Illuminations by Dawn Felagund

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Fanwork Notes

For my B2MeM project this year, I am doing small scenes and character studies of Pengolodh, one of the imaginary loremasters in Tolkien's story and, quite likely, the primary contributor to The Silmarillion. Pengolodh has always fascinated me as a character: one who feels omnipresent in the books yet about whom we know very little. In 2007, I authored Stars of the Lesser for Pandemonium and wrote Pengolodh for the first time. He's been quietly begging me for more attention since, so I am using this year's B2MeM as an opportunity to learn more about his character.

Fanwork Information

Summary:

For Back to Middle-earth Month 2009: scenes from the life of young Pengolodh, the loremaster of Gondolin whose writings brought us The Silmarillion.

Updated:
Truth for Day Eight: Beauty/Ugliness
The Mountains and the Sea, for Day Nine: Anti-Heroes

Major Characters: Celebrimbor, Original Character(s), Pengolodh

Major Relationships:

Genre: Experimental, General, Poetry

Challenges: B2MeM 2009

Rating: Teens

Warnings:

Chapters: 9 Word Count: 8, 971
Posted on 2 March 2009 Updated on 28 March 2009

This fanwork is a work in progress.

Table of Contents

Learning to Make a Fire

Day One: Margaret Atwood once wrote: "We are learning to make a fire." Create your own story, poem or piece of art around this.

On the Rocks

Day 2 IconDay Two: Think of the most dangerous situation you can face. Have you ever been in such serious danger? What is the greatest danger that you have experienced? Think or write briefly about your experiences (or lack of experiences!) with danger.

Write a story, poem or create an artwork where the characters face a great danger
or
where characters reflect on their reaction to a great danger.

Snow Day

Day 3 IconDay Three: In two or three sentences, write about the happiest moment you've experienced in the past two days.

Create a story, poem, or artwork based on the circumstances, experiences, or feelings associated with that moment.

"A Poem for My Father" and "Creator"

Day 4 IconDay Four: What is a role model to you? Do role models require certain qualities for you? How should people relate to their role models?

Write a story, poem or create an artwork based on characters who are role models for their people.

This is a rather strange project: It is an illuminated page that Pengolodh started, messed up, and changed to something completely different. Visitors on dial-up should be aware that there is a rather large image.

The List

Day 5 IconDay Five: Consider something that you regret: something that you did and wish you could undo, something you didn't do and wish that you had. Think or write briefly about what you would do if you had a second chance and how you think your life might be different without that regret.

If your character would have a chance to start anew and with a clean slate, what would he or she do with such a chance? Write a story, poem or create an artwork where this is offered to them or how they execute such a chance.

This story doesn't exactly fit the prompt. But it begged to be written, so I complied.

Song of Creation Denied and Thwarted

Day 6 IconDay Six: "Music can name the unnamable and communicate the unknowable."
-Leonard Bernstein, American composer

Write a story, poem or create an artwork where this quote is validated.

Please be forewarned that this vignette includes a brief mention of miscarriage. If you are sensitive to such subjects, please use care.

This story is deeply informed by the short story The Yellow Wall-Paper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman.

Look

Day 7 IconDay Seven: Imagine this! You are walking in the woods and sudden a tree whispers to you ...

What does it say? What is your reaction?

Capture this moment in a story, poem or piece of art.

This story is set shortly after Stars of the Lesser, although one need not be familiar with "Stars" in order to read this. Curufin and Maedhros are visiting Nevrast to meet with Turgon and have brought Celebrimbor, who is close in age to--though a bit older than--Pengolodh.

Truth

Day 8 IconBeauty is in the eye of the beholder. Is it? And ugliness? Is it also relative? Write a story, poem or create an artwork where the contrast beauty/ugliness plays a central role.

The Mountains and the Sea

Day 9 IconThink of a person that you admire. The person can be someone from history, from fiction, or someone that you know--anyone!

Write down three to five adjectives that describe why you find that person admirable.

