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1920

1920s (by June 1927) Tolkien writes four poems inspired by medieval bestiaries: *Fastitocalon, Iumbo, or ye Kinde of ye Oliphaunt (*Oliphaunt), Monoceros, the Unicorn, and Reginhardus, the Fox.

1920s or 1930s Tolkien writes a poem, Vestr um haf (Old Norse ‘west over sea’). Much later, he will revise it as *Bilbo’s Last Song (at the Grey Havens).

c. 1920–c. 1924 On one or more occasions during this period Tolkien revises the first section of the Eärendel poem he had written in ?late 1914. In the latest text he gives it the title The Bidding of the Minstrel, from the Lay of Eärendel.

18 January 1920 Hilary Full Term begins.

10 March 1920 In the evening, Tolkien attends a meeting of the Exeter College Essay Club and reads a shortened version of The Fall of Gondolin. Present in the audience are *Nevill Coghill (see note) and *H.V.D. ‘Hugo’ Dyson, who will become friends and fellow members of the *Inklings. Tolkien has worked hard on an introduction: his notes have many deletions and hesitations. In one deleted passage he mentions that his ‘cycle’ (mythology) concerns ‘the coming of the mariner Eriol to the Lonely Island’. He declares that

the conventional apology of readers for their papers was never more due to the Club than tonight; but I must plead circumstances and a Secretary too strong for me. Circumstances have prevented me writing a critical paper; and the Secretary who had somehow entrapped me into ‘reading something’ this term, would not release me from my promise. Therefore I must read something already written, and in desperation I have fallen back on this Tale. It has, of course, never seen the light before but it was not written maliciously for your annoyance but in past days for my own amusement. A complete cycle of events in an Elfinesse of my own imagining has for some time past grown up (rather than been constructed) in my mind. Some of the episodes have been scribbled down (at great length – a length due to their interest for myself which can hardly be shared). This tale is not the best of them but it is the only one that has so far been revised at all and insufficient as that revision has been, I dare read aloud. It will take a longish time – please depart when you want to: perhaps (I may console myself by reflecting) too long for anyone to be left to tear me to pieces at the end. I have not the time or cheek to give a resume of the cycle so that you must please bear with the incidental allusions to other tales. [courtesy of, and corrected by, Christopher Tolkien; cf. Unfinished Tales, p. 5]

But the members of the Essay Club enjoy the reading. The Club Secretary will record in the minutes:

As a discovery of a new mythological background Mr Tolkein’s [sic] matter was exceedingly illuminating and marked him out as a staunch follower of tradition, a treatment indeed in the manner of such typical Romantics as William Morris, George Macdonald, de la Motte-Fouquet [sic, for Fouqué] etc. We gathered likewise that the reader’s acquaintanceship with Scandinavian saga and legend was not a little…. The battle of the contending forces of good and evil as represented by the Gongothlim [i.e. Gondothlim] and the followers of Melco [i.e. Melko] was very graphically and astonishingly told, combined with a wealth of attendance to detail interesting in extreme. At the conclusion as the hour had grown very late the president moved the omission of discussion, and the society adjourned after the customary vote of thanks to host and reader. [Exeter College archives; cf. Letters, pp. 445–6]

Although Tolkien’s ‘apology’ states that The Fall of Gondolin is the only one of his tales ‘that has so far been revised at all’, this is not strictly true: the tales of Beren and Lúthien and of Túrin Turambar had also been rewritten. It may be that Tolkien means recently revised; an extant slip giving directions for the shortening of The Fall of Gondolin when delivered orally is almost certainly related to this reading, and alterations on similar slips show developments in the mythology subsequent to the work apparently completed in June (The Book of Lost Tales).

?March or later 1920 Tolkien writes a short prose work, Ælfwine of England (*Eriol and Ælfwine), in part reusing the paper of letters sent to him in February 1920. ‘Ælfwine’ (‘Elf-friend’) now, for a time, is the name of the mariner of his tales, who was still called ‘Eriol’ in the deleted introductory remark to The Fall of Gondolin mentioned above (10 March 1920). A related plot-outline for the work dates from around the same time, and not long after writing the first version of Ælfwine of England Tolkien rewrites it, introducing much new matter. ‘It seems likely that Ælfwine of England was to be the beginning of a complete rewriting of the Lost Tales’ (Christopher Tolkien, The Book of Lost Tales, Part Two, p. 322). Two outline schemes for The Book of Lost Tales, in both of which the mariner is called Ælfwine, apparently also belong to this time: one scheme is cursory though not without additions, while the other seems to be a projected (but unrealized) revision of the Lost Tales, preserving their general plan but with notes that some tales should be abridged or recast, with the names of certain characters changed and Tol Eressëa no longer identified with England, and with the role of the mariner diminished.

