William Morris's The Roots of the Mountains: dating

[cimorene]

In my early posts about William Morris's The Roots of the Mountains I raised issues of anachronisms (here and here) and this led to a conversation with mildred_of_midgard that was really fun about brasilwood and medieval trade! Also, ultimately she made a very good point about my statements relating to dating these novels, namely: they are not exactly meant to be datable, because they aren't really historical fiction in the traditional sense.

My guy William Morris loved loved the middle ages and the history of the germanic peoples, don't get me wrong, and he definitely had a massive amount of knowledge about them! But his writings and his interests are focused on folklore, especially oral folklore - epic poetry and sagas, which are specifically oral folklore, and medieval romances, which for the most part are medieval novelisations (or novel length epic poems) of oral folklore - and in these genres events basically take place in a mythical/legendary Heroic Past. One of the things that makes Morris's writing so charming is his medieval eclectic pastiche style, which positions his novels as fictional entrants in these classes of surviving medieval literature, rather than as modern (ie contemporary with him, late Victorian) novels about the middle ages.

So yes, it's completely legit to observe that dating their events, or identifying contradictions in the dating thereof, is beside the point to the same extent that this is true of medieval romances or epic poetry. However, even though that's true, it doesn't mean that there's no value in investigating the real history behind the folklore. Even if the main value is fun. And in my case, Morris himself had a huge interest in the history of the arts and material culture, especially textiles and clothing, and I have one as well, so I am always interested in understanding where he imagines his setting - in part because this informs the clothing I picture. (I always picture it.) The further back in time we go, of course, the less detail we know about the clothing, and the Goths and germanic tribes of this period are known mostly second hand through Roman sources; they were illiterate. And obviously, it's very rare for garments to survive that long, so our knowledge even of Roman and Byzantine wear from this long ago is not perfect.

So anyway, what CAN be pinned down about the time/setting of HOTW and ROTM?

• HOTW deals with a massive alliance of germanic tribes successfully repelling a Roman invasion from their forest home of Mirkwood, which is definitely somewhere on the continent, but that's all we got. Goths have already joined the Roman army, but this is evidently only a recent development, and these traitor-Goths are responsible for leading the Romans to their homeland. At the beginning of HOTW the Romans are still a distant rumor, basically new to most of the members of these tribes. So it likely takes place quite early in the history of Roman-germanic conflicts, perhaps somewhere between the 2nd century BCE and the 1st century CE.



• All the peoples in HOTW dwell in wooden longhouses, which, accurate. You can read on Wikipedia about how Tolkien just copied Meduseld from HOTW and therefore introduced the word "louvres", which historians later accused Tolkien of being anachronistic for because the word 'louvres' wasn't present in Anglo-Saxon England, lol. Yes okay Wikipedia, point taken. I'm trying not to be quite that silly.



• ROTM takes place many generations, perhaps a few hundred years, after The House of the Wolfings. The tribe of the Wolfings live in the forest, protecting the boundaries of a small settlement of farmers and shepherds in a peaceful valley at the foot of the mountains. The shepherds and farmers are allied germanic tribes and all are still pagan. If Wikipedia is to be believed, the Goths converted to Christianity in the late 4th century AD and were one of the first germanic peoples to do so. This is covered extensively in Jordanes (Morris was certainly familiar with it, and drew on it for these books otherwise, although that's no guarantee he intended to treat it as canon).



• The settled germanic tribes in ROTM still preserve a basically egalitarian society based on seasonal Thing assemblies in a stone circle ("[In] Finland [so-called "court stones"] are found in Eura, Ulvila and Kokemäki. They date typically [to] during the Pre-Roman Iron Age and the Roman Iron Age. In Sweden, they are called Domarringar (judge circles), Domkretsar (judge circles) or Domarsäten (judge seats). In Finland they are called Käräjäkivet (court stones). In some places in [the] Nordic countries they were used [for Thing assemblies] until [the] 17th century"), but they have hereditary chieftains now instead of their former method of elected war leaders from HOTW.



• The society of ROTM have a fortified city with stone houses. I don't think this can be used to date anything though, because as far as I know, there is no stone architecture from pagan germanic tribes currently available to architectural historians. I think this was just Morris letting his fancy run away with him, to be frank.

(Regarding my two posts about anachronisms: if ROTM is intended to be set in Crimea, which is possible, the brasilwood dye is probably fine even as far back as the 200s or 300s CE; but if you want to use the existence of the bowed string instruments to date it the whole thing would have to be pushed forward to around the 10th century CE, when like, almost everyone was converted to Christianity: they established the Archbishopric of Uppsala in Sweden in 1164 and that's the furthest Northwest they had to go. Yeah, I'm not serious about dating it then. Possibly he just didn't care but probably he was just plain wrong about the bowed string instrument.)

I was originally (before looking up a ton of stuff) thinking 5th or 6th century AD might be the intended ballpark target time period, because there were many more Asian incursions into germanic tribal territory in those centuries; but that is actually way too late for them to all be pagans. Of course, Morris might have just kept them pagan because he loved germanic paganism and was a Norse saga fanboy, while still imagining his setting in the 5th or 6th centuries. But on the whole - and this conclusion is definitely pretty much vibes-based -, I am thinking 3rd-4th century CE for ROTM and 1st century BCE or CE for HOTW. To the extent that that is valid. Which is like... maybe roughly 20%.

Comments

[cimorene]

Everybody is FULLY pagan in these novels.

