PART TWO. THE NOTION CLUB PAPERS. THE NOTION CLUB PAPERS. Introduction. On 18 December 1944, when The Lord of the Rings had reached the end of what would become The Two Towers (and a few pages had been written of 'Minas Tirith' and 'The Muster of Rohan' at the beginning of Book V), my father wrote to me (Letters no. 92) that he had seen C. S. Lewis that day: 'His fourth (or fifth?) novel is brewing, and seems likely to clash with mine (my dimly projected third). I have been getting a lot of new ideas about Prehistory lately (via Beowulf and other sources of which I may have written) and want to work them into the long shelved time-travel story I began. C. S. L. is planning a story about the descendants of Seth and Cain.' His words are tantalizingly difficult to interpret; but by 'clash with mine' he surely meant that the themes of their books ran rather close.(1) Whatever lies behind this, it is seen that he was at this time turning his thoughts to a renewed attempt on the 'time-travel story', which would issue a year later in The Notion Club Papers. In his letter to Stanley Unwin of 21 July 1946 (Letters no. 105) he said that he hoped very shortly 'actually to - write', to turn again to The Lord of the Rings where he had left it, more than a year and a half before: 'I shall now have to study my own work in order to get back to it,' he wrote. But later in that same letter he said: I have in a fortnight of comparative leisure round about last Christmas written three parts of another book, taking up in an entirely different frame and setting what little had any value in the inchoate Lost Road (which I had once the impudence to show you: I hope it is forgotten), and other things beside. I hoped to finish this in a rush, but my health gave way after Christmas. Rather silly to mention it, till it is finished. But I am putting The Lord of the Rings, the Hobbit sequel, before all else, save duties that I cannot wriggle out of. So far as I have been able to discover there is no other reference to The Notion Club Papers anywhere in my father's writings. But the quantity of writing constituting The Notion Club Papers, and the quantity of writing associated with them, cannot by any manner of means have been the work of a fortnight. To substantiate this, and since this is a convenient place to give this very necessary information, I set out here the essential facts of the textual relations of all this material, together with some brief indication of their content. As the development of The Notion Club Papers progressed my father divided it into two parts, the second of which was never completed, and although he ultimately rejected this division (2) I have found it in every way desirable to preserve it in this book. Part One was 'The Ramblings of Michael Ramer: Out of the Talkative Planet', " and this consists of a report in direct speech of the discussions at two successive meetings (3) of 'the Notion Club' at Oxford far in the future at the time of writing. On the first of these occasions the conversation turned on the problem of the vehicle, the machine or device, by which 'space-travellers' are transported to their destination, especially in respect of its literary credibility in itself and its effect on the story contained within the journeys; on the second, of which the report is.. much longer, one of the members, Michael Ramer, expounded his ideas concerning 'true dreams' and his experiences of 'space-travel' in dream. The earliest manuscript, here called 'A', is a complete text of Part One. It is roughly written and hastily expressed, there is no title or explanatory 'scene-setting', and there are no dates; but while the text would undergo much expansion and improvement, the essential structure and movement of the dialogue was already largely present. The second manuscript, 'B', is also a complete text of Part One, but is much fuller than A, and (with many changes and additions) advances far towards the final form. Here also the two meetings, as the text was first written, have no dates, and the numbers given to the meetings imply a much longer history of the Club than is suggested for it subsequently. For the elaborate title or prolegomenon to this version see pp. 148 - 9. The third manuscript, 'C', is written in a fine script, but is not quite complete: it extends to Ramer's words 'So there does appear to be at least one other star with attendant planets' (p. 207), and it is clear that no more was written of this text (which, incidentally, it would have taken days to write). A typescript 'D', made by my father, is the final form of Part One. In one section of the text, however, D seems to have preceded C, since it- has some B readings which were then changed to those of C; but the final form of the text is scarcely ever in doubt, and even where it is the differences are entirely trivial. Where C ends, the typescript follows B, the place of transition being marked on the B manuscript. (A second typescript - not, I think, made by my father - was begun, but abandoned after only a few pages; this has no independent value.) Part Two, 'The Strange Case of Arundel Lowdham', records a number of further meetings of the Notion Club, continuous with those of Part One. This second Part is largely devoted to the intrusion of the Matter of Numenor into the discussions of the Notion Club, but of this there are only two texts, a manuscript ('E') and a typescript ('F'). . goth end at the same point, with the next meeting of the Club arranged and dated, but never written. The typescript F is a complex document, in that my father rejected a substantial section of it ('F 1') as soon as he had typed it, replaced it ('F 2'), and then continued on to the end, the structure of the text being thus F 1, F 1 > F 2, F 2 (see p. 237 and note 37). For both Parts, but especially for Part Two, there is a quantity of rough, discontinuous drafting, often scarcely legible. While Part Two was being further developed (that is, after the completion of the manuscript E so far as it went) the Adunaic * language emerged (as it appears), with an abandoned but elaborate account of the phonology, and pari passu with The Notion Club Papers my father not only wrote a first draft of an entirely new version of the story of Numenor but developed it through further texts: this is The Drowning of Anadune, in which all the names are in Adunaic. How is all this to be equated with his statement in the letter to Stanley Unwin in July 1946 that 'three parts' of the work were written in a fortnight at the end of 1945? Obviously it cannot be, not even on the supposition that when he said 'a fortnight' he greatly underesti- mated the time. Though not demonstrable, an extremely probable explanation, as it seems to me, is that at the end of that fortnight he stopped work in the middle of writing the manuscript E, at the point where The Notion Club Papers end, and at which time Adunaic had not yet arisen. Very probably Part One was at the stage of the manuscript B.(4) On this view, the further development of what had then been achieved of Part One, and more especially of Part Two (closely associated with that of the Adunaic language and the writing of The Drowning of Anadune), belongs to the following year, the earlier part of 1946. Against this, of course, is the fact that the letter to Stanley Unwin in which my father referred to the Papers was written in July 1946, but that letter gives no impression of further work after 'my health gave way after Christmas'. But it is to be remembered that The Lord of the Rings had been at a halt for more than a year and a half, and it may well be that he was deeply torn between the burgeoning of Adunaic and Anadune and the oppression of the abandoned Lord of the Rings. He did not need to spell out to Stanley Unwin what he had in fact been doing! But he said that he was 'putting The Lord of the Rings before all else', which no doubt meant 'I am now going to put it before all else', and that included Adunaic. To the interrupted Notion Club Papers he never returned. The diverse and shifting elements in all this work, not least the complex but essential linguistic material, have made the construction (* Adunaic is always so spelt at this time (not Adunaic), and I write it so throughout.) of a readily comprehensible edition extremely difficult, requiring much experimentation among possible forms of presentation. Since The Notion Club Papers are now published for the first time, the final typescripts D of Part One and F of Part Two must obviously be the text printed, and this makes for difficulties of presentation (it is of course very much easier to begin with an original draft and to relate it by consecutive steps to a final form that is already known). The two Parts are separated, with notes following each Part. Following the text of the Papers I give important sections that were rejected from or sig- nificantly changed in the final text, earlier forms of the 'Numenorean' fragments that 'came through' to Arundel Lowdham and of the Old English text written by his father, and reproductions of the 'facsimiles' of that text with analysis of the tengwar. Although the final text of Part Two of the Papers and The Drown- ing of Anadune were intimately connected,(5) especially in respect of Adunaic, any attempt to combine them in a single presentation makes for inextricable confusion; the latter is therefore treated entirely separ- ately in the third part of this book, and in my commentary on Part Two of the Papers I have not thought it useful to make continual reference forward to The Drowning of Anadune: the interrelations between the two works emerge more clearly when the latter is reached. There are some aspects of the framework of the Papers, provided by the Foreword of the Editor, Mr. Howard Green, and the list of members of the Notion Club, which are better discussed here than in the commentary. The Foreword. The original manuscript A of Part One, as already noticed, has no title or introductory statement of any kind, but begins with the words 'When Ramer had finished reading his latest story...' The first page of B begins thus: Beyond Lewis or Out of the Talkative Planet. Being a fragment of an apocryphal Inklings' Saga, made by some imitator at some time in the 1980s. Preface to the Inklings. While listening to this fantasia (if you do), I beg of the present company not to look for their own faces in this mirror. For the mirror is cracked, and at the best you will only see your countenances distorted, and adorned maybe with noses (and other features) that are not your own, but belong to other members of the company - if to anybody. Night 251. When Michael Ramer had finished reading his latest story... This was heavily emended and then struck through, and was replaced by a new, separate title-page (made when B had been completed): Beyond Probability (6) or Out of the Talkative Planet. The Ramblings of Ramer being Nights 251 and 252 of The Notion Club Papers. [Little is known about this rare book, except that it appears to have been written after 1989, as an apocryphal imitation of the Inklings' Saga Book. The author identifies himseif with the character called in the narrative Nicholas Guildford; but Titmouse has shown that this is a pseudonym, and is taken from a mediaeval dialogue, at one time read in the Schools of Oxford. His real identity remains unknown.] An aside to the audience. While listening to this hotch- potch (if you do), I beg of the present company not to look for their own faces in my mirror. For the mirror is cracked... This is followed by a list of the persons who appear (see p. 151). It seems clear that at the stage when the text B was written my father's idea was far less elaborate than it became; intending perhaps, so far as the form was concerned, no more than a jeu d'esprit for the entertainment of the Inklings - while the titles seem to emphasise that it was to be, in patt, the vehicle of criticism and discussion of aspects of Lewis's 'planetary' novels. Perhaps he called to mind the witty and ingenious method that Lewis had devised for his criticism of The Lay of Leithian in 1930 (see The Lays of Beleriand, p. 151). - So far as I can see, there is no indication that at this stage he envisaged the form that Part Two of the Papers would take, and definite evidence to the contrary (see pp. 281 - 2). There are several drafts for a more circumstantial account of the Papers and of how they came to light, preceding the elaborate form in the final text that follows. They were found at the University Press waiting to be pulped, but no one knew how they had got there; or they were found 'at Messrs. Whitburn and Thoms' publishing house'.(7) The mediaeval dialogue from which the name Nicholas Guildford is derived is The Owl and the Nightingale, a debate in verse written between 1189 and 1216. To the Owl's question, who shall decide between them, the Nightingale replies that Maister Nichole of Gulde- forde is the obvious choice, since he is prudent, virtuous, and wise, and an excellent judge of song. The List of Members. At the top of a page that preceded the manuscript A and is almost certainly the first setting down of the opening passage of Night 60 of ', the Papers (see p. 211, note 7) my father wrote these names: Ramer Latimer Franks Loudham Dolbear Beneath Ramer he wrote 'Self', but struck it out, then 'CSL' and 'To', these also being struck out. Beneath Latimer he wrote 'T', beneath Franks 'CSL', beneath Loudham 'HVD' (Hugo Dyson), and beneath Dolbear 'Havard'. This is the only actual identification of members of the Notion Club with members of the Inklings that is found. The name Latimer (for Guildford) remained that of the Club's 'reporter' in manuscript A; it is derived from Old French latinier ('Latiner', speaker of Latin), meaning an interpreter. Loudham (so spelt in A and B, and initially in the manuscript E of Part Two) would obviously be Dyson even without 'HVD' written beneath (see Humphrey Carpenter, The Inklings, pp. 212 - 13); and since Franks (only becoming Frankley in the third text C) is here Lewis, I suppose that my father felt that the name was appropriate to his character. The other two names were presumably 'significant', but I do not know what the significance was. Dolbear is an uncommon surname, but there was a chemist's shop in Oxford called Dolbear & Goodall, and I recollect that my father found this particularly engaging; it may be that he simply found in Dolbear the chemist a comic appropriateness to Havard, or to Havard as he was going to present him. Ramer is very puzzling; and here there is no certain identification with one of the Inklings in the list. The various dictionaries of English surnames that I have consulted do not give the name. The only suggestion that I can make is that my father derived it from the dialectal verb rame, with these meanings given in the Oxford English Dictionary: 'to shout, cry aloud, scream; keep up the same cry, continue repeating the same thing; obtain by persistent asking; repeat, run over'; cf. also the English Dialect Dictionary, ed. Joseph Wright (with which he was very familiar: he called it 'indispensable', Letters no. 6), ream verb 3, also raim, rame, etc., which gives similar meanings, and also 'to talk nonsense, rave'. But this seems far-fetched. At any rate, this list is interesting as suggesting that my father started out with the idea of a series of definite 'equivalences', distorted no doubt but recognisable. But I think that this plan very quickly dissolved, because he found that it would not suit his purpose; and not even in the earliest text does there seem to be any clearer association with individual Inklings than there is in the final form of the Papers, with the possible exception of Lowdham. In A his interventions are limited to jocular facetiousness, and the interest that in the later form of part One (pp. 199 - 201) he shows in 'Old Solar' and in Ramer's names of other worlds is in A given to Dolbear (and then in B to Guildford). It would not suit my father's purpose, because in 'The Ramblings of Ramer' he wished to allow his own ideas the scope, in the form of a discussion and argument, that they would never have had in fact, in an actual meeting of the Inklings. The professional knowledge and intellectual interests of the members of the Notion Club are such as to make this symposium possible. On p. 149 I have given the second version of a title-page, in which after the author's 'aside to the audience', warning them 'not to look for their own faces in my mirror', there follows a list of the members of the Club. At this stage only six members were listed (plus Cameron); and of these six, Ramer is Professor of Finno-Ugric, Guildford is a Comparative Philologist, and Loudham has 'special interests in Icelandic and Anglo-Saxon', while the chemist Dolbear 'concerns himself with psychoanalysis and related aspects of language'. At this stage Frankley is a lecturer in French, changed to the Clarendon Reader in English Literature, 'with a taste for the Romance literatures and a distaste for things Germanic', while the statement of Jeremy's position and interests is much as in the final list. Ramer, Jeremy, Guildford and Frankley all have 'a taste for romances of travel in Space and Time.' The enlarged list of members in the final form (pp. 159 - 60), most of whom do not have even walk-on parts, served the purpose, I suppose, of creating an impression of a more amorphous group surrounding the principals. The polymathy of the monk Dom Jonathan Markison extends to some very recondite knowledge of Germanic origins, while Ranulph Stainer appears in Part Two as a sceptical and rather superior onlooker at the strange proceedings. The surname of the apparently speechless undergraduate John Jethro Rashbold is a translation of Tolkien (Toll-kuhn: see Letters no. 165 and note 1). In Part Two appears 'old Professor Rashbold at Pembroke', the Anglo-Saxon scholar described by Lowdham as 'a grumpy old bear' (p. 256 and note 72). There are no doubt other hidden puns and jokes in the list of members. In my view it would be useless to seek even any 'intellectual equival- ence' with historical persons, let alone portraiture (for a list of those who came often - but not all at the same period - to the Inklings, with brief biographies, see Humphrey Carpenter, The Inklings, Appendix A). The fact that Lowdham is 'loud' and makes jokes often at inappro- priate moments derives from Dyson (but he was wittier than Lowd- ham), yet Lowdham is the very antithesis of Dyson in his learning and interests; no doubt Frankley's horror borealis is a reminiscence of Dyson also, though it is profoundly un-Dysonian to have read mediaeval works on Saint Brendan (p. 265). In earlier drafts of the list of members Dolbear has no position in the University, and with his red hair and beard and his nickname in the Club (see Letters no. 56) he can be seen as a sort of parody of Havard. But these things are marginal to the ideas expounded and debated in the Papers; essen- tially, the members of the Notion Club are fictions, and become more obviously so in Part Two. Scarcely a sentence remained entirely unchanged between text A and text D of Part One, but in my notes all this development is largely ignored when (as for the most part it is) it is a matter of improvement in the expression or of amplification of the argument. Similarly, the ascription of speeches to speakers underwent many changes in the earlier texts, but in general I do not record them. I do not enter in this book into any critical discussion of the topics and issues raised in 'The Ramblings of Michael Ramer'. This is partly because I am not well qualified to discuss them, but also because they fall somewhat outside the scope and aim of The History of Middle- earth, which is above all to present accurate texts accurately ordered (so far as I am able) and to elucidate them comparatively, within the context of 'Middle-earth' and the lands of the West. With very limited time at my disposal for this book I have thought that I could better devote it in any case to clarification of the complexities of the 'Numenorean' material. The notes are therefore very restricted in scope and are often trivial in relation to the content of the discussion, being mostly concerned with the elucidation of references that may be obscure and not easily tracked down, with comparison of earlier forms of certain passages, and with citation of other writings of my father's. I do not suppose that many readers of this book will be unacquainted with the novels of C. S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet (1938), Perelandra (1943), and That Hideous Strength (1945), but I have provided a few explanations and references. Why my father abandoned The Notion Club Papers I do not know. It may be that he felt that the work had lost all unity, that 'Atlantis' had broken apart the frame in which it had been set (see pp. 281 - 2). But I think also that having forced himself to return to The Lord of the Rings, and having brought it to its end, he was then deflected into the very elaborate further work on the legends of the Elder Days that preceded the actual publication of The Lord of the Rings. However it was, the Notion Club was abandoned, and with it his final attempt to embody the riddle of AElfwine and Eadwine in a 'tale of time'. But from its forgotten Papers and the strange figure of Arundel Lowdham there emerged a new conception of the Downfall of Numenor, embodied in a different tradition, which would come to constitute a major element in the Akallabeth many years later. NOTES. 1. In a note to this passage in my father's letter Humphrey Carpenter remarks: 'Lewis's next published novel after That Hideous Strength and The Great Divorce was The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Tolkien is, however, almost certainly referring to some other book of Lewis's that was never completed.' The Great Divorce was published in 1946; Lewis was reading it aloud in April and May 1944 (Letters no. 60, 69, 72). It may be mentioned here that my father had evidently discussed with Lewis the matter of 'true dreams': an important element in the plot of That Hideous Strength is Jane Studdock's 'tendency to dream real things', in the words of Miss Ironwood (Chapter 3, $iii), and this can hardly be a mere coincidence. It is presumably not coincidental either that there should be so many references to 'Numinor' in That Hideous Strength (published in 1945); see p. 303 and note 15. 2. On the final text D of Part One the heading of the first page (after Leaves from the Notion Club Papers ): Part I / The Ramblings of Michael Ramer / Out of the Talkative Planet' was struck out. The final text F of Part Two has no heading at the beginning. A pencilled title page apparently accompanying the manuscript E has 'Leaves from the Notion Club Papers / II / The Strange Case of Arundel Lowdham'. 3. A very brief report of an earlier meeting was added at the begin- ning of the text in the course of the development of Part One. 4. A pointer to this is the fact that in B the name is spelt Loudham throughout; in E it begins as Loudham but becomes Lowdham in the course of the writing of the manuscript; in C it is Lowdham from the first. See further p. 282. 5. Cf. the close relation of the manuscript of The Lost Road and the original text of The Fall of Numenor, V.9. 6. Beyond Probability is a pun on the title of Lewis's book Beyond Personality, which had been published in 1944. 7. That Whitburn (and Thoms) is a play on the name Blackwell, the Oxford bookseller and publisher, is seen from the fact that the firm was originally Basil Blackwell and Mott. Leaves from THE NOTION CLUB PAPERS. FOREWORD. These Papers have a rather puzzling history. They were found after the Summer Examinations of 2012 on the top of one of a number of sacks of waste paper in the basement of the Examination Schools at Oxford by the present editor, Mr. Howard Green, the Clerk of the Schools. They were in a disordered bundle, loosely tied with red string. The outer sheet, inscribed in large Lombardic capitals: NOTION CLUB PAPERS, attracted the notice of Mr. Green, who removed them and scrutinized them. Discovering them to contain much that was to him curious and interesting, he made all possible enquiries, without result. The Papers, from internal evidence, clearly had no connexion with any examinations held or lectures given in the Schools during Mr. Green's many years of office. Neither did they belong to any of the libraries housed in the building. Advertise- ment has failed to find any claimant to ownership. It remains unknown how the Papers reached the waste-paper sack. It seems probable that they had at some time been prepared for publication, since they are in many places provided with notes; yet in form they are nothing more than an elaborate minute- book of a club, devoted to conversation, debate, and the discussion of 'papers', in verse or prose, written and read by its members, and many of the entries have no particular interest for non-members. The minutes, or reports, covered probably about 100 meet- ings or 'nights' during the years of last century, approximately 1980 to 1990. It is, however, not the least curious fact about these Papers that no such club appears ever to have existed. Though certain resemblances are inevitable between a group of imaginary academic persons and their real contemporaries, no such persons as those here depicted, either with such names, or such offices, or such tastes and habits, can be traced in the Oxford of the last generation, or of the present time. The author appears in one or two passages, and in the occasional notes, to identify himself with the character called in -': the dialogues Nicholas Guildford. But Mr. J. R. Titmass, the well-known historian of twentieth-century Oxford, who has given all possible assistance to the present editor, has shown that this is certainly a fictitious name and derived from a mediaeval dialogue at one time read in the Schools of Oxford. On examination the bundle was found to contain 205 foolscap pages, all written by one hand, in a careful and usually legible script. The leaves were disarranged but mostly num- bered. The bundle contains the entries for Nights 51 to 75, but they are defective and several leaves appear to have been lost; some of the longer entries are incomplete. It is probable that three other bundles, containing Nights 1 - 25, 26 - 50, 76 - 100, once existed. Of the missing sections, however, only a few scattered sheets were found in the sack, and these, so far as can be discerned, belonged originally to the entries 1 - 25. Among them was a crumpled and much corrected sheet, of a different paper, containing a list of members. The total on this scale would have made a volume of considerable bulk, but its size will be overestimated, if calcula- tion is based on the length of the extracts here printed. Many Nights are represented only by a few lines, or by short entries, of which Nights 54 and 64 have been included as specimens. As a rule these short items have been omitted, unless they bear closely on the longer reports here selected and presented to those interested in literary curiosities. Note to the Second Edition. Mr. W. W. Wormald of the School of Bibliopoly, and Mr. D. N. Borrow of the Institute of Occidental Languages, found their curiosity aroused by the published extracts, and asked Mr. Green for permission to examine the manuscript of the Papers. They have now sent in a joint report, which raises some interesting points. 'Paper of this kind,' they write, 'is, of course, very difficult to trace or to date. The sheets submitted to us are of a poor quality much inferior to the paper now in general use for such purposes. Without venturing on a definite opinion, we record our sus- picion that these sheets are much older than the dates of the supposed meetings of the Club, perhaps 40 to 50 years older, belonging, that is, to the period during or just after the Six Years' War. This suspicion is supported by various items of internal evidence, notably the idiom of the dialogues, which is old-fashioned and does not represent with any fidelity the colloquial language either of the nineteen-eighties or of the present time. We conclude, then, that The Notion Club Papers were written sixty years ago, or more. 'It remains, nonetheless, on this hypothesis a puzzling fact that the Great Explosion of 1975 is referred to, and even more precisely, the Great Storm, which actually occurred on the night of Thursday, June 12th, 1987;(1) though certain inaccuracies appear in the account given of the progress and effects of the latter event. Mr. Green has proposed to us a curious explana- tion of this difficulty, evidently suggested to him by the contents of the Papers: the future events were, he thinks, "foreseen". In our opinion a less romantic but more probable solution is this: the paper is part of a stock purchased by a man resident in Oxford about 1940. He used the paper for his minutes (whether fictitious or founded on fact), but he did not use all his stock. Much later (after 1987) he copied out his matter again, using up the old paper; and though he did not make any general revision, he moved the dates forward and inserted the genuine references to the Explosion and the Storm.' Mr. Green rejoins: 'This is one of the most fantastic "prob- able solutions" I have yet met, quite apart from the unlikelihood of an inferior paper being stored for about fifty years and then used for the same purpose again. The writer was not, I think, a very young man; but the handwriting is certainly not that of an old man. Yet if the writer was not young in 1940, he must have been old, very old, in 2000. For it is to that date, not to 1987, that we must look. There is a point that has escaped the notice of Messrs. Wormald and Borrow: the old house, no. 100 Banbury Road, the last private dwelling house in that block, was in fact the scene of "hauntings",* a remarkable display of poltergeist activity, between the years 2000 and 2003, which only ended when the house was demolished and a new building, attached to the Institute of National Nutrition, erected on the site. In the year 2003 a person possessed of the paper, the (* See Night 61, p. 179.) pen-habits,* and the idiom of the period of the Six Years' War would have been an oddity that no pseudonym could conceal from us. 'In any case, the Storm is integral to all the entries from Night 63 to Night, [sic] and is not just "inserted". Messrs. Wormald and Borrow must either neglect their own evidence and place the whole composition after 1987, or else stick to their own well-founded suspicions of the paper, the hand,* and the idiom, and admit that some person or persons in the nineteen-forties possessed a power of "prevision". 'Mr. Titmass informs me that he cannot find any record in the nineteen-forties of the names given in the list. If therefore, any such club existed at that earlier period, the names remain pseudonyms. The forward dating might have been adopted as an additional screen. But I am now convinced that the Papers -'. are a work of fiction; and it may well be that the predictions (notably of the Storm), though genuine and not coincidences, were unconscious: giving one more glimpse of the strange processes of so-called literary "invention", with which the Papers are largely concerned.' MEMBERS OF THE NOTION CLUB. The Notion Club, as depicted, was informal and vague in outline. A number of characters appear in the dialogues, some rarely or fitfully. For the convenience of readers the List of Members found among the Papers is here printed, though several of the persons named do not appear in this selection. The order is not alphabetical and seems intended to represent some kind of seniority: the first six names were written earlier and larger; the rest were added at various times and in different inks, but in the same hand. There are also later entries inserted after some of the names, recording details of their tastes or history. A few further details, gleaned from the Papers them- selves, have been added in brackets. (* Mr. Wormald himself, something of an expert in such matters, before he proposed his 'probable solution', ventured the opinion that the handwriting of the Papers in general character went with the old-fashioned idiom and belonged to the same period. The use of a pen rather than a typewriter would indeed, in itself, already have been most unusual for a man of 1990, whatever his age.) MICHAEL GEORGE RAMER. Jesus College. Born 1929 (in Hungary). Professor of Finno-Ugric Philology; but better known as a writer of romances. His parents returned to England when he was four; but he spent a good deal of time in Finland and Hungary between 1956 and 68. [Among his interests are Celtic languages and antiquities.] RUPERT DOLBEAR. Wadham. Born 1929. Research Chem- ist. Has many other interests, notably philosophy, psychoanaly- sis, and gardening. [A close friend of Ramer. He is redhaired and redbearded, and known to the Club as Ruthless Rufus.] NICHOLAS GUILDFORD. Lincoln. Born 1937. Archaeol- ogist. The Club reporter; because he likes it and knows short- hand. [He is seldom recorded as reading anything to the Club, and it is then not reported; but he appears to have written several novels.] ALWIN ARUNDEL LOWDHAM. B.N.C. Born 1938. Lec- turer in English Language. Chiefly interested in Anglo-Saxon, Icelandic, and Comparative Philology. Occasionally writes comic or satirical verse. [Known as Arry.] PHILIP FRANKLEY. Queen's. Born 1932. A poet, once well-known as a leader of the Queer Metre movement; but now just a poet, still publishing volumes of collected verse; suffers from horror borealis (as he calls it) and is intolerant of all things Northern or Germanic. [He is, all the same, a close friend of Lowdham.] WILFRID TREWIN JEREMY. Corpus Christi. Born 1942. University Lecturer in English Literature. He specializes in Escapism, and has written books on the history and criticism of Ghost-stories, Time-travel, and Imaginary Lands. James Jones. Born 1927. Has been a schoolmaster, journalist, and playwright. Is now retired, living in Oxford, and divides his time between producing plays and his hobby of private printing. A very silent man, but assists the Reporter with his retentive memory. Dr. Abel Pitt. Trinity. Born 1928. Formerly Chaplain of Trinity College; now Bishop of Buckingham. Scholar, occa- sional poet. Colombo Arditi. St. John's. Born 1940. Tempestosa Professor of Italian. Is fond of (and not unskilled in) singing (basso), swimming, and the game of bowls. Collects books and cats. Dom Jonathan Markison, O.S.B.(2) New College, Master of St. Cuthbert's Hall. [Polymath.] Sir Gerard Manface. All Souls. Lawyer. Mountaineer; much travelled. Has many children, for whom he wrote many (unpub- lished) books and tales. [Seldom appears. A special friend of Frankley, but not resident in Oxford.] Ranulph Stainer. University College. Born 1936. Profes- sionally an expert in banking and economics; privately devoted to the history and practice of music, and has composed several works, major and minor, including one (moderately successful) opera: Midas. Alexander Cameron. Exeter. Born 1935. Modern historian, specially interested in Spanish and South American history. Collects coins and stamps. Plays a pianola. [No one remembers his being invited to join the Club, or knows why he comes; but he appears from time to time.] John Jethro Rashbold. Magdalen. Born 1965. Undergradu- ate. Classical scholar; apprentice poet. [Introduced by Frankley, to whom he is much attached.] Note. It is represented as the habit of the Club for all - members to initial the record of any meeting at which they were present, whether they are reported as speaking or not. Presum- ably the initialling, which in the extant Papers is in the same hand as the text, took place after N.G.'s report has been seen and passed, and before the fair copy was made. Mr. Cameron's initials never appear. Leaves from The NOTION CLUB PAPERS. [PART ONE](3) Night 54. Thursday, November 16th, 1986.(4) A wet night. Only Frankley and Dolbear arrived (Dolbear's house). Dolbear reports that Philip never said a word worth recording, but read him an unintelligible poem about a Mech- anical Nightingale (or he thought that was the subject). Frankley reports that Rufus was drowsy and kept on chuckling to himself. The only clearly audible remark that he made was going off the deep end, I think. This was in reply to an enquiry about Michael Ramer, and whether D. had seen him lately. After F. had read a poem (later read again) called The Canticle of Artegall they parted. R.D. P.F.(5) [One or two minor entries, defectively preserved, are here omitted.] Night 60. Thursday, February 20th, 1987.(6) [Defective at the beginning. Ramer's story is lost.] [When Michael Ramer had finished] reading his story, we sat in silence for a while. He had not read us anything for a long time; in fact he had seldom appeared at meetings for a year or more. His excuses for absence, when he gave any, had been vague and evasive. On this occasion the Club was better attended than usual, and no more easy to please. That hardly accounted for Ramer's nervousness. He is one of our oldest members, and was at one time one of our most frequent performers; but to-night he read hastily, boggling and stumb- ling. So much so that Frankley made him read several sentences over again, though these interruptions, which only made mat- ters worse, are omitted above. Now he was fidgetting. 'Well?' he said at last. 'What do you think of it? Will it do?' A few of us stirred, but nobody spoke. 'Oh, come on! I may as well get the worst over first. What have you got to say?' he urged, turning to Guildford in the next chair. 'I don't know,' Guildford answered reluctantly. 'You know how I dislike criticizing...' 'I've never noticed it before,' said Frankley. 'Go on, Nicholas!' laughed Lowdham. 'You dislike it about as much as Philip dislikes interrupting.' 'At any rate I don't criticize unfinished sentences,' said Guildford. 'If I'd not been interrupted, I was going to say I dislike criticizing off-hand, and still in the heat of listening.' 'In the chill's your more usual temperature,' said Lowdham.(7) 'Most unfair! I'm a voracious reader, and I like stories.' A chorus of incredulous shouts followed, but Guildford could just be heard amending his words, first to I read a good many tales and like most of them, and finally to I do like some stories, including one or two of Ramer's. 'But it's much more difficult,' he went on at last, 'to say anything about the liking, especially so soon. Liking is often much more complex than dislike. And it's less necessary to say anything about it in a hurry. The feeling of liking has a very lasting flavour; it can wait, it's often better for being stored for a bit. But defects stick out all hard and painful, while one's still close at hand.' 'For those who have the knack of seeing them in every literary landscape,' Ramer interposed. 'There are minor ones,' Guildford went on unperturbed, 'that may, of course, get forgotten, or be overlooked by familiarity; but they are better removed while fresh.' 'The sort that Philip corrects at once while you are reading?' said Ramer. 'Yes,' said Guildford. 'But there are more serious faults than his anacolutha and split infinitives that may also get passed, if the thing's allowed to harden. It may be painful for the author to have the blindness of paternal love removed, but it seems the most useful thing to do on the spot. What's the good of sitting here, hearing things before they're in print, if all we're to do is to pat the father's back and murmur: Any child of yours is'.. welcome, Mr. Ramer. Your fiftieth, is it? Well, well! How they do all take after their dear father, don't they?' Lowdham laughed. 'And what you're longing to say, I suppose, is: Why don't you wipe the brat's nose, and get its hair cut?' 'Or strangle it!' said Ramer impatiently. 'No, seriously,' Guildford protested, 'I only objected to parts, not to the whole of your latest infant, Michael. Only to the first chapter and the end of the last one, really. But there! I suppose no one has ever solved the difficulty of arriving, of getting to another planet, no more in literature than in life. Because the difficulty is in fact insoluble, I think. The barrier cannot and will not ever be passed in mortal flesh. Anyway, the opening chapters, the journey, of space-travel tales seem to me always the weakest. Scientifiction, as a rule: and that is a base alloy. Yes it is, Master Frankley, so don't interrupt! Just as much as the word is an ill-made portmanteau: rotten for travelling with. And that goes for your machine, too, Ramer. Though it's one of the better failures, perhaps.' 'Thank you for that!' Ramer growled. 'But it's just like you, Nicholas, to pick on the frame, which is an awkward necessity of pictures, and easy to change anyway, and say nothing about what's inside it. I suppose you must have seen something to praise inside: we know how painful you find praising anything. Isn't that the real reason why you postpone it?' 'Nonsense!' said Guildford. 'I thought what was inside was very good, if you must have it. Though I felt there was something very odd about it.' 'I'm sure you did! ' 'I mean odd coming from you. And in its setting. For you won't get away with that framed excuse. A picture-frame is not a parallel. An author's way of getting to Mars (say) is part of his story of his Mars; and of his universe, as far as that particular tale' goes. It's part of the picture, even if it's only in a marginal position; and it may seriously affect all that's inside.' 'Why should it?' said Frankley. 'Well, if there are space-ships at all in your imagined universe, you'll fail to sell it to me, for one thing,' said Guildford. 'That's carrying your anti-machine mania too far,' said Lowdham. 'Surely poor writers can include things you don't like in their stories?' 'I'm not talking about dislike at the moment,' Guildford returned. 'I'm talking about credibility. I don't like heroic warriors, but I can bear stories about them. I believe they exist, or could. I don't think space-ships do, or could. And anyway, if you pretend that they do, and use them for space-journeys in the flesh, they'll land you in space-ship sort of adventures. If you're spaceship-minded and scientifictitious, or even if you let your characters be so, it's likely enough that you'll find things of that order in your new world, or only see sights that interest such folk.' 'But that isn't true,' Frankley objected. 'It's not true of this story of Ramer's.' 'It's generally true, all too ghastly true.' said Guildford. 'But of course there is a way of escape: into inconsistency, discord. Ramer takes that way, like Lindsay,(8) or Lewis, and the better post-Lewis writers of this sort of thing. You can land on another world in a space-ship and then drop that nonsense, if you've got something better to do there than most of the earlier writers had. But personally I dislike that acutely. It makes the scien- tifictitious bunkum all the worse by contrast. Crystal torpedoes, and "back-rays", and levers for full speed-ahead (faster than light, mark you), are bad enough inside one of those hideous magazines - Dead Sea fruit with gaudy rinds; but in, say, A Voyage to Arcturus * they are simply shocking. All the more so for being unnecessary. David Lindsay had at least two other better methods up his sleeve: the seance connexion; or the suggestion of the dark tower at the end. Thank goodness, there was at any rate no return by crystal torpedo in that tale!'(9) 'But the trick in Out of the Silent Planet, getting the hero kidnapped by space-ship villains, so as to explain how an interesting man ever got inside one, was not bad,' said Frankley. 'And the stupid villainy of the space-ship folk was essential. They behaved as such people would, and the plot depends on that.' 'Not bad, I agree,' said Guildford. 'Still it was, as you say, a trick. And not first rate, not if you want sheer literary credibility, the pure thing, rather than an alloy with allegory and satire. Ramer is not after any such Lewisite alloy; and I think his device of letting an intelligent artist get into a contraption by accident, not knowing what it is, is a mere trick. But what I really object to, in any such tale, however tinged, is the pretence that these contraptions could exist or function at all. They're indefinitely less probable - as the carriers of living, undamaged, human bodies and minds - than the wilder things in fairy-stories; but they pretend to be probable on a more material mechanical level. It's like having to take Heath-Robinsons seriously.' 'But you've got to have some kind of removal van,' said Frankley, 'or else do without this kind of story. They may not be (* This book had recently been rescued from oblivion by Jeremy's book on Imaginary Lands. See the account of his reading parts of this to the Club, above, Nights 30, 33, 40 [not preserved]. Most of the members are fairly well-read in twentieth-century books of travel in Space and Time. N.G.) your sweetmeat, Nicholas, but I've got a tooth for them; and I'm not going to be done out of them by you.' 'You can wallow in Scientifiction mags, for all I care,' said Guildford; 'but I've got to have literary belief in my removal van, or I won't put my furniture into it. I have never met one of these vehicles yet that suspended my disbelief an inch off the floor.' 'Well, your disbelief evidently needs a power-crane,' said Frankley. 'You should look at some of the forgotten Old Masters, like Wells, if you've ever heard of him. I admit that what his first men found in the Moon was a bathos after the journey. But the machine and the journey were splendid. I don't of course, believe in a gravitation-insulator outside the story, but inside the story it worked, and Wells made damned good use of it. And voyages can end in grubby, vulgar, little harbours and yet be very much worth while.' 'It wouldn't be easy to miss the name of Wells with Jeremy always about,' said Guildford. 'And I have read The First Men in the Moon, and The Time Machine. I confess that in The Time Machine the landfall was so marvellous that I could have forgiven an even more ridiculous transport - though it would be difficult to think of one! All the same, the machine was a blemish; and I'm quite unconvinced that it was a necessary one. And if it had been removed - the effect on the whole thing! Enormous enhancement even of that remarkable tale. 'No doubt authors are in as great a hurry to get there as we are; but eagerness doesn't excuse carelessness. And anyway, we're older. We may allow the primitives their ingenuousness: we can't imitate it. Isn't it always so? What might do once won't do any longer. I used to read with gusto romances in which the hero just pushed off into the Blue, over mountains and deserts, without water supplies. But now I feel that procedure is slipshoddy.' 'There's no such word,' said Frankley. 'Shut up! ' said Lowdham. 'I want my man to have his adventures in the Blue, as much as ever, but I want to be made to feel that the author has faced the difficulties and not ignored them, or fudged them. It's usually all the better for the tale in the long run. 'Certainly I'll admit that if I allow Wells his "cavorite",(10) then he makes good use of it. If I'd been a boy when the tale was new, I should have allowed it and enjoyed it. But I can't allow it now. I'm post-Wells. And we're not criticizing him but Ramer, for using at this much later date a rather similar device. Any one who touches space-travel now has got to be much more con- vincing: if indeed a convincing machine is at present possible. Command of power has prodigiously increased, but the problems have become more complex, and not simpler. Scien- tists can't destroy simple faith and hope still to keep it for themselves. A gravitation-insulator won't do. Gravity can't be treated like that. It's fundamental. It's a statement by the Universe of where you are in the Universe, and the Universe can't be tricked by a surname with ite stuck on the end, nor by any such abracadabra. 