Now write the opposites of those three to five adjectives.

Write or draw something from the point-of-view of a character who displays some or all of the "negative" adjectives on your second list.

I chose as my three positive traits honesty, empathy, and selflessness. For their foils, I chose dishonesty, indifference, and greed.

Comments

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Beautiful fire.

Everything sounds so monastic (the scriptorium, the vellum, the hourglass, the illuminations) that it got me thinking about  Elvish inventions. I remember reading somewhere in HoME XII -if I'm not wrong- that in Aman Elves didn't need to put things down in writing since they could remember everything but once in M-e they realized they could die and so started writing the important stuff so it would survive them.  Didn't they know about the printing press? Or they thought beauty in the texts was more important than expediency? And the lighting? No Feanorian lamps for Turgon in Nevrast?

 PS: Have you read Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose?

Good observation, Angelica ... I\'m working a lot of my studies in the scribal arts into this as well. :) I\'ve always imagined that the Noldor would have an appreciation for illuminated manuscripts: turning something functional into something beautiful. I\'ve never given much thought to the printing press; I would have a hard time believing that the Noldor would be incapable of thinking of *something* to allow them to mass-produce written works, but special documents might continue to be hand-done and illuminated. This was done in period, actually; even after the invention of the printing press, illuminated manuscripts continued. (In fact, became more elaborate in many cases!)

My own thoughts regarding Elves and books (because I gave this thought when writing AMC, since Feanor and Maedhros are always reading and writing books) is that, while books might not have been as common in Aman (that rhymes! ;), I have a hard time believing that they didn\'t exist at all. Writing things down is still a tremendously practical way to share information; this is the explanation used in AMC for why Feanor puts most of his teachings into books. He is something of a oddity in that, not surprisingly. ;) This is, of course, my own interpretation; it is not \"canonical\" in any way.

Re lighting: *Nothing* beats natural lighting for painting! :) When I was still working on miniatures, I would sometimes paint by lamplight inside-of-doors and then go out the next day to work in the sunlight and have to redo most of the previous day\'s work because the colors, under natural light, were all wrong. So that\'s what I\'m going with here; that Feanorian lamps, with their bluish tinge, aren\'t ideal for painting by, at least when natural light is an option.

Incidentally, when Pengolodh\'s father snarks about loremasters who work at night, it\'s Feanor he\'s talking about. ;) Though I don\'t know if their vitriol extends as far as to deny themselves useful technology, just because he invented it!

Yay, more Pengolodh written from you and what a fabulous start! The scribe to be starting as a servant lad, hoping and wishing to be one of them these days. I did not have an idea how the hierarchy would be for this trade, but this was a great brief introduction. He is still so curious, isn't he? I just love how he carefully handles that scroll, how he marvels at the way the scroll is written, but the icing of the cake for me is at the end when the sun rises and the writings (of Fëanor?) come to life.

Ah, Rhapsy, you would pick up that those manuscripts were Feanor\'s! ;) I\'m not going to keep entirely with the medieval scribal system here because, then, everyone specialized immensely (ten people might work on a single manuscript!), but Elves have a lifetime to learn how to mix paint, do calligraphy, *and* paint illuminations! ;) But I am very much inspired by my scribal arts studies, as a few people have noticed.

Btw, Pengolodh\'s marveling over the scroll certainly comes from my own life. ;)

There is something quite nice about waking up to snow when you don't have to go out in it. And oh, do I know that ridiculous look of wading through the snow - we got 26 inches in central Maine about a week and a half ago, and wading through thigh high snow drifts to get in was interesting, to say the least. ;)

On the other hand, I know the feeling of relief at having an important exam rescheduled. Many years ago, my MCAT was rescheduled because a Cat 5 hurricane was predicted to hit the Gulf Coast. It took a southward turn at the last minute and hit Mexico instead - but every pre-med student in Houston and Galveston got an extra week to prepare, which was nice. :)

I liked this!

