tolkien (Boston: Houghton
Mifflin, 1988); The Treason of Isengard: The History of the Lord of the Rings, Part
Two, ed. Christopher Tolkien (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1989); The War of the
Ring: The History of the Lord of the Rings, Part Three, ed. Christopher Tolkien (Bos-
ton: Houghton Mifflin, 1990); Sauron Defeated: The End of the Third Age: The His-
tory of the Lord of the Rings, Part Four; The Notion Club Papers, and, The Drowning of
Anadi^in, ed. Christopher Tolkien (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1992); his Unfinished
Tales of Namenor and Middle Earth, ed. Christopher Tolkien (Boston: Houghton
Mifflin, 1980); and his published essays and letters, for example, The Letters of
J. R. R. Tolkien, ed. Humphrey Carpenter, assisted by Christopher Tolkien (Lon-
don: George Allen and Unwin, 1981), in which he weaves a further web of sto-
ries and other explanations are given beyond what he tells his readers in The
Lord of the Rings. Although many questions are raised in these other writings,
my interest here is particularly in the story unveiled in The Lord of the Rings,
since it is no longer Tolkien's alone but also the reader's to make of it what he or
she wants. Formally, I characterize The Lord of the Rings as tripartite, yet within
each section it is binary in its juxtaposition of two contrasting narratives; the
whole is nicely balanced throughout.
17. Tolkien clearly wrote The Hobbit for children, but, as Davenport notes in
"Happy Endings and Religious Hope: The Lord of the Rings as an Epic Fairy
Tale," in Lord of the Rings and Philosophy: One Book to Rule Them All, ed. Gregory
Bassham and Eric Bronson (Chicago: Open Court, 2003), 214, The Lord of the
Rings is written for adults. In one sense, it was as if I had to begin as a child
before I could fully grasp the larger narrative as an adult.
18. David M. Neuman, The Musical Life of North India: The Organization of an Artistic
Tradition (Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press, 1980).
19. Susanne K. Langer, Philosophy in a New Key: A Study in the Symbolism of Reason,
Rite, and Art, 3rd ed. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1957); Feeling
and Form: A Theory of Art Developed from Philosophy in a New Key (London: Rout-

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 Myth, Song, and Music Education 19
ledge and Kegan Paul, 1953); and Mind: An Essay on Human Feeling, 3 vols. (Bal-
timore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1967, 1972, 1982).
20. Langer, Philosophy in a New Key, chaps. 6-8.
21. On the semantic and syntactic density of artistic symbol systems, see Nelson
Goodman's symptoms of the aesthetic in his Languages of the Arts: An Approach
to the Theory of Symbols, 2nd ed. (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1976), 252-55.
22. Iris M. Yob, "The Cognitive Emotions and Emotional Cognitions," Studies in
Philosophy and Education 16 (1997): 43-57, suggests that emotional cognition, or
thought about emotion, is particularly the case in the arts, myths, and religions.
This sort of emotion-thought can be distinguished from what Israel Scheffler de-
scribes as cognitive emotion, or emotion arising out of thought that is com-
monly found in association with propositional thought. See Israel Scheffler, In
Praise of Cognitive Emotions and Other Essays in the Philosophy of Education (New
York: Routledge, 1991), chap. 1.
23. In his study of how Providence plays out in The Lord of the Rings ("Providence
and the Dramatic Unity of The Lord of the Rings," in Lord of the Rings and Philoso-
phy: One Book to Rule Them All, ed. Gregory Bassham and Eric Bronson [Chicago:
Open Court, 2003], 167-78), Thomas Hibbs notes that the idea that all things
work eventually for good depends on an Augustinian rather than Manichean
view of the problem of evil. According to the Augustinian view, evil is parasitic
on good and an evil person becomes evil by choice; the Manichean view is that
evil and good are equally balanced and it is not clear which will win. For a dis-
cussion of the problem of evil in The Lord of the Rings, see Scott Davison,
"Tolkien and the Nature of Evil," in Lord of the Rings and Philosophy: One Book to
Rule Them All, ed. Gregory Bassham and Eric Bronson (Chicago: Open Court,
2003), 99-109.
