Smith of Wootton Major in Middle Earth?

[mark12_30]

[Smith] stood beside the Sea of Windless Storm where the blue waves like snow-clad hills roll silently out of Unlight to the long strand, bearing the white ships that return from battles on the Dark Marches of which men know nothing. He saw a great ship cast high upon the land, and the waters fell back in foam without a sound. The eleven mariners were tall and terrible; their swords shone and their spears glinted and a piercing light was in their eyes. Suddenly they lifted up their voices in a song of triumph, and his heart was shaken with fear, and he fell upon his face, and they passed over him and went into the echoing hills.

I read Smith again last night.
Anyway, upon rereading it I do think Smith lands in Faerie/Valinor. It's still very dreamy. Like Littlemanpoet, I think Faerie is very much like Valinor. It takes Smith a long time to get to the inner circle (reminded me of Lorien, where the Two Trees once stood, the center and essence of Fairyland.) Although, I don't think the king and queen are Manwe and Varda-- I think they are the king and queen of the Vanyar. I'm supposed to remember his name... Ingwe, Elwe-Elu Thingol, and there's a third. Is it Ingwe?

It struck me that this is a windless sea. IMO it can't be "our" Western sea that lies just beyond the Ered Luin. What struck me was that this sea lies on the OTHER side of Valinor/ Faerie; beyond Mandos? The far side of Valinor. The "Dark Marches" reminded me of the Void.

His soul can't handle the Elven Men/Eleven men-- is that because where Elves and Men meet is not the same as where Elves and the outer Darkness meet?

[Bêthberry]

Interesting synchronicity as I have just read SWM in the extended edition. In the essay about the story Tolkien explains the physical relationship of faerie with Wootton Major: they are in the same geographical area, as Tolkien says his symbol for Faerie is the forest, which is on the outskirts of the town.

The essay's first sentence is

Originally Posted by Tolkien

This short tale is not an "allegory", tough it is capable of course of allegorical interpretations at certain points. It is a 'Fairy Story', of the kind in which beings that may be called 'fairies' or 'elves' play a part and are associates in action with human people, and are regarded as having a 'real' existence, that is one in their own right and independent of human imagination and invention. It is cast in an imaginary (but English) countryside, before the advent of power-machinery. . .

Dimitra Fimi, in Tolkien, Race and Cultural History offers a very interesting study of Tolkien's changing concepts of fairie, from BoLT through all the various forms of the Legendarium in HoMe, to SWM. Tolkien began within the tradition of fairy in Victorian popular culture but moved to his concept of Elves before attempting in SWM to write a story about how any experience of faerie is valuable. Worth looking up her book--she's a very fine contemporary scholar.

[mark12_30]

Bb, I did not know about "SWM in the extended edition". I have been, apparently, out of touch.... v/r, --Helen

[Bêthberry]

I've just read it myself, Helen not two weeks ago (which is why I think it is interesting you and I both were the tale). The edition is edited by Verlyn Flieger and was published in 2005 and includes Pauline Baynes' illustrations from 1967. It also has photocopies of some of the manuscript pages of the "hybrid"draft (typescript and manuscript), as well as the history of the tale's genesis in the draft introduction to The Golden Key.

There's some fascinating stuff in the essay on Faerie and Love.

[littlemanpoet]

How could I not check out this thread, only to find myself mentioned in passing? I have got to get this extended edition.

I see in Smith of Wootton Major, Tolkien presenting his most refined understanding - redaction? - of Faerie. It is, for me, the most haunting, beautiful, enchanting representation of Faerie by any author.

I think it would be going too far to draw too close a connection between the realms described in SoWM and Middle Earth. However, we should expect to find similarities and resonances. Thanks for bringing it up, Helen.

[Galadriel55]

I don't remember Smith in great detail, but when reading it a bit less than a year ago I picked up a few whiffs of ME. But I recall thinking that, albeit the whiffs, Faerie is not a physical place, because out of all the Men only the "chosen ones" with the Star were allowed to find it / were able to find it. It reminded me more of some representation of... well, I didn't really figure out what exactly it was but something like, perhaps, utter good? Or a kind of mix between hope and imagination/? Or something inside us?

I'd like to comment on some other things that were said, but I have to read the whole thread for that. So... *starts reading*

Edit: I've read a bit, and I think Mark described it very accurately in one word: dreams.

[Galadriel55]

Originally Posted by littlemanpoet

But if Middle Earth is part of the Realm of Fairy, who knows? Is this just an example of one of those common themes that haunted Tolkien's mind? What think you?

I think that in a way, yes, and in a way ME just shows up in whatever he wrote... somehow...

Maybe Valinor is Faerie. Maybe ME/Arda as a whole. Or maybe, as you said, it is only a part of Faerie. Or maybe neither.

Originally Posted by davem

If 'men know nothing' of the battles on the Dark Marches then those battles cannot take place in the human world - they must take place 'elsewhere'. This means that there is a 'third' place - not the human world & not Faerie

ME? It is in a way the "human world", or our world, only in different time&space dimensions. It is like a cross between our world and Faerie.

I'm trying to erase the mental image of Bilbo and Frodo as the first mortals on American soil...

Originally Posted by Estelyn Telcontar

I do have the book to hand, and it is "elven", so the mariners are definitely Elves.

Maybe they were Men who seemed to be Elvish to the onooker, Smith. The Numenorians are described as a "species" of Men that comes fairly close to Elves, both physically, mentally, and spiritually. (I'm not talking about Pharazonian Numenorians, but rather them at the height of their spiritual glory).

Originally Posted by Esty

From the context, we can assume that both their goal at home and that of their journey to the Dark Marches, where they fought, are located in Faery, since Smith was in Faery when he saw them there. So the connection between the Elves and our world is not through their journey. It is Smith himself who makes the transition from real life to Faery, by way of the star, and he made the journey by foot or by horse.

