The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun - JRR Tolkien

Written 1930, Published 1945

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In Britain's land beyond the seas

the wind blows ever through the trees;

in Britain's land beyond the waves

are stony shores and stony caves.



There stands a ruined toft now green

where lords and ladies once were seen,

where towers were piled above the trees

and watchmen scanned the sailing seas.

Of old a lord in arched hall

with standing stones yet grey and tall

there dwelt, till dark his doom befell,

as still the Briton harpers tell.

No child he had his house to cheer,

to fill his courts with laughter clear;

though wife he wooed and wed with ring,

who love to board and bed did bring,

his pride was empty, vain his hoard,

without an heir to land and sword.

Thus pondering oft at night awake

his darkened mind would visions make

of lonely age and death; his tomb

unkept, while strangers in his room

with other names and other shields

were masters of his halls and fields.

Thus counsel cold he took at last;

his hope from light to darkness passed.

A witch there was, who webs could weave

to snare the heart and wits to reave,

who span dark spells with spider-craft,

and as she span she softly laughed;

a drink she brewed of strength and dread

to bind the quick and stir the dead;

In a cave she housed where winging bats

their harbour sought, and owls and cats

from hunting came with mournful cries,

night-stalking near with needle-eyes.



In the homeless hills was her hollow dale,

black was its bowl, its brink was pale;

there silent on a seat of stone

before her cave she sat alone.

Dark was her door, and few there came,

whether man, or beast that man doth tame.



In Britain's land beyond the waves

are stony hills and stony caves;

the wind blows ever over hills

and hollow caves with wailing fills.



The sun was fallen low and red,

behind the hills the day was dead,

and in the valley formless lay

the misty shadows long and grey.

Alone between the dark and light

there rode into the mouth of night

the Briton lord, and creeping fear

about him closed. Dismounting near

he slowly then with lagging feet

went halting to the stony seat.

His words came faltering on the wind,

while silent sat the crone and grinned.

Few words he needed; for her eyes

were dark and piercing, filled with lies,

yet needle-keen all lies to probe.

He shuddered in his sable robe.

His name she knew, his need, his thought,

the hunger that thither him had brought;

while yet he spoke she laughed aloud,

and rose and nodded; head she bowed,'

and stooped into her darkening cave,

like ghost returning to the grave.

Thence swift she came. In his hand she laid

a phial of glass so fairly made

'twas wonder in that houseless place

to see its cold and gleaming grace;

and therewithin a philter lay

as pale as water thin and grey

that spills from stony fountains frore

in hollow pools in caverns hoar.



He thanked her, trembling, offering gold

to withered fingers shrunk and old.

The thanks she took not, nor the fee,

but laughing croaked: "Nay, we shall see!

Let thanks abide till thanks be earned!

Such potions oft, men say, have burned

the heart and brain, or else are nought,

only cold water dearly bought.

Such lies you shall not tell of me;

Till it is earned I'll have no fee.

But we shall meet again one day,

and rich reward then you shall pay,

whate'er I ask: it may be gold,

it may be other wealth you hold."




In Britain ways are wild and long,

and woods are dark with danger strong;

and sound of seas is in the leaves,

and wonder walks the forest-eaves.



The way was long, the woods were dark;

at last the lord beheld the spark

of living light from window high,

and knew his halls and towers were nigh.

At last he slept in weary sleep

beside his wife, and dreaming deep,

he walked with children yet unborn

in gardens fair, until the morn

came slowly through the windows tall,

and shadows moved across the wall.



Then sprang the day with weather fair,

for windy rain had washed the air,

and blue and cloudless, clean and high,

above the hills was arched the sky,

and foaming in the northern breeze

beneath the sky there shone the seas.

Arising then to greet the sun,

and day with a new thought begun,

that lord in guise of joy him clad,

and masked his mind in manner glad;

his mouth unwonted laughter used

and words of mirth. He oft had mused,

walking alone with furrowed brow;

a feast he bade prepare him now.

And "Itroun mine," he said, "my life,

'tis long that thou hast been my wife.

Too swiftly by in love do slip

our gentle years, and as a ship

returns to port, we soon shall find,

once more that day of spring we mind,

when we were wed, and bells were rung.

But still we love, and still are young:

A merry feast we'll make this year,

and there shall come no sigh nor tear;

and we will feign our love begun

in joy anew, anew to run

down happy paths-and yet, maybe,

we'll pray that this year we may see

our heart's desire more quick draw nigh

than yet we have seen it, thou and I;

for virtue is in hope and prayer."


So spake he gravely, seeming-fair.



