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All evening the group had discussed issues of faculty and politics, and only at the end came about to literary topics.
“Jack, I want to return to this term ‘Mirkwood’, of which you are a fan. What does it mean to you?”
“Tollers, whose absence to the loo will at least allow me to get a word in, is the historical authority. But to me, it is the place where tracks disappear and no line of sight exists. Once you are in there, it becomes the Forest of Doubt.”
“Yes, Cambridge, exactly.”
“Now, now, let’s not stir up that rivalry.”
“Well, sounds like life sometimes.”
“Exactly, we all stray into Mirkwood now and again. Getting out, into the place where belief can exist and be a proper guide, is the trick”.
The sounds of footsteps, shuffling of chairs.
“So I heard you speak of Mirkwood. Bandying ancient words in my absence could be dangerous.”
“Well, then to you, Tollers, since you borrowed the term from Jack, what is the essence of Mirkwood?”
“Hah! He’s the pickpocket of my purse of ideas! But to your question, I’ll skip the lecture on its deeper roots, its role in Eddic Poetry, its references in Scott’s Waverly and elsewhere, and get to its essence. It is the physical embodiment of Elvish language.”
“Oh, well that’s a turn then! Anything else to add for those of us less learned in such?”
“Yes, we’ve heard you talk of both, but never together. What do they have in common?
“Elvish, I found, has aspects deeper and wider than I thought as I sought to, well, re-invent it. My poor linguistic attempts, Quenya and Sindarin, are just that. Real Elvish is far deeper and more mysterious. To call it a language is to gravely, perhaps dangerously, underestimate it. Elvish and Mirkwood are alike because each has paths that shift before you. Each beguiles and hides its truth. Dangerous things, Elvish and Mirkwood.”
“You seem to have some new thoughts on this. You were, ah, telling us last week about this … trove of documents?”
“Ah, yes, I suppose I did mention them. I’ve sorted a bit of it. It’s mostly a collection of bits of history that I’ve yet to decipher. The pages look as if they were torn out of many sources, Old English, more recent scribblings, and, the bulk of it, pieces of writing that indeed seem to be a form of Elvish. Curious, really. I’ll get to the bottom of it in due time.”
“Sort of an ancient clipping service, eh?”
A sigh of exasperation.
“I suspect, Edwin the Inquisitive, that it is more a bundle of writings about some forbidden topic, all literally ripped out of ancient libraries.
“And these are from … your ‘Middle Earth’?”
“Well, the name is not mine to begin with. It is a term of long pedigree — mittle-erde. It is found, surprisingly, in the earliest existing fragment of Old English we have, called Caedmon’s Hymn. A line that goes like this:
A softly spoken song, perhaps in Old English, is sung by Tolkien. There is a period of silence before he begins talking again.
“It means ‘Then the guardian of mankind the eternal Lord, the Lord Almighty, afterwards appointed the Middle Earth, the lands of men.’ It was scribed as the monk Caedmon sang it, aet mude, “from his mouth” in about 680 A.D. It is, put simply, our centered Northern World, with all its legends and myths. In a sense it springs fully developed from Beowulf where, if my count is correct, it is mentioned a dozen or more times. Indeed, if you recall from Jack’s reading of a few Tuesdays ago, even he has created adventures in a similar Middle Earth. Sadly, one peopled by his poor take on me. In any case, it is no one’s invention and no one’s property.”
“Returning to your find of these strange documents, they must have been someone’s property. How did they come to you?”
“Like an orphan, a changeling, left swaddled in a barrister’s valise on my front stoop.”
“Well, at least they were free.”
“Like you fancy this ale will be tonight, Edwin. Pony up the tab and let’s be off to home!”