Part 3 (2/2)

Edith was glad to help hi it out in a large exercise-book It was an interlude of rare contents she played the piano and he recited his poetry or made sketches of her At this time she conceived a child But the idyll could not last; trench fever' aeneral discoham had apparently cured Tolkien Now his battalion wanted hio, of course, and it would be tragic if his life iped out by a Gerreat work But what else could he do?

His health provided the answer Towards the end of his leave at Great Haywood he was taken ill again He got better after a feeeks and was posted temporarily to Yorkshi+re Edith and her cousin Jennie packed their belongings and followed his a few miles from his camp, at Hornsea But just after he had returned to duty he went sick once ate sanatoriu There is no doubt that he had real symptoms of illness But as Edith wrote to hiland,' and he knew that recovery would almost inevitably lead to a return to the trenches So, as happened with many other soldiers, his body responded and kept his te day after day in bed being dosed with aspirin did nothing to iain and was sent for further training at an arood chance that if he passed an exanals Officer at the Yorkshi+re camp, a post that would probably keep him from the trenches He sat the examination in July, but failed

A few days later he was taken ill again, and by the second week in August he was back in hospital

This tis, at the Brooklands Officers' Hospital in Hull A pleasant group of fellow patients provided good co them was a friend from the Lancashi+re Fusiliers He was visited by nuns from a local Catholic convent, with one of whom he formed a friendshi+p that was to continue till the end of her life He could also get on with his writing) Meanwhile Edith, now heavily pregnant, was living with her cousin inup her house in Warwick; Great Haywood had served very well, but now life was al-house, food was desperately short thanks to the sinking of British shi+ps by U-boats, and she hardly ever saw Ronald - his hospital was a long and weary journey from Hornsea The local Catholic church was a poor temporary affair set up in a cinelican parish church with Jennie, as a nancy exhausting She decided to go back to Cheltenham, where she had lived for three years, and which was the only town she really liked She could arrange to give birth in a comfortable hospital, and until the time came she and Jennie could stay in rooms So to Cheltenham they went

At about this ti in hospital in Hull, Tolkien composed another major story for The Book of Lost Tales' This was the tale of the hapless Turin, which was eventually given the title The Children of Hurin' Again one ht with a great dragon inevitably suggests courd and Beowulf, while his unknowing incest with his sister and his subsequent suicide were derived quite consciously froain these influences' are only superficial The Children of Hurin' is a powerful fusion of Icelandic and Finnish traditions, but it passes beyond this to achieve a degree of dramatic complexity and a subtlety of characterisation not often found in ancient legends

On 16 November 1917 a son was born to Ronald and Edith Tolkien, in a Cheltenha hoer But although Ronald had been discharged from hospital he was required in caet leave to come south until alun to recover They decided to na in honour of Father Francis Morgan, who ca Ronald returned to duty, and Edith brought the child back to Yorkshi+re, e north of the Humber estuary and not far from the camp where Ronald (promoted to full lieutenant) was now stationed By this tiain

On days when he could get leave, he and Edith went for walks in the countryside Near Roos they found a srowth of hemlock, and there they wandered Ronald recalled of Edith as she was at this tiht, and she could sing - and dance' She sang and danced for him in the wood, and from this came the story that was to be the centre of The Silmarillion: the tale of the mortal man Beren who loves the im a hemlock in a wood

This deeply roe of e Tolkien had previously written, achieving at tinerian intensity of passion It is also Tolkien's first quest-story; and the journey of the two lovers to Morgoth's terrible fortress, where they hope to cut a Silmaril from his Iron Crown, see to its destination

Of all his legends, the tale of Beren and Luthien was the one most loved by Tolkien, not least because at one level he identified the character of Luthien with his oife After Edith's death more than fifty years later he wrote to his son Christopher, explaining why he wished to include the name Luthien' on her tombstone: She was (and knew she was)to have a long talk with you For if as seeraphy - it is against s deepest felt in tales andabout things that records do not record: the dreadful sufferings of our childhoods, from which we rescued one another, but could not wholly heal wounds that later often proved disabling; the sufferings that we endured after our love began - all of which (over and above personal weaknesses) ht help to make pardonable, or understandable, the lapses and darknesses which at times marred our lives -and to explain how these never touched our depths nor dimmed the memories of our youthful love For ever (especially when alone) we still lade and went hand in hand many times to escape the shadow of i'

