A Philological Journey Down Lake Windermere

Lake Windermere - England's Largest Lake - What Secrets Does It Hold?

David and I just returned from a very restful week holiday up in the Lake District on the southern shores of Lake Windermere.   Lake Windermere is the largest natural lake in England in the county of Cumbria within The Lake District National Park.  On the days when the weather was fairly decent we boarded a boat and went down the lake passing by where Arthur Ransome's adventures of the Walker children in Swallows and Amazons took place (and according to the tour guide on the boat a new version of the adventure is to be filmed there this summer). 

But as we sailed down this majestic lake I could not but help thinking about the name 'Windermere' and what it means.  Perhaps this is one of the very beneficial (among many) effects that intense study of the works of J.R.R. Tolkien has done for me.  For Tolkien a story started with a name ('To me a name comes first and a story follows.' - Letters, p. 219) His imaginative language work has heightened my awareness of names and the inherent stories each proper name carries within it - a potential micro-narrative waiting for its story to be unearthed.  So on my first night back at the hotel I started thinking about what Windermere meant and to do some linguistic sleuthing Tolkien style - and along the way encountered several interesting connections to Tolkien himself! 

I found two key sources online to start my search.  First is a book  Walter John Sedgefield's 'The Place Names of Cumberland and Westmorland' from 1915 which is available on line.  In this work Sedgefield states -

The first element according to Wyld L. Pl. s. p. 266 appears to be a pers N. with the Old Norse genitive ending with -ar Wyld notes that though O.N. *Vigandr does not seem to be recorded, in exact OE Equivalent Wignoth occurs several times (Searle).  The second element is O.E. mere 'lake' 'pool' 'sheet of water'

H.C. Kennedy Wyld's Universal Dictionary of the English Language

The first reference Sedgefield is making is to the 1911 'The Place-Names of Lancashire' by Henry Cecil Kennedy Wyld (1870-1945).   From 1904 to 1920, Wyld was Baines Professor of English Language and Philology, Liverpool University. From 1920 to his death in 1945 he was Professor of English Language and Literature at Oxford and seems to have been one of J.R.R. Tolkien's great allies in the bringing together of the literature and language curriculum at Oxford. According to Hammond and Scull's Chronology - Tolkien knew Wyld and on 20 May 1929 (while at Pembroke College)  Wyld, Tolkien and C.T. Onions signed a letter to the Secretary of Facilities asking the University to appoint a lecturer in 'English Language' (Chronology, p.149).  Tolkien also mentions him in a letter to Christopher when he learns that Wyld has died 'god rest his soul' and he needs to work on finding a replacement for him as Professor of English Language and Literature at Oxford (Letters, p.108).   

The second reference is to W.G. Searle (1830-1913) who was a Professor at Queen's College.  The listing is in Onomasticon Anglo-Saxonicum: A List of Anglo-Saxon Proper Names from the Time of Beda to that of King John (Cambridge, 1897). 

These earlier works are referenced by the Swedish philologist Eilert Ekwall (1877-1964) who wrote many books on the history of language but is probably best known for his work on English Place names and personal names.  Tolkien definitely read and was inspired by Ekwall's works on place names (a topic that I am currently in the process of researching). When Tolkien was a Reader at Leeds University he reviewed several of Ekwall's key works in the journals - The Years Work in English Studies 1923-1925. 

In his 1922 'The Place Names of Lancashire' Ekwall gives a 2 page focus to the name Windermere and brings in the earlier works noted above.  This, so far, is the fullest philological treatment I can find on the meaning of the name 'Windermere.'

Ekwall first suggests that the name Windermere must be identical with that of the name of a place near Great Asby in Wilmington called Winderwath [near Penrith in Cumbria]. 

But Ekwall quickly dismisses this idea due to the fact that both place names are far apart and must have been named independently of each other.  'This shows' says Ekwall 'that Windermere can not have as its first element an old name of the lake as might be supposed

Then Ekwall suggests that Winder is a personal name as has been supported by Wyld and others (as above).  Ekwall supports this theory by saying that it is all the more probable as personal names are the first element of the names Thurston Water and Ullswater in Cumbria.  

