Flammifer
Well-Known Member
At one time, long ago, and far far away, Tolkien thought he might try to create a mythology or legend for England.
Now, I don’t think he was thinking that way exactly, when he was writing the Lord of the Rings.
However, the passage back in episode 100: ‘There is a power too, of another kind, in the Shire, but all such places will soon become islands under siege, if things go on as they are going. The Dark Lord is putting forth all his strength.” reminds me of ‘a myth for England’.
Indeed, it always reminds me of Dorothy Sayers’ poem, ‘The English War’, written in the darkest days of WWII.
Praise God now for an English war –
The grey tide and the sullen coast,
The menace of the urgent hour,
The single island, like a tower,
Ringed with an angry host.
This is the war that England knows,
When all the world holds but one man –
King Philip of the galleons,
Louis, whose light outshone the sun’s,
The conquering Corsican.
When Europe, like a prison door,
Clangs; and the swift, enfranchised sea
Runs narrower than a village brook;
And men who love us not, yet look
To us for liberty;
When no allies are left, no help
To count upon from alien hands,
No waverers remain to woo,
No more advice to listen to,
And only England stands.
And near and far across the world
Hold open wide the water-gates,
And all the tall adventurers come
Homeward to England, and Drake’s drum
Is beaten through the Straits.
This is the war that we have known
And fought in every hundred years,
Our sword upon the last, steep path,
Forged by the hammer of our wrath
On the anvil of our fears.
The image of the Shire, like England, as an Island, ‘ringed by an angry host’, is clear.
The Shire, of course, recalls parts of England specifically, and it has ‘power of a sort’. The power to rally and defeat a hostile and hegemonic Europe every hundred years.
The Horn Call of Buckland echoes through the image of Drake’s Drum, beaten through the straits.
Now, I don’t think he was thinking that way exactly, when he was writing the Lord of the Rings.
However, the passage back in episode 100: ‘There is a power too, of another kind, in the Shire, but all such places will soon become islands under siege, if things go on as they are going. The Dark Lord is putting forth all his strength.” reminds me of ‘a myth for England’.
Indeed, it always reminds me of Dorothy Sayers’ poem, ‘The English War’, written in the darkest days of WWII.
Praise God now for an English war –
The grey tide and the sullen coast,
The menace of the urgent hour,
The single island, like a tower,
Ringed with an angry host.
This is the war that England knows,
When all the world holds but one man –
King Philip of the galleons,
Louis, whose light outshone the sun’s,
The conquering Corsican.
When Europe, like a prison door,
Clangs; and the swift, enfranchised sea
Runs narrower than a village brook;
And men who love us not, yet look
To us for liberty;
When no allies are left, no help
To count upon from alien hands,
No waverers remain to woo,
No more advice to listen to,
And only England stands.
And near and far across the world
Hold open wide the water-gates,
And all the tall adventurers come
Homeward to England, and Drake’s drum
Is beaten through the Straits.
This is the war that we have known
And fought in every hundred years,
Our sword upon the last, steep path,
Forged by the hammer of our wrath
On the anvil of our fears.
The image of the Shire, like England, as an Island, ‘ringed by an angry host’, is clear.
The Shire, of course, recalls parts of England specifically, and it has ‘power of a sort’. The power to rally and defeat a hostile and hegemonic Europe every hundred years.
The Horn Call of Buckland echoes through the image of Drake’s Drum, beaten through the straits.