Gems from the 'Lesser Works' of JRRT

[lindil]

Well as we have Back to School a thread of similar variety that specializes in JRRT's more scholarly musings and opines, and the venerable The most powerful Lines of Ea and Gems from the Letters I thought I would round out the collection with a home for especially moving lines from the likes of:

• Smith of Wooten Major
• Farmer Giles oF Ham
• Leaf by Niggle
• Imram
• Lay of Atrou and Atroun
• The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorthelm's Son
• Roverandom
• Mr. Bliss

• or the
• Father Christmas Letters

I will lead off with one of the most simple but beautiful lines I think JRRT ever wrote.

Context:

An Elf-King coming among mortals for years for the express purpose of maintaining a spiritual ferment if you will.

When Smith realizes Alf [ the humble and unimposing decades long apprentice cook of the village] is the King of the Elven land he has journeyed in for years, his comment is for me piercingly beautiful, a eucatastrophe.

" The smith looked long at Alf, then suddenly he bowed low.'I understand at last , sir' he said. 'You have done us too much honour'."


An elven foreshadowing of Christ in some ways.


And if anyone has the Lay of Aotrou and Itroun, large healthy quotes would be great if not more [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]

I do belive this is completely unavailable, but I would be delighted to be proven wrong!

[ March 30, 2003: Message edited by: lindil ]

[Estelyn Telcontar]

lindil, what a wonderful idea! I really like several of those works and will start with the first one I read, Leaf by Niggle:

'What was the matter with Niggle? His heart was in the right place.'
'Yes, but it did not function properly. And his head was not screwed on tight enough: he hardly ever thought at all.'

Then a very touching moment, when he sees the embodiment of his art work in the afterlife:

All the leaves he had ever laboured at were there, as he had imagined them rather than as he had made them; and there were others that had only budded in his mind, and many that might have budded, if only he had had time.

(aside: All who enjoy these works of Tolkien's are invited to join in the 'minor works' quotes thread on the Quotes forum!)

[lindil]

Uh - oh I have been a baaaaad mod. [img]smilies/eek.gif[/img]

I am really embarrased to admit it, but I had completely forgotten there even was a 'quotes forum'!

Where is a blushing emoticon when you need it!

Well hopefull no harm will be done, and it DOES round out the others, doesn't it, doesn't it...

[The Squatter of Amon Rûdh]

Indeed it does, lindil. Now we have a full house. My favourite 'minor work' so far has been The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth, Beorhthelm's son, from which come these lines:

There are candles in the dark and cold voices.
I hear mass chanted for master's soul
in Ely isle. Thus ages pass,
and men after men. Mourning voices
of women weeping. So the world passes;
day follows day, and the dust gathers,
his tomb crumbles, as time gnaws it,
and his kith and kindred out of ken dwindle.
So men flicker and in the mirk go out.
The world withers and the wind rises;
the candles are quenched. Cold falls the night.

The speaker is Torhthelm, the minstrel's son, and from that we can see the source of his language, which is the closest modern equivalent to that of the Anglo-Saxon poets. A real gem in my view.

[Beren87]

But the quotes forum is for quotes games my dear lindil. This wouldn't really be appropriate in there. [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]

The only two of those I have are Farmer Giles and Smith of Wooton Major, but this line did strike me as being quite wonderful:

At the sweet sound the candels flickered and then for a moment shone with a white light

I love this quote from Smith of Wooton Major simply from the imagery and the idea that it conveys. The sharp ringing of the bell affects the candle, you can just imagine how incredibly wonderful that sound must have been. (I'm a softy for music)

[alaklondewen]

This passage is also from Smith of Wooten Major. It is when Smith has been summoned to the Queen and he realizes she is the maiden he danced with in the Green Vale.

She smiled seeing his memory, and drew towards him; and they spoke long together, for the most part without words, and he learned many things in her thought, some of which gave him joy, and others filled him with grief. Then his mind turned back retracing his life, until he came to the day of the Children's Feast and the coming of the star, and suddenly he saw again the little dancing figure with its wand, and in shame he lowered his eyes from the Queen's beauty.

Absolutely beautiful.

[lindil]

Yes Alaklondewen, the above scene is the match of the realization of Smith re: the King.

I always found Smith of Wooton Major to be by far the most moving and deep of the minor works and these two quotes sum much of it up.

But the quotes forum is for quotes games my dear lindil. This wouldn't really be appropriate in there.

whew, I guess I can delete the above display of abject self-humiliation. [img]smilies/cool.gif[/img]

[ March 25, 2003: Message edited by: lindil ]

[Luthien_ Tinuviel]

I don't have a quote to post right now, but I just wanted to say that I love Smith of Wooton Major, and Roverandom, Farmer Giles of Ham, and Leaf by Niggle are really cool too. Leaf by Niggle and Smith of Wooton Major are excellent works, they have a sort of an ethereal quality, and they seem to be allegories for I know not what.
I'm still trying to figure them out, then again, I'm not sure if I want to. The mystery is half the charm of the stories. [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img]

[HerenIstarion]

...but what are they really like, or what lies beyond them, only those can tell, who have climbed them...

