Remembrance Day

[Formendacil]

We have threads to celebrate Tolkien's Birthday and Tolkien's Deathday, and we have celebrated other significant anniversaries in Middle-earth: the publication date of the Fellowship, Bilbo and Frodo's birthday, etc.

So it seems fittingly in keeping with that spirit to me if we put up a thread for Remembrance Day--Armistice Day, as it was once known. Though the day has accrued significance in different places for additional reasons (WWII and the Korean War, for example), its origin is in "the Great War," "the war to end all wars" (alas, not so). This was a defining time for Tolkien's generation and for Tolkien specifically.

His fiction would not have been the same without it; much has been written of how The Lord of the Rings reflects his experiences. Beyond that, Middle-earth as we know it was first given written form during the war and during Tolkien's convalescence from it.



In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.