Eerie Ears and Pointless Points

[steepholm]

When young I associated pointy ears primarily with Mr Spock - although I see that Bram Stoker describes Dracula's too as being "extremely pointed", and that's reflected in most portrayals (it must admitted that Dracula's ears have been overshadowed by his teeth). The spitefully spiky pine elves who were the most frightening denizens of my youthful Rupert annuals had pointy ears, I suppose, but then everything about them was pointy.

That elves have pointy ears is one of those things everyone knows, and Peter Jackson has probably helped spread the meme further (there's an interesting discussion here about how and whether Tolkien himself intended his elves' ears to be pointed); but where does the idea originate? Certainly you can see examples in the work of Arthur Rackham and Cicely Mary Barker - but what about earlier artists? And is it purely an artistic convention, or does it have literary corroboration?

Would the players have been gluing points to their ears for the first performance of A Midsummer Night's Dream?

Comments

[thistleingrey]

For medieval elves (both English and Icelandic), there's some crossing with the iconography or textual description of devils; I don't know where that tradition originates or branches off.

[steepholm]

Good thought. I suppose the demonic connection might explain Dracula's ears too.

[thistleingrey]

It's also a conceit (twisted once) in Arthur C. Clarke's Childhood's End, IIRC.

[eglantine-br.livejournal.com]

I have never seen a pointy eared Puck, but now that you mention it I wonder why

[grondfic.livejournal.com]

Ian Holm sported pointy ears as Puck at the RSC in 1962:

http://ianholm.homestead.com/files/IanHolmasPuck1962RSC.jpg

.... and again in 1968:

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/92/fd/8e/92fd8e3a8d8ff0b6500b22b9840425d6.jpg

He definitely has the facial features and physique to go with them

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Yes, there's definitely a drop or two of green blood in his veins. (Oh hang on, that's Mr Spock again...)

[sovay]

Ian Holm sported pointy ears as Puck at the RSC in 1962

I really like the look of that production.

[grondfic.livejournal.com]

I saw it! He's the main thing I remember about it. He was BORN to play Puck.

(Oh, except I think Judi Dench was Titania and Ian Richardson Oberon)

[sovay]

He was BORN to play Puck.
(Oh, except I think Judi Dench was Titania and Ian Richardson Oberon)

TIME MACHINE STAT PLEASE.

[grondfic.livejournal.com]

http://theatricalia.com/play/1e/a-midsummer-nights-dream/production/9s1

This is the bare bones of information that the RSC gives. As you can see there is a cast list, but with no assigned roles. But fortunately, there is this -

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/dc/fc/ef/dcfcef83ebc1762e276f6e8cfcb5afea.jpg

ON EDIT:
This is the 1970 version - same cast, very different costume concept:
http://i.ytimg.com/vi/2c6djC43lWE/hqdefault.jpg

[sovay]

But fortunately, there is this -

What a wonderful tangle of hair. I envy you seeing that production in person.

This is the 1970 version - same cast, very different costume concept

Okay, that's a neat shout-out to stories like the Green Children of Woolpit, but I still want the time machine to 1962.

[grondfic.livejournal.com]

Yes, I think it was very lovely.

I missed the 1970 version (it may in fact have been a special, outdoors one, possibly at Charlecote Park).

[sovay]

And is it purely an artistic convention, or does it have literary corroboration?

It's enough of a convention by 1923 that it turns up in L.M. Montgomery's Emily of New Moon:

In all else, he thought, she was like the Starrs—in her large, purplish-grey eyes with their very long lashes and black brows, in her high, white forehead—too high for beauty—in the delicate modelling of her pale oval face and sensitive mouth, in the little ears that were pointed just a wee bit to show that she was kin to tribes of elfland.

and is remarked on by other characters:

"I wanted this," said Emily, waving her farewell-summer.

"And you have it! Do you always get what you go after, even with death slipping a thin wedge between? I think you're born lucky. I see the signs. If that big aster lured you into danger it saved you as well, for it was through stepping over to investigate it that I saw you. Its size and colour caught my eye. Otherwise I should have gone on and you—what would have become of you? Whom do you belong to that you are let risk your life on these dangerous banks? What is your name—if you have a name! I begin to doubt you—I see you have pointed ears. Have I been tricked into meddling with fairies, and will I discover presently that twenty years have passed and that I am an old man long since lost to the living world with nothing but the skeleton of my dog for company?"

"I am Emily Byrd Starr of New Moon," said Emily, rather coldly. She was beginning to be sensitive about her ears.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

She was beginning to be sensitive about her ears.