This is a very interesting view.

Originally Posted by littlemanpoet

Either way, Bêthberry, Alf would therefore be Manwë, and the Queen of Faerie would be Varda! Such company Smith kept! Not that I'm convinced of this, but it's fun to imagine it this way.

This makes me think of Smith as Earendil...

Yet he's more similar to Beren. I think he found Doriath with the dancing princess Luthien pretty enchanting...

Originally Posted by Findegil

But we can not be sure if it was to Valinor that Smith did go. The geography he described is not fully consistent with what we know about Valinor or any other part of Arda described by Tolkien in detail. In a place the land of Faery in Smith is seen as a isle. This could be a hint to Tol Eressea in the later Ages when it was again inhabited by the Elves from Beleriand. But I remember no event in the history of Arda where elvenwarriors of Tol Eressea would take part.

But if we take that point of view, then there's the possibility that they were the Elves heeding the call of the Sea during the later part of the Third Age.

Originally Posted by mark12_30

Maybe.

Smith of Wootton Major seems to me to be one of Tolkien's more dreamlike works; not that it is meant to all signify "And he woke up and lo it was just a dream"-- but Tolkien put a lot of stock in dreams, and wrote about them within his works as well as wrote the works because of the dreams he himself had (Alkallabeth.)

To me the dreamlike quality of Smith is akin to the dreamlike quality of Frodo's Dreme in Adventures of Tom Bombadil, or (in a less serious vein) the dreamlike quality of 'The Man In The Moon Came Down Too Soon'. They are tales about wanderers feeling very much out of their element, very much vulnerable, and actually in some danger (the danger varies from piece to piece.) But Smith's vision (did he really 'see' them? Was it a dream, a vision, or outside of time, or ...) ... Smith's vision of the "Eleven men" (sic) reminds me of Frodo's Dreme and of The Man In The Moon much more than it reminds me of the Sil, for example.

From the LOTR and the Sil and Tolkien's later works, Valinor is no dream; it has soil, trees, shores, sand, feasts. Reading about it feels very real and solid and tangible. But Smith's Faery is not; it is shifting, ethereal, dreamlike. So is the land that Frodo nightmares his way through. And The Man In The Moon's sojourn among men is humorously nightmarish too.

How would I compare Smith's Faerie to Valinor-- Not to the 'real thing'. I would compare it to Frodo's dreams of Valinor (in Tom Bombadil's house, and other of his dreams) , and perhaps to some of his foreshadowings of Valiinor (in Lorien, or in Rivendell); those times when he was enchanted or in a dreamlike state.

Wow. You've looked way beyond "the simple mathematics of the legendarium", as I often call my Books arguments. And, like Elempi, I'm very moved by this post.

Originally Posted by Aiwendil

I am curious regarding other people's opinions of Smith vs. the Silmarillion.

I find them both equally moving, but in different ways.

To add something of my own, I think Smith was verily doing what Gandalf couceled to do: choosing what to do with the time that is given to you. That made me think that Frodo is Smith's LORD copy and antipode at the same time. He is also "chosen" (though really, both chose their own fate in way, and in a way, both had no choice...) to bear a symbolic object, a connection to a different realm. If in Smith's case, through that object - the Star - h is connected to a heavenly realm. Through the Ring, Frodo is connected to Mordor, quite the opposite of heaven. And both have to give up these objects, yet Frodo has to destroy it completely, and Smith has to pass it on.

Another LOTR passage that came to mind is Frodo's discussion with Merry:

"Well here we are, just the four of us that started out together," said Merry. "We have left all the rest behind, one after another. It seems almost like a dream that has slowly faded."

"Not to me," said Frodo. "To me it feels mor like falling asleep again."

It seems like Merry "visited his Faerie" during his trip. Frodo "left his Faerie" in order to fulfil his mission.

Sorry if I am deviating a bit from the original topic, but there are just so many possibilities that come to mind...


Forgot to say this: In The Sil, especially in the beginning of the FA, Valinor & Inhabitants are still fresh, naive, unlearned, etc. Faerie is still too much a part of the world, and the world is a part of Faerie. By the TA, Faerie is separated from the world. It is wise, it seems ancient, etc. And it is far off, remote, leaving "our mundane world" independant of it. And that is what makes it "Faerie". In the FA, Faerie *is* the mundane, that's why it's not Faerie, or an undeveloped-Faerie.

Am I making any sense?

[mark12_30]

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

It seems like Merry "visited his Faerie" during his trip. Frodo "left his Faerie" in order to fulfil his mission.
?

Wow. Maybe I've been gone too long from this forum but that is the first explaination of that line that has ever resonated for me.

Wow.

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

Am I making any sense?

Mmm-hm.

[Galadriel55]

Originally Posted by mark12_30

Wow. Maybe I've been gone too long from this forum but that is the first explaination of that line that has ever resonated for me.

Wow.

I'm honoured.

Just expanding on my earlier thoughts: Perhaps in the time of The Sil, Valinor was still too young (or, rather, too youthful?) to really be Faerie. It was ready at the time of LOTR. Just like for us ME is like Faerie, but for many of its inhabitants is wasn't.

Also, since Roverandom was already mentioned, I think it's worth noting that the whale that showed the Rovers "Valinor" was Uin(en). I know it doesn't make sense, as this is cutting the root -nen- in half, but I couldn't help making the association.

[littlemanpoet]

Somehow, it doesn't seem enough for something to be "ready to be Faerie" just because it's aged some. Faerie has its own quiddity, if you will, that strikes me as timeless.