There are multiple specific gods alluded to, but not actually named, perhaps because he's made the odd choice to translate literally everthing into English including the names in ROTM. Like, the clan are called Wolfings in HOTW but in ROTM they are all "sons of the wolf" now and the main five characters are called Face-of-God (heroic town-bred protagonist of the House of the Face, the Face referring indirectly to a specific god who miiiiiiight be Dellingr?), The Bride (his childhood fiancee of the House of the Steer and I tried so hard to find any evidence of any name that could be similar to this but no dice), The Sunbeam (the female political leader of the Wolfings), Folk-might (The Sunbeam's brother and the male war-leader of the Wolfings), and Bow-May (Sunbeam and Folk-might's foster sister of the Wolfings and a fighting maiden who is unironically portrayed as the greatest archer who has ever lived). "The gods of the people" and "the gods and ancestors of the people" are referred to collectively for all the germanic peoples here and a war-god (probably Tír) and a male earth-god (probably Freyr) are also mentioned, besides the God of the Face who may or may not be Dellingr.

And they don't really mention Christianity at all, either, which struck me as odd while reading. That also inclines me to think that leaving it out was a deliberate choice. I suppose it isn't implausible, though, that it just hasn't come up, since there are no characters from other cultures to raise the issue. But OTOH, another aspect of how this is not really realistically set in reality is that other and neighboring lands, apart from the invading Huns, are not very significant, even though they are known from trade. There is no sense of threat from the Romans or any other cultures in their lives.

That doesn't 100% guarantee that no goths (from other tribes than the ones in ROTM) have encountered Christianity (they are aware of other germanic tribes and parts of the tribes in the book who have migrated to the Roman empire), but even the leaders of the little society of shepherds/woodsmen/farmers/this one town in this one little valley are completely unaware of it. Also they clearly don't pay taxes or tribute to any higher authority than themselves - that's a big deal in both of these books, but since it springs so clearly from Morris's socialism, it is clearly an artistic choice on his part. The lack of Christianity may reflect his preferences rather than his thoughts about time period.

I don't think I've read any of the epics that do portray the Goths yet, although I did read a little bit about Hlöðskviða and a few quotes a few weeks ago! According to Wikipedia, besides that, there are two other sagas which mention them, Gutasaga & Hervarar saga ok Heiðreks. I will certainly investigate these now that my curiosity is aroused. It's possible it will give me more of an idea of where and when to picture the events, which will at least help me picture the artisan objects Morris describes, if not the clothes...

[mildred_of_midgard]

And they don't really mention Christianity at all, either, which struck me as odd while reading. That also inclines me to think that leaving it out was a deliberate choice.

It may well be! I'm reminded of Tolkien's opinion that including (or even alluding too heavily to *cough* C.S. Lewis) Christianity in fantasy was a mistake:

...powerful as it is, [Arthuriana] is imperfectly naturalized, associated with the soil of Britain but not with English; and does not replace what I felt to be missing. For one thing its ‘faerie’ is too lavish, and fantastical, incoherent and repetitive. For another and more important thing: it is involved in, and explicitly contains the Christian religion. For reasons which I will not elaborate, that seems to me fatal. Myth and fairy-story must, as all art, reflect and contain in solution elements of moral and religious truth (or error), but not explicit, not in the known form of the primary 'real' world.

I imagine that's one of the things he responded to in Morris!

[cimorene]

That makes sense! I've heard he felt that way before, but I'd never seen this quote.

It's odd, though, because I don't think this was Morris's view at all! Most of his "medieval romance" quest novels do have Christianity right where you'd expect it to be. These two are the last novels of his I've read (because of all the rhyming verse in HOTW) and I was surprised. The Glittering Plain is the only other one to portray a pagan society (out of nine) - its society seems to be inspired by seafaring Scandinavians of the early medieval period (ancestors of the Vikings perhaps, though they seem significantly less devoted to pillage and plunder), while all the others seem to be early medieval societies inspired by Anglo Saxon Britain or post-Roman Christian western Europe (all with invented geography though; nothing is set in a close analogue to our history). Leaving the Christianity out is certainly a deliberate choice here then, not a matter of universal principle.

I have now read all the bits of Jordanes associated with this period and can confidently say Morris took nothing else from it. I bookmarked the sagas - Hlöðskvida is apparently preserved only in fragments within Hervarar saga ok Heiðreks, so there are really only two. The other one, Gutasaga, is actually about the early history of Gotland; apparently it covers the migration period but only in the sense that it tells about the Goths who left and says they are still out there speaking a related language somewhere. So on the one hand, they are definitely fully pagan in there, but on the other, it's clearly these migrated continental Goths Morris is writing about. I'm reading Hervarar first. Going by Wikipedia, it seems it is all set in pre-Christian times (but was not written until the 13th century and is not regarded as historical).

[mildred_of_midgard]

Leaving the Christianity out is certainly a deliberate choice here then, not a matter of universal principle.

That's really interesting, thanks for sharing! (I continue to read your posts with interest, although I am too pressed for time to respond as much or often as I'd like.)

(but was not written until the 13th century and is not regarded as historical).

What I remember from my Old Norse days is that writing of texts of substantial length (so not runic inscriptions) was introduced during the Christianization period, and so all the Norse mythology we have written down, the Eddas and such, were written to preserve old myths that the authors' ancestors believed, and were not written by believers. That adds an extra filter between the pagan Norse beliefs and us.

[cimorene]

Yeah, I've also encountered that. All the Icelandic sagas were recorded after christianization.