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Tolkien's Tales from the Perilous Realm · Mythmakers

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  Hello and welcome to MythMakers. MythMakers is the podcast for fantasy fans and fantasy
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  creatives brought to you by the Oxford Centre for fantasy. My name is Julia Golding and today
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  I am joined by my good friend Jacob Renica who is sitting over in the US and we're going
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  to be discussing today a collection of stories by Tolkien which has been given the name
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  Tales from the Peralace Realm. Now perhaps we should first of all start by saying what
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  these tales are and why they are called that. So Jacob do you want to kick off by giving
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  us a list of the main contents of this particular collection?
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  Yeah thanks so like Julia mentioned there's there's actually two different versions of this book
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  one that was 1997 and that's the versions all the the titles there that we have there are
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  the former Giles of Ham. So a short story adventures of Tom Bombadil to the collection of poetry
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  and we'll talk about each of these later. Smith of Woodton Major another short story and then
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  Leif Bynegal which is they're all they're all essentially short short pieces put together the later
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  version 2008 the expanded version adds Rover and which is another kind of short story novella kind
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  of a children's story and there's also I think in the appendix they have a must have an appendix
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  if it's Tolkien. I think they also put to the essay on fairy stories and there's an introduction
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  by the Tolkien scholar Tom Chippy just to add yet more delight. Now I will just best of all say
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  hands up I have not got a copy like this because I had all of these books in the old collections
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  because I did most of my Tolkien buying before 1997 which shows you how old I am. So I was
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  when I sort of came back to being interested in Tolkien after having years of other careers really
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  other kinds of thoughts I suddenly thought well if I miss something what is this perilous realm
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  you know was there a whole wonderful open door into Tolkien world that I did not go through
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  so have I missed something or is it just it's repacketing and just giving giving you more
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  opportunities to purchase books that carry Tolkien's name on the cover. Okay there is a bit more to
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  it than that I would say probably thinking about it there may be a Tolkien quote about perilous realms
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  but what it immediately reminds me of is the wonderful line by Keats in I think it's
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  ode to the nightingale about the casement opening on to fairy lands for lawn perilous there's a
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  word perilous comes in there and it seems quite Keatsy an idea perilous realm.
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  It's I know it in the in the 2008 version which is the version that I have it starts it's kind
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  of a inscription in the front is a segment from on fairy stories which is in the appendix
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  and that version. Yeah so it is so it is Tolkienian in the sense that it's taken like a loosely
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  governing theme for these shorter works that have appeared in disparate places prior to 97
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  and with roverand on prior to yeah prior to 2000. Yeah Keats isn't a bad shout though because there
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  are heapsy and touches in these books with the sort of medievalism of them and his poem is one
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  of the most famous of the sort of world you know portal fantasy images that made it into classic
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  poetry anyway just defending myself there okay right let's let's go for it let's first of all I
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  mean I think when these were written is also interesting so if I just go through that we'll take
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  to start off we'll take the the sort of version of this which is the 1997 version so what we have
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  here are some works which come from the 1920s 30s they are coming out of the Tolkien nursery the
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  telling of tales to the children he's also working on the Hobbit so there are more Hobbitish touches
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  in them then you've got so that would be particularly pharmaciles roverandum too but that's a
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  but pharmaciles is definitely in that ilk then you've got the wartime thoughts as Tolkien is
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  struggling to put together Lord of the Rings and coming out of that you've got leaf by niggle but
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  he's also at this time the that's the period of the on fairy stories thinking and so the touches
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  about the place of fairy the place of fantasy are coming are having an academic expression as
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  well as a story expression and you can see that flowing into the smith of wooden major which
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  is is also sort of a bit later and the adventures of Tom Bombardill poetry collection
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  is a rag bag of things we talked about the poetry in our last get together um so what he's done
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  is he's bundled up various pieces of work and put them together so i don't think that has an
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  easy date because those were composed at different points and put together for a later publication
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  when he became famous you know why not so let us think for the first the question i have
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  which i'd like to sort of have the as the overarching question to for us to think about is
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  do they work as a whole or is the concept forced we sort of started off by saying is it
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  is it packaging is it real um and also the added question is does it work because
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  everything Tolkien imagines in the end is dragged into the sort of wake of his bigger project
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  so let's first of all start off with pharma giles and add its relationship to perilous realms
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  i think this one feels the most oddly the most unlike because it is comic it's a spoof
