The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien
Page 65
fn95 In the sense that ‘pity’ to be a true virtue must be directed to the good of its object. It is empty if it is exercised only to keep oneself ‘clean’, free from hate or the actual doing of injustice, though this is also a good motive.
fn96 The Witch-king had been reduced to impotence.
fn97 Tasarinan, Ossiriand, Neldoreth, Dorthonion were all regions of Beleriand, famous in tales of the War.
fn98 Or even the legitimate need of money.
fn99 At least they were certainly once necessary. And if we are pained or at times scandalized by those we see close to, I think we should remember the enormous debt we owe to the Benedictines, and also remember that (like the Church) they have always been in a state of succumbing to mammon and the world, and never finally overwhelmed. The inner fire has never been extinguished.
fn100 The unseemly cobwebs & dust, and the stained label, are not always signs of impaired contents, for those who can draw old corks.
fn101 Not that one should forget the wise words of Charles Williams, that it is our duty to tend the accredited and established altar, though the Holy Spirit may send the fire down somewhere else. God cannot be limited (even by his own Foundations) – of which St Paul is the first & prime example – and may use any channel for His grace. Even to love Our Lord, and certainly to call him Lord, and God, is a grace, and may bring more grace. Nonetheless, speaking institutionally and not of individual souls the channel must eventually run back into the ordained course, or run into the sands and perish. Besides the Sun there may be moonlight (even bright enough to read by); but if the Sun were removed there would be no Moon to see. What would Christianity now be if the Roman Church has in fact been destroyed?
fn102 It is a curious chance that the stem √talat used in Q[uenya] for ‘slipping, sliding, falling down’, of which atalantie is a normal (in Q) noun-formation, should so much resemble Atlantis.
fn103 In Time and Tide of this July 15, in a symposium of publishers telling readers what to take on holiday, he only mentioned The Lord of the Rings from all his list, and foretold a long life for it.
fn104 an error probably for þizōs bōkōs, ‘of this book’, sg.
fn105 an error probably for bōka meina, ‘my book’, sg.
fn106 Yes, even up to £15,000! Or more!
fn107 That is, one in which inventing a language for pleasure was the main motive. I am not concerned with slangs, cants, thieves’ argot, Notwelsch, and things of that sort.
fn108 My hobbit is a case. Showing how peculiar to an individual this attribution may be (often obscure to the perpetrator of the ‘noise’ and not discoverable by others). If I attributed meaning to boo-boo I should not in this case be influenced by the words containing bū in many other European languages, but by a story by Lord Dunsany (read many years ago) about two idols enshrined in the same temple: Chu-Bu and Sheemish. If I used boo-hoo at all it would be as the name of some ridiculous, fat, self-important character, mythological or human.
fn109 except in geometry which I was taught by her sister. That was the aunt whose last years I cheered and amused by composing and selecting The Adventures of Tom Bombadil, and consulting her about the book, which she had asked for. She died in her 92nd year soon after it was published.4
fn110 There are exceptions. I have read all that E. R. Eddison wrote, in spite of his peculiarly bad nomenclature and personal philosophy. I was greatly taken by the book that was (I believe) the runner-up when The L. R. was given the Fantasy Award:5 Death of Grass.6 I enjoy the S.F. of Isaac Azimov. Above these, I was recently deeply engaged in the books of Mary Renault; especially the two about Theseus, The King Must Die, and The Bull from the Sea. A few days ago I actually received a card of appreciation from her; perhaps the piece of ‘Fan-mail’ that gives me most pleasure.
fn111 E.g. in a nonsensical article by J. S. Ryan.
fn112 With the possible exception of the name (of a king) Gram. This is, of course, a genuine A-S word, but not in recorded A-S used (as it is in Old Norse) as a noun = ‘warrior or king’. But some influence of the Northern language upon that of the Eorlingas after their removal northward is not unlikely. It is in fact paralleled by clear traces of the influence upon one another of the (poetic) language of Old Norse and A-S.
fn113 The only (but a major) exception is Eärendil. See below.
fn114 The word Warg used in The Hobbit and the L.R. for an evil breed of (demonic) wolves is not supposed to be A-S specifically, and is given prim. Germanic form as representing the noun common to the Northmen of these creatures. It seems to have ‘caught on’ – it appears in Orbit 2 p. 119, not as a word in [a] strange country, but in an official communication from Earth to a space-explorer. The story is by a reader of the L.R.
fn115 Already well advanced 20 years before The Hobbit was written. The legends of the past before the time of The Hobbit and The L.R. were also largely composed before 1935.
