The J. R. R. Tolkien Companion and Guide: Volume 1: Chronology. Christina Scull

that only a selection of Smith’s best work should be published, and it should be arranged most effectively rather than by strict order of writing. He suggests that some of the poems might be accompanied by explanatory notes of the circumstances in which they were written. He also comments at length on the political situation. He has not heard from Tolkien since he saw him in Harrogate.

      ?c. 14–21 July 1917 Tolkien is at the Royal Engineers Signal Depot, Dunstable, Bedfordshire, for a signalling examination or, perhaps, a refresher course. See note.

      31 July 1917 T.K. Barnsley from King Edward’s School is killed in action in the Third Battle of Ypres.

      1 August 1917 Tolkien attends the elaborate dinner with which the 3rd Battalion of the Lancashire Fusiliers celebrates Minden Day. He signs his menu card and obtains the signatures of twenty-three others at the dinner, including L.R. Huxtable. – Tolkien writes a poem, Companions of the Rose, dedicated ‘For RQG [R.Q. Gilson] Suffolk Regiment GBS [G.B. Smith] Lancashire Fusiliers’. On Minden Day, roses are worn by all ranks in the Lancashire Fusiliers, and a toast is drunk to those who fell at Minden. (Gilson’s regiment had also fought in that battle.)

      Mid-August 1917 Tolkien is admitted to ‘Brooklands’, an officers’ hospital in Cottingham Road, Hull, by 13 August, and for six weeks runs a fever. He finds congenial company among the other patients, including a friend from the Lancashire Fusiliers, and continues his writing, including The Tale of Tinúviel. – The hospital is visited by nuns of the order of the Sisters of Mercy who have a house in Hull. One of these, Sister Mary Michael, becomes a lifelong correspondent and friend, and godmother to Tolkien’s second son, Michael. See note.

      ?Mid- to late August or ?September 1917 Tolkien writes a poem, *The Grey Bridge of Tavrobel. At a later date he will write on the manuscript: ‘Brooklands Red [Cross] hosp[ital] Cottingham Road, Hull Sept or Aug 1917?’

      Between 21 and 24 August 1917 Unhappy in their lodgings in Yorkshire and unable to visit Tolkien in hospital often because of the difficult journey to Hull, and with Edith now in an advanced state of pregnancy, Edith and Jennie decide to return to Cheltenham until the birth of the child. Their address will be 37 Montpellier Villas, Cheltenham, until 11 September inclusive.

      22 August 1917 In the early hours German Zeppelins attack the Yorkshire coast, including the mouth of the Humber, with high-explosive and incendiary bombs.

      31 August–2 September 1917 Tolkien again rewrites his poem Sea-Song of an Elder Day, now with an added title, The Horns of Ulmo (> The Horns of Ylmir), to fit it explicitly within his mythology. He writes on the manuscript ‘Aug[ust] 31 Sep[tember] 2 1917 Hospital Hull’. Later he will write out a fair copy of the poem, incorporating emendations, with the annotation described above (see entry for Spring 1917).

      September 1917 Tolkien further revises his poem The Mermaid’s Flute.

      1 September, 7 and 10 October 1917 Wiseman replies in stages to a letter by Tolkien, who has heard about the death of Wiseman’s mother. Wiseman apologizes for not sending an earlier letter, and provides details. He has heard from Tolkien that he and Edith are expecting a baby and says it is great news. He agrees with Tolkien’s arrangement of G.B. Smith’s poems for publication. He has heard from Mrs Incledon that Tolkien is still in hospital in Hull. He approves of the poem Companions of the Rose which Tolkien had enclosed with his last letter, and says that he is ‘sorry it is the only one [presumably, the only entirely new poem] this year’. But the Muse ‘has not been entirely idle because you have spent a good time on the mythology’ (Tolkien Papers, Bodleian Library, Oxford). He discusses at length an anonymous leader he has read in the Times Literary Supplement (20 September 1917, pp. 445–6) entitled Creation and Invention, on the distinction between ‘invention’ and ‘imagination’. Wiseman sees the former in Tolkien’s poem Copernicus and Ptolemy and the latter in his mythology.

