. Alas, not me: Faërie
Showing posts with label Faërie. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Faërie. Show all posts

05 October 2019

The Last Enchantment -- FR 2.viii.377



As they passed her they turned and their eyes watched her slowly floating away from them. For so it seemed to them: Lórien was slipping backward, like a bright ship masted with enchanted trees, sailing on to forgotten shores, while they sat helpless upon the margin of the grey and leafless world. 
(FR 2.viii.377)
Up to this point in The Lord of the Rings the word 'enchantment' and forms of the verb 'enchant' are used synonymously, or nearly so, with 'spell'. Afterwards 'spell' has a negative meaning. A spell tricks or deceives or dominates those upon whom it is cast. The only time it may not do so is when Legolas, speaking of the Huorns, refers to 'the spell' of the forest (TT 3.viii.541). It is worth noting, however, that he is not affected by that spell, but Gimli's fear may well indicate that he is (TT 3.ix.549). At the very least Gimli could not be said to have a positive view of 'the spell of the forest'. 

Concomitant with this narrowing of the meaning of 'spell' is the near disappearance of 'enchant' or 'enchantment' from the text. Only one form of it occurs hereafter, referring to Saruman's voice -- 'Suddenly another voice spoke, low and melodious, its very sound an enchantment' (TT 3.x.578) -- and significantly that enchantment fails to attain its ultimate goal.

When Lothlórien begins to fade from Middle-earth, enchantment fades with it. While we could not say that only 'the deceits of the enemy' remain (FR 2.vii.362), this shift in usage is a harbinger of the passing of Faërie in Middle-earth.

01 July 2019

'When we are enchanted' -- Mortal Men, Arda, and Faërie

The Light of Valinor © Ted Nasmith


In her paper, 'The Perilous Realm: Faërie and the Numinous in Tolkien', presented at Mythmoot VI this weekend, Emily Strand discussed this familiar passage from On Fairy-stories:

Now, though I have only touched (wholly inadequately) on elves and fairies, I must turn back; for I have digressed from my proper theme: fairy-stories. I said the sense “stories about fairies” was too narrow. It is too narrow, even if we reject the diminutive size, for fairy-stories are not in normal English usage stories about fairies or elves, but stories about Fairy, that is Faerie, the realm or state in which fairies have their being. Faerie contains many things besides elves and fays, and besides dwarfs, witches, trolls, giants, or dragons: it holds the seas, the sun, the moon, the sky; and the earth, and all things that are in it: tree and bird, water and stone, wine and bread, and ourselves, mortal men, when we are enchanted

The question arose for me immediately: why do only 'mortal men' require enchantment to be 'contained' in Faërie? While I had written before about the mortal experience of Faërie in Middle-earth, I had never asked myself this question as far as I could recall. What came to mind at once was a passage from The Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth in Morgoth's Ring. There Finrod says to Andreth (MR 315):
'Now we Eldar are your kinsmen, and your friends also (if you will believe it), and we have observed you already through three lives of Men with love and concern and much thought. Of this then we are certain without debate, or else all our wisdom is vain: the fëar of Men, though close akin indeed to the fëar of the Quendi, are yet not the same. For strange as we deem it, we see clearly that the fëar of Men are not, as are ours, confined to Arda, nor is Arda their home.               
'Can you deny it? Now we Eldar do not deny that ye love Arda and all that is therein (in so far as ye are free from the Shadow) maybe even as greatly as do we. Yet otherwise. Each of our kindreds perceives Arda differently, and appraises its beauties in different mode and degree. How shall I say it? To me the difference seems like that between one who visits a strange country, and abides there a while (but need not), and one who has lived in that land always (and must). To the former all things that he sees are new and strange, and in that degree lovable. To the other all things are familiar, the only things that are, his own, and in that degree precious.' 

