King Balta Sheave and Peter

Credit to William Tychonievich for catching the potential connection between Balta Sheave in my last post and King Sheave, mentioned in Tolkien's Notion Club Papers.  I hadn't noticed this.  So, this post has just quick, early reactions and observations regarding this connection.

There is a poem regarding King Sheave in the NCP.  I had forgotten about it, actually, but went back to look into it after William left his comment.  Here is the opening of the poem (which is recounted by Lowdham as he and Jeremy are giving a report of their journey after the great storm in which they began adopting old character identities and dialogues from Numenor):

In days of yore out of deep Ocean to the Longobards, in the

land dwelling that of old they held in the isles of the North,

a ship came sailing, shining-timbered, without oar or mast,

eastward floating. The sun behind it sinking westward with

flame kindled the fallow water. Wind was wakened. Over the

world's margin clouds grey-helmed climbed slowly up, wings

unfolding wide and looming, as mighty eagles moving onward

to eastern Earth, omens bearing.

Men there marvelled, in the mist standing of the dark islands

in the deeps of time: laughter they knew not, light nor wisdom;

shadow was upon them, and sheer mountains stalked behind

them, stern and lifeless, evil-haunted. The East was dark.

First off, you will find in this opening a fairly decent parallel or similar imagery with a dream that William recently had about Lord Byron riding a motorcycle.  Here is how William describes his dream:

My dreams of last night ended with this brief scene: Lord Byron, dressed in the clothing of his era, with a black cape about his shoulders, was standing astride a black Yamaha crotch rocket with a long bridge ahead of him. Behind him, the late afternoon sun was shining. Before him, dark storm clouds gathered. He stood there for a few moments, gazing into the distance as if sizing up the situation. Then he started the engine, hunched forward in the seat, and sped off over the bridge and into the storm.

I think the similarities are striking.  In both the dream and the poem, you have a person going from the West to the East, alone.  In Sheave's case, it was on a boat.  Byron preferred his Yamaha motorcycle.  As they travel the East (or prepare to), the sun is described shining low behind them in the West.  And ahead, it is a storm and darkness that both ride into.

What I am prepared to explore is that the Lord Byron of William's dream is meant to symbolize the same Being that Sheave was meant to represent, I think:  The Apostle Peter and his coming to Middle-earth (our Earth) many years ago as an apostle of Jesus.  He would have come from Tirion out West, where he would have been with Jesus, and travelled to Middle-earth - the storm - following Jesus' resurrection where he would have brought light and performed miracles that would later be attributed to Jesus himself in the New Testament, but which I think probably have more to do with Peter in many instances.  The King Sheave poem in NCP goes on to describe the miracles and gifts that Sheave brought to the people.

My theory, to restate, is that we know of Jesus and his works on this Earth, not because Jesus actually came here (I don't think he did), but because he sent Peter, who taught people on this Earth about Jesus.  And didn't just teach them, but performed miracles, and whose life may have become the basis for many stories we think refer to Jesus, but may have been about Peter instead.

In my previous post, I had already tied the Being of Balta to Peter-Marsh-Gim Githil-Pharazon.  Interestingly, I had specifically called out that Balta was short for Balthazar, one of the Three Kings of Nativity tradition who is typically represented as Black.  With this as a reference, notice the color imagery of Lord Byron in William's dream:  He is dressed in Black (with a black cape) and he is riding a Black motorcycle.

I also mentioned that Balta was associated with a cow or calf that would be led up to the stall, but also probably assist in leading other 'cattle' to a place of rest off of this world.  The name Byron, as mentioned elsewhere, means "Place of the cowsheds" and is given to those who work with cattle.

In my original look into Balta Sheave, I didn't catch that Sheave could also be part of the name of this Being, but based on William's comment, and other connections, my guess is this is a direct reference to King Sheave, and that Balta Sheave might be considered both part of a name.

There are a few more interesting connections.  I only covered one 'paragraph' of the words mentioning Balta Sheave in my earlier post, and left the other stuff from that day alone.

In that very next paragraph, I mention 3 names were given, but I only remembered the last one, which went "Lawgiver:  Good cornbread".

This is pretty funny in light of the King Sheave name if this is all correct and this is actually what is referred to.  In Tolkien's King Sheave poem, Sheave is associated both with being a lawgiver (he renewed long forgotten laws, and sat as a king exercising justice) and corn, since the sheaf he arrived with was actually a corn sheaf.  This detail, as Tolkien was well aware, maps to the scandinavian legend of Sceafa, who was a 'Corn-God" and Sheave was referenced directly as such in writings Christopher gathered in The Lost Road.

So, I think this lawgiver mentioned in my words is still referring to Sheave, and this still seems to map to the Three Kings, since three Beings were mentioned and I only caught the last name on the list.  Balthazar the Black King is traditionally listed last among the three kings.  And he will, apparently in our story, be gathered back last (of the Fathers) since the First will be Last, literally.

 There are some other dreams I recorded in that June 2020 timeframe, one of which actually involved a motorcycle rider.  Interestingly, it came directly after a dream involving Walter White, the main (and bald) character from Breaking Bad (I don't remember any of this, by the way, I am just looking at what I typed in the word document - I wish I had more details).  I dreamed about Walter White, and then just wrote one sentence that said:  "I had a dream where someone was talking about a motorcycle rider liking to ride 130 mph".

At the time, I thought the number 130 might be a clue, so I looked up D&C 130, which may or may not be what was being referred to.  I don't know.  I don't have any other ideas for the why 130 would be important, if it is.

Oh, one other thing I noticed.  In my previous post, I indicated that Balta in Elvish could mean "Might".  That word is used to describe Sheave in Tolkien's poem in a couple instances, and the poem itself ends with a reference to "Sheave the mighty":

Far sprang his fame over fallow water; through Northern lands the renown echoed of the shining king, Sheave the mighty.

In a very real way, Balta Sheave could potentially be translated as Mighty Sheave.

There is something here, I think.  My gut tells me that there is a connection with Sheave, Peter, Lord Byron, and Gim Githil, in that they all represent the same Being.  But we will see if that is the case.