Tolkien and the Great War (40 page)

pp.48-9

Wartime Oxford: Winter, ‘Oxford and the First World War', 3-18. Exeter College:
The Stapeldon Magazine
, December 1914, 103-5.

p.49

‘
the Johnner
': CLW to JRRT, 8 December 1916.

Undergraduate activities: Stapeldon Society minutes, 20 October 1914 (letters of support, ‘lowering clouds…'); 27 October (sub-rector, the Superman); 3 November (spelling reform, ‘no doubt…economising…'); 17 November 1914 (stringent economy).

pp.49-50

The Yser: Strachan,
The First World War
, i. 276. Orange Free State: ibid. 553.

p.50

Exonians and the university OTC:
The Stapeldon Magazine
, December 1914, 120.

‘
We had a drill…
':
Letters
, 7.

Milton and Dante: RQG to MCG, 22 June 1913.

Rifles taken away: RQG to MCG, 5 November 1914.

‘Oxford “sleepies”', etc.
:
Biography
, 73.

Kalevala
:
Letters
, 7, and
Biography
, 73.

p.51

Defence of nationalism
: Stapeldon Society minutes, 17 November 1914.

‘
I don't defend “Deutschland über alles”…
': JRRT to CLW, 16 November 1914.

Inherited linguistic aptitude:
Letters
, 213.

‘
I am indeed…
':
Letters
, 218.

p.52

‘in a speech attempting…' etc.
:
KESC
, December 1910, 95.

‘
The mythological ballads…
':
Biography
, 59. JRRT on ‘The Finnish National Epic': Sundial Society minutes.

Essay Club meeting:
Letters
, 7-8.

p.53

GBS on ‘Éarendel'; ‘I don't know…'
:
Biography
, 75.

‘
Earendel's boat…
':
LT2
, 261-3. The only invented names (
Kôr, Solosimpë, Eldamar
) were additions; apart from these the plot outline certainly predates JRRT's first onomastic experiments of 1915.

p.54

GBS visits Cambridge; ‘Tolkien was to come too…', etc.
: RQG to MCG, 1 November 1914.

pp.54-5

Humorous styles of Barrowclough, CLW, and GBS:
KESC
, June 1912, 39-40. ‘a gift for rapping out…': RQG to MCG, 1 November 1914. ‘I played Rugger yesterday…': GBS to JRRT, 16 November 1916.

pp.55-6

Rift in TCBS: CLW to JRRT, 10 November (‘I should only go there…', etc.), 15 November (‘I tell you, when I had finished…', etc.), and 16 November 1914 (‘TCBS über alles'); JRRT to CLW, 16 November 1914 (‘alien spirit', etc.).

p.56

RQG enlists; fears missing ‘Council': RQG to MCG, 6 and

10 December 1914. CLW delays enlisting: CLW to Dr Peter Liddle.

RCG urges delay: RQG to EK, 4 October 1914.

p.57

F. L. Lucas; ‘He is not at all the sort…', etc.
: RQG to MCG, 9 November 1914.

GBS undisciplined: GBS to JRRT, 12 January 1916.

‘much more like a fish…': RQG to MCG, 6 December 1914.

GBS enlists: GBS service record; Heath,
Service Record of King Edward's School
, 133.

‘
Ave Atque Vale
' later appeared in Smith,
A Spring Harvest
, 53-4.

p.58

Cherry Hinton
: RQG to MCG, 10 December 1914.

Wiseman hilarity: RQG to MCG, 26 April 1914.

pp.58-9

Council of London
: RQG to JRRT, 1 March 1915 (‘absolutely undistracted…', ‘I never spent…');
Letters
, 10 (‘the inspiration that…', ‘the hope and ambitions…');
Biography
, 73. CLW memoir,
OEG
, says erroneously that the last TCBS meeting was ‘The Council of London…in the summer of 1914 in our house in Routh Road'. (They met again in Lichfield later in 1915.)

TCBS and ‘allowable distance apart'
: JRRT to CLW, 16 November 1914.

p.59

Kullervo
:
Letters
, 214-15.

A poet
:
Biography
, 73.