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  it is a spoof of i should say elements of bear wolf and sogawin and the green knight so
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  the bear wolf element is the fighting of successive monsters but they're comic monsters
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  and the way they are fought is comic it's not the daring do of bear wolf and the sogawin spoof
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  i think are the the court and the pharma giles like being the knight and then the king um who turns out
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  to be not very impressive at all so you can see how his academic work is feeding into this story
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  but it's also notable in being very specific as to where it is you may not get this as somebody
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  not living in Oxford but the place is his mentioning tame otmore are my local towns one
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  otmore's a bird sanctuary actually not a town and tame is just over just over there um not very far
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  away like a little market town really little dots on the map and so if you're thinking of Oxford
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  you'll um look at a map and look to the eastern side heading south uh following the line of the
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  tents down towards London so Oxford doesn't really get a mention does it i don't think he's he's
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  he's talking about an area which if he went from his house in north more row driving his car very
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  badly apparently um with his kids all sort of clinging on for dear life that would be an easy place
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  to go and the story for pharma giles in typical Tolkien fashion starts with names we know that he
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  said he wrote Lord the Rings to well the whole of the legendarium to create a world in which they
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  could say the Elvish greeting that i wrote massacre by trying to say it um so it's not unexpected
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  that a short story has the same root and the particular place that he was fascinated by is a
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  little village called warming hall and he took the name worm which is an old word for you know
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  a dragon and it started as a story to explain why that was named that and there's jokes about
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  tame and all sorts of other very in-local jokes so where is the shire and floats above possibly
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  warwickshire possibly not it's not located clearly uh pharma giles definitely has its muddy boots in
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  the agricultural land of oxfordshire yeah this is yeah pharma giles is really interesting it's like
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  you said like it's it is you know tonally different in that it's a kind of a comic piece um and
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  yeah it's it's genesis as a story for his children uh i think tom shippie mentions that it's
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  that he started allegedly started telling this story to his children while they were like hiding
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  under a bridge uh during a rainstorm uh and then so that's part of why you have the dragon hiding
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  under a bridge and and and popping up um there but this is you know clearly meant to entertain children
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  but then you kind of you know he he was having fun he was clearly having fun in this piece
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  especially with you know his introduction where it's it's claimed that this is being translated
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  from the latin and so he's kind of providing this kind of a spoof on academic commentaries uh on
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  ancient works so he's doing things on a few different levels i'm sure his kids wouldn't have
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  like he didn't have that portion when he's you know telling the story to his children so there's
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  like i think the the genesis of the story itself and then he's taking this idea and then layering
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  in these kind of academic uh in jokes uh with you know philology and uh even just like the
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  you know critical method of approaching uh ancient tales uh and so yeah it's it's it's it's interesting
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  in that you have both this child's tale and a kind of like academic critical apparatus that's
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  meant to be examining uh this children's tale uh which is really complex and and really fun um
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  so it isn't it isn't quite shy or you do you do have like but with farmer giles you do have
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  someone who is a you know an ordinary person who's very comfortable in their life uh and
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  they have they have an adventure kind of thrust upon them in this giant you know stumbling
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  into his yard and him accidentally conquering this giant uh unintentionally conquering this giant
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  and then kind of getting cotton rolled up into this uh into this larger world of monsters so you do
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  have kind of hints of you know a a Bilbo Baggins kind of story there uh as well as an element of
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  this this sword uh that is of ancient lineage that can sense dragons right when dragons are coming
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  and so you do have kind of go hints of sting uh uh a weapon of great renown uh an incredible abilities
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  in the hand of kind of a bumbling uh untrained unsuspecting uh reluctant uh hero type character so
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  there's I mean you see some of the similar notes uh the the hobbit um kind of in there but it is
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  yeah but you're you're absolutely right that it is more uh the the purpose seems to be uh satire
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  uh or comedy um and maybe a little bit of the satire coming in on the scholarly commentary
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  that he's kind of adding to it afterwards so yeah really really interesting piece uh unsurprising
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  that it wasn't uh you know seen by the publishers as something to hold up alongside the hobbit as
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  you know kind of like a worthy successor um but it's a very entertaining
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  piece nonetheless where you see Tolkien kind of stretching his philological muscles and
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  he's engaging in this project that he dances in and out of with the the building of the Legendarium
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  which is coming up with reasons you know stories behind why something is called the way it is right
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  so he's why what are all these you know fairytales that we hear these are he's presuming that they