Fëa (pl. fëar) is the Quenya word for 'soul' or 'spirit'. Arda neither 'confines' the spirits of Men, nor is it their home. Men also seem to be the only creature or thing in Arda not naturally a part of Faërie. We alone require an enchantment to be 'contained' there. When viewed together, these two passages suggest that it is the nature of the fëar of Men which makes an enchantment necessary. They also suggest that Arda and Faërie once completely overlapped each other or were in fact the same place. Why would this no longer be so? The inevitable fading of Faërie with the coming of Men is part of it, especially as quickened by the removal of the Blessed Realm from Arda at the end of the Second Age.

These are just preliminary thoughts that I mean to follow up on, but I wanted to put them out there for now.


03 December 2017

C. S. Lewis, the Little People, and the Wrong Shoe


Every now and then Lewis' Irish gets out, usually in the form of (for me) vexing remarks about 'Papists', but this story was more of a surprise, since it reminded me of my grandmother, also from Ulster (Cavan), though 10 years older than he and a Catholic. I don't remember her ever saying 'the Little People', but I do recall her speaking of fairies, and fairy mounds and lights and dancing. I only wish I remembered more of what she said, or that I had asked her to tell me the stories again when I was older than six or seven. I have no idea whether she believed them at all, but she had me convinced at the time. And she scared me quite a bit with her tales of banshees, which people she knew (so she said) had heard and even almost seen.

In any event, I discovered this story in a letter Lewis wrote to his brother, Warnie on 21 April 1940, decades after either of them had lived in Ireland:
I never told you a curious thing - I have meant to include it in several letters - wh[ich] provides a new instance of the malignity of the Little People. I was going into town one day and had got as far as the gate when I realised that I had odd shoes on, and one of them clean and the other dirty. There was no time to go back. As it was impossible to clean the dirty one, I decided that the only way of making myself look less ridiculous was to dirty the clean one. Now w[oul]d you have believed that this is an impossible operation? You can of course get some mud on it - but it remains obviously a clean shoe that has had an accident and won’t look in the least like a shoe that you have been for a walk in. One discovers new catches and snags in life every day.

As if one could foil the wrath of 'the Little Folk' by the simple expedient of dirtying a clean shoe. 

And just in case you think the fairies aren't still malicious to those who cross them, here's a more recent tale from Cavan, complete with a butcher playing the part of Ted Sandyman. 

I have often wondered how different it must be for those who believe in fairies to read fairy stories or hear them told.

09 November 2017

Thomas of Erceldoune V (25-72)



Image 1
FYTTE THE FIRST

Als j me wente þis endres daye,
ffull faste in mynd makand my mone
In a mery mornynge of Maye,
28   By huntle bankkes my self allone,
I herde þe jaye, & þe throstyll cokke,
The Mawys meynde hir of hir songe,
Þe wodewale beryde als a belle,
32   That alle þe wode abowte me ronge.
Allone in longynge thus als j laye,
Vndyre-nethe a semely tree,
[was] j whare a lady gaye
[36   Come rydyng] over a longe lee.
If j solde sytt to domesdaye,
With my tonge, to wrobbe and wrye,
Certanely þat lady gaye,
40   Never bese scho askryede for mee.



25 -- j: as previously noted 'j' alone  = 'I'.

It is important to note that the poem begins as a first person account, as if by Thomas himself, which continues until line 72. Thereafter the poet tells the tale in the third person, with one brief reversion to first at line 276.

25 -- endres: 'other'. The statement that this all started the other day conflicts with the later statement on line 286 that Thomas spent three years in Elfland.


26 -- 'ffull faste in mynd makand my mone': 'with every intention of voicing my complaint'. Most likely an unhappy lover's complaint, since that is a commonplace of Middle English poetry. Consider Chaucer, The House of Fame, where Dido laments her abandonment by Aeneas in lines 315-60, and the narrator comments (362-63): 'Al her compleynt ne al hir moone, / Certeyn, avayleth hir not a stre'. See also Troilus and Criseyde IV.950: 'Ful tendrely he preyde and made his mone'.


28 -- huntle bankkes: Huntley Bank, a hillside near Earlston (Ercledoune), also known as Huntley Brae. The naming of an actual place begins the story firmly in this world. The references to 'the other day' (25) and the Eildon Tree (80, 84) play the same role. Thus Faërie is very close to the world we know.

