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Stone Towers Volume 19 Number 4 Article 8 Fall 10-15-1993 Stone Towers Carl F. Hostetter Patrick Wynne Follow this and additional works at: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore Part of the Children's and Young Adult Literature Commons Recommended Citation Hostetter, Carl F. and Wynne, Patrick (1993) "Stone Towers," Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature: Vol. 19 : No. 4 , Article 8. Available at: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol19/iss4/8 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Mythopoeic Society at SWOSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature by an authorized editor of SWOSU Digital Commons. An ADA compliant document is available upon request. For more information, please contact [email protected]. To join the Mythopoeic Society go to: http://www.mythsoc.org/join.htm Mythcon 51: A VIRTUAL “HALFLING” MYTHCON July 31 - August 1, 2021 (Saturday and Sunday) http://www.mythsoc.org/mythcon/mythcon-51.htm Mythcon 52: The Mythic, the Fantastic, and the Alien Albuquerque, New Mexico; July 29 - August 1, 2022 http://www.mythsoc.org/mythcon/mythcon-52.htm Abstract Proposes “Celtic and pre-Celtic origins for certain linguistic and legendary elements in a corpus whose sources” have been sought in Germanic myth and legend. Additional Keywords Wynne, Patrick; Tolkien, J.R.R.—Sources—Celtic This article is available in Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol19/iss4/8 JW y T I ^ L O R G i s s u e 74 ---- A U T U C D N 1993 P A Q 6 47 CARL f. l}OST€TTeR AKJO pATRICk WYNM6 liu u fln March of 1883, while reluctantly drawing to a Aside from a supposed campaign of personal Angliciza- B j l E j close the massive, idiosyncratic, and excursive tion, however, Vigfusson's patriotism was being questioned C 3 introduction to the Corpus Poeticvm Boreale, a for his advancement of the theory, controversial then and massive, idiosyncratic, and excursive omnibus still, that much of the Eddie material was originally com­ edition of the "Body of Norse Poetry," editor Gudbrand posed, not in Iceland, as maintained by the "patriotic school," Vigfusson, "an Icelander bom" (Cleasby, p. vi), allowed but in the Norse colonies in the British Isles. Vigfusson and himself a forum in which to defend himself against, as he his colleague, F. York Powell, had earlier in the introduction puts it (p. cxxii), (pp. lviii-bdv) offered persuasive evidence for this theory, an amusing attack... brought against him by certain of including a host of cultural, architectural, climatic, zoologi­ his own countrymen, of lack of patriotism; the chief cal, and botanical references in the Eddie poems — such as charges of the indictment being, that he spelt his forests, hawking, the burning of peat, harps, Christian influ­ Christian name in English fashion, and that he used ences, and heteroracial slavery — that are, in their words, 'we' and 'our' in speaking of English things and ways. "wholly un-Icelandic" (p. lxii), but that are quite consonant with the British Isles during the period of the composition of Vigfusson's very sensible defense is that the Eddie material. They also employ philological argu­ he writes in English because he writes for Englishmen, ments, noting (p. lx) the infusion throughout the Eddas of who publish, buy, and read his books, and that, as Steme words of Celtic or English origin, such as the "Gaelic" bor­ says, he may 'at least be permitted the licence accorded rowings tir 'earth' and aeti 'oats'; and the English borrow­ to a heathen Roman' and allowed to speak rather from the reader's point of view than his ow n.. .. ing vala, an assimilated form of the Old English word wealh 'foreign' that is the basis of the Modem English words p A .e e 48 i s s u e 74 ---- AU T U C D M 1993 JWvTl^LoRe Wales and Welsh, and which was applied to various goods "prae-Celtic" word ond 'stone' immediately brings to mind of Celtic trade, such as Vala-malmr 'Welsh-metal' and a passage in The Letters ofJ.R.R. Tolkien (p. 410), in which Valnesk-vif Welsh-woman.'1 Tolkien discusses the origin of the name Gondor: Gondor is... a name fitted to the style and phonetics of In furthering his theory of non-Icelandic origin for the Sindarin, and... has the sense 'Stone-land' sc. 