The Germanic God Ullr

The two examples Ekwall gives are interesting because both of them are examples of the English countryside having imprinted on them the names of past lost gods of England. One of the best studies of this is Brian Branston's The Lost Gods of England (Thames and London, 1957) which shows how they key Germanic gods worshiped by pre-Christain Anglo-Saxon inhabitants of England can be found in the name of English places.  

After Lake Windermere, Ullswater is the second largest lake in The Lake District.  The first part of its name, according to website for the Lake, may come from the  Germanic God Ullr as their is also evidence of the remains of a viking settlement nearby cammed Hodgson Hill.  Ullr is very interesting - he seems to have been a great Germanic god who diminished and was replaced by Thor (becoming Thor's step-son in some of the Edda accounts).  His name may be connected to the concept of glory.  If indeed this is the meaning of Ullswater as the second lake it must go way back to the first arrival of the Anglo-Saxons from the North where the legend of Ullr may still have been dominant. 

Thurston's Water is the third largest lake and is better known now as Coniston Water - the name 'Thurston' is derived from the Norse god Thor. (Thunor)  As Branston indicates Thor (or Thunor) - along with Woden, Tiw and Frig - was one of the main gods that Anglo-Saxon used to name places in England with (Thanet, Thundridge, Thunderfield)

But then Ekwall takes exception with Sedgefield and suggests another linguistic route - the  name Vinandus which he suggests is a name from the Low German or Old Swedish.  Ekwall suggests that this name may stem from the Old Norse vondr 'staff'. The vondr connection is interesting given a page found at the back of Cleasby/Vigfusson's Old Norse dictionary called 'A List of British Rivers'

which list the roots for a series of rivers in Scotland and North England which are also found (and possibly have their origins) in Edda literature. 

About a hundred in number, contained in old Icelandic alliterative memorial verses (inscribed á-heiti, i. e. names of rivers) from MSS. of the Snorra-Edda (ii. 479, 480, of the 13th century; the verses themselves may well be of the 12th century). Most of these rivers seem to belong to the northern Scottish counties, Caithness, Ross, Moray, Sutherland, and to the north-east of England.

Included in this list is - 'Vind (Vönd, Gm.)' 

The ON word 'Vönd' is found as the name of a river in the Poetic Edda in The Grimnismal (The Says of Grimnir) which describes a series of rivers that issue from Hvergelmir - the bubbling boiling spring or well in Nifelheim from which all cold rivers sprang.  

28. Vino is one, | Vegsvin another,
And Thjothnuma a third;
Nyt and Not, | Non and Hron,
Slith and Hrith, | Sylg and Ylg,
Vith and Von, | Vond and Strond,
Gjol and Leipt, | that go among men,
And hence they fall to Hel.

According to a commentary on this passage in Grimnismal there is a suggestion 'that the name is most likely a nominalization of the feminine singular of the ON adjective vandr 'difficult.' Cf., for example, the Norwegian river Meina  probably derived from the ON verb meina 'to harm, hinder.' Another possibility is that it is related to ON vöndr m. 'wand, switch.' Cf., for example, the river names with the stem gand  the district name Gand and the lake called Gjende (Indrebe, 1924, p. 71), all related perhaps to Norwegian dialect gand m. 'thin stick,' as well as the river names with the stem stav-to ON stafr 'stick, stave' and probably referring to rivers which flow in a straight course for a considerable stretch. A similar meaning may be possible here  And certainly have gone down Lake Windermere several times in the last week I can assure you it follows a fairly straight course for ten miles

This commentary comes from a very interesting site that has many of the early versions of the Eddas and other materials from Norse mythology - quite a treasure trove. 

