Tolkien and Beowulf

Well, we're having a discussion of Beowulf on Sunday. Due to a brief mention of Tolkien's interest in this book in a DVD lecture on Beowulf, we have been hunting "high and low" for more references and our search has not been fruitless. Although I have to warn anyone planning on browsing the indexes of Tolkien: Man and Myth, Letters to Tolkien and Tolkien: A Celebration, they are very distracting. With references such as Alice in Wonderland, Chesterton and The Ballad of the White Horse, it is virtually impossible to focus on the topic in hand. Following some of these references I learned that although, when he was younger, Tolkien was a big fan of the Ballad, later on he became critical. I found this bit from a letter to his son Christopher in 1944, quite fascinating:

Priscilla... has been wading through the Ballad of the White Horse for the last many nights; and my efforts to explain the obscurer parts to her convince me that it is not as good as I thought. The ending is absurd. The brilliant smash and glitter of the words and phrases (when they come off, and are not mere loud colors) cannot disguise the fact that G.K.C. knew nothing whatever about the "North", heathen or Christian.

I also learned that drumroll please C.S. Lewis knew much of the Ballad of the White Horse by heart! And that (this I heard in a different place) Tolkien had memorized all of Beowulf in Old English!

And actually, believe it or not, I did follow the Beowulf references as well. On page 89 of Tolkien: A Celebration I found this:

Tolkien's remarks in his classic essay Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics are the best I have seen on the 'Germanic' vision, but he considered Beowulf's author to be a Christian who was looking back at a heathen heroic past, and his theme, 'man at war with the hostile world, and his inevitable overthrow in Time' is one 'no Christian need despise.'

So anyways... just a few interesting tidbits, after the discussion I may very well have more

My 100th post!!!!!!

Yep, I've finally reached my 100th post! Now my first two posts, over a year ago, were about the gospel of Luke. So it is quite fitting that my hundreth post should be about the discussion we had the other night on....The Gospel of Luke!
We began with examining the theme often repeats, the theme of Be Not Afraid. We found many passages throughout the evening which followed this thread.
We also explored the greatly empahsized (but definitely not overdone) theme of forgiveness. We compared the two parables, The Prodigal Son and The Rich Man and Lazarus. The main difference between these two were the time of repentance. The prodigal son did sin but he repented before it was to late. He went home, apologized and was forgiven and joyfully received. But the Rich Man did not repent until after death, until it was too late so he was not forgiven.
We also discussed the Road to Emmaus, which has some great similarities in The Two Towers when Gandalf returns to Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli. We wondered why it was that the two disciples did not recognize him. We decided it was probably because their minds would already set to think that He was dead. So their mind set wouldn't let them see Him as He was.
I cannot remember what it was that we talked about after that but the conversation kept returning to the forgiveness theme, it was very interesting. Anyways we had a great discussion. If anyone who was present remembers more of later content please comment.

Thankful Thursdays

1. The Catholic faith.
2. My family and friends, I love chatting with them about, well.... anything and everything!
3. Books, reading time, authors like Chesterton, Tolkien, Lewis, Austen, Regina Doman, Hilda Van Stockum, Shakespeare etc. etc. etc. (Does that count as one?)
4. Blogger. The blogs have been so much fun, making new friends and keeping in touch with old. And learning things all the time, particularly about Chesterton.
5. Discussions with our homeschool friends.
6. Dr. Thursday's posts, particularly his Thursday posts on ACS.
7. The camera, I'm enjoying it more and more.
8. Being able to listen to stories almost anytime. Thanks to multiple audio players in our house.
9. Shakespeare parties. We get together with a bunch of friends, and read a Shakespeare play together, we have SOOOO much fun.
10. Irish dance class.

I Was Just Thinking.....

... How different would the story of The Lord of The Rings be if Faramir went to Rivendell instead of Boromir? I'm guessing this has been pondered before but I never thought of it before. Especially the breaking of the fellowship probably would have been drastically different because of Faramir's greater will power over the ring.

What do you think? Would it have been better or worse if Faramir had persuaded Boromir to stay in Minas Tirith?

ANOTHER meme

My mom tagged me for the ten random facts meme, so here goes:
1. I LOVE reading, especially Chesterton, Tolkien, Lewis, Jane Austen and Regina Doman.
2. I've made several names for things that have stuck: our mudroom is now the cloakroom, a certain type of baby clothes is "kick-arounders" and swim suits are "dim duits"(that was when I was really little).
3. I have been doing Irish Dancing for five years now and love it.
4. I love memorizing poetry, I'm currently working on The Ballad of the White Horse and Lepanto both by G.K. Chesterton.
5. I was planning to go to ChesterCon this year, but Chicken Pox sadly prevented me from going.
6. My favorite branch of Science is Geology, particularly Archeology. I have always been interested by fossils, ruins and the like.
7. Although I don't much like math, I do like long division.
8. I just joined "The Dead Language Latin Club" after 4 or 5 years of Latin, and had a ton of fun at the first meeting. Perhaps I will post on it in future.
9. My favorite saints when I was little were St. Dominic of the Rosary and Saint Therese the Little Flower. (I still really like them of course:)
10. I began the "Great Vocabulary Project" by writing down a list of most of the great big words they spell in Akeelah and the Bee. Some of my favorites: prestidigitation, Merovingian, bioluminescent, Scherezadian (I'm not sure of the spelling on that one) logorrhea.
And I will tag: GilbertGirl, mysticalrose_84, Jenny, electroblogster and The Map Guy

1 year ago today....

