Two forgotten poems by Lord of the Rings author J.R.R. Tolkien have been rediscovered in the confines of an old school in the heart of England exactly 80 years after their publication — and will hopefully be made available to the public for the first time in decades.
The poems, titled "The Shadow Man" and "Noel," were found in Our Lady's School in the town of Abingdon, Oxfordshire through a joint effort between an American Tolkien scholar named Wayne Hammond and Stephen Oliver, the school's headteacher (or in American parlance, the school's principal). Hammond contacted Oliver after finding a note that the novelist and philologist had penned, stating that a magazine called the Abingdon Chronicle had published two of his poems, which went unnamed.
As reported by the Guardian, Oliver went in search of the poems in the school's archives, which were found in a 1936 issue of the school's yearly journal.
"My excitement when I saw them was overwhelming," described Oliver, who classified himself as "a great Tolkien fan," and added that he was "thrilled to discover the connection with the school."
"The Shadow Man," which describes "a man who dwelt alone/beneath the moon in shadow" and who "sat as long as lasting stone,/and yet he had no shadow" later went on to be published in Tolkien's 1962 The Adventures of Tom Bombadil, a book of verse whose three major poems out of the 16 included center around the titular character, who appeared in the author's first entry into the Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Fellowship of the Ring.
Meanwhile, "Noel," which, as its name suggests, is very much a Christmas poem, could also be set smack-dab in the middle of Middle Earth's Old Forest or in the shadows of Mordor:
"The hall was dark without song or light,/The fires were fallen dead ... the lord of snows [whose] mantle long and pale/Upon the bitter blast was spread/And hung o'er hill and dale."
"Both poems are very atmospheric and imbued with an air of mystery. I was very moved when I first read them," said Oliver in an interview with the Guardian, pointing out the respective literary triumphs of each:
"'Noel' is a beautiful and unusual take on the Christmas story, set in a wintry landscape. The focus is on Mary, which may be why Tolkien wrote the poem for the school magazine, given that we are dedicated to Our Lady. 'The Shadow Man' is also a very beautiful story, about two people finding each other and thereafter casting only one shadow — it feels like a poem about marriage. The Shadow Man [character] is incomplete until a woman comes to him and relieves his loneliness."
While the poems might not be accessible to the public in full as of now, Oliver hopes that "will be enjoyed by lovers of Tolkien everywhere" in the near future, considering that another Tolkien work — a retelling of a Finnish poem titled "The Story of Kullervo" — was published as recently as the summer of 2015.
Source: The Guardian
