06.02.10, 08:49, dodany przez TAO
Polska wersja tego artykułu znajduje się tutaj.
Before we see the end of the research Richard “Galadhorn” Derdzinski has been doing on the subject (with the results already presented on our news site as Part I and Part II), I have decided to express my view and what I have managed to learn about the origin of the Tolkien family.
For reasons of legibility, I will not quote the sources of information here, but generally speaking my text is based on J.R.R. Tolkien. Companion and Guide as well as online genealogical records, which especially refers to what I have found on the FamilySearch website and in discussion topics on TheOneRing forum. The second part of this article contains information on Tolkien’s direct male ancestors; I have compiled this part from various sources.
The analysis of many of the existing fragments of information shows that the Tolkien family’s legend is (contrary to what I wrote last time) not very credible, yet the German origin of the family itself – more than probable. For Tolkien (along with all of its alternations) is a very common surname in Germany whereas it is relatively rare in England. Two Tolkiens are mentioned in the known records; both were born in Germany, and lived in England, although neither of them was a close relative of the English ancestors of J.R.R. Tolkien (George Henry Tolkien or Tolkin, b. in 1817 in Bremen, and Daniel Tolkien, b. in 1746 in Danzig). It follows that the Tolkien families migrated to England several times in the past.
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6 KomentarzyKategorie wpisu: Biografia Tolkiena, News in Westron (English)
02.02.10, 20:23, dodany przez TAO
Wiadomość ta w wersji polskojęzycznej znajduje się tutaj.
This is an article about a symbolic grave of Arthur Reuel Tolkien in Birmingham; it also includes remarks about the family of his father, John Benjamin Tolkien. Concerning the grave of A. Tolkien, there is an article on the Elendilion news site (in Eastron/Polish).
During my search for information on the ancestors of J.R.R. Tolkien, I came across a reference to his grandfather, John Benjamin Tolkien, who was buried at Key Hill Cemetery in Birmingham, and also a photo of the gravestone itself, which was featured in September 2009 on the Find a Grave website by a pair of English sightseers, Julia and Keld Smedegaard. Later on I received from Dick Empson of the Friends of Key Hill Cemetery additional information and photos, now made available to you.
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1 komentarzKategorie wpisu: Biografia Tolkiena, News in Westron (English)
02.02.10, 14:14, dodany przez Galadhorn
Polska wersja tego artykułu znajduje się tutaj.
Please read also the first part of our inquiry entitled “Does the Tolkien family come from Warmia?”. In it, we write about an alternative but very likely etymology of the name Tolkien, and about the Tolkien family, who may be said to come from East Prussia, more specifically, from Warmia, and a small village called Tołkiny (Tolksdorf), lying in present-day Poland.
He was a citizen of the Kingdom of Prussia. In 1883, he graduated from the once famous Collegium Fridericianum in what is now Kaliningrad (German: Königsberg; more about that college, which was also called Friedrichs-Kollegium in German, can be read here). One of the graduates of the college was the famous Immanuel Kant, and one of its teachers was a Polish activist, K.C. Mrongowiusz. As a classicist, who worked in Leipzig, Johannes Tolkiehn wrote, among other things, Homer und die römische Poesie (1900), Philologische Streifzüge (1916), Ars grammatica (1913, 1928). He bore almost exactly the same name as John Tolkien, an Oxford philologist.
Professor Johannes Tolkiehn belonged to (one of the branches of) an East Prussian family, whose members had over the centuries written down their last name as Tolkien or Tolkiehn (but also: Tolken, Tolkihn, Tolkin, Tollkiehn, Tollkien, Tollkuehn, Tollkühn; see a web page with all the German surnames). Nowadays, one of the members of this family, Prof Dr Günther-Ulrich Tolkiehn, a German scientist from Wildau (in Brandenburg), when asked in 2003 about his genealogy by a Tolkien fan nicknamed “Almacundo”, explained the origin and etymology of his surname in the following way (a thread in TheOneRing forum). Dr Tolkien had himself conducted a preliminary survey of the library holdings, as well as genealogical research with the aim of learning about his family’s possible connections with the Tolkien family from England. What he established (as based mostly on the work of one of his distant relatives, the Reverend Heinrich Tolkiehn) is as follows: Przeczytaj resztę wpisu »
Brak komentarzyKategorie wpisu: Biografia Tolkiena, News in Westron (English)
02.02.10, 13:05, dodany przez Galadhorn
Polska wersja tego artykułu znajduje się tutaj.
Max Mechow, a German linguist, suggests in his book Deutsche Familiennamen als prussischer Herkunft (’German surnames of Prussian origin’; Dieburg 1994, p. 99) that in spite of what Tolkien said on the matter, his family name may be of East Prussian origin, and the Poles may be said to have a Tolkien family nest in their own country!