[Bêthberry]

Dimitra Fimi's book entitled Tolkien, Race, and Cultural History offers a very interesting study of how Tolkien's ideas about the fay world changed from his very earliest poems through the First, Second, and Third Ages, leading ultimately to SWM. I can't recommend it highly enough.

But perhaps this passage might be of interest here. It comes from Tolkien's public lecture Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, on the medieval poem of the same name. He is discussing Gawain's acceptance of the the Lady's girdle and the effects of Gawain's confession, before Gawain goes off to face his fate with the Green Knight. This is about an explicitly Christian work, which Tolkien's is not, and so it could refer just to the Gawain poem.

Originally Posted by Tolkien

And so, while Gawain does not accept the Girdle solely out of courtesy, and is tempted by the hope of magic aid, and when arming does not forget it, but puts it on for gode of hymseluen and to sauen hymself, this motive is minimised, and Gawain is not represented as relying on it at all when coming to the desperate point--for it, no less than the horrible Green Knight, and his faierie, and all faierie, is ultimately under God. A reflexion which makes the magic Girdle seem rather feeble, as no doubt the poet intended that it should.

The lecture was delivered in 1953.

[Galadriel55]

Originally Posted by littlemanpoet

Somehow, it doesn't seem enough for something to be "ready to be Faerie" just because it's aged some. Faerie has its own quiddity, if you will, that strikes me as timeless.

It's not that much about aging as about making it remote. As Valinor grew older, it happened to distance itself from ME. When ME got "got old", it became our faerie. When it's "young", it's too mundane, because it's too close to the present.

[littlemanpoet]

Not sure what to make of Tolkien's comments about Sir Gawain in context of SoWM. What do YOU make of it, Bethberry?

Galadriel, I get you. I do understand how the remoteness of time affects. I still see a difference between mere remoteness and that thing about Faery that makes it Faery. Consider: we don't consider ancient Egypt to be Faerie. However, we do consider ancient Ireland and ancient Britain to be full of Faery. What is it about the latter that separates them from Egypt and other non-Faery-ish place-times, that makes them feel like Faery?

[Galadriel55]

Originally Posted by littlemanpoet

Consider: we don't consider ancient Egypt to be Faerie. However, we do consider ancient Ireland and ancient Britain to be full of Faery. What is it about the latter that separates them from Egypt and other non-Faery-ish place-times, that makes them feel like Faery?

Ancient Egypt has too much civilization.

Really, I don't know. I guess it's that thing that you said that makes Faerie a Faerie.

[littlemanpoet]

Ancient Egypt has too much civilization.

Well, yeah. Also, it seems kinda hard to me to have Faery in the desert. It needs lush greenery and growing things of a northern nature. And mist. Mist is good. And things that don't talk, or even think, in our mundane world, they need to both think and talk, and maybe even walk and dance. It needs richness, an inherent power. Reminds me of how Elves in Middle Earth, when asked about "magic", always answer in a somewhat confused fashion .... "I am not sure what you mean by magic, but if you wish to talk about our art...." Yeah. That stuff.

[Puddleglum]

As I recall, Tolkien described Faery as being the realm where the creatures of faery (eg, elves, dragons, dwarves, leprechans, paladins, talking trees, etc, etc) live and exist in their natural place. {I apologize in advance for the crudity of my recollection, Tolkien put it far batter than I just did}. Faery stories, then, were stories about interactions between normal, mundane "people" and denizens of "The Perilous Realm".

• The Middle East, with its Genies may be on the borders of Faery - for all that it is mostly desert.
• Greece, with its Centaurs, Minotaurs, Fauns, Satyrs, Cyclops, Sirens, etc seems VERY "Faery" to me.
• UK (especially Ireland) with its fairies, leprechans, and so forth, is (for one grown up in Northern European traditions) quintissential "Faery".

But Egypt - I don't think it's so much the climate as it is I am not familiar with much of any "faery" elements in Egyption history or mythos. That coul be because there aren't any, or because I am just ignorant enough of Egyption mythos that I don't know they are there.

Either way, a place isn't going to "feel" faery, unless one is consciously aware of the denizens of faery residing in the place - or, at least, visiting it from time to time in the stories of the place.

[davem]

Might be worth considering John Crowley's novel Aegypt in this context http://www.pd.org/Perforations/perf21/bess.html

Crowley,.... creates a mythic world in which the popular origin of the Gypsies, not in Egypt but in "Aegypt" is taken to represent the birth of wisdom in a fabled land of the imagination, someplace older than and farther in than the merely literal Egypt.

As Crowley has it in the novel "There is more than one history of the world." There's the 'factual' one we find in the history books, & constructed through historical record & archaeology, but alongside that one (or beneath/underlying it) is another made up of Tradition, folklore/music, myth & folklore. Both are equally 'valid', but valid in different ways, & both serve different purposes. Unfortunately the former has come to dominate (in the past the latter dominated).

Or, once Egypt (as Aegypt) was very much within the realm of Faery, but over time we have removed it. Yet this is what we do - we turn Merlyn's Isle of Grammarye into a realm of brutal warlords vying for power. Interestingly, we do this to both Aegypt & Albion by our desire for Faery - we want Arthur, Merlin & Hermes to be 'real' so we attempt to fit it into our world, our history, yet the only way we can do that is by removing all the magic from it - we draw Arthur into our world, but end up not with the destined King, with his magical blade, his wizard counsellor, Grail, Lady of the Lake & the fabled Isle of Avalon, but with a fifth century warlord absent all magic - we can have King Arthur in our world, all we have to do is sacrifice everything that we found attractive about him.

[littlemanpoet]

Great observations, Puddleglum & davem. Somehow, though, for me (yes, subjectively), before I had ever heard of Tolkien, Lewis, & Nordic or Celtic myth, I had grown disappointed with Greek and Egyptian myth. There was something flat about it, something dead. When I discovered Nordic & Celtic myth, I found Faery. Granted, this is my experience and thus ideosyncratic.

