Minor Works -- 1 - Farmer Giles of Ham

[Estelyn Telcontar]

Does your book have the Pauline Baynes illustrations, Inzil? Those are such a wonderful complement to the story - and Tolkien really liked them. For those who remember her illustrations for the Narnia books, the style is similar. I find it has something medieval, but also something like comic book drawings. I love having the small pictures right where they belong in the text. And the black and white drawings make me want to colour them, though I wouldn't do it in the book...

[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by Estelyn Telcontar

Does your book have the Pauline Baynes illustrations, Inzil? Those are such a wonderful complement to the story - and Tolkien really liked them.

It doesn't say specifically in my Smith/Giles paperback, but I also have the 1966 Tolkien Reader with PB illustrations, and they are indeed the same.

[Morthoron]

Originally Posted by Estelyn Telcontar

Does your book have the Pauline Baynes illustrations, Inzil? Those are such a wonderful complement to the story - and Tolkien really liked them. For those who remember her illustrations for the Narnia books, the style is similar. I find it has something medieval, but also something like comic book drawings. I love having the small pictures right where they belong in the text. And the black and white drawings make me want to colour them, though I wouldn't do it in the book...

I have a hard cover copy of the U.S. Nelson Doubleday, Inc. edition (1976), and the color frontispiece and end covers by Baynes are excellent. The Baynes illustrations (both color and black and white) are certainly reminiscent of 12th century illuminated manuscripts.

[Rune Son of Bjarne]

I realised that I did not have a copy of Farmer Giles of Ham lying around, nor could I find my copy of the Danish translation Niels Bonde fra Bold. I couldn't find it on my audiobook/library apps and my local library have a bit of delivery time. Today I had resigned to purchasing an e-book version, when I looked at the book shelf and realised I had a barely touched volume of "Tales from the Perilous Realm" standing right there... Anyways, I have only made it a little passed the foreword for now.

Originally Posted by Thinlómien

That being said, I feel like one would also greatly benefit from being more familiar with English mythology and history. I feel like you can't really appreciate Tolkien's writing as much "just as a story", without a greater context. Now that I think of it, it's rather fascinating how he often wrote - in a way - for scholars and children at the same time, which is not really a common combination.

As for the foreword itself, two things stood out to me - two very trademark Tolkien things that we see in his major works too. One is that his love for and knowledge of linguistics is evident; how many other authors would say their story is just an explanation for odd place names? Or how many others would bother to establish what language the story is written, and what they're telling us it was translated from? And the trope of the somewhat unreliable translator-narrator passing on an old story, obscuring the truth of what "really happened," is of course the second thing. It is very much like the whole narrative framing of the Red Book of Westmarch.

I think this scholarly approach is one of the reasons I still find Tolkien so fascinating. It is escapism, but it also speaks to the part of me that loves academia. Like Tolkien I prefer history, even if this history is imagined.

I agree with your comparison with the Red Book of Westmarch, which incidentally is one of my favorite things in the appendix to Lord of the Rings.

Originally Posted by littlemanpoet

I find in the Foreword some delicious comments in terms of geography: the valley of the Thames and excursions to the "walls of Wales." The pseudo history places the tale some time after King Coel (maybe) and after King Arthur ... which, of course, makes it pseudo-history in the plainest sense. If one were to take this seriously, then it would have to be a story about pre-Anglo-Saxon Britain. Will we find the ensuing text free of Anglo-Saxon place names? Wink wink.

Let the fun begin!

Tolkien quite caught my attention when he started talking about the valley of the Thames, because I have never really thought much about southern English geography before. Too me it is just a massive urban area, but all of the sudden my mind started wondering. Why did that area/London become so important. I remembered that it had already been important in Roman times, obviously the main reasons had to be geographical...
and so on.

Anyways, I quite expected the setting to be pre-Anglo-Saxon Britain-like... So I was immediately flustered by the blunderbuss, more so than the giant and the talking dog.

[Pitchwife]

Just popping in very briefly during the final minutes of an insane Day in the current Werewolf game to say that I loved the portrayals of the animals, Garm and the grey mare, they seem so true to life! Did the Tolkien family actually ever own a dog?


Also Pauline Baynes's illustrations, they remind me very much of the Manesse Liederhandschrift, our famous collection of German minnesang poetry from the 12th century.

