arda-marred

There flying Elwing came to him, and flame was in the darkness lit

The design of the white flowers beneath Eärendil's feet originates from the small white blossoms blooming on the plains of Gondolin.

not my art but my commssion.

Many Tolkien scholars consider the earliest glimpse of what would become his legendarium to be in the form of the poem, ‘The Voyage of Éarendel the Evening Star’, which Tolkien himself dated to September 24, 1914.... right at the start of World War I.

This would make Tolkien only 22 years old when he began writing about Middle-earth.

See the below link and/or John Garth's seminal biography Tolkien and the Great War for more details on how Tolkien's early scholarly interests and his experiences as a young man during WWI contributed to and shaped his works.

I realize that "unfortunately a lot of world leaders were kind of insane and a lot of people died about it" is -- obviously -- not a framing of this historical conflict now. But the folly of political elites leading to destruction of life and livelihood on a massive scale was absolutely a popular framing of it in the interwar period. Cf. the novels of James Hilton. Or for that matter, arguably, the Women's International League.

Hoping to see you shortly, dear, but just quickly jotting this down while the impressions are fresh.

I have seen the backside of Tilion! Oops, no, that didn't come out as I intended it to... What I mean is: I have seen the dark side of Ithil, the side that we couldn't see from Middle-earth, and of course it is not dark at all, although there are some more burn marks on that side, too.

"A consummation greatly desired," Jeeves agreed.

"The forces of darkness vanquished, the rightful king upon his throne, and all that. And, even more importantly, Tuppy Glossop disengaged from that horsy female and returned to the bosom of my cousin Angela."

"Indeed, sir."

"Rather a shock running into the Reverend Aubry Upjohn riding that fell beast, what?"

"I though you displayed great alacrity in relocating to that ditch in the nick of time, sir."

Far below us, the molten lava did a rather spirited impersonation of boiling soup. I mopped the p. off the b. with a handkerchief I'd improvised from an orc loincloth. I had been to some deuced uncomfortable country estates in my time, don't you know, but at least there one had been able to toddle downstairs and pour oneself a quick W. and S. as needed to stiffen the sinews. Galadriel's Buck-U-Uppo was excellent at vitalizing the limbs to forge on the last dreadful mile and all that, but it lacked the comfort that speaks to the soul.

I contemplated the glowing river. "Redirecting the army of Aunts to that Isengard place was a stroke of brilliance, I thought."

"You are too kind, sir."

"Still, all things must end, as they say. Travel is broadening to the mind and all, but it is past time to attend the call of heart and home. Among other considerations, I think something took residence inside this mithril shirt somewhere around the Morgul Vale and has been wandering about biting hither and thither ever since, and I am filled with the desire to strip it off and do battle with the blighted thing."

"Understandable, sir."

"I heard rather a good one the other day: Sing hey! for the bath at close of day that washes the weary mud away! -and by Jove if I don't think they were on to something, Jeeves."

"It is undeniably felicitous to be surrounded by the comforts of home," he assented, and yet I couldn't escape a certain sense of firmness about his gaze.

I sighed, for I knew what he wanted. Well, I mean, I'm all for taking a firm stance and not being trodden on in one's own home and all, but as far as rallying around to save the young master goes, none could have rallied more greatly than Jeeves. If a little firmness was the price I had to pay, well, so be it.

Slowly I undid the old school tie from around my neck. It was harder work than one would have thought; as if it could hear what was rattling around in the old brain, the ring that was threaded on it put in a last surge of effort in the gleaming and enticement department, filling my mind with heady visions: Freddie Widgeon gnashing his teeth as I sank yet another dart into the bullseye, Aunt Agatha wreathed in tears and begging my forgiveness for ever having misjudged me, Jeeves gazing admiringly as I displayed my newest waistcoat for his edification…

It was the last that broke the spell. Cursed objects of all-consuming power were all well and good in their sphere, but there were limits, don't you know? And yet I hesitated. "You don't think I could slip it on and just have a quick total domination of the world before I toddle around to the Drones for a stiff one?"

Jeeves gave a gentle cough of reproof. "I think you will find it for the best, sir."

It was a wrench, but one could not deny the man had earned it. With a heavy hand, I held the ring out to him. "Take it, then. You will know what do with it, I'm sure."

He took it from me with the sort of shimmer that showed he was exceptionally gratified. "Thank you, sir."

I watched as the ring fell from his hand into the depths below. It hit the lava and rested there for a moment before slowly sinking beneath the glowing surface, and as they caught fire I almost felt that the Old Etonian colors glowed brighter in approval. That Wooster, they seemed to say: not much in the brains department, but he gets the job done.

Outside, there came a hideous wailing as of something ages old abruptly losing the power which bound it to this mortal plain and all that, which I took as our signal to leg it down the nearest drainpipe before things got sticky. The road goes ever on and on, what? Yet I paused there, at the end of all things, because some things have to be said.

Éalá Éarendel Engla Beorhtast.

I knew I was going to get emotionally walloped by this scene, given my reread feelings about the arc for Aragorn and the hobbits, but!!! I had forgotten that, in this formal assembly in their honor, Frodo and Sam are so glad to see Aragorn that they break out of a musician-flanked procession to run to him. And that, enthroned between Imrahil and Éomer, Aragorn is just... delighted to be greeted by protocol-indifferent hobbits shouting his nickname! They're friends and they love each other so much!

I’ll never get over it. Never.

From a letter to his son, in 1972

I never called Edith Lúthien – but she was the source of the story that in time became the chief pan of the Silmarillion. It was first conceived in a small woodland glade filled with hemlocks at Roos in Yorkshire (where I was for a brief time in command of an outpost of the Humber Garrison in 1917, and she was able to live with me for a while). In those days her hair was raven, her skin clear, her eyes brighter than you have seen them, and she could sing – and dance. But the story has gone crooked, & I am left, and I cannot plead before the inexorable Mandos.

I will say no more now. But I should like ere long to have a long talk with you. For if as seems probable I shall never write any ordered biography, someone close in heart to me should know something about things that records do not record: the dreadful sufferings of our childhoods, from which we rescued one another, but could not wholly heal the wounds that later often proved disabling; the sufferings that we endured after our love began – all of which (over and above our personal weaknesses) might 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 our memories of our youthful love. For ever (especially when alone) we still met in the woodland glade, and went hand in hand many times to escape the shadow of imminent death before our last parting.

And their graves

Knowing all this has always made this bit of Beren’s song instantly reduce me to tears:

Though all to ruin fell the world

and were dissolved and backward hurled

unmade into the old abyss,

yet were its making good, for this—

the dawn, the dusk, the earth, the sea—

that Lúthien on a time should be!

Tolkien straight up wrote a poem that said “the world could end, but it wouldn’t have all been pointless, because she was in this world, however briefly, and that justified all the rest.” Kills me.