The Keys of Middle-Earth: Discovering Medieval Literature through the Fiction of J.R.R. Tolkien

The Keys of Middle-earth Discovering Medieval Literature through the Fiction of J.R.R. Tolkien Stuart D. Lee and Elizab...

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The Keys of Middle-earth Discovering Medieval Literature through the Fiction of J.R.R. Tolkien

Stuart D. Lee and Elizabeth Solopova

The Keys of Middle-earth

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The Keys of Middle-earth Discovering Medieval Literature through the Fiction of J. R. R. Tolkien

Stuart D. Lee and Elizabeth Solopova

© Stuart D. Lee and Elizabeth Solopova 2005 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1T 4LP. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The authors have asserted their rights to be identified as the authors of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2005 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 Companies and representatives throughout the world PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave Macmillan division of St. Martin’s Press, LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. Macmillan® is a registered trademark in the United States, United Kingdom and other countries. Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European Union and other countries. ISBN-13: 978-1–4039–4672–0 hardback ISBN-10: 1–4039–4672–8 hardback ISBN-13: 978-1–4039–4671–3 paperback ISBN-10: 1–4039–4671–X paperback This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Lee, Stuart D. The keys of Middle-earth: discovering medieval literature through the fiction of J. R. R. Tolkien / Stuart D. Lee, Elizabeth Solopova. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1–4039–4672-8 – ISBN 1–4039–4671–X (pbk.) 1. Tolkien, J. R. R. (John Ronald Reuel), 1892–1973–Criticism and interpretation. 2. Tolkien, J. R. R. (John Ronald Reuel), 1892–1973 – Knowledge – Literature. 3. Literature, Medieval – Adaptations – History and criticism. 4. Fantasy fiction, English – History and criticism. 5. Literature, Medieval – Appreciation – England. 6. Middle Earth (Imaginary place) I. Solopova, Elizabeth. II. Title. PR6039.O32Z677 2005 823¢.912–dc22 10 14

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Printed and bound in Great Britain by Antony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham and Eastbourne

For Sarah, Michael and Anastasia


Contents Acknowledgements

ix

Abbreviations

x

1. How to Use This Book

1

2. Introduction 2.1 Background 2.1.1 Why another book about Tolkien? 2.1.2 This is not a source book 2.1.3 Tolkien’s career 2.1.4 Tolkien’s fiction and medieval literature 2.1.5 Medieval sources 2.2 Medieval literature 2.2.1 Old English 2.2.2 Middle English 2.2.3 Old Norse 2.3 Thematic and technical parallels 2.3.1 The theme of the quest 2.3.2 The epic 2.3.3 The runes 2.3.4 Alliterative verse and Tolkien’s verse 2.3.5 The names

2 2 2 3 4 7 11 12 16 20 23 25 25 28 31 38 50

3. The Editions

54

4. The Texts The Hobbit 4.1 Gandalf and the Dwarves – Vo¸luspá, stanzas 9–16 (TH, ‘An Unexpected Party’) 4.2 Bilbo and Gollum’s Riddle-Game – Vafprúdnismál and Solomon and Saturn II, ll. 47–68 and 104–23 (TH, ‘Riddles in the Dark’) 4.3 Bilbo meets Smaug – Beowulf, ll. 2207–311 (TH, ‘Inside Information’)

57 59

The Lord of the Rings 4.4 The Elves at Rivendell – Sir Orfeo, ll. 107–94 (FR, ‘Many Meetings’; TH, ‘A Short Rest’ and ‘Flies and Spiders’) 4.5 Legolas’s ‘Lament of the Stones’ – The Ruin (FR, ‘The Ring Goes South’) vii

59 73 106 123 123 133

viii Contents

4.6 4.7 4.8 4.9 4.10 4.11

4.12 4.13

The Fight at Balin’s Tomb – The Fight at Finnsburg and ‘Cynewulf and Cyneheard’ (FR, ‘The Bridge of Khazad-Dûm’) The Crossing of the Nimrodel – Pearl, ll. 61–276 (FR, ‘Lothlórien’) Boromir’s Death – Beowulf, ll. 26–52 (TT, ‘The Departure of Boromir’) Treebeard’s List – Maxims II (TT, ‘Treebeard’) The Rohirrim – The Wanderer and Beowulf, ll. 306–70 (TT, ‘The King of the Golden Hall’) The Death of Théoden and the Arrival of the Mûmakil – The Battle of Maldon, ll. 111–84 and Ælfric’s Homily on the Maccabees, ll. 499–519 (RK, ‘The Battle of Pelennor Fields’) The Landscape of Mordor – Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, ll. 713–63 and Beowulf, ll. 1345–82 (RK, ‘The Land of Shadow’) The Final Journey – The Seafarer (RK, ‘The Grey Havens’)

146 164 177 183 194

217 235 250

Bibliography

266

Index

277

Acknowledgements

The authors of the book would like to acknowledge the following people and institutions for all their kind help: Patrick Conner, Judith Priestman, Elaine Treharne, Catherine Rohll, the staff at the Bodleian Library, and The Tolkien Estate. In particular we would like to express our sincerest thanks to Dr Shaun Hughes of Purdue University for his suggestions and improvements to the whole book which were extremely valuable. We would also like to thank HarperCollins Ltd for allowing us to quote from the works of J. R. R. Tolkien.

Copyright notice Extracts from The Hobbit, by J. R. R. Tolkien (1999) reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd. Extracts from The Lord of the Rings, by J. R. R. Tolkien (1995) reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd. Extracts from The Monsters and the Critics and Other Essays, by J. R. R. Tolkien (1997) reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd. Extracts from The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien, by J. R. R. Tolkien (1995) reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd. Extracts from Sauron Defeated, by J. R. R. Tolkien (2002) reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd. Extracts from The Lost Road, by J. R. R. Tolkien (2002) reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.

ix

Abbreviations

Throughout this book we have made use of a series of abbreviations. These are presented as follows.

Published works by J. R. R. Tolkien BLT1 BLT2 Essays

FR Letters

Lost Road LR

Morgoth Notion Club Return

RK Sauron

TH Treason

The Book of Lost Tales, Part One: The History of Middle-earth I, edited by Christopher Tolkien (HarperCollins, 2002). The Book of Lost Tales, Part Two: The History of Middle-earth II, edited by Christopher Tolkien (HarperCollins, 2002). The Monsters and the Critics and Other Essays, edited by Christopher Tolkien (HarperCollins, 1997). Individual essays are occasionally referenced, but citation is usually just by page number. The Fellowship of the Ring. The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien, edited by Humphrey Carpenter with the assistance of Christopher Tolkien (HarperCollins, 1995). Cited by letter number and page number. The Lost Road and Other Writings, in The History of Middle-earth V, edited by Christopher Tolkien (HarperCollins, 2002). The Lord of the Rings (single volume, HarperCollins, paperback edition, 1995). Cited by page number, and appendix if appropriate. Morgoth’s Ring, in The History of Middle-earth X, edited by Christopher Tolkien (HarperCollins, 2002). The Notion Club Papers in Sauron Defeated, pp. 145–327. The Return of the Shadow: The History of the Lord of the Rings Part One, in The History of Middle-earth VI, edited by Christopher Tolkien (HarperCollins, 2002). The Return of the King. Sauron Defeated: The History of the Lord of the Rings Part Four, in The History of Middle-earth IX, edited by Christopher Tolkien (HarperCollins, 2002). The Hobbit or There and Back Again (HarperCollins, 1999, 4th edition). Cited by page number. The Treason of Isengard: The History of the Lord of the Rings Part Two, in The History of Middle-earth VII, edited by Christopher Tolkien (HarperCollins, 2002). x

Abbreviations xi

TT War

The Two Towers. The War of the Ring: The History of the Lord of the Rings Part Three, in The History of Middle-earth VIII, edited by Christopher Tolkien (HarperCollins, 2002).

Manuscripts of J. R. R. Tolkien Tolkien’s unpublished work referred to in this book are his academic papers kept in the Bodleian Library in Oxford. The academic papers have not yet been catalogued, and manuscripts have not been given shelfmarks. They are cited using their temporary references, such as Tolkien A29/1.

Languages AN Goth. Med. Lat. MnE MnG OE OFr OHG ON OS

Anglo-Norman Gothic Medieval Latin Modern English Modern German Old English Old French Old High German Old Norse Old Saxon

Titles of other works, and publishers ASPR Beo CUP ES MA OED

OUP PMLA SN TS

Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records Beowulf Cambridge University Press English Studies Medium Aevum The Oxford English Dictionary (20-volume 2nd edition, plus three Additions volumes published 1993–7). Online edition used throughout which has additional updates each quarter (http://dictionary.oed.com/). Oxford University Press Proceeding of the Modern Language Association Studia Neophilologica Tolkien Studies: An Annual Scholarly Review 1 (West Virginia University Press, 2004)

xii Abbreviations

Technical terms a. edn. f. f. xx or ff. xx ind. lit. l. xx or ll. xx m. MS n. num. part. pl. pres. prs. repr. rev. sg. st. subj. transl. v.

adjective edition feminine folio/folios followed by number, and then r for recto, or v for verso indicative literally line or lines followed by number masculine manuscript neuter numeral participle plural present person reprinted revised singular stanza subjunctive translated verb

1 How to Use This Book

The main part of this book consists of a series of medieval texts presented in both their original and in translation, based on episodes highlighted in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. The Silmarillion has not been chosen for analysis due to confines of space, though it is referred to at times. The first port of call, however, is a discussion of Tolkien’s career as a medievalist (2.1). This gives essential background material and should be read before progressing further. Newcomers to the field of medieval studies should then read through the introductory guides to Old English, Old Norse and Middle English to get a bearing on the historical and linguistic context of the texts presented later (2.2). The essays on the quest, epic literature, runes, names and alliterative verse are presented as examples of major themes and similarities between Tolkien’s writing and those found in medieval literature. These give an overview of these subjects with reference to general parallels in Tolkien’s work and will be of particular use to those wishing to study medieval literature. The texts themselves are designed to be read in the order they appear in the book, and, to avoid repetition, some cross-referencing to earlier texts occurs. The final entry on The Seafarer, therefore, presents a reflection on Tolkien’s experiments with the use of medieval literature in his fiction, focusing notably on such texts as The Notion Club Papers. When reading the texts, those who are new to medieval literature are advised to look at the summary which precedes each entry to understand the link to TH or LR; to read briefly the information about the text; but mainly to concentrate on the discussion, where parallels with Tolkien’s fiction are explored. Such readers are also advised to work mainly with the translations, whilst looking at the original texts on the facing page to see if any patterns or similarities emerge – for example, recurring words or phrases. Readers more familiar with medieval literature will find that the notes to each text provide more in-depth information about language and manuscripts as well as further discussion of Tolkien’s own views of the text. 1

2 Introduction

2.1 Background 2.1.1 Why another book about Tolkien? It is now almost impossible to find a bookshop without a stand or section dedicated to the life and works of J. R. R. Tolkien. Not only are there his original works of fiction (TH, LR, The Silmarillion and his minor texts), there are the twelve volumes of The History of Middle-earth by his son, Christopher Tolkien, a range of biographies, books analysing his fiction, atlases, calendars and drawings. These in themselves could fill a small library, but they have now been joined by a plethora of publications on nearly every aspect one could imagine concerning Peter Jackson’s filmed adaptations of LR. It is a perfectly justifiable question, then, to ask why on earth we need another book about Tolkien. What can possibly be written that hasn’t already been covered? On the face of it very little has been left untouched. The plots, themes and analogues of Tolkien’s fiction have been discussed at length. In academic circles there has also been a lot of recent interest in his career as a medievalist and what impact this had on his fiction. Yet if we agree with Tom Shippey when he states that ‘Tolkien cannot be properly discussed without some considerable awareness of the ancient works and the ancient world which he tried to revive’ (Shippey, 2000, p. xxvii), then a lot of readers and fans of the Middle-earth books will be left floundering. How can they find out about these ancient works? Where should they start in trying to understand a discipline that Tolkien himself spent over sixty years studying? It is true that there are many public domain translations of medieval texts available on the Internet, for example, but for the most part these are fifty or sixty years old and many of them, without proper guidance, will seem irrelevant and confusing. This is where The Keys of Middle-earth will appeal to readers. Drawing on a series of episodes from Tolkien’s fiction, key medieval texts, or selections from them, are presented in the context of Middle-earth, drawing out parallels wher2

Introduction 3

ever possible. These in turn serve as an introduction to the range of medieval languages and literatures that Tolkien studied and provide the reader with sufficient knowledge to begin to explore more. The translations are all new for this edition and draw on recent scholarship. They are also presented facing the original medieval texts. This book will also be of interest to teachers and students of medieval literature who are looking for a ‘themed’ reader. The theme here is one of the most popular sets of books of the twentieth century. Students are not only provided with introductions to the languages, texts and manuscripts, there are also guides to further readings and more in-depth notes. So whether you are a fan of the Middle-earth books, a teacher or student of medieval literature, or just interested in what led Tolkien to write his great stories, The Keys of Middle-earth will appeal to you. 2.1.2 This is not a source book To attempt to understand a book it is often useful to start with its title. This addition to the already extensive canon surrounding the life and works of Professor Tolkien is called The Keys of Middle-earth. It presents to the reader a collection of medieval texts in both their original form and in translation. Readers might naturally assume, therefore, that the texts in some way should be looked on as sources for the episodes set in Middle-earth, that is that Tolkien used material from them in his own fiction. Yet if this were the case, then this book would have been entitled The Keys ‘to’ Middle-earth not ‘of ’, and, as noted above, the title of a book is very important. So why the distinction? Well, in part we can turn to Tolkien’s own views on such matters. As Shippey (2003a, p. 343) notes, Tolkien did not like source studies, that is books that attempt to identify where passage x and passage y are taken from or based on. He felt they ‘tended to distract attention from the work of art itself, and to undervalue the artist by the suggestion that he had “got it all” from somewhere else’. Yet he was aware of the attraction of source studies. In a letter written in 1972, towards the end of his life, Tolkien complained that ‘the search for the sources of The Lord of the Rings is going to occupy academics for a generation or two’, but he wished it wasn’t so (Letters, 337, p. 418). It could also be argued that it is probably impossible to write a source book for LR as it implies that there is always a direct relationship between source material and the finished story. Although some of the entries presented in this book are very similar to the episodes in Tolkien’s fiction (see 4.10) most of them are not, and this is the norm. So if this is not a source book, what is it? Once again we should turn to the title for an explanation. The purpose of a key is to lock, or in this case, unlock. We can imagine the book as a door, beyond which lies the world of medieval

4


literature. To many, this world remains forever hidden, held secret within academic research libraries and universities. And to some, who have been exposed to this world full of strange stories of men and women living long ago, told in even stranger languages, this world is both bewildering and daunting. Yet this is the arena in which Tolkien’s imagination roamed, a world to which he devoted most of his life. The Keys of Middle-earth, therefore, is aimed at unlocking that world so that the readers of Tolkien’s fiction can be exposed to the literature he studied, taught, wrote about and greatly admired. Then, when they return to his fiction, readers will have new insights into his work and begin to see patterns and similarities. This is not without precedent, of course. Many people who now work or are interested in the field of medieval studies gained their first glimpse of this world through the fiction of Professor Tolkien (see Evans, 2000, p. 21). Caught up in the cultures of Rohan and Gondor, the history of the Elves and the Dwarves, they wanted more and found that their curiosity could be satisfied with the original material from which Tolkien drew his inspiration. One can only guess, of course, what Tolkien’s reaction to such a venture would have been. One would hope that it would have been favourable. Any attempt to expose more people to the texts of Old English, Old Norse and Middle English would have been welcomed it is assumed, especially one that presents the reader not only with the text in translation, but with the original for them to study and enjoy. In many ways this is similar to his own motivation for starting his Middle-earth tales. Leaving the often over-emphasized attempt to devise a ‘mythology for England’, which he later rejected with some embarrassment, we can certainly agree with Shippey when he states that: he [Tolkien] wished . . . to give some hint of the charm and the fascination of the poems and stories to which he dedicated his professional life; and that he wanted finally to bridge the gap between the ancient world and the modern one. (Shippey, 2000, p. 48) The Keys of Middle-earth, therefore, attempts to provide a further bridge. By selecting episodes from TH and the six books of LR and directly linking them to a range of medieval texts, we hope to bring modern readers to a new world of discovery and at the same time expose them to the delights of our early literature. 2.1.3 Tolkien’s career J. R. R. Tolkien was born on 3 January 1892 in Bloemfontein, South Africa, and died on 2 October 1973. In the course of his life he was a soldier, lexicographer and academic. In terms of his writing he produced academic articles, a few scholarly books, poetry, some drama, and the fantasy works for which he

Introduction 5

is known throughout the world. Yet if one were to single out the career that dominated his life, what should one select? For the majority of his fans the answer would be simple: Tolkien was a novelist. Yet Tolkien himself would more likely have classed himself as a university lecturer who specialized in the field of medieval literature and language. His writing, though it clearly occupied much of his life and imagination, was perhaps secondary – certainly in what he deemed important. Tolkien began his academic career at King Edward’s School, Birmingham, and subsequently went to Exeter College, Oxford, to read English Language and Literature. His specialized in medieval literature and linguistics, building on the fascination with ancient languages and tales he had developed as a child. He was awarded a first class degree in 1915, by which time the First World War was a year old and Tolkien, like many young men of his generation, enlisted. He was commissioned into the Lancashire Fusiliers and saw action on the Somme in 1916, but was invalided home. After the war he took up a job in Oxford working on the New Oxford English Dictionary (concentrating on the letter ‘W’), and in 1920 was appointed Reader in English Language at the University of Leeds (he became a professor in 1924). Tolkien was joined there in 1922 by the scholar E. V. Gordon and the pair began an ambitious plan (ultimately unfulfilled) to produce a series of editions of medieval texts. Indeed, in terms of joint editions, the only real fruit of these labours was their Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, produced in 1925. This was the same year that Tolkien returned to Oxford, becoming Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of AngloSaxon at Pembroke College (not without some controversy it has to be said, a fact which he recognized at the end of his career; Essays, p. 238). At Oxford Tolkien found an even more encouraging environment for his medieval interests. He surrounded himself with friends and colleagues in the field, forming the ‘Coalbiters’ club to discuss works of Old Norse, and eventually the famous ‘Inklings’. His most important compatriot in those early years was C. S. Lewis – a kindred spirit not only academically and religiously, but also in the writing of fiction, which they read to each other and the rest of the Inklings. This was a relationship that was to be as fruitful for both writers’ fiction as it was for the development of Medieval Studies at Oxford. Over the years Lewis heard all of TH and LR in draft, and encouraged Tolkien to finish both, though he himself admitted his role was more ‘as a mid-wife for the books than as a parent’ (Lazo, 2003, p. 40). In 1945 Tolkien was elected Merton Professor of English Language and Literature, and he retired in 1959. His final years were spent in Oxford and on the south coast of England. In addition, during the course of his Oxford career, Tolkien contributed to a legacy which is still controversial today, namely the until recently compulsory element of medieval literature (or Old English at least) in the English syllabus.

6


Tolkien had strong views on this and the nature of the courses at Oxford (see his 1930 article ‘The Oxford English School’, published in The Oxford Magazine (XLVIII, 21, pp. 778–82)), which he underlined at the end of his career with his Valedictory Address given in 1959 (Essays, pp. 224–40). One’s view of Tolkien’s position will be based on the opinion one holds on the range of texts expected in a modern-day English university school. This is, therefore, entirely subjective and can lead (and has done on many occasions) to emotive responses, a trap into which Tolkien himself fell as often as his critics. Yet regardless of whether or not one agrees with him, one could never argue against his commitment to the cause. This briefest of summaries of his career omits many points, of course, not least his contributions to the field of medieval studies. Yet if we were to look at his published work in terms of academic material, we would find that it is relatively sparse by modern standards for a career that lasted nearly forty years. If one adds together his notes, published lectures, articles and various forewords to academic publications, plus his scholarly ‘books’, they number around thirty (and that is stretching the point). Compared with other scholars it is safe to say that this is a relatively meagre output. Indeed, the comment that ‘Lewis published too much and Tolkien too little’ is still quoted in academic circles today. As C. L. Wrenn once reportedly remarked, ‘Tolkien is a genius! If only he wrote accordingly what wonders could he accomplish.’ Yet, without wishing to denigrate his contemporaries, we can say that whatever Tolkien published was always of the highest quality. Moreover, his lecture notes (held at the Bodleian Library, Oxford and referenced throughout this book) reveal a wealth of scholarly material that never reached publication and tantalizingly point to what might have been. It is undoubtedly true that part of the reason for this was the diversion of Middle-earth and the development of his mythology. Nevertheless, the unpublished lecture notes reveal a scholar who thought deeply about their subject, and more importantly, the teaching of their subject. There are extensive notes on medieval literature, translations of texts, editions of texts, lectures on translating, diction, prosody, metre, alliteration, the history of the language and people, on manuscripts, and so on. In addition, there are hundreds of scraps of paper, and two notebooks which attempt to match individual words in Modern English with their Old English counterparts – an unfulfilled ambition, perhaps to produce a Modern English–Old English Dictionary (Tolkien A20/1–4). The papers also bear witness to the fact that Tolkien clearly reworked his teaching notes until they were just right. Even then they bear numerous additional annotations – possibly as a result of delivering the lecture, or a final read-through. Criticism of his publishing profile, therefore, may be unjust, especially when one realizes how seriously he took his commitment to teaching. Even when he was made a professor at Oxford he ran series after series of lectures and taught

Introduction 7

far beyond the requirements of such a post. Unfortunately, Tolkien’s teaching has also attracted criticism in the past from such noteworthy characters as the novelist Kingsley Amis. Because of the fame of such crities, the faults in Tolkien’s projection and teaching style which they highlighted have received excessive attention. In fairness Tolkien should be described as a prolific and thoughtful lecturer, but not necessarily the most audible. Lewis advised one of his students that ‘unfortunately you may not be able to hear what he says’ (Sayer, 1995, p. 21) and described him as ‘an inspired speaker of footnotes’. Yet reading through his notes one is struck by the inventiveness of his turn of phrase, which could conjure an image that would have undoubtedly enlivened the lecture hall. We should not be surprised, therefore, when we read comments such as: He was a great teacher, and delightful, courteous, ever so kindly . . . He had his faults. He would ruffle through his notes rapidly . . . Then he would light up, expand, expound. He took endless pains with his students, helped them so much . . . (Ready, 1968, pp. 17–18) Yet this is not our concern here. It is his interest and research into medieval literature, and how that linked to his fiction, that we shall concentrate on – not his all-too-human faults as a teacher. 2.1.4 Tolkien’s fiction and medieval literature It is well known that Tolkien’s interest in languages, especially ancient ones, and their associated literature began when he was young. We know, for example, that he became interested in Old and Middle English, enthralled by the Old Norse legends and fascinated by such obscure languages as Gothic at an early age (he came across Gothic as a boy when he obtained a copy of Wright’s Primer of the Gothic Language; see Letters, 272, pp. 356–7). Tolkien started concentrating more deeply on Old English at the age of sixteen when his schoolmaster George Brewerton lent him an Anglo-Saxon primer. When he won the Skeat’s Prize for English at Oxford in 1914, moreover, he spent his money on extending his knowledge by purchasing books on medieval Welsh and some works by William Morris, whose fiction also had an influence on Tolkien’s mythology. This was all to manifest itself in his main academic studies at Oxford and subsequent field of expertise as a lecturer. Yet he was not always conventional. Consistently, Tolkien wanted to push his knowledge in interesting directions. He was no stranger, for example, to writing mock Old Norse (Letters, 295, p. 379) or pseudo-Old English (as in his joint publication with E. V. Gordon entitled Songs for Philologists, which appeared in 1936). This was a pasttime he was to continue late into old age, as is evident in his poem to W. H. Auden, entitled ‘For W. H. A.’ (1967), which he wrote partly in Old English.

8


Not surprisingly his love of medieval languages and literature was to find its way into his fiction. Many books have been written and studies published on the influences of these ancient texts on TH, LR and The Silmarillion, the best of which are by Tom Shippey, in particular his The Road to Middle-earth (2003). The links have been demonstrated beyond refute, but what is more interesting is the way Tolkien used this material in his own writing. Earlier we stated that this is not a source book, and indeed it is not. The reason for this is that a direct correlation between the medieval texts Tolkien studied and his fiction is not always apparent. Instead we must recognize that Tolkien held many of the tales, myths and poems that he taught and researched in his memory and occasionally fused these with his own creations to form something new. As he himself stated: ‘one’s mind is, of course, stored with a “leaf-mould” or memories . . . and these rise up to the surface at times’ (Letters, 324, p. 409). Yet he would have been the first to acknowledge that these memories and original leaves – the medieval texts themselves – should be recognized and that their influence should not be ignored. This is different from source analysis. When writing on the Middle English poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, for example, Tolkien felt entirely at liberty to state that: it belongs to that literary kind which has deep roots in the past, deeper even than its author was aware. It is made of tales often told before and elsewhere, and of elements that derive from remote times. (Essays, p. 72) This does not detract from the importance of the poem, and more importantly does not attempt a detailed source study, but it does show its indebtedness. In his seminal lecture and essay ‘On Fairy Stories’ he explored this further (Essays, pp. 109–61) in terms of the depth within fairy tales. Verilyn Flieger summarized this as follows: Tolkien speaks in this essay of the ‘soup’ of story, that rich mixture which has been simmering since man first told tales, from which stories have been ladled out to nourish the imagination in every age, including our own . . . the hero, the quest, the struggle with monstrous forces of evil, the ordeal and its outcome. (2004, p. 123) The same is true of his own work. What we are presenting in this book, therefore, are the roots of his fiction, the ingredients of the ‘soup’ that led to Middle-earth, or as we like to term them, the keys. A more interesting question perhaps is, why did Tolkien choose to allow these ingredients to bubble to the surface of his fiction? Many writers have written novels completely disassociated from their careers. Was this just accidental then, or was there some purpose to it? The general feeling amongst

Introduction 9

scholars of Tolkien is that the latter is case. The use, re-use and reshaping of medieval concepts, themes and stories were a deliberate policy on his part. The follow-on question is naturally ‘why?’ and to this there are several possible answers. First, as we have noted, Tolkien greatly admired these texts and the languages they were written in, and wanted to convey that to his audience in an approachable manner. Even when not writing fiction, for example, his style is often lively, jovial and far removed from the usual tone reserved for academic publications. A single example drawn from his lecture notes on ‘Anglo-Saxon History and Literature’ will suffice. In this he stated: You can, if you like, speak of an ‘Anglo-Saxon period’ in history, before 1066. But it is not a very useful label. You might as well label all the jars on the top-shelf in your store cupboard as PRESERVE, and all the rest JAM. In actual fact, there was no such thing as a single uniform ‘Anglo-Saxon’ period: just a time when all men wore funny trousers with cross-straps, and ate too much pork and drank too much beer; a time whose chief events were the burning of some cakes by Alfred and the wetting of Canute’s feet. That is a legendary time that never happened or existed, and it is not nearly as interesting as the real thing. (Tolkien A30/1, f. 70) The analogy of the store cupboard is welcoming, quaint and amusing, but at the same time conveys two serious points; in this instance, that to label an historical period of nearly 600 years under the single term ‘Anglo-Saxon’ is pointless, and that it is all too easy and common to confuse legends with facts. Second, we already know that Tolkien often toyed with composing his own medieval texts in the original languages using his extensive linguistic knowledge. Tolkien’s typical response to reading a medieval work ‘was to desire not so much to make a philological or critical study of it as to write a modern work in the same tradition’ (Lobdell, 2000, p. 109; Flieger, 2004, p. 123). It is natural, therefore, that when turning to his great works of fiction he was to continue this practice of creating something new from the old. The third possible reason why medieval literature played such a prominent part in Tolkien’s fiction is perhaps the most contentious. It centres on the concept of a ‘mythology for England’ mentioned earlier. There has been much scholarly discussion about this phrase, first introduced by Humphrey Carpenter in his famous biography of Tolkien, but never actually used by Tolkien himself. The nearest we have is in a letter to Milton Waldman (c. 1951) in which Tolkien wrote: I was from early days grieved by the poverty of my own beloved country: it had no stories of its own (bound up with its tongue and soil) . . . Do not

10 The Keys of Middle-earth

laugh! But once upon a time (my crest has long since fallen) I had a mind to make a body of more or less connected legend . . . which I could dedicate simply to: to England; to my country. (Letters, 131, p. 144) Much of this sense of poverty stems from his envy of Finland’s Kalevala, which provides a background epic for that country. To Tolkien nothing, not even Beowulf, came close and he dearly wished for ‘something of the same sort that belonged to the English’ (Carpenter, 1979, p. 89). Although Tolkien later stated that this was all ‘absurd’, scholars have long argued about whether this was mere hubris on his part, and if so, whether LR and the other Middle-earth texts were an attempt to bring together the tales evident in medieval literature, in order to create a mythology for England and the English. This is very difficult to answer and beyond the scope of this book. In short, the most realistic suggestion is that Tolkien played with the idea of creating something for England that would have provided it with a background epic of its own, but he certainly never made this explicit. Even when he attempts to link the events portrayed in Middle-earth to the pre-history of Europe and England (see 4.13) he goes so far and no further, withdrawing from the brink of committing himself to anything. Instead, we are left with clues, teasing us about what he may, or may not, have been trying to accomplish. Perhaps the simplest way to express this is as follows. Tolkien was one of the great scholars of medieval literature and read widely in the field, covering several areas (but mainly the Germanic languages). As he did this he recognized common stories and elements, and glimpses of things that were never fully explained (leading one to the assumption that the audience at the time must have been familiar enough with the stories that they needed no explanation). As Shippey (2000, p. 14) states, Tolkien, like many others, felt that the original medieval authors knew ‘something, something consistent with each other and with much later fairy-tales of modern times: and that you might just possibly be able to work out what it was’. Tolkien then, in TH and LR, presents us with a mythology that could explain why our medieval ancestors believed in elves, dwarves and dragons (to pick but a few examples). Some of these ancient stories of Middle-earth survived so long that they eventually found their ways, albeit greatly altered, into medieval tales like Beowulf or the Norse poetry and sagas, and these were occasionally written down and fixed in place. If not, they were either lost or passed down orally from generation to generation in the form of myths, legends and ‘fairy stories’; but the emphasis here is on could. This was merely a suggestion, not an assertion. It illustrated what could have been, albeit hypothetically, which was subsequently lost. Tolkien, therefore, was not stating that his Middle-earth ever existed, but something like it might have done, at least in ancient tales and myths.

Introduction 11

Finally, and perhaps the most sensible reason for Tolkien drawing on medieval literature as his inspiration, was that it satisfied his role as a ‘subcreator’, something he stated in his essay ‘On Fairy Stories’ that was essential if your audience was to be drawn into the tale. In essence this means the creation of a credible secondary world (in this case Middle-earth), and the way to achieve this was by giving it depth, in terms of history, mythology, geography, flora and fauna. Even his most savage critics recognize that this is one of Tolkien’s strengths. By using medieval literature, therefore, Tolkien had a wealth of ideas, but more importantly stories or elements of stories that would strike a chord of familiarity with his audience. This association with hidden memories would add to the depth of the story and make it ‘feel right’. In other words, he was reconstructing his story as well as creating something new. None of this should ever detract from our admiration of his work and achievement. We must not fall into the trap that Tolkien was all too acutely aware of; namely, embarking on a quest for sources which at the end implies there is no original work in the piece. As Fuller notes, Tolkien’s work is ‘astonishingly underivative’ and ‘to whatever he has drawn, as all must do, from the common cultural heritage of the human race, he has brought something uniquely his own’ (1969, p. 18). Having said that, let us now consider what he was inspired by. 2.1.5 Medieval sources A brief look at the contents of this book suggests an immediate answer: Old English, Middle English and Old Norse (all three will be explained in the next section). Old Norse will come as no surprise bearing in mind Tolkien’s boyhood interest, his formation of the ‘Coalbiters’ at Oxford (who discussed the sagas and tales of Viking history) and the general need to be familiar with this area if one is to be a well-rounded medievalist. Old and Middle English are even more obvious. This was what he taught, researched and published on during his academic career. Their inclusion in this book, therefore, and their high prominence, are understandable. Yet we cannot argue that the sole inspiration for Tolkien was the medieval world. Like anyone who reads widely, he was exposed to many influences. Rather than discuss these in depth we defer by pointing readers to the work of other scholars. For example one can look at the work of Nagy (2004), Straubhaar (2004), Stevens (2004) and Dubs (2004) for analyses of the possible influences of Plato, Roman history, Ovid and Boethius (respectively) on Tolkien’s fiction. Lobdell (2000) adds to the list more modern ‘Edwardian’ novelists, such as Sir Henry Rider Haggard, G. K. Chesterton (though tentatively) and Algernon Blackwood. And it would be impossible to overlook the influences of such writers as Lord Dunsany and, in particular, William Morris in his The Glittering Plain or The House of Wolfings (White, 2002, pp. 88–93). Rosebury


(2003, p. 150) also sees resonances with texts such as Huckleberry Finn and Great Expectations. However, as this book is concentrating on medieval literature and exposing new readers to this area, these works are merely referenced. Many people may, however, be surprised by two omissions from medieval literature: namely Celtic literature and particularly the Finnish epic known as the Kalevala, which we have already noted Tolkien greatly admired. The justification for the former can be explained in two ways. First there is Tolkien’s expressed ‘certain distaste’ for Celtic tales which he attributed to their ‘fundamental unreason’ (Letters, 19, p. 26). Second, direct links between Celtic literature and LR or TH are very difficult to establish; indeed, one could go as far as to say they simply do not exist. The problem of identifying parallels is the same for the Kalevala. Published first in 1835 by Elias Lönnrot, with an extended version appearing in 1849, this was a compilation based on recorded Finnish oral folk poetry, where separate songs were combined to create a single coherent plot. Tolkien wished for something similar for England, but its direct influences on TH and LR are, to put it bluntly, minimal. As Gay (2004) remarks: ‘There are a few obvious places where one might look for connections . . . but even here the Finnish element in the book is reduced’ (p. 297). What is clear, however, is that the work greatly influenced the formation and scope of The Silmarillion. Tolkien stated that it was ‘the original germ’ of the book (Letters, 75, p. 87), and many people see it as the inspiration for such stories as that of Túrin Turambar. However, The Silmarillion is not discussed in this book due to the limits of space. We have reserved our analysis for TH and LR only, and so the Kalevala is not included. Tolkien once remarked, ‘If you want to write a tale of this sorts you must consult your roots’ (Letters, 163, p. 212). With this in mind, as well as the above caveats, let us turn to these roots: Old English, Middle English and Old Norse. First, however, we need to establish what is meant by these three terms.

2.2 Medieval literature Before presenting the texts themselves we need to introduce the reader new to some basic concepts concerning medieval literature. In this section we will be making some general comments about medieval literature, but also looking more deeply at the three ‘languages’ you will encounter in the extracts: Old English, Middle English and Old Norse. For the most part we will be discussing the origin, recording and structure of these languages, but only in an introductory manner. At the end of each section the reader is presented with further avenues to explore and actually learn the language. As stated earlier, our target audience

Introduction 13

here, to use one of Tolkien’s own phrases, is the ‘general reader of literary bent with no knowledge of’ medieval English or Old Norse (Letters, 280, p. 364), and thus these references and pointers to courses may prove useful to anyone wishing to study the languages further. We should start, perhaps, with the general question, what do we mean by ‘medieval’? It is a term that now has a derogatory connotation, but in the study of history, archaeology and above all literature, medieval or the ‘Middle Ages’ attempts to describe the period roughly from the collapse of the Roman Empire to the Renaissance, in short, the bridge between the ancient and modern worlds. For different countries this covered different periods, but for our purposes we are talking about roughly the mid-fifth century AD to somewhere around the end of the fifteenth century. The texts presented in this book were composed in England and Scandinavia during the Middle Ages and are preserved in manuscripts. Some survive in single copies, others are known from multiple witnesses (or versions). When there is more than one copy of the same text, there is usually at least some difference between the surviving versions, and the differences can be very substantial. In such cases an editor has to choose readings from among several manuscripts, and a published text may be the result of a very complex editorial process. Editions of texts surviving in single copies are also usually a result of editorial interpretation, because a manuscript may contain abbreviations, inconsistent orthography, errors, damaged text, and passages that make no sense to a modern reader, even when they are legible. Introductions to texts published in this book explain in what form the texts have come down to us and comment on editorial practice. Most texts presented in this book are verse. Alliterative verse exemplified by Old English and Old Norse goes back to a common tradition which must have existed during the pre-literary period (see 2.3.4 for a fuller explanation). Before Anglo-Saxons and Icelanders started to write using the Latin alphabet (sometime during the seventh century and the late eleventh or twelfth centuries respectively) verse was transmitted orally. In oral culture texts were inevitably fluid, not so much because it is impossible to memorize and repeatedly perform a poem verbatim, but because change was necessary for their existence and preservation. Poetry had to develop in order to meet the needs and expectations of its audience, and changes introduced into texts as they were passed from generation to generation reflected developments in the language and cultural situation. The implication of this is that when we say that the Old Norse poem Vo¸luspá (4.1), surviving in a thirteenth-century manuscript, may have been composed in the tenth century, we realize that its earlier form was almost certainly considerably different from the thirteenth-century copy that survives. It is easy to understand why texts in oral culture were fluid, but what is often overlooked is that the situation did not change drastically or immediately after


the transition of literature into parchment. The evidence from works surviving in multiple copies shows that literacy in the Middle Ages did not ensure the stability of individual texts. Apart from simply making errors, scribes changed the spelling of their exemplars, substituted their own dialect forms for the text’s original dialect and introduced various interpretative changes – for example, modernizing texts, trying to resolve errors made by previous copyists and adapting texts for their audiences in various ways. This was not a result of ignorance, carelessness or lack of respect, and should not be seen as simple corruption. As pointed out above, change in the process of transmission within a living tradition, such as existed during the Anglo-Saxon period, was inevitable because texts were understood differently by different generations of AngloSaxons. Such reinterpretation and the resulting development did not necessarily mean the loss of integrity, which was vital for the texts’ continuing appeal and survival. Unfortunately, almost all known Anglo-Saxon verse survives in single copies in just four manuscripts from the end of the Anglo-Saxon period, whereas the poetic tradition is believed to have achieved its high point in Northumbria in the seventh and eighth centuries: the language of poetry is archaic and has northern dialect features. This makes the study of its composition, transmission and cultural context notoriously difficult. Observations on the transmission of Anglo-Saxon prose, where we have more manuscripts, are not always helpful because of the differences in the cultural background, age and origin of the verse and prose traditions. Surviving Anglo-Saxon prose originated and is best understood as part of the written learned Christian tradition, where individual authorship was already more established during the early period of its development under the reign of King Alfred. There is evidence from such writers as Ælfric of Eynsham (c. 950–1010) that there was an awareness of authorial integrity, and pleas were issued to scribes not to emend the text. At least some prose writers such as Ælfric drew a clear distinction between their role as authors and the role of scribes as copyists. Anglo-Saxon prose presents other difficulties, with several manuscripts recording the same text, but with variations. Very few works preserved from the medieval period are in the hand of their authors. The majority have come down to us in scribal copies, sometimes removed by centuries and multiple stages of copying from the time of their composition. Their susceptibility to change makes the question of their authorship very complex and means that such notions widely used in the study of literature as the author, the author’s original or the date of composition have a different meaning when applied to texts such as the Old English and Old Norse poems presented in this book. First, in most cases, we do not know the authors’ names. This is not an accident of the poems’ preservation, but almost certainly a result of differences in the perception and practice of literary author-

Introduction 15

ship. The same differences are responsible for ‘participatory copying’, or the situation when scribes felt free to change and edit texts, performing some of the functions reserved in modern culture for authors. The distinctions between an author and a performer or a copyist, as well as between an act of composition and an act of performance or recording a text, were not as clear-cut as it is today. Secondly, we usually do not know the dates when the surviving poetic texts were composed, even very approximately. Such a famous and much studied Old English poem as Beowulf has been assigned various dates by scholars, ranging from the seventh to the early eleventh centuries. The dating of texts, which was central to earlier scholarship in the field of Anglo-Saxon studies, is now often believed to be an insoluble problem. Our inability to date the poems using linguistic, metrical and stylistic analysis, the study of manuscripts, historical evidence and literary parallels is not so much a result of our ignorance about the Old English language and literary history, as it is at least partly due to the nature of their authorship and transmission. Traditional dating to a point in time is appropriate for manuscripts but not for the texts themselves, for such dating ignores all issues to do with their composition and subsequent existence. It appears that these concepts were not alien to Tolkien as a medievalist and a writer. Throughout LR, for example, characters recite poetry which has been passed down to them from previous generations, or compose new poetry based on earlier literary models. A good example of this is Treebeard’s list (discussed in 4.9) or the poetry of the Rohirrim (discussed in 4.10). When considering the problem of the authorship of Old English and Old Norse poems presented in this book, one area of interest is the balance between an individual authorial contribution and what is shared and inherited from the tradition. An individual authorial contribution is usually anonymous and may elude precise identification. Thus all Anglo-Saxon poets whose work has survived used the same technique and language which they inherited from the past. Though all poets work within a certain tradition and use literary language and techniques developed by their predecessors, in Old English poetry this happens on a scale that is different from what we are accustomed to in modern literature (see 2.3.4.2). The metre of their poetry was closely integrated with the traditional vocabulary and phraseology they shared. The result of this integration was a formulaic style, developed during the pre-literary period and perfected within the learned Christian culture. The formulaic style relies on metrically organized phraseology and rules for its combining and variation, and makes every line of verse potentially reproducible. This style and language existed throughout the Anglo-Saxon period and changed little during the centuries of their existence. For this reason poetic language and style have little value for dating individual poems or for research into their origin and authorship.


We know from earlier that Tolkien was attracted to Old English and Norse poetry, and throughout his career, either in jest or as part of his mythology (see 4.13), regularly wrote new poems in Old English. Moreover, one of his most important contributions to the study of medieval culture was his insistence that surviving texts should be appreciated as literature. In his famous lecture delivered originally in 1936 and entitled Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics (Essays, pp. 5–48) he criticized scholars for approaching Beowulf as an historical document rather than as a poem. This does not mean that he rejected the study of language or a painstaking philological analysis of texts: his discussion of linguistic and metrical aspects of Beowulf in the Appendix to The Monsters and the Critics and in On Translating Beowulf (Essays, pp. 34–44 and 49–71) shows that he thought such analysis vital for understanding the poem (see also the earlier discussion of his struggles with the Oxford English syllabus). However, unlike scholars who feel that Beowulf gives them enough trouble simply as a text which they need to be able to read, he believed that it can reach the modern audience true to its original function as poetry. Tolkien’s critical analysis of medieval literature is found in his academic work, but his own fiction also often represents his response to its conventions and the way of thinking. This book is very much an attempt to draw the readers’ attention to this last point. Old English, Middle English and Old Norse languages plus literary traditions are discussed in more detail below. Both English and Old Norse belong to the Germanic linguistic group, a subgroup within the Indo-European linguistic family. They represent different branches of the Germanic group: English is a West-Germanic language and Old Norse is a North-Germanic language, but they were probably mutually understandable during the Anglo-Saxon period. 2.2.1 Old English Let us begin with Old English, a term now much misused in tea shops and tourist attractions. In literary and linguistic studies Old English is the term given to the period from the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons sometime in the midfifth century, until the Norman Conquest in the mid-eleventh century and with it the end of Anglo-Saxon rule. This is a gross simplification, of course. First, we talk of the Anglo-Saxons as if they were a single nation, but in fact the series of invasions and migrations that hit England in the mid-fifth century with the demise of Roman rule consisted of Angles, Saxons, Jutes and Frisians (and many others). Second, after the defeat at Hastings in 1066 the vast majority of the populace would have continued to speak ‘English’ and therefore Old English survived ‘underground’, though it was constantly changing and developing. For our purposes when we talk of Old English we are referring to the language and literature of the Anglo-Saxons, the first English men and women. That in itself is a strange term. Why do we use the terms England and English?

Introduction 17

They derive from the word Angle, the name of one of the main tribes to settle in the country. Yet we use it to describe the Saxons and Jutes too, and indeed they were happy to use it themselves. Alfred the Great, a king of Wessex (the ‘West Saxons’) talked of the Angelcynn, or ‘the race of the English’, which he ruled. The words englisc (the sc is pronounced ‘sh’) and Englaland were also commonly used. The term Old English is now generally accepted as describing the language (broken into dialects) spoken by all the Anglo-Saxons across the country. It also refers to the literature that survives from the period, which was written in English (many texts surviving from the time were written in Latin). This covers the poetry of the period, including such works as Beowulf, The Wanderer and The Seafarer (to name but a few), and prose texts such as the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and the writings of Alfred the Great and Ælfric of Eynsham. All of these are represented in this book. The complete collection of Old English writings is extensive and far surpasses anything that survives in other countries from the early Middle Ages written in the vernacular or native tongue of the country. The literature that survives does so in manuscripts, mainly from the AngloSaxon period itself. These are written on parchment (treated animal skin) and bound into codices or books. Old English poetry is preserved predominantly in four manuscripts (‘The Exeter Book’, ‘The Beowulf Manuscript’, ‘The Vercelli Manuscript’ and ‘The Junius Manuscript’), whereas Old English prose survives in a multitude of witnesses. Most of the manuscripts date back to the late tenth century or after, and although earlier manuscripts clearly did exist, many of these were damaged or destroyed in the Viking wars of the eighth and ninth centuries. With the exception of a handful of prose writers and two poets (Cædmon and Cynewulf) the majority of the material left to us is anonymous and untitled (later editors have supplied titles like Beowulf or The Wanderer). Furthermore, most texts are undated. We know when they were written down by the dating of the manuscript, but we cannot say with certainty when they were composed. Now let us consider the language itself. If you look at some of the sample texts presented in this book (e.g. The Ruin, 4.5) you may think that this has got nothing to do with English whatsoever. The words seem to make no sense on an initial inspection. Indeed, as Tolkien noted in his unpublished lecture on ‘Anglo-Saxon Verse’: The changes of time have made Anglo-Saxon (which is simply the oldest recorded form of English) now so unfamiliar that it looks and sounds like a foreign tongue. (Tolkien A30/1, f. 5) However, there are three things which will help you make a little more sense of this. First there is pronunciation. In Old English there are three


characters which will look unfamiliar, but once learnt are not problematic. These are: Æ, æ called ‘ash’ and pronounced like the short ‘a’ in ‘cat’. P, p, called ‘thorn’ and pronounced ‘th’. D, ~, called ‘eth’ and also pronounced ‘th’. So the Old English word pæt may at first seem unfamiliar, but when we pronounce it using the above guides it comes out as ‘that’, and not surprisingly it means just ‘that’. There are a few other things you should look out for: ‘cg’ is pronounced ‘dg’, so ecg is ‘edge’. ‘sc’ is pronounced ‘sh’, so scip is ‘ship’. ‘c’ and ‘g’ can be either hard (‘k’ or ‘g’) or soft (‘tch’ or ‘y’), so cyning is pronounced kining which is ‘king’, whilst cilde is pronounced childe or ‘child’; similarly god is ‘God’ whilst ge¯ar is ‘year’. The second thing to remember is that Old English uses some words that do not survive today, so it is unlikely that you will recognize them. However, the good news is that many of the words we use today do come from Old English and you may recognize them in the texts. These include such words as: he, his, it, am, is, this, that, king, queen, son, daughter, father, stone, bone, home, etc. Indeed, if we look at the first five lines of The Ruin (4.5) we can see the ancestors of the following words (try looking at the translation and then at the Old English): is, this, wall, stone, broken, borough, burst, work, roof, tower, rime, lime, shower, shorn. Finally, like Modern German, Old English is an inflected language. In short that means a word will change its form according to what part it plays in the sentence. So, if you further your studies of Old English be prepared to encounter gender (Old English has masculine, feminine and neuter) and cases (nominative, accusative, genitive and dative). This may seem daunting at first as Modern English retains very few inflections, but they are there. For example, Modern English has a plural inflection for nouns (dogs), an inflection for the possessive case of nouns (dog’s), an inflection for the past tense of verbs (walked), and so on. Thankfully, with the exception of dialectal spellings, the Old English that survives to us is very uniform (certainly by comparison with Middle

Introduction 19

English) in terms of its spelling and grammar. Mostly this dates from the midto late tenth century and afterwards, and was spearheaded by the kingdom of Wessex, which (after the successes of Alfred the Great) eventually conquered England from the Vikings and exerted control. Yet this should not detract us from the main purpose of this book, which is to expose you to medieval literature in its original form and invite you to study it further. This is why the original texts are presented alongside the translation (as Tolkien remarked, ‘The chief reason for studying Old English, must always remain Old English’ (Tolkien A38, f. 3)). Yet at the same time we must recognize the profound influence it had on Tolkien and on his fiction (see especially the links with the Rohirrim as outlined in The Wanderer, 4.10). His love and admiration for the language and literature of the Anglo-Saxons is perhaps best explained by his comment that: There is a kinship, in spite of all the remoteness and the strangeness, in Old English verse with Modern English: it is definitely part of the history of the mind and mood of England and the English. The men who made it walked this soil and under this sky. All the immense changes of life here in more than a thousand years have not yet made the end entirely foreign to the beginning. (Tolkien A38, f. 3) 2.2.1.1. Studying Old English Many readers will see the attraction in Old English that Tolkien himself did, but will understandably ask where they can find out more. First of all there is a series of textbooks available which vary in their complexity. These are generally used as course books at universities across the world and so will be available in good bookshops or on Amazon. A favoured text is B. Mitchell and F. C. Robinson’s A Guide to Old English (Blackwell, 2001) which is now in its sixth edition. This presents a collection of texts, a fairly thorough introduction to the grammar and a glossary. Mitchell also produced An Invitation to Old English and Anglo-Saxon England (Blackwell, 1995) which is much lighter, but more difficult to obtain. Recent publications which are also worth consulting are Richard Marsden’s The Cambridge Old English Reader (CUP, 2004), Elaine Treharne’s Old and Middle English: An Anthology (Blackwell, 2004) and Peter Baker’s Introduction to Old English (Blackwell, 2003). The best general introduction to the literature is The Cambridge Companion to Old English Literature (CUP, 1991) edited by Michael Lapidge and Malcolm Godden, but see also Fulk and Cain (2003). For the history of the period you should look at James Campbell’s The Anglo-Saxons (Penguin, 1991) and The Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Anglo-Saxon England (Blackwell, 1999). The best approachable and affordable dictionary is probably J. R. Clark Hall’s A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary (CUP, 1960, 4th edn.), but there is also Joseph Bosworth, T. Northcote Toller and Alistair


Campbell’s An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, 3 vols. (OUP, 1882–98, 1908–21, 1972) and the long-running Dictionary of Old English Project (www.doe.utoronto. ca/) at the University of Toronto. Yet there is no substitution for being taught Old English. This generally happens at university level where Old English is mainly taught as part of the English Literature degree. Look at the syllabuses of the universities you are considering and ask if they cover the medieval period in full. If you have access to a computer, you can look at the Teachers of Old English in Britain and Ireland website (www.toebi.org.uk) or send a note to the Anglo-Saxonists’ email discussion list ([email protected]). If you are not intending to go to university, there may be options with evening classes at your local centre. Contact them to see if anyone is teaching an early medieval literature class, and if not, ask them why not. People who are simply interested and want to keep in touch may wish to think about joining a society (see www.hcu.ox.ac.uk/toebi/soc.html). A good one to consider, mainly because of its excellent newsletter, is Da Engliscan Gesipas (www.kami.demon.co.uk/gesithas/): The Membership Secretary, BM Box 4336, London WC1N 3XX, UK; or Winlandes Scir at Robert Boos, P.O. Box 11378, Richmond, VA 23230, USA. 2.2.2 Middle English The term Middle English describes the period in the history of the English language from the Norman Conquest in 1066 to the 1470s when William Caxton established a printing press in London and printed the first book in English. After the Norman Conquest English had to share cultural space with two other major languages: Latin and French. Latin was the language of literature, an international language of scholarship and learning, and the language of the Christian Church. That is not to say that Latin was not used by the AngloSaxons before the Norman Conquest – it clearly was – but pre-1066 the vernacular tongue, English, had a much higher profile in the Church and among the nobility. French was initially a native language of the Norman aristocracy and ruling elite and a prestigious second language of many other people, particularly among the gentry. It was also the language of literature, law and administration. English was the language spoken by the common people, and after the Conquest the language with the least prestige. Nevertheless by the twelfth century important literary and religious texts were being written in English, and in the course of the period English re-established itself as a language of literature, learning and government. Gradually, during the late medieval and modern periods, English took over various functions initially reserved for Latin and French. Like Old English, or any living language, Middle English was not uniform and had regional varieties or dialects, which differed in pronunciation,

Introduction 21

grammar and vocabulary. However, unlike Old English, Middle English did not have a standard written form. Middle English writers and scribes wrote and copied their works in their regional forms without trying to adhere to a national norm of any kind. That explains why we are much more familiar with Middle English dialects than we are with Old English. Many differences between the language of Middle English texts presented in this book are due to the dialect of their authors or scribes. The language of the West Midland Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Pearl (probably dating from the late fourteenth century) is more difficult for a modern reader than the contemporary language of Chaucer. This is because Chaucer’s London dialect is historically much closer to the variety of English which developed into the modern literary standard. On the other hand, Sir Orfeo, which is probably earlier than Gawain and Pearl, but was composed in the South Midlands, possibly even in London, hardly needs a translation and can be understood with some commentary and a glossary. A much greater number of texts survive from the Middle English period compared to Old English, partly because more manuscripts were produced, due to an increase in literacy and the demand for books. These texts come from different areas of life, and the diversity of their content and form can be guessed even from the small selection of poetry presented here. Many Middle English texts survive in manuscripts written on parchment, though paper also began to be used in England in the fourteenth century. There is more variation in the spelling of Middle English texts than in Old English, again because of the absence of a written norm. The same word can be spelled in more than one way in the same text. Middle English scribes continued to use p (‘thorn’), d ‘eth’ and (‘yogh’), a letter form used by Old English scribes to represent ‘g’. In Middle English yogh can correspond to Modern English ‘y’ as in et (‘yet’), but also to Modern English ‘gh’ as in lit (‘light’). In this latter case yogh was pronounced as the ‘ch’ in Modern German ‘ich’, or the ‘ch’ in Scots ‘loch’. Middle English had a much simpler system of inflections than Old English and was much closer to Modern English in this respect. Simplification and loss of inflections was occurring in Old English due to several reasons. First there is ‘reduction’, which is the phonetic levelling of inflectional endings experienced by languages with a type of accent described by linguists as ‘dynamic’. Another reason is reciprocal influences between English and the languages of Scandinavian settlers in England: the change took place much faster in the North and East (the old Danelaw), whereas the dialects of the South were more conservative and preserved Old English linguistic features for longer. Inflections which did survive into Middle English, often took different forms in different dialects. In fourteenth-century texts, such as Sir Gawain or Pearl, very little survives from the Old English system of gender and cases, and the relations between


words in a sentence are expressed, as in Modern English, largely through word order and function words, such as prepositions. The endings most commonly encountered in nouns are -’s for possessive case, as in Modern English brother’s, -s for plural, as in Modern English brothers, and -en for plural as in Modern English brethren. Whereas in Old English an adjective agreed with a noun in gender, number and case, Middle English adjectives, particularly in texts from the North, do not change their form consistently. In Middle English as in Old English verbs had only two tense forms: past and present. Future was expressed by using context and references to time, such as ‘tomorrow’ or ‘soon’. The verbs ‘shall’ and ‘will’ were widely used, but preserved much of their original lexical meaning of obligation and willingness. Similar to Modern English the majority of Middle English verbs formed their past tense by adding a ‘dental suffix’, usually spelled -d, -ed or -t. Some verbs changed a root vowel, as in Modern English write – wrote. The ending of the third person singular in the present tense (MnE he/she/it goes) is usually -es in the North and -eth in the South. The ending of the third person plural in present tense (MnE they go) is -eth, -en, or -es depending on the dialect. The ending of the present participle or verbal noun (MnE going) is either -ing or -ande/-inde/-ende, again depending on the dialect. Both pou ‘thou’ and e ‘you’ were used as forms of address, and e was used as both plural and polite forms. Many Middle English words are likely to be familiar to modern readers, though some regional words, for example part of the Gawain-poet’s vocabulary, did not survive into Modern Standard English, and their understanding will require the help of commentary and translations. The important difference between Old and Middle English is the mixed character of Middle English vocabulary: Old English vocabulary was almost purely Germanic, while Middle English had a large number of words borrowed not only from Latin, but also from French and the language of the Scandinavians who settled in the North and East of England during the Viking era. Middle English was a period of great linguistic diversity, which is partly accessible to us through the surviving texts. One of the most important developments at the end of the Middle English period in the fifteenth century, however, was the emergence of the written standard which eventually developed into Modern Standard English. Its ancestor was the ‘Chancery Standard’, employed by scribes who worked in government offices in Westminster. The advent of printing helped to establish and disseminate the national written norm. 2.2.2.1 Studying Middle English Students are sometimes introduced to Middle English literature at school when they reads extracts from Chaucer’s works. A popular choice of textbook in introductory university courses is J. A. Burrow and Thorlac Turville-Petre, A Book of Middle English (Blackwell, 2004, 3rd edn.), which has a selection of texts, a glos-

Introduction 23

sary and a detailed introduction to Middle English language. Another useful publication is Elaine Treharne’s Old and Middle English: An Anthology (Blackwell, 2004), where editions of Middle English texts are accompanied by introductions and marginal translations of words and phrases likely to be unfamiliar to modern readers. Editions of Middle English texts, as well as selections by author or genre, such as Middle English lyrics, drama, romances, works by Chaucer or the Gawain-poet are all widely available. There is also a large choice of secondary and background reading, including, to give just a few examples, J. A. Burrow, Medieval Writers and their Work: Middle English Literature and its Background 1100–1300 (OUP, 1982), J. A. W. Bennett, Middle English Literature, edited and completed by Douglas Gray (OUP, 1986, repr. 1990) and The Cambridge History of Medieval English Literature, edited by David Wallace (CUP, 1999). 2.2.3 Old Norse Iceland was first colonized in the late ninth–early tenth centuries by settlers from western Norway. Their language was originally that spoken at the time in western Norway. In the course of its independent development in Iceland this language eventually diverged from Norwegian, but at the time of the earliest surviving Icelandic manuscripts, in the late twelfth to the first half of the thirteenth century, these differences were negligible. The language that was spoken in Norway and Iceland was described by a common term ‘Norse’, and a separate term ‘Icelandic’ did not appear until later. Because of this the language of medieval Icelandic manuscripts is called both Old Norse and Old Icelandic. Old Norse is studied by philologists interested in the early history of the Germanic languages, but also, and most importantly, because of the literature preserved in medieval Icelandic manuscripts. This literature is very diverse, and includes legal texts, scholarly works, saints’ lives, theological treatises and sermons, chronicles and adaptations of romances known in other European languages, but particularly famous and original are Icelandic sagas, and Eddic and skaldic poetry. Though the earliest Icelandic manuscripts date from the end of the twelfth century, Icelandic literary texts are preserved in manuscripts from the middle of the thirteenth century and later. Icelandic sagas are prose narratives which survive in thirteenth-century and later manuscripts, and recount events from Icelandic, Norwegian and Danish history. Particularly famous are the so-called ‘family’ sagas, realistic stories about Icelanders who lived in the tenth and eleventh centuries. The poetry of skalds (‘skald’ means ‘poet’ in Old Norse) survives as quotations in prose works written in the thirteenth century. One of these is the Edda (known also as the Younger or Prose Edda; see 4.1), a manual of poetic art composed by Snorri Sturluson, a famous Icelandic historian and poet. Skaldic poetry is known for its complex metrical form and elaborate language, which often gives it a riddle-like quality.


Unusually for medieval literature, the names of skalds are mostly known, even though not all attributions found in sagas or Snorri’s Edda are equally reliable. Some of the skalds lived long before the first surviving manuscripts of their verse – in the ninth and tenth centuries. Eddic poetry received its name from a famous collection of poems surviving in a thirteenth-century manuscript rediscovered in the seventeenth century and named the Elder or Poetic Edda (see 4.1). Eddic poetry is preserved in several medieval manuscripts and unlike skaldic poetry is entirely anonymous. It includes heroic and mythological poems, some possibly composed before the Christianization of Iceland at the end of the tenth century. Eddic metres are simpler than skaldic metres, and their affinity to alliterative metres used in the poetry of other Germanic nations, such as the Anglo-Saxons, is very clear. The language of Eddic poems, though generally consistent with the date of the earliest manuscripts, has many archaic features. Their style is characterized by the use of formulas – repeated and variable collocations usually found in early anonymous poetry, but also sometimes preserved in later medieval learned and ‘bookish’ poetry. These formulas are a notable feature of Eddic poems, though they are not as frequent or elaborate as in Old English poetry, such as Beowulf. Early Icelandic texts are preserved in manuscripts written using the Latin alphabet, modified by the addition of some new letters. The Latin alphabet started to be used in Iceland at the beginning of the twelfth, or possibly at the end of the eleventh century. Surviving Icelandic inscriptions written using the ancient Germanic runic alphabet are very few and all quite late (see 2.3.3). The spelling in manuscripts is very variable and in modern editions orthography is usually normalized. Old Norse is an inflected language – inflectional endings (as in Old English) were the principal means of signalling grammatical relationships between words. One of more difficult features of Old Norse is the tendency of inflectional endings to merge with the base of the word, changing their own form and causing phonetic changes within the word itself. This makes the structure of the word less transparent and inflectional endings more difficult to recognize. The language of skaldic poetry is intentionally complex and has a very elaborate sentence structure influenced by the metrical form. The language of sagas and Eddic poetry is little affected by the learned written tradition, has a simple sentence structure and is highly idiomatic. 2.2.2.2 Studying Old Norse Old Norse is usually studied as part of a university course. Frequently used textbooks include E. V. Gordon and A. R. Taylor, An Introduction to Old Norse (Clarendon Press, 1957, 2nd edn.) and A. Faulkes and M. Barnes, A New Introduction to Old Norse, 3 vols. (Viking Society for Northern Research, University

Introduction 25

College London, 2000). The best and the fullest dictionary is R. Cleasby, G. Vigfússon and W. A. Craigie, An Icelandic–English Dictionary (Clarendon Press, 1957, 2nd edn.). Other useful dictionaries include G. T. Zoëga, A Concise Dictionary of Old Icelandic (Clarendon Press, 1910), now available in two inexpensive reprints, from the University of Toronto Press and from Dover Publications, both 2004, and Jan de Vries, Altnordisches etymologisches Wörterbuch (Brill, 1962, 2nd edn.).