Thank you! :D Btw, I was quite amused during the Maine snowstorm to keep reading the updates on your Gmail away message! A few years ago, we got three feet during one storm, and I do *not* want to repeat the experience of digging out of something like that again! I felt for you, I really did.

I don\'t think I\'ve ever gotten out of anything because of a storm. We did get a tropical storm exactly on my 18th birthday. I still think that was a harbinger! ;)

Oh this is a very interesting insight in the young scribe's inner thoughts, and also in a way you show us how relatively safe Nevrast was compared to the realms in the North. I wonder if scribes would hold such a privileged position there. Also, - unintentional or not - you capture the status of learnt people (loremasters and scribes) as opposed to soldiers who'd risk their own lives to feed their families. Pengolodh's sudden realisation that such young men have families, children compared to his scholarly (and perhaps higher education) portrays that to me. The sacrifices they make, death in war opposed to having your own family starve instead. Yes, they are lucky to have such men willing to able to enlist in the army. This is a very sobering, but also intense vignette.

I think that Nevrast at this point still reflects a degree of naivete in the newly arrived Noldor. They haven\'t quite gotten the hang of \"we\'re not in Valinor anymore, Toto!\" ;) Though I do think that all of the Noldorin realms would recognize the importance of their artists/historians independent of their soldiers, at least to a degree. This certainly occurred in our real-world history, so I figure if French scribes could exist during the Hundred Years\' War, then Noldorin scribes\' duties could have been protected as well. All conjecture, of course.

I\'m happy that you picked up on Pengolodh\'s growing realization of the humanity of the soldiers. This is what I wanted to show with this vignette; he\'s been allowed to live a sheltered life (see earlier note on lingering Noldorin naivete ;) but is coming to terms with the work that others do and understanding one need not be an intellectual to matter. He used to think that those who weren\'t smart or motivated enough for intellectual pursuits didn\'t matter much, but that view is changing; he is coming to see them as more like him than not and to realize that, just as they might not be able to do what he does, neither can he do what they do.

Pengolodh is a fascinating subject for a character study:  it would be a treat to get under his skin and see why and how he wrote what he wrote, his sympathies, his motivations, etc.  And you do character studies so well so I'm bracing myself for another delightful dive into ME with my "Dawn Felagund" glasses.  ;-) 

Thank you, Jenny! I\'d imagine they\'re some strange glasses! :D I find Pengolodh so fascinating; he\'s there, but he\'s not at the same time. Back before Oshun was writing a bio for each month\'s character, we featured Pengolodh one month, and I did some quick research to have some facts about him to post in the newsletter. He\'s mentioned probably 100 times in the books ... but only *twice* about his actual life. (And one was in BoLT, so how much that counts, I don\'t know.) The rest is \"Quoth Pengolodh ...\" or \"Pengolodh wrote ...\" It makes me ask: Who is this guy? He\'s certainly one of the most important characters to the Silm, and he\'s utterly invisble.

So I hope his character study does not disappoint. :) I doubt he\'ll be as fiesty as the Feanorians, but I think he\'ll raise some questions nonetheless!

I found the scene of the army recruitment day particularly moving. It's a good glimpse into the more pragmatic, not-so-charmed lives of the "ordinary" elves, though it doesn't diminish my fascination with them.

My favorite lines:  "We are lucky," he said aloud, though he did not know who we was any longer...He wondered if they thought to die of rot from a spear wound in the gut was better than to slowly perish of hunger.  He wondered if they imagined at all.

