Many readers of the Lord of the Rings consider Tom’s presence in the first book to be an unnecessary intrusion into the narrative, which could be omitted without loss. Tolkien was aware of their feelings, and in part their judgment was correct. As Tolkien wrote in a letter in 1954, “. . . many have found him an odd and indeed discordant ingredient. In historical fact I put him in because I had already invented him. . . and wanted an ‘adventure’ on the way. But I kept him in, and as he was, because he represents certain things otherwise left out” (Ibid., p. 192). Judging by these remarks, critical readers are correct about the arbitrariness of Tom’s introduction into the story; however, as Tolkien continues, he deliberately (nonarbitrary) kept Tom in to fulfill a particular role, to provide an additional dimension.

In a letter written to the original proofreader of the trilogy in 1954, Tolkien reveals a little about what Tom’s literary role or function might be. Early in the letter he writes that “even in a mythological Age there must be some enigmas, as there always are. Tom Bombadil is one (intentionally)” (Ibid., p. 174). Later he adds that “Tom is not an important person – to the narrative. I suppose he has some importance as a ‘comment’.” He then goes on to explain that each side in the War of the Ring is struggling for power and control. Tom in contrast, though very powerful, has renounced power in a kind of “vow of poverty,” “a natural pacifist view.” In this sense, Tolkien says, Tom’s presence reveals that there are people and things in the world for whom the war is largely irrelevant or at least unimportant, and who cannot be easily disturbed or interfered with in terms of it (Ibid., pp. 178-79). Although Tom would fall if the Dark Lord wins (“Nothing would be left for him in the world of Sauron,” Ibid.), he would probably be “the Last as he was the First” (Rings, 1:279).

In trying to grasp what Tolkien has in mind here it is very important, I believe, to distinguish between an enigma and an anomaly, for Tolkien’s interest in Tom involves the former while reader dissatisfaction treats Tom more in terms of the latter. An anomaly is something discordant, unrelated, out of place. It is in this sense that someone might claim that Tom could be left out. An enigma, on the other hand, is a mystery, a puzzle, something which seems to be discordant, unrelated, out of place, but isn’t. This distinction becomes pivotal in the discussion of Tom Bombadil when one considers that on three occasions in the story the question of Tom’s identity or nature is pointedly brought up, twice by Frodo in Tom’s house and later at the Council of Elrond. If there is no answer to the question, then Tom is anomalous. If there is, then he is, as Tolkien claimed, enigmatic.

When one takes into account the manner in which Tolkien composed the Lord of the Rings, especially the care he gave to sorting out the historical connections between people, things, and events, I personally find it inconceivable that there is no answer within the framework of the story to Frodo’s question: “Who is Tom Bombadil?” Although Tolkien didn’t want to tell his readers directly, it seems to me certain that he himself knew very well. Tolkien was very protective of what he wrote, including his errors. When he found something miswritten in his manuscript, he was more likely to ponder, in terms of Middle-earth, how his characters came to make such an error, or what special significance this might have, than simply to correct it. Thus, a mispelt foreign word was more likely to remain as an example of regional dialect than to be changed. Problems with the names and identities of characters were solved in a similar manner. There are, for example, two Glorfindels in his history of Middle earth, one who died fighting a Balrog in the First Age, and another from Rivendell who lent Frodo his horse in the race to Imladris. This situation was, if not a problem, at least a bit unusual, and required special attention from Tolkien, since in general Elf names are unique to particular individuals. Rather than simply renaming one of the Elves, Tolkien concluded that they were the same person and that he had stumbled onto a rare case of reincarnation among the Elves. He then devoted some time to an examination of the theological implications of this special case (Becker, Tolkien Scrapbook, pp. 92-93).

Given this general approach in writing the trilogy, I submit (1) that it would have been impossible for Tolkien to have brought up the issue of Tom’s identity and nature three times and not to have continued thinking about it until he had an answer, and (2) that, although he might not have wanted to tell his readers the correct answer, feeling that enigmas are important, he would nevertheless have left some clues for those who wanted to pursue the matter as he had. The balance of this essay is an examination of those clues. Although the evidence is circumstantial, it is, I believe, convincing.

Beginning as early as Issac and Zimbardo’s Tolkien and His Critics, published in 1968, Tom Bombadil has almost universally been regarded as a nature spirit. In that volume, Edmund Fuller states that he is “unclassifiable other than as some primal nature spirit” (p. 23). According to Patricia Meyer Spacks, Tom has natural power for good and he “is in the most intimate communion with natural forces; he has the power of the ‘earth itself”‘ (p. 84). R. J. Reilly claims that Tom is “a kind of archetypal ‘vegetation god”‘ (p. 131) and argues that “when Tom Bombadil speaks, it is as if Nature itself – nonrational, interested only in life and in growing things were speaking (p. 139). This view of Tom, as a nonrational nature spirit, as a personification of nature itself, has been the dominant view ever since. Ruth S. Noel in The Mythology of Middle-earth, published in 1977, in perhaps the longest and most elaborate discussion of him, begins with the remark that “Tom Bombadil is a character like Puck or Pan, a nature god in diminished form, half humorous, halt divine” (p. 127) and she concludes with the remark that Bombadil and Goldberry are undisguised personifications of land untouched by humans, underlaid by a hidden but potent power, representing both the danger of wild land and its potential to serve man” (p. 130). Anne C. Petty in One Ring to Bind Them, published in 1979, summarizes all of the above with the proclamation that Tom is “the nature deity par excellence” (p. 38).

As nearly as I am able to determine, the textual basis for the idea that Tom is a nature spirit is the discussion of him at the Council of Elrond, specifically, the following remarks: “Power to defy our Enemy is not in him, unless such power is in the earth itself” and “. . . now he is withdrawn into a little land, within bounds that he has set, though none can see them, waiting for a change of days, and he will not step beyond them” Rings, 1:279). I suspect that many people have concluded from the second passage that Tom, as a nature spirit, has gradually become hemmed in with the diminishment of the Old Forest. The passage, however, says no such thing. His limits are not set for him by the boundaries of the forest; rather he set them himself. Furthermore, the passage does not state that he cannot cross the boundaries, only that he will not. The claim that he cannot is not even factually correct: Tom frequently visited Farmer Maggot in the Shire and presumably had previously made similar visits to others “down from days hardly remembered” (“Bombadil Goes Boating” and Rings, 1:143). With regard to the first passage, it does not say that Tom is or has the power of the earth. It is ambiguous. The statement, “Tim does not have the ability to drive that far, unless that ability is in his car,” does not mean that Tim is a car. Likewise, the fact that Tom does not have the power to defy Sauron need not be because such power is not in the earth. I will provide a better explanation in due course.

It is possible that the nature spirit theory has been held so long because no one could think of an alternative. Consider Jarred Lobdell’s treatment of Tom Bombadil in England and Always, published in 1981. Declaring Tom to be the “least successful creation” in the trilogy, he continues:

Standing alone, he would be a nature spirit…. But he is not standing alone. . . . He is not the genius of the earth, since he is restricted to one part of it. . . . He is apparently a man, since he is clearly not an Elf or a Dwarf or an Ent or a Hobbit or one of the fallen races, but he is not one of the Men of the West. I suppose one could save the appearances by making him an angel, of a different order from the Istari, or by making him a god, but in both cases we would be in conflict with Tolkien’s mythology. (pp. 62-63) Lokdell eventually concludes that Tom is an anomaly: “Although I find him an anomalous creation, I can make shift to account for him theologically – but only with the uneasy feeling that making shift is all that I am doing (p. 63).

While I can agree that Tom is not a nature spirit, a Man, an Elf, a Dwarf, or a Hobbit, I see no reason why Lobdell should reject the possibility that he is an angel or a god – in terms of Tolkien’s mythology, a Maia or a Vala. We know from the Silmarillion that Orome once hunted in Middle-earth, Ulmo had dealings with the Elves there, Olorin walked among the Elves unseen before he was Gandalf, and Melian spent a great deal of time in Beleriand with Thingol. There is thus ample evidence for occasional visits of such beings, even for the most frivolous or personal reasons.

Moreover, Tolkien draws some literary connections with regard to Tom that help support his divine status. First, as Noel has noted (Mythology, p. 128), Tolkien makes reference in “Bombadil Goes Boating” to a story in the Elder Edda about Odin, one of the most powerful Norse gods, thereby associating Tom with him. Second, in “In the House of Tom Bombadil” Goldberry answers the question “Who is Tom Bombadil?” with the simple statement “He is” (Rings, 1:135). In terms of medieval philosophy this would mean that existence is a predicate of Tom Bombadil and that he is therefore God. Although Tolkien denies this implication in a letter, written in 1954 (Letters, pp. 191-92), saying that Goldberry, like Tom later, is only making a point about the nature of naming, I remain haunted by the remark. Just as the reference to Odin does not necessarily mean that we must conclude that Tom is Odin, the allusion to medieval philosophical terminology in describing him need not be interpreted as a Christian theological crisis. While Tolkien’s denial clearly rules out the possibility that Tom is Iluvatar, I do not see that it eliminates the possibility that he is an offspring of Iluvatar’s thought, a Vala or a Maia, for I see nothing theologically troublesome with existence being a predicate of part of God.

Finally, there is Tom’s singing. Tom’s inability to separate song from his other activities, speaking, walking, working, suggests that it is very fundamental to his being in a profound way that distinguishes him from all other beings encountered in the trilogy. The wizards, for example, who are Maiar, chant (in the modern sense of the word) rather than sing, and never unconsciously. This continuous singing may be an indication of Tom’s high status. The world was, after all, brought into existence by a group of singers, the Holy Ones, some of whom became Valar. Second, Tom’s basic song is structurally related to Legolas’ “Song of the Sea” (Rings, 3:234-35), suggesting the possibility that Tom’s is a corruption of an original piece of music from the Uttermost West common to both. Third, Tom’s songs, although seemingly comic and nonsensical, have power in them to control individual elements and things in the forest. When told that Old Man Willow is the cause of the Hobbits’ problems, Tom replies, “that can soon be mended. I know the tune for him” (Ibid., 1:131), which I suggest means something like, ‘don’t worry. I have the plans for that thing and can fix it right away.” This is the kind of knowledge that a Vala, who sang the Music, would likely have, and singing would be the natural way to apply it.

Although this interpretation of Tom’s singing is inconsistent with the general claim that Tom is nonrational, it is not inconsistent with Tolkien’s own characterization of Tom in two letters in 1954, in which Tom is associated with the pure scientific study of nature. Tolkien writes:

. . . [Tom] is then an ‘allegory’, or an exemplar, a particular emboding of pure (real) natural science: the spirit that desires knowledge of other things, their history and nature, because they are ‘other’ and wholly entirely unconcerned with ‘doing’ annulling with the knowledge: Zoology and Botany, not Cattle-breeding or Agriculture. (Letters, p. 192; see also, p. 174)

As the exemplification of pure science, Tom could hardly be nonrational. Tom’s purity, moreover, stems from his desire to delight in things as they are, without dominating and controlling them. The former is the aim of pure science, the latter the essential aims of applied science. Tom’s knowledge of nature allows him to control nature when necessary, but because such control is not his aim, he is more akin to science than engineering. If we take Tom’s remark quite literally that he “was here before the river and the trees. . .the first raindrop and the first acorn” (Rings, 1:142), he is saying either that he was in Middle-earth when the Valar arrived or that he arrived as one of the Valar. His remark that “he knew the dark under ths stars when it was fearless – before the Dark Lord came from the Outside” refers to the time before Morgoth, the original Dark Lord, had officially turned renegade – the time when the “old” or original stars were made. Since the world was incomplete at that time and nothing lived on the earth except the Valar, it is hard to believe that Tom is anything but a Vala.

