My Potteries Post has updated.

Is there an overlooked Tolkien source, in the now-forgotten medieval folk epic of Reynard the Fox? There is of course the obvious fact that when Tolkien was growing up versions of Reynard the Fox were still popular reading for children. For grown-ups Joseph Jacobs had issued his Caxton-derived modern-English The Most Delectable History of Reynard the Fox in 1895.

One might encounter Reynard claiming, in chapter 21, to have had a magical Wonderful Ring with a three-coloured stone, red, white and green…

“the red made the night as clear as day; the white cured all manner of diseases; and the green rendered the bearer invisible”. (Dictionary of Phrase & Fable).

Sounds rather similar to LoTR’s red ring of fire and light, the white ring of healing and mending, and then the One Ring itself. Actually, the invisibility is not to be found in either the Caxton or the Goethe versions of the tale. Instead there the green side of the ring’s gem gives victory in a clash of arms, and immunity from injury. Possibly the invisibility is in the 1498 version, which is elsewhere cited by the Dictionary of Phrase & Fable under “Invisibility”. One translation I found hints that the ring can issue a blinding light, which effectively makes the wearer invisible to enemies in a fight.

There is also deemed to be a fine inscription on this ring, as there is in LoTR. An ancient inscription that only the most learned Master of languages in the land can now read…

And furthermore the cunning Master said,
Whose finger bore that Ring, so he had read,
Should never freeze in winter’s direct cold,
And calmly live in years and honors old. [Goethe version]

So here we have a ring with the power of prolonging life, yet not infinitely since…

The power of Death alone it could not curb

The ring is also lost (along with his other imaginary jewels) claims Reynard to the King, but he may yet find it again. Perhaps, suggests Reynard… “We can order the Magician Alkarin to consult his books” and thus he can “search the earth” to determine the location. Again, all similar to LoTR, even including the name Alkarin (in Tolkien, the king under whom Gondor achieved its mightiest power).

Consider also that Reynard further thinks up “Reynard’s Globe of Glass”. This being an invaluable treasure…

“supposed to reveal what was being done — no matter how far off — and to afford any information on any subject that the person consulting it wished to know” (Dictionary of Phrase & Fable).

This sounds rather similar to one of the palantiri or ‘seeing stones’ in LoTR, although admittedly polished crystal ‘scrying’ balls provide a pre-existing template for the literary invention.

As a linked tale-cycle, Reynard the Fox had both the age and the cultural background to have interested Tolkien. In written form, drawing on Flemish (once called ‘Frankish’) folk tales via the wider French-German borderlands, this ‘wily fox’ epic dates from the 1100s and even earlier written fragments can be found. We know that Tolkien was interested in the names and folk tales of the Franks and the Lombards. The Franks had once known of an Auriwandalo (cognate for the Anglo-Saxon Earendel). The eminent Catholic scholar and church historian, Rev. F. G. Holweck, even had it that the great sung Antiphons — monastic chant-song heralds of Christmas, on which the Anglo-Saxon Exeter Book’s fateful earendel lines directly drew — were… “of Frankish origin”.

Later in his life Tolkien was interested in the dialect in English parts of Pembrokeshire, a remote part of Wales, which had absorbed many Flemish [Frankish] families from the continent. In particular from Ghent, which incidentally was once a Vandal city (the Vandal tribal name rooting via philology to a very strong earendel connection).

Tolkien would also have known the great and pioneering scholar Grimm, who had long correspondence with Flemish experts and had early written on Reynard. Grimm (1824) had even mused on Reynard the Fox as being the survival of Frankish and thus Germanic mythological legend… and Tolkien knew his Grimm. Grimm’s early theory of ‘direct’ mythological survival has since fallen by the wayside, but the Flemish version of Reynard (source of all modern versions) might still have been a partial reliquary for bits of archaic folklore. Indeed, the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica observed that…

“[Grimm’s] theories, which have been much contested, have received additional support from the researches of K. Krohn, who discovered [1880s and 1890] many of the stories most characteristic of the cycle in existing Finnish folklore, where they can hardly have arrived through learned channels.”

So we also have a Finnish link for Reynard, and of course the young Tolkien was deep into Finnish lore and the Kalevala. Kaarle Krohn was one of the leading Kalevala experts and he was the ‘father’ of the Finnish school of scholars on such matters. It seems inconceivable that Tolkien would not have known of his work, even though he appears to have published mostly in German.

