The Ranger Archetype is a load-bearing timber of the Frontier Partisans lodge. His is the quintessential Frontier Partisan role — a paramilitary scout, guide, and raider who stalks both the historical record and literary and mythic landscapes. He is the centerpiece of a deferred but by no means abandoned special project of Frontier Partisans.
The Almighty Algorithm knows this…
Last night, I cut sign of a YouTube fantasy content creator who goes by the handle The Drow Historian, who serves up a nice treatise on The Ranger Archetype. Mostly in the realm of fantasy, since that’s his bailiwick, but he ties the archetype in with medieval and colonial American frontier history.
I quite liked this bit:
“They live on the threshold. They guide others through danger, then return to their isolation. They stand between the Wild and the World. Praise passes them by. Still, they keep the fire burning long after others have forgotten it. The Ranger is, at heart, a liminal figure, a keeper of crossing places, a necessary, often unseen presence who reads the signs before others know there’s danger at all… The town fears the forest, and the forest suffers the town. The Ranger loves them both and answers to the balance between them.”
Drow makes note of Natty Bumppo — Hawkeye, Pathfinder, Deerslayer — of The Leatherstocking Tales as a representative of the archetype. Which, of course, he is; pretty much the foundational one in American literature. It got me ponderating on how deeply Tolkien — medievalist though he was — drew from that archetype in creating the character of Strider. We don’t know for certain that Tollers read The Leatherstocking Tales, but the great Tom Shippey makes a compelling case that he did, highlighting, among other elements, the clear influence in the Fellowship’s canoe trek down the River Anduin.
Art by Heather Castle.
In his essay On Fairy Stories, Tolkien talked about the tales that tripped his trigger as a youth. He wasn’t interested in pirates and buried treasure, and was cool toward Treasure Island, which, I must say, is a black mark (Black Spot?) for him. But he did respond to tales set in the North American woods — though he did not specify which ones.
Red Indians were better: there were bows and arrows (I had and have a wholly unsatisfied desire to shoot well with a bow), and strange languages, and glimpses of an archaic mode of life, and, above all, forests in such stories.
Methinks that Shippey is on solid ground in citing the subtle influence of American frontier yarns — almost certainly Cooper’s — on the wilderness journey of the Fellowship and the Ranger archetype Tolkien’s work did so much to set into the foundation of fantasy literature.
The 1992 film version of Last of the Mohicans, where Hawkeye is known as Nathaniel Poe, is strikingly archetypal. Peter Jackson’s film trilogy of The Lord of the Rings shares some visual language with LOTM. You could swap Daniel Day-Lewis and Viggo Mortensen in their iconic roles quite effectively.
And either way, you get lots of running… (#JarodGatley).
Historically, men like Simon Kenton and Samuel Brady certainly fit the archetype — defenders of settlements (in Kenton’s case, a founder of a settlement) from which they remain somewhat separated by the nature of their temperament and work. Lewis Wetzel and Jesse Hughes are darker figures, but they also fit the archetype. Consummate skill as tactical athletes and woodsmen is deployed in defense of the “small folk” against terrifying foes that are as demons to those whom they terrorize.
But…. one man’s Ranger is another man’s orc…
The Ranger Archetype casts the Rangers as a town-defender, but the historical Ranger was also a town-destroyer. Take, for example, the riflemen who formed the vanguard and the scouting corps of the Sullivan Expedition, who burned 40 Iroquois towns during the American Revolution. And the Loyalist Butler’s Rangers repeatedly scourged the Mohawk, Schoharie and Wyoming valleys. The Texas Rangers of the 19th and early 20th Century truly were defenders of American small folk — and also terrors to Mexican small folk, committing dark deeds that did not distinguish too finely between bandits and guerrillas and ordinary folk.
Wolves of the Mohawk Valley by Don Troiani. The Loyalist Butler’s Rangers were not town-defenders in the American Revolution — they were vengeful town-destroyers.
In his massive and yet-to-be-completed magnum opus A Song of Ice and Fire, George RR Martin deliberately sets out to deconstruct and subvert the Ranger Archetype through his depiction of a decrepit and decaying Night’s Watch on the northern Wall. I suppose I should engage with this subversion, but I find Martin so frustrating that I just can’t do it (***nod to Deuce Richardson***).