In Britain's land across the seas

the spring is merry in the trees;

the birds in Britain's woodlands pair

when leaves are long and flowers are fair.



A merry feast that year they made,

when blossom white on bush was laid;

there minstrels sang and wine was poured,

as it were the marriage of a lord.

A cup of silver wrought he raised

and smiling on the lady gazed:

"I drink to thee for health and bliss,

fair love," he said, "and with this kiss

the pledge I pass. Come, drink it deep!

The wine is sweet, the cup is steep!"




The wine was red, the cup was grey;

but blended there a potion lay

as pale as water thin and frore

in hollow pools of caverns hoar.

She drank it, laughing with her eyes.

"Aotrou, lord and love" she cries,

all hail and life both long and sweet,

wherein desire at last to meet!"




Now days ran on in great delight

with hope at morn and mirth at night;

and in the garden of his dream

the lord would walk, and there would deem

he saw two children, boy and maid,

that fair as flowers danced and played

on lawns of sunlight without hedge

save a dark shadow at their edge.



Though spring and summer wear and fade,

though flowers fall and leaves are laid,

and winter winds his trumpet loud,

and snows both fell and forest shroud,

though roaring seas upon the shore

go long and white, and neath the door

the wind cries with houseless voice,

in fire and song yet men rejoice,

till as a ship returns to port

the spring comes back to field and court.



A song now falls from windows high,

like silver dropping from the sky,

soft in the early eve of spring.



"Why do they play? Why do they sing?"




"Light may she lie, our lady fair!

Too long hath been her cradle bare.

Yestreve there came as I passed by

the cry of babes from windows high.

Twin children, I am told there be.

Light may they lie and sleep, all three !"




"Would every prayer were answered twice!

the half or nought must oft suffice

for humbler men, who wear their knees

more bare than lords, as oft one sees."

"Not every lord wins such fair grace.

Come wish them speed with kinder face!

Light may she lie, my lady fair;

long live her lord her joy to share!"




A manchild and an infant maid

as fair as flowers in bed were laid.

Her joy was come, her pain was passed;

in mirth and ease Itroun at last



in her fair chamber softly lay

singing to her babes lullay.

Glad was her lord, as grave he stood

beside her bed of carven wood.



"Now full" he said, "is granted me

both hope and prayer, and what of thee?

Is 't not, fair love, most passing sweet

the heart's desire at last to meet?

Yet if thy heart still longing hold,

or lightest wish remain untold,

that will I find and bring to thee,

though I should ride both land and sea!"




"Aotrou mine," she said, " 'tis sweet

at last the heart's desire to meet,

thus after waiting, after prayer,

thus after hope and nigh despair.

I would not have, thee run nor ride

to-day nor ever from my side;

yet after sickness, after pain,

oft cometh hunger sharp again."




"Nay, love, if thirst or hunger strange

for bird or beast on earth that range,

for wine, or water from what well

in any secret fount or dell,

vex thee," he smiled, "now swift declare!

If more than gold or jewel rare,

from greenwood, haply, fallow deer,

or fowl that swims the shallow mere

thou cravest, I will bring it thee,

though I should hunt o'er land and lea.

No gold nor silk nor jewel bright

can match my gladness and delight,

the boy and maiden lily-fair

that here do lie and thou did'st bear."




"Aotrou, lord," she said, " 'tis, true,

a longing strong and sharp I knew

in dream for water cool and clear,

and venison of the greenwood deer

for waters crystal-clear and cold

and deer no earthly forests hold,

and still in waking comes unsought

the foolish wish to vex my thought.

But I would not have thee run nor ride

to-day nor ever from my side"




In Brittany beyond the seas

the wind blows ever through the trees;

in Brittany the forest pale

marches slow over hill and dale.

There seldom far the horns were wound,

and seldom hunted horse and hound.



The lord his lance of ashwood caught,

the wine was to his stirrup brought;

with bow and horn he rode alone,

and iron smote the fire from stone,

as his horse bore him o'er the land

to the green boughs of Broceliande,

to the green dales where listening deer

seldom a mortal hunter hear:

there startling now they stare and stand,

as his horn winds in Broceliande.



Beneath the woodland's hanging eaves

a white doe startled under leaves;

strangely she glistered in the sun

as she leaped forth and turned to run.

Then reckless after her he spurred;

dim laughter in the woods he heard,

but heeded not, a longing strange

for deer that fair and fearless range

vexed him, for venison of the beast

whereon no mortal hunt shall feast,

for waters crystal-clear and cold

that never in holy fountain rolled.