fn116 Its earliest recorded A-S form is earendil (oer-), later earendel, eorendel. Mostly in glosses on jubar=leoma; also on aurora. But also in Blick[ling] Hom[ilies] 163, se níwa eorendel appl. to St John the Baptist; and most notably Crist 104, éala! éarendel engla beorhtast ofer middangeard monnum sended. Often supposed to refer to Christ (or Mary), but comparison with Bl. Homs. suggests that it refers to the Baptist. The lines refer to a herald, and divine messenger, clearly not the soðfæsta sunnan leoma=Christ.
fn117 Q. ëar S. aear (see I 250).
fn118 This provides the key to a large number of other Elvish Q. names, such as Elendil ‘Elf-friend’ (eled+ndil), Valandil, Mardil the Good Steward (devoted to the House, sc. of the Kings) Meneldil ‘astronomer’ etc. Of similar significance in names is -(n)dur, though properly this means ‘to serve’, as one serves a legitimate master: cf. Q. arandil king’s friend, royalist, beside arandur ‘king’s servant, minister’. But these often coincide: e.g. Sam’s relation to Frodo can be viewed either as in status -ndur, in spirit -ndil. Compare among the variant names: Eärendur ‘(professional) mariner’.
fn119 At the time of her lament in Lórien she believed this to be perennial, as long as Earth endured. Hence she concludes her lament with a wish or prayer that Frodo may as a special grace be granted a purgatorial (but not penal) sojourn in Eressea, the Solitary Isle in sight of Aman, though for her the way is closed. (The Land of Aman after the downfall of Númenor, was no longer in physical existence ‘within the circles of the world’.) Her prayer was granted – but also her personal ban was lifted, in reward for her services against Sauron, and above all for her rejection of the temptation to take the Ring when offered to her. So at the end we see her taking ship.
fn120 Though the episode of the ‘wargs’ (I believe) is in part derived from a scene in S. R. Crockett’s The Black Douglas, probably his best romance and anyway one that deeply impressed me in school-days, though I have never looked at it again. It includes Gil de Rez as a Satanist.
fn121 Which I remember, since (omen again) the OTCs2 of that day were specially privileged and I was one of 12 sent down from K[ing] E[dward’s] S[chool] to help ‘line the route’. We were camped for a wettish night in Lambeth Palace and marched to our stations early on a dull morning that soon cleared up. I was actually standing outside Buck. Palace great gates to the right, facing the palace. We had a good view of the cavalcades, and I have always remembered one little scene (unnoticed by my companions): as the coach containing the royal children swept in on return the P[rince] of W[ales] (a pretty boy) poked his head out and knocked his coronet askew. He was jerked back and smartly rebuked by his sister.
fn122 A nice singular which I feel hobbits must have used, with a distinctive pl[ural] ‘youbodies’.
fn123 This willingness usually connotes some degree of humility. In Yorkshire its first impulse was the desire to ‘get on’. But that does not remain the sole objective. Cupboard-love is a frequent preliminary to actual love.
fn124 Not to mention ‘drugs’.
fn125 Not ‘vintage’. But I like po
rt (v. much) as a mid-morn, drink: warming, digestible, and v. good for my throat, when taken (as I think it should be) by itself or with a dry biscuit, and NOT after a full meal, nor (above all) with desert!
fn126 I have now! Probably more than most other folk; and find myself in a v. tangled wood – the clue to which is, however, the belief in incubi and ‘changelings’. Alas! one conclusion is that the statement that hobgoblins were ‘a larger kind’ is the reverse of the original truth. (The statement occurs in the preliminary note on Runes devised for the paperback edition, but now included by A & U in all edns.)
fn127 This meaning was understood by other peoples ignorant of Sindarin: cf. Stoningland (1 vol. edn. 882), and in particular the conversation of Théoden and Ghân 864f. In fact it is probable within the historical fiction that the Númenóreans of the Southern kingdom adopted this name from the primitive inhabitants of Gondor and gave it a suitable version in Sindarin.
fn128 The remark in the foreword to the 1 vol. paper-back p. 7 that the whole thing was ‘primarily linguistic in inspiration’ is strictly true.
fn129 Possibly the reason why my surname is now usually misspelt TOLKEIN in spite of all my efforts to correct this – even by my college-, bank-, and lawyer’s clerks! My name is Tolkien, anglicized from To(l)kiehn = tollkühn, and came from Saxony in the 18th century. It is not Jewish in origin, though I should consider it an honour if it were.
