Issue 53 • Spring 2012 MallornThe Journal of the Tolkien Society Mallorn The Journal of the Tolkien Society Issue 53 • Spring 2012 Editor: Henry Gee Production & editorial 4 Kristine Larsen takes a look at Tolkien through her telescope design: Colin Sullivan Cover art: At the Cracks of letters 9 Troels Forchhammer unravels the mysteries of the 1961 Nobel prize Doom by Ted Nasmith Inside: Lorenzo Daniele: The Voice of Saruman (p. 2); reviews 11 Janet Brennan Croft on Tolkien and the Study of his Sources Jef Murray: Amon Sul (p. 6), Haven (p. 10), Gandalf 12 Daniel Howick on A Tolkien Tapestry (p. 16), Rhosgobel Doorway 14 Becky Hitchen on Tolkien and the Peril of War (p. 25), Cair Paravel (p. 28), 15 Troels Forchhammer on Tolkien Studies, Volume VIII Frodo and Strider (p. 31), 17 Pat Reynolds on Among Others Warg Rider (p. 33), Gandalf 18 Harley J Sims on The Lord of the Rings: War in the North (p. 35), Galadriel (p. 40), 20 Sharron Sarthou on C. S. Lewis’s Lost Aeneid Alatar (p. 42), Radagast (p. 45), Mage of Rhosgobel commentary (p. 48); Cor Blok: Rivendell 22 Colin Duriez What made J. R. R. Tolkien tick and why was he called ‘Reuel’? The (p. 13), Lothlórien I (p. 13), importance of Tolkien biography The Petrified Trolls (p. 21); Ted Nasmith: Barrel Rider 26 Kristine Larsen From Dunne to Desmond: disembodied time travel in Tolkien, (p. 23), The Shire: A View Stapledon and Lost of Hobbiton From The Hill 30 Virginia Luling Going back: time travel in Tolkien and E. Nesbit (p. 26), Aulë and the Creation of the Dwarves (p. 39), The fiction Blue Wizards (p. 46); Rick 32 Gareth Owens Ten-thousand moons of howling J Ritchie: Fingon Rescues 38 Lynn Forest-Hill Riders of the last orc Maedhros (p. 36); John 41 Mark Ridge Dark trails Gilbey: Path and Bluebells (p. 47) well, I’m back 46 David Doughan searches for the real Meriadoc Mallorn © The Tolkien Society. Printed and distributed by The Printed Word, Unit 2, Graylands Estate, Langhurstwood Road, Horsham, West Sussex RH12 4QD, UK. Mallorn is the Journal of the Tolkien Society, and appears twice a year, in the Spring (copy deadline 25 December) and Autumn (21 June). It considers reviews, comment, scholarly articles, original poetry, artwork and fiction (excluding fan fiction). Unsolicited material is welcome, but contributors should decide prior to submission to which category their manuscript belongs, and electronic submission is strongly encouraged. Full details on the preparation and submission to Mallorn are available on request from the Editor by email ([email protected]) or by mail to 89 Connaught Road, Cromer, Norfolk NR27 0DB, UK, on receipt of a stamped addressed envelope (if in UK) or two International Reply Coupons (if outside the UK). Mallorn © 2012 The Tolkien Society. Copyright for individual articles and artwork resides with the authors and is used here under on a nonexclusive licence. The Tolkien Society Founded in London in 1969 the Tolkien Society is an international organization registered in the UK as a charity (No. 273809) dedicated to furthering interest in the life and works of Professor J. R. R. Tolkien, CBE (1892–1973) who remains its President in perpetuo. His daughter, Miss Priscilla Tolkien, became its honorary Vice-President in 1986. As well as Mallorn, the society publishes a bimonthly bulletin, Amon Hen. In addition to local gatherings (‘Smials’) there are annual national meetings: the AGM and Dinner in the spring, Summermoot and the Seminar in the summer, and Oxonmoot, a celebratory weekend held in Oxford in late September. For further information about the society please contact Sally Kennett, 210 Prestbury Road, Cheltenham, Glos GL52 3ER or visit http://www.tolkiensociety.org. Mallorn Issue 53 Spring 2012 3 editorial An Elrond by any other name consider myself to be unbelievably the physical scientists”. Snow warned1 that fortunate. I get to do what I love every such a division had serious consequences single day — and I get paid to do it. My “for our creative, intellectual, and above all, Iluck began at the age of three, when I our moral life. It is leading us to interpret fell in love with science through a packet the past wrongly, to misjudge the present of multicoloured plastic dinosaurs that I and to deny our hopes of the future”. I was demanded my mother buy me at the gift struck by the basic truth that not only did shop of New York’s Bronx Zoo. In high I have an opportunity and a responsibility school, I devoured Carl Sagan’s television to help students and the general public Kristine Larsen series Cosmos and eagerly accompanied him discover the relevance of science, but I on his virtual voyage “on the spaceship of likewise had to do so for my colleagues the imagination”. Through this I discovered in other fields. And, just as importantly, I my true calling — to share my love of the