The J. R. R. Tolkien Companion and Guide: Volume 3: Reader’s Guide PART 2. Christina Scull

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Nichol Smith, David (1875–1962). Educated at the University of Edinburgh and the Sorbonne, D. Nichol Smith held posts at the University of Glasgow (as assistant to Professor *Walter Raleigh) and at Armstrong College, Newcastle upon Tyne, before his election as Goldsmiths’ Reader in English at *Oxford in 1908. Raleigh had preceded Nichol Smith to Oxford, as Professor of English Literature, and now together again, they made significant contributions to the development of the fledgling English School. ‘If Raleigh’s brilliance as a lecturer and his undogmatic and stimulating mind gave the new school much of its distinction, his “indifference to system” might have retarded its growth, if the calm and orderly mind of Nichol Smith had not been available with suggestion and criticism’ (James Sutherland, ‘David Nichol Smith, 1875–1962’, in Proceedings of the British Academy 48 (1962), p. 453). In particular, Nichol Smith helped to improve the B.Litt. course, making it more rigorous and methodical. In 1929 he became Merton Professor of English Literature, a chair he held until 1946.

      His special interest was the eighteenth century, and on critical attitudes of the eighteenth century towards earlier literature. His publications include Eighteenth-Century Essays on Shakespeare (1903) and Some Observations on Eighteenth-Century Poetry (1937), and editions of Dryden, Johnson, Swift, among other authors of the period. As an undergraduate Tolkien certainly attended lectures by Nichol Smith on Samuel Johnson and his friends, and possibly also his lectures on Dryden, and on English literature from Caxton to Milton. Upon Tolkien’s election to the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professorship of Anglo-Saxon in 1925 he and Nichol Smith became colleagues, and served together on the English Faculty Board and numerous committees.

      Nichol Smith was also an adviser on English literature to the Oxford University Press, its chief adviser in that field after the death of Raleigh in 1922 and a confidant to *Kenneth Sisam. He was also consulted by *George S. Gordon when Gordon and Tolkien agreed to produce for the Press the ‘Clarendon Chaucer’ (see *Geoffrey Chaucer), and later by Tolkien in a vain attempt to reduce his mass of notes for that book. From c. 1938 Nichol Smith was one of the first three editors of the Oxford English Monographs series, together with Tolkien and *C.S. Lewis.

      See further, *F.P. Wilson, ‘A List of Writings of David Nichol Smith, 1896–1945’, in Essays on the Eighteenth Century: Presented to David Nichol Smith (1945).

Nieninque. Poem, first published in *The Monsters and the Critics and Other Essays (1983), pp. 215–16.

      Composed in Qenya (later Quenya, see *Languages, Invented), Nieninque concerns the maiden Niéle ‘like a snowdrop (Nieninqe), to whom the air gives kisses’. Tolkien included it in his lecture *A Secret Vice (written ?autumn 1931, delivered 29 November 1931) as an example of his ‘vice’ of language invention and its outlet in poetry. The word nieninqe is Qenya, defined in the *Qenyaqetsa lexicon as ‘snowdrop’, literally ‘white tear’, while nieninque is a later form of the word, in Quenya.

      A discussion of five texts of the poem, the first four in the earlier Qenya, was published as ‘Nieninqe’ in Parma Eldalamberon 16 (2006), pp. 88–97, ed. Christopher Gilson, Bill Welden, and Carl F. Hostetter. This includes transcriptions of the first, second, and fifth versions, with Tolkien’s English versions of the first and second; a note on the language of the second version, appended to the poem; variant readings of the third version; and a fifth version, with Tolkien’s glossarial comments. The fourth text in this sequence, following on the sequence of the earlier three versions, was the one incorporated by Tolkien in A Secret Vice. The first text was written in ?1921, the fourth in ?1931, and the fifth on a page from a desk calendar for 26 June–2 July 1955.