29-32 -- The singing of the birds, just  as one would expect in May, also helps to root the story in the ordinary world.

29 -- þrostyll cokke: a thrush, perhaps the missel thrush (turdus viscivorus). Swainson notes that throstle cock is the name for this bird in nearby Roxburgh (2).

30 -- Mawys: the mavis or song thrush (turdus musicus).

-- meynde hir:  'reminded herself', 'recalled'.

31 -- wodewale: the woodlark (alauda arborea), says Murray. While I do not doubt this, I have been unable to find corroboration. Swainson (98-99) does not include wodewale as a local variant for woodlark, but for the Great Spotted Woodpecker (dendrocopus major) and the Green Woodpecker (gecinus viridis) in far off Hampshire and Somerset, respectively.  The OED identifies the woodwall first as archaic name for the golden oriole (oriolus galbula, which seems to be the same as the oriolus oriolus, but I cannot yet confirm this).

-- beryde: 'resounded'.

33 -- Allone in longyng: see note on line 26.

34 -- semely tree: not the same as the so-called Eildon Tree (80, 84), another landmark, whose location is commemorated by a monument. See image 1 above.

35 -- was] j whare: here and elsewhere below the Thornton MS has lacunae in the text, and I have used the other MSS to supplement. Cotton reads 'I was war', while Landsdowne has 'I saw where' and Cambridge 'Saw I where'.  Clearly there is also confusion between 'whare' (=  'aware') and 'whare' (= 'where'), and this has affected the verb. Since the lines preceding these detail the speaker's awareness of his surroundings, I am inclined to the far more vivid 'was j whare', i.e., 'I became aware', which also preserves the inverted word order suggested by the remains of this line in Thornton, and paralleled in Cambridge. 

36 -- Come rydyng]: Cotton: 'come rydyng'; Landsdowne: 'cam rydyng'; Cambridge: 'came ridand'.

-- lee: 'lea' denotes open land not currently under the plow, either used for pasturage or left fallow.  

38 -- to wrobbe and wrye: 'wrobben' means 'babble on, prattle'. 'Wry(e' means to 'move by twisting or turning', sometimes with connotations of misinterpretation or madness. 

40 -- scho: she.

-- askryede for mee: 'described by me'. True to his word, the poet spends virtually no time at all in what follows describing the Lady. Rather he focusses in detail on her horse and its saddle (42-46, 49-51, 57-64), with briefer comments on the Lady herself interspersed (47-48, 54-56).

Hir palfraye was a dapill graye,
[42 ........................................
..............................................
..............................................
...............................................]
Swylke one ne saghe j neuer none;
Also dose þe sonne on someres daye,
48   Þat faire lady hir selfe scho shone.
Hir selle it was of roelle bone,
ffull semely was þat syghte to see!
Stefly sett with precyous stones,
52   And compaste all with crapotee,
Stones of Oryente, grete plente;
Hir hare abowte hir hede it hange;
Scho rade over þat lange lee;
56   A whylle scho blewe, anoþer scho sange;
Hir garthes of nobyll sylke þay were,
The bukylls were of Berell stone,
Hir steraps were of crystalle clere,
60   And all with perell over-by-gone.
Hir  payettrelle was a of jrale fyne,
Hir cropoure was of Orpharë,
And als clere golde hir brydill it schone,
64   One aythir syde hange bellys three.
[She led iij grehoundis in a leeshe,
viij rachis be hir fete ran;
To speke with hir wold I not seesse;
68   Hir lire was white as any swan.
Fforsothe, lordyngs, as I yow tell,
Thus was þis lady fayre begon.]
Scho bare an horne abowte hir halse,
72   And under hir belte full many a flone;

42-45 Murray places a lacuna in his printing of the Thornton, Cotton, and Cambridge Manuscripts, yet he clearly believes something resembling the text of the Lansdowne once stood here, since his numbering of the lines takes the Lansdowne into account. Yet whatever memory of the original the Lansdowne preserves is an imperfect and troublesome one, which we cannot simply insert to fill the gap, since that would disrupt the rhyme scheme and the numbering. 

