Tolkien and Old English

1. Tolkien and Old English The Language Behind The Lord of the Rings Dr. Felicia Jean Steele Assistant Professor Dept. of English, The College of New Jersey

2. Inspired by a shining star… From Cynewulf, Christ Eala Earendel, engla beorhtast, ofer middangeard monnum sended. [Hail morning star! Brightest of angels, sent to men over middle-earth.]

3. Bilbo Awakens a Dragon He gazed for what seemed an age, before drawn almost against his will, he stole from the shadow of the doorway, across the floor to the nearest edge of the mounds of treasure. Above him the sleeping dragon lay, a dire menace even in his sleep. He grasped the great two-handed cup, as heavy as he could carry, and cast one fearful eye upwards. Smaug stirred a wing, opened a claw, the rumble of his snoring changed a note. . . It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him. Dragons may not have much real use for all thier wealth, but they know it to an ounce as a rule, especially after long possession; and Smaug was no exception. He had passed from an uneasy dream (in which a warrior, altogether insignificant in size but provided with a bitter sword and great courage, figured most unpleasantly) to a doze, and from a doze to wide waking. . . [Smaug] issued from the Gate, the waters rose in fierce whistling the mountain top in a spout of green and scarlet flame.

4. Then an old harrower of the dark happened to find the hoard open, the burning one who hunts out barrows, the slick-skinned dragon, threatening the night sky with streamers of fire. He is driven to hunt out hoards under ground, to guard heathen gold through age-long vigils, though to little avail. For three centuries, this scourge of the people had stood guard on that stoutly protected underground treasury, until the intruder unleashed its fury; he hurried to his lord with the gold-plated cup and made his plea to be reinstated. . . When the dragon awoke, trouble flared again. He rippled down the rock, writing with anger when he saw the footprints of the prowler who had stole too close to his dreaming head. --Seamus Heaney translation The Dragon of Beowulf

5. The ‘Real’ Dragon of Beowulf þa se wyrm onwoc,         wroht wæs geniwad; stonc ða æfter stane,         stearcheort onfand feondes fotlast;         he to forð gestop dyrnan cræfte         dracan heafde neah. [Then the dragon awoke, anger was renewed. The stark-hearted sniffed after the stone, discovered the footprints of the enemy; he stepped to near, with secret craft, to the head of the dragon.]

6. There hammer on the anvil smote, There chisel clove, and graver wrote; There forged was blade, and bound was hilt; The delver mined, the mason built. There beryl, pearl, and opal pale, And metal wrought like fishes’ mail, Buckler and corselet, axe and sword, And shining spears were laid in hoard. Unwearied then were Durin’s folk; Beneath the mountains music woke: The harpers harped, the minstrels sang, And at the gates the trumpets rang. The world is grey, the mountains old, The forge’s fire is ashen-cold; No harp is wrung, no hammer falls: The darkness dwells in Durin’s halls; --from The Fellowship of the Ring Gimli’s Lament

7. “Now, earth, hold what earls once held and heroes can no more; it was mined from you first by honorable men. My own people have been ruined in war; one by one they went down to death, looked their last on sweet life in the hall. I am left with nobody to bear a sword or burnish plated goblets, put a sheen on the cup. The companies have departed. The hard helmet, hasped with gold, will be stripped of its hoops; and the helmet-shiner who should polish the metal of the war-mask sleeps; the coat of mail that came through all fights, through shield collapse and cut of sword, decays with the warrior. Nor may webbed mail Range far and wide on the warlord’s back beside his mustered troops. No trembling harp, no tuned timber, no tumbling hawk swerving through the hall, no swift horse pawing the courtyard. Pillage and slaughter have emptied the earth of entire peoples.” “The Lay of the Last Survivor”

8. "Heald þu nu, hruse, nu hæleð ne moston, eorla æhte! Hwæt, hyt ær on ðe gode begeaton. Guðdeað fornam, feorhbealo frecne, fyra gehwylcne leoda minra, þara ðe þis lif ofgeaf, gesawon seledream. Ic nah hwa sweord wege oððe feormie fæted wæge, dryncfæt deore; duguð ellor sceoc. Sceal se hearda helm hyrsted golde fætum befeallen; feormynd swefað, þa ðe beadogriman bywan sceoldon, ge swylce seo herepad, sio æt hilde gebad ofer borda gebræc bite irena, brosnað æfter beorne. Ne mæg byrnan hring æfter wigfruman wide feran, hæleðum be healfe. Næs hearpan wyn, gomen gleobeames, ne god hafoc geond sæl swingeð, ne se swifta mearh burhstede beateð. Bealocwealm hafað fela feorhcynna forð onsended!" The ‘Real’ Lay of the Last Survivor