2.3 Thematic and technical parallels Before moving to the texts themselves, we must recognize that sometimes it is not necessarily individual episodes in Tolkien’s fiction that strike a chord with those in medieval literature, but larger sweeping themes and underlying structures. To illustrate this we present five short essays. These cover two aspects: the thematic parallels (the quest, the epic), and technical parallels (the use of runes, names and alliterative poetry). These are not exhaustive, of course. We could equally have chosen to write essays on the themes of the transitory nature of life and worldly belongings, so prevalent in both medieval literature and with the passing of time running throughout the Third Age of Middleearth; or heroism in the face of overwhelming odds displayed by Thorin and the Dwarves in the Battle of the Five Armies, or the allies outside of the gates of Mordor at the culmination of the War of the Ring. Such heroism would have been admired by medieval audiences. Our chosen topics, however, we hope will serve to demonstrate broad parallels between Tolkien’s fiction and medieval literature which are significant for a range of individual episodes. 2.3.1 The theme of the quest Modern readers will probably find no issue in the connection between the theme of a quest and the ancient and medieval worlds. The idea of a hero, heroine or group of such characters going in search of something, or to do something, is as ancient as Theseus or Jason and the Argonauts. Medieval literature also saw the appeal in this simple idea. Arthur’s knights, as depicted in English in the work of Sir Thomas Malory, seek the Holy Grail, for example; and in a much earlier Old English text the great hero Beowulf sets sail for Denmark to cement his reputation by killing the monster Grendel, which leads on to a further quest to destroy the creature’s mother, and, fifty years later, in a final quest to kill a dragon. Yet one medieval text in particular best illustrates this discussion – Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Tolkien was extremely interested in this text, possibly as a result of his affinity to its Midlands origin, and he produced an edition of Sir Gawain with his Leeds colleague E. V. Gordon in 1925. He also delivered the W. P. Ker Memorial Lecture on Sir Gawain in 1953 (see Essays, pp. 72–108), and


his translation of the text was finally published in 1975. In addition, he may have attempted a parody of it in his short story Farmer Giles of Ham (published in 1949). Sir Gawain is discussed more fully in 4.12, but for now it is the plot itself that interests us. The story centres on a challenge issued by the mysterious Green Knight to the Knights at Camelot one New Year, which Sir Gawain accepts. The result of this is that he must spend the next year searching for the Green Knight to complete the challenge, which he does, and then returns to Camelot a changed man. In simple terms the underlying plot of Sir Gawain is based on a quest to find the Green Knight’s chapel and complete the challenge. As Gawain survives, the quest becomes circular; he literally goes there and back again. Yet the Gawain that sets out is different from the Gawain that returns. Indeed, he himself at least earnestly believes that he has learned an important lesson from his experience. The analogy to TH and LR is obvious. In both there is a quest (to get the dragon’s treasure; to destroy the ring), there are central characters (Bilbo and the Dwarves; Frodo and the Fellowship), the main protagonists of which set out from a simple, childlike place (the Shire in Tolkien; the frivolous Camelot in Sir Gawain) but return to a changed environment more mature as a result of their experiences. Bilbo returns richer, wiser – and to his house being sold. Frodo and the hobbits return to Saruman’s destruction, but now have the understanding and confidence to deal with the problem themselves. Miller (1991, pp. 347–53) extends the links between Sir Gawain and LR even further. Both begin with a feast, both are childlike at first, safe worlds are intruded upon, during the quest the heroes face temptation, etc. This all conforms more or less to the letter with the classic stages of the heroic quest, namely ‘separation (usually from the community), initiation (transition from childhood to maturity), return (knowledge gained)’ (Petty, 2002, p. 10). Furthermore, there are other notable similarities between the quests in TH and LR. Both start at Bag End, move to Rivendell, find their ‘turning-point’ at a mountain and then return to the Shire. Yet as Kocher (2002, p. 30) points out, in TH the enemies are ‘serial’ and are not united ‘under any paragon of evil’, unlike the concerted efforts of the ‘enemy’ in LR. The use of the quest plot-line is, of course, highly intentional, as witnessed by Frodo twice using the term to describe the journey he and Sam made (LR, p. 926). It allows Tolkien to use a common (and indeed obvious) structure which has parallels in medieval texts. Moreover, the cyclical nature of the quest allows him to explore issues of change, of maturing, and of the widespread influence and destruction of evil. Indeed, this was recognized very early on by one of Tolkien’s more famous students, W. H. Auden. In The New York Time Book Review (22 January 1956) Auden stated that Tolkien ‘succeeded more completely than any previous writer in this genre in using traditional properties of the Quest, the heroic journey, the Numinous Object’. Moreover in his extended

Introduction 27

study ‘The Quest Hero’, first published in 1962, Auden went on to analyse the traditional quest in more detail and matched this to LR. He saw many similarities, not least in the life-and-death importance of the quest to the main characters. Famously, he proposed that to ‘look for a lost collar button is not a true Quest: to go in quest means to look for something of which one has, as yet, no experience’ (2004, p. 31). Frodo’s journey, of course, falls under this definition: the hobbit has little or no experience of the world outside of the Shire. Auden (2004, p. 35) listed the six ‘essential elements in the typical Quest’ as: Finding of a precious object or person. A long journey to seek the above. A hero (these can be of two kinds – first where the hero’s superpowers are manifest; second where they are hidden). A test or series of tests. Overcoming of the guardians of the above. Assistance from helpers. Anyone with even the most basic knowledge of Tolkien’s fiction will be able to match events and characters in TH and LR with the above. Bilbo and the Dwarves seek the dragon’s treasure, they set out on a long journey, Bilbo’s hidden strengths (suspected only by Gandalf) save the day, and ultimately they rely on Bard to destroy Smaug and on the alliance of armies to win the final battle. The key difference in Frodo’s quest, described by Brewer (1979, p. 255) as ‘a paradoxical twist that amounts to genius’, is that the hobbit already has the ‘precious object’ and in this quest he is seeking destroy it. That Frodo actually fails in his quest, as Gawain does to a degree, is also worth noting (Chance, 2001, ‘Power’, p. 16). Yet LR actually provides us with several quests. There is the obvious one of the Ring involving Frodo and Sam, which continues until the narrative’s conclusion; but we also have the individual quests of Aragorn, Gandalf and to some extent Merry and Pippin. Each is separated from his community or home by embarking on a journey to seek or destroy something, each undergoes a transition, and each reaches a conclusion and finds his way home. We even have minor ‘quests’, such as Théoden’s return from the brink of destruction in his overcoming of old age and the counsels of Wormtongue (Kocher, 2002, p. 51). Yet we must also note the many exceptions to the rules, which in turn highlight Tolkien’s ability to invert literary traditions. As noted above, the main quest is abnormal; it seeks to destroy an object. Furthermore, unlike Gawain, Frodo does not find solace where he expects it and has to look to the Undying Lands. Schlobin (2000, p. 75) correctly points out that Frodo does not return to the Shire, as Gawain returns to Camelot, but only pauses there before


departing to the Undying Lands. If anything, it is Sam who completes the cycle (especially if one recalls the ‘epilogue’ to LR which Tolkien chose not to include). Gollum perhaps provides the most interesting inversion. He is forced by the power of the Ring to desert his lair beneath the Misty Mountains to search for it – this is his quest. His encounters with Frodo and Sam bring about a transformation as the more hobbit-like Sméagol begins to win the psychological battle over the Gollum persona. Yet, at the end, it is hard to state categorically that he has completed his quest. He achieves what he desires – he once again gets to own the Ring briefly – but his inner mental battle is lost and he shows no sign of transforming permanently. These deviations have led some scholars to suggest that we should not look at the stories as quests. Rosebury (2003, pp. 31, 72–3), for example, states: The ‘journey’, then, rather than the more narrowly defined ‘quest’, is the appropriate name for the image which unifies the heterogeneous narrative of The Lord of the Rings; the specific quest . . . is merely the axis of the main action. The ‘errand’ pertains to the plot, the journey to the story, or ‘history’. The difference is important. Whereas the quest as a unifying device is integrative, and relegates the locales to a subordinate status . . . the journey is expansive and exalts the locales. Yet even if one accepts the problems of trying to shoe-horn any story, particularly one with the scope of LR, into a single category – in this case a ‘quest’ – this should not detract us from recognizing Tolkien’s achievement. As Auden concluded: If there is any Quest Tale which, while primarily concerned with the subjective life of the individual person as all such stories must be, manages to do more justice to our experience of social-historical realities than The Lord of the Rings, I should be glad to hear of it. (Auden, 2004, p. 51) 2.3.2 The epic Since the word ‘epic’ is often applied to Tolkien’s work, it is worth examining its meaning in some detail. Perhaps the most familiar use of ‘epic’ is in such phrases as ‘epic proportions’ or ‘epic voyage’ where it describes something ‘very impressive and ambitious’ (Sinclair, 1987). However, the word is also used as a literary-historical term applied to such works as the Greek Odyssey and Iliad, German Nibelungenlied and Old English Beowulf. This second use is more problematic, because there are many different interpretations of what epic literature is. M. M. Bakhtin, for example, believed that epic literature, as witnessed in the works mentioned above, is characterized by the following features:

Introduction 29

1. Its subject is national heroic past. 2. Its source is national tradition, rather than personal experience. 3. The world it describes is separated from the present by an ‘absolute epic distance’ (1981, p. 13). The third statement means that the heroic world is idealized, and described not as a real historical period, but as a remote time of ‘beginnings’ and ‘peaks’ of national history, incomparably greater than contemporary reality, and inhabited by heroes who cannot be matched by anyone living. Such an approach to representing the past is totally different from what is found in modern historical novels. ‘Epic past’ according to Bakhtin is not just a period of time, but a category within a system of traditional values: it is not devoid of evil and struggle, but it is devoid of uncertainty and contradictions. It is revered as a time when heroic ideals were a reality. Whereas the past in epics is idealized, the present is never portrayed and the future is often associated with catastrophe, death and decline. Bakhtin believed that epic generally predetermines not only the choice of events and characters it describes, but also their evaluation, and that this evaluation is built into its language. He wrote that epic language was inseparable from its subject. Epic poets described events from the heroic past, using language where important words such as ‘king’, ‘family’ and ‘fate’ had predetermined connotations and associations. Epic poets can be said to have used an ‘absolute language’ which expressed and supported a system of values developed within the tradition. Bakhtin’s description of this language agrees with what we know of how epic poetry was composed. Epic narrative falls into traditional themes, such as ‘battle’, ‘voyage across the sea’, ‘feast’, ‘the giving of gifts’, and so on. Such themes were used as the building blocks of stories and were associated with their own traditional vocabulary and phraseology (see also 2.3.4). Bahktin believed that epic represents an historical stage in the development of literature which preceded the emergence of the modern novel. He also observed that epic literature reached us as a very ‘old’ genre, with a long history. The implication of this is that the surviving examples may not be epics in ‘pure’ form, but may be influenced by later developments in literature. This is certainly true of the Old English Beowulf. Though it has many characteristics which conform to Bakhtin’s description of epic, it also has features which place it firmly very late in the epic tradition. When scholars try to classify epic poetry they often follow A. Heusler, who believed that there are two major types: ‘classic’ epics such as Niebelungenlied or Beowulf and shorter epic poems, such as the Old English The Fight at Finnsburg (4.6) or heroic songs of the Poetic Edda (4.1) (1920, 1921, 1943). Shorter lays are characterized by dynamic action; speeches, if present, tend to be short;


there are few descriptions and usually no digressions. Longer epics have slowdeveloping action, digressions, lengthy monologues and elaborate descriptions of weapons, ships, and so on. Heusler believed that shorter heroic lays are more ancient and that their length makes them more suitable for an oral performance. He regarded longer epics as a later development which probably took place in a literate culture. (This evidence cannot be used to date individual poems because older genres do not disappear when new types develop.) Beowulf not only seems to be a later form of epic, it also shares features with another relatively late genre, what is known as Old English elegies (see 4.5). Lyrical poems of this type probably came to be composed in Anglo-Saxon England after Christianization: they have no parallels in other Germanic cultures, their content is Christian and they show influence from Latin literature. The second part of Beowulf in particular has a number of similarities with such poems, and even includes a passage, known as ‘The Lay of the Last Survivor’ (see 4.3), which is very close to Old English elegies in both content and form. These features of Beowulf cannot be explained as later additions or reworkings because they are too closely integrated with its generally very consistent structure. Tolkien probably had them in mind when, in ‘The Monsters and the Critics’, he wrote that Beowulf is not an epic, but a ‘heroic-elegiac poem’ (Essays, p. 31). He also believed that the nearest parallel to Beowulf was Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (see 4.12). He commented that both are ‘heroic romances’ – heroic because of their protagonists and romances because they both use magic and elements of fairy story (Tolkien A28/B, f. 169). Though Tolkien was justifiably reluctant to describe Beowulf as an epic, he was certainly aware of its epic characteristics, and therefore differences from Sir Gawain. Some of his analysis is close to Bakhtin’s characterization of epic. According to Bakhtin the subject of epic is history, and Tolkien commented that the ‘historical view’ is one of the main differences between Beowulf and Sir Gawain. Tolkien wrote that Beowulf reflects interest ‘not only in tales of the past as tales of wonder, but in history as such’, whereas in the Middle English period we see such interest largely in chronicles written ‘by historians for historians’ who were not producing literature and poetry (Tolkien A28/B, f. 170). According to Bakhtin the epic hero is completely externalized, his ‘authentic essence’, ‘external manifestation’, his perception by himself, by others, by the poet and the audience all coincide. Tolkien commented that the Beowulf poet ‘accepts the views and values that he attributes to his worthy characters, but looks on them in historical and even cosmic setting’. The Gawain-poet, on the contrary, though able to represent his hero’s values and conduct ‘from within with knowledge and some sympathy, yet stands outside and is critical of them’ (Tolkien A28/B, f. 175). Characteristic is also the following statement: the Beowulf-poet views the events he describes ‘as from a hill-top looking back into a dark valley in which the sun has not yet risen – through a telescope, we might say’, whereas the Gawain-

Introduction 31

poet looks at them ‘through a microscope, seeing the actions of men as involving problems of religio[n], of morality, and even of plain balanced good sense’ (Tolkien A28/B, f. 175). Turning now to Tolkien’s own works we can say that they are certainly not epics in the literary-historical sense described above. In fact, they have all the features of a modern novel, as understood by Bakhtin, who believed that the novel is polyphonic, resists the imposition of norms and is intrinsically inclusive: it can absorb elements of other genres without losing its identity as a novel. However, at the same time Tolkien’s works have features which may reveal the influence of the poetry he studied as a medievalist. Most of Tolkien’s novels are set in a mythological past. This past is undoubtedly idealized (see, for example, the discussion of his portrayal of the Rohirrim in 4.10), though again following Bakhtin’s analysis we can say that it is portrayed without a distance and evaluated from the point of view of contemporary reality. Events described in LR have ‘epic’ significance as they represent a turning point in the history of Middle-earth (the end of the Third Age). Finally, at least some of Tolkien’s characters are not typical for a novel. Bakhtin summarized discussions of the novel by different authors beginning with the eighteenth century and concluded that one of the observations they share is that ‘the hero of a novel should not be “heroic” in either the epic or the tragic sense of the word’ (1981, p. 10). Some of Tolkien’s characters are heroic in the epic sense of the word, and have extraordinary skills, strength of spirit and are even immortal or have much longer lives than ordinary humans. We should note, however, that they are not devoid of development, internal contradictions or struggle, as evident in Aragorn, who hesitates following the path for which he is destined by birth, or Galadriel, who overcomes temptation when Frodo offers her the Ring. We can conclude that Tolkien made creative use of some of the features of epic literature in his fiction, and that familiarity with such poems as Beowulf could enrich our appreciation of his works. 2.3.3 The runes Tolkien’s interest in runes stems from his career as a medievalist, but this ancient Germanic alphabet was also important to him as a writer. Readers of TH encounter it for the first time on the dust jacket of the book due to Tolkien’s decision to transliterate the title into runes. Tolkien encouraged his readers’ curiosity about this alphabet: I have received several queries, on behalf of children and adults, concerning the runes and whether they are real and can be read. Some children have tried to puzzle them out. Would it be a good thing to provide a runic alphabet? I have had to write one out for several people. (Letters, 19, p. 27)


Following what appears to have been Tolkien’s own example, we offer a short discussion of runes as an historical script, highlighting parallels between historical runes and Tolkien’s invented alphabets. Runes are an ancient alphabet which originated around the first century AD and was used to write different Germanic languages. Runic inscriptions are found on stones, wood, weapons, jewellery, pottery and tools, but not until very late on parchment or paper. The runic alphabet in its earliest known form consisted of 24 letters. In modern literature on runes it is often called futhark – a name made up of the sounds represented by the first six runes. The sound values and names of runes in the Common Germanic futhark are shown below, mostly following Wolfgang Krause’s reconstruction (Krause, 1966, pp. 1–9; see also Looijenga, 2003, p. 7). In the table runic characters are accompanied in parenthesis by letters representing equivalent Modern English sounds. Beneath that is the ancient name of the rune, followed by its translation.

1. (f) *fehu property, cattle

2. (u) *u ¯ ruz aurochs (wild ox)

3. (th) *purisaz giant

4. (a) *ansuz god

5. (r) *raido ¯ journey

6. (k) *kaunan sickness

9. (h) *haglaz hail

10. (n) *naudiz need

11. (i) *ı¯saz ice

12. (j) *je¯ ran year

13. (æ) 14. (p) *ı¯waz *perpo ¯ yew ?

17. (t) *tı¯waz god

18. (b) 19. (e) 20. (m) 21. (l) *berkanan *ehwaz *mannaz *laguz birch twig horse man water

7. (g) *gebo ¯ gift

8. (w) *wunjo ¯ joy

15. (z) 16. (s) *algiz *so ¯ wilo ¯ protection sun

22. (ng) 23. (o) *ingwaz *o ¯ palan god inherited goods

24. (d) *dagaz day

Comparing the shapes of different runes one can hardly fail to notice their angularity, the absence of curves and the predominance of straight lines. This may be due to their initial use on wood and subsequent use for inscriptions cut into hard surfaces. Another noticeable feature are the numerous resemblances between runes and letters found in various Mediterranean alphabets, such as Latin and Greek (see Morris, 1988, for an account of runic epigraphy). Thus runic are similar to the Latin capitals F R H S C B. Scholars have long noticed these similarities which suggest that the shapes of runes are derivative rather than independently invented. The origin of futhark, however, is a subject of a debate because its exact prototype has never been discovered. Different scholars trace it back to the Greek and Roman alphabets, or to North Italian alphabets descended from the Etruscan alphabet and attested in inscriptions found in various places in the Alps. We do not know which Germanic

Introduction 33

tribe was responsible for the development of runic writing. (See Moltke (1985) and Nielsen (2000) for a discussion of the origin of runes and the language of the early inscriptions.) The word itself appears in different Germanic languages in words meaning ‘runic character’ (OE ru¯n, ON rún); in nouns meaning ‘mystery, secret consultation’; and in verbs meaning to ‘whisper’ (OE ru¯nian, MnG raunen). Apart from the Mediterranean alphabets the development of runes was almost certainly influenced by the Indo-European symbols connected with religion and the cult of the sun, which Germanic peoples used before they started to write. Such symbols scratched into rock are particularly common in Sweden, the greatest number dating from 1300–1200 BC and 800–600 BC (Elliott, 1989, pp. 84–5). They include circles, spirals, swastikas, pictorial representations of trees, animals, parts of the human body, weapons and ships. Some symbols resembled later runes (such as ≠ or ) and may have become amalgamated with the alphabetic characters and adopted into futhark. Unlike Greek and Roman letters, runes had names which were words of ordinary vocabulary. Like the names of Greek letters the names of runes were acrophonic – the name began with the sound represented by the letter, with the exception of ng and z which did not occur in the initial position in Common Germanic. The names of runes are known from late medieval English and Continental manuscripts which have lists of runes, their sound values and names, sometimes accompanied by cryptographic treatises and descriptions of other ‘exotic’ writing systems. The names of runes are also preserved in four poems known from manuscripts from the ninth to the seventeenth centuries. These include the Old English Runic Poem, where the names of Old English runes are the subject of 29 stanzas. The names of runes are derived from different areas: some relate to divine and supernatural beings, others to natural phenomena, and still others to the human world. Some of the names in the table above are different from the names preserved in later Old English or Scandinavian tradition. Some changed because the sound values of runes changed in line with linguistic developments. Others may have changed because certain words became obsolete and disappeared from common use, or possibly because of the desire to get rid of pagan associations: thus *purisaz (‘giant’) became porn (‘thorn’) in Old English. Unlike the shapes of runes, the names and the order of characters in futhark are entirely original and have no parallels in the Mediterranean or any other known alphabets. Our knowledge of the order of runes in the alphabet shown in the table comes from several early epigraphic monuments which have a complete or partially preserved futhark. Of these the most important are the Kylver stone (Gotland, Sweden, early fifth century) and two Swedish bracteates of the mid-sixth century from Vadstena and Grumpan (bracteates are round medallions, stamped on one side and worn as ornaments or amulets). In some


of its early representations futhark was also divided into three families of eight runes each, as shown in the table. Following the Icelandic tradition they are known as ættir – ‘families’. In Latin treatises on runes ættir is translated as versus or ordines. We do not know why runes appear in the order shown above. It remains an unsolved mystery and may represent a mnemonic or conceptual device. The development of a new, ‘home-made’ alphabet from a known prototype rather than more straightforward borrowing with minimal adjustments, as is the case with the Latin-based Old English and Old Norse alphabets, is very unusual in the history of writing. One of the most interesting explanations of the order of runes, even if one does not agree with it in every detail, is the phonological hypothesis of J. J. Jensen (1969). He suggested that runes were put in their order according to a symmetrical patterning of consonants and vowels, and that futhark represents a model of the phonological system of the language where sounds were classified according to their methods of pronunciation. Complete restructuring of the alphabet on such a linguistic principle suggests a creative act of an individual or a group rather than haphazard borrowing and perhaps explains why an exact prototype of futhark has not been discovered, and attempts to derive it ‘naturally’ from related alphabets encounter difficulties. As is common in early written traditions, words in early runic inscriptions were not separated though occasionally ‘punctuation’ marks were employed to distinguish individual words. The most common were dots or vertically arranged groups of up to four or even six dots, as in the following transcript of the inscription on a gold horn found in 1734 in Gallehus, Schleswig, and dated c. AD 400–550: ek Hlewagastiz : Holtijaz : horna : tawido : ‘I Hlewagastiz Holtijaz made the horn’. Tolkien imitated such word division in his runic texts. Early runic inscriptions (from the second to the sixth centuries) are generally short and often remain unintelligible, even when individual characters are fully legible. There is some evidence that single runes were used as ‘abbreviations’ for words represented by their names. For example, in the only surviving manuscript of the Old English poem Beowulf, London, British Library MS Cotton Vitellius A.xv (c. 1000), rune appears three times as an abbreviation for the Old English word epel (‘native land’), which is also the Old English name of this rune. There is also extensive evidence that the position of runes in the alphabet and therefore their numerical values were important. Thus a number of inscriptions contain combinations of runes without clear meaning or etymology, but otherwise similar to words. Examples include saralu (Årstad),

Introduction 35

ubada (Bad Ems), alugod (Værløse), sigaduz (Svarteborg) and others. The choice of runes in such ‘words’ does not appear to be accidental: they are built out of a limited number of characters and take into account the positional values of runes within the alphabet. Thus, to give just one example, the sum of rune numbers in such ‘words’ is often a number that can be divided by 13 (Klingenberg, 1973): saralu (16 + 4 + 5 + 4 + 21 + 2 = 52) sigaduz (16 + 11 + 7 + 4 + 23 + 2 + 15 = 78) Longer early inscriptions consist of words from general vocabulary and personal names which often constitute the whole content of an inscription. One of the most puzzling aspects of early inscriptions is that they do not contain historical, legal, business or personal records, letters or poetic texts found in late inscriptions from Scandinavia and Britain. They are uninformative and often appear to be disjoined or incomplete. Longer inscriptions may pose the question of the order in which their individual lines should be read. Inscriptions on gravestones may not contain the name of the deceased or any record of events, but ‘declarations’ concerned with writing (‘I, so and so, write/cut runes’). Thus, an inscription on a gravestone from Einang (Norway, c. 400) reads: dagastiz runo faihido (‘Dagastiz painted runes’). An inscription on a memorial stone from Gummarp (Sweden, seventh century, first half) reads: (h)ApuwolAfA sAte stAbA pria fff (‘Hathuwolafa(z?) set three staves f f f’). Finally, early inscriptions often appear where they would not have been visible, for example, on the back of objects or on objects intended for burial. Unusual practices associated with the early runic literacy gave rise to a debate about the use of the runic alphabet, which some scholars see as primarily utilitarian, whereas others as primarily magical. The utilitarian role of runes is advocated in a well-known work by A. Bæksted (1952), who believes that runes were an entirely secular and practical alphabet in no way different from the alphabets of the classical world. From his point of view associations with magic are late and appear only at the end of the tradition, when futhark was losing its role as an ordinary writing system. Other scholars take a more cautious approach. According to R. Derolez: Some authors, to be sure, suppose that runes were used much like the Greek and Roman letters from which they were derived, and that the use in magic developed at a later date, or is almost negligible. Since direct evidence is extremely scarce, and indirect information is often late and obscure, it is not very difficult to reject all religious or magical connotations. But on the whole I believe this leaves more questions unanswered than those authors assume. (1954, p. xvii)


Our evidence for the early use of runes comes from two sources: observations on the inscriptions themselves and the evidence from external sources, which are ‘often late and obscure’ as rightly described by Derolez. Perhaps the most convincing interpretation, supported by several scholars, is that the runic alphabet was introduced into a society which did not have the conditions or need for a wide use of writing and in this situation acquired associations with religious or magical practice. The question of the origin of futhark is entirely separate from the question of its use between the second and the sixth centuries, for its original purpose may have been entirely practical (Smirnitskaja, 1994, pp. 135–66). It appears that at early stages of runic literacy the process of writing did not become an automatic and mechanical skill, due to its very limited application, but acquired value as an arcane skill practised by an elite (Smirnitskaja, 1994, pp. 135–66). From what rune-masters say about their art (repeatedly referring to their ability to write) we can imply that they probably saw it as an ability to encrypt the content with the help of a certain system, and to produce a certain effect, due to their mastery of this form (SteblinKamenskij, 1979, p. 15). There are a number of literary sources which describe the uses of runes. References to runes appear in several poems from the Elder Edda, a collection of mythological and heroic poems from thirteenth-century Iceland. In Hávamál (‘Sayings of the High One’) Ó~inn describes a religious self-sacrifice which led him to the knowledge of runes. He hangs himself from a tree for nine days, pierced by a spear, as a sacrifice to himself and obtains secret knowledge, including the mastery of runes. There are various references to runes in Icelandic sagas – prose narratives recorded in Iceland from the thirteenth century onwards. Egil’s Saga describes the history of four generations of Egil Skallagrimsson’s family covering the events from the end of the ninth to the end of the tenth centuries. In one episode Egil, a famous Icelandic skald (c. 910–90), detects poisoned drink by scoring runes on a drinking-horn, reddening them with his blood and reciting a poem over them. In another Egil sets a nídsto¸ng (‘a scornpole’) against King Eirik Bloodaxe and Queen Gunnhild with a magic formula inscribed with runes. In Grettir’s Saga, a famous Icelandic hero Grettir becomes a victim of witchcraft, developing a fatal illness after wounding his leg trying to cut a log inscribed with runes and bearing a curse. Tolkien’s runes were inspired primarily by Old English runes found in inscriptions from Anglo-Saxon England (see Page, 1999; Hines, 1991; Looijenga, 2003, pp. 273–98). Anglo-Saxons used their own version of the runic alphabet, where new letters were introduced and some existing letters changed their meaning. The Old English runic alphabet is known as futhorc to distinguish it from the common Germanic alphabet and to indicate the changed values of the 4th and 6th letters. The only surviving full epigraphic futhorc from England, for example, is inscribed on an early ninth-century short sword, or scramasax,

Introduction 37

found in 1857 in the bed of the River Thames, and now in the British Museum. The sword has a complete alphabet of 28 letters and the word beagnop, which is possibly a name. As in Scandinavia belief in rune magic in England survived the spread of Christianity, as can be seen in the story told by Bede in Ecclesiastical History about Imma, a young man taken prisoner after a battle between the Northumbrians and Mercians (Colgrave and Mynors, 1969, pp. 401–5). His captors soon discovered that he could not be fettered since chains always fell from him, and asked whether he had about him litteras solutoris (‘loosening letters’) according to Bede’s Latin text, or aly¯sendlı¯can ru¯ne according to the Old English translation of the History. It was later discovered that Imma’s brother, a priest, served masses for Imma whom he believed to be dead, and miraculous releases from chains always coincided at the time of the services. Other literary evidence for the use of runes comes from Old English poetry. We know the name of Cynewulf, the author of several Old English religious poems, from his runic signatures worked into the text of his poems. Tolkien described one of Cynewulf’s signatures in his unpublished commentary on the Old English poem Elene (Tolkien A16/2, ff. 229v–34). The Old English poem Beowulf describes a sword, the ancient work of giants, which Beowulf used to kill Grendel’s mother. He presents the hilt of the sword to King Hrothgar, for the blade had melted away when it touched the monster’s blood: Hrothgar spoke; he examined the hilt, that relic of old times. It was engraved all over and showed how war first came into the world and flood destroyed the tribe of giants. They suffered a terrible severance from the Lord; the Almighty made the waters rise, drowned them in the deluge for retribution. In pure gold inlay on the sword-guards there were rune-markings correctly incised, stating and recording for whom the sword had been first made and ornamented with its scroll-worked hilt. (Heaney, 1999, p. 55) This passage can hardly fail to recall an episode from TH where Elrond examines two ancient swords made in Gondolin for the Goblin wars and interprets their names written in runes (TH, p. 50). Seamus Heaney correctly translated the Old English wrı¯ten used in the second line of this passage as ‘engraved’, referring to images rather than text. In Old English this word could mean both


‘to cut, engrave’ and ‘to write’. It is unlikely, however, that the text written in runes was not just the name of the first owner of the sword, but the history of the giants as well. Such interpretation, if accepted, would render the passage anachronistic, for both the English and Continental runic material suggests that runes were never used in this way. The only longer runic text from Britain appears on the eighth century monumental cross from Ruthwell, Dumfriesshire, and it is not an historical record, but a version of an Old English Christian poem, The Dream of the Rood. Let us now consider parallels between the runes and Tolkien’s alphabets (see also Wainwright, 2004, pp. 94–6). In Appendix E to LR Tolkien wrote that the alphabets used in the Third Age were of two main kinds: Tengwar or Tîw, translated as ‘letters’, and Certar or Cirth, translated as ‘runes’. The Tengwar were developed for writing with a brush or a pen and had rounded shapes, whereas angular Cirth were ‘mostly used only for scratched or incised inscriptions’. The Cirth were long used ‘only for inscribing names and brief memorials upon wood or stone’. This description of Tengwar and Cirth can hardly fail to suggest comparison with the histories of the Latin and runic alphabets. However, Tolkien’s description of the organization of Tengwar may have been inspired by his study of runes. Particularly suggestive are the following characteristics of Tengwar. They were divided into four ‘series’, with twenty-four primary letters and twelve additional letters. The organization of the alphabet was governed by a linguistic principle: the four ‘series’ of letters were generally applied to the related sounds of a particular type such as dentals or labials, whereas the shapes of letters such as the doubling of the bow, or the raising of stems indicated further phonetic characteristics, such as the ‘addition of “voice” ’ or the ‘opening of the consonant to a “spirant” ’. The letters had ‘full names’ (actual words in Quenya) which contained the letters in question. In most cases the names were acrophonic and began with the sounds represented by letters, but where the sound did not occur initially it followed immediately the initial sound. Some letters had variant names because their sound values had changed due to the linguistic developments, and they were given new names to accommodate these changes.

2.3.4 Alliterative verse and Tolkien’s verse Alliterative verse is an ancient Germanic form of poetry represented in this book by Old English and Old Norse texts. Tolkien was interested in it throughout his career. He provided a detailed description of Old English verse as used in Beowulf in his introduction to Clark Hall’s translation of Beowulf (Essays, pp. 61–71) and imitated it faithfully in his own poetry. The following brief description is intended to help the reader to appreciate the Old English poems in this book, as well as Tolkien’s own verse in TH and LR.

Introduction 39

Alliteration, or the repetition of initial sounds of words for emphasis or aesthetic and metrical reasons, was used in poetry of different Germanic nations. Alliterative verse in Old English is known from the eighth century onwards and until the end of the Old English period. The earliest examples are Cædmon’s Hymn recorded in eighth-century manuscripts and a fragment of the poem The Dream of the Rood, preserved on a stone cross from Ruthwell, Dumfriesshire. Though pre-Christian and pre-literary in origin, at the end of the Old English period alliterative verse flourished within the literary Christian tradition. Apart from Old English, alliterative poems survive in Old Norse, Old Saxon and Old High German. Unlike Old English, surviving Old Norse poetry attests to the use of several distinct alliterative metres, and is known from manuscripts dating from the thirteenth century and later (see 4.1 and 4.2 for further discussion). In England alliterative verse started to change at the end of the Old English period, becoming metrically free and losing many traditional features of its style. Verse in classic alliterative metre disappeared from written records in the second half of the eleventh century, though alliteration continued to be used in poetry after the Norman Conquest. Middle English alliterative poetry, which is very different from Old English poetry as extracts from Pearl and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight demonstrate (see 4.7 and 4.12), flourished particularly in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Cultural changes played a major part in the disappearance of traditional Old English alliterative verse: as will be shown below, its vocabulary, phraseology and ultimately metrical rules were designed to express traditional subject matter and depended on its continuity and stability. Its disappearance coincided with the establishment in the twelfth century of an international literary culture with an interest in experiment and a lively exchange of ideas and literary forms between languages and countries. The following description of metre and style applies to classical Old English verse, particularly as it is found in Beowulf. (Quotations in this section follow Klaeber (1950).) 2.3.4.1 The metre The key principles of alliterative metre were first systematically described by Edward Sievers at the end of the nineteenth century. In Altgermanische Metrik (1893) and several earlier works he demonstrated that poets used five basic metrical patterns, or types, and their variants when composing alliterative verse. The first three of these have two metrically stressed and two metrically unstressed positions in different combinations (/ represents metrically stressed positions and x metrically unstressed positions): A /x/x gomban gyldan (Beo 11) ¯ r æt hy¯de sto¯d (Beo 32) B x/x/ Pæ ¯ re (Beo 203) C x//x pe¯ah he¯ him le¯of wæ


Two more metrical types (D and E) have a secondary stress necessary to differentiate between the two unstressed positions to prevent them from falling together into a single metrical dip. Type D has two variants depending on the position of the secondary stress: //\x (le¯of le¯odcyning (Beo 54)) and //x\ (ha ¯r hilderinc (Beo 1307)). Type E also has two variants depending on the position of the secondary stress: /\x/ (murnende m¯o d (Beo 50)) and /x\/ (morporbed stre¯d (Beo 2436)). The second variant of E was rare, because two metrical stresses were avoided at the end of a verse. For the same reason type *xx// was not used in alliterative verse, even though otherwise Sievers’ five types cover between them all possible combinations of two stresses and two unstresses. Verses E and D can often be recognized by the use of compound words: the second part of such words provided the required secondary stress, as in the examples above. However, forms of E and D without compounds also existed, for example: swutol sang scopes (Beo 90); wlanc Wedera le¯od (Beo 341). When studying Old English metre it is important to remember that a metrical position (marked above as x, / or \) is not the same as a syllable: as will be explained below, a stressed position could correspond to one long or two short syllables following the rules of resolution: swutol in l. 90 from Beowulf in the example above corresponds to a single metrically stressed position. The number of unstressed syllables in metrically weak positions also varied, but usually within strictly defined limits. The gap between stresses was normally no longer than two syllables, though more unstressed syllables were allowed before the first stress. Metrical patterns described by Sievers correspond to half-lines of Old English verse. Pairs of these formed four-stressed long lines, bound together by alliteration. Alliteration always fell on metrically stressed words, and its position was subject to several rules. The third metrical stress always alliterated, whereas the fourth never did. The first half-line allowed three possible patterns of alliteration: alliteration on both metrical stresses, only on the first, or only on the second (alliterating sounds in the following examples are indicated in bold type): ¯ gpum meodosetla ofte¯ah (Beo 5) aa/ax (three stresses alliterate): monegum mæ ax/ax (two stresses alliterate): lange hwı¯le; him pæs Lı¯ffre¯a (Beo 16) xa/ax (two stresses alliterate): Gewa ¯ t da ¯ ne¯osian, sypdan niht beco ¯ m (Beo 115) In Old English verse each consonant alliterated with itself, as in the examples above, apart from the clusters sc, sp, st, which always alliterated as a group. Thus, in Oft Scyld Sce¯fing sceapena pre¯atum (Beo 4)

Introduction 41

the group sc alliterates with sc. On the contrary all vowels alliterated between themselves, indiscriminately, for example, in l. 3 from Beowulf æ in æpelingas alliterates with e in ellen: hu¯ da ¯ æpelingas ellen fremedon (Beo 3) Metrical stresses in alliterative verse coincided with major linguistic stresses. Words carrying metrical accent and alliteration were usually lexical words which normally carry stress in a sentence, such as nouns, adjectives, adverbs and verbs, rather than unstressed function words, such as prepositions or pronouns. Metrical prominence of lexical words depended on their part of speech: nouns appeared in stressed positions and alliterated more often than verbs; adjectives more often than nouns, though half-lines containing both adjectives and nouns frequently had double alliteration. This traditional hierarchy of the parts of speech was little affected by their context or emphasis, and was observed within individual lines as a system of rank and subordination: verbs could alliterate, but usually only if nouns and adjectives alliterated as well, or if other positions were filled with words of even lower ranks. Thus, in we¯ox under wolcnum (Beo 8) (‘grew under the skies’) both the verb (we¯ox) and the noun (wolcnum) alliterate, whereas in ofer hronra ¯ de hy¯ran scolde (Beo 10) (‘(each of the neighbours) across the sea must obey’) the notional verb hy¯ran (‘to listen, to obey’) alliterates, whereas the modal verb scolde (‘must’) does not. Alliterative verse had rules concerning syllable weight and resolution not altogether dissimilar to such rules in Greek and Latin quantitative metres, but these rules applied only in metrically stressed positions. Metrically stressed positions had to be filled with either one long syllable or two short syllables. In verse, syllables were considered long when they had a long vowel or a short vowel followed by a consonant. Thus, wa ¯ is a long syllable because it has a long vowel, and so is prym, or the first syllable of gom-ban, because they both end with a consonant. All these syllables could form a metrical lift independently, for example: prym gefru¯non (Beo 2). However, the first two syllables of mapelode are short because a single consonant between two vowels belonged to the start of the second syllable: ma-pe-lo-de. Because of this the first two syllables of mapelode function as a single prosodic entity and together form a single metrical position in verses such as weard mapelode, which is type D (//\x). Resolution, or the substitution of two short syllables for one long one, did not happen when a short stressed syllable was immediately preceded by another stress: thus, in pæt wæs go¯d cyning! (Beo 11) the first short syllable cy- of cyning forms the second metrical stress of a C verse (x//x). The types of verse described above had a range of variant forms. All variants match traditional phraseology used in verse and are best recognized through


their linguistic expression. For example, lines of type A, the most common of all metrical types, sometimes appeared with an anacrusis, or an unstressed ¯gholm (Beo 217). Such syllable before the first metrical stress: Gewa ¯ t pa ¯ ofer wæ verses can be recognized because they usually occur in the first half-line, start with a verb, and anacrusis is almost always formed by a verbal prefix, such as ge- in the example above, or by a negative particle ne. There were other variant forms of the main metrical types, such as lines with an extra-metrical secondary ¯ re mearcstapa (Beo 103), stress, usually carried by a compound word, such as mæ a heavy variant of type A with a secondary stress on -stapa. Verses of type A with an extra-metrical secondary stress usually appear in the first half-line and have double alliteration. Beowulf and other Old English poems also had the socalled hyper-metrical lines which appeared separately or in groups, and had three strong stresses: ga ¯ n under gyldnum be¯age (Beo 1163), æt fo¯tum sæt fre¯an Scyldinga (Beo 1166). When studying Old English verse it is useful to remember that in alliterative verse, as in modern verse, the same word could have been used metrically in more than one way. Depending on the context it could bear a primary or a secondary stress, or sometimes no stress at all. Thus the verb gese¯on (‘to behold, to perceive’) carries metrical stress, though not alliteration, in the B verse pæt ic on wa ¯ ge geseah (Beo 1662), but occupies the first unstressed position in another B verse, geseah ste¯apne hro¯f (Beo 926), where stress falls on words of a ‘higher metrical rank’, a noun and an adjective. 2.3.4.2 The style Old English poetry differed from prose in its syntax, grammar, vocabulary and idiom. Below we discuss some important characteristics of its style and language. Apposition and variation. Apposition is a term which describes the placing together of nouns and phrases naming the same object successively in the same sentence without any linking words, for example ‘Alfred, King of Wessex’ (Lester, 1996, pp. 67–74). Variation is a type of apposition in which different words and phrases are used successively to describe the same object from different points of view (see Robinson, 1985, for a full discussion). These do not have to stand immediately together, for example: ¯re pe¯oden, Mæ ¯rgo ¯d, unblı¯~e sæt, æpeling æ polode ~ry¯~swy¯~ pegnsorge dre¯ah, sy~pan hı¯e pæs la ¯ ~an la¯st sce¯awedon, wergan ga ¯ stes; (Beowulf, ll. 129–33)

Introduction 43

The famous lord, good prince of old days, sat joyless, the mighty one suffered, endured grief for his thanes when they saw the track of the enemy, of the cursed spirit. ¯ re pe¯oden (‘famous lord’), In this passage King Hrothgar is called successively Mæ ¯ rgo¯d (‘good prince of old’), and dry¯dswy¯d (‘mighty one’), whereas æpeling æ Grendel is referred to in the neighbouring lines as la ¯ d (‘hateful’) and werga ga ¯ st (‘cursed spirit’). Hrothgar’s emotion is described as polode (‘suffered’) and pegnsorge dre¯ah (‘endured grief for his thanes’). Variation is one of the most distinctive characteristics of the style of Old English verse supported by other stylistic features, such as the use of synonyms and formulaic phraseology described below. Compound words. Compound words, that is words consisting of two parts, were common in Old English, but were particularly frequent in poetry. Their number was not fixed, and they were probably coined by poets freely to suit their needs. Some compound words appear only once in the surviving corpus of Old English poetry, others, such as gu¯dcyning, a combination of Old English gu¯d, ‘war, battle’, and cyning, ‘king’, or medobenc, a combination of Old English medo, ‘mead’, and benc, ‘bench’, are frequent. In some cases the meaning of a compound word is a reasonably straightforward combination of the meanings of its parts, for example ¯ı ren-heard (ı¯ren, ‘iron’, and heard, ‘hard’) – ‘iron-hard’; or niht-long (niht, ‘night’, and long, ‘long’) – ‘lasting a night’. In other cases the ¯ -hengest – ‘sea-stallion’ (‘ship’), seolh-wæd – ‘seal whole word is a metaphor: sæ ford’ (‘sea’). Such metaphors are known as kennings. The second element of a kenning suggests a comparison; a ship is compared to a stallion in the example above. The first element gives a hint as to the true meaning of the kenning: ‘sea-stallion’ is a ship. Some compound words may appear redundant or state the obvious: heado-rinc (‘battle-warrior’), here-rinc (‘army-warrior’), beado-me¯ce (‘battle-sword’). The first elements of such words are sometimes interpreted as line-fillers, used mechanically to supply alliteration. What probably happens in such cases is that the first element is used figuratively as a poetic epithet. For example, Ga ¯ r-Dene ‘spear Danes’ does not necessarily mean ‘Danes fighting with spears’, but ‘war-like Danes’, ge¯ar-dagas, ‘year days’, means ‘past, days gone by’, whereas heado-fy¯r, ‘battle-fire’, used to describe the fire breathed by the dragon, rather than from a battle, probably means ‘deadly, frightening fire’ (Steblin-Kamenskii, 1978, pp. 4–39). Translation of such compound words can present considerable difficulties, not only because of the absence of similar formations in Modern English, but because of the difficulty of understanding the exact meaning of an epithet. This is something that Tolkien was very aware of


and discussed in his introduction to Clark Hall’s translation of Beowulf (Essays, pp. 49–60). Synonyms. Old English poetry also had a large number of synonyms for important notions of the heroic world, such as ‘king’, ‘sea’, ‘ship’, ‘warrior’, ‘battle’, and so on. The following list shows all the synonyms for the word ‘sea’ taken from A Thesaurus of Old English, entries ‘sea/ocean’ and ‘open/deep sea’ (translations supplied): (sea/ocean) bæp-weg (‘bath-way’), brim (‘sea, water edge’), brim-flo¯d (‘the sea’s flowing’), brim-stream (‘sea-stream’), de¯op (‘depth’), e¯gor-stre¯am (‘water¯ g (‘monster-wave’), fisces bæp (‘fish’s bath’), stream’), fa ¯ m (‘foam’), f ¯ı fel-wæ fisces e¯pel (‘fish’s home-land’), flo¯d-weg (‘flood-way’), flot (‘float’, ‘water deep enough for sustaining a ship’), ganotes bæp (‘gannet’s bath’), ga¯r-secg (‘spearman’), geofon (‘ocean, sea’), hæf (‘ocean, sea’), hærn (‘wave, sea’), holm ¯ d (‘whale-road’), hwæles e¯pel (‘water, sea’), hran-mere (‘whale-mere’), hran-ra (‘whale’s home-land’), hwæl-mere (‘whale-mere’), hwæl-weg (‘whale-way’), lagu (‘water, sea’), lagu-fæsten (‘water-fastness’), lagu-flo¯d, (‘water-stream’), ¯ wes e¯pel (‘gull’s home-land’), mere (‘sea, mere, lake’), sæ ¯ (‘sea’), sæ ¯-fæsten mæ (‘sea-fastness’), sæ ¯-flo¯d (‘sea-stream’), sæ ¯-holm (‘sea-water’), secg (‘man, sea’), ¯ d (‘sail-road’), seolh-bæp (‘seal-bath’), seolh-pæp (‘seal-path’), siolop segl-ra (‘water, sea’), stre¯amas (‘streams’), sund (‘swimming, sea’), sund-helm (‘water¯ l (‘deep water’), wær covering’), swan-ra¯d (‘swan-road’), wæd (‘ford’), wæ (‘sea’), wind-geard (‘wind-dwelling’), woruld-wæter (‘world-water’), y¯p (‘wave’), y¯pa ful (‘cup of waves’), y¯p-faru (‘wave-course’), y¯p-gewinn (‘wavestrife’) (open/deep sea) de¯op (‘depth’), e¯ar (‘sea, ocean’), f ¯ı fel-stre¯am (‘monsterstream’), flot-weg (‘sea-way’), fyrn-stre¯amas (‘ancient streams’), he¯ah (‘deep, ¯high water’), holm-mægen (‘might of the ocean’), mere-flo¯d (‘sea-stream’), sæ ¯ g-holm (‘wave-sea’), wı¯d-sæ ¯ (‘wide weg (‘sea-way’), u¯ter-mere (‘outer-sea’), wæ sea’), y¯p-mere (‘wave-mere’). Only some of the synonyms listed above occurred in prose as well as in poetry; all underlined words were restricted to poetry. The differences between synonyms were not necessarily referential, for example hran-ra¯d, brim, flo¯d, holm and ga¯r-secg are all used to describe the sea in the passage about Scyld Scefing’s funeral at the beginning of Beowulf, whereas scip (‘ship’), ce¯ol (‘ship, keel’), fær (‘ship, vessel’), hringed-stefna (‘ring-prowed ship’) are all used to describe the same ship in which his body is set adrift at sea (see 4.8). Words of different etymology and various descriptive or metaphoric compounds highlighted different features of an object. Thus, the sea could have been described from the

Introduction 45

point of view of its movement (flo¯d-weg, stre¯amas, y¯p, y¯p-gewinn), from the point of view of human efforts to cross it (sund, wad, seglra ¯ d) or as a home of birds and beasts (hran-ra ¯ d, seolh-pæp, fisces e¯pel). In spite of widely held opinion, synonyms were not fully interchangeable formal elements fitted into a line ‘according to the demands of alliteration’. Apart from the differences described above, their use in verse points to a system of metrical rank, or a tendency to use some synonyms in alliteration and others without alliteration, and in predictable positions in a line of verse. Synonyms were not equal and had different aesthetic values, which reflected their traditional use in poetry. Formulas. Finally, readers of Old English poetry can hardly fail to notice that lines of verse are sometimes reproduced exactly or with some variation within a single poem, or have exact and close parallels in other poems in Old English. In the following passage from Beowulf underlined groups of words appear elsewhere in Old English poetry, unchanged or virtually unchanged (Magoun, 1953, pp. 446–67): ¯ GA ¯R-DEna in ge¯ardagum, HWÆT, WE prym gefru ¯non, pe¯odcyninga ¯ ~a¯ æpelingas ellen fremedon! hu Oft Scyld Sce¯fing sceapena pre¯atum, ¯ gpum meodosetla ofte¯ah, (Beo, ll. 1–5) monegum mæ According to F. P. Magoun (1953, pp. 449–50), about 70 per cent of the text in the first 25 lines from the beginning of Beowulf appear elsewhere in Old English poetry, even though the surviving corpus of poetry is quite small (around 30,000 lines). Reproducible lexical and syntactic units, such as the ones underlined in this passage are known as ‘formulas’. Such formulas can be found in the poetry of any period or literary movement: poets tend to develop their own metrical and linguistic style where the same words may appear in rhyme, and the same phrases may be used with a predictable rhythm in predictable places in lines of verse. In modern poetry, however, this is a marginal phenomenon, rarely noticed by readers or judged negatively, as the use of clichés, if it is sufficiently prominent. Formulaic style on the scale found in Old English is an archaic feature of poetry, shared by traditional epic verse and to some extent by folklore. Formulaic style was first extensively researched and described by Milman Parry (1971) and Albert Lord (2000), who studied Homeric epic and twentiethcentury folk poetry in Yugoslavia. They demonstrated that the use of formulas was linked to how the verse was composed in pre-literary societies, such as existed in early Anglo-Saxon England. Parry and Lord showed that oral poets did not learn a fixed text, even when they believed they were reproducing


exactly an existing poem, but improvised, or composed their verse using a stock of metrically organized phrases or formulas. Performance of such poetry was inseparable from its re-creation, even though the poets did not consider themselves to be its authors. Such transmission of poetry insured the preservation of traditional plots, ideas, style and language, but also their constant renewal following the changing needs of audiences and society. This constant development and creative effort aimed at individual situation of a particular performance must have protected the formulaic poetry from stagnation, and becoming repetitive or clichéd. According to Parry a formula is ‘a group of words which is regularly employed under the same metrical conditions to express a given essential idea’ (1987, p. 80). In traditional poetry metrically organized formulas and their systems matched traditional subjects or narrative themes of poetry, such as the descriptions of battles, feasts, and so on. In Old English the use of formulas which originated in heroic pre-literary poetry was extended to Christian subjects. Formulas persisted as a feature of the poetic language after the poetry became literary and learned at the end of the Old English period. 2.3.4.3 Tolkien’s verse Bearing all this in mind let us look at Tolkien’s verse included in his Middleearth books. Virtually all poems in TH and LR are songs performed by different characters. Several are in what we would call ‘iambic tetrameter’, where four stresses alternate with four unstresses, for example: The dwarves of yore made mighty spells, While hammers fell like ringing bells In places deep, where dark things sleep, In hollow halls beneath the fells. (TH, p. 15) Such four-stress verse is one of the most common metres in English, but what often distinguishes its use by Tolkien is a high degree of agreement between the metrical pattern and the rhythm of individual lines (see also Russom, 2000). Traditionally, the agreement is only approximate, as can be seen in the following lines from Shakespeare’s sonnet 116: Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments; love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds Underlined syllables occupy metrical stresses, but they are often syllables unstressed in the ordinary language, as me, to and of in the first line, whereas

Introduction 47

syllables in weak positions are sometimes stressed, as true in the first line. Tolkien’s songs, on the contrary, sometimes have line after line reproducing the metrical pattern exactly or almost exactly: The The The The

sword is sharp, the spear is long, arrow swift, the Gate is strong; heart is bold that looks on gold; dwarves no more shall suffer wrong. (TH, pp. 242–3)

In these four lines the metrical pattern is reproduced without any deviations. Rhythm is further reinforced by parallelism, where the first three lines use the same syntactic construction as in ‘The sword is sharp’. Deviations from metrical patterns are used by poets to vary rhythm, and their absence can make the verse monotonous and predictable. However, Tolkien’s poems are songs and his style, with its parallelism and exaggerated rhythm, is intended to create an impression of recitation and singing. This is particularly strong in poems in other metres than the highly literary iambic tetrameter, such as the song of Elves in TH: O! What are you doing, And where are you going? Your ponies need shoeing! The river is flowing! (TH, p. 46) Tolkien used a variety of metrical forms to write verse which sounded like folk and other songs, including the ‘ballad-metre’ where a longer line with four stresses is followed by a shorter line with three stresses: An Elven-maid there was of old, A shining star by day: Her mantle white was hemmed with gold, Her shoes of silver-grey. (LR, p. 330) Many of his poems have alliteration, and in particular Tolkien wrote verse specifically intended to recall the style of Old English alliterative poetry described above. Such is the song reminiscent of The Wanderer, which Aragorn sings first in the language of Rohan and then in Common Speech (see 4.10):


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? (LR, p. 497) The poem is in long lines, divided like Old English long lines by a metrical pause in the middle. As in Old English metrical stresses are allowed to clash, or follow one another without any weak syllables in between: the second halves of the last three lines all have three strong stresses following one another consecutively, as in ‘bright hair flowing’. Alliteration is not used throughout, but it is frequent, and as in Old English alliterating words are nouns important for conveying the message of the poem. Alliteration is on h throughout, and as in Old English it is a conceptual, rather than a purely technical, mechanically used device. A list of alliterating words represents the message of these lines in a condensed form, highlighting important details within the image of the past: horse – horn – helm – hauberk – hair – hand – harpstring – harvest. A chain of alliterating words in Old English The Wanderer is built in a similar way. A ¯ r cwo¯m mearg? list of alliterating words in three lines beginning with l. 92, Hwæ (‘Where is the horse?’) also represents a condensed image of the past: mearg (‘horse’) – mago (‘young man’) – ma ¯ ppum gyfa (‘giver of treasure’) – symbla gesetu (‘seet of feasts’) – seledre¯amas (‘joys of hall’) – beorht bu¯ne (‘bright cup’) – byrnwiga (‘armoured warrior’) (see 4.10). Several other poems in LR recall various aspects of Old English alliterative verse. A stanza from the Ents’ ‘Long List’ uses patterns of Old English alliteration (see also 4.9): Ents the earthborn, old as mountains, the wide-walkers, water drinking; and hungry as hunters, the Hobbit children, the laughing-folk, the little people. (LR, p. 572) All these lines have four stresses like Old English metrical lines, and three lines include compound words: earthborn, wide-walkers and laughing-folk. In all lines the last stressed word does not alliterate, whereas all alliterating words are nouns and adjectives. In the first line vowels alliterate indiscriminately as in Old English: Ents – earthborn – old. The first three lines have three alliterating words each, and in the last line the first and the third stresses alliterate, which again follows the patterns of Old English alliteration. In alliterating compound

Introduction 49

words, as in Old English, either both parts alliterate as in wide-walkers, or only the first part as in laughing-folk. The call to arms of the Riders of Rohan is written in a similar style: Arise, arise, Riders of Théoden! Fell deeds awake: fire and slaughter! (LR, p. 820) In this poem not only does alliteration adhere to patterns found in Old English verse, but half-lines reproduce metrical patterns of Old English half-lines: Arise, arise – B verse (x/x/) Riders of Théoden – A verse (/x/x) Fell deeds awake – E verse (/\x/) fire and slaughter – A verse (/x/x) Tolkien described the ‘fragment’ at the end of the Battle of the Pelennor Fields in LR as ‘written in the strictest form of Anglo-Saxon alliterative verse’ (Letters, 187, p. 248). As in poems described above, it uses four-stress lines, divided into half-lines by a metrical pause, alliterative patterns reproduce those of Old English verse, and half-lines largely follow metrical patterns of Old English halflines. The beginning (We heard of the horns in the hills ringing) parallels the beginning of Beowulf: ¯ GA ¯R-DEna in ge¯ardagum, HWÆT, WE pe¯odcyninga prym gefru ¯non, (ll. 1–2) (Lo! We heard of Spear-Danes, of the glory of great kings in the old days). Both hwæt (‘lo, behold’) and the verb gefrignan (‘learn, hear of’) were commonly used in lines of verse introducing a narrative or its parts. Sentences in the poem about the Battle of the Pelennor Fields sometimes end in the middle rather than at the end of the verse line, which is very characteristic of Old English poetry, but is uncharacteristic of Tolkien’s non-alliterative verse: There Théoden fell, Thengling mighty, to his golden halls and green pastures in the Northern fields never returning, high lord of the host. Harding and Guthláf . . . (LR, p. 831) This passage also imitates the Old English use of variation: the king is referred to as Théoden, Thengling mighty and high lord of the host.


2.3.5 The names Finally, let us look briefly at the names in Tolkien’s fiction and medieval literature, an area which has many obvious parallels and certainly the one that has been extensively studied by scholars. It also provides the basis for our opening text, where we look at the source of the Dwarvish names in TH. Tolkien used many more place and personal names in LR than in TH, even when they were not strictly necessary for the plot. Shippey observed that where TH had some 40 or 50 names, the indices for LR list over 600 personal names, almost as many place names and around 200 ‘unclassified but named objects’ (Shippey, 2003, pp. 94–104). Tolkien obviously thought that this was appropriate for his most ambitious undertaking, concerned with the whole history, present and future of the Middle-earth. Names help to create the sense of depth, historical and geographical perspective, assisting his ‘sub-creation’ noted earlier. They also help to establish the sense of both reality and antiquity of the world described in LR and TH. For Tolkien, according to his own admission, names were also a source of inspiration and provided creative impulse. In a letter to the publisher Houghton Mifflin, of June 1955, he famously wrote: ‘To me a name comes first and the story follows’ (Letters, 165, p. 219). Why were the names so important to Tolkien, and which characteristics made them such a successful stylistic and narrative device? Names have a privileged position within the vocabulary of any language, because they are often longer-lived than ordinary words and do not disappear from language when they are no longer understood (Redin, 1919, p. xxxvii). Place and personal names can outlive the cultures to which they belong and be the only survivals of languages which have otherwise entirely disappeared. In LR Tolkien uses names as witnesses to the history and customs of different lands, races and peoples: names give evidence of ethnic and family origin of characters, position in society and personal qualities. Most names invented by Tolkien are meaningful and motivated by what is known about their owners. Meaningful are such names as Beorn (Old English beorn, ‘man, warrior’, used only in poetry, etymologically related to Modern English bear), Treebeard, Grima Wormtongue (Old English grı¯ma, ‘mask, helmet, ghost’), Legolas (‘greenleaves’ in Sindarin (Letters, 211, p. 282)) and many others. Tolkien’s use of names in his novels, and comments he made about them, suggest that he was interested in the linguistic history of names as a lexical group, and was aware that motivated, meaningful names represent an archaic stage in its development. In origin all names were words of ordinary vocabulary and had the same relationship with their referents as any other words: their function was to describe a person or an object. Several episodes in TH and LR appear to refer to this. In TH Gandalf explains that the rock Carrock is so called because this is Beorn’s word for it:

Introduction 51

‘He calls things like that carrocks, and this one is the Carrock because it is the only one near his home and he knows it well.’ (TH, pp. 108–9) Though arbitrary from the point of view of its phonetic form, ‘Carrock’ is a word with a full lexical meaning: ‘rock’. Consequently, it is not arbitrary as a name, but descriptive and motivated by its referent (for a different point of view, see Shippey (2003, p. 101)). Similar to Carrock is the name Théoden in LR, which is an Old English word meaning ‘king’. The same idea, that names are meaningful attributes rather than arbitrary labels, is probably behind Gandalf’s comments about his own name when he returns after defeating Balrog and meets Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli: ‘ “Gandalf,” the old man repeated, as if recalling from old memory a long disused word. “Yes, that was the name. I was Gandalf.” ’ (LR, p. 484) The same is implied by Tolkien’s comments about an episode in LR where Frodo asks Goldberry who Tom Bombadil is, to which she simply replies, ‘He is’. In a letter to Peter Hastings Tolkien objected to taking this to imply that Bombadil was God, and wrote that Goldberry and Tom were ‘referring to the mystery of names’ (Letters, 153, p. 191). He asked his correspondent to ponder on Tom’s own words about his name: when asked ‘Who are you, Master?’, he replied, ‘Don’t you know my name yet? That’s the only answer’ (LR, p. 129). Tolkien’s ideas about names were influenced by his observations on how names function in medieval literature. Names found in Old English poetry are usually meaningful and reflect the personality of their bearers. Thus, in the name Beowulf, ‘bee-wolf’, ‘bear’, scholars see evidence of a folk-tale origin of the main character of the poem (Klaeber, 1950, pp. xxv–xxviii). The name Grendel may be etymologically connected with such words as Old English grindan (‘to grind’), Old English grindel (‘bar’, ‘bolt’) or possibly Old English grund (‘ground, depth’).1 Such literary usage exists against the background of a broader phenomenon: perception of names as meaningful attributes is reflected in the Germanic customs of name-giving. The two main principles of name-giving are known as alliteration and variation. Both are extensively represented in the names of all the royal families of the Anglo-Saxon England (Woolf, 1939). In the first case the names of relatives started with identical sounds, as can be seen in the alliterating names of the early kings of Wessex: Cedric, Creoda, Cynric, Ceawlin, Cutha and Ceolwulf. In these examples the phonetic similarity of names reflects the relat1

Perhaps the etymology of Grendel inspired Tolkien’s choice of the name Grond for a ram forged ‘in the dark smithies of Mordor’ and used during the siege of Gondor to break the Gate of the City (LR, p. 810).


edness of their owners in the same way that alliteration in poetry was used to establish associations and semantic links between words. Variation, the second principle of Germanic name-giving, is found when the names of children include one or both elements taken from the names of their parents. This can be seen in the names of the members of the royal house of Wessex, beginning with the element ædel-, ‘noble’: Æthelwulf, Athelstan, Æthelbald, Æthelberht and Æthelred. Yet another, less common approach to name-giving involved the use of words for the names of relatives which were synonyms and had the same or similar meanings. Thus, the names of the two Germanic leaders Hengest and Horsa can both be translated as ‘stallion, horse’. In all these cases names and their components are treated as meaningful lexical items. Tolkien followed these conventions in his invented names. The royal family of Rohan has alliterating names based on Old English and Gothic lexical elements (see 4.11). King Théoden is referred to as Théoden Thengling mighty (LR, p. 831) which shows that his name alliterated with the name of his father: -ing is an Old English patronymic suffix found, for example, in the name Scyld Scefing in Beowulf. Variation was used by Tolkien in the names of Éowyn and Éomer. The first element in both is the Old English word eoh (‘horse’). The second element in Éowyn is the Old English word wyn (‘joy’), whereas the ¯ re (‘famous’). Another example of second element in Éomer is Old English mæ variation are the names Faramir and Boromir, which have an identical second part. Both are reminiscent of the names of the early Frankish kings known from the History of the Franks by Gregory of Tours, such as Marcomir and Faramond. Finally, synonyms were used by Tolkien in his invented names for the hobbits, such as Marcho and Blanco. A discussion of Germanic names, which were prototypes for many of Tolkien’s invented names, would not be complete without one final, but very important point: ‘heroic’ names were not only meaningful, they were built according to aesthetic principles, the same that were used in alliterative verse – the early poetry of Germanic peoples. It is hardly an accident that, as demonstrated above, the same lexical and phonetic means were used in the namegiving and poetry of the Germanic peoples, including alliteration, productive compounding and synonyms (see 2.3.4). Many Indo-European and Germanic personal names were compound words with a transparent structure, similar to compound words which flourished in alliterative poetry. Such names consisted of two lexical bases, as exemplified by the Old English royal names quoted above. The connection between the compound Germanic names and the formulas of heroic poetry was extensively researched by Schramm (1957), who pointed out that they employed the same lexical elements and stylistic devices, such as metaphor and simile. Thus, the lexical root -la ¯ c (‘play’) found in Hygela ¯ c, the name of Beowulf’s king and uncle, is also used in such poetic words for ‘battle’, as Old English heado-la ¯ c and beadu-la ¯ c (both meaning ‘battle-play’).

Introduction 53

The Old English poetic word for ‘warrior’, gu¯d-beorn, is paralleled by the name Gu¯dla ¯ f in Beowulf. Schramm believed that ‘heroic’ names are ancient descriptive formulas, which could show what poetry was like long before the earliest surviving texts. They were built using the same vocabulary connected with war, fame, power and nobility, used in heroic poetry, and had an identifiable rhythm based on accent and syllable count. Their transparent meaning and poetic form made them ‘readable texts’, probably strengthening the connection between the name and its bearer. This probably also explains why names could on their own constitute the whole content of poetry. Catalogues and lists of names, known as pulur in Old Norse, such as the ones in the Old English poem Widsith or the Eddic poem V oluspá (4.1), appear in early poetry in different languages. In such texts, to quote Tolkien, names were ‘the only answer’, capable of recalling what was known about their owners, but also possibly creating an aesthetic impact (Steblin-Kamenskii, 1974, pp. 103–9). Tolkien imitated this type of poetry in the list of names of those who fell in battle in the song about the battle of Pelennor Fields (LR, p. 831). Tolkien’s own notes (with additions from his son Christopher) on the names in his fiction appear in the ‘Guide to the Names in the Lord of the Rings’, which was produced to help translators (see Lobdell, 1975, pp. 153–201). Many scholars have tried to build on this by providing further parallels and interpretations (see Jeffrey, 2004, pp. 70–4 and 77–8; Rogers and Rogers, 1980, p. 135; Ryan, 1969, pp. 134–40; Shippey, 2003, and 2000; Tinkler, 1969; Wainwright, 2004, to name but a few). Tolkien, however, found source studies of the names he used especially annoying and ‘valueless’, and insisted that in many cases the true sources were his own invented languages (Garth, 2003, p. 97).

3 The Editions

What follows is a selection of texts drawn from Old English, Middle English and Old Norse linked to key episodes in TH and LR. The chapters are divided into the respective books (or trilogy when it comes to LR), and the title of each section refers to the episode in Tolkien’s fiction, the medieval text or texts presented, and the chapter reference for TH or LR. They follow the order of the books. Each section begins with a summary of the events referred to in Tolkien’s books, and then presents an introduction to the medieval text, its manuscript history and in some cases its language. We then move on to a discussion of the text itself and an analysis of how this relates to Tolkien’s work and fiction. The medieval texts are presented in two forms. First there is the original poem or piece of prose in Old English, Middle English or Old Norse. On the facing page is a Modern English translation (with the exception of 4.4, where a gloss is employed). The medieval characters, p, ~, æ, and so on, have been retained in the original texts, but not in the translations (the exception, in keeping with the norm, are the names in the ON sections, given in their ON form). The letter ‘w’ has been used throughout to replace the Old English ‘wyn’. In keeping with the whole of this book, length marks on vowels in Old English have been included to assist in reading and identifying words. The texts are usually lineated every five lines; in stanzaic verse stanzas are numbered. The Old English verse texts are based on the ASPR. Punctuation has been changed to reflect the translations, and any variations (based on more modern scholarly decisions) from the ASPR are recorded in the notes. The editions of Beowulf are the main area in which this occurs. The Old English prose comes from a variety of sources, all noted in the further reading section of each entry. In the prose the Tironian sign (7) has been retained, to reflect standard editorial practice, but in the verse this has been expanded to and. Editions of Middle English and Old Norse texts have benefited from scholarship reflected in earlier editions, facsimiles and transcripts of manuscripts listed in the further reading 54

The Editions 55

sections. Major interpretative decisions, emendations of manuscript readings and deviations from standard editorial practice, where such practice exists, are discussed in the notes. It is important to emphasize, however, that the present volume does not give scope for a full discussion of textual issues, and readers interested in these are encouraged to consult scholarly editions referenced in the further reading. In particular, it was impossible to acknowledge fully the debt to earlier scholarship and provide a critical history of emendations and interpretations proposed by earlier editors and accepted in this volume without comment. Highly selective textual commentary provided in the notes aims to introduce readers to the difficulties presented by each text, and it is our hope that some readers will pursue this further by turning to recommended critical editions and facsimiles. We believe that the inclusion of the original texts would have met with Professor Tolkien’s approval. As he stated: No translation that aims at being readable in itself can, without elaborate annotation, proper to an edition of the original, indicate all the possibilities and hints afforded by the text. (Tolkien A17/1, f. 2v, ‘Drafts of lectures on translating Beowulf, 1940’) Simply to present a translation, then, would hide much of the beauty of the original texts and not allow the reader to begin to explore the parallels between the languages. The translation attempts to follow the verse structure in terms of lineation, though in some places this is not always possible. The effect at times may feel archaic to the reader and the word order is not always as one would expect in Modern English, but this retains the flavour of the Old English. Tolkien himself faced this issue, and his approach of allowing many of the characters in LR to speak using older syntactical forms attracted some criticism (see Letters, 171, pp. 225–6). However, a balance has to be struck. If we were to follow the original text too closely we would inevitably have produced texts which Tolkien himself would have described as ‘harsh, bizarre and ludicrous, which possess no value for the past or present’ (Tolkien A17/1, f. 115). With Old English, for example, there is the issue of compound words, which the poets were particularly fond of. These can be problematic to translate (see 2.3.4.2). Where we have faced these we have tried to produce results that are neither ‘simplistic (e.g. ‘sun’ for ‘Godes candel’ or ‘God’s candle’)’, nor strange to the modern ear (Tolkien A17/1, f. 126). The translation does not attempt to capture the alliteration or rhyme if present in the medieval text, but readers are encouraged to look to the original to see this in practice. We have tried to avoid colloquialisms and retain literary and traditional language (Essays, p. 54), and hope that none of the words we use in our


translation needs a gloss (with the exception of some ‘titles’ such as Atheling in Old English). We urge readers to refer regularly to the original text. Only then will you be nearer to understanding Tolkien’s conclusion to his essay on translation in which he stated: And therein lies the unrecapturable magic of ancient English verse for those who have ears to hear: profound feeling, and poignant vision, filled with the beauty and mortality of the world, are aroused by brief phrases, light touches, short words resounding like harp-strings sharply plucked. (Essays, p. 60) Throughout the book the reader will find references to and quotations from Tolkien’s unpublished academic papers kept in the Bodleian Library, Oxford University (see Abbreviations for a note on manuscript shelfmarks). The quotations preserve the punctuation and orthography of the originals. Very few obvious errors have been emended and the emended text appears in square brackets without further explanation.

4 The Texts


The Hobbit

4.1 Gandalf and the Dwarves – Voluspá, stanzas 9–16 (TH, ‘An Unexpected Party’) 4.1.1 Plot summary Stanzas 9–16 of the Old Norse mythological poem V oluspá (‘The Seeress’s Prophecy’) contain the story of the creation of the dwarfs, one of the races that inhabit the world of Scandinavian mythology. The poem includes their genealogy and a list of their names. This ‘catalogue of the dwarfs’ was the source of the names for Gandalf, Thorin Oakenshield, Balin, Dwalin, Fíli, Kíli, Dori, Nori, Ori, Óin, Glóin, Bifur, Bofur and Bombur and several other Dwarves in TH and LR. 4.1.2 Medieval text: V oluspá, stanzas 9–16 V oluspá is one of the poems from the Poetic Edda, a collection of heroic and mythological poems preserved in medieval Icelandic manuscripts. The name Edda, of uncertain meaning and etymology, was given to the collection in the seventeenth century after the discovery of the Codex Regius (Reykjavík, Stofnun Árna Magnússonar MS GkS 2365 4to), the earliest manuscript in which it is known today, dating back to the second half of the thirteenth century. Edda was the name of a book about pagan mythology and poetic composition written by Snorri Sturluson (1179–1241), an Icelandic nobleman, historian and poet. Snorri’s Edda contains an exposition of various myths and references to stories known from the poems of the Poetic Edda, as well as extensive quotations from some of the poems. The collection of poems came to be known as the Elder Edda or the Poetic Edda, whereas Snorri’s book was termed the Younger or Prose Edda, because of the belief that he used the poetic collection while writing his book. In fact, the relationship between the two is by no means clear, and it is possible that the compilation of the Poetic Edda in its present form was inspired by Snorri’s Edda. Bishop Brynjólfur Sveinsson, who discovered the 59


Codex Regius in the seventeenth century and was its first known owner, attributed the collection to the great Icelandic scholar Sæmundr Sigfússon (1056–1133). For this reason it was also called Sæmundar Edda. Nothing is known about the history of the Codex Regius before its discovery by Bishop Sveinsson. The character of errors in the manuscript shows that it is a copy of an earlier exemplar or exemplars, and is probably no older then the second quarter of the thirteenth century. Furthermore, nothing is known about the pre-history of the poems themselves, their authors or the date of their composition. Disagreement among scholars in modern dating of the poems may amount to centuries. At least some of the poems, particularly the mythological, are believed to pre-date the conversion of Iceland to Christianity, which was officially adopted in the year 1000. This means that the poems were transmitted orally for centuries before being written down (longer literary texts were not recorded in Scandinavia before writing using the Roman alphabet became established in the twelfth century). Part of the Codex Regius is now missing, but in its present form it includes 29 relatively short poems written as prose and preceded or interspersed with prose commentary. Some of the poems, or their fragments, appear in other manuscripts which are not copies of the Codex Regius or its exemplar. V oluspá is notably the first item in the Codex Regius. Its other copy is in a manuscript known as Hauksbók (Copenhagen, Arnamagnæan Institute MS 544 4to, ff. 20, 21), dating from the middle of the fourteenth century. It also appears in Gylfaginning, the mythological part of Snorri Sturluson’s Edda, where he quotes 28 of its stanzas and relates the contents of several more. There are four main manuscripts of Gylfaginning which all preserve these citations with some variation. V oluspá, the prophesy of a v olva (‘seeress, prophetess’), is concerned with the creation and history of the world. It is a monologue of a seeress who relates to Ó~inn, the ‘Father of the Slain’, various events from before the creation of the world and until after the catastrophe at its end. The opening stanzas describe the creation of the earth, sky and time. This is followed by the creation of the dwarfs and humans, and the description of the war which the Æsir, the main race of gods, fight against another race of gods, the Vanir. Tolkien’s outline of the creation of Middle-earth in The Silmarillion, with the description of Arda followed by the appearance of the free peoples, including the Dwarves who are created first, has similarities with the Germanic myths related in V oluspá. In V oluspá the history of the world unfolds through the death of Baldr, the son of Ó~inn and the most perfect of all the gods, towards Ragnar ok, ‘the doom of the gods’, in which the gods fight the giants and their allies. Some of the gods, including Ó~inn, die in this battle, the earth collapses into the sea and the world is destroyed by fire. After this the world is renewed, the earth rises from the ocean and the gods who survived the Ragnar ok live peacefully again. According to one of the versions of the poem, however, they no longer rule

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the world: in Hauksbók a four-line stanza included before the final stanza of the poem proclaims the coming of a single powerful ruler, which commentators see as a reference to the Christian God. The world history described in V oluspá unfolds as the struggle between the civilized and uncivilized worlds. The giants, the enemies of the gods, seem to represent the force of chaos which existed before the creation of the world. The humans are the gods’ allies in this fight and their fates are linked as the conflict develops. Thus human warriors, selected by Ó~inn from those killed in battle, will fight on the side of the gods at Ragnar ok. Like humans the gods are not immortal and are aware of their fate. Ó~inn, the main god of the Æsir, is portrayed as a seeker of knowledge in several poems of the Edda. In both V oluspá and Vafprúdnismál presented in this anthology, he interrogates supernatural, authoritative informants about the fate of the gods and his own, inevitable death. Both ideas – the common fate of different races and the tragic perception of one’s fate – are found in LR, where Galadriel and Elrond support the alliance of the different races of Middle-earth in the struggle against evil, but are aware of their own loss of power as one of the outcomes of this struggle, and the perseverance of evil in spite of ‘many fruitless victories’ (LR, p. 237). The extract printed here begins with the story of the creation of the dwarfs. It follows in V oluspá the description of the golden age which the gods enjoy at the end of their labours as the makers of the civilized world. The seeress tells that after the earth is raised and Mi~gar~r (‘Middle enclosure’) is created, the gods build altars and temples, and make precious things, tongs and tools. They play a board-game in their meadow, are merry and ‘do not lack for gold’. This continues until three powerful giantesses come from I otunheimar (‘the Giantland’). It is not clear who they are, though some scholars identify them as the three Norns, goddesses of fate, whose arrival may have limited the power of the gods and disrupted the stability of the golden age. After this the gods hold council in their ‘seats of judgement’ and respond by creating the dwarfs. The logic behind such a response to the disturbance of their world is by no means clear, but the reference to gold in lines immediately preceding the stanza about the creation of the dwarfs may be crucial. It appears that the gods who until then were the sole creators themselves, give the function of making ‘precious things’ to the dwarfs, who are portrayed in the Edda primarily as craftsmen. The gold which the dwarfs own and make becomes a source of further conflicts and wars. Stanzas which follow the creation of the dwarfs contain a catalogue of their names. It is usually considered to be an interpolation, a scribal addition, which could not have been part of the original poem because it is disproportionately long compared to the rest of the poem. It is also believed to be unjustified by its structure, for the dwarfs take little part in the further events it describes. Some editors omit the catalogue completely when printing the text of V oluspá.