13 March 1920 Hilary Full Term ends.

17 March 1920 Tolkien replies to a request from a Miss Duncan at Somerville College, Oxford for guidance on questions that she might face in the Old English paper of her examination. He sends her fifty possible questions, many taken from past papers. He remarks that he hopes some time to produce a select bibliography, but will have no time to do so in the forthcoming vacation.

25 April 1920 Trinity Full Term begins.

Trinity Term 1920 Tolkien teaches a class on Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Saturdays at 10.00 a.m. at 40 Broad Street, beginning 1 May. See note. – He is an honorary member of the Exeter College Essay Club.

11 May 1920 Oxford University grants women full membership. They are now eligible for all degrees except the Bachelor of Divinity and the Doctor of Divinity. Attempts to exclude women dons from faculty boards and from acting as examiners are overwhelmingly defeated.

End of May 1920 Tolkien ceases to work for the Oxford English Dictionary.

June 1920 Tolkien’s poem The Happy Mariners (first composed in July 1915) is published in the Stapeldon Magazine for June 1920, with only a few minor changes from the version rewritten on 9 September 1915. – Probably some time this month, informed of the opening by Kenneth Sisam, Tolkien applies for the post of Reader in English Language at the University of *Leeds.

Late June 1920 Tolkien goes to Leeds to be interviewed for the Readership. He is met at the station by *George S. Gordon, the Professor of English. While travelling by tram to Gordon’s house they talk about Sir Walter Raleigh, Professor of English Literature at Oxford. ‘As (still) a stiff-necked young philologist, I did not in fact think much of Raleigh – he was not, of course, a good lecturer; but some kind spirit prompted me to say that he was “Olympian”. It went well; though I only really meant that he reposed gracefully on a lofty pinnacle above my criticism’ (Tolkien, draft letter to R.W. Chapman, 26 November 1941, Letters, p. 56). The Committee on the Readership, consisting of the Vice-Chancellor, Professor Gordon, and Professor Strong, consider Tolkien as well as three other candidates.

?Second half of 1920–?1921 Either while in Oxford or not long after he moves to Leeds in the autumn, Tolkien writes prose fragments which postdate The Book of Lost Tales. One such fragment, *Turlin and the Exiles of Gondolin, appears to be the beginning of a new version of The Fall of Gondolin. Another, describing the return of the Gnomes to the Great Lands, fills in part of the gap in The Book of Lost Tales which should contain the (unwritten) tale told by Gilfanon (earlier Ailios), The Travail of the Noldoli (see *‘The Gnomes Come to the Great Lands’). Both fragments show some development in the evolution of the mythology, the emergence of new characters, and inevitably changes of name (*‘Flight of the Gnomes’). On a slip of paper Tolkien makes brief notes developing The Flight of the Noldoli. But then he seems to give up any idea of continuing the mythology in prose. He begins *The Lay of the Fall of Gondolin in rhyming couplets, but abandons it after writing 130 lines.

1 July 1920 Tolkien’s appointment as Reader in English Language is recommended at a meeting of the Committee at Leeds.

21 July 1920 Tolkien’s appointment is ratified at a meeting of the University of Leeds Council.

27 July 1920 Tolkien has lunch with George S. Gordon in Oxford.

Summer 1920 The Tolkien family go on holiday to a cottage near Trwyn Llanbedrog on the coast of Cardigan Bay in North Wales. Edith Tolkien, now in the later stages of her second pregnancy, is upset by spiders that fall on her bed; she and her husband will later tell their second son, Michael, that Michael’s fear of spiders might be due to this incident. – Tolkien draws two views of the Welsh coast.

October 1920 Tolkien’s poem Goblin Feet is included, with a colour illustration by Warwick Goble, in The Book of Fairy Poetry, ed. Dora Owen. – Tolkien inscribes ‘Oct. 1920’ in his copy of Peredur ab Efrawc, edited by Kuno Meyer (Leipzig, 1887). He will annotate this while reading the text against a copy of the manuscript facsimile edited by Rhŷs and Evans.

1 October 1920 Tolkien takes up the Readership in English Language at the University of Leeds at a salary of £600 per year (see note). Edith will stay in Oxford for the birth of their second child, due very soon, and until Tolkien can find a suitable place for them to live in Leeds. With George S. Gordon’s help, Tolkien finds a place to stay during the week in Leeds, at 21a St Michael’s Road, Headingley; otherwise he spends as much time as he can in Oxford with his family. The staff of the School of English Language and Literature at Leeds, in addition to Gordon and Tolkien, consists of only two Assistant Lecturers and one Tutor in English Composition.