J.R.R. Tolkien said many times that his ancestors had come to England in the middle of the 18th century from present-day Saxony. According to his family’s oral traditions (or, maybe, to Tolkien’s own theory), they had supposedly fled the Prussian invasion of Saxony in 1756. The name Saxony meant a lot for Tolkien, and was dear to him, for it stems from the name of the Saxons, an early medieval people, who migrating from the Continent during the Migration period created – together with the Angles, Jutes and Frisians – an Old English culture of the British Isles, being an object of admiration, and material of research of the Professor. In the Dark Ages, the Angles sent many Christian missionaries to visit the lands inhabited by the pagan tribes of Old Saxons (one of those was Saint Boniface, born Wynfreth).
In an autobiographical note made in 1955, Tolkien demonstrated that the name Tolkien is an anglicized form of the German nickname/surname Tollkiehn, derived from the adjective tollkühn, which means “daring”, “rash”, “foolhardy” (literal translation is “madly bold”). He accepted no other arguments concerning this issue, though there were some. In a letter of March 8, 1973, addressed to Mrs E. R. Ehrardt (The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, no. 349), Tolkien wrote that no other etymology of the name was convincing to him. The letter concerned the deriving of his last name from the Slavonic word *tъlkъ, which can be rendered as “meaning, translation, interpretation, explanation”. Vasmer, a Russian etymologist, wrote that directly from the Old Russian form тълкъ are derived the following loan words: the Lithuanian tùlkas (“interpreter”), the Latvian tul̃ks, the Estonian tulk, the Old Low German tolk, the Old Icelandic tulkr (“translator”), the Dutch (Low German) tolk. In his letter, Tolkien also mentioned the Finnish tulkki; more about the related words can be read in the appropriate topic (in Polish) in the “Elendili” internet forum: “Nazwisko “Tolkien” a słowiańskie *tołk/*tłok” (’The name “Tolkien” and the Slavonic *tołk/*tłok‘).
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1 komentarzKategorie wpisu: Biografia Tolkiena, News in Westron (English)
01.02.10, 00:33, dodany przez Galadhorn
Prezentujemy lutową kartę z Kalendarza Elendilich na rok 2010. Zwróćcie uwagę, że porównujemy w nim nasze gregoriańskie daty z datami rachuby elfów z Imladris (Rivendell), hobbitów z Shire’u oraz ludzi z Ponownie Zjednoczonego Królestwa. W kalendarzu zaznaczyliśmy też dni świąteczne (na czerwono dni wolne od pracy, na zielono rocznice i święta tolkienowskie), fazy księżyca oraz nazwy dni tygodnia. W tym roku kalendarz ukazywać się będzie jako pojedyncze karty w formacie pdf, które Czytelnicy naszego serwisu mogą ściągnąć i wydrukować sami. Każdy miesiąc chcemy ozdobić grafiką artystów Tolkienowskich związanych z internetową rodziną witryn spod znaku Elendilich. Luty niechaj upływa pod znakiem schematu świata Ambar autorstwa Rosjanina, Leonida Korableva.
Ściągnij kartę LUTY 2010 (w pdf)
Read the same in Westron (English)… Przeczytaj resztę wpisu »
2 KomentarzyKategorie wpisu: Kalendarium Śródziemia, News in Westron (English)
27.01.10, 12:59, dodany przez Galadhorn
“Elves for Life” is a Jef Murray Studios store (link) dedicated to fans of the writings of J.R.R. Tolkien who also respect and defend the sanctity of human life from conception through natural death. All profits received by Jef from “Elves for Life” sales will be donated to Pro Life charities. Read also our text “Tolkien is pro-life” on Elendilion.
Jef Murray (born 1960) is a fantasy artist and illustrator best known for his illustrations of works by J.R.R. Tolkien. His paintings and illustrations appear regularly in Tolkien publications (Amon Hen, Mallorn, and Parma Nole) and in Catholic publications (St. Austin Review and the Georgia Bulletin) worldwide.
“Elfy dla Życia” to specjalny sklepik internetowy (odnośnik) firmy Jef Murray Studios, który stworzono dla miłośników pisarstwa J.R.R. Tolkiena, szanujących i broniących świętości ludzkiego życia od poczęcia po naturalną śmierć. Wszystkie zyski, które pochodzą ze sprzedaży w sklepiku “Elfy dla Życia” przeznaczone zostaną na działaność fundacji pro-life. Zapraszamy też do przeczytania tekstu “Tolkien jest pro-life!” w naszym serwisie.
Jef Murray (ur. 1960) to artysta plastyk, który znany jest najbardziej ze swoich ilustracji do prac J.R.R. Tolkiena. Jego obrazy i ilustracje ukazują się regularnie w czasopismach tolkienowskich (Amon Hen, Mallorn oraz Parma Nole) i w publikacjach katolickich (St. Austin Review oraz Georgia Bulletin).
