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Home , A Secret Vice, Beowulf and the Critics, Cirth, Common Eldarin, Dimitra Fimi, English mythology

THE GENESIS OF J.R.R. TOLKIEN'S MYTHOLOGY

By Andrew S. Higgins

Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

School of Education Cardiff Metropolitan University March 2015

1

DECLARATION

This work has not previously been accepted in substance for any degree and it is not being concurrently submitted in candidature for any degree.

Signed…… ……… (candidate)

Date………18 December 2014……………

STATEMENT 1

This thesis is the result of my own investigations, except where otherwise stated. Other sources are acknowledged through explicit references. A full list of references is appended.

Signed…… ……… (candidate)

Date………18 December 2014……………

STATEMENT 2

I hereby give consent for my thesis, if accepted, to be available for photocopying and for inter-library loan, and for the title and summary to be made available to outside organisations.

Signed…… ……… (candidate)

Date………18 December 2014……………

2 Summary

This thesis critically examines the earliest creative work of J.R.R. Tolkien, from which the first version of his mythology would emerge, as one coherent whole, rather than a series of individual creative acts. It argues that all aspects of Tolkien's creativity worked in a dialectic way to bring to life an invented secondary world the complexity of which had not seen before. In examining Tolkien's early creative process this study also offers an alternative profile and assessment of J.R.R. Tolkien, in contradistinction to the popular image of him as the elderly Oxford don, by critically reading him as a young , student, budding philologist, soldier and World War One survivor.

The scope of this thesis is a holistic examination of Tolkien's earliest creative output comprising , , invention and visual works and includes analysis of several of Tolkien’s early creative works which remain either unpublished or under-analysed. The study uses several contextual frameworks to offer an in-depth analysis of Tolkien’s early imaginative language invention, a neglected area in , in spite of being at the core of Tolkien’s creative process. This thesis, therefore, is critically responding to a gap in Tolkien and scholarship, and offers new insights on the earliest writing phases of one of the most influential fantasy authors of the 20th century.

The introductory chapter presents an overview of Tolkien criticism and defines the scope and range of the thesis. Chapter two examines how -making and language invention came together in Tolkien’s earliest works and argues that these two key elements become inextricably intertwined in the first full expression of Tolkien’s early mythology, . Chapter three explores the underlying religious underpinnings of Tolkien's mythology and his early attempt to employ overt Roman Catholic words and ideas into his emerging secondary world. This chapter goes on to demonstrate how Tolkien combined Roman Catholic ideas with elements of both pagan mythology and Victorian spiritualism into the fabric of his secondary world. Chapter four focuses on the role of visual expression in Tolkien's early mythology by reading two major groups of documents from this period: published drawings and

3 paintings in which Tolkien expressed his early mythic ideas; and a group of visually oriented ‘para-textual’ elements, such as maps, charts and samples of Tolkien’s invented writing systems. These visual representations are explored as ‘trans-medial’ components which, along with layered and language invention, make up the fabric of Tolkien’s invented secondary world. The last chapter of this thesis explores several ways Tolkien experimented with in order to link his growing body of mythology to the primary world. It examines Tolkien’s first ‘framework’ of transmission which relied on dreams, and dream vision, to attempt this link. The second half of this chapter explores how Tolkien developed a parallel transmission ‘framework’ through the re- imagining and re-purposing of Germanic myth and legend.

The thesis also includes a series of appendices: a chronology outlining Tolkien’s creative works from this time; a list of the books he borrowed from the Exeter College Library as an undergraduate; a detailed list of examples of Tolkien's early language invention from the time; and a transcript of a report on the literary talk Tolkien gave at Exeter College on the Anglo-Catholic poet Francis Thompson.

4 Table of Contents

Summary 3 Contents 5

Conventions and Abbreviations 8 Acknowledgements 10

Chapter 1: Introduction 12 1. Aim and Scope of Thesis 13 2. Review of Previous Literature 14 3. Constructing a Profile of the Young Tolkien 23 4. Structure of Thesis 34

Chapter 2: Myth and Language 37 1. Introduction 37 2. The Bones in the Soup: Setting Context 38 3. The Legacy of Invented 41 3.1. Before : Medieval Language Invention 41 3.2. Early Modern Language Invention and the Traveller’s Tale 43 3.3. 19th Century Language Invention 47 3.4. Conclusions 49 4. The Early Tolkien as Imitator/Adaptor 50 4.1. Tolkien's Earliest Language Invention 51 4.2. Tolkien's Love of the Northern and Early Language Invention 65 4.3. The , Finnish and Tolkien's Language Invention 69 5. Tolkien as Myth Creator 84 5.1. The Shores of Faery (July 1915) – Mythic Narrative and Language Meet 84 5.2. The Shadow People and Lost Languages 93 5.3. Myth and Language Invention Intertwined: The Book of Lost Tales 96 6. Tolkien's Creative Uses of His Language Invention 104 6.1. Poetic Uses 104 6.2. Ludic and Humorous Uses 112

5 7. Conclusions 121

Chapter 3: The Religious Foundations of Tolkien's Early Mythology 122 1. Introduction 122 2. Background and Context 125 3. Roman Catholic Roots 127 3.1. John Henry Newman 127 3.2. Francis Thompson 131 4. The Blending of the Christian and the Pagan 144 4.1. Two Early Models for Tolkien: and Snorra- 144 4.2 Habbanan: Tolkien's Mythologizing of a Catholic Purgatory 149 4.3. Linguistic Syncretism: Catholic Words in The Qenya Lexicon 154 4.4. The Holy Trinity and Tolkien's Secret Fire 158 4.5. The Syncretic Nature of Tolkien's Cosmogony and in The Book of Lost Tales 161 5. Conclusions 171

Chapter 4: The Role of the Visual in Tolkien's Early Mythology 177 1. Introduction 177 2. Tolkien's Early Paintings and Drawings and the Secret Vice of 'Ishness' 180 2.1. Earliest Ishness – Nascent Visual Expressions 183 2.2. The Book of Ishness – Myth Becomes Visible 188 2.3. Conclusion: How Tolkien Made Myth Visible 194 3. Visual Para-texts as Key Components of Tolkien's Early World-Building 197 3.1. Maps: Visualizing the Geography of Secondary Worlds 198 3.2. Writing Systems: Visualizing Invented Languages 206 3.3. The Heraldic Devices of Tol-Erethrin 213 4. Conclusions 215

Chapter 5: Inventing Frameworks 219 1. Introduction 219 6 2. Dreams and Dream Vision as Early Transmission Frameworks 221 2.1. Dreams in Myth, Medieval Poetry and 222 2.2. You & Me and The Cottage of Lost 227 2.3. The Town of Dreams and The City of Present Sorrow 228 2.4. Signifying Dreams in The Qenya Lexicon 229 3. The 'Mythology for ' Frameworks 233 3.1. Creating Links through Language Invention 233 3.2. Olorë Mallë – The Path of Dreams 235 3.3. Ottor Wǽfre/Eriol 'He Who Dreams Alone' 239 3.4. Ælfwine – Myth becomes Legend verging on History 246 3.5. Faërian as a new type of Dream Vision Framework 249 4. Conclusions 252

Chapter 6: Conclusions: Tolkien at the Genesis of His Mythology 255 1. The Early Tolkien: Private Invention and Public Reception 255 2. Tolkien and the Genesis of his Mythology 258

APPENDICES Appendix 1: Chronological List of Tolkien's work to early 1920s 264 Appendix 2: List of the Academic Books Tolkien Borrowed from the Fellow’s Library of Exeter College (1911-1915) 270 Appendix 3: Detailed List of Tolkien's Language Invention and Writing Systems 272 Appendix 4: Tolkien’s Paintings and Drawings 275 Appendix 5: Transcript of the Report of Tolkien's Talk on Francis Thompson at Exeter College 288

Bibliography 1. Works by J.R.R. Tolkien, cited in chronological order 291 2. J.R.R. Tolkien's Unpublished Manuscripts 2.1. Bodleian Library 293 2.2. Other Archival Material 294 3. Other Works Cited 294 7 Conventions and Abbreviations

In this thesis, The Book of Lost Tales refers to that body of material Tolkien composed between late 1916 and 1920, which consisted of the prose stories of Tolkien's early Lost Tales and linking material.

The Book of Lost Tales (in italics) – refers to first two volumes of The History of Middle-earth series as published in 1983 and 1984 in which published an edited version of this early material by his father supplemented by earlier poems his father had composed, notes from the notebooks Tolkien kept at the time, and editorial commentary by Christopher Tolkien.

When referencing from The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien: A Selection (1981) I give the date when each letter was written following the relevant abbreviation (see list below) and before referencing the page number in the published volume.

All discrete works of Tolkien (including individual poems, paintings, etc.) will be printed in italics.

Tolkien’s invented base roots from The Qenya Lexicon are expressed in all caps (e.g. – ALA).

Lists of Abbreviations

Tolkien’s works

Beowulf Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary (2014) FOA (2013) FR The Fellowship of the Ring (1954) GF ‘ Feet’, in Oxford Poetry, 1915 (1915) Kalevala Essay ‘The Story of and Essays on “The Kalevala”‘, in Tolkien Studies (2010) Letters The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien: A Selection (1981) Lost Tales I The Book of Lost Tales, Part One (1983)

8 Lost Tales II The Book of Lost Tales, Part Two (1984) MC The and the Critics and Other Essays (1983) OFS Tolkien: On -stories: Extended Edition (2008) Peoples The Peoples of Middle-earth (1996) RK (1955) Shaping The Shaping of Middle-earth (1986) SWM Smith of Wooten Major. Extended Edition (2005) Treason Treason of (1989) UT nfinished Tales of enor and Middle-earth (1980)

Works about Tolkien

Artist Hammond, Wayne G. and Scull, Christina (1995), J.R.R. Tolkien: Artist and Illustrator. London: HarperCollins. Biography Carpenter, Humphrey (1977), J.R.R. Tolkien: A Biography. London: Allen & Unwin. Chronology Scull Christina & Hammond Wayne (2006), The J.R.R. Tolkien Companion and Guide: Volume 1: Chronology. London: HarperCollins Reader's Guide Scull Christina & Hammond Wayne (2006), The J.R.R. Tolkien Companion and Guide: Volume 2: Reader's Guide. London: HarperCollins Life and Legend Priestman, Judith (1992), J.R.R. Tolkien: Life and Legend: An Exhibition to Commemorate the Centenary of the Birth of J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973). Oxford: Bodleian Library.

Journals

PE Parma Eldalamberon VT Vinyar YWES Years Work in English Studies

9 Acknowledgments

First and foremost, I would like to thank my supervisor Dr. for setting me on the path of research for this thesis. It was through Dr. Fimi's own inspiring scholarly work on Tolkien and her encouragement that I decided to turn what had been a life-long interest in the works of J.R.R. Tolkien into serious scholarly research to better understand both the works and the men who invented them. Dr. Fimi's excellent mentorship, guidance and feedback were integral to this work and I am so grateful that she has been with me on every step of this journey. I also like to thank other members of the Cardiff Metropolitan English team; especially Dr. Jeff Wallace for reading the chapters and giving very helpful comments and feedback.

Research for this thesis would not have been possible without the help and assistance of the team at the Bodleian Library, Oxford; especially Mr. Colin Harris of the Department of Special Collections and Western Manuscripts. Mr Harris and his team offered me great help when I was there studying Tolkien's early academic papers. I was also greatly assisted by the Rector of Exeter College, Francis Cairncross, who allowed me to stay at the College and review materials from Tolkien's time as an undergraduate there. I am also obliged to The Tolkien Estate for allowing me to quote from Tolkien's unpublished papers in the thesis, and particularly to Mrs. Cathleen Blackburn, the solicitor for the Estate, who handled my requests.

This thesis would not have been possible without the support of my family. My husband David has been a great source of support, reality checking and has listened to me talk about invented languages with both interest and much patience. Thanks to my own Huan, Charlie 'the Wonder' Corgi, for sitting by my side while I wrote. Charlie also served as an excellent impromptu desk for my notes and various Elvish lexicons while our cats, Shadow, Meowman (who sadly is no longer with us) and Dobbie Mouse-bane, would look on with the modicum of interest that cats afford to such activity.

This thesis benefited from the incredibly instructive and helpful feedback of many colleagues. Special thanks to Tolkien scholar Douglas A. Anderson for

10 reading an early draft of the thesis, correcting and pointing me in the right direction around dating Tolkien's earliest materials. Many thanks as well to Dr. , John Rateliff, Simon Eckstein and Gerard Hynes for being my thesis readers. I would also like to thank my two PhD champions David Pickard and Gillian Brierley who have supported and encouraged me through this process.

This thesis is dedicated to my dad, Robert Andrew Higgins, who read The and to my brother and I from age seven and introduced us to the 'arresting strangeness' of the world Tolkien built which had so impacted his life and subsequently mine. Though he did not live to see the final work of this thesis, he encouraged me throughout the research and was very pleased to hear the progress of it. I will remain forever grateful for his life- long encouragement, support and his always gently pushing me to dig deeper; further and farther in. I hope one day in the West we can both discuss this research and explore Tolkien again – Nai hiruvalme Valimar!

11 Chapter 1: Introduction

In order of time, growth, and composition, this stuff began with me – though I do not suppose that that it is of much interest to anyone but myself. I mean, I do not remember a time when I was not building it. (Letters, 1951, p. 143)

Do not laugh! But once upon a time (my crest has long since fallen) I had a mind to make a body of more or less connected legend, ranging from the large and cosmogonic, to the level of romantic fairy-story – the larger founded on the lesser in contact with the earth, the lesser drawing splendour from the vast backcloths – which I would dedicate simply to England; to my country. (Letters, 1951, p. 144)

J.R.R. Tolkien spent a great part of his life constructing his vast secondary world of Middle-earth, a mostly self contained immersive with its own cultures, feigned history and imaginative constructed languages. The majority of readers know this world through (1937) and The Lord of the Rings (1954-1955); two of the most important works of modern fantasy literature. Tolkien composed these works by drawing upon a vast backdrop of invented myth and languages that he had been creating since boyhood.

Given the popular success of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, which occurred later in his life, most people tend to associate J.R.R. Tolkien with the pipe-smoking Oxford don whose picture was seen by countless readers on the back of his books, or in the few television interviews he appeared in. In the last forty years, thanks to the efforts of his son and literary executor, Christopher Tolkien, much more of Tolkien's creative work has been published. Christopher Tolkien's twelve-volume History of Middle-earth series (1983-1996) has given both Tolkien and fantasy literature scholars an invaluable resource to critically examine and analyse the different stages in the development of Tolkien's mythology; from his earliest creative work to narratives written just before his death. This comprehensive collection also allows scholars to chart and analyse

12 Tolkien's own growth as a writer of fantasy literature and constructor of a fully immersive secondary world.

1. Aim and Scope of Thesis

This thesis critically examines the earliest creative work of J.R.R. Tolkien, from which the first version of his mythology would emerge, as one coherent whole, rather than a series of individual creative acts. It argues that all aspects of Tolkien's creativity worked in a dialectic way to bring to life, from the first full expression of the mythology, an invented secondary world the complexity of which fantasy literature had not seen before. In examining Tolkien's early creative process this thesis also offers an alternative profile and assessment of J.R.R. Tolkien, in contradistinction to the popular image of his as the elderly Oxford don, by critically reading him as a young man, student, budding philologist, soldier and World War One survivor.

The scope of this thesis covers the corpus of Tolkien's earliest work up to 1920 when Tolkien took up the post as Reader of at the University of Leeds and chose to take a different literary approach to his mythology. Between 1906 and 1920, Tolkien would compose a large body of work consisting of poetry, prose, imaginative language construction, writing systems, drawings, paintings and such 'para-textual' elements as maps and charts (see Appendix 1 for a complete chronological list of these works). Many of these works represent Tolkien's earliest thoughts on his imaginative mythology and the moving together and intertwining of myth-making and language invention as the creative bedrock and a core 'trans-medial' element of Tolkien's secondary world building. Many of these sources, especially the documents that Tolkien wrote around his early imaginative language construction, are either unpublished or under-analysed by Tolkien scholars (see Appendix 3 for a detailed list of Tolkien's language invention during this time). Therefore, one of my key objectives in this thesis is to critically examine these linguistic documents and establish connections between them and the development of characters, plot lines and major themes in Tolkien's emerging mythology.

Another equally important set of documents that are the subject of my critical 13 investigation throughout this study is Tolkien's unpublished academic papers currently held at the Bodleian and Exeter College libraries and archives. Through analysis of these documents, I demonstrate how Tolkien brought several of the thoughts and insights he gained through his academic learning and exploration into his parallel imaginative work at the time. In this thesis I read specifically Tolkien's paper on the Kalevala and the reports of his literary papers on Norse and the Anglo-Catholic poet Francis Thompson as inspirations and sources for Tolkien’s mythic thinking.

My thesis also contributes to a strand of Tolkien Studies research that has been suggested by two leading Tolkien scholars. First, T. A. Shippey has stated that more research is needed on the influence of Victorian and Edwardian fairy- literature and folk-tale scholarship on Tolkien, as well as closer investigation into Tolkien's attempts to find a way to connect his mythology to early English and Germanic myth (2007, p. iv). Moreover, Tolkien linguist Carl Hostetter, in a 2007 review of the first fifty years of scholarship on Tolkien's invented languages, stated that research and analysis on Tolkien's earliest languages has only just began (2007, p. 45). In this thesis I take up both Shippey's and Hostetter's calls for more focused research by using unpublished and under- analysed sources to build upon, and contribute to, this emerging strand of research in Tolkien and fantasy literature studies.

2. Review of Previous Literature

Taken in the aggregate, to date there is very little published academic work specifically and comprehensively focused on Tolkien's early mythology and even less critical work on his early imaginative language invention. Several key pieces of scholarship covering Tolkien's later works were reissued after the publishing of The History of Middle-earth series incorporating analysis based on the newly published material made available in these volumes; for example Chance (2001), Flieger (2002) and Shippey (2005). While these works, as well as the first volume of critical articles on The History of Middle-earth series in Flieger and Hostetter (2000), are helpful in analysing the overall development of Tolkien's mythology, they tend to treat the earliest versions of the mythology as the start of a mythic continuum instead of creative works in their own right. 14 There is also, to date, no complete comprehensive study that analyses the conjunction of myth and language in Tolkien's early mythology. This is a gap in Tolkien academic scholarship this thesis seeks to address.

Previous Tolkien scholarship on the early mythology can be grouped in several thematic categories. One area of scholarship is centred on the question of when Tolkien actually started constructing the mythology. Noad (2000), Chance (2001) and Fimi (2010) suggest the language invention and myth development started as separate creative pursuits which came together during Tolkien’s undergraduate time at Exeter College. Noad (2000) and Chance (2001) point specifically to Tolkien's July 1915 The Shores of Faery as the poem which launched the mythology. The main reason they give for this is that Shores shows the first evidence of a geography for the emerging secondary world and Tolkien’s use of his invented language Qenya to construct names for key places and things in the poem. In this thesis I challenge this theory and suggest that an exploration of some of Tolkien's earlier language development, in Tolkien’s unpublished papers, may show possible fragments of an even older 'lost' mythology going back to 1910, or even as early as 1907- 1908.

Another strand of previous academic research has focused specifically on Tolkien's discovery of, and passion for, the Finnish mythic cycle of the Kalevala. Tolkien's general use of the Kalevala as a mythic model had been explored first by Helms (1981) then by Noad (2000) and West (2000). This source for Tolkien's mythic thoughts was made evident in 2007 when Tolkien's original 1914 story based on one of the episodes of the Kalevala (''), and the texts for the literary talks Tolkien gave on the Kalevala as an undergraduate, were edited and published by Flieger in Tolkien Studies 7. Flieger has done a great deal of academic work on these sources. Flieger (2012) analyses all these materials and sets Tolkien's use of the Kalevala, and Tolkien's Finnish studies, in a broader mythic and linguistic context. Related to this, several works of scholarship including Garth (2003), Shippey (2004), Petty (2004) and Flieger (2012), have compared Tolkien’s early methodology for developing his mythology with the work of the Finnish collector of oral tales that became the Kalevala, Elias Lönnrot. Garth (2003 and 2014) and Flieger (2012)

15 specifically explore the connection between Tolkien's early work based on the Kalevala and his early Qenya language; a specific element which will receive more focus in this thesis. In chapter two I examine Tolkien's version of his Kullervo story as an early, if not the earliest, example of how Tolkien combined work on myth and language in his adaptation of this story cycle from the Kalevala. Another related area of my research is to explore the specific influence of the text Tolkien used to attempt to learn Finnish, Eliot’s Finnish Grammar, on his actual choice of the Kullervo story for his own mythic exploration.

Previous scholarship has also furnished information and analysis of the literary, mythic, historic and intellectual background from which Tolkien's own mythology emerged. Flieger (2003) and Shippey (2005 and 2007) give a comprehensive historical, literary and philological background for Tolkien's interest in languages and literature coming from the linguistic reconstruction work of 19th century philology. Shippey uses the term 'asterisk reality' to describe the recreation of lost literature from philology and suggests it was this movement that Tolkien looked to replicate in his own mythic model (2005, pp. 22-6, 29, 80; 2007, pp. 80-84). Flieger (2003) sets the start of Tolkien's mythology at the end of the golden century of British Studies and suggests that he drew upon the very recent trend in oral tale and fairy-tale collection in structuring his early mythology. Burns (2004), Whittingham (2008) and Shippey (2004 and 2005) each focus on Tolkien's study and passion for Norse and sagas as a source for the structure of his mythology and specific stories in his cycle. Shippey (2005) takes a broader approach to this and suggests that it was Tolkien's philological familiarity with Norse myths, through his early study of , in concert with the rise in the importance of Old Norse literature in late Victorian/Edwardian eras, which caused Tolkien to look to them for mythic inspiration. Burns (2004) and Whittingham (2008) focus specifically on the sources and analogues of Tolkien's pantheon in the Old Norse gods. Shippey (2007) seeks for possible origins for the depictions of Tolkien's development of light and dark in the Old Norse and Eddic literature. Fimi (2010) suggests that another key source that shaped Tolkien's early ideas, specifically the role of the /elves in the mythology, comes from the influence of the Victorian fairy literature, stories and plays Tolkien and his generation grew up with. My

16 research and analysis builds upon this scholarship and also investigates additional sources for Tolkien's mythology and story-lines.

Several works of previous scholarship have examined Tolkien's early desire to connect his emerging mythology to the primary world. This has been collectively characterized by previous Tolkien scholarship, but not by Tolkien himself, as Tolkien’s 'mythology for England' project. Flieger (2001) explores Tolkien's use of dreams and dream vision in several versions of his mythic construction as a portal into the secondary world. Flieger's work focuses primarily on the later versions of Tolkien's dream-portal concept in his 1936 unfinished work The Lost Road and his 1945 unfinished .

Hostetter (1991) and Noad (2000) focus on how Tolkien also found himself increasingly drawn to satisfy his desire for a truly English epic. Flieger (2005) and Atherton (2012) suggest that one model for Tolkien may have been the Old Norse Gangleri who in Snorri's Edda became the portal device through which Snorri told the tale of the pagan gods using a similar series of questions and answers that Tolkien would have his mariner Ottor Wǽfre use in The Book of Lost Tales. While Flieger's analysis focuses on the Old Norse materials, Atherton's adapts a broader approach and suggests the portal framework was a reflection of a medieval narrative model that can be seen in a whole series of works including Chaucer's and Boccaccio’s Decameron. Atherton (2012) suggests that Tolkien incorporated the ideas of travel, tale telling and hospitality; which Atherton explores through Tolkien's use of the term 'guest kindliness'. Flieger (2005) states that Tolkien's notion of conceiving and carrying through a singly authored, wholly invented mythology needs further examination and invites inquiry beyond what has been done. My research and analysis attempts to address some of Flieger's questions when I turn in chapter five of the thesis to Tolkien's early ideas on several transmission frameworks and the link between his mythology and the primary world. Drout (2004) explores several of the key strands of Germanic and English myth and legends Tolkien might have re-imagined and re-purposed in constructing his portal framework for his mythology. Drout suggests that if this was to be a mythology bound up with the tongue and soil of England it would have to be a mythology for Anglo-Saxon England including a pseudo pre-history for the Anglo-.

17 Shippey (2005) suggests that The Book of Lost Tales consists of evident borrowings, more or less 'anglicised' from and also suggests that Tolkien was jealous of the much better preserved Welsh and Irish tradition than the Norse. My thesis adds to this area of exploration by suggesting further sources Tolkien would have consulted at the time. For example, I explore the Anglo-Saxon prose report 'The Voyage of and Wulfstan', contained in Henry Sweet's Anglo-Saxon Reader, as a source Tolkien mined for both narrative elements and names for his own invention of a legendary framework. Another source Tolkien would have had that was replete with Germanic 'lost tales' was the Anglo-Saxon poem fragment . In this case, not only do I explore the poem as a resource for Tolkien, but also a specific edition of it edited by R.W. Chambers and published in 1912 as Widsith: A Study in Heroic Legend. As I demonstrate in chapter five, this specific edition was also valuable for the notes that Chambers gave on both the background to the Germanic tales as well as the philological notes on names which Tolkien would re-imagine and adapt.

Another area of research has explored Tolkien's actual literary process and methodology in developing his early mythology. Scull (2000) makes the point that Tolkien's mythology tended to evolve through successive small changes to his texts rather than large ones. Scull emphasizes that it is in Tolkien's very early pencil drafts for The Book of Lost Tales that one can look back to the very first versions of the mythology. In the course of this thesis, I employ Scull's suggestion to examine some of the earliest layers of Tolkien's work on The Book of Lost Tales to 'un-earth' some of Tolkien's earliest radical ideas for his mythology. However, as with some of the earlier reissued works of Tolkien scholarship, Scull treats The Book of Lost Tales as the beginning of a continuum in myth making and tends to analyse these stories in the wider context of Tolkien's lifelong mythic development. Therefore the actual early mythology is not given direct focus and Scull does not touch at all on the early languages. Bratman (2000) analyses the literary style of The History of Middle- earth and spends some time on the style Tolkien used in the Book of Lost Tales. Bratman suggests the 'antique style' of The Book of Lost Tales was intended by Tolkien to add overlays to the King James and the works of onto the Anglo-Saxon stylistic base that underpins all of Tolkien's

18 mythology. In chapter two I explore the various narrative styles Tolkien uses in The Book of Lost Tales which include high epic, fairy-tale, beast and historic .

Rosebury (2003) focuses on the influence of Romantic poetry on Tolkien's early work; including the poems of Keats, Tennyson, Milton, Yeats, Houseman, Swinburne and, as my thesis explores in much greater depth, Francis Thompson. Rosebury does not think highly of Tolkien's early poetry characterizing it as 'difficult, often fragmentary and contradictory and, it must be said, only intermittently rewarding' (90). My analysis of Tolkien’s early poetry challenges some of Rosebury’s assertions and suggests that Tolkien's early poems are important examples of Tolkien’s emerging skill at combining elegiac poetic composition with historical narrative and language invention.

As I indicated above, academic research and analysis on Tolkien's imaginative language invention has received an even narrower focus than the analysis of his early mythology and literary development. While Hyde (1982) focused on the later invented languages, which appeared in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, the methodology Hyde used to systematically study the structure of Tolkien's invented languages from a syntactical and morphological point of view does offer a viable framework which my research will seek to adapt; especially when examining Tolkien’s invention of base roots to construct his Qenya words. Hyde was also one of the first academics to connect Tolkien's linguistic invention to his mythological narrative which is a key objective of this study.

Starting in 1995, the group of linguists to whom Christopher Tolkien entrusted his father's complex and voluminous linguistic documents started to publish these texts in chronological order of composition in specialist publications: Vinyar Tengwar and Parma Eldalamberon. While these journals contain some background notes, mostly philological in nature, they did not set a context for the development of the language elements or connect them, in any significant way, to the emerging mythology. One of the key objectives of my overall thesis is to utilize the linguistic information in these documents to provide a strong contextual framework for how these invented languages and language systems were incorporated into the mythology.

19

There has been virtually no focused previous scholarship on Tolkien's very early invented languages. The early languages of Nevbosh and Naffarin have been briefly mentioned by Garth (2003), Fimi (2010) and Zettersten (2011). A key primary document in this area is Smith and Wynne (2000) which critically explores Tolkien's experience and knowledge of the auxiliary invented language of ; including Tolkien's early use of it in his the Book of the Foxrook; a codebook written by the then seventeen year old Tolkien. This along with additional examination in Fimi (2010) are key pieces of academic scholarship in this area that this study will build upon.

Tolkien's early attempt in c.1910 to create a reconstructed proto-Germanic language, Gautisk, has been covered briefly by Drout (2004), Garth (2003) and Fimi (2010). Smith (2006) explores this attempted language much more fully and also contextualizes it with Tolkien's early study of the Gothic language and analyses how it formed a key part of Tolkien's early and enduring passion for Northern myth and legends. Drout (2004) and Smith (2006) also attempt to connect Gautisk to Tolkien's early attempt to fuse myth and language by reconstructing a language for the of Beowulf. In this thesis I evaluate these theories and also suggest the influence of a key contemporary work Tolkien read on the , Henry Bradley's The Goths (1887), as a potential source for both the and its link to the people of Beowulf, the Geats.

Flieger's Splintered Light: Logos and Language in Tolkien’s World (2002), is one of the first critical works of Tolkien scholarship to focus in on the interdependence of myth and language in the development of Tolkien's mythology. Her analysis is mainly based on the later versions of the invented languages but the theoretical framework she employs, as I show, is valid for examining Tolkien's early and I use it in my research to trace the conjunction of myth and language in Tolkien's early mythic method.

Both Garth (2003) and Fimi (2010) have done the most focused academic work on Tolkien's early invented languages of Qenya and Gnomish/Goldogrin, which would form the linguistic bedrock of his emerging mythology. Garth tends to

20 focus more on specific words, or word groupings, to illustrate how Tolkien constructed words that either sounded pleasing to him or reflected the environment around him. Garth is also the first scholar to map out a profile of Tolkien's emerging world through his language lexicons prior to the War (2003, pp. 124-127). My research critically explores Garth’s reconstruction of the early world through the language lexicons and suggests some possible new strands of emerging myth and story. Garth also briefly mentions Tolkien's use of his early languages to bring his family into the mythology by linguistically incorporating them. This research builds upon Garth's work in this area and explores, in a broader sense, the ludic side of Tolkien's use of nonsense and historic puns in his language invention.

Fimi (2010) establishes a broader cultural context for Tolkien's language invention by examining the emerging radical concepts and theories of 'sound symbolism' and 'phono-aesthetics'. Atherton (2012) also sets Tolkien's language invention in a wider historical and cultural context tracing the origin of language invention with the concept of the myth of the language; the attempt to discover the pre-Babel Adamic language. Fimi (2010) also traces and analyses some of the key movements that occurred at the turn of the century which focused on language and emphasized the sound of words (e.g. Italian Futurism, British Vorticisim, Ezra Pound's Imagism and Russian Futurism). Fimi also explores the nonsense poetry of Lewis Carroll, such as 'Jabberwocky', which seeks to convey sense through the sound of nonsense words. My research and analysis builds upon Fimi's work by examining other examples of nonsense poetry which Tolkien may have been inspired by for his language invention; especially the nonsense poetry of the English artist, illustrator and poet Edward Lear (1812-1888). Through her analysis of the attempt to capture the perfect , Fimi traces the development of invented languages by writers as well as touching briefly on invented languages specifically invented for fictional works. My research in turn builds upon the focus Fimi gives to the tradition of invented languages for fiction and seeks to find some potential sources and analogues for the languages Tolkien developed in the works of such authors as More, Swift, Bulwer-Lytton, Percy Craig and Lewis Carroll in his last fairy work Sylvie and Bruno.

21 Some previous academic work has focused on specific elements of Tolkien's imaginative language development for his mythology. Hostetter and Wynne (1993) suggests that while many scholars tend to think that the main sources of Tolkien's mythology came from Germanic myth and legend, there is linguistic evidence that some of the base words he incorporated into his mythic and linguistic structure came from 'Celtic' and pre-'Celtic' sources. Gilson (2000) attempts to specifically contextualize Tolkien's early Gnomish/Goldogrin language with Tolkien's wider language invention by showing that Tolkien retained much of the language construction work he did on the Gnomish/Goldogrin language for his later language which he would incorporate as one of the languages of the Elves in The Lord of the Rings. Related to this, Wynne (2004) refutes Tolkien's own comment, made towards the end of his life, that his early languages of Qenya and Goldogrin were primitive and un-organised. Wynne reviews the documentary evidence to show that Tolkien's early language work for the mythology was very structured and included highly complex grammatical forms. My research systematically analyses Tolkien's early language structure to test Wynne's hypothesis and prove that, even in the earliest versions of the invented languages, Tolkien constructed a highly complex and structured language system which includes one of the rare cases in Tolkien's life-long language invention of an almost complete grammar and comprehensive lexicon of invented words. Gilliver (2006) focuses on the two years (1919-1920) Tolkien spent, after his war service, in his first job as an assistant on the original Oxford English Dictionary. Tolkien said he learned more during this period than any other time in his life (Gilliver 2006, p. vii). Gilliver analyses what he specifically learned from his work on searching for the etymologies of specific words; especially those starting with 'w'. It was during this same period (see Appendix 1) that Tolkien wrote a good part of The Book of Lost Tales and, as will be explored, would write sketches for both his stories and invented languages on the back of the slips of paper he used to record word definitions for the dictionary.

Garth (2014) offers a new philological focus to several of the names and words Tolkien invented in his adaption of the Kullervo story. Many of these words served as the origin of base roots for the construction of subsequent Qenya words. This thesis critically engages with this recently published work.

22

3. Constructing a Profile of Tolkien at The Genesis of His Mythology

While he was alive Tolkien was not comfortable discussing or sharing the details of his life, nor having readers link his biography to his fantasy works (see especially Reader's Guide, pp.108-109). Moreover, as both Fimi (2010) and Rateliff (2011) have indicated, Tolkien's memory of the earliest period of his creative development did not always coincide with the actual records we have. Fimi (2010) suggests that Tolkien may have engaged in creating his own 'biographical legend' to feed the interest of fans who, with the international success of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, clamoured for more early personal information from Tolkien. Fimi adds that Tolkien began to believe some of these himself (7). After his death in 1973, Tolkien's official biography was written by who was given unlimited access to all of Tolkien unpublished papers, including Tolkien's still unpublished diaries, and interviewed Tolkien himself in 1967 (Biography, pp. 367-368). In order to understand and set a context for the Tolkien who composed the earliest forms of the mythology I will now give a brief biographical sketch of Tolkien during the period covered in my research; from his childhood to the early 1920's.

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was born on 3 January 1892 in Bloemfontein, South Africa to Mabel and Arthur Tolkien. In 1894, his only brother, Hilary Arthur Reuel, was born. In 1895, his mother brought him and his brother to England to visit relatives while their father remained, due to work, in South Africa. In February 1896, when Tolkien was four, Arthur Tolkien contracted rheumatic fever and died in South Africa. Mabel Tolkien stayed with her two sons in the Midlands area supported by her family. In 1900, they moved to the suburbs of Birmingham and Tolkien enrolled in King Edward's School which his father had attended previously. In 1902, Mabel Tolkien converted to Roman Catholicism and was shunned by her family. In November 1904, when Tolkien was twelve, Mabel died of diabetes in Rednal, Worcestershire. Tolkien and his brother were brought up, at Mabel Tolkien's instruction, in the Roman Catholic faith under the guardianship of Father Francis Morgan who was of Spanish-Welsh descent and a member of The Birmingham Oratory which had been founded by Cardinal John Henry Newman. Throughout his life Tolkien would consider his mother a 23 martyr to her Roman Catholic faith and would associate his own strong Roman Catholic faith with hers. Tolkien lived in various places while he studied at King Edward's School. He took part in the school debating society and wrote and delivered literary papers on various subjects; including one on Norse sagas. During this same time, Tolkien would visit his cousins Edith Mary (May) and Marjorie Incledon who had a habit of inventing languages and would introduce Tolkien to one of these, Animalic. When Father Francis Morgan heard about their romance he forbade it to continue until Tolkien was twenty-one years old. Tolkien threw himself into his studies and during this time started the invention of his own languages, began composing poetry and painting images that would eventually become related to his mythology. Tolkien formed a close bond with a group of King Edward's School fellow-students which became known as the T.C.B.S. ('Tea Club, Barrovian Society'). In 1911 his mock-epic poem depicting a school rugby match, 'The Battle of the Eastern Field' appeared in The King Edward's School Chronicle. In the summer of 1911, Tolkien went on a hiking party into the mountains of the Swiss Alps. From 1911-1915, Tolkien was an undergraduate at Exeter College, Oxford focusing first on Classics, and then changing his studies to English and Philology. During his time at Exeter College many of the key strands of his early mythology would be formed and come together in poetry, language invention and visual representation. In 1913, another poem, 'From the many-willow'd margin of the immemorial Thames', was published in The Stapeldon Magazine of Exeter College. Tolkien delayed his entry into the War until June 1915 after he achieved a First in English. His fairy poem 'Goblin Feet' was published in the volume Oxford Poetry 1915. Tolkien also submitted a collection of fairy poems, The Trumpets of Faerie, to the publishers Sidgwick and Jackson, but the volume was rejected by the publishers due to a non-extant reader's report.1

When Tolkien turned twenty-one he reunited with Edith Bratt and married her in March 1916. He joined the Lancashire Fusiliers and eventually took active duty

1 According to the transcript of the March 1916 letter in reply to Tolkien's submission of this volume of poems, Sidgwick and Jackson mention that they received 'the reader's report' on it and had decided not to publish it (Bodleian MS. 2459). I have attempted to find this 'Reader's Report' in the archives of Sidgwick and Jackson (now kept at the Bodleian Library, Oxford) but have not found it yet and the advice from the publishers who took over Sidgwick and Jackson (Macmillan Publishing) is that Reader's Reports were not usually kept in the archives (A. Sanders of Macmillian Publishing, email communication, June 2013). For further publishing history of this poem see Reader's Guide, pp. 892-893. 24 in the War, including the Battle of the Somme in July 1916. Tolkien contracted trench fever and was sent back to England as one of only two survivors of his T.C.B.S. colleagues. In late 1916-early 1917, Tolkien would start composing his The Book of Lost Tales and resumed work on his attendant language invention. It was during this time Tolkien attempted to construct a pseudo- historical framework that would link his original mythology to a lost literature of England ('the mythology for England' project). In 1917, Tolkien's first son John was born. In 1918, Tolkien started work on the staff of the New Oxford English Dictionary (later to become the Oxford English Dictionary). From 1917-1919 much of the remaining The Book of Lost Tales material was written. In 1920, Tolkien was appointed Reader in English Language at Leeds University and his second son Michael was born. The scope of my thesis ends when Tolkien's started as a Reader at Leeds University and his mythology took a different, but related, creative direction.

Carpenter's authorized Biography gives several excerpts and examples from Tolkien's early creative work. In the following table I give the date and name of the early poems Carpenter includes selections from and where the excerpt can be found in Biography.

1910 Wood-sunshine p. 71

1914 The Voyage of Ėarendel the Evening Star pp. 101-102

1914 Sea Chant for an Elder Day p. 105

1915 Goblin Feet pp. 106-107

1915 The Shores of Faery pp.108-109

Carpenter also publishes an untitled poem 'describing his and Edith's love for one another' (Biography, p. 106) and quotes the same limerick in Tolkien's early invented language Nevbosh that Tolkien quotes in his Secret Vice talk (Biography, p. 56). He also mentions Tolkien's adaption of the Kullervo story from the Kalevala and characterizes it as an unfinished pastiche of William Morris (Biography, pp. 104-105). Carpenter devotes a whole chapter to Tolkien's work on The Book of Lost Tales materials and his attendant language invention. In his biographical sketch of the early part of Tolkien's life and 25 creative work, Carpenter tends to use terminology from later parts of Tolkien's mythology. For example, Carpenter calls the languages Tolkien invented at this early stage of his mythology and Sindarin instead of their correct names, based on Tolkien's actual linguistic documents which I will thoroughly explore in this thesis: Qenya and Goldogrin/Gnomish. Moreover, Carpenter calls the name of the land Tolkien invents 'Middle-earth'; whereas Tolkien would not start using that name for his secondary world to the late 1930's. Finally, Tolkien scholar Douglas A. Anderson has indicated that Carpenter did not always publish poems in their original state. In the case of the published version of Tolkien's early poem Wood-sunshine, Carpenter only prints part of Tolkien's fourteen line poem. He prints the first four lines, then indicates a full stop (not in the original manuscript) and then Carpenter prints lines 13-14 (Douglas A. Anderson, email communication, 26 October 2014). Thus, Carpenter's editorial choices in presenting Tolkien's early material in Biography does not always accurately, or completely, reproduce what Tolkien actually wrote. Therefore, while informative, Carpenter's treatment of Tolkien's early creative work comes to the reader through a prism of his later work. This fact needs to be taken into account when using Biography to understand the early Tolkien.

Additional, albeit limited, early biographical information came in 1981 with the publishing of an edited selection of Tolkien's letters again by Humphrey Carpenter with the assistance of Christopher Tolkien (Letters). While an invaluable resource for Tolkien studies, this volume only contains two full letters and excerpts from two others (Letters, pp. 7-8) from the period 1913-1918. In the preface to this volume Christopher Tolkien explains that a large number of early letters from Tolkien to Edith are not included based on their personal nature (Letters, p. 1). During his lifetime Tolkien would use letters to give his correspondents additional information on his life and creative work. Therefore, throughout this thesis I use Letters as a resource for my analysis with the understanding that, for the most part, the information in them does not come from the actual time this thesis is focused on, but later in Tolkien's life when he reflected back on the early development of his mythology. 2

2 I have indicated this distinction by including the date the letter is said to have been written in the Letters reference. 26

Garth (2003) significantly expanded the profile of the young Tolkien by using archival research with a specific focus on how Tolkien's involvement in the War shaped his mythic thinking. Scholarship on Tolkien's biography reached a zenith in 2006 with the publishing by Hammond and Scull of the two volumes J.R.R. Tolkien Companion and Guide. The first volume (Chronology) is a detailed chronological treatment of Tolkien's life bringing together the vast amount of information on Tolkien from unpublished primary and authorized secondary sources. The second volume (Reader's Guide) is a thematic treatment of Tolkien's life and creative work. In addition, in 2006, The J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopaedia: Scholarship and Critical Assessment, edited by Drout, was published, which also offered Tolkien scholars critical articles on Tolkien's life and works. In 2014, The Blackwell Companion to J.R.R. Tolkien brought together much of the biographical information on Tolkien's life and work along with articles by Tolkien scholars on all aspects of Tolkien's academic and creative work and his legacy to modern fantasy literature. Most recently, Garth (2014) explored examples of Tolkien's process of imaginatively adapting various sources in his own early creative work which this thesis builds upon in examining Tolkien's creative trajectory across the 'trans-medial' elements Tolkien employed in building the secondary world of The Book of Lost Tales.

All these, and other biographical sources which I have indicated in the bibliography, are very important and have played a great part in forming the chronological understanding we have of Tolkien's life and creative works. In this thesis I draw from the biographical information I have explored above in my analysis of the young Tolkien and contextualize it with his creative work at the time. However, to get even closer to the actual Tolkien of the time of the writing of the earliest mythology, I also utilize several groups of under-explored key documents which I critically investigate to 'un-earth' Tolkien at the genesis of his mythology.

These additional materials are the reports of Tolkien's activity in the King Edward's School Debating Society, and the various literary papers he gave while at the King Edward's School and Exeter College. In addition, to better demonstrate Tolkien's academic interests, there are the records of the books

27 Tolkien borrowed from the Exeter College Fellow's Library which I have outlined in Appendix 2. These additional sources both add to the published biographical information on Tolkien, and give important indications of Tolkien's developing mind and creative process.

The reports of the King Edward's School Debating Society are an interesting prism through which to examine Tolkien and how he was viewed by others at this early time. Clearly, the young Tolkien was one who liked to be humorous and use words to make puns and ludic remarks. For example, in his maiden debate on the ‘tactics of the militant suffragette’ Tolkien is reported to have debated 'from a zoological point of view and gave an interesting display of his paronomasiac powers' (Anon. 1909, p. 84). 3 In another debate Tolkien responded to a colleague’s humorous description of the desire to work without a holiday as 'setting the Koh-i-noor in a jelly' (Anon. 1911, p.8) as a personal insult because Tolkien was in the 'habit of wearing a yellow pencil in his mouth' (8). Tolkien here is humorously playing on the fact that 'Koh-i-noor' can either refer to the famous diamond or a brand of yellow pencils.

In addition to the ludic uses of words and humour, in the report of one significant debate on the negative effects of the (Anon. 1910, pp. 94-95), Tolkien shows early evidence of a key belief that would inform much of the development of both his later academic study and mythology. In his remarks Tolkien extols the Anglo-Saxons and their culture characterizing them as 'a highly cultured and deeply religious people' (95). Reports (several, as secretary, by Tolkien himself) of other debates show embryonic ideas arising in Tolkien's mind; such as his dislike of the works of Shakespeare (Anon. 1911c, pp. 42-44) and his belief that it is the 'little people' who turn the wheels of fate (Anon. 1913, pp. 34-36). Also included in the King Edward's School Chronicles are several reports of Tolkien's delivery of papers to the school's literary society. Both the content and reports on Tolkien's delivery of these papers show an emerging scholar who is already in command of complex linguistic and philological theories and methodologies and who is able to communicate and excite others about these subjects. For example, the report of Tolkien's talk on 'The Modern Languages of Europe: Derivations and Capabilities' indicates that

3 'Paranomasiac' refers to one who is addicted to word play or puns. 28 it took Tolkien three one-hour sessions to deliver and he still did not finish his entire paper (Chronology, p. 17). His paper 'On Norse Sagas' (Anon. 1911b, pp.19-20) indicates that by the time Tolkien gave this talk, he had amassed a great and detailed knowledge of both the Norse Sagas; their stories, background on the Norse peoples and their language. Indeed, one of the reported charms of the report was Tolkien's ability to read passages from the Norse Sagas in the original (20). Tolkien started the delivery of his paper by explaining that a is a prose story; neither a history or a romance but, 'a real, old story of things which happened indeed but so long ago that marvels and miracles of the strange and Northern brand have crept into the tale' (20). He indicates that the best sagas were those of Iceland which due to the isolation of the island kept the tales 'marvellously intact' (20). Tolkien also makes possibly one of his earliest connections of the Norse Sagas to the English by stating, 'these are the Sagas, and they tell how brave men -of our own blood, perhaps - lived and loved and fought, and voyaged and died' (p. 20, emphasis added). Towards the end of his paper, Tolkien explored in depth the Volsunga Saga which he characterized as 'a strange and glorious tale' and an example of ‘the highest epic genius struggling out of savagery’ (20-21). Tolkien’s attraction to Volsunga Saga can be traced back to his childhood reading of Andrew Lang's The Red Fairy Book (1890) and 'The Story of ' (OFS, p. 55). As I will explore, Tolkien would re-imagine and re-purpose several elements of Volsunga Saga in his own mythology.

As he did at King Edward's School, Tolkien also gave several papers as an undergraduate at Exeter College. In chapters two and three of this thesis I explore several of these papers in greater detail and contextualize them with Tolkien's emerging mythic thought at the time. The first of these, On “The Kalevala” or In The Land of Heroes, Tolkien would deliver to the Corpus Christi College Sundial Society on 22 November 1914 and then later at the Exeter College Essay Club in February 1915. Both the manuscript and typescript of the text of this talk have been published in Tolkien Studies edited by Flieger (2010). The texts of these talks, like the report of Tolkien's talk on Norse sagas above, exhibit Tolkien's passion and enthusiasm for his subject matter, almost to the point of trying to gain new converts to his discovery of these fairly new mythological texts (see Letters, 1914, p. 7). The other talk which I thoroughly

29 analyse in chapter three, and include a transcript of the report of in Appendix 5, is Tolkien's literary paper on the Anglo-Catholic mystical poet Francis Thompson. I will use this report in chapter three to explore the poetic diction of Francis Thompson as a potential source for Tolkien's thoughts on attempting to incorporate overt Roman Catholic words and ideas into the earliest version of his mythopoeia.

Another key source for understanding the types of academic materials Tolkien was studying while he was at Exeter College is the list of books he borrowed from the Fellows Library of Exeter College which I have compiled in Appendix 2. A chronological review of the books Tolkien borrowed from the library show his shifting academic interest from Classics to philology and . For example, while Tolkien continued to borrow books about philology, Old and Middle English throughout his time as an undergraduate, the last classical text, Kennedy's edition of Aeschylus' Agamemnon, was borrowed by Tolkien for a month in 1913 and there are no more classical texts recorded as being borrowed by Tolkien after that date. According to the records, Tolkien borrowed ten books and journals on subjects focused on language and philology. From this group of books, Tolkien borrowed Sweet's History of English Sounds (1888) at three different periods which correspond with when he would have been working on the phonetic structure of Qenya for his Qenya Phonology. Starting in March 1914, Tolkien borrowed (and re-borrowed) a group of key books covering Anglo-Saxon language, literature and history. Of these, Earle's The Deeds of Beowulf (1892) is one of the key early texts Tolkien used for his study of Beowulf. Tolkien would borrow three books for his summer holidays of 1914 which, as I explore in the next chapter, would be immediately before he started work on the earliest poetic treatment of ideas that would later appear in his early mythology. According to the records, from June 1914 to October 1914, Tolkien re-borrowed Earle's Beowulf as well as Morris' Old English Miscellany and Grein and Wülcker's Bibliothek der angelsächsischen Poesie. The full title of Richard Morris's 1882 Old English Miscellany is Old English Miscellany containing a Bestiary, Kentish Sermons, Proverbs of Alfred and Religious Poems of Thirteenth Century. In Tolkien's Middle English Exeter College Notebook (Tolkien A21/7) there are several pages of word lists that correspond with words for animals from this bestiary; clearly showing that Tolkien studied

30 this part of Morris. Grein and Wülcker contains the Anglo-Saxon devotional poem Crist I, possibly by the eighth-century poet Cynewulf. As I also explore in the next chapter, a specific word, or 'lost' name, from this poem would serve as one of the key creative sparks for Tolkien's own imaginative exploration. Tolkien also studied several of the major Middle English poems and his borrowings on these topics seem to show a preference for the editions of the English philologist Walter William Skeat (1835-1912). Tolkien won the Skeat Prize for English in 1914 and used the five pound cash prize to purchase several books which show his growing interest in areas that would impact on his mythology and attendant language invention. These books were J. Morris Jones, A Welsh Grammar, Historical and Comparative (1913) and The House of Wolfings and The Life and Death of Jason by William Morris (Chronology, p. 51). Towards the end of time at Exeter, Tolkien also borrowed several books on English literature and Shakespeare. Garth suggests that this flurry of borrowings shows the areas of study Tolkien had neglected, and it corresponds with his studying for his final examinations, for which Tolkien received first class honours (2008, pp. 46-47). However, some of these books, especially the Cambridge History of English Literature and a volume of Keats, were borrowed at times when Tolkien was also working on his early mythic poetry and suggests him looking for both models and inspiration for his own creative work.

In addition to these books, there is another text that Tolkien borrowed from the Fellow's Library at three separate times which would be integral to his myth and language development; which I explore extensively throughout this thesis. This book was C.N.E. Eliot's Finnish Grammar (1890). As I demonstrate in chapter two, Tolkien's borrowing of this book would be part of his growing interest in the Finnish mythic cycle of the Kalevala, which Tolkien had first read in his last year at King Edward's School in the 1907 English translation of W.F. Kirby (Kahlas- Turka 2014, pp. 262-263).

In addition to the actual books Tolkien borrowed from the Fellows Library, another indication of the shift in Tolkien's interest from studying the Classics to pursuing English and philology can be seen in the notebooks Tolkien wrote during his time at Exeter which are now kept at the Bodleian Library. A survey of these notebooks shows virtually no evidence of notes on Greek or Latin

31 subjects. The titles of these notebooks include: ‘Historical grammar’, ‘Old English Texts’, ‘Middle English Texts’ and ‘English Philology’. Tolkien's red- covered essay book is of special interest as it contains some of the earliest written academic essays by Tolkien which cover philology, Old English and Old Norse literature and language. The essays in this book include: 'The Role of the Ablaut', 'The Language of Chaucer', 'Scandinavian Influences on English' and 'The Origins of the English Nation: Some Problems of Dissemination of Phonetic Change' (MS Tolkien A21/1-12). This last essay is especially significant as it indicates early evidence of Tolkien making connections between the development of nations and language change; an element, as I explore further on, Tolkien would imaginatively develop in his development of own language system for the mythology This notebook also contains early translations of two Old English poems based on the 'lost tales' of the Germanic peoples: and 's Lament. As I will explore in chapter five, in developing his own pseudo-historic framework to link his mythology to a lost tradition of England, Tolkien would re-imagine and re-purpose several subjects that were included in both these poems.

When Tolkien's school notebooks were archived at the Bodleian Library, they were found to contain a series of notes and slips of paper that Tolkien had put in them; mostly at the time he was using these notebooks. An analysis of these notes indicates Tolkien's fascination with Germanic philology and the development of languages through sound shifts. These slips of paper are early examples of what Christopher Tolkien would later characterize as his father's 'thinking with his pen' (Lost Tales II, p. 310). Tolkien's interest in charting out sound shifts would become imaginatively reflected in his own language invention work through such documents as The Qenya Phonology. One of the most intriguing of these fragments is found on the verso of a long lined page of notes on an text which Tolkien kept in his Exeter College notebook on 'General English'. On the back of this page Tolkien started compiling a catalogue of the various essays, papers, prose and plays he had written up to c.1913 (Tolkien MS A21/ 9). This list is revealing as it exhibits the vast scope of Tolkien's interest, his love of literature and language and his recurring humour. This list both confirms some key early works mentioned in other sources and also lists some new ones, such as his 1913 letter 'On PMG

32 as Gothic', that have not yet been sourced, or possibly have been lost.

Taken together, I would argue, these additional materials deepen the understanding of Tolkien at the genesis of his mythology in several key areas that I am introducing here and will then explore throughout the thesis. First, Tolkien brought into his earliest academic experience a love of language which had been encouraged through his mother and her home-schooling of Tolkien and his brother Hilary before she died in 1904 (Biography, pp. 38-39). Related to this, Tolkien clearly loved to play with words and language as indicated as early as his maiden King Edward's School debate in which, as I explored above, Tolkien exhibited a humorous use of world play and punning. This trend would continue when he was at Oxford. Secondly, although Tolkien was open in his study and passion of primary world languages, he was fairly secretive and almost dismissive of his imaginative language work (see for example Letters, p. 8 and Tolkien’s use of the phrase ‘my nonsense fairy-language’). This early recorded reluctance suggests the start of a trend which Tolkien would follow throughout his life in how he would characterize his imaginative language work (see MC, pp. 198-199, 212). There were also several times at the genesis of Tolkien's mythology where Tolkien would deliberately set up a private space, in either notebooks or artist's sketchbooks, in which he would express his emerging, and in some cases, quite radical, mythic ideas. The potential role of private invention and public presentation is a key area I explore and assess at the end of the thesis to better understand what audience Tolkien had in mind, if any, for his earliest invented mythology. Thirdly, given the subject of his early essays and papers, Tolkien was clearly interested in the scientific origin and mechanics of language, and this love also included his interest in etymology and the way language actually worked. This interest would progress throughout his studies and result in the intricate sketches of words and sound shifts which became more focused on his study of the Germanic languages and, as I introduced above, would ultimately be reflected in his own imaginative language work. As I discuss in the next chapter, Tolkien's language invention did not just focus on constructing language but also on exploring how a whole series of invented languages could develop and change over both (fictional) chronological time and contact with other (fictional) peoples.

33 A desire to understand the language behind myth and legends led Tolkien to explore literature in the original. Especially In the cases of Beowulf, the Norse Sagas and the Kalevala, Tolkien deepened his understanding of the stories by learning the languages they were originally written in. Tolkien's early love of story was partially motivated by a sense of the loss of his ancestral culture and a desire to recover it. Based on the evidence of the King Edward's School 'Norman Invasion' debate Tolkien felt the great rich culture (including language) of the English (which, for Tolkien, meant the Anglo-Saxons and their Germanic ancestors) had been almost completely obliterated by the Norman Invasion of 1066. The desire to reconstruct this culture and mythology would be a key objective in Tolkien's myth-making and would result in him not only inventing new myths, but re-imagining and re-purposing material from Germanic myth and legend; including several key strands of 'lost tales' from the Germanic migration period of the fifth and sixth centuries.

4. Structure of the Thesis

The chapters to follow each draw upon the biographical information that both the published and archival sources of the emerging Tolkien provide to examine his creative myth-making and language invention. In addition to a biographical and chronological approach to Tolkien's early works, I also utilize a critical framework that will examine Tolkien's movement along a trajectory of imitator/adaptor of primary world mythic and linguistic material to creator of his own unique body of mythology for his emerging invented secondary world.

In chapter two I critically examine the interplay of myth and language in the development of Tolkien's mythological structure and critically explore the sources and analogues that would influence Tolkien's development in this area. I set Tolkien's early imaginative language invention in a wider literary and cultural context by exploring the construction and use of imaginative languages in previous works of fiction; with a specific focus on the traveller's tale topos. Then I proceed to explore the earliest examples of Tolkien's imaginative language development to demonstrate how it moved from rudimentary attempts at word replacement codes to complex language construction reflecting the language theories of his day. I give special critical focus to several pages of unpublished documents from the notes of Tolkien's talk, , which 34 offer more information on the syntax and vocabulary of his first privately invented language, Naffarin, and similar details of a hitherto unknown invented language, Fonwegian. I then examine how Tolkien's imaginative language construction became rapidly integral and intertwined with his myth-making and demonstrate how Tolkien used these joined elements to construct the earliest version of his secondary world which was expressed in The Book of Lost Tales materials.

In chapter three I use the framework of myth and language, from chapter two, to explore the religious and spiritual structure that underlies Tolkien's mythology and especially his early attempts to incorporate overtly Roman Catholic words and ideas into his emerging secondary world. Although in later versions of his mythology Tolkien would chose to explore several themes of Roman Catholicism within the context of his secondary world, but not overtly express them in primary world words, in his earliest version of the mythology Tolkien would attempt to incorporate specific Roman Catholic words and more overt Roman Catholic ideas in his mythology. In this chapter I contextualize the sources and motivations for these early attempts with the type of Roman Catholicism Tolkien learned from youth which was the product of the Birmingham Oratory founded by Cardinal John Henry Newman. I examine several elements of Victorian spiritualism which were inherent in the strand of Roman Catholicism Newman taught and suggest this body of teaching Tolkien would have been exposed to at the Oratory gave him the permission, source and inspiration to include these ideas in his early mythology. I also explore the creative work of the Anglo-Catholic writer Francis Thompson; based on the aforementioned report of a literary paper Tolkien gave on Thompson while at Exeter College. I show that Thompson's own poetic diction combined pagan and spiritualist elements with the type of Catholic mystical elements that Newman had written about. Thompson's treatment of Roman Catholic ideas in tandem with elements of mysticism and Victorian spiritualism (including poems depicting elves and fairies) would have showed Tolkien another way to merge these different concepts in his mythology. Finally, I explore the early solution Tolkien developed in his own cosmological structure for his mythology which blended these concepts together and made them 'fit' into Tolkien's secondary world mythology.

35

In chapter four I examine the role of the visual in the genesis on Tolkien's mythology. I read two major groups of visual documents from this period. First, the published drawings and paintings in which Tolkien expressed his early mythic ideas. Secondly, the group of visually oriented para-textual elements, such as maps, charts and artefacts expressed in Tolkien's invented writing systems. I demonstrate that in addition to myth and language invention, the visual played a significant role in the genesis of Tolkien's mythology and will suggest several contextual frameworks; including the recent theories developed by Wolf (2012) of 'trans-medial' secondary world building.

In the last chapter I address the other key component of Tolkien's mythic thinking: the transmission of story. As Flieger states 'for Tolkien, there is no tale without a teller' (2011 p. 242). In this chapter I explore several ways Tolkien experimented with linking his growing body of mythology through a transmission 'framework' to the primary world and why this was important to him. I first explore how Tolkien was inspired by and used dreams, and dream vision, to attempt this link. I suggest some sources and analogues drawn from Classical sources as well medieval dream vision poems and the role of dreams in Romanticism and early works of fantasy literature.

I show how Tolkien attempted to incorporate these concepts into his mythology through creating, in his Qenya Lexicon, a vocabulary of words around dreams and dream vision. I then proceed to explore how, especially after the War, Tolkien developed another more narrative-focused structure to link his mythology to the primary world through a pseudo-historical framework which he gave to his invented primary world mariner, Ottor Wǽfre. By re-imagining and re-purposing Germanic myths and legends, Tolkien gave his mariner a pedigree which would allow the tales he heard from the Elves to become the now lost foundations of the mythology of England. While Tolkien would choose to pursue the pseudo-historic transmission framework, I also demonstrate that Tolkien never abandoned the idea of dreams, and dream vision, in his mythology and show how these early attempts would eventually lead to a unique idea of how dreams could work in a secondary world called 'Faërian Drama'.

36 Chapter 2: Myth and Language

...the making of language and mythology are related functions (MC, p. 210)

Mythology is language and language is mythology. The mind, and the tongue, and the tale are coeval. (OFS, p. 181)

1. Introduction

Both statements above come from two key manifestos that Tolkien would first deliver at the beginning and end of the 1930's. The first, from a 1931 talk Tolkien would give to a philological society on his experience with language invention, 'A Hobby for the Home' which was later published by Christopher Tolkien as A Secret Vice. The second quote comes from the original version of Tolkien’s talk On Fairy-stories, given 8 March 1939 as the annual Andrew Lang Lecture at the University of St. Andrews. Taken together, both these talks encompassed Tolkien's thoughts on the coeval and intertwined role of myth- making and language invention in his creative thought. Flieger eloquently describes this bond of myth and language: 'for Tolkien there is no tale without a teller, no teller without a language and no language without something to talk about’ (2011, p. 242).

In this second chapter of the thesis, I am laying the groundwork for my exploration of the genesis of Tolkien's mythology by examining the crucial role myth and language played in Tolkien's early creative work. I first examine the mythic and philological influences that shaped the young Tolkien by identifying examples of academic and fictional works where Tolkien would have seen the interplay of myth and language. I also read works of the 18th and 19th century including historical and comparative philology, examples of prior language invention, national epic and Victorian fairy literature to assess their impact on Tolkien's early creative output from both a mythic and linguistic point of view. As I demonstrate, this fusion in Tolkien's earliest creative work would result in Tolkien's growth from imitator/adaptor of the works that intellectually shaped him, to creator of a unique body of invented mythology. The first expression of

37 this blending would be The Book of Lost Tales materials which Christopher Tolkien has characterized as 'the first substantial work of imaginative literature by J.R.R. Tolkien' (Lost Tales I, p.1). In this unfinished early work, and its attendant notes and documents, I suggest that we can see the first substantial evidence of the integration of myth and language as a unified core building block of Tolkien's emerging secondary world with each element complementing and relying on the other; coeval and co-dependent.

2. The Bones in the Soup: Setting Context

The statements by Tolkien which I have quoted at the start of this chapter can be read as originating in the cultural, social and academic environment that he was intellectually formed in. The mythic and linguistic forces that shaped some of the young Tolkien's earliest ideas and thoughts in this area came out of a fertile period of the 18th and 19th century resulting in the development of theories about myth and the birth of historical and comparative philology by philologists as Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, Rasmus Rask, the philologist and mythographer Max Müller and theorists of myth and religion William James and Andrew Lang (see especially Shippey, 2005). Several of these early explorers of the nature of myth and language had a significant influence on Tolkien's own development; even if, especially in the case of Müller and Lang, Tolkien would later come to disagree with some of their statements about the meaning and role of myth and fairy-tales (see OFS, pp. 21-31 and 58).

One key area of philological inquiry that would have a significant impact on Tolkien's own language invention was the comparative methodological processes philologists developed to rediscover and understand early forms of language and how they related to each other. The catalyst for this exploration occurred in 1786, when William Jones announced to the Royal Asiatic Society that Sanskrit, Greek and Latin were all related in terms of recognisable phonological correspondences, grammatical typology, and common lexical stock (Turner 2014, p. 130). Jones' speech opened up a new field of philological investigation. Turner characterizes this movement as motivating among philologists of the time as 'a new view of the relationship among languages, implying a new program of study for them' (2014, p. 97). In 1818, Jacob Grimm published his Deutsche Grammatik, which attempted to organise 38 the comparative search for early and related languages into a scientific method. Grimm developed the concept of the lautverschiebung; laws to establish a series of sounds shifts from earlier languages to the later ones (see Eco 1997, p. 104). This body of scholarship and scientific methodology that resulted in the discipline of comparative philology would be one Tolkien would model in his own myth-making and language invention. For example, Tolkien would ultimately invent his own earliest layer for his Elvish language system, Primitive Eldarin, which would suggest that his two invented languages for the Elves, Qenya and Goldogrin, could be traced back through a series of invented sound shifts to this original unified stem language (PE 12, p. 4). In the of philologists like Jacob Grimm, Tolkien would codify these sound shifts in The Qenya Phonology (PE 12, pp. 1-28), a philological treatise he wrote the earliest version of in the spring of 1915 and would continue to add to while writing The Book of Lost Tales materials. The structure of The Qenya Phonology mirrored the comparative and reconstructive method of philology Tolkien was inspired by. The narrative that accompanied The Qenya Phonology would also reflect the belief that language came from a single source which had become defused through time and migrations by Tolkien having his Elves all waking up in a single place and then migrating to the Valar in the West (Lost Tales I, pp. 122- 123). This, I would suggest, is a key example of Tolkien combining myth and language to invent his own version of the birth of a common, or 'proto-language' which would imaginatively mirror the development of the Proto-Indo-European language which comparative philology sought to reconstruct and understand.