:)

It does seem so well established by the early 20th century that it's hard to believe it's an invention of the late 19th.

[sovay]

It does seem so well established by the early 20th century that it's hard to believe it's an invention of the late 19th.

I'm thinking that classical Greek satyrs must have played a part—they are the oldest wild woodland creature with pointed ears I know of, anyway.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Yes, that seems plausible. The question then would be whether this is a case of classical creatures such as satyrs (ears in tow) "evolving" into elves - Diane Purkiss's basic thesis in Troublesome Creatures, iirc - or whether it's much later artists looking for a way of representing elves and co-opting satyrs (their ears at least) as a model.

I must go and look at Book 1 of The Faerie Queene, which has both satyrs and elves - though I don't think the latter's ears at least are ever described as pointy. [ETA: Alas, Book I Canto vi is silent on the satyrs' ears.]

[sovay]

The question then would be whether this is a case of classical creatures such as satyrs (ears in tow) "evolving" into elves - Diane Purkiss's basic thesis in Troublesome Creatures, iirc - or whether it's much later artists looking for a way of representing elves and co-opting satyrs (their ears at least) as a model.

I was thinking mostly in terms of artistic representation rather than a direct line of inheritance, so let's assume a combination? I am perhaps unfairly skeptical of taking the first explanation as the total one because it's part of the mythos of Elizabeth Goudge's Linnets and Valerians (1964).

I must go and look at Book 1 of The Faerie Queene, which has both satyrs and elves - though I don't think the latter's ears at least are ever described as pointy. [ETA: Alas, Book I Canto vi is silent on the satyrs' ears.]

Well, this 1639 woodcut is certainly a very satyric Puck.

. . . I don't know if Kipling is the most reliable reference for performance traditions, but we have this mention right in the first paragraph of Puck of Pook's Hill (1906):

Dan was Puck and Nick Bottom, as well as all three Fairies. He wore a pointy-eared cloth cap for Puck, and a paper donkey's head out of a Christmas cracker—but it tore if you were not careful—for Bottom.

and then a few lines later:

In the very spot where Dan had stood as Puck they saw a small, brown, broad-shouldered, pointy-eared person with a snub nose, slanting blue eyes, and a grin that ran right across his freckled face.

Though that's back to the late nineteenth/early twentieth centuries again. [edit] Now I've just got this question in my head. Trying to find photographs of Victorian productions of A Midsummer Night's Dream is harder than I'd have thought. I can find various images relating to Iolanthe, which premiered in 1882. Pointed ears do not seem to be the hallmark of its fairies, although small wings are.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

That Puck is very strikingly satyric! And it's a useful reminder that - as someone else mentioned to me - the Devil's also in the pointy-eared mix (which may indeed be where Dracula got his from). I wonder whether there's a distinction to be made though between having animal ears (which tend after all to be pointier than human ones) and having ears that lack fur but are pointy nonetheless? Satyrs and devils (and this Puck) tend towards the former, but later elves the latter.

I'd love to know whether the Chamberlain's Men took the goat-footed road for Puck. I'd simply not taken in that Kipling's was snub-nosed, by the way. That gives him quite a different vibe.

[sovay]

And it's a useful reminder that - as someone else mentioned to me - the Devil's also in the pointy-eared mix (which may indeed be where Dracula got his from).

Yes! All those cloven hooves had to go somewhere.

I wonder whether there's a distinction to be made though between having animal ears (which tend after all to be pointier than human ones) and having ears that lack fur but are pointy nonetheless?

I think so; the former are now much less common in representations of elves or fairies, although they're doing fine in manga, anime, and generalized geek culture. I wonder if that was one of the conventions that changed over during the nineteenth century.

(I suspect Dracula's ears are also pointed because they're animalistic, wolfish. His eyes reflect red, inhumanly.)

I'd love to know whether the Chamberlain's Men took the goat-footed road for Puck.

How much information do we have on the costuming? This is pretty heavily out of my field.

I'd simply not taken in that Kipling's was snub-nosed, by the way. That gives him quite a different vibe.

Much more Panlike, to me.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

How much information do we have on the costuming?

I don't think we have much. Henslowe's diary may give us a clue as to props. However, we do have Inigo Jones's sketches for Jonson's masque, Oberon (you'll need to scroll down a bit). No points to such ears as are on display - though I have to add that there are a few wings, apparently more for show than use.

[sovay]

However, we do have Inigo Jones's sketches for Jonson's masque, Oberon (you'll need to scroll down a bit).

Those are incredibly cool.

though I have to add that there are a few wings, apparently more for show than use.