One interesting hint that Tom is a Vala may be tucked away in the confusing claim that Tom is “the oldest” even though Treebeard is at the same time supposed to be “the oldest living thing that still walks beneath the Sun.” In The Road to Middle-earth, published in 1982, T. A. Shipley, who considers Tom “a one-member category,” struggles with this “inconsistency” and concludes that the claim that Treebeard is the oldest living thing, if true, implies that Tom is not alive, just as the Nazgul are not dead (p. 82). Although the analogy is most likely not correct, it is suggestive. The word living probably means minimally that Fangorn is biotic, that is, an element belonging to the living system of the earth, the biosphere. There were in fact two classes of beings “living” in Middle-earth, who, as beings from outside of Ea, were not part of this system: the Valar and their servants, the Maiar. Their bodies were “veils” or “raiment,” appearances, in which they were self-incarnated (Road Goes Ever On, p. 66). As noted in the essay, “Istari,” in Unfinished Tales (p. 389), the Maiar who became the wizards of Middle-earth – and who had the same nature as the Valar – were converted to living beings temporarily by the special consent of Iluvatar: “For with the consent of Eru they … [were] clad in the bodies of Men, real and not feigned, but subject to the fears and pains and weariness of earth, able to hunger and thirst and be slain. . . .” The need for this conversion suggests that the Valar and Maiar were indeed nonliving, but in a manner very different from the Nazgul. Whereas the Ringwraiths were former living beings who were kept in existence unnaturally through the power of their rings in association with the One Ring, the Valar and Maiar were beings from another plane of existence (the Void) who, as a result, did not completely fit into the world of Middle-earth. Instead, of placing Tom in an anomalous category of one, or associating him with the undead, Shipley’s “inconsistency” may simply be a hint that Tom has extraterrestrial status as a Vala or Maia.

Someone might, of course, want to object that Tom Bombadil really doesn’t look or act like a Vala or a Maia, appearing and behaving instead more like an overgrown Hobbit. I submit, however, to the contrary, that there is no particular way that the Valar and Maiar were supposed to look. Rather they appeared in whatever way they chose, wearing their “veils” or “raiment” in a manner similar to the way we wear clothing. In “The Voice of Saruman,” for example, Gimli tells Gandalf that he wants to see Saruman so he can compare the two wizards. In mused response, Gandalf informs Gimli that there is no way for him to make such a comparison meaningfully, since Saruman can alter his appearance at will as it suits his purpose (Rings, 2:181-82). Rather than decreasing the possibility that Tom is a Vala, his hobbitish appearance actually increases it, for it suggests that Tom has the ability to “fit” his surroundings. If a Vala wanted to visit with Hobbits, he would, of course, appear to them in a manner that was somewhat humorous and familiar, thereby, putting them at ease. In this way, it can be argued that Tom’s Hobbit-like appearance counts in favor of him being a Vala or a Maia, not against it.

Robert Foster in the Complete Guide (p. 496) thus seems to be on the right track when he suggests that “it is possible that he is a Maia ‘gone native’.” The only problem is that there is no Maia in the Silmarillion who matches Tom’s general character. It is only when one turns to the Valar themselves that potential candidates emerge.

Because most of the Valar are married, determining the possible identity of Goldberry can be a help in establishing Tom’s. There are three possible Valier who might have enjoyed living for a time in the Old Forest: Nessa, Vana, and Yavanna. Nessa, who loves deer and dancing, does not fit too well, since neither of these is Goldberry’s specialties. Her husband, Tulkas, the best fighter among the Valar, moreover, is probably too warlike to be Tom. Vana, who cares for flowers and birds, also does not fit very well, since Goldberry is concerned with a larger variety of plants, and birds have no special role. Orome, Vana’s husband, furthermore, is a hunter, especially of monsters. If he were Tom, there would have been no wights on the Downs. With Yavanna, however, we have just the right emphasis, for she is responsible for all living things, with a special preference for plants. Since she is Queen of the Earth, it is easy to imagine her watering the forest with special care, as Goldberry does during the Hobbits’ visit.

In the Silmarillion (pp. 20-21) Yanvanna’s appearance is characterized as follows:

In the form of a woman she is tall, and robed in green; but at times she takes other shapes. Some there are who have seen her standing like a tree under heaven, crowned with the Sun; and from all its branches there spilled a golden dew upon the barren earth, and it grew green with corn; but the roots of the tree were in the waters of Ulmo, and the winds of Manwe spoke in its leaves.
When we first meet Goldberry, she is clad in green: “her gown was green, green as young reeds, shot with silver like beads of dew” (Rings, p. 172). When Tom officially introduces Goldberry, he says, “Here’s my Goldberry clothed all in silver-green. . . .” When she says goodbye to the Hobbits, she is once again clad in green and Frodo in calling for her refers specifically to this color when he starts to look for her: “My fair lady, clad all in green!” (p. 187). This characterization of Goldberry’s customary dress supports that hypothesis that she is Yavanna.

To be sure, when we first meet her, her feet are also surrounded by water, seemingly supporting the water nymph story. This circumstance, however, is not inconsistent with her tree image, which, as just noted, involved having her feet or roots in “the waters of Ulmo.”

As the farewell continues, moreover, a description analogous to the tree description is given:

There on the hill-brow she stood beckoning to them: her hair was flying loose, and as it caught the sun it shone and shimmered. A light like the glint of water on dewy grass flashed under her feet as she danced.”

Although still in human form, her flying hair hints at “the winds of Manwe” and the reflection of the sun from her hair suggests that she is “crowned with the Sun.” The “glint of water on dewy grass” suggests the spilling of the golden dew on the earth as well as “the waters of Ulmo.” When the Hobbits last see Goldberry, she is much more like a plant: “they saw Goldberry now small and slender like s sunlit flower against the sky: she was standing still watching them, and her hands were stretched out towards them.” In this case, she is probably more flower than tree because Hobbits in general like flowers and are afraid of trees. The “sunlit” image is strikingly similar to Yavanna’s primary nonhuman appearance.

Of course, an important problem with this hypothesis is the claim that Goldberry is the Riverwoman’s daughter. If the story is true, then Goldberry cannot be Yavanna. However, there are many things said in Rings that are not true literally and many matters are left unrevealed or unexplained. For instance, it was believed by many people that Rohan was selling horses to Mordor. Gandalf never reveals that he is a Maia. The eagles are never revealed as Maiar (though they are “Spirits in the shape of hawks and eagles” who “could see to the depths of the seas, and pierce the hidden caverns beneath the world” (Silmarillion, p. 35). As is clear from “The Hunt for the Ring,” in Unfinished Tales, many details are presented in a confused and unconnected way in Rings, because that is how they appeared to the people who wrote the book. There are, finally, two accounts given by Tolkien of the origins of the Orcs, both of which cannot be true. Thus, the fact that some people believe that Goldberry is Riverwoman’s Daughter does not absolutely, literally have to be true.

Just as Goldberry is very similar to Yavanna, Aule the Smith, shares many common characteristics with Tom and this identification helps explain some of the events that occur in Tom’s house – especially his control over the ring without any fear or temptation. Aule was the maker of all the substances of the earth: minerals, gems, and metals. During the creation of Middle-earth he was involved in nearly every aspect of its making. He prepared the sea beds to receive the waters of the ocean and prepared the land for plants and animals. As the Maker he developed and taught all arts, crafts, and skills. Of all the Valar, he had the greatest interest in the Children of Iluvatar. So impatient was he to see them that he made the Dwarves. According to the “Valaquenta” in the Silmarillion (p. 27), although Aule and Melkor were most like of all the Valar in thought and power, their attitudes toward the products of their labor and the labor of others were significantly different. While Melkor carefully guarded his works for himself and destroyed the works of others out of jealousy, Aule delighted in making, not possessing, and “he did not envy the works of others, but sought and gave counsel.” It was, in fact, Aule’s lack of possessiveness and his willingness to submit his work to the will of Iluvatar that saved the Dwarves from destruction and made it possible for them to receive the gift of free will from Iluvatar.

When one carefully considers the special moral characteristics of Aule, the similarities to Tom are most striking and revealing. Like Aule, Tom is not possessive. Although his power to dominate and control is always stressed – he is the master – he does not interfere with other beings except when they directly interfere with him. Although he has the power to possess whatever he may desire, he does not chose to possess or own the forest. As Goldberry explains, the animals, plants, and natural objects of the forest are all allowed to belong to themselves. This distain for ownership or possession is the reason why Tom is able to handle the ring without fear. Ultimately, all other powerful beings encountered in the trilogy, unless they are already fallen, are afraid to touch the ring lest the desire to possess it should turn them to evil. Since Tom does not want to own or possess anything, it has no power over him. We simply see his interest, curiosity, and delight as he studies the craftmanship involved in its making. Indeed, Tom approaches the ring critically, almost with scorn. While all others refer to the ring as precious in a reverent sense, Tom’s use of the word, “Show me the precious ring” (Rings, 1:144), suggests irony or doubt about its value. Since the lack of desire to possess or own was extremely rare among the Valar and the beings of Middle-earth, no over Vala is said to exhibit this moral trait, it seems reasonable to assume that Tom and Aule are the same person.

It is also important to note the tremendous power and control that Tom has over the ring. He is, first of all, able to overcome its normal effects. When he puts it on his finger, he does not become invisible. When Frodo puts it on his finger, Tom is still able to see Frodo: he is “not as blind as that yet” (Ibid.). Second, Tom is able with ease to use the ring in ways that were not intended by its maker, for he is able to make the ring itself disappear. (It is possible that Sauron himself might be unable to do this, for the ring embodied a great part of Sauron’s own power, drained from him during its making.) Such power over the ring, displayed almost as a parlor trick, I submit, cannot be accounted for by classifying Tom Bombadil as an anomalous nature spirit. The ability to dominate the ring suggests a Vala; the ease with which it is dominated suggests the ultimate maker of all things in Middle-earth, Aule the Smith, of whom both Sauron and Saruman were mere servants in the beginning before time.

If Tom is Aule, however, two other questions need to be answered. First of all, what are he and Yavanna doing in the Old Forest to begin with? As far as Yavanna is concerned, she is probably just visiting with growing things and vacationing with her husband. Aule, on the other hand, is probably there for the purpose of studying Hobbits. We should not forget that of all the Valar Aule was the one most eager to see the Children of Iluvatar. He is also the only one to make sentient, rational beings of his own. Given his interest in such creatures, it is not unreasonable to assume that, like Gandalf, he found Hobbits fascinating. As Hobbit songs about Tom Bombadil suggest, moreover, he had plenty of contact with Hobbits in Buckland and the Marish, no doubt allowing ample opportunity for Hobbit study.