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  might be garbled versions of some ancient more pristine more robust story and so in the sense he's
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  providing this kind of robust backstory for a city like Warminghall uh and and he's doing that with
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  other uh other elements in the early you know Legendarium what kind of becomes the
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  similarly and with some of those stories with this so he he he he this is clearly an exercise
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  that he's constantly kind of mulling over in his mind what do we have now in front of us and what
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  is what possibly could have resulted in this strange name this strange tradition this fantastic tale
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  what's the root what's the genesis for this and trying to kind of like get as far back into that
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  as he could I think in a way it resembles more closely other children's well top of your children's
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  tale but other tales that were told for children at the time something like Kenis Graham's the
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  reluctant dragon a Kenis Graham more famous for obviously uh winded the willows but he writes got a
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  charming tale called the reluctant dragon which has actually more a child-focused the thing about
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  farmer jiles is it's one another of Tolkien's middle aged heroes um so that's where it is in the
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  line of the Hobbit and but it does feel more like the folktale retellings of that kind of thing
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  that was going on in the early 20th century children's literature and I think it's quite interesting
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  to think well why does the Hobbit not feel like this and I think in a way he jettisons the more
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  mannered more perhaps not quite as funny as he would like it to be stuff um there are some
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  names for example which would go down like a led balloon in in a world where people you know
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  as i see us Lewis told Tolkien not to do so much Hobbit talk and I think there's an element of
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  that there's a bit more bit too much of being happy with your own cleverness in this tale
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  so it always seems to have one eye on the adult audience as opposed to entertaining the child audience
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  though one suspects the children in the Tolkien nursery would have got the jokes um because they were
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  all very clever so it may have worked for the home audience but for a general audience I think it
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  might be a little bit yeah a little bit a little bit too donish if I'm allowed that term
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  but still great fun then also surprisingly anarchic remember Tolkien said he likes Anarchy
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  basically the big king so don't think arrogant think much more like the Anglo-Saxon kingdom so people
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  who have a defined area which they were all like merciless or wessex it's a smaller like almost
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  like a couple of shires together stretch and from this pharma jiles sets himself up as a king
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  and refuses to sort of separates himself off which in a way the shire in the Lord of the Rings ends
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  up as an independent kingdom so but not not through this um pharma jiles does it by but basically
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  telling the king he doesn't recognise him anymore uh he's got a dragon so it scares him off so
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  the politics is different and the politics is very anarchic um he hates big government
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  shall we say uh he and his wife Agatha so enjoyable but I'm not sure it has much of the
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  the the grandeur and the feeling and the beauty and the he's got the comedy but it's like a story told
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  by hobbits rather than about hobbits that's a good way that's a good way of putting it yeah so
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  the in terms of this being placed in the perilous realm you do have the existence of monsters but
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  it's only kind of in in name or uh formally only perilous realm this is taking place in perilous
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  realm but there isn't like that weight of this you know real true danger like it doesn't it doesn't
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  feel mythic in the way that you do have bubbling up so that's yeah folkloric yeah it also feels
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  quite chalk theory and I mean we know we've just recently discovered through scholarship that
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  Chaucer was working on an additional accountability tells all through his life and then didn't finish
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  so you know wasn't he had a lot other things to do um so you can see an element of Chaucer
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  in it as well the sort of the funny tales in Chaucer without the crudeness
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  okay so that's pharma giles I was a lot more to say but let's move on to shall we do leaf by
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  niggle next and this one is the charming short story which feels like a pilgrim's progress
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  feels very allegorical and it reminds me most of something like cs Lewis is great divorce
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  and it also has a structure a bit similar to the last battle with the idea of going further
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  up and further in um though of course it was written beforehand that whole idea I think is
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  actually based on a biblical passage so they've both got it out of a biblical understanding of the
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  reality um in revelation anyway so there's got common sources um I'm probably Dante as well let's
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  throw down the purgatorio specifically yeah that both both Lewis and Tolkien would have been very
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  familiar with and yeah so the reason the similarities are they're reading the same stuff and
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  talking about the same ideas it's clearly self-reflective um because Tolkien would be the first person
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  to admit that he niggles at things and that that word niggle means to be very finicky to keep wanting
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  to change um so if you're the kind of you would say now you're a perfectionist you won't let
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  something go you'll keep tinkering at it a tinkerer at things and the story is an extended
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  reflection on the use of creativity what what value does it have in society particularly