The belief that names deserve to be mentioned only if they are important to the story does not appear to have been shared by Tolkien (see the discussion in 2.3.5). Such a belief presupposes an interpretation of V oluspá as selfconscious fiction written according to the aesthetic principles of modern literature. Tolkien’s rejection of these principles, and his introduction of names not necessarily essential to the plot of LR, was a successful stratagy for creating an illusion of an historical narrative rather then fiction, which assisted his ‘subcreation’. The importance of names in the Edda and Icelandic sagas, often unjustified by their relevance to the plot, which Tolkien appears to have imitated in LR, suggests a different aesthetic and narrative programme from that found in modern works of history and fiction. Lists of names are found in other poems from the Poetic Edda, including Grímnismál (‘Grímnir’s Sayings’) and Rígspula (‘The List of Rígr’). In V oluspá there is also a description of the valkyries, which is followed by a list of five of their names and a concluding formula similar to the one which appears in the list of the dwarfs (‘now I have the dwarfs . . . rightly named’). This list is also often regarded by editors as an interpolation irrelevant to its context and unjustified by the structure of the poem. There is evidence, however, for the use of genealogy as a narrative and descriptive device in Icelandic literature. Larrington (2002, p. 66) observes that in sagas genealogy was a frequent organizational strategy for introducing characters and their immediate history. In Vafprúdnismál the father of the Day is said to be Dellingr, ‘The Shining One’, and the father of Winter Vindsvalr (‘Wind-cool’). According to Larrington these names are used specifically to expand the depiction of these concepts and to accentuate their attributes. In the same way the characterization of the dwarfs could have been achieved in part through their names, which are usually meaningful. Even if the ‘catalogue of the dwarfs’ is an interpolation, it was considered worthy of inclusion by Snorri Sturluson and all the scribes of the medieval manuscripts of V oluspá. These texts are the only authentic versions of V oluspá we possess, and they are perhaps best seen as a result of its evolution rather than as a result of corruption of a hypothetical original. The text printed here follows closely the version of the poem found in the Codex Regius (CR). Readings supplied from other manuscripts, such as the Hauksbók (H), appear in square brackets. The major deviation from the text of the Codex Regius is the introduction of lines omitted in the Codex Regius, but found in other manuscripts, which contain the names of the dwarfs which appear in Tolkien’s works. The metre of the poem is what is known as fornyrdislag (‘old story metre’). It is an alliterative metre closely related to the alliterative verse of Old English poetry and used in narrative poems in the Poetic Edda. As in Old English poetry the main metrical unit in fornyrdislag is a four-stress long line subdivided by a metrical pause into two half-lines, each with two strong stresses. The number of unstressed syllables varies. The first stressed

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syllable of the second half-line alliterates with one or both stressed syllables in the first half-line. Alliteration is created by the repetition of identical initial consonants, such as r in the following line: Pá gengo regin oll

á r okstóla.

All vowels and j are treated as identical sounds for the purposes of alliteration, and alliterate between themselves. Thus, in the following line, Aurvanga alliterates with J orovalla: Aurvanga sjot

til Jorovalla.

Unlike Old English poetry, Eddic poetry is ‘strophic’, that is lines are grouped into stanzas. A typical stanza of fornyrdislag, for example, consists of four long lines, though two-, three- and five-line stanzas also occur. In modern editions the metrical pause in the long line is usually indicated by a break, and stanzas are separated by a space, though in medieval manuscripts the poems are written as prose. The language of the poem includes archaisms and words which do not occur anywhere else. Such words as r okstólar (‘seats of judgement, fate’?) and ginnheilog (‘most sacred’?) were probably highly allusive, as suggested by their context, etymology and the use of their components elsewhere. Their translation can be only approximate. Most of the names of the dwarfs are meaningful, though some allow several interpretations. This is particularly true for names which do not occur in other texts, and we have to rely on their spelling in a small number of manuscripts, which do not make clear, for example, whether a word has a long or a short vowel. A selection of names is explained in the notes, but see bibliography for further discussion. 4.1.3 Discussion In Eddic poems and Icelandic sagas the dwarfs are represented as archetypal craftsmen, but also as teachers, healers, magicians and masters of esoteric knowledge (Motz, 1981–2). They created the gods’ most precious and magical possessions, including Mj ollnir, Pórr’s hammer and Freyja’s necklace. Dwarfs’ connection with ritual can be seen in their association with the mead of poetry which, according to a myth told by Snorri Sturluson in the Prose Edda, they made from blood and honey. Poetry is metaphorically called the ‘drink’, ‘cup’ or the ‘sea’ of the dwarfs in the verse of Norse poets or ‘skalds’. Dwarfs of Scandinavian mythology make weapons for the gods and heroes but do not fight themselves, and according to the description of the end of the world in V oluspá, helplessly observe the final battle. According to Motz their role in the world hierarchy is that of serving spirits who support and sustain the cosmic order created by the gods (Motz, 1981–2, p. 244). Their houses are not citadels or


great halls like those of the gods and the giants, but individual stones or boulders, or sometimes earth. However, their role in the maintenance of the cosmic order is vital. Thus, they created the magical fetters which the gods used to constrain the monstrous wolf Fenrir who will kill Ó~inn in the final battle. When the gods created the sky they put four dwarfs in each of its corners, so that the metaphor for the sky in poetry is ‘the burden of the dwarfs’. However, the dwarfs’ superior skills are used for the service of other races. They do not have wives or families and are defined primarily as representatives of a profession useful to the gods and human heroes. Motz traces such features of the dwarfs to the religion of megalith builders of southern Scandinavia, northern Germany and the Baltic region (Motz, 1981–2 and 1983). The etymology of the word ‘dwarf’ is uncertain, but appears to have religious associations (Liberman, 2002). Tolkien’s Dwarves preserve many of the features of the Eddic dwarfs, though they are more the heroes of folk-tale than of myth. They are great craftsman and builders (as witnessed in Moria), who live under the mountains in their halls of stone (compare salar steini in stanza 14 of V oluspá), but they are also kings and warriors. In TH they field an entire army in the final battle, for example, and Gimli in LR is depicted as a hard but brave warrior throughout. Dwarves can be generous and giving, but they love treasure which they make for others as well as for their own use (as with Thorin and the Arkenstone). When commenting on the character of his Dwarves, Tolkien, as in many other cases, acknowledged his debt to medieval literature, but insisted on the independence of his creation. In his letters he wrote that his Dwarves have been given Scandinavian names, but at the same time, ‘These Dwarves are not quite the dwarfs of better known lore’ (Letters, 25. p. 31). He commented that he used the plural form ‘dwarves’, different from the usual modern English spelling, partly to mark this (Letters, 156, p. 207). Tolkien described his Dwarves as ‘not naturally evil’, ‘not necessarily hostile’ and ‘rational’ creatures (Letters, 156, p. 207). That Tolkien used the ‘catalogue of the dwarfs’ as his source for the names of the characters in TH is beyond dispute and he acknowledged this himself on more than one occasion (for example, Letters, 297, p. 383). Perhaps the more interesting question is, ‘why?’ Several reasons immediately spring to mind, not least of which is the fact that it was easy: he had an authentic list of nomenclature, which he could draw on and which added authenticity to his fiction. Shippey (2000, pp. 15–16) points to an even more interesting explanation which is useful to foreground now, as it is a common theme in this book. He notes that Tolkien must ‘have looked at it [the catalogue], refused to see it, as most scholars do, as a meaningless or no longer comprehensible rigmarole’ (p. 16). To Shippey TH is the story behind the catalogue, an Odyssey for the Dwarves. The idea of Tolkien providing missing information which gives a

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background to medieval literature through his mythology is something we will return to again and again. The reader will notice that one of the names in the catalogue of the dwarfs is Gandálfr which most likely means ‘staff elf’. In early drafts of TH Gandalf was the name of the chief dwarf (Shippey, 2000, p. 17). Tolkien changed this later, but the staff remained one of Gandalf’s most significant attributes.


4.1.4 Voluspá, stanzas 9–16 9. Pá gengo regin oll ginnheilog go~, hverr skyldi dverga ór Brimis bló~i

á rokstóla, ok um pat gættuz, dróttin skepja ok ór Blá[ins] leggjom.

10. Par [var] Mótsognir mæztr um or~inn dverga allra, en Durinn annarr; peir manlíkon morg um gør~o dvergar, ór j or~o, sem Durinn sag~i: 11. Nyí ok Ni~i, Austri ok Vestri, [Nár ok Náinn, Bív orr, Báv orr, Án ok Ánarr, 12. Veigr ok Gandálfr, Pekkr ok Porinn, Nár ok Ny´rápr Reginn ok Rá~svi~r

Nor~ri ok Su~ri, Alpjófr, Dvalinn, Nípingr, Dáinn,] B omburr, Nóri, Ái, Mj o~vitnir,

Vindálfr, Práinn, Prór, Vitr ok Litr, (nú hefi ek dverga), (rétt um tal~a),

13. Fíli, Kíli, Fundinn, Náli, Hepti, Víli, Hannarr, Svíorr, [Billingr, Brúni, Billdr ok Buri,] Frár, Hornbori, Frægr ok Lóni, Aurvangr, Jari, Eikinskjaldi. 14. Mál er dverga ljóna kindom peir er sótto Aurvanga sj ot 15. par var Draupnir Hár, Haugspori,

í Dvalins li~i til Lofars telja; frá salar steini til J orovalla:

ok Dólgprasir, Hlévangr, Glói,

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4.1.4 Voluspá, stanzas 9–16 9. Then all the Powers went to the seats of judgement, most sacred gods, and about this they consulted: Who should the lord of the dwarfs create out of the blood of Brimir and the bones of Bláinn. 10. Then Mótsognir the greatest appeared of all the dwarfs, and Durinn the second; they humanlike shapes many made dwarfs, out of the earth, as Durinn said: 11. Nyí and Ni~i, Nor~ri and Su~ri, Austri and Vestri, Alpjófr, Dvalinn, [Nár and Náinn, Nípingr, Dáinn,] Bív orr, Bávorr, B omburr, Nóri, Án and Ánarr, Ái, Mj o~vitnir, 12. Veigr and Gandálfr, Vindálfr, Práinn, Pekkr and Porinn, Prór, Vitr and Litr, Nár and Ny´rápr (now I have the dwarfs), Reginn and Rá~svi~r (rightly named), 13. Fíli, Kíli, Fundinn, Náli, Hepti, Víli, Hannarr, Svíorr, [Billingr, Brúni, Billdr and Buri,] Frár, Hornbori, Frægr and Lóni, Aurvangr, Jari, Eikinskjaldi. 14. It is time to tell of the dwarves in the lineage of Dvalinn, in the family of the people, back to Lofarr; they who advanced from the stone of the hall to the land of clay fields at the sandy plains: 15. they were Draupnir and Dólgprasir, Hár, Haugspori, Hlévangr, Glói,


[Dori, Ori, Scirvir, Virvir, 16. Álfr ok Yngvi, Fjalarr ok Frosti, pat mun uppi langni~ja tal

Dúfr, Andvari,] Scáfi~r, Ái,

Eikinskjaldi, Finnr ok Ginnarr; me~an old lifir, Lofars hafat.

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[Dori, Ori, Dúfr, Andvari,] Skirvir, Virvir, Skáfi~r, Ái, 16. Álfr and Yngvi, Eikinskjaldi, Fjalarr and Frosti, Finnr and Ginnarr; They will be remembered while mankind lives the long list of descendants of Lofar.


4.1.5 Notes 9 l.1. The stanza begins with a formula ‘Then all the Powers . . . consulted’ used in the poem to introduce several major events. regin, n. pl., ‘gods, powers, rulers’, related to Gothic ragin, n. ‘decision, counsel’. r okstólar, ‘the seats of judgement’ or ‘the seats of fate’; the first element is the same as in Ragnar ok, ‘the doom of the gods’. ll.3–4. According to the text of the Codex Regius the gods created only the main dwarfs, Mótsognir and Durinn, who then started to make ‘human-like’ figures of the other dwarfs. The text of Hauksbók is different: if according to the Codex Regius the gods consulted who should create the lord of the dwarfs (dverga dróttin), according to Hauksbók they discussed who should create the hosts of the dwarfs (dverga dróttir). Snorri Sturluson recalls in Gylfaginning that ‘The dwarfs had taken shape first and acquired life in the flesh of Ymir and were then maggots, but by decision of the gods they became conscious with intelligence and had the shape of men though they live in the earth and in rocks’ (Faulkes, 1992, p. 16). l.4. Brimir, possibly related to brim, ‘ocean’, whereas Bláinn may mean ‘dark, black’. It is unclear who they were, but at the beginning of Voluspá the world is said to have been created out of the body of the giant Ymir. Both words may be names for Ymir. 10 l.1. CR: var omitted; H: var Mótsognir, ‘drinker of rage, courage’ or ‘he who drinks in courage’ (ON módr, m., ‘wrath, courage’, ON súga, v., ‘to suck’). l.2. Durinn, probably related to ON dyrr, f. pl., ‘door’. l.3. manlíkon, n. pl., ‘humanlike figures’. 11 ll.1–5. Most of the names of the dwarfs are meaningful, though some are obscure or allow more than one interpretation. Some names appear elsewhere in the Edda as the names of other creatures or objects, rather than as names of the dwarfs. Nyí and Nidi are associated with the waxing (ON ny´, n.) and waning moon (ON nid, n. pl.). Nordri, Sudri, Austri and Vestri (‘North’, ‘South’, ‘East’ and ‘West’) are associated with the cardinal points of the compass. According to Snorri Sturlusson’s Edda, when the gods created the sky out of the skull of the giant Ymir, they set a dwarf with one of these names correspondingly under each of its four corners (Faulkes, 1992, p. 12). Alpjófr is ‘mighty thief’ (ON allr, a., ‘all’, pjófr, m., ‘thief’); Dvalinn is probably related to ON dvelja, v., ‘to delay, to put off’; Nár, ‘corpse’ (ON nár, m., ‘corpse’); Náinn, ‘the dead one’ (ON nár, m., ‘corpse’); Nípingr possibly related to ON níu, ‘nine’ and ON -fengr, a., ‘able’; Dáinn possibly related to ON deyja, v., ‘to die’, or ON dá, n., ‘trance’; Bív orr may be related to ON bifast, v., ‘to shake, tremble’; B omburr possibly related to ON bumba, f., ‘drum’; Ái is ‘great-grandfather’, Mj odvitnir is ‘mead-wolf’ (ON mj odr, m., ‘mead’, vitnir, m., ‘wulf’). l.2. The name Dvalinn also occurs in Alvíssmál, stanza 16, where the dwarf Alvíss (‘AllKnowing’) says that the sun is called by the dwarfs Dvalins leika (‘Dvalinn’s plaything’ or ‘playmate’). Dvalinn gave runes to the dwarfs according to Hávamál (‘Sayings of the High One’), stanza 143, and the dwarfs are called collectively Dvalins lidr ‘Dvalinn’s host’ (V oluspá, stanza 14) (Acker, 2002, p. 220). l.3. CR: omitted; H: naar ok nainn nipingr dainn.

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12 ll.1–4. Veigr may be related to ON veig, f., ‘strong drink’; Gandálfr may mean ‘staff elf’ (ON gandr, m., ‘magic staff’); Vindálfr, ‘wind elf’ (ON vindr, m., ‘wind’); Práinn possibly related to ON prá, n., ‘obstinacy’, or ON prá, f., ‘longing, yearning’; Pekkr, possibly ‘known’ (ON pekkja, v., ‘to perceive, to know’); Porinn ‘bold’ (ON pora, v., ‘to dare’); Prór may be related to ON próst, v., ‘to thrive’; Vitr, ‘wise’; Litr, ‘colour’; Nár, ‘dead body’; Ny´rápr, ‘new counsel’ (ON ny´r, a., ‘new’, rád, n., ‘council, advice’); Reginn derives from regin, n. pl., ‘gods, powers, rulers’; Rádsvidr, ‘wise in counsel’. l.2. Litr. A dwarf named Litr is mentioned in Snorri Sturluson’s Edda in the description of the funeral of Baldr, the son of O~inn, whose death is much lamented by the gods and is seen as a sign of approaching Ragnar ok. As Pórr consecrated the funeral pyre with his hammer Mi ollnir, a dwarf called Litr ran in front of his feet. Pórr kicked him with his foot into the fire and he was burned (Faulkes, 1992, p. 49). l.4. Reginn may be identical to the dwarf who fostered the hero Sigur~r, the slayer of the dragon Fáfnir, and forged his sword. 13 ll.1–5. Fundinn, ‘found, discovered’; Náli may be related to nál, ‘needle’; Hepti may be related to ON hepti, n., ‘haft, handle’; Brúni probably related to ON brúnn, a., ‘brown, black’; Frár, ‘swift’; Hornbori, ‘horn-carrier’ (ON horn, n., ‘horn’, bera, v., ‘to carry’); Frægr, ‘famous’; Lóni may be related to ON lón, n., ‘lagoon, inlet’; Aurvangr, ‘clay field’ (ON aurr, m., ‘clay, mud’, vangr, m., ‘field’); Jari may be related to ON jara, f., ‘battle’; Eikinskjaldi, ‘oaken shield’ (ON eik, f., ‘oak’, skj oldr, m., ‘shield’). l.3. CR: omitted; H: billingr bruni billdr ok buri. 14 l.1. lid, n. ‘host, folk, people’. l.2. Lofarr may be related to ON lof, n., ‘praise’. l.3. frá salar steini, ‘from the stone of the hall’. This is mentioned in stanza 4 of V oluspá where the creation of Mi~gar~r is described; here possibly it is a reference to Mi~gar~r, but could be a place name. Compounds in l. 4 may also be place names, but they are otherwise unrecorded. 15 l.1. Draupnir is the name of O~inn’s ring (related to ON drjúpa, v., ‘to drip’). According to Snorri Sturlusson, at Baldr’s funeral ‘Odin laid on the pyre a gold arm-ring called Draupnir. It afterwards had the property that every ninth night there dripped from it eight gold rings of the same weight’ (Faulkes, 1992, p. 50). ll.1–2. Dólgprasir probably related to ON dólg, n., ‘enmity’ and prasa, v., ‘to rage’; Hár, ‘grey-haired’ or ‘high’; Haugspori, ‘treader of the mound’ (ON haugr, m., ‘mound, grave’, spora, v., ‘tread on’); Hlévangr, ‘shelted field’ (ON hlé, n., ‘shelter’, vangr, m., ‘field’); Glói probably related to glóa, v., ‘to glow’ (in Hauksbók the name appears in the form used by Tolkien, Gloinn). l.3. These names appear only in the manuscripts of Snorri Sturluson’s Edda. Andvari is one of the characters of Reginsmál (‘The Lay of Regin’), a poem from the Poetic Edda which tells how the god Loki robbed the dwarf Andvari of his treasure. The curse which Andvari laid on his treasure caused the deaths of the hero Sigur~r and many others.


16 l.1. Álfr ‘elf’. l.2. Frosti, ‘frosty’ (ON frost, n., ‘frost’), in the Codex Regius the name appears in the form frostri; Finnr, ‘Finn’. Ginnarr may be related to ON ginna, v., ‘to fool, to entice’, or ON ginn-, ‘most, great’, used as the first part of compound words, such as ginnregin, n. pl., ‘great powers’. Fjalarr and Galarr are the names of the dwarfs who killed Kvasir, a man created by the gods after the end of their war with the Vanir. The dwarfs made the mead of poetry from his blood. l.4. Stanza 17 begins with the conjunction unz, ‘until’, which starts a new episode describing the creation of humans (unz prír kvómo). The same formula (unz priár kvómo) introduces the coming of the three giantesses in the stanza which precedes the passage about the creation of the dwarfs. In the stanza about giantesses, however, unz refers to the previous sentence: ‘they did not lack gold until there came giant maidens’. The absence of the main clause before unz in stanza 17 is usually interpreted as the loss of text after the catalogue of the dwarfs.

4.1.6 Further reading There are several translations and editions of the verse and prose Eddas which are worth obtaining. These include Neckel and Kuhn (1983), Dronke (1997), Larrington (1996) and Faulkes (1992). A facsimile and transcript of the Codex Regius are available in Ólason and Gunnlaugsson (2001). For a further discussion of the dwarfs’ names, see Gould (1929) and Motz (1973, 1993).

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4.2 Bilbo and Gollum’s Riddle-Game – Vafprúdnismál and Solomon and Saturn II, ll. 47–68 and 104–23 (TH, ‘Riddles in the Dark’) 4.2.1 Plot summary Bilbo has found himself alone and lost, separated from the rest of the Dwarves in the Misty Mountains. He stumbles across Gollum, a miserable creature who has lived in isolation under the mountains for many years. Bilbo persuades Gollum not to attack him and offers to play a ‘riddle-game’. Meanwhile, unknown to Gollum, Bilbo has also found a magic ring (which Gollum has lost) – the One Ring of LR. Many scholars have noted the reworking of this episode by Tolkien in between his editions of TH. Tolkien revised TH three times, first in 1937 (the year that it was published), then in 1947 when he reworked Chapter V to create a synergy between the description of the finding of the Ring under the Misty Mountains and the account in LR, and finally in 1951. All three revisions increased and elevated Gollum’s role, reflecting his later prominence in the War of the Ring. Anderson (2003a, p. 128, n. 25) summarizes the changes (with helpful reprints) as follows: As Tolkien wrote the sequel, The Lord of the Rings, he found it necessary to revise The Hobbit in order to bring it in line with the sequel. The portrayal of Gollum has been substantially altered; in the first edition [1937], he is not nearly as wretched a creature. And the stakes of the riddle contest are slightly different.1 4.2.2a Medieval text 1: Solomon and Saturn II, ll. 47–68 and 104–23 The extracts from the poem printed here under the title Solomon and Saturn II have been selectively chosen to show parallels with the episode in TH. In this Old English poem we are presented with a dialogue between two people – Solomon and Saturn – which takes the form of a riddling contest. The full poem is 336 lines long and presents a lengthy dialogue between Solomon, the wise king of the Old Testament, and Saturn, a prince of Chaldea who travels widely seeking wisdom. Four ‘versions’ of this story exist in Old English. Two are in verse form and are given the titles Solomon and Saturn I (a shorter poem which survives partly in two manuscripts – Cambridge Corpus Christi College MSS 41 and 422) and Solomon and Saturn II (which exists solely in MS 422). Together the two poems occupy ff. 1–13 of the MS 422, which date from around the end of the tenth century. To this we can add two prose versions (one of which separates the two poems in MS 422, and the other exists only in the twelfth1

See also Anderson (2003, pp. 384–6) and Christensen (1975, pp. 9–28).


century portion of the Beowulf manuscript, British Library, Cotton Vitellius A.xv). As to the dates of the texts and poems, these are open to interpretation. As Menner (1941, pp. 12–13) comments: ‘The poems of Solomon and Saturn have been assigned to a period as early as the beginning of the eighth century . . . and to one as late as the end of the tenth century.’ Menner argued for the later date. On the face of it all four texts present a similar scenario – a discussion between Saturn and Solomon, with the former asking the latter a series of questions in order to achieve wisdom. Yet, as Shippey (1976, pp. 21–2) and O’Brien O’Keeffe (1999, pp. 424–5) note, the format, themes and sophistication of the four texts vary considerably. For example, the prose version surviving in the Beowulf codex is more like a pub quiz (‘How tall was Adam?’, ‘Who planted the first vineyard?’) than a philosophical debate, and the remaining prose version and Solomon and Saturn I centres on a symbolic dissection of the Pater Noster, which Shippey notes has an ‘extraordinary and meaningless exactness’ (p. 22). Solomon and Saturn II is generally regarded as a superior poem (Menner, 1941, p. 49) and it is from this that the extracts are selected. 4.2.2b Medieval text 2: Vafprúdnismál Vafprúdnismál is one of the mythological poems of the Poetic Edda (see 4.1). Its full text is preserved in Reykjavík, Stofnun Árna Magnússonar MS GkS 2365 4to, known as the Codex Regius, a manuscript written in Iceland in the second half of the thirteenth century. An incomplete text, beginning with stanza 20, survives in another manuscript, Copenhagen, Arnamagnæan Institute MS 748 4to, dating from the end of the thirteenth century. Several stanzas are also quoted in Gylfaginning, the mythological part of Snorri Sturlusson’s Edda (see 4.1). Vafprúdnismál is the third item in the Codex Regius. In this poem Ó~inn travels in disguise and engages in a wisdom contest with the giant Vafprú~nir. The stake in the competition is the loser’s head. The reason for Ó~inn’s journey is not explained, and it is likely that he already knows the answers to all the questions he asks Vafprú~nir. He is represented as a seeker of wisdom in several Eddic poems, including V oluspá, where he questions a seeress about world history (see 4.1). In Vafprúdnismál Ó~inn’s informant is a giant, and in V oluspá a seeress raised by the giants. The giants were believed to be more ancient than the gods and had a reputation for wisdom which may explain Ó~inn’s curiosity. Though the setting of the wisdom contest is consistent with what is known about the giants and Ó~inn from other sources, its role may be of secondary importance as a conventional framework for a compendium of mythological lore. Ó~inn conceals his identity under the name Gagnrápr (‘victory-counsellor’) which is also a common motif. Furthermore, Ó~inn travels in disguise and

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engages in a riddle contest with a king in Heidreks saga (edited by Christopher Tolkien in 1969), whereas in another Eddic poem, Grímnismál, he travels under the name Grímnir – ‘the masked one’. Ó~inn’s questions to Vafprú~nir concern different stages of the world history: the creation of the world, Ragnarok (‘the doom of the gods’) and the events after the end of the world. Ó~inn’s initial twelve questions are about the creation of the world and the remaining six questions are about the eschatological myth (the destruction of the world). Ó~inn ends the contest by asking a question the answer to which is known only to himself and his son Baldr. Such a question seems to violate the rules of the contest in more than one way, for it is not concerned with the creation of the world or its history, and is unfair to Vafprú~nir (see Machan, 1988). Ó~inn uses the same question to terminate the contest of wisdom in Heidreks saga. Deceit and cunning are very characteristic of Ó~inn’s character as portrayed in Eddic poems, though courage is characteristic as well, as reflected in his readiness to suffer danger and pain and make sacrifices in his search for knowledge. The Eddic poem Hávamál (‘Sayings of the High One’) describes how Ó~inn pierced himself with a spear and hung for nine nights on the tree Yggdrasill in order to gain access to secret knowledge. According to a myth referred to in Gylfaginning and V oluspá he sacrificed his eye so that he might sip from Mímir’s well of wisdom. Though Vafprúdnismál ends with Ó~inn’s victory, what he learns is confirmation of his inevitable destruction in the attack by giants at Ragnar ok. His contest with Vafprú~nir is symbolic of the struggle between the gods and the giants, played out as the history of the world unfolds. The gods descended from the giants, but the giants are the enemies of the civilized world created by the gods. They are powerful, knowledgeable in ancient wisdom and magic, and inhabit the north and the outer edges of the world. The tone of the poem describing the meeting of the two worthy opponents is serious and grave, and Vafprú~nir’s acceptance of his defeat at the end is dignified. We know virtually nothing about the milieu in which Vafprúdnismál and other Eddic poems originated and were circulated. At least some of the mythological poems are believed to have existed before the Christianization of Iceland at the end of the tenth century. Most scholars emphasize the artistry and professionalism of their authors, which does not exclude their oral origin and oral transmission before their recording in the age of established Christianity. Vafprúdnismál belongs to the tradition of gnomic or wisdom poetry, for much of its content is various mythological knowledge (see also 4.9). It is in the form of a dialogue, like Solomon and Saturn II, and has many parallels in Scandinavian literature and folklore. For example, in the Eddic poem Alvíssmál the god Pórr engages the dwarf Alvíss (‘All-Knowing’) in a similar contest of wisdom and delays him with his questions until dawn, when Alvíss is presumably


doomed to turn into stone. The poem’s form may reflect the teaching of pupils by a priest and conventions of a ritual dialogue, where the numbering of questions and answers and their symmetrical arrangement were mnemonic devices. Another tradition on which Vafprúdnismál appears to draw is poetry where participants engage in contests of verbal dexterity, and exchanges of boasts or insults (sometimes termed ‘flyting’) (see Machan, 1988). In Old Norse this genre was known as senna, a formal exchange of insults and threats. In the Eddic poem Lokasenna (‘Loki’s Quarrel’) the god Loki engages in such contest with other gods. The text presented here closely follows the Codex Regius (CR) version of Vafprúdnismál. Readings supplied from other manuscripts, including Copenhagen, Arnamagnæan Institute MS 748 I 4to (A), appear in square brackets and are commented upon in the notes. The poem is in what is known as ljódaháttr (‘chant metre’) used in Eddic poems, which are in the form of a dialogue. In this metre a long line of four stresses is followed by a shorter line of three or two stresses. The long line is similar to foryrdislag (see 4.1). The short line does not have a metrical pause in the middle, and its stressed syllables alliterate with each other. A typical stanza of ljódaháttr consists of two sets of one long and one short lines, though some stanzas may have one or three sets. In modern editions the metrical pause in the long line is usually indicated by a break and stanzas are separated by a space, though in medieval manuscripts the poems are written as prose. Vafprúdnismál has a number passages which are difficult to understand and translate because they refer to myths which are not known from any other sources. Such passages are discussed in the notes. 4.2.3 Discussion Both medieval texts have similarities with the episode under the Misty Mountains in TH. Most obviously both are dialogues between two protagonists. Let us begin by looking at Solomon and Saturn II before moving on to the Old Norse text. In the Old English poem the motivation for Saturn to engage in the debate is to round off his knowledge by questioning the wise king. The dialogue between Solomon and Saturn is fictitious and develops the traditional story of Solomon being questioned about his wisdom by both human beings and demons (Menner, 1941, lists references to this). There is no direct source for the Old English poem (or for Solomon and Saturn I and the two prose versions), and they differ from any other workings of the story in that the protagonist is named Saturn (in other texts, both earlier and contemporary, he is named Marcolf or Mercury). The Old English poem explores a range of ideas, some obscure (such as an ambiguous discussion of monsters) and some more philosophical (such as the nature of ‘good’ and ‘evil’). In the extracts presented below, we witness a discussion concerning the glory of God and the inevitable march of time and old

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age. Saturn in general (but not always) is asking the questions, and Solomon often turns the table by replying with questions of his own. The dialogue often takes the form of a contest ‘in which the participants attempt to gain mastery in an exchange of riddles’ (O’Brien O’Keeffe, 1999, p. 425). This is not the life-or-death contest which Bilbo faces with Gollum, and Ó~inn with Vafprú~nir. In this instance the stake, if anything, is wisdom, or more importantly the ability to appear wise to one’s contemporaries. Although Solomon, at the beginning of the poem (not presented here), suggests that not all of his answers may be correct, it is clear that there is a competitive edge to the discussion. In the first extract there is the general observation of the foolishness of attempting to cross water without assistance, and how pointless it is to test God. We then get something akin to a traditional riddle in which Saturn presents the puzzle and Solomon replies with the correct answer – ‘books’. This allows the two to discuss in more general terms the nature of literature and reading. In the second extract, once again Saturn presents the riddle and Solomon gives the correct reply – ‘old age’ – and then explores the power and inevitability of time and decay. The poem thus combines two great traditions of classical and medieval literature: the ‘dialogue’ and the ‘riddle’. To anyone with even a passing interest in Old English this will recall not only Ælfric of Eynsham’s teaching text, the Colloquy, but more importantly the large collection of puzzles contained in ‘The Exeter Book’, commonly known as the ‘Old English riddles’. These number about 90, and are mainly short poems, unconnected, outlining a series of puzzles where various items are described in an intentionally ambiguous and riddle-like manner. In several cases these puzzles are drawn from earlier Latin enigmata (‘mysteries’) which were popular in the classical and early medieval tradition; in other instances they seem to be without source. They are varied, ranging from the learned to the crude; but each retains a certain charm and gives us further insight into the lives and entertainment of the Anglo-Saxons. Tolkien himself was clearly interested in the riddles of the Anglo-Saxons (see his discussions of them in Tolkien A29(a)/3, ff. 151–96). In the notes for his lecture on ‘Anglo-Saxon Verse’ he states: The making of riddles in verse was one of the most favoured forms of shorter composition, both learned and popular, in Latin and in the vernacular. Some are now to us dark or insoluble. But the object of these riddles was often less to pose a conundrum than to give and take pleasure in allusive description. (Tolkien A30/1, f. 10) Tolkien was convinced that the riddles of ‘The Exeter Book’ were drawn from various sources, rather than being the work of a single author (Tolkien A29(a)/1, f. 151), and that they were the ancestors of such modern-day riddles and


puzzles as the ‘detective yarn’ (Tolkien A29(a)/1, f. 153). The attraction of these short poems was that they were allied to: the spirit of poetry which sees things, whether familiar or strange, in the light of resemblance to other things, and in the comparison illuminates both the thing and the thing observed – a cloud as a bird, smoke, a sail, cattle on a blue pasture. (Tolkien A29(a)/1, f. 152) Turning to the riddles in TH, the sources for the riddling game are discussed by Shippey (2003, pp. 133, 146 and 345; and 2000, pp. 23–5), who notes that Tolkien more or less states in his Letters (25, p. 32) that all the riddles have prototypes.2 Usefully, Anderson identifies these prototypes, and reprints them wherever possible (2003a, pp. 121–7). Shippey argues that ‘Gollum’s riddles, unlike Bilbo’s, tend to be ancient ones’ (2000, p. 24), and points to the close analogy between Gollum’s ‘time’ riddle and the one for ‘Old Age’ presented in Solomon and Saturn II below. He further suggests (less convincingly) that the source for Gollum’s ‘darkness’ riddle lies in Solomon and Saturn II, ll. 327–34 (not presented here), which is a discussion of a ‘shadow’. He is on safer ground, though, in identifying the sources for Gollum’s ‘fish’ riddle as the Old Norse Heidreks saga and the verse chronicle Brut by an early Middle English writer Laamon, in which ‘dead warriors lying in a river in their mail are seen as strange fish’ (Shippey, 2000, p. 25; Anderson, 2003a, pp. 125–6). Gollum later expands this metaphor in LR, whilst crossing the Dead Marshes with Sam and Frodo, where in the water they see the bodies of fallen warriors. Vafprúdnismál also demonstrates the idea of the riddling contest, but in particular it highlights its ritual and religious associations. The ‘riddle-game’ is described by Tolkien as ‘sacred’, ‘of immense antiquity’, respected even by ‘wicked creatures’ who were ‘afraid to cheat when they played at it’ (TH, p. 76). In Vafprúdnismál the fact that the participants’ lives are at stake emphasizes the seriousness of the contest. The mythological content of the questions and answers, the nature of the participants and the fact that the contest is symbolic of the world history which ends in a battle between the giants and the gods places it within the religious context. The underlying serious attitude to the contest of riddles can be seen in Solomon and Saturn II as well; if in Vafprúdnismál the participants are divine, in Solomon and Saturn II they are royal, and in both the content of the debate is wisdom and theological learning. There is a further similarity between Vafprúdnismál and TH in how the contest ends. In TH Bilbo and Gollum exchange riddles and successfully solve them, 2

Tolkien also wrote, however, that the riddles exchanged between Bilbo and Gollum are all his own work, except for ‘Thirty White Horses’ which is traditional, and ‘No-legs’ (Letters, 110, p. 123).

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until Bilbo asks ‘What have I got in my pocket?’, referring to the Ring. Gollum cannot answer and considers the question unfair. Bilbo knows that his question is not ‘a genuine riddle according to the ancient laws’, but goes ahead with it in order to defeat Gollum (TH, pp. 66–85). In Vafprúdnismál Ó~inn also ends the competition by asking a question the answer to which the giant cannot know.


4.2.4a Solomon and Saturn II, ll. 47–68 and 104–23 Salomon cwa~:

‘Dol bi~ se¯ ~e gæ ¯~ on de¯op wæter, se¯ ~e sund nafa~, ne gesegled scip, ne fugles flyht, ne he¯ mid fo ¯tum ne mæg ¯can. Hu ¯ru se¯ Godes cunna~ (50) grund geræ full dyslı¯ce, Dryhtnes meahta.’

Sa¯turnus cuæ~:

‘Ac hwæt is se¯ dumba, se¯ ~e on sumre dene reste~? Swı¯~e snyttra~, hafa~ seofon tungan, hafa~ tungena gehwylc XX orda, hafa~ orda gehwylc engles snytro, (55) ~a¯ra ~e wile a¯nra hwylc uppe bringan, ¯re gyldnan gesiehst Hie¯rusa¯lem, ~æt ~u ¯ ~æ weallas blı¯can, and hiera winro ¯ d lı¯xan, ¯ne.’ so¯~fæstra segn. Saga hwæt ic mæ

Salomon cuæ~:

‘Be¯c sindon bre¯me, bodia~ geneahhe (60) weotodne willan ~a¯m ~e wiht hyge~. Gestranga~ hı¯e and gesta~elia~ sta~olfæstne ge~o¯ht, a¯myrga~ mo ¯ dsefan manna gehwylces of ~re¯amedlan ~isses lı¯fes.’

Sa¯turnus cwæ~: ‘Bald bi~ se¯ ~e onbyrege~ bo ¯ ca cræftes, (65) symle bi~ ~e¯ wisra ~e¯ hira geweald hafa~.’ Salomon cuæ~: ‘Sige hie¯ onsenda~ so ¯ ~fæstra gehwa¯m, ¯lo hy¯~e, ~a¯m ~e hı¯e lufa~.’ hæ ... Sa¯turnus cwæ~: ‘Ac hwæt is ~æt wundor ~e¯ geond ~a¯s worold fære~, ¯~, sta~olas be¯ate~, (105) styrnenga gæ a¯wece~ wo¯pdropan, winne~ oft hider? Ne mæg hit steorra, ne stan, ne se¯ ste¯apa gimm, wæter, ne wilde¯or, wihte beswı¯can; ac him on hand gæ~ heardes and hnesces, ¯tes. Him to ¯ mo ¯ se sceall (110) micles and mæ gegangan ge¯ara gehwelce, grundbu ¯endra, lyftfle¯ogendra, laguswemmendra, ~ria ~re¯ote¯no ~u ¯sendgerı¯mes.’

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4.2.4a Solomon and Saturn II, ll. 47–68 and 104–23 Solomon said: ‘Foolish is he who goes in the deep water, he who cannot swim, nor [has] a ship with sails, nor the bird’s flight, nor he with [his] feet might reach the ground. Indeed he is testing God (50) very foolishly, [and] the Lord’s might.’ Saturn said: ‘But what is that dumb one, he who rests in a certain valley? It is very wise, it has seven tongues, each of the tongues has twenty points, each of the points has an angel’s wisdom, (55) each one of those will bring you up, so that you might see the golden Jerusalem, the walls shine, and the Cross of joy gleam, the sign of the righteous. Say what I mean.’ Solomon said: ‘Books are glorious, they proclaim frequently (60) the ordained will to those who at all consider [it]. They strengthen and establish the steadfast thought, they cheer the spirit of each one of men from the mental oppression of this life.’ Saturn said: ‘Bold is he who tastes the books’ craft, (65) always is he the wiser who has their control.’ Solomon said: ‘Victory they send to each of the righteous, [and] Salvation’s benefit, to those who love them.’ ... Saturn said: ‘But what is that wonder which throughout this world travels, inexorably goes, beats foundations, (105) incites tears, [and] rages often hither? Nor may it the star, nor the stone, nor the prominent gem, water, nor the wild animal, in any way escape; but into its hand goes hard and soft, great and small. To nourish it must (110) go each year, of the ground-dwellers, of the air-flyers, of the water-swimmers, thrice thirteen thousand.’


Salomon cuæ~: ‘Yldo be¯o~ on eor~an æ ¯ghwæs cræftig; ¯sne, (115) mid hı¯~endre hildewræ ¯ce~ wı¯de, ru ¯mre racente¯age, ræ langre lı¯nan, lisse~ eall ~æt he¯o wile. Be¯am he¯o a¯bre¯ote~ and bebrice~ telgum, a¯styre~ standendne stefn on sı¯~e a¯fille~ hine on foldan; frite~ æfter ~a¯m (120) wildne fugol. He¯o oferwı¯ge~ wulf, hı¯o oferbı¯de~ sta¯nas, he¯o oferstı¯ge~ sty¯le, hı¯o a¯bı¯te~ ¯ı ren mid o ¯ me, de¯~ u ¯sic, swa¯.’

4.2.4b Vafprúdnismál 1 ‘Rá~ pú mér nú, Frigg, allz mik fara tí~ir at vitja Vafprú~nis; forvitni mikla kve~ ek mér á fornom st ofom vi~ pann inn alsvinna j otun.’ 2 ‘Heima letja ek mynda Herjaf o~r í g or~om go~a, pvíat engi j otun ek hug~a jafnramman sem Vafprú~ni vera.’ 3 ‘Fj ol~ ek fór, fj ol~ ek freista~a, fj ol~ ek reynda regin; hitt vil ek vita hvé Vafprú~nis salakynni sé.’ 4 ‘Heill pú farir, heill pú aptr komir, heill pú á sinnom sér! œ~i pér dugi, hvars pú skalt, Aldaf o~r, or~om mæla j otun.’ 5 Fór pá Ó~inn at freista or~speki pess ins alsvinna j otuns; at h ollo hann kom, [er] átti Íms fa~ir; inn gekk Yggr pegar.

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Solomon said: ‘Old age is on earth in every way crafty; with a fetter for captives, (115) a broad chain, she reaches widely, [and with] a long line, she subdues all that she wants to. Trees she smashes and breaks the branches, she uproots the standing tree-trunk in [her] journey [and] fells it to the ground; she devours after that (120) the wild bird. She outfights the wolf, she outlives the stones, she overcomes steel, she bites iron with rust, she does to us all, the same.’

4.2.4b Vaf prúdnismál 1 ‘Advise me now, Frigg, I intend to travel to visit Vafprú~nir; I have great curiosity to compete in ancient matters against the all-knowing giant.’ 2 ‘I would rather at home the Father of Armies remained, in the courtyards of the gods, for I have always thought no giant was as powerful as Vafprú~nir.’ 3 ‘Much I have travelled, much I have attempted, much I have tested the Powers; I wish to know what might be the household arrangement of Vafprú~nir.’ 4 ‘Safely travel, safely come back, be safe on the way! May your mind be strong, when you must, Father of Men, contend with the giant.’ 5 Then Ó~inn travelled to test the wisdom of the all-knowing giant; to the hall he came which Ím’s father owned; Yggr went inside at once.


6 ‘Heill pú nú, Vafprú~nir, nú em ek í h oll kominn á pik sjálfan sjá; hitt vil ek fyrst vita, ef pú fró~r sér e~a alsvi~r, j otunn.’ 7 ‘Hvat er pat manna er í mínom sal verpomk or~i á? Út pú ne komir órom h ollom frá, nema pú inn snotrari sér.’ 8 ‘Gagnrá~r ek heiti; nú emk af g ongo kominn pyrstr til pinna sala, la~ar purfi – hefi ek lengi farit – ok pinna andfanga, j otunn.’ 9 ‘Hví pú pá, Gagnrá~r, mæliz af gólfi fyrir? Far~u í sess í sal! pá skal freista hvárr fleira viti, gestr e~a inn gamli pulr.’ 10 ‘Óau~igr ma~r, er til au~igs kømr, mæli parft e~a pegi; ofrmælgi mikil, hygg ek, at illa geti hveim er vi~ kaldrifja~an kømr.’ 11 allz pú á gólfi vill ‘Seg~u mér, Gagnrá~r, píns um freista frama, hvé sá hestr heitir, er hverjan dregr dag o[f] dróttm ogo?’ 12 ‘Skinfaxi heitir, er inn skíra dregr dag um dróttm ogo; hesta beztr pykkir hann me~ Rei~gotom, ey ly´sir m on af mari.’

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6 ‘Hail, Vafprú~nir, now I have come into the hall to see you myself; this I want to know first, whether you are wise and all-knowing, giant.’ 7 ‘What kind of man is this with whom in my hall I exchange words? You will not walk out of our halls, unless you be the wiser one.’ 8 ‘Gagnrá~r is my name; now I have come on foot thirsty to your hall, in need of your invitation – I have travelled long – and your hospitality, giant.’ 9 ‘Why do you then, Gagnrá~r, speak thus from the floor? Go to a seat in the hall! Then we shall test who knows more, the guest or the old priest.’ 10 ‘The poor man who comes to a wealthy one, should speak usefully or be silent; too much talking, I think, brings ill results to him who comes to the cold-ribbed giant.’ 11 ‘Tell me, Gagnrá~r, since from the floor you want to try your luck, what is the horse called who drags each day to mankind?’ 12 ‘Skinfaxi the shining one is called who drags the day to mankind; the best of horses he is held to be among the Hreid-Goths, always luminous is the mane of this steed.’


13 ‘Seg~u pat, Gagnrá~r, allz pú á gólfi vill píns um freista frama, hvé sá jór heitir, er austan dregr nótt o[f] ny´t regin?’ 14 ‘Hrímfaxi heitir, er hverja dregr nótt o[f] ny´t regin; méldropa fellir hann morgin hvern; pa~an kømr d ogg um dala.’ 15 ‘Seg~u pat, Gagnrá~r, allz pú á gólfi vill píns um freista frama, hvé sú á heitir, er deilir me~ j otna sonom grund ok me~ go~om?’ 16 ‘Ífing heitir á, er deilir me~ j otna sonom grund ok me~ go~om; opin renna hon skal um aldrdaga; ver~rat íss á á.’ 17 ‘Seg~u pat, Gagnrá~r allz pú á gólfi vill píns um freista frama, hvé sá v ollr heitir, er finnaz vígi at Surtr ok in sváso go~?’ 18 Ó~inn kva~: ‘Vígrí~r heitir v ollr, er finnaz vígi at Surtr ok in sváso go~; hundra~ rasta hann er á hverjan veg, sá er peim v ollr vita~r.’ 19 Vafprú~nir kva~: ‘Fró~r ertu nú, gestr, far pú á bekk j otuns, ok mælomk í sessi saman, h of~i ve~ja vit skolom h ollo í, gestr, um ge~speki.’

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13 ‘Tell me this, Gagnrá~r, since you want from the floor to try your luck, what the stallion is called who drags the night from the east to the skilful gods?’ 14 ‘Hrímfaxi is called he who drags each night to the skilful gods; foam from his bit he drops every morning; from this comes dew throughout the dales.’ 15 ‘Tell me this, Gagnrá~r, since you want from the floor to try your luck, what the river is called which divides the earth between the sons of giants and the gods?’ 16 ‘Ífing the river is called which divides the earth between the sons of giants and the gods; freely it will run throughout the ages; ice will never form on the river.’ 17 ‘Tell me this, Gagnrá~r, since you want from the floor to try your luck, what the field is called where in battle will meet Surtr and the beloved gods?’ 18 Ó~inn said: ‘Vígrí~r the field is called where in battle will meet Surtr and the beloved gods; A hundred stops it is in each direction, this is the field appointed to them.’ 19 Vafprú~nir said: ‘Wise you are, guest, come to the giant’s bench, and we will speak sitting together, we shall wager our heads in the hall, guest, on our wisdom.’


20 Ó~inn kva~: ‘Seg~u pat it eina, ef pitt œ~i dugir ok pú, Vafprú~nir, vitir, hva~an j or~ um kom e~a upphiminn fyrst, inn fró~i j otunn?’ 21 Vafprú~nir kva~: ‘Ór Ymis holdi var j or~ um sk opu~, en ór beinom bj org, himinn ór hausi ins hrímkalda j otuns, en ór sveita siór.’ 22 Ó~inn kva~: ‘Seg~u pat annat, ef pitt œ~i dugir ok pú, Vafprú~nir, vitir, hva~an máni um kom, svá at ferr menn yfir, e~a sól it sama?’ 23 Vafprú~nir kva~: ‘Mundilfœri heitir, hann er Mána fa~ir, ok svá Sólar it sama; pau skolo hverjan dag himin hverfa oldom at ártali.’ 24 Ó~inn kva~: ‘Seg~u pat it pri~ja, allz pik svinnan kve~a ok pú, Vafprú~nir, vitir, hva~an dagr um kom, sá er ferr drótt yfir, e~a nótt me~ ni~om?’ 25 Vafprú~nir kva~: ‘Dellingr heitir, hann er Dags fa~ir, enn Nótt var N orvi borin; ny´ ok ni~ skópo ny´t regin oldom at ártali.’

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20 Ó~inn said: ‘Tell me first, if your mind is strong, and you, Vafprú~nir, know, where the earth came from, and the sky above, first, o wise giant?’ 21 Vafprú~nir said: ‘Out of Ymir’s flesh the earth was shaped, and the mountains out of his bones, the sky out of the skull of the frost-cold giant, and out of his blood – the sea.’ 22 Ó~inn said: ‘Tell me next, if your mind is strong, and you, Vafprú~nir, know, where the moon came from, so that it travels above men, and also the sun?’ 23 Vafprú~nir said: ‘Mundilfœri is called the father of the Moon, and also of the Sun; they must travel through the sky every day, as year-counter for men.’ 24 Ó~inn said: ‘Give me the third answer, since you are said to be wise, and you, Vafprú~nir, know, where day came from, so that it passes over men, and night with new moons?’ 25 Vafprú~nir said: ‘Dellingr is called the father of Day, and Night was born of Norr; new moon and waning moon the skilful gods made as year-counter for men.’


26 Ó~inn kva~: ‘Seg~u pat it fjór~a, allz pik fró~an kve~a ok pú, Vafprú~nir, vitir, hva~an vetr um kom e~a varmt sumar fyrst me~ fró~ regin?’ 27 Vafprú~nir kva~: ‘Vindsvalr heitir, hann er Vetrar fa~ir, Svásu~r sumars.’ 28 Ó~inn kva~: ‘Seg~u pat it fimta, allz pik fró~an kve~a ok pú, Vafprú~nir, vitir, hverr ása elztr e~a Ymis ni~ja yr~i í árdaga?’ 29 Vafprú~nir kva~: ‘Ørófi vetra á~r væri j or~ sk opu~, pá var Bergelmir borinn, Prú~gelmir var pess fa~ir, en Aurgelmir afi.’ 30 Ó~inn kva~: ‘Seg~u pat it sétta, allz pik svinnan kve~a, ok pú, Vafprú~nir, vitir, hva~an Aurgelmir kom me~ j otna sonom fyrst, inn fró~i j otunn’. 31 Vafprú~nir kva~: ‘Ór Élivágom stukko eitrdropar, svá óx, unz var~ ór j otunn; [par eru órar ættir kómnar allar saman, pví er pat æ allt til atalt.]’

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26 Ó~inn said: ‘Give me the fourth answer, since you are said to be wise, and you, Vafprú~nir, know, where winter came from and the warm summer first among the wise gods?’ 27 Vafprú~nir said: ‘Vindsvalr is called the father of Winter, and Svásu~r the father of Summer.’ 28 Ó~inn said: ‘Give me the fifth answer, since you are said to be wise, and you, Vafprú~nir, know, Who was the eldest of the Æsir or Ymir’s kinsmen in the earliest of days?’ 29 Vafprú~nir said: ‘Untold winters before the earth was shaped, was Bergelmir born, Prú~gelmir was his father and Aurgelmir his grandfather.’ 30 Ó~inn said: ‘Give me the sixth answer, since you are said to be wise, and you, Vafprú~nir, know, where Aurgelmir came from among the sons of giants first, o wise giant?’ 31 Vafprú~nir said: ‘Out of Élivágar spat drops of poison, so it grew, until out of it a giant was formed; from this all our lineage derives, this is why we are forever cruel.’


32 Ó~inn kva~: ‘Seg~u pat it sjaunda, allz pik svinnan kve~a ok pú, Vafprú~nir, vitir, hvé sá b orn gat, inn [b]aldni j otunn, er hann haf~it gy´gjar gaman.’ 33 Vafprú~nir kva~: ‘Undir hendi vaxa kvá~o hrímpursi mey ok m og saman; fótr vi~ fœti gat ins fró~a j otuns se[x]h of~a~an son.’ 34 Ó~inn kva~: ‘Seg~u pat it átta, allz pik frópan kve~a ok pú, Vafprú~nir, vitir, hvat pú fyrst mant e~a fremst um veitzt, pú ert alsvi~r, jotunn.’ 35 Vafprú~nir kva~: ‘Ørófi vetra á~r væri jor~ um skopu~, pá var Bergelmir borinn; pat ek fyrst um man, er sá inn fró~i jotunn var á lú~r of lagi~r.’ 36 Ó~inn kva~: ‘Seg~u pat it níunda, allz pik svinnan kve~a [ok] pú, Vafprú~nir, vitir, hva~an vindr um kømr, svá at ferr vág yfir, æ menn hann sjálfan um sjá?’ 37 Vafprú~nir kva~: ‘Hræsvelgr heitir, er sitr á himins enda, jotunn í arnar ham; af han[s] vængjom kvæ~a vind koma alla menn yfir.’

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32 Ó~inn said: ‘Give me the seventh answer, since you are said to be wise, and you, Vafprú~nir, know, how this unruly giant begot children, when he had not the pleasure of a giantess?’ 33 Vafprú~nir said: ‘It is said that under the arm of the frost-giant grew a daughter and a son together; foot with foot begot to the wise giant a six-headed son.’ 34 Ó~inn said: ‘Give me the eighth answer, since you are said to be wise, and you, Vafprú~nir, know, what do you first remember or earliest know, you are all-wise, giant.’ 35 Vafprú~nir said: ‘Untold winters before the earth was shaped, was Bergelmir born; what I first remember is when the wise giant was laid in his coffin.’ 36 Ó~inn said: ‘Give me the ninth answer, since you are said to be wise, and you, Vafprú~nir, know, where the wind comes from which travels over the waves, for men never see the wind itself?’ 37 Vafprú~nir said: ‘Hræsvelgr he is called who sits at the end of the sky, a giant in the shape of an eagle; the wind is said to come from his wings over all men.’


38 Ó~inn kva~: ‘Seg~u pat it tíunda, allz pú tíva rok oll, Vafprú~nir, vitir, hva~an Njor~r um kom me~ ása sonom – hofom ok horgom hann ræ~r hunnmorgom, ok var~at hann ásom alinn.’ 39 Vafprú~nir kva~: ‘Í Vanaheimi skópo hann vís regin ok seldo at gíslingo go~um; í aldar rok hann mun aptr koma heim me~ vísom vonom.’ 40 Ó~inn kva~: ‘Seg~u pat et ellipta hvar y´tar túnom í hoggvaz hverjan dag?’ 41 Vafprú~nir kva~: [‘Allir einherjar Ó~ins túnum í hoggvaz hverjan dag;] val peir kjósa ok rí~a vígi frá, sitja meirr um sáttir saman.’ 42 Ó~inn kva~: ‘Seg~u pat it tólfta, hví pú tíva rok oll, Vafprú~nir, vitir; frá jotna rúnom ok allra go~a segir pú it sannasta, inn alsvinni jotunn.’ 43 Vafprú~nir kva~: ‘Frá jotna rúnom ok allra go~a ek kann segja satt, pvíat hvern hefi ek heim um komit; nío kom ek heima fyr Niflhel ne~an; hinig deyja ór heljo halir.’

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38 Ó~inn said: ‘Give me the tenth answer, since you the fate of the gods all, Vafprú~nir, know, Where Njor~r came from to the sons of the Æsir – he rules over hundreds of temples and shrines, but he was not raised among the Æsir.’ 39 Vafprú~nir said: ‘In Vanaheimr the wise Powers made him and gave him as hostage to the gods; at the end of time he will come back home to the wise Vanir.’ 40 Ó~inn said: ‘Give me the eleventh answer, where do warriors fight in the courts every day?’ 41 Vafprú~nir said: ‘All the Einherjar in Ó~inn’s courts fight every day; the dead they choose and ride from the battle to sit afterwards peacefully together.’ 42 Ó~inn said: ‘Give me the twelfth answer, why the fate of the gods you all, Vafprú~nir, know; about the secrets of the giants and of all the gods you tell most truthfully, all-knowing giant.’ 43 Vafprú~nir said: ‘About the secrets of the giants and of all the gods I can tell truthfully, for I have travelled through every world; I passed through nine worlds beneath Niflhel, there men die out of hell.’


44 Ó~inn kva~: ‘Fjol~ ek fór, fjol~ ek freista~ak, fjol~ ek reynda regin: Hvat lifir manna, pá er inn mæra lí~r fimbulvetr me~ firom?’ 45 Vafprú~nir kva~: ‘Líf ok Lífprasir, en pau leynaz muno í holti Hoddmimis; morgindoggvar pau sér at mat hafa; pa~an af aldir alaz.’ 46 Ó~inn kva~: ‘Fjol~ ek fór, fjol~ ek freista~ak, fjol~ ek reynda regin; hva~an kømr sól á inn slétta himin, pá er pessa hefir Fenrir farit?’ 47 Vafprú~nir kva~: ‘Eina dóttur berr Álfro~ull á~r hana Fenrir fari; pá er regin deyja, sú skal rí~a, mó~ur brautir, mær.’ 48 Ó~inn kva~: ‘Fjol~ ek fór, fjol~ ek freista~ak, fjol~ ek reynda regin; hverjar ro pær meyjar, er lí~a mar yfir, fró~ge~ja~ar fara?’ 49 Vafprú~nir kva~: ‘Priár pjó~ár falla porp yfir meyja Mogprasis; hamingjor einar peira í heimi ero, pó pær me~ jotnom alaz.’

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44 Ó~inn said: ‘Much I have travelled, much I have attempted, much I have tested the Powers; which among men will live when will pass famous Monstrous Winter among people?’ 45 Vafprú~nir said: ‘Líf and Lífprasir will hide in the wood of Hoddmimir; morning dew they will have for food; from them the generations will be born.’ 46 Ó~inn said: ‘Much I have travelled, much I have attempted, much I have tested the Powers; from where will a sun appear on the smooth sky after Fenrir catches this one?’ 47 Vafprú~nir said: ‘Álfro~ull will bear a daughter before Fenrir catches her; the maiden shall ride, when the gods die, the roads of her mother.’ 48 Ó~inn said: ‘Much I have travelled, much I have attempted, much I have tested the Powers; who are the maidens, who glide over the sea, travel wise in spirit?’ 49 Vafprú~nir said: ‘Three great rivers flow above the dwellings of the daughters of Mogprasir; only good fortune they bring in the world, although they were raised among giants.’


50 Ó~inn kva~: ‘Fjol~ ek fór, fjol~ ek freista~ak, fjol~ ek reynda regin; Hverir rá~a æsir eignom go~a, pá er sloknar Surtalogi?’ 51 Vafprú~nir kva~: ‘Ví~arr ok Váli byggja vé go~a, pá er sloknar Surtalogi; Mó~i ok Magni skolo Mjollni hafa [Vingnis] at vígproti.’ 52 Ó~inn kva~: ‘Fjol~ ek fór fjol~ ek freista~ak, fjol~ ek reynda regin; Hvat ver~r Ó~ni at aldrlagi, pá er rjúfaz regin?’ 53 Vafprú~nir kva~: ‘Úlfr gleypa mun Aldafo~r, pess mun Ví~arr reka; kalda kjapta hann klyfja mun vi[t]nis vígi at.’ 54 Ó~inn kva~: ‘Fjol~ ek fór fjol~ ek freista~ak, fjol~ ek reynda regin; Hvat mælti Ó~inn, á~r á bál stigi, siálfr í eyra syni?’ 55 Vafprú~nir kva~: ‘Ey manne pat veit, hvat pú í árdaga sag~ir í eyra syni; feigom munni mælta ek mína forna stafi ok um ragnarok; Nú ek vi~ Ó~in deildak mína or~speki; pú ert æ vísastr vera.’

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50 Ó~inn said: ‘Much I have travelled, much I have attempted, much I have tested the Powers; which Æsir will rule over the possessions of the gods, when Surtr’s flame is extinguished?’ 51 Vafprú~nir said: ‘Ví~arr and Váli will live in the temples of the gods, when Surtr’s flame is extinguished; Mó~i and Magni shall have Mjollnir after Vingnir’s last battle.’ 52 Ó~inn said: ‘Much I have travelled, much I have attempted, much I have tested the Powers; what will be Ó~inn’s life’s end when the gods are destroyed?’ 53 Vafprú~nir said: ‘The wolf will swallow the Father of Men, but Ví~arr will avenge this; the cold jaws of the monster he will cleave apart in battle.’ 54 Ó~inn said: ‘Much I have travelled, much I have attempted, much I have tested the Powers; what did Ó~inn say into the ear of his son before the son mounted the pyre?’ 55 Vafprú~nir said: ‘No man knows what in the earliest of days you said in the ear of your son; with a mouth condemned I’ve spoken of ancient matters, and of the doom of the gods; I’ve been contending with Ó~inn in wisdom; you will be always the wisest of beings.’


4.2.5a Notes –d, ‘Foolish is he who goes’. For a similar expression see The Seafarer l.47. Dol bid se¯ de gæ (4.13, l. 106). l.52. The ‘valley’ is the cover of the book. The seven tongues and twenty points are elusive in their meaning, but some have suggested this is a reference to the seven seals in The Book of Revelation V, to a magical book, or the seven expositions of the Pater Noster (see Menner, 1941, p. 126 n. 221). l.64. Shippey (1976, p. 137 n. 7) notes the problems of dre¯amedlan and how previous editors (e.g. Menner) have emended the word. Shippey, as this edition does, accepts the proposed etymology, akin to the Old English word oferme¯dla, which suggests ‘mental affliction’ and provides the translation for the line: ‘from the pains which afflict one’s mind in this life’. l.66. Shippey (1976, p. 89) suggests, ‘anyone who knows how to use them will always be the wiser for it.’ l.104. Menner (1941, p. 129 n. 237) notes that this is a unique riddle to the AngloSaxons, which differs considerably from the riddles of the ancient Greeks on Old Age and Time. He does note the similarity, however, in terms of the opening to Ó~inn’s questions in the Heidreks saga which often begin Hvat er pat undra . . . l.110. Note the archaic English expression ‘mickel and mite’. ll.110b–113. Shippey (1976, p. 91) suggests: ‘Every year there must go to feed it three times thirteen thousand of all that live on ground or fly in the air or swim in the sea.’ l.114. crœftig. This can mean ‘strong’ or ‘powerful’. Shippey (1976, p. 91) translates the line as: ‘Old age has power over everything on earth’. Yet crœftig is clearly an adjective associated with yldo, and can also mean ‘skilful, cunning’, hence the modern sense of the word ‘crafty’ implying ‘underhandedness’. l.116. The representation of old age as female is implied by he¯o in l. 117, seemingly at odds with the male him in the previous lines. Perhaps this is to show that it affects everyone. ll.119–20. Menner (1941, p. 130 n. 288) suggests ‘moves in its progress the standing trunk, fells it to the earth’. a¯styred, translated here as ‘uproots’, literally means ‘raises’. ll.121–3. These motifs strike chords with other Old English poems. Here, the beasts of battle that we witness in such poems as The Battle of Maldon are being devoured or outfought, and the stones, buildings and metalwork decay to the power of old age (or time) as witnessed in The Ruin (4.5). Shippey (1976, p. 137 n. 12) and Menner (1941, p. 130 n. 289b–90), both note the alliterative problems of these lines.

4.2.5b Notes 1 The name Vafprú~nir is composed of ON vefja, v., ‘to wrap, fold, entangle’, and ON prúdr, f., ‘strength’, and can be translated ‘the one who is strong in puzzling, confusing’. l.1. Frigg, goddess, Ó~inn’s wife. 3 l.2. regin, n. pl., ‘gods, powers, rulers’; related to Gothic ragin, n., ‘decision, counsel’.

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5 ll.3–4. Ím’s father is Vafprú~nir; Yggr, ‘terrible’, is one of Ó~inn’s names. l.3. [er]. CR ok. The line fails to alliterate. Various emendations have been suggested by editors, where the words átti or Íms are replaced with words beginning with h- which could alliterate with h ollo. 8 l.1. In Snorri’s Edda Ó~inn’s name appears in the form Gangrápr, ‘travel-counsellor’. 9 l.4. ON pulr is probably related to the verb pulja, ‘to chant, to recite’, and may have designated an orator who recited texts in rituals and religious ceremonies. In the Eddic poem Hávamál (‘Sayings of the High One’) pulr is described as having his seat near the sacred well of Ur~r (stanza 111). The word is cognate with OE pyle, m., which is the title of Unfer~ in Beowulf. 10 l.1. This stanza has close parallels in stanzas 27–9 of Hávamál (‘Sayings of the High One’). l.4. kaldrifjadr, ‘cold-ribbed’. This adjective appears only here and probably means ‘hostile, cruel’. 11 l.4. o[f ]. CR: oc. 12 l.1. Skinfaxi ‘shining mane’. l.3. Alliteration requires an earlier phonetic form of the word Reidgotom with an initial h, and is usually emended to Hreidgotom. The overall meaning of the phrase is probably ‘among heroes’ or ‘among warriors’, rather than necessarily ‘among the Goths’. Goths are mentioned in Voluspá, stanza 30, in a context which suggests that their name became synonymous with warriors. 13 l.4. o[f ]. CR: oc. ON ny´tr, a., ‘fit, usable, useful, able’. 14 l.1. Hrímfaxi, ‘frost-mane’. l.4. o[f ]. CR: oc. 17 l.4. Surtr, ‘black’. A giant of the underworld, associated with fire, who will fight against the gods at Ragnar ok. 18 l.1. Beginning with this stanza o. q. (‘Ó~inn said’) and v. q. (‘Vafprú~nir said’) appear in the margins of the Codex Regius. Vígrídr means ‘battlefield’. l.3. ON r ost, f., the distance between two resting points on a journey, usually from four to six miles.


21 l.1. Ymir is the most ancient of the giants. He was killed by the gods who created the earth and the sky out of his body. 23 l.1. Mundilfœri, ‘time-carrier’ (ON mund, n., ‘time’, fœra, v., ‘to bring, convey’). 25 l.1. Dellingr, ‘shining one’. l.2. N orr, ‘narrow one’. 27 l.1. Vindsvalr, ‘wind cold’ (ON vindr, m., ‘wind’, svalr, a., ‘cool, fresh’). l.2. Svásudr, ‘soft, merciful’ (ON sváss, a., ‘sweet, dear, beloved’). 28 l.4. Ymis nidja ‘of Ymir’s kinsmen’ – of the giants. 29 l.5. Aurgelmir, possibly another name of Ymir. According to Snorri Sturlusson’s Edda it is the name which the frost-giants call Ymir from whom the generations of the frostgiants descended (Faulkes, 1992, p. 10). The identical second element of the names Bergelmir, Prú~gelmir and Aurgelmir shows that their owners are members of one family. 31 l.1. Élivágar, ‘storm waves’ (ON él, n., ‘shower of rain, snow or hail’, figuratively ‘hot fight’, vágr, m., ‘wave, sea’). ll.3–4. These lines survive only in the manuscripts of Gylfaginning. The text printed here follows Copenhagen, Royal Library, MS GkS 2367 4to (the Codex Regius), the most complete and reliable, though not the oldest manuscript of Snorri Sturlusson’s Edda, which dates from the first quarter of the fourteenth century. 32 l.3. [b]aldni. CR: aldni, A: balldni. The reading in CR makes sense and can be translated as ‘old’, but alliteration requires a word beginning with b as in A. 33 l.4. CR: serhofdadann. Giants with multiple heads appear in For Scírnis (‘Skirnir’s Journey’) and Hymisqvida (‘Hymir’s Poem’) in the Poetic Edda. 34 l.1. These lines lack alliteration in the CR version of the text, because alliteration involving átta and unstressed allz is unlikely. Some editors substitute svinnan for frópan (both words mean ‘wise’). 35 l.4. Lúdr, a word with obscure etymology variously translated by editors as ‘coffin’, ‘bier’, ‘cradle’, ‘boat’, etc.

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36 l.2. [ok]. In CR the word is represented by an abbreviation e, which is usually expanded to ef or eda, or emended to ok by editors. 37 l.1. Hræsvelgr, ‘corpse swallower’ (ON hræ, n., ‘dead body’, svelga, v., ‘to swallow’). l.3. han[s]. CR: hann. 38 l.3. Nj ordr is the god of prosperity, fertility, fishing, hunting and voyages, famous for his wealth, the father of Freyr and Freyja. This line has no alliteration and different emendations have been suggested by editors. 39 ll.1–4. Vanaheimr is the region of the Vanir. The stanza refers to the myth about the war between the Vanir, originally fertility gods, and the Æsir, other gods. The Vanir sent to the Æsir Gullveig, a woman representing greed for gold. The gods tried to kill her, but she was always born again, travelled under the name Hei~r and made magic. The Æsir went to war with the Vanir and were almost defeated, but eventually peace was concluded and the gods exchanged hostages on both sides: Nj or~r and Freyr were given to the Æsir, and Hænir and Mimir to the Vanir. 41 l.1. einherjar, ‘the only champions’ (ON einn, num. ‘one’, herr, m., ‘crowd, army’), the heroes who died in battle and were taken by Ó~inn to Valhalla. They will fight on the side of the gods at Ragnar ok. In preparation for this final battle they fight with each other every day. The words ‘they choose the slain’ probably imply that they kill each other in these fights. ll.2–3. Omitted in CR; text printed here follows A. 43 ll.1–5. It is unclear what were the nine worlds mentioned here, but they are probably different from the nine worlds referred to in Voluspá, stanza 2, as having existed before the creation of the world. Line 4 can be translated both as ‘I passed through nine worlds beneath Niflhel’ and ‘I passed through nine worlds down to Niflhel’. The distinction between Niflhel, ‘mist-hell’ (ON nifl-, ‘mist, fog’ used in compounds; hel, f. ‘Hel (the goddess of death), underworld, death’) and hel is unclear. 44 l.4. fimbulvetr, ‘monstrous winter’ (ON fimbul-, ‘great, monstrous’, vetr, m., ‘winter’). This winter will precede Ragnar ok. According to Snorri Sturluson: ‘First of all that a winter will come called fimbul-winter [mighty or mysterious winter]. Then snow will drift from all directions. There will then be great frosts and keen winds. The sun will do no good. There will be three of these winters together and no summer between’ (Faulkes, 1992, pp. 52–3). 45 l.1. Líf (‘life’) and Lífprasir (‘abounding in life’). The only human couple that will survive Ragnar ok. The names occur only here and in Gylfaginning. l.2. Hoddmimir. This name appears only here and in Gylfaginning.


46 l.4. pá. CR: pa pa (accidental dittography at line-break). Fenrir, a monstrous wolf that will swallow the sun and devour Ó~inn at Ragnar ok. The myth of how the gods tied him using a fetter called Gleipnir is told in Gylfaginning (Faulkes, 1992, pp. 27–9). 47 l.1. Álfr odull, ‘elf-glory’ (ON álfr, m., ‘elf’, rodull, m., ‘glory, halo’). The word ‘elf’ was used in Old English and Old Norse names (see 4.4). 49 The meaning of stanzas 48 and 49 is unclear, and it is uncertain who the maidens described in this passage are. pjódár is interpreted here as nominative plural of pjódá, ‘great river’ (see Sijmons and Gering, 1888–1931, vol. iii, part i, p. 177). The word pjód means ‘people, nation’, but it is also used as an intensifying first element of compound words (compare ON pjód-gódr, a., ‘very good, excellent’, pjód-kunn, a., ‘very famous’). A similar usage is found in Old English: pe¯od-cynning, m., ‘great king’. The verb falla is used to describe running or flowing water, such as the sea or a river. An alternative interpretation of pjódar as the genitive singular of pjód, ‘people, nation’, supports the translation ‘three of the race of maidens will come over the settlements of M ogprasir’ (Machan, 1998, p. 90), but is problematic for reasons of syntax. Larrington translates these lines as ‘Three of the race of Mogthrasir’s girls travel over the settlements’ (Larrington, 1996, p. 48). l.2. The name Mogprasir does not appear anywhere else. l.3. hamingja, f., ‘guardian spirit, luck, good fortune’. 50 l.4. Surtalogi, ‘Surt’s flame’, fire that will destroy the world at Ragnar ok. 51 ll.1–4. Ví~arr and Váli are the sons of Ó~inn; Mó~i and Magni are the sons of Pórr. Mj ollnir is the name of Pórr’s hammer. l.4. [Vingnis] CR: oc vinna; Vingnis – A and manuscripts of Snorri’s Edda. Vingnir is Pórr, who is also called Ving-Pórr in Prymsqvida (‘Thrym’s Poem’). Ving- may be related to ON vígja, v., ‘to consecrate’. 52 l.3. aldrlagi. CR: aldrelagi; A: alldrlagi. 53 l.2. reka. An earlier form of this word vreka, pre-dating the loss of v before r which happened during the pre-literary period, is necessary for alliteration. l.4. vi[t]nis. CR: Vingnis. 54 ll.3–4. Ó~inn’s son here is Baldr.

