Your insights,
Lalwendė and
Bethberry,
will require a second and third reading, without hurry,
to sufficiently process their content.
It will not be time mis-spent.
Garnering quotes from the Letters,
Here's Tolkien's thought on these matters.
Quote:
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#299 To Roger Lancelyn Green [who in reviewing SWOM wrote: 'To seek for the meaning is to cut open the ball in search of its bounce.'] Thank you for your most gracious review (esp. for comment on the search for source of bounce!). ... But the little tale was (of course) not intended for children! An old man's book, already weighted with the presage of 'bereavement'.
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I had thought there was more in the Letters on
Smith.
At any rate, I've noticed that Tolkien refers to his myth
in various ways. The Silmarillion is "a history" (unless
that's Christopher's subtitle?), which fits, I guess,
the sense of its biblicality. But there's more
than that in The Sil; there's something in its lore
that goes beyond, or at least otherwhere,
so to speak. By contrast, LotR, is that rare
thing (in our day at least), a heroic romance.
What then of
Smith?
Not a myth?
Sorry, no more rhymed verse. It's too difficult to find the right wording as it is.
I notice that nowhere does Tolkien name
what the story of Wootton's Smith is.
A 'book' with bereavement weighted.
The transition traverses both In and Out
of Faery; for Alf dwells in Wootton,
bringing Faery back to our(?) world while
Smith of Wootton wanders wayward.
Perhaps this cross-pollenation pertains
to why its magic moves some of us wights.(?)