The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien (42 page)

Dear Mr Jeffery,

Thank you very much for your letter. . . . It came while I was away, in Gondor (sc. Venice), as a change from the North Kingdom, or I would have answered before.

At any rate your command of Elvish script (not Runes) is quite good enough to read. But there are, of course, no rules for the application to English, so it is impossible to make mistakes, unless according to your own system – so I suppose your name is Richard, though you wrote
, which on your system should be Rijard
. However, there will be sufficient description of the ‘letters' (
tengwar
) and of the ‘runes'
(certar)
in Vol. III Appendices for anyone who is interested. . . . .

It has unfortunately not proved possible, as I had hoped, to give an index of Names (with meanings), which would have provided also a fair vocabulary of Elvish words. There were far too many and the space and cost were prohibitive. But I spent a long time trying to make a list, and that is one reason for the delay of Vol. III. . . . .

Most of the questions you ask will be answered in Vol. III, I think. . . . .
Orofarne, lassemista, carnemírie
is High-elven (the language preferred by Ents) for ‘mountain-dwelling, leaf-grey, with adornment of red jewels'.

The ‘correct' plural of
onod
was
enyd,
or general plural
onodrim
; though
ened
might be a form used in Gondor. But
en, ened
= middle, centre as in
Endor, Endore
Middle-earth (S.
ennorath
); and
enedwaith
= middle-people/ or region, as
Forodwaith
= north-region, &c. It was not a desert when the name was given; but became so during the Third Age.
¹
See the Chronology of the Second and Third Ages in Appendices to Vol. III. Peregrin is, of course, a real modern name, though it means ‘traveller in strange countries'. Frodo is a real name from the Germanic tradition. Its Old English form was
Fróda.
Its obvious connexion is with the old word
fród
meaning etymologically ‘wise by experience', but it had mythological connexions with legends of the Golden Age in the North. . . . .

Yours sincerely,

J. R. R. Tolkien

11 September 1955

Your discovery of ‘Numinor' in C.S.L.'s
That Hideous Strength
is discovery of a plagiarism: well, not that, since he used the word, taken from my legends of the First and Second Ages, in the belief that they would soon appear. They have not, but I suppose now they may. The spelling
Numinor
is due to his hearing it and not seeing it.
Númenóre
or
Númenor
means in High-elven simply West-land. As for the shape of the world of the Third Age, I am afraid that was devised ‘dramatically' rather than geologically, or paleontologically. I do sometimes wish that I had made some sort of agreement between the imaginations or theories of the geologists and my map a little more possible. But that would only have made more trouble with human history.

30 September 1955

When is Vol. III likely now to appear? I shall be murdered if something does not happen soon.

[September 1955]

Dear Hugh,

. . . . Don't be disturbed: I have not noticed any impertinence (or sycophancy) in your letters; and anyone so appreciative and so perceptive is entitled to criticism. Anyway, I do not naturally breathe an air of undiluted incense! It was not what you said (last letter but one, not the one that I answered) or your right to say it, that might have called for a reply, if I had the time for it; but the pain that I always feel when anyone – in an age when almost all auctorial manhandling of English is permitted (especially if disruptive) in the name of art or ‘personal expression' – immediately dismisses out of court deliberate ‘archaism'. The proper use of ‘tushery' is to apply it to the kind of bogus ‘medieval' stuff which attempts (without knowledge) to give a supposed temporal colour with expletives, such as
tush, pish, zounds, marry,
and the like. But a real archaic English is far more
terse
than modern; also many of things said could not be said in our slack and often frivolous idiom. Of course, not being specially well read in modern English, and far more familiar with works in the ancient and ‘middle' idioms, my own ear is to some extent affected; so that though I could easily recollect how a modern would put this or that, what comes easiest to mind or pen is not quite that. But take an example from the chapter that you specially singled out (and called terrible): Book iii, ‘The King of the Golden Hall'. ‘Nay, Gandalf!' said the King. ‘You do not know your own skill in healing. It shall not be so. I myself will go to war, to fall in the front of the battle, if it must be. Thus shall
I sleep better.'