Tolkien's ti of 1918 when he was posted to Penkridge, one of the Staffordshi+re ca to France At about this ti in France were all killed or taken prisoner at Chemin des Dames

Edith, the baby, and Jennie Grove travelled south to be with hi homeless sort of life'; and scarcely had they settled at Penkridge than he was posted back to Hull This ti after the baby and was often in pain - the effects of the difficult birth had been long-lasting - and she wrote bitterly to Ronald: Til never go round with you again' Meanwhile on his return to the Huain, and was sent back to the officers' hospital in Hull I should think you ought never to feel tired again,' Edith wrote, for the amount of Bed you have had since you cao is enory and the elvish languages, he was teaching hi his Spanish and Italian

By October he had been discharged from hospital Peace seemed a little nearer, and he went to Oxford to see if there was any chance of finding an academic job The outlook was poor: the University was scarcely functioning, and nobody kneould happen when peace caht hiie was on the staff of the New English Dictionary, the later parts of which were still being compiled al Oxford, and he told Tolkien that he could find hirapher When the war came to an end on 11 November, Tolkien contacted the army authorities and obtained permission to be stationed at Oxford for the purposes of co his education' until des in St John's Street, and late in November 1918 he, Edith, the baby, and Jennie Grove took up residence in Oxford

Tolkien had long dreahout his war service he had suffered an ache of nostalgia for his college, his friends, and the way of life that he had led for four years He was also uncomfortably conscious of wasted time, for he was noenty-seven and Edith was thirty But at last they could enjoy what they had long hoped for: Our ho that he had entered a new phase of his life, Tolkien began (on New Year's Day 1919) to keep a diary in which he recorded principal events and his thoughts on thean instead to use a remarkable alphabet that he had just invented, which looked like a mixture of Hebrew, Greek, and Pitman's shorthand He soon decided to involve it with his y, and he nae in his stories His diary entries were all in English but they were noritten in this alphabet The only difficulty was that he could not decide on a final for their use, so that a sign that was used for r' one week ht be used for T the next Nor did he always rees, and after a time he found it difficult to read earlier entries in the diary Resolutions to stop altering the alphabet and leave it alone were of no avail: a restless perfectionism in this as in so much else made him constantly refine and adjust

With patience, the diary can be deciphered; and it provides a detailed picture of Tolkien's new pattern of life After breakfast he would set out frolish Dictionary work-roo in nearby Broad Street There, in what he called that great dusty workshop, that brownest of brown studies', a s the e ever to be coun in 1878, and by 1900 the sections covering the letters A to H had been published; but eighteen years later, after delays caused by the war, U to Z was still incoinal editor Sir James Murray, had died in 1915, and the as now supervised by Henry Bradley, a remarkable man who had spent twenty years as a clerk to a Sheffield cutler before devoting hiuished philologist1 Tolkien enjoyed working at the Dictionary, and liked his colleagues, especially the accoiven the job of researching the etyy of warm, wasp, water, wick (lamp), and winter

Soathered frolance at the entry that was finally printed for wasp It is not a particularly difficult word, but the paragraph dealing with it cites comparable forh Gerh German, Modern German, Old Teutonic, primitive pre-Teutonic, Lithuanian, Old Slavonic, Russian, and Latin Not surprisingly, Tolkien found that this kind of work taught hies, and he once said of the period 1919-20 when he orking on the Dictionary: I learned more in those two years than in any other equal period of my life' He did his job remarkably well, even by the standards of the Dictionary, and Dr Bradley reported of hih lo-Saxon and of the facts and principles of the coes Indeed, I have no hesitation in saying that I have never known a e as in these respects his equal'

From the Dictionary it was only a short walk ho after, for tea Dr Bradley was an unde taskmaster as far as hours were concerned, and in any case the as scarcely supposed to occupy Tolkien's entire day Like many others ere employed at the Dictionary he was expected to fill out his ti in the University Heto accept pupils, and one by one the colleges began to respond - chiefly the woh's badly needed so ladies, and Tolkien had the advantage of being married, which meant that a chaperon did not have to be sent to his ho them

As a child, Bradley had first learnt to read upside-down by looking at the Bible on his father's knees during family prayers

