Father Christmas Letters: 1936

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by Estelyn Telcontar

This Christmas letter introduces a new character - Ilbereth, FC's Elven secretary! It would be interesting to know if there was a particular reason for his addition.

I am rather curious about that as well. Personally, I always got the feeling that Tolkien was slowly getting bored with the "simple good ol' Father Christmas", in the same way as his Middle-Earth was slowly evolving in his head from the "children-story" Hobbit paradigm towards the more complex and epic future: perhaps he was fed up with the old "Shirelike" persona or it was some especially "Elf-liking period" for him and he just wanted to write Silmarillion-ish stuff and put Elves wherever he could. I can very well imagine it (such things tend to happen to authors, or at least I have personal experience with that, so I can imagine such a thing happening to Tolkien).

Somebody had mentioned in one of the earlier threads the possible similarity to "Elbereth" - now that is something that had never occured to me, first and foremost, probably because connecting the idea of the glorious Star-Lady, the divine power called upon when the darkness looms, with a secretary is somehow... you know. Also, even name-wise, "Ilbereth" sounds to me much closer to, say, Imrahil (or "Ioreth") and when I hear that name, I imagine some Elf very akin to Gildor, Lindir, simply those "second-class Elves" (nothing derogatory there, these characters are among my favourite, I simply mean that they are not the "tops" like Galadriel or Elrond. Also, note that they are not "third-class", either).

NPB also includes a sheet with the goblin alphabet in this letter - rather complex for daily use, but interesting and typically Tolkien.

I really like it, even though - or also, because - it is a lot different from e.g. tengwar or the runes used in LotR (or TH, for that matter). A lot more "primitive". Anyway, I always wanted to learn this alphabet too (of course - as everything else), but it is still on my "to do" list. Maybe I could start with it now...

Ilbereth, by the way, has his own handwriting, firmer and more flowing than that of FC. He also has a more formal style of language.

Or maybe this was the reason for his introduction: purely practical. Tolkien had enough of writing in shaky handwriting. Or maybe his kids unlearned to decipher it by that time...