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9 March 1914 Tolkien chairs a meeting of the Stapeldon Society. He replies as departing President to a vote of thanks to officers at the end of their term of office. He remains however on the Sexcentenary Dinner committee.
Spring 1914 Exeter College awards Tolkien the Skeat Prize for English. He uses the £5 to buy The Life and Death of Jason and The House of the Wolfings, both by William Morris, as well as the Morris translation of the Völsunga Saga and A Welsh Grammar by Sir John Morris-Jones. He will later remark: ‘My college, I know, and the shade of Walter Skeat, I surmise, was shocked when the only prize I ever won (there was only one other competitor) … was spent on Welsh’ (*English and Welsh, in The Monsters and the Critics and Other Essays, p. 192). See note.
14 March 1914 Hilary Full Term ends.
15 March 1914 Tolkien adds to The Book of Ishness a watercolour of the sea, or possibly of the Great Wave which sometimes haunts his dreams, ‘towering up, and coming in ineluctably over the trees and green fields’ (letter to W.H. Auden, 7 June 1955, Letters, p. 213).
21 April 1914 Tolkien adds to The Book of Ishness a simple, diagrammatic drawing entitled Everywhere, and a strange design of bells and dancing lampposts entitled Tarantella (?).
26 April 1914 Trinity Full Term begins.
Trinity Term 1914 Tolkien very likely attends the conclusion of A.S. Napier’s lectures on English Historical Grammar, on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays at 12.00 noon in the Examination Schools, beginning 30 April. He probably attends Kenneth Sisam’s classes on Beowulf and Pearl, and perhaps one or more of Sisam’s four recurring classes on the Anglo-Saxon Reader, on Havelok, and on Elementary Historical Grammar. He probably also attends (more likely now than in Trinity Term 1915, immediately before final examinations) W.A. Craigie’s lectures on Outlines of Scandinavian Philology on Tuesdays at 5.00 p.m. in the Taylor Institution, beginning 28 April, and on the Hallfreðar Saga on Thursdays at 5.00 p.m. in the Taylor Institution, beginning 30 April; and perhaps D. Nichol Smith’s lectures on English Literature from Caxton to Milton on Wednesdays and Fridays at 11.00 a.m. in the Examination Schools, beginning 29 April. He possibly attends lectures by Sir John Rhys on Welsh: The Mabinogion (White Book Text) on Tuesdays and Fridays at 5.00 p.m. at Jesus College, beginning 1 May.
4 May 1914 The Stapeldon Society meets.
16 May 1914 Tolkien rewrites his poem Wood-sunshine (first composed in July 1910). – G.K. Chesterton gives a lecture, Romance, at 5.30 p.m. in the Oxford Examination Schools.
18 May 1914 Tolkien rewrites his poem The Dale Lands (first composed in May 1910), now with the slightly emended title The Dale-lands. – At a meeting of the Stapeldon Society Tolkien is given the task of writing to various people to ask if they would propose toasts at the Sexcentenary Dinner. In a debate following Society business he proposes the motion: ‘That Oxford was made for Eights Week and not Eights Week for Oxford’. The motion carries, 6 to 3.
20 May 1914 Tolkien chairs a meeting of the Exeter College Essay Club in Colin Cullis’s rooms. J.F. Huntington reads a paper on George Borrow. In the discussion afterwards, Tolkien confesses to having no great admiration for Borrow.
26 May 1914 Tolkien attends a performance by the Exeter College Musical Society. The programme includes songs by members of the Society and guests Miss Dora Arnell and Mr Stewart Gardner, as well as flute and pianoforte solos.
June 1914 Tolkien and other Exeter College students pose for group photographs. See note.
1 June 1914 At a meeting of the Stapeldon Society the members ‘listened with breathless interest to the respectively frolicsome, frivolous and fearful adventures which had befallen Messrs. Tolkien, Robinson and Wheway’ (Society minutes, Exeter College archives).
3 June 1914 Tolkien chairs a meeting of the Exeter College Essay Club in Mr Huntington’s rooms. He is elected Critic for Michaelmas Term. A visiting speaker, Cyril Bailey, reads a paper, Signs of the Times. (This is the last meeting recorded in the Society minutes book until Michaelmas Term 1918, but that there were meetings during 1914–18 is evident from references in the Stapeldon Magazine and elsewhere.)