Autumn term 1920 Tolkien applies, by invitation, for two professorships of English Language: the Baines Chair at the University of Liverpool, and the new De Beers Chair at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. – Beginning this term, Tolkien actively assembles a personal library related to his teaching and studies. In addition to works concerned with Old English, Middle English, Icelandic, and other Germanic languages, he acquires many books on the various Celtic languages and literatures (Gaelic, Welsh, Breton, and Irish).

Late 1920–1923 At some time during this period Tolkien rewrites the poem Tinfang Warble (first composed in April 1915), doubling its length from the original eight lines. He will later note on a typescript: ‘Rewritten Leeds 1920–23’.

Late 1920–1925 While at Leeds Tolkien writes an untitled, unfinished alliterative poem (‘Lo! the flame of fire || and fierce hatred’), almost certainly a lay of Eärendel (see *‘Lay of Eärendel’), which begins with the destruction of Gondolin and breaks off with refugees in the Land of Willows. – He also produces a typescript Qenya Phonology and a manuscript Qenya grammar (*Qenya: Descriptive Grammar of the Qenya Language). He begins to make a typescript fair copy of the grammar, which he expands in the process but does not complete.

4 October 1920 University of Leeds term begins.

Leeds academic year 1920–1921 George S. Gordon, not long retired from military service, is just beginning to revise the English syllabus at Leeds by adopting that of Oxford, according to which undergraduates are offered specialized courses in medieval English language and literature or post-Chaucerian literature. He has been given a free hand to do so, and in turn gives Tolkien a free hand to develop the linguistic side of the school. Gordon will later recall that Tolkien began with only five linguistic specialists out of more than sixty honour students of the second and third years. – The University of Leeds Calendar for 1920–1 lists several lectures or classes to take place during the year for which Tolkien may have responsibility: History of English Language to the Close of the Fourteenth Century, and the special study of West Saxon Texts and the Language of Chaucer, on Mondays and Fridays at 3.00 p.m. and Thursdays at 11.30 a.m.; Old English Verse with a special study of Beowulf, The Fight at Finnesburg, Widsith, Waldere, and Deor’s Lament on Mondays at 10.00 a.m.; The History of Modern English: Old and Middle English Texts on Wednesdays at 10.00 a.m.; Old and Middle English Dialects on Fridays at 12.00 noon; Gothic on Tuesdays at 2.00 p.m.; Early English Literature on Mondays at 12.00 noon; and Chaucer, weekly at an hour to be arranged. Tolkien might also be responsible for the first few lectures in an introductory course on English Literature which begins with the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, the Second Shepherd’s Play, Everyman, and Morte d’Arthur, and then moves on to Shakespeare, etc., Mondays and Wednesdays at 11.00 a.m. A Third Year Essay Class is also offered, involving discussions following upon papers read by students to the class, and chiefly concerned with Early English Literature and Civilization, weekly at an hour to be arranged; and there are weekly tutorial groups. – While at Leeds Tolkien will produce various duplicated or mimeographed pages to give to his students. (He will later use spare copies of some of these to write notes and drafts.) The topics of such pages include the Ancrene Riwle (October 1920); Phonology, and the Grammar of Layamon’s Brut (November 1920); Kentish Dialect (Middle English) (27 January 1923); and the Development of Old English to Middle English (14 October 1923).

22 October 1920 Ronald and Edith Tolkien’s second child, Michael Hilary Reuel Tolkien, is born at home in Oxford. His godparents are Monsignor Augustin Emery, the priest the Tolkiens knew at Great Haywood, and Sister Mary Michael of the Sisters of Mercy in Hull, whom Tolkien met when she visited him in hospital.

3 November 1920 As reported in the London Gazette for 2 November, Tolkien officially relinquishes his army commission as of this date, retaining the rank of lieutenant.

21 December 1920 Term ends at Leeds.

Christmas 1920 The Tolkien family spend Christmas in Oxford. John, now three years old, asks his father what Father Christmas is like, and where he lives. Tolkien responds by writing a letter to John as from Father Christmas, the first in a series (the *‘Father Christmas’ letters) which will continue until 1943. A double picture of Father Christmas trudging through a snow storm, and the house in which Father Christmas lives, accompanies the letter, enclosed in an envelope addressed with decorative writing and with a painted ‘North Pole’ stamp and postmark.

?End of 1920 Tolkien notes in a résumé of the year 1920 that ‘the glossary [A Middle English Vocabulary] hardly got touched again’ (quoted by Christopher Tolkien in private correspondence).