He hunted her from the forest-eaves

into the twilight under leaves;

the earth was shaken under hoof,

till the boughs were bent into a roof,

and the sun was woven in a snare;

and laughter still was on the air.



The sun was falling. In the dell

deep in the forest silence fell.

No sight nor slot of doe he found

but roots of trees upon the ground,

and trees like shadows waiting stood

for night to come upon the wood.



The sun was lost, all green was grey.

There twinkled the fountain of the fay,

before a cave, on silver sand,

under dark boughs in Broceliande.

Soft was the grass and clear the pool;

he laved his face in water cool.

He saw her then, on silver chair

before her cavern, pale her hair,

slow was her smile, and white her hand

beckoning in Broceliande.



The moonlight falling clear and cold

her long hair lit; through comb of gold

she drew each lock, and down it fell

like the fountain falling in the dell.

He heard her voice, and it was cold

as echo from the world of old,

ere fire was found or iron hewn,

when young was mountain under moon.

He heard her voice like water falling

or wind upon a long shore calling,

yet sweet the words: "We meet again

here after waiting, after pain!

Aotrou! Lo! thou hast returned-

perchance some kindness I have earned?

What hast thou, lord, to give to me

whom thou hast come thus far to see,"




"I know thee not, I know thee not,

nor ever saw thy darkling grot.

O Corrigan! 'twas not for thee

I hither came a-hunting free!"



"How darest, then, my water wan

to trouble thus, or look me on?

For this of least I claim my fee,

if ever thou wouldst wander free.

With love thou shall me here requite,

for here to long and sweet the night;

in druery dear thou here shall deal,

in bliss more deep than mortals feel."



"I gave no love. My love is wed;

my wife now lieth in child-bed,

and I curse the beast that cheated me

and drew me to this dell to thee."




Her smiling ceased, and slow she said:

"Forget thy wife; for thou shall wed

anew with me, or stand as stone

and wither lifeless and alone,

as stone beside the fountain stand

forgotten in Broceliande."




"I will not stand here turned to stone;

but I will leave thee cold, alone,

and I will ride to mine own home

and the waters blest of Christendome."




"But three days then and thou shall die;

In three days on thy bier lie!"




"In three days I shall live at ease,

and die but when it God doth please

in eld, or in some time to come

in the brave wars of Christendom."




In Britain's land beyond the waves

are forests dim and secret caves;

in Britain's land the breezes bear

the sound of bells along the air

to mingle with the sound of seas

for ever moving in the trees.



The wandering way was long and wild;

and hastening home to wife and child

at last the hunter heard the knell

at morning of the sacring-bell;

escaped from thicket and from fen

at last he saw the tilth of men;

the hoar and houseless hills he passed,

and weary at his gates him cast.

"Good steward, if thou love me well,

bid make my bed! My heart doth swell;

my limbs are numb with heavy sleep,

and drowsy poisons in them creep.

All night, as in a fevered maze,

I have ridden dark and winding ways."


To bed they brought him and to sleep:

in sunless thickets tangled deep

he dreamed, and wandering found no more

the garden green, but on the shore

the seas, were moaning in the wind;

a face before him leered and grinned:

"Now it is earned, come bring to me

my fee," a voice said, "bring my feel"

Beside a fountain falling cold

the Corrigan now shrunk and old

was sitting singing; in her claw

a comb of bony teeth he saw,

with which she raked her tresses grey,

but in her other hand there lay

a phial of glass with water filled

that from the bitter fountain spilled.



At eve he waked and murmured: "Ringing

of bells within my ears, and singing,

a singing is beneath the moon.

Grieve not my wife! Grieve not Itroun!

My death is near-but do not tell,

though I am wounded with a spell!

But two days more, and then I die-

and I would have had her sweetly lie

and sweet arise; and live yet long,

and see our children hale and strong."


His words they little understood,

but cursed the fevers of the wood,

and to their lady no word spoke.

Ere second morn was old she woke,

and to her women standing near

gave greeting with a merry cheer:



"Good people, lo! the morn is bright!

Say, did my lord return ere night,

and tarries now with hunting worn?"




"Nay, lady, he came not with the morn;

but ere men candles set on board,

thou wilt have tidings of thy lord;

or hear his feet to thee returning,

ere candles in the eve are burning."




Ere the third morn was wide she woke,

and eager greeted them, and spoke:



"Behold the morn is cold and grey,

and why is my lord so long away?

I do not hear his feet returning

neither at evening nor at morning"




"We do not know, we cannot say"


they answered and they turned away.



Her gentle babes in swaddling white,

now seven days had seen the light,

and she arose and left her bed,

and called her maidens and she said:

"My lord must soon return. Come, bring

my fairest raiment, stone on ring,

and pearl on thread; for him 'twill please

to see his wife abroad at ease."




