1066 as a TV series

[r16]

there is this movie 1066 , ı just saw on TV . Are there any familiar with it ? Is it an attempt to cash on the Lord of the Rings ? Or is there any more than conceptual relationship with Middle Age England and Tolkien's work ? ı can readily accept Shire is common , but did the people of 1066 refer to their surroundings as the Middle Earth ? Is the word Ork present in the language of the period ? The movie says it means foreigner / demon and the Norman invaders are honoured as such . While it is freely used in xenophobic Turkish politics as it was a seriously modified form of the Turk , a wild claim further supported by the word Oruk ( family , clan ) changed into Uruk-Hai . And the notion of heaven , a just place for everyone in the West , does it refer to Vinland ? The movie ends with the sentence the descendants of Duke William still own one fifth of the country . Does this refer to England , a part of England or the UK itself ?

 

[Plotinus]

I don't know the film, but obviously Tolkien took lots of ideas, words, and names from Anglo-Saxon culture, on which he was an expert. The Rohirrim, in particular, are basically Anglo-Saxon Mercians transported to Middle Earth - they speak the same language and live the same lifestyle. Even other cultures in Tolkien's work reflect Anglo-Saxon culture - for example, I remember that he has Isildur claim the Ring as wergild for his father's death - wergild being an Anglo-Saxon concept - although I can't find the reference now. And there are many things like this throughout Tolkien. He even took story ideas - the incident in The hobbit where Bilbo takes a single cup from Smaug's treasure pile, and Smaug notices its loss and goes completely insane, is lifted directly from Beowulf.

And yes, certainly the Anglo-Saxons called the world "Middle Earth" - that's where Tolkien got it from. "Orc" comes from the Anglo-Saxon "orc" meaning devil or hell, but it is also connected to the Etruscan god of the underworld, Orcus. For more, just have a read of Beowulf.

 

[Louis XXIV]

I would also add that the movie was heavily inspired by medieval warfare stylistically, so it's an example of one thing copying the other, which copies it right back. I don't think I would include "Middle Earth" in the title, even if it's technically true, though. To the uninformed person, it does look like it's blatantly trying to cash in on LOTR.

But it's Channel 4, so it isn't exactly associated with quality.

 

[Plotinus]

But it's Channel 4, so it isn't exactly associated with quality.

Harsh!

 

[Traitorfish]

I found it interesting that they acknowledged the gender-neutral nature of "man" in Old English, instead using "wife-man" and I think "spear-man", which is unusual for a mainstream work. (Technically, "werman" is something more like "husband-man" or "male-man", but that probably sounded a bit too clunky.) I can't help but think it would be nice if we'd never lost that, but, of course, it would be rather hopeless trying to resurrect it (if rather more reasonable than things like "womyn").

...Yes, I watched a film about vikings and the thing that I found most interesting was an archaic linguistic feature. I'm a dork, sue me.

And the notion of heaven, a just place for everyone in the West , does it refer to Vinland ?

It's a reference to the old Insular belief in a heavenly land across the Atlantic, known as the "Land of the Young" and sometimes associated with the Otherworld, which, although pagan in origin, was retained in later folklore- in fact, the Irish saint Brendan of Clonfert was known for his supposed voyage to this country. It's unlikely to be related to Vinland- it was a primarily Classical, Celtic and later Insular belief, rather than a Nordic one- and I'm lead to understand that the Norse settlers were under the impression that they had simply found some more islands. Besides, the colonisation attempt wasn't really known outside of Greelandic and Icelandic society until much later, when the Icelanders realised that the "Vinland" described in their sagas was the newly-discovered continent of America.

...Which, incidentally, links back to to Tolkien, who used the myth as an inspiration for the Undying Lands, the distant Western continent to which the elves emigrate. It's quite possible that the reference in 1066 was intended to act as a subtle reference to the roots of Tolkien's version, given that many viewers will have seen the film trilogy which included numerous references to Elven lands in "the West".

 

[Dachs]

He even took story ideas - the incident in The hobbit where Bilbo takes a single cup from Smaug's treasure pile, and Smaug notices its loss and goes completely insane, is lifted directly from Beowulf.

I love that particular anecdote, for its implication: for the Anglo-Saxons, Bad People don't spread the wealth and share their loot, they sit on it and hoard it.

 

[GoodGame]

And yes, certainly the Anglo-Saxons called the world "Middle Earth" - that's where Tolkien got it from. "Orc" comes from the Anglo-Saxon "orc" meaning devil or hell, but it is also connected to the Etruscan god of the underworld, Orcus. For more, just have a read of Beowulf.

Is that based on Norse myth, with a concept of the gods living on a higher plane? And I guess there was an underworld world of the dead. Is that a good guess?

 

[Plotinus]

Yes, it's the same thing as Midgard really. The Anglo-Saxons and the Norse had more or less the same mythology, for the most part.

 

[Traitorfish]

Is that based on Norse myth, with a concept of the gods living on a higher plane? And I guess there was an underworld world of the dead. Is that a good guess?

Yes- in Germanic mythology, the world was built around a colossal tree, known as "Yggdrasil" to the Norse, with the worlds of the Gods and elves in its branches, the worlds of humans and giants at its base, and the worlds of the dead, the ice giants and the fire giants underground, amid the roots.

Edit: Cross-post with Plotinus.

 

[dwaxe]

On a side note, "Yggdrasil" is a World Wonder in Fall From Heaven mod for Civ4. Just goes to expound one of the themes of this thread--the cultural ancestry of memes is highly convoluted.