Y’know, I’m often torn when writing Hobbit fic about having dwarves refer to Mahal by name as an exclamation (”Mahal bless me!”). In the books, certainly in The Hobbit, they only make sort of standard English-y exclamations like “Bless me!” and “My goodness!”, Mahal/Aule is never mentioned, and Durin is only referred to as an ancestor.
I haven’t re-read Lord of the Rings in ages, but again I’m pretty sure that dwarves never refer to their ancestors as anything besides a proper noun in that book. They refer to Durin as a past king, but not in the same way Thorin does in The Hobbit: AUJ where he says, “What in Durin’s name is going on?” The only times the Valar are referred to in LotR that I can recall is when the elves exclaim to Elbereth in their songs, but again, her name is used more as a reference, or calling upon her, and not as a curse word or exclamation the way we’d say “God be praised!” or “Goddammit!”, simply put she is not a goddess to be worshipped with an organized religion so much as a revered figure, more of a demigoddess if anything.
The thing is, I really like what fanon has done with having dwarves talk about Aule, and having them use the Khuzdul word for his name the way we would say “God”. But Tolkien never had them do that, perhaps in part because he was a good Catholic who would never have someone use the Lord’s name in vain, especially not towards what amounted to a pagan god.
(By the way, no one in LotR EVER refers to Eru Iluvatar the way we would say “God”, no one in LotR seems particularly aware that Iluvatar exists except maybe the Elves, but they don’t refer to him or seem to consider him a Creator to be worshipped the way we would God. Elves praise Elbereth but there’s also no sign that they worship her in any particularly religious way. Fan writers using “Eru” as a substitute for “God” as in Bilbo saying something like “Eru bless me!” is one of those little pet peeves I have that I try not to let ruin fanfics for me, because there’s not only no indication that the Hobbits are aware of the Valar (yes, including Yavanna, guys, the idea that Yavanna created the hobbits is pure fanon, her name is NEVER uttered by a hobbit anywhere in Tolkien’s works) but Tolkien has actually said that the hobbits take little to no interest in cosmology or metaphysics, they are utterly unaware of the existence of the Valar. Bilbo is a scholar for having even heard of Elbereth, the Elvish star-demigoddess.)
But I actually do like and use dwarves referring to “Mahal” in my fics, even if in the films they only ever exclaim Durin’s, and I wrestle with how to use that because Mahal just sounds natural. I think it’s different for me because Tolkien put so much less effort into the dwarven culture than he did the elvish one that I can easily imagine that he didn’t really delve into their exclamation outside of battle cries like Baruk Khazad! And I can easily imagine that Bilbo didn’t know what they were saying and so it’s possible they could say Mahal or Durin’s name in front of him without him taking much note of it as our narrator.
Basically it comes down to cherry-picking fanon. I totally understand why people give hobbits Yavanna as a creator goddess (though I do secretly hope they know it’s not canon), and give LotR and Hobbit characters a greater knowledge of the Silmarillion events than anyone outside of elves seems to have in the actual books, but I’m also equally guilty of picking some things I like and using them so *shrug* to each their own.
The only thing I can recall in the way of religion is of ancient Numenor using the peak of Meneltarma as a kind of altar, where kings would go to pray and worship at three points during the year, before they became corrupted.
So, canonically, we have ancient Numenorians having a kind of religion or custom/culture of worship, for the king at least. I don’t know that it exists anywhere else. I could see stretching it to the Dunedain who were their descendants, perhaps having some remnant of their old customs, but that would be a kind of inference or extrapolation. I could find it believable in fanfiction, though.
But yea it always kind of throws me out of a story when someone uses “Eru bless” or something in a Hobbit’s dialogue.
(Yavanna as the Hobbits’ creator kind of bugs me, as does the whole predestination “Ones” thing with dwarves, but then I find myself getting annoyed anytime something becomes extremely pervasive in fandom that has no basis in the books to the point that people forget it’s not in the books. But then, I’m Grouchy.)
Thank you for the commentary! And yes, it’s important to note Numenor really is our only case of organized religion and it is specifically put there to demonstrate a false religion, what is essentially devil-worship (specifically of Sauron). Worshipping a false god led to the downfall of Numenor and Aragorn’s ancestors.
One thing I think that gets lost in some fandom discussions of Tolkien’s work is the actual context of his religion. Many laypeople say Tolkien’s religion pervades his work without really understanding what that means. Contrary to popular belief, it means he doesn’t put organized religion of any kind into his work, because Catholicism holds that no true, good religion could exist before the birth of Christ. Good principles could exist, like charity and selflessness, and Providence, or the hand of God could be seen in good works, but part of why Hobbits have no organized religion is because Tolkien’s work are meant to be pre-history and Christ hasn’t been born yet. It gets a little muddy there, I mean clearly Tolkien wrestled with how religion worked in his pre-history of England, and as the grandfather of modern fantasy he didn’t exactly have a model to work from for how to include it, but I find it funny how many people claim he was a religious writer but don’t seem to understand him at all, certainly his spiritual principles are visible in his works, but not his organized religion, and that’s deliberate.
And I’m totally on the same page with you in being “grouchy” about some pervasive fanon stuff, like Yavanna as creator of Hobbits, dwarves having a “One” and that being the word for it, etc. (though I don’t mind little details like “ghivashel” because I think it’s cute). I think what irritates me more is when fanfic becomes a fanfic of a fanfic, ie when people new to the fandom don’t seem to realize that fandom staples like “Eru” being said and the dwarven “One” were made up by one fic writer early in the fandom, either on purpose or by accident due to a misunderstanding of Tolkien’s text, and then proliferated. So long as people choose their fanon with knowledge that it is fanon, I don’t mind, I just tend to sigh when it doesn’t seem clear that they know it’s not canon.
Avelera 