Childermas

"Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremias the prophet, saying: A voice in Rama was heard, lamentation and great mourning: Rachel bewailing her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not." From the Gospel of St. Matthew, read on the Feast of the Holy Innocents.

The Feast of the Holy Innocents has been celebrated since at least the 5th Century. There are other martyr's feasts during the 12 days of Christmas, of course, but this particular feast has always seemed to be to be particularly sorrowful. It is not on account of the little martyrs - they went to Heaven, to sit beside the Christ Child, giving their own lives that He might live to give His. No, it is on account of the quoted prophecy, "Rachel bewailing her children and would not be comforted, because they are not." The poor mothers. There cannot be many phrase containing so much grief and heartbreak in so few words. Indeed, in Rome, it was originally kept as a day of fasting in penance, and the Alleluia and the Glory are not sung during the Mass - the only day during Christmas when this occurs. 

However, a number of cheerful and even mad-capped traditions eventually became associated with the day - some of which have continued into modern times. A very good account of them may be found here. At the very bottom of the page there is also the fascinating reminder that the Novena to the Magi starts today. I had no idea that there was such a novena! I think I shall say it, with all do solemnity. 

Originally, I had rather wanted to post something new as far as songs go - but the Coventry Carol is the only carol I have come across for this day, which does make sense. I cannot decide which version I like better, so you are getting one by John Denver, because he's one of those classy old singers who doesn't feel as if he needs to torture the tune to make it "his". He just sings it, and it is refreshing. You are also getting it in Aramaic, because.... why not? It seemed fitting. 

Merry Christmas.

Well, clearly my good intentions regarding the Great 'O' Antiphons came to naught. Such a pity. It is amazing how Life can be such a passionate mishmash of Joy of the Season, and Irritation of So High A Degree That One Wants to Punch Things and Possibly People... And further, how such a mishmash, even when Joy is the predominate emotion, renders one incapable of sincere and coherent blog posts. 

However, this is the season of the Christmas - the Great Christmas, or the Long Christmas as it has also been called - and however high Irritation might occasionally wax, it is a season of Joy and Good Will, of Music and Merriment, and Wonder at the God-made-Infant. And as such, it is unfitting not to mark it in someway here on this space on the Internet that attempts to devote itself to such glorious matters. (My how grandiose and self-important we have become!)

So first and foremost: A most merry and blessed Christmas to all of you! Please take a minute to enjoy this beautiful card, which I received from the Tolkien Society on Christmas Eve and which went a long way to putting me into the proper spirit of the great and holy Season:

I find it a particularly poignant picture, as it is based on a little sketch Tolkien appearing on this sheet of doodles, made during the time between his marriage to Edith, and being called up for active duty in the First World War. (There is also a wee kilted Scot in the corner. This pleases me.)

I also had every intention of sharing this St. Stephen's Day carol yesterday, when it actually was st. Stephen's Day, but alas, I was inefficient. Still it is a goodly song, and one that makes for good listening, so I am sharing it anyway, with apologies for my tardiness:

 

I also have a more timely carol to share - one in honour of St. John the Evangelist, whose feast day is today, and for which I have manifestly been unable to find an appropriate recordings of until today, though I first came across mention of it several years ago. This is a tune alternately known as To The Now, Crystys Der Derlyng or Prey for Us, Though Prince of Pes.

I shall now close, as it is half past ten, and I should like this to go up when it is still St. John's Day, properly speaking, and not flirting with being the Feast of the Holy Innocents. Merry Christmas to us all, my dears, and God bless us, everyone.

Great 'O' Antiphons - O Sapientia

Today marks one week until the Vigil of Christmas, and the beginning of the recitation of the 'O' Antiphons. I have mentioned the Antiphons before, but in the interest of thoroughness, I offer you this short history, from that most excellent website, Hymns and Carols of Christmas.

I always think I am going to mark this Advent posting each of the Antiphons on this blog, on their respective days. I have yet to manage it, but this year, I am off to a decent start by providing not only a link to O Sapientia, but also a little sketch of my own creation, to go along with the hymn. 