6 June 1914 The Junior Common Room entertains the Senior Common Room (i.e. the Rector and Fellows of the College) with a ten-course dinner in the Hall to celebrate the sexcentenary of the foundation of Exeter College. R.H. Gordon proposes the toast to the Rector and Fellows. Tolkien proposes the toast to the College Societies, with the reply by Colin Cullis. Tolkien collects twenty-three signatures on his menu card. See note.
15 June 1914 Tolkien attends a meeting of the Stapeldon Society. The members pass a vote of congratulation for the committee that arranged the Sexcentenary Dinner.
18 June 1914 Tolkien attends the ‘Chequers Clubbe Binge’, a five-course dinner. Its printed menu has a cover designed by Tolkien and lists twelve members of the Club including himself. He and seven others sign his copy of the menu.
20 June 1914 Trinity Full Term ends.
23 June 1914 A Sexcentenary Ball is held at Exeter College. See note.
June–July 1914 Tolkien spends the early part of his vacation visiting Edith in Warwick. Probably on this visit he draws a view of Warwick Castle seen from under a bridge, apparently made from a punt or boat on the river. He will later date it ‘1913–14?’
August 1914 Tolkien explores the Lizard Peninsula in *Cornwall on foot with Father Vincent Reade of the Birmingham Oratory. Their visit extends from at least 5 August to 18 or 19 August, a period fixed by letters written by Tolkien to Edith on 5, 8, 11, 14, and 16 August (in the latter ‘only three days till I see you’; quoted by Christopher Tolkien in private correspondence). During the visit Tolkien makes several drawings: Cadgwith, Cornwall, Cove near the Lizard (Artist and Illustrator, fig. 21), and Caerthilian Cove & Lion Rock (Artist and Illustrator, fig. 20, a mistitled view of the sea off Pentreath Beach), as well as a rough sketch for the Lion Rock. On 8 August Tolkien will write to Edith:
We walked over the moor-land on top of the cliffs to Kynance Cove. Nothing I could say in a dull old letter would describe it to you. The sun beats down on you and a huge Atlantic swell smashes and spouts over the snags and reefs. The sea has carved weird wind-holes and spouts into the cliffs which blow with trumpety noises or spout foam like a whale, and everywhere you see black and red rock and white foam against violet and transparent seagreen. [quoted in Biography, p. 70]
After exploring some of the villages inland from the Lizard promontory, they walk
through rustic ‘Warwickshire’ scenery, dropped down to the banks of the Helford river (almost like a fjord), and then climbed through ‘Devonshire’ lanes up to the opposite bank, and then got into more open country, where it twisted and wiggled and wobbled and upped and downed until dusk was already coming on and the red sun just dropping. Then after adventures and redirections we came out on the bare bleak ‘Goonhilly’ downs and had a four mile straight piece with turf for our sore feet. Then we got benighted in the neighbourhood of Ruan Minor, and got into the dips and waggles again. The light got very ‘eerie’. Sometimes we plunged into a belt of trees, and owls and bats made you creep: sometimes a horse with asthma behind a hedge or an old pig with insomnia made your heart jump: or perhaps it was nothing worse than walking into an unexpected stream. The fourteen miles eventually drew to an end – and the last two miles were enlivened by the sweeping flash of the Lizard Lights and the sounds of the sea drawing nearer. [quoted in Biography, p. 71]
4 August 1914 Germany invades Belgium. Britain, one of the nations that had guaranteed the neutrality of Belgium by treaty in 1839, gives Germany an ultimatum that if its forces have not been withdrawn by midnight, Germany and Britain will be at war. – George Allen & Unwin Ltd. (*Publishers) is formed out of the assets of George Allen & Co. Ltd.
7 August 1914 Units of the British Expeditionary Force cross to France.
12 August 1914 Britain declares war on Austria-Hungary.
At least 23–30 August 1914 Tolkien stays at The White House, Northgate, Warwick. While there he writes to his Aunt May Incledon on 23 August, and to a Mrs Stafford in Oxford on 30 August, the latter to say that he would be coming up for October term at least. Possibly Tolkien stays in Warwick beyond 30 August, to be near Edith.
Late September 1914 Tolkien visits his Aunt Jane Neave and his brother Hilary at Phoenix Farm, Gedling. By this time, Hilary has enlisted in the Royal Warwickshire Regiment. Tolkien having decided to finish his studies at Oxford before himself enlisting, he faces considerable family disapproval. See note. It is probably during this visit that he makes an undated drawing of Phoenix Farm in the same sketchbook that he used in Cornwall.