Fair enough. I was blaming the Victorians for the butterfly-winged convention, but maybe they were just lifting it from Cupid and Psyche.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Wings are another can of worms!

[sovay]

Wings are another can of worms!

I'm pretty much blaming the Victorians straight-up for that one.

[edit] The fairies in the Darwin children's "The Fairies of the Mountain" (c. 1860) have wings. I didn't read it for research, but there they were.

[nineweaving.livejournal.com]

The earliest illustrations that I've seen of Shakespeare's faerie plays don't show elves with pointed ears. Like this one, Thomas Stothard's Oberon and Titania (1806).



For that matter, Holinshed's Weird Sisters are not hags but sibyls.

Nine

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

True, that. I just had a look at Jones's sketches for Oberon, too, and the ears there appear wonderfully round. Drayton's "Nimphidia" makes no mention of ears at all.

[nineweaving.livejournal.com]

Ah. Here's a Puck "after Sir Joshua Reynolds" with amazingly pointy ears. Very much in the satyr mode. Late 18th century.



Nine

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Indeed, I think you may have found the missing link between satyrs and elves. Call the Fortean Times!

[harvey-rrit.livejournal.com]

I always supposed it was something to do with improved hearing, possibly focusing noises from overhead (dragons?), but it may just be a minor erogenous zone, like detached earlobes.

[artkouros.livejournal.com]

Because most mammals have pointy ears, and elves go back to the early nature deities.

WARNING: DOWNER

[jenny-islander.livejournal.com]

While pointed ears appear to have been the goat-ears of the satyr and tiny size goes back at least as far as Shakespeare, elfin features (pointed, drawn-out, unearthly) have a much more recent origin.

When Queen Victoria was a little girl, it was possible to see in London a little person billed as the Sicilian Fairy, exhibited by a man calling himself Doctor Gilligan. Only 19 inches tall, the Sicilian Fairy may have been Italian or Irish--she knew enough English to hold a conversation--and caused quite a stir in her old-fashioned costume with its Elizabethan ruff. Many wealthy people paid to visit her and paid the premium required in order to handle her like a doll. She dropped dead of "consumption" (almost certainly tuberculosis) while working.

The contradictory but in any case awful facts of her life only came out later. Her parents appear to have been working-class musicians, again either Italian or Irish, and they had entrusted her to Doctor (sic!) Gilligan with the understanding that he would take her to a better climate for her failing lungs. Instead he camped out in London and wrung as much money out of her as he could. She may have been nine years old; she may have been as young as three. Her father appeared after her death and pleaded to be allowed to bury his daughter decently, but her body had been sold by then and the anatomist who had bought it had him escorted from the premises. Her skeleton is still on exhibit.

I cite the above from my memory of a book about the lives of human sideshow exhibits whose title I unfortunately do not recall, with help from a potted biography at primordial dwarfism dot com. Pictures of little Caroline in her working costume are online, but only on sites that are still treating her as a freak,* so I won't link to them. But you know how some Victorian painters were the first to portray fairies with (ETA big eyes and) those long, pointed faces, with the lower half projecting outwards and downwards much more than is common (ETA: and those little delicate chins)? That's a form of primordial dwarfism** called Seckel Syndrome.** That's Caroline Crachami.


*Nitwits of today still burble on about "Sicilian Fairy Magic" and other exoticist woo.

**Don't Google these with image search unless you have a very strong stomach. Caroline Crachami was at one end of a spectrum that goes to some awful places.

Re: WARNING: DOWNER

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

I don't have a strong stomach at all, so I will refrain from Googling, but I'm grateful for the information. That's a very interesting line of enquiry, and I'm wondering too whether it may not lie behind some changeling stories. (And I feel very sorry for the children involved if so.)

Re: WARNING: DOWNER

[jenny-islander.livejournal.com]

Here's that portrait of Caroline Crachami in her exhibition costume I was talking about. This is at Find A Grave, without the freak-show talk.

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=pv&GRid=15057751

Re: WARNING: DOWNER

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Wow. I wonder why they dressed her like that? To make her seem even more alien, presumably.

Re: WARNING: DOWNER

[jenny-islander.livejournal.com]

I thought perhaps Gilligan was trying to make her seem Elizabethan, therefore Shakespearean, therefore Queen Mab-ish, by putting her in a ruff--but actually she's wearing a young lady's dress, perhaps not quite on the cutting edge of fashion. Here is a Mademoiselle Gonin, painted by Jean Ingres, wearing something almost identical three years before Catherine Crachami died:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ingres_Mademoiselle_Jeanne_Suzanne_Catherine_Gonin.jpg