Tolkien Work Current and Future and Some Linguistic Archaeology

This week Wotan is taking a break from Nysianer Chronicles (which is taking up many notebooks with root words and proposed declensions and the dreaded chapter two exposition story around the languages more to come in the holiday break)

I wanted to report on some interesting areas of Tolkien Studies Wotan is currently involved with and end with two bonus Tolkienian linguistic explorations that have come out of this work

MYTHGARD INSTITUTE - TOLKIEN AND THE EPIC

I can hardly believe that we are in the final weeks of the Mythgard Institute's very first excellent course Tolkien and the Epic - and what a way to conclude this exploration that has taken us through some of the great works that influenced Tolkien (Beowulf, The Kalevala, The Lay of the Volsungs) and great works by Tolkien himself (Sigurd und Gudrun, The Children of Hurin and The Lay of Leithian).

In addition to excellent lectures by the President of the Mythgard Institute, the Tolkien Professor himself, Corey Olsen (his lectures on The Lay of Leithian were awe inspiring) we have also the incredible good fortune to have guest lectures by some of the pantheon of Tolkienian scholarship including Dr Verlyn Flieger, Tom Shippey (the Gandalf of Tolkien studies) and this week Dr Michael Drout - I consider myself a groupie of all four! It is quite amazing to sit at your computer (our modern day Palantir) and have these important scholars comes as if out of the west to talk about Tolkien and, more importantly, interact with students online with q

uestions and discussions,

And what a way to end this first course than with a three week exploration of Tolkien's masterwork The Lord of the Rings. Dr Drout's talk on The Fellowship of the Ring focused on how Tolkien gets us to care about Middle Earth and how knowledge is distributed in the narrative. This was some of the most original thought I have heard on The Lord of the Rings in a while. I am a massive fan of Dr Drout having heard all his Modern Scholar series and his excellent Anglo-Saxon Aloud podcasts. I have been through his landmark work J. R. R. Tolkien, Beowulf and the Critics twice and am looking forward to his upcoming Tolkien book The Tower and the Ruin and his new book on philology. C.S.Lewis said of Tolkien that he lived inside languages- and I think it can be said of Dr Drout that he lives inside Tolkien - the power of The Mythgard I

nstitute is being able to take a virtual class with an important Tolkien academic like Professor Drout as he sits in his house (having just read a chapter of The Two Towers to his son for bedtime)

The spring the great work of The Mythgard Institute continues with two brilliant courses - Tolkien and Lewis and the Making of Myth and Taking Harry Seriously -Exploring Harry Potter (taught by the excellent Amy Sturgis)

Here is a short film showing some exciting highlights of The Tolkien and Epic Course....

THE GREAT WORK BEGINS

Wotan is also very excited to announce that he has recently been excepted into a Phd Programme through The University of Wales to work with one of the top Tolkien scholars Dr Dimitra Fimi on Tolkien Studies. Dr Fimi is the author of one of the key works on Tolkien - the 2011 Mythopoeic Scholarship Award winning Tolkien, Race and Cultural History: From Fairies to Hobbits.as well as teacher of two of the best online courses I have taken J.R.R Tolkien Myth and Middle Earth in Context and Fantasy Literature Before and After Tolkien

Wotan feels like Frodo at the Council of Elrond starting on this quest! My Phd project which I have started work on is called "I'll have to find out what that means" Employing Literary and Linguistic Archaeology to Unearth the Earliest Strata of Tolkien’s Secondary World - And there will be more to come on this project in the coming weeks, months, and years!

FINDEGIL - An Unsung Gondorian Scribe with Nice Hair

In preparing for our Mythgard Institute The Fellowship of the Ring exploration I re-read the notes on The Shire Records and one character jumped out at me who is very important as without him we would not have the Account of the War of the Ring translated by Professor Tolkien - and that is the Gondorian scribe - FINDEGIL

In the Note on The Shire Records it states that the original Red Book of Westmarch was not preserved. Several copies, with various notes and later additions, were made. The first copy was made by request of King Elessar of Gondor and Arnor, brought to Gondor by Frodo's companion Thain Peregrin I. This copy was known as the Thain's Book and "contained much that was later omitted or lost". In Gondor it underwent much annotation and correction, particularly regarding Elvish languages. Also added was an abbreviated version of The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen by Faramir's grandson Barahir. A copy of a revised and expanded Thain's Book was made probably by request of Peregrin's great-grandson and delivered to the Shire. It was written by the scribe Findegil and stored at the Took residence in Great Smials. This copy was important because it alone contained the whole of Bilbo's Translations from the Elvish (i.e. the great tales of the Silmarillion). It was this version that passed through many hands and came down to Professor Tolkien who translated it.

So without the scribe Findegil we would not have the account of The War of the Ring and perhaps the great tales of the First (and Second?) ages.

So who was Findegil and, more importantly, what does his name mean (key to Tolkien). ]

According to the Encylcopedia of Arda -

" Findegil's main claim to historical notice was due to a note he added to the Thain's Book, marking its completion in the year IV 172. This gives Findegil the distinction of being the last character in any of Tolkien's tales whom we can date with confidence."

So we know he was a scribe who lived in Gondor in the time of the Reunited Kingdom

His name certainly sounds Elvish and specfically Sindarin -

The Roots FIN, FINN, FINDEL all have to do with hair, a single strand or mass PHIN+DELAD hair (as in Glorfindal) GLORFINDEL = GLAUR + PHIN+DELA. DEL thick dense, Q PHINDELE mass of long hair OLD SINDARIN findel later finnel (Parma Eldalamberon 17, p. 17)

But there is also the Quenya gloss FINTA to make, show off or decorate a thing with delicate work (a good root word for a scribe)

GIL of course means star (Gil-Galad) and can also mean glint or spark

Ah but then in The Etymologies we find the root TEK (p. 391) which means to make a mark, write or draw together and the Quenya word TEKIL meaning pen which in Noldorian becomes TEGOL so not to far from DEGIL - so perhaps his name means - He with the fine hair who writes with a pen."

So lets hear if for our fair haired Gondorian scribe Findegil for without his effort we would never have heard of any of these glorious tales!

MUSINGS ON FARAMIR'S NAME

Faramir is one of my favorite characters in The Lord of the Rings and I am enjoying revisiting with him this weekend in preparing the readings for The Two Towers lectures next week by Professor Olsen. I have always thought it interesting that Tolkien gave his own recurring nightmare of the great wave comimg over the land to Faramir.

As to the roots and meaning of his name - there is an easy part and a not so easy part.

The easy part is MIR which according to The Etymologies is the root for jewel, precious thing, treasure from which we get the Quenya MIRE which in Parma Eldalamberon 17 Tolkien quotes for atamir, heirloom as a gloss for the Old English word maðm (a precious treasure, valuable gift) there is also the Quenya word MIRYA for a beautiful work of art. MIRIAMA very precious So it is pretty clear that the MIR ending means jewel of precious thing.