 

 

Thank you! Surgical Steel like that line too, though I think that\'s because she likes when I break fanon and kill off Elves with peritonitis. ;) I wanted this scene to sort of continue the discussion on the Yahoo! list where the Elven realms are grittier and nowhere-near-perfect-as-fanon-would-have-it. And it\'s also a point where Pengolodh starts to grow up, to move beyond his sheltered life to begin to *see* the world around him. Or that\'s what I was trying to do. :)

What  a nice break for Pengolodh!  Found myself smiling at your note about the Valinorean lamp. It's amazing how you use small and deceptively simple details like that meets the prompt theme with every with every chapter. I can't help but agree with Pengolodh in what made him the happiest for this chapter (and maybe Fëany may even agree with him? ;-)

Ah, but I think the small details make all the difference in a story! :) Normally, I don\'t even footnote this sort of thing but broke my own rule and answered the canatics before they had the chance to ask: \"Aren\'t they called *Feanorian* lamps?\"

I think Feanor would agree with Penny in some regards too. He actually has a forbidden-fruit sort of fascination with the Feanorians that started in my story for Pandemonium last year \"Stars of the Lesser.\" His curiosity makes him more like Feanor than his own father, which of course creates moral quandries. But I\'m on the verge of spoiling my own story now ... ;)

Thank you again for all the reviews! :D

These studies -- like miniature portraits -- of Pengolodh are each and every one little gems, Dawn.  In fact, I'm visualizing these each as illuminations!  I was especially taken by the precious parchment from Aman with the fiery border.  I have to confess that I wondered if Pengolodh -- Pengolodh -- might be hungover with that headache on the snow day, but I have to remember that he may not drink as much as certain of my Firstborn! :^D

This is a really neat idea for a character study, that is, to tie it into BtMeM. 

Thank you! :D I\'m glad you picked up on the multiple meanings of illuminations here--that was intentional. ;) That parchment with the fiery border, I have been requested to try to illuminate someday; it\'s based on a real technique, so I\'ll give it a try. Though it won\'t compare with Feanor, I hope it will please mortal eyes!

I had to laugh at your assumption of the hangover! No, Pengolodh isn\'t quite that rebellious ... yet. But he will have his moments. After all, there would be no fun in writing these if he was always as steady and dry and boring as he seems in the books!

Thank you for the kind comments; as much as I respect your work, your thoughts on my writing always means a lot to me. :)

That absolutely makes sense, and that's what I wanted to convey! (Yay! :D) My version of Pengolodh is intensely curious and thoughtful, and his consideration turns, at times, to those "outside" the safety of what he has come to know as morally right in the followers of Turgon. He is fascinated by those outside Turgon's people despite himself. (I don't know if you've read "Stars of the Lesser" that I wrote in '07 for Pandemonium, but this was sorta the origin of this idea.) So, here, when he realizes that his father speaks of history without ever creating it, he muses on creators ... to be safe, of course, that is Eru, but I have my suspicions otherwise. ;)

This reminds me a bit of Match Day. To get into a residency program, you have to go through the Match - you apply, you go interview, and then you submit a rank-ordered list of the programs you liked to the National Residents' Matching Program, and the programs submit their lists of candidates, and every year, mid-March, at noon Eastern time, the results get announced. You can tell immediately who got into a really good program and who didn't by the reactions - the ones who got into good programs are jumping up and down and screaming, the ones who got into merely OK programs are always like 'OK, whatever, I'm pleased to have matched.' They're very blasé. So the differing reactions - the students who care about that list and the ones who don't let themselves care, it reminded me of that.

I liked it!

Thank you! :D It always seemed to me, in my school days, that those who didn\'t do well on whatever academic assessment could make it like they just didn\'t care. It always seemed a natural defense to me. Match Day seems to fit that as well. :)

Thank you for both reviews! I really appreciate it! :)

Oh my Dawn, I like the way you tackled this. I angled my head to read the doodles and they are so genuine for a writer/poem when they are composing. The method looks like my notebook. He's very muchly struggling with what he's supposed to say and think as to how he thinks things has happened: questioning himself. His note: this is my father's story and then 'What? Truth,  a good just cause, yes but?

It can't be easy being him, deep down knowing that there must be more to it, that a for a good cause doesn't equal that it is the whole truth. It just can't be easy for him to be a child born from exiles with know tangible knowlegde of Aman and what made them leave Valinor. All he has is hearsay basically, then there is this perished elf who intrigues him so much, but has a bad name...