4.2.6 Further reading Surprisingly few editions of Solomon and Saturn II exist, either in the original or in translation. J. M. Kemble provided early attempts in 1845 and 1848 entitled The Dialogue of Salomon and Saturnus (published by the Ælfric Society), but

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these are extremely hard to obtain and have been superseded by more recent scholarship. The most recent version is available in Rodrigues (1995, pp. 164–87). Shippey (1976) contains probably the best study of the poem, building on Menner (1941). This text is based on ll. 225–46 and 282–301 in ASPR, vi, pp. 39–42; but here Solomon and Saturn I and Solomon and Saturn II are presented as two sections of a single text (Dobbie felt that the beginning of the second poem simply marked a ‘main division of the text’, not ‘a separate dialogue’, p. lv). ASPR is unique in this assumption though, and most editors treat them as two separate poems (see Menner, 1941, pp. 5–7). Tolkien provides notes on ‘The Exeter Book’, Old English riddles and the book riddle in particular in Tolkien A 29(a)/1, ff.151–96. For the Vafprúdnismál, see Neckel and Kuhn (1983) and Machan (1988), as well as translations of the prose and verse Eddas by Faulkes (1992) and Larrington (1996). A facsimile and transcript of the Codex Regius are available in Ólason and Gunnlaugsson (2001).


4.3 Bilbo meets Smaug – Beowulf, ll. 2207–311 (TH, ‘Inside Information’) 4.3.1 The company of Dwarves led by Thorin and their ‘burglar’, Bilbo Baggins, arrive at the Lonely Mountain in order to win from the dragon Smaug the treasure of their ancestors and re-establish the Kingdom under the Mountain. Bilbo goes inside the Mountain through a secret passage and steals a cup from the hoard guarded by Smaug. He later returns and talks to Smaug who has discovered the theft. 4.3.2 Text: Beowulf, ll. 2231–311 Beowulf is the longest poem written in Old English (it is 3,182 lines long), and is widely considered to be one of the great works of all time. It survives in a single manuscript, London, British Library MS Cotton Vitellius A.xv. The part of the manuscript which contains Beowulf is known as the Nowell Codex and is believed to have been copied in the late tenth or early eleventh century. In the manuscript Beowulf is preceded by three Old English prose texts (The Passion of St Christopher, The Wonders of the East and The Letter of Alexander to Aristotle) all translations from Latin, and followed by a poem based on the Old Testament Book of Judith. The manuscript is sometimes described as ‘the book of monsters’ because scholars have argued that these texts were collected together because they all have an interest in unusual and monstrous creatures. The Nowell Codex is the work of two scribes: the first copied the prose and Beowulf up to l. 1939; the second was responsible for the rest of Beowulf and for Judith. The manuscript was badly damaged in 1731 in a fire at Ashburnham House where the Cotton library was kept: the edges of folios were scorched and subsequently crumbled, causing the loss of text. Two transcripts were made in the eighteenth century by an Icelandic scholar, Grímur Jónsson Thorkelín: one completed by Thorkelín himself in 1790 (known as Thorkelín B), the other made somewhat earlier by a copyist who worked for him (known as Thorkelín A) (see Kiernan, 1986). These transcripts and collations of Thorkelín’s 1815 edition of Beowulf with the manuscript, made by scholars in the nineteenth century before the manuscript deteriorated further, are of particular value for establishing letters and words lost as a result of the fire. Nothing is known about the author of the poem, its provenance or date. Historical events described in Beowulf belong to the Migration Age as is characteristic of the early Germanic poetry as a whole. For example, Hygelac, Beowulf’s king and uncle, was identified as Chochilaicus, mentioned by Gregory of Tours in the History of the Franks as the king killed during a raid on Frisian territory between AD 515 and 530. Beowulf in the form we have it, however, reflects a much later perspective on the heroic age: it is a Christian

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poem, addressed to an audience familiar with Christian teaching. Attempts to date Beowulf using archaeological, historical, linguistic, metrical and stylistic evidence, literary parallels and the evidence of its manuscript have proved inconclusive, raising the question of whether such dating is appropriate. Dates proposed by scholars for the composition of the poem range from the seventh to the early eleventh century, with most scholars who believe that the composition of the poem can be dated now favouring the eighth or ninth century. Beowulf is set in southern Scandinavia, along the coasts of the Baltic and North Seas, and describes various historical and legendary events, though such distinction is not made in the poem, where all events are described as part of the distant, idealized heroic past. Historical events concern the fortunes of the ruling dynasties of the Danes, Geats and Swedes, while the legendary part of the story concerns Beowulf’s life and adventures. In short, it tells the story of one man, Beowulf, who in the first part of the poem is a young man of the Geatish nation (southern Sweden). Beowulf journeys to the court of the Danish king, Hrothgar, to help him kill the monster Grendel who has been attacking Hrothgar’s hall, Heorot. Beowulf beats Grendel in combat and then is forced to confront Grendel’s mother in the lair of the monsters, which he does successfully. Ll. 2207–311 of Beowulf contain the beginning of the last narrative part of the poem known as the dragon episode. It tells that after returning from Hrothgar’s court Beowulf became King of the Geats and ruled successfully for fifty years, until a dragon started to devastate his country. A large part of the kingdom, including Beowulf’s royal hall, is burned down. The dragon’s attacks were provoked by the theft of a precious cup from the treasure-hoard he was guarding. The man who stole the cup is said to have been a fugitive who did it out of desperate need. Beowulf fights the dragon assisted by his kinsman Wiglaf, and kills it, but is mortally wounded and dies. The poem ends with the description of his funeral. The history of the treasure-hoard guarded by the dragon is also revealed: it was buried in a barrow by the last survivor of an ancient race and many years later discovered by the creature. The treasurehoard bore a curse which prohibited anyone to touch it unless granted to do so by God himself. Some of the text at the beginning of the dragon episode is unreadable because folio 182 of the manuscript is badly damaged. The reasons for this damage are unclear. Some scholars believe that the folio is a palimpsest, where the original text was removed and replaced by a new text, possibly by the second scribe of the Beowulf manuscript. This, if true, may mean that the new text represents a revision (Kiernan, 1996). Other scholars believe that the text on the damaged folio was simply traced over in fresh ink, not by one of the original scribes, but at some later stage in its history, in order to restore what was damaged


accidentally (Zupitza, 1959, pp. vi–vii, xii–xiii; Boyle, 1981, pp. 31–2; Gerritsen, 1988, pp. 294–5). The question of what happened to folio 182 is particularly important because textual and codicological problems in the manuscript at this point coincide with a narrative boundary in the poem. There is evidence, though some of it is disputed, that parts of the manuscript were planned and executed separately and not in a consecutive order, and that these parts are again related to the narrative parts of the poem (Kiernan, 1996). The correspondence between textual and codicological units in the Beowulf manuscript, if accepted, is a striking feature, which raises questions about the poem’s underlying exemplar or exemplars, the reasons for the scribes’ practice and its bearing on the present form of the poem. The text printed here describes the theft of the cup followed by the prehistory of the treasure buried by the ‘last survivor’. This includes the ‘lament’ of the survivor which is reminiscent of Old English elegies, where recollections of happiness in the past are contrasted to the misery of the present (see 4.5, 4.10 and 4.13). The passage ends with the description of the dragon’s rage at the discovery of the theft. At this point it is worth noting one of Tolkien’s main contributions to the study of Old English. Tolkien was clearly impressed with Beowulf from an early age and admired it throughout his career. He worked on translations and commentaries (never published) but did eventually provide the foreword for Clark Hall’s translation in 1950. A measure of his admiration can be seen in his riposte to the accusation that Beowulf was ‘small beer’ in literary terms. He replied that ‘if beer at all, it is a drink dark and bitter: a solemn funeral-ale with the taste of death’ (Tolkien A 17/1, f. 2). On 25 November 1936, Tolkien, by then Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford, delivered his seminal lecture to the British Academy ‘Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics’ (being the Sir Israel Gollancz Memorial Lecture of that year). This was later published in the Proceedings of the British Academy, and is probably one of the most anthologized studies of Beowulf (see Faraci, 2003). The lecture, and subsequent publication,1 have been discussed at length ever since. Present-day scholarship does not accept everything Tolkien outlined in his argument, but it undeniably had a major effect on Beowulfian studies, moving the discussion forward to considering the poem as a work of literature, rather than just as a linguistic and archaeological record. As has been noted elsewhere (Faraci, 2003, pp. 58–9), we can clearly see links between Tolkien’s lecture and his later treatment of monsters, notably dragons, in his fiction.

1

More recently in Essays, pp. 5–48; and Drout (2002).

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4.3.3 Discussion Commenting on the sources of TH Tolkien mentioned Beowulf as one of the most important influences: Beowulf is among my most valued sources; though it was not consciously present to the mind in the process of writing, in which the episode of the theft arose naturally (and almost inevitably) from the circumstances. It is difficult to think of any other way of conducting the story at that point. I fancy the author of Beowulf would say much the same. (Letters, 25, p. 31) There are several important similarities between the plots of TH and Beowulf: the dragon’s rage is provoked by the theft of a cup; he wakes to discover the theft and flies out at night to burn the nearby town; at the end he is opposed and slain by a human hero. In order to use these elements of the plot Tolkien had to create his own interpretation of how they fit in with the rest of the story and of the motivation behind the actions of all the main characters. In this he may have been inspired by a somewhat enigmatic quality of the story in the last part of Beowulf. Though the general outline of events in Beowulf is sufficiently clear, the narrative describing the treasure, its history, the dragon and the theft is cursory and leaves much to imagination. The last survivor, for example, is a mysterious figure, and we know little about the dragon and even less about the fugitive who stole the cup. This is only partly due to textual problems outlined above. The narrative in the later part of Beowulf is generally not straightforward and is frequently interrupted by the changes of narrative time and digressions. It is also very tragic in tone. The end of the story is disastrous for the hero and the Geats, whereas numerous digressions describe murders, revenge and the death of whole nations. Perhaps the incomplete account of events preceding the dragon’s discovery of the theft has a function and contributes to their portrayal as dark, little known and confused. It is impossible to deny, however, that the gaps in the story caused by textual problems, as well as possibly by the requirements of the narrative, appeal to the imagination and may have inspired Tolkien to approach as a writer what puzzled him as a scholar. Tolkien’s own narrative in TH focuses on the ‘burglar’, the figure which could have been only marginal in the world of Beowulf, at the centre of which are the deeds of heroes and kings. Tolkien wrote that the description of Smaug’s personality and conversation is more indebted to the Eddic poem Fáfnismál (‘The Lay of Fáfnir’) than to Beowulf (Letters, 122, p. 134). The similarities between Bilbo’s encounter with Smaug (and subsequent events) and Sigur~r’s encounter with Fáfnir in Fáfnismál are discussed by Shippey (2000, pp. 36–7), who notes the following parallels:


1. Sigur~r stabs Fáfnir in the underbelly, which reminds one of the weak spot which Bilbo sees in Smaug and Bard uses to their advantage later on. 2. When Sigur~r and Fáfnir converse, the former refuses to give his name but answers riddlingly that he is motherless and fatherless. 3. Fáfnir tries to turn Sigur~r against his foster-father Reginn (successfully), and Smaug tells Bilbo not to trust the Dwarves (unsuccessfully). 4. When Sigur~r accidentally tastes the blood of Fáfnir, he can suddenly understand bird-speech, which in TH manifests itself in the episodes with the thrush and the ravens (wise birds who converse with humans appear in other poems of the Poetic Edda as well). The passage presented here will we hope demonstrate that Beowulf too has a memorable image of a dragon, many features of which will be familiar to the readers of TH. Tolkien wrote that the dragon in Beowulf could be blamed ‘for not being dragon enough’, for being a personification of ‘malice, greed, destruction’ rather than a ‘plain, pure fairy-story dragon’. This certainly cannot be said about his Smaug, whom he endowed with emotions, a voice to express them, and nuances and idiosyncrasies.2 Tolkien believed, however, that in Beowulf the balance is achieved between symbolism and the portrayal of a ‘real worm, with a bestial life and thought of his own’ (Essays, p. 17). Dragons were symbols of evil in the Christian tradition and figured in folk beliefs as part of the natural world (references to dragons are found in the Finnsburg Fragment, ll. 3–4, and in Maxims II, ll. 26–7; see 4.6 and 4.9). In traditional poetry dragons were part of the heroic world, and a narrative theme with its own vocabulary and phraseology. Words used to describe the dragon show how it was perceived, and include draca, ‘dragon’; wyrm, ‘worm’; u¯htsceada, ‘night-ravager’; pe¯odsceada, ‘great ravager’ or ‘ravager of people’; hordweard, ‘guardian of treasure’; beorges hyrde, ‘herdsman of the barrow’; se la¯da, ‘hateful’. These words form part of a network of associations and ideas supported by their alliteration with such words as ‘dark’ and ‘night’ (deorcum nihtum draca (l. 2211), nacod nı¯ddraca, nihtes fle¯oged (l. 2273)); ‘old’ (eald u¯htsceada (l. 2271)); ‘wrath’ and ‘enraged’ (Pa¯ se wyrm onwo¯c, wro¯ht wœs genı¯wad (l. 2287), wœs da¯ gebolgen beorges hyrde (l. ¯[w] oft ymbehwearf (l. 2296), wolde 2304)); ‘hot’ and ‘fire’ (Ha¯t ond hr e¯ohmo¯d hlæ [s]e la¯da lı¯ge forgyldan (l. 2305)); ‘secret, stealthy’ (dyrnan crœfte dracan he¯afde ¯w (l. 2296)). ne¯ah (l. 2290)) and ‘grave’ (hlæ

2

We must remember that Smaug is not Tolkien’s only dragon; we have Chrysophylax, Glaurung, Ancalong the Black and Scatha the Worm in his various fictional writing (see Evans, 2000, pp. 26 onwards for a discussion of all of these). As Evans observes, ‘From the five categories of dragon motif – Origin, Form, Habitat, Habits, Deeds – he [Tolkien] borrowed freely, though selectively, while again, he sometimes invented his own’ (Evans, 2000, p. 28).

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All these ideas are present in Tolkien’s description and characterization of Smaug. Direct links between the poem and the novel are also discernible, for example: Pa¯ se wyrm onwo ¯ c, stonc ~a¯ æfter sta¯ne

wro ¯ ht wæs genı¯wad; (Beo 2287–8)

then the worm awoke, strife was renewed; he took up the scent quickly along the stone in TH becomes ‘He stirred and stretched forth his neck to sniff’ (see Faraci, 2003, pp. 58–9, for a longer discussion of the debate surrounding the Old English word stonc). The description of the dragon’s barrow may have influenced the description of Smaug’s lair in TH. In Beowulf it is a stone barrow situated on a high place, which can be accessed by a secret path, whereas in TH it is an abandoned palace under a mountain, which can be accessed through a secret passage.3 Cursed gold is another important motif shared by Tolkien’s narrative and Beowulf. In the final part of Beowulf treasure has sinister associations from the first moment it is mentioned, long before the audience is told about the curse laid by its ancient owners. It is described as ‘heathen gold’, ‘heathen hoard’ and ‘worm-hoard’. Though some critics see Christian influence in the theme of gold as a source of evil, the idea is also present in the story of Fáfnir and Sigur~r discussed above. In Fáfnismál Sigur~r wins from Fáfnir treasure which bears a curse and causes the death of Sigur~r and all its subsequent owners.4 Tolkien wrote that the ‘Quest of the Dragon-gold’ was the central theme of TH (Letters, 131, p. 159). The moral conflict at its end focuses on ‘the bewilderment of the treasure’ – the greed and lust for gold to which Thorin Oakenshield and most of the other Dwarves fall victim. Ironically, it is the ‘burglar’ Bilbo Baggins who is able to resist its power and is prepared to give up his share 3

Carpenter (1979, pp. 22–23) notes that Tolkien became fascinated with dragons as a child when he read the Red Fairy Book (see also Letters 7, 25 and 214). Anderson (2003, pp. 279–81) also points to E. H. Knatchbull-Hugessen’s story ‘Ernest’ in Stories for My Children (1869), which Tolkien had read as a child. In this story the boy of the title, having gone down a deep hole after his lost ball, encounters and converses with a giant toad (see Anderson, 2003, pp. 308–12, n. 2 for a further analysis of Tolkien’s attraction to dragons). Evans (2000) also points to the influence of William Morris on Tolkien’s treatment of dragons. 4 Carter (2003, p. 138) explores further how the legend of Siegfried as told in the Nibelungenlied and Wagner’s Ring Cycle has similarities with Tolkien’s story.


of the treasure for a peaceful outcome. In Beowulf the hero fights the dragon to defend his people, but he also fights for the gold. To see the gold is his final wish before he dies. His dying words about his joy at winning the gold for his people are in sharp contrast to what is probably already clear to the audience from how the story develops and how the gold is described, and what is explicitly stated in the passages that follow: the gold bears a curse, it must return to the earth and Beowulf’s people are doomed to destruction. What looks like blindness on the hero’s part has been differently explained by critics, some of whom see it as punishment for his pride; others view it as the tragic imperfection of a pagan hero who falls short of the poet’s Christian ideals. Whatever the interpretation, the theme is in accord with a tragic worldview present in the final part of Beowulf. Fascination with treasure and its effects is also analysed in the final chapters of TH. In both works the theme is accentuated by a powerful image of a dragon.



4.3.4 Beowulf, ll. 2207–311 . . . sy~~an Be¯owulfe br[a¯]de rı¯ce (2207) on hand gehwearf. He¯ gehe¯old tela fı¯ftig wintr[a] – wæs ~a¯ fro ¯ d cyning, eald e¯pelweard –, o~ ~æt a¯n ongan (2210) deorcum nihtum draca rı¯cs[i]an, ¯p]e hord beweotode, se ~e¯ on he¯a[um] h[æ sta¯nbeorh ste¯a[pn]e. Stı¯g under læg ¯r on innan gı¯ong eldum uncu ¯~; pæ ni~a na¯thwylc [. . .] gefe¯ng (2215) ¯~num horde hond [. . .], hæ since f[a¯hne]; he¯ pæt sy~~an [. . .], ¯pende besyre[d] [wur]de p[e¯ah] ~[e] [he¯] slæ pe¯ofes cræfte. Pæt sı¯e ~ı¯od [onfand], b[u ¯]folc beorn[a], pæt he¯ gebolge[n] wæs. (2220) XXXII Nealles [mid] geweoldum wyrmhord [a¯bræc], (2221) sylfes willum, se¯ ~e him sa¯re gesceo ¯ d, ac for pre¯ane¯dlan pe¯[ow] na¯thwylces hæle~a bearna heteswengeas fle¯oh, ¯r inne [f]eal[h], (2225) [ærnes] pea[rfa], ond ~æ secg synbysig. So ¯ na mwatide pæt [. . .] ~a¯m gyste [gry]rebr[o ¯ ]g[a] sto ¯ d; hwæ~re [earm]sceapen [. . .]. [. . .] sceapen ¯r begeat (2230) [. . .] p[a¯ hyne] se fæ ¯r wæs swylcra fela sincfæt [. . .]. Pæ ¯rgestre¯ona, in ~a¯m eor~[sele] æ swa¯ hy¯ on ge¯ardagum gumena na¯thwylc eormenla¯fe æpelan cynnes, ¯r gehy¯dde, (2235) panchycgende pæ de¯ore ma¯~mas. Ealle hı¯e de¯a~ fornam ¯rran mæ ¯lum, ond si a¯n ~a¯ ge¯n æ ¯r lengest hwearf, le¯oda dugu~e, se¯ ~æ weard winegeo ¯ mor, [w]e¯nde pæs ylcan: pæt he¯ ly¯tel fæc longgestre¯ona (2240) bru ¯can mo ¯ ste. Beorh eallgearo wunode on wonge wætery¯~um ne¯ah, nı¯we be næsse, nearocræftum fæst. ¯r on innan bær eorlgestre¯ona pæ ¯l (2245) hringa hyrde h[o]rdwyr~ne dæ

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4.3.4 Beowulf, ll. 2207–311 . . . then the broad kingdom (2205) came into Beowulf’s hand. He held it well fifty winters – this was a wise king, an old guardian of the land – until a certain one began, (2210) a dragon in the dark nights, to hold sway; he who on the high heath watched over the hoard, a steep stone-barrow. A path lay beneath unknown to men; by this went inside a certain man [. . .] grasped (2215) heathen hoard hand [. . .] adorned with jewels; he that since [. . .] though in his sleep he was tricked by a thief’s craft. This the people discovered, the dwellers of the land, that he was swollen with rage. (2220)

XXXII Not of his own accord he broke into the worm’s hoard, not by his own desire, he who sorely harmed him; but out of dire need as someone’s slave fleeing hostile blows of the sons of men, lacking a shelter, and therein the guilty man (2225) made his way. Soon [. . .] [. . .] for the intruder the utmost horror arose; yet the wretched one [. . .] [. . .] when a sudden attack befell him (2230) precious vessel [. . .]. There were many such ancient treasures in this earth-hall; for in the old days one of mankind an immense legacy of a noble race with purpose hid there, (2235) priceless treasures. Death took them all in earlier times, and the last of the warriors of the nation, who there longest walked, a guardian mourning his friends, expected the same for himself: that he only for a short time the ancient treasure (2240) might enjoy. The barrow full-ready stood near the sea-waves, newly made on the headland, secured through hostile art. There he, the keeper of rings, carried inside noblemen’s treasures, that part worthy of hoarding (2245)


fæ ¯ttan goldes; fe¯a worda cwæ~: ’Heald pu ¯ nu ¯, hru ¯se, nu ¯ hæle~ ne m[o ¯ ]stan, ¯hte! Hwæt, hyt æ ¯r on ~e¯ eorla æ go ¯ de bege¯aton. Gu ¯~de¯a~ fornam, feorhbeale fre¯cne, fy¯r[a] gehwylcne (2250) le¯oda mı¯nra, pa¯[r]a ~e pis [lı¯f] ofgeaf, gesa¯won seledre¯am. Na¯h hwa¯ sweord wege, ¯ted wæ ¯ge, o~~e f[or~ bere] fæ dryncfæt de¯ore; dug[u~] ellor s[c]eo ¯ c. Sceal se hearda helm [hyr]stedgolde, (2255) ¯tum befeallen; feormynd swefa~ fæ pa¯ ~e beadogrı¯man by¯wan sceoldon; ge¯ swylce se¯o herepa¯d, sı¯o æt hilde geba¯d ofer borda gebræc bite ¯ı rena, brosna~ æfter beorne. Ne mæg byrnan hring (2260) æfter wı¯gfruman wı¯de fe¯ran, hæle~um be healfe. Næs hearpan wyn, gomen gle¯obe¯ames, ne go ¯ d hafoc geond sæl swinge~, ne se swifta mearh burhstede be¯ate~. Bealocwealm hafa~ (2265) fela feorhcynna for~ onsended.’ ¯nde, Swa¯ gio ¯ mormo ¯d gioh~o mæ a¯n æfter eallum unblı¯~e hwearf dæges ond nihtes, o~ ~æt de¯a~es wylm hra¯n æt heortan. Hordwynne fond (2270) eald u ¯htscea~a opene standan, se¯ ~e byrnende biorgas se¯ce~, nacod nı¯~draca, nihtes fle¯oge~ fy¯re befangen; hyne foldbu ¯end [. . .] He¯ gese¯cean sceall (2275) ¯~en gold h[ord on h]ru ¯san, pær he¯ hæ wara~ wintrum fro ¯ d; ne by~ him wihte ~y¯ se¯l. Swa¯ se ~e¯odscea~a pre¯o hund wintra he¯old on hru ¯sa[n] hordærna sum e¯acencræftig, o~ ~æt hyne a¯n a¯bealch (2280) mon on mo ¯ de; mandryhtne bær ¯ge, frio~owæ ¯re bæd fæted wæ hla¯ford sı¯nne. Da¯ wæs hord ra¯sod, onboren be¯aga hord, be¯ne getı¯~ad fe¯asceaftum men; fre¯a sce¯awode (2285) fı¯ra fyrngeweorc forman sı¯~e. Pa¯ se wyrm onwo ¯ c, wro ¯ ht wæs genı¯wad;

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of his ornate gold; he spoke few words: ‘Hold now you, earth, now that the heroes cannot, the possession of the earls! See, from you earlier the worthy men obtained it. Battle-death has taken, evil life-destroyer, every one (2250) of my people; each of those who had given up this life, who had known the joys of the hall. I have no one to wear the sword, or carry forth a decorated cup, a precious drinking vessel; all warriors have passed away. The hard helmet shall be stripped (2255) of its precious gold, of its plating; burnishers are asleep, who should polish the battle-mask; and so the coat of mail, which in battle endured amidst the crashing of shields the bite of swords, decays like its warrior; nor may the ring-mail (2260) with the war-leader widely travel, by the heroes’ side. There is no harp-joy, delight of the singing wood, no good hawk flies through the hall, no swift horse stamps the courtyard. Evil death has (2265) many living races sent away.’ So sad of mind he spoke of his grief, alone of them all he walked joyless days and nights, until the surge of death touched his heart. The old night-ravager (2270) found the hoard-joy standing open; the burning one who seeks barrows, the naked malicious dragon, who flies at night enveloped in fire; him the dwellers in the land [. . .] He will seek (2275) treasure in the earth and, wise in years, will guard the heathen gold; he is none the better for it. So the ravager of people three hundred winters held in the earth one of the treasure-houses, incomparably powerful, until one man enraged (2280) him in his heart. The man bore to his master the decorated cup; asked his lord for a compact of peace. Then the hoard was searched, the store of rings diminished, and the request was granted to the wretched man; his lord looked at (2285) the ancient work of men for the first time. Then the serpent awoke, the strife was renewed;


stonc ~a¯ æfter sta¯ne, stearcheort onfand fe¯ondes fo ¯ tla¯st, he¯ to ¯ for~ gesto ¯p dyrnan cræfte dracan he¯afde ne¯ah. (2290) ¯ge e¯a~e gedı¯gan Swa¯ mæg unfæ ¯csı¯~, se¯ ~e Waldendes we¯an ond wræ hyldo gehealdep. Hordweard so ¯ hte georne æfter grunde, wolde guman findan pone pe him on sweofote sa¯re gete¯ode. (2295) ¯[w] oft ymbehwearf Ha¯t ond hre¯ohmo ¯d hlæ ¯r æ ¯nig mon ealne u ¯tanweardne – ne¯ ~æ ¯[m] we¯stenne; hwæ~re hilde gefeh, on pæ bea[du]we weorces. Hwı¯lum on beorh æthwearf, sincfæt so ¯ hte; he¯ pæt so ¯ na onfand (2300) ~æt hæfde gumena sum goldes gefandod, he¯ahgestre¯ona. Hordweard onba¯d ¯fen cwo ¯ m; earfo~lı¯ce o~ ~æt æ wæs ~a¯ gebolgen beorges hyrde, wolde [s]e la¯~a lı¯ge forgyldan (2305) drincfæt dy¯re. Pa wæs dæg sceacen wyrme on willan; no ¯ on wealle læ[n]g ¯le fo ¯ r, bı¯dan wolde, ac mid bæ fy¯re gefy¯sed. Wæs se fruma egeslı¯c le¯odum on lande, swa¯ hyt lungre wear~ (2310) on hyra sincgifan sa¯re geendod.

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he took up the scent quickly along the stone; the hard-hearted one found the foot-print of his enemy, who had stepped forth too close, with stealthy skill, to the dragon’s head. (2290) Thus a man who is not doomed, may easily survive misery and exile, he who keeps the favour of the Ruler. The guardian of treasure sought eagerly on the ground, wanted to find the man who grievously offended him while he slept. (2295) Hot and fierce-hearted he circled the barrow all around the outside – no man at all was in this wilderness; yet he rejoiced in the thought of battle, in the work of fighting. At times he returned back into the barrow, sought his precious cup; he soon discovered (2300) that some one had searched the gold, splendid treasure. The hoard-guard waited with difficulty until the evening came; then the barrow-keeper was enraged, the hateful one wanted to repay with flame (2305) the priceless drinking cup. The day went by as the worm desired; he would not wait longer on the wall, but would set forth with flame, ready with fire. The beginning was terrible for the people on the land, as it was soon (2310) to end sorely for their giver of treasure.


4.3.5 Notes The extracts from Beowulf printed in this book follow the editorial tradition represented by Klaeber (1950) and take advantage of several recent editions of Beowulf, particularly Jack (1994) and Mitchell and Robinson (1998), and the electronic facsimiles and the record of readings from Thorkelín transcripts in Kiernan (2004). All supplied readings and emendations appear in the text in square brackets and are commented upon in the notes. A full account of the lost text in Beowulf and corresponding readings from Thorkelín transcripts can be found in Kiernan (2004). Tolkien’s unpublished academic papers contain extensive commentary and essays on Beowulf. Perhaps the most interesting are his attempts at a translation. Tolkien A29/1 contains several early drafts of a translation (some in alliterative verse), and Tolkien A29/2 has a typescript of a prose translation. Readers may also be interested in Tolkien A21/5, ff. 35v–36 (notebooks containing notes and commentary on Old English texts) and A31, ff. 43ff, which has a lengthy study of Beowulf. l.2207. br[a¯]d. MS: unclear, brade or possibly bræde (Kiernan, 2004). l.2209. Wintr[a]. MS: wintru. Genitive plural wintra is required by grammar. l.2212. he¯a[um]. MS: possibly heaum, but very indistinct. b[æ ¯p]e. The second two letters are illegible in the MS and various restorations have been suggested by editors. l.2213. ste¯a[pn]e. The reading in the MS is uncertain, possibly stearne. l.2215. Gefe¯ng. This is very faded in the MS but seems reasonably certain. The word preceding gefe¯ng is sometimes restored as ne¯ah, ‘near’. This is problematic because of the use of this word elsewhere in the poem. It appears almost exclusively in formulas in the second half-line, where it does not alliterate, for example sæ ¯grunde ne¯ah (l. 563). Its use in the main alliterative position in a line is unlikely. Both gefe¯ng and onfe¯ng frequently occur at the end of the second half-line in verses of type E, such as Gu¯drinc gefe¯ng (l. 1501), or hond rond gef e¯ng (l. 2609). It is possible that the now illegible word was a compound, such as nı¯d-gist. l.2216. The text after bond is illegible, and various emendations have been suggested by editors. l.2217. fa¯[hne]. MS fac corrected to fab followed by a space, followed by ne. After syddan the text is unreadable. l.2218. p[e¯ah] d[e] [he¯]. Only p and d are certain in the MS. besyre[d] [wur]de. Letters in square brackets are illegible; the second word is restored differently by editors: wurde (Klaeber, 1950), hæfde (Kiernan, 2004). l.2219. [onfand]. MS: illegible. l.2220. Letters in square brackets are uncertain in the MS. l.2221. [mid]. MS: illegible. geweoldum. The usual spelling of this word in the MS is geweald ‘power, control’. wyrmhord [a¯bræc]. The reading in the MS is wyrmhorda cræft, but it does not seem to make sense here. l.2223. pe¯[ow]. The last two letters are illegible in the MS, and are usually restored as pe¯[ow] nathwylces ‘slave of someone’, but the word can be also interpreted as pe¯of, ‘thief’, in which case the meaning is ‘thief of something’ (Andersson, 1984). l.2224. Fle¯oh. This is the past tense of fle¯on, v., ‘to flee’, often emended to fle¯ah to make it consistent with the spelling elsewhere in the MS. l.2225. [ærnes] pea[rfa]. All apart from pea- is illegible or uncertain in the MS. [f]eal[h]. MS: weal on the damaged edge of the folio.

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l.2226. The MS reads mwatide, or possibly onwatide; but the meaning is unclear. l.2227. The word after pæt is illegible, and only some letters are certain in [gry]rebr[o¯]g[a]. l.2228. The word preceding sceapen is illegible, as well as the rest of the text on the final line on f. 182r. The first line of the next f. 182v, is also illegible apart from the word sceapen at its end. It is possible that what precedes the second sceapen is a repetition of ll. 2227b–2228a (Kiernan, 2004). Illegible is also the first half on the next l. 2230. l.2230. p[a¯ byne]. Nothing apart from p is clear in the MS. l.2231. The text after sincfæt is illegible. l.2232. [sele]. Thorkelín transcripts: A – nothing, B – se. l.2234. [æpe]lan. The first three letters are completely or partially lost. l.2237. si. Usually emended to se, the spelling of the definite article elsewhere in the MS. l.2239. [w]e¯nde. MS: rende. l.2243. nearocræftum fæst, ‘secure through hostile art’. The first element in nearocræftum is related to modern English ‘narrow’ and is used in poetic compound words with the meaning ‘cruel, severe, oppressive, evil’: nearo-fa¯h, ‘cruelly hostile’ (l. 2317), nearopearf, ‘severe distress’ (l. 422). l.2245. h[o]rd. MS: hard. l.2247. m[o¯]stan. MS: mæstan, possibly corrected from moste (Kiernan, 2004). l.2250. feorhbeale. This is usually emended to feorhbealo. fy¯r[a]. MS reading fyrena is usually emended to f ¯ı ra, genitive of f ¯ı ras, pl. ‘men, mankind’. fyrena appears elsewhere in Beowulf as genitive plural of fyren, f., ‘crime, sin, wicked deed’. l.2251. pa¯[r]a. MS: pana. [lı¯f] is usually supplied by editors because the line as it is in the MS does not make sense and lacks alliteration. l.2253. f[ord bere]. Lost in the MS; usually restored to either ford bere, ‘carry forth’ (Gerritsen, 1989), or feormie, ‘polish’ (Klaeber, 1950). The former fits better paleographically, and is an excellent choice both metrically and stylistically. l.2254. dug[ud]. The last two letters are lost in the MS. s[c]eo ¯c. MS: seoc. l.2255. [hyr]sted. The first three letters lost in the MS. l.2257. beadogrı¯ma, ‘battle-mask, helmet’. l.2275. The first three lines on f. 180v containing ll. 2275–7 appear to have been deliberately erased. Letters preserved at the beginning of the first line are restored as nan by Kiernan (2004), and da by Zupitza (1959), who suggested that the missing text was swı¯de ondræ ¯dad, ‘greatly fear’. l.2276. h[ord on h]ru¯san. This is partly illegible in the MS, restored by editors. l.2279. hru¯sa[n]. MS: hrusam. l.2296. hlæ ¯[w]. MS: blæwum. l.2298. pæ ¯[m]. The last letter is lost in the MS. The line fails to alliterate, and hilde is often emended to wı¯ges, genitive case of wı¯g, ‘war, fight, warfare’. l.2299. bea[duwe]. Only the first three letters are preserved in the MS. The restored form is genitive singular of beado, f. ‘battle’. Though genitive singular form beadwe (l. 1539), as well as numerous compound words with beado- as the first element are found in Beowulf, most editors prefer the restoration bea[duwe] over bea[dwe] and beaduweorces, because the first syllable of beado does not independently form a metrical lift in Beowulf. In all its occurrences in Beowulf as the first element of a compound word or as genitive singular, the two syllables of beado/beadwe are treated metrically as a single entity, an equivalent of a long syllable. Because of this beado/beadwe will not produce any of the expected metrical types in l. 2299 (see 2.3.4.1).


l.2305. [s]e. MS: fe. l.2307. læ[n]g. MS: læg. The MS reading does not fit well with the syntax of adjoining lines and is unlikely for metrical reasons. l.2311. sincgifan, i.e. Beowulf.

4.3.6 Further reading Numerous editions and translations of Beowulf exist, including Klaeber (1950) (standard scholarly edition), Clark Hall and Wrenn (1950) (contains a lengthy preface by Tolkien), Wrenn and Bolton (1973), Jack (1994), Mitchell and Robinson (1998) and Kiernan (2004). Translations include Donaldson (1967), Crossley-Holland (1968), Alexander (1973), Bradley (1982), Osborn (1984), Heaney (1999) and others. Discussions of the poem and its background can be found in Niles (1983), Bjork and Niles (1997) and Orchard (2003). As described above, Tolkien’s own major work of Beowulf criticism is his lecture ‘The Monsters and the Critics’. Recently, Michael D. C. Drout (2002) edited Tolkien’s previously unpublished 1930s work, which became the basis for this famous lecture. See Rauer (2000) for the discussion of the dragon episode and its parallels in medieval literature.

The Lord of the Rings

4.4 The Elves at Rivendell – Sir Orfeo, ll.107–94 (FR, ‘Many Meetings’; TH, ‘A Short Rest’ and ‘Flies and Spiders’) 4.4.1 Plot summary In TH Bilbo Baggins and the Dwarves stay in Rivendell, a valley inhabited by the Elves, on their way to the Lonely Mountain. They encounter the Elves of the Woodland Realm as they travel through Mirkwood, and for a while are held prisoners by their king. In LR several important events, including the Council of Elrond, are set in Rivendell. Frodo and the Fellowship of the Ring also travel through Lórien, another kingdom of the Silvan Elves. The chapters on the jouney to Rivendell from Weathertop and the arrival there as presented in the LR have a complicated chronology. Christopher Tolkien reproduces the various drafts in Return (chs. XXI and XXIII). 4.4.2 Medieval text: Sir Orfeo, ll. 107–94 Sir Orfeo survives in three manuscripts, the earliest of which is the Auchinleck manuscript (Advocates 19.2.1), now in the National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh. It was written around 1330–40, in the South Midlands, probably in London. Two other manuscripts, London, British Library MS Harley 3810 and Oxford, Bodleian Library MS Ashmole 61, both date from the fifteenth century. The text presented here is based on the Auchinleck manuscript. The author of the poem is unknown, but it may have been composed in the first quarter of the fourteenth century in the south-west of England. The poem belongs to the genre of Breton lays, short romances which claim to derive from Brittany, usually about love and adventures involving a supernatural element, such as magic and fairy protagonists. Several such romances are known in Middle English, and three of them, including Sir Orfeo, survive in the Auchinleck manuscript. There is evidence that this manuscript may have been owned by Chaucer, and in The Canterbury Tales the Franklin describes his 123


story, which involves an ordeal, love and magic, as a Breton lay (Loomis, 1940). The original Breton lays did not survive, but they appear to have been songs which existed in oral form in Brittany, and were taken up by French writers and reinvented as a narrative literary genre. This genre became popular after Marie de France composed around the third quarter of the twelfth century a collection of twelve lais of this type. The plot of Sir Orfeo is based on the classical legend of Orpheus and Eurydice. It was known in the Middle Ages from several sources, including Virgil’s Georgics, Ovid’s Metamorphoses and the Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius. The immediate source of Sir Orfeo has never been discovered, but like many Middle English romances it may have been based on an earlier French poem. Unlike all the classical versions, the Middle English poem has a happy ending: King Orfeo is reunited with his wife. The poem is set in Traciens which it claims to be an ancient name for Winchester.1 Sir Orfeo is a king and a very skilful harper who lives happily with his wife, Dame Heurodis. One May morning she goes into an orchard and falls asleep under the ympe-tre, probably a tree with grafted branches. She wakes up in such terror that her maidens think she has lost her mind, and she is carried back to the palace. She tells her dream about meeting the Fairy King and his threat to abduct her. In spite of Orfeo’s precautions (he puts troops of armed knights ready to fight to death around the ympe-tre) she is carried away by the Fairy King. Orfeo leaves his kingdom to his steward and goes to live in the woods until he has a chance to win back his wife. Eventually he travels to the fairy kingdom, charms the king with his music and is allowed to leave with Heurodis. The poem includes several motives and plot elements known from Celtic literature and folklore, such as the journey to the other world and subsequent return, humans abducted or ‘taken’ by supernatural beings, a fairy hunt, entering the fairy kingdom through a rock and others (Bliss, 1966, pp. xxxiii–xxxix; Allen, 1964). The significance of the ympe-tre is not entirely clear: the word ympe and the corresponding verb were used as agricultural terms in both Old and Middle English, and ympe-tre appears to mean simply either a young, sprouting tree, or a grafted tree, the kind likely to be found in a cultivated orchard. The later meaning of imp – ‘child of the devil, evil spirit’ – does not seem to have developed until the sixteenth century (OED). The fact that such a meaning did eventually develop, however, offers parallel to sinister associations of ympe in Sir Orfeo. In the poem the tree appears to create a borderline space, because it is neither the stock nor the graft, and can therefore act as a point of contact between the world of humans and the world of fairi. Orfeo sees the tree again when he travels to the castle of the Fairy King, which implies that it exists in both worlds. Bliss also observed that it is a commonplace in 1

In the classical legend the Greek city of Thrace is the home of Orpheus.


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the narrative lais that those who sleep under a tree place themselves in the power of fairies (Bliss, 1966, pp. xxxv–xxxvi; see also Smithers, 1953). He commented that many visitors to the Celtic otherworld encountered an orchard of apple trees, and that a magic apple is often present in accounts of such travels (see also Patch, 1950, pp. 52–3). Brouland (1990, pp. 54–69) draws parallels to other trees, especially in Celtic myth, which open the connection between the two worlds. Sir Orfeo is composed in four-stress rhyming couplets with a somewhat free alternating rhythm. Tolkien’s interest in the poem is attested by the fact that he prepared both an edition and a translation of Sir Orfeo. His edition was published in 1944 by the Academic Copying Office in Oxford (edited and published by Hostetter, 2004); the translation was published posthumously by Christopher Tolkien in 1975. The text is presented below with marginal glosses, rather than full translation, because its language is close to Modern English and should not be difficult to understand with the help of the glosses and notes. 4.4.3 Discussion Shippey described Sir Orfeo as Tolkien’s ‘master-text’ for the portrayal of Elves (2003, p. 62), and undoubtedly there are many close parallels between the description of the elves in the poem and in Tolkien’s works. Tolkien distanced himself from the post-medieval literary tradition of representing fairies and elves as minute, playful and child-like creatures (Essays, pp. 109–61). The world of Elves which he created is closer to the tradition reflected in Sir Orfeo, where they are portrayed as a ‘dreaded but picturesque race of immortal beings’ (Allen, 1964, p. 102). There is nothing playful or light about the fairy world of Sir Orfeo. There is a feeling that Orfeo and Heurodis have become victims of a merciless, unstoppable and irrational force: their sufferings are undeserved, the reasons for the abduction of Heroudis are not explained, and the actions of the Fairy King are wilful and cruel. At the same time the fairies are beautiful and Heroudis says that she has never seen ‘such fair and exceptional beings’ (l. 148). The king is not represented as simply evil. His kingdom is full of light, his queen is ‘fair and sweet’, and at the end of the poem, charmed by Orfeo’s music, he keeps his word to grant Orfeo’s wish and allows Heroudis to leave. The same theme of beauty and danger is continued in the description of the fairy world. While living in the wilderness Orfeo sees a retinue of sixty ‘gentle and merry’ ladies hunting with their hawks, sees his wife among them and follows them into the fairy kingdom. The ladies ride into a rock, he goes after them and arrives, after a journey of three miles, in a ‘fair country’. The description that follows has parallels in other medieval descriptions of the other world or Paradise (see Patch, 1950 and 4.7). The land is bright and green, the king’s castle is ‘rich, regal and wonderfully high’. It is decorated with gold and


precious stones, and its walls ‘shine as crystal’. The land is always full of light, because at night precious stones shine as brightly as the sun (ll. 346–8). The poet comments that no man can tell or even imagine the richness of this country. This motive of the inadequacy of the human mind and language to comprehend and describe the other world is common in medieval texts and was used by Tolkien in his description of Lothlórien (see 4.7). Orfeo thinks that what he sees is the ‘court of Paradise’, but when he goes inside the castle he sees abducted humans, the folk pat were pider ybrout, ‘folk that were brought there’ (l. 389). The frightening description that follows reflects various beliefs about fairies: there are dismembered, strangled, wounded, burned and drowned bodies and wives lying on their ‘child-bed’. Some of the abducted are mad and lie bound, others are asleep or dead, though at the beginning of the description these people ‘taken into this world’ are said to be ‘thought dead, when they really were not’. This is paradoxical considering that some of them ‘stood without head’ or arms, and the strangeness of this scene is deepened when Orfeo sees his wife, whom he has just recently seen riding with the ladies, sleeping under the ympe-tre. The same ambiguity is found in the descriptions of the fairy hunt, the fairy army and the fairy dance. Sir Orfeo repeatedly sees ‘fairi’ in the wilderness. When the king comes to hunt, Orfeo can hear ‘dim’ shouts, the blowing of horns, the barking of hounds, and yet the hunt never takes any catch: Ac no best pai no nome, No never he nist whider pai bicome (ll. 287–8) Yet no beast they took, And he never knew where they went. Sometimes instead of the hunt he sees a ‘great host’ of armed knights passing him by, or knights and ladies dancing, accompanied by musicians. These apparitions also disappear without a trace. Tolkien’s Elves are portrayed as benign but powerful beings. Their kingdoms, like the fairy world in Sir Orfeo, are green, rich, beautiful and inaccessible, and they have the same love of music which appears to have saved Orfeo’s life. In particular there are many parallels between Sir Orfeo and the descriptions of the encounters between Bilbo and the Wood-elves in TH. Like Orfeo, Bilbo and the Dwarves see the Elves in the wilderness, and the scenes in Mirkwood suggest some ambiguity about their reality. Bilbo and his companions see lights and the ‘elvish-looking folk’ feasting and laughing merrily, but when they try to approach, the lights go out ‘as if by magic’ and the Elves disappear (TH, p. 142). The Wood-elves are described in TH as different from the High Elves of the West, ‘more dangerous and less wise’. Among their occupations are hunting


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and riding by ‘moonlight or starlight’, and they are said to have taken more and more to the dusk after the coming of Men (TH, pp. 156–7). The fact that the Dwarves are taken prisoners by the Elf-king and held in a dungeon in his palace also evokes medieval beliefs reflected in Sir Orfeo. The character of the king of the Wood-elves has similarities with the king in the poem: he is proud, easily angered and would not tolerate any challenge to his power, but he is honourable and just in his treatment of Thorin and Bilbo at the end of the story (‘The Return Journey’) (see also Shippey, 2003, pp. 62–5). Tolkien wrote that ‘Fairy, as a noun more or less equivalent to elf, is a relatively modern word’ (Essays, p. 112; see Shippey, 2003, p. 57). The earliest examples of fairy recorded in the OED are from the first half of the fourteenth century, when it was used as a noun meaning ‘the land or the world of fairies’, as a collective term for the inhabitants of the fairy land, or as a term for magic, enchantment and illusion. ‘Fairy’ is derived from the now obsolete noun fay, which was borrowed from French during the Middle English period (OED). This word is found in various Romance languages and goes back to Latin fata, ‘fates’, the plural of fatum. The word elf is found in different Germanic languages, but has no certain etymology outside the Germanic group. While there are several rather detailed medieval accounts of fairies in texts such as Sir Orfeo, there are no similar medieval accounts of the Germanic elves. All that survive are fragmentary and often contradictory references. In a much-quoted passage from Gylfaginning Snorri Sturluson (see 4.1) tells about the elves: There is one place that is called Alfheim. There live the folk called lightelves, but dark-elves live down in the ground, and they are unlike them in appearance, and even more unlike them in nature. Light-elves are fairer than the sun to look at, but dark elves are blacker than pitch. (Faulkes, 1992, pp. 19–20)2 Dronke (1997, pp. 261–3) summarises the characteristics of Old Norse álfar in the following way (on the basis of brief references in verse and Snorri’s Edda, hypothetical Indo-European etymology and the use of this word in Old Norse and Old English): (a) they make divine equipment for the gods; (b) they ‘have joined the ranks of æsir’ (álfar and æsir appear in the same contexts in the Eddic poems, for example in stanza 49 of V oluspá (Dronke, 1997, p. 147); 2

This will bring to mind the discussions and origins of Elves in The Silmarillion. Alfheim means ‘elf home’. Shippey (2004, p. 4) suggests that the ‘dark-elves’ in this passage may be a result of confusion with the dwarfs of Scandinavian mythology, and offers a detailed analysis of how this passage may have influenced Tolkien.


(c) they have an important winter sacrifice devoted to them, the álfablót, ‘elfsacrifice’; (d) they are associated with light. There are several references to the elves in medieval English tradition. In Beowulf they are the progeny of Cain and the enemies of God: Panon unty¯dras eotenas ond ylfe

ealle onwo ¯ con ond orcne¯as. (Beo 111–12)

From him [Cain] evil progeny all awoke giants and elves and hell-corpses.3 Similar beliefs are reflected in Middle English texts. In Chaucer’s Man of Law’s Tale, when Custance gives birth to a child, the king’s mother sends false news to the king that his wife has given birth to a ‘horrible’ and ‘fiendly creature’ and that The mooder was an elf, by aventure Ycomen, by charmes or by sorcerie, And every wight hateth hir compaignye (Benson et al., 1987, ll. 754–6) The mother was an elf, Come there by chance, by charms, or by sorcery, And every creature hated her company. The element ælf- appears in Old English compound words such as ælf-a¯dl, ‘elfdisease’, and ælf-siden, ‘magic influence of elves’.4 Association of the elves with harmful magic is reflected in the Modern German word Alptraum, ‘nightmare’.

3

OE orc-ne¯as is a compound word, where the first element is believed to be a borrowing from Latin (Lat. Orcus, ‘deity of the underworld, underworld, death’), and the second element is related to words in Germanic and Indo-European languages meaning ‘dead, dead body’, such as Old Icelandic nár, ‘corpse’, and Gothic naus, ‘dead person’. 4 The second element in ælf-siden is probably related to ON seidr, appearing for example in Voluspá (see 4.1) in the myth about Gullveig, a woman symbolizing greed for gold. Seidr is described by Dronke as ‘professional exercise of psychic or “magical” powers, designed to learn the unknown, control conditions and events’. This word is related to Indo-European words with an underlying sense of ‘binding’ (see Dronke, 1997, p. 133 for a discussion and a bibliography).


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However, ælf- also appears in Old English ælf-scı¯nu, ‘elf-bright, elf-beautiful’, and was a common element of names such as Old English Ælfrı¯c, which can be translated as ‘elf-kingdom’, Ælfhere, ‘elf-army’, Ælfre¯d, ‘elf-counsel’, Ælfno¯p, ‘elf-courage’ and others. Old Norse Álfr odull, ‘elf-glory’, is the name of the sun in Vafprúdnismál (see 4.2). As Shippey observed (2003, p. 57), such descriptions and language-use combine the ideas of exceptional danger and outstanding beauty and power. The same ideas are found in the description of the fairy world in Sir Orfeo. The similarities between the portrayal of the Wood-elves in TH and fairi in Sir Orfeo appear to reflect a particular stage of Tolkien’s thinking about the Elves of his mythology, which was probably more influenced by folk beliefs reflected in medieval literature than his later thinking. The notion that there was a change between TH and LR is supported by differences in word usage. Shippey observed that Tolkien employed the word ‘fairy’ in his earlier works, up to and including TH, but then abandoned it as a foreign word with a confused history in favour of the Germanic word ‘elf’. By abandoning the word ‘fairy’ Tolkien appears to have distanced himself even further not only from the later tradition of representing fairies and elves as childish creatures, but also from the medieval tradition of portraying them as irrational, and sometimes cruel or evil. He may have thought that the word ‘elf’ was more appropriate for his mythology exactly because of the absence of detailed medieval accounts of the Germanic elves, which gave him more freedom. Shippey observed, however, that Tolkien’s portrayal of Elves was inspired by his scholarship and is far from ignoring the medieval sources. According to Shippey it is a sensitive reconstruction of the lost authentic medieval tradition, controlled by his respect for the evidence of medieval texts, but also by his awareness of their faults, such as their distance from the original pagan beliefs (2004). It is interesting that even though the words elf and fairy both have literary associations in the later tradition rejected by Tolkien, the etymology and the early uses not just of elf, but also of fairy as demonstrated above, show that the ideas of playfulness and minuteness have nothing to do with their original meaning. Tolkien’s portrayal of Elves in TH and LR was influenced by both Germanic and Celtic traditions, where the important shared element of both, at least in the form in which they survived in later Christian texts, was, as Shippey observed, a paradox (2003, p. 53). Fairies and elves in medieval sources are associated with both good and evil, light and darkness, beauty and danger, material and supernatural worlds.


4.4.4 Sir Orfeo, ll. 117–94 Po lay sche stille atte last (117) And gan to wepe swipe fast, And seyd pus pe king to: ‘Allas, mi lord, Sir Orfeo, (120) Seppen we first togider were, Ones wrop neuer we nere, Bot euer ich haue yloued pe As mi liif and so pou me, Ac now we mot delen ato, (125) Do pi best, for y mot go.’ ‘Allas,’ quap he, ‘forlorn ich am! Whider wiltow go, and to wham? Whider pou gost, ichil wip pe, And whider y go, pou schalt wip me.’ (130) ‘Nay, nay, Sir, pat nout nis! Ichil pe telle al hou it is. As ich lay pis vndertide And slepe vnder our orchard-side, Per come to me to fair kniZtes, (135) Wele y-armed al to riZtes, And bad me comen an heiZing And speke wip her lord pe king, And ich answerd at wordes bold, Y n[o] durst nouZt, no y nold. (140) Pai priked oZain as pai miZt driue, Po com her king also bliue Wip an hundred kniZtes and mo, And damisels an hundred also, Al on snowe-white stedes, (145) As white as milke were her wedes. Y no seiZe neuer Zete bifore So fair creatours ycore. Pe king hadde a croun on hed, It nas of siluer, no of gold red, (150) Ac it was of a precious ston – As briZt as pe sonne it schon. And as son as he to me cam,

‘then’; ‘she’; ‘at the’ ‘began’; ‘very’

‘since’; ‘together’ ‘We were never once angry’ ‘I’ ‘But now we must be parted’ ‘Do thy best (make the best out of it), for I must go’ ‘Whither will you’ ‘I will with thee’ ‘this can not be’ ‘I will’ ‘this morning’ ‘two’ ‘properly’ ‘in haste’ ‘their lord the king’ ‘boldly’ ‘I did not dare, and I would not’ ‘They rode back as fast as they could’ ‘Then came their king quickly’

‘clothes’ ‘exceptional, fine’ ‘was not’ ‘But’


Wold ich, nold ich, he me nam, And made me wip him ride (155) Opon a palfray bi his side; And brouFt me to his palays, Wele atird in ich ways, And schewed me castels and tours, Riuers, forestes, frip wip flours, (160) And his riche stedes ichon. And seppen me brouFt oFain hom Into our owhen orchard, And said to me pus afterward, ‘Loke, dame, tomorwe patow be (165) RiFt here vnder pis ympe-tre, And pan pou schalt wip ous go And liue wip ous euermo; And if pou makest ous ylet, Whar pou be, pou worst yfet, (170) And totore pine limes al Pat noping help pe no schal, And pei pou best so totorn, ete pou worst wip ous yborn.’ When King Orfeo herd pis cas, (175) ‘O we!’ quap he, ‘Allas, allas! Leuer me were to lete mi liif, Pan pus to lese pe quen, mi wiif.’ He asked conseyl at ich man, Ac no man him help no can. (180) Amorwe pe vndertide is come And Orfeo hap his armes ynome, And wele ten hundred knites wip him, Ich y-armed, stout and grim; And wip pe quen wenten he (185) Rit vnto pat ympe-tre. Pai made scheltrom in ich a side, And sayd pai wold pere abide

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‘Whether I wanted or not, he took me’

‘Well-attired, decorated in every way’ ‘towers’ ‘woodland’ ‘each one of his rich estates’ ‘afterwards’

‘that you be’ ‘grafted tree’

‘offer us resistance’ ‘ Wherever you may be, you will be fetched’ ‘And all your limbs torn apart’ ‘And though you will be torn apart in this way’ ‘Yet you will be carried away with us’ ‘event, case’ ‘woe’ ‘It is better for me to give up my life’

‘but’ ‘next day the morning’ ‘took his weapons’ ‘each one’ ‘they went’ ‘made shield defence’


And dye per euerichon, Er pe quen schuld fram hem gon. (190) Ac ete amiddes hem ful rit Pe quen was oway ytvit, Wip fairi forp ynome; Men wist neuer where sche was bicome.

‘before’ ‘but’ ‘snatched’ ‘by magic taken away’ ‘Men never knew where she was gone’

4.4.5 Notes l.123. Both ich and y are used as forms of the first person singular pronoun ‘I’. l.125. delen ato. delen, ‘separate’; ato from OE on twa¯, ‘apart, into two halves’. l.140. n[o] durst. MS: ndurst. l.148. Ycore, past participle of chese ‘chose’. l.166. ympe-tre, ‘grafted tree, orchard tree’; OE impa f., ‘young shoot, sapling’; impian, ‘to graft, engraft’, Med. Lat. impotus, inpotus, ‘scion, graft’. l.170. worst. This is the second person singular present indicative of OE weorpan v., ‘happen, become’ with future meaning; see also l. 174. l.173. best, present subjunctive second person singular of be ‘would be’ or ‘will be’. l.185. be ‘they’ because the verb wenten has plural ending. l.187. scheltrom. OE scyld-truma, ‘shield-troop’, a defensive formation in which soldiers locked their shields to form a wall and roof. l.192. ytvit. tviche v., ‘snatch’. l.193. Wip fairi, ‘by magic’. See above the description of the early use of the word ‘fairy’, and Shippey’s discussion of Tolkien’s translation of this phrase as ‘by magic’, rather than ‘by fairies’ (1992, pp. 52–3).

4.4.6 Further reading There are several editions of Sir Orfeo, both academic and for a general reader, including Sisam (1921) with ‘A Middle English Vocabulary’ by Tolkien, Bliss (1966), Sands (1986), Shepherd (1995) and Treharne (2004). A facsimile of the Auchinleck with an introduction discussing its history and contents is available in Pearsall and Cunningham (1977). A digital facsimile and a transcript are also available on the website of the National Library of Scotland (www.nls.uk/auchinleck). See also Tolkien’s edition (Hostetter, 2004) and translation of Sir Orfeo (1995), and his discussion of fairy-stories (Essays, pp. 109–61).


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4.5 Legolas’s ‘Lament of the Stones’ – The Ruin (FR, ‘The Ring Goes South’) 4.5.1 Plot summary The Fellowship set out on their quest leaving Rivendell and reach the borders of Hollin, described by Gandalf as having ‘wholesome air’ and that ‘much evil must befall a country before it wholly forgets the Elves, if once they dwelt there’ (LR, p. 276). Legolas is not convinced, stating that only the stones lament the passing of the Elves: deep they delved us, fair they wrought us, high they builded us; but they are gone. They are gone. They sought the Havens long ago. (LR, p. 276) Christopher Tolkien notes that the whole departure from Rivendell was written early on at some speed, and states, ‘it is remarkable how much of its wording survived in the final form’(Return, p. 415). There are some changes though between the original draft and final published version. Initially the Fellowship consisted only of Gandalf, Boromir and five hobbits. In other words, Aragorn (who was to replace the fifth character, Trotter), Gimli and, most importantly Legolas were later developments. Therefore in the original drafts Legolas’s lament of the stones does not appear. 4.5.2 Medieval text: The Ruin The poem presented here is generally given the title The Ruin and was written in Old English. Lines in The Ruin mirror Legolas’s lament, and indeed, as we will see later, the situations and themes are extremely similar. The Old English poem itself survives in one of the four major codices of Anglo-Saxon poetry, MS 3501 in the Library of the Dean and Chapter of Exeter Cathedral, or as it is more commonly known ‘The Exeter Book’. In terms of the number of individual poems, ‘The Exeter Book’ far surpasses any other extant Anglo-Saxon poetical manuscript. The most recent study of the manuscript suggests that it was compiled c. 965–75 (Muir, 2000, p. 1). The title given to the codex is perhaps misleading, as scholars have argued continually over its provenance (i.e. where it was originally written), but we know from evidence within the manuscript that it was definitely in Exeter during the time of Bishop Leofric (1050–1072). It has suffered badly from neglect over the years, and was evidently not highly prized in the later medieval period. Many of the folios are damaged – notably those containing The Ruin (which survives on ff. 123v–124v). Muir (2000, pp. 13–15) also notes that the original parchment used was often defective, so even at the time of compilation it seems not to have been a valued piece of work. However, for modern-day readers it is indispensable as it contains over 130 poems from


the Old English period, ranging from the shorter Riddles (see 4.2) to the more highly acclaimed elegies such as The Wanderer and The Seafarer (see 4.10 and 4.13). As noted earlier (2.2), with all poems from the period we have very little idea as to the original date of composition of The Ruin and no clues whatsoever as to the identity of its author. All we can say is that the poem was written down sometime towards the end of the tenth century, and that the scribe must have been a monk, and therefore something in the poem interested him or his sponsor. Moreover, as with all poems in Old English, The Ruin is given no title in the manuscript and the nomenclature was invented by modern scholars. Nevertheless the title The Ruin seems more than appropriate. Not only is the text damaged (due to holes in the manuscript) and several lines are missing, but the scene it portrays is one of an individual (the poet) gazing at a ruined set of buildings. 4.5.3 Discussion The Ruin is a description and meditation by an observer, gazing at a set of crumbling buildings, and thus the similarities to the episode in LR present themselves immediately. The Old English poet considers the people who originally inhabited the building, and both Legolas and Gandalf reflect on the past glories of the Elves of Eregion. In the poem the observer is filled with a sense of wonder at the enta geweorc (‘the work of giants’, l. 2) mirroring Legolas’s own declaration that the Elves of Hollin were a ‘strange race’. As an aside, Wainwright (2004, p. 56) links the word Hollin to the Old English holegn meaning ‘holly’, a symbol of everlasting life. The poet describes the crumbling roof and walls, linking them directly to the men and women who had built the buildings and occupied them but now have passed away; this is similar to the scene in Hollin, where all is decay. The towers have collapsed, the wintry surroundings have beaten down the walls and the very people who built the marvel in the first place are now departed. Let us concentrate on the Old English poem first, before returning to a discussion of the events in LR. In The Ruin the poet reflects on the past, imagining the bright halls, and the sounds and warmth of those bygone days, but recalls how death and pestilence have taken all that away, so that now, in the bleak wintry present, only a ruin remains. The subject of the poem is the place itself. But where might this actually be? What ruin could the poet be describing? Many answers have been suggested. Muir (2000, p. 699) notes several possibilities but agrees with the more generally accepted proposal of Bath – making the wondrous city and builders Roman, and the ‘baths’ of lines 40 onwards the hot springs that still survive today. Yet even though the poet is probably describing a Roman ruin, he does so in terms that the Anglo-Saxons would


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have understood. There are the ‘traditional hall themes’ (Donoghue, 2004, p. 46) of the mead and the joys of men (l. 23), plus the military images of armies (l. 22) and armour (l. 35). That such a building, however, would have filled the Anglo-Saxons with a sense of wonderment is no surprise. They mainly built in timber, like the wooden halls of the Rohirrim, and thus stone buildings were a rarity, generally saved for churches (for example, at Deerhurst). The poem centres on the theme of transience – the passing of worldly glory – which the Anglo-Saxons, according to their literature at least, were deeply moved by. This is not surprising, perhaps, when one considers the harshness of life in the period. The evidence of worldly transience was all around them, either through their own hardships and conflicts with neighbouring kingdoms and the Vikings, or evident in the fate of their predecessors, the Romans, as witnessed in The Ruin. This they regularly compared with the promise of future permanent happiness in the afterlife. In The Ruin we cannot state exactly what ‘passing’ the poem refers to. A Christian perspective (which the Anglo-Saxons gradually became after AD597) would be the worthlessness of worldly goods compared with the joys of heaven; and this may have been the attraction to the monk who transcribed the poem. Yet it is possible that the passing may be the decline of the Roman Empire. The Anglo-Saxons were not unique in using this motif to explore wider issues. The concept of describing a ruined building to muse on the transient nature of life and worldly glory was well attested to elsewhere. Fell (1991, p. 180) suggests that ‘the ruined hall topos’ was common also on the continent. We have the laments of the sixth-century Columbanus in his Verses to Hunaldus and A Poem on the World’s Mutability, and the patristic writer Venantius Fortunatus, writing also in the sixth century, who expresses similar views when looking on The Destruction of Thuringia (a region in modern-day Germany): The palace which once flourished with courtly elegance is now roofed with gloomy embers instead of arches. A pale ash has smothered the lofty buildings which used to gleam and shine, adorned with gold. (Calder and Allen, 1976, p. 137) We also have Alcuin (an Anglo-Saxon writing in the eighth century), who records similar views in his lengthy reflection On the Sack of the Monastery at Lindisfarne, and general parallels can be found elsewhere in Beowulf, The Wanderer and The Seafarer. The Ruin is often described, therefore, as one of a series of elegies written in Old English. These include poems such as The Wanderer and The Seafarer (4.10 and 4.13), plus others like The Wife’s Lament, The Husband’s Message, Deor, Wulf and Eadwacer and Resignation. All of these are contained in The Exeter Book. When assembled, however, they are clearly quite different in many ways and


the collective term ‘elegy’ seems often inappropriate. For example, The Ruin is notable when compared with some of the other Old English elegies, such as The Seafarer, in that it lacks any extensive religious discussion at the end. It lays the blame fair and square on wyrd, or ‘fate’. Wyrd, according to Bates (2002, p. 76), was the ‘inexorable, deeply embedded evolution of the world within which human affairs ebbed and flowed’ (p. 76), an almost faceless force that seemed to control men’s destinies. Tolkien also was attracted by the power and elusiveness of this concept. In his notes entitled the ‘Development of wyrd’ (Tolkien A28/B, f. 123) he proposed that mortality was the main concern and hidden anxiety of men, and he linked this directly to the concept of wyrd. This was in effect linked to death, ‘or the end and destruction of things of worth’. Most importantly wyrd becomes ‘ “the appointed hour of death”, rarely foreseeable with certainty, even when near at hand’. Returning to the theme of the ‘elegy’, we should also note that this is a very loaded term. To many it represents the loss of an individual, yet it can also refer to universal loss, and grief at the passing nature of worldly glory (as in Gray’s ‘Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard’). The Ruin is the latter, focusing on a general loss, as indeed is Legolas’s lament, with both looking at the passing of something that was once glorious, in this case represented by the decaying buildings. In The Ruin the poet attempts to imagine the past, summoning up images of the revelry in the mead-hall, the brightness of the gems and treasure, and the heat from the baths and springs, contrasting these with the silence, isolation, greyness and cold of the present. The poet uses the force of the alliteration, and intersperses internal rhyme (see ll. 5 and 7) to create a haunting effect. Treharne summarizes it as ‘the glorious past reflected in present decay’ (p. 84). She notes the deictic terms of ‘here’, ‘this’ and ‘that’ which urge the reader to participate in the scene. Legolas’s poem uses a different device but to similar effect, namely the personification of the stones. The walls are given voice, recalling how once they stood tall and proud, but now they had fallen into disrepair since ‘they’ (i.e. the original Elvish builders) have gone. In Middle-earth, of course, the Elves go to the Havens, across the sea to the Undying Lands. In Anglo-Saxon England, the builders had perished, possibly going to the undying land of Heaven. However The Ruin, in its present form at least, offers no consolation, and Legolas and the rest of the Elves can see none in the present plight of Middle-earth. Legolas is also capturing early on in LR a feeling of passing, and that the Third Age of Middle-Earth during which The War of the Ring takes place is the final closing on a long drawn-out saga. As Wilcox (2003, p. 133) comments: ‘an elegiac tone persists in The Lord of the Rings and is reminiscent of the lyricelegiac quality, a sadness of time and change deeper than melancholia, present in much Old English poetry’. This is reflected again and again in the book. At several points the main characters encounter the ruins or remnants of a pre-


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vious civilization and reflect on the past glories, and a few examples will suffice to illustrate this: 1 As soon as the hobbits escape the timelessness of the Shire they begin to realize that around them the world has been carrying on at a pace, and great civilizations have risen and fallen. Consistently the ‘past’ confronts them, as in the Barrow-downs where the wights fill their minds with thoughts of the past; in Trollshaws; and on Weathertop when the hobbits and Aragorn encamp in the ruins of Amun Sûl, the old watchtower. In response to Aragorn’s comment that ‘it was here . . .’ Sam appropriately chooses to recite fragments of the Lay of Gil-galad, whilst Aragorn later tells the tale of Lúthien and Beren (LR, pp. 181 and 187–9). 2 Moria, the Arganoth, and the ruins and Amon Hen all reflect past kingdoms, and past glories; but all is destroyed. Yet Frodo at one point feels ‘like a lost child that had clambered upon the throne of mountain-kings’ (LR, p. 391) when he encounters these ancient ruins. And so it goes on. Through the Dead Marshes, the ruins of Ithilien, the legend of Helm, the Paths of the Dead, Legolas and Gimli’s musings on the works of men (LR, p. 855) – the past and present collide, and we are always left feeling that the present is but a pale shadow of former glory, mirroring the views of the Anglo-Saxons as they looked on the ruins of former days. The idea of the waning city reflecting past glory, also appears very early on in Tolkien’s writing with his poem ‘Kortirion among the Trees’ (dated November 1915). This was written when Tolkien’s mythology was at an early stage and the Lonely Isle, which housed Kortirion, was still at that time being equated with the land mass of Britain. Tolkien went so far as matching places on the Lonely Isle with their modern-day equivalents, thus Kortirion became Warwick. All this calls to mind Gollum’s final riddle in TH where the answer is ‘Time’, the thing that devours all. As Chism (2003, pp. 86–7) notes: Middle-earth itself fades from mythology to history. After the dizzying joy of the Ringbearers’ recovery at Cormallen Fields . . . Middle-earth gradually succumbs to temporality, stills, grays, and etiolates . . . Lórien fades; Rivendell is abandoned. After one celebratory summer, we seem to be perpetually in autumn. One could even imagine a repetition of Legolas’s lament, hundreds of years after the destruction of the Ring, as some unknown traveller comes across the remains of Rivendell, or even Minas Tirith. Tolkien’s mythology suggests that this might even have been the germ of The Ruin itself.