'And what of the effect on a man of being hurled out of one gravitational field through zero into another? Even on so elementary a journey as one to the Moon?' 'Oh! difficulties of that sort will be got over all right,' said Frankley. 'At least that is what most of the scientists say who are concerned with space-projects.' 'Scientists are as prone to wishful thinking (and talking) as other men, especially when they are thinking about their own romantic hopes and not yours,' said Guildford. 'And they like opening vague, vast, vistas before gapers, when they are per- forming as public soothsayers.' 'I'm not talking about that kind,' said Frankley. 'There are quiet unpublicized people, quite scientific medicos, for instance, who'll tell you that your heart and digestive arrangements, and all that, would function all right, even at, say, zero gravity.' 'I dare say they will,' said Guildford. 'Though I still find it difficult to believe that a machine like our body, made to func- tion under definite earth-conditions, would in fact run on merrily when those were greatly changed - and for a long time, or permanently. Look how quickly we wilt, even on this globe, if we're transferred to unusual heights or temperatures. And the effect on you of greatly increased gravity is rather hushed up, isn't it? * Yet after all that is what you'd be most likely to get at the other end of your journey.' 'That's so,' said Lowdham. 'But people of this blessed century think primarily of travelling and speed, not of destination, or (* Not, of course, in Scientifiction. There it is usually exorcized by mere abracadabra in bogus 'scientific' form. N.G.) settling. It's better to travel "scientifically", in fact, than to get anywhere; or the vehicle justifies the journey.' 'Yes, and it is speed that really bothers me,' said Guildford, 'more than these other difficulties. I don't doubt the possibility of sending a rocket to the Moon. The preparations were knocked back by the Great Explosion,(11) but they say they're under way again. I'll even admit the eventual possibility of landing undamaged human goods on the lunar landscape - though what they'll do there is dubious. But the Moon is very parochial. Rockets are so slow. Can you hope to go as fast as light, anything like as fast?' 'I don't know,' said Frankley. 'It doesn't seem likely at present, but I don't think that all the scientists or mathema- ticians would answer that question with a definite no.' 'No, they're very romantic on this topic,' said Guildford. 'But even the speed of light will only be moderately useful. Unless you adopt a Shavian attitude and regard all these light-years and light-centuries as lies, the magnitude of which is inartistic. If not, you'll have to plan for a speed greater than light; much greater, if you're to have a practical range outside the Solar System. Otherwise you will have very few destinations. Who's going to book a passage for a distant place, if he's sure to die of old age on the way?' 'They still take tickets on the State Railways,' said Lowdham. 'But there's still at least a chance of arriving before death by coach or train,' said Guildford. 'I don't ask for any greater degree of probability from my author: just a possibility not wholly at variance with what we know.' 'Or think we know,' Frankley murmured. 'Quite so,' Guildford agreed. 'And the speed of light, or certainly anything exceeding it, is on that basis incredible: if you're going to be "scientific", or more properly speaking "mechanical". At any rate for anyone writing now. I admit the criteria of credibility may change; though as far as I can see, genuine Science, as distinct from mechanical romance, narrows the possibilities rather than expands them. But 1 still stick to my original point: the "machine" used sets the tone. I found space-ships sufficiently credible for a raw taste, until I grew up and wanted to find something more useful on Mars than ray-guns and faster vehicles. Space-ships will take you to that kind of country, no doubt. But I don't want to go there. There's no need now to travel to find it.' 'No, but there is an attraction in its being far away, even if it's nasty and stupid,' said Frankley. 'Even if it's the same! You could make a good story - inevitably satirical in effect, perhaps, but not really primarily so - out of a journey to find a replica of Earth and its denizens.' 'I daresay! But aren't we getting a bit mixed?' said Lowdham. 'Nick's real point, which he seems to have forgotten as well as the rest of us, was incoherence - discord. That was really quite distinct from his dislike, or his disbelief in mechanical vehicles; though actually he dislikes them, credible or not. But then he began confusing scientific probability with literary credibility.' 'No, I didn't and I don't,' said Guildford. 'Scientific probabil- ity need not be concerned at all. But it has to be, if you make your vehicle mechanical. You cannot make a piece of mechan- ism even sufficiently credible in a tale, if it seems outrageously incredible as a machine to your contemporaries - those whose critical faculties are not stunned by the mere mention of a machine.' 'All right, all right,' said Lowdham. 'But let's get back to the incoherence. It's the discord between the objects and the findings of the better tales and their machines that upsets you. And I think you have something there. Lewis, for instance, used a space-ship, but he kept it for his villains, and packed his hero the second time in a crystal coffin without machinery.' 'Half-hearted,' said Guildford. 'Personally, I found the com- promise very unconvincing. It was wilfully inefficient, too: poor Ransom (12) got half toasted, for no sound reason that I could see. The power that could hurl the coffin to Venus could (one would have thought) have devised a material that let in light without excessive heat. I found the coffin much less credible than the Eldils,(13) and granted the Eldils, unnecessary. There was a page or two of smoke-screen about the outward journey to Perelan- dra, but it was not thick enough to hide the fact that this semi-transparent coffin was after all only a material packing- case, a special one-man space-ship of unknown motive power. It was necessary to the tale, of course, to have safe delivery of Ransom's living terrestrial body in Venus: but this impossible sort of parcel-post did not appeal to me as a solution of the problem. As I say, I doubt if there is a solution. But I should prefer an old-fashioned wave of a wizard's wand. Or a word of power in Old Solar (14) from an Eldil. Nothing less would suffice: a miracle.' 'Why have anything at all?' little Jeremy asked suddenly. So far he had sat curled up on the floor, as near to the fire as he could get, and he had said nothing, though his black birdlike eyes had hopped to and fro from speaker to speaker. 'The best stories I know about imaginary times and lands are just stories about them. Why a wizard? At least, why a wizard, outside the real story, just to waft you into it? Why not apply the Once- upon-a-time method to Space? Do you need more than author's magic? Even old Nick won't deny authors the power of seeing more than their eyes can. In his novels he lets himself look into other people's heads. Why not into distant parts of Space? It's what the author has really got to do, so why conceal it?' 'No, of course I don't deny authors their right of invention, seeing, if you like to call it that,' said Guildford. At that point Dolbear stirred and seemed about to wake up; but he only settled more comfortably into his chair, and his loud breathing went on, as it had since the early part of Ramer's story. 'But that's a different kind of story, Jeremy,' objected Frank- ley. 'Quite good in its way. But I want to travel in Space and ' Time myself; and so, failing that, I want people in stories to do it. I want contact of worlds, confrontation of the alien. You say, Nick, that people cannot leave this world and live, at least not beyond the orbit of the Moon?' 'Yes, I believe they could not, cannot, and never will.' 'Very well then, all the more reason for having stories about they could or they will. Anybody would think you'd gone back to all that old-fashioned stuff about escapism. Do you object to fairy-tales? ' 'No, I don't. But they make their own worlds, with their own laws.' 'Then why can't I make mine, and let its laws allow space- ships?' 'Because it won't then be your private world, of course,' said Guildford. 'Surely that is the main point of that kind of story, at an intelligent level? The Mars in such a story is Mars: the Mars that is. And the story is (as you've just admitted) a substitute for satisfaction of our insatiable curiosity about the Universe as it is. So a space-travel story ought to be made to fit, as far as we can see, the Universe as it is. If it doesn't or doesn't try to, then it does become a fairy-story - of a debased kind. But there is no need to travel by rocket to find Faerie. It can be anywhere, or nowhere.' 'But supposing you did travel, and did find Fairyland?' asked Ramer, suddenly. For some time now he had been staring at the fire, and had seemed to take very little interest in the battle that had been going on about him. Jeremy gaped at him, and jumped to his feet. 'But not by space-ship surely!' he cried. 'That would be as depressingly vulgar as the other way about: like an awful story I came across once, about some men who used a magic carpet for cheap power to drive a bus.' 'I'm glad to get you as an ally!' laughed Guildford. 'For you're a hardened sinner: you read that bastard stuff, scientific- tion, not as a casual vice, but actually as a professional interest.' 'The stuff is extremely interesting,' said Jeremy. 'Seldom as art. Its art level is as a rule very low. But literature may have a pathological side - still you've heard me on all that often enough. On this point I'm with you. Real fairy-stories don't pretend to produce impossible mechanical effects by bogus machines.' 'No. And if Frankley wants fairy-tales with mechanized dragons, and quack formulas for producing power-swords, or anti-dragon gas, or scientifictitious explanations of invisibility, well, he can have 'em and keep 'em. No! For landing on a new planet, you've got your choice: miracle; magic; or sticking to normal probability, the only known or likely way in which any one has ever landed on a world.' 'Oh! So you've got a private recipe all the time, have you?' said Ramer sharply. 'No, it's not private, though I've used it once.' 'Well? Come on! What is it?' 'Incarnation. By being born, said Guildford.(15) At that point Dolbear woke up. He yawned loudly, lifted his heavy lids, and his blue-bright eyes opened wide under his red brows. He had been audibly sleeping for a long while,* but we (* He often slept loudly, during a long reading or discussion. But he would rouse up in the middle of a debate, and show that he had the odd faculty of both sleeping and listening. He said that it was a time-saving habit that long membership of the Club had forced him to acquire. N.G.) were used to the noise, and it disturbed us no more than the sound of a kettle simmering on the fire. 'What have you got to say to that, Ramer?' he asked. He shot a sharp glance at him, but Ramer made no reply. Dolbear yawned again. 'I'm rather on Nick's side,' he said. 'Certainly about the first chapter in this case.' 'Well, that was read at the beginning, before you settled down for your nap,' said Lowdham. Dolbear grinned. 'But it was not that chapter in itself that interested me,' he said. 'I think most of the discussion has been off the point, off the immediately interesting point. The hottest trail that Nicholas got on to was the discord, as you said yourself, Arry.(16) That's what you should follow up now. I should feel it strongly, even if space-ships were as regrettably possible as the Transatlantic Bus-service. Michael! Your real story is wholly out of keeping with what you called the frame. And that's odd in you. I've never felt such a jar before, not in any of your work. I find it hard to believe that the machine and the tale were made by the same man. Indeed, I don't think they were. You wrote the first chapter, the space-voyage, and also the homecoming (rather slipshod that, and my attention wan- dered): you made it up, as they say. And as you've not tried your hand at that sort of thing before, it was not much above the average. But I don't think you wrote the story inside. I wonder what you've been up to?' 'What are you driving at?' said Jeremy. 'It was typical Ramer all through, nearly every sentence was hall-marked. And even if he wanted to put us off with borrowed goods, where could he get them from?' 'You know his itch to re-write other people's bungled tales,' said Lowdham. 'Though certainly he's never tried one on us before, without telling us.' 'I know all that,' said Jeremy, hopping about angrily. 'I mean: where could he get this tale from? If he has found any printed space-travel story that I don't know, then he's been doing some pretty hot research. I've never met anything like it at all.' 'You're missing my point,' said Dolbear. 'I shouldn't have said wrote. I should have said made up, invented. I say again: I wonder what you've been up to, Ramer?' 'Telling a story,' answered Ramer glumly, staring at the fire. 'Yes,' said Dolbear. 'But don't try to do that in the nursery sense, or we'll have to roast you.' He got up and looked round at us all. His eyes looked very bright under bristling brows. He turned them sharply on Ramer. 'Come!' he said. 'Come clean! Where's this place? And how did you get there?' 'I don't know where it is,' said Ramer quietly, still staring at the fire. 'But you're quite right. I went there. At least... well, I don't think our language fits the case. But there is such a world, and I saw it - once.' He sighed. We looked at him for a long while. All of us - except Dolbear, I think - felt some alarm, and pity. And on the surface of our minds blank incredulity, of course. Yet it was not quite that: we did not feel the underlying emotion of incredulity. For appar- ently all of us, in some degree, had sensed something odd about that story, and now recognized that it differed from the norm like seeing does from imagining. I felt that it was like the difference between a bright glimpse of a distant landscape: threadlike waters really falling; wind ruffling the small green leaves and blowing up the feathers of birds on the branches, as that can be seen through a telescope: limited but clear and coloured; flattened and remote, but moving and real - between that and any picture. Not, it seemed to me, an effect to be explained simply by art. And yet - the explanation offered was nonsense outside the pages of a romance; or so I found that most of us felt at that moment. We tried a few 'more questions, but Ramer would not say any more that night. He seemed disgruntled, or tired; though we had not scoffed. To relieve the tension, Frankley read us a short poem he had recently written. It was generous of him, for it was a good piece; but inevitably it fell rather flat. It is, however, pretty well-known now, as it appeared as the opening poem of his 1989 volume: Experiments in Pterodactylics. We broke up soon after he had read it. 'Ramer,' I said at the door, 'we must hear some more about this, if you can bear it. Can't you come next week?' 'Well, I don't know,' he began. '0 don't go off to New Erewhon again just yet!' cried Lowdham, a bit too jocularly. [I don't think so. A.A.L.] 'We want more News from Nowhere.'(17) 'I did not say it was Nowhere,' said Ramer gravely. 'Only that it was Somewhere. Well, yes, I'll come.' I walked part of the way home with him. We did not talk. It was a starry night. He stopped several times and looked up at the sky. His face, pale in the night, had a curious expression, I thought: like a man in a strange country trying to get the points of the compass, and wondering which way his home lies. In the Turl (18) we parted. I think what the Club really needs is not more stories - yet,' I said. 'They need, I specially want, some description of the method, if you could manage it.' Ramer said nothing. 'Well, good night!' I said. 'This has been one of the great Club evenings, indeed! Who'd have thought that in starting up that literary hare about the most credible way of opening a space-tale I'd blunder on the lair of a real winged dragon, a veritable way of travelling!' 'Then you do believe me?' said Ramer. 'I thought that all of you but Dolbear thought I was spoofing, or else going batty. You in particular, Nick.' 'Certainly not spoof, Michael. As for battiness: well, in a sense, your claim is a batty one, even if genuine, isn't it? At least, it is, if I've any inkling of it. Though I've nothing to go on but impressions, and such hints as I've managed to get out of Rufus about your recent doings. He's the only one of us that has seen much of you for quite a time; but I rather fancy that even he does not know a great deal?' Ramer laughed quietly. 'You're a hound, I mean a sleuth- hound, by nature, Nicholas. But I am not going to lay down any more trail tonight. Wait till next week! You can then have a look at my belfry and count all the bats. I'm tired.' 'Sleep well! ' I said. 'I do,' said Ramer. 'Very well indeed. Good night! ' MGR. NG. AAL. PF. WTJ. RD. JJ. Night 61. Thursday, February 27th, 1987.(19) A week later we were all together again, in Frankley's rooms this time; and even Cameron had come. As will be seen, he actually made a remark on this occasion, more than his stock 'Thanks for a very enterrtaining evening.' It was generally understood that Ramer was going to read a paper on Real Space-travel. He was the last to arrive, and we were pleasantly surprised to see that he looked quite well, quite normal, and had not even the rather haggard look he used to have after writing a paper. He spends a frightful lot of late hours on such things, and burns more paper than he keeps. Arry Lowdham (20) tapped him all over and pretended to be disappointed by the result. 'No models!' he cried. 'No plans of cylinders, spheres, or anything! Not even a Skidbladnir for a pocket-handkerchief!'(21) 'Now, none of that Nordic stuff, please!' groaned Frankley, who regards knowledge of his own language at any period before the Battle of Bosworth as a misdemeanour, and Norse as a felony.(22) 'No, not even a paper,' said Ramer. 'Why not?' we all cried. 'Because I haven't written one.' 'Oh I say! ' we protested. 'Then you were spoofing all the time?' said Lowdham. 'No,' said Ramer. 'But I'm not going to read a paper. I didn't write one, because it would have been a great sweat; and I wasn't sure that you'ld really want to hear any more about it all. But if you do, I'm ready to talk.' 'Come on!' we said. Frankley shoved him down into a chair, and gave him a tankard of beer, and a box of matches - for him to strike, hold over a dead pipe, and throw away, as usual. 'Well,' he said after a short silence. 'It begins some way back. And the threads may seem a bit disconnected at first. The origins were literary, of course, like the discussion last week. I've always wanted to try a space-travel story, and have never dared. It was one of my earliest ambitions, ever since Out of the Silent Planet appeared, when I was a small boy. That puts it back a bit.' 'Yes, 1938,' said Cameron,(23) whose memory is like that. I doubt if he has ever read the book. The memoirs of minor modern diplomats are more in his line. The remark was his sole contribution. 'I never did write one,' said Ramer, 'because I was always bothered by the machinery, in a literary sense: the way of getting there. I didn't necessarily object to machines; but I never met and couldn't think of any credible vehicle for the purpose. I really agree very much with Nicholas on that point.' 'Well, you tried a pretty ordinary machine on us in that tale,' said Frankley. 'And seemed pretty disgruntled with me for objecting to it,' said Guildford. 'I was not really disgruntled,' said Ramer. 'A bit put out, perhaps, as one is when one's disguise is pierced too quickly. Actually I was interested in the way you all felt the discord: no more than I did myself. But I felt that I had to tell that story to somebody, to communicate it. I wanted to get it out. And yet, and yet now I'm rather sorry. Anyway, I put it in that quickly- made cheap frame, because I didn't want to discuss the way I came by it - at least not yet. But Ruthless Rufus with his was due to obscured symbols, or mythical values, in the dream- scenes; or at least I didn't and don't think that that is true of most of such dream-passages. Many of these "significant patches" seemed to me much more like random pages torn out of a book.' 'But you didn't wriggle out of Rufus's clutches that way, did you?' said Guildford. 'He'll analyse a whole book as cheerfully as a page.' 'It depends on the contents,' said Ramer. 'But I'll come back to that. For at about that time something decisive happened. It seemed to sweep away all other trials and experiments; but I don't think they were really wasted. I think they had a good deal to do with precipitating the, well, catastrophe.' 'Come on, come on! What was it?' said Dolbear. He stopped snoring and sat up. 'It was most like a violent awakening,' said Ramer. He was silent for almost a minute, staring at the ceiling as he lay back in his chair. At last he went on. 'Imagine an enormously long, vivid, and absorbing dream being shattered - say, simultaneously by an explosion in the house, a blow on your body, and the sudden flinging back of dark curtains, letting in a dazzling light: with the result that you come back with a rush to your waking life, and have to recapture it and its connexions, feeling for some time a shock and the colour of dream-emotions: like falling out of one world into another where you had once been but had forgotten it. Well, that was what it was like in reverse; only recapturing the connexions was slower. 'I was awake in bed, and I fell wide asleep: as suddenly and violently as the waker in my illustration. I dived slap through several levels and a whirl of shapes and scenes into a connected and remembered sequence. I could remember all the dreams I had ever had, of that sequence. At least, I remember that I could remember them while I was still "there", better than I can "here" remember a long sequence of events in waking life. And the memory did not vanish when I woke up, and it hasn't vanished. It has dimmed down to normal, to about the same degree as memory of waking life: it's edited: blanks indicating lack of interest, some transitions cut, and so on. But my dream- memories are no longer fragments, no longer like pictures, about the size of my circle of vision with fixed eyes, surrounded with dark, as they used to be, nearly always. They are wide and long and deep. I have visited many other sequences since then, and I can now remember a very great number of serious, free, dreams, my deep dreams, since I first had any.' 'What a lumber-room! ' said Lowdham. 'I said my serious dreams,' said Ramer. 'Of course, I can't, don't want to, and haven't tried to remember all the jumble of marginal stuff - the rubbish the analysts mostly muck about with, because it's practically all they've got - no more than you try to recollect all the scribbling on blotting-paper, the small talk, or the idle fancies of your days.' 'How far have you gone back?' Lowdham asked. 'To the beginning,' Ramer answered. 'When was that?' 'Ah! That depends on what you mean by when,' said Ramer. 'There are seldom any data for cross-timing as between waking and dreaming. Many dreams are in, or are concerned with, times remote from the standpoint of the body. One of those dreams might be said to occur before it started; or after. I've no idea how far I've gone back in that sense, backward in the history of the universe, you might say. But sticking to the waking time, then I suppose I cannot have begun dreaming until I had begun to be: that is, until the creation of my mind, or soul. But I doubt if any ordinary time-reference has any real meaning with regard to that event considered in itself; and the word dreaming ought to be limited to the ... er ... spare-time, off-duty, activities of an incarnate mind. So I should say my dreaming began with the entry of my mind into body and time: somewhere in the year 1929. But that fifty-odd years of our time could contain various indefinite lengths of experience, or opera- tion, or journeying. My earlier experiments were not necessary, except perhaps to help in the precipitation of memory, as I said. My mind "asleep" had long done that sort of thing very much better.' He paused, and we looked at him, some of us a bit queerly. He laughed. 'Don't imagine me walking about "in a dream", as people say. The two modes are no more confused than before. If you had two homes in quite different places, say in Africa and Norway, you'ld not usually be in doubt which one you were staying in at any given time, even if you could not remember the transition. No, at the worst my situation is only like that of a man who has been reading a deeply interesting book, and has it "on his mind", as he goes about his affairs. But the impression can pass off, or be put aside, as in the case of a book. I need not think about my dreams, if I don't wish to, no more than I need think about any book or re-read it.' 'You say re-read. Can you will, now when awake, to go back to any particular dream, to repeat it or go on with it?' asked Frankley. 'And can you remember your waking life while in a dream?' 'As to the last question,' Ramer replied, 'the answer is: in a sense yes. As clearly as you can remember it while writing a story, or deeply engrossed in a book. Only you can't give direct attention to it. If you do, you wake up, of course. 'The other question's more difficult. Dreams are no more all of one sort than the experiences of waking life; less so in fact. They contain sensations as different as tasting butter and understanding a logical argument; stories as different in length and quality as one of Arry's lower anecdotes and the Iliad; and pictures as unlike as a study of a flower-petal and those photographs of the explosion in the Atomic Reservation in the seventies,(36) which blew the Black Hole in the States. Dreams happen, or are made, in all sorts of ways. Those that people mostly remember, and remember most of, are marginal ones, of course, or on the upper levels...' 'Margins? Upper levels? What d'you mean?' snapped Jones,(37) breaking in, to our surprise. 'Just now you spoke of diving. When do we get to the bottom?' 'Never,' Ramer laughed. 'Don't take my words too literally, at any rate no more literally than I suppose you take the sub in subconscious. I'm afraid I haven't thought out my terminology very carefully, James; but then I didn't mean to talk about these things to you, not yet. I've been put on the mat. I think I meant deep as in deeply interested; and down, lower, upper, and all the rest have crept in afterwards, and are misleading. Of course there isn't any distance between dreams and waking, or one kind of dream and another; only an increase or decrease of abstraction and concentration. In some dreams there's no dis- traction at all, some are confused by distractions, some just are distractions. You can lie "deep" and sodden in body-made dreams, and receive clear visions in "light" sleep (which might seem on the very margin of waking). But if I use "deep" again you'll know that I mean dreams as remote as may be from disturbance, dreams in which the mind is seriously engaged. 'By the marginal ones I meant those that are produced when the mind is playing, idling, or fooling, as it often is, mooning aimlessly about among the memories of the senses - because it's tired, or bored, or out of mental sorts, or worried by sense- messages when its desires or attention are elsewhere; the devil's tattoo of dreaming as compared with the piano-playing. Some minds, perhaps, are hardly capable of anything else, sleeping or waking. 'And the machinery may go on ticking over, even when the mind is not attending. You know how you've only got to do something steadily for hours - like picking blackberries, say - and even before you're asleep the manufacture of intricate trellises of briars and berries goes on in the dark, even if you're thinking of something else. When you begin to dream you may start by using some of those patterns. I should call that "marginal". And anything else that is largely due to what is actually going on, in and around the body: distraction com- plexes in which such things as "noises off", indigestion, or a leaking hot-water-bottle play a part. 'Asking if you can re-visit that stuff is like asking me if I can will to see (not make) rain tomorrow, or will to be waked up again by two black cats fighting on the lawn. But if you're talking about serious dreams, or visions, then it's like asking if I shall walk back up the road again last Tuesday. The dreams are for your mind events. You can, or might - waking desire has some effect, but not much - go back to the same "places" and "times", as a spectator; but the spectator will be the you of now, a later you, still anchored as you are, however remotely, to your body time-clock here. But there are various complications: you can re-inspect your memories of previous inspections, for one thing; and that is as near to dreaming the same dream over again as you can get (the closest parallel is reading a book for a second time). For another thing, thought and "invention" goes on in dreams, a lot of it; and of course you can go back to your own work and take it up again - go on with the story-making, if that is what you were doing.' 'What a busy time we all seem to have been having without knowing it,' said Lowdham. 'Even old Rufus may not be quite such a sloth as he looks. Anyway you've given him a jolly good excuse to fall back on. "Goodbye all! I'm off to my dream-lab to see if the retorts are bubbling," says he, and he's snoring in two ticks.' 'I leave the bubbling retorts to you,' said Dolbear, opening his eyes. 'I am afraid I've not yet got down to such high levels as Michael, and I muck about still with the marginal stuff, as he calls it. Tonight at any rate I've been having a bit of a dream: in the rootling stage, I suppose, owing to the distraction of this discussion going on round my body. I got a picture of Ramer, equipped with Frankley's long nose, trying to extract whiskey out of a bottle; he couldn't pour it out, as he had no arms, only a pair of black wings, like a devil in a stuffed M.A. gown.' 'The whiskey-bottle was not derived from the sense-data in this room,' said Lowdham. 'Now I can sympathize with the psychoanalysts,' said Frank- ley, rising and getting a bottle out of the cupboard. 'The difficulty they must have in sorting out dreams from the malicious inventions of the patient's waking mind!' 'No difficulty with Rufus,' said Lowdham. 'The drink-urge explains most of him. And I don't think he's got a Censor, sleeping or waking.' 'Hm! I'm glad I'm so transparent,' said Dolbear. 'Not everyone is so simple, Arry. You walk in disguises, even when awake. But they'll slip, my lad, one day. I shouldn't wonder if it was fairly soon.'(38) 'Lor!' said Lowdham. 'Have I come out in a false beard and forgotten it, or something?' But at that moment he caught a glint in Dolbear's eye, and stopped suddenly. 'Go on, Michael, and don't take any notice of them!' said Jeremy. 'Shall I?' he asked, absentmindedly drinking the whiskey that Frankley had put at Dolbear's elbow. 'Of course!' we said. 'We are fortified now.' 'Well, seriously,' he went on, 'I don't think the marginal stuff is very interesting in normal people: it's so ravelled, and more bother to unravel than it's worth. It's very much like the idleness and foolery of the waking mind. The chief distinction is, I think, that when a man's awake he's attending more to the foolery; and when he's asleep his attention is probably already far away: so the foolery is less good of its kind. But as for his mind being busy, Arry: I only said, if you remember, that your life could contain a lot of dream-work or events. I don't think it usually does. Minds can be lazy on their own account. Even for the energetic ones sleep is largely a rest. But of course, for a mind rest is not oblivion, which is impossible for it. The nearest it can get to that is passivity: the mind can be very nearly passive, contemplating something worthy of it, or what seems worthy- Or it can take the kind of holiday we call "a change", doing something different to the work imposed on it by needs or duties when it is awake. If it has by nature, or has acquired, some dominant interest - like history, or languages, mathematics - it may at times work away at such things, while the old body is recuperating. It can then construct dreams, by no means always pictorial. It can plan and calculate. 'My mind, like many others, I imagine, makes up stories, composes verse, or designs pictures out of what it has got already, when for some reason it hasn't at the moment a thirst to acquire more. I fancy that all waking art draws a good deal on this sort of activity.(39) Those scenes that come up complete and fixed that I spoke of before, for instance; though some of them, I believe, are visions of real places. 'And that strong feeling of hidden significance in remembered fragments: my experience now, though it is still very imperfect, certainly bears out my guess, as far as my own dreams go. My significant fragments were actually often pages out of stories, made up in quieter dream-levels, and by some chance remem- bered. Occasionally they were bits of long visions of things not invented. 'If long ago you'd either read or written a story and forgotten it, and then in an old drawer you came on a few torn pages of it, containing a passage that had some special function in the whole, even if it had no obvious point in isolation, I think you'ld get very similar feelings: of hidden significance, of lost con- nexions eluding you, and often of regret.' 'Could you give us any examples?' asked Jeremy. Ramer thought for a moment. 'Well,' he said, 'I could have done so. I've placed several of my fragments in their proper setting now. But the difficulty is that when once you've got the whole story, you tend very soon to forget which part of it was the bit you used to remember torn out. But there are a couple that I still remember, for I only placed them recently; and I still remember my disappointment. The whole stories are often not particularly good or interesting, you know; and the charm of the fragments is often largely in being unfinished, as sometimes happens in waking art. The sleeping mind is no cleverer than itself; only it can be less distracted and more collected, more set on using what it has. 'Here's one case: it's only interesting as an illustration. A row of dark houses on the right, going up a slight slope. Their backs had little gardens or yards fenced with hedges, and a narrow path behind them. It was miserably dark and gloomy. Not a light in the houses, not a star, no moon. He was going up the path for no particular reason, in a heavy aimless mood. Near the top of the slope he heard a noise: a door had opened at the back of one of the houses, or it had closed. He was startled and apprehensive. He stood still. End, of fragment. What would you expect the emotion to be that this aroused?' 'Like going round to the back-door after closing-time and hearing that just being shut as well?' suggested Lowdham. 'It sounds reasonable enough,' agreed Ramer with a laugh. 'Actually it was a happiness that brings tears, like the thrill of the sudden turn for good in a dangerous tale; and a kind of dew of happiness was distilled that spilled over into waking, lasted for hours, and for years was renewed (though diminishingly) on recollection. 'All my waking mind could make of it was that the picture was sombre. It did rather remind me of - or rather, I identified it, in spite of some misfit, with a row of cottages near where I lived as a small boy. But that did not explain the joy. And, by the way, if it had really been a picture of that row, there should have been a pump just at the top of the slope. I put it in. I see it now in dark silhouette. But it was not there in my earliest recollection, not in the original version. Also, I was only the he of the scene in the way one does (or I do) identify oneself variably with this or that character in a tale, especially with regard to the point of vision. The scene was observed more or less from his point of view, though I (the producer) was just behind (and a little above) him - until he stopped. At the emotion-point I took his place. 'The story that scene came out of is known to me now; and it's not very interesting. Apparently it's one I made up years ago,(40) somewhere in the fifties, at a time when, while awake, I wrote lots of things of the sort. I won't bother you with it all: it had a long and complicated plot,(41) mainly dealing with the Six Years' War; but it wasn't very original, nor very good of its kind. All that matters at the moment is that this scene came just before a lovers' reunion, beyond the hope of either the man or the woman. On hearing the noise he halted, with a premonition that something was going to happen. The woman came out of the door, but he did not recognize her till she spoke to him at the gate. If he hadn't halted, they would have missed one another, probably for ever. The plot, of course, explained how they both came to be there, where neither of them had been before; but that doesn't matter now. The interesting thing is that the remembered fragment, for some reason, ended with the sound of the door and the halting; but the emotion left over was due to part of the story immediately following, which was not remem- bered pictorially at all. But there was no trace of the emotions of still later parts of the story, which did not finally have a happy : ending. 'Well, there it is. Not very exciting, but suggestive, perhaps. Do you want the other case?' Dolbear gave a loud snore. 'Hark at him!' said Lowdham. 'I expect he's analysed you enough already, and doesn't want any more of your juvenilia to interrupt his slumber.' 'Oh go on, Ramer!' said Jeremy. 'Let's have it!' 'It's your evening, and we asked for it,' said Guildford. 'Carry on!' 'Well, here's another picture,' said Ramer. A pleasant small room: a pre, a lot of books, a large desk; a golden light from a lamp. He is sitting at the desk. The dreamer's attention, from slightly above his head, is concen- trated on the circle of light, but is vaguely aware of dim figures away in front, moving about, taking books from shelves, reading in corners. He is looking at an open book at his left hand, and making notes on a paper. General air of cheerfulness and quiet. He pauses and looks up as if thinking, knocking his pipe-stem between his teeth. He turns a leaf of the book - and sees a new light, makes a discovery; but the fragment ends. What do you make of that?' 'He'd solved the acrostic with the aid of a dictionary?' said Frankley. 'Emotion: Jack-Hornerism, quiet bibliophilous gloating?' said Lowdham. 'No!' said Ramer. 'Though you're getting warm, Arry. But the emotion associated was worry, with a heavy hang-over into waking hours of a dull sense of loss, as heavy as anything you felt in childhood when something precious was broken or lost.' 'Well, New Readers now go back to Chapter One,' said Lowdham. 'What is it?' 'Rather more unusual than the first case, so I'll tell it more fully,' said Ramer. 'He was the librarian in a small university. The room was his office-study: quite comfortable, but it had a glass wall on one side, through which he could overlook the main hall of the library. He was feeling cheerful, for a few years back a local magnate had left the university a splendid book- collection, and most of his money for the enlargement and upkeep of the library. The library had become important; so had he, and his salary as curator of the endowed collection was generous. And after a lot of delay a new wing had been built, and the books transferred. For some time he'd been carefully re-examining the more interesting items. The book to his left was a volume made up of various manuscript-fragments bound together, probably in the sixteenth century, by some collector or pilferer. 'In the remembered bit of the dream I knew I had been able to read the page before he turned over, and that it was not English; but I could remember no more than that - except that I was delighted, or he was. Actually it was a leaf, a unique fragment of a MS. in very early Welsh, before Geoffrey,(42) about the death of Arthur. 'He turned to look at the back of the leaf - and he found, stuck between it and the next, a document. It turned out to be a will made by the Donor. This book of fragments was one of the last things the magnate had acquired, just before his death. The will was later than the proved and executed will by nearly two years. It was in form, and witnessed, and it did not mention the university, but directed that the books should be dispersed and sold, and the proceeds should go to found a Chair of Basic English in London; while the rest of the estate should go to a nephew, previously passed over. 'The librarian had known the magnate, and had often been to his house: he had helped in cataloguing his collection. He saw that the witnesses were two old servants that had died soon after their master. The emotions are easy to understand: the librarian was proud of his library, a scholar, a lover of real English, and the father of a family; but he was also an honest man. He knew that the Donor had disliked the new Vice- Chancellor very much; also that the nephew was the Donor's next of kin, and poor.' 'Well, what did he do with the will?' said Jeremy. 'On second thoughts he thought it best to stuff it in the old oak chest?' said Lowdham. 'I don't know,' said Ramer. 'Of course it would have been easy and probably quite safe to suppress the will. But I found I had never finished the tale properly, though plenty of sequels could be invented. I found one or two ideas, not worked out, floating at the end. One was that the librarian went to the Vice-Chancellor, who begged him to keep his discovery quiet; he gave way, and was later blackmailed by the Vice-Chancellor himself. But evidently that hadn't seemed satisfactory, or I'd lost interest in the whole thing beyond the recorded situation. I left a good many such yarns incomplete at that time. 'There's little merit in these stories, as you see. But they do illustrate one or two points about fragmentary memory, and about dream-storywriting. For it is not, of course, writing, but a sort of realized drama.' 'Elvish Drama,'(43) Jeremy interposed; 'there's something ab- out it ...' But we had heard him on that topic before. 'Ramer has the floor! ' we cried. 'Well anyway,' Ramer went on: 'the whole story as it is told becomes visible and audible, and the composer is inside it - though he can take his stand in some odd positions (often high up), unless he puts himself into the play, as he can at any moment. The scenes look real, but are feigned; and the composition is not complete like a "slice of life": it can be given in selected scenes, and compressed (like a drama). Also it can, when you're working over it again or merely re-inspecting it, be reviewed in any order and at varying speeds (like re-reading or reconsider- ing a book). I think that is one, though only one, of the reasons why the memory of such dreams, when any survives at all, is so often dissolving or jumbled. The dreamer is aware, of course, that he is author and producer, at any rate while he is at work asleep; but he can get far more absorbed by his work than a waking man is by any book or play that he is either writing or reading; and he can feel the emotions very strongly - excessively sometimes, because they are heightened by the excitement of combining authorship with an acting part; and in memory they may be exaggerated still more through getting dislocated, abstracted from the sounds and scenes that would explain them. 'The cases I've cited are without any symbolism. Just plain emotional situations. I can't say much about symbolic or mythical significances. Of course they exist. And really I can only put them back one stage. For the dreamer can work on myth, and on fairy-tale, quite as much as on novelette. I did. I do. And with a more complete text, so to speak, the excerpted scenes are often much easier to understand, and the functions of the symbols are plainer - but their final solution recedes. 'There are good dreams, apparently of the sort I mean, quoted in books. My own were not so good: the ones I used to remember when awake, that is; they were only significant fragments, more statically pictorial, seldom dramatic, and usually without figures of humane shape.(44) Though I sometimes retained the memory of significant words or sentences without any scenery: such as I am full of sovereign remedies. That seemed a wise and satisfactory utterance. I have never yet found out why. 'Here are some of my fragments of this kind. There is the empty throne on the top of a mountain. There is a Green Wave, whitecrested, fluted and scallop-shaped but vast, towering above green fields, often with a wood of trees, too; that has constantly appeared.(45) I saw several times a scene in which a wide plain lay before the feet of a steep ridge on which I stood; the opposing sky was immense, rising as a vertical wall, not bending to a vault, ablaze with stars strewn almost regularly over all its expanse. That is an omen or presage of catastrophe. A dark shape sometimes passes across the sky, only seen by blotting out the stars as it goes. Then there is the tall, grey, round tower on the sheer end of the land. The Sea cannot be seen, for it is too far below, too immeasurably far; but it can be smelt. And over and over again, in many stages of growth and many different lights and shadows, three tall trees, slender, foot to foot on a green mound, and crowned with an embracing halo of blue and gold.' 'And what do you think they all mean?' asked Frankley. 'It took me quite a time, far too long, to explain the very minor story of the librarian,' said Ramer. 'I could not embark tonight on even one of the immense and ramified legends and cosmogonies that these belong to.' 'Not even on the Green Wave?' said Lowdham;(46) but Ramer did not answer him. 'Are the Blessed Trees religious symbolism?' asked Jeremy. 'No, not more than all things mythical are; not directly. But one does sometimes see and use symbols directly religious, and more than symbols. One can pray in dreams, or adore. I think I do sometimes, but there is no memory of such states or acts, one does not revisit such things. They're not really dreams. They're a third thing. They belong somewhere else, to the other anchorage, which is not to the Body, and differ from dreams more than Dream from Waking. 'Dreaming is not Death. The mind is still, as I say, anchored to the body. It is all the time inhabiting the body, so far as it is in anywhere. And it is therefore in Time and Space: attending to them. It is meant to be so. But most of you will agree that there has probably been a change of plan; and it looks as if the cure is to give us a dose of something higher and more difficult. Mind you, I'm only talking of the seeing and learning side, not for instance of morality. But it would feel terribly loose without the anchor. Maybe with the support of the stronger and wiser it could be celestial; but without them it could be bitter, and lonely. A spiritual meteorite in the dark looking for a world to land on. I daresay many of us are in for some lonely Cold before we get back. 'But out of some place beyond the region of dreams, now and again there comes a blessedness, and it soaks through all the levels, and illumines all the scenes through which the mind passes out back into waking, and so it flows out into this life. There it lasts long, but not for ever in this world, and memory cannot reach its source. Often we ascribe it to the pictures seen on the margin radiant in its light, as we pass by and out. But a mountain far in the North caught in a slow sunset is not the Sun. 