fn130 He was actually of almost exactly the same age as my real father would have been: both were born in 1857, Francis at the end of January, and my father in the middle of February.
fn131 She knew the earliest form of the legend (written in hospital), and also the poem eventually printed as Aragom’s song in L.R.
fn132 Owing to Christopher – when I was looking in vain for somewhere to live he wrote ‘off his own bat’ to the Warden of Merton College and said that his father was wandering looking in vain for a home, & could the College help? So I was amazed to receive a letter from the Warden saying that he had called a special meeting of the Governing Body, and it had unanimously voted that I should be invited to be a residential Fellow!
fn133 Sc. a closely formed body of enemy soldiers.
fn134 The Silvan Elves of Thranduil’s realm did not speak S. but a related language or dialect.
fn135 The difference between this and S. Ithil is due to a change of (th) >s in Q. of the Exiles. But there was a stem √SIL as in Silmarilli. Cf. also síla lúmenna omentielvo.
fn136 Note: 2 ancient words in Elvish for ‘tree’: (1) *galadā < √GAL ‘grow’ intr[ansitive]; and (2) *ornē from the v[ery] f[requently] used √OR/RO rise up, go high (cf. ortani ‘raised’). (1) > Q. alda, S. galadh. (2) > Q. orne, S. orn.
(1) is not connected in origin with the name Galadriel, but it does [occur] in Calas Galadhon, Galadhrim. Before I discovered that many readers like you wd. be interested in language-details, I thought people would feel dh uncouth, and so wrote d (for ð & dh) in names. But galadhon, -dhrim is now in text.
fn137 lf indeed all were so; some may have been merely coinages in the general style; or alterations of old names arising domestically. As in our Robert > Robin, Dobbin, Hob, Bob etc.
fn138 Your use of lenited indicates that you know these, so I need not say any more; except to observe that though of phonetic origin, they are used grammatically, and so may occur or be absent in cases where this is not phonetically justified by descent.
fn139 e.g. Periannath the Hobbit-folk, as distinguished from periain hobbits, an indefinite number of ‘halflings’.
fn140 Original[ly] the Q. duals were (a) purely numerative (element ata) and pairs (element ū as seen in Aldūya); but they were normally in later Q. only usual with reference to natural pairs, and the choice of t or u [was] decided by euphony (e.g. ū was preferred after d/t in stem.
fn141 from arn(a)gon -ath.
fn142 This we certainly never meant to be.
About the Author
J. R. R. Tolkien, creator of the fabulous Middle-earth as recorded in his masterpieces The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion, was one of the most prolific letter writers of this century. Over the years he wrote to his publishers, his family, his friends (including C. S. Lewis, W. H. Auden and Naomi Mitchison) and to fans of his books. The letters present a fascinating and highly detailed portrait of the man in many of his aspects: as storyteller, scholar, Catholic, parent and observer of the world around him. In addition, the book will entertain anyone who appreciates the art of letter-writing, of which Tolkien was a master.
WORKS BY J.R.R. TOLKIEN
The Hobbit
Leaf by Niggle
On Fairy-Stories
Farmer Giles of Ham
The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth
The Lord of the Rings
The Adventures of Tom Bombadil
The Road Goes Ever On (with Donald Swann)
Smith of Wootton Major
WORKS PUBLISHED POSTHUMOUSLY
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, and Sir Orfeo
The Father Christmas Letters
The Silmarillion
Pictures by J.R.R. Tolkien
Unfinished Tales
The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien
Finn and Hengest
Mr. Bliss
The Monsters and the Critics & Other Essays
Roverandom
The Children of Húrin
The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún
THE HISTORY OF MIDDLE-EARTH
Edited by Christopher Tolkien
I · The Book of Lost Tales, Part One
II · The Book of Lost Tales, Part Two
III · The Lays of Beleriand
IV · The Shaping of Middle-earth
V · The Lost Road and Other Writings
VI · The Return of the Shadow
VII · The Treason of Isengard
VIII · The War of the Ring
IX · Sauron Defeated
X · Morgoth’s Ring
XI · The War of the Jewels
XII · The Peoples of Middle-earth
ALSO BY HUMPHREY CARPENTER
J.R.R. Tolkien: A Biography
The Inklings
Copyright
Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien © The J.R.R. Tolkien Copyright Trust 1981
® is a registered trademark of the J.R.R. Tolkien Estate Limited
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For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 215 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10003.
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First published in Great Britain by George Allen & Unwin 1981
eISBN 978-0-544-36379-3
v1.1213