{"id":245,"date":"2018-07-12T10:23:56","date_gmt":"2018-07-12T14:23:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.superversivesf.com\/inklings\/?p=245"},"modified":"2018-07-06T13:29:04","modified_gmt":"2018-07-06T17:29:04","slug":"how-anglo-saxons-earendel-inspired-j-r-r-tolkiens-earendil","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.superversivesf.com\/inklings\/2018\/07\/12\/how-anglo-saxons-earendel-inspired-j-r-r-tolkiens-earendil\/","title":{"rendered":"How Anglo Saxon\u2019s \u00c9arendel Inspired J.R.R. Tolkien\u2019s E\u00e4rendil"},"content":{"rendered":"

This fascinating article about Tolkien and language is from a blog called:\u00a0<\/span>MARY LOVES THE UK\u00a0<\/a><\/span>an American’s Viewpoint of the United Kingdom<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

E\u00e4rendil was a mariner<\/span><\/em>
\nthat tarried in Arverenien;<\/span><\/em>
\nhe built a boat of timber felled<\/span><\/em>
\nin Nimbrethil to journey in\u2026<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

~ J.R.R. Tolkien,\u00a0The Fellowship of the Ring\u00a0(1994)<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Clarification for all readers who have yet to read\u00a0The Silmarillion<\/em>, including myself, is here required: The character\u00a0E\u00e4rendil, of whom the star of\u00a0E\u00e4rendil was named, appeared in J.R.R. Tolkien Elvish mythology, and received much reference elsewhere for genealogy purposes. Below, I have consolidated the information from three sources, detailing how an Anglo-Saxon poem inspired J.R.R. Tolkien\u2019s\u00a0E\u00e4rendil and all that the character embodied.<\/span><\/p>\n

When E\u00e4rendil First Appeared to J.R.R. Tolkien as \u00c9arendel<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n

In reading Humphrey Carpenter\u2019s biography on J.R.R. Tolkien, I stumbled across a name which rung a familiar tune. The name was \u00c9arendel. Found in the Anglo-Saxon religious poems, entitled the\u00a0Crist<\/em>\u00a0of Cynewulf, \u00c9arendel was the one significant Anglo-Saxon influence of only a spare few Anglo-Saxon influences seen in J.R.R. Tolkien\u2019s Middle-Earth. And what Tolkien drew and created from this inspiration formed the significance behind Elrond, Ruler of Rivendell, and all his kindred.<\/span><\/p>\n

But let me not jump ahead. First, an explanation on how young Ronald Tolkien found this name: It happened during Tolkien\u2019s time spent studying at Oxford University. In-between his lengthy essay writings, he took some time to delve more deeply into \u201cthe West Midland dialect in Middle English,\u201d as described in Humphrey Carpenter\u2019s\u00a0J.R.R. Tolkien: a biography\u00a0<\/em>(2000, p. 72). When he read the Cynewulf lines, he felt an awakening, or something more akin to an enlivenment of his inner imaginative being.<\/span><\/p>\n

E\u00e4rendil Origins As Seen in the Meaning Behind \u00c9arendel<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n

The Cynewulf lines contained definite religious context, explaining why Ronald Tolkien interpreted \u00c9arendel as symbolizing John the Baptist, the prophet proclaiming the coming of Jesus Christ. However, as Carpenter discovered from his own research on J.R.R. Tolkien, the up-and-coming scholar and author \u201cbelieved that \u2018\u00c9arendel\u2019 had originally been the name for the star presaging the dawn, that is, Venus\u201d (Biography<\/em>, 2000, p. 72). To decipher the certain meaning behind the possibly-Germanic-origin name is presumably impossible, as noted in\u00a0The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien<\/em>\u00a0(2000).<\/span><\/p>\n

Read more on the original blog…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This fascinating article about Tolkien and language is from a blog called:\u00a0MARY LOVES THE UK\u00a0an American’s Viewpoint of the United Kingdom   E\u00e4rendil was a mariner that tarried in Arverenien; he built a boat of timber felled in Nimbrethil to journey in\u2026 ~ J.R.R. Tolkien,\u00a0The Fellowship of the Ring\u00a0(1994) Clarification for all readers who have…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":246,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[38,13],"class_list":["post-245","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tolkien","tag-earendil","tag-tolkien"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.superversivesf.com\/inklings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.superversivesf.com\/inklings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.superversivesf.com\/inklings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.superversivesf.com\/inklings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.superversivesf.com\/inklings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=245"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.superversivesf.com\/inklings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":247,"href":"https:\/\/www.superversivesf.com\/inklings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245\/revisions\/247"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.superversivesf.com\/inklings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/246"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.superversivesf.com\/inklings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.superversivesf.com\/inklings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.superversivesf.com\/inklings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}