Soon he and Edith decided that they could afford the rent of a (small house, and they found a suitable one just round the corner from their rooms, at 1 Alfred Street (now called Pusey Street) They ed a cook-housemaid

It was a great joy to have a house of their own Edith's piano was brought back froain for the first tinant once ive birth in her own house and bring up the baby in a proper hoh froive up work at the Dictionary

Meanwhile he continued to write The Book of Lost Tales', and one evening he read The Fall of Gondolin' aloud to the Essay Club at Exeter College It ell received by an undergraduate audience that included two young o Dyson Suddenly the faed Tolkien applied for the post of Reader in English Language at the University of Leeds, scarcely expecting to be considered, but in the suo for an interview He was lish at the university Gordon had been a prolish School at Oxford before the war, but Tolkien did not know him, and conversation was a little stilted as they took the trah the town and up to the university

They started to talk about Sir Walter Raleigh, Professor of English Literature at Oxford Tolkien recalled the occasion: I did not in fact think ood lecturer; but some kind spirit proh I only really racefully on a lofty pinnacle above my criticisot the job'

S, croith factories and terraced houses, Leeds offered little prospect of a good life The late Victorian university buildings, constructed of variegated brick in the mock-Gothic style, were a sad contrast to what Tolkien had been used to He had serious s about his decision to accept the post, and to land

At first life was difficult for hiave birth to a second son, as christened Michael Hilary Reuel; Tolkien, living in a bedsitter in Leeds during the week, had to make a journey to Oxford at weekends to see his fa of 1921 were Edith and the baby ready to move north, and even then Tolkien could only find temporary accommodation for them in furnished rooms in Leeds

However, at the end of 1921 they took the lease of 11 St Mark's Terrace, a small dark house in a side-street near the university, and here they established their new holish Departe Gordon was building it up Gordon was an organiser rather than a scholar, but Tolkien found hireat kindness to his new assistant, lazed bricks and hot-water pipes already shared with the Professor of French, and showing concern for his doements More important, he handed over to Tolkien virtual responsibility for all the linguistic teaching in the department

Gordon had decided to follow the Oxford pattern and divide the Leeds English syllabus into two options, one for undergraduates wishi+ng to specialise in post-Chaucerian literature and the other for those anted to concentrate their attention on Anglo-Saxon and Middle English This latter course had only just been established, and Gordon wanted Tolkien to organise a syllabus that would be attractive to undergraduates and would provide the Tolkien immediately threw hiht of solid and dour Yorkshi+re students, but he soon careat admiration for many of them

He once wrote: I ae proportion prove educable: for which a priness to do some work,' Many of his students at Leeds worked very hard indeed, and were soon achieving excellent results

Yet Tolkien very nearly did not re his first term there, he was invited to submit his nalish Language: the Baines Chair at Liverpool and the new De Beers Chair at Cape Town He sent in his applications Liverpool turned him down, but at the end of January 1921 Cape Town offered him the post In many ways he would have liked to accept It would have meant a return to the land of his birth, and he had alanted to see South Africa again But he refused the job Edith and the baby were in no fit state to travel, and he did not want to be separated from her Yet he wrote in his diary twelve months later: I have often wondered since if that was not our chance that cae to seize it'

Events were to prove this fear unfounded

Early in 1922 a new junior lecturer was appointed to the language side of the English Depart man named E V Gordon This se Gordon) had been a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, and Tolkien had tutored hi 1920 Now he made him very welcoot firmly established and is my devoted friend and pal,' he wrote in his diary

Soon after Gordon's arrival the two an to collaborate on afor solish extracts that his former tutor Kenneth Sisa a slish dictionary, a task that he undertook with infinite precision andtime to complete, but it reached print early in 1922, by which tiive greater scope to his scholarshi+p He and E V Gordon decided to colish poeht, as there was none in print that was suitable for university students Tolkien was to be responsible for the text and glossary while Gordon would provide the greater part of the notes

Tolkien found that his collaborator was an industrious little devil', and he had to work fast to keep up with him They finished the book in time for publication by the Clarendon Press early in 1925 It was a h Tolkien himself would often in later years entertain his audience at lectures byreferences to some point of interpretation in the edition, as if he hi to do with it: Tolkien and Gordon were quite wrong, quite wrong when they said that! Can't i of!'