'But, as I said, it is largely a rest-time, Sleep. As often as not the mind is inactive, not making things up (for instance). It then just inspects what is presented to it, from various sources - with very varying degrees of interest, I may say. It's not really frightfully interested in the digestion and sex items sent in by the body.' 'What is presented to it, you say?' said Frankley. 'Do you mean that some of the presentments come from outside, are shown to it?' 'Yes. For instance: in a halting kind of way I had managed to get on to other vehicles; and in dream I did it better and more often. So other minds do that occasionally to me. Their resting on me need not be noticed, I think, or hardly at all; I mean, it need not affect me or interfere with me at all; but when they are doing so, and are in contact, then my mind can use them. The two minds don't tell stories to one another, even if they're aware of the contact. They just are in contact and can learn.*(47) After (* See the further discussion of this point on the following Night 62. N.G. [Only a fragment of that meeting is preserved, and the only part that could correspond to this note is as follows. ' "How can the dreamer distinguish them?" said Ramer. "Well, it seems to me that) all, a wandering mind (if it's at all like mine) will be much more ' interested in having a look at what the other knows than in trying to explain to the stranger the things that are familiar to itself.' 'Evidently if the Notion Club could all meet in sleep, they'ld find things pretty topsy-turvy,' said Lowdham. 'What kind of minds visit you?' asked Jeremy. 'Ghosts?' 'Well, yes of course, ghosts,' said Ramer. 'Not departed human spirits, though; not in my case, as far as I can tell..'." Beyond that what shall I say? Except that some of them seem to know about things a very long way indeed from here. It is not a common experience with me, at least my awareness of any contact is not.' 'Aren't some of the visitors malicious?' said Jeremy. 'Don't evil minds attack you ever in sleep?' 'I expect so,' said Ramer. 'They're always on the watch, asleep or awake. But they work more by deceit than attack. I don't think they are specially active in sleep. Less so, probably. I fancy they find it easier to get at us awake, distracted and not so aware. The body's a wonderful lever for an indirect influence on the mind, and deep dreams can be very remote from its disturbance. Anyway, I've very little experience of that kind - thank God! But there does come sometimes a frightening... a sort of knocking at the door: it doesn't describe it, but that'll (the chief divisions are Perceiving (free dreams), Composing and Working, and Reading. Each has a distinctive quality, and confusion is not as a rule likely to occur, while it is going on; though the waking mind may make mistakes about disjointed memories. The divisions can be subdivided, of course. Perceiving can be, for instance, either inspections and visits to real scenes; or apparitions, in which one may be deliberately visited by another mind or spirit. Reading can be simply going over the records of any experiences, messing about in the mind's library; or it can be perceiving at second hand, using minds, inspecting their records. There's a danger there, of course. You might inspect a mind and think you were looking at a record (true in its own terms of things external to you both), when it was really the other mind's composition, fiction. There's lying in the universe, some very clever lying. I mean, some very potent fiction is specially composed to be inspected by others and to deceive, to pass as record; but it is made for the malefit of Men. If men already lean to lies, or have thrust aside the guardians, they may read some very maleficial stuff. It seems that they do." ']) have to do. I think that is one of the ways in which that horrible sense of fear arises: a fear that doesn't seem to reside in the remembered dream-situation at all, or wildly exceeds it. 'I'm not much better off than anyone else on this point, for when that fear comes, it usually produces a kind of dream- concussion, and a passage is erased round the true fear-point. But there are some dreams that can't be fully translated into sight and sound. I can only describe them as resembling such a situation as this: working alone, late at night, withdrawn wholly into yourself; a noise, or even a nothing sensible, startles - you; you get prickles all over, become acutely self-conscious, uneasy, aware of isolation: how thin the walls are between you and the Night. 'That situation may have various explanations here. But out (or down) there sometimes the mind is suddenly aware that ' there is a Night outside, and enemies walk in it: one is trying to get in. But there are no walls,' said Ramer sombrely. 'The soul is dreadfully naked when it notices it, when that is pointed out to it by something alien. It has no armour on it, it has only its being. But there is a guardian. 'He seems to command precipitate retreat. You could, if you were a fool, disobey, I suppose. You could push him away. You could have got into a state in which you were attracted by the Fear. But I can't imagine it. I'ld rather talk about something else.' 'Oh!' said Jeremy. 'Don't stop there! It's been mostly digres- sions since the meteorite. My fault largely. Won't you go on?' 'I should like to, if the Club can bear it. A little longer. I only meant: I'ld rather get back to the visions and the journeys. Well, apart from such dangers - which I've not experienced often or thought much about - I think that what one calls "interests" are sometimes actually stimulated, or even implanted by contacts. As you might get a special interest in China, through being visited by a Chinaman, especially if you got to know him and something of his mind.' 'Have you gone to any Celestial China?' asked Frankley. 'Or anywhere more interesting than your invented tales: something more like Emberu?' 'I've never gone anywhere,' said Ramer, 'as I've tried to explain. But I suppose I could say that I've been in places, and I'm still busy trying to sort out my observations. If you mean places off the Earth, other heavenly bodies: yes, I've seen several besides Emberu, either through other minds, or by vehicles and ': records; possibly by using light.* Yes, I've been to several strange places. 'The one I told you about, Green Emberu,(48) where there was a kind of organic life, rich but wholesome and longeval: that was where I landed when I first fell wide asleep. It seems a long while ago now. It is still very vivid to me, or was until last week.' He sighed. 'I cannot remember the original again now, somehow; not when awake. I've an idea that writing these memories up, re-telling them in waking life and terms, blurs or erases them in - waking memory; overlays them into palimpsests. One can't have it both ways. Either one must bear the pains of not '. communicating what one greatly desires to share, or one must, remain content with the translation. I wrote that account for you, and all I'll have now is that, and stirrings and faint traces of what lies beneath: the vision of Emberu! 'It's the same with Ellor. Ellor!' he murmured. 'Ellor Eshur- izel! I drew it once in words as best I could, and now it is words. That immense plain with its silver floor all delicately patterned; the shapely cliffs and convoluted hills. The whole world was designed with such loveliness, not of one thought, but of many: in harmony; though in all its shapes there was nowhere any to recall what we call organic life. There "inanimate nature" was orderly, symmetrical, unconfused, yet intricate, beyond my mind's unravelling, in its flowing modulations and recollections: a garden, a paradise of water, metal, stone, like the interwoven variations of vast natural orders of flowers. Eshurizel! Blue, white, silver, grey, blushing to rich purples were its themes, in which a glint of red was like an apocalyptic vision of essential Redness, and a gleam of gold was like the glory of the Sun. And there was music, too. For there were many streams, water abun- dant - or some fairer counterpart, less wayward, more skilled in (* Jones says that Ramer explained: 'I think that as the seeing in free dream is not done with eyes, it is not subject to optical laws. But light can be used, like any other mode of being. The mind can, as it were, travel back up-stream, as it can go back into the historical record of other things. But it seems tiring: it requires a great energy and desire. One can't do it often; nor can one go to an indefinite distance of Time and Space.' N.G.) the enchantment of light and in the making of innumerable sounds. There the great waterfall of Oshul-kullosh fell down its three hundred steps in a sequence of notes and chords of which I can only hear faint echoes now. I think the En-keladim dwell there.'(49) 'The En-keladim?' asked Jeremy softly. 'Who are they?' Ramer did not answer. He was staring at the fire. After a pause he went on. 'And there was another world, further away, that I came to later. I won't say very much. I hope to look on it again, and longer: on Minal-zidar the golden, absolutely silent and quiescent, a whole small world of one single perfect form, complete, imperishable in Time, finished, at peace, a jewel, a visible word, a realization in material form of contemplation and adoration, made by what adoring mind I cannot tell.' 'Where is Minal-zidar?' asked Jeremy quietly. Ramer looked up. 'I don't know where or when,' he answered. 'The travelling mind does not seem very interested in such points, or forgets to try and find out in the absorption of beholding. So I have very little to go on. I did not look at the sky of Minal-zidar. You know, if you were looking at the face of somebody radiant with the contemplation of a great beauty or a holiness, you'ld be held by the face for a very long time, even if you were great enough (or presumptuous enough) to suppose that you could see for yourself. Reflected beauty like reflected light has a special loveliness of its own - or we shouldn't, I suppose, have been created. 'But in Ellor there seemed to be lights in the sky, what we should call stars, not suns or moons, and yet many were much larger and brighter than any star is here. I am no astronomer, so I don't know what that may imply. But I suppose it was somewhere far away, beyond the Fields of Arbol.'(50) 'Fields of Arbol?' said Lowdham. 'I seem to have heard that before. Where do you get these names from? Whose language are they? Now that would really interest me, rather than geometry and landscape. I should use my chances, if ever I got into such a state, for language-history.'(51) 'Arbol is "Old Solar" for the Sun,' said Jeremy.(52) 'Do you mean, Ramer, that you can get back to Old Solar, and that Lewis' did not merely invent those words?' {* Referring to Out of the Silent Planet and Perelandra, which we had all read some time ago, under pressure from Jeremy (while he was} 'Old Solar?' said Ramer. 'Well, no. But of course I was quoting Lewis, in saying Fields of Arbol. As to the other names, that's another matter. They're as firmly associated with the places and visions in my mind as bread is with Bread in your minds, and mine. But I think they're my names in a sense in which bread is not.* 'I daresay it depends on personal tastes and talents, but although I'm a philologist, I think I should find it difficult to learn strange languages in a free dream or vision. You can learn in dreams, of course; but in the case of real visions of new things you don't talk, or don't need to: you get the meaning of minds (if you meet any) more directly. If I had a vision of some alien people, even if I heard them talking, their sense would drown or blur my reception of their sounds; and when I woke up, if I remembered what had been said, and tried to relate it, it would come out in English.' 'But that wouldn't apply to pure names, proper nouns, would it?' said Lowdham. 'Yes, it would,' said Ramer. 'The voice might say Ellor, but I should get a glimpse of the other mind's vision of the place. Even if a voice said bread or water, using , I should be likely to get, as the core of a vague cloud (including tastes and smells), some particular glimpse of a shaped loaf, or a running spring, or a glass filled with transparent liquid. 'I daresay that you, Arry, are more phonetical, and more sound-sensitive than I am, but I think even you would find it difficult to keep your ear-memory of the alien words unblurred {writing his book on Imaginary Lands). See note to Night 60, p. 164. Jeremy was an admirer of the Public-house School (as he himself had dubbed them), and soon after he became a Lecturer he gave a series of lectures with that title. Old Professor Jonathan Gow had puffed and boggled at the title; and J. had offered to change it to Lewis and Carolus, or the Oxford Looking-glass, or Jack and the Beanstalk; which did not smooth matters. Outside the Club J. had not had much success in reviving interest in these people; though the little book of anonymous memoirs In the Thirsty Forties, or the Inns and Outs of Oxford attracted some notice when it came out in 1980. N.G.} (* Lowdham says that Ramer told him after the meeting that he thought Minal-zidar meant Poise in Heaven; but Emberu and Ellor were just names. Eshurizel was a title, signifying in an untranslatable way some blend or scheme of colours; but Oshul-kullosh meant simply Falling Water. N.G.) by the impact of the direct meaning in such dreams. If you did, then very likely it would be only the sounds and not the sense that you'ld remember. 'And yet... especially far away outside this world of Speech, where no voices are heard, and other naming has not reached ... I seem to hear fragments of language and names that are not of this country.' 'Yes, yes,' said Lowdham. 'That's just what I want to hear about. What language is it? You say not Old Solar?' 'No,' said Ramer, 'because there isn't any such tongue. I'm sorry to disagree with your authorities, Jeremy; but that is my opinion. And by the way, speaking as a philologist, I should say that the treatment of language, intercommunication, in tales of travel through Space or Time is a worse blemish, as a rule, than the cheap vehicles that we were discussing last week. Very little thought or attention is ever given to it.(53) I think Arry will agree with me there.' 'I do,' said Lowdham, 'and that's why I'm still waiting to hear where and how you got your names.' 'Well, if you really want to know what these names are,' said Ramer, 'I think they're my native language.' 'But that is English, surely?' said Lowdham. 'Though you were born in Madagascar, or some strange place.' 'No, you ass! Magyarorszag, that is Hungary,' said Ramer. 'But anyway, English is not my native language. Nor yours either. We each have a native language of our own - at least potentially. In working-dreams people who have a bent that way may work on it, develop it. Some, many more than you'ld think, try to do the same in waking hours - with varying degrees of awareness. It may be no more than giving a personal twist to the shape of old words; it may be the invention of new words (on received models, as a rule); or it may come to the elabora- tion of beautiful languages of their own in private: in private only because other people are naturally not very interested. 'But the inherited, first-learned, language - what is usually mis-called "native" - bites in early and deep. It is hardly possible to escape from its influence. And later-learned languages also affect the natural style, colouring a man's linguistic taste; the earlier learned the more so. As Magyar does mine, strongly - but all the more strongly, I think, because it is in many ways closer to my own native predilections than English is. In language-invention, though you may seem to build only out of material taken from other acquired tongues, it is those elements ] most near to your native style that you select. 'In such rare dreams as I was thinking about, far away by oneself in voiceless countries, then your own native language bubbles up, and makes new names for strange new things.' 'Voiceless countries?' said Jeremy. 'You mean regions where there is nothing like our human language?' 'Yes,' said Ramer. 'Language properly so called, as we know it on Earth - token (perceived by sense) plus significance (for the mind) - that is peculiar to an embodied mind; an essential characteristic, the prime characteristic of the fusion of incarna- tion. Only hnau, to use Jeremy's Lewisian word again, would have language. The irrational couldn't, and the unembodied couldn't or wouldn't.' 'But spirits are often recorded as speaking,' said Frankley. 'I know,' Ramer answered. 'But I wonder if they really do, or if they make you hear them, just as they can also make you see them in some appropriate form, by producing a direct impress- ion on the mind. The clothing of this naked impression in terms intelligible to your incarnate mind is, I imagine, often left to you, the receiver. Though no doubt they can cause you to hear words and to see shapes of their own choosing, if they will. But in any case the process would be the reverse of the normal in a way, outwards, a translation from meaning into symbol. The audible and visible results might be hardly distinguishable from the normal, even so, except for some inner emotion; though there is, in fact, sometimes a perceptible difference of sequence.' 'I don't know what spirits can do,' said Lowdham; 'but I don't see why they cannot make actual sounds (like the Eldil in Perelandra): cause the air to vibrate appropriately, if they wish. They seem able to affect "matter" directly.' 'I dare say they can,' said Ramer. 'But I doubt if they would wish to, for such a purpose. Communication with another mind is simpler otherwise. And the direct attack seems to me to account better for the feelings human beings often have on such occasions. There is often a shock, a sense of being touched in the quick. There is movement from within outwards, even if one feels that the cause is outside, something other, not you. It is quite different in quality from the reception of sound inwards, even though it may well happen that the thing communicated directly is not strange or alarming, while many things said in the ordinary incarnate fashion are tremendous.' 'You speak as if you knew,' said Jeremy. 'How do you know all this?' 'No, I don't claim to know anything about such things, and I'm not laying down the law. But I feel it. I have been visited, or spoken to,' Ramer said gravely. 'Then, I think, the meaning was direct, immediate, and the imperfect translation perceptibly later: but it was audible. In many accounts of other such events I seem to recognize experiences similar, even when far greater.' 'You make it all sound like hallucination,' said Frankley. 'But of course,' said Ramer. 'They work in a similar way. If you are thinking of diseased conditions, then you may believe that the cause is nothing external; and all the same something (even if it is only some department of the body) must be affecting the mind and making it translate outwards. If you believe in possession or the attack of evil spirits, then there is no difference in process, only the difference between malice and good-will, lying and truth. There is Disease and Lying in the world, and not only among men.' There was a pause. 'We've got rather away from Old Solar, haven't we?' said Guildford at last. 'No, I think what has been said is very much to the point,' said Ramer. 'Anyway, if there is, or even was, any Old Solar, then either Lewis or I or both of us are wrong about it. For I don't get any such names as Arbol or Perelandra or Glund.(54) I get names much more consonant with the forms I devise, if I make up words or names for a story composed when awake. 'I think there might be an Old Human, or Primitive Adamic - certainly was one, though it's not so certain that all our languages derive from it in unbroken continuity; the only undoubted common inheritance is the aptitude for making words, the compelling need to make them. But the Old Human could not possibly be the same as the Prime Language of other differently constituted rational animals, such as Lewis's Hrossa.(55) Because those two embodiments, Men and Hrossa, are quite different, and the physical basis, which conditions the symbol-forms, would be ab origine different. The mind-body blends would have quite different expressive flavours. The expression might not take vocal, or even audible form at all. Without symbols you have no language; and language begins only with incarnation and not before it. But, of course, if you're going to confuse language with forms of thought, then you can perhaps talk about Old Solar. But why not Old Universal in that case?(56) 'However, I don't think the question of Old Solar arises. I don't think there are any other hnau but ourselves in the whole solar system.' 'How can you possibly know that?' asked Frankley. 'I think I know it by looking,' Ramer answered. 'I only once anywhere saw what I took to be traces of such creatures, but I'll tell you about that in a minute. 'I'll grant you that there is a chance of error. I have never been very interested in people. That's why when I first began to write, and tried to write about people (because that seemed to be the thing done, and the only thing that was much read), my efforts were so footling, as you see, even in dream. I'm now abnormally little interested in people in general, though I can be deeply interested in this or that unique individual; and the fewer I see the better I'm pleased. I haven't scoured the Fields of Arbol seeking for them! I suppose in dream I might have ignored or overlooked them. But I don't think it's at all likely. Because I like solitude in a forest and trees not manhandled, it does not follow that I shall overlook the evidence of men's work in a wood, or never notice any men I meet there. Much the reverse! 'It's true that I've not seen the solar planets often, nor explored them thoroughly: that's hardly necessary in most cases, if you're looking for any conceivable organic life resemb- ling what we know. But what I have seen convinces me that the whole system, save Earth, is altogether barren (in our sense). Mars is a horrible network of deserts and chasms; Venus a boiling whirl of wind and steam above a storm-racked twilit core. But if you want to know what it looks and sounds like: a smoking black Sea, rising like Everest, raging in the dusk over dim drowned mountains, and sucking back with a roar of cataracts like the end of Atlantis - then go there! It is magni- ficent, but it isn't Peace. To me indeed very refreshing - though that's too small a word. I can't describe the invigoration, the acceleration of intellectual interest, in getting away from all this tangle of ant-hill history! I am not a misanthrope. To me it's a more inspiring and exacting, a much more responsible, perilous, lonely venture: that Men are in fact alone in EN. In EN.(57) For that is the name to me of this sunlit archipelago in the midst of the Great Seas. 'We can cast our own shadows out on to the other islands, if we like. It's a good and lawful form of invention; but an invention it is and proceeds out of Earth, the Talkative Planet. The only hnau ever to dwell in red Gormok or in cloud-bright Zingil (58) will be put there by us.' 'What reason have you for thinking that you've seen them at all, and not other places in remoter Space? asked Frankley.(59) 'Well, I went to them in a more questioning mood,' said Ramer, 'and I looked for such signs as I could understand. They were planets. They went round the Sun, or a sun, in more or less the ways and times the books say, so far as I could observe. And the further heavens had much the same pattern, just the same to my little knowledge, as they have here. And old Enekol, Saturn,(60) is unmistakable,. though I suppose it is not quite impossible that he has his counterpart elsewhere.' 'Won't you describe what you saw there?' said Frankley. 'I once tried to describe a Saturnian landscape myself,*(61) and I should like to know if you support me.' 'I do, more or less,' said Ramer. 'I thought so at once when I landed there, and I wondered if you had been there too, or had heard some reliable news - though you may not remember it when awake. But it is getting late. I am tired, and I am sure you all are.' 'Well, something to wind up with!' Jeremy begged. 'You haven't really told us very much news yourself yet.' 'I'll try,' said Ramer. 'Give me another drink, and I'll do my best. As I haven't had time, when awake, either to name or to translate half of the shapes and sensations, it is impossible for me to do more than suggest the thing. But I'll try and tell you about one adventure among my deep dreams: or high ones, for this occurred on one of the longest journeys I have ever had the opportunity or the courage for. It illustrates several curious things about this sort of venture. 'Remember that dream-sequences dealing with astronomical exploration or space-travel are not very frequent in my collec- tion. Nor in any one's, I should think. The chances of making such voyages are not frequent; and they're... well, they take a bit of daring. I should guess that most people never get the chance and never dare. It is related in some way to desire, no (* In The Cronic Star. This appeared in his volume Feet of Lead (1980). One of the critics said that this title, taken with the author's name, said all that was necessary. N.G.) doubt; though which comes first, chance or wish, is hard to say - if there's any real question of priority in such matters. I mean: my ancient attraction to waking stories about space-travel, was it a sign that I was really already engaged on exploration, or a cause of it? 'In any case I have only made a few journeys, as far as I yet know; few, that is, compared with other activities. My mind "adream" is perhaps not daring enough to fit waking desire; or perhaps the interests I'm most conscious of awake are not really fundamentally so dominant. My mind actually seems fonder of mythical romances, its own and others'. I could tell you a great deal about Atlantis, for instance; though that is not its name to me.' 'What is its name?' asked Lowdham sharply, leaning forward with a curious eagerness; but Ramer did not answer the question. 'It's connected with that Fluted Wave,'(62) he said., 'and with another symbol: the Great Door, shaped like a Greek TT with sloping sides.(63) And I've seen the En-keladim, my En-keladim, playing one of their Keladian plays: the Drama of the Silver Tree:(64) sitting round in a circle and singing in that strange, long, long, but never-wearying, uncloying music, endlessly unfolding out of itself, while the song takes visible life among them. The Green Sea flowers in foam, and the Isle rises and opens like a rose in the midst of it. There the Tree opens the starred turf like a silver spear, and grows, and there is a New Light; and the leaves unfold and there is Full Light; and the leaves fall and there is a Rain of Light. Then the Door opens - but no! I have no words for that Fear.' He stopped suddenly. 'That's the only thing I've ever seen,' he said, 'that I'm not sure whether it's invented or not.(65) I expect it's a composition - out of desire, fancy, waking experience, and "reading" (asleep and awake). But there is another ingredient. Somewhere, in some place or places, something like it really happens, and I have seen it, far off perhaps or faintly. 'My En-keladim I see in humane forms of surpassing and marvellously varied beauty. But I guess that their true types, if such there be, are invisible, unless they embody themselves by their own will, entering into their own works because of their love for them. That is, they are elvish. But very different from Men's garbled tales of them; for they are not lofty indeed, yet they are not fallen.' i 'But wouldn't you reckon them as hnau?' asked Jeremy. 'Don't they have language?' 'Yes, I suppose so. Many tongues,' said Ramer. 'I had forgotten them. But they are not hnau; they are not bound to a given body, but make their own, or take their own, or walk silent and unclad without sense of nakedness. And their lan- guages shift and change as light on the water or wind in the trees. But yes, perhaps Ellor Eshurizel - its meaning I cannot seize, so swift and fleeting is it - perhaps that is an echo of their voices. Yes, I think Ellor is one of their worlds: where the governance, the making and ordering, is wholly in the charge of minds, relatively small, that are not embodied in it, but are devoted to what we call matter, and especially to its beauty. Even here on Earth they may have had, may have still, some habitation and some work to do. 'But I'm still wandering. I must go back to the adventure that I promised to tell. Among my few travel-sequences I recall one that seemed to be a long inspection (on several occasions) of a different solar system. So there does appear to be at least one other star with attendant planets.(66) I thought that as I wandered there I came to a little world, of our Earth's size more or less - though, as you'll see, size is very difficult to judge; and it was lit by a sun, rather larger than ours, but dimmed. The stars too were faint, but they seemed to be quite differently arranged; and there was a cloud or white whorl in the sky with small stars in its folds: a nebula perhaps, but much larger than the one we can see in Andromeda. Tekel-Mirim (67) it was, a land of crystals. 'Whether the crystals were really of such great size - the greatest were like the Egyptian pyramids - it is hard to say. Once away from Earth it is not easy to judge such things without at least your body to refer to. For there is no scale; and what you do, I suppose, is to focus your attention, up or down, according to what aspect you wish to note. And so it is with speed. Anyway, there on Tekel-Mirim it was the inanimate matter, as we should say, that was moving and growing: into countless crystalline formations. Whether what I took for the air of the planet was really air, or water, or some other liquid, I am not able to say; though perhaps the dimming of sun and stars suggests that it was not air. I may have been on the floor of a wide shallow sea, cool and still. And there I could observe what was going on: to me absorbingly interesting. 'Pyramids and polyhedrons of manifold forms and sym- metries were growing like ... like geometric mushrooms, and growing from simplicity to complexity; from single beauty amalgamating into architectural harmonies of countless facets and reflected lights. And the speed of growth seemed very swift. On the summit of some tower of conjoined solids a great steeple, like a spike of greenish ice, would shoot out: it was not there and then it was there; and hardly was it set before it was encrusted with spikelets in bristling lines of many pale colours. In places forms were achieved like snowflakes under a micro- scope, but enormously larger: tall as trees some were. In other places there were forms severe, majestic, vast and simple. 'For a time I could not count I watched the "matter" on 'j Tekel-Mirim working out its harmonies of inherent design with speed and precision, spreading, interlocking, towering, on facet and angle building frets and arabesques and frosted laces, jewels on which arrows of pale fire glanced and splintered. But there was a limit to growth, to building and annexation. Suddenly disintegration would set in - no, not that, but reversal: it was not ugly or regrettable. A whole epic of construction would recede, going back through shapeliness, by stages as beautiful as those through which it had grown, but wholly different, till it ceased. Indeed it was difficult to choose whether to fix one's attention on some marvellous evolution, or some graceful devolving into - nothing visible. 'Only part of the matter on Tekel-Mirim was doing these things (for "doing" seems our only word for it): the matter that was specially endowed; a scientist would say (I suppose) that was of a certain chemical nature and condition. There were floors, and walls, and mighty circles of smooth cliff, valleys and vast abysses, that did not change their shape nor move. Time stood still for them, and for the crystals waxed and waned. 'I don't know why I visited this strange scene, for awake I have never studied crystallography, not even though the vision of Tekel-Mirim has often suggested that I should. Whether things go in Tekel-Mirim exactly as they do here, I cannot say. All the same I wonder still what on earth or in the universe can be meant by saying, as was said a hundred years ago (by Huxley, I believe) that a crystal is a "symmetrical solid shape assumed spontaneously by lifeless matter".(68) The free will of the lifeless is a dark saying. But it may have some meaning: who can tell? For we have little understanding of either term. I leave it there. I merely record, or try to record, the events I saw, and they were too marvellous while I could see them in far Tekel-Mirim for speculation. I'm afraid I've given you no glimpse of them. 'It was on one occasion, returning - or should I say "back- dreaming"? - from Tekel-Mirim, that I had the adventure that I'll close with. Speed, as I said, like size is very difficult to judge with no measure but vague memories of earth-events far away. Maybe I had been speeding up, that is moving quickly down Time in Tekel-Mirim, so as to get as long a story or sequence as I could. In Tekel-Mirim I must have been not only far away in Space but in a time somewhat before my earth-time, or I should have overrun the point for my withdrawal. For I had to withdraw on that visit earlier than my body usually summons me. A determination of my own will, set before I went to sleep, had fixed a time of waking, for an appointment. And the hour was coming near. 'It is no good harking back, when you do not want to repeat but to see on; and so I withdrew, with my mind still so filled with the wonder of Tekel-Mirim that I could not even adream, and still less awake, recall the transitions or the modes of travelling, until my attention was loosened from my recollec- tions and I found that I was looking at a twinkling sphere. I knew that I had seen it, or something like it, on one of my other journeys; and I was tempted to examine it again. But time was running on, and dimly, like a remote shred of a dream (to one awake) I was aware of my body beginning to stir unwillingly, feeling the returning will. So there and then I "harked back" suddenly with as great an effort as I could manage; and at the same time I closed in to look for a while at this strange ball. 'I found a horrible disorderly shifting scene: a shocking contrast to Tekel-Mirim, and after Emberu and Ellor intoler- able. Dark and light flickered to and fro over it. Winds were whirling and eddying, and vapours were rising, gathering, flashing by and vanishing too quick for anything to be discerned but a general ragged swirl. The land, if that is what it was, was shifting too, like sands in a tide, crumbling and expanding, as the sea galloped in and out among the unsteady edges of the coast. There were wild growths, woods you could hardly say; trees springing up like mushrooms, and crashing and dying before you could determine their shapes. Everything was in an abominable flux. 'I came still closer. The effort to attend carefully seemed to steady things. The flicker of light and dark became much slower; and I saw something that was definitely a small river, though it waggled a little, and broadened and narrowed as I looked at it. The trees and woods in its valley held their shapes now for some time. Then "Hnau at last!" I said to myself; for in the vale, down by the river among the trees I saw shapes, unmistakable shapes of houses. At first I had thought that they were some kind of quick-growing fungus, until I looked more steadily. But now I saw that they were buildings, but still fungus-buildings, appearing and then falling to pieces; and yet their agglomeration was spreading. 'I was still rather high above it all, higher than a man in a very tall tower; but I could see that the place was crawling or rather boiling with hnau of some sort - if they were not very large ant-creatures, endowed with amazing speed: darting about, alone or in bunches, bewilderingly; always more and more of them. Often they went shooting in or out like bullets along the tracks that led to the horrible, crumbling, outgrowing sore of house-shapes. ' "This really is frightful!" I thought. "Is this a diseased world, or is it a planet really inhabited by may-fly men in a sort of tumultuous mess? What's come to the land? It's losing most of its hair, going bald, and the house-ringworm goes on spreading, and starting up in fresh patches. There's no design, or reason, or pattern in it." And yet, even as I said this, I began to see, as I looked still more carefully, that there were in fact some shapes that did suggest crude design, and a few now held together for quite a long while. 'Soon I noticed down by the river, near the heart of the agglomeration, where I had observed it beginning, several constructions that endured. Two or three had some real form, not without an echo of beauty even to one fresh from Tekel- Mirim. They continued standing, while the ringworm ate its way further and further around them. ' "I must have a really close look," I thought; "for if there are hnau here, it is important, however nasty they may be; and I must take some notes. Just a look, and then I must be off. Now, what is that thing like a great fluted mushroom with an odd top? It hasn't been here as long as some of the other larger things." With that I came right down. 'Of course, if one really concentrates on things - especially to observe their static forms, not their changes, as I'd been doing in Tekel-Mirim - then they tend to halt, as it were. The speed is in you, when you're not tied to a time-clock of a body. So as I bent my attention, I lost all the acceleration that the excitement of Tekel-Mirim had induced. Things stood still for a moment, rock-hard. 'I was gazing at the Camera.(69) I was about thirty feet above the ground in Radcliffe Square. I suppose I had at first been seeing the Thames Valley, at a huge speed; and then, slower and slower, Oxford since I don't know when, since the beginning of the University probably. 'The clock on Saint Mary's struck 7 a.m. - and I woke up for my appointment. To go to Mass. It was the morning of the feast of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, June 29th 1986, by our reckoning. That's all for tonight! I must go to bed.' 'Well, I must be off too,' said Cameron. 'Thanks for a very enterrtaining evening!' MGR. NC. PF. AAL. RD. WTJ. RS. JJ. JJR. NOTES. 1. The Great Storm of June 12th, 1987: my father's 'prevision' was only out by four months. The greatest storm in living memory struck southern England, causing vast damage, on October 16th, 1987. It is curious in the light of this to read Mr. Green's remarks (p. 158): 'it may well be that the predictions (notably of the Storm), though genuine and not coincidences, were unconscious: giving one more glimpse of the strange processes of so-called literary "invention", with which the Papers are largely con- cerned.' 2. O.S.B.: 'Order of Saint Benedict'. 3. For the title as typed in the final text D, but subsequently rejected, see p. 153 note 2. 4. In A and B the report of Night 54 is absent (cf. Mr. Green's Foreword, p. 156: Many Nights are represented only by a few lines, or by short entries, of which Nights 54 and 64 have been included as specimens'). 5. I cannot explain The Canticle of Artegall. Irish arteagal = 'article'; and an isolated note of my father's reads: 'My/The Canticle of Night in Ale', 'Artegall', 'article Artegall'. But this does not help very much. 6. In B Night 60 is Night 251, without date (see p. 149). 7. I have mentioned (p. 150) a page that preceded text A and carries the identifications of members of the Notion Club with members of the Inklings. On this page are found two brief, abandoned openings for The Notion Club Papers. In the first Ramer asks Latimer (predecessor of Guildford) for his opinion of his story. With ' "Yes, I suppose it'll do," I answered' this opening breaks off, and is followed by: When I had finished reading my story, we sat in silence for a while. 'Well?' I said. 'What do you think of it? Will it do?' Nobody answered, and I felt the air charged with disapproval, as it often is in our circle, though on this occasion the critical interruptions had been fewer than usual. 'Oh, come on. What have you got to say? I may as well get the worst over,' I urged turning to Latimer. He is not a flatterer. 'Oh yes, it'll do, I suppose so,' he answered reluctantly. 'But why pick on me? You know I hate criticizing offhand and still in the heat of listening - or the chill.' Here this second opening was abandoned. It is presumably to be connected with the word 'Self' written under Ramer at the head of the page (p. 150). 8. David Lindsay, author of A Voyage to Arcturus, published in 1920, to which Guildford refers subsequently (see note 9). 9. Cf. my father's letter to Stanley Unwin of 4 March 1938, concerning Out of the Silent Planet (Letters no. 26): I read 'Voyage to Arcturus' with avidity - the most comparable work, though it is both more powerful and more mythical (and less rational, and also less of a story - no one could read it merely as a thriller and without interest in philosophy religion and morals). 10. Cavorite was the substance 'opaque to gravitation' devised by the scientist Cavor in H. G. Wells's The First Men in the Moon (1901). 11. For 'the Great Explosion' see Mr. Green's Foreword, p. 157, and p. 186. 12. Ransom: Dr. Elwin Ransom was the Cambridge philologist who in Out of the Silent Planet went under duress to Mars (Malacan- dra), and in Perelandra went to Venus by the mediation of the Oyarsa of Malacandra (see next note). 13. At the beginning of Perelandra the Eldils are described thus: For Ransom had met other things in Mars besides the Mar- tians. He had met the creatures called eldila, and specially that great eldil who is the ruler of Mars or, in their speech, the Oyarsa of Malacandra. The eldila are very different from any planatary creatures. Their physical organism, if organism it can be called, is quite unlike either the human or the Martian. They do not eat, breed, breathe, or suffer natural death, and to that extent resemble thinking minerals more than they resemble anything we should recognise as an animal. Though they appear on planets and may even seem to our senses to be sometimes resident in them, the precise spatial location of an eldil at any moment presents great problems. They themselves regard space (or 'Deep Heaven') as their true habitat, and the planets are to them not closed but merely moving points - perhaps even interruptions - in what we know as the Solar System and they as the Field of Arbol. 14. Old Solar: cf. Perelandra Chapter 2, in which Ransom speaks to Lewis before his journey to Venus begins: '... I rather fancy I am being sent because those two black- guards who kidnapped me and took me to Malacandra, did something which they never intended: namely, gave a human being a chance to learn that language.' 'What language do you mean?' 'Hressa-Hlab, of course. The language I learned in Mala- candra.' 'But surely you don't imagine they will speak the same language on Venus?' 'Didn't I tell you about that?' said Ransom... 'I'm surprised I didn't, for I found out two or three months ago, and scientifically it is one of the most interesting things about the whole affair. It appears we were quite mistaken in thinking Hressa-Hlab the peculiar speech of Mars. It is really what may be called Old Solar, Hlab-Eribol-ef-Cordi.' 'What on earth do you mean?' 'I mean that there was originally a common speech for all rational creatures inhabiting the planets of our system: those that were ever inhabited, I mean - what the eldils call the Low Worlds.... That original speech was lost on Thulcandra, our own world, when our whole tragedy took place. No human language now known in the world is descended from it.' For Ramer's observations on this subject see p. 203 and note 55. 15. In the original text A (still followed in B) Dolbear, waking up, says with reference to these words of Guildford's ('Incarnation. By being born'): 'Then try reincarnation, or perhaps transcarna- tion without loss of memory. What do you say, Ramer?' 16. Arry, for Arundel, became the name by which Lowdham was known in text C; in the earliest lists of members of the Notion Club he was simply Harry Loudham. For the significance of this see pp. 233 - 4, 281 - 2. 17. New Erewhon: Erewhon (= 'Nowhere') is the title of a satire by Samuel Butler (1872). News from Nowhere: a fantasy of the future by William Morris (1890). 18. Turl Street or the Turl is a narrow street running between High Street and Broad Street in Oxford, onto which open the gates of Ramer's college Jesus, Guildford's college Lincoln, and Exeter College. 19. In B Night 61 is Night 252, without date (see p. 149). 20. B has Harry Loudham: see note 16. 21. In the 'Prose Edda' the Icelander Snorri Sturluson tells of Skidbladnir: 'Skihblahnir is the best of ships and made with great skill ... Certain dwarves, the sons of Ivaldi, made Skihblahnir and gave the ship to Freyr; it is so large that all the AEsir [gods] can man it with their weapons and equipment of war, and it has a favourable wind so soon as the sail is set, wherever it is bound; but when it is not going to sea it is made of so many pieces and with such great cunning that it can be folded up like a napkin and kept in one's pouch' (Snorra Edda, Gylfaginning $42). 22. The Battle of Bosworth Field (1485), in which King Richard III was defeated and slain by Henry Tudor (Henry VII). A has here 'at any period before the accession of Richard II' (1377). On Frankley's horror borealis see pp. 151 - 2, 159. 23. 'Yes, 1938,' said Cameron: in A this observation is given to Loudham, and rather surprisingly Latimer's comment is much as Guildford's in the final text: 'whose memory is like that. I doubt if he ever read the book. Memoirs of the courts of minor 18th century monarchs are his natural browsing-ground.' Yet at this earliest stage Loudham's interest in Norse was perhaps already present, since it is he who makes the joke about Skidbladnir immediately before. As B was written the remark was still attributed to Loudham, and Guildford's comment remains the same as in A; later Loudham was changed to Franks (the earlier name of Frankley) and then to Cameron. See pp. 281 - 2. 24. Last Men in London by Olaf Stapledon (1932). 25. hnau: rational embodied beings. 26. I have added the footnote from the third manuscript C; it is not in the final typescript D, but was perhaps omitted in- advertently. 27. In A there is no reference to the Glacier or any mention of what the scene in the book was; but a later addition in the margin runs: and the chief difference (since both were now inner) is that the one is tinged with sadness for it is past, but the other, the Glacier, is not so tinged, has only its own proper flavour, because it is not past or present with reference to the world. 28. In A Dolbear does not speak at this point; Ramer says: 'And the will to remember can be strengthened; and the memory enlarged. (Dolbear helped me in that: I suppose that is what made him so suspicious.) Now here comes another thread.' Thus neither Emberu nor any other name appear here in A; in 8 the name is Gyonyoru, changed subsequently to Emberu. 