“ ‘What are they wanted for?’ asked several voices. ‘Why alive?  Do they give good sport?’

‘No!  I heard that one of them has got something, something that’s wanted for the War, some Elvish plot or other.’ “ (The Two Towers, Book  Three, Chapter 3, “The Uruk-hai”)

As ever, dear readers, welcome.

 Pippin and Merry are in a bad spot.  After Boromir’s death,

they have been dragged off by the Orcs who killed him.

The Orc leaders, Ugluk, of Isengard, and Grishnakh, of Mordor, had been given orders to capture Hobbits, but the orders are rather vague, which is not surprising, considering who gave them and their ultimate purpose.  On the one hand, there is Saruman,

who we know from his attempt at corrupting Gandalf is aware that the Ring exists and is associated with the Shire. (The Felllowship of the Ring, Book Two, Chapter 2, “The Council of Elrond).

On the other is the original owner of the Ring,

who has learned from a tortured Gollum of the name Baggins, also associated with the Shire,

and has dispatched not only a band of Orcs to find Hobbits, under Grishnakh, but also several of “the apple of the Great Eye”, as Grishnakh puts it, the Nazgul.

(a wonderfully atmospheric depiction by Anato Finnstark)

Each of these two, Saruman and Sauron, is determined to obtain the Ring for himself, but also very cautious about the kind of thinking expressed by one of the anonymous Orc voices quoted above: 

“ ‘Is that all you know?  Why don’t we search them and find out?  We might find something that we could use ourselves.’ “

Grishnakh’s orders, as he states them, reflect Sauron’s caution:  “The prisoners are NOT to be searched or plundered…”  And Ugluk’s are, basically, the same:  “Alive and as captured, no spoiling.”

With such lack of specificity even for those in charge of the operation, it’s not surprising that mostly what the ordinary Orc soldiers know can be summed up in the title of this posting, scuttlebutt, originally a naval term, for the gossip which sailors spread when they spent time around the ship’s water barrel, a butt being an old name for a big wooden container for liquids.

It’s a given that JRRT’s reading influenced his writing (we only have to think about how much of Beowulf appears in The Hobbit).  It’s also true that his life on the Western Front, brief as it was (June to October, 1916),

also had its influence and here, in this Orcish scuttlebutt, we have a good example, which is really as much derived from  his experience of the War in general as from his overseas service. 

Those in charge of waging the War were, from early on—and this was true for both sides—very aware of the influence of the media upon people’s opinions.  Although there was no internet yet, or television, or radio, there was still the press–books, magazines, and, most of all, newspapers–as well as film, though still in its infancy.   A hit movie of 1916, in fact, was the “documentary” (the British War Office was behind it, so it was hardly likely to be impartial) The Battle of the Somme.

(You can see this film for yourself here:  https://archive.org/details/TheBattleOfTheSomme1916Film  This comes from the Internet Archive, which has a large collection of silent films, all for free and is one of the best cultural resources on the planet, as far as I’m concerned.)

Censorship was practiced worldwide, and sometimes extremely aggressively:  penalties for anything from conveying government-controlled information to simply voicing opposition to the War could be severe.  And such censorship was comprehensive:

“Mail, telegrams, pamphlets and books, news and newspapers, plays, photographs, films, and speech were all subject to censorship – or restrictions – during the First World War.”

This is from a website called “JanetPanic” and is describing the situation in the US, but it sums up just how far governments, both of the Allies and the Central Powers, were willing to go both to protect not only militarily sensitive information, but also their citizens’ perception of what was going on at the Front, wherever that Front happened to be.

At the Front, soldiers in the British Army were forbidden to keep diaries (the public explanation being that, if captured, they might convey all sorts of military information to the enemy, but, the unspoken, which was also true, was that conditions in the trenches were so horrendous

that governments preferred to keep the public from knowing too much about day-to-day life in what many thought was Hell—or beyond).   Private cameras were forbidden by March, 1915 and those found taking pictures were to be arrested.  (See this very interesting article:  https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/173470 )

Soldiers’ mail was censored, beginning by their own officers (JRRT developed a private code to be used with Edith so that she might learn at least a little more),

 but, to ease the minds of those at home, this postcard was developed—a little piece of closely-monitored truth:

As well, informers were encouraged—just look at the sixth “DON’T” in this poster’s list—

And we can hear an echo of this in Grishnakh’s words to Ugluk:

“You have spoken more than enough, Ugluk…I wonder how they would like it in Lugburz.  They might think that Ugluk’s shoulders needed relieving of a swollen head.  They might ask where his strange ideas came from.  Did they come from Saruman, perhaps?  Who does he think he is, setting up on his own with his filthy white badges?  They might agree with me, with Grishnakh their trusted messenger; and I Grishnakh say this:  Saruman is a fool, and a dirty treacherous fool.  But the Great Eye is on him.”