24 September 1914 While at Phoenix Farm, Tolkien writes the poem The Voyage of Éarendel the Evening Star (*Éalá Éarendel Engla Beorhtast), inspired by the word or name Earendel in the Old English Crist. The mariner Éarendel (later Eärendel, Eärendil) will become a key figure in the mythology or legendarium (*‘The Silmarillion’) whose invention and revision will occupy Tolkien for the rest of his life. When, however, at some time in the autumn or early winter 1914, Tolkien shows his poem to G.B. Smith, he will admit that he does not yet know what it is really about, and will promise to ‘try to find out’ (quoted in Biography, p. 75). This may take him some time, as shown by an early attempt to recast the poem in a classical setting with ‘Phosphorus’ replacing ‘Éarendel’ as the protagonist. The poem is the germ from which the mythology evolved, rather than the first consciously written poem of the mythology.
11 October 1914 Michaelmas Full Term begins.
Michaelmas Term 1914 When Tolkien returns to Oxford, he finds that many of his friends have chosen to enlist. The Examination Schools having been commandeered, lectures are given elsewhere. Tolkien attends A.S. Napier’s lectures on Pearl on Tuesdays at 12.00 noon in the Ashmolean Museum, beginning 20 October, and on Beowulf on Thursdays and Saturdays at 12.00 noon in the Ashmolean, beginning 15 October; lectures by *Sir Walter Raleigh, the Professor of English Literature, on Chaucer and His Contemporaries on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 11.00 a.m. at Magdalen College, beginning 13 October; and W.A. Craigie’s lectures on the Völsunga Saga on Thursdays in the Taylor Institution, beginning 15 October – at 5.00 p.m., according to the Oxford University Gazette, but Tolkien records it in a manuscript schedule for Michaelmas Term as from 2.00 to 4.00 p.m. This schedule suggests that Tolkien is no longer attending Kenneth Sisam’s classes (during the war, held at 40 Broad Street) or repeating those he had already attended; but he has weekly tutorials with Sisam, on Mondays for an hour at midday, at each of which he is to read an essay. If he has not done so already in Trinity Term 1914, he possibly attends lectures by Sir John Rhys on Welsh: The Mabinogion (White Book Text) on Tuesdays and Fridays at 5.00 p.m. at Jesus College, beginning 16 October. – Tolkien and Colin Cullis, the latter prevented from enlisting by poor health, decide to live in ‘digs’ rather than in college, and find rooms at 59 St John Street (see note).
Mid-October 1914–June 1915 Although there will be no conscription until late in the war there is considerable pressure on all young men to join up, and great disapproval of those who do not. Tolkien is therefore pleased to discover the existence of a scheme by which he can prepare for the Army with the Officers Training Corps at Oxford while continuing to study, and need not go on active service until he has taken his degree. In this context, Tolkien drills in the University Parks from 9.00 to 10.00 a.m. on Mondays, 9.00–10.00 a.m. and 2.00–4.30 p.m. on Wednesdays and Fridays, and 2.00–4.30 p.m. on Saturdays. He also usually attends one lecture per week, and classes in signalling and map-reading on free afternoons.
Mid-October 1914 At about this time, Tolkien begins to retell the story of Kullervo from the Kalevala ‘somewhat on the lines of [William] Morris’s romances with chunks of poetry in between’ (letter to Edith Bratt, [October 1914], Letters, p. 7; see *Kalevala). He briefly drafts variant outlines of the story, then writes in full, filling just over twenty-one sides of foolscap paper; but when the story is about three-quarters complete he leaves it unfinished and drafts its conclusion only in outline. (Later Tolkien will transform the story of Kullervo into the tale of Túrin Turambar, one of the most important episodes in his mythology; see *‘Of Túrin Turambar’.) Among these papers, on the opposite side of a sheet containing a rough re-working of one of the poems in his Story of Kullervo, is the earliest extant version of Tolkien’s poem May Day, already considerably developed; but see entry for 20–21 April 1915.
