Tolkien also has more to say about paganism and Christianity, noting that the Finns were one of the last peoples of Europe to become Christian.
Today the Kalevala and its themes are still practically untouched by this influence, much less affected by it than the mythology of ancient Scandinavia as it appears in the Edda. Except in the story of the virgin Marjatta at the end, in a few references to Jumala or Ukko god of the Heavens, and so forth, even hints of the existence of Christianity are almost entirely absent; of its spirit there is nothing …. To this is of course largely ascribable the interesting primitiveness of the poems …. [pp. 110–11]
He defends the Kalevala against those who wonder about the genuineness of works so recently collected by declaring that its lateness is the reason it has not been ‘whitewashed, redecorated, upholstered in the eighteenth century manner’, or ‘roughly or moralistically handled’ (pp. 112–13).
There appears to be no evidence that the later version of the paper was delivered, but it was certainly tailored for delivery – even though, strangely, it begins with the introductory sentence about being a stop gap on the collapse of the proper speaker. It stops in mid-sentence at the bottom of a page. Perhaps Tolkien was updating it for himself, and in the latter part adding too much that he could not bear to omit.
It should be noted that a sentence added to the second version has had an unfortunate effect on Tolkien scholarship. In Biography Humphrey Carpenter wrote that in ‘a paper on the Kalevala [read] to a college society’ Tolkien
began to talk about the importance of the type of mythology found in the Finnish poems. ‘These mythological ballads,’ he said, ‘are full of that very primitive undergrowth that the literature of Europe has on the whole been steadily cutting and reducing for many centuries with different and earlier completeness among different people.’ And he added: ‘I would that we had more of it left – something of the same sort that belonged to the English.’ An exciting notion; and perhaps he was already thinking of creating that mythology for England himself. [p. 59]
The implication is that both sentences come from the paper Tolkien delivered at Oxford in 1914 and 1915 – words which have been frequently quoted in association with the earliest poems of his *‘Silmarillion’ mythology, and as written before he commenced *The Book of Lost Tales in which the history of the Elves has close ties with that of England. Although a variant of his first sentence (‘These mythological ballads …’) is in the paper as given in 1914/15, the second sentence appears only in the version of the 1920s (p. 105), after Tolkien had written and abandoned The Book of Lost Tales. He may, therefore, have thought about creating a ‘mythology for England’ in 1914, but he did not write ‘I would that we had more of it left – something of the same sort that belonged to the English’ until, as it seems, the early 1920s. Whatever his thought or intent, he had much less to work on than Lönnrot, and his ‘Silmarillion’ is almost an entirely new creation, incorporating only a few fragmentary remains of lost English tales and legends. Its main connection with England is the recording and transmission of the history of the Elves by a man of Anglo-Saxon race and, temporarily, Tol Eressëa physically becoming England (see further, entries for *The Book of Lost Tales and *England).
On Translating Beowulf
see Prefatory Remarks on Prose Translation of ‘Beowulf’
Once upon a Time. Poem, first published in *Winter’s Tales for Children 1 (1965), pp. 44–5. It was printed also in the expanded edition of The Adventures of Tom Bombadil and Other Verses from the Red Book (2014), pp. 280–2.
In the first of three stanzas, ‘once upon a day on the fields of May’, Goldberry is ‘blowing away a dandelion clock’ and ‘stooping over a lily-pool’. In the second, ‘once upon a night in the cockshut light’, Tom walks ‘without boot or shoe, / with moonshine wetting his big brown toes’. In the third, ‘once upon a moon on the brink of June’, Tom speaks to the ‘lintips’, but they are ‘the only things that won’t talk to me, / say what they do or what they be.’ Goldberry and Tom (Bombadil) first appeared in the 1934 poem *The Adventures of Tom Bombadil, and later more famously in *The Lord of the Rings (1954–5).
Rhona Beare suggests in an unpublished lecture that the ‘lintips’ are a development from the tiny spirits depicted by Tolkien in *An Evening in Tavrobel, published in *Leeds University Verse 1914–24 (1924); the two poems share similar imagery, and there seems a strong possibility that Once upon a Time was developed from the earlier poem. This was done probably later than 1962, since Tolkien did not suggest the poem for inclusion in The Adventures of Tom Bombadil and Other Verses from the Red Book (1962).
See further, Douglas A. Anderson, ‘The Mystery of Lintips’, Tolkien Fantasy blog, 22 July 2013; and Kris Swank, ‘Tom Bombadil’s Last Song: Tolkien’s “Once upon a Time”’, Tolkien Studies 10 (2013).
Onions, Charles Talbut (1873–1965). Following education at Mason College (later the University of Birmingham), C.T. Onions joined the staff of the *Oxford English Dictionary in 1895 as an assistant, first to Sir James A.H. Murray, and then to *Henry Bradley. He was co-editor from 1914 to 1933, during which period he and *Sir William Craigie brought the original OED to completion. Some of Tolkien’s work for the Dictionary was done under Onions’ supervision. In his *Valedictory Address to the University of Oxford Tolkien recalled his ‘first glimpse of the unique and dominant figure of Charles Talbut Onions, darkly surveying me, a fledgling prentice in the Dictionary Room’ in 1919. Onions was also responsible for the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (1933) and the Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology (1966, with the assistance of *R.W. Burchfield), and produced a Shakespeare Glossary (1911, etc.) which was an offshoot of his work on the OED.
He was no less valuable to Oxford University Press as an advisor and editor concerned with Old and Middle English texts and readers. He revised Sweet’s Anglo-Saxon Reader (1922, 1946, etc.), urged Tolkien to undertake an edition of *Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (1925), and supported Tolkien and his collaborator *E.V. Gordon in disputes with the Press on the length and contents of Sir Gawain. From 1932 to 1956 he was editor of the distinguished journal of medieval studies Medium Ævum (latterly with *J.A.W. Bennett), and from 1944 to 1957 served on the Council of the Early English Text Society (*Societies and clubs), from 1945 as its Honorary Director.
Onions was also on the faculty of the Oxford English School, as Lecturer in English (1920–27) and Reader in English Philology (1927–49). He had therefore the added responsibilities of lectures to be delivered in term, notably on Middle English texts, and (often in company with Tolkien) administrative duties on the English Faculty Board and various committees. In 1923 he was made a fellow of Magdalen College. In 1925 he was an elector for the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professorship when Tolkien was chosen for that chair. As a member of the Kolbítar (*Societies and clubs) Onions, like Tolkien, had the advantage of existing knowledge of Icelandic in translating the sagas and Eddas.
On 9 January 1965 Tolkien wrote to his son Michael: ‘My dear old protector, backer, and friend Dr C.T. Onions died on Friday at 91 1/3