As I explore further on, Tolkien's language invention also suggests the type of experimentation which occurred at the turn of the 20th century in the 'free-play' of language forms. This included emerging theories of 'sound symbolism' or 'phono-semantics', which, in broad terms, suggested that there 'is a representational relationship between the sounds making up a word and its meaning' (Fimi 2010, p. 86). These theories came to Oxford University through the work of Sir Edward Burnett Tylor; the first person to hold a chair in the new academic discipline of anthropology at Oxford. Jacob Grimm's earlier work on Ablaut (vowel graduation) had influenced Tylor's own exploration of sound symbolism (see Atherton 2012, p. 192).

39 In 1909, the American philologist, Leonard Bloomfield, explored these theories in his thesis in historical Germanic linguistics, A semiological differentiation in Germanic secondary Ablaut. Bloomfield indicated that the change in meaning in the progression of verbs like 'slink, slank, slunk' is not just due to the old laws of derivation but also to the old inherent Germanic sense of vowel pitch and focused on the tone of a word conveying meaning. Regarding the importance of sound meaning, Bloomfield wrote 'since in human speech, different sounds have different meanings, to study the coordination of certain sounds with certain meanings is to study language' (cited in Magnus 2001, p. 20). The influence of this work on the early Tolkien is suggested by the title of one of his earliest known unpublished essays which Tolkien wrote in his Exeter College Notebook, from May 1913 called 'Pitch Accents in Ablauts' in which Tolkien explored different forms of ablaut including the qualitative, quantitative and accentual differences and outlined several examples of how ablaut, especially in the Germanic languages, can be traced back to a parent language. In his own language invention Tolkien was interested in inventing languages that included elements of phono-semantics and sound symbolism. In his talk A Secret Vice Tolkien indicates that invented languages which include elements of sound symbolism as 'artistic' (MC, p. 201).

In addition, theories of phono-semantics were also explored in the literature and poetry that would have been available to Tolkien at this time. For example, the fantasy works of Lewis Carroll explore the phono-aesthetic nature of words in poems like 'Jabberwocky' and in his own fragments of an invented language, doggee, for his fairy- Sylvie and Bruno, which I discuss in the next section (see also Fimi 2010, pp.90-1). Like Carroll, another poet who explored the use of sound and sense in poetry was Edward Lear, who developed the idea of ‘nonsense’ verse expressed, for the most part, as a limerick. My analysis returns to Edward Lear's nonsense poetry further on in this chapter when I examine one of Tolkien's earliest attempts at language invention; based on a published sample of it in A Secret Vice, expressed in a similar Lear-like limerick form.

40 3. The Legacy of Invented Languages in Texts and Fictional Works

In order to establish both the context and motivation for Tolkien's specific language invention, it is important to understand the roots of his language invention and those authors before Tolkien who attempted to employ invented languages for works of fiction. In this section I briefly survey the historical, cultural and literary tradition of language invention prior to Tolkien. Yaguello (1991) and Eco (1997) have especially explored the various movements that led authors, and philosophers, to invent languages. In this section, I explore three phases in the history of language invention: Medieval, Early Modern and 19th century language invention, directly before Tolkien. In the case of early Modern and 19th century language invention I specifically focus on those invented languages that emerged from the tradition of fictional traveller's tales in which the invented language is one of the 'discovered' elements in a new fantastical space. In making the following survey, I am not suggesting that Tolkien was directly influenced by each of these examples of language invention. Rather, I am outlining some of the key characteristics of past language invention to explore how Tolkien would build upon, re-frame and, in some cases, respond to these elements in his own imaginative language invention.

3.1. Before Fiction: Medieval Language Invention

One of the earliest examples of a form of language invention was the product of the rather enigmatic Virgilius Maro Grammaticus ( the Grammarian) who, most likely, was an Irish scholar writing in the middle of the 7th century. Virgilius composed two grammars, Epitomae and Epistolae, which were based on the two parts of the Ars grammatica, a work of the fourth-century grammarian and rhetorician Aelius Donatus. As Law indicates, Virgilius' works are not straightforward Medieval grammars, but include ludic use of word forms, invented sources as well as words that are constructed from Latin roots but are not found in any Latin dictionary, such as inscrutari, gande, declinamentum, and querelosus (2006, p. 8).

Better known and documented is the language invention of the German Benedictine Abbess of Rupertsberg, the writer and philosopher Hildegard von

41 Bingen (1098-1179) who invented a language that has become known as the Ignota Lingua. Hildegard claimed publicly that this clearly invented language came to her through divine revelation. Her actual language invention process started when she wrote out a dictionary of 1,011 'unknown' nouns which are annotated by Medieval German and Latin glosses (Higley 2007, p. 23). Higley characterizes Hildegard's invented language as 'a strange mix of compounds with an apparently haphazard application of syllables that would suggest an on the spot creation with its several repeats of words assigned different meanings’ (2007, p. 25). I would suggest that Hildegard's word invention process intriguingly mirrors Tolkien's earliest work on his Qenya language as she, like Tolkien, started by compiling a list of invented words. Atherton (2001) and Higley (2007) suggest that Ignota Lingua may have been a sacred language designed to express the divine visions Hildegard had and recorded. Higley compares the Lingua with evidence of other seemingly invented languages which came out of this tradition of mysticism and 'glossolalia' – the religious act of speaking in tongues (2007, pp. 31-41). However, Okrent points out that 'though Hildegard's language may have been motivated by some kind of divine inspiration, the fact that it was written down, with the words carefully organized into meaningful categories and with some structural relationships between words indicated by endings, makes it look more like the intentional work of an inventor with a plan than the channelling of a spiritual medium' (2010, p.11). Like Tolkien, Hildegard would use several of these invented words in verse and poetry with a gloss for these words in the manuscript to their Latin meanings. For example, in Hildegard’s antiphon O Orzchis Ecclesia (‘O Immense Church’) there are five invented words used among the Latin text including adjectives which show that Hildegard's invention went beyond the list of nouns; first given in Ignota Lingua with the corresponding Latin word and Higley's English translation: orzchis/ immensa (immense), caldemia/aroma (fragrance), loifolum/populus (people), crizanta/ ornata, uncta (anointed/adorned) and diorzta/choruscans (glittering) (Higley 2007, pp. 30-32). In addition to pure language invention, Higley also cites Embach's theory that Hildegard was attempting to invent a source language that would correct the errors of post Tower of Babel speech and recreate the harmonious language of Adam as he heard it, before the transgression, from the -choir in Eden (cited in Higley 2007, p. 29). If this is the case, then this would be one of the earliest examples

42 of language invention as the search to rediscover through invention the perfect language of Adam. This attempt at rediscovering the original Adamic language would be a major focus of invention during the , Renaissance and into the Enlightenment and would be one Tolkien would explore in his own language invention (see Eco 1997 and Fimi 2010). As I explore in chapter three, Tolkien may, for a time, have considered the Qenya language of his Elves to be sacred or have elements of ritual contained in it and communicated to men as 'song and holiness' (PE 12, p. 35).

3.2. Early Modern Language Invention and the Traveller's Tale

This attempt to reconstruct the perfect Adamic language would be a key influence on much of early modern language invention as it appears in fictional literature. A key trope which was used to facilitate this introduction by the author of an imaginative language invention is the 'traveller's tale'. In this type of tale the protagonist goes on a journey, either on the sea, underground, or, in space and encounters different people, cultures and invented languages. The traveller’s tale is usually told as reminiscence sometimes in the form of a journal or 'found' manuscript. Clearly, the prevalence of this narrative trope starting in the late Middle Ages/Early Renaissance reflects the great explorations and discoveries of the New World and then, as more of this world was discovered, these journeys fantastically stretched out into both outer space and under the earth (see Wolf 2012, pp. 72-85). Linked to this was the concept of these discovered lands being places of untouched perfection. The languages found on them are often characterized as the linguistic reflections of this pure untouched perfection. Several of these fictional works mention invented languages and give samples of the language for the reader. In some cases, the author actually constructs a grammar and vocabulary for the language and relates this to the reader in a section of the story where the traveller gives a 'report' of the people, culture and language of the people that are discovered. In most cases, however, despite the amount of creative work put in by the author, the actual invented language is not integrated into the fabric of the story and, at best, serves as an interesting diversion from the main action of the narrative.

43 One of the earliest examples of a fantastic traveller’s tale that includes a detailed constructed language and attendant invented is Thomas More's novel Utopia (1516) which Higley characterises as 'perhaps the first secular and fictional glossopeia – that is, an invented language (or a portion of a language) with a coherent structure accompanying an imaginary culture' (2007, p. 63). In Utopia, More has his fictional narrator, Raphael Hythloday (a name that means 'speaker of nonsense' in Greek), discover the island country of Utopia and the language of Utopian. The name Utopia itself is a pun on both the Greek terms 'ou-topos' for 'no place land,' and 'eu-topos,' for 'good place land' (Rogers 2011, p. 234). The reader learns about the system of languages on this island by Hythloday's recording of it and his comments on the way it sounded; suggesting a possible origin in Persian or Greek (More 2003, p. 78). In addition to commenting on the language, More included in the back of the 1517 edition of Utopia a quatrain written in the language of Utopian with a Latin translation. This quatrain was then translated by Logan in his edition of Utopia into English (Logan 2002, pp.119-121). Although the narrative report of the Utopian language suggests a resemblance to Greek, Conley and Cain indicate that the only word in the Utopian poetic fragment that looks Greek is gymnosophon, which refers to 'the naked philosophers of India' (2006, p.202). Other words in Utopian suggest Hebrew or Latin origins, as well as More's ludic use of word form (202-203). As I explore when I turn to an analysis of Tolkien's own early language invention, More's morphological structure for Utopian has some intriguing parallels to Tolkien's first invented language Nevbosh, which also uses elements of Latin words in an inventive and imaginative way (MC, pp. 203- 207). More's Utopia also has two other elements that Tolkien would incorporate into his own mythology; an invented and an illustrated map. First, in the 1517 edition of Utopia the fragment of Utopian quatrain was visually depicted in an invented writing system designed either by More or his colleague Peter Giles. Leslie suggests that the circular of this invented alphabet represented More's fascination with geometric games, as well as metaphoric aspects of Utopia itself; its attempts at perfection, its orderliness and its solving of ancient problems by making a circle into a square (1999, p. 202). More's Utopia is also the first work of this type of fiction to use the map as a para-text to visualize and orient the fantastic place of the story. The first edition of Utopia included a map drawn by an unknown hand. The 1517 edition had

44 one drawn by the Dutch painter Ambrosius Holbein (the brother of the famous painter of the Tudors - Hans Holbein the Younger). Both these maps were woodcut prints and contained an oblique view of the island. A later more detailed map was made by Abraham Ortelius in 1595 (see Wolf 2012, p.86) I will return to the role of maps as para-textual elements and trans-medial components of building a secondary world in chapter four.

Descriptions of invented languages appeared in a series of traveller's tales which followed More's Utopia. The reports of these languages all clearly show influence of the parallel real world investigation and search for the perfect Adamic language mentioned above. Conley and Cain note that 'this logical structure is reminiscent of contemporary schemes to establish a universal, philosophically satisfying language such as that propounded by John Wilkins’ (Rogers 2011, p.168 and Eco 1997, pp. 238-259). This group of traveller's tales with invented langages are: Bishop Godwin's The Man in the Moone (1638), Cyrano de Bergerac's L'Autre Monde (1657), Gabriel de Foigny's La Terre Australe Connue (1676) and Simon Tysot de Patot's Voyages et Avantures de Jacques Massé (1714). Yaguello characterizes the invented languages for these utopian worlds as 'dream languages' that have 'harmony, elegance, correspondence to reality, logic, clarity, musicality, symmetry, regularity and economy' (1994, pp. 40-41). The emphasis on simplicity of form and ease of learning can be seen as examples of wish fulfilment for a perfect language that would be easy to learn and communicate to all people. This wish fulfilment through invented languages would contribute to the invention of 'auxiliary' languages starting in the 19th century. Auxiliary languages were synthetic languages designed to allow all nations to easily communicate together. The best known of these is Esperanto, which Tolkien would teach himself from an early age (Smith and Wynne 2000, p. 27).

In his 1726 adventure novel Gulliver's Travels Jonathan Swift used language invention, fuelled by political , to invent place names and samples of phrases in fragments of several imaginative languages. One of the key distinguishing elements of Swift's language invention was their phono-aesthetic construction which distinguished the nature and culture of the different races that Swift's ship surgeon, Lemuel Gulliver, encountered on his fantastical

45 travels. For example, on the island of tiny Lilliputs (which sounds like a place small people would inhabit) a delicious wine is called glimigrim whereas on the opposing island of Blefuscu this same wine is called flunec (Swift 2002, pp. 79- 80). On the island of the Lilliputians, Gulliver learns the phrase 'lumos kelmin pesso desmar lon empesso' which Swift translates as 'swear peace with him and his kingdom' (33). I would argue that several words ending in open vowels give a euphonic feel to this language regardless of meaning. Contrasting to the sound-sense of this sentence is another specimen of Swift's language invention from the island of Glubbdubrib ('The Island of Sorcerers'). Gulliver records a phrase in Glubbdubrib which, given its use of consonant clusters and words ending mainly in bilabial and dental , phonetically expresses quite a different sound-sense from the Lilliputian sentence above, again before knowing what the sentence actually signifies. I will quote this phrase in full which Swift, again, provides a translation of: 'Inckpling gloffthrobb squut serummblhiop mlashnalt zwin inodbalkuffh slhiophad gurdlubh asht' which Swift translates as 'may your celestial majesty outlive the sun, eleven moons and a half!’ (382). Another example of Swift's focus on the phono-aesthetic construction of his invented languages can be seen in the language of the Houyhnhnm, a race of civilized horses who lived on an island with the barbarous Yahoos. For the Houyhnhnm, Swift invents and gives examples of words that use onomatopoeia that sound like a horses whinny. For example the invented word in Houyhnhnm for 'bird of pray' is 'Gnnauyh' (see Rogers 2011, p. 86).

In his communication of invented languages to the reader, Swift establishes a pattern of expressing the invented language first and then translating it for the reader into English. Tolkien would also follow a similar pattern in his language invention in the context of his secondary world mythology and narrative; suggesting that Tolkien, like Swift, while relying on the sound sense of the phonemes selected to give a sense of the culture of the invented language spoken, still felt that the reader needed to be told, in a majority of cases, what the words and phrases actually meant. Where Tolkien would diverge from most authors of invented languages, as I demonstrate further on, is that behind Tolkien’s invented nomenclature for people, places and things would be a structured and planned system of morphology and word building. Unlike Tolkien, in Swift's case there is no evidence in his published materials of a

46 grammar or list of invented base roots driving the different expression of the languages that Gulliver, read Swift, includes in his traveller's narrative.

Swift, I would argue, is inventing language on the surface to express the nature of the different cultures which are Swift’s satirical reflections of different aspects of this world. However, these words and phrases are not underpinned by any evidence of, as Tolkien would later characterize it, ‘a nexus of languages' (Letters, 1951, p. 144). However, Swift's focus on the phono-aesthetic nature of language invention clearly influenced Tolkien. Among Tolkien's unpublished papers for A Secret Vice is a series of notes on Swift's invented languages and their phono-aesthetic nature (MS Tolkien 24, folio 25 recto and verso). I explore these notes further on as part of my analysis of a larger group of unpublished documents that suggest Tolkien imitating and adapting Swift's system of different fictional cultures through invented languages which have a unique sound sense to them.

Swift's Gulliver's Travels would have several imitators who would all either mention, or have their travellers’ reports refer to, examples of language invention. These included Samuel Brunt's A Voyage to Cackogallina (1727); Ludwig Holberg's The Journey of Neils Kim and the World Underground (1741); Robert Pallock's The Life and Adventures of Peter Wilkins (1750); Rudolf Erich Raspe's The Surprising Travels and Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1785), a work Tolkien mentions in On Fairy-stories in his discussion of traveller's tales (OFS, p. 34); and 's The Adventures of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket (1838).

3.3. 19th Century Language Invention – Tolkien's Direct Predecessors

From this tradition of language invention for fiction came one of the most complete grammars of an invented language by the Victorian writer Percy Greg in his early novel Across the Zodiac: The Story of a Wrecked Record (1880). For his space-based traveller’s tale adventure to Mars, Greg actually invented, in great detail, the Martial language (Conley and Cain 2006, p. 2). In the tradition of past traveller's tales, Greg outlined his Martial language in Chapter V of the novel: 'Language, Laws and Life' (Greg 1880, pp. 110-143). Greg’s Martial language consisted of twelve vowels, twenty-seven consonants, 47 a masculine and feminine form for the personal pronoun “I” and, perhaps most interesting to Tolkien, an agglutinative word building system with prefixes and suffixes added to base roots. Greg also indicates 'the past tense is formed by the infix insertion of n' (111). Therefore, the phrase 'I have been' is formed by the invented verb form 'ava' (have) with the infix 'n' (ibid). While there is no direct evidence that Tolkien read Greg's Across the Zodiac and was influenced by his particular language invention, it might be significant that Tolkien would choose as one of the ways to express the past tense of his Qenya verbs a similar 'n' infix in the base root as Greg's (see for example PE 12, p. 64).

The link with invented language and science fiction was also explored by Edward Bulwer, Lord Lytton in his science fiction story The Coming Race (1871). Yaguello characterises The Coming Race as a work that 'most deserves the name of fiction-linguistics. For the language of -ya is constructed as an extrapolation from the accepted truths of the linguistic science of the time' (1994, p. 45). Unlike the travel to a strange island or planet, in this dystopian traveller's tale, an American accidentally falls through a mine shaft and finds himself in a subterranean world occupied by beings who seem to resemble and call themselves Vril-ya. The soon discovers that the Vril-ya are descendants of an old civilization whose race is maintained by an all-permeating fluid called Vril which is a source of their energy and gives them great mental skills and power. The narrator explains that these powerful beings are running out of habitable space underground and are preparing to dominate the earth destroying mankind in the process if necessary. As with other examples of invented languages for reported traveller’s tales I have explored above, Bulwer-Lytton reports the specific grammatical details on the Vril-ya language in Chapter XII of his story, and like the others, does not attempt to integrate it into the narrative. In his description of the Vril-ya language, Bulwer- Lytton makes several references to the work of contemporary, for his time, philologists to reconstruct a Proto- Indo-European language. For example, in his introduction to the Vril-ya language Bulwer-Lytton directly quotes from Max Müller's 1868 lecture On the Stratification of Language, in which Müller explored how language progresses from the agglutinative and isolating phase to the inflectional (Bulwer-Lytton 1871, p. 22). By using Müller's language theories Bulwer-Lytton built into his language invention two key ideas which Tolkien

48 would later incorporate into his own system of invented languages for his mythology. First, the sense of giving the invented language a historic depth, and secondly, the progression of the invented language through (fictional) chronological time as well as exploring the effects of the transformation and 'decay' of language as it moves away from its source language. All these are key areas that Tolkien would imaginatively explore and develop in his own language invention of Primitive Eldarin, Qenya and Gnomish which I will explore further on in this chapter.

Finally, evidence of another invented language which incorporates the idea of 'sound-sense' can be seen in Lewis Carroll’s aforementioned Sylvie and Bruno (1889) which contains several lines of the invented language of doggee (Conley and Cain 2006, p.184). In the chapter ‘A Visit to Dogland’ Carroll, like Swift, uses sound sense in the expression of the doggee language. For example, when the fairy, Bruno, attempts to enter a house guarded by dogs one of the dogs warns him in doggee not to enter: '”Oobooh, hooh boohooyah!" He growled at last. "Woobah yahwah oobooh! Bow wahbah woobooyah? Bow wow?" he asked Bruno, severely. Of course Bruno understood all this, easily enough. All Fairies understand Doggee—-that is, Dog-language' (Carroll 1889, pp.151-152). Clearly, Carroll, unlike Swift and later Tolkien, does not bother to translate what is being said in doggee because the sound sense of the phonetic make-up of the language communicates to the reader the idea that these are dogs speaking the invented language.

3.4. Conclusions: Philology and the Tradition of Language Invention before Tolkien

This brief survey of the history of language invention, especially for fictional works, has isolated several characteristics which Tolkien would also explore and, in some cases, respond to in his own language invention. First, several of these examples of invented languages reflect and combine several key language theories represented by emerging theories of sound symbolism and the attempted reconstruction of Proto-Indo-European by comparative philology. Secondly, invented languages in many of the works that employ the traveller's tale trope are clearly used to give the imaginative and strange cultures that are discovered a stronger cultural and social grounding in reality or plausibility. The 49 influence of the traveller’s tale trope itself on Tolkien is evident in his use of this type of 'framework' in his early attempt to link his emerging mythology to a lost tradition of England which I explore fully in chapter five. Given this use, however, it is interesting that in On Fairy-Stories, Tolkien dismisses traveller's tales, such as Lang's A Voyage to Lilliput (based on Swift's Gulliver's Travels), as a form of fairy-tale because the marvels described exist in this mortal world in some region of our own time and space; 'distance alone conceals them' (OFS, p. 34). In the manuscripts of On Fairy-stories Tolkien also characterised traveller’s tales as ‘deriving from men or existing in precisely the same . But Elves and Fairies do not’ (OFS, p. 178, emphasis in the original). In another manuscript Tolkien dismisses traveller’s tales as ‘having no magic in them’ (OFS, p. 216). I would point out that by the time Tolkien wrote these passages; he had already attempted to use the traveller's tale 'framework' that indeed included a traveller's encounter with elves and fairies. Tolkien's motivation for characterising travellers’ tales as 'lacking magic' may have been, in part, his reaction to the invented languages in many of these tales not being fully integrated into the fabric of the stories they were telling. This would be a key element Tolkien would set out to change in his own early creative work. As I will explore in the next sections, Tolkien's mythology would be born, in part, through the incorporation of invented names, that would have a coherence and consistency in word form, in the imaginative poetic context of his July 1915 poem The Shores of Faery. Tolkien's ultimate response to the traveller's tales that mentioned, or even sketched out, invented language would be to put his language invention at the heart of his mythic narrative. Clearly what this brief survey demonstrates is that the tradition of invented languages in fictional literature was a rich one for Tolkien to draw upon as he started work on his own language invention in c.1907.

4. The Early Tolkien as Imitator/Adaptor

Based on Tolkien's own recollections through his published letters4 it is fairly clear that the two strands of myth creation and language invention started as separate creative efforts. These moved together as Tolkien matured and developed his skills in each area and realized that both elements were related

4 See especially: Letters, 1951, pp. 144-145; 1955, pp. 214-215; 1956, p.231; 1964, pp. 344- 345; 1967, pp. 374-376. 50 and depended on each other (see Fimi 2010, p. 66). Tolkien’s experience with language invention started as the ‘play’ of a social group and progressed to become the product of private invention that would come to reflect Tolkien's own phonetic aesthetic. Tolkien would call these types of private linguistic inventions 'art-languages' and would characterise them as requiring 'at least in outline a mythology concomitant' (MC, p. 210).

4.1. Tolkien's Earliest Language Invention

Tolkien's earliest personal experience with an invented language, before inventing his own, was through his two cousins, Marjorie and Mary Incledon, who Tolkien and his brother often visited in c.1906-7 (Chronology, p. 42). As he retrospectively related in A Secret Vice, Tolkien discovered that his cousins had constructed a language called Animalic in which words were replaced by names of English animals, birds and fish (MC, p. 200). What Tolkien later said about the nature of Animalic is revealing for understanding what qualities Tolkien thought an invented language should have. Tolkien characterises Animalic, and other unknown languages he said he encountered at this early time, as 'an insertion type of language associated with cant, argot, jargon and all kinds of human undergrowth, and also with games and many other things' (201). Tolkien also indicates the quality that he found lacking in these types of constructed languages. For Tolkien, invented languages would be more interesting if they reflected a relationship between sound and sense. As indicate above, Tolkien underscores this point by characterising invented languages that reflect elements of sound and sense as 'artistic' (MC, p. 201). Clearly for Tolkien the attraction and fun in language invention came in what he called 'using the linguistic facility' which he believed 'may lead not only to polyglots but to poets' (MC, p. 202).

The first known language Tolkien did play a part in actually constructing shows these desired elements. Tolkien invented Nevbosh or 'the new nonsense' with his Animalic-speaking cousin Mary Incledon in c. 1907-1908. Tolkien characterizes Nevbosh as 'good enough for letters and bits of doggerel song’ (MC, p. 203). Therefore, while Animalic was an invented language for communication in small social groups, Nevbosh was intended to be a written language for writing small samples of doggerel (humorous verse with an 51 irregular rhyme scheme) and song (203). In A Secret Vice, Tolkien gives a short fragment of a limerick written in Nevbosh with an accompanying English translation.

Da fys ma vel gom co palt 'hoc Pys go iskili far maino woc? Pro si go fys do roc de Do cat ym maino bocte De volt fac soc ma taimful gyroc!

There was an old man who said How can I possibly carry my cow For if I were to ask it To get in my basket It would make such a terrible row! (MC, p. 203).

Tolkien characterizes the invented Nevbosh language as 'entirely dominated by an established natural idiom' (MC, p. 204). This idiom is clearly English and due to the dominance of this language in the word formation Tolkien felt that it kept Nevbosh 'almost at the stage of code' (204). In other words, Nevbosh was still using English as a model for its 'invented' words. Instead of signifiers being replaced, as in Animalic, ideas were incorporated into Nevbosh by being signified through the inversion, replacement or combination with other 'learnt languages' such as Latin or French. For example, roc suggests the Latin verb form rogo, rogare 'to ask.' Fys suggests the past tense Latin verb fui 'was' and 'far' from Latin fero, ferre 'carry.' However, there are also invented words that have a stronger 'sound-sense' to them; such as gyroc for 'row.' However, in retrospectively looking back on this sample of his Nevbosh language invention, Tolkien does indicate that there is progress from the earlier insertion languages he encountered, and possibly worked on. Tolkien signifies this by stating that 'the intricate blending of the native language with the later-learnt is, for one , curious. The foreign, too, shows the same arbitrary alteration within phonetic limits as the native' (MC, p. 205). An example of this can be seen with the word invented for “cow” which looks, on the surface, like the word ‘cow’ simply reversed, woc. However, this reversed form also suggests a connection

52 with the French word for cow, vacca, vache (205). With this statement, I would argue, Tolkien was marking the first time he used an intriguing bit of linguistic legerdemain called 'bilingual diplosemy' which occurs when the same word form evokes different meanings depending on which language it is read in (Hooker 2012, p. xix). Therefore, when read from an English perspective 'woc' can be characterized as the English word 'cow' reversed. However, read from a French perspective, woc can phonetically suggest, as Tolkien notes, the French word for cow, vache. As I will explore, Tolkien employed 'bilingual diplosemy' to evoke ludic and playful double meanings for his invented words suggesting alternate meanings in this world and in Tolkien's secondary world.

In exploring the Nevbosh language retrospectively in A Secret Vice, Tolkien mentions another remembered Nevbosh word which does not appear in the published limerick fragment. This invented word is lint meaning ‘quick or agile’ (MC, p. 205). Tolkien cites it as being the start of a new and exciting element in his language invention; the relation of the sound and sense of the invented word and how a word form takes on related meanings in word-building. Tolkien goes on to describe how the invented word lint was used with other phonetic combinations to create related words; such as catlint (mental quickness or 'learn') and faclint (make 'lint' or 'teach') (MC, pp. 205-206). Tolkien characterizes the type of linguistic invention the word lint represented as 'the fitting of notion to oral symbol, and pleasure in contemplating the new relationship established’ (MC, p. 206). Tolkien's pleasure with the invented Nevbosh word lint is clearly attested by the fact that this would be the only known Nevbosh word that Tolkien would later incorporate into the invented languages for his secondary world. In his lexicon for the Gnomish language, developed c. 1917, there is an entry for the word lint, glossed as 'quick, agile, nimble, light', and a reference to it being the basis of one of the early names for the great leader and father of the Elf princess Tinuviel, Tinwë Linto (PE 11, p. 54; Lost Tales I, p. 269).

Prior to writing the Nevbosh fragment, Tolkien had used the limerick form in a 'rebus' coded message that he sent in 1904 (at age twelve) to his guardian Father Francis Morgan. I will further explore the visual nature of this code message in the context of Tolkien's early imaginative writing systems in chapter

53 four. The actual message, when decoded, delivered a humorous image of Father Francis by Tolkien.

There was an old priest named Francis Who was so fond of 'cheefongy' dances That he sat up too late And worried his pate Arranging these Frenchified Prances (Life and Legend, p. 17)

Tolkien's use of the limerick form to express his Nevbosh 'idiotic connected fragment' (MC, p. 201) also suggests him imitating and adapting a similar form that Edward Lear used for his nonsense poetry. Lear is known as one of the first Victorian poets to use this limerick form which had its origins in (Lear 2006, p. 9). Lear may have chosen the limerick form as his poetic structure because it allowed for creative play and word rhyming. Prickett suggests that Lear used the limerick to invent his own nonsense world with taking animals, mysterious places and imaginary flora and fauna and contextualizes this with the Victorians’ use of fantasy to create other worlds in order to escape from their own (2005, p.109).

Both Lear and Tolkien had an interest in word sounds and each worked on developing their own alphabet forms combined with painting and drawing. Lear was known to have designed 29 different alphabet forms which he published in his Nonsense (1877). Lear's limerick books with illustrations: A Book of Nonsense (1848, 1861), Nonsense Songs and Stories (1870) and More Nonsense Songs. Pictures, etc. (1872) would have been available during Tolkien's youth. Turning to the actual published Nevbosh fragment, I would argue, the starting line mirrors almost every starting line of Lear's limerick: 'There was an old man'. In the 1861 revised edition of Lear's The Book of Nonsense, there is one limerick that, like Tolkien's Nevbosh limerick, mentions both an old man and a troublesome cow.

There was an Old Man who said How shall I flee from this horrible Cow? I will sit on the stile, and continue to smile

54 Which may soften the heart of that Cow. (Lear 2006, p.171)

Part of the name for Tolkien's invented language of Nevbosh also appears in a work of Lear's. It appears in Lear's extract from the Nonsense Gazette, a made up newspaper article which talks about Professor Bosh whose 'labours in the field of culinary and botanical science are so well known to all the world' (Lear 2006, p. 240). Lear, himself, shows his love of word invention in his best known poem The Owl and the Pussy Cat, in which he constructs the enigmatic term runcible spoon'(236). Other invented words with an element of sound sense by Lear include scroobious which appears in his posthumously published nonsense poem The Scroobious Pip (1898). There is also evidence of Lear's influence on Tolkien's 1915 nonsense poem The Man in the Moon Came Down Too Soon – An East Anglian Phantasy (see Atherton 2012, p. 218). My research has not yet discovered any direct proof that Tolkien read the works of Edward Lear and, so far, there is no mention of his works in his published or unpublished materials I have reviewed for this thesis. Commentators have drawn comparisons to Edward Lear's work and Tolkien's 1930's automotive story with pictures, Mr Bliss (Reader's Guide, p. 592). Walker has suggested influence by Lear on some of Tolkien's later poetry; including his cycle of '' poems (2009, pp.147-166). However, given the name Nevbosh and the deliberate use of the limerick form, as well as the prevalence of Lear's books during Tolkien's childhood, I would argue that it is highly probable that Tolkien would have read and been influenced by Lear's work from an early age.

In A Secret Vice, Tolkien makes a key distinction between Nevbosh and the next invented language he worked on, Naffarin (MC, p. 208). He distinguishes Naffarin from Nevbosh by characterizing Nevbosh as being developed through social interaction and calling it a language in a fuller sense (208). On the contrary, Naffarin was a 'purely private production' (MC, p. 204). Of the earliest invented languages Tolkien either encountered, or was directly involved in designing, I would argue that, for Tolkien, Naffarin is the most significant progression from invented languages created in social groups to languages invented in private, on paper, without a group of speakers contributing to the development of the language. Naffarin was a language that was also certainly influenced by the idioms of English, Latin and Spanish but it also shows

55 elements of what Tolkien characterized as his 'nascent purely individual element' (MC, p. 208). In other words, this language reflected the quality of what Tolkien thought was interesting about language invention and Tolkien's major focus here was developing and reflecting the ideas of sound and sense. In A Secret Vice, as with Nevbosh, Tolkien retrospectively gives a short, presumably poetic, fragment written in Naffarin.

O Naffarinos cuta vu navru cangor luttos ca vuna tieranar dana maga tier ce vru enca vun'farta once ya meruta vuna maxt'amamen (MC, p. 209)

Frustratingly, in this specific instance, Tolkien does not provide a translation for this passage. The reason he gives is that if one bothered to translate the passage it would have no greater interest than the earlier Nevbosh fragment (MC, pp. 208-209). In the published A Secret Vice, Tolkien does gloss one Naffarin word, vru, which means 'ever or always' (MC, p. 208). Tolkien also indicates that this word and its meaning were incorporated into Qenya (MC, p. 209). This is proven in The Qenya Lexicon where the word-form appears as the base root VOR, VORO 'ever, always' (PE 12, p. 102). Tolkien would use this base root to construct the name of the faithful companion of Earendl the Mariner – Voronwe (102). Like the Nevbosh word lint, this word persisted in Tolkien's much later language work appearing in the 1930's Etymologies as voro – ‘ever, continually’ (Lost Road, p. 353). The only other published piece of information Tolkien gives on Naffarin is that the phonetic system is limited and is no longer that of the native language except that it contains elements still reflecting the native language. Tolkien does mention that there is a grammar of Naffarin (but does not give any details of it) (208). Tolkien concludes his discussion of Naffarin by stating that: 'Naffarin is definitely a product of a 'Romance' period. But we need not trouble about this specimen any-more' (MC, pp. 209-210). Tolkien's reluctance to give any further details about Naffarin in the published text of The Secret Vice is a bit puzzling to the reader. I would argue that, as this was Tolkien's first real solo attempt at his own private language invention, his abrupt end to the description of Naffarin suggests that he was reluctant to offer the details or, perhaps, was too embarrassed to share them because, in

56 retrospect, he thought they may have been too primitive or rudimentary; especially given that in a later part of A Secret Vice he would give poetic samples of his more developed invented languages of Quenya and Sindarin (MC, pp. 213-217). Tolkien may have felt comfortable giving his audience short samples of Animalic and Nevbosh because these did not wholly reflect his own language invention; whereas Naffarin was the first attempt at inventing a language that reflected Tolkien's own linguistic aesthetic. Tolkien also makes the point of publicly saying that all the materials he developed on Naffarin 'have long since been foolishly destroyed' (MC, p. 208). The word 'foolishly' is interesting here as it implies that Tolkien thought in retrospect that he should have kept these materials – or at least perhaps that is what he wanted his audience of A Secret Vice to think.

However, given the archival work I have conducted it is evident that Tolkien's published statement is not quite true. Amongst Tolkien's unpublished papers for this talk I have discovered and transcribed several pages of hastily written notes in pencil which not only elaborate on the Naffarin language but also introduce another, presumably invented language, called Fonwegian. These notes include a sample of a noun declension and a selected list of words in Naffarin (MS Tolkien 24, folio 24 recto and verso). Tolkien wrote these notes as if they were intended to be included in the talk; actually indicating a place in the manuscript of the talk in which this information was to be inserted with notes to himself; including a direction at one point to 'read through vocabulary' (24). In these unpublished papers, Tolkien compares Naffarin with this other mysterious language called Fonwegian. With the invention of the two languages, I would argue, Tolkien was experimenting with mirroring what Swift had done in Gulliver's Travels; namely having different invented languages express unique cultures through word forms and phono-aesthetics. This is borne out by notes Tolkien made on the back of one of these pages where he makes this comment about the two invented languages of Naffarin and Fonwegian: 'the whole is slightly reminiscent in fact of the Swiftian [sic] characters' (MS Tolkien 24, folio 24 verso; see Fimi and Higgins, forthcoming).

There are no notes on these pages for what the name Fonwegian might mean. It is interesting that the first element of the name /fon/ is also found in a

57 presumably invented word that Tolkien expressed in picture form in his 1904 limerick message to Father Francis Morgan which I explored above. The invented word is cheefongy and given the context of the last line of the rebus message 'Arranging these Frenchified Prances' suggested this word could signify 'cheep French'. If my supposition is correct, it suggests that Fonwegian is an attempt by Tolkien to invent a French-influenced language to compare to the Naffarin language which is based on Latin, Spanish and Tolkien's 'nascent original element' (MC, p. 207). As they are both derived from Romance based languages, I would also suggest that this is one of the early pieces of evidence of Tolkien exploring how languages change from a common source.

The manuscript evidence clearly shows that Tolkien planned to introduce the Fonwegian language in his talk by using 'the found manuscript' topos; a habit Tolkien started in his first piece of published work, the mock heroic poem The Battle of the Eastern Field which Tolkien wrote in 1911 in his last year at King Edward's School (see Burns 2008). In a similar way to Greg's invented Martial language, Tolkien uses the conceit of finding a manuscript and grammar to introduce the Fonwegian language (from the Island of Fonway) and his comparison of it to the other invented language, Naffarin.

Here I will interpose some material that will save this paper from being too autobiographical. I recently became possessed by accident of some secret documents - a grammar and glossary and some sentences in the Fonwegian language spoken apparently on the island of Fonway. Now this specimen is much less sophisticated in some ways than Naffarin which deserves to be placed at after it as being higher because it is more original. (MS Tolkien 24, folio 24 recto; see Fimi and Higgins, forthcoming)

Tolkien's comment that this material will save the paper from 'being too autobiographical' supports the concept that he found (and thus did not invent) the language of Fonwegian; distancing himself from this early invented material. Tolkien also established Fonwegian as coming from an island called Fonway and then states that Fonwegian is 'less sophisticated in some ways' than Naffarin suggesting that Fonwegian may have been an invented language

58 Tolkien worked on in between Nevbosh and Naffarin. Tolkien also characterises Naffarin as being more original than Fonwegian. If Fonwegian is the 'bridging' invented language between Nevbosh and Naffarin, then this suggests an interim step in Tolkien's development as a language inventor moving from a language that was jointly invented in a social community (Nevbosh) to a language that was invented as purely private production (Naffarin).

This document continues in hastily written (and at times difficult to decipher) pencil notes. After the introductory material I quoted above, Tolkien next sketches out a noun declension with a root base constant stem (from a root of an undefined noun CON) and endings, with one of the cases indicated as 'gen' presumably for the genitive case. On the verso of this same page of notes, Tolkien makes a list of words in both the Naffarin and Fonwegian languages. At the top of the page, Tolkien indicates that there are 250 words in the Naffarin language and from this Tolkien sketches out a list of only 21 words. Some of the Naffarin words from this list clearly show a strong association with Latin. I have isolated these Naffarin words in the first table below.

Table 1 - Naffarin Words with Latin Cognates Naffarin Word Tolkien's English Translation

Agroul field

Amosa to love

Epish letter

Regensie queen

Pase peace

Lauka To praise

However, Tolkien also gives Naffarin words that do not follow any apparent pattern and do not suggest a direct cognate with English, Spanish or Latin. With this collection of words, I would argue, Tolkien is showing his early talent for infusing his invented language making with his 'nascent purely individual element' (MC, p. 209). In the table below I outline these words and the English

59 translation Tolkien assigns them. I have also indicated cases where I suggest there is some resemblance or possible cognate.

Table 2 – Original Naffarin Words

Naffarin Word Tolkien's English Translation

Gal Pond

Dubu Many

Malle Mother

Pagos Father [a form of Latin Pater perhaps]

Pullfuga plow [an onomatopoeic form for pull?]

Rogis Red

Ruxa Mouse

Glabsi Sword [possibly from Latin gladius]

Teplose Time [Latin – tempus?]

Usut Useful [phonetically close to English]

Vase [phonetically close to English]

Wedfor Enemy

Wag nose Fill up

Towards the middle of the sheet, Tolkien starts to make a list of words in the contrasting Fonwegian language. Again, these words are sketched in light pencil and some are difficult to make out. In the table below I have outlined the legible Fonwegian words with their English translation.

Table 3 – Fonwegian Words

Fonwegian Word Tolkien's English Translation

Wrukohla Wind

Fonwella Attack

Huntilla Despise

60 Didula Defeat

Tuudadulla Fear

Regullarum Horse

Hugwolla Guard

Fubullala Teach

Pindulla Laugh

Cablea Sing

One fairly evident linguistic feature of Fonwegian is that all the words, except for rugullarum (horse) and cablea (oranges), end in a liquid /l/ and an open vowel /a/. I would argue that this gives Fonwegian a different phonetic sound structure from the Naffarin words given above in tables 1 and 2, which tend to alternate between an open vowel (for example, dubu ‘many’) or a closed consonant ending (for example, golm ‘pond’). Also, taken together, the Fonwegian /la/ endings suggest an attempt to create a definite article suffix modelled on the similar definite article /la/ in French. If Fonwegian was intended to be an interim invented language between Nevbosh and Naffarin, it suggests that one element Tolkien may have experimented with is the expression of the definite article as a suffix at the end of the word - possibly trying to mirror an alternative form of French 'la'. When it came to inventing Naffarin Tolkien may have dropped this idea for his language invention. Moreover, one of the attested Fonwegian words I have transcribed, 'Hunhila (despise)' is intriguing given the 'hun' element which was a term that was first used by Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany to compare the Germans fighting (against the rebel Chinese in the Boxer Rebellion of 1900) with the Huns under Attila. This term would then be used by British propaganda during World War One to negatively describe the Germans; so the ‘despise’ connotation may have derived from this. In his Qenya Lexicon, Tolkien invented a group of words having to do with savagery, being uncivilized and barbarian, including the name Kalimbardi which he signified as 'the Germans' (PE 12, p. 44).

Having now explored the additional unpublished notes Tolkien made on Naffarin and Fonwegian, I will return to the published Naffarin fragment in A Secret Vice

61 to attempt to decipher it. Several Tolkien scholars have attempted to translate this enigmatic fragment. In a 2003 email message to the Tolkien language list Elfing, Tolkien linguist Christopher Gilson employed textual analysis and the hypothesis that many of the Naffarin words were inspired by Latin and Spanish to arrive at a possible translation of this fragment (Gilson, Email to Elfing Mail List, 'On Naffarin,' 1992). In the following hypothetical translation outlined word by word in table four below, I will employ Gilson's suggestions combined with several items of evidence that I have gained through the transcription of the unpublished Naffarin materials.

O Naffarinos cuta vu navru cangor luttos ca vuna tieranar dana maga tier ce vru enca vun'farta once ya meruta vuna maxt'amamen (MC, p. 209)

Table 4 – Analysis of Words in the Naffarin Fragment

Naffarin Word Suggested Translation and Notes

O O (vocative)

Naffarinos Naffarinos (who the poem is addressing)

Cuta MS Tolkien 24, folio 24r indicates that this word comes from Latin 'cedo, cedere' to go (Fimi and Higgins, forthcoming) – therefore possibly the imperative go!

Vu Gilson suggests 'forever' from the known Naffarin word vru 'ever, always' but the shortness of the word form may mean something more direct like 'you' (you go!)

Navru Gilson suggests 'poetry' (based on what they would recite) but given the change in the verb to (go!) I would suggest what the Naffarinos go in – and this word has a resemblance to the Latin – navis (ship)

Cangor This may describe 'navru' and therefore I suggest the Latin adjective 'candor' white, blazing (white ships)

Luttos Latin 'Ludo' play

62 Ca Spanish – aca 'here'

Vuna Your

Tiéranar Spanish - 'tierra' earth and Latin 'terra' earth, land.

Dana That

Maga Latin – magnus (great)

Tier Spanish/Latin – land

Ce Which

Vru Ever, always

Enca Spanish – en (in) vun' You

Farta Latin – ferre 'to bear, carry, support'

Once ?

A And

Meruta Gilson suggests this comes from the Latin verb 'merere' deserve, earn, merit

Vuna Your? maxt' Gilson suggests a possible connection to Latin 'mactus' glorified or honoured possibly around the idea of 'increased or enlarged'

Amamen Latin – amo 'love' as we have seen the Naffarin word 'amoda' in the Naffarin manuscript notes.

Based on this analysis, my hypothetical translation would be as follows.

O Naffarinos go (you) in your white ships play (recite) in your own land that great land which you will always possess and deserves your increased love.

Of course, even with the additional archival information in Tolkien's unpublished

63 papers, this suggestion of what the Naffarin fragment means is highly hypothetical. Unless other related notes are uncovered the meaning of this fragment cannot be verified. Indeed, my hypothesis of making the object of the first line 'white ships' maybe be too overly influenced by Tolkien's later mythology, in which many white ships are seen going to the west; although intriguingly Tolkien does choose to include in the later part of A Secret Vice, a poem in his 1930’s language of Quenya about a ship, Oilima Markirya ('The Last Ark') (MC, pp. 213-215).

What the Naffarin fragment and both the published and unpublished notes in Naffarin and Fonwegian do show, I would argue, is that as early as the development of these invented languages, Tolkien was already involving himself in complex language construction using primary world languages for inspiration and at the same time developing his own 'purely individual element' for his own language construction. Fonwegian suggests a 'lost' bridge invented language between the socially constructed Nevbosh and the privately invented Naffarin. Immediately after introducing Naffarin in the published A Secret Vice, Tolkien suggests that privately invented languages, like Naffarin, require a mythology concomitant: 'to give your language an individual flavour, it must have woven into it the threads of an individual mythology' (MC, p. 211). If the “O Naffarinos” Naffarin fragment does indicate the start of a poetic story about the speakers of Naffarin, it suggests that Tolkien would have to have invented the germ of a mythology concomitant with his language invention. Now that Tolkien's language invention had become 'a purely private production' (MC, p.207) and not spoken or interacted with in a social context, the language needed a vehicle for expression.

I would also contextualize Tolkien's early work on Fonwegian and Naffarin and the potential 'lost narrative' of these two places and peoples that may have come from it, with what Wolf calls 'world building as a human activity' (2012, p. 3). Root-Bernstein (2014) specifically examines the act of 'world-building' in children which involves 'the invention of an imaginary world, sometimes called a paracosm' (12). These early worlds were often the precursors for the imaginary worlds, which authors would invent and write about during their careers (Wolf 2012, pp. 3-4). Tolkien's early language invention work starting with his own

64 private linguistic invention of Naffarin (and possibly its precursor Fonwegian), suggests a type of paracosm from which the later mythology would ultimately emerge. Wolf (2012) and Root-Bernstein (2014) mention several other artists and authors, including Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and his sister, the Brontë siblings (Anne, Charlotte, and Branwell), Hartley Coleridge (the son of ) Thomas Penson de Quincey, James Barrie, Austin Tappan Wright and Tolkien's own Inkling colleague C.S. Lewis, among others, who all invented paracosms during childhood, and some, like Tolkien, who continued to invent and write about these paracosms into adulthood (Wolf 2012, p. 5; Root- Bernstein 2014, pp. 9-15).

My discovery and transcription of the unpublished documents on both Naffarin and Fonwegian offer Tolkien scholarship a deeper understanding of Tolkien's thinking about language invention in this very early period. Interestingly, Tolkien would replicate this pattern of inventing two contrasting languages during his writing of The Book of Lost Tales when he would, as I explore further on, first invent Qenya and then Gnomish to offer two different comparative and contrasting invented languages for his emerging secondary world. The roots of this invention, I would argue, can be seen in the notes he made for the earliest privately invented languages of Fonwegian and Naffarin.

I have also identified a fragment of what is presumably one of Tolkien's early invented languages doodled on the page of his King Edward's School copy of Bradley Arnold's Latin Prose Composition. This fragment may be a sample of Nevbosh, Naffarin or another unknown language Tolkien was inventing at the time (Tolkien E 16/4, p. 123).

4.2. Tolkien's Love of the Northern and Early Language Invention

Tolkien's earliest language invention also coincided with his earliest studies of the languages and literature of the Northern Germanic peoples; first at King Edward’s School, and then later at Exeter College, Oxford. These studies included the great Norse sagas, the Anglo-Saxon prose and poems found in Henry Sweet's Primer and especially Beowulf which Tolkien first studied when he was at King Edward's School (see Atherton 2014, p. 217). In c. 1908-9, Tolkien's study of Germanic myth and legend led him to discover the remains of 65 the oldest known Germanic language, Gothic, through Joseph Wright's 1899 Primer of the Gothic Language (Groom 2014, p. 296). In this primer, Wright not only outlined the Gothic language but also included a series of introductory chapters which reconstructed the Proto-Germanic vowel and consonant sound systems that resulted in Gothic. It is only after that introductory matter that Wright launches into the grammar and syntax of the actual Gothic language. As Tolkien later recounted of this primer 'I discovered in it not only modern historical philology, which appealed to the historical and scientific side, but for the first time the study of a language out of mere love' (Letters, 1955, p. 213). The Gothic language was intriguing to Tolkien for two reasons. First, because of its tantalizing small vocabulary based on the extant Gothic texts; and secondly due to the potential for reconstruction and 'finding' lost words based on the phonetic and syntactical rules outlined in the Wright grammar. Indeed, for Tolkien the Goths represented a lost culture and held the potential to build upon the corpora of words and texts to reconstruct lost names and tales (see Smith 2006, pp. 272-274).

In his Gothic studies Tolkien would also have read Henry Bradley’s The Story of the Goths (1887). Henry Bradley was a self-taught philologist and lexicographer who succeed James Murray as senior editor of the Oxford English Dictionary. Tolkien would work under Bradley when he served as a lexicographer at the Oxford English Dictionary in c. 1919. Atherton explores another book by Bradley, The Making of English (1904), as a work that helped shaped Tolkien's early thinking on philology; specifically the linguistic and political nature of Old English (2014 pp. 218-219). In The Story of the Goths, Bradley traces the origins of the Goths from a people called the Guttones who lived in the East Prussian area of Germany. The Guttones were traders in amber gathered on the Baltic shores (Bradley 1887, pp 2-4). Bradley also suggested that the Goths and English were kindred due to being descendants of the Teutonic race (5-6). Tolkien certainly would have been intrigued by Bradley's characterization of the Gothic language as 'the oldest English, though it is still more like the language that was spoken by the ancestors of the and Norwegians' (5). Bradley also suggested that those scholars who were interested in discovering the origins of English would 'obtain a great deal of delight from the study of the long-dead Gothic tongue' (ibid). Already at King Edwards School, Tolkien

66 showed his mastery of the Gothic language by writing for himself a speech in it to be presented in one of the school debates in which Tolkien played the role of a barbarian ambassador to the Greek Byzantine Empire (Biography, p. 56). In 1965, Tolkien replied to a letter from Zillah Sherring who had found a copy of The Fifth Book of Thucydides in a used book shop and noticed a number of strange inscriptions and Tolkien's name in a form of Gothic. She sent a transcript of the inscription to Tolkien who confirmed that 'the book certainly once belonged to me... The writing on the back page is in Gothic... or what I thought was Gothic, or might be' (Letters, 1965, pp. 356-357). Tolkien's response to Sherring reveals that Tolkien was not just using the vestiges of the Gothic language to transpose his own name into Gothic, but rather was using elements of Gothic to imaginatively invent a name that had a feeling of Gothic or what Gothic might have been.

Tolkien continued to work on “inventing” his reconstructed Gothic language up to 1912 when there is evidence that he inscribed his artist’s sketchbook with a part-reconstructed, part-invented, Gothic name (PE 12, p. xii; Artist, p. 17). In addition to Gothic being a lost language that had the potential to be linguistically built upon, it was for Tolkien a language that harkened back to a lost Proto- Germanic past and a possible link to some of the great Northern stories he was studying at this time in their original languages. In A Secret Vice, Tolkien referred to 'the resplendent “lost Gothic” poetry’ (MC, p. 212). In c. 1912 Tolkien would seek to progress his imaginative work with the Gothic language from adapting it in the reconstruction of names to actually inventing an unrecorded Germanic language that would have the 'flavour' of Gothic. In the same notebook that he would later use for the first lexicon of words for his Qenya language, Tolkien wrote several lines of text including the line in Gothic 'Ermanathiudiska Razda eththau Gautiska tongo' (PE 12, p. xi). The meaning of this from the Gothic is 'Language of the Great People, or Gautish tongue' (Smith 2006, pp.274-275). Regarding the word or name Gautish(k) in the inscription, Smith observes that the 'au' element in the name Gautish(k) suggests that is meant to be the language of the Gauts (Gotar, Old Norse Gautar, Old English Geatas) of Southern , the Geats of Beowulf (2006, pp.274-275). Given Bradley's mention of Gothic being possibly related to the language of the ancient Swedes and Norwegians, Tolkien could be seen here imaginatively

67 experimenting with the idea that his invented Gautish (or Gautisk) might be the lost older language of the Gauts, or Geats of Southern Sweden. This would imaginatively link his invented Germanic language to Beowulf who was, according to legend, the last ruler of the Geats. It may be possible that this lexicon was intended to be an invented Gothic work which looked back to an older lost Germanic language of the Geats, the people of Beowulf, and thus suggests Tolkien's attempt to reconstruct the lost tales of Beowulf which he came across when reading the poem initially in Anglo-Saxon. Tolkien would have observed in his study of Beowulf a whole series of 'lost tales'; several of which would also appear in the Anglo-Saxon catalogue poem Widsith. Both Widsith and Beowulf reflect an older time in Europe during the migration period of the 5th and 6th centuries. In both these poems the young Tolkien would have encountered the names of such Germanic heroes and characters as the Gothic King Eormeneric, Folcwelda, Hagena and Heden, the magic singer Heorrenda, Offa's queen Fremu, and the smith Weland. It is not surprising, as I will explore in more detail in chapter five of the thesis, that when Tolkien turned after the War to inventing a pseudo-Germanic back story for his mariner Ottor Wǽfre he would 'mine' many of these Germanic lost tales to re-imagine and re- purpose them for his own ’mythology for England’.

The actual evidence of Tolkien inventing a list of Gautish(k) words can be seen in several places. First there is the aforementioned notebook whose earliest layer contains Tolkien's sketch of a basic phonetic scheme for Gautish(k) (PE 12, p. iv). The editors of this document also note that that there are two adjacent stubs in the original notebook which appear to have contained a list of words; suggesting the beginning of a working lexicon (PE 12, p. x). I have also discovered, through archival research, that among Tolkien's unpublished papers at the Bodleian Library there is a brown book folder (i.e. just the cover no pages inside) which Tolkien used to keep notes in during two periods of his life. This is found in a collection of Tolkien's Beowulf papers from Leeds in the 1920's (MS Tolkien A/28). The cover had two sets of writing on it in black and blue ink. The earliest layer (written in black calligraphic pen) is dated 1912 and titles the cover with the line 'Gutiska Razda – Ustugana wordaboka thizos Wizigutiskins 1912 JRRT'. Based on entries in Wright's Gothic Primer, the suggested translation for this line would be 'The Gothic Language - this

68 wordbook (is) out of (or from) the tongue of the living Gothic people 1912 JRRT'. If my translation is correct, it is quite intriguing that Tolkien indicated that whatever this word book might have been, it reflected the tongue of 'the living Gothic people'. This suggests that Tolkien was keeping notes for a Gothic tongue that was not lost but possibly, in his conception, a living language; suggesting Tolkien casting himself in the role of Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq, a Flemish ambassador who discovered a living Gothic tongue still being spoken in the Crimea area of Eastern Europe in the sixteenth century. Tolkien refers to Busbecq's discovery in A Secret Vice (MC, p. 203). As there is no published evidence of Gautish(k), it is difficult to conjecture anything further here. Although Tolkien may have abandoned his Gautish(k) language invention, he would certainly continue to develop the linkage between the Geats, Goths and Beowulf through, as I explore in chapter five, his invented pseudo-Germanic history and mythology of his secondary world (see Drout 2004, pp. 229-247). In Tolkien's own recently published translation of Beowulf, there are a series of notes from his lectures at Oxford in which he clearly equates the Geats in Beowulf with the Gautas or Goths (Beowulf 2014, pp.237-243).

4.3. The Kalevala, Finnish and Tolkien’s Language Invention

As I briefly introduced above, Tolkien's use of language and myth would start to coalesce when he was an undergraduate at Exeter College, Oxford. I would argue that for Tolkien the period of 1913-1915 was one of the most fertile periods for his own early creative invention; culminating in the summer of 1915 when his mythology would be born. A significant move towards this fusion was Tolkien's discovery, in his last year at King Edward's School, of W.F. Kirby's Kalevala: The Land of The Heroes in Two Volumes (1907). This was the recently published English translation of Elias Lönnrot's 19th century work based on the recording of oral tales (or runos) in Finland and neighbouring areas. Kalevala established a national identity and reconstructed (and in some part invented) a cultural and mythic heritage for the Finnish people. Its contemporary translations into English by John Martin Crawford (1888) and Kirby (1907) represented a newly discovered mythology to be explored.

Tolkien's discovery and early exploration of the Kalevala would ignite several creative projects that would ultimately feed in to his emerging mythology. In 69 September and October 1911 Tolkien would compose two related poems in which he cast himself in the role of the young hero of the Kalevala, Lemminkainen. Tolkien scholar Douglas A. Anderson, who has worked extensively on Tolkien's early unpublished poetry, has indicated that one of these poems is titled 'The New Lemminkainen – Lemminkainen goeth to his brother in the Southlands'. Anderson also reports that a listing for this poem also appears in a catalogue Tolkien made of his early long narrative poetry, possibly in 1912-13, which confirms the date of original composition as September 1911 (Douglas A. Anderson, email communication, 18 October 2014). In the list, this specific poem has a different title: 'Lemminkainen goeth to the Land of Ilma the Smith and Kemi the Brook (being some of the lost runos of the Kalevala)'. In the entry for this poem on Tolkien's list he also indicates 'parody of Kirby's translation in “Everyman” series' (ibid). The mention in the alternate title of 'Ilma the Smith' suggests the character Ilmarinen the smith god of the Kalevala. The reference to ‘Kemi the Brook' could be suggestive of the River Kemi in Northern Finland. Anderson reports that the second poem follows in the manuscript and Tolkien titles this 'Runo MDCCCCXI'; the Roman numerals indicating '1911' the year of the poem's composition. Tolkien also refers to this poem elsewhere as 'Lemminkainen goeth to the Ford of Oxen (being a spurious interpolation of the Kalevala rightly rejected by W.K. Kirby in his translation)'. Anderson reports this poem is clearly dated October 1911, after Tolkien had gone up to Oxford. Anderson characterizes these two poems as primarily humorous and suggests that they were clearly shared by Tolkien with his friends and family (ibid).

What Anderson's report of these two poems clearly shows is the young Tolkien not only reading the Kalevala but also commenting on the quality of the Kirby translation, suggesting that there are 'lost runos' which were left out of the final printed text and using the stories of the Kalevala for composing humorous and ludic poetry. Tolkien also shows a very early trait of putting himself and his brother into the story of the Kalevala; an act, as I will explore, he would repeat in his own mythology. A further later identification by Tolkien of himself specifically with the hero Lemminkainen can be seen in The Qenya Lexicon where there is an invented word leminkainen, formed from an unattested base root LEH, which is defined as '23' (PE 12, p. 52). Twenty-three would have

70 been Tolkien's age in 1915 when he was working on The Qenya Lexicon. Although, even here, Tolkien can be seen attempting to incorporate the word into his own language system by associating the word form itself with numbers. Tolkien may have been thinking of using a form of ludic 'bilingual diplosemy' to establish an 'inside joke' that only Tolkien and those friends who had read the two 'Lemminkainen' poems outlined above would recognize, but this is very much conjecture. As I will explore further in chapter four Tolkien would also use his skills at painting and drawing to visually depict several scenes from stories in the Kalevala (Appendix 4: Pictures 12, 15).

Most significantly, Tolkien's discovery of the Kalevala would also lead him to attempt to learn the Finnish language. This was, in part, motivated by Tolkien dissatisfaction with the English Kirby translation which he characterized as 'awkward and clumsy' (Kalevala Essay, p. 247) and seems to have parodied in the 'Lemminkainen' poems outlined above. Tolkien's reaction to the Finnish language was palpable, describing it as 'discovering a complete wine-cellar filled with the bottles of an amazing wine of a kind and a flavour never tasted before, it quite intoxicated me' (Letters, 1955, p. 214). The grammar Tolkien used for this attempt to learn Finnish was C.N.E. Eliot's 1890 Finnish Grammar. In the preface to this book, Eliot states that his objective in writing the grammar is to give an account of the grammatical structure of Finnish and 'to place before the student of philology an account of the chief phenomena it presents' (Elliot 1890, p. I). Of special interest for Tolkien would have been Eliot's characterization of the Finnish language as 'still in so unsettled and fluid a condition, as regards both form and style, that it is often hard to say what is correct and what not' (1). Eliot's comments about the fluidity of the Finnish language would have resonated with Tolkien in the same way as the gaps and unknowns in the Gothic language had done previously. One of the last sections of Eliot's grammar includes several pages that outline the specific Finnish of the Kalevala. Given Tolkien's philological interest in the origin and growth of languages one particular passage in Eliot's description of the Kalevala dialect would have especially interested Tolkien. This was Eliot's distinction between the modern dialect of Karelian, which he characterizes as having been corrupted by Russian, and the pure Finnish dialect that the Kalevala was written

71 in (223-224).

A key primary source for understanding the impact of the Kalevala on Tolkien is the texts for a series of talks he gave while at Oxford – “On 'The Kalevala' or In the Land of Heroes”. Tolkien delivered this talk first in 1914-1915, which exists in manuscript form, and the after the War prepared a typescript version of it for another talk which he appears not to have given (Kalevala Essay, p. 213). While the revised talk was on the same subject, a comparison of the earlier manuscript notes from the early talk and the later undated post-War typescript version shows some intriguing variations through which Tolkien can be seen moving from myth imitator/adaptor to creator. Probably the most significant addition to the post-War typescript version is the now often quoted line reflecting Tolkien's desire to have something like the Kalevala for the English, 'I would that we had more of it left—something of the same sort that belonged to the English' (Kalevala Essay, p. 265). When Tolkien expressed this desire, he had already creatively started to fulfil this objective through a narrative framing device that would result in Tolkien's mythic framework being imaginatively positioned as a lost mythology of England, which I will explore further in chapter five.

I would argue that a critical analysis of both versions of these talks is not only important to understanding the impact of the Kalevala, and the Finnish language, on Tolkien's creative development, but also to ascertain some key narrative elements that he admired in the Kalevala; many of which he would later attempt to incorporate into his own mythology. Tolkien characterises his passion for the Kalevala and the Finnish language in several ways. He introduces the Kalevala to his listeners in terms of the great explorers and the discoverers of new worlds; including Columbus and Thorfinn, the Norse discoverer of Vinland (246). Tolkien also emphasizes the quality of newness and the primitiveness that the Kalevala shows to the reader (247). He characterises the Kalevala as 'a collection of mythological full of the very primitive undergrowth that the literature of Europe has on the whole been cutting away and reducing for centuries with different and earlier completeness in different peoples' (248). Tolkien's description suggests Andrew Lang's own earlier characterization of the Kalevala: in terms of 'its fresh and simple beauty

72 of style, its worth as a storehouse of every kind of primitive folklore, being as it is the production of the Ur-volk' (Lang 2011, p.407). Significantly, for his future work, Tolkien exhorts 'Let us rather rejoice that we have come suddenly upon a storehouse of these popular imaginings which we had feared lost' (248). This statement, in particular, suggests that while Tolkien was reading and studying Northern myth and legend, with its strands of lost and forgotten tales, with the Kalevala the quality of these older and more primitive tales were right there in the runos of the poem; not lost but in clear sight.

I would also argue that in this talk Tolkien introduces a key element of his creative process; the idea of 'taking a holiday'. I will return to this element several times in this thesis to show how Tolkien characterized his creative myth- making and language-invention as something that took him away for a while from the hard reality of the primary world. That Tolkien characterized this as a 'holiday' signifies that he did not want to be a permanent escape from the real world but just a break, as he indicates in this passage from the Kalevala talk.

We are taking a holiday from the whole course of progress of the last three Millenniums; and going to be wildly un-hellenic and barbarous for a time, like the boy who hoped the future life would provide for half holidays in Hell, away from Eton collars and hymns. (248)

In this passage, Tolkien equates the idea of being 'wildly un-hellenic and barbarous for a time' as a half holiday in hell away from two things – Eton collars and hymns. When Tolkien said this he was already taking a permanent holiday from the Hellenic when he switched his studies from Classics to English in 1913. There may be a further wish fulfilment of talking a half holiday from the academic restriction that a tight fitting Eton collar signified. The holiday from hymns, organized religion, suggests a holiday that the Kalevala stories would have given Tolkien through the Kalevala's pagan nature. Tolkien characterised the Finns of the Kalevala as one of the last acknowledged pagan people of Europe (Kalevala Essay, p. 250). This paganism included the Kalevala's use of 'luxuriant animism', a term Tolkien uses to characterize the way in which the Kalevala presents every item in nature, animate and inanimate, as having a presence and living spirit (Kalevala Essay, p. 273). This would be a key feature

73 Tolkien would reflect in his own mythology where mountains, trees, and even swords are sentient and have their own spirits. In the later revision of this talk, Tolkien, having by this time, as I will explore below, been involved in several of his own 'holiday' projects, elaborated on this concept and it is worth exploring this passage in full.