Second, if he is Aule, and he is such a fine and wonderful god, why doesn’t he choose to be more helpful? Put another way, why isn’t there power in him to fight the enemy? The answer to this question is simpler than one might at first imagine. When Ulmo rises from the sea in “Of Tuor and His Coming to Gondolin” to give instructions to Tuor, who is supposed to deliver a message to the Elves of Gondolin, he hurries with his directions fearing that his own servant Osse will hurl a wave upon the shore and drown his emissary. As he puts it in Unfinished Tales (p. 30): “Go now. . . lest the Sea devour thee! For Osse obeys the will of Mandos, and he is wroth, being a servant of the Doom.” Although Ulmo’s actions are contrary to the will of the rest of the Valar that even his own servant will not help him (and is actually prepared to act against him), Ulmo, nevertheless, insists that he is not really opposing the other Valar, but rather is merely doing his “part”:

… though in the days of this darkness I seem to oppose the will of my brethren, the Lords of the West, that is my part among them, to which I was appointed ere the making of the World. (p. 29)

The key phrase is “to which I was appointed ere the making of the World.” First, it makes it clear that Ulmo is not acting defiantly at all, merely following orders, just as his servant would be following orders if he hurled up a wave and killed Tuor. Second, it refers to the time of the song which created the world. It is this song, I believe, that contains the conflicting instructions both Ulmo and Osse are following, different parts, elements, or themes of the whole. If I am correct, then Ulmo’s power to help the Elves is both limited by and partially determined by the Music of the Ainur, insofar as it established the existence of the earth and determined its major events. While Ulmo may have had free will as he sang his part of the song in those distant times, he is now bound by what he sang and cannot go beyond or change his part. If Tom is Aule, then he too is bound by his part in the song and although sympathetic and concerned, he can only help the Hobbits and the Free Peoples of the West in little ways.

This account of Tom as Aule is not really inconsistent with Tolkien’s claim that Tom has renounced power in a kind of “vow of poverty” and that he exemplifies “a natural pacifist view.” At the time of the singing of the Great Music, it is true that Aule, along with most of the other Holy Ones, eventually stopped singing, leaving Melkor to sing on alone. However, they did not stop because Melkor’s thunderous and discordant singing defeated them, but rather because they did not wish to compete with him and considered the song spoiled by his behavior. It was not defeat, since obviously by singing together the others could have overcome him. Rather it was a rejection of the conflict itself – hence, a pacifist position. It was indeed the Third Theme sung by Iluvatar, representing the part of the Children of Iluvatar, that was to overcome Melkor’s disruption. Concerning the “vow of poverty,” Aule has indeed taken such a vow – as exemplified by his attitude toward his work and the work of others – his lack of excessive pride, jealousy, and possessiveness.

In contrast, if Tom is a nature spirit, then no vow of poverty has been taken, and there is no natural pacifist view. According to the nature spirit thesis, as Veryln Flieger puts it in Splintered Light, published in 1983: “Tom Bombadil, on whom the Ring has no effect, is a natural force, a kind of earth spirit, and so the power over the will which the Ring exerts simply has no meaning for him” (p. 128, note). As a natural force, Tom has the same status as a falling rock or the wind or the rain – he is blind activity with no direction or purpose. As such he is not a moral agent, and cannot therefore make moral decisions. The moral dimension is thus completely absent. Tom is immune to the influence of the ring not because of his high moral character, but because he is not capable of having a moral character at all.

If Tom is Aule, however, there is a moral dimension, indeed, a heightened one, for Tom’s appearance in the story, although only a “comment,” serves as a sharp and clear contrast to the two evil Maiar, Sauron and Saruman, both of whom were once his servants before turning to evil and darkness. Unlike their former master, these two followed the ways of Melkor, envy, jealousy, excessive pride, and the desire to possess and control. As Tolkien explained to his proofreader, Tom’s role was to show that there were things beyond and unconcerned with domination and control. On the surface, this view of Tom seems to make him unrelated to all other things and events in Middle-earth – indeed, anomalous. As Aule, however, Tom is not beyond and unconcerned anomalously, but rather is located at the core of morality as it existed in Middle-earth, as the ultimate exemplification of the proper moral stance toward power, pride, and possession. In fact, in terms of the moral traits that most fascinated Tolkien both as an author and as a scholar, Tom Bombadil is Tolkien’s moral ideal.

Tolkien was Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford from 1925 to 1945, and Merton Professor of English Language and Literature from 1945 to 1959. He was a close friend of C. S. Lewis—they were both members of the informal literary discussion group known as the Inklings. Tolkien was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II on 28 March 1972.

After his death, Tolkien’s son, Christopher, published a series of works based on his father’s extensive notes and unpublished manuscripts, including The Silmarillion. These, together with The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, form a connected body of tales, poems, fictional histories, invented languages, and literary essays about an imagined world called Arda, and Middle-earth within it. Between 1951 and 1955 Tolkien applied the word legendarium to the larger part of these writings.

While many other authors had published works of fantasy before Tolkien, the great success of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings when they were published in paperback in the United States led directly to a popular resurgence of the genre. This has caused Tolkien to be popularly identified as the “father” of modern fantasy literature—or more precisely, high fantasy. Tolkien’s writings have inspired many other works of fantasy and have had a lasting effect on the entire field. In 2008, The Times ranked him sixth on a list of “The 50 greatest British writers since 1945″.

Tolkien family origins

Most of Tolkien’s paternal ancestors were craftsmen. The Tolkien family had its roots in the German Kingdom of Saxony, but had been living in England since the 18th century, becoming “quickly and intensely English”. The surname Tolkien is said to be an Anglicized form of Tollkiehn (i.e. German tollkühn, “foolhardy”, etymologically corresponding to English dull-keen, literally oxymoron), and the surname Rashbold, given to two characters in Tolkien’s The Notion Club Papers, is similarly a compound word composed of two words with contrasting meanings. German writers have suggested that in reality, the name is more likely to derive from the village Tolkynen in Rastenburg in East Prussia (after WWII Tołkiny, Poland). The name of that place is ultimately of Baltic origin.

Tolkien’s maternal grandparents, John and Edith Jane Suffield, were Baptists who lived in Birmingham and owned a shop in the city centre. The Suffield family had run various businesses out of the same building, called Lamb House, since the early 1800s. From 1810 Tolkien’s great-great grandfather William Suffield had a book and stationery shop there; Tolkien’s great-grandfather, also John Suffield, was there from 1826 with a drapery and hosiery business.

Childhood

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was born on 3 January 1892, in Bloemfontein in the Orange Free State (now Free State Province, part of South Africa) to Arthur Reuel Tolkien (1857–1896), an English bank manager, and his wife Mabel, née Suffield (1870–1904). The couple had left England when Arthur was promoted to head the Bloemfontein office of the British bank he worked for. Tolkien had one sibling, his younger brother, Hilary Arthur Reuel, who was born on 17 February 1894.

As a child, Tolkien was bitten by a large baboon spider in the garden, an event which would have later echoes in his stories, although Tolkien admitted no actual memory of the event and no special hatred of spiders as an adult (Letter 217). In another incident, a family house-boy, who thought Tolkien a beautiful child, took the baby to his kraal to show him off, returning him the next morning.

When he was three, Tolkien went to England with his mother and brother on what was intended to be a lengthy family visit. His father, however, died in South Africa of rheumatic fever before he could join them. This left the family without an income, so Tolkien’s mother took him to live with her parents in Ward End, Birmingham. Soon after, in 1896, they moved to Sarehole (now in Hall Green), then a Worcestershire village, later annexed to Birmingham. He enjoyed exploring Sarehole Mill and Moseley Bog and the Clent Hills and Malvern Hills, which would later inspire scenes in his books, along with other Worcestershire towns and villages such as Bromsgrove, Alcester, and Alvechurch and places such as his aunt Jane’s farm of Bag End, the name of which would be used in his fiction.

Mabel tutored her two sons, and Ronald, as he was known in the family, was a keen pupil. She taught him a great deal of botany, and awakened in her son the enjoyment of the look and feel of plants. Young Tolkien liked to draw landscapes and trees, but his favourite lessons were those concerning languages, and his mother taught him the rudiments of Latin very early.He could read by the age of four, and could write fluently soon afterwards. His mother allowed him to read many books. He disliked Treasure Island and The Pied Piper, and thought Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll was amusing but disturbing. He liked stories about “Red Indians” and the fantasy works by George MacDonald. In addition, the “Fairy Books” of Andrew Lang were particularly important to him and their influence is apparent in some of his later writings.

Tolkien attended King Edward’s School, Birmingham and, while a student there, helped “line the route” for the coronation parade of King George V, being posted just outside the gates of Buckingham Palace. He later attended St. Philip’s School, before winning a Foundation Scholarship and returning to King Edward’s School.

Mabel Tolkien was received into the Roman Catholic Church in 1900 despite vehement protests by her Baptist family, who then stopped all financial assistance to her. She died of acute complications of diabetes in 1904, when Tolkien was 12, at Fern Cottage in Rednal, which they were then renting. Mabel Tolkien was then about 34 years of age, about as long as a person with diabetes mellitus type 1 could live with no treatment—insulin would not be discovered until two decades later. For the rest of his own life Tolkien felt that his mother had become a martyr for her faith. This feeling had a profound effect on his own Catholic beliefs.

Prior to her death, Mabel Tolkien had assigned the guardianship of her sons to Fr. Francis Xavier Morgan of the Birmingham Oratory, who was assigned to bring them up as good Catholics. Tolkien grew up in the Edgbaston area of Birmingham. He lived there in the shadow of Perrott’s Folly and the Victorian tower of Edgbaston Waterworks, which may have influenced the images of the dark towers within his works. Another strong influence was the romantic medievalist paintings of Edward Burne-Jones and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood; the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery has a large and world-renowned collection of works and had put it on free public display from around 1908.

Youth

In 1911, while they were at King Edward’s School, Birmingham, Tolkien and three friends, Rob Gilson, Geoffrey Smith and Christopher Wiseman, formed a semi-secret society which they called “the T.C.B.S.”, the initials standing for “Tea Club and Barrovian Society”, alluding to their fondness for drinking tea in Barrow’s Stores near the school and, illicitly, in the school library. After leaving school, the members stayed in touch, and in December 1914, they held a “Council” in London, at Wiseman’s home. For Tolkien, the result of this meeting was a strong dedication to writing poetry.

In the summer of 1911, Tolkien went on holiday in Switzerland, a trip that he recollects vividly in a 1968 letter, noting that Bilbo’s journey across the Misty Mountains (“including the glissade down the slithering stones into the pine woods”) is directly based on his adventures as their party of 12 hiked from Interlaken to Lauterbrunnen, and on to camp in the moraines beyond Mürren. Fifty-seven years later, Tolkien remembered his regret at leaving the view of the eternal snows of Jungfrau and Silberhorn (“the Silvertine (Celebdil) of my dreams”). They went across the Kleine Scheidegg on to Grindelwald and across the Grosse Scheidegg to Meiringen. They continued across the Grimsel Pass and through the upper Valais to Brig, and on to the Aletsch glacier and Zermatt.

In October of the same year, Tolkien began studying at Exeter College, Oxford. He initially studied Classics but changed to English Language, graduating in 1915.

Courtship and marriage

At the age of 16, Tolkien met Edith Mary Bratt, who was three years older, when J. R. R. and Hilary Tolkien moved into the same boarding house. According to Humphrey Carpenter:

“Edith and Ronald took to frequenting Birmingham teashops, especially one which had a balcony overlooking the pavement. There they would sit and throw sugarlumps into the hats of passers-by, moving to the next table when the sugar bowl was empty. …With two people of their personalities and in their position, romance was bound to flourish. Both were orphans in need of affection, and they found that they could give it to each other. During the summer of 1909, they decided that they were in love.”

