Today’s show is a tribute to the great fantasy writer and poet J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973). You will hear Tolkien’s own recitations of his work.
George Sayer, biographer of C.S. Lewis and a teacher at Malvern College, writes in the liner notes to the 1975 Caedmon LP, J.R.R. Tolkien Reads and Sings His The Hobbit and The Followship of the Ring,
“This record is based on a tape recording that J.R.R. Tolkien made when he was staying in my house in Malvern, Worcestershire. It was in August, 1952. For the whole of that summer he had been depressed because THE LORD OF THE RINGS, the book on which he had worked for fourteen years, had been refused by publishers, so that he had almost given up hope of ever seeing it in print. But the fact that they had all returned it made it possible for my wife, Moira, and I to borrow the only complete typescript and to become with our friend, C.S. Lewis, about the first passionately enthusiastic Tolkien fans. There arose the question of how to return it to its author. Since it could not of course be entrusted to the post, I wrote to ask when he would be at home in Oxford for me to deliver it. His reply indicated that he would be quite on his own in the second half of August and perhaps even rather lonely. We therefore invited him to come to Malvern to pick up the typescript and to stay for a few days.
“It was easy to entertain him by day. He and I tramped the Malvern Hills which he had often seen during his boyhood in Birmingham or from his brother’s house on the other side of the Severn River valley. He lived the book as we walked, sometimes comparing parts of the hills with, for instance, the White Mountains of Gondor. We drove to the Black Mountains on the borders of Wales, picked bilberries and climbed through the heather there. We picnicked on bread and cheese and apples and washed them down with perry, beer or cider. When we saw signs of industrial pollution, he talked of orcs and orcery. At home he helped me to garden. Characteristically what he liked most was to cultivate a very small area, say a square yard, extremely well.
“To entertain him in the evening I produced a tape recorder (a solid early Ferrograph that is still going strong). He had never seen one before and said whimsically that he ought to cast out any devil that might be in it by recording a prayer, the Lord’s Prayer in Gothic, one of the extinct languages of which he was a master. He was delighted when I played it back to him and asked if he might record some of the poems in THE LORD OF THE RINGS to find out how they sounded to other people. The more he recorded, the more he enjoyed recording and the more his literary self-confidence grew. When he had finished the poems, one of us said: ‘Record for us the riddle scene from THE HOBBIT,’ and we sat spellbound for almost half an hour while he did. I then asked him to record what he thought one of the best pieces of prose in THE LORD OF THE RINGS and he recorded part of The Ride of the Rohirrim. ‘Surely you know that’s really good?” I asked after playing it back. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘it’s good. This machine has made me believe in it again, but how am I to get it published?’
“I thought of what I myself might do in the same difficulty. ‘Haven’t you an old pupil in publishing who might like it for its own sake and therefore be willing to take the risk?’
“‘There’s only Rayner Unwin,’ he replied after a pause.
“‘Then send it to Rayner Unwin personally.’
“And he did. And the result was that even during his lifetime over three million copies were sold.
“When he got back to Oxford, Tolkien wrote to thank us for having him, a letter in Elvish that is one of my most valued possessions…
“Some of the strength of his work comes from its folk-quality or earthiness. It was in his blood: his brother spent his life tilling the soil in the vale of Evesham, and he himself was happy to garden.”
…
Here is the famous poem that begins, “A Elbereth Gilthoniel.” Tolkien was a lifelong, devout Roman Catholic. It is his version, in Elvish, of The Hail, Mary.
A Elbereth Gilthoniel
silivren penna míriel
o menel aglar elenath!
Na-chaered palan-díriel
o galadhremmin ennorath,
Fanuilos, le linnathon
Nef aear, sí nef aearon!
O Elbereth Starkindler,
white-glittering, slanting down sparkling like a jewel,
the glory of the starry host!
Having gazed far away
from the tree-woven lands of Middle-earth,
to thee, Everwhite (“Fanuillos”), I will sing
on this side of the Sea, here on this side of the Ocean!
Part One of Two.