29. Following this, the text of Ramer's remarks in A and B is different from that in the final form. I give the B version: A living body can move in space, but not without an effort (as in a leap), or a vehicle. A mind can move more freely and very much quicker than a living body, but not without effort of its own kind, or without a vehicle. [Added: This is distinct from the instantaneous movement of thought to objects already in its grasp as memory.] And Space and Time do exist as conditions for it, especially while it is incarnate, and certainly if it is (largely for that reason) interested in them and studying them. How and how far in either dimension can it jump, without a vehicle? I asked myself. It probably cannot travel in empty Space, or eventless Time (which is the duration of empty Space): it would not be aware of it, if it did, anyway. How far can it jump over it? How can it jump at all? The mind uses the memory of its body... 30. For the source of Lowdham's allusion to the Pig on the Ruined Pump see the Foreword. 31. The Banbury Road leads north out of the centre of Oxford. I do not think that there was any special reason for the choice of this particular late Victorian house (the reference to it only enters in C, where my father first wrote 'No. x Banbury Road', changing this subsequently to 'No. 100'). Mr. Green, the putative editor of the Papers refers in his Foreword (p. 157) to poltergeist activity at this house in the early years of the twenty-first century. 32. Gunthorpe Park in Matfield: so far as I car. discover, the only Matfield in England is in Kent, but there is no Gunthorpe Park in its vicinity. 33. Emberu: A has here: 'Not if you mean for getting such news as I put into that tale you've heard', and no name appears; 8 has, as at the previous occurrence (note 28) Cyonyoru ) Emberu. 34. My father once described to me his dream of 'pure Weight', but I do not remember when that was: probably before this time. 35. Of this experience also my father spoke to me, suggesting, as does Ramer here, that the significance did not lie in the remembered passage itself. See Ramer's subsequent remarks on this topic, pp. 189 ff. 36. See pp. 157, 167. A has here: 'pictures as unlike as seeing a small flower growing and a whole world shattered'; B places the great explosion 'in the sixties'. 37. The intervention of James Jones (see p. 159) first appears in C. In B Ramer's explanation of what he meant by deep dreams is given in a footnote by Guildford ('Ramer said later...'). 38. In B Dolbear replies differently to Lowdham ('If I was to reveal some of the situations I've seen you in, Harry my lad'). His pregnant remarks 'You walk in disguises, even when awake. But they'll slip, my lad, one day. I shouldn't wonder if it was fairly soon' entered in the C text. 39. A. continues from this point: on this sort of activity - the best bits and passages, especially, those that seem to come suddenly when you're in the heat of making. They sometimes fit with an odd perfection; and sometimes good in themselves don't really fit. B. has here: ... on this sort of activity. Those scenes that come up complete and fixed, that I spoke of before, for instance. I think that those really good passages that arise, as it were, suddenly when you're abstracted, in the heat of making, are often long- prepared impromptus. 40. it's one I made up years ago: i.e., made up in dream. 41. In A, and (at first) in B, Ramer interpreted the first of his 'fragments' far more elaborately, giving the entire plot of the story. This is, as Ramer admitted, 'not very interesting'; and as B was first written Loudham says (in answer to Ramer's 'Do you want another case?') 'Not particularly, unless it's better than the last, which I don't expect.' 42. Geoffrey of Monmouth (died in 1155), author of The History of the Kings of Britain, a chief contribution to the popularity, outside the Celtic lands, of King Arthur and 'the Matter of Britain'. Such a manuscript leaf as this in Ramer's dream- narrative would be of superlative importance in the study of the Arthurian legend. 43. Elvish Drama. In A it is Ramer himself who speaks of 'elf-drama' ('it is not writing but elf-drama'), and again in B, which has: '... For it is not of course writing, but a sort of realized drama. The Elvish Drama that Lewis speaks of somewhere.' 'Not Lewis, said Jeremy. 'It comes in one of those essays of the circle, but it was by one of the minor members.' The passage in question comes from the essay On Fairy-Stories, which my father had delivered at the University of St. Andrews in 1939, but which was not published until two years after the writing of The Notion Club Papers, in the memorial volume Essays Presented to Charles Williams (Oxford 1947). The pas- sage is interesting in relation to Ramer's discourse and I cite a part of it: Now 'Faerian Drama' - those plays which according to abundant records the elves have often presented to men - can produce Fantasy with a realism and immediacy beyond the compass of any human mechanism. As a result their usual effect (upon a man) is to go beyond Secondary Belief. If you are present at a Faerian drama you yourself are, or think that you are, bodily inside its Secondary World. The experience may be very similar to Dreaming and has (it would seem) sometimes (by men) been confounded with it. But in Faerian drama you are in a dream that some other mind is weaving, and the knowledge of that alarming fact may slip from your grasp. To experience directly a Secondary World: the potion is too strong, and you give to it Primary Belief, however marvellous the events. You are deluded - whether that is the intention of the elves (always or at any time) is another question. They at any rate are not themselves deluded. This is for them a form of Art, and distinct from Wizardry or Magic, properly so called. J. R. R. Tolkien, The Monsters and the Critics and Other Essays, 1983, p. 142; cf. also p. 116 in that edition of the essay ('In dreams strange powers of the mind may be unlocked...'). 44. of humane shape: texts B, C, and D all have humane; cf. p. 206 ('humane forms') and note 55 below. 45. Cf. my father's letter to W. H. Auden of 7 June 1955 (Letters no. 163): ... the terrible recurrent dream (beginning with memory) of the Great Wave, towering up, and coming in ineluctably over the trees and green fields. (I bequeathed it to Faramir.) I don't think I have had it since I wrote the 'Downfall of Numenor' as the last of the legends of the First and Second Age. By 'beginning with memory' I believe that my father meant that the recurrence of the dream went as far back in his life as his memory reached. - Faramir told Eowyn of his recurrent dream of the Great Wave coming upon Numenor as they stood on the walls of Minas Tirith when the Ring was destroyed ('The Steward and the King', in The Return of the King, p. 240). 46. This remark of Lowdham's is absent from B and first enters in C; cf. note 38. 47. In B the footnote at this point does not derive as in the final text largely from Mr. Green but entirely from Nicholas Guildford, citing Ramer: 'Later Ramer enlarged on this point, in the course of a discussion of the various kinds of "deep dreams", and how ' the dreamer could distinguish them. He divided them ...' What follows is closely similar to the later version of the note, but it ends thus: ' "Made for the Malefit of Men," he said. "To judge by the ideas men propagate now, their curious unanimity, and obsession, I should say that a terrible lot of men have thrust aside the Guardians, and are reading very maleficial stuff." N.G.' There was thus at this stage no reference to 'Night 62' (see p. 222 and note 2). The word maleficial is occasionally recorded, but malefit, occuring in both versions of this note, is a coinage echoing benefit, as if ultimately derived from Latin malefactum 'evil deed, injury'. 48. The world Emberu has not been named in A (see notes 28, 33), but at this point Ramer says in A: 'The one I told you about, Menelkemen' (Quenya, 'Sky-earth'). In this original text the description of Menelkemen is (though briefer) that given in the final text of Ellor Eshurizel, 'that immense plain with its floor of silver', ending with the account of the great waterfall, here called Dalud dimran (or perhaps dimron), with Eshil dimzor written above and Eshil kulu () kulo) in the margin. There is no mention here of the En-keladim. At the end of the description of Menelke- men Jeremy asks 'Where is it, do you think?', which in the final text he asks after Ramer's description of the third world, Minal-zidar (p. 199). In B (as originally written) Ramer says 'The one I told you about, Emberu the golden', and here the description of Emberu is that of Minal-zidar in the final version: '... I wrote that account (not the frame) some time ago, and all I'll have now is that, and stirrings and faint traces of what lies beneath: the first vision of Emberu: golden, absolutely silent and quiescent, a whole small world of perfect form, imperish- able in Time...' This description of Emberu ends, as does that of Minal-zidar in the final text, with 'made by what adoring mind I cannot tell'; then follows: 'And there was Menel-kemen.' At this point in B my father stopped, struck out what he had written about 'the first vision of Emberu', and wrote instead: 'the first vision of Emberu: that immense plain with its silver Hoor all delicately patterned...' - which in the final text is the description of Ellor Eshurizel. Here the great waterfall is called Oshul-kulo, and Ramer says: I think the Enkeladim dwell there. My father then inserted in B, after 'the first vision of Emberu', the words '"It is the same with Ellor. Ellor!" he murmured. "Ellor Eshur- izel! I drew it once in words as best I could, and now it is words. That immense plain with its silver floor ...'; and (all these changes being made at the time of composition) introduced at the end of the description of Ellor the third world, 'Minal-zidar the golden'. Thus the images were developed and separated into distinct 'world-entities' in rapid succession. In A Menelkemen is the only world that Ramer describes, the world of the story that he had read to the Notion Club, the inorganic, harmonious world of metal, stone, and water, with the great waterfall. In B the world that Ramer described in his story is Emberu (replacing Gyonyoru of the earlier parts of the manuscript), the silent 'golden' world; but this was changed immediately (reverting to A) to make Emberu 'that immense plain with its silver floor', and then changed again to make this description that of a second world, Ellor Eshurizel, while the 'golden' world becomes a third scene, Minal-zidar. The final stage was to call the first world Green Emberu, 'where there was a kind of organic life, rich but wholesome and longeval.' 49. On the En-keladim see p. 206 and notes 64, 65, and pp. 397, 400. 50. the Fields of Arbol: the Solar System in Lewis's novels (see note 13). 51. In A it is Dolbear, not Loudham, who asks: 'Where do you get all these names from? Who told you them? That [would] interest me more really than the geometry and landscape. I should, of course as you know, use my chance if I got into such a state for language-research.' In B this was still said by Dolbear, changed to Guildford and then to Loudham. See p. 151. 52. At this point both A and B continue with an account of Jeremy's attempt to arouse interest in the works of Lewis and Williams, which in the final text is put into a footnote of Guildford's here. I give the text of B, which follows that of A very closely but is clearer. 'Arbol is "Old Solar" for the Sun,' said Jeremy. 'Do you mean that you can get back to Old Solar, [struck out: or Old Universal,] and that Lewis was right?' Jeremy was our Lewis-expert, and knew all his works, almost by heart. Many in Oxford will still remember how he had, a year or two before, given some remarkable lectures on Lewis and Williams. People had laughed at the title, because Lewis and all that circle had dropped badly out of fashion. Old Bell-Tinker, who was still Chairman of the English Board then, had boggled and puffed at it. 'If you must touch such a subject,' he snorted, 'call it Lewis and cut it Short.' Jeremy had retorted by offering to change the title to 'Lewis and Carolus or the Oxford Looking-glass'. 'Or "Jack and the Beanstalk", if you like,' he added, but that was too recondite a joke for the English Board. I believe, before Jeremy spoke up, few even of the Twentieth Century experts could have named any work of Williams, except perhaps The Octopus. That was still occasionally played, because of the great revival of mis- sionary interest after the Far-eastern martyrdoms in the sixties. The Allegory of Love was all of Lewis that the academicians ever mentioned (as a rule unread and slightingly). The other minor lights were only known by the few who read old C. R. Tolkien's little books of memoirs: In the Roaring Forties, and The Inns and Outs of Oxford. But Jeremy had made most of our club read some of those people (the Public-house School as it was called); though beside Jeremy only Ramer and Dolbear bothered with Tolkien pere and all the elvish stuff. ' "Old Solar"?' said Ramer. 'Well, no.... 'Old Bell-Tinker' derives his name from a book of translations of Anglo-Saxon literature by Bell and Tinker. His very bad joke 'call it Lewis and cut it Short' refers to the Latin Dictionary by Lewis and Short. The title of Jeremy's lectures, which aroused laughter, is omitted, but was presumably the same as in the final text, The Public-house School (because the Inklings met in pubs). 'Few bothered with Tolkien pere and all the elvish stuff' was doubtless no more than a self-deprecating joke - but implies that the 'elvish stuff' had at least been published! (cf. p. 303 and note 14). In the Roaring Forties is a pun on the name of the regions of the southern oceans, between forty and fifty degrees south, where there are great winds. 53. Since Ramer's criticism of the standard of linguistic invention characteristic of tales of space-travel and time-travel follows immediately on his denial that there could be any such language as Old Solar, he appears to be including Lewis in his criticism. Some years before, however, in his letter to Stanley Unwin of 4 March 1938 (Letters no. 26), my father had said of Out of the Silent Planet: The author holds to items of linguistic invention that do not appeal to me ...; but this is a matter of taste. After all your reader found my invented names, made with cherished care, eye-splitting. But the linguistic inventions and the philology on the whole are more than good enough. All the part about language and poetry - the glimpses of its Malacandrian nature and form - is very well done, and extremely interesting, far superior to what one usually gets from travellers in untravelled regions. The language difficulty is usually slid over or fudged. Here it not only has verisimilitude, but also underlying thought. 54. Glund: the name of Jupiter in Old Solar (also Glundandra). 55. I think there might be an Old Human, or Primitive Adamic...: A has here: 'But I think there might be, certainly was, an Old Humane or Adamic. But it could not possibly be the same as the Prime Language of Hrossa, Hressa-hlab.' This was retained in B (with Old Human for Old Humane: see note 44). The Hrossa were one of the three totally distinct kinds of hnau found on Malacandra; the language of the Hrossa was Hressa-hlab, which is 'Old Solar': see note 14. 56. Old Universal: see the beginning of the passage given in note 52. 57. En: this name appears already in A, with various predecessors, An, Nor, El, all struck out immediately. 58. Gormok, Zingil: in A Ramer's name for Mars is the Elvish word Karan ('red'); Venus was Zingil in A, though immediately replacing another name that cannot be read. 59. In A it is Jeremy who speaks at this point, asking: 'How do you know you've been there?' And Ramer replies: 'I don't: I have seen the places, not been there. My body's never travelled. I have seen the places either indirectly through other records, as you could say you'd seen Hongkong if you'd looked at many long accurate coloured films of it; or directly by using light. But how I know what the places are is another matter.' 60. Saturn is not mentioned in A. B has: 'And Gyuruchill, Saturn, is unmistakable'. Gyuruchill was changed to Shomori, and then to old Enekol. 61. The Cronic Star (in the footnote by Guildford at this point): Saturn (in astrology the leaden planet). Cronic is derived from Kronos, the Greek god (father of Zeus) identified by the Romans with Saturn; wholly distinct etymologically from chronic, derived from Greek chronos 'time'. 62. On the 'Fluted Wave' see p. 194. 63. In A Ramer says here: 'I could tell you about Atlantis (though that's not its name to me, nor Numenor): it is connected with that Fluted Wave. And the Door TT [which is connected with the Meg(alithic) >] of the Megalithic is too.' In B he speaks as in the final text, but says again 'though that's not its name to me, nor Numenor' - the last two words being later strongly struck out, and Loudham's question (asked with 'a curious eagerness') 'What is its name?' inserted (when the peculiar association of Lowdham with Numenor had entered: see notes 38, 46). In the final text of the Papers the emergence of the name Numenor is postponed until Part Two (p. 231). 64. A has here: 'But I've seen my Marim [changed probably at once to Albarim] playing one of their Albar-plays: the drama of the Silver Tree.' In A the name En-keladim has not occurred (see note 48). With 'the Drama of the Silver Tree' cf. the citation from On Fairy-Stories given in note 43. 65. In A Ramer says: 'I don't think that's invented: not by me anyway. It seems to take place on this earth in some time or mode or [?place].' In A he goes straight on from 'Atlantis' to his final story. In B Ramer comments on the Drama of the Silver Tree as in the final text, as far as 'something like it really happens, and I have seen it, far off perhaps or faintly.' Then follows: I guess that the true types of my Enkeladim are invisible, unless they turn their attention to you. That is, they are Eldilic in Lewis's terms, in some lesser rank [added: or perhaps like Tolkien's Unfallen Elves, only they were embodied]. All this was struck out, and replaced on a rider by the final text, as far as 'entering as it were into their own works because of their love for them.' Then follows: 'that is, that they are of a kind other than Lewis's Eldila (even of lesser rank); and yet not the same as Tolkien's Unfallen Elves, for those were embodied.' The original B text continues with 'I think [Emberu >] Ellor is one of their worlds ...', as in the final form. Against Ellor is a footnote: Ramer said that it was queer how the syllable cropped up: first in Tolkien's Eldar, Eldalie, then in Lewis's Eldil, and then in his Ellor. He thought it might be an 'elvish' or Keladian word. The Enkeladim are language-makers. NG. 66. Here the fair copy manuscript C ends, and the typescript D from here on follows B (see p. 146). 67. In A the name was Tekel-Ishtar, becoming Tekel-Mirim before the manuscript was completed. 68. Thomas Huxley, Physiography, 1877, cited in the Oxford English Dictionary. 69. The Radcliffe Camera, a great circular domed building standing in Radcliffe Square, Oxford, on the south side of which stands St. Mary's church and on the north side the Bodleian Library. Camera is used in the Latin sense 'arched or vaulted roof or chamber' (Latin camera ) French chambre, English chamber). [PART TWO].(1) Night 62.(2) Thursday, March 6th, 1987. [Of this meeting only half a torn sheet is preserved. The relevant part will be found in the note to Night 61, p. 195. There appears to have been further discussion of Ramer's views and adventures.] Night 63. Thursday, March 13th, 1987. [Only the last page of the record of this meeting is preserved. The discussion seems to have proceeded to legendary voyages of discovery in general. For the reference to the imram see Night (69).](3) [Good] night Frankley!' Lowdham seemed to feel a bit guilty about his ragging; and when the meeting finally broke up, he walked up the High with Ramer and myself. We turned into Radcliffe Square.(4) 'Played the ass as usual, Ramer,' said Lowdham. 'Sorry! I felt all strung up: wanted a fight, or a carouse, or something. But really I was very interested, especially about the imram.(5) Underneath we Nordics (6) have some feelings, as long as the Dago-fanciers will only be reasonably polite.' He hesitated. 'I've had some rather odd experiences - well, perhaps we'll talk about it some other time. It's late. But in the vac. perhaps?' 'I shall be going away,' said Ramer, a trifle coldly, 'till after Easter.' 'Oh well. But do come to the meetings next term! You must have lots more to tell us. I'll try and be good.' It was a cool clear night after a windy day. It was starry in the west, but the moon was already climbing. At B.N.C.(7) gate Lowdham turned. The Camera looked vast and dark against the moonlit sky. Wisps of long white cloud were passing on an easterly breeze. For a moment one of them seemed to take the shape of a plume of smoke issuing from the lantern of the dome. Lowdham looked up, and his face altered. His tall powerful figure appeared taller and broader as he stood there, gazing, with his dark brows drawn down. His face seemed pale and angry, and his eyes glittered. 'Curse him! May the Darkness take him!' he said bitterly. 'May the earth open - ' The cloud passed away. He drew his hand over his brow. 'I was going to say,' he said. 'Well, I don't remember. Something about the Camera, I think. Doesn't matter. Good night, chaps!' He knocked, and passed in through the door. We turned up along the lane. 'Very odd!' I said. 'What a queer fellow he is sometimes! A strange mixture.' 'He is,' said Ramer. 'Most of what we see is a tortoise-shell: armourplate. He doesn't talk much about what he really cares for.' 'For some reason the last two or three meetings seem to have stirred him up, unsettled him,' I said. 'I can't think why.' 'I wonder,' said Ramer. 'Well, good night, Nick. I'll see you again next term. I hope to start attending regularly again.' We parted at the Turl end of the lane. PF. RD. AAL. MGR. WTJ. JJR. NG. Night 64. Thursday, March 27th, 1987.(8) There was only one meeting in the vacation. Guildford's rooms. Neither Ramer nor Lowdham were present (it was a quiet evening). Guildford read a paper on Jutland in antiquity; but there was not much discussion. [No record of the paper is found in the minutes.] PF. WTJ. JM. RS. JJ. RD. NG. Night 65. Thursday, May 8th, 1987.(9) This was the first meeting of Trinity term. We met in Frankley's rooms in Queen's. Jeremy and Guildford arrived first (in time); others arrived one by one at intervals (late). There was nothing definite on for the evening, though we had hoped for some more talk from Ramer; but he seemed disinclined to say anything further. Conversation hopped about during the first hour, but was not notable. Lowdham was restless, and would not sit down; at intervals he burst into a song (with which he had, in fact, entered at about half past nine). It began: I've got a very Briny Notion To drink myself to sleep. It seldom progressed further, and never got beyond: Bring me my bowl, my magic potion! Tonight I'm diving deep. down! down! down! Down where the dream-fish go. It was not well received, least of all by Ramer. But Lowdham subsided eventually, into a moody silence - for a while. About ten o'clock the talk turned to neologisms; and Lowd- ham re-entered in their defence, chiefly because Frankley was taking the other side. (No. Pure love of truth and justice. AAL) Lowdham to Frankley: 'You say you object to panting, which all the younger people use now for desire or wish?' 'Yes, I do. And especially to having a great pant for anything; ' or worse having great pants for it.' 'Well, I don't think you've got any good grounds for your objection: nothing better than novelty or unfamiliarity. New words are always objected to, like new art.' 'Nonsense! Double nonsense, Arry!' said Ramer.(10) 'Frankley is complaining precisely because new words are not objected to. And anyway, I personally object to lots of old words, but I have to go on using 'em, because they're current, and people won't accept my substitutes. I dislike many products of old art. I like many new things but not all. There is such a thing as merit, without reference to age or to familiarity. I took to doink at once: a very good onomatopoeia for some purposes.' 'Yes, doink has come on a lot lately,' said Lowdham. 'But it's not brand-new, of course. I think it's first recorded, in the Third Supplement to the N.E.D.,(11) in the fifties, in the form doing: seems to have started in the Air Force in the Six Years' War.'(12) 'And it's an onomatopoeia, mark you,' said Frankley. 'It's easy to appraise the merits of that kind of word, if you can call it a real word. Anyway, adopting that is not at all on all fours with misusing an established word, robbing Peter to relieve the poverty of Paul: lexicographical socialism, which would end by reducing the whole vocabulary to one flat drab Unmeaning, if there were no reactionaries.' 'And won't anybody give poor Peter his pants back?' Lowd- ham laughed. 'He's got some more pairs in the cupboard, you'll see. He'll just have to take to wearing modern whaffing and whooshing. And why not? Do you object to Language, root and branch, Pip? I'm surprised at you, and you a poet and all.' 'Of course I don't! But I object to ruining it.' 'But are you ruining it? Is it any worse off with panting: whaffing than with longing: panting? This is not only the way language is changed, it is how it was made. Essentially it consists in the contemplation of a relationship "sound: sense; symbol: meaning". It's not only when this is new (to you at any rate) that you can appraise it. At inspired moments you can catch it, get the thrill of it, in familiar words. I grant that an onomatopoeia is a relatively simple case: whaff. But "to pant for equals to long for" contains the same element: new phonetic form for a meaning. Only here a second thing comes in: the interest, pleasure, excitement, what you will, of the relation of old sense to new. Both are illumined, for a time, at any rate. Language could never have come into existence without the one process, and never have extended its grasp without the other. Both must go on! They will, too.' 'Well, I don't like this example of the activity,' said Frankley. 'And I detest it, when philologues talk about Language (with a capital L) with that peculiarly odious unction usually reserved for capitalized Life. That we are told "must go on" - if we complain of any debased manifestations, such as Arry in his cups. He talks about Language as if it was not only a Jungle but a Sacred Jungle, a beastly grove dedicated to Vita Fera,(13) in which nothing must be touched by impious hands. Cankers, fungi, parasites: let 'em alone! 'Languages are not jungles. They are gardens, in which sounds selected from the savage wilderness of Brute Noise are turned into words, grown, trained, and endued with the scents of significance. You talk as if I could not pull up a weed that stinks!' 'I do not!' said Lowdham. 'But, first of all, you have to remember that it's not your garden - if you must have this groggy allegory: it belongs to a lot of other people as well, and to them your stinking weed may be an object of delight. More important: your allegory is misapplied. What you are objecting to is not a weed, but the soil, and also any manifestations of growth and spread. All the other words in your refined garden have come into being (and got their scent) in the same way. You're like a man who is fond of flowers and fruit, but thinks loam is dirty, and dung disgusting; and the uprising and the withering just too, too sad. You want a sterilized garden of immortelles, no, paper-flowers. In fact, to leave allegory, you won't learn anything about the history of your own language, and hate to be reminded that it has one.'(14) 'Slay me with pontifical thunder-bolts!' cried Frankley. 'But I'll die saying I don't like pants for longings.' 'That's the stuff!' laughed Lowdham. 'And you're right of course, Pip. Both are right: the Thunder and the Rebel. For the One Speaker, all alone, is the final court of doom for words, to bless or to condemn. It's the agreement only of the separate judges that seems to make the laws. If your distaste is shared by an effective number of the others, then pants will prove - a weed, and be thrust in the oven. 'Though, of course, many people - more and more, I sometimes feel, as Time goes on and even language stales - do not judge any longer, they only echo. Their native language, as Ramer would call it, dies almost at their birth. 'It's not so with you, Philip my lad; you're ignorant, but you have a heart. I dare say pants just doesn't fit your native style. So it has always been with full men: they have had their hatreds among the words, and their loves.' 'You talk almost as if you'd seen or heard Language since its beginning, Arry,' said Ramer, looking at him with some sur- prise. It was a long time since Lowdham had let himself go at such length. 'No! Not since its beginning,' said Lowdham, while a strange expression came over his face. 'Only since - but ... Oh well!' He broke off and went to the window. It was dark but clear as glass in the sky, and there were many white stars. The conversation drifted again. Starting from the beginnings of Language, we began to talk about legends of origins and cultural myths. Guildford and Markison began to have an argument about Corn-gods and the coming of divine kings or heroes over the sea, in spite of various frivolous interjections from Lowdham, who seemed curiously averse to the turn of the talk. 'The Sheaf personified,'* said Guild[ford. Here unfortunately one leaf is missing.)...... [Jeremy].... 'as you said. But I don't think one can be so sure. Sometimes I have a queer feeling that, if one could go back, one would find not myth dissolving into history, but rather the reverse: real history becoming more mythical - more shapely, simple, discernibly significant, even seen at close quarters. More poetical, and less prosaic, if you like. 'In any case, these ancient accounts, legends, myths, about the far Past, about the origins of kings, laws, and the fundamental crafts, are not all made of the same ingredients. They're not wholly inventions. And even what is invented is different from mere fiction; it has more roots.' 'Roots in what?' said Frankley. 'In Being, I think I should say,' Jeremy answered; 'and in human Being; and coming down the scale, in the springs of History and in the designs of Geography - I mean, well, in the pattern of our world as it uniquely is, and of the events in it as seen from a distance. A sort of parallel to the fact that from far away the Earth would be seen as a revolving sunlit globe; and that is a remote truth of enormous effect on us and all we do, though not immediately discernible on earth, where practical men are quite right in regarding the surface as flat and immovable for practical purposes. 'Of course, the pictures presented by the legends may be partly symbolical, they may be arranged in designs that com- press, expand, foreshorten, combine, and are not at all realistic or photographic, yet they may tell you something true about the Past. 'And mind you, there are also real details, what are called facts, accidents of land-shape and sea-shape, of individual men and their actions, that are caught up: the grains on which the stories crystallize like snowflakes. There was a man called Arthur at the centre of the cycle.' (* [See Night 66, p. 236.]) 'Perhaps!' said Frankley. 'But that doesn't make such things as the Arthurian romances real in the same way as true past events are real.' 'I didn't say in the same way,' said Jeremy. 'There are secondary planes or degrees.' 'And what do you know about "true past events", Philip?' asked Ramer. 'Have you ever seen one, when once it was past? They are all stories or tales now, aren't they, if you try to bring them back into the present? Even your idea of what you did yesterday - if you try to share it with anyone else? Unless, of course, you can go back, or at least see back.' 'Well, I think there's a difference between what really hap- pened at our meetings and Nicholas's record,' said Frankley. 'I don't think his reports erase the true history, whether they're true in their fashion to the events or not. And didn't you claim to be able sometimes to re-view the past as a present thing? Could you go back into Guildford's minutes?' 'Hmm,' Ramer muttered, considering. 'Yes and no,' he said. 'Nicholas could, especially into the scenes that he's pictured or re-pictured fairly solidly and put some mental work into. We could, if we did the same. People of the future, if they only knew the records and studied them, and let their imagination work on them, till the Notion Club became a sort of secondary world set in the Past: they could.' 'Yes, Frankley,' said Jeremy, 'you've got to make a distinction between lies, or casual fiction, or the mere verbal trick of projecting sentences back by putting the verbs into the past tense, between all that and construction. Especially of the major kind that has acquired a secondary life of its own and passes from mind to mind.' 'Quite so!' said Ramer. 'I don't think you realize, I don't think any of us realize, the force, the daimonic force that the great myths and legends have. From the profundity of the emotions and perceptions that begot them, and from the multiplication of them in many minds - and each mind, mark you, an engine of obscured but unmeasured energy. They are like an explosive: it may slowly yield a steady warmth to living minds, but if suddenly detonated, it might go off with a crash: yes: might produce a disturbance in the real primary world.' 'What sort of thing are you thinking of?' said Dolbear, lifting his beard off his chest, and opening his eyes with a gleam of passing interest. 'I wasn't thinking of any particular legend,' said Ramer. 'But, well, for instance, think of the emotional force generated all down the west rim of Europe by the men that came at last to the end, and looked on the Shoreless Sea, unharvested, untraversed, unplumbed! And against that background what a prodigious stature other events would acquire! Say, the coming, apparently out of that Sea, riding a storm, [of] strange men of superior knowledge, steering yet unimagined ships. And if they bore tales of catastrophe far away: battles, burned cities, or the whelming of lands in some tumult of the earth - it shakes me to think of such things in such terms, even now.' 'Yes, I'm moved by that,' said Frankley. 'But it's large and vague. I'm still stuck a good deal nearer home, in Jeremy's casual reference to King Arthur. There you have a sort of legendary land, but it's quite unreal.' 'But you'll allow, won't you,' said Ramer, 'that the Britain of Arthur, as now imagined, even in a debased when-knights-were- bold sort of form, has some kind of force and life?' 'Some kind of literary attraction,' said Frankley. 'But could you go back to King Arthur's Camelot, even on your system? Of which, by the way, I'm not yet convinced: I mean, what you've told us seems to me very likely no more than an exceptionally elaborate, and exceptionally well-remembered form of what I call "dreaming" simply: picture-and-story-spinning while asleep.' 'And anyway: if legend (significant on its own plane) has gathered about history (with its own importance), which would you go back to? Which would you see, if you saw back?' asked Guildford. 'It depends on what you yourself are like, and on what you are looking for, I imagine,' Ramer answered. 'If you were seeking the story that has most power and significance for human minds, then probably that is the version that you'ld find. 'Anyway, I think you could - I think I could go back to Camelot, if the conditions of my mind and the chances of travel were favourable. The chances are not, as I told you, more than very slightly affected by waking desire. An adventure of that sort would not be the same thing as re-viewing what you'ld call Fifth-century Britain. Neither would it be like making a dream- drama of my own. It would be more like the first, but it would be more active. It would be much less free than the second. It would probably be more difficult than either. I fancy it might be the sort of thing best done by one or two people in concert.' 'I don't see how that would help,' said Frankley. 'Because different people have different views, or have indi- vidual contributions to make: is that what you mean?' asked Guildford. 'But that would be just as true of historical research or "backsight".' 'No, it wouldn't,' said Jeremy. 'You're mixing up history in the sense of a story made up out of the intelligible surviving evidence (which is not necessarily truer to the facts than legend) and "the true story", the real Past. If you really had a look back at the Past as it was, then everything would be there to see, if you had eyes for it, or time to observe it in. And the most difficult thing to see would be, as it always is "at present", the pattern, the significance, yes, the moral of it all, if you like. At least that would be the case, the nearer you come to our time. As I said before, I'm not so sure about that, as you pass backward to the beginnings. But in such a thing as a great story-cycle the situation would be different: much would be vividly real and at the same time ... er... portentous; but there might be, would be, uncompleted passages, weak joints, gaps. You'ld have to consolidate. You might need help.' 'You might indeed!' said Frankley. 'Riding down from Came- lot (when you had discovered just where that was) to most other places on the legendary map, you'ld find the road pretty vague. Most of the time you'ld be lost in a fog! And you'ld meet some pretty sketchy characters about the court, too.' 'Of course! And so you would about the present court,' said Markison, 'or in any Oxford quadrangle. Why should that worry you? Sketchy characters are more true to life than fully studied ones. There are precious few people in real life that you know as well as a good writer knows his heroes and villains.' 'Riding down to Camelot. Riding out from Camelot,' mur- mured Lowdham. 'And there was a dark shadow over that too. I wonder, I wonder. But it is still only a tale to me. Not all legends are like that. No, unfortunately. Some seem to have come to life on their own, and they will not rest. I should hate to be cast back into some of those lands. It would be worse than the vision of poor Norman Keeps.' 'What on earth is he talking about now?' said Guildford. 'The cork's coming out pretty soon, I think,' grunted Dolbear without opening his eyes. Oh, Norman Keeps is our barber,'(15) said Frankley. At least that's what Arry and I call him: no idea what his real name is. Quite a nice and moderately intelligent little man: but to him everything beyond a certain vague distance back is a vast dark barren but utterly fixed and determined land and time called The Dark Ages. There are only four features in it: Norman Keeps (by which he means baronial castles, and possibly the house of any man markedly richer than himself); Them Jameses (meaning roughly I suppose the kings One and Two); The Squires (a curious kind of bogey-folk); and The People. Nothing ever happened in that land but Them Jameses shutting up The People in the Keeps (with the help of The Squires) and there torturing them and robbing them, though they don't appear ever to have possessed anything to be robbed of. Rather a gloomy legend. But it's a great deal more fixed in a lot more heads than is the Battle of Camlan!'(16) 'I know, I know,' said Lowdham loudly and angrily. 'It's a shame! Norman Keeps is a very decent chap, and would rather learn truth than lies. But Zigur (17) pays special attention to the type. Curse him!' Conversation stopped, and there was a silence. Ramer and Guildford exchanged glances. Dolbear opened his eyes quietly without moving his head. 'Zigur?' said Jeremy, looking at Lowdham. 'Zigur? Who is he?' 'No idea, no idea!' said Lowdham. 'Is this a new game, Jerry? Owlamoo,(18) who's he?' He strode to the window and flung it open. The early summer night was still and glimmering, warmer than usual for the time of year. Lowdham leant out, and we turned and stared at his back. The large window looked west, and the two towers of All Souls' stuck up like dim horns against the stars. Suddenly Lowdham spoke in a changed voice, clear and ominous, words in an unknown tongue; and then turning fiercely upon us he cried aloud: Behold the Eagles of the Lords of the West! They are coming over Numenor!(19) We were all startled. Several of us went to the window and stood behind Lowdham, looking out. A great cloud, coming up slowly out of the West, was eating up the stars. As it approached it opened two vast sable wings, spreading north and south. Suddenly Lowdham pulled away, slammed the window down, and drew the curtains. He slumped into a chair and shut his eyes. We returned to our seats and sat there uncomfortably for some time without a sound. At last Ramer spoke. 'Numenor? Numenor?' he said quietly. 'Where did you find that name, Arundel Lowdham?' 'Oh, I don't know,' Lowdham answered, opening his eyes, and looking round with a rather dazed expression. 'It comes to me, now and again. Just on the edge of things, you know. Eludes the grasp. Like coming round after gas. But it's been turning up more often than usual this spring. I'm sorry. Have I been behaving oddly or something, not quite my old quiet friendly self? Give me a drink!' 'I asked,' said Ramer, 'because Numenor is my name for Atlantis.'(20) 'Now that is odd!' began Jeremy. 'Ah!' said Lowdham. 'I wondered if it might be. I asked you what your name was that night last term; but you didn't answer.' 'Well, here's a new development!' said Dolbear, who was now wide awake. 'If Arry Lowdham is going to dive where the dreams go and find the same fish as Ramer, we shall have to look into the pool.' 'We shall,' said Jeremy; 'for it's not only Ramer and Arry. I come into it too. I knew I had heard that name as soon as Arry said it.(21) But I can't for the life of me remember where or when at the moment. It'll bother me now, like a thorn in the foot, until I get it out.' 'Very queer,' said Dolbear. 'What do you propose to do?' said Ramer. 'Take your advice,' said Jeremy. 'Get your help, if you'll give it.' 'Go into memory-training on the Rufus-Ramer system and see what we can fish up,' said Lowdham. 'I feel as if something wants to get out, and I should be glad to get it out - or forget it.' 'I'm a bit lost in all this,' said Markison. 'I've missed something evidently. Philip has told me a bit about the Ramer revelations last term, but I'm still rather at sea. Couldn't you tell us something, Lowdham, to make things a little clearer?' 'No, really, I'm feeling frightfully tired,' said Lowdham. 'You had better read up the records, if Nick has written them out yet.(22) I expect he has. He's pretty regular, and pretty accurate, if a bit hard on me. And come along to the next meeting. And we'd better make that in a fortnight's time, I think. You can have my room, if you think you can all get in. We'll see what we have got by then. I've nothing much to tell yet.' The conversation then dropped back uncertainly towards the normal, and nothing further occurred worth noting. As we went out Lowdham said to Ramer: 'D'you think I could come round and talk to you, and to Rufus, some time soon?' 'Yes,' said Ramer. 'The sooner the better. You come too, Jeremy.' MGR. PF. RD. JM. JJ. RS. AAL. WTJ. NG. Night 66. Thursday, May 22nd, 1987. A crowded evening. Lowdham's rather small room was pretty packed. The idea of Arry 'seeing things' was sufficiently astonishing to attract every member who was in Oxford. (Also I am supposed to keep more bottles in my cupboard than some that I could name. AAL) Lowdham seemed in a bright and rather noisy mood again; reluctant to do anything but sing. Eventually he was quietened and got into a chair. 'Well now,' said Markison, 'I've read the records. I can't say I've made my mind up about them yet; but I'm very interested to hear how you come into such business, Arry. It doesn't seem in your line.' 'Well, I'm a philologist,' said Lowdham, 'which means a misunderstood man. But where I come in is, I think, at the point you've mentioned: at Arry. The name Arry, which some of you are pleased to attach to me, is not just a tribute to my vulgar noisiness, as seems assumed by the more ignorant among you: it is short not for Henry or Harold, but for Arundel. In full Alwin Arundel Lowdham your humble jester, at your service.' 'Well, what has that got to do with it?' said several voices. 'I'm not quite sure yet,' said Lowdham. 'But my father's name was Edwin.'(23) 'Illuminating indeed! ' said Frankley. 'Not very, I think,' said Lowdham. 'Not illuminating, but puzzling. My father was an odd sort of man, as far as I remember. Large, tall, powerful, dark. Don't stare at me! I'm a reduced copy. He was wealthy, and combined a passion for the sea with learning of a sort, linguistic and archaeological. He must have studied Anglo-Saxon and other North-western tongues; for I inherited his library and some of his tastes. 'We lived in Pembrokeshire, near Penian:(24) more or less, for we were away a large part of the year; and my father was always going off at a moment's notice: he spent a great deal of his time sailing about Norway, Scotland, Ireland, Iceland, and sometimes southward to the Azores and so on. I did not know him well, though I loved him as much as a small boy can, and used to dream of the time when I could go sailing with him. But he disappeared when I was only nine.' 'Disappeared?' said Frankley. 'I thought you told me once that he was lost at sea.' 'He disappeared,' said Lowdham. 'A strange story. No storm. His ship just vanished into the Atlantic. That was in 1947, just forty years ago next month. No signals (he wouldn't use wireless, anyway). No trace. No news. She was called The Earendel.(25) An odd business.' 'The seas were still pretty dangerous at that time, weren't they?' said Stainer. 'Mines all over the place?' 'Not a spar at any rate was ever found,' said Lowdham. 'That was the end of The Earendel: a queer name, and a queer end. But my father had some queer fancies about names. I am called Alwin Arundel, a mouthful enough, out of deference to pru- dence and my mother, I believe. The names he chose were AElfwine Earendel. 'One of the few conversations I remember having with him was just before he went off for the last time. I had begged to go with him, and he had said NO, of course. "When can I go?" I said. '"Not yet, AElfwine," he said. "Not yet. Some time, perhaps. Or you may have to follow me." 'It was then that it came out about my names. "I modernized 'em," he said, "to save trouble. But my ship bears the truer name. It does not look to Sussex,(26) but to shores a great deal further off. Very far away indeed now. A man has more freedom in naming his ship than his own son in these days. And it's few men that have either to name." 'He went off next day. He was mad to be at sea again, as he had been kept ashore all through the Six Years' War,(27) from the summer of 1939 onward, except I believe just at the Dunkirk time in 1940. Too old - he was fifty when the war broke out, and I was only a year; for he had married late - too old, and I fancy a good deal too free and unbiddable to get any particular job, and he had become fiercely restless. He only took three sailors with him,(28) I think, but of course I don't know how he found them, or how they ever managed to get off, in those days of tyranny. I fancy they just cleared out illegally, somehow. Whither, I wonder? I don't think they meant to return. Anyway I never saw him again.' 'I can't see the connexion of this thread at all yet,' said Guildford. 'Wait a bit!' said Ramer. 'There is a connexion, or we think so. We've discussed it. You'd better let Arundel have his say.' 'Well - as soon as he'd gone... I was only nine at the time, as I said, and I had never bothered much about books, let alone languages, naturally at that age. I could read, of course, but I seldom did ... as soon as my father had gone, and we knew that it was for good, I began to take up with languages, especially making them up (as I thought). After a time I used to stray into his study, left for years it was, just as it had been when he was alive. 