[The farest Molde that any myght be;
Here sadell bryght as any day.
*44   Set with pereles to þe kne.
And furthermore of hir Aray,
Divers clothing she had upon;]

41 -- palfrey: a riding horse of the Middle Ages, known for a smooth, quick gait that made it ideal for travelling long distances.

*42 -- Molde: type, nature, character.

*45 -- furthermore: in addition.

*45-46 -- Aray...clothing: it is difficult to be sure what is being described here, since aray can refer either to the furnishings of the saddle or the apparel of the Lady, and clothing can mean 'clothing' as well as the 'trappings' of a horse. 'And furthermore', however, seems to establish a connection to *43-44, and the descriptions of the horse's tack are more detailed than those of the Lady, whom the poet calls indescribable in line 40, or describes in vague or fulsome terms: she shines like the summer sun (47-480; wears her hair loose, blows a horn, or sings (54-56). This inclines me to believe that aray and clothing refer to the saddle and its trappings.

*46 -- clothing: the trappings or caparison. In image two we see two caparisoned horses, one in blue, the other in red.

 lmage Two, by Jean Fouquet ca 1450s 1455-60.


46 -- Swylke one: 'such a one'. See next note.

-- ne saghe j neuer none: the vaporish modern prohibition against multiple negatives does not apply in Middle English. It requires a bit of gymnastics to make them all fit in: ''Nor saw I never none such as this one.' It is obviously a very strongly negative statement.

-- 49: selle also means saddle, but here may refer specifically to the seat. Cf. the same line in the Lansdowne -- 'here sege was of ryall bone' -- where sege clearly means 'seat',

-- roelle bone: walrus ivory, or possibly narwhal (OED s.v. ruel-bone). The Lewis Chessmen are likely the most famous example of work in walrus ivory. For much of the Middle Ages, elephant ivory was in short supply in northern Europe.

52 -- compaste: 'compassed', or 'surrounded', i.e., a border of gemstones ran along the edges of the saddle.

-- crapote: either toadstone -- a greenish fossil gemstone believed to be found inside the heads of toads (cf. Fr. crapaud), which could serve as an antidote to poison --  or emerald as  'Stones of Oryente' may indicate. How often is 'emerald' the more prosaic choice?

56 -- a whylle...anoþer...: sometimes...sometimes....

57 -- garthes: the girth of the saddle.

58 -- berell stone: beryl, of which emerald and aquamarine are examples.

59 -- crystalle clere: quartz crystal. Cf. Sir Orfeo 357-58, on the wall of the fairy king's castle: 'Al þe vt-mast wal / Was clere & schine as cristal'.

60 -- perell: pearl or mother of pearl.

-- over-by-gone: 'ornamented all over'.

61 -- payetrelle: peitrel, a 'protective breastplate' or 'breast collar' for a horse. See image three.

-- jrale fyne: an unknown precious stone. Murray says: 'I can get no light on iral-stane; the scribes also seem not to have understood it, and hence their alterations, rial, alarane, &c'. He guesses that iral-stane was the original reading, since that would rhyme with schone in line 63, which fyne obviously cannot.

63 -- cropoure: crupper, today only a strap running the back of the saddle to the horse's tail to keep the saddle from shifting; in the Middle Ages, a covering for the horse's hind quarters, often armored. See image two.

-- Orpharë: probably signifying that the crupper has an ornamental band or fringe of gold, from orfevrie, 'goldsmith's work', from Latin 'aurifaber', goldsmith.

Image Three

*65-70 -- A second lacuna, this one posited by Murray. While there is no visible gap in Thornton, Lansdowne shows one. Cotton is damaged at this point, but enough remains to show that it did not continue as Thornton does, directly from 'bellys three' to 'And sevene raches...'. Cambridge supplies the text I've inserted. This, however, is also problematic. For, as Murray points out, these lines are not in the poem itself, but 'written at the side and foot with marks of insertion'.

*66 -- rachis: a rache or ratch was a hunting dog that tracked its prey by scent, unlike greyhounds, which rely on sight.