This is a fair sample – moderated or watered archaism. Using only words that still are used or known to the educated, the King would really have said: ‘Nay, thou (n')wost
¹
not thine own skill in healing. It shall not be so. I myself will go to war, to fall …' etc. I know well enough what a modern would say. ‘Not at all my dear G. You don't know your own skill as a doctor. Things aren't going to be like that. I shall go to the war in person, even if I have to be one of the first casualties' – and then what? Theoden would certainly think, and probably say ‘thus shall I sleep better'! But people who think like that just do not talk a modern idiom. You can have ‘I shall lie easier in my grave', or ‘I should sleep sounder in my grave like that rather than if I stayed at home' – if you like. But there would be an insincerity of thought, a disunion of word and meaning. For a King who spoke in a modern style would not really think in such terms at all, and any reference to sleeping quietly in the grave would be a deliberate archaism of expression on his part (however worded) far more bogus than the actual ‘archaic' English that I have used. Like some non-Christian making a reference to some Christian belief which did not in fact move him at all.

Or p. 127, as an example of ‘archaism' that cannot be defended as ‘dramatic', since it is not in dialogue, but the author's description of the arming of the guests – which seemed specially to upset you. But such ‘heroic' scenes do not occur in a modern setting to which a modern idiom belongs. ‘Why deliberately ignore, refuse to use the wealth of English which leaves us a choice of styles – without any possibility of unintelligibility.

I can see no more reason for not using the much
terser
and more vivid ancient
style,
than for changing the obsolete weapons, helms, shields, hauberks into modern uniforms.

‘Helms too they chose' is archaic. Some (wrongly) class it as an ‘inversion', since normal order is ‘They also chose helmets' or ‘they chose helmets too'. (Real mod. E. ‘They also picked out some helmets and round shields'.) But this is not normal order, and if mod. E. has lost the trick of putting a word desired to emphasize (for pictorial, emotional or logical reasons) into prominent first place, without addition of a lot of little ‘empty' words (as the Chinese say), so much the worse for it. And so much the better for it the sooner it learns the trick again. And
some
one must begin the teaching, by example.

I am sorry to find
you
affected by the extraordinary 20th.C. delusion that its usages
per se
and simply as ‘contemporary' – irrespective of whether they are terser, more vivid (or even nobler!) – have some peculiar validity, above those of all other times, so that not to use them (even when quite unsuitable in tone) is a solecism, a gaffe, a thing at which one's friends shudder or feel hot in the collar. Shake yourself out of this parochialism of time! Also (not to be too donnish) learn to discriminate between the bogus and genuine antique – as you would if you hoped not to be cheated by a dealer!

12 October 1955

Don't fail of 20 October! The last possible day. On the 21st. I have to give the first ‘O'Donnell Lecture' (overdue), & I must hope that a large part of my audience will be so bemused by sitting up late the night before that they will not so closely observe my grave lack of equipment as a lecturer on a Celtic subject.
¹
Anyway, I want to tactfully allude to the book, since a part of what I wish to say is about ‘Celticness' and in what that consists as a linguistic pattern.

24 October 1955

Since (in spite of being laid up with a throat that made lecturing impossible until last Friday) I have actually managed to deliver the O'Donnell Lecture on English and Welsh (Friday), and am no longer a college official, and the Book is complete – except for an errata slip for the reprint already required for Vol. III, to cover the important errors of the whole: I shall be a great deal freer after this week. . . . .

I am indeed surprised at the reception of the ‘Ring', and immensely pleased. But I don't think I have started any tide. I don't think such a small hobbitlike creature, or even a Man of any size, does that. If there is a tide (I think there is) then I am just lucky enough to have caught it, being just a bit of it. . . . .

I still feel the picture incomplete without something on Samwise and Elanor, but I could not devise anything that would not have destroyed the ending, more than the hints (possibly sufficient) in the appendices.

10 November 1955

Merton College, Oxford

Dear Lord Halsbury,

It was kind of you to write, & I was pleased to have your approval and interest. I was also grateful for your suggestion of an edition by subscription.