'There I learned a lot of odd things in a desultory way, and I came across some sort of a diary or notes in a queer script. I don't know what happened to it when my mother died. I only found one loose leaf of it among the papers that came to me. I've kept it for years, and often tried and failed to read it; but it is mislaid at present. I was about fourteen or fifteen when I got specially taken with Anglo-Saxon, for some reason. I liked its word-style, I think. It wasn't so much what was written in it as the flavour of the words that suited me. But I was first introduced to it by trying to find out more about the names. I didn't get much light on them. 'Eadwine friend of fortune? AElfwine elf-friend? That at any rate is what their more or less literal translation comes to. Though, as most of you will know (except poor Philip), these two-part names are pretty conventional, and not too much can be built on their literal meaning.' 'But they must originally have been made to have a meaning,' said Ramer. 'The habit of joining, apparently at random, any two of a list of beginners and enders, giving you Spear-peace and Peace-wolf and that sort of thing, must have been a later development, a kind of dried-up verbal heraldry. AElfwine any- way is one of the old combinations. It occurs outside England, doesn't it?' 'Yes,' said Lowdham. 'And so does Eadwine. But I could not see that any of the many recorded AElfwines were very suitable: AElfwine, grandson of King Alfred, for instance, who fell in the great victory of 937; or AElfwine who fell in the famous defeat of Maldon, and many others; not even AElfwine of Italy, that is Albuin son of Auduin, the grim Langobard of the sixth century.'(29) 'Don't forget the connexion of the Langobards with King Sheaf,'(30) put in Markison, who was beginning to show signs of interest. 'I don't,' said Lowdham. 'But I was talking of my earliest investigations as a boy.' 'Nor the repetition of the sequence: Albuin son of Auduin; AElfwine son of Eadwine; Alwin son of Edwin,' said Ramer.(31) 'Probably deliberately imitated from the well-known story of Rosamund,'(32) objected Philip Frankley. 'Arry's father must have known it. And that's quite enough to explain Alwin and AElfwine, when you're dealing with a family of Nordic philologues.' 'Perhaps, O Horsefriend of Macedon!'(33) said Lowdham. 'But it doesn't take in Earendel. There's little to be found out about that in Anglo-Saxon, though the name is there all right. Some guess that it was really a star-name for Orion, or for Rigel.(34) A ray, a brilliance, the light of dawn: so run the glosses.(35) Eala Earendel engla beorhtost ofer middangeard monnum sended!' he chanted. '"Hail Earendel, brightest of angels, above the middle-earth sent unto men!" When I came across that citation in the dictionary I felt a curious thrill, as if something had stirred in me, half wakened from sleep. There was something very remote and strange and beautiful behind those words, if I could grasp it, far beyond ancient English. 'I know more now, of course. The quotation comes from the Crist,. though exactly what the author meant is not so certain.(36) It is beautiful enough in its place. But I don't think it is any irreverence to say that it may derive its curiously moving quality from some older world.' 'Why irreverent?' said Markison. 'Even if the words do refer to Christ, of course they are all derived from an older pre- christian world, like all the rest of the language.' 'That's so,' said Lowdham; 'but Earendel seems to me a special word. It is not Anglo-Saxon;(37) or rather, it is not only Anglo-Saxon, but also something else much older. 'I think it is a remarkable case of linguistic coincidence, or congruence. Such things do occur, of course. 1 mean, in two different languages, quite unconnected, and where no borrow- ing from one to the other is possible, you will come across words very similar in both sound and meaning. They are usually dismissed as accidents; and I daresay some of the cases are not significant. But I fancy that they may sometimes be the result of a hidden symbol-making process working out to similar ends by different routes. Especially when the result is beautiful and the meaning poetical, as is the case with Earendel.' 'If I follow all this,' said Markison, 'I suppose you are trying to say that you've discovered Earendel, or something like it, in some other unconnected language, and are dismissing all the other forms of the name that are found in the older languages related to English. Though one of them, Auriwandalo, is actually recorded as a Langobardic name, I think. It's odd how the Langobards keep cropping up.' 'It is,' said Lowdham, 'but I am not interested in that at the moment. For I do mean that: I have often heard earendel, or to be exact earendil, e-a-r-e-n-d-i-l, in another language, where it actually means Great Mariner, or literally Friend of the Sea; though it also has, I think, some connexion with the stars.' 'What language is that?' said Markison, knitting his brows. 'Not one I've ever come across, I think.' (He has 'come across' or dabbled in about a hundred in his time.) 'No, I don't suppose you've ever met it,' said Lowdham. 'It's an unknown language. But I had better try and explain. 'From the time of my father's departure I began to have curious experiences, and I have gone on having them down the years, slowly increasing in clearness: visitations of linguistic ghosts, you might say. Yes, just that. I am not a seer. I have, of course, pictorial dreams like other folk, but only what Ramer would call marginal stuff, and few and fleeting at that: which at any rate means that if I see things I don't remember them. But ever since I was about ten I have had words, even occasional phrases, ringing in my ears; both in dream and waking abstrac- tion. They come into my mind unbidden, or I wake to hear myself repeating them. Sometimes they seem to be quite isolated, just words or names. Sometimes something seems to "break my dream"(38) as my mother used to say: the names seem to be connected strangely with things seen in waking life, suddenly, in some fleeting posture or passing light which transports me to some quite different region of thought or imagination. Like the Camera that night in March, Ramer, if you remember it. 'Looking at a picture once of a cone-shaped mountain rising out of wooded uplands, I heard myself crying out: "Desolate is Minul-Tarik, the Pillar of Heaven is forsaken!" and I knew that it was a dreadful thing. But most ominous of all are the Eagles of the Lords of the West. They shake me badly when I see them. I could, I could - I feel I could tell some great tale of Numenor. 'But I'm getting on too fast. It was a long time before I began to piece the fragments together at all. Most of these "ghost- words" are, and always were, to all appearance casual, as casual as the words caught by the eye from a lexicon when you're looking for something else. They began to come through, as I said, when I was about ten; and almost at once I started to note them down. Clumsily, of course, at first. Even grown-up folk make a poor shot, as a rule, at spelling the simplest words that they've never seen, unless they have some sort of phonetic knowledge. But I've still got some of the grubby little note- books I used as a small boy. An unsystematic jumble, of course; for it was only now and again that I bothered about such things. But later on, when I was older and had a little more linguistic experience, I began to pay serious attention to my "ghosts", and saw that they were something quite different from the game of trying to make up private languages. 'As soon as I started looking out for them, so to speak, the ghosts began to come oftener and clearer; and when I had got a lot of them noted down, I saw that they were not all of one kind: they had different phonetic styles, styles as unlike as, well - Latin and Hebrew. I am sorry, if this seems a bit complicated. I can't help it: and if this stuff is worth your bothering about at all, we'd better get it right. 'Well, first of all I recognized that a lot of these ghosts were Anglo-Saxon, or related stuff. What was left I arranged in two lists, A and B, according to their style, with a third rag-bag list C for odd things that didn't seem to fit in anywhere. But it was language A that really attracted me; it just suited me. I still like it best.' 'In that case you ought to have got it pretty well worked out by now,' said Stainer. 'Haven't you got a Grammar and Lexicon of Lowdham's Language A that you could pass round? I wouldn't mind a look at it, if it isn't in some hideous phonetic script. Lowdham stared at him, but repressed the explosion that seemed imminent. 'Are you deliberately missing the point?' he said. 'I've been painfully trying to indicate that I do not believe that this stuff is "invented", not by me at any rate. 'Take the Anglo-Saxon first. It is the only known language that comes through at all in this way, and that in itself is odd. And it began to come through before I knew it. I recognized it as Anglo-Saxon only after I began to learn it from books, and then I had the curious experience of finding that I already knew a good many of the words. Why, there are a number of ghost- words noted in the very first of my childish note-books that are plainly a beginner's efforts at putting down spoken Old English words in modern letters. There's wook, woak, woof = crooked, for instance, that is evidently a first attempt at recording Anglo-Saxon woh. 'And as for the other stuff: A, the language I like best, is the shortest list. How I wish I could get more of it! But it's not under my control, Stainer. It's not one of my invented lingoes. I have made up two or three, and they're as complete as they're ever likely to be; but that's quite a different matter. But evidently I'd better cut out the autobiography and jump down to the present. 'It's now clear to me that the two languages A and B have got nothing to do with any language I've ever heard, or come across in books in the ordinary way. Nothing. As far as it is possible for any language, built out of about two dozen sounds, as A is, to avoid occasional resemblances to other quite unrelated tongues: nothing. And they have nothing to do with my inventions either. Language B is quite unlike my own style. Language A is very agreeable to my taste (it may have helped to form it), but it is independent of me; I can't "work it out", as you put it. 'Any one who has ever spent (or wasted) any time on composing a language will understand me. Others perhaps won't. But in making up a language you are free: too free. It is difficult to fit meaning to any given sound-pattern, and even more difficult to fit a sound-pattern to any given meaning. I say fit. I don't mean that you can't assign forms or meanings arbitrarily, as you will. Say, you want a word for sky. Well, call it jibberjabber, or anything else that comes into your head without the exercise of any linguistic taste or art. But that's code-making, not language-building. It is quite another matter to find a relationship, sound plus sense, that satisfies, that is when made durable. When you're just inventing, the pleasure or fun is in the moment of invention; but as you are the master your whim is law, and you may want to have the fun all over again, fresh. You're liable to be for ever niggling, altering, refining, wavering, according to your linguistic mood and to your changes of taste. 'It is not in the least like that with my ghost-words. They came through made: sound and sense already conjoined. I can no more niggle with them than I can alter the sound or the sense of the word polis in Greek. Many of my ghost-words have been repeated, over and over again, down the years. Nothing changes but, occasionally, my spelling. They don't change. They endure, unaltered, unalterable by me. In other words they have the effect and taste of real languages. But one can have one's preferences among real languages, and as I say, I like A best. 'Both A and B I associate in some way with the name Numenor. The rag-bag list has got pretty long as the years have gone on, and I can now see that, among some unidentified stuff, it contains a lot of echoes of later forms of language derived from A and B. The Numenorean tongues are old, old, archaic; they taste of an Elder World to me. The other things are worn, altered, touched with the loss and bitterness of these shores of exile.' These last words he spoke in a strange tone, as if talking to himself. Then his voice trailed off into silence. 'I find this rather hard to follow, or to swallow,' said Stainer. 'Couldn't you give us something a bit clearer, something better to bite on than this algebra of A and B?' Lowdham looked up again. 'Yes, I could,' he said. 'I won't bother you with the later echoes. I find them moving, somehow, and instructive technically: I am beginning to discern the laws or lines of their change as the world grew older; but that wouldn't be clear even to a philologist except in writing and with long parallel lists. 'But take the name Numenore or Numenor (both occur) to start with. That belongs to Language A. It means Westernesse, and is composed of nume "west" and nore "folk" or "country". But the B name is Anadune, and the people are called Adunaim, from the B word adun "west". The same land, or so I think, has another name: in A Andore and in B Yozayan,(39) and both mean "Land of Gift". 'There seems to be no connexion between the two languages there. But there are some words that are the same or very similar in both. The word for "sky" or "the heavens" is menel in Language A and minil in B: a form of it occurs in Minul-tarik "Pillar of Heaven" that I mentioned just now. And there seems to be some connexion between the A word Valar, which seems to mean something like "The Powers", we might say "gods" perhaps, and the B plural Avaloim and the place-name Avalloni. Although that is a B name, it is with it, oddly enough, that I associate Language A; so if you want to get rid of algebra, you can call A Avallonian, and B Adunaic. I do myself. 'The name Earendil, by the way, belongs to Avallonian, and contains eare "the open sea" and the stem ndil "love, devotion": that may look a bit odd, but lots of the Avallonian stems begin with nd, mb, ng, which lose their d, b, or g when they stand alone. The corresponding Adunaic name, apparently meaning just the same, is Azrubel. A large number of names seem to have double forms like this, almost as if one people spoke two languages. If that is so, I suppose the situation could be paralleled by the use of, say, Chinese in Japan, or indeed of Latin in Europe. As if a man could be called Godwin, and also Theophilus or Amadeus. But even so two different peoples must come into the story somewhere. 'Well there you are. I hope you are not all bored. I could give you long lists of other words. Words, words, mostly just that. For the most part significant nouns, like Isil and Nilu for the Moon; fewer adjectives, still fewer verbs, and only occasional connected phrases. I love these languages, though they are only fragments out of some forgotten book. I find both curiously attractive, though Avallonian is nearest to my heart. Adunaic with its, well, faintly Semitic flavour belongs more nearly to our world, somehow. But Avallonian is to me beautiful, in its simple and euphonious style. And it seems to me more august, more ancient, and, well, sacred and liturgical. I used to call it the Elven-Latin. The echoes of it carry one far away. Very far away. Away from Middle-earth altogether, I expect.' He paused as if he was listening. 'But I could not explain just what I mean by that,' he ended. There was a short silence, and then Markison spoke. 'Why did you call it Elven-Latin?'(40) he asked. 'Why Elven?' 'I don't quite know,' Lowdham answered. 'It seems the nearest English word for the purpose. But certainly I didn't mean elf in any debased post-Shakespearean sort of sense. Something far more potent and majestic. I am not quite clear what. In fact it's one of the things that I most want to discover. What is the real reference of the aelf in my name? 'You remember that I said Anglo-Saxon used to come through mixed up with this other queer stuff, as if it had some special connexion with it? Well, I got hold of Anglo-Saxon through the ordinary books later on: I began to learn it properly before I was fifteen, and that confused the issue. Yet it is an odd fact that, though I found most of these words already there, waiting for me, in the printed vocabularies and dictionaries, there were some - and they still come through now and again - that are not there at all. Tiwas,(41) for instance, apparently used as an equivalent of the Avallonian Valar; and Nowendaland (42) for Numenore. And other compound names too, like Freafiras,(43) Regeneard,(44) and Midswipen.(45) Some were in very archaic form: like hebaensuil "pillar of heaven", or frumaeldi; or very antique indeed like Wihawinia.'(46) 'This is dreadful,' sighed Frankley. 'Though I suppose I should be grateful at least that Valhalla and Valkyries have not made their appearance yet. But you'd better be careful, Arry! We're all friends here, and we won't give you away. But you will be getting into trouble, if you let your archaic cats out of your private bag among your quarrelsome philological rivals. Unless, of course, you back up their theories.'(47) 'You needn't worry,' said Lowdham. 'I've no intention of publishing the stuff. And I haven't come across anything very controversial anyway. After all Anglo-Saxon is pretty near home, in place and time, and it's been closely worked: there's not much margin for wide errors, not even in pronunciation. What I hear is more or less what the received doctrine would lead me to expect. Except in one point: it is so slow! Compared with us urban chirrupers the farmers and mariners of the past simply mouthed, savoured words like meat and wine and honey on their tongues. Especially when declaiming. They made a scrap of verse majestically sonorous: like thunder moving on a slow wind, or the tramp of mourners at the funeral of a king. We just gabble the stuff. But even that is no news to philologists, in theory; though the realization of it in sound is something mere theory hardly prepares you for. And, of course, the philologists would be very interested in my echoes of very archaic English, even early Germanic - if they could be got to believe that they were genuine. 'Here's a bit that might intrigue them. It's very primitive in form, though I use a less horrific notation than is usual. But you had better see this.' He brought out from his pocket several scraps of paper and passed them round; westra lage wegas rehtas, wraikwas nu isti. 'That came through years ago,(48) long before I could interpret it, and it has constantly been repeated in various forms: westra lage wegas rehtas, wraikwas nu isti. westweg waes rihtweg, woh is nupa and so on and on and on, in many snatches and dream-echoes, down from what looks like very ancient Germanic to Old English. a straight way lay westward, now it is bent. It seems the key to something, but I can't fit it yet. But it was while I was rummaging in an Onomasticon,(49) and poring over the list of AElfwines, that I got, seemed to hear and see, the longest snatch that has ever come through in that way, Yes, I said I wasn't a seer; but Anglo-Saxon is sometimes an excep- tion. I don't see pictures, but I see letters: some of the words and especially some of the scraps of verse seem to be present to the mind's eye as well as to the ear, as if sometime, somewhere, I had seen them written and could almost recall the page. If you turn over the slips I gave you, you'll see the thing written out. It came through when I was only sixteen, before I had read any of the old verse; but the lines stuck, and I put them down as well as I could. The archaic forms interest me now as a philologist, but that's how they came through, and how they stand in my note-book under the date October 1st 1954. A windy evening: I remember it howling round the house, and the distant sound of the sea. Monath modaes lust mith merifloda forth ti foeran thaet ic feorr hionan obaer gaarseggaes grimmae bolmas aelbuuina eard uut gisoecae. Nis me ti hearpun hygi ni ti hringthegi ni ti wibae wyn ni ti weoruldi hyct ni ymb oowict ellaes nebnae ymb ytha giwalc. It sounds to me now almost like my own father speaking across grey seas of world and time: My soul's desire over the sea-torrents forth bids me fare, that I afar should seek over the ancient water's awful mountains Elf-friends' island in the Outer-world. For no harp have I heart, no hand for gold, in no wife delight, in the world no hope: one wish only, for the waves' tumult. 'I know now, of course, that these lines very closely resemble some of the verses in the middle of The Seafarer, as that strange old poem of longing is usually called. But they are not the same. In the text preserved in manuscript it runs elpeodigra eard 'the land of aliens', not aelbuuina or aelfwina (as it would have been spelt later) 'of the AElfwines, the Elven-friends'. I think mine is probably the older and better text - it is in a much older form and spelling anyway - but I daresay I should get into trouble, as Pip suggests, if I put it into a "serious journal".(50) 'It was not until quite recently that I picked up echoes of some other lines that are not found at all among the preserved fragments of the oldest English verses.(51) Pus cwaed AElfwine Widlast Eadwines sunu: Fela bid on Westwegum werum uncudra, wundra and wihta, wlitescene land, eardgeard aelfa and esa bliss. Lyt aenig wat hwylc his langod sie pam pe eftsides eldo getwaefed. 'Thus spake AElfwine the Fartravelled son of Eadwine: There is many a thing in the west of the world unknown to men; marvels and strange beings, [a land lovely to look on,] the dwelling place of the Elves and the bliss of the Gods. Little doth any man know what longing is his whom old age cutteth off from return. 'I think my father went before Eld should cut him off. But what of Eadwine's son? 'Well, now I've had my say for the present. There may be more later. I am working at the stuff - as hard as time and my duties allow, and things may happen. Certainly I'll let you know, if they do. For now you have endured so much, I expect you will want some more news, if anything interesting turns up. If it's any comfort to you, Philip, I think we shall get away from Anglo-Saxon sooner or later.' 'If it's any comfort to you, Arry,' said Frankley, 'for the first time in your long life as a preacher you've made me faintly interested in it.' 'Good Heavens!' said Lowdham. 'Then there must be some- thing very queer going on! Lor bless me! Give me a drink and I will sing, as the minstrels used to say. Fil me a cuppe of ful gode ale, for longe I have spelled tale! Nu wil I drinken or I ende that Frenche men to helle wende!'(52) The song was interrupted by Frankley. Eventually a sem- blance of peace was restored, only one chair being a casualty. Nothing toward or untoward occurred for the remainder of the evening. AAL. MGR. WTJ. JM. RD. RS. PF. JJ. JJR. NG. Night 67. Thursday, June 12th, 1987.(53) We met in Ramer's rooms in Jesus College. There were eight of us present, including Stainer and Cameron, and all the regulars except Lowdham. It was very hot and sultry, and we sat near the window looking into the inner quadrangle, talking of this and that, and listening for the noises of Lowdham's approach; but an hour passed and there was still no sign of him. 'Have you seen anything of Arry lately?' said Frankley to Jeremy. 'I haven't. I wonder if he's going to turn up at all tonight?' 'I couldn't say,' said Jeremy. 'Ramer and I saw a good deal of him in the first few days after our last meeting, but I haven't set eyes on him for some time now.' 'I wonder what he's up to? They say he cancelled his lectures last week. I hope he's not ill.' 'I don't think you need fret about your little Elf-friend,' said Dolbear. 'He's got a body and a constitution that would put a steamroller back a bit, if it bumped into him. And don't worry about his mind! He's getting something off it, and that will do him no harm, I think. At least whatever it does, it will do less harm than trying to cork it up any longer. But what on earth it all is - well, I'm still about as much at sea as old Edwin Lowdham himself.' 'Sunk, in fact,' said Stainer. 'I should say it was a bad attack of repressed linguistic invention, and that the sooner he brings out an Adunaic Grammar the better for all.' 'Perhaps,' said Ramer. 'But he may bring out a lot more besides. I wish he would come!' At that moment there was the sound of loud footsteps, heavy and quick, on the wooden stairs below. There was a bang on the door, and in strode Lowdham. 'I've got something new!' he shouted. 'More than mere words. Verbs! Syntax at last!' He sat down and mopped his face. 'Verbs, syntax! Hooray!' mocked Frankley. 'Now isn't that thrilling! ' 'Don't try and start a row, O Lover of Horses (54) and Horseplay!' said Lowdham. 'It's too hot. Listen! 'It's been very stuffy and thundery lately, and I haven't been able to sleep, a troublesome novelty for me; and I began to have a splitting headache. So I cleared off for a few days to the west coast, to Pembroke. But the Eagles came up out of the Atlantic, and I fled. I still couldn't sleep when I came back, and my headache got worse. And then last night I fell suddenly into a deep dark sleep - and I got this.' He waved a handful of papers at us. 'I didn't come round until nearly twelve this morning, and my head was ringing with words. They began to fade quickly as soon as I woke; but I jotted down at once all I could. 'I have been working on the stuff every minute since, and I've made six copies. For I think you'll find it well worth a glance; but you fellows would never follow it without something to look at. Here it is! ' He passed round several sheets of paper. On them were inscribed strange words in a big bold hand, done with one of the great thick-nibbed pens Lowdham is fond of. Under most of the words were glosses in red ink.(55) I. (A) O sauron tule nukumna ... lantaner turkildi and ? came humbled ... fell ? nuhuinenna ... tar-kalion ohtakare valannar under shadow ... ? war made on Powers ... nimeheruvi arda sakkante leneme iluvataren Lords-of-West Earth rent with leave of ? eari ullier ikilyanna ... numenore ataltane seas should flow into chasm ... Numenor fell down (B) Kado zigurun zabathan unakkha ... eruhinim and so ? humbled he-came ... ? dubdam ugru-dalad ... ar-pharazonun azaggara fell ?shadow under ... ? was warring avaloiyada ... barim an-adun yurahtam daira against Powers ... Lords of-West broke Earth saibeth-ma eruvo ... azriya du-phursa akhasada assent-with ?-from ... seas so-as-to-gush into chasm ... anadune ziran hikallaba ... bawtba dulgi ... Numenor beloved she-fell down ... winds black ... balik hazad an-nimruzir azulada ... ships seven of ? eastward (B) Agannalo buroda nenud ... zaira nenud Death-shadow heavy on-us ... longing (is) on-us ... adun izindi batan taido ayadda: ido west straight road once went now katha batina lokhi all roads crooked (A) Vahaiya sin And ore far away now (is) Land of Gift (B) Ephalak idon Yozayan far away now (is) Land of Gift (B) Ephal ephalak idon hi-Akallabeth far far away now (is) She-that-hath-fallen (A) Haiya vahaiya sin atalante. far far away now (is) the Downfallen.(56) 'There are two languages here,' said Lowdham, 'Avallonian and Adunaic: I have labelled them A and B. Of course, I have put them down in a spelling of my own. Avallonian has a clear simple phonetic structure and in my ear it rings like a bell, but I seemed to feel as I wrote this stuff down that it was not really spelt like this. I have never had the same feeling before, but this morning I half glimpsed quite a different script, though I couldn't visualize it clearly. I fancy Adunaic used a very similar script too. '"I believe these are passages out of some book," I said to myself. And then suddenly I remembered the curious script in my father's manuscript. But that can wait. I've brought the leaf along. 'These are only fragmentary sentences, of course, and not by any means all that I heard; but they are all that I could seize and get written down. Text I is bilingual, though they are not identical, and the B version is a little longer. That's only because I could remember a bit more of it. They correspond so closely because I heard the A version, a sentence at a time, with the B version immediately following: in the same voice, as if someone was reading out of an ancient book and translating it bit by bit for his audience. Then there came a long dark gap, or a picture of confusion and darkness in which the word-echoes were lost in a noise of winds and waves. 'And then I got a kind of lamentation or chant, of which I have put down all that I can now remember. You'll notice the order is altered at the end. There were two voices here, one singing A and the other singing B, and the chant always ended up as I have set it out: A B B A. The last word was always Atalante. I can give you no idea of how moving it was, horribly moving. I still feel the weight of a great loss myself, as if I shall never be really happy on these shores again. 'I don't think there are any really new words here. There are a lot of very interesting grammatical details; but I won't bother you with those, interesting as they are to me - and they seem to have touched off something in my memory too, so that I now know more than is actually contained in the fragments. You'll see a lot of query marks, but I think the context (and often the grammar) indicates that these are all names or titles. 'Tar-kalion, for instance: I think that is a king's name, for I've often come across the prefix tar in names of the great, and ar in the corresponding Adunaic name (on the system I told you about) is the stem of the word for "king". On the other hand turkildi and eruhinim, though evidently equivalent, don't mean the same thing. The one means, I think, 'lordly men', and the other is rather more startling, for it appears to be the name of God the Omnipotent with a patronymic ending: in fact, unless I am quite wrong, "Children of God". Indeed, I need not have queried the words eruvo and iluvataren: there can't really be any doubt that eruvo is the sacred name Eru with a suffixed element meaning "from", and that therefore iluvataren means the same thing. 'There is one point that may interest you, after what we were saying about linguistic coincidence. Well, it seems to me a fair guess that we are dealing with a record, or a legend, of an Atlantis catastrophe.' 'Why or?' said Jeremy. 'I mean, it might be a record and a legend. You never really tackled the question I propounded at our first meeting this term. If you went back would you find myth dissolving into history or history into myth? Somebody once said, I forget who, that the distinction between history and myth might be meaningless outside the Earth. I think it might at least get a great deal less sharp on the Earth, further back. Perhaps the Atlantis catastrophe was the dividing line?' 'We may be able to deal with your question a great deal better when we've got to the bottom of all this,' said Lowdham. 'In the meantime the point I was going to bring up is worth noting. I said "Atlantis" because Ramer told us that he associated the word Numenor with the Greek name. Well, look! here we learn that Numenor was destroyed; and we end with a lament: far, far au ay, now is Atalante. Atalante is plainly another name for Numenor-Atlantis. But only after its downfall. For in Avallo- nian atalante is a word formed normally from a common base talat "topple over, slip down": it occurs in Text I in an emphatic verbal form ataltane "slid down in ruin", to be precise. Atalante means "She that has fallen down", So the two names have approached one another, have reached a very similar shape by quite unconnected routes. At least, I suppose the routes are unconnected. I mean, whatever traditions may lie behind Plato's Timaeus,(57) the name that he uses, Atlantis, must be just the same old "daughter of Atlas" that was applied to Calypso. But even that connects the land with a mountain regarded as the pillar of heaven. Minul-Tarik, Minul-Tarik! Very interesting.' He got up and stretched. 'At least I hope you all think so! But, good lord, how hot and stuffy it is getting! Not an evening for a lecture! But anyway, I can't make much more out of this with only words, and without more words. And I need some pictures. 'I wish I could see a little, as well as hear, like you, Ramer. Or like Jerry. He's had a few glimpses of strange things, while we worked together; but he can't hear. My words seem to waken his sight, but it's not at all clear yet. Ships with dark sails. Towers on sea-washed shores. Battles: swords that glint, but are silent. A great domed temple.(58) I wish I could see as much. But I've done what I can. Sauron. Zigurun, Zigur. I can't fathom those names. But the key is there, I think. Zigur.' 'Zigur!' said Jeremy in a strange voice.(59) We stared at him: he was sitting with his eyes closed, and he looked very pale; beads of sweat were on his face. 'I say, what's the matter, Jerry?' cried Frankley. 'Open the other window, Ramer, and let's have some more air! I think there's a storm brewing.' 'Zigur!' cried Jeremy again, in a remote strained voice. 'You spoke of him yourself not long ago, cursing the name. Can you have forgotten him, Nimruzir?'(60) 'I had forgotten,' Lowdham answered. 'But now I begin to remember! ' He stood still and clenched his fists. His brow lowered, and his eyes glittered. There was a glimmer of lightning far away through the darkening window. Away in the west over the roofs the sky was going dead black. There came a distant rumour of thunder. Jeremy groaned and laid his head back. Frankley and Ramer went to him, and bent over him; but he did not seem to notice them. 'It's the thunder, perhaps,' said Frankley in a low voice. 'He seemed all right a few minutes ago; but he looks pretty ghastly now.' 'Leave him alone,' growled Dolbear. 'You'll do no good hovering over him.' 'Would you like to lie down on my bed?' said Ramer. 'Or shall I get the car out and run you home?' 'Are you feeling ill, old man?' said Frankley. 'Yes,' groaned Jeremy without moving. 'Deathly. But don't trouble me! Don't touch me! Ba kitabdahe!(61) Sit down. I shall speak in a moment.' There was a silence that seemed long and heavy. It was then nearly ten o'clock, and the pale sky of summer twilight was pricked by a few faint stars; but the blackness crawled slowly onwards from the West. Great wings of shadow stretched out ominously over the town. The curtains stirred as with a presage of wind, and then hung still. There was a long mutter of thunder ending in a crack. Lowdham was standing erect in the middle of the floor, looking out of the window with staring eyes. Suddenly: 'Narika 'nBari 'nAdun yanakhim,'(62) he shouted, lifting up both his arms. 'The Eagles of the Lords of the West are at hand! ' Then all at once Jeremy began to speak. 'Now I see!' he said. 'I see it all. The ships have set sail at last. Woe to the time! Behold, the mountain smokes and the earth trembles!' He paused, and we sat staring, oppressed as by the oncoming of doom. The voices of the storm drew nearer. Then Jeremy began again. 'Woe to this time and the fell counsels of Zigur! The King hath set forth his might against the Lords of the West. The fleets of the Numenoreans are like a land of many islands; their masts are like the stems of a forest; their sails are golden and black. Night is coming. They have gone against Avalloni with naked swords. All the world waiteth. Why do the Lords of the West make no sign?'(63) There was a dazzle of lightning and a deafening crash. 'Behold! Now the black wrath is come upon us out of the West. The Eagles of the Powers of the World have arisen in anger. The Lords have spoken to Eru, and the fate of the World is changed!'(64) 'Do you not hear the wind coming and the roaring of the sea?' said Lowdham. 'Do you not see the wings of the Eagles, and their eyes like thunderbolts and their claws like forks of fire?' said Jeremy. 'See! The abyss openeth. The sea falls. The mountains lean over. Urid yakalubim!' He got up unsteadily, and Lowdham took his hand, and drew him towards him, as if to protect him. Together they went to the window and stood there peering out, talking to one another in a strange tongue. Irresistibly I was reminded of two people hanging over the side of a ship. But suddenly with a cry they turned away, and knelt down covering their eyes. 'The glory hath fallen into the deep waters,' said Jeremy weeping. 'Still the eagles pursue us,' said Lowdham. 'The wind is like the end of the world, and the waves are like mountains moving. We go into darkness.'(65) There was a roar of thunder and a blaze of lightning: flashes north, south, and west. Ramer's room flared into a blistering light and rocked back into darkness. The electric light had failed. At a distance there was a murmur as of a great wind coming. 'All hath passed away. The light hath gone out!' said Jeremy. With a vast rush and slash rain came down suddenly like waterfalls out of the sky, and a wind swept the city with wild wings of fury; its shriek rose to a deafening tumult. Near at hand I heard, or I thought I heard, a great weight like a tower falling heavily, clattering to ruin. Before we could close the windows with the strength of all hands present and heave the shutters after them, the curtains were blown across the room and the floor was flooded. In the midst of all the confusion, while Ramer was trying to find and light a candle, Lowdham went up to Jeremy, who was cowering against the wall, and he took his hands. 'Come, Abrazan!'(66) he said. 'There is work to do. Let us look to our folk and see to our courses, before it is too late!' 'It is too late, Nimruzir,' said Jeremy. 'The Valar hate us. Only darkness awaits us.' 'A little light may yet lie beyond it, Come!' said Lowdham, and he drew Jeremy to his feet. In the light of the flickering candle that Ramer now held in a shaking hand, we saw him drag Jeremy to the door, and push him out of the room. We heard their feet stumbling and clattering down the stairs. 'They'll be drowned!' said Frankley, taking a few steps, as if to follow them. 'What on earth has come over them?' 'The fear of the Lords of the West,' said Ramer, and his voice shook. 'It is no good trying to follow them. But I think it was their part in this story to escape from the very edge of Doom. Let them escape!' And there this meeting would have ended, but for the fact that the rest of us could not face the night and dared not go. For three hours we sat huddled up in dim candle-light, while the greatest storm in the memory of any living man roared over us: the terrible storm of June 12th 1987,(67) that slew more men, felled more trees, and cast down more towers, bridges and other works of Man than a hundred years of wild weather.* (* The centre of its greatest fury seems to have been out in the Atlantic, but its whole course and progress has been something of a puzzle to meteorologists - as far as can be discovered from accounts it seems to have proceeded more like blasts of an explosion, rushing eastward and slowly diminishing in force as it went. N.G.) When at last it had abated in the small hours, and through the rags of its wild retreat the sky was already growing pale again in the East, the company parted and crept away, tired and shaken, to wade the flooded streets and discover if their homes and colleges were still standing. Cameron made no remark. I am afraid he had not found the evening entertaining. I was the last to go. As I stood by the door, I saw Ramer pick up a sheet of paper, closely covered with writing. He put it into a drawer.(68) 'Good night - or good morning!' I said. 'We should be thankful at any rate that we were not struck by lightning, or caught in the ruin of the college.' 'We should indeed!' said Ramer. 'I wonder.' 'What do you wonder? ' I said. 'Well, I have an odd feeling, Nick, or suspicion, that we may all have been helping to stir something up. If not out of history, at any rate out of a very powerful world of imagination and memory. Jeremy would say "perhaps out of both". I wonder if we may not find ourselves in other and worse dangers.' 'I don't understand you,' I said. 'But at any rate, I suppose you mean that you wonder whether they ought to go on. Oughtn't we to stop them?' 'Stop Lowdham and Jeremy?' said Ramer. 'We can't do that now.' MGR. RD. PF. RS. JM. NG. Added later AAL. WTJ. Night 68. June 26th, 1987. Frankley's rooms. A small attendance: Frankley, Dolbear, Stainer, Guildford. There is not much to record. Most of the Club, present or absent, were in one way or another involved in examinations, and tired, and more bothered than is usual at this season.* (* The extraordinary system of holding the principal examinations of the year in the summer, which must have been responsible for an incalculable amount of misery, was still in force. During the period of 'reforms' in the forties there was talk of altering this arrangement, but it was never carried out, though it was one of the few thoroughly desirable minor reforms proposed at the time. It was the events of the summer of 1987 that finally brought things to a head, as most of the examinations had that year to be transferred to the winter, or held again after the autumn term. N.G.) Things had been rather shaken up by the storm. It had come in the seventh week, right in the middle of the final examinations; and amongst a lot of other damage, the Examination Schools had been struck and the East School wrecked. 'What a time we've been having, ever since old Ramer started to attend again!' said Frankley. 'Notion Club! More like the Commotion Club! Is there any news of the Commoters?' 'D'you mean Lowdham and Jeremy?' said Stainer. 'Pro- moters, I should say! I've never seen anything better staged - and with Michael Ramer, as a kind of conniving chorus. It was wonderfully well done!' 'Wonderfully!' said Dolbear. 'I am lost in admiration. Think of their meteorological information! Superb! Foreseeing like that a storm not foretold, apparently, by any station in the world. And timing it so beautifully, too, to fit in neatly with their prepared parts. It makes you think, doesn't it? - as those say, who have never experienced the process. And Ramer says flatly that he was bowled over, altogether taken by surprise. Whatever you may think of his views, it would be very rash to assume that he was lying. He takes this affair rather seriously. "Those two are probably dangerous," he said to me; and he wasn't thinking merely of spoofing the Club, Stainer.' 'Hm. I spoke too hastily, evidently,' said Stainer, stroking his chin. 'Hm. But what then? If not arranged, it was a very remarkable coincidence.' 'Truly remarkable!' said Dolbear. 'But we'll leave that ques- tion open for a bit, I think; coincidence or connexion. They're both pretty difficult to accept; but they're the only choices. Pre-arrangement is impossible - or rather it's a damned sight more improbable, and even more alarming. What about these two fellows, though? Has anything been heard of them?' 'Yes,' said Guildford. 'They're alive, and neither drowned nor blasted. They've written me a joint letter to lay before the Club. This is what they say: Dear Nick, We hope every one is safe and sound. We are. We were cast up far away when the wind fell, but we're dry again at last; so now we're off, more or less in the words of the old song, 'on some jolly little jaunts to the happy, happy haunts where the beer flows wild and free'. In due course (if ever) we'll let our colleges have our addresses. A.A.L. That is the end of Arry's great big fist. Jeremy adds: We are researching. More stuff may come through, I think. What about a vacation meeting? Just before the racket of term. What about Sept. 25th? You can have my rooms. Yrs. W.T.J.' 'What about the racket of the vacation! ' said Frankley. They re damned lucky not to be in the schools (69) this year, or they'ld have to come back, wherever the wind may have blown them. Any idea where that was, Nick?' 'No,' said Guildford. 'The postmark is illegible,(70) and there's no address inside. But what about the proposed meeting? I suppose most of us will be about again by then.' September 25th was agreed to. At that moment Michael Ramer came in. 'We've heard from them!' Frankley cried. 'Nicholas has had a letter. They're all right, and they're off on a holiday somewhere: no address.' 'Good!' said Ramer. 'Or I hope so. I hope they won't wreck the British Isles before they've finished.' 'My dear Ramer! ' Steiner protested. 'What do you mean? What can you mean? Dolbear has been preaching the open mind to my incredulity. He had better talk to you. The other extreme is just as bad.' 'But I haven't any fixed opinions,' said Ramer. 'I was merely expressing a doubt, or a wild guess. But actually I am not really very much afraid of any more explosions now. I fancy that that force has been spent, for the present, for a long time to come perhaps. 'But I am a little anxious about Arry and Wilfrid themselves. They may quite well get into some danger. Still we can only wait and see. Even if we could find them we could do no more. You can't stop a strong horse with the bit between its teeth. You certainly could not rein Arry in now, and Wilfrid is evidently nearly as deeply in it as Arry is. 'In the meantime I have got something to show you. Arry dropped a leaf of paper in my room that night. I think it is the leaf of his father's manuscript that he told us about. Well - I've deciphered it.' 'Good work! ' said Guildford. 'I didn't know you were a cryptographer.' 'I'm not,' Ramer laughed, 'but I have my methods. No, no - nothing dreamy this time. I just made a lucky shot and landed on the mark. I don't know whether Arry had solved it himself before he dropped it, but I think not; for if he had, he would have included it in the stuff he showed us. It's quite plain what held him up: it was too easy. He was looking for something remote and difficult, while all the time the solution was right on his own doorstep. He thought it was Numenorean, I guess; but actually it is Old English, Anglo-Saxon, his own stuff! The script is, I suppose, Numenorean,(71) as Arry thought. But it has been applied by someone to ancient English. The proper names, when they're not Old English translations, are in the same script, but the letters are then quite differently used, and I shouldn't have been able to read them without the help of Arry s texts. 'I wonder who had the idea of writing Anglo-Saxon in this odd way? Old Edwin Lowdham seems at first a likely guess; but I'm not so sure. The thing is evidently made up of excerpts from a longish book or chronicle.' 'Well, come on!' cried Frankley. 'How you philologists do niggle! Let's see it, and tell us what it says!' 'Here it is!' said Ramer, taking three sheets out of his pocket and handing them to Frankley. 'Pass it round! I've got a copy. The original is only a small octavo page as you see, written on both sides in a large hand in this rather beautiful script. 'Now, I said to myself: "If this is in one of Arry's languages, I can't do anything with it; no one but he can solve it, But he failed, so probably it isn't. In that case, what language is it most likely to be, remembering what Arry told us? Anglo-Saxon. Well, that's not one of my languages, though I know the elements. So when I'd made a preliminary list of all the separate letters that I could distinguish, I trotted round to old Professor Rashbold at Pembroke,(72) though I didn't know him personally. A grumpy old bear Arry has always called him; but evidently Arry has never given him the right sort of buns. 