DID YOU KNOW? Tolkien Edition
This past Wednesday was “Read Tolkien Day” so we are sharing a few fun facts about him you may have not known
Tolkien Loved Making Up Languages Since His School Days - Tolkien’s cousins Mary and Marjorie Incledon had invented a language called Animalic, based primarily on animal names — which amused Tolkien. When Marjorie outgrew Animalic, Mary and Tolkien invented a more sophisticated language called Nevbosh.
Tolkien’s Friends, and the Clubs They Formed Together, Were Very Important To Him - Tolkien treasured his friendships. While attending King Edward’s School, Tolkien, along with Christopher Wiseman, Robert Gilson, and Geoffrey Bache Smith formed the T.C.B.S, etc: the Tea Club and Barrovian Society. They were brought together by the love of Latin, Greek, and tea drinking, and this association was a large part of Tolkien’s intellectual development in his youth. He formed multiple clubs in college, both as a student and then as a teacher. Later in his life, the informal literary discussion group called the Inklings, which also included C.S. Lewis and Charles Williams, provided him a platform to discuss his work.
The First Line of The Hobbit Was Conceived On a Blank Sheet In an Exam Paper Tolkien Was Grading - Carpenter quotes this recollection from Tolkien about the genesis of The Hobbit: One of the candidates had mercifully left one of the pages with no writing on it (which is the best thing that can happen to an examiner) and I wrote on it: “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit”. Names always generate a story in my mind. Eventually I thought I’d better find out what hobbits were like. But that’s only the beginning.
Which did you find most fascinating?