Mirkwood: A Novel About J.R.R. Tolkien

Chapter 6

INKLINGS II

All evening the group had discussed issues of faculty and politics, and only at the end came about to literary topics.

“Jack, I want to return to this term ‘Mirkwood’, of which you are a fan. What does it mean to you?”

“Tollers, whose absence to the loo will at least allow me to get a word in, is the historical authority. But to me, it is the place where tracks disappear and no line of sight exists. Once you are in there, it becomes the Forest of Doubt.”

“Yes, Cambridge, exactly.”

“Now, now, let’s not stir up that rivalry.”

“Well, sounds like life sometimes.”

“Exactly, we all stray into Mirkwood now and again. Getting out, into the place where belief can exist and be a proper guide, is the trick”.

The sounds of footsteps, shuffling of chairs.

“So I heard you speak of Mirkwood. Bandying ancient words in my absence could be dangerous.”

“Well, then to you, Tollers, since you borrowed the term from Jack, what is the essence of Mirkwood?”

“Hah! He’s the pickpocket of my purse of ideas! But to your question, I’ll skip the lecture on its deeper roots, its role in Eddic Poetry, its references in Scott’s Waverly and elsewhere, and get to its essence. It is the physical embodiment of Elvish language.”

“Oh, well that’s a turn then! Anything else to add for those of us less learned in such?”

“Yes, we’ve heard you talk of both, but never together. What do they have in common?

“Elvish, I found, has aspects deeper and wider than I thought as I sought to, well, re-invent it. My poor linguistic attempts, Quenya and Sindarin, are just that. Real Elvish is far deeper and more mysterious. To call it a language is to gravely, perhaps dangerously, underestimate it. Elvish and Mirkwood are alike because each has paths that shift before you. Each beguiles and hides its truth. Dangerous things, Elvish and Mirkwood.”

“You seem to have some new thoughts on this. You were, ah, telling us last week about this … trove of documents?”

“Ah, yes, I suppose I did mention them. I’ve sorted a bit of it. It’s mostly a collection of bits of history that I’ve yet to decipher. The pages look as if they were torn out of many sources, Old English, more recent scribblings, and, the bulk of it, pieces of writing that indeed seem to be a form of Elvish. Curious, really. I’ll get to the bottom of it in due time.”

“Sort of an ancient clipping service, eh?”

A sigh of exasperation.

“I suspect, Edwin the Inquisitive, that it is more a bundle of writings about some forbidden topic, all literally ripped out of ancient libraries.

“And these are from … your ‘Middle Earth’?”

“Well, the name is not mine to begin with. It is a term of long pedigree — mittle- erde. It is found, surprisingly, in the earliest existing fragment of Old English we have, called Caedmon’s Hymn. A line that goes like this:

A softly spoken song, perhaps in Old English, is sung by Tolkien. There is a period of silence before he begins talking again.

“It means ‘Then the guardian of mankind the eternal Lord, the Lord Almighty, afterwards appointed the Middle Earth, the lands of men.’ It was scribed as the monk Caedmon sang it, aet mude, “from his mouth” in about 680 A.D. It is, put simply, our centered Northern World, with all its legends and myths. In a sense it springs fully developed from Beowulf where, if my count is correct, it is mentioned a dozen or more times. Indeed, if you recall from Jack’s reading of a few Tuesdays ago, even he has created adventures in a similar Middle Earth. Sadly, one peopled by his poor take on me. In any case, it is no one’s invention and no one’s property.”

“Returning to your find of these strange documents, they must have been someone’s property. How did they come to you?”

“Like an orphan, a changeling, left swaddled in a barrister’s valise on my front stoop.”

“Well, at least they were free.”

“Like you fancy this ale will be tonight, Edwin. Pony up the tab and let’s be off to home!”

Chapter 7 OCTOBER 18

After the stop in Salt Lake City, Cadence plumped her pillow, reclined the seat, and settled in for the moving picture show of cross-country rail travel. October rain splattered the window, soon to beget snow in the high country — that same day, in fact. The train labored up Soldier Summit, passing tight side valleys, some desecrated by mining waste. She watched one roll by, complete with a leaning wooden mill and tailings pile. New gingham curtains in the windows of a cabin were a poignant touch, though barely noticeable among the yard cars and wrecked pickups and a garden that had gone to yellow and droop with the first hard freeze. A trail of smoke cut sideways off the stovepipe chimney in the dank cold, as if it couldn’t leave this godforsaken place fast enough.

She turned to a page from the valise, all spidery scrawls. She got the feel of it and read:

My Dearest Amon,

The harvest moon begins to fill and we have not seen each other. Remember the glade?

Your wizard came today, and he sat me down with my father and my mother. He said you will be going— leaving! And that I must simply wait for your return. I remained quiet, though he looked very directly at me. I did not tell him of our plans, or of my knowledge of your precious, the gift from your cuz.

I will see you by the waxing moonlight at the Catpaw Bridge. I will not fail you, and we shall be together.

My love, Ara

P.S. My father draws forth a group of the most stalwart of our village. “Trouble in the south,” he says.

So, Cadence thought as she shook the page in delight, Ara had a lover!

For the next few hours the mystery of Ara kept unspooling. The tale slowly assembled itself from the brittle scrolls and battered pages. One historical account revealed a chilling secret:

Horse and Rider

The father of Aragranessa, Achen, was keen to instill in his daughter the wisdom and lore of the wild places. “Wild”, of course, being a term reserved for the relatively close and relatively safe woodlands surrounding their home village of Frighten.

True, in those woods known locally as Portic-wud, the Sanctuary Wood, vagabond creatures might wander down from the North, and travelers on errands untold were known to camp. Even elves were whispered to pass beneath their boughs. Yet her skills were competent to detect and avoid trouble.

Ara’s vision was renowned as particularly keen. Her father’s early test of this was to direct her gaze to a special point in the vast starsprent vault of the night sky. “Look for the Horse,” he said, “for its yellow color like the steeds of legend.” As she saw the yellow point of light and described the arrangement of other nearby stars, he said, “and what, if anything, does the Horse bear?” She stared hard at the twinkling sky. “A Rider,” she said, “it bears on its back a most faint and tiny star!”

Thus Ara passed the most acute test of eyesight known to halflings.

One last question she had for her father that night, and she made him proud in the asking. “Will my sight give me the vision to see truth and honor as keenly as you?”

To this tale must be added another. The very year in which she spied the Rider, she came late to an edge of the Sanctuary Wood. The most subtle of movements caught her eye. With worthy stealth she approached, and saw what at first appeared to be a gathering of animals. Creatures roughly her own size, upright standing, but with faces akin to badgers and ferrets and wolves. Even as she watched their faces shifted into a common pattern of