[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by Estelyn Telcontar

Tolkien does enjoy playing with the "North Pole" concept, doesn't he?! Making it a literal pole is what enables him to create this particular story.

I really like that idea, and once again, what else could we expect from such a linguist than a pun like that. That particular joke, however (rather significant one in the sense that it carries through the whole "legendarium" in some way or another, if only by that every time you read "pole" from now on, you are likely to recall that particular joke), gets completely lost in translations - or at least in some: in the Czech one, they simply solved it by a neologism (there is no way I can think of of making a similar joke). I wonder if anybody knows how it is in the e.g. German version? (In general, I think FC Letters is a thing which really deserves to be read in original exactly because of this, but then of course, if there is a large number of people who don't know English - as it at least used to be in here by the time the book was published for the first time, it's definitely better to have the translation than nothing for "casual" Tolkien-interested, especially older-than-teen-age people who don't have the time to start learning English.)

Originally Posted by Esty

The well-meaning but clumsy bear is a character whom the children particularly enjoyed; the JRRT Companion and Guide quotes Priscilla, who describes him as 'the enfant terrible, always involved in crises. His somewhat irreverent attitude to authority gave us particular pleasure'.

Indeed he is! And here I think you have the basis for the future stories involving the "anecdotic element". It is interesting, in some way those FC stories involving PB really resemble the "genre" of anecdote or, if you can e.g. compare it to short comic strips which you can see in many newspapers: usually there is one "more serious" character and then the slightly silly "troublemaker". We don't have to go far, look at the 'Downs very own Phantom and Alien. I think those "archetypes" work pretty well for FC and PB, too. Of course, you cannot reduce it only to that, but there is some sort of "basis for a classic short anecdote-type story".

Originally Posted by Pitchwife

IIRC the Tolkien Family moved from Leeds to Oxford in 1925, so the children would have been able to sympathize with Father Christmas. Or the other way round: the story echoes the children's own experience and shows them the same can happen to the most exalted persons, which would have comforted them, if they were upset by moving house.

I must second Esty, great, that's exactly the explanation we've been looking for As for the cliff-house thing, I assume there is not any similarly good explanation like that the Tolkiens' new house was in some similar position, eh?

Originally Posted by Pitch

*immanent explanation for these: the Earth's axis shifts through Earth history, doesn't it?, and so does the North Pole. Maybe these are past and future North Poles, some eroded and some not yet grown to full height.

Yes, I would say that does sound quite good as an explanation! The North Pole's position changes in cycles, so the old poles could also be "rebuilt and reused".
"Slumber, watcher, till the spheres / Six and twenty thousand years / Have revolv'd, and I return / To the spot where now I burn" (H.P.Lovecraft: Polaris)
I also thought exactly about the possibility of the "old poles" being eroded. But the idea of new ones growing is even cooler, I like that.