Niggle about mountains, but the context suggests they are not just mountains

[Kuruharan]

You are all so heavy today. [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img] On a lighter note...

"Chrysophylax is my name," said he, "Chrysophylax the Rich. What can I do for your honour?" he added ingratiatingly, with one eye on the sword, and hoping to escape battle.
"You can take yourself off, you horny old varmint," said Giles, also hoping to escape battle.

My complements to HerenIstarion for citing one of my favorite lines from...anything.

[lindil]

ask and ye shall receive!

Now if only I can remember to ask for the one thing most needful more often...

The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun - at long last.

and much thanks belong to the sender [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]


and due to legal reasons, I may well not leave it up for long.

I also came across an essay on the Lay with an alternate ending to boot - I placed it on the same thread as linked above.

[ March 31, 2003: Message edited by: lindil ]

[Beren87]

Bwa ha! Kudos to you!

*Copies...pastes*

[The Squatter of Amon Rûdh]

I love this creepy little passage from The Mewlips from The Adventures of Tom Bombadil:

Beyond the Merlock Mountains, a long and lonely road,
Through the spider-shadows and the marsh of Tode,
And through the wood of hanging trees and the gallows-weed,
You go to find the Mewlips - and the Mewlips feed.

[Beren87]

In Britain ways are wild and long,
and woods are dark with danger strong;
and sound of seas is in the leaves,
and wonder walks the forest-eaves.

From The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun, now that is what I imagine the Britain of yester-year to be, simply magical.

[alaklondewen]

Look what I found on the 3rd page! I've been meaning to revive this thread since I finally have my very own copies of The Adventures of Tom Bombadil and Leaf by Niggle.

This is from "Bombadil Goes Boating" from TAoTB:

Maybe to Brandywine along the Withywindle;
maybe friends of mind fire for me will kindle
down by the Hays-end. Little folk I know there,
kind at the day's end. Now and then I go there.

His reference to hobbits took me by suprise, even though I knew it was most likely written by those in Buckland.

This is from "Errantry" that is also from TAoTB:

He threaded gems in necklaces,
but recklessly she squandered them
and fell to bitter quarrelling;
then sorrowing he wandered on,
and there he left her withering,
as shivering he fled away;
with windy weather following
on swallow-wing he sped away.

Hmm...he sounds like some men I've dated. [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]

[Mattius]

I just read Smith of Wooton Major and its really good! I particualry like the idea of a great cake every 24 years! Here is a nice quote I found-

The King's face softened. 'Also, yes! You speak the truth. Do not be afraid! Be at ease! But will you not expect the King of Faery to do something for you before he leaves you? I grant you your wish. Farewell! Now go to sleep!'

When you find out that Alf is the King its great!

[Beren87]

No jewels bright her gown bore,
as she walked back from the meadow
under roof and dark door,
under the house-shadow.
She donned her smock of russet brown,
her long hair braided,
and to her work came stepping down.
Soon the sunlight faded.

Year still after year flows
down the Seven Rivers;
cloud passes, sunlight glows,
reed and willow quivers
at morn and eve, but never more
westward ships have waded
in mortal waters as before,
and their song has faded.

That's incredibly sad! I nearly cried upon reading this part. They offered to take her and eveb though she may want it more than anything, she can't go because she's mortal. It's like her clothing and the world around her changes in her utter despair.

[doug*platypus]

Errantry, I hear you say?!!

There was a merry passenger
a messenger, a mariner

[The Squatter of Amon Rûdh]

'Do you know who I am?' he asked. 'I am Psamathos Psamathides, the chief of all the Psamathists!' He said this several times very proudly, pronouncing every letter, and with every P he blew a cloud of sand down his nose.

We have already heard that Psamathos makes a great fuss about the proper pronunciation of his name, but that name is of course Greek in origin (it means 'Sandy, son of Sandy' and 'psamathist' roughly means 'studier of sand'), so the p really ought to be silent. To understand this joke, one would have to have read a comment in the Oxford English Dictionary, which described the dropping of the p from ps words in English as 'an unscholarly practice often leading to ambiguity or to a disguising of the composition of the word'. It recommends pronouncing the p in all Greek loan words apart from psalm, psalter, etc. Quite a scholarly joke for a children's book like Roverandom.(1)

The Oxford English Dictionary is also the butt of this gem from Farmer Giles of Ham:

Some may well ask what a blunderbuss was. Indeed, this very question, it is said, was put to the Four Wise Clerks of Oxenford, and after a thought they replied: 'A blunderbuss is a short gun with a large bore firing many balls or slugs, and capable of doing execution within a limited range without exact aim. (Now superseded in civilised countries by other firearms.)'

