An Ethnically Cleansed Faery? Tolkien and the Matter of Britain

An Ethnically Cleased Faery? An Ethnically Cleansed Faery? Tolkien and the Matter of Britain David Doughan Aii earlier version of this article was presented at the Tolkien Society Seminar in Bournemouth, 1994. 1 was from early days grieved by the Logres” (p. 369), by which he means a poverty of my own beloved country: it had specifically Arthurian presence. It is most no stories of its own (bound up with its interesting that Lewis, following the confused or tongue and soil), not of the quality 1 sought, uninformed example of Williams, uses the name and found (as an ingredient) in legends of “Logres”, which is in fact derived from Lloegr other lands ... nothing English, save (the Welsh word for England), to identify the impoverished chap-book stuff. Of course Arthurian tradition, i.e. the Matter of Britain! No there was and is all the Arthurian world, but wonder Britain keeps on rebelling against powerful as it is, it is imperfectly Logres. And despite Tolkien's efforts, he could naturalised, associated with the soil of not stop Prydain bursting into Lloegr and Britain, but not with English; and does not transforming it. replace what I felt to be missing. (Tolkien In The Book of Lost Tales (Tolkien, 1983), 1981, Letters, p. 144) Ottor W<efre, father of Hengest and Horsa, also To a large extent, Tolkien is right. The known as Eriol, comes from Heligoland to the mediaeval jongleurs, minstrels, troubadours, island called in Qenya in Tol Eressea (the lonely trouvères and conteurs could use, for their isle), or in Gnomish Dor Faidwcn (the land of stories, their gests and their lays, the Matter of release, or the fairy land), or in Old English se Rome (which had nothing to do with Rome, and uncujm holm (the unknown island). This was everything to do with Romance), the Matter of originally intended to be the island of Britain - France (extremely unhistorical stories of which is referred to always in The Book of Lost Charlemagne and his knights, like the Chanson Tales as “England”. Later on Britain is referred de Roland, which the minstrel Taillefer sang to as Luthien, and Tol Eressea is removed further before the invading Norman army in 1066); and over sea. Significantly, this island is inhabited above all the Matter of Britain: the myriad not, as historically, by the Romanised British, stories, largely of British Celtic origin, later called “Welsh” by the invading English, but connected with King Arthur’s Court and his by the fairies - Elves and Gnomes. And yet, the knights. But there was no Matter of England - Gnomish tongue, Goldogrin, in many ways nothing connected with the people who invaded resembles Welsh in both sound and structure; this island in the 5th and 6th centuries, and fell and from the beginning, despite Tolkien's stated in love with it. Only “impoverished chap-book purpose, the matter of the tales does not concern stuff’, like the tales around Robin Hood. So the English nation at all, but the doings of the Tolkien set out to create a “Matter of England” Elves and Gnomes, the “fairies”. So from the from his own fertile imagination, and integrate it outset this supposed “mythology of England” with the legends of the other “Matters”. In a very does not centre on the English, but rather on the real sense, he was attempting to impose Logres land of what Tolkien, at this stage in the on Britain, in the terms that Charles Williams development of his Legendarium, goes out of his and C.S. Lewis used, the latter in That Hideous way not to call“Britain”. Strength (1945) when he speaks of Britain being The history of the name “Britain” and its “always haunted by something we may call varied usages is long and involved. To put it 21 Mallorn XXXII simply, “Britannia” was the Roman version of complex of legends about this heroic king and the native name for what the Welsh have his henchmen Cei the White and Bedwyr One- traditionally called Ynys Prydain - the Island of hand; he is such a significant legendary figure Britain. In the period of Roman rule (AD43 - that he has already attracted to himself takes of ca.410) the overwhelming majority of their quite different (and much later) historical subjects here were Ancient Britons, i.e. the figures, such as Owain Prince of Rheged (a noted ancestors of the Welsh. Indeed, for a long time 6th century fighter against the English). the term “British” continued to mean “Welsh” - According to many stories, he had not died but as late as the turn of the 19th century, Welshmen was sleeping under a hill, or had passed over sea resident in London referred to themselves as the to the Blessed Realms, and would one day return Ancient British. The descendants of those to free the British (i.e. Welsh) from their Saxon Ancient British who between about AD380 and conquerors. The Bretons in particular developed 500 had emigrated to North-western Gaul were a