'He liked mine. He didn't care tuppence about what the stuff said, but it amused him to try and solve the puzzle, especially when he heard that it had defeated Arry. "Oh! Young Lowd- ham!" he said. "A clever fellow under that pothouse manner. But too fly-away; always after some butterfly theory. Won't stick to his texts. Now if I had had him as my pupil, I should have put some stiffening into him." Well, starting out with my guess that the stuff might be Anglo-Saxon, old Rashbold didn't take long. I don't know his workings. All he said before I left was: "Never seen this script before; but I should say it was a consonantal alphabet, and all these diacritics are vowel-signs. I'll have a look at it." He sent it back to me this morning, with a long commentary on the forms and spellings, which I am not inflicting on you, except his concluding remarks. '"To sum up: it is in Old English of a strongly Mercian (West-Midland) colour, ninth century I should say.(73) There are no new words, except possibly to-sprengdon. There are several words, probably names and not Old English, that I have not succeeded in getting out; but you will excuse me from spending more time on them. My time is not unlimited. Whoever made the thing knew Old English tolerably well, though the style has the air of a translation. If he wanted to forge a bit of Old English, why did not he choose an interesting subject?" 'Well, I solved the names, as I told you; and there you have the text as old Rashbold sent it back, with the names put in. Only as my typewriter has no funny letters I have used th for the old thorn-letter. The translation is Rashbold's too. Hi alle sae on weorulde oferliodon, sohton hi nyston hwet; ah aefre walde heara heorte westward.... forthon hit swe gefyrn arkdde se AElmihtiga thaet hi sceoldan steorfan 7 thas weoruld ofgeofan.... hi ongunnon murcnian.... hit gelomp seoththan thaet se fula deofles thegn se the AElfwina folc (Zigur) nemneth weox swithe on middangearde 7 he geas- code Westwearena meht 7 wuldor .... walde healecran stol habban thonne Earendeles eafera seolf ahte...... Tha cwom he, (Tarcalion) se cyning up on middangeardes oran 7 he sende sona his erendwracan to (Zigure): heht hine on ofste cuman to thes cyninges manraedenne to buganne. 7 he (Zigur) lytigende ge-eadmedde hine thaet he cwom, wes thaeh inwitful under, facnes hogde Westfearena theode ..... swe adwalde he fornean alle tha (Numenor)iscan mid wundrum 7 mid tacnum .... 7 hi gewarhton micelne alh on middan (Arminaleth)(75) there cestre on thaem hean munte the aer unawidlod wes 7 wearth nu to haethenum herge, 7 hi ther onsegdon unase[c]gendlic lac on unhalgum weofode ... Swe cwom deathscua on Westfearena land 7 Godes bearn under sceadu feollon .... Thes ofer feola gera hit gelomp thaet (Tarcalione) wearth aeldo onsaege, thy wearth he hreow on mode 7 tha walde he be (Zigures) onbryrdingum (Avalloni) mid ferde gefaran. Weron Westfearena scipferde sweswe unarimedlic egland on there sae .... ah tha Westfregan gebedon hi to thaem AElmihtigan 7 be his leafe tosprengdon hi tha eorthan thaet alle sae nither gutan on efgrynde, 7 alle tha sceopu forwurdan, forthon seo eorthe togan on middum garsecge .... swearte windas asteogon 7 AElfwines seofon sceopu eastweard adraefdon. Nu sitte we on elelonde 7 forsittath tha blisse 7 tha eadignesse the iu wes 7 nu sceal eft cuman naefre. Us swithe onsiteth deathscua. Us swithe longath..... On aerran melum west leg reht weg, nu earon alle weogas wo. Feor nu is leanes lond. Feor nu is Neowollond (76) thaet geneotherade. Feor nu is Dreames lond thaet gedrorene. All the seas in the world they sailed, seeking they knew not what; but their hearts were ever westward.... because so had the Almighty ordained it of old that they should die and leave this world.... they began to murmur.... It afterwards came to pass that the foul servant of the devil, whom the people of the ?AElfwines name (Zigur), grew mightily in middle-earth, and he learned of the power and glory of the Westware (Dwellers in the West) .... desired a higher throne than even the descendant of Earendel possessed ...... Then he, King (Tarcalion) landed on the shores of middle-earth, and at once he sent his messengers to (Zigur), commanding him to come in haste to do homage to the king; and he (Zigur) dissembling humbled himself and came, but was filled with secret malice, purposing treachery against the people of the Westfarers..... Thus he led astray wellnigh all the (Numenore)ans with signs and wonders.... and they built a great temple in the midst of the town (of Arminaleth) on the high hill which before was undefiled but now became a heathen fane, and they there sacrificed unspeakable offerings on an unholy altar ... Thus came death-shade into the land of the Westfarers and God's children fell under the shadow .... Many years later it came to pass that old age assailed (Tarcalion); wherefore he became gloomy in heart, and at the instigation of (Zigur) he wished to conquer (Avalloni) with a host. The ship-hosts of the Westfarers were like countless islands in the sea .... But the West-lords prayed to the Almighty, and by his leave split asunder the earth so that all seas should pour down into an abyss and the ships should perish; for the earth gaped open in the midst of the ocean.... black winds arose and drove away AElfwine's seven ships. Now we sit in the land of exile, and dwell cut off from the bliss and the blessedness that once was and shall never come again. The death-shade lies heavy on us; longing is on us..... In former days west lay a straight way, now are all ways crooked. Far now is the land of gift. Far now is the?prostrate land that is cast down. Far now is the land of Mirth that is fallen. 'Well, old Rashbold may not have found that interesting. But it depends what you're looking for. You people at any rate will find it interesting, I think, after the events of that night. You will notice that the original text is written continuously in bold- stroke hand (I don't doubt that the actual penman was old Edwin), but there are dividing dots at intervals. What we have is really a series of fragmentary extracts, separated, I should guess, by very various intervals of omission, extremely like Arry's snatches of Avallonian and Adunaic. Indeed this stuff corres- ponds closely to his (which in itself is very interesting): it includes all that he gave us, but gives a good deal more, especially at the beginning. You notice that there is a long gap at the same point as the break between his Text I and II. 'Of course, when old Rashbold said "the style has the air of a translation", he simply meant that the fabricator had not been quite successful in making the stuff sound like natural Anglo- Saxon. I can't judge that. But I daresay he is right, though his implied explanation may be wrong. This probably is a trans- lation out of some other language into Anglo-Saxon. But not, I think, by the man who penned the page. He was in a hurry, or like Arry trying to catch the evanescent, and if he had had any time for translation he would have done it into modern English. I can't see any point in the Anglo-Saxon unless what he "saw" was already in it. 'I say "saw". For this stuff looks to me like the work of a man copying out all he had time to see, or all he found still intact and legible in some book.' 'Or all he could get down of some strongly visualized dream,' said Dolbear. 'And even so, I should guess that the hand that penned this stuff was already familiar with the strange script. It's written freely and doesn't look at all like the work of a man trying to copy something quite unknown. On your theory, Ramer, he wouldn't have had time, anyway.' 'Yes, it's a pretty puzzle,' said Frankley. 'But I don't suppose we shall get much forrarder (77) without Arry's help. So we must wait in patience till September, and hope for a light beyond the sea of Scripts. I must go. The scripts that are waiting for me are much longer and hardly more legible.' 'And probably more puzzling,' said Stainer. 'Surely there's no great mystery here, in spite of Ramer's attempts to create one. Here we have a specimen of old Edwin Lowdham's queer hobby: the fabrication of mythical texts; and the direct source of all Arry's stuff. He seems to have taken after his father, in more senses than one; though he's probably more inventive linguistically.' 'Really you're unteachable, Stainer,' said Dolbear. 'Why do you always prefer a theory that cannot be true, unless somebody is lying?' 'Who am I accusing of lying?' 'Well, wait until September, and then say what you've just said slowly and carefully to Arry, and you'll soon discover,' said Dolbear. 'If you've forgotten everything he said, I haven't. Good night!' RD. PF. RS. MGR. NG. Night 69. Thursday, 25 September, 1987. There was a large meeting in Jeremy's rooms. Jeremy and Lowdham had reappeared in Oxford only the day before, looking as if they had spent all the vacation examining rather than holidaymaking. There were eight other people present, and Cameron came in late. After the experiences of June 12th most of the Club felt a trifle apprehensive, and conversation began by being jocular, in consequence. But Lowdham took no part in the jesting; he was unusually quiet. 'Well, Jerry,' said Frankley at last, 'you're the host. Have you arranged any entertainment for us? If not, after so many weeks, I daresay several of us have got things in our pockets.' 'That means that you have at any rate,' said Jeremy. 'Let's have it! We want, or at least I want, some time to tell you about what we've been doing, but there's no hurry.' 'That depends on how long your account of yourselves is going to take,' said Stainer. 'Did you do anything except drink and dawdle about the countryside?' 'We did,' said Lowdham. 'But there's no special reason to suppose that you'ld be interested to hear about it, Stainer.' 'Well, I'm here, and that indicates at least a faint interest,' said Stainer. 'All right! But if the Club really wants to hear us, then it's in for one or two meetings in which we shall take up all the time. Pip will burst, I can see, if he has to wait so long. Let him let his steam off first. What's it about, Horsey?' 'It'll explain itself, if the Club really wants to hear it,' said Frankley. 'Go on! Let's have it! ' we said. Frankley took a piece of paper out of his pocket and began. The Death At last out of the deep seas he passed, and mist rolled on the shore; under clouded moon the waves were loud, as the laden ship him bore 4 to Ireland, back to wood and mire, to the tower tall and grey, where the knell of Cluain-ferta's bell (79) tolled in green Galway. 8 Where Shannon down to Lough Derg ran under a rainclad sky Saint Brendan came to his journey's end to await his hour to die. 12 '0! tell me, father, for I loved you well, if still you have words for me, of things strange in the remembering in the long and lonely sea, 16 of islands by deep spells beguiled where dwell the Elven-kind: in seven long years the road to Heaven or the Living Land did you find?' 20 'The things I have seen, the many things, have long now faded far; only three come clear now back to me: a Cloud, a Tree, a Star. 24 We sailed for a year and a day and hailed no field nor coast of men; no boat nor bird saw we ever afloat for forty days and ten. 28 We saw no sun at set or dawn, but a dun cloud lay ahead, and a drumming there was like thunder coming and a gleam of fiery red. 32 Upreared from sea to cloud then sheer a shoreless mountain stood; its sides were black from the sullen tide to the red lining of its hood. 36 No cloak of cloud, no lowering smoke, no looming storm of thunder in the world of men saw I ever unfurled like the pall that we passed under. 40 We turned away, and we left astern the rumbling and the gloom; then the smoking cloud asunder broke, and we saw that Tower of Doom: 44 on its ashen head was a crown of red, where fires flamed and fell. Tall as a column in High Heaven's hall, its feet were deep as Hell; 48 grounded in chasms the waters drowned and buried long ago, it stands, I ween, in forgotten lands where the kings of kings lie low. 52 We sailed then on, till the wind had failed, and we toiled then with the oar, and hunger and thirst us sorely wrung, and we sang our psalms no more. 56 A land at last with a silver strand at the end of strength we found; the waves were singing in pillared caves and pearls lay on the ground; 60 and steep the shores went upward leaping to slopes of green and gold, and a stream out of the rich land teeming through a coomb of shadow rolled. 64 Through gates of stone we rowed in haste, and passed, and left the sea; and silence like dew fell in that isle, and holy it seemed to be. 68 As a green cup, deep in a brim of green, that with wine the white sun fills was the land we found, and we saw there stand on a laund between the hills 72 a tree more fair than ever I deemed might climb in Paradise: its foot was like a great tower's root, it height beyond men's eyes; 76 so wide its branches, the least could hide in shade an acre long, and they rose as steep as mountain-snows those boughs so broad and strong; 80 for white as a winter to my sight the leaves of that tree were, they grew more close than swan-wing plumes, all long and soft and fair. 84 We deemed then, maybe, as in a dream, that time had passed away and our journey ended; for no return we hoped, but there to stay. 88 In the silence of that hollow isle, in the stillness, then we sang - softly us seemed, but the sound aloft like a pealing organ rang. 92 Then trembled the tree from crown to stem; from the limbs the leaves in air as white birds fled in wheeling flight, and left the branches bare. 96 From the sky came dropping down on high a music not of bird, not voice of man, nor angel's voice; but maybe there is a third 100 fair kindred in the world yet lingers beyond the foundered land. Yet steep are the seas and the waters deep beyond the White-tree Strand.' 104 '0! stay now, father! There's more to say. But two things you have told: The Tree, the Cloud; but you spoke of three. The Star in mind do you hold?' 108 'The Star? Yes, I saw it, high and far, at the parting of the ways, a light on the edge of the Outer Night (80) like silver set ablaze, 112 where the round world plunges steeply down, but on the old road goes, as an unseen bridge that on arches runs to coasts than no man knows.' 116 'But men say, father, that ere the end you went where none have been. I would hear you tell me, father dear, of the last land you have seen.' 120 'In my mind the Star I still can find, and the parting of the seas, and the breath as sweet and keen as death that was borne upon the breeze. 124 But where they bloom those flowers fair, in what air or land they grow, what words beyond the world I heard, if you would seek to know, 128 in a boat then, brother, far afloat you must labour in the sea, and find for yourself things out of mind: you will learn no more of me.' 132 In Ireland, over wood and mire, in the tower tall and grey, the knell of Cluain-ferta's bell was tolling in green Galway. 136 Saint Brendan had come to his life's end under a rainclad sky, and journeyed whence no ship returns, and his bones in Ireland lie. 140 When Frankley stopped there was a silence. If he had hoped for critical comments, adverse or favourable, he got none. 'Very odd indeed! Very odd!' said Lowdham at last. 'Have you been in touch with our minds on the Ramer-system, Philip? Anyway, when did you write that, and why?' 'There have been many more minds than yours, Arundel, working on this theme, as has been pointed out before,' said Ramer. 'Tell us about it, Philip!' 'There's nothing much to tell,' said Frankley. 'I woke up about four days ago with the thing largely fixed, and the name Brendan running in my head. The first dozen lines were already made (or were still remembered), and some of the rest was too. The pictures were quite clear for a while. I read the Navigatio Sancti Brendani, of course, once upon a time, years ago, as well as that early Anglo-French thing, Benedeit's Vita. But I've not looked at them again - though perhaps if I did, I might find them less dull and disappointing than I remember them.' 'I don't think you would,' said Lowdham; 'they're rather dismal. Whatever merits they may have, any glimmer of a perception of what they are talking about is not one of them, trundling the magnificent theme to market like bunches of neatly cut and dried flowers. The Old French thing may be very interesting linguistically, but you won't learn much about the West from that. 'Still that seems to be where you got your Volcano and Tree from. But you've given them a twist that's not in your source. You've put them in a different order, I think, making the Tree further west; and your Volcano is not a hell-smithy, but apparently a last peak of some Atlantis.(81) And the Tree in St. Brendan was covered with white birds that were fallen angels. The one really interesting idea in the whole thing, I thought: they were angels that lived in a kind of limbo, because they were only lesser spirits that followed Satan only as their feudal overlord, and had no real part, by will or design, in the Great Rebellion. But you make them a third fair race.' 'And that bit about the "round world" and the "old road",' said Jeremy, 'where did you get that from?' 'I don't know,' said Frankley. 'It came in the writing. I got a fleeting picture, but it's faded now.' 'The Parting of the Ways!' muttered Lowdham. 'What do you know of that?' 'Oh, nothing. But, well - well, but you cannot really find or see Paradise by ship, you know.'(82) 'No,' said Lowdham. 'Not in the High Legends, not in those that have power. No longer. And it was seldom permitted anyway, even before.' He said no more, and we all sat still for a while. The silence was finally broken by Markison. 'Well,' he said, 'I hope you're not going to take the line of St. Brendan to the monk: "you will learn no more of me." Have you two nothing more to say? ' 'Yes indeed!' said Jeremy. 'But we've not been to Paradise.' 'Where have you been then?' 'We ended up at Porlock (83) on the 13th, that's last Saturday week,' said Jeremy. 'Why Porlock? Not a very exciting place, is it?' 'Not now, maybe,' Lowdham answered. 'You'll see a sort of reason for it, though. But if you mean: did we wittingly pick on Porlock? the answer is no.' 'We started off down in Cornwall, Land's End,' said Jeremy. 'That was just before the end of June.' 'Started off?' said Guildford. 'I got your letter on June 25th, but that still leaves a bit of a gap. We last saw you on the night of June 12th: not a date we're likely to forget in a hurry. What happened during the next ten days?' 'Was it as long as that?' said Lowdham blankly. 'I don't really know. We landed in a cove. I seem to remember the boat grinding on rocks and then being flung up on the shingles. We were damned lucky. She was holed and sinking, and we ought to have been drowned. Or did I dream it?' He knitted his brows. 'Bless me, if I'm sure. D'you remember, Trewyn?'(84) 'No,' said Jeremy, thinking. 'No, I don't. The first thing I can remember is your saying: "We'd better let Nick have a line to know that we haven't been drowned." Yes, yes of course: we'd been caught at sea in a storm of wind and lightning, and as you all knew we had gone sailing, we thought you might be anxious.' 'Don't you remember the night up in my rooms, the night of the great storm?' said Ramer. 'Yes, I remember bringing some texts round,' said Lowdham. 'And I remember the Eagles. But surely the storm came after- wards, after we had started on our research tour?' 'All right,' said Dolbear. 'Don't bother with all that now; there will be plenty of time to talk about it later. Get on with your own tale.' 'Well,' said Jeremy, 'we stuck to the west coasts as much as we could, staying by the sea, and walking as near to it as possible, when we did not go by boat. Arry is an able seaman, and you can still get small sailing craft in the West, and sometimes an old sailor to help who can still handle a boat without petrol. But after our wreck we did not sail again till we got round to North Devon. We actually crossed by boat from Bideford to South Wales in July, and then we went on to Ireland, right up the west coast of it by stages. 'We took a look at Scotland, but no further north than Mull. There seemed nothing for us there, no feel in the air at all. So we went back to Hibernia.(85) The great storm had left more traces there than anywhere, and not only in visible damage. There was a good deal of that, but much less than you would expect, and it did not interest us so much as the effect on the people and the stories that we found going about. People in Galway - well, for the matter of that, from Brandon Hill to Slieve (86) League seemed to have been pretty well shaken by it, and were still scared for weeks afterwards. If the wind got up at all, as of course it did from time to time, they huddled indoors; and some would begin to trek inland. 'We both heard many tales of the huge waves "high as hills" coming in on the Black Night. And curiously enough, many of the tale-tellers agreed that the greatest waves were like phan- toms, or only half real: "like shadows of mountains of dark black wicked water". Some rolled far inland and yet did little damage before, well, disappearing, melting away. We were told of one that had rolled clean over the Aran Isles (87) and passed up Galway Bay, and so on like a cloud, drowning the land in a ghostly flood like rippling mist, almost as far as Clonfert. 'And we came across one old man, a queer old fellow whose English was hardly intelligible, on the road not far from Loughrea.(88) He was wild and ragged, but tall and rather impressive. He kept pointing westward, and saying, as far as we could gather: "It was out of the Sea they came, as they came in the days before the days". He said that he had seen a tall black ship high on the crest of the great wave, with its masts down and the rags of black and yellow sails flapping on the deck, and great tall men standing on the high poop and wailing, like the ghosts they were; and they were borne far inland, and came, well, not a soul knows where they came. 'We could get no more out of him, and he went on westward and vanished into the twilight, and who he was or where he was going we did not discover either. Apart from such tales and rumours we had no real adventures. The weather was not too bad generally, and we walked a lot, and slept pretty well. A good many dreams came, especially in Ireland, but they were very slippery; we couldn't catch them. Arry got whole lists of ghost-words, and I had some fleeting pictures, but they seldom fitted together. And then, when we thought our time was up, we came to Porlock. 'As we crossed over the Severn (89) Sea earlier in the summer, Arry had looked back, along the coast to the south, at the shores of Somerset, and he had said something that I couldn't catch. It was ancient English, I think, but he didn't know himself: it faded from him almost as soon as he had spoken. But I had a sudden feeling that there was something important waiting for us there, and I made up my mind to take him back that way before the end of our journey, if there was time. So I did. 'We arrived in a small boat at Porlock Weir on Saturday, September 13th. We put up at The Ship, up in Porlock itself; but we felt drawn back shorewards, and as soon as we had fixed our rooms we went out and turned westward, going up onto the cliffs and along as far as Culbone and beyond. We saw the sun set, dull, hazy, and rather grim, about half past six, and then we turned back for supper. 'The twilight deepened quickly, and I remember that it seemed suddenly to grow very chilly; a cold wind sprang up from the land and blew out westward towards the dying sun; the sea was leaden. We both felt tired and anxious, for no clear reason: we had been feeling rather cheery. It was then that Arry turned away from the sea and took my arm, and he said quite clearly, and I heard him and understood him: Uton efstan nu, Treowine! Me ofthyncth thisses windes. Mycel wen is Deniscra manna to niht.(90) And that seemed to break my dreams. I began to remember, and piece together a whole lot of things as we walked back to the town; and that night I had a long series of dreams and remembered a good deal of them.' 'Yes,' said Lowdham, 'and something happened to me at that moment, too. I began to see as well as to hear. Treowine, that is Wilfrid Trewyn Jeremy, and I seemed to have got into the same dream together, even before we were asleep. The faces in the hotel looked pale and thin, and the walls and furniture only half real: other things and faces were vaguely moving behind them all. We were approaching the climax of some change that had begun last May, when we started to research together. 'Anyway, we went to bed, and we both dreamed; and we woke up and immediately compared notes; and we slept again and woke and did the same. And so it went on for several days, until we were quite exhausted. So at last we decided to go home; we made up our minds to come back to Oxford the next day, Thursday. That night, Wednesday, September 17th, something happened: the dreams coalesced, took shape, and came into the open, as you might say. It seemed impossible to believe when it was over that years had not slipped by, and that it was still Thursday, September 18th, 1987, and we could actually return here as we had planned. I remember staring incredulously round the dining-room, that seemed to have grown strangely solid again, half wondering if it was not some new dream-trick. And we went into the post-office and a bank to make sure of the date! Then we crept back here secretly, a week ago, and stayed in retreat until yesterday, conferring and putting together all we had got before we came out of hiding. I think I'll leave Trewyn to do the telling. He's better at it than I am; and he saw more, after the earlier scenes.' 'No!' said Jeremy. 'Alwin had better begin. The earlier part is his, more than mine. He remembers more of what was said by me than I do myself. Go on now, Arry!' 'Well', said Lowdham, 'it seemed to me like this. I woke with a start.(91) Evidently I had been dozing on a bench near the fire. The voices seemed to pour over me like a stream. I felt that I had been dreaming, something very odd and vivid, but I could not catch it; and for a minute or two the familiar scene in the hall seemed strange, and the English speech about me sounded alien and remote, although the voices were for the most part using the soft speech of western Wessex that I knew so well. Here and there I caught the tones of the Marchers from up beyond Severn- mouth; and I heard a few speaking queerly, using uncouth words after the manner of those from the eastern shires. 'I looked down the hall, hoping to see my friend Treowine Ceolwulf's son. There was a great crowd in hall, for King Eadweard was there. The Danish ships were in the Severn Sea, and all the south shores were in arms. The heathen earls had been defeated away up in the west marches at Archenfield, but the pirates were still at large off the Welsh coast, trying to get food and supplies, and the Devenish men and Somersets (92) were on guard. There had been a bitter affray at Watchet a few nights before, but the Danish men had been driven off. Porlock's turn might come. 'I looked round at the faces of the men: some old and worn, some still young and keen; but they seemed dim, almost dreamlike in the wavering torches. The candles on the high table were guttering. A wind was blowing outside the great wooden hall, surging round the house; the timbers creaked. I felt tired. Not only because Treowine and I had had a long spell of coastguard duty, and had had little sleep since the raid on Watchet; but I was tired of this woeful and dishevelled world, slipping slowly back into decay, as it seemed to me, with its petty but cruel wars, and all the ruin of the good and fair things there had been in my grandsires' days. The hangings on the wall behind the dais were faded and worn, and on the table there were but few vessels or candlesticks of gold and silver smithcraft that had survived the pillage of the heathen. 'The sound of the wind disturbed me and brought back to me old longings that I thought I had buried. I found myself thinking of my father, old Eadwine Oswine's son,(93) and the strange tales he had told me when I was a small lad and he a grizzled seaman of more than fifty winters: tales of the west coasts, and far islands, and of the deep sea, and of a land there was far away, where there was peace and fruitfulness among a fair folk that did not wither. 'But Eadwine had taken his ship, Earendel, out into the deep sea long ago, and he never returned. What haven received him no man under heaven could tell. That was in the black winter, when Alfred went into hiding (94) and so many men of Somerset fled over sea. My mother fled to her kindred among the West Welsh (95) for a while, and I had seen only nine winters in this world, for I was born just before the holy Eadmund was done to death by the heathen.(96) I learned the Welsh tongue and much craft upon the wild waters, before I came back in full manhood to Somerset and the service of the good king in his last wars.(97) 'I had been in Iraland more than once; and wherever I went I sought tales of the Great Sea and what lay out upon it, or beyond, if haply it had any further shore. Folk had not much to tell for certain,. but there was talk of one Maelduin (98) who had sailed to new lands, and of the holy Brendan and others. And some there were who said that there had been a land of Men away west in long days of yore, but that it had been cast down and those that escaped had come to Eriu (99) (so they called Iraland) in their ships, and their descendants lived on there, and in other lands about the shores of Garsecg. But they dwindled and forgot, and nought now was left of them but a wild strain in the blood of men of the West. "And you will know those that have it by the sea-longing that is on them," they said,. . 'And I thought that maybe the blood of such men ran in my father's veins and my own, for our kin had long been settled at Glastonbury, where there was rumour of strange comers out of the sea in days of old. And the sound of the winds and seas on the west beaches was ever a restless music to me, at once a pain and a desire; and the pain was keener in Spring, and the desire stronger in Autumn. And now it was Autumn, and the desire was scarcely to be borne; for I was growing old. And the seas were wide. So I mused, forgetting once again where I was, but not sleeping. 'I heard the crash of waves on the black cliffs, and sea-birds wailing; snow fell. Then the sea opened before me, pale and boundless. And now the sun shone above me, and the land and the sound of it and the smell of it fell far behind. Treowine was beside me, and we were alone, going west. And the sun came down and sank towards the sea before us, and still we sailed west, on towards the setting sun, and the longing in my heart drew me on against my fear and land-bound will. And so I passed into night in the midst of the deep waters, and I thought that a sweet fragrance was borne on the air. 'And suddenly I was brought back to Porlock and the hall of the king's thegn Odda. Men were calling out for a minstrel, and a minstrel I was, when the mood was on me. The king himself, stern Eadweard Alfred's son - tired before old age he looked - sent to me, bidding me sing or speak. He was a stern man, as I say, but like his father in having an ear, when he had the time, for the sound of the old measures. I rose and walked to the steps of the dais, and bowed. '"Westu hal, AElfwine!" said the king. "Sing me nu hwaet- wegu: sum eald leoth, gif thu wilt." ' "Ic can lyt on leothcraeft, hlaford," I said; "ac this geworht'ic unfyrn the to weorthmynde." 'And then I began, and let my voice roll out; but my mouth did not speak the words that I had purposed: of all that I had so carefully devised against the event, in the night watches or pacing on the cold cliffs, not a stave came out. Hwaet! Eadweard cyning AElfredes sunu beorna beaggifa on Brytenrice aet Ircenfelda (100) ealdorlangne tir geslog aet saecce sweorda ecgum * and all the rest, of such sort as kings look for: not a word of it. Instead I said this: (101) Monath modes lust mid mereflode forth to feran, thaet ic feor heonan ofer garsecges grimme holmas AElfwina eard ut gesece. Nis me to hearpan hyge ne to hringthege, ne to wife wynn, ne to worulde hyht, ne ymb owiht elles, nefne ymb ytha gewealc. Then I stopped suddenly, and stood confused. There was some laughter, from those not under the king's eye, and a few mocking calls. There were many folk in hall who knew me well, and they had long been pleased to make a jest of my talk of the Great Sea; and it now pleased them to pretend that I had spoken of AElfwines eard, as if I had a realm of my own out westward. '"If England is not good enough, let him go find a better land!" they cried. "He need go no further than Iraland, if he longs for elves and uncouth wights, God save him! Or he can go with the heathen to the Land of Ice that they say they have found." ' "If he has no mind to sing for the raising of our hearts, let us find a scop who will." ' "We have had enough of the sea," shouted one of the Marchers. "A spell of Dane-hunting round the rim of Wales would cure him." 'But the king sat gravely and did not smile, and many besides were silent. I could see in his eyes that the words had touched him, though I doubt not, he had heard others like them often before. '"Peace!" said old Odda of Portloca, master of the hall. "AElfwine here has sailed more seas than you have heard of, and (* Lowdham provides the following translations 'for Philip's benefit'. 'Greetings, AElfwine,' said the king. 'Recite me something, some old poem if you like.' 'I have little skill in poetry, my lord,' I said, 'but I composed this in your honour a little while ago.' 'Lo! Eadweard the king, Alfred's scion, brave men's patron, in Britain's island at Archenfield undying fame in battle reaped him with reddened blades.' For the translation of the next verses see Night 66, p. 244. N.G.) the lands of the Welsh and Irish are not strange to him. With the king's leave let him say what his mood bids him. It is no harm to turn from these sorry shores for a while and speak of marvels and strange lands, as the old verse-makers often did. Will you not speak us something by the elder poets, AElfwine?" '"Not now, lord," I said; for I was abashed and weary, and I felt as a man in a dream who finds himself unclad in the market-place. "There are others in hall. Men of the Marches I hear by their speech; and they were used to boast of their songcraft, before the Danes came. With the king's leave I will sit." 'At that a man from among the Marchers leapt to his feet and got leave to speak; and lo! I saw it was my friend Treowine. A small dark man he was, but he had a good voice, if a strange way with his words. His father Ceolwulf, I had heard, claimed to come of the kin of the kings that sat at Tamworth (102) of old; but Treowine had come south many years before. Ere I had found a seat, he had a foot on the step and had begun. 'His verse was in the old style, indeed it was the work of some old poet, maybe, though I had not heard it before, and many words were dark to us of later times; but he gave them out strong and true, now loud, now soft, as the theme asked, without help of harp. Thus he began, and soon all the hall was stone-still: Hwaet! we on geardagum of Garsecge fyrn gefrugnon of feorwegum to Longbeardna londgemaerum tha hi aer heoldon, iglond micel on North-theodum, nacan bundenne scirtimbredne scrithan gangan... 'But if it was dark to some of our younger men of Wessex, it will be as night to you, who have passed so much further down the streams of time, since the old poets sang in Angel of the grey North-seas; so I have cast it into the speech of your age. And I have done so, for by chance, or more than chance, this song had a part in what befell after, and its theme was knit up with my own thoughts, and it whetted my longing the more. King Sheave.(103) In days of yore out of deep Ocean to the Longobards, in the land dwelling that of old they held in the isles of the North, a ship came sailing, shining-timbered, without oar or mast, eastward floating. The sun behind it sinking westward with flame kindled the fallow water. Wind was wakened. Over the world's margin clouds grey-helmed climbed slowly up, wings unfolding wide and looming, as mighty eagles moving onward to eastern Earth, omens bearing. Men there marvelled, in the mist standing of the dark islands in the deeps of time: laughter they knew not, light nor wisdom; shadow was upon them, and sheer mountains stalked behind them, stern and lifeless, evil-haunted. The East was dark. The ship came shining to the shore driven, and strode upon the strand, till its stern rested on sand and shingle. The sun went down. The clouds overcame the cold heavens. In fear and wonder to the fallow water sad-hearted men swiftly hastened, to the broken beaches, the boat seeking gleaming-timbered in the grey twilight. They looked within, and there laid sleeping a boy they saw breathing softly: his face was fair, his form lovely; his limbs were white, his locks raven golden-braided. Gilt and carven with wondrous work was the wood about him. In golden vessel gleaming water stood beside him; strung with silver a harp of gold beneath his hand rested; his sleeping head was softly pillowed on a sheaf of corn shimmering palely, as the fallow gold doth from far countries west of Angol. Wonder filled them. The boat they hauled, and on the beach moored it high above the breakers, then with hands lifted from the bosom its burden. The boy slumbered. On his bed they bore him to their bleak dwellings, dark-walled and drear, in a dim region between waste and sea. There of wood builded high above the houses was a hall standing, forlorn and empty. Long had it stood so, no noise knowing, night nor morning, no light seeing. They laid him there, under lock left him lonely sleeping in the hollow darkness. They held the doors. Night wore away. New awakened, as ever on earth, early morning; day came dimly. Doors were opened. Men strode within, then amazed halted; fear and wonder filled the watchmen. The house was bare, hall deserted; no form found they on the floor lying, but by bed forsaken the bright vessel dry and empty in the dust standing. The guest was gone. Grief o'ercame them. In sorrow they sought him, till the sun rising over the hills of heaven to the homes of men light came bearing. They looked upward, and high upon a hill hoar and treeless gold was glimmering. Their guest stood there with head uplifted, hair unbraided; harpstrings they heard in his hand ringing, at his feet they saw the fallow-golden corn-sheaf lying. Then clear his voice a song began, sweet, unearthly, words in music woven strangely in a tongue unknown. Trees stood silent, and men unmoving marvelling harkened. Middle-earth had known for many ages neither song nor singer; no sight so fair had eyes of mortal, since the earth was young, seen when waking in that sad country long forsaken. No lord they had, no king, nor counsel, but the cold terror that dwelt in the desert, the dark shadow that haunted the hills and the hoar forest: Dread was their master. Dark and silent, long years forlorn lonely waited the hall of kings, house forsaken without fire or food. Forth men hastened from their dim houses. Doors were opened, and gates unbarred. Gladness wakened. To the hill they thronged, and their heads lifting on their guest they gazed. Grey- bearded men bowed before him and blessed his coming their years to heal; youths and maidens, wives and children, welcome gave him. His song ended. Silent standing he looked upon them. Lord they called him; king they made him, crowned with golden wheaten garland: white his raiment, his harp his sceptre. In his house was fire, food and wisdom: there fear came not. To manhood he grew, might and glory. Sheave they called him, whom the ship brought them, a name renowned in the North-countries ever since in song; but a secret hidden his true name was in tongue unknown of a far country, where the falling seas wash western shores, beyond the ways of men since the world worsened. The word is forgotten and the name perished. Their need he healed, and laws renewed long forsaken. Words he taught them wise and lovely: their tongue ripened in the time of Sheave to song and music. Secrets he opened, runes revealing. Riches he gave them, reward of labour, wealth and comfort from the earth calling, acres ploughing, sowing in season seed of plenty, hoarding in garner golden harvest for the help of men. The hoar forest in his days drew back to the dark mountains; the shadow lifted, and shining corn, white ears of wheat, whispered in the breezes where waste had been. The woods blossomed. Halls and houses hewn of timber, strong towers of stone steep and lofty, golden-gabled, in his guarded city they raised and roofed. In his royal dwelling of wood well-carven the walls were wrought; fair-hued figures filled with silver, gold, and scarlet, gleaming hung there, stories boding of strange countries, were one wise in wit the woven legends to thread with thought. At his throne men found counsel and comfort and care's healing, justice in judgement. Generous-handed his gifts he gave. Glory was uplifted. Far sprang his fame over fallow water; through Northern lands the renown echoed of the shining king, Sheave the mighty. 'When he ended there was loud applause - loudest from those who understood least, so that men should perceive how well they could thread the old songs; and they passed a horn to Treowine's hand. But ere he drank, I rose up, and there where I stood I finished his song for him: Seven sons he begat, sire (104) of princes, men great of mood, mighty-handed and high-hearted. From his house cometh the seed of kings, as songs tells us, fathers of the fathers, who before the change in the Elder Years the earth governed, Northern kingdoms named and founded, shields of their people: Sheave begat them: Sea-danes and Goths, Swedes and Northmen, Franks and Frisians, folk of the islands, Swordmen and Saxons, Swabians, Angles, and the Longobards, who long ago beyond Mircwudu a mighty realm and wealth won them in the Welsh countries, where AElfwine, Eadwine's son in Italy was king. All that has passed! 'And with that, while men still stared - for there were many that knew my name and my father's - I beckoned to Treowine, and we strode from the hall into the darkness and the wind. 'And there I think I must end for tonight,' said Lowdham, with a sudden change of tone and voice that startled us: we jumped like men waked suddenly from a dream. It seemed as if one man had vanished and another had sprung up in his place, so vividly had he presented AElfwine to us as he spoke. Quite plainly I had seen him standing there, a man very like Arry but not the same - rather taller and less thick, and looking older and greyer, though by his account he was just Arry's age it seemed; I had seen the glittering of his eyes as he looked round and strode out. The hall and the faces I saw in a blur behind him, and Treowine was only a dim shadow against the flicker of far candles as he spoke of King Sheave; but I heard the wind rushing above all the words. 'Next meeting Treowine and I will go on again, if you want any more of this,' said Lowdham. 'AElfwine's tale is nearly done; and after that we shall flit more quickly, for we shall pass further and further from what Stainer would call History - in which old AElfwine really walked, at least for the most part, I guess. 'If you haven't got a horn, fill me a mug! For I have done both AElfwine's part and Treowine's, and it is thirsty work, a minstrel's.' Markison handed him a pewter tankard full. 'Beo thu blithe aet thisse beorthege!'(105) he said, for ancient English is only one of the innumerable things he knows. Lowdham drained the tankard at a draught. And so ended the sixty-ninth night of the Notion Club. It was agreed to meet again in only one week's time, on October 2nd, lest the onset of term should hinder the further tales of AElfwine and Treowine. WTJ. AAL MGR. RD. PF. RS. JM. JJR. NG. Night 70. Thursday, 2 October, 1987. Here the typescript text ends, not at the foot of a page; and here the manuscript ends also, without the date-heading for the next meeting. It is certain that my father wrote nothing further. There are, however, two brief texts, written very fast in pencil but fortunately just about legible, which give a glimpse of what he had in mind. Though both obviously belong to the same time, it is not clear which preceded the other; the one that I give first was written on the back of a draft for the passage in E beginning 'It was then that Arry turned away from the sea' (p. 268). The Danes attack Porlock that night. They are driven off and take refuge by swimming out to the ships and so to 'Broad Relic'.(106) A small 'cnearr' (107) is captured. It is not well guarded. AElfwine tells Treowine that he has stores laid up. They move the boat and stock it the following night and set sail West. The wind is from the East, and they sail on and on, and come to no land; they are exhausted, and a dreamlike death seems to be coming over them. They smell [? the] fragrance. Swete is blostma braep begeondan sae (108) says AElfwine, and struggles to rise. But the wind changes: great clouds come out of the West. 'Behold the Eagles of the Lords of the West coming over Numenor' said AElfwine, and fell back as one dead. Treowine sees the round world [?curve] below, and straight ahead a shining land, before the wind seizes them and drives them away. In the gathering dark [or dusk] he sees a bright star, shining in a rent in the cloud in the West. Eala Earendel engla beorhtast. Then he remembers no more. 'Whether what follows is my direct dream,' said Jeremy, 'or the dreams of Treowine and AElfwine in the deeps of the sea I cannot say.' I woke to find myself Here this sketch tantalisingly breaks off. On the same page and fairly certainly written at the same time stands this note: The theory is that the sight and memory goes on with descendants of Elendil and Voronwe (= Treowine) but not re- incarnation; they are different people even if they still resemble one another in some ways even after a lapse of many genera- tions. The second sketch is at first fuller (and may for that reason be thought to have followed the other), but then passes into an outline of headings and brief statements. Danes attack that night but are driven off. AElfwine and Treowine are among those who capture a small ship that had ventured close inshore and stuck. The rest escape to 'Broad Relic'. It is grey dawn ere all is over. 'Going to rest?' said Treowine to AElfwine. 'Yes, I hope so,' said AElfwine, 'but not in this land, Treowine! I am going - to seek a land, whence King Sheaf came, maybe; or to find Death, if that be not the name for the same place.' 'What do you mean?' 'I am sailing,' said AElfwine. 'The wind blows westward. And here's a ship that knows the sea. The king himself has given it to me. I have handled many such before. Will you come? Two could make shift to sail her.' 'We should need more; and what of water and victual?' 'I have all prepared,' said AElfwine, 'for this venture has long been brewing in my mind, and now at last chance and desire are matched. There is provision down in my house by the weir, and we'll find a couple of lusty men of Somerset whom I know. They'll go as far as Ireland at the least, and then we'll see.' 