The Fara (or Phara) is s bit trickier. In The Etymologies there is a root PHAR from which we get the Quenya word FARYA meaning suffice, sufficient

So Faramir could be a Quenya/Sindarin mixed name for "a sufficient jewel??"

Boromir's name according to the Etymologies might mean enduring, faithful, loyal -so perhaps his name means faithful or loyal jewel.

It is interesting to posit if Denethor their father gave these names then we are already seeing a bit of the source of favoritism between the two sons - both are jewels but one is loyal and faithful and the other one is only sufficient. Also the irony of Boromir's name based on what happens to him is palpable.

But there is another possible root that comes from Parma Eldalamberon 17 (Words, Phases, and Passages in LOTR) is PHERE which means quick, ready, prompt - so could his name made The Jewel that is ready (to fight) ... Possibly.

That's it for now from Wotan - in the next blog post Wotan will discuss two new books on constructed languages he is currently reading The Dictionary of Made Up Languages and From Elvish to Klingon - Exploring Constructed Languages

Lebe Wohl for now!

Nysianer Chronicles

I have decided to start blogging about my development of some con langs based on the threads of a very old secret vice. This has to do with my work on the old Nysianer Chronicles - these postings will start out being disjointed but will become more organized as I develop them. A treatise on Old Crytoni is also in the works.

Nysianer Chronicles

And Nysianer rejoiced in their finding....after a long journey from an unknown land through many generations of forgotten time they come to a new land - the 50th generation of a race who does not remember its past, culture, and languages, now only distant echoes in a wandering people who have journeyed many generations to a new land,

What is remembered is only snatches of song and legend - strange names and events that due to constant wandering and odyssey have now lost their context. Who were the Crytoni and why was his sword Amaderfig so important. The daily labor of existence, surviving the elements, hunting, finding food, protecting the family took the place of worshiping gods and keeping alive the legends of their cultures. Were they one culture or many that came together? All that mattered was motion forwards and the constant quest for the place to stop and build a new life and culture. If any words survived it was Nus-int! people forward.

Nus - people, culture. Nysian The People (first vowel becomes y in def article + ian) Nom pl Nysianer

Nus - people culture. Nysian - the people (pronounce nee-sea-an)

Nuser - peoples Nysianer - the peoples (nee-sea-an-er)

Nusib - of people Nysibianer - of the people (nee-sib-an-er)

Nusic - to for by Nysicianer - to for by the (catch all case that has been amalgamated on wandering)

Nusiber - of peoples. Nysibianeer - of the peoples

Nusicar - to for by peoples. Nysicianeer - to for by peoples

Kerr - mountain Kyrrian

Kerrer Kyrrianer

Kerrib Kyrribianer

Kerric Kyrricianer

Kerriber Kyrribianeer

Kerricar Kyrricianeer

Y should be pronounced like e in leak

So for cons endings

Nom S indef - root

Nom S def - 1st vowel changes to y + ian

Nom P indef - root + er

Nom P def - 1st vowel to y

Int - imperative of to go

Old Crytoni - echo of a past language should have an archaic feel - perhaps a proto IndoEuropean feel???

Limdyrs ?? People they encounter

What was the language the Nysians spoke on their journey - track back to the language of Old Crytoni and then what happened to it in the 50th generation of journey to the new world,

In 50 generations a language would break down - structure wold become simplified, endings cut off, words simplified, vocab around environment, words spring up around wandering - the older language would remain in writings.

The Book of Nak-Hysian - an ancient book of lore written in Old Crytoni which remains on the journey but is burned and damaged and can only by read by the sect of the Godifet who study the ancient text and try to keep knowledge of the older language in the culture - but is seen as outof date and ignored,

The gap in the Valley - for the last 15 years the Nysian have been journeying through a vast valley with sheers mountain walls on either side with no end

prelim Nysian vocab

Mountain - kerr

Valley - vakerr (va below / kerr)

Leader - dyc

People - nus

food - befus

Fire - usid

Day - usidej

Night - tyusidej (ty - not)

Death tynus

Old - usidint

Young tyusidint

Walk go on - intydoc

To go ejintydoc (edge-int-ee-doc)

To lead - ejdyc

To die ejtynus

To eat ejbefus

To grow old ejusidint

To walk intydoc

Present Tense

Rintydoc - I walk

Reintydoc - you walk

Rointydoc - he she it walks

Raintydoc - we walk

Resintydoc - you pl walk

Ronintydoc - they walk

But in a sentence the rstem indicating present tense comes at the end of the sentence so

The Nus are walking in the valley

Intydoc valkyrricianer Nysian-ron.

Intydoc valkyrricianeer Nysian-ron.

The Leader leads the people

Ejdyc nysian dycian-ro

ROOTS

VA below

TY not, negation

INT towards

From Dragons and Swords to Motor Cars and Gaffers

this week in between re-reading The Volsunga Saga and Tolkien's The Legend of Sigurd und Gudrun for the current Tolkien and Epic Class offered through Mythgard Institute (spring enrollment now open!) -I read something new by Tolkien. Well new for me as I have never read this work before. This work is Tolkien's children's story picture book Mr. Bliss first published in the U.K. in 1983.

This charming story told by Tolkien through word and pictures tell the tale of Mr. Bliss who wears large hats and has as his neighbor a girabbit - a creature like a rabbit with a giraffe's long neck. One day Mr. Bliss decides to trade his bicycle in for a yellow car and he and his companions - including three bears - go on all kinds of misadventures.

According to Humphrey Carpenter, Tolkien's motivation for the story may have come from his own purchase of a motor car in 1932 and his own mishaps with driving (we know how Tolkien felt about mechanical things). In 1936, Tolkien submitted Mr. Bliss as one of the potential s

tories that would follow the success of The Hobbit. While Tolkien's publishers Allen and Unwin thought it was in class with Alice and Wonderland it was decided the rich illustrations would be too expensive to reproduce and the work was rejected (and of course it was through this and several other works being rejected that Tolkien eventually started work on his "new Hobbit" which became The Lord of the Rings).

But what interested me most about this whacky story (and it is that!) was the cameo appearance of a rather familiar character. In Mr. Bliss Tolkien describes Bliss and all his companions driving to the village and standing about in the centre of town he describes:

"Mrs Golightly is standing with a parcel in her arms, and has stopped talking to Mrs Simkins; old Gaffer Gamgee is trying hard to hear....."

Well what do you know the Old Gaffer has shown in up in Mr. Bliss! He of course will appear later as Sam's father in The Lord of the Rings.

Where did he come from? According to a letter Tolkien wrote to his colleague Christopher Bretherton in 1964 ((Letters, p. 347-8) in the 1930's Tolkien used to take the family to Cornwall (Lamorna Cove) and in 1932 the met "a curious old fellow who used to go around swapping gossip and weather wisdom and such like. To amuse my boys I named him Gaffer Gamgee and the name became part of family lore to fix on old chaps of this kind."