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  in the case of niggle something which is fantastical so if we're thinking about Tolkien working on
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  adjust well on fairy stories has a very strong defense of the role of fairy stories in culture
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  and in creativity so it's like the um his way of exploring that in a fictional form and so to be
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  read alongside his essay makes perfect sense so I can see why they've added that in the the later
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  edition how do you respond to the leaf by niggle what's your feelings about it yeah it's it's what it's
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  one of my favorites um of Tolkien it's and like you said this this kind of reflection on a creative
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  life um and the frustrations but then potential joys of uh of of creativity or the reason why
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  some people feel compelled called to or compelled to write to create in different ways um so
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  the fact that this this story is kind of coming from what what he says is a a dream that he had
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  sometime you know between 1939 and 1942 this is again he's he's finished Hobbit he's working on
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  on Lord of the Rings at this time and it's it seems like a like an anxiety dream right he's
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  he says that in in this story he's he's completed a a just a normal normal person who just likes
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  likes niggling likes but likes leaves he likes tree he likes leaves he's done a leaf that he thinks
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  he's done it pretty well and I was trying a tree and this tree is just kind of exploded into this
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  massive project that's taking way too much time and he's finding you're discovering all these
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  different things uh about this tree and the land behind it uh and he's afraid that he's not going
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  to finish it right there's no way he can get to all of this so you kind of see that those anxieties
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  in Tolkien is taking so long for him revision after revision for Lord of the Rings he's afraid that
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  all of this work that he's done including legendary in work which is kind of this land in the
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  background behind this tree that he's creating this wider world uh that he's afraid that he's not
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  going to capture there's no way he can capture any of that and but he's still but he still does it
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  he still like feels compelled to to do this because he loves it um and he sees it's worth doing so
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  like he so as as somebody as a creative it's something that resonates with you know like the the
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  demands of the everyday you know he's he's constantly interrupted by his neighbor um
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  parish or see it's seen as an interruption by him at at the time um and for me as we're looking
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  this is kind of like a creative allegory uh in the story or he's he starts out he's painting
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  he wants just to focus on this and his neighbor keeps interrupting him needs help needs his help
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  for his house for his wife um and then ultimately uh niggle caches golden dies is sent to a workhouse
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  he sends sent on its scent on a journey goes to a workhouse and then ends up in this after the workhouse
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  which is kind of this analogy for kind of a purgatory presumably then ends up in this kind of like
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  wide open beautiful outdoor space where he ultimately finds this tree that he was working on that
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  he was painting and finds it made real in this other world and then uh his uh his former nuisance of a
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  neighbor uh parish by name ends up here and helping him and together they work on cultivating this um
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  this tree together and so what it does for me i think right now in my most recent rereading uh of it uh
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  is kind of reflecting on the solitude of uh a writer's life right a creator who is kind of working
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  in isolation uh the the necessity of not just being stuck in your own whole uh but in engaging with
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  the wider world that that the people in our lives uh circumstances that arrive are are valuable
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  and essential to creating any you know meaningful uh work of art uh there's it's it's yeah it's
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  it's a corrective for that self referential life sometimes that it's easy to can can be easy to get
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  caught up in as as a writer creating worlds in your own head um the the need of balancing art with
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  the necessities of living in a community in which we're all we all exist whether we like to or not
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  so for me the kind of most recently into this most recent rereading that was kind of something is kind
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  of a a call a call to me as a creative to not see you know children uh wives neighbors as
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  interruptions and frustrating you know what the important work that i feel like i'm doing um but
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  that that is kind of an invitation to collaborate in life in general and that in my interaction with
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  these presumed uh interruptions uh for my my quote great work whatever it is at the time that i'm
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  doing that the the invitation to bring into my life you know people other than myself and that
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  they are actually aiding me and making my work uh even better by participating in their lives so
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  this is something that i think it's a very beautiful message about the artistic endeavor and the
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  need for maintaining a sense of community and connection to other people in the artistic life so
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  that just kind of an anecdotal yeah the kind of sense that i got just this last time reading it
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  so i was interested in the way that you said in on this read it meant this to me because i think
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  one of the much discussed areas and we have discussed it um in Tolkien and Lewis is the idea of
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  allegory and applicability so the allegorical hallmarks in leaf by niggle are things like the name so
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  to niggle uh you know that's obviously why would he describe but parish i don't know how much
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  listeners know about the english system of organizing itself but the fundamental unit