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by Estelyn Telcontar

Does your book have the Pauline Baynes illustrations, Inzil? Those are such a wonderful complement to the story - and Tolkien really liked them. For those who remember her illustrations for the Narnia books, the style is similar. I find it has something medieval, but also something like comic book drawings. I love having the small pictures right where they belong in the text. And the black and white drawings make me want to colour them, though I wouldn't do it in the book...

In case anyone is looking for an edition of Farmer Giles of Ham, there is one that has more than just the Pauline Baynes illustrations: the 50th Anniversary edition, edited by Scull & Hammond. It includes the first manuscript version as well as notes for a planned sequel.

As an example of how much "tinkering" Tolkien did to the story, here is the beginning of that first manuscript version:

THEN DADDY BEGAN A STORY, and this is what he said:
Once there was a giant, a fairly big giant: his walking-stick was like a tree, and his feet were very large. If he walked down the road he would have left holes in it; if he had trodden on our garden he would have squashed it altogether; if he had bumped into our house there would have been no house left. And he might easily have bumped into it, for his head was far above the roof of it and he seldom looked where his feet were going.

And to provide a real spoiler, here's the ending:

'But who was the real hero of the this story, do you suppose?' said Daddy.
'I don't know.'
'The Grey Mare, of course, he said, and that ended it.

[Kuruharan]

Originally Posted by Legate of Amon Lanc

I think Morthoron has already addressed that; personally I recall (but do not have a source at hand) Basileus used somewhere in some circumstances in the medieval Latin-speaking world too, maybe as the sort of mix-and-match, and exactly redundantly in the sense like this. Otherwise at least as far as I can speak for 1-3rd century Greek, basileus was simply a "ruler" there. For that matter, the world "tyrannus" also was not originally Latin (although that was being used), and it just sounds like adding more redundant titles that just make it sound like "how many times can we say that I am a ruler in different ways to hammer the point". But if you read the King's name and simply swap "basileus" with "ruler", it sounds perfectly normal.

There is quite the rabbit hole you can disappear down on this topic...so here I go!

Basileus is not the original Greek word for king. The original word was "Anax," which while losing the status of a title, is still present in the Greek language and appears in such places as personal names.

"Basileus" in origin was a lower title subservient to an anax. The reasons why anax faded into dusty obscurity and basileus came to the fore are, at this far removed, lost to us. I've read speculation that "anax" had more of a sacerdotal association and "basileus", as it ultimately developed, was more secular in nature. There are also implications of what we could consider a feudal hierarchy at play where the anax was the high king and the basileus were autonomous rulers loosely subject to the anax. This is the political system at play in The Iliad. When the Bronze Age collapse occurred, there was no longer an anax but a host of petty basileus’ and that title came to dominate because it was so common.

I don't know if this potential sacred vs. secular dichotomy was what the editors were referring to in saying that "basileus" had the connotation of "administrator". It would be a pretty obscure reference if it was.

Originally Posted by Rune Son of Bjarne

Now this seems off to me. Yes basileus was used in the greek speaking parts of the roman empire, but to my knowledge not used by the latin speakers. Surely the west used "Imperator"?

It is a bit murky and there is a lot of what to us in the modern era is a frustrating non-standardization of usage. That being said, the "titles" if you will (which in itself is a bit murky and not a totally accurate description) were "Augustus" and "Caesar." At some point down the road after the end of the Roman Empire in the West "Augustus" completely lost its connotation of being a title, which it very much had in the time of what I will call the classic Roman Empire. In fact, it was the title "Augustus" that unambiguously identified the person of the emperor, not the title "Imperator." After the end of the Western Empire the word Augustus ultimately became what it is today; a personal name specifically associated with the person we now call "Augustus."

"Caesar" has experienced a similar phenomenon, although to a lesser degree. There is still some sense in the collective consciousness that Caesar was used as a title, but it is mostly associated as the name of Julius Caesar. More on “Caesar” below.

However, to ratchet up the levels of confusion "Imperator" was used, especially in an informal sense and "Imperator" as a title (for whatever reason) is the one that ultimately won out linguistically in the West. It was used in its connotation of "command - commander - command sphere or realm." In a way, from a pure definition standpoint, it is similar to the Arabic title “emir.”

My theory for why “Imperator” leading to “Emperor” became the utilized title in the West is that the preferred word order changed from Latin and "Imperator" won because it was the word that came first and was thus more prominent and "Augustus", reflecting its status as being a pretended nickname came later in the name and people lost the original importance of the word.

