J.R.R. Tolkien

Slowly the lights of the torches in front of Merry flicked and went out, and he was walking in a darkness; and he thought: __his is a tunnel leading to a tomb; there we shall stay forever._ But suddenly into his dream there fell a living voice. __ell, Merry! Thank goodness I have found you!_ He looked up and the mist before his eyes cleared a little. There was Pippin! They were face to face in a narrow lane, but for themselves it was empty. He rubbed his eyes. __here is the king?_ He said. __nd Eowyn?_ Then he stumbled and sat down on a doorstep and began to weep again. __hey must have gone up into the Citadel,_ said Pippin. __ think you must have fallen asleep on your feet and taken the wrong turning. When we found out you were not with them, Gandalf sent me to look for you. Poor old Merry! How glad I am to see you again! But you are worn out, and I won__ bother you with any talk. But tell me, are you hurt, or wounded?_ __o,_ said Merry. __ell, no, I don__ think so. But I can__ use my right arm, Pippin, not since I stabbed him. And my sword burned away like a piece of wood._ Pippin__ face was anxious. __ell, you had better come with me as quick as you can,_ he said. __ wish I could carry you. You aren__ fit to walk any further. They shouldn__ have let you walk at all; but you must forgive them. So many dreadful things have happened in the City, Merry, that one poor hobbit coming in from battle is easily overlooked._ __t__ not always a misfortune being overlooked,_ said Merry. __ was overlooked just now by__o, no, I can__ speak of it. Help me, Pippin! It__ all going dark again, and my arm is so cold._ __ean on me, Merry lad!_ said Pippin. __ome now. Foot by foot. It__ not far._ __re you going to bury me?_ said Merry. __o, indeed!_ said Pippin, trying to sound cheerful, though his heart was wrung with fear and pity. __o, we are going to the Houses of Healing.

Under the Mountain dark and tallThe King has come unto his hall!His foe is dead,the Worm of Dread,And ever so his foes shall fall.The sword is sharp, the spear is long,The arrow swift, the Gate is strong;The heart is bold that looks on gold;The dwarves no more shall suffer wrong.The dwarves of yore made mighty spells,While hammers fells like ringing bellsIn places deep, where dark things sleep,In hollow halls beneath the fells.-from The Hobbit (Dwarves Battle Song)

And he smote the Balrog upon the mountainside.

He may become like a glass filled with a clear light for eyes to see that can.

Fantasy is a natural human activity. It certainly does not destroy or even insult Reason; and it does not either blunt the appetite for, nor obscure the perception of scientific verity. On the contrary. The keener and the clearer is the reason, the better fantasy will it make. If men were ever in a state in which which they did not want to know or could not perceive truth (facts or evidence), then Fantasy would languish until they were cured. If they ever get into that state it would not seem at all impossible/ Fantasy will perish and become Morbid Delusion.

the association of children and fairy-stories is an accident of our domestic history. Fairy-stories have in the modern lettered world been relegated to the __ursery,_ as shabby or old-fashioned furniture is relegated to the play-room, primarily because the adults do not want it, and do not mind if it is misused.

It was an irresistible development of modern illustration (so largely photographic) that borders should be abandoned and the "picture" end only with the paper. This method may be suitable for for photographs; but it is altogether inappropriate for the pictures that illustrate or are inspired by fairy-stories. An enchanted forest requires a margin, even an elaborate border. To print it coterminous with the page, like a "shot" of the Rockies in Picture Post, as if it were indeed a "snap" of fairyland or a "sketch by our artist on the spot", is a folly and an abuse.

The realm of fairy-story is wide and deep and high and filled with many things: all manner of beasts and birds are found there; shoreless seas and stars uncounted; beauty that is an enchantment, and an ever-present peril; both joy and sorrow as sharp as swords.

In describing a fairy story which they think adults might possibly read for their own entertainment, reviewers frequently indulge in such waggeries as: 'this book is for children from the ages of six to sixty'. But I have never yet seen the puff of a new motor-model that begun thus: 'this toy will amuse infants from seventeen to seventy'; though that to my mind would be much more appropriate.

Studies [on the origin of fairy-stories] are, however, scientific (at least in intent); they are the pursuit of folklorists or anthropologists: that is of people using the stories not as they were meant to be used, but as a quarry from which to dig evidence, or information, about matters in which they are interested....with regard to fairy stories, I feel that it is more interesting, and also in its way more difficult, to consider what they are, what they have become for us, and what values the long alchemic processes of time have produced in them. In Dasent's words I would say: 'We must be satisfied with the soup that is set before us, and not desire to see the bones of the ox out of which it has been boiled.'Such stories have now a mythical or total (unanalysable) effect, an effect quite independent of the findings of Comparative Folk-lore, and one which it cannot spoil or explain; they open a door on Other Time, and if we pass through, though only for a moment, we stand outside our own time, outside Time itself, maybe.

No one, I fancy, would discredit a story that the Archbishop of Canterbury slipped on a banana skin merely because he found that a similar comic mishap had been reported of many people, and especially of elderly gentlemen of dignity.

Even when a prohibition in a fairy-story is guessed to be derived from some taboo once practised long ago, it has probably been preserved in the later stages of the tale's history because of the great mythical significance of prohibition. A sense of significance may indeed have lain behind some of the taboos themselves. Thou shalt not - or else thou shalt depart beggared into endless regret. The gentlest 'nursery-tales' know it. Even Peter Rabbit was forbidden a garden, lost his blue coat, and took sick. The Locked Door stands as an eternal Temptation.

[But] I fear that in the individual lives of all but a few, the balance is in debit - we do so little that is positive good, even if we negatively avoid what is actively evil.

Well, let folly be our cloak, a veil before the eyes of the Enemy! For he is very wise, and weighs all things to a nicety in the scales of his malice. But the only measure that he knows is desire, desire for power; and so he judges all hearts. Into his heart the thought will not enter that any will refuse it, that having the Ring we may seek to destroy it. If we seek this, we shall put him out of reckoning.

The __lves_ are __mmortal_, at least as far as this world goes: and hence are concerned rather with the griefs and burdens of deathlessness in time and change, than with death.

In this hour, I do not believe that any darkness will endure.

Faithless is he that says farewell when the road darkens.

After some time he felt for his pipe. It was not broken, and that was something. Then he felt for his pouch, and there was some tobacco in it, and that was something more. Then he felt for matches and he could not find any at all, and that shattered his hopes completely.