whole body of literature around Arthur; and known as Bretons, and their country as Brittany, when in 1066 the almost-perfectly-naturalised or Britain the Less, as distinct from Great conquerors of Neustria, which is now called after Britain. This last term was adopted by James 1 them “the land of the Northmen” - Normandy - (England’s first Scottish king) to emphasise that took it into their heads to become the last in a the merging of his two kingdoms was an long line of conquerors of Britain, they brought imperial idea (at least in his eyes, and those of with them their Breton minstrels - who for the his sons). The confusion over the names of sake of their Norman masters, had translated Britain and England became further confounded, their lays into French. so that in the early 19th century (again!) William So, by 1100 AD there are two different sets Blake could make his prophetic spirit Los speak of Arthurian traditions in Britain: the “native” of: Welsh ones, as they appear in the middle section The Briton Saxon Roman Norman of the Mabinogion, and the more courtly Breton- amalgamating Norman ones, in the French language imported In my Furnaces into One Nation, by the Norman Conquerors. The Norman and the English Angevin kings who were now ruling over the Jerusalem, (plate 92,1.1-2) still occasionally refractory English found it And in more recent times, the resistance to politically useful to identify themselves with distinguishing between England and Britain has these traditions, especially if they could be been expressed by a range of literate people, associated with the legends of the Return, most blatantly perhaps by the eminent historian gaining Welsh support by claiming to be the A.J.P. Taylor. Still, Purcell and Dryden were heirs of Arthur who had finally sorted out the definitely on the right lines in calling their semi English. Moreover, the Normans had not only opera King Arthur, or The British Hero - gone to England but had spread themselves and because in origin at least, King Arthur was a their culture over a considerable part of western Welshman. and southern Europe, so that from this point on The name “Arthur” suddenly starts the Arthurian tales are no longer just Welsh, or becoming popular in the Welsh and Irish parts of Breton, or even Breton-Norman; they become Britain in the later 6th century, and stories are European. being recorded by the 9th century of a “dux Anyway here we have a number of easily bellorum” (= war commander) by that name perceptible reasons why Tolkien might have who, after the withdrawal of central Roman wanted to avoid Arthurian tales, not least of authority in the 5th century, rallied native which is that they were associated with the Romano-British resistance to the invading Norman invasion he so detested. However, a Saxons (or English as they called themselves), thorough-going conscious rejection of the and even made them retreat. The derivation of Arthurian element would also have meant a the name is probably from “Artorius”, an attested rejection of his beloved and ancient Welsh Roman gentile name. By the 10th century both language, and Tolkien drew back from such a Welsh and Breton sources have a growing definite break. As I have already mentioned, 22 An Ethnically Cleased Faery? from the earliest days Welsh-related languages the language of Britain, the place-names of formed an essential part of Tolkien's conception Logres give the game away. In fact, the of the Elves. Similarly, the Arthurian element is “imperfect naturalisation” of the English means constantly suppressed, but none the less it keeps that instead of Britain being haunted by on breaking through. something we may call Logres, Logres is In this connection it is interesting that haunted by something we may call Britain. Tolkien refers to the Arthurian corpus as being So the English denied their Welsh heritage; “imperfectly naturalised”. Usually it is up to the it might be suggested that this denial of their newcomers to a country to become “naturalised”, “roots”, to use a cliché, is at least a partial or assimilated - and Tolkien reversed the normal explanation of why English mythology consists order of things to confuse the issue. Historically, only of “impoverished chap-book stuff’. In the it was up to the English invaders to become Book of Lost Tales, as I mentioned earlier, “naturalised” - and this, in a linguistic and Tolkien is equally concerned to reject the British cultural sense, they signally failed to do. Their inhabitants of these islands. The real Welsh are Christianity, on which Tolkien sets so much replaced by the “fairies” - fairi - providing an store, they eventually took not from the native invented linguistic substrate in place of the real British, but from Roman missionaries - in this Welsh one that the English rejected in their instance at least they rejected insular British linguistic cleansing of Lloegr.

Load more