His guardian, Father Francis Morgan, viewing Edith as a distraction from Tolkien’s school work and horrified that his young charge was seriously involved with a Protestant girl, prohibited him from meeting, talking, or even corresponding with her until he was twenty-one. He obeyed this prohibition to the letter, with one notable early exception which made Father Morgan threaten to cut short his University career if he did not stop.

On the evening of his twenty-first birthday, Tolkien wrote to Edith a declaration of his love and asked her to marry him. Edith replied saying that she had already agreed to marry another man, but that she had done so because she had believed Tolkien had forgotten her. The two met up and beneath a railway viaduct renewed their love; Edith returned her engagement ring and announced that she was marrying Tolkien instead. Following their engagement Edith converted to Catholicism at Tolkien’s insistence. They were formally engaged in Birmingham, in January 1913, and married in Warwick, England, at Saint Mary Immaculate Catholic Church on 22 March 1916.

World War I

The United Kingdom was then engaged in fighting World War I, and Tolkien volunteered for military service and was commissioned in the British Army as a Second Lieutenant in the Lancashire Fusiliers. He trained with the 13th (Reserve) Battalion on Cannock Chase, Staffordshire, for eleven months. He was then transferred to the 11th (Service) Battalion with the British Expeditionary Force, arriving in France on 4 June 1916. He later wrote:

“Junior officers were being killed off, a dozen a minute. Parting from my wife then … it was like a death.”

Tolkien served as a signals officer at the Somme, participating in the Battle of Thiepval Ridge and the subsequent assault on the Schwaben Redoubt. On 27 October 1916 he came down with trench fever, a disease carried by the lice which were common in the dugouts. According to the memoirs of the Reverend Mervyn S. Evers, Anglican chaplain to the Lancashire Fusilliers:

“On one occasion I spent the night with the Brigade Machine Gun Officer and the Signals Officer in one of the captured German dugouts … We dossed down for the night in the hopes of getting some sleep, but it was not to be. We no sooner lay down than hordes of lice got up. So we went round to the Medical Officer, who was also in the dug-out with his equipment, and he gave us some ointment which he assured us would keep the little brutes away. We anointed ourselves all over with the stuff and again lay down in great hopes, but it was not to be, because instead of discouraging them it seemed to act like a kind of hors d’oeuvre and the little beggars went at their feast with renewed vigour.”

Tolkien was invalided to England on 8 November 1916. Many of his dearest school friends, including Gilson and Smith of the T.C.B.S., were killed in the war. In later years, Tolkien indignantly declared that those who searched his works for parallels to the Second World War were entirely mistaken:

“One has indeed personally to come under the shadow of war to feel fully its oppression; but as the years go by it seems now often forgotten that to be caught in youth by 1914 was no less hideous an experience than to be involved in 1939 and the following years. By 1918 all but one of my close friends were dead.”

A weak and emaciated Tolkien spent the remainder of the war alternating between hospitals and garrison duties, being deemed medically unfit for general service.

Homefront

During his recovery in a cottage in Great Haywood, Staffordshire, England, he began to work on what he called The Book of Lost Tales, beginning with The Fall of Gondolin. Throughout 1917 and 1918 his illness kept recurring, but he had recovered enough to do home service at various camps, and was promoted to Lieutenant. However, it was at this time Edith bore their first child, John Francis Reuel Tolkien.

When he was stationed at Kingston upon Hull, he and Edith went walking in the woods at nearby Roos, and Edith began to dance for him in a clearing among the flowering hemlock:

We walked in a wood where hemlock was growing, a sea of white flowers.

This incident inspired the account of the meeting of Beren and Lúthien, and Tolkien often referred to Edith as “my Lúthien.”

Academic and writing career

Tolkien’s first civilian job after World War I was at the Oxford English Dictionary, where he worked mainly on the history and etymology of words of Germanic origin beginning with the letter W. In 1920 he took up a post as Reader in English language at the University of Leeds, and in 1924 was made a professor there. While at Leeds he produced A Middle English Vocabulary and, with E. V. Gordon, a definitive edition of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, both becoming academic standard works for many decades. He also translated Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl and Sir Orfeo. In 1925 he returned to Oxford as Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon, with a fellowship at Pembroke College.

During his time at Pembroke, Tolkien wrote The Hobbit and the first two volumes of The Lord of the Rings, largely at 20 Northmoor Road in North Oxford, where a blue plaque was placed in 2002. He also published a philological essay in 1932 on the name “Nodens”, following Sir Mortimer Wheeler’s unearthing of a Roman Asclepieion at Lydney Park, Gloucestershire, in 1928.

Of Tolkien’s academic publications, the 1936 lecture “Beowulf: the Monsters and the Critics” had a lasting influence on Beowulf research. Lewis E. Nicholson said that the article Tolkien wrote about Beowulf is “widely recognized as a turning point in Beowulfian criticism”, noting that Tolkien established the primacy of the poetic nature of the work as opposed to the purely linguistic elements. At the time, the consensus of scholarship deprecated Beowulf for dealing with childish battles with monsters rather than realistic tribal warfare; Tolkien argued that the author of Beowulf was addressing human destiny in general, not as limited by particular tribal politics, and therefore the monsters were essential to the poem. Where Beowulf does deal with specific tribal struggles, as at Finnsburg, Tolkien argued firmly against reading in fantastic elements. In the essay, Tolkien also revealed how highly he regarded Beowulf: “Beowulf is among my most valued sources,” and this influence can be seen in The Lord of the Rings.

In the run-up to World War II, Tolkien was earmarked as a codebreaker. He trained at Government Code and Cypher School and spent three days at their London HQ in March 1939. However, although he was “keen” to become a codebreaker, he turned down a £500-a-year offer to become a full-time recruit. No-one knows why Tolkien turned down the offer.

In 1945, Tolkien moved to Merton College, Oxford, becoming the Merton Professor of English Language and Literature, in which post he remained until his retirement in 1959. He served as an external examiner for the Catholic University of Ireland for many years. In 1954 Tolkien received an honorary degree from the National University of Ireland. Tolkien completed The Lord of the Rings in 1948, close to a decade after the first sketches.

Tolkien also helped to translate the Jerusalem Bible, which was published in 1966.

Family

The Tolkiens had four children: John Francis Reuel Tolkien (17 November 1917 – 22 January 2003), Michael Hilary Reuel Tolkien (22 October 1920 – 27 February 1984), Christopher John Reuel Tolkien (born 21 November 1924) and Priscilla Mary Anne Reuel Tolkien (born 18 June 1929). Tolkien was very devoted to his children and sent them illustrated letters from Father Christmas when they were young. There were more characters added each year, such as the Polar Bear, Father Christmas’s helper, the Snow Man, the gardener, Ilbereth the elf, his secretary, and various other minor characters. The major characters would relate tales of Father Christmas’s battles against goblins who rode on bats and the various pranks committed by the Polar Bear.

Friendships

C. S. Lewis

C. S. Lewis, whom Tolkien first met at Oxford, was perhaps his closest friend and colleague, although their relationship cooled later in their lives. They had a shared affection for good talk, laughter, and beer, and in May 1927 Tolkien enrolled Lewis in the Coalbiters club, which read Icelandic sagas in the original Old Norse, and, as Carpenter notes, “a long and complex friendship had begun.” It was Tolkien (and Hugo Dyson) who helped C. S. Lewis return to Christianity, and Tolkien was accustomed to read aloud passages from The Silmarillion, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings to Lewis’ strong approval and encouragement at the Inklings—often meeting in Lewis’ big Magdalen sitting-room—and in private.

It was the arrival of Charles Williams, who worked for the Oxford University Press, that changed the relationship between Tolkien and Lewis. Lewis’ enthusiasm shifted almost imperceptibly from Tolkien to Williams, especially during the writing of Lewis’ third novel That Hideous Strength.

Tolkien had for a long time been extremely bothered by what he perceived as Lewis’s Anti-Catholicism. In a letter to his son Christopher, he declared:

“… hatred of our Church is after all the only real foundation of the C[hurch] of E[ngland]—so deep laid that it remains when all the superstructure seems removed (C.S.L. for example reveres the Blessed Sacrament and admires nuns!). Yet if a Lutheran is put in jail he is up in arms; but if Catholic priests are slaughtered—he disbelieves it (and I daresay really thinks they asked for it).”

Lewis’ growing reputation as a Christian apologist and his return to the Anglican fold also annoyed Tolkien, who had a deep resentment of the Church of England. By the mid-forties, Tolkien felt that Lewis was receiving a good deal “too much [publicity] for his or any of our tastes”.

Tolkien and Lewis might have grown closer during their days at Headington, but this was prevented by Lewis’ marriage to Joy Davidman. Tolkien felt that Lewis expected his friends to visit and socialise with both him and his wife, even though as a bachelor in the thirties when the Inklings had met, Lewis had often ignored the fact that his friends, including Tolkien, had wives to go home to. In his biography of Tolkien, Carpenter suggests that Tolkien may have felt betrayed by the marriage and resented a woman’s intrusion into their close friendship, just as Edith Tolkien had felt jealous of Lewis’ intrusion into her marriage. It did not help matters that Lewis did not initially tell Tolkien about his marriage to Davidman or that when Tolkien finally did find out, he also discovered that Lewis had married a divorcee, which was offensive to Tolkien’s Catholic beliefs. Tolkien described the marriage as “very strange”.

The cessation of Tolkien’s frequent meetings with Lewis in the 1950s marked the end of the “clubbable” chapter in Tolkien’s life, which started with the T.C.B.S. at school and ended with the Inklings at Oxford.

His friendship with Lewis was nevertheless renewed to some degree in later years. As Tolkien was to comment in a letter to Priscilla after Lewis’ death in November, 1963:

“So far I have felt the normal feelings of a man of my age – like an old tree that is losing all its leaves one by one: this feels like an axe-blow near the roots.”

W. H. Auden

W. H. Auden, who attended Tolkien’s lectures as an undergraduate, was also an occasional correspondent and was on friendly terms with Tolkien from the mid-1950s until Tolkien’s death, initiated by Auden’s fascination with The Lord of the Rings: Auden was among the most prominent early critics to praise the work. Tolkien wrote in a 1971 letter:

“I am [...] very deeply in Auden’s debt in recent years. His support of me and interest in my work has been one of my chief encouragements. He gave me very good reviews, notices and letters from the beginning when it was by no means a popular thing to do. He was, in fact, sneered at for it.”

Retirement and old age

During his life in retirement, from 1959 up to his death in 1973, Tolkien received steadily increasing public attention and literary fame. The sales of his books were so profitable that he regretted he had not chosen early retirement. While at first he wrote enthusiastic answers to readers’ enquiries, he became more and more suspicious of emerging Tolkien fandom, especially among the hippie movement in the United States. In a 1972 letter he deplores having become a cult-figure, but admits that:

“… even the nose of a very modest idol [...] cannot remain entirely untickled by the sweet smell of incense!”

Fan attention became so intense that Tolkien had to take his phone number out of the public directory and eventually he and Edith moved to Bournemouth on the south coast.

Tolkien was appointed by Queen Elizabeth II a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the New Year’s Honours List of 1 January 1972 and received the insignia of the Order at Buckingham Palace on 28 March 1972.

Death

Tolkien’s wife, Edith, died on 29 November 1971, at the age of 82. Tolkien had the name Lúthien engraved on the stone at Wolvercote Cemetery, Oxford. When Tolkien died 21 months later on 2 September 1973, at the age of 81, he was buried in the same grave, with Beren added to his name. The engravings read:

Edith Mary Tolkien
Lúthien
1889–1971

John Ronald
Reuel Tolkien
Beren
1892–1973

Views

Tolkien was a devout Roman Catholic, and in his religious and political views he was mostly conservative, in the sense of favouring established conventions and orthodoxies over innovation and modernization; in 1943 he wrote, “My political opinions lean more and more to Anarchy (philosophically understood to mean abolition of control, not whiskered men with bombs)—or to ‘unconstitutional’ Monarchy.”