When information about the real situation is closely guarded, rumor—scuttlebutt—is what soldiers—Tommies or Orcs—have to go on and, with heavy censorship, it would have been easy for JRRT, like his Orcs, to feel that the Great Eye was upon him, as well.

Thanks, as ever, for reading,

Stay well,

If you know anything about the Ring, do as this poster suggests—

And know as well that—and this, I hope, is no secret—there’s always

MTCIDC

O

ps

(Here’s a very good introductory article on the subject of censorship in the Great War:  https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/censorship  This is from the extremely useful  “1914-1918-Online:   International Encyclopedia of the First World War”.)

Welcome, as always, dear readers.

I’ve just finished teaching The Odyssey once more and, because it’s such a complex work (after all, it’s made up of a number of songs by a number of singers over generations, all then put together as a single poem in the Hellenistic world), that I always find new things to think about.

This time, I began with a recurring difficulty for Odysseus.

In the 19 years he’s been away from home, he’s had no end of other difficulties, beginning with the demand by Agamemnon that he join the expedition against Troy.

He tried to dodge that by pretending to be mad, plowing the beach, but that attempt was scuttled by someone almost as clever as he, Palamedes, who placed the infant Telemachos on the beach in front of the plow and, when Odysseus swerved to avoid him, Odysseus, clearly sane, was then forced to join the other Greeks.

After ten years and the final fall of Troy,

Odysseus’ problems had just begun, including such as the Lotos-eaters (although he himself did not indulge),

a very large humanoid with a taste for human flesh,

almost becoming pork luncheon meat,

visiting the dead in the Otherworld,

avoiding Sirens (while still listening to them),

and the twin dangers of snaky Scylla and shaky Charybdis,

as well as being shipwrecked not once, but twice.

Even when he reaches home, he will have to confront over 100 suitors, all pursuing his wife.

But, besides those problems, he has another:  proving to people that he is who he says he is.  

This shouldn’t be surprising, of course.  After all, he’s been gone almost 20 years, so he’s a little like Washington Irving’s Rip van Winkle,    

who fell into a deep sleep after drinking heavily during a game of bowls with some strange little men

and woke up 20 years later, only to find that the world had changed significantly, from the days of King George to those of George Washington.  People in his village think that he’s strange, if not mad, and his sanity is no longer doubted only when two elderly locals identify him.                         

(If you don’t know this story, here’s Arthur Rackham’s beautifully-illustrated version from 1905 for you:  https://archive.org/details/ripvanwinkle00irvirich or, if you’d prefer, here’s N.C. Wyeth’s equally beautiful 1921 edition:   https://archive.org/details/ripvanwinkle00irvi   I can’t resist adding this, which is the frontispiece to the Wyeth.)

For Odysseus, now back on his home island, and because he is potentially in great danger from those suitors, even if he has the goddess Athena on his side,

just revealing his identity is tricky, but proving it depends mainly upon two things:  his ability to remember the past and to encourage others to do the same, and a deep scar he had received as a young man in a boar hunt with his grandfather, Autolycus.

For his wife, Penelope, there is one more proof:  a very special bed he once made for them, which included part of an olive tree as a bedpost.

(This is someone’s clever modern reconstruction.)

Although he hasn’t been asleep or away from home for twenty years, Aragorn

(An Alan Lee illustration, at the moment when Eowyn gives Aragorn what’s called a “stirrup cup”.)

 would appear to have a similar problem of identification, but with a twist.  Unlike Rip van Winkle, who is a nobody, and more like Odysseus, who is the headman of Ithaka, if he is really who he says he is, he has a claim to the throne of Gondor, which has been vacant for 969 years.  But how to prove that?

He has Gandalf’s backing, of course,

(I would be glad to credit the author of this very good portrait, but the signature is just too small to read, unfortunately!)

who knows his—and his people’s—history, as he says to Frodo:

“ ‘But there are few left in Middle-earth like Aragorn son of Arathorn.  The race of the Kings from over the Sea is nearly at an end.  It may be that this War of the Ring will be their last adventure.’