And this idea also suggests another link to Tolkien - if vondr is related to gandr in terms of  a wand or switch this possibly means that the WINDER- is related to the same world that forms the name of our good friend the Istari Gandalf - coming from the Old Norse (and right from the Dvergatal list in the Eddas -  Gand-alfr - wand or magic staff elf.  But there is more work to be done here as according to Cleasby/Vigfusson the exact meaning of Gandr and Vondr is quite vexed (ah a linguistic crux for further exploration!).  Towards this research there is an interesting passage in a book by John McKinnell Meeting the Other in Norse Myth and Legend

in which he explores the concepts of gandr and possible linguistic connection to vond (although I am still not entirely convinced by the linguistic movement from ge-vond/gand - more work to be done here). 

 Ekwall concludes his study of Windermere by stating that the Winander- part represents the genitive singular of an Old Scandinavian name Vinundr the genitive form Vinandar.  The Mere of Vinandar

So if Vin = vond could in some sense mean either stick (describing the straightness of the lake) or magic there is also a suggestion that the second element UNDR also has a fantastical sense.  Undr is the Norse world for 'wonder' and forms the verb 'undra' to wonder at, be amazed - an 'undra-sjonir' was a wonder to see a spectacle.  http://lexicon.ff.cuni.cz/html/oi_cleasbyvigfusson/b0654.html

So clearly there is a sense that this lake the largest in the area would have been significant to the inhabitants of the area.  I find it interesting that the other two largest lakes, as we have seen above, are both names that have within them echoes of the Lost Gods of England (Ullr and Thor) and it seems odd that Windermere would not as well.  Perhaps the Undra part of the name is pointing to some element  of wonder or amazement that may have its origins in a lost god of the area.  

As I was doing this preliminary investigation into the meaning of Lake Windermere and the mysteries that the understanding of the name might disclose - I thought about what it must have been like on 24 September 1914 when the young J.R.R. Tolkien while staying at his Aunt Jane Neave's farm in Phoenix Farm in Gedling near Nottingham discovered the name Earendel and from his linguistic exploration - his 'finding out' what the name and the story behind it was - gave birth to an entire new mythology. 

As a great teacher (master in the Latin magister sense) who I very much respect and admire recently said to me 'Words can lead you into uncharted territory - both literally and figuratively Sleuth on!'  

A crux for exploration begins - all from England's largest river! 

Richard Wagner and J.R.R Tolkien The Forgers of their Rings

i have just finished an excellent online Tolkien course through the University of Wales in Cardiff: (Tolkien Myth and Middle Earth in Context) by Dr Dimitra Fimi -author of a key work of Tolkien Scholarship Tolkien, Race and Cultural History . I highly recommend this course to anyone interested in an in-depth exploration of Tolkien and his legendarium.

For this course I wrote a paper focusing on Richard Wagner (another one of my passions) as a sub-creator like Tolkien and tried to find some "common ground" between these two incredible artists of the 19th and 20th century. This is an attempt to move the dialogue beyond the oft-quoted remark by Tolkien (made in a fit of anger!) "both rings are round and that's where the comparison ends" (Letters, 237).

The original paper was over 6,000 words long (double the requirement!) and several sections had to be omitted from the final paper. I would like to get the final paper in shape for potential publication. I will be posting to this blog some excerpts from the paper focusing on several thematic areas of shared common ground. I welcome any thoughts and comments. I will also be adding to the paper as I discover new material. For example, the recent excellent book Middle Earth Minstrel had some new intriguing material on Wagner and Tolkien

We will start at looking at the very specific item at the centre of both legendarium's - THE RING itself










"solang er lebt,
sterb' er lechzend dahin,
des Ringes Herr
als des Ringes Knecht!"

















