Tolkien and the Great War (46 page)

pp.234-5

11th LF officers: Fawcett-Barry papers;
Lancashire Fusiliers' Annual 1917
, 317-18, 340-1, 348; service records of L. R. Huxtable and J. C. P. E. Metcalfe.

p.235

1917 photograph
:
Family Album
, 41. Medical board, 1 May: JRRT service record. Patrols and Zeppelins: Mills memoir. Land and sea: Van De Noort and Ellis (eds.),
Wetlands Heritage of Holderness
, 15; Miles and Richardson,
A History of Withernsea
, 11, 237.

p.236

Books of Welsh
: as well as J. Gwenogvryn Evans,
Pedeir Kainc y Mabinogi
, Smith bequeathed to Tolkien J. M. Edwards,
Hanes A Chan;
Thomas Evan,
Gwaith / Twn o'r Nant
; Samuel Roberts,
Gwaith;
William Spurrell,
An English-Welsh Pronouncing Dictionary;
and M. Williams,
Essai sur la composition du Roman Gallois
(Bodleian and English Faculty library catalogues, Oxford University).

Tol Withernon
and
Withernsea: Parma Eldalamberon
11, 3-4, 46, 71; Smith,
The Place-names of the East Riding of Yorkshire and York
, 26-7; Ekwall,
The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Place-names
, 502-3; Phillips,
Illustrations of the Geology of Yorkshire, Part 1
, 72. With thanks to Carl F. Hostetter and Patrick Wynne.

pp.237-8

‘
The Horns of Ulmo
':
The Shaping of Middle-earth
, 214-17. ‘the upholder':
Parma Eldalamberon
11, 43.

p.238

Commanded outpost; lived with Edith:
Letters
, 420. Next to post office; Dents Garth: Peter Cook to the author.

JRRT, flower names and
hemlock:
Christopher Tolkien to the author.

p.239

1 June medical board: JRRT service record. Messines: Latter,
Lancashire Fusiliers
, 206-9.

Signals exam:
Biography
, 96. Minden Day: signed menu (Bodleian Tolkien).

Brooklands
: Sheppard,
Kingston-Upon-Hull Before, During and After the Great War
, 114-15.

Passchendaele
: Latter,
Lancashire Fusiliers
, 219-21.

p.240

Edith's return to Cheltenham:
Biography
, 96.

‘
It is all the more distressing…'; ‘I am very anxious…
': CLW to JRRT, 1 September 1917.

‘
Companions of the Rose
': CLW to JRRT, 1 September 1917 (‘There is of course no legislation…'); Douglas A. Anderson to the author.

‘Tinúviel' textual history:
LT2
, 3;
Letters
, 345, 420.
Biography
, 97-8, implies erroneously that the inspirational walk at Roos took place in 1918, owing to a misreading of ‘1917' that is repeated in
Letters
, 221 (Christina Scull to the author).

pp.240-1

‘Turambar' textual history:
LT2
, 69. That it was written in 1917 (
Biography
, 96) seems no more than a guess. But an early outline (
LT2
, 138-9) contains almost exclusively Qenya names, just like the 1917 pencil version of ‘Tinúviel', in contrast to the extant revisions of the two tales, in which Gnomish forms replace them. The Qenya name
Foalókë
shows the ‘Turambar' outline is later than ‘The Poetic and Mythologic Words of Eldarissa' of late 1916 (
Parma Eldalamberon
12, 38).

p.241

State of the mythology: JRRT wrote his first Gnomish lexicon in pencil but over-wrote it in ink, probably late in 1917, obscuring most of the original definitions and germs of story. Additions to the Qenya lexicon continued, none of them datable. Beyond what has already been said here about ‘The Fall of Gondolin' and ‘The Cottage of Lost Play', only the barest hints can be gleaned about the state of the
mythology in 1917. The best view of the flow of creativity in 1917 and 1918 can be gained from the two lexicons; many of the mythological concepts in them are reproduced in appendices to
LT1
and
LT2.
Most published excerpts of other ‘Lost Tales' notebooks appear from internal evidence to have been written after the war. The mythological concepts outlined in the list here, not exhaustive, are drawn from the ‘Poetic and Mythologic Words of Eldarissa'; the first version of ‘The Fall of Gondolin'; 1917's ‘The Horns of Ulmo' (
The Shaping of Middle-earth
, 215-7); the early pencil layer of the Gnomish lexicon, and the earlier or contemporaneous Gnomish grammar (
Parma Eldalamberon
11); and matching Qenya lexicon entries.

p.242

Health
: 16 October and 16 November medical boards, JRRT service record.