Why would Tolkien have used the word Gaffer to describe this old fellow. The word "gaffer" is sometimes used colloquially to refer to an old man, an elderly or rustic. The Online Etymology dictionary suggests is may be a shortening of 'godfather' with "ga" from association with 'grandfather'
The etymological cite is

gaffer

1580s, "elderly rustic," apparently a contraction of godfather (cf. gammer); originally "old man," it was applied from 1841 to foremen and supervisors, which sense carried over 20c. to "electrician in charge of lighting on a film set."

Of course thinking of the Old Gaffer (or Hamfast Gamgee) in The Lord of the Rings he was both an old man (he is seventy-five at the start of The Lord of the Rings and is the chief gardener (or foreman) of the gardens at Bag End.

The Old Gaffer makes his first appearance in the Third Version of Tolkien's draft for The Long Expected Party of his new Hobbit (1937) - his first appearence is

"After all" as Old Gaffer Gamgee of Bagshot Row remarked "these goings on are old affairs and over; this here party is going to happen this very month as is" (Return of the Shadow, p. 30)

So the term "Gaffer" was in existence as a term used by the Tolkien family to describe old men before Tolkien developed this character and when he needed a term for an old foreman what better name to use then the one from Cornwall and the one who made an appearence in the earlier Mr. Bliss (who appears to be hard of hearing!)

Unlike some of Tolkien's other pre Lord of the Ring stories (including Roverandom and of course The Hobbit) there is very little evidence of other elements of his secondary world work peeping through the pages of Mr. Bliss - there is an adventure in Three Bears Wood that reminds one slightly of The Old Forest and there is a character called Fat Dorkins (or just Fattie) who has curly hair and wore no coat because he split the coats when he tried to get into them. Makes me think of Fredegar Bolger one of the Hobbits who set up the house in Crickhollow and stayed behind and in the earlier versions of LOTR played a much larger part in the story (and of course became a hero in his own right when he made the Nazgul flee by ringing the Horn of Buckland. Tolkien's Mr. Bliss is a wonderful zany adventure and just shows how Tolkien could evoke his story telling craft, as well as his talent at drawing and painting, to construct a fun exciting story for his children and for us all. A nice diversion from incest, dragons, magic helms and sleeping Valkyries - which I am now turning back to..... although I can hear the Old Gaffer saying no thankee to dragons!!!

Be Very Qwiet, I am Hunting Tolkienian Woodwoses

This week in The Mythgard Institute's Tolkien and the Epic course, Wotan has been part of an incredible experience of exploring the Finnish national poem The Kalevala, Tolkien's earliest work on his version of the Kullervo story and then Tolkien's transformation of this story into his own secondary world cycle of Turin Turambar. Our guide through this exploration has been the famous Tolkien scholar and one of my favorite writers on Tolkien - Dr Verlyn Flieger - who I am very excited to hear will be taking part in future Mythgard Institute courses - spring enrollment is now open for two excellent courses

Wotan has a long list of ideas to explore from these two weeks of lectures (and for Wotan these resulted in very late night but very well worth it web moots!).

One item that jumped out at me as I was re-reading The Children of Hurin (CoH)was the inclusion of an interesting word seemingly taken from Tolkien's primary word academic work and put into his secondary one. In the The Children of Hurin, when the hapless Turin is staying in Doriath he is taunted by an Elf named Saeros and Turin hurls a drinking vessel at him. Then Saeros says

"How long shall we harbour this woodwose? Who rules here tonight? the King's law is heavy upon those who hurt his liegers in the hall....Outside the hall I can answer you, Woodwose!" (CoH, p.88)

There has been some really good work on the word and meaning of "woodwose" especially in Dr T.A. Shippey's Road to Middle Earth and on a recent excellent blog post by Jason Fisher

What interests Wotan is WHEN this word might have found its way into Tolkien's secondary world and why?

Tolkien's earliest professional encounter with the word probably came with his work in the 1920's on the late 14th century alliterative poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight which he worked with E.V. Gordon on publishing as a Middle English Text for students with notes and glossary while he was teaching at Leeds in 1923-1925 (finally being published by Oxford University Press in 1925).

In the second passus of the poem Sir Gawain travels to find the Green Chapel and encounters several mythical and real beasts including the wildmen of the wood

"Sumwhyle wyth wormez he werrez, and with wolues als,
Sumwhyle wyth wodwos, þat woned in þe knarrez,
Boþe wyth bullez and berez, and borez oþerquyle,
And etaynez, þat hym anelede of þe heȝe felle;

Sometimes he fights with dragons and sometimes with fierce wolves
Sometimes with woodwose that haunted the mountains
Both with bulls and bears and occasionally a boar
And giants chased him through the fells (my translation)

Interestingly the same term is found in another Middle English alliterative romance - The wars of Alexander translated chiefly from the Historia Alexander di Magni de preliis by Leo Archpresbyter in the 10th century.

Wroȝt full of wodwose → · & oþer wild bestis;
And þan him hiȝtild his hede · & had on a Mitre,
Was forgid all of fyne gold · & fret full of perrils,

Although in this case the editor of the text Rev Walter W. Skeat glosses the word as faunus or Silvanus giving it a more classical meaning (which would make sense for a romance about Alexander the Great.

Turning back to the Turin cycle - the actual use of the word "woodwose" is not evident in any of the earlier versions of the Turn story.

Tolkien evolved the germ of the Turin story from his work on the Kalevala's Kullervo story - first developing his own version of the Kullervo tale with original names (and evidence of early Qenya) and then using some of the themes in an original story around the hapless Turin (one of the great legendary cycles of Tolkien's complete legendarium)

The earliest versions of this key scene in Turin's life (it causes him to become an outlaw which sets the whole doom of his life in motion) as found in The Book of Lost Tales (Turambar and The Foaloke) from 1918-1919 and in the alliterative poem The Lay of the Children of Hurin all seem to follow a similar narrative pattern. Tolkien would have worked on the alliterative poem (published in volume three of The History of Middle Earth) while he was teaching at Leeds (1920-1925), at the same time as he was working with Gordon on the Middle English text of Sir Gawain. In these early versions of the Turin story, The offending Elf is not the later Saeros but Orgof - who is described in The Lay as as "of the ancient race that was lost in the lands where the long marches from the quiet waters of Cuivienen were made in mirk of the midworld's gloom" (Lays, p.18) - so is Orgof an Avari? (but I digress). Orgof taunts Turin and Turin retaliates by throwing a large drinking vessel at Orgof who is struck by it and falls to the floor dead.

In the alliterative poem Turin says:

"Thou fool, he said, fill thy mouth therewith and to me no further thus witless prate by wine bemused and he fell backward and heavy his head there hit upon the stone...." (Lays, p.19)

This story pattern continued through Tolkien's prose Sketch of the Mythology (1927) and the 1930's The Quenta (Qenta Noldorinwa). In the Earliest Annals of Beleriand the date of 184 is given for "Turin slays Orgof, kinsman of the Royal House, and flees from Thingol's court. In the Later Annals of Beleriand the same basic story event is given.

We then have the period when Tolkien turned his attention to the great matter of the second and third ages culminating in the great works of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings (in which Elrond refers to Turin as a great elf friend of old).