The holiday I suggest is a holiday from poetic and literary development, from the long accumulated weight of civilised tradition and knowledge, not a decadent and retrograde movement, not a “nostalgie de la boue' – only a holiday; and if while on this holiday we half hear the voice of in the noises of the sea, half shudder at the thought of Pohja, gloomy land of , or yet darker region of the dead, it is nonetheless with quite another part of our minds that we do this than that we reserve for our real beliefs for our religion, just as it undoubtedly was for the Icelandic ecclesiastics of old. (270)

In this passage Tolkien defines what this holiday is not by evoking the term 'nostalgie de la boue.' In her notes to this talk, Flieger defines this term as literally meaning 'yearning for the mud' and suggests that it describes the desire exemplified by the Romantic attraction to the primitive, to ascribe higher spiritual value to people and cultures considered lower than one's own. This was motivated in the 19th and 20th centuries by the act of finding value in the archaic and primitive for its own sake (277). Therefore, I would argue, Tolkien is suggesting that this holiday is not about valorising the Kalevala just because it is primitive and retrograde but because it represents something that has not been touched by the 'long accumulated weight of civilised tradition and knowledge' (270). Moreover, in the last statement of this passage Tolkien demarcates that this type of holiday is taken 'with quite another part of our minds' than the part 'we reserve for our real beliefs and for our religion'. As I will explore in chapter three, Tolkien would use the narrative and mythic model of one specific 'Icelandic ecclesiastic of old', the Christian poet , as inspiration for how Catholic thought and pagan ideas could be blended and transmitted to an audience through a transmission 'framework'. As I demonstrate in chapter four, Tolkien would physically signify 'quite another part of our minds' by creating a private space to develop and explore his emerging

74 mythology; in private sketchbooks for his art and battered notebooks for his myth and language invention.

Tolkien here is not necessarily rejecting other similar works, many of which he would been studying at roughly the same time, but suggests that, given its rawness and primitiveness, the narrative and mythic quality of the Kalevala represented something new in this type of story. He concludes this idea of taking a holiday by suggesting that the reading of the Kalevala itself may inspire new creativity 'Yet there may be some whom these old songs will stir to new poetry' (270). I would argue that here Tolkien is very much referring to himself because, by the time he gave the first version of this talk, he was already engaged in two key creative explorations, which I now explore in detail. Each of these earliest projects combined ideas of myth and language invention and, as I will discuss in chapter four, included the earliest use by Tolkien of trans-medial elements, such as painting and drawings, to visualize the narrative of the emerging mythology. Each of these explorations suggests that Tolkien was 'taking a holiday' and are key signposts for Tolkien moving from myth initiator/adaptor to creator.

For the purposes of my analysis, the significant factor that both these concurrent explorations by Tolkien share is the evidence of the incorporation of invented language in the naming of people, places and items. Indeed, as I will show, it was during the height of the creative development of both these projects that Tolkien would resume his 'secret vice' of language invention by turning over the same notebook he had used to develop Gautish(k), and start to work on the listing of base roots and sound combination rules from which he would construct Qenya names and words (PE 12, pp. i-ii). As I will argue, several of the names Tolkien constructed for places in his mythology would first appear in his July 1915 poem The Shores of Faery; the poem that would combine poetic expression with name invention to give birth to Tolkien's mythology.

The earliest evidence of this phase of language invention can be seen in Tolkien's adaptation of the 'Kullervo' story-cycle from the Kalevala. Tolkien would have first seen the concluding part of this specific story-cycle as early as

75 his reading of the Kirby Kalevala in English, or slightly later as one of the reading sections in Finnish (with English translation and notes) in Eliot's Grammar; indeed it is the first passage from the Kalevala that Eliot gives for practice translation (Elliot 1890, pp. 237-23). The English translation side of the page introduces this section and characterises Kullervo as 'the child of misfortune whose crimes and disasters rivalled the history of Oedipus' (ibid, p. 237). The passage in the Eliot grammar that Tolkien would have seen is the final scene of this cycle when Kullervo asks the sword to kill him, and his sword, in the tradition of 'luxuriant animism' in the Kalevala, responds and says it will gladly do so (ibid, pp. 240-241). Tolkien would refer to his creative adaptation of the 'Kullervo' story-cycle in a published letter to Edith from October 1914 where he also refers to his work on adapting the 'Kullervo' cycle into a with chunks of poetry in between (Letters, 1914, p. 7).

Based on the report of the actual Kullervo manuscript, one of the other key elements of Tolkien's adaptation process was the invention of new, or alternative, names for characters, place and things in his version of the story; including names for elements that were mentioned, but not named, in the story (for example Kullervo's sister Wanwona) (Kalevala Essay, p. 212). There is also a separate page listing possible names, with some struck out, showing that Tolkien experimented with different potential names and variations on them (Kalevala Essay, p. 236). As I have indicated above, several of these invented names would become incorporated into Tolkien's first expression of his invented language, Qenya (Kalevala Essay, pp. 213-214).

In order to explore how this adaptation led to language invention, I have broken down the body of invented names found in Tolkien's The Story of Kullervo into three tables below. In Table 1, I have outlined the invented names (or nicknames) that Tolkien invented to replace a name from the original Kullervo story-cycle. In Table 2, I have outlined the names that Tolkien invented for people, places and things that are mentioned, but not named, in the original Kullervo story-cycle and the names Tolkien invented to give these characters and items increased narrative presence in his version. Finally, Table 3 outlines the names Tolkien invented for new elements which he thought about bringing into his own adaptation.

76

Table 1 – Invented Names (Nick Names) to Replace Original Ones Name from Kalevala Kullervo Story Tolkien's Alternate Invented Names

Kullervo Honto, Sake, Sakehonto, Sari, Nyelid

Kalervo (his father) Talte, Taltelohui, Kampa, Paiväta

Untamo (the evil uncle) Unti, Ulto, Ulko, Ulkho

Finland Sutse

Karelja Telea

Russia ('The Great Land') Kemenume

Ilmarinen the Smith Asemo

Table 2 – Invented Names to Name Unnamed Characters and Items Kullervo's unnamed sister Wanona/Wanora/Welinore/Kivutar

Kullervo's unnamed mother Kiputyttö – ‘maiden of pain, his wife’

The unnamed knife Sikki the mother of the unnamed wife of Koi, Louhiatar (Lohja) - [koi is Finnish for Asemo the Smith day/daybreak]

Palikki’s unnamed little damsels Telenda, Kaltuse, Pulu, Küru, Sampia

The unnamed dog Musti/Mauri

Table 3 – Invented Names for New Elements by Tolkien New Element Tolkien's Invented Name a patronymic used in Tolkien’s -wenlen secondary title for the story

The Underworld Amunti/Amuntu

Plague/Destruction

77 The Marshland Lumya

The God of Heaven Ilu/Iluko/Ulko

Sky, Heaven Ilwe/Ilwinti/Manatomi/Manoine

A god, maker of the Earth Malolo

God of Hell Tanto

The Great Black River of Death Kuruwyano

An Armed Goddess Wanwe/Wenwe

Based on Tolkien's previous language invention there is little evidence of him drawing on Nevbosh or Naffarin for these invented names. Some of these names clearly come from, or are inspired by, Finnish. For example, Tolkien's name for Kullervo's mother, Kiputyttö (Table 1), comes from the Finnish word kipu meaning pain or grief and the name is translated as 'maiden of pain'. Kullervo's hunting dog, whose role and profile Tolkien elevates in his adaptation to become the precursor to Tolkien's own magical hound of , Huan, is given the name Musti or Mauri (Table 2) which derives from the Finnish word musta meaning black or dark (Kalevala Essay, p. 239). Flieger suggests that Tolkien's replacement name for Ilmarien the Smith, Asemo (Table 1), suggests the Finnish word ase meaning weapon or tool (242). I would also argue, although their specific meanings are unknown, that the series of nicknames, or epithets, Tolkien invents for Kullervo himself may also signify his tragic-heroic stature in Tolkien's story suggesting a possible Homeric influence where each hero has similar epithets (e.g. 'swift footed Achilleus'). As I will explore further on, Tolkien would invent similar Homeric epithets for his own gods, the Valar, and these early invented names for his story of Kullervo may represent the earliest germ of this idea. Flieger also suggests that such multiple naming is typical of the Kalevala and cites several similar epithets given to the aforementioned hero Lemminkainen (Kalevala Essay, p. 240).

The significance of Tolkien's language invention as part of the adaptation process for his Story of Kullervo is not only in Tolkien's act of naming, but in how this motivated the next stage of Tolkien's language invention which would 78 result in two of the earliest significant pieces of linguistic creativity by Tolkien for his own mythology – The Qenya Lexicon and earliest version of The Qenya Phonology. Based on the published documents of the Qenyaqetsa or 'The language of the Qendi', Tolkien started the invention of Qenya by first constructing a phonetic system of sounds for the language which he recorded in The Qenya Phonology (PE 12, pp. 1-28). To build his 'word hoard' for Qenya, Tolkien constructed a series of base roots (indeed The Qenya Lexicon is arranged by these base roots) and in The Qenya Phonology, he outlined a series of complex letter and sound combination rules for how these bases would be combined to form words to which various prefixes, infixes and suffixes would be added to alter the meaning of the word. Tolkien was clearly modelling his Qenya language on the agglutinative nature of Finnish with its highly complex noun declensions formed by adding similar elements to the base root. The reasons why Tolkien started in this way can be contextualized with Tolkien's study of 19th century philology. Max Müller asserted that the elementary particles of language were 'roots' which he also called 'radicals' (Turner 2014, p. 245). Archibald Sayce’s 1874 The Principles of Comparative Philology, which Ryan indicates Tolkien read as an undergraduate, includes an entire chapter on ‘The Doctrine of Roots’ (Ryan 2013, p. 44).

Tolkien's decision to base the morphology of Qenya on invented base roots from which words would be constructed can also be characterized as his attempt to improve upon the work of past language and 'name inventors' for fictional literature. Tolkien moved from imitator/adaptor of past language inventors to creator by developing a system of invented languages which would integrate the language invention into the mythic fabric of the story. Tolkien would emphasize this point in several letters. In a 1937 letter, in response to some of his mythological work being rejected by an external reader due to their 'eye splitting Celtic names', Tolkien would outline the two key elements he thought invented languages should possess, coherence and consistency, and would mention two other name inventors that he felt had not fully achieved this, Swift and Dunsany (Letters, 1937, p. 26). Here Tolkien is comparing his linguistic naming system to other similar ones of two key authors of fantastical literature. First Jonathan Swift for Gulliver's Travels, whose language invention I explored in the last section. The second author Tolkien is referring to is the

79 Anglo-Irish fantasy writer Edward Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany, or Lord Dunsany. Dunsany's 1905 work, The Gods of Pegana, is a collection of short stories about an original pantheon of gods with invented names who live in a secondary-world called Pegana. The invented names of some of these gods are: Mana-Yood-Sushai (the creator god), Dorozhand (the god of destiny) and Yoharneth-Lahai (the god of Little Dreams and Fancies) (Dunsany 2011, pp.1- 5). What Tolkien did not find as an example in these names was a coherence and consistency that made them 'fit' into the narrative and world view of the story and the world it inhabited. As I have explored above, part of the reason for this came from the role invented language played in many of the past works of fiction. In his c.1951 letter to the potential publisher of the 'Sillmarillion' materials with The Lord of the Rings, Milton Waldman, Tolkien makes the point that it is the very cohesion and consistency of his invented languages that gives his invented world the illusion of historicity and that his system of nomenclature was markedly lacking in ‘comparable things’ (Letters, p. 144). Given the earliest evidence of The Qenya Lexicon, it seems clear that Tolkien was not just setting out to invent a language by replacing the signifier for the signified. Rather, one of Tolkien's linguistic objectives would be to create a system that would make his language fit into his secondary world by making all elements of vocabulary and grammar linguistically consistent. Therefore, through Tolkien's imaginative reverse engineering, all words constructed from one base root, the signifiers, would share a sense of the idea the original base root, or core signified, was associated with. For example, Tolkien used the invented base root MORO to construct Qenya words which all have the sense of ‘darkness'.

Mori – night Morinda – of the night, nightly Moriva – nocturnal Morion (d) – son on the dark Morwen – daughter of the dark Morna, morqa –black Morilanta – night fall (combining with the lante – falling) Morwinyon – Arcturus (glint in the dark) Moru – hide, conceal Morwa – unclear, secret (PE 12, p. 62)

80 The sources of the actual invented base roots have several origins. Tolkien explored this question in the published draft of an unsent letter from 1967 to a Mr. Rang. In this draft, Tolkien explains his process which appears to be based on the structuralist concept of the unfixed nature of the signifier and the signified. Tolkien demonstrates the coeval nature of myth and language by indicating in the letter that whatever ‘meaning’ these sounds may have had or suggested, it was only when they were transferred to the prepared linguistic situation in his story that they would receive meaning and significance according to the nature of the story told (Letters, 1967, p. 383). He concludes this explanation with his characteristic dissuading of any attempt to find meaning in these sound combinations before they were transferred to the prepared linguistic situation (383).

However, despite what Tolkien may have said, I would argue that there are several sources that can be explored for some of the key base roots in the Qenya language. First, as I have previously mentioned, Tolkien brought in some words from his former language construction work which he felt a special phonetic predilection for (MC, p. 205, 209). From Nevbosh, the word lint meaning quick, nimble, and fast is incorporated into the Gnomish lexicon (PE 11, p. 54). From Naffarin the word vru 'ever, always,' is incorporated into the Qenya Lexicon as 'vor, voro' and becomes the root base from which Tolkien constructs the name Voronwe 'the faithful' who is first the wife and then companion of the mariner Earendl (PE 12, pp. 24,102). As indicated above, Tolkien also clearly brought in and re-purposed, mostly as base roots, invented words from his adaptation of the Kullervo story: indicating he felt some of the invented names could be the base for words to be built in his new Qenya language; a key discovery first made by Carl Hostetter (Kalevala Essay, pp. 213-214) and recently explored in Garth (2014). The table below outlines some of the key words Tolkien invented for his Kullervo adaptation which are found as base roots in The Qenya Lexicon.

Invented word for Kullervo Incorporation in Qenya Lexicon

Ilu, Illuko, Ilwinti – name for the sky the base root form ILU “ether, the slender god airs among the stars” (PE 12, p. 42) from

81 which is derived the names Iluvatar “the names of Enu among Men, Heavenly Father” and ilwe the word for 'sky'

Kampa – a name for Kullervo's KAKAPA (PE 12, p. 45) and the word father Kalervo. KAMPO (the leaper) now is called “a name for Earendel.”

Kemenume – Russia ('the great KEME “soil.” (PE 12, p. 46). The Valar of land') the Earth Yavanna is called Kemi. Garth (2014) suggests ume from Q. umea 'large' (27)

Wanona – Kullervo's sister Qenya root GWENE from which Wen (d) maid, girl (PE 12, p. 103).

Sikki – the knife of Kullervo SIQI - “sigh, alas!” from which the words siqile “sighing, lament” (PE 12, p. 84).

Manoine – a sky or god of heaven MANA from which is derived Manwë the Lord of the Valar and a Sky God (PE 12, p. 58)

Kuru– the great black river of death KURU is associated with magic, wizardry possibly constructed from the and witches (PE 12, p. 49). Also under the Finnish word kuolema – death root KOHO is the word kolema meaning (patience, endurance) hardship (PE 12, p. 47)

Some of these words and names, especially the names of the prime Godhead Iluvatar, the chief Valar Manwë and words like keme and kuru are core names and words in Tolkien's mythic texts and would persist in all the various versions of the languages he would construct throughout his lifetime's work.

It has been shown by other scholars that Tolkien also drew upon some of his earliest personal memories for word construction. One of Tolkien's earliest linguistic memories was the source of the Qenya base root ONO, glossed as

82 'hard' (PE 12, p. 70), from which Tolkien constructed the word ondo (stone) and the name of his doomed city of the Elves, Gondolin; which literally means 'singing stone' (PE 11, p. 41). According to a late letter, Tolkien recalled that when he was eight years old he read in a small book that the only pre-Celtic or pre-Germanic word that we know of in Britain is ond for stone (Letters, 1971, p. 410). This 'small book' was Sir John Rhys's 1882 work Celtic Britain in which Rhys reported that the language of the pre-Celtic aboriginal inhabitants of the British Isles (which Rhys calls Ivernian) was preserved in a glossary by an Irish 'king-bishop' of Casel Cormac mac Cuilennain (d.908). Cormac called this lost language the Iarn or 'iron language' because it was a difficult language to see through. He did record two words known to him: fern, anything good and ond, a stone (Hostetter and Wynne 1993, p.48). Tolkien remembered reading this passage by Sir John Rhys when he was inventing his lexicon. Tolkien also attended Rhys's lectures on Welsh Literature and Language when he was an undergraduate at Oxford (Chronology, p. 51). In The Qenya Lexicon, there are also related entries for 'eren – Iron or Steel' (PE 12, p. 36) and 'Iverind – Ireland' (PE 12, p. 43). Both ondo and ivern would be key words in Tolkien's mythological structure throughout the development of his invented languages. By inventing a Qenya base root ONO to mean 'hard', Tolkien is suggesting that the 'pre-Celtic' word ond for stone derived from a transference of the Elvish base root into the language of men who inhabited lands that once had been the realm of those Elves, who had since diminished to become the 'the shadow people' of legend and song.

Tolkien's use of base roots was also imaginatively responding to the aforementioned 19th century search for the original 'Proto-Indo-European' source language by actually inventing those base roots from which words were developed. Tolkien's decision to use an agglutinative language model suggests Max Müller's idea that a language first had to be agglutinative before it develops. If Tolkien was intending Qenya to be a language that had existed in some primeval, mythical past and then had been developed, then the agglutinative model would have represented the earliest and also purest form of the language to invent and build upon.

83 As this new language invention comes closer to the time Tolkien had been working with Finnish (late 1914-early 1915), it is not surprising that the phonetic sounds of Qenya, with their focus on open vowels and a softening of consonant stops, closely resemble the sounds of the Finnish language. The layout of The Qenya Phonology (PE 12, pp. 1-28) focuses on the description of the alphabet, then sounds rules for vowels first (3-14), followed by consonants (15-26) and finally stress and accents (26-28). Structurally this format reflects the way grammars of the time, such as Eliot's Finnish Grammar and Wright's A Primer of the Gothic Language, introduce similar phonological and grammatical information (see Elliot 1890, pp. 1-18 and Wright 2005, pp. 2-14). Tolkien's Qenya Phonology is a densely philologically-focused early work that showcases the experience he had already gained in his own studies and when doodling Germanic sound shift charts in his Exeter College Notebooks (such as in MS Tolkien A21/13 folios 56-64, 65-124 and 178).

Tolkien would continue to invent elements for his Qenya language before going into activity duty in the War and then in the post-War Book of Lost Tales period and, as I will explore further on, developed it to such a level that he could compose poetry in it. For example, on several pages of notes that he would later insert into the notebook with the Qenya Phonology and the Qenya Lexicon, Tolkien drafted out an example of a complex verb conjugation, based on the Qenya verb tul 'to come' (see PE 14, pp. 28-34). Tolkien's sketch of the Qenya verb reflects a highly conjugated system which more resembles Ancient Greek with a three voice system (active, middle, and passive) and an aorist past tense which suggests Tolkien drawing on and re-purposing his knowledge of Ancient Greek to give Qenya a classical as well as Finnish flavour.

5. Tolkien as Myth Creator

5.1. The Shores of Faery (July 1915) – Mythic Narrative and Language Meet

Contrasted with Tolkien's use of language and name invention in his adaptation of the Kullervo story explored above, is his invention of original names for places and objects in his emerging mythology. The earliest evidence of this invention can be seen in the first official poem of the mythology, The Shores of 84 Faery, composed by Tolkien in July 1915. As I will demonstrate further on, the invented place names which start to appear in this poem clearly show Tolkien's coeval use of The Qenya Lexicon to construct these names.

The Shores of Faery was one of several poems Tolkien started to compose in the first-half of 1915 around his growing interest in one word, earendel5. Tolkien encountered this specific word, or name, through his study of the Anglo- Saxon devotional poem, Crist I, possibly by the eighth-century poet Cynewulf. This discovery has been well documented by Tolkien himself and explored by several Tolkien Scholars (Letters, 1967, p.385; Garth 2003, pp.44-46; Morton 2008, p. 63). Based on Tolkien's later recollection this attraction was clearly a philologically-based one. As he later recalled to W.H. Auden it was the 'beauty of this word' and its 'rare euphonic nature' that attracted him to this specific word, or name (Letters, 1967, p. 385). One element that may have made this particular name stick is that it did not follow the standard pattern of most Old English names, which tend to have two syllables; e.g. Beo-wulf, Aelf-wine, Ead- weard (see Searle 2012, pp. xi-xiv). The euphonic attractiveness Tolkien felt for this name may have been due to its polysyllabic structure (i.e. Ea-ren-del). Tolkien's own Qenya language contained many examples of similar polysyllabic words imaginatively reflecting this aesthetic appeal (e.g. Alalminore, 'Land of Elms').

Several Tolkien scholars have explored what potential mythic origins the word or name earendel would have suggested to Tolkien when he first saw it in Crist. Hostetter argues that from his studies of Germanic and Norse myth, Tolkien would have known that this word, or name, was associated with other lost tales of messengers with a possible cosmological connection to the planet Venus and, through the Anglo-Saxon The Blickling Homilies, the Christian story of John the Baptist (1991, pp.5-10). Another possible source for this related word/name that Tolkien would have seen appears as a footnote in Israel Gollancz's 1892 edition of Crist which offers several different possible origins for the word and gives a sense of the garbled nature of its true meaning now lost in time (159). In addition, the same earendel passage also appears in Gollancz's 1898 Hamlet in Iceland in which he connects a variant of the name Earendel to

5 Variant forms in Old English of this word are: éarendel or ëarendel 85 the name the Danish mythographer Saxo-Grammaticus gives to Hamlet's father, Horwendillus (35-36). Given this combination of potential contrasting origins it seems evident that upon encountering this word/name in Crist, Tolkien clearly felt there was something 'behind' what this word or name signified as well as the related Germanic stories it was mentioned in. The isolated word, or name, earendel, was the signifier to a greater ‘lost’ story about a messenger that now just remained as an echo in the fractured existing corpora of mythic and linguistic materials; a lost signified (see also Garth 2014, p.11). Therefore, Tolkien's phono-aesthetic attraction to the actual sound of earendel combined with his knowledge of a splintered and garbled mythic background and transmission, came together to motivate an exploration of what this original lost tale might have been. Tolkien's exploration, and actual process of discovery, was clearly fuelled by the re-constructive methodology that had learned from studying 19th century philology combined with his own emerging imaginative adaptation of myth and story. Kilby, who worked with Tolkien in the 1960's, states that Tolkien told him it was 'Cynewulf's words from which ultimately sprang the whole of my mythology' (1977, p. 57).

The first poem in which Tolkien used the name 'earendel' in a poetic context is The Voyage of Éarendel the Evening Star6, composed on 24 September 1914 at Tolkien's Aunt Jane Neave's farm in Gedling, Nottinghamshire (Chronology, p. 54). Christopher Tolkien indicates that there are five different versions of this poem 'each one incorporating emendations made in the predecessor, though only the first verse was substantially rewritten' (Lost Tales II, pp. 267-268). On 27 November 1914, Tolkien read one of these versions of The Voyage of Éarendel to the Exeter Collage Essay Club (Chronology, p. 57; Garth 2003, pp. 52-53). In a letter to Edith from the time, Tolkien mentions 'I read “Earendel” which was well criticised' (Letters, 1914, p. 8).

In March–April 1915, Tolkien sent his Éarendel poems to his T.C.B.S. colleague G.B. Smith. In Biography, Carpenter states that 'he had shown the original

6 In a similar way to the word/name in Old-English, throughout the development of his early mythology, Tolkien would also express this name in various forms including: Éarendel, Eärendel, and Earendl 86 Earendel lines to G.B. Smith, who had said that he liked them, but asked what they were really about. Tolkien had replied: “I don't know. I'll try to find out.”' (Biography, p. 107) Tolkien's reply is not attested anywhere else. Douglas A. Anderson has suggested that Carpenter’s report of this incident may derive from the notes Tolkien made later in his life and perhaps the recollections of his childhood which Carpenter mentions in the 'Author's Note' to Biography (Douglas A. Anderson, email communication, 29 October 2014).

Tolkien's recollection of his reply to G.B. Smith is an early example of Tolkien positioning himself not as an author of new stories, but as both the re- discoverer and re-constructor of the 'true' lost stories which had become fragmented and 'garbled' in the mists of time; signifiers of a lost group of signifieds. Tolkien's use of this type of framework can be seen, in part, as an attempt to bring together his imaginative approach to myth and legend with the scientific theories and practices of philology. As Tolkien would state in his letter to Milton Waldman 'I was an undergraduate before thought and experience revealed to me that these [language invention and myth/fairy-story] were not divergent interests – opposite poles of science and romance – but integrally related' (Letters, 1951, p.144). Later in the same letter, Tolkien describes his mythopoeia in these words, 'I had a sense of recording what was already ”there”, somewhere: not of ”inventing”' (Letters, 1951, p.145). As I will explore in chapter four another source for where the germ of these stories may have come from is in Tolkien's early paintings and drawings which he used to visualize the mythic images that were emerging in his mind.

In this earliest known versions of The Voyage of Éarendel poem, Tolkien experiments with bringing together the concept of Éarendel as an astral symbol of the messenger of the sky by linking it to his own concept of a heroic journey which is characterized in the poem as a 'journey down the years' (Lost Tales II, p. 268). The influence from Tolkien's philological explorations can be seen in the reference to Éarendel as 'a ray of light' (268) which is, as Garth indicates, the definition that he would have found in Bosworth and Toller's Anglo-Saxon Dictionary for the name. Tolkien as imitator/adaptor can been seen in the opening phrase he used in one of the earliest versions of the poem 'from the Ocean's cup' which Garth indicates suggests a passage from Beowulf (2003, p.

87 45 and 2014, p. 23). This passage 'ofer ytha ful' from line 1208b of Beowulf describe how the , , wore precious jewels (eorclan- stanas (line 1208a) on his breast when he went 'across the cup of waves' to fight and be defeated by the Franks. In his own recently published 1920's translation of Beowulf, Tolkien would render this line as 'over the bowl of the seas' (Beowulf 2014, p. 47). Tolkien would have known from his studies of Beowulf that this reference linked this passage to an historical event of an actual raid into France by a King of the Danes, Chlochilaicus in c. A.D. 516, which was attested in several histories of the time; including Gregory of Tours History of the Franks. Garth also contextualizes this poem with Tolkien's own feelings about not taking immediate part in the War; as in the poem Earendel hears the mirth and falling of tears of men but travels on (2003, pp. 45-47). I would also argue that this specific line from Beowulf suggests Tolkien reflecting on the fact that even though a mighty prince went out into battle he was ultimately defeated, possibly reflecting Tolkien's ambivalence and worry about actually enlisting in the War. I would also suggest that the word eorclan-stanas in this same Beowulf passage, which in his own translation of Beowulf Tolkien calls 'precious stones' (Beowulf 2014, p. 47) may also have been the catalyst for Tolkien to imaginatively think about the reason for Éarendel's radiance (beyond the astronomical connotation). Eventually, Tolkien would arrive at the solution for this with the invention of the mythical jewels, the , but this narrative element would only emerge in c. 1917 with Tolkien's work on The Book of Lost Tales materials. Later, in the 1930's, Tolkien attempted to render some of the events of his mythology in a chronicle using Anglo-Saxon and would return to the word eorclan-stanas to now translate the word silmaril (Shaping, pp. 337-341).

There is also mention throughout the Éarendel poem of the sun and 'the ship of the moon.' Beside astronomical associations, this suggests an influence from Tolkien's reading of the Kalevala which includes the runos describing the stealing of the Sun and Moon by the evil Lohui, the old toothless maiden of Pohja (Runo XLVIII) and the restoration of the Sun and the Moon by the Vainomoinenen (Runo XLIX). This would be a specific theme that Tolkien would visually represent in a painting (Artist, p. 44), which I will explore further in chapter four, and continue to develop and integrate into his mythology.

88 Another image that appears in this poem is 'the door of night'. Given the evidence of Tolkien's paintings and drawings (see chapter four) Tolkien may be poetically representing one of his earliest paintings called Before. Before (Appendix 4: Picture 4) depicts a pathway surrounded by two torches with flames in red. There are also flecks of red (fire) on the pathway. The viewer’s eye immediately travels down the dark corridor to the door at the back of the drawing. Tolkien would have sketched Before in 1911-1912 just as he was making the transition from King Edward's School to Exeter College (Artist, p. 34). In the next chapter of the thesis I will also explore several parallels between the vision of Tolkien's first Éarendel poem and Francis Thompson's visionary poem of spiritual flight, The Hound of Heaven, which Tolkien read during this time and gave a literary paper on Thompson at Exeter College.

During spring 1915 Tolkien composed additional poems on the subject of Earendel which now started to expand on the voyage that Tolkien just sketched in the first group of The Voyage of Éarendel poems. According to Douglas A. Anderson this work is made up of pages containing many lines of a poem relating to Éarendel written at this time, parts of which became two poems, one contemporaneously, the other years later (Douglas A. Anderson, Email Communication, 29 October 2014).

A version of one of these poems which Christopher Tolkien included in The Book of Lost Tales under the title The Bidding of the Minstrel (Lost Tales II, pp. 270-273) starts with an invocation: 'Sing us yet more of Eärendel the wandering' (270) and casts Éarendel as an Odysseus-like wanderer. I would argue that Tolkien’s Homeric echoes in this poem suggest inspiration from his reading of several Germanic sources including the notes of Israel Gollancz's 1898 Hamlet in Iceland. Gollancz suggests in Hamlet that Earendel may come from an old Germanic Lombardic form 'Auriuuandalus' which is related to moisture and the sea. Gollancz also suggests that this character was originally 'a sort of Germanic Ulysses' (141). This exploration of Éarendel as a type of Ulysses is also seen in a prose account Tolkien wrote on the back of the poem describing Éarendel the mariner’s great voyage (Lost Tales II, p. 261). This is one of the earliest prose texts Tolkien developed for his nascent mythology. This curious sketch depicts him and his companions sailing from the primary world of the

89 North (Iceland, Greenland) where 'a mighty wind and crest of great wave carry him to hotter climes' (Lost Tales II, p. 261). The journey continues into 'a land of strange men, land of magic. The home of night' (Lost Tales II, p. 261). After escaping the meshes of the night Éarendel and a few of his comrades, in a similar way as 's Odysseus and his companions, come to 'a great mountain island and a golden city' with an intriguing mention of 'Tree-men, Sun- dwellers, spices, fire mountains, red sea' (Lost Tales II, p. 261). Tolkien would incorporate 'the golden city' into the next phase of his mythic development. The 'Tree Men' are possibly the earliest germ of an idea for a race of creatures that would later play an important part in Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings – the (Treason, pp. 411-12). Clearly, in this second poem Tolkien is thinking more expansively about Éarendel and his established journeys which are now not just astral but have become more of an on the earth to real and mythical places. This expansion also allows Tolkien to add in new mythic elements and characters into this exploration; although, at this point, there is still no evidence of the language invention Tolkien would have been engaged in through his adaption of Kullervo. As imitator/adaptor, I would argue, Tolkien is clearly looking to Homer, and possibly Virgil, to frame his emerging Éarendel story cycle, and its transmission, into an epic framework.

One of Tolkien's next related poems suggests influence from advice G.B. Smith gave Tolkien on the Éarendel poems he reviewed. In a note to Tolkien, Smith advises him to 'make his verse more lucid without losing its luxuriance' and suggests to Tolkien he read the shorter lyrics by William Blake as an example of the clear and simple (cited in Chronology, p. 62). Around the time of receiving this advice, in April 1915, Tolkien composed a short 14-line poem called Kor which in the manuscript version is subtitled 'In a City Lost and Dead'. This short poem, of fourteen lines, depicts an abandoned city on a hill and suggests Tolkien poetically elaborating on one of the places he envisioned Earendel and his men travelling to in the prose fragment I have explored above. The name of the poem Kor suggests evidence of Tolkien's language invention from his work on The Qenya Lexicon. In The Qenya Lexicon there is a base root KORO which Tolkien suggests means 'revere' (although there is a question mark next to this definition), and from which he constructs KOR defined as 'the ancient town built

90 above the rocks of Eldamar, whence the fairies marched into the world' (PE 12, p. 48). Tolkien's use of the invented place name Eldamar shows that this definition is from a slightly later time, but, I would argue, it does show that KOR may have come out of Tolkien's language invention work at this time.

Tolkien scholars including Garth have noted that the place name Kor is also found as the name for a ruined city on a large hill in Africa in H. Rider Haggard's Victorian adventure novel She (1887) which Tolkien was known to have read (2003, pp. 80-81). Christopher Tolkien, in his commentary to The Book of Lost Tales, remarks on this similarity: 'There is no external evidence for this, but it can hardly be doubted. In this case, it might be thought that since the African Kor was a city built on the top of a great mountain standing in isolation the relationship was more the purely “phonetic”' (Lost Tales II, p.329). This suggests that Kor may be another example, as I have explored with ondo, of Tolkien talking something from his primary world reading and incorporating it into his language invention work. As I explore in chapter four, roughly around this time as well, Tolkien painted an image of this abandoned city on the hill which he did not name Kor, but Tanaqui (Appendix 4: Picture 19). This invented name suggests a very early attempt by Tolkien to utilize the base roots of his emerging Qenya Lexicon to construct a name for this city. The /ta/ part of the name comes from the base root TAHA meaning 'high, lofty' (PE 12, p. 87). The /naqui/ is a bit more problematic but suggests an early attempt at the Qenya base root NIQI meaning 'white' from which Tolkien constructed Niqetil (d), Niqetilde meaning 'snow-cap' (PE 12, p. 66). Therefore, the two base roots formed the descriptive name of what would become the mountain of the Valar, Taniquetil, which was both high and covered with snow (Lost Tales I, p. 58). In The Qenya Lexicon Tolkien describes this as 'Lofty Snow-cap, a great mountain at World's Edge' (PE 12, p. 87).

Taniquetil along with Valinor, Eglamar and the name of Earendel's ship, Wingelot, would all appear as invented names in The Shores of Faery. Tolkien appears to have composed this poem in two phases. In May 1915, he painted The Shores of Faery next to which, in his sketchbook, he wrote several lines of this poem (Reader's Guide, p. 887). What Tolkien wrote next to this painting is reported to be the earliest textual working of the poem. He would later

91 compose a fair copy of the poem in 8-9 July 1915, which Christopher Tolkien published in The Book of Lost Tales (Lost Tales II, p. 271).

The first two invented place names to appear in The Shores of Faery are found in one line repeated twice in the poem: 'Beyond Taniquetil in Valinor' (Lost Tales II, pp. 271-272). In addition to Taniquetil, which I have explored above, Tolkien also introduces the invented name Valinor. Valinor (alternate Valinore) is glossed in The Qenya Lexicon as '' thus associating it with the Norse home of the gods (PE 12, p. 99). This gloss suggests an early Germanic association with the home of Tolkien's gods and signifies Tolkien's early thoughts on using several of the characteristics of the Norse gods in his pantheon of Valar which I will explore further in the next chapter. The name Valinor itself is constructed from the base roots meaning 'the happy folk' and /nore/ which is constructed from a core base root NO which means 'become, be born' from which nore means 'native land, nation, family, country (PE 12, p. 66).

The third place name, Eglamar ('and the rocks of Eglamar') is formed from the base root EGLA which means 'outside names given to the Elves by the Valar and adopted by them' (PE 12, p. 35). The second element is a locative base root MBARA > MAR (MAS-) which means 'dwelling of men, land, the earth' (PE 12, p. 60). Christopher Tolkien notes that in the second version of the poem this name is changed to Eldamar (Lost Tales II, p. 274). Tolkien seems to have experimented with the EGLA/ELDA base root and later would assign the EGLA root to Gnomish (PE 11, p. 32). The ELDA root would be used by Tolkien to construct a series of significant words having to do with Elves (PE 12, p. 35). Here Tolkien seems to be vacillating between Eglamar and Eldamar and he does not necessarily reject one for the other; suggesting he was experimenting with different phono-aesthetic expressions of this place name. In The Qenya Lexicon Tolkien expands upon this particular invented named as 'the rocky beach in Western Inwinore (Faery), whence the Solosimpi have danced along the beaches of the world. Upon this rock was the white town built called Kor, whence the fairies came to teach men song and holiness' (PE 12, p. 35). I will examine the spiritual significance of this last part of Tolkien's entry for Eldamar in The Qenya Lexicon in the next chapter.

92

The final invented name in the poem is the name of Earendel's ship, Wingelot, which is glossed in The Qenya Lexicon as 'foam flower' (PE 12, p. 104). Tolkien invented the base root GWITHI/GWIGI from which came words having to do with sea, foam and . I would argue that the invented name Wingelot is a good example of how far Tolkien's mythic and linguistic invention had progressed. In the original 1914-1915 Earendel poem Tolkien had described Earendel's ship as 'his bark' and 'his gleaming galleon' (Lost Tales II, pp. 267-268), now, only several months later, he was using his invented language to give this ship a name, Wingelot, which had linguistically embedded in it a sense of it being associated with , waves and the poetic description of 'foam flower' (PE 12, p. 104). As with Kor above, while incorporating the name Wingelot in his own mythology, Tolkien would have also been aware of other contexts. A variant form of this name, Guingelot (the Gu/W interchange comes from Norman French) was associated with another boat belonging to the legendary figure , the father of Weland the Smith (see Chambers 1912, p.96). Further, a similar name appears in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight as the name of Gawain's horse, Gryngolet (1967, p. 97). Tolkien's use of the name for Éarendel's ship suggests he was drawing upon traditional modes of transportation of other mythic figures (i.e. a ship and a horse) to suggest the validity of this tradition in his own mythology, using bilingual diplosemy. However, again like with Kor, Tolkien did not just 'use' the name from primary world myth and legend but invented a linguistic origin for it in his consistent base root construction in The Qenya Lexicon.

5.2. The Shadow People and Lost Languages

In September 1915, when he was stationed at an army camp near Lichfield training for the War (Biography, p. 110), Tolkien added a new darker element to this mythological poetry with A Song for Aryador (Lost Tales I, p. 139). In this elegiac poem an unnamed narrator describes a land 'by the wooded inland shore' where during the day the sounds of bells are produced by 'goats upon the fells' but at night when 'men are kindling tiny gleams' the narrator remembers an older time 'when the valley was unknown / and the waters roared

93 alone' (139). In that older time the narrator says 'the sound of ghostly bells' was caused by 'the shadow people'. In the last two lines of the poem the narrator describes these shadow people: 'There was dancing and was ringing / There were shadow people singing / Ancient songs of olden gods in Aryador' (139).

The link between 'the shadow people' and the Elves is attested in The Qenya Lexicon through the place name Aryador which is found in a listing of 'Areandor (or Areanore) name of a mountainous district; the abode of the Shadow Folk' (PE 12, p. 32). Clearly this place name is of Elvish origin which suggests the name came from the original Elves who inhabited this area and have now diminished. I would suggest that Tolkien's development of 'the shadow people' has its origins in his gloss of the place name Eldamar in The Qenya Lexicon, which I have explored above, 'whence the fairies came to teach men song and holiness' (PE 12, p. 35). One of these groups of Elves came to the land they called Aryador and after teaching men 'song and holiness' diminished until they became only memories that are evoked on nights as the poem describes (see Fimi 2010, p. 17).

According to the editors of The Qenya Lexicon, the oldest layer of the next sentence in the gloss for this place name is, 'But word probably of Teleakta origin, old Aryador' (32). In a later layer of this entry Tolkien changed this to, 'But word probably of Ilkorin origin' (32). Teleakta, or a variant found in another passage, Teleatka, appears only twice in The Qenya Lexicon. In each case it is associated with A Song of Aryador and the slightly later Habbanan Beneath the Stars which I will explore further on. The editors of the lexicon suggest that Teleakta is another Elvish language or dialect (PE 12, p. xiv). I would argue, given the passage for the place name Aryador in the lexicon, that Tolkien meant Teleakta to be the remnant of the Elvish language, or dialect, that those Elves who are now called 'the shadow people' once spoke and used to name this place which was kept by the men who now inhabited the land. While there is no listing for the name of the language Teleakta in The Qenya Lexicon, there is a base root TEL from which Tolkien constructs a series of words having to do with 'little elves' (PE 12, pp. 90-91).

The word part /telea/ may also have been brought by Tolkien into Qenya from 94 his language invention for his Kullervo story. Tolkien invented the place name Telea as an alternative name for the land of the Kalevala heroes, Karelia (see page 77: Table 1). The incorporation of this invented name as a base root for construction of words that signify 'little Elves' suggests Tolkien making an early link between the Finns of the Kalevala and these Elves. Certainly, Tolkien's description of the Finns in his talk on the Kalevala as 'cling[ing] in queer corners and want [ing] to speak unrelated archaic languages and revere “old habits”'(Kalevala Essay, p. 247) suggests some affinity with his 'shadow people'. In Tolkien's talk on the Kalevala, he referred to the Finns as 'the last acknowledged pagan people in Medieval Europe' (Kalevala Essay, p. 250) which is suggestive of how the men of the poem would have seen 'the shadow people' still worshiping their 'old gods'. As I will explore later in this chapter, Tolkien would also attempt to link the Elves to the Finns through other examples of language invention.

The base root association, I would suggest, supports the idea that, in some stage of Tolkien's mythic conception, those Elves who spoke this language became associated with being 'little Elves' signifying diminishment and their remembrance in the poem as 'shadow-folk'. That the land in the poem is still called Aryador suggests that the men now living in this land had retained the Elvish Teleakta name. Tolkien here is suggesting a knowledge transfer from Elves to Men; an idea he would continue to develop in his mythology. For example, in The Book of Lost Tales, Tolkien would introduce a group of Elves called Ilkorin (as he indicated in the later passage for Aryador explored above) who are described as the Elves who stayed behind and did not travel west with the other Elves to Valinor and thus did not see the lights of Kor (Lost Tales I, p. 262). The base root IL is glossed in The Qenya Lexicon as 'form of neg. prefix' (PE 12, p. 41). Therefore, the name means 'not of Kor.' Like 'the shadow people', these Elves remain in the Great Lands and ultimately encounter men. The vestige of Tolkien's early 'shadow people' idea is signified in the names of the places that the Ilkorin Elves inhabit: Hisilómë which Tolkien signifies in The Gnomish Lexicon as an Ilkorin place name meaning 'land or place of shadow' (PE 11, p. 54 and Lost Tales I, p. 255) and he also invents the Gnomish place name Dor Lómin 'shadow place' (PE 11, p. 30, 54). Tolkien also incorporates the idea of language transfer from Elves to Men in the Lost Tale which describes the awakening of Men, ‘Gilfanon's Tale’. In this origin myth an Ilkorin,

95 the dark Elf Nuin, prematurely awakens from their sleep the first two men, Ermon and Elmir, and teaches them much of the Ilkorin tongue, for which reason he is called Nuin Father of Speech' (Lost Tales I, p. 267). In later versions of the mythology Tolkien would revisit this language transference theme again with another mysterious language, Taliska, an early Gothic- inspired invented language of First Age men who were influenced by a later- developed Elvish language, Nandorian (Drout 2004, p. 341). This act of transference from a secondary world language (the language of the shadow folk) to a primary one (the language of men), I would argue, is an early piece of evidence of Tolkien's major creative trajectory, expressed through his coeval work on myth and linguistic invention, of linking his emerging secondary world structure to the primary world. This objective would result in a mythic model by which elements of the secondary world could enter, and perhaps influence and even ennoble, the culture, history and language of our world. As I will explore in chapter five, in his linking 'framework' narratives Tolkien would also explore the idea of language transfer by creating an imaginative scenario by which the Elves would know and speak Anglo-Saxon when the mortal Ælfwine came to the island of Tol-Eressëa, the Lonely Island.

In June 1916, Tolkien would compose a second related poem, Habbanan beneath the Stars (Lost Tales I, pp. 91-92). Habbanan is the second aforementioned word of the lost Teleatka Elvish dialect to be mentioned in The Qenya Lexicon. Habbanan is the Teleatka name for 'a region on the borders of Valinor' (PE 12, p. 39). The Qenya cognate is Harwalien, constructed from the base root HARA 'cleave, remain' (39). Tolkien's short prose introduction to Habbanan gives a mythic and narrative context to it; stating that Habbanan is a region near to those places that are not of men and where the air is very sweet (Lost Tales I, p. 91). In the poem, Tolkien develops this idea by emphasizing the finality of this place 'Where all roads end however long'. This suggests a place where things end and introduces the idea that this is a form of an afterlife. In the poem, Tolkien makes the point that those men who are gathering in rings while one voice sings (we are not told who this voice is) are happy folk as opposed to whom the poem addresses as 'unhappy folk'. This happiness comes from the fact that these men know that night (but not a night like ours) is

96 coming and they will be with God: 'Where God's unsullied garment runs / In glory down His mighty knees' (Lost Tales I, p. 92). The inspiration for this imagery certainly suggests the feelings Tolkien and his comrades may have felt as they prepared to go off into battle. There seems to be a sense of consolation that they are content to face this 'night' (death) because they will all ultimately be with God. Garth has characterized Habbanan as 'the Christian Purgatory seen through a fairy glass' (2003, p.113). I will explore the concept of Habbanan as a form of Christian purgatory further in chapter three of this thesis.

5.3. Myth-Making and Language Invention Intertwined: The Book of Lost Tales

By the time Tolkien took active part in World War One, he had established some key strands of a unique mythology through poetic composition, concomitant language invention and, as I explore in chapter four, visual representation through paintings and drawings. After the War, Tolkien would resume his mythic work using all of these creative outlets and would add to it a greater focus on developing prose narratives. I would argue that during this period, which would range from Tolkien's time convalescing from trench fever through to his first job as a lexicographer at The Oxford English Dictionary (c. late 1916-1919), Tolkien had two overriding objectives for his creative work. First, how to weave the strands of his early poetic and invented language explorations into a unique body of mythology. Second, how to utilize his knowledge and study of Germanic myths and legends, and the lost tales this body of work hinted at, to imaginatively link his body of invented mythology to a lost literature of Faërie, or England. Both these objectives had been ones Tolkien had been thinking about during his time in the War (see Letters, p. 78, UT, p. 6). Now in convalescence, Tolkien would work conjointly on both objectives and, as I will explore in the last chapter of this thesis, would find imaginative ways to weave both these themes together until both the unique mythology and the framework for transmission became inextricably linked.

This body of invented mythology, which would become known as The Book of Lost Tales, was made up of a series of prose narratives which would, to an extent, imitate and adapt various literary styles. These would range from an

97 epic battle story verging on the Homeric (‘The Fall of Gondolin’), a romance (‘The Tale of Tinúviel’), historic saga (‘Turambar and the Foalókë’ and ‘The Tale of Nauglafring’) to a series of cosmogonic tales that related the creation of the world (‘The Music of the ’), the nature and early deeds of the Gods (‘The Coming of the Valar and the Building of Valinor’), etiological myths (‘The Tale of the Sun and the Moon’) and the foundation tales of the birth of the two races of Elves and Men who would take part in the epic stories (‘The Coming of the Elves’ and the Making of Kor and ‘Gilfanon's Tale: The Travail of The Noldoli and the Coming of Mankind’). Within the text of these tales Tolkien would use his language invention to provide linguistically coherent and consistent names for the people, places and objects of his mythology. To these tales Tolkien would also write a series of linking narratives in which he introduced and developed, using the traveller's tale topos, the conceit that these tales were being heard and recorded by a primary world Germanic mariner. I will explore various transmission 'frameworks' Tolkien explored in chapter five.

In composing The Book of Lost Tales materials, Tolkien also re-visited and re- purposed some of his earlier material (a practice he would continue throughout his life-long work on his mythology). For example, for his 'historic saga' ‘Turambar and the Foalókë’, Tolkien used elements of his 1914 Story of Kullervo to invent a new story by transforming some of the key characteristics and story-lines of his Kullervo character into the equally hapless character of Turin Turambar. Given the published textual evidence, I would argue that Tolkien's mythic incorporation of his early Kullervo story occurred in several stages. Christopher Tolkien reports that there is a very early pencil outline of a related story fragment in The Book of Lost Tales materials in which a mother (Tiranne) and sister (Vainoni) are given a 'baneful' drink by an evil named Kuruki which causes both of them to forget their names. Vainoni encounters Turambar who saves her from and helps her look for the mother. Eventually Turambar marries Vainoni and Turambar becomes a lord of rangers and a harrier of Orcs. Then Turambar goes to seek out the Foalókë (a ) who is ravaging the land and sits on a great treasure heap. Turambar slays the Foalókë but in his dying moments the Foalókë tells Vainoni who she is: the sister of Turambar. Vainoni kills herself by casting herself over the waterfall. Turambar, like Kullervo, then falls upon his sword (cited in Lost Tales

98 II, p. 138).

This intriguing early outline shows evidence of Tolkien thinking about how to adapt elements of his Kullervo story into his own mythology. Initially, he planned to keep the evil magician, whose name, Kuruki, is constructed from the Qenya base root KURU which is associated with magic, wizardry and witches (PE 12, p. 49). As has been discussed above (p. 78), Tolkien first invented this word for the great black river of death in the notes for his Kullervo adaptation (Kalevala Essay, p. 238). While still thinking of keeping in a Dark-Lord-like character to be the vehicle for the non-recognition of the brother and sister (perhaps suggesting a vestige of the evil uncle Untamo in his Kullervo story), Tolkien now introduces a second force of evil the Foalókë. This name is constructed from two base roots in the Qenya Lexicon: FOGHO 'hide, store-up lay up in secret' (PE 12, p. 38) and LOKO 'twine, twist, curl' (PE 12, p. 55). Therefore, a Foalókë is a creature that lays up in secret and curls and twists and Tolkien's gloss of the name itself exemplifies this 'the name of a serpent that guarded a treasure' (PE 12, p. 38). In Beowulf, are referred to as creatures that curl and twist (Beowulf 2014, pp. 80-81). While dragons had been mentioned as one of the invading forces of Melko in ‘The Fall of Gondolin’ (Lost Tales II, pp.169-170), the Foaloke is one of the earliest known example in Tolkien of a particular dragon being made part of the of the story. In adapting his earlier Kullervo story to his own mythology Tolkien returned to one of his earliest mythic and linguistic memories of writing a story about a 'green great dragon' when he was seven years old (Letters, 1955, p. 214). This is reinforced in the gloss for the name Tolkien now gives his tragic hero in the early fragment. He is now known as Turambar. The first element /tur/ is derived from the Qenya base root TURU which Tolkien uses to construct words having to do with ruling and kings (PE 12, p. 95). The name Turambar is actually glossed as 'a hero, slayer of Fentor' (95). Fentor is glossed as 'the great worm slain by Ingilmo, or Turambar' (PE 12, p. 38). Tolkien reinforces the new dragon-slaying element of this story in the Turambar gloss by indicating 'cp. Sigurthr' (95) thus making a direct link between Turambar's slaying of Fentor with the Germanic hero Sigurd's slaying of in Volsunga Saga. Clearly Tolkien was not only remembering his earliest memories of writing a story about a dragon, he was also remembering one of the earliest stories he

99 ever read about a dragon – Fafnir in Andrew Lang's Red Fairy Tale Book, which retells the Volsunga Saga for children (OFS, p. 55). The other element of Turambar's name is from the constructed word Amarto, Ambar 'fate' (PE 12, p. 34). By using this word as the second element of Turin's name Tolkien encodes it with the idea of the tragic fate that Turambar would suffer. In 'Turambar and the Foalókë' Tolkien would give this character a first name as well, Turin, again from the same Qenya base root TURU. Flieger suggests that this name may have come from Tolkien's reading in Domenico Comparetti's The Traditional Poetry of the Finns (1889) that Kullervo had alternate names in different versions of the original oral stories based on the region where it was told. In Ingria, Kullervo was known as Turo or Tuirikkininen and in Archangel and Karelia it is Tuiretuinen (2012, p. 193). Fimi suggests that the name Turin can be linked to the equally tragic Oedipus who is often described in the Sophocles play as the tyrannos (tyrant) of Thebes (2013, p. 55). Fimi's suggestion here is intriguing given that one of the earliest descriptions Tolkien would have read of the Kullervo cycle was in the English introduction in the Eliot Finnish Grammar which noted Kullervo's tragedy rivalled Oedipus (Eliot 1890, p. 237). Garth (2014) offers a slightly different reading of the origin of Turin's name suggesting Tolkien drew upon several of the previous alternative names he had invented for Kullervo which suggest elements of fire imagery, such as sarihonto and sakihonto ('heart of fire'), and constructed Turambar's first name from the Qenya base root TURU & TUSO, 'kindle' (PE 12, p. 96). However, given the editor's indication of notes Tolkien made under the TURU base root (meaning 'am strong') it seems more likely that he would have constructed Turin from this base root since, as the note says, TURAMBAR is a calque for 'Conqueror of Fate' related to the Old Norse Sigurthr.

In composing The Book of Lost Tales Tolkien also invented a second language for the Elves called Gnomish or Goldogrin. Tolkien invented Gnomish to not only suggest a relationship to Qenya but also to linguistically model what could happen to a language over many years of wandering and mixing with other races of the world. The Gnomes, or Noldoli, would become Tolkien's new version of his earlier 'shadow people'; those Elves were lost in the world and became enslaved by the evil Vala Melko, through which their 'pure' Elvish language became altered by language contact with other races they

100 encountered; mainly and men. This would, in effect, allow Tolkien to explore through invention a related Elvish tongue which had become estranged from, but still had some kinship with, Qenya (Lost Tales I, p. 47; PE 12, p. 1). To phonetically reflect this sense of exile and wandering in Gnomish, Tolkien chose to have this language resemble the sound of a language from the primary world spoken by an exiled people who had been forced out of their lands by invading forces and made to live as the wealas, the Anglo-Saxon word for 'foreigners', in their own lands. As other Tolkien scholars have noted, whereas Qenya was, in part, inspired by Tolkien's love of Finnish, Gnomish was equally influenced by Tolkien's passion for Welsh (see Fimi, 2010, pp. 79-80 and Garth 2003, p. 213). Tolkien himself was a great lover of Welsh Medieval literature and collected a large library of Welsh books. Many of these are now kept at the Bodleian and English Faculty Libraries in Oxford. This includes a 1905 volume of Pedeir Keinc y Mabinogi, Breuddwyd Maxen, Lludd a Llevelys which was originally owned by Tolkien's T.C.B.S. Colleague, Geoffrey Bache Smith; bequeathed to Tolkien after Smith's death in France in December 1916 (MS Tolkien E16/20). Similar to the Welsh and other Goidelic and Brythonic languages (such as Irish, Manx, Scottish and Cornish), Tolkien invested Gnomish with a system of mutations, or , that effect words when they encounter other words. For example, when using the definite article /i/ the letter /c/ becomes /g/ (e.g. - cuid 'animal' becomes i-guid 'the animal'). In most cases, the system of mutations in Gnomish is exactly the same as in Welsh. In comparison with Qenya, based on a reconstruction of the sentences Tolkien gives, the Gnomish verb was to have a fairly constant base to which prefixes were added in the singular and plural (PE 11, p. 53). The deliberate close association of Gnomish with Qenya can be seen in how Tolkien structured the counterpart Gnomish Lexicon which he started developing in c. 1917. Whereas The Qenya Lexicon was arranged by base roots, The Gnomish Lexicon is more of a straightforward alphabetical listing of Gnomish words. The entries contained cognates with Qenya constructed words (some of them newly invented during this time) which link back to the core base roots I have explored. Unlike Qenya words which were constructed from invented base roots, Gnomish words, in most cases, were the productions of mutations through a complex series of sound shifts from the Qenya original.

101 A good illustration in the divergence of the phonetic and morphological make up of the two languages can be seen in a linguistic document Tolkien composed during the writing of The Book of Lost Tales called The Names of the Valar. (PE 14, pp. 11-15) which I have summarized in the table below. For this list, Tolkien first wrote the names of the Valar ('the gods') in Qenya and then when he had developed the Gnomish language went back and in blue crayon wrote the corresponding names in the language of the Gnomes.7

Qenya Name for Valar Goldogrin/Gnomish Name for Valar

Manwë (Sulimo or Wawavoite) Man Famfir, Ganweg, Manweg

Aule (Mar or Talkamarwa) Ola Mar or Martaglos/Maltagros

Ulmo (Vailimo) Gulma Bailmoth (Belmoth/Balros)

Melkor (Utumnar, Angien, Yelur) Belcha Udurvin Geluim Angainos

Tulkas (Polodorea) Tulcus (-os) Polodrin, polodweg

(Aldaron) Orme Orma or Aldor, Ormaldor

(Falman) Osse Otha (or Oth) Faflum (Falothron)

Makar (Makarna/Makarnea) Magron Magrintha

Fionwe (Urion) Auros Fionweg or Fionaur, Fionor

Vefantur Mandos Bandoth (Gwe) (Gwi)

Lorien, Olofantur Luriol (Ol) Usgwi

What this table above clearly demonstrates is Tolkien using the idea of sound shifts to create the imaginative conceit of the change of the sounds of words due to long years of wandering and mixing with other races. For example, names originally ending in a pure vowel, such as Manwë or Fionwë, in Gnomish attract a stop, or ending, to result in Manweg, Fionweg. Some of the names are still recognizable from the original Qenya (Tulkas becomes Tulcus) while others have gone through a significant transformation. For example,

7 ‘Valar’ is found in The Qenya Lexicon under the base root VALA – Tolkien indicates 'Valar or Vali plural' (PE 12, p. 99). In the texts and lexicons Tolkien sometimes uses ‘Valar’ to refer to one of the Ainur who came into Arda or sometimes he uses it collectively to refer to a group of them. In The Book of Lost Tales materials he sometimes uses ‘Vali’ to collectively refer to all the Valar and also ‘Vali’, ‘Vala’, or ‘Valu’ to refer to one of them. 102 Vefantur has clearly gone through several process of mutation to become Bandoth. The change of Osse to Otha (s > th) suggest a nascent sound shift which Tolkien would explore throughout his mythology; eventually becoming the very subject of a very late mythic/linguistic text called The Shibboleth of Feanor (Peoples, pp. 330-336) in which the way words are pronounced distinguish different peoples and political affiliations.

At roughly the same time he invented Gnomish, Tolkien also went back to his Qenya Phonology and revised sections of it to reflect that both Qenya and Goldogrin derived from a common source called Primitive Eldarin (PE 12, p. 2). Tolkien would give his two invented languages even more of a sense of authority, and historic depth, by showing how a given word was formed not only from base roots of the language itself, but through the historical and cultural language change within the context of the mythology. Tolkien would summarize this in the new 'Historical Sketch' section which introduced the revised version of The Qenya Phonology (PE 12, pp. 1-3). This new section is clearly related to a passage that appears in the ‘The Music of the Ainur’ when the Elf lore-master Rúmil describes to the Germanic mariner, Ottor Wǽfre, the early language history of the Elves (Lost Tales I, p. 48). Rúmil's description directly relates to, and in some cases quotes directly from, the 'Historic Sketch' in the revised Qenya Phonology. Within the course of The Book of Lost Tales Tolkien would create an origin myth for this network of languages by having the Elves relate how they awoke together in the East and were only sundered into different tribes and languages when they were summoned by the Valar to journey to Valinor (Lost Tales I, pp.113-130). This is a prime signifier of the interconnectedness and interrelation of mythic and linguistic texts in Tolkien's mythic model. Both The Book of Lost Tales narratives and the information Tolkien's gives in the 'Historic Sketch' are key elements to understanding how Tolkien planned to incorporate the linguistic structure of his languages, and the peoples who spoke them, into the framework of his secondary world. What Tolkien spends two paragraphs describing in his The Book of Lost Tales he expands with additional narrative information (including the mention of many subgroups of the Elves) and linguistic information in the revised 'Historic Sketch' in The Qenya Phonology.

103 6. Tolkien's Creative Uses of His Language Invention

A close analysis of Tolkien's language invention, reflected in both the Qenya and Gnomish lexicons, suggests that Tolkien used his invented language system to accomplish several creative objectives. First I will investigate the role of these lexicons as sources of words for Tolkien to translate some of his own early poetry into Elvish and then conversely his expression of original poetry in the invented languages themselves. Secondly, I will suggest that several of the words and names in the lexicons show Tolkien's ludic use of language invention. In the appendix to the first volume of The Book of Lost Tales, Christopher Tolkien states that Tolkien 'introduced a kind of “historical punning” here and there' (Lost Tales I, p. 242). In the analysis of this role of Tolkien’s invented languages I will group them in the following categories: biographical (with the objective of aligning primary world family members with the secondary world), autobiographical (Tolkien bringing himself into secondary world mythology), and punning (Tolkien playing upon the relationship of the sounds and meaning of words in the primary and secondary worlds through 'bilingual diplosemy' and word puns).

6.1. Poetic Uses

Tolkien's construction of words for poetic use is attested in several ways. First, Tolkien used a dagger notation to indicate poetic forms of words in both lexicons (a practice Tolkien would have seen in editions of Old English poetry where the dagger was often used to indicate poetic words). Secondly, especially in The Qenya Lexicon, there is a specific category of words that have a poetic almost 'song-like' feel to them which Tolkien builds from several base roots using the multiplicative prefix –LI/-LIN. From this prefix he constructs such words as: Lintyulussea, Lintutyulussea 'having many poplars', Linta(ta)sarind(e)a 'having many willows,' Limpa(pa)lassea(a) 'with much roaring,' Lintulindorea 'when many swallows congregating and sing at dawn' (PE 12, p. 55). These words, specifically, prefigure the same type of pollysylabic poetic words that Tolkien would give to his ancient tree herders, the

104 Ents, in The Lord of the Rings whose word for 'hill' is 'a-lalla-lalla-rumba- kamanda-lindor-burúme' (RK, p.1069). Towards the end of A Secret Vice, Tolkien comments on the function of words, or word fragments, in poetry that are there to create a musical sound (what Tolkien calls 'sound-music') and he finishes by using two examples from the Finnish Kalevala based on C.N. Eliot's discussion 'On The Dialect of the Kalevala' in his Finnish Grammar to emphasize the importance of 'sound-music' in poetry (MC, p. 218).

To help prove that Tolkien was intending to translate some of his early poetry into his invented Elvish language, I will now outline two of Tolkien's poems, the 1915 short poem Tinfang Warble and the aforementioned The Shores of Faery and in the tables below indicate the frequency of English words in these poems having a corresponding root form or invented word in The Qenya Lexicon.

Table 1 – Lexical Analysis of Tinfang Warble

Word Segment Qenya Word (from Qenya Lexicon)

Dancing Liltie

All Ompi

Alone Ere

Hopping Kapalima

On a stone Ondo

Flitting Tulu , arauka ('move swiftly')

Like Se, sen

A Faun Opole

In The Twilight Hise/histe

On The lawn Palis (t)

And ya(n)

His name Enwe

Is Not directly attested

105 Tinfang Warble Timpinen

The first star Enu/ere tinwe

Has shown Apante

And ya(n)

Its lamp Kalumet

Is blown Likinne, -inde

To a flame Purma

Of flickering Silina

Blue Lune

He pipes Sipi-

Not U/Uv

To me Ki-

He pipes Sipi-

Not U/Uv

To thee Ar, ki -

He whistles Sipi-

For none Not attested

Of you Ki –

As the data indicates, of the 31 words (plus their modifier) all but two in this short poem have a direct or related word found in The Qenya Lexicon.

Table 2 – Lexical Analysis of The Shores of Faery

Word Segment Qenya Word from Qenya Lexicon

East Ore of the Moon Silmo West Nume

106 of the Sun Qurinomi there Not attested stands Kaya a lonely Ere hill amun(d) Its feet Talwi are Not Attested in the pale Iska Green Laiqa sea O Its Towers tirion are Not attested white Iska and yan(d) still Qilda Beyond Vanwa Taniquetil Taniquetil in Valinor Valinor No Umin stars Tinwe come tul there Not Attested but ar(a) one alone Ere That hunted Rave with le the Moon Silmo For there Not Attested the two Atta- (?) trees Alda naked Falka grew Tulta That bear tulu Night's Mori

107 Silver Telpe bloom. Lote That bear tulu the globed Komo fruit Yava of noon Not Attested In Valinor Valinor There are Not Attested The Shores Falas of Faery Inwilis with li their moonlit Silmo pebbled lalle? strand falas Whose foam Falas is Not Attested Silver Telpe music Lindele On or the opalescent li qilea? floor Tauma Beyond vanwa? the great veliki Sea-shadows O-lomin On or the margent Ripa of the Sand Marma That stretches lenu- On or for ever Voro From au the golden Kuluva feet tala of Kor Kor

108 Beyond vanwa? Taniquetil Taniquetil In Valinor Valinor O West nume of the Sun Aure East Ore of the Moon quorinomi Lies kaya the haven Kopa of the star Tinwe East Ore tower Minas of the Wanderer palava? And the rock yan(d) ondo of Eglamar Eglamar Where Not Attested Vingelot Wingelot is harboured kopo? While Not Attested Earendel Earendel looks ala afar Not Attested On the magic Kuru and yan(d) the wonder Not Attested Tween Not Attested here i- and Yan (d) Eglamar Eglamar Out Ere Out Ere Beyond vanwa? Taniquetil Taniquetil In Valinor Valinor

109 afar Not Attested

In the case of the much longer The Shores of Faery poem, of the 109 analysed word phrases, there is a Qenya root, word or cognate for all but 13 of them, or an 88% frequency rate of words that would have a Qenya source in the Lexicon. What these two frequency analyses show is that Tolkien was inventing words in his Qenya Lexicon that also appear in his English mythic poetry; suggesting that he was building this lexicon partially to serve as a collection of poetic words for parallel mythic expression in his invented language.

The other aspect of Tolkien's poetic use of his language invention is Tolkien's composition of poetry in his invented language. This work is attested in Tolkien's late 1915-16 poem in Qenya, Narqelion (Gilson 1999, p. 7). In A Secret Vice, Tolkien called the poetic form 'the final fruition of language development' (MC, p. 212).