I do think it is useful and valuable to grapple at the archetypal level with the paradox of town-defender/town destroyer, to challenge the kind of literal demonization of the “Enemy” that is common in Tolkien-based fantasy. First, it must be acknowledged that it is natural, human and legitimate to view howling terrors coming out of the wilderness to slay you, burn your homestead and steal your children as demons. Comanche raiders certainly looked that way to Texans and Mexicans. Not for nothing do Ukrainians call Russian invaders orcs.
But, of course, they are not truly demons — they are men. Exploring this on the mythic and archetypal level is a worthy undertaking. Unfortunately, Martin ain’t the man to do it. But wait… somebody did do it — before Tolkien.
Yeah, you knew I was going to get here. I am speaking, of course, of Robert E. Howard. In Beyond the Black River, The Black Stranger and the fragment Wolves Beyond the Border, Howard and his hero Conan of Cimmeria operate in a Hyborian Age analog of the very frontier we’ve been operating on in the AmRev podcast. While it is doubtless true that Howard drew from his love of Texas frontier history for the tales, the place names of the Pictish Wilderness like Conajohara are derived from Iroquoia and the New York frontier, almost certainly through Howard’s reading of the American Revolution frontier novels of Robert W. Chambers.
In this setting Conan plays the same role as the historical dark-haired Celt, Rifleman Tim Murphy, patrolling aggressively to counter incursions of a stealthy and dangerous foe.
In BTBR, Conan is a Ranger. Not the heir to a line of kings — the son of a blacksmith, a mercenary wanderer, a professional paramilitary warrior. He encounters a young settler named Balthus on the trail on the border of the Pictish Wilderness. When Balthus mistakes him for a man of the garrison of a local fort, Conan sets him straight:
“I’m no soldier. I draw the pay and rations of an officer of the line, but I do my work in the woods. Valannus knows I’m of more use ranging along the river than cooped up in the fort.”
I’m hearing an echo…
“I ain’t your scout. And we sure ain’t in no damn militia!”
Conan is a sworn enemy of the Picts, thanks to an ancient blood feud between his people and the Picts, but he does not see them as demons. In fact, he is capable of seeing them through a lens of strategic empathy. As a Cimmerian, he has his own experience of colonialist imperial encroachment, and he was once among the “screeching devils” who pushed back. He knows that the “devils” are men. Savage, dangerous men — but men all the same.
“The best land near Thunder River is already taken,” grunted the slayer. “Plenty of good land between Scalp Creek—you crossed it a few miles back—and the fort, but that’s getting too devilish close to the river. The Picts steal over to burn and murder—as that one did. They don’t always come singly. Some day they’ll try to sweep the settlers out of Conajohara. And they may succeed—probably will succeed. This colonization business is mad, anyway. There’s plenty of good land east of the Bossonian marches. If the Aquilonians would cut up some of the big estates of their barons, and plant wheat where now only deer are hunted, they wouldn’t have to cross the border and take the land of the Picts away from them.”
“That’s queer talk from a man in the service of the Governor of Conajohara,” objected Balthus.
“It’s nothing to me,” the other retorted. “I’m a mercenary. I sell my sword to the highest bidder. I never planted wheat and never will, so long as there are other harvests to be reaped with the sword. But you Hyborians have expanded as far as you’ll be allowed to expand. You’ve crossed the marches, burned a few villages, exterminated a few clans and pushed back the frontier to Black River; but I doubt if you’ll even be able to hold what you’ve conquered, and you’ll never push the frontier any further westward. Your idiotic king doesn’t understand conditions here. He won’t send you enough reinforcements, and there are not enough settlers to withstand the shock of a concerted attack from across the river.”
*
Strider/Aragorn will always and forever be the Ranger Archetype of the mythic realm. I do not contest his stature, nor do I wish to. But in my personal mythos, I prefer the hard-boiled, never-ennobled Conan. I am closer to REH than to Tolkien in world-view, and Howard was much closer to the frontier roots of the archetype than Tolkien could be. It is interesting to note that in his version of Strider/Aragorn, Peter Jackson approached a more hard-boiled version of the archetype. In a deleted scene (included in the Extended Edition) of Return of the King, Aragorn beheads Sauron’s emissary, the Mouth of Sauron.
Tolkien’s Aragorn did not do this — would not do this. But Conan the Cimmerian would have, by Crom! And the historical Timothy Murphy famously fired (twice) on a British emissary demanding the surrender of Middle Fort in the 1780 Burning of the Valleys Campaign — a gross violation of military ethics and protocol, about which Murphy was entirely Zero Foxtrot.