*67 -- To speke with hir wold I not seesse: Since he has not spoken with her yet, this sentence seems unlikely to mean, 'to speak with her I would not cease'. Here 'with hir' makes more sense taken to mean 'regarding her'. He can't stop talking about her.

*68 -- lire: cheek.

*70 -- fayre begon: 'beautifully turned-out'.

71 -- halse: neck.

72 -- flone: arrows. Together with the horn and the dogs, the arrows suggest that she is hunting, but what, or whom? Arrows of course had long been associated with the god of Love. Does the poet's failure to mention a bow make it more conspicuous? Does her appearance as a huntress hark back to Venus' appearing to Aeneas as a huntress in Book One of The Aeneid? (1.379-497 Fagles). There Aeneas mistakes her for a human at first, recognizing her as his goddess mother only as she turns to go. Thomas will also mistake the Fairy Queen for someone else when he sees her (lines 85-96).


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Note to the Reader:

I am not a Medievalist by training, though I've read a fair amount of Old and Middle English for someone who isn't. My goal is to make this fascinating text more readily available and more easily read than it has been so far. The text Murray published in 1875 is available from the Early English Text Society for a reasonable price. (Beware of scanned reprints put out by others.) I have also lately discovered that Ingeborg Nixon published a text and commentary in Denmark in the early 1980s, but I have not been able to find a copy of it for sale at anything like a reasonable price ($300+). For that much I should get to meet the Queen of Elfland herself. One of these days I will make a pilgrimage to consult it at the New York University library, which seems to have a copy. So, pardon any mistakes I make, and help me to correct them. I will gladly publish any comment that is civil and signed. Anything rude or anonymous I shall delete.

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Works Consulted



Burnham, Josephine M, A Study of Thomas of Erceldoune, PMLA 23.3 (1908) 375-420.

Lyle, E.B., Thomas of Erceldoune: The Prophet and the Prophesied, Folklore 79 (1968) 111-121.

________, The Relationship between Thomas the Rhymer and Thomas of  Erceldoune, Leeds Studies in English 4 (1970) 23-30.

________, The Visions in St Patrick's Purgatory, Thomas of Erceldoune, Thomas the Rhymer, and The Demon Lover, Neuphilologishe Mitteilungen 72 (1971) 716-722.

Paton, Lucy Alan, Studies in the Fairy Mythology of Arthurian Romance, Boston (1903).

Swainson, Charles, Provincial Names and Folklore of British Birds, London (1885).

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⇦Thomas of Erceldoune IV || Thomas of Erceldoune VI⇨

11 June 2017

Sir Orfeo, Faërian Drama, and the Quenta Noldorinwa

Copyright Ted Nasmith


In a forthcoming article I argue that in The Hobbit we can see Tolkien using the fairies of medieval Romance, specifically in Sir Orfeo, to recreate Elves that can be taken seriously, like those in The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion, and unlike the gossamer-winged sprites of Victorian England. (I posted an earlier, much shorter incarnation of this paper here last September).  One of the fascinating points to be noted in studying these texts from this perspective is that in Sir Orfeo it is Orfeo, a mortal Man, who can summon up visions by means of song, while in The Silmarillion and The Lord of the Rings this power belongs exclusively to the Elves. In my article I suggest that in the transference of this ability from Men to Elves we might be seeing the birth of what Tolkien termed 'Faërian Drama', which is 'a dream that some other mind is weaving' (OFS, 63, ¶ 74).

One of the passages I cited to illustrate this Elvish art describes the first meeting of Elves and Men, as initiated by Finrod:
Long Felagund watched them, and love for them stirred in his heart; but he remained hidden in the trees until they had all fallen asleep. Then he went among the sleeping people, and sat beside their dying fire where none kept watch; and he took up a rude harp which Bëor had laid aside, and he played music upon it such as the ears of Men had not heard; for they had as yet no teachers in the art, save only the Dark Elves in the wild lands. 
Now men awoke and listened to Felagund as he harped and sang, and each thought that he was in some fair dream, until he saw that his fellows were awake also beside him; but they did not speak or stir while Felagund still played, because of the beauty of the music and the wonder of the song. Wisdom was in the words of the Elven-king, and the hearts grew wiser that hearkened to him; for the things of which he sang, of the making of Arda, and the bliss of Aman beyond the shadows of the Sea, came as clear visions before their eyes, and his Elvish speech was interpreted in each mind according to its measure. 
(S 140-41)

