Tolkien and the Great War (47 page)

p.262

‘
her skin was…
':
LT2
, 8.

Beren human in 1917 ‘Tinúviel' (footnote): ibid., 52, 71-2, 139.

p.263

‘
Rapunzel
': Lang,
The Red Fairy Book
, 282-5. Favourite book as a child:
Biography
, 22.

Tevildo, Tifil, Tiberth: LT2
, 15, 45;
Parma Eldalamberon
11, 70;
Parma Eldalamberon
12, 90.

‘
a mask…
': ‘On Fairy-stories',
Monsters
, 117.

‘
His eyes were long…
':
LT2
, 16.

‘
the greatest wolf…
': ibid., 31.

p.264

‘
the first example…
':
Letters
, 149.

‘
The consolation…
': ‘On Fairy-stories',
Monsters
, 153.

p.265

‘
wonderful that shells…
': RQG to EK, 22 May 1916.

‘Such things seemed miraculous…': Sassoon,
The Complete Memoirs of George Sherston
, 287-8.

‘
I have a Silmaril…
':
LT2
, 37.

p.266

‘
Soldier's Dream
': Owen,
The Collected Poems
, 84.

‘
the greatest cairn…
':
LT1
, 241; the reference in these notes to the burial of the Gnomes beneath this cairn is uncertain, but would be in keeping with all later versions of the story. ‘bulwark…':
LT2
, 73.

Battle of Unnumbered Tears
:
LT1
, 240-1;
LT2
, 70.

p.267

‘
the luck…
':
LT2
, 79.

‘
love lies…
': ibid., 85. ‘the land had become…': ibid., 96.

p.268

‘
for lo!…
':
LT2
, 102.

‘
a swoon came…
': ibid., 99.

pp.268-9

‘
In that sad band…
': ibid., 85-6.
Mormakil
, ‘Blacksword', is Túrin's pseudonym among the Rodothlim.

p.269

‘
ease his sorrow…
': ibid., 74.

‘
At least none…
': ibid., 71.

p.270

‘
might be said…
':
Letters
, 150. Elsewhere (
Letters
, 214, 345) JRRT said Kullervo had been the germ of his legendarium, even if in the story of Túrin ‘it is entirely changed except in the tragic ending'. The Qenya lexicon (
Parma Eldalamberon
12, 95-6) compares
Turambar
, ‘master of doom', to Old Norse
Sigurðr (sigr
, ‘victory',
urðr
, ‘fate, destiny'). JRRT studied Sophocles'
Oedipus Rex
during his final year of Classics (Exeter College Library register).

‘
In these days…
':
LT2
, 70.

p.271

Necklace of the Brísings: a genealogy of c.1930 calls Feänor in Old English
Finbrós
and his sons
Brósingas
, a reference to the fabled necklace of the Brósings (
Beowulf
, line 1199), which has been equated with the Norse
Brísingamen. The Shaping of Middle-earth
, 212.

‘
Behold now Tinwelint…
':
LT2
, 231.

‘crowned and helmed…': ibid., 232.

p.272

‘an unrecognised…': Shippey,
Author of the Century
, 155.

‘
the whole
Tale
…
':
LT2
, 253.

‘the very primitive undergrowth':
Biography
, 59.

‘gnawing his fingers…':
LT2
, 282.

p.273

Cannock Chase
: G. L. Elkin, cited in
The Lost Road
, 413, suggests on the contrary that the High Heath is based on Hopton Heath, a few miles north-west of Great Haywood, where a Civil War battle was fought in 1643.

pp.273-4

‘And now is the end…', etc.:
LT2
, 287-9.

p.274

‘
So we lay down the pen…
': GBS,
A Spring Harvest
, 78.

p.275

‘
blind, and a fool…
':
LT2
, 288. ‘a free virtue', ‘everything should…':
LT1
, 59.

p.276

‘
ennoblement
':
Letters
, 220. ‘On a journey…': ibid., 240. ‘the secret life…': ibid., 149.