While there was no foxy ur-epic to be found in Finland, looking at the wider distributions of key tales and clusters Krohn detected certain Reynard tale-sequences in existence for over a thousand years. He stated…

“It was clear that into Finland there came from the west Scandinavian versions, and from the east Russian versions of one and the same tale, and that Finland was not a land through which tales travelled, but was rather the final destination of two streams of tradition. … The most southern part of northern Europe which can be conceived of as the home of the tale of the bear and the fox is northern Germany. … We can conclude that in Germany the whole chain of adventures was present before the settling of the Saxons. … From Germany on the one hand the original form with the bear reached Scandinavia and on the other hand the form with the wolf, influenced by the fable literature and the animal epic, reached Russia.” (translated by Thompson, The Folktale, 1977)

Whatever the ultimate national/tribal origins, there is now enough evidence to suggest why Tolkien might have taken notice of Reynard.

Can a date then be suggested for Tolkien’s interest in Reynard? Possibly as early as 1920. In one early version of “The Tale of Tinuviel” (1920), Melko’s lieutenant (“he was in Melko’s constant following”) is called “Tiberth”, demon Prince of Cats (“whom the Gnomes have called Tiberth”). This name is similar to the central tom-cat character in Reynard, called Tibert (Flemish Tibert, Dutch Tybert, Old French Tibert, English Gilbert via a Chaucer translation from the French, all of which likely roots to the Germanic Theobald). Admittedly Tolkien’s use of Tiberth / Tibert is circumstantial, since the word does not necessarily have to come from Reynard, but was once in general use for a dominant male cat.

Skeat has… “I take Tybalt to be a shorter form of Theobald, which again is short for Theodbald … The A.S. [Anglo-Saxon] form is Theodbald, which occurs in Beda, [Bede] Hist. Eccl, bk. i. c. 34.” (Skeat, Notes on English etymology).

Pope usefully adds, for his era in England… “Tibbald (as pronounced) or “Theobald (as written)” (Dunciad). Today we still use ‘Tibbles’ as a common general cat name.

In The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien’s only directly uses ‘Theobald’ once, and in variant form, as Tobold Hornblower. Who, perhaps interestingly, was the inventor of the smoking of pipe-weed and the founder of the Southfarthing industry that was then built around the production of Longbottom Leaf. Yet there seems no implication of ‘cats’ here, unless one can venture a creaky comparison with a cat’s delight in the pungent herb ‘cat-nip’. More likely is that the name carries the conventional English understanding of Theobald as a common personal name conveying people (his folk, leader of) | bold (in jeopardy), i.e. he is ‘a prince who will be bold in jeopardy to protect his people’. In Rohan, the name Theoden partakes of the same meaning.

There is also an Isengrim name in the Shire, this being a key name among the Tooks, since the famous Bullroarer was “son of Isengrim the Second”, the 10th Thain. Isengrim is the name of the wolf who is a central character throughout Reynard. Though even there, the name is uncertain in connection with Reynard, since Isengrim was an ancient tale-name used for a wolf long before the first instances of Reynard are known. Thus the two instances found in LoTR have only a shaky connection with Reynard, if any.

However, if I’m right about a Reynard source for Tolkien then this may illuminate the appearance of a talking fox. This male fox occurs near the start of The Lord of the Rings and his appearance rather jars some readers. We might now see this fox as not only an attempt to ease the reader’s transition between The Hobbit and the LoTR. It may have also been Tolkien’s nod to Reynard the Fox.

The Potteries Post updates with more local ‘news you can use’…

A rare if fuzzy picture of Wetton in winter, perhaps early 1900s since it was posted in 1909. Shows the unpaved track-like Wetton Road with the site of Thor’s Cave indicated in the mist above. Relevant to getting a feel for the setting and season encountered at the conclusion of the poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

A couple of local items were discovered while searching for new items for the new edition of my local Folklore bibliography…

1)

Mow Cop is in an unusual position. As evidenced by an interesting observation by D. Sylvester in the article “The hill villages of England and Wales”, The Geographical Journal, 1947…

“Mow Cop is probably unique as a hill village in that it lies across a fourfold boundary line dividing two parishes, two counties, two dioceses, and the two provinces of Canterbury and [missing word, probably “York”]”

Reminds me a bit of Tolkien’s Bree, also a liminal hill-place at the meeting of many ways. Apparently there’s now also a “Mow Cop relay” for the giant Jodrell Bank radio-telescope up there, which perhaps adds another and rather more cosmic “line”.

