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

The letter is dated 21 December, and the envelope ‘postmarked’ 22 December. Father Christmas tells how goblins invaded his house, and were fought by elves and gnomes and the North Polar Bear as well as himself. Enclosed is a triple illustration in an elaborate frame, depicting Father Christmas awakened by goblins riding on bats, a snowy landscape with the Northern Lights, and the North Polar Bear and gnomes in battle with goblins.

      Mid-1930s C.S. Lewis and some of his students meet in his rooms in Magdalen College to read and discuss Beowulf. One of Lewis’s students, E.L. Edmonds, will later recall that Tolkien came quite often to these ‘beer and Beowulf’ evenings. ‘It was very obvious that [Tolkien and Lewis] were great friends – indeed, they were like two young bear cubs sometimes, just happily quipping with one another’ (‘C.S. Lewis, the Teacher’, In Search of C.S. Lewis, (1983), p. 45).

      Mid-1930s–end of 1937 Tolkien revises some components of his ‘Silmarillion’ mythology and writes new texts. He does not necessarily finish one work before starting another, and makes changes to previously written texts to conform with new story elements or changed names as they emerge. Works from this period include, in the probable order in which they are begun: the ‘later’ Annals of Beleriand, a fuller and more finished version of the ‘earliest’ Annals; the *Ambarkanta: The Shape of the World, a list of cosmographical words and explanations and a description of the world of the mythology, accompanied by three diagrams and two maps; the ‘later’ Annals of Valinor, a development of the ‘earliest’ Annals; the first version of *The Tale of Years, as an accompaniment to the Annals as they become fuller; the *Lhammas or ‘Account of Tongues’, in three versions (the third entitled Lammasethen), which describes the development and interrelationships of the various Elvish languages and also includes information about the speech of the Valar, Men, and Orcs, with summaries of the history of the Elves and two ‘genealogical tables’, The Tree of Tongues and The Peoples of the Elves; a substantial work on Noldorin phonology, and a five-page exposition of Elvish runes; two brief texts, *The Elvish Alphabets, which describes the Noldorin alphabets of Rúmil and Fëanor and the Runic alphabet of Dairon, and *The ‘Alphabet of Dairon’ which includes more information about runes; the *Ainulindalë, the first retelling of the Creation myth since The Music of the Ainur in The Book of Lost Tales; and the *Quenta Silmarillion, in which the mythology is told as a narrative at much greater length than in the Quenta Noldorinwa and which incorporates much new material. In the latter Tolkien has great difficulty in compressing the tale of Beren and Lúthien which he had told at great length in the Lay of Leithian, and rejects drafts that are disproportionate to the rest of the work; while he is writing another version of this story, he sends a fair copy of the Quenta Silmarillion to George Allen & Unwin to be considered for publication (see entry for 15 November 1937). – Probably contemporary with his work on the Lhammas and the Quenta Silmarillion, Tolkien prepares the *Etymologies (or Beleriandic and Noldorin Names and Words), ‘an etymological dictionary of word-relationships: an alphabetically-arranged list of primary stems, or “bases”, with their derivatives’ (Christopher Tolkien, *The Lost Road and Other Writings (1987), pp. 342–3). This is apparently compiled progressively through the alphabet, but changes are made in the course of composition. Associated with the Etymologies, at the end of this period, Tolkien also explores spelling in his Elvish languages.

1934

      c. 1934–1935 Tolkien writes a review of the Devonshire volumes published by the English Place-Name Society in 1931 and 1932. This also mentions the Northampton and Surrey volumes, which appeared in 1933 and 1934, but not the 1935 Essex volume. In the event, the review is never published.

      14 January 1934 Hilary Full Term begins. Tolkien’s scheduled lectures for this term are: Waldere and Deor’s Lament, together with the Old Norse Völundarkviða, on Tuesdays at 11.00 a.m. in the Examination Schools, beginning 16 January; and The Historical and Legendary Traditions in Beowulf and Other Old English Poems (continued) on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 12.00 noon in the Examination Schools, beginning 16 January. Tolkien will continue to supervise B.Litt. students J.E. Blomfield, A.F. Colborn, M.E. Griffiths, and E.O.G. Turville-Petre.

      18 January 1934 Tolkien’s poem Looney is published in the Oxford Magazine for 18 January 1934.

      19 January 1934 Tolkien attends a meeting of the Committee for Comparative Philology at 5.15 p.m. in the Delegates Room of the Clarendon Building. In the absence of the usual chairman, he is asked to take the chair. He is made a member of the Committee for the Nomination of Examiners for the Diploma in Comparative Philology for two years from the beginning of Hilary Term 1934.

      25 January 1934 Tolkien chairs an English Faculty Library Committee meeting at 2.15 p.m. in the Library.

      31 January 1934 Tolkien attends a Pembroke College meeting.

      15 February 1934 Tolkien’s poem The Adventures of Tom Bombadil is published in the Oxford Magazine for 15 February 1934.

      21 February 1934 Tolkien attends a Pembroke College meeting.

      23 February 1934 By this date Priscilla Tolkien has been ill for five weeks, and doctors have been unable to diagnose the cause. Tolkien’s own and his family’s ill health in the past few years, with consequent doctors’ bills, and the expense of sending his sons to school, have made it difficult for him to make ends meet, even by undertaking tasks such as marking examination papers.

      1 March 1934 Tolkien certifies that E.O.G. Turville-Petre has completed course work towards his B.Litt.

      9 March 1934 Tolkien attends an English Faculty Board meeting. The Applications Committee has appointed Tolkien and E.V. Gordon examiners of the B.Litt. thesis of E.O.G. Turville-Petre, An Edition of Víga-Glúms Saga from the Manuscripts, with Introduction and Notes.

      10 March 1934 Hilary Full Term ends.

      12 March 1934 First Public Examination (Pass Moderations) begins. Tolkien is an moderator.

      25 March 1934 Tolkien’s poem Firiel is published in the Chronicle of the Convents of the Sacred Heart 4 (1934).

      26 March 1934 Tolkien goes to C.S. Lewis’s rooms in Magdalen College at 4.00 p.m. After tea, he and the Lewis brothers read Wagner’s Die Walküre, Warren in English, the others in German. See note. – Soon after 6.00 p.m. Tolkien goes home, but later meets the Lewises at the Eastgate Hotel for dinner. They then return to Magdalen to finish the reading and to drink whiskey. The reading leads to a discussion about Wotan, and to long and interesting conversation on religion. The meeting breaks up at about 11.30 p.m.

      28 March 1934 L.R. Farnell dies.

      18 April 1934 Elaine Griffiths, the B.Litt. student working on aspects of the Cambridge manuscript of the Ancrene Riwle (Ancrene Wisse), writes to Tolkien, sending references in the manuscript for which he had asked. By now Tolkien has been preparing an edition of Ancrene Wisse, and Griffiths is his de facto assistant.

      22 April 1934 Trinity Full Term begins. Tolkien’s scheduled lectures for this term are: Old English Verse (for those beginning the Honour Course) on Tuesdays at 11.00 a.m. in the Examination Schools, beginning 24 April; Völundarkviða, Atlakviða, and Atlamál on Tuesdays at 11.00 a.m. in the Examination Schools; and The Fight at Finnesburg (continued; probably a further continuation of The Historical and Legendary Traditions in Beowulf and Other Old English Poems) on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 12.00 noon in the Examination Schools, beginning 24 April. (Thus announced in the Oxford University Gazette, without correction for the listing of two lectures scheduled for Tuesdays at 11.00 a.m.) Tolkien will continue to supervise B.Litt. students J.E. Blomfield and M.E.