'Yes, you'll find madmen enough there,' said Treowine, 'but I'll go with you so far at the least.' When it was dark on the following night AElfwine brought along Ceola (of Somerset) and Geraint (of West Wales) and we stowed her, and thrust her off. The east wind freshened, and we set sail and drove out into the dark waters. There's no need to make long tale of it: we bent our course past the horns of Pembrokeshire and so out to sea. And then we had a change of weather, for a wild wind from the South-west drove us back and northward, and we hardly made haven upon a long firth in the South-west of Ireland. I'd never been there before, for I was younger than AElfwine. We sat out the storm there, and got fresh supplies, and then AElfwine spoke of his desire to Ceola and Geraint. Treowine sees the straight road and the world plunging down. AElfwine's vessel seems to be taking the straight road and falls [sic] in a swoon of fear and exhaustion. AElfwine gets view of the Book of Stories; and writes down what he can remember. Later fleeting visions. Beleriand tale. Sojourn in Numenor before and during the fall ends with Elendil and Voronwe fleeing on a hill of water into the dark with Eagles and lightning pursuing them. Elendil has a book which he has written. His descendants get glimpses of it. AElfwine has one. On the same slip of paper and written at the same time as this second text is a note saying that Edwin Lowdham's page 'should be in Anglo-Saxon straight, without some scraps of Numenorean', and that 'the Anglo-Saxon should not be written in Numenorean script'. Finally there stands this last note: 'At end Lowdham and Jeremy can revisualize some more fragments, but it is hardly needed, as Lowdham and Jeremy have a vivid dream of the Fall of Numenor.' From the beginning of this history, the story of the Englishman AElfwine, called also Eriol, who links by his strange voyage the vanished world of the Elves with the lives of later men, has constantly appeared. So in the last words of the Quenta Noldorinwa (IV.165) it is said: To Men of the race of Earendel have they [the tales of the Quenta] at times been told, and most to Eriol, who alone of the mortals of later days, and yet now long ago, sailed to the Lonely Isle, and came back to the land of Leithien [Britain] where he lived, and remem- bered things that he had heard in fair Cortirion, the city of the Elves in Tol Eressea. He is seen in Tavrobel of Tol Eressea translating The Annals of Valinor and The Annals of Beleriand from the work of Pengolod the Wise of Gondolin, and parts of his Anglo-Saxon text are preserved (IV.263, 281 ff.); the Ainulindale was spoken to him by Rumil of Tun (V.156); the Lhammas of Pengolod was seen by AElfwine 'when he came into the West' (V.167). To the Quenta Silmarillion his note is appended (V.203): 'The work of Pengolod I learned much by heart, and turned into my tongue, some during my sojourn in the West, but most after my return to Britain'; after which follow the lines of AElfwine Widlast that Arundel Lowdham heard, as Alboin Errol had heard them: Fela bid on Westwegum werum uncudra, wundra ond wihta, wlitescyne lond... Crossing this theme, and going back to one form of the old story AElfwine of England (II.322 and note 42), was the story that AElfwine never set foot on the Lonely Isle. So in my father's sketches for those further reaches of The Lost Road that he never wrote, AElfwine on the one hand (V.78) awakes on the beach of the Lonely Isle 'to find the ship being drawn by people walking in the water', and there in Eressea he 'is told the Lost Tales'; but in other notes of that time (V.SO), after 'the vision of Eressea', the 'west wind blows them back', and they come to shore in Ireland. In the note to the final version of the poem The Song of AElfwine (a version which I suggested was 'probably from the years after The Lord of the Rings, though it might be associated with the Notion Club Papers of 1945', V.100) it is told (V.103): AElfwine (Elf-friend) was a seaman of England of old who, being driven out to sea from the coast of Erin, passed into the deep waters of the West, and according to legend by some strange chance or grace found the 'straight road' of the Elvenfolk and came at last to the Isle of Eressea in Elvenhome. Or maybe, as some say, alone in the waters, hungry and athirst, he fell into a trance and was granted a vision of that isle as it once had been, ere a West-wind arose and drove him back to Middle-earth. In the first of the sketches just given AElfwine and Treowine are in sight of the 'shining land' when the wind drives them away; but in the second my father once more sees AElfwine in the Lonely Isle looking at 'the Book of Stories'. But the whole conception has now developed a disturbing complexity: the Downfall of Numenor, the Straight Road into the West, the ancient histories in unknown language and un- known script preserved in Eressea, the mysterious voyage of Edwin Lowdham in his ship The Earendel and the single preserved page of his book in Anglo-Saxon, the 're-emergence' in his son Arundel (Earendel) and his friend Wilfrid Trewin Jeremy of 'the sight and memory' of their forebears in distant ages communicated in dreams, and the violent irruption of the Numenorean legend into the late twentieth century - all framed within an elaborate foreseeing of the future (not without comic and ironic elements). There is a slip of paper on which my father sketched out very rapidly ideas for what would become 'Part Two' of The Notion Club Papers; this was undoubtedly written before he began the writing of the manuscript E, but it is most conveniently given here. Do the Atlantis story and abandon Eriol-Saga, with Loudham, Jeremy, Guildford and Ramer taking part. After night 62.(109) Loudham, walking home with Guildford and Ramer, apologizes for appearing to scoff. They halt in Radcliffe Square and Loudham looks up at the Camera. It is starry, but a black cloud is coming up out of the West [changed at once to (but) caught like smoke in the moon a wisp of cloud seemed to be issuing from the lantern of the dome]. Loudham halts and looks up, passing [his] hand over his forehead. 'I was going to say,' he says, 'that - I don't know. I wonder.' He hopped into college and said no more. Night 65. Truncated. It begins after lacuna. Conversation had been about myths, but Loudham had been restless, walking about twisting his handkerchief and making some unsuccessful jests. Suddenly he went to the window. It was a summer night and he looked out, then spoke in a loud solemn voice. 'Behold the Eagles of the Lords of the West coming over Numenor.' We were startled. Some of us went and looked out. A great cloud was eating up the stars, spreading two vast dark wings south and north. Loudham drew away. They discuss Numenor? Loudham's ancestry? The words with which this sketch begins, 'Do the Atlantis story and abandon Eriol-Saga ...', are remarkable. In the first place, they seem to support the analysis of the way in which The Notion Club Papers developed that I have suggested at various points, and which I will state here in a more coherent form. 'Part One' of the Papers (not at this time conceived to be so) had reached the stage of the completed manuscript B (see p. 147 and note 4), and at this stage Harry Loudham was not seen as contributing greatly to the discussions of the Notion Club: a maker of jokes and interjections. Above all, he had no especial interest in the question of Atlantis or in names from unknown worlds. Examples of this have been pointed out in the notes to Part One.(110) Only when the manuscript B was completed (and the text of 'Part One' of the Papers very largely achieved) did the thought enter: 'Do the Atlantis story.' With Loudham's standing beneath the Radcliffe Camera and staring up at the sky the whole course of the Papers was changed. Adjustments and additions were subsequently made to 'Part One', hinting at his peculiar 'affinity' with the legend of the downfall of the island empire, and changing the nature of his interests: for whereas in B Guildford could say of him (p. 214 note 23): Memoirs of the courts of minor 18th century monarchs are his natural browsing- ground', in the list of members of the Club given on p. 151 (made when B had been completed)(111) he has 'special interests in Icelandic and Anglo-Saxon'. And as the writing of 'Part Two' in the manuscript E proceeded he ceased to be Harry and became Arry, for Arundel (Earendel). But when my father wrote 'Do the Atlantis story' he also said that the 'Eriol-Saga' should be abandoned, although there is no mention of any such matter in the text of 'Part One'. The only explanation that I can see is that the 'Eriol-Saga' had been, up to this time, what my father had in mind for the further course of the meetings of the Notion Club, but was now rejecting in favour of 'Atlantis'. In the event he did not do so; he found himself drawn back into the ideas that he had sketched for The Lost Road (see V.77 - 8), but now in a conception so intricate that one need perhaps look no further for an answer to the question, why were The Notion Club Papers abandoned? NOTES. 1. Pencilled at the head of the first page of the sole manuscript ('E') of 'Part Two' is 'The Strange [Investigation >] Case of Arundel Loudham', and the same title together with the number '[Part] II' is found on a separate title-page that seems to belong with E (p. 153 note 2). The second text of this Part, the typescript 'F', while distinct from the typescript D of Part One and with a separate pagination, has no title or heading before 'Night 62'. - Loudham is spelt thus in E at first, but becomes Lowdham in the course of the writing of the manuscript (p. 153 note 4). 2. In E there is no Night 62: see p. 195 (Guildford's footnote) and note 47. 3. In E there is no head-note to Night 63 except the word 'defective', and thus no reference to 'the imram'. In the final text, the typescript F, the number of the night to which the mention of the imram is referred was left blank; I have added '69', since on that night Frankley read his poem on Saint Brendan (pp. 261 ff.). - The bracketed opening word 'Good', supposed to be absent in the original, was added by the editor. 4. the High: High Street; Radcliffe Square, see p. 222 note 69. 5. For 'especially about the imram' E has 'especially about the Enkeladim', changed soon to 'the Imram'. For references to the Enkeladim (En-keladim) in Part One see pp. 199, 206 - 7, 221 note 65; and for the imrama (tales of seavoyaging) see V.81 - 2. 6. Nordics: E has 'philologists' (but Ramer himself was a philol- ogist). 7. B.N.C.: the common abbreviation of Brasenose College, whose gate is in Radcliffe Square. The 'lane' along which Ramer and Guildford walked after Lowdham had left them is Brasenose Lane, leading from Radcliffe Square to Turl Street (p. 213 note 18). - For The Camera in the following sentence see p. 222 note 69. 8. On the inclusion of Night 64 see the Editor's Foreword, p. 156. 9. In E as originally written the entire opening of Night 65 had been lost, and the text only takes up with '[Jeremy] ... "as you said...." ' - which is where in F the text takes up again after the loss of a page in the middle of the record of the meeting (p. 227). Thus in E the conversation concerning neologisms was at first lacking; it was added in to the manuscript subsequently. 10. In E it was Dolbear, not Ramer, who objected thus to Lowd- ham's remark. Arry (for Harry) entered in the course of the writing of E; see p. 213 note 16. 11. N.E.D.: A New English Dictionary, the actual title of the Oxford English Dictionary or O.E.D. 12. The expression the Six Years' War is used in the Foreword and several times in the text. In E my father called it here the Second German War. 13. Vita Fera: literally 'savage life' (ferus 'wild, untamed, savage, fierce'). 14. Cf. p. 174: Frankley, according to Guildford, 'regards knowl- edge of his own language at any period before the Battle of Bosworth as a misdemeanour'. 15. Norman Keeps was an historical person, who expounded to my father the view of English history here recounted by Philip Frankley while plying his trade at the barbering establishment of Weston and Cheal in the Turl Street. 16. Battle of Camlan: the battle in which King Arthur and his nephew Modred fell. 17. Zigur: the Adunaic name of Sauron, which is the name that Lowdham uses in E here. 18. Owlamoo: This was in fact the name of a bogey conceived by my brother Michael (and of which my father made a picture, dated 1928, now in the Bodleian Library); but of course Lowdham intended no more than any old absurd name: in E he says 'Wallamaloo, who's he?' 19. Numenor: so F at all occurrences here (the long mark over the o being added subsequently); E has Numenor. 20. Numenor is my name for Atlantis: see p. 221 note 63. 21. I knew I had heard that name as soon as Arry said it: see pp. 306-7. 22. A footnote to the text in E at this point reads: 'The records were supposed to be written up and presented for correction at the end of each term. Before being passed they were initialled by all persons mentioned in them. N.G. Cf. the Note to the list of members of the Notion Club in F, p. 160. 23. My father's name was Edwin: in initial drafting (and in E as first written) Lowdham's father was called Oswin Ellendel (a 'mod- ernisation' of Elendil) and he himself was Alboin Arundel (cf. Oswin Errol father of Alboin in The Lost Road, V.36 ff.). Oswin Loudham was at first to be a sailor by profession, or else the somewhat absentee Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Cambridge ('I believe he did know some Anglo-Saxon' said his son). 24. I have not been able to discover a place named Penian in Pembrokeshire. 25. The Earendel: in E the ship was named Earendel Star. 26. It does not look to Sussex: Arundel in Sussex (explained as Old English harhun-dell, 'hoarhound valley', the name of a plant) has of course no connection whatsoever with Earendel, merely a likeness of sound. 27. E has 'the War of 1939' (see note 12). 28. three sailors: E has only 'And he'd had great difficulty in collecting any sort of crew.' Cf. the three mariners who accompanied Earendel and Elwing on the voyage to Valinor in the Quenta Silmarillion (V.324, 327). 29. With this passage cf. V.37 - 8 and my commentary V.53 - 5. 30. the connexion of the Langobards with King Sheaf: see p. 227, and V.92 ff. 31. In E Ramer says: 'Nor the repetition of the sequence: Alboin son of Audoin = Alwin son of Edwin.' The addition in F of AElfwine son of Eadwine is curious, since no actual AElfwine son of Eadwine has been mentioned (merely the Old English forms of Alwin and Edwin). Possibly it should be understood that Ramer in his discussion with Lowdham before the present meeting (p. 235) had learnt of the verses ascribed to AElfwine Widlast Eadwines sunu (p. 244). 32. Rosamund: see V.54. 33. O Horsefriend of Macedon! A Lowdham joke on Frankley's first name (of which one is reminded immediately above), referring to King Philip of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great (Greek phil-ippos 'horse-loving'). 34. a star-name for Orion, or for Rigel: see p. 301 and note 6. 35. the glosses: translations into Anglo-Saxon of individual words in Latin manuscripts. See my father's (draft) letter written in August 1967 to a correspondent known only as Mr. Rang (Letters no. 297), in which he gave a long account of the relation between Anglo-Saxon Earendel and the Earendil of his mythology. The relevant part of this letter is reprinted in II.266, but without the footnote to the words 'To my mind the Anglo-Saxon uses seem plainly to indicate that it was a star presaging the dawn (at any rate in English tradition)': Its earliest recorded A-S form is earendil (oer-), later earendel, eorendel. Mostly in glosses on jubar = leoma; also on aurora. But also in Blickling Homilies 163, se niwa eorendel applied to St John the Baptist; and most notably Crist 104, eala! earendel engla beorhtast ofer middangeard monnum sended. Often supposed to refer to Christ (or Mary), but comparison with Blickling Homilies suggests that it refers to the Baptist. The lines refer to a herald, and divine messenger, clearly not the sodfaesta sunnan leoma = Christ. The last words of this note refer to the following lines in the poem Crist: Eala Earendel engla beorhtast ofer middangeard monnum sended, ond sodfaesta sunnan leoma, torht ofer tunglas - pu tida gehwane. of sylfum pe symle inlihtes. '... and true radiance of the sun, bright above the stars - thou of thy very self illuminest for ever every season.' - The Blickling Homilies are a collection of Old English sermons preserved in a manuscript at Blickling Hall in Norfolk. 36. E has 'what Cynewulf meant'. Of Cynewulf, author of the Crist and other poems, nothing is certainly known beyond his name, which he preserved by setting the runic letters composing it into short passages in the body of his poems, so that the actual names of the runes (as for example the W-rune was called wynn 'joy') have a meaning in the context. 37. From this point to the end of Night 66 there are not two but three texts to be considered (as already noted, p. 147), for this part of the typescript F was rejected and replaced by a new version, while both typescript versions differ radically from E in respect of Lowdham's linguistic discoveries. The divergences have many notable features, and the superseded versions are given separately, pp. 299 ff. 38. 'That breaks my dream' was an expression of my mother's, meaning that something in waking life had suddenly reminded her of a passage in a dream. In the original version of Night 66 (p. 303) Jeremy says 'That breaks my dream!' when Lowdham's words suddenly recall to his mind the place where, in his dream, he had found the reference to Numenor. - The Oxford English Dictionary does not give the expression, and the only place that I have found it is in the English Dialect Dictionary, ed. Joseph Wright, Break 27 (3), with a reference to West Yorkshire. 39. Yozayan: this Adunaic name occurs in Aldarion and Erendis (Unfinished Tales p. 184): 'Do you not love the Yozayan?' 40. The term Elf-latin (also Elven-latin) occurs frequently in The Lost Road and The Lhammas: see the Index to Vol.V. Alboin Errol called the first language ('Eressean') that 'came through' to him Elf-latin, but it is not explained why he did so. 41. Tiwas: Tiw was the name in Old English of the Germanic god equated with Mars (whence Tuesday, based on Latin dies Martis; French Mardi), and known in Old Norse as Tyr. The name is generally derived from an earlier * Tiwaz, cognate with Latin deus (< 'deiwos), and so meaning originally 'god'; in Old Norse the plural Twar 'gods' is found, of which Tiwas (= 'Valar') is the unrecorded Old English equivalent that 'came through' to Lowdham. 42. Nowendaland: derived from the recorded Old English word nowend 'shipmaster, mariner'. For another occurrence of Nowendaland see p. 317. 43. Freafiras: this word is found elsewhere (see p. 317) as a trans- lation of the word turkildi in Lowdham's Fragment I (p. 246), which he translated 'lordly men' (p. 248): Old English frea 'lord', often found also as the first element of compounds, and firas 'men', a word used in Old English poetry (cf. IV.206, 208, 211-12). 44. Regeneard: this was no doubt used in reference to Valinor. In Old English the element regn- occurs in compounds with an intensive force ('greatness, power'), and also in proper names (as Regenweald, revived as Reginald). In the ancient Norse poems Regin, plural, meant the gods, the rulers of the world, and occurs in Ragna-rok 'the doom of the gods' (mistakenly transformed into 'the twilight of the gods' by confusion with the word rokr 'twilight'). Old English eard 'land, country, dwelling, home'; thus Regeneard 'God-home', Valinor. 45. Midswipen: a word midja-sweipains is found in Gothic, apparently meaning 'cataclysm, flood of the middle(-earth)', midja being a reduced form of midjun- as in Gothic midjun- gards (the inhabited world of men, 'Middle-earth'). This is clearly the basis of Lowdham's unrecorded Old English Mid- swipen. 46. hebaensuil: in later spelling heofonsyl; cf. the Old English text given on p. 314. frumaeldi: 'First Age'. I cannot certainly interpret Wihawinia. 47. In The Lost Road (V.43) Oswin Errol tells Alboin: 'But you'll get into trouble, if you let your cats out of the bag among the philologists - unless, of course, they back up the authorities.' Like Edwin Lowdham, Oswin Errol had studied Old English (V.44). 48. westra lage wegas rehtas, wraikwas nu isti: the line 'came through' also to Alboin Errol in The Lost Road (V.43), but ending nu isti sa wraithas; see p. 304. 49. Onomasticon: alphabetic list of proper names, especially of persons. 50. In The Lost Road AElfwine chanted a form of these lines in the hall before King Edward the Elder (V.84), where they are not given in an archaic form but in the spelling of the manuscript of The Seafarer (see V.85): Monad modes lust mid mereflode ford to feran, paet ic feor heonan ofer hean holmas, ofer hwaeles edel elpeodigra eard gesece. Nis me to hearpan hyge ne to hringpege ne to wife wyn ne to worulde hyht ne ymb owiht elles nefne ymb yda gewealc. A prose translation is given (whereas Lowdham translates into alliterative verse): 'The desire of my spirit urges me to journey forth over the flowing sea, that far hence across the hills of water and the whale's country I may seek the land of strangers. No mind have I for harp, nor gift of ring, nor delight in women, nor joy in the world, nor concern with aught else save the rolling of the waves.' In The Seafarer the text is somewhat different: monad modes lust maela gehwylce ferd to feran, paet ic feor heonan elpeodigra eard gesece (which is then followed by five lines omitted in AElfwine's version); maela gehwylce 'on every occasion', ferd (ferhd) 'heart, spirit', i.e. literally 'the desire of my spirit urges my heart on every occasion to journey'. These alterations reappear in Lowd- ham's version here, and they depend, I imagine, on my father's judgement that the preserved text of The Seafarer is corrupt. The third line in The Lost Road text, ofer hean holmas, ofer hwaeles edel, not found in The Seafarer, is replaced in Lowd- ham's version by the less banal ofer garsecges grimme holmas (writing it in later spelling), 'over the grim waves of Garsecg (the ocean)'; for Garsecg see the references given in V.82. The fourth line of Lowdham's version differs, as he points out, from that in The Seafarer in the reading aelbuuina eard (= later aelfwina eard) 'land of the Elf-friends' for elpeodigra eard 'land of strangers, aliens'; the substitution of aelfwina for elpeodigra requires the presence of the word uut (ut) for metrical reasons. The text of The Lost Road follows The Seafarer. In The Notion Club Papers AElfwine's chant before the king (p. 272) is exactly as Lowdham's version here, but given in later spelling; see also p. 304. 51. These lines Alboin Errol recited to his father in The Lost Road (V.44) in precisely the same form, except that AElfwine is not there called Eadwines sunu. For other appearances of these lines see V.55. In the translation the words 'a land lovely to look on' (wlitescene land) have been added from the first typescript (see note 37): they were inadvertently omitted in the second. 52. Lowdham concludes his lecture in the manner of the ending of a medieval minstrel's romance, and with a swipe at Frankley. or I ende: 'before I end.' 53. From Night 67 onwards there are again only the manuscript E and the typescript F, the latter being the continuation of the revised typescript (see p. 147 and note 37 above). 54. 0 Lover of Horses: see note 33. 55. Lowdham's 'fragments' are inserted into the typescript on separate sheets. They are in two forms: a typescript, printed here, and a manuscript of two pages, reproduced as frontis- pieces to this book, representing Lowdham's copies 'in a big bold hand, done with one of the great thick-nibbed pens Lowdham is fond of', with 'glosses in red ink': for unglossed words there are however (unlike what Lowdham said of his copies, p. 248) no query marks. In the typescript text of the fragments the Avallonian and Adunaic words are given all in capital letters, but I print them here in italic, capitalising according to the manuscript version. 56. Comparison of the typescript text of the fragments printed here with the manuscript version reproduced as frontispieces will show that the only differences in actual word-forms are manu- script hikalba 'she fell' in I (B), where the typescript has hikallaba; manuscript katha 'all' in II, where the typescript has katha; and manuscript ido 'now' at all three occurrences in II, but idon at the last two in the typescript, with the gloss 'now (is)'. There are many minor differences in Lowdham's glosses. The typescript text of the fragments was no doubt made to accompany the final typescript F of the narrative, but it is not clear to me whether it preceded or followed the manuscript pages. Earlier forms of these pages are given on pp. 311 - 12. For the form of the fragments in E see p. 309. 57. Plato's dialogue Timaeus is the source (together with the long unfinished dialogue Critias) of the legend of Atlantis, the great island empire in the western ocean which, expanding aggressive- ly against the peoples of the Mediterranean, was defeated by the Athenians, and was swallowed up 'in a single day and night' by the sea, leaving a vast shoal of mud that rendered the waters impassable in the region where Atlantis had been. According to Plato, the story was told (about the beginning of the sixth century B.C.) by an Egyptian priest to Solon the Athenian, and it came down thence by several intermediaries to Critias, a relative of Plato's, who tells the story in the two dialogues. In the Critias a long and extremely detailed account of Atlantis is given, of its great city, the temple of Poseidon with its colossal statue of the god, the wealth of the land in all resources of minerals, animals, timber, flowers and fruits, the horse-racing, the bull-sacrifice, the laws governing the realm. At the end of this account the narrator tells that the men of Atlantis fell away from the justice, wisdom and virtue of earlier generations, and that Zeus, perceiving their debasement and corruption, and wishing to punish them, called all the gods together and spoke to them; but at this point the Critias breaks off unfinished. The story of the war with the Greeks and the downfall of Atlantis is told, very briefly, in the other dialogue, the Timaeus. The eldest child of Poseidon (tutelary god of Atlantis) by a mortal woman became the first king, and Poseidon named him Atlas, 'and after him the whole island and ocean were called Atlantis.' Ultimately the name Atlas is that of the Titan who upheld the heavens on his head and his hands, according to Hesiod in the far western regions of the earth, near the dwelling of the Hesperides. He was the father of the Pleiades, and also, in Homer, of Calypso, on whose island Ogygia Odysseus was shipwrecked. 58. Cf. The Lost Road, where Audoin Errol, son of Alboin, speaks to himself of his dreams (V.52): 'Just pictures, but not a sound, not a word. Ships coming to land. Towers on the shore. Battles, with swords glinting but silent. And there is that ominous picture: the great temple on the mountain, smoking like a volcano.' 59. E has here: ' "... But I've done what I can. Sauron and nahamna remain to be solved." "Sauron!" said Jeremy in a strange voice.' Lowdham refers only to unknown Quenya words because, as will be seen more fully later, in E there was no Adunaic element in the fragments he received. The word nahamna preceded nukumna 'humbled' of the later text of the Quenya fragment (p. 246), and was uninterpretable also by Alboin Errol in The Lost Road (V.47). 60. The name Nimruzir appears in Fragment I (8), 'seven ships of Nimruzir eastward'. In E Jeremy addresses Lowdham as Earen- dil, changed subsequently to Elendil. 61. The Adunaic words Ba kitabdahe! are absent in E (see note 59). 62. In E Lowdham cries out: 'Es sorni heruion an! The Eagles of the Lords are at hand!' This was changed later to 'The Eagles of the Powers of the West are at hand! Sorni Numevalion anner! ' In an earlier, rejected version of the passage Lowdham's words were: 'Soroni numeheruen ettuler!' 63. In E Jeremy speaks of 'the fell counsels of Sauron', not 'of Zigur'. He says that 'Tarkalion has set forth his might', where F has 'the King', and the sails of the Numenorean ships are 'scarlet and black' ('golden and black', F). He ends in E: 'The world waits in fear. The Numenoreans have encompassed Avallon as with a cloud. The Eldar mourn and are afraid. Why do the Lords of the West make no sign?' 64. For 'The Lords have spoken to Eru, and the fate of the World is changed' E has 'The Lords have spoken to Iluvatar [> the Maker], and the counsel of the Almighty is changed, and the fate of the world is overturned.' 65. For the passage in F beginning 'See! The abyss openeth...' E (as first written: the wording was changed in detail subsequently) has: 'Ah! Look! There is a chasm in the midst of the Great Seas and the waters rush down into it in great confusion. The ships of the Numenoreans are drowned in the abyss. They are lost for ever. See now the eagles of the Lords overshadow Numenor. The mountain goes up to heaven in flame and vapour; the hills totter, slide, and crumble: the land founders. The glory has gone down into the deep waters. Dark ships, dark ships flying into darkness! The eagles pursue them. Wind drives them, waves like hills moving. All has passed away. Light has departed! ' There was a roar of thunder and a blaze of lightning... Thus there is no mention in E of Lowdham and Jeremy moving to the window and 'talking to one another in a strange tongue.' 66. For Abrazan E has Voronwe, 'Steadfast', 'Faithful'; this was the name of the Elf who guided Tuor to Gondolin, Unfinished Tales pp. 30 ff. Cf. Jeremy's second name, Trewin (see note 84). 67. On 'the Great Storm' see p. 157 and note 1. 68. The statement that Ramer picked up a piece of paper covered with writing and put it in a drawer is present in E as written. See note 70. 69. in the schools: acting as examiners in the final examinations, held at the end of the summer term (cf. Guildford's footnote on p. 253). 70. In E the letter was postmarked in London. - As E was written, the record of the meeting of Night 68 ended immediately after Guildford had read the letter aloud, with the words: 'We agreed to Thursday 25th of September', and is followed by Night 69 on that date. Thus, although at the end of Night 67 Guildford's statement that he saw Ramer pick up the leaf of Edwin Lowdham's manuscript and put it in a drawer was present in E as originally written, on Night 68 Ramer does not appear and the paper is not mentioned (which is why the account of Night 68 begins with the words 'There is not much to record' - words that should have been removed). In E Night 69 (the last meeting recorded in The Notion Club Papers) proceeds essentially as in F (pp. 260 - 77). The matter of 'Edwin Lowdham's page' on Night 68 was inserted into E, but the structure of the manu- script and its pagination show clearly that this was not done until the text of Night 69 had been completed. 71. In E Ramer's remarks about 'Edwin Lowdham's page' and his discovery that the language was Old English are very much the same as in F, but he gives an opinion about the dialect and date: 'He thought it was Numenorean, I guess. But actually it is just Old English - latish West Saxon, I think, but I'm no expert. The script is, I think, plainly Numenorean...' See further notes 72 and 74. 72. Rashbold is a translation of Tolkien: see p. 151. Pembroke is the college to which the professorship of Anglo-Saxon is attached, its holder being ex officio a fellow of the college. - In E Professor Rashbold does not appear, and it is Ramer himself who deciphered, transcribed, and translated the page ('And here's the transcription, with such a translation as I could make'). 73. Cf. the third Old English version of The Annals of Valinor, of which I noted (IV.290) that the language is that of ninth-century Mercia. There are several references in my father's letters to his particular liking for and sense of affinity with the West Mid- lands of England and its early language. In January 1945 he had said to me (Letters no. 95): 'For barring the Tolkien (which must long ago have become a pretty thin strand) you are a Mercian or Hwiccian (of Wychwood) on both sides.' In June 1955 he wrote to W. H. Auden (Letters no. 163): 'I am a West-midlander by blood (and took to early west-midland Middle English as a known tongue as soon as I set eyes on it)'; and in another letter of this time (Letters no. 165): '... it is, I believe, as much due to descent as to opportunity that Anglo- Saxon and Western Middle English and alliterative verse have been both a childhood attraction and my main professional sphere.' 74. The Old English version (not in the Mercian dialect, see note 71) written to accompany the manuscript E is given on pp. 313 - 14, and the representation of the original form of it in Edwin Lowdham's tengwar on pp. 319 - 20. Of the subsequent Old English (Mercian) version, printed here from F, my father began a text in tengwar but abandoned it after a single page; this is reproduced on p. 321. 75. Arminaleth: Adunaic name of the City of the Numenoreans, found also in The Drowning of Anadune. In The Fall of Numenor ($2) it was named Numenos (V.25, and in this book p. 333). On the site of the temple see p. 384. 76. Neowollond: in Professor Rashbold's translation (p. 259) this is rendered 'the? prostrate land'; in the earlier Old English version accompanying E, which was translated by Michael Ramer (note 72), the name (in the form Niwelland) is rendered 'the Land that is fallen low' (pp. 314 - 15). Old English neowol (neol, niwol) 'prostrate, prone; deep, profound'; cf. the early names for Helm's Deep, Neolnearu, Neolnerwet, VIII.23 note 6. 77. forrarder:'further forward'. 78. On the texts and titles of this poem see the note on pp. 295 - 6, where also the published version is given. 79. Cluain-ferta: Clonfert, near the river Shannon above Lough Derg. The monastery was founded by Saint Brendan Abbot of Clonfert, called the Navigator, about the year 559. 80. a light on the edge of the Outer Night: cf. the Quenta Silmarillion (V.327): 'But [the Valar] took Vingelot [the ship of Earendel], and they hallowed it, and they bore it away through Valinor to the uttermost rim of the world, and there it passed through the Door of Night and was lifted up even into the oceans of heaven.' The following line in the present text, like silver set ablaze, is replaced in the final form of the poem (p. 298, line 104) by beyond the Door of Days. 81. The passage Lowdham refers to is lines 33 - 52, where when 'the smoking cloud asunder broke' they 'saw that Tower of Doom': in the earliest text of the poem the mariners 'looked upon Mount Doom' (p. 295). 82. Cf. the outline for The Lost Road in V.80, where 'AElfwine objects that Paradise cannot be got to by ship - there are deeper waters between us than Garsecg. Roads are bent: you come back in the end. No escape by ship.' 83. Porlock: on the north coast of Somerset. 84. Trewyn: Jeremy's second name is spelt Trewin in the lists of members of the Notion Club. The Old English name is Treowine (which Lowdham uses subsequently, p. 268), 'true friend'; cf. the Elvish name Voronwe' 'Steadfast' by which Lowdham names him in the text E (note 66). 85. Hibernia: Ireland (see note 99). 86. Slieve League is a mountain on the coast of Donegal, Brandon Hill on the coast of Kerry; thus Lowdham means 'all down the west coast of Ireland'. 87. The Aran Isles lie across the entrance to Galway Bay. 88. Loughrea: a town and lake to the east of Galway. 89. the Severn Sea: the mouth of the Severn. 90. 'Let us hasten now, Treowine! I do not like this wind. There is a great likelihood of Danes tonight.' 91. The opening of Lowdham's story is closely based on the account in The Lost Road (V.83), although there AElfwine's part is reported by the narrator, and it is his son Eadwine that he looks for in the hall, not his friend Treowine. For a brief account of the historical setting in the years of King Edward the Elder (son of King Alfred), the defeat of the Danes at Archenfield in Herefordshire, and the raids on Watchet and Porlock, see V.80 - 1. 92. Devenish men and Somersets: Devenish is Old English Defenisc 'of Devon'; Defnas, Defenas 'men of Devon' is the origin of the name Devon. Somersets is from Old English Sumorsaete 'men of Somerset' with the later plural ending added; as with Defnas > Devon, Sumorsaete became the name of the region Somerset. 93. Edwin Lowdham's father has not been mentioned, but as is seen here he was Oswin Lowdham. 94. Alfred went into hiding: in the Isle of Athelney in Somerset, in 878. 95. the West Welsh: the people of Cornwall (Old English Corn- wealas 'the Welsh in Cornwall' became the name of the region, Cornwall). On AElfwine's mother, who came 'from the West', see II.313, V.85. 96. Saint Edmund, King of East Anglia, was defeated by the Danes in 869 and (according to the tenth century life of the king) murdered by them: he was tied to a tree and shot through with many arrows. The Danish raids in the region of the Severn took place in 914, and thus 'AElfwine' was about 45 years old at this time (see V.80, 85), since he was born 'just before' the death of Saint Edmund. Arry Lowdham was born in 1938, and was now 48 or 49. Subsequently Guildford says (p. 276) that in his vision of AElfwine in the hall at Porlock he had looked older than Lowdham, 'though by his account he was just of Arry's age it seemed'. 97. the good king in his last wars: King Alfred (died 899). 98. Maelduin: see V.81 - 2. 99. Eriu: the Old Celtic name * Iveriu (whence Latin Hibernia) became Irish Eriu (accusative case Eirinn, Erin). From the same source is Old English Iras, Iraland. 100. aet Ircenfelda: Archenfield in Herefordshire; see V.SO (the Old English Ircingafeld given there is an earlier form). 101. Monath modes lust...: on these verses see note 50. 102. Tamworth: in Staffordshire: the chief residence of the Mercian kings. 103. King Sheave: for discussion of the legend of 'Sheaf' and notes on the text of the poem see V.91 - 6. Among the manuscripts of The Lost Road material (see V.85 ff.) there are two texts of the poem, the one (which I will here call 'V') written out in verse lines, the other ('P') written as prose. In The Lost Road I printed V only, since the two versions differ only in a few minor details. In V there is a short narrative opening, in which it is told that AElfwine chanted the poem; in P there is only a title, King Sheave. In the manuscript E of The Notion Club Papers it is not Treowine who recites the poem, as it is the typescript F: At that one of the Marchers leaped to his feet and got leave to speak. Even before I had found a seat beside Treowine, whom I espied far down the hall, the fellow had a foot on the step and had begun. He had a good voice, if a strange way with his words. Ceolwulf, as I heard later, was his name, and he claimed to come of the blood of their kings that sat at Tamworth of old. His verse was in the old style... This was changed in pencil to the later account. In E there is only a direction 'Here follows the Lay of King Sheave', which stands at the bottom of page 42 in the manuscript. The text continues on another page with 'When he ended there was loud applause... and they passed a horn of ale to Ceolwulf's hand.' When I edited The Lost Road I did not observe that this page is numbered 46, while the manuscript P of King Sheave (in which the poem is written out as prose) is numbered 43 to 45. Thus the manuscripts V and P, which I took to be 'obviously closely contemporary' (V.87), were in fact separated by some eight years: a misjudgement based on the fact of the texts being placed together in my father's archive and their close similarity, although the evidence of the pagination is perfectly clear. The manuscript P, then, was written in 1945 on the basis of the much earlier V, and was the text from which the typescript F given here was taken (with a few further changes); and all differences between the text given on pp. 273 ff. in this book and that on pp. 87 ff. in The Lost Road belong to 1945. The last eight lines of the supplementary part of the poem (The Lost Road p. 91, lines 146 - 53, beginning 'Sea-danes and Goths ...'), which do not appear in the manuscript V, also belong apparently to the time of The Notion Club Papers. 104. The text P has sires, but both V and the typescript F of the Papers have sire. 105. aet thisse beorthege: Old English beordegu 'beer-drinking'. 106. I cannot explain the reference of 'Broad Relic'. 107. cnearr: 'ship', a very rare Old English word probably taken from Norse, since it is only applied to vessels of the Vikings. 108. 'Sweet is the breath of flowers beyond the sea.' 109. After night 62: this is the later Night 63. 110. See p. 214 note 23; p. 194 and note 46; p. 199 and note 51; p. 206 and note 63. 111. That this list, following the revised title-page given on p. 149, was made after the completion of manuscript B is seen from the name Frankley for earlier Franks (p. 150). Note on 'The Death of Saint Brendan' with the text of the published form 'Imram'. A great deal of work went into this poem, with its elaborate versification: there are no less than fourteen closely-written pages of initial working, and there follow four finished manuscript texts preceding the typescript text printed on pp. 261 - 4. Much further work on it followed later. It is notable, however, that already in the earliest text the final form reached in The Notion Club Papers was very closely approached: there is in fact only one passage that shows a significant difference (and this was corrected already on the first manuscript to the later form). This concerns lines 43 - 53, where the earliest text reads: then the smoking cloud asunder broke and we looked upon Mount Doom: tall as a column in high Heaven's hall, than all mortal mountains higher, the tower-top of a foundered power, with crown of redgold fire. We sailed then on... The first text bears the title The Ballad of St. Brendan's Death. The second text, which as the pagination shows belongs with the manu- script E of The Notion Club Papers, is entitled The Death of St. Brendan. The third (with this title) and the fourth (without title) are finely written manuscripts, and the fifth (with the title The Death of St. Brendan pencilled in as shown on p. 261) is part of the typescript F of The Notion Club Papers. The poem, entitled Imram (Irish: 'sailing, voyaging') was once previously printed, in the issue of the periodical Time and Tide for 3 December 1955 (where it was illustrated by a woodcut of Saint Brendan and the great fishes by Robert Gibbings, originally made for Helen Waddell's book of translations Beasts and Saints, 1934). Three further typescripts, all with the title Imram, clearly belong to the later time. I print here in its entirety the text as it was published in Time and Tide, for that is now scarcely obtainable, and although the opening and concluding verses underwent very little alteration my father greatly changed most of the poem from its form in The Notion Club Papers. IMRAM At last out of the deep sea he passed, and mist rolled on the shore; under clouded moon the waves were loud, as the laden ship him bore 4 to Ireland, back to wood and mire and the tower tall and grey, where the knell of Cluain-ferta's bell tolled in green Galway. 8 Where Shannon down to Lough Derg ran under a rain-clad sky Saint Brendan came to his journey's end to find the grace to die. 12 '0 tell me, father, for I loved you well, if still you have words for me, of things strange in the remembering in the long and lonely sea, 16 of islands by deep spells beguiled where dwell the Elvenkind: in seven long years the road to Heaven or the Living Land did you find?' 20 'The things I have seen, the many things, have long now faded far; only three come clear now back to me: a Cloud, a Tree, a Star. 24 'We sailed for a year and a day and hailed no field nor coast of men; no boat nor bird saw we ever afloat for forty days and ten. 28 Then a drumming we heard as of thunder coming, and a Cloud above us spread; we saw no sun at set or dawn, yet ever the west was red. 32 'Upreared from sea to cloud then sheer a shoreless mountain stood; its sides were black from the sullen tide up to its smoking hood, 36 but its spire was lit with a living fire that ever rose and fell: tall as a column in High Heaven's hall, its roots were deep as Hell; 40 grounded in chasms the waters drowned and swallowed long ago it stands, I guess, on the foundered land where the kings of kings lie low. 44 'We sailed then on till all winds failed, and we toiled then with the oar; we burned with thirst and in hunger yearned, and we sang our psalms no more. 48 At last beyond the Cloud we passed and came to a starlit strand; the waves were sighing in pillared caves, grinding gems to sand. 52 And here they would grind our bones we feared until the end of time; for steep those shores went upward leaping to cliffs no man could climb. 56 But round by west a firth we found that clove the mountain-wall; there lay a water shadow-grey between the mountains tall. 60 Through gates of stone we rowed in haste, and passed, and left the sea; and silence like dew fell in that isle, and holy it seemed to be. 64 'To a dale we came like a silver grail with carven hills for rim. In that hidden land we saw there stand under a moonlight dim 68 a Tree more fair than ever I deemed in Paradise might grow: its foot was like a great tower's root, its height no man could know; 72 and white as winter to my sight the leaves of that Tree were; they grew more close than swan-wing plumes, long and soft and fair. 76 'It seemed to us then as in a dream that time had passed away, and our journey ended; for no return we hoped, but there to stay. 80 In the silence of that hollow isle half sadly then we sang: softly we thought, but the sound aloft like sudden trumpets rang. 84 The Tree then shook, and flying free from its limbs the leaves in air as white birds rose in wheeling flight, and the lifting boughs were bare. 88 On high we heard in the starlit sky a song, but not of bird: neither noise of man nor angel's voice, but maybe there is a third 92 fair kindred in the world yet lingers beyond the foundered land. But steep are the seas and the waters deep beyond the White-tree Strand! ' 96 '0 stay now, father! There is more to say. But two things you have told: the Tree, the Cloud; but you spoke of three. The Star in mind do you hold?' 100 'The Star? Why, I saw it high and far at the parting of the ways, a light on the edge of the Outer Night beyond the Door of Days, 104 where the round world plunges steeply down, but on the old road goes, as an unseen bridge that on arches runs to coasts that no man knows.' 108 'But men say, father, that ere the end you went where none have been. I would hear you tell me, father dear, of the last land you have seen.' 112 'In my mind the Star I still can find, and the parting of the seas, and the breath as sweet and keen as death that was borne upon the breeze. 116 But where they bloom, those flowers fair, in what air or land they grow, what words beyond this world I heard, if you would seek to know, 120 in a boat then, brother, far afloat you must labour in the sea, and find for yourself things out of mind: you will learn no more of me.' 124 In Ireland over wood and mire in the tower tall and grey the knell of Cluain-ferta's bell was tolling in green Galway. 128 Saint Brendan had come to his life's end under a rain-clad sky, journeying whence no ship returns; and his bones in Ireland lie. 132 MAJOR DIVERGENCES IN EARLIER VERSIONS OF THE NOTION CLUB PAPERS (PART TWO). (i) The earlier versions of Night 66. I have mentioned previously that from Lowdham's words 'Earendel seems to me a special word. It is not Anglo-Saxon' (see p. 237 and note 37) there is a third text to be considered: for the part of the typescript F that follows from this point and extends to the end of Night 66 (p. 245) was rejected and replaced by another version. I shall refer to the rejected portion as 'F 1', and its replacement as 'F 2'. That this rewriting was carried out while the typescript was being made is seen from the fact that at the end of the rewritten section it is F 2 that continues to the end of the Papers. For some distance the original manuscript E was followed closely in F 1 and for this part it is only necessary to give the text of the latter. In any case, said Lowdham, Earendel is not Anglo-Saxon. Or rather, it is and it isn't. I think it is one of those curious cases of linguistic coincidence" that have long puzzled me. I some- times think that they are too easily dismissed as "mere acci- dent". You know the sort of thing that you can find in any dictionary of a strange language, and which so excites the amateur philologists, itching to derive one tongue from another that they know better: a word that is nearly the same in form and meaning as the corresponding word in English, or Latin, or Hebrew, or what not. Like mare 'male' in the New Hebrides and Latin maris, marem.