'Stone Eddas against that of the "patriotic school," Vigfusson (-using people's) land'.... In this case I can actually rec­ appends a press-stopping footnote to the Introduction (p. ollect the reason why the element *gon(o), *gond(o) was cxxii), which continues the line of philological argument: selected for the stem of words meaning stone, when I The fresh and charming little book of Professor began inventing the 'Elvish' languages. When about Rhys, 'Celtic Britain,' published by the Society for 8 years old I read in a small book (professedly for the the Promotion of Christian Knowledge, has even, young) that nothing of the language of primitive peo­ as we are passing through the press, furnished ples (before the Celts or Germanic invaders) is now fresh and new arguments to our position. known, except perhaps ond = 'stone' (+ one other now forgotten). I have no idea how such a form could even For instance, Professor Rhys speaks of the Dog- be guessed, but the ond seemed to me fitting for the men, sons and slaves of the Dog, an un-Aryan, un- meaning. (The prefixing of g- was much later, after Celtic, un-Teutonic nomenclature, peculiar to the the invention of the history of the relation between prae-Celtic population of Great Britain.... This phe­ Sindarin & Quenya in which primitive initial g- was nomenon of nomenclature recalls at once the lost in Q: the Q. form of the word remained ondo.) Hundings, Dogsons, of the Helgi Lays — Macbeaths and Maelbeaths2 due, we have little doubt, to Ivem- Thus we see that Vigfusson's hastily-appended footnote cit­ ian influences. ing Rhys' Celtic Britain provides the author and title of the Again, 'ond' is prae-Celtic for stone. In the Helgi "small book (professedly for the young)"5 from which an Lays one meets with an oath sworn at the 'Unnar- 8-year-old Tolkien learned the pre-Celtic word ond 'stone', a stein,' though to swear by a stone is un-Teutonic. Is word which he would later adopt for his own Eldarin not the word a mere doubling of the Ivernian word...? tongues. And indeed, on pp. 265-6 of Celtic Britain, in a Further, there are in Ireland and Scotland place- discussion of Ivernian, the language of the pre-Celtic, aborig­ names in Ith, Magh-Ith, the plain of Ith, though Ith is inal inhabitants of the British Isles, we find the following: not a Celtic vocable, but probably the Ivernian name of a tribal and ancestral deity. At what time the Ivernian language became extinct in Ireland it is impossible to discover, but in Munster it The present authors find themselves in a position with appears to have not been long dead when Cormac6 regard to Tolkien's mythology that is similar to that of wrote a sort of glossary in the ninth century, and alluded Vigfusson with the Eddas, that of proposing Celtic and to it as the larn or iron language; for, owing to an pre-Celtic origins for certain linguistic and legendary ele­ accident of Irish phonology, both isem-, the early form of the Celtic word for iron, and Ivem- must become ments in a corpus whose sources have traditionally and iarn in the later stages of the language, so that Cormac overwhelmingly been sought in Germanic myth and leg­ believed that in lam he had the ordinary Irish word for end. Of course, our situation is quite different from iron, or affected so to believe in order to proceed to Vigfusson's, in that there is no "patriotic school" that will explain, that [the language] was so called on account of attack us for suggesting that some of Tolkien's sources are the difficulty of seeing through it, owing to its darkness non-Germanic, and in that we are hardly seeking to sup­ and the compactness of its texture. He has, however, plant the theory that the preponderance of Tolkien's recorded two of the Ivernian words known to him, sources are Germanic, which is in fact quite evident— after namely, fem, anything good, and ond, a stone....7 all, Tolkien's chosen cursus was Germanic philology, de­ Thus besides ond 'stone', the source of Quenya ondo, spite Joseph Wright's admonition to him to "Go in for Cormac's Glossary provides the Ivernian word fem 'any­ Celtic, lad; there's money in it" (Carpenter, p. 56). M ore thing good.' Since Tolkien could not remember fem in his over, the proposal of Celtic origins for various elements of citation of this passage from Celtic Britain, he presumably Tolkien's languages and mythology is hardly radical or did not find it so "fitting for the meaning" as he did ond. controversial: for instance, it is widely known that And indeed we have found no indication thatfem had any Sindarin, the Grey-elven tongue, is modelled phonologi- influence on his languages. cally on Welsh, and it has been shown that Tolkien's tale of Beren and Luthien owes much to the story of Culhwch The influence of ond, however, is extensive and easy to and Olwen in the Mabinogion.3 But so many expeditions trace, both in the earliest lexicons of Gnomish and Qenya have been made into Germanic territories in the quest for written in conjunction with The Book of Lost Tales and Tolkien's sources that we cannot help but feel comparative throughout the corpus.
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