According to Hammond and Scull's J.R.R. Tolkien Companion and Guide regarding Tolkien and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

"Sir Gawain became a set text on the Oxford and English School in 1947, and every two years from 1946 Tolkien gave a series of lectures about it, usually spread across two or three terms. The number of lectures in the course increased over the years in 1956-7. During this time Tolkien also supervised or examined several B.Litt theses on various Arthurian texts or topics, including two on Sir Gawain.' (Hammond and Scull v.2, p. 924)

In addition to this in 1952-3 Tolkien was chosen to give the WP Ker lecture in Glasgow and on 15 April 1953 he gave this lecture on, you guessed it, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight to 300 attenders (and later published in J.R.R. Tolkien The Monster and the Critics)

Turning back to Turin, the first post LOTR Turin mention we have is in The Gray Annals and here the story of Orgof being killed by Turin with a drinking cup persists (War of the Jewels, p. 81)

But this treatment starts to change in the next major work Tolkien did on the early part of the Turin cycle and the scene with Turin and Orgof/Saeros - this appears in a 12 page typescript which in HOME's War of the Jewels Christopher Tolkien describes as "a 12 page typed manuscript composed ab initio by my father and bearing the title "Here begins the the Tale of the Children of Hurin, Narn i Chin Hurin, which Dirhaval wrote" and what follows is the story that first appeared in Unfinished Tales and then in the later The Children of Hurin. Hammond and Scull indicate this work is from the late 1950's.

There are two interesting developments here. First the introductory note to the Narn now indicates that this work was the tale of a man named Dirhaval (a name possibly meaning Star Watcher -more work to be done here) of the Havens which he wrote during the time of Earendel. Dirhaval is said to come from the House of Hador and dwelt at the havens of Sirion where he gathered together tales from eyewitnesses. Tolkien also states "The lay was all that Dirhaval ever made, but it was prized by the Eldar for Dirhaval used the Grey-Elven tounge in which he had great skill. He used the that mode of Elvish verse which is (long space left in typescript - later to be filled by Minlamad thent) which was of old proper to the Narn, but though this verse mode is not unlike the verse of the English, I have rendered it in prose, judging my skill to be at once scop and walhstod." (War of Jewels, p.312). A note indicates that "walhstod' is Old English for interpreter.

A bit further along, Tolkien also says "I have not added to Dirhavals tale, nor omitted from it anything he told, neither have I changed the order of the history.

The second major change is the narrative of the story of the early Turin story which is now represented as being part of Dirhaval's Narn. Orgof has now become Saeros (possibly in Sindarin this means "bitter rain" - good name for a baddie) and the story arc has now been significantly expanded

• Saeros taunts Turin at the table
• Turin takes up a heavy drinking vessel and throws it at Saeros
• Saeros falls backward with great hurt (but does not die)
  
• Turin draws his sword but Mablung the Hunter restrains him
  
• Saeros spits blood and utters the woodwose lines
  
• Turin leaves the hall - Saeros and Mablung have words
  
• Next morning Saeros waylays Turin and attempts to kill him
• Turin and Saeros fight
  
• Turin throws Saeros to the ground and strips him
  
• He lets Saeros go and chases him through the wood
  
• Mablung and others see this and call it Orc Work
  
• Saeros attempts to leap a great cleft but falls back with a cry and crashes on the rocks below
  
• "Long will Mandos hold him"
  

Therefore in this expanded version of the story Tolkien creates more opportunity for Saeros to have a voice and it was in this development of the narrative that the opportunity arose to have Saeros come up with a pejorative word for Turin and Tolkien's use of the word 'woodwose' not only accomplishes this but also foreshadows the orc like behavoir Turin will adapt by chasing Saeros naked through the wood with his sword (truly the act of a wildman) as well as a later episode of someone leaping over a cliff (his doomed sister Nienor). As Dr Flieger also said in her talk it is due to this action of killing Orgof/Saeros that Turin does become a wildman of the wood by becoming an Outlaw and living with Gaurwaith (The Wolfmen of the Wood).

So perhaps Tolkien's increased primary world focus on Sir Gawain and the Green Knight during the time of developing and expanding the Turin cycle gave him the very word he was looking for to both brandish a nasty term at Turin and foreshadow both his later history and fate.

One last point - in the context of the secondary world - I wonder what the original word in Sindarin Dirhaval used which became rendered as the Anglo-Saxon wodwose. "Wildman of the Woods" in Sindarin would have been something like 'Adan alag en thewair' - so perhaps this is close to what Tolkien as walhstod saw - alas this is lost in the vestiges of real or feigned time.

Tolkien Works Cited

The Book of Lost Tales, Part Two, edited by Christopher Tolkien (New York: Random House, 1983)

The Lays of Beleriand, edited by Christopher Tolkien (New York; Random House, 1984)

The War of the Jewels, edited by Christopher Tolkien (New York: Random House, 2002)

The Monsters and the Critics and Other Essays, edited by Christopher Tolkien (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1983)

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, edited by Christopher Tolkien (London: HarperCollins 1999)

The Children of Hurin edited by Christopher Tolkien (London, HarperCollins, 2007)

' "The Túrin Prose Fragment: An Analysis of a Rúmilian Document". In Vinyar Tengwar 37 (December 1995), (edited by Arden Smith) pp. 15-23

The Story of Kullervo and Essays on “The Kalevala” edited by Verlyn Flieger in Tolkien Studies Volume 7 (2010), p. 211-278

OTHER WORKS CITED

Hammond Wayne G & Scull, Christina The J.R.R. Tolkien Companion and Guide

(2 vols) .London: HarperCollins;

Posted from Andrew Higgins IPAD asthiggins@me.com

Across the Bridge of Tavrobel

Yesterday, taking advantage of both a free Saturday and a very warm day in England, David and I took a train up north to Staffordshire to Shugborough Hall which has been said to have been the inspiration for J.R.R. Tolkien's Book of Lost Tales Elf city of Tavrobel and Gilfannon's House of the One Hundred Chimneys.

This recent "Tolkien Trail" document is a good example of this reputation.

I started this journey rather bleary eyed as I had been up late the night before attending the excellent web moot of The Mythgard Institute's Tolkien and Epic course with Dr Verlyn Flieger doing the closing session on Kalevala and Kullervo (by the way enrollment is now open for Spring Courses). But I set out to see for myself this area and see if this truly was the inspiration for Tolkien's setting for his Book of Lost Tales.

Thanks to the great scholarship of John Garth in Tolkien and the Great
War: The Threshold of Middle Earth (available in print, e-book and a very highly recommended audio book read by the author himself) we know that J.R.R Tolkien enlisted in the army and in 1916, was stationed at Cannock Chase in south Staffordshire. His wife, Edith, whom he married in March of that year took a cottage at the village of Great Haywood, near Stafford, just to be close to him (more on that Cottage later). After returning from the animal horror of The Battle of the Somme with trench fever in November 1916, Tolkien, spent that winter convalescing with Edith in the cottage at Great Haywood.

