The true inspiration behind Saruman?
A lone imperious necromancer, dwelling in a stark valley’s forbidding tower, terrorizing the local Scots Reiver horse lords, served by a terrifying orcish goblin named ‘Redcap Sly’, who kept his jaunty bonnet scarlet with the blood of his master’s many enemies.
Folklorist William Henderson (1813-1891) described the Redcap thusly: “Redcap, Redcomb, or Bloody Cap, is a sprite of another sort from the friendly Brownie. He is cruel and malignant of mood, and resides in spots which were once the scene of tyranny — such as Border castles, towers, and peelhouses. He is depicted as a short thickset old man, with long prominent teeth, skinny fingers armed with talons like eagles, large eyes of a fiery-red colour, grisly hair streaming down his shoulders, iron boots, a pikestaff in his left hand, and a red cap on his head. When benighted or shelterless travellers take refuge in his haunts, he flings huge stones at them; nay, unless he is much maligned, he murders them outright, and catches their blood in his cap, which thus acquires its crimson hue.
“This ill-conditioned goblin may, however, be driven away by repeating Scripture words, or holding up the Cross; he will then yell dismally, or vanish in a flame of fire, leaving behind him a large tooth on the spot where he was last seen.”
Tolkien’s evil Istari (wizard) Saruman? No, the real-life Lord William de Soulis/Soules aka ‘Terrible William’ or ‘Bad Lord Soulis’.
Although ‘real-life’ might be stretching it a tad, as Borders Scots legends have heavily fictionalized his life to the point where it bears little resemblance to the known and half-known facts, such as they are.
Eulogiser of all things Scotch, Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832) says this of Lord Soules: “He is represented as a cruel tyrant and sorcerer; constantly employed in oppressing his vassals, harassing his neighbours, and fortifying his castle of Hermitage against the king of Scotland; for which purpose he employed all means, human and infernal: invoking the fiends, by his incantations, and forcing his vassals to drag materials, like beasts of burden. Tradition proceeds to relate, that the Scottish king, irritated by reiterated complaints, peevishly exclaimed to the petitioners, “Boil him, if you please, but let me hear no more of him.”
“Satisfied with this answer, they proceeded with the utmost haste to execute the commission; which they accomplished, by boiling him alive on the Nine-stane Rig, in a cauldron, said to have been long preserved at Skelf-hill, a hamlet betwixt Hawick and the Hermitage. Messengers, it is said, were immediately dispatched by the king, to prevent the effects of such a hasty declaration; but they only arrived in time to witness the conclusion of the ceremony. The castle of Hermitage, unable to support the load of iniquity, which had been long accumulating within its walls, is supposed to have partly sunk beneath the ground; and its ruins are still regarded by the peasants with peculiar aversion and terror. The door of the chamber, where Lord Soulis is said to have held his conferences with the evil spirits, is supposed to be opened once in seven years, by that dæmon, to which, when he left the castle, never to return, he committed the keys, by throwing them over his left shoulder, and desiring it to keep them till his return. Into this chamber, which is really the dungeon of the castle, the peasant is afraid to look; for such is the active malignity of its inmate, that a willow, inserted at the chinks of the door, is found peeled, or stripped of its bark, when drawn back.”
Saruman, of course, was murdered by his aggrieved cannibalistic sidekick Gríma Wormtongue in the Return of the King chapter The Scouring of the Shire; in the Peter Jackson movies, he was knocked off earlier in the deleted scene below.
In the legend, Soulis's tenantry, having suffered long years of unbearable cruelty, captured him, warding off the Redcap with Christian verse and crucifixes, and at the megalithic Ninestane Rig stone circle, encased the sorcerer in lead and boiled him to death.
Perrott's Folly, near Chad Valley, Birmingham, Great Britain; the inspiration for Saruman’s tower of Orthanc, one of the Two Towers in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. Tolkien spent his teenage years in nearby Stirling Road and Duchess Place. Perrott's Folly/ Monument, was constructed in 1758 by John Perrott as a folly or hunting lodge, converted to a weather observatory by Follet Osler in 1884 and later used by the Birmingham & Midland Institute and Birmingham University until 1979.
The other tower is at prosaic Edgbaston Waterworks and is believed to have been the basis for the mountain-side city of Minas Tirith. Yeah, I get it, if you look at the top of the model below. Kinda.
Model of Minas Tirith:
John Leyden (1775 – 1811), the Scotch folklorist and orientalist composed the lay Lord Soulis (18-6) that Scott later drew on, the highlights of the lengthy ode being:
“Lord Soulis he sat in Hermitage castle, And beside him Old Redcap sly;— “Now, tell me, thou sprite, who art meikle of might, “The death that I must die?” “While thou shalt bear a charmed life, “And hold that life of me, “‘Gainst lance and arrow, sword and knife, “I shall thy warrant be. “Nor forged steel, nor hempen band, “Shall e’er thy limbs confine, “Till threefold ropes, of sifted sand, “Around thy body twine. “If danger press fast, knock thrice on the chest, “With rusty padlocks bound; “Turn away your eyes, when the lid shall rise, “And listen to the sound.”
The ‘Real’ Lord Soules
In history, the real William de Soulis, Lord of Liddesdale, changed sides between the English and the Scots, and was eventually imprisoned at Dumbarton at the order of King Robert of Scotland (Robert the Bruce), dying there by 1321... in mysterious circumstances.
When young, William was received into the service of King Edward I of England in 1304. After the victory of Robert the Bruce’s cause at the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314, he switched to the Scottish side. In 1320 he was involved in a conspiracy against Robert along with Sir David, Lord of Brechin. Whilst some say he desired the Scottish throne for himself, others said he wanted to place Edward Balliol on the Scottish throne. Soulis was arrested at Berwick and was arraigned before a specially convened session of parliament at Scone on 4 August 1320.
Confessing his treason, the ‘Black Parliament’ found Soulis guilty, forfeiting his title, and sentencing him to life imprisonment in Dumbarton Castle. William’s compatriots weren’t so lucky, executed by being drawn behind horses, hanged, and then beheaded. William was the last of the de Soules family to hold the title Lord of Liddesdale.
Today you can visit Soules’ Hermitage Castle care of Historic Scotland; haunted by both Redcap Sly, and later by Mary, Queen of Scots who married a later laird, James Hepburn, 4th Earl of Bothwell.
A movie to enjoy with a vaguely similar theme, 1989’s Warlock:
The Bell Inn Tolkien connection
Incidentally, I was recently in the Cotswolds, an English region famous for its links with elves, witches and portals to other other worlds. In Moreton-in-Marsh, The Bell Inn claims to have inspired Tolkien’s Prancing Pony Inn, where Strider, the Black Riders, landlord Barliman Butterbur and Mr Underhill (and party) hung out in The Fellowship Of The Ring (1954).
My unofficial spoof sequel to LOTR: THE DARK SECRET OF BARLIMAN BUTTBUR
Stephen Arnell’s novel THE GREAT ONE is available now on Amazon Kindle:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Great-One-Secret-Memoirs-Pompey-ebook/dp/B0BNLTB2G7
Excerpt
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