She looked from window tall and high,

and felt a breeze go coldly by;

she saw it pass from tree to tree;

the clouds were laid from hill to sea.

She heard no horn and heard no hoof,

but rain came pattering on the roof;

in Brittany she heard the waves

on sounding shore in hollow caves.



The day wore on till it was old;

she heard the bells that slowly tolled.

"Good folk, why do they mourning make?

In tower I hear the slow bells shake,

and Dirige the white priests sing.

Whom to the churchyard do they bring?"




"A man unhappy here there came

a while agone. His horse was lame;

sickness was on him, and he fell

before our gates, or so they tell.

Here he was harboured, but to-day

he died, and passeth now the way

we all must go, to church to lie

on bier before the altar high."




She looked upon them, dark and deep,

and saw them in the shadows weep.

"Then tall, and fair, and brave was he,

or tale of sorrow there must be

concerning him, that still ye keep,

if for a stranger thus ye weep!

What know ye more? Ah, say! ah, say!"


They answered not, and turned away.

"Ah me," she said, "that I could sleep

this night, or least that I could weep!"


But all night long she tossed and turned,.

and in her limbs a fever burned:

and yet when sudden under sun

a fairer morning was begun,

"Good folk, to church I wend," she said.

"My raiment choose, or robe of red,

or robe of blue, or white and fair,

silver and gold-I do not care."

"Nay, lady," said they, "none of these.

The custom used, as now one sees,

for women that to churching go

is robe of black and walking slow."




In robe of black and walking bent

the lady to her churching went,

in hand a candle small and white,

her face so pale, her hair so bright.

They passed beneath the western door;

there dark within on stony floor

a bier was covered with a pall,

and by it yellow candles tall.

The watchful tapers still and bright

upon his blazon cast their light:

the arms and banner of her lord;

his pride was ended, vain his hoard.



To bed they brought her, swift to sleep

for ever cold, though there might weep

her women by her dark bedside,

or babes in cradle waked and cried.





There was singing slow at dead of night,

and many feet, and taper-light.

At morn there rang the sacring knell;

and far men heard a single bell

toll, while the sun lay on the land;

while deep in dim Broceliande

a silver fountain flowed and fell

within a darkly woven dell,

and in the homeless hills a dale

was filled with laughter cold and pale.



Beside her lord at last she lay

in their long home beneath the clay;

and if their children lived yet long,

or played in garden hale and strong,

they saw it not, nor found it sweet

their heart's desire at last to meet



In Brittany beyond the waves

are sounding shores and hollow caves;

in Brittany beyond the seas

the wind blows ever through the trees.



Of lord and lady all is said:

God rest their souls, who now are dead!

Sad is the note and sad the lay,

but mirth we meet not every day.

God keep us all in hope and prayer

from evil rede and from despair,

by waters blest of Christendom

to dwell, until at last we come

to joy of Heaven where is queen

the maiden Mary pure and clean.

The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun - Tolkien's forgotten medieval supernatural poem

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Written in 1930, published in 1945 in The Welsh Review. 

I had completely forgotten the existence of this poem - although it is listed in the bibliographies, and despite that I had (but some decades ago) read a description and critique in Paul Kocher's Master of Middle Earth - only in re-reading that book did I remember, and found an online (scanned, very slightly inaccurate) copy:

http://ae-lib.org.ua/texts-c/tolkien__the_lay_of_aotrou_and_itroun__en.htm


NOTE: I have placed a complete copy of the poem in the blog post above-

http://notionclubpapers.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/the-lay-of-aotrou-and-itroun-jrr-tolkien.html

just in case the above web pages become unavailable or are deleted.

Aotrou and Itroun is a vivid, ballad-like and Christian tale, set in the Middle Ages in Brittany, concerning temptation, black magic, repentance, retribution.

As might be expected from Tolkien - the end is sad, but ultimately hopeful.   

It is a very good poem, I would judge (but after only a single reading) it is perhaps Tolkien's best long poem - and well worth reading both for its style and the content. 

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Was JRR Tolkien a pessimist? No, not really

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It is a standard critical conviction that JRR Tolkien was a pessimist: one who believed that thing were bad and getting worse and would turn out bad in the end.

This perspective comes from most of the major and best Tolkien scholars: from Paul Kocher, Humphrey Carpenter (in his Biography) and Tom Shippey; but it is not strictly true - or rather it is true only in a restricted sense.

Tolkien was a pessimist about this world; he thought it had long been getting worse, and there was little prospect of it getting better.