‘
there liveth still…
':
LT1
, 56.

‘and who knows…': ibid., 220. Nothing similar replaced this rejected draft text, but decades later JRRT returned to the idea that his legendarium might adumbrate the Christian story more or less explicitly; see
Morgoth's Ring
, 351-2, 356.

pp.277-8

Chronology of composition: In 1964 JRRT remembered writing ‘The Music of the Ainur' in Oxford, i.e., no earlier than November 1918. The Lost Tales of Valinor seem likely to have been composed after the creation myth, along with the tales of the Great Lands, including ink revisions of ‘The Tale of Turambar' and ‘The Tale of Tinúviel'. A copy of lines from ‘The Tale of Turambar' written in Rúmilian script refers to Tinwelint as
Thingol
, the name the elven-king was to keep. It must postdate almost all of the Lost Tales, which still have
Tinwelint
, except the third, typescript version of
‘The Tale of Tinúviel', which has
Thingol.
According to Humphrey Carpenter, JRRT was using this version of the ever-changing Rúmilian script in his diary around June 1919. However, six or seven months seems a very short time for such a volume of complex writing. (
LT1
, 203;
LT2
, 312;
Biography
, 100-3;
Parma Eldalamberon
13, 20; JRRT service record.)

p.278

orn
, etc. (footnote): ‘Early Noldorin Fragments',
Parma Eldalamberon
13, 116.

Leeds
:
Biography
, 102ff.

p.279

‘much interested…', etc.
: RWR to JRRT, 19 November 1917.

Poems sent to RWR:
The Lays of Beleriand
, 3, 150.

p.280

‘
vast backcloths
':
Letters
, 144.

‘lacking in experience…' (RWR); ‘the only form…', etc.
: CLW to JRRT, 4 March 1917.

p.281

‘
gave him opportunities…
': Wayne G. Hammond,
Canadian C. S. Lewis Journal
, Spring 2000, 62, quoted in Douglas A. Anderson (ed.),
The Annotated Hobbit
, 5.

‘
I want you to get…
': CLW to JRRT, 4 March 1917.

Christopher Tolkien named after CLW:
Letters
, 395.

p.282

Lewis's ambitions: Rateliff, ‘The Lost Road, The Dark Tower, and the Notion Club Papers', in Flieger and Hostetter (eds.),
Tolkien's Legendarium
, 200-1.

‘
Only from him…
':
Letters
, 362.

EMT's copies:
LT1
, 13;
LT2
, 146.

Elrond
:
Letters
, 346-7; Douglas A. Anderson (ed.),
The Annotated Hobbit
, 94-6.

p.283

‘
a new story…
':
Letters
, 27.

‘
grew in the telling…
': ‘Foreword to the Second Edition',
The Lord of the Rings
, xv.

‘
which says for me…
':
Letters
, 420.

‘
incurable bachelorhood
': CLW to JRRT, 20 December 1917.

TCBS reunion: Mrs Patricia Wiseman and Mrs Susan Wood, interview with the author.

p.284

‘lair', etc.
:
Letters
, 429.

‘
I wish v. much…
':
Letters
, 431-2.

POSTSCRIPT
‘One who dreams alone'

p.287

‘
dead spot
': Hynes,
A War Imagined
, 101. ‘Why I can write nothing…': ibid. 105-6.

‘
sheer vacancy
': GBS to JRRT, 16 September 1916. GBS's poetry: CLW to JRRT, 16 November 1916.

pp.287-8

‘Companions of the Rose'; Tolkien productive in 1917: CLW to JRRT, 1 September 1917; Douglas A. Anderson to the author.

p.288

‘
an age when…
':
Letters
, 225.

p.289

‘
A horse is a…
': Fussell,
The Great War and Modern Memory
, 22. A form of censorship: ibid. 174-5.

‘
Those too old…
': Winter,
Sites of Memory, Sites of Mourning
, 204.