I am not pleading a case for the superiority of one version of the archetype over another. For many people, Aragorn has come to be an avatar of “positive masculinity,” a virtuous hero in a cultural climate that tends to devalue and even to deride virtue. I do not wish to participate in such doings, which I find distasteful. A preference and predilection for rougher-hewn archetypes does not signal a rejection of virtue (see Notes in the Margin below for more on this).
Cooper’s Leatherstocking is also a virtuous hero.
It is worth noting that Leatherstocking and Aragorn are both chaste figures; Natty Bumppo famously born to be a lifelong bachelor, wedded to the wilderness, while Aragorn took decades to fulfill his destiny before being able to marry the Elven Arwen. In the LOTM movie version, Nathaniel, is not at all constrained by chastity; he and Cora are intimate on the battlements of Fort William Henry, in a scene that many regard as one of the most romantic and erotic (though not explicit) in cinema. If you’re not using The Gael/The Kiss for mood music, you’re doing it wrong:
And Conan is… well, he’s Conan, isn’t he?
Conan and Natala in Xuthal of the Dusk. Art by Mark Schutlz
*
Strider will never be supplanted as the primary Ranger Archetype. There is, however, room for other versions, perhaps grittier, more hard-boiled, and tied more directly to a American history and folklore than to that of Northern Europe, where the town-defender is also a town-destroyer. I am not well-versed enough in the broad range of fantasy literature to know if that has been done. I’d be interested to hear about it, because the Ranger Archetype is and will remain at the very heart of the Frontier Partisan mythos.
Notes in the Margin:
• Tim Willocks is the author of The Religion, a novel of the 1565 Great Siege of Malta. His hero, Mattias Tannhauser, is an archetypal figure, a Frontier Partisan if not explicitly a Ranger — one who challenges the concept of virtue in a martial hero. I cannot locate the quote, but Willocks stated in an interview that he grew frustrated reading heroes that seemed to him to be virtuous in a way that would get them killed in an actual martial confrontation — be it street fight or battle. Tannhauser (not chaste BTW) was deliberately created as an antidote to that. He has Code — there is no more loyal friend — but he is an absolute survivor and pragmatist, who does not balk at treachery and extreme violence to save his own life and — more importantly — those he loves. In Willocks’ (and Tannhauser’s) moral universe, virtue that gets you and your loved ones slaughtered by harder men is not virtue at all.
This sensibility bothers some folks, especially in the context of mythic or fantasy fiction (Willocks is writing historical fiction), and appeals to others. For some, the moral ambiguity that Tannhauser’s ethos demands is a dangerous kind of moral relativism that ultimately erodes any sense of right or wrong. Martin and others have operated in this territory, with varied success. Willocks’ work does not, however, sit alongside the fantasy category of “grimdark.” There is healing and there is grace, and hope that is found in the love of immediate and found family.
• It has long graveled me that Professor Tolkien did not care for Treasure Island. Who doesn’t love that pirate yarn (and the basis for the Best TV Show Ever)? This is symptomatic of some breaks in compatibility between myself and Tolkien. I realized many years back, in my 20s, that as much as I had loved Tolkien in my early youth, and though I will always appreciate and respect his work, Robert E. Howard is truly my lodestar as a fantasy writer. He had a bigger impact on me as a prose stylist, and I find his worldview more compatible and compelling than Tolkien’s, strangely comforting in chaotic times. And Howard loved him some pirates…
Conan in gloriously anachronistic pirate regalia, from from The Black Stranger. Art by Greg Manchess.
• There is a clear “vibe” connection between Howard’s Pictish Wilderness tales and Last of the Mohicans. The composers of the Conan Exiles game soundtrack apparently decided to play on that vibe connection — quite brazenly. Homage? Piracy? Your call.
Quixotic Mainer says
Phenomenal article! I’ll give the video a watch ASAP.
If you want a far ranging fantasy hero with a distinctly American bend, both protector and destroyer of towns, a ruthless hard edged psion of rough chivalry, and a master of fieldcraft; I offer up my personal favorite from the realm of fantasy; Roland Deschaine of Gilead.
His entire shtick is the marrying of Arthurian legend with the lore of the wild west. He also has a phenomenal running and tracking scene, trailing a dangerous outlaw through booby trapped postapocalyptic ruins to recover a kidnapped child.
JimC says
I really do need to delve into that mythos…Thanks for that.
Craig Rullman says
I dont want a ranger who is chaste. I want a ranger whose lack of chastity keeps him drawn between points of beauty. I want his creed as simple as possible, best distilled as “against assholery”. I stop trusting a ranger when he falls too hard for one side or the other, which sings against the notion—held dear—that on a long enough time line, the townies with a great plan always end up being assholes too.