‘
I sat on the ruined margin…
': March 1915 version (‘Sea Chant of an Elder Day'),
Artist
, 45-6, 66. Later, JRRT recalled writing versions of this poem as early as 1910;
The Shaping of Middle-earth
, 214-15.

p.60

‘
That Council…
':
Letters
, 10.

The Land of Pohja
:
Artist
, 44-5.

Skeat's
Complete Works of Geoffrey Chaucer
and Eliot's
Finnish Grammar
(14 November 1914 to 16 January 1915): Exeter College library register.

Studied Finnish for sake of Qenya:
Letters
, 214.

Birth of Qenya:
Parma Eldalamberon
12, iii-v.

‘
an entirely different mythological world
': ‘A Secret Vice',
Monsters
, 218;
Letters
, 345.

p.61

liri-
and cognates (footnote):
Parma Eldalamberon
12, 54.

pp.61-3

Qenya sound-shift ‘laws': ibid. 3-28; vocabulary: ibid., 29-106.

p.63

‘
I have quite lost now…
': RQG to MCG, 13 February 1915.

Hardships of training: ibid., December 1914 to March 1915.

‘My whole endurance…', etc.; JRRT urged to visit Cambridge
: RQG to JRRT, 1 March 1915; CLW to JRRT, 2 March 1915.

Ultimatum
: RQG, CLW, and GBS to JRRT, 6 March 1915.

‘
When we sent…
': CLW to JRRT, 11 March 1915.

pp.63-4

Confidence on English course:
Biography
, 63.

p.64

Vacation work: ‘Middle English Texts', Bodleian Tolkien A21/6. JRRT borrowed vol. ii of Skeat's
Chaucer
and Morris's
Old English Miscellany
, a set text; Exeter College library register.

‘
Sea Chant of an Elder Day
':
The Shaping of Middle-earth
, 214.

JRRT's poems circulate: GBS to JRRT [27 March 1915]; RQG to JRRT, 31 March 1915; CLW to JRRT, 15 April 1915.

GBS and ‘The Voyage of Éarendel'
:
Biography
, 75. Eärendel ‘fragments': GBS to JRRT [27 March 1915].

Georgian Poetry
: GBS to JRRT [14 May, 25 June, 9 July 1915]. ‘good authors'; JRRT's poems ‘amazingly good': GBS to JRRT [22 March 1915]. GBS urges simplicity: ibid. [27 March 1915]. Conservative perplexity at JRRT's Romanticism: ibid., 9 February 1916.

Wade-Gery: Barlow,
Salford Brigade
, 75, 79.

pp.64-5

Wade-Gery on JRRT's poetry: GBS to JRRT [25 March 1915].

p.65

‘
Lo! young we are…
':
Biography
, 74.

pp.65-6

‘
Why the Man in the Moon came down too soon
':
A Northern Venture
, 17-20 (a close variant in
LT1
204-6 is later; Hammond with Anderson,
Bibliography
, 247, 283). Favoured by GBS and Wade-Gery: GBS to JRRT [22 and 25 March 1915].

‘The man in the moon…' (trad.)
: Iona and Peter Opie,
The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes
, 346.

p.67

‘
Glastonbury
':
A Spring Harvest
, 13-23. ‘the most TCBSian mosaic…'; sent to JRRT: GBS to JRRT [14 March]; [25 March 1915].

Abortive Oxford meeting: CLW to JRRT, 31 March and 5, 13, and 15 April 1915; GBS to JRRT, 13 April 1915.

GBS's transfer: ibid., and GBS to JRRT [19 or 26 April 1915] (‘think often of the TCBS…'); Army List May 1915. It probably took place on 10 May 1915, the start of the second of his two army payroll periods (GBS service record). ‘You can be sure…', etc.: GBS to JRRT [19 or 26 April 1915].

p.68

‘other literary Oxford lights', etc.
: RQG to Mrs Cary Gilson, 12 September 1915.