Birth of John Tolkien:
Biography
, 96-7.

‘
The end of the war…
':
Letters
, 53.

‘
when your kiddie…
': CLW to JRRT, 20 December 1917.

Patrimonial shares
:
Letters
, 53.

Visits Cheltenham; Edith returns:
Biography
, 97.

Lieutenant
: 19 January 1918 medical board (service record). Fever recurs; unit transfer: ibid.

p.243

Royal Defence Corps
: weekly return of the British Army. Easington: Allison (ed.),
Holderness: southern part
, 21-31.

‘
apparent lack of connection
': CLW to JRRT, 4 March 1917.

pp.243-5

‘
The Song of Eriol
':
LT2
, 298-300.

p.245

1918 an ordeal
: CLW to JRRT, 16 December 1918. Health to April: JRRT service record. Return to 13th LF:
Biography
, 98.

Spring Offensive
: Latter,
Lancashire Fusiliers
, 301-3.

p.246

Penkridge Camp
:
Biography
, 98. Brocton Camp: JRRT service record.

Staffordshire interlude: Priscilla Tolkien in
Angerthas in English
3, 6-7;
Artist
, 26-8.

Fladweth Amrod
:
Parma Eldalamberon
11, 35.

A Spring Harvest
Hammond with Anderson,
Bibliography
, 280-1.

Gastritis
: medical board, 4 September 1918, JRRT service record.
Edith; ‘I should think you ought…':
Biography
, 98 (which gives an account slightly at odds with JRRT service record). ‘a long nomadic series…':
Letters
, 430.

p.247

Embarkation orders: JRRT service record.

Fate of 11th and 19th LF: Stedman,
Salford Pals,
160-7; Latter,
Lancashire Fusiliers
, 332-5, 344-7, 349-53.

pp.247-8

Brooklands:
Biography
, 98; medical board, 4 September 1918.

p.248

Home convalescence: Graves,
Good-bye to All That
, 261. Blackpool: JRRT service record. Italian meal: signed menu (Bodleian Tolkien).

‘
unwonted silence
': Douie,
The Weary Road
, 16.

‘
for the purposes…
':
Biography
, 98.

p.249

New English Dictionary:
ibid. 98-9; Gilliver, ‘At the Wordface', in Reynolds and GoodKnight (eds.),
Proceedings of the J. R. R. Tolkien Centenary Conference
, 173-4. Gratitude to Craigie: ‘Valedictory Address',
Monsters
, 238. ‘We rejoice…': anonymous ‘Oxford Letter',
KESC
, December 1919, 76.

50 St John Street
: CLW to JRRT, 27 December 1918;
Biography
, 99-100.

‘
were acutely aware…
': Winter, ‘Oxford and the First World War', in Harrison (ed.),
The History of the University of Oxford
, viii. 18.

1919 reading: Exeter College library register.

‘
set himself the task…
': Graves,
Good-bye to All That
, 257.

‘
The Fall of Gondolin
': Exeter College Essay Club minutes, 10 March 1920.

1910 rugby XV:
Biography
, facing p. 82.

p.250

Numbers of war dead: Heath,
Service Record of King Edward's School;
How,
Register of Exeter College Oxford 1891-1921;
Winter, ‘Oxford and the First World War', in Harrison (ed.),
The History of the University of Oxford
, viii. 19-20.

Colin Cullis
: death certificate. T. E. Mitton: KES registration details;
KESC
, December 1914, 77-8, and March 1918, 86.

T. K. Barnsley: service record. GBS:
Family Album
, 41.

‘
perhaps in the ever-famous “Johnner”
': CLW to JRRT, 8 December 1916.

p.251

‘
We must contrive…
': ibid., 1 September 1917.

‘
grand old quarrel
': ibid., 1 March 1916. ‘clash of backgrounds'; ‘the decay of faith…' (quoting JRRT); ‘That huge atmosphere…', etc.: ibid., 20 December 1917.

