Et Tu, Faramir? - Page 5
© Michael Martinez
The ancients loved to swap stories, and it has been suggested by more than one scholar that many classical mythologies borrow from older mythologies. All of Zeus' infidelities, for example, may represent attempts to merge various legends about an ancient sky god into a coherent mythology.
As the centuries passed by, story-tellers accumulated greater sophistication. Technology slowly caught up with the audience's ability to absorb more information, too. Eventually, Herodotus would be able to compose the first extended diary. His Histories record his thoughts about the traditions he had learned from several peoples with whom the Greeks had contact. He was not analyzing traditions so much as preserving them. But his writing was sophisticated even by modern standards, in that he was able to revisit themes many chapters (or books) after their introduction.
Some of the Roman writers attempted to write lengthy histories, too, but they also developed the art of writing encapsulated histories, a skill which was passed on to the Roman Catholic Church. History itself became less important as story-telling returned to prominence. Early medieval literature offers us Bede's Ecclessiastical History of England, which modern historians may both praise and curse. Bede mostly wanted to tell a few good stories and lecture some contemporary kings about their failings. In doing so, he alluded to things which have long since been forgotten. It would have been nice if he had offered a few footnotes explaining what the heck he was referring to.
Tolkien does provide footnotes...and end notes...and notes within notes, asides, anecdotes, essays, outlines, and everything else including scraps paper and scribbles on morning newspapers. He wanted to document as much as he could about Middle-earth, but he had too little time to devote to the project, and creating a literature to support the stories was not a priority. The stories were more important than the literature, just as Bede's stories were more important than his history, just as Herodotus' anecdotes were more important than simply relating the facts as they were then known.
Herodotus' anecdotes are often derided as amateurish mishmash which should not have been included in the first attempt to write a formal history. But if Herodotus had not told us about the Egyptian brothers who tried to rob a tomb, leading to the tragic sacrifice of one brother to save the other, would his histroy have been half as interesting to read as it is? There was so much Herodotus needed to preserve, and he had to choose between folktales and myths. He understood well enough was seemed incredible to even his contemporary audience. He also understood that subsequent generations might not believe everything he had to say.
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