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  was around the parish church and it actually administered things like um poor you know
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  arms for the poor and things like that arms houses uh by the sort of obviously we've got
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  bigger government departments doing that kind of thing now but still even today villages and
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  rural areas are organized in parishes i'm a parish counsellor for for my sins in the religious
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  life where so we do things like run the children's playgrounds and cut the grass you know it's
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  that kind of stuff so when mr parish comes in here's like the everyday stuff that comes through
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  the door saying oh um mr niggle can you come and you know spend some time mending the church
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  room for tidying up the school playground or you know it's that stuff that daily little little
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  grind and of course during the war for Tolkien he was doing war work so what was knocking on the door
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  was come and be on the fire watch to check the buildings of oxford didn't burn down in an air rain
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  things like that much more important things so those as you were saying those that is the
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  stuff of daily life and that matters so it matters that the children's playground works and the
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  oxford doesn't burn down it's no good just doing a little leaf but i would say that the
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  application that i take from it on this time of reading is about the joy of discovering
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  what your work meant to other people because that's where it goes it opens out he discovers even
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  though he thought he created nothing of any value whatsoever it's a very healthy place for people
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  to find respite and rest in and isn't that true about Tolkien he didn't know of course he's
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  writing this prior to the publication of Lord of the Rings so he he might have in mind just the
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  hobbit at this stage but certainly niggle's prophecies some prophetic projection of what the value of
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  his work is is is wonderful it's it's very a very meta that thing where actually the description
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  of the joy that many people find in Lord of the Rings is captured in leaf by niggle
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  a lovely story hovering on the allegorical applicable you know dances on that boundary very
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  happily in a similar way that some of C. S. Lewis's works do okay so moving on
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  perhaps we should do the smith of whaton major and leave tom bumbadil to the end sorry tom
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  smith of whaton major i think is more of a fairy tale and it is musing on the place of fairy
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  and folk traditions and the idea of passing that on so it's about a mysterious star
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  that is baked in a cake by a mysterious chef and some people say it's up to no good there's
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  a man called nooks in the village who says it's not worth anything and but this star that goes
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  to a child gives him the right or the ability to pass and explore the world of fairy and then there's
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  a whole sort of passage of adventures in that world and when he comes back he bakes it again and
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  passes it on to another child who happens to be the grandson of nooks the the person who doesn't
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  the whole kind of world of fantasy so again it's a sort of medieval world but it isn't rooted in
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  the same way with the same sort of jokiness of pharma jars of hand so i find it a more atmospheric
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  tale i think it's i prefer it but just just a matter of taste so what do you think about it
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  yeah this is again like smith of wooden major is one is one of my favorite say everything's one of
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  my favorites but really in the pantheon of of work especially like the short works really smith of
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  wooden major and leak by nickel or two that i keep finding myself coming back to repeatedly
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  that every time and every time i revisit them i'm getting something new and something different
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  and something edifying in some way and so it really i think there's things that touch on on myth
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  um uh especially with with wooden major so with this one yeah so with smith of wooden major like
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  you mentioned the the story of about this kind of fairy star being baked into a cake is a initially
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  started has uh he was he was commissioned to to write a preface to uh George McDonald's
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  book uh fairy fairy tale story for children uh the golden key um and so it was in his
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  writing this preface that you know he's he he started the preface and if you bite the there's a
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  there's a small book version of just smith of wood major uh that includes uh the actual preface as he
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  started it so as you can see like everything is writing he's he's writing this introduction to the
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  golden key but then he says within this introduction he kind of says like i want to go give you a
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  parable about kind of like what telling fairy stories is like and so once he he starts this
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  creating this little story and that's with Tolkien like anytime he starts creating anything story
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  like it then all of a sudden just like reaches out tendrils uh and he kind of automatically starts
• 32:08
  spinning off into okay who are these characters where did they come from who are their parents
• 32:14
  what was the history of the city for the past 100 or 200 years so he actually has chronologies of
• 32:20
  you know there's a family relationships in this town of wooden major wooden minor
• 32:25
  um so he just this is this man his his his creative impulse in world building like knows no bounds
• 32:34
  asked to to write a simple you know introduction to somebody else's work ends up spinning off into
• 32:39
  this like powerful novella uh about the effects that fairy um uh have on individuals who go there
• 32:48
  and the difficulty of expressing that to other people um and so for for me it's this yeah it's
• 32:55
  it's this wonderful tale um and and he again this this is an excellent companion piece to
• 33:02
  on fairy stories because what he describes there in uh in his this this lecture on fairy stories
• 33:09