Your suggestions do not seem entirely to account for that - er - quiddity - that is essential Faery as accessed in the North. I'm reaching for something but I don't know what. Perhaps it is that my ancestry is Celtic/Germanic/Northern and thus Greek/Aegyptian could never speak to me. Don't know, it's a guess.

[Galadriel55]

Originally Posted by littlemanpoet

Your suggestions do not seem entirely to account for that - er - quiddity - that is essential Faery as accessed in the North. I'm reaching for something but I don't know what.

Maybe there is no word or describable quality for it. Maybe it just, well, is.

I suppose that ancient Greeks and Egyptians, as known to us (and as davem pointed out, it is only half of what they probably were), are too "mathimatical" and "scientific" for Faerie. In Faerie, things happen more spontaneously, or maybe more because they just need to happen, and not because something made them happen. I don't know.

I don't think I ever thought of any ancient civilizations - or "lack of such" - as Faerie. I think my Faerie is in books. Non-scientific books.

[mark12_30]

When (as a child) I stepped out of the warm dry house, into a compelling spring breeze, onto dewy grass, and fresh air, and had a wild desire rise up inside of me that I could not explain, but was so full of longing I did not know what to do, I wished I knew how to dance... somehow...

in later years, I found things that resonated and I said, "THAT'S IT!" for only a moment. A glimpse. And those things were varied, like The Highland Fling, or a wild reel, or a song from the Highlands, or a far-off glimpse of mountains. A glimpse (from the highway) of a green hill, dotted with Cedar trees, reminded me somehow of the Shire, and caught my breath. There was a wildness in it, an untamed... something, pulling me and compelling me; a hope; a glimpse; a scent of beauty. ...The rising sun in the woods in my own back yard. ...Crocuses in the grass. Hurricane Ridge, Washington State. A moment of three- or four-part harmony.

When I read Tolkien, I found that Frodo lived there. Bilbo walked there. And the golden enchantment flowed, not from them, but from their sudden SEEING of what was already (forever?) there, that they had not seen before. Rivendell enchantments are about Frodo seeing through things and beyond things and into things. Faery doesn't make those things; it just lets you see them.

I think Faery happens when we see the beauties that were there all the time, but we did not see, that God put there for us to find, hoping that in them we would be called to His beauty. It is supernatural, ethereal, and so we explain it in stories, try to replay it somehow, write up the history-- just the facts!-- and then we wonder where the wonder went. Like davem's Aurthur... robbed of his mystery, what's the point?

Death, embalming, fascination with burial, coarse humanity, dry desert, vain imaginations, self-serving aspirations, power trips, and the fantastic quibbling of empowered arrogance has very rarely (perhaps never) escorted me into a profound sense of invisible beauty made visible.

(EDIT: Egypt isn't Faerie for me, any more than Numenor is Faerie. In fact, Tolkien used it as a direct contrast. And I think he was right.)

Go back to Lorien, and slowly reread Cerin Amroth, and touch the trees with Frodo. Then, early when the air is fresh, go take a good look at a tree you see every day. Was the tree somehow changed? Did you see something in it you never quite noticed before?

I agree with lmp. It's different near the Shire.

[littlemanpoet]

Wow, Helen. Wow.

That helps me understand why Japanese folk tales and Native American stories can do it for me, too.

And white billowing clouds blown by a north wind in an otherwise blue sky.

And Orion in August just before dawn.

[mark12_30]

Menelvagor of the shining belt. Yes. I can hear you singing...

My husband and I were looking at it two nights ago. He was struck by it, too.

Since it's about glimpses of eternal Beauty, and tasting God's life, that's why I think cultures of death don't fit. So while Ireland has plenty of Faerie, I wouldn't look for Faerie in a typical Irish wake. Yet, for MacDonald, a Scot who sees death in a very different way, death is drenched in Faerie because Death is the doorway to life eternal:

"You have tasted of death now," said the old man. "Is it good?"

"It is good," said Mossy. "It is better than life."

"No," said the old man: "it is only more life.--Your feet will make no holes in the water now."

Wilder and wilder.

Edit: I have to add.... and for C. S. Lewis-- doesn't The Last Battle, when they all go through the door, and then say farewell to Narnia, and then begin to explore where they are, and slowly begin to realize Where They Are-- doesn't your heart just break? ...Wilder and wilder.

"More life."

[Morthoron]

Originally Posted by littlemanpoet

Great observations, Puddleglum & davem. Somehow, though, for me (yes, subjectively), before I had ever heard of Tolkien, Lewis, & Nordic or Celtic myth, I had grown disappointed with Greek and Egyptian myth. There was something flat about it, something dead. When I discovered Nordic & Celtic myth, I found Faery. Granted, this is my experience and thus ideosyncratic.

Your suggestions do not seem entirely to account for that - er - quiddity - that is essential Faery as accessed in the North. I'm reaching for something but I don't know what. Perhaps it is that my ancestry is Celtic/Germanic/Northern and thus Greek/Aegyptian could never speak to me. Don't know, it's a guess.

I think that's a common perception, Elempi.

This is a viewpoint that I share in the book I am writing currently. Egypt and Greece eventually viewed their pantheons with skepticism, if not outright disdain (this cynicism bordering on atheism occuring before the birth of Christ). The traditions faded and their religious rites became ceremonial (and all such tradition was eradicated eventually by Islam and Byzantine Christianity).

