The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien (88 page)

^fn44
The ‘Sindarin', a Grey-elven language, is in fact constructed deliberately to resemble Welsh phonologically and to have a relation to High-elven similar to that existing between British (properly so-called, sc. the Celtic languages spoken in this island at the time of the Roman Invasion) and Latin. All the names in the book, and the languages, are of course constructed, and not at random.

^fn45
I once scribbled ‘hobbit' on a blank page of some boring school exam. paper in the early 1930's. It was some time before I discovered what it referred to!

^fn46
The cats of Queen Berúthiel and the names and adventures of the other 2 wizards
²
(5 minus Saruman, Gandalf, Radagast) are all that I recollect.

^fn47
I am
not
Gandalf, being a transcendent Sub-creator in this little world. As far as any character is ‘like me' it is Faramir – except that I lack what all my characters possess (let the psychoanalysts note!)
Courage
.

^fn48
Not quite ‘certainly'. The clumsiness in fidelity of Sam was what finally pushed Gollum over the brink, when about to repent.

^fn49
They shared in its ‘making' – but only on the same terms as we ‘make' a work of art or story. The realization of it, the gift to it of a created reality of the same grade as their own, was the act of the One God.

^fn50
Notably C. L. Wrenn who succeeded me as professor of Anglo-Saxon and who is, I believe, coming to the U.S.A. this autumn for a year, if you (i.e. U.S.A. officials) let him in.

^fn51
humane: this (being in a fairy-story) includes of course Elves, and indeed all ‘speaking creatures'.

^fn52
chiefly interested: that is as themes of ‘literature', as an amusement. Actually most of them were primarily interested in the acquisition of land and the use of marriage-alliances in furthering their aims.

^fn53
Not unless ‘political' is narrowed (or enlarged), so that we are considering imaginatively only one centre or fortress of order and grace surrounded by enemies: the untilled woods and mountains, hostile and barbarous men, wild beasts and monsters, and the Unknown. The defence of the realm may then indeed become symbolic of the human situation.

^fn54
Of the same kind as Gandalf and Saruman, but of a far higher order.

^fn55
By a triple treachery: 1. Because of his admiration of Strength he had become a follower of Morgoth and fell with him down into the depths of evil, becoming his chief agent in Middle Earth. 2. When Morgoth was defeated by the Valar finally he forsook his allegiance; but out of fear only; he did not present himself to the Valar or sue for pardon, and remained in Middle Earth. 3. When he found how greatly his knowledge was admired by all other rational creatures and how easy it was to influence them, his pride became boundless. By the end of the Second Age he assumed the position of Morgoth's representative. By the end of the Third Age (though actually much weaker than before) he claimed to be Morgoth returned.

^fn56
My Sam Gamgee is
Samwise
not Sam(p)son or Samuel.

^fn57
Having geological interests, and a very little knowledge, I have not wholly neglected this aspect, but its indication is rather more difficult – and perilous!

^fn58
By ‘assistance' I do not, of course, mean interference, though the opportunity to consider specimens would be desirable. My linguistic knowledge seldom extends, beyond the detection of obvious errors and liberties, to the criticism of the niceties that would be required. But there are many special difficulties in this text. To mention one: there are a number of words not to be found in the dictionaries, or which require a knowledge of older English. On points such as these, and others that would inevitably arise, the author would be the most satisfactory, and the quickest, source of information.

^fn59
Anyway Canétang=Puddleduck
²
is several classes above this performer!

^fn60
Actually referred to as ‘the One' in App. A III p. 317 1. 20. The Númenóreans (and Elves) were absolute monotheists.

^fn61
For example:
Ford of Bruinen
= Björnavad!
Archet
= Gamleby (a mere guess, I suppose, from ‘archaic'?)
Mountains of Lune
(Ered Luin) = MÃ¥nbergen;
Gladden Fields
(in spite of descr. in I. 62) =
Ljusa slätterna
, & so on.
⁴

^fn62
Or (I surmise) the nomenclature of later volumes.

^fn63
Soon after AD 1400.

^fn64
But even so we do not know the original meaning of
tooth.
Did it mean ‘spike, sharp point' or was it (as some guess) really the participial agent to ED ‘eat', sc. a functional and non-pictorial name?

^fn65
Because a single word in human language (unlike Entish!) is a short-hand sign, & conventional. The fact that it is derived from a single facet, even if proved, does not prove that other facets were not equally present to the mind of the users of this conventional sign. The λóγος is ultimately independent of the
verbum
.

^fn66
But we do not know how
Tiw
(=dívus) became a ‘name' equated in the interpretatio romana with Mars. Perhaps another substitution of a general term (divinity) for a ‘true name'. The plural
tívar
in O. Norse verse still means ‘gods'.

^fn67
That is: they refer to undisturbed norms of habitual change (like simple statements of the action of frost), but the norms may be interfered with – the patterns on a given window are practically unpredictable, though one believes that if one knew
all
the circumstances, it would not be so.

^fn68
By which he means that they are
not
connected by lost semantic change; but how can he be sure of that?

^fn69
(See the lament of Galadriel 1394)
oiolossëo
= from
Mt. Uilos
.

^fn70
In High-elven. There was also a more or less synonymous stem
gal
(corresponding to
gil
which only applied to white or silver light). This variation g/k is not to be confused with the
grammatical
change or k, c > g in Grey-elven, seen in the initials of words in composition or after closely connected particles (like the article). So
Gil-galad
‘star-light'. Cf.
palan-díriel
compared with
a tíro niu
.

^fn71
Note the expression III p. 364 [2nd edition p. 365] ‘taken
as
prisoner'.