"Ash nazg durbatuluk,
Ash nazg gimbatul,
Ash nazg thrakatuluk agh burzum-ishi kimpatul"









"A specific shared item of evidence for common ground is found in the actual item of Wagner and Tolkien’s ring. In his prose sketch The Nibelungen Myth, Wagner outlines the earliest origin for his ring:

“Alberich stole the clear and noble Rhine Gold, carried it away from the depths of the waters and forged from it with great cunning and art a ring that gave him the highest power over the whole race, the Nibelungs: so he became their lord, forced them from that moment to work for him and collected the immeasurable hoard of the Nibelungs. “ (Edward Haymes, 2010, p. 44)

The ring as sketched here is an item that gives the owner power and dominion. Based on the primary Norse sources Wagner would have known, there are several stories about magic rings. There are two major magic rings mentioned in the Eddas: Odin's ring Draupnir and the dwarf Andvari's ring Andvarnaut. Regarding the later, in Volsunga Saga, Andvari is forced to ransom his ring to the god Loki and he sets a curse on it.” (Finch, 1965, p. 67) From these and perhaps other sources, Wagner forged his own ruling ring – a ring that grants world domination, unlimited power, wealth and is also cursed.

As T.A. Shippey states “none of the ancient sources give the Ring the central place that Wagner does....It was Wagner who, in very Tolkienian fashion, noted the gaps of the ancient tradition and wrote his version of the story determinedly into them.” (Shippey, 2006, p. 106)

Turning to Tolkien, how did he forge his Ruling Ring? It is important to remember that the role of the ring in Tolkien went through many changes from the time it was first found in the dark by Bilbo in The Hobbit to its later manifestation as the Ruling Ring- “For Bilbo's Ring is not the same as Frodo's in its nature nor its powers...Bilbo and Gollum's Ring is a simple ring of invisibility with rather limited power.” (Rateliff, 2007, pp. 174-5). Indeed, Tolkien’s early concept of the ring is much more like Wagner’s tarnhelm - the magical instrument (either a helmet or chain mail) which has the power, among several, to make you invisible. The other main characteristics of Wagner’s ring – greed, dominion and a curse are not evident in Bilbo’s ring. However, as Tolkien started to work on the much demanded sequel for The Hobbit, he did explore the idea of incorporating the slightly nefarious concepts of greed into the potential plot line for his new Hobbit. In the first sketches of the opening chapter, The Long Expected Party, Bilbo is to leave the Shire to look for more dragon-gold having spent his share of the treasure he received from his activities in The Hobbit. (Shadow, pp. 19-34) In a fourth version sketch Bilbo says, “Now I have spent all my money which once seemed to me too much and my own has gone after it. And I don't like being without…in fact I am bring lured.” (Shadow, p. 41) Later in the same sketch, he asks Elrond what he can do to heal his “money wish and unsettlement. “ (Shadow, p. 41) As Tolkien developed this idea he wrote “The Ring: whence its origin. Necromancer? Not very dangerous when used for good purpose. But it exacts a penalty. You must lose either it our yourself .” (Shadow, p. 42) Tolkien eventually connects these earlier ideas of greed and lust and the curse with the nefarious attributes of the Ruling Ring.

Thus, in the development of the ring it changes from a useful ring of invisibility (more akin to Wagner's Tarnhelm) to the One Ring (more akin to Wagner’s Ring of the Nibelung). Now certainly Tolkien could have arrived at this through synthesis of the same type of sources that Wagner found in Old Norse works. Shippey states that if Tolkien did take anything from Wagner it was perhaps no more than the idea that something could be done with the idea of the Ring of Power, something more laden with significance, than anything in an ancient source but at the same time and very definitely not what Wagner had done with it.” (Shippey, 2006, p. 113). However, Michael Scott Rohan in his paper Was Tolkien the Real Ring Thief states that there is nowhere else Tolkien can have come by it; no dark passages in which his hand rested on an enigmatic Ring. (Rohan, 2005, p. 151 ). In his piece The Ring and the Rings, Alex Ross goes even further stating that it is clear that Tolkien used Wagner to develop his ring and accuses Tolkien of being a closet Wagnerian and brandishing his walking stick as Nothung Siegfried's reforged sword! (Ross, 2003).