However, in the areas where the Celtic tribes remained strong (Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Brittany), the rural folk kept their folkloric traditions well past the Enlightenment and the beginning of the Industrial Age. Even the Norse peoples maintained a vestige of their traditions into the Christian Era in Europe, where historical records indicate a reversion to the Old Religion even after conversion to Catholicism, or a duality of Odinic and Christian symbols and rites simultaneously.

It is this immediacy, the nearness in time to an older tradition, that draws us closer to the Faery tradition of the Celts and Norse. This has been further conditioned by the continued retelling and popularity of the Arthurian Cycle, from Chretien de Troyes, Eschenbach and Malory up to T.H. White and Mary Stewart, as well as 18th century Irish folklorists along with authors and poets of the Irish Renaissance (Lady Gregory, J.M. Synge, Crofton Croker, W.B. Yeats. etc.).

[Pitchwife]

Originally Posted by mark12_30

I think Faery happens when we see the beauties that were there all the time, but we did not see, that God put there for us to find, hoping that in them we would be called to His beauty.

Exactly. Like Frodo in the scene on Cerin Amroth you mentioned:

He saw no colour but those he knew, gold and white and blue and green, but they were fresh and poignant, as if he had at that moment first perceived them and made for them names new and wonderful.

(Btw isn't it marvellous how Tolkien makes us share Frodo's experience here and, just by naming the colours, evokes them before our inner eye in newborn splendour?)
And I have to echo LMP's Wow!. That whole post was mindblowing.

Originally Posted by mark12_30

Since it's about glimpses of eternal Beauty, and tasting God's life, that's why I think cultures of death don't fit. So while Ireland has plenty of Faerie, I wouldn't look for Faerie in a typical Irish wake. Yet, for MacDonald, a Scot who sees death in a very different way, death is drenched in Faerie because Death is the doorway to life eternal

And isn't Faerie somehow intimately related to Death? At least in some versions of folk belief the fairies are the Dead, or the dead go to live with the fairies, and the Otherworld is also the Underworld (cf Evans-Wentz's The fairy-faith in Celtic countries). In Welsh mythology, Gwyn ap Nudd is king of the Fair Folk and the gatherer of dead souls.

I think the difference with Egypt and Greece is that they kept the world of the Dead safely separated from the world of the Living - at least the Egyptians did, with their pyramids and embalming culture; and Odysseus had to find the entrance to the underworld and make the right offering to conjure up the spirit of Teiresias - , whereas in the North and Northwest the border between the two worlds seems to be thinner, permitting crossovers in both directions.

Not sure how (if at all) this is relevant to Smith - I have to admit it's thirty years since I read it, and my memory's a bit hazy. Time for a reread.

[Galadriel55]

All this talk about death reminds me of a curious little question that came up when I was reading Smith. The Elven Queen seems to be immortal, and has the youth and beauty of the canonical Eldar. But the Elven King lives like a normal man would. In this way, he's more like Gandalf than anyone else from the canon. But he's obviously not a canonical Maia. So, will he die? Or, can he change form, so that he will return his youth? Or, scary thought - maybe Elves in Faerie at that stage were creatures undead? Or having neither death nor (hence) real life?

What makes this more interesting is that, althouh we're not told so, but it seems that he keeps watch over the Star under different guises every generation. So he can be reborn? And/or change shape? The possibilities are endless.

I know this bit is meant to be left as a question mark, but it's just too good a question to stay unasked.

[Findegil]

Alf, as the Elvenking is named in wotton major does not age normaly. It is observed in the tale that he was considered very young for an apprentice when he came with Waller the fromer master cook. And he was still considered to young to be master cook when Waller left. Then in the end we see Nokes as an Old man and Smith as grown up how has a grandchild but still Alf has the full vigor and youth that he had have from the start, even so he looks now more grown up as it seems.

I can't see were you get the idea that he had come before of would come again later in other guise. In my oppinion Waller was the first to get the star and it is an open question what happend to it when the grandchild of Nokes has to give the Star back. But when I remember rightly Alf had have an apparentice who became master cook when he left.

Respectfuly
Findegil

[Galadriel55]

Originally Posted by Findegil

Alf, as the Elvenking is named in wotton major does not age normaly. It is observed in the tale that he was considered very young for an apprentice when he came with Waller the fromer master cook. And he was still considered to young to be master cook when Waller left. Then in the end we see Nokes as an Old man and Smith as grown up how has a grandchild but still Alf has the full vigor and youth that he had have from the start, even so he looks now more grown up as it seems.

I can't see were you get the idea that he had come before of would come again later in other guise. In my oppinion Waller was the first to get the star and it is an open question what happend to it when the grandchild of Nokes has to give the Star back. But when I remember rightly Alf had have an apparentice who became master cook when he left.

Respectfuly
Findegil

I haven't read Smith in over a year, so my memmory is hazy. I might have assumed something that wasn't written, or forgot something that was. I apologise for that stupid question.

[Bêthberry]

Sorry for the tardy response, elempi. I didn't see this until now.

Originally Posted by littlemanpoet

Not sure what to make of Tolkien's comments about Sir Gawain in context of SoWM. What do YOU make of it, Bethberry?

I can only relate it specifically to Tolkien's thoughts on the universe of the Gawain poem, because he has clearly said that religion is absent from SWM, although it is possible to read SWM as a story about the falling away of religion and religious ritual from the true state, where song and dance and beauty and faerie were highly respected, unlike the attitude represented by Nokes. Faerie, as I understand it in Tolkien, is the realm not where Men meet elves, but where Men have aventures that enchant them. I don't say supernatural either, because Tolkien in OFS clearly explains that it is Men who are supernatural, that is, outside of nature.