The Ruin is also a delight to Tolkien readers as it begins to bring out the etymology of a couple of terms that appear in his mythology. As noted earlier in line 2, we have the Old English word ent meaning ‘giant’, the source for Treebeard and his kin. As Shippey explains: To the North are the Ents, another Old English word which had interested Tolkien since he first wrote on Roman roads in 1924 . . . Anglo-Saxons believed in ents, as in woses. What were they? Clearly they were very large, great builders, and clearly they didn’t exist any more. From such hints Tolkien created his fable of a race running down to extinction. (2003, p. 131) Similarly, at line 16 we have orponc or orpanc (pronounced ‘orthanc’) the Old English word for ‘skilful’, and subsequently the name of the tower of Saruman. A building which, as a fitting conclusion, is reduced to a ruin itself by the Ents. And finally in l. 36 there is eorcansta¯n, which is noted in LR (Appendix A.iii) as the Arkenstone, the jewel which plays such a prominent part in TH.



4.5.4 The Ruin Wræ ¯tlic is pes wealsta¯n; wyrde gebræ ¯con, burgstede burston, brosna~ enta geweorc. Hro ¯ fas sind gehrorene, hre¯orge torras, hrı¯mgeat berofen; hrı¯m on lı¯me, scearde scu ¯rbeorge, scorene, gedrorene, (5) ældo undereotone. Eor~gra¯p hafa~ waldend wyrhtan, forweorone, geleorene, heardgripe hru ¯san; op hund cne¯a werpe¯oda gewitan. Oft pæs wa¯g geba¯d, rægha¯r ond re¯adfa¯h, rı¯ce æfter o ¯ prum, (10) ofstonden under stormum; ste¯ap ge¯ap gedre¯as. Wona~ giet se [. . .]num gehe¯apen, fel on [. . .] grimme gegrunden [. . . . . .] sca¯n he¯o[. . . (15) ¯rsceaft [. . . . . .]g orponc æ . . .]g[. . .] la¯mrindum beag mo ¯ d mo[. . . . . .]yne swiftne gebrægd hwætre¯d in hringas, hygero ¯ f gebond weallwalan wı¯rum wundrum to ¯ gædre. (20) ¯ron burgræced, burnsele monige, Beorht wæ he¯ah horngestre¯on, hereswe¯g micel, meodoheall monig mondre¯ama full, oppæt pæt onwende wyrd se¯o swı¯pe. Crungon walo wı¯de, cwo ¯ man wo ¯ ldagas. (25) Swylt eall forno ¯m secgro ¯ fra wera; wurdon hyra wı¯gsteal we¯sten stapolas; brosnade burgsteall. Be¯tend crungon, hergas to ¯ hru ¯san. Forpon pa¯s hofu dre¯orgia~, ond pæs te¯aforgeapa tigelum scea¯de~, (30) hro ¯ stbe¯ages hrof. Hryre wong gecrong, ¯r iu ¯ beorn monig, gebrocen to ¯ beorgum; pæ glædmo ¯ d ond goldbeorht, gleoma gefrætwed, wlonc ond w ¯ı nga¯l, wı¯ghyrstum sca¯n; seah on sinc, on sylfor, on searogimmas, (35) ¯ht, on eorcansta¯n, on e¯ad, on æ on pa¯s beorhtan burg bra¯dan rı¯ces. Sta¯nhofu sto ¯ dan, stre¯am ha¯te wearp wı¯dan wylme; weal eall befe¯ng


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4.5.4 The Ruin Wondrous is this wall stone; the events shattered [it], burst the cities; the work of giants decays. The roofs are fallen, the towers ruinous, the frosty gate bereaved; frost in the lime, the broken protectors from the showers, [are] shorn, fallen, (5) undermined by age. Earth’s grip has the master builders, withered, departed, the hard grasp of the earth; until a hundred of the generations of the people departed. Often this wall of the building experienced, lichen-grey and red-stained, one kingdom after another, (10) it remained standing under the storms; steep and wide it perished. It remains still . . . . . . heaped .... Fiercely ground . . . . . . . it shone . . . (15) . . . . the skill the ancient work . . . ... by rinds of mud bent . . . . . . the mind . . . weaved together the swift. . . A quick design in rings, resolute it bound the wall with wire roots of wonder together. (20) Bright were the city buildings, the bathing-halls many, the high wealth of horns, the army noise great, many a mead-hall [was] full of the joys of men, until wyrd the mighty changed that. The slaughtered perished far and wide, the days of pestilence came. (25) Death took away all of the sword-strong men; their defences became deserted places; the city-place decayed. The repairers perished, the armies to earth. And so these buildings grow desolate, and this red-arch parts from the tiles, (30) the wooden-vault’s roof. The ruin decays to the ground, broken to mounds of stone; where long ago many a man, happy and bright with gold, adorned with splendour, proud and flushed with wine, shone in his war trappings; he looked on treasure, on silver, on crafted gems, (35) on wealth, on property, on a precious stone, on this bright enclosure of the broad kingdom. Stone buildings stood, the current threw out heat a wide surge; a wall encompassed all


beorhtan bo ¯ sme, pæ ¯r pa¯ bapu wæ ¯ron, (40) ha¯t on hrepre. pæt wæs hy¯~elic. Le¯ton ponne ge¯otan [. . .] ofer ha¯rne sta¯n ha¯te stre¯amas un[. . . . . .]ppæt hringmere ha¯te [. . . (45) ¯r pa¯ bapu wæ ¯ron . . .] pæ ponne is [. . . . . .]re; pæt is cynelic ping, hu ¯se [. . .] burg[. . .]


in its bright bosom, where the baths were, (40) hot in the heart. That was fortuitous. They let then pour . . . Over grey stone hot streams ... Until the circular pool hot . . . (45) ... where the baths were Then it is. . . . ... that is a kingly thing The house . . . the enclosure . . .

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4.5.5 Notes l.1. wræ ¯ tlic, ‘wondrous’. See Maxims II, l. 3 (4.9). wyrde, ‘events’. It is interesting to note how early on (repeated in l. 24) the cause of the destruction is noted as wyrd, the Old English word for ‘fate/event’. l.2. enta geweorc, ‘work of giants’. This is discussed above, but readers may also like to look at l. 2 in Maxims II (4.9), and l. 87 of The Wanderer (4.10). l.4. Treharne (2004) and Muir (2000) note that the manuscript reads hr ¯ı m geat torras berofen. Treharne emends this to hrı¯mgeat berofen, whilst the ASPR and Muir choose hrungeat berofen. The emendation, however, makes sense and thus hrı¯mgeat is used above. The word hrı¯m survives into Modern English as ‘rime’ or ‘frost’ and balances well with l. 4b maintaining the internal rhyme, with the word for ‘lime’. Marsden (2004, p. 323) suggests hrı¯ngeat or ‘ring-gate’. l.6. eordgra¯p, ‘earth’s grip’. This refers to the grave, i.e. earth’s grasp (repeated in l. 8). l.10. rægha¯r, ‘lichen-grey’. Another possibility is ‘goat-grey’, as in the expression ‘as grey as a goat’. l.12. The manuscript is quite damaged at this point, with a large burn hole destroying several words. Donoghue (2004, p. 46) suggests a quarter of the poem has been lost. Some editors, such as Hamer (1970), choose to ignore ll. 12–17 as they are illegible; others guess at what might have been there. For example, Muir reads Worad giet se [. . .] num for the first few words, which is in keeping with the surviving text, whilst Mitchell and Robinson (2001) suggest Wunad gı¯et se wealsta¯n wederum, with the last two words being entirely conjecture. The manuscript also reads gehe¯apen, but some editors (e.g. Muir) emend to gehe¯awen. Much of the translation therefore at this point is fragmentary. l.13. The manuscript reads felon, which Treharne (2004) suggests as ‘persisted’. l.22. hrongestre¯on, ‘horns’. This possibly refers to the gables of the building. l.23. mondre¯ama, ‘the joys of men’. This is actually written M.dreama with M being a rune, whose Old English name was ‘man’. l.26. Treharne (2004) and Muir (2000) both note that the manuscript reads secgro¯f but emend to a genitive plural secgro¯fa to agree with wera. l.27. Mitchell and Robinson (2001) suggest ‘place of idols’ for wı¯gsteal, possibly from we¯oh or even we¯ofodsteall, meaning the place in a church where the altar stands. However, a more probable suggestion, bearing in mind the military emphasis in the surrounding lines, is to take wig as meaning ‘war’ or ‘battle’ and steall as ‘standing position’, hence ‘defence’. l.33. Treharne (2004) and Muir (2001) note that the manuscript reads gefrætwed, but emend to gefrætwed as the more accepted form of the past participle. l.41. The meaning here is ‘hot to the core’. l.45. The manuscript reads ppæt, which we assume here was originally oppæt meaning ‘until’. l.49. Treharne (2004) reads hu¯ se instead of hu¯se, allowing ‘how the’ as opposed to ‘house’. Muir notes that the ‘e’ originally recorded by earlier editors is now no longer visible.

4.5.6 Further reading The fullest and most comprehensive study of the poem in terms of manuscripts and previous commentaries is presented by Muir (2000, pp. 357–8 and 699–705), but see also Hamer (1970, pp. 25–7), Crossley-Holland (1984, pp. 59–60), Klinck (1992 – complete with facsimile images), Mitchell and Robinson (2001, pp. 253–5), Marsden (2004,


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pp. 322–6), Treharne (2004, pp. 84–7) and ASPR iii, pp. 227–9 (which this edition is based on). For an approachable study of the poem and the other elegies, see Fell (1991). A reading of The Ruin in Old English by Rosamund Allen is found on Old English Elegies and Riddles published by The Chaucer Studio (http://english.byu.edu/chaucer/), and a student film version is available at: http://secret.oucs.ox.ac.uk/dv/film.html.


4.6 The Fight at Balin’s Tomb – The Fight at Finnsburg and ‘Cynewulf and Cyneheard’ (FR, ‘The Bridge of Khazad-Dûm’) 4.6.1 Plot summary The Fellowship, in an attempt to cross the Misty Mountains, have chosen the route through the abandoned Dwarvish mines of Moria. They discover the Chamber of Mazarbul, but suddenly they are attacked by Orcs. The Fellowship attempt to hold the doors against the attackers but eventually the hordes break through and vicious hand-to-hand fighting takes place. Christopher Tolkien notes that his father had established the details of this fight very early on (at the same time as he was delivering his lectures on Finnsburg at Oxford before the war) and that he kept to the general structure when he came to complete the chapter on Moria a few years later. It is interesting, therefore, that he had such a set idea about the way the scene in the tomb would proceed and this perhaps indicates a strong influence from somewhere. 4.6.2a Medieval text: The Fight at Finnsburg Two medieval texts have been chosen to parallel the battle in Moria. These are both Old English texts, the first being The Fight at Finnsburg, a fragmentary poem of much interest to Tolkien himself, and second, an episode in prose drawn from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle entitled ‘Cynewulf and Cyneheard’. The Fight at Finnsburg (also called The Battle at Finnsburg or The Finnsburg Fragment) tells of an actual battle that took place in the fifth century between the Frisians and the Danes (Tolkien suggests c. AD 450; see Bliss, 1998, pp. 73–4). The action depicted in the poem is sometimes hard to follow, but in summary the following details can be established. Within a hall are the Danes, Hnæf and his men, who have been visiting Hildeburh, Hnæf’s sister. Outside the hall are the Frisians, who launch an attack on the Danes, led by their leader Finn (the husband of Hildeburh). This, then, is a bitter family feud with brother-in-law fighting brother-in-law, adding to the overall desperate nature and savagery of the conflict. The Danes at first are caught unawares and wonder what the sudden lights and noises are, but as soon as they realize that they are under attack they attempt to hold the doors and keep the invaders out. The poem names individuals and details their actions in a breathtaking account of the ensuing mêlée. The poem states that the battle (or perhaps ‘siege’ is a better word) continues for at least five days, with none of the 60 warriors inside falling in battle, but because of the fragmentary nature of the surviving text the modern reader is left wondering as to what the final outcome was. Thankfully, references to the same battle in other texts can complete the story for us (notably in Beowulf, see below) and it is clear that the fight ended with the death of Hnæf and defeat of the Danes. Historically, this in turn was to lead to a blood-feud that eventually brought about a second battle in which


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Hengest, the surviving leader of the Danes, exacted his revenge on the Frisians (Tolkien considered this to be the Hengest who, legend has it, along with Horsa led the Anglo-Saxon invasion of southern Britain; see Bliss, 1998, pp. 66–7). It is possible, therefore, that originally The Fight at Finnsburg went on to detail this second battle, but this, of course, remains uncertain. Tolkien also felt moved to try to reconstruct the underlying story covering both battles and the entire ‘Frisian disaster’ (or Freswæl as it is termed in Beowulf), which Bliss reproduces (1998, pp. 9–16 and 159–62). The anonymous Old English poem presented below survives solely in a transcript from the late seventeenth or early eighteenth century by the scholar George Hickes (see Harris, 1992). He was copying from a single manuscript leaf held in a codex in Lambeth Palace Library, but this has subsequently been lost. Hickes’ transcription, therefore, is the only full record left to us of the original Anglo-Saxon poem. The edition was printed in 1705 in his Thesarus (though he was probably transcribing in the 1680s–1690s). The poem is sometimes described as shorter heroic lay (see 2.3.2 and Frank, 1991, p. 96). When it comes to its dating there are several unanswered questions. First, although some of the language of the text (for example, spellings and inflections) as witnessed in Hickes’ edition indicate to scholars an eleventhcentury date (e.g. Wrenn, 1973, p. 212), this more likely reflects the period it was actually copied down, i.e. the date of the lost manuscript. On the other hand, the events of the fight itself took place in the late fifth or early sixth century. Beyond that we are pretty much in the dark; all we can say is that the poem was composed sometime between the two dates. The events at Finnsburg are also described in Beowulf (ll. 1063–59), and if one allows the more generally accepted date for Beowulf as being the eighth or ninth century (though this is argued over continually), one could surmise that The Fight at Finnsburg was composed around the same time. However, this is at best highly speculative. Although Hickes’ transcription is the only text we have to work with, it has not always been accepted as accurate and subsequent editors have made changes on the assumption that either Hickes, or the original scribe, had made mistakes in copying. 4.6.2b Medieval text: ‘Cynewulf and Cyneheard’ in The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle Complementing The Fight at Finnsburg, and for the first time in this volume, we present a piece of prose from the Old English period, and in this case an entry from The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. This was for the year AD 755 (though the events depicted probably took place in AD 757) and is generally given the name ‘Cynewulf and Cyneheard’. This is not the original title though; strictly speaking we simply refer to the text as the entry for the year, and only rarely (i.e.


in the case of the handful of poems in the Chronicle) do we suggest separate titles. So, to be more precise, the entry for year 755 tells the story of Cynewulf and Cyneheard. Before progressing to discuss the relevance of this to the battle in Moria, we should first familiarize ourselves with the nature of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. There are in fact seven distinct chronicles, which vary in the details and dates that they cover. In addition at the end of the tenth century an Anglo-Saxon writer named Æthelweard produced a Latin version of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (Chronicon Æthelweardi). Yet, at the root of these is the same principle, an entry for each year going back to approximately the birth of Christ, but from the fifth century onwards detailing the history of the Anglo-Saxons in England. The early entries, until around the late ninth century, form the core text of the Chronicle, but thereafter the manuscripts were distributed, and although the entries have many similarities, individual chroniclers played a part in the variation between the surviving texts. The version presented here is drawn from the ‘Parker Chronicle’ (more officially Parker MS, Corpus Christ College, Cambridge MS 173); which is often thought to be the earliest extant version of the Chronicle. This is so called because it was owned by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Matthew Parker, who bequeathed it to Corpus Christi College, Cambridge in 1575. It is generally assumed that the Chronicle was instigated at the request of Alfred the Great, or at least during his reign, and so was initially compiled in the late ninth century. The first full section of the Parker Chronicle, for example, which covers the ‘Cynewulf and Cyneheard’ episode, is believed to have been compiled in 891 (thus some 140 years after the events recounted below). The chroniclers drew on other source material – notably the Venerable Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica (which appeared in 731). Thus, the further one goes back before the late ninth century, the less reliable is the information. Moreover the dates are sometimes incorrect due to scribal error, but also possibly reflecting a wish to spread news across the years to give a balance of entries. Immediately readers will recognize differences from the Old English poems already presented. In prose we see no short lines separated by a metrical pause. There is also an absence of alliteration, and the word order is much nearer to that of Modern English. This is prose, therefore, but in an early stage of its development. A quick glance at the Old English reveals a lot of ‘Tironian’ signs (‘7’), which is the abbreviation for ‘and’. The Old English and the translation also display what we would call parataxis, i.e. the repeated use of a conjunction to bring sentences and clauses together (for example, ‘And then this happened . . . and then that . . . and then . . . etc.). This presents a very simple almost childlike, feel to the text but could be considered a rhetorical device, which emphasizes the relentless passage of time. Later Old English prose


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developed a much more sophisticated clause structure, which began to eliminate (but not entirely) the issues of parataxis. Many entries in the Chronicle are short and not every year is covered. For example, the entry for year 990 simply records: 990. He¯r Sigerı¯c wæs gehalgod to ¯ arcebisceope, and ¯ E adwine abbod for~fe¯rde, and Wulfga¯r abbod fe¯ng to ¯ pa¯m rı¯ce. 990. Here Sigeric was consecrated as Archbishop, and Abbot Edwin ‘went forth’ [died], and Abbot Wulfgar succeeded to the office. The story of Cynewulf and Cyneheard is, however, considerably longer than most of the entries in the Chronicle (or at least certainly those for the eighth century). It stands out as something which was clearly seen as important by the chronicler and his audience. In effect, it could be considered the first short story in English literature. And what does it tell us? In the simplest of terms it details a minor bloodfeud in the history of the kingdom of Wessex. It begins with Cynewulf seizing the lands of Sigebryht (justifiably, so we are told by the entry). Sigebryht is depicted as an evil man, murdering one of his most loyal retainers, Cumbra, but is eventually killed in revenge. This, however, is the start of the blood-feud. Thirty-one years later Cynewulf attempts to ‘drive out’ Cyneheard, Sigebryht’s brother. Yet Cyneheard turns the tables on Cynewulf and surprises him whilst he is with his mistress. A battle ensues and Cynewulf is killed, along with his men. Yet the feud does not end there. Some of Cynewulf’s men, who had been elsewhere at the time they heard of their king’s death, rush to seek vengeance. They come across Cyneheard and, after a brief siege, kill him and his retainers. Cassidy and Ringler (1974) see the central themes of the episode as ‘duty of vengeance; loyalty to one’s lord’ (p. 138). They argue that overall it is reminiscent of the Icelandic sagas in that it uses colloquialisms and switches from direct to indirect speech, which suggests an original oral form of the text. We will discuss this, and how it matches Tolkien’s own vision in LR, below. 4.6.3 Discussion Although the impetus for the battles at Finnsburg and in ‘Cynewulf and Cyneheard’ bear no resemblance to the episode in Balin’s tomb, the setpiece actions, namely an attack on a hall or chamber, are extremely similar. Tolkien never produced an edition of the poem or the Chronicle himself, but his interest in the former and the related ‘episode’ in Beowulf (ll. 1063–1159a) is well attested to. Alan Bliss notes that whilst occupying the Rawlinson and Bosworth Chair in Anglo-Saxon at Oxford University (1929–45) Tolkien delivered six lectures


on the text and returned to the subject even after he had retired. In the 1960s Tolkien promised Bliss the material from his lectures and further notes, and when Bliss received these materials in 1979 he set about making them available in a single publication (Bliss, 1998, see especially p. v). His original lectures and notes are available in Tolkien A.24, part of which re-uses a discarded title-page from The Silmarillion. We must also recall that he did provide the Foreword to Clark Hall’s translations of Beowulf and Finnsburg (1950) further attesting to his interest. The Fight at Finsburg, though in fragmentary form, relates the stirring tale of a group of besieged warriors holding a chamber against ‘the enemy without’. ‘Cynewulf and Cyneheard’ have two sieges in fact, but the similarities are plain. More importantly the parallel to the scene in Balin’s tomb is clear – the Fellowship are holding the chamber against the Orcs outside, whilst at Finnsburg the Danes are desperately trying to keep the Frisians at bay; and in the prose extract the Atheling is mounting the resistance. The warriors take up arms and fight, rallying around their leaders. The battles are told in stirring detail, complete with descriptions of the weapons, the sound, the clash of weapon upon weapon, and the shattering of armour. Running through the ‘Cynewulf and Cyneheard’ story there is also a strong theme of loyalty. Cyneheard attempts to buy off Cynewulf’s men but they refuse, saying their loyalty to the king is the most important thing to them. These oaths of loyalty, found also in other Old English poems, were key to the relationship of the lord and his retainers in Anglo-Saxon society. The theme of loyalty is explored in depth throughout Tolkien’s fiction, of course. We have the disloyalty of Bilbo to Thorin over the Arkenstone in TH; the disloyalty of the oath-breakers on the Paths of the Dead and at the Stone of Erech; the loyalty of Rohan to Gondor in honouring its agreement to come to its aid; of Sam to Frodo throughout their journey; and that of the individual warriors, and Éowyn and Merry, on the fields of the Pelennor as they defend Théoden’s body. Returning to his interest in the Chronicle itself, we know that Tolkien used extracts from the Parker Chronicle in particular in his teaching of the History of Old English (Tolkien A 14/2, ff. 1–9). With specific reference to the ‘Cynewulf and Cyneheard’ episode he described it as ‘one of the most interesting and important entries in the Chronicle’ (Tolkien A 29(a)/1. f. 11). He also recognized the value of the entry as being the earliest major piece of historical prose in any Germanic language, but also that it illustrated the ‘stirring tales that lie behind the brief annalistic entries of the Chronicle’, which he suggested may have been similar to the Norse sagas (Tolkien A 29(a)/1, f. 3). Perhaps even more interesting is his re-use of the format of the Chronicle in his Annals of Valinor and Annals of Beleriand (Shaping, pp. 281–93 and 337–41, respectively). These were both translated into Old English by Ælfwine (Eriol;


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see 4.13) and the similarities to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle are striking. Both use Roman numerals for the date, and the entries often start with Her (‘here’, as in the example given from the Chronicle for AD 990 above). Both employ parataxis, and vary between short and long entries (e.g. II Her Fingan Fingolfines sunu sibbe geniwode . . . ; ‘(Here) Fingon son of Fingolfin heals the peace’, The Shaping of Middle-earth, pp. 295 and 395). Returning to the main discussion, in the story of Cynewulf and Cyneheard we also have sieges. First, Cynewulf is discovered in his mistress’s chamber by Cyneheard, and is forced to fight his way out. Interestingly, this tells us that there were clearly two chambers, one for his mistress, and one some way off where his men were stationed, thus giving us an insight in Anglo-Saxon domestic life (see also Beowulf, ll. 663–5). More importantly there is the siege that Cyneheard finds himself in. Caught in the same chamber he and his men attempt to bar the gates against Cynewulf’s vengeful retainers, and hold them off, as the Fellowship did in Balin’s tomb. Let us bring this together by finishing with a closer analysis of the events in Balin’s tomb and those in both extracts. In LR the events can be summarized as: 1. Gandalf realizes that they should depart from the Chamber as soon as possible, having finished reading The Book of Mazarbul. 2. The Fellowship then hear drums and horns from outside in the hall and the sound of the approaching Orcs. Legolas declares ‘They are coming!’ 3. Aragorn urges the company to be ready for battle. 4. Gandalf goes to the doorway to the hall to ascertain the strength of the enemy, but also to issue the challenge ‘Who comes hither to disturb the rest of Balin Lord of Moria?’ 5. Boromir wedges the door shut, but a cave Troll starts to break it down, only for Frodo to stab it in the foot. 6. The Orcs eventually break in. There is fierce hand-to-hand fighting and the Orcs are repulsed. 7. Just as the Fellowship are about to exit from the other door, an Orc chieftain breaks in and stabs Frodo with a spear (though he is unharmed due to his mithril coat). Aragorn slays the Orc. 8. The Fellowship exit the chamber via the alternative door. Finnsburg, in particular, makes an interesting point of comparison: 1. Presumably a warrior within the hall asks where the fiery light is coming from and wonders if the hall is ablaze. Hnæf, their leader, realizes that they are under attack and states that the light is from the enemy weapons. 2. Hnæf encourages his men to ready for battle.


3. Sigeferth and Eaha rush to cover one door, whilst Ordlaf, Guthlaf and Hengest cover the other; these are the ‘crucial points of attack in a hall’ (Donoghue, 2004, p. 37). 4. Outside, the Frisians mount their attack and Guthere, having restrained Garulf from joining in the attack, seeks to know who is holding the door from within. 5. Sigeferth replies and taunts the Frisians, laying down the challenge that they will only get one of two things from him, life or death. 6. The Frisians appear to gain access and there is fierce hand-to-hand fighting in the hall. They would appear to be repulsed and the siege continues for five days. In ‘Cynewulf and Cyneheard’ the second fight (when the Atheling Cyneheard is besieged in the stronghold) has a similar turn of events. The warriors inside (those loyal to Cyneheard) hold the gates against the enemy. There is a brief attempt at a parley which fails, due to the loyalty of the besiegers. Finally, the troops outside force an entry and a fight ensues. Although the Danes at Finnsburg, and the Atheling in the Chronicle, do not escape (unlike the Fellowship), we can see clear parallels. In Finnsburg there is the initial realization that chamber/hall is under attack, the urging of the warriors to battle (Aragorn = Hnæf), the holding of the doors (Boromir/Frodo = Sigeferth/Eaha/Ordlaf/Guthlaf/Hengest in Finnsburg and the Atheling’s men in the Chronicle), the exchange of challenges (Gandalf = Sigferth/Cyneheard), and the final combat. One of the major themes of LR therefore, that of heroic resistance in the face of overwhelming odds, can be found in both of these Old English texts.



4.6.4a The Fight at Finnsburg ‘. . . hornas byrna~?’ Hnæf hle¯oprode ~a¯, heapogeong cyning: ‘Ne, ~is ne daga~ e¯astan, ne he¯r draca ne fle¯oge~, ne he¯r ~isse healle hornas ne byrna~. Ac he¯r forp bera~, fugelas singa~, (5) ¯ghama, gu ¯~wudu hlynne~, gylle~ græ scyld scefte oncwy~. Nu ¯ scy¯ne~ pes mo ¯ na ¯da wa~ol under wolcnum; nu ¯ a¯rı¯sa~ we¯adæ ~e ~isne folces nı¯~ fremman willa~. Ac onwa¯cnigea~ nu ¯, wı¯gend mı¯ne! (10) Habba~ e¯owre linda, hicgeap on ellen, winna~ on orde, wesa~ onmo ¯ de!’ Da¯ a¯ra¯s mænig goldhladen ~egn, gyrde hine his swurde; ~a¯ to ¯ dura e¯odon, drihtlı¯ce cempan, hyra sword getugon, (15) Sigefer~ and ¯ E aha and æt o ¯ prum durum Ordla¯f and Gu ¯pla¯f and Hengest sylf hwearf him on la¯ste. Da¯ gy¯t Ga¯rulf Gu ¯~ere styrde, ~æt he¯ swa¯ fre¯olic feorh, forman sı¯pe ¯re healle durum hyrsta ne bæ ¯re, (20) to¯ ~æ nu ¯ hyt nı¯pa heard a¯nyman wolde. Ac he frægn ofer eal undearninga, de¯ormo ¯ d hælep, hwa¯ ~a¯ duru he¯olde. ‘Sigeferp is mı¯n nama,’ cwep he¯, ‘ic eom Secgena le¯od, wreccea wı¯de cu ¯~; fæla ic we¯ana geba¯d, (25) heardra hilda. De¯ is gy¯t he¯r witod swæper ~u ¯ sylf to ¯ me¯ se¯cean wylle.’ Da¯ wæs on healle wælslihta gehlyn, sceolde cellod bord ce¯num on handa, ba¯nhelm berstan, buruh~elu dynede; (30) ¯re gu ¯~e Ga¯rulf gecrang, o~ æt ~æ ¯rest eor~bu ¯ endra, ealra æ Gu ¯~la¯fes sunu, ymbe hyne go ¯ dra fæla ¯w. Hræfen wandrode hwearflicra hræ sweart and sealobru ¯n. Swurdle¯oma sto ¯ d, (35) ¯re. swylce eal Finnisburuh fy¯renu wæ ¯fre, wurplı¯cor, æt wera hilde, Ne gefrægn ic næ ¯ran, sixtig sigebeorna se¯l gebæ ne¯ ne¯fre swa¯nas hw ¯ı tne medo se¯l forgyldan,


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4.6.4a The Fight at Finnsburg . . . are the gables burning?’ Hnaef spoke then, a king young in war: ‘No, this is not the dawn from the east, nor here does a dragon fly, nor here are the gables of this hall burning. But here they bear forth, the birds are singing, (5) the grey-corslet bays, the war-wood sings, the shield answers the shaft. Now shines this moon wandering under the clouds; now arise the deeds of woe which will bring about this violence of the people. But awaken now, my warriors! (10) Grasp your shields, think of courage, fight at the front, be resolute!’ Then many a gold-adorned thegn arose, girded his sword for himself; then to the doors they went, the noble warriors, Sigeferth and Eaha drew their swords, (15) and at the other doors Ordlaf and Guthlaf, and Hengest himself went behind them. Even then Garulf restrained Guthere, so that he, so noble a life, at the first instance, would not bear armour to the doors of the hall, (20) since one hard in battle wished to remove it. But he asked over all openly, the bold-spirited warrior, who then held the doors. ‘Sigeferth is my name,’ he said, ‘I am of the Secgen, an exiled one known widely; I have experienced many woes, (25) hard battles. For you it is still here decreed which one of the two you will seek for yourself from me.’ Then there was in the hall the noise of slaughter, the embossed shield had to be in the hands of the brave, the helmet [had] to shatter, the floor of the stronghold resounded; (30) until at the battle Garulf fell, the first of all the earth dwellers, the son of Guthlaf, and about him the corpses of the valient, of many of the good [warriors]. The raven circled black and sallow-brown. The light from the sword appeared, (35) as if all of Finnsburg was on fire. Never have I heard of, more honourably, at the battle of men, sixty warriors behave better, nor never young men repay the bright mead better,


~onne Hnæfe guldan his hægstealdas. (40) Hig fuhton fı¯f dagas, swa¯ hyra na¯n ne fe¯ol, drihtgesı¯~a; ac hig ~a¯ duru he¯oldon. Da¯ gewa¯t him wund hæle~, on wæg gangan, ¯de pæt his byrne a¯brocen wæ ¯re, sæ heresceorp unhror, and e¯ac wæs his helm ~yrel. (45) Da¯ hine so ¯ na frægn, folces hyrde, ¯son, hu ¯ ~a¯ wı¯gend hyra wunda genæ ¯ra hyssa [. . . o~~e hwæper ~æ 4.6.4b ‘Cynewulf and Cyneheard’ in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle 755. He¯r Cynewulf benam Sigebryht his rı¯ces 7 Westseaxna wiotan for (1) unryhtum dæ ¯dum bu ¯ton Hamtu ¯nscı¯re; 7 he¯ hæfde pa¯ op he¯ ofslo ¯g pone aldormon pe him lengest wunode. 7 hiene pa¯ Cynewulf on Andred ¯fde 7 he¯ pæ ¯r wunade op pæt hiene a¯n swa¯n ofstang æt Pryfetesa¯dræ flo ¯ dan; 7 he¯ wræc pone aldormon Cumbran. 7 se Cynewulf oft miclum gefeohtum feaht uuip (5) ¯fan Bretwa¯lum. 7 ymb .xxxi. wintra pæs pe he¯ rı¯ce hæfde, he¯ wolde a¯dræ a¯nne æpeling se was Cyneheard ha¯ten; 7 se Cyneheard wæs pæs Sigebryhtes bro ¯ pur. 7 pa¯ gea¯scode he¯ pone cyning ly¯tle werode on wı¯fcy¯ppe ¯r bera¯d 7 pone bu ¯r u ¯tan bee¯ode, æ ¯r hine pa¯ men on Merantu ¯ne, 7 hine pæ ¯run. (10) onfunden pe mid pa¯m kyninge wæ 7 pa¯ ongeat se cyning pæt, 7 he¯ on pa¯ duru e¯ode 7 pa¯ unheanlı¯ce hine ¯sde on hine 7 hine werede op he¯ on pone æpeling lo ¯ cude, 7 pa¯ u ¯t ræ miclum gewundode; 7 hı¯e alle on pone cyning wærun feohtende op pæt ¯rum onfundon hı¯e hine ofslægenne hæfdon. 7 pa¯ on pæs wı¯fes gebæ pæs cyninges pegnas pa¯ unstilnesse, 7 pa¯ pider urnon (swa¯ hwelc swa¯ ponne gearo wearp 7 radost). 7 hiera (15) se æpeling gehwelcum feoh 7 ¯nig hit gepicgean nolde; ac hı¯e simle feohtende feorh gebe¯ad, 7 hiera næ ¯ran op hı¯e alle læ ¯gon bu ¯tan a¯num bryttiscum g ¯ı sle, 7 se¯ swı¯pe gewunwæ dad wæs. Pa¯, on morgenne, gehı¯erdun pæt pæs cyninges pegnas (pe him beæftan ¯run) pæt se cyning ofslægen wæs – pa¯ ridon hı¯e pider, 7 his aldormon wæ ¯sric, 7 Wı¯ferp his (20) pegn, 7 pa¯ men pe he¯ beæftan him læ ¯fde æ ¯r, 7 O ¯re byrig me¯tton pæ ¯r se cyning ofslægen læg, 7 pa¯ pone æpeling on pæ gatu him to ¯ belocen hæfdon, ¯rto e¯odon. 7 pa¯ gebe¯ad he¯ him hiera a¯genne do ¯ m fe¯os 7 londes, 7 pa¯ pæ ¯gas him mid gif hı¯e him pæs rı¯ces u ¯pon, 7 him cy¯pde pæt hiera mæ


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than his young men repaid Hnæf. (40) They fought for five days, because none of them, the retainers, fell; but they held the doors. Then departed the wounded hero himself, heading away, he said that his mail-coat was broken, the armour without strength, and also his helmet was pierced through. (45) Then he immediately asked them, the guardian of the people, how the warriors had survived their wounds, or which of the two of their young men . . . 4.6.4b ‘Cynewulf and Cyneheard’ in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle 755. Here Cynewulf and the West-Saxon witan deprived Sigebryht of his kingdom for unrighteous deeds, except Hampshire; and he had that until he slew the ealdorman who stayed with him the longest. And then Cynewulf drove him into Andred, and he there dwelt until a young man stabbed him to death at Privett’s stream; and he avenged the ealdorman Cumbra. And that Cynewulf often fought great battles with (5) the Britons. And 31 winters after that which he had the kingdom, he wanted to drive out a certain atheling who was called Cyneheard; and that Cyneheard was the brother of that Sigebryht. And then he discovered the king with a small troop in the company of a woman at Merton, and he overtook him there and surrounded the chamber outside, before the men who were with the king might discover him. (10) And then the king understood that, and he went to the door and then he valiantly defended himself until he looked on the Atheling, and then he rushed out at him and greatly wounded him; and they all were fighting against the king until they had slain him. And then because of the woman’s cries the king’s thanes discovered the disturbance, and then they ran thither (whoever became ready and quickest). And to (15) each of them the Atheling offered money and life, and none of them would accept it; but they were forever fighting until they all lay dead except one British hostage, and he was sorely wounded. When, in the morning, the king’s thanes (who were behind him) discovered this – that the king was slain – then they rode thither, and his ealdorman Osric, and Wiferth his (20) thane, and the men which he had left behind him earlier. And the Atheling met them in the stronghold where the king lay slain, and they had locked the gates against them, and then they went there to. And then he offered them their own


wæ ¯ron, pa¯ pe him from noldon. 7 pa¯ cuæ ¯don hı¯e pæt (25) him næ ¯nig ¯g le¯ofra næ ¯re ponne hiera hla¯ford, 7 hı¯e næ ¯fre his banan folgian mæ ¯gum pæt hı¯e gesunde from e¯odon. 7 noldon. 7 pa¯ budon hı¯e hiera mæ ¯don pæt tæt ilce hiera gefe¯rum geboden wæ ¯re pe æ ¯r mid pa¯m hı¯e cuæ ¯run. Pa¯ cuæ ¯don hı¯e pæt hı¯e hı¯e pæs ne onmunden ‘pon ma¯ cyninge wæ ¯run’. 7 hı¯e pa¯ ymb pe e¯owre gefe¯ran pe mid pa¯m cyninge ofslægene wæ ¯ron op pæt hı¯e pæ ¯rinne fulgon 7 pone æpeling pa¯ gatu feohtende (30) wæ ¯run alle bu ¯tan a¯num, se wæs pæs aldorofslo ¯ gon 7 pa¯ men pe him mid wæ monnes godsunu; 7 he¯ his feorh generede, 7 pe¯ah he¯ wæs oft gewundad. 7 se Cynewulf rı¯csode. xxxi. wintra 7 his lı¯c lı¯p æt Wintanceastre, 7 pæs ¯p to ¯ Cerdice. (35) æplinges æt Ascanmynster; 7 hiera ryhtfæder cyn gæ


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judgement of money and land, if they would grant him the kingdom, and he said to them that their relatives were with him, those who did not wish [to go] from him. And then they said that (25) to them no kinsman was more loved than their lord, and they would never follow his slayer. And then they offered to their kin that they may go unharmed. And they said that the same was offered to their companions who before were with the king. Then they said that they themselves were not minded to that ‘anymore than your companions who were slain with the king’. And they then were fighting around the gates (30) until they fought inside and they slew the Atheling and the men who were with him, all except one, he was the ealdorman’s godson; and he saved his life, (and) nevertheless he was repeatedly wounded. And that Cynewulf ruled 31 winters and his body lies at Winchester, and the Atheling’s at Axminster; and their direct paternal kin goes back to Cerdic. (35)


4.6.5a Notes l.1. hornas byrnad, ‘are the gables burning’. This line has proved problematic for many editors. Hickes’ transcription records only –nas (as accepted in the ASPR), but this is generally changed to read hornas, i.e. ‘gables’ (as presented here), thus linking to the reply in l. 4. However, the problems do not stop there. Hickes starts his second line with nfre, but this is unacceptable as the alliteration on the second half of l. 2 falls on heapogeong, i.e. it requires an ‘h’. Two solutions have been proposed by editors in the past. The first is to move næ ¯ fre to the end of line 1 (as previous editors such as Thorpe and Wrenn/Bolton did), or, more commonly to emend næ ¯ fre to Hnæf, a proper noun, referring to the Chief of the Danes who appears again in l. 40. Tolkien himself seems to have sided with the latter argument (Bliss, 1998, p. 83). l.2. Hickes records hearo geong instead of heapogeong presented here, which is more generally accepted by editors. The reference is to Hnæf one assumes, and the change is based on the commonality of compound words beginning heapo- as opposed to those commencing hearo/hearu. ll.3–12. It is noticeable that all the direct speech recorded in the poem is given to the Danes, which clearly gives the reader the impression that the point of view of the poem, and the poet’s possible sympathies, lie with the besieged. l.5. Jack (1994, p. 212) suggests that two half-lines might be missing at this point which would provide the direct object of the phrase ac he¯r forp berad. Tolkien also argued for this, following an earlier suggestion by Chambers. Klaeber, on the other hand, argued that berad refers to the weapons mentioned in ll. 6b–7a on the grounds that it requires less emendation to the text. Tolkien, however, dismissed Klaeber’s argument as ‘nonsense’ (Bliss, 1998, p. 84). l.5. The birds are the crows, ravens or eagles that often form part of ‘the beasts of battle’ motif used in Old English to signify an impending fight. See l. 34, where the raven circles in anticipation of the rich pickings after the slaughter. It is also possible that the græ ¯ ghama, of l. 6, is referring to a wolf (i.e. ‘grey-coated’), a theory Tolkien found attractive (see Bliss, 1998, p. 84). l.6. gu¯pwudu, ‘war-wood’. This probably means spear. ll.10–12. These are very similar to Théoden’s battle-cry as the Rohirrim ride into the Pelennor (LR, p. 820). l.14. dura, ‘doors’. The number of doors being held throughout the poem has caused editors in the past some puzzlement. The form here and later (durum l. 16) is the plural, which simply means that although there were two doorways into the chamber (as there were in Moria), each entrance had a double-set of doors (see Tolkien in Bliss, 1998, p. 86; and Jack, 1994, p. 213, note). The plural, therefore, is maintained throughout for duru (ll. 23 and 42) which could be translated as singular. ll.18–27. The action here is complicated. It is assumed that Garulf and Guthere are on the outside and thus they must be Frisians joining in the attack against the doors. Guthere therefore engages in the exchange with Sigeferth who is holding the gates from within. Editors are divided on emendations to this passage and some have Garulf restraining Guthere instead of the other way round. l.22. The he¯ referred to here must be Guthere (he is asking who is holding the doors on the other side). l.27. Sigeferth, who is holding the doors, is throwing down the challenge that by stating those who are attacking the doors will get one of two things from him – life or death.


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l.34. hwearflicra hræ ¯ w, ‘corpses of the valiant’. The translation (moved to l. 33 in the Modern English to maintain the sense of the expression) follows directly from Tolkien’s own suggested translation (Bliss, 1998, p. 88). l.36. Finnisburuh, ‘Finnsburg’. This is the sole mention of the place name in the poem, indicative of the problems editors have faced when dealing with Hickes’ transcription. He recorded Finnsburuh, but an earlier note by the cataloguer Humfrey Wanley has Finnisburuh. Mitchell and Robinson note (1998, p. 215), ‘as Hickes made eighteen transcriptional errors in forty-eight lines of text, we follow the more reliable Wanley and print Finnisburuh on the assumption that Hickes overlooked a minim when transcribing’. See also Marsden (2004, p. 287) for a list of Hickes’ errors. l.39. swa¯nas hwı¯tne medo, ‘the young men the white mead’. Hickes reads Ne nefre swa noc hwitne medo which the ASPR emend to ne nefre swetne medo. However, here we have chosen the more accepted emendation (see Jack and other editors). l.43. wund hæled, ‘wounded hero’. It would appear that the warrior is actually leaving the battle because his armour is so destroyed, but it remains a mystery as to whether he is a Frisian (which Tolkien perhaps thought, see Bliss, 1998, p. 27), or the first of the Danes, after five days of fighting, that is forced to leave. An alternative interpretation to departure might be that on wæg gangan is actually a euphemism ¯ de of l. 44 would refer to his dying for his death (i.e. ‘passed away’), and thus the sæ words.

4.6.5b Notes l.1. He¯r, ‘here’. This may seem an unusual opening, but it is typical of the entries in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Many editors translate this as ‘in this year’, but the essence of it is to point the reader to that particular point in the manuscript, where the date ‘755’ occurs. Tolkien also uses this in his Old English translations of the Annals of Valinor and Beleriand. The placing of ond Westseaxnawiotan ‘and the West-Saxon witan’ (part of the subject) after the object (Sigebryht) is not in keeping with modern word order, and demonstrates that syntax in Old English prose is not always straightforward. The witan was the king’s council and means ‘wise men’. l.2. The ‘he’ is presumably Sigebryht, i.e. he held the lands in Hampshire, until he committed the deed of killing a loyal ealdorman (which we later, at l. 5 discover to be Cumbra). l.3. Andred is part of what we now term the Weald, which extended across Hampshire and Kent. Tolkien thought that Andred was ‘possibly Celtic’ in origin (Tolkien A29(a)/1, f. 3v). l.4. a¯n swa¯n ,‘a young man’. This has occasionally been translated as ‘a swineherd’. l.6. Bretwa¯lum, ‘Britons’. These were the remnants of the indigenous tribes, and the Romano-British who were gradually pushed westwards by the invading Anglo-Saxons. Here this may refer to the Cornish. .xxxi. wintra ‘31 winters’. The Anglo-Saxons measured their years in winters. This means that the events described actually took place 31 years later than 755 (or 757). Cassidy and Ringler (1974, p. 139) note that this is an error, however, and that the events occurred in 786, only 29 years after the accession of Cynewulf. l.7. ‘Atheling’ is a young prince or nobleman. Quite why Cynewulf is so set against Cyneheard is a mystery. It could be simply because Cyneheard was a brother of his old enemy Sigebryht (hence the reason for the chronicler mentioning it), or he may have wanted to expand his territory further. The former seems more likely and adds to the idea of the blood-feud that runs throughout the tale.


l.8. 7 pa¯ gea¯csode he¯ pone cyning, ‘And when he (Cyneheard) discovered the king (Cynewulf)’. Cynewulf is visiting a mistress at Merton and Cyneheard discovers this. Cynewulf races there and manages to surround the king’s bedchamber before his bodyguards (who presumably are elsewhere) realize what is happening. A burh or stronghold is probably a stockade surrounded by a wall. However, here the bur may be an outlying building away from the hall (see Swanton, 2000, p. 47). l.9. Merantu¯ne, ‘Merton’. This has never been identified. Suggestions include Merton in Surrey, or Marten in Wiltshire. Cassidy and Ringler (1974, p. 140) note: ‘At the time of the events recorded here we may imagine it to consist of a palisade or (earthwork) wall with a gate. Inside this fortification are a large heall (in which Cynewulf’s retainers are bedded down) and a number of outbuildings or buras (cooksheds, storerooms, women’s quarters). The king is on wı¯fcy¯ppe in one of these.’ Tolkien wondered if on wı¯fcy¯ppe was a polite way of stating a visit to a mistress, or as he suggests ‘on a private visit to a lady’ (Tolkien A29(a)/1, f. 6v). He also described the scene thus: ‘The place is nonetheless a large one – probably it belonged to the king . . . which consisted of a main-building the “hall” (heall), around which were grouped numbers of other minor buildings, offices, apartments (hu ¯s æ ¯ ru) and so on, entered from a court or enclosed space. About them all was a ‘wall’ (weall). The entrance through the wall was a geat . . . We see then that the king was in the lady’s “bower” – prob. a separate small building. Cynehard must have ridden right through the gates unopposed, taking the king’s retinue completely off their guard. They must have been in the heall.’ He also suggests the action takes place at night when the guards were sleeping (Tolkien A29(a)/1, f. 19v). l.17. bryttiscum gı¯sle, ‘British hostage’. Tolkien suggests the hostage was probably captured by Cynewulf in wars against the British in Devon (Tolkien A29(a)/1, f. 8). l.24. The manuscript and Bately have cy¯pdon, ‘they said’, but this seems strange as one would expect that Cynheard is telling the men outside about the whereabouts of their kin. Most editors therefore emend to cy¯pde. l.27. Cassidy and Ringler (1974, p. 141) note that in Icelandic sagas it is often customary to offer the people inside the hall or farmstead (which is due to be burnt down) to walk out unharmed. Interestingly, Tolkien himself made a link to the episode at Finnsburg, when his notes on the ‘Cynewulf and Cyneheard’ story at this point record: ‘Those inside were now in a desperate case themselves, and those outside knew that to force an entry would be costly . . . cf. Finnesburg & the episode in B[eowulf]’ (Tolkien A29(a)/1, f. 8v). l.35. Cerdic established the kingdom of Wessex according to the Chronicle in 495 AD.

4.6.6 Further reading The Fight at Finnsburg appears in many editions of Beowulf, as it links closely to some events detailed in this much longer poem, but for the purposes of this book the most interesting is Tolkien’s own ‘edition’ published by Bliss in 1998. Tolkien’s notes on the fragment are available in Tolkien A28/A, ff. 130–40, and interspersed is a translation which Bliss used also in his edition (see also Tolkien A24). The following editions therefore are merely a selection from the numerous versions of Beowulf on offer, but see ASPR vi, pp. 3–4 (the baseline edition used here): Bliss (1998); see Tolkien (1998); Bradley (1982, pp. 507–9); Hill (1984); Jack (1994); Klaeber (1950) – this also contains a reprinting of Hickes’ transcription (pp. 247–49); Marsden (2004, pp. 286–91); Mitchell and Robinson (1998, pp. 212–15); Rodrigues (2002); Wrenn and Bolton (1973).


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The ‘Cynewulf and Cyneheard’ episode is also well anthologized. A recent translation of the Chronicle is presented by Swanton (2000), but see also Garmonsway (1972). The episode is often used as an introduction to Old English prose in many collections of texts in the original, e.g. see Mitchell and Robinson (2000, pp. 208–11); Treharne (2004, pp. 20–3); Baker (2003); Marsden (2004, pp. 245–50); Crossley-Holland (1984, pp. 37–9); Fowler (1966, pp. 4–6). A separate edition of the Parker Chronicle is available in A. H. Smith, The Parker Chronicle (893–900) (Methuen, 1951), but this does not cover the entry in question. The edition used for the baseline text here is Bately (1986, pp. 36–7).


4.7 The Crossing of the Nimrodel – Pearl, ll. 61–276 (FR, ‘Lothlórien’) 4.7.1 Plot summary After crossing the Misty Mountains and leaving Moria, the Fellowship travel to Lothlórien, the most beautiful of all the dwellings of Elves. They cross the stream of Nimrodel and the River Silverlode. In the wood they are met by Elves who lead them to the city of the Galadhrim, where they are received by Galadriel, the Lady of Lórien. Christopher Tolkien (Treason, ch. XXII) records the various drafts of the approach to Lothlórien and the crossing of the rivers. Changes made to earlier drafts include names given to the two rivers (Nimrodel originally being called Taiglin, and the Silverlode the Blackroot). 4.7.2 Medieval text: Pearl, ll. 61–276 Pearl is extant in a single manuscript London, British Library MS Cotton Nero A.x written in the late fourteenth century. The manuscript contains three other poems believed to be by the same fourteenth-century author: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (4.12), Cleanness and Patience. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a chivalric romance, whereas three other poems are primarily concerned with theology and Christian life. All poems display similarities in subject-matter, attitudes, imagery, language and diction. These similarities, and the appearance of the poems in the same manuscript unaccompanied by any other texts, are the main arguments behind the hypothesis of their common authorship. In spite of numerous attempts, their author has never been successfully identified and is usually referred to as either the Gawain-poet or the Pearl-poet. His interests included theology, Christian and chivalric ethics, and the life and culture of the court and aristocracy. His knowledge of theology is believed to have been considerable, though probably amateur rather than professional. In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight he demonstrated extensive familiarity with courtly literature, manners, material culture and various aristocratic pastimes, such as hunting and feasting. In the manuscript all poems are written in the same hand and in the same dialect of the north-west Midland area. Pearl is most commonly interpreted as a poem about the death of the author’s young daughter, though some critics see it as Christian allegory. It belongs to the genre of the dream vision, known from such works as Le Roman de la Rose, Dante’s Divine Comedy, Langland’s Piers Plowman and Chaucer’s The Book of the Duchess. The form of the dream vision was employed by medieval authors to give an authoritative framework to narratives where the setting and events were outside ordinary human experience. The genre was used in works with primarily religious, moral and philosophical concerns, as well as in secular fiction employing fantasy, allegory and symbolism. At the beginning of Pearl the poet


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describes his grief at the loss of his daughter, who is compared to a flawless pearl, commonly used as a symbol of purity. His story of how a precious pearl slipped from his hands through the grass into the ground is an allegory of the child’s death. One festive day in August he visits her grave and falls asleep. In a dream he sees an unfamiliar land, where rocks shine like crystal, leaves shimmer as if they are made of silver and the banks of a stream are covered with pearls rather than gravel. He sees his daughter on the opposite bank of the stream as a beautiful maiden wearing a crown. She greets him and tells him that she has become a bride of Christ and a queen of the heavenly kingdom. Though overjoyed, the poet expresses his surprise at his daughter’s high rank. He does not understand how she has deserved it, for she was less than two years old at the time of her death and had not even learnt to say her prayers. This is followed by a theological debate in which the maiden tells the parable about workers in the vineyard (Matt. 20: 1–16), the parable of the Pearl of Price (Matt. 13: 44–6) and interprets The Book of Revelation. The theological argument focuses on the Christian doctrine of salvation and redemption, where the concept of salvation through God’s grace is opposed to the concept of salvation through good deeds. In the course of the debate the dreamer is reassured that his child is saved and has received the highest reward, even though she died ignorant of Christian teaching. He is also taught orthodox understanding of major Christian moral and theological concepts and how they apply to his own situation. At the end, the dreamer, still grieving for his loss, sees his daughter in a procession of virgins led by the Lamb. He tries to cross the stream, ignoring her warning that this can be achieved only through death, and wakes up. Pearl and three other poems preserved in Cotton Nero A.x are regarded among the highest achievements of what is known as the Alliterative Revival – the flourishing of the alliterative poetry in the North and West of England in the second half of the fourteenth century. Alliteration was used in Old English poetry following the common Germanic tradition, where it highlighted metrical stresses and bound together metrical half-lines (see 2.3.4). Old English alliterative verse also used systematically organized poetic vocabulary and metrically organized formulaic phraseology. Such poetry did not survive the Norman Conquest: no verse in this classical Old English form is known to have been composed or copied after the eleventh century. Alliteration, however, continued to be used in English rhymed and unrhymed poetry composed after the Norman Conquest in spite of the popularity of stanzaic syllabic verse inspired by Continental models. The Alliterative Revival in the second half of the fourteenth/early fifteenth centuries was a regional literary movement which reestablished the alliterative technique as a mainstream poetic device in a form considerably different from Old English. Among important works composed in alliterative verse during this period are Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Piers


Plowman, the Alliterative Morte Arthure, William of Palerne, The Parlement of the Three Ages, St. Erkenwald, The Destruction of Troy, The Destruction of Jerusalem and The Wars of Alexander. Alliterative poetry of this period has a number of similarities with Old English poetry not only in metre, but also in its use of special poetic vocabulary, partly derived from Old English and ‘shared style’ reminiscent of formulas of Old English poetry. There is no single opinion among scholars about the nature of continuity between Old English and Middle English alliterative poetry: some postulate the existence of an unbroken, possibly oral tradition, others believe that alliterative style was re-created by the fourteenth-century poets on the basis of earlier literary models. Pearl has a particularly ornate form and contains 101 stanzas of syllabic verse using both alliteration and a complex rhyme-scheme. Each stanza has twelve four-stressed lines rhyming ababababbcbc. The stanzas are arranged in groups of five. Each group has a similar refrain, and the first line of each group echoes the words of the last line of the preceding group. The stanzas are also linked through the repetition of words at their beginnings and ends: each stanza ends with a refrain echoed in the first line of the following stanza. An edition of Pearl by Tolkien’s colleague at Leeds, E. V. Gordon, was published posthumously by his widow, Ida, in 1953. Tolkien and Gordon were proposing to co-edit Pearl, but the plan was abandoned when Tolkien moved to Oxford. In spite of this Tolkien was invited to contribute to the edition again before Gordon’s death in 1938, after which the material returned to Tolkien. He returned the materials to Ida Gordon around 1950, and she saw the final version through to press (see Anderson, 2003, pp. 18–20). Tolkien’s translation of Pearl was published posthumously in 1975, by Christopher Tolkien. It reproduces the original metre, alliteration, refrains and the rhyme-scheme of the poem. Tolkien wrote that he never accepted the view that the poem’s metrical form was ‘almost impossibly difficult to write in, and quite impossible to render in modern English’ (Letters, 238, p. 317). In 1922 he also published A Middle English Vocabulary – a glossary to Middle English poems edited by Kenneth Sisam, his former tutor and colleague (Sisam, 1921). Sisam’s anthology included an extract from Pearl (ll. 361–612). The passage presented below describes the heavenly land where the poet meets his daughter in a dream. 4.7.3 Discussion Tolkien’s description of Lothlórien shares many features with medieval descriptions of Paradise, exemplified by the following passage from Pearl. When Frodo enters Lothlórien, he feels as if he has stepped ‘over a bridge of time’ and was ‘walking in a world that was no more’ (LR, p. 340). Lothlórien is a ‘timeless land’ (LR, p. 342), unchanging in its beauty: flowers bloom forever in the ‘unfading grass’ (LR, p. 341), leaves do not fall from the trees until spring, when new leaves and flowers appear (LR, p. 326). It is free from suffering and con-


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flict: Elves encounter evil and sorrow through their dealings with the outside world, which they distrust and fear, but ‘on the land of Lórien no shadow lay’ (LR, p. 340). It is untouched by corruption: No blemish or sickness or deformity could be seen in anything that grew upon the earth. On the land of Lórien there was no stain. (LR, p. 341) One of the themes used by the author of Pearl in the description of the heavenly land is the inadequacy of a mortal mind to comprehend the beauty and happiness of heaven. The poet depicts the dreamer feeling joy and delight, but also confusion and shock. The dreamer repeatedly observes that no man can worthily describe the richness and happiness of the land he can see. A similar theme appears in the description of Lórien: Frodo sees it bathed in light ‘for which his language had no name’ (LR, p. 341). The colours of the land are gold, white, blue and green, but they are fresher and stronger than in the outside world (LR, p. 341). The trees have leaves which look like ‘pale gold’. Similar colours appear in the Pearl-poet’s description of the heavenly land: the woods are ‘bright’, the tree trunks are blue ‘as the dye of Ind’ and the banks of the rivers are ‘like fine gold thread’. A beautiful description of shimmering leaves that shine like burnished silver in Pearl (ll. 77–80) is paralleled by Tolkien’s description of the trees in Lothlórien: ‘amid their ever-moving leaves countless lights were gleaming, green and gold and silver’ (LR, p. 344). Shippey (2003, p. 218) noted that the approach to Lórien in LR was complex and was described as a symbolic journey. He compared it to a visionary journey depicted in Pearl. Thus, the dreamer in Pearl receives consolation from the heavenly landscape, but is unable to cross the river. This river is revealed later in the poem to be the stream of the water of life which flows out of the throne of God (Rev. 22: 1–2 and Pearl, ll. 974, 1055–60) (Gordon, 1953). In LR the Fellowship, on their approach to Lórien, cross two rivers, deliberately described and distinguished: Nimrodel eases their grief, but they cannot touch Silverlode and have to cross it on ropes. However, behind this second boundary they are totally safe, because it appears that the Orcs are unable to cross it. Shippey suggests that the crossing of Nimrodel and then Silverlode lead the Fellowship further and further out of the world, mirroring the river in Pearl which acts as a boundary between life and death (2000, pp. 197–8).


4.7.4 Pearl, ll. 61–276 6 Fro spot my spyryt per sprang in space, (61) My body on balke per bod in sweuen, My goste is gon in Godez grace In auenture per meruaylez meuen. I ne wyste in pis worlde quere pat hit wace, (65) Bot I knew me keste per klyfez cleuen; Towarde a foreste I bere pe face, Where rych rokkez wer to dyscreuen. Pe lyt of hem myt no mon leuen, Pe glemande glory pat of hem glent; (70) For wern neuer webbez pat wyez weuen Of half so dere adub[be]mente. 7 Dubbed wern alle po downez sydez Wyth crystal klyffez so cler of kynde, Holtewodez bryt aboute hem bydez (75) Of bollez as blwe as ble of Ynde; As bornyst syluer pe lef on slydez, Pat pike con trylle on vch a tynde, Quen glem of glodez agaynz hem glydez, Wyth schymeryng schene ful schrylle pay schynde. (80) Pe grauayl pat on grounde con grynde Wern precious perlez of Oryente: Pe sunne bemez bot blo and blynde In respecte of pat adubbement. 8 The adubbemente of po downez dere (85) Garten my goste al greffe forete; So frech flauorez of frytez were, As fode hit con me fayre refete. Fowlez per flowen in fryth in fere, Of flaumbande hwez, bope smale and grete; (90) Bot sytole-stryng and gyternere Her reken myrpe mot not retrete; For quen pose bryddez her wyngez bete, Pay songen wyth a swete asent. So grac[i]os gle coupe no mon gete (95) As here and se her adubbement.


4.7.4 Pearl, ll. 61–276 6 From that place my spirit sprang after a time, (61) My body there on the mound remained in sleep, My soul was gone through God’s grace On a quest where marvels happen. I did not know where in the world it was, (65) But I knew I was cast where cliffs cleave (the sky); Towards a forest I turned my face, Where splendid rocks were seen. No man would believe the light they sent, The gleaming glory that shone from them; (70) For never the fabrics that mortals weave Were half so richly adorned. 7 Adorned were all the hills’ sides With crystal cliffs so clear by nature, Bright woods around them lay (75) With trunks as blue as the dye of Ind; Like burnished silver fluttered the leaves, That densely quivered on every branch, When the gleam from the clear sky glided over them With shimmering shine most dazzlingly they shone. (80) The gravel that on the ground made grinding sound Were precious pearls of the Orient: The beams of the sun are but dark and dim Compared with this adornment. 8 The adornment of these rich hills (85) Made my soul all its grief forget; So fresh were the scents of the fruits, That like food they refreshed me delightfully. There in the wood birds flew in flocks, Of flaming hues, both small and great; (90) But the citole-string nor gittern player Could never match their lovely mirth; For when these birds beat their wings, They sang in a sweet harmony. Such gracious merriment could nobody capture, (95) As to the hearing and the seeing of this wonder.

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9 So al watz dubbet on dere asyse Pat fryth per Fortwne forth me ferez; Pe derpe perof for to deuyse Nis no wy worpe pat tonge berez. (100) I welke ay forth in wely wyse, No bonk so byg pat did me derez. Pe fyrre in pe fryth, pe feier con ryse Pe playn, pe plonttez, pe spyse, pe perez, And rawez, and randez, and rych reuerez, (105) As fyldor fyn her bonkes brent. I wan to a water by schore pat scherez – Lorde, dere watz hit adubbement! 10 The dubbemente of po derworth depe Wern bonkez bene of beryl bryt; (110) Swangeande swete pe water con swepe Wyth a rownande rourde raykande aryt. In pe founce per stonden stonez stepe, As glente pur glas pat glowed and glyt, A[s] stremande sternez, quen strope-men slepe, (115) Staren in welkyn in wynter nyt. For vche a pobbel in pole per pyt Watz emerad, saffer, oper gemme gente, Pat alle pe loe lemed of lyt – So dere watz hit adubbement. (120) 11 The dubbement dere of doun and dalez, Of wod and water and wlonk playnez, Bylde in me blys, abated my balez, Fordidden my stresse, dystryed my paynez. Doun after a strem pat dryly halez (125) I bowed in blys, bredful my braynez; Pe fyrre I foled pose floty valez, Pe more strenghpe of ioye myn herte straynez. As Fortune fares per as ho fraynez, Wheper solace ho sende oper ellez sore, (130) Pe wy to wham her wylle ho waynez Hyttez to haue ay more and more.


9 So all was adorned in such splendid manner That wood where Fortune was taking me forward; No man with tongue Could worthily describe its richness. (100) I walked ever forth in a happy way, No hill was so tall that it hindered me. The farther in the wood, the fairer rose The plain, the shoots, the spices, the pear trees, And hedgerows, and borders, and rich rivers, (105) Whose steep slopes were like fine gold thread. I reached a river that meanders by a shore – Lord, splendid was this adornment! 10 The adornments of this wondrous deep Were beautiful banks of beryl bright; (110) Swirling sweetly the water swept Flowing forth with a whispering murmur. On the bottom there stood shining stones, Which glowed and glinted as a beam of light through glass, As streaming stars when country-men sleep, (115) Shine in the sky on winter night. For every pebble set in this water Was emerald, sapphire, or other noble gem, So that all the pool shone with light – So precious was this adornment. (120) 11 The precious adornment of hills and valleys, Of wood and water and lovely plains, Gave me bliss, ended my anguish, Quelled my distress, extinguished my pain. Down along the stream that steadily flows I went in bliss, my brains overpowered; The further I followed these flowing vales, The more strength of joy strains my heart. As Fortune fares where she tests, Whether solace she sends, or else pain, (130) The man to whom she grants her favour, Chances to have ever more and more.

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12 More of wele watz in pat wyse, Pen I cowpe telle, pa I tom hade, For vrpely herte myt not suffyse (135) To pe tenpe dole of po gladnez glade; Forpy I pot pat Paradyse Watz per o[u]er gayn po bonkez brade. I hoped pe water were a deuyse Bytwene myrpez by merez made; (140) Byonde pe broke, by slente oper slade, I hope pat mote merked wore. Bot pe water watz depe, I dorst not wade, And euer me longed a[y] more and more. 13 More and more, and et wel mare, (145) Me lyste to se pe broke byonde; For if hit watz fayr per I con fare, Wel loueloker watz pe fyrre londe. Abowte me con I stote and stare, To fynde a forpe faste con I fonde, (150) Bot wopez mo iwysse per ware, Pe fyrre I stalked by pe stronde. And euer me pot I schulde not wonde For wo per welez so wynne wore. Penne nwe note me com on honde (155) Pat meued my mynde ay more and more. 14 More meruayle con my dom adaunt, I se byonde pat myry mere A crystal clyffe ful relusaunt, Mony ryal ray con fro hit rere. (160) At pe fote perof per sete a faunt, A mayden of menske, ful debonere; Blysnande whyt watz hyr bleaunt, I knew hyr wel, I hade sen hyr ere. As glysnande golde pat man con schere, (165) So schon pat schene an-vnder schore; On lenghe I loked to hyr pere, Pe lenger, I knew hyr more and more.


12 More delights there were of this kind, Than I could tell, even if I had leisure, For earthly heart can not embrace (135) A tenth of these happy joys; Therefore I thought that Paradise Was there nearby these broad banks. I thought the water was a division Between the delights made beside the lakes; (140) Beyond that brook, by slope or by valley, I thought a city would be placed. But the water was deep, I dared not wade, And ever longed more and more. 13 More and more, and yet still more, (145) I wanted to see beyond the brook; For if it was fair where I walked, Much lovelier was the further land. I stopped and looked around me, I tried hard to find a ford, (150) But there were more perils indeed The further I walked along the shore. And all the time it seemed to me I should not hesitate For fear, where there were such delightful joys. Then a new interest came to hand, That moved my mind ever more and more. 14 A greater marvel subdued my judgement, I saw beyond that merry stream A crystal cliff brightly gleaming, Many royal rays rose from it. (160) At its foot there sat a child, A gentle maiden full of grace; Gleaming white was her mantle, I knew her well, I had seen her before. As glistening gold that has been cut, (165) Shone this beauty under the shore; Long I looked at her there, And the longer I looked, I knew her more and more.

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15 The more I frayste hyr fayre face, Her fygure fyn quen I had fonte, (170) Suche gladande glory con to me glace As lyttel byfore perto watz wonte. To calle hyr lyste con me enchace, Bot baysment gef myn hert a brunt. I se hyr in so strange a place, (175) Such a burre myt make myn herte blunt. Penne verez ho vp her fayre frount, Hyr vysayge whyt as playn yuore, Pat stonge myn hert ful stray atount, And euer pe lenger, pe more and more. (180)


15 The more I examined her fair face, When I have noticed her gracious form, (170) Such gladdening glory descended to me As was little known before then. Desire to call her urged me, But confusion gave my heart a blow. I saw her in so strange a place, (175) The shock may well have stunned my heart. Then she lifted her fair forehead, Her face was white as pure ivory, That stung my heart in bewildered amazement, And ever the longer, the more and more. (180)

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4.7.5 Notes l.71. webbez, ‘fabrics, tapestries’, MnE web. l.72. adub[be]mente. This word ‘adornment, splendour’ is used as a refrain in opening and closing lines of this group of five stanzas to accentuate the richness and beauty of heavenly land. l.76. blwe as ble of Ynde. Similar to the modern term ‘indigo’. l.78. con trylle. con followed by an infinitive of a verb is a periphrastic construction which developed from gan, ‘to begin to’, + infinitive. It is frequently used in the works of the Pearl-poet, mostly as a form of past tense. l.79. glodez, ‘bright patches of sky’, of uncertain origin, possibly related to ‘glad’ in its original sense ‘bright’ (Gordon, 1953, p. 133). l.91. sytole-stryng and gyternere. According to The Oxford Dictionary of Music (1997) scholars are still uncertain which medieval instrument was described by the term sytole, but it may have been a forerunner of the Renaissance cittern, a kind of lyre. The gittern is a medieval forerunner of the guitar, popular in the fourteenth century (The Oxford Dictionary of Music, 1997). l.95. grac[i]os – MS: gracos. l.107. scherez. The meaning is either ‘cuts’ (OE sceran) or ‘meanders along’ (MnE sheer ‘sverve’) (Gordon, 1953, p. 133). Tolkien in his translation has ‘in cloven bed’, taking scheren to mean ‘cut’. l.113. stonden is present tense, even though the rest of the description is in the past tense. This may be a mistake, but concord between tenses is generally less strong in Middle English than in Modern English. stepe, ‘bright, brilliant’; OE ste¯ap, ‘high, prominent’, Modern English ‘steep’. l.115. A[s] – MS: a strope-men. The precise meaning of strope- is unclear; it may be related to ON stord, ‘a young wood, plantation’, or to OE stro¯d, ‘marshy land covered with bushes or trees’ (Elliott, 1974). l.121. The refrain in this group of stanzas is ‘more and more’, which emphasizes the abundance of heaven, and the inadequacy of the mortal mind to comprehend it. l.131. waynez is related to the OE bewægnan, ‘offer’ (Gordon, 1953, p. 160). l.138. ouer – MS: oper. l.144. a[y] – MS: a. l.169. frayste ‘examined’, ON freista.

4.7.6 Further reading Editions and translations of Pearl include Gordon (1953), Gardener (1965), Cawley and Anderson (1976), Borroff (1977), Moorman (1977), Finch (1993), Tolkien (1995), Andrew and Waldron (2002) and others. A facsimile of the manuscript is available in Gollancz (1923). Burrow (1971), Turville-Petre (1977), Davenport (1978), Putter (1996) and Brewer and Gibson (1997) provide useful introductions to the Pearl-poet and the Alliterative Revival. See Patch (1950) for an account of medieval descriptions of the other world.


