Smith of Wootton Major

Product Information

Shippey, Tom (2005) [1982]. The Road to Middle-Earth (Thirded.). HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0261102750. A Minor Kidroduction: We first meet Smith at age nine, when he acquires the star, but the rest of the story happens in his adulthood. In addition, Long sees Shippey's identification of birch and oak with philology and criticism as correct, but differs about what Tolkien wanted to say here. In Long's view, the birch "represents the sharp critique of most of his philological colleagues who supposed that Tolkien had squandered years of his life on a worthless piece of fantasy literature—a place he didn’t belong, or so they thought." In other words, he writes, the dispute was inside the philological community; far from fighting literary criticism, Tolkien had done much to heal the split between the critics and the philologists at Oxford. [9] Visit to Faërie [ edit ] Other than his usual and original use of the term Faery, this is not linked to his middle-earth legendarium, and in my opinion, has more of the lighthearted silliness of the other novellas in it. A great cook and his apprentice (referred to as ‘prentice) make a great cake filled with 24 trinkets and coins for the children. However, this year they include a 25th item, a star from faery. The smith’s son swallows it, later spitting it out and affixing it to his forehead. This serves almost like a blessing from the faeries, and he is blessed with skills and personality. This tale is magical and enchanting but for me it seemed incomplete. Well, a little unresolved. A young boy gets to enter the wonderful world of Fay; he is chosen especially for it, but when he gets there he doesn’t do a great deal. I mean, talk about a wasted opportunity! I would have done so much more over there.

During the Feast everyone enjoyed the Cake, and children were happy to find those trinkets in their slices of the Cake, but none of them found the star. The Cook thought that is was not made of silver, and must have melted in the Cake. But it had not, one of the boys had swallowed it without noticing. Years passed, and the day when the boy turned ten years old, the star came out of his mouth. He was astonished when saw her, and put it on his forehead, where it clung. Since that time the boy showed great abilities in singing.Tolkien was a professor at the Universities of Leeds and Oxford for almost forty years, teaching Old and Middle English, as well as Old Norse and Gothic. His illuminating lectures on works such as the Old English epic poem, Beowulf, illustrate his deep knowledge of ancient languages and at the same time provide new insights into peoples and legends from a remote past.

So this is a pretty fun little volume. Not related to Middle-Earth at all, but the fairies of the first tale have a kinship to Tolkien's elves and the dragon of the second is dragony like Smaug.

Tropes included in the tale:

The Cook let Smith decide who would receive the star the next, and Smith chose a boy named Tim. At the Feast Smith saw Tim swallow his piece of cake, and noticed how the boy changed – became merrier and radiant. Thus, the journey of the star and its new owner began. Update this section! Il fabbro di Wootton Major è un racconto di J.R.R. Tolkien pubblicato nel 1967, l'ultima opera mentre l'autore era ancora in vita. Romanticamente potremmo considerarla una sorta di commiato dell'autore al mondo di Faerie, una fiaba per bambini ben ponderata (come dimostrano le diverse stesure e gli appunti dell'autore a riguardo) ed equilibrata piuttosto che uno spontaneo volo d'immaginazione. La novella avrebbe dovuto essere parte della prefazione di Tolkien a The Golden Key, storia di fate di George MacDonald, ma si sviluppò come racconto a sé.