had a responsibility to help my scientific Universe with anyone who will listen (and colleagues realize the intimate relationship occasionally those who are a reluctant between science and the humanities. captive audience). This is where Tolkien enters the picture. As an undergraduate physics major, my To be honest, I should really say passion was rewarded with a job running ‘re-enters’, because he had been by my side planetarium shows and telescope observing on my academic journey for more than a sessions for the general public. I quickly decade by that point. I discovered Tolkien realized what a great responsibility teaching when I was in eighth grade. I have no idea is, both in formal and informal settings. how I initially stumbled upon him (my Simultaneously, I fed my interests in previous literary tastes had largely been mythology, literature and ancient history slanted towards Isaac Asimov), but like as a student in the university’s fledgling many of you I still own my original copies interdisciplinary honours programme. I of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings (the developed an equal appreciation for the classic Ballantine paperback boxed set), The humanities and the sciences, and grew to Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales. Perhaps see the world through an interdisciplinary unlike many of you, I also still have my copy lens. One of the greatest joys of my life was of the collector’s edition programme from the day I was hired as a faculty member the much-reviled Bakshi film treatment of in the same department in which I had LOTR. I had a hand-drawn map of Middle- been an undergraduate, and was given the earth on my bedroom wall, and reread the opportunity to professionally share my love trilogy every summer holiday well into for science with students and the general college. I suspect, however, that one of the public. main reasons Tolkien enchanted me differs But there was something missing from from the norm — from my first reading, I my new academic life as a professor, was impressed with the way Tolkien used something that had been a natural astronomy in his secondary world. In high part of my undergraduate days: that school, I not only wrote in dwarf runes interdisciplinary way of thinking. In on my notebook, but I was also making C. P. Snow’s famous 1959 lecture ‘The notes to myself of the Elvish names for the Two Cultures’, he lamented the split of stars and constellations, and references the “intellectual life of the whole Western to the Moon’s phases. Like many of you, I society” into “two polar groups … literary too failed to complete The Silmarillion in intellectuals at one pole — at the other my first attempt (the third time was the scientists, and as the most representative, charm for me), but I was not put off by 4 Mallorn Issue 53 Spring 2012 editorial the grand creation myth of Ainulindalë; of scholarly work for me. That proved to be on the contrary, it remains one of my an understatement of epic proportions. For, favourite pieces of Tolkien’s writing. My as my CV demonstrates3, the intersection initial interest in The Silmarillion began to between Tolkien and science has been a wane after the death of the Two Trees and very lucrative area of research for me. the creation of the Sun and Moon. In other Certainly my most prestigious words, as the trials and tribulations of the presentation was ‘Teaching Through Noldor waxed and the astronomy waned, Tolkien’, a brief contributed talk given at the I found myself bogged down in the Elvish national meeting of the American Physical phonebook. Society in Montreal, Canada, in 2004. Of Before the Jackson trilogy was released, more than 6,100 papers presented, mine my only (admittedly brief) attempt was one of a handful to be featured in the at Tolkien scholarship was an article conference press release and to be chosen entitled ‘The Stars of Tolkien’ in my then for its own press conference4. The talk monthly column in the newsletter of the was standing-room-only — admittedly Astronomical Society of New Haven. packed with far more graduate students With the resurgence in scholarly interest than seasoned professors, but the interest in Tolkien’s works beginning in late 2001, in Tolkien among those science geeks was I reread Tolkien’s works with renewed undeniable. An article on my presentation interest, and discovered that I had been also appeared in Physics World, a British a foolish teenage hobbit indeed. For with physics magazine. the experience of my now less-than- Another turning point occurred when tender years came an understanding that I was contacted by Henry Gee, a senior the science had not waned in the latter editor at the prestigious science journal half of The Silmarillion, but had merely Nature, to review the draft of his book The become more subtle.