Tolkien had an intense dislike for the side effects of industrialization, which he considered to be devouring the English countryside. For most of his adult life, he was disdainful of automobiles, preferring to ride a bicycle. This attitude can be seen in his work, most famously in the portrayal of the forced “industrialization” of The Shire in The Lord of the Rings.

Many have commented on a number of potential parallels between the Middle-earth saga and events in Tolkien’s lifetime. The Lord of the Rings is often thought to represent England during and immediately after World War II. Tolkien ardently rejected this opinion in the foreword to the second edition of the novel, stating he preferred applicability to allegory. This theme is taken up in greater length in his essay “On Fairy-Stories”, where he argues fairy-stories are so apt because they are consistent with themselves and some truths about reality. He concludes that Christianity itself follows this pattern of inner consistency and external truth. His belief in the fundamental truths of Christianity and their place in mythology leads commentators to find Christian themes in The Lord of the Rings, despite its noticeable lack of overt religious references, religious ceremony or appeals to God. Tolkien objected strongly to C. S. Lewis’s use of religious references in his stories, which were often overtly allegorical. However, Tolkien wrote that the Mount Doom scene exemplified lines from the Lord’s Prayer.

His love of myths and devout faith came together in his assertion that he believed that mythology is the divine echo of “the Truth”. This view was expressed in his poem Mythopoeia, and his idea that myths held “fundamental truths” became a central theme of the Inklings in general.

Religion

Tolkien’s devout faith was a significant factor in the conversion of C. S. Lewis from atheism to Christianity, although Tolkien was dismayed that Lewis chose to join the Church of England.

In the last years of his life, Tolkien became greatly disappointed by the reforms and changes implemented after the Second Vatican Council, as his grandson Simon Tolkien recalls:

“I vividly remember going to church with him in Bournemouth. He was a devout Roman Catholic and it was soon after the Church had changed the liturgy from Latin to English. My grandfather obviously didn’t agree with this and made all the responses very loudly in Latin while the rest of the congregation answered in English. I found the whole experience quite excruciating, but my grandfather was oblivious. He simply had to do what he believed to be right.”

Politics and race

Tolkien’s views were guided by his strict Catholicism. He voiced support for Francisco Franco’s regime during the Spanish Civil War upon learning that Republican death squads were destroying churches and killing large numbers of priests and nuns. He also expressed admiration for the South African poet and fellow Catholic Roy Campbell after a 1944 meeting. Since Campbell had allegedly served with Franco’s armies in Spain, Tolkien regarded him as a defender of the Catholic faith, while C. S. Lewis composed poetry openly satirising Campbell’s “mixture of Catholicism and Fascism”.

The question of racist or racialist elements in Tolkien’s views and works has been the matter of some scholarly debate. Christine Chism distinguishes accusations as falling into three categories: intentional racism, unconscious Eurocentric bias, and an evolution from latent racism in Tolkien’s early work to a conscious rejection of racist tendencies in his late work. Tolkien is known to have condemned Nazi “race-doctrine” and anti-Semitism as “wholly pernicious and unscientific”. He also said of racial segregation in South Africa,

“The treatment of colour nearly always horrifies anyone going out from Britain.”

In 1968, he objected to a description of Middle-earth as “Nordic”, a term he said he disliked because of its association with racialist theories. Tolkien had nothing but contempt for Adolf Hitler, whom he accused of “Ruining, perverting, misapplying, and making for ever accursed, that noble northern spirit, a supreme contribution to Europe, which I have ever loved, and tried to present in its true light.”

He was also disgusted by the anti-German propaganda which was used to further the British war effort. In 1944, he wrote in a letter to his son Christopher:

“It is distressing to see the press grovelling in the gutter as low as Goebbels in his prime, shrieking that any German commander who holds out in a desperate situation (when, too, the military needs of his side clearly benefit) is a drunkard, and a besotted fanatic … There was a solemn article in the local paper seriously advocating systematic exterminating of the entire German nation as the only proper course after military victory: because, if you please, they are rattlesnakes, and don’t know the difference between good and evil! (What of the writer?) The Germans have just as much right to declare the Poles and Jews exterminable vermin, subhuman, as we have to select the Germans: in other words, no right, whatever they have done.”

He was horrified by the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, referring to the scientists of the Manhattan Project as “these lunatic physicists” and “Babel-builders”.

Writing

Beginning with The Book of Lost Tales, written while recuperating from illnesses contracted during The Battle of the Somme, Tolkien devised several themes that were reused in successive drafts of his legendarium. The two most prominent stories, the tale of Beren and Lúthien and that of Túrin, were carried forward into long narrative poems (published in The Lays of Beleriand).

Influences

British adventure stories

One of the greatest influences on Tolkien was the Arts and Crafts polymath William Morris. Tolkien wished to imitate Morris’s prose and poetry romances, from which, along with some general aspects of approach, he took hints for the names of features such as the Dead Marshes in The Lord of the Rings and Mirkwood.

Edward Wyke-Smith’s Marvellous Land of the Snergs, with its “table-high” title characters, strongly influenced the incidents, themes, and depiction of Bilbo’s race in The Hobbit.

Tolkien also cited H. Rider Haggard’s novel She in a telephone interview: “I suppose as a boy She interested me as much as anything—like the Greek shard of Amyntas [Amenartas], which was the kind of machine by which everything got moving.” A supposed facsimile of this potsherd appeared in Haggard’s first edition, and the ancient inscription it bore, once translated, led the English characters to She’s ancient kingdom. Critics have compared this device to the Testament of Isildur in The Lord of the Rings and Tolkien’s efforts to produce as an illustration a realistic page from the Book of Mazarbul. Critics starting with Edwin Muir have found resemblances between Haggard’s romances and Tolkien’s.

Tolkien wrote of being impressed as a boy by S. R. Crockett’s historical novel The Black Douglas and of basing the Necromancer (Sauron) on its villain, Gilles de Retz. Incidents in both The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings are similar in narrative and style to the novel, and its overall style and imagery have been suggested as an influence on Tolkien.

European mythology

Tolkien was much inspired by early Germanic, especially Anglo-Saxon literature, poetry and mythology, which were his chosen and much-loved areas of expertise. These sources of inspiration included Anglo-Saxon literature such as Beowulf, Norse sagas such as the Volsunga saga and the Hervarar saga, the Poetic Edda, the Prose Edda, the Nibelungenlied and numerous other culturally related works.

Despite the similarities of his work to the Volsunga saga and the Nibelungenlied, which were the basis for Richard Wagner’s opera series, Tolkien dismissed critics’ direct comparisons to Wagner, telling his publisher, “Both rings were round, and there the resemblance ceases.” However, some critics believe that Tolkien was, in fact, indebted to Wagner for elements such as the “concept of the Ring as giving the owner mastery of the world…” Two of the characteristics possessed by the One Ring, its inherent malevolence and corrupting power upon minds and wills, were not present in the mythical sources but have a central role in Wagner’s opera.

Tolkien did acknowledge Homer, Sophocles, and the Finnish and Karelian Kalevala as influences or sources for some of his stories and ideas.

Dimitra Fimi, along with Douglas Anderson, John Garth and many other prominent Tolkien scholars show that Tolkien also drew influence from a variety of Celtic (Scottish, Welsh and Gaelic) history and legends, though after the Silmarillion manuscript was rejected, in part for its “eye-splitting” Celtic names, Tolkien rejected their Celtic origin:

“Needless to say they are not Celtic! Neither are the tales. I do know Celtic things (many in their original languages Irish and Welsh), and feel for them a certain distaste: largely for their fundamental unreason. They have bright colour, but are like a broken stained glass window reassembled without design. They are in fact ‘mad’ as your reader says—but I don’t believe I am.”

Catholicism

Catholic theology and imagery played a part in fashioning Tolkien’s creative imagination, suffused as it was by his deeply religious spirit. Tolkien acknowledged this himself:

“The Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision. That is why I have not put in, or have cut out, practically all references to anything like ‘religion’, to cults or practices, in the imaginary world. For the religious element is absorbed into the story and the symbolism.”

Specifically, Paul H. Kocher argues that Tolkien describes evil in the orthodox Christian way as the absence of good. He cites many examples in The Lord of the Rings, such as Sauron’s “Lidless Eye”: “the black slit of its pupil opened on a pit, a window into nothing.” Kocher sees Tolkien’s source as Thomas Aquinas, “whom it is reasonable to suppose that Tolkien, as a medievalist and a Catholic, knows well.” Tom Shippey makes the same point, but instead of referring to Aquinas, says Tolkien was very familiar with Alfred the Great’s Anglo-Saxon translation of Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy, known as the Lays of Boethius. Shippey contends that this Christian view of evil is most clearly stated by Boethius: “evil is nothing”. He says Tolkien used the corollary that evil cannot create as the basis of Frodo’s remark, “the Shadow… can only mock, it cannot make: not real new things of its own,” and related remarks by Treebeard and Elrond. He goes on to argue that in the trilogy evil does sometimes seem to be an independent force, more than merely the absence of good (though not independent to the point of the Manichaean heresy), and suggests that Alfred’s additions to his translation of Boethius may have inspired that view.

Publications

Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics

As well as his fiction, Tolkien was also a leading author of academic literary criticism. His seminal 1936 lecture, later published as an article, revolutionised the treatment of the Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf by literary critics. The essay remains highly influential in the study of Old English Literature to this day. Beowulf is one of the most significant influences upon Tolkien’s later fiction, with major details of both The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings being adapted from the poem. The piece reveals many of the aspects of Beowulf which Tolkien found most inspiring, most prominently the role of monsters in literature, particularly the dragon which appears in the final third of the poem:

“As for the poem, one dragon, however hot, does not make a summer, or a host; and a man might well exchange for one good dragon what he would not sell for a wilderness. And dragons, real dragons, essential both to the machinery and the ideas of a poem or tale, are actually rare.”

The Silmarillion

Tolkien wrote a brief “Sketch of the Mythology” of which the tales of Beren and Lúthien and of Túrin were part, and that sketch eventually evolved into the Quenta Silmarillion, an epic history that Tolkien started three times but never published. Tolkien hoped to publish it along with The Lord of the Rings, but publishers (both Allen & Unwin and Collins) got cold feet; moreover printing costs were very high in the post-war years, leading to The Lord of the Rings being published in three books. The story of this continuous redrafting is told in the posthumous series The History of Middle-earth, which was edited by Tolkien’s son, Christopher Tolkien. From around 1936, he began to extend this framework to include the tale of The Fall of Númenor, which was inspired by the legend of Atlantis. Published in 1977, the final work, finally entitled The Silmarillion, received the Locus Award for Best Fantasy novel in 1978.

Children’s books and other short works

In addition to his mythopoetic compositions, Tolkien enjoyed inventing fantasy stories to entertain his children. He wrote annual Christmas letters from Father Christmas for them, building up a series of short stories (later compiled and published as The Father Christmas Letters). Other stories included Mr. Bliss and Roverandom (for children), and Leaf by Niggle (part of Tree and Leaf), The Adventures of Tom Bombadil, On Fairy-Stories, Smith of Wootton Major and Farmer Giles of Ham. Roverandom and Smith of Wootton Major, like The Hobbit, borrowed ideas from his legendarium.