However, Farmer Giles's blunderbuss had a wide mouth that opened like a horn, and it did not fire balls or slugs, but anything that he could spare to stuff in. And it did not do execution, because he seldom loaded it, and never let it off. The sight of it was usually enough for his purpose. And this country was not yet civilised, for the blunderbuss was not superseded: it was indeed the only kind of gun that there was, and rare at that. People preferred bows and arrows and used gunpowder mostly for fireworks.

***

1: This information comes from the endnotes in the rather good edition by Christina Scull and Wayne G. Hammond (HarperCollins, 1998).

[HerenIstarion]

things might have been different, but they could not have been better...

Niggle again

[Evisse the Blue]

From The Nameless Land (later the song of Elfwine):

There lingering lights do golden lie
On grass more green than in gardens here,
On trees more tall that touch the sky
With silver leaves a-swinging clear:
By magic dewed they may not die
Where fades nor falls the endless year,
Where ageless afternoon goes by
O'er mead and mound and silent mere.
There draws no dusk of evening near,
Where voices move in veiled choir,
Or shrill in sudden singing clear.
And the woods are filled with wondering fire.

And from Leaf by Niggle, which I had just finished reading (wonderful story indeed):

"It's a gift!" he said. He was referring to his art, and also to the result; but he was using the word quite literally.

"Footler," sighed Atkins. "Yes, poor little man, he never finished anything. Ah well, his canvases have been put to 'better uses,' since he went. But I am not sure, Tompkins. You remember that large one, the one they used to patch the damaged house next door to his, after the gales and floods? I found a corner of it torn off, lying in a field. It was damaged, but legible: a mountain-peak and a spray of leaves. I can't get it out of my mind."

When I read this bit, I got tears in my eyes, God knows why...

PS: lindil, thanks for the wonderful Lay of Aotrou and Itroun!
PPS: Can anyone quote from Pearl and Sir Orfeo? Sadly I don't have those... [img]smilies/frown.gif[/img]

[zb]

I love the 'minor' works. I don't have words for how I've been moved by "Leaf by Niggle" or "Smith of Wootton Major" or how I've giggled like an idiot at the jokes in "Farmer Giles of Ham" and "Roverandom", so I'll just sigh.

Sigh [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]

'It reminds me of Faery,' he heard himself say; 'but in Faery the people sing too.' Then he began to sing, high and clear, in strange words that he seemed to know by heart; and in that moment the star fell out of his mouth and he caught it in his open hand. It was bright silver now, glistening in the sunlight; but it quivered and rose a little, as if it was about to fly away. Without thinking, he clapped his hand to his head, and there the star stayed in the middle of his forehead, and he wore it for many years.

Farmer Giles had a dog. The dog's name was Garm. Dogs had to be content with short names in the vernacular

I also love the Pauline Baynes illustrations for Farmer Giles of Ham.

I'll leave you with a "gem" (?) from the blurb of my copy of "Tales from the Perilous Realm":

and Smith of Wootton Major journeys to the Land of Faery via the magical ingredients of a giant cake.

[The Squatter of Amon Rûdh]

This is another gem from The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth, which demonstrates perfectly Tolkien's use of his two characters throughout the work and the overall impression that it gives of war and warfare.

TORHTHELM
Ah, woe and worse! The wolvish heathens
have hewn off his head, and the hulk left us
mangled with axes. What a murder it is,
this bloody fighting!

TÍDWALD
Aye, that's battle for you,
and no worse today than wars you sing of,
when Fróda fell, and Finn was slain.
The world wept then as it weeps today:
you can hear the tears through the harp's twanging.
Come, bend your back! We must bear away
the cold leavings.

[Estelyn Telcontar]

Here are two excerpts from a passage in Smith of Wootton Major, about his final visit with the Queen. When he is ashamed, remembering the little fairy that was on the cake, she says:

Better a little doll, maybe, than no memory of Faery at all. For some the only glimpse. For some the awaking.

Then he has a deep experience, I'd call it a religious one, and knows that he will not come back again - the sense of loss is so great in this passage, so touching and tragic simultaneously.

Then he knelt, and she stooped and laid her hand on his head, and a great stillness came upon him; and he seemed to be both in the World and in Faery, and also outside them and surveying them, so that he was at once in bereavement, and in ownership, and in peace. When after a while the stillness passed he raised his head and stood up. The dawn was in the sky and the stars were pale, and the Queen was gone. Far off he heard the echo of a trumpet in the mountains. The high field where he stood was silent and empty; and he knew that his way now led back to bereavement.

I can't help but wonder - what kind of loss did Tolkien experience to prompt this passage, especially since it was the last of his works published during his lifetime?

(PS - We now have not only a "minor works" quote thread on the Quotes forum, we also have a "minor works trivia" thread on the Quiz forum - come and join us in discovering new tidbits and gems there!)

<font size=1 color=339966>[ 3:18 PM February 08, 2004: Message edited by: Estelyn Telcontar ]