‘Do you really mean that Strider is one of the people of the old Kings?’ said Frodo in wonder.  ‘I thought they had all vanished long ago.  I thought he was only a Ranger.’

‘Only a Ranger!’ cried Gandalf.  ‘My dear Frodo, that is just what the Rangers are:  the last remnant in the North of the great people, the Men of the West.’ “ (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book Two, Chapter 1, “Many Meetings”)

Gandalf’s word alone would never be enough, however, as the bitter words of Denethor much later in the story—though clearly poisoned by Sauron through the palantir—show us:

“Do I not know thee, Mithrandir?  Thy hope is to rule in my stead, to stand behind every throne, north, south, or west.  I have read thy mind and its policies…With the left hand thou wouldst use me for a while as a shield against Mordor, and with the right bring up this Ranger of the North to supplant me.” (The Return of the King, Book Five, Chapter 7, “The Pyre of Denethor”)

Aragorn, however, has a series of other proofs at hand.

First, he has the sword of Elendil, Narsil, broken under him when he was killed at the siege of the Barad-dur,

and which is the subject of a kind of prophecy made in a dream more than once to Faramir and once to Boromir, in which “I heard a voice, remote but clear, crying:

‘Seek for the Sword that was broken:

 In Imladris it dwells;

There shall be counsels taken

 Stronger than Morgul-spells.

There shall be shown a token

 That Doom is near at hand,

For Isildur’s Bane shall waken,

 And the Halfling forth shall stand.’ “

(The Fellowship of the Ring, Book Two, Chapter 2, “The Council of Elrond”)

Aragorn then immediately confirms the first half of this prophecy:

“ ‘And here in the house of Elrond more shall be made clear to you,’ said Aragorn, standing up.  He cast his sword upon the table that stood before Elrond, and the blade was in two pieces.  ‘Here is the Sword that was Broken!’ he said.

‘And who are you, and what have you to do with Minas Tirith?’ asked Boromir, looking in wonder at the lean face of the Ranger in his weather-stained cloak.

‘He is Aragorn son of Arathorn,’ said Elrond; ‘and he is descended through many fathers from Isildur Elendil’s son of Minas Ithil…’ “

The second proof lies in his claim on the palantir tossed from Orthanc

by Grima:

“ ‘You have looked in that accursed stone of wizardry!’ exclaimed Gimli with fear and astonishment in his face…

‘You forget to whom you speak,’ said Aragorn sternly, and his eyes glinted…’Nay, my friends, I am the lawful master of the Stone, and I had both the right and strength to use it…’ (The Return of the King, Book Five, Chapter 2, “The Passing of the Grey Company”)

The third proof is derived from the first and second.  When Aragorn used the palantir to contact Sauron, he never spoke, but:

“ ‘And he beheld me.  Yes, Master Gimli, he saw me, but in other guise than you see me here…To know that I lived and walked the earth was a blow to his heart, I deem; for he knew it not till now. ..Sauron had not forgotten Isildur and the sword of Elendil.  Now in the very hour of his great designs the heir of Isildur and the Sword are revealed; for I showed the blade re-forged to him.  He is not so mighty yet that he is above fear; nay, doubt ever gnaws him.’ “

And by Sauron’s reaction, it would seem that Aragorn’s claim to be the rightful king is confirmed:  by the enemy.

The fourth proof is also confirmed by others.  In one of the grimmest chapters, for me, of the whole story, Aragorn and his company ride The Paths of the Dead and, deep in the mountain, Aragorn summons the Oath-Breakers, who had deserted Isildur and were cursed by him never to find peace until called upon once more to fulfill their oath.  Aragorn claims their aid, saying:

 “ ‘The hour is come at last.  Now I go to Pelargir upon Anduin, and ye shall come after me.  And when all this land is clean of the servants of Sauron, I will hold the oath fulfilled, and ye shall have peace and depart for ever.  For I am Elessar, Isildur’s heir of Gondor.’ “

The dead follow him, sweeping down upon the fleet of the Corsairs, and, again, that they do so, confirms once more Aragorn’s claim.

There may be other details throughout the text I haven’t thought of—there often are!—but I want to conclude with perhaps the gentlest proof. 

In the chapter entitled “The Houses of Healing”, Faramir, Eowyn, and Merry all lie at the point of death—and all are saved by Aragorn, and here is a final confirmation as Gandalf says:

“ ‘Let us enter!  For it is only in the coming of Aragorn that any hope remains for the sick that lie in the House.  Thus spake Ioreth, wise-woman of Gondor:  “The hands of the king are the hands of a healer, and so shall the rightful king be known.” ‘ “ (The Return of the King, Book Five, Chapter 8, “The Houses of Healing”)

Proof enough for me.