Of this time, John Garth says "in his absence Edith had traced his movements on the map on her wall. Until now, any knock at the door could have brought a dreaded War Office telegram. His return to Great Haywood was thus an emotionally charged moment, which Tolkien marked with a six stanza ballad, The Grey Bridge of Tavrobel - Garth gives us this elegiac poem of return -

O! Tell me, little damoiselle
why smile you in the gloaming
On the Old Gray Bridge of Tavrobel
As the Gray folk come a-homing

I smile because you come to me
O'er the gray bridge in the gloaming
I have waited, waited wearily
To see you come a-homing

In Tavrobel things go but ill,
And my little garden withers
In Tavrobel beneath the hill
While you're beyond the rivers

Ay long and long I have been away
O'er see and land and river
Dreaming always of the day
Of my returning hither" (Garth, p.207-208)

Where does Tavrobel and this Grey Bridge come from and how is it connected to this area Tolkien was staying in with Edith?

One of the most revealing documents that gives evidence for TAVROBEL is a Heraldic Device that Tolkien sketched as part of his collection of Heraldic Devices of Tol Erethrin which appear in The Lost Tales Notebooks and was published with notes in Early Noldorin Fragments in Parma Eldalamberon 13. According the editors notes -

"The first inscription is labelled Taurobel which Christopher Tolkien identifies as Great Haywood in Staffordshire where Tolkien and Edith lived in 1916-1917." In the lexicon of the Goldogrin language developed during the time of The Book of Lost Tales - the name comes from TAVROS "forest, wooded land" (as in the name of the upcoming (Eru help us) new Elf in the Peter Jackson film The Hobbit Tauriel) and the second element is a mutated form of PEL which means village, home or or hamlet (from the verb PELU from which we later get the battle field of PELANNOR) -so TAUROBEL (or Tavorobel) could mean "wood home"

The description of this heraldic device is as follows: "The device depicts three trees, tall and narrow like Lombardy poplars, above a bridge with three arches through which flow three streams of water with clusters of reeds growing on the banks. Above the trees is the arching motto TRAM and NYBOL apparently the name of the bridge." (Parma 13, p.94)

In the Gnomish lexicon found in Parma Eldalamberon 11 TRAM is confirmed as BRIDGE (TRATH is glossed as a passage or a ford) The second word NYBOL may be related to the Goldogrin word NIB which means SNOWFLAKE (Gnomish Lexicon, p. 61) and NYBOL might mean SNOWY BRIDGE. After trying to find some linguistic reason why a bridge would be refered to with the word snow, my partner David pointed out the obvious to me - and that is if Tolkien were in this area in the winter of 1916 there would have been snow on the bridge. Also could winter not be depicted as "gray" as in the poem above.

In The Book of Lost Tales which Tolkien started around the time of his convalesence and thus would have been working on during his time in Great Haywood, there are several descriptions of a bridge associated with Tavrobel. In the interlude to The Tale of the Sun and the Moon, Eriol the wanderer is told to go "to the ancient house - the house of One Hundred Chimneys that stands nigh the bridge of Tavrobel (Lost Tales 1. p.175). In the last tale, the final battle of Men on the Withered Heath takes place a "league from Tavrobel."In the epilogue to The Golden Book which Eriol (or Eriol's descendants) wrote depicting the Great Tales he has heard from the Elves, there is a recollection of "the people of Tavrobel beneath the Moon, and they would ride or dance across the valley of the two rivers where the grey bridge leaps the joining waters." (Lost Tales 2, p.287-88 -my emphasis added)

Well yesterday in the hot October sun there certainly was no evidence of snow but in Staffordshire there is indeed a bridge that resembles this bridge of Tavrobel - namely The Essex Bridge which was built during the reign of Elizabeth I which crosses the Trent at Great Haywood and connects the village with the Shughborough Estate and has a second tributary of the River Trent - the River Sow flowing under it - and as you can see it is very wooded (need to check on the poplars).

According to Christopher Tolkien, in the epilogue to the final days of The Book of Lost Tales, Tolkien names these two rivers as GRUIR and AFROS (Lost Tales 2, p. 287). So can we see any source to where Tolkien might have constructed these names from? According to Wikipedia, the name "Trent" comes from a Celtic word possibly meaning "strongly flooding". The tributary Sow is said to have been originally Stow which means "place" and could have been from where Stafford got it's name - "Stafford means 'ford' by a 'staithe' (landing place). The original settlement was on dry sand and gravel peninsula that provided a strategic crossing point in the marshy valley of the River Sow, a tributary of the River Trent." In a very short time of searching, one possible etymological lead I have come up with is that GRUI in the Gnomish Lexicon is defined as FEROCITY OR HORROR, MAD WITH WRATH. If a river is "strongly flooding" perhaps it could be seen as being ferocious or mad with wrath (Ulmo or Osse on the war path perhaps)? AFROS even tricker - though in Sindarin ROSS can mean foam (PE: 17:117) and AF or AB can mean "without" so a river without foam - perhaps. More linguistic work to be done here - and any helps or suggestions much appreciated!

From the Bridge of Tavrobel we journeyed to the The Shugborough Estate which is reputed to be the House of Hundred Chimneys where the wanderer Eriol is told to seek "guest kindliness of Gilfannon in whose ancient house - The House of the Hundred Chimneys, which stands nigh the Bridge of Tavrobel."(Lost Tales 1, p.175). According to the materials The Shugborough Estate (which previously belonged to the Lords of Litchfield and has many mysteries - including the mysterious Holy Grail related Shugborough Inscription attached to it) has eighty chimney's on it and therefore was the inspiration for Tolkien's House of Hundred Chimney's (in this picture you can see two of them)

While an absolutely incredible house I was less convinced by this - from what I could see (and perhaps there were many changes made to the house since Tolkien's time there) I could not see that many Chimney's!


I feel more convinced by Wayne G Hammond and Christine Scull's picture in J.R.R. Tolkien Art and Illustrator of the cottage Tolkien stayed in with Edith at Teddesley Hay in Staffordshire called Cottage 1 Gipsy Green being the real source for inspiration for Gilfannon's house (certainly in the sketch by Tolkien the chimney's are more prominent!)

So it was a brilliant day in Staffordshire - and yes, I think I did stand upon the very bridge that inspired Tolkien's Bridge of Tavrobel and viewed a lanscape that was very much in Tolkien's thoughts as he constructed those very first stories of The Book of Lost Tales. As I wandered through this country side I was reminded of an elegiac passage towards the end of The Book of Lost Tales -

"Hark! Oh my brothers, they shall say, the little trumpets blow; we hear a sound of instruments unimagined small. Like strands of wind, like mystic half-transparencies, Gilfannon Lord of Tavrobel rides out tonight amid his folk and hunts the elfin deer, beneath the paling sky. A music of forgotten feet, a gleam of leaves, a sudden bending of the grass, and wistful voices murmuring on the bridge and they are gone. But behold, Tavrobel shall not know its name, and all the land be changed, and even these written words of mine belike will all be lost; and so I lay down the pen and of of the faeries cease to tell." (Lost Tales 2, p. 289)

In several moments of great stillness while standing on that bridge, I think you can hear the murmurings of those forgotten feet!

