It is always interesting when you make a sudden connection between two very distinct parts of your life. Bizarrely I had this experience today, between this site and my favourite author and his works.
For many years, long before the films, I have been a fan of ‘Lord of the Rings’, for most of that time being into hobbits, elves and evil lords was very uncool so I guess I have something to thank Jackson for. Despite the lack of cool, this interest has gained me many friends over the years.
Today, well the day that I write this of course and not the day you read it, I was on the tube at some ungodly hour to make an early meeting and the strange connection between Tolkien, his works and tbw hit me. The connection is, of course, the relationship between an older woman and younger man.
In the story of Middle Earth there are two great romances. The one that most people will know of, as it is in the films and books that make up “Lord of the Rings”, is that between Aragorn, Ranger and kingdom-less King, and Arwen, daughter of Elrond, Lord of Rivendell. The other is the story of the mannish Beren and elvish Luthien, this is not as well known (though it is briefly mentioned in “Lord of the Rings”) but is the far older tale, both within the imagined history of Middle Earth and indeed was first created by Tolkien in the early part of 20th Century. In both stories the older, elvish woman and her younger human man must go through many trials and tribulations before they can be together. Now some might argue where the age difference is truly important as in Tolkien’s creation elves are immortal but when the older woman can be older by several thousand years, even to an immortal race this would look odd if the relationship with someone from another race didn’t. In the end, both women renounce their elvishness and immortality to be with their man, so even in the final happiness, there is sorrow.
It is perhaps telling that Tolkien saw himself as Beren and his wife, Edith, as Luthien. Edith was born in 1889 and Tolkien in 1892; perhaps a three year difference does not seem much to us today but they met and fell in love in 1908 when he was 16 and she 19. I suspect that in the society of the day, this ‘toyboy’ relationship was more likely to be seen in a negative light. Tolkien was an orphan and his guardian, Father Francis Xavier Morgan, forbid him from seeing Edith until he was 21, the good Father fearing she would disrupt Tolkien’s schoolwork and was worried by her Anglican beliefs (Morgan and Tolkien being Catholics). I have never come across anything that suggested that the age difference was a concern yet I do wonder. For the Romantics out there, I am sure they will be delighted to know that on the day of his 21st, Tolkien wrote to Edith asking her to marry him; she replied she was already engaged to another but only because she believed he had forgotten her. A week later Tolkien went to see Edith, proposed and she accepted, returning the ring to the other unfortunate chap. I often wonder what happened to the other chap, I am sure somewhere his name is known but it is not one I have ever heard. Edith later became a Catholic, an act that saw her family turn her out.
In the popular mind, Tolkien is a stuffy academic who wrote an amazingly popular fantasy novel, though increasingly his service in World War One is becoming better known and identified with him. Yet the younger Tolkien, an Edwardian toyboy who was willing to wreck an engagement to get the woman he wanted, is almost unknown.
Is there a connection between Tolkien and my presence here? I do not think so, indeed if it had not been for an early meeting and a bored, sleepy moment on the tube, it is doubtful I would make the connection. Yet there is a link now, even if only in my mind, and I suspect I will look at the author in a slightly different light as a result.
Of course, I now wonder about other authors and have to admit I’ve always enjoy Hercule Poirot stories by Agatha Christie, whose second husband was a toyboy archaeologist…
By Imrahil