Thanks for reading, as ever.

Stay well,

Let us all hope for healing in this troubled time,

And know that, as always, there’s

MTCIDC

O

As always, dear readers, welcome.

More than once, people have likened Mordor to the Black Country of central England,

or perhaps even to the blighted landscape of the Western Front,

but could we extend that even farther west, to the long approach by which Frodo and Sam, led by Gollum, make their way towards Minas Morgul?

Faramir, who has captured Frodo and Sam

while setting an ambush for a column of Sauron’s allies, including their oliphaunts,

 is now trying to warn Frodo both from traveling with Gollum and from going that route to Mordor as Gollum has proposed, saying,

“The valley of Minas Morgul passed into evil very long ago, and it was a menace and a dread while the banished Enemy dwelt yet far away, and Ithilien was still for the most part in our keeping.  As you know, that city was once a strong place, proud and fair, Minas Ithil, the twin sister of our own city.  But it was taken by fell men whom the Enemy in his first strength had dominated, and who wandered homeless and masterless after his fall…After his going they took Minas Ithil and dwelt there, and they filled it, and all the valley about, with decay:  it seemed empty and was not so, for a shapeless fear lived within the ruined walls.”  (The Two Towers, Book Four, Chapter 6, “The Forbidden Pool”)

Rereading this, then, the first image which came to my mind was not this—

but this—

and what the new Second Lieutenant Tolkien

must have seen when he arrived in the trenches

as a signals officer

in June, 1916.

At first, it would simply have been the view beyond the trenches, which was grim:  acres (hectares) of barbed wire would block seeing much farther than the lip of the entrenchment.

And, because enemy snipers with specialized rifles were just waiting for a soldier to poke his head up, it wasn’t really a good idea to do that anyway.

(There’s even a mocking song on the subject from 1918, a British soldier suggesting to his enemy counterpart that keeping your head down was the only way to survive.  This is the chorus:

“Late last night in the pale moon light
I saw you, I saw you!
You were fixing your barb’d wire
When we opened up – rapid fire!
If you want to see your Vater in the Vaterland
Keep your head down Fritzie boy
Keep your Head down Fritzie Boy!”

(You can hear a period performance here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2eSiTvVlEs )

As is true with many Great War soldiers’ songs, it’s a parody of a 1913 hit “Hold Your Hand Out, Naughty Boy”)

(And here’s the original:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtWC5L1sXt8 )

Although those trenches were grim,

the world beyond those trenches, could JRRT have seen it—and he would have seen a little of it as his unit moved forward during the vast battle called “the Somme”–was an even bleaker one.  Several years of war and the pounding of big guns, both German

and British

had destroyed trees,

houses,

churches,

whole villages

and even towns.

The ruined landscape between the Allied and German trenches was commonly called “No Man’s Land”, rather like a withered version of the Ithilien in which Faramir fights his war, but it was actually a sort of everyman’s land as, once darkness fell, one might see soldiers of both sides at various tasks.

All of that barbed wire needed replacement and extension and wiring parties (a duty soldiers hated as, in the dark, they were as likely to be shot at by their own side as by the enemy) slipped out to work on their entanglements.

Then there were always patrols—

small groups whose job it was to prevent the enemy from slipping across the broken ground to spy or even to make minor attacks, called “trench raids”,

meant both to keep the other side nervous and to gather information, through prisoners or captured documents or even from what might seem like a minor item, like the badge from a cap.

Such badges, like this one, could carry distinctive regimental emblems, providing the raiders with a sense of what regiment was facing them and thus adding to the more general picture of enemy movements on their own side of No Man’s Land.  (This is, in fact, the badge of JRRT’s own regiment, the Lancashire Fusiliers.)

It’s easy, then, to imagine Faramir and his men in their camouflage suddenly appearing here:

“Four tall Men stood there.  Two had spears in their hands with broad bright heads.  Two had great bows, almost of their own height, and great quivers of long green-feathered arrows.  All had swords at their sides, and were clad in green and brown of varied hues, as if the better to walk unseen in the glades of Ithilien.  Green gauntlets covered their hands, and their faces were hooded and masked with green, except for their eyes, which were very keen and bright.”  (

And, when the Germans withdrew to a second position, in 1917, the “Hindenburg Line”, they left behind them much more destruction, even cutting down fruit trees to deny them to the Allies.