  um is you know he he outlands case here's where first verse kind of we're coming from here so
• 33:14
  they're functioning here's their affect and so rather than just have this kind of like academic
• 33:19
  analysis which is what the on fairy stories does and I think rather well is he hears him doing that
• 33:25
  okay now here's what a story like that looks like and so he's invoking these different
• 33:30
  principles that he had been processing earlier this is the last published work that Tolkien
• 33:36
  writes this is last fully finished work that he has um uh and so this is kind of being written
• 33:41
  later in his life as he's had time to kind of sit with this idea of myth uh in the realm of fairy
• 33:47
  and his own experience and kind of feeling that he's touched that as he has been writing and developing
• 33:53
  these different stories and the world of middle earth um and so yeah it is a more mature story um and
• 34:00
  very I think yet that there's a weight to it um uh that you don't have in some of these other
• 34:06
  stories but it's it's beautiful as kind of a standalone piece uh on what it's like to experience
• 34:14
  fairy um uh and and how other people might react to that who don't quite share the same
• 34:21
  perspective or have the same sensibilities um so yeah it's again it's it's it touches on a
• 34:27
  few different things uh that we've already touched upon uh in in other works um that we've discussed
• 34:33
  even here here today in that where does something come from so the uh nooks the the fellow that
• 34:39
  that you mentioned Julia who is the who's this cook uh for the town and there's this fairy star
• 34:46
  and that he has that he can that he's supposed he's given to use in this special cake that's
• 34:52
  that's uh that's baked every so often for the children of the of the town uh and this
• 34:59
  chef uh this cook uh doesn't have a training in really background in in in cooking and baking
• 35:07
  he just kind of is is given the job and reluctantly and he thinks like what he thinks children like
• 35:12
  are sugary bright gaudy cakes with lots of icing and maybe like we're not talking Disney are we?
• 35:19
  no right which which is possibly yes i'm really good
• 35:25
  honky wasn't up on the Disney movie he didn't no no no not at all and so all of that era i think you
• 35:30
  know right of that yes yes good yeah it's a good so like yes so for his you know so snow
• 35:35
  snow white in the seven dwarves to him is uh just unspeakable okay find this crime yes yeah yeah
• 35:44
  exactly exactly so this is kind of looking at what other people who didn't appreciate fairy stories
• 35:49
  were relegating like he says in on fairy stories the essay um that that society in large at large
• 35:58
  kind of a season he's experiencing it said um have kind of relegated fairy tales to the nursery
• 36:03
  and that these are stories for children and should only you know be simplified um uh to just kind of
• 36:12
  more kind of superficial topics themes uh treatments of life of people um and
• 36:19
  whereas and in this story uh he makes the point you know that that's better maybe better
• 36:24
  that the elves actually do make make make the point that well yeah maybe even just like this
• 36:29
  this super simplified uh uh reductive elf figure this this queen elf queen uh with you know a
• 36:39
  little wand and all this sugary frosting that's even better than nothing so at least having that
• 36:44
  is maybe a doorway a step into the larger real wavy uh perilous realm of of fairy uh and uh but there
• 36:53
  is something that these even these these these these cakes these godly frosted um sugary cakes for
• 36:59
  children there's something that lies like behind them uh and and that is this realm so fairy stories
• 37:05
  aren't just these simple stories are told by children again like i mentioned earlier
• 37:09
  this is part of this larger project of like trying to recover okay there's this nursery rhyme
• 37:13
  there's this tale what is the like epic mythic background for this what's its genealogy
• 37:20
  and and talking believing that even behind these sort of stories it's seemingly silly fairy stories
• 37:26
  there's something that's truly deep and meaningful and then that they're coming from that it's kind
• 37:29
  of tapping into and that's what he's hoping to recover in his writings with lord of the rings uh
• 37:35
  with the silmarillion um and with smith of wooden major yeah i think it's also quite helpful i'm
• 37:42
  sure many listeners who love Tolkien will see as i do those headlines from times time where people
• 37:48
  suddenly say how much they think lord of the rings is a waste of time um so james cordon you know
• 37:55
  the talk show host british actor he doesn't he said that i mean he may be defining himself
• 38:02
  against Stephen Colbert you know he's almost kind of like that stuff and then there's another
• 38:08
  comedian who got headlines the other week saying oh Josh Ridicom saying what's all this about
• 38:15
  hobbits you know and they are to me this story is the answer to them is that they're not even trying
• 38:21
  to understand and appreciate it doesn't not everybody wants to eat cake so you can say that cake
• 38:29
  isn't for me fine i'm gonna have something else but to actually say the cake your eating is bad
• 38:38
  is is it is a different thing and so this is i find this story quite helpful as a way of framing
• 38:44
  what's wrong about the critics who dismiss something that many of us love as being
• 38:51
  fanciful or not real so therefore escapist escapist i mean Tolkien's got all the answers in his essay
• 39:00
  so um yeah i find it quite helpful thinking that and i would say that in our collection of stories
• 39:08
  here that this does actually qualify as a perilous realm and i've actually managed to put my finger
• 39:15
  on the Keats quote it's perilous seas and very fairly very lands for lawn which is the quote from
• 39:24
  o to a knighting girl so that i knew there was a perilous in there somewhere so it does seem part of
• 39:29
  that perilous realm because when he when the Smith actually does go into very he beats the queen
• 39:39
  and she isn't comfortable she's quite like a ladre or she's quite sort of she could she
• 39:45
  you know she's a queen dangerous um which is and the the yeah there's the ship of Elven these like
• 39:52
  Elven soldiers that wash up on the shore and they're like marching past him and he's just scared
• 39:57
  out of his wits and kind of like drops down on the ground and cowers there's this storm that like
• 40:01
  comes in and blows off and strips this one tree of all its leaves that was kind of helping
• 40:07
  uh Smith to hang on and then it's weeping and then he's told to go away and
• 40:13
  yeah so it's not a problem it's a dangerous place it's perilous so yes this does fit
• 40:18
  the description on the title does fit this story yeah well i've sort of a quick question for you
• 40:24
  Julia so if we're looking at this title of uh tales and perilous perilous realm where would you put
• 40:29
  the peril in leaf by niggle where does that that perilous well realm where does that exist in
• 40:35
  that story or it could be teased out i find it hard to actually fit that one in other than we are
• 40:43
  all at peril of our mortal soul in in that sense but i don't think that's what this means
• 40:49
  because i don't i think that leaf by niggle is our world and the next life um and fairies always
• 40:59
  been placed as the third way um and that's that's how it was described so you had
• 41:10
  you know the door in the hill in the green hill that goes to fairies like the third way
• 41:14
  so i don't think it does personally and i think it's a big stretch in the branding but anyway
• 41:22
  if people disagree please let us know what about you
• 41:25
  yeah i was just i was just thinking that as we're talking about with the smith of wood major
• 41:30
  the most peril that you have is really the the fact that he's going to die or he's going
• 41:35
  called on this journey right so so this world becomes in some ways the perilous realm that he
• 41:41
  doesn't realize that he's in but then the workhouse there is that doesn't seem to be peril that's
• 41:48
  more of kind of a rehabilitation and working and there's no real peril in the after