One item which Ross focuses on in his analysis are the similarities in the actual curses put on the ring by Alberich and Sauron (both included above) In the final libretto for Das Rhinegold, Alberich curses the ring “Forfeit to death, faint with fear shall he be fettered; the length of his life he shall long to die, the lord of the Ring as the slave to the Ring.” (Wagner, 1876). Which is interesting to compare to Sauron's curse “One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to Bring them all, and in the darkness bind them.” (FR, p. 49) Clearly, each ring carries a curse that is bound up with themes of slavery and dominion over all who dare to bear it. “Wagner's fundamental message is, in short, a warning against the curse of covetousness and hunger for power.” (Bjornsson, 2003, p.276)

The same could certainly be said of Tolkien's One Ring as well."

So that's the first instalment - Next time we will look at some evidence of shared ground in character and fates of Wagner and Tolkien's final Ring bearers.

Happy YuleFest to all!!!



REFERENCES

Works Cited by J.R.R. Tolkien

The History of the Hobbit: Part One Mr. Baggins, edited by John D. Rateliff. (London: HarperCollins, 2007)
The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, edited by Humphrey Carpenter with the assistance of Christopher Tolkien. (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1981)
The Return of the Shadow: The History of The Lord of the Rings, Part One, edited by Christopher Tolkien. (London: Harper Collins, 2002)

Other Works Cited

Bjornsson A (2003) Wagner and the Volsungs: Icelandic Sources of Der Ring des Nibelungen. London: Viking Society for Northern Research
Finch, R.G (1965) The Saga of the Volsungs. London: Thomas Nelson
Hammond, Wayne G. & Scull, Christina (2008), J. R. R. Tolkien Companion and Guide vol. 2 Companion London: HarperCollins
Haymes, E (2010) Wagner's Ring in 1848: New Translations of The Nibelung Myth and Siegfried's Death. New York: Camden House
Rohan, M (2005) 'What Story I Wonder?” said Gandalf....” Was Tolkien the real Ring-Thief', in Sarah Wells (ed.) The Ring Goes Ever On Proceedings of theTolkien 2005 Conference vol. 2, Tolkien Society, Coventry England, pp. 147-155
Ross, A. (2003) The Ring and the Rings. Available at http://www.therestisnoise.com/2004/04/wagner_tolkien_1.html (Accessed on
4th December 2010)
Shippey, T (2003) The Road to Middle Earth. London: HarperCollins
Shippey, T (2006) Roots and Branches: Selected Papers on Tolkien. Walking Tree Press
Wagner, R (1898) 'A Communication to My Friends (Eine Mittheilung an meine Freunde)', in The Art-Work of the Future: Richard Wagner's Prose Works Vol 1, Translated by William Ashton Ellis. London: The Wagner Library, pp, 230-344.
Wagner, R (1876) Der Ring des Nibelungen. Librettos available at http://www.rwagner.net/libretti/rheingold/e-t-rhein.html (Accessed on 5th December 2010)


Posted from Andrew Higgins IPAD asthiggins@me.com

I've discovered the works of Edward Plunkett The 18th Baron of Dunsany

He's been on my reading list for some time and now thanks to the holiday break I have been exploring some of the great works of fantasy of Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany (24 July 1878 – 25 October 1957) known as Lord Dunsany

Over the weekend I read his early works The Gods of Pegāna and
Time and the Gods which is an epic tale of a pantheon of great and lesser gods in the world of Pegana. There are certainly some evidence of Tolkien's Valar peering out. There is an interesting God of Mirth and Melodious Minstrel called Limpang-Tang which reminds me of Tolkien's Tinfang Warble from the Book of Lost Tales. Behind the Pantheon of Gods there is the mysterious figure of Mana-Yood-Sushai who sleeps while the lesser gods play and again has some interestng parallels to Tolkien's Iluvatar.

Lord Dunsany also wrote some really witty tales which combine primary and secondary worlds. In his short story Miss Cubbidge and the Dragon of Romance a rather prim Victorian lady is whisked away to another world on the back of a
Dragon. In The Coronation of Mr. Thomas Shap a rather ordinary man sub creates a world and then actually starts to live in it an become the king of the world. In "The Wonderful Window" a piece of glass becomes a magical window into another world.