‘how it was that Tolkien…', etc.: Brogan, ‘Tolkien's Great War', in Avery and Briggs (eds.),
Children and their Books
, 356.

pp.289-90

Anti-Germanism and the breach with the past: Hynes,
A War Imagined
, 78.

‘philology itself…': Tolkien, ‘Philology: General Works', in Lee and Boas (eds.),
The Year's Work in English Studies, 1923
, 37.

Romanticism tainted: Hynes,
A War Imagined
, 78.

p.290

‘
No one ever influenced…
': W. H. Lewis (ed.),
Letters of C. S. Lewis
, 287.

‘
animal horror
':
Letters
, 72. ‘The utter stupid waste…': ibid. 75.

‘tutors' in high diction
: Fussell,
The Great War and Modern Memory
, 21.

p.291

‘
not being especially…
':
Letters
, 225. ‘the extraordinary…': ibid., 225-6.

‘
This sort of thing…
': ‘On Translating Beowulf',
Monsters
, 55.

p.292

‘
Wisdom made…
': Graves, ‘Babylon',
Fairies and Fusiliers.
‘The Western Front made…': Purkiss,
Troublesome Things
, 291.

p.293

‘A real taste…': ‘On Fairy-stories',
Monsters
, 135. ‘therapy for a mind…', etc.: Brogan, ‘Tolkien's Great War', in Avery and Briggs (eds.),
Children and their Books
, 358.

Tolkien on ‘escapism': ‘On Fairy-stories',
Monsters
, 148-50.

p.294

‘
Beowulf lying…
': Graves,
Good-bye to All That
, 304.
Flammenwerfer: Letters
, 133. ‘Very numerous…':
LT2
, 174.

p.295

‘C' Company disaster:
The Lancashire Fusiliers Annual 1917
, 215-20; Latter,
Lancashire Fusiliers
, 148; 11th LF war diary. ‘The problem was…': C. H. David of the 25th Division's Royal Field Artillery brigade, whose guns were covering this network of trenches at around this time (Imperial War Museum).

Beowulf, Beorhtnoth: ‘The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth, Beorhthelm's Son',
Poems and Stories
, 103.

‘Aequam serva
…':
Letters
, 73.

‘
whose instinct is…
': ibid., 211.

p.296

The
Mabinogion
: GBS to JRRT, 10 September 1916.
The Earthly Paradise:
Douglas A. Anderson to the author. Morris, Bunyan, etc.: Fussell,
The Great War and Modern Memory
, 138-9, 135.

‘
make no pretence…
': CLW to JRRT, 4 March 1917.

p.297

‘
Beneath the surface…
': Flieger,
A Question of Time
, 224.

The phrase ‘pinned in a kind of ghostly deathlessness' comes from Tolkien's discussion of J. M. Barrie's
Mary Rose
in unpublished drafts of ‘On Fairy-stories', quoted more fully on p. 53 of Flieger's book.

p.297

Eriol's experience of Faërie:
LT1
, 47;
LT2
, 284, 287-9.

p.298

‘
Did no feeling…
': Douie,
The Weary Road
, 222.

‘
There is no difficulty…
': Shippey,
Author of the Century
, 248.

p.299

‘There was an arguing…', etc.: Carrington,
A Subaltern's War
, 35.

‘
sick and weary
':
LT2
, 90. ‘moral impetus…', etc.: Manning,
The Middle Parts of Fortune
, 39.

p.300

‘something irrevocably evil', etc.: Shippey,
Author of the Century
, xxx.

‘
If in some smothering…
': ‘Dulce et decorum est', Owen,
The Collected Poems
, p. 55.

p.301

‘
the Myth of the War…
': Hynes,
A War Imagined
, 424.

p.302

‘
a few acres of mud
': CLW to JRRT, 4 March 1917.

Frye's modes and the war: Fussell,
The Great War and Modern Memory
, 311-12.

‘
Book after book…
': Carrington,
Soldier from the Wars Returning
, 293.