The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien

by Humphrey Carpenter

  I have greatly enjoyed the Cape Flower Book.1 Quite fascinating in itself and in its general botanical and indeed paleo-implications. I have not seen anything that immediately recalls niphredil or elanor or alfirin: but that I think is because those imagined flowers are lit by a light that would not be seen ever in a growing plant and cannot be recaptured by paint. Lit by that light, niphredil would be simply a delicate kin of a snowdrop; and elanor a pimpernel (perhaps a little enlarged) growing sun-golden flowers and star-silver ones on the same plant, and sometimes the two combined. Alfirin (‘immortal’) would be an immortelle, but not dry and papery: simply a beautiful bell-like flower, running through many colours, but soft and gentle. . . . .

  All illustrated botany books (or better, contact direct with an unfamiliar flora) have for me a special fascination. Not so much the rare, unusual, or totally unrelated specimens, as in the variations and permutations of flowers that are the evident kin of those I know – but not the same. They rouse in me visions of kinship and descent through great ages, and also thoughts of the mystery of pattern/design as a thing other than its individual embodiment, and recognizable. How? I remember once in the corner of a botanical garden growing (unlabelled and unnamed) a plant that fascinated me. I knew of the ‘family’ Scrofulariceæ, and had always accepted that the scientific bases of grouping plants in ‘families’ was sound, and that in general this grouping did point to actual physical kinship in descent. But in contemplating say Figwort and the Foxglove, one has to take this on trust. But there I saw a ‘missing link’. A beautiful ‘fox-glove’, bells and all – but also a figwort: for the bells were brown-red, the red tincture ran through the veins of all the leaves, and its stem was angular. One of the 17 species (I suppose) of Digitalis which we do not possess in Britain. But such botany books as I have do not comment on such ‘links’ between the branches of the family (Scrofularia & Digitalis). Just occasionally one actually sees a change take place – which might in favourable circumstances become permanent. In a former garden I had a border planted with garden daisies (mostly red); but they seeded into the lawn, where in the struggle for life they reverted to ordinary daisies and conducted their battle with the grass like their ancestors. Some seeds, however, managed to reach a place where an enormously rich soil had developed (rotting grass and deep black bonfire ash). One hardy adventurer tried to do something about it – but could only do it in daisy fashion: it grew four times the size with a flower the size of a half-crown. I said ‘magnificent; but a little coarse? No real improvement on bellis perennis.’ It or Something may have heard. Next morning it had put out from its flower, on delicate stalks rising in a ring out of the rim of the disc, six pink-tipped little elvish daisies like an airy crown. Far more graceful and patterned than any hen-and-chickens development I had – or have – seen. (I had not the time or skill to perpetuate it.)

  313 From a letter to Michael Tolkien

  25 November 1969

  I wish I had time to produce an elementary (! both languages are, of course, extremely difficult) grammar and vocabulary of ‘elven’: sc. Quenya and Sindarin. I am having to do some work on them, in the process of adjusting ‘the Silmarillion and all that’ to The L.R. Which I am labouring at, under endless difficulties: not least the natural sloth of 77+.

  314 From a letter to Christopher Tolkien

  15 December 1969

  As to your last paragraph! I am wholly in favour of the ‘dull stodges’. I had once a considerable experience of what are/were probably England’s most (at least apparently) dullest and stodgiest students: Yorkshire’s young men and women of sub-public school class and home backgrounds bookless and cultureless. That does not, however, necessarily indicate the actual innate mental capacity – largely unawakened – of any given individual. A surprisingly large proportion prove ‘educable’: for which a primary qualification is the willingness to do some work (to learn) (at any level of intelligence).fn123 Teaching is a most exhausting task. But I would rather spend myself on removing the ‘dull’ from ‘stodges’ – providing some products of β to β + quality that retain some sanity – a hopeful soil from which another generation with some higher intelligence could arise. Rather – rather than waste effort on those of (apparently at any rate) higher intelligence that have been corrupted and disintegrated by school, and the ‘climate’ of our present days.fn124 Teaching an organized subject is simply not the instrument for their rehabilitation – if anything is. Give me one little stubby root, which possibly in a better soil will send out some leaves, and even eventually produce some seed, rather than a large pink root rotten with carrot fly! Amen. But I am old, and probably unable to envisage the appalling situation now existing. Worse even than the soft roots rotten with disease, are (I imagine) the inferior ones that in my time would have been probably sound, but are now equally rotten, but meaner and nastier.