Normally, of course, I would post a bit of plain chant for your enjoyment, however, the idea of a being flashmobbed with a bit of Advent-tide polyphony so tickled my sense of delight, that I decided to post this one instead. Enjoy:

Gaudete!

I had every intention of doing posts on each Sunday in Advent. I am not going to whine and blame it on a cold, but I will say (sadly, sadly....) that either my aging immune system is starting to find the eternal business of warding away ailments to be too much for it, or seasonal ailments have a much more pernicious tenacity than they had in my youth. Colds are supposed to be relatively paltry ailments, aren't they? Someone should point that out to the nasty thingy that is going around ambushing the population here.

However, this being the 3rd Sunday in Advent - Gaudete Sunday, and half way through this season of penance, and the tenacious ailment slackening its vicious hold on my motivation, I thought I would take the time to mark this happy day with a rather beautiful excerpt from Handel's Messiah:

Today also seems like the ideal day to share a recently re-discovered Tolkien poem that was in the news a few months back. It is technically a Christmas poem, but the first couple stanza's seem so Advent that today seemed a very good day to most it:

NOEL
 Grim was the world and grey last night:
The moon and stars were fled,
The hall was dark without song or light,
The fires were fallen dead.
The wind in the trees was like to the sea,
And over the mountains’ teeth
It whistled bitter-cold and free,
As a sword leapt from its sheath.

The lord of snows upreared his head ;
His mantle long and pale 

Upon the bitter blast was spread

 And hung o’er hill and dale.

 The world was blind, the boughs were bent, 

All ways and paths were wild : 

Then the veil of cloud apart was rent, 

And here was born a Child. 

 The ancient dome of heaven sheer 

Was pricked with distant light ; 

A star came shining white and clear 

Alone above the night. 

In the dale of dark in that hour of birth 

One voice on a sudden sang : 

Then all the bells in Heaven and Earth

 Together at midnight rang. 

 Mary sang in this world below : 

They heard her song arise

 O’er mist and over mountain snow

To the walls of Paradise,

 And the tongue of many bells was stirred 

In Heaven’s towers to ring 

When the voice of mortal maid was heard, 

That was mother of Heaven’s King. 

 Glad is the world and fair this night 

With stars about its head, 

And the hall is filled with laughter and light, 

And fires are burning red. 

The bells of Paradise now ring 

With bells of Christendom, 

And Gloria, Gloria we will sing 

That God on earth is come

It is not so strong as some of his later poems, but you can see glimpses of his future poetry in it. The imagery is strong and beautiful, and it seems the sort of thing that ought be set to melody, and sung by people who are glad to sing and do so heartily.

And with that, a very happy day to all of you, and a blessed Advent season.

Long time readers of this blog (bless you for your tenacity) will not be surprised to see that I am once again marking a somewhat esoteric observance on this blog. They will also remember (those of them who are blessed with long memories, unlike your humble servant here) that I have a fondness for fountain pens, which makes this particular bit of esoteria even better a fit than usual.

 I write predominantly with a fountain pen - this pen here, to be exact:

A Shaeffer Tuckaway, shown with a bottle of my ink of choice, Hero blue-black ink. 

But while that is my go-to pen, I have a small collection of fountain pens going for me:

So there you see the Tucky at the bottom. Then there's a black disposable fountain pen, which can actually be reused if you gently pull the nib part off and fill the barrel with ink. Behind them are a couple of modern pens which use cartridges rather than bottled ink. They are handy for travelling. Lastly, there is the steady and reliable calligraphy pen. When I was learning calligraphy, I used these sorts of cartridge pens, with their interchangeable nib sizes. They're a great learning tool, and I still use them to play around with and learn new styles. (Most of my calligraphy these days, however, is mostly done using a dip pen.) At present, I own two different bottles of ink. There is the blue-black ink, which is grand for daily work, laying down as it does, a fine, dark line, with just enough blue in it to give it personality. The other is a German ink. The label reads: Türkisgrüne Tinte, Waltraüd Bethge Papiere, Hamburg. It is a cool bottle. It even has a place for you to lay the pen after you've soaked up ink into it:

Green - even if it goes by the impressive sobriquet of "Turkish Green", is not a very versatile colour, so I use that mostly for playing around with, and even that is not frequent. 