Of course, this is very much not the case in German as the word for emperor is “Kaiser” coming straight from “Caesar.” Same thing in Russian with “tsar.” I’d be interested to know if there is a similar practice in other Eastern European languages.

This is actually a topic of keen interest to me, so please forgive my digression on this.

That is a peculiar connotation, I wish there was a footnote to the footnote explaining the source.

Indeed.

[Galadriel55]

Originally Posted by Kuruharan

Of course, this is very much not the case in German as the word for emperor is “Kaiser” coming straight from “Caesar.” Same thing in Russian with “tsar.” I’d be interested to know if there is a similar practice in other Eastern European languages.

I can speak a bit for Russian on this tangent perhaps, though I have no linguistic or historical background. The derivatives of "Caesar" can be seen in three forms: Tsar, Tsezar, and Kesar (and perhaps others that I have not thought of). Tsar came to mean "king", and is both a title and a common noun, same as "king" in English. Tsezar is the name of Julius Caesar, as well as the title of other Roman Emperors (and the salad). Kesar is more complicated and could mean either "tsar" or "Tsezar" depending on the context (minus the salad), but in some contexts it may be more appropriate to use one versus the other; I am not sure if there are actually any rules here, this is purely my observation. It is also more archaic and a little bit Biblical, but not exclusively. Then the German Kaiser is called kayzer - which is a title that is also distinct from all the rest, and this one has no overlap to my knowledge.

"Augustus" survives in the Russian adjective avgusteyshiy, meaning pertaining to the royal family (e.g. avgusteyshaya osoba = royal persona).

Imperator is, surprise, imperator and is equivalent to emperor.

The other royal persona (avgusteyshaya osoba ) that left quite a mark on European language development is Charlemagne, who I believe is credited with seeding his name all over Europe's languages (mostly in the form of Karl). In Russian it appears as korol, and means "king", same as "tsar", but is applied to non-Russian (perhaps even non-Slavic? not sure) kings. I know the word also appears in Western Slavic languages, but I will leave it to Legate maybe to talk on their behalf, he would do it much better than I.

What all this mess means in terms of Tolkien is that there is a lot more flexibility in titles - not to mention that my beloved translation also dug up konung from some proto-germanic depths specifically for the rulers of Rohan. But Aragorn, for instance, not being tied to any real-world dynasty, can be called tsar and korol interchangeably, and also knyaz (which is "prince" except that it's much more than "prince", it calls back to the time in history when Knyaz was the title of the biggest boss in your group of people).

But coming back to Farmer Giles with a question: wouldn't the root of baselius still echoed in Latin in some form, since it's via Latin that it gives words like basilisk to modern languages? Or am I getting the order of things wrong?

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by Kuruharan

Basileus is not the original Greek word for king. The original word was "Anax," which while losing the status of a title, is still present in the Greek language and appears in such places as personal names.

The reasons why anax faded into dusty obscurity and basileus came to the fore are, at this far removed, lost to us. I've read speculation that "anax" had more of a sacerdotal association and "basileus", as it ultimately developed, was more secular in nature. There are also implications of what we could consider a feudal hierarchy at play where the anax was the high king and the basileus were autonomous rulers loosely subject to the anax. This is the political system at play in The Iliad. When the Bronze Age collapse occurred, there was no longer an anax but a host of petty basileus’ and that title came to dominate because it was so common.

But that is exactly what concerns us - if what you are saying is true, anax was out of the game a thousand years before the word had the chance to spread around Europe with the Roman Empire. I know that by the time of 1-3rd century, "basileus" was the common term in Greek, and - perhaps most importantly for its spread in subsequent centuries and potential use in the Middle Ages - it was used in the New Testament. That still does not say anything about whether or how it would get to the Western part of the Empire, but like I said - I think that if it was used in the Middle Ages, it could have been used as a "fancy extra title", using a "foreign word" in your list, perhaps in some "international" diplomatic meetings or somesuch.

Originally Posted by Kuruharan

Of course, this is very much not the case in German as the word for emperor is “Kaiser” coming straight from “Caesar.” Same thing in Russian with “tsar.” I’d be interested to know if there is a similar practice in other Eastern European languages.

