When I was updating the Mythopoeic Society’s Inklings bibliography, I thought about placing this book, not among the works of Tolkien’s fiction, but in the books about Tolkien, under “The Secondary World.” There’s virtually no narrative here. It’s all brief essays and notes about the life-spans of the Elves and Númenóreans, the rules by which the Valar govern Arda, and similar topics. Almost all of it was written after The Lord of the Rings was published, but any assumption that it’s therefore canonical is over-ridden by the sense that in most of these pieces, Tolkien is just thinking on paper to himself, figuring things out rather than laying down the sub-creational facts. At least this shows what he was doing instead of the impossible project of finishing up the Silmarillion.

Some of the contents have already been published, mostly in specialty journals on the Elven-tongues. (The more technical linguistic material is edited out here.) But even that will be new to most readers. Here are some things I learned from reading this book.

1) We’re living in the Seventh Age of the world

We being in 1960 of the 7th Age … (p. 39)

2) Who killed off the hobbits? We did.

The much later dwindling of hobbits must be due to a change in their state and way of life; they became a fugitive and secret people, driven as Men, the Big Folk, became more and more numerous, usurping the more fertile and habitable lands, to refuge in forest or wilderness: a wandering and poor folk, forgetful of their arts and living a precarious life absorbed in the search for food and fearful of being seen; for cruel men would shoot them for sport as if they were animals. (p. 195)

3) The Valar made a big mistake

The invitation given to the Eldar to remove to Valinor and live unendangered by Melkor was not in fact according to the design of Eru. It arose from anxiety, and it might be said from failure in trust of Eru … (p. 234)

4) Tolkien had trouble accepting the concept of reincarnation

The most fatal objection is that it contradicts the fundamental notion that fëa and hröa [spirit and body] were each fitted to the other. Since hröar have a physical descent, the body of rebirth, having different parents, must be different, and should cause acute discomfort or pain to the reborn fëa. (p. 260) … The notion, which appears in some places in the Silmarillion, as yet unrevised, that Elvish reincarnation was achieved, or was sometimes achieved, by rebirth as a child among their own kindred, must be abandoned – or at least noted as a false notion. (p. 263)

4a) And this led to the conclusion that …

The reappearance, at long intervals, of the person of one of the Dwarf-fathers, in the line of their Kings – e.g. especially Durin – is not when examined probably one of re-birth, but of the preservation of the body of a former King Durin (say) to which at intervals his spirit would return. (p. 264-65)

5) Why the Elves aren’t vegetarians
Though some Elves do eschew eating meat,

But even so they must kill and eat olvar [plants] or die; for it is their nature to be fed, as to their hröar, by living things corporeal, and things have a right to live according to their nature. Yet violence is done to the olvar …, and these are denied the fulfilment of their own lives and final shapes. Therefore we must hold that the Incarnate belong by nature to Arda Marred and to a world in which death, and death by the violence of others, is accepted. (p. 271)

6) Melkor’s fault was intellectual arrogance

Though his mind was swift and piercing, so that, if he would, he might have surpassed all his brethren in knowledge and understanding of Eä and all that is therein, he was impatient and overweening (believing his powers of mind greater than they were). Too quickly he assumed that he had grasped all the nature of a thing, or all the causes of an event; and his plans and works often went amiss for that reason. But he learned no wisdom from this, and charged his failures ever upon the malice of the Valar, or the jealousy of Eru. (p. 294)

7) The Númenóreans shared Tolkien’s taste for plain food

They esteemed good food, which was plentiful, and expended care and art in its cooking and serving. But the distinction between a “Feast” and an ordinary meal consisted rather in this: in the adornments of the table, in the music, and in the merriment of many eating together, than in the food. (p. 319)

8) You don’t have to like mushrooms to be a Tolkien fan

The other Atani eschewed them, save in great hunger when astray in the wild, for few among them had the knowledge to distinguish the wholesome from the bad, and the less wise called them ork-plants and supposed them to have been cursed and blighted by Morgoth. (p. 342)

9) Tolkien was fascinated by the idea of dancing bears

The bears, the black bears especially, had curious dances of their own; but these seem to have become improved and elaborated by the instruction of Men. At times the bears would perform dances for the entertainment of their human friends. … To those not accustomed to the bears the slow (but dignified) motions of the bears, sometimes as many as 50 or more together, appeared astonishing and comic. But it was understood by all admitted to the spectacle that there should be no open laughter. (p. 335)

10) Tolkien was capable of ruining his own mythology

Is Aman “removed” or destroyed at the Catastrophe?
It was physical. Therefore it could not be removed, without remaining visible as part of Arda or as a new satellite! It must either remain as a landmass bereft of its former inhabitants or be destroyed.
I think now that it is best that it should remain a physical landmass (America!) … It would just become an ordinary land, an addition to Middle-earth, the European-African-Asiatic contiguous landmass. The flora and fauna … would become ordinary beasts and plants with usual conditions of mortality. (p. 343)

About the Author: David Bratman

David Bratman is co-editor of Tolkien Studies: An Annual Scholarly Review, and former editor of Mythprint, the bulletin of The Mythopoeic Society. He likes to write about Tolkienian biography and bibliography.