^fn72
Sc. belong to our ‘mythological' Middle-Ages which blends unhistorically styles and details ranging over 500 years, and most of which did not of course exist in the Dark Ages of c. 500 A.D.

^fn73
Almost the only vestige of ‘religion' is seen on II pp. 284–5 in the ‘Grace before Meat'. This is indeed mainly as it were a commemoration of the Departed, and theology is reduced to ‘that which is beyond Elvenhome and ever will be', sc. is beyond the mortal lands, beyond the memory of unfallen Bliss, beyond the physical world.

^fn74
I imagine the gap to be about 6000 years: that is we are now at the end of the Fifth Age, if the Ages were of about the same length as S.A. and T.A. But they have, I think, quickened; and I imagine we are actually at the end of the Sixth Age, or in the Seventh.

^fn75
Hence the Elves called the World, the Universe, Eä – It Is.

^fn76
It is the view of the Myth that in (say) Elves and Men ‘sex' is only an expression in physical or biological terms of a difference of nature in the ‘spirit', not the
ultimate
cause of the difference between femininity and masculinity.

^fn77
In
narrative
, as soon as the matter becomes ‘storial' and not mythical, being in fact
human
literature, the centre of interest
must
shift to Men (and their relations with Elves or other creatures). We cannot write stories
about
Elves, whom we do not know inwardly; and if we try we simply turn Elves into men.

^fn78
[A note apparently added later:] It was also the Elvish (and uncorrupted Númenórean) view that a ‘good' Man would or should
die
voluntarily by surrender with trust
before being compelled
(as did Aragorn). This may have been the nature of
unfallen
Man; though
compulsion
would not threaten him: he would desire and ask to be allowed to ‘go on' to a higher state. The Assumption of Mary, the only
unfallen
person, may be regarded as in some ways a simple regaining of unfallen grace and liberty: she asked to be received, and was, having no further function on Earth. Though, of course, even if
unfallen
she was not ‘pre-Fall'. Her destiny (in which she had cooperated) was far higher than that of any ‘Man' would have been, had the Fall not occurred. It was also unthinkable that her body, the immediate source of Our Lord's (without other physical intermediary) should have been disintegrated, or ‘corrupted', nor could it surely be long separated from Him after the Ascension. There is of course no suggestion that Mary did not ‘age' at the normal rate of her race; but certainly this process cannot have proceeded or been allowed to proceed to decrepitude or loss of vitality and comeliness. The Assumption was in any case as distinct from the Ascension as the raising of Lazarus from the (self) Resurrection.

^fn79
One, the eldest, alone, and six more with six mates.
¹

^fn80
Between 2463 and the beginning of Gandalf's special enquiries concerning the Ring (nearly 500 years later) they appear indeed to have died out altogether (except, of course, for Sméagol); or to have fled from the shadow of Dol Guldur.

^fn81
Anciently this apparently took place, shortly after birth, by the announcement of the
name
of the child to the family assembled, or in larger more elaborate communities to the titular ‘head' of the clan or family. See note at end.

^fn82
Hence the Hobbit expression ‘a twelve-mile cousin' for a person who stickled for the law, and recognized no obligations beyond its precise interpretation: one who would give you no present if the distance from his doorstep to yours was not
under
12 miles (according to his own measurement).

^fn83
No presents were given at or during the celebration of Hobbit weddings, except flowers (weddings were mostly in Spring or early Summer). Assistance in furnishing a home (if the couple were to have a separate one, or private apartments in a Smial) was given long before by the parents on either side.

^fn84
In more primitive communities, as those still living in clan-smials, the
byrding
also made a gift to the ‘head of the family'. There is no mention of Smeagol's presents. I imagine that he was an orphan; and do not suppose that he
gave
any present on his birthday, save (grudgingly) the tribute to his ‘grandmother'. Fish probably. One of the reasons, maybe, for the expedition. It would have been just like Smeagol to give fish, actually caught by Déagol!

^fn85
We are here dealing only with titular ‘headship' not with ownership of property, and its management. These were distinct matters; though in the case of the surviving ‘great households', such as
Great Smials
or
Brandy Hall
, they might overlap. In other cases, headship, being a mere title, and a matter of courtesy, was naturally seldom relinquished by the living.

^fn86
This title and office descended immediately, and was not held by a widow. But Ferumbras, though he became Thain Ferumbras III in 1380, still occupied no more than a small bachelor-son's apartment in the Great Smials, until 1402.

^fn87
descendants of a common great-grandfather of the same name.

^fn88
In the original poem he was said to wear a peacock's feather, which (I think you will agree) was entirely unsuitable to his situation in the
L.R.
In it his feather is merely reported as ‘blue'. Its origin is now revealed.

^fn89
Only in this respect – hatred of trees. She was a great and gallant lady.

^fn90
See III p. 245.
¹

^fn91
Actually, since the events at the Cracks of Doom would obviously be vital to the Tale, I made several sketches or trial versions at various stages in the narrative – but none of them were used, and none of them much resembled what is actually reported in the finished story.

^fn92
We frequently see this double scale used by the saints in their judgements upon themselves when suffering great hardships or temptations, and upon others in like trials.

^fn93
No account is here taken of ‘grace' or the enhancement of our powers as instruments of Providence. Frodo was given ‘grace': first to answer the call (at the end of the Council) after long resisting a complete surrender; and later in his resistance to the temptation of the Ring (at times when to claim and so reveal it would have been fatal), and in his endurance of fear and suffering. But grace is not infinite, and for the most part seems in the Divine economy limited to what is sufficient for the accomplishment of the task appointed to one instrument in a pattern of circumstances and other instruments.