Originally Posted by Gal55

All this talk about death reminds me of a curious little question that came up when I was reading Smith. The Elven Queen seems to be immortal, and has the youth and beauty of the canonical Eldar. But the Elven King lives like a normal man would. In this way, he's more like Gandalf than anyone else from the canon. But he's obviously not a canonical Maia. So, will he die? Or, can he change form, so that he will return his youth? Or, scary thought - maybe Elves in Faerie at that stage were creatures undead? Or having neither death nor (hence) real life?

What makes this more interesting is that, althouh we're not told so, but it seems that he keeps watch over the Star under different guises every generation. So he can be reborn? And/or change shape? The possibilities are endless.

This think this is a legitimate question, Galadriel55.

An answer might relate to the differing natures of time and space in fairy and the ordinary world of men. The Fairy Queen after all can appear in different guise in Faerie--she once appeared to Smith as a young maiden dancing and then later in her full appearance as the Queen. And even when Smith meets the Fairy King in Faerie (on returning from his final venture into Faerie), he doesn't recognise him as Alf Prentice until the King decides to make his identity clear.

As for the King's appearance in Wootton Major, it seems to me the story is "about" the concerns of the Faerie world for the debasement in the mortal realm, so that the Fairy King decides to enter the mortal realm and see what he can do to inspire or reignite a desire for faerie in the town. The story demonstrates Tolkien's idea that the faerie realm acts out of benevolence for the good of mortal men because ultimately that is in the best interestes of the fairies too.

Given that Smith himself observes that Tim, Nokes' grandson, will have different adventures from those he had, it is an open question about specifics. Will the mortal men of Wootton Major learn to appreciate Faerie more--or more of them than just those given the Star--or will a second appearance by the King be needed? Certainly Smith's family are receptive to Faerie even if they cannot venture into it, and that genetic influence has helped Nokes' grandson be more responsive. In that restoration of the Nokes family lies the hope of faerie which the story suggests.

Many critics have seen "bereavement" and death in SWM, particularly in Tolkien's own frustration with his increasing age, and an oblique statement about the loss of his creative powers but I'm not one for a straightforward biographical reading of authors. Much I think depends on how one reads the benediction which the Queen of Faerie gives Smith, where he was both in ownership and bereavement.

Originally Posted by Findegil

I can't see were you get the idea that he had come before of would come again later in other guise. In my oppinion Waller was the first to get the star and it is an open question what happend to it when the grandchild of Nokes has to give the Star back. But when I remember rightly Alf had have an apparentice who became master cook when he left.

Alf's apprentice who takes over as Master Cook is Harper, and the symbolic musical name is significant.

I don't know who you mean by "Waller". The star first came to Rider, Smith's grandfather, I think it was.

[Findegil]

I do not know how I came to call the charachter Waller, it is clearly Rider that I meant. Maybe just bad memory. It is some time since I have read that tale.

What we hear about Harper and the friends that Alf made, suggest some hope for the quest of the Elvenking beside the bearers of the star, in my oppinion.

Respectfuly
Findegil

[littlemanpoet]

Rider

Prentice

Smith

Harper

Tim Nokes

A strange set of names, brought together. Obviously, young Tim has not yet earned his surname, so we have no idea what he would become and thus be named. One wonders. No matter what, one is sure, were one to think on it, that whatever occupation he chooses, he would grace it.

So I am left asking the question, if I have been to the edges of Faerie, and I would like to think to think that I have, allowed to be taken there by Tolkien and Lewis and MacDonald; have I graced my circumstance with a shadow of its riches? I feel and think that I could have done better. I suppose there is still time.

It's strange to look in this "mirror". Have you ever done it? What do you see?

[Galadriel55]

Originally Posted by littlemanpoet

A strange set of names, brought together.

I think Old Nokes also has his place there. This article here says that a Noke is a type of worm. I don't know if Tolkien was aware of that, or if he was simply choosing a common name, but it is certainly quite fitting.

So I am left asking the question, if I have been to the edges of Faerie,

Oh, but you're there now!

(Yeah, I know it's a silly thing putting a joke on your location, but it was awfully tempting)

and I would like to think to think that I have, allowed to be taken there by Tolkien and Lewis and MacDonald; have I graced my circumstance with a shadow of its riches? I feel and think that I could have done better. I suppose there is still time.

I suppose that we aren't limited to visits as Smith was.

On a second thought, we limit ourselves. When people come to the conclusion that Faerie doesn't exist. And then, like Smith they have only memmories, and like Gimli says, only the Eldar can survive on them. We mortals need something in the present, or at least in the future.

Maybe all we could really get from Faerie is knowledge that it's there and a gust of wind in your hand when you try to grab it. I don't know, and I'm sounding terribly cliche, so I'll stop.

Originally Posted by LMP

It's strange to look in this "mirror". Have you ever done it? What do you see?

There's only stars... for now.

To tell you the truth, I don't really understand what you mean by "this mirror". Are you referring to Faerie?

If so, then... lots of things. There will definitely be trees - many trees. And one will be of the kind that are ancient and big and have lots of branches and you can climb them. Just because I don't see a Faerie without such a tree. And there will be mountains. I was really taken by the mountains in Leaf by Niggle, where they are like a curtain hiding the geater beyond, the (in a good way) unknown, more adventure, another world to discover. Or maybe that's because I always wanted to climb a mountain. Not just be on the top, but actually climb it. And there will be something special about the North "side". Tolkien seemed to have favoured the West, and I seem to favour the North. My favourite star is - you guess it - Polaris. Orion is nice, but Polaris is better.

I guess it'll have a bit of everything. And moreso because every person has a different thing that they see a soul in to add to Faerie. If I see souls in trees and mountains, someone living in the desert could see a soul in the sand (I don't, but that could totally happen), or someone who spent their life in the arctic - in snow.

But that is beside the point. I'm drawing pictures like Niggle did without actually being there. Furthermore, I'm drawing with invisible paint on invisible canvas. Faerie is more a place of that concpt than of that consistency... if that made any sense.