Yet today I discovered in the Quenta Noldorinwa, one of the predecessors of The Silmarillion, a very interesting difference in its version of the first encounter of Elves and Men:

That night Felagund went among the sleeping men of Beor's host and sat by their dying fires where none kept watch, and he took a harp which Beor had laid aside, and he played music on it such as mortal ear had never heard, having learned the strains of music from the Dark-elves alone. Then men woke and listened and marvelled, for great wisdom was in that song, as well as beauty, and the heart grew wiser that listened to it. 
(Shaping 104-05)
In the passage from the Quenta Noldorinwa, which Christopher Tolkien dates securely to no later than 1930, the visionary experience of the Men is completely absent, however much they may have profited by Finrod's singing otherwise. The version of the tale we find in The Silmarillion dates to the 1950s, after Tolkien had finished writing The Lord of the Rings (Jewels, 173, 216-17). It is also worth noting here that one of the characteristics of Faërian Drama as portrayed in The Silmarillion passage quoted above is that the listener does not need to know the language of the Elves to comprehend their song. The hobbits in The Lord of the Rings have precisely this experience when they hear Gildor and his Elves singing in the woods of the Shire (FR 1.iii.79), an episode which dates to the earliest draft of what became the chapter Three's Company (Return 58-59).

It's as if between the two versions of this scene we can see dramatized the very transference of which I spoke above, in which Tolkien shifts the power of visionary enchantment from Orfeo to the Elves,

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Three Moments of Sam in Faërie



There are many subtle things about Sam Gamgee that a reader may easily miss or neglect. Not only is he bold enough to spy on Gandalf, but he is cool-headed enough to lie to him about it (FR 1.ii.63-64; v.105). He pretends to be asleep while Frodo is talking to Gildor, and then has his own conversation with the Elves after Frodo has retired (1.iii.82. iv.87). He simply shows up at the Council of Elrond when he is not invited (2.ii.271). He even composes poetry (1.xii.208). But one thing no one overlooks is his love of Elves and 'stories of the old days'. Even before we meet him, the Gaffer is talking about it (1.i.24). From the first time we see him in The Green Dragon -- 'They are sailing, sailing, sailing' (FR 1.ii.45) -- through the Company's sojourn in Lothlórien, Elves are a common theme.  As a participant (Archimago) in Mythgard's Exploring the Lord of the Rings class (episode 10, starting at 15:20) recently pointed out, Sam's early refrain of 'Elves, sir' is almost 'like punctuation' in itself:

‘Well, sir,’ said Sam dithering a little. ‘I heard a deal that I didn’t rightly understand, about an enemy, and rings, and Mr. Bilbo, sir, and dragons, and a fiery mountain, and – and Elves, sir. I listened because I couldn’t help myself, if you know what I mean. Lor bless me, sir, but I do love tales of that sort. And I believe them too, whatever Ted may say. Elves, sir! I would dearly love to see them. Couldn’t you take me to see Elves, sir, when you go?’
(FR 1.ii.63, emphasis added)

Another passage that has long been of interest to me, is one that shows Sam to be less susceptible to some kinds of enchantment, or at least more conscious of its effects. In the Old Forest, when Frodo, Merry, and Pippin are all overwhelmed by Old Man Willow's spells, Sam sees through them:

Sam sat down and scratched his head, and yawned like a cavern. He was worried. The afternoon was getting late, and he thought this sudden sleepiness uncanny. ‘There’s more behind this than sun and warm air,’ he muttered to himself. ‘I don’t like this great big tree. I don’t trust it. Hark at it singing about sleep now! This won’t do at all!’
(FR 1.vi.117)
To which I would add this passage:

[Frodo] turned and saw that Sam was now standing beside him, looking round with a puzzled expression, and rubbing his eyes as if he was not sure that he was awake. 'It's sunlight and bright day, right enough,' he said. 'I thought that Elves were all for moon and stars: but this is more elvish than anything I ever heard tell of. I feel as if I was inside a song, if you take my meaning.' 
Haldir looked at them, and he seemed indeed to take the meaning of both thought and word. He smiled. 'You feel the power of the Lady of the Galadhrim,' he said. 
(FR 2.vi.351, emphasis original)
It's hard to say just why Sam seems more perceptive on this score than his fellow hobbits.  One would expect Frodo, if anyone, to be the hobbit most attuned to such things. Frodo certainly seems more learned, and his experience with the Ring expands his range of perceptions. Yet when a desire to drop everything and follow Bilbo rises up within him, he does nothing (1.ii.61). He lets months pass (1.iii.65-69), an almost fatal mistake. Sam, when granted the opportunity to go see the 'Elves, sir!', bursts into tears of joy (1.ii,64). As we also know, he openly talks about the Elves, in the face of reproofs from his Gaffer and public ridicule at the Green Dragon (1.i.24; ii.44-45). And there is something about Sam that he shares with another hobbit, who at first seemed unlikely to be so open to a wider world. Not only does Merry say of Farmer Maggot that 'a lot goes on behind his round face that does not come out in his talk' (1.v.103), words that could equally well describe Sam the gardener, but from Tom Bombadil we learn that Farmer Maggot knows more about Faërie than he lets on, and is not unlike Sam Gamgee in other ways as well:

... but [Tom] made no secret that he owed his recent knowledge largely to Farmer Maggot, whom he seemed to regard as a person of more importance than they had imagined. ‘There’s earth under his old feet, and clay on his fingers; wisdom in his bones, and both his eyes are open,’ said Tom.
(1.vii.)
Sam and Maggot both have a connection to the earth that Frodo, Merry, and Pippin, who pretty clearly don't earn their bread by the sweat of their brows, entirely lack. The Gaffer, too, is similarly grounded in the soil of the Shire, which may be why he and Farmer Maggot can stand up to the Black Riders. In Rivendell Gandalf alludes cryptically to 'a power of another kind' in the Shire, a power that could 'withstand' evil to some degree (FR 2.i.223). He also recalls his doubts, while a prisoner of Saruman, 'that the hunters before whom all have fled or fallen would falter in the Shire far away' (2.ii.261).

And yet they do falter, baffled by the Gaffer and seen off by Maggot, the two earthiest characters we meet in the Shire.  The one we know by 'Farmer' rather than a first name, and the purport of his last name, unfortunately submerged in the predominant modern understanding of 'maggot', not only describes someone as a 'fanciful' or 'whimsical' character, but is also an old word for 'magpie' in the West Midlands of England, where Tolkien was raised. It thus ties Maggot to one of the shrewdest birds in nature. As for the other, Gaffer Gamgee, his first name, Hamfast, declares the strength (OE, fæst) of his roots in the Shire as his home (OE, ham).*

So it seems a real possibility that Sam's superior perceptions of enchantment have their roots in the earth of the Shire, as it were, as much as, if not more than in his openness to Faërie. And this brings me to the last of my three passages on Sam and Faërie. On their first night in the house of Tom Bombadil Merry, Pippin, and Frodo all have very troubling dreams, though instructed by both Goldberry and Tom to 'heed no nightly noises' (1.vii.125,126). Merry and Pippin both remember (or hear again) these words when they awake from their nightmares (1.vii.127-28), and Tom chides them in the morning for not listening (1.vii.128). Sam alone has no nightmares, as the narrator goes out of his way to point this out, quite humorously so:
As far as he could remember, Sam slept through the night in deep content, if logs are contented.
(1.vii.128)
Given what else we've seen, however, I can only wonder if Sam's contentment and seemingly dreamless sleep, which the narrator points out twice in one sentence, have the same source, a deep connection to the earth itself, which, as Tolkien saw it, was naturally a part of Faërie even if mortals are not (OFS 32 ¶ 10).


*I believe there is more to be said about the name Maggot, but that must await another day.


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