Czech has "císař" as the word for "emperor", which is obviously derived from "Caesar" (and I think it is both influenced by Kaiser, as the Germans are immediate neighbours, but likely also some direct knowledge about Caesar). I would personally actually be interested in what do the Southern, Balkan Slavs have, because they would have been directly in contact with the Byzantium (or actually part of it), so I wonder whether their word for Emperor may be similar to Basileus rather than to Caesar/Kaiser/what-have-you.

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

The other royal persona (avgusteyshaya osoba ) that left quite a mark on European language development is Charlemagne, who I believe is credited with seeding his name all over Europe's languages (mostly in the form of Karl). In Russian it appears as korol, and means "king", same as "tsar", but is applied to non-Russian (perhaps even non-Slavic? not sure) kings. I know the word also appears in Western Slavic languages, but I will leave it to Legate maybe to talk on their behalf, he would do it much better than I.

In Czech (and Polish, Slovak etc.) there is the word král (król, etc.) which means "king" and it comes exactly from Karl (i.e. Charlemagne). So yes (and I assume that's how it travelled to Russian too).

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

But coming back to Farmer Giles with a question: wouldn't the root of baselius still echoed in Latin in some form, since it's via Latin that it gives words like basilisk to modern languages? Or am I getting the order of things wrong?

Basilisk specifically is a literal borrowing of a word, but yes, of course there are all these Greek-words-turned-Latin-and-later-(French-and-later-English-or-whichever-other-languages), but I think what others were trying to say was that Basileus, of all things, did not get actually transferred as is into wide use; however, it is true that there is for example the word basilica which definitely WAS used in Latin and DOES come from the same root (it was originally an adjective, meaning "royal", and later became stand-alone noun). So, I guess there is something.

Anyways, I hope to post soon something more about the progress of the story itself

[Kuruharan]

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

But Aragorn, for instance, not being tied to any real-world dynasty, can be called tsar and korol interchangeably, and also knyaz (which is "prince" except that it's much more than "prince", it calls back to the time in history when Knyaz was the title of the biggest boss in your group of people).

I subscribe to to the school of thought that says that translating knyaz as "prince" or "grand prince" is a piece of western snobbery which was intended to reduce the social and cultural standing of the Rus' and their medieval states. I believe the most appropriate translation of knyaz (especially in a medieval historical context) is, in fact, "king." Doubly so since the word ultimately derives from the same root as the word king. However, time and linguistic shifts solidified the translation as Grand Prince to the point that the Russian Tsars handed the title out with the explicit intention of it being understood as "Grand Prince", for example, the Grand Principality of Finland.

But coming back to Farmer Giles

Oh yes...sputter…*ahem*…

Originally Posted by Legate of Amon Lanc

I think that if it was used in the Middle Ages, it could have been used as a "fancy extra title", using a "foreign word" in your list, perhaps in some "international" diplomatic meetings or somesuch.

Which brings us around to an important, and ironic, point...which Gildor might have made. For all the seeming physical and cultural isolation and parochialism of the Middle and Little Kingdoms, they retained evidences of wider experiences of the world.

Of course, the Latin itself is evidence of that.

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

A few observations about the first adventure...

Originally Posted by Inziladun

I like the way Tolkien seemingly reinforces a theme from The Hobbit (taking place in a world with "less noise and more green") with this:

Then we have Giles described as being mostly interested in being safe and comfortable, and the fact that he and Garm didn't pay much notice to anything outside the immediate area of Ham (shades of Bilbo Baggins?).

There is definitely the same archetypal setup. Giles definitely takes on a bit of "Bilbo Baggins character development", even though I agree with Kuru that as person, he is more similar to somebody else; I'm not sure if Gaffer Gamgee (absolutely see that dimension too), I am actually thinking Farmer Maggot. There is the same dichotomy of somebody who is both very much set in his own comfortable isolated spot but at the same time very sharp when it comes to analysing problems at hand. And of course, the most strikingly, there is the element of "get off of my field, you supernatural intruder!" Stand not between the farmer and his property (or, on his property).

Another side-remark: what is the deal with there being specific effort to remark that Giles has a ginger beard when he is being introduced? (However is it exactly phrased in the original? Because obviously it seems like a super-random remark that gives me the vibe that it is either just there to provide some artistic imbalance to the sentence, or does it have some other significance? Also because the way it's phrased in my translation makes it sound somewhat derogatory, but that may come with the peculiar cultural element that if you talk about people with that colour of hair using that particular word, it has a somewhat negative tone. But is that a reference to something in the English culture that I am not aware of?)