19 October 1914 At a meeting of the Stapeldon Society a hearty vote of confidence in all Exonians serving with His Majesty’s Forces is enthusiastically passed. When the issue of electing representatives for the Central Committee is raised, Tolkien points out that their election by the Stapeldon Society is, strictly speaking, out of order, but as there is no larger body left in the College due to the war the Society should arrogate to itself the right. The members discuss the redecoration of the Junior Common Room, and Tolkien is deputed to refer the matter to Reginald Blomfield, architect of the scheme.
c. 23 October 1914 Despite occasionally having to drill in the rain and to clean his rifle afterwards, the extra duty suits Tolkien. He writes to Edith: ‘Drill is a godsend. I have been up a fortnight nearly, and have not yet got a touch even of the real Oxford “sleepies”’ (quoted in Biography, p. 73).
27 October 1914 Tolkien is very active at a meeting of the Stapeldon Society, proposing a vote of censure, reporting a talk he had with the Sub-Rector concerning entertainment, and giving a warning to prospective officers. The Rector and Dr R.R. Marett lead a discussion of ‘Superman and International Law’ to which Tolkien also contributes. See note.
3 November 1914 At a meeting of the Stapeldon Society Tolkien gives the House interesting statistics from a pamphlet entitled A Bathman’s Memoirs. Three members of the Society, including Tolkien, recount the narrow escapes they have had from a freshman on a cyclometer. In a debate that follows, Tolkien proposes the motion: ‘This House approves of spelling reform.’ The motion carries, 7 to 6.
5 November 1914 Britain declares war on Turkey.
10 November 1914 At a meeting of the Stapeldon Society Tolkien tells a story, according to the minutes, ‘which could not possibly have offended the tender feeling of the House. It also had the merits of being true’ (Exeter College archives). In a debate that follows he speaks against the motion: ‘This House deprecates an ideal of nationalism.’ The motion carries, 12 to 7. – Christopher Wiseman writes to Tolkien, asking him to set aside a few days in the Christmas vacation to stay with him in London, when Gilson and Smith will also be able to come.
11 November 1914 Tolkien again borrows A Finnish Grammar by C.N.E. Eliot from the Exeter College library, presumably in conjunction with the essay he will read on 22 November, or with his work on The Story of Kullervo.
Before 15 November 1914 Tolkien writes to Wiseman, commenting on the power of the T.C.B.S. to shake the world.
15 November 1914 Wiseman writes to Tolkien, expressing a fear that the members of the T.C.B.S. – some now at Oxford, some at Cambridge – have been growing apart and no longer have the same interests. Nevertheless he does not think that either institution ‘can really have destroyed what made you and me the Twin Brethren in the good old school days before there was a T.C.B.S. apart from us and V[incent] T[rought].’ He is unhappy, but not judgemental, that Tolkien still has not told his friends the name of his fiancée.
16 November 1914 Tolkien writes an eight-page letter to Wiseman. He has read parts of a letter from Wiseman to Smith, and makes it clear that he too considers the friendship between himself and Wiseman to be ‘the great twin brotherhood … the vitality and fount of energy from which the T.C.B.S. derived its origin.’ He thinks that Wiseman’s feeling of growing apart has arisen partly because the four members have not been able to meet without other, less sympathetic people present, but also because he and Wiseman (unlike Gilson and Smith) have always discussed more fundamental matters with each other, and for both of them religion is at once their moving force and their foundation. He suggests that they discuss what unifies them, what is of supreme importance to them, and what are ‘allowable’ differences. For himself, religion, human love, the duty of patriotism, and a fierce belief in nationalism are of vital importance. He is ‘not of course a militarist, and ‘more & more [a] convinced Home Ruler’ (Tolkien Papers, Bodleian Library, Oxford). Some old college friends may be coming up next weekend, but he does want to see Wiseman, so the latter should come to Oxford when he can. – Also on this date, Wiseman writes again to say that Rob Gilson can attend a T.C.B.S. meeting on 12 December. He thinks that Gilson disagrees with Tolkien about the world-shaking power of the T.C.B.S., a point which should be fought out when they meet on the 12th.
17 November 1914 At a meeting of the Stapeldon Society Tolkien takes part in a debate, on the motion: ‘This House disapproves of a system of stringent economy in the present crisis.’ The motion carries, 11 to 5. The Society minutes do not record on which side of the issue Tolkien spoke.