So. What, exactly does one do with the totally fancy fountain pen? Well, I don't know what other people do, but I use mine for the same sort of every-day tasks one would use a regular pen for. I take it to work. I write notes with it. I write letters with it. I doodle with it.... I doodle a lot with it. Because, use see, there is something wonderfully tactile in the using of wet ink in metal nibs. It goes on with a deep, mysterious gleam, pooling for just a moment, a living wet line, full of magic, before it allows the fibers of the paper to draw it in. Even the fines points (and I prefer a fine tip on my pen) will lay down a much wetter line than any other pen, even fine, inky drawing pens. It gives personality to the writing, and particularly to the drawing. So when I've a moment or two, and have nothing else to do (even, mea culpa when I am at work) I doodle.

Sometimes it is just goofy things, featuring anything from demure birds to bowling skeletons:

Sometimes, it is get well doodles for a friend who is fond of Halloween, when that friend is feeling somewhat under the weather:

Sometimes, I decide to do quotes. I get all fancy and calligraphy-ee about my quotes:

(Sometimes, when I get all fancy and calligrahy-ee, my camera refuses to take a decent picture. This is disheartening.)

Sometimes, I have delusions of grandeur and attempt something splendid, such as this picture of Sir Gawain and a hawk, which I proudly named, "The Two Hawks" (Gawain's name meaning 'hawk', you see.)

(Sometimes I remember that there are filters on my cheap little camera phone, and I use them to take sepia colours of my art. This is a fountain pen and pencil sketch.)

Occasionally, my ambitious ideas actually work rather better than I expected:

(That is fountain pen for the most part, with a bit of gold gel pen for accent. I am contemplating making business card out of that one.)

I also have an odd habit of sticking fountain pens in my hair - an unhappy side effect of the fact that women's clothing so seldomly is designed with pockets. This is unfortunate, as I am often distracted, and tend to leave things lying about - I have lost fountain pens that way in the past. As a result, I just ended up sticking the thing into my hair, to keep from mislaying it:

There. I have laid my nerdiness bare before you. Judge not too harshly. Nor mind the rather grainy quality of the pictures. It is not always so easy to take photographs with a flip-phone camera as one could wish. 

Happy Hobbit Day

Aye, It is late in the day for this.... nor as splendid a well-wishing as I had originally intended. But, better late than never. (I am sure Sam's Gaffer must have said that at some point.) and it is the thought that counts - even if the thought only ended up being a doodle on the back of an index card, with computer lettering applied on top of it. The curlicues turned out nicely though!

Tolkien Week

Sunday was the first day of Tolkien Week - an annual observation that always occurs in September, during the week in which Hobbit Day falls. Hobbit Day, for those of you who are not card-carrying members of the Tolkien Society (as is Your's Truly) is September 22nd - Bilbo and Frodo's birthday. 

Let us all take a moment to fill our Tengwar-etched glasses with Goodly Libations, and raise them in Toast to the Professor!

I had originally intended to do a post on each day of this week, but though I have worked on a Tolkien related post each day, circumstances have conspired to ensure that I have not actually managed to publish a thing. Perhaps the rest of the week will go better?

I first of all present to you a Playlist! Please observe the sidebar, where a Tolkien playlist has replaced the Christmas one that was up there throughout Christmas.... and Lent and Easter and Pentecost. I will be adding to this Tolkien list, so do check back. I also present a small list of Things You Probably Did Not Know About Tolkien. Yes, yes, many of you count me among your more intimate acquaintances, so some of you will have heard me blaithering about this stuff. I trust, however, that the majority of it will be new.

