Tar-Aldarion

And for those of you waiting for fresh journeys down the Tolkien Road, we'll be back soon with brand new episodes.

For now, let's open the mailbag and return once more to the tragic story of Aldarion and Erendis.

The Tolkien Road, Episode 188, The Mariner's Mailbag.

Hello, everyone.

Bethany, Bethany E., she wrote us two notes.

So the first one, she says, Greetings, John and Greta.

I'm so glad you focused on the story of Aldarion and Erendis in the last episode.

It's a little-known story, and I learned a lot from your discussion.

Yeah.

You know, it, the thing that finally, uh, uh, convinced me that was not even potentially possible was the fact that you and I spent, I think, 11 weeks on Aldarion and Erendis alone.

[laughs]

[laughs]

Mamiel.

Aldarion has been at sea.

The vocabulary of the nursery is horrendous.

And I want to look at the shape of these words because they definitely connect to all sorts of languages.

I'm the Man of the West, and it's time to open week 131 and the last week of series 17 with another Might Have Been Monday.

Today's question, what if Aldarion had kept his word in the year 877 of the Second Age and been gone only the two years that he promised? Let's start with a reminder.

Aldarion is, at this time, the King's heir.

He is a mariner.

He is the founder of the Guild of Venturers.

Erendis has spent most of her relationship with Aldarion watching the sea.

They have one child, Ancalame, who is nearly four when he announces that he's going to go sailing again.

"'Come, Erendis,' he said, "'eight years I have stayed.

I do think it started to come sooner than that.

Honestly, I think it began in Aldarion's time.

But the interesting thing about Tar-Minastir is that he's the king who sent this force to the aid of Gil-galad.

He basically saved Middle-earth.

We'll be back soon with brand new episodes.

For now, let's return to Numenor and the story of Aldarion and Erendis.

The Tolkien Road, Episode 185, Second Age Deep Dive, The Mariner's Wife, Part 2.

The Tolkien Road, Episode 185, Second Age Deep Dive, The Mariner's Wife, Part 2.

If you got, if you got some ideas or thoughts that you want to share with us about this story or any other Tolkien matter, shoot it over to Tolkien road podcast at gmail.com, or you can contact us through Tolkien road.com, uh, and through the contact form there.

So, uh, All right, so part two of The Mariner's Wife.

So when we left off last time, it was the year 858, and Aldarion and Erendis had just been betrothed.

And then Aldarion is, of course, he will eventually become the sixth king of Numenor, right? But we're picking up in the year 858.

That works perfectly into the article I wanted to talk about.

So there's an article called World Creation as Colonization, British Imperialism in Aldarion and Arendis by author Elizabeth Massa-Holleim.

I hope I'm saying that correctly.

And this talks about Tolkien's critique of British imperialism.

Taking into account the tale of Aldarion and Erendis.

Basically, she says, quote, Although Numenoreans abuses of native Middle Earth peoples are briefly mentioned, the main objection to colonization within this particular tale is its moral corruption of the colonizer.

She goes on further to say decline directly results from the cultural shift in how we assign value to things.

Right.