Tolkien Works Cited

The Book of Lost Tales, Part One, edited by Christopher Tolkien (New York: Random House, 1983)

The Book of Lost Tales, Part Two, edited by Christopher Tolkien (New York; Random House, 1983)

I•Lam na•Ngoldathon: The Grammar and Lexicon of The Gnomish Tongue in Parma Eldalamberon 11 (1995) (edited by Christopher Gilson, Patrick Wynne, Arden R. Smith and Carl F. Hostetter)

Qenyaqetsa: The Qenya Phonology and Lexicon: together with The Poetic and Mythologic Words of Eldarissa in Parma Eldalamberon 12 (1998) (edited by Christopher Gilson, Carl F. Hostetter, Patrick Wynne and Arden R. Smith)

The Alphabet of Rumil and Early Noldorin Fragments in Parma Eldalamberon 13 (2001) (edit by Patrick Wayne, Christopher Gilson, Carl Hostetter, Bill Welden)

Other Works Cited

Garth, J (2003) Tolkien and the Great War: The Threshold of Middle Earth. London: Harper Collins

Hammond, Wayne G. & Scull, Christina. J.R.R. Tolkien: Artist & Illustrator. London: H Collins

Posted from Andrew Higgins IPAD asthiggins@me.com

On A Sunny Saturday and Monday Morning.....

Suliad!! from Wotan. Yesterday I attended The Tolkien Society UK Oxonmoot 2011 at Lady Margret Hall in Oxford. It was a day of meeting fellow Tolkienists and hearing some really exciting papers including

• Bob Blackham - Tolkien and the War Years

• Murray Smith - Two Masters? A Possible Journey from Birmingham to Laketown

• Colin Duriez - What made Tolkien Tick and Why Was He Called Reuel?

• Dr Lynn Whitaker - Corrupting Beauty: Rape Narrative in The Silmarillion

• Andrew Morton - Tolkien, WH Auden and the Age of Anxiety

• Dr Dimitra Fimi - Kipling, Tolkien and their mythology for England - From Puck of Pooks Hill to The Book of Lost Tales

All were brilliant and much to think about - anytime Dr Fimi speaks I am there, upfront and taking notes (and her Tolkien and Fantasy online courses are must takes)

Oxonmoot also had a sales room and I went eagerly with much money in the wallet to go Tolkien shopping!!! And lo and behold I found an edition of a book I have been looking for for some time And that is Inkling Charles William's Arthurian Torso containing the posthumous fragment The Figure of Arthur and commentary on the poems by fellow inkling C.S. Lewis
When Charles Williams died in 1945 he left two works unfinished on his thoughts on the Arthur cycle (interesting that Tolkien also worked on an unfinished Arthurian poem called The Fall of Arthur which except for a brief quote in Humphrey Carpenter's biography of Tolkien, has yet to see the light of day (Tolkien Estate are you listening?!))

After Williams death C.S. Lewis published the unfinished works with his notes and commentary. As I travelled back from Oxford to London last night I read the preface in which Lewis indicates "The first two chapters had been read aloud by the author to Professor Tolkien and myself." Lewis then ends the preface with one of the most illustrative descriptions I have read of a gathering of the Inklings setting the scene for Williams reading this poem to them - Lewis writes


"Picture to yourself, then, an upstairs sitting- room with windows looking north into the 'grove' of Magdalen College on a sunshiny Monday Morning in vacation, at about ten o'clock. The Professor and I, both on the chesterfield, lit our pipes and stretched out our legs. Williams in the arm-chair opposite to us threw his cigarette into the grate, took up a pile of the extremely small, loose sheets on which he habitually wrote - they come, I think, from a two penny pad for memoranda and began as follows....." (Williams, p.2)



Oh to have been a fly on the wall in that room on that bright sunny Monday Morning.......

Williams, Charles (1969) Arthurian Torso, Containing the Posthumous Fragment of The Figure of Arthur with notes and Commentary by C.S.Lewis (Oxford, OUP)

Link to The Charles Williams Society


Posted from Andrew Higgins IPAD asthiggins@me.com

Wotan Has Returned!!!! Autumn Postings Shall Commence

After many nights at the opera and trips to the east and west, Wotan has returned to Valhalla (well if you can call Clapham Valhalla) with a back log of blog postings. First up is a book review Wotan did recently for the Mythprint the Journal of the Mythopoeic Society of a fantastic new book about Tolkien by a man who actually worked with him...so here it is.....




Arne Zettersten. J.R.R. Tolkien's Double Worlds and Creative Process - Language and Life. Palgrave MacMillan 2011. 243pp. £47.00 ISBN 978-0-230-62314-9.

Like many, if not all, of you I am always on the lookout for new books about J.R.R Tolkien. I probably hit the Amazon search button two or three times a week to see what is both out there and on the horizon (you'd think they have a twelve step programme for this!). So it gave me great delight several months ago to see that Professor Arne Zettersten's new book on Tolkien was available for pre-order. At the same time as this rush of excitement I also had that usual tedious inner dialogue with myself regarding rationalising the price for this book (close to £50 in the UK) against other projected expenditure (like rent, food, the dog etc.). As I remember the internal dialogue for this book went on a bit (not as long as the continuing one for purchasing an original copy of The Songs for the Philologists) - but finally my mind rang with "YOU SHALL BUY" and I ordered it.

Arne Zettersten is currently a Swedish professor emeritus. Before retirement, Zettersten was a Professor in English at the University of Copenhagen.
What probably tipped my purchasing decision over the edge was my reading in the notes for the book that Zettersten is one of those fast fading people who actually knew and actively worked with Professor J,R.R. Tolkien. Zettersten gave the keynote lecture at the 2004 Marquette Blackwelder conference on his work with Tolkien in the 1960-70's while Zettersten was working on his doctrinal thesis on the AB language - a term coined by Tolkien himself when he noted that the dialect of a series of works in Early Middle English (the works of the Katherine Group and the Ancrene Wisse (also known as the Ancrene Riwle or the Guide for Anchoresses)
each had a standard language based on one in use in the West Midlands an area of England Tolkien was very interested in linguistically and historically.

What Zettersten includes in this roughly 200 page book is an incredibly focused blending of a personal reminiscence with a biographical sketch that includes the greatest emphasis and discussion I have seen to date on Tolkien's philological development. He also gives an in-depth analysis of Tolkien's professional and academic work and his parallel work on his legendarium, It is from this analysis and personal experience draws one of the key conclusions of the book that I felt is worth the price of purchase - but more on that later.

The very cover of the book sets the tone for this exploration. A hand sketched map Thror's Map from The Hobbit with an inset picture of Tolkien's from the 1960's in his garden.

