The J. R. R. Tolkien Companion and Guide: Volume 1: Chronology. Christina Scull
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the ecstasy of such a thing almost as you would’ (C.S. Lewis, 18 October 1931, They Stand Together: The Letters of C.S. Lewis to Arthur Greeves (1914–1963), p. 421). They retire to Lewis’s rooms in Magdalen to talk further. They discuss Christianity, the difference between love and friendship, poetry, and books. Tolkien goes home at 3.00 a.m.; Lewis and Dyson talk a while longer. The evening is a seminal moment for Lewis, who had abandoned atheism for theism, and now will move from believing in God to accepting Christ.
?Late 1931–?1932 The Lay of Leithian having been abandoned, Tolkien returns briefly to the story of Túrin and begins a poem in rhyming couplets, entitled The Children of Húrin. This is based on the second version of the alliterative lay of the same title, but is abandoned in turn after only 170 lines. – Around this time Tolkien also writes two companion poems, Völsungakviða en nýja (‘The New Lay of the Völsungs’) and Guðrúnarkviða en nýja (‘The New Lay of Gudrún’), of 339 and 166 eight-line stanzas respectively. After the Second World War he will have an amanuensis typescript made of them; otherwise each survives only in a fair copy manuscript. On 29 March 1967 Tolkien will write to *W.H. Auden, who had sent him part of the Elder Edda translated into Modern English: ‘In return again I hope to send you … a thing I did many years ago when trying to learn the art of writing alliterative poetry: an attempt to unify the lays about the Völsungs from the Elder Edda, written in the old eight-line fornyrðislag stanza’ (Letters, p. 379). See note.
4 October 1931 On the Feast of Saint Francis Tolkien attends the formal opening of the new Franciscan friary at Oxford, next to the parish church of Saints Edmund and Frideswide in the Iffley Road. The blessing is given by the Archbishop of Birmingham, and the sermon by Father Francis Devas, S.J., on the subject of the Franciscan spirit in history. Also present, among many distinguished guests, are the Vice-Chancellor of the University, the Mayor of Oxford, Father Ronald Knox, and Professor Francis de Zulueta. In its account of the event, The Tablet for 10 October 1931 will describe Tolkien as ‘the Censor of St. Catherine’s Society’ (‘The New Franciscan Friary at Oxford’, p. 478).
7 October 1931 Tolkien attends a special meeting of the English Faculty Library Committee at 2.15 p.m. in the Library. *J.L.N. O’Loughlin of St Edmund Hall, Oxford is nominated to succeed to the post of Assistant Librarian. There is further discussion of opening the Napier Collection to readers.
11 October 1931 Michaelmas Full Term begins. Tolkien’s scheduled lectures for this term are: Beowulf on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 11.00 a.m. in the Examination Schools, beginning 13 October; Guðrúnarkviða en forna on Tuesdays at 12.00 noon in the Examination Schools, beginning 13 October; Problems of Old English Philology on Thursdays at 12.00 noon in the Examination Schools, beginning 15 October.
Michaelmas Term 1931 Tolkien is nominated to serve as an examiner in the Honour School of English Language and Literature from Hilary Term 1932 to Hilary Term 1934.
14 October 1931 Tolkien attends a Pembroke College meeting.
15 October 1931 A poem by Tolkien, *Progress in Bimble Town, one of the ‘Tales and Songs of Bimble Bay’, written probably c. 1927–8, is published as by ‘K. Bagpuize’ in the Oxford Magazine for 15 October 1931.
22 October 1931 Tolkien attends an English Faculty Library Committee meeting at 2.15 p.m. in the Library.
23 October 1931 Tolkien attends a General Board meeting. He is re-elected to the Standing Committee on Responsions, Holy Scripture, and Pass Moderations.
