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

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СКАЧАТЬ He makes three topographical drawings: View from Mr Wallis’ Broad Street, Lyme (Artist and Illustrator, fig. 26); Tumble Hill near Lyme Regis (Artist and Illustrator, fig. 27); and a rough sketch of roofs and chimneys. But subjects from his mythology predominate: a watercolour of Nargothrond, the underground stronghold of the Noldorin Elves (Pictures, no. 33); Taur-na-Fúin (Artist and Illustrator, fig. 54; Art of The Hobbit, fig. 48); Halls of Manwë on the Mountains of the World above Faerie (also known as Taniquetil; Artist and Illustrator, fig. 52); a pencil drawing of Nargothrond (Artist and Illustrator, fig. 56); The Vale of Sirion (Artist and Illustrator, fig. 55); and probably also a very rough sketch of Hirilorn and Lúthien’s hut. He also draws a small mountain landscape (Artist and Illustrator, fig. 53; Art of The Hobbit, fig. 36) after Halls of Manwë, and what will become the best known of several drawings of the ‘Tree of Amalion’, a stylized tree bearing a variety of flowers and leaves (Artist and Illustrator, fig. 62).

      17 August 1928 Tolkien attends the Oxford dinner of the Eighth Pax Romana Congress, an international organization founded in 1921 for Catholic students. See note. His menu card is signed by some of the attendees, including an Austrian and a German who express their gratitude to him for acting as their guide in Oxford. The organizers of the Pax Romana Congress have been assisted, as The Tablet for 1 September 1928 will report,

      by Reception Committees and voluntary helpers drawn from students and senior members of the Universities…. At Oxford, Fr. [Leslie] Walker had been fortunate to have secured the help of Professors Fraser [John Fraser, Jesus Professor of Celtic] and Tolkein [sic] and of a Reception Committee composed of Messrs. M. Wilkinson, J.E. Warrington, B.J. Wall, and the Misses Segar, Lee and Lindsay and had the help of numerous other members of the University who undertook to show visitors round. [President of P.R. [Pax Romana], ‘The Pax Romana Congress’, p. 280]

      September 1928 Tolkien draws Gondolin & the Vale of Tumladin from Cristhorn, another picture related to his mythology (Artist and Illustrator, fig. 58).

      14 October 1928 Michaelmas Full Term begins. Tolkien’s scheduled lectures for this term are: The Battle of Maldon, Brunanburh, and verse from the Chronicle on Tuesdays at 10.00 a.m. in the Examination Schools, beginning 16 October; the Old English Exodus on Tuesdays at 11.00 a.m. in the Examination Schools, beginning 16 October; Old English Verse (Miscellaneous Pieces) on Thursdays at 11.00 a.m. in the Examination Schools, beginning 18 October; The Völsunga Saga and Related Lays on Fridays at 12.00 noon in the Examination Schools, beginning 19 October; and The Germanic Verb on Thursdays at 10.00 a.m. in the Examination Schools, beginning 18 October.

      17 October 1928 Tolkien attends a Pembroke College meeting.

      2 November 1928 At a meeting of the English Faculty Board, in Tolkien’s absence, he is re-elected to the Applications Committee. David Nichol Smith presents the report of the examiners (including Tolkien) for the English Final Honour School. The Applications Committee has appointed Tolkien as supervisor of R. Tuve of Somerville College, a probationer B.Litt. student who will work in medieval English literature. It has also appointed Tolkien and Kenneth Sisam examiners of the D.Phil. thesis of Peter Haworth of University College, An Edition of British Museum MS Harley 2257.

      4 December 1928 Tolkien and Kenneth Sisam examine Peter Haworth of University College viva voce on his D.Phil. thesis at 11.30 a.m. in the Examination Schools.

      5 December 1928 Tolkien and Kenneth Sisam sign their report on the examination of Peter Haworth. – Tolkien attends a Pembroke College meeting.

      7 December 1928 Tolkien attends an English Faculty Board meeting., at which he raises the question of payment of examiners in the Final Honour School. He is appointed to a committee to consider the matter.

      8 December 1928 Michaelmas Full Term ends.

      11 December 1928 Tolkien attends an English Faculty Library Committee meeting at 2.15 p.m. in the Library.

      Christmas 1928 Tolkien, as ‘Father Christmas’, writes to his sons. Although his letter is dated 20 December, it is probably not finished in time for Christmas Day, as an added note dated Boxing Day (26 December) states that the North Polar Bear failed to post it earlier. The letter proper tells how the North Polar Bear fell down stairs while carrying Christmas parcels. It is accompanied by a picture of the accident. Father Christmas brings paints for John and ‘railway things and a farm and animals’ to Michael and Christopher. – If Tolkien conceived The Hobbit in summer 1928, he possibly now begins to tell the story to his children, and to add to the tale (while retelling previous parts) each successive Christmas until c. 1932. Once he begins to write it down, he also makes a few illustrations and maps for the story to add to the ‘home manuscript’. See further, entry for The Hobbit in Reader’s Guide.

1929

      ?1929–1930 At the request of R.E.M. Wheeler (later Sir Mortimer Wheeler), during 1928–9 director of excavation at a site at Lydney Park, Gloucestershire with prehistoric, Roman and post-Roman remains including a temple to Nodens, Tolkien writes a note on the name Nodens. – During this period Tolkien and C.S. Lewis become allies in a campaign to reform the Oxford English School syllabus.

      1929 Tolkien works on a Qenyatic script. – Tolkien becomes a member of the Philological Society (*Societies and clubs). – Hilary Tolkien marries Magdalen Matthews in Evesham. After the wedding, the bride and groom travel to Oxford to spend the rest of the day with Ronald and Edith.

      2 January 1929 Tolkien writes to E.V. Gordon, referring to Gordon’s plan to start an Icelandic collection at the University of Leeds and enclosing songs.

      9 January 1929 The committee appointed at the 7 December meeting of the English Faculty Board meets to consider the question of the remuneration of examiners in the Final Honour School. The members agree that there is a need for some adjustments, but think it would be advisable for the chairman to take the matter up informally with the appropriate authorities.

      17 January 1929 An article by Tolkien, Ancrene Wisse and Hali Meiðhad, is published in Essays and Studies by Members of the English Association, vol. 14.

      20 January 1929 Hilary Full Term begins. Tolkien’s scheduled lectures for this term are: the Old English Exodus (continued), Tuesdays at 11.00 a.m. in the Examination Schools, beginning 22 January; Old English Verse (Miscellaneous Pieces), Thursdays at 10.00 a.m. in the Examination Schools, beginning 24 January; Völsunga Saga and Related Lays, Fridays at 12.00 noon in the Examination Schools, beginning 25 January; Legends of the Goths, Tuesdays at 10.00 a.m. in the Examination Schools, beginning 22 January; and The Germanic Verb (continued), Thursdays at 11.00 a.m. in the Examination Schools, beginning 24 January.

      23 January 1929 Tolkien attends a Pembroke College meeting.

      28 January 1929 Tolkien gives a public lecture at Leeds, Celts and the Teutons in the Early World. A report will note that

      the English School owes a very great debt to Professor Tolkien; but it is not only for academic reasons that his old students remember him, and some of them were glad to share again his obvious regret that the lecture must somehow be terminated at the end of the allotted period, though the subject is nowhere near exhausted; to be flattered by the assumption that they could instantly recognise Old Welsh СКАЧАТЬ