Tolkien's composition of this poem in Qenya appears to have grown out of his composing of the poem Kortirion Among the Trees in November 1915. Douglas A. Anderson has indicated that while composing Kortirion, Tolkien wrote four lines in the upper margin of the paper in Qenya. Tolkien returned to these four lines in March 1916 when he composed Narqelion in Qenya (Douglas A. Anderson, email communication, 18 October 2014). Therefore, I would argue that by either as early as November 1915, or certainly by March 1916, Tolkien must have felt that his Qenya language had reached an advance state to allow him to start composing original poetry in it. In his linguistic analysis of the poem, Gilson states that for every word in the poem there is a probable source that can be found in The Qenya Lexicon, either the word itself as an entry, or the word from which it is derived or to which it seems closely related (1999, p. 7). Therefore, Tolkien was not only inventing words to translate his English poems into Qenya, but to render mythic ideas directly in the invented Qenya language. The name Narqelion itself is glossed in The Qenya Lexicon as 'Autumn' and is formed from the base root 'NRQR – to wither, fade, shrivel' (PE 12, p. 68). Thus, by using language construction, Tolkien embeds in the morphological make-up of the Qenya word for autumn the very concept of the poem and one

110 of the key motifs of his mythology; the act of withering and fading. This poem is a lament for the fading and loss of Autumn and the coming of Winter. Tolkien evokes the place Kortirion in the very first line of this poem.

N-alalmino lalantila Ne sume lasser pinea

The elm-tree lets fall one by one its small leaves upon the wind (Gilson 1999, p.8)

The use of alalmino elm-tree harkens to the Land of Alalminórë in Kortirion. The Land of Elms in Kortirion had been imaginatively established by Tolkien as the future city of Warwick and, as I will explore in chapter five, marks one of the early ways he sought to link his mythology to England. In the next stanza of the poem, Tolkien compares the feathers of swallows trilling to Gnomes or Fairies who dwelt in Eldamar.

V'ematte sinqi Eldamar San Rotser simpetella pinqe ulimarya sildai, hiswa timpe San sirilla ter i-aldar Lilta lie noldorinwa Omalingwe lir'amaldar Sinqitalla laiqaninwa

recalls the gems of Eldamar Then pipes blew their thin whistles Columns pearly thin, a faded drizzle Then wandered through the forest Dancing folk of Gnomes seeming Raised their voice tender chorused Emeralds and Sapphires gleaming (Gilson 1999, p.8)

There is an interesting echo here of Tolkien's Song of Aryador where again the unnamed narrator recalls 'the gems of Eldamar / then pipes blew their thin

111 whistles' and, like 'the shadow folk' these gnomes are remembered as dancing and singing. The similarity in theme and description suggests Tolkien now attempting to recast some of these early poetic ideas about the faded 'shadow people' in his own invented language.

The phonetic make-up of the Qenya words in Narqelion clearly shows Tolkien using theories of phonetic fitness and sound symbolism. For example, the repetition of the clusters /al/ and /la/ in the first line suggests the use of reduplication; a term used in philology of the time (and later) to describe the phenomenon of repeated and inverted syllables to create a phono-aesthetic and semantic effect. Moreover, the sense of leaves falling one by one is expressed with the verb form – la-lan-til-a – which again conveys a sense of downward motion in the phonetic make-up of the syllable pattern of the invented word.

6.2. Ludic and Humorous Uses

I will now turn to the second role I introduced above, Tolkien’s use of his language invention for ludic and punning purposes. I would argue one area that Tolkien demonstrates a really ludic and playful nature in his name construction is his mythologizing of himself, Edith and his brother Hillary. Based on the evidence of the lexicons, some of this name construction represents the earliest layers of Tolkien’s work on The Qenya Lexicon (late 1914-15). This is supported by Christopher Tolkien who characterizes his father's early biographical name entries as some of the earliest layers of Tolkien's myth and language development which 'give glimpses of a stage even earlier than the Lost Tales' (Lost Tales I, p. 246). This biographical category is best exemplified by the names of two Valar which appear as early entries in The Qenya Lexicon text: Erinti the Vali of Love (PE 12, p. 36) an Amillo 'the happy one' (PE 12, p. 30). For this analysis it is worth examining the full passage in The Qenya Lexicon on Erinti.

ERINTI: the Vali of love, music, beauty and poetry who is the same as Lotisse (or Veneste). She dwells in Alalminore and the fairies guard her tower. She and Noldorin and his brother Amillo, alone have left Valinore

112 to dwell among the Inweli, , Eldar and Teleri in Tol-Eressea (Inwinore). She is also called Akaris or bride. She dwells in a korin of elms. (PE 12, p. 36)

Directly next to this passage, there is also an entry for a related word, Erintion 'the second half of Avestalis or January (Lorillion is the first)' (36). In the 1917 Poetic and Mythological Words of Eldarissa Qenya word list, Tolkien noted that Erinti 'dwells now in Tol-Eressea with Noldorin and Amillo, daughter of Manwe' (PE 12, p. 36). There are several clues to the fact that Erinti is the secondary world mythologized personification of Edith Tolkien, Tolkien gives Erinti the name Akaris which means 'bride' (PE 12, p. 36) (Edith and Tolkien were married in Warwick on Wednesday, 22 March 1916). In the lexicon Erinti is one of the few of the Valar to leave Valinor and live with the Elves in Alalminórë. As stated previously, Alalminórë is the town that would be Warwick and Edith lived there from 1916-1918. The name Erinti was constructed from the Qenya base word ERE or ESE (PE 12, p. 36) which, as indicated previously, is used to form words meaning 'outside or outward' and could suggest Tolkien’s memory of being separated from Edith due to the ban of Father Francis Morgan. Tolkien would celebrate their reunion in Cheltenham in January 1913 in the sketch for a heraldic device, which I will explore further as a para-textual visual element in chapter four. This device also includes a Gnomish inscription under two locking rings 'Bod’ominthadriel' meaning ‘back together again’ (PE 11, p. 69). A more current connotation for the name may also have come from Tolkien’s feelings of being away from Edith in 1915 in military training camps preparing for war. Finally, Edith Bratt was born on 21 January 1889 and Tolkien constructs a word from the base of Erinti's name for the later half of January. Also in one of the clearest signs of love for a newly married bride, Tolkien constructed several names for Erinti all associated with flowers: Lotosse from the Qenya base word lote 'flower' (PE 12, p. 55) and the even more poetic sounding name Helinyetille from the word Helin 'pansy' meaning 'eyes of heartsease'. Heartsease is a wild pansy that grows on the hedge-banks of rivers in Britain. While we can only speculate what Tolkien’s motivations were here, it does suggest that Tolkien may have been trying to engage, or even, impress Edith by involving her in what he characterized to her as his ‘nonsense fairy language’ (Letters, p. 7). The importance of this link in Tolkien’s mythology persists in Tolkien’s later

113 language material which he developed while working on the Book of Lost Tales. For example, in the body of attendant language work to the Lost Tales, Erinti becomes a daughter of Manwë Sulimo the Lord of the Valar (PE 12, p. 36). In The Names of the Valar, Erinti is listed along with an alternative name Lotel related to the Qenya word for flower (PE 14, p. 15). Erinti also appears in a language document, Otsan and Kainenden, which describes, in great linguistic detail, two systems for how the days of the week were reckoned among the Valar and the Eldar (PE 14, pp. 16-22). In the Otsan for Wednesday (as I indicated above Tolkien and Edith were married on a Wednesday), Erinti is listed and grouped with Manwë, Varda and Fionwë as 'the heavens, the wind, the air, and the Earthly bodies /Music of Wind (changed to Music of Violins)' (PE 14, p. 21). The editors of Tolkien's language documents, also suggest a plausible phonological theory for the linking of the word Erinti with Edith (PE 14, p.15). Briefly, the editors suggest the name could be derived from a primitive form of *Edinth (with in-fixed nasal) through the normal Qenya development of medial d > r and nth > nt and the addition of the feminine suffix ending -ni (15). While Erinti appears in the attendant language documents I explored above, she only appears once in the actual text of the The Book of Lost Tales. Erinti is only mentioned in ‘The Music of the Ainur’ where she is described as a daughter of Manwë (Lost Tales I, p. 58). This is the last mention of her in the Lost Tales.

Christopher Tolkien suggests that when Tolkien elevated Erinti to the daughter of Manwë and Varda, the character who took over the dwelling in Alalminórë was Meril-i-Turinqi who would tell some of the lost tales to the mariner Ottor Wǽfre and might also have been a very early inspiration for the character who eventually emerges in the writing of The Lord of the Rings as . The reason why Tolkien did not develop the character Erinti (and therefore Edith) in the narrative of the Lost Tales may be due to two possible reasons. First, by the time Tolkien turned to writing The Book of Lost Tales he had the comfort of having the real Edith with him. Also, I would argue, as has been explored earlier, Tolkien went on to attribute more serious weight to the nature of his Lost Tales and perhaps felt that something as ludic as a mythic incorporation of his wife Edith into the mythology would be too playful for an oral history being told by the Elves to Ottor Wǽfre. It is interesting, however, that he would continue to

114 pursue the link with Edith in his ‘private’ language invention. Indeed, Tolkien invented a linguistic 'through line' for her into one of the core words of his language system. In an alternate Names of the Valar list, Erinti is also called Kalanis which is glossed as 'May' (Lost Tales I, p. 252). Kalanis is formed from one of the most frequent and important base roots in Tolkien's language system kala 'shine, golden' (PE 12, p. 44).

Tolkien also used a similar process to incorporate his younger brother Hilary into the early lexicon and mythology; this time with the invented name Amillo. Christopher Tolkien notes that Amillo 'appears in QL [Qenya Lexicon] but with no indication of meaning. Amillion is Amillo's month, February (one of the most 'primitive' entries)' (Lost Tales I, p. 249). In The Qenya Lexicon there is a note by Tolkien that states that 'the name is equivalent to Hilary, which is from the Latin Hilarius, derived from hilaris 'cheerful' (PE 14, p. 12). Like Edith above, the links here are clear as well. Tolkien's brother was named Hilary and was born on 17 February 1894 (Lost Tales I, p. 248). In The Names of the Valar, Amillo is listed with alternate names ‘Omar (Amillo) with the Gnomish equivalent names Umor and Gamlos’ (PE 14, p. 12). Of Omar the Vala, Christopher notes 'Omar the Vala did not survive the Lost Tales, a little more is heard of him subsequently, but he is a divinity without much substance' (Lost Tales I, p. 52).

There are also several cases in both the lexicons and The Book of Lost Tales of Tolkien placing himself in his secondary world mythology. As I have explored above this was in line with Tolkien's early practice of poetically casting himself in the role of Lemminkainen in his 1911 Kalevala-related poems and recasting his name in an invented form of the Gothic language both of which I have explored above. In the case of his language invention, Tolkien combined both his invented names for himself with his mythology to imaginatively place himself in the secondary world. In these attempts Tolkien identifies himself with characters who are singers or associated with music. For example, in The Qenya Lexicon there is an entry for Noldorin who is also known as Lirillo ('the Valu8 of Song') who in the lexicon is said to have 'dwelt awhile in Noldomar and brought the Gnomes back to Inwinore' (PE 12, p. 67). In a similar pattern to Erinti and Amillo, Tolkien uses the name Noldorin to construct the word Lirillion

8 Another variant on the singular form of ‘Valar’. 115 which is the word for the first half of January (PE 12, p. 36). Tolkien was born on 3rd January 1892. Noldorin comes from the root NOL to know (PE 12, p. 67) and there are indications in the notes for this name that Noldorin is a , the wisest of the Eldar (PE 12, p. 67). In The Names of the Valar there is a listing for 'Salmar, (Lirillo), Noldorin' and added in Gnomish 'Salvor, Gliros, Goldriel' (PE 14, p. 12). Each of these words are clearly associated with music. For example, Gnomish Salvor means 'harp' (12) from the Qenya root SALA- (PE 12, p. 81). Therefore Tolkien is linguistically associating himself with a very wise Elf who is also a musician. However, unlike Erinti and Amillo, Noldorin plays a rather more involved heroic role in The Book of Lost Tales than Erinti and Amillo which, like the earlier Lemminkainen poems, may suggest Tolkien wanting to take on a more complex role in his earliest mythology. In The Book of Lost Tales, Noldorin becomes associated with both the Valar Aule and Ulmo. He is known as the Valar who went with Lindo's father Valwë to find the lost Gnomes (Lost Tales I, p. 6 and Lost Tales II, p. 154) and he is also said to have fought with Tulkas at the Pools of Twilight against Melko (Lost Tales II, p.278).

The lexicons also exhibit Tolkien’s use of word punning and the ludic and playful use of words. Some of the most interesting of these are those that provide a link between the primary world and Tolkien's mythology. In many cases, these also demonstrate the complex nature of Tolkien's language construction providing alternative, and sometimes even contradictory meanings, for these names. I would argue that these suggest Tolkien reflecting in his own mythology the fractured and garbled nature of the primary myths and legends he was reading. Those signifying lost tales that had lost their signified in the mists of time and history.

One example is the primary world Germanic Ottor Wǽfre, whose background and nature in terms of Tolkien's transmission 'framework' I will explore fully in chapter five. Tolkien stated in his notes that he was named by the Gnomes Angol after the regions of his home (Lost Tales I, p. 24). In The Gnomish Lexicon, Angol, is glossed as Eriollo in Qenya, 'the region of the Northern part of the Great Lands “between two seas” whence Eriol came' (PE 11, p.19); suggesting Eriol could simply be an Elvish word for English. Tolkien gives the name a further linguistic twist by having the name Angol in Goldogrin mean 'iron

116 cliffs' – describing the land Eriol has come from in the North Sea – ang (iron) + ol (cliffs) (PE 11, pp. 19, 62). Thus in the linguistic mapping of one name, Tolkien conveys several elements of Ottor's biography. Not only where he comes from, but also how he was perceived by the Elves on Tol-Eressëa. From his primary studies, Tolkien may have also been suggesting an alternative origin of the name 'Angel' to counter the one that the Venerable Bede relates in The Ecclesiastical History of the when Saint Gregory the Great encountered pale-skinned English boys at a slave market and said 'they are not but angels' (Bede 1999, p. 70). This suggests that, as with his early exploration of the lost tale behind the word/name eärendel, Tolkien was using his linguistic invention to suggest a more imaginative and plausible explanation for this place name.

Another example of Tolkien's use of historic punning and aforementioned bilingual diplosemy is evident in Tolkien's decision to name the mortal wife of Ottor Wǽfre, Cwen (Lost Tales II, p. 290). On one level of understanding cwen is the Anglo-Saxon word for woman, queen and wife. However, a form of this word appears in another primary world text which sparked Tolkien's imagination and from which he imaginatively drew upon.

Included in the books currently held in the Tolkien collection at the Bodleian Library is Tolkien's own edition of Henry Sweet's Anglo-Saxon Reader. This is the eighth edition of Sweet's Reader and the fourth reading section is 'The Voyages of Ohthere and Wulfstan', the report of a historical 9th century Norse explorer, Ohthere of Halgoland, who along with Wulfstan of Hedby reported on their explorations into the far regions of the North Sea area of Europe. The report was included in the Old English Orosius which was an adaption from the fifth century Romano-Hispanic author Paulus Orosius's Seven Books of History Against The Pagans (Historia Adversus Paganos Libri VII).

The Old English Orosius was edited by Henry Sweet as King Alfred's Orosius and during the time Tolkien first encountered the reading selection it was believed to have been written from the report of the two mariners by King Alfred himself and included in the Old English Orosius to illustrate the growing

117 geography of the world.9

Based on the evidence of some pencilled notes in his edition of Sweet, Tolkien read through this section in July 1914 (Tolkien E16/40, p. 23) in which Ohthere reports that at a certain time he had a desire to travel north to find out how far the land may extend, or whether anyone was living in the north of the uninhabited part. He sailed as far north as he could go and then the land turned east. Ohthere travels into Finland and reports encountering several peoples all of whom spoke a similar language – the Beormas, Ter-Finns and the Cwenas. Tolkien's early reading of Ohthere's part of the report would have brought together his study of Anglo-Saxon with the Finnish heroic culture of the Kalevala. The imaginative link for him, I would argue, may have been sparked by the name of these strange people, the 'Cwenas'. Who these Cwenas that Ohthere met were is very much a matter of scholarly debate. Drout suggests that 'the Cwennas may represent the union of the ancestors of the Anglo- Saxons with another tribe and would explain the presence of the culture of the farther North in a tribe from Southern /Northern Germany' (Drout 2004, p. 232, see also Ross, 1981).

However, archival research has uncovered who Tolkien thought the Cwennas were. In a series of unpublished lecture notes on 'The Voyage of Ohthere and Wulfstan' from when he was Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford (MS Tolkien A 14/2, folio 8 recto), Tolkien described the Cwennas as Karelians, or Modern Finns. In this section of his lecture Tolkien emphasizes the point that the Cwennas are Karelians by underlining the 'Karelians modern Finns' in red ink. Tolkien's association with Cwennas as 'Karelians' would place them in the region where Elias Lönnrot collected many of the oral tales of the Kalevala and where the action of a great deal of this poem that greatly inspired Tolkien took place. Therefore, I would argue, naming Ottor's wife Cwen could be a linguistic play on both the Anglo-Saxon word for 'woman' or 'queen' as well as this deeper association of the Germanic Ottor marrying someone who may come out of the land of the heroes of the Kalevala. Ottor’s mortal children, the founders of England, Hengest and Horsa, may thus have within them not only the blood of

9 Recent scholarship has refuted this and it is now believed the work was not written down by Alfred himself but did received royal approval to be included in this volume (see Bately, 1980). 118 his Germanic ancestors but, through their mother, the blood of the heroes of the Finnish Kalevala. This linking would bring together Tolkien's two greatest primary world passions of Germanic and Finnish myth and legend which would now be embodied in these two legendary founders of England.

There is also another link of ‘Cwennas’ to Tolkien's secondary world. In the document The Creatures of the Earth (PE 14, pp. 9-10) there is an association with the Cwennin: The Elves who originally belonged to these tribes but who never returned to Kor were called Ilkorindi (Ilkorin), by the Eldar but called themselves Qendi (qende) (Cwennin). In the opening pages of The Qenya Lexicon, Tolkien experiments with words that change from /q/ to /cw/ (PE 12, pp. ix-x). As I have explored above with the Elves known as ‘the shadow people’, in Tolkien's thinking there was a link between his Elves and the Finns. Tolkien would use his invented name for Karelia in his Story of Kullervo, Telea as a base root building block in his Qenya Lexicon for words having to do with Elves (PE 12, pp. 90-91). Tolkien would refer to the Finnish language as 'queer' and his counterpart Finnish inspired Qenya language as my 'nonsense fairy language' (Letters, p. 8).

As I have established, Tolkien clearly made poetic links with his 'shadow people' and the Finnish Kalevala. I would argue that Tolkien was inspired to make these links by several folklore theories on the origins of fairies that associated the Finns with Elves. Silver indicates that as early as 1770 Paul Henri-Mallet in his Northern Antiquities had suggested that the Laplanders (always considered magical) were the original fairies (1999, p. 47). Silver also suggests that Sir Walter Scott believed that Oriental Lapps were one of the sources of the fairies as well (47). In his early study of Norse myth and the , Tolkien would have also have come across the Võlundarkivtha in which the smith Völundr is called both Elf and 'the son of Lappish Kings' (see Hall 2007, pp. 38-53). Völundr is the Norse version of the Germanic smith Weland (Wayland) who Tolkien would attempt to incorporate into his mythology during the writing of The Book of Lost Tales materials (see PE 15, pp. 94-97).

Another use of Tolkien’s ludic word play in name construction can be seen in one of the earliest villains Tolkien constructs; Tevildo Prince of Cats. In a

119 linking passage from ‘The Cottage of Lost Play’ to the tale of ‘The Music of the Ainur’ written c.1918-1919, but before Tolkien rewrote ‘The Tale of Tinúviel’, a strange black bird flies into the garden of one of the Elves to which the doorward says 'May Tevildo Prince of Cats harry him for daring to perch in a garden that is in the care of Rúmil' (Lost Tales I, p. 47). In ‘The Tale of Tinúviel’, Beren gives a 'rash promise' to Tinúviel's father to take the precious jewel, the Silmaril, from Melko's iron crown. He sets out to do this and is caught by Orcs and brought before Melko. Beren says he is a great catcher of smaller animals and snarer of birds (Lost Tales II, p.15). Melko sends him to be a thrall and scullion to Tevildo the Prince of Cats and his band of cats. Tolkien describes Tevildo as 'a mighty cat – the mightiest of all – and possessed of an evil sprite, as some say, and he was in Melko's constant following' (Lost Tales II, p. 15). In Tevildo and his gang of feline henchmen, Tolkien playfully integrates the phonetic sound of cats in their name construction: Oikeroi, Umuiyan/Gumniow and Miaule (Lost Tales II, pp.16-18). In The Qenya Lexicon, there is the base root TEFE from which Tolkien constructs the verb teve 'hate, dislike' and from this verb he constructs the name Tevildo (-Meoita) 'Lord of Cats' (PE 12, p. 90). Therefore, in this entry, Tolkien joins together the negative idea of hate and dislike inherent in the name Tevildo with the feline sound of 'meow' in Meoita. Moreover, in the Gnomish Lexicon this correlative entry is 'Tifil (cp Mui Tifil) Tifil Miothon or Miaugon) Prince of Cats = Q. Tevildo [Deletion in Ink . Earlier pencil version Tifil Mui-Difil = 'Tevildo'] (PE 11, p. 70). In a later c.1919-1920 typescript version of ‘The Tale of Tinúviel’, Tolkien offered an alternate Gnomish name for Tevildo which again combines the possible negative thoughts on cats with feline sounds, 'Thus was Beren set by Melko as thrall to The Prince of Cats, whom the Gnomes have called Tiberth Bridhon Miaugion, but the Elves Tevildo' (Lost Tales II, p. 45). The elements of this revised name can be found in The Gnomish Lexicon as well (PE 11, p. 70).

What my analysis in this last section has demonstrated is that Tolkien utilized his language invention not only to construct coherent and consistent names for people, places and items in his secondary world, but also to reflect his interest in poetic expression which, as I have stated above, for Tolkien, was the most advanced expression for an invented language (MC, p.218). In that same talk Tolkien also valorised the use of the linguistic faculty for amusement (MC, p.

120 206). Based on what I have outlined above, this ‘amusement’ can be seen in how Tolkien constructed words that would ‘play’ with theories of sound sense and bilingual diplosemy to suggest double meanings for the same words in the primary world and his secondary world.

7. Conclusion

As I have demonstrated in this foundational chapter by charting the early progression of Tolkien's development as both a myth maker and language inventor, the coeval and concomitant role of myth and language is clearly one of the crucial elements in understanding the genesis of Tolkien's mythology. By the time he wrote the prose works of The Book of Lost Tales, for almost every point of narrative there is a linguistic component. Unlike the past language inventors for fiction, several of whose works I have briefly explored, who developed an invented language to be the subject of a report by a traveller to a strange utopian land, Tolkien fully integrated his invented languages into the narrative and mythic bedrock of his secondary world; indeed the secondary world would not exist without Tolkien's invented languages – codependent and coeval.

121 Chapter 3: The Religious Foundations of Tolkien's Early Mythology.

For another and more important thing: it is involved in, and explicitly contains the Christian Religion. For reasons which I will not elaborate, that seems to me fatal. Myth and fairy-story must, as all art, reflect and contain in solution elements of moral and religious truth (or error), but not explicit, not in the known form of the primary 'real' world. (Letters, 1951, p. 144)

1. Introduction

In this chapter I examine the religious and spiritual foundations of Tolkien's early mythology. I argue that Tolkien's early mythopoeia experimented with radical ideas of including overt Catholic concepts alongside sources and analogues from pagan legend and mythologies. These early attempts are in contradistinction to Tolkien's later thinking on the specific 'primary world' role of the Christian religion and Catholic thought in his mythology, exemplified in the quote above. Tolkien's objective in doing this was to develop a metaphysical structure for his secondary world in which both a Christian and pagan world- view could fit and command, as he stated in On Fairy-stories, 'secondary belief' (OFS, p. 61). Utilizing textual analysis of his mythic narrative and language invention, I show that, for Tolkien, this was not just an exercise in assimilation, but a demonstration of how these two different systems of belief could actually work and 'fit' in the framework of his own secondary world. While it is evident that most of the overt use of Catholic words and themes would fade away in the later versions of the mythology, it is also true that some of the underlying ideas that Tolkien was attempting to embed in this mythology would later become the very metaphysical bedrock of his legendarium.

The roots of Tolkien's specific Catholic thinking would have been formed by a myriad of experiences and sources of inspiration and learning which started as early as his mother's controversial conversion to Catholicism in 1900. For the purposes of this study, I focus on two key shapers of Catholic thought at this time whose work Tolkien would have encountered in his early youth and during

122 the time he started work on his mythology. The first is the life and writings of Cardinal John Henry Newman (1801-1890). Newman was the spiritual founder of the Birmingham Oratory where Tolkien was raised and had died only twelve years prior to Tolkien's upbringing there. While at the Oratory, Tolkien would have heard readings of Newman's sermons and read, or at least had been exposed to, the writings of Newman in Father Francis Morgan's library, as well as through contact with the other members of the Birmingham Oratory. Newman's works exemplified a Catholic world-view that included an expansive belief in mystical concepts, including radical ideas around spiritual agencies, invisible forces and purgatorial purification. The second early Catholic source of inspiration I explore is the poetry and prose of the Anglo-Catholic poet Francis Thompson (1859-1907). Thompson's verses have a poetic diction that combined Catholic mystical visions and symbols with the inventive use of language. Several of Thompson's poems use elements of Classical and pagan myth as well as contemporary ideas around the powers of , fairies and Elves. For my analysis of Thompson's early impact on Tolkien, I utilize my archival work on transcribing and analyzing an unpublished report of the paper Tolkien gave on the life and poetry of Francis Thompson while he was an undergraduate at Exeter College, Oxford. The full transcript of this report in found in Appendix 5 of this thesis.

Using both the thoughts of Newman and Thompson as a critical framework for this analysis, I show that the type of Roman Catholicism Tolkien would have been exposed to, from the earliest time, had been formed by a progressive movement in Catholicism in the 18th and 19thh centuries which explored, and allowed for, concepts of early Catholic mysticism, which the Reformation had tried to suppress. This was combined with contemporary ideas of Victorian spiritualism; including the belief in paranormal agencies and creatures of 'the unseen world'; such as fairies and Elves. It was this type of Roman Catholicism that would have given Tolkien both the inspiration and permission to imaginatively explore these ideas in his early fairy poetry, language invention and, ultimately, in the metaphysical structure of his the Book of Lost Tales. This influence on Tolkien's own myth and language invention can be seen as early as the earliest layers of The Qenya Lexicon where, as I further explore in this chapter, Tolkien use his Qenya base root construction to incorporate a series of

123 overtly Catholic words such as ‘Christian Missionary', ‘Evangelist’, ‘Gospel’, ‘monks’, ‘nuns’, 'martyrs', and ‘crucifixion' into his mythology.

At the same time as Tolkien was experimenting with mythologizing these Catholic-inspired ideas, he would also draw upon his love of Northern literature and the pagan gods of Classical and Germanic myth and legend to both inspire his mythology and re-imagine and re-purpose for the invention of the pseudo- historic 'framework' that would link his mythology to a lost tradition of England which I will explore further in chapter five of the thesis. Therefore, in addition to considering Newman and Thompson as a formative base for Tolkien's thinking, in this chapter I also explore the potential influence of two specific works that Tolkien studied before starting on the mythology as examples of the blending of the Christian with the pagan: Beowulf and the handbook of Norse mythology, Snorra-Edda, both composed by Christian authors, working with pagan and Christian sources and narrative, and writing for a Christian audience. I read Tolkien's own cycle of The Book of Lost Tales that describe the creation of the world, his pantheon of Valar, and the lesser spirits and sprites, as an early significant example of Tolkien the myth creator blending elements inspired, in part, by both Newman's ecclesiastical writing and Thompson's Catholic poetry with the pagan to forge his own metaphysical structure for his secondary world.

I conclude this study by employing several critical frameworks to reach conclusions as to what Tolkien was attempting to accomplish by incorporating primary world religious concepts and ideas into his mythology and secondary world building. I suggest that, in addition to arriving at a unique structure for his mythology, Tolkien was also experimenting with what may happen culturally and linguistically when pagan and Christian words, ideas and concepts came into contact with one another. This mythic mapping of a syncretic process can be contextualized with a similar process Tolkien developed for his invented languages, as early as his Qenya Phonology which focused on how languages change over both chronological time through contact with other peoples and languages. In this sense Tolkien may have been looking to recreate for his own invented secondary world the historical time of transition when works like Beowulf and Snorra-Edda were composed. The composition of these works represent two specific moments when paganism was giving way to Christianity,

124 but still exerted an influence on, at least, literary culture and could be made to 'fit' into primary world thought, belief and language.

As my analysis demonstrates, through the progression of his creative process, Tolkien would ultimately learn that he could embed the 'moral or religious truth (or error)' (Letters, 1951, p. 144), which he felt Catholicism conveyed, without using overtly 'primary world' references and signifiers. Nevertheless, his attempts in his early mythology to find a mediation between the Catholic and the pagan is itself a compelling study of how an emerging writer of fantasy attempted to incorporate two different systems of belief as elements of secondary world-building.

2. Background and Context

Tolkien's first encounter with Christian thought and Roman Catholicism occurred as early as his interest and study of language and pagan myth. Tolkien's parents, Mabel and Arthur Tolkien, were Anglicans and Tolkien and his brother Hilary were baptized into the Church of England (Reader's Guide, p. 828). After the death of her husband, Mabel is said to have taken comfort in religion and for a while attended 'high' Anglican services. In June 1900, she and her sister May converted to Roman Catholicism in which they found greater satisfaction (ibid. p. 828). As Carpenter states, 'the wrath of the family fell upon them’ and May was prohibited by her husband, Walter Incledon, from entering a Roman Catholic Church again (Biography, p. 41). Carpenter also states that May turned to spiritualism and, given the close relationship between the young Tolkien and his cousins, the Incledons, this suggests one potential avenue through which Tolkien may have learned, or at least heard, some of the ideas around Victorian Spiritualism that would also appear in Newman's writings and Thompson's poetry.

Both the Suffield and Tolkien families’ reactions to Mabel and May's proposed conversion to Catholicism can be characterized as the product of Anti- Catholicism in England, which began with the English and Irish Reformations and was institutionalized through the passing of 'The Penal Laws' in the seventeenth century (Kerry 2011, p. 209). Through these laws, Catholic priests 125 in England had to work in secret on pain of imprisonment or death. Catholics were prohibited from entering either the legal or medical professions and were not allowed to hold any political offices (209). Up to 1829, Catholic families were not allowed to send their sons to Oxford or Cambridge or have the vote (Moorman 1973, p. 13). In 1850, Pope Pius IX had restored the Catholic hierarchy in England and Ireland after three centuries, which caused many Anti- Catholic protests and riots (313). This anti-Catholic feeling did not dissipate and was still strong when Mabel Tolkien converted to Catholicism. In a letter to his son Michael in 1967, Tolkien referred to this Anti-Catholic feeling and described himself as 'a man whose childhood was darkened by persecution' (Letters, 1967, p. 395). Mabel and her sons would attend several churches as a result of her moving around the Birmingham area. In 1901-1902 Mabel discovered the Birmingham Oratory which had attached to it the grammar school of Saint Philip Neri (Biography, p. 44). After Mabel Tolkien's death in 1904, Tolkien and his brother would be brought up by the Oratorian Father Francis Morgan and would spend much time at the Birmingham Oratory (Letters, 1967, p. 395). Father Francis Morgan himself had been educated at the Birmingham Oratory School, and briefly at the Catholic University in Kensington and finally at the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium. He returned to the Oratory as a novice and served as personal secretary to Cardinal Newman. In 1880, he had accompanied the Father Prefect of the Oratory School, Father John Norris, to a private audience with Pope Leo XIII (Bru 2011, p.3).

In his thinking, and subsequent mythologizing, of Roman Catholicism, Tolkien would come to associate his mother's conversion, and the rejection of her by the family due to her Catholic conversion, as an example of martyrdom. Martyrdom would be one of the Christian concepts Tolkien sought to incorporate into his mythology through linguistic invention. In The Qenya Lexicon, one of the few sentences that Tolkien expressed in Qenya is found under the base root PERE having to do with 'go through', 'undergo' and 'endure'. He gives the Qenya phrase 'perilme metto aimaktur perperienta' which Tolkien glosses as 'we indeed endure things but the martyrs endured and to the end' (PE 12, p. 73). Tolkien indicates that this is a proverb which could have been linked in his mind with his mother's own martyrdom which endured to the end. Tolkien also constructed two specific words for male and female martyrs,

126 Aimaktu (-tar) and Aimaksin (-si), using his base root construction to linguistically imbue the word with the meaning of martyrdom. He used AYA, the base root for 'honour, revere' (PE 12, p. 34), and MAKA, a base root from which Tolkien constructs the verb makta – meaning 'slay, slaughter' (PE 12, p. 58). Martyrs were, therefore, honored ones who were killed for their beliefs. As he would later state in several letters, he believed his 'heroic' mother died for her conversion to Catholicism and was to him a true martyr (Letters, 1941, p. 54: 1953, p. 172: 1963, p. 340: 1965, p. 354).

In a letter to the Jesuit priest Robert Murray, Tolkien characterized his Roman Catholic upbringing as 'a Faith that nourished me and taught me all the little that I know' (Letters, 1953, p. 172). Carpenter suggests that after his mother died, Tolkien's religion 'took the place in his affection that she had previously occupied. The consolation that it provided was emotional as well as spiritual' (Biography, p. 51). Later in his life, Tolkien would signify the dual secular and spiritual nature of his upbringing by characterizing his early years as having the advantage of attending 'a (then) first rate school' and living in 'a good Catholic home' which contained many learned fathers (Letters, 1968, p. 395).

3. Roman Catholic Roots

To better understand the nature of some of the more mystically based Roman Catholic thoughts and ideas the young Tolkien would have been exposed to from an early age, and subsequently inspired by for his own creative work, this next section of this chapter examines the work of two leading Catholic figures of the late Victorian/Edwardian period: Cardinal John Henry Newman, founder of the Birmingham Oratory where Tolkien was raised, and the Anglo- Catholic poet Francis Thompson whose life and Catholic mystic poetry would be the subject of a literary paper Tolkien would give in 1914 as an undergraduate at Exeter College, Oxford.

3.1. John Henry Newman (1801-1890)

John Henry Newman was born in London in 1801, the son of a banker. In 1817, Newman studied at Oriel College, Oxford where he was ordained as an

127 Anglican priest. While at Oxford, Newman became one of the leaders of the Oxford Movement. This movement was made up of a group of Anglican academics which, in addition to Newman, included John Keble (1792-1866) and Edward Bouverie Pusey (1800-1882). The Oxford Movement grew out of an increasing disenchantment with the growing secular nature of the Anglican church and an attempt to bring it back in line with Orthodox and Roman Catholic Church Doctrine as it had existed in the Middle Ages. The Oxford Movement, which ultimately failed, also attempted to return the Church to forms of worship traditional in medieval times and to restore ritual expression (Ollard 1915, pp. 3- 4). In 1845, Newman retreated from the fight, resigned his post at Oxford and founded a religious community at Littlemore, outside of Oxford. In this retreat, Newman would write his book-length Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine (1878) in which he re-examined Church history and doctrine. While writing this book, Newman became convinced of the truth of the Roman Catholic Church. On 9 October 1845, Newman became a member of the Roman Catholic Church and would go on to be ordained as cardinal in Rome in 1879. It was while he was studying in Rome that Newman became aware of the works of St Philip Neri. St Philip was a 16th-century priest who had founded a society, or fellowship, called the Oratorians, which was modeled on the small communities of the ancient Church. When Pope Pius IX charged Newman with founding an oratory in England, Newman went to Birmingham where he established the Birmingham Oratory and the Grammar School of St Philip of Neri. Newman remained at the Birmingham Oratory for 40 years where he continued to write and explore Church doctrine. Newman was also instrumental in founding the Catholic University of Ireland which became the University College, Dublin. He died in 1890 and was buried in Birmingham (Cornwell 2010).

The body of Newman's writing and teachings exemplify a Catholic world-view that included an expansive belief in mystical concepts, including ideas around spiritual agencies, invisible forces and purgatorial purification. Newman would explore many of these concepts in his visionary poem The Dream of Gerontius (1865), which was set to music by the English composer Edward Elgar, and first performed in Birmingham in 1900, as well as in several of his Parochial and Plain Sermons (1873). One of Newman's overall objectives in these works was

128 to realign Catholicism with the ancient beliefs of the Church and to restore the present-day Church to the rituals of the Middle Ages. Newman also sought to combine and mediate Christian doctrine with contemporary ideas of Victorian Spiritualism and Mysticism. Silver includes Newman in the group of Victorians who held Orthodox religious views and yet looked to a specific passage in John 10:16, 'And other sheep I have that are not of this fold', to prove that other worlds and creatures, including fairyland, existed (1999, p. 37).

Newman's interest in the supernatural seems to have started in his childhood. In his autobiographical work Apologia pro vita sua (1864), he wrote 'I used to wish the Arabian Tales were true... My Imagination ran on unknown influences, on magical powers and talismans' (Newman 1994, p. 23). Newman also wrote in Apologia about his childhood 'I thought life might be like a dream, or I an Angel, and all this world a deception, my fellow angels by a playful device concealing themselves from me with the semblance of the material world' (23).

As an adult Newman would explore imaginative and supernatural ideas in the context of his own Catholic world-view. For example, in The Powers of Nature, a sermon he preached for Michaelmas Day in 1831, Newman stated that while God's will governs all, it is actually the spiritual agencies of angels who are the real forces in nature. At the start of this sermon Newman uses the scriptural authority of Psalm 104: 4 'Who maketh His Angels spirits, his ministers a flaming fire' to suggest to his listeners that in the modern world there is an over- reliance on the visible world to explain the forces of nature. Newman states 'there are Spiritual Intelligences which move those wonderful and vast portions of the natural world which seem to be inanimate' (Newman 1997, pp. 64-71). In another sermon, The Invisible World, Newman uses scriptural authority again, in this case a passage from Second Corinthians IV: 18 'while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal', to suggest there is a visible world we see through our senses and an invisible world that is all around us which is even greater because we can not see, or perceive it (ibid, pp. 258-268). Into this invisible word Newman puts three elements:

129  Almighty God (who is above all beings), who Newman states only crossed into the visible world through the act of becoming the Son of God, 'the second Person of the Ever-Blessed Trinity' (259).

 The souls of the dead, who though they depart from the visible world 'do not cease to exist, but they retire from this visible scene of things; or, in other words, they cease to act towards us and before us through our senses. They live as they lived before; but that outward frame, through which they were able to hold communion with other men, is in some way, we know not how, separated from them, and dries away and shrivels up as leaves may drop off a tree' (860).

 Angels, who Newman characterizes as agencies and 'ministering spirits' in a similar fashion to his sermon The Powers of Nature. In characterizing the nature of this invisible world Newman states 'The world of spirits then, though unseen, is present; present, not future, not distant. It is not above the sky, it is not beyond the grave; it is now and here; the kingdom of God is among us' (860).

In developing the spiritual foundations of his own mythology, Tolkien would use and re-purpose many of the ideas that Newman explored in these sermons around powers of nature and spiritual agencies. Indeed, the cosmology of Tolkien's Book of Lost Tales reflects the three key inhabitants of Newman's 'Invisible World'.

 The one ruling God (Tolkien's Eru/Iluvatar)  Manir/Manos – 'a spirit who has gone to the Valar' (PE 11, p. 56)  The Valar and lesser Vali who take the role of agencies and messengers.

In a much broader sense Newman's very act of re-discovering a lost Christian heritage, which had become garbled in time and schisms in the Church, would have been a powerful model for the young Tolkien to be inspired by. As I discussed in chapter two, Tolkien would attempt a similar act through his imaginative reconstruction of the 'lost' meanings of myth and legends, such as the word/name 'earendel' which launched his own mythopoeia. In Newman,

130 Tolkien would have seen an important Catholic thinker who attempted a similar restorative process for lost Church doctrine and ritual leading to the reconsideration of the mystical nature of original Catholic teaching, including Angels and other elements of the invisible world, that had been suppressed by the Reformation. As Tolkien set out to explore his own invisible world of fairies and Elves he would have been comforted in knowing that he was following a similar imaginative road that the spiritual and intellectual founder of the Oratory in which he was raised.

3.2. Francis Thompson (1859-1907)

Like Newman, another significant Catholic writer of the Victorian age was the poet Francis Thompson, born in 1859 in Preston, England. In 1870, Thompson was sent to St Cuthbert's College, Ushaw in Durham in preparation for the Roman Catholic priesthood. In 1877 however, Thompson switched his sights from joining the priesthood to becoming a doctor. He attended Owens College in Manchester where he studied medicine and scientific theory but failed to become a doctor. Thompson's failure to become either a priest or a doctor led him to developing an opium habit and eventually, after unsuccessfully attempting to enlist in the army, to sleeping rough on the streets of London. By 1885, Thompson broke off all ties with his family and friends and his opium addiction deepened. Rev. Wright characterizes this period in Thompson's life in these words 'he drifted into destitution which left its mark on all his poetry and his nature' (1927, p. 22). In autumn 1887, Thompson, at one of his greatest lows, attempted to commit suicide and later told his biographer, Everard Meynell, that he was prevented by a vision of the writer Thomas Chatterton. He was befriended by a prostitute who sheltered him through the winter (Boardman, 2001, p. xxxv). During his time on the London Streets Thompson composed drafts of poetry and prose essays. In 1888, Wilfrid Meynell, the editor of the Catholic periodical Merry England, became aware of some of the poetry that Thompson had been writing on the streets. He published his poem The Passion of Mary in April 1888. Thompson was taken in by Meynell and his wife Alice. From 1889-1892, Thompson composed, or finished from his time on the streets, some of his best-known poetry including Ode to the Setting Sun, The Hound of Heaven, Daisy, Love in Dian's Lap, A Judgement in Heaven and 131 Sister Songs. During this time Thompson started communicating with the English mystical poet and critic Coventry Patmore to whom he dedicated his volume of Catholic-inspired mystical poetry, New Poems, in 1897 (Patmore died before the volume was published). Thompson's life would continue to be troubled with moves to different places to live and recurring bouts of illness and opium use. He would keep his association with the Meynells and there is evidence that his relationship with Wilfred's wife Alice may have become too involved and caused Thompson to leave their home (Boardman 2001, p. xxxvii). He became close friends with one of their sons, Everard Meynell, who would write the first biography of Thompson based, in part, on his own conversations with him. By 1905-6 Thompson's health had deteriorated and on 16 November 1907 he died and was buried at St. Mary's Catholic Cemetery, Kensal Green (Boardman 2001, p. xxxviii). After his death Thompson's poems continued to be published in various volumes and journals (Boardman 2011, pp. xv-xvi).

One of the earliest critical evaluations of Thompson's religious and mystic poetry was Carolyn F. E. Spurgeon's Mysticism in English Literature first published in April 1913. In her analysis, Spurgeon characterizes Thompson's poetry as 'emphasizing the presence of the Divine in all things and that everything is closely related, closely linked together and ever present' (1913, p. 269). Spurgeon also suggests that Thompson's poetry reflects a certainty of the presence of God even in the degradation and suffering Thompson experienced on the streets of London (ibid. p. 277). She argues that the body of Thompson's poetry contains some key themes: a reverence for childhood, an attitude towards the beauty of women and an attraction towards the continual change and renewal of nature (ibid. p. 278).

The association of the poetry of Francis Thompson with the early works of Tolkien was first made by Humphrey Carpenter in Tolkien's official biography. Carpenter indicates that Tolkien had an early enthusiasm for the works of Thompson and suggests that one of Thompson's fairy-themed poems, Sister Songs, influenced Tolkien's own early fairy poetry (Biography, p. 70). Christopher Tolkien also commented on Thompson's influence on the young Tolkien by suggesting in the published version of You & Me that two lines of Tolkien's dream vision poem echoed two similar lines in Thompson's poem

132 Daisy (Lost Tales I, p. 29). Christopher Tolkien further commented in the notes to his father's poem that, 'my father acquired the Works of Francis Thompson in 1913 and 1914' (29). There has not been a great deal of critical analysis and comparison, since Carpenter, of Thompson's poetry with Tolkien's early work. Anderson was the one of the first Tolkien scholars to suggest the influence of Thompson poem Sister Songs: An Offering for Two Sisters (1895) on a scene in The Hobbit (2003, pp.204-205). Anderson also published several lines of the Exeter College Essay Club report of Tolkien's paper on Francis Thompson which I have transcribed in full in Appendix 5 (205).

Garth suggests that Tolkien was impressed by Thompson's vast imagery and visionary faith (2003, p. 13 and Garth 2007, pp. 220-221). Fimi states that Thompson showed an appreciation for nature that, in some poems, reached a mystic vision of the natural world (2010, pp. 43-44). A good example of Thompson's mystic vision of the natural world, I would suggest, is his poem The Fallen Yew (Boardman 2001, pp. 27-30) in which Thompson elevates a fallen yew tree to the stature of a timeless tree that has sheltered Dryads and gods of 'grim Asgard's hall' (27). Fimi also analyzes Thompson's poem The Kingdom of God to show that Thompson, like Cardinal Newman, believed there was an invisible world that is everywhere around us that we are hindered from seeing due to logic and rationalism (ibid. pp. 43-44). Thompson evokes the invisible world at the start of the poem: 'Oh World Invisible, we view thee / O world intangible, we touch thee' (Boardman 2001, p. 299). Like Newman's invisible world, Thompson's also contains angels: 'The angels keep their ancient places, / Turn but a stone and start a wing' (299).

Fimi's analysis also returns to the suggestion by Carpenter that Tolkien's early 1910 poem Wood-sunshine was inspired by Thompson's Sister Songs by showing how Thompson's depiction of Elves and Fairies arising from nature and spring would have inspired Tolkien's early thoughts on the fairies and the Elves that he would depict in his early poetry and The Book of Lost Tales (2010, p. 44). Elves and fairies and creatures of the invisible world appear throughout Thompson's poetry. Given a lexical analysis of his poems, the highest frequency of forms of 'elf' or 'elfin' appears to be found in the aforementioned Sister Songs: Offering to Two Sisters cycle of poems which Thompson

133 composed as gift to the Meynells in Christmas 1890 dedicated to the two sisters Sylvia and Monica Meynell (Boardman 2001, pp. 59-93). There is also mention of both 'rose-fays' and 'the elf of the flower' that sickened on her bower in Thompson's poem The Sere of the Leaf (Boardman 2001, p. 227). Angels also appear in several of Thompson's poems as well including A Carrier Song (40- 42) and The Making of the Viola (48). Therefore, in reading Thompson's poetry, as with the works of Newman I have explored above, the young Tolkien would have been introduced to ideas and imagery of an invisible world and the link between nature, elves and fairies.

For my analysis of Thompson and his impact on Tolkien I contextualize what has already been written with the report of a literary paper Tolkien gave on the life and works of Francis Thompson when he was at Exeter College on 4 March 1914. While Tolkien's actual paper does not exist (or at least is not currently available in the publicly accessible MSS collections), I have made a transcript of the secretary's report of Tolkien's talk which I have included in Appendix 5 of the thesis and will refer to it throughout this chapter. This unpublished and under-analysed report of this key talk, as with Tolkien's paper on the Kalevala, demonstrates those elements of Thompson's work which Tolkien found appealing from a creative perspective.

The actual account of Tolkien's talk starts by reporting that Tolkien's paper was divided into two parts. In the first part, Tolkien gave a sketch of Francis Thompson's life. Tolkien clearly drew this sketch from the recently published, at the time, biography by Everard Meynell in which, as I have introduced above, Meynell defended Thompson against the gossip on his opium drug addiction and its effect on his creative work (1913, pp. 46-47). Tolkien made it a key objective of his paper to show that the imagery of Thompson's poetry came from his inspiration and imagination and not from drug-hazed hallucinations. This defence shows Tolkien very much wanting to believe, whether it was true or not, that Thompson's own poetic diction derived from an imaginative and spiritual source and not from the effect of opium on him. In the final part of the first section of his paper, Tolkien concluded by emphasizing the spiritual nature of Thompson in the face of his many misfortunes (Appendix 5).

134 In the second part of the paper, Tolkien is reported to have used examples of Thompson's poetry to defend him as one of the greatest poets of all time. Tolkien did this by exploring three key qualities of Thompson's creative output: the metrical power of his poetry, his greatness of language, and the immensity of the imagery of his poetry including the Catholic faith underlying it. It is interesting that in his biography of Thompson, Everard Meynell devotes an entire chapter to the first two of Tolkien's reasons in a chapter called 'Of Words, Of Origins, Of ' suggesting that Tolkien again was drawing upon Meynell as a source for some of his defence of Thompson. The report on the paper indicates that on this first point, regarding metrical power, Tolkien did not include much elaboration. This may have been due to the fact that throughout the paper Tolkien recited sections of Thompson's poetry which would have practically illustrated his point about Thompson's metrical power.

For example, Tolkien could have recited some lines of Thompson's poetry which show his use of meter and onomatopoeia to create dramatic rhythm. A good example of this can be seen in the opening of Thompson's poem The Hound of Heaven (Boardman 2001, pp. 35-37) which uses anaphora to create a metrical sense of the flight of the narrator from God.

I fled Him, down the nights and down the days; I fled Him, down the arches of the years; I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways (Boardman 2001, p. 35, lines 1- 3)

Thompson's The Hound of Heaven was one of the poems that Tolkien clearly was interested in and influenced by.10 Thompson composed Hound in 1889 shortly after he finished his essay on Shelley (Boardman 2001, p.56). The idea had come to him when he was destitute on the streets of London. Thompson later described Hound as 'the greatest of my Odes: and this because it embodies a world-wide experience in an individual form of that experience; the universal becoming incarnated in the “personal”' (Boardman 2001, p.35). In

10 Tolkien evokes Thompson's The Hound of Heaven in a published letter from 1963 when he describes an early period of his life when he 'ceased to practice my religion' as 'Not for me the Hound of Heaven, but the never-ceasing silent appeal of the Tabernacle, and the sense of starving hunger.' (Letters, 1963, p. 340) 135 Hound the unnamed narrator is fleeing from God's grace and Thompson evokes, I would argue, a similar poetic diction as Tolkien would later use in his early Earendel poetry. In order to compare Thompson and Tolkien's treatment of flight in their poems I first give the relevant passage from Thompson's Hound and then follow with a passage from Tolkien's 1914-15, The Voyage of Éarendel the Evening Star:

From Thompson's The Hound of From Tolkien's Voyage of Éarendel Heaven

Across the margent of the world I fled And Earendel fled from the Shipman And troubled the gold gateway of the dread stars Beyond the dark earth's pale Smiling for shelter on their clanged bars Back under the rim of the Ocean dim Fretted to dulcet jars And behind the world set sail And silvern chatter the pale ports of the Tracking the Sun in his galleon moon And voyaging the skies I said to dawn Be Sudden – to eve Be Till his splendour was shorn by the birth Soon. of the Moon And he died with Dawn in his eyes

Both Thompson's and Tolkien's poems are clearly about flight (as I have indicated in bold, each poem contains the word 'fled'). In Thompson's case the flight is of an unnamed person who is fleeing the grace of God as a destitute on the streets of London representing man's flight from the grace of God universally and mythologizing Thompson’s destitute life on the streets. In the case of Éarendel, Tolkien mythologizes this flight across the night sky and the death of the mariner at dawn (a word that, again, appears in both poems). I am not suggesting that Tolkien borrowed directly from Thompson, but rather that he used a similar poetic diction that was influenced by the same type of mystical vision and vocabulary that Tolkien found pleasing in Thompson's poetry - 'the immensity of the imagery of his poetry including the faith underlying it' (Appendix 5).

Tolkien did however, not surprisingly, elaborate on his second point about

136 language. Tolkien felt that through his poetic diction Thompson had successfully reunited the Latinate and Anglo-Saxon stock of English vocabulary that had been artificially separated through pedantry 'a most pernicious birth-snobbery of words' (Appendix 5). However, the Latinate words, and the feeling they produced in Thompson's poetry, was derived not from classical sources as much as from the Liturgies and the Vulgate (Appendix 5). This combination enriched Thompson's poetic vocabulary with words that have a Catholic flavour. Tolkien also said that Thompson had forged a vocabulary that joined words from Elizabethan literature with new scientific words; especially words that have to do with astronomy. Therefore, in the paper Tolkien suggested that Thompson was restoring English poetic vocabulary to what it had been, and the meanings it conveyed, before it had been split 'into popular and literary streams, by pedantry into native and alien; by time into obsolescent and current.' (Appendix 5) Much as Newman looked to restore Catholic teaching to the original form before Church schisms and the Reformation, Thompson looked to restore English poetic vocabulary to what it had been before it too split into different strands. Both Newman and Thompson, I would suggest, showed Tolkien how original traditions could be restored.

Throughout Thompson's poetry there are examples of the type of word invention that Tolkien, the budding philologist, would have found attractive. Meynell quotes a Morning Post reviewer of Thompson's poetry who dwelt on his 'incomprehensible sentiments and unknown words' and suggests that even Thompson's friends had before publication warned him that his meanings were lost in the 'foam and roar of his phraseology' (1913, p. 152). In his poetry, Thompson also frequently used obsolete words, or archaisms, such as 'brede' (braid), 'cestus' (belt or girdle), 'swart' (dark/dirty), 'assoil' (absolve) and 'spilith' (spilling)11 (Boardman, 2001, p. xxvii). Tolkien would use similar types of archaisms in his The Book of Lost Tales which include such words as 'fane' (temple), 'rede' (counsel, advice), 'ruth' (pity, sorrow, calamity), 'jacinth' (blue), and 'flittermice' (bats) (for further examples see Christopher Tolkien's list of archaisms in Lost Tales I, pp. 274-275). Wright indicates that the distinguishing

11 In his 1924 review of various philological publications, Tolkien suggests that the word 'spilith' be added to Otto Jesperson's analysis of /illth/ words in his The Philosophy of Grammar. Tolkien quotes the line from Francis Thompson's poem that uses this world (YWES 1924, p. 30). 137 qualities of Thompson as a poet are the surprises of his vocabulary, the wealth and vividness of his imagery and the scope of his vision (1927, p. 10). He further characterizes Thompson's unusual vocabulary as coming from 'a well of English undefiled' (ibid., p. 10) and he quotes Alice Meynell saying that 'Thompson's “much-becudgelled” Latinates were forged hot on the anvil of the artificer. No Old English in the making could be readier or closer' (cited in Wright 1927, p. 11).

One very specific place where Thompson’s and Tolkien's word invention, and possible sub-creation, come in direct contact with one another is through two words, or place names, Luthany and Elenore, which appear first in Thompson's 1897 poem 'The Mistress of Vision' and then in Tolkien's late Lost Tales narrative of Ælfwine and his journey from England to Tol-Eressëa, the Lonely Island (which I explore fully in chapter five). Thompson's 'The Mistress of Vision' appeared first in New Poems (1897), dedicated to Thompson's poet colleague Coventry Patmore who predeceased the edition (Boardman 2001, p. 95). Thompson's poems in this specific volume have been characterized as more visionary and mystical in nature than his earlier poems and suggests influence from the mystical poetry of Patmore (Boardman, 2001, p. x). Patmore and Thompson shared the same thoughts around the mystical influence of the divine in all things. Thompson's 'The Mistress of Vision' combines dream vision and description of flight from earthly places for a desired unattainable garden where the Mistress of Vision sings her song. Thompson himself characterized the poem as 'a fantasy with no more than an allusive tinge of psychic significance' (Boardman, 2001, p. 96). Thompson's quote begs the question, as do several of Tolkien's own comments about his work, if he was playing down the mystical nature of this poem because he thought, on reflection, that it was too strange or radical. In the poem, Thompson 'invents' two place names to describe the land of the secret garden 'in the land of Luthany, in the tracts of Elenore' (96). Boardman indicates that Luthany and Elenore are invented places, 'suggestive of the mysterious world inhabited by the Lady as the source of poetic inspiration' (102). In the poem, Thompson associates this secret garden with a place arrived at after death; indicating that it 'sits behind the fosse of death' (96). The 'Mistress of Vision' sings her song at the core of the garden and tells the unnamed narrator how to come and find the elusive land where the

138 mystical garden is located in Luthany and the tracts of Elenore. Thompson's instructive lines suggest that access to Luthany and Elenore is through a mixing of dreaming and waking and also evokes a key idea that Tolkien would explore in his mythic narrative: hope against despair.

Learn to dream, when thou dost wake, Learn to wake when thou dost sleep Learn to water joy with tears, Learn from fears to vanquish fears To hope, for thou dar'st not despair (Boardman 2001, p.100, lines 129- 133)

Wright (1927) characterizes the garden Thompson describes as a spiritual creation that transcends both earthly life and death (1927, p. 89). There is hitherto, no direct source identified for Thompson’s two names. Given the influence of Patmore on Thompson's mystical vision for the poems in this collection, it is tempting to think that both names derived from Patmore's own poetry but this is a mater of conjecture unless more documents related to Thompson's word invention are uncovered. In his thesis Francis Thompson – Mythmaker (1968), Carter suggests that Thompson constructed 'Luthany' by Anglicizing the Ancient Greek aorist passive infinitive of luo which is luthenai which means 'to be broken' and Elenore is an Anglicization of the Latinised form of the Greek Word 'hellen' meaning 'light' or 'illumination'. Thus giving this line in the poem the meaning "Pass through the gates where you are broken, then tread the region of the land of Light' (Carter 1968, p. 62). This is an interesting suggestion and Carter's two hypotheses certainly are plausible from an etymological point of view. Similarly, one of the Gnomish names Tolkien gives in The Book of Lost Tales to Tol-Eressëa, the Lonely Island, Dor Faidwen 'the land of release' (Lost Tales I, p. 1) suggests that the Gnomes saw this island as a place of release from being broken through the bondage of Melko in the Great Lands and coming to a place of release of sorrows and of healing. As I explore fully in chapter five, Tolkien's use, or linguistic incorporation of, Luthany is found in the later version of his frame narrative for The Book of Lost Tales in which the Anglo-Saxon mariner Ælfwine comes to Tol-Eressëa from England, which Tolkien calls Luthany. By using narrative and language invention Tolkien

139 embeds in this place name the idea of friendship, as well as a reference to the island of England from which the Anglo-Saxon Ælfwine sailed. In the text he signifies this by indicating that this island (England) was 'the only land where Men and Elves once dwelt an age in peace and love' (Lost Tales II, p.303). In another passage, Tolkien calls Luthany 'the isle of Friendship' (304). When he comes to Tol Eressëa, the Elves greet Ælfwine and when they learn who he is they call him Luthien, the man of Luthany. The Elves that Ælfwine meet are exiles from the land of Luthany suggesting that, in Tolkien's thinking, Luthany had become, for the exiled Elves, a place of longing, as in Thompson's poem, a place that is desired but can not be attained, perhaps now a place forbidden to the Elves (Lost Tales II, p.301). As Tolkien states in the Ælfwine frame story, the reason why the Lost Tales are told to Ælfwine is to explain why the Elves can not go back to Luthany (301). Tolkien also linguistically signifies the name Luthany as 'friend'. In a related language document, Notes and Required Alterations, there is a fragment which gives the names of the two sons Ottor had with Nami (here called Nelmir) on Tol-Eressĕa (as opposed to the core story of Eriol and Nami having one son, Heorrenda, on Tol-Eressëa). The second son is called Helusion, or Luthien, or Hendwine. The first name is in Qenya and, as a note indicates, comes from the Qenya root LUSU meaning 'cherish, warm, bathe' and there is a related word lusina meaning 'warm, glowing, of things, of people' (PE 12, p. 57). Hendwine comes from the Anglo- Saxon word wine meaning 'friend' and hende can mean 'near at hand, close'. Therefore Hendwine can mean 'close friend'. Finally, Luthien suggests the Gnomish version of this name (PE 15, p. 17). In the development of the mythology Tolkien would later come to associate the name 'Luthien' with his Elf maid Tinúviel who, close at hand with Beren, stole a Silmaril from the crown of . In the commentary, Christopher states 'I have been unable to find any trace of the process whereby the name Luthien came to be so differently applied afterwards (Luthien Tinúviel)' (Lost Tales II, p. 302). I would argue that there is one textual connection here between Thompson's poem and the emerging character of Tinúviel through Thompson’s and Tolkien's shared use of rose imagery. In one particular section of 'The Mistress of Vision', Thompson associates the mystical woman of the poem with rose imagery:

For her blood flowed through their nervures

140 And the roses were most red, for she dipt them in her heart. (Boardman 2001, p. 97, lines 25-26)

And as a necromancer Raises from the rose-ash The ghost of the rose; My heart so made answer (Boardman 2001, p. 101, lines 169-173)

In a Lost Tales fragment 'Turlin and the Exiles of Gondolin', Tolkien refers to Luthien Tinúviel as 'Luthien of the Roses' to distinguish here from another Luthien. This Luthien is characterized as 'a gnome' associated with Feanor in an early conception of the Noldorian house.

And three great armies had Gelmir under his lordship, and Gofin his son was captain of one, and Delin his son of another, and Luthien (not that Luthien of Roses who is of another and a later tale) (Shaping, p. 7)

There is less evidence of Tolkien's use of Thompson's second mysterious name 'Elenore'. However, in The Qenya Lexicon, there are several words that start with EL that refer to Elves (PE 12, p. 35) and NORE, means 'native land, nation, family' (PE 12, p. 66) suggesting Tolkien may have been experimenting with incorporating Thompson's 'Elenore' into his mythology through linguistic invention. If this is the case, this incorporation resulted in the development of two key base roots for Tolkien's language invention which would persist throughout his linguistic work on his legendarium. These potential thematic and narrative links are very intriguing. Clearly, for Tolkien, there was something interesting in the form and/or phonetic sense of Thompson's invented place names. As I have explored, Tolkien used both his narrative and language invention to incorporate them into his mythology; eventually even using the word form Luthany to create a second name for his great Elf princess Tinuviel whose story would first be told in the ‘The Tale of Tinúviel’ and developed throughout the corpus of Tolkien's mythology.

However, it should also be noted that Tolkien may have used Thompson's

141 'Luthany' and 'Elenore' in a similar way as Haggard's 'Kor' which I explored in chapter two. Indeed, when attempting to determine the connection between Thompson's Luthany and Tolkien's, Christopher Tolkien reminds the readers of The Book of Lost Tales that in some cases Tolkien would take 'audible forms' that he found pleasing and place them inside his story (Lost Tales II, pp. 328- 329). Christopher Tolkien then quotes Tolkien's draft letter to a Mr Rang in which Tolkien explained how he incorporated primary world words into his own language invention (Letters, pp. 383-384). Therefore, while it is intriguing to make connections between Thompson and Tolkien in the case of these two specific words it may also have been the case that in his reading of Thompson's poetry Tolkien saw these two strange words, and the mystery they both evoked, and incorporated them into his own mythic narrative by using their phono- aesthetic forms to signify entirely new ideas that can not be directly traced back to Thompson's original use for them. However deep the connection may be here, what is evident, I would argue, is that in constructing his secondary world Tolkien, the myth and language maker, paid homage to the language invention and poetic vision of Francis Thompson by incorporating Thompson's own 'elvish craft' of imaginative language construction into his own mythic framework for his lost mythology of England.

Returning to the report of Tolkien's paper, in exploring the third reason for his passion for Thompson, his imagery and underlying faith, Tolkien noted in particular images drawn from astronomy and geology and especially those that could be described as 'Catholic ritual writ large across the universe' (Appendix 5). Tolkien may have been referring to several of Thompson's poems here. In 1890, Thompson composed the poem A Dead Astronomer to mark the passing of Father Stephen Perry S.J who was a noted Catholic astronomer. In this and other poems Thompson combines imagery from astronomy with a Catholic mystic vision of the Virgin Mary (Boardman 2001, p.195). In 'Orient Ode', composed in 1895 and published in New Poems (1897), Thompson' poetically charts the movement of the Sun from the East to the West through the sky while commenting on the Catholic liturgy of Holy Saturday and the Introductory Collects for the Blessing of the New Father (114). In one particular passage Thompson poetically describes the greeting of the Sun by the morning star (Venus) which Thompson calls 'Phosphor': 'Till Phosphor lead, as they returning

142 hour / The laughing captive from the wishing West' (Boardman 2001, p.109 lines 54-55). When Tolkien set out on his own mythic exploration by attempting to find out what the word/name Earendel 'meant' in the Anglo-Saxon Crist he too would use similar astronomical imagery to depict The Voyage of Éarendel the Evening Star. According to Douglas A. Anderson, there is evidence of some notes Tolkien made on blank pages associated with one of the drafts for his The Voyage of Éarendel poem where he wrote some alternate lines that substitute 'Phosphorus' for 'Éarendel'. This line is headed 'Classical', and only the lines with changes are written (Douglas A. Anderson, email communication, 26 October 2014). The editors of Chronology suggest that Tolkien's change of the name from 'Éarendel' to 'Phosphorus' may have been an attempt to 'recast the poem in a classical setting' (54); in a similar way he would do in his aforementioned Homeric-inspired Éarendel poem, The Bidding of the Minstrel (Lost Tales II, pp. 270-271). However, I would argue that Tolkien may also have been inspired by the imagery that Thompson evoked in Orient Ode with its association of the planet Venus with 'Phosphor'.