I don't know what to make of my own thoughts.

[/rambling]

[littlemanpoet]

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

I think Old Nokes also has his place there. This article here says that a Noke is a type of worm. I don't know if Tolkien was aware of that, or if he was simply choosing a common name, but it is certainly quite fitting.

I have little doubt that Tolkien was intentional in using Nokes if it had the meaning of "worm" in it.

To tell you the truth, I don't really understand what you mean by "this mirror". Are you referring to Faerie?

Sorry, no. I will endeavor to be more clear. In "the mirror" I am looking at who I am, having been to Faerie and affected by it. Has it made a difference? Surely. Could it have made more of a difference? Doubtless. What do I want, or am I willing, to do about it, if anything? One cannot approach such a question with the notion of trying to achieve a goal, for it would be like trying to put an Elven thought under a human microscope.

So I find myself as wistful as Smith, having tasted something so amazing and having made so little of it. Do any others feel that?

[mark12_30]

Frequently... Constantly?? So I pray about it. What do You want me to do? What do You want me to see? What are You doing in me, and what therefore should I do for others?

Mountaintops come before valleys. Sometimes the valleys are so harsh that the mountaintops lose their appealww if this is a mountaintop. there must be a valley coming......... but this is the death of vision and hope.

You are my Shepherd: prepare a table for me.

Before Frodo's trials he often had glimpses of Faerie-- of eternal beauty-- that sustained him. Do we need less?

Speak to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.....

If faerie truly involves the overlapping of the world with the next. such is the communion of saints.
Open my eyes to see Your beauty and the beauty that You built into life so that I would seek You.

[davem]

Originally Posted by mark12_30

Before Frodo's trials he often had glimpses of Faerie-- of eternal beauty-- that sustained him. Do we need less?

If faerie truly involves the overlapping of the world with the next. such is the communion of saints.

"O see ye not yon narrow road,
So thick beset with thorns and briars?
That is the path of righteousness,
Though after it but few enquire."


"And see ye not that broad, broad road
That lies across the lily leven?
That is the path of wickedness,
Though some call it the road to heaven."


"And see ye not that lovely road,
That winds about the fern'd hillside?
That is the road to fair Elfland,
Where thou and I this night must ride."
"Thomas the Rhymer"

As for place. Entry into the 'geographical' bounds of Faery also involves entry into Faery Time. How does a mortal 'enter' the geographical realm of Faery? Evidently not in dream or illusion. Physical objects, such as the star, the Living Flower, and the elvish toy, survive transplantation from Faery to the World. It is common in Fairy tales for the entrance to the fairy world to be presented as a journey underground, into a hill or mountain or the like. JRRT: Smith Essay

Faery is not Paradise or Heaven. In all the Traditions Faery is within the world - & this is also the case in Tolkien's creation. You reach Faery by various gateways - by going into the Forest, crossing the Sea, entering a Hollow Hill - not by leaving the world. You enter Faery this side of the grave. Its not a metaphor for anything else, but a place/state in its own right (in some way its the 'unfallen'/perfected ideal of this world, not an allegory of the next). The Paradise Frodo glimpsed (or was vouchsafed a vision of) was a place within the mortal creation, a place he attained to while alive - Tolkien is clear that mortals who enter into the Undying Lands will still die at some point & pass beyond (cf Aragorn's words to Arwen).

Tolkien is fairly clear in the Smith Essay:

BUT Faery is not religious. It is fairly evident that it is not Heaven or Paradise. Certainly its inhabitants, Elves, are not angels or emissaries of God (direct). The tale does not deal with religion itself. The Elves are not busy with a plan to reawake religious devotion in Wootton. The Cooking allegory would not be suitable to any such import. Faery represents at its weakest a breaking out (at least in mind) from the iron ring of the familiar, still more from the adamantine ring of belief that it is known, possessed, controlled, and so (ultimately) all that is worth being considered - a constant awareness of a world beyond these rings. More strongly it represents love: that is, a love and respect for all things, 'inanimate' and 'animate', an unpossessive love of them as 'other'. This 'love' will produce both ruth and delight. Things seen in its light will be respected, and they will also appear delightful, beautiful, wonderful even glorious. Faery might be said indeed to represent Imagination (without definition because taking in all the definitions of this word): esthetic: exploratory and receptive; and artistic; inventive, dynamic, (sub)creative. This compound - of awareness of a limitless world outside our domestic parish; a love (in ruth and admiration) for the things in it; and a desire for wonder, marvels, both perceived and conceived - this 'Faery' is as necessary for the health and complete functioning of the Human as is sunlight for physical life: sunlight as distinguished from the soil, say, though it in fact permeates and modifies even that.

He also goes further into location:

The geographical relations of Wootton and Faery are inevitably, but also intentionally left vague. In such stories there must be some way or ways of access from and to Faery, available at least to Elves as to favoured mortals. But it is also necessary that Faery and the World (of Men), though in contact, should occupy a different time and space, or occupy them in different modes. Thus though it appears that the Smith can enter Faery more or less at will (being specially favoured), it is evident that it is a land, or world of unknown limits, containing seas and mountains; also it is plain that even during a brief visit (such as one on an evening walk) he can spend a great deal longer in Faery than his absence counts in the world; on his long journeys an absence from home of, say, a week is sufficient for exploration and experiences in Faery equivalent to months or even years.
As far as geography goes, Faery is situated (or its entrances are) westward. 'From Far Easton to Westwood' denotes the bounds of the world to the villagers: from the most eastern village of people of their own kind to the Forest, yet uncultivated, immediately to the West. Wootton thus represents an earlier intrusion of men's settlements into the foreign country of Forest; Wootton Minor is [s]till a village in a clearing. The Forest is still close to the western edge of Wootton Major. The smithy is at the extreme western edge of it (if you like because of the need of wood fuel). It is at any rate thus made easier for the Smith to go into the Forest unobserved by any but his household, or to go on journeys 'on business', without his movements being the matter of gossip.

