The Standing Stone

[Priya]

Before, I comment on records in our world of single standing stones - I want to try to strengthen the idea about Frodo inadvertently entering Faërie. To do that I think we ought to think more about our world’s tales of faërie. Thus I’ve decided to dig out instances where the land of Faërie pops out to the forefront in our early literature.

So where exactly does a close-quarters faërie loom large?

Actually reports are reasonably numerous and there is sufficient evidence Tolkien knew all below and others too:

(a) Thomas the Rhymer being carried off into fairyland upon the Queen of Faërie’s milk-white steed.

(b) Pwyll, Prince of Dyfed, entering Annwn while lost in a magical fog and spending a year in the Welsh otherworld per the Mabinogion.
(c) Sir Orfeo entering the realm of Faërie.

(d) King Arthur’s Avalon – described as both across the water in the west but also at Glastonbury Tor.

(e) The ‘Land below Woolpit’ where two legendary green children emerged according to Ralph of Coggeshall.

(f) The fabled realm below hilly mounds in the legends of the Celtic Tuatha-de-Dannan.

‘Riders of the Sidhe’, John Duncan, 1911

What we need to recognize is that access to a local land-situated kind of faërie has been extensively reported. And in times close to our own – far off from Tolkien’s mythic Ages. It is observable such reports were replete with creatures just like the Professor’s elves.

For Tolkien, faërie was primarily a place – the so-called ‘Perilous Realm’. Putting aside the question of whether such a land or fairies really exist outside of imagination, from what I can tell Tolkien believed that the concept and origin of faërie began with man as a sub-creator in triggering the ‘invention’ of a fairy tale. And that tale might have been born indirectly from hearsay or directly from personal experience; yet it would likely have possessed at least a nugget of truth. A genuine fairy tale always exhibits a magical face and is, more often than not, set in the land of Faërie. A place which is not only the natural habitation of fays (fairy folk to us) but, according to the Professor, also contains creatures such as:

“… elves and … dwarfs, witches, trolls, giants, or dragons: …”.

– The Monsters and the Critics and Other Essays, On Fairy-stories – pg. 113, HarperCollins, 1983

Tolkien made plain that for humans with a natural bent towards make-believe:

“Fantasy, the making or glimpsing of Other-worlds, was the heart of the desire of Faërie.”

– The Monsters and the Critics and Other Essays, On Fairy-stories – pg. 135, HarperCollins, 1983

Of great significance is his employment of the term: “Other-worlds”. Most notably it is delineated in plural form. And thus the case can be made that when engaged in creating his own fantasy, ‘Faërie’ was not in his mind limited to a singular ‘Other-world’. It’s quite possible he had in mind another faerie where all these fantastic creatures existed in some corner or at some time within its own chronological history. So for us, it is essential to grasp the concept of a multiplicity of otherworlds being present in Tolkien’s literature. These can simply be equated to secondary worlds, being distinct from our primary one.



… to be continued