You and Me and the Cottage of Lost Play

You and Me and the Cottage of Lost Play ( Quenya Mar Vanwa Tyaliéva ; German: 'You and I and the hut of the forgotten game') is a poem by the writer and philologist JRR Tolkien . Drafted April 1915 in Oxford . The original title later became The Cottage of Lost Play and eventually The Little House of Lost Play. Mar Vanwa Tyaliéva ('The Little House of the Forgotten Game') changed.

etymology

The title Mar Vanwa Tyaliéva comes from the Elven language Quenya and is composed as follows:

Quenya	English	German
Mar [da]	house, dwelling, residence, mansion, a thing or place dwelt in, home	Housing, house, home, settlement area
vanvwa	gone, lost, departed, vanished, past, over, no longer to be had, passed away, dead	gone, past, lost, gone, over, inaccessible, deceased
tyalië	play, game, sport, mirth	Games, children's games, playful competition (sport), cheerfulness, light-heartedness

background

The poem is related to the “Cottage of the Children”, to which the traveler Eriol (also called Ælfwine from England ) came when he was visiting the Lonely Island (Tol Eressea). This story was copied in February 1917 by Edith Tolkien . The story and the poem form the beginning of the multi-volume series on the history of Middle-earth and were published by Christopher Tolkien in the first volume of the History of Middle-earth (book of lost stories) in chapter ( I. The hut of the forgotten game ). When Eriol saw the city he thought to himself:

“The hour of rest has come, and although I don't know the name of this city, which seems so friendly to me on the hill, I still want to look for rest and shelter there […] I think the breath of many old secrets lies over it , wonderful and splendid things that it hides in its treasure chambers, in noble places and in the hearts of those who live within its walls. "

- Eriol : The Book of Lost Stories. Part 1

Lindo and Vairë live in the hut where he finally stops, the city is called Kortirion. It is a place that was created by Elves , where they live and take in their exiled relatives who would like to return to Valinor or those who have never been to Aman. Those who were counted among the “children of the fathers of the human fathers” and who followed in their sleep the “Olóre Malle”, the path of dreams, could also get here. The hut is a place where joy and happiness reign, with the glow of the fire the children and also the hikers from afar can hear the ancient stories of the creation of Middle-earth, the arrival of the Valar and the awakening of the elves as well as their legends and experiences told in Beleriand or the fall of Númenor.

Christopher Tolkien notes that the title of the poem is confusing as it describes the "children's hut" or the "hut of the game of sleep" in Valinor , which was near the town of Kôr and which, according to Vairë, was not with the "hut of the forgotten game" in Kortirion is identical. There is also a poem about the city of Kortirion with the title English Kortirion among the Trees 'Kortirion unter den Trees' in the same chapter of the book.

content

In addition to the original title You and Me / and the Cottage of Lost Play, the poem had the Old English title Þæt húsincel ǣrran gammenes , which Tolkien had changed to Mar Vanwa Tyaliéva . The children in this poem seem to be about Tolkien and his wife Edith, at least it is interpreted by John Garth as a love poem by Tolkien to Edith. Some lines have similarities with the poem Daisy by Francis Thompson on. In the first version it was divided into 65 lines and in the later version into 62 lines. In particular, the final passage has been rewritten several times.

In the first version it began with the words:

You and me - we know that land And often have been there In the long old days, old nursery days, A dark child and a fair. Was it down the paths of firelight dreams In winter cold and white, Or in the blue-spun twilit hours Of little early tucked-up beds In drowsy summer night, That You and I got lost in Sleep And met each other there - Your dark hair on your white nightgown, And mine was tangled fair?

You and I - we know the country, where we have often been, in the ancient days, the childhood days, a darker and a light-blond child. Was it on the path of dreams in the firelight, In winter cold and deeply snowed, Or in the blue twilight in fluffy beds, In lukewarm summer night, That you and I lost each other in sleep, To stand there to each other - Your black hair on that white décor, and mine in light blond waves?

The final version is printed after the first version. The original English text is available with a German translation and additional comments by Christopher Tolkien. The two children in the poem are synonymous with John Ronald Reuel Tolkien and Edith Bratt, whom he had known since 1908, with Tolkien standing for the blonde and Edith for the black-haired child.