22 November 1914 Tolkien reads an essay, On ‘The Kalevala’ or Land of Heroes, to a meeting of the Sundial Society at Corpus Christi College, in Mr Water’s rooms. When he first came upon the Kalevala, he said, he ‘crossed the gulf between the Indo-European-speaking peoples of Europe into the smaller realm of those who cling in quiet corners to the forgotten tongues and memories of an elder day’. The ‘mythological ballads’ that comprise the Kalevala ‘are full of that very primitive undergrowth that the literature of Europe has on the whole been cutting away and reducing for centuries with different and earlier completeness in different peoples’ (Tolkien Papers, Bodleian Library, Oxford). See note. At the same meeting, G.B. Smith is elected president of the society for the coming term.
24 November 1914 The Stapeldon Society meets.
27 November 1914 Tolkien works in the morning, drills and attends a lecture in the afternoon, has dinner with T.W. Earp (then Secretary of the Exeter College Essay Club), and attends a meeting of the Essay Club in Mr Bedwell’s rooms. At the latter the Reverend G.H. Fendick reads a paper on T.E. Brown, reviewing his activities as a schoolmaster and poet; a keen discussion follows. Several members then read poems they themselves have written; Tolkien reads his Voyage of Éarendel. Later that evening, Tolkien writes to Edith, describing his day. The Essay Club meeting was ‘an informal kind of last gasp’ (the Club has been meeting only intermittently, due to the war). He found the Essay Club paper ‘bad’ but the discussion interesting. ‘It was also composition meeting and I read “Earendel” which was well criticised’ (Letters, p. 8). – Probably inspired by his visit to Cornwall in August, Tolkien begins to rewrite and greatly extend his poem The Grimness of the Sea (first composed in 1912).
28 November 1914 Rob Gilson joins the Cambridgeshire (11th) Battalion, Suffolk Regiment as a second lieutenant.
?Late 1914 Tolkien writes in his St John Street rooms a long poem concerning Eärendel (now so spelt), in which Eärendel is a mariner who wanders earthly seas, a figure of ancient lore whose tales are bound up with those of the fairies (or Elves, as the poem will be later emended). On the back of one of the earliest workings of the poem is an outline of a great voyage by Eärendel to all points of the compass on earth, but also to ‘a golden city’ later identified as the Elvish city Kôr, before setting sail in the sky as in The Voyage of Éarendel the Evening Star. Tolkien’s mythology is rapidly developing in his imagination, becoming broad and deep and taking on enduring features. Later he will divide the first part of the long poem, *The Bidding of the Minstrel, from its second part, to be entitled The Mermaid’s Flute. – Emily Jane Suffield, Tolkien’s maternal grandmother, dies.
Late 1914 Tolkien begins to create, or continues to work on, his ‘nonsense fairy language’ (Qenya), as he will later refer to it (letter to Edith Bratt, 2 March 1916, Letters, p. 8).
December 1914 Tolkien rewrites his poem Outside (first composed in December 1913). – The Stapeldon Magazine for December 1914 comments on changes the war has brought to Oxford. Bugles are heard in the morning; many undergraduates wear uniform to lectures; colleges have been partly taken over as barracks; many rooms are empty since their occupants have enlisted; the Parks are full of troops drilling, and there are convalescent soldiers and Belgian refugees in the streets. All who able to do so have joined the Officers Training Corps. Regular or organized games are impossible. ‘All other games have been neglected in preparation for the “Greater Game”’ (p. 104). – G.B. Smith joins the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry.
2 December 1914 The Stapeldon Society meets.
4 December 1914 Tolkien continues to rewrite his poem The Grimness of the Sea, now giving it a new title, The Tides. He inscribes the current manuscript ‘On the Cornish Coast’.
5 December 1914 Michaelmas Full Term ends.
12–13 December 1914 Tolkien attends a T.C.B.S. meeting or ‘council’ at the Wiseman family home in London. The friends know that they will soon be involved in the war and want to regain their former closeness. They spend much of the weekend sitting around a gas fire, smoking and talking. They all have ambitions in literature, art, or music, and feel that they gain inspiration from each other. Tolkien will later refer to the ‘hope and ambitions … that first became conscious at the Council of London. That Council was … followed in my own case with my finding a voice for all kind of pent up things and a tremendous opening up of everything for me: – I have always laid that to the credit of the inspiration that even a few hours with the four always brought to us’ (letter to G.B. Smith, 12 August 1916, Letters, p. 10).