The book starts with Zettersten's reminiscence of his first meeting with Tolkien in June 1961 with a scene that I am sure every Tolkien lover has fantasised about - the walk up to the front of 76 Sandfield Road, the first glimpse of Tolkien standing by the garage (that garage with all its documents, maps and some yet still to be revealed secrets!) and Tolkien offering him a cup of tea and saying "Mr. Zettersten, do come in." This was the first of Zettersten's meetings with Tolkien which would continue up to Tolkien's death in 1973. As Zettersten points out their shared love of languages, the primary and Tolkien's secondary world and their depth of friendship resulted in Tolkien in the last year of his life asking Zettersten to call him "Ronald" (which Tolkien in a letter to Amy Ronald indicated "was for my next kin only (Letters 309)." In addition in March 1973 Tolkien wrote a letter to Zettersten addressing it as "Dear Arne."

While the biographical sketch (which covers close to ten chapters) does have strong echoes of the key Tolkien biographies we already have (Carpenter, White and John Garth's excellent work on Tolkien and the Great War), Zettersten gives us a much more focused analysis of Tolkien's academic and philological development and especially the key role his mother Mabel Tolkien nee Suffield played in this. According to Zettersten, Mabel Tolkien was a lover of language, calligraphy and drawing - all loves and talents passed on to her son Ronald. Zettersten gives an example of this with a Christmas card Mabel wrote in 1893 on behalf of the then two-year old Ronald to his father in South Africa (a precursor to her sons later Father Christmas letters perhaps?). The card includes a rendering of "baby speech" including "Toekins" for "Tolkien (babies have a hard time saying the letter l).". As Zettersten says "She taught him to read, write, draw and paint. She instructed him in both classical and modern languages. She placed the right books in his hands at a very early age and practised the precise and ornamental handwriting that was characteristic of him.". While is certainly not new knowledge, what I found interesting is the emphasis on Mabel's love and experience with languages herself before passing it on to Ronald. Zettersten brings Mabel Tolkien the person out of the shadows a bit more and emphasises that very early bond between Mabel and her son had - cut had tragically short by Mabel's death in that postman's cottage at Rednal in 1904.

Another new area of insight that comes out of Zettersten's work is through his focus on Tolkien's ability to live in different worlds at the same time (the "double worlds" of the book's title). Zettersten observes that in his meetings with him, Tolkien could suddenly move from the primary and his secondary world without the slightest difficulty or doubt and he did this with same rapidity that one would switch from one language to another Zettersten uses the linguistic term "code switching" to describe this ability. He traces the development of this ability back to Tolkien's early development (for example his use of the Gothic language to construct new Gothic inspired words for his very early languages) up to his research work in the 1920's on the Oxford English Dictionary (for example parts of the re-write of The Fall of Gondolin were written on slips he used for researching the word wariangle "shrike" for the dictionary).

Zettersten's main point here, and this is what I thought was revelatory in the entire book, is the effect Tolkien's remarkable ability to switch between the "real" world and his secondary world had on the quality and depth of his work in both worlds. This "code switching" allowed him to put as much focus and emphasis on the history, language and culture of Middle Earth as he did on Anglo-Saxon and Germanic literature and culture he taught and researched in the primary world. He had the remarkable ability to hold both these worlds in his grasp and be able to discuss, debate and explore each of them almost simultaneously (an early form of multi-tasking?) The primary world complimented and enriched his secondary world. Tolkien's work as an academic and scholar gave him the process and methodology for the development of his secondary world and his work on his secondary world informed his love and passion for the primary world and his "Northern Spirit.". While others may have frowned on Tolkien's waste of time working on his fantasy world, it seems clear from Zettersten that to Tolkien there was no division, they were in the same and each were as important as the other. An area of Tolkien studies that perhaps can do with more focus and investigation?

I always judge the value of a scholarly work on the amount of highlighting I have done in it and I must say at the first pass of this book (and there will be others) I would give it high marks all around, The appendices offer a good summary of the key points from each chapter and Zettersten's gives some interesting insights into the screen versions of The Lord of the Rings (in the preface Zettersten states that Sir Ian McKellen - Gandalf gave him some insights!).

One final item that I thought was interesting In 1972-73 Zettersten was working on a fragment of the Old English Poem Waldere and Zettersten states that Tolkien was interested in Zettersten's aim to be the first person to use ultraviolet light on the manuscript to decipher the illegible parts of the manuscript. One wonders what he would have made of Professor Michael Drout's excellent current work on genomics, DNA and Anglo-Saxon texts.

This book includes some interesting illustrations and pictures of documents including a photo of a handwritten page of a section of the Return of the King time scheme from Lord of the Rings currently in the Marquette University Tolkien Collection. There are also some very interesting and useful charts including a list of the books in Tolkien's private collection when he was a student at Oxford (donated by the Tolkien family to the Bodliean library in 1982).

There is much more to dig into in this book and as an amateur Tolkien academic and philologist (who certainly lives in the primary world while taking long extensive visits to Tolkien's secondary world) I would highly recommend Arne Zettersten's book to lovers, students and aficionado's of Tolkien's works in both primary and secondary worlds. i do hope other reminiscences from Professor Zettersen are on the horizon!!!

NB: after posting this Johan Olin reminded me that Zettersten's book isn't actually that new, it's a translation of the Swedish original that was published in 2008. so really it is the English translation that is new!!!


MYTHGARD INSTITUTE - The Day Has Come!!!

Wotan's other exciting activity this autumn has been taking part in the first course of the new Mythgard Institute entitled Tolkien and the Epic. The Mythgard Institute Has been formed by the
The Tolkien Professor himself, Corey Olsen, who has created an online university for the study of Tolkien amd related subjects using interactive meeting resources (which we have dubbed Webmoot) Professor Olsen has lined up a stellar group of Tolkien academics for this first course on Tolkien and the Epic including Dr. Tom Shippey, Verlyn Flieger and Michael Drout as well as Professor Olsen himself to talk on such works as Beowulf, The Kalevala, Volsungasga and seversl of the key works of Tolkien. More classes are planned for the spring and beyond.

At one of the recent sessions with Tom Shippey, Wotan asked him about Dr. Zettensten's book and if he thought the idea of Tolkien as code switcher from the primary world to secondary world was a useful way to analyze Tolkienian literature and scholarship and he agreed it was.

Looking forward to more regular blogging on Wotan's work in the Mythgard Institute and other Tolkien matters and my new autumn language project learning Old Irish!!!

Lebe Wohl for now!!!!

Posted from Andrew Higgins IPAD asthiggins@me.com

-Turambar and the Foaloke - Etymological Archaeology

In honour of Tolkien Reading Day (which for me has become a Tolkien Reading Weekend), this posting is based on my current re-read I am doing with a group called The Tolk-Lings whose objective is to read the entire 12 volume History of Middle Earth - one chapter a week (anyone can join along!). We are now in the heart of the great epic tales that make up the second book of Lost Tales around Beren, Turin and the Fall of Gondolin.

In the course of this re-read I am paying very close attention to what I am calling "etymological archaeology" that is a structured examination of the very earliest strata of Tolkien's linguistic development of the languages that form the great languages (Quenya, Sindarin, etc) of the legendarium. Along with the re-read I am also casting a foresnic eye on the two accompanying works - The Qenyaqetsa and The Gnomish Lexicon both published through the excellent linguistic journals Parma Eldalamberon by the Elvish Lingustic Fellowship.