The poem is about children's dreams, it was an early conception that Tolkien later gave up entirely. It is related to the time travel story The Lost Road , which is also based on a journey in a dream state and describes a lost way to get to another, actually inaccessible place. In the poem, there are two children who come together into a kind of fantasy realm, it is warm, they wander on the beach, walk around in this world without knowledge, full of curiosity and without fear, until suddenly this little house of play appears before them.

There was neither night nor day, An ever-eve of gloaming light, When first there glimmered into sight The Little House of Play.

The air was neither night nor day An ever-evening in dim light, When for the first time came sparkling into our sight The little house of the game.

There you will discover all your favorite flowers, it smells lovely, inviting and the little crooked hut appears both new and ancient to you. There they see other children immersed in stories and games. They heard her speak in all languages, they were dressed in white, like the two children. It is the ideal world that only children can experience in play. But then one day childhood ends, the ability to dream like this. The poem originally said: How could it happen that a morning came that took us away from there in blue-gray light, so that we can never find our way back to the little hut with the gardens in the light. No matter how much we searched, wherever we went, the winding path between heaven and earth that led to where everything is still that ever was, we can no longer tread it. This corresponded to the "Olóre Malle", the path of dreams, which had been laid when Valinor was veiled by the Vala Lórien and which was initially intended to open a path for people who had no access to there. This early conception has similarities to the dreamtime .

reception

The poem was set to music by, among others, the British musician and singer Colin John Rudd, who musically interpreted other poems by Tolkien. He wrote about its implementation: “ Tolkien's childhood, the source of all his wonder is spelt out in this evocative, heartfelt insight into the great man himself. "(German:" Tolkien's childhood, the source of all his miracles, is presented in this suggestive, deeply felt insight into the great man himself. ")

The text of the poem was used by the band Summoning in the song Over Old Hills on the album Dol Guldur .

literature

• John Garth: The shores of Faërie . In: Tolkien and the Great War. The Threshold of Middle-earth . HMH, 2013, ISBN 978-0-544-26372-7 , pp. 71-73 ( books.google.de ).
• Hans J. Schütz (translator), JRR Tolkien: The book of lost stories . Ed .: Christopher Tolkien. 15th edition. Part 1. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 2007, ISBN 978-3-608-93061-0 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Q. Mar vanwa Tyaliéva loc. "House of Past (or Departed) Mirth"
2. ↑ JRR Tolkien: The Book of Lost Stories Part 1. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 2007, ISBN 978-3-608-93061-0 , p. 18.
3. ↑ JRR Tolkien: The Book of Lost Stories Part 1. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 2007, ISBN 978-3-608-93061-0 , p. 33.
4. ↑ JRR Tolkien: The Book of Lost Stories Part 1. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 2007, ISBN 978-3-608-93061-0 , pp. 33-38.
5. ↑ Mark Herberle: Tolkien, Trauma, Childhood, Fantasy . In: Elizabeth Goodenough, Andrea Immel (Eds.): Under Fire: Childhood in the Shadow of War . Wayne State University Press, 2008, ISBN 0-8143-3404-0 , pp. 137 ( books.google.de - excerpt).
6. ^ Francis Thompson: 26th Daisy. In: Modern British Poetry. 1920 ( bartleby.com ).
7. ↑ JRR Tolkien: The Book of Lost Stories . Klett-Cotta, 2013, ISBN 978-3-608-10646-6 , note 9 ( books.google.de ).
8. ^ You and Me / and the Cottage of Lost Play. Tolkien Gateway, accessed August 27, 2018 . 
9. ↑ Jane Chance: Tolkien, Self and Other: "This Queer Creature" . Springer, 2016, ISBN 978-1-137-39896-3 , pp. 25 (English, books.google.de ): “[…] both the young lovers Edith and Ronald are characters […] You and Me got lost in Sleep […] Tomorrow comes with his 'gray hand' (line 59) to guide them back to the real world, never to return [...] ”
10. ↑ Colin John Rudd: Cottage of Lost Play on youtube.com.