  315 From a letter to Michael Tolkien

  1 January 1970

  I am not getting on fast with The S. The domestic situation, Mummy’s gallant but losing fight against age and disability (and pain), and my own years – and all the interruptions of ‘business’ do not leave much time. I have in fact so far been chiefly employed in trying to co-ordinate the nomenclature of the very early and later parts of the Silmarillion with the situation in The L.R. ‘Stories’ still sprout in my mind from names; but it is a very difficult and complex task.

  When you pray for me, pray for ‘time’! I should like to put some of this stuff into readable form, and some sketched for others to make use of. Also I should dearly love to defeat the Inland Revenue and survive beyond the iniquitous 7 years.1 (Also I should like time to set down what I know or remember of my childhood and my kin on either side.)

  316 From a letter to R. W. Burchfield

  11 September 1970

  [The Oxford English Dictionary staff, under Dr Burchfield, were compiling an entry for hobbit in their Second Supplement. Tolkien’s help was sought, particularly on the question of whether he had invented the word, or whether there had been an older story with the same title (see no. 25).]

  The matter of hobbit is not very important, but I may be forgiven for taking a personal interest in it and being anxious that the meaning intended by me should be made clear.

  Unfortunately, as all lexicographers know, ‘don’t look into things, unless you are looking for trouble: they nearly always turn out to be less simple than you thought’. You will shortly be receiving a long letter on hobbit and related matters, of which, even if it is in time, only a small part may be useful or interesting to you.1

  For the moment this is held up, because I am having the matter of the etymology: ‘Invented by J. R. R. Tolkien’: investigated by experts. I knew that the claim was not clear, but I had not troubled to look into it, until faced by the inclusion of hobbit in the Supplement.

  In the meanwhile I submit for your consideration the following definition:

  One of an imaginary people, a small variety of the human race, that gave themselves this name (meaning ‘hole-dweller’) but were called by others halflings, since they were half the height of normal Men.2

  This assumes that the etymology can stand. If not it may be necessary to modify it: e.g. by substituting after ‘race’

  ; in the tales of J. R. R. Tolkien said to have given themselves this name, though others called them. . . . .

  If it stands, as I think it will even if an alleged older story called ‘The Hobbit’3 can be traced, then the ‘(meaning “hole-dweller”)’ could be transferred to the etymology.

  317 From a letter to Amy Ronald

  All Hallows 1970

  I have expended your wonderful gift. I felt like a wise man setting out on a long voyage, and storing his craft with the most useful and necessary things:– I still feel this house is a ship or ark: it looks like one (from the garden), contented and quiet but at the same time still a bit surprised, as if it had been dumped here by a wave while asleep, and did not feel sure where it was.

&nb
sp; Alas I did not buy any good brandy. My palate has never learned to appreciate it as it deserves. But I have laid in some burgundy – some port which we both like,fn125 and some good sherry, some liqueurs, and one bottle of champagne (with a view to Christmas).

  318 From a letter to Neil Ker

  22 November 1970

  [Ker had sent Tolkien a copy of an article on A. S. Napier (1853–1916), who was Professor of English Language & Literature at Oxford when Tolkien became an undergraduate.]

  I am most grateful for your kindness in sending me an offprint of your work on Napier. I have been deeply interested in it. Naturally. I entered the English School in T[rinity] T[erm] 1913 at my own request: I had discovered its existence in the Examination Statutes. I was not as surprised as I ought to have been by the generosity of Exeter College in allowing me to do this without depriving me of my classical exhibition, but your essay confirms my guess that this was due to Farnell.1

  At any rate he wrote me an introduction to Napier, and I called on him at his house in Headington. I recall that I was ushered into a very dim room and could hardly see Napier. He was courteous, but said little. He never spoke to me again. I attended his lectures, when he was well enough to give them. But alas! I came too late. His illness must have been already far advanced.

