Farmer Giles of Ham - obviously Catholic?

[Encaitare]

Originally Posted by Lal

It does seem he wanted it to be light-hearted and humorous, so no 'message', but he did want it to be seen as a tale that might have come from the 3rd to the 5th centuries.

That was the impression I got, not that it was a Catholic work in that it was trying to put out a message, but that the religious elements were just a part of the culture of the characters. I find that a much more agreeable way of looking at it than the other way around, too.

[Ghazi]

Originally Posted by Encaitare

...the religious elements were just a part of the culture of the characters. I find that a much more agreeable way of looking at it than the other way around, too.

I do too.

[Estelyn Telcontar]

I dug out my copy of Farmer Giles with the notes by Scull and Hammond to prepare for something else, and found a note on the feast of St. Hilarius and St. Felix:

14 January, formerly the feast day of both St Hilarius of Poitiers and St Felix of Nola.

Perhaps not important, but a footnote that answers the question I raised earlier about those to me unknown saints.

[Formendacil]

Wow! I can't believe I missed this thread the first time around...

Nothing much to add at the moment, but I can clear up "St. John's Day" (I THINK I didn't see that cleared up previously).

St. John the Evangelist, one of the Apostles, has his feast day fall on December 27th, two days after Christmas. The St. John's Day that Esty is finding in midsummer is a feast of a different St. John, namely St. John the Baptist (who actually has two feast days, one for his death and one for his birth. I'm not sure which, if not both, is in high summer).

[Estelyn Telcontar]

Thanks for that clarification, Formendacil! The duplicate saints' names can be confusing!

One more thought occurred to me; the legend of St. George, who kills the dragon, is a very English tale. I'm sure it originates in Catholicism, but Wikipedia closely connects it with the Orthodox Church(es) as well. I wonder, is the fact that Giles does not kill the dragon in his tale a conscious break with tradition? As Tolkien was admittedly conservative in his faith, I would rather attribute this change to his sense of humour and whimsy.

The death of George's dragon is a punishment for his evil deeds and for the human sacrifices he has consumed. Chrysophylax also kills numerous knights, but he is not punished for this! Another example of Tolkien's idea of mercy triumphing over the law?

[Kuruharan]

Chrysophylax was also really cool.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

I think Tolkien the crossword-puzzler was having a lot of fun with "Hilarius and Felix" Part of it was entirely private- I'm sure that as a schoolboy he had realized that by applying th 11-day Julian/Gregorian shift to his birthday, Jan 3, he got his brother's name-day, Jan 14.

More to the point, tho', it was just a setup for a donnish joke. "Ominous names" says Sunny Sam. "Don't like the sound of them." Whereas (as his audience of course knew) Hilarius and Felix literally mean Happy and Lucky.


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I don't know if T was being overtly Catholic so much as just conveying the flavor of the mock-Middle Ages, which were permeated by the Church and by Latin. The feast days were the common folks' effective calendar- they didn't know from January 6, but immediately knew how long 'till Epiphany. The church bells ringing the canonical hours were their daily clock. And of course the use of Latin by the Church was not some 'hegemonic power conspiracy' (ghastly 20th-century concept) so much as the fact that, centuries after the last Caesar, Latin was still 'real' language. The vernacular or vulgar was for those who couldn't handle the Official Language, just as was the case when the legions were around. The Parson is a necessary figure because he's the only character who could read- moreover, in the Middle Ages literacy meant Latin literacy. Traces of this still abounded at Tolkien's Oxford- diplomas and formal orations were still in Latin, and *everybody* there knew it. Until well into the 20th century, you just couldn't claim to be an Educated Person without it.

[Mithalwen]

Further to previous replies, I would mention that Oxford still identifies its terms by reference to the Church calendar - Michaelmas, Hilary and Trinity.

Also many of the things Esty refers to are not exclusively Catholic.

While protestants have a different perspective on sainthood, saints are not ignored. Here are some of the Saints days marked by the established church
and most Anglican Parish churches will have a patronal festival to mark the day of the saint to which they are dedicated. I have celebrated Candlemas a few times but admittedly in churches that belong liturgically in the "I can't belive it's not Catholicism" wing of the CofE.

Parson in modern England would not be used to refer to a Catholic priest. In this historical pre-reformation context it means that he was the incumbent of a church independent of the the control of a monastery or similar (unlike a vicar).

I just think he is using a historical context rather than making a religious point. After all church going was only at the beginning of it's decline when Farmer Giles was first published.

[Estelyn Telcontar]

Thanks to all of you who have revived this thread with your comments! I agree with the general consensus that the "Catholic" references are more cultural than religious; still, it is an interesting look at a time long gone by, isn't it? And I'm still pondering the difference between the "religious" saint's tale, in which the dragon gets killed, and Tolkien's parody, in which the dragon stays alive and becomes a helpful ally of the hero!