The Hobbit

Tolkien never expected his stories to become popular, but by sheer accident a book he had written some years before for his own children, called The Hobbit, came in 1936 to the attention of Susan Dagnall, an employee of the London publishing firm George Allen & Unwin, who persuaded him to submit it for publication. However, the book attracted adult readers as well, and it became popular enough for the publishers to ask Tolkien to work on a sequel.

The Lord of the Rings

Even though he felt uninspired on the topic, this request prompted Tolkien to begin what would become his most famous work: the epic three-volume novel The Lord of the Rings (published 1954–55). Tolkien spent more than ten years writing the primary narrative and appendices for The Lord of the Rings, during which time he received the constant support of the Inklings, in particular his closest friend Lewis, the author of The Chronicles of Narnia. Both The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings are set against the background of The Silmarillion, but in a time long after it.

Tolkien at first intended The Lord of the Rings to be a children’s tale in the style of The Hobbit, but it quickly grew darker and more serious in the writing. Though a direct sequel to The Hobbit, it addressed an older audience, drawing on the immense back story of Beleriand that Tolkien had constructed in previous years, and which eventually saw posthumous publication in The Silmarillion and other volumes. Tolkien’s influence weighs heavily on the fantasy genre that grew up after the success of The Lord of the Rings.

The Lord of the Rings became immensely popular in the 1960s and has remained so ever since, ranking as one of the most popular works of fiction of the 20th century, judged by both sales and reader surveys. In the 2003 “Big Read” survey conducted by the BBC, The Lord of the Rings was found to be the “Nation’s Best-loved Book”. Australians voted The Lord of the Rings “My Favourite Book” in a 2004 survey conducted by the Australian ABC. In a 1999 poll of Amazon.com customers, The Lord of the Rings was judged to be their favourite “book of the millennium”. In 2002 Tolkien was voted the 92nd “greatest Briton” in a poll conducted by the BBC, and in 2004 he was voted 35th in the SABC3′s Great South Africans, the only person to appear in both lists. His popularity is not limited to the English-speaking world: in a 2004 poll inspired by the UK’s “Big Read” survey, about 250,000 Germans found The Lord of the Rings to be their favourite work of literature.

Posthumous publications

The Silmarillion

Tolkien had appointed his son Christopher to be his literary executor, and he (with assistance from Guy Gavriel Kay, later a well-known fantasy author in his own right) organized some of the unpublished material into a single coherent volume, published as The Silmarillion in 1977—his father had previously attempted to get a collection of “Silmarillion” material published in 1937 before writing The Lord of the Rings.

Unfinished Tales and The History of Middle-earth

In 1980 Christopher Tolkien followed The Silmarillion with a collection of more fragmentary material under the title Unfinished Tales. In subsequent years (1983–1996) he published a large amount of the remaining unpublished materials together with notes and extensive commentary in a series of twelve volumes called The History of Middle-earth. They contain unfinished, abandoned, alternative and outright contradictory accounts, since they were always a work in progress, and Tolkien only rarely settled on a definitive version for any of the stories. There is not complete consistency between The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, the two most closely related works, because Tolkien never fully integrated all their traditions into each other. He commented in 1965, while editing The Hobbit for a third edition, that he would have preferred to completely rewrite the entire book because of the style of its prose.

The Children of Húrin

More recently, in 2007, the collection was completed with the publication of The Children of Húrin by HarperCollins (in the UK and Canada) and Houghton Mifflin in the US. The novel tells the story of Túrin Turambar and his sister Nienor, children of Húrin Thalion. The material was compiled by Christopher Tolkien from The Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales, The History of Middle-earth and unpublished manuscripts.

The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún

In February 2009, Publishers Weekly announced that Houghton Mifflin Harcourt had acquired the U.S. rights to Tolkien’s unpublished work The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún. The book was released worldwide on 5 May 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and HarperCollins.

The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún, which was written by Tolkien during the 1920s and the 1930s, retells the Norse legend of Sigurd and the fall of the Niflungs. It is an eddic poem (the introduction makes a strong distinction between these and epic poems, which it says do not occur in the Scandinavian tradition) and is composed in a form of alliterative verse inspired by the Skaldic poetry of the Elder Edda. Christopher Tolkien has added copious notes and commentary upon his father’s work.

Manuscript locations

The Department of Special Collections and University Archives at Marquette University’s John P. Raynor, S.J., Library in Milwaukee, Wisconsin preserves many of Tolkien’s manuscripts; other original material is in Oxford University’s Bodleian Library. Marquette has the manuscripts and proofs of The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit and other works, including Farmer Giles of Ham, while the Bodleian holds the Silmarillion papers and Tolkien’s academic work.

In 2009, a partial draft of Language and Human Nature, which Tolkien had begun cowriting with C.S. Lewis, but which was never completed, was discovered at the Oxford University Bodleian Library.

Languages and philology

Linguistic career

Both Tolkien’s academic career and his literary production are inseparable from his love of language and philology. He specialized in English philology at university, and in 1915 graduated with Old Norse as special subject. He worked for the Oxford English Dictionary from 1918, and is credited with having worked on a number of words starting with the letter W, including walrus, over which he struggled mightily. In 1920, he went to Leeds as Reader in English language, where he claimed credit for raising the number of students of linguistics from five to twenty. He gave courses in Old English heroic verse, history of English, various Old English and Middle English texts, Old and Middle English philology, introductory Germanic philology, Gothic, Old Icelandic, and Medieval Welsh. When in 1925, aged thirty-three, Tolkien applied for the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professorship of Anglo-Saxon, he boasted that his students of Germanic philology in Leeds had even formed a “Viking Club”. He also had a certain, if imperfect, knowledge of Finnish.

Privately, Tolkien was attracted to “things of racial and linguistic significance”, and he entertained notions of an inherited taste of language, which he termed the “native tongue” as opposed to “cradle tongue” in his 1955 lecture English and Welsh, which is crucial to his understanding of race and language. He considered West Midlands dialect of Middle English to be his own “native tongue”, and, as he wrote to W. H. Auden in 1955, “I am a West-midlander by blood (and took to early west-midland Middle English as a known tongue as soon as I set eyes on it)”.

Tolkien learned Latin, French and German from his mother, and while at school he learned Middle English, Old English, Finnish, Gothic, Greek, Italian, Old Norse, Spanish, Welsh, and Medieval Welsh. He was also familiar with Danish, Dutch, Lombardic, Norwegian, Russian, Swedish, Middle Dutch, Middle High German, Middle Low German, Old High German, Old Slavonic, and Lithuanian.

Language construction

Parallel to Tolkien’s professional work as a philologist, and sometimes overshadowing this work, to the effect that his academic output remained rather thin, was his affection for the construction of artificial languages. The best developed of these are Quenya and Sindarin, the etymological connection between which formed the core of much of Tolkien’s legendarium. Language and grammar for Tolkien was a matter of aesthetics and euphony, and Quenya in particular was designed from “phonaesthetic” considerations; it was intended as an “Elvenlatin”, and was phonologically based on Latin, with ingredients from Finnish, Welsh, English, and Greek. A notable addition came in late 1945 with Adûnaic or Númenórean, a language of a “faintly Semitic flavour”, connected with Tolkien’s Atlantis legend, which by The Notion Club Papers ties directly into his ideas about inability of language to be inherited, and via the “Second Age” and the story of Eärendil was grounded in the legendarium, thereby providing a link of Tolkien’s twentieth-century “real primary world” with the legendary past of his Middle-earth.

Tolkien considered languages inseparable from the mythology associated with them, and he consequently took a dim view of auxiliary languages: in 1930 a congress of Esperantists were told as much by him, in his lecture A Secret Vice, “Your language construction will breed a mythology”, but by 1956 he had concluded that “Volapük, Esperanto, Ido, Novial, &c, &c, are dead, far deader than ancient unused languages, because their authors never invented any Esperanto legends”.

The popularity of Tolkien’s books has had a small but lasting effect on the use of language in fantasy literature in particular, and even on mainstream dictionaries, which today commonly accept Tolkien’s idiosyncratic spellings dwarves and dwarvish (alongside dwarfs and dwarfish), which had been little used since the mid-1800s and earlier. (In fact, according to Tolkien, had the Old English plural survived, it would have been dwerrows.) He also coined the term eucatastrophe, though it remains mainly used in connection with his own work.

Legacy

Adaptations

In a 1951 letter to Milton Waldman, Tolkien writes about his intentions to create a “body of more or less connected legend”, of which

“The cycles should be linked to a majestic whole, and yet leave scope for other minds and hands, wielding paint and music and drama.”

The hands and minds of many artists have indeed been inspired by Tolkien’s legends. Personally known to him were Pauline Baynes (Tolkien’s favourite illustrator of The Adventures of Tom Bombadil and Farmer Giles of Ham) and Donald Swann (who set the music to The Road Goes Ever On). Queen Margrethe II of Denmark created illustrations to The Lord of the Rings in the early 1970s. She sent them to Tolkien, who was struck by the similarity they bore in style to his own drawings.

However, Tolkien was not fond of all the artistic representation of his works that were produced in his lifetime, and was sometimes harshly disapproving. In 1946, he rejected suggestions for illustrations by Horus Engels for the German edition of The Hobbit as “too Disnified”,

“Bilbo with a dribbling nose, and Gandalf as a figure of vulgar fun rather than the Odinic wanderer that I think of.”

Tolkien was sceptical of the emerging Tolkien fandom in the United States, and in 1954 he returned proposals for the dust jackets of the American edition of The Lord of the Rings:

“Thank you for sending me the projected ‘blurbs’, which I return. The Americans are not as a rule at all amenable to criticism or correction; but I think their effort is so poor that I feel constrained to make some effort to improve it.”

He had dismissed dramatic representations of fantasy in his essay “On Fairy-Stories”, first presented in 1939:

“In human art Fantasy is a thing best left to words, to true literature. [...] Drama is naturally hostile to Fantasy. Fantasy, even of the simplest kind, hardly ever succeeds in Drama, when that is presented as it should be, visibly and audibly acted.”"

On receiving a screenplay for a proposed movie adaptation of The Lord of the Rings by Morton Grady Zimmerman, Tolkien wrote:

“I would ask them to make an effort of imagination sufficient to understand the irritation (and on occasion the resentment) of an author, who finds, increasingly as he proceeds, his work treated as it would seem carelessly in general, in places recklessly, and with no evident signs of any appreciation of what it is all about.”

Tolkien went on to criticize the script scene by scene (“yet one more scene of screams and rather meaningless slashings”). He was not implacably opposed to the idea of a dramatic adaptation, however, and sold the film, stage and merchandise rights of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings to United Artists in 1968. United Artists never made a film, although director John Boorman was planning a live-action film in the early 1970s. In 1976 the rights were sold to Tolkien Enterprises, a division of the Saul Zaentz Company, and the first movie adaptation of The Lord of the Rings appeared in 1978, an animated rotoscoping film directed by Ralph Bakshi with screenplay by the fantasy writer Peter S. Beagle. It covered only the first half of the story of The Lord of the Rings. In 1977 an animated TV production of The Hobbit was made by Rankin-Bass, and in 1980 they produced an animated The Return of the King, which covered some of the portions of The Lord of the Rings that Bakshi was unable to complete.