..... this blog was created. Unfortunatly I don't have a great post prepared like Dr. Thursday did for his blogg's anniversary. ( And please do read his post, it is really cool)
I have had a wonderful time on the blogosphere, meeting people, mostly Chestertonians who got me more and more interested in Chesterton. One of the most fun thing about blogs (second to meeting people) is getting comments. Here are some of my favorite that I got on this blog:

from Dr. Thursday on my Languages post:

I have completely forgotten to check your blogg - I
forgot all about it! And what a good posting, too. Well, it is still here and I
can comment on it.First, I think it is good for you to study even a made-up
language. Did you know that I have studied perhaps five or more made-up
languages? They are the ones I use(or have used) to program computers! And even
more fun - like Tolkien, I have studied the "inner workings" of how languages
are put together - at least those computer languages! But this is part of what
one must learn in order to study Language - I mean the "science of words" which
is called "philology" (that is what Tolkien studied and taught). That is
different from studying Languages, which is what you indicate by your list.Here
is the list I would like to study, and why:
1. Latin (to read the Aeneid, and the Vulgate
Bible)
2. Greek (to read Homer, and the New Testament in its
most ancient form available)
3. Hebrew (to read the Old Testament, but especially
the Psalms)
4. Italian (to read Dante)
But these are VAST projects, and at present I do not
expect to go very far at all. At least I can read tiny bits of the first two -
much more Latin than Greek. But someday I will have to spend some time to learn
the Hebrew letters...If I have some time, perhaps I will get to tell a little
about how "language" works over on my blogg. I already started to hint about it
when I wrote about "chirality" - did you read that? I will see what I can
do...

I liked this set of comments on my ChesterTeens post too (I left mine out cause it was boring)

From Sheila:

I am very sad. I just turned 20. So I guess it's no use begging to be let into
ChesterTeens?Well, I got a link on the sidebar at least. I'm not sure how you
heard of me, but I feel special anyway, like some kind of celebrity --
especially after Regina Doman and Dr. Thursday and before the Holy Whapping.

From Dr. Thursday:

Well, Sheila, this is the perfect time for this quote:
"Being a child is not a disease. Even remaining a child is not a disease;
don't you sometimes wish we could all remain children?"[GKC Four Faultless
Felons (Dover) 39]
And I would have also begged to be admitted but I stopped being 19 a little
while ago. Hee hee.

And yet another from Dr. Thursday on my Co-op adventures post

This is excellent! I will forward this idea to the Faculty for Chesterton
University. There is no reason that college kids can't be having just as much
fun. The idea could be readily extended to other disciplines - definitely a way
of getting more laughter into one's education!

So that's about it, thanks to everyone who reads this blog for commenting and making my first year of bloggiong so enjoyable, I look forward to more.

"Ardalambion"

I just found this site which has dozens of the languages which Tolkien created. It looks really cool.
Hat-tip Enchiridion

Oh Dear, I Got Tagged....

... for the book meme, by my mom.

So here's my list:

1. One book that changed your life.

The Shadow of the Bear By Regina Doman. The reason being it got me interested in Chesterton.

2. One book that you’ve read more than once.

The Lord of the Rings By J.R.R.Tolkien

3. One book you’d want on a desert island.

The Collected Works of Chesterton ,Volume One (It has both Heretics and Orthodoxy)

4. One book that made you laugh.

Pride and Predjudice By Jane Austen

5.One book that made you cry.

A Tale of Two Cities By Charles Dickens

6. One book that you wish had been written.

J.R.R. Tolkien By G.K.Chesterton

7. One book that you wish had never been written.

His Dark Materials Trilogy by Philip Pullman

8. One book you’re currently reading.

Jane Eyre By Charlotte Brontes. I started this months ago and still
haven't gotten back to it. (Sorry GilbertGirl:)

9. One book you’ve been meaning to read.

Heretics By G.K.Chesterton

And I will tag Monkey, Coyote, Jenny and The Map Guy.

A Very Special Day

Today we celebrate the Feast of the Annunciation, the day on which the Angel Gabriel appeared to the Virgin Mary and asked her if she would be the Mother of God. Today is the beggining of the Novena for Impossible Intentions which you can find here.

I discovered recently in the Gilbert magazine that today is also Tolkien Reading Day. Pull out of one of Tolkien's wonderful books and enjoy. Celebrate the downfall of the evil lord Sauron by diving into one or more of his books.
So today we celebrate the annunciation and the downfall of Sauron. I don't think that is a coincidence. Tolkien was a Catholic and most likely chose that date on purpose.
But I must leave you to reflect on the possibilities for I should to follow my own advice and pull out a Tolkien book to celebrate these two joyous events.

An awesome quote from Tolkien

In The Lord of the Rings there is a quote that I think is really cool. Gandalf is explaining to Frodo the perilous nature of the ring he has inherited. When he hears about how dangerous the ring is Frodo laments,
"I wish the ring had never come to me, I wish none of this had happened." This is the part I like, Gandalf replies, "So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide, all we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us."

I can't even begin to say how many times I have wished I lived in a different age. Wouldn't it have been easier to concentrate on God if you lived Medieval times when there wasn't so much to distract you from Him? Wouldn't it have been simply incredible to have actually met Jesus face to face? Then of course I think of how wonderful it would be to have seen the seven wonders of the ancient world, to have seen the now ruined castles as they once were. How spectacular the pyramids, the coliseum, all those ruins which still look incredible today, just think of how magnificent they must have looked long ago when they were first being built. But no matter how much I dream I can't change what time I live in. That isn't my choice. What I can decide is what to do with the time that God has put me in. I may think that I would have been more useful to him if I had lived in some other time, but somehow, even if I can't see how yet, I can be more useful to God now in the 21st century or else he would have put me in the Middle Ages or in ancient Rome. That is what I should be dreaming about, what I can to for God in this age that he has seen as the time I can be the most effective at whatever He wants me to do. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.