E V Gordon shared Tolkien's sense of hu the undergraduates, whichcos These were mostly written by Tolkien and Gordon, who made up rude verses about the students, translated nursery rhys in Old Norse Several of their verses were printed privately soly, the Viking Club helped to h this and the excellence of their teaching the language side of the English Department attracted uistic specialists araduates, more than a third of the total nuher proportion than was usually enrolled at Oxford for the equivalent course

Hoenerally happy Edith found the atly informal, and she made friends with other wives Money was not plentiful and Tolkien was saving to buy a house, so family holidays were few, but in the summer of 1922 there was a visit of some weeks to Filey on the Yorkshi+re coast

Tolkien did not like the place; he called it a very nasty little suburban seaside resort', and while he was there he had to spend a good deal of ti School Certificate examination papers, a chore that he now undertook annually to earn some extra money But he also wrote several poeood deal of verse over the last few years Much of it was concerned with his y

Soazine The Gryphon, in a local series called Yorkshi+re Poetry, and in a book of verses by lish Departan a series of poeested by his feelings about Filey

complains of the sordid noisy character of on's Visit', describes the ravages of a dragon who arrives at Biins' A third, Clip', tells of a strange slimy creature who lives beneath the floor of a cave and his pale lus to coered and turned into pneued ninety, was staying with the family at the ti byatto eneration were degenerate weaklings There was I gasping for breath, but he o a trip by sea around the British Isles!' The oldhter, Tolkien's Aunt Jane She had left Nottinghamshi+re and had taken a farm at Dormston in Worcestershi+re It was at the end of a lane that led no further, and the local people used so End'

When Tolkien had recovered from pneumonia he ith Edith and the children to stay with his brother Hilary, who after his war service had bought a sarden near Eve-sham, ancestral town of the Suffields The family were pressed into service to help on the land, and there were also hilarious gaiant kites, which the two brothers flew from the field opposite the house to aed to find tiy

The Book of Lost Tales' was almost complete At Oxford and at Leeds Tolkien had composed the stories that tell of the creation of the universe, the fashi+oning of the Silmarils and their theft frooth The cycle still lacked a clear ending - it was to conclude with the voyage of Earendel's star-shi+p that had been the first eley to arise in Tolkien's mind - and some of the stories were only in synopsis; but a littlethe work to a conclusion Nevertheless Tolkien did not press on towards this objective, but began instead to rewrite It was almost as if he did not want to finish it Perhaps he doubted whether it would ever find a publisher; certainly it was a most unconventional work But it was no odder than the books of Lord Dunsany, which had proved very popular So as holding him back? Principally his desire for perfection, but perhaps it was also so that Christopher Wiseman had once said about the elves in his early poems: Why these creatures live to you is because you are still creating the them they will be as dead to you as the ato food' In other words, Tolkien did not want to finish because he could not conte to do inside his invented world; sub-creation', he was later to call it So he did not complete The Silmarillion (as he came to call the book) but went back and altered and polished and revised He also began to cast two of the principal stories as poems, an indication that he still aspired as much towards verse as towards prose For the story of Turin he chose a modem equivalent of the type of alliterative measure that is found in Beowulf, and for the story of Beren and Luthien he elected to work in rhy couplets

This latter poem he called The Gest of Beren and Luthien'; later he renamed it The Lay of Leithian'

Meanwhile his career at Leeds took an io back to Oxford as Professor of English Literature, and Tolkien was a candidate for the Leeds chair that Gordon had occupied In the event Lascelles Abercrombie was appointed, but Michael Sadler the Vice-Chancellor promised Tolkien that the University would soon be able to create a new Professorshi+p of the English Language especially for him Sadler kept his word, and Tolkien becae of thirty-two, re by the standards of British universities In the saht a house on the outskirts of Leeds, at 2 Darnley Road, West Park It was a great i of some considerable size, and it was surrounded by open fields where Tolkien could take the children for walks

At the beginning of 1924 Edith was upset to find that she was pregnant again She hoped that it hter, but when the child was born in November it proved to be a boy He was baptised Christopher Reuel, the first na in honour of Christopher Wiseht to his father, rote in his diary: Noould not go without what God has sent'

Early in 1925 calo-Saxon at Oxford was shortly to fall vacant; Craigie, the holder, was leaving to go to America The post was advertised, and Tolkien applied In theory he did not stand a good chance, for there were three other candidates with excellent credentials: Alien Mawer of Liverpool, R W