And this is reflected in the bittersweet sense of loss at the end of Lord of the Rings, and the utter bleakness of the end of the Silmarillion and the poignant end of contact with Faery in Smith of Wootton Major and poems such as The Sea-Bell and The Last Ship.

Plenty of evidence of this-worldly pessimism!

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But, as a devout Christian, Tolkien was a super-optimist - not about this world, but about the next and ultimate.

The Men and Hobbits of LotR did not know that after they died, and their souls left the circles of this world, they would have a possibility of eternal bliss in Heaven - but Tolkien believed this as reality.

The 1977 published Silmarillion had a bleak ending, but the full ending is gloriously hopeful and happy:

http://notionclubpapers.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/what-is-point-of-tale-of-turin-turambar.html

And Smith of Wootton Major may be sad at the end, as he cannot return to faery - but Leaf by Niggle and On Fairy Stories are radiantly hopeful in their Christian affirmations.

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Most of Tolkien's greatest critics have not been Christian, and it is therefore natural that they discount the next-worldly perspective of a real Christian.

But in doing so they give one-sided weight to Tolkien's this-worldly pessimism, his Eeyore-like grumpiness and despairing remarks about change and decay.

By failing to take seriously the transformative effect of being Christian, they critics honestly but falsely misrepresent Tolkien's primary nature; which was fundamentally, profoundly, hopeful.

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Review of Paul Kocher's Master of Middle Earth

This was the first really good piece of book length critical work on JRR Tolkien - published just before Tolkien's death, therefore written entirely on the basis of the works published during Tolkien's lifetime; so embodying a lost perspective on Tolkien which was innocent of all the posthumous publications.

For this reason, I believe Kocher's book has not been superceded (even though it is no longer the best overview critical book) and has permanent value in the Tolkien critical canon.

Reading it now, we can recall (if we are old enough) or reconstruct (if we are not) how much an astute and alert reader could infer without any confirmation or elucidation from Christopher Tolkien's vast efforts with the Silmarillion and History of Middle Earth, or from Carpenter's biography and selected Letters, or TA Shippey and Verlyn Flieger, or John Garth's Tolkien and the Great War etc and all the other major breakthroughs of the past four decades.

So how much of Tolkein (as we now know him) does Kocher get? The answer is nearly-everything of prime importance is at least flagged-up; and the book has its own distinctive perspective as we expect from a real critic.

If you haven't read it, you should.



NOTE: another very good, but very little known, work from this era is Colin Wilson's pamphlet - Tree by Tolkien.  It is only 30 pages, and seems grossly over-priced on Amazon - but it is very worthwhile for taking Tolkien seriously as an important existential writer.


  

If you were including Tolkien in an anthology of twentieth century poetry...

...which would you include?

I will kick-off with the two obvious, stand-out candidates:

1. "Three rings for the elven kings..." - I particularly relish its wonderful internal (within-line) rhymes/ alliterations. It is memorable, it has given phrases to the language.

2. "Where now the horse and rider?..." - Aragorn's heartbreakingly beautiful poem to epitomize Rohan.

In full:

Where now the horse and the rider? Where is the horn that was blowing?
Where is the helm and the hauberk, and the bright hair flowing?
Where is the hand on the harpstring, and the red fire glowing?
Where is the spring and the harvest and the tall corn growing?
 
They have passed like rain on the mountain, like a wind in the meadow;
The days have gone down in the West behind the hills into shadow.
 
Who shall gather the smoke of the dead wood burning,
Or behold the flowing years from the Sea returning?

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So, these two. 

Any others?

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How to read and recite alliterative poetry

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http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/why-middle-english-alliterative-poetry.html

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It will be interesting - with this in mind - to go back and look again at Tolkien's alliterative verse, both original work and translations; which he produced through much of his writing career.

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"I name you Elf-Friend - the blessing of Frodo by Gildor Inglorion

At the very end of the chapter "Three is Company", in The Lord of the Rings, but embedded in the middle of a paragraph and given little emphasis - is an extremely important moment when the high elf (that is, an elf born and having dwelt in Valinor - the land of the Valar or gods) Gildor Inglorion 'blesses' Frodo with the words:

"I name you Elf-Friend; and may the stars shine upon the end of your road!"

From this moment, Frodo is changed, and in a way that is visible to those attuned to elvishness.



For example, the next night, when he sleeps at Crickhollow, Frodo has a prophetic dream of a tower near the sea; and when the following day he meets Goldberry (wife of Tom Bombadil) and immediately extemporizes a poem in her praise, she looks at him closely and responds:

"But I see you are an elf-friend; the light in your eyes and the ring in your voice tells it."

