0233: The Book of Lost Tales I » The Early Forms of Middle-earth

What was Tolkien’s mythology actually like when he first began writing it? In Episode 233 of The Tolkien Road, John and Greta continue through The History of Middle-earth with the first four chapters of The Book of Lost Tales 1. They encounter Tolkien’s original frame narrative, early versions of the Music of the Ainur and Valinor, Tinfang Warble, and a Middle-earth that is familiar—but also wonderfully strange. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ CHAPTERS 00:00 — Introduction 01:51 — The Book of Lost Tales, Part 2 04:15 — Tolkien Quote of the Week 07:00 — How The Book of Lost Tales Is Organized 09:21 — The Ten Chapters of Volume 1 10:08 — Melko, the Noldoli, and Early Names 12:44 — Our Approach to The History of Middle-earth 14:33 — The Cottage of Lost Play 15:00 — Tolkien’s 1917 Exercise Book 19:11 — What Is the Cottage of Lost Play? 19:51 — Tolkien’s Original Frame Narrative 20:26 — Eriol Arrives on Tol Eressëa 25:26 — How the Frame Narrative Works 28:16 — Early Cottage of Lost Play Poems 29:09 — The Music of the Ainur 31:18 — Tolkien and the Oxford English Dictionary 35:24 — Rúmil Begins the Music 36:14 — How Similar Is It to the Ainulindalë? 37:00 — The Coming of the Valar 38:27 — The Strange Early Story of the Two Lamps 44:31 — The Chaining of Melko 44:57 — Tinfang Warble 46:27 — A Major Difference from The Silmarillion 47:33 — The Frame Narrative Continues 49:10 — The Tinfang Warble Poem 49:55 — A Precursor to Tom Bombadil? 53:26 — Could The Silmarillion Work Better With a Frame? 54:10 — Listener Correspondence 1:01:35 — What’s Coming Next ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ THE COTTAGE OF LOST PLAY Tolkien originally gave his mythology a frame narrative. A mortal traveler named Eriol comes to Tol Eressëa and hears the ancient legends from the inhabitants of the Cottage of Lost Play. Rather than presenting the mythology simply as history, Tolkien imagined someone actually hearing these stories within the world. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ THE EARLIEST SILMARILLION The Music of the Ainur already resembles the later Ainulindalë. The Coming of the Valar contains material recognizable from the published Silmarillion. But names, geography, chronology, and details can be strikingly different. Melkor is still Melko. The Noldor are the Noldoli. Familiar ideas are present, but the mythology is still changing. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ TINFANG WARBLE The Chaining of Melko introduces one of the stranger delights of Tolkien’s earliest mythology: Tinfang Warble, a mysterious flute-playing figure associated with twilight and the stars. Could he even contain a distant hint of the figure who eventually became Tom Bombadil? ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ THE BIG TAKEAWAY The Book of Lost Tales is not simply a rough draft of The Silmarillion. It is an earlier vision of Tolkien’s mythology. Some ideas are already remarkably familiar. Others would disappear completely. And perhaps the most fascinating lost idea is the frame itself: Tolkien originally imagined these legends not simply as history, but as stories being told. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ SPECIAL THANKS • Kaitlyn of Tea with Tolkien • Liis U • Andrew T • John R • Ms. Anonymous • Shannon S • Brian O • Emilio P • Zeke F • James A • James L • Chris L • Chuck F • Asya V • Ish of the Hammer • Teresa C • David of Pints with Jack • Jonathan D • Eric S • Joey S • Eric B • Matt L • Johanna T • Sam N • Mike M • Dyrenair • Robert H • Paul D Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-tolkien-road--5222755/sup