2)

Mid Staffordshire can claim the honour of saving the Venerable Bede for the nation. J. Baker, “Old English saete and the historical significance of ‘folk’ names”, Early Medieval Europe, 2017, has…

“The Old English Bede may well have been produced in the region around Staffordshire (T. Miller (trans.), The Old English Version of Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People, 2 vols (London, 1890), I, pp. xiii–lix)”

Yes, ok… “Staffordshire”. It’s a big long place. Where exactly? Baker’s cited source (Miller) is on Archive.org and offers an exhaustive analysis of the dialect and words. He plumps with equal vagueness for “North Mercia” as the place that made the Old English Version of Bede, but usefully states that it must have been very near the area of the production of the Rushworth Gospels and the Vespasian Psalter. On the current thinking about the Gospels and Psalter that means somewhere around Lichfield. Which chimes with Miller who notes that… “Lichfield also early possessed a notable monastery”, and he further suggests Wenlock Abbey (15 miles SW of Stafford, over in Shropshire) as the site of the initial preservation of that copy of the Old English Bede. But where was the “notable monastery”? Probably very near Lichfield Cathedral, or else the monastery at Burton-upon-Trent (if that lines up with the dialect). But the precise answer will likely be found in the new scholarly book Lichfield and the Lands of St Chad (2020), which it’s said has done a huge amount of new work on this neglected topic in Mercian history.

Lichfield may also have had a role in preserving Beowulf, since the first known owner of the Beowulf original was the Bishop of Lichfield.

Slightly earlier than usual, though very suitably released on Bonfire Night, here’s the annual update of my The Folklore of North Staffordshire annotated bibliography.

Download: folklore_north_staffordshire_18_2023.pdf

This is now at version 1.8 (2023), as 14,000 words in 54 pages. It’s been subject to a big expansion (the last version was 40 pages), with numerous additions and some expansions of older entries. New additions are noted at the front, by name. It’s also had a lot of proof-reading for small typing and formatting errors.

Please update any local .PDF copies you may be keeping. There’s no print version, but it should be printable onto 14 sheets with booklet-making software. To then be folded and slipped between card covers.

Older versions of the .PDF have now been deleted from the blog.

I welcome descriptions of bibliography books that you may own or have access to, and which I have not yet been able to see.

Sad to hear that the the annual Stone Town Bonfire and Fireworks Display is unavailable, at least for the foreseeable future.

It seems the problem is simply space. The Town Council for the mid Staffordshire town is said to have somehow managed to redevelop the main Park in such a way that… “the area used for the bonfire will no longer be available”. Durh. It’s said that the town has no other suitable space for such a large and popular public event.

Although several options spring to mind, off the top of my head…

i) the Stone Common Plot would be an ideal site, though only for those walking the short distance from the town centre to it. There’s no car parking that I can recall, and a temporary wooden mini-bridge / ramp would have to be hoisted over the entrance stile. Still, a feature might be made of “leave your car at home” as part of the event. That might even attract some funds from a health charity, re: walking.

ii) rural places around about Stone may take up the slack. An opportunity for a nearby enterprising farmer with a big parking field, perhaps, in partnership with a trusted events company? What about Kibblestone Scout Camp, which is presumably able to cope with large roaring campfires at least — and perhaps something larger?

iii) there’s Wedgwood at nearby Barlaston, which I recall has both the parking and several big flat fields. And is used to handling public events. Trentham likewise, though that’s a bit further away and not really walk-able (Barlaston can be walked from Stone via the Common Plot and Downs Banks NT) and would likely be much more expensive and upmarket. What appears to be needed for Stone is something a bit more community-oriented.

iv) ideally there would be a giant flaming bonfire up on the ancient Bury Bank, as there probably once was, but that’s highly unlikely given the steep access problem and the huge amount of flammable bracken.

