Father Christmas Letters: 1940

[Estelyn Telcontar]

Here there be penguins! Not at the North Pole, you say?! Yes, it's possible. Tolkien drew a delightful picture of the North Polar Bear dancing with four penguins, and the letter to Priscilla explains how they came to be there. Nearly 50 came as "evacuees", not to escape the war but to experience it. Of course the real World War II is not raging at the North Pole (though it affects FC and his friends - people who have lost their homes are mentioned), but the rumours of goblin fighting had reached the South Pole.

I wish I had been able to find an image of this picture - it's basically a simple line drawing, almost cartoonish, yet quite charming and evocative. NPB is shown with more "normal" polar bear proportions: shorter, wider and fluffier.

For those of you who have the "Artist and Illustrator" book, you can look up the picture there - image number 70 (page 76).

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

:(

Most curious. I don't have these letters in my book anymore, it ends with 1938 - and then there is only a letter titled "the last letter", which I had always assumed to be 1939, but now I am not so sure. It starts with FC saying that much less kids write to him, probably "because of that terrible war", and speaks about an epic battle. I assume we'll get into that, then, but I would like to know which one it is.

Now I am sort of annoyed, I understand why they had left out the few letters in the beginning (if there wasn't that much in them, it does not really matter), but why to leave out some of the latter ones is beyond me.

[Estelyn Telcontar]

What a shame that you don't have this letter, Legate, especially the drawing - I was hoping you could show it to Lommy!

My book has the 1943 letter as the last one, and I'll say more about it when we get there in a couple of days. From what FC says, it really is the final letter.

As to which letter you have as the final one, I'm not sure - several letters have references to the war. I'll try to remember to give those quotes as they come so you can compare them. The epic battle at the North Pole is described in the 1941 letter.