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4.8 Boromir’s Death – Beowulf, ll. 26–52 (TT, ‘The Departure of Boromir’) 4.8.1 Plot summary The Fellowship of the Ring has been broken, and Boromir, in a vain attempt to defend Merry and Pippin, is killed by Orcs. Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli pause in their pursuit of the two hobbits to perform a funeral for Boromir. Christopher Tolkien (Treason, pp. 378–88) records that the general details of the funeral remained the same from the beginning, with the exception that in the earlier drafts Trotter replaces Aragorn. The only alteration of note is that the lament which Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli sing was possibly originally intended for Denethor (p. 384). 4.8.2 Medieval text: Beowulf, ll. 26–52 For an introductory discussion of Beowulf, see 4.3. The extract presented here, relating to the funeral of Boromir, comes at the opening of the Old English poem. To set the scene for the grandeur of the Danes (and to highlight the fall from grace when Grendel launches his attacks) we are presented with their lineage going back to their first ruler, Scyld Scefing. We are told how mighty Scyld became, and how far his kingdom extended. Then, upon his death, his funeral is described in great detail. It is this which provides the parallel with the funeral of Boromir. 4.8.3 Discussion Boromir’s death at the hands of the Orcs presented Tolkien with an opportunity to explore the burial customs of Middle-earth and once again to use his knowledge of the medieval world. Elsewhere in LR the funeral rites are mentioned. For the most part burial is in a tomb (or barrow), but occasionally a pyre is used (as with Saruman’s Orcs slaughtered by the Rohirrim in LR, p. 449; or Denethor’s pyre ‘like the heathen kings before’ in LR, p. 807, and the burial of Théoden, LR, p. 954). Yet after the fight at Parth Galen the remaining members of the Fellowship do not have the option of burial and do not choose the option of cremation. Instead, they look to the Great River, Anduin, and perform what could be termed a ship-burial. They carry Boromir to the small Elven boat on a bier of wood and bow strings, where they lay him complete with ‘grave goods’, including an Elven cloak at his head, the golden belt of Lórien, his helmet, the remains of his horn and sword, and the weapons of the Orcs he has slain. They then row out into the middle of the river and cast Boromir’s boat free, whilst Aragorn and Legolas sing a dirge (for another example of the funeral dirge in Tolkien’s writing readers may wish to look at the one sung by Torhthelm in ‘The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth, Beorhthelm’s Son’, p. 12). We do not know where the boat journeys to. It is suggested that


eventually it finds its way out to sea (LR, p. 407), but his horn is washed up in Gondor (LR, p. 652). At the beginning of Beowulf we have a very similar scene. We are told that Scyld departs at his ‘destined hour’ and his companions carry him to the water’s edge (this time the sea-shore). There they place him in a ‘curved-prowed boat’ along with treasure, weapons and armour. They then set the boat adrift over the waves and mourn his loss. Jack notes the similarity between this and the burial at Sutton Hoo (a major Anglo-Saxon site in Suffolk which has revealed a series of burials, some of them ships, within mounds). Jack records: The practices followed in Scyld’s funeral have affinities with those evidenced in the Sutton Hoo ship-burial, discovered near Woodbridge in Suffolk, and first excavated in 1939. The ship at Sutton Hoo, twenty-seven metres in length and enclosed within a mound, contained a collection of precious objects intended to be of use to the dead person in the next life. The objects include a sword, a helmet, a mail-coat, a gold buckle, a purse with gold coins, a lyre, drinking-vessels, and a silver bowl . . . Sutton Hoo may have been the grave of the East Anglian king Rædwald, who died in 624/5. ( Jack, 1994, p. 29) Before proceeding to the extract itself it is worth considering the impact this scene had on Tolkien’s other writings, and to do so we need to explore further the possible identity of the Danish king Scyld Scefing (see Bruce, 2002). The name (Beo l. 4) may come from scyld, or ‘shield’, i.e. a protector. Scefing can mean ‘son of Sceaf’,1 but also ‘with a sheaf [of corn or wheat]’. If the latter is the case, then the Scyld Scefing who opens the poem may be drawn from another legend, that of King Sheaf/Sheave, recorded, for example, in a chronicle dating from around AD 1000 by an Anglo-Saxon called Æthelweard (Garmonsway et al., 1980, p. 119) and elaborated in the twelfth century by William of Malmesbury. Orchard (2003), in a recent major contribution to Beowulfian studies, having weighed up the evidence, finds himself able only tentatively to state ‘that behind the tale of Scyld Scefing lies a myth about a fertility god, who comes across water’ (p. 103). But is this the King Sheaf of legend? The story tells of a small boy who is washed up on the shore in a boat. Nobody knows where the boy has come from, but in the boat they discover a sheaf of corn. The boy later becomes a great king. All we can say with any certainty is that this clearly intrigued Tolkien, and he considered the links between the legend and the Scyld Scefing of Beowulf (see Lost Road, pp. 92–6 for extracts 1

The –ing ending of names was a patronymic like the modern –son ending (e.g. Williamson) in Modern English, but the latter was drawn from the Scandinavian practice. In LR Tolkien retains the –ing ending, e.g. Théoden’s patronym Thengling (LR, p. 831).


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from Tolkien’s lectures on the subject, and also Tolkien A28/B, ff. 9–9v for his notes on the ‘Departure of Scyld Scefing’). Moreover, he puzzled over the boy’s origins, and where the burial boat goes to, once it is set adrift on the seas. In Beowulf all that is said is that nobody could say where the boat containing Scyld’s body went to (see ll. 50–2); it was ‘beyond the knowledge of the wisest’ (Newton, 1993, p. 49). This intrigued Tolkien in two ways. First there was the character of Scyld himself. Was he real, or more of a symbolic character? In his notes Tolkien discussed this at length, suggesting that combining the name Scyld with the patronymic Scefing the poet was deliberately blending the ‘warlike glory of the eponymous ancestor of the conquering house’ with the legend of King Sheaf, but adding to it the departure of Scyld back to the unknown. The poet was deliberately referencing the ship-burials of the ‘not very remote heathen past – to make a magnificent and suggestive exordium, and background to his tale’ (Tolkien A28/B, f. 3r). Tolkien clearly felt that the episode was poetic, not historical (Tolkien A31, f. 42r), playing on the audience’s memories of ship-burial which was an idea with which they would have had deep associations (Tolkien A31, f. 12v). He even saw resonances with the later legend of Arthur’s journey to Avalon (Tolkien A31, f. 12v). Tolkien was also aware of the possible links the tale had with episodes in other medieval texts, and called it ‘a most astonishing tangle’ (Tolkien A31, f. 13r). He pointed to the references to the character in the Old English poem Widsith (ll. 35–49), where Sceaf is one of the Langobards, as well as to Scandinavian sources – Skáldskaparmál, Ynglinga-saga, Skj oldunga-saga and Saxo’s Historia Danica. But the mixture of history and mythology evident in Beowulf was, he considered, unique. Second, the idea of a mysterious land to the west, from where great heroes appear and where they go to after death (as in the description of the burial), clearly fascinated Tolkien. In a sense it underpins much of his mythology, encompassing the stories of Númenor, Eärendil and the Undying Lands for which Frodo and Bilbo set sail at the end of LR. Moreover, in his tale of timetravel entitled The Lost Road (see 4.13 for a further discussion of this) Tolkien has one of the characters, an Anglo-Saxon called Ælfwine, tell the tale of King Sheaf/Sheave in both prose and eventually in verse (which also appears in his The Notion Club Papers). Flieger (2004, p. 136) also sees similarities between the mysterious appearance of Scyld Scefing and Frodo’s background as an orphan. To Flieger this ‘suggests that Tolkien wished to invest Frodo with the mythic significance of a bringer of peace, prosperity, and fruitfulness’. If Boromir’s boat did make it to the mouth of the Anduin, therefore, it would have headed out to sea to the south-west or west. Where it ended up, like Scyld’s boat, we do not know, but the striking similarities between the two burials are noteworthy.


4.8.4 Beowulf, ll. 26–52 Him ~a¯ Scyld gewa¯t to ¯ gescæphwile (26) felahro ¯ r fe¯ran, on fre¯an wæ ¯re. ¯ron to ¯ brimes faro~e, Hı¯ hyne pa¯ ætbæ ¯se gesı¯pas, swa¯ he¯ selfa bæd, swæ penden wordum we¯old, wine Scyldinga, (30) le¯of landfruma, lange a¯hte. ¯r æt hy¯~e sto ¯d hringedstefna, Pæ ¯ı sig ond u ¯tfu ¯s, æpelinges fær. ¯le¯don pa¯ le¯ofne pe¯oden, A be¯aga bryttan, on bearm scipes, (35) ¯rne be mæste. Pæ ¯r wæs ma¯dma fela mæ ¯ded; of feorwegum, frætwa gelæ ne hy¯rde ic cy¯mlicor ce¯ol gegyrwan ¯pnum ond hea~owæ ¯dum, hildewæ billum ond byrnum. Him on bearme læg (40) ma¯dma mænigo, pa¯ him mid scoldon on flo ¯ des æht feor gewı¯tan. ¯ssan la¯cum te¯odan, Nalæs hı¯ hine læ pe¯odgestre¯onum, pon pa¯ dydon, pe¯ hine æt frumsceafte for~ onsendon, (45) ¯nne ofer y¯~e, umborwesende. æ Pa¯ gy¯t hı¯e him a¯setton segen geldenne he¯ah ofer he¯afod, le¯ton holm beran, ge¯afon on ga¯rsecg; him wæs geo ¯ mor sefa, murnende mo ¯ d. Men ne cunnon (50) ¯dende, secgan to ¯ so ¯ ~e, seleræ ¯m hlæste onfe¯ng. hæle~ under heofenum, hwa¯ pæ


4.8.4 Beowulf, ll. 25–52 Scyld then himself went at the destined hour, (26) into the Lord’s keeping, having done so much. They then carried him to the sea’s tide, [his] own companions, as he himself commanded, whilst he controlled words, the lord of the Scyldings, (30) the ruler of the beloved land, he ruled for a long time. There at the harbour stood a curved-prowed ship icy and eager to go out, the atheling’s ship. They laid then the beloved lord, the giver of rings, in the embrace of the ship, (35) the famous one by the mast. There was brought much treasure from far aways, [and] precious items; I have never heard of a more comely ship being prepared with war weapons and battle garments, swords and byrnies. On his breast lay (40) many treasures, [which] then with him had to journey into the flood’s ownership far away. Not at all did they furnish him the lesser with gifts, with the people’s treasures, than those did, who at the beginning sent him forth, (45) as a child, alone over the waves. Then still they set for him a golden banner high over [his] head, they let the water bear [him], they gave to the ocean; theirs was a sad spirit, [and] a mourning mind. Men were not able to (50) say in truth, the hall councilors, the heroes under the heavens, who received that cargo.

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4.8.5 Notes As well as Tolkien’s works referred to above, see his detailed commentary on this section from Beowulf in Tolkien A28/B, ff. 8v–12r. l.28. to¯ brimes faro~e, ‘to the sea’s tide’. Tolkien (Tolkien A28/B, f. 8v) suggested ‘to the flowing sea’; whereas Clark Hall (1950, p. 21) and Heaney (1999, p. 4) have ‘sea’s flood’. l.30. Scyldinga ‘of the Scyldings’. Scyldings (meaning ‘tribe/followers of Scyld’) is the alternative name for the Danes. Mitchell and Robinson (1998, p. 47), however, note that the term is used only in poetry. l.32. hringedstefna, ‘a curved-prowed ship’. Jack (1994, p. 29) notes that the description of the boat as ring-prowed may reflect the coils sometimes seen on the front of Viking ships. Heaney (1999, p. 4) suggests ‘ring-whorled’. l.33. Atheling is an ancient term meaning prince, or one of royal blood (see also 4.6 ‘Cynewulf and Cyneheard’). l.37. gelæ ¯ded, ‘brought’. This is moved to l. 36 in the translation. l.38. It is interesting to note here that the narrator makes his presence felt by interposing his own thoughts on the splendour of the burial. Tolkien (Tolkien A28/B, f. 10r) notes that the use of ‘we’ would bring in the audience, whereas here ‘ic’ refers simply to the ‘minstrel or poet’. ll.43–6. Tolkien puzzled over these lines, and in particular whether this is direct reference to the King Sheaf legend. l.47. segen geldenne, ‘a golden banner’. It is interesting to recall the presence of a golden banner or stand in the Sutton Hoo ship burial. l.49. For a discussion of ga¯rsecg and its relation to Tolkien’s mythology, see 4.13. l.52. Tolkien notes (Tolkien A28/B, f. 11v), ‘So ends the Exordium proper, giving the background of mystery and antiquity behind the renowned Scylding house.’

4.8.6 Further reading Tolkien himself translated this piece of Beowulf into prose (see Lost Road, pp. 92–3). It is also worth reading his versions of the legend of King Sheaf (Lost Road, pp. 79–104). The text here is based on ASPR, IV, pp. 3–4; further editions of Beowulf are listed in 4.3.


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4.9 Treebeard’s List – Maxims II (TT, ‘Treebeard’) 4.9.1 Plot summary Merry and Pippin, having escaped the Orcs, flee into Fangorn forest where they encounter Treebeard, the Ent. Treebeard is puzzled as to what the two hobbits are and recites an ancient poem which lists the various flora and fauna of Middle-earth. Christopher Tolkien (Treason, pp. 411–21) notes that the character of Treebeard, and the Ents themselves, seem to have come late to Tolkien, and he puzzled over how they would fit into the story. 4.9.2 Medieval text: Maxims II Maxims II is found in a British Library manuscript – Cotton MS Tiberius B.i (ff. 115r–v). Its dating is troublesome, and the nature of the poem suggests ancient folklore passed down from generation to generation (as indeed Treebeard’s poem was). Cassidy and Ringler argue that it ‘probably reached its present form in the tenth century or slightly earlier, though some of the material in it may be much older’ (1974, p. 373). It is called Maxims II because a very similar poem (Maxims I) appears in ‘The Exeter Book’. A ‘maxim’, according to the OED is: A rule or principle of conduct. Also: a pithily expressed precept of morality or prudence (spec. occurring in Old English verse); such a precept as a literary form. Marsden (2004, p. 296) notes: The OE maxims present an intimate view of the world in literal terms. Indeed, on the face of it, they may seem to state the obvious . . . but that is the point. Shippey (1976, p. 12) described it as having ‘barely imaginable purpose’ yet at the same time ‘undeniable charm’. 4.9.3 Discussion One of the tensions presented in LR is that of change and unfamiliarity. Several examples of the damaging effects of both, or the consequences of the disruption of the natural order appear in the book. ‘Older’ peripheral characters, such as Gaffer Gamgee and the wise healer Ioreth of Minas Tirith, continually eulogize the past, noting the sense of flux and disorder that surrounds the present. The Nazgûl’s appearance in the Shire at the beginning is presented as something that should not be – and a sign of times that are strange and changing. When the hobbits appear in The Prancing Pony, Barleyman Butterbur is moved


to remark that they did not often get parties from the Shire ‘nowadays’ (LR, p. 150), and this theme of unfamiliar occurrences continues. One of the most interesting examples of this arises from the meeting between the Ent Treebeard and Merry and Pippin. Treebeard is presented with three main characteristics (beyond his personal appearance that is): his strength his age and his knowledge. The last two combine to present an image of immense wisdom, but a dislike of change. Into Treebeard’s timeless, ageless world, therefore, the appearance of the hobbits is yet another sign of the strange, disconcerting times, which along with the mechanization of Orthanc feed the Ent’s fear of imminent doom (encompassing both the sense of destruction and the original Old English word do¯m, meaning ‘judgement’). Treebeard views Merry and Pippin partly with suspicion, but more importantly with curiosity. In an attempt to understand these two ‘very odd’ creatures he recalls a poem from long ago that seems to set out a catalogue of the fauna of Middle-earth. This poem presents a short list of the creatures of the world, sometimes balancing them with their characteristics or locations. Treebeard fails to find the hobbits in his list and seems to settle for Pippin’s suggestion of ‘Half-grown hobbits, the hole-dwellers’ (LR, p. 453). This ‘list’ could be described as ‘gnomic’ (i.e. concerned with wisdom, from the Greek gnmh meaning ‘mind, judgement’). In addition, it bears a strong resemblance to Maxims II. The verse sets out how things have been and will be, with everything in its place or with its reason, and has a sense of hierarchy. Kocher (2002, pp. 81–2) elaborates on this, suggesting Treebeard’s song lists the four ‘free peoples’ first (into which he later inserts hobbits), followed by the implied ‘not free’ creatures, such as the animals and birds. Such a hierarchy is not especially evident in Maxims II, although we do witness the closing emphasis on the power of God and the uncertainty (as opposed to what has been listed) of the afterlife. The Old English also conveys to the audience a feeling of how things must be, which is possibly what Treebeard is searching for. The bear will hunt bees – that is what a bear is meant to do – and the eagle will live in its eyrie. Moreover, like Treebeard’s song, Maxims II possibly encapsulates folk wisdom passed down from generation to generation of the early English. Again like the Ent’s list it mixes people and creatures, describing their characteristics, where they live, and so on. Yet unlike Treebeard’s poem, the Old English is more complete, and it varies considerably from natural elements (the weather, animals) from what we might describe as the supernatural (dragons and demons), but which were all too real in Middle-earth. It is understandable, therefore, that Tolkien associated the Ents with these maxims as their attitude to memory and the past is a main feature of their character. Kocher (2002, p. 113) states: ‘For them [Ents] life is a history in which the past grows into the present, all in due order, and they remember every part


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of it sequentially and calmly.’ Tolkien also imitates the style of Old English poetry by keeping his lines short, breaking them consistently into two halves, and linking them by alliteration. (See 2.3.4 for a fuller discussion of ‘Alliterative Verse’.) There is one major noticeable difference between the two pieces (other than their length). As one reads through the Old English poem a clear Christian message emerges, which is especially strong towards the end. However, Middleearth is a non-Christian world – or at best pre-Christian. Even if Treebeard had remembered the whole of the poem he would not have finished it in a manner evident in Maxims II, unless he referred to the Valar. However, if we consider what is being said in the Old English poem, it is not too dissimilar from Tolkien’s philosophy. Looking at ll. 48–63 of the Old English we find an abundance of Tolkienian ideas. The star in the heavens (l. 48) reminds us of Eärendil, the almost predetermined struggle of good against evil (l. 50), and the ‘friend against foe’ seems to summarize the history of Middle-earth and the War of the Ring. There are the personal struggles also. The fight against old age (l. 50) recalls Théoden; the light in the darkness (l. 51) – the struggle in Shelob’s lair; armies face armies in the war; and over all of this the wise one, Gandalf, ponders (l. 54). There is also the uncertainty about the afterlife. Only the immortal know their future in Middle-earth, but for those doomed to die (men or Elves, such as Arwen, who have chosen mortality) their fate is uncertain. Maxims II presents us, then, with an outline of the major characteristics of the seasons, animals and places in society and alludes to such nebulous concepts as ‘fate’ (Old English wyrd). Treebeard may have been able to do likewise if he had remembered all the verses. Readers of LR may also see similarities between the Old English and the verse that haunts Aragorn, declaring his lineage: ‘All that is gold does not glitter . . .’, which is very close to a maxim in feeling. Furthermore, they should also note at l. 2 the phrase ordanc enta geweorc, translated as ‘the cunning work of giants’, which is similar to the opening of The Ruin (4.5, l. 2). Here two words leap out. The Old English word ent, meaning ‘giant’; and ordanc, meaning ‘cunning’. That the former was the inspiration for the race of Ents in LR is beyond doubt. In Tolkien’s guide to the names in LR (see Lobdell, 1975) the derivation from the Old English word ent was confirmed. However he notes that ‘the Ents of this tale are not in form or character derived from Germanic mythology’ (pp. 164–5), implying they were not based on the giants of Old Norse literature. We can also look to Tolkien’s declaration in a letter of 1954 where he states: As usual with me they [the Ents] grew rather out of their name . . . I always felt that something ought to be done about the peculiar Anglo-Saxon word ent for a ‘giant’. (Letters, 157, p. 208)


As Shippey (2003, p. 103) explains: ‘Anglo-Saxons believed in ents . . . What were they? Clearly they were very large, great builders, and clearly they didn’t exist anymore.’ Once again Tolkien is trying to present an answer to this puzzle. He had come across the word several times in Old English and was impressed by the awe with which the Saxons held these great builders. Although one could offer the interpretation that these were just Romans, and the cunning works were the devastated Roman villas the Saxons discovered as they settled in Britain, Tolkien seized the opportunity to connect the medieval literature to his own fiction and provided an alternative answer, namely that there were a race called Ents. Treebeard and his companions then, lived in Middle-earth before mainland Europe was formed. They eventually die out, or become trees (as is hinted at in LR with the loss of the Ent-wives). Yet their name survived to represent a mythical ancient race of giants, even down to the time of the Saxons. Treebeard’s poem then, could be an attempt at an early version of Maxims II.



4.9.4 Maxims II Cyning sceal rı¯ce healdan. Ceastra be¯o~ feorran gesy¯ne, or~anc enta geweorc, pa¯ pe on pysse eor~an syndon wræ ¯tlic weallsta¯na geweorc. Wind by~ on lyfte swiftust, punar by~ pra¯gum hlu ¯dast. Prymmas syndan Crı¯stes myccle. Wyrd by~ swı¯~ost, winter by~ cealdost, (5) lencten hrı¯migost (he¯ by~ lengest ceald), sumor sunwlitegost (swegel by~ ha¯tost), hærfest hre¯~e¯adegost, hæle~um bringe~ ge¯res wæstmas, pa¯ pe him God sende~. So ¯ ~ bi~ swicolost, sinc by~ de¯orost, (10) gold gumena gehwa¯m, and gomol snoterost, ¯r feala gebı¯de~. fyrnge¯arum fro ¯ d, se¯ pe æ We¯a bi~ wundrum clibbor. Wolcnu scrı¯~a~. Geongne æpeling sceolan go ¯ de gesı¯~as byldan to ¯ beaduwe and to ¯ be¯ahgife. (15) Ellen sceal on eorle. Ecg sceal wi~ hellme hilde gebı¯dan. Hafuc sceal on glo ¯ fe wilde gewunian. Wulf sceal on bearowe earm a¯nhaga. Eofor sceal on holte, to ¯ ~mægenes trum. Til sceal on e¯~le (20) do ¯ mes wyrcean. Daro~ sceal on handa, ga¯r golde fa¯h. Gim sceal, on hringe, standan ste¯ap and ge¯ap. Stre¯am sceal on y¯~um mencgan mereflo ¯ de. Mæst sceal on ce¯ole, segelgyrd seomian. Sweord sceal on bearme, (25) ¯we, drihtlic ¯ı sern. Draca sceal on hlæ fro ¯ d, frætwum wlanc. Fisc sceal on wætere cynren cennan. Cyning sceal on healle ¯lan. Bera sceal on hæ ¯~e, be¯agas dæ ¯ ¯ne sceal (30) eald and egesfull. E a of du flo ¯ dgræg, fe¯ran. Fyrd sceal ætsomne, tı¯rfæstra getrum. Tre¯ow sceal on eorle, wı¯sdo ¯ m on were. Wudu sceal on foldan ¯dum blo ¯ wan. Beorh sceal on eorpan blæ gre¯ne standan. God sceal on heofenum, (35) ¯da de¯mend. Duru sceal on healle, dæ ru ¯m recedes mu ¯~. Rand sceal on scylde, fæst fingra gebeorh. Fugel uppe sceal ¯le la¯can on lyfte. Leax sceal on wæ mid sceote scrı¯~an. Scu ¯r sceal, on heofenum, (40) winde geblanden, in pa¯s woruld cuman.


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4.9.4 Maxims II A King must rule a kingdom. Cities are visible from afar, the skilful work of giants; those that in this world are wondrous work of wall-stones. Wind is the swiftest in the sky, thunder is sometimes loudest. Christ’s glories are great. Wyrd is strongest, winter is coldest, (5) spring frostiest (for it is the longest cold), summer fairest with sunshine (the sky is the hottest), harvest most glorious as for men it brings the year’s produce, that which God sends them. Truth is the trickiest, treasure is the dearest, (10) gold for each of men, and the old one is wisest, experienced through former years, he who before endures many things. Woe is wondrously clinging. The clouds wander. Good companions must encourage a young atheling to battle and to ring giving. (15) Courage must [be] in a warrior. A sword must against the helmet experience battle. The hawk must on the glove stay wild. The wolf must [be] in the grove a wretched recluse. The boar must [be] in the wood strong with the might of tusks. A good man must in the homeland (20) achieve fame. The dart must [be] in the hand, the spear adorned with gold. The gem must, on the ring, stand steep and broad. The current must in the waves mix with the ocean. The mast, [and] the sailyard, must in the ship, rest. The sword must [be] in the lap, (25) that noble iron. The dragon must [be] in a mound, wise, [and] proud of treasure. The fish must in the water give birth to its kin. The king must in the hall deal out rings. The bear must [be] on the heath aged and awesome. The river from the hill must (30) journey, sea-grey. The army must [be] together, a troop of glorious ones. Loyalty must [be] in a nobleman, wisdom in a warrior. The wood must on the land bloom with fruits. The hill must on the earth stand green. God must [be] in the heavens, (35) the Judge of deeds. The door must [be] in the hall, the roomy mouth of the building. The boss must [be] on the shield, the strong protection of fingers. The bird must upwards sport in the air. The salmon must in the pool wander with a quick shot. The shower must, in the heavens, (40) mixed with the wind, come into this world.


Pe¯of sceal gangan py¯strum wederum. pyrs sceal on fenne gewunian a¯na innan lande. Ides sceal dyrne cræfte, ¯mne, hire fre¯ond gese¯cean, gif he¯o nelle on folce gepe¯on fæ pæt hı¯ man be¯agum gebicge. Brim sceal sealte weallan, (45) lyfthelm and laguflo ¯ d, ymb ealra landa gehwylc, flo ¯ wan firgenstre¯amas. Feoh sceal on eor~an ty¯dran and ty¯man. Tungol sceal on heofenum beorhte scı¯nan, swa¯ him bebe¯ad Meotud. Go ¯ d sceal wi~ yfele, geogo~ sceal wi~ yldo, (50) lı¯f sceal wi~ de¯ape, le¯oht sceal wi~ py¯strum, fyrd wi~ fyrde, fe¯ond wi~ o ¯ ~rum, la¯~ wi~ la¯pe, ymb land sacan, ¯ sceal snotor hycgean ¯lan. A synne stæ ymb pysse worulde gewinn, wearh hangian, (55) ¯r fa¯cen dyde fægere ongildan pæt he¯ æ manna cynne. Meotod a¯na wa¯t hwyder se¯o sa¯wul sceal sy~~an hweorfan, and ealle pa¯ ga¯stas pe for Gode hweorfa~ æfter de¯a~dæge, do ¯ mes bı¯da~ (60) on Fæder fæ~me. Is se¯o for~gesceaft dı¯gol and dyrne; Drihten a¯na wa¯t, ¯ni eft cyme~ nergende Fæder. Næ hider under hro ¯ fas, pe pæt he¯r, for so ¯ ~, mannum secge hwylc sy¯ Meotodes gesceaft, (65) ¯r He¯ sylfa wuna~. sigefolca gesetu, pæ


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The thief must go in dark weather. The demon must dwell in the fen alone within the land. The woman, a maiden, must with secret craft, seek her friend, if she will not thrive among [her] people so that one might buy her with rings. The sea must surge with salt, (45) cloud-cover and ocean-flood, about all the land, [and] mountain streams [must] flow. Cattle must on the earth produce and teem. A star must in the heavens shine bright, as the Creator commanded it. Good must strive against evil, youth must against old age, (50) life must against death, light must against darkness, army against army, an enemy with the other, foe against foe, about the land, [and] declare sin. Ever must the wise one think about the struggle in this world, a criminal hang, (55) to atone fairly for that crime which he did before against the race of men. The Creator alone knows whither the soul must journey afterwards, and all the spirits which journey before God after the day of death, wait for judgement (60) in the embrace of the Father. The future is secret and hidden; the Lord, the saving Father, alone knows. No-one comes back hither under the roofs, who here, in truth, might tell men what the Creator’s decree is, (65) [or] the dwelling of the victorious people, where He Himself lives.


4.9.5 Notes l.1. The idea that the work, i.e. buildings, being referred to is Roman is reinforced by the loan-word ceastra. Shippey (1976, pp. 13–14) also notes the proximity of Maxims II to the beginning of a version of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle in the same manuscript, and sees this opening statement as linked to one of the overall themes of the Chronicle, namely strong but righteous power. l.5. Wyrd, ‘fate’, a concept which the Anglo-Saxons held dear, that there was some overriding power, namely ‘wyrd’, which could govern all things (see the earlier discussion under The Ruin, 4.5). Marsden (2004, p. 298) suggests ‘providence’ due to its proximity to the reference to Christ. l.10. swicolost, ‘trickiest’. Many editors emend swicolost to switolost, ‘clearest’ (e.g. ASPR), but Shippey (1976, p. 134 n. 1) notes how in The Durham Proverbs there is an allusion to the problems of always telling the truth. This edition keeps with the manuscript therefore. l.13. Many previous editions (including the ASPR) emend the manuscript wea meaning ‘woe’ to we¯ax meaning ‘wax’ (i.e. ‘wax is very sticky’). However, this edition follows Shippey (1976, p. 134 n. 2), when he observes that a ‘feeling for the triteness of consolation’ is common in other Anglo-Saxon poems. l.14. ‘Atheling’, a prince, or young royal nobleman. l.16. sceal, ‘must’. The modal auxiliary verb sculan, or ‘must’, is used consistently in the poem, without an infinitive. Therefore, where it is needed, a suggested verb has been supplied, e.g. ‘be’, ‘stay’, ‘belongs’, etc. It is placed in parenthesis to show that it does not appear in the original. The formula persists in Modern English with the expression ‘Needs must’. Marsden (2004, p. 296) explains that two verbs are used: byd/bid, ‘is’ and sculan, ‘must’. He suggests the former is reserved for ‘unchanging truth’. ll.17–18. Marsden (2004, p. 299) suggests ‘the hawk, wild though it be, must get used to the glove’. ll.26–7a. A perfect description, of course, for Smaug in TH. l.40. sceote, ‘shot’. This conveys the idea of a darting movement. However, many editors (e.g. Marsden, 2004, p. 300) have noted that this could also mean ‘trout’, from the Old English sceota. l.42. Christopher Tolkien (Treason, p. 65, n. 32) notes that Tolkien contemplated using Thyrs- in one of his place names, presumably to mean ‘troll’ or ‘giant’. However, he abandoned this and chose Etten-, another word for ‘monster/giant’ surviving in Old and Middle English, and then eventually ‘Ent’. ll.43–5. This is a curious statement. It seems to imply that unless the woman can catch her own husband (through secret means), she runs the risk of being ‘sold’ or ‘trafficked’ (Rubin 1975), via the dowry system, to another suitor. Cassidy and Ringler (1974, p. 375) interpret this as ‘girls who want to have secret lovers never get married’, but suggest this is naïve and ‘one would like to think that a moralizing scribe has juggled with folk wisdom, leaving us with nelle (44b) where pragmatism wrote wille’. ll.50–4. These lines are somewhat complex. The essence of the translation is the setting up of opposites, i.e. good against evil, youth against age, etc. Yet the final half-line synne stæ ¯lan is awkward, and suggests the ‘revealing of sin’ or ‘charging someone with a crime’. Rodrigues (1995, p. 192) suggests ‘avenge hostility’, but this does not seem acceptable. Marsden (2004, p. 301) suggests ‘both sides, in order to justify their action, will perhaps accuse the other of breaking some law or agreement’. Cassidy and Ringler (1974, p. 375) also point to a possible link with Eccl. 33: 15.


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4.9.6 Further reading The most up-to-date edition of Maxims II is available in Marsden (2004, pp. 296–301), but see also Rodrigues (1995, pp. 189–93); Bradley (1982, pp. 512–15); and Cassidy and Ringler (1974, pp. 373–5), which includes a black-and-white facsimile of the manuscript. For an analysis of Maxims II, a discussion of it in the context of other ‘gnomic poetry’, and an edition of the poem with facing translation, see Shippey (1976, pp. 12–20, 76–9 and 134). See also ASPR, vi, pp. 55–7, which is used as the base text here.


4.10 The Rohirrim – The Wanderer and Beowulf, ll. 306–70 (TT, ‘The King of the Golden Hall’) 4.10.1 Plot summary Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas accompany Gandalf the White to Edoras to try to persuade Théoden to rally his troops against Saruman. Before arriving at Edoras, Aragorn tells Gimli and Legolas of the Rohirrim and recites some of their poetry. The first medieval text in this chapter is entitled The Wanderer and relates to Aragorn’s recitation; the second text, drawn from Beowulf, relates to the four heroes’ arrival at the court of Théoden and the procedures they adopt. Christopher Tolkien (Treason, p. 389 onwards) notes the problems in reassembling the history of the chapters involving the initial encounters with the Rohirrim (describing the drafts for ‘The Riders of Rohan’ in particular as ‘difficult and chaotic’, p. 390). 4.10.2a Medieval text 1: The Wanderer The Wanderer is an Old English poem. It survives in a single copy in ‘The Exeter Book’ (ff. 76v–78r), and is usually described as an elegy (see 4.5). It is a powerful poem detailing an individual’s exile from society, their lonely wanderings, and at the same time touches on themes of general loss. Tolkien himself planned for many years to present his own edition of The Wanderer following on from his initial collaboration with E. V. Gordon at Leeds. Although he never completed this, in 1969 an edition of the poem did appear, edited by T. P. Dunning and A. J. Bliss, both former students of Tolkien. Readers will note a few terms that occur in Old English but also in Tolkien’s fiction. On ll. 62 and 75 the world is referred to as middangeard, ‘middle-enclosure’ (MnE yard), or as we translate it here ‘Middle-earth’; on l. 77 we have ederas, from edor meaning ‘dwelling, house’ and hence the name for Théoden’s grand chamber; l. 87 sees the repetition of the word for a giant, ent, as in The Ruin (l. 2, see 4.5); and in l. 92 we have ma¯ppumgyfa, or ‘treasure-giver’, which is the probable source for the hobbit word ‘mathom’ meaning treasure (hence the Mathom House or museum at Michel Delving). 4.10.2b Medieval text 2: Beowulf, ll. 306–70 For a general introduction to Beowulf, see 4.3. The following passage describes Beowulf’s arrival at the Danish court, and in particular at Heorot, the splendid hall of the Danish king, Hrothgar, which is under attack from the monster Grendel. Beowulf and his troop of retainers are met by the Danish coastguard, who asks about their identity and purpose. Beowulf explains, and the coastguard offers to take them to Heorot. The passage presented here starts with their first glimpse of the ‘golden hall’. The coastguard returns to his post, while Beowulf and his men enter the hall, lay down their weapons and sit on


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benches. Beowulf asks Wulfgar, Hrothgar’s herald, whether he may speak to the king. Wulfgar tells Hrothgar about the arrival of the warriors and their leader’s request. 4.10.3 Discussion As with the extract from Beowulf (discussed later) there are two reasons to justify the inclusion of The Wanderer in this collection. First, and by far the easiest, is that lines and set-pieces from both Old English poems are paraphrased by Tolkien. Second, and more complex and controversial, there is the clear link between the society of Rohan and that of the Anglo-Saxons. Let us consider The Wanderer first. In ‘The King of the Golden Hall’ (LR, pp. 496–7), before the heroes arrive at Edoras, Aragorn recites a piece of Rohirrim poetry. Legolas describes the language as similar to the land surrounding them: ‘rich and rolling in part, and else hard and stern as the mountains’. We have no record of what it is Aragorn actually says, but Legolas guesses that the poem is an elegy of sorts, which, as noted above, is a term usually attached to The Wanderer, and states that even though he cannot understand the words, ‘it is laden with the sadness of Mortal Men’ (LR, p. 497). Aragorn then translates it into Common Speech for his comrades: 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? (LR, p. 497) Aragorn explains that the poem is by a ‘forgotten poet of Rohan’ and is related to the story of Eorl the Young. Further examples of the Riders’ poetry are given in several other places in LR. There is the ‘ride to Gondor’ (LR, p. 786); Théoden’s battle-cry (LR, p. 820), which mirrors the opening of The Fight at Finnsburg; Éomer’s brief lament over Théoden (LR, p. 825); Éomer’s apocalyptic battle-cry (LR, p. 829), reworked at Théoden’s burial (LR, p. 954); and ‘The Mounds of Mundberg’ (LR, p. 831). All are based on standard Old English metrics (see 2.3.4). Returning to our main text, a quick comparison between Aragorn’s recitation above and ll. 92–6 of The Wanderer show strong similarities. This is known


as the ubi sunt passage, so called because it repeats the Latin formula ‘where are . . . ?’ Tolkien clearly modelled his mini-poem (or more correctly an extract from a longer text we never get access to) on the lines from the Old English, yet with some differences. The repetition of the direct questioning at the beginning is there, but the answering lines, explaining what has happened to everything, are longer in Aragorn’s version. Tolkien also makes much greater use of end-rhyme (blowing/flowing/glowing/growing, etc.), which does not occur in the Old English, but does not always attempt to retain the alliteration. Tolkien described The Wanderer as ‘an epitaph on antiquity . . . an epitaph on the now long-vanished Anglo-Saxon days’ (Tolkien A30/1, f. 21), which in many ways provides us with a fitting summary for the events in LR, namely an ‘epitaph’ of the Third Age. Moreover, it is clear that the ubi sunt passage in the Old English meant a lot to him throughout his life as he quotes it at the end of his Valedictory Address (Essays, p. 239), followed by Galadriel’s lament at Lórien in Elvish (which he humbly described as ‘nonsense’). It is often said that the Anglo-Saxons were obsessed with the transient nature of life, as embodied in the ubi sunt passage and in the poems we call ‘the Old English elegies’ (see 4.5). Tolkien, however, did not think this was accurate or fair. As he noted, by AD 800 the monasteries at both Lindisfarne and Jarrow had been sacked. He remarked that: if Englishmen became acutely aware of the perishable nature of the world, and especially of the institutions of men under such circumstances. It could be called ‘facing the facts’. (Tolkien A28, ff. 12r–v) The Wanderer, in its full version, is over 100 lines longer than the brief paraphrase in LR, but the themes it raises have overall resonances with Tolkien’s work. It is an extremely powerful poem, but at first glance is not easy to understand (Shippey, 1972, for example, describes it as ‘vexed’, p. 56), and many scholars have argued over its possible meanings. The structure of the poem is fairly straightforward in one way in that it has an opening and closing (akin to a prologue and epilogue), and in between a lengthy speech by a solitary individual. Like The Seafarer (a text which it always compared to; see 4.13) it opens with an image of a lonely individual suffering hardship at sea (ll. 1–4). This is the wanderer of the title, who we discover is an outcast, pacing the earth without the solace of friends, relations or lords (ll. 8–10). In such harsh times as the early Middle Ages we can only guess at the difficulties of such an existence and how abhorrent it would have seemed to the audience, who relied on the close bonds of kinship and loyalty to keep their tribal societies together. The poet, then, proceeds to explore a range of ideas and topics familiar to other Old English poems opening up from a single incident (the exiled wanderer of the poem’s title) to explore wider issues about the nature of suffering and the


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transitory nature of existence. For these reasons, as mentioned above, it is often put under the category of an ‘elegy’ – the loss here being both individual and generic. Contained therein, though, are a myriad of topics. As it stands, this is a Christian poem. Yet the poem on the face of it is not concerned with any great theological debate, but instead concentrates on the plight and personal loss of one human being – the wanderer. He tells us of his loss and exile, and how he wanders the lands seeking comfort and friendship. He dreams of the past and contrasts it with the harsh present. In his mind he can summon up images of past joys and friends, but cannot capture them forever. On waking, such images simply disappear and ‘swim away’ (ll. 41–8). The wanderer is lonely because he has outlived all of his friends. He extrapolates from his own situation the observation that all worldly glory and comforts seem transitory. Although one is tempted to cry in despair at the loss of the horse, the warrior and the hall (ll. 92–6), the wanderer reminds us that everything passes, all is on loan (ll. 108–10). Yet at the same time a person must not bemoan their loss and instead should remain resolute (or ‘keep a stiff upper lip’, ll. 112–13). Fortitude, to the wanderer, is seen as a distinct virtue, for suffering, they state, can in itself lead to wisdom (ll. 64–5), as if to say that it is necessary to bear a loss in order to get things into perspective and understand true values. The poet appeals, therefore, to all lonely voyagers and wanderers in exile – which to a Christian outlook is everyone: we are all exiled from Eden and temporarily excluded from Heaven. Throughout all of this the poet contrasts images of the hall and society, symbols of safety, protection and warmth, to those of the loneliness of the exiled wanderer. It is a tale, therefore, of personal loss, but to many readers it also offers advice and consolation to everyone. The beginning and end of the poem are linked by a¯r, or ‘mercy’, which the subject of the poem is clearly seeking. Shippey (1972, p. 58) sees this as a promise that God’s mercy will eventually be bestowed on the sufferer (ll. 114–15). There are other stylistic balances to the poem. Around ll. 58–62 we shift from the first to the third person, widening the discussion from the single individual to a broader perspective. Moreover, at the beginning we are presented with the harsh past and present, but the end of the poem tells us that we can look forward to a brighter future. It is now worth considering how appropriate it is that lines from The Wanderer are put into the mouth of Aragorn. He himself is a Ranger, one of ‘the wandering folk’ (LR, p. 153). The poem calls its subject the eard-stapa (literally ‘the earth-stepper’), and Aragorn is known derogatorily among the men of Bree as ‘Strider’. Like the subject of the Old English poem he is in exile, looking for his home, seeking peace and the joys of the hall. He is suffering, knowing the pressure on him to face the challenge of Sauron, and at the same time bearing the burden of his seemingly hopeless love for Arwen. Yet unlike


the Old English wanderer, Aragorn does not seek a lord or protector, for he himself is destined to be king. This is his challenge, and the quest and challenges he undergoes are necessary if he is to find the resolve and wisdom to take on the mantle of kingship. Let us now consider our second extract. Beowulf’s arrival at Heorot is presented as a series of ceremonial meetings with various members of the Danish court: the initial meeting with the coastguard is followed by a meeting with Wulfgar, and finally with Hrothgar. Though these meetings appear to delay the main events, such as Beowulf’s fight with Grendel, they have the important role of introducing the hero in a way appropriate to his status and consonant with his future role (Beowulf, like Aragorn, will become king of his people). The description of Beowulf’s preparation for the expedition and the scene with the coastguard include references to the appearance of Beowulf’s troop of retainers, where the emphasis is on distinction, prominence and splendour: the poet mentions beorhte frætwe (l. 214), ‘bright armour’, gu¯~searo geatolic (l. 215), ‘splendid war-gear’, beorhte randas (l. 231), ‘bright shields’. The brilliance of the warriors’ appearance reflects their heroic qualities and makes these qualities evident to both the audience and the Danes. Such is indeed the impression the warriors make on the coastguard, who says:

eorla ofer eorpan, secg on searwum; ¯pnum geweor~ad, wæ ¯nlı¯c ansy¯n. æ

¯fre ic ma¯ran geseah Næ ~onne is e¯ower sum, nis pæt seldguma, næfne him his wlite le¯oge, (Beo ll. 247–51)

I have never seen a greater warrior on earth than is one of you, a man in armour; this is not a hall-retainer made to look distinguished by his weapons, unless his appearance belies him, his matchless bearing.

The same pattern continues in the meeting with Wulfgar, Hrothgar’s herald: again, the description of Beowulf’s troop arriving to Heorot includes details which emphasize their prominence and brightness: ‘war-corselet gleamed’, ‘bright chain-mail’, ‘gold-plated shields’. This, again, makes Beowulf’s high standing and noble intentions evident to Wulfgar, who says:


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I have not seen strangers – so many men – more bold. I think that you for daring, not at all because of exile, but for greatness of heart you have sought Hrothgar (Beo ll. 336–9; see below) What must have been clear to the audience from the description of Beowulf and his warriors is confirmed by Beowulf’s replies to the coastguard and Wulfgar about his ancestry, and his intention to offer Hrothgar his help. The notion that there is a correspondence between the hero’s appearance, reputation and role is fundamental to Beowulf’s portrayal in the poem. The depiction of the heroes and their deeds was one of the traditional themes of epic poetry, and Old English poets had vocabulary and phraseology appropriate for such descriptions. Traditional epithets, compound words and formulas made the narrative fit for its subject and so¯de gebunden (Beo l. 871), ‘bound in accordance with truth’. The scenes at the beginning of Beowulf introduce the hero to the audience, therefore, as the man who is destined to end the sufferings of the Danish king and his people. Tolkien noted that ‘the author of Beowulf was deeply interested in the contemporary ‘code’ of the aristocratic class, its values and assumptions’ (Tolkien A28/B, f. 132), and this is apparent in both the approach to Heorot and the approach to Edoras. It is noteworthy that similar devices, including ceremonial scenes and references to the characters’ exceptional appearance, are used when Gandalf, Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas arrive at Edoras. They are met and questioned by the guards at the gates and escorted to the king’s hall. In Edoras they follow a ‘broad path, paved with hewn stones’ (LR, p. 498), which resembles the description of the path in l. 320 below. As with the coastguard in Beowulf, the guide bids them farewell at the doors of the hall, saying that he must return to his duty at the gate. Before being admitted to speak to the king they talk to Háma, the Doorward of Théoden.1 Shippey (2000, pp. 94–6) notes here that the lines given to the coastguard in Beowulf (ll. 287b–289a) are transposed in LR to Háma, who puzzles over whether he should allow Gandalf to enter with his staff and concludes: ‘Yet in doubt a man of worth will trust to his own wisdom’ (LR, p. 500). As in Beowulf, the guards at the gates of Edoras are impressed by the appearance of the four companions, and remark that they have never seen ‘other riders so strange’, nor any horse ‘more proud’ than Shadowfax. Though initially hostile, the guards detect that the appearance of the

1

Háma appears in Beowulf in l. 1198 as Ha ¯ma, who is credited with stealing the necklace of the Brosnings.


newcomers is not that of ordinary travellers; and as in Beowulf, this asserts their role as heroes who will free Théoden and his people from the power of Saruman. We should also consider at this point a more general observation about the Rohirrim – that to all intents and purposes they are fictional depictions of the Anglo-Saxons. Many commentators on Tolkien have noted the strong similarities between the Riders of Rohan and the early English (see, for example, Shippey’s lengthy analysis, 2003, pp. 122–8 and 201–2), and it is worth summarizing some of the major points. They reside in the ‘Mark’, a name derived from the Old English mierce/mearc, meaning ‘border’, and hence the real-life kingdom of Mercia. Interestingly, this corresponds to the area of England that Tolkien was brought up in; hence in his letter to his son Christopher (Letters, 65, p. 108) he states, ‘you are a Mercian’. Rohan names are also from Old English and in his notes to translators of LR (Lobdell, 1975, p. 172) Tolkien confirms this when, for Shadowfax, he states: ‘This is an anglicized form of Rohan (that is Old English)’. Christopher Tolkien observes that his father often toyed with original Anglo-Saxon words for the characters and place names (e.g. Meodarn, Meduarn, Winseld, Eodor, Hasufeld, Hasupada, Halfheah – Treason, p. 402, 405, etc.). As Shippey notes, however, these are also in a Mercian dialect of Old English (2003, p. 123 fn.), which perhaps explains Tolkien’s comment that their names are ‘like (but not identical with) Old English’ (Letters, 144, p. 175); that is, they are from one dialect of Old English only. Moreover, the Rohirrim live like Anglo-Saxons. Their main settlement, Edoras, is an idealized Saxon village dominated by the great feasting hall, Meduseld (Old English for ‘mead-hall’ as in Beo l. 3065). Meduseld is described as ‘a great hall of Men’ which parallels goldsele gumena, the ‘golden hall of men’, in Beowulf, l. 715. Legolas says that Théoden’s hall looks as if it is ‘thatched with gold’, while Heorot is often referred to as ‘golden’ hall and in l. 307 as ‘timbered’. The phrase ‘The light of it shines far over the land’ (LR, p. 496) in Tolkien’s description closely parallels l. 311 in the passage below. It appears that Tolkien admired the image of the ‘golden’ hall radiating the light: in his commentary on Beowulf he wrote that it is ‘A touch of pictorial imagination, all the more vivid for the general austerity of the poem’ (Tolkien A28/B, f. 41). The description of the guards of Edoras as ‘men in bright mail’ whose corslets were ‘burnished bright’ also resembles the descriptions of warriors in Beowulf. The Rohirrim model themselves on an ideal of society that the Anglo-Saxons would have recognized, namely loyalty to one’s ruler (in this case Théoden, the Old English word for ‘lord’), even in the face of death. Their leader in return rewards them with protection and treasure (see the discussion of The Battle of Maldon, 4.11). Judging by Tolkien’s comment that ‘the styles of the Bayeux Tapestry (made in England) fit them well enough’ (Letters, 211, p. 281), they


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even looked like the early English. Prior to their earlier encounter with the Riders, Aragorn describes them to his companions (LR, p. 420). To many, Aragorn’s comments provide an idealized description of the Anglo-Saxons, encapsulating many of their virtues that survive in their written records: They are proud and wilful, but they are true-hearted, generous in thought and deed; bold but not cruel; wise but unlearned, writing no books but singing many songs . . . We also know that the language of the Rohirrim was clearly a form of Old English (the language of the Anglo-Saxons), though it appears they tended to speak Common Speech in the Golden Hall (Letters, 193, p. 254). Tolkien himself clearly stated this in a set of notes recorded by Christopher Tolkien (Treason, p. 424). When the heroes encounter the guarding Rohirrim (p. 497), the men are noted as saying, ‘Stay, strangers here unknown!’, but in ‘the tongue of the Riddermark’ which only Gandalf (and presumably Aragorn) could understand. Yet originally Tolkien went further and had written a longer opening challenge. Christopher Tolkien records this as: ‘Abidath cuman uncuthe!’ (‘Stay, strangers unknown!’), with much more Old English being rejected at the time of writing (‘Hwæt sindon ge . . . Theoden urum hlaforde?’ or ‘Who are ye . . . Theoden our lord?’, Treason, p. 443). It is not surprising, then, that Tolkien remarked that Anglo-Saxon was a ‘fertile field’, and more importantly the ‘sole field’ to study the etymology of the language and names of the Rohirrim (Letters, 297, p. 381). To all intents and purposes, then, the Rohirrim are the Anglo-Saxons, with the only major difference being the latter’s apparent reluctance to fight on horseback (see Shippey, 2003, pp. 126–7). Yet at the same time Tolkien clearly shied away from ever taking the step of saying that the Rohirrim were an accurate representation of the Anglo-Saxons. Indeed, he played down the relationship to such an extent that he tried to argue that the similarities were there only in a ‘general way due to their circumstances’ (LR, p. 1110). Yet, as Shippey (2003, p. 117) observes, ‘this claim is totally untrue . . . the Riders of Rohan resemble the Anglo-Saxons down to minute details.’ Shippey is of course correct, and presents a plausible explanation in that the Rohirrim represent the Anglo-Saxons of Old English poetry, an idealized state, but may not be accurate representations of the tribes and people who lived in and eventually governed England from the fifth to the eleventh centuries. Tolkien provides us with another reason for playing down the similarities between the Rohirrim and the Anglo-Saxons (in his unpublished notes). He states that he was not trying to ‘re-create’ anything but instead was attempting to come up with something ‘new (in art)’. In particular, he was at pains to state that:


No one would learn anything valid about the ‘Anglo-Saxons’ from any of my lore, not even that concerning the Rohirrim; I never intended that they should. (Tolkien A30/1, f. 121) With particular reference to Aragorn’s recitation of the ubi sunt passage, Tolkien pointed out quite categorically that it should not be seen as a translation of the lines from The Wanderer. (For an actual translation by Tolkien, see the note for l. 92.) The lines, he argued, were brought into ‘something wholly different’ being a reference to: a great hero and his renowned horse, and they are suppose[d] to be part of the song of a minstrel of a proud and undefeated people in a hall still populous with men. Even the sentiment is different: it laments the ineluctable ending and passing back into oblivion of the fortunate, the full-lives, the unblemished and the beautiful. (Tolkien, A30/1, f. 121) This is a key quote, cited more or less in full. It shows that even as a novelist Tolkien has the requirements of his academic background to the fore. Although he clearly modelled the Rohirrim on the Anglo-Saxons, he felt the need to stress that you could not learn about the Anglo-Saxons from them. To do that you needed to return to traditional sources – history books, Old English poetry and prose, and archaeology. Tolkien’s borrowings and reworkings, as he realized, did not suffice, and indeed did not attempt to reproduce historical truth. This throws new light on the discussion, and although we can accept Shippey’s argument that the Rohirrim were the Anglo-Saxons of poetry, we can now see why Tolkien, as a teacher of the period, was keen to stress the inadequacies of his fiction as an instructive tool. As he outlined in his essay ‘On Fairy-Stories’, he used elements of Anglo-Saxon poetry and culture, but created something ‘new’ to entertain, not to inform. In closing let us return to The Wanderer. Throughout his life Tolkien was plagued by accusations that LR in particular was an allegory for the Atomic Age or the Second World War, something which he always refuted. However, he was open to application (LR, p. xvii) of texts to present-day events. Writing around the time of the outbreak of the war (or even during the conflict), he did just this with The Wanderer. It was a poem, he stated, which offered ‘sustenance and support’ during the current ‘catastrophe’ that threatened to engulf Europe. More importantly, though, it demonstrated to those threatened by the likes of Hitler and Stalin that there was: no happy ending to cyningas or caesears of this world, whichever new names they may give themselves, and whichever side they be on, left or right, black or white. The Old English poets knew that at any rate. (Tolkien A28, f. 12v)



4.10.4a The Wanderer Oft him a¯nhaga a¯re gebı¯de~, metudes miltse, pe¯ah pe he¯, mo ¯ dcearig, geond lagula¯de longe sceolde ¯, hre¯ran mid hondum hrı¯mcealde sæ ¯d. (5) wadan wræcla¯stas. Wyrd bi~ ful a¯ræ Swa¯ cwæ~ eardstapa, earfepa gemyndig, ¯ga hryre: wra¯pra wælsleahta, winemæ ‘Oft ic sceolde a¯na u ¯htna gehwylce mı¯ne ceare cwı¯pan. Nis nu ¯ cwicra na¯n pe ic him mo ¯ dsefan, mı¯nne durre, (10) sweotule a¯secgan. Ic to ¯ so ¯ pe wa¯t pæt bip, in eorle, indryhten pe¯aw pæt he¯ his fer~locan fæste binde, healde his hordcofan, hycge swa¯ he¯ wille. Ne mæg we¯rig mo ¯d wyrde wi~stondan, (15) ne se hre¯o hyge helpe gefremman. For~on, do ¯ mgeorne, dre¯origne oft in hyra bre¯ostcofan binda~ fæste; swa¯ ic modsefan mı¯nne sceolde, ¯led, (20) oft earmcearig, e¯~le bidæ ¯gum feor feterum sæ ¯lan, fre¯omæ sippan ge¯ara iu ¯ goldwine mı¯nne hru ¯san heolstre biwrah, ond ic he¯an ponan wo ¯ d, wintercearig, ofer wapema gebind. So ¯ hte, sele dre¯orig, sinces bryttan, (25) hwær ic feor oppe neah findan meahte pone pe in meoduhealle min mı¯ne wisse, oppe mec, fre¯ondleasne, fre¯fran wolde, wenian mid wynnum. Wa¯t se pe cunna~, hu ¯ slı¯pen bi~ Sorg to gefe¯ran, (30) pa¯m pe him ly¯t hafa~ le¯ofra geholena. Wara~ hine wræcla¯st, nales wunden gold, ¯d. fer~loca fre¯orig, nalæs foldan blæ Gemon he¯ selesecgas ond sincpege, hu ¯ hine on geogu~e his goldwine (35) wenede to wiste. Wyn eal gedre¯as. Forpon wa¯t se (pe sceal his winedryhtnes le¯ofes la¯rcwidum longe forpolian), ¯p somod ætgædre ~onne sorg ond slæ earmne a¯nhogan oft gebinda~. (40) pince~ him on mo ¯ de pæt he¯, his mondryhten,


4.10.4a The Wanderer Always for himself the solitary man waits for grace, the mercy of the creator, although he, sad at heart, throughout the seaways must for a long time stir with his hands the ice-cold sea, and wade the paths of exile. Fate is entirely set. (5) Thus spoke the Wanderer, mindful of hardships, of cruel slaughters, and of the fall of beloved kin: ‘Always I must alone at every dawn lament my sorrow. There is now no one living to whom I dare, my mind, (10) openly tell. I truly know that it is, in a nobleman, a very noble virtue that he may bind fast his breast, hold his heart, think as he may wish to. Nor may the weary spirit withstand fate, (15) nor the troubled heart bring about help. Therefore, the ones eager for glory, often binds fast the agony in their heart; As I my spirit had to bind with fetters, often troubled, and deprived of a homeland, (20) far from noble kinsmen, since years ago I covered my gold-lord in the dark earth, and I wretched thence went, winter-desolate, over the waves’ binding. I sought, sad at the loss of the hall, a giver of treasure, (25) where I far or near might have found him who in the meadhall might know my own [people], or me, friendless, would comfort, and entertain with pleasures. He will understand, he who discovers how cruel is sorrow as a companion, (30) to that person who has few beloved friends for himself. The path of exile holds him, and the cold breast, [and] not at all the wound gold, nor the glory of the earth. He remembers the hall-retainers and the receiving of treasure, how in youth his gold-lord (35) entertained him at the feasting. All joy is perished. Therefore he understands (who must forgo the counsels of his beloved dear lord for a long time), when sorrow and sleep both together often bind the wretched solitary man. (40) It seems to him in his mind that he, his liege-lord,

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clyppe ond cysse, ond on cne¯o lecge ¯r honda ond he¯afod, swa¯ he¯ hwı¯lum æ in ge¯ardagum giefsto ¯ las bre¯ac. Donne onwæcne~ eft, wineleas guma, (45) gesih~ him biforan fealwe we¯gas, ¯dan fepra, bapian brimfuglas, bræ hre¯osan hrim ond sna¯w hagle gemenged. Ponne be¯o~ py¯ hefigran heortan benne, ¯sne. Sorg bi~ genı¯wad, (50) sa¯re æfter swæ ponne ma¯ga gemynd mo ¯ d geondhweorfe~; gre¯te~ glı¯wstafum, georne geondsce¯awa~ secga geseldan; swimma~ eft on weg. ¯r fela bringe~ Fle¯otendra fer~ no¯ pæ cu ¯~ra cwidegiedda. Cearo bi~ genı¯wad (55) pa¯m pe sendan sceal swı¯pe geneahhe ofer wapema gebind we¯rigne sefan. Forpon ic gepencan ne mæg geond pa¯s woruld for hwan mo ¯ dsefa mı¯n ne gesweorce, ponne ic eorla lı¯f eal geondpence, (60) ¯rlice flet ofge¯afon, hu ¯ hı¯ fæ mo ¯ dge magupegnas. Swa¯ pes middangeard ealra do ¯ gra gehwa¯m dre¯ose~ ond feallep; ¯r he¯ a¯ge forpon ne mæg weorpan wı¯s wer æ ¯l in woruldrı¯ce. Wita sceal gepyldig, (65) wintra dæ ne sceal no ¯ to ¯ ha¯theort, ne to ¯ hrædwyrde, ne to ¯ wa¯c wiga, ne to ¯ wanhy¯dig, ne to¯ forht ne to ¯ fægen, ne to ¯ feohgı¯fre, ¯fre gielpes to ¯ georn, æ ¯r he¯ geare cunne. ne næ Beorn sceal gebı¯dan, ponne he¯ be¯ot sprice~, (70) oppæt collenfer~ cunne gearwe hwider hrepra gehygd hweorfan wille. ¯stlic bi~, Ongietan sceal gle¯aw hæle hu ¯ gæ ponne ealre pisse worulde wela we¯ste stonde~, swa¯ nu ¯ missenlı¯ce geond pisne middangeard (75) winde biwa¯une weallas stondap, hrı¯me bihrorene, hry¯~ge pa¯ ederas. Wo ¯ ria~ pa¯ wı¯nsalo, waldend licga~, dre¯ame bidrorene, dugup eal gecrong, wlonc bı¯ wealle. Sume wı¯g forno ¯ m, (80) ferede in for~wege, sumne fugel opbær ofer he¯anne holm, sumne se ha¯ra wulf


may embrace and kiss, and on the knee lay hands and head, as he sometimes before in days of yore enjoyed the gift-stool. When he wakes up again, a friendless man, (45) he sees before him the yellow waves, the bathing seabirds, spreading feathers, falling frost and snow mingled with hail. Heavier then because of that are the wounds of the heart, sore after the loved one. Sorrow is renewed, (50) when the mind considers the memory of kin; it greets joyfully, [and] eagerly examines the companions of men; [but] they always swim away. The seafarers’ spirit never recalls many of the remembered speeches. Care is renewed (55) for him who has to send very often a weary heart over the waves’ binding. Therefore I can not think throughout this world why my heart does not grow dark, when I fully think about the life of the noblemen, (60) how they suddenly abandoned the hall, the brave thegns. Just as this middle-earth in each of all the days declines and falls; therefore a man may not become wise until he owns a deal of winters in the worldly kingdom. A wise one must be patient, (65) he must never [be] too hot of heart, nor too hasty of speech, nor too weak of battles, nor too reckless, nor too afraid nor too happy, nor too greedy for riches, nor never too eager of the boast, until he clearly understands. A warrior must bide, when he speaks a vow, (70) until (he) the stout-hearted one readily knows whither the hearts’ intention will turn. The wise man must perceive how terrifying it is, when all the prosperity of this world stands deserted, as now in various places throughout this middle-earth (75) blown by the wind the walls stand, covered by frost, those snow-swept buildings. The halls decay then, the rulers lie dead, deprived of joy, the troop is all perished, splendid by the wall. Some war destroyed, (80) ferried on the way forth, some the bird bore away over the steep sea, some the grey wolf

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de¯a~e gedæ ¯lde, sumne dre¯orighle¯or in eor~scræfe eorl gehy¯dde. ¯pde swa¯ pisne eardgeard ælda scyppend, (85) Y oppæt burgwara breahtma le¯ase eald enta geweorc ¯ı dlu sto ¯ don. Se ponne pisne wealsteal wı¯se gepo ¯ hte, ond pis deorce lı¯f de¯ope geondpence~, fro ¯ d in fer~e, feor oft gemon (90) wælsleahta worn, ond pa¯s word a¯cwi~: ¯r cwo ¯ m mearg? Hwæ ¯r cwo ¯ m mago? Hwæ ¯r cwo ¯m ‘Hwæ ma¯ppumgyfa? ¯r cwo ¯ m symbla gesetu? Hwæ ¯r sindon seledre¯amas? Hwæ ¯ ¯ E ala¯, byrnwiga! E ala¯, beorht bune! ¯ Hu ¯ se¯o pra¯g gewa¯t, (95) E ala¯, pe¯odnes prym! ¯re. gena¯p under nihthelm, swa¯ he¯o no ¯ wæ Stonde~ nu ¯ on la¯ste le¯ofre dugupe, weal wundrum he¯ah, wyrmlı¯cum fa¯h. Eorlas forno ¯ man asca pry¯pe, ¯pen wælgı¯fru, wyrd se¯o mæ ¯re, (100) wæ ond pa¯s sta¯nhleopu stormas cnyssa~, hrı¯~ hre¯osende hru ¯san binde~, wintres wo ¯ ma, ponne won cyme~, nı¯pe~ nihtscu ¯a, norpan onsende~ hre¯o hæglfare hælepum on andan. (105) Eall is earfo~lic eorpan rı¯ce, onwende~ wyrda gesceaft weoruld under heofonum. ¯ne, he¯r bi~ fre¯ond læ ¯ne, He¯r bi~ feoh læ ¯ne, he¯r bi~ mæ ¯g læ ¯ne, he¯r bi~ mon læ eal pis eorpan gesteal ¯ı del weorpe~!’ (110) Swa¯ cwæ~ snottor on mo ¯ de, gesæt him sundor æt ru ¯ne. ¯fre his torn to ¯ rycene Til bip se pe his tre¯owe gehealdep, ne sceal næ ¯r pa¯ bo¯te cunne, beorn of his bre¯ostum a¯cy¯pan, nempe he¯ æ eorl mid elne gefremman. Wel bi~ pa¯m pe him a¯re se¯ce~, ¯r u ¯s eal se¯o fæstnung stonde~. fro ¯ fre to ¯ Fæder on heofonum, pæ (115)


dealt death, a certain one, an earl, the sad-faced one, hid in an earth-hole. Thus the creator of men destroyed this earth, (85) until devoid of the revelries of the city-dwellers the old work of giants stood idle. He who then wisely considered this wall-foundation, and deeply thought through this dark life, wise in spirit, often remembers far back (90) the large number of slaughters, and utters these words: ‘Where has gone the horse? Where has gone the young man? Where has gone the giver of treasure? Where has gone the dwellings of the feasts? Where are the joys of the hall? Alas, the bright cup! Alas, the mailed warrior! Alas, the glory of the prince! How the time went, (95) grew dark under night’s helm, as if it never were. It stands now in the trace of the beloved people, the wonderfully high wall, wormlike adorned. The multitude of spears took away the warriors, the corpse-hungry weapons, the well-known fate, (100) and these stone-cliffs storms batter, the falling snowstorm binds the earth, the winter’s howling, [and] when the wanting comes, the night-shadow darkens, [and] sends, in malice, from the north a fierce hail-storm to the heroes. (105) Everything is full of hardships for the kingdom of the earth, the creation of the fates changes the world under the heavens. Here is money on loan, here is friendship on loan, here is man on loan, here is the kinsman on loan, all of this earth’s foundation becomes idle!’ (110) Thus speaks the wise one in his mind, [and] sat himself apart at counsel. Good is he who keeps his loyalty, never must a man his grief too quickly from his breast proclaim, unless he, the warrior, beforehand might know the remedy, [and] bring [it] about with courage. Well it is to that one who for himself looks to the Father in the heavens, for mercy and comfort, where all the security stands for us. (115)

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4.10.4b Beowulf, ll. 306–70 Guman o ¯ netton, (306) sigon ætsomne, oppæt hy¯ [s]æl timbred, geatolı¯c ond goldfa¯h, ongyton mihton. ¯rost foldbu ¯endum Pæt wæs foremæ ¯m se rı¯ca ba¯d; (310) receda under roderum, on pæ lı¯xte se le¯oma ofer landa fela. Him pa¯ hildedeor [h]of mo ¯ digra ¯hte, pæt hı¯e him to ¯ mihton torht getæ gegnum gangan; gu ¯~beorna sum wicg gewende, word æfter cwæ~: (315) ¯l is me¯ to ¯ fe¯ran; Fæder alwalda ‘Mæ mid a¯rstafum e¯owic gehealde ¯ wille sı¯~a gesunde! Ic to ¯ sæ wi~ wra¯~ werod wearde healdan.’ V Stræ ¯t wæs sta¯nfa¯h, stı¯g wı¯sode (320) gumum ætgædere. Gu ¯~byrne sca¯n, heard hondlocen, hringı¯ren scı¯r song in searwum, pa¯ hı¯e to ¯ sele fur~um in hyra gryregeatwum gangan cwo ¯ mon. ¯me¯pe sı¯de scyldas, (325) Setton sæ rondas regnhearde, wi~ pæs recedes weal; bugon pe¯ to¯ bence, byrnan hringdon, gu ¯~searo gumena. Ga¯ras sto ¯ don, ¯manna searo, samod ætgædere, sæ ¯g; wæs se ¯ı renpre¯at (330) æscholt ufan græ ¯pnum gewurpad. Pa¯ ~æ ¯r wlonc hæle~ wæ o ¯ retmecgas æfter [æpel]um frægn: ¯tte scyldas, ‘Hwanon ferigea~ ge¯ fæ ¯ge syrcan ond grı¯mhelmas, græ heresceafta he¯ap? Ic eom Hro ¯ ~ga¯res (335) a¯r ond ombiht. Ne seah ic elpe¯odige – pus manige men – mo ¯ diglı¯cran. We¯n’ ic pæt ge¯ for wlenco, nalles for wræcsı¯~um, ac for higeprymmum Hro ¯ ~ga¯r so ¯ hton.’ Him pa¯ ellenro ¯f andswarode, (340) wlanc Wedera le¯od word æfter spræc, heard under helme: ‘We¯ synt Higela¯ces be¯odgene¯atas; Be¯owulf is mı¯n nama.


4.10.4b Beowulf ll. 306–70 Men hastened, (306) advanced together, until they could see the timbered hall, splendid and adorned with gold. Amongst the earth-dwellers this was the most famous building under the sky, where the mighty one dwelled; (310) the light shone over many lands. To them the brave one pointed out the home of strong men resplendent, so that they could go straight to it; one of the warriors, he turned his horse, then spoke these words: (315) ‘It is time for me to go; may the all-ruling Father through his favour keep you safe in your undertakings! I shall go back to the sea against the hostile troops to keep watch.’ V The road was paved with multicoloured stones, the path showed the way (320) to the men walking together. Battle-corslet gleamed, hard and hand-locked, bright chain-mail sang on their armour, when they first approached the hall in their fearsome gear. Sea-weary they set their broad shields, (325) protection supremely strong, against the building’s wall; then they sat down on the bench, mail-coats rang, battle-gear of men. Spears stood all together, the seamen’s arms, an ash-wood topped with grey; thus was this iron-troop (330) made worthy with its weapons. Then there a proud hero asked the warriors about their lineage: ‘From where do you bring the gold-plated shields, grey mail-shirts and mask-helmets, this multitude of spears? I am Hrothgar’s (335) herald and officer. I have not seen strangers – so many men – more bold. I think that you for daring, not at all because of exile, but for greatness of heart have sought Hrothgar.’ The man famous for his courage replied to him, (340) the proud man of the Geats, strong under helmet, spoke words in return: ‘We are Higelac’s table-companions; Beowulf is my name.