Origin of 3rd Salford Pals: Latter,
Lancashire Fusiliers
, 99.

pp.68-9

Lancashire Fusiliers up to the landing of the 1st Battalion at Gallipoli: Barlow,
Salford Brigade
, pp. 15-19.

p.70

‘I can't think where…', etc.
: CLW to JRRT, 25 April 1915.

p.71

‘
Will shall be the sterner…
': ‘The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm's Son', in
Poems and Stories
, 79.

p.72

Rupert Brooke: GBS to JRRT, 10 July 1915.

pp.72-3

‘
You and Me and the Cottage of Lost Play
': references are to the earliest form,
LT1
, 27-30.

p.73

‘
Indescribable but…
':
Biography
, 47.

pp.73-4

‘
Goblin Feet
': Cole and Earp (eds.),
Oxford Poetry
1915, 120-1; excerpted in
Biography
, 74-5.

pp.74-5

‘
Tinfang Warble
': version published in a Catholic journal in Oxford referred to by JRRT as
‘I.U.M.'
(presumably the
Inter-university Magazine
, the journal of the Federation of University Catholic Societies), 1927, and
LT1
, 108 (Hammond with Anderson,
Bibliography
, 344). The earliest, unpublished form was shorter (Douglas A. Anderson to the author).

p.75

‘little one', etc.
:
Biography
, 67.

‘
I wish the unhappy…
':
LT1
, 32.

Fading of the Elves:
LT1
, 32, 235;
LT2
, 142, 159, 281;
Morgoth's Ring
, 219, 342.

p.76

‘
mistook elves for gnomes…
': CLW to JRRT, 15 April 1915.

‘
a strange race…
': MacDonald,
The Princess and the Goblin
, 3.

gnome
:
Letters
, 318, 449;
The Peoples of Middle-earth
, 76-7;
Parma Eldalamberon
12, 67.

‘
a little precious
': RWR to JRRT, 2 August 1915. ‘rather spoiled': ibid., 19 September 1915.

p.77

‘
a sort of talisman
': Charlotte Gear and Lionel Lambourne in Martineau (ed.),
Victorian Fairy Painting
, 153.

‘
the war called up…
': Purkiss,
Troublesome Things
, 279-80.

The play she cites is
Britain's Defenders, or Peggy's peep into fairyland, a fairy play
, Samuel French, 1917, 6.

‘
There was a fantastic “scheme”…
': RQG to MCG, 4 March 1915.

‘
I should as soon…
': MacDonald, ‘The Fantastic Imagination',
The Complete Fairy Tales
, 5.

Recovery, escape and consolation
: ‘On Fairy-stories',
Monsters
, 145-54.

p.78

Philanthropist
: Frank Pick, commercial manager of London Underground (Hutchinson,
London Transport Posters
, 21, and plate 16).

‘
Unhappily a great many…
': Jellicoe, foreword to Pearce,
The Navy Book of Fairy Tales.

pp.78-9

‘
Kôr: In a City Lost and Dead
':
LT1
, 136.

‘
Henty, Haggard…
':
KESC
, October 1911, 73;
The Lost Explorers:
ibid., July 1912, 17.

p.79

‘
I know not how…
': Haggard,
She
, 262-3.

p.80

‘Kôr' and
Tanaqui
:
Artist
, 47.

Qenya lexicon
:
Parma Eldalamberon
12, 35, 42, 48.

pp.80-1

Eärendel's Atlantic voyagings
:
LT2
, 261. The added phrases accord with the early lexicon entries mentioned already, and must date from the same time.

p.81

Qenya lexicon date: Christopher Gilson, ‘Chronology',
Parma Eldalamberon
12, x-xvii, argues that composition began no earlier than spring 1915. A few points may be added that suggest it began no later than April. First, the long loan of Eliot's
Finnish Grammar
coincides with the creative breakthrough that followed the December 1914 ‘Council of London'. Second, the poem ‘Kôr' accords perfectly with the lexicon at the very points where it differs from Haggard. Third, the lexicon was undoubtedly in existence by early July, yet JRRT is less likely to have found time to work on it in May and June than between December 1915 and April.
The Shores of Faëry
(painting):
Artist
, 47-8. The poem of the same title that accompanies the painting was probably added in July (Douglas A. Anderson to the author).

Shakespeare
:
Biography
, 27-8;
Letters
, 88; Shippey,
Author of the Century
, 192-5.