Hidden right in front of me

This is the message of Barfield's work: Just because something isn't obvious doesn't mean it's not there. And just because it takes work, and practice, to see it, doesn't mean it's contrived or conjured.

For example: Years ago, I learned how to use a microscope in order to analyze bits of various materials - floor and ceiling tile, insulation, adhesives - for the presence of asbestos fibers. Eventually, not only could I determine whether or not there was asbestos in the sample, but also what type of asbestos (there are six), and a rough estimate of how much was in the sample. And after even more practice and experience, I could determine fairly accurately, without the microscope, whether a sample contained asbestos or not.

Another example: I was working on a piece of artwork for a friend's birthday. It was made with ink prints from a design I'd gotten from somewhere. I stamped the paper with my little stamp, but when I was done, it didn't quite look right. I stamped again, but still it didn't feel right. I'm not an artist of that sort - I was just doing what I wanted - and didn't know any 'theory' and had very little practice. My landlord and upstairs neighbor was an artist, though, and an experienced and accomplished one. I asked him to take a look at my creation, and suggest what I might do to finish it. He looked at it for about five seconds, suggested something, which I did, and it looked great.

For the last several days I've been making my way through The World of Tolkien: Mythological Sources of The Lord of the Rings by David Day. It's an oversized hardback, with lots of great illustrations by a variety of artists - that's why I bought it. After spending time reading it, though, I've found the text to be even more enjoyable and stimulating than the illustrations. And eye-opening.

What Day does that is so enlightening is to show the sources for many of the names in Tolkien's work of Middle Earth. The book is meant to read like an encyclopedia, sort of, with entries that include "Gods and Deities", "Morgoth", "Dragon Broods and Hoards", "Barrow-wights and Phantoms", and "The Reunited Kingdom of the Dunedain". Under every heading, Day gives the (primary world) history of a variety of relevant words from The Lord of the Rings, and as much evidence as possible of Tolkien's own reasons for employing those particular words.

The term 'middle earth' is of course essential to understand. It is this earth. Not another planet, or a fabrication from whole cloth. "In its origins, Tolkien's Middle-earth has much in common with the Midgard of Norse mythology," writes Day. "The theatre of my tale is this earth", wrote Tolkien.

This is just the beginning of course. Day traces the etymology of 'midgard,' (middle-erd, midden-erd), and traces Tolkien's own accounting of his use of the term throughout The Lord of the Rings. He does the same with 'elf', 'dwarf', 'star', 'Westernesse' (related to Avalon - Isle of Apples - related to Hesperides), 'Rivendell' (cleft valley, 'cleft' being 'delphi' in Greek), 'Arda', 'Numenor' (Atalante in High Elvish, Atlantis in Greek), etc..

I hate to use 'etc.', but the connections are so many, often from more than one language - Greek, Latin, Gothic, Old English, Middle English, High German, Icelandic, Norwegian, Welsh - and in more than one character or word or phrase. You simply must read the book. The effect this has had on me is to see more and more clearly just how little Tolkien invented, and how much he reconstructed. By tracing words and phrases and myths and stories back in time and across cultures, Tolkien discovers connections, additions, omissions, mistakes, misinterpretations along the way. In the end, what he was after was to reconstruct the true origins of the English nation, seen from 'the inside' - from the human mind.

So, about every third page of reading Day's book is punctuated by my saying 'OOOOOoooohhhhh...so that's what that means....aaaahhhh....I see now...'. There is an annotated version of The Hobbit; we need the same thing for The Lord of the Rings. With this edition, it will be clear just how much Tolkien has revealed, yet was still hidden from untrained eyes and minds.