24. FR, 132, 256.
25. FR, 241.
26. In using the word "pilgrimage" I am invoking a sacred or spiritual journey
that carries an imperative of far-reaching consequence. See Iris M. Yob, "The
Pragmatist and Pilgrimage," Religious Education 84, no. 4 (Fall 1989): 521-37.
27. FR, 206.
28. FR, 258.
29. John 3:16; FR, 347.
30. FR, 43, 78, 81-82, 266, 157-59, 93, 104, 183, 108, 123, 124, 128, 188-90, 224-27, 228,
300-301, 322-23, 341-42, 353, 357-58.
31. FR, 83, 146, 332, 340.
32. As Gregory Bassham, "Tolkien's Six Keys to Happiness," in Lord of the Rings and
Philosophy: One Book to Rule Them All, ed. Gregory Bassham and Eric Bronson
(Chicago: Open Court, 2003), 49-60, notes, "happy peoples in Tolkien's writings
are almost invariably described as artistic and creative," so much so that he
sees the quality of cherishing and creating beauty as one of the keys to personal
happiness (57).
33. J. R. R. Tolkien, The Adventures of Tom Bombadil and Other Verses from the Red
Book, 1st American ed. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1963).
34. Swann, The Road Goes Ever On, v.
35. Langer, Philosophy in a New Key, 202, makes the point that the search for literalism
"marks a change from poetic to discursive thinking."
36. "J. R. R. Tolkien Reads and Sings from His The Lord of the Rings" [sound record-
ing] (New York: Caedmon, 1975), CDL 51378 Caedmon; "J. R. R. Tolkien Reads
and Sings His The Hobbit and The Fellowship of the Ring" [sound recording] (New
York: Caedmon, 1975), CDL 51477 Caedmon. Especially notable is his im-
promptu rendition of "Ai! Lassi lantar lauri6 stirinen" in Gregorian chant, in
"J. R. R. Tolkien Reads and Sings from His The Lord of the Rings," Side 2, Band 6.
37. Swann, The Road Goes Ever On, vi, had some difficulty securing Tolkien's ap-
proval for his setting of Galadriel's lament "Namarie" (Farewell). Tolkien heard
elvish chant in terms of Gregorian chant, a music that goes back to the middle

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20 Jorgensen
ages of the Christian Era, and a far cry from the time he portrays in Middle-
earth.
38. Swann's musical language, grounded in common practice, may be seen as quite
archaic when viewed in the context of the explorations in atonal music and
other developments that were occurring in the mid-twentieth century. The same
may be said of Howard Shore's film score, which is likewise set in the common
practice of tonal and orchestral music.
39. On the virtues of simplicity, see Bassham, "Tolkien's Six Keys to Happiness."
40. Tolkien's analogy of a feather is reminiscent of Hildegard's earlier reference to
the "lightness of being" suggested by the feather. In a letter to Wibert of
Gembloux in 1175 she writes: "I raise my hands aloft to God, that I might be
held by God, just like a feather which has no weight from its own strength and
lets itself be carried by the wind." Matthew Fox, ed., Hildegard of Bingen's Book of
Divine Works with Letters and Songs (Santa Fe, NM: Bear and Co., 1987), 348.
41. See Andrew Light, "Tolkien's Green Time: Environmental Themes in The Lord of
the Rings, in Lord of the Rings and Philosophy: One Book to Rule Them All, ed. Gre-
gory Bassham and Eric Bronson (Chicago: Open Court, 2003), 150-63. Light sug-
gests that human events are largely irrelevant to the other aspects of the natural
world because of the very different time scales that obtain.
42. The notion of light as a metaphor for education is resilient historically, for ex-
ample, in the seventeenth-century writing of John Amos Comenius, The Way of
Light, trans., E. T. Campagnac (Liverpool: University Press; London: Hodder
and Stoughton, 1938).
43. TT, 90, 106, 136.
44. TT, 106.
45. TT, 109.
46. TT, 15-16, 62, 69-70, 75, 77, 103, 179, 199-200.
47. TT, 27.
48. Swann, The Road Goes Ever On, vi. It is interesting that it is set in the treble
clef but that the cycle was given its premier by William Elvin; I see it as more
reflective of the character of Treebeard if it is sung by a baritone.