Noel. Poem, a celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ, published in The ‘Annual’ of Our Lady’s School, Abingdon, no. 12 (1936), pp. 4–5. A child is born into a world grim, grey, dark, and cold, where ‘all ways and paths were wild’. A star comes ‘shining white and clear’, the voice of Mary rises in song ‘o’er mist and over mountains snow’, and ‘the hall is filled with laughter and light’ as the bells of Paradise ring.

      Our Lady’s School, now Our Lady’s Abingdon, was founded in 1860 as a convent school by the Sisters of Mercy, a Roman Catholic order of nuns members of whom Tolkien met while in hospital during the First World War. Noel was composed probably close to the time of its publication.

‘Of the Noldor in Beleriand’. The fifteenth chapter of the *‘Quenta Silmarillion’, published in *The Silmarillion (1977), pp. 125–30.

      SYNOPSIS

      Inspired by the Vala Ulmo, Turgon of Nevrast discovers the hidden Vale of Tumladen, a suitable place for a refuge. After the Dagor Aglareb he sends some of his people to build a city there, while he himself remains in Nevrast. Fifty-two years later, the city of Gondolin is completed. Ulmo tells Turgon it that will endure longest of the realms of the Noldor, and when a time of peril draws near, one will come to warn him, wearing armour which Turgon is directed to leave behind in Nevrast. Turgon and all of his people, both Noldor and Sindar, make their way secretly to Gondolin. In that fair city the inhabitants remain concealed for over 350 years, not leaving until they take part in the Nirnaeth Arnoediad.

      Meanwhile, Finrod Felagund prepares the refuge of Nargothrond, and his sister Galadriel dwells with her kinsman Thingol and with Melian in Doriath. Pressed for information by Melian, who sees that some shadow lies on her and her kin, Galadriel tells her of the theft of the Silmarils and the death of Finwë, but not of the Oath or the Kinslaying. Melian foresees the significance of the Silmarils, and warns Thingol against the sons of Fëanor, but he still sees them and the Noldor as allies against Morgoth.

      Rumours of the deeds of the Noldor in Valinor, perhaps spread and enhanced by Morgoth, come to the ears of Círdan, who reports them to Thingol at a time when Finrod and his brothers are visiting Doriath. When Thingol accuses the brothers of concealing the matter from him, they plead their innocence in the Kinslaying and tell of Fëanor’s treachery against them. Thingol is prepared to forgive them, as well as Fingolfin and his people, but forbids the language (Quenya, *Languages, Invented) of those who had slain his kin at Alqualondë to be spoken in his realm. The Sindar obey his decree, and the Noldor begin to use Sindarin for their daily speech. Otherwise Quenya is spoken only by Noldorin lords among themselves, or used as a language of lore.

      Finrod celebrates the completion of Nargothrond with a feast. When Galadriel, who is staying with him, asks Finrod why he has no wife, foresight comes upon him that he will be bound by an oath, and his realm will not endure for a son to inherit. But Amarië of the Vanyar, whom he loved, had stayed behind in Valinor.

      HISTORY

      Only isolated threads of this chapter can be found in *The Book of Lost Tales (c. 1916–20), which says little directly of the early years of the Noldor in Beleriand. An outline for the unwritten part of Gilfanon’s Tale: The Travail of the Noldoli and the Coming of Mankind refers to Turgon founding Gondolin after the Battle of Unnumbered Tears (the Nirnaeth Arnoediad), but there is nothing between this and the first written of the Lost Tales, The Fall of Gondolin, which takes place when the city is nearing its end. Turgon’s former dwelling at Nevrast, and the armour left there, do not appear in the tale. Although Gondolin is a hidden secret city, it is not so cut off; some Noldoli manage to find their way to it. The caves inhabited by the Rodothlim, refugee Noldoli led by Orodreth, in The Tale of Turambar are a precursor of Nargothrond, but in The Book of Lost Tales Finrod Felagund has not yet been introduced. Artanor (Doriath) is ruled by Tinwelint and Gwendeling, less noble СКАЧАТЬ