This week what struck me in the re-read of Lost Tales 2 -Turambar and the Foaloke - the earliest version of the Turin story that would later become the great epic works of Turin Turambar - was in a passage given by Christopher Tolkien in the notes to the chapter. Christopher writes that in the notes for the original story, he was able to decipher a pencil outline for a very early version of the Turin story that was NOT erased (one of the few cases when Tolkien did not erase the pencil layer!) -

"Tiranne and Vainoni fall in with the evil magician Kuruki who gives them a baneful drink. They forget their names and wander distraught in the woods. Vainoni is lost. She meets Turambar who saves her from Orcs and aids in search for her mother." (History of Middle Earth, Lost Tales 2, p.138)

Christopher calls this unerased pencil version "a layer in the Turin saga older even than the erased text underlying the extant version." We know that Tolkien began work on Turambar and the Foaloke in 1917.

In this pencil passage we have three names that do not survive into the finalized version of Turambar or any of the later works and thus are of interest from an archaeological etymology point of view. In the notes, Christopher makes parallels from the penciled names to the final ones in Turambar and the Foaloke:

Tiranne - Mavwin (Mother of Turin later Morwen)

Vainoni - Nienori (sister of Turin)

Kuruki - possibly the dragon Glorund/Glauring

(Lost Tales 2, p.139)

The sources of two of these names - Vainoni and Kuruki - do appear in another very early work of Tolkien based on his study and love of the Finnish National Epic The Kalevala. Thanks to the excellent work of Tolkien Scholar Verlyn Flieger we now have Tolkien's original story of Kullervo from 1914 and his essay on the Kalevala (found in Tolkien Studies 7). Flieger writes in her introduction how it was Tolkien's very focus on turning one of the stories from the Kalevala (Runos 31-36 Kullervo) into "a short story somewhat on the lines of Morris romances which chunks of poetry in between" (Flieger, p.211). Tolkien considered this work the very germ of the Silmarillion and it later became the basis for the story of Turin Turambar.

Through a combination of encountering the Kalevala (in Kirby's English translation of 1911) and finding a copy of C.N. Elliot's Finnish Grammar Tolkien became absorbed by study of the Finnish language and myth - indeed the very notebook that Tolkien started to use to sketch a Germanic/Gothic based language became the same note book that he sketched the more Finnish based "Qenya" language - one of the two key languages in the early parts of the legendarium (Parma 12, ix-x)

But before working on an original story based on Kullervo (which became Turin)- Tolkien rewrote the legend of Kullervo from the Kalevala - developing his own story with new characters (including a pre-Huan dog companion called Musta (A good Finnish name for a dog Blacky) and inventing new names for the characters. Flieger makes a note that some of these names echo or prefigure Tolkien's earliest efforts at his invented language - Qenya (Flieger, p.213).

So back to those three names from the early penciled version of Turin and the Foaloke

KURUKI

It is in Tolkien's retelling/reconstruction of Kullervo that we first find the name KURUKI (the evil magician). There is a list of names that accompanies the work that includes the names - KURUWANYO, KURU - The great black river of death. The notes for this indicate that Tolkien may have formed this name from the Finnish word for death - KUOLEMA (Flieger, p.244) Interestingly, there is a Finnish play called Kuolema written in 1903 by Arvid Jamefelt which has incidental music by the writers brother in law Jean Sibelius which is about death visiting a home. The word comes into the Qenya Lexicon where we find Tolkien has transformed the root of this word KURU to mean magic or wizardry with the name KURUVAR meaning wizard (PE 11, p.28). It also has associations with sin, wickedness and evil (CURDHU). Later in The Etymologies, this root KUR becomes "craft Q. KURWE craft, N CURW, CURU; CURUNIR wizard; cf Curufin, CF N CRUM, wile guile, CORW cunning, wily (Lost Road, p. 366) Interestingly there is an added entry "N CRUM was rejected; see KURUM" Lost Road, p. 366). KURUM is glossed as "N. CRUM the left hand, CRUM left, CRUMI left-handed Could there be an association one can draw between crafty, cunning and left-handiness - the idea of the left having a slightly sinister side (as in the very Latin word for left SINISTER and those nuns who used to whack left handed writers till they changed to their right hand?). So in its possible Finnish origin and its later early Qenya association we see Tolkien combining the idea of death (which indeed is what the "baneful drink" ultimately does for Turambar and Vainoni) and the idea of wizardry and cunning. Later of course the Istari Curunir (Saruman) is bound up very much with both evil and death.

VAINONI

The early pencilled version of Turin Turambar's sister Nienor/Niniel whose name means "mourning" or "tear maiden" Vainoni is close to the name Tolkien's uses in his original tale of Kullervo - WANONA (once mentioned as WANORA) which is a name of Tolkien's own creation - in the original Kalevala the sister in not named. Another suggestion of "water" might be in the Elvish stem of the name VAI - which is the name of the outer ocean - but that might be a bit of a stretch. In the Gnomish Lexicon, there are several words with the root GWAN meaning beautiful, fair and there is GWANN who is glossed as a Valsi of dancing, joy, spring, life and beauty (PE 11, p.44) - quite an ironic potential source for a character who meets such a tragic end.

TIRANNE

An elusive name that does not appear in any of the early Finnish works. Tiranne is the name for the mother who would later become Mavwin in Turambar and the Foaloke and in later versions Morwen (dark hair and tall - with the MOR the root for dark). This is a tricky one to source. In both the Qenya and Gnomish Lexicons the root TIRI is associated with watching, looking for, looking out for (PE 12, p.71) and one can certainly argue that Tiranne/Mavwin/Morwen spends a lot of her time waiting and watching for her husband, Urin/Hurin, who was captured in battle by Melkor as well as waiting for her son Turin. I have yet to find a link with this in Finnish. Tirana is the capital of Albania and I have yet to find any connections here!

So here we have three examples of names Tolkien constructed based on his very early work with the Kalevala and his love of Finnish - not just translating the Kalevala but using the phonology of Finnish and his "elvish craft" to construct new names - names that later found there way into the early versions of his legendarium. Luckily due to Tolkien not putting the eraser to this very early strata of the Turin story we are able to see some of his earliest thoughts and influences on the development of the legendarium - and I will be keeping a "Gwahir" eye on other ones throughout this study of The History of Middle Earth.

This entire blog post was written while listening to Dunedain Radio on the Middle Earth Network which is brilliant!

Sources Used:

Tolkien, J.R.R. The History of Middle Earth (volume 1) HarperCollins: 2002

Parma Eldalamberon XI - Tolkien J.R.R - The Grammer and Lexicon of the Gnomish Tongue The Tolkien Trust:1995

Parma Eldalamberon XII - Tolkien, J.R.R - Quenyaqetsa - The Qenya Phonology and Lexicon - The Tolkien Trust: 1998

The Story of Kullervo and Essays on the Kalevala by J.R.R. Tolkien (edited by Verlyn Flieger) in Tolkien Studies Volume 7, West Virgina University: 2010