Any investigation into the nature of Faery requires us to focus on its 'reality' as a place/state in its own right, not as a metaphor/allegory for something else - even if that 'reality' exists purely in the realm of the Imagination (by saying which I don't mean to imply its all 'made up' - there are many kinds of Imagination, individual, Collective & Suprahuman).

[mark12_30]

I don't thhink you've contradicted me. I said that Faerie offers glimpses of eternal truth and beauty. If Faerie were heaven (which isn't what I said) there would be no need for it.

That said, it would take a real curmudgeon to be so unaffected by those glimpses of eternal truth and beauty that his soul would remain unaffected.

[davem]

Originally Posted by mark12_30

I don't thhink you've contradicted me. I said that Faerie offers glimpses of eternal truth and beauty.

Indeed, but the power & purpose of Faerie (if it can be said to possess such) is in transforming the creation (or at least our perception/experience of it), as opposed to offering a means to transcend it.

[mark12_30]

The “consolation” of fairy-tales has another aspect than the imaginative satisfaction of ancient desires. Far more important is the consolation of the Happy Ending. Almost I would venture to assert that all complete fairy-stories must have it…I will call it Eucatastrophe [literally, “good catastrophe”]. The eucatastrophic tale is the true form of fairy-tale, and its highest function. The consolation of fairy-stories, the joy of the happy ending, or more correctly of the good catastrophe, of the sudden joyous “turn” does not deny the existence of dycatastrophe, of sorrow and failure; the possibility of these is necessary to the joy of deliverance. It denies (in the face of much evidence, if you will), universal final defeat and in so far is evangelium, giving a fleeting glimpse of Joy, Joy beyond the walls of the world, poignant as grief…In such stories when the sudden “turn” comes we get a piercing glimpse of joy, and heart’s desire, that for a moment passes outside the frame, rends indeed the very web of story, and lets a gleam come through.

It is not difficult to imagine the peculiar excitement and joy that one would feel, if any specially beautiful fairy-story were found to be “primarily” true, its narrative to be history...Probably every writer making a secondary world, a fantasy, every sub-creator, wishes in some measure to be a real maker, or hopes that he is drawing on reality: hopes that the peculiar quality of this secondary world (if not all the details) are derived from Reality…The peculiar quality of “joy” in successful Fantasy can thus be explained as a sudden glimpse of the underlying reality or truth.

The answer to this question [“is it true?”] that I gave at first was (quite rightly): “If you have built your little world well, yes: it is true in that world.” That is enough for the artist…But in the “eucatastrophe” we see in a brief vision that the answer may be greater – it may be a far-off gleam or echo of evangelium in the real world.

The Gospels contain a fairy-story, or a story of a larger kind which embraces all the essence of fairy-stories. They contain many marvels - peculiarly artistic, beautiful, and moving: “mythical” in their perfect, self-contained significance; among the marvels is the greatest and most complete conceivable eucatastrophe. But this story has entered History and the primary world; the desire and aspiration of sub-creation has been raised to the fulfillment of Creation. The Birth of Christ is the eucatastrophe of Man’s history. The Resurrection is the eucatastrophe of the story of the Incarnation. This story begins and ends in joy...There is no tale ever told that men would rather find was true, and none which so many skeptical men have accepted as true on its own merits. For the Art of it has the supremely convincing tone of Primary Art, that is, of Creation. The joy which the “turn” in the fairy-story gives…has the very taste of primary truth…It looks forward to the Great Eucatastrophe. The Christian joy, the Gloria, is of the same kind; but it is pre-eminently (infinitely, if our capacity were not finite) high and joyous. But this story is supreme, and it is true.

-J. R. R. Tolkien, "On Fairy Stories"

I coined the word 'eucatastrophe': the sudden happy turn in a story which pierces you with a joy that brings tears (which I argued it is the highest function of fairy-stories to produce). And I was there led to the view that it produces its peculiar effect because it is a sudden glimpse of Truth, your whole nature chained in material cause and effect, the chain of death, feels a sudden relief as if a major limb out of joint had suddenly snapped back. It perceives – if the story has literary 'truth' on the second plane (....) – that this is indeed how things really do work in the Great World for which our nature is made. And I concluded by saying that the Resurrection was the greatest 'eucatastrophe' possible in the greatest Fairy Story – and produces that essential emotion: Christian joy which produces tears because it is qualitatively so like sorrow, because it comes from those places where Joy and Sorrow are at one, reconciled, as selfishness and altruism are lost in Love.

– -J. R. R. Tolkien, Letter 89

[littlemanpoet]

"Our life is a short time in expectation, a time in which sadness with joy kiss each other at every moment. There is a quality of sadness that pervades all the moments of our life. It seems that there is no such things as a clear cut pure joy, but that even in the most happy moments of our existence we sense a tinge of sadness. In ever satisfaction, there is an awareness of limitations. In every success, there is the fear of jealousy. Behind every smile there is a tear. In every embrace there is loneliness. In every friendship, distance. And in all forms of light, there is the knowledge of surrounding darkness... But this intimate experience in which every bit of life is touched by a bit of death can point us beyond the limits of our existence. It can do so by making us look forward in expectation to the day when our hearts will be filled with perfect joy, a joy that no one shall take way from us.

~ Henri Nouwen

I'm astounded by how close Nouwen comes to Tolkien. Maybe I shouldn't be; they do partake of the same spirituality - which means the same view of reality.