In a nutshelf: I loved this very original piece and I ramble too much! 

 

Thank you, Rhapsy! :) It looks like my notebook too, sometimes; I just start to free-associate and see where it takes me. And I doodle a lot in my margins! :D

It can\'t be easy being him, deep down knowing that there must be more to it

Yes, I can say that as a U.S. citizen, I\'ve done some of the questioning of my country and people and culture that Pengolodh is doing now, and it isn\'t easy. There\'s what you\'re told all of your life and you want so badly to believe, and then there is what *is,* and it reaches a point where one can shove one\'s head deep into the sand and \"drink the Kool-aid\" or one can make the uncomfortable decision of disbelieving a lot of what most everyone else believes. Pengolodh, of course, has a long journey ahead of him yet.

And you do not ramble too much! :) I loved your review, and thank you for it!

Go Pengholod! I do feel for him though that he has so much pressure on his shoulders and that he cannot celebrate this big day with his parents. It just feels to me that he doesn't fit in anywhere: not with his family or his peers. What a lonely life. But then at the end he makes his statement and I can't help to say that I am proud if him rebelling a bit.

Spoken like a true Feanorian, Rhapsody! :D I am definitely trying to set up Pengolodh as a character who has pressure upon him from many different directions. Again, I am pulling a lot from life for this; not from my own life (my parents were always very nonchalant about my academic performance, and that's probably why I did so well in school) but from seeing RL friends who came from families that put tremendous pressure on them. Pengolodh is probably half the kids at the maths & science-focused high school I attended. Thank you for the review! :)

A highly imaginative presentation here!  Pengolodh's struggle with historical convention comes across so well on Bristol vellum! :^D The transition from the more formal Felagundian Pengolodhian calligraphy to more informal notes is a great touch...just what one expects to find -- as you note -- in a writer's journal or papers.

Heh.  I know who I think the "creator" is.  Lovely poem.  And these verses?

He summoned all his lore and subtle skill
That mind and hands should serve to manifest
The greatest desire of his heart and will,
Then--suddenly still--he allowed to rest.
His hands lay gently folded, gloved with night,
Then, as a blossom opens, revealed Light.

Gorgeous. 

I would have loved some *real* vellum, but, as they say, people in Hell want ice water, and at $30 a sheet, the Bristol works just fine. ;)

Oddly enough, I like the scribbled writing better than the formal calligraphy, which I think might be the ugliest hand I\'ve ever seen. (I have hope that I can tweak it into something halfway decent-looking! In the meantime, I will assume that, like me, calligraphy is just not Pengolodh\'s strength.

I leave the creator\'s identity up to the reader, though I tend to agree with you. ;) Pengolodh rather gave himself away, I think, when he asked that the page be burned. Burn a poem about Eru?? Not likely!

And thank you for noting those specific lines as your favorites. I love writing sonnets, but they\'re really hard for me, so it is an enormous sense of relief that this one worked for at least one other person! :)

This is quite a powerful piece and really, rather searing with its insights into Pengolodh's psychology as you're creating him here.

He had the loneliness of any child with the weight of expectation upon him, heavier than a shirt of rings

What a fantastic way to describe Pengolodh's burden of parental high expectations!  In a short piece, you've also provided key background on Pengolodh's parents, too.  Master Sailaheru sounds rather overbearing, and his mother's disappointment can still be glimpsed.  Subtle writing there, Felagund!  

And much more of Pengolodh's character is revealed when we see that he is picked on and how he exacts his revenge with his own list.  Definitely the reaction of one who has been bullied.  I am intrigued by the potential fallout of Pengolodh's list.  Revenge has a tendency to turn around and bite one in the butt.

Of course, I perked up at the potential debate on the Ainulindalë.  Heh.

This series is truly illuminating, Dawn!