• 41:54
  uh after life for the word the the the stage that he then moves on to so the only peril that
• 41:58
  there seems to be in the story is in our world uh which again this is just based in a dream uh and
• 42:04
  isn't perhaps meant to evoke fairy itself but that's the closest that like peril that there really is
• 42:13
  is him catching the cold uh and then it developing and him dying as a as a result of that but you
• 42:19
  write that doesn't quite fit the theme but i do think it's interesting the closest thing that
• 42:24
  that uh kind of borders on perilous realm is like the world in which we live and so if the if it is
• 42:31
  helping you to see the world we live in as something that is like like Tolkien argues in on fairy stories
• 42:37
  that what language can do what fairy tales can do is help you see by by understanding a dragon
• 42:44
  that can help you understand horses better if that if if if this if these tales are something that
• 42:48
  helps you see more brightly and more richly the world in which you live then they have done their
• 42:55
  did done their job um and as to enrich the world in which we live um through these kind of secondary
• 43:00
  worlds helps yeah but that's what the fresh view so maybe that but that's just like that's me being
• 43:05
  super generous and stretching perhaps far too far uh to make that work but uh but yeah you're right
• 43:14
  it doesn't it doesn't fit neatly in with some with some of the other tales that we've been uh
• 43:19
  discussing yeah it's that i don't think that is a fairy tale right right it's not a fairy tale
• 43:27
  okay so the um we haven't talked about Rover random which i think um doesn't fit
• 43:32
  very well either even though it does have i it says the picture so much i don't yeah i don't know
• 43:37
  so i was this is my first this is my first time reading Rover random um which i'm grateful
• 43:42
  that that i did um because as i'm reading it now after having you know the then so steeped in
• 43:49
  Tolkien's larger world and legendary i'm just seeing all the different kind of ideas that he's
• 43:54
  playing with here in this children's story um you have you have you have uh quarrels between
• 43:59
  wizards uh that are kind of you know dueling uh you have um these creatures you know like
• 44:05
  Poseidon these like gods that are described as kind of diminishing in size becoming Poseidon
• 44:10
  has become the size of a minnow so it's kind of like Tolkien talking you know alluding to the
• 44:15
  fact that like fairies or elves have kind of over the years have kind of diminished in size and
• 44:20
  perception there's the man in the moon which we'll talk about in a bit with uh with the tum
• 44:24
  adventure tom bombedill so men in the moon is a character and where these kind of rhymes are coming
• 44:30
  from dragons uh massive spiders uh some abandoned ideas about the Tolkien had with this um land
• 44:38
  of lost play conge uh conge lost play where children this early idea that he has about children
• 44:45
  in their dreams kind of actually going to valenor uh and existing there like you see children in
• 44:51
  some ways doing this here you have roverandum actually glimpsing the you know the
• 44:57
  elven home essentially the mountains of elven home uh and so you see all these little kind of things
• 45:02
  got cameos it seems like now in retrospect that these are popping up although this this was written
• 45:06
  earlier where he's you know that's all part of the stew his his soup of story that he's kind of
• 45:12
  playing with these different ideas um uh and it's a it's a fun entertaining little tale nothing
• 45:19
  that's like really weightier that but i don't think many people probably go back to very often
• 45:24
  but again this is Tolkien's impulse to his his son lost a toy yeah so he wrote an entire story
• 45:33
  to explain this lost you know metal dog that they lost on the beach his son was inconsolable and
• 45:39
  so he spun this whole tale uh for him to make him feel better about that which is a i think an
• 45:44
  incredible your storytelling impulse that's marrying this you know the the creative impulse with
• 45:49
  your like we were talking about before the inter inter quote interruptions the people that you
• 45:54
  interact with every day he's using his storytelling uh you know powers to help console a child
• 46:01
  which i absolutely get yet just yesterday my child lost his favorite uh favorite car dropped
• 46:07
  it was running and it flew out of his pocket and landed in the ocean and we couldn't get it and
• 46:11
  so he was just inconsolable so now after having read this it's like now do i need to set aside
• 46:18
  to him to write this like epic tale about yeah this this car that gets transformed into a
• 46:24
  a niad and has adventures under the sea and whatever i think and i think i'm to see vehicle
• 46:29
  right yeah it doesn't fit clearly what's that yeah i'll pick something um i think if you're sort of
• 46:37
  putting it in a category you can see why it didn't make the cut for the tells from
• 46:42
  the pianist realm first time round this time you can also see why it does it feels a bit more like
• 46:47
  the randomness rover random obviously in the title um but it feels more like the way the father
• 46:54
  christmas letters suck it that was a series of rag bag of ideas okay right we're not going to spend too
• 47:02
  long on tom bombedill ventures at tom bombedill because we've talked a lot about poetry last time
• 47:08
  but i do want to start you know drop put focus on the introduction because here we we've been talking
• 47:15
  about the publisher's packaging the this as the perilous realm stories rather than middle-air
• 47:22
  stories and what we have in the tom bombedill is something that actually is in middle-earth
• 47:30
  so we've got we it's it's it's sort of i don't know it's sort of not quite following the perilous realm
• 47:38
  theme but there are stories in it which apply um that feel more like something that would be found
• 47:46
  in a world of smithorwood and major or farmer jasmine but the introduction to it and i think
• 47:56
  talking is basically very clearly trying to appeal to people to buy it who have bought the hobbit
• 48:03
  he dishes out the different poems all written by him and says they belong to
• 48:11
  this pseudo scholarly thing they belong to other hobbits so we've got um
• 48:20
  the present selection is taken from the older pieces mainly concerned with legends and
• 48:26
  gests of the shire at the end of the third age that appear to have been made by hobbits especially by
• 48:34
  bilbo and his friends or their immediate descendants and he goes down to saying number five was made by
• 48:41
  bilbo number seven by sam gamji and so on and so on so he is trying to fold it very tightly
• 48:50
  within the the shire narrative and as we saw when we looked at the scholarly addition of his
• 48:59
  poetry what happened to these poems is they lost some of their um outside references things that
• 49:06
  put them in a world of everyday England and they became more shire like to the final evolution as
• 49:15
  as they were published so what do you make of the adventures of tom bombedil as being part of
• 49:24
  tales of parallel of the perilous realm yeah this it's just yeah not perilous because there is
• 49:32
  because several of the poems are you know that our our jokes are more ingest kind of more like
• 49:37
  former jowls of ham right these these weren't intentionally created as touching on middle
• 49:41
  earth these were just earlier poems that he that he wrote and that he had a chance to granted
• 49:47
  that he could revise and revisit them and polish them up for this this publication but it's yeah
• 49:54
  it's it's it's not there there isn't the sense of peril even especially with the the titular
• 49:58
  character at tom bombedil when he's encountering barrel lights it's it's largely you know
• 50:05
  comical um you don't have any of the sense of dread that you have uh in in lord of the rings uh say
• 50:13
  so there isn't that sense of this is a realm of of of real peril um and also wonder you do get some
• 50:21
  of though you get the wonder um but with but but uh largely without the peril i think um in this