30 October 1931 Tolkien attends an English Faculty Board meeting. He is re-elected to the Library Committee. The report of the committee (including Tolkien) appointed to consider a memorandum for the General Board relating to the reform of the Final Pass School is presented, and adopted with minor amendments. The Applications Committee has appointed Tolkien supervisor of probationer B.Litt. students *E.O.G. Turville-Petre of Christ Church and A.F. Colborn of St Edmund Hall.
31 October 1931 Tolkien, as ‘Father Christmas’, writes to his children in reply to early letters. He says that he has not begun to think about Christmas.
5 November 1931 Tolkien attends a Pembroke College meeting.
6 November 1931 Tolkien attends a General Board meeting.
22 November 1931 C.S. Lewis writes to his brother *Warren H. ‘Warnie’ Lewis that it has become a regular custom for Tolkien to call on him at Magdalen College on Monday mornings for conversation and to drink a glass.
29 November 1931 At 9.00 p.m. Tolkien delivers his paper A Secret Vice at a meeting of the Johnson Society of Pembroke College.
2 December 1931 R.E.M. Wheeler writes to Tolkien. The Society of Antiquaries is to publish a report on the excavations at Lydney Park, Gloucestershire. Wheeler returns a note that Tolkien had written some time earlier, on the name Nodens (*The Name ‘Nodens’), together with a proof. – The governing committee of the Early English Text Society (*Societies and clubs) commissions its Secretary, *Mabel Day, to inquire whether Professors C.T. Onions and J.R.R. Tolkien contemplate editing the Ancrene Riwle.
3 December 1931 Tolkien attends a meeting of the Committee for Comparative Philology at 4.15 p.m. in the Delegates Room of the Clarendon Building.
Between c. 3 and 8 December 1931 Tolkien replies to R.E.M. Wheeler, speculating about connections between the names Nuada, Lludd, and Lydney.
Between c. 3 and 11 December 1931 Tolkien writes to Allen Mawer, a noted scholar of English place-names, about Lydney.
4 December 1931 Tolkien attends a General Board meeting. – He also attends an English Faculty Board meeting. Now, or at the meeting on 5 February 1932, the Board considers an undated report on the section of the General Board’s paper Revision of Needs of Faculties which relates to the English School. The report identifies the need to establish a statutory University Lectureship in English Literature; to endow a readership or lectureship in medieval Scandinavian languages; and to erect a new building with more space for the English Library. – The Applications Committee has admitted A.F. Colborn as a B.Litt student under Tolkien’s supervision. His thesis is to be A Critical Text of Hali Meiðhad Together with a Grammar and Glossarial Note. Tolkien and C.L. Wrenn are appointed examiners of the B.Litt. thesis of Allan McIntyre Trounce of St Catherine’s Society, An Edition of the Middle English Romance of ‘Athelstan’ with Historical, Literary and Linguistic Introduction, Notes and a Glossary.
5 December 1931 Michaelmas Full Term ends.
9 December 1931 R.E.M. Wheeler writes to thank Tolkien for his note. The idea that Tolkien proposes is one which he himself had long considered. Wheeler suggests that Tolkien keep the proof of his note on Nodens while he decides whether or not to rewrite it to include the Nuada–Lludd–Lydney association. (In the event, Tolkien will discuss Nuada and Lludd but not Lydney.)
12 December 1931 Allen Mawer replies to Tolkien that he himself had looked into the name Lydney some time ago, but came to no clear conclusions.
Christmas 1931 Tolkien, as ‘Father Christmas’, writes to his children. The letter is dated 23 December, but a note on the envelope as from the North Polar Bear apologizes for forgetting to post it. The letter is very elaborate, in green and red ink and with many decorative letters, and with comments as by the North Polar Bear in the margins. Father Christmas apologizes for not being able to send the children all that they asked for, but they must remember that there are many poor and starving people in the world. Since the children are most interested in railways, he sends them ‘mostly things of that sort’. Most of the letter tells of the consequences when the North Polar Bear let a candle fall in the cellar in which firework crackers and sparklers were stored, and the