In the conclusion to his Thompson paper, Tolkien is reported to have defended Thompson against accusations of being obscure by suggesting that one must adopt an attitude of 'humility befitting immaturity' when attempting to understand Thompson's most profound expressions of his spiritual experience (Appendix 5). Tolkien concluded with the statement 'one must begin with the elfin and progress to the profound – listen first to the violin and flute and then learn to harken to the organ of being's harmony' (Appendix 5). Here I would suggest Tolkien was evoking what Thompson said in Shelley: An Essay describing the state of being child-like 'to be so little that elves can reach to whisper in your ear; it is to turn pumpkins into coaches and mice into horses' (Thompson 1909, p. 29). In Tolkien's mythically charged passage, offering advice to those seeking to understand the profound meanings of Thompson's poetry, Tolkien is essentially stating that one must return to the childlike wonder of youth before intellect and rationality started to cloud the imagination. In The Book of Lost Tales Tolkien would illustrate his suggestion by creating a situation where the mariner Ottor Wǽfre must indeed 'become small' to physically enter into the Cottage of Lost Play and to receive the guest-kindliness from the fairies (Lost Tales I, p 14). Tolkien here is using the inspiration he gained from reading

143 Thompson's poetry of showing that it is only by becoming 'small' in all senses of the word that one can enter and access Faërie (see also OFS, p.187).

4. The Blending of the Christian and the Pagan

4.1. Two Early Models for Tolkien: Beowulf and Snorra-Edda

At the same time that the young Tolkien would have become aware of the works of Newman and Thompson, he would have also been having some of his earliest encounters with the great stories, legends and fairy-tales of the pagan past – sources from which he would use, repurpose and re-imagine a great deal for his own mythology. As I have discussed, owing to his upbringing by Father Francis Morgan, Tolkien would also receive the benefits of both the world of the Oratory and the secular world of King Edward's School and later Oxford University. Tolkien would later describe the environment of the Oratory and make a characteristic comparison of the dual nature of his upbringing in both the Roman Catholic Church and the secular education world of philology and pagan myth and legend (Letters, p. 395). Therefore, Tolkien's actual living situation after his mother's death furnished him with a dual environment that offered him a foundation in a mystically and spiritually infused form of Catholicism in parallel with his early study of pagan literature, culture and language.

Tolkien would have reflected on this dual environment when he started studying some of the great works of pagan literature and their attendant languages. As I have already explored from both a mythic and philological perspective, one of Tolkien's earliest encounters would have been with the Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf. The debate about the Christian and pagan sources and influences of this poem, and its unnamed author, had appeared in some of the earliest English translations of Beowulf that existed during Tolkien's youth (see Fulk 1997, pp. 35-53). Tolkien may have also been instructed by Warton's History of English Poetry (1774) in which the Beowulf poet is characterized as 'a Christian author who did not allow his religious faith to disturb the “local color of the pagan”' (23). In the specific preface to the translation of Beowulf Tolkien read in the summer of 1914, Earle reflected on the theories of Ludwig Ettműller who 144 in 1840 had suggested that certain passages in the Beowulf poem are Christian interpolations. Earle also suggested that the first composers of the Beowulf poem from pagan Germanic material were Christian clerics (Earle 1892, p. xxvii). Related to this, Blackburn (1897) suggested that, for the most part, the Beowulf poem once existed as a purely pagan poem which was given a surface layer of Christian allusions (225).

In his lecture notes for his Oxford Beowulf courses Tolkien suggested that the author of the Beowulf poem was writing for a society in which Christianity had not long been established: 'a few generations perhaps, but kings and nobles knew and honoured the names of their pagan ancestors, not so far back' (Beowulf 2014, p. 272). Tolkien echoed these thoughts in his 1936 lecture to the British Academy, Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics, in which he characterized the Beowulf author as a Christian. In this seminal talk Tolkien stated that the poem had been composed at a time when the conversion to Christianity had taken place, and the new religion was solidly established, but not so solidly that memory of the pagan times had faded – 'but he knew much about the old days, not least (because indeed it is of the marrow of his theme) that the days were heathen' (MC, pp. 62, 74). While there is no mention of characters or stories from the New Testament in Beowulf (see Shippey 2007, p. 6), Orchard suggests that the Beowulf poet did draw from the Old Testament stories of heroes such as David, Samson and Moses to highlight the virtues of his own hero Beowulf; suggesting that Beowulf was to serve as a kind of 'Northern' Old Testament (see Orchard 2003, pp. 9-10 and 130-168).

Shippey also points out that Tolkien's emphasis on Beowulf being written during 'a time of fusion' meant that that the author was looking back on a time when grandparents had been pagans, but – Shippey notes – 'virtuous pagans' (8). In Christian theology, the idea of the 'virtuous pagan' addressed the problem of those pagans who lived before the time of the coming of Christ and Christian salvation. When the Roman Catechism was issued by the Council of Trent it selected several pagan authors and philosophers who were considered 'virtuous', such as Socrates, Cicero and Virgil, and said that on death their souls were placed in limbo between heaven and hell and were only freed at Christ's Harrowing of Hell (see especially Vitto 1989). A related concept to the 'virtuous

145 pagan' was that of 'natural reason' (naturalis ratio). This was a belief that the pagan writers and philosophers had been able to know about God by means of an instilled 'natural reason by the instruction of the Holy spirit' (Vitto, 1989, pp.5- 6). Kerry makes the point that Tolkien knew that the medieval poetic approach to the stories of deities and heroes before Christ was usually not to reject them as lies, but 'to veil them in what St. Irenaeus called a preparatio evangelium, a preparation for the good news' (2011, p. 124). Related to this is what Newman wrote about the Catholic attitude towards the early use of pagan material by the Church. Newman believed that the classical and pagan myths and legends prepared the way for Christian literature and therefore were valid for study (Newman 1997, p. 61). Related to this, the Orthodox Church has a doctrine called 'word (logos) in seed' in which the word of God (logos) is implanted in every race of men, which makes God's revelation accessible to all (Schaff 2001, p. 31). These thoughts might have comforted Tolkien as he set out to study works that had a pagan origin.

Contrasting the Beowulf poet would have been another example for Tolkien drawn from another early Christian author working with pagan material. This author was the Icelandic historian, poet and mythographer Snorri Sturluson who composed the (also known as the Snorra-Edda). During his time at Exeter College, Tolkien studied the Snorra-Edda under W.A. Craigie who had revised Benjamin Thorpe's 19th century handbook Northern Mythology (Chronology, p. 40, Brown 2012, p. 199). Snorri Sturluson was a poet and mythographer who was writing for a converted Christian audience. His Snorra- Edda would serve as a handbook for Icelandic and Norwegian poets that outlined the mythical meanings and backgrounds to many of the that were used in Eddic and Skaldic poetry. Around these manuals Snorri wove a pseudo-historical framework for the myths that the poetic handbook described. Especially in the first two parts of the Snorra-Edda, 'The ' and 'The Gylfaginning' Tolkien would have seen how Snorri the author and mythographer worked with, blended, and synthesized Christian and Pagan material.

Snorri starts 'The Prologue' by relating how the world was created by 'Almighty God'. He goes on to recount the Biblical tale of Adam and Eve and Noah and the flood. Snorri then tells how men turned away from God and wished not to

146 name him (Faulkes 1988, p. 3). This turning away from God leads men to wonder 'what it might mean that the earth and the beasts and the birds had one nature in some ways, but were unlike in others' (4). From observing nature men started thinking there might be some powers behind the rushing of the waters, the shining of the sun and the dews of the air (4). Men forget about their creator God and start to worship nature in a form of animism (25). At this point Snorri turns from myth to pseudo-history by first giving a rather brief geographic survey of the world and then focusing in on the land of Asia, Turkey and Troy. The remaining part of 'The Prologue' is Snorri's attempt to link the ancestors of the North with Troy (in a similar way that other Medieval European authors would attempt to do for their cultures). Snorri related that the Trojan king Priam had a son called Tror whom the Northern men call (ibid, p. 5). Thor's descendant was a man called 'a man far-famed for wisdom and every accomplishment' (6). Odin is said to have supernatural powers and he leads people from Asia to the North and Sweden where they are known as the Æsir. This leads to the Æsir settling in Sweden and Odin’s son founding led the line of the Swedish . The Aesir went on to become famous in legend and became known as gods (6-7).

Brown characterizes Snorri's prologue as mingling two Medieval Christian approaches to the problem of pagan religions.

First, the theory of natural religion, argued that pagan religions are imperfect perceptions of the basic truths of Christianity. The Wise men of Snorri's prologue were reaching for God but sadly had no teachers. The old religion was a rational, if misguided groping for truth (2012, p. 54).

Abram characterizes this as the descendants of the men who forgot 'the name of God' coming to the wrong conclusion 'because living as they did before Christ's mission on earth, they had not been reminded of the true God's identity; but they are not to be blamed, since they did the best with the information they had available to them' (2011, pp. 209-2010). Here we see again the idea of the 'virtuous pagan'. Secondly, Brown makes the point that, with the Aesir, Snorri was drawing upon the writings of the Greek Philosopher Euhemerus from the

147 fourth century BC. Euhemerus argued that the old gods were just exceptional human beings who, as the stories about them grew in the telling, were taken to be divine. Myths, in his view are just embroidered history (2012, p. 136). For example, in Snorri's these same Aesir are characterized as human rulers who trick their followers into believing they have divine powers (Abram 2011, p. 209). This suggests that, when studying 'The Prologue' of the Snorra-Edda, the young Tolkien would have seen how paganism could be positioned as a false series of beliefs which arose due to the forgetting of the true religion. Tolkien would also have observed how Snorri evokes not only myth and religion but a pseudo-history to give his story a synthetic-historical context. An echo of this appears in Tolkien's early mythic conception when, in The Qenya Lexicon, he describes the fairies as going from Kor to teach men song and holiness (PE 12, p. 35). Tolkien expanded on this idea in The Book of Lost Tales when he describes the Elves as having originally gone into the land of Men to spread good dreams, but the men slowly lost interest and belief, 'Sorrow and grayness spread amongst them and Men ceased to believe in, or think of, the beauty of the Elves and the glory of the gods' (Lost Tales I, p. 8).

Abram characterizes Snorri's use of the Christian and Pagan in Snorra-Edda as a way of contrasting elements of Christianity and paganism; showing that paganism represented a delusion and Christianity represented the true religion (2011, p. 220). Snorri also uses this sense of paganism as 'delusion' in the next part of the Edda that Tolkien would have encountered 'The Glyfaginning' or 'The Deluding of Gylfi.' This section of Snorra-Edda has received more attention from Tolkien scholars because in it Snorri establishes a 'framework' narrative to communicate pagan myths (see Drout 2004, Flieger 2005) Clearly this was an inspiration for Tolkien in developing his Ottor/ Ælfwine 'frameworks' for his hearing and transmission of the Lost Tales which I explore fully in chapter five.

Therefore I would argue that Tolkien's earliest study of Beowulf and the Snorra- Edda would have shown him different contrasting narrative approaches that a Christian author could take when working with, synthesizing and blending pagan material in poetry and prose. The Beowulf poet reflected the pagan past he was looking back on in a time of transition between the pagan and Christian in England. Whereas Snorri Sturluson used the idea that the original Christian

148 thought had been forgotten by man and that the pagan myths were a product of man's delusional attempt to figure out how the world worked. Most importantly Tolkien would have seen Snorri's use of a 'framework' narrative to communicate pagan myths which he did not believe to be true. As I will explore in chapter five, Tolkien likewise would use a similar transmission 'framework' in his attempt to link his mythology to a re-imagined version of Germanic myth and legend which Tolkien did not believe to be true. As Tolkien set out to develop his own mythology he would take from these ideas and build upon them, moving along a creative trajectory from imitator to adaptor to creator of his own unique solution for the blending and synthesis of the pagan and Christian in the metaphysical fabric of his emerging secondary world.

4.2. Habbanan: Tolkien's Early Mythologizing of a Catholic Purgatory

In The Book of Lost Tales, Tolkien devotes several passages to exploring the fate of Men after death; a fate which he distinguishes from that of the Elves (Lost Tales I, pp. 60-61). After death, men are brought to the Halls of Mandos to appear before Vefantur's wife Fui Nienna ('Darkness Weeping') who judges them based on the way she reads their hearts. Then Tolkien outlines one of three fates or dooms for men which includes the majority of men's souls being taken on the black ship Mornië 'to the wide plains of Arvalin' (Lost Tales I, p.76). In this narrative Tolkien describes three fates for men in which he is clearly incorporating the Christian Doctrine of Heaven, Purgatory and Hell into his mythic narrative.

Heaven They are kept in Mandos (which is in Valinor) 'few are they and happy indeed' (Lost Tales I, p.77)

Purgatory They go aboard the Black Ship Mornië ('Black Grief') to the wide plains of Arvalin (77)

Hell They go to Melko in the Hells of Iron (77)

Tolkien's interest in the Catholic concept of purgatory may have come from several sources. From a biographical perspective, Tolkien's upbringing after his mother's death as an orphan, sent from one boarding house to another, may

149 have made him feel like someone who was always in a state of waiting, in between a permanent residence and the street. More firm evidence can be seen in his early poem Habbanan Beneath the Stars, which I have analysed in chapter two, composed when he was himself waiting between life and death to go into active battle in the War (Garth 2003, p. 113). As I have already discussed, Tolkien also supported his poetic conception of a purgatorial land 'where men sit in rings around a fire listening to the faint sounds of guitars. It is a land of mist and haze' (Lost Tales I, p. 91) with several entries of invented words around the concept of purgatory in The Qenya Lexicon. Habbanan is a Teleatka word from the Qenya Hambanan which is a cognate of another Qenya place name, Harwalien. Harwalien is constructed from the invented base root HARA which is glossed as 'cleave, remain' (PE 12, p. 39). The place name Harwalien, its Qenya cognate, and its Teleakta variant, are all defined as 'a region on the border of Valinor, har (near), valar (the Valar)' (39). Therefore, The Qenya Lexicon entry gives more information on the place that the introduction to the poem calls 'nigh to the places that are not of Men' (Lost Tales I, p. 91). Habbanan is a place near the Valar, or the Gods. Its construction from an invented base root that has to do with 'cleaving and remaining' may also indicate that the place name itself has an inherent morphological sense of remaining or cleaving to something suggesting this was a shadow place where men, or men's soul's, remained in sight of Valinor, a place of the gods.

Another source of inspiration for Tolkien on ideas around a place of purgatory (between Heaven and Hell) is suggested by Newman's aforementioned poem The Dream of Gerontius (1865) which depicts the death of a man and his soul's journey to a place of ultimate judgement. In this poem Newman explores one of the key Roman Catholic concepts of purgatory; the concept of the soul's purification. The Catholic Catechism defines purgatory as 'an intermediate state after physical death in which those destined for heaven undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven' (Boardwell 2002, p. 235). Velez characterizes Newman's Dream of Gerontius as 'Newman’s mature reflection on the Catholic doctrine of purgatory as purification of souls who die in a state of grace reflecting a deeper awareness of the communion of saints and his own understanding of the nature of purgatorial fire' (2001, p. 5). In the poem, Newman describes this as ' For e’en thy purgatory,

150 which comes like fire / Is fire without its light nor rash nor vain is that presentiment; / Yes,—for one moment thou shalt see thy Lord' (Newman 2007, p. 79). Newman's own ideas of the purifying fires of purgatory drew upon, and sought to restore, some of the earliest thinking of the Church fathers. For example, the early Church father Origen uses alchemical language to suggest that the soul becomes saved through 'a fire that burns away sins and worldliness like lead, leaving behind only pure gold' (Origen 1982, p. 241).

I would argue that Newman's ideas on purgatory and purification may have been part of the inspiration for Tolkien's visual depiction in his two earliest paintings Beyond and Afterwards (see Appendix 4: Illustrations 4 and 5). As I explore further in chapter four, these two paintings taken together suggest a visualization of the soul's journey through a dark passage way (including a gate of flame) into a place of healing. Tolkien can clearly be seen mythologizing this concept further in ‘Turambar and the Foalókë’. At the end of this earliest version, Tolkien describes the fate of Turambar and his sister Nienori who he unknowingly had committed incest with. In the earliest layer of the tale both the dead brother and sister are said to have bathed in a purifying flame 'so were all sorrows and stains washed away' and then 'dwelt as shining Valar among the blessed ones' (Lost Tales II, p. 116). Christopher Tolkien comments on this ending of the deification of Turin Turambar and Nienori 'as an astonishing feature of which no explanation is given' (Lost Tales II, p.137). I would argue, that in this passage Tolkien, inspired by Newman's poetic exploration, is mythically illustrating the concept of purgatorial purification for their sins in a bath of flame before they are made 'as shining Valar'.

With his ideas for purgatory, Tolkien was clearly also experimenting with combining the Christian inspired purgatorial ideas of writers like Newman with other mythic strands. The land of shadows suggests inspiration from Classical myth and Norse Mythology contains a ship of death, . However, in combination with the evidence of Tolkien's linguistic 'doodling' in the Gnomish Lexicon, it is also quite evident that at some point Tolkien considered linking this place through the invented names of Afalinan and Arvalin (PE 11, p. 31) to the Arthurian island of healing and waiting, Avalon. The Arthurian material is itself a blending of Christian and pagan sources and, I would argue, in the earliest

151 version of the mythology Tolkien experimented with linking the Arthurian place of purgatory to his own mythology through linguistic invention linked with historical punning and bilingual diplosemy.

Based on the linguistic evidence, Tolkien meant these two words, Afalinan and

Arvalin, to be Elvish cognates for 'near or hard by Valinor.' In The Gnomish Lexicon, there is a note from the editors that states ‘Afalinan or' was added (but does not indicate when) (PE 11, pp. 31-32). The added note Afalinan bears an interesting resemblance to the Arthurian Avalon, a name that comes from the Welsh Ynys Afallon which probably means the 'Island of the Apples'. According to 's 1136 Historia Regum Brittanniae ('History of the Kings of Britain') Avalon was the island where the sword Excalibur was forged and where Arthur was taken to be healed of his wounds after the Battle of Camlan 'in which Arthur and Medraut fell’ (Geoffrey of Monmouth, 1966, p. 261).

In his recent edition of his father's unfinished alliterative poem, The Fall of Arthur, which Tolkien worked on in the early 1930's up to 1937, Christopher Tolkien makes it clear that in his father's re-conception of the Arthurian story the island of Avalon was to be an island in the West, 'but concerning its nature, in the notes that are appended to the poem, we learn nothing' (FOA, p. 145). There is only one mention of Avalon in the actual Fall of Arthur poem. Avalon is mentioned when Gawain reminds of his might in arms and the extent of his dominion. In Gawain’s speech the isle of Avalon is a place where armies (both fay and mortal) wait until the time when 'the graves open' (FOA, p. 25), i.e. until the Second Coming and the Last Judgement.

Another potential link to Tolkien's earlier purgatory story can be seen on some notes for the proposed ending of The Fall of Arthur in which Tolkien mentions the nature of the ship that takes Arthur away to the West which Tolkien calls 'the dark ship' (FOA, pp. 135-136). This ship that brings Arthur to Avalon appears in two key medieval sources for Tolkien's The Fall of Arthur. The earliest account of Arthur's departure is in the Brut of Layamon (c.1205). In this version of Arthur’s departure the boat is referred to as 'a short boat' (Madden 1999, p.

152 345). In Tolkien's other major source for the poem that mentions the ship is the Stanzaic Morte Arthur (mid 1350's) which includes the line 'When the ship from the land was brought' (Benson 1974, p. 98). In neither source is there a mention of the ship that caries Arthur being 'dark'. Given that Tolkien had already, in his early mythology, developed the concept of Mornië, the dark ship which brought doomed men to the purgatorial plains of Arvalin (Lost Tales I, pp 76-77), I would argue that the dark ship of The Fall of Arthur was an echo of Tolkien's earlier black ship, Mornië, which Tolkien associated with 'darkness' through the construction of its name from the aforementioned Qenya base root MORO which has to do with darkness and night (PE 12, p. 62).

Moreover, I would suggest that the most intriguing linguistic link to the earlier material comes through an inquiry Christopher Tolkien makes in his commentary to The Fall of Arthur but fails to answer. In this commentary, Christopher Tolkien investigates several notes that his father made to his unfinished poem in which he attempted to link his version of the Arthur story to his own mythology by suggesting that first Arthur went to the West to be healed of his wounds and Lancelot followed after him (FOA, p.136). On this note Tolkien also wrote an intriguing 'Earendel passage' and Christopher Tolkien links this to a poem Tolkien wrote about a similar journey into the West (136- 137). Christopher indicates that this poem has some interesting parallels to Tolkien's earlier Éarendel poems and certainly was a variant on the journey of Earendel to the West – a similar journey that Arthur and then Lancelot were to take in Tolkien's notes (FOA, pp.137-138, 158-168). Christopher suggests that Tolkien's earliest ideas about linking the name Avalon to his mythology made their first appearance in Tolkien's work on The Fall of Numenor in the mid- 1930's. The Elves were summoned to return into the West, 'and such as obeyed dwelt again in Eressëa, the Lonely Island, which was renamed Avalon, for it is hard by Valinor' (FOA, p.151). Christopher Tolkien then goes on to explore the etymology of Avalon within the context of Tolkien's invented language system. The key work of Tolkien's invented language work in the 1930's is The Etymologies in which Tolkien revisited his early base root system to build words which had now expanded and formed a common stem language of from which both Quenya and Sindarin (and the that had grown from them) originated. In reviewing the potential sources for the

153 word Avalon in The Etymologies Christopher Tolkien states that these etymologies do not accord with the explanation of the name ('hard by Valinor') in the second version of The Fall of Numenor. (152) He attempts to find potential sources/meanings in Tolkien's unfinished time travel story The Lost Road and even explores the magic islands and the Bay of Faery in The Book of Lost Tales materials. I would argue that Christopher Tolkien appears to have overlooked a more interesting potential link back to the earlier versions of Tolkien's mythology and those initials words Harwalien and Arvalin which also have some philological and narrative links to the Arthurian Avalon connected to the reason why both Arthur and Lancelot may have attempted to go there. Therefore, when Tolkien wrote 'for it is hard by Valinor' and assigned Avalon to Tol-Eressëa, I would argue there were two elements in play. First, there is the influence by Layamon's Brut (see FOA, pp. 147-148) of having Arthur being healed by an Elf (Argante) on Avalon, an Island of the Elves, which corresponded in Tolkien's mythology at the time to Tol-Eressea. However, there was also, I would suggest, a remembrance or, perhaps an echo of a remembrance, of an earlier concept of a land that was reached by the 'black ship Mornië' (the Dark Ship of Tolkien's The Fall of Arthur notes) in a land close to the land of the gods ('hard by Valinor') which was situated 'on the borders of the world, up[on] Earth's border in Avalon [sleeping >] bidding, while the world w....eth [sic]' (FOA, p.139). It is intriguing to think that, as I have explored in chapter two with such words as 'Cwennas', Tolkien was thinking, at this early stage, about linking the Arthurian concept of Avalon to his emerging idea for a place near to Valinor in which men wait, perhaps like Arthur, till the great End comes ('or the graves open'). Therefore Tolkien's thoughts on linking his mythology with Arthurian material may have occurred much earlier than his work on 1930's The Fall of Arthur and these ideas were stimulated through his exploration of how to incorporate a Christian purgatory into his mythology.

4.3. Linguistic Syncretis and Tolkien’s Catholic Words in The Qenya Lexicon

As I introduced at the start of this chapter, Tolkien's early Qenya language invention also has indications of his attempt to incorporate a group of Catholic-related words into his early mythology. According to the editors of these linguistic documents, in almost every case these inventions are found in 154 the earliest layers only of The Qenya Lexicon and were not transferred by Tolkien into his later language work or, overtly, into his Lost Tales narrative. Therefore, I would argue, these entries represent some of the earliest radical work on his Qenya language invention by Tolkien. I will first outline the words found in the Qenya Lexicon and then evaluate some of the theories that have been suggested for the role of these words in Tolkien's thinking and finally make some other suggestions drawn from the influences I have been exploring in this chapter and some characteristics that Tolkien has exhibited in other areas of his creative work.

 EVANDL/EVANDILYON - The phrase 'Christian Missionary' is incorporated into the lexicon through the base root ETE 'cling together' (PE 12, p. 36). From this base root, Tolkien constructed Evandl ‘Christian Missionary' and Evandilyon 'gospel' (36). The concept of 'cling together' does have a religious and possible philological connotation. The word 'religion' comes from the Latin religio meaning an obligation of bond between man and the gods, perhaps based on the Latin verb religare 'to bind'. Tolkien constructed the Qenya word for 'gospel' from evandl and used a Qenya possessive ending to indicate that this was the possession of the Christian Missionaries (or what they brought with them). We see this same possessive ending used in Tolkien construction of the name of Earendl's son which is given in The Qenya Lexicon as Earendilyon 'his son' (PE 12, p. 35). I would also argue that Tolkien may have been indulging here in some of his 'historical punning', in this case playing with the Latin word evangelium (gospel). Tolkien also signifies the missionary role of the fairies in his description in The Qenya Lexicon of the Fairies 'leaving Kor to teach men song and holiness' (35).

 ANURE/ANUSTA/ANOUN - There are a series of words with an unrecorded base root having to do with men and women which all share a root AN and then an 'u' is added for male subjects and an 'a' for female subjects (PE 12, p. 31). Towards the bottom of this list, Tolkien constructs a grouping of words describing monks and monasteries. He incorporates these words by constructing a phrase made up of the Qenya definite article (I) and an adjective. The modifying adjective is air,

155 which seems to be a variant of a word formed from the key base root AY; glossed as 'honour, revere' (PE 12, p. 34). From this combination of definite article, adjective and noun base of an unattested base root Tolkien constructs his first word in the list for monk i air'anure 'monks' (PE 12, p. 31). He then returns to the unrecorded base root to construct anusta 'monastery', anustar ‘monk’, anuon 'monk' (PE 12, p. 34).

 QINDE/QINDELIS/QINDESTA - Tolkien performed a similar exercise to incorporate words for the female counterpart of the monks – nuns. In this case Tolkien uses the invented base root QIMI from which words are constructed around women and feminine concepts (PE 12, p. 77). Tolkien uses Air in what looks to be a feminine form Aira to construct these words. First I aira qinde (Qinne) 'nuns' and then list words for Qindelis 'a nun,' Qindesta 'convent,' Qindestin 'nun' (PE 12, p. 77).

 (ANA) TARWESTA - Another Christian concept is seen being incorporated by Tolkien using the invented base roots ANA 'give, send towards' and TARA, a base root which Tolkien uses to construct the verb Tarwesta 'crucify' and the noun tarwe 'a cross, Crucifix' (PE 12, p. 89).

 AIMAKTU/AIMAKSIN - Like Tolkien's base root construction for Antarwesta - which defines what the act of crucifixion meant – so Tolkien's two constructed words that incorporate the idea of the aforementioned male and female martyr, Aimaktu and Aimaksi, come from this base root for 'honor, revere' and a base root MAKA from which Tolkien constructs the verb makta meaning 'slay, slaughter' (PE 12, p. 58).

Garth (2003) and Fimi (2010) were the first Tolkien scholars to attempt to analyse these Qenya words with their overtly Christian signifieds in the context of Tolkien's early mythology. Garth suggests that Tolkien meant Qenya to be a language that the illiterate people of pre-Christian Europe had heard and had borrowed from, when they were singing their unrecorded epics. Elves and gods had walked in those epics, and so had dwarves, dragons and goblins; but only fragments of their stories were written down when literacy and Christianity

156 arrived (2003, p. 98). In Garth's theory the Christian concepts were given meaning by the vestiges of Qenya words; so the Qenya word anatarwesta which conveyed a sense of 'giving or send towards' would be used by man to signify the idea of what the crucifixion was; namely a man giving himself up to save the world. It is intriguing to conjecture, for we will never really know, whether Tolkien was imagining here Christian writers using the base roots they would have picked up from their encounter with the Elves, the already explored 'Shadow People' of Aryador, to construct new Christian concepts – who they were (Evandl – missionaries) and the message they were bringing to the Elves.

Fimi suggests that it is tempting to link these overtly Christian words with the purifying role of the fairies envisaged by the young Tolkien as part of the 'mission' of Tolkien's group from King Edward's School, the T.C.B.S. (2010, p. 42) Fimi also suggests that in The Qenya Lexicon there is evidence to support the view that Tolkien might have considered Qenya to be a mystic language, at least for a while, and that it is tempting to associate them with the Romantic plans of the T.C.B.S. for a moral cleansing of Britain and the re-establishment of beauty and holiness in the world (98). Fimi here is contextualizing Tolkien's language invention with the stated spiritual mission of Tolkien and his colleagues the T.C.B.S. who Tolkien characterized as being 'destined to testify for God and Truth in a more direct way' (Letters, p. 9). As I have explored, in The Qenya Lexicon Tolkien glosses Eldamar as the place 'whence the fairies came to teach men song and holiness' (PE 12, p. 35). In her compelling analysis Fimi links this early role Tolkien envisioned for his Elves to his later thoughts. In an essay he wrote on his last work Smith of Wooten Major, Tolkien stated that the Elves have a moral obligation to both assist men and protect the world (see Fimi 2010, p. 42).

I would agree more with Fimi's characterization of Tolkien's thinking of Qenya, at least for a short time, as a mystic language than Garth's idea of it being a language of the illiterate people of pre-Christian Europe. I would build on Fimi by suggesting that Tolkien may have been inspired to make Qenya a mystic or ritual language by his reading of the poetry of Francis Thompson. As Tolkien indicated in his talk on Thompson, which I have explored above, one of the elements that he found most interesting in Thompson's poetry was Thompson's

157 reuniting of the Latinate words of the Liturgies and the Vulgate with the Anglo- Saxon stock of English vocabulary that had been artificially separated through pedantry, 'a most pernicious birth-snobbery of words' (Appendix 5). Thus, this mixing enriched Thompson's poetic vocabulary with words that have a Catholic flavour. I would argue that it is evident that in developing his Qenya Lexicon, Tolkien was in part performing the Thompson-like act of word creation by attempting the joining together of primary world Christian ideas with the emerging vocabulary and history of his secondary world. I would also suggest that in the case of overt Catholic words in The Qenya Lexicon Tolkien was, again, 'taking a holiday' and thinking both expansively and radically in the context of his private Qenya Lexicon of the possibilities of incorporating, through language invention, these overtly Catholic ideas into the fabric of his own mythology. This early linguistic incorporation work shows the young Tolkien at one of his earliest heights of creativity and experimentation and I would compare Tolkien's work here with highly creative and radical nature of the early 'Ishness' paintings which I explore in more detail in the next chapter.

4.4. The Holy Trinity and Tolkien's Secret Fire

Another group of invented Qenya words that Tolkien initially gave Catholic associations to can be seen around Tolkien's attempt to incorporate the Catholic doctrine of the Trinity into his mythology. Again, I will give the invented words first and then suggest some context and reasons for Tolkien's motivations in doing this. While these, like the other Roman Catholic words above, would lose their overt meanings, one specific concept would persist and become an important element in Tolkien's legendarium.

 'The Father' was incorporated using the invented base root ATTA meaning 'a child's word, 'father' (PE 12, p. 33) from which Tolkien constructed Attu 'father' and Atar (-d) 'a more solemn word – father, Usually of the First Person of the Blessed Trinity' (PE 12, p. 33). When Tolkien resumed work on The Qenya Lexicon after the War this would become 'Attar – Father' (33) and would be used as part of the compound in the name in Tolkien's mythology for the name of the overarching Godhead of his cosmology, Iluvatar (33).

158  The 'son' element of the trinity was incorporated from the invented base root YO, YOND from which Tolkien constructed the word Ion ‘mystic name of God. 2Nd Person of the Blessed Trinity' (PE 12, p. 43). This supports Fimi's idea of the mystic role of the Qenya language by positioning Ion as a name from a mystical language designed to teach men song and holiness (Fimi 2010, p. 42). Fimi also suggests that in Greek the second person of the Holy Trinity is Yios which in the accusative gives the form Yion (Dr. Dimitra Fimi, Personal Conversation, September 2014). In his later work on Qenya this idea would slightly change now becoming 'Ion – mystic name of Enu' ' (PE 12, p. 43). Tolkien glosses Enu as 'God Almighty, the creator who dwells without the world' (PE 12, p. 35). He also indicates that the origin of the word is 'questionable' suggesting Tolkien moving away from his more overt, early, Catholic assignments for this word after the War.

 The 'Holy Spirit' element came from Tolkien’s invented base roots SAHA & SAHYA 'be hot' to suggest a reconstructed word (indicating it with an asterisk) sa meaning 'Fire, especially in temples, etc. A mystic name identified with Holy Ghost' (PE 12, p. 81). In this particular assignment, Tolkien can be seen thinking about how to merge a pagan idea of a fire in a temple with the Roman Catholic idea of the fire of the Holy Ghost. Again, in his later work on Qenya after the War, Sa becomes just 'mystic name' and does not mention the Holy Ghost element (81).

In his sermons and writings Newman stated that the Trinity had been one of those early Christian concepts that had a profound sense of mystery and controversy around it and was one of the original Church doctrines he sought to restore to its original mystical standing in the Church (Newman 1997, p.146). In his talk on Trinity Sunday, 'The Blessed Trinity,' Newman characterized the profound mystery of the Trinity which he stated existed outside of time and whose mystery came out of the combination of three divine elements into one (ibid, p. 146). Tolkien's planned inclusion of the Holy Trinity suggests an imaginative response to Newman's attempt to return the Trinity to its original meaning through mythic invention. Tolkien would achieve this by incorporating all three elements of the Trinity into his secondary world by, most significantly I

159 would argue, giving them the invented names I have explored above: Attar ('The Father'), Ion ('The Son'), and Sa (“The Holy Ghost').

Of the three elements, I would suggest that the most interesting is Tolkien's development of the third, the 'Holy Ghost' (Sa) which would persist in his legendarium as 'the secret fire'. Tolkien's use of 'the secret fire' starts in The Book of Lost Tales. In the ‘The Music of the Ainur’, Tolkien characterizes it as 'the Secret Fire that giveth Life and Reality' (Lost Tales I, p. 50). When Iluvatar is describing the world that the Ainur have sub-created he states 'One thing have I added, the fire that giveth Life and Reality – and behold the Secret Fire burnt at the heart of the world' (53).

Clyde S. Kilby, an American professor who worked with Tolkien in the 1960's to help him organize his 'Silmarillion' papers for publishing and later wrote Tolkien and (1976), indicated in a 2003 article that when he asked Tolkien about the Secret Fire, Tolkien indicated that it was from the beginning the Holy Spirit (Kilby 2003, p. 4). On 12-13 August 1916 Tolkien, in a letter to his colleague Geoffrey Bache Smith, expressed his hopes for the great work the T.C.B.S. would do together to reform all the arts – he wrote 'What I meant is that the T.C.B.S. has been granted some spark of fire – certainly as a body if not singly – and was destined to kindle a new light or rekindle an old light in the world' (Letters, p. 10). Tolkien may have made an early association of this 'spark of fire' with the appearance of the Holy Spirit during the feast of the Pentecost in The New Testament. In this case the Holy Spirit is manifested as 'cloven tongues like as of fire' (Acts 2: 1-6) which appear over each of the twelve apostles’ heads; giving them knowledge of the different languages needed to preach the gospel throughout the world. The specific link with language may have especially resonated with Tolkien.

By the end of the war, the key members of this society (including Smith) had all been killed in battle and Tolkien was left to carry this creative spark ('the secret fire') through his life and work. Tolkien clearly thought that this creative fire kindled in his youth, by him and his boyhood companions, would be worthy to burn in the heart of all his creations; including in The Lord of the Rings in which the wizard proclaims to the evil on the Bridge of Khazad-Dum 'I

160 am a servant of the Secret Fire, wielder of the flame of Arnor' (FR, p. 345). With the example of this third invented name for the Trinity, as well, I would suggest, that Tolkien creates through language invention a syncretic balance of a pagan idea with an overtly Christian one. Sa means fire 'especially in temples' as well as a mystic name identified with Holy Ghost. The wording here is interesting as 'identified with' means that Sa has become the Holy Ghost; showing that, within the context of Tolkien's planned mythic narrative, a syncretism was to have occurred between an earlier 'pagan' idea and a Christian one.

In this case, while the overt Christian connotation disappeared from the invented word, the idea and its underlying Catholic meaning remained. I would argue that this is one of the earliest examples of Tolkien moving from attempting to incorporate overt Catholic ideas (through 'primary world' associations) into his mythology, to focusing more on the underlying meaning of the idea and developing a mythic narrative in which that idea would work and 'fit' in the metaphysical fabric of his secondary world building.

4.5. The Syncretic Nature of Tolkien's Cosmogony and Pantheon in The Book of Lost Tales

The greatest example of the blending of the Christian and pagan in Tolkien's The Book of Lost Tales can be clearly seen in the cosmogonical cycle of stories of ‘The Music of the Ainur’. In this cycle of Lost Tales, Tolkien establishes a metaphysical order for his secondary world that reflects the structure of the 'invisible world' that Newman had explored in his sermons which I explored above. In a letter to Christopher Bretherton Tolkien described the metaphysical structure of his mythology.

In [O]xford I wrote a cosmogonical myth “The Music of the Ainur” defining the relation of The One, the transcendental Creator, to the Valar, the Powers, the angelic first created, and their part in ordering and carrying out the Primeval design. It was also told how it came about that Eru, the One, made an addition to the Design – introducing the themes of the Eruhin, The Children of God. The First-born (Elves) and the Successors 161 (Men), whom the Valar were forbidden to try and dominate by fear or by force.” (Letters. 1964, p. 345)

In The Qenya Lexicon Tolkien signifies 'Eru, the one' with several other constructed names. He is called Enu 'God, Almighty, the creator who dwells without the world' (PE 12, p. 35). He is also known as Iluvatar 'the name of Enu among men, Heavenly Father' (PE 12, p. 42). Burns suggests that Tolkien's Eru is 'quite compatible with Christian values and Christian attitudes' (2004, p. 106). I would add to Burns' characterization of compatibility with Christian thought by suggesting that Eru also exhibits some of the key characteristics of God which Newman describes in the sermons I have explored. For example, in ‘The Music of the Ainur’, the Elf Rúmil describes Iluvatar as dwelling alone before all things (Lost Tales I, p. 49). In The Invisible World Newman characterizes God as: 'For, first of all, He is there who is above all beings, who has created all, before whom they all are as nothing, and with whom nothing can be compared. Almighty God' (Newman 1997, p. 258).

In Tolkien's cosmogonical cycle, Iluvatar creates the Ainur first, who are then instructed by Iluvatar to sub-create the world, which is represented as materializing through music (Lost Tales I, p. 49). While Iluvatar teaches and ‘propounds,’ it is the Ainur who sub-create the world and the history that would occur in it. After the sub-creation of the world, and the start of time and history, the Ainur split into two groups. The Ainur who chose to stay with Iluvatar 'beyond Vaitya and the stars' (Lost Tales I, p. 66) are described as engrossed in the thoughts and plans of Iluvatar without any desire to make or adorn it (Lost Tales I, p. 4). Another group of Ainur are described as becoming so ‘enamoured’ and 'enthralled' with their sub-creation that they desire to go into it (Lost Tales I, p.53). Those Ainur that choose to go into the world, 'the most beautiful and wisest of the Ainur, craved leave of Iluvatar to dwell within the world' (Lost Tales I, p. 54), become known as the Valar, which Tolkien also refers to as 'the Powers.'

Tolkien marks this separation of those Ainur, who will become the Valar, from the other Ainur by having the Valar pass through layers of the air - Vaitya (wrapped in dark), Ilwe (blue) and Vilna 'that is grey and therein may the birds

162 fly safely' (Lost Tales I, p. 65). Most significantly, I would argue, Tolkien uses language invention to differentiate these Ainur from the others by giving them all invented names which are linguistically related to the powers of the world they control. One area of Classical influence on the development of the Valar, I would argue, is in the structure of the names he invented for them. In a related language list, The Names of the Valar, which Tolkien compiled while writing The Book of Lost Tales, each Valar is given a name and epithets in Qenya and Gnomish.

Sample of Valar Names and Epithets in Qenya and Gnomish (PE 14, p. 12) Valar Name Epithet

Manwe/Manweg Sulimo/Sulios

Varda/Bridhil Tinwetari/Timbrindi

Ulmo/Ulum Vailimo/Bairos

Yavanna/Ivon Palurien/Plauril

Tulkas/Tulcus Poldorea/Pologros

Nessa/Geneth Tirunil/Tessa

This sampling of invented names suggests that Tolkien was following a similar naming device Homer uses for the Greek gods in The and The Odyssey; such as 'Cloud-Gatherer Zeus' (Zeus 'nephele-gereta') and 'Bright Apollo' (Apollo 'Phoebus'). For example, in the list above Tolkien gives the chief of the Valar's name as 'Manwë Sulimo' and 'Manweg Sulios’ which are Qenya and Gnomish forms of 'Manwë Lord of the Airs' (PE 14, p. 12). His wife is called 'Varda Tinwetari' or 'Bridhil Timbrindi' which are Qenya and Gnomish forms for 'Varda Queen of the Stars' (12).

In addition to suggesting the Classical gods through name invention, Tolkien also drew from the actual characteristics of Classical and Northern pantheons for his Valar; including the fact that the earliest form of the Valar are married and have children (see Burns 2004, pp. 163-178 and Whittingham 2008, p.75). In addition, the early Northern-inspired origin of Tolkien's Valar is signified by glossing the name of their home 'Valinor' in The Qenya Lexicon as 'Asgard' the

163 home of the Norse gods (PE 12, p. 99).

But unlike Classical and Norse mythologies, Tolkien had to find a way to incorporate in his mythology the idea that the Valar were not the supreme powers of the universe and that they were servants to Iluvatar. Tolkien signifies this, I would argue, throughout the narrative by marking the Valar's diminishment in actual thought and power. Within the confines of the world, the Valar are not exactly all-knowing or wise. Melko is able to trick them with his fashioning of pillars for lights of the world because they are made of ice (Lost Tales I, p. 70) and they are not aware of the coming of either Elves or Men and simply come upon them after they have awoken. This suggests a similar model to the concept in both Classical and Norse mythology of the gods being subject to fate and powerless to stop what ultimately will happen.

The two early Valar that represent Tolkien's most radical thinking around his pantheon are the hunting and battle gods, a brother and sister: Makar and Meassë. Based on Tolkien's description they are clearly pagan war gods (Lost Tales I, pp. 77-78). The name Makar is constructed from a base root MAKA which is used to form words having to do with slaying, swords, and slaughter (PE 12, p. 58). Meassë is formed from a base root MEHE which might mean ooze and from which the word Mear meaning gore and blood is constructed (PE 12, p. 60). In the gloss for her name Tolkien indicates 'Sister of Makar – virgin amazon and hunter with bloody arms' (60). Tolkien's earliest idea for this type of war goddess can be seen in the name list of proposed invented words that Tolkien drew up for his Kullervo adaptation. This list includes the notation 'Wanwe – Armed Goddess' (Kalevala Essay, p. 236). Clearly, in inventing these two Valar, Tolkien was inspired by Northern texts mirroring the everlasting battles of . They also seem to have a dark, evil side and in Tolkien's mythic narrative are most aligned with Melko and his evil acts. For example, Tolkien mentions that: 'they loved the unbridled turmoils which Melko roused throughout the world’ (Lost Tales I, p.78). Tolkien may have been thinking of developing these war gods into allies with Melko against the other Valar. However, with the growing focus on Melko as the single force of evil these two Valar would fade as Christopher Tolkien indicates the 'Melko-faction in Valinor would have proven an embarrassment' (Lost Tales I, p.89). Makar and Meassë

164 do not appear again in the next major version of the mythic texts Tolkien composed in the late 1920's and disappear completely from later versions.

The reason for this 'embarrassment' would have come from the elevation of Melko as the one focal point of evil in Tolkien's cosmogonical cycle. Melko's origins can be traced back to ideas Tolkien had for a unifying force of evil in the early phases of the mythology. For example, on an alternative line that Tolkien wrote on an envelope for his November 1915 poem Kortirion Among the Trees, he thought of personifying 'winter' as a creature and invented a name in The Qenya Lexicon, Yelin - 'The wintery spell of Yelin and the icy tipped spears of winter marching up behind' (cited in Garth 2003, p. 222). The variant of this rejected line in the Kortirion poem shows Tolkien using poetic language to develop a of the winter who would 'march unconquerable on the sun' (Lost Tales I, p. 34). The signification of cold in Tolkien's mind with evil may have comes from several different sources. In the context of the Kalevala, cold is often seen as an evil force. For example, in one series of runos the evil mistress of Pohja steals the sun and the moon and the land of Kalevala suffers great cold and death (Kirby 1907, p. 245). This was certainly an image that Tolkien was interested in as he would visually depict it an imaginative painting, The Land of Pohja, which used a paper flap to demonstrate what occurred when the sun was stolen away (Appendix 4: Picture 15). I will further explore and contextualize this image with Tolkien's other Book of Ishness images in chapter four of this study. Moreover, in his talk on the Kalevala, Tolkien explained that the Finns regard the cold with horror which they counter with their hot sauna baths (Kalevala Essay, p. 255). In broader terms the association of winter with death and loss was certainly not a new literary concept. Atherton quotes from a letter D.H. Lawrence wrote while he was staying near Warwick, at roughly the same time as Tolkien was working on Kortirion, in which Lawrence refers to the coming winter and draws a parallel to soldiers going off to fight in the War (2012, p. 103). Therefore, this association with soldiers going off to battle, and death, may have given this specific winter of 1915 a darker and more evil connotation than past ones. Tolkien would respond to this through the rejected line in the Kortirion poem and related name invention. In The Qenya Lexicon, the name Yelin is formed from the invented base root DYELE which Tolkien used to construct words like yelwa (cold), yel

165 (d) (the cold), yelma (a chill – a bout of frost), yelin (winter). Finally there is the notation Yelur = Melko which Tolkien, most likely. wrote in after the War (PE 12, p. 106). The name Yelur would persist as one of the alternative names of Melko throughout the development of The Book of Lost Tales materials (see especially PE 14, p. 13). This single element of Evil, which Tolkien created with the name Melkor, and his role as the first against the Elves was one of the by products of Tolkien's time in the War. This is signified in a letter Tolkien wrote to Christopher Tolkien while he was involved in World War II, in which Tolkien explained how the Great War gave birth to Melkor (Letters, p. 78).

The invented name Melko appears in The Qenya Lexicon glossed as 'God of Evil' (PE 12, p. 60). Included in this entry are also the constructed words 'Melkaraukar/Melkaraukir which are glossed as 'Balrogar: Fire-demon, Melko's ' (60). The editors suggest that the base root Tolkien used to form these words was MALA which is used to form words having to do with such monstrous ideas as 'to crush, devour, agony, torture, giving pain' (PE 12, p. 58). The would become one of the hoards of invading monsters that in 'The Fall of Gondolin' would attack the hidden city and would persist in the mythology into The Lord of the Rings. In this passage Tolkien also uses The Qenya Lexicon name for these monsters of Melko, redolent of the crushing metal tanks Tolkien had only recently seen on the battlefield (Lost Tales II, p. 169; see also Garth 2003, p. 220). In the narratives of the Book of Lost Tales, Melko would be associated with both cold and fire.

Burns characterizes Melkor's role in the pantheon as helping to Christianize the other gods by serving as the power of negativity and a 'self selected scapegoat... bearing all negation’ (2004, pp. 176-177). In ‘The Music of the Ainur’ Tolkien constructs the mythic back-story for Melko. Although within the course of the Lost Tales Melko will share some characteristics of the Norse god (see Burns 2004, pp.167-169), Tolkien clearly gives Melko more overt characteristics of Lucifer (through being the Ainur with the greatest power and promise who desires his own individuality and consequently falls). Tolkien signifies this in his description of the Ainur Melko's entry into the word proceeding the other Valar – 'Now swiftly as they fared Melko was there before them, having rushed headlong flaming through the airs in the impetuosity of his

166 speed' (Lost Tales I, p. 65). In this passage Tolkien is clearly evoking the similar type of imagery that Milton uses to describe Lucifer's fall in Book One of , 'Hurled headlong flaming from the ethereal sky / With hideous ruin and combustion down' (Milton 2005, p. 44).

A critical examination of the different drafts of ‘The Music of the Ainur’ also shows Tolkien attempting to incorporate contrasting Catholic ideas on the nature of evil and its relation to the creation of his world into the mythology. In sketching out the early mythology Tolkien is clearly experimenting with mythologizing two opposing Catholic ideas on the nature of evil. First there was the followers of a Christian form of Manichaeism who claimed that evil is a separate entity from good. Contrasted to this was the Augustinian view that evil cannot create and only exists as a perversion of good (see Shippey 2005, pp. 108-110). Two contrasting passages from ‘The Music of the Ainur’ show Tolkien experimenting with these contrasting views of evil. In the first passage, Tolkien implies that the Ainur Melko's dark destructive thoughts came from a place separate from the God head Iluvatar, implying an understanding of evil as a separate creation from the good.

In this way the mischief of Melko spread darkening the music, for those thoughts of his came from the outer blackness whither Iluvatar had not yet turned the light of his face; and because his secret thoughts had no kinship with the beauty of Iluvatar's design its harmonies were broken and destroyed (Lost Tales I, p. 54).

However, later in The Music of Ainur Tolkien has Iluvatar proclaim to Melko that no theme (including the one Melko found in 'the outer blackness whither Iluvatar had not yet turned the light of his face') could exist unless it had its origin in Iluvatar himself. In this passage Tolkien uses his mythic creation to attempt to find some meaning for the evil of the world, suggesting the Augustinian idea that evil cannot exist on its own (Lost Tales I, p. 55). In the passage that follows Iluvatar declares that all evil things only exist as a product of the perversion of good and ultimately will serve a plan for greater good and glory (55). In this sense, Tolkien is reflecting the Augustinian view that all the evil in the world has a purpose and that in the end will result in something of greater grandeur and

167 more complex wonder. Like Tolkien, Newman had also explored both natures of evil in his sermons. I would suggest that Tolkien may have been influenced in his thinking by Newman's sermon, Ignorance of Evil. In this sermon Newman suggests two contrasting ideas. First he suggests that God did not create sin but permits it and, later in the sermon, declares that God is everywhere and in all and 'nothing exists except in and through him' (Newman 1997, p. 167).

Tolkien's thoughts on the role of the Valar in his mythology would change over time. In some of his later letters, when he describes the Valar, Tolkien would refer to them as 'angelic powers' whose function is to 'exercise delegated authority in their spheres' (Letters, p. 144). Tolkien also stated that they were divine because they were originally made and existed before the making of the world (145). By the time Tolkien made these statements, in the 1950's, his thinking on the nature of the Valar had changed, as the mythology changed, to them being much more remote and angelic than his earliest conception of the Valar. I would suggest that when Tolkien wrote this description, the Valar had come to be much more like the 'spiritual agencies' and angels of Newman's 'Invisible World'.

However, in the early version of the pantheon the role of the Newman-inspired powers of nature and spiritual agencies were taken up, in part, by another category of lesser Vali who Tolkien characterizes as 'coming into the world and serving the Valar' (Lost Tales I, p. 65). I will divide these creatures in two categories: 'spirits' and 'sprites', and would argue that with this second group of demigods, Tolkien can be seen adding and blending into his cosmology the Newman-inspired elements of Catholicism around the powers of nature and spiritual agencies, which I have explored above, as well as new radical ideas drawn from folktales and the tradition of elementals in the early fantasy literature of the German Romantics.

In The Book of Lost Tales, Tolkien introduces the 'spirits' group first by describing two groups of lesser Vali who came into the world with the chief Valar Manwë and his wife Varda: the Manir and the Suruli, the sylphs of the air and winds (Lost Tales I, p. 65). The aforementioned Manir, or in Gnomish, Manos, are glossed in the Gnomish Lexicon as spirits who have gone to the

168 Valar (PE 11, p. 56). The invented name Manir comes from the Qenya base root MANA, an unattested base root, from which Tolkien constructs words having to do with moral goodness and the overtly Catholic concepts I have explored above of the Holy Soul and Purgatory (56). The second group, Suruli, is constructed from the base roots SUHYU, SUHU, and SUFU which signifies words having to do with 'air breathe, exhale, puff, etc' (PE 12, p. 86). As the base root MANA links these creatures to Manwë through their first names, so the base root SUHYU links these creatures to the epithets of both Manwë and his wife Varda, Sulimi 'Vali of the Wind' (86).

Throughout The Book of Lost Tales, Tolkien signifies these creatures as agents and powers of nature. For example, in the ‘The Tale of the Sun and the Moon’, which tells of the creation of the ships of the Sun and the Moon from the remaining single leaves of the destroyed , the Manir and Suruli are depicted as agents drawing the golden cords of the Kalavente, the Ship of the Sun, and keeping it on course (Lost Tales I, p, 188). In other sections of The Book of Lost Tales, Tolkien gives them an angelic dimension; describing them as 'winged spirits' in 'bright choirs' who 'traverse all the airs that move upon the world’ (Lost Tales I, p. 203). Tolkien's Manir and Suruli clearly suggest Newman's depiction of the angels of the invisible world as powers of nature and spiritual agencies. Like the Manir and Suruli, Newman characterizes angels as 'ministering spirits' who have the power to traverse the visible and invisible worlds, as I discussed above. More specifically, Newman also associates these ministering spirits and angels with the idea of wind. In his sermon The Powers of Nature Newman states: 'I will attempt to say what I mean more at length. The text informs us that Almighty God makes His Angels spirits or winds, and His Ministers a flame of fire. Let us consider what is implied in this' (Newman 1949, p.167).

The second group of demigods that came into the world, the sprites, are described as accompanying Aule, the smith god, and Yavanna the goddess of nature and fertility: 'These are the Nermir and the Tavari, Nandini and Orossi, brownies, fays, pixies, leprawns and what else are they not called, for their number is very great' (Lost Tales I, p. 65). Several of these names for sprites also appear in both The Creatures of the Earth and on an accompanying sheet

169 of paper where Tolkien (under the heading Valar) lists these and several other names for these creatures in their categories of Air, Earth, Water and Fire (although there are no names under the fire category) (PE 14, pp.9-10).

Fimi explores the nature of both of these group of 'spirits' and 'sprites' and contextualizes them as products of Victorian spiritualism, which was based on the theories of otherworld agencies that have their origins in the works of Paracelsus. 'In his treatise A Book of Nymphs, Sylphs, Pygmies and Salamanders, and other Spirits, Paracelsus attempted to integrate fairy beings into a partially animate Christian system' (Fimi 2010, pp. 47-48). These beings were then taken up by several German Romantic authors of early fantasy literature. For example, in Hoffmann's The Golden Pot (1814) the fantastical creature Serpentina relates to the student Anselmus the origin of her father, the mysterious Archivist Lindhorst, who she say comes 'from the wondrous race of the Salamanders' (Hoffmann 1992, p. 74). In Fouque's Undine the supernatural creature Undine tells her mortal lover, Huldbrand, the elemental nature of her race which include 'spirits of the air, and the seas, the rivers, and brooks' (Fouque 1878, p. 12).

Therefore, I would agree with Fimi's suggestion that these lesser Vali were inspired by Victorian spiritualism and the imaginative description of different forces of nature as elementals which Tolkien would have read in the early fantastical works of the German Romantics. I would also suggest that, in developing this group of demigods, Tolkien also blended elements of the Newman-inspired angels and powers of nature into the structure of his own cosmology. Thus, in a sense, imaginatively attempting to do the opposite of what Paracelsus did: integrate a Christian system into a body of fairy and supernatural belief. Finally, Tolkien added another dimension to his second group of sprites with the primary world names of 'brownies, fays, pixies and leprawns' which all come from the realm of folklore. I would also suggest that Tolkien is also embedding in the Lost Tales the origins of some of the creatures of wood and dale that would become hallmarks of 'brownies, pixies, etc.' whose true nature, and role in the world, have been lost or garbled in time. This would be achieved through the framework of Ottor Wǽfre's hearing and recording of these oral tales which would become the lost

170 mythology of England. While these names exist in our own primary world fairy and folktales, the knowledge of the true nature of these creatures has now been lost. Tolkien is making the observation that those creatures who are thought of now as mythical fairy-tale creatures were actually divine Ainur who chose to come into the world and serve the Valar and are now diminished to just minor creatures of folklore and legend.

4. Conclusions

As I introduced at the start of this chapter, Tolkien was intellectually and spiritually formed by a dual focus on Christian beliefs and thoughts and the study of pagan literature and cultures. As I have shown, Catholic belief was very important to Tolkien and would remain so throughout his life. Therefore, when Tolkien started work on his own mythology it seems clear that he wanted to find a way to incorporate Christian ideas into the fabric of his secondary world. Throughout this chapter, I have explored several sources and analogues through which Tolkien witnessed varying forms of this incorporation and blending. I have critically examined one group of possible sources for this in the intellectual and literary background that Tolkien received through his upbringing at the Birmingham Oratory through the legacy of the sermons and writings of Cardinal John Henry Newman, as well as Tolkien's early reading of the Catholic mystical poetry of Francis Thompson. In both cases I have shown that the young Tolkien experienced a body of thought that itself contained elements of Christian belief mixed with contemporary ideas of Romanticism and Victorian spiritualism. In the case of Newman, this thought harkened back to an early pre-Reformation version of Catholicism that looked to the original teachings of the Church fathers and apostolic doctrine which was believed to have come, or been revealed, directly from Christ to the apostles. This body of Christian belief explored and allowed for the belief in invisible worlds and spiritual agencies such as angels. From the works of Francis Thompson, I have employed archival research to transcribe and analyse the report of the literary talk Tolkien gave on Thompson at Exeter College in which the young Tolkien highlighted some of the elements he found interesting in Thompson's poetry. I have argued that Tolkien would have seen in Thompson's poetic diction a creative and inventive use of language in the service of developing a poetic or mystical vision of Christianity. I have suggested that, in combination with his development of 171 the Qenya Lexicon as a poetic tool, Tolkien invented Qenya words with overtly Christian assignments in the spirit of Thompson's attempt to combine Anglo- Saxon words with mystical words of the Catholic liturgy; thus giving Tolkien's Qenya language a mystical or ritualistic aspect in line with the fairies leaving Kor on their spiritual mission to teach men song and holiness.

I have also shown how Tolkien attempted to use his language invention towards his overall early objective of creating a secondary world and mythology in which those specific Qenya words, and the Catholic ideas they signified, would co- exist and 'fit' with the other mythic concepts he was exploring. In his On Fairy- stories Tolkien uses the term 'green suns' to refer to inventing a secondary world in which the idea of 'green suns' would fit into the world and command secondary belief (OFS, p. 61). Tolkien's use of linguistic invention to incorporate these specific words with overt Catholic associations into his secondary world is an early example, I would argue, of Tolkien attempting to make these words and the Catholic ideas they signified work like 'green suns' in his early secondary world. Through his base root construction, the Catholic words themselves were anchored in the morphological building blocks of his own linguistic situation. For example, if the idea that is signified in English by the word 'crucifixion' were to appear in a Qenya poem or document it would appear signified by anatarwesta, a Qenya word rooted in, and linguistically consistent with, the Elvish concepts outlined above. As I have emphasized throughout this study, for Tolkien 'mythology is language and language is mythology' (OFS, p. 181) and in this attempt at linguistic incorporation, Tolkien was, I would argue, using language to weave Catholic concepts into the fabric of his mythology. While many of these invented words did not become part of Tolkien's early mythic narrative (which can also be said for many of the non-Christian related words in the early Qenya Lexicon), Tolkien did extract, as I have explored, some key themes from this early word invention which became major bedrocks and true 'green suns' of his mythology – the dual Newman/Thompsonian Christian/Pagan nature of his pantheon; those lesser powers who aided the Valar and had both pagan and angelic aspects; the concept of purgatory; and the holy-spirit inspired 'secret fire' which the wizard Gandalf evokes against the Balrog in The Lord of the Rings.

172 I have also demonstrated that through his early study of Beowulf and Snorra- Edda, Tolkien was given several key examples of how medieval Christian authors, writing for Christian audiences, worked with, adapted and shaped pagan material in an early Christian context. In the case of Beowulf, Tolkien studied the work of an author who did not overtly use Christian words (at least not ones from The New Testament – Christ, for example, is never mentioned in the poem) but did infuse the poem with Christian ideas and concepts. Contrasting this treatment is Snorri Sturluson, a Christian author attempting to incorporate Christianity into an older pagan structure of myths by suggesting that men had forgotten the true God and had wrongly turned to nature and 'animism' to explain the forces of the world. Snorri also suggested that a group of early men who were known for their powers had come out of the East, arrived in Sweden and were considered gods – called the Aesir. It was the Aesir who then tricked or deluded the Swedish king Gylfi by telling him the body of myths that were the Norse Myths, which Snorri told future poets they should know but not believe. Whereas the Beowulf poet quietly incorporated Christian concepts into his epic poem, Snorri made Christianity something that had been forgotten by pagan man – therefore suggesting it was there in the beginning. These would be two very different examples for the young Tolkien of how to use pagan material in a Christian context. I have also shown that Snorri's solution of communicating the pagan myths through a narrative 'framework' that treated them as delusions was one that Tolkien would adapt in his own 'framework' narrative which I will explore fully in chapter five.

As I have demonstrated, within the context of his secondary world, Tolkien can also be seen creating a relationship between the Christian and the pagan which mirrors the environment that works like Beowulf were composed in. This relationship also became connected to Tolkien's desire to link his mythology to the lost literature of Faerie, or England. Kerry characterizes this blending of Christian and pagan as Tolkien's wish to assimilate elements from real mythologies into his own legendarium – to firmly root his mythology in authentic traditions from northwest Europe, particularly Anglo-Saxon and (when they gave out as quickly as they did) Norse (2011, p. 75). I would agree with Kerry and also offer that Tolkien's project was not just an exercise in assimilation but in demonstrating how these two different systems of belief would work in this

173 same cultural space and time. Given the textual and linguistic analysis I have offered in this chapter it is clear that in the scope of his early mythology, Tolkien was attempting to model the environment of a pre-Christian world, or a world like the one that the author of Beowulf lived in; a period of transition between the pagan and the Christian. As I explore further in chapter five of the thesis, in developing his primary world transmission framework Tolkien would imaginatively construct a scenario when the pre-Christian pagan religion of Northern Europe comes into contact with the Elvish belief of the Valar and suggests affinities between the two belief systems, and their origins, from a common source (see Lost Tales II, p. 290).

I would also argue that another motivating factor for why Tolkien felt it was important ab initio to attempt to incorporate Christian ideas into his mythology, can be seen in the epilogue to On Fairy-stories which was added by Tolkien to the text of the talk in the 1943 revision. In this part of the text Tolkien explores the idea of 'joy' in a secondary world as 'the sudden glimpse of the underlying reality or truth – it may be a far off gleam or echo of evangelium in the real world' (OFS, p. 77). I would contextualize this with Tolkien's early attempts to create a mythology through which glimpses of the ‘true story’ could be seen among the other materials that had inspired him from his own creativity and pagan myth. This would be the 'joy' that would occur when in his great tales there could be glimpses of the 'true' story, initially signified through Qenya words with Christian meanings or Christian themes, like Purgatory and purification and divine messengers, that would peer through the mythology. Tolkien summed up what this experience would be like characterizing it as 'the joy that one would feel if any specially beautiful fairy story were found to be 'primarily' true' (OFS, p. 78). Tolkien also ends this passage by describing what this ultimate truth would be by again blending ideas of Roman Catholicism with his own mythology: 'God is the Lord, of angels, and of men – and of elves. Legend and History have met and fused.' (OFS, p. 78).

Another way to consider Tolkien's missionary statement that 'the fairies left Eldamar to teach men song and holiness' (PE 12, p. 35) is to suggest what would have occurred at the syncretic meeting of Elves and Men. A primary world analogue to this is examined by Borsje who outlines, from the Early Irish

174 Life of Patrick, also known as the Via Tripartita, the reaction of pagan girls to the coming of St. Patrick and his Christian clerics to Ireland in the fifth century. In this Saint's life the pagan girls thought the new Christian missionaries 'were men of the sid or of terrestrial Gods or an apparition' (cited in Borsje 2009, p. 60). In another passage the pagan Irish girls look at the clerics and wonder if they are Elves or even Gods (60).

Given his study of early Medieval materials it is not unreasonable to suggest, I would argue, that Tolkien could have read The Life of Saint Patrick or, at least, been aware of it.12 Therefore, when Tolkien wrote in his Qenya Lexicon that the fairies came from Kor to teach men 'song and holiness' he could have been setting up a missionary-like situation (a word, as I have explored, that he signified by invention in The Qenya Lexicon) where the fairies came to men but this time they really were fairies. The fairies brought with them the true message (or evandilyon) of Eru/Iluvatar. It is interesting that Tolkien uses the word 'song' here as this, of course, is how his secondary world was brought into creation through the Music of the Ainur. The Elves would have learned from men some of their own beliefs which became incorporated into their own thoughts and writing. Now there would have been a syncretism of the fairies’ belief and men's. Some of the concepts from the men's belief system would become translated into the language of the fairies (Qenya) and recorded in the Qenya Lexicon. Many of these fairies, or Elves, would later be the exiles on Tol- Eressëa where eventually Ottor Wǽfre would come to hear and record their tales and language which would become the Lost Literature of Faërie, or England. It is an intriguing thought, and given Tolkien's skill as a mythographer and language inventor, it may have been one of the roads he was thinking of when he wrote that line in The Qenya Lexicon at the genesis of his mythology.

