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

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      14 March 1914 Hilary Full Term ends.

      15 March 1914 Tolkien adds to The Book of Ishness a watercolour of the sea, or possibly of the Great Wave which sometimes haunts his dreams, ‘towering up, and coming in ineluctably over the trees and green fields’ (letter to W.H. Auden, 7 June 1955, Letters, p. 213).

      21 April 1914 Tolkien adds to The Book of Ishness a simple, diagrammatic drawing entitled Everywhere, and a strange design of bells and dancing lampposts entitled Tarantella (?).

      26 April 1914 Trinity Full Term begins.

      Trinity Term 1914 Tolkien very likely attends the conclusion of A.S. Napier’s lectures on English Historical Grammar, on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays at 12.00 noon in the Examination Schools, beginning 30 April. He probably attends Kenneth Sisam’s classes on Beowulf and Pearl, and perhaps one or more of Sisam’s four recurring classes on the Anglo-Saxon Reader, on Havelok, and on Elementary Historical Grammar. He probably also attends (more likely now than in Trinity Term 1915, immediately before final examinations) W.A. Craigie’s lectures on Outlines of Scandinavian Philology on Tuesdays at 5.00 p.m. in the Taylor Institution, beginning 28 April, and on the Hallfreðar Saga on Thursdays at 5.00 p.m. in the Taylor Institution, beginning 30 April; and perhaps D. Nichol Smith’s lectures on English Literature from Caxton to Milton on Wednesdays and Fridays at 11.00 a.m. in the Examination Schools, beginning 29 April. He possibly attends lectures by Sir John Rhys on Welsh: The Mabinogion (White Book Text) on Tuesdays and Fridays at 5.00 p.m. at Jesus College, beginning 1 May.

      4 May 1914 The Stapeldon Society meets.

      16 May 1914 Tolkien rewrites his poem Wood-sunshine (first composed in July 1910). – G.K. Chesterton gives a lecture, Romance, at 5.30 p.m. in the Oxford Examination Schools.

      18 May 1914 Tolkien rewrites his poem The Dale Lands (first composed in May 1910), now with the slightly emended title The Dale-lands. – At a meeting of the Stapeldon Society Tolkien is given the task of writing to various people to ask if they would propose toasts at the Sexcentenary Dinner. In a debate following Society business he proposes the motion: ‘That Oxford was made for Eights Week and not Eights Week for Oxford’. The motion carries, 6 to 3.

      20 May 1914 Tolkien chairs a meeting of the Exeter College Essay Club in Colin Cullis’s rooms. J.F. Huntington reads a paper on George Borrow. In the discussion afterwards, Tolkien confesses to having no great admiration for Borrow.

      26 May 1914 Tolkien attends a performance by the Exeter College Musical Society. The programme includes songs by members of the Society and guests Miss Dora Arnell and Mr Stewart Gardner, as well as flute and pianoforte solos.

      June 1914 Tolkien and other Exeter College students pose for group photographs. See note.

      1 June 1914 At a meeting of the Stapeldon Society the members ‘listened with breathless interest to the respectively frolicsome, frivolous and fearful adventures which had befallen Messrs. Tolkien, Robinson and Wheway’ (Society minutes, Exeter College archives).

      3 June 1914 Tolkien chairs a meeting of the Exeter College Essay Club in Mr Huntington’s rooms. He is elected Critic for Michaelmas Term. A visiting speaker, Cyril Bailey, reads a paper, Signs of the Times. (This is the last meeting recorded in the Society minutes book until Michaelmas Term 1918, but that there were meetings during 1914–18 is evident from references in the Stapeldon Magazine and elsewhere.)

      6 June 1914 The Junior Common Room entertains the Senior Common Room (i.e. the Rector and Fellows of the College) with a ten-course dinner in the Hall to celebrate the sexcentenary of the foundation of Exeter College. R.H. Gordon proposes the toast to the Rector and Fellows. Tolkien proposes the toast to the College Societies, with the reply by Colin Cullis. Tolkien collects twenty-three signatures on his menu card. See note.

      15 June 1914 Tolkien attends a meeting of the Stapeldon Society. The members pass a vote of congratulation for the committee that arranged the Sexcentenary Dinner.

      18 June 1914 Tolkien attends the ‘Chequers Clubbe Binge’, a five-course dinner. Its printed menu has a cover designed by Tolkien and lists twelve members of the Club including himself. He and seven others sign his copy of the menu.

      20 June 1914 Trinity Full Term ends.

      23 June 1914 A Sexcentenary Ball is held at Exeter College. See note.

      June–July 1914 Tolkien spends the early part of his vacation visiting Edith in Warwick. Probably on this visit he draws a view of Warwick Castle seen from under a bridge, apparently made from a punt or boat on the river. He will later date it ‘1913–14?’

      August 1914 Tolkien explores the Lizard Peninsula in *Cornwall on foot with Father Vincent Reade of the Birmingham Oratory. Their visit extends from at least 5 August to 18 or 19 August, a period fixed by letters written by Tolkien to Edith on 5, 8, 11, 14, and 16 August (in the latter ‘only three days till I see you’; quoted by Christopher Tolkien in private correspondence). During the visit Tolkien makes several drawings: Cadgwith, Cornwall, Cove near the Lizard (Artist and Illustrator, fig. 21), and Caerthilian Cove & Lion Rock (Artist and Illustrator, fig. 20, a mistitled view of the sea off Pentreath Beach), as well as a rough sketch for the Lion Rock. On 8 August Tolkien will write to Edith:

      We walked over the moor-land on top of the cliffs to Kynance Cove. Nothing I could say in a dull old letter would describe it to you. The sun beats down on you and a huge Atlantic swell smashes and spouts over the snags and reefs. The sea has carved weird wind-holes and spouts into the cliffs which blow with trumpety noises or spout foam like a whale, and everywhere you see black and red rock and white foam against violet and transparent seagreen. [quoted in Biography, p. 70]

      After exploring some of the villages inland from the Lizard promontory, they walk

      through rustic ‘Warwickshire’ scenery, dropped down to the banks of the Helford river (almost like a fjord), and then climbed through ‘Devonshire’ lanes up to the opposite bank, and then got into more open country, where it twisted and wiggled and wobbled and upped and downed until dusk was already coming on and the red sun just dropping. Then after adventures and redirections we came out on the bare bleak ‘Goonhilly’ downs and had a four mile straight piece with turf for our sore feet. Then we got benighted in the neighbourhood of Ruan Minor, and got into the dips and waggles again. The light got very ‘eerie’. Sometimes we plunged into a belt of trees, and owls and bats made you creep: sometimes a horse with asthma behind a hedge or an old pig with insomnia made your heart jump: or perhaps it was nothing worse than walking into an unexpected stream. The fourteen miles eventually drew to an end – and the last two miles were enlivened by the sweeping flash of the Lizard Lights and the sounds of the sea drawing nearer. [quoted in Biography, p. 71]

      4 August 1914 Germany invades Belgium. Britain, one of the nations that had guaranteed the neutrality of Belgium by treaty in 1839, gives Germany an ultimatum that if its forces have not been withdrawn by midnight, Germany and Britain will be at war. – George Allen & Unwin Ltd. (*Publishers) is formed out of the assets of George Allen & Co. Ltd.

      7 August 1914 Units of the British Expeditionary Force cross to France.

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