And similar comments are made throughout the rest of the story. It seems Frodo was permanently and palpably changed by the blessing of Gildor.



This is never explained in the Lord of the Rings, and indeed I have not encountered any analysis of why Gildor should be able to bestow this blessing on Frodo - but this is another example of depth in the Lord of the Rings, because it links Frodo back to Tolkien's earliest legends (collected in The Lost Tales) and to The Lost Road and Notion Club Papers.

Elf-friend is an Englishing of the Old English Aelfwine, which was the second-chosen name of the human protagonist of the Lost Tales who sailed to Fairie and lived with the Elves, and brought back knowledge of their history; and Aelfwine-based names also occur in the main characters of Lost Road, while the emerging main character of the Notion Club Papers is Alwin (i.e. again elf-friend) Arundel Lowdham.

The original name of Aelfwine was Eriol, which means (according to Tolkien) 'one who dreams alone' - and dreaming is one of the marks of Frodo's new elf-friend status - that for the rest of the book he has many dreams which (in obscure fashion) have many prophetic meanings.



So, with Gildor's blessing, somehow Frodo becomes the elf-friend who dreams alone - he is set apart from the other Hobbits, becomes a bridge between elves and Men (hobbits are a kind of Men), between the mortal and immortal worlds: he becomes a man of destiny, guided by 'fate' (the One).

The blessing appears to be a great privilege and a source of strength, insight and wisdom for Frodo; and without this blessing and its effects it is very doubtful whether the quest to destroy the ring would have been achieved.

But being an elf-friend is not a cause of this-worldly happiness for Frodo - quite the opposite - since like most such intermediate mortals in Tolkien's work, the contact with Fairie is bitter-sweet, and this world becomes distant, and he becomes weary and psychologically-isolated.

However, we are assured that - by passing over the sea and being allowed to dwell in Fairie for a while, Frodo will be healed, and will achieve peace before he dies; so in the end and overall the elf-friend blessing was of great benefit to Frodo, as well as to Middle Earth.

Tolkien and tattoos

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One would perhaps imagine that years of immersion in the world of JRR Tolkien would bring someone closer to the world view of the great man?

But apparently not if you are an actor:

From Wikipedia - Ian McKellen's page.

[Ian McKellen - aged 74] has a tattoo of the Elvish number nine, written using Tengwar, on his shoulder in reference to his involvement in the Lord of the Rings and the fact that his character was one of the original nine companions of the Fellowship of the Ring. The other actors of "The Fellowship" (Elijah Wood, Sean Astin, Orlando Bloom, Billy Boyd, Sean Bean, Dominic Monaghan, and Viggo Mortensen) have the same tattoo. John Rhys-Davies, whose character was also one of the original nine companions, arranged for his stunt double to get the tattoo instead.

So... getting tattooed with a number written in elvish script is seen as a tribute to Tolkien, and a 'mark' of solidarity with the values of the Nine Walkers of the Fellowship.

Yaas...

It would surely have been a more appropriate gesture of solidarity if the tattoos had been done in the Black Speech?

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Overview of the work of Alan Garner

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http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/review-of-alan-garners-weirdstone-of.html
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A previously unpublished letter from JRR Tolkien - 14 June 1973

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Professor JRR Tolkien
c/o George Allen & Unwin Ltd.
Ruskin House
40 Museum Street
London WC1A 1LU

14 June 1973

[To:] B Charlton Esq.
[Address here]

Dear Mr Charlton

Thank you very much for your kind letter. I am delighted that my books have given you pleasure.

THE SILMARILLION is far from complete and I have not looked at it for some considerable time. Therefore I regret that I cannot predict when it will see the light of day.

Yours sincerely, 

pp. JRR Tolkien

[initials] MJH 

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This previously unpublished letter from JRR Tolkien to B[ruce] Charlton throws light on major unresolved biographical and creative aspects of the authors last months; in the sense that he was terminally ill, busy, and persecuted by unwanted attention from many sources (including far too many demanding letters from enthusiastic but inconsiderate fans) - yet he still found the time and energy to dictate a kindly note to a fourteen year old reader.

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How does artistic subcreativity square with God's creation?

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One of JRR Tolkien's deepest and most fertile ideas was that of subcreation, which he launched in the lecture/ essay On Fairy Stories.

The idea was that when an artist creates - especially when he creates an imaginative 'world' which has the quality of being real - he is acting in a God-like manner: honouring God's primary creative act.