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Wille ic a¯secgan sunu Healfdenes, ¯rum pe¯odne, mı¯n æ ¯rende, (345) mæ aldre pı¯num, gif he¯ u ¯s geunnan wile, pæt we¯ hine swa¯ go¯dne gre¯tan mo ¯ ton.’ Wulfga¯r mapelode – pæt wæs Wendla le¯od, wæs his mo ¯ dsefa manegum gecy¯~ed, wı¯g ond wı¯sdo ¯ m: ‘Ic pæs wine Deniga, (350) fre¯an Scildinga, frı¯nan wille, be¯aga bryttan, swa¯ pu ¯ be¯na eart, ¯rne, ymb pı¯nne sı¯~, pe¯oden mæ ¯dre gecy¯~an, ond pe¯ pa¯ andsware æ ~e¯ me¯ se go ¯ da a¯gifan pence~.’ (355) ¯r Hro ¯ ~ga¯r sæt, Hwearf pa¯ hrædlı¯ce pæ eald ond unha¯r, mid his eorla gedriht; e¯ode ellenro ¯f pæt he¯ for eaxlum gesto ¯d Deniga fre¯an; cu ¯pe he¯ dugu~e pe¯aw. Wulfga¯r ma~elode to ¯ his winedrihtne: (360) ‘He¯r syndon geferede, feorran cumene, ofer geofenes begang Ge¯ata le¯ode; pone yldestan o ¯ retmecgas Be¯owulf nemna~. Hy¯ be¯nan synt, pæt hı¯e, pe¯oden mı¯n, wi~ pe¯ mo ¯ ton wordum wrixlan. No ¯ ~u ¯ him wearne gete¯oh ~ı¯nra gegncwida, glædman Hro ¯ ~ga¯r! Hy¯ on wı¯ggeta¯wum wyr~e pincea~ eorla geæhtlan; hu ¯ru se aldor de¯ah, se¯ pæm hea~orincum hider wı¯sade.’ (370)


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I would wish to tell to Healfdene’s son, famous prince, your lord, (345) my errand, if he would grant, we may be able to greet him, good as he is.’ Wulfgar spoke – he was a man of the Wendels, his proud spirit was known to many, his courage and wisdom: ‘I will inquire of the friend of the Danes, (350) the lord of the Scyldings, the giver of rings, as you request, the famous king, about your errand, and will swiftly make known to you the answer, that the good one thinks fit to give me.’ (355) He returned quickly to where Hrothgar sat, old and grey, with his company of warriors; the man famous for his courage went forth till he stood in front of the lord of the Danes; he knew the custom of retainers. Wulfgar spoke to his beloved lord: (360) ‘Here have journeyed, come from afar, over the sea’s expanse the men of the Geats; their leader the warriors call Beowulf. They are petitioners that they, my lord, might be able (365) to exchange words with you. Do not refuse to give them your answer, gracious Hrothgar! From their battle-gear they seem worthy of warriors’ esteem; indeed strong is the leader, who has brought these heroes here.’ (370)


4.10.5a Notes See Tolkien’s notes in Tolkien A28, including some longer essays, and in ff. 26–39 an extensive analysis of individual words. Christopher Tolkien dates these notes as quite early, suggesting 1927 for some. l.1. Oft, ‘Always’. As Mitchell and Robinson note (2001, p. 271), the Old English word oft can mean ‘often’, but in poetry it can also mean ‘always’. This accentuates the opening of the poem. The word a¯nhaga (cf. also a¯nhogan in l. 40) is difficult to pin down, but this may be intentional. Dunning and Bliss (1969, pp. 37–8) see several possible interpretations, including ‘a hermit’, ‘one who thinks alone’ and ‘one who encloses himself alone’. In his lecture notes (Tolkien A30/1, ff. 140–60v) Tolkien provides a lengthy discussion of a¯nhaga. The a¯n- prefix meant ‘solitary’, whilst -haga, he noted, may have been a possessive (describing an attribute), like a¯n-horn(a), ‘unicorn’, or agental (describing an active performer of some action, like Modern English ‘wanderer’, ‘worker’, ‘writer’, etc.)’. Tolkien looked at occurrences of this word in other Old English poems, including Guthlac (l. 970), Andreas and Elene, and demonstrated the range of meanings from ‘hermit’, to ‘lonely/isolated’ (due to bereavement) and an ‘outcast’ or ‘a man who dwells alone’ (Tolkien A30/1, f. 122). Tolkien suggests this latter meaning is probably what appears in The Wanderer, i.e. ‘He is not an exile, but wishes to escape from his homeland . . . and has no friend to assist him’. In his justifiable attack on translations published by Burton Raffel (Tolkien A30/1, f. 113) Tolkien stated: ‘anhaga does not mean just “lonely one”, but refers to a man living in special conditions and is not applicable (for instance) to a man in a boat’. gebı¯ded, ‘waits’. This can mean either ‘await’ or ‘experience’, which implies two interpretations: 1) the solitary man always experiences mercy; or 2) the solitary man always awaits mercy. The former (adopted here) seems to allow for a looser interpretation, whereas the latter (accepted by Muir 2000, p. 503, for example) enforces early on a Christian didactic approach, i.e. this is what will happen. ll.1–7. Tolkien provides a translation of these lines in his lecture on ‘Anglo-Saxon Verse’ (Tolkien A30/1, f. 37). For eardstapa, ‘the Wanderer’, he noted that this was an example of the unhappy ‘men or creatures who lived in a solitary place alone, by nature, choice, or necessity’ (Tolkien A30/1, f. 118), i.e. the a¯nhagan. He disliked the title ‘The Wanderer’ as it suggested ‘aimless wandering’, and preferred for eardstapa, ‘haunting the land alone’, or ‘walking wild in the land of his dwelling’. l.2. metudes miltse, ‘the mercy of the creator’. Readers should note that a slight alteration to Metudes miltse would make this ‘the mercy of the Creator’, introducing in a Christian interpretation early on. ll.2–4. The sense here is probably: ‘Though he, sad at heart, must for a long time stir the ice-cold sea with his hands, and tread the paths of exile throughout the sea-ways.’ l.5. wyrd, ‘fate’. Tolkien described this as ‘The ineluctable series of events that has marched, and will march on and over Man . . . without regard to any man, Caesar of churl; or as a flooding stream of things that can by some great men, or by many men united in some hope or passion, be turned this way or that: yet even it runs down eventually to the Great Sea at last’ (Tolkien A38, f. 9). a¯ræ ¯d, probably ‘set’ (the verb a¯ræ ¯dan literally means ‘to read’). Here the modern meaning of ‘set’, as in ‘set in their ways’, is used. In other words, ‘fate’ (or wyrd) is entirely predetermined. l.7. hryre, ‘kin’. Mitchell and Robinson (2001, p. 271) note the problems of this word and suggest ‘of kinsmen’. See Muir (2000, p. 505) for a summary of other interpretations.


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l.8. There is considerable debate as to where the speech should be opened. The manuscript, of course, has no such punctuation. Here we keep with the punctuation of ASPR, Mitchell and Robinson (1998) and Treharne (2004). l.11. to¯ so¯pe, ‘to truth’ or ‘truly’, MnE ‘soothsayer’. ll.22–3. Other editors have suggested ‘since long ago the earth covered my lord with darkness’ for these lines (see Muir, 2000, p. 506). ll.37–40. Dunning and Bliss (1969, p. 19) describe this as one of the most difficult passages of the poem, with numerous possible translations. ll.51–3. Mitchell and Robinson (2001, p. 272) note that there are two possible translations of this line: ‘the memory of kinsmen passes through his mind’ or ‘the mind passes through the memory of kinsmen’. Either way the sense is of a dream, with the subject of the poem wandering in and out of his memories, thinking of his past friends until he wakes and sees the images of his companions ‘swim away’. See Dunning and Bliss (1969, pp. 21–2). l.54. bringed, ‘brings there’, translated here as ‘recalls’. l.59. mo¯dsefa and gesweorce. The mind ‘darkens’, i.e. the wanderer reaches the depth of despair. l.61. flet ofge¯afon, ‘the hall abandoned’. This is probably a euphemism for dying. ll.81–3. The appearance of the wolf and the bird (presumably a raven or similar) is a familiar motif in Old English poetry signifying an impending battle where the beasts gorge on the corpses of the dead. ll.83–4. The ‘sad-faced one’ could be a mourner in this case, or the persona of the poem itself. ll.85–7. The enta geweorc also appears in l. 2 of The Ruin, and elsewhere. l.92. Cassidy and Ringler (1974, p. 328) suggest: ‘What has become of . . .?’. For a discussion of this famous ubi sunt passage, see the main section. Tolkien translates this passage as: ‘Where now the horse, where now the man, where now the giver of gold? Where now the places of feasting? Where are the glad voices of the hall? Alas, the bright goblet! Alas, the mail-clad knight! Alas, the glory of the King! How that hour hath passed dark under night-shade, as had it never been!” (Tolkien A30/1, f. 33ff., lecture on ‘Anglo-Saxon Verse’). l.98. wyrmlı¯cum fa¯h, ‘wormlike adorned’, presumably refers to the decorations within the building, possibly interlace carvings on pillars, etc. ¯ne, ‘loan’. The Old English word læ ¯ne is also often translated as ‘transitory’, i.e. l.108. læ passing or temporary.

4.10.5b Notes l.307. [s]æl timbred, ‘timbered hall’. The manuscript reads æltimbred, ‘all-timbered’. Though the manuscript reading makes sense, it is unlikely for metrical reasons. The prefix æt-, as in the word ætsomne, in this line usually does not alliterate in Beowulf, and alliteration seems to require a word beginning with an ‘s’. l.312. [h]of. MS: of. Both hildedeor (‘warrior brave in battle’) in this line and gu ¯dbeorna sum (‘one of the warriors’) in l. 314 refer to the coastguard who is showing Beowulf and his men the way to Heorot. l.317. a¯r-stafum, dative of a¯r-stafas (a¯r, ‘honour’; stafas, ‘letters’). l.320. sta¯n-fa¯h, ‘multi-coloured stones’. This is from sta¯n, ‘stone’, and fa¯h, ‘variegated, decorated, multi-coloured’ (compare Gothic filu-faihs, ‘multi-coloured’). l.322. hond-locen, ‘linked, locked by hand’.


l.326. regn-heard, ‘supremely hard’. regn- is etymologically related to ON regin, n. pl., ‘gods, powers’ (used in ON poems in this volume), and Gothic ragin, n., ‘decision, counsel’. l.327. bugan, ‘bow down, bend, sit down’. l.328. gu¯dsearo, ‘battle gear’. This is a compound word which consists of gu¯d, ‘war, battle, fight’, and searo, ‘contrivance, device, skill, equipment, armour’. l.330. æsc-holt, ‘ash wood’, a metaphor for a spear; ‘grey’ refers to the colour of iron (see Jack, 1994, p. 47). l.331. wurpian, ‘to ennoble, make worthy’. wlonc hæled, ‘the proud hero’. The speaker here is Wulfgar, King Hrothgar’s herald. l.332. [æpel]um, ‘descent, nobility’. The manuscript has hælepum, ‘men, heroes’, which makes sense, but is usually emended because in Beowulf it always alliterates with words beginning with an ‘h’. Tolkien commented that this is an interesting error, provoked by the fact that hælep and æpelu belong ‘to the same general sense-sphere’, and that in Middle English hælep developed into hapel, ‘knight’, influenced by æpele ‘noble’ (Tolkien A28/B, f. 42). l.334. grı¯m-helm, ‘mask helmets’. This refers to a helmet with a ‘mask’ for the protection of the face (OE grı¯ma, ‘mask’). See Jack (1994, p. 48) for a brief discussion of how this relates to the helmet at Sutton Hoo. l.335. here-sceaft, ‘spears’. Literally ‘army-shaft’, a metaphor for a spear. l.341. Wederas, poetic name for the Geats. l.348. Wendlas, ‘Wendels’. Possibly the Vandals (a group of East Germanic tribes), or the inhabitants of modern Vendsyssel in North Jutland, or of Vendel in Uppland, Sweden (Klaeber, 1950, p. 440). They are also referred to in the Old English poem Widsith (l. 59). l.351. Scildinga, ‘of the Scyldings’. Descendant of Scyld, the mythological founder of the Danish royal dynasty (see 4.8). l.352. be¯aga brytta, ‘the giver of rings’. Literally, the ‘breaker of rings’, the one who divides, distributes wealth, a ruler (compare OE bre¯otan, v., ‘to break, cut down, kill’). l.357. unha¯r, ‘grey’. The un-, usually a negative particle, appears to have an intensifying meaning here (see Roberts, 1980). l.359. Tolkien commented that dugud is related to OE dugan, ‘be of worth, service’, but it acquired a special meaning possibly through its association with the word geogod, ‘youth, young warriors’ (dugupe ond geogope, Beo ll. 160, 621). It came to mean ‘all men who had dugud’, that is the host of tried retainers who were most of service. According to Tolkien, in this context it is not clear whether the meaning is ‘knew the manners of tried retainers’ or ‘knew worthy manners’, reviving the older meaning of dugud (Tolkien A28/B, f. 43). l.367. glædman Hro¯dga¯r, OE glæd, adj., ‘kind, gracious, lordly, glorious’. Tolkien commented that the basic sense of glæd is ‘bright’, and that in such expressions as glæde Scyldingas (l. 58) the sense is probably archaic ‘bright, glorious’ (Tolkien A28/B, f. 48r–v).

4.10.6 Further reading For readings on Beowulf, see 4.3. The Wanderer is often anthologized, and numerous editions and translations exist. See, for example, ASPR iii, pp. 134–7, Hamer (1970, pp. 174–9), Cassidy and Ringler (1974, pp. 323–9), Klinck (1992), Muir (2000, vol. I, pp. 215–19 and vol. II, pp. 503–13), Treharne (2000, pp. 42–7) and Mitchell and Robinson (2001, pp. 268–75). Two other single-volume editions are also worth tracking down, as both present lengthy analyses of the poem: Dunning and Bliss (1969), and Leslie (1966).


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4.11 The Death of Théoden and the Arrival of the Mûmakil – The Battle of Maldon, ll. 111–84 and Ælfric’s Homily on the Maccabees, ll. 499–519 (RK, ‘The Battle of Pelennor Fields’) 4.11.1 Plot summary In the great battle of Pelennor Fields Théoden is slain by the Lord of Nazgûl, crushed beneath his horse, Snowmane. Yet before the Nazgûl is able to deliver the death blow, the young warrior Dernhelm (Éowyn), aided by Merry, defends Théoden and kills the Witch-king. Elsewhere the Haradrim arrive, boosting Sauron’s forces with their mûmakil (or war elephants). It would appear that Tolkien more or less completed the majority of the events at Pelennor in a single manuscript (War, p. 367) with the notable exception of the death of Théoden. In an earlier draft entitled ‘Fall of Théoden in the Battle of Osgiliath’ (pp. 365–6) the king is killed by the Nazgûl, but does not make a death speech. Subsequent notes and comments by Tolkien indicate that at first there was some confusion as to the roles of Éowyn/Dernhelm and Merry in the defeat of the Witch-king, as well as to whether the Lord of the Nazgûl was riding a horse or a fell creature. 4.11.2a Medieval text 1: The Battle of Maldon, ll. 111–84 The Battle of Maldon is a late Old English poem telling in detail of the defeat of the English by a Viking army, in the year 991. The poem survives only in a transcript made by John Elphinston in the early part of the eighteenth century from a manuscript held in the Cotton collection (Cotton Otho A.xii) which was badly damaged in the fire of 1731. This copy was given to the historian Thomas Hearne in 1725, and now resides in Oxford (Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Rawl. B. 203). Clearly some errors occurred at the time of copying (see Scragg, 1981, p. 5), but it is possible that the original text was already corrupt. Tolkien clearly saw many lines within the poem as being problematic (see Tolkien A30/2, f. 57 following), and subsequent editors have often made amendments to the original. As to the original date of the poem, we know at the very least that it must have been written after the battle which took place in 991 according to the AngloSaxon Chronicle and other sources. Evidence within the poem shows a breaking down of the stricter Old English metrical patterns as expected towards the latter stages of the development of the poetry. Marsden (2004, p. 251) suggests that ‘nothing in its language or style precludes a more or less contemporary date [to 991]’. In its extant form the poem is 325 lines long, but as it stands (and presumably at the time of the transcription) it is incomplete. Most editors (e.g. Marsden, 2004, p. 252) assume, though, that we are missing relatively little at the beginning and end of the poem.


4.11.2b Medieval text 2: Ælfric’s Homily on the Maccabees, ll. 499–519 For the second text we turn to some Old English prose. Yet for once we actually have some information about the date and author of this piece. The text is from the Anglo-Saxon version of the Old Testament books of the Maccabees and it was made by a Benedictine monk called Ælfric. Ælfric was by far the most prolific writer of the period that we know of. He was trained at Winchester, moved to the monastery at Cerne Abbas (probably as a teacher) and eventually became Abbot of the new establishment at Eynsham. He lived from about 950 to 1010 in the kingdom of Wessex. Single-handedly he produced over 100 homilies, saints, lives, adaptations, paraphrases and translations from the Old Testament, and a series of teaching texts for younger monks to learn Latin. Furthermore, although he was a prose writer he also began to develop a hybrid version of prose and poetry which incorporated elements of verse structure (which we generally term his ‘rhythmical prose’ style). The homily on the Maccabees is a lengthy piece, running to over 770 lines in the most recent edition (see Lee, 1999). Unlike Old English poems it survives in several manuscripts, and we need to collate any variants recorded by the different scribes. The text presented here is such an edition but uses the manuscript British Library MS Cotton Julius E.vii (i.e. the master document) as its base manuscript. 4.11.3 Discussion Let us begin our discussion by focusing on The Battle of Maldon extract. In full, the Old English poem tells of a battle that took place in 991 near Maldon, Essex during the early part of the reign of Æthelred the Unready (from the Old English Æthelræd unræd meaning ‘noble-advice ill-advice’). In this period there were renewed Viking attacks on England and Æthelred was faced not only with the military threat, but also internal dissent and acts of treachery by his nobles. The battle at Maldon was key to the defence of the eastern coast. If the English were victorious, then the Viking threat would be thwarted for some time. If they lost, then the Vikings would continue their attacks, ultimately leading to conquest (which was the final result in 1016 with the arrival of Cnut). The English were led by Byrhtnoth (also known as Beorhtnoth). The Vikings, according to one source at least, were led by Olaf Tryggvason and Swein Forkbeard. To understand the events of the battle, however, it is important to know a little about the geography of the area. Maldon is situated on the River Blackwater (‘Pante’ in the poem) in the middle of which is Northey Island which is linked to the southern bank by a narrow causeway. According to the poem, at the start of the battle the Vikings are on the island, whilst the English form ranks on the mainland to the south. After a brief interchange between Byrhtnoth and a Viking messenger the battle begins, and initially the English have the upper hand. The Vikings make no headway in reaching the mainland


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and are getting cut down in their attempts. There then follows a crucial point in the battle. The Vikings request safe passage onto the mainland to allow the battle to commence army versus army and Byrhtnoth grants them this, according to the poem for his ofermo¯de (l. 89b). Most scholars suggest as a translation ‘because of his pride/over-confidence’, but the meaning is ambiguous. Parallels elsewhere (such as oferhygd in Beowulf ll. 1740 and 1760 meaning ‘pride’) seem to support a negative view and Tolkien clearly saw this as a criticism of the English leader (see below), but later scholars have suggested that strategically Byrhtnoth did the right thing. For the English it was better to face the Vikings in the field, there and then, rather than allowing them to escape and to harry the coast at will. Nevertheless, once the Vikings cross onto the mainland the battle takes a turn for the worse. The key to this is the death of Byrhtnoth, which is presented here in full. After he falls some of his noblemen flee to the woods for safety, a heinous act in Anglo-Saxon society, made worse by the fact that they ride away on Byrhtnoth’s horse, leading others to believe that it is their leader who is deserting the field. The poem concludes with a series of speeches by individual warriors on the English side outlining their willingness to stay and fight to the death. The poem plays on several key ideas of the heroic society, even at such a late point in Anglo-Saxon history. We have the idealized structure of society: Byrhtnoth declares loyalty to his king, Æthelred, and at the end of the poem Byrhtnoth’s warriors refuse to leave the battlefield, preferring to die alongside their lord. As has been often remarked, this concept of the comitatus (‘followers’) staying loyal to their leader even in death goes back as far as Tacitus’ descriptions of the Germanic tribes in Germania (14) in which he states: ‘it is infamy during life . . . to return alive from a battle where their Prince is slain’. This, it would appear, is indicative of the Anglo-Saxon ideal of the warrior defending their lord. This relationship essentially represents the structure of Anglo-Saxon society in which the lord, brave and noble, rewards his followers with land and rings and protection at the political/strategic level, whilst in return they are loyal to him to the death, the most ignoble act being the desertion of his body on the field of battle. The closing speeches by the warriors, all representing different ranks in society, reinforce the idealized Germanic heroism that runs through the poem, culminating in the famous declaration by the elderly warrior Byrhtwold: Hige sceal pe¯ heardra, heorte pe¯ ce¯nre, mo ¯ d sceal pe¯ ma¯re, pe¯ u ¯re mægen ly¯tla~ Courage must be the harder, the heart braver, The mind must be the greater, though our strength weakens (ll. 312–13)


Undoubtedly these are presented by the poet as role models for the rest of the English, his audience, to follow. The poem, then, may be a call to the English to stop their internal feuding and rally to the cause of defending England. At Pelennor, the refusal by Éowyn to abandon her lord, and the loyalty shown by Merry, reflect the actions of the warriors at Maldon. Merry’s initial reaction is to ‘stay by him. As a father you shall be to me’ (LR, p. 822), and Éowyn warns the Witch-king: ‘You stand between me and my lord and kin’ (LR, p. 823). Although, they are not given any dialogue in the poem, one can imagine Wulfmær (l. 155), Ælfnoth and Wulmær (l. 183) making similar challenges to the advancing Vikings. Éowyn and Merry are also mirroring the actions of the warriors towards the end of the poem who declare their willingness to die rather than abandon their lord. This is a common theme in Old English heroic verse. For example in Beowulf, the warrior Wiglaf refuses to leave his lord Beowulf to face the dragon alone. This is clearly in contrast to Beowulf’s other retainers, who fail to come to his aid, and also to Godwine and Godwige at Maldon, who flee to the woods, so attracting the condemnation of the poet (ll. 185–201). For further discussions of this aspect of heroism in The Battle of Maldon, see Rosemary Woolf’s (1975) notable article and a follow-up study by Roberta Frank (1991). This type of relationship is also explored in three key contrasting incidents in LR. First there is Merry and Éowyn’s loyalty to Théoden (which, of course, is an exemplar of the wider loyalty the Rohirrim show to their lord). Next there is Pippin, who too plays out a form of the comitatus relationship with Denethor. Yet there is a clear contrast with the bond between Merry and Théoden (which comes from love and respect), with that of Pippin and Denethor (derived from fear and duty). Interestingly all three ‘servants’ (Éowyn, Merry and Pippin) break their oath to their lords in acts of disobedience. Merry and Éowyn both go against Théoden’s wishes and ride to battle; whereas Pippin, with Gandalf’s assistance, thwarts Denethor’s plans of unwittingly murdering Faramir on the pyre. Finally, there is Sam’s loyalty to Frodo. Clark (2000, p. 46) quite rightly points to Sam’s single-handed attack on the Orc fortress where Frodo is held captive as a demonstration of Sam’s allegiance. Clark sees this as evidence of Sam’s single-mindedness in avenging his lord, like the warriors at the end of Maldon. Similarities between LR and The Battle of Maldon also appear in the lament ‘The Mounds of Mundberg’ (LR, p. 831; but see also War, p. 371). The alliterative verse of the men of Rohan matches the Old English, as does the description of Théoden as ‘hoar and high king’, emphasizing his age and wisdom (see Maldon l. 169a), and the listing of the other nobles of Rohan who fell in the battle.


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Tolkien turned his scholarly attention to The Battle of Maldon throughout his career. Most notably we have his ‘tripartite’ study first published in 1953 in Essays and Studies (n.s. 6, pp. 1–18), and subsequently in Tolkien (1966). This consisted of a preliminary essay entitled ‘Beorhtnoth’s Death’, the short play ‘The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth, Beorhthelm’s Son’, and a finishing essay entitled ‘Ofermod’. Although Tolkien recognized ‘the heroism of obedience and love’ in the poem (‘Ofermod’, 1975, p. 172), the underlying theme of all three pieces is a criticism of Byrhtnoth for allowing the Vikings to cross the causeway, and a discussion of the heroic ideals of the poems and legends of the Anglo-Saxons which may have led Byrhtnoth to such a decision. The Vikings ‘knew . . . what manner of man they had to deal with’ and the granting of permission to join battle in the field is described as an ‘act of pride and misplaced chivalry’ (‘Beorhtnoth’s Death’, 1975, p. 150). In the ‘Homecoming’ one of the characters states, ‘our lord was at fault . . . too proud, too princely’ (1975, p. 163). He comments that to be remembered in glorious poems afterwards is not enough – ‘let the poets babble’ (p. 163) – especially when one is faced with the terror of the present. Helms (2000, pp. 42–3) sees Tolkien’s discussion of Maldon as an awakening of his views on heroism, a change from what he felt in 1936. This he believes was brought about in part by the Second World War and the advent of the Atomic Age, but also by the fact that Tolkien had now written about Frodo’s struggle with Sauron, and had been influenced by that. The historical account in the Liber Eliensis (‘The Book of Ely’, twelfth century) of the attempt to recover Byrhtnoth’s body after the battle forms the basis for Tolkien’s short play. In his interpretation, two men – the young minstrel Torhthelm (meaning ‘bright-helm’), still full of the heroic tales of old, and the elderly churl Tídwald (meaning ‘power/controller of time’), one who has experienced the true horror of battle – are sent to the battlefield after the fighting has finished to see if they can find Byrhtnoth’s corpse. Historically though, as Tolkien notes, it was the Abbot of Ely and his monks who scoured the field, locating the body of Byrhtnoth (he had been decapitated and in his tomb his head was replaced with a ball of wax). The play is written in alliterative verse, which Tolkien describes as being in ‘free form’ (‘Beorhtnoth’s Death’, 1975, p. 152) mirroring the verse in The Battle of Maldon, which as noted earlier, begins to show the breaking down of the tight metrical structures of ‘earlier’ Old English poetry. The play begins with Tídwald and Torhthelm searching the battlefield, coming across the bodies of the dead warriors mentioned in the poem (e.g. Wulfmær, which Torththelm recalls was Beorhtnoth’s ‘sister-son’ and wagers he ‘did not fall [far] from his friend and master’ (p. 154); see Maldon, ll. 113–15). They eventually discover Byrhtnoth’s body, minus the head, and after fending off a few scavengers, they return with the body on a cart. The


play finishes apocalyptically with both predicting doom for the English, and Torhthelm repeating the lines from Maldon: Heart shall be bolder, harder be purpose, more proud the spirit as our power lessens! (‘Homecoming’, p. 166) Fans of LR will find many familiar references in the play. At the beginning, as the two warriors search the battlefield, Tídwald teases Torhthelm about his fear of ‘barrow-wights’ (p. 153), and Torhthelm later imagines he sees Trolls (p. 159, though they are merely scavengers). On the discovery of a dead Viking, Torhthelm conjures up memories of Frodo and Sam in the Dead Marshes when he says, ‘He’s looking at me. I can’t abide his eyes, black and evil, as Grendel’s in the moon’ (p. 156). The whole scene is also reminiscent of Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli’s reconstruction of the battle between the Rohirrim and the Uruk-hai in their search for Pippin and Merry. In the aftermath the trio search the debris of the mêlée, trying to piece together the facts from the flimsiest of clues, eventually tracking the two hobbits to the edges of Fangorn. Yet returning to our main theme, the criticism of Byrhtnoth by Tolkien, we have the closing essay on ‘Ofermod’, the title taken from the key phrase of the poem noted earlier. Tolkien argues that the northern heroic spirit, which is usually praised so roundly, has one distinct drawback: it can drive men ‘to excess’, i.e. to try to outstrip their bravery. He questions the act by Byrhtnoth of allowing the Vikings the ground to fight a pitched battle. He surmises that this was undoubtedly within the nature of the man, but that character had been ‘moulded also by “aristocratic tradition”, enshrined in tales and verse of poets now lost save for echoes’ (p. 171). It was a magnificent gesture, but ‘wrong . . . Too foolish to be heroic’ (p. 171). Chance (2001, pp. 117–20) sees the contrast between ‘responsible lordship’ (Aragorn) and ‘irresponsible lordship’ (Byrhtnoth) as a running theme through Tolkien’s fiction. She links the criticism of Byrhtnoth in Tolkien’s three pieces, to that of Tolkien’s ‘Lay of Aotrou and Itroun’ (1945), Farmer Giles of Ham (1949) and ‘Imram’ (1955) – all of which, she proposes, represent a concerted attack on Germanic heroism. Clark (2000, p. 49) agrees, seeing ‘Homecoming’ and ‘Ofermod’ as ‘an intensification of Tolkien’s rejection of the heroic ethos’ (building on his thoughts in his lecture on ‘Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics’). Regardless of whether one accepts Chance’s hypothesis, Tolkien’s criticism of Byrhtnoth could be seen as unjust. Scragg (1981, p. 39), for example, argues that Tolkien’s objections to the actions of the English leader do not seem to be shared by the poet. Yet we must remember that Tolkien had witnessed warfare in the trenches on the Western Front. As an officer he had been charged with


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corresponding with the families of the dead young men under his command; and it is true to say (whether Tolkien himself felt this or not at the time) that needless slaughter of men due to the pride and folly of leaders are accusations often levelled at the generals of the war, especially on the Somme. It is not surprising, therefore, to see such open criticism of Byrhtnoth, whose actions, Tolkien felt, led to the defeat of the English and more importantly the death of many brave men. If we mirror this with the actions of the main protagonists in LR and TH, all the leaders of the forces of good (with the exception of Denethor) act strategically and logically, whereas Saruman, Sauron and even Smaug could be accused of failing due to their own ofermo¯d. Finally, let us look at the prose extract, namely part of Ælfric’s version of the Old Testament Maccabees. Here we are shifting our analysis away from the death of Théoden to the arrival of the oliphaunts (or mûmakil) of the Haradrim at Pelennor which nearly proved decisive for Sauron’s forces. The Anglo-Saxons seemed to have a special interest in the Old Testament, especially the great historical epics. It is not surprising, therefore, that Ælfric chose the Maccabees as one of his translations. There are in fact four books entitled Maccabees, but only the first two appeared in the Latin version of the Bible that the Anglo-Saxons used (St Jerome’s Vulgate). The Maccabees themselves were the sons of Mathathias, a Jewish priest who died in the middle part of the second century BC. The books tell the events covering 175–134 BC, in which the Maccabees, led by their leader Judas, organize a successful rebellion against oppressors attempting to impose ‘Hellenization’, or the worship of Zeus and other Olympic gods. In the episode below we join the story at the point where Judas, at the Battle of Bethzacharam, faces another enemy army in the field. However, this time there is a new surprise weapon for him to face – war elephants – a similar experience to that of the Rohirrim at Pelennor. In the Old Testament battle the enemy has thirty of these, each with a hut containing warriors on their backs, as well as an army of infantry and cavalry. Yet Ælfric, conscious of the fact that most Anglo-Saxons would never have seen an elephant, seeks to describe the beast (using material he found mainly in a text by Isidore of Seville) before detailing the heroic end of the battle. At Pelennor we have the possible predecessors of the war elephants – the mûmakil or oliphaunts of the Haradrim. In the battle, stirringly depicted by Peter Jackson in his film, the creatures have war towers on their backs bearing hordes of the Haradrim bowmen. The creatures inspired fear in the horses of the Rohan who turn and flee from them, and all hope of victory is lost until the arrival of Aragorn and the knights of Dol Amroth, who lead the charge against the hordes. In Tolkien’s notes to translators on the names in LR (Lobdell, 1975, p. 170) ‘oliphaunt’ was singled out for the following comment:


Retain this. It is an archaic form of ‘elephant’ used as a ‘rusticism’, on the supposition that rumour of the Southern beast would have reached the Shire long ago in the form of legend. Tolkien notes that it is derived from the Old French ‘olifant’, with links to the Old English ‘olfend’ and the Old High German ‘olbenta’ meaning ‘camel’. Yet Pelennor is not the only occasion where we encounter the mûmakil in LR. Our first introduction to them is at the Black Gates when Sam, Frodo and Gollum watch the armies of Mordor leave. Sam asks Gollum if there were any ‘oliphaunts’ present, much to the latter’s puzzlement. Sam then recites the poem which begins: Grey as a mouse, Big as a house, Nose like a snake, I make the earth shake. (LR, p. 632) This is interesting for many reasons. First of all, the poem has a life of its own outside of LR. It appears in The Adventures of Tom Bombadil by itself, which supports Sam’s comment that it is just ‘nonsense maybe’ that he heard in the Shire. Second, the poem is entirely presented in the first person, as if the elephant itself is speaking. This use of prosopopoeia (giving voice to an animal or inanimate object) is a common device used by the Anglo-Saxons, especially in their riddles, where the object in question describes itself and usually finishes with something like ‘Now say what I am’. Thirdly, and more importantly, a few of the lines in the poem suggest references to the piece by Ælfric (which Tolkien would have undoubtedly read). The oliphaunt is described by Tolkien as being as ‘big as a house’. This is repeated when Sam, witnessing an ambush of the Harad by the men of Gondor, actually sees an oliphaunt: Sam saw a vast shape crash out of the trees and come careering down the slope. Big as a house, much bigger than a house, it looked to him . . . (LR, p. 646) This is exactly the same description Ælfric uses to impress on his audience the size of the creature. ‘The elephant is an enormous creature’, he writes ‘bigger than a house’ (l. 2). Similarly, in the poem that Sam recites, the oliphaunt is said to live ‘beyond count of years’ and ‘never lie[s] on the ground’. Although Ælfric gives a rough life-span for the creature of 300 years, such a time period to the Anglo-Saxons must have seemed almost like an eternity; and, to complete the similarity, Ælfric states he¯ na¯fre ne lı¯d, ‘he never lies down’ (l. 3).


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The mûmakil of the Harad are bigger than any elephants seen nowadays, but Tolkien, in an authorial digression, suggests that their ancestors do still roam the earth: the like of him does not walk now in Middle-earth; his kin that live still in latter days are but memories of his girth and majesty. (LR, pp. 646–7) Perhaps this is a further reference to the fact that the Middle-earth of LR eventually becomes the earth we now live in (see The Seafarer, 4.13). Therefore the mûmakil that Sam sees, and those that take to the field at Pelennor, were finally to evolve into the modern elephant. The wonderment which Sam exclaims on seeing the oliphaunt, and the fact that ‘no one at home will ever believe me’, must also have plagued Ælfric. One can only imagine the effect the sight of an elephant in Anglo-Saxon England would have had on the men and women of the tenth century, and even their presence in a text must have been startling. So much so that Ælfric almost mirrors Sam’s sentiment of future disbelief of his story when he says, ‘Some men will think this strange to hear, because elephants never come to England’ (ll. 1–2) – or the Shire for that matter.


4.11.4a The Battle of Maldon, ll. 111–84 Biter wæs se beaduræs, beornas fe¯ollon on gehwæ~ere hand, hyssas la¯gon. Wund wear~ Wulfmæ ¯r, wælræste gece¯as, ¯g; he¯, mid billum wear~, Byrhtno ¯ ~es mæ his swuster sunu, swı¯~e forhe¯awen. (115) ¯r wear~ wı¯cingum wiperlean a¯gyfen. Pæ a¯nne slo ¯ ge Gehy¯rde ic pæt ¯ E adweard swı¯~e mid his swurde, swenges ne wyrnde, ¯ge cempa; pæt himæt fo ¯ tum fe¯oll fæ ¯de, (120) pæs him his ~e¯oden panc gesæ pa¯m bu ¯rpe¯ne, pa¯ he¯ byre hæfde. Swa¯ stemnetton, stı¯~hicgende, hysas æt hilde; hogodon georne ¯r mid orde æ ¯rost mihte hwa¯ pæ on fægean men feorh gewinnan, (125) ¯pnum; wæl feol on eor~an. wigan mid wæ Sto ¯ don stædefæste; stihte hı¯ Byrhtno ¯ ~, bæd pæt hyssa gehwylc hogode to ¯ wı¯ge, pe on Denon wolde do ¯ m gefeohtan. ¯pen u ¯p a¯ho ¯ f, (130) Wo ¯ d pa¯ wı¯ges heard, wæ bord to ¯ gebeorge, and wi~ pæs beornes sto ¯ p. ¯ ¯d, eorl to ¯ pa¯m ceorle, E ode swa¯ a¯nræ ¯gper hyra o ¯ ~rum yfeles hogode. æ ¯rinc su ¯perne ga¯r, Sende ~a¯ se sæ pæt gewundod wear~ wigena hla¯ford; (135) he¯ sce¯af pa¯ mid ~a¯m scylde, pæt se sceaft to ¯ bærst, and pæt spere sprengde, pæt hit sprang onge¯an. Gegremod wear~ se gu ¯~rinc; he¯ mid ga¯re stang wlancne wı¯cing, pe him pa¯ wunde forgeaf. Fro ¯ d wæs se fyrdrinc; he¯ le¯t his francan wadan (140) purh ~æs hysses hals, hand wı¯sode ¯rscea~an feorh geræ ¯hte. pæt he¯ on pa¯m fæ Da¯ he¯ o ¯ perne ofstlı¯ce sce¯at, pæt se¯o byrne to ¯ bærst; he¯ wæs on bre¯ostum wund purh ~a¯ hringlocan, him æt heortan sto ¯ d (145) ¯tterne ord. Se eorl wæs pe¯ blı¯pra, æ ¯de Metode panc hlo ¯ h pa¯, mo ¯ di man, sæ ~æs dægweorces pe him Drihten forgeaf. Forle¯t pa¯ drenga sum daro~ of handa, fle¯ogan of folman, pæt se¯ to ¯ for~ gewa¯t (150) purh ~one æpelan Æpelre¯des pegen.


4.11.4a The Battle of Maldon, ll. 111–84 Bitter was the rush of battle, warriors fell on either hand, young men lay dead. Wounded became Wulfmær, he chose death in battle, Byrhtnoth’s kin; he, his sister’s son, was fiercely hacked to pieces with swords. (115) There was paid requital to the Vikings. I have heard that Edward slew one ferociously with his sword, he did not withhold the blow, so that at his feet fell the doomed warrior; for this his lord said thanks to him, (120) to that servant, when he had the opportunity. Thus they stood firm, resolute, young men at battle; they, the warriors with weapons, eagerly thought about whom they might first there with the spear, win the life (125) from the doomed men. Slaughter fell to the ground. They stood steadfast; Byrhtnoth exhorted them, asked that each of the young men concentrated on the battle, which would achieve glory by fighting from the Danes. Then one brave in battle strode forward, he raised up a weapon, (130) a shield as defence, and advanced against the warrior. He went thus resolute, an earl to the churl, either intended evil to the other. The sea-warrior sent then a southern spear, so that the lord of the warriors became injured; (135) he shoved then with the shield, so that the shaft burst asunder, and the spear quivered, so that it sprang away again. The warrior became enraged; he, the proud Viking, who before had given him the wound, stabbed with a spear. Wise was the warrior; he let his Frankish spear fly (140) through the neck of the young man, the hand guided so that he took the life from the sudden attacker. Then he quickly shot another one, so that the byrnie burst apart; he was wounded in the breast through the ringmail, [and] at his heart stood (145) the deadly point. The earl was happier for that, he laughed then, the brave man, [and] said thanks to the Creator for the day’s work which the Lord had granted him. Then one of the warriors let loose a spear from the hand, to fly from the hand, so that it went forth (150) through the noble thegn of Æthelred.

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Him be healfe sto ¯d hyse unweaxen, cniht on gecampe, se full ca¯flice ¯d of pa¯m beorne blo ¯ digne ga¯r, bræ ¯r se geonga. (155) Wulfsta¯nes bearn, Wulfmæ Forle¯t forheardne faran eft onge¯an; ord in gewo ¯ d, pæt se¯ on eorpan læg ¯r pearle geræ ¯hte. pe his pe¯oden æ ¯ secg to ¯ pa¯m eorle; E ode pa¯ gesyrwed he¯ wolde pæs beornes be¯agas gefecgan, (160) re¯af and hringas, and gere¯nod swurd. ¯d bill of sce¯~e, Pa Byrhtno ¯ ~ bræ bra¯d and bru ¯neccg, and on pa¯ byrnan slo ¯ h. To ¯ rape hine gelette lidmanna sum, pa¯ he¯ pæs eorles earm a¯myrde. (165) Fe¯oll pa¯ to¯ foldan fealohilte swurd; ne mihte he¯ gehealdan heardne me¯ce, ¯pnes wealdan. Pa¯ gy¯t pæt word gecwæ~, wæ ha¯r hilderinc, hyssas bylde, bæd gangan for~ go ¯ de gefe¯ran; (170) ne mihte pa¯ on fo ¯ tum leng fæste gestandan. He¯ to¯ heofenum wla¯t: ‘Gepancie pe¯, ~e¯oda Waldend, ¯ra wynna pe ic on worulde geba¯d. ealra pæ ¯ste pearfe (175) Nu ¯ ic a¯h, milde Metod, mæ pæt pu ¯ mı¯num ga¯ste go ¯ des geunne, pæt mı¯n sa¯wul to ¯ ~e¯ sı¯~ian mo ¯ te, on pı¯n geweald, Pe¯oden engla, mid fripe ferian. Ic eom frymdi to ¯ pe¯ pæt hı¯ helscea~an hy¯nan ne mo ¯ ton.’ (180) ¯~ene scealcas, Da¯ hine he¯owon, hæ and be¯gen pa¯ beornas pe him big sto ¯ don, ¯r be¯gen la¯gon, Ælfno ¯ ~ and Wulmæ ~a¯ onemn hyra fre¯an feorh gesealdon. 4.11.4b Ælfric’s Homily on the Maccabees, ll. 499–519 Sumum menn wile pincan syllic pis to ¯ gehy¯renne, forpan pe ylpas ne co ¯ mon næ ¯fre on Engla lande. Ylp is (500) ormæte nyten (ma¯re ponne sum hu ¯s), eall mid ba¯num befangen binnan pa¯m fell bu ¯tan æt ~a¯m nauelan, 7 he¯ ¯~ se¯o mo ¯ dor na¯fre ne lı¯~. Fe¯ower 7 twentig mo ¯ n~a gæ mid folan, 7 pre¯o hund ge¯ara hı¯ libba~ (gif hı¯ a¯le¯fede ne be¯o~); 7 hı¯ man mæg wenian wundorlı¯ce to gefeohte. (505)


By his side stood a not fully grown young man, a boy in battle, he very bravely pulled from the warrior the bloody spear, the son of Wulfstan, Wulfmær the young. (155) He let fly the hard object to go back again; the point passed in, so that he lay on the earth who before had severely wounded his lord. Then an[other] armed warrior approached the earl; he wanted to fetch the rings off the warrior, (160) the armour and ringmail, and the decorated sword. Then Byrhtnoth pulled [his] sword from the sheath, broad and with a shining blade, and struck at the byrnie. [But] too quickly one of the Vikings prevented him, when he wounded the earl’s arm. (165) Fell then to the ground the golden-hilted sword; he could not hold the hard blade, [or] wield the weapon. Then still a speech he spoke, the grey warrior, he encouraged the young warriors, commanded the good companions go forth; (170) he could not then stand fast on [his] feet for long. he looked to the heavens: ‘[I] thank you, Ruler of peoples, for all the joys which I experienced in the world. Now I have, merciful Creator, the greatest need (175) that you my spirit may grant the favour, that my soul to you is able to journey, into your control, Lord of angels, [and] travel with peace. I am entreating you that the thieves of hell might not injure it.’ (180) Then they cut him down, the heathen warriors, and both the warriors who stood by him, Ælfnoth and Wulmær, they both lay dead, when alongside their lord they forfeited life. 4.11.4b Ælfric’s Homily on the Maccabees, ll. 499–519 Some people will think this strange to hear, because elephants never come to England. The elephant (500) is an enormous creature (bigger than a house), surrounded all with bones within the skin except at the navel, and he never lies down. Twenty-four months goes the mother with the foal, and they live three hundred years (if they are not injured); and one can train them wondrously for battle. (505)

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Hwæl is ealra fixa mæ ¯st, 7 ylp is eallra nytena mæ ¯st; ac swa¯pe¯ah mannes gesce¯ad hı¯ mæg gwyldan. ¯~enan ~a¯ fe¯rdon to ¯ ~a¯m gefeohte swy¯~e, 7 mid Pa¯ hæ mo ¯ rberium gebyldon pa¯ ylpas, forpan pe mo ¯ rberian him ¯r wæs swy¯~e egeslic here pæ ¯ra hæ ¯~enra (510) is metta le¯ofost. Pæ manna; ac swa¯~e¯ah Iu ¯das heom e¯ode to ¯ mid wı¯ge, 7 ¯r sona six hund wera. 7 a¯n his gefe¯rena, ofslo ¯ h pæ ¯r enlı¯cost wæs Ele¯azarus hatte, arn to a¯num ylpe pe ~æ ¯re on ~a¯m wı¯ghu ¯se ~e he¯ bær). (we¯nde pæt se cyning wæ He¯ arn, mid atogenum swurde, betwux ~a¯m e¯orode (515) ¯fre on twa¯ healfe pæt he¯ sweltende middan 7 slo ¯h æ fe¯ollon, o~pæt he¯ to ¯ pa¯m ylpe co ¯ m, 7 e¯ode him on ¯r under. Stang ~a¯ hine æt ~a¯m nauelan, pæt he¯ la¯gon ~æ be¯gen, heora o ¯ ~res slaga.


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The whale is the greatest of all fishes, and the elephant is the greatest of all creatures; nevertheless the power of reason of man can control them. The heathens then rushed quickly to the battle, and with mulberries they emboldened the elephants, because the mulberry to them is the most beloved of foods. There was a very terrible army of the heathen (510) men; however Judas went to them with battle, and slew there at once six hundred men. And one of his companions, who was called Eleazar, ran to one of the elephants who was the most noble there (he thought that the king might have been in the battle-house which he carried). He ran, with sword drawn, between the middle of the mounted troop (515) and he struck continuously on both sides so that they fell dying, until he came to the elephant, and he went under it. He stabbed it then at the navel, so that they both lay there, each the other’s slayer.


4.11.5a Notes l.115. swuster sunu, ‘sister’s son’. Tolkien (Tolkien A30/2, f. 102) notes that ‘the relationship was one of special impact in Germanic times’. Scragg (1981, p. 75) notes that this is outlined in Tacitus’ Germania. l.117. gehy¯rde ic, ‘I heard’. This phrase implies that the poet is hearing the information second-hand. If this is the case, then the intricate details he relays about the battle, down to the very weapons used, are known to him from someone who was there – directly or indirectly. However, Tolkien (Tolkien A30/2, f. 102) goes further by stating that the phrase ‘does not necessarily imply that the poet was not there’ because it was a traditional ‘epic formula’ for introducing any kind of story, like ‘the tale tells’. l.120. his de¯oden, ‘his lord’. This is Byrhtnoth, who thanks Edward for slaying the Viking. This almost casual aside about a minor event reinforces the impression that the poet is recounting something he witnessed, or at least an accurate account told to him by someone who was there. l.122. stemnetton, ‘stood firm’. Tolkien (Tolkien A21/5, f. 13) suggests ‘stand firm’ (see also Tolkien A30/2 f. 102). Scragg (1981, p. 76) agrees, but notes that it could also mean ‘stop talking’. ll.129–30. The action here may seem confused. It is generally accepted that the wı¯ges heard, ‘the one brave in battle’, is a Viking approaching the beorn, i.e. Byrhtnoth. The ‘He’ of l. 132 is Byrhtnoth, advancing towards the Viking. It has been suggested by some that there are some lines missing at this point, but Scragg (1981, p. 76) believes this compact style is just typical of the poet’s desire for pace. l.133. The sense here is of an implied desire to hurt the other. Tolkien (Tolkien A30/2, f. 103) proposes ‘each had a purpose of evil towards the other’. l.134. su¯perne, ‘southern’. Scragg (1981, p. 76) agrees with previous editors that this means of ‘southern make’, noting that ‘Frankish weapons were highly prized’ (l. 140b). Tolkien (Tolkien A30/2, f. 103) wonders about the Danes having weapons plundered or acquired from France, Italy, Spain, or Constantinople. l.142. feorh geræ ¯ the, ‘took the life’, i.e. killed. l.145. hringlocan, ‘ring-mail’. Tolkien (Tolkien A21/5, f. 13) suggests ‘corslet’. Scragg (1981, p. 77) notes it is a ‘unique compound’, with -loca meaning ‘enclosure’, and suggests ‘ringmail shirt’. l.149. drenga, ‘of the warriors’. Tolkien (Tolkien A21/5, f. 13) suggests ‘warrior’ and notes it is a Scandinavian word (Tolkien, A 30/2, f. 105). Scragg agrees (1981, p. 77), noting it is a loan-word from the Old Norse drengr. ll.149–58. Again the action may seem confusing. Byrhtnoth has just killed two Vikings and thanks God for the work, when suddenly another one appears and lets fly with a hand-dart which severely wounds Byrhtnoth. However, to his side stands the young Wulfmær, Wulfstan’s son (a different Wulfmær from the one who appears in l. 113). He plucks the dart from Byrhtnoth, hurls it back at the Viking, and kills him. l.160. It is interesting to recall that Torhthelm and Tídwald in ‘The Homecoming’ after the battle encounter scavengers intent on robbing the dead. l.165. a¯myrde, ‘wounded’. Tolkien (Tolkien A21/5, f. 13) suggests ‘spoil, destroy’, but most editors opt for ‘wound’ (as above). l.163. bru¯necg, ‘shining blade’. Tolkien (Tolkien A30/2, f. 107) suggests ‘with a glittering edge’. l.166. fealohilte, ‘golden-hilted’. Scragg (1981, p. 78) notes that this is a unique compound with overtones of decay.


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l.171. One assumes Byrhtnoth, due to the wounds he has received, has collapsed and delivers his death speech, like Théoden, prostrate on the ground surrounded by his warriors. l.172. A half-line is missing here, though there is no gap in the transcription. l.183. Tolkien (Tolkien A30/2, f. 109) suggests that something is missing offering be¯gen [on wæle] la¯gon. Scragg (1981, p. 79) does not emend but notes discussions and suggestions by other editors.

4.11.5b Notes The full homily in Lee (1999) is 773 lines long. l.1. Sumum menn wile . . . For a full analysis of the episode of the elephants, see Cross (1965). Ælfric did not make up his facts about elephants, and clearly drew his details from some source books. The two main contenders for this are the Etymologiarum of Isidore of Seville, and the Hexameron of Ambrose of Milan, both of which Ælfric, we assume, would have had to hand. The overall source for the battle, however, is of course St Jerome’s Vulgate (the Latin version of the Bible that the Anglo-Saxons used). l.13. e¯orod, ‘troop of cavalry’. A similar term used by the Rohan for a military unit of their horsemen. The ‘battle-house’ is akin to the war-tower which the mûmakil carry. l.15. Ælfric follows the Vulgate closely for the episode of the slaying of the elephant, which presumably falls on Eleazar and kills him. However, the detail that Eleazar struck the creature at the navel is an interesting addition to the Latin original by Ælfric (the Vulgate simply says he struck the creature from underneath). The implication, drawn from the preceding description of the creature, is that this was its weakest point. This is possibly from Isidore again, where it is stated that a rhinocerous kills the elephant by stabbing upwards into its stomach with its horn. Yet to the Anglo-Saxons this may also have struck a chord with dragon-slaying. In Beowulf (ll. 2699–70) Wiglaf slays the dragon by striking upwards at its weakest point. To Tolkien fans, of course, this is a clear parallel to the weak spot on Smaug’s underbelly in TH which Bard targets. Yet in LR we are told that the weak spot of the mûmakil is their eyes, which the bowmen, led by Derufin and Duilin, try to target.

4.11.6 Further reading The most recent editions of the Old English poem are Scragg (1981; repr. 1984, 1991), which also contains a facsimile of the first page of Elphinstone’s transcription; Hamer (1970, pp. 48–69); Griffiths (1991); Mitchell and Robinson (2001, pp. 241–52); Cassidy and Ringler (1974, pp. 360–71); Marsden (2004, pp. 251–69); Calder and Allen (1976, pp. 188–92); Bradley (1982, pp. 518–28); and Fowler (1966, pp. 71–81). Tolkien’s Leeds colleague, E. V. Gordon, also produced an edition (The Battle of Maldon (Methuen, 1937)). The poem also appears in the ASPR vi, pp. 7–16 (the baseline text for this edition). For studies of the poem and the battle itself, see also Laborde (1936); Cooper (1993); Robinson (1979); and Scragg (1991). The most recent edition of the Maccabees is S. D. Lee’s Ælfric’s Homilies on Judith, Esther, and the Maccabees (1999; users.ox.ac.uk/~stuart/kings/). The edition above follows Lee’s texts and emendations. The only other edition is available in W. W. Skeat, Ælfric’s Lives of Saints, EETS, OS 76, 82, 94, 114, 4 vols. (London, 1881–90), reprinted as 2 vols.


(London, 1966). The Maccabees was printed as homily XXV (pp. 66–125). Tolkien recites the poem ‘Oliphaunt’ on the 1975 recording J. R. R. Tolkien Reads and Sings His ‘The Lord of the Rings’ (Caedmon TC 1478). Tolkien also wrote a poem called ‘Iumbo, or Ye Kinde of Ye Oliphaunt’, which appeared in the Stapledon Magazine 7. 40 (Exeter College, June 1927) and is a parody of medieval bestiaries. See also Cross (1965).


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4.12 The Landscape of Mordor – Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, ll. 713–63 and Beowulf, ll. 1345–82 (RK, ‘The Land of Shadow’) 4.12.1 Plot summary Sam and Frodo have escaped from the tower at Cirith Ungol and descend to the glens of Morgai to begin their long weary journey to Mount Doom. The desolation that surrounds them, in stark contrast to the earlier descriptions of the Shire and Lothlórien, creates an apocalyptic scene as the quest nears its climax. Christopher Tolkien (Sauron, pp. 30–6) notes that ‘The Land of Shadow’ was ‘completed swiftly and in a single burst of writing’. Only minor details of dialogue and the distance travelled by hobbits were changed in the subsequent drafts. 4.12.2a Medieval text 1: Beowulf, ll. 1345–82 For a general introduction to Beowulf, see 4.3. Lines 1345–82 of Beowulf contain the description of a lake or mere where the monster Grendel and his mother are known to live. It precedes Beowulf’s second heroic adventure, which is more difficult than the first: the fight with Grendel. Whereas Beowulf defeats Grendel in King Hrothgar’s hall Heorot, his subsequent battles with monsters take place on their territory. The passage presented here introduces this new challenge and describes the dangerous place where Beowulf’s fight with Grendel’s mother is about to take place. At this point in the story Beowulf had defeated Grendel, and King Hrothgar and his retainers had celebrated the victory. However, during the night Heorot was attacked again: Grendel’s mother, another monster, came to avenge her son and carried off Hrothgar’s chief counsellor, Æschere. Hrothgar summons Beowulf to the hall and tells him what has happened. He explains that his people have seen two monstrous creatures walking in the wasteland at night, and tells about a desolate place where they are believed to live. Beowulf vows to kill the second monster as well. His reply is a true epitome of the heroic ideal, which also runs through LR. The extract below is King Hrothgar’s speech to Beowulf. 4.12.2b Medieval text 2: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, ll. 713–63 For a discussion of the manuscript, the author and the literary background of the poem, see 4.7. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the last item in London, British Library MS Cotton Nero A.x, is a chivalric romance set at King Arthur’s court. The poem starts with the description of the King’s New Year’s day celebrations. At the feast Arthur vows that he will not eat until he has heard a story about a marvellous event. When the meal is served an unknown knight rides


into the hall. He is dressed in green, and his horse is also green. He holds a branch of holly in one hand and a large axe in the other. The Green Knight says that he has come without armour and has no intention of fighting, but, since it is Yuletide and the New Year, he would like one of the knights to oblige him with a game. He invites any knight to strike him a blow with his axe, on the condition that on the same day, in a year’s time, the knight will find him and receive a return blow. Arthur wants to take the challenge, but Gawain, his nephew, stops him and asks that he be allowed to strike the blow, for this is more appropriate for him than for the king himself. His request is granted, and he strikes off the Green Knight’s head with his axe. The Knight picks up his head and leaves, but before he does so the head speaks, reminding Gawain to seek him in the Green Chapel in a year’s time. Gawain leaves for his quest, despite the fears of the court, on All Souls’ Day of the same year. His journey, full of danger and hardship, is described in the passage below. On Christmas Eve he arrives at a castle where he is entertained until the New Year’s Day. After various events and a second meeting with the Green Knight, Gawain returns to Camelot with more experience and greater knowledge of himself. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight has many plot and descriptive elements typical of a chivalric romance, including the quest, courtly feasts and celebrations, temptations, battles, traditional characters of Arthurian legends and traditional scenes, such as the arming of a knight before an adventure. It is, however, a rather late representative of this genre, and the poet has skilfully and purposefully reworked almost every convention. Full appreciation of the poet’s work requires familiarity with the tradition of the chivalric romance, which he mastered to perfection, but also deliberately opposed. The story of Sir Gawain is so entertaining and skilfully narrated that it may not be immediately clear to the reader that at its heart is a moral test, and that the poet is interested in psychological analysis and examining the hero’s chivalric values. Gawain undergoes a test of honour and the ability to remain loyal to a pledged word in the face of death, but as the poem progresses his courtesy, social tact and intuition are also variously tested. During his adventure he is faced with situations of increasing social and moral complexity, where he has to choose between different forms of chivalric behaviour and resolve conflicting obligations. Gawain remains true to his word given to the Green Knight at the New Year’s feast, but is tempted into breaking another, apparently much less serious, agreement. When he returns to Arthur’s court he believes himself to be guilty of ‘cowardice’ and ‘covetousness’. In spite of its underlying ethical seriousness, the poem is devoid of didacticism, and its ending is intentionally ambiguous, leaving open the question of how strictly the hero should be judged or of how he was judged by the poet. Tolkien’s W. P. Ker Memorial Lecture of 1953 on Sir Gawain and the Green Knight includes a detailed discussion of Gawain’s temptation and the nature of his fault (Essays, pp. 72–108).


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The poem has many visually appealing descriptions of feasts, celebrations, hunting, armour, clothing, architecture and nature. The passage presented here, a wintry landscape which Gawain sees during his journey to the Green Chapel, is an illustration of this. Sir Gawain is written in unrhymed alliterative verse with lines grouped into stanzas of varying length; in all there are 101 stanzas. Each stanza ends with a rhyming section of five short lines known as ‘bob and wheel’. The vocabulary of Sir Gawain is partly Old English in origin, and partly French and Scandinavian. Words borrowed from French during the Middle English period, and found in Sir Gawain, are words of ordinary vocabulary, but also terms to do with lifestyle, art, religion and education. Such terms are stylistically important due to their cultural and literary associations. Words of Scandinavian origin were particularly common in texts written in the North and North Midlands, such as Sir Gawain and other poems from Cotton Nero A.x. Many formed part of the poetic vocabulary used in fourteenth-century alliterative verse. The following words in the passage below are borrowings from Old Norse or are influenced by Old Norse: felle, ‘fell, rock’ (l. 723) (ON fell, fjall n., ‘hill, mountain’); tore, ‘difficult’ (l. 719) (ON tor- , prefix used in compound words, ‘hard, difficult’); dreped, ‘to kill’ (l. 725) (ON drepa v., ‘strike, kill’). Some features of the poem’s style have close parallels in Old English poetry, for example, the use of poetic synonyms, some Old English in origin. In the passage below Gawain is referred to as wy e, kny t, gome and mon, all meaning ‘man, knight’. All these words come from Old English, and wy e (OE wiga) and gome (OE guma) were used only in poetry during the Old English period. Tolkien’s interest in the poem is attested by the volume of research he devoted to it as a medievalist, including the W. P. Ker Memorial Lecture delivered in 1953 at the University of Glasgow,1 an edition, and a translation into Modern English in alliterative verse. An edition of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight by J. R. R. Tolkien and E. V. Gordon was published in 1925, and Tolkien’s translation of the poem was published posthumously in 1975 by Christopher Tolkien. In 1922 Tolkien published A Middle English Vocabulary – a glossary to Middle English poems edited by Kenneth Sisam, his former tutor and colleague (Sisam, 1921). Sisam’s anthology included an extract from Sir Gawain (ll. 2069–428). Numerous parallels between Sir Gawain and Tolkien’s fiction, particularly TH and LR, are widely recognized and discussed in critical literature, including Flieger (2003), Miller (1991), Schlobin (2000) and Shippey (2003 and 1995). Chance also links Farmer Giles of Ham (1949) to Sir Gawain, seeing the former as a humorous parody in part of Gawain (1979, pp. 129–30).

1

See Schlobin (2000).


4.12.3 Discussion The passage from Beowulf is one of the finest depictions of the natural landscape in Old English. From the description given by Hrothgar we learn several things. First, it is inhabited by two creatures – Grendel, who is said to be larger than any man, but fatherless, and Grendel’s mother (or at least at this stage a monster like Grendel in female form). We also discover that it is only a few miles away, and is surrounded by headlands and dangerous fens, where wolves roam. A mist rises from the water, possibly caused by a waterfall, and at times storms swirl up from the lake to the heavens. Finally, there is the mystery of fire appearing on the water. To accentuate this further Hrothgar says that even a deer hunted by hounds would rather surrender its life to the pack than enter this place. The description works on three levels then. First, it emphasizes the horror that Beowulf will have to face. It plays on ideas of desolation, wintry landscapes and the supernatural. Second – and this is true also of Tolkien’s writing – the natural descriptions are realistic, thus reinforcing the plausibility of the tale. The audience will have seen lakes like this, or will imagine they have. Yet at the same time – and this is true of Tolkien’s work as well – the mere retains an element of fantasy. It is in a fen as well as being in a craggy headland, and is inhabited by supernatural evil instinctively feared by animals. Similar ambiguity and sense of unease are used by Tolkien in his descriptions of the Mordor landscape east of the Anduin. Finally, the passage presents a scene of utter despair which has parallels in other texts. Wrenn (1988, p. 150, following Morris, 1874–80) is typical of many editors in outlining the apocalyptic nature of the description of Grendel’s mere. It has a mixture of hellish imagery found in many classical and medieval texts including, for example, the Aeneid, and traditional northern landscape, with such details as the windswept headlands and frosty trees. As Wrenn observes, a similar description appears in the late tenth-century anonymous Blickling Homilies (written in Old English), which incorporate a portion of an early medieval text The Vision of St Paul, which reports St Paul as seeing above the water a certain grey stone . . . and to the north of the rock there had grown groves very much covered with hoar-frost . . . and there were dark mists . . . and beneath the rock was the dwelling of monsters . . . and evil creatures. (Wrenn and Bolton, 1988, p. 152)2 This passage is famous as a close parallel to the description of Grendel’s mere in Beowulf presented below. 2

The relevant Old English text of the Visio Pauli is given with a translation in Jack (1994, pp. 109–10).


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The Gawain-poet’s description of the wintry landscape which Gawain sees during his travels also combines fantasy and realism. Gawain has to fight with many ‘foul’ and ‘fierce’ foes, including dragons, wolves and giants. The poet’s description of the ‘marvels’ of the mountains has parallels in Tolkien’s depiction of both Mordor and the Misty Mountains, where ‘most of the passes were infested by evil things and dreadful dangers’ (TH, p. 53). Among the enemies Gawain has to fight are wodwos ‘wood men’, who are said to live on the crags of the mountains (l. 721). This word of Old English derivation (see note to l. 721) is probably the source for the name Woses, wild men in LR, who lived in the Druadan Forest and helped the Rohirrim to avoid Sauron’s army on their way to Gondor (Shippey, 2003, p. 65 fn.; Flieger 2003b, p. 97). Gawain’s fights with supernatural enemies take place against the background of highly realistic northern landscape, with such details as sleet, icicles, frozen moss and birds suffering from the cold. Unusually for a romance, the poet mentions names of real places which Gawain passes during his journey: his route goes through North Wales, then across the estuary of the River Dee into the ‘wilderness’ of Wirral, and after that into ‘contrayez straunge’ where he finds Castle Hautdesert. As is usual with the Gawain-poet, the description of the hero’s travel is best understood against the background of the romance tradition. The poet mixes details relating to real experience with elements derived from conventional literary descriptions, and the resulting effect is somewhat comic. W. R. J. Barron (1998, pp. 11–12) observes that the perils encountered by Gawain in the mountains appear ‘in such a breathless catalogue of the zoological and the supernatural’ that it is difficult to take them seriously, whereas the real threat comes from the weather: Yet fighting troubled him little, the winter was worse. (l. 726) In spite, or perhaps because, of the presence of irony directed against literary conventions, the realistic description of the mountain and forest scenery in Sir Gawain has the same imaginative force as the description of the wilderness in Beowulf. The poet emphasizes Gawain’s loneliness (note the words ‘Al one’ appearing on their own, in a separate line of verse, l. 735), suffering, harsh and desolate surroundings and the constant presence of danger, so that at the end there is a feeling of exasperation and despair accentuated by Gawain’s prayer for shelter. Tolkien too had a variety of images at his disposal when depicting the Mordor landscape. Mordor, and the approach to it taken by Frodo, Sam, and Gollum is the epitome of desolation. Nothing lives there or grows. Evil spirits, such as the Nazgûl, wolves and hostile creatures, such as Orcs, haunt the lands. As Gollum describes it, ‘Ashes, ashes, and dust, and thirst there is; and pits, pits,


pits’ (LR, p. 601). Two passages from LR come to mind when reading the medieval texts. First, there is the crossing of the Dead Marshes (‘The Passage of the Marshes’), which includes the description of the swamp lands: On either side and in front wide fens and mires now lay, stretching away southward and eastward into the dim half-light. Mists curled and smoked from dark and noisome pools. (LR, p. 611) This is a land of endless watery paths, with death awaiting on either side should one of the hobbits fall into the pools. More importantly, as in the description of Grendel’s mere in Beowulf, there is fire on the water. These ‘tricksy lights’, as Gollum calls them, lure wary travellers to their death, mesmerizing them as they nearly do Sam and Frodo. ‘Candles for corpses’ is Gollum’s other phrase, with reference to the dead faces they can see in the pools. As in Beowulf, the mysterious lights might be nothing more than marsh gases, or will-o’-thewisps, but as Klaeber (1950, pp. 183–4) observes, following Becker (1899): ‘the burning lake or river . . . is one of the commonest features of all, Oriental as well as Christian, accounts of hell’. The second description that comes to mind in connection with the passages below is that of the Land of Shadow, and the crossing of the glens of Morgai, in Gorgoroth, by Sam and Frodo. Here the land is more arid, and the hobbits have to contend with rocks, boulders, brambles and briars. Yet this is as apocalyptic as the Dead Marshes. The hobbits marvel at finding a small stream to quench their thirst, while all around them ‘scrubby trees lurked and clung’, and ahead the fires of Orodruin belched out flames and ash over the ‘grassless, bare, jagged, [and] barren as a slate’ crags of Morgai, and ‘all seemed ruinous and dead, a desert burned and choked’ (LR, pp. 900–2).



4.12.4a Beowulf, ll. 1345–82 Ic pæt londbu ¯end, le¯ode mı¯ne, (1345) seleræ ¯dende secgan hy¯rde, pæt hı¯e gesa¯won swylce twe¯gen micle mearcstapan mo ¯ ras healdan, ¯stas. Dæ ¯ra o ¯ ~er wæs, ellorgæ pæs pe hı¯e gewislı¯cost gewitan meahton, (1350) idese onlı¯cnæs; o ¯ ~er earmsceapen on weres wæstmum wræcla¯stas træd, ¯nig man o ¯ ~er. næfne he¯ wæs ma¯ra ponne æ Pone on ge¯ardagum Grendel nemdo[n] foldbu ¯ende; no ¯ hı¯e fæder cunnon, (1355) ¯nig wæs æ ¯r a¯cenned hwæper him æ dyrnra ga¯sta. Hı¯e dy¯gel lond warigea~ wulfhleopu, windige næssas, ¯r fyrgenstre¯am fre¯cne fengela¯d, ~æ under næssa genipu niper gewı¯te~, (1360) flo ¯ d under foldan. Nis pæt feor heonon mı¯lgemearces, pæt se mere stan[d]e~; ¯m hongia~ hrinde bearwas, ofer pæ wudu wyrtum fæst wæter oferhelma~. ¯r mæg nihta gehwæ ¯m nı¯~wundor se¯on, (1365) Pæ fy¯r on flo ¯ de. No ¯ pæs fro ¯ d leofa~ gumena bearna, pæt pone grund wite. ¯~stapa hundum geswenced, De¯ah pe hæ heorot hornum trum holtwudu se¯ce, ¯r he¯ feorh sele~, (1370) feorran gefly¯med, æ aldor on o ¯ fre, ær he¯ in wille hafelan [hy¯dan]. Nis pæt he¯oru sto ¯ w! Ponon y¯~geblond up a¯stı¯ge~ won to ¯ wolcnum, ponne wind styrep, la¯~ gewidru, o~ pæt lyft drysmap, (1375) ¯d gelang roderas re¯ota~. Nu ¯ is se ræ eft æt pe¯ a¯num. Eard gı¯t ne const, ¯r pu ¯ findan miht fre¯cne sto ¯ we, pæ [sinnigne] secg; se¯c gif pu ¯ dyrre! ¯h~e fe¯o le¯anige, (1380) Ic pe¯ pa¯ fæ ¯r dyde, ealdgestre¯onum, swa¯ ic æ wund[num] golde, gyf pu ¯ on weg cymest.’

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4.12.4a Beowulf, ll. 1345–82 ‘I heard land-dwellers, my people, (1345) [and] hall-counsellors say, that they saw two such huge borderland-walkers holding the moors, ghosts from elsewhere. One of them was, so far as they could most clearly discern, (1350) the likeness of a woman; the other wretched creature in a man’s form trod the paths of exile, except that he was greater than any other man. Him in the days of yore the land-dwellers called Grendel; they know of no father, (1355) whether any was begotten to him in the earlier times of the dark spirits. They, a secret land guard, wolf-inhabited slopes, windy headlands, perilous fen-path, where the mountain-stream under the headland’s mist goes downwards, (1360) the flood under the ground. It is not far from here measured in miles, that this mere stands; over it hang frost-covered groves, woods strong of roots overshadow the water. There a terrible wonder may be seen each night, (1365) fire on the water. Never does any of the children of men, live to be so wise that they might know the depth. Even though the heath-stepper tormented by hounds, the hart strong in its horns, might seek the forest, from far off put to flight, he will sooner give up his life, (1370) his spirit on the shore, than he would [go] in to hide his head. This is not a pleasant place. From there the surging of waves rises up black to the clouds, when the wind stirs hateful storms, until the air becomes gloomy, (1375) the heavens weep. Now the counsel depends once again on you alone. You do not yet know the land, the perilous place, where you may find the sinful man; seek if you dare! I will for the feud reward you with wealth, (1380) with ancient treasures, as I did before, with twisted gold, if you should return.’


