Nancy Bunting
'Legend and History have met and fused' (OFS 156)These essays deal with how Tolkien excavated the mother lode of his own history to create legends. This strategy can be seen in his use of S.R. Crockett’s The Black Douglas and his late essay, 'Aldarion and Erendis.' This biographical approach appears at the start of The Lord of the Rings in the Bombadil chapters, and in his intimate portrait of Faramir, the characterwhom Tolkien wrote is 'like me.'The main essay reviews the inferred traumatic events of March 1904, when food and water ran low and the isolated, housebound Mabel Tolkien was challenged by caring for two sick boys. Already in the late stages of diabetes, Mabel Tolkien faced only three possible medical outcomes: death, coma, or psychosis. In March 1904, the first two did not occur. The logically reconstructed events of March 1904 aim to reveal Tolkien’s own History which 'resembles ’Myth’, because they are both ultimately of the same stuff.' Tolkien’s story and its eucatastrophe in 'the sudden miraculous experience of Fr. Francis love and care and humour' which allowed an escape from 'hunger, thirst, poverty, pain, sorrow, injustice, death,' all parts of thetrauma of 1904.By grounding the reading of Tolkien’s writings, artwork, and maps in his biography, these detailed essays provide unique insights into his creations. As Tolkien said: 'I hold the key.' 6