I think Tolkien is correct; but the idea does come into conflict with the idea from Classical Philosophy and Theology that God's primary creative act is creation ex nihilo, or creation-from-nothing. Because such an act is completely different-in-kind form artistic creation, which is creation from pre-existing materials - creation from matter and proceeding according to the laws of nature.

So by this account artistic subcreation is actually nothing like God's creativity - it does not resemble it in the slightest degree.

However, if God's creativity is conceptualized in terms of the organization of pre-existing matter according to eternal laws - in other words the conceptualization for Mormon theology - then there is a very precise, and indeed theologically-significant - equivalence between artistic subcreation and divine creation.

And the truth of Tolkien's insight is clarified.

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Here is the heavyweight theological back-up:
http://maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/publications/review/?vol=17&num=2&id=590

Note added 5 Oct 2013. This post is an interesting example of the way that metaphysical assumptions strike different people differently. To me it seems obvious that creation-from-nothing is an unique activity reserved uniquely to God - and described as such by a particular highly intellectual Christian theological-philosophical tradition. It seems obvious to me that the very explicit attribution of the uniqueness of creation ex nihilo means that it is thereby qualitatively unlike anything else. However, some other people seem not to equate uniqueness with qualitative difference. And that is that, I suppose - either it strikes you this way, or it doesn't...

Death of St Brendan (a version of the poem Imram, from the Notion Club Papers)

The Death of St Brendan

At last out of the deep seas he passed,
and mist rolled on the shore;
under clouded moon the waves were loud,
as the laden ship him bore
to Ireland, back to wood and mire,
to the tower tall and grey,
where the knell of Cluian-ferta’s bell
tolled in the green Galway.
Where Shannon down to Lough Derg ran
under a rainclad sky
Saint Brendan came to his journey’s end
to await his hour to die.

‘O! tell me, father, for I loved you well,
if still you have words for me,
of things strange in the remembering
in the long and lonely sea,
of islands by deep spells beguiled
where dwell the Elven-kind:
in seven long years the road to Heaven
or the Living Land did you find?’

‘The things I have seen, the many things,
have long now faded far;
only three come clear now back to me:
a Cloud, a Tree, a Star.
We sailed for a year and a day and hailed
no field nor coast of mean;
no boat nor bird saw we ever afloat
for forty days and ten.
We saw no sun at set or dawn,
but a dun cloud lay ahead,
and a drumming there was like thunder coming
and a gleam of fiery red.

Upreared from sea to cloud then sheer
a shoreless mountain stood;
its sides were black from the sullen tide
to the red lining of its hood.
No cloak of cloud, no lowering smoke,
no looming storm of thunder
in the world of men saw I ever unfurled
like the pall that we passed under.
We turned away, and we left astern
the rumbling and the gloom;
then the smoking cloud asunder broke,
and we saw the Tower of Doom:
in its ashen head was a crown of red,
where the fishes flamed and fell.
Tall as a column in High Heaven’s hall,
its feet were deep as Hell;
grounded in chasms the water drowned
and buried long ago,
it stands, I ween, in forgotten lands
where the kings of kings lie low.

We sailed then on, till the wind had failed,
and we toiled then with the oar,
and hunger an thirst us sorely wrung,
and we sang our psalms no more.
A land at last with a silver strand
at the end of strenght we found;
the waves were singing in pillared caves
and pearls lay on the ground;
and steep the shores went upward leaping
to slopes of green and gold,
and a stream out of rich and teeming
through a coomb of shadow rolled.

Through gates of stone we rowed in haste,
and passed and left the sea;
and silence like dew fell in that isle,
and holy it seemed to be.
As a green cup, deep in a brim of green,
that with wine the white sun fills
was the land we found, and we saw there stand
on a laund between the hills
a tree more fair than ever I deemed
might climb in Paradise;
its foot was like a great tower’s root,
it height beyond men’s eyes;
so wide its branches, the least could hold
in shade an acre long,
and they rose as steep as mountain-snows
those boughs so broad and strong;
for white as a winter to my sight
the leaves of that tree were,
they grew more close than swan-wing plumes,
all long and soft and fair.

We deemed then, maybe, as in a dream,
that time had passed away
and our journey ended; for no return
we hoped, but there to stay.
In the silence of that hollow isle,
in the stillness, then we sang-
softly us seemed, but the sound aloft
like a pealing organ rang.
Then trembled the tree from crown to stem;
from the limbs the leaves in air
as white birds fled in wheeling flight,
and left the branches bare.
From the the sky came dropping down on high
a music not of bird,
not voice of man, nor angel’s voice;
but maybe there is a third
fair kindred in the world yet lingers
beyond the foundered land.
Yet steep are the seas and the waters deep
beyond the White-tree Strand.’