After his death, Cardinal Newman was buried in the cemetery at Rednal Hill in Birmingham, not far from where Tolkien's mother Mabel, who inspired his own Catholic faith, would spend the last years of her short life. At Newman's request, the memorial stone had inscribed on it a line which referred to Plato's of the Cave in The Republic (Cornwell 2010, p. 345) ‘Ex Umbris et Imaginibus in veritatem' which can be translated 'Out of Shadows and

12 Siewers (2005) has outlined Tolkien's possible sources in Early Irish literature. 175 Phantasms into the Truth'. In his own mythopoeia Tolkien sought to incorporate in his mythology 'the truth' that he felt existed in the Catholic teaching that he thanked his mother for later in life. As I have demonstrated, Tolkien's early attempt at incorporating overtly primary world Roman Catholic words and ideas into his mythology shows Tolkien in a highly experimental and radical mode. Tolkien would go back and revise some of these ideas and in later versions of his cosmology the pagan Valar would take on more of the role of Newman's 'ministering spirits or angels' which Tolkien would expand to characters like the wizard Gandalf who he described as 'an incarnate angel – strictly an αγγελος' (Letters, p. 202). I would argue that Tolkien's early ideas around the blending of the Catholic and the pagan in his mythology never left him, but he learned that to truly command secondary belief, the overt primary world ideas had to be incorporated into the mythic framework of the secondary world. Although there is no mention of God or Christ in The Lord of the Rings Tolkien could still honestly say in a letter to Robert Murray S.J. in a letter from 1953 that 'The Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work [...] For the religious element is absorbed into the story and symbolism' (Letters, p. 142). In his mythic process at the genesis of his mythology Tolkien had moved along the creative trajectory of imitator/adaptor to creator and forged a unique metaphysical foundation for his secondary world. Through this process Tolkien ultimately learned to use his own invented shadows and phantasms to convey 'the truth'.

176 Chapter 4: The Role of the Visual in Tolkien’s Early Mythology

No study of J.R.R. Tolkien's written work can be complete without looking at his art. (Christopher Tolkien, cited in Artist, p. 33)

If you're going to have a complicated story you must work to a map; otherwise you'll never make a map of it afterwards. (J.R.R. Tolkien in a January 1965 interview with Denys Gueroult , cited in Wolf 2012, p. 156)

1. Introduction

In chapter two of this thesis I explored the two intertwined elements that are at the core of Tolkien's creative process: myth-making and language invention. In chapter three I examined the religious and spiritual underpinnings of Tolkien's early mythology. In this chapter I will introduce and explore a third element; visual expression. Tolkien himself derived his love of painting, drawing, illustration and calligraphy, like his love of literature and language, from his mother and her family, the Suffields, who were a family of illustrators and engravers (Biography, pp. 34-5). In a talk given on 24 July 1987, at the exhibition of Tolkien's drawings, watercolors and manuscripts of The Hobbit at Marquette University, Christopher Tolkien made the significant statement quoted above to underscore the importance of the visual in his father's work. Artist also links Tolkien's life-long work as an artist and illustrator with his work as a writer and language inventor (9).

In this chapter, I read the body of Tolkien's art and visual work from the period the scope of thesis covers to examine examples of Tolkien's visual expression at the genesis of his mythology through paintings, drawings, maps, invented writing systems and other related elements to demonstrate the key rule they played. I show that, especially at the start of his secondary world invention, Tolkien thought 'mythically' in paintings and drawings and later would extend this practice to inventing other related visual elements, such as maps and writing systems, to give his secondary world what Tolkien would later call in On Fairy-stories 'an inner consistency of reality' (OFS, p. 59). In a recent article the novelist Paula Coston, who knew Tolkien when they both lived in Oxford in the

177 1960-1970's, quoted Tolkien as saying 'There is always a gap between one's vision (what one 'sees' and 'feels’) and what words will do' (Coston 2014, p.13) . As I will argue, in the genesis of his mythology Tolkien employed visual depiction in concert with narrative and language invention to attempt to bridge just this gap.

This chapter explores two broad categories of Tolkien's early visual expression. First, the collection of paintings and drawings which Tolkien himself would linguistically signify by calling them his ishness paintings. The earliest of these paintings and drawings, dating from 1911-1912, start out as psychologically oriented, highly stylized visual representations of Tolkien's thoughts, memories, feelings and fears. By 1912-1913, the ishness paintings would become the first visual expressions of aspects of Tolkien's later mythology. In my analysis of these early paintings I bring in the theme which I have explored in previous chapters; namely Tolkien creating both a safe and private space to explore his early mythic thoughts. In this case he would do this through his sketchbook of his ishness images, The Book of Ishness. As I will show, this protected space gave Tolkien the confidence to move from painting images of his own thoughts and fears to visually expressing some of his emerging mythic ideas. I will suggest that in some of the very earliest examples of Tolkien's painting and drawings we can see the nascent ideas of his mythology being given visual expression.

The second group of visual documents are made up of maps, invented writing systems and a series of sketched heraldic devices. To explore the role and function of this particular group of visual elements in Tolkien's mythology, I will read them using several different methodologies and critical contexts. First, I will examine their role as 'para-textual' elements; employing the French narratologist's Gérard Genette's definition of a para-text as anything external to the text itself that influences the way a reader interacts with a text (1987, p. 8). I will also contextualize these specific visual elements as coming from a tradition of the New Romance movement. The New Romance was a literary movement that started in the late 19th century in Britain and was very much in fashion when Tolkien started working on his mythology. Saler characterizes the New Romance movement as an attempt to 're-enchant modernity' by employing and

178 embedding realistic and scientific methodology into works of fiction and fantasy (2012, pp. 4-5). Authors of the New Romance, including Robert Louis Stevenson and H. Rider Haggard, were some of the first authors to deliberately add para-textual elements to their fictional narratives modeled on scientific theories and empirical methodologies. These para-textual elements included maps, reproductions of feigned archeological artifacts, glossaries, footnotes to invented sources, invented writing systems and languages. I will argue that in developing his mythology Tolkien would follow in the footsteps of his New Romance predecessors by using invented para-texts to root his emerging secondary world in scientific (in Tolkien's case mostly linguistic) reality. Tolkien would incorporate these ideas into his own theories of fantasy which he would characterize as 'a natural human activity. It certainly does not destroy or even insult Reason' (OFS, p. 65). Finally, I argue that each and every one of Tolkien's visual expressions of his mythology, are important components of a much larger network of poesies. Wolf characterizes this as 'trans-media storytelling' in which stories are told, and secondary worlds are constructed, over several different types of media with each new text making a distinctive and valuable contribution to the whole (2012, p. 9). In the case of Tolkien's paintings and drawings this contribution would be through actual visual representation of mythic themes and images; while the attendant invented documents, employing visual elements, both deepen and contextualize the mythology by giving more information on the geography, languages, peoples and places of the secondary world. Wolf's theory of 'trans-media storytelling' also suggests Tolkien scholar Gergley Nagy's idea of inter-textual relations as forming the structure of Tolkien's mythopoeisis in his ‘The Great Chain of Reading’, Nagy suggests that Tolkien's 'mythic quality' is a product of a network of texts, some written and some only mentioned, which work together in the structure of the mythology and the reader's reception of it. Nagy's key point is that it is their interrelatedness and their claims to textual relations that make the texts themselves mythological (Nagy 2003, p. 253). I argue that Tolkien’s visual expressions of his mythology should be considered as a part of this system of texts that result in the mythic corpora of Tolkien's secondary world.

179 2. Tolkien's Early Paintings and Drawings and the Secret Vice of 'Ishness'

In this section of the chapter I examine two specific groups of early painting and drawings which Tolkien referred to collectively by the term 'ishness'. Tolkien's ishness paintings fall into two broad groups. Between December 1911 and summer 1913, Tolkien painted at least twenty pictures. At some later point, possibly around 1927, Tolkien found these images and put them into an envelope which he labeled as 'earliest Ishness' (Artist, p. 34). The second group, dating from 1913-14, are a number of paintings and drawings found in the sketchbook Tolkien called The Book of Ishness. Given that Tolkien retrospectively referred to the first group as 'earliest ishness', suggests that Tolkien thought these particular paintings to be precursors of the second set of more myth oriented artworks.

These were certainly not the only paintings and drawings Tolkien did in his early years. As Artist indicates Tolkien painted landscapes, forests (with an emphasis on trees), coastlines and Oxford streets (Artist, pp. 11-46). Tolkien's use of the term ishness distinguished those paintings he collectively assigned this name from his other early paintings. Tolkien's ishness paintings show a radical departure from these other early paintings and drawings. The highly stylized and radical nature of the majority of Tolkien's ishness paintings only becomes evident when compared with the other types of paintings he composed which I have outlined above and give a sample of in Appendix 4: Pictures 1-3.

In comparison to these types of early paintings, the ishness paintings suggest a different being used by Tolkien to give visual expression to his inner thoughts and eventual emerging mythic vision. While Tolkien's other 'non-Ishness' paintings show influence from Romanticism and the Pre- Raphaelites, I would argue that the visual language of the ishness paintings is more psychological, inward looking and representative of the post-impressionist and emerging symbolist movements of the early twentieth century. I would also suggest that Tolkien's ishness paintings can be seen as another recurring example of what Tolkien characterized in his talk on the Kalevala as 'taking a 180 holiday from the last three Millenniums and going to be wildly un-hellenic and barbarous for a time' (Kalevala Essay, p. 248). If Tolkien used his early poetry and The Qenya Lexicon to take a poetic and linguistic holiday from the works he was studying, then the visual counterpart to this same holiday was Tolkien's ishness paintings and drawings.

Tolkien's invention of the term ishness suggests several origins. Artist cites an intriguing supposition by Tolkien scholar John Rateliff that ishness comes from Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland and Carroll's ludic use of the word 'muchness' (65). While plausible, I would also argue that the invented name may either have come from, or inspired, a base root in Qenya that would become associated with knowledge and lore. In The Qenya Lexicon there is an invented base root ISI (PE 12, p. 43) from which Tolkien constructed words having to do with knowledge and lore; such as ista (know), isse (knowledge, lore), isqalea (clever) (43). This base root may have been incorporated by Tolkien from his 'ishness' idea which, as will be explored below, can be dated to c.1911. This intriguing conjecture supports the argument that these paintings may represent an early growing knowledge in Tolkien's mind that, in some cases, he first expressed visually before communicating through poetry, prose and language invention. Another possible origin may be the published Nevbosh word iskili meaning 'possibly' which in A Secret Vice, Tolkien refers to as 'odd. Who can analyze it?' (MC, p. 205). If this is the origin of ishness it may suggest that Tolkien thought of these images as possible visual representations to incorporate into his emerging mythology.

Tolkien started keeping The Book of Ishness sketchbook in January 1914. The art he sketched in this book would progress from stylized and psychological images to ones that would depict early mythic ideas and in several cases included references to poems or had lines from poems written next to the corresponding images. The construction of this book suggests Tolkien creating a private space for his imagination to take a visual 'holiday' and safely explore emerging mythic ideas through visual expression; just as he did with his 'secret vice' of language invention which grew to reflect Tolkien's own phonetic aesthetic. This recurring act of Tolkien creating a private space for his

181 imaginative visual exploration, is signified by that fact that Tolkien first started using this particular sketchbook for topographical and landscape paintings but then tore those pages out and wrote on the cover The Book of Ishness (Artist, p. 43). As with many of the books he owned during this period, including his Exeter College Notebooks, Tolkien marked possession of this book with the monograph 'JRRT' which he usually wrote in a flourishing script. However, in the case of The Book of Ishness, the JRRT monograph is found on the rear cover described 'curiously in mirror-reverse' (Artist, p. 43). No further indication is given by the editors of Artist why, in this particular case, Tolkien drew his monograph on the rear cover and in mirror-reverse. I would argue that by doing this Tolkien was visually signifying that this particular sketchbook was intended to include images that were the reverse (or opposite) of the landscapes and forests he was painting at the time. Tolkien was signifying that this was the sketch book of a young man who was the mirror-reverse of the Tolkien who painted the more mimetic images of the view out his window from Exeter College, Barnt Green or his Aunt Jane Neave's Phoenix Farm in Gedling. Going back to John Rateliff's suggested origin of ishness in Lewis Carroll, I would also argue that the 'mirror-reverse' suggests influence from Carroll's 'looking glass world' in his Through the Looking Glass and what Alice Found There (1871). a work Tolkien certainly had read this book and would have been attracted to the phono-aesthetic nature of such poems as 'Jabberwocky'. Tolkien's mirror-reverse monograph also suggests an element of Chestertonian Fantasy, which Tolkien explores in On Fairy-stories. The English writer and theologian G.K. Chesterton believed that the reversal of a common word created a sense of fantasy. As Tolkien points out 'Mooreeffoc is a fantastic word, but it could be seen written up in every town in this land. It is Coffee- room, viewed from the inside through a glass door, as it was seen by Dickens on a dark London day; and it was used by Chesterton to denote the queerness of things that have become trite, when they are seen suddenly from a new angle' (OFS, p. 68). As I will explore with some of the specific Book of Ishness images, Tolkien can be seen evoking Chestertonian fantasy by depicting common images such as trees, mountains and houses in highly stylized and radical ways suggesting an attempt to restore the 'queerness of things that have become trite' an idea, in embryo, of Tolkien's later thoughts on the role of recovery in fantasy (OFS, pp. 66-76). Tolkien's indication of a reverse or mirror

182 world aspect to his sketch-book also suggests what he would later say in his text for the revised Kalevala talk of using ‘a different part of the mind’ to access, and possibly visualize, fantasy (Kalevala Essay, p. 277).

2.1. Earliest Ishness – Nascent Visual Expressions

As I indicated in the introduction to this chapter, those paintings and drawings that Tolkien retrospectively called 'earliest ishness' tend not to have direct associations with Tolkien's mythic thought but rather visually express Tolkien's emotions, thoughts and fears. However, as I will demonstrate, a closer examination of these earliest ishness images shows the germs of some key themes and concepts that Tolkien would later explore in his mythology.

The combination of psychological insights with nascent mythological ideas can be seen in the first of the earliest ishness paintings, Before (Appendix 4: Picture 4), which depicts a pathway surrounded by two torches with flames in red. The perspective of this painting draws the viewer’s eye down the dark corridor to the door at the back of the drawing. This doorway to the unknown 'beyond' suggests the germ of a mythic idea which Tolkien would later explore in two places in his mythology. Tolkien would incorporate this image into the description of the Hall of Mandos, the Vala of the Dead (Lost Tales I, p.77) and also into the chambers of Melko in Angband (Lost Tales I, p. 103). Although separated by close to seven or eight years, I would argue that it is highly conceivable that this core image would have returned to Tolkien's mind when he was describing these two places of death and evil, each being described as having flickering torches. Artist also suggests that the 'megalithic' doorway of Before appears several times in Tolkien's painting of the Elvish city of Nargothrond for 'The Silmarillion' and of the Elven-king's Gate in The Hobbit as well as being mentioned in 'The Notion Club Papers' as an image that appears in Michael Ramer's dreams (35). Taken further, this image suggests the Bridge of Khazad-dum in The Fellowship of the Ring and the fiery pathway into , the Sammath Naur, in The Return of the King (36). Therefore, even in one of his earliest ishness paintings, Tolkien is establishing, or perhaps is drawing upon, his own worries, fears and possibly nightmares to mythologize a dominant image that recurs throughout his mythology.

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Another nascent mythic dimension to Before can be seen when it is examined in concert with the next related earliest ishness painting, Afterwards (Appendix 4: Picture 5) which was sketched at roughly the same time as Before (1911- 1912). Afterwards uses a lighter, almost pastel color palette, to depict a hazy figure moving along a torch-lit path. There is a dream-like sense to Afterwards (as opposed to the dark eerie nightmare feel of Before). Examined together with Before it appears that Afterwards has a slight hint of the red fire from Before in the lower left side of the picture, indicating that these are linked images and show a progression from one imaginative space to another. Artist suggests that, taken together with Before, these two images could be Tolkien's early depiction of the entrance to the world of the dead (Before) and the journey of the soul (Afterwards) (35-36). Although this is possible, I would argue that these two images have a closer association with Tolkien visually 'working out' the concept of the dream pathway which he would later explore in the 1915 poem You & Me And The Cottage of Lost Play. As I explore in the next chapter of thesis, Tolkien would develop this concept into the Olorë Malle, the pathway to Valinor through dreams. The hazy stick figure, which will recur several times in Tolkien's ishness paintings, suggests Tolkien himself and, therefore, shows Tolkien visually mythologizing himself into the journey Afterwards depicts. Given that date of this image, I would argue that Tolkien was using visual expression to become comfortable with, or give himself permission to, mythologize himself into his imaginary landscape which he would then continue to explore through his narrative and language invention.

Another earliest ishness painting which, like Before, possesses a dark occult feeling is Wickedness (Appendix 4: Picture 6) which Tolkien painted in December 1912. This sketch in black and red pencil contains dark, even grotesque, imagery including skulls and a hand with five fingers and no thumbs. There also seem to be eyes in the wall and a pot with fire coming out of it. This image has a Gothic Medieval feel to it. And yet the implied Gothic horror imagery is set in a room with a checkerboard floor and a basin or pot of some sort. In On Fairy-stories, Tolkien would refer to a disturbance of the mind that may occur in high fever which sees forms sinister or grotesque in all visible objects about it (OFS, p. 82) which suggests the imagery of this ishness image.

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Thought (Appendix 4: Picture 7) suggests Tolkien using visual depiction to develop an emerging mythic element. In this sketch a long robbed figure sits on a throne flanked by two stars with a radiance of light behind it. The figure appears either to be weeping or resting its hands on its chin. Weeping may suggest a visual foreshadowing of the Valar Fui Nienna who in the Book of Lost Tales was the wife of the Valar of Death, Mandos. Given her association with death, Nienna is described as 'fair of mourning and tears' (Lost Tales I, p. 66). Clearly, the image came first which may have then generated the idea in Tolkien's mind of a crying goddess. Tolkien would later construct a name for this Vala from the invented base root NYE(NE) 'bleat' from which came nyena 'lament' (PE 12, p. 68). More broadly, the image of a person with their hands resting on their chin is a standard image to signify 'thought'.

Tolkien's next earliest ishness image, Undertenishness (Appendix 4: Picture 8) departs from the darkness of Before and Wickedness, and also, for the first time, incorporates ishness into the name of the painting. This vibrant watercolor with black ink looks, on first appearance, like a forest with two prominent trees which suggests an early visual foreshadowing of another nascent mythological idea; namely ‘the two trees’ which would come to dominate Tolkien's mythic narrative. However, on closer examination of the surface image, there is an alternative image that visually emerges from the drawing of a colorful butterfly. Clearly, in this painting Tolkien is mirroring his use of verbal and linguistic puns I have explored in previous chapters with a visual pun of a countryside image juxtaposed with a butterfly rising out of the image. Artist suggests that this colorful image may represent the freedom and vision of youth which Tolkien spent in the Birmingham countryside. I would argue that this painting represents a nostalgic look back by Tolkien to an idealized version of his earliest time in the country. Given the date of the painting's composition, December 1912, the image of the butterfly might also visually symbolize the sense of freedom that Tolkien felt as he started at Exeter College. Undertenishness can be read, therefore, as Tolkien visually mythologizing his own memories of his life by using a symbolic language to show he had emerged in freedom from his early life in Birmingham. Further, I would argue that the image of the butterfly was a significant symbolic signifier to Tolkien given that he invented a word for it in his

185 Qenya Lexicon. From an invented base root GWILI which has to do with winged creatures, Tolkien constructed the Qenya word for Butterfly, Wilwarin (PE 12, p. 104) which, with its repeated w's, possesses a phono-aesthetic sense of wings fluttering.

In contradistinction to Undertenishness is Grownupishness (Appendix 4: Picture 9). This is a black ink drawing that Tolkien did in the summer of 1913 when he had just turned twenty-one. This contrasting drawing does not exhibit the vibrant colors and the playfulness of its earlier counterpart. The stark black and white image in this drawing shows a long faced person surrounded by strange markings which look like question and exclamation marks. For the first time in Tolkien's ishness paintings words are seen at the bottom of the drawing 'Sightless – Blind – Well Wrapped Up'. Artist suggests that this image is possibly depicting 'the black and white view of a particular grown-up, or of adults in general – a narrow vision, an inward looking attitude?' (38). Bunting, whose analysis tends to place a more biographical emphasis on the meaning of these earliest ishness paintings, makes an interesting case for this image being a depiction of Tolkien's Aunt Jane Neave who taught Tolkien geometry as a child, which Tolkien may have signified by the circles and geometric figures in the picture. The tonsured head of the subject recalls a picture of Neave in her graduation gown which Bunting describes as looking 'quite sexless' (Bunting 2014, pp.9-10). However, especially given the combination of image and text, I would argue that that the main figure with short cropped hair and, what might be small glasses, suggests more of a resemblance to some of the photographs of Tolkien's guardian, Father Francis Morgan. During this time, Tolkien had several arguments with his guardian over his engagement to Edith and his studies at Oxford (see Biography, p. 88). This could be Tolkien's less than flattering visual caricature of his guardian done in a time of frustration and kept secret with the ishness part of the name indicating this hidden and internal nature of the subject of this drawing.

I would also suggest that, like Before and Afterwards, the inherent meaning of these pictures is only revealed when they are explored next to each other. In this case the vibrantly coloured and ludic sense of Undertenishness is contrasted with the stark black and white and hastily sketched Grownupishness.

186 The playful visual pun of the first idealized image of time past is contrasted with Tolkien's angst-ridden statements. Both the exclamation and question marks suggest the hard, cold reality of Grownupishness where pure visual imagery has given way to an addition of words by Tolkien to emphasize the reality he perceived at the time.

A similar themed earliest ishness painting called Other People also shows Tolkien's frustration with the forces of the world. This painting has not been published but described by Artist as being on the verso of Undertenishness dated December 1912 (65) and, therefore, again may serve as the contrast to the early image of Tolkien's idealized past. The imagery of Other People, a title which immediately suggests a sense of other forces at work in Tolkien's life, is reported to be of a tall tunnel-like space with a small figure (as in Afterwards) setting out to walk down a narrow path towards a lighted opening. However the figure is menaced at the sides by huge figures that are described as chessmen (40). Artist suggests that the title Other People may imply the forces Tolkien perceived were in his way towards reaching his goals (40). One of these 'other people' would have been Father Francis Morgan. Bunting also suggests that these forces (represented by the chess men) may represent the opposition Tolkien may have been anticipating from both his family and Edith's to their engagement (2014, p. 9). Chess imagery has come up before in the checker- board floor of Wickedness (Appendix 4: Picture 6). Given the positioning of the seemingly self-referential figure, which presumably is Tolkien, to the other towering images on the chess board, this imagery can be read as Tolkien depicting himself as the 'pawn' moved on the chess board of fate. The role of fate in the directing of Tolkien's characters’ lives would be played out in his Story of Kullervo and then through such figures in his own mythology of Turin Turambar, Beren, Tuor and even the hobbit Frodo Baggins. Tolkien would also use similar imagery in The Lord of the Rings spoken by the Wizard Gandalf to describe the movement of the armies in the War of the Ring 'The board is set, and the pieces are moving' (RK, p. 790). In the same passage Gandalf refers to Pippin the hobbit, and newly made soldier of , as a pawn who will see battle 'And pawns are likely to see as much of it as any, Peregrin son of Paladin, soldier of Gondor. Sharpen your blade!' (790).

187 A similar feeling of nervousness, worry and, perhaps, even a sense of surrendering to the unknown, can be seen in another image from December 1912 called End of the World (Appendix 4: Picture 10). This painting shows a similar small match-stick figure, as in the past paintings, stepping off a large cliff into an abyss. This color painting with its swirling stars and moon is one of the ishness paintings suggests Tolkien using an impressionist pallet such as Vincent Van Gogh used in his paintings (Artist, p. 40).

The final published earliest ishness sketch, Xanadu (1913) (Appendix 4: Picture 11) is found on the back of a bill from Tolkien's tailor and was clearly inspired by Coleridge's 1813 dream vision poem Kubla Khan. Most strikingly, the imagery of Xanadu includes a 'spidery bridge', which is not mentioned in Coleridge's poem, and suggests again Tolkien thinking mythically about bridges and pathways from one place, or world, to another; a theme he would continue to explore in his Book of Ishness paintings and early dream vision poetry which I explore in the next chapter.

2.2. The Book of Ishness – Myth Becomes Visible

The first two published paintings from the actual Book of Ishness sketchbook each focus on landscape for which, as I indicated above, Tolkien had been originally using this sketchbook, but in a much more stylized and conceptual way. The first (Appendix 4: Picture 12) is an unnamed pencil sketch of a circular house with diamond windows in the middle of a forest with moonlight shining on the house. The house is surrounded by snow suggesting a Northern environment. I would argue that this picture's imagery has its source in Tolkien's study of the Kalevala. While there is no apparent direct image that this scene relates to in the Kalevala, the house suggests a Finnish sauna which Tolkien describes as 'a bath-house a quite separate and elaborate building affixed to all respectable homesteads' (Kalevala Essay, p. 255). My argument for the Northern association with this image is supported by Artist's indication that Tolkien would later use this same image of a house in his first Father Christmas letter, in 1920, to depict the home of Father Christmas on the North Pole which is generally thought to be in the same relative area as the north of Finland (Artist, pp. 43, 70).

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Contrasted with this pencil sketch, Beyond (Appendix 4: Picture 13) is a stylized watercolor that shows a pathway going into a mountain range with a star on one side and the sun on the other. Artist, unfortunately, reproduces this painting in black and white but describes the original as being 'brightly painted by category, pink star, purple moon, and black mushroom-like trees.' (Artist, p. 44) The starkness of this imagery combined with the bright colors suggests another post-impressionist influence, possibly the work of Paul Cézanne (Artist, p. 44). I would argue that this is also the first in Book of Ishness in which we can see the earlier recurring image of the path or roadway.

Eeriness (Appendix 4: Picture 14) continues to depict landscape in a highly stylized and now more abstract way. This painting depicts a dark forest with menacing trees. As with the earlier ishness painting, Before (Appendix 4: Picture 4), there is again the road that leads to the back of the painting. On this road is a figure holding a staff which Artist suggests could be a 'wizard-like figure with a staff' (Artist, p. 44). Artist also makes a compelling case for this image itself being influenced by an illustration that appeared with 's story 'The Cat who Walked by Himself' which was first published in 1902 in The Ladies Home Journal and then in the volume of Kipling's Just So Stories (1902).

I would argue that it is especially the next grouping of paintings in The Book of Ishness which show Tolkien's clear progression in employing visual imagery to depict his emerging mythic world as he moved from myth imitator/adapter to myth creator. The first of these paintings, The Land of Pohja (Appendix 4: Picture 15) is Tolkien's most deliberate visual depiction of a story from the Kalevala. The date of this painting's composition, 27 December 1914, puts it right at the time Tolkien was working on his own adaption of The Story of Kullervo and after his first talk on the Kalevala to the Oxford Corpus Christi Sundial Society in November 1914. This watercolor depicts an image from the story of the stealing of the sun and the moon by the evil , the gap toothed dame of Pohja and cold descending on the land of Kalevala (Runo 47). This specific ishness painting not only shows Tolkien's work as a painter but also exhibits his imaginative invention in depicting this moment in the story. Tolkien

189 visually represents the hiding of the sun by appending a paper flap that when closed depicts the Sun atop a tall fir tree and when opened shows that the sun has been captured and the land gripped by cold.

I would also argue that Tolkien's depiction of a scene from the Kalevala suggests an analogue and possible source of inspiration from the Finnish painter of myth and scenes from the Kalevala Akseli (Axel) Gallen-Kallela. Gallen-Kallela started his career painting several different types of subjects, including portraits and landscapes. In the 1890's, as the Finnish nationalist movement grew, Gallen-Kallela's artistic focus changed to depicting some of the key themes from the Kalevala and related Finnish myth. Like Tolkien, Gallen- Kallela used visual expression to depict myth linked to the emerging Finnish nationalism of the turn of the 20th century. This fusion can be best seen in Gallen-Kallela's The Defense of the (Appendix 4: Picture 16). Gallen- Kallela used a bright color palate to depict the scene in Kalevala when Väinämöinen steals the sampo from the evil witch of the North. In the painting the evil Louhi has taken the form of a bird to reclaim the sampo from him. According to the notes from the first exhibit of the painting at the Turku Art Museum in Finland, Gallen-Kallela's vision of a warlike Väinämöinen was seen as a radical departure from the old, gray-bearded sage of older renditions (Tanninen-Mattila 2009, p.101). In the painting, Väinämöinen's long, flowing white hair and beard are dramatically contrasted by his strong, muscular body. This image is contrasted with another painting Gallen-Kallela did in 1908 called The Departure of Väinämöinen (Appendix 4: Picture 17). This painting depicts one of the last scenes of Kalevala (Runo 50) which suggests influence by Christian incursion in the myth cycle. In this final scene the new king of Kalevala defeats Väinämöinen who sings for himself a boat of copper and sails away.

While there is, as of yet, no direct evidence that Tolkien knew of or saw the Kalevala inspired paintings of Gallen-Kallela, I have discovered an existing source published around the time Tolkien painted The Land of Pohja, which may have led him to look at and be inspired by Gallen-Kallela's Kalevala art: Arthur Reade's guidebook Finland and the Finns published in 1914 by Methuen and Company. Reade was an Englishman who lived and taught in Finland as a

190 lecturer in English. Reade's book contains a chapter 'The World of the Ancient Finns' which includes information on the Kalevala and excerpts from several of the runos. There is also the chapter on 'Finland and the Arts' which includes several pages describing the Kalevala-inspired art of Gallen-Kallela (there are, however, no photographic reproductions of his art). What may have especially stood out for Tolkien was Reade's characterization of Gallen-Kallela, which mirrors some of what Tolkien said he admired himself about the Kalevala - 'as go[ing] to the wildest regions of the interior and the most primitive people....to the ancient legends of the people and delights in the barbaric extravagance and the wild vastness of the “Kalevala” world’ (Reade 1915, p. 167). Reade also states that the subjects of Gallen-Kallela's paintings 'seem to dwell in wild pathless forests, or by huge mysterious seas, and to be in some ways pre- human in their disposition' (167). Reade goes on to mention the Kalevala paintings The Making of the Sampo, Kullervo, and The Mother of Lemminkainen (168). In the December 1915 edition of The Stapeldon Magazine under the 'Books' section there is a one-line advertisement for Reade's book (Anon. 1915, p. 190). A review of Reade's book also appeared in The Spectator in February 1916 (16). It is not inconceivable, given his interest, that Tolkien may have read Reade's descriptions of Gallen-Kallela's paintings in this book first and then looked for other, as yet, unknown sources to see what his Kalevala-inspired paintings actually looked like. The ishness paintings that followed certainly suggest a Gallen-Kallela-inspired use of a bright color palette with mythic imagery.

This use of vibrant colours to depict mythic imagery can be seen with Water, Wind and Sand (Appendix 4: Picture 18). The subject of this painting may also visually represent the dream vision narrative of Tolkien's poem You & Me which I will explore in greater detail in chapter five of the thesis. Interestingly, on this painting Tolkien included a text note linking the image to one of his mythic poems: Illustration to the Sea Song of an Elder Day (Artist, p. 46). The specific poem the painting refers to has its origin in an earlier work called The Grimness of the Sea, which Tolkien wrote in 1912. Tolkien rewrote this poem in December 1914 and called it The Tides and may have revised it again in summer of 1914 when he was on holiday in Cornwall several months before the beginning of his 'Earendel' exploration. The description in the poem of 'roaring

191 foaming music, crashed in endless cadency' (Artist, p. 45) suggests inspiration from sitting on the seashore and looking at the waves crashing on the rocks which Tolkien poetically describes as 'ancient battailous tempest and primeval mighty tide' (45). In early 1915 Tolkien added a more mythological aspect to this poem by suggesting that it was a setting from ancient times with the lines 'in those eldest of days' (Atherton 2012, p. 125). This would be the first step of Tolkien's incorporation of this poem into his mythology. At some later point Tolkien would rename the poem The Horns of Ulmo and then later changed its title again to The Horns of Ylmir which would link the poem to the encounter between Tuor and the Valar of the Sea Ulmo; in the poem Tolkien would use one of the Gnomish names of Ulmo, Ylmir (Atherton 2012, p. 126). In the attendant 1915 painting, Tolkien uses pencil, watercolor and white body color combined with contrasting colors and quick brush strokes to visually depict the lines of the poems quoted above depicting the violent power of the crashing waves which almost leap out of the picture.

The next ishness painting forges an even stronger link with Tolkien's mythic work by visually depicting both poetry and now adding early elements of Tolkien's Qenya language invention. Tanaqui (Appendix 4: Picture 19) is a pencil water color made in the spring of 1915. As with Water, Wind and Sand, Tanaqui employs a multi-color pallet to depict a hill upon which is a shining white city with a tall tower. Roughly around this time Tolkien also wrote the short poem Kor: In A City Lost and Dead which describes an abandoned city atop 'a sable hill, gigantic, rampart crowned' (Lost Tales I, p.148). However, as I have explored in chapter two, the name of the painting – Tanaqui – suggests an early attempt by Tolkien to utilize the base roots of The Qenya Lexicon to construct a name for either this city, or the high hill it sits upon, or possibly this is the view from the Mountain of the Gods (later to be called Taniquetil) on the abandoned city of the Elves. Clearly, Tolkien was using several different forms of expression, poetry, language invention and visual representation, to bring his mythic image of the abandoned city on the hill to life.

Tolkien's emerging mythology is most pronounced in the next ishness painting he composed, The Shores of Faery (Appendix 4: Picture 21) dated May 10, 1915. Based on the evidence here quite clearly the painting of The Shores of

192 Faery came first in May 1915 and the aforementioned poem, which I have explored as the first poem of the mythology in chapter two, came later in July 1915. An examination of this painting clearly shows Tolkien experimenting with new mythic ideas which he would then put into his mythic narrative. For example, up to this point in the published early poetry there is no mention of the 'two trees' as a mythic concept. In concert with the appearance of the two dead trees in the painting, the poem The Shores of Faery introduces them with the lines 'for there the two Trees naked grow / That bear night's silver bloom; / That bear the globed fruit of Noon / In Valinor’ (Lost Tales II, p. 271). Their importance is underscored by the fact that in the poem Tolkien capitalizes them as the 'Two Trees' and they would each become known by their own invented names – Telperion and Laurelin. It seems clear, that Tolkien introduced this concept using visual depiction in the May 1915 painting and then employed poetic narrative and language invention to incorporate this image into his mythic narrative.

Tolkien uses poetic and visual expression again in his next ishness painting The Man in the Moon which he drew in pencil, watercolor and white paint in spring of 1915 (Appendix 4: Picture 20). This painting, the style of which again suggests influence from Van Gogh, illustrates Tolkien's poem A Faerie: Why the Man in the Moon Came Down Too Soon (Lost Tales I, p. 204). In The Book of Ishness, opposite the painting, Tolkien wrote out four of the lines from the poem which includes mention of the Man in the Moon’s 'pallid minaret' (204). In both the poem and the painting Tolkien again explores the concept of a pathway but this time clearly as a road that takes one from the moon to the earth. In this case Tolkien describes the path as 'a slanting stair' and 'laddery path' (205). The painting depicts the man in the moon falling down this path to the far distant mufti-colored earth directly towards England. In the poem the man in the moon winds up 'in the Oceans of Alamain' (the North Sea) where he is picked up by a Yarmouth boat and winds up in a Norfolk inn (206). Tolkien's combined use of poetic and visual expression would result in him incorporating the character of the Man in the Moon into his mythology. In The Book of Lost Tales Tolkien gives an imaginative origin for the Man in the Moon which clearly reflects the early poem and painting. An old Elf stows away on the ship of the moon 'and dwells he ever since and tends that flower, and a little white turret he has

193 builded on the Moon where he often climbs and watches the heavens, of the worlds below' (Lost Tales I, p. 215). Clearly the 'little white turret' is the 'pallid minaret' of the poem (Lost Tales I, p. 232). Most significantly Tolkien now has made this character into an elf and names him 'Uolë Kuvion who sleepeth never. Some indeed have named him the Man in the Moon' (215). The Kuvion of the name comes from a Qenya base root KUVU meaning 'bend, bow' from which Tolkien constructs Ku 'crescent moon' (PE 12, p. 49). The first name does not appear in The Qenya Lexicon, but in the Gnomish Lexicon there is an entry under Ul 'name of the Moon-Fay (Q. Uole) usually in the phrase, Ul-a- Rinthilios' (PE 11, p. 74). Rinthiliios is found in the Gnomish Lexicon glossed as 'the orbed moon. The name of the Moon Elf' (PE 11, p. 65). Tolkien's creative exploration of 'The Man in the Moon' is another key example of how Tolkien used poetry, visual expression, language invention and myth-making to incorporate ideas into his secondary world.

After the War, Tolkien's visualization of his mythology in paintings and drawings all but stopped. Artist indicates that Tolkien added only four ishness paintings to his sketchbook including a landscape of trees, a memory of no man's land in First World War France and a tunnel or covered bridge (66). I would argue that this lull could be attributed to several factors. First, Tolkien's physical recovery after the War when he was in various hospitals and did not have access to paints. Also, as I have explored in chapter two, Tolkien's mission as one of the few survivors of the T.C.B.S. may have put more of an emphasis on his written development of his mythology and his objective to link it to the lost literature of England. Certainly, as I explore in the next section, Tolkien did not stop using visual representation in the development of his mythology. However, instead of painting and drawings sui generis, Tolkien would start to utilize art and drawing to invent visually oriented para-texts which would both support the narrative of The Book of Lost Tales and give his emerging mythology a sense of verisimilitude and depth.

2.3. Conclusion: How Tolkien Made Myth Visible

In the first section of the chapter I have argued that one of the key strands of the genesis of Tolkien's mythology was the artistic expression he used through paintings and drawings to give his emerging mythological ideas visual 194 representation. Tolkien clearly distinguished these paintings from others he did (mainly of landscapes) by inventing a word to categorize them, ishness, and by painting some of them in a special protected sketchbook, The Book of Ishness, which he clearly separated from his other artworks. Tolkien's practice here mirrors several other examples, perhaps as early as the Book of Foxrook, but certainly with The Qenya Lexicon and the notebooks of The Book of Lost Tales materials, of Tolkien creating a private space for himself to creatively explore his mythic ideas. As I have also shown, the distinguishing of these images from other paintings and drawings also suggest the inspiration Tolkien received from reading the Kalevala and his characterization of it as 'taking a holiday'. It was this impulse to 'take a holiday' which may have also have been the motivating factor in Tolkien's keeping this work private and protected; in a sense the exploration being a 'private holiday'.

In considering Tolkien's ishness paintings, in the aggregate, I would argue that he used visual representation to explore in radical ways some of the earliest mythic thoughts that emerged in his mind. As I have discussed the earliest of these images, which Tolkien would retrospectively characterize as earliest ishness, are more psychological than mythical in nature. I have shown that Tolkien's earliest ishness images offer a prism through which we can see Tolkien's hopes and fears as a young man starting as an undergraduate at Oxford, taking refuge in the nostalgia of an idealized past, becoming engaged to Edith and breaking away from his guardian, Father Francis Morgan. The Book of Ishness contains Tolkien's imaginative imagery that is more solidly focused on mythological themes and subjects which both support, and reflect, the core invented mythology that was emerging in Tolkien's poetry and language invention of the time. As inspiration for the visualized language of these images, Tolkien looked not to the past but more to contemporary movements in art (such as the post-impressionists and possibly the nationalist myth-inspired work of the Finnish artist Gallen-Kallela) to express these mythic visions. In his letter to Milton Waldman, Tolkien characterized the original stories of his mythology as having arisen ‘in my mind as “given” things, and as they came, separately, so too did the links grow... I had the sense of recording what was already “there”, somewhere: not of “inventing”’ (Letters, 1951, p. 145). I would argue one of the places these stories came from derived from the images Tolkien

195 visualized through his The Book of Ishess art. Therefore, one of the key values of reading Tolkien's early visual expression through the ishness paintings, along with his narrative and language invention, is that through them we can see the young creative and radical Tolkien emerging from the more popular image in the media of the older Oxford don.

Clearly in this nascent period of Tolkien's mythic invention we can also see an interplay between visual depiction, poetic exploration and language creation. As I have shown, in the case of Grownupishness, Tolkien used words to underline the frustration of the imagery; in the case of Water, Wind and Sand the imagery refers to text; and finally in the case of The Shores of Faery visual and text were explored concomitantly. Tolkien's combined use of word and image can be contextualised with what Nikolajeva and Scott characterize as the function of text and image in children's picture books: 'enhancing interaction, pictures amplify more fully the meaning of words, or the words expand the picture so the different information in the two modes of communication produces a more complex dynamic.' (2000, p. 225).

As Tolkien's confidence grew, text and image were used more conjointly, as in Tolkien's Father Christmas Letters, which were private letters he would write for his children supposedly from Father Christmas starting in 1920. In these texts Tolkien adapts the children's picture book structure described above, to tell a story using text and image with both components enhancing and amplifying the other. He would use a similar construct for the other stories he wrote for his children; such as and Mr Bliss which were, like The Father Christmas Letters, published posthumously. For The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings Tolkien would focus more on paintings and drawings or, as I will explore in the next section, maps (which themselves combine word, image and language invention). There are two places in his later work where Tolkien combines the word and image. One is in The Lord of the Rings in the published image of The Doors of Durin to the Mines of (Artist, pp. 138-9) with its combination of text in a highly ornate scripts and images from Elvish mythology (including the recurring ‘Two Trees’).

The other example that Artist gives returns us to the concept of Tolkien using

196 the visual to gain confidence in his narrative. Artist gives several examples from Tolkien's drafts to chapters of The Lord of the Rings where Tolkien sketches an image around the text he is writing to 'work out' very specific details such as the passages of Minas Morgul and Kirith Ungol (174-177). Even in this late stage in his mythic development Tolkien was still relying on the visual to help him form and 'work out' the ideas that he would shape in his narrative; a practice that he started at the genesis of his mythology.

3. Visual Para-texts as Key Components of Tolkien's Early World- Building

In the second section of this chapter I shift my focus from Tolkien's depiction of his emerging mythology through paintings and drawings to another group of visual documents which Tolkien invented in conjunction with his narrative and language invention. I critically explore three major categories of these visual documents. First, maps which visually express the spatial and geographic dimension of Tolkien's invented secondary world. Secondly, invented writing systems through which Tolkien would come to visually express his invented languages. Finally, I explore a series of sketches for heraldic devices which Tolkien made while writing the Lost Tales through which, I argue, he sought to visually reflect his aforementioned objective to link his mythology to a lost tradition of England; an objective I explore fully in the last chapter of this thesis.

I will read these visually oriented documents by using three critical frameworks which I outlined in the introduction to the chapter. First, I will explore the 'para- textual' nature of these documents using Gérard Genette's definition of a para- text as anything external to the text itself that influences the way a reader interacts with a text (1987, p. 8). Secondly, I will suggest that these para-texts exist on a continuum of similar documents which were influenced by the New Romance movement in fictional literature at the turn of the 20th century. Finally, I will conclude my exploration by bringing back into the analysis Tolkien's paintings and drawings, along with these para-textual documents, and suggest that taken together all of Tolkien's visual expressions of his mythology represent one element of the dialectic process Tolkien used in the trans-medial secondary world building found in the Book of Lost Tales. 197

3.1. Maps: Visualizing the Geography of Secondary Worlds

At the start of this chapter I quoted from an interview Tolkien gave to Denys Gueroult in 1965 in which he emphasized the importance of working to a map when telling a complicated story (cited in Wolf 2012, p. 156). This underscores how important the map was in Tolkien's mind to his creative process. Shippey has argued that Tolkien's integrated use of maps in his fantasy fiction produces a 'cartographic plot' and notes that 'Maps, Names and languages came before plot. Elaborating them was, in a sense, Tolkien's way of building up enough steam to get rolling; but they had also in a sense provided the motive to want to. They were “inspiration” and “invention” at once, or perhaps more accurately, by turns’ (2005, p. 133).

In this section I will explore how Tolkien's two earliest maps, invented as para- textual elements around his Book of Lost Tales, provided both early 'inspiration' and 'invention'. One of these, published as a reproduction by Christopher Tolkien in The Book of Lost Tales, is a hastily sketched portion by Tolkien of the geography of his emerging secondary world (Appendix 4: Picture 22). The second map to be explored is a much more developed and highly stylized view of the earliest version of the secondary world which Tolkien drew, and visually expressed, in the form of a ship (Appendix 4: Picture 23). Both maps clearly show evidence of Tolkien's invented language work in the names of places on both maps. In the case of the conceptual map of the world shaped as a Viking ship I will also suggest some key analogues from Classical and Medieval sources that Tolkien may have been suggesting by using this specific imagery.

Wolf characterizes the role of the map in the creation and structuring of imaginary worlds as serving two key roles. First, maps relate a series of locations to each other, visually unifying them into a world. Secondly, they provide a concrete image of a world, and fill in many of the gaps not covered in the story, such as gaps between locations, those at the world's edges and places not otherwise mentioned or visited by the characters (2012, p. 156). Related to Wolf, Shippey argues that Tolkien’s maps are larger than the plot of

198 his stories, as opposed to merely illustrating the layout of the fictional setting. When Tolkien drew his maps and covered them with names, he felt no need to bring all the names into the story. They do their work by suggesting that there is a world outside the story, that the story is only a selection (2000, p. 68). Pavlick characterizes maps, especially in fictional literature for children, as often leaving blank spaces, unfinished roads and paths, or differing perspectives. The visual nature of the space of a map draws attention to these absences and oddities, and these ‘blank’ spaces and perspective shifts encourage a greater interaction with the map because, in one sense, this strangeness and ‘openness’ engenders a projection of the reader’s self onto the map (2010, p. 39). Wolf and Pavlick's characterization of the visual 'para-textual' role of the map bears comparison with Nagy's concept of the 'untold tale' in which other story layers (some existing and some not) are mentioned in the body of the narrative to build the overall mythic narrative (2003, pp.239-258). I would further argue that the blank spaces and unknown places on a map of an invented secondary world (or indeed on any map) engage the reader in a sub-creative process through interaction with this para-textual element suggesting Genette's definition of a para-text 'a zone between text and off-text not only a transition but also a transaction; a privileged place of pragmatics and strategy, of influence on a public' (1987, p. 2).

Given this context I would suggest that the map in fictional literature and secondary world building serves four main purposes:

1. Maps relate a series of locations to each other visually unifying them into a world. 2. Maps are sub-creative suggesting space that may contain other untold stories. 3. Maps are para-textual; inviting readers to interact with them. 4. Maps are authorial tools – allow the author to world-build and keep track of locations (i.e. Tolkien's 'working to a map')

To these roles for the map in fiction, I would also add that the map, itself, can also be an actual artifact from the invented world of the story. This became a key use of the map by the writers of the New Romance which, as I briefly

199 mentioned above, was a literary movement in the late Victorian/Edwardian era that used scientific and empirical methodologies to give adventure, fiction and fantasy stories a stronger sense of realism. Victorian adventure authors, like H. Rider Haggard, whose work, as I have already discussed above, Tolkien read from an early age, used 'para-textual' elements like maps as artifacts from the fictional world of the novel. For example, for his 1885 adventure novel King Solomon's Mines, Haggard invented a weather-beaten map on linen, a facsimile of which was reproduced in each edition of the book (Saler 2012, p. 67).

However, the use of the map in fantastic and fictional literature did not start with the works of the New Romance. The earliest use of a map in fictional literature appeared in the aforementioned Utopia by Thomas More which as I have explored in chapter two had the earliest known invented and an accompanying writing system. More's Utopia was printed with an invented map. These maps were constructed after More wrote the narrative of Utopia. Therefore, these maps were used to give visual representation to the world More had already created. The first edition of Utopia published in 1516 had a map drawn by an unknown hand, while the 1518 edition had one drawn by the Dutch painter Ambrosius Holbein. Both these maps were woodcut prints and contained an oblique view of the island. A later, more detailed, map was made by Abraham Ortelius in 1595 (Wolf 2012, p.86). Given that Utopia used the topos of the traveler's tale, it is logical that More would develop both a fantastic geography (visualized through maps) and a fantastic culture (expressed through an invented language) for his Utopian world. In doing this, I would argue, More was setting a trend that would continue in fictional literature through such works as Swift's Gulliver's Travels right up to the works of the New Romance. However, the maps of Utopia were not only designed to illustrate the narrative of the story More told. Wolf indicates that the map of More's island included details (names of places, etc.) mentioned outside the narrative of the story. Wolf characterizes this act as 'an early example of the inclusion of things beyond the immediate needs of the story' (2012, p. 86). Therefore, even as early as More's Utopia we are seeing the use of the map not just as something that orients the reader in the world of the narrative but also, towards the second use outlined above and Genette's characterization, as inviting additional exploration beyond the main story of the narrative. The progression of the

200 detail in the maps shows the addition of more places on the maps which trans- medially extend the text for this story outside of just the narrative that More wrote.

One of the most pronounced uses of the map in a work of fiction before Tolkien was Robert Louis Stevenson's 1883 adventure story Treasure Island. Indeed, in contradistinction to More, in the case of Treasure Island it was the initial drawing of a map that gave rise to the narrative of Treasure Island. In an 1894 article, in The Idler, Stevenson related how he drew a pirate map for his stepson while on holiday which gave birth to his pirate adventure story (Stevenson 1894, p. 7). I would argue that Stevenson linked the drawing of this map, arguably a sub-creative act, to the use of creative imagination, which would result in his writing of Treasure Island. Indeed, in the article from The Idler, Stevenson describes the characters of the book arising from his initial map and that before he knew it he had several chapters of the novel written (7). Stevenson himself characterized maps, in general, in a highly romantic way describing landscape that included standing stones and druidic circles (7). In line with the New Romance movement, Stevenson employed scientific methodology in the invention of his map. Stevenson stated that he used 'an almanack' and he focused in elements that were taken from the real world so that 'the tale has a root there; it grows in that soil; it has a spine of its own behind the words' (ibid, pp. 8-9). Stevenson's emphasis on using an 'almanack' to have his invention reflect the real world can be contextualized with Tolkien's following the same rigorous methodology in charting the phases of the moon for The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings so that they would correspond to when he was writing them and make sense in the context of the story he was telling.

Stevenson's Treasure Island pirate map, therefore, serves both as both a 'para- textual' element that gives the reader geographic visualization of the world of Treasure Island as well as extra information outside of the narrative context of the novel itself. The authorial role of the map as a guide to the writer is underscored by the fact that Stevenson's original treasure map was lost when the text was sent to the printers and Stevenson had to recreate it from the narrative text. Stevenson characterized this second recreated map as being more embellished with a picture of a blowing whale and sailing ships and

201 concluded 'but somehow it was never Treasure Island to me' (8).

Tolkien's own earliest experience with maps came from his time as a boy scout while staying at the Birmingham Oratory. The Birmingham Oratory website has recently confirmed that both Tolkien and his brother Hilary were boy scouts during their time there. Baden-Powell's Scouting for Boys handbook (1908) contains sections on 'Reading a Map' and 'Sketching a Map'. Moreover, when he was at King Edward's School Tolkien was part of the Officers Training Corps (OTC). Brennan-Croft indicates that, in addition to drilling, the OTC also learned semaphore and Morse Code, played in bands and reading and drawing maps (2011, p. 99).

As I indicated above, the first of the two maps Tolkien invented for The Book of Lost Tales we only know through a published reproduction by Christopher Tolkien of a hastily drawn pencil sketch of a map his father made with text from the narrative of the Lost Tales written around it (Appendix 4: Picture 22). Christopher Tolkien characterizes this as a 'little primitive map' and 'it is no more than a quick scribble, in soft pencil, now rubbed and faded, and so many features difficult or impossible to interpret' (Lost Tales I, p. 82). This map appears in the context of published tale ‘The Theft of Melko and the Darkening of Valinor’ which is part of ‘The Music of The Ainur’ cycle of cosmogonical Lost Tales Tolkien wrote in 1918-1919. Christopher Tolkien reports that the text having to do with the now exiled Melko sending an emissary to the Valar is written around this little map. While in this passage the emissary of Melko does describe the geographic region Melko thought he ruled, 'from the dark east to the outer slopes of the Mountains of Valinor' (Lost Tales I, p. 162) it does seem more likely that Tolkien may have sketched the original map first and then wrote this text around it later (although without seeing the original I cannot be sure of the sequence). Certainly, the narrative focus of this earliest map suggests Tolkien's attempt to visualize the geography of a very specific area of the mythology around the story of the Valars' first attempt to light the world by setting up to two lamps in the North and the South by, not very wisely, asking the evil Melko to build pillars to hold the two lamps (Lost Tales I, p. 69). Therefore, I would argue, this earliest map is both geographically visualizing the world Tolkien was inventing while also serving as an authorial tool to determine

202 where certain key elements, in this case the two pillars, would be located in the story (the evidence of the map shows Tolkien trying different places for the pillars). On this map Tolkien wrote the names of several places which are products of his language invention of Qenya. Tolkien names the North Untumna related to the evil association of the North from The Qenya Lexicon (PE 12, p. 99). Related specifically to the story, Tolkien also plays a dark philological joke by associating the two pillars that are supposed to hold the first lights of the world with the names Ringil and Heklar which are formed with Qenya base roots having to do with cold and ice (and Tolkien even writes 'ice' next to Ringil). Therefore, the linguistic nature of these names has within it the very deception that would ultimately lead to the destruction of the two pillars by the villainy of Melko (Lost Tales I, p. 70). Indeed, in this case, I would argue that Tolkien was showing the importance of the meanings of words. If the Valar had only understood the names Melko had given the pillars they might have questioned their nature for holding the two bright and hot lights of the world.

This map also creates space that does not have all its places defined thus suggesting other areas outside of the narrative that remain to be 'sub-creatively' explored by the reader outside of the text Tolkien was writing. Even with this earliest hastily sketched map, I would argue that we can see Tolkien using the para-textual elements of the map to visualize his mythic landscape, showcase his linguistic invention, suggest other areas and, by association, other stories of his mythology and, from a practical point of view, using the map to help place things in his mythic geography. Therefore, Tolkien's earliest sketched map shows clear evidence of Shippey's argument that Tolkien's maps were both 'inspiration' and 'invention' (2005, p. 133).

Tolkien's second early map (Appendix 4: Picture 23) serves several of the same functions explored above; although, in this case, as described by Christopher Tolkien in his commentary, the mythic geography is presented in a more conceptual and radical way as a huge Viking ship 'with its mast arising from the highest point of the Great Lands' (Lost Tales I, p. 83). Christopher Tolkien also suggests that his father may have constructed this map in layers and that the 'the mast and sail, and still more clearly the curved prow, were added afterward' (Lost Tales I, p. 87); suggesting that Tolkien's addition of these elements to the

203 map may have been 'a jeu d'esprit, without deeper significance. That seems uncharacteristic and unlikely, but I have no other explanation to offer' (Lost Tales I, p. 87). I would argue that several characteristics of this map, including the addition of the Viking Ship elements, reflect much more than Tolkien's jeu d'esprit at play. Fimi characterizes the subject and make up of this map as non- realistic but rather symbolic, conveying the feeling that we are in an ancient mythological world (2010, p. 124). Building on Fimi, I would argue that there are several reasons why this map can be characterized as a complex para-textual element in which Tolkien synthesizes his mythic imagination and coeval language invention as well as his knowledge of primary world classical and medieval sources.

First, Tolkien's use of his own language invention is much more pronounced on this map than on the earlier geographic sketch. This is evident in the fact that, in addition to invented place nomenclature, Tolkien uses Qenya to name the map I Vene Kemen. According to the editor's notes in The Qenya Lexicon, the earliest meaning of vene was 'small boat' to which Tolkien later added 'shape, cut' and then in a later layer 'vessel' (PE 12, p. 101). Kemen is the Qenya word for 'earth' (PE 12, p. 46). Given Tolkien's depiction of the earth as a Viking Ship it seems clear that I Vene Kemen means 'The Vessel/Ship of the Earth'. In this visualization, the earth is a ship upon a series of water-like heavens all demarcated by invented words (Vaitya, Ilwe, Vilna). Of the constructed place names on the map, almost all of them can be traced to Tolkien's word invention in the Qenya and Gnomish lexicons.

The visual depiction of the earth as a vessel or ship (in this case a Viking Ship) suggests several ancient and Medieval traditions. Hynes identifies two possible relevant classical sources. The Greek Philosopher Thales identified water as the primary substance of the universe and believed that the earth floated on the water. Related to this, the Roman Philosopher Seneca the Younger likened the earth to a boat floating on the water (2011, p. 25). Tolkien would have known from his early reading of the Old Norse sagas that in Germanic myth the sea is formed from the blood of the and encircles the earth. In Norse myth the earth is characterized as flat with the world ash tree, , or the world pillar, Irminsul, in the middle. In his Viking Ship map, Tolkien inserted a ship's

204 mast at almost the center of his world ship boat. In Norse myth, as well, the encircling seas have a large monster snake, Jormungandr, dwelling in it which may have suggested the great whale Uin in the outer seas in Tolkien's map. Both the Norse Jormungandr and Tolkien's Uin represent the unknown nature of the sea and what may be beyond in the outer seas.

The earth as a 'world-ship' is also depicted in several medieval maps. Fisher indicates that one of the best-known medieval maps, the Hereford Mappa Mundi (c.1300), depicts the earth as surrounded by the sea (2010, p. 13). Finally there is the shape of the Viking Ship itself which evokes the tradition and culture of the Northern peoples of whom Tolkien's Ottor Wǽfre was to be an ancestor. In this regard, Fimi suggests that Tolkien's depiction of his map as a Viking ship comes out of the rise in interest in Viking Culture during the Victorian/Edwardian period and specifically accounts and reports of Viking ship burials may have influenced Tolkien to either draw or turn this map into a Viking ship (2010, pp. 167-8). There had been a major excavation of the Viking Ship – The Oseberg Ship – in in 1904-1905 and reports of the first and subsequent excavations may have reached Tolkien through newspaper articles or journals.

The Viking Ship form also suggests Tolkien's para-textual use of this map in order to link his mythology to a recorded tradition by the Germanic mariner Ottor Wǽfre and his descendants (I explore this fully in the next chapter of the thesis). Tolkien may have intended this map to serve as a published reproduction, along the lines of Haggard, of a symbolic map that the Elves made for Ottor Wǽfre to explain both the geography and tales that he was orally hearing. Given Ottor Wǽfre's Northern origins they may have used the concept of a Viking ship since Ottor would have been with a nautical image (indeed he may have come to Tol-Eressëa on a ship very much like the one depicted on this map). Therefore, the Viking ship design also suggests Ottor Wǽfre's attempt to understand the geography and chronology of the Lost Tales he was being told using a metaphor that he was familiar with. Finally Tolkien could be using the Medieval mappa mundi construct to invent a map that would become a much later invented artifact (possibly by Ottor's son Heorrenda or his descendants) of the vestiges of the lost tales that Ottor had

205 heard and recorded.

The two early maps which Tolkien invented as para-textual elements of his Lost Tales narrative fulfills the four key functions for maps in fictional stories outlined above. Both these maps give geographical and spatial dimension to the world Tolkien was creating, and they suggest other places and tales not completely covered in the narrative. Finally, especially in the case of the first map, we can see Tolkien's process (following in the footsteps of the New Romance author Robert Louis Stevenson) of 'working to a map'. This would start a methodology which Tolkien would continue throughout the development of his legendarium at all its later stages and would greatly contribute to achieving the verisimilitude and 'inner consistency of reality' that would be a hallmark of Tolkien's secondary world.

3.2. Writing Systems: Visualizing Invented Languages

If the map was Tolkien's way of visually expressing, for himself, and possibly future readers, the geography of The Book of Lost Tales, then Tolkien's writing systems were his imaginative expression of his emerging language systems. In his talk A Secret Vice, Tolkien made the link between invented writing systems and visual expression by stating that 'the faculty for making visible marks is sufficiently latent in all for them (caught young enough) to learn... it is more highly developed in others' (MC, p. 202).

As has already been analyzed by Artist (1995), Garth (2003) and Fimi (2010), Tolkien had a life-long interest in calligraphy and writing systems. Indeed, calligraphy was a family talent. Tolkien's Suffield grandfather was a descendant of engravers and plate-makers and Tolkien's mother inherited his skill of penmanship and adapted an elaborate writing style (Fimi 2010, p.105). Tolkien learned calligraphy from Edward Johnson's 1905 work Writing and Illuminating and Lettering and he was influenced by the 'foundational hand' technique (Artist, p. 201). The British Arts and Crafts movement, which influenced many of the book illustrations Tolkien would have seen as a boy, included the use of ornate calligraphic fonts and scripts. For example, the Kelmscott Press editions of William Morris's The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and The Fall of the 206 (1898) and The Life of Death of Jason (1895) contain highly stylized uses of calligraphy and fonts to give the book, and attendant illustrations, a sense of coming from a pre-industrial, medieval time when books were written by scribes.

As Fimi explores, one of the dominant features of all Tolkien's invented writing systems was his aim to achieve a system of phonetic expression (2010, p.109). The way Tolkien treated his translation of English into his invented writing systems as well as the spelling of his invented languages was not in keeping with the traditional concept of orthography; in which the sound of the word is very different from the way the word is spelt, since the sound changed at some point in history while the spelling remained static. Tolkien's spelling of his languages is phonetic: the languages are written as they are spoken, the 'letters' or 'signs' of Tolkien's scripts represent the sound of each word. (109) Fimi also makes a compelling case for one of the key motivations for Tolkien's specific focus on developing writing systems for phonetic expression as being influenced by the orthographic reform movement that was occurring in England when Tolkien was at Exeter College (2010, p.108).

This emphasis on the phonetic expression of language can be seen in the very germs of Tolkien's earliest invented writing systems to, first, phonetically express English; and, then, the invented auxiliary language of Esperanto; which Tolkien first learned c. 1907. First, in August 1904, when Tolkien was twelve, he visually expressed a message to his guardian Father Francis in the form of a rebus (Appendix 4: Picture 24). In this message, Tolkien clearly focuses on the phonetic expression of the words by using a combination of images, letters and numbers to communicate a somewhat chiding message to his guardian. Even at this early age, Tolkien was experimenting with visually expressing language in a highly creative and imaginative way.

The second example is found in Tolkien's 1909 Book of the Foxrook. Smith and Wynne describe the coded writing system in that document as having the two components that Tolkien's earlier rebus message also had. First there was evidence in Foxrook of 'a rune-like phonetic alphabet' as well as 'a sizeable number of ideographic symbols, called 'monographs' each representing an

207 entire word' (2000, p. 29). The nature of this invented writing system is signified by Tolkien's indication that his Privata Scodo Skauta (Private Scout Code) is 'per enskribo sur arboj au faro per vergoj kaj pajleroj (for inscribing on trees or making with sticks and straws)' (2000, p. 30, editors’ translation).

Tolkien's emphasis on the phonetic nature of this writing system is also signified in the next line of the first page written in Esperanto 'Kiam la vorto estas transilabita[...]la silabado estas fonetika (When the word is spelled out[...]the spelling is phonetic) (p. 30, editors’ translation)'. The editors also indicate that throughout Foxrook Tolkien shows how words spelled in the code-alphabet should be rendered phonetically in Esperanto (30-31).

After the code in Foxrook, there is no evidence of any additional invented writing systems until after the War when Tolkien was composing The Book of Lost Tales while working at the Oxford English Dictionary. In 1918-1919, Tolkien would invent two contrasting writing systems that would become connected with his mythology and be used, in part, to visually express his invented languages of Qenya and Gnomish. The first of these writing systems, which was expressed in pen strokes of curving lines, would become known as Rúmilian or The Alphabet of Rúmil. The second is a group of runic writing, imaginatively adapting the Germanic of Old Norse and Anglo-Saxon, which Tolkien invented to phonetically express Old English and in a series of documents, now called 'Early Runic Documents' (PE 15, pp. 89- 121).

Rúmilian invented in c.1918-1919, started as a coded writing system that Tolkien used in his unpublished private diaries. By 1919, it had become firmly associated with expressions of Tolkien's mythology and became known, within the context of the mythology, as The Alphabet of Rúmil; an ancient writing system of the Elves. Humphrey Carpenter first described this script as a 'mixture of Hebrew, Greek and Pitman's shorthand' (Biography, p. 100; see also Fimi 2010, pp.106-108). Tolkien's incorporation of this writing system into his mythology is signaled by assigning its invention to the Elf Rúmil who would tell Ottor Wǽfre the cosmological myth cycle of ‘The Music of the Ainur’. Tolkien would have been working on this cycle of the Lost Tales during the period he

208 started using this writing system in his diaries. During his writing of The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien would refer to this earliest Elvish alphabet in these words: 'The Oldest [Elvish alphabet] is the Alphabet of Rúmil. This is a final cursive elaboration of the oldest letters of the Noldor in Valinor. Only the completion and arrangement of this system was actually due to Rúmil of Tuna; its author or authors are now forgotten' (Treason, p. 453). This passage imbues this ancient alphabet with a sense of mystery and also suggests an unknown author; perhaps Tolkien himself. In a much later passage from 1959-1960, Tolkien indicated that the original names for letters had been , from *SAR score, incise > write. This was changed by Feanor to tengwa meaning 'letter' (Jewels, p. 396). I would argue that the idea of 'score' and 'incise,' suggests a more primitive nature to the sarati writing and suggests Tolkien reflecting back on the more raw nature of this early writing system which he later refined into the graceful Elvish script of tengwar which he would use in The Lord of the Rings.

Tolkien's use of the Rúmilan alphabet to express English phonetically can be seen in the first major piece of published text visually expressed in this invented script, 'The Túrin Prose Fragment', which was published in Vinyar Tengwar 37 (1995). This is a section from ‘Turambar and the Foalókë’, written in a form of The Alphabet of Rúmil dated to June 1919. It is written on the back of a cutting of an Oxford Dictionary proof sheet for the words 'sweetener and sweetening' which are on the verso (36). ‘The Túrin Prose Fragment’ (Appendix 4: Picture 25) is a transcription into Rúmilan of phonetically expressed English words that relate Túrin's coming to the halls of Tinwelint/ and, except for a couple of changes to nomenclature, is identical to what was published in Lost Tales II, p. 72-73.