(1) Or the example that used to be given as a frightful warning in the old text-books: that popol means 'people' or 'popular assembly' in Tamil, but has no connexion whatever with populus and its derivatives, and is really derived, they say, from a Tamil word for a mat for the councillors to squat on. 'I dare say some of these things are mere chance, or at least not very significant. Yet I think it also happens that a word- form may be arrived at by different routes, in far separated times and places, and yet the result may be the product of a hidden symbol-making process working out to a similar end. Or in any case the "accident" may touch off, as it were, deeper or sleeping mind-echoes, so that the similar form thus acquires similar significance or emotional content. Every language has words in which its genius seems to come to flash-point, words whose form, though it remains within the general style, achieves a brilliance or a beauty of universal virtue.' 'If I follow all this, and I'm not at all sure that I do,' said Markison, 'I suppose you are trying to say that you've dis- covered Earendel or something like it in some strange language. Is that so?' 'I think I come in for a moment here,' said Jeremy, who had been as restless as a bird on a twig ever since the word Earendel had cropped up. 'We've been trying to strengthen our recollec- tions under tuition; but I've not had much success yet. Still I have succeeded in connecting Numenor a little more clearly with a library,(2) with something I came across once when I was working on Ghost-stories. I can't get it more exact, or I couldn't. But a result of the effort to remember has been to drag up a good many vague dream-scenes of that rather troubled searching-for-something-missing variety: wandering about in libraries looking for a lost book, getting dusty and worried. 'Then two nights ago I got a dream of which I still remember one fairly clear passage. I took down a folder, or a cardboard case, from a high shelf, and in it I found a manuscript. It was in an ornamental and rather archaic hand, yet I seem to remember that I knew that it was not really old (by the paper, or the ink, or something), but belonged to this century. Here and there were passages in an unknown character.' 'I've found that missing leaf of my father's book,' interposed Lowdham.(3) 'I've shown it to Jeremy, and he's quite certain that the character is the same. Though we've not succeeded in deciphering it. It's not any alphabet known to the books.' 'And what is more peculiar', said Jeremy, 'there is nothing at all to connect my dream-vision or dream-manuscript with Edwin Lowdham: the style of the hands is wholly different, though the letter-forms are the same. Old Edwin's is a large, black, broad-stroke round hand; mine was more delicate and pointed. 'Well, unfortunately I don't recollect anything very clear or connected about the contents of my dream-manuscript - I call it that because I begin to wonder if this dream is really founded on any waking experience at all - but it contained, I think, some kind of legendary history,(4) full of strange names all seeming to belong to the same language. This much I do remember: the name Numenor or Numenore was frequent; and so was the name Earendil. Very nearly the same, you see, but actually spelt: e-a-r-e-n-d-i-l, Earendil. 'So I think Arry must be right. It is a case of linguistic coincidence or congruence, and the key is not to be found in Anglo-Saxon. We need not bother with the connexions of English Earendel in the other related languages, like the proper names Orendel, and Aurvendill, or Saxo's Horwendillus.'(5) 'But is not Auriwandalo actually recorded as a name in Langobardic?' said Markison, who has a finger in most pies of learning. 'Odd how the Langobards crop up.' 'It is,' said Lowdham. 'Hm, yes, and there is a connexion between these names and the stars,' said Jeremy. 'Didn't Thor throw Aurvendil's toe up into the sky, Arry?(6) And Earendil certainly had a connexion with a star in the strange tongue. Somehow I feel sure of that.'(7) 'Yes, that's so,' said Lowdham; 'but in the unknown language it was only a legendary connexion, not a linguistic one, I think. Earendil meant Sea-friend.(8) I am quite sure of that, because - well, perhaps I'd better go on where I left off. 'From the time of my father's departure... The following passage in E / F 1 was retained in the revised type- script F 2 (p. 237 - 8) as far as 'some great tale of Numenor' almost without change, and there is no need to repeat it. The only difference between the texts is in the name of the 'cone-shaped mountain', and this is a difference very important in determining the relation of the texts of The Drowning of Anadune to those of The Notion Club Papers. Where F 2 has 'Desolate is Minul-Tarik, the Pillar of Heaven is forsaken! ' the name in E is Menelminda, changed in pencil to Meneltyula, while in F 1 it is Menel-tubel, changed to Menel-tubil. From 'some great tale of Numenor', however, all three texts diverge among themselves, and the major divergence is between the manu- script E and the first typescript F 1. I continue now therefore with the text of E (cf. pp. 238 ff.). 'But most of the word-recollections are, as it were, casual; as casual as the words caught by the eye from a lexicon when one is looking for something else. It was a long time before I began to note them down, and use them for the language I was amusing myself by "making up". They did not fit, or rather they took control and bent that language to their own style. In fact it became difficult to tell which were my invented words and which the ghost-words; indeed I've a notion that "invention" gradually played a smaller and smaller part. But there was always a large residue that would not work in. 'I soon found, as I got to know more, that some of the ingredients were Anglo-Saxon, and other things: which I'll mention in a minute. But when I weeded them out there was still a large amount of words left over, and in worrying over these I made a discovery. They belonged to another ghost-language, and to one that was related to the other. I could perceive a good many of the laws or rules of change: for the Numenorean style was in most points the older, more archaic, while the other had been altered (as if by contact with our western shores) to a style much more like that of the older north-western tongues.' 'I don't follow all this,' said Stainer. 'Nor do I,' said both Markison and Guildford. 'Give them some of the examples you gave me, Arry,' said Ramer. 'Well,' said Lowdham hesitating, 'if I can remember any of the examples where the relationship is clear to lay folk (it is often rather complex). Yes, lome is 'night' (but not 'darkness') and lomelinde is 'a nightingale': I feel sure of that. In the second language it is dumh, later du; and duilin. I refer them to a Primitive Western domi, domilinde. Alda means a 'tree' - it was one of the earliest certain words I got - and orne when smaller and more slender like a birch or rowan; in the second language I find galad, and orn (plural yrn): I refer them to galada, and orne (plural ornei). Sometimes the forms are more similar: the Sun and Moon, for instance, appear as Anar, Isil beside Anaur (later Anor) and Ithil. I liked first the one language and then the other in different linguistic moods,(9) but the older seemed always the more august, somehow, the more, I don't know ... liturgical, monumental: I used to call it the Elven-latin; and the other seemed more resonant with the loss and regret of these shores of exile' - he paused - 'but I don't know why I say that.' 'But why Elven-latin?' asked Markison. 'I don't quite know,' said Lowdham. 'I certainly don't mean Elves in any of the more debased post-Shakespearean sort of ways. Actually the language is associated in my mind with the name Eresse': an island, I think. I often call it Eressean.(10) But it is also associated with names like Eldar, Eldalie which seem to refer to, well, something like Ramer's Enkeladim.'(11) 'That breaks my dream!' cried Jeremy.(12) 'Of course! Now I know. It wasn't a library. It was a folder containing a manu- script, on a high shelf in Whitburn's second-hand room,(13) that funny dark place where all sorts of unsaleable things drift. No wonder my dreams were full of dust and anxiety! It must have been fifteen years ago since I found the thing there: Quenta Eldalien, being the History of the Elves, by John Arthurson (14)- in a manuscript much as I've described it. I took an eager but hasty glance. But I had no time to spare that day, and I could find no one in the shop to answer any enquiries, so I hurried off. I meant to come back, but I didn't, not for almost a fortnight. And - then the manuscript had vanished! They had no record of it, and neither old Whitburn nor anyone else there remembered ever seeing any such thing. I recall now what a catastrophe it seemed to me at the time; but I was very busy with other work, and soon forgot all about it.' 'It certainly looks as if more than one mind had been working back along similar lines,' said Ramer. 'Several minds indeed; for our expert is at fault for once. Lewis also mentions the name somewhere.' 'So he does!' cried Jeremy. 'In a preface, was it? But he was quoting from someone, I think, from a source that hasn't been traced. And he used the form numinor. All the other sources have numenor, or numenore' - that's so, isn't it, Arry?'(15) 'Yes,' said Lowdham. 'nume is West, and nore is kindred, or land. The ancient English was Westfolde, Hesperia.(16) But you wanted to know why Elven. Well, I got that from another line, too. You remember I mentioned that Anglo-Saxon used to come through mixed up with this other queer stuff? Well, I got hold of Anglo-Saxon through the ordinary books, of course, fairly early, and that confused the issue; though some words and names came through to me that are not in the dictionaries...' From here to the end of Night 66 the version in the original manuscript E is very close to the final form (pp. 242 - 5), though some elements are lacking, notably Lowdham's description of the ancient slowness and sonorousness of diction (p. 242): following Frankley's 'Unless, of course, you back up their theories' Lowdham goes on: 'As a matter of fact, I think they do. At least, here is a bit that came through very early, long before I could interpret it; and it has been repeated over and over again in various forms: Westra lage wegas rehtas wraithas nu isti...'(17) The Old English lines beginning Monad modes lust are in later spelling, but have the same form as that in F 2 (see pp. 243-4 and note 50, and p. 272). There is no reference in E to the date of the 'coming through' of these lines, nor to its being an evening of high wind. The remarkable feature of this original version is of course that Lowdham's two 'ghost-languages' were Quenya and Sindarin (or rather, the language that would come to be called Sindarin). Lowd- ham's account in this version thus maintains the linguistic experience of Alboin Errol in The Lost Road (cf. note 9): 'Eressean as he called it as a boy ... was getting pretty complete. He had a lot of Beleriandic, too, and was beginning to understand it, and its relation to Eressean' (V.45). The first typescript version F 1 follows the manuscript E at the beginning of the section just given ('But most of these word- recollections ...', p. 302), in Lowdham's description of how the 'ghost-words' 'soon took control and bent my [invented] language to their own style'; but when he comes to tell that as he sifted the 'large residue [of words] that would not work in' he made a discovery, his discovery is totally different from that in the original text. This is where Adunaic first appeared. It may be that my father had been long cogitating this new language; but even if this is so, it would seem that it had not reached a form sufficiently developed to enter as Lowd- ham's 'second language' in manuscript E. In fact, I doubt that it is so. It seems to me to be overwhelmingly probable that Adunaic actually arose at this time (see further p. 147). I give here the text of F 1 from this point (corresponding to the E text on p. 302 and the final text F 2 on p. 238). 'I found, when I got to know more, that some of the ingredients were Anglo-Saxon and other related things: I'll deal with that in a minute; it was not a large part. Working over the rest, collecting and sifting it, I made a discovery. I had got two ghost-languages: Numenorean A and B. Most of what I had got at an early period was B; later A became more frequent, but B remained the most common language, especially in anything like connected passages; A was chiefly limited to single words and names, though I think that a lot of it is incorporated in my invented language. 'As far as I could or can see, these languages are unrelated, though they have some words in common. But in addition to these tongues there remains a residue, and I now see that it consists of some echoes of other later tongues that are later than Numenorean A and B, but are derived from them or from their blending. I can discern some of the laws or lines of change that they show. For the Numenorean tongues, I feel, are archaic and of an elder world, but the others are altered and belong to Middle-earth.' 'I don't follow all this,' said Stainer. Most of us felt the same, and said so. 'Couldn't you give them some of the examples that you gave to me, Arry?' said Ramer. 'Some of the important names, and a word or two; it would be clearer with something definite to go on.' Lowdham hesitated. 'I'll try,' he said. 'But I shan't be able to give many examples of the later changed forms; the relations would seldom be clear, even to philologists, without many instances side by side in writing. 'Well, take the name Numenor or Numenore. That belongs to language A. It means Westernesse, and is composed of nume "west" and nore "folk" or "country"; but the B name is Anadun, and the people are called Adunai. And the land had another name: in A Andore, and in B Athanati; and both mean land of gift>. There seems no connexion between the two languages here; but in both menel means "the heavens". It occurs in the B name Menel-tubil that I mentioned just now. And there seems to be some connexion between the A word Valar, which appears to mean something like "gods", and the B plural Avaloi and the place-name Avalloni. 'The name Earendil, by the way, belongs to language A, and contains eare "the open sea" and the stem ndil "love, devotion". The corresponding B name is Pharazir, made of pharaz and the stem iri- [changed in ink on the typescript to: Azrubel, made of azar "sea" and the stem bel-]. A large number of the names seem to have double forms like this, almost as if one people spoke two languages. If that is so, I suppose the situation could be paralleled by the use of, say, Chinese in Japan, or indeed of Latin in Europe. As if a man could be called Godwin and also Theophilus or Amadeus. But even so, two different peoples must come into the story somewhere. 'I don't know if you want any more examples; but the words for the Sun and Moon in A are Anar and Isil (or in their oldest form Anar and Ithil); and in B they are Uri and Nilu. These words survive in not much changed shapes in the later lan- guages that I spoke of: Anor (Anaur) and Ithil, beside Uir, Yr and Nil, Njul. Again the A and B forms seem unconnected; but there is a word that often occurs and is nearly the same in both: lome in A, and lomi in B. That means "night", but as it comes through to me I feel that it has no evil connotations; it is a word of peace and beauty and has none of the associations of fear or groping that, say, "dark" has for us. For the evil sense I do not know the A word. In B and its derivatives there are many words or stems, such as dolgu, ugru, nulu. 'Well, there you are. I hope you are not all bored. I love these languages. I call them Avallonian and Adunaic.(18) I find first the one and then the other more attractive, in different linguistic moods; but A, the Avallonian, is the more beautiful, with the simpler and more euphonious phonetic style. And it seems to me the more august, somehow, the more ancient, and, well, sacred and liturgical. I used to call it the Elven-latin. But the Adunaic is more resonant with the loss and regret of Middle-earth, these shores of exile.' He paused, as if he heard echoes from a great distance. 'But I do not know why I say that,' he ended. There was a short silence, and then Markison spoke. 'Why did you call it Elven-latin?' he asked. 'Why Elven?' 'It seemed to fit,' Lowdham answered. 'But certainly I didn't mean elf in any debased post-Shakespearean sort of sense.... The remainder of Night 66 is the same as in F 2 (pp. 242 - 5), except that, as in E, Lowdham's account of the ancient mode of utterance is absent. It will be seen that in F 1, as in E, Wilfrid Jeremy interrupts to speak of his 'dream-manuscript' (p. 300), found in a library, in which occurred the names Numenor and Earendil: the unknown character of some passages in it was the same as that of the single leaf preserved from Edwin Lowdham's 'notes in a queer script' (p. 235), which Arundel Lowdham had now found again; but that this passage is entirely absent in F 2 (p. 237). Subsequently, in E, Jeremy returns to the subject ('That breaks my dream!', p. 303), remembering both that he found - in waking life, years before - the manuscript not in a library but in the second-hand room of a bookshop, and that the manuscript bore the title Quenta Eldalien, being the History of the Elves, by John Artburson; and this leads to a mention of Lewis's use of the name Numinor. This second interruption of Jeremy's is not in F 1, which is on the face of it strange, since his first speech was surely intended to lead on to his second. A probable explanation of this is that my father decided to discard this element of Jeremy's manuscript (perhaps as complicating excessively the already complex conception) while he was making the typescript, and that this was one reason why he produced the revised version at this point. But Jeremy's remarks at the previous meeting (Night 65, p. 232: 'I come into it too. I knew I had heard that name as soon as Arry said it. But I can't for the life of me remember where or when at the moment. It'll bother me now, like a thorn in the foot, until I get it out') should have been removed. NOTES. 1. The genitive and accusative cases maris, marem are given because the nominative is mas ('male'). 2. Jeremy is referring to the earlier passage (Night 65, p. 232) in which he claimed that he himself had heard the name Numenor, but could not remember when. 3. In the revised text F 2 there is no mention of the missing leaf having been found under Night 66 - naturally enough, since it was at this meeting that Lowdham referred to it as having been mislaid (p. 235). It was an odd oversight in E and F 1 that at the same meeting Lowdham both first mentions it and says that he cannot find it at the present time, and also declares that he has found it and discussed it with Jeremy. In F 2 he brings the leaf to the next meeting (p. 248). 4. E has here: '... the contents of the dream-manuscript - I call it that, because I doubt now whether this dream is really founded on any waking experience at all; though I don't somehow doubt that such a manuscript exists somewhere, probably in Oxford: it contains, I think, some kind of legendary history...' 5. Orendel in German, Aurvandill in Norse, Horwendillus in Latinized form in the Danish History of Saxo Grammaticus (latter half of the twelfth century). The form in Norse is Aurvandill, but at the occurrences of the name both in E and F 1 my father spelt it Aurvendill. See note 6. 6. In the 'Prose Edda' of Snorri Sturluson a strange tale is told by the god Thor, how he 'carried Aurvandill in a basket on his back from the North out of Jotunheim [land of giants]; and he added for a token that one of his toes had stuck out of the basket and become frozen; and so Thor broke it off and cast it into the sky, and made a star of it, which is called Aurvandilsta [Aurvandil's Toe]' (Snorra Edda, Skaldskaparmal $17). Association of Aur- vandill with Orion is the basis of the suggestions mentioned by Lowdham earlier (p. 236): 'Some guess that it [Earendel] was really a star-name for Orion, or for Rigel' - Rigel being the very bright star in the left foot of Orion (as he is drawn in the old figure). 7. E has, And Earendil certainly had a connexion with a star in the strange tongue: I seem to remember that: like the ship' - the last words being changed from 'And the ship was Earendel's Star'. Earlier in E (p. 284 note 25) the ship was called Earendel Star. 8. In E Lowdham translates Earendil as 'Lover of the Great Seas'; in the final text F 2 as 'Great Mariner, or literally Friend of the Sea' (p. 237). 9. This passage is modelled on Alboin Errol's words to his father in The Lost Road (V.41), using the same examples, with the same distinction in respect of the word lome ('night' but not 'dark- ness'), the same note that alda was one of the earliest words to appear, and the same remark that (in Alboin's words) 'I like first one, then the other, in different moods.' 10. Eressean was Alboin Errol's name for his first language, 'Elf- latin'; the second was Beleriandic. 11. Cf. p. 221 note 65: the passage cited there from the B manuscript of Part One, in which 'Tolkien's Unfallen Elves' and 'Tolkien's Eldar, Eldalie' are referred to, though not struck out on that manuscript, must by now have been rejected; it is clear that Lowdham means that Eldar, Eldalie had 'come through' to him, and that he only knew them so. See further note 14. 12. See p. 286 note 38. 13. Whitburn: see p. 149 and note 7. 14. My father's father was Arthur Tolkien; he was referring of course to his manuscript of The Silmarillion, which had never been published but had washed up, forgotten and disregarded, in the second-hand room of a bookshop. The author of The Silmarillion is disguised by a pseudonym; for no reference can now be made to the works of Tolkien, least of all as having been published and known to members of the Notion Club (see the citation from manuscript B of Part One, p. 220 note 52 at end). - In a rejected form of this passage the title of the manuscript was not Quenta Eldalien but Quenta Eldaron. 15. Ramer's remark 'Lewis also mentions the name somewhere' is at first sight puzzling, since it was Lowdham's mention of Eldar, Eldalie that brought back to Jeremy's mind the manuscript by 'John Arthurson' that he had once seen, and the name Numenor has not been mentioned for some time. But Ramer was following his own thought, that 'several minds' had been 'working back along similar lines' (and of course it was the name Numenor that had originally caught Jeremy's attention and finally led to his recollection of the manuscript). - Jeremy's words 'In a preface, was it?' presumably refer to Lewis's preface to That Hideous Strength: 'Those who would like to learn further about Numinor and the True West must (alas!) await the publication of much that still exists only in the MSS. of my friend, Professor J. R. R. Tolkien.' But then why does Jeremy say 'from a source that hasn't been traced', since the source, though unpublished, was stated by Lewis? Such an untiring researcher as Wilfrid Jeremy would have found out who J. R. R. Tolkien was, even if now forgotten! By 'All the other sources' Jeremy presumably means his own recollection of the manuscript by 'John Arthurson' and the name that had 'come through' to Ramer (p. 232) and Lowdham. There are a number of references to Numinor in That Hideous Strength, as: 'Merlin's art was the last survival of something older and different - something brought to Western Europe after the fall of Numinor' (Chapter 9, $v); again with reference to Merlin, 'something that takes us back to Numinor, to pre-glacial periods' (Ch.12, $vi); (Merlin) '"Tell me, slave, what is Numi- nor?" "The True West," said Ransom' (Ch.13, $i); other refer- ences in Ch.13, $v. 16. Westfolde (folde 'earth, land, country') seems not to be recorded in Old English. This is the same as Westfold in The Lord of the Rings. - Hesperia: 'western land' (hesperus 'western', 'the evening star'). 17. Above the th of wraithas is written kw (see p. 287 note 48). 18. In F 1 Lowdham's words about Avalloni in F 2 (p. 241) are absent ('Although that is a B name, it is with it, oddly enough, that I associate language A; so if you want to get rid of algebra, you can call A Avallonian, and B Adunaic'). Thus there is no explanation in F 1 why he calls the A language Avallonian despite the fact that Avalloni is a B name. (ii) The original version of Lowdham's 'Fragments' (Night 67). In the manuscript E Lowdham's fragments are, like Alboin Errol's in The Lost Road (V.47) in one language only, Quenya ('Eressean'). Lowdham bursts in to Ramer's rooms and tells of his visit to Pembrokeshire just as he does in F (p. 246), but he does not bring copies of the text that has come to him - he asks Ramer for a large sheet of paper to pin up on a board. Then he says, Well, here it is! It s Numenorean or Eressean, and I'll put the text that I can remember down first large, and the English gloss (where I can give any) under- neath. It's fragmentary, just a collection of incomplete sentences.' The first of the two fragments reads thus, as E was originally written (the change of ilu to eru was very probably made at the time of writing: for ilu 'the World' see IV.241 - 5): ar sauron tule nahamna ... lantier turkildi and ? came ? ... they-fell ? unuhuine ... tarkalion ohtakare valannar under-shadow ... ? war-made on-Powers Herunumen [ilu >] eru terhante ... Iluvataren ... Lord-of-West world sunder-broke ... of-God eari ullier kilyanna ... Numenore ataltane. seas they-should-pour in-Chasm ... Numenor down-fell. It will be seen that the Elvish here, apart from the curious change from ilu to eru, is identical in its forms with that of Alboin Errol's first fragment; and the only differences in the glosses are 'of-God' for Alboin's 'of-Iluvatar', 'sunder-broke' for 'broke', and 'they-should- pour' for 'poured'. A few changes were made subsequently: lantier o lantaner, eru > arda, terhante > askante, and the addition of leneme 'by leave' - the changed forms being found in the final version (p. 246) with the exception of askante, where the final version has sakkante 'rent'. Then follows (where in The Lost Road it is said: 'Then there had seemed to be a long gap'): 'After that there came a long dark gap which slipped out of memory as soon as I woke to daylight. And then I got this." Malle tena lende numenna ilya si maller road straight went westward all now roads raikar ... turkildi romenna ... nuruhuine bent ... ? eastward ... death-shadow mene lumna ... vahaya sin atalante. on-us is-heavy ... far-away now ? This is also very close to Alboin Errol's second passage. The word tena 'straight' was changed from tera (as in The Lost Road), perhaps in the act of writing; otherwise the only differences in the Quenya words are mene lumna for mel-lumna in The Lost Road (glossed 'us-is-heavy'), and sin for sin, where Lowdham's gloss was changed from 'now' (as in The Lost Road) to 'now-is'. This fragment appears in Adunaic in the final version (Fragment II, p. 247), apart from the words vahaiya sin Andore / atalante. In E Lowdham makes the same observations as in F (pp.247 - 8) about his glimpse of the script, with the thought that these were passages out of a book; and he says likewise 'And then suddenly I remembered the curious script in my father's manuscript - but that can wait', without however adding, as he does in F, 'I've brought the leaf along', although at the end of the meeting, after the storm, Ramer picks up the leaf from the floor and puts it in a drawer (p. 291, notes 68 and 70). Lowdham remarks that 'there are some new words here', and that 'all except nahamna I at once guessed to be names'. He naturally has less to say in E about the language of the fragments than he does in F, noting only that he thought that Tarkalion was a king's name and that Turkildi was 'the name of a people: "lordly men", I think', and commenting on Atalante in very much the same words as in F, translating it as '"It (or She) that is downfallen", or more closely "who has slipped down into an abyss" '. (iii) The earlier versions of Lowdham's 'Fragments' in Adunaic (Night 67). There are two manuscript pages of Lowdham's fragments in Quenya and Adunaic preceding those reproduced as frontispieces. The first of these pages, here called (1), has interlinear glosses in English in red ink; the second, (2), has not. In the Quenya fragment I (A) the development from the form found in E to the final form (pp. 246 - 7) can be observed, but there are only a few points to mention. The word nahamna, which neither Alboin Errol nor Lowdham could translate, became in (1) kamindon, still untranslatable but with the gloss -ly beneath, and in (2) akamna, changed to nukumna. The name herunu- men survived in (1) and (2), but was changed in the latter to Numekundo (numeheruvi in the final form). The Adunaic fragments, I (B) and II (B), underwent a great deal of change, and I give here the text in (1), showing the changes made carefully to the text in ink, but ignoring scribbled pencilled emenda- tions which are mostly very difficult to interpret. Kado zigurun zabathan [hunekku >] unekku ... eruhin and so ? humbled he-came ... ? udubanim dalad ugrus ... arpharazon fell under horror? shadow? ... ? azgaranadu avaloi-[men >] si ... barun-aduno was waging war? Powers on ... the Lord of West rakkhatu kamat sobethuma eruvo ... azre broke asunder earth assent-with of God ... seas nai [phurusam >] phurrusim akhas-ada. anaduni akallabi. might-flow Chasm-into Westernesse fell in ruin. Adunaim azulada ... agannulo burudan The Adunai (Men of W.) eastward ... death-shade heavy-is nenum ... adun batan akhaini ezendi ido kathy on-us ... West road lay straight lo! now all batani rokhF-nam ... [vahaia sin atalante] ... ephalek ways bent-are ... far away idon akallabeth ... [haia vahaia sin atalante] lo! now is She-that-is-fallen ... ephal ephalek idon athanate far far away is now Athanate (the Land of Gift) In the rejected typescript F 1 of Night 66 appears Athanati (p. 305), where F 2 has Yozayan (p. 241). In text (2) the final text of the fragments was very largely reached, but still with a number of differences. I list here all of these, in the order of the occurrence of the words in the final text, giving the final form first: unakkha: unakkha > yadda > unakkha dubdam: dubbudam > dubdam ar-pharazonun: ar-pharazon ) ar-pharazonun azaggara: azagrara, with azaggara as alternative barim: barun yurahtam: urahhata > urahta hikallaba (typescript), hikalba (manuscript): hikallaba > hikalba bawiba dulgi: dulgu bawib an-nimruzir: nimruzir At the beginning of II Adunaim azulada retained from (1), then struck out buroda nenud: buruda nenu adun izindi batan taido ayadda: adun batan eluk izindi yadda ido (manuscript) at last two occurrences, idon (typescript): idon hi-Akallabeth: Akallabeth Eru. The appearance of the name Eru in these texts is interesting: Lowdham says (pp. 248 - 9) that he thinks that eruhinim in I (B) must mean 'Children of God'; that eruvo 'is the sacred name Eru with a suffixed element meaning from> -, and that therefore iluvataren means the same thing.' In a list of 'Alterations in last revision [of The Silmarillion] 1951' my father included Aman, Arda, Ea', Eru, and other names (V.338). It seems very probable that the name Eru (Eru) - and Arda also - first emerged at this time, as the Adunaic equivalent of Iluvatar (for the etymology of Eru in Adunaic see p. 432). The appearance of era in the E text (p. 310), replacing ilu 'world' and in turn displaced by arda, could be explained as the first emergence of eru, as a Quenya word, and with a different meaning. (iv) Earlier versions of Edwin Lowdham's Old English text. Two texts of a longer Old English version are extant, the second of these, followed here, being a revision of the first but closely similar to it and accompanied by a translation. This version belongs with the manuscript E: there are no Adunaic names, and a complete facsimile of Edwin Lowdham's text in Numenorean script (tengwar) bears a page reference to the manuscript. In those passages where this version and the later one (pp. 257 - 8) can be compared many differences in the forms of words will be seen, for this does not represent the old Mercian dialect (see p. 291 note 71). I give the text here as my father wrote it in a rapidly pencilled manuscript. The two sides of Edwin Lowdham's page in tengwar are reproduced on pp. 319 - 20; the tengwar text was directly based on the Old English that now follows, and (in intention) scarcely deviates from it. There are a very few minor differences in spelling between the two, including the last word, the name Niwelland, which in the tengwar text is given as Neowolland (p. 292 note 76). Ealle sae on worulde hi oferlidon, sohton hi nyston hwaet ac aefre wolde hyra heorte westweard, fordamde hi ofhyngrede wurdon daere undeadlican blisse daere Eldalie 7 swa hyra wuldor weox swa aefre hyra langung 7 hyra unstilnes wurdon de ma aetiht ....... pa forbudon da Eldan him on Eresse up to cumanne, fordam hi mennisce waeron 7 deadlice 7 peahpe da Wealdend him langes lifes udon ne mihton hi alysan hi of daere woruldmednesse he on ealle men aer dam ende faered 7 hi swulton efne hyra heacyningas, Earendles yrfenuman, 7 hyra liffaec puhte dam Eldum scort. Fordon hit swa gefyrn araedde se AElmihtiga daet hi steorfan sceoldon 7 pas woruld ofgyfan ....... ac hi ongunnon murcnian, saegdon daet pis forbod him unryht puhte. Ponne on digle asendon hi sceaweras on Avallon da dyrnan lare dara Eldena to asmeaganne; ne fundon deah nawder ne rune ne raed de him to bote waeron ....... Hit gelamp sippan daet se fula Deofles pegn de AElfwina folc Sauron nemneb weox swide on middangearde 7 he geaxode Westwarena miht 7 wuldor 7 daet hi gyt holde waeren Gode; ongunnon upahaefenlice swadeah ... Pa gehyrde Westwarena cyning aet his saelidum be Saurone daet he wolde cyning beon ofer eallum cyning- um 7 healicran stol habban wolde donne Earendles afera sylf ahte. Ponne sende he Tarcalion se cyning butan Wealdendra raede oppe Eldena his aerendracan to Saurone, abead him daet he on ofste on Westfoldan cwome paer to daes cyninges manraedenne to buganne 7 he Sauron lytigende geeadmedde hine daet he cwom, waes peah inwitful under, facnes hogode Westwarena peode. Pa cwom he up aet sumum cyrre on Romelonde daere hyde 7 sona adwealde fornean ealle ha Numenoriscan mid wundrum 7 mid tacnum; fordam he mihte mycel on gedwimerum 7 drycraeftum....... 7 hi geworhton mycelne ealh on dam hean 'munte' de Meneltyula - daet is to secganne Heofonsyl - hatte - se de aer waes unawidlod; dydon ha halignesse to haehenum hearge 7 paer onsaegdon unasecgendlice lac on unhalgum weofode ... swa cwom se deapscua on Westfarena land....... Paes ofer fela geara hit gelamp daet Tarcalione wearp yldo onsaege 7 py weard he hreow on mode 7 pa wolde he be Saurones onbryrdingum Avallon mid fyrde gefaran, fordamde Sauron him saegde daet da Eldan him on woh eces lifes forwyrnden..... waeron Westwarena scipfyrda swaswa unarimedlic igland on daere sae 7 hyra maestas gelice fyrgenbeamum on beorghlidum, 7 hyra here- cumbol gelice punorwolcnum; waeron hyra segl blodread 7 blacu ..... Nu sitte we on elelande 7 forgytad daere blisse de iu waes 7 nu sceal eft cuman naefre. Us swide onsitt Deapscua. Woh bip seo woruld. Feor nu is Niwelland d. I cannot explain the 8 at the end of this text, which stands at the end of a line but not at the end of the page, and which must have a significance since the symbol for th concludes the version in tengwar (and concludes the page). The translation reads thus: All the seas in the world they sailed, seeking they knew not what; but their hearts were turned ever westward, for they were become greatly desirous of the undying bliss of the Eldalie, and as their power and glory grew so was their longing and their unquiet ever the more increased....... Then the Eldar forbade them to land on Eresse, for they were of human kindred and mortal; and albeit the Powers had granted them long life, they could not release them from the weariness of the world that comes upon all men ere the end, and they died, even their high-kings, descendants of Earendel; and their life-span seemed short to the Eldar. For thus had the Almighty ordained it, that they should die and leave this world ....... But they began to murmur, saying that this prohibition seemed to them unjust. Then they sent out in secret spies to Avallon to explore the hidden knowledge of the Eldar; but they discovered neither lore nor counsel that was of any avail to them....... It came to pass afterward that the foul servant of the Devil whom the people of the AElfwinas call Sauron grew mightily in the Great Lands, and he learned of the power and glory of the Westware, and that they were still faithful to God, but were behaving arrogantly nonetheless... Then the King of the Westware heard news from his mariners concerning Sauron, that he desired to be King over all Kings and to have a more exalted throne than even the heir of Earendel himself possessed. Then he, Tarkalion the King, without counsel either of the Powers or of the Eldar, sent his ambassadors to Sauron, commanding him to come with all speed to Westfolde, there to do homage to the King. And Sauron, dissembling, humbled himself and came, being filled with malice beneath, and designing wickedness against the people of the Westware. He landed then one day at the haven of Romelonde, and straightway he deluded well nigh all the Numenoreans with signs and wonders; for he had great craft in phantoms and in wizardry ... and they builded a great temple on that high mountain that was called Meneltyula (that is to say the Pillar of Heaven), which before was undefiled, and there they did sacrifice unspeakable offerings upon an unholy altar ... thus came the Deathshadow upon the land of the Westware Many years afterward it came to pass that old age assailed Tarkalion, so that he became exceedingly sad in mind, and he determined then (being goaded by Sauron) to invade Avallon with an army; for Sauron said to him that the Eldar refused to him the gift of everlasting life, wrongfully ..... The fleets of the Numenor- eans were as uncounted islands in the sea and their masts were like unto tall trees upon the mountain-sides, and their war-banners like to thunder-clouds, and their sails were bloodred and black....... Now we dwell in the land of exile and forget the bliss that once was and now shall come again never. Heavy lies upon us the Deathshadow. Bent is the world. Far now is the Land that is fallen low. At the end the following bracketed sentence was added subsequently: '[that is Atalante which was before called Andor and Vinyamar and Numenor.]' A remarkable feature of this text is the ascription to the Eldar of a ban on Numenorean landing in Eressea, and still more the statement that Sauron told Tarkalion that the Eldar 'refused to him the gift of everlasting life'; on this see pp. 355 - 6- Of names in this text the following may be noted. There is an Old English form Eldan for 'Eldar', with genitive plural Eldena, dative plural Eldum. For Meneltyula (in the first draft of this version Menelmindo) see p. 302, and for Heofonsyl p. 242 and note 46. The statement that Sauron landed 'at the haven of Romelonde' (in the first draft Romelonan) is interesting: with Romelonde 'East-haven' cf. the great harbour of Romenna 'Eastward' in the later form of the legend. Also notable is the name Vinyamar of Numenor in the addition at the end of the translation: with this cf. Vinya 'the Young', 'the New Land' in The Fall of Numenor (V.19, 25, and in this book p. 332) and in The Lost Road (V.64). Later Vinyamar 'New Dwelling' became the name of the house of Turgon on the coast of Nevrast, before he removed to Gondolin (Index to Unfinished Tales). With the sails of the Numenorean ships that were 'bloodred and black' cf. p. 290 note 63, where Jeremy sees them as 'scarlet and black' in E, but 'golden and black' in F. There are several other Old English texts and scraps of texts extant. In one of these a much fuller account of the drowning of Numenor is given, to which I append a translation: Ac pa pa Tarcaligeones foregengan dyrstlaehton paet hie on paet land astigen and hie paer dydon micel yfel ond atendon Tunan pa burg, pa hreowsode Osfruma and he gebaed him to pam AElmihtigan, and be paes Scyppendes raede 7 leafe onhwierfed wearp worulde gesceapu. Weard Osgeard from eorpan asundrod, 7 micel aefgrynde aetiewde on middum Garsecge, be eastan Anetige. 7 pa sae dufon niper inn on paet gin, ond mid pam bearhtme para hreosendra waetera wearp eall middangeard afylled; 7 para waetergefealla se prosm stanc up op heofon ofer para ecra munta heafdu. Paer forwurdon eall Westfarena scipu, and adranc mid him eall paet folc. Forwurdon eac Tarcaligeon se gyldena 7 seo beorhte Iligen his cwen, feollon butu niper swaswa steorran on pystro and gewiton seoppan of eallra manna cyppe. Micle flodas gelumpon on pam timan and landa styrunga, and Westfolde pe aer Numenor hatte weard aworpen on Garsecges bosm and hire wuldor gewat. But when those who went before Tarcalion dared to go up into the land, and did there great evil and set fire to the city of Tuna, then the Lord of the Gods grieved, and he prayed to the Almighty; and by the counsel and leave of the Creator the fashion of the world was changed. Osgeard [Valinor] was sundered from the earth, and a great abyss appeared in the midst of Garsecg [the Ocean], to the east of Anetig [the Lonely Isle]. And the seas plunged down into the chasm, and all Middle-earth was filled with the noise of the falling waters; and the smoke of the cataracts rose up to heaven above the heads of the everlasting mountains. There perished all the ships of the Westfarers, and all that people were drowned with them. There perished also Tarcalion the golden and bright Ilien his queen; they fell both like stars into the darkness and passed out of all men's knowledge. There were great floods in that time and tumults of the lands, and Westfolde, which before was named Numenor, was cast down into the bosom of Garsecg, and its glory perished. Tol Eressea, the Lonely Isle, is named Anetig in the Old English version of the earliest Annals of Valinor (IV.281, etc.). In that work Valinor was Godepel changed to Esa-eard (IV.283), Esa being the genitive plural of Os 'god', as here in Osgeard (Valinor) and in Osfruma 'Lord of the Gods' (Manwe). Tarcaligeon, Iligen are Old English spellings representing Tarcalion, Ilien. Comparison of this text with The Fall of Numenor $$6 - 8 (pp. 336 - 7) will show a close relation between the two. I think it very probable that this text represents my father's original idea for the single preserved page of Edwin Lowdham's manuscript, before he decided that the page should consist, in Ramer's words (p. 259), of 'a series of fragmentary extracts, separated, I should guess, by very various intervals of omission'. A portion of this text is also found written in tengwar, with an interlinear gloss in modern script. This, I think, was the first of the texts in tengwar (see the next section). Other Old English names found in these papers are Ealfaederburg 'the mountain of Allfather (Iluvatar)' as an alternative name for Heofonsyl 'Pillar of Heaven'; Heafiras 'High Men', of the Numenor- eans (cf. Freafiras mentioned below); and se Malsca, of Sauron (cf. Malscor, a name of Morgoth found in a list of Old English equivalents of Elvish names associated with the Quenta, IV.209; an Old English noun malscrung 'bewitching, bewildering' is recorded). Lastly may be mentioned a slip of paper giving the Quenya fragments in their original form (that is, in the form in which they are found in The Lost Road and preceding that in manuscript E, as is seen from tera 'straight' for tena, p. 310), with the usual English glosses and queries, but also with a translation into Old English (rapidly jotted down and hard to read): 7 Saweron com to hype. Gedruron Freafiras under sceadu. Tarkal- ion wig gebead pam Heamaegnum. Pa tocleaf Westfrea pas woruld be paes AElmihtigan leafe. 7 fleowon pa sae inn on paet micle gin 7 wearp) Nowendaland ahwylfed. Geo laeg riht weg westanweard, nu sind alle wegas [?forcrymbed]. Freafiras eastweard. Deapscua us lip hefig on. Nu swipe feor is seo Niperhrorene. It is curious to see that nahamna (marked as usual with a query in the modern English gloss) was translated to hype 'to haven'. The Old English words be... leafe 'with leave' correspond to dots in the Elvish text (the word leneme being introduced here later in E, p. 310). Freafiras and Nowendaland are mentioned by Lowdham (p. 242 and notes 42, 43) among names that have 'come through' to him which are not recorded in Old English. Heamaegnum: heah-maegen 'great power'. Westfrea ('Lord of the West') was struck out and replaced by (appar- ently) Regenrices Wealdend ('Ruler of Valinor': cf. Regeneard p. 242 and note 44). No verb (for)crymban is recorded, but cf. Old English crumb 'crooked, bent', and crymbing 'curvature, bend'. (v) The page preserved from Edwin Lowdham's manuscript written in Numenorean script. My father's representations of this page are reproduced on pp. 319 - 21. The first form, here called Text I, is written on both sides of a single sheet as was Edwin Lowdham's, and represents the Old English text given on pp. 313 - 14; as already explained, this was written to accompany the account in the manuscript E. My father wrote it with a dipping pen, and where the ink ran pale parts of many letters, especially the fine strokes, are extremely faint in the original and disappear entirely in reproduction. To remedy this I have worked over a photocopy of the original and darkened the strokes to make them visible; and I have added line-numbers in the margins to make my commentary on the tengwar easier to follow. Text II corresponds to the later Old English version in the typescript F, but it covers only one side of a sheet and extends only to the words swe adwalde he for(nean) (p. 257): at that point, as it appears, it was abandoned. This may or may not relate to my father's note (p. 279): 'the Anglo-Saxon should not be written in Numenorean script'. The reproductions of these pages are followed by commentaries on the scripts, which differ in the two versions. These commentaries are reproduced from my manuscript, since it would be very much more difficult to print them. Text I was written quickly and has a number of errors; Text II was more carefully done. Some pages of notes accompany the original texts, but these are very rough and difficult jottings and have not proved of much help in deducing the structure. There can be no doubt that these texts were to some degree experimental, especially in the use of the diacritic marks and in the application of the script to Old English. In what I take to be the first of these tengwar texts (not reproduced), corresponding to part of the Old English text given on p. 316, the vowel-diacritics differ from the usage in Text I. Those used for o and y in Text I are here used for u and o, while y is rendered by that for u together with a single dot (= i), reflecting the historical origin of Old English y in many instances from u followed by i in the next syllable. (The surviving page of Edwin Lowdham's manuscript Text I, recto.) (The surviving page of Edwin Lowdham's manuscript Text I, verso.) (The surviving page of Edwin Lowdham's manuscript Text II.)