THE GREAT FAIRY-STORY

'The Gospels contain a fairy-story, a story of a larger kind which embraces all the essence of fairy-stories. They contain many marvels - peculiarly artistic, beautiful and moving; 'mythical' in their perfect, self-contained significance; and among the marvels is the greatest and most complete conceivable eucatastrophe. But this story has entered History and the primary world; the desire and aspiration of sub-creation has been raised to the fulfilment of Creation. The Birth of Christ is the eucatastrophe of the story of the Incarnation. The story begins and ends in joy. It has pre-eminently the 'inner consistency of reality'. There is no tale ever told that men would rather find was true, and none which so many sceptical men have accepted as true on its own merits. For the Art of it has the supremely convincing tone of the Primary Art, that is Creation. To reject it leads either to sadness or to wrath.'

JRR Tolkien, On Fairy-Stories in The Monster and the Critics, p.155.

THE HOPE IN FAIRY STORIES

'The consolation of fairy-stories, the joy of the happy ending: or more correctly of the good catastrophe, the sudden joyous 'turn' (for there is no true end to any fairy-tale): this joy, which is one of the things which fairy-stories can produce supremely well, is not essentially 'escapist', nor 'fugitive'. In its fairy-tale - or otherworld - setting, it is a sudden and miraculous grace: never to be counted on to recur. It does not deny the existence of dyscatastrophe, of sorrow and failure: the possibility of these is necessary to the joy of deliverance; it denies (in the face of much evidence, if you will) universal final defeat and in so far is evangelium, giving a fleeting glimpse of Joy, Joy beyond the walls of the world, poignant as grief.

It is the mark of a good fairy story, of the higher or more complete kind, that however wild its events, however fantastic or terrible the adventures, it can give to the child or man that hears it, when the 'turn' comes, a catch of breath, a beat and lifting of the heart, near to (or indeed accompanied by) tears, as keen as that given my any form of literary art, and having a peculiar quality.'

JRR Tolkien, On Fairy-Stories in The Monsters and the Critics and Other Essays, p.153.

PRAISE

'...the praise of the praiseworthy is above all rewards...'
JRR Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, p.709.

DEATH

'There...lay Thorin Oakenshield, wounded with many wounds, and his rent armour and notched axe were cast upon the floor. He looked up as Bilbo came beside him.

"Farewell, good thief," he said. "I go now to the halls of waiting to sit beside my fathers, until the world is renewed."'

JRR Tolkien, The Hobbit, p.258.

EXPERIENCES

'It was a terrible battle. The most dreadful of all Bilbo's experiences, and the one which at the time he hated most - which is to say that it was the one he was most proud of, and the most fond of recalling long afterwards, although he was quite unimportant in it.'

JRR Tolkien, The Hobbit, p.253.

A GOOD STORY

'Now it is a strange thing, but things that are good to have and days that are good to spend are soon told about, and not much to listen to; while things that are uncomfortable, palpitating, and even gruesome, may make a good tale, and take a good deal of telling anyway.'

JRR Tolkien, The Hobbit, p.48.

GOOD MORNING

'"Good morning!" said Bilbo, and he meant it. The sun was shining, and the grass was very green. But Gandalf looked at him from under long bushy eyebrows that stuck out further than the brim of his shady hat.

"What do you mean?" he said. "Do you wish me a good morning, or mean that it is a good morning whether I want it or not; or that you feel good this morning; or that it is a morning to be good on?"

..."Good morning!" he said at last. We don't want any adventures here, thank you! You might try over The Hill or across The Water." By this he meant that the conversation was at an end.

"What a lot of things you do use Good morning for!" said Gandalf. "Now you mean that you want to get rid of me and it won't be good till I move off!"'

JRR Tolkien, The Hobbit, p.5.

GOD'S SOVEREIGNTY

'A chance-meeting, as we say in Middle-earth.'
JRR Tolkien, Unfinished Tales, p.422.

TRUE KINGSHIP

'"For it is said in old lore: The hands of the king are the hands of a healer. And so the rightful king could ever be known."'

JRR Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, p.894.

APPEARANCES

'All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.
From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.'
JRR Tolkien in DA Carson, Memoirs of an Ordinary Pastor: The Life and Reflections of Tom Carson, p.13.

EXILE

'...there was an Eden on this very unhappy earth. We all long for it, and are constantly glimpsing it: our whole nature at its best and least corrupted, its gentlest and most humane, is still soaked with the sense of "exile."'

JRR Tolkien in Humphrey Carpenter, The Letters of JRR Tolkien, p.110.

THE GOSPELS

'Of course I do not mean that the Gospels tell what is only a fairy story; but I do mean very strongly that they do tell a fairy-story: the greatest. Man the story-teller would have to be redeemed in a manner consonant with his nature: by a moving story.'

JRR Tolkien in Humphrey Carpenter, The Letters of JRR Tolkien, p.100.

FISH OUT OF WATER

'We are born in a dark age out of due time (for us). But there is this comfort: otherwise we should not know, or so much love, what we do love. I imagine the fish out of water is the only fish to have an inkling of water.'

JRR Tolkien in Humphrey Carpenter, The Letters of JRR Tolkien, p.64.

