Middle-earth Journeys

I'm just joshing you, marbretherese. I love these reports, and the vicarious experiences are still rich ones for us.

Good, because we are absolutely obsessed with writing them!! we count ourselves as very lucky to have all this stuff going on nearby, and can't resist telling you all about it . . .

Thank you for picking up the report baton, Marbretherese! You are right, we have to finish the Festival off properly before we dive into the many delights of Oxonmoot. Lots of treats to come !

I'll be good on Friday and go through my notes for the last day to see if there is anything to add to those wonderful talks, but as you were talking more notes than me I doubt I'll have much more. I was starting to suffer from Delegates Drift . I do have quite a few more photos, though.

Iolanthe wrote: I do have quite a few more photos, though.

that's good, because as you can see, I don't!!

Well - I've finally got around to my account of the last day of the Festival. I didn't think I'd have much to add, but it turns out that I have. I hunted through my notes and eureka! I went to a talk that Marbretherese and Jonick missed while they were gadding about Aberystwith and getting themselves lost. Simon Eckstein gave an interesting paper on Welsh Modernism in Tolkien’s Works, gamely sticking to the Conference theme. He was looking at analogies between Tolkien’s desire to create England’s lost Anglo Saxon mythology and Welsh modernist authors like David Jones, who had a similar longing for an absent culture. In Welsh there is a word for this cultural longing – hiraeth. This is peculiarly Welsh longing for a lost home that a Welshman may be separated from by time or by space. There is no equivalent word in the English language and is very different from just plain old home sickness. It is more of a spiritual connection than nostalgia. As I come from Welsh parents and cry like a baby every time I hear ‘Feed me, oh thy Great Jehovah’ even though I’ve never lived in Wales, I guess it must be something in it.

Eckstein wasn’t suggesting that Tolkien had read Welsh modernists, just that there were parallels. Like Tolkien, Jones saw the Norman invasion as the death of Welsh culture, with French and Latin becoming the language of education. Eckstein pointed out that Tolkien’s longing is even one step further from the source because Welsh is still a living language, whereas Tolkien is turning back to a mythology and tradition in a language that is no longer the language of the country the traditions are rooted in. Tolkien’s longing was both mythic and linguistic.

I really enjoyed Corey Olsen’s talk – he really is an energetic and entertaining speaker. I don’t have much to add to Marbretherese’s notes, just that when Gandalf talks of hope (which he does a LOT) he’s talking about an assessment of what may happen, not a virtue. If there is a tiny grain of hope then Gandalf will run with it. Denethor, however, has made his assessment from the Palantir and sees hope as being at absolute zero. At the Black Gate, Gandalf and Aragorn are trying to improve the tiny percentage of hope by giving Frodo and Sam a chance, but this briefly changes when the Mouth of Sauron arrives. Even then Gandalf clings to a moment of doubt and hesitation that he sees in his eyes. This is, as Marbretherese has said in her notes, hope (or lack of it) in the pre-Christian sense. But the virtue of hope – the fixing of the will – is displayed by Frodo and Sam as they approach Mount Doom. Sam reaches the point of zero hope for survival when he finally realises that there will be no return. But it is at this point that he finds new strength and his will is set. Is this the stubborn Northern Heroic Spirit or the Christian virtue of hope? Eomer is the archetype of Heroic stubborn defiance on the Pelennor Fields and Olsen argued that Sam’s reaction against despair is different. He anchors himself in the hope and beauty of Valinor when he sings in Frodo’s prison and when he sees the star. Hope as a virtue keeps you rooted in a wider metaphysical environment. Corey thinks that in LotR this is the only time hope is given in this sense. But in the Appendix, on his deathbed, Aragorn gives the ultimate theological statement of hope, not despair, ‘beyond the circles of the world.’

Verlyn Flieger’s talk on Politically Incorrect Tolkien was a hoot. After making us move our chairs so that we were all sitting around in a circle (even Tom Shippey) she dealt with the important issue of political correctness in Tolkien’s characters, while stirring the pot and often being quite outrageous. It was wonderful. She mentioned the smug parochialism of the Shire and said it was a ‘nice place but you wouldn’t want to live there.’ Ted Sandyman was a typical Hobbit and pointed out that Hobbits in general don’t even believe in fairies. Everyone outside the Shire is ‘queer’. Even Buckland and Bag End is ‘queer.

Talking about Thingol and his suppression of the ‘language of the kin-slaying Noldor’ she pointed out that while Turin brings out the best in Thingol, Beren brings out the worst because he wants to marry his daughter. His liberalism stops short at his family. Plus his outrageous abuse of the dwarves when he won’t pay for the necklace, where he points out how much older, taller, better he is. Even the orcs have a sense of superiority to each other and talk about others in sweeping generalities (they way other races talk about them). There is, as Flieger pointed out, a lot of standard human behaviour in orcs. Perhaps we are politically incorrect in our judgement of the orcs. Told you she liked to stir things up! We certainly had a very lively discussion afterwards.

John Garth’s reading of Gilson’s letters was extremely moving. It was a very profound experience and not only for us, but for John Garth himself and Gilson’s niece. If the letters are ever published I recommend reading them for yourselves.

I didn’t take notes at the final panel discussion – I think I was just completely overwhelmed by the array of luminaries in front of us – but I did take a photo so that you can be overwhelmed too:

I also have a photo of Ted playing at Moreton-in-Marsh from a slightly different angle. I really enjoy his music and ended up buying a CD! It was nice to be able to catch up with everyone there on the way back and see Ted’s lovely new painting of Bilbo and the Dwarves Entering Mirkwood. You can see it here on his website- I really loved it and only seeing it for real does it justice.

Special mention must be made of the cream tea. I had a savoury one – cheese scone, cream cheese (instead of cream) and onion marmalade (instead of jam). Yum. Like the Hobbits, I could have eaten one for second and possible third breakfast. A very Hobbity way to end our adventure!

Late I know but thank you for finishing the report Iolanthe. I can't even imagine hearing all these wonderful ideas and theories for hours on end. My head would explode for sure. It's all a good read. And thanks to M as well.

It's M that's made the finishing line! I'm still lallygagging about, somewhere around the half-way post . I've come to the conclusion that my last part is now so overdue it's best forgotten...

You're getting mixed up with the Oxenmoot reports, Iolanthe. You did actually finish telling everyone about theFestival in the Shire - eventually

Shows I didn't read the thread heading properly, doesn't it .

Geesh, you made this old lady think she was going bonkers.