From 2001 to 2003, New Line Cinema released The Lord of the Rings as a trilogy of live-action films that were filmed in New Zealand and directed by Peter Jackson. The series was successful, performing extremely well commercially and winning numerous Oscars.

There are currently plans for an upcoming two-film series based on The Hobbit (see The Hobbit films). The films are in development for release in December 2011 and December 2012. The films will be directed by Guillermo del Toro, with The Lord of the Rings film trilogy director Peter Jackson serving as executive producer and co-writer. New Line Cinema and MGM will co-finance the film, and the MGM will distribute the films outside North America.

Memorials

Posthumously named after Tolkien are the Tolkien Road in Eastbourne, East Sussex, and the asteroid 2675 Tolkien discovered in 1982. Tolkien Way in Stoke-on-Trent is named after Tolkien’s eldest son, Fr. John Francis Tolkien, who was the priest in charge at the nearby Roman Catholic Church of Our Lady of the Angels and St. Peter in Chains. There is also a professorship in Tolkien’s name at Oxford, the J.R.R. Tolkien Professor of English Literature and Language.

In the Dutch town of Geldrop, near Eindhoven, the streets of an entire new neighbourhood are named after Tolkien himself (“Laan van Tolkien”) and some of the best-known characters from his books.

In the Hall Green and Moseley areas of Birmingham there are a number of parks and walkways dedicated to J. R. R. Tolkien—most notably, the Millstream Way and Moseley Bog. Collectively the parks are known as the Shire Country Parks. Every year at Sarehole Mill the Tolkien Weekend is held in memory of the author; the fiftieth anniversary of the release of The Lord of the Rings was commemorated in 2005.

In “Silicon Valley” towns, California, USA there are two housing developments with streets from Tolkien names. In Saratoga (Brandywine) and in San Jose (Bilbo, Shadowfax, Brandywine, etc.).

There are five blue plaques that commemorate places associated with Tolkien: one in Oxford, and four in Birmingham. One of the Birmingham plaques commemorates the inspiration provided by Sarehole Mill, near which he lived between the ages of four and eight, while two others mark childhood homes up to the time he left to attend Oxford University. The third one marks a hotel he stayed at while on leave from World War I. The Oxford plaque commemorates the residence where Tolkien wrote The Hobbit and most of The Lord of the Rings.

Another two plaques marking buildings associated with Tolkien are found in Oxford and Harrogate. The Harrogate plaque commemorates a residence where Tolkien convalesced from trench fever in 1917, while the Oxford plaque marks his home from 1953–1968 at 76 Sandfield Road, Headington.

The Mexican-born director is setting up shop in Wellington to shoot the two movies, watched over by producer Peter Jackson.

Del Toro is known for his creatures. From Blade to Hellboy to Pan’s Labyrinth, he’s a master at creating weird stuff.

Which is all well and fine now, but as a child his Catholic grandmother was terrified by his weird obsessions.

“When I was a kid she would see me reading about these monsters. She would cry a lot, ‘Why can’t you design something beautiful? All these things are horrible!’ And at some stage she exorcised me!” says del Toro.

A good old fashioned exorcism: two of them, actually.

Did she get anything out? Apparently not.

In a rather stunning example of synchronicity, Del Toro ended up being trained by Dick Smith, the guy that did the effects on that rather famous horror, The Exorcist.

All up, he’s had a pretty strange life. A life that started in Mexico.

He’s also seen people beheaded, and on fire. And his very own father was once held for ransom.

Experiences like that have turned him into someone who, well, doesn’t take crap from anyone. When he pitched his concept for a vampire television show called The Strain, the head of the network said it would work better as a comedy: “I was horrified, I took the manuscript and I never came back!”

That manuscript is now a book so popular it had Wellington lining up for autographs this week.

True to form, Del Toro has his own philosophy on life: “I believe in the belly. And judging by its size my belly believes in me. So I take everything at gut decision. If it feels well in the belly then God wise you do it! So I’ve been offered stuff that would have set me for life, but I haven’t done it.”

He’s turned down loads of movies – I Am Legend, Halo, Blade 3, End of Days and Harry Potter, to name a few.

Then there’s the stack of screenplays he’s written that are on standby, including The Wind in the Willows, and Roald Dahl’s classic The Witches.

Oh that’s right, there’s also that teensy weensy project called The Hobbit.

Del Toro says he is thoroughly enjoying working with Peter Jackson: “When Peter, Fran (Walsh) and I are in the same room it’s like when you’re a kid…Except we have a very well financed sandbox!”

• Saruman’s name derives from the Anglo-Saxon, or Old English, root “searu-” for “treachery” or “cunning.”
• “Sauron” is linked to the Old Norse or Icelandic stem meaning “filth” or “dung” or “uncleanness.”
• “Mordor” derives from the Old English word “morthor,” which means “murder.”
• “Middle-earth” is related to the name “middan-geard,” which was the name for the Earth itself in Old English poetry and was considered to be the battleground between the forces of good and evil.

Tolkien’s High Elvish language, Quenya, was inspired by Finnish. Tolkien taught himself Finnish in order to read the Kalevala, a 19th-century compilation of old Finnish songs and stories arranged by Elias Lönnrot into a linear epic poem and completed in 1835 and revised in the mid-1800s.

The Kalevala epic parallels the real history of the Finns. It played a key role in preserving the oral legends and songs of the Finns, which linguists think date back to preagricultural Finland. As cultural anthropologist Wade Davis notes, “it goes back to the time of the shaman … when people lived by poetry of an oral tradition. … By definition, the entire language was the vocabulary of the best storyteller.” In 2001 Wade Davis traveled to Finland to meet Jussi Juovinen, one of Finland’s last great rune singers, and to hear him sing the Kalevala. Juovinen began to learn the poems from the elders of his village when he was a child and committed the songs to memory.

The publication of the Kalevala helped protect the ancient Finnish poems and the Finnish language itself, while helping to solidify a sense of national identity among many Finns. Although Finnish is now safeguarded by its status as a national language, it was once in danger of fading, as are many languages today.

Some experts believe as many as 10,000 languages were once spoken around the world. Today around 6,000 languages remain, and that number could be reduced to 3,000 in the next hundred years.

Tolkien created Middle-earth as a home for his invented languages. Just as the artistry, beauty, and essence of the Kalevala is intricately tied to the Finnish language, each invented language in The Lord of the Rings plays a seminal role in the evolution of events and development of the characters in Tolkien’s story.

Examples of Tolkien’s Languages in The Lord of the Rings

• Black Speech: “Ash nazg durbatulûk, ash nazg gimbatul, ash nazg thrakatulûk agh burzum-ishi krimpatul—One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them”

• Quenya: “Elen sila lûmenn’ omentielvo—A star shines on the hour of our meeting”

• Dwarvish: “Khazâd-ai-mênu!—The Dwarves are upon you!”

I’ve heard some students are being forced to read some novelization of the movies in their literature classes. Ridiculous. Does Hollywood run our classrooms now?

2. Greed.

Hollywood can’t make a movie these days without crapping out a sequel the next year to squeeze more cash out of the proverbial sheep. After Two Towers made its money, did anyone doubt Rocky would come out of retirement one more time?

3. Quality Control at New Line.

Millions of copies of the LOTR DVDs have thick black bars at the bottom and top of the screen throughout the film. Didn’t anyone catch this? You know what happens at the end, in the extreme foreground and extreme upper sky? Neither do I. Bush league, gentlemen.

4. They switched Darrens on us!

Look closely in Fellowship and you’ll notice the human member of their party is played by two different actors at different points of the movie (it takes a sharp eye to notice, but one of them has red hair, one black).

5. Quality Control at New Line, II.

In the massive Mt. Doom battle scene at the beginning of Fellowship of the Ring, a DVD pause reveals at least half a dozen of the 50,000 Orc Warrior extras are wearing modern tennis shoes.

6. Speaking of Orcs…

The Orcs were obviously stolen from PC game maker Blizzard and its Warcraft series. Too bad Blizzard is apparently too scared to sue New Line over it.

7. Racism.

Percentage of protagonists in Fellowship who are white: 100. Meanwhile the black-skinned antagonists and their black crow spies and their black glass seeing ball inhabit their black towers and perform black magic. One would have to be blind to miss the symbolism.

8. Gold: The Stretchy Element.

The ring, which is seen to be at least two inches in diameter at the beginning to fit the polish sausage-sized finger of Sauron, suddenly fits Frodo’s child-sized finger later. I guess this movie takes place in a world where rings magically change sizes on their own.

9. Violence.

Give me one reason that story couldn’t have been told without all the fighting.

10. Horse sense.

Why didn’t they take horses on their quest? Or even better, why didn’t Gandalf’s giant flying bird friend haul them into Mordor? Watch out, Frodo! All of your methods of transportation have been swallowed by the Dark Lord of the Plot Hole!

11. Retracted.*

See below.

12. Return of the Living Dead.

In FOTR, if you watch closely during the Inn scene, Frodo and his crew are shown getting stabbed by the Ring Wraiths. Then, five seconds later, they are fine again. Note to the director: try proofreading your movie before you release it to the public.

13. Did someone say plot hole?

Liv Tyler’s character is seen easily defeating nine strong supernatural beings, even though she is clearly a woman.

14. The Battle Droid Syndrome.

The mutated muscular soldiers of Mordor turned out to be hilariously ineffective fighters, a dozen of them held off by a single dying human. Apparently they made the beasts by crossing Orcs, Goblins and the French.

15. Sloppy CGI.

Gandalf’s smoke boat at Bilbo’s party is pretty impressive, but smoke cannot be made to travel horizontally, thus revealing it to be nothing but a cheap special effect.

16. The Asbestos Wizard.

We all saw Gandalf fall into the molten core of Middle Earth after his battle with the firebeast thing in part 1. Well, I guess the Gandalf action figure must have sold well, because in the slap-together sequel Two Towers, Gandalf is back. Perhaps it was voodoo, a la the corpse in Weekend at Bernie’s II (look closely and you’ll notice LOTR steals several elements from the WaB films).

17. Invisible Implausibility.

Every time Frodo or Bilbo went invisible with the ring they should have also gone BLIND. Your eyes cannot function unless light is reflected off the cornea. If light passes through it (as must be the case with invisibility) sight is no longer possible. Also, rings do not turn you invisible.

18. The Asbestos Wizard, II.

The giant fire beast thing at the end of part 1 was breathing a firey breath hot enough to send heat-distortion waves through the air. The sheer temperature of the air should have burned off Gandalf’s beard and eyebrows. None of my reading on evolutionary biology reveals a single reason why a particular race of humans would develop unflammable facial hair as this would provide practically no advantage in either survival or mating.

19. I’ll have to rent that one.

The rushed-through story the screenwriter threw in as the first ten minutes of Fellowship of the Ring looked a lot more interesting than the movie we were forced to watch. Why didn’t somebody make a movie off that instead?

20. Magic Mechanics.

Experts on the occult say in order for a wizard to floorspin a fully-grown man like Gandalf, he’d need three magical staffs, not two.

21. Finders, keepers.

So Bilbo, who we are supposed to identify with as a protagonist, finds a piece of someone else’s jewelry and just keeps it for himself? That’s funny, because I would expect a good man to submit it to the local Lost and Found so it could be claimed by its owner. It makes me wonder if he bought that hillside house or if he was just squatting.

22. Go-Go Gadget Arrow Sprouter.

Legolas shoots arrow after arrow at his enemies, and yet the number of arrows in his quiver never decreases. I guess elves have glands on their back that secrete arrows.