Twenty-six additional documents using the Rúmilian writing system were published with notes in Parma Eldalamberon 13 (2001). Many of these documents consist of lists of Rúmilian sarati with English phonetic equivalents. The script tends to be variable, either written vertically, horizontally or boustrophedon, suggesting Tolkien was experimenting with different writing styles. In one of these documents, Tolkien again uses Rúmilian to express in phonetic English a portion of the Lost Tales narrative again around the Túrin story suggesting this was a major focus during this time (PE 13, p. 23). In

209 examining this particular document, compared with other examples of Tolkien's use of Rúmilian, the only slight difference in 'The Túrin Prose Fragment' is the use of a vertical bar to connect the letters. In other examples Tolkien does not use a vertical bar or, in some cases, tends to use a horizontal bar. I would argue that this variation in the writing system suggests Tolkien was implying different versions, or styles, of the Rúmilian alphabet depending on how it was used and by whom. Tolkien would continue to refine The Alphabet of Rúmil and use it through the 1920's eventually using it to express Qenya (PE 13, p. 62). There is also a published fragment of Rúmilan that Tolkien wrote horizontally which describes, in Rúmilian, the Gnomish language (I Lam-na-Ngoldathon) as 'written with traditional fairy letters' and also suggests the horizontal writing 'joins them side by side after the manner of English. The result is not entirely pleasant to look at' (PE 13, pp. 80-81). Although not indicated, this passage suggests Tolkien may have intended this to be a 'para-textual' document describing Ottor Wǽfre's description of Gnomish in the Alphabet of Rúmil which he learned on Tol-Eressëa, the Lonely Island.

The influence of the English spelling reform, which Fimi suggests can be seen throughout the Rúmilian documents with the clear correspondence of the Rúmilian sarati with English phonetic equivalents. For example, the first line of 'The Túrin Prose Fragment' when directly transcribed using the charts of the Rúmilian alphabet comes out phonetically as 'haw so that may bey' which is 'Howso that may be' (PE 13, p. 20). The character Tinwelint is phonetically transcribed from the Rúmilian as 'tnwlnts' (20). In a later document where Tolkien uses Rúmilian to phonetically express Qenya words he refers to Rúmilian as 'The Universal Eldarin Alphabet system - “Rúmil's Alphabet'' (PE 13, p. 62).

I would also argue that, given the actual primitive and raw shape of the sarati, or letters, of Rúmilian, Tolkien is suggesting elements of a primary world ancient alphabet that was also designed for phonetic expression. Garth indicated that the shape of Rúmilian was reminiscent of the Devanagari alphabet which was used to phonetically express the ancient Indo-European language of Sanskrit (2005, p. 251). Like Rúmilian, Devanagari ('the heavenly/divine script of the city') is a cursive script from 8th century India that uses a horizontal bar to

210 connect letters. The alphabet is a phonetic expression of a consonant along with a sound. Also like Rúmilian, Devanagari was used to express several Indic languages including Hindi, Nepali, and Marathi. Given Tolkien's early interest in philology, it is not inconceivable that he would have had a working knowledge of Sanskrit and at least seen examples of the Devanagari script in the books he read. Tolkien's use of a script that suggested an ancient alphabet, like Devanagari, also grounds Rúmilian in the ancient tradition of the Elves which Ottor Wǽfre encounters in The Book of Lost Tales. Smith suggests that some of Tolkien's Rúmilian is reminiscent of Japanese hiragana (Smith 2006b, p. 13). Hiragana is a Japanese writing system which expresses words phonetically as well. Related to this Organ makes a compelling case for the influence of the Japonisme movement at the turn of the 20th century on Tolkien's early visual works which may also have extended to development of Rúmilian (2013, pp. 105-122).

At roughly the same time as inventing and incorporating Rúmilian into his mythology, Tolkien also drew upon his reading and study of Northern literature to work with and modify several versions of runic ‘futhark’ alphabets for use in his mythology. I would characterize this work as the linguistic counterpart to Tolkien's narrative objective to link his unique mythology to the lost literature or tradition of England which I explore fully in the next chapter. Tolkien's exploration of runic script suggest Tolkien was not only attempting the link to a pseudo-Germanic past through narrative exploration of such works as Widsith and Beowulf, but also by exploring how these ancient legends would have been transmitted through visual expressions of various Germanic runic writing systems (PE 15, pp. 89-121).

The first of these documents, from November 1918, consists of a series of pages that are concerned primarily with Old English words, names and legends and shows Tolkien clearly thinking about linking some names and lost tales from Germanic legend (such as Weland the Smith), with the Valar of his mythology. Tolkien heads this page with the Old English a-Rune /ac/ which could stand for the 'the Angles, the English' (PE 15, p. 98). In this document Tolkien assigns certain words (many of them beginning with /w/ - the letter Tolkien was assigned to work on definition for at the OED) with runic letters.

211 The document also refers to the god Woden with the Anglo-Saxon statement 'he ærest sette bocstafas' (he first created letters) (98-99). Tolkien also writes several runes which come from the Old English . As I explore in the next chapter around this time Tolkien would use one Germanic character from the Old English Rune Poem, Ing, to link his mythology to a Germanic past.

Related to this work, Tolkien invented another system of runes which he called 'New English and Normalized Old English Runes' (PE 13, pp. 102-104). These are listings of Old English runes with a number of additional runes invented by Tolkien for improved phonetic expression of English. Tolkien uses the modified runic alphabet to transcribe his own name in the right margin which is phonetically spelled out as 'gon.ronald.ruil{.}.tolkin' (105). On another sheet Tolkien wrote out a table of Waldemar's Runen and Gothic and Old English Letters (PE 15, p 107). King Waldemar II was a 13th century ruler of Denmark who is associated with a late runic system that sought to modify the traditional futhark sequence of letters in the runic alphabet. Tolkien's outlining of Waldemar's Runes next to the Gothic and Old English versions of the runic alphabets suggests he was exploring other ways to express, or build upon, the phonetic elements of English in runes.

Tolkien incorporates both types of scripts into his The Book of Lost Tales narrative as well. In his description of the Valar, which would have been written around the time he was working on the runic alphabets in 1918-1919, Tolkien states that Aule the master of crafts 'aided by the Gnomes contrived alphabets and scripts, and on the walls of Kor were many dark tales written in picture symbols and runes of great beauty were drawn there too or carved upon stones' (Lost Tales I, p. 141). Reading both this specific Lost Tales passage quoted above with the attendant Rúmilian and Runic para-textual documents, I would argue that we can see Tolkien reflecting concepts of primary world philology and orthographic reform into his secondary world. Tolkien builds this idea into the character and back-story of the Elf Rúmil, who is clearly modeled on a philologist. Rúmil tells Eriol that he has grey hairs in the study of all the tongues of Valar and Eldar (Lost Tales I, p. 47). He also indicates that in thralldom to Melko he learned the speech of monsters and goblins, bird and beasts and even the tongues of Men which ‘shift and change, change and shift’ (47). In

212 inventing this alphabet, Rúmil (read Tolkien) was clearly looking to create a phonetic system which would express all these tongues in a 'Universal Eldarin alphabet system'; reflecting an idealized and mythologized version of the orthographic reform Tolkien put forth and voted for in the Exeter College debate of 1914 on English Spelling Reform (Garth 2003, p. 49).

Tolkien would continue to develop and modify systems of Germanic runes which he would incorporate into his mythology as the writing system of the Norse-inspired in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. What would clearly remain a constant in all of Tolkien's invented writing systems is their focus on visualizing the phonetic nature of letters and words. Tolkien emphasized this in the appendix on writing and spelling in The Lord of the Rings where he characterizes an alphabet as 'a haphazard series of letters, each with an independent value of its own, recited in traditional order that has no reference either to their shapes or to the functions' (RK, p. 1069).

3.3. Heraldic Devices of Tol-Erethrin

The final group of visually oriented para-textual documents that I will explore, as with Tolkien's systems of runes explored above, suggest a direct linkage to Tolkien's objective to connect his mythology to the Lost Tradition of England. 'The Heraldic Devices of Tol-Erethrin' are three sketches of heraldic devices found on loose leaves which Tolkien inserted into one of his Lost Tales notebooks. Reproductions of these sheets were published with notes in Parma Eldalamberon 13 (2001) (Appendix 4: Pictures 26-28). Each of these designs incorporates myth and language invention with visual representation to anchor these para-textual artefacts to the lost mythology of England. These series of heraldic devices from c.1917, perhaps inspired by a combination of Tolkien's return to Edith after the War and his work on the description of the emblems of the eleven houses of the Gondolithim in 'The Fall of Gondolin' (Lost Tales II, pp.172-174), represent three towns that had great significance for him and Edith: Great Haywood in Staffordshire (where Tolkien was recuperating), Warwick, where Tolkien had lived and married Edith and which he had already 'mythologized' in The Qenya Lexicon, and Cheltenham, where Tolkien had travelled to shortly after his twenty-first birthday to ask the, then, engaged Edith 213 Bratt to break off her engagement to George Field and marry him instead.

The para-textual element to his mythic and linguistic invention is seen in Tolkien's use of the Gnomish language to title these documents: i-Glin Grandin a Dol Erethrin (PE 13, p. 93).The Gnomish word glin is contested. It either has something to do with 'sound' or 'voice' or, given the sense here, coming more likely from a Qenya cognate meaning 'attractive, important' (93). Dol Erethrin is the Gnomish cognate of Qenya Tol-Eressëa; with the Gnomish world ERETH meaning solitude, oneness, loneliness (PE 11, p. 32) related to QL ERE meaning alone (PE 12, p. 36). Grann is 'a strong place, fort, walled town' in Gnomish (PE 11, p. 42). Therefore, the title in Gnomish for these sketches of heraldic devices collectively reads 'The Important/Attractive Places of The Lonely Island'. In these 'para-textual' documents, Tolkien pays homage to these three significant places in his and Edith's life by signifying them, through myth and linguistic invention, as having once been three important towns on Tol-Eressea, the Lonely Island, which would become England. On the first device, the pre-historic Great Haywood in Staffordshire is incorporated into the Gnomish language, and thus the mythology, as Taurobel or Tavrobel meaning 'wood home or hay wood' (PE 11, p. 69). On the heraldic device, Tolkien signifies that Tavrobel would become today's Great Haywood by including the imagery of a bridge with three entrances for water which still exists to this day. In a similar manner, on the heraldic device for Cortirion/Warwick, underneath the Tower of Cor-tirion Tolkien drew a peacock, which suggests the line in his earlier poem Kortirion Among the Trees 'where even now the peacocks pace a stately drill' (Lost Tales I, p.26).

In the third sketch for the heraldic device of the town of Celbaros there is an image of a fountain which suggests a Gnomish version of the English spa town of Cheltenham (96). On this device Tolkien includes two linked rings with the Gnomish inscription 'bod'ominthadriel' words found in the Gnomish Lexicon as 'back (bod) together (gomintha) again (riel)'. Tolkien is here clearly visually depicting, and mythologizing, his reunion with Edith in Cheltenham in January 1913 when they became engaged after being kept apart for so long by Father Francis.

214 Given the intricate nature of these sketches, including the display of language invention, Tolkien may have been intending them to be printed in a published volume as para-textual images. While Celbaros is not mentioned in any of the known Book of Lost Tales stories, its place on the map would have inspired the readers’ own thoughts and imaginative exploration of what this place could be; again suggesting Nagy's idea of the mentioned but not told tale.

4. Conclusions

In this chapter of the thesis I have explored the crucial role visual expression played in the genesis of Tolkien's mythology. I have shown that all the visual elements considered show Tolkien employing visual expression to shape the mythological ideas that were forming in his mind as he thought creatively and expansively about his new unique mythology. Tolkien clearly distinguished some paintings and drawings from others by giving them an invented name, ishness, and keeping many of them in a protected and private book, The Book of Ishness, where Tolkien felt free to let his mythic ideas run wild as he 'took a holiday' from the everyday world. Tolkien's early mythic art, like the early Lost Tales, when compared to similar versions of the same tales he would tell later, reflect a more experimental and raw Tolkien who, I would argue, was looking to create some of the same primitiveness and rawness that he found as a pleasing quality in the Kalevala. In On Fairy-stories Tolkien would use the expression 'arresting strangeness' (OFS, p.60) to describe this sense and, as I have shown, the germ of this idea can be seen in the mythic paintings and drawings of The Book of Ishness.

In terms of Tolkien's development of para-texts, I have shown that Tolkien was building upon the tradition of the New Romance authors to use scientific and empirical methodologies to ground fiction and fantasy in a sense of reality. In the case of the specific para-texts I have explored, the dominant factor that comes through is, not surprisingly, Tolkien's language invention. Tolkien's two earliest maps, the start of many more to follow, gave his secondary world a geographic and spatial dimension filled by places that Tolkien named, and thus created, through his consistent and coherent language invention. With his invented writing systems, Tolkien drew upon the contemporary movements in orthographic reform to invent two contrasting systems of visual linguistic and 215 phonetic expression that could transcribe English and his invented languages into writing systems that reflect an ancient Elvish tradition (The Alphabet of Rúmil) and the pseudo-Germanic history which the mariner Ottor Wǽfre belonged to (The Early Runes). Within the context of the mythology, and the transmission frame, Tolkien may have intended Ottor to introduce these runic alphabets to the Elves on Tol-Eressëa or, as I explore in the next chapter, based on the transmission legend of the Germanic hero Ing, Ottor may have found a version of them already in use by the Elves.

Given the fact that I cannot definitely determine how Tolkien intended these specific para-texts to be used if he had published his The Book of Lost Tales materials, the only way I can really evaluate their literary value is to examine how Tolkien used similar para-textual documents in the works he himself did publish; namely The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Maps would certainly play an important role in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Indeed, I would argue that Tolkien's use of maps in these published works would be a major force in shaping the way modern fantasy are presented to readers with the ubiquitous map that appears in the front of the book. Diana Jones in her fantasy novel parody, The Tough Guide to Fantasyland (1996), makes it a rule that the fantasy journey, or , must start at one corner of the map ‘as far away from anywhere possible’ which shows definite influence from Tolkien's later maps of Middle-Earth and (cited in Wolf 2012, p. 157). The use of the map would even transfer to other related media; as has been seen recently in Peter Jackson's cinematic adaptations of The Lord of the Rings and the start of the recent television version of George R.R. Martin's where a map of the invented world of Westeros is given in the opening non-diegetic credits to orient the viewer.

In terms of invented writing systems, in The Hobbit, Tolkien included a para- textual document on how readers can understand the runes in the maps found on Thror's Map, especially the important moon runes that played a key part in the plot of The Hobbit. The greatest and possibly largest use of para-texts by Tolkien is found in The Lord of the Rings with its six published appendices of para-textual documents covering chronologies, family trees, information on the invented languages and writing systems and calendars (indeed, covering

216 almost every category that authors of the New Romance included in their novels). If there is a clue to how Tolkien might have used and developed the early para-texts of The Book of Lost Tales period it can be seen in the work he put into these additions to the narrative text which delayed the publication of the final volume of The Return of the King (see Letters, pp 208-209).

Therefore, I would argue that Tolkien's earliest use of visually expressed para- texts in The Book of Lost Tales can be seen as the first steps on a road that led to him using these types of documents to give the readers of his published stories more information on the people, places, history and language of his mythology. This in turn caused the readers of these works to ask for even more information. It was this collection of para-texts that fulfilled Genette's definition of a para-text as anything external to the text itself that influences the way a reader interacts with a text (1987, p. 8).Tolkien's published para-texts were not only read but used by readers to interact and build upon what Tolkien had written. In the same letter cited above, Tolkien reflected on the effect para- textual documents have on the author/reader relationship which he said was 'a tribute to the curious effect the story has, when based on very elaborate and detailed workings of geography, chronology and language, that so many should clamour for sheer “information” or “lore”' (Letters, p. 211).

Finally by reading all of Tolkien's visual elements in the aggregate I would suggest that they also serve as one key component of the trans-media storytelling Tolkien achieved throughout his myth-making; starting with this earliest work on The Book of Lost Tales materials. In his analysis, Wolf uses Henry Jenkins' definition of trans-media storytelling as the distribution of stories over and across a variety of media (2012, p. 9). While Wolf and Jenkins are conceptualizing this idea as using different forms of modern media (narrative, film, television, online games, fan fiction, etc.) to build secondary worlds, I would argue that, as early as the creation of The Book of Lost Tales, Tolkien was already using the different types of 'media' available to him and his contemporaries (narrative, language invention, paintings, drawings, and para- textual documents) to world-build. Wolf quotes Jenkins as saying that in a trans-media story each new text makes a distinctive and valuable contribution to the whole (9). As I have explored, each visual element Tolkien invented,

217 whether it be painting, drawing or para-textual element, can be characterized as fulfilling Jenkins requirements, as well as providing the 'invention' and 'inspiration' that Shippey suggests. Tolkien's use of a trans-media framework for telling his story, before such a term was even coined, also suggests Nagy's concept of The Great Chain of Reading and Tolkien's creation of historic depth by suggesting many layers, some existing some not, that make up the mythology.

As I have shown those 'texts' that make up the overall corpus of Tolkien’s legendarium are to be found not just in Tolkien's written, and unwritten narratives but also in the visual expressions of his mythology starting with the early painting, drawings and visually related para-textual elements I have explored. That Tolkien was already using these world building techniques at the genesis of his mythology is a testament to those works of the New Romance that influenced him and his own explorations of myth through visual and written expression and language invention by which Tolkien moved from imitator/adapter to creator of a unique corpus of legend and story that has become the standard by which all modern fantasy works are measured.

218 Chapter 5: Inventing Frameworks

A story must be told or there'll be no story (Letters, 1945, p. 110)

5. Introduction

In this last chapter of the thesis I address the final key component of Tolkien's creative thinking which emerges from the earliest forms of his mythology. This is the importance of inventing frameworks that would create links between the 'primary' world and Tolkien's invented secondary world. Bound up with this is the importance in Tolkien's conception of the transmission of story which is exemplified in the quote at the start of this chapter from a letter by Tolkien to his son Christopher.

In this chapter I will focus on instances where Tolkien invented a narrative framework around the body of his emerging mythology to create a connection with, and transmission to, the primary world. First, I critically analyse Tolkien's attempt to make this connection in poetry and language invention through dreams and dream visions. My analysis suggests several sources and analogues drawn from mythology and medieval sources. I also explore the context of psychoanalysis and the way it examined the meaning of dreams at the turn of the 20th century. Finally, I compare Tolkien’s earlier dream ‘frameworks’ with the role of dreams in works of Romanticism and early fantasy literature. At the same time, I show how Tolkien attempted to linguistically incorporate signifiers of dreams and dream vision into the fabric of his mythology through his Qenya Lexicon.

Secondly, I explore Tolkien's use of his language invention in The Qenya Lexicon to make linguistic connections between primary world places and his emerging mythology. I especially explore cases where Tolkien's name invention focuses on mythically incorporating places in England, and show how Tolkien reflected this in several early poems. I argue that this early language invention and exploration in poetry were the germs of Tolkien's post-War 219 attempts to make more direct links to his mythology through including in his writing of The Book of Lost Tales a transmission ‘framework’, partially drawing upon the traveller’s tale motif of aforementioned works like Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, through which a primary world mariner would encounter the exiled Elves on Tol-Eressëa, the Lonely Island, hear and record their stories. These stories would become the Lost Tales that would be included in the 'The Golden Book of Heorrenda being the book of The Tales of Tavrobel' (Lost Tales II, p. 290). Through historic transmission, and the re-imaging and re- conceptualization of Germanic myth and legend, Tolkien would invent two contrasting transmission 'frameworks' by which his mythology would become the lost literature of Faërie, or England. As I show, Tolkien combined his other ideas about dreams and dream vision into the nature of his first mariner character, the Germanic Ottor Wǽfre, whom the Elves named Eriol 'he who dreams alone' (Lost Tales I, p.14). Ottor/Eriol would be a pre-English pagan mariner whose descendants were Germanic legendary characters going back to the god Woden. Ottor would not only encounter the exiled Elves on a Faërie version of a land which would later become England and hear and record their oral tales, but also become an active part of the later history of the Elves. Ottor would marry one of the Elves and have a son by her whose name would be Heorrenda. Ottor not only journeys to and encounters Faërie but becomes a part of it and takes part in the later history of the exiled Elves. The Book of Lost Tales was to be a remembrance of the stories he heard from the Elves by him and his son. Heorrenda. These characteristics change with Tolkien's second portal character, Ælfwine, who is an Anglo-Saxon rooted much more in legend verging on history who sails from England (a real England in history) to the island of Tol-Eressëa. In structuring these two contrasting frameworks for the transmission of his mythology I argue that Tolkien is also commenting on the nature of myth and legend and what occurs when they are both transmitted over time. I conclude this chapter by showing that Tolkien never abandoned the idea of dreams, and dream vision completely in his creative work and through these early attempts at inventing a dream vision transmission framework Tolkien would eventually develop a unique idea of how dreams could work and 'fit' in his secondary world called 'Faërian Drama'.

220 6. Dreams and Dream Vision as Early Transmission Frameworks

Was it down the paths of firelight dreams / in winter cold and white (Lost Tales I, p. 28)

Of those misty aftermemories of these, of their broken tales and snatches of song, came many strange legends that delighted Men for long, and still do, it may be, for of such were the poets of the Great Lands. (Lost Tales I, p. 19)

If you are present at a Faërian Drama you yourself are, or think that you are, bodily inside its Secondary world. The experience may be very similar to dreaming and has (it would seem) sometimes (by men) been confounded with it. (OFS, p. 63)

The three quotations above each represent different phases in Tolkien's creative development of the role of dreams and dream vision as a transmission 'framework' in his mythology. Flieger indicates that ‘dream’ as both a word and concept occurs early in Tolkien's work and in contexts of some significance (1997, p. 165). The first quote, from Tolkien's spring 1915 poem, You and Me and The Cottage of Lost Play, underscores Flieger's point of the early importance of dreams in Tolkien's creative thought. The second quote comes from ‘The Cottage of Lost Play’ in which Tolkien explored and built upon his earlier dream vision in You and Me by incorporating this concept into his mythology linked to his post War objective to create a mythology for England which I will explore further in the next section of this chapter. The last quote, from On Fairy-stories, signifies the advancement of Tolkien's thinking on the role of dreams now expressed in a unique construct called 'Faërian Drama' (OFS, p. 63). Tolkien's unique construct of 'Faërian Drama' would represent the culmination of his creative positioning of dreams and dream vision, through the coeval and codependent role of myth and language invention, in the genesis of his mythology.

From a purely biographical point of view, dreams are an important element of Tolkien studies because dreams themselves had a significant personal impact on Tolkien. From his earliest memory, Tolkien reported having a recurring 221 dream, or nightmare, of a great wave towering up and coming over the trees and green fields (Letters, p. 213). Tolkien referred to this as his ' Complex' (213). Tolkien also believed that his recurring dream was a shared hereditary one which may have come from his parents and which he had passed to his son Michael (Letters, p. 213). As I will show further on, Tolkien would explore the hereditary sharing of dreams as he developed his own imaginative use for them.

Tolkien's use of dreams and dream-vision drew from a vast and varied collection of mythical, literary, cultural and psychoanalytical theories. Tolkien would develop his own earliest imaginative use of dreams during a time of great interest and exploration in the psychological meaning of dreams and their connection to myth and cultural memory.

2.1. Dreams in Myth, Medieval Poetry and Romanticism

By the time Tolkien wrote his first known dream vision poem, You and Me and The Cottage of Lost Play, on 27-28 April 1915, he would have already been very familiar with several examples in myth, legend and medieval literature involving dreams and dream vision. From his Classical studies he would have read that in Homer's Iliad, the god of Sleep, Hypnos, is said to be the twin brother of Thanatos, the God of Death. According to The Orphic Argonautika the land of dreams was located in the underworld near the land of the Night and her children (West 1983, pp. 66-7). Homer also relates that dreams come from the land of dreams through two gates of either horn (for false dreams) or ivory (true dreams) (Odyssey, Book 19, 560-569). In the sixth book of Virgil's the Trojan Aeneas’ encounters in the underworld include meeting the twin brothers of death and sleep (Virgil, vi 277). The twin pairing of sleep and death is also a characteristic of Tolkien's pantheon of Valar. Tolkien makes this connection by constructing one of the names of both the Valar of Dreams, Olofantur and the Valar of Death, Vefantur, from the same base root FANA; an invented base root which Tolkien used to construct words having to do with sleep and death (PE 12, p. 37) and which I explore further on.

Tolkien created a place of dreams in Valinor ruled over by Lorien Olofantur

222 which he describes as a garden including elements associated with sleep and dreams: yew trees, glow-worms and poppies (Lost Tales I, pp. 74-75). Tolkien especially signifies poppies by calling them in Qenya, fumellar 'the flowers of sleep' (PE 12, p. 39). In a related language note Tolkien linguistically links the Qenya name for the poppies growing in Lorien's garden with fuiyaru ('deadly nightshade') which grows in the realm of the dead (PE 15, p. 14). This suggests Tolkien associating the poppy with the darker symbolism it came to reflect during and after the War (see Fusell 2000, p. 238). This reflection may also be suggested in the title of an unpublished poem Tolkien composed in August 1916 A Thatch of Poppies (Chronology, p. 89).

In addition to Classical mythology, another source that Tolkien would have had to draw on would be medieval dream vision poetry. Spearing characterizes dream vision poetry as a literary text that recounts a narrator's experience of a dream, or even a waking vision, often told as an allegory (1976, p. iv). Spearing also states that the dream which forms the subject of the poem is prompted by events in the narrator's waking life that are usually referred to in the early part of the poem. The 'vision' addresses these concerns by offering a guide to an imaginative landscape through which resolution of the waking concerns are answered or resolved (1976, iv). In 54-55 B.C.E, Cicero included an important work on dreams in the sixth book of his political work De re republica. Somnium Scipionis (‘The Dream of Scipio’) is perhaps one of the earliest uses of the concept of 'dream vision' and out of body travel or astral projection. In this dream vision, set in 146 B.C.E, the Roman General Scipio Ameilianus is visited by his grandfather Scipio Africanus, the hero of the second Punic War against Hannibal. Scipio is led by his grandfather on an 'out of body' trip through the universe where he learns his fate to lead the final destruction of Carthage in 144 B.C.E. The fourth century Roman grammarian and philosopher Macrobius Ambrosius Theodosius, wrote a commentary on Cicero's Somnium which played an important part in the development of dream vision poetry in the Middle Ages. In this commentary Macrobius identified five different dream types.

All dreams can be classified under five main types, there is the enigmatic dream, in Greek oneiros, in Latin somnium; second there is the prophetic

223 vision, in Greek horama, in Latin visio; third there is the oracular dream, in Greek chrematismos, in Latin oraculum; fourth, there is the nightmare, in Greek enypnion, in Latin insomnium; and last the apparition, in Greek phantasma which Cicero, when he has occasion to use the word, calls visium. (Macrobius 1952, pp. 87-91)

While Tolkien's use of dreams and dream vision in his mythology would, in different periods of his work, share characteristics of all five of Macrobius's dream categories, the one that would be most prominent in Tolkien's earliest dream vision poetry is the final category of apparition (phantasma or visium). Macrobius characterizes this as 'coming upon one in a moment between wakefulness and slumber, in the so called “first cloud of sleep”' (Macrobius 1952, p. 88). In this drowsy condition he thinks he is still fully awake and imagines he sees spectres rushing at him or wandering vaguely about, differing from natural creatures in size and shape, a host of diverse things, either delightful or disturbing (89). As I will explore further on, Tolkien would also suggest similar ideas around the blurring of wakefulness, sleep and dreaming in his poetry and The Book of Lost Tales.

The 14th century Middle English was a key dream vision poem that Tolkien studied from his early days (Biography, p. 35, 46) and would continue to make various commentaries and translations of throughout his life. In this poem, a father mourning the loss of his young daughter (his pearl) falls asleep and, like Cicero's dream vision, appears to be having a dreaming out of body experience. Ekman makes a compelling case for Tolkien's description of the Valar Lorien's dream realm in Valinor being inspired by the description of the dream landscape of Pearl (2009, p.59-70). Tolkien also uses pearl imagery to signify ideas around dreams in his early poems and The Book of Lost Tales. In his poem The Happy Mariners, Tolkien suggests the visions of the poem are being dreamed by a character known as 'the sleeper in the Tower of Pearl' (Lost Tales I, p. 4). In The Book of Lost Tales three large pearls are used in the making of the moon which is associated with sleep and dreams (Lost Tales I, p. 71). Tolkien's name invention for the Qenya word 'pearl' also suggests a connection to the Medieval dream vision poem. The Qenya word for pearl is marilla and comes from a base root MRRR, which forms words having to do

224 with 'grind, grit, sand, grain or powder and pulverize' (PE 12, pp. 59, 63) all signifying elements of how a pearl is actually produced. Moreover, Tolkien's base root construction also suggests influence from Sir Israel Gollancz's 1891 edition of Pearl in which Gollancz states that the dead child of the Pearl poem may have been actually called a pearl by her baptismal name, Margarita in Latin, Margery in English. It was a common name at the time, because of the love of pearls and their symbolism, and it had been borne by several saints (cited in Gordon 1953, p. xvii). The name Margaret is derived from the Greek word μαργαρίτης (margarites) meaning 'pearl'.13

Works of Romanticism also provided Tolkien with another source of material around dreams and dream vision to shape and fashion. Dreams were explored by poets like and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Some key themes that were built upon from classical and medieval ideas focused on the origins of dreams, their meanings and where the mind goes when it 'falls' asleep. This exploration gave rise to the romantic idea of the 'dream world', an actual place where the mind travels to in sleep. In the Notebooks he kept throughout his life, Coleridge wrote that he believed the place one travels to in sleep is a spatial and delimited place in the mind with its own geography and demarcated places (Ford 1998, pp. 39-40). To the Romantic mind dreams no longer came from a place, as in Classical myth, but were a place that one could visit in sleep. The dream world, in a sense, became a secondary world that the mind and imagination creates and could be entered into and explored. Ford contextualizes Coleridge's writings on his observed travels to his dream world as spatial images of the mind (1998, p. 39). In addition to dreams being their own place, Coleridge also believed that dreams had their own language which was expressed in symbols and hidden meanings. This concept was also expressed by the German Romantic physician and naturalist Gotthilf Heinrich von Schubert. In a series of lectures published in 1814 as Symbolik des Traumes (Symbolism of the Dreams), Schubert suggested that the spiritual world borders our world and it reveals itself through various psychic anomalies including dreams and reveries. He said that dreams have a language which he called a 'hieroglyphic language', one that is innate and spoken by the soul when

13 Atherton has indicated that the Old-English word for a pearl is meregrot, which derives from margarita but has been rationalised and interpreted as mere 'sea' and grot 'particle' (Dr. Mark Atherton, Personal Conversation, February 2015). 225 it is released from the imprisonment of the body (Murray 2004, p. 294).

Dreams were also one of the key themes of the German Romantic movement, which created some of the earliest works of fantasy literature. Ludwig Tieck's fairy tale story, Der blonde Eckbert (1796), is told by the narrator as if it might be taking place inside a dream. Novalis declared in his unfinished work Heinrich von Ofterdingen 'Die Welt wird Traum, der Traum wird Welt'14 (Murray 2004, p. 101). In the same work, Novalis made the link between dreams and fairy-tales by stating, 'All fairy-tales are only dreams of that familiar world of home which is everywhere and nowhere; and to which we are always going home' (cited in Gray 2010, p. 12). These early uses of dreams and dream vision would be taken up by some of the earliest writers of fantasy. Gray (2010) makes a compelling case for these early ideas of the Romantics becoming the source and inspiration for the early works of fantasy by authors such as George MacDonald. MacDonald would write one of the first treatises on fantasy, 'The Fantastic Imagination' (1893). In On Fairy-stories, Tolkien would indicate the early influence of MacDonald on his mythic thinking (OFS, pp. 75, 98).

The psychological and cultural exploration of the meaning of dreams that occurred in the late Victorian/Edwardian period was mirrored in the fictional and fantastical literature of the time. Flieger explores George Du Maurier's first novel Peter Ibbetson (1891) in which two lovers, although physically separated from one another, meet in and share each other's dreams and then travel back into their own personal times and the past of their collective memory (1997, pp. 32- 33). This would be a key theme that Tolkien would use in his first dream vision poem You and Me and The Cottage of Lost Play which I will explore in the next section.

Another author who depicted themes of dream and dream vision was Lewis Carroll. Carroll would explore two concepts of dreams which would parallel Tolkien's. In Through the Looking Glass, Carroll prefaces the story with a poem that ends with the lines 'Ever drifting down the stream / Lingering in the golden gleam / Life, what is it but a dream?' (Carroll 2012, p. 245). In Sylvie and Bruno (1889) and Sylvie and Bruno Concluded (1893) Carroll constructs a type of

14 'The world becomes the dream and the dream becomes the world' 226 portal that uses a 'dream state', which Carroll calls the 'eerie state', to describe this mental space in which people can open themselves up emotionally to the possibilities of magic, wonder, wilderness and the belief in fairies (Kelly 2011, p. iv). However, the 'eerie state' is not a physical journey to fairy-land and, here, I would suggest, Carroll revisits some of the concepts that Macrobius and medieval dream vision poems explored of out of body travel and astral projection. In 1890, Carroll wrote to the artist John Ruskin about his Sylvie and Bruno books stating 'No dreams, this time: what look like dreams [in this new story] are meant for trances... in which the spirit of the entranced person passes away into an actual Fairyland’ (Kelly 2011, p.xvi). I will return to a consideration of Carroll's unique idea of the 'eerie state' when I explore Tolkien's own idea of 'Faërian Drama' at the end of this chapter.

This brief overview of dreams and dream vision in mythical, literary, cultural and psychoanalytical narratives and theories shows that Tolkien had a rich tradition of inspiration, sources and analogues to imaginatively re-purpose and re- imagine as he developed his own unique ideas on the role of dreams in his mythology.

2.2. You & Me and the Cottage of Lost Play

In developing his own creative use of dreams and dream vision, Tolkien would clearly start by imitating and adapting several of the dream vision types that Macrobius identified which I explored above. In his earliest dream vision poem, You & Me and the Cottage of Lost Play (which I will refer to from this point on as You & Me), Tolkien combines Macrobius’ 'apparition' with concepts of actual travel in dreams to a fantastical place drawn both from Romantic and early fantasy traditions. This poem depicts a dream journey by two children to a cottage inhabited by playful fairies. The theme of this poem is not so much a narration about a dream but a remembrance of a dream vision from an earlier time (Lost Tales I, p. 20). There is clearly an autobiographical element in this poem as the two children bear a close resemblance to the young Tolkien and his wife Edith. As I have already explored in chapter two, Tolkien would use his language invention in The Qenya Lexicon to imaginatively incorporate Edith into the mythology through such names as Erinti. In a similar way, and at roughly

227 the same time, Tolkien also used this poem to link Edith into his creative imagination through poetry and the remembrance of a shared imaginary dream vision in childhood.

In You & Me, Tolkien also lays the ground work for linking his mythology to the primary world by describing the journey the two children take 'down the paths of firelight dreams' (Lost Tales I, p. 20); implying there is a road or pathway to Faërie. Tolkien emphasizes this further in the poem with the line 'down a warm and winding lane /we never found again' (21). The actual path to Faërie suggests several sources. One key source that Tolkien would later quote from at the beginning of On Fairy-stories was the Scottish of Thomas Rhymer who describes 'the road to fair Elfland / Where thou and I this night maun gae' (OFS, p. 29). Tolkien also explored a similar fairy road in his poem Goblin Feet, written at roughly the same time as You & Me and published in the volume Oxford Poetry 1915. In Goblin Feet Tolkien states 'I must follow in their train / Down the crooked fairy lane / Where the coney-rabbits long ago have gone' (GF, p. 37, see also Fimi 2010, pp. 29-30). Already in this early poetry Tolkien has established the concept of childhood travel through dreams to a fairy-land which is now unattainable. These are early ideas that he would continue to develop and incorporate into his emerging mythology.

6.3. The Town of Dreams and the City of Present Sorrow

In March 1916, Tolkien made rough drafts for a poem titled The Wanderer's Allegiance. At a later period, he added subtitles on the drafts of this poem, 'dividing the poem into three: Prelude, The Inland City and The Sorrowful City, with (apparently) an overall title The Sorrowful City and added a date March 16- 18 1916' (Lost Tales II, p. 295). Christopher Tolkien reports that in the only later version of the poem that is extant the overall title becomes The Town of Dreams and The City of Present Sorrow, with the three parts titled: Prelude, The Town of Dreams and The City of Present Sorrow with an indication of this version having been written sometime between March and November 1916 (295). This later version offers another dream-like elegiac look back into a lost past, combined with a reflection of the stark reality that England was facing as the War continued and Tolkien's own personal involvement approached (Lost Tales

228 II, p. 295). In the appropriately named section of the poem 'The Town of Dreams' Tolkien gives a poetic representation of an idealized version of Warwick where Tolkien and Edith had spent time together, using poetic imagery to suggest this Warwick is similar to the Faery place Tolkien envisages in the You & Me poem. In addition to the use of dream vision, this poem also signifies one of the earliest cases of Tolkien linking his ideas of Faerie to England which I will explore further on. Tolkien characterizes Warwick as a town of forgetfulness associated with images of dreams and sleep. The mention of elms is also linked in The Qenya Lexicon with the name of the fairy-town Alalminórë (Lost Tales II, p.296). Contrasting Warwick, as the 'The Town of Dreams', is the 'The City of Present Sorrow' which poetically reflects the stark reality of Oxford in 1916; now emptied of students who had gone off and perished in battle. If the blossoming elms crowned the Town of Dreams, it is the drooping willows that characterize the City of Present Sorrow with its 'lofty elm trees' described as 'more rare' (Lost Tales II, p. 297). Like Tolkien's April 1915 poem Kor: In A City Lost and Dead, this lamenting city is now deserted with only 'thy clustered windows each one burn / With lamps and candles of departed men' (297). Tolkien's poem suggests inspiration from the 'College Notes' section of the Exeter College Stapeldon Magazine from December 1914 describing the War conditions at the College as 'having many lightless windows, the name plates with their empty spaces' (Anon. 1914, p. 103). Tolkien imaginatively places lights in those 'lightless windows'. These lamps and candles in the deserted windows of the Oxford rooms would soon become the corpse candles of dead soldiers which would later appear in the Dead Marshes of Tolkien's Middle-earth.

In the case of this poem, Tolkien again evokes similar dream imagery as he did in You & Me to harken back to an idealized past that is no longer attainable. While he was composing these poems Tolkien would also use his language invention of Qenya to invent words in his lexicon that would reflect different elements of the dreams and dream vision which I explore in the next section.

6.4. Signifying Dreams in The Qenya Lexicon

The significance of dreams in Tolkien's language invention is attested in the base roots and words he invented to signify ideas around dreams and dreaming 229 starting in The Qenya Lexicon. There are three key invented base roots that Tolkien uses: FANA, MORO and (O)LOR (PE 12, pp. 37, 62, 69).

The aforementioned FANA is first found in an initial group of words headed by the base roots 'FANA or FṆTṆ? (PE 12, p. 37) from which a series of words are constructed as table one below outlines.

Table 1 – Qenya Words constructed from base root FANA/FṆTṆ

Fanta – (verb), fantane/fante (pt) To fall asleep go dazed, swoon

Fantl Vision, dream, hazy notion, imaginary idea

Fanore A Day Dream (FAN + ORE (the dawn, Sun- Rise, East (PE 12, p. 70))

Fanorea, Fanoriva Absent-Minded (linked to Fanore showing Tolkien's thoughts on what happens when one day-dreams)

Fansa A Swoon

Fanwe Dream

In these groupings of invented words, the most significant, from a narrative perspective, is the word fantl which Tolkien defines as 'vision, dream, hazy notion, imaginary idea' (PE 12, p. 37). In constructing this word, I would suggest Tolkien is bringing together several key ideas around dreams. First the concept of the dream vision from medieval poetry. Secondly, the romantic concept of dreaming as the freeing of the mind through which imaginary ideas can be created. Finally, there is the associated idea of dreams as 'hazy notions' which suggests two key further concepts. First, that dreams are hazy because they are expressed in a symbolic, or von Schubert's 'hieroglyphic', language. Secondly, that dreams are the result of a travel and connection with Faerie which now are retained in the mind in a hazy fashion, or what Tolkien would call 'misty aftermemories' (Lost Tales I, p. 19).

As I explored above, Tolkien also uses the FANA base root to construct the

230 names of two Valar: 'FANTUR (r-) two Valar so named (1) is Lorien Olofantur, of dreams and sleep (2) Mandos, Vefantur, of Death' (PE 12, p. 37). This relation of dreams and death is linguistically explored by Tolkien under a second base root FṆDṆ which, as the editor's notes indicate, was changed from the original base root of FANA (PE 12, p. 38). With this base root, Tolkien constructs a series of words that are more related to concepts of death and its physical mythic personification in monsters which is outlined in table two.

Table 2 – Qenya words constructed with the base root FṆDṆ

Fandor (-s), Fandos -ss, Fandelu Monster

Fandelwa Monstrous

Fando Portent, omen

Fandeluvie Monstrosity, in-moderation, violence, barbarity, grossness

Clearly, the base root that produced words for dreams, hazy notions and imaginary ideas also originally produced the more ominous words for portents, omens, violence, barbarity and ultimately monsters. I would argue that Tolkien is using his language invention here to portray the positive and negative aspects of dreams, visions and omens. Related to this, Tolkien also used another base root, the aforementioned MORO, from which he constructed words signifying darkness, night and hidden things (PE 12, p. 62) such as the name of Moru, the mysterious creature of the darkness whose origin is unknown and who took the form of a spider in Arda (Lost Tales I, pp.151-152). In the Gnomish Lexicon the Qenya base root forms the related cognate muri 'night, darkness' (PE 11, p. 58) and underneath this entry Tolkien suggests that from this word was formed the Gnomish verb murtha 'dream' (past tense murthi). He also constructed the word mure 'a nightmare, a vision of the night' (58). All of these related invented words suggest Tolkien imaginatively reflecting on the primary world word from which the word 'nightmare' is formed. The mare is a name of Germanic origin for an evil spirit or goblin who rode on people's chests while they slept and brought on bad dreams (Hall 2007, p. 124). This creature is best known from the Swiss Artist John Henry Fuseli's

231 painting The nightmare first exhibited in 1782 at the Royal Academy London. In this painting, a mare is depicted on top of a woman asleep on her bed as a horse sticks his head out through the velvet drapes in the background. The mare also appears in the Old Norse 'Ynglinga Saga' in Snorri Sturluson's (Snorri 1932, pp. 9-10). Interestingly, two other German words for nightmare are 'Alptraum' (Elf dream) and 'Alpdruck' (Elf Pressure). Hall analyses how these words and mare are related (2007, pp. 124-6). In developing his own concept, I would suggest that Tolkien was exploring the origin of the evil spirit who visited people in dreams and caused nightmares implying that the mare was just a lost vestige of an even darker being: Moru, the creature, or monster, of the primeval night. In The Book of Lost Tales, Tolkien would personify Moru as the great spider who would aid Melko in the destruction of the Two Trees of Valinor and the stealing of the Silmarils. The spider would become one of the most prevalent personifications of evil in Tolkien's mythology culminating in the spider Shelob who attacks Frodo and Sam in The Lord of the Rings.

The third base root associated with dreams and slumber is LORO (56) and OLO/OLOR (PE 12, p. 69). From this base root LORO Tolkien constructs a series of words related to these concepts as outlined in the table below.

Table 4- Qenya words constructed from the base root OLO/OLOR

LOR (pt. Lore) Slumber

Lorda Slumberous, drowsy

Olor, Olore Dream

Olorda, Olorwa In Dreams

Olorea Dreamy, etc.

Lorien King of Dreams

Moreover, Tolkien made a note in the margin of this list indicating that the original meaning for this root is related to an unknown root which meant 'to arise

232 from, evolve from' (69) and suggests being related to the Qenya root LOHO from which verbs like lokta 'sprout, bud, put forth' (PE 12, p. 55) were constructed. This suggests that Tolkien was thinking of dreams arising and coming from somewhere, possibly inspired, as I have explored above, by both Classical myth and Romanticism.

7. The ‘Mythology for England’ Frameworks

I was from early days grieved by the poverty of my own beloved country; it had no stories of its own (bound up with its tongue and soil) (Letters, 1951, p. 144)

I would that we had more of it left – something of the same sort that belong to the English (Kalevala Essay, p. 265)

The two quotations above signify one of the key objectives that would become bound up with Tolkien's invention at the genesis of his mythology; his desire to embed his unique mythology into a lost tradition of Faërie, or England. As the first quotation exemplifies, Tolkien felt that when he was growing up there were no real English myths and legends that could compare to his study of other countries’ mythologies and legends. The second quotation comes from Tolkien's post-War typescript of his earlier talk on Kalevala or 'In the Land of Heroes’ which he was due to give but there is no evidence he actually delivered this later version of the talk (Kalevala Essay, p. 213). Tolkien made the point in this revision that he wished that there was something like the great cycle of myths in the Kalevala for the English. As I will demonstrate, by the time Tolkien wrote this he had already started inventing those myths he thought might satisfy this wish and a transmission 'framework' that would link them 'to the English'.

3.1. Creating Links through Language Invention

Tolkien's earliest thoughts on linking his mythology to certain places in England can be seen in his language invention in The Qenya Lexicon and, as I have already introduced, in some of his early poems. In The Qenya Lexicon Tolkien

233 constructed the following place names that have a direct connection to the primary world and specifically to England. In the table below I outline the most significant of these place names in The Qenya Lexicon and the gloss Tolkien gives for them.

Place Names in The Qenya Lexicon Associated with Primary World and England

Alalminórë Land of Elms, one of the provinces of Inwinore, in which is situated Kortirion (Warwickshire) (29)

Estirin, -ios A Western town of Inwinore (Exeter) (36)

Ingilnore Tol Eressea, or England (42)

Inwilis, Inwinore Faery, England (42)

Iverind - Ireland (43)

I Ponorir The Northlands (Scandinavia) (74)

Taruktarna Oxford (89)

Evidence of these invented place names signifying specific places in England appears especially in two of Tolkien's early poems. The first of these poems is Kortirion Among the Trees, composed in November 1915. In this poem, Tolkien situates the Elvish city of Kortirion in 'Alalminórë in the Faery Realms' (Lost Tales I, pp. 33-36). In The Qenya Lexicon, as I indicated above, Alalminórë is signified as 'Land of the Elms, one of the provinces of Inwinore, in which is situate Kortirion (Warwickshire)' (PE 12, p. 29). During the time Tolkien was writing this poem (November 1915), the legendary Kortirion would have become the modern towered city of Warwick which a year later Tolkien would elegiacally depict as 'The Town of Dreams' explored above. Even in the present, though, the Kortirion poem relates that, like the Shadow People, there are still the remains of 'the holy fairies and immortal Elves' in the town (Lost Tales I, p. 34- 35). The second related poem that explored a similar theme is Tol-Eressëa (The Lonely Island). This poem was composed by Tolkien in July 1916, on the brink of Tolkien's own active duty in the War. The invented place name Tol- Eressëa is found in several places of The Qenya Lexicon. Tol is constructed

234 from the base root TOLO and is glossed as 'an island, any rise standing alone in water, plains of the grass, etc' (PE 12, p. 94). The actual place name Tol- Eressëa is found in the list of words constructed from this base root as 'Tol- Eressëa – Lonely Isle. The isle of the Fairies' (94). Eressëa is constructed from the invented base root ERE 'remain alone' (PE 12, p. 36) to which Tolkien added the Qenya adverbial suffix '(s)sea' (36). In this case, the link to England can be seen first and foremost in the dedication Tolkien wrote on it: 'For England' (Reader's Guide, p. 525). In this poem Tolkien evokes images of England by mentioning 'hoary caverns' which suggest Tolkien's memory of happier times from his recent honeymoon trip with Edith in March 1916 to Cheddar Gorge and Caves (Chronology, p. 79).

3.2. Olorë Mallë – The Path of Dreams

When Tolkien came to write his Book of Lost Tales he again took up the idea of how to link his mythology to England. In doing this, Tolkien experimented with the two ideas he had explored before the War around dreams and dream vision and linguistic invention to link his mythology to England. Now he would especially amplify this second element and invent a pseudo-historic primary world character who would discover the exiled Elves and be told their oral tales. This character would then write these tales down and through historic transmission they would become the now lost literature of England (Lost Tales II, p. 290).

As Drout indicates, Tolkien knew from his study of English legend that in order for this to be a true mythology for the English his primary world mariner would need to come from those people who were the ancestors of the Anglo-Saxons (2004, pp. 229-230). Tolkien would introduce both dream vision and pseudo- historic framework ideas in his introductory chapter to The Book of Lost Tales which he composed in late 1916-17 at roughly the same time as he wrote the first great Lost Tale, ‘The Fall of Gondolin’. Therefore, as Tolkien wrote his epic of conquest and downfall he was also clearly interested in how this tale would be transmitted and become embedded in his mythology for the English. Tolkien signifies the importance of dreams and dream vision by writing on the cover of

235 the notebook the story is contained in: 'The Cottage of Lost Play which introduceth [the] Book of Lost Tales' (Lost Tales I, p. 1). Tolkien's use (or re- use) of 'The Cottage of Lost Play' harkens back, and builds upon, the imaginative ideas he explored earlier in You & Me. Upon his arrival at the Cottage of Lost Play, Ottor Wǽfre learns from the exiled Elves that they originally came from a place called Valinor and a city called Kor. Ottor hears that the actual 'Cottage of Lost Play' on the Lonely Island was built by the Elves in memory of another cottage that existed in Valinor. The Elf Vaire tells Ottor about this cottage and the fantastical path children would take to get to the original cottage: the Olorë Mallë – the path of dreams. The Olorë Mallë is a new narrative element that Tolkien adds by imaginatively expanding his earlier poetic idea of travel by dreams and a pathway to Faerie (Lost Tales I, pp. 18, 20, 70-71). 15 Tolkien signifies the importance of this pathway through his language invention.

The name Olorë Mallë comes directly from the aforementioned base root OLOR meaning to dream (PE 12, p. 69) and MALLE meaning street (PE 12, p. 58). There is a parallel entry in The Gnomish Lexicon, 'Malamaurion, “the way of dreams” – Q. Oloremalle' (PE 11, pp. 56-7). The Gnomish word maur expands the concept from a dream to a vision (PE 11, p. 57) and links with the Romantic concept of dreams giving rise to visions and imaginary ideas. In this Lost Tale 'The Cottage of Lost Play' now becomes an elegiac remembrance of the Cottage of the Children, or of the Play of Sleep in Valinor which was accessed through dreams by travelling on the Olorë Mallë. Tolkien also explored what happened to the children who originally travelled down the Olorë Mallë (from the homes of men) into Valinor. First, Tolkien creates historic depth by calling these children 'the children of the fathers of the fathers of Men' (Lost Tales I, p. 18). Then, Tolkien relates that, as some of these children came down this path, some would stay into Kor, or even Valinor, and would be enchanted to remain there forever which would give great grief to their parents, or they would return strange and wild among the children of men (18). For example, in The Qenya Lexicon there is mention of a child called Nieliqi (or Nielikki, Nyelikki): 'a little girl among the Valar who danced in spring where her tears fell snowdrops sprang,

15 Tolkien's 'path of dreams' also suggests Freud's characterization of dreams as 'the royal road to the unconsciousness' (Freud 1937, p. 34); see also (Flieger 1997, p. 17). 236 where her feet touched as she laughed daffodils bloomed' (PE 12, p. 69). Her name is formed from the base root NYEHE 'weep' and may be one of the children who trod the Olorë Mallë and sadly did not return; presumably causing her, her parents, or both to weep. Other children wandered on to the rocks of Eldamar, but would be drawn back to the Cottage 'with the odor of many flowers’ (Lost Tales I, p. 18). There were a few who would hear the piping of the shore-land Elves and become enchanted and 'climbed to the upper windows and gazed out, straining to see the far glimpses of the sea and the magic shores beyond the shadows and the trees' (Lost Tales I, p. 9).

In developing these characteristics for his Olorë Mallë, Tolkien drew upon a tradition of travel into Faëry and the effect that is has on human visitors. For example, Fimi convincingly shows that the character of , from the 1904 play Peter Pan, or the Boy Wouldn't Grow Up, influenced Tolkien's concept of children who lived with the fairies and returned to the primary world (2010, p. 37). As Silver indicates, the concept of children going to fairyland and being changed by their experience is also linked with the Victorian obsession of abduction and fairy changelings (1999, p. 60). Silver also cites such works as the Irish Gothic writer Joseph Thomas Sheridan Le Fanu's short story The Child that Went with The Fairies as an example of this type of literature which focused on the fear of children being enticed or captured by the faeries and being brought to their land (cited in 1999, p. 68).

The concept of story transmission also comes into Tolkien's Olorë Mallë. Some children who journey on the Olorë Mallë to Valinor and return are said to remember their time there. These experiences were to become the basis of myths and legends in the primary world as Tolkien seems to imply: 'from the misty aftermemories of these, of their broken tales and snatches of song, came many strange legends' (Lost Tales I, pp. 9-10) and Tolkien ends by claiming that these travellers to and from Faërie were ‘the poets of the Great Lands' (10).

When Tolkien wrote these lines above he was creatively looking for ways to transmit his body of invented mythology and embed it in the lost literature of England. Therefore, I would argue that these creative thoughts reflect his thinking, at the time, of having the Olorë Mallë become one of the ways these

237 'broken tales and snatches of song' would come back to the land of men as 'misty aftermemories,' the lost tales that are now only remembered in garbled tales (such as the eärendel word/name that first attracted Tolkien) and fragments of legend.

In the course of writing the Book of Lost Tales, Tolkien incorporated the mythic genesis of the Olorë Mallë within his secondary world chronology. After the destruction of the Two Trees by Ungoliant and Melko, the Valar decide to enclose themselves in Valinor and abandon the Great Lands. Manwë in great sorrow sends for the Vali Lorien and Oromë. He asks them to devise strange paths that would keep the Valar connected with Men and Elves in the Great Lands. Lorien creates the Olorë Mallë which now leads from Eastern Lands to the Cottage of the Children of Earth. In this development, the dream path now has a sense of danger and allurement with mazes and pitfalls for the unwary that may prevent the arrival in Valinor. The path also now has a definite astral element with its description of it 'resting on the air' (Lost Tales I, p. 212).

This link and incorporation of the dream path idea to the origin of where these children came from in a pseudo-Germanic history can also be seen in Tolkien's association of it with other great legendary pathways. A series of related language documents Tolkien developed while writing The Book of Lost Tales, suggests Tolkien's work at creating a sense that the vestiges of myth and legends we have about mythical roads and pathways are but the remains of a greater lost story of the Olorë Mallë. Tolkien suggested that two prominent pathways in primary world myth and legend are echoes or remembrances of this original pathway: first the astral Milky Way and secondly the ancient road in England which became known as 'Watling Street'. In a series of papers written around the time he was working at the Oxford English Dictionary (c.1918-19), Tolkien wrote out a definition for 'Watling Street', which combines primary world lost tales with Tolkien's own invented mythology (PE 15, p. 96). A source for Tolkien's imaginative linking of Watling Street with elements of his Olorë Mallë also suggests inspiration from an analysis that Walter Skeat gives in his Complete Works of Chaucer (1889) which Tolkien borrowed from the Fellow's Library at Exeter College (see Appendix 2). Under a note for the word 'galaxye' Skeat indicates that the English called the Milky Way 'Watling-street which was

238 a famous old road' (263). Clearly, given the uncertain and lost origins for the mythic nature of these two primary world pathways, I would suggest Tolkien saw an opportunity to explore and reconstruct what their true mythic reflection was and decided that they each have elements of the Olorë Mallë, the path of dreams now remembered in only in hazy memory and fragments of poetry and song.16

3.3. Ottor Wǽfre/Eriol 'He Who Drea s Alone'

Coeval with his re-imagining of dream vision in his invention of the Olorë Mallë, Tolkien would also employ the traveller's tale topos, to invent the primary world mariner Ottor Wǽfre who would come to Tol-Eressëa and, like the folktale collectors Wilhelm and Jacob Grimm and Elias Lönnrot, would hear and record the oral tales of the Elves. These Lost Tales of the Elves would be written down and transmitted through history. To make this connection between his mythology and a lost tradition of English mythology Tolkien searched for places in Germanic myth and legend where he could make both narrative and linguistic links to a lost mythology of England. Several Tolkien scholars including Flieger (2000), Drout (2004), Shippey (2005 and 2007) and Fimi (2010) have explored Tolkien's process for achieving this. In inventing his first primary world character of Ottor Wǽfre Tolkien drew upon a vast body of Germanic myth and legend reflecting characters and events of the migration period in Europe; signifiers whose stories had become lost signifieds through time and the garbled memory of transmission. Tolkien used his myth and linguistic skill to recreate, and to an extent repurpose, the vestiges of many of these lost tales to which he could anchor his own mythology and build these stories into his own language invention. As Drout states through this transmission, Tolkien's Lost Tales would be the 'true' myths of England (2004, pp. 229-230). Drout also makes the point that to achieve this Tolkien indulged in the imaginative creation of a pseudo-history that Tolkien did not himself believe to be factually true (230). Drout’s last point, I would argue, is especially important as this freedom to move away, or, if you will, 'take a holiday' from, known history allowed Tolkien to think imaginatively about what this Germanic legendary tradition

16 Tolkien would explore this connection again in 'Philology: General Works' in Year’s Work in English Studies (1923) (YWES 1923, p. 21). 239 would, or should, have been, if it had survived into the Anglo-Saxon period and the Normans had not invaded in 1066.

Based on The Book of Lost Tales and the attendant notes Tolkien kept, Ottor Wǽfre was a pre-Christian from the peoples of Northern Europe during the Migration period of the 5th and 6th centuries. His first name, Ottor, suggests Tolkien drawing upon several sources and analogues. First, for Tolkien Ottor had a particular biographical resonance to it, being the name Tolkien wrote for himself in Animalic on his boyhood private scout code the Book of the Foxrook (Smith and Wynne, pp. 29-30). Ottor may also have been suggested to Tolkien through his early study of the Anglo-Saxon prose piece The Voyage of Ohthere and Wulfstan. Like Ottor, Ohthere was a mariner who sailed to, discovered and reported back on the peoples of strange lands. As I have already argued in chapter two, Tolkien sought to make a linguistic link between these voyages and Ottor's through the bilingual diplosemy of the word, or name, cwen, the wife of Ottor Wǽfre. Ottor's second name, Wǽfre, is Old English for 'restless and wandering' (Lost Tales II, p. 290). If this second name was used as an epithet that Ottor called himself, then here Tolkien can be seen developing several related ideas and also combining his own mythic narrative with themes in Anglo-Saxon literature. The idea of wǽfre as meaning ‘restless’ is attested in several places in Beowulf. 's mother is described as wælgæst wæfre {OE Text of Beowulf, line 1331a} 'wandering murderous thing' (Beowulf 2014, p. 51) while the aged Beowulf is wæfre ond wælfus (line 2420a) which Tolkien translates as 'restless hastening toward death' (Beowulf 2014, p. 84). In ‘The Cottage of Lost Play’, Ottor relates to the Elves that members of his family, and their ancestors, are also described as 'restless' (Lost Tales I, p. 20). In this characterization, Tolkien brings in the coeval concepts of dreams and dream vision, explored above, by signifying this restlessness as coming from a tradition in Ottor's family of a dream travel by one of his descendants via the aforementioned Olorë Mallë (Lost Tales I, p. 20). Therefore, this suggests that Ottor's second name of 'Wǽfre' meaning 'restless' can also be contextualized with Tolkien's attempt to link his Germanic mariner not only with a pseudo- Germanic legendary background, but also with an ancestral memory of an actual prior travel into the secondary word through the vehicle of dream vision.

240 Ottor Wǽfre has come to Tol-Eressëa, the Lonely Island, to learn that the curiosity that drove him to seek strange lands was the result of his own ancestors’ dream travel on the Olorë Mallë. In this case, wǽfre becomes an Anglo-Saxon word to describe the vestige of ancestral dream vision. Tolkien may also signify this in one of the Gnomish names he invented for Tol-Eressëa, the Lonely Island, Dor Faidwen 'the land of release' (Lost Tales I, p. 1) suggesting the Ottor's arrival on this island is the release from the restlessness he had inherited from his ancestors.

Moreover, the 'wandering' connotation of Ottor's second name also suggests another literary source, the Anglo-Saxon poem Widsith; one of the poems found in the Exeter Book, which was compiled in the 10th century. In Widsith the unknown poet invented a character named Widsith who relates encounters with legendary, semi-legendary and historical peoples and rulers. According to Bosworth and Toller, the name widsith means 'a far journey or long travel' (1898, p 1217). The poem itself was most likely written in the seventh century but, like Beowulf, looks back and attempts to capture the culture and legends of the Germanic peoples of the European migration period of the 5th century; including that of the Angles before they migrated over to England. Therefore, I would suggest, that this poem would have been a significant source for Tolkien to establish the link to a pseudo-Germanic past for his own mariner. Indeed this link is made by Tolkien in the first narrative description he gives of the mariner who is described as 'a traveller from far countries' (Lost Tales I, p. 1); the very meaning of the name Widsith. Moreover, Tolkien linguistically reinforces this point through an invented Gnomish epithet he gives Ottor Wǽfre, Sarothodrin, which is glossed in The Gnomish Lexicon as 'a voyager, seafarer, or more properly, a foreigner (come) from overseas' (PE 11, p. 67). Like Tolkien's Wǽfre, the fictitious poet Widsith also comes from roughly the same geographic area in Northern Europe. Both Tolkien's mariner and Widsith came from Angel which is in the Danish peninsula between the Flensburg fjord and the river Schlei. This is historically the same region that was the home of the Angles before they set out for Britain.

A specific edition of Widsith that would have been available to Tolkien during this time was the 1912 Widsith: A Study in Old English Heroic Legend, edited

241 with notes and commentary by R.W. Chambers. Anderson suggests that Tolkien probably purchased this edition as an undergraduate and notes that it included an extensive scholarly exploration of each of the different Germanic peoples and the background to the 'lost tales' that the names in the poem evoke (2006, pp. 138-139). In this edition, Chambers provides extensive notes and analysis of the names and places mentioned in the Widsith poem including copious annotations and footnotes to other related Germanic sources. Anderson says 'this kind of scholarly exploration and reconstruction of the Germanic past out of what survives in historical and literary references would have resonated perfectly with Tolkien's own mind-set' (2006, pp. 138-139). Shippey characterizes this poem, and the 1912 edition by R.W. Chambers specifically, as having been read eagerly by early scholars offering a guide to a of heroic story (2006, p. 596). By using these and other sources Tolkien developed a back story for Ottor Wǽfre that would root him in a pseudo-Germanic historical background made up of the tales that had been lost or garbled in time and transmission. In a sense, I would argue, Tolkien was continuing to follow the same methodology to rediscover what the original word, or name, eärendel has been before it became a signifier to a lost signified.

In Tolkien’s basic frame story, Ottor comes from a family of Germanic warriors, including a father named Eoh (a Germanic word for Horse) and an uncle ; which means 'warrior' in Old English verse but has the meaning 'bear' in its etymology. His family was descended from Heden ('the leather and fur clad') who would trace his origins back to the Germanic god Woden (Lost Tales I, p. 23). Ottor settles on the island of Heligoland in the North Sea. There he wedded the aforementioned woman Cwen by whom he had two sons – Hengest and Horsa. According to Bede, Hengest and Horsa were actually the sons of Wictgils, son of Wita, son of Wicta, son of Woden (Bede 1999, p. 27). In this respect, Tolkien changes these names but keeps the ultimate divine origin of Hengest and Horsa with the god Woden. After the death of Cwen, Ottor goes west over the ocean and comes by adventure to Tol-Eressëa, the Lonely Island, and encounters the exiled Elves. Ottor stays on this island and becomes the compiler of the Parma Kuluinen 'the Golden Book' in Qenya. As explored in chapter two, he becomes known by the Elves as 'Eriol' and 'Angol.' The stories he records comes from the oral tales of the Elves he hears and collects while

242 staying at the Cottage of Lost Play which is located in Alalminórë the land of the Elms (which as I explored above appears in Kortirion Among the Trees). On the island Ottor marries an Elvish woman, Naimi, by whom he has another son, Heorrenda. The actual tales of the Elves were to be written by Ottor and/or his son Heorrenda. Heorrenda later joins his step-brothers, Hengest and Horsa, and together they conquer Britain, thus grounding Tolkien's mythology to the lost mythology of England (Lost Tales I, pp. 23-25). The authority of these tales as the true lost myths of England is grounded in this highly inventive and plausible transmission framework (Lost Tales II, p. 490).

Once Tolkien had established his first transmission framework to ground his mythology in a lost tradition of England, he then used elements of this framework to position his invented languages, Qenya and Gnomish, as part of this transmission so that both the myths and the languages would form part of this lost heritage originally heard and recorded by Ottor Wǽfre on Tol-Eressëa by the exiled Elves. My argument, which will be explored in detail below, is supported by several linguistic documents that Tolkien developed in conjunction with his work on The Book of Lost Tales which include use of the portal framework to convey the sense that these are works that were recorded and transmitted through the work of Ottor Wǽfre. This suggests that Tolkien was thinking on two different levels. First, he was writing documents that reflected and expanded upon his language invention work around Qenya and Gnomish, in many cases using the base root system to construct new and alternate names for people and places in The Book of Lost Tales. Secondly, Tolkien used the invented framing device to ground these linguistic documents into the fabric of his mythology (PE 15, pp. 20-22). Tolkien would expand upon this second use in the next version of his framework which I will explore further on.

