You say 'Faeries' & I say 'Fairies'

[davem]

Originally Posted by Drigel

Clearly, as their involvement in the physical world diminished, the desire, or the recognition of love from men towards fairy, became less pronounced. Or more rare, shall we say...I would say Faerie turned to fairy when cities and kindoms diminshed to wood and cave. The Peril remains the same, but the stakes were raised - and the players most definately had changed. Same critter, different stage of evolution.

Of course, its maybe dangerous to assume that Tolkien intended the Faeries of SoWM to be the same as the Eldar of the Legendarium (Yet in an earlier draft of SoWM Smith's 'Faerie' name is 'Gilthir' (Quenya? for 'Starbrow')). The problem is that if we take the Fairies of tradition to be the remnants of the Eldar who remained in M-e then we have to account for the changes not just in nature but in 'powers'.

Tolkien seems to have ignored the vengeful, cruel & malicious aspect of Fairies - in a word their 'in(un)humanity'. He seems to have 'Christianised' them - giving them individual souls & making them share our moral values (cf Aragorn's words to Eomer about morality not being one thing among Elves & Dwarves & another among Men). Even as late as the pseudo-'medieval'* period in which SoWM is set Tolkien has his Faeries motivated by love for humanity. It would seem that for Tolkien the inhabitants of Faerie may have been 'dangerous', the place itself full of 'pitfalls for the unwary', but that they always were (& perhaps still are) concerned for us.

Another interesting passage in the essay:

While Nell (Smith's wife) & Nan his daughter were probably themselves Elf-Friends & even walkers in Outer Faery, Ned (his son) was dependent on his father: he could recieve 'Faery' only through the lore & companionship of the older Smith.

This seems to imply that access to Faery was not restricted to the bearer of the Star - indeed, Smith's grandfather, Rider, who brought back Alf (not knowing he was the king of Faery) found his way there without it. Its interesting that it is the two women in Smith's family who have access to Outer Faery in their own right, while his son depends on Smith for knowledge of the place.

*The chronology Tolkien constructed for the story has Smith born in the year 1063, discovering the Star in 1073, marrying Nell in 1091 & making his last journey into Faerie in 1120 - making him about 57. 'His long journeys in Faerie probably were undertaken mostly in the years between 1098 & 1108, & 1115-20.' ie he would have been 35-45 & 52-57 - coincidentally the ages Tolkien was when he did most of his major work on The Sil & LotR....