MARRIAGE

'Only a very wise man at the end of his life could make a sound judgment concerning whom, amongst the total possible chances, he ought most profitably to have married! Nearly all marriages, even happy ones, are mistakes: in the sense that almost certainly (in a more perfect world, or even with a little more care in this very imperfect one) both partners might have found more suitable mates. But the "real soul-mate" is the one you are actually married to. You really do very little choosing: life and circumstance do most of it (though if there is a God these must be His instruments, or His appearances).'

JRR Tolkien in Humphrey Carpenter, The Letters of JRR Tolkien, p.51.

MARRIAGE

'Faithfulness in Christian marriage entails that: great mortification. For a Christian man there is no escape. Marriage may help to sanctify & direct to its proper object his sexual desires; its grace may help him in the struggle; but the struggle remains. It will not satisfy him - as hunger may be kept off by regular meals. It will offer as many difficulties to the purity proper to that state, as it provides easements. No man, however truly he loved his betrothed and bride as a young man, has lived faithful to her as a wife in mind and body without deliberate conscious exercise of the will, without self-denial. Too few are aware of that - even those brought up "in the church."'

JRR Tolkien in Humphrey Carpenter, The Letters of JRR Tolkien, p.51.

GENESIS

'As for Eden. I think most Christians, except the v. simple and uneducated or those protected in other ways, have been rather bustled and hustled now for some generations by the self-styled scientists, and they've sort of tucked Genesis into a lumber-room of their mind as not very fashionable furniture, a bit ashamed to have it about the house, don't you know, when the bright clever young people called: I mean, of course, even the fidelis who did not sell it secondhand or burn it as soon as modern taste began to sneer. In consequence they have indeed (myself as much as any), as you say, forgotten the the beauty of the matter even "as a story."'

JRR Tolkien in Humphrey Carpenter (Ed.), The Letters of JRR Tolkien, p.109.

PREACHING

'But as for sermons! They are very bad aren't they! Most of them from any point of view. The answer to the mystery is prob. not simple; but part of it is that "rhetoric" (of which preaching in a dept.) is an art, which requires (a) some natural talent and (b) learning and practice. The instrument used is v. much more complex than a piano, yet most performers are in the position of a man who sits down to a piano and expects to move his audience without any knowledge of notes at all. The art can be learned (granted some modicum of aptitude) and can then be effective, in a way, when wholly unconnected with sincerity, sanctity etc. But preaching is complicated by the fact that we expect in it not only a performance, but truth and sincerity, and at least no word, tone or note that suggests the possession of vices (such as hypocrisy, vanity) or defects (such as folly, ignorance) in the preacher.

Good sermons require some art, some virtue and some knowledge. Real sermons require some special grace which does not transcend art but arrives at it by instinct or "inspiration"; indeed the Holy Spirit seems sometimes to speak through a human mouth providing art, virtue and insight he does not himself possess: but the occasions are rare. In other times I don't think an educated person is required to suppress the critical faculty, but it should be kept in order by a constant endeavour to apply the truth (if any), even in cliche form, to oneself exclusively!'

JRR Tolkien in Humphrey Carpenter (ed.), The Letters of JRR Tolkien, p.75.

HOPE

'There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach. His song in the Tower had been defiance rather than hope; for then he was thinking of himself. Now, for a moment, his own fate, and even his master's, ceased to trouble him. He crawled back into the brambles and laid himself by Frodo's side, and putting away all fear he cast himself into a deep and untroubled sleep.'

JRR Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, p.957.

HEAVEN

‘When Sam awoke, he found that he was lying on some soft bed, but over him gently swayed wide beechen boughs, and through their young leaves sunlight glimmered, green and gold. All the air was full of a sweet mingled scent.
He remembered that smell: the fragrance of Ithilien. “Bless me!” he mused. “How long have I been asleep?”…
Full memory flooded back, and Sam cried aloud: “It wasn’t a dream! Then where are we?”
And a voice spoke softly behind: “In the land of Ithilien, and in the keeping of the King; and he awaits you.” With that Gandalf stood before him, robed in white, his beard now gleaming like pure snow in the twinkling on the leafy sunlight. “Well Master Samwise, how do you feel?” he said.
But Sam lay back, and started with open mouth, and for a moment, between bewilderment and great joy, he could not answer. At last has gasped: “Gandalf! I thought you were dead! But then I thought I was dead myself. Is everything sad going to come untrue? What’s happened to the world?”
“A great shadow has departed,” said Gandalf, and then he laughed and the sound was like music, or water in a parched land; and as he listened the thought came to Sam that he had not heard laughter, the pure sound of merriment, for days upon days without count. It fell upon his ears like the echo of all the joys he had ever known. But he himself burst into tears. Then as sweet rain will pass down a wind of spring and the sun will shine out the clearer, his tears ceased, and his laughter welled up, and laughing he sprang from his bed.
“How do I feel?” he cried. “Well I don’t know how to say it. I feel, I feel” – he waved his arms in the air – “I feel like spring after winter, and sun on the leaves; and like trumpets and harps and all the songs I have ever heard!”’
J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, p.988.