![\"JRR](\"http:\/\/www-images.theonering.org\/torwp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/jrr-tolkien-colour-300x183.jpg\")
It\u2019s the centenary of Middle-earth. <\/p>\n It\u2019s the centenary of Middle-earth. <\/p>\n
In a piece in The Guardian, Tolkien scholar John Garth analyses Tolkien\u2019s 1914 creative breakthrough — and the poem The Voyage of \u00c9arendel the Evening Star<\/i> from 24 September 1914 — that ultimately leads to Middle-earth as we know it today. <\/p>\n Garth writes:<\/p>\n \nNeither elves nor hobbits were yet in JRR Tolkien\u2019s mind. But the star mariner is remembered in The Lord of the Rings, as E\u00e4rendil, forefather of kings, whose light in a phial wards off Mordor\u2019s darkness. In the vast backstory of The Silmarillion, he carries the last Silmaril, a jewel preserving unsullied Edenic light, seeking aid against the primal Dark Lord.<\/p>\n None of this is in Tolkien\u2019s poem from 24 September 1914. As an invented origin myth for the evening star, it is all energy and enigma.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The concept of \u00c9arendel using the Door of Night is also one that persists even through into the published Silmarillion, as famously illustrated by John Howe. The Valar also expel Morgoth from Arda through the selfsame door.<\/p>\n You can read more of John Garth’s thoughts on this poem, and the centenary of Middle-earth’s first stirrings over on his blog<\/a> and in a summary of a talk<\/a> he recently gave to the Tolkien Society at Oxonmoot. The Guardian piece is linked directly below, and Tolkien Studies 11<\/a> will contain an in-depth investigation.<\/p>\n
\n\u00c9arendel sprang up from the Ocean\u2019s cup
\nIn the gloom of the mid-world\u2019s rim;
\nFrom the door of Night as a ray of light
\nLeapt over the twilight brim,
\nAnd launching his bark like a silver spark
\nFrom the golden-fading sand;
\nDown the sunlit breath of Day\u2019s fiery Death
\nHe sped from Westerland.
\n<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n![\"The](\"http:\/\/www-images.theonering.org\/torwp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/Doors_of_Night-howe.jpg\")
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