You say 'Faeries' & I say 'Fairies'

[littlemanpoet]

...and to the Imagination, for which it stands.

...to bowdlerize a certain dearly loved (by some) bit of verbage...

It would seem that belief-set does after all underlie our discussion (now that I am over the initial shock of discovering what seems to be the truly held belief of some BDrs). I think that Tolkien wished that Faery was real, but believed that it was at least true (this is also my own belief). My sense from OFS and the essay you so kindly passed on, davem, is that Tolkien believed in the power of the Imagination.

If there have ever been spirits or beings associated with lakes, hillocks, streams, woods, copses, mountains and the like, for someone with my personal belief-set (and I am with Tolkien here), these beings must and will stand in some sort of relationship with the First Cause, Who (in the belief-set I share with Tolkien) is a Person. According to this belief-set, this Person created an Eden in which all creation was at one harmony; that is to say, if there was a Faery, it had its place in Eden, and it was the onset of Evil in Eden that splintered the unities into all their fractious parts. I can see how Tolkien, loving Faery and Myth, allegiant to one particular Myth that he believed to be True, would see a lack, and needed to write about it. That's the way it looks to me.

Perhaps Tolkien found himself in a strange half-belief that I often find myself in. I wish that Faery was real, and at least want it to be, and sometimes I half-believe that it is. Then my belief-set re-establishes itself, and I wonder what I do really believe about Faery, and how it might fit into my belief-set, if that's possible. Hmmmm.....

Originally Posted by davem

My point is that we don't find Faeries/Faerie represented/representing in that way prior to him, but he claims in OFS that we did. The whole point is that ' the human record of the old myths do not contain the very thing he sought to correct in them' as you say. But in OFS he is claiming that they did/do contain that 'very thing'.

I apologize for my denseness, but could you kindly provide the quote you are referring to? I'm not quite sure what you're getting at.