‘O! stay now father! There’s more to say.
But two things you have told:
The Tree, the Cloud; but you spoke of three.
The Star in mind you hold?’
‘The Star? Yes, I saw it, high and far,
at the parting of the ways,
a light on the edge of the Outer Night
like silver set ablaze,
where the round world plunges steeply down,
but on the old road goes,
as an unseen bridge that on the arches runs
to coasts than no man knows.’

‘But men say, father that ere the end
you went where none have been.
I would here you tell me, father dear,
of the last land you have seen.’

‘In my mind the Star I still can find,
and the parting of the seas,
and the breath as sweet and keen as death
that was borne upon the breeze.
But where they they bloom those flowers fair,
in what air or land they grow,
what words beyond the world I heard,
if you would seek to know,
in a boat then, brother, far afloat
you must labour in the sea,
and find for yourself things out of mind:
you will learn no more of me.’

In Ireland, over wood and mire,
in the tower tall and grey,
the knell of Cluain-ferta’s bell
was tolling in green Galway.
Saint Brendan had come to his life’s end
under a rainclad sky,
and journeyed whence no ship returns,
and his bones in Ireland lie.

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Note: Cluain-Ferta has the English name of Clonfert.

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I reproduce this simply for people to read, since I find it to be one of my favorite of all Tolkien's poems.

Yet the piece remains somewhat obscure, since it was pulished in this form only in 1992, in the Notion Club Papers - although a revised (and I think slightly inferior) version called Imram was published in the the magazine Time and Tide in 1955, and was afterwards sporadically reprinted in various relatively rare Tolkien collections.

In the context of the NCPs, the poem is attributed to Philip Frankley, and is evidence that several members of the club are starting to get drawn-into the Numenorean legend - since the lines "Upreared from sea to cloud then sheer/ a shoreless mountain stood;/ its sides were black from the sullen tide/ to the red lining of its hood." are intended to refer to the last visible remnant of Numenor - the following description ("A land at last with a silver strand") is meant to be Tol Erresea, the Lonely Isle to which the exiled Noldor Elves returned, offshore from Valinor where the 'gods and angels' dwell.

The poem as a whole expresses - with unusual directness - some of Tolkien's deepest yearnings: for the sea, for The West with its (now drowned) Earthly Paradise of Men, and elven Faery.

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Note by Scribble

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http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/note-by-scribble-story.html 

The above is my micro-variation on the theme of Tolkien's Leaf by Niggle.
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Charles Williams' marital infidelity

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I think there will always be a major stumbling block for Christians in relation to Charles Williams, due to his marital infidelities.

Much has been made of the fact that his infidelities never went so far as actual sex - but this is hardly relevant to the problem.

My overall impression is that Charles Williams wanted to have sex with Phyllis Jones and the reason he did not was that she would not allow this - this is what Alice Mary Hadfield implies in her biographies, and it fits all the evidence we have. This kind of sexual limitation was not, therefore, a result of restraint but of constraint; which hardly counts in CW's favour!

http://notionclubpapers.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/charles-williams-love-affair-with.html

And the quasi-magical, Tantric-inspired physical intimacies reported by his biographers, and most vividly in Letters to Lalage by Lois Lang-Sims, make clear that young women were strategically sought out, and put under psychological pressure to comply with CW's ritual demands.

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The problem with all this is twofold:

1. Charles Williams was, from before he met Phyllis Jones, a theological innovator whose main idea was probably the new/ recovered spiritual path or via positiva of Romantic Theology - which was a sacramental view of erotic love, marriage and sex that was to serve as the major (but not exclusive) focus of Christian life. CW's extra-marital shenanigans with other women seem very subversive of the viability or validity of this path.

2. Most disturbingly, there does not seem to be much evidence of CW repenting his extra-marital infidelities, nor even resisting their temptations; even more disturbingly, he makes considerable efforts (post Phyllis Jones) to integrate extra-marital erotic love with his Romantic Theology - in a way which seems all the more self-serving as it is (at least to my understanding) utterly incoherent!

(On this basis, I find it very difficult to understand the elevated reputation of his late book on Dante and Romantic Theology - The Figure of Beatrice, since it reads more like a patchwork of rationalizations than a consistent and live-able theology.)

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In sum, a full and frank acknowledgement of Charles Williams' marital infidelity is necessary to understanding his thought - since the apparent failure to repent of it, but instead to try and justify it theologically, had a destructive effect on the clarity and coherence of his Christian writings. Therefore, this effect must be noted and discounted if Williams' writings are to be as useful and helpful to Christians as, potentially, they might be.

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