The Professor and the Student

[Lalaith]

Having just read and enjoyed the Letters thread, I remembered a lovely story I read a long time ago. It doesn't really belong with Letters though, so I thought I'd better start a seperate topic. Maybe it doesn't belong in the Books section at all, I don't know...
In the late Sixties, while Tolkien was still teaching at Oxford, he and a colleague were walking across the quad of the college, academic gowns flowing. Suddenly Tolkien stopped and started talking to a very long-haired, grubby-looking undergraduate. The colleague was surprised that the eminent academic should bother with such an unprepossessing specimen of student.
"Harrumph," snorted the Professor. "You do realise the lad speaks fluent Elvish?"
All Oxford undergraduates, while they are living in college, have their names inscribed on wooden name-plates at the foot of the corridor where they live. This particular student, apparently, had his done in Feanorian characters...I wonder what happened to him?

[ January 24, 2003: Message edited by: Lalaith ]