J.R.R. Tolkien was born in Bloemfontein, South Africa, on January 3, 1892 (died in Oxford, England, September 2, 1973). His father, Arthur, a bank clerk, was transferred from England to South Africa and later became a manager with the Bank of Africa. Arthur’s bride, Mabel (Suffield), moved from England to South Africa where the two were married. About a year later, she gave birth to John Ronald Reuel, whom they called Ronald.

Ronald’s memories of his four childhood years in Africa were few; however, one memory stood out. When Ronald was learning to walk, he stumbled onto a tarantula. It bit him, and he ran crying to a nurse nearby who sucked out the poison. Even though he remembered only running through long grass in fear, large spiders with poisonous bites are mentioned more than once in his stories.

In April 1895, Mabel and her two sons (Hilary was born February 17, 1894) returned to England for a visit. Arthur planned to join them later. The delay increased when Arthur contracted rheumatic fever and struggled to regain his health. Mabel was planning on returning to be with him when news came that Arthur had suffered a severe hemorrhage and died on February 15, 1896.

Mabel rented a cottage in the countryside near Birmingham and began to educate her children at home. She knew Latin, French, and German, and could paint, draw, and play the piano. Ronald could read by age four, and his favorite subject was the study of languages. Early on, Mabel introduced him to the basics of Latin and French. Ronald loved the sounds of words, listening, reading, and reciting them.

In 1900, Mabel and her sister, May, decided to join the Roman Catholic Church, much to the displeasure of their family. Mabel raised both sons in the Catholic faith, and they remained devoted Catholics throughout their lives. Father Francis Morgan, a local priest, regularly visited the family and remained a lifelong friend.

In the same year, Ronald began studying at King Edward’s School. During his time there, he mastered Latin and Greek and became proficient in other languages, modern and ancient, such as Finnish and Gothic.

Early in 1904, Mabel became ill and was diagnosed as having diabetes. Insulin treatment was not available at that time, and she died later that year. Father Francis took the responsibility for watching over the boys’ welfare. They were sent to live with an aunt, Beatrice, and later with a Mrs. Faulkner.

Also staying at Mrs. Faulkner’s was a young woman, Edith Bratt. Ronald was 16 and Edith 19. Their friendship grew into a romance, but, when Father Francis found out about the relationship some time later, he absolutely forbade it. He told Ronald not to see her or correspond with her for three years until he was 21. After some initial hesitation, Ronald obeyed his mentor to the letter. After the three years, Tolkien worked to re-establish the relationship, and, in 1916, he and Edith married.

While finishing his education at King Edward’s, Tolkien made friends who formed a club—the T.C.B.S. or, Tea Club, Barrovian Society—named after the place where these friends met to read and criticize each other’s literary works. They remained in close correspondence until 1916 when two of the four died in World War I.

In 1911, Ronald went to Exeter College, Oxford, where he studied Classics, Old English, Germanic languages, Welsh, and Finnish. Eventually, he focused more on English language.

Tolkien enlisted in the army and after four months in the trenches contracted recurring bouts of “trench fever” that effectively limited his time of military service. After the war, he first worked on the Oxford English Dictionary and later was appointed a professor of English at the University of Leeds (1920). In 1925, he was appointed to a professorship at Oxford in Anglo Saxon and much later, in 1945, the Merton Professorship of English Language and Literature at Oxford. Tolkien’s life at Oxford was uneventful or, perhaps, very eventful, depending on how you look at it. He was a professor giving lectures, meeting with students, doing research, and writing until his retirement in 1959.

In the next issue of Knowing & Doing, I will look at Tolkien’s writings—particularly The Lord of the Rings. For the rest of this article, I want to give some brief snapshots of Tolkien’s character and relationships.

• One inspiration for Tolkien’s writing was his relationship with his wife, Edith. He told one of his sons about a special moment with his wife early in their marriage. In 1917, while on leave from his army officer’s post, they went for a walk in the woods. There she danced for him alone. He said, “I met the Luthien Tinuviel of my own personal romance with her dark hair, fair face, and starry eyes and beautiful voice.” In that “glade filled with hemlocks” there arose the myth of Beren and Luthien. On their gravestone, it reads: Edith Mary Tolkien, Luthien, 1889 1971. John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, Beren, 1892-1973. He wrote, “Forever (especially when alone) we still met in the woodland glade and went hand in hand many times to escape the shadow of imminent death before our last parting.” Somehow, the difficulties of their lives never touched “the memories of our youthful love.”
• Tolkien met C.S. Lewis at an Oxford faculty meeting, May 11, 1926. Lewis wrote in his diary about Tolkien that he was “a smooth, pale, fluent little chap … No harm in him: only needs a smack or so.” The relationship developed, and Tolkien invited Lewis to join the Coalbiters Club, which focused on reading Icelandic myths (1927). These and other regular meetings allowed Tolkien and Lewis (at this time an atheist) to talk about issues relating to faith. In 1929, Lewis embraced theism; but it was not till 1931 that he came to believe in Christ as the Son of God. One night, Lewis, Tolkien, and Hugo Dyson were having dinner at Magdalen College. Lewis had difficulty with the parallels in pagan mythology and the Gospels. Lewis maintained that “myths are lies.” Tolkien argued, “No, they are not.” Myths in Tolkien’s view, although they may contain error, also reflect part of God’s reality. They are splintered fragments of the true light. Only by becoming a “sub-creator,” inventing myths, can mankind return to the perfection before the Fall. After a long night, together they came to the conclusion that Christ was the true myth—the myth become fact—revealed in history. Soon afterwards, Lewis came to believe in Christ. Lewis wrote in a letter to Arthur Greeves with respect to his new faith, “My long talk with Dyson and Tolkien had a great deal to do with it.”