1.) Most Tolkien fans are aware of the fact that he was a Philologist by profession, and familiar with (if not fluent in) a great number of languages. Many of them will also be aware of the fact that he wrote a number of mythic poems that were partly translations out of their original languages, and partly his own re-tellings of those stories. What most might not be aware of, is that one of his earliest efforts in this line is a poem entitled The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun, which was published in the Welsh Review in 1945. It was modeled after an old Breton style of poetry and, indeed, was taken from a Breton story. It has been notoriously difficult to find since than, and as a consequence, is not well known. It was finally republished in 2002, but only in a Serbian translation of Tolkien's original. That edition was reprinted again in August of 2015. This time, it was bilingual, published in Serbian and English, with several new illustrations commissioned for the occasion. I went crazy with excitement over that, and bought it. It is gorgeous and I love it... Now at last, after 80 years of obscurity, it is slated to be officially republished in November of this year.

From Wikipedia

2.) Most people, (even a goodly number of non-Tolkien-fans) know that Tolkien created a writing system for his elvish languages. It is not, strictly speaking, an alphabet in the same way that ours is. It is a very phonetic system, with allowances for sounds that most people don't think about - such as schwas. Furthermore, he adapted it for different languages. High Elves, who speak Quenya, had a different 'mode' for using the Tengwar, than did the Sindaran speaking Low Elves. Tolkien invented a 'mode' for English as well. (Since then, quite a number of real-life languages have had 'modes' created for them, Check out this website for some of them.) Most Tolkien fans will also be aware of the fact that he created a runic alphabet for his dwarves as well. They show up most notably on Thorin's map of the Lonely Mountain. What is less well known is that he invented yet another writing system for his Elves to use, He called it the Sarati. The Sarati differs from the other two in that it is written in columns, rather than lines. Like the Tengwar, the vowels are merely diacritic markings:

From mansbjorkman.net

3.) Tolkien worked on the Old English Dictionary during the years immediately following his demoblisation at the end of WWI. He became quite obsessed with the etymologies of the words "walrus" and "whale". 

From http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2013/03/walrus-in-the-oed/

4.) Tolkien worked on a translation of The Book of Jonas for the Jerusalem Bible, which was publish in 1966. A history of the project, and Tolkien's participation in it, may be found here. (Notice that Tolkien is once again dealing with a 'whale' :-) There is an interesting side note to this story for those of us who enjoy Lord of the Rings trivia. The character of Strider in The Fellowship of the Ring - and his introduction in the taproom of The Prancing Pony - was influenced in part by Tolkien's encounter with the Catholic poet, Roy Campbell, at The Eagle and Child pub, during a weekly meeting of the Inklings. Campbell was originally slated to work on the Jerusalem Bible as well - specifically, the Canticles. Given Campbell's strong, almost Elizabethan poetry, his work would have made for a very gorgeous translation. Unfortunately, Roy Campbell died in a car crash before he had a chance to complete anything. I can't help feeling that this is a great loss to the literary world, akin to Tolkien's uncompleted Fall of Arthur.

From tolkienlibrary.com

5.) There is a strong artistic streak in the family. Tolkien seems to have inherited his flair for handwritting from his mother's family: his grandfather was want to draw a circle around a little sixpence, and write out the entire Our Father in fine copperplate writing. Mable Tolkien herself wrote in a very fine hand, and taught her boys to do the same. Tolkien's grandson, Michael G. R. Tolkien, is a poet, who has also written a children's book. (The audio edition is read by Gerald Dickens, the great-great grandson of Charles Dickens!) Tim Tolkien - a great nephew of the Professor - is a sculptor of some note. He is best known for Sentinel, a modern steel sculpture of 3 Submarine Spitfires, peeling off in 3 different directions. Of more interest to Tolkien fans, he is assisting in the designing of a memorial to his great uncle, at Pembroke College. And then there is great granddaughter, Ruth Tolkien: singer, songwriter, and fencer. A blind fencer, who fights competitively. 

And on that note, I shall bid you all a good evening. I am going to have a nice cup of tea, and read Looking for the King - a book about the Inklings, which thus far has allowed its protagonists to meet Lewis and Williams, but not Tolkien - and, let us be honest. When I read a book about the Inklings, I am doing it for Tolkien.