A note by fairy-tale scholar and authority Joseph Jacobs pointed me toward the Greek original, in Babrius, of the famous short fable “The Boy Who Cried Wolf”…

“Ultimately derived from Babrius: though only extant in the Greek prose Aesop. Gitlbauer has restored it [to the non-extant poetry] from the prose version”

… meaning the prose version as first found in the Collectio Augustana (dating perhaps from the 2nd century A.D., though said to be impossible to date).

I was interested and went in search of it. Archive.org has the Gitlbauer book of 1882. Jacobs erroneously pointed fellow scholars to Gitlbauer’s ‘restored’ Babrius 199 as the fable, but after some translation and searching I find it’s actually Babrius 161. Thus…

161 (literal auto-translation).

Παῖς νέμων τις μῆλα cυνεχὲς εἰς χῶμα

You play | when it rains | you put [throw?] the apples in [on?] the ground

ἀνῆλθεν δλύκος’ ἀναβοῶν ‘βοηθεῖτε’.

A rising [cry of] “wolf” | A loud noise of noises | Please “help me”!

τοῖς δ’ ἀγρόταις τρέχουειν εὑρέθη ψεῦεμα.

among the four farmers running, falsehood was found.

ὡς δὲ λύκος ὄντως ἦλθε, τοῦδε φωνοῦντος

But then the wolf did indeed come, they did not [heed the?] cry

οὐδεὶς ἐπίετευς’ οὐδὲ προςδραμὼν ἤρκει’

no aggressors, no countermeasures, it found

ἔφθειρε δ’ ὃ λύκος πᾶςαν εὐκόλως ποίμνην.

and he destroyed every wolf [sheep-dog?] who helped the shepherd.

   [ Ὅτι τοῦτο ὄφελος τῷ ψεύςτῃ, ἵνα, κἂν ἀλήθειαν λέγῃ, μὴ πιςτεύηται. ]

   [ That this is a benefit to the liar, so that, even if he tells the truth, he is not believed. ]

From which I take, for sense and story:

THE BOY WHO CRIED WOLF

A lone shepherd boy played a prank, because it rained and his apples were all eaten.

This laughing liar bobbed up on the valley ridge to cry “Wolf!”. Then loudly yelled “Help me!”.

Three times he played his prank. Farmers came running up, only to find a pack of lies.

Then one day the wolf did indeed come, but the sullen farmers came not.

Frantic cries went unheeded. The wolf found no men with long forks and sharp hooks,

And he destroyed every sheep-dog, the good friends who had helped the young shepherd.

   [ This is how the liar is paid back for his lies. Even if he later tells the truth, he is not believed. ]

New and local on Archive.org…

* Dandelions: poems.

* The Journals of Arnold Bennett (1954).

* Missuses and Mouldrunners: an oral history of women pottery-workers at work and at home.

* The Shorter connection (collection of the products of local potteries).

* Boote’s tiles: selections of the newest designs for tiling (Burslem tilery catalogue, 1906).

* A. N. Wilson’s acclaimed novel The Potter’s Hand.

* James Brindley and the early engineers.

* James Brindley: an illustrated life.

* Mysterious Cheshire. (An ‘earth mysteries’ booklet, 1980, with much to say about the Bridestones and Alderley Edge).

* Ancient Monuments: East Anglia and the Midlands (1955) (pictures of Arbour Low, Croxden and others).

* Recent Developments in the Archaeology of the Peak District (1991).

* Guide to the Cheshire Record Office (1991).

* The Place-names of Cheshire Vol I and Vol III (of five volumes).

* Old Midlands recipes. (Get yur sum “Tipton Eel Stew”. Yum, fresh from the canal! No mention of North Staffordshire Oatcakes).

* Midland Red North (post-war bus history).

* North Midlands trains in the thirties (pre-war railways).

* North Staffordshire Railway in LMS days: Vol. 2.

* White Peak walks.

* The Peak District: the rivers’ way (Ilam to Edale, long-distance footpath guide, 1986)

* The Peak District: Regional Wildlife (1995)

* The Birds of Cheshire (1962)

* Flora of Derbyshire (1969)

* Caroline Hillier’s Paladin paperback A Journey to the Heart of England. Originally 1978, and here with a new foreword after a re-visit to the West Midlands ten years later. Encompasses the proper West Midlands including the counties.

New 1914 picture of the tented camp at Whittington, added to my Tolkien’s Staffordshire camps post.

Appears to be the Church Service.

My The Potteries Post has had a small update with new items of ‘news you can use’.