  But this was compensated by a piece of singular good fortune: Sisam2 became my tutor. I think I certainly derived from him much of the benefit which he attributes to Napier’s example and teaching. To these things Sisam’s own great talents were evidently very responsive, and his feelings warmed by affection for a great man in his decline. His teaching was, however, spiced with a pungency, humour and practical wisdom which were his own. I owe him a great debt and have not forgotten it. . . .

  Incidentally the foundation of my library was laid by Sisam. He taught me not only to read texts, but to study second-hand book catalogues, of which I was not even aware. Some he marked for me.

  319 From a letter to Roger Lancelyn Green

  8 January 1971

  The Ox. E. D. has in preparation of its Second Supplement got to Hobbit, which it proposes to include together with its progeny: hobbitry, -ish, etc. I have had, therefore, to justify my claim to have invented the word. My claim rests really on my ‘nude parole’ or unsupported assertion that I remember the occasion of its invention (by me); and that I had not then any knowledge of Hobberdy, Hobbaty, Hobberdy Dick etc. (for ‘house-sprites’);fn126 and that my ‘hobbits’ were in any case of wholly dissimilar sort, a diminutive branch of the human race. Also that the only E. word that influenced the invention was ‘hole’; that granted the description of hobbits, the trolls’ use of rabbit was merely an obvious insult, of no more etymological significance than Thorin’s insult to Bilbo ‘descendant of rats!’ However, doubt was cast on this as far back as 1938.1 A review appeared in The Observer 16 Jan 1938, signed ‘Habit’ (incidentally thus long anticipating Coghill’s perception of the similarity of the words in his humorous adj. ‘hobbit-forming’ applied to my books). ‘Habit’ asserted that a friend claimed to have read, about 20 years earlier (sc. c. 1918) an old ‘fairy story’ (in a collection of such tales) called The Hobbit, though the creature was very ‘frightening’. I asked for more information, but have never received any; and recent intensive research has not discovered the ‘collection’. I think it is probable that the friend’s memory was inaccurate (after 20 years), and the creature probably had a name of the Hobberdy, Hobbaty class. However, one cannot exclude the possibility that buried childhood memories might suddenly rise to the surface long after (in my case after 35–40 years), though they might be quite differently applied. I told the researchers that I used (before 1900) to be read to from an ‘old collection’ – tattered and without cover or title-page – of which all I can now remember was that (I think) it was by Bulwer Lytton, and contained one story I was then very fond of called ‘Puss Cat Mew’. They have not discovered it. I wonder if you, the most learned of living scholars in this region, can say anything.2 Esp. for my own satisfaction about Puss Cat Mew – I do not suppose you have found a name precisely hobbit or you would have mentioned it. Oh what a tangled web they weave who try a new word to conceive!

  320 From a letter to Mrs Ruth Austin

  25 January 1971

  I was particularly interested in your remarks about Galadriel. . . . . I think it is true that I owe much of this character to Christian and Catholic teaching and imagination about Mary, but actually Galadriel was a penitent: in her youth a leader in the rebellion against the Valar (the angelic guardians). At the end of the First Age she proudly refused forgiveness or permission to return. She was pardoned because of her resistance to the final and overwhelming temptation to take the Ring for herself.

  321 From a letter to P. Rorke, S.J.

  4 February 1971

  [With reference to the Caverns of Helm’s Deep in The Lord of the Rings.]

  I was most pleased by your reference to the description of ‘glittering caves’. No other critic, I think, has picked it out for special mention. It may interest you to know that the passage was based on the caves in Cheddar Gorge and was written just after I had revisited these in 1940 but was still coloured by my memory of them much earlier before they became so commercialized. I had been there during my honeymoon nearly thirty years before.

  322 From a letter to William Cater

  18 March 1971

  As far as my work goes, things are looking more hopeful now than they have done for some time and it is possible that I may be able to send an instalment of the Silmarillion to Allen & Unwin later this year.

  323 To Christopher Tolkien

  Begun about June 2nd. 1971.

  [19 Lakeside Road]

  My dearest C.