As Frodo and Sam move eastward, I can imagine them walking through that same landscape

until they came to this—

at the crossroads—

north to the Morannon, south to Harad, west to Minas Tirith through ruined Osgiliath, east to Mordor—where they found:

“The brief glow fell upon a huge sitting figure, still and solemn as the great stone kings of Argonath.  The years had gnawed it, and violent hands had maimed it.  Its head was gone, and in its place was set in mockery a round rough-hewn stone, rudely painted by savage hands in the likeness of a grinning face with one large red eye in the midst of its forehead.  Upon its knees and mighty chair, and all about the pedestal, were idle scrawls mixed with the foul symbols that the maggot-folk of Mordor used.” (The Two Towers, Book Four, Chapter 7, “Journey to the Cross-Roads”)

If Tolkien could visit the same area over which both sides struggled in the summer of 1916, instead of endless blight—

he would see, among the overgrown trenches,

and the still-discovered remains of century-old bombardments,

this—

and perhaps, in hopes of a world more like the latter, he would add to that description of the maimed king:

“Suddenly, caught by the level beams, Frodo saw the old king’s head:  it was lying rolled away by the roadside.  ‘Look, Sam!’ he cried, startled into speech.  ‘Look!  The king has got a crown again!’

The eyes were hollow and the carven beard was broken, but above the high stern forehead there was a coronal of silver and gold.  A trailing plant with flowers like small white stars had bound itself across the brows as if in reverence for the fallen king, and in the crevices of his stony hair yellow stonecrop gleamed.

‘They cannot conquer for ever!’ said Frodo.” (The Two Towers, Book Four, Chapter 7, “Journey to the Cross-Roads”)

Thanks, as always, for reading.

Stay well,

Mistrust guides with ulterior motives,

And know that, as ever, there’s

MTCIDC

O

As ever, dear readers, welcome.

I suspect that anyone who has spent any time with Tolkien has probably seen this passage:

“The ‘stories’ were made rather to provide a world for the languages than the reverse.  To me a name comes first and the story follows.” (letter to Houghton Mifflin, 30 June, 1955—with a rather complicated history—see Letters 219 for the quotation and 218 for an explanation)

As a rather sceptical person, I’ve always then looked at the extensive appendices to my copy of The Lord of the Rings,

which cover pages 1033-1138, and then at the many volumes subsequently edited and published by Christopher Tolkien,

and thought, “That’s an awful lot of ‘story’ for the bits and pieces of Elvish, Dwarfish, and even Black Speech, which are to be found there.”

And so I wondered if JRRT, for all of his language passion, hadn’t also a passion for world-creating and was somehow misrepresenting himself and his creativity.  As a young grown-up, he certainly once had large plans, as he explained in this 1951 letter to Milton Waldman:

“But once upon a time (my crest has long since fallen) I had a mind to make a body of more or less connected legend, ranging from the large and cosmogonic, to the level of romantic fairy-story, the lesser drawing splendour from the vast backcloths…” (Letters, 144)

We know that, as a child, he was given those “fairy-stories”, from books like Andrew Lang’s The Red Fairy Book (1890),

and it’s clear that he once even tried his hand at writing such a story:

“I first tried to write a story when I was about seven.  It was about a dragon.  I remember nothing about it except a philological fact.  My mother said nothing about the dragon, but pointed out that one could not say ‘a green great dragon’, but had to say ‘a great green dragon’.  I wondered why, and still do.  The fact that I remember this is possibly significant, as I do not think I ever tried to write a story again for many years…”  (letter of 7 June, 1955, to W.H. Auden, Letters, 214)

(This lovely beast is by “Deskridge”—that’s Daniel Eskridge–at Deviant Art—I couldn’t resist including it.  If you’d like to see more of his work, you can find it at: https://daniel-eskridge.pixels.com/featured/green-dragon-daniel-eskridge.html  )

When he took up story telling again, however, it was, by his own account “Say 1912 to 1913.”, when he was a student at Oxford.

(He’s easy to spot, isn’t he?  In the far back, clinging to that rather elderly vine.)

And, to my sceptical mind, the question was always, why?

After all, in contrast to JRRT’s one attempt at such things at seven, and then not again till his very late teens, early twenties, we have two literary families who began very early at world-building.

The first began in a rather bleak part of England in 1826

with a gift of wooden soldiers

by a priest father

to his son

and his three daughters.