Dunsany was a bit older than Tolkien and came from very aristocratic background. Both Tolkien and Dunsany fought in World War One.

I have heard that his best book is The King of Elfland's Daughter and look forward to reading this one and then will do some more postings on this very interesting sub-creator of secondary worlds,


There is also a book about Lord Dunsany on Google books


Posted from Andrew Higgins IPAD asthiggins@me.com

A Visit to Kortirion

Happy New Year to all. With what is happening in the Middle East (again) not a great way to start the New Year and the ravens (Huginn and Muninn) are fluttering around Wotan and saying this will not be an easy year all around!!

So the best remedy to troubling times?? Reading and study!! And I have set up a list of projects which I will track on this blog to keep me up on all the current languages I know - solidify my proficency in Portugese and start a new one for me, Russian (and a new script!).

During the holidays my partner and I took a short day trip to Warwick - a town steeped in Tolkien inspiration. There is a great article about this on the Tolkien Society website by Lynn Forest-Hill which I will quote sections of here. Warwick Castle is now privately owned by an entertainment group and it does smack of going to a historical DisneyLand - but the tours are done very well and you do get a sense of what Tolkien was thinking when he looked upon the hill (which is reported to have had a hall on the top of it prior to the Norman invasions that looked like Meduseld....as Lynn Forest-Hill writes....

"(Tolkien's)foremost biographer, Humphrey Carpenter, has written that Tolkien 'found Warwick, its trees, its hill, and its castle, to be a place of remarkable beauty' and yet little notice has so far been taken of the way all those elements of Warwick that were so attractive to Tolkien can be seen echoing in his works throughout his life."