4.12.4b Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, ll. 713–63 31 Mony klyf he ouerclambe in contrayez straunge, fer floten fro his frendez fremedly he rydez. At vche warpe oper water per pe wye passed (715) he fonde a foo hym byfore, bot ferly hit were, and pat so foule and so felle pat fet hym byhode. [S]o mony meruayl bi mount per pe mon fyndez, hit were to tore for to telle of pe tenpe dole. Sumwhyle wyth wormez he werrez, and with wolues als, (720) sumwhyle wyth wodwos, pat woned in pe knarrez, bope wyth bullez and berez, and borez operquyle, and etaynez, pat hym anelede of pe hee felle. Nade he ben duty and drye, and Drytyn had serued, douteles he hade ben ded and dreped ful ofte. (725) For werre wrathed hym not so much, pat wynter was wors, when pe colde cler water fro pe cloudez schadd[e], and fres er hit falle myt to pe fale erpe; ner slayn wyth pe slete he sleped in his yrnes mo nytez pen innoghe in naked rokkez, (730) per as claterande fro pe crest pe colde borne rennez, And henged hee ouer his hede in hard iisseikkles. Pus in peryl and payne and plytes ful harde bi contray caryez pis knyt, tyl Krystmasse Euen, al one. (735) Pe knyt wel pat tyde to Mary made his mone, pat ho hym red to ryde and wysse hym to sum wone. 32 Bi a mounte on pe morne meryly he rydes (740) into a forest ful dep, pat ferly watz wylde, hie hillez on vche a halue, and holtwodez vnder of hore okez ful hoge a hundreth togeder. Pe hasel and pe haporne were harled al samen, with roe raged mosse rayled aywhere, (745) with mony bryddez vnblype vpon bare twyges, pat pitosly per piped for pyne of pe colde. Pe gome vpon Gryngolet glydez hem vnder, pur mony misy and myre, mon al hym one, carande for his costes, lest he ne keuer schulde (750)

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4.12.4b Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, ll. 713–63 31 He climbed over many a cliff in unknown countries, driven far from his friends as a stranger he rides, at each ford over the water where he passed, (715) he found a foe in front of him, except by some miracle, and that was so foul and so fierce, that he was forced to fight. So many marvels the man finds in the mountains, it would have been difficult to tell a tenth of them: sometimes with dragons he fights and with wolves also, (720) sometimes with the wood-men who lived in the crags, with both bulls and bears, and boars at times, and giants that pursued him on the high fells. If he had not been brave and enduring, and had not served the Lord, doubtless he would have been slain and slaughtered many times. (725) Yet fighting troubled him little, the winter was worse, when the cold clear water was shed from the clouds, and froze before if could fall on the fallow earth. Nearly slain by the sleet he slept in his armour, more nights than enough in the naked rocks, (730) where the cold stream ran clattering from the crest, and hung high over his head in hard icicles. Thus in peril and pain, and grievous plight rode across the country this knight till Christmas Eve, alone. (735) The knight ardently at that time to Mary made his plea, that she would guide him on his way, and lead him to some shelter. 32 By a mountain in the morning eagerly he rides (740) into a deep forest that was wonderfully wild, high hills on each side and woods underneath of huge grey oaks, a hundred together. The hazel and the hawthorn were intertwined with rough ragged moss spreading everywhere, (745) with many birds joyless on bare twigs, that piteously piped for pain of cold. The knight on Gryngolet glides beneath them through many a marsh and mire, a man all alone, concerned with his plight, lest he would not manage (750)


to se pe seruy[se] of pat Syre, pat on pat self nyt of a burde watz borne oure baret to quelle. And perfore sykyng he sayde: ‘I beseche Pe, Lorde, and Mary, pat is myldest moder so dere, of sum herber per hely I myt here masse, (755) ande Py matynez tomorne, mekely I ask, and perto prestly I pray my Pater and Aue and Crede.’ He rode in his prayere, and cryed for his mysdede; (760) he sayned hym in sypes sere, and sayde: ‘Cros Kryst me spede!’

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to see the service of that Lord, who on that same night of a virgin was born to end our strife. And so, sighing, he said: ‘I beseech Thee, Lord, and Mary, who is mildest mother so dear, for some harbour where I might solemnly hear the Mass (755) and Your Matins tomorrow, meekly I ask, and readily thereto I pray my Pater and Ave, and Creed.’ He rode with his prayer and lamented his misdeeds; (760) he crossed himself many times, and said: ‘Christ’s Cross speed me!’


4.12.5a Notes l.1348. mearcstapa, ‘border-land walker’. The meaning of OE mearc (MnE mark), ‘limit, frontier, district’, is revived by Tolkien in the name Mark, used by the riders of Rohan to refer to their kingdom (see 4.10). l.1349. ellor-gæ ¯st, ‘ghost from elsewhere, alien spirit’. Ellor as an adverb means ‘elsewhere’, but it was also used metaphorically in compound words such as ellor-sı¯d, ‘journey elsewhere, death’. l.1351. Onlı¯cnæs. This spelling is often emended by editors to onlı¯cnes to make it consistent with the spelling elsewhere in the MS. ll.1355–6. The meaning here is that the land-dwellers did not know if Grendel ever had a father, spawned from the race of mysterious ghosts, or just a mother. l.1357. dy¯gel is the source for the name of the hobbit Déagol, whom Gollum (then Sméagol) kills to obtain the Ring. l.1360. Possibly a waterfall. l.1362. stan[d]ed, MS: standed. mere means ‘pool, lake’ in prose, but in poetry it can mean ‘sea’, or more generally a ‘body of water’. Mı¯lgemearces. Some editors simply have ‘in miles’, but the sense is one of the distance having been measured or marked. ll.1366–7. Mitchell and Robinson (1998, p. 93) note that this is a difficult idiom and suggest, ‘Not at all lives among the sons of men [one] so wise that [he] may know the bottom.’ l.1372. [hy¯dan]. There is a mark of insertion in the MS between hafelan and nis, indicating that the scribe noticed the missing word during proof-reading. However, the word is not supplied in the MS, and various restorations have been proposed by editors. l.1379. Sinnigne. The MS reading fela sinnigne is unlikely for metrical reasons. l.1382. wund[num], MS: wundmi or wundini.

4.12.5b Notes l.714. Fer floten ‘having wandered far’ (ME flete, ‘to fleet, speed’). fremedly ‘as a stranger’, OE fremde, ‘foreign, alien’. l.716. Lit. ‘unless it were a miracle’. Ferly was used as both an adjective and a noun, meaning ‘extraordinary, unusual, wonder, marvel’. l.717. so. MS: fo. byhode, ‘obliged, bound to’, ME behoue, ‘to behove’. l.719. tore, ‘hard, difficult’. l.721. wodwos. OE wudu wa¯sa, ‘wood man’. l.720. wormez. OE wyrm is used in Beowulf to refer to the dragon. l.723. etaynez. OE eoten, ‘gaint.’ l.727. schadde. MS: schadden. l.729. yrn(e), ‘iron’, plural yrnes, ‘armour’. Tolkien translates this ‘he slept ironclad’. l.735. Caryez. The expected form used elsewhere in the MS is cayrez, but as Tolkien, Gordon and Davis observe, caryez – a confusion of cayren (ON keyra) and carien (AN carier) ‘ride’ – may have been intended (1967, p. 98). l.738. red(e), ‘advise, guide’. l.739. wisse, ‘guide, instruct’. l.740. on pe morne. In the morning of Christmas Eve, cf. ll. 750–1.

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l.745. raged. This is usually interpreted either as ‘ragged, shaggy’ (Tolkien, Gordon and Davis, 1967), or as a derivative of a dialect word rag, meaning ‘hoar-frost’ (Gollancz, 1940). l.749. misy, ‘swamp, bog’; compare MnE regional mizzy, ‘bog’, of uncertain origin, probably related to ‘moss’ (Tolkien, Gordon and Davis, 1967). l.750. carande, ‘caring, concerned’, present participle of ME care, v., ‘to care’. costes, ‘qualities, manners, actions, condition, plight’; Carande for his costes is usually interpreted either as ‘concerned with his plight’ or as ‘mindful of his observances, religious duties’. keuer, ‘recover, afford, manage’. l.751. seruyse. MS: seruy. l557. prestly, ‘promptly’, from OFr prest. l.762. Common formula of prayer (Tolkien, Gordon and Davis, 1967, p. 98).

4.12.6 Further reading Tolkien’s notes on Beowulf have been discussed earlier, but for Sir Gawain see Tolkien A38/A, ff. 43–126, which contains a typescript of a translation. Editions and translations of Sir Gawain include Gollancz (1940), Gardener (1965), Boroff (1967), Tolkien, Gordon and Davis (1967), Tolkien (1975), Cawley and Anderson (1976), Moorman (1977), Finch (1993), Barron (1998), Harrison (1998), Andrew and Waldron (2002) and others. A facsimile of the manuscript is available in Gollancz (1923). For further reading on Beowulf, see 4.3.


4.13 The final journey – The Seafarer (RK, ‘The Grey Havens’) 4.13.1 Plot summary The four hobbits, having returned to the Shire, attempt to settle down to normal life. However, Frodo has been too grievously hurt and after a few years of life at Bag End leaves for the Grey Havens where Círdan the Shipwright guards the boats and the port. They set sail and we are told that eventually Frodo reaches a land of sweet fragrance and singing – the Undying Lands to the West. In general, the major details of the journey to the Grey Havens are fairly consistent throughout Tolkien’s drafts (Sauron, pp. 108–13), the most notable alteration being the aborted Epilogue (Sauron, pp. 14–35) in which Sam recounts to his children what happens to various characters. 4.13.2 Medieval text: The Seafarer The text chosen for this final entry is the Old English poem The Seafarer, which survives in ‘The Exeter Book’, ff. 81v–83r (see 4.5). It is, along with The Wanderer and The Ruin (4.10 and 4.5 respectively), generally classed as an elegy, though this term is problematic as noted earlier. Tolkien, like many scholars, believed the text of The Seafarer had been corrupted (as he did with The Wanderer) and open to emendation, though, as we shall see, he took this further than most. 4.13.3 Discussion It is highly appropriate to finish this volume with The Seafarer as in a sense it brings the discussion full circle, from Tolkien’s initial work on medieval literature and the influences on his writing, to his attempts to fuse his mythology with his academic work (most notably in The Lost Road and The Notion Club Papers; see below). However, before moving on to this we need to familiarize ourselves with the Old English poem. As noted above, The Seafarer is often called an ‘elegy’ for it deals with personal grievance and loss, though this time it is hard to pin down just what has been lost. The poem starts with a vivid picture of the hardship of life at sea (ll. 1–33), and the loneliness experienced by the subject of the poem, a seafarer (ll. 14–16). He tells of the harsh conditions he had to endure, and the cold and the desolate life-style (ll. 8–10, etc.). As in The Wanderer (see 4.10) the separation of the harsh life of exile (this time on the sea) from the comforts of that on land are accentuated, and familiar motifs, such as the seabirds replacing the companionship of friends, are repeated (ll. 19b–26). Yet the seafarer seems compelled to go back to sea time and time again, even though he knows he will experience hardship there (ll. 33–8 and 58–64). This allows the poet to broaden out to wider themes contrasting the harshness of life at sea with the comforts

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offered on land (ll. 27–30 and 44–5, etc.), but pointing out that the man who does not undergo the trials of the sea cannot gain true wisdom (ll. 12, 27 and 55). The poet considers the wisdom one can receive through suffering and the inevitable transient nature of worldly joys and glory (ll. 80–96). The seafarer is saying that although we may surround ourselves with comforts and luxuries, these do not last, and instead we should be preparing ourselves for the real journey, the one after death when we journey to God (ll. 117–24). As Treharne states (2004, p. 48), the poem ‘evolves into a universal debate on the mortality of mankind, the futility of earthly wealth, the morality of Christian living, and the need to be judged worthy of lof (“praise”)’. The main discussions around The Seafarer concentrate on two things. First its tripartite structure, with the personal account at the beginning, the widening out to consider broader themes and the final Christian didactic ending. In the past some scholars considered this as a clear sign that the Christian elements are later, somewhat forceful additions; but most now consider the extant version to have been a complete composition from the beginning, and the final exposition is in keeping with the earlier personal journey. Second, there is the question of whether it is an allegory of a person’s life or a literal representation of a real seafaring experience. In particular, the idea of the real journey could refer not just to any voyage, but specifically to the medieval peregrinus pro amore dei, a pilgrim ‘for the love of God’, who abandoned the known world, setting out into the unknown to discover the path to salvation through hardship. Marsden (2004, p. 221) correctly places this in the context of St Augustine’s discussion of the City of God and its comparison to earthly pleasures. Tolkien’s interest in The Seafarer manifested itself in the aborted collaborative venture with E. V. Gordon in the 1920s to produce a series of medieval editions. As noted earlier the plans to produce versions of The Seafarer and The Wanderer fell by the wayside when Tolkien moved to Oxford. We do have some glimpses of the start of a possible translation by Tolkien in his lecture on ‘Anglo-Saxon Verse’ (Tolkien A30/1, f. 36), but this covers only the opening of the poem. Ultimately, however, it was left to Gordon’s wife, Ida, to complete the edition in 1960. Yet how does The Seafarer link to Tolkien’s fiction? Apart from the fact that Frodo and company sail off in a boat, the relationship seems tenuous at first. Yet, as will be demonstrated, it is one of the most complicated parallels discussed in this book. Wilcox (2003) provides the most extensive discussion so far of The Seafarer and LR. For example she notes that: The Seafarer is much preoccupied with remembering his physical discomforts and loneliness on past sea journeys (1–33a), and he laments the general decay of mortal life. The Elves, too, are burdened with memories of two


long ages of strife and sorrow in Middle-earth in contrast with their long treasured memories of the beauty in Valinor, the earthly paradise, from which they are exiled. (p. 139) This identification of the fading of the Elves with the elegiac nature of The Seafarer and other Old English poems is discussed earlier under The Ruin (4.5). As Tolkien pointed out, the Elves ‘became obsessed with fading’ (Letters, 131, p. 151) and want to halt Middle-earth’s ‘change and history, stop its growth’ (Letters, 154, p. 197); but the seafarer points to the endless cycle of the world and its seasons, the inevitability of change, with the only certainty being the transient nature of life and the strength of wyrd (l. 115). Nothing lasts, he says, other than ‘praise’. As Wilcox states, ‘the Seafarer and the Elves must come to terms with a world that is lœne’ (p. 151). But like mortal men the Elves have a choice. They can pass into the Undying Lands, as men can choose the Christian path to righteousness. If they make that journey they pass from exile into paradise; and the Christians pass from their current existence of exile from the Lord/Eden, into Heaven. Hence the ‘sea-longing’ (Wilcox, 2003, p. 146) so eloquently expressed by Legolas: ‘The Sea! Alas! I have not yet beheld it. But deep in the hearts of all my kindred lies the sea-longing, which it is perilous to stir.’ (LR, p. 855) And by Galadriel: ‘But if of ships I now should sing, what ship would come to me, What ship would bear me back ever back across so wide a Sea?’ (LR, p. 363) An element of ‘sea-longing’, or at least a fascination with the sea, runs through Tolkien’s other writings. In fact his awe of the sea, inspired by an early trip to the Cornish coast, appears in one of his earliest poems, ‘The Tides: On the Cornish Coast’ (Garth, 2003, p. 59; and Bold, 1983, p. 143). In addition we have his ‘Eärendel’ verses, and poems such as ‘The Sea-Bell’, ‘The Happy Mariners’ and ‘Imram’, all of which, in Rosebury’s description (2003, p. 120), ‘deal in various guises with the theme of a sea-voyage which brings a glimpse, but only a glimpse, of a paradisal realm’. Carpenter (1979) also notes Tolkien’s poem entitled ‘Ofer Widne Garsecg’ (‘Over the Wide Sea’), with ga¯rsecg being the Old English word for sea literally meaning ‘spear-man’ (i.e. a personification), but describing the sea that surrounded middangeard or ‘middle-earth’ in Old English and Norse texts. However, as Bates (2002, p. 252) notes: Garsecg is the ocean. But it is more than the sea as we know it . . . It was a waterway that marked the boundary between this world and the next. So

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the ocean went to infinity. The ship . . . was a means of voyaging out of this Middle-earth, and across the encircling waters of garsecg. But on a voyage to where? Past the ‘shoreless sea’ might be the answer that Tolkien would have given (Essays, p. 260; Letters, 163, p. 212). So when the poet of The Seafarer states: All of these urge the eager mind [and] the heart to journey onto the flood’s way (ll. 50–1) Tolkien remarked: the poet who spoke these words saw in his thought the brave men of old walking under the vault of heaven upon the island earth (ftn. middangeard), beleagured by the Shoreless Sea (ftn. ga¯rsecg) and the outer darkness, endur¯ ne lı¯f 2845), until the ing with stern courage the brief days of life (ftn. læ hour of fate (ftn. metodsceaft 1180, 2815) when all things should perish, le¯oht and lı¯f samod1 (Tolkien, A 17/1, f. 17) But, as we shall see, he did not stop there. To understand the relationship between his mythology and the legends of Germanic literature is complicated, involving numerous texts, many rewritten or incomplete. These are spread over several ‘episodes’, including the background to the BLT1 and 2, the unfinished story The Lost Road, The Notion Club Papers and the ‘Eriol/Ælfwine’ tales. Intertwined also is the general history of Eärendil the Mariner and The Fall of Númenor. To begin with we need to be familiar with the changing geography of Middleearth. In Tolkien’s vision, at least to begin with, his world is flat, surrounded by an encircling sea like the ga¯rsecg of Old English and Old Norse mythology. This is the time ‘before the seas were bent’ as Tom Bombadil says (LR, p. 129). Two events in the history of Middle-earth are key at this point. First, in the War of Wrath, the Valar defeat Morgoth at the request of Eärendil the Mariner. For his reward, even though he was a mortal man, Eärendil is granted the immortality of an Elf, and with one of the Silmaril jewels in his brow he is forever to sail the skies, appearing to the people of Middle-earth as a star. Second, there is the later destruction of the island of Númenor, when the Dúnedain, corrupted by Sauron, launch an attack on the Undying Lands to the west. The turmoil is so great that at this point the world becomes round, or

1

Transl. ‘light and life together’.


‘bent’, like our own planet, and the Undying Lands are taken out of the world and can be found only by Elves, or chosen people like Frodo and Bilbo, via a ‘straight’ or ‘lost road’ – some form of mystical seaway that allows one to reach the Undying Lands. This is developed in three separate ‘tales’. First there are those centring on the character Eriol/Ælfwine (they are the same person), who appears at several points (e.g. BLT 1, pp. 23 and 24; BLT 2, pp. 290 and 313–34). In summary, the latter versions of the tale tell of Ælfwine (‘Elf-friend’), an Anglo-Saxon, who sets sail westwards across the sea and catches sight of the Lonely Isle of the Elves (i.e. he has found the lost road). Ælfwine dives overboard to try to reach it. In Shaping, therefore, we can find several versions of Elvish texts translated into Old English by Ælfwine, presumably after he swam to the Lonely Isle. There are the Pennas (pp. 206–13, following) with a translation of Elvish names of the gods into Old English; the Annals of Valinor and Beleriand in Old English (pp. 281–3 and 337–41; see 4.6); and possibly a brief account of the Fall of Númenor in Old English (Sauron, p. 316). This is reworked further in Tolkien’s other stories, The Lost Road and The Notion Club Papers. In the former a series of scenes containing a father and son from different periods of time are presented. Tolkien (Letters, 257, p. 347) explained how the story would work with the link being ‘the occurrence time and again in human families . . . of a father and son called by names that could be interpreted as Bliss-friend and Elf-friend’, including Oswin, Alboin and Audoin in the twentieth century; Ælfwine and Eadwine in the tenth century; and Elendil and Herendil in Númenor.2 Dreams plague the characters from the tenth and twentieth centuries, who unknowingly are seeing the Fall of Númenor. In particular, in a new version of the Ælfwine story this is developed further. We are told that Ælfwine wakes suddenly from a troubled dream, in which he heard men speaking in strange languages. He is in the hall of Edward the Elder, and he looks around for his son Eadwine. We are then told of the gale outside and how this reminds Ælfwine of his younger days when he had ‘sailed many seas’. He notes how the sounds of the wind and the sea challenged him (especially in the spring). As he reminisces, the men around him begin to fade and he dreams again, seeing the crash of waves against cliffs, the seabirds ‘diving and crying’, and himself sailing to the west ‘drawn against his will’. This is pretty a much a loose prose synopsis of the opening of The Seafarer, but this time linked to Ælfwine’s future voyage to Erëssea. To reinforce this, on waking Ælfwine recites lines drawn more or less directly from the poem: Mona~ modes lust (l. 35a) mid mereflode (l. 59b) 3 pæt ic feor heonan (l. 37) For~ to feran, 2 3

And there were plans for more (see Lost Road, pp. 77–8). Emended from ferd.

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Ofer hean holmas (unsourced),4 ofer hwæles e~el (l. 60a) Elpeodigra eard gescece. (l. 38) ne to hringpege (l. 44) Nis me5 hearpan hyge Ne to wife wyn ne to worulde hyht (l. 45) Ne ymb owiht elles nefne ymb y~a gewealc (l. 46) (Lost Road, p. 84) The numbers in parenthesis list the source lines from the Old English poem, and here we can perhaps see Tolkien feeling at liberty to rewrite the verse. We are, then, rather disjointedly, presented with the tale of King Sheave landing as a boy on the Danish coast (see 4.8). The addition to the story as presented in Beowulf is that Tolkien elaborates on the concept that nobody knew where the boat ended up, but ‘Some have said that that ship found the Straight Road’ (Lost Road, p. 86). The connection to the Ælfwine story is that we have a poetical version of the tale, entitled ‘King Sheave’ (Lost Road, pp. 87–91), which Ælfwine is meant to have recited (presumably in the hall). Tollkien was putting two things together. There was his mythology, of a world made round, with the Undying Lands available only to those who found the lost road; and there were the references in Old English poetry, such as The Seafarer (and Beowulf with its story of Scyld Scefing) to an inherent longing to journey on the sea, and the possibility of finding unknown lands. In The Notion Club Papers these threads are developed further. The Papers centre on an academic society that meets in the 1980s and 1990s in Oxford, even though the story was written in the 1940s. Once again the main characters (based loosely on the Inklings) dream of the Fall of Númenor. In one episode two of the characters dream they are in an Anglo-Saxon hall, at the start of yet another version of the Ælfwine tale. Ælfwine again has a vision of the sea (Sauron, p. 271) which mirrors the opening lines of The Seafarer, and then recites the paraphrased lines from the Old English poem noted above. This time, though, elpeodigra is replaced by Ælfwina (l. 4 of Tolkien’s verse), and l. 3 becomes ofer garsecges grimme holmas. Then his friend Tréowine recites the tale of King Sheaf. The story tails off, but tantalizingly we are told that Ælfwine and Tréowine sail to the west, fleeing a Viking attack until they start to smell a sweet fragrance, but the wind changes and they lose their course. We are told that Ælfwine’s ship somehow takes the straight road, and Ælfwine sees the ‘Book of Stories’ (presumably the Book of Lost Tales; see Sauron, p. 279). Tréowine sees the world ‘[?curve] below’ (Sauron, p. 278), and a straight road leading

4

But a similar expression appears in The Wanderer, l. 82, and in another Old English poem not presented here, entitled Azarias, l. 123. 5 Emended from Ne bip him to¯.


ahead of them to a ‘shining land’. In the gloom that envelopes him he quotes l. 104 of the Old English poem Christ I. Christ I is an appropriate text to include at this point as it was the catalyst (going back as far as 1914; see Garth, 2003, p. 44) for Tolkien’s mythology. Tolkien read the poem by the Anglo-Saxon poet Cynewulf, and came across the lines: Eala earendel, engla beorhtast, ofer middangeard monnum sended (ll. 104–5) Oh Earendel, brightest of angels, sent to men over Middle-earth . . . What was this earendel that clearly impressed the Anglo-Saxon poet? It would appear to be a star, indeed it occurs elsewhere in Old English as a gloss to the Latin word ‘iubar’ probably referring to Venus, or ‘aurora’ or ‘star’. Yet Tolkien’s mythology provides us with another answer, namely that the earendel of the poem is Eärendil the Mariner (see above), turned into a bright star as a guide to all the peoples of Middle-earth. This is not without precedent or analogy. In Old Norse literature Aurvendil’s toe becomes a star for example (see Faulkes, 1987, pp. 79–80; Simek, 1993, p. 24). What can we make of all of this? First, we must not view the tales of Eriol/Ælfwine, The Lost Road and The Notion Club Papers as three distinct stories. If anything they are one and the same, and all we are witnessing is the author’s attempt to create a single story over time; thus Eriol’s tale becomes The Lost Road, which is abandoned and subsumed into The Notion Club Papers. To bring these all together is difficult, however, but an attempt at a summary can be undertaken: 1. The events in The Silmarillion, including the Fall of Númenor, are presented as factual, occurring in pre-historical time. 2. Memories of these events filter down to subsequent generations through myths and legends, but in extreme cases to particular individuals who see these events (and others) in dreams and hear fragments of speech from that time. 3. In particular characters are chosen from the Anglo-Saxon period, and the twentieth century, all of whom have similar names (‘Elf-friend’ and ‘Blissfriend’), share these visions, but also have a desire to seek the straight road to find their way to the lost Elf-lands. 4. The stories survive in ancestral memory, and predominantly in people who are undeniably English (or early English), thus showing that Tolkien was still trying to link his mythology to the history of his country.

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5. One of these characters, Ælfwine (Eriol), an Anglo-Saxon, presents lines from The Seafarer as a summary of his desire to seek Tol Eressëa. He sets out and does seem to find the Lonely Island, and there he writes down the Lost Tales and other fragments in his own tongue, Old English. The key points of the story are that with the Fall of Númenor, the world was made round and turned into our present Earth, and the only way to reach the old Undying Lands or the Lonely Isle is via the Straight or Lost Road which Eriol/Ælfwine finds. As Christopher Tolkien notes, ‘my father was envisaging a massive and explicit linking of his own legends with those of many other places and times: all concerned with the stories and the dreams of peoples who dwelt by the coasts of the great Western Sea’ (Lost Road, p. 98). In other words, Tolkien was suggesting by this that the destruction and tragedy of Númenor was a real event, and, by extension, so are the events in Middle-earth;6 furthermore the lands which Tolkien describes are in fact the predecessors of our own planet. After the Fall of Númenor, the whole world was made round and became the Earth. The land-mass known as Middle-earth eventually becomes Europe after more geological upheavals, and splits into various landmasses to form the other continents. Yet throughout these upheavals the original stories survive and are passed down. This is why we find references to Dwarves and Elves in medieval literature. Tolkien was quite clear on this on many occasions. Throughout this book we have noted how the creatures, legends and tales of Tolkien’s Middle-earth are an attempt to provide the predecessors to ours. In addition, we have glimpses of the ancestors of modern languages, with Old English spoken by the Rohirrim. In his notes to translators (Lobdell, 1975, p. 189) Tolkien states, ‘the story takes place on this earth and under skies in general the same as now visible’. Tolkien uniquely among fantasy writers, therefore, presents us with a means by which his mythology can be linked directly to medieval literature and the history of England; he was the ultimate ‘sub-creator’ because he re-used reality. This seems a rather cursory way of describing a complicated set of ideas, but in essence this brings the main point to the fore: Tolkien’s Middle-earth is our earth, and his mythology is an attempt to reconstruct our pre-history. Only by understanding this can we fully realize the true scale of his project and comprehend how enormous his achievement was. Finally, his tales, interwoven and incomplete as they are, provide us with an excellent background to a renewed reading of The Seafarer.

6

This is not to suggest that Tolkien actually believed this to be true, merely that he was proposing a solution that tied together and completed many stories known from medieval literature and mythology.


4.13.4 The Seafarer Mæg ic be me¯ sylfum so ¯ ~gied wrecan, sı¯pas secgan, hu ¯ ic geswincdagum earfo~hwı¯le oft pro ¯ wade, bitre bre¯ostceare gebiden hæbbe, gecunnad in ce¯ole cearselda fela, (5) ¯r mec oft bigeat atol y¯pa gewealc. Pæ nearo nihtwaco, æt nacan stefnan, ponne he¯ be clifum cnossa~. Calde geprungen ¯ron mı¯ne fet, forste gebunden, wæ ¯r pa¯ ceare seofedun (10) caldum clommum, pæ ha¯t ymb heortan; hungor innan sla¯t merewe¯rges mo ¯ d. Pæt se mon ne wa¯t pe him on foldan fægrost limpe~, ¯ hu ¯ ic earmcearig, ¯ı scealdne sæ winter wunade wræccan la¯stum, (15) ¯gum bidroren, winemæ bihongen hrı¯mgicelum; hægl scu ¯rum fle¯ag. ¯r ic ne gehy¯rde, bu ¯tan hlimman sæ ¯, Pæ ¯g. Hwı¯lum ylfete song iscaldne wæ dyde ic me¯ to¯ gomene, ganetes hle¯opor, (20) ond huilpan swe¯g fore hleahtor wera, mæw singende fore medodrince. ¯r sta¯nclifu be¯otan, pæ ¯r him stearn oncwæ~, Stormas pæ ¯ı sigfepera; ful oft pæt earn bigeal, ¯nig hle¯omæga (25) u ¯rigfepra; ne æ fe¯asceaftig fer~ frefran meahte. Forpon him gely¯fe~ ly¯t, se¯ pe a¯h lı¯fes wyn gebiden in burgum, bealosı¯pa hwo ¯ n, wlonc ond wı¯nga¯l, hu ¯ ic we¯rig oft in brimla¯de bı¯dan sceolde. (30) Na¯p nihtscu ¯a, norpan snı¯wde, hrı¯m hru ¯san bond, hægl fe¯ol on eorpan, corna caldast. Forpon cnyssa~ nu ¯ heortan gepo¯htas, pæt ic he¯an stre¯amas, sealty¯pa gela¯c, sylf cunnige; (35) ¯la gehwylce mona~ mo ¯ des lust mæ fer~ to ¯ fe¯ran, pæt ic feor heonan elpe¯odigra eard gese¯ce. Forpon nis pæs mo¯dwlonc mon ofer eorpan, ne his gifena pæs go¯d, ne in geogupe to ¯ pæs hwæt, (40) ¯dum to ¯ pæs de¯or, ne him his dryhten to ¯ pæs hold, ne in his dæ

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4.13.4 The Seafarer I am able about myself to recite a true tale, to speak of journeys, [and] how I in days of toil often suffered a hard time, [and] the bitter care of the breast have endured, [and] experienced in the ship many halls of care, (5) the terrible roaring of the waves. There, the anxious nightwatch, often found me at the prow of the boat, when it clashes by the cliffs. Oppressed by cold were my feet, bound by frost, [and] by cold fetters, sorrows sighed there then, (10) hot about the heart; hunger from within tore at the mind of the one weary from the sea. That man does not know who for him on the earth it most pleasantly comes to pass, how I troubled, inhabited the ice-cold sea during winter in the paths of exile, (15) deprived of beloved kin, surrounded by icicles; hail flew in showers. There I heard nothing, except the roaring sea, the ice-cold way. Sometimes the swan’s song I made for myself by way of entertainment, the gannet’s cry, (20) and the curlew’s sound, in the place of the laughter of men, the seagull singing in the place of the mead-drink. Where storms beat the stone-cliffs, the tern answered them there, icy-feathered; very often the eagle yelled against that, dewey-feathered; none of the protective kin (25) could comfort the wretched spirit. Therefore he little believes, who has experienced the joy of life in the cities, [and] few difficult journeys, proud and happy with wine, how I often weary had to remain in the sea’s path. (30) The nightshadows grew dark, from the north it snowed, frost bound the ground, hail fell on the earth, the coldest of corns. And yet the thoughts of the heart now press [me], that I myself should seek, the rolling salt-waves, [and] the high currents; (35) the desire of the mind urges every time the spirit to journey, so that I far from here might seek the land of foreigners. Therefore there is no-one so proud of spirit, [no] man on the earth, nor one so fortunate in his gifts, nor in [his] youth so quick, (40) nor in his deeds so courageous, nor to him his lord so gracious,


pæt he¯ a¯ his sæ ¯fo ¯ re sorge næbbe, to ¯ hwon hine dryhten gedo ¯ n wille. Ne bip him to ¯ hearpan hyge, ne to ¯ hringpege, ne to ¯ wı¯fe wyn, ne to ¯ worulde hyht, (45) ne ymbe o ¯ wiht elles, nefne ymb y¯~a gewealc; ac a¯ hafa~ longunge se¯ pe on lagu funda~. Bearwas blo ¯ stmum nima~, byrig fægria~, wongas wlitiga~, woruld o ¯ nette~; ealle pa¯ gemonia~ mo ¯ des fu ¯sne (50) sefan to ¯ sı¯pe, pa¯m pe swa¯ pence~ on flo ¯ dwegas feor gewı¯tan. Swylce ge¯ac mona~ ge¯omran reorde, singe~ sumeres weard, sorge be¯ode~, bitter in bre¯osthord. Pæt se beorn ne wa¯t, (55) e¯ste¯adig secg, hwæt pa¯ sume dre¯oga~ pe pa¯ wræcla¯stas wı¯dost lecga~. ¯ mı¯n hyge hweorfe~ ofer hreperlocan, Forpon nu mı¯n mo ¯ dsefa mid mereflo ¯ de (ofer hwæles e¯pel) hweorfe~ wı¯de (60) eorpan sce¯atas, cyme~ eft to ¯ me¯ ¯dig; gielle~ a¯nfloga, gı¯fre ond græ hwete~ on hwælweg hreper unwearnum ofer holma gelagu. Forpon me¯ ha¯tran sind Dryhtnes dre¯amas ponne pis de¯ade lı¯f, (65) ¯ne on londe. Ic gely¯fe no ¯ læ pæt him eor~welan e¯ce stonda~. Simle pre¯ora sum pinga gehwylce, ¯r his tı¯d aga, to ¯ twe¯on weorpe~; æ a¯dl, oppe yldo, oppe ecghete, (70) ¯gum fromweardum, feorh o~pringe~. fæ Forpon pæt bi~ eorla gehwa¯m, æftercwependra lof lifgendra, la¯stworda betst, ¯r he¯ on weg scyle, pæt he¯ gewyrce, æ fremum on foldan wi~ fe¯onda nı¯p, (75) ¯dum de¯ofle to ¯ ge¯anes. de¯orum dæ Pæt hine, ælda bearn æfter hergen, ond his lof sippan lifge mid englum ¯d, awa to ¯ ealdre, e¯can lı¯fes blæ dre¯am mid dugepum. Dagas sind gewitene, (80) ealle onme¯dlan eorpan rı¯ces; næron nu cyningas, ne ca¯seras, ¯ron, ne goldgiefan, swylce iu ¯ wæ

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that he does not always have sorrow for his seafaring, as to what the lord will do to him. Nor is his thought for the harp, nor for the receiving of rings, nor for the joy of a woman, nor for the delight in the world, (45) nor for anything else, except for the tossing of the waves; but he always has longing he who wishes for the sea. The groves take blossoms, the city becomes beautiful, the meadows brighten, the world hastens; all of these urge the eager mind (50) [and] the heart to journey onto the flood’s ways, to travel far, for he who so wishes. Likewise the cuckoo exhorts with a sad voice, summer’s ward sings, it offers sorrow, bitter in the breast-hoard. That man does not know, (55) the man blessed with comfort, what those ones suffer who journey most widely on the paths of exile. Therefore now my thought goes beyond the mind’s stronghold, my spirit through the sea ([and] over the whale’s homeland) roams quickly (60) [over] the earth’s surfaces, [and] comes back to me ravenous and greedy; the solitary flyer cries out, it incites the heart irresistibly onto the whale’s way over the expanses of the seas. Therefore for me hotter are the Lord’s joys than this dead life, (65) on loan, on land. I never believe that for him worldly prosperity will remain forever. Always one of three things invariably, before his final hour, becomes uncertain; sickness, or old age, or violence, (70) for the one doomed and ready to depart, takes away life. Therefore for each nobleman, the praise of the living, those who speak afterwards, is the best of epitaphs, that he might accomplish, before he should [be] on the way, by good deeds on the earth against the fiends’ hatred, (75) [and] by brave deeds against the devil. So that him, the children of men afterwards may praise and his glory thereafter may live with the angels for ever and ever, the glory of eternal life, joy with the heavenly host. The days are gone, (80) [and] all the magnificence of the kingdom of the earth; now there are no kings, no caesars, nor gold-givers, as before there were,


ponne hı¯, mæ ¯st mid him, mæ ¯rpa gefremedon ond on dryhtlicestum do ¯ me lifdon. (85) Gedroren is pe¯os dugu~ eal, dre¯amas sind gewitene, wunia~ pa¯ wa¯cran ond pa¯s woruld healdap, ¯d is gehnæ ¯ged, bru ¯ca~ purh bisgo. Blæ eorpan indryhto ealda~ ond se¯ara~, swa¯ nu ¯ monna gehwylc geond middangeard. (90) Yldo him on fare~, onsy¯n bla¯ca~, gomelfeax gnorna~, wa¯t his iu ¯wine, æpelinga bearn, eorpan forgiefene. ¯schoma, ponne him pæt feorg losa~, Ne mæg him ponne se flæ ne swe¯te forswelgan ne sa¯r gefe¯lan, (95) ne hond onhre¯ran, ne mid hyge pencan. Pe¯ah pe græf wille golde stre¯gan, bro¯por his geborenum, byrgan be de¯adum, ma¯pmum mislicum, pæt hine mid wille. ¯re sa¯wle pe bip synna ful (100) Ne mæg pæ gold to ¯ ge¯oce for Godes egsan, ¯r hy¯de~ penden he¯ he¯r leofa~. ponne he¯ hit æ Micel bip se Meotudes egsa, forpon hı¯ se¯o molde oncyrre~; se¯ gestapelade stı¯pe grundas, eorpan sce¯atas, ond u ¯prodor. (105) ¯dep; cyme~ him se de¯a~ Dol bip se¯ pe him his Dryhten ne ondræ unpinged. ¯ cyme~ him se¯o a¯r of heofonum. E adig bi~ se¯ pe e¯apmod leofap; Meotod him pæt mo ¯ d gestapela~, forpon he¯ in his meahte gely¯fe~. Stı¯eran mon sceal strongum mo ¯ de, ond pæt on stapelum healdan, ¯ne; (110) ond gewis we¯rum, wı¯sum clæ scyle monna gehwylc mid gemete healdan wip le¯ofne ond wi~ la¯pne bealo, pe¯ah pe he¯ hine wille fy¯res fulne ¯le forbærnedne oppe on bæ his geworhtne wine. Wyrd bip swı¯pre, (115) ¯nges monnes gehygd. Meotud meahtigra ponne æ ¯r we¯ ha¯m a¯gen, Uton we¯ hycgan hwæ ond ponne gepencan hu ¯ we¯ pider cumen, ond we¯ ponne e¯ac tilien, pæt we¯ to ¯ mo ¯ ten in pa¯ e¯can e¯adignesse, (120) ¯r is lı¯f gelong in lufan Dryhtnes, pæ hyht in heofonum. Pæs sy¯ pa¯m halgan ponc, pæt he¯ u ¯sic geweorpade, wuldres ealdor, ¯men. e¯ce Dryhten, in ealle tı¯d. A

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when they, the greatest among themselves, performed deeds and lived by the most magnificent glory. (85) All this troop is perished, the joys are gone, the weaker ones remain and hold this world, they live in it through toil. Glory is humbled, the earth’s nobility grows old and fades, as now [does] each man throughout middle-earth. (90) Old age overtakes him, the face grows pale, the grey-haired one mourns, he knows his former friends, the children of nobles, have relinquished the earth. His body may not then, when that life escapes him, taste sweetness nor the wound feel, (95) nor the hand move, nor with the mind think. Although he may wish the grave with gold to adorn, a brother for his brother, and bury [him] among the dead, with various treasures, that he wishes [to go] with him. It, the gold, may not be of help for that soul (100) which is full of sins before God’s wrath, when he hides it beforehand whilst he lives here. Great is the Creator’s majesty, therefore the earth turns aside from it; he who established the firm grounds, the earth’s surfaces, and the heavens. (105) Foolish is he who does not fear his Lord; death comes to him unexpected. Blessed is he who humbly lives; the grace of the heavens comes to him. The Creator makes steadfast that spirit in him, because he believes in his power. One must steer with a strong mind, and hold it in its foundations, and [be] trustworthy in promises, [and] pure in ways; (110) every man should keep with moderation [his love] towards a loved one and hatred towards an enemy, even though he may wish him full of fire or utterly burnt on the pyre the friend he has made. Wyrd is mightier, (115) the Creator more powerful than any man’s intention. Let us consider where we may have a home, and then think through how we may arrive thither, and we may also aspire, so that we may [come] into that eternal bliss, (120) where life is dependent on the love of the Lord, [and] hope is in the heavens. Thanks be to the Holy One for this, that he has honoured us, the Lord of Glory, eternal Lord, through all time. Amen.


4.13.5 Notes l.5. cearselda fela, ‘halls of care’. This, one assumes, is meant to be symbolic of the trials the seafarer has experienced on board ship, contrasted to the real halls on land which offer comfort. Gordon (1960, p. 33) notes previous editors’ emendations. l.16. The poem is missing a half-line here, but there is no gap in the manuscript. l.25. Hamer (1970, p. 186) suggests emending u ¯rigfepra to hyrnednebba on the grounds of alliteration, but this is unnecessary if one changes the manuscript reading of næ ¯nig to ne æ ¯nig (as above). See Gordon (1960, p. 36) for a further discussion, though she retains næ ¯nig. l.29. wlonc ond wı¯ngal, ‘proud and happy with wine’. See The Ruin (4.5, l. 35). ll.33–8. stre¯amas (‘currents’) in l. 34 is in effect the seas, i.e. the towering waves. See Marsden (2004, p. 225) for a discussion of the forpon opening. ll.39–41. The repetition of pæs and to is used to mean ‘so’. l.40a. The translation follows the suggestion of Mitchell and Robinson (1998, p. 279). l.49. woruld o¯netted, ‘the world hastens’, i.e. the onset of spring. l.62. a¯nfloga, ‘solitary flyer’. This possibly refers to the cuckoo again, i.e. when summer comes with the first call of the cuckoo, the seafarer feels the desire to take to the ocean. Gordon (1960, p. 17) notes the tradition that a cuckoo’s call brings sorrow to the one who hears it. However, if one were to follow the reasoning that this poem is really about the journey of life, then the solitary flyer could be one’s soul, and the hwælweg of l. 63, which in the manuscript reads wælweg (‘way of slaughter’), is the path of death, taking the sea as a symbolic separation between life and the afterlife. Yet most editors argue strongly against this idea, and emend to hwælweg in a text that is ‘by no means perfect’ (Gordon, 1960, p. 42). l.67. The reflexive him is hard to ignore bearing in mind the his in line 69. The speaker could be referring to an everyman character here, or the seafarer specifically. ll.72–80. These lines are somewhat problematic to translate. In essence they propose that by performing good deeds during your lifetime, you will earn the praise of those who live after you, and this is the best of epitaphs (la¯stworda, or ‘last words’), as it will also grant you access to the kingdom of heaven. This mixes the Germanic-heroic idea of making a name for yourself with the Christian idea of salvation. See Gordon (1960, p. 43). ll.82–3. Tolkien used these lines to close his Valedictory Address (Essays, p. 239). ll.97–102. Again these lines are problematic. Gordon (1960, p. 45) describes these as ‘probably the most disputed passage of the poem’. Treharne (2004, p. 53) provides a clear and helpful translation: ‘Though a brother might wish to scatter the grave with gold for his sibling, to bury with the dead various treasures that he would like to have with him, the gold that he hid before while he lived here cannot be a help to the soul which is full of sins when it comes into the presence of the terrible power of God.’ Marsden (2004, p. 228) sees here an implicit censure of pagan burial practices. l.99. Gordon (1960, p. 45), following Sisam, emends wille to nille, changing the translation to ‘that will not go with him’. However, the retention of wille is valid, as the man burying the body of his brother with treasure, is hoping that the gold will go with him to ease his life in the afterworld. ll.112–15. These lines are difficult to translate, and Mitchell and Robinson (2001, p. 282) suggest the lines are probably corrupt in places. See also Gordon (1960, p. 47) and Marsden (2004, p. 229).

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4.13.6 Further reading The Seafarer is available in many Old English anthologies (see below), but scholars of Tolkien may wish to locate the version by Ida L. Gordon, The Seafarer (Methuen, 1960). This is an interesting edition as it is based on the work of Professor E. V. Gordon, Ida Gordon’s husband, who had worked on an edition of The Seafarer and The Wanderer with Tolkien (which never came to fruition). Gordon notes that Tolkien presented her with helpful suggestions ‘with his usual generosity’ (p. vii). She also confirms that her husband left an ‘uncompleted draft of an edition of The Wanderer and The Seafarer on which he had been working in collaboration with Professor J. R. R. Tolkien’. For the most recent editions see Fowler (1966, pp. 106–11); Hamer (1970, pp. 184–95); Cassidy and Ringler (1974, pp. 330–7); Bradley (1982, pp. 329–35); Klinck (1992); Marsden (2004, pp. 221–30); Mitchell and Robinson (2001, pp. 276–82); Muir (2000, vol. I, pp. 229–33 and vol. II, pp. 522–36); and Treharne (2004, pp. 48–53). See also the ASPR iii, pp. 143–7 (the base text here).

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——— The War of the Ring: The History of the Lord of the Rings, Part Three, ed. C. Tolkien, The History of Middle-earth VI (HarperCollins, 2002). ——— Sauron Defeated: The History of the Lord of the Rings, Part Four, ed. C. Tolkien, The History of Middle-earth VI (HarperCollins, 2002). ——— Morgoth’s Ring, ed. C. Tolkien, The History of Middle-earth X (HarperCollins, 2002). ——— The Monsters & the Critics and Other Essays, ed. C. Tolkien (HarperCollins, 2002). ——— Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics and Other Essays, Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies 248, ed. M. D. C. Drout (Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2002). Tolkien, J. R. R. and Gordon, E. V. (eds.), Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (Clarendon Press, 1925; revised in a 2nd edn. by N. Davis, Clarendon Press, 1967). Treharne, E. (ed. and transl.) Old and Middle English: An Anthology (Blackwell, 2004, 2nd edn.). Turville-Petre, T. The Alliterative Revival (Brewer and Rowman & Littlefield, 1977). Vries, J. de. Altnordisches etymologisches Wörterbuch (Brill, 2nd edn. 1962). Wainwright, E. Tolkien’s Mythology for England: A Middle-earth Companion (Anglo-Saxon Books, 2004). Wallace, D. (ed.) The Cambridge History of Medieval English Literature (CUP, 1999). West, R. C. ‘Setting the Rocket off in Story: The Kalevala as the Germ of Tolkien’s Legendarium’, in Chance (2004), pp. 285–94. White, M. The Life and Work of J. R. R. Tolkien (Pearson, 2002). Wilcox, M. ‘Exilic Imagining in The Seafarer and The Lord of the Rings’, in Chance (2003), pp. 133–54. Wilson, E. ‘Oo, Those Awful Orcs!’, The Nation, 14 April (1956). Woolf, H. B. The Old Germanic Principles of Name-giving (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1939). Woolf, R. ‘The Ideal of Men Dying with their Lord in the Germania and The Battle of Maldon’, in Art and Doctrine: Essays on Medieval Literature, ed. H. O’Donoghue (Hambledon Press, 1986), pp. 175–96; originally published in Anglo-Saxon England 5 (1976), pp. 63–81. Wrenn, C. L. (ed.) Beowulf: with the Finnesburg Fragment (Harrap, 1973; University of Exeter Press, 1988, 3rd rev. edn.). Zimbardo, R. A. and Isaacs, N. D. Understanding The Lord of the Rings: The Best of Tolkien Criticism (Houghton Mifflin, 2004). Zoëga, G. T. A Concise Dictionary of Old Icelandic (Clarendon Press, 1910; reprinted by the University of Toronto Press, 2004 and Dover Publications, 2004). Zupitza, J. (ed.) ‘Beowulf Reproduced in Facsimile from the Unique Manuscript British Museum MS. Cotton Vitellius A.xv’, Early English Text Society os 245 (OUP, 1959, 2nd edn. with an introductory note by N. Davis).

Index

The Adventures of Tom Bombadil 224 Alcuin 135 ælf-element 128–9, 220 Alfred, King 14, 16–17, 19, 42–3, 148 Ælfric of Eynsham 17 Colloquy 77 on elephants 224, 225, 233 (notes on l.1) Homily on the Maccabees 218, 223, 228–31, 233–4 Ælfwine 150–1, 179, 254–5, 257 Allen, M. J. B. 135 Allen, Rosamund 145 alliteration 101 (notes on 12, l.3) compound words 48–9 half-lines 63 Hickes 160 (notes on l.1) metre 41 Middle English 39 nouns 48 Old English 13, 40–2 Old Norse 13 Sir Gawain 237 Tolkien’s use of 47–8 variation 51 verse 13, 38–9 vowels/consonants 40, 41 Alliterative Morte Arthure 166 Alliterative Revival 164–6 Alvíssmál 75–6 Amon Hen 137 Amun Sûl 137 anacrusis 42 Anderson, D. A. 73, 78 Anglo-Saxon Chronicle 17 origins and dates 148 syntax 161 (notes on l.1) see also ‘Cynewulf and Cyneheard’ Anglo-Saxons Christian tradition 14 derivation 16 Old English 17 Old Testament, use of the 223 Rohan, similarities to 195, 200–1 Annals of Beleriand 150–1, 254 Annals of Valinor 150–1, 254

apposition/variation 42–3 Aragorn 27, 31, 47–8, 133, 137, 151, 177, 185, 194, 195, 197–8, 201, 202, 222 Arganoth 137 Arkenstone 138 Arthur, King 235–6 Æthelred the Unready 218–19 Æthelweard 178 ættir 34 Auchinleck manuscript 123, 132 Auden, W. H. 7, 26–7, 28 Augustine, Saint 251 Bag End 26 Baker, Peter 19 Bakhtin, M. M. 28–9, 30–1 Bæksted, A. 35 Baldr 60–1, 75 Balin’s tomb 151 ballad-metre 47 Barnes, M. 24 Barron, W. R. J. 239 Bates, B. 136, 252–3 The Battle of Maldon 226–8 editions 233 loyalty of warriors 220 manuscript 217 Tolkien’s tripartite study 221 Bede, Venerable: Ecclesiastical History 37 Bennett, J. A. W. 23 Benson, L. D. 128 Beorn 50 Beowulf 17, 114–19, 180–1, 210–13, 242–3 apposition 42–3 Christian tradition 107 Clark Hall’s translation 38, 44 dating 15, 107 dragon 107, 112 editions 120, 216, 249 elves 128 epic tradition 29, 30 The Fight at Finnsburg 146–7, 162 fire on water 240 formulas 45 gold 111 277

278 Index

Beowulf – continued Grendel 25, 107 Heorot 194–5, 198, 199 hero/dragon 112 The Hobbit, source for 109–10 Hrothgar 37, 43, 107, 194–5, 198–9, 238 and the Kalevala 10 landscape 238 loyalty 220 manuscript 17, 106, 107–8 name 51 quest 25 runes 34 runic sword 37 Scyld Scefing 177–9, 255 translations 122 see also Grendel ‘Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics’ 16, 30, 108 Bilbo 26, 27, 73, 78–9, 106, 111–12, 123, 126–7 bird-speech 110 Blackwood, Algernon 11 Blickling Homilies 238 Bliss, A. J. 124–5, 149–50, 194, 214 (notes on l.1) blood-feud 146–7, 161 (notes on l.7) boasts 76 Boethius 11, 124 Bolton, W. F. 238 Bombadil, Tom 51, 224, 253 Boromir 52, 151, 177–8 Bosworth, Joseph 19 bracteates, Swedish 33–4 Brewerton, George 7 Britons 161 (notes on l.6) Brittany 123–4 Broulad, M.-T. 125 burial, pagan 264 (notes on 1.97–102) Burrow, J. A. 22, 23 Byrhtnoth 218–19, 221–2, 232 (notes on l.120, on l.149–58) Byrhtwold 219 Cædmon 17 Cædmon’s Hymn 39 Cain, C. M. 19 Calder, D. G. 135 Campbell, Alistair 19–20 Campbell, James 19 Carpenter, H. 111n3, 252 Carrock rock 50–1

Cassidy, E. G. 149, 162 (notes on l.9, l.27), 183, 192 (notes on l.43–5), 215 (notes on l.92) Celtic literature 12, 124–5 Certar 38 Chance, J. 222, 237 Chaucer, Geoffrey The Book of the Duchess 164 The Canterbury Tales 123–4, 128 London dialect 21 Chesterton, G. K. 11 Chism, C. 137 Christ I 256 Christianity Anglo-Saxon prose 14 Beowulf 107 Iceland 60 lyrical poetry 30 Maxim II 185 salvation 264 (notes on 1.72–80) The Seafarer 251 The Wanderer 197 Cirth 38 cittern 176 (notes on l.91) Clark, G. 220, 222 Clark Hall, J. R. 19, 38–9, 44, 108 Cleanness 164 Cleasby, R. 25 ‘Coalbiters’ club 5, 11 Codex Regius 59, 60, 62, 74–6, 105 Columbanus 135 compound words 43–4, 48–9, 55 Craigie, W. A. 25 Cross, J. E. 233 (notes on l.1) Cynewulf 17, 37, 256 ‘Cynewulf and Cyneheard’ 156–9 Anglo-Saxon Chronicle 146, 147–9 in anthologies 163 blood-feud 161 (notes on l.7) loyalty 150 siege 152 Danes 146–7, 150, 160 (notes on l.3–12) Dante Alighieri: Divine Comedy 164 dating of texts 15, 107 Dead Marshes 137, 222, 240 Denethor 220 Deor 135–6 Derolez, R. 35–6 destiny 31 see also wyrd The Destruction of Jerusalem 166 The Destruction of Troy 166

Index 279

dialect forms 14, 18–19, 20–1 dirge 177–8 dowry system 192 (notes on l.43–5) dragon-slaying 233 (notes on l.1) dragons 107, 110, 112 The Dream of the Rood 38, 39 dream visions 164–5 Dronke, U. 127, 128n4 Dubs, K. 11 Dunning, T. P. 194, 214 (notes on l.1) Dunsany, Lord Edward 11 Dwarves 59, 64–5, 106 craftsmen 63 creation of 61, 70 (notes on l.3–4) magic 64 names 59, 61–2, 63, 70 (notes on l.1–5) ritual 63–4 Eadwine 254 Eärendil 179, 256 Edda, Poetic 24, 29, 36, 59, 62 Edda, Prose 23, 59 Eddic poetry 24, 59, 62, 63, 76 Edoras 199, 200 Egil’s Saga 36 Eirik Bloodaxe, King 36 elegies 30, 135–6, 197, 252 Elene 37 elephants: see oliphaunts Elphinston, John 217 Elrond 37–8, 61 Elves 125, 127, 128, 129 exile 251–2 Lothlórien 164, 167 Shippey’s analysis of 129 The Silmarillion 127n2 Undying Lands 136, 252, 254 Wood-elves 126–7, 129 Ents dislike of change 184 giants 138, 185, 192 (notes on l.42) hobbits 183 Long List 48 maxims 184–5 Shippey’s analysis of 138, 186 Éowyn 217, 220 epic literature 28–31, 30–1, 45 The Exeter Book 17, 77–8, 105, 133, 135–6, 194 exile 194, 250–2 Fáfnismál 109–10, 111 fairies 125, 126, 127, 129

Fairy King 124 Faramir 52, 220 Farmer Giles of Ham 26, 222, 237 Faulkes, A. 24, 105, 127 Fell, C. 135 Fenrir wolf 64 The Fight at Finnsburg 154–6, 160 (notes on l.14, l.18–27) Beowulf 146–7, 162 as epic 29 siege 150, 151–2 Finland, the Kalevala 10, 12 Finnsburg Fragment: see The Fight at Finnsburg Flieger, Verilyn 7, 237 flyting 76 folklore 129, 183 followers, loyalty 219, 220 formulaic style Beowulf 45 Edda 24 Middle English 166 Old English 15, 43, 45–6 Vo¸luspá 70 (notes on l.1) fornyrdislag 62–3 Fortunatus, Venantius 135 Frank, Roberta 220 French language 20 Frisians 146–7, 150 Frodo 26, 27–8, 31, 51, 137, 151, 166–7, 221, 235, 240, 250 Fulk, R. D. 19 Fuller, E. 11 futhark/futhorc 32–3, 34, 36–7 Gagnrápr 74–5 Galadriel 31, 61, 164, 196, 252 Gandalf 27, 50–1, 59, 65, 133, 151, 199 Gawain, Sir: see Sir Gawain and the Green Knight Gay, D. E. 12 Germanic heroism 222, 264 (notes on 1.72–80) Germanic legends 253 giantesses 72 (notes on 16, l.4) giants 61, 75 Gimli 64, 133, 137, 177 Godden, Malcolm 19 gold 111–12 Goldberry 51 Gollum 28, 73, 78–9, 137, 224, 239–40 Gondolin 37–8

280 Index

Gordon, E. V. 194 Old Norse 24 Pearl 166 The Seafarer 251, 264 (notes on 1.97–102), 265 Sir Gawain and the Green Knight 5, 25, 237 Songs for Philologists 7 Gordon, Ida L. 251, 265 Gray, Douglas 23 Gregory of Tours: History of the Franks 52, 106 Grendel Hrothgar 43, 194 lineage 238, 248 (notes on l.1355–6) mother 37, 107, 235, 238 name 43, 51 Grettir’s Saga 36 Grey Havens 250 Grímnismál 62 Gullveig myth 103 (notes on 39, l.1–4), 128n4 Gunnhild, Queen 36 Gunnlaugsson, G. M. 105 Gylfaginning 60, 74, 127

Elrond 37–8 names 50–3 riddles 73, 78–9 Rivendell 123 runes 31 see also specific characters Hollin 133, 134 Holy Grail 25 Homeric epic 45 Homily on the Maccabees (Ælfric) 218, 223, 228–31, 233–4 Horsa 52, 147 Hrothgar, King 37, 43, 107, 194–5, 198–9, 238 The Husband’s Message 135–6 Hygelac, King 106

Haggard, Sir H. Rider 11 half-lines 40–1, 49, 63 Háma 199 Hastings, Peter 51 Hauksbók 60, 61 Hávamál 36 Heaney, Seamus 37–8 Hearne, Thomas 217 Heidreks saga 75 Hengest 52, 147 Heorot 194–5, 198, 199 heroes 52–3, 103 (notes on 41, l.1), 152 heroism dragon 112 to excess 222 Germanic 222, 264 loyalty of warriors 219, 220 against overwhelming odds 25 Heurodis 124, 125 Heusler, A. 29–30 Hickes, George 147, 160 (notes on l.1) Hildeburh 146 Hnæf 146 The Hobbit 1, 2–3 Arkenstone 138 and Beowulf 109–10

Jack, G. 178 Jackson, Peter 2, 223 Jarrow 196 Jensen, J. J. 34 Judith, Book of 106 Junius manuscript 17

iambic tetrameter 46–7 Iceland 23, 60, 62 Imma 37 inflections Middle English 21–2 Old English 18–19 Old Norse 24 Inklings 5

The Kalevala 10, 12 Kemble, J. M. 104 kennings 43 kinship 214 (notes on l.7) loyalty 196–7 memory 215 (notes on l.51–3) sister’s son 232 (notes on l.115) Klaeber, Fr. 120 (notes), 122, 160 (notes on l.3–12), 240 Klingenberg, H. 35 Kocher, P. H. 26 Krause, Wolfgang 32 Kuhn, H. 105 landscape Beowulf 238 Gollum 239–40 Mordor 235, 239–40 Sir Gawain and the Green Knight 239

Index 281

Langland,William: Piers Plowman 164, 165–6 Lapidge, Michael 19 Larrington, C. 62, 105 ‘Lay of Aotrou and Itroun’ 222 lays 29–30, 147 Legolas 50, 133, 134, 136, 137, 151, 177, 252 The Letter of Alexander to Aristotle 106 Lewis, C. S. 5, 6, 7 Liber Eliensis 221 Lindisfarne 196 Litr, dwarf 71 (notes on 12, l.2) Lobdell, J. 11 Lokasenna 76 Loki 71 (notes on 15, l.3), 76 Lonely Mountain 123 Lönnrot, Elias 12 Lord, Albert 45 The Lord of the Rings 1, 2–3, 15 elegaic tone 136 Ents’ Long List 48 Epilogue 250 ‘Lament of the Stones’ 133, 136 ‘The Land of Shadow’ 235, 240 names 50–3 Rivendell 123 see also specific characters lordship 222 The Lost Road 179, 250, 254–5 Lothlórien 126, 164, 166–7 loyalty 150, 196–7, 219–20 Maccabees: see Homily on the Maccabees Machan, T. W. 105 magic 35, 37, 64, 127, 128 Magoun, F. P. 45 Maldon: see The Battle of Maldon Malory, Sir Thomas 25 Marie de France 124 Marsden, Richard 19, 183, 192 (notes on l.50–4), 217, 251, 264 (notes on 1.97–102) maxims 183, 184–5 Maxims II 183–6, 188–91, 193 Meduseld 200 Menner, R. J. 74, 105 Mercia 200 Merry 27, 177, 183, 184, 217, 220 metre alliteration 39–40, 41 anacrusis 42

half-lines 40–1, 49 Sievers 39–40 Middle-earth 3, 10, 136, 137, 185, 253–4, 257 Middle English 1, 4, 12–13, 20–3 alliterative poetry 39 dialects 20–1, 22 formulas 166 inflections 21–2 literacy 21 pronunciation 20–1 spelling 21, 22 textbooks 22–3 A Middle English Vocabulary 166 Miller, M. Y. 26, 237 Mirkwood 123, 126 Misty Mountains 73, 146 Mitchell, B. 19, 214 (notes on l.1, l.7) Mordor 235, 238, 239–40 Morgai 240 Moria 137, 146 Morris, William 7, 11, 111n3, 238 Motz, L. 63, 64 Muir, B. J. 133–4, 134–5 mûmakil (war elephants) 217, 223–5 Nagy, G. 11 names ælf-element 128–9 catalogues 53, 61–2 Dwarves 63, 64–5 Edda 62 The Lord of the Rings 50–3 rivers 164 sagas 62 sources 59 synonyms 52 Wessex kings 51–2 Nazgûl 183, 217, 239 Neckel, G. 105 New Oxford English Dictionary 5 The New York Times Book Review 26–7 Niebelungenlied 28, 29 Niflhel 103 (notes on 43, l.1–5) Nimrodel, crossing of 164, 167 Norns, goddesses of fate 61 Northumbria 14 The Notion Club Papers 1, 250, 254, 255–6 Nowell Codex 106 Númenor 179, 253, 257

282 Index

O’Brien O’Keeffe, K. 74 Ódinn 61 disguise 74–5 Fenrir wolf 64 ring 71 (notes on 15, l.1) self-sacrifice 36, 75 Olaf Tryggvason 218 Ólason, V. 105 Old English 1, 4, 12–13, 16–20 alliteration 13, 40–2 compound words 55 elegies 30 inflections 18–19 maxims 183 poetry 15, 17, 42–3 pronunciation 17–18 prose 17 textbooks 19–20 used by the Rohirrim 257 variation 49 Old English academic societies 20 Old Icelandic 23 Old Norse 1, 4, 12–13, 23–5 borrowings 237 elves 127–8 inflections 24 poetry 39 textbooks 24–5 Old Testament 223 oliphaunts 224, 225, 233 (notes on l.1) see also mûmakil (war elephants) oral culture 13, 45–6, 124 Orchard, A. 178 Orcs 146, 151, 177 Orfeo 125 see also Sir Orfeo Orpheus 124–5 Orthanc 138, 184 Ovid 11, 124 The Oxford Magazine 6 Paradise 125–6, 166–7, 252 parataxis 148–9 Parker, Matthew 148 Parker Chronicle 148, 150 The Parlement of the Three Ages 166 Parry, Milman 45 passage of time 25, 134, 148, 183 passing of glory 135, 136 The Passion of St Christopher 106 Patience 164 Paul, Saint 238 Pearl 164–7, 168–75

alliteration 39 dream visions 164–5 editions 176 heaven 167 language 21 manuscript 164 stanza form 166 Tolkien’s translation 166 Pelennor Fields, Battle of 49, 53, 220, 224 Petty, A. C. 26 Piers Plowman 164, 165–6 Pippin 27, 177, 183, 184, 220 Plato 11 prose, rhythmical 218 prosopopoeia 224 quest theme 25–8 Ragnaro¸k 60–1 Ready, W. 7 Resignation 135–6 riddles The Exeter Book 77, 105, 134 The Hobbit 73, 78–9 prosopopoeia 224 Skaldic poetry 23–4 Rígspula 62 Ringler, R. N. 149, 162 (notes on l.9, l.27), 183, 192 (notes on l.43–5), 215 (notes on l.92) Rivendell 26, 123, 133 Robinson, F. C. 19, 214 (notes on l.1, l.7) Rodrigues, L. J. 105, 192 (notes on l.50–4) Rohan 52, 195 Rohirrim 31 Anglo-Saxons, similarities to 200–1 Aragorn 194, 195, 201 loyalty 220 Old English language 257 Orcs 177 poetry 195 Rohan 52, 195 Shippey’s analysis of 201–2 The Wanderer 19 Le Roman de la Rose 164 Rosebury, B. 12, 28, 252 The Ruin 140–3 editions 144–5 elegaic 135–6, 252 The Exeter Book 133

Index 283

language 17, 18 manuscript 133–4, 144 (notes on l.12) Roman ruin 134–5 runes abbreviations 34 alphabet 32, 38 futhark 31–2, 34 The Hobbit 31–2 magic 35, 37 names of 33, 38 numerical values 34–5 word divisions 34 Runic Poem 33 Ruthwell cross 38, 39 sagas 10, 23, 36, 62 St Erkenwald 166 Sam 26, 27, 28, 137, 220, 224, 225, 235, 240, 250 Sæmundar Edda 60 Saruman 26, 138, 223 Sauron 217, 221, 223 Schlobin, R. C. 27, 237 Scragg, D. G. 222, 233 Scyld Scefing 44, 52 funeral 177–9, 255 sea-longing 252, 255 sea synonyms 44–5 The Seafarer 17, 225, 258–63 Ælfwine/Eriol character 254–5 Christianity 251 editions 265 as elegy 134, 135–6, 250–1 structure 251–3 seidr (magic) 128n4 senna tradition 76 Shadowfax 200 Shakespeare, William 46–7 Sheave, King 179, 254 ship-burials 177–8, 179, 182 (notes on l.32) Shippey, Tom 2, 3, 4, 7, 10, 50, 64, 74, 78, 105, 109–10, 125, 129, 138, 167, 183, 186, 192 (notes on l.1), 197, 199, 201–2, 237 Shire 27–8, 137 Sievers, Edward 39–40 Sigfússon, Sæmundr 59–60 Sigurdr 109–10, 111 The Silmarillion 1, 7, 12 creation of Middle-earth 60–1 Elves 127n2 Silverlode 167

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight 164, 235–7, 244–7 alliteration 39, 237 Alliterative Revival 165–6 editions 249 landscape 239 language 21 Tolkien and Gordon 5, 25–6, 237 Sir Orfeo 21, 123–5, 130–2 Sisam, Kenneth 166 Skaldic poetry 23–4 Skallagrimsson, Egil 36 Smaug 106, 109–11, 223, 233 (notes on l.1) Sméagol: see Gollum Solomon and Saturn II 80–2 dialogue 76–9 editions 104–5 riddles 73–4, 77–8 Songs for Philologists 7 Stevens, J. 11 Straubhaar, S. B. 11 Sturluson, Snorri 103 (notes on 44, l.4) Edda 23, 59, 63, 71 (notes on 12, l.2, on 15, l.3) Gylfaginning 127 Sutton Hoo 178 Sveinsson, Bishop Brynjólfur 59–60 Swein Forkbeard 218 swords, runic 36–7 synonyms 43, 44–5, 52 Taylor, A. R. 24 Tengwar 38 Théoden 27, 52, 217, 220 A Thesaurus of Old English 44 Thorin 106, 127 Thorkelín, Grímur Jónsson 106 Tídwald 221–2 Tiw 38 Tolkien, Christopher Boromir’s funeral 177 Ents 183 Finnsburg lectures 146 Heidreks saga 75 The History of Middle-earth 2 ‘The Land of Shadow’ 235, 240 names 53, 164 Return 123, 133 Rohirrim 194 Sir Orfeo translation 125 Tolkien, J. R. R. 1, 3, 5 alliteration 47–8

284 Index

Tolkien, J. R. R. – continued ‘Anglo-Saxon History and Literature,’ lecture on 9 ‘Anglo-Saxon Verse,’ lecture on 214 (notes on l.1–7) ‘Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics’ 16, 30, 108 career 4–7 description of battlefield 222–3 on dwarves 64–5 ‘Imram’ 222 ‘Kortirion among the Trees’ 137 ‘Lay of Aotrou and Itroun’ 222 mythology for England 9–10 ‘Ofermod’ 222 ‘On Fairy Stories’ 7, 11, 202 own verse 46–9 ‘The Oxford English School’ 6 riddles, discussion of 77–8 runes, use of 36 The Seafarer 251 Sir Gawain and the Green Knight 5, 25–6, 237 as sub-creator 11, 50, 62, 257 ‘The Tides: On the Cornish Coast’ 252 On Translating Beowulf 16 see also The Hobbit; The Lord of the Rings; The Silmarillion Toller, J. Northcote 19 Torhthelm, minstrel 221–2 Treebeard 50, 138, 183–6 Treharne, Elaine 19, 23, 250–1, 264 (notes on 1.97–102) Trollshaws 137 Turville-Petre, Thorlac 22 Undying Lands attacked 253–4 Elves 136, 252 Frodo 27, 28, 250 and Tolkien’s mythology Uruk-hai 222

179, 255

Vafprúdnismál 62, 74–6, 82–99 edition 105 riddles 78 Valhalla 103 (notes on 41, l.1) valkyries 62 Vanir region 103 (notes on 39, l.1–4) variation alliteration 51

apposition 42–3 Old English 49 Vercelli Book 17 Vigfússon, G. 25 Viking wars 17, 217, 218–19 Virgil 124 The Vision of St Paul 238 Vo¸luspá 13, 59–63, 66–9, 70n1 Vries, Jan de 25 Wagner, (W.) R. 111n4 Wainwright, E. 134 Waldman, Milton 9 Wallace, David 23 The Wanderer 17, 204–9, 250 and Aragorn 47–8, 195, 197–8, 202 Christianity 197 editions 216 as elegy 134, 135–6, 194 Rohirrim 19 ubi sunt passage 195–6, 202, 215 (notes on l.92) The Wars of Alexander 166 Warwick 137 Weathertop 137 Welsh, medieval 7 Wessex kings 51–2 The Wife’s Lament 135–6 Wilcox, M. 136, 251–2 William of Malmesbury 178 William of Palerne 166 Winchester 124 The Wonders of the East 106 Wood-elves 126–7, 129 see also Elves wood men, Gawain 239 Woolf, Rosemary 220 World War II 202 Wormtongue 27, 50 Wrenn, C. L. 6, 238 Wright, Joseph: Primer of the Gothic Language 7 Wulf and Eadwacer 135–6 Wulfgar 195, 198–9 Wulfmær 220 wyrd (fate) 136, 144 (notes on l.1), 192 (notes on l.5), 214 (notes on l.5) ympe-tre 124 Yugoslavian folk poetry Zoëga, G. T.

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