Can Men Use Magic in Middle-earth?

Q: Can Men Use Magic in Middle-earth?

ANSWER: Yes, men can (and do) use magic in Middle-earth. There have been many fan discussions about this topic but it seems to never be fully answered to everyone’s satisfaction. That is because people inevitably draw in fragments of texts, unsent letters, incomplete essays, and other resources to argue whatever points they favor.

If you just look at the narrative of The Lord of the Rings, however, you can find examples of men using spells, creating magical artifacts, making predictions, etc. In other words, everything that Elves and Dwarves can do which is deemed “magical” is also done by Men.

The most obvious examples of man-based magic are the barrow-blades Tom Bombadil gives to Frodo and his companions, which Aragorn recognizes as “work of Westernesse, wound about with spells for the bane of Mordor.” There are other passages throughout the story that can be used to answer this question (do men use magic in Middle-earth) but this is essentially definitive.

You can also find examples of “man magic” in The Hobbit, such as Beorn’s “skin-changing” and Bard’s inherited ability to understand the speech of the Thrush.

We can infer several things from the various external texts J.R.R. Tolkien composed at various times in his life that attempted to explain how magic was allocated in his imaginary world but he ultimately realized that he had already established in published stories that men could indeed use magic, so he compromised by suggesting that their innate abilities were less than those of Elves (and Dwarves).

The topic requires no more analysis than this because any attempt to prove that men in Middle-earth cannot use magic ultimately fails to explain away what Tolkien published in his lifetime.

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Have you read our other Tolkien and Middle-earth Questions and Answers articles?

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