Originally Posted by Inziladun

I think Garm is endearingly annoying at times, but obviously very loyal to his master. I love the vocalizations he's given in the book, such as when he wakes Giles to warn of the giant, and gets a thrown bottle for his trouble:

He actually reminds me of Roverandom (and the other various dogs present in that story, particularly maybe the Moon Dog. Also, there seems to be some strange connection in Tolkien's works between dogs and moonbeams; chasing moonbeams. Is it just recycling the same element in two stories, or is it a trope that has some deeper significance?).

Garm is a little more "crude" than Roverandom, perhaps, but the similarity is there. If I exaggerated a little, I would say that all Tolkien's dogs could happily be the same character and it would not be a problem. So is that it? Does Tolkien have an "archetypal dog" figure?

That made me think: I am aware of his opinion on cats, but what about dogs? Did he have any close relationship with any dogs that we know of? The family didn't own a dog, right, or did they? (I actually only now just noticed that Pitchwife has already asked this question, and it hasn't been answered.) Did some of Tolkien's closest friends have one? In other words: is Tolkien's writing of dogs pure fabrication, or could it have been inspired by some specific dog(s) that he had had the chance to get to know more closely?

Originally Posted by Morthoron

I do love that Giles' dog is named Garm after the fierce and bloody guardian of Hel's Gate in Norse myth

And that is just as we are told that dogs did not have fancy names. Perhaps not by the standards of the Latin-centric "high culture". But I find it interesting that if we say that Garm is a "barbaric" name, then the cow already is much better - her name being Galathea, which points to the classical Greek mythology (and, in another of Tolkien's linguistic inside-jokes, means "milk-white". Of course you'd name a cow after something that has to do with milk. Now the next level question is, was Giles himself actually so educated that he did this on purpose? ).

Originally Posted by Estelyn Telcontar

Another, very reminiscent of the Shire quote about the rest of the world being there, even if they weren't aware of it (can't remember the exact words or location): "But the Wide World was there." Sounds just a bit ominous, doesn't it?!

There is a very similar build-up to The Hobbit in broad terms - this particular quote reminds me also of Gildor. *points to current signature* There is the same use of "Wilderness" as the Outside, and the Shire/Ham being the more civilised part but still different from the King's city that lies on the opposite end of the spectrum (in TH and LotR it would be all the Elven and human cities).

More strikingly, there is the same progression in The Hobbit and Giles with "upping the challenge" of Giants(trolls)->Dragons (->greedy individuals of royal bloodline).

Originally Posted by Estelyn Telcontar

One of the characters that grew on me as I read and reread this story is Giles' wife Agatha. She's not mentioned very often, and according to Scull and Hammond, she was not part of the original story Tolkien told to his children, nor of the first manuscript. I will keep an eye out for the passages in which she appears to see if their is any significance to her addition to the story.

Incidentally, I haven't seen anyone cosplaying Queen Agatha - so I remedied that situation at the "Tolkien 2019" event in Birmingham two years ago...

I daresay that is certainly a commendable deed! I will also be curious to see what more there is about Agatha as the story continues. So far, I found it interesting how she is presented as a balance - much in the same vein as Giles - between the two types of the "hobbitish mentality" - the type of that would prefer her peace and quiet and thinks that a dog yelling about giants in the middle of the night is probably making up things (reminded me of the famous conversation about walking trees at the Green Dragon), but at the same time very much thinks that something should be done if the threat seems likely enough.

I have one more remark about the first adventure. So we have painstakingly analysed the "real historical period" of when this takes place, figured out that it goes maybe into around 7th century or somesuch, and then we have Giles using a muskette. Um...? Talk about "suspending disbelief", Mr. Tolkien!

And speaking of that, there is one little joke I enjoyed - now again, like I said, I have only a translation, so I would like to know how it goes in the original - there is the part where Tolkien supplies a quote from "four wise men" from, obviously, Oxford (in my translation it literally says Volský Brod, "Ox Ford", something that evokes the idea of some average muddy village and therefore fits the rural setting of the story while at the same time pointing to the famous university; but how does it go in the original? Is it something along the same lines?). And was this just a generic nod to Oxford as the centre of science, or was this perhaps even a specific referrence to him and some of his friends among the Inklings, a self-insert, if you will?