49. RK, 236.
50. It is interesting that Bassham and Bronson's edited collection, Lord of the Rings
and Philosophy, devotes an entire section (part 5) to ends and endings, to matters
relating to the objectives of the narrative, the ways in which the story is brought
to a satisfying end, the ways in which a unified whole is created, and the impli-
cations for the reader. In my own reading, I had found the detail and care with
which Tolkien ended his epic-his eucatastrophe-leaving me consoled yet also
troubled, one of the most interesting and compelling aspects of his narrative,
and it was comforting to see that this issue emerged as of central significance in
the view of other writers as well. Tolkien, Tree and Leaf (Boston: Houghton Mifflin,
1965), 68, finds the "consolation" of fairy stories to be "the true form of fairy-
tale, and its highest function." Tolkien also challenges religious views of the
hereafter, prompting one to face one's own mortality and consider how one can
make a happy life in the face of the inevitable partings death and separation
bring. As such, he confronts us with some of the deepest and most sensitive
questions of life.
51. RK, 273.
52. RK, 79, 85, 144, 147, 149, 202, 212. Notice the reference in the song in praise of
Th6oden, "Out of doubt, out of dark, to the day's rising," figurative of the light
that emerged when Sauron and his forces were destroyed (224).
53. RK, 78. Gandalf says that "Even in the heart of our stronghold the Enemy has
power to strike us" (111). He also attributes treachery and divisiveness to the
"work of the Enemy!" And he says: "Such deeds he loves: friend at war with
friend; loyalty divided in confusion of hearts" (112). When faced with the seem-
ing inevitability of defeat, Aragorn remarks that "We come now to the very
brink, where hope and despair are akin" (139).

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 Myth, Song, and Music Education 21
54. RK, 138.
55. RK, 191-93.
56. RK, 229.
57. RK, 274.
58. RK, 48-50, 104.
59. RK, 208-14. towyn says: "It is not always good to be healed in body. Nor is it
always evil to die in battle, even in bitter pain" (208). In this respect, the plot of
the story seems contrived. Both Arwen and Eowyn in fact suffer loss: Arwen is
sundered from her Elf-people and the parting with her father, Elrund, is bitter;
towyn does not get her first love and Aragorn tells her that she only thinks she
is in love with him, as if he knows better (see 225, 126). Milbank, "'My Pre-
cious,"' notes the dangers of fetishizing objects and the power they signify and
validates reconnecting subject and object, sacrificing for others, gift-giving, and
friendship and community as means of sustaining one in the struggle against
evil.
60. RK, 224, 67, 110, 212-13, 204.
61. RK, 204, 205, 217, 224, 225.
62. RK, 235, 162, 272, 207, 134.
63. RK, 275.
64. RK, 162.
65. Estelle R. Jorgensen, "Music, Myth, and Education: A Case Study of Tolkien's
The Lord of the Rings" (presented at Reasons of the Heart: Myth, Meaning, and
Education conference, Edinburgh, Scotland, September 2004).
66. See note 15. Boethius conceives of a tripartite cosmos comprised of musica
humana, mundana, and instrumentalis. See Calvin M. Bower, "Boethius' The Prin-
ciples of Music: An Introduction, Translation, and Commentary" (PhD diss.,
George Peabody College for Teachers, 1966).
67. Herbert E. Read, Education Through Art, 3rd ed. (New York: Pantheon Books,
1958).
68. Nelson Goodman, Of Mind and Other Matters (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Uni-
versity Press, 1984), 168-72.
69. John Dewey, Experience and Education (1938; reprint, New York: Collier Books,
1963), 70.
70. Alfred North Whitehead, The Aims of Education and Other Essays (New York:
Free Press, 1929), 14.
71. See note 40.
72. Estelle R. Jorgensen, "William Channing Woodbridge's Lecture, 'On Vocal M
sic as a Branch of Common Education' Revisited," Studies in Music, no. 18
(1984): 1-32.
73. Neil Postman, Teaching as a Conserving Activity (New York: Dell, 1979).
74. In the United States, for example, Cindy Bell, "Update on Community Choirs
and Singing in the United States," International Journal of Research in Choral Sing-
ing 2, no. 1 (2004): 39-52, suggests that there may be cause for some optimism
concerning the participation of American adults in community-based choirs, al-
though the participation of men is lower than that of women, and there may be
some differences in the distribution of this participation across the United
States. I am indebted to Patrice Madura for bringing this article to my attention.

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