Lost track of each other
: ibid., 16 December 1918. ‘So the TCBS will again…': ibid., 27 December 1918.

p.252

Demobilization: JRRT service record; protection certificate, etc. (Bodleian Tolkien). Pension: granted in T. P. Evans to JRRT, 4 September 1919 (ibid.), but backdated to 16 July.

p.253

TCBS would outlive war: CLW to JRRT, 1 March 1916. ‘What is not…': ibid., 18 January 1917.

‘
We believe in…
': GBS to JRRT, 9 February 1916.

Smith's goal and method: CLW to JRRT, 27 October 1915.

‘
re-establish sanity…
': GBS to JRRT, 24 October 1915.

‘he never lived…': CLW to JRRT, undated [summer 1917].

Wiseman referred to the ‘tales of our trodden course' promised in ‘We who have bowed ourselves to time', Smith,
A Spring Harvest
, 49.

RQG's trench-digging drill: uncredited, in William Allport Brockington,
Elements of Military Education
(1916), 300-2.

Brockington promised to name its originator in any second edition. (Lt. A. S. Langley to Cary Gilson, 1 November 1916; Brockington to Langley, 28 November 1916.)

pp.253-4

‘
I can still ask…
': CLW to JRRT, 18 January 1917.

Finance minister: ibid., 8 December 1916. CLW's career: CLW memoir,
OEG;
Mrs Patricia Wiseman. Music teaching: Lightwood,
The Music of the Methodist Hymn Book
, 94-5.

p.254

‘
a new light
':
Letters
, 10.

‘
The Music of the Ainur
': features of Qenya, together with the paucity of mythological detail in the original version (
Manwë
is named simply
Súlimo
) might suggest a date close to the composition of ‘The Cottage of Lost Play', which also has
Solosimpë
as a plural (for later
Solosimpi
) and likewise was written on slips rather than in notebooks like the rest of the Lost Tales. However, JRRT said ‘The Music of the Ainur'
was written in Oxford, while he was on the staff of the
OED.
He implied that it was the first tale he wrote after ‘Tinúviel' and therefore that the rest of the Lost Tales came afterwards. (
Letters
, 345,
LT1
, 14, 45, 52, 60-1.)

‘
The completed work…'; ‘the fugue…
': CLW to JRRT, 14 March 1916.

pp.254-5

Ainur:
this soon became fixed as the plural of
Ainu
, but in the original manuscript
Ainu
is both singular and plural. For clarity, the account of ‘The Book of Lost Tales' in this chapter uses the later and better-known forms unless otherwise stated.

Ilúvatar, Sā: Parma Eldalamberon
12, 42, 81.

p.255

Ilúvatar's gift of language:
LT1
, 232, 236.

‘
unity and a system…
': ibid., 54.

‘
Through him has pain…
': ibid., 55.

p.256

‘
It is the tragedy…
': JRRT to CLW, 16 November 1914.

‘beauty in all…', etc.
: JRRT, quoted in CLW to JRRT, 20 December 1917.

‘
the theme more worth…
':
LT1
, 55.

The Valar and the Germanic Gods: plot outline,
LT2
, 290.

p.257

‘
reddened…
':
LT1
, 78.

‘
who loveth games…
': ibid., 75.

p.258

‘
Mayhap she…', ‘a denial…
': ibid., 152.

Eldar
: ‘a being from outside' is the gloss of the cognate
Egla
in the Gnomish lexicon; the Qenya lexicon gives no original meaning.
Parma Eldalamberon
11, 32, and
Parma Eldalamberon
12, 35.

p.259

‘
Vainly doth Ulmo…
':
LT1
, 120.

p.260

‘
perhaps more poignant…
': 1964 interview with Denis Gueroult, BBC Sound Archives.

p.261

‘
the large and cosmogonic', etc.:
Letters
, 144. ‘One must begin with the elfin…
': Essay Club minutes, Exeter College library.

‘
drawn with a team…
':
Romeo and Juliet
, I. iv.

‘
a murrain…
':
Letters
, 143; cf. also 212 (for the Ents and
Macbeth
) and ‘On Fairy-stories',
Monsters
, 111-12.