The soldiers became characters in a place first called “Glasstown”, then the “Glasstown Confederacy” which was then extended by two of the four children, Branwell Bronte (1817-1848)

and his sister, Charlotte (1816-1855),

into the more complex world of “Angria”,

of which Charlotte has left us a series of short story accounts of some of its characters and events.

The two younger sisters, Anne (1820-1849)

and Emily (1818-1848)

were soon relegated to minor positions in this world and, in time, seceded, perhaps about 1834, creating their own world, Gondal.

(I found this recreation at the website of “Merricat Mulwray”, credited to “Bruce Poulsen”.  Here’s the website, should you like to read the attached essay:  https://merricatmulwray.com/2019/10/11/the-brontes-paracosm-gondal/ )

We appear to have much more about Angria, thanks to Charlotte, but some Gondal material survives, in bits and pieces, as well as in a series of poems by Emily, found in a manuscript and first printed in their original form in 1938.  (Some, heavily edited by Charlotte, had appeared earlier.)

The older children seem to have abandoned Angria with childhood, but Anne and Emily continued their creation into adulthood—here is a wonderful sketch, by Emily, of the two sisters at work in 1837.

Another literary pair, almost a century later, lived in a house in northern Ireland

which appears to have been piled high with books.  As one of a pair of children, C.S. Lewis (1898-1963)

described it in his autobiography, Surprised by Joy (1956:)

“There were books in the study, books in the drawing-room, books in the cloakroom, books (two deep) in the great bookcase on the landing, books in a bedroom, books piled as high as my shoulder in the cistern attic, books of all kinds reflecting every transient stage of my parents’ interests, books readable and unreadable, books suitable for children and books most emphatically not.” (quoted in Lewis and Lewis, Boxen, 348-349)

This was a world of rainy day reading, in a place where there were many rainy days, at a time when middle-class children like the Lewises,

were watched closely for signs of childhood illnesses and kept at home, just in case.  These two children, the older, Warren (1895-1973),

dubbed forever “Warnie” by his brother, and Clive, who, as a child renamed himself “Jack”, practically immured at times, read and read and began to evolve new worlds from what they found in books and their imaginations.  The initial result was Warnie’s “India” and Jack’s “Animal-Land”, which were then blended into the more comprehensive “Boxen”.  Characters and situations came from their reading and from the political world around them (this would have been in the years of rising international tension before the Great War of 1914-1918, in which both served, and when there was increasing debate over whether Ireland would have home rule, or continue to be governed from London) and the material eventually gathered and published in 1985

sometimes reads like a comic nightmare version of the sort of history from which Stephen Daedalus was trying to awaken in Ulysses—itself begun in 1907.   Perhaps one of my favorite characters combines a monarch at a time when virtually all of Europe was in the hands of royal families (many of them the descendants of Queen Victoria),

with a character from the world of Beatrix Potter,

to produce King Bunny.

(imagine his tam-o-shanter replaced with a crown)

Such childish creativity brings me back to that “green great dragon”.  It’s clear from the mass of later material that Tolkien had the ability to create worlds even more complex than Angria, Gondal, or Boxen:  why didn’t he begin to do so until his university days?  Perhaps because the Brontes had each other to bounce ideas off, as did the Lewises?  JRRT’s own brother, Hillary, is a shadowy figure, especially in contrast to the almost hyperactive and endlessly creative Brontes.  I wonder, however, if along with being on his own creatively, Tolkien also lacked the very stimulus to create such worlds with which I began this essay.  In my quotation, I left off what might be a crucial clue:

“The fact that I remember this [the green great dragon problem] is possibly significant, as I do not think I ever tried to write a story again for many years, and was taken up with language.”  (Italics mine)

Tolkien had already told Auden in that letter that:

“All this only as a background to the stories, though languages and names are for me inextricable from the stories.  They are and were so to speak an attempt to give a background or a world in which my impressions of linguistic taste could have a function.  The stories were comparatively late in coming.”

So, although the capacity for world-building was always there, something was lacking—and then it appeared:

“I mentioned Finnish, because that set the rocket off in story.  I was immensely attracted by something in the air of the Kalevala, even in Kirby’s poor translation…the beginning of the legendarium, of which the Trilogy is part (the conclusion), was in an attempt to reorganize some of the Kalevala, especially the tale of Kullervo the hapless, into a form of my own.”

The rocket went off,

Middle-earth began to appear, and sceptical I began to believe.

Thanks, as always, for reading.

Stay well,

Remember that Hillary built his own little world in his garden and orchard,

And know that, as ever, there’s

MTCIDC

O