Clearly in the ‘The Cottage of Lost Play’ there are overt indications of Tolkien attempting to incorporate elements of dream and dream vision with tropes around the travel to fairy-land and his emerging pseudo-historical framework. For example, there is the Elvish name that Ottor Wǽfre is given on Tol- Eressëa. If Ottor Wǽfre's primary world names, as I have explored above, signified his pseudo-historical Germanic origins, then his Elvish name, Eriol, linguistically connects him in the secondary world with dreams. In The Qenya

243 Lexicon there is an entry under the base root OLO 'Erioll – a dreamer' (PE 12, p. 69). There are two key roots that make up this name ERE 'remain alone' and LORO 'slumber.' There is a further fragment of a linguistic note on Eriol found in one of Tolkien's notebooks which he kept while writing the tales: 'Lindo punningly derives it eri (alone) olta – (dream)’ (PE 15, p. 15). Eriol is also clearly formed from the same base root that Tolkien used to form the Olorë Mallë - OLOR (PE 12, p. 69). The invention of the name Eriol suggests Tolkien was thinking of extending this pun for Eriol to mean either 'he who dreams alone' or 'he alone who comes from (or to) dreams'. This idea suggests the Romantic notion I have explored above, of dreams being a place that is travelled to and from.

Tolkien reinforces the feeling of dream vision by describing the path Ottor takes to the Cottage of Lost Play (Lost Tales I, p. 2) in a similar way to his description of the Olorë Mallë (Lost Tales 1, p.18) with the repetition of words that harken back to Tolkien's early dream vision poem You & Me: 'winding lanes', 'a garden', and a 'tiny cottage'. Moreover, Ottor Wǽfre comes to the centre of the island at 'the hour of rest' (Lost Tales I, p. 2) the time between waking and sleep suggesting Macrobius’s characterization of the 'apparition' dream type as occurring between waking and sleep. Tolkien's blending of both the dream vision and pseudo-historical portal ideas can especially be seen towards the end of ‘The Cottage of Lost Play’ when Ottor Wǽfre recalls that he heard a tale of one of his ancestors who travelled to Valinor by the Olorë Mallë. Given the pseudo-historic framework Tolkien constructed for Ottor this would have been one of his Germanic ancestors from the far North of Europe describing his dream journey to a fair house and magic gardens (Lost Tales I, p. 10). In this passage, as well, Tolkien introduces into his portal ideas a new concept that he would continue to explore throughout his mythology; the role of dreams to transmit a shared and inherited cultural heritage. Tolkien's later development of these ideas, especially in his unfinished The Lost Road (1936) and The Notion Club Papers (1945), can be seen in embryo in this passage in ‘The Cottage of Lost Play’.

By creating these parallels between the narrative description of Ottor's arrival on the Lonely Island and his encounter with Elves and the arrival of the children in

244 sleep by the Olorë Mallë to Valinor, Tolkien is blurring the lines between the waking and dreaming states which, as has been explored, suggests, and at the same time subverts, influence from Romantic ideas of dream and dream vision. Tolkien's reasoning for the blending of dream and dream vision suggests that in his early thoughts Ottor Wǽfre/Eriol was not just someone who would encounter, hear and record the tales of the Elves but someone who would take part in the actual history of the Elves moving forward. Ottor Wǽfre would not just record the lost tales, he was to become a part of them. Tolkien reinforces this by having Ottor Wǽfre drink the magic potion limpë, and in some versions of the tale being made young by it. Tolkien's limpë is an example of a fairy drink that comes straight out of the tradition of food or drink in Faërie which prevents you from leaving or, like the Classical myth of Persephone in Hades, forces you to return there. Ottor/Eriol also marries an Elf maiden and has a son, Heorrenda. Eriol stays on the island of Tol-Eressea, the Lonely Island and, based on Tolkien's sketch for an Epilogue to the Lost Tales, takes part in the final battles of the Elves with the invading Men ('The Battle of High Heath') (Lost Tales II, p. 287).

In addition to serving as the frame for his The Book of Lost Tales, there is also evidence in some of Tolkien's attendant language documents developed during the time that he was thinking of using this framework to introduce several para- textual elements of his secondary world with the conceit that they were artefacts of works records and transmitted through the writings of Ottor Wǽfre and his descendants. For example, Tolkien writes an introduction to his Name List to the Fall of Gondolin that explain how this document was recorded and transmitted which starts with the line 'Here is set forth by Eriol at the teaching of Elfrith Bronweg's son' (PE 15, p. 20). This document employs the frame narrative to explain how these names came to be recorded and therefore serve not only as linguistic document, but also as part of the narrative of the Lost Tales; a key example of myth and language working together. Eriol is told these words and their meanings by Elfrith who is the son of Bronweg, the Gnomish name for Voronwë, the companion of both Tuor and Eärendel, who imparted his experience in the fall of Gondolin to his son. Therefore, this is a written document based on an oral passing down of tradition.

245 3.4. Ælfwine – Myth becomes Legend Verging on History

In the 1920's towards the end of writing the The Book of Lost Tales, Tolkien chose to develop a second portal framework which was bound up with what Christopher Tolkien characterizes as 'an unrealized project for the revision of the whole work' (Lost Tales II, p. 234). In a series of notes and in his unfinished narrative ' Ælfwine of England' (Lost Tales II, pp. 302-322), Tolkien introduces his second idea for a portal 'framework'. Christopher Tolkien characterizes Ælfwine as 'more firmly rooted in English History – he is apparently a man of eleventh-century Wessex' (Lost Tales II, p. 302). Ælfwine is the son of Deor, the singer and Eadgifu, who, like Cwen, is given a mysterious origin 'from Lionesse' signifying the sunken kingdom of 'Celtic' and Arthurian legend (302). His father, who is slain in battle tells him about the Elves and Ælfwine’s connection to them is signified by his name which is Anglo-Saxon for 'elf-friend' (303). In one version of the story Ælfwine was to be driven by the Normans away from 'Englaland' to find Tol-Eressea, the Lonely Island, which now exists as a separate place from England (303). Ælfwine is made an orphan by the invading Forodwaith, a Gnomish word constructed from forog 'enemy' (PE 11, p. 36) and gweg 'men' (PE 11, p. 44) and clearly were meant to be the Viking invaders of the 9th and 10th centuries. While in captivity Ælfwine's sea longing takes him and he breaks his bonds and starts his journey to the West. Tolkien writes a great deal of narrative about this journey, his encounter with the Old Man of the Sea and his attempt to find the land of the Elves which Tolkien characterizes as 'that long and strange and perilous voyage whose full tale has never yet been told' (Lost Tales II, p. 320). After a great description of the perilous voyage of Ælfwine and his companions Tolkien does not finish the tale. In the last paragraphs of what Christopher Tolkien gives there are suggestions that Ælfwine's journey ends with his possible death, 'and a kindly death it seemed enveloped him' (Lost Tales II, p. 321). His other companions are described as waking from a dream (321). Even at this later stage in the development of the portal Tolkien can be seen experimenting with the early ideas of dreams and dream vision. The last line Tolkien wrote for 'Ælfwine of England' describing Ælfwine's companions who survive the perilous journey underscores this idea: 'And the things they had seen and heard seemed after to them a mirage, a phantasy, born of hunger and sea-spells' (322). In one of the notes, which

246 reads like a historical chronicle Tolkien made about Ælfwine's arrival on Tol- Eressea, he also included a vestige of the idea of a dream vision (28). Ælfwine lands in Tol-Eressëa and it seems to him like his own land 'clad in the beauty of a happy dream' (Lost Tales II, pp. 305-306).

In the evidence given for this re-conceptualization of his portal 'framework', it is apparent that Tolkien was not thinking of involving Ælfwine in Faërie and the history of the Elves as he had planned with Ottor/Eriol. Ælfwine was to come to Tol-Eressea, the Lonely Island, after Elvish history was concluded. Christopher Tolkien makes this point by stating that in reviewing all of the notes and ideas his father wrote for the second Ælfwine frame 'the part of the mariner is only to record tales out of the past' (Lost Tales II, p. 310).

Another series of notes related to Tolkien's ideas for changing the Ottor/Eriol framework to the Ælfwine one also shows evidence of Tolkien not only attempting to link his mythology to English legend and history but also going a step further and starting to encompass primary world legend into his own mythology. Tolkien attempted this through his re-purposing of the Germanic foundation legend of Ing; a mysterious character from Germanic myth and legend who appears in Beowulf, Widsith and the 8th century Old English Rune Poem; the last of which is also quoted in Chambers 1912 edition of Widsith (1912, p.77). In prose fragments which Christopher Tolkien edited and published towards the end of The Book of Lost Tales (Lost Tales II pp.301-310), Tolkien's introduces the character of Ing(wë) who is said to have been the King of Luthany (England) when the Elves retreated there from the Great Lands (after the fall of Gondolin) on their way back to Tol-Eressëa. The Elves (although some versions say it was Earendel himself) give Ing(wë) (who the Elves called Ing) the Elvish potion limpë which gives him both longevity and possible immortality. Some Elves stay in Luthany (England) and they turn it into an island for defence against invaders. After a long time ruling, Ing(wë) sets sail to join the Elves of Tol-Eressëa but the Valar Ossë blows his ship away to the East to the shores of the East Danes and he becomes a semi-divine king of the people there who will be called the Ingwaiwar who will be the ancestors of the Anglo-Saxon invaders of Britain. As I have explored above with the lost tales he found in Widsith, here again Tolkien is drawing upon Germanic myth

247 and legend to incorporate the Germanic Ing into his mythology. In this case Tolkien is drawing on what is said about Ing in the Old English Rune Poem in which Ing is characterised as 'first amidst the East Danes /so seen, until he went eastward / over the sea' (cited in Chambers 1912, p. 77). In Tolkien’s conception, Ing(wë) instructed these people in the true knowledge of the gods and the Elves and taught them about the culture and language of the Elves, thus turning their hearts to sailing Westwards. Luthany is invaded seven times including by the Rumhoth ('The Romans') and in each invasion more and more of the Elves would retreat over the sea. Finally the Ingwaiwar invade but given their knowledge from Ing(wë) (who has apparently sailed back to Tol-Eressëa) they are not hostile and perhaps most significantly for the linguistic portal concept Tolkien says: that the Elves ‘spoke to the Ingwaiwar in their own tongue' (Lost Tales II, p. 308). Had Tolkien continued with this portal framework, he would have fully imaginatively integrated his own invented languages into the history of the primary world. The Anglo-Saxon invaders would have been speaking a language that was cognate with the language of the Elves which sprang from a common source. This then was a scheme for a great narrative, historic and linguistic link that, like his earlier work with linking his constructed Germanic language with the Geats of Beowulf, Tolkien played with and abandoned (although he would take up this exploration again in the 1930's with his time travel stories including one called 'The Lost Road'). What it does show, I would argue, is how Tolkien used his great knowledge of Germanic and English myth and legendary history in concert with his study of their languages to fuse together a coherent mythological structure that could exist in both the primary and secondary worlds.

Comparing Tolkien's treatment of these two transmission frameworks, it is clear that Tolkien's re-conceptualization of his earlier Ottor Wǽfre portal frame to the Ælfwine one suggests a significant movement away from a 'framework' which included elements of dreams, dream vision and 'lost' Germanic legends to one more grounded in a great narrative that would came out of English history, language and specifically an Anglo-Saxon tradition. It is not surprising that this second framework would emerge during a time of Tolkien's work at the Oxford English Dictionary when he was steeped in researching the historical meanings of words and wrote several pages linked to English history and legend,

248 including the character Ing mentioned in the Old English Rune Poem, related to some of the key words he was in the process of researching (PE 15, pp. 89- 129). Regarding his father's early portal frameworks, Christopher Tolkien ends his analysis by stating 'all this was to fall away afterwards from the developing mythology; but Ælfwine left many marks on its page before he too finally disappeared' (Lost Tales II, p. 327). As Fimi suggests Tolkien's subsequent creative trajectory after The Book of Lost Tales period would be one that would move his legendarium from myth to history (2010, pp. 117-121). Tolkien's ideas of changing his transmission framework from Ottor Wǽfre, more associated with lost Germanic legends and dream travels in Faëry, to Ælfwine, more firmly rooted in Anglo-Saxon history, suggests the first major movement along this creative trajectory. In the case of Ælfwine, Tolkien was not only inventing a secondary world; he was developing a mythic narrative framework, coeval with language invention, to re-imagine the history of the primary world in line with his own secondary world. He would continue to explore this idea which would culminate in the Middle-earth of The Lord of the Rings being positioned in a fictional historical period of the primary world (Letters, p. 220). The earliest germs of this idea can be seen in the creative work Tolkien did, and then abandoned, in The Book of Lost Tales and specifically his Ælfwine framework.

3.5. Faërian Drama as a new type of Dream Vision Framework

However, Tolkien's use of dreams and dream vision as a link to his mythology did not entirely disappear with the more historically focused Ælfwine framework I have explored above. The solution Tolkien constructed for the use of dreams and dream vision in his mythology was his unique idea of ‘Faërian Drama’. While Tolkien did not express his ideas about ‘Faërian Drama’ until On Fairy- stories in 1936, I would argue that the seeds of this concept can be seen as early as the dream portal ideas Tolkien developed in The Book of Lost Tales. To explore this hypothesis it is necessary to start with what Tolkien said about ‘Faërian Drama’ in On Fairy-stories and then work back to what is depicted in the dream portal of The Book of Lost Tales.

In On Fairy-stories, Tolkien’s introduces his concept of ‘Faërian Drama’ in the context of dreams and the role of drama in depicting fantasy. Tolkien first 249 dismisses the idea of drama as a vehicle to depict fantasy as 'Men dressed up as talking animals may achieve buffoonery or mimicry, but they do not achieve Fantasy' (61). Tolkien felt that there was already a conceit inherent in the depiction of fantasy on the stage. Then Tolkien offers an alternative to this bogus form of depicting fantasy: his concept of ‘Faërian Drama’ (61). Tolkien starts this description by immediately equating the experience of 'Faërian Drama' to the act of seeing a play. This fantasy, due to the fact that it both so real and immediate, causes the viewer to go beyond the understanding that this is a made up fantasy. ‘Faërian Drama’ achieves something beyond the buffoonery of what would be depicted on a human stage.

Now 'Faërian Drama' – those plays which according to abundant records the elves have often presented to men – can produce Fantasy with a realism and immediacy beyond the compass of any human mechanism. As a result the usual effect (upon a man) is to go beyond Secondary Belief. (OFS, p. 63)

Tolkien's use of ‘plays’ suggests the Romantic characterization of dreams I have explored above. In his Notebooks, Coleridge often referred to his dreams as being like , with those own characteristics, costumes, settings and temporal and spatial conventions (Ford 1998, p. 33). Coleridge also often perceived his dreams as being performed on stage – a space within which the actions and characters of the dream unfolded. He termed this theatrical dreaming space 'somnial' or 'morphean' Space (34). For Coleridge, the most essential quality likening dreams to dramas was that both of these required the suspension of volition. Coleridge believed that the suspension of volition was one of the fundamental qualities of dreaming. He contrasts the willing suspension of disbelief when watching a play with the illusory qualities of experiencing dreams which, as indicated above, he depicted as being acted on a stage – a theatrical dreaming space (34). Tolkien’s use of theatrical imagery ('those plays… the elves have presented to Men') suggests that he may be exploring Coleridge's idea of the connection of dreams and drama. For Tolkien, the waking dream of being at a 'Faërian Drama' made one open to the secondary world belief of Faërie. This idea also suggests Carroll's aforementioned 'eerie state' when one is in the right frame of mind to enter

250 faerie; as well as what Tolkien says in On Fairy-stories about the sub-creative world which, like the Romantic notion of the land of dreams, the mind can enter into (OFS, p. 52).

Tolkien not only describes what a 'Faërian Drama' is, but also what it is like to be a participant in this experience. In this description of being ‘in’ a secondary world Tolkien makes the point that men have been tricked into thinking it was a dream they were in (OFS, p. 63). Moreover, in a revised version of On Fairy- stories Tolkien adds an additional line to his description of what it is like to be inside a ‘Faërian Drama’ which strengthens the association with dreams; now suggesting that the power of the secondary world can make the participant forget that he is in a dream ‘that some other mind is weaving’ (MC, p.142). Tolkien concludes by stating that the power of experiencing a secondary world directly causes the participant to give it primary belief 'To experience directly a Secondary World: the potion is too strong, and you give it Primary Belief, however marvellous the events' (OFS, p. 63, emphasis in the original).

I would suggest that we can see ideas around the nature of 'Faërian Drama' in embryo in The Book of Lost Tales materials. For example, there is a sense in Tolkien's description of the Olorë Mallë that travelling by dreams and engaging with Faërie is dangerous (‘the potion is too strong’). This dream travel both changes and inspires people with the results of the encounter being the 'misty after-memories of poets' which suggests that these memories are the product of the dreams other minds are weaving. While Tolkien did employ dream imagery to explore and describe Ottor Wǽfre's encounter with Faerie, there is no evidence that Ottor was meant to be dreaming this encounter with the Elves. Even in this earliest version of his creative work, Tolkien was experimenting with how to incorporate the ideas of 'dream vision' and 'waking dreams' without actually having Ottor Wǽfre have a dream from which he would awake. In this regard, Tolkien’s thoughts on the role of dreams in fantasy are already diverging from stories like Carroll's Alice, where the dream became the machinery by which the fantasy world is explained. These thoughts would be summed up in Tolkien’s dismissal of dreams as engines to explain fantasy in On Fairy-stories (OFS, p. 79). As I have explored above, in the description of Ottor Wǽfre’s arrival on the Lonely Island, Tolkien 'plays' with the concept of dreams and

251 dream imagery by suggesting Ottor is in the process of having a dream vision or the reader is tricked into thinking this is the case. Tolkien is making the point that what appears to be a dream is, in fact, an encounter with Faërie. On Tol- Eressëa, the Lonely Island, Ottor listens to the oral stories of the Elves which may very well have come from abundant records which Tolkien would later invent in various chronicles and annals. Ottor Wǽfre is also hearing stories that other minds are singing and weaving. Tolkien specifically signifies this point linguistically by naming the Elves who keep the Cottage of Lost Play Lindo and Vairë. In one of the notebooks Tolkien kept while writing The Book of Lost Tales, these two names are included in both their Qenya and Gnomish forms. These notes show that Lindo is constructed from the Qenya base root LIRI 'sing' (PE 12, p. 54). Vairë may come from one of two Qenya base roots: WEY 'to wind or weave' (PE 12, p. 103), or VAYA 'to enfold or wind about' (PE 12, p. 104). Both names have a direct onomastic relation to what happens in ‘Faërian Drama.’ This suggests, that when Tolkien came to write about 'Faërian Drama’ he drew upon these early concepts of how to make dreams work and fit in a secondary world structure with an inner consistency of reality (OFS, p. 59).

4. Conclusions

As I have demonstrated in this chapter by examining Tolkien's earliest attempts through poetry, language invention and the writing of The Book of Lost Tales it is clear that the necessity of developing imaginative transmission 'frameworks' was from the earliest period as important to Tolkien as his unique myth-making and language invention and was inextricably bound up with his creative process. Just as Tolkien realized that a privately invented language needed someone to speak it as well as a mythology concomitant (MC, p. 210), so it was important that the body of tales Tolkien wrote contained a transmission framework for them to exist, have meaning and ultimately become the body of lost mythology that Tolkien set out to 'invent' for his beloved country. As I have shown, one of Tolkien's earliest ideas for this transmission framework through dreams and dream vision suggest influence from sources and analogues from early fantasy and fairy poetry of dream journeys to fairyland. Tolkien would have been inspired through his own reading of works by Coleridge, Lewis Carroll and George MacDonald to use elements of ideas on 252 dream and travel through dreams in his own creative works. As I have explored in chapter four, Tolkien also visually explored ideas around roads and pathways in several of his ishness paintings from this time; especially the pencil sketch from Xanadu (Appendix 4: Picture 11) and Beyond (Appendix 4: Picture 13). As I have indicated in other chapters, Tolkien's movement along the creative trajectory from imitator/adaptor to creator is signified by how Tolkien used these various strands of inspiration. In this case, he first forged his own dream pathway into his mythology, the Olorë Mallë, and then constructed a framework for dreams in his secondary world that did not explain the fantasy but were part of it, 'Faërian Drama', a true waking encounter with Faërie which some have interpreted as a dream. It is significant that Tolkien included in his last published piece of his lifetime, the novella Smith of Wooten Major (1967), a perilous journeys into Faërie and a scene in which a character experiences the positive and negative aspects of being in a 'Faërian Drama' (SWM, pp. 38-39).

I have also used linguistic analysis in combination with examining Tolkien's early poetry to show that the desire to link his mythology with England was a very early interest for Tolkien. After the War Tolkien expanded this idea and moved to following a dual track of mythic invention by not only creating a unique body of mythology, The Book of Lost Tales, but also inventing the pseudo- historical framework around which these tales would be heard, recorded and transmitted through history to become the lost literature of Faërie, or England. As I have shown, Tolkien achieved this by re-imagining and re-purposing elements of Germanic 'lost tales' which he imaginatively and linguistically expanded on to construct the pedigree of his own Germanic mariner Ottor Wǽfre. But clearly, as I have shown, Tolkien did not abandon the earlier ideas about dreams and dream vision. Indeed, he not only combined them into the pseudo-historical framework for Ottor Wǽfre but expanded the idea to introduce the concept of a shared dream vision that Ottor's ancestor had of Valinor by travelling the Olorë Mallë. The blending of these different strands suggests that Tolkien was looking to construct a transmission framework that would suggest the types of journeys into Faërie from the literature of the time. This journey can be characterized as Tolkien commenting on the state of the legends and fairy-tales we have to day which are only the vestiges of greater tales now lost in both time and transmission.

253

This focus changes, as I have argued, in Tolkien's second attempt at a portal with Ælfwine who is grounded much more in primary world legend verging on history; as opposed to long forgotten and hazy Germanic 'lost tales'. Whereas in Tolkien's conception Ottor Wǽfre becomes a part of further Elvish history, Ælfwine is characterized by Tolkien as the recorder of Elvish history after it has happened. Ottor is an active part of Elvish history while Ælfwine was intended to be a more passive recorder and chronicler more in lines with the scribes who wrote works like The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. For Tolkien this was the first step on the road to his myth becoming history. I have also shown that Tolkien's early attempt to combine dreams and dream vision into the portal are also the earliest seeds of the unique concept he would develop and express in On Fairy-stories as 'Faërian Drama'.

For Tolkien, 'Faërian Drama' was the ultimate solution for making dreams fit into the mythology not as an explanation of the fantasy but as part of the fantasy itself– a waking dream when a true secondary world is encountered. Tolkien would continue to explore these concepts in the development of his mythology including in The Lord of the Rings (see especially Flieger 1994, pp. 192-193). Tolkien's early ideas around narrative transmission, the importance for Tolkien of 'telling the tale', would remain a part of his mythic thinking throughout his life-long work on his legendarium – ideas which were first born at the genesis of Tolkien's mythology.

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Chapter 6: Conclusions: Tolkien and the Genesis of His Mythology

1. The Roles of Private Invention and Public Reception

The previous five chapters of this thesis have explored in detail a number of diverse, but intertwined, aspects of Tolkien’s creativity that coalesced and led to the genesis of his mythology during 1906-1920. However, a key consideration that still needs to be addressed as this study reaches its conclusion is why Tolkien was creating this material and how, if at all, he might have intended for it to be offered to a reading public.

Clearly, the Tolkien of this time was not averse to having his own material published. By the time he started work on his mythology Tolkien had already had his mock-epic poem The Battle of the Eastern Field published in the King Edward's School Chronicle in 1911. In addition, his poem From the many- willow'd margin of the immemorial Thames was published in the Exeter College’s Stapeldon Magazine in 1913. His fairy-inspired poem Goblin Feet appeared in the volume Oxford Poetry, 1915. Moreover, Tolkien submitted a volume of poems linked to his mythology with the proposed title 'The Trumpets of Faerie' to Sidgwick and Jackson in 1915-16. So clearly the Tolkien of this time was interested in having his early mythic work published and therefore seen by a reading public.

The rejection of the 'Trumpets of Faerie' volume by Sidgwick and Jackson, in March 1916, may have been a contributing factor to Tolkien not pursuing any further opportunities after the War to have his mythic material published until much later in his life. In his introduction to The Book of Lost Tales, Christopher Tolkien states 'The Lost Tales never reached, or even approached a form in which my father could have considered their publication before he abandoned them; they were experimental and provisional' (Lost Tales I, p. 9). However, Christopher also says of the Lost Tales themselves, ‘On the other hand, there

255 was already a firm underlying structure that would endure' (Lost Tales I, p. 6).

Related to this is the intended role of Tolkien’s language invention in a published mythology of this time. Given what Tolkien later says in A Secret Vice, Tolkien's language invention was even more private to him than his poetry and prose writing (MC, p. 212). In A Secret Vice Tolkien makes contrasting statements about ‘private invention’ and ‘public reception’. First he characterizes private language inventors, like himself, as 'all so bashful, however, that they hardly ever show their works to one another, so none of them know who are the geniuses at the game' (MC, p. 198). Later in the talk, though, Tolkien says of such language inventors: 'Individualistic as are the makers, seeking a personal expression and satisfaction, they are artists and incomplete without an audience' (MC, p. 202). Clearly contrary to private invention, Tolkien felt that this type of creative work was incomplete ‘without an audience’ which suggests the importance of transmission in Tolkien's creative thinking.

It was the movement of his language invention from social 'paracosmial' play with his cousins, using Nevbosh, to the more privately invented Naffarin, that gave rise to Tolkien’s desire to have a people to ‘speak’ his invented languages with a mythology concomitant (MC, p. 210). Therefore Tolkien could have been intending to publish the lexicons and attendant language documents to serve as 'para-textual' elements for readers to engage further with his mythology. On the other hand, Tolkien may have just been thinking of using these works as authorial guides for the invention of nomenclature: using the base root invention system explored in chapter two to create coherent and consistent names for people, places and objects in his mythology. In this case Tolkien’s efforts at language invention would come to readers through the texts themselves; not unlike the way they later did in The Lord of the Rings. However, the lexical analysis of several of Tolkien's early poems in this thesis has clearly shown that poetic expression was one of the roles Tolkien intended for his invented languages (see chapter two). This role seems to have had a dual focus: on the one hand, for the translation of some of Tolkien’s English poems into Qenya and on the other hand, as exemplified with Narquelion, to write original poetry in

256 the idiom of the invented languages themselves. This suggests that Tolkien may have been intending to include in his hypothetical volume of published mythology, versions of his English poetry translated into his invented languages as well as including poems in the invented languages themselves, perhaps with the addition of the lexicons as the paratextual elements that would invite readers to translate and interact with them.

Related to this series of questions there is the other overarching theme of Tolkien’s early desire: to create a private, or secret place, where he could express his creative imagination including some of his most radical thinking around his mythology. This is best exemplified by three examples: The Qenya Lexicon, the ishness paintings and the overtly Roman Catholic words which are signified by invented Qenya words.

This characteristic of Tolkien's early work can be contextualized with what the philosopher Bachelard (1964) has pointed out about 'play' in childhood, including 'special places, secret seclusions, and generative imagination... every corner in a house, every angle in a room... in which we like to hide, is a symbol of solitude for the imagination' (136). The Brontë children invented their secondary worlds of Angria and Gondol in tiny notebooks with the smallest print making it 'illegible to adult eyes, helping to maintain the secrecy' (Alexander 2010, p. 22). In Tolkien's case these places were constructed in secret note and sketch books and keeping a diary in an invented writing system.

There are also the instances in his talk on the Kalevala in which Tolkien expresses his wish of 'taking a holiday' (Kalevala Essay, p. 270) and his description of accessing myth and Faërie with ‘another part of the brain’ (ibid, p. 270). Here Tolkien seems to be clearly delineating spaces where he could allow himself to think mythically and 'take a holiday' from the primary world. These ideas also seem to echo some of the theories, explored in chapter five, concerning questions as to where dreams arise from and the Romantic notion, explored by Coleridge, that the dream world is a delimited place; a secondary world that the mind and imagination creates and could be entered into and explored.

257 But even if these creative projects were Tolkien's own private invention he still might have had ‘a reader’ in mind. Eco (1984) suggests that when an author is writing a book ‘there is a dialogue between the author and his model reader’ (41). Clearly, when all of Tolkien's early creative work is considered as a whole, he was in fact creating a dialogue with a 'model reader'. This idea is underscored by Tolkien's various attempts at the invention of portal 'frameworks' to create a dialogue through transmission from the secondary world of Faërie to the primary one. This is most demonstrable in Tolkien's fictional conceit of his Lost Tales orally being told by the Elves to Ottor Wǽfre (Tolkien's first 'model reader' if you will) and then transmitted to a future audiences (or future 'model readers') through the found manuscript topos. Eco goes on to say that this model reader is constructed through the text. The act of semiotic decoding is thematized in the structure of the novel in the form of what can be succinctly termed a 'treasury of intertextuality' (42). As this thesis has shown, the entirety of Tolkien’s legendarium, starting with his earliest versions of his mythology, is a series of layered intertextual trans-medial elements that constitute the complex world he was creating.

2. Tolkien and The Genesis of His Mythology

In contrast to much scholarship which has focused on Tolkien’s later two better-known works The Hobbit (1937) and The Lord of the Rings (1954-55), arguably two of the most important works of fantasy literature, this thesis has been one of the first to critically examine Tolkien’s earliest mythology. Certainly through the incredible efforts of Christopher Tolkien a great deal of Tolkien’s early creative work in poetry and prose has been published in the first two volumes of The History of Middle-earth series (The Book of Lost Tales I & II). This has been supplemented by the publishing of Tolkien’s early language invention work in specialist publications such as Parma Eldalamberon and Vinyar Tengwar, as well as the publishing of Tolkien’s early visual works in Artist and Illustrator.

However, even with these invaluable resources, as I have shown in my review of current Tolkien criticism, scholars have not engaged with Tolkien’s earliest

258 material at the same level of critical focus and study as with Tolkien’s later works. Some Tolkien scholars have 'mined' these early materials for particular details and motifs. Other scholars have read and analysed the stories and themes in The Book of Lost Tales, explored their link to Tolkien's life and a few have even studied and commented on Tolkien's early invented languages and paintings (see chapter one). This thesis has chosen to examine Tolkien’s earliest creative work, from which the first version of the mythology emerged, as one coherent whole; rather than a series of individual creative acts. It has examined how all aspects of Tolkien’s earliest creativity worked in a dialectic way to bring to life an invented secondary world the complexity of which fantasy literature had not seen before and which would ultimately set the standard by which all 20th and 21st century fantasy would be structured by authors and received and interacted with by readers. What the overall analysis in this thesis has shown is Tolkien using elements of ‘trans-medial’ storytelling to build his secondary world, with its own mythology, peoples and languages, long before such terms were used to define this type of imaginative world-building (see Wolf, 2012 and Saler, 2012).

The introduction of this thesis has presented the main research questions that are addressed, has reviewed previous scholarship in this area and has juxtaposed published biographical information on the Tolkien of this time with profiles of him drawn from archival reports and additional information found in Tolkien’s Exeter College school notebooks and papers. It has highlighted several key characteristics that would later play a part in Tolkien’s early creative process. These include: Tolkien’s use of words in humorous, punning an ludic ways, his early ability to communicate his passion through literary papers and his love for the subject of the papers and his fascination with language including its structure, phonetic makeup and change through sound shifts.

The second chapter focused on the centrality of the intertwined elements of Tolkien’s early myth-making and language invention. Tolkien’s language invention, as a whole, is perhaps one of the most incomprehensible and avoided areas of Tolkien studies and this is even more so for the earliest version of Tolkien’s invented languages. This chapter has also added to

259 Tolkien’s linguistic corpus by uncovering unpublished information on Tolkien’s first privately invented language, Naffarin, and discovering a hitherto unknown invented language, Fonwegian. It has explored how Tolkien uses base roots to develop a nomenclature for the people, places and objects of his mythology that would have coherence and consistency and would be a direct response to what he felt was lacking in past language inventors (Letters, 1951, p. 144). It has also shown how Tolkien used his early invented languages for poetic translation and composition, ludic and humorous word play and to mythically incorporate himself and members of his family into the mythology. This chapter has also juxtaposed the two creative projects Tolkien stated in 1914-1915, the Éarendel series of poems and the adaption of the Kullervo story-cycle from the Kalevala, to demonstrate how integral the element of language invention was to both of these creative developments; and explored how Tolkien fully intertwined these elements in The Book of Lost Tales which this chapter finally examined in detail from a narrative and linguistic point of view.

The third chapter has analysed the early importance to Tolkien of creating a spiritual underpinning to his mythology which blended elements of his Roman Catholic beliefs with ingredients from pagan mythology and Victorian Spiritualism. It has shown that Tolkien’s dual upbringing, after his mother’s death, in the Birmingham Oratory while studying at King Edward’s School made it important for Tolkien to incorporate differing belief systems into his early mythology and to invent a secondary world where this syncretism could exist and fit. This chapter explored two key strands of Roman Catholic thought that would have influenced Tolkien’s early beliefs: the works of Cardinal John Henry Newman and the visionary poems of the Anglo-Catholic writer Francis Thompson. The chapter has examined the elements of Victorian spiritualism and mysticism that were inherent in the particular strand of Catholicism Newman and Thompson wrote about, including radical ideas around spiritual agencies, angels and unseen powers of nature. As I have explored these elements of Roman Catholicism gave the young Tolkien permission, source and inspiration to explore these ideas which he would eventually, in The Book of Lost Tales, connect to his own Valar, lesser Valar, fairies and Elves. This chapter has also focused on how Tolkien attempted linguistic syncretism in his Qenya Lexicon by the invention of overtly Roman Catholic words expressed in

260 Qenya and has explored and suggested a source of inspiration in a similar process that Thompson uses in his poetic diction. This chapter concluded by exploring the early solution Tolkien developed in his own mythology which combined and blended elements of Catholicism, pagan and spiritual beliefs.

The fourth chapter has been devoted to examining the role of visual representation in Tolkien’s early mythology. This chapter has considered several groups of Tolkien’s paintings and drawings which moved from being psychological reflections of Tolkien’s inner-world to visual representation of the mythic images that were emerging in his mind. It has shown how this entire group of mythic visualizations are in themselves sub-creative and were integral components in the genesis of Tolkien's mythology. A subset of these ‘texts’ this chapter explored include a series of visually oriented 'para-textual' maps, artefacts in Tolkien's writing systems and three heraldic devices. These visual documents followed in the tradition of the New Romance authors who sought to ‘re-enchant modernity’ by using scientific theory and empiricism to invent para- textual elements that would ground fiction and fantasy works in a deeper sense of reality (Saler 2012). This chapter has also considered all of Tolkien’s visual documents as elements of Tolkien's 'trans-medial' layering of his story-telling and invention of his secondary world.

The fifth chapter of the thesis has focused on the importance to Tolkien, from his earliest creative conception, of ‘frameworks’ for transmission of his narratives. This chapter has made links between Tolkien's early poetry, language invention, paintings and The Book of Lost Tales to explore dreams and dream vision as one of Tolkien’s earliest concepts for this transmission ‘framework’ which would ultimately result in Tolkien’s unique concept of 'Faërian Drama'. This chapter has also explored Tolkien’s pseudo-historical 'frameworks' as examples of Tolkien creatively re-imagining and re-purposing his academic study of Germanic ‘lost tales’ and the vestiges of Anglo-Saxon myth and legend to construct a ‘framework’ by which his unique mythology would become the lost, true, tradition of England. This chapter has ultimately shown how Tolkien’s ideas for the ‘framework’ structure moved from notions around dreams and journeys into Faerie to elements more embedded in English legend verging on

261 history.

Glyer (2007) examines the J.R.R. Tolkien of a slightly later period when he composed the next major stage of his mythology as part of a group of writers at Oxford called ‘’. As Glyer shows in her study, one of the key functions of the Inklings in regards to Tolkien's work was to urge him on to finish what he was working on (see especially Glyer 2007, pp. 54-58). Not surprisingly, Tolkien's time with the Inklings would be one of his most creative periods with the composing of his great works The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, selections of which he would read to this group in draft.

The Tolkien that has been the subject of this thesis did not have the same type of structured support group or community of writers as the Inklings. Before the War, Tolkien had the support and encouragement of his group of like-minded colleagues, the T.C.B.S. As Garth indicates it was after one of the meetings of this group, in December 1914, that Tolkien increased his creative work on the mythology (2003, pp. 58-60). However, the War took away all but one of Tolkien’s T.C.B.S. colleagues and, as the sole light bearer of his dead companions, Tolkien was left to continue the creative vision the T.C.B.S. had inspired virtually on his own. One instance of post-War encouragement by the T.C.B.S. came in a letter from the other surviving member of the T.C.B.S., Christopher Wiseman, who told Tolkien while he was in convalescence ‘you ought to start the epic’ (cited in Biography, p. 98). Shortly thereafter Tolkien would start work on The Book of the Lost Tales with only his wife Edith as his reading audience. Had Tolkien had such a group to hear, comment and encourage his emerging Book of Lost Tales they might have approached a form that would have been publishable at that time and the treatment of this material might have been quite different.

By treating Tolkien’s earliest creative efforts as equally important to his more ‘mature’ later works, this thesis has illuminated the early creative process Tolkien went through to establish what Hunt has described as ‘the fullest exemplar of the coherent alternative world yet’ (2001, p.33) and Clute and Grant have called ‘the paradigm secondary world’ (1996, p. 951) of modern fantasy. My thesis has, therefore, gone some way towards giving a fuller context to

262 Tolkien’s famous 1951 ‘manifesto’:

Do not laugh! But once upon a time (my crest has long since fallen) I had a mind to make a body of more or less connected legend, ranging from the large and cosmogonic, to the level of romantic fairy-story – the larger founded on the lesser in contact with the earth, the lesser drawing splendour from the vast backcloths – which I could dedicate simply to: to England; to my country. (Letters, 1951, p. 144)

263 Appendix 1. Chronological Works of J.R.R. Tolkien to early 1920s

Date Work

August 1904 Rebus Pictorial Code Postcard to Father Francis c. 1906 Invents Nevbosh Language c. 1907 Invents Naffarin Language (and possibly Fonwegian) c. 1908-1909 Discovers Gothic Language/Attempts to invent a proto- Germanic language (Gautisk)

June 1909 The Book of the Foxrook a private code book based on Esperanto c. 1910 Includes a poem at the end of a letter to Edith which is probably titled 'Morning' and Tolkien would later date to May 1910.

Spring 1910 At King Edwards School gives a lecture on ‘The Modern Languages of Europe: Derivations and Capabilities’

May 1910 Composes poem The Dale Lands (unpublished)

June 1910 Composes poem Evening (unpublished)

July 1910 Composes first version of poem Wood-sunshine

February 1911 At King Edwards School gives a paper ‘On Norse Sagas’

1911-1912 Paints Before and Afterwards

March 1911 Tolkien’s mock-heroic poem The Battle of the Eastern Field is published in The King Edward’s School Chronicle

July 1911 Composes A Fragment of an Epic: Before Jerusalem King Richard Makes an End of Speech (unpublished)

September- October Composes the Kalevala-related poems around the 1911 character of Lemminkainen in the Kalevala (unpublished)

October 1911 Composes poem From Iffley (six lines of this poem were published in The Stapeldon Magazine (vol 4) in December 1913 as From the many-willow’d argin of the I e orial Thames (see Dec. 1913) the other lines do not survive.

264 6 November 1911 Composes poem Darkness on the Road (unpublished)

7 November 1911 Composes Sunset on A Town (unpublished)

December 1911 Writes a Christmas play, ‘Cherry Farm’

Summer 1912 Composes poem The Grimness of the Sea

December 1912 Paints Other People, Undertenishness, Wickedness, Back of the Beyond, End of the World (early Ishness)

December 1912 Writes Christmas Play ‘The Bloodhound, the Chef and the Suffragette’

1913 Paints Xanadu

December 1913 Tolkien’s poem From the many-willow’d argin of the Immemorial Thames is published in Exeter College’s Stapeldon Magazine

Late Dec 1913-early Composes poem Outside (unpublished) 1914

6 Jan 1914 Beginnings sketching in The Book of Ishness

16 May 1914 Rewrites earlier poem Wood-sunshine

18 May 1914 Rewrites earlier poem The Dale Lands (now called The Dale-lands)

24 September 1914 Composes the earliest drafts of The Voyage of Éarendel the Evening Star (continues to develop through the Spring of 1915)

October 1914 Adapts the Kalevala Kullervo story-cycle as The Story of Kullervo with invented names for people, places and objects

22 November 1914 Gives talk on the Kalevala at Corpus Christi College, Oxford

27 November 1914 Reads a version of The Voyage of Earendel the Evening Star to the Exeter College Essay Club

27 November 1914 Rewrites and expands the earlier poem The Grimness of the Sea

265 Late 1914 – early Begins to Invent the Qenya Language 1915

December 1914 Rewrites the poem Outside

21 December 1914 Composes poem Dark (unpublished)

22 December 1914 Composes Ferrum et Sanguis (unpublished)

27 December 1914 Paints The Land of Pohja

January 1915 Composes the poem As Two Fair Trees (unpublished)

Jan 1915 Composes Sea Chant of an Elder Day

March 1915 Paints Water Wind and Sand and inscribes with lines from Sea Chant for an Elder Day poem.

March – April 1915 Composes other Éarendel-related poems

March 1915 Composes poem Sparrow-song (Bilink)

8 March 1915 Rewrites poem Dark and titles it Copernicus v. Ptolemy or Copernicus and Ptolemy

10-11 March 1915 Composes poem Why the Man in the Moon Came Down too Soon (An East Anglian Phantasy)

April 1915 Paints Tanaqui

15-16 April 1915 Composes poem Courage Speaks with the Love of the Earth (unpublished)

22 April 1915 Rewrites the poem Evening and calls it Completorium

27-30 April 1915 Composes poems You and Me and The Cottage of Lost Play, Goblin Feet, Tinfang Warble, and Kor: In A City Lost and Dead

2 May 1915 Revises poem The Darkness of the Road

3 May 1915 Composes Morning Song (a revision of earlier poem Morning)

Mid May 1915 Paints Ishness images of Kor

28 May 1915 Gives a paper to the Oxford Psittakoi Society on H.R. Freston’s On the Quest for Beauty and other Poems.

266 8-9 July 1915 Composes The Shores of Faery which includes invented names in Qenya for places and objects

9 July 1915 Composes the poem The Princess Ni

13-14 July 1915 Composes the poem The Trumpets of Faery (Faerie)

13-24 July 1915 Composes the poem The Happy Mariners

19 July 1915 Composes the poem Thoughts on Parade (unpublished)

12 September 1915 Composes the poem A Song of Aryador

21-28 November Composes poem Kortirion among the Trees – writes four 1915 lines in Qenya on the upper margin.

28 November- Composes the poem The Pool of the Dead (and the December 1915 Passing of Autumn)

1 December 1915 Goblin Feet is published in the volume Oxford Poetry, 1915.

January-February Composes poem Over Hills and Far Away 1916

16-19 March 1916 Composes the poem The Wanders Allegiance which includes ‘The City of Dreams’ and ‘The City of Present Sorrow’ which he revises again in November 1916.

June 1916 Composes poem Habbanan Beneath the Stars

3-8 July 1916 Composes poems Tol-Eressea (later called The Lonely Island), A Dream of Coming Home and A Memory of July in England,

24-26 August 1916 Composes poems A Thatch of Poppies and The Forest Walker

13-24 September Revises the poem The Mer aid’s Flute and composes 1916 Consalatrix, Affictorium, and Stella Verspertina

December 1916 Composes poem GBS (later G.B.S.) in memory of G.B. Smith

Late 1916-early 1917 Writes 'The Fall of Gondolin' (Tuor A)

267 Late 1916-early 1917 Writes ‘The Cottage of Lost Play’

Spring 1917 Resumes work on Qenya language by compiling The Poetic and Mythological Words of Eldarissa.

Early 1917 Starts inventing the Gnomish language and re-writes the Historical Sketch of The Qenya Phonology. Sketches The Heraldic Devices of Tol-Erethrin

1 August 1917 Composes the poem Companions of the Rose (unpublished)

August-October 1917 Writes the first version of 'The Tale of Tinuviel' (does not survive)

Summer 1917-early Writes ‘Turambar and the Foaloke’ 1918

August-September Composes The Gray Bridge of Tavrobel 1917

31 August-2 Sept Rewrites Sea Song of an Elder Day now called The Horns 1917 of Ulmo and later Ylmir

1917-1919 Develops both the Qenya and Gnomish languages through various language related documents (The Creatures of the Earth, Otsan and Kaienenden, The Names of the Valar)

Jan-March 1918 Rewrites The Lonely Harebell now called Elf Alone.

Winter/Spring 1918 Writes a prefatory note in volume of poems A Spring Harvest in honour of Geoffrey Bache Smith which is published in June 1918

29 November 1918 Writes documents on Old English names and legends incorporating Old English names in mythology (‘Early Runic Documents’)

1918-1919 Writes ‘The Music of the Ainur’ cycle of Lost Tales and the linking passages c. 1919 Composes a fragment of poem Si Qente Feanor – 13 lines in Qenya as well as Corrected Names of Chief Valar and

268 Gnomish Lexicon Slips (on OED paper).

June 1919 Writes ‘The Túrin Prose Fragment’ and Table of Rumilian Letters.

1919-1920 Composes poems The Pool of Forgetfulness, The Brothers in arms and The Cat and the Fiddle

Summer-Autumn Begins work on Middle English glossary for Sisam’s 1919 edition of 14th Century Verse and Prose (eventually published in June 1922) c. Autumn 1919 Composes the poem The Ruined Enchanter – A Fairy Ballad (unpublished)

18 March 1920 Tolkien reads a shortened version of ‘The Fall of Gondolin’ to the Exeter College Essay Club.

1920 Writes ‘Ælfwine of England’ and plan for second ‘framework’ for Lost Tales which he abandons.

Late 1920-1921 Writes fragments of tales which are associated with stories from the Book of Lost Tales – ‘Turin and the Exiles of Gondolin’, ‘The Travail of the Noldoli’, ‘The Flight of the Noldoli’, ‘The Lay of the Fall of Gondolin’.

269 Appendix 2. List of the Academic Books Tolkien Borrowed from the Fellow’s Library of Exeter College (1911-1915)

Please note: Names of Titles comes from the Exeter College records and use the spelling found in the entries of The Fellow's Library

Classical Texts Taken Out Returned

Grote, History of Greece V 25 Nov. 1911 6 Dec. 1911 Jebb, Oedipus Tyrannus 16 Oct. 1912 5 Dec. 1912 Verrall, Aeschylus Agamemnon 8 Feb. 1913 4 Mar 1913 Kennedy, Aeschylus Agamemnon 8 Feb. 1913 4 Mar. 1913

Books and journals on subjects focused on language and philology

Taken Out Returned Wright, English Dialect Grammar 25 Nov. 1911 6 Dec. 1911 Eliot, Finnish Grammar 25 Nov. 1911 6 Dec. 1911 (1) Eliot, Finnish Grammar 25 Oct. 1912 5 Dec. 1912 (2) Wortesbuch Indogermanischen III 25 Oct. 1912 5 Dec. 1912 Wright, Middle High German 25 Oct. 1912 5 Dec. 1912 Paul, Grundiss der German Phil 29 Jan. 1914 11 Mar. 1914 Sweet, History of English Sounds 29 Jan. 1914 11 Mar. 1914 (1) Paul, Grundiss der German Phil II 13 Mar. 1914 28 April 1914 Anglia IX 23 Oct. 1914 11 Nov. 1914 Englische Studien, vol 16 23 Oct. 1914 11 Nov. 1914 Sweet, History of English Sounds 5 Nov. 1914 16 Jan. 1915 (2) Anglia XX 5 Nov. 1914 11 Nov. 1914 Eliot, Finnish Grammar 14 Nov. 1914 16 Jan. 1915 (3) Sweet, History of English Sounds 19 Jan.1915 10 Mar.1915 (3) Paul Grundiiss der German Phil II 28 Jan.1915 10 Mar.1915

Anglo-Saxon prose and poetry Taken Out Returned

Earle, The Deeds of Beowulf 13 Mar. 1914 28 April 1914 (1)

270 Wulcker Grundiss z. Gesh[ichte] d. Ags. 13 Mar. 1914 28 April 1914 Philologie

Grein-Wulcker - Bibl d. Ags Poesi I-III 13 Mar. 1914 28 April 1914 (1) William Morris & Wyatt, Beowulf 13 Mar. 1914 28 April 1914 Earle, The Deeds of Beowulf 19 June 1914 14 Oct. 1914 (2) Morris, Old English Miscellany 19 June 1914 14 Oct. 1914 Grein-Wulcker - Bibl d. Ags Poesi I-III 19 June 1914 14 Oct. 1914 (2) Morris, Old English Miscellany 19 Jan. 1915 10 Mar. 1915

Middle-English Prose and Poetry Taken Out Returned

Skeat, Piers the Plowman 29 Jan 1914 11 Mar. 1914 Skeat, Chaucer’s Works II 14 Nov 1914 16 Jan 1915 Skeat, Chaucer’s Works II 19 Jan 1915 10 Mar. 1915 Skeat, Chaucer’s Works II 12 Mar 1915 17 April 1915 Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales 9 June 1915 16 June 1915

Other books on English Literature Taken Out Returned

Raleigh, Shakespeare 28 Jan 1915 10 March 1915 Cambridge, History of English 12 March 1915 17 April 1915 Literature vol1 Raleigh, Shakespeare 12 March 1915 17 April 1915 Cambridge History of English 15 May 1915 16 June 1915 Literature vol 2 Keats (English Men of Letters) 15 May 1915 18 Oct 1915 Bradley, Shakespearian Tragedy 31 May 1915 16 June 1915 Bradley, Oxford Lectures in Poetry 31 May 1915 16 June 1915 Cambridge History of English 9 June 1915 16 June 1915 Literature vol 3 Raleigh, Shakespeare 9 June 1915 16 June 1915

271 Appendix 3. Detailed List of Tolkien’s Language Invention and Writing Systems

Projected Date Language Invention Source

August 1904 Picture Code (Rebus) Letter to Father Life and Legend, p. 17 Francis Morgan c. 1906 Encounters his cousins invented MC, pp. 200-201 language, Animalic c. 1906-7 Helps invents Nevbosh with his cousin MC, pp. 202-208 c. 1907 Privately invents Naffarin MC, pp. 209-212 and MS Tolkien 24 folio 24 verso c. 1907? Possibly invented Fonwegian to MS Tolkien 24 folio 24 compare to Naffarin recto and verso c.1908-1910 Samples of Nevbosh or Naffarin in Tolkien E 16/4, p. 123 Tolkien’s school book

1908-1908 Invents Gautisk based on study of PE 12, p. iv Gothic language

June 1909 The Book of the Foxrook includes Smith and Wynne code system base on Esperanto (2000)

October 1914 Invents names for The Story of Kalevala Essay Kullervo

Late 1914-early Starts to set down base roots and PE 12, pp. 1-112 1915 constructed words in The Qenya Lexicon and writes the earliest layer of The Qenya Phonology

July 1915 Composes The Shores of Faery with Lost Tales II, pp. 271- invented names in Qenya 273 c.1915-1919 4 pages on the conjugation of a Qenya PE 14, pp.25-34 Verb

November 1915- In November 1915 Tolkien writes four VT 40, p. 6-32

272 March 1916 lines in the margin of the poem Kortirion in Qenya. In March 1916 Tolkien revisited these lines and wrote the Qenya poem Narqelion

Spring 1917 Resumes work on Qenya by compiling PE 12, pp. 29-112 the list The Poetic and Mythologic Words of Eldarissa

Spring 1917 Starts to invent Gnomish/Goldogrin PE 11, pp. 1-76 language with The Gnomish Grammar and The Gnomish Lexicon

Late 1917 The Heraldic Devices of Tol-Erethrin PE 13, pp. 93-96 with Gnomish inscriptions

1917-1918 Develops: The Early Chart of Names, PE 13, pp. 98-99, 100- The Official Names List, and The 105 Name List to the Fall of Gondolin c. 1917-1920 Early Qenya Pronouns PE 15, pp. 41-58 c. 1917-1918 Name List for ‘The Cottage of Lost PE 15, pp. 5-11 Play’ in Qenya and Gnomish c. 1917-1918 Linguistic notes on the Qenya name PE 15, p. 14 for poppy, fumella, and Nen, the Great River of Valinor c. 1917-1918 Revision of The Qenya Phonology with PE 12, pp. 1-28 new Historical Sketch reflecting development of earliest layer of Primitive Eldarin c. 1917-1918 Chart of Gnomish Vowels and PE 15, pp. 12-13 Consonants c. 1918-1919 The Creatures of the Earth in Qenya PE 14, pp. 5-10 and Gnomish c. 1918-1919 The Names of the Valar in Qenya and PE 14, pp. 11-15

273 Gnomish c. 1918-1919 Otsan and Kainendan (Days of the PE 14, pp. 16-22 Week of the Elves in Valar) c. 1918-1919 Notes on two Qenya Verb forms – PE 14, pp. 23-24 Matar and Tulir c. 1919-1920 Names List and Language Notes on PE 15, pp. 41-58 'The Nauglafring' c. 1919 Si Qente Feanor 13 lines in Qenya PE 15, pp. 31-40 c. Jan-July 1919 Gnomish Lexicon Notes (on back of PE 15, pp. 106-118 OED slips)

June 1919 Túrin Prose Fragment in Rumilian and PE 13, pp. 106-118 Table of Rúmilian Letters and Doodles

1919 -1920 Tables of New English Runes PE 15, pp.102-107

274 Appendix 4. Tolkien’s Paintings and Drawings

Picture 1: Whitby. Artist, p. 15

Picture 2: The Cottage, Barnt Green. Picture 3: Turl Street, Oxford. Artist, p. 22 Artist, pp. 22-23

275

Picture 4: Before. Artist, p. 30

Picture 5: Afterwards. Artist, p. 36

276

Picture 6: Wickedness. Artist, p. 37

Picture 7: Thought. Artist, p. 38

277

Picture 8: Undertenishness. Artist, p. 39

Picture 9: Grownupishness. Artist, p. 39

278

Picture 10: End of the World. Artist, p. 40

Picture 11: Xanadu. Artist, p.41

279

Picture 12: Untitled (Northern House). Artist, p. 42

Picture 13: Beyond. Artist, p. 42

280

Picture 14: Eeriness. Artist, p. 41

Picture 15: The Land of Pohja. Artist, p. 44

281

Picture 16: Gallen-Kallela, A. (1896), The Defense of the Sampo. Turku Ar Museum, Turku, Finland.

Picture 17: Gallen-Kallela, A. (1906), The Departure of Väinämöinen. Turku Ar Museum, Turku, Finland.

282

Picture 18: Water, Wind & Sand. Artist, p. 46

Picture 19: Tanaqui. Artist, p. 47

283

Picture 20: The Man in the Moon. Artist, p. 49

Picture 21: The Shores of Faery. Artist, p. 48

284

Picture 22: The Earliest Map. Lost Tales I, p. 81

Picture 23: I Vene Kemen (The Ship of the World). Lost Tales I, p. 84

285

Picture 24: Code Letter from Tolkien to Father Francis Morgan (1904). Life and Legend, p. 17

Picture 25: Túrin Prose Fragment in Rumilian Letters, PE 13, p. 18

286

Pictures 26- 28: Heraldic Devices of Tol-Erethrin. PE 13, pp. 93-96

287 Appendix 5. Transcript of the Report of Tolkien’s Talk on Francis Thompson at Exeter College

Report on J.R.R. Tolkien’s paper on Catholic poet Francis Thompson by L.L.H. Thompson (4 March 1914)

The president then called upon the secretary for the paper on “Francis Thompson.’ Mr Tolkien’s paper was divided into two parts – the first dealing with the life of the poet; the second defending the writer’s estimate that Francis Thompson marked among the very greatest of all poets.

Francis Thompson’s work provided perhaps the only real illumination upon the interior facts of his life; the Meynell biography, though bad, was a valuable body of evidence against misconception and calumny, concerning its opium question, and on the important relations of Francis Thompson to the Meynell family. Viewing Thompson’s character in contrast to the gossip at the time of his death, the reader summed it up as ‘a saintliness sensitive to beauty, an imagination contemplative of sanctity.’

He then dealt with the exterior facts of Francis Thompson’s life, his boyhood, his study of medicine, his starving in London and his final rescue by the Meynells. It was the main object of this part of the paper to show that the opium habit contrasted as a remedy against bodily pain remained so and nothing more, it was never the inspiration of either the thought or the imagery of his poems: it never conquered Thompson, who fought it to the end, if never completely victoriously, his poetry was entirely produced in times of conquest and abstinence.

The most remarkable fact of Francis Thompson’s life was that through the most complete misery, squalor and degraded company he preserved not only a saintly attitude of charity towards mankind, but a burning enthusiasm for the etherally fair. He was a marked contrast to many others who never were plunged in the same darkness and yet lost their clear vision.

In the second part Mr Tolkien based his high claim for F. Thompson on 3 grounds 1) metrical power 2) greatness of language 3) immensity of imagery, and the faith underlying it. He did not deal in detail with metre, but elaborated more on the language point, but parts of this section of the paper were rendered 288 a little obscure by illegibility at the critical moments. The main theme was that Modern English had become unfortunately split in three ways: by convention into popular and literary streams, by pedantry into native and alien, by time into obsolescent and current. With regard to the last two, Thompson exercised to a singular extent the function of welder re-uniter of the separate elements. For this, he was peculiarly endowed by both a happy lack of the destructive pedantry that divides English into mutually unassociable sections – classical and native (a most pernicious birth snobbery of words) and by an altogether unusual combination of an extraordinary knowledge of the Elizabethan with a large acquaintance with the technicalities of modern science. The latinate feeling however was derived not from classical sources as much as from the Liturgies and the Vulgate.

In dealing with F. Thompson’s imagery and faith, the reader noted in particular the images drawn from astronomy and geology, and especially those that could be described as Catholic ritual writ large across the universe. The underlying faith was the Catholic faith and its entailed philosophy. The most characteristic of all things in F Thompson was also the most universally acknowledged characteristic of Catholics: the alternation of profound awe and familiarity in dealing with things of faith.

In conclusion an attitude of humility befitting immaturity was necessary towards F. Thompson’s most profound expressions of mature spiritual experience before rashly accusing him of obscurity. One must begin with the elfin and delicate and progress to the profound; listen first to the violin and flute, and learn to harken to the organ of being’s harmony.

Throughout an excellent and enthusiastic paper the reader gave the impression of discriminating devotion to his subject. One was conscious that he felt himself to be in perfect harmony with the poet: and of this was so with the paper, it is hard to describe the impression produced by the copious quotations by which it was followed. Francis Thompson must be heard to be appreciated, and every one of his moods found a perfect interpreter in Mr. Tolkien.

The discussion which followed was opened by Mr Barber, who pointed out the comparatively small influences that scientific education had upon Francis Thompson. The scientific attention to detail was not evident in his work; the

289 chief traces of science was to be found in language and imagery; and the science which seems to have affected him most was that of Astronomy. With regard to the influence of the Catholic Church, Mr Barber, while agreeing with the reader as to the alternation of attitude, thought Francis Thompson most happy in depicting the Child Christ; with the Deity he was less successful.

Mr Cullis found the sacerdotal imagery rather overpowering at times; he was attracted more by his simple poems of childhood.

Mr Gordon said that the metrical system of F. Thompson’s poetry was one of its most distinctive features. The elaborate Elizabethan metres were those that best express the beauty of the English Language. There was a ringing of bells through Francis Thompson’s poetry as through the Vulgate.

Mr Wheway felt that minute enthusiasm was cruel to the poetry; there seemed to hang over it still some mist of `Wordsworth’s clouds of glory; his poetry did not indulge the world at all; he had out-reached it.

Mr Earp found that in the soaring of rockets that had punctuated the reading of the paper a fitting simile to F Thompson's poems. Yet he was essentially the poet of disappointment.

Mr. Tolkien then replied, with further quotations, and after a note of thanks to the reader and the host, the proceedings became informal.

There were present besides the officers (including the reader) Messrs. Barber, , Windle, Hill, Earp, Marshall, Wheway Craddock, Blomfield and Thompson, and as visitors Messrs. Shakespeare and W.R. Brown.

L.L.H. Thompson Hon Sec

J.R.R. Tolkien Pres.

290 Bibliography

1. Works by J.R.R. Tolkien, cited in chronological order

‘The Battle of the Eastern Field’, King Edward’s School Chronicle, March 1911, pp. 22-26.

‘Goblin Feet’, pp. 64–5, in Cole, G.D.H. and Earp, T.W. (eds.), Oxford Poetry 1915. Oxford: Blackwell, 1915.

‘Philology: General Works’, The Year’s Work in English Studies, IV, pp. 20-37, 1923.

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, edited by J. R. R. Tolkien and E. V. Gordon. Oxford: Oxford University Press (cited here from 2nd edition, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967).

The Fellowship of the Ring. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1954 (cited here from 50th Anniversary Edition, edited by Wayne G. Hammond & , London: HarperCollins, 2004).

The Return of the King. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1955 (cited here from 50th Anniversary Edition, edited by Wayne G. Hammond & Christina Scull, London: HarperCollins, 2004).

The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, edited by Humphrey Carpenter with the assistance of Christopher Tolkien. London: George Allen and Unwin, 1981.

Unfinished Tales of enor and Middle-earth, edited by Christopher Tolkien. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1980.

The Monsters and the Critics and Other Essays, edited by Christopher Tolkien. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1983.

The Book of Lost Tales, Part One, edited by Christopher Tolkien. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1983.

The Book of Lost Tales, Part Two, edited by Christopher Tolkien. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1984.

291 The Shaping of Middle-Earth, The Quenta, The Ambarkanta and the Annals (together with the earliest ‘Sil arillion’) and the First Map, edited by Christopher Tolkien. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1986.

The Lost Road and Other Writings: Language and Legend before the Lord of the Rings, edited by Christopher Tolkien. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1987.

The Treason of Isengard: The History of the Lord of the Rings, Part Two, edited by Christopher Tolkien. London: HarperCollins, 1989.

(PE 11) ‘I-Lam-na-Ngoldathon: The Grammar and Lexicon of the Gnomish Tongue’, edited by Christopher Gilson, Patrick Wynne, Arden R. Smith and Carl F Hostetter, Parma Eldalamberon, 11, pp. 2-75, 1995.

Smith, Arden R. (1995): ‘The Turin Prose Fragement: An Analysis of a Rumilian Document’, Vinyar Tengwar, 37, pp. 15-23.

The Peoples of Middle-Earth, edited by Christopher Tolkien. London: HarperCollins, 1996.

(PE 12) ‘Qenyaqetsa: The Qenya Phonology and Lexicon: together with The Poetic and Mythologic Words of Eldarissa’ edited by Christopher Gilson, Carl F. Hostetter, Patrick Wynne and Arden R. Smith, Parma Eldalamberon, 12, pp. 1- 121, 1998.

‘Narqelion and the Early Lexicons: Some notes on the First Elvish Poem’, edited by Christopher Gilson, Vinyar Tengwar, 40, pp. 6-33, 1999.

(PE 13) ‘The Alphabet of Rúmil and Early Noldorin Fragments’ edited by Patrick Wynne, Christopher Gilson, Carl F. Hostetter and Bill Welden, Parma Eldalamberon, 13, pp. 91-165, 2001.

(PE 14) ‘Early Qenya and The Valmaric Script’ edited by Patrick Wynne, Christopher Gilson, Carl F. Hostetter and Arden R. Smith, Parma Eldalamberon, 14, pp. 3-34, 2003.

(PE 15) ‘Si Qente Feanor and Other Elvish Writings’ edited by Patrick Wayne, Christopher Gilson, Carl Hostetter, Bill Welden and Arden R. Smith, Parma Eldalamberon, 15, pp. 3-40, 2004.

292 Tolkien On Fairy-stories, edited by Verlyn Flieger and Douglas Anderson. London: HarperCollins, 2008.

Smith of Wooten Major: Expanded Edition, edited by Verlyn Flieger, London: HarperCollins, 2008.

‘The Story of Kullervo and Essays on “The Kalevala”’ edited by Verlyn Flieger, Tolkien Studies, 7 (2010), p. 211-278.

The Fall of Arthur, edited by Christopher Tolkien. London: HarperCollins, 2013.

Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary, edited by Christopher Tolkien. London: HarperCollins, 2014.

Tolkien on Invented Languages: An Extended Edition of 'A Secret Vice', edited by Dimitra Fimi and Andrew Higgins. London: HarperCollins, forthcoming.

2. J.R.R. Tolkien’s Unpublished Manuscripts

2.1 Bodleian Library

2.1.1 MS Tolkien

MS. Tolkien 24. Lecture on invented languages, 'A Hobby for the Home’, later called ‘A Secret Vice’, with (fols. 35-52) notes and versions of the poems cited, and including (fols. 44-5) notes on Finnegans Wake.

2.1.2. Tolkien 'A'

Tolkien A 14/2. Notes and drafts of lectures on the history of the English language, including (fols. 73-119) Chaucerian grammar, with (fols. 120- 51) draft of lecture on Anglo-Saxon history.

Tolkien A2l/l-12. Notebooks containing notes and (A21/1) essays on English philology and literature, compiled as an undergraduate and at Leeds. See also C6/2. Loose leaves removed from the notebooks are in A21/13

293 Tolkien A28/A. Commentary on Beowulf, 1920s, with (fols. 150-1) covers of the original notebook.

2.1.3. Tolkien 'E'

Tolkien E16/4. G.G. Bradley, Latin Prose Composition (London, 1902?). King Edward's School. Dated 27 Nov. 1910, p. 246. Notes and doodles throughout (see pp. 49, 56, 129), most in Tolkien’s hand (but see pp. 169, 193).

2.2. Other Archival Material

2.2.1. Register of books borrowed from the Fellow's Library of Exeter College, Oxford [D IV. 7] (see Appendix 2)

2.2.2. Stapeldon Society Essay Club Minute Book – Report on J.R.R. Tolkien's paper on Francis Thompson by Lionel Thompson (4 March 1914) [F111, 4] (see Appendix 5)

3. Other Works Cited

Abram, Chris (2011), Myths of the Pagan North. London: Hambledon Continuum.

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