"During the late sixties his residency in the town was celebrated.
Anglo-Saxon Warwick, on its rocky outcrop, commanded a crossing on the river Avon. It was fortified in 914 during the Anglo-Saxon offensive against Mercian Viking settlement, becoming one of the Anglo-Saxon burhs or fortified towns of the kingdom of Mercia. (By the time Doomsday Book was written it was a royal borough). Tolkien himself acknowledged that his kingdom of Rohan was Anglo-Saxon England, specifically Mercia. He gave the horsemen of Rohan not just Old English as their language, but the dialect of Anglo-Saxon known as Old Mercian, which would have been used in pre-Conquest Warwick and the surrounding shire. Tolkien did not want his Rohirrim to speak standard West Saxon although, or perhaps because, that was the dominant language of language and literature before the Conquest. Tolkien's best known contribution to Anglo-Saxon studies was his analysis of Beowulf, and this poem is widely thought to have been composed for Offa King of Mercia, although the language of the manuscript is primarily West Saxon. Tolkien's attitude to the elitism implicit in the status accorded to West Saxon can be deduced from one of his early letters in which he wrote: 'I think I shall have to refuse to speak anything but Old Mercian.'
The physical aspect of Anglo-Saxon Warwick suggests the pattern of Edoras, the chief settlement in Tolkien's Rohan. Early Warwick would have been fortified with a stout wooden palisade. Its halls, including that of its lord Earl Thurkill, as well as all the smaller dwellings and buildings would have been primarily constructed of wood. Like the hall of the kings of Rohan, Earl Thurkill's great wooden hall could have looked out from its elevated position on the hill on which modern Warwick now stands, over the rolling green countryside of Warwickshire; but that Warwick was swept away in the years following the Norman invasion of 1066 and a new town developed with a feudal lord, a steward of the newly defined 'county'. The Anglo-Saxon stronghold became a Norman castle, looming over the countryside, as much a threat and declaration of power as a protection to the local people. Norman castles were intended to quell an unruly conquered populace. In the aftermath of 1066, stone replaced wood as the means of differentiating the rulers from the ruled. Tolkien once corrected an impression that he deplored war by saying that it was not only modern warfare that he had in mind, but the cultural catastrophe of the Norman Conquest. We know, however, that Tolkien admired the stone-built castle on its rock rising above the river which became a model for Middle-earth locations such as Minas Tirith, Amon Hen and Amon Sul, as well as Edoras - all fortified places set on imposing rocks, hills or mountains. Nor would he have ignored the beauty of the Beauchamp chapel or its association with Richard Beauchamp earl of Warwick, one of the great knights-errant of the Middle Ages. Sir Richard epitomised in life the values of knighthood set down in the manuscripts of medieval romances upon which Tolkien drew for inspiration. The other medieval buildings that survived the 1694 fire that devastated Warwick would have added to the sense of stepping back in time. Also from the medieval period Warwick's medieval hospital or Maison Dieu has its reflection in the Houses of Healing in Minas Tirith to which Merry Brandybuck, Eowyn, the Lady of Rohan, and Faramir, second son of the steward of Gondor are taken after their separate encounters with the deadly Lord of the Nazgûl. Tolkien uses the two historical aspects of Warwick, the Anglo-Saxon and the post-Norman medieval as sources for two of the most clearly defined kingdoms of Middle-earth - Rohan and Gondor. They are neighbours and allies in the book, but their social, cultural, and political situations are clearly differentiated, and that differentiation can be illuminated through the history of Warwick. In The Lord of the Rings Tolkien maps geographically what was in reality a temporal change. He contrasts the society and culture of Rohan with the culture and society of Gondor, and as Rohan is Anglo-Saxon, Gondor is influenced by Norman and French culture and history. Here Tolkien changes the scale. Where Meduseld, the hall of the kings of Rohan sits on a hill, Minas Tirith's rocky location is a shoulder of Mindolluin, in the White Mountains, where the Steward of Gondor sits isolated in his massive citadel above the city. However, while Theoden of Rohan regains his nobility in old age, Denethor the Steward echoes the Carolingian usurpation of the Frankish Merovingians in his arrogant refusal to bow to the 'last of a ragged house long bereft of lordship and dignity'. Although the scale changes in a reflection of the historical shift, the configuration of Minas Tirith like that of Edoras reiterates the geography of Warwick.

Warwick's associations in Tolkien's life are of two principle kinds, and these are interwoven in the medieval English romances which were the focus of much of his academic work. His marriage to Edith Bratt in the church of St Mary Immaculate on Wednesday, March 22nd was the culmination of a period in Tolkien's life that bore striking similarities to some of those same romances. These romances were popular stories of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, composed as poems in different dialects of Middle English, probably for oral performance by travelling storytellers and minstrels, and they formed an important part of the inspiration for his later epic The Lord of the Rings.

One of the funniest moments of our trip was when David and I went to St. Mary Immaculate and as we were entering I said to the lady at the desk - is this the church where Tolkien married Edith Bratt - she looked at me and went "who?" - ashame - this knowledge could increase their offerings and profits at their book store!!!

Lynn Forest Hill continues

"Three versions of this poem (Kortiron among the Trees) were published by Christopher Tolkien in the first Book of Lost Tales (1983), for Tolkien worked on it intermittently for around fifty years - a testimony to the importance he placed on the ideas expressed in the poem and inspired by Warwick, to which he dedicated it. There are marked differences between the versions in the vocabulary which expresses the poem's most significant features, but some concepts remain unchanged, or only slightly modified. Two extracts must serve as examples.

The first version begins:

O fading town upon a little hill,Old memory is waning in thine ancient gates,The robe gone grey, thine old heart almost still;The castle only, frowning, ever waitsAnd ponders how among the towering elmsThe Gliding Water leaves these inland realmsAnd slips between long meadows to the western sea
....
And slowly thither have a many gone

Since first the fairies built Kortirion.

And from the third version:

O ancient city on a leaguered hill!