• 50:27
  particular selection the last poems have a change in tone so whereas the early ones are more like
• 50:35
  the songs that photo sings in brie and the oliforms and things like that the shadow bride feels very
• 50:42
  i'm sorry i need to talk about kites again it's very label dorms or mercy um or koloich
• 50:49
  christabel it's very much in that romantic era but who they were strong pulse all the way through
• 50:56
  victorian poetry into people like water dilemma and all those other contemporary poets for
• 51:02
  talking uh and there's also the very fine poem the horde which is about treasure and how it appears
• 51:12
  over time and the different people who own it and come to know good so elves dwarves dragon kings
• 51:21
  and then an abandoned horde that nobody looks after anymore i rather like that poem it's my favorite
• 51:29
  yeah and that was and that's probably yeah that poem is probably the closest thing to like a perilous
• 51:33
  realm i think is like a peril of dragon sickness right is essentially what that is kind of outlining
• 51:39
  and the sea bell also feels and and and the last ship they're quite elven yeah yeah um so there
• 51:47
  are some where the tone feels more in that place but the first part as you say is the one first
• 51:52
  parts is more yeah it's just kind of a hodgepodge things kind of repurposed but we were stressed that
• 52:00
  talking didn't give it that title so it's fine for him to do it and say these and to the tumbo
• 52:05
  it's what we're looking at here is how they've been packaged as the perilous realm and what
• 52:09
  what sense that makes yeah so the last sort of place does to rest in this when
• 52:17
  the 1997 i think it was edition came out um the BBC followed up with an adaptation by Brian
• 52:26
  Sibley which um i was having a listen to today it's full of some greats it's got Michael Horden
• 52:32
  who was Gandalf in their wonderful Lord of the Rings and it's got Brian Blesed who is the famous
• 52:40
  actor of the booming voice playing farm agile which seems like a a perfect casting so that's a lot
• 52:46
  of fun and there's also a version of it read by the great actor Derek Jacobi so if you like to
• 52:53
  invite these as an audio version they are two interesting places to go the adaptation obviously
• 53:00
  is not a literal reading it's a it's you know imaginative play upon the top but very close to
• 53:07
  the books so okay so how are we going to finish talking about this i would say that i would just do
• 53:15
  a little warning that if you're going to dip into these books and you haven't already
• 53:21
  i think the perilous realms is quite a sort of sexy attractive title and the contents don't quite
• 53:27
  live up to what you might be expecting so do do a little bit of thinking as to why it's been
• 53:36
  packaged like this and don't blame Tolkien if it doesn't quite fit right what you're going to expect
• 53:42
  yeah yeah yeah i think i'm trying to think i'm trying to think of for whom this book would be best
• 53:45
  as a like a standalone like if this is if you're if you're interested in reading with with the
• 53:51
  exception of tombo model so if you're interested in seeing that what other things uh Tolkien has written
• 53:56
  and just kind of get a sense for kind of the range of things that that he wrote outside of
• 54:01
  the hobbit lord of the rings and somarellion i think this would be a good kind of like a sampler for
• 54:06
  that uh with the kind of caveat that the adventures of tombo model actually takes place in
• 54:12
  middle of but it still has kind of a variety of different things that weren't and weren't
• 54:16
  originally intended in many cases to fit within that so i think it still gives you a sense for Tolkien
• 54:22
  him working outside of the legendarium what does that even look like this is a good i think a good
• 54:27
  kind of collection of those for people who want to see what Tolkien is doing and how he does
• 54:32
  storytelling outside of uh of middle earth and if someone were just going to say okay i'll give it
• 54:38
  one i'll go and read one of these which one would you point them to more if you want yeah um i
• 54:46
  didn't tell you i was going to put you on but i think i would yeah i know i know yeah smith i think
• 54:49
  smith smith of what major if you like yeah so if you like lord of the rings and like but the way
• 54:54
  like Tolkien's like the mythic nature of Tolkien this is where you're going to get that outside of
• 54:59
  lord of the rings um probably best um yeah if you want Tolkien name is devotional yeah and if you want
• 55:06
  if you want if you want if you like if you like lord of the rings because it does something for you
• 55:09
  like devotionaly or like personal applicability then maybe leaf by niggle might be a good one for
• 55:15
  for you for that for approaching it in that sense but if you just want to see how Tolkien does other
• 55:20
  like children's stories or you know fantasy type stories from in a very particular way then
• 55:28
  you know the the other your farmer giles and roverand i'm kind of might scratch that itch but um
• 55:33
  but probably most it probably mostly i would say smith of what major for the people that are
• 55:37
  probably coming to this um and then leaf by niggle it's kind of a second maybe yeah it's a softer
• 55:43
  landing i think yeah yeah okay so thank you for discussing those with me and i did give you a
• 55:52
  little bit of warning i was going to end up with one of my questions about where in all the fantasy
• 55:59
  realms that you can choose is the best place to find a perilous realm it doesn't have to be any
• 56:07
  inkling universe it's anything so did you have a child i'm up with one yes yes yes yeah yeah the
• 56:13
  first thing is instantly and still my final answer is going to be um Susanna clerks uh Jonathan
• 56:18
  stranger mr. noral so like that world like that her uh you know fairy you know elven home like
• 56:26
  the elf land the realm of fairy like that is truly perilous in the same way that it's the other
• 56:33
  there's whimsy and wonder but also terrible peril um and things that happen when you touch on that
• 56:40
  and bring that back into the world with you i think it's yeah for for me i think that hits the right
• 56:45
  note of a perilous realm with fair fairy in particular that it it just captures it so well for me
• 56:52
  well that's good answer um i was my first thought went way back i was thinking of the odyssey
• 56:58
  i happened to see um is the return with ray finds um which i happened to see on a plane
• 57:05
  so not but it's a really interesting good film um but it made me think of that journey home is full
• 57:14
  of perils so the Mediterranean um post-troy but i also thought that as i've mentioned
• 57:21
  Keats a couple of times and because his his lingo his language is about perilous
• 57:28
  seas and fairy lands full on but actually his wonderful collections of of short verse fairy tales
• 57:38
  lamia and already mentioned about damson bursy that i think they are perilous realms
• 57:44
  um not the Greek ones not the indivian ones but the ones which are in the medieval
• 57:49
  inspired world i'd go for them so a bit of need to yeah and that's and that's a an area where i'm
• 57:55
  lacking in uh in my familiarity so i i definitely want to to check those out so i think
• 58:00
  there's nothing about um pericles are quite short so you can knock that off you know at lunch
• 58:07
  today um but in terms of the language and the the the the the one i talked about the
• 58:13
  casement is in his wonderful wonderful old uh oatua knightinger which if you haven't read it
• 58:21
  guys just read it out loud and appreciate the mastery of Keats he had a very brief and brilliant
• 58:29
  career as a writer um and obviously that is his at the fullness of his powers he was writing
• 58:38
  these these pieces right well thank you very much uh thank you very much for spending some time
• 58:44
  in peril with me happy do i couldn't think of a better person to be in peril it
• 58:55
  thanks for listening to myth makers podcast brought to you by the oxford center for fantasy
• 59:02
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• 59:09
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