  I am sorry that I have been so silent. But only a long ‘tale of woe’, of which you know the main outlines, wd. fully explain it. Here we are June 2nd, and May, one of the best of my experience, has escaped, without a stroke of ‘writing’. Not all ‘woe’ of course. Our brief holiday to Sidmouth, which was what Dr Tolhurst’s advice boiled down to, was very pleasant indeed. We were lucky in our time – in fact the only week available at the hotel – since May was such a wonderful month – and we came in for a ‘spring explosion’ of glory, with Devon passing from brown to brilliant yellow-green, and all the flowers leaping out of dead bracken or old grass. (Incidentally the oaks have behaved in a most extraordinary way. The old saw about the oak and the ash, if it has any truth, would usually need wide-spread statistics, since the gap between their wakening is usually so small that it can be changed by minor local differences of situation. But this year there seemed a month between them! The oaks were among the earliest trees to be leafed equalling or beating birch, beech and lime etc. Great cauliflowers of brilliant yellow-ochre tasseled with flowers, while the ashes (in the same situations) were dark, dead, with hardly even a visible sticky bud). . . . .

  The Belmont proved a v.g. choice. Indeed the chief changes we observed in Sidmouth was the rise of this rather grim looking hotel (in spite of its perfect position) to be the best in the place – especially for eating. . . . . Neither M nor I have eaten so much in a week (without indigestion) for years. In addition our faithful cruise-friends (Boarland) of some six years ago, who recently moved to Sidmouth, and were so anxious to see us again that they vetted our rooms [at] the Belmont, provided us with a car, and took us drives nearly every day. So I saw again much of the country you (especially) and I used to explore in the old days of poor old JO, that valiant sorely-tried old Morris.1 An added comfort was the fact that Sidmouth seemed practically unchanged, even the shops: many still having the same names (such as Frisby, Trump, and Potbury). Well that is that, & now, alas, over! I am, of course, still in the doldrums as far as my proper work goes – with time leaking away so fast.

  June 10th. At this point I was interrupted – as usual. But among other things, both M and I have been afflicted with what may be either a ‘virus’, or food-poisoning of which
the risk is steadily mounting in this polluted country of which a growing proportion of the inhabitants are maniacs. . . . .

  I am longing to see you. I am sure there are many more things, which I shall remember as soon as this is posted, that I wished to say. But what I personally need, prob. more than anything, is two or three days general consultation and interchange with you. Though I think the course of events ran in an inescapable succession, I now regret daily that we are separated by a distance too great for swift interchange, and I am so immoveable. . . . .

  324 From a letter to Graham Tayar

  4–5 June 1971

  [Tayar had asked about the use of the name ‘Gamgee’ in The Lord of the Rings, and whether the name ‘Gondor’ had been suggested by Gondar in Ethiopia.]

  In the matter of Gondar/Gondor you touch on a difficult matter, but one of great interest: the nature of the process of ‘linguistic invention’ (including nomenclature) in general, and in The Lord of the Rings in particular. It would take too long to discuss this – it needs a long essay which I have often in mind but shall probably never write. As far as Gondor goes the facts (of which I am aware) are these: 1) I do not recollect ever having heard the name Gondar (in Ethiopia) before your letter; 2) Gondor is (a) a name fitted to the style and phonetics of Sindarin, and (b) has the sense ‘Stone-land’ sc. ‘Stone (-using people’s) land’.fn127 Outside the inner historical fiction, the name was a very early element in the invention of the whole story. Also in the linguistic construction of the tale,fn128 which is accurate and detailed, Gondor and Gondar would be two distinct words/names, and the latter would have no precise sense. Nonetheless one’s mind is, of course, stored with a ‘leaf-mould’ of memories (submerged) of names, and these rise up to the surface at times, and may provide with modification the bases of ‘invented’ names. Owing to the prominence of Ethiopia in the Italian war Gondar may have been one such element. But no more than say Gondwana-land (that rare venture of geology into poetry). In this case I can actually recollect the reason why the element *gon(o), *gond(o) was selected for the stem of words meaning stone, when I began inventing the ‘Elvish’ languages. When about 8 years old I read in a small book (professedly for the young) that nothing of the language of primitive peoples (before the Celts or Germanic invaders) is now known, except perhaps ond = ‘stone’ (+ one other now forgotten). I have no idea how such a form could even be guessed, but the ond seemed to me fitting for the meaning. (The prefixing of g- was much later, after the invention of the history of the relation between Sindarin & Quenya in which primitive initial g-was lost in Q: the Q. form of the word remained ondo.). . . . .