Greg Austin Walker says
“Rangers Lead the Way!”
Matthew Ilseman says
There’s an interesting podcast about Aragorn here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghcUydfX8k8
Speaking of Conan, Horrorbabble released an audio adaption of The Scarlet Citadel.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOSiCsEGeTc
Padre says
A recent read through the books of 1 & 2 Samuel in the Bible brought to mind an even earlier ranger archetype I’d offer up, though he is rarely thought of as such: King David. He spent his youth in the wild growing bold and crafty as a shepherd fending off bears and lions. After his defeat of Goliath he became one of Israel’s Tier 1 operators raiding and skirmishing with Philistines. When his father-in-law King Saul began seeing him as a threat he went on the run in the Judean wilderness where he always stayed a step ahead of his pursuers. He occupied a liminal space between Israelites and Philistines, even to the extent of gaining a position of trust as a Philistine king’s bodyguard while continuing his raids on the frontier. David’s exploits should earn him a place in frontier partisan lore.
2 Samuel 23 is the roster of David’s mighty men who rode with him during those years on the run and some of their feats. One of my favorites didn’t even make the top of the list. “And Benaiah the son of Jehoiada was a valiant man of Kabzeel, a doer of great deeds… He also went down and struck down a lion in a pit on a day when snow had fallen. And he struck down an Egyptian, a handsome man. The Egyptian had a spear in his hand, but Benaiah went down to him with a staff and snatched the spear out of the Egyptian’s hand and killed him with his own spear.” Those are stories I wish I could hear around the fire.
JimC says
Wonderful. Thanks for this. The King David story clearly lands in the x-ring.
An excellent reminder that Continuity & Persistence runs way farther back than the early modern period. I reckon that the men who stormed Kings Mountain surely knew these stories and were themselves inspired by them.
Matthew Ilseman says
A lot of the Old Testament reads like Robert E. Howard.
I tend to think of Joshua as an early frontier partisan as well. He was one of the scouts that went into the Promise Land.
JimC says
True! I can see a post in all of this — I just don’t have a lot of expertise in the ancient world.
deuce says
David was definitely a frontier partisan. He’s not only an archetype of that, but his story also parallels later tales of Sigurd and Arthur in some ways. Easily one of the most fascinating figures in the Bible.
Malachi Martin’s KING OF KINGS is a great historical novel (with some minor fantasy elements) on David.
Padre says
I am very far from expert, but I do have a bit of proficiency in the biblical canon. I have a lot of irons in the fire, but it would be fun to put together a short sketch on the Judeo-Christian frontier and its denizens for a guest post, if there’s an interest.
After I’m done pursuing and bushwhacking the elusive moose, of course. Priorities.
JimC says
I endorse the priority hierarchy, but would be most pleased to have guest post from you.
John M. says
The Bible is full of wonderful adventure stories, many with a supernatural twist. The story of the Apostle Paul’s journey across the Med to Rome is one among many. Then you get oddities like the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians getting all of one paragraph.
But to your point about David: I’m always struck by how much his time in the wilderness resembles the formation and operation of a motorcycle gang.
Paul McNamee says
Lots of food for thought!
deuce says
Great post, Jim! This could be a long’un…
“Methinks that Shippey is on solid ground in citing the subtle influence of American frontier yarns — almost certainly Cooper’s — on the wilderness journey of the Fellowship and the Ranger archetype Tolkien’s work did so much to set into the foundation of fantasy literature.”
While I think Tollers reading Cooper is very likely, there’s another American author he might’ve read: Longfellow. Sadly forgotten today, Longfellow was America’s almost/proto-Tolkien. Like JRRT after him, he was a huge fan of the Kalevala and modeled his “Song of Hiawatha” on it. Considering the several parallels between the two men, I wouldn’t be surprised if Tolkien had at least read ‘Hiawatha’, if not other works.
“The 1992 film version of Last of the Mohicans, where Hawkeye is known as Nathaniel Poe, is strikingly archetypal. Peter Jackson’s film trilogy of The Lord of the Rings shares some visual language with LOTM. You could swap Daniel Day-Lewis and Viggo Mortensen in their iconic roles quite effectively.”
I remarked on the resemblances when I saw ‘Fellowship’. However, Mann’s film is superior on almost every count, in my opinion: lighting, combat, film score, everything.
“I find Martin so frustrating that I just can’t do it (***nod to Deuce Richardson***).”
I’ll take that nod!