2 KomentarzyKategorie wpisu: News in Westron (English), Wydarzenia
18.11.09, 21:39, dodany przez Galadhorn
Concerning the “Elvish logo” (see on the left) of the Festival in the Shire (here we’re writing about it in Eastron/Polish) we have found out that its text: Estivalfu niet heten Hirese, and with smaller characters: Aen Estivalfa foen llaen hingste Olcienta nspiredith is NOT in any Elvish language by J.R.R. Tolkien. The inscription reads in English: Festival in the Shire – A Celebration of all things Tolkien inspired (in Welsh: Gŵyl yn y Sir – Dathliad am bopeth yn ymwneud á Tholkien). The technics of this “Elvish translation” is simple and it was explained on the Elendili Forum (here):
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2 KomentarzyKategorie wpisu: Lingwistyka tolkienowska, News in Westron (English)
16.11.09, 10:37, dodany przez Galadhorn
There is yet another form of Tolkien-related activity! On the Elendili Internet forum (its Westron (or English) section is here), there exists a group embracing Christian Tolkien fans, who desire to talk about faith and morality, and share their life experiences with members of their communities. It is called Fraternitas Sancti Brendani [FStB], or The Brotherhood of Saint Brendan. It is the wish of its founder members to recreate the atmosphere of the meetings of the Inklings (J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, Ch. Williams, and others), during which the subject of Christianity was often raised. The result of those meetings were the Christian works of the Inklings, including Tolkien’s Mythopeia and Leaf by Niggle, or Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia and The Space Trilogy. Due to the difficult subject matter, the activity of FStB is closely supervised by Joanna “Adaneth” Drzewowska. The group wants to act as – to quote from Joseph Pearce’s Literary Converts – “a union of mutually reinforcing souls “. The Brotherhood wishes to invite all the people who, following the example of the Inklings, are interested in Christianity and want to talk about Tolkien’s Catholicism, as well as all who are fascinated by Middle-earth, where Christianity is like honey that has soaked into bread (to learn more, click here). To join the group, you must first become a member of the Elendili forum (all instuctions in English there are here), then click the bookmark “Grupy” (Groups) at the top of the main page, and ask the moderator to register you.
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Brak komentarzyKategorie wpisu: Biografia Tolkiena, News in Westron (English), Tolkienowski internet
16.11.09, 09:56, dodany przez Galadhorn
During our spring 2008 visit to Oxford (which is fully described here in Polish), we and other Tolkien fans visited the city’s Botanic Garden and collected cones, which lay at the base of the trunk of the famous Black Pine (Pinus Nigra); it was against that tree that Professor Tolkien was leaning, as shown in his last known photograph. We have excellent news for Polish Tolkien fans: the seedlings of this pine (grown from its cones), being saplings of the famous Tolkien tree, are now in Poland! Celebriane, one of the members of our expedition to England, has since been trying to grow seedlings from the seeds of the pine and … it worked! Thanks to help from the forest manager for the Forestry Commission of Zwierzyniec (Maków Commune, Łódź Province), it was with great effort that 4-7 seedlings of the noble tree were grown; we may soon see some of their photos. In spring, it will be possible to replant one of the seedlings and find a new spot for it.
And now we have a question to you, Dear Readers of Elendilion: where you think we could plant a seedling of the Black Pine – a sapling of Tolkien’s tree? Can you think of any place where we could have a meeting and plant that seedling together?
Translated by Jaroslaw “Noatar” Schramel
Brak komentarzyKategorie wpisu: Biografia Tolkiena, Fandom tolkienowski, News in Westron (English)
11.11.09, 01:42, dodany przez Janusz "Ivellios" Kamieński
I’ve only learned about Przemysław Mroczkowski, an outstanding medievalist and professor of English studies, thanks to this entry (by Richard “Galadhorn” Derdzinski). I must admit that I have heard about him before, but it was not until now that I actually went into details of his biography, which I could read on Parmadili website. And since I’m very fortunate to be a resident of Cracow, I decided to visit his gravesite and light a candle on it in the name of Polish Tolkien fans, and also to take some pictures.
As already written by Galadhorn, Professor Mroczkowski is buried at the Rakowicki Cemetery (Section LXXXIX, Row 18, Number 2). Thanks to an online gravesite locator, it was not that difficult to find the spot, although the Cemetery has a very poor section location system; that’s why it took me a good deal of walking to find the one I needed.
The Professor’s grave is situated right by Bishop Prandota Street. It is a simple grave, like many others. Together with our outstanding medievalist are buried his two close relatives – Janina and Feliks Mroczkowski.
Let us remind you that Professor Mroczkowski is dear to Polish Tolkien fans on account of his friendship with Tolkien himself. He had many a chance to go to the Inklings meetings and talk to Professor Tolkien. Their acquaintance is also well-documented in some of Tolkien’s letters.
You can find more photos on my blog.
Translated by Jaroslaw “Noatar” Schramel
Brak komentarzyKategorie wpisu: Fandom tolkienowski, Informacje medialne, News in Westron (English)
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For reasons of legibility, I will not quote the sources of information here, but generally speaking my text is based on J.R.R. Tolkien. Companion and Guide as well as online genealogical records, which especially refers to what I have found on the FamilySearch website and in discussion topics on TheOneRing forum. The second part of this article contains information on Tolkien’s direct male ancestors; I have compiled this part from various sources.