23. Watch out! He’s going to explode!

The heroes are shown eating again and again, and yet no one ever goes to the bathroom throughout their entire quest.

24. Meesa gonna make theesa movie suckah!

The character of Gollum in The Two Towers was entirely computer animated (a cheap effort to cash in on 1999′s Jar Jar Binks Mania) but was just a dim shadow of George Lucas’ effort. Thank you, Peter Jackson. Thank you right to Hell.

25. Propaganda.

The Elves, clearly the most advanced and wise species, are also clearly gay.

26. Speaking of Elves…

Elves are beautiful and wise and tall? Great warriors? Makers of fine lightweight weapons? Our modern knowledge of elves has observed only an ability to make cookies and toys. All the elves in the film are portrayed as living in a warm paradise (Rivendell) but our own information tells us the aforementioned group of toymaking elves work and thrive in the arctic. Hey, Mr. Jackson: Research is half of writing.

27. Homage or theft?

The “happy village of little people” idea was stolen from Willow.

28. Homage or theft II?

The wise old wizard character was stolen from Harry Potter.

29. Homage or theft III?

The “travelling on our quest through a corn field” scene was stolen from Shrek.

30. Homage or theft IV?

The character of the rebellious-but-helpful Ranger was stolen from Val Kilmer in Willow.

31. Homage or theft V?

The concept of the violent dwarf was based on Al Pacino.

32. Homage or theft VI?

The “old man looking through the door hatch at the approaching little people” scene was stolen from A Clockwork Orange.

33. Homage or theft VII?

The cantina scene with a noisy bar filled with a mix of otherworldly species was stolen from Cecile B. DeMille’s One Night in an Alien Bar.

34. Homage or theft VIII?

The incident with the flock of evil magical spying crows serving the All-Seeing Eye was based on an actual incident.

35. Homage or theft IX?

The character of the Giant Evil Flaming All-Seeing Eye was based on former President Jimmy Carter.

36. Homage or theft X?

The character of Elrond was based on Agent Smith from The Matrix.

37. Weighty issues.

AKA “Plot Hole No. 273.” Even with all that walking and light eating, the character of Sam only got fatter.

38. Realism, schmealism.

Liv Tyler’s immortal elf volunteers to give up her eternal life for a single romance with a human man. Could any man really be that well endowed? I find it unlikely.

39. Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow.

The most advanced civilization is that of the elves, which are long-haired, new-age types? Sorry, Mr. Jackson, but modern science has proven that in any modern civilization, hippies would be extinct.

40. Too many notes.

No movie should be over two hours long. Did we need that whole thing in the mine in part 1? What about that almost-infinite battle scene in part 2? Didn’t it seem like they were just adding pointless scenes in the middle to pad it? It’s like they decided beforehand they wanted three hours for each film and used filler to flesh them out.

41. Too many notes, II.

I just want to re-emphasize the above point. There is no reason entertainment can’t be concise.

42. Too many notes, III.

Too many characters to keep track of. The dwarf was clearly only there as a token dwarf character to sell tickets to lucrative movie-going dwarf demographic. Lose him.

43. Rationalization for violence.

Why, in part 1, is the black octopus creature painted as the bad guy when it attacks, when one of the fellowship had clearly been throwing rocks at it?

44. The Shoeless Land.

The Hobbits both 1) refuse to wear shoes and 2) run a livestock-based farming economy. Wouldn’t they constantly be stepping in feces? Why doesn’t the movie address this issue?

45. Casting.

Why couldn’t Frodo have been played by Christopher Walken?

46. Casting, II.

Why couldn’t Gandalf have been played by Bruce Campbell?

47. Casting, III.

Why couldn’t Bilbo have been played by Vin Diesel?

48. Casting, IV.

Why couldn’t Aragorn have been played by a monkey?

49. The Score.

The background music nearly zero funk.

50. What’s that smell?

As bad as the Lucasfilm internet leaks were with the last Star Wars trilogy, the filmmakers of Lord of the Rings allowed the paperback novelizations onto shelves years in advance As if we needed any less of a reason to go see it.

*RETRACTED REASONS LORD OF THE RINGS SUCKS:

11. Damn you, gravity!

The giant firebeast thing is defeated by Gandalf when he destroys the bridge, sending the creature plunging to its death… despite the fact that it has wings.

This was retracted when a reader pointed out that the wings, like the rest of the beast, were made of shadow and fire and thus would be useless for flight.

On the status of the Hobbit script:

“I would say, give or take a little tailwind, we’re about three weeks from turning over the first script for the first Hobbit movie to the studio. The process that we’ve been through so far is we — and when I say ‘we,’ it’s the four of us: Guillermo, Philippa [Boyens], Fran [Walsh] and myself — wrote like an extensive treatment of the two films which we pitched to the studio on a long conference call, and that was like three or four months ago. That was good; that went well and they liked the idea … About three months ago we started in earnest to write the screenplay, which we’re now about three weeks away from delivering the first film.

On potential casting choices:

We haven’t done any casting yet. That’s the truth — there’s all these rumors about people but we haven’t offered a single role to any actor yet because everything is a process and we haven’t got the green light and we haven’t got a budget … We’ve been talking about releasing the first movie in December 2011 and the second in December 2012 and that’s what we’re aiming for. But we’ve only ever been aiming for it and the studio obviously is not going to sign off on a films until they see a script and the budgeting for that script.

On the Thirteen Dwarves and how they’ll be portrayed on-screen:

We always wanted to retain the thirteen dwarves that Tolkien wrote about. It’s not wise or sensible to be mucking around with that degree of Tolkien lore. So we have thirteen dwarves to cast — it’s going to be a lot of fun. [Laughs] There’s thirteen poor guys who are going to be walking around the mountains in summer wearing big, thick costumes and sweating under their prosthetic makeup. It’s gonna be tough — very, very tough. It is logistically very difficult. You imagine getting those guys through wardrobe and makeup at the beginning of each day and then having them ready to shoot and they’re gonna be passing out in the heat. It’s gonna be tricky. Some of the dwarves are obviously more important than others. We’re isolating about four or five of them to make them the key dwarf players and then the others will be more supporting roles.

On why they chose to split the story into two films:

We worked through the storyline and we thought, Well, obviously we could squeeze The Hobbit into one movie, but even with a three-hour movie you’d be amazing at how much of the story you’d have to lose. It’s weird — the book is what the book is, and we just worked through the process of including what we’d like to see in a film and it was clear that it wasn’t gonna fit. Plus, the fact that we want to embellish a few things and put a little bit of extra narrative in for Gandalf and what he’s doing with Dol Guldor and the Necromancer and various sort of side stories that are happening. So we decided that the two movies that we were doing should be The Hobbit Part One and Part Two.

On why he chose Guillermo del Toro to direct The Hobbit:

Guillermo’s there not because I’m a mentor of him but I just thought that he would do a terrific job with that film. It wasn’t the type of movie … I didn’t think to give [it] to a young novice filmmaker and have them sort of Godfather it through. I wanted somebody who was established, who I could trust. And also, with The Hobbit, I don’t want to be too involved in looking over the shoulder of the director.

On why he decided against directing The Hobbit himself:

One of the reasons why I wanted to produce the movie but not direct it was so that I didn’t have to compete against myself. With the Lord of the Rings movies I did make, those were the very best films I could make, given the circumstances and everything else. I poured my heart and soul into those films. I just felt like I’d given everything I could to Lord of the Rings, and now with The Hobbit I’d have to go there again and now I’d be competing against myself. How did I shoot Hobbiton the first time around? How did shoot Gandalf coming in through the door? Now I’d have to look back at what I did the first time and do something different, on and on and on … I thought that the best thing for the project and the fans and Tolkien and for everything else was to find another filmmaker who would do a really great job.

Not long ago I found myself thoroughly addicted to Lord of the Rings Online. It’s a good-looking game with a nice array of character classes, and it offers lengthy, satisfying quests. But the kicker for me was getting to take part in the story.

Having read the books, playing the game was a fun exploration into the various corners of Tolkien’s world. Most importantly, I felt that every time I logged on I was making small steps towards the next dramatic twist in the tale – unlike other MMOs that start to feel terribly pointless when you don’t know if anything is coming next.

Here was a game that I was happy to bust out the credit card for, because it felt like the investment was somehow worthwhile (well, as worthwhile as playing a MMO game can be). In any case, I was playing towards the final chapters of an epic story that I really enjoyed. I had paid for the book, paid for the movies and now here I was paying to play the game, which didn’t seem like a huge stretch.

Well, at some point, real life became too busy for my love affair with Middle-Earth to continue any further, and my Hunter character was put back on the digital shelf (although I’m yet to actually uninstall the game – the issue of game separation anxiety is for a future blog post). Since Lord of the Rings Online, there hasn’t been another MMO that has come close to tempting me to rattle off my credit card number.

The recently released Aion looks rather nice, but there’s that problem of paying to play in a fictional world that’s foreign and unknown. How long until it feels like it’s paying off? What if I don’t like the characters or plot? Does anyone else playing MMOs care about the story?

The end game is going to be a long way off for Lord of the Rings Online, but that’s beside the point. The game still gives you that sense of progression through a familiar story, with plenty nods and winks along the way. It makes you feel confident that your money was well spent, because… well look, there’s Gandalf!

So what makes you feel justified in paying to play your favourite MMO? Or, if you don’t play one, what is it that’s stopping you?

The episode accurately identifies Tolkien’s initial desire to create a “mythology” for England, and goes on to identify two distinct influences on Tolkien’s writings about Middle-earth: his knowledge and research of the myths, legends and languages of other cultures, and his real-life experiences. For example, Frodo’s eventual addiction to the Ring of Power is compared to the 13^th century Volsunga saga where the king’s son resorts to hiding in caverns after killing his father and stealing his ring. Similar fascinating comparisons made throughout the episode will prompt Tolkien fans to get out their pens and paper and start taking notes!

Instead of borrowing footage from the recent blockbuster films, the History Channel chose to create their own footage which blends in well with other episodes in the series. Doing so ties the mythological themes in each episode together well. Using footage from Peter Jackson’s films would have been jarring to the audience enjoying the series as a whole. This makes it easier to overlook a few mis-steps that Tolkien purists will notice, such as beardless dwarves and an old and grey-haired Bilbo discovering the Ring, when he was a hale and hearty hobbit who had barely attained middle-age at the time.

All in all, I definitely recommend tuning  in to this episode if you’re a fan of Tolkien as a man and author, a fan of his writings or a fan brought into the myths and legends of Middle-earth through the recent movies! The DVD set of the “Clash of the Gods” series is also available for sale from the History Channel.

Howard Shore’s music for Peter Jackson on The Lord of the Rings trilogy won three Academy Awards, four Grammy, three Golden Globes and probably a free lunch or two at some Tolkien-themed convention somewhere. Now, the music for the first film in the set is coming to New York’s Radio City Music Hall with the breathy title of ”The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring – Howard Shore’s Complete Score Live to Film.” I suppose if Tolkien didn’t care about how long his titles were, the producers of the concert event shouldn’t either.

The 21st Century Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Ludwig Wicki will welcome vocalist Kaitlyn Lusk with the Brooklyn Youth Chorus and The Collegiate Chorale. The musicians and singers perform the film music live, set to the film’s images projected on a massive high-def screen (above).

When you consider the Star Wars folks are touring the nation with their own similar set-up, it looks like this is becoming a new concert genre onto itself.

Hobbits and Orcs will invade the realm of the Rockettes for two nights only.