 

Subtle reading too, Pandemonium! ;) I\'m trying to characterize his parents without actually characterizing them in the traditional sense. It\'s sort of a personal challenge to myself. So I\'m pleased that you picked up on that! :)

The fallout ... that wasn\'t something I had really considered. It might be something to come back and revisit once the whole character study is done. (Or, at least, the B2MeM portion, since I\'ve been writing the Feanorians for years and am still studying their characters--I don\'t expect Pengolodh will ever be any faster!) I doubt imagine, however, that Pengolodh is ever discovered as the author of the list. Which might make the fallout all the more intriguing!

Somehow, too, I thought the debate on the Ainulindale and the Feanorian involvement in it might intrigue you. ;)

Thank you so very much not only for reading but for your very kind words and your insights! The series has been so much fun (it\'s been too long since I did something strictly character-based), and I\'m looking forward to finishing this last bloody term paper and getting to write more of it! :)

Oh, Dawn, such a creative work! I loved how you approached not just the idea, which is great, how Pengolodh himself couldn't quite decide who his role model is, but also the way of expressing it through the handwritten poem. And that final note about burning the page! Superb.

Thank you, Angelica! :) I\'m generally disinclined to \"gimmicky\" presentations, but this one, I didn\'t know that the ideas could be expressed any other way. I\'m so pleased to see that it worked for you ... and you\'re the second person to mention positively the \"Please Burn\" note at the bottom, which I added on a whim sometime after the piece was finished. I\'m glad I did. :)

Very insightful psychologically, poor hard pressed boy.

I liked the reference to the "construction" of the Ainulindale stories and it sent me back to your previous story where Pengolodh scribbled in the  margin that his father "recorded history but did not create it". He still has a long way to go, indeed.

Thank you! :D I knew a lot of Pengolodhs in my erstwhile days in one of the more competitive high schools in my county. Writing him feels very natural. (Never mind that he\'s asking questions that I ask too, though I think we\'ll come to different answers. :)

That you and others pointed out the Ainulindale comment is funny because I needed something that would bring a Feanorian (the only person I could imagine Pengolodh\'s folks staying out late to argue with!) to Nevrast and needed a topic for debate, and the Ainulindale just came first to mind ... so that was rather on a whim as well. I might have to explore that one a little but further! :)

I like the depiction of Pengolodh's emotional conflict - all the crossed-out sections in the first piece, the scribbles in the margin, and the much tidier and tighter composition of his final piece.

 Pengolodh the rebel, hey? *Grin*

Excellent work on both the art and the writing!

Thank you! Ironically, the first poem was supposed to be formal calligraphy, yet I like the look of the second much better, when I was trying to be casual and messy. Perhaps if I had messy handwriting to start, I could have pulled that off better! ;)

I think Pengolodh had his moments of doubt. That\'s nothing resembling \"canon,\" just my own biased hope. :) Of course, we have the Silm to know how he turned out ... most decidedly *not* rebellious! :D

After you\'re done strangling him, let me kick him a couple times, will you? ;) I have a few choice words for that guy ... and those like him who have existed and, unfortunately, continue to exist in the real world. But I\'ll be nice and agree with \"cruel\" and maybe add \"paternalistic and condescending\" to the mix.

Thank you for reading and reviewing! :)

I'll hold that healer down while you two kick him!

And the moment of weakness on the part of Sailaheru is very well portrayed. (Although I have to repress the urge to slap the gentleman!)

I wonder how much Pengolodh really understands about his mother's miscarriage. It doesn't seem an environment where such things are explained :/

 

Woohoo! Three on one! Not fair, really, but all things considered ... ;)

Thanks for the note about Sailaheru; I was definitely going for that and am glad it came through for you! :D I also don\'t think Pengolodh probably knows much. Not only do I doubt that Turgon\'s people (or maybe the Noldor as a whole) are particularly forthcoming about these things, but Pengolodh is fairly young here, and his parents have already shown themselves apt to shelter him.