Old shadows linger in your broken gate,Your stones are grey, your old halls now are still,Your towers silent in the mist awaitTheir crumbling end.
....
The River Gliding leaves these inland realmsAnd slips between long meadows to the Sea,
....
The Fair, the first-born in an elder day,Immortal Elves, who singing in their way
....
Pass like a wind among the rustling trees.

The earliest version of the poem is full of the freshness and vigour of its youthful creator, even if its ideas are expressed with a certain rawness. The rhythm and metre are suitably measured to convey the stateliness of the subject. The second version is even more measured, while the third shows the mature creativity that is found in Tolkien's major prose works as well as in the poem. In this late version the archaisms that belonged to a pre-war deference to the authority of the past are rejected as 'thy' and 'thine' become simply 'your'. The anthropomorphism is gone - the grey robe, old heart, and frowning castle are exchanged for grey stones, old halls and silent towers, and the greater simplicity has greater power. Unchanged are the melancholy and nostalgia, the sense of diminishment or 'fading', particularly of the elves, and their association with trees and hills. The imagery of water - the flow of the river and the importance of the sea - signalled by its capitalisation in the later versions, these are all themes Tolkien refers to again and again in his later work. In The Lord of the Rings, the elves are leaving Middle-earth, and so it is losing the beauty and wisdom associated with them. The sea is often a presence sensed or feared, and in both this book and in The Silmarillion it is connected with loss, separation and exile. The story of the elves in all Tolkien's works is the story of their passing and re-passing over the great western or Sundering Sea.

Kortirion as a concept went through many changes. Originally the city on the Isle of Tol Eressea, it was a refuge for Elves returning into the West from which they originated but were not permitted to enter. By the time Tolkien wrote The Silmarillion, the city had become Tirion and it too was built on a green hill and was the home of elves in the far west from which the most destructive of them emerged. The creation of Kortirion in the poem was thus an early step towards the ethical cosmology and epic mythology which underpins Tolkien's vision of Middle-earth as it is alluded to in The Lord of the Rings and described in The Silmarillion."

The full article is worth a read

It was a great day out with lots of pictures which are being shown on the slide show widget I have put on this blog.

Here's to an exciting 2009!!

Selections quoted from: Kortirion among the Trees: the Influence of Warwick on JRR Tolkien's vision of Middle-earth by Lynn Forest-Hill

Turin amd the Dragon - Lines 35-40

This will probably be the last post for a week as I will be taking the first part of my holiday to North Wales (The Grey Havens) probably with the History of the Hobbit vol 2 to read on the beach (or the floods based on what is currently happening in the UK).

An Turgon minol idh na ruith'oeol
ristant bad dane na chathel gael din
o ndakro
Elo sadh din lim tri hoth en-Udun
be thar ai dhanna pan dofn bo nand
vi ngardh bada hathel ann I aran hen gwaith aronoded
tunc dri lhedin mor ah emyn dofn
ed ist in guid dhin u-deli ned varn hae

For Turgon towering in terrible anger clove a pathway for himself with his pale sweet blade out of the slaughter Yes his swath was plain through the hosts of hell - like hay that lies all low on the lea where the long scythe goes. A countless company that king did lead through the darkened dales and drear mountains out of the ken of his foes and he comes no more into this tale.

Dw'i mynd wrth Nghymraeg!!!

Lord of the Rings the Musical - The Critics Speak!!

After several weeks of previews and one or two hobbit and related accidents middle earth officially came to the west end last night and the reviews are somewhat mixed: http://news.google.com/news?um=1&tab=wn&hl=en-GB&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&rls=GCDR%2CGCDR%3A2007-16%2CGCDR%3Aen-GB&q=Lord%20of%20the%20Rings%20Musical

As a tolkien purist I have a lot of problems with this version (see earlier blog review) but if it creates a sense of wonder and perhaps gets young people to read the books (where the real Lord of the Rings lives!) it can't be all that bad.

Just oooh those awful elves!!!

More thoughts at - http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/theatre/2007/06/bloggers_throw_bouquets_and_br.html#comment-565021