      12 September 1917 By this date, Edith and Jennie move to 6 Royal Well Terrace, Cheltenham. They will lodge there through at least 15 October.

      25 September 1917 German Zeppelins attack the Lincolnshire and Yorkshire coasts between midnight and 3 am. Although they are unable to penetrate far inland because of defensive gunfire, they drop sixteen bombs on Hull, with little material damage.

      16 October 1917 Tolkien is examined by a Medical Board at Humber Garrison headquarters in Hull. He has been in hospital for nine weeks, and though his temperature returned to normal three weeks ago, he still has not recovered his strength, he suffers from debility and pain in his arms and shins, and he looks delicate. The Board declares him 30 per cent disabled, unfit for general and home service for one month but fit for light duty at home, and orders him to rejoin the 3rd Lancashire Fusiliers at Thirtle Bridge. He leaves the hospital on this date.

      30 October 1917 *Walter Rolfe Brown of Exeter College, a member of the Apolausticks and the Chequers Clubbe, is killed in action with the Artists’ Rifles in the Second Battle of Passchendaele (Third Battle of Ypres).

      16 November 1917 Tolkien is examined by a Medical Board at Humber Garrison headquarters in Hull. He is slowly recovering, and in the intervening month has suffered only one slight attack of fever. The Board declares him 20 per cent disabled, unfit for general service for two months but fit for home service, including active duty with troops. He is ordered to continue service with the 3rd Lancashire Fusiliers at Thirtle Bridge, but continues to receive hospital treatment. – Edith gives birth to a son in a Cheltenham nursing home. It is a difficult delivery, and for a while her life is in danger. Tolkien cannot get leave for some days, but May Incledon writes to reassure him. At some point he will sell the last of the shares in South African mines he inherited to pay for Edith’s medical care.

      Mid-November 1917 Tolkien is transferred to the 9th Battalion, Royal Defence Corps, based at Easington, some ten miles south of Thirtle Bridge near the tip of the Holderness peninsula. He resides, however, a few miles still further south, at Kilnsea, while receiving medical care in Easington. See note.

      19 November 1917 R.W. Reynolds writes to thank Tolkien for a parcel and for a poem or poems which he will read aloud to his wife. He is very interested ‘in the book of tales you are at work on’ (The Book of Lost Tales) and hopes to see it ‘when it is in a state to travel’ (Tolkien Papers, Bodleian Library, Oxford). Sidgwick & Jackson have been considering G.B. Smith’s poems for publication for three weeks.

      c. 22 November 1917 Tolkien goes to Cheltenham to see Edith and the baby. Father Francis comes from Birmingham. The baby is baptized *John Francis Reuel Tolkien. His godparents are Hilary Tolkien and Mary Incledon (who has become a Roman Catholic). To pay the costs of Edith’s medical care, Tolkien sells the last few shares in South African mines remaining from his inheritance. According to Humphrey Carpenter, after the christening of John Tolkien ‘Edith brought the child back to Yorkshire, moving into furnished rooms at Roos’ (Biography, p. 97). See note.

      24 November 1917 Tolkien’s promotion from second lieutenant to full lieutenant as of 1 July 1917 is listed in the London Gazette.

      December 1917–March 1918 Tolkien revises part of The Town of Dreams and the City of Present Sorrow (see entry for 10 November–1 December 1916) as The Song of Eriol, referring to the wandering mariner in The Book of Lost Tales. One of the manuscripts of the poem includes a later note, ‘Easington 1917–18’.

      ?10 (?17 ?20) December 1917 Wiseman replies to a letter in which Tolkien told him of the safe birth of his son. He insists on being considered as an uncle. He has received several letters from Tolkien, in one of which Tolkien asked for more about the article in the Times Literary Supplement (see entry for 1 September 1917). Wiseman now writes at great length what he remembers about it, and replies to Tolkien’s comments on what Wiseman had written in his earlier letter.

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