I could write 10K words on that repulsive gnome’s subversions and outright stupidities off the top of my head without even refreshing/doing additional research…but I have WAY too many things I DO like writing about to waste time on GRRM’s failed epic.
“But wait… somebody did do it — before Tolkien.”
REH was certainly the first to get a ‘fantasy ranger’ into PRINT, but Beren, Tuor and Turin were all written down in the ’20s. All were ‘ranger-adjacent’–if not actual long-range scouts/partisans at some point in their careers. Turin certainly was during his “Dor-Cúarthol” period.
“the place names of the Pictish Wilderness like Conajohara are derived from Iroquoia and the New York frontier, almost certainly through Howard’s reading of the American Revolution frontier novels of Robert W. Chambers.”
Thanks for the signal boost!
“Peter Jackson approached a more hard-boiled version of the archetype. In a deleted scene (included in the Extended Edition) of Return of the King, Aragorn beheads Sauron’s emissary, the Mouth of Sauron.”
…and then Petey and his XX handlers had Aragorn CHARGE OUTWARD IN A CIRCLE. As I’ve said before, Fran and Philippa know as much about medieval warfare as I do about menstrual cramps.
“It is worth noting that Leatherstocking and Aragorn are both chaste figures;”
So was Solomon Kane. In real life, John Nicholson, while not strictly a ‘ranger’, was certainly a formidable frontier partisan. He appears to have been quite single-minded and died a bachelor. It happens.
“Aragorn took decades to fulfill his destiny before being able to marry the Elven Arwen.”
JRRT gives some indication that the couple would’ve tied the knot WAY earlier had not Elrond set conditions. In fulfilling those conditions, Aragorn avenged his House and saved the West. Elrond made the right call.
“I am not well-versed enough in the broad range of fantasy literature to know if that has been done.”
Me neither. I don’t suppose Stirling’s Emberverse ‘rangers’ count. Most modern fantasy writers are so detached from Nature (and Reality and History) that such a character would be totally alien to them.
“Conan in gloriously anachronistic pirate regalia, from from The Black Stranger. Art by Greg Manchess.”
Technically, nothing can be ‘anachronistic’ in the Hyborian Age. The Barachans ALSO launch a signal rocket in “The Black Stranger”, likely bought from the Stygians.
JimC says
Great stuff as always Deuce.
Fair point. And it is testament to REH’s genius — and I use the word advisedly — that he could pull that off.
Again, good point. I haven’t delved into those tales as assiduously as they deserve. There’s a lot of Tolkien’s work that is tougher, darker and harder than LOTR. I should remedy that…
Song of Hiawatha HAD to have been an influence. Didn’t think of that at all.
deuce says
“Again, good point. I haven’t delved into those tales as assiduously as they deserve. There’s a lot of Tolkien’s work that is tougher, darker and harder than LOTR. I should remedy that…”
‘The Children of Hurin’ is DARK. Christopher Lee did a great audiobook of it. I also highly recommend the stand-alone Beren and Tuor books.
“Song of Hiawatha HAD to have been an influence. Didn’t think of that at all.”
As I said, sadly forgotten. I almost did a post on Longfellow a couple of years ago. A fascinating and talented man.
JimC says
The audiobook sounds appealing. That’s become my go-to for fiction; I seem to be able to find time for extended listening more readily than extended, immersive reading. Which is a bummer.
Quixotic Mainer says
I haven’t thought of the “Emberverse” books in a long while, but my brother and I devoured those things when we were kids.
While I hate to decry anyone reading anything these days, I think one of the worst trends in fantasy enabling those reality detached authors is the LITRPG genre. They write in the fashion of a video game, describing mechanics from games as well as the narrative. Fantasizing about playing a simulation of doing something is a bit too far removed from a narrative to tell a story.
Matthew Ilseman says
While I don’t believe that an entire genre can be bad, I have no desire to read LITRPG fiction. I also have no interest in isekei genre in manga/anime where characters enter fantasy worlds based on computer RPGs. As a writer of Sword and Sorcery I made a decision not play RPGs of any type. While I am sure that RPG players can write good stuff, I want to make sure I work on storytelling principles not game ones.
Quixotic Mainer says
All good points. I have done both long fiction ( decidedly unpublished), and ttrpg’s in my youth and I think that’s why I am so put off by the prospect. The artificialities of the games are just mechanics to help wargame the story, not part of the world itself.
