#tree and leaf

[thesilicontribesman]

6000 Year Old Elm Leaf, Windy Harbour, Lancashire, 'The World Of Stonehenge' Exhibition, The British Museum, London

[sirioniel]

The German Cover of Tolkien's 'Tree and Leaf', by artist Heinz Edelmann, 1982.

[wideeyedreader]

Just finished reading this lovely Christmas gift from my grandfather—he loves tolkien as much as I do!

[from-dark-dunharrow]

Fairy-stories are by no means rocky matrices out of which the fossils cannot be prised except by an expert geologist. The ancient elements can be knocked out, or forgotten and dropped out, or replaced by other ingredients with the greatest ease: as any comparison of a story with closely related variants will show. The things that are there must often have been retained (or inserted) because the oral narrators, instinctively or consciously, felt their literary "significance". Even where a prohibition in a fairy-story is guessed to be derived from some taboo once practiced long ago, it has probably been preserved in the later stages of the tale's history because of the great mythical significance of prohibition. A sense of that significance may indeed have lain behind some of the taboos themselves. Thou shalt not--or else thou shalt depart beggared into endless regret. The gentlest "nursery-tales" know it. Even Peter Rabbit was forbidden a garden, lost his blue coat, and took sick. The Locked Door stands as an eternal Temptation.

Tree and Leaf, J. R. R. Tolkien

(Emphasis Mine)

[hikingofthenoldor]

Yesterday I picked up the German translation of Tolkien's Tree and Leaf that has been sitting on my shelf for years and started to gather dust. It's just a small book and I read it all at once. Unfortunately I couldn't follow the essay on Fairy-Stories and I think I even missed the point of it. I partly blame the unnecessarily complicated translation but to be honest I just couldn't make myself think about it. Fairy-Stories or Fairytales, I didn't understand whether there is a difference or not, are not really something I think about a lot. I didn't even like them as a kid. So the few paragraphs on Fairy-Stories and children were the ones I understood best. Also my head was full of other things. I feel incredibly stressed lately and I wanted to read and relax and not force myself to understand every paragraph. Therefore I enjoyed Leaf by Niggle a great deal. And I put away the book with a good feeling.

Well, inspired by this mixed reading success, I picked up The Tolkien Reader, another book waiting on my bookshelf. After browsing its contents, I now know that it also includes Tree and Leaf. So maybe I'll give the essay on Fairy-Stories a second chance. This time in original English. Maybe that helps. It has helped me with understanding Tolkien before. It's almost as if Tolkien's ideas get tangled when a translator tries to fit them into equally long elegant German sentences.

[outofcontextlit]

'Do you not think, Master Smith,' said Alf, 'that it is time for you to give this thing up?' '...And why should I do so? Isn't it mine? It came to me, and may a man not keep things that come to him so, at least as a remembrance?' 'Some things. Those that are free gifts and given for remembrance. But others are not so given. They cannot belong to a man forever, nor be treasured as heirlooms. They are lent. You have not thought, perhaps, that someone else may need this thing. But it is so.'

J.R.R. Tolkien, “Smith of Wootton Major” 

[thesilicontribesman]

'The Fernery' Photoset 4, Southport Botanic Gardens, Southport, Merseyside

[thesilicontribesman]

'The Fernery' Photoset 1, Southport Botanic Gardens, Southport, Merseyside