___
The sounds of books and leather bags being unceremoniously piled on benches, followed by an irritated voice.
“It’s gotten a bit under your skin, hasn’t it Tollers, that the Times called your book a ‘mere fairy tale’?”
“If the staff is the distinguishing mark of the wizard, and its possession empowers the holder, wizard or not, to flash it about, then these fools are worse than slacking apprentices!” “Is that an answer, or are your feathers just ruffled?” “It doesn’t bother me at all. There is more in the world than those who sell words by daily tonnage appreciate. I start with words, and with the knowledge, wrought from my own learning, that one can often feel one’s way back from the word to a story from an earlier time. After all, what better guarantee can there be that a thing exists, or at least did exist, than the fact that it has a name? And if it has a name, then there must be a history, a story, attached to it.”
“Hello. I’ll raise a glass to that, whatever it means.” “What it means, Ian, is that we can remember something long forgotten by attending to the very word that once referred to it. I would hope that my stories yet leave room for other minds and hands. That, anyway, is my intention and my hope.”
“Very well, to those future stories!”
Clinks. Slurps. Ahhs.
“I confess, tracking words has been a consuming passion for me. Many names in my stories are borrowed or, at least to my mind, discovered.”
“Isn’t that a bit cheeky of you?”
“Cecil, you and I are bosom friends, so I take your own cheek in good spirit. The answer is yes. I borrowed ‘Middle-earth’, ‘Mirkwood’ and ring-giving from a deep well of Norse legend, ‘orcs’ and a lot more from my beloved Beowulf, and, I dare say, ‘hobbit’ from a list of imaginary creatures I found in the Denham Tracts. There are many more. Perhaps too many, but I treat them as drill bits. Names are something to bite into the bedrock of myth that belongs to us all—even to you, Cecil, as you clutch your empty flagon!”
“From all the bits of stories you’ve read to us here at this table, I would’ve thought the ‘Middle-earth’ you describe was your own invention.”
“Hardly. It was there all along. Some part of it, I suppose, I have peopled. Much more of its territory remains for others to fill. As we’ve discussed before, the term is a wonderful, evocative linguistic artifact. It is a land of vaguely menaced borders, dim dangers lurking just beyond our ken, and moors distant from the light of the keep. A place bounded by monsters that refuse to flee.”
“Perhaps, Tollers, your stories should start with someone to warn the reader ‘Beware the spell of words. They are unstill. Sleepless they are, bearers of meaning deeper than you wish to delve. They hunger. They wish to evoke stories unbidden and feelings foreign and troubling.’”
“I have already have met this oracle. And I fear I know the truth of this message all too well.”
“Tollers, let me ask this respectfully, is there more here than you are saying? This document trove, of which you tell us little, has clearly upset you. What is your disquiet? Do those ‘words’ whisper to you, separate from their voice on the page?”
“Cecil, I detect your cynic’s ear. My answer is yes. Better still, we have with us a witness, quite able to testify on this strange aspect. Here! My summer assistant, Mr. Osley, whom you have met, has had to sit here and slurp his ale double-time to keep measure with you and Jack.”
“Here! Here! Don’t be shy now, not becoming to a Yank. Speak up lad!”
A new voice is heard, barely audible to the hidden microphone.
“Well … uh … since you ask, I know this. Professor Tolkien has asked me to work on organizing and translating an unusual collection of documents. Some of them are in a language that I would say is—I know this sounds odd—true Elvish. It is not invented or imagined, but as real as Mr. Lewis’s breathless prose. It is a proper language in all respects except this: it is alive. The more we study it, the more … restless it becomes. Meanings change. They scurry on an unstill path.”
“Well, young master, you learned to dance well at the foot of your mentor. May I offer one compass for your stay here at Oxford?”
The sly winks and nods are almost audible.
“Why, yes sir.”
“On those forest paths, stick hard to the real trail. Keep your feet on the ground and your nose for those six points of Sheaf’s Stout to which Jack has introduced you. I have no doubt that, in the morning, the sheer size of your head will keep you grounded.”