I always thought of characters as beings, rather than level 3 whatsawhoosits.
deuce says
I’m in absolute agreement with both of you. The whole thing is just a bad idea. While I’m not a video game basher, exactly, it seems like some people are gaming WAY too much.
feudist says
Great essay.
“Hondo” by Louis L”Amour is a great example of the Ranger archetype.
The book itself is a masterclass in crossing denied territory stealthily under threat of death or horrific torture.
deuce says
Right on! By pure happenstance, I finally read the paperback of that (with the John Wayne blurb) about a week ago. A perfectly good novel of its kind.
John M. says
The way the Anglo changed as he interacted with North America and the Indians is both fascinating and well-documented. It’s interesting to think how this interaction played back in the Old Country with authors like Tolkien. As I understand it, Tolkien was setting out to build a mythos for the Anglo people, who by his time were really peoples, so it stands to reason that he’d include some elements that would seem natural to Ango-Americans. Certainly things like the LOTR boat trip never seemed odd to this Anglo North American who grew up in canoes.
And of course, taters are a New World crop. You know, po-ta-toes? The Gaffer’s delight, and rare good ballast for an empty belly.
That exchange always struck me as funny given the potato’s origin in the New World, and LOTR being set in the very, very old world, but perhaps that was intentional on Tolkien’s part. The potato’s origin seems like something that Tolkien would have known well, which is part of why the line always bothered me.
JimC says
Great point re: taters. And pipeweed, too, which Tolkien was thoroughly addicted to, was also a New World crop. JRRT threw a number of anachronisms into the tale — more pronounced in The Hobbit. I seem to remember Bilbo shrieking like a steam engine coming out of a tunnel at the notion that he might never come back from his burglar gig. Given how intentional JRRT was with everything, we have to assume the anachronisms are there for a reason. A lot has been made of the hobbits acting as “mediators” between a modern world and audience and a more ancient and heroic world view and narrative. Of course, The Hobbit is much more of a children’s tale, meant for reading aloud, so those might be treated as an aside.
Quixotic Mainer says
Hobbits and wizards are both enthusiastic about their pipes and tobacco as well.
deuce says
“As I understand it, Tolkien was setting out to build a mythos for the Anglo people, who by his time were really peoples, so it stands to reason that he’d include some elements that would seem natural to Ango-Americans.”
I’ve read all of Shippey’s books on JRRT, along with books from Garth, Carpenter, Flieger etc. Tolkien was writing a mythology for ENGLAND. He identified as ‘English’, NOT ‘British’. He thought the Empire was a bad idea (Numenor in later days has parallels). He wasn’t even a huge fan of the Lowland Scots or Americans. Churchill (half-American) DID look at things in a more ‘Anglo’ sense.
“That exchange always struck me as funny given the potato’s origin in the New World, and LOTR being set in the very, very old world, but perhaps that was intentional on Tolkien’s part. The potato’s origin seems like something that Tolkien would have known well, which is part of why the line always bothered me.”
THE HOBBIT was originally just a story JRRT told his children which had tangential connections to his Legendarium (his ‘Father Christmas Letters” are much the same). A fair amount of that ‘feel’ survived into the first edition. Bilbo had canned TOMATOES etc. Tollers took those OUT in newer editions (plus other things) when he decided to write a sequel with roots stretching back to the First Age.
However, that sequel included the Shire, which was a sort of de-industrialized, idealized 19th century Midlands that JRRT grew up in. Tobacco and potatoes are the ONLY New World elements in LotR. That is because he just couldn’t envision that setting without potatoes and tobacco, which were ubiquitous. This becomes obvious when you realize that those plants are found NOWHERE but the Shire. Even Hobbit-kin like Gollum/Smeagol had no idea what they were.
Tolkien just couldn’t bring himself to remove those two ubiquitous elements from his childhood memories.
BTW, Robert E. Howard was also quite diligent about keeping New World elements like that out of the ‘Old World’ portions of his Hyborian Age.
JimC says
Thanks Deuce. I really think Tolkien couldn’t bear to NOT have tobacco in his world. He LOVED his pipeweed. I mean, he gave it a whole treatise. I find this charming, BTW. I also delved back into the tale of Turin Turambar because of our correspondence, so your chops remain strong.
deuce says
As an addendum, I can’t help but note that Petey and his girls WENT OUT OF THEIR WAY (I can’t think of how else to view it) to feature New World plants in their Tolkien films…but then strongly implied that ‘pipeweed’ was Mary Jane. Just pathetic.
“I also delved back into the tale of Turin Turambar because of our correspondence, so your chops remain strong.”
Right on!